Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I just had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to chat with Ryan White, director of the new
Speaker 1: documentary Good Night Appy. The film follows Opportunity, the Mars
Speaker 1: exploration rover that is affectionately dubbed Oppy by her creators
Speaker 1: and scientists at NASA. Oppy was originally expected to live
Speaker 1: for only ninety days on the red planet, but she
Speaker 1: ultimately explored Mars for nearly fifteen years. The film is
Speaker 1: currently in limited release, so you can catch it in
Speaker 1: select theaters, but it will hit Amazon Prime on November.
Speaker 1: This film is is a real joy. You might not
Speaker 1: think you would be into watching a film about a
Speaker 1: Mars rover, but it is richly entertaining. It's emotional. I
Speaker 1: think you're gonna dig it. I think you're gonna want
Speaker 1: to see it with your family's I'm planning to watch
Speaker 1: it again with my family when it hits Amazon Prime.
Speaker 1: So without further ado, let's jump right into the interview. Hi, Ryan,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for having
Speaker 1: me so one question that I just had to ask,
Speaker 1: especially as the documentary was was getting into some of
Speaker 1: the backgrounds on the various individuals involved in the project.
Speaker 1: Were you yourself a space enthusiast as a child? So
Speaker 1: I grew up in Georgia, and from my very first
Speaker 1: memories I wanted to be an astronaut um. The cabbage
Speaker 1: patch style factories in Cleveland, Georgia, where my family was
Speaker 1: frequent in a lot and I had the the cabbage
Speaker 1: Patch astronaut version that I went to bed with every night.
Speaker 1: My fifth grade social studies project was on the astronaut
Speaker 1: Alan Shepherd, because my dad had met him at a
Speaker 1: golf tournament and gotten his autograph, which I put up
Speaker 1: on a backboard and wrote a paper about him. So
Speaker 1: my dream was to go to space as a little kid,
Speaker 1: and I was probably not surprisingly also a big film nerd,
Speaker 1: space nerd and film nerd, and so I loved movies
Speaker 1: like E T which is still my favorite film, and
Speaker 1: I love The Flight of the Navigator when I was
Speaker 1: a boy in the eighties. Uh. And it's a dream
Speaker 1: that clearly never panned out for me. I never became
Speaker 1: an astronaut um, but I did end up becoming a filmmaker,
Speaker 1: and so one of my favorite parts about my job.
Speaker 1: I'm forty one now and I probably made thirteen or
Speaker 1: fourteen films. Uh. The amount of access that I get
Speaker 1: to these incredible journeys that people are on that I
Speaker 1: really should have no right to be alongside them for UM,
Speaker 1: to me is one of the coolest parts about my job.
Speaker 1: And so I always knew I had a rare job
Speaker 1: that could probably con my way back into that childhood
Speaker 1: dream somehow just by latching onto another story. And I
Speaker 1: was just waiting for the right story, and this one
Speaker 1: dropped into my lap. I'll never forget the date. It was,
Speaker 1: March twelve, UM, and I had a dinner in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles with Some forty five, which is Pete Burgh's company,
Speaker 1: and Ambling Entertainment, which I think most people know is
Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg's company, and made e t which is prominently
Speaker 1: put put on my poster right now for Goodnight Oppy,
Speaker 1: which I'm still pinching myself. And they pitched me at
Speaker 1: that dinner this idea for this film, and I've been
Speaker 1: waiting for the space story that I felt like checked
Speaker 1: all the boxes for what I love to make in documentaries,
Speaker 1: and I felt like, immediately this is this is the one. So,
Speaker 1: so what aren't those boxes that that it kind of
Speaker 1: checked off for you, Like, how do you how do
Speaker 1: you see good Night Oppy matching up with some of
Speaker 1: the characteristics of your your previous documentaries. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: good question because I think people look at the subject
Speaker 1: matters of my documentaries and they are all over the place. Um.
