Printed on August 27, 2007
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Decomposing Extremities
By Gabriel Garza
Production Coordinator
Explorer: Mystery of the Disembodied Feet
Premieres Tuesday October 27 10P et/pt
Although the nearly three-acre plot of land is somewhat inconspicuous to outsiders, what's inside has been immortalized for years in countless books and documentaries. We were lucky enough to get two days to film inside the outdoor Forensic Anthropology Center at the University of Tennessee, also know as the "Body Farm." Approximately 100 deceased human bodies are donated here per year so that forensic students can study decomposition under varying conditions.
I had been to Knoxville, Tennessee, where the Forensic Anthropology Center is located, several times before. Each time I had been there, the weather was hot and humid. I could only imagine how that would mix with the smell of decomposing human corpses. Lucky for us on our first day of shooting it was cool and breezy. Classes had just ended for the semester so we had the entire farm to ourselves.
Upon entering I quickly noticed the bodies all over the place, each one covered with a black tarp. We were warned to stay on the gravel walkway since it had just rained and the mud that had mixed in with liquefied human remains was not something we'd want to slip on. We were given shoe covers to wear while stepping around bodies.
Production Coordinator
Explorer: Mystery of the Disembodied Feet
Premieres Tuesday October 27 10P et/pt
Although the nearly three-acre plot of land is somewhat inconspicuous to outsiders, what's inside has been immortalized for years in countless books and documentaries. We were lucky enough to get two days to film inside the outdoor Forensic Anthropology Center at the University of Tennessee, also know as the "Body Farm." Approximately 100 deceased human bodies are donated here per year so that forensic students can study decomposition under varying conditions.
I had been to Knoxville, Tennessee, where the Forensic Anthropology Center is located, several times before. Each time I had been there, the weather was hot and humid. I could only imagine how that would mix with the smell of decomposing human corpses. Lucky for us on our first day of shooting it was cool and breezy. Classes had just ended for the semester so we had the entire farm to ourselves.
Upon entering I quickly noticed the bodies all over the place, each one covered with a black tarp. We were warned to stay on the gravel walkway since it had just rained and the mud that had mixed in with liquefied human remains was not something we'd want to slip on. We were given shoe covers to wear while stepping around bodies.
Continue reading Decomposing Extremities.
Marijuana Nation
Marijuana is the subject of many debates over its legalization and medical benefits. To help cull through the facts, here is some information we found helpful during the production of Explorer: Marijuana Nation airing next Tuesday, August 4th at 10pm EST.
• Marijuana use can be traced as far back as the Neolithic era (8,000-5,000 BC), where charred remains of cannabis seeds have been unearthed in ancient braziers of present day Romania.
• A 2006 survey reported that marijuana usage among males was twice as high than among females of the same age groups.
• Medicinal marijuana is currently legal in 12 states: California, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Mexico, Nevada, Montana, Colorado, Maine, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii and Washington State. However, According to federal law, marijuana use is illegal regardless of whether it's used medicinally.
• Marijuana use can be traced as far back as the Neolithic era (8,000-5,000 BC), where charred remains of cannabis seeds have been unearthed in ancient braziers of present day Romania.
• A 2006 survey reported that marijuana usage among males was twice as high than among females of the same age groups.
• Medicinal marijuana is currently legal in 12 states: California, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Mexico, Nevada, Montana, Colorado, Maine, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii and Washington State. However, According to federal law, marijuana use is illegal regardless of whether it's used medicinally.
Continue reading Marijuana Nation.
Hunt for the Lost Ark Biographies
Tuesday, July 28th, Explorer is running The Hunt for the Lost Ark featuring a few experts in the field of archaeology. Learn more about this show at Explorer: The Hunt for the Lost Ark
Dr. Eric Cline
Archaeologist
Dr. Eric H. Cline is an award-winning author and teacher with degrees in Classical Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, and Ancient History from Dartmouth College, Yale University, and the University of Pennsylvania respectively. Dr. Cline's primary fields of study are the military history of the Mediterranean world from antiquity to present and the international connections between Greece, Egypt, and the Near East during the Late Bronze Age (1700-1100 BCE). He is an experienced field archaeologist, with 19 seasons of excavation and survey to his credit since 1980. He has worked in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus, Greece, Crete, and the United States, including five seasons at the site of Megiddo (biblical Armageddon) in Israel. Dr. Cline is married, with two children, two cats, and varying numbers of fish.
Continue reading Hunt for the Lost Ark Biographies.
My Journey Down Death Row
Nathan Stanaland
Production Assistant
It was strange how this all happened; I was sitting in my Lighting Design class like I did most Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and my professor said, "National Geographic was coming to film and..." by this time my hand was in the air because I knew that he was asking for volunteers. In the coming weeks and months we, the professors (Gregg Buck and Eric Marsh), and myself discussed the process of what was going to happen with National Geographic and this shoot. One of the first things that I got the privilege to do was go to a prison museum here in Huntsville, Texas, that was a learning experience, because I got to step inside a cell and realized how small a death row cell actually is. The next step was the constructing of the death row cell set and erecting it in our Showcase theater space here at Sam Houston State University. Next, I meet multiple people that would be involved with this shoot and I knew that this was going to be an amazing opportunity for not only my school, but also for my career. I had never been on a film shoot in my life and this was an experience like no other. I had arrived at the school at 7:30am and Tom Prior (another professor at Sam Houston) gave me and the other Production Assistants some advice, to be quiet when shooting, stay out of the way, and learn how a professional film set works. This oddly enough was a little intimidating. We started that day by setting up for our first shot, and that was an eye-opening experience.
