Christopher Riley

Last updated

Christopher Riley
Born (1967-09-21) 21 September 1967 (age 56)
Bridlington, Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom
NationalityBritish
Alma mater Imperial College
Occupation(s)writer and film maker
Years active1995–present
Known for In the Shadow of the Moon
First Orbit
Moon Machines
Space Odyssey
Moonwalk One
The Girl who talked to Dolphins
The Fear of 13

One Strange Rock
Website www.chris-riley.net

Christopher Riley (born 1967) is a British writer, broadcaster and film maker specialising in the history of science. He has a PhD from Imperial College, University of London where he pioneered the use of digital elevation models in the study of mountain range geomorphology and evolution. He makes frequent appearances on British television and radio, broadcasting mainly on space flight, astronomy and planetary science and was visiting professor of science and media at the University of Lincoln between 2011 and 2021.

Contents

Education

Riley went to school in Cambridge, where he grew up. He studied geology at the University of Leicester for his first degree and completed his PhD at Imperial College, University of London in the mid-1990s. [1] [2]

Career

Riley is a veteran of two NASA astrobiology missions (Leonid MAC) from 1998 and 1999 – reporting on their progress for BBC News. [3] [4] He co-presented the BBC's live coverage of the 1999, 2001 and 2015 solar eclipses, and has fronted their astronomy magazine show Final Frontier, their cosmology series Journeys in Time and Space, and their live All Night Star Party – a co-production with the Open University. In 2006 he wrote and presented BBC Radio 4's cosmology series The Cosmic Hunters. Other documentaries he's written and presented for BBC Radio 4 include Save the Moon (2014) and For All Mankind (2012). [5] [6]

Behind the camera he has written and directed more than 50 films for the BBC's classic science magazine show Tomorrow's World and was a producer and director on series six of Rough Science .

In 2004 he produced the BBC's two-part drama documentary Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets . He was the science consultant on the BBC's remakes of their science fiction cult classics A for Andromeda (2006) and The Quatermass Experiment (2005). He directed and produced on the feature documentary film In the Shadow of the Moon , which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Audience Documentary Award. The film was released in the US and Europe during the autumn of 2007. [7]

Riley directed on the spinoff six-part series Moon Machines for the Discovery Channel in 2008, which celebrated the 400,000 engineers who'd made the Moonshots possible. The series aired in the US and the UK in June that year. [8]

During the making of In the Shadow of the Moon, Riley rediscovered the only surviving 35mm print of the complete version of NASA's original Apollo 11 documentary film Moonwalk One which had been stored under the film's director Theo Kamecke's desk since it was made. With NASA's blessing, the pair worked to restore and remaster the feature film and re-released it in time for the 40th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 11 in July 2009. [9]

At the Cheltenham Science Festival in 2009 he presented research conducted with forensic linguist John Olsson on the recordings of Neil Armstrong's first words spoken on the surface of the Moon in July 1969. Their study confirmed that the "a" was missing – contradicting previous conclusions presented by Peter Shann Ford in 2006. [10] Olsson and Riley went on to show that the words were spoken spontaneously and were not rehearsed or composed by some 'wordsmith' beforehand as many have speculated they might have been. [11]

In 2011 Riley teamed up with the European Space Agency and Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli to make the feature-length documentary First Orbit which re-created Yuri Gagarin's pioneering spaceflight Vostok 1. The film was recorded by matching the orbit of the International Space Station to the ground path of Vostok 1, and released for free to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the pioneering human space flight. [12]

He produced Kevin Fong's 2011 portrait of the Space Shuttle for BBC Two and Produced and Directed a 2012 film presented by Dallas Campbell which celebrated thirty-five years of NASA's Voyager Program for BBC Four. The same year Riley collaborated with Neil Armstrong's family to produce and direct the biopic First Man on the Moon, which premiered on BBC Two at the end of 2012 and on PBS Nova in December 2014. The film included interviews with Armstrong's sister June, brother Dean, and childhood friend Kocho Solacoff. [13]

In 2013 Riley produced and directed a biopic of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Richard Feynman for the BBC. The Fantastic Mr Feynman aired on BBC Two in May that year, in time for what would have been Feynman's 95th birthday. [14] It was the first biographical film about Feynman which the BBC had commissioned since Christopher Sykes' groundbreaking documentaries in the early 1980s. The film includes interviews with his son Carl, his daughter Michelle and his sister, physicist Joan Feynman who Riley subsequently wrote a short biography about. [15]