Speaker 1: And so that is one of the things I also
Speaker 1: love about my job is I call it career a
Speaker 1: d D. We get to pivot very quickly from one
Speaker 1: subject matter to another, but you get to spend you know,
Speaker 1: two or three years doing a deep dive into something
Speaker 1: that you're you know, deeply interested in, um, which I've
Speaker 1: done on many of my films. But all of my
Speaker 1: films have a through line in the sense that they're
Speaker 1: all very character driven UM. And I'm always interested in
Speaker 1: characters that are in a crucial place in their lives
Speaker 1: where they are going through something remarkable, and sometimes that
Speaker 1: remarkable can be something quite dark and heavy, and sometimes
Speaker 1: that remarkable can be something quite joyful. UM. And many
Speaker 1: times I've made films that involve both. I made a
Speaker 1: film about Serena Williams where it was the highest of
Speaker 1: highs the year I was following her and then it
Speaker 1: dropped out at the lowest of lows. UM. But I
Speaker 1: like to bear witness to those types of journeys. UM.
Speaker 1: And so while APPI is my first non human star
Speaker 1: of a documentary, UM, I felt like it was character driven,
Speaker 1: just like all of my previous films. Of course in
Speaker 1: the way that the robots are personified, but especially in
Speaker 1: the way that the robots are actually just extensions of
Speaker 1: the human characters themselves. So I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: Opportunity is nothing but a box of wires without these
Speaker 1: human beings that are infusing this, um, this emotion and
Speaker 1: feeling into her journey. UM. And So it might it
Speaker 1: might on face values seem a little bit more inverse
Speaker 1: um from what my other films have done, but I
Speaker 1: still approached it as a character based film and a
Speaker 1: character on a journey that will have a beginning, middle,
Speaker 1: and end. Yeah, there's such an animated cast of interviewees
Speaker 1: in this, uh, some great characters. UM. I imagine some
Speaker 1: viewers might be surprised by. But like, when when you
Speaker 1: were going into it, did you have certain expectations about, um,
Speaker 1: about what the the human stories would be in this
Speaker 1: and how did you react to that as a as
Speaker 1: as a director, I was very guilty of preconceived notions
Speaker 1: about scientists and engineers, So I just assumed that our
Speaker 1: biggest challenge would be finding compelling human being characters. I
Speaker 1: thought scientists and engineers might be very academic, somewhat dry. Um.
Speaker 1: I assumed that they would be unemotionally detached from their work.
Speaker 1: And what I thought was going to be our biggest
Speaker 1: challenge ended up being the complete opposite. The biggest challenge
Speaker 1: in the end was how do we limit the amount
Speaker 1: of human being characters that we include in this film?
Speaker 1: Because this is a team of thousands of people that
Speaker 1: work on these robots in some way throughout their lifetimes,
Speaker 1: and we only have eleven human beings in our film.
Speaker 1: And that's because we found that everyone that we talked
Speaker 1: to had some sort of emotional bond with these rovers
Speaker 1: or some sort of emotional anecdote or the way that
Speaker 1: they related to these rovers, or they related them to
Speaker 1: people or pets in their lives, and everyone had an
Speaker 1: incredible backstory, which I truly believe, like everybody has a backstory.
Speaker 1: That's sort of always my entry point into documentaries, and
Speaker 1: this just was an embarrassment of riches when it came
Speaker 1: to backstories that that we're compelling, and so you know,
Speaker 1: we'll never be able to do this full team justice.
Speaker 1: I have to be okay with that. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: you could have made Goodnight OPI with eleven other human
Speaker 1: characters and it probably would have been a great film
Speaker 1: as well. And then you could make it with another
Speaker 1: eleven characters and it would be great. They would all
Speaker 1: be different permutations, I think. Um. We were very conscious
Speaker 1: of finding not only great storytellers with great backstories, but
Speaker 1: also finding people where audiences because we really want this
Speaker 1: to be a broad audience. We want families to be
Speaker 1: able to watch this film together and worldwide. Uh. We
Speaker 1: were very conscious of finding people where a young person
Speaker 1: out there somewhere in the world might see themselves represented
Speaker 1: on screen. So if you are a boy in Africa
Speaker 1: or a young woman in India and you might think
Speaker 1: planetary exploration is not a career for you, and then
Speaker 1: you see, you know, two engineers from one from Ghana
Speaker 1: and one from India who are rover drivers, Um, you
Speaker 1: might think, why can't that be me? Awesome? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought it was a very relatable film. I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to to watching it again with my family when
Speaker 1: it when it comes out on Prime. Thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope, I hope a lot of families will do that.
