Making the invisible visible

I keep coming back to one question. How did I not know about it?

Me? The tourist who visited Hiroshima and left the Peace Museum in silent horror... The filmmaker who went to the Navajo Nation to make a documentary on the dire legacy of uranium mining there, then spent a decade and more immersing herself in atomic history to tell the story of nuclear energy in Britain and beyond... The activist who was arrested in her great auntie’s knitted hat outside the gates of Faslane nuclear base in Scotland, protesting against the British government’s plans to renew the Trident nuclear missile system.

How had I never even heard of the fact that Britain carried out 24 underground nuclear weapons tests at the Nevada Test Site between 1958 and 1992?

I knew only of the British nuclear weapons tests in Australia and the Pacific. And if someone like me didn’t know, then it’s a pretty rock solid bet the vast majority of other Brits don’t know either.

I think that needs to change. And I hope that my new documentary film can be a part of that change.

Because it’s not just the bald fact of the tests that people are unaware of, it’s the whole complex reality that lies behind them too. There’s so much in this story that’s obscured, if not actively erased, from the public imagination - from the high level military and geopolitical relationships, to the ongoing legacy and future implications for those on the ground.

Some of you reading this will have been at the From Greenham to Nevada webinar I helped to organise last week, to hear from Western Shoshone Principal Man Ian Zabarte. But for those who weren't, I want to share this brief clip from his presentation. He’s talking here about the lack of access to health data and records - a heavy burden and barrier to restitution that’s experienced by nuclear-affected communities across the globe.

But his call to take things out of the shadows feels like a rallying cry on a much broader level too.

As a citizen of a country - with its own vast and troubled colonial history1 - who came to an arrangement with another country to explode bombs on a colonised sovereign nation within its territory, there’s a clear moral challenge here.

I feel an obligation, having learned of this history, to try to bring it out into the light for others too. My entry point for doing that is one small snippet of the larger history, which was how I was first introduced it to all myself: a direct action at the Test Site in 1990, just one of the many, many actions by and with the Western Shoshone through the 80s & 90s, this one involving three young British women, who hiked through the Nevada desert in a bid to halt one of the British nuclear tests.

But there’s another moral imperative - which is not to make this all about individual action. I want to go much deeper and use that one story as a springboard from which to tease out the complicated layers of sovereignty, responsibility and accountability in all of this and where I, and other ordinary British citizens, sit in this wider story…

There’s still SO much more I need to learn: about how these UK tests came to take place; going back even further, how and why the Nevada Test Site was located on Western Shoshone territory in the first place; and how international networks of activism sprang up to press for native rights and justice on land given over to nuclear testing, in the United States and across the globe.

I also want to follow the strands of that history up to the present day - nuclear explosions may have been outlawed by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty adopted by the UN back in 1996, but the threat of nuclear weapons has by no means gone away. Arguably it is greater than it has ever been.2 How does Britain’s history of nuclear colonialism in the southwestern United States fit into the story of what’s happening today?

So we need to talk about these things. We need to take them out of the shadows and begin to understand how serious this problem is. It’s deliberate. - Ian Zabarte

In filmmaking terms, tackling a subject where so much isn’t visible presents several challenges which I’m looking forward to taking on. Right from the beginning, when I first heard about the three young women attempting to stop a nuclear test in the Nevada desert, my thoughts turned immediately to animation.

There’s a practical element to this of course. No archive footage of the action exists and filming any kind of drama reconstruction would be logistically and financially prohibitive (without even mentioning the security issues of filming at a such a top-level military installation!) But frankly even if archive or dramatised scenes were available I think I would choose animation over both in any case, because of its capacity for transcending the literal, physical realm and allowing for a more expansive, symbolic representation of events.

I’ve worked with a couple of animators in the past and I know that finding the right collaborator will be centrally important to the success of the film. There are also genuine cost implications to consider as animation doesn’t come cheap, but I believe it will definitely be worth the investment and with my producer’s hat on I’m committed to finding a way to make it achievable.

Another visual aspect I’m keen to explore is the material representation of state action - the maps, treaties, reports etc that preserve the intangible relations between the different parties involved in this story. I’m still thinking this all through and the exact visual choices will depend on which particular aspects of the larger colonial story I end up pinpointing (the specificity is even more important in a short film than a feature-length one). But it feels like this will be a really rich seam to explore.

Of course, sound is as important as image in any film, so music and sound design choices will be central too. As well as core audio from interview testimony, I’m interested in exploring the use of specially-created soundscapes - and conversely the judicious use of silence - to evoke the desert environment, the sounds the women heard as they hiked towards ground zero, even the media reaction to the protest actions and the tests themselves.

Finally, there’s another more practical way in which I want to try and foster greater transparency - or make the invisible visible, if you will 😄

For this film, my plan is to share what I’m learning as I go. I’m incredibly lucky to have a community of thoughtful, engaged and highly perceptive subscribers reading this newsletter. There are some real experts working in various nuclear fields amongst you, as well as many brilliant, creative minds. So as much as I can, I want to bring you into my research and production process in a more direct and immediate way than I did whilst making my last nuclear film.

Partly that’s because there will inevitably be far more fascinating, revealing material that comes up in the journey of making the film than I will possibly be able to include in the final edit. Why should I keep that good stuff all to myself?

But honestly, it’s also from the totally selfish motivation that stress testing my workings along the way and being open to golden nuggets or feedback someone reading might share, will help me to make the best possible film I can.

I know from experience that the film you end up making is rarely exactly the same as the one you think it’s going to be at the outset. And so in sharing behind the scenes of my creative, editorial and practical decision-making, from the logistical hurdles, to the lightbulb moments and the happy accidents, I hope to offer you extra value and enjoyment along the way.

I’m so glad you’re here. And I’m ready to get to work.

What’s coming next: I’ll be back in your inbox later this week with a brand new interview to accompany our current Autism on Film season, where we’re exploring how directors create a “visual portrait” of neurodivergence - a challenge that feels very relevant to the animation questions I’m asking in my nuclear research right now. And next month’s film will be announced on 1st June.

Watch my film on Netflix & Disney+ (UK/Europe only) or Vimeo-on-demand - or see trailer, reviews & bonus content HERE

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