Randy Olson
Randy Olson (born October 3,
1955) is a scientist-turned-filmmaker who earned his Ph.D. in
Biology from Harvard University
(1984) and became a tenured professor of marine biology at the University of
New Hampshire
(1994) before changing careers by moving to
Hollywood
and entering film school at the University of
Southern California
. He has written and directed a number of
short films and feature documentaries which have premiered at film
festivals such as
Tribeca Film
Festival and
Telluride Film
Festival. Most of his films draw on his science background,
involve humor, and address major science issues such as the decline
of the world's oceans, the controversy around the teaching of
evolution versus
intelligent design, and the attacks on
global warming science.
His company, Prairie
Starfish Productions, is based at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood,
California
. He is currently the Director of the
Shifting Baselines Ocean Media
Project.
Early life
Olson was
born in Heidelberg,
Germany
, the son of Colonel John
Eric Olson, West
Point
graduate (class of 1939). He moved with his
family to Hawaii
in 1960 (age
4) where they lived until 1964 as his father was stationed at
Schofield
Barracks
and served as a military advisor in the growing
Vietnam conflict. Olson credits
his time near the ocean in these years with his eventual career as
a
marine biologist.
They subsequently
moved to Virginia
, then Kansas City, Kansas
where he attended high
school and began college at the University of
Kansas
.
Science career
After
dropping out of the University of Kansas for a semester and ending up working on an oceanographic project in Puerto Rico, Olson
returned to college, and transferred to University of
Washington
. There he got involved in marine biological research along the outer
coast of the Olympic
Peninsula
of Washington, spent a semester at Friday Harbor
Marine Laboratory, graduated with a B.A. in
Zoology, and was accepted to Harvard
University's Ph.D. program in biology. His dissertation
research took him to Australia in the
early 1980's studying coral reef ecology on the Great Barrier Reef
. While conducting his research he spent an
entire year living on
Lizard Island on
the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef.
After completing his
Ph.D. he returned to Townsville, Australia
as a postdoctoral fellow at the Australian Institute of
Marine Science, working for the Australian government studying
the problem of the crown-of-thorns starfish and it's
destructive effect on the Great Barrier Reef. In 1985 he visited
the U.S. research station in Antarctica
at McMurdo
Sound
for his research on starfish reproduction which
involved numerous scuba dives beneath
the Antarctic ice sheet.
In 1988
Olson was appointed as an associate professor in the Zoology
Department at the University of New Hampshire where he remained until achieving tenure in 1994.
Film career
- USC Cinema School
Olson
went through the graduate film
production program at the University of Southern California School
of Cinematic Arts
, earning his M.F.A. in 1997. For his student
film he wrote and directed the twenty minute
musical comedy short film, "You Ruined My
Career," starring Carol Hatchett, one of
Bette Midler's
Harlettes. The film premiered at the 1996
Telluride Film Festival in the
"Filmmakers of Tomorrow" showcase, won numerous awards, and was
selected by
Atomfilms.com as one of "The 100 Most Important
Student Films in the History of the U.S.C. Cinema School."
- Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project
In 2001 Olson teamed up with senior coral reef ecologist Dr. Jeremy
B.C.
Jackson of Scripps Institution of
Oceanography, Dr. Steven Miller of University of North Carolina,
Wilmington
, and veteran Hollywood big budget movie producer
Gale Anne Hurd to create the Shifting
Baselines Ocean Media Project. Initial funding came from
the three founding partners:
The
Ocean Conservancy,
Scripps Institution of
Oceanography, and
Surfrider
Foundation. The term "
shifting
baselines" was coined by fisheries biologist
Daniel Pauly in 1995. Olson broadened the
definition with a widely cited
OpEd in the
Los Angeles Times in November,
2002. In the years since, the project has produced a series of
short films, television commercials, Flash videos and contests
(stand up comedy, photography, video) all written and directed by
Olson. The most successful piece of media produced was the Ocean
Symphony
Public Service Announcement which
featured a symphony of comic actors playing instruments they didn't
know how to play, symbolizing the disharmony in today's unhealthy
oceans. This included
Tom Arnold on
kettle drums,
Madeleine Stowe and
Paul Michael Glaser on
violin,
Henry Winkler on
harp,
Sharon
Lawrence on
cymbals, and
Jack Black as conductor. The PSA aired over
30,000 times including on
CNN Headline News and
in
Times Square on the giant
Sony video screen, scoring over $10 million in free air
time.
- Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus
In 2006, Olson directed the feature documentary,
Flock of Dodos: the Evolution-Intelligent Design
Circus.
The film drew on both his evolutionary
biology background and his Kansas
upbringing
as he visited the controversy raging over evolution in his home
state. Flock of Dodos
premiered at the
Tribeca Film
Festival in New York, in April 2006, and since then has played
at
film festivals all over the U.S.
and abroad. The film is currently in rotation on
Showtime TV in the US and available on DVD.
- Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy
In 2008 Olson wrote and directed the feature film, "
Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy," which
premiered on the west coast of the U.S. at the
Outfest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and on the
east coast at the
Woods Hole Film
Festival.
- The Sizzling Dodos College Tour
After over 100 college and university screenings of "Flock of
Dodos" and "Sizzle", Olson combined the two movies in 2008 into the
Sizzling Dodos College Tour where
universities screen both movies on consecutive
nights, each followed by a panel discussion of resident
faculty, plus Olson gives a talk based on his "Don't
Be Such a Scientist" book.
Venues for the 2008-2009 academic year
include Penn
State
, East Carolina University
, University of Delaware
, Arizona
State
, Cal State Fullerton
, University of Missouri
, and SUNY Stony Brook
.
Controversy
Olson has been criticized for potentially "dumbing down" serious
science issues. His response is that his critics fail to grasp the
difference between "dumbing down" and concision. Two major reviews
for "Sizzle" exemplified the divide. The science magazine
Nature gave the film a poor review. In
contrast, the Hollywood entertainment magazine
Variety gave it a favorable review stating
that the movie is, "An exceedingly clever vehicle for making
science engaging to a general audience." In 2007 and 2008
Skeptic Magazine conducted two hour-long
podcasts with Olson in which he addressed
his critics, which drew disagreement from
P.Z. Myers on his blog
Pharyngula.
Books
- Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of
Style (September 1, 2009) ISBN 1597265632
References
- Olson PSA 2009
- Book review
- Climate Comedy Falls Flat
- Sizzle review
- Oslen blog May 2008
External links
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