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Answers provided by Producer and Director Neil Losin.
What inspired this story?
NL: Directors Neil Losin and Nate Dappen both earned their PhDs studying lizards, so they knew that lizards called “anoles” have played, and continue to play, a pivotal role in our collective understanding of evolution and ecology. Yet to our knowledge, no one had ever made a documentary about them. Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film? NL: The challenge was making a story about very small lizards feel like a very big deal. We hope that our own excitement about the story and the enthusiasm of the featured scientists about their small-but-charismatic research subjects accomplishes that. 
Photo courtesy of Laws of the Lizard
How do you approach science storytelling? NL: We like to collaborate with scientists from the inception of a project, all the way through to the final delivery. In this case, our primary collaborator was the Godfather of anole research, Jonathan Losos. We worked together to get funding for the film, chose the scientists to feature, shaped the story, and – when we were in the field – tracked down a whole bunch of really cool lizards. What impact do you hope this film will have? NL: Anoles are lizards that many people can find in their own backyards. We hope that this film encourages people to take a closer look at the nature all around them… you never know when that lizard or insect perched on your garden hose is actually a creature that transformed our scientific understanding of life.
Were there any surprising or meaningful moments/experiences you want to share? NL: With the help of an anole researcher named Luke Mahler and his all-star field crew, we were able to find a very rare anole in the Dominican Republic – a species that had only been described to science in 2016. We were the first camera crew to film it. Both of us (Nate and Neil) were unexpectedly moved by the experience of finding and filming this creature. What a privilege to capture and preserve a sight that few others have ever witnessed! (Of course, it’s easy to get emotional when you’re delirious from lack of sleep after spending two long nights searching in the dark for an exceedingly well camouflaged sleeping lizard.) 
Photo courtesy of Laws of the Lizard
What next? NL: I think the world won’t be ready for another anole film for at least a couple years… So we’re moving on to other stories. We’ve got plenty of projects in the pipeline, but one we’re excited about involves the evolution of color vision, and focuses on some of the coolest invertebrates around: jumping spiders!
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Digits Trailer from Jackson Hole WILD on Vimeo.
Answers provided by Executive Producer Noah Morowitz.
What inspired this story?
NM: CuriosityStream founder John Hendricks came up with the concept of producing multiple hours on the past, present and future of the internet. He was struck by the fact that even though technology increasingly dominates our lives, very few people have a basic understanding of how we got here. From the seemingly simple – how does an email get from point A to point B? – to complex issues of man/machine interface, there is no end to the profound influence of DIGITS. Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film. NM: The story of Internet security is difficult to tell: much of the material is highly technical and both the good guys and the bad guys are reluctant to reveal too much! We were able to get insider access through our existing relationship with the U.S. Secret Service and by taking the time to gain the trust of key players. 
Photo courtesy of Digits
How do you approach science storytelling? NM: The general public is fascinated by science if it is presented not as facts and figures but as stories and characters. We focused on the people and events that drove the development of the internet, the key turning points in this modern revolution. What impact do you hope this film will have? NM: Internet giants are reluctant to acknowledge that the monetization of personal data is how they make money. We hope the film helps people to understand the myriad ways web technology and practices modify human behavior – for better and for worse. Were there any surprising or meaningful moments/experiences you want to share? NM: We were fortunate to have the opportunity to interview NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Moscow. He brought the issue of personal privacy into sharp focus with his statement: “Saying you don’t care about surveillance because you have nothing to hide is like saying that you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. These are fundamental rights.” 
Photo courtesy of Digits
Anything else you would like people to know? NM: Some people believe that the internet is the most important human invention since the printing press; others compare the web to the invention of the alphabet. Either way, if you want to understand your world you need to take a long look at this mysterious new force that surrounds us. What next? NM: We hope to make additional hours of DIGITS, covering such topics as The Internet of Things, Future Money and How We’ll Think and How We’ll Love. Deep Look Trailer from Jackson Hole WILD on Vimeo.
Answers provided by Producer Gabriela Quirós.
Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film.
GQ: The biggest challenge in filming this episode was containing the fruit flies in a square, glass receptacle that was small enough. In this case, the scientist whose fruit flies we were filming, Eric Hoopfer, from Caltech, in Pasadena, is very good at building tiny glass boxes because he himself has filmed his flies as part of his research. So Eric built us a few boxes by gluing together very thin glass slips that are used to put samples under the microscope. These boxes were tiny – narrower than your finger. How do you approach science storytelling? GQ: I try to prepare as much as possible before we go out filming to try and understand what we can expect to see. And then I hope that in addition to the behaviors we’re planning to film, we’ll also end up being surprised with something we didn’t expect to see. 
