Just got the word that John Conway, one of the physicists in our film, was just today made a Fellow of the American Physical Society! His citation states he's received this honor "for outstanding contributions in the search for the Higgs boson and physics beyond the Standard Model."
All this on the same day he officially becomes a movie star (OK, a TV star, anyway).
Congratulations, John!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Lotsa press
Monica, my co-director, is originally a playwright. She's had quite a bit of success in the world of theatre. Being a fiction filmmaker myself as well as a documentary filmmaker, I've had plenty of time interacting with actors, many of whom do double duty in the theatrical environment and on the big screen. I learned something interesting about how the role of a theatrical director differs from that of a film director when I saw a play with one of my favorite actors. She pointed out to me something that was clearly going wrong on stage that night: one actor was badly overshadowing another. I whispered something along the lines of "I guess the director is going to have some work to do tonight." She told me, in fact, nope, the director was done. When the curtain rises on opening night, the play, and the actors, are on their own. Hopefully, it's got legs to walk on.
That's a little how Monica, Andrew and I feel about our film. We've set it out there, and it's walking around on its own. We're watching, a little nervously, how it's making its way in the world. We've been gratified to see some positive indications so far: an review on MSNBC says the film "packs a lot of real life into its saga about the world's biggest subatomic quest." A review in Seed magazine says the film "splits open the US's problematic relationship with scientific research... a roller-coaster ride of near breakthroughs, complex research, and dashed hopes." And a review on "Popmatters" does a nice job of communicating many of the themes we were after.
But perhaps my favorite endorsement of the film comes from someone who hasn't seen it yet: a physicist who must have been hearing about it from his peers or reading about it. He even linked to this blog, which was nice. On his own blog, he describes some of the trouble the LHC is having after its major breakdown a couple of month ago. He then wraps up the post by stating
On a more cheerful note, tonight PBS will be broadcasting a documentary about the search for the Higgs at Fermilab called The Atom Smashers. It looks like this program should be about 10^(10^5) times better than a recent one featuring theorists. One of the filmmakers has a blog here. With the LHC out of commission for a while, the Higgs search at the Tevatron is where the action is, and the experimenters there may be the ones to find the Higgs or rule it out.
Now, 10^(10^5) would be 1,000,000, if I'm not mistaken. I've never seen the other film he's referencing, but I certainly can't guarantee that our film is a million times better than that one. But it's nice that a physicist has such high hopes!
[editor's note: I've just been gently corrected. I was, in fact, mistaken, and Mr. Woit of the aforementioned blog is confident that our film is not just a million times better, but rather ... ahem, 10 quadrupa-gazillion times better. In other words, a 10 with one hundred-thousand zeroes after it. The pressure is on!!]
Like the theatre director, though, all I can do at this point is sit back and watch...
(And watch I will --- it's on tonight, Nov. 25, at 10:30 on most PBS stations. But check your local listings.)
That's a little how Monica, Andrew and I feel about our film. We've set it out there, and it's walking around on its own. We're watching, a little nervously, how it's making its way in the world. We've been gratified to see some positive indications so far: an review on MSNBC says the film "packs a lot of real life into its saga about the world's biggest subatomic quest." A review in Seed magazine says the film "splits open the US's problematic relationship with scientific research... a roller-coaster ride of near breakthroughs, complex research, and dashed hopes." And a review on "Popmatters" does a nice job of communicating many of the themes we were after.
But perhaps my favorite endorsement of the film comes from someone who hasn't seen it yet: a physicist who must have been hearing about it from his peers or reading about it. He even linked to this blog, which was nice. On his own blog, he describes some of the trouble the LHC is having after its major breakdown a couple of month ago. He then wraps up the post by stating
On a more cheerful note, tonight PBS will be broadcasting a documentary about the search for the Higgs at Fermilab called The Atom Smashers. It looks like this program should be about 10^(10^5) times better than a recent one featuring theorists. One of the filmmakers has a blog here. With the LHC out of commission for a while, the Higgs search at the Tevatron is where the action is, and the experimenters there may be the ones to find the Higgs or rule it out.
Now, 10^(10^5) would be 1,000,000, if I'm not mistaken. I've never seen the other film he's referencing, but I certainly can't guarantee that our film is a million times better than that one. But it's nice that a physicist has such high hopes!
[editor's note: I've just been gently corrected. I was, in fact, mistaken, and Mr. Woit of the aforementioned blog is confident that our film is not just a million times better, but rather ... ahem, 10 quadrupa-gazillion times better. In other words, a 10 with one hundred-thousand zeroes after it. The pressure is on!!]
Like the theatre director, though, all I can do at this point is sit back and watch...
(And watch I will --- it's on tonight, Nov. 25, at 10:30 on most PBS stations. But check your local listings.)
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Sharing a microphone and where ideas come from
Monica and I have been lucky enough to attend quite a few screenings of The Atom Smashers, and we've usually been able to stand at the front of the theatre, sharing a microphone, answering questions from the people in the audience after the film ends. It's really fun, actually. For the same reason that proud parents never tire talking about how smart their babies are, we could probably talk forever about our film.
There is a consistency in the questions we're asked, whether in Chicago, Vancouver, or Norway. One of the first to come up is "where did you find this topic?" Often the way the question is asked implies "where in the world did you find this topic?" Or even "what on earth were you thinking?"
It seems to be a predictable pattern: the general public is astonished to find that a) scientists are people not that different from everyone else, and b) that their lives involve exciting stories. It reveals the extent of the disconnect many people seem to have regarding science, and as New York Times science writer Natalie Angier says in our film, it's a disconnect that starts as "early as the fourth grade" and once people get off that track, it's very hard to get back on.
I answer the question by mentioning the newspaper article I read in the Chicago Tribune in 2000 (a link to which I would post here but the Tribune makes you pay for archived articles --- boo) in which science writer Ronald Kotulak beautifully and dramatically set up the scenario that eventually became our film.
It seems a little odd to give so simple an answer: "I read a newspaper article about it" --- but in truth I think that's how the best ideas strike. An idea in one medium presents itself for adaptation into another. When teaching a class at Northwestern to sophomore film students, I discuss where story ideas come from and give another example of just such an adaptive transformation: I remember a day quite clearly in 2003 when I was driving in Kansas City, listening to NPR, and heard a story about how NASA was going to deliberately crash the Galileo space probe into Jupiter so that it would not accidentally hit Europa, one of Jupiter's moons that is potentially harboring life. I nearly crashed my car into a signpost. What a bizarre moment, I thought, and immediately imagined a scene where the scientists sat around a high-energy radio speaker, listening for the last whistling signal before it stuttered to a stop. What would they say to each other? What would they be feeling like?
