More Pentagon Funding of Hollywood Screenwriters
Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2005 1:43 pmPentagon funding 'Screenwriting 100'<br>David M. Halbfinger, New York Times<br><br>Tucked away in the Hollywood hills, an elite group of scientists from across the country and from a grab bag of disciplines -- rocket science, nanotechnology, genetics, even veterinary medicine -- has gathered this week to plot a solution to what officials call one of the nation's most vexing long-term national security problems. <br><br>Their work is being financed by the Air Force and the Army, but the Manhattan Project it isn't: The 15 scientists are being taught how to write and sell screenplays. <br><br>At a cost of roughly $25,000 in Pentagon research grants, the American Film Institute is cramming this eclectic group of midcareer researchers, engineers, chemists and physicists full of pointers on how to find their way in a world that can be a lot lonelier than the loneliest laboratory: the wilderness of story arcs, plot points, pitching and the special circle of hell better known as development. <br><br>And no primer on Hollywood would be complete without at least three hours on "Agents & Managers." <br><br>Exactly how the national defense could be bolstered by setting a few more people loose in Los Angeles with screenplays to peddle may be a bit of a brainteaser...<br> <br>Teaching screenwriting to scientists was the brainstorm of Martin Gundersen, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California and sometime Hollywood technical adviser... <br><br>He already had contacts at the American Film Institute, and he quickly persuaded Barker, who oversees several of his other grants, to endorse what began as a weekend seminar last summer and was expanded to five days this year. The Air Force is providing $100,000 annually for three years; the Army Research Office has added $50,000 this year. <br><br>Much of that money will pay for other like-minded efforts: Gundersen is also starting a workshop for high school students at the film institute, and he plans to get entertainment industry people to lead seminars at scientific conferences. <br><br>For now, though, the hopes of the Pentagon for a... friendly cinema seem to be riding on the shoulders of people like Bogdan Marcu, an engineer for Boeing's rocket propulsion division who is nursing an idea for a spy thriller, and Sam Mandegaran, a Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology who says he wants to become a director of science-friendly movies for young people because "adults are a lost cause."... <br><br>They got feedback for their own script ideas. A disaster movie set at the Olympics, where athletes get a virus that makes them smarter? A biopic on the inventor of the Ferris wheel, who died a sad and lonely alcoholic? <br><br>Gundersen explained: "It's different from writing for a science journal. That has to be right; you'd better not make a mistake, because people will beat the hell out of you. In a movie, I wouldn't want to say it doesn't have to be right, but it's different."... <br><br><br> <br> <p></p><i></i>