The Good Heart Attack - A DFG Success Story
- Posted: 25th Mar 2010
- Category: Articles
Following last week’s win at the Vedere La Scienza Festival, the directors of The Good Heart Attack - Uli Hesse and Dr Sean Davidson - spoke to Sam Hunt about the unique collaboration that spawned the film.
The Good Heart Attack was one of eight films produced as part of DFG’s Science on Film initiative, in partnership with the Wellcome Trust. Eight scientists and eight filmmakers took part in a collaborative experiment exploring the potential for communicating science through film.
After an intensive period of skills training and project development, the filmmakers and scientists were paired with each other to co-direct a short documentary.
How did the idea for the ‘Good Heart Attack’ emerge
Sean Davidson: Well it wasn’t the first idea we had. The original idea we had was something involving research into the human life span; there are other people at UCL who are working on that. It’s quite interesting but then I realised in discussion with people at DFG that the work we are doing here is very interesting as well, and had potential for a story. So I decided to work on that, technically it’s a lot easier as well.
Did you feel it enabled your area of research to become better represented by having you directly involved with it?
Sean: It’s interesting because in science people tend to look at the standard outlets, so it’s the scientific journals, they don’t pick up on a lot of research from outside those channels. But the public become aware of it so it’s very good to get the public interested in science and what’s going on in the institute.
(To Uli) Has the SOF project had a positive effect on your career as a filmmaker?
Uli Hesse: Sure, it was the first step towards my next short documentary Colours of Blood’ (screening at Hot Docs) which is about people who use blood in their sexual relationships… also a documentary called Emily and The Freak (in production). The weekend workshops helped enormously with sound, storytelling, camera and all the other areas. Kevin Hull was a brilliant tutor. During the whole programme but particularly in the edit, Deborah Kingsland was incredibly supportive and motivated us to go beyond our limits.
What subject areas do you tend to focus on with your films?
Uli: Unconventional people and their stories. People who are perceived to be on the fringes of conventional society, I want to find out why they do what they do.
How did you find the collaborative aspect of the project?
Uli: We became partners in crime! Very intense and challenging but [I] got a lot out of it. [It] was great to get an insight into scientists’ minds. They think differently from filmmakers! Focus very much on the discovery, where I’m also interested in the consequences for society. It was the first time I could devote my time entirely to making this film, with the freedom of telling the story of a scientific discovery without worrying all the time whether I got the facts right. Sean got us all the access and obviously knows all the research because he’s involved with it.
Sean: It’s an advantage for filmmakers in terms of teaming up with scientists as it becomes a lot easier to get access. Access was something we talked about during the course and how in some cases it’s very hard to get access to the places that you want to film.
[To Uli] Is there an added bonus working with someone from the field the film focuses on?
Uli: Access, access, access. Sean was able to get access to interviews, shooting opportunities incredibly quickly and with minimal fuss. As a result we got some great interviews and great shots.
Do you prefer having sole control of the directorial process?
Uli: Working with a first time filmmaker helped me to define my role as director and to understand what directing means. I tended to take a bit more control of the directing side, but it gave me a lot of invaluable experience.
Can scientists double as filmmakers?
Uli: I’m sure a lot of the scientists tasted blood… Sean mentioned he wants to shoot a film with friends now.
How would you describe your working relationship?
Uli: Yeah, it worked pretty well. We were constantly discussing. Sean was a fantastic cameraman, and I would always work with him again.
Sean: It wasn’t always easy. We are two people who are established in their fields, so trying to collaborate with someone else and appreciate each other’s ideas as well was difficult but it was very rewarding, because you do learn a lot from each other.
[To Sean] Wa
s there anything that surprised you about filmmaking compared with your own scientific work?Sean: Well actually an interesting similarity was just how long it took to actually get things done, even for a short film it takes a lot of organisation, planning and even the filming and the editing takes a lot longer than I would have expected.
No chance of a career change?
Sean: [Laughs] Well it was really enjoyable, it was a lot more spontaneous and creative, I did enjoy that, I’m not sure yet if it will be a career or more of a hobby thing. I’m still interested in filmmaking and I have a got a camera so who knows.
Were there any complications in the filming process? You filmed open-heart surgery and a number of experiments: were there a lot of difficulties in doing that?
Sean: Yeah, the difficult issue I guess was the surgery. There was the limited amount of space, so we were aware of not getting in the way and bumping into things, so we couldn’t use a tripod either, they were used to having film crews around so they were very useful and things turned out to be very interesting and good on the day.
Uli: I’ve filmed a lot of surgery before, but it always grips me. It’s very raw when you see the first cut, and it was amazing and unbelievable to see a living human heart half a metre from you while surgeons perform their art. We didn’t use a lot since a lot of people can’t see blood and we didn’t want to make a ‘shocker’.
With regards to the experiments shown in the film (for example the rat’s heart), were they set up specifically for the film?
Sean: There were experiments that were ongoing anyway, so we took advantage of that and managed to try and film around that. We’d prepared the lab so people were aware we were going to be filming so made the space and things and then just filmed their normal experiments
How did you find the Archive film footage?
Uli: The night before the edit… in desperation! We Found Prelinger’s archive and the most fantastic footage of the Russian Scientists. Free footage at Internet Archives (www.archive.org/details/movies)
How much do you feel the footage adds to the film?
Uli: Depth, context, humour. It was also an inspiration to look at the story from a different angle because at that time we hadn’t found the real story yet.
Sean: It was a very interesting part of the film and it was a great idea to put that in because it gives great historical context and much more wide ranging I guess, I was aware of the film but hadn’t appreciated how useful it would be in the film, so I guess that takes the filmmaker skills to recognise that.
Just out of interest, have the trials of the pre-conditioning technique progressed since you shot the film, have there been any more developments?
Sean: We didn’t mention it in the film, but we were about to start a study on the ambulance service, to see if the technique would work on patients who were actually having a heart attack, yet unfortunately that hasn’t gone ahead due to organisational difficulties, there is a lot of things to organise. But interestingly there is a Danish group who recently did that study, with the ambulance crew and they found that it did work, so it’s a very promising technique but a lot more studies need to be done.
You can watch The Good Heart Attack and the rest of the Science on Film productions here on DFGDocs.