Media Arts Center: Digital Gym Cinema San Diego, CA
Dr. Eric Leonardis
Postdoctoral Fellow, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Babe: Pig in the City— Chaos agents: Neuroscience and animal behavior
Program Description
Following the screening of George Miller's BABE: PIG IN THE CITY, Dr. Eric Leonardis will discuss the neuroscience behind animal communication and interspecies camaraderie. This will be the final screening in our series on Animal Perspectives in Film.
Presented At
Media Arts Center: Digital Gym Cinema San Diego, CA
Film Synopsis
Babe has to go to the big city to save the farm.
When Babe accidentally puts farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell) in traction, the debtors come looking for their payments. In order to pay their debt, Mrs. Hoggett (Magda Szubanski) sends Babe off across the ocean to the city to demonstrate his talents as a sheep herder. Along with his friends, Babe meets a lot of new friends and gets into new adventures.
Photo credit: Universal
About the Speaker
Dr. Eric Leonardis is a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies and an expert in the neuroscience of animal behavior and communication. He specializes in how the brain controls the body and how animals make sense of their world. Eric’s work explores embodied cognition and the evolution of communication, with a focus on how animals use signs and signals to convey territory, hierarchy, and meaning. He recently gave the invited lecture “Body Horror and the Brain” with Harvard Medical School. He serves as a scientific advisor for films through the National Academy of Sciences Science and Entertainment Exchange consulting on the portrayal of science in film. You can find him regularly presenting scientific introductions to films at Film Geeks SD events like the Secret Morgue at the Comic Con Museum.