People are infinitely interesting to me, because they do these amazing things, these crazy things. Why do they do them? I guess that, in many ways, translates into science...but it doesn't have to.
Maja Mataric, computer scientist

With ME & ISAAC NEWTON, director Michael Apted continues his fascinating journey into the heart and soul of the creative impulse. An award-winning filmmaker, Apted is well-known for his documentaries "Moving the Mountain," "Incident at Oglala" and the "Seven Up" series, now at its "42 Up" installment. A companion piece to Apted's "Inspirations," which explored the motivations behind artists, ME & ISAAC NEWTON is a full-length documentary which features seven prominent scientists, revealing the creative side of the scientific endeavor through their reflections on their work and their lives.

In ME & ISAAC NEWTON, Apted follows theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, the co-founder of string field theory, heir to the Einstein legacy in his quest to find a unified theory of everything; the late Gertrude Elion, pharmaceutical chemist who developed drugs to fight leukemia and herpes and one of only ten women to receive the Nobel Prize; Maja Mataric, CoDirector of Robotics Research Lab at USC, whose work in robotics is at the frontier of artificial intelligence; primatologist and conservationist Patricia C. Wright, who was awarded the MacArthur Genius Grant for her discovery of a new species of lemur and used much of it to save a rainforest; Steven Pinker, Director of MIT's McDonnell-Pew Center for Cognitive Neurosciences, an iconoclast cognitive scientist who studies the human mind by examining how language is learned and used by children; Karol Sikora, professor of cancer medicine, whose research has led him into the cutting edge of gene therapy; and environmental physicist Ashok Gadgil, the inventor of a device that purifies water in villages of developing countries. ME & ISAAC NEWTON follows the scientists in numerous locations including Madagascar, South Africa and England as well as Massachusetts, New York, New Mexico and North Carolina.

Covering interests ranging from Madagascar lemurs to robotic communities, the scientists talk about their inspirations, their first stirrings of childhood wonder and the desire to impact the world around them through science. They reflect on how they came to be at the center of the intellectual universe, exploring its mysteries. With ME & ISAAC NEWTON, Apted presents compelling, accessible portraits of some of the most distinguished scientists of our time.

As the scientists present their personal experiences with the creative process, Apted captures their voracious curiosity as well as the satisfaction they derive from figuring

things out. Apted then invites the scientists themselves to conceptualize the creative "spark," an interesting prospect for individuals grounded in the methodology of science which yields results both droll and intriguing.

ME & ISAAC NEWTON also explores the more challenging aspects of a life in science - the years of research, the failed experiments along the way. In describing their attitudes toward this part of the process, the scientists demonstrate the patience and faith required to persevere in a field geared toward leaps in knowledge based on small, intermediate steps in understanding.

Beyond the individual pursuits of each scientist lies a broader perspective of the role science plays in society. Apted captures the ruminations of his subjects on the responsibilities that come with knowledge and technology, the relationship of the scientist to the world, and ultimately, the relationship of science to the future.

While making "Inspirations" for Clear Blue Sky Productions, Apted was moved to consider creating another film, one which explored the same thematic concept but in a completely different field. Says Apted, "The idea for ME & ISAAC NEWTON came when we were halfway through making the first one, and it was clearly promising. We had a discussion with Clear Blue Sky about whether we should make a companion piece. We were inspired by the first film." Shortly after completing “Inspirations,” work began on the second film.

As was the case with the inaugural film, the selection process was a challenge in and of itself. With "Inspirations," the filmmakers selected artists with an eye for international, artistic and ethnic diversity. As a result, the film featured an eclectic group of talent: famed pop artist Roy Lichtenstein; musician, composer and actor David Bowie; Japanese architect Tadao Ando; New Mexico sculptor Nora Naranjo-Morse; Canadian choreographer Édouard Lock and his lead dancer Louise Lecavalier and Seattle glass artist Dale Chihuly.

In deliberating over the potential subjects for ME & ISAAC NEWTON, the filmmakers followed similar guidelines in their commitment to finding a representative group of scientists. "Selecting the scientists was the hardest part of the film," Apted recalls. "It's laborious work, and it took the better part of a year. We had a full time researcher whose job it was to keep looking. It's like a jigsaw puzzle, and you need to cover as many bases as you can. In this case, we knew the areas of science we wanted to deal with. We wanted to get a balance between the science of human values and the science of cerebral values. It was just a question of finding the right mix of people."

Apted had a few particular qualities in mind. Says Apted, "I had a wish list. I wanted to make sure we had women in it, I wanted a young scientist, and I wanted a retired scientist. I also wanted to make sure that our selection of scientists had an international flavor to it. Then it was a question of finding who covers what bases." Apted felt very fortunate when he came across Gertrude Elion. Says Apted, "Gertrude, bless her memory, was an extraordinary scientist, and we couldn't have hoped for a better person to interview. She was retired, a female scientist who was very philosophical and humanistic about her research and her discoveries." Sadly, Elion passed away a few months after being interviewed for the film.

Apted also wanted to be sure to include a balance between traditional science and cutting edge science, selecting Karol Sikora for his pioneering work in gene therapy in cancer research. Says Apted, “I wanted to deal with scientists who were on the cutting edge of moral issues, as well – genetics, specifically - and the implications of such developments."

