Scientist-Turned-Filmmaker to Show New Comedy Movies and Give Lecture on Scientific Communication from 11 to 13 September
Randy Olson is an independent feature filmmaker with a provocative sense of humor who also is a scientist with a doctoral degree from Harvard University in coral-reef ecology. His approach to communicating accurate scientific information to people who are not scientists is simultaneously humorous, serious, and passionate.
(Media-Newswire.com) - 22 August 2008 —Randy Olson, an independent feature filmmaker with a doctoral degree in coral-reef ecology, will be at Penn State for three days in September 2008 to share his humorous, serious, and passionate insights on the challenges of communicating accurate scientific information to people who are not scientists. On Thursday, 11 September at 8:00 p.m., he will show and discuss his film "Flock of Dodos," a documentary about attempts to influence public opinion about evolution and intelligent design. On Friday, 12 September at 7:00 p.m., he will show and discuss his film "Sizzle," a comedy about communicating the science of global warming. On Saturday, 13 September at 11:00 a.m., he will present a lecture titled "Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style" as the 2008 A. Dixon and Betty F. Johnson Memorial Lecture in Scientific Communication. All three events will take place in 100 Thomas Building on the University Park campus.
Randy Olson is an independent feature filmmaker with a provocative sense of humor who also is a scientist with a doctoral degree from Harvard University in coral-reef ecology. His approach to communicating accurate scientific information to people who are not scientists is simultaneously humorous, serious, and passionate.
He was a tenured professor of marine biology before changing careers to become a writer/director of movies that address issues in the world of science. "My main thesis is the somewhat shocking notion that academics, and scientists in particular, actually may be handicapped when it comes to mass communication," Olson said. His thoughts on this subject will be published in 2009 by Island Press in his new book titled "Don't Be Such a Scientist: The Hollywood journey of a scientist-turned-filmmaker."
Olson earned his Ph.D. degree at Harvard University in 1984 and he conducted years of field research on coral-reef ecology on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia and in the Caribbean throughout his career of nearly 20 years as a professional scientist. He achieved tenure at the University of New Hampshire in 1994, but by then, he said, he also had "descended" into the world of filmmaking through a series of award-winning short films. These films included a music video about barnacle sex and a humorous film on how to eat a lobster, titled "Lobstahs."
As a filmmaker, Olson began his formal education in 1994 when he entered the graduate film-production program at the University of Southern California. He honed his comic skills with a musical comedy short film, "You Ruined My Career," which was selected for the prestigious Telluride Film Festival.
The synthesis of his two careers began in 2001 when he reconnected with a number of his old marine-biology colleagues to create The Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project, which is a partnership between Hollywood and ocean-conservation organizations, with founding members including the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, The Ocean Conservancy, and the Surfrider Foundation. Over the next few years, Olson wrote and directed a series of television commercials, short films, and Flash videos that showed his unique blend of substance and silliness and drew on the talents of such comic actors as Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, and the Groundlings Improv Comedy Theater in Hollywood.
In 2005, Olson traveled back to his native state of Kansas to film a documentary feature, "Flock of Dodos: the evolution-intelligent design circus," which delved into the controversy over the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution. The result is a movie that stars his 84-year-old mother Muffy Moose Olson, a group of his old evolutionist colleagues playing poker, a number of animated dancing dodos, and an unintentionally entertaining group of anti-evolutionists. The National Review called the film, "an important accomplishment," and said, "Olson deserves accolades for his spirited defense of evolution." The New York Times said, "You'll flip for Flock of Dodos," when it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film now airs in rotation on Showtime.
For his second feature film, Olson chose to push the conventional boundaries of filmmaking by writing and directing "Sizzle: A global warming comedy," which is a unique blend of three genres -- mockumentary, documentary, and reality. "Sizzle wasn't about making a movie that plays to the interests and expectations of the science world -- Al Gore already did that -- it was about making a movie that the science world can conceivably learn something from," Olson said. His goal of also reaching a broader audience than traditional science films was secured by his premiering the movie at the Outfest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in July, 2008.
The film was carefully crafted to probe the boundaries and constraints to science communication. As a result, it often has divided the audience into scientists, who have a hard time with the mixed genres and comedy, versus the entertainment industry, which has solidly embraced the movie. The review by the scientific journal Nature was titled, "Climate Comedy Falls Flat," while the entertainment magazine Variety applauded the comedy and called the movie, "an exceedingly clever vehicle for making science engaging to a general audience." Olson says the divided reviews "beg the question of who are you going to trust for your movie opinions -- Variety or Nature?" However, a recent review published by NewScientist magazine says, "This excellent, thoughtful comedy should be required viewing for those who take global climate change seriously, those who don't, and the scientists who are trying to reach out to both."
[ R.O. / B.K.K. ]
CONTACTS Randy Olson: ( +1 )323-960-4517, rolson@usc.edu Barbara Kennedy ( PIO ): 814-863-4682, science@psu.edu
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