heads will blog

Fans of BloggingHeads.TV can now watch my latest diavlog with Big Daddy Chad (Orzel) of Uncertain Principles. We talked about dancing like a monkey, True Lab Stories, why choosing a small teaching college doesn't mean you're a "failure" in the Ivory Tower hierarchy, what's wrong with Neal Stephenson's Anathem (i.e., confusing Many Worlds with the multiverse, per Chad), and whether Cosmic Variance has sold out to The Man by moving to Discover magazine, among other topics. We only had an hour, so we did not discuss the "ghost muons" of Fermilab (neither of us being high energy physicists, how much could we have said?), or the direct observation of a new planet (announced right in the middle of recording the diavlog), nor did we explore the burning question of What the Hell Was Going on With My Hair. (The simple answer: it was a Bad Hair Day. Static cling is nobody's friend.) Next time, I hope Emmy, the Queen of Niskayuna, makes a cameo appearance.

We also talked about a new major development in my life that I haven't had a chance to blog about until now. It's jumping the gun by a few days, but since it came up on BloggingHeads: as of Monday, I'm the new program director of the Science and Entertainment Exchange (SEE), a fledgling initiative of the National Academy of Sciences to serve as a liaison between writers, producers, directors and so forth in Hollywood in need of technical expertise, and the scientists best able to provide that valuable input. I'll write more about it in the future, once we're fully underway, but here's a snippet from the "official" description of the program on the Website:

The portrayal of science – its practitioners, its methods, its effects – has often posed a challenge to the entertainment community. Though it has inspired some of the most intelligent and compelling storylines, science’s many complexities have confounded even the most talented writer, director, or producer, time and again pitting creative license against scientific authenticity and clarity.

Likewise, the scientific community has struggled to find an effective conduit through which it can communicate its story accurately and effectively. Though many of the world’s biggest problems require scientific solutions, finding a way to translate and depict scientific findings so that reach a wide audience has required a sounding board that has often been missing.

The Science & Entertainment Exchange bridges this gap and addresses the mutual need of the two communities by providing the credibility and the verisimilitude upon which quality entertainment depends – and which audiences have come to expect. Drawing on the deep knowledge of the scientific community, we can collaborate on narrative and visual solutions to a variety of problems while contributing directly to the creativity of the content in fresh and unexpected ways.

Regular readers know I have a long-standing interest in the intersection of science and popular culture, especially film and television. And now I have the opportunity to be involved with a program that I think has real potential to make a difference. There's never been a better time, given the plethora of prime-time TV shows with scientific content and themes. The biggest indicator of how strongly I believe in this, is my willingness to set aside a thriving freelance writing career that I spent 15 years building up, in order to embark on this new adventure. I'll still be blogging, of course -- with the obligatory disclaimer that anything appearing on the blogs is my personal opinion and does not reflect the views of the NAS or SEE -- and will finish writing the calculus book, but my primary focus for the foreseeable future will now be science and Hollywood. (Jen-Luc Piquant feels so fabulous by proxy.)

Let's face it: ragging on the depiction of science in film and TV is a time-honored tradition on the Interwebs. There's an entire Website devoted to Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics, and io9 just put up a poll asking readers to vote on which technical inaccuracies in science fiction annoy them the most. "Nuking the fridge" has a pretty high ranking, as does, say, performing delicate brain surgery in the back of a speeding van, but my pet peeve is the way science is often treated like magic: voila! Science saves the day! It's a miracle! I think real science is so incredibly cool in and of itself, and often stranger than fiction, as evidenced by io9's new list of the best real-life science fictional inventions of 2008. You really don't need to make anything up, or extrapolate very far from the truth.

That said, I'm convinced that while the constant snark directed at science in movies and TV might be entertaining to those in the "geek clique," it is not, in the long run, constructive, or conducive to fostering change in how science is portrayed in Hollywood. It's easy to point fingers and toss off zingy crowd-pleasing one-liners; it's a lot more difficult to actually offer well-considered workable alternatives in a format that is easily accessible to those in the entertainment industry. It should be a "win-win" for both science and Hollywood in terms of fostering creative cooperation between the two groups. I think the Science and Entertainment Exchange has the right idea, and I'm delighted to have the chance to put the hypothesis to the test.