In 2014 he produced and directed a documentary about American neuroscientist John Lilly's controversial 1960s attempts to build an interspecies communications bridge between humans and dolphins. The film included the only onscreen interview recorded with the female researcher at the centre of the work - Margaret Howe Lovatt, who had reportedly developed a close relationship with one of the animals. The resulting film, The Girl who talked to Dolphins, premiered at the 2014 Sheffield International Documentary Festival and received widespread five star reviews; The Telegraph noting that "the anti-sensationalist approach of Riley's superb documentary was its trump card." [16] The film was nominated for both a BAFTA and an RTS award the same year and for a Grierson award in 2015. [17] [18] [19]

In 2015 it was announced that Riley would direct a new film on the Hubble Space Telescope for National Geographic Channels. [20] The resulting documentary Hubble's Cosmic Journey included contributions from cosmologist Stephen Hawking, astrophysicist Ed Weiler and Charlie Pellerin, US Senator Barbara Mikulski and astronauts Story Musgrave, Charlie Bolden and John Grunsfeld. It premiered at National Geographic's Washington headquarters on 14 April 2015 [21] and received its network premiere in 171 countries the following week. The film is narrated by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and was nominated for an Emmy in 2015. [22]

In October 2015 Riley's long-awaited feature documentary The Fear of 13 received its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival where it was nominated for Best Documentary. [23] The film tells the life story of death row prisoner Nicholas Yarris, and took Riley over seven years to make, working without funding for the project for much of that time. [24] The title refers to triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number 13, just one of the many words learned by prisoner Nick Yarris while absorbing thousands of books during his 20-year stay on Death Row in a Pennsylvania prison. [25] It was received well by the critics scoring 92% on the review-aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. [26] The film received its network premiere on the BBC's Storyville series on 31 January 2016, and was picked up by Netflix across the rest of the world. [27]

Riley collaborated with astronaut Paolo Nespoli for a second time in 2016–2017 to work on National Geographic's series One Strange Rock , with Paolo filming on board the International Space Station for the final episode 'Home' during Expedition 52 which featured astronaut Peggy Whitson's last NASA mission. [28] Riley directed across the series and wrote and directed the episode 'Survival' featuring astronaut Jerry Linenger. The series is hosted by actor Will Smith [29] In September 2023 it was announced that Riley was co-writing The Moonwalkers with actor Tom Hanks, for the Lightroom, an immersive venue in London. [30] [31] [32] The show premiered on the 6th of December 2023. [33] [34]

Awards and honours

In 2005 Riley was given a Sir Arthur Clarke Award for his work producing the BBC's Space Odyssey series. The same year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society for his endeavours in communicating astronomy to the public. His films and TV series on the history of science have won a nomination from the Royal Television Society and the World Cinema Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival 2007. He received a second Sir Arthur Clarke Award in 2008 for In the Shadow of the Moon . His 2012 documentary Voyager – to the final frontier was nominated for a British Science Writer's award, and his 2014 film The Girl who talked to Dolphins, was nominated for BAFTA, [35] RTS [36] and Grierson [37] awards. His 2015 film for National Geographic, Hubble's Comsic Journey, was nominated for an Emmy. [38] His 2019 book, Where once we stood, a collaboration with artist Martin Impey, was nominated for a CILIP Kate Greenaway medal in 2020. [39] Riley's 2021 film for National Geographic - Battle for the Black Swan, won the gold medal for History and Society at the New York Festivals TV & Film Awards in 2022, [40] and was nominated for a BAFTA the same year. [41]

Film and television

He has directed, produced, science consulted or hosted on the following films and TV series (incomplete):

Video installations and art commissions

In 2009, to coincide with the 40th Anniversary of the flight of Apollo 11, Riley collaborated with the London Science Museum on a novel video installation called "Apollo Raw and Uncut" which projected all 23 hours of NASA's 16mm Apollo flight film, shot on Apollo missions AS-501 (Apollo 4) to AS-512 (Apollo 17). Much of this footage, including an almost 8-minute sequence documenting a long drive across the rugged Descartes Highlands had never been screened in its entirety in public before. The aim of the installation was to present the story of Apollo in as unedited and unfiltered form as possible. [42] The work was screened again in Montreal, Quebec, in November 2009, as part of an exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture called 'Intermission: Films from a Heroic Future', which Riley also helped to curate, [43] and a third time in 2013 at Lincoln's Digital Culture Festival Frequency [44]

