Karen's Daily Blog

Hey, I don’t know if you’ve been checking out the beautiful videos on this site. If you haven’t, go look at some now, then come back and read about the person who filmed them. She’s our very own Extreme videographer Lauren Farrar. An independent filmmaker who lives in New York City, Lauren went to college at the University of Southern California and was part of Dave Caron’s lab. She’s into science and film, and if you think that’s an odd combination, think again. Who do you think made Planet Earth? Or National Geographic specials? Or all those great shows on the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet? That’s right: people who are into science and film. A nifty combo.

Lauren demonstrates what they said NOT to do in film school: dangle your camera over the ocean!

“My goal is to be the Ken Burns of scientific films,” Lauren says. (With his films, Ken Burns has gotten many people fired up about history.) “I read a lot more nonfiction and watch more documentaries than fiction. I think people’s real stories are more captivating than what can be made up.” Her job on this ship is to watch all the video recorded during Alvin dives, and to flag whatever seems important or interesting for scientists or the Extreme website. But she’s also in the process of making her own film about the Extreme 2008 research cruise. (For more, see Lauren’s Extreme Blog, November 11.)

Everything that happens on this cruise, Lauren is there filming it, silently, with her microphone and her camera in her hand. “My intent is to present everyone as heroes.  Well, not as heroes exactly, but I want the drama to be within the science itself, that’s the emphasis of the film. I don’t want to focus on any of the human drama behind it. The story line is the science itself, but the characters are the ones driving the stories.”

Drama? This is a research cruise. Exactly, says Lauren. “There’s a limited time. You have this many dives to get this amount of research done. What if you lose a dive – how is your science affected by that? What if you can’t find what you’re looking for? What if a trap burns? What if the LVWS hose goes bad and keeps pumping and you have to throw away all that data? I never know what’s going to happen. There’s conflict here.  The key is presenting it in an entertaining way so that people care about it.”

“The hardest part of me being out here is I don’t want to interfere with the science at all,” says Lauren. “I want to get the interviews and get the footage I need, but I don’t want to get in the way or mess anything up. There are a lot of people who are camera-shy that I wouldn’t think would be.  People are more comfortable with me because I have a science background, so I think I’m getting a lot more footage than if I was somebody they didn’t know or was somebody more intimidating. Having a background in science makes me more accessible. People aren’t talking down to me when they’re explaining things, which I really appreciate.”

Lauren interviews Alvin pilot Mark Spear on the bow of Atlantis

Lauren’s job, as she sees it, is observing, recording, and figuring out which way the stories go, rather than shaping them. She has no script. “I’ll go through a lot of rough cuts, I’ll have three or four different story angles I’ll play with and I’ll try to figure out which one I think reads best, what is most dynamic, what resonates with people. I categorize the footage based on topics or scenes, natural scenes of people doing stuff when they’re not talking to me, then interviews, then science, then leisure.”

She creates “selects” – the footage that she thinks is really good, and also categorizes stuff she definitely doesn’t think is usable, or something where follow-up is needed.  Eventually she expects to have 80 or 90 hours of videotape, from which she’ll come up with a film an hour long, using FinalCut Pro to do her edits. The goal is a documentary for the middle school and high school audience.

So what are the big themes of this film?  “Hard work,” says Lauren immediately. “One of the things I want to capture is that the schedule on a ship is not your typical schedule. It’s a competition for who can sleep the least and do the most work. It’s an interesting dynamic: a bunch of people with similar interests in a small group in a limited space. It makes for interesting conversations, a lot of sharing and mentorship that you wouldn’t get if you were just in a school. You’re really seeing these people 24 hours a day.” 

For me, Lauren is an important part of the Extreme 2008 story. But she says, “I’m not putting myself in it. I’m using my experience to understand the scientists’ experiences better and to provide a link between the people who’ve never been on a research cruise and the people who have.”

She does hope the film will send a message: “I hope that people take away that science is really very hands-on and something that you have to work hard at. A lot of people think that scientists were born geniuses and happened to find this field. It’s not true. Anyone can be a scientist. So I hope people won’t shut off. I hope that people who might think they’re not made for science will step back and realize that maybe they are.”

Today's Extreme Blogger:
Dr. K. Eric Wommack

Oceanography Before Dawn

It’s 4:15 a.m. The ship is surrounded by a dark sea and an extraordinary panorama of starlight. We are on the bridge hovering under red lights, anxiously waiting to hear four quick woodpecker-like raps from a mile and a half down. These raps will tell us the elevator has dropped 100 pounds of dive weights and will begin its ascent from the abyss with a valuable sample of diffuse-flow water.

For nearly a year we have been planning for this moment. Each member of the viral team -- Bekki Helton, Shawn Polson, Lisa Zeigler, Doug Fadrosh, and I -- understand the entire success of the project depends on the successful release of the elevator from the bottom. The tension is palpable on everyone’s faces. Finally, we hear a quick rap, rap, rap, rap. Step one is complete; the acoustical release has initiated the burn. However, the tension remains.