Speaker 1: And it's coming out, you know, the day before Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: and I think that's not just a random date pick.
Speaker 1: That's in hopes that people will be home and watching
Speaker 1: things on Prime and might do you know, co viewing
Speaker 1: with their familes. Now, the opportunity Rover is of course
Speaker 1: very relatable and and this is this is laid out
Speaker 1: perfectly and in the documentary. You know, it has eyes,
Speaker 1: it's roughly human high, it has a face, and all
Speaker 1: of the individuals who talked to or many of them,
Speaker 1: have formed these connections with it and end up anthropomorphizing
Speaker 1: it to some extent. Um I wondered too, is when
Speaker 1: you first went into the project, did you have sort
Speaker 1: of expectations about to what level you would the film
Speaker 1: would anthropomorphize OPPI And then did that change during the
Speaker 1: course of the production we went through. So we, like
Speaker 1: I said, the first dinner about this film was March twelve.
Speaker 1: So the next morning is when we got an email
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles at least saying you can't leave your
Speaker 1: homes Um and so this film all booted up in
Speaker 1: the summer spring and summer of and so the process
Speaker 1: begin in with dozens of pre interviews, and my producing
Speaker 1: partners Jessica Hargrave and Grace oath Out did those because
Speaker 1: I don't like to interview people twice, right, Like you
Speaker 1: don't want someone coming on camera and then feeling like
Speaker 1: they already told you the story and they're repeating themselves.
Speaker 1: So jess and Grace would have these three or four
Speaker 1: hour long conversations with these people who played some role
Speaker 1: in the rovers lives, and every time they would send
Speaker 1: me an email with the Zoom file, and Zoom was
Speaker 1: brand new at that time, saying like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this person was so emotional or so incredibly connected with
Speaker 1: the robots. So once we started watching these people tell
Speaker 1: these stories, uh, I knew that we had something special
Speaker 1: and something different than what than what I had um expected.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the really fascinating parts is
Speaker 1: this was a mission that was supposed to last for
Speaker 1: ninety days, so you are prepared for a very short
Speaker 1: life in and yes, you know they will speak about
Speaker 1: being bonded to the Rovers by the time they left
Speaker 1: Earth and it's like seeing a kid off to college.
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the more emotional scenes
Speaker 1: in my film is watching them and both launch. But
Speaker 1: when you think your creature is going to survive ninety days, Max,
Speaker 1: I think you, uh, you limit the amount that you're
Speaker 1: willing to fall for that creature. You know that the
Speaker 1: warranty is going to expire soon. But when that creature
Speaker 1: exponentially outlast the odds and opportunities case that was sixty
Speaker 1: times the lifespan that was expected. So instead of ninety days,
Speaker 1: they reach year one, year two, year three. Both of
Speaker 1: them reach that long, that emotional broun grows even more
Speaker 1: and more and more, and you start wondering, which we
Speaker 1: go into the film like whether that lifespan could be
Speaker 1: an could be infinity because the the death of these
Speaker 1: rovers everyone thought would be because of the sun, because
Speaker 1: their solar powered and there's so much dust on ours
Speaker 1: that a built up of dust would prevent the solar
Speaker 1: panels from reaching the Sun at some point, and then
Speaker 1: they had this phenomenon of dust devils would pass by
Speaker 1: which they were terrified of, which ended up acting as
Speaker 1: like like car washes for the rovers. And so then
Speaker 1: these people started wondering if these rovers could live forever,
Speaker 1: and then of course that emotional bond grows even more.
Speaker 1: It's like your children that you hope out last to you. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so when the time comes that Mars finally delivers
Speaker 1: its final blow to both spirit and opportunity, it's it's
Speaker 1: like a grief process that these people had to go through,
Speaker 1: and they don't get the time at Nassas to grief
Speaker 1: the way you do the death of a human or
Speaker 1: maybe even a pet. Here you move on to the
Speaker 1: next mission the next day. You don't take days off,
Speaker 1: and so they didn't get the time um to grieve.