Continuing the presentation of overlooked space film archives in public gallery spaces Chris collaborated with the London-based creative science agency super/collider on his 2011 show Cone Crater – a 40th anniversary celebration of Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell's exploration of the Frau Mauro lunar highlands, which played at The Book Club, London as part of the Apollo's End project. [45]

In 2019 Riley collaborated with 59 Productions, on their Smithsonian Air and Space Museum commission "Apollo 50:Go for the Moon" - writing the show and creating a film to complement projections onto the Washington Monument to tell the story of Apollo 11 for the 50th anniversary of the mission in July that year. [46] [47]

In the run-up to NASA's Perseverance mission touching down on Mars in 2021 Riley created an artwork called Worlds Apart, that mapped all NASA's previous Martian landing sites back onto their equivalent locations on Earth in terms of latitude and longitude, to draw attention to climate change. [48] [49] [50] Following the successful Mars 2020 landing, Riley teamed up with the BBC World Service radio programme Digital Planet to find volunteers to travel to Andegaon Wadi, Sawali, in the central Indian state of Maharashtra (18.445°N, 77.451°E) which mapped onto the new Perseverance landing site. [51]

Books

Riley has written, co-written and contributed to over a dozen books, including Where once we stood, a collaboration with artist and illustrator Martin Impey, nominated for a Kate Greenaway medal in 2020.

Selected articles

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space exploration</span> Exploration of space, planets, and moons

Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. While the exploration of space is currently carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration is conducted both by uncrewed robotic space probes and human spaceflight. Space exploration, like its classical form astronomy, is one of the main sources for space science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buzz Aldrin</span> American astronaut and lunar explorer (born 1930)

Buzz Aldrin is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission. He was the Lunar Module Eagle pilot on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission and became the second person to walk on the Moon after mission commander Neil Armstrong.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moon landing conspiracy theories</span> Claims that the Apollo Moon landings were faked

Moon landing conspiracy theories claim that some or all elements of the Apollo program and the associated Moon landings were hoaxes staged by NASA, possibly with the aid of other organizations. The most notable claim of these conspiracy theories is that the six crewed landings (1969–1972) were faked and that twelve Apollo astronauts did not actually land on the Moon. Various groups and individuals have made claims since the mid-1970s that NASA and others knowingly misled the public into believing the landings happened, by manufacturing, tampering with, or destroying evidence including photos, telemetry tapes, radio and TV transmissions, and Moon rock samples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Bean</span> American pilot and astronaut (1932–2018)

Alan LaVern Bean was an American naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, NASA astronaut and painter. He was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963 as part of Astronaut Group 3, and was the fourth person to walk on the Moon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gene Cernan</span> American astronaut and lunar explorer (1934–2017)

Eugene Andrew Cernan was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. During the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan became the eleventh human being to walk on the Moon. As he re-entered the Apollo Lunar Module after Harrison Schmitt on their third and final lunar excursion, he remains the most recent person to walk on the Moon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Duke</span> American astronaut and lunar explorer (born 1935)

Charles Moss Duke Jr. is an American former astronaut, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and test pilot. As Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, he became the 10th and youngest person to walk on the Moon, at age 36 years and 201 days.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gene Kranz</span> American flight director for NASA (born 1933)

Eugene Francis Kranz is an American aerospace engineer who served as NASA's second Chief Flight Director, directing missions of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, including the first lunar landing mission, Apollo 11. He directed the successful efforts by the Mission Control team to save the crew of Apollo 13, and was portrayed in the 1995 film of the same name by actor Ed Harris. He characteristically wore a close-cut flattop hairstyle and the dapper "mission" vests (waistcoats) of different styles and materials made by his wife, Marta Kranz, for his Flight Director missions.

<i>Space Odyssey</i> (TV series) British TV series or programme

Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets, marketed as Voyage to the Planets and Beyond in the United States, is a 2004 two-part fictional documentary created by Impossible Pictures and produced by BBC Worldwide, Discovery Communications and ProSieben. Space Odyssey chronicles a fictional crewed voyage throughout the Solar System, which is used to convey scientific information on spaceflight and on the different planets. The programme was initially announced under the title Walking with Spacemen as an instalment in the Walking with... franchise of documentaries. Though the title was changed before release and its connection to the other Walking with... programmes was removed, it was broadcast under the original title in Canada. The special effects and scientific accuracy of Space Odyssey was praised by critics, though some criticism was leveled at the storylines and drama portions of the programme.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Hibbs</span> American mathematician and scientist, The Voice of JPL

