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June 18, 2007

Student film about renowned physicist wins Steck Award

By Scott Rappaport (831) 459-2496; srapp@ucsc.edu

Sebastian Burke has received UCSC’s 2007 Steck Award for The Creative Process, a film about legendary physicist Richard P. Feynman and his perspective on the nuclear bomb. The Steck Award is presented each year for the most outstanding senior thesis/research project completed during the academic year.

Burke is a student in the Engineering Division’s 3/2 program, a five-year course of study offered in association with UC Berkeley that gives students the opportunity to receive two bachelor’s degrees--a B.A. in the social sciences, humanities, or arts at UCSC, and a B.S. in engineering from the College of Engineering at Berkeley. Burke decided to pursue his UCSC degree in the field of film and digital media.

Burke said he undertook his project because nobody is his film classes had heard of Feynman--a Nobel prize-winning scientist, renowned for his maverick lifestyle and popular books on mathematics and physics. Feynman assisted in the development of the atomic bomb and was a prominent member of the panel that investigated the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.

“The film is about Feynman's view of science and his relation to the atomic bomb,” said Burke. “I thought it was interesting that after the atomic bomb was created, Feynman thought the world was going to end in the near future. Going into the project I wanted to know why he thought that way.”

“I was introduced to Feynman by George Brown, a professor of physics at UCSC, who always told our class great stories about him,” Burke added. “After the class, my dad got me some of Feynman's books and I have been enjoying his stories ever since. I find him to be an incredibly complex and interesting character to study.”

Burke’s 10-minute film weaves several of Feynman’s short stories and anecdotes together as it portrays the physicist’s time at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Burke said he filmed external shots at Alameda Naval Station and used rooms in his parents' house—that he filled with furnishings and materials from the 1940s--for the rest of the shoot.

Burke said he hopes to eventually send his film to festivals after he does a bit more editing on the project. He also plans to continue in the future to merge the arts and sciences.

“I'm not sure exactly what I'll do with a film and mechanical engineering degree,” he observed. “But films are a great way of explaining the world around you. So I’d like to find a way to combine the two, and definitely continue to make films.”

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