Creating the documentary “Black Sun”

This is a guest post by Dr. Jarita Holbrook, who often describes herself as an astrophysicist who went to the Dark Side. Shorty after completing her doctorate, she dove into the world of the social sciences, quickly establishing expertise on indigenous astronomy. She moved to UCLA for her NSF project focused on studying underrepresented groups in astronomy and their career networks.
My goal is to make documentaries about minority astrophysicists who go to amazing places to collect data. I like to make films that challenge and broaden the standard astronomy documentary. I hope that I achieved this with my other documentary film ‘Hubble’s Diverse Universe’ and want to do it again with ‘Black Sun’, my new documentary project, which follows two African American astrophysicists: Hakeem Oluseyi and Alphonse Sterling. Both scientists study the solar atmosphere.
The climax of “Black Sun” will be their observations of the upcoming total solar eclipse in November 2012. My producer asked me, “What happens if the weather is bad?” My answer, “They go home.” Very dramatic, very high stakes, and success lasts only the length of totality: A little over two minutes. If the weather is good, there is tension because both scientists have to ...