Speaker 1: And suddenly they have a documentary filmmaker knocking on their
Speaker 1: door saying, I want to know all about two daughters
Speaker 1: that went to Mars. And so I think in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways it was cathartic for them to get
Speaker 1: to talk about this mission, and that's where a lot
Speaker 1: of that emotion comes from in my film. I'm very
Speaker 1: surprised I didn't. It's not like I intended to make
Speaker 1: a huge tear jerker. We never had those conversations in
Speaker 1: the edit room, I guarantee you, of like, when can
Speaker 1: we make people cry? I'm very surprised with audiences right
Speaker 1: now how many tears there are. But I think there's
Speaker 1: there's something about these rovers that just does something to
Speaker 1: people's hearts. Um and seeing the emotional journey that the
Speaker 1: human beings were on as well through them. Now. Blake
Speaker 1: Neely's score is really great in this and uh and
Speaker 1: I also really loved the way the film ultimately takes
Speaker 1: the wake up song tradition and and weave that into
Speaker 1: the soundtrack. How did all of this come together? Well,
Speaker 1: Blake is my longtime collaborator, ten years every film he's
Speaker 1: worked on with me, and I feel very lucky because
Speaker 1: until recently I was only his only documentary filmmaker. He's
Speaker 1: mostly done scripted television and film, and just this past
Speaker 1: year he cheated on me with another documentary filmmaker, but
Speaker 1: she's a good friend of mine, so I've forgiven them both.
Speaker 1: But I feel very lucky that he has my My
Speaker 1: projects are kind of his side passion projects, and he's
Speaker 1: very protective of them, and he writes them all himself,
Speaker 1: and he works on them from the moment i'm pitching
Speaker 1: him an idea, you know, we don't wait until the
Speaker 1: edit or picture lock especially until finishing. To start writing music,
Speaker 1: we start at the beginning, especially on this film, because
Speaker 1: Blake is very similar to me, and that he grew
Speaker 1: up as a kid in Texas wanting to be an
Speaker 1: astronaut and loves space films, and so I knew that
Speaker 1: this would be appealing to him. But good Night at Being,
Speaker 1: more than any of my films that I've ever made,
Speaker 1: really is a tapestry of sounds. So blake score is
Speaker 1: very um cinemat Dick. It's a bigger score than what
Speaker 1: we normally right had a sixty something person orchestra, which
Speaker 1: you don't typically have on a documentary. We had the
Speaker 1: wake up song, so every every morning, the rovers woken
Speaker 1: up with a song that Mission Control on Earth plays. Um.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like a fun tradition that derived from
Speaker 1: human space flight when astronauts would be open up, that
Speaker 1: would be woken up that way, And so we were
Speaker 1: able to we have seven songs in the film that
Speaker 1: we're played during certain critical moments in the robots lives
Speaker 1: to wake them up or to try to save their lives.
Speaker 1: And then the third component of that tapestry is the
Speaker 1: sound design throughout our film, where we had Mark Mangini,
Speaker 1: who is a legendary sound designer. He won Oscars for
Speaker 1: mad Max, Fury Road and for Done, and he was
Speaker 1: doing the sound on this film in a way that
Speaker 1: was like completely rooted in authenticity, Like he was recording
Speaker 1: the real replicas of these robots at the Jet propulsion
Speaker 1: and laboratory, and he was using real recordings that the
Speaker 1: current Rover perseverance was audio recordings that she was sending
Speaker 1: down from Mars of what Mars sounds like. It was
Speaker 1: the first time we were hearing. And so it was
Speaker 1: a real dance between those three things. Blake scored these
Speaker 1: super famous wake up songs and then Mark Manginie's really
Speaker 1: authentic sound design and I've never worked this long on
Speaker 1: sound in one of my films. And the other big
Speaker 1: component of that is Angela Bassett. So she she ends
Speaker 1: up reading what are called the Rover Diaries, which are
Speaker 1: a daily account that a human being would write that
Speaker 1: are written, you know, in present tense, first person, as
Speaker 1: a crisis or major discovery is going down. And so
Speaker 1: we were incorporating her voice as well as part of
Speaker 1: that tapestry. And Mark Mangini actually recorded angela different than
Speaker 1: how we recorded everyone else in the documentary. So Angela
Speaker 1: when she recorded her her voiceover, had microphones all around
Speaker 1: her from three sixty degrees. So when you watch our
Speaker 1: film in a theater, Angela's coming from everywhere. She's like
Speaker 1: the voice inside of us. That's always what I wanted
Speaker 1: her role to be. She was this maternal figure that
Speaker 1: cared deeply for the robots and collectively was playing the
Speaker 1: voice of Nasa. So for as far as my previous films,
Speaker 1: this was by far the biggest sound design. But I
Speaker 1: have to say one of the most fun parts of
Speaker 1: making this film was getting to spend so much time
Speaker 1: trying to nail down the perfect sound tapestry. Wow and uh.