Eric Wommack with Craig Cary

Bruce reminds us that we must hear an echo to know if the elevator has started its long journey to the surface. The echo is the sound bouncing off the bottom, a sound that can only be produced if the elevator is on its way to the surface. We wait, listening. Finally, an almost imperceptible echo is heard: raap, raap, raap, raap. Each series of raps gets just a little bit longer -- raaap, then the echo is unmistakable -- rap-rap, rap-rap, rap-rap, rap-rap. The elevator, affectionately called “Thing One” after the Dr. Seuss characters in The Cat in the Hat, should be on the surface in an hour, as long as the six floats attached to the elevator do their job.

As Thing One is rocketing to the surface, we feverishly work to prepare the second elevator, “Thing Two,” for its trip to the bottom. Like a pit crew in a NASCAR race, each of us goes to our assigned duties on deck. Lisa is our pit chief, who oversees the entire rigging operation. First, we flush out the hoses and filter housings with ultra-pure water. In the meantime, Lisa places new filters in the housings and we mount the housings on the platform. This is strenuous work as each of the housings weighs over 50 pounds. Finally, Lisa, Shawn, and I make sure none of the hoses is kinked and all the hoses and components are attached to the elevator platform with tie wraps. Thing Two is ready.

By around 5:30 a.m., Thing One reaches the surface, its floats surrounded by rough seas and whitecaps. We climb four decks up to help the bridge crew search the blackness for the strobe attached to the float pack. Altogether, eight pairs of eyes search the dark sea for a hint of a flash. The captain calls out to the Second Mate, Craig Dickson, “Five off the port-bow, two ship lengths ahead.” Sure enough, just off to the port side the quick flash of the strobe appears. However, the rough seas continue to challenge us. When the float pack is in between two eight-foot waves, the strobe disappears.

Able-Bodied Seaman Raul Martinez scans the horizon from the bridge with a brilliant flood light, yet, the bright yellow floats remain hidden. The powerful flood light is useless against the rough sea. We have to rely on hope and the intermittent appearance of the strobe to guide the behemoth of steel that is the Atlantis towards the tiny float pack. Risks are numerous. If we go past the float pack, it could be lost. Worse yet, should we run over the float pack, the prop would sever the line and send Thing One back to the abyss. Worse still, the excess line could foul the props and potentially cripple the Atlantis propulsion system.

I’m trying not to let my eyes trick me into a false strobe citing. Finally, I see it again. The captain calmly calls out, “Ten off the starboard bow, one boat length, Craig.” His calm tone smoothes the tension on the bridge. Now the floats are firmly in sight. The second mate cautiously guides the starboard side of the 3,500-ton vessel alongside the float pack.

We descend to the main deck where the Bos’n Pat Hennessy and Ordinary Seaman Kevin Threadgold are poised to retrieve the elevator from the sea. I put on steel-toed rubber boots that are two sizes too small, a snug flotation vest, and blue hard hat and head to the deck. Shawn is already geared up to help with the recovery. Pat calls out to Kevin, “Send the hook.” Kevin quickly swings a mean-looking grappling hook over his head and sends it towards the float pack. He misses and quickly recoils the line. This time he patiently waits and watches the eight- to twelve-foot swells to time his throw. The second try works and he rapidly pulls back on the grapple line to maintain tension. Thus, the tug o’ war begins between the deck crew and Thing One suspended 120 ft below the float pack.

Looking for Thing One:  Kevin Threadgold, Lisa Zeigler, Pat Hennessy, Shawn Polson, Allison Heater

Each step of the retrieval is carefully orchestrated by the Bos’n. Besides the howl of the wind and the whine of the hydraulics on the crane, the deck is silent. Pat issues hand signals to Ordinary Seaman Ron Whims, the crane operator, as he and Kevin adeptly retrieve the uppermost set of four floats. Soon, we reach the large frame which holds six floats and is the primary buoyancy of the float pack. The frame Is eight feet tall, four feet wide, and a bear to handle on the deck. Once the crane cable is attached to the upper end of the float line, Pat removes the large float pack and he and Kevin wrestle it onto the deck. Now that the floats are off the line there is no insurance policy; losing the line would mean losing the elevator.

With a lightning-fast motion, Pat attaches a long red line to the eye on the elevator with a bowline. The crane arm descends in response to Pat’s hand motions and the red line is directed through two blocks and around a capstan that is the diameter of a 150-year-old oak tree trunk. Pat directs Shawn, “Counter clockwise, slow, Shawn.” These words dramatically call our attention as they are the first to break the human silence on the deck.

As the capstan slowly turns, Kevin tails the line. Next, Pat calls, “Counter clockwise, fast Shawn.” The large steel drum whines into full speed, which seems painfully slow, as I am anxious to know if the LVWS has survived another trip. Eventually, the square shape of Thing One is barely visible through the midnight blue of the ocean. Soon I get my answer, the sampler is okay. I think we will have success today and the sun still won’t be up for an hour!

Photo Gallery

3rd mate Meagan Fahey (in the yellow sweatshirt) taught a group of us to use a sextant to find our global position. Here, Meagan, Lee, Craig, Conrad, and Allison peered through the sextant to "sight" the sun.

Video Gallery