Motion Picture Production News

Veteran documentary filmmaker, David Hoffman is in postproduction on Sputnik, a new feature documentary that tells the story of the three Sputniks and their effect on America and the world.

Sputnik will be completed at the end of March in preparation for the 50th anniversary year that begins October 4, 2007, and runs until December 31, 2008. During this time, there will be a variety of celebrations and other events taking place around the world. Sputnik is being produced for family audiences.

Just 12 hours after Sputnik was launched, NBC radio interrupted the World Series and the announcer said "Listen now for the sound that forever more separates the old from the new -- a chirping from outer space --- beep-beep- beep."

"To our absolute shock, the Russians had beaten us into space," said Hoffman. "A sense of panic spread as we realized that our cities could be attacked with hydrogen bombs. Within a month, the Soviets launched a second Sputnik and this one with a dog onboard. These events affected a generation of folks who are now leaders in industry, science, and academia.

The competition to equal the Soviet successes provoked the space race and a frightening escalation in hydrogen bomb development with increasingly tests, including our largest tests ever in outer space. Sputnik also prompted radical improvements in our education system and enormous advances in science and technology including the dawn of GPS, photography from space, weather satellites, cell phones, and the Internet, for starters.

It is a dramatic, fast-moving story of America with wonderfully entertaining and sometimes frightening historical professional and amateur sync sound film. Hoffman tells the story using often never-before-seen historical films that he has been collecting for 25 years along with comments by extraordinary witnesses including Susan Eisenhower, the granddaughter of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Sergei Khrushchev, the son Nikita Khrushchev.

Most of Hoffman's post production team are in their 20s. For them, the story of Sputnik has surprising relevance to current events-President Bush, the war in Iraq, the threat of global terrorism, the threats from global warming, etc.

David Hoffman has made 4 feature documentaries, including, King Murray, which took the Semaine de la Critique -- critics award at the Cannes Film Festival. He has also produced 89 television documentaries including Making Sense of the Sixties and the Peabody award winning, Moonshot, both with longtime collaborator, Kirk Wolfinger. Hoffman is again teaming with Wolfinger to bring Sputnik to the screen.

Hoffman also brought in Paul Dickson, bestselling author of Sputnik, the Shock of the Century, as chief consultant, plus the respected television journalist, Mark Shields as storyteller/narrator and influential rock musician, Thomas Dolby, who will provide the musical soundtrack and the film's title song.

Budgeted at $850,000 and backed by Jay Walker of Walker Digital (the founder of Priceline.com), Pierre Schwob and The Museum of Flight in Seattle, Sputnik is headed toward a rough cut. , Hoffman welcomes Sputnik stories, old film and still photos.

"I plan to find the distributor that commits to Sputnik for family audiences," says Hoffman.