In 2011, a cognitive supercomputing system developed at IBM named “Watson” was pitted against, and subsequently defeated, two of the most successful Jeopardy! game-show contestants of all time. A project five years in the making, Watson was initially developed as a “Grand Challenge” successor to Deep Blue, the machine that beat Gary Kasparov at chess, and was a prototype for DeepQA, a question/answer natural language analysis architecture. Since his Jeopardy! triumph, however, Watson has been successfully applied towards improving health care, oncology, business applications and soon enough… even education. At the same time that IBM has been expanding Watson’s cognitive computing abilities, they’ve also been brilliantly marketing him to the general public through a series of traditional and interactive ads.

As part of our ongoing “Selling Science Smartly” series, we analyze the Watson campaign in more depth and feature an exclusive and insightful podcast conversation with the IBM marketing team behind it.

Campaign: Watson
Agency: IBM/Ogilvy&Mather
Industry: Cognitive computing/information technology

Quick thought experiment. Name at least a couple of technology advertising campaigns (not including Apple) that have been so memorable and clever, they either compelled you to buy a product or piqued your curiosity to learn more about it. Chances are, you can’t. For one thing, outside of computers and gadgets, “big picture” technologies like cloud computing, artificial intelligence and artificial neural networks have still not become fully mainstream. For another, like many high-end sophisticated science applications, it is difficult to communicate such abstract applications in bite-size pieces. IBM’s recent Watson campaign, centered around its powerful cognitive question/answer (QA) computing device, defies conventional tech branding. It’s instantaneously attention-getting. It features Watson’s attributes by incorporating one of the hallmark rules of film-making/screenwriting: show, don’t tell. Most importantly, humans are the centerpiece of each commercial/spot, which is an important antidote to Hollywood-induced fears of robotic takeover and a more realistic depiction of how we will really subsume AI into our existence through small steps.

Here is Watson summarizing his seemingly endless array of capabilities for integration of deep learning:

Here is Watson explaining his capacity for improving digital health and diagnostics in medicine to an adorable young patient:

Recently, Watson displayed his technological versatility in an interactive campaign where he helped design a supermodel’s “Cognitive Dress.” The dress was equipped with lighting to monitor real-time social media reactions and represents an example of augmenting the creative process with technology in the future.

Why It’s Good Science Advertising

Whether he’s enjoying a one-on-one conversation with virtually any human, designing dresses or helping people cook gourmet meals, Watson comes across as versatile, approachable and interactive. Soon, Watson will even produce meta-advertising, in the form of cognitive marketing — enabling consumers to have remote brand-related conversations with Watson Ads suited to their individual needs and questions about a particular product. As illustrated in the video below, the Watson campaign, like the technology itself, represents a total commitment to brand awareness, IBM’s core mission and the eventual potential of the cognitive technology device. And, it’s memorable!

Why It Works

With a cognitive machine as powerful and versatile as Watson, brand messaging presents two major challenges: succinctly communicating the complex framework of solutions for consumers, businesses and institutions, and doing so in an emotionally engaging manner. Watson succeeds on both accounts. He describes his capabilities from a first-person perspective, not through omniscient narration. He functions through interlocution, which lends an intimacy to the commercials — any one of us might find ourselves interacting with Watson and requesting his help. He is fun and funny; brilliant yet adorably inept in human slang; cheeky yet serious; always helpful, curious and collaborative. In essence, Watson has been branded as an anthropomorphic companion instead of a sterile robot. 21st Century technology will inevitably be personal, inclusive and integrated into our lives. The Watson campaign feels like the realistic unveiling of the cognitive computing era. Take a look at Watson’s conversation with Ridley Scott about artificial intelligence, as portrayed in Hollywood (referenced in our podcast below):

What Other Science Campaigns Can Learn From This One

Creative risk-taking is essential for successfully marketing sophisticated technology, not just in the content itself, but in how it is crafted. In the immediate predecessor to the Watson campaign, a series of spots entitled “Made With IBM” traveled across three continents to share short, documentary-like stories about cross-applications of a panoply of IBM technology and its relevance in today’s connected world. Accordingly, the aggregate Watson ads and interactive spots present an engaged, personalized look at how cognitive computing will facilitate faster, more improved and easier tasks in all areas of human life in the future while making an immediate impact in several industries right now. Indeed, IBM’s commitment to incorporating storytelling across all of its content extends to the unusual move of hiring screenwriters to join its marketing team. IBM also partnered with the TED Institute for multi-year thought leadership symposium where critical ideas related to technology and data-driven computing, along with the ways they could change the world, were shared by leading experts. In the process, this multi-platform approach not only taps into the next generation of consumers, but slowly assuages understandable reservations about artificial intelligence.

To help gain insight into the creative development and thought process behind the Watson campaign, as well as the greater context of using didactic advertising and thought leadership to inform about complex technology, ScriptPhD.com was joined for a conversation with IBM’s Vice President of Branded Content and Global Creative Ann Rubin and Watson Chief Marketing Officer Stephen Gold. Listen to our podcast below:

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ScriptPhD.com covers science and technology in entertainment, media and advertising. Hire our consulting company for creative content development. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our podcast on SoundCloud or iTunes.

It has become compulsory for modern medical (or scientifically-relevant) shows to rely on a team of advisors and experts for maximal technical accuracy and verisimilitude on screen. Many of these shows have become so culturally embedded that they’ve changed people’s perceptions and influenced policy. Even the Gates Foundation has partnered with popular television shows to embed important storyline messages pertinent to public health, HIV prevention and infectious diseases. But this was not always the case. When Neal Baer joined ER as a young writer and simultaneous medical student, he became the first technical expert to be subsumed as an official part of a production team. His subsequent canon of work has reshaped the integration of socially relevant issues in television content, but has also ushered in an age of public health awareness in Hollywood, and outreach beyond it. Dr. Baer sat down with ScriptPhD to discuss how lessons from ER have fueled his public health efforts as a professor and founder of UCLA’s Global Media Center For Social Impact, including storytelling through public health metrics and leveraging digital technology for propelling action.

Neal Baer’s passion for social outreach and lending a voice to vulnerable and disadvantaged populations was embedded in his genetic code from a very young age. “My mother was a social activist from as long as I can remember. She worked for the ACLU for almost 45 years and she participated in and was arrested for the migrant workers’ grape boycott in the 60s. It had a true and deep impact on me that I saw her commitment to social justice. My father was a surgeon and was very committed to health care and healing. The two of them set my underlying drives and goals by their own example.” Indeed, his diverse interests and innate curiosity led Baer to study writing at Harvard and the American Film Institute and eventually, medicine at Harvard Medical School. Potentially presenting a professional dichotomy, it instead gave him the perfect niche — medical storytelling — that he parlayed into a critical role on the hit show ER.

During his seven-year run as medical advisor and writer on ER, Baer helped usher the show to indisputable influence and critical acclaim. Through the narration of important, germane storylines and communication of health messages that educated and resonated with viewers, ER‘s authenticity caught the attention of the health care community and inspired many television successors. “It had a really profound impact on me, that people learn from television, and we should be as accurate as possible,” Baer reflects. “[Viewers] believe it’s real, because we’re trying to make it look as real as possible. We’re responsible, I think. We can’t just hide behind the façade of: it’s just entertainment.” As show runner of Law & Order: SVU, Baer spearheaded a storyline about rape kit backlogs in New York City that led to a real-life push to clear 17,000 backlogged kits and established a foundation that will help other major US cities do the same. With the help of the CDC and USC’s prestigious Norman Lear Center, Baer launched Hollywood, Health and Society, which has become an indispensable and inexhaustible source of expert information for entertainment industry professionals looking to incorporate health storylines into their projects. In 2013, Baer co-founded the Global Media Center For Media Impact at UCLA’s School of Public Health, with the aim of addressing public health issues through a combination of storytelling and traditional scientific metrics.

Soda Politics
One of Baer’s seminal accomplishments at the helm of the Global Media Center was convincing public health activist Marion Nestle to write the book Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (And Winning). Nestle has a long and storied career of food and social policy work, including the seminal book Food Politics. Baer first took note of the nutritional and health impact soda was having on children in his pediatrics practice. “I was just really intrigued by the story of soda, and the power that a product can have on billions of people, and make billions of dollars, where the product is something that one can easily live without,” he says. That story, as told in Soda Politics, is a powerful indictment on the deleterious contribution of soda to the United States’ obesity crisis, environmental damage and political exploitation of sugar producers, among others. More importantly, it’s an anthology of the history of dubious marketing strategies, insider lobbying power and subversive “goodwill” campaigns employed by Big Soda to broaden brand loyalty.

Even more than a public health cautionary tale, Soda Politics is a case study in the power of activism and persistent advocacy. According to a New York Times expose, the drop in soda consumption represents the “single biggest change in the American diet in the last decade.” Nestle meticulously details the exhaustive, persistent and unyielding efforts that have collectively chipped away at the Big Soda hegemony: highly successful soda taxes that have curbed consumption and obesity rates in Mexico, public health efforts to curb soda access in schools and in advertising that specifically targets young children, and emotion-based messaging that has increased public awareness of the deleterious effects of soda and shifted preference towards healthier options, notably water. And as soda companies are inevitably shifting advertising and sales strategy towards , as well as underdeveloped nations that lack access to clean water, the lessons outlined in the narrative of Soda Politics, which will soon be adapted into a documentary, can be implemented on a global scale.

ActionLab Initiative
Few technological advancements have had an impact on television consumption and creation like the evolution of digital transmedia and social networking. The (fast-crumbling) traditional model of television was linear: content was produced and broadcast by a select conglomerate of powerful broadcast networks, and somewhat less-powerful cable networks, for direct viewer consumption, measured by demographic ratings and advertising revenue. This model has been disrupted by web-based content streaming such as YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, which, in conjunction with fractionated networks, will soon displace traditional TV watching altogether. At the same time, this shifting media landscape has burgeoned a powerful new dynamic among the public: engagement. On-demand content has not only broadened access to high-quality storytelling platforms, but also provides more diverse opportunities to tackle socially relevant issues. This is buoyed by the increased role of social media as an entertainment vector. It raises awareness of TV programs (and influences Hollywood content). But it also fosters intimate, influential and symbiotic conversation alongside the very content it promotes. Enter ActionLab.

One of the critical pillars of the Global Media Center at UCLA, ActionLab hopes to bridge the gap between popular media and social change on topics of critical importance. People will often find inspiration from watching a show, reading a book or even an important public advertising campaign, and be compelled to action. However, they don’t have the resources to translate that desire for action into direct results. “We first designed ActionLab about five or six years ago, because I saw the power that the shows were having – people were inspired, but they just didn’t know what to do,” says Baer. “It’s like catching lightning in a bottle.” As a pilot program, the site will offer pragmatic, interactive steps that people can implement to change their lives, families and communities. ActionLab offers personalized campaigns centered around specific inspirational projects Baer has been involved in, such as the Soda Politics book, the If You Build It documentary and a collaboration with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on his book/documentary A Path Appears. As the initiative expands, however, more entertainment and media content will be tailored towards specific issues, such as wellness, female empowerment in poor countries, eradicating poverty and community-building.

“We are story-driven animals. We collect our thoughts and our memories in story bites,” Baer notes. “We’re always going to be telling stories. We just have new tools with which to tell them and share them. And new tools where we can take the inspiration from them and ignite action.”

Baer joined ScriptPhD.com for an exclusive interview, where he discussed how his medical education and the wide-reaching impact of ER influenced his social activism, why he feels multi-media and cross-platform storytelling are critical for the future of entertainment, and his future endeavors in bridging creative platforms and social engagement.

ScriptPhD: Your path to entertainment is an unusual one – not too many Harvard Medical School graduates go on to produce and write for some of the most impactful television shows in entertainment history. Did you always have this dual interest in medicine and creative pursuits?