Speaker 1: And on the visual end of the spectrum, Uh, the
Speaker 1: effects are are wonderful in this their atmospheric but also
Speaker 1: thrilling and educational, uh, you know, showing up, especially when
Speaker 1: we're dealing with like the different phases of of reaching Mars,
Speaker 1: deploying to the surface, etcetera. And this was industrial light
Speaker 1: and magic. Yes, what was that like? Working with with
Speaker 1: I L. M oh Man, it was a dream come true.
Speaker 1: I was not only working with Ambulance and Mark Manginie
Speaker 1: and Angela Bassett, but I was working with the best
Speaker 1: in the business when it comes to visual effects, and
Speaker 1: of course very few documentaries need visual effects of that caliber.
Speaker 1: But the vision for this film from the beginning was
Speaker 1: to swing big. So the motto for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Speaker 1: which is the hub of NASA's Mars mission program, is
Speaker 1: dare Mighty Things UM. And I always love that motto
Speaker 1: from the very beginning, because these are people that aren't
Speaker 1: taking their swinging for the bleachers with these missions, and
Speaker 1: when they fail, they failed publicly, they fail hard, which
Speaker 1: the two missions right before this one had done UM
Speaker 1: and so they were sort of a laughing stock, and
Speaker 1: they're told that these things that they want to achieve
Speaker 1: are impossible, and then they figure out a way to
Speaker 1: prove that wrong. And I felt like, if we're going
Speaker 1: to make a film about these incredible innovators, that we
Speaker 1: need to be innovative our ourselves in the film and
Speaker 1: not make such a traditional educational doc. You know, we
Speaker 1: have amazing archival from NASA in the film, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to weave that together with the journey of the robots,
Speaker 1: and my vision from the very beginning was saying, can
Speaker 1: we take the audience to Mars, and not in a
Speaker 1: cartoon way, in a photo real way, like can we
Speaker 1: feel like I was there with my camera crew shooting
Speaker 1: on Mars because we know exactly what Mars looks like,
Speaker 1: that it is not a mystery anymore. Because of opportunity
Speaker 1: and spirit. They both had nine cameras on them, they
Speaker 1: took hundreds of thousands of photographs. We know what every
Speaker 1: hour of their journey looked like around them. So we
Speaker 1: gave those hundreds of thousands of photographs and a ton
Speaker 1: of data that NASA supplied to US um to Industrial
Speaker 1: Light Magic and you know, normally people are going to
Speaker 1: Industrial Light and magic and saying we're hiring you for
Speaker 1: your imagination, like what's what's your creation gonna be? And
Speaker 1: I was coming to them from the complete opposite direction, saying, please,
Speaker 1: don't use your imagination at all, Please use all your
Speaker 1: technical skills and are you capable of this? Because I
Speaker 1: remember saying to them like, if this is going to
Speaker 1: look like a cartoon, we should not go down this path.
