In the Shadow of the Moon

50th Anniversary 1975-2025

If you hear someone mention the documentary “In the Shadow of the Moon,” all but a very few immediately think of Ron Howard’s 2007 film. But those of us who worked at Orlando’s Public Television Station WMFE-TV Channel 24 back in 1975, think of the documentary originally called “Brevard: Anatomy of a County” and released as “In the Shadow of the Moon.”

If you have a copy of the documentary on 16mm film or videotape, please let us know in the comment section, below. We’d like to have it digitized to preserve it for the people of Brevard who lived and worked IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON.

Brevard County 1950-1970

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON is the story of the economic rise, fall, and coming to life again of Brevard County and how the lives of the people who lived there were impacted during the rush to put man on the moon. Between 1950 and 1970, over 220,000 people rushed into the area where every major rocket or spacecraft launched in the name of the U.S. was sent aloft. This area–once the fastest growing county in the nation–realized instant people and thusly instant needs.

Most of the people who came to Brevard were young – an average age of 27 – with families and immediate needs for housing, roads, sewers, schools, and hospitals. Federal money was pouring in for the space effort, and yet it took help from such high officials as then Vice President Hubert Humphrey to help locate funds for a much-needed bridge to alleviate the traffic snarls which resulted.

Channel 24 WMFE-TV 1974

The 1974 Florida Legislature made funds available through the State Department of Education for the production by the state’s public television and radio stations of innovative, alternative programming. Interested stations submitted project proposals. WMFE-TV’s 60-minute film project IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON was one of those selected with a grant of $100,000 administered by the Educational Television and Radio Division of the State Department of Education.

Channel 24 promotion department manager Linda Mayfield, in an interview with Florida Today Prime Time columnist Al Tunstall said, “This is the most extensive news coverage anyone has ever done of Brevard County. We feel it is our obligation and responsibility to tell the story about the people of Brevard County, and their reactions before and after the space program buildup.” Florida Today, TV TAB, Feb. 25, 1975, digital microfilm collection, Orange County Library System.

John and David W. Holmstrom

Tyler Tucker, public affairs director of WMFE-TV, was the executive producer of the project. Principal producers of the project were brothers John and David Holmstrom – both award winners in their field. Producer-director John left the film division of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit and writer-associate producer David left his position as San Francisco bureau chief of the Christian Science Monitor to work on the project fulltime. Both went on to produce the first feature-length documentary shown nationwide in movie theaters called Stockcar! which was released in November 1977. A poor copy of the documentary, that does not appear to be complete, was found on YouTube.

Producer-director John Holmstrom commented on their undertaking:

“To put this story on film dozens of Brevardians were interviewed, every scrap of material and memorabilia in all parts of the county was gathered and evaluated, as well as photographs and film depicting the aerospace-related growth period. We visited film libraries in various parts of the country which led to our usage of footage from NASA, the National Archives in Washington and television network archives in New York. This search resulted in location of film from David Brinkley’s 1961 news piece on the so called ‘sin city’ and other vintage film footage taken during the boom. We found most Brevardians eager to talk about their experiences.

The overall objective was to contrast comments and footage of the past with the shape of Brevard today. ‘We were smothered in growth,’ says a former Mayor of Cocoa, who directed us to a place where raw sewage bubbles up and pollutes the river. ‘We had to invent the wheel all over again,’ said a county commissioner, recalling the frenzied efforts of county government to keep pace with the growth.

A Lou Harris poll taken in the county in 1966 revealed that the average Brevardian was 27, married, owned two or three cars, and had lots of money to spend. He was interested in good school and elimination of traffic congestion, but he couldn’t care less about the political affairs of the community. When he thought of ‘home,’ it wasn’t Brevard… it was wherever he had come from.

What we hope will remain with those who view IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON is for the first time the real story of the people of Brevard.” From the press kit created by WMFE-TV promotion department in 1975.

Upon completion of the documentary in June 1975, producer-director John Holmstrom wrote:

“The film tells of the economic rise, fall, and beginning resurgence of Brevard as it related to the massive amount of Federal dollars poured into the county in the 1960’s – the results of the de-emphasis of aerospace exploration after America reached the moon – the crying need to diversify Brevard’s economy in light of the absence of firm plans for space activity after the joint U.S./Russian space shuttle. Ours is the story of the people who lived the equivalent of a lifetime in less than a decade under the spotlight of world attention.” From the press kit created by WMFE-TV promotion department in 1975.

An entry on a blog from 2023 shares the events surrounding the Holmstrom’s coming to Florida from the perspective of a young family member who traveled from California and lived in Brevard with her family during the filming and production of the documentary. The post includes the comments of a television executive who extoled the character and integrity of two brothers:

“John and Dave are unbelievable. I’ve never worked with movie people like them, who neither smoked, drank, cursed or womanized. And it’s the first film like that that’s totally objective, done by someone with no axe to grind.”

WMFE-TV Channel 24 Premiere July 14, 1975

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON premiered in Orlando on Channel 24 WMFE-TV at 8 p.m. Monday, July 14th, 1975, to great reviews by the Orlando Sentinel Star’s television critic Noel Holston:

“On the eve of the Apollo/Soyuz space summit… WMFE-Channel 24 is televising a space program-related documentary, ‘In the Shadow of the Moon’.. What makes it extra special — that is, aside from the fact that its subject is ‘the county the moon built,’ Brevard County — is that it’s the public television station’s very own… Channel 24 hired two award-winning filmmakers, brothers John and David Holmstrom, to produce a documentary telling Brevard’s boom-to-bust-to-recovery tale. The result, on view tonight, is the most sophisticated documentary yet produced by a Central Florida television station, a wide-ranging study that, if it’s a bit short on hard facts, makes up for it with the mood it captures.”

“Channel 24’s program director, Tom Landini, said the station tried to get PBS to telecast the documentary nationwide, but “They didn’t think it was timely enough.”

“Too bad — for ‘In the Shadow of the Moon’ is timely in its own subtle way… All in all, Channel 24’s first major documentary is a low-key, but nonetheless impressive effort which should embarrass the station’s commercial competitors.”

In addition to the Holmstrom’s, Bill Stitt was the sound man, Christa Kindt was the film editor, and WCKS-FM radio personality Les Roberson was selected to do the narration.

Postscript

According to newspaper reports, John Holmstrom relocated to Brevard County after completing the documentary. He passed away in 2018.

David Holmstrom’s wife and young daughter traveled from California to Florida in 1975 to join him in Cocoa Beach for the duration of the project. She shares her memories of their grand adventure in her blog post Filmmaking with my Family. David W. Holmstrom passed away in 2020.

The interviews conducted by David and John Holmstrom made their way to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Growing Up With Rockets Collection and were also referenced in Missileland USA Cocoa Beach and America’s Space Program a Master of Art degree by Lori C. Walters in 1990.

Read additional information in the press kit created in June 1975 by Linda Mayfield, Promotion Manager at WMFE-TV, pages from John Holmstrom’s personal scrapbook, transcripts of interviews with 11 Brevardians, and other DOCUMENTS and IMAGES under ATTACHMENTS, below, .