Albert Roach Hibbs was an American mathematician and physicist affiliated with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He was known as "The Voice of JPL" due to his gift for explaining advanced science in simple terms. He helped establish JPL's Space Science Division in 1960 and later served as its first chief. He was the systems designer for Explorer 1, the USA's first satellite, and helped establish the framework for exploration of the Solar System through the 1960s. Hibbs qualified as an astronaut in 1967 and was slated to be a crew member of Apollo 25, but he ultimately did not go to the Moon due to the Apollo program ending after the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apollo 11 in popular culture</span> Cultural aspects of the first manned Moon landing

Apollo 11 was the first human spaceflight to land on the Moon. The 1969 mission's wide effect on popular culture has resulted in numerous portrayals of Apollo 11 and its crew, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins.

The notion that the Apollo Moon landings were hoaxes perpetrated by NASA and other agencies has appeared many times in popular culture. Not all references to Moon landing conspiracy theories are in support of them, but the ideas expressed in them have become a popular meme to reference, both in humor and sincerity.

<i>When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions</i> Documentary miniseries

When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions is a 2008 Discovery Channel HD documentary miniseries consisting of six episodes documenting American human spaceflight from the first Mercury flights and the Gemini program, to the Apollo program and its Moon missions and landings, to the Space Shuttle missions and the construction of the International Space Station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NASA</span> American space and aeronautics agency

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. Established in 1958, NASA succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968–1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA currently supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, the Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station.

Hubble Live, fully titled Hubble Live: The Final Mission, was a one-hour live American television special presentation that premiered on May 11, 2009 on the Science Channel. The program covered the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on NASA's Servicing Mission 4 (HST-SM4), the eleven-day fifth and final mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. The program was hosted by Josh Zepps, who is the host of science news series Brink, and featured interviews with NASA astrophysicist and space telescope expert Kim Weaver and former NASA astronaut Paul William Richards.

Rocket Science is a miniseries first released in 2002-2003, chronicling the major events in the American-Soviet space race, starting from the first hypersonic rocket planes through the development of human space flight, culminating with the mission by mission history of Projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. The series features interviews with X-1 and X-15 pilots Chuck Yeager, Scott Crossfield and Pete Knight, astronauts Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra, Scott Carpenter, Gene Cernan, Frank Borman, James Lovell, Buzz Aldrin and Alan Bean, flight controllers Gene Kranz, Christopher Kraft, John Hodge and Sy Liebergot, engineers Günter Wendt, Max Faget, John Houbolt, Bob Gore, Robert Sieck and Richard Dunne, authors Arthur C. Clarke, Andrew Chaikin, Robert Godwin, Spider Robinson and Robert J. Sawyer, historians Paul Fjeld and Professor John Lienhart, Dr Raymond Puffer and Dr James Young, Manhattan Project physicist Hans Bethe, head of the Lovelace Clinic Dr. Donald E. Kilgore, Dr David Simons of Holloman AFB, Colonel Joe Kittinger, and broadcaster Walter Cronkite, among others. While focusing mainly on the American side of the race, the series also covered major Soviet achievements through every key phase of the 1950s and 1960s Space Race.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Clemons</span>

Jack Clemons is an aerospace engineer and air and space industry professional. He was a lead engineer on NASA's Apollo and Space Shuttle Programs, and later an aerospace company executive. He appeared as himself in the "Command Module" episode of the 2008 Discovery Science Channel six-part documentary Moon Machines. He also appeared as himself in the 2019 National Geographic Channel documentary Apollo: Back To The Moon. Following retirement from the aerospace industry, Clemons was a consultant and a professional writer as well as a speaker and presenter on NASA's space programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Discovery Science (Indian TV channel)</span> Indian pay Television channel

Discovery Science is an Indian pay television network, operated by Warner Bros. Discovery India, It primarily features programming in the fields of space, technology and science. The channel is a science television channel It was launched in 2010. From 1 March 2021, it began to follow a timeshifted schedule of the Southeast Asia feed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apollo 11 anniversaries</span> Anniversaries of the first human moon landing

Apollo 11 was the first human spaceflight to land on the Moon. In the decades after its 1969 mission took place, widespread celebrations have been held to celebrate its anniversaries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andy Saunders (film restorer)</span> Imaging specialist

Andy Saunders is a British film restorer and author who specialises in historical NASA imagery. He created the only clear image of Neil Armstrong on the moon and for his book, Apollo Remastered.