Speaker 1: And they said, we've never done it before, but we
Speaker 1: would love to try building Mars from the ground up,
Speaker 1: and that is an incredibly laborious process. Creating those types
Speaker 1: of visual effects. It took years. Um, but I have
Speaker 1: to say the biggest compliments visually to our film have
Speaker 1: been having theatrical screenings with the scientists and engineers who
Speaker 1: spend every day on Mars through their avatars, these robots, saying,
Speaker 1: we never thought this could look that real in video,
Speaker 1: like it feels like we're there. So they really knocked
Speaker 1: it out of the park. And I'm so grateful for
Speaker 1: them because I know I drove them insane as a
Speaker 1: documentary filmmaker. They are not used to working with people
Speaker 1: like me who are such sticklers for accuracy, but they
Speaker 1: really rose to the challenge and then some wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: well the results are amazing. So a couple of couple
Speaker 1: of final questions here. Um. First of all, you mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier growing up in some of the sort of space
Speaker 1: and sci fi films that that inspired you. But as
Speaker 1: as your career took you into the realm of documentaries,
Speaker 1: were there particular documentaries or particular documentary directors that inspired
Speaker 1: you or continue to inspire you the most? Oh man,
Speaker 1: I could go on all day long about this, um,
Speaker 1: but absolutely, and you know there are filmmakers that inspire me,
Speaker 1: that make completely different types of films than me. You know,
Speaker 1: we we go on this Fall Fest Civil tour and
Speaker 1: I'm with. What I love about the doc community is
Speaker 1: like your heroes are right there. It's not that hard
Speaker 1: to meet your heroes once you're in that world. And
Speaker 1: your heroes are kind, generous people who are excited if
Speaker 1: you're excited about their films. Because we've never been the
Speaker 1: most popular kid in the class from um, you know,
Speaker 1: documentaries have always been relegated to a sideline, and so
Speaker 1: you know, I've I've gotten to meet my heroes repeatedly.
Speaker 1: I was on a panel the other day next to
Speaker 1: Laura Poittress. I think she's one of the best documentary
Speaker 1: filmmakers ever. Steve James, Frederick Wiseman, Da Penna Baker I
Speaker 1: got to know before he passed away. Agnes Varda is
Speaker 1: the reason I'm a documentary filmmaker because I saw her movie.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know what a documentary was when I
Speaker 1: was entering college and I saw one of her movies
Speaker 1: in a movie theater for extra credit in a class
Speaker 1: and thought, like, what is she doing? But I want
Speaker 1: to find out what that format is. And I, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe ten years later, fifteen years later. Got to tell
Speaker 1: Agnes Varda that at a brunch. Um, And so I'm
Speaker 1: continually inspired by you know, and we're friends, so we
Speaker 1: we all go off on these crazy ventures. You know,
Speaker 1: Margaret Brown, who made Descendant this year, is a very
Speaker 1: good friend. Matthew Hyneman, who made Retrograde, is a very
Speaker 1: good friend. I didn't even know Matthew was making a
Speaker 1: film in Afghanistan. Um. You know, we're friends, but we
Speaker 1: don't get to see each other all the time. So
Speaker 1: it's this fun community where you you you're all off
Speaker 1: on these separate adventures and you're so funneled into your work.
Speaker 1: And then just by coincidence, if if timing works out
Speaker 1: where your films are coming out the same year, you're
Speaker 1: around each other a lot, and you get to celebrate
Speaker 1: each other's films. And I think it's a remarkably uncompetitive community.
Speaker 1: I know it seems competitive when you get to awards
Speaker 1: time and all of that, but you don't feel that
Speaker 1: when you're with these people. You feel an excitement about
Speaker 1: the diversity of filmmaking that's happening within this quite small community. So,
Speaker 1: in closing, what do you think was the most important
Speaker 1: thing you wanted the documentary to get across. Regarding the
Speaker 1: Mars Exploration rover mission, I don't spend a lot of
Speaker 1: my time while I'm making films like thinking a lot
Speaker 1: about takeaways of what I want the audience to take away,
Speaker 1: Like what I'm always wanting the audience. It's not what
Speaker 1: they take away, it's what they feel, which is always
Speaker 1: more important to me. And so I'm always just conscious
Speaker 1: of trying to create something that takes someone on an
Speaker 1: emotionally transformative journey. But that being said, this film had
Speaker 1: layers that not some of my other films have not had.
