The New Mexico Museum of Natural History is developing a large format film on the Pantanal in Brazil, the world's largest wetland. The film will focus on the Hyacinth Macaw, an indicator species whose health reflects the health of the entire ecosystem, and will explore the relationship between the climate, geology, hydrology and ecology of the region. It also will examine three threats to the region: a large scale river channeling project which would drain 50% of the marsh, gold mining activities that dump millions of tons of sediment into streams, and large-scale corporate farming which pollutes the region with pesticide and fertilizer run-off. Science content for the series will be under the direction of Dr. Richard Smartt, former Director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. The series will be co-produced by Timothy Aydelott, from the museum, and Constance Bennecke, an independent producer in Brazil. Barrie Howells will be executive producer and Rodney Taylor will be director of photography. Both Mr. Howells and Mr. Taylor have extensive large format film experience. Ralph Adler of RMC Research will conduct audience research during the planning phase The major activities during the planning stage include: Conducting audience research to determine the familiarity of the public with the ecosystem and with the concepts to be presented in the film. In addition to topic testing, the research will assess the audience's current knowledge or misconceptions about wetland ecosystems and the Pantanal; Convening the project advisors to develop the science content, finalize content goals, and to suggest ideas and strategies for presenting the science; Attending a regional planning conference in the Pantanal to establish working relationships with scientists in the field; Developing a script treatment for the film.
The Science Museum of Minnesota is developing, producing, and distributing a project on the geography of some of the most dynamic regions of the world. This is a joint venture between the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History with additional support from the St. Louis Science Center. The core element of the project is a 40-minute Imax film the examines seven geographically diverse locations on earth: Madagascar Iguazu Falls The Amazon Greenland The Okavango Delta The Namib Desert The Tibetan Plateau Supporting material for the film will include: o Teacher Guide - 36 to 40 pages of hands-on science activities o Family Guide - to help parents share science and geography with children through simple, at-home activities; geography o Geography Museum Trunk - a steamer trunk filled with artifacts, specimens, activities, and resource materials available for rental to school, museums, and other groups o Greatest Places On-Line - A World Wide Web site with activities for youth and adults to explore the interrelationships of earth, air, water, and life in their local region and a "living atlas" as a forum for comparing and sharing observations with others around the world. o Summer Educator Institutes - where formal and informal educators will receive intensive training in utilizing all aspects of the project with multiple audiences. o Accessibility Guide - which outlines programs and options to provide no- or low-cost viewing for underrepresented audiences. The project will be guided by Geography for Life: The National Geography Standards and Expectations of Excellence: Curriculum Standards for Social Science. Dr. Mel Marcus, Professor of Geography at Arizona State University, will have primary responsibility for content. He will work closely with an advisory group of geographers, ecologists, and formal and informal educators. The PI and Executive Producer of the film will be Mike Day, Director and Executi ve Producer of the Science Museum of Minnesota Omnitheater and Executive Producer of seven previous Imax films.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Mike DayNatalie RuskCharlie WatersMelvin MarcusBarbara Flagg
This 1 1/2 hour documentary film portrays the famous anthropologist's life history, her work, and her audience against the background of 20th century American history. The proposed work, a blend of never-before-seen archival footage and stills, on-location footage, live interviews, and three newly created impressionistic vignettes, is intended for general and scholarly audiences. It is based completely upon original historical research.
The large format film unit at NOVA/WGBH Boston, in association with the Liberty Science Center, is producing a 40-minute large format film about the science of volcanology. Volcano: Lost City of Pompeii will tell the story of a diverse group of scientists working together, each in his or her specific field, to understand better how Vesuvius can reasonably be expected to behave - today and in the years to come. Following the scientific teams, the film will impart a basic understanding of magma flow and plate tectonics, the geological building blocks out of which volcanoes emerge. The film will blend geology with archaeology to tell an ongoing detective story - a present-day scientific investigation that integrates state of the art techniques and technology with ancient evidence derived from buildings, victims' remains, and vivid eyewitness accounts that go back nearly 2,000 years to the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The range of scientific disciplines involved in the film includes: geochemistry, geology, geophysics, remote sensing, plate tectonics, seismology, archaeology, and volcanology. The film will be available with both captioning for the hearing impaired and visual description for visually impaired members of the audience. The film will be supported by an extensive educational outreach plan that includes: Pompeii Earth Science Exploration, a program targeting underserved and disadvantaged youth at 100 Boys & Girls Clubs nationwide; Pompeii Museum Toolkit, a blueprint enabling museums to integrate existing exhibitry with use of the film and including models for outreach initiatives built around the film; Pompeii Activity Guide, an activity guide for us with upper elementary and middle school youth in both informal and form science education settings, and; Pompeii Idea Handbook, a booklet for museums that shares successful outreach programs implemented by museums showing the film during the first year. Paula Apsell, Executive Producer of N OVA and Director of the WGBH Science Unit, will be the PI. The Co-Executive Producer will be Susanne Simpson who previously produced such large format films as Storm Chasers and To the Limit. The Key Scientific Advisor will be Richard Fisher of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Others on the advisory committee include Lucia Civetta, Director of Osservatorio Vesuvio; Diane Favro, Assoc. Prof. in the School of Arts and Architecture at UCLA; Grant Heiken, President of the Earth and Environmental Science Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory and President of the International Society of volcanology; Dan Miller, Chief of the U.S. Geological Survey's Disaster Assistance Program; Haraldur Sigurdsson, Professor in the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island; and Barbara Tewksbury, Professor of Geology at Hamilton College and past president of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers. Emyln Koster, President and CEO of the Liberty Science Center, will act as key education advisor.
