Transforming the Planet: Discussing the Human Footprint
Humanity is the master of the world. But how did we achieve this? And what do our actions say about us as a people? These are the questions at the heart of Human Footprint, a new PBS docu-series directed by Nate Dappen and Neil Losin. They join Matthew Sherwood to discuss the programme, which they describe as ‘a science show that explores human history and culture’.
Human Footprint starts with an exploration of invasive species. Nate and Neil discuss our response to this problem, which we created. It has led to the rise of some unusual jobs: would you like to be a python hunter?
Through Nate and Neil, we discover some more sedate occupations, for example, duck calling and hunting. This brings them to Ramsey Russell, who, in addition to being a duck hunter, is also ‘a poet [and] philosopher’.
If humanity has transformed the world, some animals have transformed humans. Dogs are one of them. According to Nate, dogs’ relationship with humans has been ‘symbiotic’, and he describes visiting Resolute Bay in the Arctic Circle where dogs and Inuits help each other to survive.
Fast evolving lizards, dancing dogs, and city ecosystems also come under discussion. However, a series like Human Footprint is not easy to make. As Neil says, ‘you have to pre-produce everything... to a really... high degree’. Despite that, however, not everything is planned out, and they did still manage to be surprised by some ‘unexpected gems’ they found during filming, and afterwards.
In a conversation that ranges from evolutionary biology, how Shane Campbell-Staton came on board as presenter, to the role of rap music in the making of Human Footprint, Nate and Neil take Matthew Sherwood on a journey across the world and even through time.
“... what the series reveals to me [is] that we have an enormous capacity for messing things up if we're not careful. But we also have an amazing capacity for good as a species, and it's really just a matter of what we decide to do collectively.” – Neil Losin
Time Stamps
01:31 – Matthew Sherwood introduces this episode’s guests, Nate Dappen and Neil Losin, and their docu-series, Human Footprint
03:30 – Nate explains what Human Footprint is about
04:45 – What invasive species say about humans
08:31 – How humans have been transformed by the planet
11:25 – Bizarre Situations: Duck calling competitions, sled dogs and pig hunting
16:01 – The need to pre-produce a series like Human Footprint
17:32 – Discussing Episode Three on dogs
22:03 – A possibly controversial statement: cities as ecosystems
23:42 – The rapidly adapting/evolving lizards
27:43 – How Human Footprint came to be made
31:26 – How Episode Six, on cotton, was deeply personal for presenter Shane Campbell-Staton
33:54 – Human Footprint’s music
36:33 – The biggest challenge in the making of Human Footprint
39:47 – Human Footprint’s uplifting tone
42:01 – How Nate and Neil came to start working together
44:14 – What’s next for Nate and Neil
Resources:
Human Footprint
MovieMaker Magazine
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures
Connect with Nathan Dappen
Connect with Neil Losin
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Transcript for Factual America Episode 139: Transforming the Planet: Discussing the Human Footprint
Matthew Sherwood 00:00 (01:31)
This is Factual America. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood. Each week, I watch a hit documentary, and then talk with the filmmakers and their subjects. The Earth has never experienced anything like it. A single species dominating and transforming the planet almost overnight. We are, of course, talking about humans. Biologist Shane Campbell-Staton travels the globe to explore our human footprint. In the process, he discovers how the things we do actually reveal who we truly are. Join us as we talk with the award-winning directors and producers, Nate Dappen and Neil Losin, about this ambitious project. Like their docu-series, the conversation takes us in unforeseen directions. From dancing dogs, duck call competitions, and fast adapting lizards. Stay tuned.
Matthew Sherwood 00:48
Nate Dappen and Neil Losin, welcome to Factual America. How are things with you, Nate?
Nate Dappen 00:53
Things are great. Thanks so much for having us on.
Matthew Sherwood 00:55
Yeah, it's great to have you. And Neil, how are things with you?
Neil Losin 00:58
All good here. It's a little smoky in central Pennsylvania, but otherwise great.
Matthew Sherwood 01:02
Is that from Canada?
Neil Losin 01:03
It is from Canada.
Matthew Sherwood 01:05
Yeah. I flew through Detroit a few weeks ago, and I - well, I didn't see Detroit, basically, because it was so...
Neil Losin 01:10
Yeah. It's kind of been like that all week here, so - but hopefully, we're coming out on the other side of it.
Matthew Sherwood 01:17
Yeah, well, we're not here to talk about Canadian forest fires, or we can if we want, but we're here to talk about Human Footprint. Episode One premiered on July 5 on PBS. I think you can also catch it on Amazon Prime, if I'm not mistaken. And, yeah, welcome to Factual America. It's great to have you on, and congratulations. It's quite a ambitious project that you took on, and you must feel quite relieved that this is finally in the can and being released.
