It’s official: Freakonomics is going to be turned into a feature-length documentary film. It will be an omnibus format, with different stories within the film told by different directors. According to Variety:
Doc is being produced by Chad Troutwine (“Paris je t’aime”) and Seth Gordon (“The King of Kong”), and they have enlisted Morgan Spurlock (“Super Size Me”), Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (“Jesus Camp”), Alex Gibney (“Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”), Laura Poitras (“My Country My Country”), Eugene Jarecki (“Why We Fight”) and Jehane Noujaim (“Control Room”) to each direct a docu segment on chapters in the book.
One set of directors would like your help. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, who made Jesus Camp as well as The Boys of Baraka, are, as they put it, “looking to make a character-driven film that captures the phenomenon that is Freakonomics.” Read their plea below and give them a shout if you’re interested. Feel free to respond in the comments as well.
Are you a Freak for Freakonomics? Has the Freakonomics movement changed your life significantly? Do you find yourself running experiments to prove your suspicions about human nature? What did you find?
We are documentary filmmakers adapting the book to the big screen and are looking for your stories. If you or anyone you know has been deeply influenced by the book and has a good story to tell please e-mail us at freakonomicsmovie (at) gmail (dot) com.
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Wow, you guys got almost the entire A-list of pop-documentary filmakers.
Wow, you guys got almost the entire A-list of pop-documentary filmakers.
I have. I used to teach HS Math back in the Dominican Republic, but gave it up by the apparent disdain most of the students and the administration of the two schools I would work at showed towards the subject, and towards my way of broading it since I just applied a little bit of scientific method to gathering things around and seeing them develop and then draw conclusions. But living in a country like mine, teaching kids to draw conclusions based on gathering data and doing something with it raised some hairs especially when you had to apply the mathematics learned in class to come up with your answers, which in the end were just another way of backing up your conclusions. Students did not want to look geeky, my colleagues looked at me at some kind of weirdo with an unusual love for yikers! Math, and the administration was always recommending that I should bring my expectations down a little. Yes I know, Innumeracy is rampant, and fancy enough to be flaunted at parties, and at the occasional mall. So when I finally got my hands around a copy of Freakonomics, I felt I wasn’t alone. That research-like thinking can be taken a bit further and brought down to the masses. Unfortunately, I am not a teacher anymore so I can’t use it in my classes, but lucky enough I got the book thanks to one of my former students who got it for me because it reminded her of me when she read each and every page.
I have. I used to teach HS Math back in the Dominican Republic, but gave it up by the apparent disdain most of the students and the administration of the two schools I would work at showed towards the subject, and towards my way of broading it since I just applied a little bit of scientific method to gathering things around and seeing them develop and then draw conclusions. But living in a country like mine, teaching kids to draw conclusions based on gathering data and doing something with it raised some hairs especially when you had to apply the mathematics learned in class to come up with your answers, which in the end were just another way of backing up your conclusions. Students did not want to look geeky, my colleagues looked at me at some kind of weirdo with an unusual love for yikers! Math, and the administration was always recommending that I should bring my expectations down a little. Yes I know, Innumeracy is rampant, and fancy enough to be flaunted at parties, and at the occasional mall. So when I finally got my hands around a copy of Freakonomics, I felt I wasn’t alone. That research-like thinking can be taken a bit further and brought down to the masses. Unfortunately, I am not a teacher anymore so I can’t use it in my classes, but lucky enough I got the book thanks to one of my former students who got it for me because it reminded her of me when she read each and every page.
Better hurry up and film the part about Cabrini Green before the last of them are bulldozed to make way for condos.
Better hurry up and film the part about Cabrini Green before the last of them are bulldozed to make way for condos.
Is this going to be a real documentary, or is it going to be a “documentary entertainment” like Super Size Me or Michael Moore movies?
Is this going to be a real documentary, or is it going to be a “documentary entertainment” like Super Size Me or Michael Moore movies?