The screening on Wednesday 21 January will be introduced by Melanie Bell, Feminist Film Historian and Principal Investigator for the Film Costumes in Action project
SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot.
Moon may not immediately strike one as remarkable as a ‘costume’ film. With only one central character Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), dressed mainly in contemporary clothing, the film at first glance seems an odd choice for a season foregrounding costume design. But as most designers acknowledge, contemporary is harder than period to design, not least because everyone (producers, directors, actors) has an opinion on it. As Moon’s costume designer Jane Petrie (a future BAFTA and Emmy award-winner) reflects, ‘people think they know more about [contemporary] costume because they put clothes on every morning, but it’s really difficult and you’ve got to have good precision making.’ By 2009, Petrie had a growing reputation for designing realism, working with Andrea Arnold on Fishtank (2009) and Ronan Bennett’s Top Boy (2011). Trained at the costume house Sands, under the expert eye of the indomitable Christine Edzard, Petrie’s design philosophy is grounded in realism. Describing herself as having ‘a good instinct for the real’, Petrie strives for authenticity:
‘Whether period or modern, you are world-building in exactly the same way, and you have to be authentic. Whether its Fishtank or Star Wars, I want actors to feel like they’re wearing their own clothes, and those design decisions aren’t arbitrary but come from the ground up, getting underneath the script.’
Moon’s remarkably modest costume budget of £8,000, from a total production spend of £3.9 million, belies the central role costume plays in building Sam’s character. The convincing portrayal of Sam’s deteriorating body and psyche, and the increasingly grungy world in which he operates, is testament to Petrie’s skill as a designer, married with Rockwell’s performance. Moon’s costumes are realism by design.
At first glance, the costume brief appears simple. Sam Bell works alone on a facility on the moon and, as a mining engineer, wears either work overalls, a spacesuit or leisure wear, along with trainers and a peaked cap. He dreams of returning home to earth but is in fact a clone, due shortly to be replaced by the latest model, dressed in identical clothing. Petrie approaches design by creating what she describes as a ‘working wardrobe’ for her characters which, in Moon, meant corporate clothing. Like a soldier, Sam has a standard issue of one cap, five T-shirts, five tracksuit hoodies and bottoms, and space suits for outside work, which Petrie had embroidered with the corporate logo of the fictional Lunar Industries Ltd. This working wardrobe evolved when Sam Rockwell came for his first costume fitting, bringing with him a T-shirt with the slogan ‘wake me up when its quitting time’, and a request to wear this in the film. Petrie and Rockwell worked together, building personal items into the story including carpet slippers and slouchy leisurewear. But the introduction of these threw up fundamental questions for Petrie. On the one hand, the T-shirt slogan is a great little nod to how the story subsequently unfolds, but for Petrie:
‘It blew a hole in the logic of the story. If they’ve been going up there for 200 years, the carpet slippers would be knackered. How’s that T-shirt going to survive? It really bugged me. In the film you have to have explained to the audience where the items have come from because it’s too big a question to leave unanswered. So my question to Duncan [Jones] was ‘is the company cynical enough to send up someone with all his personal items and rig out copies for every clone that wakes up?’ And he said “Yes, they are.”’
This conversation led to the inclusion of the scene where Sam One and his replacement Sam Two find hundreds of hibernated clones on the facility, each one with a see-through pillow containing slippers and the slogan T-shirt. Such creative decisions highlight not only the central role costume plays in building characters, but how asking questions about costume shapes the thinking about the film world. As Petrie puts it, ‘the costume department find the holes in the script … it happens a lot.’
Costume plays a pivotal role in signalling the difference between the two Sams. Like many actors Rockwell was keen to use costume to build his character. Rather than wear a wig, he ‘pushed for using wardrobe and makeup to subtly distinguish them. We did snug clothing and healthy makeup for the clone, baggier clothing for the other.’ The grime and dirt of Sam One’s clothes contrast sharply with the smooth, pristine look of the recently-arrived Sam Two, his freshly-pressed appearance a reflection of the corporate values he espouses. Filmed before CGI was common-place, Petrie and her design assistant Basia Kuznar used costume breakdown techniques to dye, age and distress the clothes worn by Sam One: grime seeps into the material texture of his overalls, encrusted blood into his white undershirt, fabric is worn, fibres exposed, all signalling the character’s physical and mental deterioration. Petrie explains, ‘If you didn’t put it through breakdown, it would look like a costume. And I’m trying to take it from costume to clothes, to put a layer of history in.’ Performance, camerawork and costume come together to make audiences believe that the person on screen is real.
As Sam One’s physical body begins to deteriorate – clones’ breakdown at the end of their three-year cycle – the camera is increasingly drawn to different elements of costume. Sam One, sick and vulnerable, vomits into a toilet-bowl, his head encased in a protective astronaut’s hood. Its distinctive lacing is reminiscent of a medieval coif, and the camera’s close-up and long take signals the hood’s symbolic significance. It may suggest the increasingly defunct Sam as a throw-back to a bygone era. Or, more complexly, the hood’s intricate lacing pattern as mirroring neural pathways, itself a narrative riposte to the business model of corporate capitalism which treats the men as interchangeable commodities. Either way, director Duncan Jones and DoP Gary Shaw make full use of Petrie’s ‘instinct for the real’.
Melanie Bell, University of Leeds, November 2025
References
Phil Hoad, ‘How we made Moon – by Sam Rockwell and Duncan Jones’, The Guardian (23.7.19)
Harriet Parry, 2017, ‘Moon: A sensuous scholarship of the art of costume breakdown in film’, Film, Fashion & Consumption, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 89-103.