Neil Losin 01:49
Yeah, no, it's really exciting to see it out in the world and to finally be able to share it with audiences.
Matthew Sherwood 01:55 (03:30)
So, as we tend to get started around here, maybe, Nate, maybe you can give our listeners and viewers a synopsis. What is Human Footprint all about?
Nate Dappen 02:05
Yeah, sure. So, Human Footprint is a series that explores how humans have transformed the planet. But like Parts Unknown is sort of a food show that really explores human history and culture, Human Footprint is a science show that explores human history and culture. So, it's kind of an exploration of who we are as a species, by looking at the things that we've done to transform the world. So, it's definitely, you know, a film that explores some of the big scale transformations we've made, but we've tried to sort of shape each episode in a way that helps people leave with questions about who we are as a species.
Matthew Sherwood 02:47 (04:45)
Well, that's interesting. And I have seen this - well, at least a rough cut, I think, of the sixth episode. So, no, it's very interesting, and I really enjoyed it. But you kick off with - your first episode's on invasive species, and - why did you kick off with that, Neil, is that - what do invasive species say about ourselves?
Neil Losin 03:13
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I think a lot of people might not appreciate how big of an impact invasive species have had globally. They're the second leading cause of species extinctions around the world after habitat loss. And, you know, it's pretty clear that this is a human driven phenomenon, right, that's kind of - its kind of baked into the definition of what an invasive species is, right. These are species that we've moved from one place on the world, to another place, or many places in some cases, and these species have unexpected impacts where they go, and it's sort of one of these interesting cases where a tendency of ours, the tendency to want to control the environment around us and the species that are in it, has this kind of multiplication effect, because these species also have their own agendas that they start to pursue wherever they've been introduced. And for us, this was a great Human Footprint story, because it isn't just about what these animals and plants have done to the environments where they've been introduced, but it's about how we've responded to that, and the way we think about them, you know. We use the language of warfare often talking about invasive species and, you know, being in a battle for an ecosystem and yet, this is fundamentally a human problem, right. It's the fact that we can't stop moving stuff around the planet that causes this issue. And so, there's a lot of values that get laden into this issue. And that was really the core of what we wanted to explore, more than any particular species, was sort of how our species deals with the cognitive dissonance of having created this incredible problem that we are now unable to solve.
Nate Dappen 05:11
We really tried to shape the episode in a way that took people from something that seemed really simple to, like, a species like the Burmese python, where it's relatively new phenomenon - this is our pets that get too big and people don't want 14, 16 foot snakes - they get them as babies, and they say, yikes, this is scary, so they release them out into the Everglades, and those caused a lot of problems. And there's not a lot of controversy. Everyone wants the Burmese pythons out. And then we move backwards in time from there: to Asian carp, which were brought over originally, to control wastewater, got released, and now they're already here, they're here to stay, we're not going to get rid of them. They're slowly getting woven into the culture around the Mississippi Basin. From there, we go further back into horses. Horses went extinct in the Americas around 10,000 years ago, Europeans brought them back in the late 1400s. They became woven into everything we think about as American, in the native tribes, into our culture. And they are feral. And they cause lots of problems. And so, a lot of people think they belong, a lot of people don't. Then we go even further back in time to pigs, where pigs arrived in the Hawaiian islands around the same time as the Hawaiians did, and it's complicated. Those pigs have been there long enough to integrate into the ecosystem. The ecosystem has been changed fundamentally. They're integral parts of the Hawaiian culture. How do you think about them? And I think what you end up coming out with is that there are lots of species that aren't native that we said, okay, it's okay that these are here. And there are lots that we say they aren't. And it has everything to do with value judgments. And we sort of now we get to decide what we want to do, because we're so - you know, we have such a huge impact on the planet. So, that's kind of our thinking with that episode.
Matthew Sherwood 06:54 (08:31)
Yeah, no, I think it was - so, I mean, it struck me, and I think this is something that comes throughout the series is this, you're talking about how humans have transformed the planet or continue to transform the planet; yet, there's this feedback loop, doesn't it? It also, we're transformed by these - what we do. And so, you have things like - in the episode starting with the - the beginning of that episode, you've got a woman who's a real estate agent who's quit her job to be a full time Burmese python hunter. I mean, I had no idea people were doing stuff like that, that you could make a living that way.
Neil Losin 07:26
Yeah, yeah, well, there aren't many of them, but a small number of brave souls have given up all kinds of different careers, I think, to become python hunters. I think some for the adventure of it, and the sort of macho aspect of it, some because it's just a, you know, a place that they love, a habitat that they love, and they think they can make a difference.
Matthew Sherwood 07:47
Right.