Neal Baer: I started out as a writer, and went to Harvard as a graduate student in sociology, [where] I started making documentary films because I wanted to make culture instead of studying it from the ivory tower. So, I got to take a documentary course, and it’s come full circle because my mentor Ed Pinchas made his last film called “One Cut, One Life” recently and I was a producer, before his demise from leukemia. That sent me to film school at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles as a directing fellow, which then sent me to write and direct an ABC after-school special called “Private Affairs” and to work on the show China Beach. I got cold feet [about the entertainment industry] and applied to medical school. I was always interested in medicine. My father was a surgeon, and I realized that a lot of the [television] work I was doing was medically oriented. So I went to Harvard Medical School thinking that I was going to become a pediatrician. Little did I know that my childhood friend John Wells, who had hired me on China Beach, would [also] hire me on “ER” by sending me the script, originally written by Michael Crichton in 1969, and dormant for 25 years until it was discovered in a trunk owned by Steven Spielberg. [Wells] asked me what I thought of the script and I said “It’s like my life only it’s outdated.” I gave him notes on how to update it, and I ultimately became one of the first doctor-writers on television with ER, which set that trend of having doctors on the show to bring verisimilitude.

SPhD: From the series launch in 1994 through 2000, you wrote 19 episodes and created the medical storylines for 150 episodes. This work ran parallel to your own medical education as a medical student, and subsequently an intern and resident. How did the two go hand in hand?

NB: I started writing on ER when I was still a fourth year medical student going back and forth to finish up at Harvard Medical School, and my internship at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles over six years. And I was very passionate about bringing public health messages to the work that I was doing because I saw the impact that television can have on the audience, particularly the large numbers of people that were watching ER back then.

I was Noah Wylie’s character Dr. Carter. He was a third year [medical student], I was a fourth year. So I was a little bit ahead of him, and I was able to capture what it was like to be the low person on the totem pole and to reflect his struggles through many of the things my friends and I had gone through or were going through. Some of my favorite episodes we did were really drawn on things that actually happened. A friend of mine was sequestered away from the operating table but the surgeons were playing a game of world capitals. And she knew the capital of Zaire, when no one else did, so she was allowed to join the operating table [because of that]. So [we used] that same circumstance for Dr. Carter in an episode. Like you wouldn’t know those things, you had to live through them, and that was the freshness that ER brought. It wasn’t what you think doctors do or how they act but truly what goes on in real life, and a lot of that came from my experience.

SPhD: Do you feel like the storylines that you were creating for the show were germane both to things happening socially as well as reflective of the experience of a young doctor in that time period?

NB: Absolutely. We talked to opinion leaders, we had story nights with doctors, residents and nurses. I would talk to people like Donna Shalala, who was the head of the Department of Health and Human Safetey. I asked the then-head of the National Institutes of Health Harold Varmus, a Nobel Prize winner, “What topics should we do?” And he said “Teen alcohol abuse.” So that is when we had Emile Hirsch do a two-episode arc directly because of that advice. Donna Shalala suggested doing a story about elderly patients sharing perscriptions because they couldn’t afford them and the terrible outcomes that were happening. So we were really able to draw on opinion leaders and also what people were dealing with [at that time] in society: PPOs, all the new things that were happening with medical care in the country, and then on an individual basis, we were struggling with new genetics, new tests, we were the first show to have a lead character who was HIV-positive, and the triple cocktail therapy didn’t even come out until 1996. So we were able to be path-breaking in terms of digging into social issues that had medical relevance. We had seen that on other shows, but not to the extent that ER delved in.

SPhD: One of the legacies of a show like ER is how ahead of its time it was with many prescient storylines and issues that it tackled that are relevant to this very day. Are there any that you look back on that stand out to you in that regard as favorites?

NB: I really like the storyline we did with Julianna Margulies’s character [Nurse Carole Hathaway] when she opened up a clinic in the ER to deal with health issues that just weren’t being addressed, like cervical cancer in Southeast Asian populations and dealing with gaps in care that existed, particularly for poor people in this country, and they still do. Emergency rooms [treating people] is not the best way efficiently, economically or really humanely. It’s great to have good ERs, but that’s not where good preventative health care starts. The ethical dilemmas that we raised in an episode I wrote called “Who’s Happy Now?” involving George Clooney’s character [Dr. Doug Ross] treating a minor child who had advanced cystic fibrosis and wanted to be allowed to die. That issue has come up over and over again and there’s a very different view now about letting young people decide their own fate if they have the cognitive ability, as opposed to doing whatever their parents want done.

SPhD: You’ve had an Appointment at UCLA since 2013 at the Fielding School of Global Health as one of the co-founders of the Global Media Center for Social Impact, with extremely lofty ambitions at the intersection of entertainment, social outreach, technology and public health. Tell me a bit about that partnership and how you decided on an academic appointment at this time in your life.

NB: Well, I’m still doing TV. I just finished a three-year stint running the CBS series Under the Dome, which was a small-scale parable about global climate change. While I was doing that, I took this adjunct professorship at UCLA because I felt that there’s a lot we don’t know about how people take stories, learn them, use them, and I wanted to understand that more. I wanted to have a base to do more work in this area of understanding how storytelling can promote public health, both domestically and globally. Our mission at the Global Media Center for Social Impact (GMI) is to draw on both traditional storytelling modes like film, documentaries, music, and innovative or ‘new’ or transmedia approaches like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, graphic novels and even cell phones to promote and tell stories that engage and inspire people and that can make a difference in their lives.

SPhD: One of the first major initiatives is a very important book “Soda Politics” by the public health food expert Dr. Marion Nestle. You were actually partially responsible for convincing her to write this book. Why this topic and why is it so critical right now?

NB: I went to Marion Nestle because I was convinced after having read a number of studies, particularly those by Kelly Brownell (who is now Dean of Public Policy at Duke University), that sugar-sweetened sodas are the number one contributor to childhood obesity. Just [recently], in the New York Times, they chronicled a new study that showed that obesity is still on the rise. That entails horrible costs, both emotionally and physically for individuals across this country. It’s very expensive to treat Type II diabetes, and it has terrible consequences – retinal blindness, kidney failure and heart disease. So, I was very concerned about this issue, seeing large numbers of kids coming into Children’s Hospital with Type II diabetes when I was a resident, which we had never seen before. I told Marion Nestle about my concerns because I know she’s always been an advocate for reducing the intake and consumption of soda, so I got [her] research funds from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. What’s really interesting is the data on soda consumption really aren’t readily available and you have to pay for it. The USDA used to provide it, but advocates for the soda industry pushed to not make that data easily available. I [also] helped design an e-book, with over 50 actionable steps that you can take to take soda out of the home, schools and community.

SPhD: How has social media engagement via our phones and computers, directly alongside television watching, changed the metric for viewing popularity, content development and key outreach issues that you’re tackling with your ActionLab initiative?

NB: ActionLab does what we weren’t [previously] able to do, because we have the web platforms now to direct people in multi-directional ways. When I first started on ER in 1994, television and media were uni-directional endeavors. We provided the content, and the viewer consumed it. Now, with Twitter [as an example], we’ve moved from a uni-directional to a multi-directional approach. People are responding, we are responding back to them as the content creators, they’re giving us ideas, they’re telling us what they like, what they don’t like, what works, what doesn’t. And it’s reshaping the content, so it’s this very dynamic process now that didn’t exist in the past. We were really sheltered from public opinion. Now, public opinion can drive what we do and we have to be very careful to put on some filters, because we can’t listen to every single thing that is said, of course. But we do look at what people are saying and we do connect with them in ways they never had access to us before.

This multi-directional approach is not just actors and writers and directors discussing their work on social media, but it’s using all of the tools of the internet to build a new way of storytelling. Now, anyone can do their own shows and it’s very inexpensive. There are all kinds of YouTube shows on now that are watched by many people. It’s a kind of Wild West, where anything goes and I think that’s very exciting. It’s changed the whole world of how we consume media. I [wrote] an episode of ER 20 years ago with George Clooney, where he saved a young boy in a water tunnel, that was watched by 48 million people at once. One out of six Americans. That will never happen again. So, we had a different kind of impact. But now, the media landscape is fractured, and we don’t have anywhere near that kind of audience, and we never will again. It’s a much more democratic and open world than it used to be, and I don’t even think we know what the repercussions of that will be.

SPhD: If you had a wish list, what are some other issues or global obstacles that you’d love to see the entertainment world (and media) tackle more than they do?

NB: In terms of specifics, we really need to talk about civic engagement, and we need to tell stories about how [it] can change the world, not only in micro-ways, say like Habitat For Humanity or programs that make us feel better when we do something to help others, but in a macro policy-driven way, like asking how we are going to provide compulsory secondary education around the world, particularly for girls. How do we instate that? How do we take on child marriage and encourage countries, maybe even through economic boycotts, to raise the age of child marriage, a problem that we know places girls in terrible situations, often with no chance of ever making a good living, much less getting out of poverty. So, we need to think both macroly and microly in terms of our storytelling. We need to think about how to use the internet and crowdsourcing for public policy and social change. How can we amalgamate individuals to support [these issues]? We certainly have the tools now, with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and our friends and social networks, to spread the word – and a very good way to spread the word is through short stories.

SPhD: You’ve enjoyed a storied career, and achieved the pinnacle of success in two very competitive and difficult industries. What drives Dr. Neal Baer now, at this stage of your life?

NB: Well, I keep thinking about new and innovative ways to use trans media. How do I use graphic novels in Africa to tell the story of HIV and prevention? How do we use cell phones to tell very short stories that can motivate people to go and get tested? Innovative financing to pay for very expensive drugs around the world? So, I’m very much interested in how storytelling gets the word out, because stories don’t just change minds, they change hearts. Stories tickle our emotions in ways that I think we don’t fully understand yet. And I really want to learn more about that. I want to know about what I call the “epigenetics of storytelling.” I’m writing a book about that, looking into research that [uncovers] how stories actually change our brain and how do we use that knowledge to tell better stories.

Neal Baer, MD is a television writer and producer behind hit shows China Beach, ER, Law & Order SVU, Under The Dome, and others. He is a graduate of Harvard University Medical School and completed a pediatrics internship at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. A former co-chair of USC’s Norman Lear Center Hollywood, Health and Society, Dr. Baer is the founder of the Global Media Center for Social Impact at the Fielding School of Global Health at UCLA.

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ScriptPhD.com covers science and technology in entertainment, media and advertising. Hire our consulting company for creative content development. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our podcast on SoundCloud or iTunes.

Space exploration is enjoying its greatest popularity revival since the Cold War, both in entertainment and the realm of human imagination. Thanks in large part to blockbusters like Gravity, The Martian and Interstellar, not to mention privatized innovation from companies like SpaceX, and fascination with inter-galactic colonization has never been more trenchant. Despite the brimming enthusiasm, there hasn’t been a film or TV series that has tackled the subject matter in a nuanced way. Until now. The Expanse, ambitiously and faithfully adapted by SyFy Channel from the best-selling sci-fi book series, is the best space epic series since Battlestar Galactica. It embraces similar complex, grandiose and ethically woven storylines of human survival and morality amidst inevitable technological advancement. Below, a full ScriptPhD review and in-depth podcast with The Expanse showrunner Naren Shankar.

200 years in future, humans have successfully colonized space, but not without discord. The Earth, overpopulated and severely crunched for resources, has expanded to the asteroid belt and a powerful, wealthy and now-autonomous Mars. Though the colonies of the asteroid belt are controlled by Earth (largely to pillage materials and water), its denizens are second-class citizens, exploited by wealthy corporations for deadly labor. Inter-colony friction, class warfare, resource allocation and uprising frame the backdrop for a political standoff between Mars and Earth that could destroy humanity.

Deeper questions of righteous terrorism, political conspiracy and human rights are embodied in a triumvirate of smart, interweaving plots that will eventually coalesce to unravel the fundamental mystery. Josephus Miller (Thomas Jane) is a great detective, but a lowly belter and miserable alcoholic, mostly paid to settle minor Belt security and corporate matters. But when he’s hired to botch an investigation into the disappearance of a wealthy Earth magnate’s family, Miller starts to uncover dangerous connections between political unrest and the missing heiress. Jim Holden (Steven Strait) is a reluctant hero – a “Belter” ship captain thrown into a tragic quest for justice – who unwittingly leads his mates directly into the conflict between Mars and Earth and, as he delves deeper, unravels a potentially calamitous galactic threat. Finely balancing this tightwire is Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), the Deputy Undersecretary of the United Nations, who must balance the moral quandaries of peacekeeping with a steely determination to avoid war at all costs.