In preparing for ME & ISAAC NEWTON, Apted knew he would be presented with challenges he hadn't experienced with the first film. Specifically, he prepared himself for the difficult task of making a film based around such seemingly static activities as lab research and theorizing in a classroom. Says Apted, "The balance of the film is slightly different from the first one. There had to be more weight placed on what they're saying. As with 'Inspirations,' we had to tell their stories, you have to listen to what these people are saying, follow what they're doing. When you have individuals who have spent their lives looking down test tubes, for example, you find their field doesn't offer the visual opportunities you get from artistic endeavors from dancing or pottery or sculpture. We got a lot of visuals for the film. We got as much movement and fresh air as we could. We followed Patricia to Madagascar and Ashok to South Africa. This film was a much more visually challenging movie to make because a lot of what the scientists are describing is so difficult to visualize."

Additionally, interviewing scientists about highly specialized fields of study promised to be a daunting task for the filmmaker. Says Apted, "For me, it was in some ways, a nightmare. A lot of the time, I didn't know what they were talking about! It's one thing to be confronted with interviewing seven artists although I may not understand the details of choreography or pottery, I can look at a piece of choreography or of pottery and know what appeals to me, or someone could explain to me the aesthetics of it. But to have to master DNA or quantum physics is impossible. Interviewing was very tricky. To make this film, to try to humanize these people in order for them to inspire a larger audience was a question of keeping the science very simple. To dignify them, not to trivialize what they do, yet on the other hand to make it understandable to a general audience, which is me, my level of understanding. When interviewing these people I just had to be very careful that I didn't let it run away, that I wasn't in over my head when they were explaining their science. For me, that was very difficult, to try to know what they're doing without really understanding."

In interviewing the scientists, though, Apted found his subjects were accustomed to explaining their work in the simplest of terms. Says Apted, "The scientists were very articulate, in terms of describing their work to less science-oriented individuals. There's good reason for that most of them teach and most of them have to be able to explain what they're doing to raise money to finance their efforts." Apted elaborates, "When you're doing scientific research, you need to raise a lot of capital beforehand. So you've got to be able to explain what you're doing to the people who are going to finance your research, whether or not they are themselves well-acquainted with your work. Unlike a lot of professions, [scientists] are required to know what they're doing and the implications of what they're doing at every step of the process."

Another unexpected aspect that emerged was the wide range in the scientists’ philosophical attitudes toward their work and in some cases, their activism. Some of the scientists, such as Elion and Wright, likened their work to a religion of sorts. Others, including Gadgil and Sikora, were far more pragmatic in their opinions that science should be used to improve the quality of life, to lessen suffering, with or without any spiritual underpinnings. With Wright and Kaku, Apted highlights how their activism in environmental issues and nuclear disarmament, respectively, came as a natural outgrowth of their professional pursuits. Says Apted, “You can plan it up to a point then you just have to let it slide. I didn't know what these people were going to say about everything, some of them were very revealing, very open, some more cautious.”

ME & ISAAC NEWTON was completed over the span of roughly two years. Apted, whose credits range from “Coal Miner's Daughter” and “Gorillas in the Mist” to documentaries such as “Incident at Oglala” and “Moving the Mountain,” recently directed the latest James Bond film, "The World is Not Enough.”

I was fascinated by [Einstein's unfinished] manuscript. What could be so difficult that the greatest mind of this century could not finish? At that point, I realized that this was more fascinating than any murder mystery. This was greater than any adventure story. I hand to know what was in that manuscript, and I wanted to help complete that dream.
- Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist

The most fun aspect of my job is that when I write down an equation, I realize that on the other side of the galaxy, a hundred thousand light years away, there's perhaps another gentleman, or gentlewoman - or gentlething! - that is writing the same equation with different notation.
- Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist

I actually feel very good about the fact that what we're doing now is probably still going to be here ten years from now as a basis for future research. In fact, I'm very happy that something I did nine years ago, back when I was doing my master's thesis, is a part of Sojouner that went up with the Pathfinder to Mars. Now that's success. But I only know that now; I didn't know that nine years ago!
- Maja Mataric, computer scientist

I sense no divine purpose in the universe at all...My scientific interests are driven in some sense by what one would call the public good. The issue to me is does the science have some useful return on the time horizon of ten to twenty years. If it is esoteric and the question doesn't have a useful impact on the time horizon of this order, I don't find it interesting because I don't think we have a whole lot of time left.
- Ashok Gadgil, environmental physicist

I don't see a spiritual side to science. Others may, but I think it's difficult because science is deductive. It's trying to break everything down so you understand the control, tinkering with nature.[To] overcome suffering, overcome disease, that's really what drives most scientists, I think, other than curiosity.
- Karol Sikora, professor of cancer medicine

As more and more connections are made between what you study and science as a whole, you feel that you're part of a larger, glorious enterprise of figuring out how the universe really works.
- Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist

Science is a tool to understanding how everything works so that we don't destroy it.
- Patricia C. Wright, primatologist and conservationist

Science to me is almost like a religion. To me, science is truth and truth is beautiful.
- Gertrude Elion, pharmaceutical chemist