- Actually it was.

Because I went up there yesterday to see where the focal length was, and it was actually less than 100 millimeters to get a full frame.

- On the way far one?

- Yeah.

- All right.

- So, I think you'll be all right.

- Okay.

- Hey, yeah.

- Let's just talk, talk on the radio.

When you get there, if you don't think you can make it, or just tell me what you think it looks like.

- Okay.

- [Radio Voice] My manpower is leaving here, so I want have anybody to shoot a spill.

I just went in, quite understand that, but- - What's happening?

- [Radio Voice] Okay, Neil's radio strap is starting to break, so he gave me the red one, he didn't wanna take the good one.

He's got another one right now, we're gonna set the remote with it, he's putting it out there.

- (chuckling) This is gonna be something.

(equipment motor revving) All right.

- Okay, turn the switch on again.

- [Radio Voice] Off on.

- It's not working.

(boat humming) - What's going on?

- [Man] He said stand by.

Can you shut down?

- Yeah.

- [Man] We're on a film with it.

- On what?

- [Man] 35.

- I need the other magazine for this white camera.

It's in that aluminum case back there.

(camera buzzing) (bridge explodes) (camera buzzing) (reflective music) - (chuckling) I just barely turned this thing on in time.

(reflective music) - [Announcer] This program is made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Through the Central Educational Network.

- [Narrator] It's an early September morning in 1994.

A film crew is documenting the destruction of the old Clark Bridge.

Located a few miles up the Mississippi River from St. Louis.

This is the final chapter in a remarkable story of modern engineering, and human perseverance.

A story that would be told by Peace River Films for the acclaimed PBS Television Series, "Nova."

- Well, we like do science as an approachable.

We like to make science not be the science you had in ninth grade, and made you never wanna see a science book, or a science story again.

- I think some of the most interesting programs come from taking things that really are part of the everyday landscape of our lives.

And really dissecting them.

And people are just fascinated by that, really want to know how the world, both the natural world, and the man-made world is made and put together.

- I thought, well, let's find a bridge that's going to be built right now, and make a movie about that.

And, I sort of took the idea just in that form to "Nova."

And they were interested in it.

And said, "Go out and see what there is that's going on."

- So, if we're going to do a story about technology, if we're going to do a story about steel and engineering, and construction, let's tell it against the backdrop of bridging the Mississippi, which is a fascinating subject.

- [Neil] So "Nova" said this was an interesting bridge, let's do this one.

- All right so, why don't we start doing it here, and then your guy will be down there- - And he'll shoot, he can start- - [Narrator] Producer Neil Goodwin and the principle camera crew of Dick Taylor and Eric Nelson knew that the shear complexity of this project would prove a challenge to their collective experience as filmmakers.

Yet, no one foresaw how daunting that challenge would actually prove to be.

One problem was the enormous amount of film that would be shot.

Better than 400 rolls would be processed and logged.

A whopping 80 hours of raw material to be trimmed into a two-hour program.

- And at times, I could remember this, we would be shooting something, and I'd say to Eric, "Didn't we shoot this before last year?"

And sure enough, we had.

There was such a volume of stuff, that sometimes you'd forget what you already had.

- The really fascinating stuff in this film is the detail.

And we said to Neil, "More detail, more detail, more detail."

- Well, Neil's the kind of guy that always thought we were missing things.

And it funny.

He would call up and say, "Look, I gotta have this."

Okay, so I'd go out, and I'd schlep around, and I'd shoot for the day, and I'd come back, and I'd send it in, and I would get a phone call.

"You shot six rolls of film, my budget!"

I said, "Well Neil, you wanted a sequence."

"But yeah, six rolls of film, you're killing me."

(jet roaring) - I mean, it can be.

- It's gray, is that?

Well, I think most of the, well, winter's coming.

If that's what you mean, winter is on it's way, but- - [Narrator] Simple logistics posed another headache.

Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Neil was working on three documentaries at the same time.