Stephen Low Productions, Inc., is testing the viability of shooting large format film of volcanic vents on the deep ocean floor. The tests will be carried out during the course of the currently scheduled November,1999, dives involving the deep sea submersible, Alvin, at the 9 Degree North site on the East Pacific Rise. The expedition plans to shoot approximately 20,000 feet of 15 perforation, 70 mm film resulting in approximately 10 to 20 minutes of footage. The objectives of this research are to confirm the feasibility of lighting and filming the deep sea volcanic vents in the large film format from Alvin, and to develop and optimize the deep water, large-format filming capabilities of Alvin. The research effort is proposed on behalf of a consortium of US based organizations now forming for the production of a 40-minute, large format film, Volcanoes of the Abyss. Key production personnel involved in this research will be: Stephen Low, Director/Producer; Pietro L. Serapiglia, Producer; William W. Reeve, Camera Specialist; and Alexander Low, Project Manager. Scientists working with the production crew in this phase are: Richard A. Lutz, biologist from Rutgers University; Fred Grassle, Director, Institute of Marine & Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University; Dave Gallo, Director, Special Projects, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; and Emory Kristof, Deep Sea Imaging Specialist, National Geographic Society.
Volcanic Ocean Films, Inc. is testing the viability of shooting large-format film of volcanic vents on the deep ocean floor. The tests will be carried out during the course of the currently scheduled November, 1999, dives involving the deep sea submersible, Alvin, at the 9 Degree North site on the East Pacific Rise. the expedition plans to shoot approximately 20,000 feet of 15 perforation, 70-mm film resulting in approximately 10 to 20 minutes of footage. The objectives of this research are: o To confirm the feasibility of lighting and filming the deep sea volcanic vents in the large film format from Alvin and o To develop and optimize the deep water, large-format filming capabilities of Alvin. The research effort is proposed on behalf of a consortium of US-based organizations now forming for the production of a 40-minute, large-format film, "Volcanoes of the Abyss." Key production personnel involved in this research will be: Stephen Low, Director/Producer; Pietro L. Serapiglia, Producer; William W. Reeve, Camera Specialist; and Alexander Low, Project Manager. Scientists working with the proudction crew in this phase are: Richard A. Lutz, biologist from Rutgers University; Fred Grassle, Director, Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University; Dave Gallo, Director, Special Projects, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; and Emory Kristof, Deep Sea Imaging Specialist, National Geographic Society.
