Writing the Cosmos Takes You Places You Don’t Expect

I got my start as a science writer when I decided I could do a better job of telling a story about astronomy than somebody else was doing. As I recall, the first thing I wrote was a planetarium show about light-travel time. Not much later, I found myself at a newspaper, doing all kinds of odd editorial and writing jobs. Not all of it was science-related, but occasionally I’d get to tell an astronomy story. And, sometimes I’d get stuck with something like “Balance an Egg on the Equinox: Fact or Fiction?” Eventually I moved fulltime into science writing just about the time I went back to graduate school.

Life’s like that. You start out in one direction and end up going places you never expect to be. I made that observation to a student reporter from the University of Colorado who called me a while back to update my “facts” for the alumni association. That led to a story that showed up in the spring issue of Bylines, the CU Journalism alumni magazine. I’m not sure she knew what to make of what I said. As I recall, when one graduates, it seems like life’s paths are set — you major in journalism or physics or whatever and that’s what you’ll do your whole life, right?

Well, not so much. I went back to school to try for a PhD in Astrophysics. I didn’t get there for various reasons, but I did study a lot of physics, astronomy, and planetary science along the way. Ultimately I ended up with hours and hours of science course work, but a masters’ in journalism and mass communication aimed at presenting astronomy and space science to the public. And, today I routinely research and write about astronomy, astrophysics, and planetary science — depending on the project I’m doing.

I’d like to go back and complete that PhD path, but for now I’m on the trail of science writing, taking all that immense background and experience in science and science writing and using it to tell stories about the universe. Along the way I’ve worked on an HST team, edited a science magazine, written research papers, worked with scientists to tell their stories, written exhibits (one set about astronomy and another about climate change) for two major institutions, and created many a planetarium and online video piece to help astronomers and the public understand the cosmos.

The message here is that one’s paths can be as varied as there are places to explore in the cosmos. Not sure if my Bylines profile got that across, but it was interesting to see a snapshot of my career taken by someone else.

Who IS that Narrator, Anyway?

Because I write scripts for planetarium shows and science-type documentaries and vodcasts, I always have a number of strands that I weave together to make the final show. First, there’s the subject matter, which has to be impeccably accurate and interesting to the public. Then, there are the visuals (which can be stills, animations, etc.) that tell the story. And, of course, there’s the voice. Telling the story out loud is as important as the visual interpretation. Mate that good voice to some good music and you have what you need to tell a memorable story.

So, that means I need somebody to “talk it” and that’s where the role of a narrator/voice-over talent comes in. That person has to be able to take the words I’ve written and tell the story in a believable manner. It doesn’t matter to me whether that voice is male or female, young or old, as long as the person can make it “real” for the audience.

We’ve worked with a bunch of different voice actors over the years (you can hear samples of them at the Loch Ness Productions web site), and each one brings a special ’something’ to the performance. We send them well-annotated scripts and work with each actor in the studio to get the best performance. If we are lucky (and we usually are) we get somebody who is a consummate “pro” — someone who anticipates the nuances and really works them. When that happens, it’s like magic in the studio.

So, a few years ago, I got interested in seeing my scripts from the actor’s viewpoint. I took a couple of workshops with a local voice actor who does a lot of work in both commercial and documentary scripts. It really opened my eyes to the work an actor does to create a role. Whether it’s a bagel commercial or a NOVA documentary or one of our shows, that VO actor has to work the words, pull out the meaning, and convey with “voice” to the audience. It’s more than just walking into the studio and putting on the headphones and reading the copy. In fact, I’ve learned that if you’re reading it out loud, you’ve only just started the work. It’s similar to writing. I’ve often been told (sometimes by people who should know better) that “oh, anybody can write.” That’s true… anybody CAN write. But, doing it WELL, that’s where you need talent. It takes artistry to tell a story that engages an audience; to write down words that are meant to be read aloud and heard by an audience. You have to get inside the story and figure out ways to tell it that mean something to people. Same with voice acting.

Last weekend I took an interesting side-trip on the voice-over trail. I had the opportunity to get the inside story on animation voices from an actor who has done many of them over the years. His name is Bob Bergen and, among other things, he’s the voice of Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, and many other animated characters, as well as a voice-over for longer narrations and commercials. It turns out that no matter what the person is giving voice to, the same principles of acting apply — whether it’s Tweety or as the announcer for a chain of pharmacies. It’s all part and parcel of “telling the story” or “keepin’ it real” that helps audiences “get” something — whether it’s a planetarium show about a trip to Mars or a story of a cat who goes to the Moon or even something as simple as a look at the night sky.