Neil Losin 07:47
And Donna really was a fantastic character. Donna Kalil - I mean, she deserves to have a whole documentary made about her. And actually, there have been. It was fun to get to spend some time with her.
Matthew Sherwood 07:59
Yeah, no, I think - and then - just little things like, I mean, I think one of your - someone you interview says if people only knew how much money's spent on the wild horses, you know, in the west of the United States, but I was just struck by how much effort is going into just to contain these carp. I mean, there's - the whole, you know, corps of engineers is people with full time jobs, just to try to figure out how you're going to contain these species. But I think, no, that's a very good, interesting point. And then also the stuff about - all the things about Hawaii is very interesting in terms of - yeah, I mean, what struck me is maybe, you know - it's almost like weeds. Someone once said, weeds are just plants that people don't like, you know, I mean, what's an invasive species, isn't it? I mean...
Neil Losin 08:48
Yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 08:48
... and I think it even comes up later in the episode on, when you talk about coyotes, in a way - not that they're an invasive species, but how people - how we interact with things, and our values.
Neil Losin 08:58
Yeah, absolutely.
Matthew Sherwood 08:59
Now to be a bit boring, I'll go - you know, then you had Episode Two's - I, you know, I'm going a little chronologically here in terms of episodes, but July 12, you've got humankind's - you had this - what is it called? Top Predator, and it's about humankind's ability to hunt and kill and how that's transformed the planet. And I think what was interesting is Shane, the host, presenter on this, I think, you start off with a duck call competition. And he asks, if he asked me where I would be, a couple of years ago, I'd be here, I'd just, you know, be laughing at you. And do you find - I mean, do you find yourselves asking those same questions when you're filming this? You must be thinking, how did this - how did we end up at a duck calling competition in eastern Maryland?
Nate Dappen 09:50 (11:25)
I mean, yeah, the duck calling competition was just a wonderful surprise. I certainly never thought I would be at a duck calling competition. But I think as many maybe listeners or documentary filmmakers have experienced, our job is such a unique and wonderful job in that we end up in the most bizarre situations kind of all the time and you kind of pinch yourself. You're like, I am, you know, I'm at a duck calling competition. I'm in the Arctic with sled dogs, you know, I'm on a pig hunt. I'm in a boat with 1000s of carp jumping up out of the water and hitting me. I mean, it's kind of like one of those really fun kind of things, you know, you're having once in a lifetime experiences all the time for your job. So, yeah, I feel really lucky to get to experience those things. You know, with Human Footprint we did so much travelling, that it was almost like drinking from a firehose of life changing experiences, you know; it was like, every week, we were doing three or four things that I couldn't have imagined doing a year before. And each one of them was a profound experience. And, you know, I'm still sort of shell shocked from it, trying to sort out how I feel about all the different experiences I had, what I've learned, and how what I've learned is integrated into sort of my worldview. But yeah, the duck calling competition was pretty fantastic. We met a wonderful guy named Ramsey Russell, he's a world famous duck hunter, from Mississippi originally, but he spends most of the year hunting ducks. And, you know, I think as - you know, Neil and I, neither of us grew up in hunting culture, and I think probably both of us - and Shane included - we've got our stereotypes of hunters, but Ramsey, Ramsey was just this, you know, he was like a poet, philosopher, duck hunter, and getting to spend the morning with him and hearing his worldview and understanding the role that he plays in keeping ducks around was really eye opening. And I think made for great television, too.
Neil Losin 11:47
I think, you know, I have nothing but admiration for those filmmakers who can find the beauty in the mundane. But that is not the Human Footprint experience, right. I feel like every shoot, we're doing something so strange. And so out of the ordinary. It makes it for, you know, a really fun process of making it, but hopefully also a really fun ride for anybody who's watching.
Nate Dappen 12:13
There was an article that came out that was a review of the series. And I think one of the criticisms was that it had, like, that sort of sensational Discovery-esque sort of style to it. I think part of that was because of the phenomenon we're exploring are just like, they're all so insane. I mean, just in that, you know, like, it looks like the list of species that we covered just in that invasive species story, it's like a carnival list of, like, shows that you might see. It's like python hunting, cart derby, horse round up, pig hunting. I mean, it was like, it's all these things are pretty crazy and sensational. But we kind of - they're everyday life for the people who live them. And we don't often stop to think how bizarre the world that we live in, actually is nowadays.
Matthew Sherwood 13:10
"50 Most Dangerous Reptiles"!
Nate Dappen 13:13
Exactly. Exactly.
Matthew Sherwood 13:15
But it is - it's - yeah, I think - well, isn't it because of, I mean, it kind of comes out in some of the later episodes, too. I mean, it's just that it is such a strange and crazy world that we live in that we don't - I don't know, we like to think it isn't, or I don't know what it is that we think, but - most of us humans - but it is, it's just, it's just crazy, you know, and these things - and there are these, I mean, these interactions that - these connections, I mean, connections is another word you could use to describe a lot of what you're showing, and that's - these connections that you didn't necessarily know they existed, you know?