Image courtesy of "Deep Look"
What impact do you hope this film will have? GQ: I hope that it makes folks appreciate how exciting and weird scientific research can be. We don’t get to do too many stories about genetic engineering, because it’s difficult to show the effects of the engineering. So this story was a unique opportunity to talk about genetic engineering in a compelling way. Were there any surprising or meaningful moments/experiences you want to share? GQ: Watching those fighting fruit flies is very entertaining, and Josh’s camera work made it possible to observe their behaviors in quite some detail, so much so that Caltech neuroscientist David J. Anderson, whose lab we filmed in, licensed the footage from KQED to use in his research. So our footage of fighting fruit flies could one day show up in a scientific publication!
Anything else you would like people to know? GQ: This episode pairs fighting fruit flies with a score inspired by Bruce Lee movies. How great is that? What next? GQ: I’m working on a story about planarians -- flatworms with two tiny eyes that make them look like cartoon characters. They’re similar to fruit flies in that they’re used for many different kinds of scientific research. They’re even cooler than fruit flies because they can regenerate. It’s as if you could grow a new you out of a part of you.
Answers provided by Gary Weimberg, Co-Director and Co-Producer
What inspired this story?
GW: Evidence based good news. We wanted to make a film that was different, not another film about dangers in the environment, or emerging pathological problems, or even injustices that needed to be corrected. We had done films on all of those and wanted to cheer ourselves up … and the audience. But not with false hopes, nor with ostrich head-in-the-sand essays. We wanted … Evidence based good news. The science of Dr. Marian Diamond is exactly that. Her work was always about the capacity of the brain, the capabilities of the brain, the miraculous form and function of the brain … within a solid scientific context. The prime example, her research establishing brain plasticity. It was her work that, for the first time, measured precise anatomical changes associated with plasticity in rat brains, pioneering research that decisively transformed neural plasticity from a controversial speculative idea to a measurable, indisputable, observable function and core ability of the brain. Her battle for the acceptance of plasticity was hard fought but by now, nearly universally accepted. Her research marked a profound paradigm shift in science, in our understanding of the brain and thus … in our understanding of ourselves. Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film? GW: We thought this would be an easy charming film, far from the controversial topics we had previously made films about. We thought … what could be controversial about science … and then the war on science began, led by the climate change deniers. We thought … what could be controversial about a charming gracious elderly woman … and then the war on women broke out with renewed fanaticism and fervor. 
Image courtesy of "My Love Affair with the Brain"
How do you approach science storytelling? We wanted to tell a HUMAN science story. The fallacy implicit in coverage of state-of-the-art, bleeding edge, breakthrough science is that it that science is presented as one break thru after another, an endless forward march. But in fact, the general public often just becomes confused as the waves of advances first suggest that coffee is good for you, then that it is bad for you, then that it is good for you again. Overall, science storytelling is FAILING to convince the general public that science can and should be trusted. The power of the climate change deniers is brutally vivid illustration of this failure. Our choice was to approach science storytelling as a HUMAN story. Our approach was biographical, knowing that this allows the audience a ready and easy entry point. What impact do you hope this film will have? Firstly, Dr. Diamond was a neglected, under-reported scientific hero when we began this film. After the broadcast, and after her passing away within a few months after the films premiere, in obituary after obituary around the world, she was recognized as “one of the founders of modern neuroscience.” In large part, this is directly because of the attention the film inspired for the wonderful life’s work of this wonderful scientist. We trust that this film, and the honor of awards like these, will allow her legacy to be as it should be, a known and appreciated bright light in the history of great scientists, especially great women scientists. Secondly, we wanted to raise up a profoundly engaging and inspirational story of a role model in science. Someone whose life and work would make ANY viewer think, “I could spend my life doing that…” but especially, a film that would inspire women and girls in STEM. We already have had screenings for incredibly diverse female audiences, including Girl Scout troup 420 who not only watched the film, but created a “Marian Diamond Neuroscience Merit Badge.” Dr Diamond demonstrated by her very life that one answer to gender based oppression is a life well lived, that the gender inequalities Dr. Diamond faced can be effectively challenged and even disassembled simply by pointing out what she did … and allow the world changing work to speak for itself. 