Colonization is a very trendy topic right now in space and astrophysics circles, particularly on Mars, having discovered liquid water, which fosters favorable conditions for the evolution and sustainability of life. Could it ever actually happen? There would certainly be considerable engineering and habitability obstacles.
For now, modest manned exploration of Mars and Europa by human astronauts is a tentative first step for NASA.

The Expanse assumes all these challenges and explorations have ben overcome, and picks up at a time when humans biggest problem isn’t conquering space – it’s conquering each other. The show is sleek and very technologically adept, in direct visual contrast to the more dilapidated environment of Battlestar Galactica. Fans of geek chic technology can ogle at complex docking stations as ships move around the belt to and from Earth and Mars, see through tablets, pills that induce omniscience during interrogations and ubiquitous voice-controlled artificial intelligence. However, though a new way of life has been established, remnants of our current quotidian existence and human essence are still instantly recognizable. This isn’t the techno-invasive dystopia of Blade Runner or Minority Report.

Like, Battlestar Galactica, (a show The Expanse will invariably be compared to) there is a crisp, smart overarching commentary on human existentialism under tense circumstances. Survival and life in space. Adapting to the changing gravitational forces and physical conditions of travel between planets and the asteroid belt colonies. Most importantly, navigating the incendiary dynamics of a species on the brink of all-out galactic warfare. As show runner Naren Shankar mentions in our podcast below, all great sci-fi is historically rooted in allegory – the exploration of disruptive technological innovation (and the fear thereof) as a symbol of combating inequality and/or political injustice. At a time of great social upheaval in our world, a fight for dwindling global resources and against proliferating environmental devastation, many of the themes explored in The Expanse books and series are eerily salient. Perhaps they also act as a reminder that even if a technological revolution facilitates an eventual expansion into outer space, our tapestry of inclinations (good and bad) is sure to follow.

Naren Shankar, the executive producer and show runner of The Expanse, helped develop the adaptation of the sci-fi series buoyed by decades of merging the creative compasses of science and entertainment. A PhD-educated physicist and engineer, Shankar was a writer/producer on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Almost Human and Grimm, as well as a co-showrunner of the groundbreaking forensics procedural CSI. Dr. Shankar exclusively joined the ScriptPhD.com podcast to discuss his transition from PhD scientist to working Hollywood writer, the lasting iconic impact of Star Trek and CSI and how The Expanse evokes the best allegory and elements of the sci-fi genre to tell an existential narrative. Listen below:

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ScriptPhD.com covers science and technology in entertainment, media and advertising. Hire our consulting company for creative content development. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our podcast on SoundCloud or iTunes.

From a sci-fi and entertainment perspective, 2015 may undoubtedly be nicknamed “The Year of The Robot.” Several cinematic releases have already explored various angles of futuristic artificial intelligence (from the forgettable Chappie to the mainstream blockbuster Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron to the intelligent sleeper indie hit Ex Machina), with several more on the way later this year. Two television series premiering this summer, limited series Humans on AMC and Mr. Robot on USA add thoughtful, layered (and very entertaining) discussions on the ethics and socio-economic impact of the technology affecting the age we live in. While Humans revolves around hyper-evolved robot companions, and Mr. Robot a singular shadowy eponymous cyberhacking organization, both represent enthusiastic Editor’s Selection recommendations from ScriptPhD. Reviews and an exclusive interview with Humans creators/writers Jonathan Brackley and Sam Vincent below.

Never in human history has technology and its potential reached a greater permeation of and importance in our daily lives than at the current moment. Indeed, it might even be changing the way our brains function! With entertainment often acting as a reflection of socially pertinent issues and zeitgeist motifs, it’s only natural to examine the depths to which robots (or any artificial technology) might subsume human life. Will they take over our jobs? Become smarter than us? Nefariously affect human society? These fears about the emotional lines between humans and their technology are at the heart of AMC’s new limited series Humans. It is set in the not-too-distant future, where the must have tech accessory is a ‘synth,’ a highly malleable, impeccably programmed robotic servant capable of providing any services – at the individual, family or macro-corporate level. It’s an idyllic ambition, fully realized. Busy, dysfunctional parents Joe and Laura obtain family android Anita to take care of basic housework and child rearing to free up time. Beat cop Pete’s rehabilitation android is indispensable to his paralyzed wife. And even though he doesn’t want a new synth, scientist George Millikan is thrust with a ‘care unit’ Vera by the Health Service to monitor his recovery from a stroke. They can pick fruit, clean up trash, work mindlessly in factories and sweat shops make meals, even provide service in brothels – an endless range of servile labor that we are uncomfortable or unwilling to do ourselves.

Humans brilliantly weaves the problems of this artificial intelligence narrative into multiple interweaving story lines. Anita may be the perfect house servant to Joe, but her omniscience and omnipresence borders on creepiness to wife Laura (and by proxy, the audience). Is Dr. Millikan (who helped craft the original synth technology) right that you can’t recycle them the way you would an old iPhone model? Or is he naive for loving his synth Odi like a son? And even if you create a Special Technologies Task Force to handle synth-related incidents, guaranteeing no harm to humans and minimal, if any, malfunctions, how can there be no nefarious downside to a piece of technology? They could, in theory, be obtained illegally and reprogrammed for subversive activity. If the original creator of the synths wanted to create a semblance of human life – “They were meant to feel,” he maintains – then are we culpable for their enslaved state? Should we feel relieved to see a synth break out of the brothel she’s forced to work in, or another mysterious group of synths that have somehow become sentient unite clandestinely to dream of a dimension where they’re free?

In reality, we already are in the midst of an age of artificial intelligence – computers. Powerful, fast, already capable of taking over our workforce and reshaping our society, they are the amorphous technological preamble to more specifically tailored robots, incurring all of the same trepidation and uncertainty. Mr. Robot, one of the smartest TV pilots in recent memory, is a cautionary tale about cyberhacking, socioeconomic vulnerability and the sheer reliance our society unknowingly places in computers. Its central themes are physically embodied in the central character of Elliot, a brilliant cybersecurity engineer by day/vigilante cyberhacker by night, battling schizophrenia and extreme social anxiety. To Elliott, the ubiquitous nature of computer power is simultaneously appealing and repulsive. Everything is electronic today – money, corporate transactions, even the way we communicate socially. As a hacker, he manipulates these elements with ease to get close to people and to solve injustice (carrying a Dexter-style digital cemetery of his conquests). But as someone who craves human contact he loathes the way technology has deteriorated human interaction and encouraged nameless, faceless corporate greed.

Elliot works for Allstate Security, whose biggest client is an emblem of corporate evil and economic diffidence. When they are hacked, Elliot discovers that it’s a private digital call to arms by a mysterious underground group called Mr. Robot (resembling the cybervigilante group Anonymous). They’ve hatched a plan to to concoct a wide-scale economic cyber attack that will result in the single biggest redistribution of wealth and debt forgiveness in history, and recruited Elliot into their organization. The question, and intriguing premise of the series, is whether Elliot can juggle his clean-cut day job, subversive underground hacking and protecting society one cyberterrorist act at a time, or if they will collapse under the burden of his conscience and mental illness.

Humans is a purview into the inevitable future, albeit one that may be creeping on us faster than we want it to. Even if hyper-advanced artificial intelligence is not an imminent reality and our fears might be overblown, the impact of technology on economics and human evolution is a reality we will have to grapple with eventually. And one that must inform the bioethics of any advanced sentient computing technology we create and release into the world. Mr. Robot is a stark reminder of our current present, that cyberterrorism is the new normal, that its global impact is immense, and (as with the case of artificial robots), our advancement of and reliance on technology is outpacing humans’ ability to control it.

ScriptPhD.com was extremely fortunate to chat directly with Humans writers Jonathan Brackley and Sam Vincent about the premise and thematic implications of their show. Here’s what they had to say:

ScriptPhD.com: Is “Humans” meant to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of complex artificial intelligence run amok or a hypothetical bioethical exploration of how such technology would permeate and affect human society?

Jonathan and Sam: Both! On one level, the synths are a metaphor for our real technology, and what it’s doing to us, as it becomes ever more human-like and user-friendly – but also more powerful and mysterious. It’s not so much hypothesising as it is extrapolating real world trends. But on a deeper story level, we play with the question – could these machines become more, and if so, what would happen? Though “run amok” has negative connotations – we’re trying to be more balanced. Who says a complex AI given free rein wouldn’t make things better?

SPhD: I found it interesting that there’s a tremendous range of emotions in how the humans related to and felt about their “synths.” George has a familial affection for his, Laura is creeped out/jealous of hers while her husband Joe is largely indifferent, policeman Peter grudgingly finds his synth to be a useful rehabilitation tool for his wife after an accident. Isn’t this reflective of the range of emotions in how humans react to the current technology in our lives, and maybe always will?

J&S: There’s always a wide range of attitudes towards any new technology – some adopt enthusiastically, others are suspicious. But maybe it’s become a more emotive question as we increasingly use our technology to conduct every aspect of our existence, including our emotional lives. Our feelings are already tangled up in our tech, and we can’t see that changing any time soon.

SPhD: Like many recent works exploring Artificial Intelligence, at the root of “Humans” is a sense of fear. Which is greater – the fear of losing our flaws and imperfections (the very things that make us human) or the genuine fear that the sentient “synths” have of us and their enslavement?

J&S: Though we show that synths certainly can’t take their continued existence for granted, there’s as much love as fear in the relationships between our characters. For us, the fear of how our technology is changing us is more powerful – purely because it’s really happening, and has been for a long time. But maybe it’s not to be feared – or not all of it at least…

Catch a trailer and closer series look at the making of Humans here:

And catch the FULL first episode of Mr. Robot here:

Mr. Robot airs on USA Network with full episodes available online.

Humans premieres on June 28, 2015 on AMC Television (USA) and airs on Channel 4 (UK).

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ScriptPhD.com covers science and technology in entertainment, media and advertising. Hire our consulting company for creative content development. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our podcast on SoundCloud or iTunes.

“It’s like a war. You don’t know whether you’re going to win the war. You don’t know if you’re going to survive the war. You don’t know if the project is going to survive the war.” The war? Cancer, still one of the leading causes of death despite 40 years passing since the National Cancer Act of 1971 catapulted Richard Nixon’s famous “War on Cancer.” The speaker of the above quote? A scientist at Genentech, a San Francisco-based biotechnology and pharmaceutical company, describing efforts to pursue a then-promising miracle treatment for breast cancer facing numerous obstacles, not the least of which was the patients’ rapid illness. If it sounds like a made-for-Hollywood story, it is. But I Want So Much To Live is no ordinary documentary. It was commissioned as an in-house documentary by Genentech, a rarity in the staid, secretive scientific corporate world. The production values and storytelling offer a tremendous template for Hollywood filmmakers, as science and biomedical content become even more pervasive in film. Finally, the inspirational story behind Herceptin, one of the most successful cancer treatments of all time, offers a testament and rare insight to the dedication and emotion that makes science work. Full story and review under the “continue reading” cut.

For biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, it is the best of times, it is the worst of times. On the one hand, many people consider this a Golden Era of pharmaceutical discovery and innovation for certain illnesses like cancer. Others, such as HIV, receive poor grades for drug and vaccine development. Furthermore, the FDA recently passed much more stringent controls on drugs brought to market, leaving some to posit that this will have a negative impact on future pharmaceutical breakthroughs. And while a recent documentary chronicles some of the unhealthy profits of the pharmaceutical industry, the enormous cost of developing and bringing medicines to market is often gravely overlooked. Today, the pharmaceutical industry as a whole has one of the lowest favorability scores of any major industry, despite some impressive social contributions, partnerships and global health investments. Much of this public hostility simply comes down to the fact that people don’t know very much about the pharmaceutical industry, notoriously reluctant to publicize or reveal anything about their inner workings.

