The Dish

This article is about the film. For the radio telescope in the hills above Stanford University, see the Dish (landmark). For the television program, see The Dish (TV series).

The Dish
Promotional poster
Directed by	Rob Sitch
Written by	Santo Cilauro Tom Gleisner Jane Kennedy Rob Sitch
Produced by	Santo Cilauro Tom Gleisner Michael Hirsh Jane Kennedy Rob Sitch
Starring	Sam Neill Kevin Harrington Tom Long Patrick Warburton
Edited by	Jill Bilcock
Music by	Edmund Choi
Distributed by	Roadshow Entertainment (AUS) Warner Bros. (United States & Canada) Icon Entertainment International (UK)
Release dates	Toronto International Film Festival 15 September 2000 Australia 19 October 2000
Running time	101 minutes
Country	Australia
Languages	English, Japanese

The Dish is a 2000 Australian film that tells a somewhat fictionalised story of the Parkes Observatory's role in relaying live television of man's first steps on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. It was the top grossing film in Australia in 2000.

Plot

The radio telescope at Parkes (Parkes Observatory), New South Wales, Australia, was used by NASA throughout the Apollo program to receive signals in the Southern Hemisphere, along with the NASA Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station near Canberra.

In the days before the July 1969 space mission that marked mankind's first steps on the Moon, NASA was working with a group of Australian technicians who had agreed to engineer a space-to-earth interface to carry the video and telemetry signals from the Lunar Lander on the Moon and relay them to the rest of the global audience, estimated then at some 600 million people. The actual dish antenna used had to be large as the signals expected from the spacecraft were very weak and easily lost. NASA had to use the Parkes radio telescope situated in the middle of an Australian sheep farm. There were some background concerns at NASA about using the Parkes antenna, mainly technical, as the signals had to go via point to point microwave links to get re-transmitted globally.

Based on a true story, "The Dish" takes a sometimes comical look at the differing cultural attitudes between Australia and the U.S. while revisiting one of the greatest events in history. It depicts the activities in a control room of a radio telescope doing a job it was not originally expected to do, but in the end did very well. The directors of the film portray, quite accurately, what is in essence, a complex technical task, such as re-pointing the dish when it loses the signal's "lock" and deciding to use it when the wind whips up threatening to damage the structure. The film dramatises the team-work of a few technicians, who sometimes nearly lose their cool with each other, painted against a backdrop of proud Australian townfolk, with visiting dignitaries hoping nothing will go wrong at the crucial moment.

Cast

• Sam Neill as Cliff Buxton
• Patrick Warburton as Al Burnett
• Tom Long as Glenn Latham
• Kevin Harrington as Ross "Mitch" Mitchell
• Roy Billing as Bob McIntyre
• Eliza Szonert as Janine Kellerman
• Tayler Kane as Rudi Kellerman
• Billy Mitchell as Cameron
• Roz Hammond as Miss Nolan
• Christopher-Robin Street as Damien
• Luke Keltie as Graeme
• Naomi Wright as Melanie
• Ben Wright-Smith as Nicholas
• Beverley Dunn as Secretary v/o
• Grant Thompson as Mr. Callen
• Bille Brown as Prime Minister John Gorton
• Lenka Kripac as Marie McIntyre
• Neil Pigot as the newspaper reporter
• Frank Bennett as Barry Steele

Production

The Parkes 64-metre radio telescope at the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Australia (the bigger of the two) Picture credit: CSIRO

ABC news report on the role of the Parkes radio telescope and the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station, broadcast a week before the Moon landing.

Although based on true events, the film uses fictional characters and alters historical details for dramatic effect. NASA's Honeysuckle Creek and Goldstone stations both had the signal first, but Parkes' signal was used soon after the beginning of the moonwalk. No power failure occurred, there was no friction with the NASA representatives (of whom there were several, not just one), and Prime Minister John Gorton visited Honeysuckle Creek, not Parkes. They did, however, operate in very high winds gusting to 110 km/h (68 mph) at 60 degrees inclination, risking damage to the dish and even injury to themselves to keep the antenna pointed at the Moon during the moonwalk.

Much of the film was shot on location; the "cricket match" and "hayride" scenes were shot on the real dish and researchers often postponed experiments to position the dish for photography. The set reconstructing the 1969 control room was extremely accurate, down to some details as small as ashtrays. Some of the "props" were in fact original NASA equipment used during the Apollo 11 landing, left behind in Australia as they were too heavy (i.e. too expensive) to ship back to the U.S. Staff from that era expressed amazement at seeing the set; they said it was like stepping through a time warp.

The Dish was written by Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner, Jane Kennedy and Rob Sitch and directed by Sitch.

Apart from the radio telescope scenes, the majority of the movie was actually filmed in the small town of Forbes 33 km (21 mi) south of Parkes because of its old historic buildings, and also in Old Parliament House in Canberra, and Crawford Studios in Melbourne.

Box office

The Dish grossed $17,999,473 at the box office in Australia.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 96% fresh rating.

See also

• Cinema of Australia

External links

• Official website, thedishmovie.warnerbros.com (2012 archive)
• The Dish at IMDb
• The Apollo 11 Story on the Parkes Observatory website
• "The Dish": Fact versus Fiction — a quick comparison
• Top five Australian feature films each year, and gross Australian box office earned that year, 1988–2005
• The Truth about The Dish
• The dish and the great beyond (vodcast)
• Visiting the Parkes radio telescope (CSIRO website)
• Josh Olson on The Dish at Trailers from Hell