Jane Petrie, Interview for Film Costume in Action project (7.2.24)
Moon
Director: Duncan Jones
©: Lunar Industries
Production Company: Liberty Films
In association with: Xingu Films, Limelight Fund
Worldwide Sales Agent: Independent Film Sales
Executive Producers: Michael Henry, Bill Zysblat, Trevor Beattie, Bil Bungay
Producers: Stuart Fenegan, Trudie Styler
Co-producers: Nicky Moss, Alex Francis, Mark Foligno, Steve Milne, Deepak Sikka
Line Producer: Julia Valentine
Associate Producer: Justin Lanchbury
Production Manager: Imogen Bell
Production Manager (Model Unit): Jeremy Burnage
Production Co-ordinator: Livia Burton
Production Accountant: Robin Green
Post-production Supervisor: Dan Bentham
1st Assistant Director: Mick Ward
1st Assistant Director (Model Unit): Guy Travers
2nd Assistant Director: Simon Downes
3rd Assistant Director: Alex Kaye-Besley
Script Supervisor: Jo Beckett
Casting by: Jeremy Zimmermann, Manuel Puro
Written by: Nathan Parker
Story by: Duncan Jones
Director of Photography: Gary Shaw
Model Unit Director of Photography: Peter Talbot
Camera Operator (Model Unit): Alex Howe
Additional Crew Steadicam Operator: Leo Bund
1st Assistant Camera: David Penfold
2nd Assistant Camera: Mark Dempsey
Focus Puller (Model Unit): Barny Crocker
Clapper/Loader (Model Unit): Tim Morris
Gaffer: Ewan Cassidy
Gaffer (Model Unit): Ewan Cassidy
Playback Operator: Peter Hodgson
Playback Operator (Model Unit): Nick Kenealy
Unit Stills Photographer: Mark Tillie
Additional Stills: Alex Kaye-Besley
Visual Effects/Character Animation by: Cinesite (Europe) Ltd
Cinesite Visual Effects Supervisor: Simon Stanley-Clamp
Cinesite Visual Effects Producers: Angie Wills, Paul Edwards
Cinesite Visual Effects Co-ordinator: Lee Chidwick
Cinesite Executive Producers: Antony Hunt, Courtney Vanderslice-law
Cinesite CG Sequence Supervisors: Simon Maddocks, Chas Cash
Visual Effects by: Think Tank Studios
TTS Visual Effects Supervisor: Gavin Rothery
Model Supervisor (Model Unit): Bill Pearson
Model Shop Supervisor (Model Unit): Steve Howarth
Senior Model Makers (Model Unit): John Lee, Chris Hayes
Model Makers (Model Unit): Richard St. Clair, Ron Hone, Peter Lee
Graphic Designer: Julian Walker
Motion Control Rig: The Visual Effects Company
VEC (Motion Control Rig): Digna Nigoumi, Malcolm Woolridge
Editor: Nicolas Gaster
Visual Effects Editor: Barrett Heathcote
Assistant Editor: Richard Smither
Production Designer: Tony Noble
Art Director: Hideki Arichi
Assistant Art Director: Peter Ryan
Draughtsmen: Andrew Duncan, Maia Sautelet
Production Buyer/Dresser: Sophie Bridgman
Conceptual Design: Gavin Rothery
Scenic Artist: Howard Weaver
Storyboard Artist: Douglas Ingram
Prop Master: Simon Bailey
Props: Kevin Scarrott
On-set Construction Manager: Simon Sparsis
Construction by: Gene D’Cruze Ltd
Costume Designer: Jane Petrie
Costume Makers: Basia Kuznar, Hilary Wili
Wardrobe Supervisor: Lucy Donowho
Make-up/Hair Designer: Karen Bryan-Dawson
Hair/Make-up Artist: Richard Muller
Make-up Artist (Additional Crew): Louise Coles
Post-production: Molinare
Film Stock: Kodak
Laboratory: DeLuxe
Camera/Grip Equipment: Panavision UK
Music by: Clint Mansell
[Score] Performed by: Orphans of the Storm
Music Produced by: Clint Mansell
Score Recorded/Mixed by: Geoff Foster
Score Recorded/Mixed at: RCP Los Angeles
Production Sound Mixer: Patrick Owen
Sound Maintenance: Anthony Ferretti
Re-recording Mixer: Scott Jones
Dialogue Editor: Kevin Brazier
[Sound] Effects Editor: Marc Lawes
ADR Mixer: Darren McQuade
Foley Artists: Jason Swanscott, Ted Swanscott
Foley Mixers: Trevor Swanscott, Simon Epstein
Foley Editor: Paul Edwards
Stunt Co-ordinator/Performer: Rod Woodruff
Meisner Consultant: Gary Condes
EPK: Phelim O’Neill, Jeremy Fowler
Filmed at: Shepperton Studios
Cast
Sam Rockwell (Sam Bell)
Dominique McElligott (Tess Bell)
Kaya Scodelario (Eve Bell)
Benedict Wong (Thompson)
Matt Berry (Overmeyers)
Malcolm Stewart (technician)
Kevin Spacey (voice of Gerty)
Rosie Shaw (little Eve)
Adrienne Shaw (nanny)
Robin Chalk (Sam Bell clone)
UK 2008©
97 mins
Digital 4K
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Programme notes and credits compiled by Sight and Sound and the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
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