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"I've been bitten by the science-art bug," says physicist turned filmmaker Mark Levinson to WIRED.co.uk. In this case, it turned out for the best. As earlier this month, Levinson won the Grierson award for his documentary film Particle Fever, which follows six physicists in the lead-up to the launch of the Large Hadron Collider and the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle at Cern.
As far as science stories go, the launch of the Large Hadron Collider is high up in the charts of science news nuggets.
It's certainly known for being one of the wackiest and most expensive physics experiments in history, as researchers sought to smash two particle beams head-on at lightning speeds in order to recreate the conditions after the Big Bang.
Their aim was that the new particles produced from the debris from these collisions would pave the way for new insights about the cosmos itself. The goal was to find the elusive Higgs Boson, or the "God Particle" as it's been more commonly dubbed.
Given the dramatic potential of this experiment, it made sense to leading physicist David Kaplan and Levinson, who met by chance, that there should be some record of this scientific mega-project to unravel the mysteries of the universe. The pair officially started filming in 2008, meaning that Particle Fever, which comes out next week in cinemas, took a lengthy four years to make.
But what inspired Levinson and Kaplan to take on such a large-scale project? "There seemed to be a parallel between the creative process and for looking for theories of the world," explained Levinson, who has a PhD in theoretical particle physics. "I don't think that science and scientists are depicted very well in fiction at all," says the man who set out to remedy the situation. "For me, it was extremely gratifying to reconnect with this world," said Levinson. Emphasising his and Kaplan's aim of making a character-orientated film, as opposed to an explanatory physics documentary, he continued: "I think the challenge was how to deal with an extremely complex subject matter for a much broader audience. To do this, we really approached the film as a dramatic story first, then put in the science at the end."
Giving a detailed low-down on the trials and tribulations of some physicists, who fortuitously went on to become big names at Cern -- main character, Dr Fabiola Gianotti was made director of the particle physics research centre earlier this month -- the film is nothing short of epic in its scope of ideas and emotions covered. "The challenge was to make it a dramatic story, but engage people," said Levinson.
Striking gold with his character selection was one thing. Yet along with the open-endedness of documentary-making, where a filmmaker can never be 100 percent sure of where the story line is going next, Levinson also commented on some of the challenges of capturing the colossal architecture of the Large Hadron Collider on film. "We were really concerned about how we would project a sense of scale," commented Levinson, who pointed out that both the architecture and size of the LHC was best described by a character in a film, who compares the the LHC's innards to a "giant Swiss wristwatch."
"People are so used to technological accomplishments and detail, but this is way beyond anything you've ever seen," said Levinson. "Luckily the thing looks fantastic. It has a beautiful symmetry and colours -- we were lucky that we weren't just filming a block of concrete."
For the filmmaker, bringing out the parallels between art and science was also important. "In physics, you're using mathematics to come up with something concise that is supposedly simple, but reveals a deeper truth," explained Levinson. "So in physics, you're coming up with something that helps to understand the physical world, but in the arts it's more about the human world." "I hope that this film gets people who didn't think they could understand [the universe], or have a certain curiosity, a better insight into what these people [physicists at Cern] are doing, and why this is an endeavour that is really worth supporting."
With physicists at Cern recently discovering two new particles by smashing two protons together, there's no doubt that some major cosmos-demystifying research is set to continue over in Switzerland.
PARTICLE FEVER is in cinemas 23 & 25 November and available on Amazon TVOD, iTunes and Simple Cinema
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
