Sep 30, 2011
"I think nano technology is our last hope...unless we solve the problems on our horizon we will have a massive social catastrophe" Sir Harry Kroto, Nobel Prize recipient
By Michael Allder, series executive producer of The Nano Revolution
In the last few years, The Nature of Things has brought viewers ground-breaking mini-series, each built around a common overall theme. The most recent, Geologic Journey II , aired in the fall of 2010, explored the geologic history of the world, and charted how tectonic forces will influence its future. Also in 2010, an equally ambitious series, One Ocean, investigated the past, present and the likely fate of the world's oceans. This year our new mini-series, The Nano Revolution, tackles a subject on a whole other scale - the infinitesimally small.
Few people in the West know anything about this revolutionary technology, and those who do are scarcely aware of its far-reaching implications. And as an object, nano is , by definition, impossible to see. The world of nano operates at such a miniscule level that it can only be travelled and manipulated by electron microscopes. How do you build a television series around something you can't see?
This was the question on the minds of executive producers Takahiro Hamano of NHK, the Japanese public broadcaster, Helene Coldefy of Arte, the France-German network, and Michael Allder, longtime executive producer of "The Nature of Things " and the Science and History Unit of the CBC. They discovered that each of the three broadcasters was coincidentally developing a documentary mini-series on nanotech. Why not, they wondered, combine their energies and budgets to make a single series with an international perspective that would be seen on each of their networks and then be sold to other territories? That way, they would be able to access the kind of money it takes to design and execute the animation necessary to make nano "visible". And it would also help to fund another element of the series that excited the three partners - they wanted to write and shoot short dramas that would explore some of the issues and future scenarios that might unfold as nano science begins to impact the world of technology, medicine and the environment.
Throughout the project, the editorial team's primary means of communication was a very 21st century device...Skype. Every couple of weeks there was a scheduled conference call on Skype that would last a minimum of two to three hours. These hours could get very lively, balancing some candid cross-cultural tensions with skillful diplomacy. Time-zone management of these calls evolved into a pattern - in Toronto it was 8AM and usually conducted from home, in Paris it was 4PM, and in Tokyo it was at 10 PM, and still in the office! Each Skype call was a lively conversation fueled in Canada by coffee and, we learnt later, often followed in Tokyo by an early AM whisky!
One of the most interesting challenges met during the production were the very real cultural differences in attitude towards nano technology by the public, as the series attempted to reflect the synthesis of three very different cultural world-views. In Japan, technology is generally welcomed, and there is very little opposition to mechanization. Hence in advertizing, products which are now dabbling in nano technology, like cosmetics for instance, will be very bold and upfront in their ads. "Nano" carries a positive connotation, like "new, improved" or "all natural". In France, attitudes towards nano are much more ambivalent. There is a fear that nano might become the new GMO, and a conviction that scientists must police the science and engage in a dialogue with the public about both risks and benefits. Even though nano technology is used in cosmetics, the advertising references are vague, low-key and indirect. In Canada, as in the US, nano is still not on the public radar. Yet both countries are heavily involved in research, but with differing objectives. In Canada, research is found primarily in energy development. In the United States, however, nano technology has been very hotly pursued by the military. The series reflects these oft debated differences, but also attempts to give an overall perspective, a single synthesized take, on the revolutionary world of nano.
A final challenge to the series' production was the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami which plunged Japan into one of its worst crises since WW2. Tokyo faced severe power shortages. Broadcast resources assigned to the project were quickly moved to continuing coverage of the tragic events and their aftermath. One of the key scientists to appear in the NHK produced episode, Professor Aono, had to put his participation on hold as he and his staff reconstructed their research facilities which were damaged by the tsunami.
We hope you'll enjoy and learn something from the end result of our hard work on October 13 at 8 pm on The Nature of Things. Read more about The Nano Revolution.
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