The Cincinnati Museum of Natural history, working with MacGillivray Freeman Films, will conduct developmental work on an OMNIMAX/IMAX film about caves. This pilot phase will include: (1) Development of a treatment for the film that takes advantage of the qualities of the IMAX medium; maintains the high quality science which is in the preliminary draft treatment; and adds the storyline, adventure, and interest factors needed to attract and hold an audience. (2) Conduct trial filming in a cave to test the feasibility of working in this "hostile" environment. No post production will be completed on this short footage at this stage of the project. However, the film will demonstrate the ability to film with the bulky IMAX equipment well into a cave, to produce moving camera shots if they may be part of the film, and to get sufficient lighting into the cave to shoot high quality film.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kit AndersonJacqueline BelwoodBarbara Flagg
Rutgers University is developing a large-format, scientific, documentary film about the evolving scientific investigation of deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Volcanoes of the Abyss (working title) will be produced in conjunction with Volcanic Ocean Films and produced/directed by Stephen Low. It will examine the communities these vents support and their relationship to the surrounding environment. It also will consider the implications vent discoveries have for our understanding of the evolution of life and our search for life elsewhere in the Cosmos. Much of the filming will be done from on board the Alvin deep ocean research vessel. The companion Educational Outreach Program will reach students in middle and secondary schools and at the college level. Print-based and web-based material also will be designed for use by families. The film and the outreach materials together will be the basis of a substantive educational effort to inform the public about the intricacies and significance of the fascinating, but largely unknown, ecosystem.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Richard LutzAlexander LowStephen LowBarbara Flagg
This project will communicate to public audiences the results of NSF grant DEB-9817777, "Earth System History in the Urban Landscape -- Implementing Geosystem Resource Management in Regions of Rapid Urban Growth." Building on prior experience producing NSF-funded video productions, the PI will produce a 10-15 minute video presenting the concept of "geoantiquity," defined as a natural record of earth history that documents environmental change. The video will highlight the steps taken by earth scientists to achieve geoantiquity designation for geologic landforms created by Pleistocene Lake Bonneville in the Salt Lake City, Utah area. The target audience is the general public, but also those actively engaged in land use issues, such as government land management and planning officials, politicians, developers and landowners.
This Communicating Research to Public Audiences (NSF 03-509) project in partnership with the American Museum of Natural History will produce a 7-minute High Definition video documentary feature story, Moving Mountains, that follows researchers in the field during the third season of the five year St. Elias Erosion/Tectonics Project (STEEP). STEEP (NSF award #0409009/0735402) is a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional study using geophysical, geological, and climatological methods to investigate a fundamental Earth science research issue. This project affords a unique opportunity to illustrate the diversity of techniques that are brought to bear in modern research efforts in the Earth sciences. The video will be projected on a 12-foot screen in the American Museum of Natural History's Hall of Planet Earth and displayed in adjacent kiosks. It will also be distributed as HD Mpeg2 files to a network of 21 informal science institutions reaching a potential viewer ship of over 7 million people. Two master versions of the video will be produced: one with English language captions and one with Spanish language captions.
The Cincinnati Museum of Natural History and Science (CMNHS) is producing a large format film on caves. The film will be a multidisciplinary introduction to the little-understood world of caves and cave science. Caves will introduce viewers to the alien beauty and wonder of caves and the scientists and explorers who study them. It will explore the formation of caves and speleothems, the highly adapted life-forms found in caves and the varied use of caves by people, past and present. A comprehensive educational package of ancillary materials will be available to schools and to the general audience. The PI for the project will be Kit Anderson, Director of Film Projects for CMNHS. The principal science content specialist will be Jacqueline Janine Belwood, a researcher in vertebrate zoology at CMNHS. She will work closely with an advisory committee of eighteen experts in caves, in the various science disciplines relevant to the cave environment, and in large format films. She also will have access to the expertise found among the staff of the CMNHS. The film will be produced by MacGillivray Freeman Films, the company that produced the large format film, "To Fly".
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Kit AndersonJacqueline BelwoodBarbara Flagg
National Geographic Television, in Collaboration with Graphic Films, is producing a 40-minute, large-format, documentary film about the scientific quest to understand some of the most dramatic geological and meteorological events we experience -- volcanoes, earthquakes and violent storms. The goals of the film are to inform audiences about geological and meteorological forces which greatly impact our planet, present the scientific research being performed in an effort to understand and predict these forces, portray scientific role models and to stimulate a greater appreciation and interest in the Earth sciences. Informal education outreach will include: A "Forces of Nature" website that will include educational resources targeted to the general audience as well as to students and teachers. Museum and Family Activity Guides The National Geographic Society will support public programs at science-technology centers by providing access to scientists who work in the areas of science covered in the film. National Geographic's cable program Explorer (carried on MSNBC) will produce a themed show around "Forces of Nature" to coincide with the launch of the film. A companion book In addition, outreach materials for formal education will include: A "Forces of Nature" Teacher's Guide A teacher training seminar to be conducted at the first 20 theaters in the U.S. that lease the film Workshops at the national conferences of the National Science Teachers Association, the National Council for the Social Studies and the National Council for Geographic Education. Instructional information in National Geographic for Kids, the classroom magazine for elementary school students in grades 3-6. The Executive Producer for the film will be Lisa Truitt. George Casey will be the Producer/Director. The Lead Science Advisors are Stephen Schneider, Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change, Stanford University; James Shymansky, Professor of Science Education, University of Missouri-St. Louis; and James Walker, Professor Emeritus, Space Physics Research Lab, Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Science, University of Michigan.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Lisa TruittGeorge CaseyPaul NovrosBarbara Flagg