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Managing editor & film and television critic with a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature with a Writing Minor from the University of Guam. Currently in graduate school completing a Master's in English Literature.
Gillian Jacobs’s science sports documentary, More Than Robots, was released on the Disney+ streaming service last week. I got to see a few days prior at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival and was even able to speak with producer Jason Sterman, FIRST founder Dean Kamen, and director Gillian Jacobs. It is such an excellent film to have the honor to cover during this event that there is much I wanted to discuss.
Featured in this article is my interview with the three individuals from last Monday, March 14th, in the afternoon.
Warning: Minor spoiler alert for those who have not yet seen the film!
Diving into the Project
I asked Jason Sterman about what made him want to dive into a project such as this, especially in the midst of a pandemic. Sterman says he and his team had no idea the Coronavirus pandemic was coming. This changed their plans drastically, in terms of both the production approach and the narrative.
Supper Club discovered FIRST‘s robotics competitions through “our partnership with the Walt Disney Company, specifically through our relationship with Lucasfilm”. While on the search for a non-fiction project, Sterman’s team was informed by Lucasfilm that it would be sponsoring the competition for 2020. Simultaneously, Sterman had also spoken with Jacobs, who had directed Marvel 616 at the time. Here is his statement on working with Jacobs.
Gillian was such a big proponent of STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] and is just a naturally curious person. When we found out about this, I shared the idea with her, that it was something that this film would be open to making the introduction and doing something on. We immediately sprung at it. It is the sort of thing, especially as a documentary filmmaker, you naturally gravitate towards ideas that allow you as filmmakers to have a discovery through the process of making something. This gave us that opportunity. So it was exciting from that standpoint.
Jason Sterman, producer of More Than Robots
A Global Community
I bring up how, at the end of More Than Robots, Kamen spoke about how “our society is a global community”. This is the idea of a community (such as that in NBC’s Community) neatly ties in. In terms of being inspired to take on the project, here is what Jacobs had to say.
We started this project in January of 2020. I think the thing that got me most excited about it was when I started to meet some of the students involved. I thought that they were so smart. They were creative, they were funny, they were compassionate, they were really skilled at something I knew nothing about. I thought the robots were pretty cool too. I thought it was just this great competition, this community of students from around the world, [that] it would make hopefully for an interesting and compelling documentary.
Gillian Jacobs, director of More Than Robots
Conceptualizing FIRST — Sports With Robots
Dean Kamen, an inventor himself, says that inventors “look at the same problems everybody else look[s] at but [view] them differently”. He asserts that in the late-1980s/ early-1990s, most of the serious United States leadership in both business and government were worried that not enough young people were made to be scientists and engineers. It was assumed that there was an education crisis, although this has been — and is always going to be — an issue. His response is that “they’re misdiagnosing their problem. We don’t have an education crisis; we have a culture crisis”.
During this time, Kamen says that superstars from two “monolithic” areas: the world of sports and the world of entertainment. There were no known individuals from the field of STEM that young people could identify with. Here is his statement on coming up with FIRST.
Hey, if kids love sports and they’re going to excel at things they work hard at, [then] let’s stop complaining about our in-classroom [circumstances], where the teacher has to be judgemental. After school, that teacher becomes the nurturing coach to whatever team they have in that aspirational environment. Let’s make one of the sports that kids can play at one that develops that muscle hanging between their ears [i.e. the brain], and we’ll just use exactly the model that works. It’ll be after school; there won’t be quizzes and tests. There’ll be leadership and mascots and the school band and tournaments, etc. Everything that makes kids like sports, and we’ll justify it the way they do with other sports. They learn teamwork.
Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST
The FIRST Model
Kamen’s model for FIRST is adopted from the model of sports, but with the DNA of technology. He spoke with the big tech companies for whom he built helicopters and medical companies, asking to bring in their engineers, especially and “hopefully” those in the minority groups that could “break all the stereotypes of what engineers are”. His intention had been to use these engineers to be seen as role models.