Science in Hollywood is experiencing no such crisis. In many ways, it is a golden age for science, technology and medicine in film, with more big-budget mainstream films exploring themes and content germane to 21st Century science than ever before. Last year alone, three smart hit movies broached the realities, hopes and anxiety of the technological times we live in, each in a very different way. The stylish and ambitious thriller Limitless explored the possibility of a limitless brain capacity through pharmacopeia, a magical pill that would maximize one’s intelligence and allow 100% brain function around the clock. Certainly echoing the credo of the modern pharmaceutical movement—there is a pill that can solve every problem, whether it’s been invented or not—Limitless fell slightly short in condemning (or even properly acknowledging) the impracticalities ethical irresponsibility of developing such a drug, especially in its ending. Stephen Soderbergh’s surgical and pinpoint-accurate epic Contagion gave audiences a spine-chilling, terrorizing purview into the medical and public health realities of a modern-day pandemic. But while it strove, and succeeded, in showcasing how government agencies, university labs and medical establishments would contend with and fight off such a global disaster, Contagion was never able to connect audiences emotionally either with the characters impacted by the pandemic or with the scientists battling it. No recent movie is a better example of delicate introspection and exposition than the brilliant, poignant, funny and difficult 50/50. On the heels of CNN pondering whether Hollywood could take on cancer came a film that did so with reality, grace and even humor. Partially because it was based on screenwriter Will Reiser’s own brush with cancer, 50/50 set aside the clinical as a secondary backdrop to examine the psychological.

Each of the films above has an important quality that is be an essential component to effective Hollywood science storytelling – scientific accuracy, emotional connection to the outside world and an overview of biomedical impact and innovation. We recently screened an industry documentary, filmed at the request of Genentech scientists, called I Want So Much To Live, that is an excellent blueprint for the way we’d like to see scientific stories portrayed in film. Best of all, it doesn’t sacrifice the human story for the technical one, nor the very real complex emotions that scientists, engineers and doctors feel when they develop and market potentially life-saving technology.

The miracle of Herceptin is really a decade-long journey that started in the labs of UCLA, moved to the pharmaceutical labs of San Francisco, endured countless obstacles, street riots and controversies to end up as one of the most revolutionary breakthroughs in breast cancer treatment research history. Advances in cancer insight always seem to come in evolutionary leaps. For example, the cellular mechanism of how normal cells become cancerous was unknown until Harold Varmus and Michael Bishop established the presence of retroviral oncogenes, genes that control cellular growth and replication. When either disrupted or turned on, these genes contribute to the transformation of normal cells into tumors. Other than the discovery of as an anti-estrogen treatment for breast cancers, relatively little new ground had been gained in fighting the disease. Scientists continued to be perplexed why some women were cured by chemotherapy, which tries to stop cancer cell division by attacking the most rapidly-dividing cells in the body, while others didn’t respond at all. It was not until the late 80s that scientists Alex Ullrich and Michael Shepherd (both featured in the film) discovered that about 20-30% of early-stage breast cancers express amplify a gene called HER-2, a protein embedded in the cell membrane that helps regulate cell growth and signaling. With the help of UCLA scientist Dennis Slamon, famously portrayed by Harry Connick, Jr. in a made-for-TV movie about the development of Herceptin, the scientists soon developed an anti-HER-2 antibody that significantly slowed tumor growth.

An early Phase I clinical trial was conducted simply to establish safety, with 20 volunteers. The lone survivor, still alive to this day, was given 10 weeks to live. Phase II trials honed in on dosage and establishing that the drug performed its intended effects. This time, out of 85 volunteers, 5 survived completely, not a bad result, but not enough for the FDA and the science community. The scientists took a huge risk for their Phase III study. They combined their anti-HER-2 antibody with current treatment. The results were astounding. Out of 450 patients, 50% survived — the highest ever success rate for metastatic cancer!

Think the story ends here? Think again. This is where it just begins to take more emotional twists and turns than a fictitious Hollywood script. Unlike many Hollywood productions, though, the human impact angle was shared equally between all the players in this evolving story, easily this documentary’s most powerful aspect. In order to test their Phase III trials of Herceptin (in concert with chemotherapy treatments available at that time), Genentech had to establish a highly controversial lottery system to pick those who would receive highly limited life-saving quantities of Herceptin, and those who would be categorized in the control studies, and thereby handed a death sentence. So controversial was the lottery system, that it engendered televised protests in the Bay Area, along with anguished pleas from dying patients—the documentary’s title is the first sentence of one such letter: “I want so much to live.” The scientists at Genentech were hardly immune to the weight of each decision, either. They were tormented over the fairness of the lottery system, producing enough high-quality treatment to pass the clinical trial, and even in keeping an unbiased eye on the science to save lives in the long run. Talking about the pressure of those days reduced one of the scientists to tears. And after all was said and done, the lone FDA scientist entrusted with the power to oversee the Herceptin study and green light its approval as a drug? She had just lost her mother to breast cancer. These intertwining fortunes are summarized by executive producer Christie Castro: “By definition, groups of people are imperfect. But those who worked on Herceptin proved that the complexity – indeed, the fantastic mess – that simply comes with being human can sometimes result in something truly worthwhile.”

One of the first patients to get the experimental Herceptin treatment prior to FDA approval, though not profiled in the movie, is flourishing well over a decade after being diagnosed with the most aggressive form of breast cancer. Stories like hers lie at the emotional heart of the I Want So Much To Live story (and Genentech’s motivation for continuing the controversial studies):

Herceptin was officially approved as a drug on September 22, 2000. On October 20, 2010, Herceptin was approved as an adjuvant (joint) treatment with current chemotheraphy drugs for the treatment of aggressive breast cancer. To date, the adjuvant therapy has had an impressive 58% success rate for a cancer that once carried an unlikely rate of survival for those afflicted.

Take a look at the trailer for I Want So Much To Live:

The powerful and well-crafted content of this documentary should serve as a valuable template for how the multi-faceted power of storytelling can be used across multiple industries. It smartly tells a gripping scientific story without either dumbing down the science or elevating it beyond a layperson’s understanding—a certain goal for the increasing amount of cinematic fare such as Contagion. It provides a functional breakdown of the enormous challenges and technical obstacles of the pharmaceutical drug development process. Like many other aspects of science, it is mysterious to the general public, out of their grasp and seemingly always occuring behind closed doors. Especially at a time when public perception of the pharmaceutical industry is at an all-time low, such transparency could strengthen reputations and increase business. “Corporations are,” executive producer Christine Castro reminds us, “groups of people who have ideas, ambitions, conflicts and dreams, and, at the end of the day, a desire to see their work result in something meaningful. That’s why we decided to take a creative chance and face the potential skepticism that a corporation would or could tell an unvarnished story about itself.”

Finally, the film develops a three-dimensional emotional tether to the three different sides impacted by the scientific process: scientists, the agencies that regulate them and society as a whole. There doesn’t always have to be a tacit bad guy, and sometimes, this protagonistic complexity makes for the best story of all. Holder, who started filming I Want So Much To Live around the same time that her late brother was diagnosed with a rare and virulent form of cancer, echoed our sentiment as she reflected on the process of making the film. It allowed her to discover “that science is a creative pursuit as well as a technical one; that science is beautiful and can be accessible; and that anyone, at any time, might have the idea that could one day save lives.”

We can only hope that the harmony of creativity, passion and emotion devoted to all sides of the drug discovery process within this film translates to more private and studio productions dealing with complex scientific and socio-technological issues.

ScriptPhD.com caught up with filmmaker Elizabeth Holder, who directed and produced I Want So Much To Live. Here are some of her thoughts on putting together this incredible story and interacting with the scientists and heroic patients that made it happen:

ScriptPhD.com: Can you tell me where the seeds of inspiration for the story of the drug Herceptin first arose, and what inspired you to tackle this material for your documentary?

Elizabeth Holder: The initial idea to make a documentary film about Herceptin came from executive producer Chris Castro, who upon joining Genentech in 2007 thought that the story would make a compelling documentary film. (She will have to share with you her experience.) I first heard about the project from a friend and began doing research on Herceptin and Genentech. I was excited to work on this film; excited to jump into and explore a new world. My first inspiration came from the people who were the story; the passionate men and women who faced adversity with courage and perseverance, never swaying from their pursuit, making difficult decisions laced with moral and ethical ramifications. I knew this story of individual and collective growth would resonate with many, and would be especially poignant to the employees of Genentech. (This at the time was the intended audience for the film.) When I began working on this film in 2008 I had no idea how personal this journey would become and how connected I would be to the people I would meet and the story I was going to tell.

While I was making the film, my younger brother David was battling cancer – a rare type of cancer for a 33 year old man. While I was meeting with scientists and learning about biotech and drug development for the movie, David was fighting the disease with everything science and medicine could offer. He wrote a blog about his journey, signing off each entry with the words “Plow On”. Each day, I would hope that the scientists would hurry up. Figure it out. But I learned firsthand that science is not a “hurry up” business and that many people are doing everything they can to find ways to stop cancer. My wish is that the film serves to inspire everyone who is on the frontlines in the battle against cancer, to encourage them to keep on fighting the good fight, no matter what, and even on a bad day, to Plow On.

SPhD: How willing were the patients and scientists to contribute to the project?

EH: As you can imagine, everyone, especially scientists, are skeptical. Some people took a bit more convincing than others, but once they started talking, the interviews, both on and off camera, were amazing.

I am grateful to the patients, scientists, activists, executives, and doctors for honestly and enthusiastically sharing their stories, perspective, and experience with me. I quickly became indebted to mentors and colleagues who diligently and without judgment explained and re-explained molecular biology and the drug development process to me. I hope the determination and delight in which they approach their work is reflected in the film.

SPhD: Any of your own preconceived notions that were shattered or altered throughout the making of this film?

EH: I discovered striking similarities between scientists and filmmakers which I did not expect to find. A research scientist and a filmmaker must each imagine an idea, convince others to recognize the value of funding the idea, and then prove the concept. Like many filmmakers, the scientists I met were impassioned about their work and showed great determination in the face of extraordinary odds. Like filmmaking, drug development takes a village. Before making this film I had no idea how many years and how many people it took to develop a drug; the process involves a huge collaborative effort between massive numbers of people in multiple organizations, in various countries.

It was incredible and amazing to me that the scientists would talk about “cells” and “exxons” and “nucleotides” as if they could actually be seen by the human eye. It was also inspiring to me that a scientist is committed enough to work on a research project for their whole career with the knowledge that they might not ever see an outcome in their lifetime. And finally, I was pleased to confirm (though not statistically proven) that a lot of really smart and accomplished people do not have perfectly clean desks.

SPhD: Within the movie, we get a real feel for the dichotomy between the emotional appeals of the desperately ill patients, the cautious, careful FDA scientists, and the Genentech researchers who want to make sure the product they introduce is safe for patients. Was this a thematic element you foresaw or that developed as you pieced the film together?

EH: I carefully planned out the film, yet also left room for new discoveries along the way. (I was constantly learning – from each filmed interview, from advisors, from books.) For each defining moment in the film I made sure to film at least three people talking about the same experience with different opinions. I wanted to make sure that the topic was covered from various perspectives so I could intercut interviews together. I knew that I was not going to use narration. I only wanted people who were part of the story to be telling the story; to engage the audience with their firsthand accounts. I wanted the audience to feel connected emotionally to each person in the film, to empathize with the person on screen even if they disagreed with their tactic and/or goal. Additionally, I knew I was going to use archival footage, photos and authentic documents to organically reveal the isolation and miscommunication, the unwitting partnerships, the building mistrust and the eventual coming together. When I first saw and read the pile of letters saved by Geoff, I knew that I would use it in the film. I carried a few of those letters with me to every interview and pulled them out when it felt right, asking people to read them and respond. The scene was assembled to show how incorrect assumptions lead to strife; to show how each person’s journey was critical to the whole story; and to show how those intertwining stories eventually became the framework for the work that is continuing today.

SPhD: What are your own thoughts on the lottery system that Genentech ultimately used to determine who would be eligible to participate in the Herceptin clinical trials?

EH: I see both sides of the issue, and don’t think there is an easy answer. When interviewing people for this film, I went into each interview with a clean slate, without having any pre-conceived agenda or opinion. It was critical that I empathized with each person and was able to tell the story though the objectives and needs of those who I interviewed, those who had direct experience. I needed to be able to fully see and feel the situation from their point of view. And, to me, judgment is only something that pulls us apart, not together. I am thankful I am in the documentary business and not in the business of making the kind of decisions that had to be made during that time. I am not sure what I would have done if someone I loved needed the drug before it was approved.

