This year, Elevation Science had the honor of being the focus of a documentary! High school student Matthew Wilbur signed up as a participant and took careful note of what goes into an Elevation Science field season and interviewed staff members for the project. We shared our experiences in the field of paleontology, our roles, and what science means to us. The short film, named “Stories Through Bone”, focuses on what it’s like to live your childhood dreams and go on a dinosaur dig.

When asked what it was like to combine a passion for both dinosaurs and filmmaking, Matthew responded with this:

“Like many young children, I’ve always been attracted to the idea of dinosaurs and prehistoric life. By the time I watched Jurassic Park my brother began exploring his interest in filmmaking. Strapped for a cast and crew, he hired my sister and myself who were ecstatic to shoot each other with nerf blasters on camera. By the time I reached high school, I followed in my brother’s footsteps and enrolled in my school's digital filmmaking program.

This program gave me the ability to experiment with my own style through a variety of mediums: short form fiction, music videos, and of course, documentary. It was around my junior year of high school, fueled by the COVID lockdown, that my interest in paleontology peaked again. That Christmas, my parents surprised me with a one-week trip to a volunteer paleontology dig in Montana. Using my interest in filmmaking and some subtle encouragement from my mother, I decided to combine both fields and film a documentary while there.

Matthew Wilbur and Jordan Coelho at the Mother’s Day site

The experience of filming this documentary has shown me that I can combine both passions of film and paleontology. I plan to use this experience to further my education by double majoring in both film and paleontology during my time at university, eventually working with museums or doing independent projects.”

Take a look at the documentary here:

(Left to right) Jacob Green, Matthew Wilbur, Dayton Green, Amelia Coffey, and Jordan Coelho taking a shade break at the Andersen site

We’d like to extend our gratitude to Matthew for the honor of Elevation Science being part of this project and supporting us during the field season. Thank you for capturing the highs and lows of the field season…even after a nasty thunderstorm! This documentary communicates the importance of what we do and how hard we work to do it. Good luck to Matthew in future endeavors and we hope to see you back in the field with us soon.

Lights, Camera... Dinosaurs!