It looks like “Bambi” will evade another spear, this one thrown by Alan Alda. Photo © Larry Engel 2008

We’re in the middle of a group of people sitting on the ground. They’re hitting rock against rock. Alan is among them. Flakes fly off from large chunks of black obsidian. They are all trying to make the perfect stone tool — a sharp-edged stone cutter that was used by early humans for hundreds of thousands of years in our past. We’re not in a terribly exotic location like Africa. No, we’re in the heart of Long Island, NY at Stony Brook, which is part of the State University of New York. John Shea is the group’s leader, a professor in experimental archeology. Alan has come to learn first-hand how early stone tools were made, and why making tools in the way that humans did deep in prehistory has so separated us from other tool-using and tool-making species.

I had to make sure that my lens was well-protected, so I put a clear UV filter in the matte box. This way, if a sharp flake hit the camera it would chip a $250 filter rather than a $25,000 lens. The flakes are harder than glass, and they’re sharp. In fact, surgeons use obsidian blades in some of the most delicate surgeries they perform.

Veronica Waweru sets Alan Alda up with replica bow and arrows. Photo: Maggie Villiger

We have a busy day ahead of us. First it’s the flaking. Then we head to the sports complex where we experiment with more sophisticated weaponry — spears and arrows. Being able to take down prey from a distance provides a great advantage over trying to attack it up close and personal. The move from hand axes to more sophisticated hunting tools (and techniques — including group, or shared, hunting) may have been one of those human sparks that we’re looking for. It takes more social interaction and trust to hunt together than to go it alone. It also indicates a move away from scavenging toward more aggressive hunting and larger prey.

Veronica Waweru, a Kenyan, is here on the ball field with us. The construction and use of arrows is her archaeological specialty. She’s especially interested in the contemporary and ancient use of poisons in conjunction with arrows. Arrows, she and Shea explain to Alan, are even more sophisticated than spears. They not only demand the construction of the weapon itself, but also of the launching device — the bow. This may have led to divisions of labor among the early toolmakers, perhaps another indicator of the human spark… more trust and social interaction.

In any case, everyone, including Alan, is taking aim at a Styrofoam deer that John plopped down in the middle of the field. No one is doing a very good job of hitting the target, and I’m trying not to laugh too hard and shake the camera when a spear does make its mark. Everyone takes several steps closer to the prey. No hits. Another few steps closer. Finally a few spears hit home, including one from Alan, who’s very pleased with his marksmanship.

With weapons and deer in hand, we finally head back to the classroom (after eating hand-delivered pizza in the lounge). There, John is preparing to demonstrate another example of early humans’ ability to make things.

We move the tables and chairs to the back of the room, hang a black backdrop, and put up a couple of lights so John appears more in limbo than in a classroom. I’m in very close to him with the camera. He had warned me that the flakes coming off the rock are extremely sharp and that I should wear gloves to protect my hands. I did for a while, but then after changing lenses for better macro (close-up) work, I didn’t bother putting the gloves back on. Big mistake.

I’m filming no more than a foot away from John and I feel a little touch on my left knuckle; I have my left hand out in front of the camera supporting the lens and focusing. Not thinking much about it, I keep filming until John stops working and looks at me. Peter Miller, our sound recordist and a good friend of mine, also looks down at me. I’m dripping nice deep-red blood all over my pants as I move to change the camera angle on John.

One small fleck has sliced my knuckle nearly to the bone. We scramble for the first-aid kit, clean the wound and bandage it up tight. Blood seeps through but eventually clots. The wound ends up healing fast and without a scar, something that John said would happen because it was such a clean cut. And I never even felt it.

John Shea displays his bead handiwork. Is this one piece of the human spark? Photo © Larry Engel 2008

Back to work, John is now working with a small stone tool with a pointy end to make an object that has little to do with hunting. He’s working with soapstone, a rather soft rock. He first takes the small piece of soapstone and whittles on one side, then the other, finally creating a tiny hole. Then he works around the hole, reducing the size of the stone until he’s made… a bead. He finishes his creation by staining it a deep red from a piece of ochre that he dissolves in a little bit of water.