This time, rather than a documentary, I decided to write a short film script with that little scene at its heart --- not with scientists, but rather with a couple of ... well, science-lovers. I asked Andrew Suprenant, the producer of The Atom Smashers, to produce it, and the script won the Chicago IFP Production fund, which meant we were able to make the film with donated goods and services from cameras to film to editing and the whole shebang. The title? Galileo's Grave. It's nearly done, but got moved to the back burner behind The Atom Smashers.
Maybe it's just that I have a soft spot for where pathos intersects with the scientific method, but I believe the world of science is teeming with great stories. I think that's good news for us at 137 Films, because that's what we focus on.
And yes, when we premiered Galileo's Grave in Chicago, I stood up with Andrew, sharing a microphone, for the Q&A session. The first question? "Where did you get this idea?"
There is a consistency in the questions we're asked, whether in Chicago, Vancouver, or Norway. One of the first to come up is "where did you find this topic?" Often the way the question is asked implies "where in the world did you find this topic?" Or even "what on earth were you thinking?"
It seems to be a predictable pattern: the general public is astonished to find that a) scientists are people not that different from everyone else, and b) that their lives involve exciting stories. It reveals the extent of the disconnect many people seem to have regarding science, and as New York Times science writer Natalie Angier says in our film, it's a disconnect that starts as "early as the fourth grade" and once people get off that track, it's very hard to get back on.
I answer the question by mentioning the newspaper article I read in the Chicago Tribune in 2000 (a link to which I would post here but the Tribune makes you pay for archived articles --- boo) in which science writer Ronald Kotulak beautifully and dramatically set up the scenario that eventually became our film.
It seems a little odd to give so simple an answer: "I read a newspaper article about it" --- but in truth I think that's how the best ideas strike. An idea in one medium presents itself for adaptation into another. When teaching a class at Northwestern to sophomore film students, I discuss where story ideas come from and give another example of just such an adaptive transformation: I remember a day quite clearly in 2003 when I was driving in Kansas City, listening to NPR, and heard a story about how NASA was going to deliberately crash the Galileo space probe into Jupiter so that it would not accidentally hit Europa, one of Jupiter's moons that is potentially harboring life. I nearly crashed my car into a signpost. What a bizarre moment, I thought, and immediately imagined a scene where the scientists sat around a high-energy radio speaker, listening for the last whistling signal before it stuttered to a stop. What would they say to each other? What would they be feeling like?
This time, rather than a documentary, I decided to write a short film script with that little scene at its heart --- not with scientists, but rather with a couple of ... well, science-lovers. I asked Andrew Suprenant, the producer of The Atom Smashers, to produce it, and the script won the Chicago IFP Production fund, which meant we were able to make the film with donated goods and services from cameras to film to editing and the whole shebang. The title? Galileo's Grave. It's nearly done, but got moved to the back burner behind The Atom Smashers.
Maybe it's just that I have a soft spot for where pathos intersects with the scientific method, but I believe the world of science is teeming with great stories. I think that's good news for us at 137 Films, because that's what we focus on.
And yes, when we premiered Galileo's Grave in Chicago, I stood up with Andrew, sharing a microphone, for the Q&A session. The first question? "Where did you get this idea?"
Turkey, Cranberry Sauce, and Blogs
On Thanksgiving four years ago, my dad asked "what's a blog?" At that time I told him it was essentially a diary written by someone for everyone to read. Clearly I didn't really understand the concept. "Who would want to read something like that?" my dad asked. I shrugged.
In my defense, that was largely before blogs became so specialized and so popular, and before I started writing this one.
I had no idea that there were science blogs. Two of them are notable enough that I think I'll add them as the first two blogs to my sidebar. The first is Cosmic Variance, a biggie, to which John Conway (one of our scientists) is a contributor, and which seems to have been absorbed by Discover Magazine. John wrote about our film here and here, and it was in this blog that he posted about the "bump" in the data that caused such a stir in the scientific world and became a major plot point in our film. John is going to make an appearance in the next couple of days as a guest contributor to this blog.
The other blog is Peculiar Velocity, which I'll write about next time...
In my defense, that was largely before blogs became so specialized and so popular, and before I started writing this one.
I had no idea that there were science blogs. Two of them are notable enough that I think I'll add them as the first two blogs to my sidebar. The first is Cosmic Variance, a biggie, to which John Conway (one of our scientists) is a contributor, and which seems to have been absorbed by Discover Magazine. John wrote about our film here and here, and it was in this blog that he posted about the "bump" in the data that caused such a stir in the scientific world and became a major plot point in our film. John is going to make an appearance in the next couple of days as a guest contributor to this blog.
The other blog is Peculiar Velocity, which I'll write about next time...
Thursday, November 20, 2008
TV Party
We're gearing up for the broadcast on Tuesday night! Check your local listings here. It should be on most PBS stations at 10:30pm. We've decided to get together at our friend Caro D'Offay's gallery and watch it on an old-fashioned rabbit-ear TV.
If you haven't visited our PBS website, go check it out...
If you haven't visited our PBS website, go check it out...
Thursday, November 6, 2008
BIFF part three: Lutefisk and used car salesmen
I found out the hard way that we had been mis-informed. Our film was actually not in competition. How did I find this out? In one of our nightly dinners I found myself sitting next to one of the documentary competition judges. I was paralyzed between trying to make a nervous joke about our film to see if she reacted enthusiastically and saying nothing in order to maintain a sense of fairness. I said something to the person on the other side of me that I thought it was odd that they would ask the filmmakers and the judges to the same dinner. The person hissed "you should talk to her!"
At film festivals you see a real struggle play out on the faces of nearly everyone around you. You can tell immediately who is a filmmaker because he or she is wearing an anxious expression; a combination of weariness, determination, and desperation. Why is this the case? Because this person, usually a soul-searching obsessive type perfectly happy when wrestling with the larger themes of what makes us human, is suddenly thrust into the role of used car salesman.
All filmmakers at festivals feel the sickening urge that they need to be "doing something" with their film: trying to make a connection, pass off a post-card, drum up attendance, meet a sales rep, get a lead on Australian distribution, meet a programmer for the next festival, find a potential investor. You can see the conflict play out on their faces, and I'm no exception. So, shamefully, when the filmmaker next to me prodded me to talk to the judge, I turned and waited for a pause in the conversation and said something along the lines of
"So, do you see all the films in advance?"