- One of the keys to making this all possible was finding people in St. Louis who could help with this thing.

Because, I could only be out there myself so much of the time, and I really had to have a camera crew, local camera crew that you know, could kind of stay on top of this thing, and stick with it.

(equipment rustling) - [Dick] We weren't a Hollywood crew, we didn't have 20 guys behind us to schlep equipment, we were pretty much on our own.

And that was always a problem, because if you went out on a tug, you had to take everything with you.

The extra magazines, the battery, the film, because there was no coming back.

Lots of times, we'd be out there all day.

Once the boat left, that was it, there was no going back for anything.

Very, very rarely did we have the luxury of saying, "Could you do this for us again?"

Or, "Could you wait two seconds "while I get this shot setup?"

They didn't do it.

- I can see it fine.

- There's a moment I can still remember, I wish I had it, because it would of made a great deal.

But this guy was cutting through a steel beam with a grinder and he set his pants on fire.

Now, we missed it.

We missed it by two seconds.

- [Narrator] Research for "Super Bridge," began in early 1990.

The first roll of film was shot 10 months later.

It would be nearly five more years before the film would be completed.

In terms of television documentaries, this would prove an odyssey of grand proportion.

(haunting music) (haunting music continues) (wind rustling) (footsteps crunching) (labored breathing) - When anything big was happening with the weather, I'd get a call from Neil.

"Is it snowing there?"

"Is it raining there?"

"Is there a tornado there?"

"Go out and get it, I need shots of it."

"I gotta have shots of that."

Okay.

(wind rustling) (labored breathing) (equipment rustling) I mean, you look at how much time you put in to get in some little thing, and then you see it in the finished product, and it looks great, but you realize, "Boy that was a lot of work to get that."

(wind rustling) (water vessel horn beeping) - [Worker] Going up!

Going up!

Whoa!

(distant conversation and chuckling) (metal clanging) - I think the most dangerous stuff was, there were several times when were up top, and there weren't any railings at all.

You just had to step off the basket from the crane onto a, you know, wooden platform, it was maybe a foot and a half, two feet wide.

And I'm not afraid of heights at all, but I have to admit, that was a little.... (chuckling).

380 feet up, you get a little, a little queasy.

- It's worth asking anybody else.

- Sure.

- Because, it's gonna be a slow day, anyway.

I mean, how long are you gonna be up there for?

- Oh, I don't know, I feel no problem with that, that's fine.

You just have to, he'd have to...

I'm trying to think how we would over there now.

Because we don't have that ramp anymore.

I'll just climb up.

I like walking, getting out of that bucket, walking across there.

- I don't know, again, how do you get there?

- I don't know.

I may have to climb up, too.

- Let's start walking.

- You need to get somebody with a radio and see if it's possible to get that, I don't think you can get that car close enough for me to climb onto the tower.

- No, you can't, you can't.

- I'm just gonna climb up, that's what he does, that's how he gets up.

- Yeah, I know, but I gotta take the camera up.

- They must of had...Dick and Eric must of had to climb up.

I had forgotten about that.

But they must of had to climb up that entire tower, it's a 300 foot tower, carrying the camera and the tape recorder with them.

And I guess they did that once only.

It's the kind of thing that you don't wanna do more than once.

- Whew.

I'm halfway up.

(labored breathing) - What were you saying?

(muffled response) I got one.

(machinery buzzing) - This is our framing from yesterday.

Again, we gotta try and match this position as closely as possible.

- Neil wanted to try a couple of different things in this that uh, and it's the kind of things that you never really know if it's going to work.

And one of them was stop motion sequences that he wanted to do.

I can remember sitting out there for eight hours just listening to that camera click.

That every once in a while to make sure that it was going okay.

(gentle music) Ah.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (wind rustling) - [Narrator] Neil also wanted to experiment by animating still photographs.

A local photographer revisited permanently-placed camera mounts over a period of three years in order to produce a series of identically-aligned photos.

After Neil painstakingly ordered and processed this sequence of images, he had a show segment that lasted 17 seconds.