~*ScriptPhD*~

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As far back as last summer, when pilots for the current television season were floating around, a quirky sci-fi show for NBC called Awake caught our eye as the best of the lot. Camouflaged in a standard procedural cop show is an ambitious neuroscience concept—a man living in two simultaneous dream worlds, either of which (or neither of which) could be real. We got a look at the first four episodes of the show, which lay a nice foundation for the many thought-provoking questions that will be addressed. We review them here, as well as answering some questions of our own about the sleep science behind the show with UCLA sleep expert Dr. Alon Avidan.

Detective Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs) is a middle class police officer living in Los Angeles, with a lovely wife and teenage son, a virtual ‘everyman’ until an unspeakable tragedy—in the show’s opening moments—transform him into a paranormal dual existence. A violent car accident kills at least one member of his family, possibly both (the audience doesn’t yet know, and neither does Britten). Except instead of mourning the loss and moving on, Britten begins a bifurcated dream existence, where in one state, his wife Hannah (Laura Allen) is alive and his son Rex (Dylan Minnette) has perished, and as soon as he wakes up, the opposite is true. Complicating matters further is the mirroring of his lives on each end of this sleep-wake spectrum state. In his ‘single father’ widower existence, he is partnered with gruff police veteran Isaiah Freeman (Steve Harris), and works with no-nonsense therapist Dr. Judith Evans (Cherry Jones). In his other existence, mourning

the loss of his son with his wife, Britten’s Captain (Laura Innes) has partnered him with rookie Efrem Vega (Wilmer Valderama), as he works things through with kind, objective therapist Dr. John Lee (BD Wong).

Juggling two worlds might seem complicated (and exhausting) enough, but life for Detective Britten gets even more muddled. Soon sliding with regularity between his two new worlds, he takes various clues from one to solve crimes in the other, even as his behavior in both becomes more erratic and precarious. And while the pilot flawlessly establishes the landscape of Britten’s new reality, future episodes will slowly chip away at it, leaving the viewers with many unanswered questions and mysteries. Is Britten simply dreaming one of these worlds? If so, which is his ‘true’ reality? Is either? Could they both be a lucid dream? Could it be that both his wife and son died? And while later episodes can sometimes veer a bit too much into standard procedural fare, they also offer a thunderbolt of a plot point, suggesting that the car crash that took Britten’s family may have been no accident at all. Given how quickly the last truly ambitious network sci-fi drama (Heroes) veered into absurdity, the steady pacing and erudite plot development of Awake is an almost welcome relief.

We look forward to dreaming for many episodes to come.

Catch up with what you may have missed with this extended trailer:

The sleep science behind the thought-provoking concept of Awake excited us a lot, but we wanted to get deeper answers to some of our most basic questions about the neuroscience of sleep, and just what it is that Michael Britten might be suffering from. To do so, ScriptPhD.com sat down with Dr. Alon Yosefian Avidan, the Director of the Sleep Disorders Laboratory at UCLA’s Department of Neurology.

ScriptPhD.com: Dr. Avidan, for people reading this that may not know very much at all about sleep science, can you give us a brief layperson’s overview of what the scientific consensus is on what sleep is for, exactly?

Alon Avidan: There is no answer. We don’t understand the central reason for why we need sleep. But we know one thing—we can’t do without it. There are about 13 theories that help explain why we sleep. The theories range from needing it to have better memory akin to letting your computer organize files in its sleep mode, so the brain is doing that same thing in your sleep; organizing thoughts, memories and allowing space for new ones to be formed. Another theory is that sleep has a rejuvenating function, essentially for repair, for better immune function. There are other theories that sleep is a hibernation period during which you don’t really need to eat or look for food and it’s a way for you to reserve your energy. This is probably, evolutionarily speaking, back when humans were foraging and needing to conserve energy. There are some theories that sleep is a way for us to synchronize our bodily functions with the Earth. There are really not that many things that we humans are capable of doing during the night, and this is a time for us to synchronize our biological rhythms with that of the Earth.

SPhD: So regardless of which of these theories is true, extreme sleep deprivation has really bad consequences.

AA: Absolutely. When exposed to extreme sleep deprivation, laboratory animals, rats in particular, don’t survive for more than two weeks. They begin to have skin changes, ulcers and they eventually die. In humans, we have situations where people don’t sleep enough. There is a very rare condition called fatal familial insomnia, a condition where patients lose the ability to sleep, and the patient rarely survives beyond a year, maybe six months. But we do know that there are very acute and very chronic consequences that we can observe very quickly [in sleep-deprived patients], including memory problems, planning, and problems with cognitive functions. The chronic issues include inability to regulate food intake, so people end up gaining weight, people end up at risk for diseases that include diabetes, heart disease. And we know that for patients who have primary sleep disorders such as sleep apnea, narcolepsy, insomnia or others, their life expectancy is lower compared to

patients in the same age group.

SPhD: Well, turning to some of the sleep issues in Awake, our main character, Michael Britten, vacillates between two different sleep states, both of which function as his reality, in order to cope with the loss of his wife, son or possibly both. How much do we in fact use our subconscious as a coping mechanism for the traumatic things that happen to us in our lives?

AA: That’s a very interesting point. We know that people who are depressed spend a lot of time in bed, they tend to spend a lot of time sleeping, but their quality of sleep is disrupted. And perhaps it is a coping mechanism for them not to deal with the true conflicts or trauma that are occurring in their lives. What’s very interesting is that in those patients, when they do sleep, sleep is very disrupted. The quality of sleep related to depression or anxiety is really bad. They have arousals, they have awakenings, the duration is short, and the quality of sleep is very light. They often wake up and feel as if they haven’t really slept.

SPhD: What about the dream aspect of sleep in this patient sub-population?

AA: Dreams are when healthy individuals reach the REM cycle (which you know is when we dream). You can have dreams in non-REM cycles as well. What’s interesting is that patients who have post-traumatic stress disorder or anxiety, their dreams are frightening. They’re usually nightmares. Studies show that in many patients who have a very profound trauma like 9/11 survivors in New York City, there was an epidemic of nightmares and stressful sleep experience. Dreams are not normal in patients who have psychiatric disorders, and they are more dramatic and more intense dreams.

SPhD: In the show, Mr. Britten takes clues from one sleep state to solve his crimes in another sleep state (either of which he considers a reality). One of his therapists warns him that doing this is incredibly dangerous because his “unconscious is unreliable.” What do you think the therapist meant by that?

AA: So what’s likely happening to him clinically is that he’s unable to distinguish between sleep and wakefulness. And what is being advised is be more careful not to rely on facts that may be occurring in dreams or wakefulness, because he is not aware which state this is arising from.

SPhD: Is there something to that piece of advice? What about people who regularly swear by premonitions or things they “see” in their dreams?

AA: Clinically, we really don’t see that very often. We don’t see patients relaying a sense of reality between sleep and wakefulness. There is a situation that is neither a sleep state, nor wakefulness, but a combination of the two—the patient has lost sense of what is real and what isn’t. Dissociative fugue disorder is a rare psychiatric disorder where the patient loses their sense of reality, their sense of identity. And it does have something to do with sleep because it’s one of those mixtures of sleep and wakefulness when the patient is unsure of whether they were asleep or awake. It involves extensive memory loss, usually into the wakefulness period, and the person just doesn’t have the capacity to determine what is real and what is fiction.

So, what you are describing with this police officer, he could have this sleep disorder (or something similar) rather than a primary sleep disorder. In the sleep literature, we don’t have patients who strictly come in and lose the perception of sleep and wakefulness and have no other psychiatric issues. What you’re describing is a patient who has a fugue, and may have dream episodes that are very profound, but his underlying primary pathology is a psychiatric one. And there is usually something that crosses this person into the fugue state, and the one thing that does it is usually a major life event that is very stressful. Or a condition in which the patient has such a severe depression that they have no sense of reality because they have a borderline personality and they forget what is real—their sense of reality is so profoundly sad and full of tragedy that they can’t accept it, and are thus creating this lucid state in which they exist more comfortably because they don’t need to deal with the tragedy in their lives.

We want to thank Dr. Avidan for taking time to chat with ScriptPhD.com and give his thoughts on some of the sleep science pertaining to Awake.

~*ScriptPhD*~

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In April of 2010, the California Science Center added a 45,000 square foot permanent exhibit called ‘Ecosystems,’ nearly doubling the size of the museum. Ten years in the making, at a cost of $165 million, ‘Ecosystems’ manages to impress visually and scholastically. ScriptPhD.com recently got a private tour and in-depth guide of the ambitious exhibit and didactic tool. Afterwards, we had the opportunity to sit down with the man that conceptualized ‘Ecosystems’ and curator of ecology at the California Science Center — Dr. Chuck Kopczak. An avid geologist, and devoted to the promulgation of quality science education, Dr. Chuck graciously sat down with us for an in-depth conversation about ‘Ecosystems,’ the future of science education, and energizing environmental causes through science. Our full tour and podcast, under the “continue reading” cut.

How can we protect and nurture our Earth’s diverse environment if we don’t even know about it? The Earth’s biodiversity is spectacular, with a singular globe housing millions of unique species that have to share space across extreme environments, weather zones and poles. Scientists concur that a better understanding of this diversity, and humanity’s impact on it through our modern life (we add 7 million people to the globe each month!), is an essential component of environmental education and effective activism in fighting pollution and effecting sustainability for future generations. In the heart of Los Angeles, at its most-visited museum, The California Science Center, lies a new exhibit that takes curious visitors through the various ‘zones’ of the Earth’s habitats, with each room providing a colorful, interactive, informative peek at what survival entails. At the very end of the ‘Ecosystems’ exhibit, after we have come to appreciate our Earth’s uniqueness, beauty, and scientific breadth, is a well-timed section on waste, resources, and the power of recycling. Come take a short pictorial tour of ‘Ecosystems’ with us, and then take a listen to our podcast with the passionate scientist, Dr. Chuck Kopczak, that made it all possible.

‘Ecosystems’ is divided into rooms called ‘Zones,’ some of which we’ve documenting here, consisting of a gallery that engenders appreciation for the interconnectedness of a different part of our living world. Portrayed are different environments, species, survival demands, and physical factors. All of the rooms include interactive, hands-on experiments especially tailored for kids.

The ‘Island Zone’ includes hands-on experiments that allow visitors to see the challenge animals face in getting to an island from water, and how their physical characteristics evolve as a result of these environmental demands. The exhibit mimics the discoveries that Darwin might have encountered on the Galapagos Islands.

The ‘Extreme Zone’ includes radically different environments representing ecosystems — Rocky Shore, Poles, Deep Sea Vents, and the Desert, both pictured below. Environmental factors such as cold, droughts, and ice deeply test the limits of animals as they try to survive.

The Global Zone allows visitors to travel around the world with an amazing, first-of-its-kind piece of technology: an internal projection high definition Magic Planet^® exhibit, projecting images onto a global map from within the sphere to answer questions about matter and energy across the globe.

One of the fan favorites of ‘Ecosystems’ is the ever-so-gross Rot Room, where folks can learn about how much the continuity of life depends upon, well… rot. Interactive decomposition exhibits (such as the one pictured below) and time-lapse videos show the recycling of nutrients and energy back into the environment.

The pièce de resistance of the California Science center’s ‘Ecosystems’ exhibit, and its biggest part by far, is the “Rain Forests of the Sea” exhibit, a 188,000 gallon kelp habitat — the largest man-made of any museum in the world — that illustrates the diversity of our sea forests and the environmental factors that kelp forests depend on: a rocky substrate, sunlight, moving water, and high nutrient levels.

In the midst of the ‘Ecosystems’ exhibit is an interactive lab, where new additions to the over 250 species on exhibit at ‘Ecosystems’ are researched and cared for. In addition, it provides an opportunity for young high school students interested in pursuing science to answer guests’ questions, pursue research, and learn the scientific method in the process.

The end of the ‘Ecosystems’ exhibit takes visitors to the modern ‘L.A. Zone,’ where they can learn about weather patterns, wind currents, and geologic make-up of the Los Angeles Basin. Most importantly, visual waste exhibits expose the unique challenges in the issues of energy, water, and impact on wildlife.