"Yes."
"Oh. I'm Clayton Brown. I'm the co-director of The Atom Smashers."
Pregnant pause as she sipped some wine.
"Oh. Is that here at the festival?"
Needless to say, I was slightly flummoxed.
"Y - yes," I said. "It's a documentary. It's in competition."
"Oh, no, I don't think so," she said firmly. "I would have seen it."
And that was that. She turned back to her wine and I turned back to my reindeer. The filmmaker on the other side of me shrugged.
Interestingly, two days later, this judge became quite friendly to me. I'm not sure why, but at that night's dinner she came right up to me and we hung out the rest of the evening together. She decided in no uncertain terms that I was going to have lutefisk.
What is lutefisk? It's a bit hard to describe. Check out this link for a full explanation, but I'll give you a brief rundown: it's rotting fish that's been soaked in lye.
That's right; lye. After soaking in various solutions of water and lye for over a week, the fish has a jelly-like consistency and is caustic. Only more soaking in water will render it non-poisonous. Doing this step incorrectly will turn the fish into soap. I'm not kidding. Even when done correctly, you can't use your good dinnerware because lutefisk will permanently ruin silver.
It's served with a couple of potatoes and a small pot of bacon. You dribble the bacon over the jelly-like fish which gives it some semblance of flavor.
Interestingly, some of the younger Norwegians at our table had never had lutefisk and stubbornly refused to even try it (I should have taken this as a warning. Actually I did, but the judge with me would have none of it. She ordered for me, and the waitress had an odd expression upon leaving. I asked about this and the judge told me that she had indicated exactly what sequence everything should arrive in. "I think she thinks I'm bossy," she said. "I think you're bossy," I told her.) They said "this fish is poison. It's made of caustic chemicals. It has lye. It's not meant for human consumption!"
So, I'll be honest, it was not my favorite. I was grateful for the bacon, at least, and the plain potato. At least I earned the respect of the judge.
In some ways I was not as disappointed as I thought I would be when I found we weren't in competition. It took a little of the pressure off. This is perhaps why I enjoyed the second screening of the film much more. It wasn't quite sold out, but the crowd was much livelier. Earlier in the week I had had a couple of conversations with other filmmakers, including Pietra Bretkelly, who had a great film at the festival called The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins. She was talking after one of her screenings and said "I think I shocked the audience with my film. No one said a word at the Q&A afterwards." Turns out many of us had the same experience, and when we asked the festival organizers, they said "oh, yeah. Norwegians are shy. It takes them a while to ask questions."
But luckily, the shy Norwegians had apparently gotten up their collective nerve because there was a lengthy and spirited Q&A session after the second screening.
Oh, one more thing: after eating the Lutefisk, one of the other filmmakers came around and said "hey, I heard you were looking for European distribution. There are a couple of sales reps over there at the next table." So I had to put on my used-car salesman face and head over there. Turns out one of them was interested in the film, and after I got back to the states said she wanted another copy...
At film festivals you see a real struggle play out on the faces of nearly everyone around you. You can tell immediately who is a filmmaker because he or she is wearing an anxious expression; a combination of weariness, determination, and desperation. Why is this the case? Because this person, usually a soul-searching obsessive type perfectly happy when wrestling with the larger themes of what makes us human, is suddenly thrust into the role of used car salesman.
All filmmakers at festivals feel the sickening urge that they need to be "doing something" with their film: trying to make a connection, pass off a post-card, drum up attendance, meet a sales rep, get a lead on Australian distribution, meet a programmer for the next festival, find a potential investor. You can see the conflict play out on their faces, and I'm no exception. So, shamefully, when the filmmaker next to me prodded me to talk to the judge, I turned and waited for a pause in the conversation and said something along the lines of
"So, do you see all the films in advance?"
"Yes."
"Oh. I'm Clayton Brown. I'm the co-director of The Atom Smashers."
Pregnant pause as she sipped some wine.
"Oh. Is that here at the festival?"
Needless to say, I was slightly flummoxed.
"Y - yes," I said. "It's a documentary. It's in competition."
"Oh, no, I don't think so," she said firmly. "I would have seen it."
And that was that. She turned back to her wine and I turned back to my reindeer. The filmmaker on the other side of me shrugged.
Interestingly, two days later, this judge became quite friendly to me. I'm not sure why, but at that night's dinner she came right up to me and we hung out the rest of the evening together. She decided in no uncertain terms that I was going to have lutefisk.
What is lutefisk? It's a bit hard to describe. Check out this link for a full explanation, but I'll give you a brief rundown: it's rotting fish that's been soaked in lye.
That's right; lye. After soaking in various solutions of water and lye for over a week, the fish has a jelly-like consistency and is caustic. Only more soaking in water will render it non-poisonous. Doing this step incorrectly will turn the fish into soap. I'm not kidding. Even when done correctly, you can't use your good dinnerware because lutefisk will permanently ruin silver.
It's served with a couple of potatoes and a small pot of bacon. You dribble the bacon over the jelly-like fish which gives it some semblance of flavor.
Interestingly, some of the younger Norwegians at our table had never had lutefisk and stubbornly refused to even try it (I should have taken this as a warning. Actually I did, but the judge with me would have none of it. She ordered for me, and the waitress had an odd expression upon leaving. I asked about this and the judge told me that she had indicated exactly what sequence everything should arrive in. "I think she thinks I'm bossy," she said. "I think you're bossy," I told her.) They said "this fish is poison. It's made of caustic chemicals. It has lye. It's not meant for human consumption!"
So, I'll be honest, it was not my favorite. I was grateful for the bacon, at least, and the plain potato. At least I earned the respect of the judge.
In some ways I was not as disappointed as I thought I would be when I found we weren't in competition. It took a little of the pressure off. This is perhaps why I enjoyed the second screening of the film much more. It wasn't quite sold out, but the crowd was much livelier. Earlier in the week I had had a couple of conversations with other filmmakers, including Pietra Bretkelly, who had a great film at the festival called The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins. She was talking after one of her screenings and said "I think I shocked the audience with my film. No one said a word at the Q&A afterwards." Turns out many of us had the same experience, and when we asked the festival organizers, they said "oh, yeah. Norwegians are shy. It takes them a while to ask questions."
