{"id":640,"date":"2008-03-16T22:09:52","date_gmt":"2008-03-16T22:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2008\/03\/16\/in_which_i_smile_for_the_cameras\/"},"modified":"2008-03-16T22:09:52","modified_gmt":"2008-03-16T22:09:52","slug":"in_which_i_smile_for_the_cameras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2008\/03\/16\/in_which_i_smile_for_the_cameras\/","title":{"rendered":"In which I smile for the cameras"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like many scientists, I often gnash my teeth at the way our profession is portrayed in science documentaries. Yet at the same time, I have always suspected that it is not as easy as it looks. So it was with genuine curiosity that I accepted a consultancy to help out with Science on Film<\/a>, a joint project between the Wellcome Trust<\/a> and the Documentary Filmmakers Group<\/a>.
\nScience on Film brings together eight practicing scientists with eight young filmmakers, who in pairs are coached through the entire process of creating a short science documentary from initial idea to gala launch screening. The ultimate goal is to teach the participants more about what goes into making a skilled science documentary: the filmmakers will hopefully learn more about how best to portray a complex scientific topic in a fair, balanced, understandable and entertaining way, while the scientists will ideally come away with a better idea of how difficult this balancing act can be. <\/p>\n

\nThe course, still ongoing, spans three long weekends and teaches narrative, story research, interview skills, camera work, editing and other technical aspects. And I’ve run a few workshops with them about what science is really like: the processes, the lifestyle, the culture, the history, the myths and realities, the stereotypes \u2013 in short, the good, the bad and the ugly. In parallel, listening to the filmmakers’ point of view has been eye-opening. Aspects about science filmmaking that I despise \u2013 for example, the tired old narrative formula that BBC Horizon used to employ on every one of its films \u2013 were held up by the film tutor as shining examples to be emulated. Yet in listening to the justifications for these points of view, without being entirely converted I at least came away with something to think about.<\/p>\n

\nThis past Friday, they all came to my lab to practice filming scientists in their natural habitat. Have you ever tried to fit in eight cameras and affiliated paraphernalia, sixteen filmmakers, one tutor and two assistants into a lab containing only four bays? Come to think of it, have you ever had to pin down eight scientists and make them stay in the same place for more than ten minutes? The filmmaker mob descended just after lunchtime, lugging their cameras, wielding furry-tipped booms and looking around expectantly. The head tutor turned visibly pale when he saw that not a single one of my colleagues was yet in evidence. As tumbleweeds blew through the empty room, I attempted to round up my labmates by mobile phone: tutorials had run over; a train was delayed; a confocal experiment was playing up; our Italian undergradute really just wanted to finish her lunch in a leisurely fashion. I even had to commandeer a reluctant technician from the lab next door to make up the numbers. <\/p>\n

\nBut eventually we’d all settled down, each filmmaker pair interviewing and filming its designated scientist. I had had no idea how my colleagues would react to this strange invasion into their precious time, but soon was able to breathe a sigh of relief: real chemistry seemed to be developing and everyone was getting on splendidly. I did overhear a few altercations (“What do you mean, you don’t understand the words ‘apoptosis’ and ‘epithelia’?” the Chinese student demanded. “How else can I explain my project?”) and watched with amusement as one of the crews persuaded a post-doc who works exclusively with cell culture to hold a vial of fruit flies and squint at them down the microscope.<\/p>\n

\nBut now I know, at least in part, how some of those irritating scientist clich\u00e9 memes get transmitted in science documentaries. When there is a camera in front of you begging for something televisual to happen, you can’t really help acting out the part. So it was that I found myself possessed by the Spirit of Channel 4, holding an Eppendorf tube up to the light and sagely inspecting it as I flicked its contents in agonizing slow motion, just as I’ve seen in thousands of canned shots before. <\/p>\n

\nWe all know how we’re supposed to act, and remarkably, this is exactly how it unfolds. How many other stereotypes are out of our conscious control?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like many scientists, I often gnash my teeth at the way our profession is portrayed in science documentaries. Yet at the same time, I have always suspected that it is not as easy as it looks. So it was with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}