So, the next time you go to a planetarium show or listen to a radio show like “Prairie Home Companion” or play a video game or watch cartoons, really LISTEN to the voice of the narrator and the voices of characters. They’re doing something with the words that help you get the story inside your head. It’s an art and a lot of fun!

What with Blogger being up and down the past few days, it has been difficult to get on and write an entry. Things seem to have settled down, so here I am again.

Griffith Observatory

I’ve been thinking about the past year’s worth of work I’ve done for Griffith Observatory, now that it’s almost all done but the shouting. We have a few clean-up details to do with the exhibits, but my part of the project is just about done. If you go to the Griffith Observatory web site, you’ll see the latest pictures of the exhibits being put into place. It’s amazing to see the place taking shape, and the words I so carefully crafted going up on the walls and exhibit panels.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me what the project has been like, and I’ve been invited to write an article or two on the process of writing exhibits such as these. As soon as the project is completely off my desk, I’ll settle in to write those articles. For now, though, I can say a few things about the experience. As I think over the whole process, I have a lot of very good memories of accomplishment, many memories of hard work, sometimes frustration, sometimes complete madness. It was fun, it took every skill I had to pull off the writing, and it taught me so much and gave me so many new experiences. We got through it and even though not everything is finished yet, it will be soon. And it’s turning out beautifully.

For most of my writing—from books to documentaries to stories to software documentation for planetarium products—I have to get inside the mind of the reader/user/viewer and figure out what story I want them to get from the product I’m creating. For Griffith, I had an additional “role” to take on as writer—the “voice” of the observatory. And make no mistake, the Voice WAS and IS a role. It was not the voice of any one person, not even me. It was a construct I created in my mind, with a LOT of input from others, and that voice is what helped me tell the story of astronomy in th exhibits.

In a way, I suppose that creating that role of the Voice was not much different from the process an actor goes through to understand a character’s part in a performance. As it happened I WAS taking some acting classes during the time I was writing for Griffith, and many of the preparations I made for classwork were quite similar to what I did to create the Voice.

So, when this fall rolls around and Griffith Observatory re-opens, and we go out for the opening, I’ll be anxiously waiting around the halls, hoping that the Voice I created (with the help of so many artists, scientists, and others) is doing its job, bringing astronomy to the huge universe of people who will be visiting Griffith Observatory over the next decades. While it won’t be just ME up there on the walls, I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that the words I worked so hard to create will come to life with the help of the Voice.

Griffith Observatory, image courtesy Tina Burch, DailyNews.com staff photographer.

For the past year, I’ve been involved with one of the most amazing projects I’ve ever been invited to join, working as senior writer for the Griffith Observatory’s exhibits, set to be unveiled to the public sometime this autumn. The subject is, of course, astronomy, and without giving away too many secrets, it’s safe to say that we cover everything from earth-based astronomy out to the limits of the observable universe. (You can read more about the observatory at the story link under the picture.)

Like just about everybody else in the planetarium community, I’d been aware of Griffith’s place in the domed landscape, but it wasn’t until I got started with the project that I learned more of the history of the place. And, after my first meeting with the curatorial teams advising on the content to be covered in the exhibits, I was hooked by their idea of bringing astronomy to everybody using this “People’s Observatory” to do so. How so??

There’s an easy answer to that: because throughout my career, I’ve always tried to bring astronomy to everybody. I’ve eschewed the jargon and technobabble (which I CAN sling with the best of them when I’m working with scientists who know the language) in all my work. So, “speaking astronomy in plain English” wasn’t exactly unbroken ground for me. But, the challenges of explaining this complex science at a general level, on panels that often didn’t have more than 40 or 50 words on them—that was different.

At some point I’m going to write more about how it all worked—probably later this summer when I’m completely finished with the work. For now, let’s just say that, with astronomy at least, there’s a way to tell the story of the stars—and I want the next person who tells me that finding a way to make our science approachable is just “dumbing it down” to know that telling the story of science is a job we should ALL take seriously. And we should do whatever it takes to learn how to tell that story effectively. That’s what the Griffith experience has reinforced for ME.

It has been a few days since I wrote last. I have a good excuse though, since I now find myself in New York City working on a tres cool project! The Griffith Observatory (read more about it here: the Griffith Observatory renovation project) was looking for a person to do some writing for their exhibits and I thought it sounded like an interesting challenge. One thing led to another and here I am, putting all that astronomy knowledge to work for an institution I’ve long admired. No, I haven’t moved permanently to NYC, in fact, I’ll be spending a lot of time between home (in Massachusetts) and NYC over the next few months. Through the wonders of the Internet (thank you, Al Gore), I can post from anywhere, and so I’ll resume my blog entries as I can. I have a lot of time on trains and planes…