Neil Losin 13:53
Yeah, absolutely.
Matthew Sherwood 13:55
And then, I mean, as filmmakers, how much of this process of discovery is something - I mean, I know with docs, it is all about following a story and, you know, these things happen, and you end up at duck calling competitions. But how much of this was played out as you were doing the project in terms of this sort of connections between seemingly unrelated phenomenon and species and the like?
Neil Losin 14:25 (16:01)
I think for a series like this, you have to pre-produce everything, you know, to a really - to a really high degree. That doesn't mean that we're not ready in the field for those moments of spontaneity and those, you know, unexpected gems that you encounter along the way but in terms of like, I would say, the large scale kind of episodic structure both across and within the episodes, like, that really is established long before we ever go out in the field. And, you know, there were a couple of cases where I would say, you know, in post-production, we sort of encountered through - what we actually - the material, we actually captured in the field, a new way to sequence the stories that was sort of unexpected and cool. But that was sort of as serendipitous as it got, you know, at that scale. Now, within each story, of course, we might meet a character and say, you know, oh, my gosh, we have to, we have to go film this guy carving a duck decoy, because he's just such a character, or something like that, but yeah, the larger scale structure is definitely envisioned beforehand. Otherwise, it just wouldn't make any sense. These are such globe spanning, very unexpected in some cases, narratives.
Matthew Sherwood 15:49 (17:32)
And so, the most - Episode Three just released, what, yesterday, I guess, on PBS, and - why did you decide to dedicate a whole episode to dogs?
Nate Dappen 16:00
I think of all the episodes, the dog episode is by far the most fun. So, we...
Matthew Sherwood 16:07
It's my favourite.
Nate Dappen 16:07
... yeah, it's a great episode. It's very good television, I think. You know, dogs, we call them man's best friend, and they are an integral part of many of our lives. They're one of the most popular pets in the world, and they have fundamentally changed human history in a lot of different ways. And just like I was saying in that last answer, we often don't think how insane it is, that there in our house is the descendant of a wolf licking our children's face, begging for scraps and follow - and it knows how to - he knows how to - it can understand our language, it can understand our gestures. And, you know, when you look in the wild, and you see there's just, you know, several hundred thousand wolves, and then almost a billion dogs, you know, there's, I think it's something like, there's, like, a million dogs born every day or something like that, you start to think, you start to realise how incredibly linked this animal's success has been to our success in the world. And then as we started digging into the dog story, we also started learning a lot of sort of myths that I had heard throughout my life about the way dogs were domesticated. I, you know, I think we learned a lot about the history of dogs working on this episode. And then, of course, got to have some fantastic adventures. You know, one of the things we really wanted to show in the episode was how dogs transformed human life, human culture, and how this has truly been a symbiotic relationship. And so, we got to go up to the Arctic to go hunting with this, this young hunter in Resolute Bay, which is very, very far north in the Arctic Circle. He's a, an Inuit hunter, who lives in Resolute Bay, and he uses his sled dogs to go hunt. And when you go out there, which was one of the wildest trips of my life, you realise that there is no easy way to live in this place without these dogs. The dogs depend on the people, and the people depend on the dogs. And it was pretty remarkable to see that human-canine relationship in sort of its full glory. But then you see it out there and you think, wow, look at this, this is crazy. And then we went to Durham and filmed these dog dancers, where they've utilised that same relationship to have fun, right, where the dogs have learned human gestures and language in a way that allows them to have this very sophisticated, non-choreographed freestyle dancing. And it's just for fun. And so, it sort of spans human survival to human leisure, in the whole episode. And then of course, we learn a lot about dog genetics and how dog genetics is teaching us a lot about our own biology and helping us cure diseases that were very difficult to understand without dog genetics.
Matthew Sherwood 19:00
I mean, I will say as a dog owner, you'll never look at your dog the same again after seeing this episode.
Neil Losin 19:06
Yeah, for sure. The other you know, the - you asked the question of, you know, why have a whole episode about dogs but we could have easily made more episodes about dogs. I mean, if you look across the series, dogs show up in other places, too, not just in the dog episode, right. We have rat hunting dogs in the episode about cities. We have, you know, wolves in the episode about hunting. We have coyotes in the episode about cities as well. I mean, there's all these interesting dog connections to just about every aspect of our lives. So, once we started thinking about that, it really seemed like a no-brainer that we had to do a whole episode on this species.