The Production Assistants, myself include, were awe struck. This transformation was impressive. Watching the monitor, cameras, other equipment, and seeing what we were shooting was, as stated before, simply amazing. After that day we, wrapped the shoot, packed up, and got out of Dodge.
I know that this was a wonderful experience for me, because I never thought about going into the film industry as a career, I know that stage theatre is fun, exciting, and motivating, but now I know that film is the same way. The best thing that happened during this entire shoot was that I got to meet people that are in the television industry. I say that because theater and television are all about who you know and connections made on the job. I have made connections and this experience will help me get my foot in the door of the professional world.
I have one more year of school left at Sam Houston State University, and because of this experience I am eager to go "into the real world" and face it head on.
Filming in Huntsville, TX
Ari
Haberberg
Director of Photography
To gain access to offenders on Death Row we had to first undergo an exhaustive search and clearance process. Each and every visit, every equipment case and each bag had to be opened and examined, its purposes explained, and then repacked. Wanded, then frisked, the soles of our feet examined, our pockets turned out - we were allowed our gear and nothing else: no phones certainly but also no money, cigarettes, or tools. In the interest of speed we developed the habit of traveling with only our driver's license.
Rolling our gear through countless gates and passages, we were finally admitted to an interview room filled with rows of glass booths the size of library carrels, many with offenders waiting patiently inside for their scheduled visitors, each watching us silently as we set up our equipment. These booths are nearly soundproof, with only one small seat facing the three-inch thick bulletproof Plexiglas that separated the offender from his visitor. It was through these windows that we were invited into the minds and lives of the three offenders in our film - all of whom were to be executed within a month's time.
In spite of knowing details of their truly unimaginable crimes, the first feelings I experienced when introduced to the condemned were compassion and sympathy. Here were humans in the most profound state of distress. There was just no precedent in my life for speaking with a man scheduled to die and I found each offender to be different from the next in so many ways. While one would appear shockingly at ease and even eager to get the execution over with, the next would be near mad with anxiety and in denial of his own identity. In a short while it became apparent that there was one thing that ran consistent among the inmates. They all appeared to have become unhinged in some way over the course of their experience. It seems that when you're condemned to die, the conflict with the human survival instinct can drive you insane.
Time with the offenders invariably left me sorrowful and angry with nowhere to put the blame. It appeared that all the offenders came from troubled backgrounds that somehow informed their lives and were not simply evil. The guards and wardens all appeared to be intelligent and compassionate and were not to be blamed as well.
These many employees of this overwhelmingly large Texas prison system were serious as a heart attack about their jobs and moved through their world with those old Southern notions of respect that we Northerners simply could not ever understand. To some of the younger guards, the adjustment of coming to guard their elders without referring to them as Sir was a difficult one.
And then we would be back at the Café Texan where the non-smoking section was in the back and you felt a palpable disappointment if you left without ordering a chocolate or coconut cream pie with your coffee. Here the waitress knew your name after two visits and the wall was covered with pictures of prominent citizens of Huntsville from the 1890's who more than likely worked in the prison system as well.
Visits to Death Row
Brian Albritton
Sound Recordist
When the producer called to give me the address and directions, I didn't need them. I'd been there dozens of times over the last few years. When you are a sound recordist in Houston, you become quickly become familiar with the drive to the Polunsky Unit, home to over 400 inmates awaiting execution on Texas Death Row.
I met the rest of the crew at the prison and headed into the main entrance. The process had become routine to me - leave my cell phone and paper money in the car. In order to avoid confusion with the uniforms the inmates wear, don't wear white clothing. I joked with the guards as they searched through my sound kit looking for prohibited items. The tension I felt the first few times visiting prison was long forgotten.
Wednesday afternoons are the times designated for media interviews, and our crew spent many of them at Polunsky over the next few months. The show focused on three inmates in their final days before their scheduled executions. Each week our escort would lead us to the visitation room - rows of glass and steel enclosed booths in a typically sun-filled room. Methodically, I would set up behind a large black drape that the cameramen used to block the reflections in the glass. I listened to hours of stories from behind that drape, out of the view of inmate and interviewer. As the inmates answered our director's questions, I tried not to think about the horrible crimes they committed or their victims. I tried my best to not sympathize with these men. I just did my job.
Eventually, they were all executed.
The hearse slowly traveled the few short blocks from the death chamber to the funeral home with one of our cameramen inside documenting the ride. There was no procession, no line of cars following behind. I remember being relieved that there wasn't enough room for me to ride inside the cramped rear compartment.
The first time watching family members of the executed mourn the loss of their loved one was uncomfortably difficult. We had spent time with them and knew how painful this was for whole family. It was an incredibly private moment, and we were fortunate that they allowed us to experience it with them.
The dimly lit, wood-paneled funeral home was silent after the family left. No one on the crew made a sound as they speechlessly picked up the last shots. I'm always listening for a sound or ambience to record, but for once in my career, there was nothing to do. Total silence. I slowly found a seat on the front pew of the room and put my microphone across my lap.
I sat there staring at David Martinez's lifeless body and began to think about the next two executions and viewings that we would shoot for the program. I wondered if this, too, would become routine for me.
Thankfully, it never did.
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