As an experimental archeologist, Shea seeks to better understand our ancestors by discovering how ancient things were made and used. In struggling to manufacture primitive tools and artifacts, he learns to better understand the techniques, the raw materials and the labor needed for their creation and use. Beads have become something of a new passion for him and his peers – they indicate a capacity for art and symbolism and also that their makers had the time and labor to pursue the creation of objects not directly related to food and survival. They’ve recently been discovered in several new locations in Africa at sites that push the date for beadwork far deeper into our past.

As we’re about to wrap the day, we ask John what he thinks the human spark is. He answers that perhaps one spark was the creation of a hole in a small piece of stone.

Sound Recordist John Garrett and Director/DP Larry Engel size up shooting conditions.

The day we had scheduled to film with Harvard University’s Dan Gilbert dawned beautiful – but frigid! If we were planning to shoot in a lab or office, that wouldn’t really matter, but the idea was to film Alan Alda and Dan in conversation outside. We needed a compelling discussion because their talk focused on a topic that was crucial to our Human Spark story, but we also wanted an exciting location that added some visual flair to the film and subtly illustrated the breadth of our human abilities.

Producer Graham Chedd thought a chat en plein air would add the visual variation we needed and be a big improvement over the “two-guys-sitting-on-a-couch”-type shot that is too often the easy default. The goal was to position Alan and Dan in the middle of a footbridge that spans the Charles River between Boston and Cambridge. Luckily they were both very good sports and we had gloves!

Do you know who Dan is? If you don’t know him from his book Stumbling on Happiness [more info at Wikipedia], perhaps you saw his quote on a Starbucks coffee cup:

“The human brain is the only object in the known universe that can predict its own future and tell its own fortune. The fact that we can make disastrous decisions even as we foresee their consequences is the great, unsolved mystery of human behavior. When you hold your fate in your hands, why would you ever make a fist?”

In this video Dan talks about distilling his work down to a 59-word message – an ability closely tied to the Human Spark.

Larry Engel films Alan Alda with Dan Lieberman and a VERY old skull at Harvard’s Peabody Museum. Photo by Maggie Villiger

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

Can a Yalie survive a film shoot at Harvard?

What’s it like to film at Harvard or MIT, two of the most prestigious universities in the United States, if not the world? First of all, we know that there are a lot of really, really smart people here. Thinkers, researchers. So that’s a challenge in and of itself. But for a Yalie, it’s even harder. Okay, so I was at Yale way back in the late 60s and early 70s (during the Vietnam War protests and the Black Panthers in New Haven — interesting time — Google it!) so by now I should be over any sense of competition with Harvard, but alas I discover that The Game (keep Googling, but please come back) still compels me to be somewhat suspicious as we start production here.

Regardless of my slight unease, Cambridge is a beautiful city and Harvard’s campus a classic. Trees and green lawns — well-manicured of course — quads and ivy-covered buildings. Within these halls sit some really fascinating professors and investigators. Between Harvard and MIT, over the next few days Alan will sit down with eight researchers and their associates, and go for a “spin” in an fMRI machine (the big magnet!) Indeed the topics of conversations are far-ranging — from Stone Age tools to Theory of Mind to biomechanics — all in our continued effort to uncover the human spark.

Where to begin? Well, parking is always a challenge around any college campus and Harvard is no exception. It always takes an inordinate amount of time to unload gear, load into the building that we’re working in, and get the cars parked.

Larry sets up his shot to illustrate how human feet have evolved to withstand the impacts of running. Photo by Maggie Villiger

We start in the Peabody Museum and one of the first researchers we pay a visit to is Professor Dan Lieberman.  He looks at biomechanics — namely how we, and other animals, use our bodies to move through the world. He’s done research on running for many years. He argues that we humans evolved to become the best long-distance runners on earth. While we cannot out-sprint many animals, we can outlast them all — and that creates a real advantage for us.  Instead of attacking prey up close and personal (and thereby putting ourselves in peril), all we have to do is run our prey to exhaustion, then dispatch it. This change in hunting strategy may have been one of the “sparks” that we’re searching for. It may have pushed people toward more cooperative behavior, thus building closer bonds among us.

But what got me excited was that Dan has discovered that we’re really meant to run barefoot, not in soft cushy sneakers.  In fact, he tells Alan that running barefoot is around 15% more efficient than what we normally do. Dan takes to the treadmill to talk with Alan (Dan can run and talk at the same time frighteningly easily) and demonstrate how our bodies have evolved to support bipedal running, from the way our necks are connected to our heads to the way our hips are shaped differently than other primates’. The latter may have led to babies being born less developed (in order to pass from the womb through a narrower passage between the hips) and therefore in need of a longer growing cycle outside the womb.

