Tom Shepard, director and co-producer of “Whiz Kids,” couldn’t have been a better fit to document the lives of three teens competing in the Intel Science Talent Search, one of the most prestigious science competitions in the nation.
Back in 1987, Shepard was a high school finalist in that very competition, which was formerly sponsored by Westinghouse.
As a teen, Shepard researched red harvester ants and the behavioral effects of their pheromones in his hometown of Colorado Springs, which he recalls resulted in quite the visual aid, as he received a number of bites and stings.
“It was a match made in heaven,” Shepard says. “Since I had been in the competition, it opened a lot of doors for us in terms of access.
The administrators of the talent search had never let in a camera crew before. I think having one of their own as part of the film crew made the difference.”
“Whiz Kids,” which screens at 7 p.m. Tuesday as part of a benefit for the Exploratorium and the Whiz Kids Outreach and Education Fund, chronicles the lives of Ana Cisneros, Kelydra Welcker and Harmain Khan, three science-savvy teens vying for top honors in the nation’s oldest science competition.
While the film does look closely at the talent search, Shepard stresses that at its core,“Whiz Kids” is a coming-of-age film.
“The competition definitely creates some dramatic tension, but anyone who watches it sees that it’s as much about the personal stories and lives of these three kids who use science to move themselves through adolescence,” Shepard says.
The teens chosen for the documentary represent not only a fierce determination and commitment to science research, but also ingenuity and a will to succeed with fewer resources and conventional opportunities at their fingertips.
The San Francisco screening of “Whiz Kids” is particularly special in that it marks the first time the subjects will have seen the documentary. Naturally, Shepard is a little tense.
“It’s totally nerve-wracking for a filmmaker to watch their subjects watch themselves onscreen — especially a film as personal as this,” he says. “The kids really entrusted us with a lot of personal material; we hope we got it right.”
Shepard and company will be able to tell right away how the film fares in the eyes of its subject; the screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the teens.
