Star power
New planetarium
show looks at life's origins from multiple disciplines
Who
would have dreamed that the dome where new basketball coach Roy
Williams would make his first big cameo appearance would be the
Morehead Planetarium and Science Center rather thanthe
Dean E. Smith Center?
VOICE
OVER
Actress and Carolina alumna Sharon
Lawrence (right) narrates "Life in the Universe"
while Desmond Mullen, production designer, monitors the
recording. The show, a production of the Morehead Planetarium
and Science Center, also features work by Nobel laureate
Christian de Duve and an introduction by Coach Roy Williams.
For show times, see www.moreheadplanetarium.org.
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The
answer: Holden Thorp, the planetarium's director. Thorp recruited
Williams, along with University alumnus Sharon Lawrence, to add
some star power to a new planetarium production titled "Life in
the Universe."
And it is a film, he wants you to know, that has to do with more
than just distant stars.
Williams appears in a short video at the start of the film, basketball
in hand, to introduce the subject. Lawrence, perhaps best known
as Sylvia Sipowicz in ABC's "NYPD Blue," serves as the film's
narrator.
Thorp said Williams was asked to open the production because it
uses basketball as an analogy to explain why life might exist
elsewhere.
S H O W T I M E S
"Life
in the Universe" runs through Nov. 16. Admission is $4.50
for adults and $3.50 for children, students and senior citizens.
Special package deals are available for visitors seeing
"Life in the Universe" and another feature.
The show schedule is: Thursdays, 7 p.m.; Fridays, 7 p.m.;
Saturdays, 1:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.; and Sundays,
1:30 p.m. and 3:30
p.m. Beginning July 1, there also will be a weekday showing
Tuesdays through Fridays at 1:30 p.m.
For more information on this and other shows, see
moreheadplanetarium.org.
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"We
thought the hoops comparison might make it easier for the audience
to understand the point," he said. "And given that, Coach Williams
seemed like a natural to play a role in the production."
The basketball theme continues throughout the production with
children playing basketball. When they make a pass, the ball transforms
on the screen into a spinning planet -- a nifty effect dreamed
up by the show's producer, Richard McColman.
Thorp
said the notion of tying interviews and live video together with
planetarium effects just kind of evolved. "We kind of happened
on our own little art form here."
Thorp said this evolution in approach grew naturally out of the
fact that the planetarium is part of a university with so many
creative and knowledgeable people.
"Because
of digital video, and because now of the quality of the projectors
we have in here, we are not just limited to putting stars up there
anymore," Thorp said. "We've got this domed environment, and as
far as the content is concerned, we obviously have an infinite
supply."
The production designer for the show was Desmond Mullen; the chief
technician was Steve Nichol.
Beyond the multimedia effects, the movie was different in another
key respect: Its interdisciplinary approach to the question about
the origins of life.
Using the latest scientific knowledge, "Life in the Universe"
delves into the chemistry of life and considers where life might
exist beyond earth. "It's been only recently that we've recognized
that the history of life is written inside of us," Thorp said.
"Only since we've had the genome have we been able to really think
about that."
Christian Duve, who won the Nobel Prize in 1974 for his work in
subcellular biology, was interviewed for "Life in the Universe"
during a trip to Chapel Hill in February. During that interview,
he said the processes necessary for life are not unique to Earth.
"The
lesson of all this is that the cosmos is a huge laboratory of
organic chemistry," de Duve says in the show. "The building blocks
of life are being manufactured everywhere in the whole universe."
This multidisciplinary approach, in many ways, embraces the new
mission of the science center of incorporating other sciences
with astronomy, the planetarium's traditional strength.
"That's
the way science has gone," said Neil Caudle, an associate vice
chancellor for research at the University who wrote the script.
"Holden will tell you that science is not a bunch of isolated
little disciplines any more. People work together to solve the
problems that have gotten too big for any one narrow discipline
to handle."
Thorp said "Life in the Universe" was designed to complement the
center's new film, "DNA: The Secret of Life."