Image courtesy of "My Love Affair with the Brain"
Were there any surprising or meaningful moments/experiences you want to share? From shoot day 1 to Emmy nomination notice day was 8 years. Over that time Dr. Diamond and her husband Dr. Arnie Schiebel transformed first into documentary subjects, then into our good friend, and before the end they became our best friends, whose company we sought out and deeply enjoyed on every level. We were their final students, returning again and again to their home with questions and confustion, to review the film and the scientific concpets for accuracy and effective communications. They became true members of our team, our scientific co-filmmakers. And thru all that … we laughed. Such conversations we had! What an honor to engage so deeply with two wise elders who had traveled the world seeking ever more knowledge about the brain, both to learn and to dissiminate. As we filmed, they retired from teaching and moved into the senior housing. We completed the film in a race against mortality, knowing that both of them were increasingly frail. It was our most profound wish to NOT need to film at a funeral, to NOT need to close the film with an obituary. We accomplished that, in a timely enough manner that although they are not alive today to enjoy this honor, they did enjoy a full year of film festivals and awards and the joy of the broadcast on PBS stations across the US. So very pleased to have accomplished that for our dear, dear friends. 
Image courtesy of "My Love Affair with the Brain"
Why did you pick to be the on-camera host telling this story? If ever there was an appropriate ambassador for science, it is Dr. Marian Diamond. A beloved professor whose classes on human anatomy at UC Berkeley were legendarily popular, the most popular on campus, she also was described by the NYTIMES in 2010 as the second most popular college professor in the world, based on the millions of views of her YouTube anatomy lecture series.
Answers provided by Terri Randall, Writer/Producer/Director of "Death Dive to Saturn"
What inspired this story?
Terri Randall: Cassini’s final moments inspired the story. The Cassini Mission to Saturn, one of the most successful missions in NASA’s history, was coming to an end. NOVA made a commitment to document the extraordinary discoveries the team made, as well as capture the spacecraft’s fiery end. Describe some of the challenges faced while making this film? TR: Telling a story about space exploration is always exciting but also challenging—you can’t shoot on location! Although the Cassini Mission produced thousands of stunning images we wanted to develop ways to make the solar system more tangible. In one scene we combined live action with animation to bring a lake on Saturn’s moon Titan to life. It was also a challenge to tell the story of such a long and successful mission: what discoveries to include, which stories will resonate with the audience? Instead of trying to tell the story chronologically we broke it into three acts-- the story of the planet, the story of Saturn’s moons and the story of Saturn’s rings. A logistical challenge was documenting the mission’s end. It happened in the middle of the night and the team (about a thousand team members were there) was split between two locations. Figuring out the best way to cover it was a challenging experience. 
Cassini space craft versus Saturn (Illustration). Courtesy of NASA
How do you approach science storytelling? TR: I don’t come from a science background and while it takes me time to research and understand a subject, once I do, I think I have an intuitive sense of how to share what I’ve learned with the audience. It’s too easy to get lost in scientific information so I try to keep the science as simple and accessible as possible and always keep in mind that I’m telling a story with a beginning, middle and an end, to always keep the arc of the story in mind and not get lost in the details. What impact do you hope this film will have? TR: I hope the film will be used for years to come to convey the enormous accomplishments of this mission-- an evergreen of the mission’s discoveries. 
NASA's Cassini above Saturn's northern pole, ready to dive into Saturn's rings. Courtesy of NASA
Were there any surprising or meaningful moments/experiences you want to share? TR: The way the scientists talked about the spacecraft was truly endearing. After 20 years it had become a good friend. Having the opportunity to witness its demise with the team was an extraordinary experience. There were many tears. Anything else you would like people to know? TR: I really enjoyed working with the team, scientists who explore space, trying to answer some of our biggest scientific mysteries, are inspiring. 
Cassini Ring Crossing; JPL control room get the OK signal from Cassini. Courtesy of Bob Paz for NASA
What next? TR: I’m working on an hour for NOVA on another NASA mission, New Horizons, the mission that brought us our first up close images of Pluto. On New Year’s Day the spacecraft will fly by an object in the far reaches of the solar system, it will be the furthest fly by in the history of space exploration. |
AuthorAs the curators of the Science Media Awards Summit in the Hub (SMASH), we believe storytelling is a common thread in our shared human experience, and that new media allows us to convey the wonders of scientific discovery in new and compelling ways. Archives
October 2018
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