Louisa Calder was the daughter of Ned James, son of Robertson James (artist), who was a brother of both Henry James (author) & William James, famous as the Father of Psychology, but who also was an artist in his own right. William studied under William Morris Hunt who had studied with Jean-Francois Millet.
The project was originally planned during 1954 and 1955 as a collaboration between French Cinematheque curator Henri Langlois and scientific documentary filmmaker Jean Painleve, but was the subject of a dispute between the two men and Calder.