Naturally Obsessed

[Joao]

(not sure this belongs here)
So, I was very interested in this movie, and congrats Amy for the two pieces on it. I was thinking of showing it to our Graduate PhD class, of which I am the merry Coordinator, but was put off by the terms & conditions: about 200 USD and you have to return it after a week (and yes, I am aware of "alternatives" but don't intend to use them). I understand this is a way of financing projects (and not a bad one), but it's still steep for a rental.
So, has anyone seen this? Any comments?

[Mad Dan Eccles]

The price tag put me off, too. I also got numerous junk emails from (people purporting to be) the authors, one of which didn't even have a direct link but rather one of those tracking ones. Which I wasn't ever going to click.

In all, I think they failed on this.

[easternblot]

[unlurks from the depths]

I saw a screening of this today, at my former institute. It was organized by the group that organizes all the talks/events for grad students and postdocs. They have a small budget, and paid for the whole thing, but even if they had made attendees pay out of their own pocket, it would have been less than $5 per person. (There were probably about 50-60 people there, at lunch time). And $5 per person to see a movie is cheap. $200 for screening rights is really cheap, too. For any other film, it's more. (Yes, you can rent "any other film" for a few dollars and screen it to a large group, but that's not legal.)

The rental they offer for the $200 is really meant for a public screening, because they give you a few paragraphs to read out loud to the audience before it starts. It says something about how the film can show the non-scientist friends and families of researchers why they are so passionate about their work, and literally refers to "public screenings such as this one".

So if you open this up to a larger group (students and their friends, after work hours, for example - or collaborate with another department), let people register to keep track of the numbers, and charge a tiny fee to cover the cost, you can easily get 100 people to go for $2 each. Or do a poll beforehand to ask who wants to watch it, and if they would be willing to contribute to the screening fee, and go from there.

There's probably enough interest in it. The 3 students in the film are entirely different, but I'm sure everyone recognizes themselves in one or more of the characters. The people who attended the screening I went to laughed and cringed through the whole thing. It's good to see other people's research doesn't always go well, and see their supervisor tell them it's normal. It's equally good to see it work out wonderfully for other people, and maybe get a spark of hope from it.

I was personally afraid that seeing the film would make me regret leaving the bench, but I didn't! It just confirmed that it's not for me. It's not biased towards "research is so great and we should all aspire to run our own lab!", there's really something for everyone, and I absolutely loved that the students all went in an entirely different direction, but still within science.

And if I had the chance and time, I'd probably consider organizing a screening of this myself, for others who haven't seen it yet.

[amy c.]

Thank you, Joao. And Richard, yes, I also thought the price tag (and homegrown publicity machine) would be offputting, but there'll be a screening here next week, and the promotion seems to be doing the intended job in the US. I'm not a fan of the flavor of it, but I think it was probably canny in that it was aimed at institutions, which do have the money, and if enough buzz is generated the institutions will start coughing up. I don't know that they'll cover their production costs with it, but I bet they've gone a decent way towards it already. They also have staff; I don't know how they're paid.

[Dr Mike]

Coincidentally was just chatting to a chap who saw the screening, a scientist, and who was appalled by the terrible scientist stereotypes it conveyed. The one person they chose to focus on was the sort of popular idea of a boffin/geek (said he) that 99.9% of life scientists just aren't.

[scurry_imperial]

I had meant to post here earlier since I loved Amy's review - great work! I am also relieved to read Eva's comments above since I am arranging a screening at Imperial College in December.

For an institution the $200 price tag isn't — or shouldn't be — too onerous. It wasn't hard to persuade our local Centre for Structural Biology to stump up the cash. The person I've dealt with from the Naturally Obsessed web-site has been very helpful - she even sent out the DVD before I'd organised payment, just to make sure that it would arrive in time!

So if you are in the London area and would like to go, we should be able to accommodate you (I've booked a 300 seat lecture theatre). We're currently set for a 6 pm kick off on Friday 11th December - though the start time MAY shift slightly).

Just drop me an email if you'd like to go (that way I can keep a tally on numbers, in case the response is overwhelming!)

[Editor]

I'm gutted I can't make the big screening, Stephen. I've heard so many mixed reviews from scientists now that I'm deeply curious to find out what you and others make of it.