Matthew Sherwood 19:49 (22:03)
You know, it was fascinating, and though I don't think I could ever get my dog to dance like that, nor would I try! But I mean, he doesn't know what he's missing out on, I think; so - but, and then we've got - that's just the first half, you've got three more episodes coming out. Neil, I mean, what are we going to see in - you know - what is, sort of - one's about, I think as you already mentioned, there's one on replacements, on how basically humans pick favourites. And then there's the - oh, yeah, so there's one on the urban jungle. What I found interesting is that Shane makes a comment about - he makes - he's seeing urban cities as a new ecosystem, and he says it's a bit of a controversial statement. What is - is he being just very geeky scientist about it, or is this - is it really that much of a controversy?
Neil Losin 20:45
I think there are a lot of scientists, biologists, ecologists, who, you know, they trained in a world where, you know, you think about your different biomes, your different habitats, and cities were never on that list, you know; all the while, cities have been growing and multiplying around the world, there are more cities now, they're larger now than they have ever been. More than half the world's population lives in a city. And I think what's interesting about cities as quote, unquote, ecosystems, is that if you look at cities around the world, they have much more in common because they're all cities, than they have differences, because they're in different parts of the world.
Matthew Sherwood 21:34
Right.
Neil Losin 21:35
So, if you look at Singapore and Miami, you know, the kinds of species that live in those cities, the kinds of ecological interactions that they're having, are much more similar than you would expect for two places that are on opposite sides of the planet. And so, I think cities really are an emerging biome, for lack of a better term that is sort of homogeneous around the world and deserves to be studied for all the lessons it can teach us.
Matthew Sherwood 22:06 (23:42)
And I thought it was amazing how quickly some of the, I think mutations is the wrong word, but some of - but how quickly things are changing with these animals. Just, you know, you're talking about even only, like, 30 year periods here.
Nate Dappen 22:20
Yeah, so actually, both Neil and I studied lizards for our PhDs before we went into film.
Matthew Sherwood 22:27
Oh wow.
Nate Dappen 22:27
And Neil did his PhD studying those lizards, those lizards, those anolis lizards, in Miami.
Matthew Sherwood 22:34
Okay.
Nate Dappen 22:34
He wasn't - you know, and he was studying a different set of questions, but it was definitely about adaptation, rapid adaptation, to a sort of new environment. So, you know, lizards run deep at Day's Edge. We've also made the authoritative film about lizards, called Laws of the lizard, which is all about the stuff that's come out of all the amazing research and insights in virtually every field of biology because of these anolis lizards, but I'll let Neil talk about the rapid evolution because that's definitely his wheelhouse.
Neil Losin 23:05
Yeah, well, you know, it's funny that we met Shane, the host of Human Footprint, on a shoot for that film, Laws of the Lizard, for Smithsonian channel that Nate just mentioned. And so, at that point, Shane was a graduate student, he was collaborating, he had just started his collaboration with Kristin Winchell, who you also see in Human Footprint. And we filmed them for that programme. And then, you know, later reconnected with Shane on another project when he was a post doc. That's kind of when we started developing this idea. And then ultimately, you know, he's a professor now and was a professor, had just become a professor when we first pitched this series, and then of course, it took a few years for everything to take off, but it's pretty cool to see that, yeah, that spark of an idea; you know, it came from thinking about lizards, and thinking about how fast can evolution happen, becoming a part of that, you know, that initial programme, Laws of the Lizard, and then kind of coming full circle all these years later, and featuring the same characters with new findings, new discoveries, and still, you know, still pushing the boundaries of knowledge with these lizards that we all geek out about together.
Matthew Sherwood 24:29
Well, I have to check out that other documentary of yours. Where I grew up in the states we had anolis lizards as well. I had no idea they were so prevalent in the academic literature as it has - comes out in the episode, so - anyway, I think that actually takes us to a good - this might be a good time to have a quick break. Let our listeners and viewers have a quick break, so we'll be right back with Nathan Dappen and Neil Losin, the award-winning filmmakers behind Human Footprint on PBS, and you can also, I believe, find it on Amazon Prime.
Factual America Midroll 25:07
You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter @alamopictures to keep up-to-date with new releases or upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the programme, our guests, and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.
Matthew Sherwood 25:26
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with Nate Dappen and Neil Lowsin, the award-winning filmmakers behind Human Footprint, on PBS and Amazon Prime. Episode One premiered on July 5. Three episodes released thus far, and with three more to come. So, you were already - Neil you're already talking about how this kind of project came about. So, this is something you guys developed, and then pitched. But do you want to say anything more about that? I mean, what was the idea, the genesis of this idea and project?