But luckily, the shy Norwegians had apparently gotten up their collective nerve because there was a lengthy and spirited Q&A session after the second screening.
Oh, one more thing: after eating the Lutefisk, one of the other filmmakers came around and said "hey, I heard you were looking for European distribution. There are a couple of sales reps over there at the next table." So I had to put on my used-car salesman face and head over there. Turns out one of them was interested in the film, and after I got back to the states said she wanted another copy...
BIFF part two: Lidenskapen, Reindeer, and James Caan
Apologies for the delay!
So, as promised: first, a report on the screenings. The first one was sold out, which was a real surprise. A pleasant surprise, to be sure, but somehow unexpected. A sold out screening in Vancouver is one thing, being neighbors with the US. But Norway? I think it pays tribute to our poster image, the nice blurb in the festival program, and, frankly, the Obama-fascination that is apparently all around the world. However, I would also like to think that it means we've got a good film on our hands.
Interestingly, after the film, there was hardly a Q&A at all. The full-house crowd sat, quiet as a mouse, with only one or two questions being asked. Afterwards one of the (incredibly nice) festival staff who was leading the session sheepishly apologized and said next time hopefully there would be some better questions.
While the film was screening, I was actually doing a panel discussion with two other documentary filmmakers for the BIFF TV website. I think most of what I said ended up on the cutting room floor. (There could be a long post here about what it's like to be on the other side of the camera, being asked questions, what it's like to wonder if what you're saying is interesting, but... maybe another time). By the way, "Lidenskapen" means "passion."
So, on to the other part of what I promised next time: an interesting dinner companion.
When your film gets accepted to a (larger) festival, there's a chance they'll fly you out, put you up at a nice hotel, and take you out to dinner every night. Boy, it's nice. I'd recommend you all start making films in order to experience this part of it. It's a little bit of payback for the 40,000 hours spent lugging equipment, pulling your hair out wondering if you've got a story, and working the kinks out of your mouse-clicking arm. Anyway, the second night, I found myself eating Reindeer again, sitting next to a man with a rather loud, low, gravelly voice. He seemed a little tipsy. He was telling stories in English, Norwegian, and a couple of other languages. I was talking to some other people at the table and hadn't really listened too much, especially since I couldn't understand most of it.
It came up that I was a teacher of film production, and so we started talking about films (what a surprise). Somehow the notion of the Dogme 95 movement came up, and how one of the leaders of that group (Thomas Vinterberg) had a new film that was here at the festival. I said that even though I thought some of the ideas behind it were great, there was really only one of those films that I liked, which was The Celebration. The guy I was talking to reminded me that Vinterberg was the director, and his film was here. He also casually pointed at the guy next to me, the one telling stories in Norwegian, and said. "He was in The Celebration." I blinked. "Really?" "Yeah. Remember the loudmouth brother? That was him."
His name is Thomas Bo Larsen and we ended up having a really great conversation about acting and directing, especially after he told me that the best piece of directing he ever got was when Vintenberg told him during the shooting of The Celebration that "in this film, you are playing the role of James Caan in The Godfather." Really, what actor wouldn't nod and say "Ahh. Got it."? It was fun talking about good directing (short, loaded suggestions) and bad directing (long-winded explorations of minutiae), and what actors like and don't like (being part of, and excluded from, the creative process, respectively). At the end of the evening, he volunteered that he would fly himself to Northwestern to talk to my classes. I think he was a little drunk, but I believe he meant it at the time.
So, as promised: first, a report on the screenings. The first one was sold out, which was a real surprise. A pleasant surprise, to be sure, but somehow unexpected. A sold out screening in Vancouver is one thing, being neighbors with the US. But Norway? I think it pays tribute to our poster image, the nice blurb in the festival program, and, frankly, the Obama-fascination that is apparently all around the world. However, I would also like to think that it means we've got a good film on our hands.
Interestingly, after the film, there was hardly a Q&A at all. The full-house crowd sat, quiet as a mouse, with only one or two questions being asked. Afterwards one of the (incredibly nice) festival staff who was leading the session sheepishly apologized and said next time hopefully there would be some better questions.
While the film was screening, I was actually doing a panel discussion with two other documentary filmmakers for the BIFF TV website. I think most of what I said ended up on the cutting room floor. (There could be a long post here about what it's like to be on the other side of the camera, being asked questions, what it's like to wonder if what you're saying is interesting, but... maybe another time). By the way, "Lidenskapen" means "passion."
So, on to the other part of what I promised next time: an interesting dinner companion.
When your film gets accepted to a (larger) festival, there's a chance they'll fly you out, put you up at a nice hotel, and take you out to dinner every night. Boy, it's nice. I'd recommend you all start making films in order to experience this part of it. It's a little bit of payback for the 40,000 hours spent lugging equipment, pulling your hair out wondering if you've got a story, and working the kinks out of your mouse-clicking arm. Anyway, the second night, I found myself eating Reindeer again, sitting next to a man with a rather loud, low, gravelly voice. He seemed a little tipsy. He was telling stories in English, Norwegian, and a couple of other languages. I was talking to some other people at the table and hadn't really listened too much, especially since I couldn't understand most of it.
It came up that I was a teacher of film production, and so we started talking about films (what a surprise). Somehow the notion of the Dogme 95 movement came up, and how one of the leaders of that group (Thomas Vinterberg) had a new film that was here at the festival. I said that even though I thought some of the ideas behind it were great, there was really only one of those films that I liked, which was The Celebration. The guy I was talking to reminded me that Vinterberg was the director, and his film was here. He also casually pointed at the guy next to me, the one telling stories in Norwegian, and said. "He was in The Celebration." I blinked. "Really?" "Yeah. Remember the loudmouth brother? That was him."
His name is Thomas Bo Larsen and we ended up having a really great conversation about acting and directing, especially after he told me that the best piece of directing he ever got was when Vintenberg told him during the shooting of The Celebration that "in this film, you are playing the role of James Caan in The Godfather." Really, what actor wouldn't nod and say "Ahh. Got it."? It was fun talking about good directing (short, loaded suggestions) and bad directing (long-winded explorations of minutiae), and what actors like and don't like (being part of, and excluded from, the creative process, respectively). At the end of the evening, he volunteered that he would fly himself to Northwestern to talk to my classes. I think he was a little drunk, but I believe he meant it at the time.
