markmccaughrean

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@raumfahrttutnot Indeed, those are on the list of things that will be tried, as the article describes 👍

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@TerryHancock Nice 🙂 Where are those emojis coming from though?

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@sundogplanets It won quite a few prizes as well, both for scicomm & VFX, as did the beloved cartoon series, & indeed, the final cartoon at the end of Rosetta’s mission in 2016 references “Ambition” at the end. A subtlety lost on many, but something I wanted to do as a cross-over.

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@sundogplanets I’d agree that it is a bit weird, partly because there’s a deliberate European angle to the film-making which breaks a bit from the Hollywood mould.

But it’s important to realise that this was released before Philae successfully landed on 67P/C-G, & was partly designed to mitigate against criticism if things failed. You don’t see Philae land in the film & the key message is that even if we fail, we try again, but having the “Ambition” to do hard things is vital.

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@sundogplanets Then there is the central science question, whether Earth’s water came from comets or not. It’s a huge simplification of the mission, but something we hung much of the PR off, because it’s simple & important.

Hence the final scene, where the comet fragments impact (a nod to Shoemaker-Levy 9) & a spray of water is seen briefly on the camera before the credits roll.

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@sundogplanets And if you haven’t seen them, there are actually three films.

There was a teaser trailer released a few weeks before, but without any reference to ESA or Rosetta, something that was used to get non-science journalists interested & invited to a premiere of “Ambition”, where we then revealed what it was about. The teaser also sets the scene a bit:

https://youtu.be/R4XK_NAToRI

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@sundogplanets Then at the end of the mission in 2016, we made an epilogue, featuring just Aisling Franciosi, who had also been in GoT by then.

The aim here was to provide some emotional closure, as people were sad that Rosetta was coming to an end, but also to say that we would continue exploring.

I still love the epilogue, not least because of music from ex-Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde with Stephanie Dosen as Snowbird:

https://youtu.be/LSdYCPATV9o

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@sundogplanets Finally, you & your students might be interested in the articles we wrote about how & why we made “Ambition” & the other components of the comms campaign for Rosetta, with outside contributions too, as as special issue of the Communicating Astronomy with the Public Journal, CAPJ: https://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/03/31/communicating-astronomy-with-the-public-rosetta-special/

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@sellathechemist @sundogplanets @Ruth_Mottram Worth keeping in mind that it’s already nine years old: the team at Platige Image in Warsaw did an amazing job. As for trying to hard, it does have a rather serious, austere tone, & while I freely admit that that it’s quite bananas, I still love it. The stories of how it was made are legion too – such a privilege to be part of the adventure, including the two-day principal shoot in Iceland.

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@andrasgaspar @sundogplanets It’s an interesting question how well it works nine years on, with the context of the Rosetta mission long gone.

Yes, it’s bananas, but that’s partly the point: at the time, the reviews were amazing & everybody was stunned that we had done something like this. We even had a meeting with NASA at their request so they could try & learn from us. I enjoyed that immensely 😎

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@andrasgaspar @sundogplanets I’m not sure I completely understand why.

It’s just using a sci-fi setting deep in the future to look back at Rosetta as a kind of “turning point” in understanding how water & perhaps life came to Earth. But it’s not too complicated beyond that.

Yes, unusual & attention-grabbing, but that’s part of the point of PR surely 🙂

And it was just one part of a much wider outreach campaign for the mission: all parts didn’t have to work for all people.

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@andrasgaspar @sundogplanets And we deliberately didn’t want it to be too obvious & perfunctory: lots of other people were making films & documentaries about the mission, so we wanted to make something a bit more provocative, tangential, & thought-provoking. The fact that it’s still doing that nine years later does tend to suggest we weren’t wrong 😎

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@andrasgaspar @sundogplanets FWIW, the original spark came from NASA’s Seven Minutes of Terror film for Curiosity.

But the Philae landing was more like seven hours of boredom & there was no sound or turbulence in space unlike in the martian atmosphere.

So we needed to make something that excited & provoked in other ways, beyond the sheer mechanical nature of the landing, hence “Ambition”.

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@sundogplanets @andrasgaspar To some extent, that’s exactly the point – to leave the viewer guessing who these people are & what they’re doing, to create an aura of mystery around the core topic of Rosetta.

We didn’t want to be obvious & literal, more that people would see the film as initial world building & as a kind of trailer for a broader film (which has never been made, but many which people have asked us to do 🙂).

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@sundogplanets @andrasgaspar That said, our interpretation is that Aisling’s character is an apprentice, learning her trade (whatever it is exactly) from Aidan’s, & that this is some kind of final test before she graduates.

We revisited her character for emotional closure in the 2016 epilogue, where now a fully-fledged whatever, she looks back fondly at that Rosetta test:

https://youtu.be/LSdYCPATV9o

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@andrasgaspar @sundogplanets Thanks, Andras, & don’t worry – I didn’t take it that way at all 🙂

I was just curious to know what your thinking was. “Ambition” worked very well for many, but was too far out there for others. Similarly, the Rosetta & Philae cartoon series warmed many hearts, but some complained that its anthropomorphisation trivialised the science & engineering. For such people, we also provided plenty of solid technical info & engagement options.

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@andrasgaspar @sundogplanets @Ruth_Mottram I can deliver on one of those at least: there is a full soundtrack album by the composer, Atanas Valkov 🙂

https://atanasvalkov.com/album/ambition-original-soundtrack/

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@andrasgaspar @sundogplanets Ha – if the final episode made you want to cry then we nailed it 🙂

That said, I did half-heartedly try to persuade the team that it’d be all the funnier if we went the route of Spike Jonze’s famous IKEA commercial. They were NOT having it (& I would have received soooo much hate mail 🤪)

https://youtu.be/dBqhIVyfsRg

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@sundogplanets @INCO You know we made plush toy versions of them like that, right? 🙂

markmccaughrean, 1 year ago

@andrasgaspar @sundogplanets I did have a very cool idea for a JWST film which I’d still love to make, albeit more in the high concept sci-fi direction of Ambition than the cartoons. Just wasn’t possible during the pandemic though.