Speaker 1: And one of those layers, which is inevitable, is that
Speaker 1: we made it during some very dark years in our culture. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, the film began during the height of COVID.
Speaker 1: We partnered with Amazon. We were taking this film out
Speaker 1: to the distributors during November, so the height of the
Speaker 1: American election. And one of the things I hope for
Speaker 1: this film is that it is a relief for people.
Speaker 1: It is a story people from all over the world
Speaker 1: coming together on a common project that is for the
Speaker 1: better of mankind. It is a very hopeful story. It
Speaker 1: is a mostly a political story. Um, there are definitely
Speaker 1: important scientific and environmental conclusions that Opportunity and Spirit had
Speaker 1: while they were on Mars, namely that our sister planet
Speaker 1: did once have water and possibly life on it and
Speaker 1: what happened to that atmosphere. But Goodnight APPI is an
Speaker 1: emotional character journey, and so I hope, mostly especially coming
Speaker 1: out of some very dark years, that people will just
Speaker 1: enjoy the fun adventure and families will enjoy that together
Speaker 1: and take some inspiration from watching, you know, this unlikely
Speaker 1: group of human beings who came together to do something incredible.
Speaker 1: And I know that sounds a little cheesy, but I
Speaker 1: know I was completely inspired every day watching it while
Speaker 1: I was making it, and it was a lifesaver um
Speaker 1: and so I'm just really grateful that it happened to
Speaker 1: fall in my lap on March twelve. Well excellent. I
Speaker 1: encourage all of our listeners to go out and and
Speaker 1: check it out. Ryan, thanks for taking time out of
Speaker 1: your day and chatting with me. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me. Thanks again to Ryan White for taking
Speaker 1: time out of his day to chat with us Before
Speaker 1: we close up the episode, though, I'd love to listen
Speaker 1: to some trailer audio for Goodnight Appy. This has build
Speaker 1: a launch control three three two to one mag and
Speaker 1: start and look draw. Yeah, but she becomes a family member.
Speaker 1: Our whole objective was to build two solar powered rovers
Speaker 1: that could survive three months on Mars, and the pressure
Speaker 1: on the team is really phenomenal. Was Mars went to
Speaker 1: green world with living things and blue oceans. This is
Speaker 1: the very first time we breathe life into the rover.
Speaker 1: It's just a box of wires, right, but you end
Speaker 1: up with this cuteish looking roball that has a face. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's a lot's fly. Ladies and gentlemen are privileged to
Speaker 1: be in one of the monkey setting rooms on Earth.
Speaker 1: At the moment Rover diary, the signal from the vehicle
Speaker 1: is solid and strong. Opportunity is on Mars. What do
Speaker 1: we do next. Let's hit the road, pedal to the
Speaker 1: metal and go see Lars. We see these dust devils
Speaker 1: and we were concerned that would be the way that
Speaker 1: she died. Ours was a spacecraft graveyard when we flew h.
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone expects it's the robots to survive
Speaker 1: all these disasters. You get this feeding of but basically
Speaker 1: invincible through this robot. We are on this incredible adventure together,
Speaker 1: humans are capable of forming a connection in a barn
Speaker 1: to a robot. She rewrote the history books good Night Opportunity.
Speaker 1: Well done again. The film is good Night Appy. It
Speaker 1: is out in limited release, but it will also hit
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime on November. Thanks as always to Seth Nickel
Speaker 1: Johnson for producing Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Just a
Speaker 1: reminder that we have core science episodes of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind podcast feed. On Monday's, we do listener mail.
Speaker 1: On Wednesday's, we do a short form artifact or monster
Speaker 1: fact episode. On Fridays, we do Weird House Cinema. That's
Speaker 1: our time to set aside most serious concerns and just
Speaker 1: talk about a weird film. If you want to reach
Speaker 1: out to us, if you have thoughts, if you have comments,
Speaker 1: if you have suggestions for the future, you can email
Speaker 1: us at contact. It's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind's production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows. Way Way Way to People, proper