Geoscience goes a little Hollywood as SEG celebrates its 75th.

Wow. Who knew? I've long known that geophysicists are a talented bunch, combining a variety of disciplines - math, physics, geology, computer science, engineering - to ply their trade. I even know that quite a few of them are darned good musicians. But movie makers?
At the 2005 meeting of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), placed in each delegate bag was a DVD, "Reflections in the Field," commemorating the history of geophysics and some of the forward thinkers who helped create the discipline. The DVD was part of the festivities celebrating the 75th anniversary of this august institution. While it's not going to cause George Lucas, or even Ken Burns, to lose any sleep over fear of competition, the makers of this piece, as well as the members of the society, should be proud of themselves.
I caught up with Lee Lawyer, a columnist for the SEG publication The Leading Edge and one of the members of the anniversary committee, to find out what went into the making of this DVD. Quite a lot, as it turns out. "I don't recommend that you take this job," he said. "It's not easy."
SEG began discussion of the concept about 18 months before the conference, which was held in November 2005, and the society formally approved the idea in fall of 2004. "We thought we had forever," Lawyer said. "But we needed every minute of it."
The DVD committee hired a professional production firm to undertake the project under the guidance of Rhonda Boone of WesternGeco and Mike Golding, who had just retired from WesternGeco. Despite the fact that most of the committee members were in Houston and Boone and Golding were in the United Kingdom, Lawyer said that video conferencing at the respective WesternGeco offices cut down on communication problems. The committee met once a month to edit the script and to choose a few luminaries to be interviewed. These included several past presidents; current SEG President Terry Young; and Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Institute (now owned by IHS) and author of "The Prize."
Not all of these folks could come to Houston, so the production firm hired cinematographers in other locations, including China, to capture the global nature of the organization. Each interview was at least an hour in length and had to be edited down to fit the content and flow of the movie.
Additionally, the DVD contains a considerable amount of information about the practice of geophysics and includes some wonderful old photographs, most of which were provided by the SEG staff in Tulsa.
Lawyer said that the production company has a good deal of experience working on industry-related projects. Good thing, because the final script wasn't ready until August 2005, frighteningly close to the November conference. "Before that, we didn't have a clue what it was going to look like!" Lawyer said.
The company started with a general timeline and built the script around it, he said; then SEG historians had a crack at it to be sure the information was accurate. Lawyer said one of his key learning experiences was the difference between writing for the eye and writing for the ear.
"If I write a column, I'd be shocked if somebody tried to use it as a script," he said. "And some of the script didn't look right unless spoken. That was an interesting part of the process."
He ultimately saw the finished version less than a month before the show. But he has no complaints. Feedback has been entirely positive, he said, and he hopes the DVD will have a life long after the celebration has died down. He said that he has edited an earlier SEG film, "Seeing the Unseen," into a 12-minute presentation that has been well-received at several gatherings. "Reflections in the Field" runs about an hour, so it would require a bit of editing for this type of purpose. On the other hand, an hour is just about the right length of time for broadcast on a public or cable channel. Might the message reach such a large audience?
"I would like to see if we could get it on public television," he said. "But they don't just give away hour time slots."
Still, it would be great to share the message with the masses. As immediate Past President Craig Beasley comments in the movie, "We need to make a concentrated effort to have people understand the importance of what we're doing." Adds Sally Zinke, SEG president during 2000-2001, "We have made the world a better place."

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