In 2009, “Master Virus Hunter” Ian LipkinAn experimental pathologist at Columbia University which identified more than 2,500 viruses and contributed to containment strategies during several major viral epidemics, has received a curious telephone call. Scriptwriter Scott Burns wanted her help to write a film on a pandemic. Although interested in this unique opportunity, Lipkin, a stickler for scientific precision, recalled by saying: “I will only do that if it will be informative and interesting.” Burns replied: “This is exactly what we wanted to do.” Thus started in Lipkin Contagion journey.
From contagion to Contagion
Burns initially contacted Larry Brilliantepidemiologist and chief executive officer of Pandefense AdvisoryAfter See a TED conversation Shiny on pandemics. Brilliant had met Lipkin thanks to Pandefense Advisory, and the recommended burns also include him, which led to Lipkin’s invitation to the whole.
Burns and director Steven Soderbergh I wanted to create a film that followed a realistic response to a pandemic. The two had funding through a production company, participating Media, which created entertainment content that addressed societal problems in key areas, including health care “(Burns and Soderbergh) wanted Really doing something that was going to be educational, “said Lipkin.
Burns wanted Lipkin’s contribution to potential infectious agents and a realistic pandemic response, taking into account his 2003 epidemic management experience. In the end, the duo decided to have their star pathogen, a paramyxovirus. Then Burns started writing, sharing drafts with Lipkin to make sure that science has checked. “He wanted to make sure everything he proposed was plausible,” said Lipkin.
A year later, they had a solid script to ContagionA pandemic response thriller. Their story started with an infected person taking an international return flight while experiencing increasingly serious cold symptoms. When she died of mysterious disease, an epidemic intelligence official investigates the situation. A complete response in public health ensures that more and more people reduce the new disease, pending the Center for Disease Control and Prevention rushes to identify the agent, then develop a vaccine against him and distribute it to the public.
Ian Lipkin provided expertise on scientific details on the set of ContagionIncluding the actors on how scientific techniques are carried out.
Claudette Barius
“I thought I was going to end up helping him in the scenario,” recalls Lipkin, “but other people involved in the production began to contact me.”
Lipkin found himself advising various departments as production progressed. He helped the creative scheme to create specific costumes for the characters in the film. He opened his laboratory to teach a handful of key search skills with two stars and let the sound team record sounds in the room.
“Then I said:” Why not take advantage of the situation and try to be on the set? “” Said Lipkin. His luck took place and he joined the shooting team, which proved useful when the team needed a 3D virus model that Lipkin helped create.
Although Lipkin and the film team did their best to ensure scientific precision, due to the budget and physical constraints, they had to compromise on certain elements of the shooting. Lipkin recalled a scene where a character is experiencing a crisis. “She mousse in the mouth with Alka-Seltzer, which does not seem real,” he said.
As far as possible, he pushed to make the blows as realistic as possible. In an original socket, another character injects a vaccine into his thigh through tights. “I said,” Go guys, we should remedy this, “recalls Lipkin. “They actually brought it back. Thus, she rolled her tights and scalled her leg before she injected it. »»
However, he admitted that his experience and level of involvement in production were atypical and the result of unique circumstances behind the film. While Contagion Can have been unique in the involvement of his scientific expert advisers for his scenario, he is not the only one to seek the contribution of researchers for precision in the representation of science.
Researcher on Carnage: Scientific advisor in additional science fiction
James DahlmanA biomedical engineer studying nucleic acid delivery to the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, received a telephone call asking for his help with a film Crispr, “he recalled:” My first answer was no. “” At that time, the media covered actions contrary to the ethics of a scientist who had used CRISPR to change genetically and then implant two human embryos. “I thought it would be a kind of silly YouTube plot video,” he said.
However, after learning that the caller represented a legitimate production company making an appropriate film, Dahlman heard the ground. Carnage was A science fiction film with a CRISPR-Conjurn in his heart. A harmful biotechnology company has developed a pathogen that had genetic publishing capacities; When these pathogens found themselves in three animals, they transferred in raging animals. One of them was a gorilla raised by a primatologist in a sanctuary. To save his friend Primate and the City, this scientist and a gene engineer combine to stop animals and drop the company (don’t worry, the gorilla lives).
James Dahlman, whose research group uses CRISPR and develops therapies at RNA, has provided scientific advice for the film Rampage.
Reading capital
Although the film script has already been written, “they have asked me good scientific questions,” said Dahlman. They checked with him that they configured things correctly or if they explained Crispr correctly. “These conversations (were) quite short because (they) had their homework.”
However, the team wanted to help create scenes in a laboratory, including training players to perform certain tasks, then Dahlman joined the whole where a crew recreated a level 2 biosaferté laboratory. They had even included pipettes and advice for actors. “But they didn’t know what advice had gone with them,” he recalls. “The (actors) simply pushed a pipette in the bad size pipette, then the tip of the pipette would not stay.” Dahlman has taught the actors the art of pipetage. “We all consider this (jurisdiction) for acquired, but it is something that everyone does not know,” he said.
Dahlman also helped the team defined to organize the laboratory to reflect the actual functions of certain instruments. He provided information on the types of actions and behaviors that would be typical in a research laboratory, in particular by carrying gloves to touch the reagents and supplies.
“It will never be fully realistic because it is imaginary. But in this constraint, you want it to be as realistic as possible, “said Dahlman, adding that he felt that the team had accomplished this, and that they incorporated almost all the recommendations he has Do so that they can possible. “They really wanted these little details to be correct,” he said.
Dahlman even had the opportunity to briefly join the film because he was on the set and looked like a background actor who had an emergency on filming day. “The director walked, and he said to me,” Do you have an actor experience, “recalls Dahlman. “I said to myself:” Of course I do it “.” He played one of the FBI agents who poses the film’s pharmaceutical company.
James Dahlman joined the cast of the background of Carnage To play a federal agent for a film scene.
Jordan Cattie
However, when he did not teach laboratory techniques or did not advise on the conception of set, Dahlman said that he had spoken with the other actors on the set. “(They asked me) science and asked me how Crispr worked,” he said. “I explained how Crispr worked for The rock. “”
Think about time under the spotlight
About the occasion, Dahlman said “Yolo, so I’m going to burn three days, but it’s so interesting.” For him, the opportunity to speak to the actors and to see the infrastructure that created a film was enriching experiences. “It was really cool to see this little (hive) of activity that goes in the production of a film,” he said.
“It was a dream come true,” said Lipkin. He explained that his educational career had started at Sarah Lawrence College, a college of liberal arts, where he studied theater and took courses in philosophy and literature before taking a science class. “I never thought that I would have the pleasure, the honor, to make the loop curled.”
Even after Contagion First, Lipkin remained in touch with Burns and Soderbergh. When the Pandemic COVID-19 struck at the beginning of 2020, Soderbergh contacted Lipkin to develop plans to allow the filming of films safely. “Larry and I have developed all the protocols for Hollywood,” said Lipkin. Later they brought Jeffrey Shaman To help modeling.
“As a result, we were able to film, and there was no problem on the set,” said Lipkin. Subsequently, he helped coordinate tests and masking protocols for Oscars and the National Democratic Convention.
For Dahlman, his experience of cinematographic consultation so far has been only one-off, but he said that he would jump on the occasion of being part of a future film focused on Crispr. “It was very fun,” he said.