Living on the Rocks
Around the world, civilizations have literally been built on rock and the specific rock type of an area has definite influences on that society. Science Moab talks with wildlife and science documentary writer, Gautier Dubois, whose recent work, Top of the Rocks, will be featured at this year’s Moab Festival of Science. Each episode of this 5-part series looks at a different rock (basalt, granite, sandstone, limestone, and clay) and how that rock influences our landscapes and environments. The Sandstone episode was filmed partially on the Colorado Plateau and features Moab scientist, Tim Graham.
Meet the Creator: Gautier Dubois
As far as I remember, I always wanted to make wildlife and science documentaries and I started working in the documentary industry to pursue my dream. I worked for several production companies in Paris as a trainee, then as an assistant. Then I joined FL Concepts in 2014, (one the major wildlife production companies in France at that time).
From 2019, 90% of my professional time is dedicated to writing documentaries for major European Tv channels. I write about wildlife and science, but also History and what we called “discovery documentaries”, which is a type of documentary dedicated to discovering a place in the world, or a culture. Most of the time, I am writing the scenario (contacting experts/scientists/people involved in this subject) I build my story, and once it is accepted by the Tv channel, I work on the organization of the documentary, and I go on field to make interviews of scientists. I am currently working on three Big wildlife documentaries, and one science documentary.
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Interview Excerpt: The Rocks Below
We are talking about a TV documentary series all about rocks with the writer of the series, Gautier Dubois. This documentary series entitled “Top of the Rocks” will be featured at the kickoff of this year’s Festival of Science in Moab on Wednesday evening, September 13. The sandstone episode was partially filmed here on the Colorado Plateau.
ScienceMoab What inspired this series on rocks?
Dubois I was working with Christophe Cousin, the director of this series, on another documentary that never became real because the TV channel site was rubbish. Disappointed on the phone, I was walking on the streets of Paris, and in the streets of Paris, every building is very old. I said Christophe, have you ever thought about the fact that without limestone, there was no Paris architecture like this possible. And I come from a town built on granite and every building is granite, and we start discussing this and we say, there must be an influence of the rocks beneath your feet on the way you live. We say, for instance, if there was no limestone in the Bordeaux region, there could be no vineyard, so no wine of Bordeaux. If you look at the granite in the middle of France that cannot be like, church, like, we’ve got, like, massive and rodders church that traveled through the ages, it cannot be possible. So we figure out that maybe the rocks have a very strong influence on people on arts, on religion, on the animals, on the plants, on what you can grow on the soil, basically. so, everything is about rocks, because the rocks tell you what you can make of this earth. Everything is about rocks.
ScienceMoab I understand the Sandstone Episode is filmed partially on the Colorado Plateau. You wrote something about local scientist, Tim Graham, and his study of fairy shrimp and other critters that live in the sandstone?
Dubois I remember writing the sequence and I say these creatures are like the definition of hope. They will never figure out where they live, they will never figure out what’s the world around them, and they will never figure out when the rain will come on not. they don’t even know what the rain is. They just just fall asleep one moment, hoping that one day or another in a year or two, the water would come back and they will live again. So it’s, it’s crazy, you know? That’s the definition of hope to me.
ScienceMoab When you were writing this series, were you drawn to one particular stone?
Dubois I liked the basalt and I liked the sandstone also. What makes me feel very euphoric about the basalt is that it is the definition of life, because the basalt comes directly from the middle of the earth, you know? It’s pure rock, new rock, a new land to discover very soon it’s a very fertile rock. I also like sandstone it is something quite unusual. It’s a rock that is made of sand, and eventually turns back into sand. Then, maybe in 1 million years it will become rock again. So it’s eternal.
Science Moab What else can you tell me about the sandstone episode?
Dubois The first sequence is when I talk with this English guy. He says, I’m working on sandstone for 20 years. and the only time I get any attention is when I write an article about how to make the perfect sandcastle. You might be the 99th guy that called me about this article. I say, yeah, maybe we can make something funny about the sandcastle and maybe you can build a sandcastle that we’ll see all over the world. I also like the story of this stone in Scotland, the Stone of Destiny, the stone where the future kings must stand on this rock of sandstone to become crowned by the archbishop. This rock is just a block of sandstone, but we put our beliefs, our religions, our hopes in it to make this block of sandstone something special. Nobody would care about this block of sandstone if it wasn’t this one. Another sequence that I liked was with this guy Michael, on the coast of California. He was the world specialist of the purple sea urchin. I liked his job title. The sea urchin has a big influence on the sculpting of the sandstone on coastal California because when they feed, they crush a little bit of sandstone each time.