Friday, October 17, 2008
BIFF
I'm in Bergen, Norway, at the Bergen International Film Festival... I just got back from the first screening, which wasn't part of the festival, but rather an additional screening the festival organized at a nearby science center. The audience was composed of about 60 high school students and a few teachers. There was a Q&A afterwards, which went pretty well. Last night I had dinner with the director of the festival at a traditional Norwegian restaurant, where I had filet of reindeer.
Next time I'll fill you in more on a fascinating conversation I had with an unexpected dinner companion, as well as on the first festival screening...
How audacious
We've won a prize!!
In the Pariscience festival, we picked up the "Audacity Award." This appears to be the second prize of the festival, and is described as awarded awarded "for a film that’s shows originality in its subject matter or treatment." It includes a nice cash component as well! One of our intrepid physicists, Gregorio Bernardi (who appears twice in the film: he is one of the explainers of the Higgs boson as well as the guy who describes what I call "the magic screen," referred to in an earlier post) actually teaches at the University of Paris, and was able to attend the awards ceremony.
He said that it was like "a mini-Oscars ceremony," where a clip from each prize-winning film was shown. He said the clip they showed from our film was from the animated section of the explanation of how the Tevatron works, with Luke Haddock's great animations and Dr. Lederman's voiceover. Apparently there was even a plaque awarded, which Gregorio kindly accepted on our behalf. Whenever we get an office, that will be one of the first things that goes up on the wall.
So now we can officially add "Award-winning" to our descriptions...
In the Pariscience festival, we picked up the "Audacity Award." This appears to be the second prize of the festival, and is described as awarded awarded "for a film that’s shows originality in its subject matter or treatment." It includes a nice cash component as well! One of our intrepid physicists, Gregorio Bernardi (who appears twice in the film: he is one of the explainers of the Higgs boson as well as the guy who describes what I call "the magic screen," referred to in an earlier post) actually teaches at the University of Paris, and was able to attend the awards ceremony.
He said that it was like "a mini-Oscars ceremony," where a clip from each prize-winning film was shown. He said the clip they showed from our film was from the animated section of the explanation of how the Tevatron works, with Luke Haddock's great animations and Dr. Lederman's voiceover. Apparently there was even a plaque awarded, which Gregorio kindly accepted on our behalf. Whenever we get an office, that will be one of the first things that goes up on the wall.
So now we can officially add "Award-winning" to our descriptions...
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Vancouver News Part 2
The second screening went quite well also --- not sold out, but nearly everyone stayed for another lively Q&A. Hosting the session was the festival director, which was quite a treat. The film shows a third time at the festival on Wednesday 10/10, but alas, none of us will be there.
In the meantime, a good friend of mine posted a blog entry about my blog entry, so I'm tying us up in knots further by blogging about his entry about my entry. He's an old friend from college and has made a name for himself as a voiceover talent / NPR dj. He's got a great blog about music (specifically jazz) with great musings about recording, musical personalities, and how music holds up and changes over time. He was interested to read about my musings on music in film, and specifically my experience working with Kate Simko, the composer for The Atom Smashers.
More interest: today and yesterday we received our first inquiries from down under, specifically from the Australian Centre for the Moving Image as well as a film festival in Perth. If we only had a nice, fat, travel budget...
Now we're gearing up for the Austin Film Festival, where we have a nice page here, as well as the Bergen Festival in Norway, with a page here.
In the meantime, a good friend of mine posted a blog entry about my blog entry, so I'm tying us up in knots further by blogging about his entry about my entry. He's an old friend from college and has made a name for himself as a voiceover talent / NPR dj. He's got a great blog about music (specifically jazz) with great musings about recording, musical personalities, and how music holds up and changes over time. He was interested to read about my musings on music in film, and specifically my experience working with Kate Simko, the composer for The Atom Smashers.
More interest: today and yesterday we received our first inquiries from down under, specifically from the Australian Centre for the Moving Image as well as a film festival in Perth. If we only had a nice, fat, travel budget...
Now we're gearing up for the Austin Film Festival, where we have a nice page here, as well as the Bergen Festival in Norway, with a page here.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Vancouver news (part 1)
Briefly, a picture of something every filmmaker would love to see: "Sold Out!" The first screening went beautifully, with a sold out crowd of about 250. Almost everyone stayed for a good Q&A afterwards. On my way now to the second screening, on a Sunday morning at 10:45. I'm guessing there won't be a "sold out" sign for this one...
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
What a Triumf
Found out that TRIUMF, a Canadian subatomic research laboratory, has decided to sponsor our film at the Vancouver Film Festival! I don't really know what this means, but they have a blurb about the film on their website! Thank you, TRIUMF!
Ahora puedo hablar espanol
It's fun to stumble across your work on the web somewhere. On this blog I have a thing called "statcounter" which tells me more or less how many people visit every day. I can even find out how they navigated to my blog. Turns out 95% of people end up on my blog from Wikipedia. People do a search for "Higgs" or "Higgs boson" or "Peter Higgs." At the bottom of the page is a tiny little link that says "An interview with Peter Higgs." It goes to my page. Not sure how it got there, but several people every day click on that link and end up in my blog. I imagine most of them click away almost immediately.
But another link caught my eye. A single, solitary person found my blog from another blog called "Astronomia." I clicked on the link, and lo and behold, found a very long blog entry dedicated to the film, complete with pictures, a write-up, some thoughts, and a collection of links. They even explain the origin of our company name, 137 Films, with a picture of our logo, and a brief bio on Monica and me.
All in Spanish.
You've read about Marcela Carena in my blog in previous posts: the Argentinian theoretical physicist (and tango dancer). I think perhaps she passed on some information to them. There is a brief interview with her.
How do I know this? Do I speak Spanish? Alas, no. However, Google is an amazing thing. Click a "translate this page" button, and presto!
My favorite translation is that Leon Lederman's (infamous) nick-name for the Higgs boson, the god particle, comes out as "The Particle of God." So much more dramatic. Overall, though, the translation seems to be excellent, aside from a consistent confusion of gender of the third person pronoun (both Marcela and the film itself are referred to as "him"). I'm very impressed with Google. Maybe I'm just happy to see someone writing about our film in another language.
But another link caught my eye. A single, solitary person found my blog from another blog called "Astronomia." I clicked on the link, and lo and behold, found a very long blog entry dedicated to the film, complete with pictures, a write-up, some thoughts, and a collection of links. They even explain the origin of our company name, 137 Films, with a picture of our logo, and a brief bio on Monica and me.
All in Spanish.
