FIND Staffer and Project Involve Alumnus, Eli Akira Kaufman, Attends The Sloan Film Summit 2008 Presented by the American Film Institute.

A quiet hum of excitement was in the air at the Sloan Film Summit 2008 reception and welcome dinner at Yamashiro Restaurant overlooking the bright lights of Hollywood. Here was a gathering of leading scientists and rising (see: student and independent) storytellers assembled to figure out how to best integrate science into the films, TV shows and theater of the future. I literally felt smarter just being in the company of such a brain trust.

Some background: The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation was established in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. the President and CEO of General Motors from 1923-1946. Mr. Sloan was a visionary in the automotive industry and is credited with several innovative marketing strategies including “planned obsolescence” or the concept of making annual stylistic changes to GM cars to entice consumers to keep up with the Jones’s. However, Mr. Sloan was more than a marketing genius, he was also a philanthropist interested in supporting programs in the areas of science, specifically the public’s understanding of science and technology.

As an Alfred P. Sloan production grant recipient for my UCLA M.F.A. thesis project California King, (all about mattress sales, Newton’s Laws of Motion and falling in love on the way into bed) I had the good fortune of being invited to participate. The following is a smattering of my notes, reflections and revelations from the event.

Forget the superficial treatment of great ideas reduced to ludicrous special effects in big box office science fiction! Defy the temptation of the stereotypical mad scientist with crazy hair or pocket-protected nerd engineer, who traditionally play either foil or sidekick to generally better looking, albeit less intelligent, heroes!! Evolve beyond the Industry’s limited understanding of science and those who practice empirical thinking…and seek authenticity in your storytelling!!! These directives were among the ambitions Doron Weber, Program Director, had for the filmmakers in attendance at the Summit.

The title of the first panel discussion revealed the agenda of the event, “From Geek to Chic: The growing popularity of science in primetime television,” and was made up of a broad cross section of scientists and television writers/producers including Samuel Baum, creator and executive producer of the new Fox dramatic series, Lie To Me, Emmy® nominated Josh Berman, consulting producer and writer on BONES and executive producer on CSI, Nick Falacci and his wife and writing partner Cheryl Heuton, co-executive producers of NUMB3RS and renowned scientists Dr. Paul Ekman, professor of psychology at UCSF and Nicholas Warner, Professor of Physics, Mathematics & Astronomy at USC.

The pace of the panel discussion was hellacious and I probably shouldn’t have been surprised at the high regard the scientists held for the television people and vice versa. What was absolutely refreshing about this panel was how little time was spent on the business side of the Industry. Instead, the lion’s share of the discussion was devoted to exploring better ways of expressing challenging scientific principles, research, moral dilemmas and personalities in our storytelling. The esteemed panel talked about developing three-dimensional characters that just happened to be scientists and not just lab coats with heartbeats. Some mention was made about how to make the science and technology in our shows more cinematic by moving away from dreaded equations on dry erase boards and into flight patterns of Canadian geese or the beauty of protozoa under a microscope. They encouraged us to avoid the temptation to dumb down the science in our narratives, while at the same time warned against producing procedural drivel. They compared good scientific research to good television writing, suggesting that the most compelling stories follow a certain logic that can be proven through observation (showing not telling), and that the best way to earn the devotion of your audiences is by substantiating character motivation with evidence of character need. A general consensus was reached that successful television writing resembles the scientific process in so much as it begins with a question or problem, followed by research, that yields a hypothesis or a thesis, which leads to experimentation or drafts to test the validity of the idea, and ultimately results in a conclusion.

The afternoon session, “We Told You So: Scientific disasters in film as entertainment or cautionary tale?” was made up of an equally impressive panel of industry professionals and notable scientists. Marc Abraham, producer (Air Force One and Children of Men) turned director (Flash of Genius), David A. Kirby, evolutionary geneticist, Timothy Sexton, writer (Children of Men and upcoming The Merchant of Shanghai), and Moran Surf, neuroscientist Cal Tech. The majority of this panel was devoted to Alfonso Cuaron’s dystopian science fiction tale, Children of Men, and how well it illuminates the human implications of science and technology. The panel agreed that while there is relatively little hard science that explained the cause of the catastrophic global human infertility in the movie, the socio-economic, geo-political and environmental ramifications of the depicted crisis succeeds in making us think twice about where we could be headed if we don’t take notice...

Later that evening, as we gathered at Social Hollywood for cocktails, I noticed that the quiet hum of excitement that filled the air at Yamashiro had developed into a full blown buzz as groups of storytellers and scientists engaged in heated discussions about the convergence of their disciplines and the power of ideas to inspire.

Filmmakers that have already won Sloan Prizes for their depiction of science and technology include directors Darren Aronofsky, Werner Herzog, Michael Apted, Julian Schnabel and Bill Condon. Be sure to check out Sloan-sponsored programs run in collaboration with the Hamptons International Film Festival, the Sundance Film Institute, the Tribeca Film Institute and our very own Film Independent.

Eli Akira Kaufman is a recent graduate of The UCLA School of Film, Television and Digital Media and works as Film Independent’s Event Coverage Producer, Videographer and Editor, as he struggles to finish that pesky Sloan feature script he plans to direct one day soon.