But Dan also runs not quite barefoot. In fact, I’m intrigued with his non-sneakers. They have a rubber sole, but it’s very thin. No padding at all. A stretch fabric over the foot and a Velcro strap to hold it secure, really just protection for the skin on your soles. The coolest part is that it looks like a glove for your foot — each toe fits into its own little chamber.

Larry Engel outfitted in his new favorite shooting attire. Check out his feet.

I try one on and instantly like it. I like walking around barefoot anyway at home, and realize that these might come in handy, well “footy,” for filming. Here’s why: When you have the camera on your shoulder you usually want to minimize shakiness and create as smooth movement while walking as you can. One of my techniques is to use short steps and try to think of each joint in my body as a mini-gyroscope that helps separate my body’s movement from the camera’s. I also use sneakers with good soles and cushion. Now I wonder if maybe filming barefoot might not be better, at least for interiors. So in the next scene I take sneakers off and really like the way I can feel the floor and absorb the shocks of walking better!

Much to my wife’s chagrin (she knows I like gadgets), I order a pair.  I start training in them for outdoor and long-term use. Dan warned me that it takes some getting used to because you put different pressure on your joints and especially your calves. He recommends that I start with just two minutes of additional treadmill work a day in them. He also says that using them should help relieve knee pain and swelling, and back aches. Hmm. Well after a few days of taking them on the treadmill, I agree with him — my calves ache. On the other hand, my knees and back don’t.

I now shoot as often as I can with them. Maybe it’ll turn into a trend in the industry; who knows.

- Larry Engel
Director and Director of Photography

Alan looks on as Larry gets some closeup shots of chimps through the glass. Photo: Maggie Villiger

We hit the ground running. Alan had a quick press conference at the zoo, just by the chimpanzee area, and as soon as it was over, and before I was ready with the camera (I wanted to add a polarizing filter and matte box to cut down on reflections in the glass barrier), Alan and Brian Hare were immediately engaged in conversation. As in all of our shoots, this was a genuine discussion between Alan and the scientist and there’s no going back once their exchange gets rolling!

Reflections from the sun, smudges from the chimps – shooting at the glass enclosure had its challenges for Larry Engel. Photo: Maggie Villiger

So, we went to work. I had to be careful of our reflections but it was not an easy task and we picked up Graham, Maggie, John and me every so often. Further, with a small viewfinder, it was extremely hard to notice reflections in the background — unless there was movement. Nonetheless, Alan and Brian were talking about what we think chimps are thinking and how could we come to understand their minds better in order to understand ours better. And this was a great conversation.

Since Brian and Alan were talking to one another before the glass, they couldn’t quite see the chimps behind them. It was fascinating to listen to the conversation concerning our nearest living relatives and their framework for perceiving the world and communicating with us and one another — all the while watching them through the viewfinder observing Alan and Brian conversing. Every so often a chimp would sit down and simply stare at them. It was a wonderful image and a great moment. A few times one would come running down the path and bang against the glass, startling the two deep in discussion and making them laugh.

I must admit that I find zoos generally depressing. This is a feeling that I’ve had since I was a boy and my parents took our family to the Bronx Zoo many years ago, well before zoos changed much of the way they housed animals. But here, I better understand that in many ways zoos are critical to survival for many species and are also critically important to our quest to understand better who we are and how we are connected to other animals with whom we share the planet. I only wish I could meet our relatives face-to-face without the barrier of the glass. We have a chance for that if we get to Africa.

- Larry Engel
Director and Director of Photography

Check out a tiny excerpt from Alan’s remarks at the press conference:

Apache Junction, AZ

We spent this weekend in Arizona, filming by the light of a blazing campfire (and a literal truckload of lights, including our very own moon) a conversation Alan had with archeologist Curtis Marean about how modern humans came to replace the Neanderthals — who’d been doing quite nicely until our ancestors decided to leave Africa and check out Europe.