(reflective music) - This is a camera, this is a television camera.

Very small, quite high-quality.

And what we're gonna do is, put it in this tube, which has got a waterproof seal on the end.

And actually hold it under water, and we can see the propellers of the boat on these models as they go by.

Let me do that again.

One more time.

- [Narrator] In Vicksburg, the Army Corp of Engineers maintains a vast replica of the Mississippi River.

Detailed experiments were conducted to analyze the original design and location of the new Clark Bridge.

And, it's potential impact on barge traffic.

Once again, the filmmakers were experimenting, working to achieve an effect not fully defined, or scripted, in advance.

In fact, it was not until the last month's of editing, that the footage shot here, found it's way into the storyline.

- It's demanding.

It's not the kind of film in which you could build around, you know, a series of simple related interviews on a single subject, for example.

This is a multi-linear kind of story that requires a lot of balancing and braiding.

Let's try that again.

- You guys out here?

- Uh-huh?

- Pure hell.

(laughing) - Pure hell, that's right.

- Why is it pure hell?

- Every time you step back- - Oh, another camera guy- (all chuckling) - We about have a game plan out here before you walk up, and when you walked up, it just like, we vapor locked.

- Yeah, one of the hardest things on this project was to form relationships with the people working on the bridge.

They're construction people, they're blue collar people.

Very down to earth.

Not the type of folks who are used to having a camera stuck in their face.

- Look, I'm shooting, man, Jesus.

- I told you I was coming through (indistinct).

- Unbelievable.

Got my eye in there.

(metal clanging) They nailed me right in the camera.

Someone told me later on, this one guy just didn't like me.

Just did not like me.

He smacked this camera, and it's screwed up.

(off-mic dialogue) (metal clanging) Unbelievable.

But we worked so long with them, that it got to be as if we were one of the crew.

- I was in it last year.

Last year, January?

Was it January?

- How far did you fall?

- Well, I fell off that barge there, went downstream.

Back stroke, 10, 15 feet.

It's cold.

- What time of year was it?

- January.

- Oh, man!

The one that fascinated me the most was this guy that fell off the bridge.

I think that he kind of summed up their attitude.

The attitude was pretty matter of fact.

- Stay away from the barge.

- And, it's a dangerous job.

Really dangerous job.

- Well, if you go under a barge, the line jacket isn't gonna hold you up, you're just gonna slide along the bottom of that barge.

And, you can just get hung up there.

(overload switch buzzing) - The buzzer that you hear right there is the overload switch.

It means they got too much on the crane.

(switch buzzing) - It isn't even as loud as the one over there, is it?

- I know it.

- That one over there- - And what do they just figure that they'll let it go?

Or is it?

- Yeah, it doesn't throw the overload switch.

So, there's an overload switch, there's an override switch, it'll cut it off, it won't let it lift anymore.

- If it gets too far, huh?

- If it does that, sometimes we'll chance it, and I'll go up there and- - Turn it off.

- Shimmy a little bit with it.

Set the overload limit a little higher.

- Science is an adventure.

It doesn't just happen in labs, it happens on mountain tops, it happens in airplanes, it happens in space, it happens underwater.

The settings are very exciting and interesting, and adventurous.

And people have always liked adventure programs.

And the other thing about science is that basically it is a human, a human enterprise.

And programs about science should really be human interest stories.

- Everybody's happy?

- Oh, I don't know if everybody's happy.

- Well, everybody.

- I heard rumors of a few cost overruns.

- Well, well, that's management.

- Oh, I see.

- If you let it on too heavy, that'll get on, that will be on the cutting room floor, buddy.

(all laughing) - I'll tell you right now, we had a great time building this job.

This is better than building that arch, ain't that right?

(plane motor buzzing) (reflective music) - [Narrator] There comes a point in most documentaries when the story develops a voice of its own.

When circumstances ordain the rhythm and pace.

For "Nova's" Super Bridge, that point was no more evident than in the summer of 1993.

