hello lab out loud listeners if you like the show please consider supporting the show through our patreon page for as low as one dollar a month you can help support the show go to laboutloud.com support to get started today and now on with today's show you're listening to lab out loud science for the classroom and Beyond and I'm your co-host Dale Basler I'm Brian Bartel and we are happy to welcome back Sonya Epstein to our show she returns to talk to us about the Sloan science and film welcome to the show Sonya of course yeah thank you so much for having me um yeah I I am a curator of Science and Technology at Museum of the moving image which is in Astoria New York and that is a fairly unique role that I am proud to have carved out for myself there new business cards then yeah totally yeah you may not think of a you know a film Museum what is a curator of Science and Technology doing there but um I in this role run a film series called science and Screen where I show films that are related to science and some sometimes this sort of unexpected way and I commissioned scientists to write about them or bring them in to have conversations with filmmakers I run the online publication that the museum has which is just science and film.org um and so for that I also do a lot of interviews with scientists and filmmakers and try and cover a wide breadth of what's happening at that intersection and then increasingly I'm doing some work in the galleries uh Museum yeah is this a a case where you are a science person that wound up in the museum world or Museum went to science or a different path great question some weird combination of all of those I uh I loved have always loved you know sort of the art museum world and and interned in a lot of museums you know growing up but felt like I wanted a sort of a different path something that was not fitting into those places exactly and I studied my in college psychology and art history and I always had an interest in brain science in particular and I moved to Marfa which you may or may not know which is a little town in West Texas that has a big Art Foundation that was started by Donald Judd after school and was working there and then was looking around for something that was yeah a little bit not so not not like a cookie cutter job you know something that was interdisciplinary and I ended up going to Columbia University to work for a neuroscientist named Eric kandell who some people know for having won a Nobel Prize in 2000 for discovering the biological basis of memory uh essentially that you know your brain changes when you form a long-term memory and he was working on a book about Austrian expressionism and Neuroscience in Vienna 1900 he was born in Vienna and left when he was seven or eight years old and yeah had always had this passion for art and for expressionism and is a collector and yeah he wanted someone basically to help him with this book and I had a weird you know sort of background that fit in that and so weird or perfect it kind of sounds like yeah yeah perfect yeah um yeah so so I worked with him for a number of years on that book which ended up being published as the age of insight and uh while I was working for him he started working with uh on p with PBS on a television series about the brain so I ended up helping to produce that and so yeah and then I worked for a foundation called the Alfred peace loan foundation in their program and public understanding of science helping to administer a grants program for I see those at the beginning of Nova totally Nova radio Labs yeah yeah Friday books books books theater radio television film and so that was how I got introduced to the film world and uh yeah so I ended up with like a this background that is sort of in between Art and Science um where I'm certainly not a scientist but I have been in you know sort of close contact with that world for a large part of my career and but have always felt very at home in the museum world and so that's how I came to Mommy where I was like okay this is a you know this is a place and um you know where I feel comfortable and I I'm sure love film you know very passionate about it but I have this you know very uh distinctive interests and you know feel vested in in communicating science as as much as you know my position allows and so I kind of carved out this position um seven years ago and it's it's grown since then and we we talked to you last about five or six years ago as my from when my math can tell me and uh obviously a lot of things have happened since then but um what what are some of the new things that you have recently yeah of course sure um I guess the the the the most recent sort of new program that I'm I'm overseeing is uh called the Sloan student prizes and so that is a program that is specifically for uh graduate students at 12 universities across the U.S where we um award two twenty thousand dollar grants for fiction screenplays that are integrating scientific ideas and so to do that you know we get applications from them we read their scripts we assign them a writing advisor and a science advisor um and we put together a jury of both scientists and film professionals and we sort of help Mentor these projects throughout the year we hold screenplay readings and that's been really exciting we're just about to go into our second year so we had our first winners announced in January of this year and we'll have the next ones announced in uh yeah in in like a month or two uh and so yeah it's great it's it's really super interesting to see the whole mix of you know topics that people are covering um I think that's gotten a lot more expansive certainly I would say since the pandemic so far as I can tell you know people's understanding of Science and their daily lives is uh different than just like the biopic that some people could only imagine back in the day well I'm glad you brought that up now you offer the pandemic I guess you offer streaming services essentially yeah and have you seen a change in viewership or classrooms engagement within uh within the last few years yeah yeah certainly so on the website that I run science and film.org um we have these teachers guides that accompany over I mean I think it's grown to maybe 170 or something short films that are available for people to stream for free so anyone listening who's looking for some informal learning in the Science Education world you know there's great short films that are about a whole range of scientific topics and we're actually just um about to come out with a new edition