Keeping warm by the campfire in the chilly desert night air, he and Curtis had a great time together chatting about what our ancestors brought with them to Europe that enabled them to replace its then-inhabitants, the Neanderthals. Not what they brought in their hands, but in their heads — basically a more flexible approach to making a living and a greater capacity for cooperation among themselves. This emphasis on our social nature will be a major theme of The Human Spark.

– Graham Chedd

Here’s Director Larry Engel talking about his plan for filming this nighttime desert scene… and a glimpse of how it all looked in the end.

Volunteer Brian Moore receives instructions via a sign language interpreter before sliding into the scanner.

Today we’re in Eugene, Oregon. We started in the morning with what turned into a rather chaotic fMRI scene — six people in two locations. We were working with a deaf volunteer for a fascinating investigation into language and how the human brain understands grammar. The researchers are trying to figure out how we talk to one another — all over the world and in so many languages.

Warning sign outside the scanner room

What parts of our brain process language and its syntax? And what connections are there to other activities we humans pursue? What makes our species so good at gab?

Our volunteer went into the MRI and had to communicate with his sign language interpreter through a combination of mirrors and small video cameras. Because I had turned off all the overhead lights to create a more dramatic look for the scene, the volunteer had trouble seeing the interpreter in the control room via the mirrors and video screens.

The problem turned out to be that we had inadvertently turned on the neutral density filter on the camera so the monitor was dark not because of the lighting but because of human error…

We also can’t go very far into the MRI room with the camera or any ferrous (iron) metal. Because the MRI is a huge magnet, it sucks metallic objects from your hands into the donut of the MRI. If there is a person in there, there could be serious injury or death. Not to mention it would be the end of a very expensive piece of research equipment!

Larry Engel and John Garrett record picture and sound from just inside the doorway, while Graham Chedd keeps an eye on the monitor.

So we all tread carefully when entering the room. I can set a light at the perimeter and stand only a foot or so inside. We marked my forward limit with gaffers tape.

But because I enter a strong magnetic field even at the doorway of the MRI room, I still have to worry about the tape itself since it’s magnetic. So we always start with a fresh tape to make sure we don’t lose anything we shot before if the magnetic field erases the tape.

Also, the camera’s viewfinder gets instantly distorted — squeezed — by the magnetic field, making framing hard. Another step into the room and the image goes fuzzy — making it really hard to focus as well. Fortunately, these problems are only in the viewfinder, not on the tape. But I did have to rely on Graham just outside the door looking at the field monitor for focus and framing adjustments.

Nonetheless it was a good shoot and we got Alan into the MRI as well — got to see his brain at work from the inside!

More later, and thanks for reading.

Larry Engel
Director and Director of Photography

Filming Alan Alda’s conversation in motion, Director of Photography Larry Engel is guided backwards by Producer Graham Chedd.

Today was the first day that I worked with Alan Alda. All I could do was keep thinking of his work on M*A*S*H, one of those TV shows that sticks with you over time.

We packed a lot of shooting into the first day and only after do I have a chance to reflect on it. First off, Alan, who’s worked for more than a decade with Graham and therefore has a great relationship with him and the former crew of Scientific American Frontiers, is patient, generous, and engaging — on both sides of the camera. While I’ve been making films myself for more than three decades, it’s my first encounter with Alan and his cohorts in science filmmaking. That puts me in an awkward situation — the newcomer. But both Graham and Alan are taking their time and allowing for our collective learning curve.

Alan Alda, surrounded by production gear, grabs a rare quiet moment on the computer. Photo © Larry Engel, 2008

Alan, unlike many so-called “hosts,” is truly interested in speaking with and hearing from researchers at the cutting-edge of science and human understanding. He is honestly fascinated by their work and involves them in a true dialogue as he shares his own musings on the subject of human origins and that spark that happened so long ago. Alan is eager to enter into a true dialogue with these great minds. Several times over the course of the day I had to remind myself that I was filming the scene, not simply listening in on a great conversation. I think that this will make The Human Spark particularly compelling; we’re not just telling an important and wonderful story, but we’re sharing Alan’s quest to uncover and understand it.

Alan is tall; I’m short. I have to be careful as I film him not to get too close and create too low an angle on him. He’s trim, and carries himself with a slight lean forward — exactly as I remember him in M*A*S*H. Another adjective comes to mind: gracious.

More later, and thanks for reading.

Larry Engel
Director and Director of Photography