Neil Losin 26:07 (27:43)
Yeah. So, as Nate mentioned, he and I both trained as evolutionary biologists. And one thing that really interested us, and obviously still interests us, is how humans are reshaping the course of evolution for many species around the globe. And Nate and I had started to develop a pitch around this concept; a pitch for a limited series. And then we met Shane, we worked with Shane on a couple of projects. He participated actually in a science communication workshop that we were leading. And he came to us after the workshop and said, Hey, guys, I think we should do a television series about evolution in the age of humans. And we thought, okay, yeah, great. We're on board. We've already been thinking about this. And then he said, I think I should be the host. And we looked at each other, and we're like, oh, that's, that's really interesting, right. We can tell that, you know, we hadn't filmed Shane in the context of him being a host before. But we had filmed him, we could tell that he was a, you know, a really dynamic guy. We had seen him present in front of an audience live and how he just kind of, you know, turned on and the audience really engaged with him. We thought, man, he could really be a star on television. And maybe, you know, adding him to this concept that we were already developing, as the host, would sort of give it the secret sauce that it needed to really get some traction. And so, we started working together on this pitch, and what we initially pitched to PBS was that kind of concept, the slightly narrower concept, of evolution in the age of humans, and we pitched it as a limited series. And Bill Gardner, our EP at PBS came back and said, you know, Love this, love Shane. We're really looking for things that, you know, could potentially come back for more than one season. So, what would you do to this concept to make it into that? And Bill actually came up with the idea of, you know, what, if it's not just about evolution, what if it's about human impacts more broadly? And what if we just call it Human Footprint? So, that's where the title came from, is from that conversation with Bill who became our EP, and that really just, you know, kind of blew the doors off the thing, and we started thinking more broadly about, okay, we can do all this interesting stuff here. And, yeah, and then the rest, the rest is history.
Nate Dappen 28:37
I think one thing I'll add, too, is that Shane, you know, Shane definitely wasn't, like, just a host collaborator. Like Shane's involvement was deep, you know, from the very beginning. And his input, not just on, like, the science topics, you know, I think his knowledge about that stuff is deeper than our own, because it's his specific field; that's what he sort of specialises in is evolution, driven by human activity. But, you know, I think stylistically, even, having Shane there I think helped us really think differently about how to make this show. I think we knew from the beginning that we wanted to look and feel different, and we were looking, we were watching a lot of shows that we loved, and we were watching a lot of shows that were airing on these types of networks. And we really wanted to think hard about how we could make this show different; how we could make Shane a different kind of host. And Shane was integral to those sort of creative brainstorming sessions that gave the show the flavour that I think is unique about it.
Matthew Sherwood 29:38 (31:26)
Yeah, I think that's a good - thanks for raising that point, Nate, because I think also was going to ask is then, because - and Neil, you've already mentioned how collaborative the process was as well. So, then, did he - like, this - you know, the final episode, Episode Six, on the history of cotton, is that something that Shane had a big input into because obviously it's very personal - there's obviously a very personal element for him. I mean, it's personal for the US generally, given our history.
Neil Losin 30:05
Yeah, I can't remember specifically. But, you know, I knew this was one of those stories that the connection between, you know, deep, deep time like really deep, deeper than humanity, hundreds - a hundred million years of geologic history, and how that underlies the South and how those, you know, those minerals in the soil and stuff have shaped so much of the history that's come afterwards. It's almost like a human footprint story in reverse, where it's like, the planet is shaping us. But then it has a human footprint story layered on top of it, because then there's human beings making decisions in the context of this landscape that profoundly alter not only the environment around us, but the lives of, in this case, you know, tens of millions of people. And I think as soon as we started talking about that, we realised that even though this is like a little bit of a departure, I think, from the human footprint formula that it, you know, in spirit, it really fit in with the rest of the series. And you're absolutely right, that, you know, Shane had to give a lot of himself and really open himself up in some conversations that are, you know, not easy conversations to have. Conversations about very dark periods in our history and in, you know, inequities that still persist today. And our hope is just that, you know, in presenting this story that people think about, you know, how decisions that we make, can, you know, can have these cascading repercussions over generations and generations. And that's not something that just happens in the past. That's something that's still true about decisions we make today, in ways that we might not expect.
Matthew Sherwood 31:59
But then, Nate, you're also talking about sort of how you're inspired, and how this is going to be something kind of a different series. Maybe - we don't usually talk about music in nature docs, but music, you know, plays a large part in this series. Maybe you could say a little bit about that.