The mastermind behind such wonders as the kelp zone (his nickname is indeed Dr. Kelp!), the Global Zone, and the Los Angeles Zone, among its other structural feats, Dr. Chuck Kopczak is as intellectually accomplished as he is full of wonder about science, our Earth, the environment and the best ways to teach children about them through technology and modern exhibits. Recently, he went on a collecting expedition in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to study species and the environment. He generously sat down with ScriptPhD.com to talk about Ecosystems, particularly:

•The how, who and why of designing the Ecosystems exhibit
•Why teaching science and inspiring future scientists requires an interactive experience
•How emotional connection resonates with environmental awareness
•Why the California Science Center is setting up labs and charter schools within their exhibit spaces to encourage young scientists

Take a listen to our podcast:

ScriptPhD.com would like to thank the California Science Center, Dr. Chuck Kopczak, and Kristina Kurasz for their help and generosity of time. We encourage anyone planning a visit to Los Angeles, and interested in science and the environment, to check out this free exhibit and learning center.

~*ScriptPhD*~

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One of the most captivating books of 2010 was not a gory science-fiction thriller or a gripping end-of-the world page-turner, though its subject matter is equally engrossing and out of the ordinary. It is about somewhat crazy people doing crazy things as seen through the lenses of the man that has been treating them for decades. The Naked Lady Who Stood On Her Head is the first psych ward memoir, a tale of a curious doctor/scientist and his most extreme, bizarre, and sometimes touching cases from the nation’s most prestigious neurology centers and universities. Included in ScriptPhD.com’s review is a podcast interview with Dr. Small, as well as the opportunity to win a free autographed copy of his book. Our end-of-the year science library pick is under the “continue reading” cut.

Gary Small is a very unlikely candidate for the chaos that many of us confuse with a psych ward. Whether it was the frantic psych consults on ER or fond remembrance of Jack Nicholson and his cohorts in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, most of us have a natural association of psychiatry with insanity or pandemonium. Meeting Dr. Small in real life is the antithesis of these scenarios. Warm, welcoming, serene and genuinely affable, his voice translates directly from the pages of his latest book. Told in chronological order—starting with

a young, curious, inexperienced intern at Harvard’s Massachussetts General Hospital to his tenure as a world-renowned neuroscientist at UCLA—The Naked Lady Who Stood On Her Head feels like an enormous learning and growing experience for Dr. Small, his patients, and the reader.

The scene plays out like a standard medical drama or movie. In the beginning, the young, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, trepidatious doctor is exploring while learning the ropes on duty. There is, in the self-titled chapter, literally a naked lady standing on her head in the middle of a Boston psych ward. Dr. Small is the only doctor that can cure her baffling ailment, but in doing so, only begins to peel away at what is really troubling her. There is a bevvy of inexplicable fainting schoolgirls afflicting the Boston suburbs. Only through a fresh pair of eager eyes is the root cause attained, a cause that to this day sets the standard for mass hysteria treatment nationwide. And there is a mute hip painter from Venice beach, immobile for weeks until Small, fighting the rigid senior attendings, gets to the unlikely diagnosis. As the book, and Dr. Small’s career, flourishes, we meet a WebMD mom, a young man literally blinded by his family’s pressure, a man whose fiancé’s obsession with Disney characters resurfaces a painful childhood secret, and Dr. Small’s touching story of having to watch as the mentor he introduced at the book’s beginning hires him as a therapist so that he can diagnose his teacher’s dementia. Ultimately, all of the characters of The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head, and Dr. Small’s dedication and respect, have a common thread. They are real, they are diverse, and they are us. Psych patients are not one-dimensional figments of a screenwriter’s imagination. They are the brother who has childhood trauma, the friend with a dysfunctional or abusive family, the husband or wife with a rare genetic predisposition, and all of us are but one degree away from the abnormal behavior that these conditions can ignite. In his book, Dr. Small has pulled back the curtain of a notoriously secretive and mysterious field. It’s a riveting reveal, and absolutely worth an appointment. The Naked Lady Who Stood On Her Head has been optioned by 20th Century Fox, and may be coming to your televisions soon!

Podcast Interview

In addition to his latest novel, Gary Small is the author of the best-selling global phenomenon The Memory Bible: An Innovative Strategy For Keeping Your Brain Young and a regular contributor to The Huffington Post (several excellent recent articles can be found here and here). His seminal research on Alzheimer’s disease, aging and brain training has appeared in recent articles in NPR and Newsweek. A seminal brain imaging study recently completed in his laboratory garnered worldwide media attention for suggesting that Google searching can stimulate the brain and literally keep aging brains agile. Dr. Small regularly updates his research and musings on his personal blog.

ScriptPhD.com sat down for a one-on-one podcast with Dr. Small and discussed inspiration for the book, and how it conveys the inner thought process of a psychiatrist through their many interesting cases. In our podcast, we discuss how media and on-screen portrayal of psychiatrists contribute to people’s perceptions of the field, how the themes of empathy and humanity are indellibly woven into case studies, the challenges and fullfillment of psychiatry and the contribution of pop culture in modern psychoses.

~*ScriptPhD*~
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ScriptPhD.com covers science and technology in entertainment, media and advertising. Hire our consulting company for creative content development. Subscribe to free email notifications of new posts on our home page.

As Comic-Con winds down on the shortened Day 4, we conclude our coverage with two panels that exemplify what Comic-Con is all about. As promised, we dissect the “Comics Design” panel of the world’s top logo designers deconstructing their work, coupled with images of their work. We also bring you an interesting panel of ethnographers, consisting of undergraduate and graduate student, studying the culture and the varying forces that shape Comic-Con. Seriously, they’re studying nerds! Finally, we are delighted to shine our ScriptPhD.com spotlight on new sci-fi author Charles Yu, who presented his new novel at his first (of what we are sure are many) Comic-Con appearance. We sat down and chatted with Charles, and are pleased to publish the interview. And of course, our Day 4 Costume of the Day. Comic-Con 2010 (through the eyes of ScriptPhD.com) ends under the “continue reading” cut!

Comics Design

We are not ashamed to admit that here at ScriptPhD.com, we are secret design nerds. We love it, particularly since good design so often elevates the content of films, television, and books, but is a relatively mysterious process. One of THE most fascinating panels that we attended at Comic-Con 2010 was on the design secrets behind some of your favorite comics and book covers. A panel of the world’s leading designers revealed their methodologies (and sometimes failures) in the design process behind their hit pieces, lifting the shroud of secrecy that designers often envelop themselves in. An unparalleled purview into the mind of the designer, and the visual appeal that so often subliminally contributes to the success of a graphic novel, comic, or even regular book. We do, as it turns out, judge books by their covers.

As promised, we revisit this illuminating panel, and thank Christopher Butcher, co-founder of The Toronto Comic Arts Festival and co-owner of The Beguiling, Canada’s finest comics bookstore. Chris was kind enough to provide us with high-quality images of the Comics Design panel’s work, for which we at ScriptPhD.com are grateful. Chris had each of the graphic artists discuss their work with an example of design that worked, and design that didn’t (if available or so inclined). The artist was asked to deconstruct the logo or design and talk about the thought process behind it.

Mark Ciarello – (art + design director at DC Comics)

Mark chose to design the cover of this book with an overall emphasis on the individual artist. Hence the white space on the book, and a focus on the logo above the “solo” artist.

Adam Grano – (designer at Fantagraphics)

Adam took the title of this book quite literally, and let loose with his design to truly emphasize the title. He called it “method design.” He wanted the cover to look like a drunken dream.

For the Humbug collection, Grano tried hard not to impress too much of himself (and his tastes) in the design of the cover. He wanted to inject simplicity in a project that would stand the test of time, because it was a collector’s series.

Grano considered this design project his “failure.” It contrasts greatly with the simplicity and elegance of Humbug. He mentioned that everyone on the page is scripted and gridded, something that designers try to avoid in comics.

Chip Kidd – (designer at Random House)

Chip Kidd had the honor of working on the first posthumous Peanuts release after Charles M. Schultz’s death, and took to the project quite seriously. In the cover, he wanted to deconstruct a Peanuts strip. All of the human element is taken out of the strip, with the characters on the cover up to their necks in suburban anxiety.

Kidd likes this cover because he considers it an updated spin on Superman. It’s not a classic Superman panel, so he designed a logo that deviated from the classic “Superman” logo to match.

Kidd chose this as his design “failure”, but not the design itself. The cover represents one of seven volumes, in which the logo pictured disintegrates by the seventh issue, to match the crisis in the title. Kidd’s only regret here is that he was too subtle. He wishes he’d chosen to start the logo disintegration progression sooner, as there’s very little difference between the first few volumes.

Fawn Lau – (designer at VIZ)

Fawn was commissioned to redesign this book cover for an American audience. Keeping this in mind, and wanting the Japanese animation to be more legible for the American audience, she didn’t want too heavy-handed of a logo. In an utterly genius stroke of creativity, Lau went to an art store, bought $70 worth of art supplies, and played around with them until she constructed the “Picasso” logo. Clever, clever girl!

Mark Siegel – (First Second Books)

Mark Siegel was hired to create the cover of the new biography Feynman, an eponymous title about one of the most famous physicists of all time. Feynman was an amazing man who lived an amazing life, including a Nobel Prize in physics in 1965. His biographer, Ottaviani Myrick, a nuclear physicist and speed skating champion, is an equally accomplished individual. The design of the cover was therefore chosen to reflect their dynamic personalities. The colors were chosen to represent the atomic bomb and Los Alamos, New Mexico, where Feynman assisted in the development of The Manhattan Project. Incidentally, the quote on the cover – “If that’s the world’s smartest man, God help us!” – is from Feynman’s own mother.

Keith Wood – (Oni Press)

Wood remarked that this was the first time he was able to do design on a large scale, which really worked for this project. He chose a very basic color scheme, again to emphasize a collection standing the test of time, and designed all the covers simultaneously, including color schemes and graphics. He felt this gave the project a sense of connectedness.

Wood chose a pantone silver as the base of this design with a stenciled typeface meant to look very modern. The back of the cover and the front of the cover were initially going to be reversed when the artists first brought him the renderings. However, Wood felt that since the book’s content is about the idea of a girl’s traveling across the United States, it would be more compelling and evocative to use feet/baggage as the front of the book. He was also the only graphic artist to show a progression of 10-12 renderings, playing with colors, panels and typeface, that led to the final design. He believes in a very traditional approach to design, which includes hand sketches and multiple renderings.

The Culture of Popular Things: Ethnographic Examinations of Comic-Con 2010

Each year, for the past four years, Comic-Con ends on an academic note. Matthew J. Smith, a professor at Wittenberg University in Ohio, takes along a cadre of students, graduate and undergraduate, to study Comic-Con; the nerds, the geeks, the entertainment component, the comics component, to ultimately understand the culture of what goes on in this fascinating microcosm of consumerism and fandom. By culture, the students embrace the accepted definition by famous anthropologist Raymond J. DeMallie: “what is understood by members of a group.” The students ultimately wanted to ask why people come to Comic-Con in general. They are united by the general forces of being fans; this is what is understood in their group. After milling around the various locales that constituted the Con, the students deduced that two ultimate forces were simultaneously at play. The fan culture drives and energizes the Con as a whole, while strong marketing forces were on display in the exhibit halls and panels.

Maxwell Wassmann, a political economy student at Wayne State University, pointed out that “secretly, what we’re talking about is the culture of buying things.” He compared Comic-Con as a giant shopping mall, a microcosm of our economic system in one place. “If you’ve spent at least 10 minutes at Comic-Con,” he pointed out, “you probably bought something or had something tried to be sold to you. Everything is about marketing.” As a whole, Comic-Con is subliminally designed to reinforce the idea that this piece of pop culture, which ultimately advertises an even greater subset of pop culture, is worth your money. Wassmann pointed out an advertising meme present throughout the weekend that we took notice of as well—garment-challenged ladies advertising the new Green Hornet movie. The movie itself is not terribly sexy, but by using garment-challenged ladies to espouse the very picture of the movie, when you leave Comic-Con and see a poster for Green Hornet, you will subconsciously link it to the sexy images you were exposed to in San Diego, greatly increasing your chances of wanting to see the film. By contrast, Wassmann also pointed out that there is a concomitant old-town economy happening; small comics. In the fringes of the exhibition center and the artists’ space, a totally different microcosm of consumerism and content exchange.