You've read about Marcela Carena in my blog in previous posts: the Argentinian theoretical physicist (and tango dancer). I think perhaps she passed on some information to them. There is a brief interview with her.
How do I know this? Do I speak Spanish? Alas, no. However, Google is an amazing thing. Click a "translate this page" button, and presto!
My favorite translation is that Leon Lederman's (infamous) nick-name for the Higgs boson, the god particle, comes out as "The Particle of God." So much more dramatic. Overall, though, the translation seems to be excellent, aside from a consistent confusion of gender of the third person pronoun (both Marcela and the film itself are referred to as "him"). I'm very impressed with Google. Maybe I'm just happy to see someone writing about our film in another language.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Keeping Score
Kate Simko, a local composer/electronic music artist with a pretty good national and international reputation, scored the music for our film. She just forwarded a link to a blog where she wrote about the process of composing the score for the film (Kate was a contributor to the blog; the blog as a whole is about the process of creating and listening to music).
It was really fun for me especially to read her entry. Andrew and I first met with Kate some years ago, as we were just getting started with the film. It was so early in the process that we didn't really have much to say about what we thought it would be like, so Kate listened to us and expressed her interest, and then we went our separate ways for about two years.
In the meantime, I fell into a trap that happens to many editors. (Monica fell into it, too). I fell in love with my temp tracks. This is a common phenomenon, and here's how it works: you have passed a critical phase in the edit. You've moved past "what should be in? What should be left out?" and are beginning to work on shaping, feel, tone, mood, rhythm. The fun part. You're no longer scouring transcriptions to find what quotes to use, you're so familiar with the "b-roll" (shots of buildings, landscapes, people walking, transition shots, or anything else that's beautiful or interesting that can be used to cover up awkward cuts, or shots that can take on metaphoric meaning when placed in context. Hmmm... I think I'll write a new entry in homage to the b-roll. Watch for that...) that you can draw from it at will, and you're constructing sections, conversations, phrases, moments. It's the real fun part.
So, naturally, one of the first things you do is to add music. Anyone who's ever edited (or even listened to This American Life, for that matter, knows the effect that the appearance of music can have on your material. Here's what Ira Glass himself said about it in a 1998 online article:
People ask, "Why do you put so much music?" It's because music is like basil. Everything's going to go better. Put it on, don't think twice. Chicken, vegetables — it's just going to be better.
Now, that was before This American Life was criticized for using music as liberally as, well, basil. They've since become a bit more careful about it. When I teach sound design at Northwestern, I often quote from the great film post-production intellectual Walter Murch, who lamented that many times editors used music to install or imbue a scene with emotion, rather than reflect and direct the emotion that (hopefully) is already there. In short, music often tells the viewer / listener "this is a sad moment. Hear the sad music? You should be feeling sad now." (This is how This American Life was criticized for its use of music: too often it served to tell the listener what to feel).
When done right, Murch claims, music simply unlocks or directs the powerful emotions that are already there. When that happens, it becomes a moment that is greater than the sum of its parts: the emotion in the scene and the music that appears catapults the experience beyond the left-brain understanding of what is being said and seen; the right-brain gets involved and the whole thing becomes magic.
So --- back to the temp music. Monica and I had discussed the music at length. The Tevatron (Fermilab's 40-year old particle accelerator) was a beautiful, ugly, advanced and primitive machine with percolating valves, hi-tech computers, rusting bolts, dirty concrete, gleaming surfaces, and a devious personality. What's more, it was located smack in the middle of a prairie, with native grasses and buffalo wandering around. We knew that somehow we needed music to reflect this crazy combination of unfathomable technology and raw nature. A tall order. Andrew, our producer, had introduced me to Jan Jelinek's music. It seemed to capture what we were looking for perfectly. It was electronic music, yes, but generated from dirty analogue sources. We fell in love with it, and I used it almost exclusively.
So much so, in fact, that I had a hard time trying to part with it. So, Andrew said, "well, why not ask if we can use it?" Being the producer that he is, he tracked down Jelinek's agent and inquired. Sure, we were told. We could use the music. As long as we licensed it.
At $120 per second.
Per second.
I did a quick tally. I had approximately 20 minutes of music in the cut. A cozy $144,000.
Suddenly parting with Jelinek's music was much easier.
Re-enter Kate Simko. We had gotten back in touch. She was ready and excited to begin working; it fell neatly between projects for her so she had the time. I screwed up my courage to tell her that I was really attached to the Jelinek music; most composers hate to hear that editors have fallen in love with temp music. It means they might be expected to try to mimic what's already there. With Kate, I felt instantly relieved. She said, "I love Jan Jelenik!"
She also stated in no uncertain terms that she was not going to be doing any mimicry. She had to have free rein to compose, not just replace. But having the temp music already there was, for her, a good starting point: it meant she didn't have to try to pick a director's brain about some of the basics of timing, mood shifts, rises and falls, etc.
Then the fun part began. Kate and I had many long conversations where we watched parts of the film and I got to expound on the emotional texture of the film. She asked me to just describe what the "feel" of the film was at a certain point, and she took copious notes. I'll quote here from the blog entry I referenced above:
Clayton and I went through the scenes in the film together and he provided poignant adjectives to describe the mood in each scene. For example, one of my favorite compositions, which we called "Tevatron Dream," was described by Clayton as, "the tevetron having a dream. slightly surreal; waiting, peaceful intermission; rye sense of humor, dreamy, wink in eye, half asleep, kicking back, relaxing after hard work; not dark, emotionally neutral." After understanding the underlying mood in each scene, I started collecting timbres, textures, and modeling synths that I thought might fit.
That phrase, "The Tevatron having a dream," was something that I came back to again and again. I thought it was an absolutely perfect way to describe the passage. If the tevatron could have a dream, what would it dream about? As this aging machine, contemplating the last years of its life, drifted off to slumber, what images would rumble around its four-mile ring? I suspect the Higgs boson would be part of it. I could imagine the Tevatron twitching as it slept, like a dog, its legs gently pawing at an imaginary lawn. The Tevatron might bump and rattle a little as it slept, drifting through the ether and racing across the universe, dragging through the Higgs field, bouncing between protons and electrons, sighing gently as it settled down next to the buffalo, then jumping up again as an anti-proton exploded into a shower of gluons and tau pairs.
I think Kate got it perfectly. It's an example of the incredible processes involved in creativity: taking a semi-incoherent series of descriptions (mine) through intense technology (Kate's synthesizers and computers) and emerging with something beautiful. (Trying to figure out how to post audio here; anyone know how to do it? Kate has an example on her blog of another cut from the film).