- Okay, Mike, ready?

And slide it.

What is uh, what does it make you feel like?

I mean, is this uh...you get used to this kind of thing?

Is this an act of God, you just have to roll with the punches?

What does this do for a contractor's life in business?

- It's a little difficult to get used to, 100 year flood rolling right through the middle of the- - [Neil] What it did, was it added a sort of an interesting layer to the story, just at the point when construction, the really interesting part of construction was done.

Whenever you're ready.

(motor humming) - [Dick] And that's one of the interesting things when you're doing a documentary, because you don't know what's going to happen.

And so, as a filmmaker, you're going "This is great."

As a human being, you're going, "This is awful."

- Get ready for tail slight.

Okay, do it.

(off-mic crosstalk conversation) - The corporate film about the chaos theory of flight and management.

- Not quite.

- She's a good person, everyone can- - [Narrator] Long before all the footage had been shot, or the bridge actually completed, Neil and two film editors began the daunting task of piecing together the first of what would prove to be many versions of the final program.

- It's a complicated film to put together.

It's complicated for many reasons.

One of them is that there's just an awful lot of footage to look at, and kind of keep in your mind all at once.

(film buzzing) - [Film Editor] Okay, here's a shot.

- I think it probably took us a month to look at all the footage.

And mark the shots that we thought we would wanna use, and figure out how to select them and assemble them, and things like that.

- Two rolls of 70 248, 400 foot loads, please.

- Come here, come on.

Come here.

Yeah, come here.

Good girl.

Yeah, what are you doing here?

You old dog.

(device buzzing) - Could you see this one?

- [Neil] I don't know where the creative center of this thing is.

It's not necessarily with me.

I mean, it's with, it kind of depends on, it's on who's really being the most kind of productive, or useful on any given day.

I mean, lots of times it's these two editors are really the creative center of the film.

Right now, they really are.

I mean, all I'm trying to do is to kind of keep things organized right now.

I mean, try to keep the story organized, and try to figure out the running order of things.

What we all are, are really storytellers working in the medium of film.

In the sense we're sort of, we're writers who write with pictures.

- Which one, the wide shot, this one?

- Yeah, I have a wide shot.

I mean, the thing is bouncing there.

You could use, you could use it, could you use?

I don't know if you could use it twice.

(reflective music) - [Neil] There are moments of just kind of peace out there, on the bridge site, which were in many ways, magic moments.

I mean I loved those times when, kind of the work was all done for the day, and you could just sort of sit there at the site and watch the sunset, or the sun rise.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) No matter what you do, it's a labor of love.

It's always, you know, you're always looking for a way of fulfilling some kind of a dream, or some creative kind of impulse.

- Oh yeah, as long as they built a bridge, we'd know we'd be here on the day they opened it.

All they had to do was finish the bridge.

And they sure did that.

- [Narrator] With a wind chill factor well below zero, the new Clark Bridge was officially dedicated and open to traffic in early January of 1994.

(pipe and drum music) - When we create something that some point starts having a life of its own, that's uh, you miss working on something that's like that, when it's all over.

You know, you do something like this for two and a half, three years, you leave something of yourself here.

And all of those guys who worked on the bridge, especially the ones who really put in the time, left something of their self there.

More than just bruised knuckles.

(band playing "Star-Spangled Banner") - [Narrator] Although the engineers and iron workers could take their memories and move on, it would be 18 months of rewrites and splicing, before the film would be completed.

Nearly five and a half years after Neil approached "Nova," with his idea, the story of this super bridge would finally be told.

- [Speaker] Illinois State Senator- - We can't use that any more.

- You can't use the sound?

- No.

- You don't want any of the (indistinct)?

- But yes, but I can't use that wire anymore.

- All right, well I can use- - Yeah, just take sound.

(fireworks exploding) (upbeat musical tag) - [Announcer] This program is made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, through the Central Educational Network.

(musical tag) - [Announcer 2] This is PBS.