{"id":240,"date":"2009-06-10T15:00:33","date_gmt":"2009-06-10T19:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/humanspark\/?p=240"},"modified":"2018-09-10T15:14:44","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T19:14:44","slug":"spark-blog-video-filming-on-a-freezing-footbridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/humanspark\/video\/spark-blog-video-filming-on-a-freezing-footbridge\/240\/","title":{"rendered":"Spark Blog: Video: Filming on a Freezing Footbridge"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-240-1\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/humanspark\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/john-larry.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/humanspark\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/john-larry.mp4\">https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/humanspark\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/john-larry.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p><em>Sound Recordist John Garrett and Director\/DP Larry Engel size up shooting conditions.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The day we had scheduled to film with Harvard University\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wjh.harvard.edu\/~dtg\/gilbert.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Dan Gilbert<\/a> dawned beautiful \u2013 but frigid! If we were planning to shoot in a lab or office, that wouldn\u2019t 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 <em>Human Spark<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n<p>Producer Graham Chedd thought a chat <em>en plein air<\/em> would add the visual variation we needed and be a big improvement over the &#8220;two-guys-sitting-on-a-couch&#8221;-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 <em>they<\/em> were both very good sports and <em>we<\/em> had gloves!<\/p>\n<p>Do you know who Dan is? If you don&#8217;t know him from his book <em>Stumbling on Happiness<\/em> [<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stumbling_on_Happiness\" target=\"_blank\">more info at Wikipedia<\/a>], perhaps you saw his quote on a Starbucks coffee cup:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;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?&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In this video Dan talks about distilling his work down to a 59-word message \u2013 an ability closely tied to the <em>Human Spark<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-240-2\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/humanspark\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/starbucks-512.mp4?_=2\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/humanspark\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/starbucks-512.mp4\">https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/humanspark\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/7\/files\/starbucks-512.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sound Recordist John Garrett and Director\/DP Larry Engel size up shooting conditions. The day we had scheduled to film with Harvard University\u2019s Dan Gilbert dawned beautiful \u2013 but frigid! If we were planning to shoot in a lab or office, that wouldn\u2019t really matter, but the idea was to film Alan Alda and Dan in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267,505,69],"tags":[572,9825,567,4547,5298,725],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-behind-the-scenes","category-blog","category-video","tag-alan-alda","tag-behind-the-scenes","tag-graham-chedd","tag-harvard-university","tag-john-garrett","tag-larry-engel"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Spark Blog: Video: Filming on a Freezing Footbridge | The Human Spark | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/humanspark\/video\/spark-blog-video-filming-on-a-freezing-footbridge\/240\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spark Blog: Video: Filming on a Freezing Footbridge | The Human Spark | PBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sound Recordist John Garrett and Director\/DP Larry Engel size up shooting conditions. 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