Nate Dappen 32:19 (33:54)
Well, I came of age in the 90s and Rap was the music that I listened to most in the 90s. The first album I ever bought was Snoop Dogg's Doggy Style, followed by many other classics in the mid 90s. And Shane and I - Shane is also a 90s Rap fanatic - and we bonded over a lot of our favourite rap songs. And at that time, Marvel's Luke Cage had just come out, which I think is the best of all the Marvel series that have come out. And we're geeking out about the music and how awesome it was - Neil, Shane, and I - and I, at the same time, we were trying to figure out how to make this show really be something that felt like Shane, and so, you know, we went to Shane, and we were like, Hey, Shane, like, what if we made this show rap driven, rap and hip-hop driven, and sort of, like, made it the soundtrack that you would want to listen to, if you were sort of walking around the world. And immediately we both loved it and we looked at who had scored Luke Cage, and it was Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad; Ali Shaheed Muhammad's from Tribe Called Quest, and Adrian Younge is a famous hip-hop producer who's done stuff with Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar, Wu Tang, Ghostface Killah, and a lot of other folks. And we reached out to them, thinking it was a long shot, sent them the sizzle. And we're very, very surprised and happy when we got an email back from their agents saying, This looks awesome. The guys love it. Let's have a meeting. And Adrian signed on to score it. And it really gives the show a totally different kind of feel. And I love it. I love it. And it's funny, because when I was a kid, my parents really hated the music I listened to, they had a hard time, really hard time with it. I think things have changed a lot because I've watched a few of the episodes with them, and both of them are like, you know, the show just feels so hip. And I think Adrian really killed it. He just did such a good job of just - it's got a lot of style. And a big part of that is because of the music. So, really hats off to Adrian who really put his heart and soul into it. I think this kind of show has so much more music. And in the edit, you know, it's very musically driven. It's like a mix between, like, Parts Unknown, Planet Earth, and some, like, 90s rap video. So, we really tried to do that in the show, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.
Matthew Sherwood 34:58 (36:33)
Finally on this, in terms of the project, I mean, what was the biggest challenge in getting this thing made? Was it Covid? Was this all done over Covid?
Neil Losin 35:07
Yeah. And that was certainly a challenge. There was, you know, for most of production, we were testing every person on the crew, once, or sometimes twice, earlier in the production window, per day. And, you know, wearing masks even around each other in the Airbnb at the end of the day until everybody's tests had come back negative for the afternoon. And, you know, obviously, except in a very few situations, the, you know, the host, and the characters aren't wearing masks, but everybody else is, and yeah, I mean, it just added a layer of complication. I think, I think really, though, I don't know, I think the logistics of it would have been complicated and challenging with or without Covid. It's just - I think we went to, you know, forty plus different cities, over the course of production, and in the course of, you know, 130, 140 days in the field. And, you know, co-ordinating a lot of things because it does involve natural history, it does involve a lot of outdoors scenes, you know, co-ordinating Shane's schedule, which is complicated as a professor at Princeton University, with, you know, the needs of the production and the actual, you know, the calendar that nature follows, you know, certain behaviours and spectacles are only happening at certain times of year. And a lot of one off events like the Westminster Dog Show, you know, you can't show up a week late, because the dog show isn't happening anymore. You can't go to the, you know, to Bath, Illinois to film the carp derby at any weekend, other than that weekend, when the carp derby happens. And so, just a huge number of moving parts. I think that's the biggest challenge.
Nate Dappen 36:56
I think for me it's just the grind, you know, it was just, it was a long process. You know, Neil and I - Neil and I have never made a television series before. And, you know, we've made television shows, like hour specials before, but most of those were very, like Neil and I were, it was just us two, and our small at that time, smaller team, maybe just one or two - one other person working on it. And this was kind of a different operation. And I think maybe we underestimated how much work it was going to be. So, we'd be in the field, Neil and I, would be in the field on, like, a 16 hour, 17 hour shoot, and we'd get back, you know, get back to our Airbnb, and we have to be reviewing cuts, and sending feedback for our editors who are working at home, and, you know, we'd get back from a shoot, you know, at midnight, and then be back in the office early the next morning to sort of stay up with post-production. So, I think there's a lot of learning that happened, and certainly, there's no avoiding some of that grind if you're making a show like this, but I think maybe next time around, we'll build in a little bit of buffer and maybe some additional staff that sort of help with some of that.
Matthew Sherwood 38:05 (39:47)
And I guess, going back to this comment, too, about, you said your parents found it really hip. I mean, I guess there's this fine line, too, this challenge of, you know, you talk about difficult issues, there's obviously the issues facing the planet, but - so, it's a very daunting time, it seems, but ultimately, I feel like it's got an uplifting tone, you know, a positive - you know, tone to it. And I guess - is that something that was - you were consciously thinking about when you're doing this? Because I know a lot of nature docs kind of have at times in the past struggled with this.