Over the course of several weeks, we posted files back and forth, and Kate was extraordinarily cooperative, going above and beyond the call by letting me sit with her and listen to the cuts in progress, patiently letting me say things like "it should be a little darker here" or "a bit too rhythmic --- can you pull back the beats?" I think it helped that I have a background in music, so I was able to talk to her about major and minor keys, tempo, tonality, and the like.
I'll wrap it up here by saying that Kate was extraordinary to work with. We ended up with something that exceeded what the temp track had done, because it was custom-fitted for the film. Rather than being a piece of music that was composed in Scandinavia and simply placed into a soundtrack, Kate's score was composed to match the characters and stories in the film. It rose and fell at the right moments, reflected the environment, and was guided by what was happening. It didn't install emotion into the scenes, but rather reflected what was already there.
I think Walter Murch would have approved.
It was really fun for me especially to read her entry. Andrew and I first met with Kate some years ago, as we were just getting started with the film. It was so early in the process that we didn't really have much to say about what we thought it would be like, so Kate listened to us and expressed her interest, and then we went our separate ways for about two years.
In the meantime, I fell into a trap that happens to many editors. (Monica fell into it, too). I fell in love with my temp tracks. This is a common phenomenon, and here's how it works: you have passed a critical phase in the edit. You've moved past "what should be in? What should be left out?" and are beginning to work on shaping, feel, tone, mood, rhythm. The fun part. You're no longer scouring transcriptions to find what quotes to use, you're so familiar with the "b-roll" (shots of buildings, landscapes, people walking, transition shots, or anything else that's beautiful or interesting that can be used to cover up awkward cuts, or shots that can take on metaphoric meaning when placed in context. Hmmm... I think I'll write a new entry in homage to the b-roll. Watch for that...) that you can draw from it at will, and you're constructing sections, conversations, phrases, moments. It's the real fun part.
So, naturally, one of the first things you do is to add music. Anyone who's ever edited (or even listened to This American Life, for that matter, knows the effect that the appearance of music can have on your material. Here's what Ira Glass himself said about it in a 1998 online article:
People ask, "Why do you put so much music?" It's because music is like basil. Everything's going to go better. Put it on, don't think twice. Chicken, vegetables — it's just going to be better.
Now, that was before This American Life was criticized for using music as liberally as, well, basil. They've since become a bit more careful about it. When I teach sound design at Northwestern, I often quote from the great film post-production intellectual Walter Murch, who lamented that many times editors used music to install or imbue a scene with emotion, rather than reflect and direct the emotion that (hopefully) is already there. In short, music often tells the viewer / listener "this is a sad moment. Hear the sad music? You should be feeling sad now." (This is how This American Life was criticized for its use of music: too often it served to tell the listener what to feel).
When done right, Murch claims, music simply unlocks or directs the powerful emotions that are already there. When that happens, it becomes a moment that is greater than the sum of its parts: the emotion in the scene and the music that appears catapults the experience beyond the left-brain understanding of what is being said and seen; the right-brain gets involved and the whole thing becomes magic.
So --- back to the temp music. Monica and I had discussed the music at length. The Tevatron (Fermilab's 40-year old particle accelerator) was a beautiful, ugly, advanced and primitive machine with percolating valves, hi-tech computers, rusting bolts, dirty concrete, gleaming surfaces, and a devious personality. What's more, it was located smack in the middle of a prairie, with native grasses and buffalo wandering around. We knew that somehow we needed music to reflect this crazy combination of unfathomable technology and raw nature. A tall order. Andrew, our producer, had introduced me to Jan Jelinek's music. It seemed to capture what we were looking for perfectly. It was electronic music, yes, but generated from dirty analogue sources. We fell in love with it, and I used it almost exclusively.
So much so, in fact, that I had a hard time trying to part with it. So, Andrew said, "well, why not ask if we can use it?" Being the producer that he is, he tracked down Jelinek's agent and inquired. Sure, we were told. We could use the music. As long as we licensed it.
At $120 per second.
Per second.
I did a quick tally. I had approximately 20 minutes of music in the cut. A cozy $144,000.
Suddenly parting with Jelinek's music was much easier.
Re-enter Kate Simko. We had gotten back in touch. She was ready and excited to begin working; it fell neatly between projects for her so she had the time. I screwed up my courage to tell her that I was really attached to the Jelinek music; most composers hate to hear that editors have fallen in love with temp music. It means they might be expected to try to mimic what's already there. With Kate, I felt instantly relieved. She said, "I love Jan Jelenik!"
She also stated in no uncertain terms that she was not going to be doing any mimicry. She had to have free rein to compose, not just replace. But having the temp music already there was, for her, a good starting point: it meant she didn't have to try to pick a director's brain about some of the basics of timing, mood shifts, rises and falls, etc.
Then the fun part began. Kate and I had many long conversations where we watched parts of the film and I got to expound on the emotional texture of the film. She asked me to just describe what the "feel" of the film was at a certain point, and she took copious notes. I'll quote here from the blog entry I referenced above:
Clayton and I went through the scenes in the film together and he provided poignant adjectives to describe the mood in each scene. For example, one of my favorite compositions, which we called "Tevatron Dream," was described by Clayton as, "the tevetron having a dream. slightly surreal; waiting, peaceful intermission; rye sense of humor, dreamy, wink in eye, half asleep, kicking back, relaxing after hard work; not dark, emotionally neutral." After understanding the underlying mood in each scene, I started collecting timbres, textures, and modeling synths that I thought might fit.
That phrase, "The Tevatron having a dream," was something that I came back to again and again. I thought it was an absolutely perfect way to describe the passage. If the tevatron could have a dream, what would it dream about? As this aging machine, contemplating the last years of its life, drifted off to slumber, what images would rumble around its four-mile ring? I suspect the Higgs boson would be part of it. I could imagine the Tevatron twitching as it slept, like a dog, its legs gently pawing at an imaginary lawn. The Tevatron might bump and rattle a little as it slept, drifting through the ether and racing across the universe, dragging through the Higgs field, bouncing between protons and electrons, sighing gently as it settled down next to the buffalo, then jumping up again as an anti-proton exploded into a shower of gluons and tau pairs.