of the teach teacher's guide in November so stay tuned for that that'll basically be an update um of the guides that we've released previously but we've gotten so many new films there was really a lag in the pandemic when you know nobody could shoot anything and um a lot of writing though but a lot of writing and I think a lot of you know sort of build up in the pipeline and and uh yeah as restrictions of eased you know people are just you know getting out there and doing it and at the same time I think getting a lot more creative with how they're doing it you know it doesn't have to you know the way that location is portrayed and uh you know being scrappier in a way the the teacher's guide is the right now I see it on the website it's like a PDF yes 54 pages so there's like a little bit for there's a lot of it for everybody and you have it broken down by by um content area so astronomy biology chemistry correct yes correct I tried to sort of look at the New York City and and National Science standards oh okay sort of and see what categories they use um you know I think there's certainly room for more you know climate science I mean that's something it's in almost every script I read these days um as a I would say it should be but um yeah so so they're broad categories is what I'm trying to say kind of because I wanted them to align somewhat with those standards that teachers might be using sure and you do have uh I was looking for um age groups yeah and you have that's like the first thing in there do you have any age groups that are below Middle School yeah there's certainly I mean yes there's definitely films that would be appropriate for below Middle School I would say um you know we have some I'm thinking of some animated films we have one called paprika which is about the origins of that spice um which is totally silent you know and kind of tells that story um in a really unique way that I think could be appreciated on any level I mean I I think Middle School is a kind of it's Justified starting place in some place yeah sweet spot because um you know you're starting to notice things in the world around you and uh you know make connections and but you know I'm not a teacher so yeah I was just you know essentially going by what I was reading and the science standards and um what seemed appropriate to me but those are I would really say those age um the the age distinctions are guidelines you know they're not prescriptive I always screen teachers always screen your film first yeah um right so I'm looking at the paprika one though you do have an example elementary school or higher and then um you you list standards and then a summary and then like little question questions to explore like you know why is Vitamin C important for our healthy body functions things like that so each one kind of gives a a little starter and so on my right to say that all of these videos can be viewed on the website or are there some that connect they can all be viewed on the website for free that's the whole idea so how does that how does that work how does the filmmaker like give me the rights yeah or yeah how do they how do they fund their film is it through the the the the um philanthropy or yeah essentially yeah so so um the website if anyone goes to it so you know we are a part of uh the website as part of published by a museum in the moving image but it is funded in large part by the Sloan Foundation uh which as I mentioned has a nationwide program that mentors and helps develop the work of filmmakers at many stages of their career um and I would say one of the largest parts of that program is supporting students um so all of the films on the site all of the short films were made by students um with support of a production Grant from the Sloan Foundation and so uh as part of that they agree after their Festival run that they will give us uh you know essentially streaming rights uh not exclusive you know a lot of these films have streamed elsewhere and there are some exceptions you know there are films that have exclusive deals with HBO or whatever and you know you don't want to stand in their way we'll get them when they're ready but um yeah as much as the filmmakers you know want them to be we are a resource and a way for them to reach a different kind of audience because I think sometimes what happens with short films is you know maybe they go to festivals but after that there's there's not a huge uh it's kind of you know it's hard for them to find their place in the world it's it's there's not you know there's not like a Netflix for short films shorts yeah yeah it's like super popular and so I thought you know developing kind of an educational route for them and we show them at the Museum as well you know we have a big education program and uh during the pandemic we did that often um where we would show a film online and then you know have the filmmaker come and participate because it's a really unique Library yeah in a way and so yeah I hope that answers your question no that makes sense yeah yeah they you know I think it's about twenty thousand dollars that they get to to make the film and um you know they they have to have a science advisor the science has to be vetted um you know it's a prize that's given uh based on the screenplay um and then they go out and shoot it uh so things sometimes change in that interim but uh yeah recently I've gotten a lot of great ones there's a very sweet one that's right at the top of people go to the page called the code for family that'll be in the new edition of the teacher's guide that's about a multi-generational household and uh the grandmother learns uh computer code you know at an old age and kind of helps her her grandchildren and it's it's just very well done and um well I'm looking at the the films right now and I see one about Oliver Sacks and uh he he was always a favorite guest on Radio Lab and and I've read some of his books there too so that's what I'm going to be doing soon um I do like the fact that there is a timeline underneath it for most of the videos because that's obviously a piece of you know teacher prep that they have to consider is how long is this if that's something we're going to use in the classroom and I know we've talked a little bit about the appropriateness of using film and video within the classroom and and sometimes just feature length films are not always appropriate um and sometimes these clips are are just succinct enough to get to the point and then have a discussion around that yeah and that's really um you