References

  1. Voyager's Final Message - Crowd sourcing one world to reach another, Response Source.
  2. The ultimate journey of human exploration comes to BBC ONE this November, BBC Press Office.
  3. – Return to Mission Leonid, BBC News
  4. – In the Leonids' lair, BBC News
  5. – Save the Moon!, BBC Sounds
  6. – For All Mankind, BBC Sounds
  7. – Christopher Riley III, IMDB
  8. – Christopher Riley III, IMDB
  9. – The moon shoot: film of Apollo mission on show again after 35 years in the can, Guardian
  10. "One small word for [a] man - one giant hoo ha for mankind!". Archived from the original on 19 January 2013. Retrieved 22 July 2009. – An analysis of the recording of Armstrong's statement on stepping on the Moon in July 1969
  11. – Armstrong's 'poetic' slip on Moon, BBC News
  12. – Movie recreates Gagarin's spaceflight, BBC News
  13. – Neil Armstrong: First Man on the Moon (2012 TV Movie) Full Cast & Crew, IMDB
  14. The Fantastic Mr Feynman, BBC TWO
  15. – Joan Feynman: From auroras to anthropology
  16. The Girl Who Talked to Dolphins - review
  17. – BAFTA Awards database
  18. – Realscreen
  19. – ANNOUNCING THE WINNERS OF GRIERSON 2015: The 43rd British Documentary Awards
  20. – National Geographic Channels announces film director Christopher Riley for Hubble
  21. - National Geographic Channel and NASA to Celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope at the World Premiere of NGC's Hubble's Cosmic Journey
  22. - Emmy Award Nominations 2015 full list
  23. - 59th BFI London Film Festival Announces Juries for First Feature Competition, Documentary Competition and Short Film Award
  24. - The Fear of 13 - the film producer's unbreakable promise
  25. - The Hollywood News - The Fear of 13 review: "A gripping documentary feature"
  26. "The Fear of 13". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
  27. – The Fear of 13 - The Film Producer's Unbreakable Promise, Response Source
  28. "How two astronauts helped shoot Darren Aronofsky's new TV series from space". The Verge. 26 March 2018. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
  29. - Variety - Will Smith Nat Geo event series One Strange Rock.
  30. - 'Lightroom - The Moonwalkers: A Journey With Tom Hanks'.
  31. - Time Out 'Tom Hanks is narrating a spectacular space-themed immersive experience in London'.
  32. - Evening Standard 'Apollo Missions experience opening in London in December'.
  33. - 'The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks, Lightroom review - a thrill ride into the wonder of space'.
  34. - 'The Moonwalkers'.
  35. – 2014 BAFTA Nominations - SIngle Documentary
  36. "Nominations for Programme Awards 2013/2014 | Royal Television Society". Archived from the original on 26 February 2015. Retrieved 25 February 2015. – 2013-14 RTS Nominations for Programme Awards 2013/2014
  37. "The Grierson Trust - Nominations". Archived from the original on 4 December 2015. Retrieved 5 December 2015. - The Grierson Awards 2015
  38. - Emmy Award Nominations 2015 full list
  39. – CILIP Kate Greenaway Nominations 2020
  40. "Winners Gallery - Drain the Oceans - Battle for the Black Swan". 27 April 2022. Retrieved 27 April 2022.
  41. "BAFTA Scotland Awards 2022: Full Nominations List". 12 October 2022. Retrieved 12 October 2022.
  42. Archived 1 December 2009 at the Wayback Machine – Apollo raw and uncut, London Science Museum
  43. "Intermissions: Films from a heroic future" . Retrieved 21 November 2009. – Secrets of Apollo, Canadian Centre for Architecture.
  44. "Frequency 2013 | Chris Riley". Archived from the original on 2 November 2013. Retrieved 20 October 2013. – Frequency Artists 2013.
  45. Archived 2 May 2014 at the Wayback Machine – Apollo+40, super/collider
  46. "Apollo 50: Go for the Moon". The Air and Space Museum. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
  47. "Apollo 50: Go for the Moon Behind the scenes". The Air and Space Museum. Archived from the original on 13 December 2021. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  48. "Digital Planet: Comparing the landscape of Mars to Earth".
  49. "Astronomers Without Borders: Worlds Apart". YouTube . Archived from the original on 13 December 2021.
  50. "Worlds Apart: Medium". 13 February 2022.
  51. Riley, Christopher (13 February 2021). "From Mars to Earth". Medium. Retrieved 22 April 2022.