Neil Losin 38:44
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think we wanted to be - we wanted to be as real as we could be with the series. That means, you know, taking an honest look at our species, and the impacts we have on the planet. And also, at the prospects we have for fixing it. And I think what we, you know, what the series reveals to me, and the process of making it revealed to me was that we have an enormous capacity for, you know, for messing things up if we're not careful. But we also have an amazing capacity for good as a species, and it's really just a matter of what we decide to do collectively. And so, what I hope each of the episodes does in a way is to showcase that aspect of the human footprint that, you know, we are all co-creators of whatever future transpires. And so, we should be thinking carefully about that, and what is the world we want to be living in?
Matthew Sherwood 39:54
Yeah, I think - well, I think we should leave it at that, at least in terms of talking about the film, but what is - we just have a few minutes left together, but I was going to ask you, how do two - and I'm sort of asking this as a dad, because I've got a - my daughter's studying biology in college.
Neil Losin 40:12
Right.
Matthew Sherwood 40:13
Yeah, even evolutionary and ecology, evolutionary biology and ecology, that's sort of her thing. How do you two - how did two evolutionary biologists go on to become documentarians?
Nate Dappen 40:26 (42:01)
So, Neil and I - we're both serious photographers, before we got into grad school. And we met in 2008, in Costa Rica on a biology field course. So, it's like this intensive course that sort of teaches you how to do experiments. And we looked at each other, we're both the exact same height, and we said, we can either destroy each other, or we can join forces. And so, we started collaborating on science projects at the time, and we were on a bunch of fun trips to take photographs, and that was right around the time that digital SLRs started shooting high quality video. And Neil got a grant from National Geographic to do his - to do some of his PhD research. And they let him start blogging on that. And so, we started working together on films that sort of had an audience, and at the time, there was nobody making science videos on YouTube, like very few, there wasn't a lot. And the stuff we were making was awful. But, you know, I think there was an audience who wanted it at the time, and so even our awful videos, people liked them and commented on them, and so throughout the rest of our dissertation, we started making science films about our research. And as we sort of got towards the end, we had made, you know, a few dozen films, and most of them weren't great, but we thought that they were, and we really had enjoyed the process. And so together, we kind of decided, let's not pursue an academic career, let's go into making documentary films. I think, if we had known how difficult it was, we probably would have been scared to make that jump. But we were just totally in the dark, we had no idea what we were doing. And we're just very confident that we could do it if we put our minds to it. And so, that was the beginning. That was 2011 when we started Day's Edge. And then, you know, slowly, the first few years were hard. But we've slowly sort of built a, you know, a collection of clients who trust us, and now, I think, have really improved our skills as filmmakers and have committed ourselves to this career.
Matthew Sherwood 42:29 (44:14)
Well, well done. And, you know, I'm glad you did make that decision. And in other ways, it's still early days for you guys, isn't it. And so, what - I mean, what's next? I mean, I assume another sort of nature doc, or as you said, this is a repeatable series, potentially. Is there going to be more Human Footprint episodes coming down the line?
Neil Losin 42:52
Well, we hope so. If all your listeners and viewers tune into Human Footprint, maybe that'll be enough to tip the scales.
Matthew Sherwood 43:00
Well, you're very flattering. We do have a good audience, but anyway.
Neil Losin 43:04
No, we're certain - we are very, we are very hopeful that we get a, you know, a second season and maybe more. I think there's a lot more stories to tell. Shane has a lot, you know, a lot more to say about the human footprint as do we. And so, we'll see. With any luck, you know, we'll get to do - we'll get to do more of this series. And of course, we're always thinking about and pitching, you know, the next big science or natural history series as well. So, we don't know what that'll be yet. That kind of depends on what the commissioners actually want to make. But we have no shortage of plans in the works.
Matthew Sherwood 43:42
All right. Well, it's been a joy having both of you on. I really enjoyed the series. Just to remind our listeners, we've been talking with Nate Dappen and Neil Lowsin, the award-winning filmmakers behind Human Footprint. For those of you in the US, it's on PBS, premiered on July 5, or even here in the UK. I'm not sure if it's on PBS America. It's also - you can find it on Amazon Prime. Three episodes released thus far and three more to come. Do check it out. So, guys, thank you so much again. And when you do your next project, we'd love to have you on again, if we haven't scared you off. So, thanks so much.
Neil Losin 44:21
Fantastic. Thanks, that's really nice.
Nate Dappen 44:23
Thanks Matt, really appreciate it.
Matthew Sherwood 44:25
We hope you enjoyed that episode of Factual America. If you did, please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family, wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. I would also like to thank those who make this podcast possible. A big shout out to Sam and Joe at Innersound Audio in York, England. A big thanks to Amy Ord, our podcast manager at Alamo Pictures, who makes sure we continue getting great guests onto the show and everything runs smoothly. And finally, a big thanks to you our listeners. Many of you have been with us for four incredible seasons. Please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas, whether it is on YouTube, social media, or directly by email. This is Factual America, signing off.
Factual America Outro 45:06
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