know that that's what I imagine as as they're the the most useful sort of way that people can come to these um I will say yeah on on the side of people go there's a mix of films so all the ones that have a Time code are short films and the ones that don't that have a button that says how to watch those are feature films um and so those you know are obviously longer um but yeah during the pandemic at the Museum we opened a drive-in movie theater um on the on the grounds of the New York Hall of Science um in collaboration with them in an organization called rooftop films and uh I had a film series um called proceed with caution in which I actually screened a number of these short films uh for our Drive-In audience preceded by a feature film so they can also function sort of interestingly in that way where um you know one touches on a theme that then a feature film kind of explores um or it can be two different takes on a similar theme but that was really a fun and unique way also sharing these I know you don't it doesn't seem to have a like a rating or most popular kind of a list there do you do you know of a few that are just like oh these These are ones that uh really seem to stand out in in science classrooms for instance yeah I mean I I have the privilege of seeing the back end so I can see how many there are um I mean one that particularly during the pandemic um but it's always been popular it's it's from a a while ago I think it was made maybe in 2000 or something but it's about uh semelvice who was the Hungarian physician um who you know unfortunately exactly um essentially helped uh helped you know figure out that washing your hands really does save lives and um you know I have no idea why that would be important during that pandemic though yeah no no not at all but but that was sort of interesting content I felt like yeah it was made in 1999. okay by someone named Jim Berry and you can watch it on there and that has consistently I mean certainly you know really uh the the clicks went up during the pandemic um but you know I I showed that film at the drive-in and um I wrote an article about it and um I talked to the the filmmaker I did an interview for the site and he actually is still like super committed to the story and um he's even commissioned comic book artists to do illustrations about symbol Vice so there's a lot there and the other one that you know just happened to have a relationship to the pandemic um is one called nose hair which is about anosmia which she turned out to be a symptom and so that's a 10 minute film uh that was made maybe 10 years ago by a guy named Lou Morton and it's animated and it's it's very sweet it's about this little kid who discovers he has an osmia because he can't smell a fart bomb um you know feels really rejected and and alienated until he meets a chef that also has it um who sort of shows him all the things that he can still taste related to texture um and you know learns about it as a sort of superpower so like a survival tip you're like huh should you experience Anonymous here have some suggestions totally and I mean I know when that was I just remember it like early 2020 when that was really scary and and I fell very lucky to be able to turn to this like sweet animation as a way of you know I mean it was hard to produce content or think about what to write during that time um but I felt like at least actually these films were really good jumping off point you have a couple new films that just came out can you can you tell us a little bit about those and what their reactions have been yeah sure so code for family I I already mentioned and um I think that's a great one uh we also have a an interesting one called the chef that's done really well at festivals um and that is about a Chinese Chef who starts working with like a an Android Chef essentially um and there's a kind of clash of traditional care yeah yeah but you know um I want an Android Chef just for chopping that's that's part of what I want an Android period you take the onions I'll take this right exactly but yeah you know that's increasingly kind of a topic of conversation and so that's a good way into that we have another one of my favorite ones um called a-hole uh which is an animated film bio filmmaker named Molly Murphy which is um basically about the world ending but one billionaire you know going off to save himself and but you know not so completely fictional right totally so there was We're Not Gonna name names in the past few years where I was like wow this film's really touching on a lot of uh thematic topics and similar really I mean on a you know less funny side of things there's a great film called sweet potatoes which is a longer short it's almost a half hour but it's it's about um the Mexican scientists who discovered the main component of the birth control pill uh oh yeah and sort of the complicated nature of that him being promoted yeah it's like family and um you know all of that so uh a mix of you know fictional and Things based on historical uh incidents and yeah I'd say all of those you know are both great films and you know good jumping off points for for topics that feel topical I don't know if this is good for the science well it is the science classroom but I saw the experimenter I don't even know how I stumbled on that movie yeah man that stuck with me for a long time yeah and that's the thing with some of these movies it was like yeah I just keep hearing it's good and you know sometimes I get them at the library or something like that and you'll watch it and they're like I wasn't expecting that it just kind of really grabs you I love that yeah yeah totally so before we let you go Sonia obviously we have again we'd like to remind listeners that there is a library of of content that you might find appropriate for your science classroom there are teacher guides to kind of follow along with um these videos as well and so again very appropriate way of using film to to learn the standards to spark some discussion and to engage within the content do you have mentioned that you are a curator of Science and Technology but we've been talking about media do you have like physical science and technology that like I know I think we talked last time that you had like the museum has like the set of Blade Runner or something like why should we should we want to like make it a destination to visit yeah definitely absolutely I mean first of all we have you know a huge uh education program and so School groups can always come as a group and book a tour uh the