Star Makers
Overview
In December 2021 the world’s largest and most advanced fusion energy experiment, JET, broke the world record for fusion power.
Star Makers: The Energy Of Tomorrow goes behind the scenes of a landmark European nuclear fusion energy project to show how scientists and engineers overcame incredible obstacles to move the world one step closer to a future of clean, safe, cheap and unlimited energy.
The full documentary can be found on Amazon Prime and was Filmed and Directed by The Village Films for the UKAEA
Project Brief
The UK Atomic Energy Authority has hosted the Joint European Torus (JET) in Oxford since it first began fusion experiments in 1983.
We were approached by the UKAEA to create a feature-length documentary film about their 2021 attempt to break the world fusion power record, and in the process move the world one step closer to an inexhaustible, safe, and carbon-free source of energy.
Material Delivered
Our Story
The film follows the Joint European Torus (JET) team at the UKAEA Culham Campus over the course of 6 months as they attempt to break the world fusion record for the first time in a generation, simultaneously setting a new benchmark in fusion energy and reigniting interest around the world.
Celestine Cheong
Head of External Communications, UKAEABehind the scenes
Challenges
We were tasked with creating a feature length scientific film with wide audience appeal, from science enthusiasts to school kids and the general public. However, making a film with deeply complex science at its core for such an audience is no easy task.
Fusion experiments, plasma physics, and hardcore engineering challenges are tricky for a general audience to care about. Our solution was to make them care about the people behind the science. We told the story of the record attempt through the eyes of a core group of scientists as they undertook one of the world’s largest science experiments.
Our team began by learning as much as possible about fusion, the JET experiments, and the challenges involved. We interviewed more than 40 potential contributors, eventually selecting three core members of the team who would be the audiences’ window into this complex world
Over the course of nearly a year, our Director and DoP followed Damian, Joe and Fernanda as they coaxed, cajoled and at times castigated the aging and highly temperamental JET machine into trying to set a new world fusion power record (in the full glare of a global pandemic).
The 60-minute film was delivered to high praise, with a world premier in front of a packed house at the Culham site, and has gone on to be a key tool in spreading the word of fusion across the UK at festivals and in Q&A sessions. As a result of the success of this film, the UKAEA commissioned a second feature-length doc (Star Makers 2) as the JET experiment winds down and the fusion baton is passed on to the next generation of machines.