I think Kate got it perfectly. It's an example of the incredible processes involved in creativity: taking a semi-incoherent series of descriptions (mine) through intense technology (Kate's synthesizers and computers) and emerging with something beautiful. (Trying to figure out how to post audio here; anyone know how to do it? Kate has an example on her blog of another cut from the film).
Over the course of several weeks, we posted files back and forth, and Kate was extraordinarily cooperative, going above and beyond the call by letting me sit with her and listen to the cuts in progress, patiently letting me say things like "it should be a little darker here" or "a bit too rhythmic --- can you pull back the beats?" I think it helped that I have a background in music, so I was able to talk to her about major and minor keys, tempo, tonality, and the like.
I'll wrap it up here by saying that Kate was extraordinary to work with. We ended up with something that exceeded what the temp track had done, because it was custom-fitted for the film. Rather than being a piece of music that was composed in Scandinavia and simply placed into a soundtrack, Kate's score was composed to match the characters and stories in the film. It rose and fell at the right moments, reflected the environment, and was guided by what was happening. It didn't install emotion into the scenes, but rather reflected what was already there.
I think Walter Murch would have approved.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Black and white and read all over
A brief interview with Monica and me in the Chicago Tribune in advance of our big show tonight at the Museum of Science and Industry...
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Speaking of competition...
We've found out that we're one of 14 documentaries in competition at the Vancouver Film Festival! 100 docs have been accepted, but only 14 are in competition. They even gave us a nice splash page --- in fact, I think the write up they gave us is about the best synopsis yet! We're showing three times there.
Also, we found out we've been accepted into the Austin Film Festival! Our drought of domestic festivals is finally over. We're in competition there, as well as in Paris. Keep your fingers crossed...
Also, we found out we've been accepted into the Austin Film Festival! Our drought of domestic festivals is finally over. We're in competition there, as well as in Paris. Keep your fingers crossed...
"I call it a competitive collaboration"
So, let's face it. CERN has stolen the show.
We all knew this was going to happen. The good old Tevatron (the accelerator at Fermilab) must be feeling a little neglected right about now. In our film, Ben Kilminster gives us an occasional countdown ("643 days until CERN starts up..." "422 days until CERN starts up"). For, as you will see when you finally get to see The Atom Smashers, Fermilab is in a race against CERN to find the Higgs boson.
And today, Wednesday, the time has come. CERN is starting up.
Rather than lament the passing of the torch, I'll join in celebrating the moment with the other gazillion physicists salivating for this behemoth to open its eyes and look around. In fact, many of the physicists at Fermilab are nearly as excited. Many of them are, in fact, going to ramp up working at CERN, making fewer visits to Fermilab. But, again, I'm not mourning. As Leon Lederman said, the relationship between the two labs is a competitive collaboration. Many results will be shared. So, I'm not going to rehash what this blog has explored in depth: the troubling future for this kind of science in the U.S.
I'll be excited, too. Because, let me tell you, physicists are ecstatic about this thing. How do I know? You can find out by watching this. You absolutely must, must, must watch it. There, I just watched it again. Who knew physicists could rap?
If we were still shooting our film, we'd certainly have the camera rolling at Fermilab, where they will be having, and I kid you not, a pajama party to watch the events live from a remote control room.
So let's all give CERN its due and celebrate this amazing technological marvel. It'll take a few months to get really rolling: this is just a baby step. But what a step...
We all knew this was going to happen. The good old Tevatron (the accelerator at Fermilab) must be feeling a little neglected right about now. In our film, Ben Kilminster gives us an occasional countdown ("643 days until CERN starts up..." "422 days until CERN starts up"). For, as you will see when you finally get to see The Atom Smashers, Fermilab is in a race against CERN to find the Higgs boson.
And today, Wednesday, the time has come. CERN is starting up.
Rather than lament the passing of the torch, I'll join in celebrating the moment with the other gazillion physicists salivating for this behemoth to open its eyes and look around. In fact, many of the physicists at Fermilab are nearly as excited. Many of them are, in fact, going to ramp up working at CERN, making fewer visits to Fermilab. But, again, I'm not mourning. As Leon Lederman said, the relationship between the two labs is a competitive collaboration. Many results will be shared. So, I'm not going to rehash what this blog has explored in depth: the troubling future for this kind of science in the U.S.
I'll be excited, too. Because, let me tell you, physicists are ecstatic about this thing. How do I know? You can find out by watching this. You absolutely must, must, must watch it. There, I just watched it again. Who knew physicists could rap?
If we were still shooting our film, we'd certainly have the camera rolling at Fermilab, where they will be having, and I kid you not, a pajama party to watch the events live from a remote control room.
So let's all give CERN its due and celebrate this amazing technological marvel. It'll take a few months to get really rolling: this is just a baby step. But what a step...
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
We're feeling accepted
More acceptances are coming in: we've been accepted to a science film festival in Paris called Pariscience, to one in Bergen, Norway, (our image on that link!) and we're waiting to hear from a big one called IDFA in The Netherlands. With the one in Milan from a couple of months ago and the one we're attending in Vancouver, it's striking us as a little ironic that we've been accepted to four, possibly five festivals outside the US but not one in our own country! Chances were looking good for the Chicago International Film Festival, but our screening at the Museum of Science and Industry makes us ineligible for that one.
We're getting a little press, too: recently we were interviewed for The Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media, and Public Policy magazine and Fermilab's magazine. Will post those when they come up. Hopefully more will follow... In the meantime John Conway did a blog entry about the film in the widely-read science blog, Cosmic Variance. Thanks, John!
We're getting a little press, too: recently we were interviewed for The Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media, and Public Policy magazine and Fermilab's magazine. Will post those when they come up. Hopefully more will follow... In the meantime John Conway did a blog entry about the film in the widely-read science blog, Cosmic Variance. Thanks, John!
At the museum
So, we've wrangled an exciting local event: we'll be screening the film at the Museum of Science and Industry as the kickoff to Science Chicago, on Friday, Sept. 19 at 7pm and again on Saturday the 20th in the afternoon (time TBD). The fun part is that we'll have a panel discussion afterwards with us, possibly a museum person, and several scientists from the film: Marcela Carena, John Conway, Robin Erbacher, Ben Kilminster, and Mark Oreglia! That should be really fun. If you're in Chicago, you should definitely be there!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Acceptance!
Yee ha! We just found out we've been accepted to the Vancouver International Film Festival! It's our first big festival, so it will be the official world premiere. I'm going to try to go --- all three of us would like to, but it comes down to travel money. We'll see. Our primary mission there? Try for Canadian TV distribution...
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