Museum's uh permanent exhibition called behind the screen deals with a lot of it deals with you know the Science and Technology of making movies which has to do with light and sound and you know moving pictured cameras and uh engineering and um you know all sorts of things you know we also have a section on early Cinema developments which have to do with Optical toys and things like flip books and kind of you know the way that the brain processes the world and the way that in a lot of ways film mirrors that process in in the way that it's kind of a construction of reality and so um I think certainly appropriate for all ages uh I remember going there as a kid and um loving it and I obviously continue to love it as an adult and we are working also on a um sort of update of the core exhibition which folks can look forward to in a couple of years um where I think we'll be drilling down even more on on the kind of science and technology behind uh Cinema um but that said we are a museum of moving eventually I should say so it's not only film it's video games um it's television it's digital media um so there's a whole range and um we have a very famous Jim Henson collection um where you can see all the Muppets and um but also you know really appreciate him as an artist who also did really interesting things with animatronics and uh yeah you know there's there's many many angles that um to approach the subject matter um and so that's yeah we have a lot of physical objects I just had a a small exhibition called twitch pop Bloom that was showing films uh from the first half of the 20th century made by scientists um but that were sort of experimental in their nature so you know not your typical didactic educational science films that you know were really exploring how to film nature Birds uh plant growth using time lapse micro cinematography all sorts of you know interesting techniques yeah um and then yeah we also have two movie theaters and we're screening films all the time so yeah definitely a place to come visit so if you had like your favorite like physical object in the museum like as curator if you decided to leave the job this might disappear kind of an object that's a that's a difficult question I would imagine I know because he's now she's thinking okay big or small I gotta find something I could like purse out of here no something that you could loan to your own you know display for you know like a week Totally Miss Piggy uh no oh but I don't think that's very apology job no I mean we have a great selection of um cameras I love early cameras um and we have one called the akeley camera it's called The Pancake camera because it was like much flatter than earlier ones and there's a super interesting history to that which just briefly is Carl akeley who developed it um was actually a curator um at the Museum of Natural History and he uh was also a taxidermist who helped to invent the kind of Armature that taxidermied animals are you know help help basically helps to keep them from looking like sagging sad animals oh yeah you know keeps them looking lifelike and uh so um you know he developed this pancake camera which was one of the first cameras that really allowed people to travel um and to bring that camera you know around the world and um helped with you know the Advent of the travelogue genre and you know I think things like that where there were so many layers to the story it's like you can just look at it as a camera and the way it was used but you can also look at the person and you can look at um you know the setting in which it was used and how that kind of technical Innovation enabled all sorts of other kind of content that I think we we take for granted well that's fun I appreciate that answer but I mean you did say Miss Piggy I hope that she's got layers too the museum does not like all of a sudden just enhance security for the Muppets exhibition and the cameras like all of a sudden I don't know what it is we have more security here no yeah we've got this great idea listening to this what do you tell people like how much time they should plan I know it's probably you know it's as much as you want but um you know I think I always feel like at two hours I've I've like maxed out of my museum going potential so I would say an hour you know especially if you're with kids like you can we have a lot of things you can touch and play with and we have an animation station we have some new um you know a a small exhibition that was um done in collaboration with Leica the animation studio where you can make your own stop motion animation so there are things you know there's wishes to say like there are things that you can really sit and play with and teach your time with so I would say anywhere from an hour to two Okay but even we just have a half hour to run around before screening like you can make a flip who doesn't love that yeah right we went to that my family went to the the Bakken Museum in the Twin Cities last spring and they had um they had Lego figures that were made you know specifically for the museum that were women in science and they had them hidden throughout the museum and oh my gosh the the kids there and and my self I'll be honest to her like you gotta find these and and then I had like little information about them so that was I I think they took a lot longer in the museum looking for the Lego figures than anything else but um obviously depending on what you have as an exhibit or a feature might change some of that yeah I mean yeah but we I love that idea um of of having a you know some sort of scavenger hunt I think we have done things like that in the past if I'm not mistaken um I think that's a really fun way of moving through to space well thank you so much for your time Sonia um I'm excited to to get out and watch some of these films now and uh I especially encourage Educators to take a look and see what's there and you know when you're getting to that point in in the year where you're like you know we we're right before break maybe um uh avoid pulling out track and and be better than Shrek um but find something that is intellectually stimulating within science and I think that uh you'll easily be able to find something here that's great yeah and and um you know teachers if you don't see anything in the new guide um in the current guide keep an eye out for the new guide I'll say um before the end of the year so awesome yeah thank you again for your time and we look forward to to seeing the content thank you guys so much for having me thanks much [Music] [Music]