Atomic Dream
Atomic Dream is an award-winning film I directed and produced at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. It profiles Freeman Dyson through an exploration of the part of his career he calls his happiest.
I reported, shot, wrote and edited the film, along with my co-producer, Derek Lartaud. I also designed all of the film's media, including the DVDs, posters and website. You can see an excerpt from the film at the site.
It was shown at various film festivals across the U.S., starting at Heartland Film Festival in 2013.
In 1958, physicist Freeman Dyson became a lead scientist on Project Orion, a top-secret government program to design and launch a 5,000-ton, nuclear bomb-propelled spaceship. Dyson believed that he himself would be space bound, heading through the Milky Way, fulfilling his childhood dream of space travel.
But in 1961, as worries about nuclear fallout grew, Dyson had to make a decision: would he continue to support the project, or would he testify for the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, effectively signing a death sentence for Project Orion and ending his dreams of traveling the solar system?
