Inner Life

We were approached by Dr. Rob Lue, Director of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard, (an exemplary teacher and film buff), to enter into an experiment with him. Rob wanted to see if we could, in collaboration, change how undergraduate biological science is learned. Together we would make insanely detailed, scientifically accurate and aesthetically compelling animation of the inner workings of cells, on the tiniest, most intimate molecular level, but with a cinematic scope. The resulting pilot animation, The Inner Life of the Cell, became an instant international sensation. From its public debut at Siggraph, millions of viewers worldwide became fascinated with a new understanding of workings of their own cells.

A perennial source of inspiration for us has been visual communication. Telling stories and giving people memorable insight into complex time-and-motion-dependent concepts, is critical. Where the subject of study is too small, too fast, too complex or too opaque to study with ones own eyes, we have a unique opportunity to influence how a generation of scientists, students and curious people everywhere see our world. It is a great responsibility and a great opportunity. In Inner Life, for instance, we needed to place a virtual camera in an environment, a functioning cell, which is in reality, so packed with molecules and large structures that no line of sight is possible. We had to edit out enough stuff to give our audience a proper view of complex cellular metabolism, exposing a functional truth and beauty that this cell represents. Another problem is that the molecular structures we were to depict are smaller than the wavelengths of light that impart color on objects. Realistic would mean no color! A cell full of clear, glass-like complex objects with little to define their contrasts in function. Dr. Lue suggested that, since all of this cellular activity is going on in a warm saltwater environment, it would be appropriate to adopt the colors of a coral reef, to add an aesthetic and emotional impact to the project. It works on several levels.

From interviews with Wired Magazine, NBC, Reuters and a project profile on the ABC Evening News with Charlie Gibson, and hundreds of thousands of hits (and emails) on our web site, we knew we had tapped into a real need people have to get compelling science immersion without being treated as dummies.

Even editing so much from our virtual cytoplasm, we often ended up with hundreds of thousands of individual objects moving and jostling in any given scene. The additional use of a moving depth of field, atmospheric perspective and motion blur, lit without direct lighting-at 30 pictures per second-absolutely ruled out any possible route to animating our subject without the use of computer technology. The ability to have our program place and move thousands of objects, like the surface molecules of our membranes, automatically, was a key to being able to approach this project at all. We also were able to write software to automate some of the more complex motions and molecular assemblies. We were able to run through many tests of motion, color, lighting and camera motion from the same data set. We came away from this project with a keener appreciation of teamwork and cooperative consultation. The cultures of research and academic science are very different from that of an animation studio. We learned that we can influence many more people with our work than our original target audience, and that we need to keep pushing the envelope of what is possible. Our best advice is to pick good partners and great and talented team members, like John Liebler, our lead animator, before embarking on an impossible mission. Be patient. Be optimistic. The best thing about computer technology is that we are coming closer and closer to being able to place what is in our clients heads and our imaginations inside other peoples heads!

Work/School

David Bolinsky and Michael Astrachan uses a desktop powered by  

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