After establishing FIRST, the number of teams participating multiplied as the years passed. Eventually, Kamen used Disney as “a giant media company to let the world know about the world’s best-kept secret — FIRST“.
FIRST‘s Collaborations with Disney
Over two decades ago, Kamen had contacted Disney, who allowed FIRST to hold their championships at Disney’s Epcot theme park. He says, “We outgrew it and had to go to like 50,000 seat stadiums”.
FIRST and Disney still work together to run these robotics championships, with Star Wars having developed a different theme over the past couple of years. Kamen hopes that FIRST will have more recognition by having More Than Robots be noticed by more people from across and around the world.
Jacobs as a Filmmaker at South by Southwest (SXSW)
Jacobs has been an actor in several films that premiere at South by Southwest, however, this is her first time at the festival as a director. She says that “[t]his is a new special honor to have a film there as a director”. Her documentary had premiered at the festival earlier this month along with her Community co-stars, Donald Glover and Alison Brie, whose respective projects, Atlanta Season 3 and Spin Me Round, have also premiered at the event.
Behind the Camera
I asked Jacobs, “How is being behind the camera different from being in front of it? And what are the lessons that you learned in the process?” Here is her response.
[I]t’s very different, I feel a lot of responsibility and pressure when you’re directing. When you’re an actor, you’re part of a large group of people who are helping to make something happen; and when you’re directing a lot, more of the responsibility is on your shoulders.
This is my third documentary that I’ve directed, so I’ve learned a lot in the last — I don’t know — seven years or so about documentary and about directing. I’ve learned that it all starts with surrounding yourself with really smart, talented people who can help you through the parts that you might not know how to do initially, and then you learn along the way and you find people that you love collaborating with who make you better. I’ve been very loved so much from all the people I’ve worked with in the past seven years.
Jacobs
More Than What We are Given in More Than Robots
I told Jacobs, “For an hour and a half long, there’s just so much going on. so many stories. There [are] four students that [the film] covered. [Are] there more stories” that were planned for (or included in but cut from) the film?
Jacobs said that she and her film crew had intended to follow the FIRST teams to the world championships and film the outcome of those events. However, the pandemic happened, causing these competitions to be canceled, as is revealed at the end of the film. She says:
[The crew and I] were only halfway through what we thought was going to be our shoot when everything got shut down. We were going to film with the team from Mexico [Nautilus 4010] and the team from Japan [Sakura Tempesta 6909] at their competition, and then we would’ve filmed with whom had made it to the world championships. We had all these plans for what we thought the documentary was going to be, and then, you know… [COVID].
Jacobs
This could have been the original ending to the documentary. However, with the pandemic, what we got was “the alternate ending”, or as in the case of Community, “the [alternate] timeline”.
Gillian Jacobs’s Projects in the Near-Future
I asked Jacobs, “Are there any written or directorial projects that are coming soon for you [in the near-future]?” She teases her upcoming film, The Seven Faces of Jane, stating:
Let’s see. Well, I did this film last year where I acted in it and I directed two scenes. It was a very unique project that had seven different directors. I only directed two scenes of that.
I don’t think I have any written projects that are coming out soon. I’ve been/ I’m acting on a limited series for Netflix right now, so that’s what I’m doing currently. I’m sure I’m forgetting something. (laughing) I’m sorry. If I think of it, I’ll tell you!
Jacobs
#AndAMovie?
As a huge fan of Community, as if it has not already been implied throughout this interview, I asked Gillian Jacobs if there is an update on the “And a Movie” cinematic follow-up to the six-season series. Unfortunately, she has no update as of now, but she does appear hopeful about it.
With most of the cast from Community working on projects with each other, it’s only a matter of time until we see them reunited for the big screen (or small screen if they hit the streaming service realm). We can only be hopeful as well. For now, you can watch her documentary on Disney’s streaming service, along with Donald Glover’s Atlanta on FX and Hulu.
More Than Robots is now streaming via Disney+!
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Managing editor & film and television critic with a Bachelor's of Arts in English Literature with a Writing Minor from the University of Guam. Currently in graduate school completing a Master's in English Literature.
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