[Joao]

Well, anyone is welcome to come to Portugal for a screening a week later... I rationalized it thus: the film is cheaper than a speaker, and will not be annoyed if no one shows up, which has been a problem in some time slots (it is Christmas time)
Very curious myself, I was not aware there were so many negative comments, of course that makes it sound more interesting.

[Puffin]

Hola Laboratory Literati,
I'm Puffin, my role models are pirates and whalers , and my heroes are rock stars and scientists.
One of my favorite occupational activities is criticizing things, movies, science, books, politics, art but especially ideas.
I hope that some of you find my comments of value.

Joao- I was happy to see you shell out the ducats for a screening. How could you read Amy C.'s criticism of Naturally obsessed and not want to see it? That piece is brilliant no? Who would have thought that the fate of a humble grad student could make "the Manhattan skyline, uninteresting and unglamorous for perhaps the first time in movie history."
In the piece Amy "... wondered where Gabe’s gentle, quiet wife might come from." Wow my bird brain is spinning.

scurry_imperial- I hope the here-say (see Dr. Mike) and anonymous innuendo (see editor) in this thread don't cause you too much anxiety about your up-coming screening. The movie could be pretty bad and still be the best movie about protein crystallographers ever made. Are there any others?

Dr. Mike- As thought free as your comment was it did have some value. It prompted me to do some research on stereotypes. You might be interested in this on national differences in stereotypes predict differences in performance on math tests Nosek and others PNAS June 30, 2009 vol. 106 no. 26 10593-10597.

editor- your post might have had value if you had included what the opinions that you heard were?, what was the sampling size? were they completely independent? do you know the sources well? do you normally value their opinions?
From pedagogy, journalism, and really In all, I think you've failed on this.

Ta ra for now
Puffin

[Editor]

This is a friendly forum, not a peer-reviewed research article. We are all allowed opinions in this forum and thankfully, most people respect them.

[Mad Dan Eccles]

Yegods. I was about to welcome Puffin to the Forums, but instead I'll cough quietly and suggest that insulting everyone in the thread wasn't the smartest intro.

[Beatrice]

Puffin sounds like one of these sorts who can't bear to hear anyone say anything remotely negative about something he/she likes, and attacks the person behind the contrary idea instead of the idea itself. There's a fair bit of that sort of approach out there. Bad grammar quite ruins the effect, though...

[Editor]

But your theory doesn't entirely wash, Bea, because Amy's review was actually positive.

I'm not sure it's worth wasting any time on a rebuttal, but I've heard several mixed reviews of this film, which I am not inclined to report on these forums because they are, as Puffin so charmingly spells it, "here-say", and I'd prefer to form my own opinion when I see the film in due course.

If Puffin continues to make inappropriate/offensive comments, the account will be closed. We've all been here before, and it's tedious.

[Dr Mike]

It's quite amusing to see someone who fancies him/herself a student of critical thought to produce such an incoherent argument full of personal attacks. Don't take it personally. Especially amyc - your piece was brilliant and I suspect the lame insults thrown in your general direction were largely down to the jealousy of someone who can't frame an argument as expertly and wishes they could.

My brother (a physicist) saw a screening last week and was a bit disappointed; the non-scientist person he went with loved it. I am due to see one very soon and am really looking forward to seeing what all the fuss is about! I am also curious to know if scientists are more or less likely to like it. I guess if the experience resonates with you, you'd like it more, but if you don't think your profession has been rendered accurately, you won't. One thing that strikes me is that the American scientific experience is known to be different than the European - American students often work 24/7 and of course it takes a few years longer, so the entire thing is a slightly different set-up. The students in our place here rarely work weekends or late evenings (it's more like a regular job) - my American counterparts say that this is rare where they are. So what European scientists may see on the screen might not be as familiar to their own experiences.

[Editor]

As an American PhD whose spent all my post-doctoral years in European labs, I would agree that the PhD students over here certainly work far fewer hours and don't seem quite so - I'm not sure what the word is. 'Naturally obsessed'? That's not it precisely; they care very much and work hard in the hours that they are in the lab, but I do get the sense that for them it is as much a job as a vocation. I don't recognize my younger student self in their attitudes. I have to say that I think this is probably a good, healthy thing - despite the teeth gnashing of various PIs who are always muttering that this generation doesn't know how to do it properly, in many ways I think that there was almost a spell cast over generation of (American, at least) scientists - you have to be in the lab 24/7 or you're not worthy of your stripes - and that this is badly outmoded and needed a change.

I sense a blog post coming on, so I'll say no more at present.