If you watched the “Cloning Redwoods” clip, “Jill Tarter on Growing Up in the 1950s” clip, or “Paolo Soleri at Dome House” clip, you probably noticed that archival material will play a key role in A Life’s Work. But I’m a big believer in using it judiciously. For instance, not for a second did I think of including in a SETI segment footage from some cheesy science fiction b-movie about aliens invading Earth, you know, the kind where a giant being that looks like a cucumber with limbs comes lumbering out of a plywood flying saucer. Nope, not going to happen.
Then I read Jill Tarter — Beating the Odds, a Q&A with Jill on the SETI Institute’s web site, and this part set me to thinking…
What originally opened your mind to endless possibilities and inspired you to go on this journey to discover life in the universe?
As a kid, I would watch Flash Gordon programs on television and grew up assuming there was other intelligent life in the universe. I remember walking along the beaches in southern Florida with my dad at night and looking at the stars. I thought there must surely be other children walking along their beaches with their dads looking at their stars, our Sun among them, and wondering about the beings that lived there. It seemed obvious to me, in the way it can to a child, that we were not alone in the universe. Today it is a question for which I have no answer, but I’m trying to find it.
In our interview, we didn’t talk about the impact Flash Gordon had on her as a child. Could footage from the TV show work in A Life’s Work? Could it convey that impact without her stating it? Perhaps, but it would have to be the right clip used in the right place, of course.
Here, in its entirety, Episode 1, Season 1.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCWcsm1Oyjc[/youtube]