Marcus Lehman shooting a scene for Battle Lab

KPI joins 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, for a few days during their Network Integration Evaluation at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., July 14. The goal of the production crew was to get footage and interviews for use in the creation of a pilot episode of “Battle Lab.”

Last week, the 2011 History Makers conference happened here in New York City, where the top international Commissioning Editors and program producers met one another for three days of talks, awards and meetings. KPI’s VP of Creative, Chris Cassel, and Series Producer Jessica Conway were both in attendance. Here’s what Mr. Cassel (first photo, second from left) had to say about the experience:

Having lived with the Ground Zero story at close range for more than a year now, it’s easy to lose perspective on how little the general public really knows about what’s happening behind the fence on those 16 acres, and also how eager that same public is to know more. That high level of interest and curiosity was clear at the History Makers conference last week, where series producer Jessica Conway and I participated in a panel entitled New York and 9/11. We were there alongside Nicole Rittenmeyer, whose riveting documentary “102 Minutes that Changed America” looks at the tragic events of 9/11 minute-by-minute through rarely seen video clips taken at the scene. Our project, “The Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero,” is in some ways the sequel. We like to think of as “the story of 9/12,” that is, the decade-long effort to restore Lower Manhattan to prominence, and to repair the deep emotional wounds that followed the tragedy. Our story is about more than rebuilding structures, although certainly the engineering behind the new buildings is fascinating and central to our series. But we are telling that story of construction through the story of the people doing it, many of whom were directly and profoundly affected by the events of 9/11. During the panel I shared the story of construction super Brian Lyons, who lost his brother on 9/11, quit his job to spend nine months on the pile looking for his remains, which he never found, and then resolved to stay for the entire rebuilding – “from the first bolt until the last bolt” as he says. And then there’s Jimmy Walsh, the quiet plumber who is helping engineering the largest man-made waterfalls in the world, at the very site where he lost his beloved mother.

It was those stories that really resonated with panel attendees, as they no doubt will with our audience. The 50 minutes flew by, and before we knew it we were out of time, hopefully having left the audience wanting more. One thing was clear – that there is a great level of interest in this story, and therefore a great responsibility on us to tell it correctly and completely. That is also, a great honor and privilege. Having now met so many of the individuals behind this amazing rebuilding effort, Jessica, myself and our entire team understand how lucky we are to get to share their stories with the wider world, and what a great chance we have, together with those individuals, to inspire America and renew that spirit of good will that was so universal on 9/12.

So of course you’re thinking:  you can’t fool me, that’s not the real Stonehenge.  What is this, some cheesy theme-park left-over? A claymation set on steroids?  You are right.  These pics were not taken in Wiltshire, England.  They were taken in Washington State, USA.  Everybody talks about how incredible Stonehenge looks.  They should also be asking how it sounds.  KPI associate producer Yuki Kaneshige knows why:

Our program looks into Rupert Till’s theory that the stones of Stonehenge were shaped and placed in such a way as to create acoustic effects that could “en-trance” or hypnotize participants gathered there for ancient rituals.

So he and another British sound expert, Bruno Fazenda also of the University of Huddersfield, conducted audio tests at the Stonehenge Memorial in Maryhill, Washington (dedicated to local WWI veterans), because it is a replica of what Stonehenge in the UK must have looked like originally, with all stones standing.

They brought in tons of gear for their day and night-time tests: a special 12-sided speaker they nicknamed their “dode”, amps and microphones, as well as original software for measuring the reverberation and echoes of sounds they were using. Balloon-popping was not just fun, but also a very effective way to test how a loud sound would spread out equally in all directions.  The team also tested tones and drum beats of what music back in the day may have sounded like.

Later at NYU, the site recordings were played for a test subject (i.e., a person) who was monitored by an MEG (magnetoencephalography) machine showing activity in regions of the brain. He was also hypnotized to show how the human voice can entrance someone into certain behaviors like scratching their nose. We can only conjecture what repetitive drumbeats or other sounds might induce a person to do in a setting like Stonehenge…

–Yuki Kaneshige, Associate producer