Comments

[Lee Kottner]

Go Jennifer! You're going to be awesome in this job. I can't think of a better person to help make these two worlds understand each other.

[Annette]

Congrats on your new position! It's always a good day when women in science excel!

[Juan Nunez-Iglesias]

Brilliant! I can't wait to see the fruits of your labor!

[David Thalenberg]

Thank goodness! Every time I read an article that says the prevailing attitude in Hollywood to science fiction movies is, "It's only science fiction - it might as well be magic." I throw a wobbly (that's an English expression, meaning, roughly, having a spluttering incoherent expression of disbelief and anger.)
It's SCIENCE fiction! With SCIENCE!
All right, even Isaac Asimov admitted that you need FTL travel, otherwise it would be hard to advance a plot, and time differentials might be a bit hard to explain, but I'm so glad there's a writer who's good at explaining science, and who won't stand for nonsense in a position to make a difference.
Or at least move magic to one side and science to the other; you can't banish fairy tales.

[Igor Zolnerkevic]

Wow, I hope the big guys from Hollywood are going to attend the SEE November Symposium. Fortunantely, this can be a mindchanging experience for them.

[dr.dave]

what an awesome job. i'm insanely jealous. i bet you'll even get to go to the Technical Oscars next year!!

[Peggy]

Very cool! It seems like there's a lot of lip service paid towards science in Hollywood, and a lot of SF TV shows claim science advisers, but still there's not much plausible science that makes it to the screen. That makes me a bit skeptical as to how much influence the SEE will have, but I'd love to be proven wrong!

[Dave Mosher]

Jennifer, you are a professional b.a. Can't wait to watch some movie, TV show or other production with surprisingly believable scientific scenarios -- and know you were behind it :)

Also: I think if I see another movie with a monstrosity comparable to the "nuking a fridge" bit in the latest Indiana Jones movie, I'll cry myself to sleep for a week. So just remember that when you get asked for help on your first assignment...

[Jennifer Ouellette]

Well, the launch event was a smash hit, I think, so chances are good we'll see a sharp reduction in "nuke the fridge" moments as we get up and running. :)

[Jonathan Vos Post]

Jennifer, I was prompted to revisit this blog by today's (Sunday 7 Dec 2008) Los Angeles Times, whose article "Sci-Fi in Hollwood", by Mary McNamara, p.E8, mentions you and Science and Entertainment Exchange. Perhaps you can link to the L.A. Times' page, with its snapshots of John Noble as Walter Bishop on "Fringe", Rufus Sewell and Marley Shelton on "Eleventh Hour", and Emily Deschamel and David Boreanaz on "Bones."

You do know that I'm a scientist with megawords published (search for my full name on arXiv, and GoogleScholar) who has minor film and TV credits for science and space documentaries, uncredited Technical Advisor on Philadelphia Experiment II (replacing my busier friend Dr. Thomas D. McDonough who was credited Technical Advsior on Philadelphia Experiment) and who did story and rewrite for Steve Barnes's most popular episode ever of "The Wizard" (and was live in NBC-TV "Today Show" with my guest-of-guest Isaac Asimov, as well as other national live broadcasts on CBS, ABC, and various Fox and PBS gigs). So do put my name in the database, and give me a call the next time you run one of the Producers/Directors meet Scientists events. Don't mention that I won a unanimous California Supreme Court decision against the two producers at Raleigh Studios who refused to pay me and my Physics professor wife for our work on the edutainment CD-ROM "Voyage Through the Solar System" and sequels. Do mention my coauthorships/coeditorships with Sire Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury and Robert heinlein, and that my start in video was on a grant directly from fellow Caltech alum Frank Capra.