Kane Anderson, a PhD student at UC Santa Barbara getting his doctorate in “Superheroology” (seriously, why didn’t I think of that back in graduate school??), came to San Diego to observe how costumes relate to the superhero experience. To fully absorb himself in the experience, and to gain the trust of Con attendees that he’d be interviewing, Anderson came in full costume (see above picture). Overall, he deduced that the costume-goers, who we will openly admit to enjoying and photographing during our stay in San Diego, act as goodwill ambassadors for the characters and superheroes they represent. They also add to the fantasy and adventure of Comic-Con goers, creating the “experience.” The negative side to this is that it evokes a certain “looky-loo” effect, where people are actively seeking out, and singling out, costume-wearers, even though they only constitute 5% of all attendees.

Tanya Zuk, a media masters student from the University of Arizona, and Jacob Sigafoos, an undergraduate communications major at Wittenberg University, both took on the mighty Hollywood forces invading the Con, primarily the distribution of independent content, an enormous portion of the programming at Comic-Con (and a growing presence on the web). Zuk spoke about original video content, more distinctive of new media, is distributed primarily online. It allows for more exchange between creators and their audience than traditional content (such as film and cable television), and builds a community fanbase through organic interaction. Sigafoos expanded on this by talking about how to properly market such material to gain viral popularity—none at all! Lack of marketing, at least traditional forms, is the most successful way to promote a product. Producing a high-quality product, handing it off to friends, and promoting through social media is still the best way to grow a devoted following.

And speaking of Hollywood, their presence at Comic-Con is undeniable. Emily Saidel, a Master’s student at NYU, and Sam Kinney, a business/marketing student at Wittenberg University, both took on the behemoth forces of major studios hawking their products in what originally started out as a quite independent gathering. Saidel tackled Hollywood’s presence at Comic-Con, people’s acceptance/rejection thereof, and how comics are accepted by traditional academic disciplines as didactic tools in and of themselves. The common thread is a clash between the culture and the community. Being a member of a group is a relatively simple idea, but because Comic-Con is so large, it incorporates multiple communities, leading to tensions between those feeling on the outside (i.e. fringe comics or anime fans) versus those feeling on the inside (i.e. the more common mainstream fans). Comics fans would like to be part of that mainstream group and do show interest in those adaptations and changes (we’re all movie buffs, after all), noted Kinney, but feel that Comic-Con is bigger than what it should be.

But how much tension is there between the different subgroups and forces? The most salient example from last year’s Con was the invasion of the uber-mainstream Twilight fans, who not only created a ruckus on the streets of San Diego, but also usurped all the seats of the largest pavilion, Hall H, to wait for their panel, locking out other fans from seeing their panels. (No one was stabbed.) In reality, the supposed clash of cultures is blown out of proportion, with most fans not really feeling the tension. To boot, Seidel pointed out that tension isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either. She gave a metaphor of a rubber band, which only fulfills its purpose with tension. The different forces of Comic-Con work in different ways, if sometimes imperfectly. And that’s a good thing.

Incidentally, if you are reading this and interested in participating in the week-long program in San Diego next year, visit the official website of the Comic-Con field study for more information. Some of the benefits include: attending the Comic-Con programs of your choice, learning the tools of ethnographic investigation, and presenting the findings as part of a presentation to the Comics Arts Conference. Dr. Matthew Smith, who leads the field study every year, is not just a veteran attendee of Comic-Con, but also the author of The Power of Comics.

COMIC-CON SPOTLIGHT ON: Charles Yu, author of How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.

Here at ScriptPhD.com, we love hobnobbing with the scientific and entertainment elite and talking to writers and filmmakers at the top of their craft as much as the next website. But what we love even more is seeking out new talent, the makers of the books, movies and ideas that you’ll be talking about tomorrow, and being proud to be the first to showcase their work. This year, in our preparation for Comic-Con 2010, we ran across such an individual in Charles Yu, whose first novel, How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe premieres this fall, and who spoke about it at a panel over the weekend. We had an opportunity to have lunch with Charles in Los Angeles just prior Comic-Con, and spoke in-depth about his new book, along with the state of sci-fi in current literature. We’re pretty sure Charles Yu is a name science fiction fans are going to be hearing for some time to come. ScriptPhD.com is proud to shine our 2010 Comic-Con spotlight on Charles and his debut novel, which is available September 7, 2010.

How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is the story of a son searching for his father… through quantum-space time. The story takes place on Minor Universe 31, a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: try to change the past. That’s where the main character, Charles Yu, time travel technician, steps in. Accompanied by TAMMY (who we consider the new Hal), an operating system with low self-esteem, and a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog named Ed, Charles helps save people from themselves. When he’s not on the job, Charles visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished.

Questions for Charles Yu

ScriptPhD.com: Charles, the story has tremendous traditional sci-fi roots. Can you discuss where the inspiration for this came from?

Charles Yu: Well the sci-fi angle definitely comes from being a kid in the 80s, when there were blockbuster sci-fi things all over the place. I’ve always loved [that time], as a casual fan, but also wanted to write it. I didn’t even start doing that until after I’d graduated from law school. I did write, growing up, but I never wrote fiction—I didn’t think I’d be any good at it! I wrote poetry in college, minored in it, actually. Fiction and poetry are both incredibly hard, and poetry takes more discipline, but at least when I failed in my early writing, it was a 100 words of failure, instead of 5,000 words of it.

SPhD: What were some of your biggest inspirations growing up (television or books) that contributed to your later work?

CY: Definitely The Foundation Trilogy. I remember reading that in the 8th grade, and I remember spending every waking moment reading, because it was the greatest thing I’d ever read. First of all, I was in the 8th grade, so I hadn’t read that many things, but the idea that Asimov created this entire self-contained universe, it was the first time that I’d been exposed to that idea. And then to have this psychohistory on top, it was kind of trippy. Psychohistory is the idea that social sciences can be just as rigorously captured with equations as any physical science. I think that series of books is the main thing that got me into sci-fi.

SPhD: Any regrets about having named the main character after yourself?

CY: Yes. For a very specific reason. People in my life are going to think it’s biographical, which it’s very much not. And it’s very natural for people to do that. And in my first book of short stories, none of the main characters was named after anyone, and still I had family members that asked if that was about our family, or people that gave me great feedback but then said, “How could you do that to your family?” And it was fiction! I don’t think the book could have gotten written had I not left that placeholder in, because the one thing that drove any sort of emotional connection for the story for me was the idea of having less things to worry about. The other thing is that because the main character is named after you, as you’re writing the book, it acts as a fuel or vector to help drive the emotional completion.

SPhD: In the world of your novel, people live in a lachrymose, technologically-driven society. Any commentary therein whatsoever on the technological numbing of our own current culture?

CY: Yes. But I didn’t mean it as a condemnation, in a sense. I wouldn’t make an overt statement about technology and society, but I am more interested in the way that technology can sometimes not connect people, but enable people’s tendency to isolate themselves. Certainly, technology has amazing connective possibilities, but that would have been a much different story, obviously. The emotional plot-level core of this book is a box. And that sort of drove everything from there. The technology is almost an emotional technology that [Charles, the main character] has invented with his dad. It’s a larger reflection of his inability to move past certain limitations that he’s put on himself.

SPhD: What drives Charles, the main character of this book?

CY: What’s really driving Charles emotionally is looking for his dad. But more than that, is trying to move through time, to navigate the past without getting stuck in it.

SPhD: Both of his companions are non-human. Any significance to that?

CY: It probably speaks more to my limitations as a writer [laughs]. That was all part of the lonely guy type that Charles is being portrayed as. If he had a human with him, he’d be a much different person.

SPhD: The book abounds in scientific jargon and technological terminology, which is par for the course in science fiction, but was still very ambitious. Do you have high expectations of the audience that will read this book?

CY: Yeah. I was just reading an interview where the writer essentially said “You can never go wrong by expecting too much [of your audience].” You can definitely go wrong the other way, because that would come off as terrible, or assuming that you know more. But actually, my concerns were more in the other direction, because I knew I was playing fast and loose with concepts that I know I don’t have a great grasp of. I’m writing from the level of amateur who likes reading science books, and studied science in college—an entertainment layreader. My worry was whether I was BSing too much [of the science]. There are parts where it’s clearly fictional science, but there are other parts that I cite things that are real, and is anyone who reads this who actually knows something about science going to say “What the heck is this guy saying?”

SPhD: How To Live… is written in a very atavistic, retro 80s style of science fiction, and really reminded me of the best of Isaac Asimov. How do you feel about the current state of sci-fi literature as relates to your book?

CY: Two really big keys for me, and things I was thinking about while writing [this book], were one, there is kind of a kitchiness to sci-fi, and I think that’s kind of intentional. It has a kind of do-it-yourself aesthetic to it. In my book, you basically have a guy in the garage with his dad, and yes the dad is an engineer, but it’s in a garage without great equipment, so it’s not going to look sleek, you can imagine what it’s going to look like—it’s going to look like something you’d build with things you have lying around in the garage. On the other hand, it is supposed to be this fully realized time machine, and you’re not supposed to be able to imagine it. Even now, when I’m in the library in the science-fiction section, I’ll often look for anthologies that are from the 80s, or the greatest time travel stories from the 20th Century that cover a much greater range of time than what’s being published now. It’s almost like the advancement of real-world technology is edging closer to what used to be the realm of science fiction. The way that I would think about that is that it’s not exploting what the real possibility of science fiction is, which is to explore a current world or any other completely strange world, but not a world totally envisionable ten years from now. You end up speculating on what’s possible or what’s easily extrapollatable from here; that’s not necessarily going to make for super emotional stories.

Charles Yu is a writer and attorney living in Los Angeles, CA.

Last, but certainly not least, is our final Costume of the Day. We chose this young ninja not only because of the coolness of his costume, but because of his quick wit. As we were taking the snapshot he said, “I’m smiling, you just can’t see it.” And a check mate to you, young sir.

Incidentally, you can find much more photographic coverage of Comic-Con on our Facebook fan page. Become a fan, because this week, we will be announcing Comic-Con swag giveaways that only Facebook fans are eligible for.

~*ScriptPhD*~

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Nothing has done more to reinvigorate discussions about energy and fuel dependence than the tragic oil spill currently afflicting the Gulf Coast [excellent resource for trajectory, timeline and news sources]. Though scientists and oil manufacturers continue to debate the validity of the “Peak Oil” theory, a very uncomfortable reality looms that oil production may not be able to keep up with thirsty demand. With an ever-increasing global population, a constant proliferation of technology choices and lifestyle improvements, and a rising middle class in third world countries, the factors contributing to fuel consumption may be the precipice of an eventual geopolitical crisis. In an effort to showcase their dedication to addressing the most salient energy and environmental questions affecting our generation, the Discovery Channel, backed by founder John Hendricks, is launching a revolutionary four-part documentary called Powering The Future. In it, they address a range of economics, national security, social and scientific questions related to energy and fuel all through the single focal point of searching for a modern, clean, limitless supply of energy. Our coverage of Powering the Future includes a review of the first installment and an exclusive podcast interview with the show’s host, lead scientist for the Nature Conservancy, Dr. M. Sanjayan. For full content, please click “continue reading.”

“We are the energy generation, but we as Americans do not fundamentally understand what energy is, where it comes from, how we use it, and how much we need,” remarks Dr. M. Sanjayan, host of the new Discovery Channel four-part documentary Powering The Future. Indeed, any honest retrospective of the modern energy crisis first requires a primer reviewing how our dependence on major fuel sources (coal, oil, and natural gas) came about and the unique challenges that breaking it poses. I consider myself a fairly well-informed individual, particularly on scientific matters, but in watching the first installment, The Energy Revolution, even I was amazed at the sheer interconnectedness of major electrical grids, and how much links us globally in energy delivery vessels. A German electrical engineer in the documentary compares running a major grid to being an air traffic controller.

