Edmonton Journal Talks with Brian Murphy about Mars Rising

There's a bunch of Alberta talent behind the upcoming Discovery Channel mini-series Mars Rising. Jennifer Fong, a freelance reporter with The Edmonton Journal recently spoke with Brian Murphy, writer and director of two of the six episodes of the highly-anticipated mini-series.

Murphy, a longtime colleague of Mars Rising supervising producer Michael Jorgensen, signed on to the project knowing very little about space exploration. The idea of going to another planet fascinated the veteran filmmaker, who has been making documentaries for Discovery Channel, CBC and National Geographic for 25 years. "It's like ... back in 1492, and we wanted to do a documentary about this crazy guy who was going to jump into a boat and go to a new world -- it's just so out there."

But science has never been very sexy, and Murphy had a lot of facts and figures to cram into the two hour-long episodes he'd been assigned to. His goal was to show the beauty and the creativity behind all the equations, measurements, and numbers by focussing on the personalities involved.

"You really get a sense of it in Mars Rising that these people just live and breathe it. It took NASA that kind of energy to get to the moon -- just people that are so dedicated to it, and the creative thinking that goes into it," said Murphy. "You found that they were these really incredible scientists with incredible visions. They were like artists."

He's now convinced that a trip to the Red Planet will succeed, and he's looking forward to it. "It'd be nice if I'm in my walker one day and I go by my TV set and I find out that they landed on Mars," said Murphy. "Definitely they will -- I can't say when, though."

Head over to the Edmonton Journal article to read the rest of the insightful interview.

Photo: Candace Elliott, The Edmonton Journal