This is a commercial I created for Gordon & Associates.

Richard Feynman plays a central role in my film “The Challenger” and part of Feynman’s philosophy is what’s called a philosophy of ignorance. A philosophy of ignorance is something the scientist knows very well and is something he is comfortable with since scientists are always testing new ideas. This idea is a central theme in my Sundance script and Scientific America wrote a piece on it today. Check it out. Following this philosophy also helps when getting input on your creative work. It helps create a barrier between the work and the person. Admitting you don’t know or that you were wrong only creates opportunity for better creativity.

I thought i’d revisit the Hierarchy of Needs chart because it’s one thing to have a theory and it’s another to put it into practice. This is how I plan to execute the pyramid. I thought I’d share.

1. Physiological: Eat three meals, get at least 6 hours of sleep, start day with 15 min meditation, exercise at least 45 min a day, end day with 15 min meditation. None of your business on sex, homeostasis and excrement.

2. Safety: Keep paper in my pocket (read keep day job/film jobs), save dough/reduce debt, secure safe and comfortable home.

3. Love/Belonging: Seeing family and friends weekly, entertainment networking, church or service to those less fortunate, emotional and sexual intimacy (again none of your business)

4. Esteem: Following through on items above takes care of this.

5. Self Actualization: Items 1-4 together with my life Mission.

6. Eye of Providence: Self Reflection on items below to ensure nothing gets out of whack.

So how do you lead your life?
Well what happens in the end?
What will people say about you?

The truth is that you lead your life just like you lead anything else. With a plan. I found these leadership attributes useful. Ignore the fact that this article is geared toward an organization. You are the head of an organization… You INC. If you have a business you’ll need two lists but your personal list always trumps your business list. My personal mission is to use the gifts I’ve been given to help motivate others toward their potential. This blog is a part of that. The themes in my films always deal with this. What is yours?

I’m in the same starubucks where I mapped out my last film. I didn’t write the film here but this is the exact place where I mapped it out and here I am back again mapping out a new film. A science fiction film and this time and it feels easier.

It’s not easier but it feels that way; it’s quicker. But I’m bloging instead of writing so in the long run it’ll probably even out.

For the past several years and maybe more I’ve had turmoil in my personal life. I don’t intend to get into any detail but trust me I’m going somewhere with this. For the past twelve years if you were to ask me where I see myself in the future, my response would be a list of career goals as if it were my sole purpose for being on this planet. Science tells us our purpose is simple… to reproduce.

Well, yes but that’s not enough! It’s inadequate.

Then their’s the religious argument that I won’t get into because I’m no expert in that. But to be clear I have no problem with the religious argument so long as it produces persons that are complete and non judgmental which there are plenty of examples of.

Then I remembered a chart my coworker showed me which is shown above that I famously altered in ac3 fashion. Albeit slightly. (shout out to RL) A Hierarchy of Needs chart. I added the numbers to remind myself that order is important (more on that later) and I also added a 6th level which is the “Eye of Providence“. It is not a masonic symbol so don’t go there. It is there to remind me to look to God (or whatever name you chose to give him.. this is inclusive after all) who watches over all of the needs to reaccess that they’re all in order. That nothing has gotten out of whack.

The key in life, the path for me… is step 5/6 self actualization. Self actualization is the simply to reach the full potential of all of your abilities. Wikipedia quotes Carl Rogers as saying (self actualization is) “man’s tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities…to express and activate all the capacities of the organism”. This is not anything earth shattering. It is something we can connect to.. realizing our potential.

Arrogantly I thought, heck this is why I am an engineer/scientist/filmmaker. I could easily settle with a much simpler life just doing one of those things. But I spend all of my spare time obsessing over story and contemplating how to portray it on film.

I became serious about filmmaking nearly twelve years ago and have always thought that after I reached a quantifiable measure of success that I would be self actualized. Goals and waypoints were my measure for self actualization but I realize now that this is a trap. If you follow this model you will reach all of your GOALS but will have nothing to show for it. You will not be self actualized. In fact you will be worse off and disillusioned because your GOALS didn’t deliver what you expected. So now you’ve spent all of your life, delaying your life, waisting time, to reach a GOAL that didn’t deliver what it promised and left you disillusioned.

Fuck that! I want off this train. It’s destroyed every special relationship I have and would have had in the future. And It almost cost me my life. The damage is irreparable because you cannot undue actions, inactions or wrap the space time continuum.

Twelve years of my life wasted beacuse my focus in the wrong place. My Hierarchy of Needs was lopsided.

An imbalance that’s not healthy or fulfilling. The bright side is that I’ve caught this imbalance early so that I can bandage the personal relationships, make healthier choices and aim to live a self actualized life. You can too.

No not the talent agency. They’re merged with William Morris now anyway. Not with them yet at least!

As most of you know my latest script deals with the space Shuttle Challenger so (a few weeks ago) I went and checked out the Shuttle in person as it made it’s way to the museum. It was an awesome sight! The pics don’t do it justice. While there I was happy to see everyone excited and taking photos. I was also reminded about the people who gave their lives on board the Challenger and Columbia. One of whom, Greg Jarvis, worked for the same company I started working for right out of engineering school, Hughes Aircraft. RIP.

I was a small kid when the Challenger blew up and I still remember it to this day. It is one of my earliest memories. I was watching the broadcast in my kindergarten class and after it blew up I remember my teacher crying and the rest of us trying to figure out why. Her crying made us all cry as well. Sad day.

I am a helpless romantic and most of my films have been romantic comedies or love stories. This fact has always confused people especially if they know of my Aerospace Engineering background. The truth is that I have always steered clear of science based films because I was afraid my films would suck balls because they overemphasized the science.

But then “The Challenger” has gotten a good response despite my fears. Now don’t get me wrong there are still major hurdles for me to overcome with trying to boil the science into something that’s brief, actionable, non expositional, connected to emotion and palatable. But now instead of being fearful I accept this as a challenge that my engineering background (not to mention the helpless romanticism) makes me uniquely qualified for. On with scifi.

Firstly I cannot draw. I especially cannot draw the human form.

So instead of running and hiding I figured I’d attend a class featuring a nude model to practice. My rationale was that anytime I can sharpen my attention to detail and my ability to replicate the human experience is a plus, not to mention the fact that the model was a woman. I didn’t know that until I got there but that was also a plus. My rendition turned out to be abstract but it was still motivated by the model.

Attention to detail.

I fired up my kindle and read a few books on how to write fiction and guess what? It is the same thing as writing a movie. Now I’m not suggesting the documents (a book vs. screenplay) are similar because they are definitely two different animals all together but when it comes to story structure there are no differences. In fact most of the books I read on novel writing referenced movies when talking about structure… Imagine that.

So after this realization I made the following cheat sheet and sent it to my friend. This is how I organize story structure for my screenplays. It is based on two theories that literally changed the way I look at stories. At USC I learned Frank Daniel’s sequence method from Ted Braun using David Howards book and amended it with golden nuggets I learned from Blake Synder’s “Save the Cat” book. The interesting thing is that this can work for a novel as well. The only difference would be how you divide it up. i.e how many pages/chapters make up a sequence. Exciting! Hope you find this useful.