Much of the current hope for alternative energy sources rests in grandiose ‘silver bullet’ solutions. Scientists at the National Ignition Facility are using the world’s biggest and highest powered lasers as a power source for smashing together the hydrogen atoms in a droplet of water, resulting in nuclear fusion. This mimics the way that the sun makes energy, and, if successful, would harness a limitless supply of power. Nuclear fusion research has been ongoing since the 1940s, but has never been applied successfully on a large enough scale like the undergoing experiments at the Ignition Facility. [ScriptPhD.com was recently granted an exclusive tour of the Ignition Facility, which will be covered soon in a separate post.] Another growing ‘silver bullet’ sector has been the harnessing of two natural energy sources—the sun and wind. Wind energy is the largest (and fastest-growing) alternative source of energy. Denmark gets about 20% of its power from wind sources, while the United States gets approximately 1.2%. Photovoltaic, or solar panels, more mobile and aesthetically pleasing than wind turbines, are another popular source of alternative energy. Little money has been poured into researching photovoltaic grids as a large-scale source of energy, it holds promise. The 89 petawatts of sun that shines on the Earth each year is more than 6,000 times the 15 terawatts of electrical power consumed by human. Unfortunately, both of these energy sources face one insurmountable hurdle; their mercurial natures. Our modern lifestyles require a constant influx of power, but if the sun stops shining, or the wind stops blowing, solar and wind technologies are unreliable.

The reality is that moving energy consumption into the 21st Century will not happen with one grand discovery, but a microcosm of intermediary ones. Powering The Future provides some exciting insight into the body of research and creativity being applied to alternative energy sources. Many communities are powering themselves through clever solutions, such as Japan generating solar energy in outer space and then beaming it to Earth, or New York City harnessing wind energy from tidal waves in the East River. No role is rendered more important in this documentary than that of private organizations and academia in leading innovation and discovery. Bay Area-based Makani Power specializes in capturing and storing high-altitude wind for abundant power and energy. Caltech University solar electrochemist Dr. Nate Lewis has invented a thin coating of paint containing chemicals that catalyze the sun’s energy for power. Paint your roof, get free solar energy! In fact, just today, General Electric announced a $200 million smart grid contest for cleaner and more efficient electrical grids. The California-based X-Prize Foundation has even gotten in on the act, recently announcing a $10 million oil spill cleanup challenge.

Even those that consider themselves knowledgeable about environmental issues and research and technology of clean energy will have a lot to learn from Powering The Future. The special does an exceptional job of laying out the complex science behind concepts such as fusion and large-scale electrical grids for a lay audience to understand, while not glossing over current research in industry and academia. Moreover, rather than approaching the issue with the typical heavy-laden, moribund fatalism one often finds in these specials, Powering The Future leaves one feeling hopeful about the range of innovation happening at all levels worldwide, and the remarkable commitment of both academic labs and private companies for tireless discovery. It is this very entrepreneurial, resilient, and utterly human, attitude that will power our future more than any fossil fuel ever could.

Powering The Future premieres on the Discovery Channel on Saturday, July 17, 2010 at 8 PM ET/PT.

Finally, we encourage you to read to our exclusive one-on-one interview with Dr. M. Sanjayan, lead scientist at The Nature Conservancy, as we expand the energy discussion of the mini-series to global solutions, his thoughts on the oil spill crisis, and ways that we can impact our dependence on fuels right now.

ScriptPhD.com: Joining us today is Dr. M. Sanjayan, who is the lead scientist at The Nature Conservancy. He has a PhD from UC Santa Cruz, and is the author of “Connectivity Conservation.” His articles and appearances range from the most prestigious scientific journals to popular media such as The New York Times, and Vanity Fair and TED Talks. Thanks so much for joining ScriptPhD.com!

M Sanjayan: You’re welcome, thank you!

SPhD: It’s impossible to have a conversation about the nexus of environment and energy without addressing the oil spill afflicting the Gulf Coast. Is it safe to call this THE environmental catastrophe of our generation?

MS: Well, the generation’s not over yet. From the time of my recent memory, this has been one of the bigger wake up calls we’ve had.

SPhD: Why do you feel that way?

MS: It happened at our doorsteps, it is impacting a couple of industries that are hugely important to the United States. About a third of all the seafood you eat comes from the Gulf. About an eighth of the oysters you eat come from the Gulf. It’s a massive industry for fisheries and it also supplies about a third of all the gas that goes to heat up your house. So the Gulf is a pretty important place for America at our doorstep or seastep.

SPhD: Well, see, there’s one of the conundrums that I feel lies at the heart of this mini-series. If we take the Gulf Coast example, our President (Obama) is certainly no foe to environmental causes, and yet even he concedes that stopping offshore drilling is not practical given our thirst for oil and energy consumption. What are your thoughts on this?

MS: Well the reason that energy remains such a telling topic for our documentary is that it’s present in our entire lives. Look, I’m a pretty informed consumer and scientist, and even I was shocked at how much energy I use and all the kinds of insidious ways that energy goes into everything I do. And so if you’re looking for the culprit, in some ways, the culprit is us, it’s our thirst for big oil and it’s our thirst for this unlimited supply of energy with no repercussions, which causes us to endanger our future generations. So, it’s very difficult to point fingers when it comes to this crisis in the Gulf, even though what happened there is clearly something that BP is going to be responsible for.

But once you step a little bit beyond that, you quickly realize that how we got here and what we depend on? Still fossil fuels. I mean, [this dependence] makes hypocrites of all of us, and I think that’s the hardest part about it. That’s why it’s not comfortable to talk about, and that’s why it’s so important that we have a thoughtful dialogue about it in this country. And that’s what the show tries to do. I mean, we are addicted to just one form of energy but guess what? There’s so many other forms of energy just waiting there to be tapped. But none of them are going to come without a cost.

SPhD: In speaking about this mini-series, one of the things I adored about the first installment is that it really avoided the gloom and doom that you find typical in stories and shows pertaining to energy. Rather than dwelling on the enormity of the challenge posed to scientists, it actually made me feel hopeful about the creativity and discoveries that ARE actually out there already! Do you feel the same way?

MS: I really do, and I think that that was a conscious decision. When you talk to innovators and the people looking for the so-called “silver bullet,” you realize that Powering The Future talks to some really excited young people who are on the cusp of making gigantic breakthroughs. It’s a really sensitive section that you get carried along with. You don’t want to avoid the consequences of what we will look like if we reach 2015 with 22 kilowatts of energy needed to power our lives and all of that coming from fossil fuels. That will be a disaster and there’s no way to spin that. But we wanted to do a show that allows you to see the possibilities. People can only deal with so much – you have to give them a positive direction.

SPhD: You just mentioned the “silver bullet” – that leads perfectly into my next question. So based on your work, your travels and the research you performed in putting together this documentary, will we see the so-called “silver bullet” in our lifetimes? And if so, what are the commitments that must be made on an international level to see that happen?

MS: I wish I could tell you that there was a silver bullet and that I’ve gained a glimpse of it. I was looking for it, and I wanted to see it, and I wanted to believe in the idea of it. You’ll see that in the show. The truth is it’s more like a silver buck shot. There are lots of smart people coming up with lots of cool ideas. Some of them will go into practical use, and will be implemented on a large scale. So, there’s a lot of hope, but I don’t think it’s as simple as saying that there’s one solution that will solve it all. Now, you never know. You could see a breakthrough that happens.

The important thing is – imagine if we lived in a world where everything and everyone was completely free and available. It doesn’t mean that war and hunger and all these other things go away. There are other limiting factors that we could run up against. So, in some ways, we really want to leave it as a silver buck shot approach, because each solution also has some level of problems.

One of the more interesting [approaches] that we saw was high-oxygen kites being flown off of the San Francisco California coast. They’re really cool! You’ve got these giant kites that basically aeroform. They’re like wings of planes that fly a thousand, two thousand feet up [in the air]. And the wind blows through them, and they generate power, which then comes down a pipelines, shoots through a wire down to the Earth. What’s neat about it is when the wind drops, the power goes back up from the grid and so it stays up like an airplane. Or smart cars that you can plug into the grid, which allows you to start the car, but the car also acts as a [simultaneous] battery for the grid. Or the FULLY electric Coda vehicle that will go on sale later this year in California that will give you 100 miles. What’s amazing about the Coda for me is when you get into the car, it looks perfectly normal. It’s ordinary looking – you wouldn’t even know it’s electric.

SPhD: Well, I know one of the causes that you’re very passionate about, and have written about extensively, is poverty and coservation. On the one hand, it’s wonderful to see so many people climing out of poverty in China and India, Southeast Asia, also in Central and South America. On the other hand, with this mobility comes tremendous energy usage and environmental devastation. How do developed countries balance fostering this growth, yet holding these countries accountable for their emissions, for example through cap and trade systems?

MS: You know, people just want a better life and that’s just the truth of it no matter where you go. What is surprising, and it even shocked me, was the disparity in energy use between the Western world and countries like India or places in Africa. For my lifestyle, I use between 120-180 100-watt light bulbs’ worth of power all the time. So, about 18,000 Watts of power to power my life. The thing is, if you go to Asia, the average Asian uses about fifteen light bulbs for their life! And the average African even less – five or six. It’s an enormous difference in quality of life. And they want it to be better. There’s more people joining the middle class in India than the entire population of the U.S.

The best way we can help these countries make the transition is through economic stability, meaning better lives, happier lives, less war. Because there’s more stability and more trade. So I think the best thing that we can do is really spur innovation and development, leapfrogging technology. The partnership that we have with China, for example, to make batteries, that are a great collaboration, for the Coda car. So the Coda is made in Los Angeles, but the battery is made in China. Poor countries cannot simply abdicate their responsibilities. They’re the ones that are going to be the hardest hit by climate-induced changes. And so they have to play a role as well.

SPhD: Absolutely! Speaking of innovation, in the first installment of The Energy Planet, there are a lot of academic labs and private companies that are innovating green technology even as a lot of world governments are wringing their hands about solutions. How do you feel about some of these private companies, like Tesla Motors or the X Prize foundation here in California in enacting innovation and spurring real change?

MS: So in making Powering The Future, I thought we’d spend most of our time talking to governments – and we do do that to some degree. Energy ministers in China, and admirals in the Navy. But we found that the most passionate advocates were the private industries and the private sector. To me, that’s a very Western philosophy, but it does apply nicely. I think it’s of huge importance. Look at these big revolutions that have happened in our lifetime, like the digital revolution, and now this new revolution that’s happening with space technology or in human genetics. Governments have to play a role, and that role can be very instrumental, both in thinking about the public good and in spurring innovation through subsidies or tax breaks.

But… over and over again, I go to conferences and I come away with this notion that governments don’t lead. It’s people who lead, and the governments will follow. That’s why things like X Prize and these early innovators being out there, maybe a little ahead of the game, are hugely important. It’s exactly how the technology revolution happened with the internet, and I can see that happening with energy. It’s more complicated with energy, but it’s hugely important indeed.

SPhD: So, recycling is one of the quickest, simplest and most impactful ways that we can save energy and protect our planet. I grew up in Seattle, a very ecologically-minded city, where recycling was not only encouraged but ubiquitous, so it was ingrained in my life from an early age. But as I travel around the country, it’s shocking to me how many places there still are where the concept is foreign to the point of being anathema to the way people lead their lives. Do we go the way of the Japanese government, where you actually get fined for not separating your garbage, and they end up collectively recycling or composting anywhere from 70-80 percent of their trash, or do we provide some kind of an incentive?

MS: I didn’t realize how important that part is to solving the energy puzzle. But, one of my favorite parts of the mini-series was when we were visiting the Empire State Building, and this guy who does all the retrofitting for the building says to me “The greenest buildings are the ones that are already built.” And what he’s saying is instead of building from the ground up, you’re taking what’s already existing and recycling it. So recycling, whether on a grand scale – retrofitting a building or a rooftop garden – or on a microscale, in your own apartment, is really important.

I live in Montana right now, and it’s a great town really, but it’s still really hard to recycle there. Especially glass. And I asked them about it and the truth of the matter is that the costs to ship that glass are so expensive, that those costs prohibit recycling on a small scale in my town. It’s a complicated question. We should encourage people to recycle and to encourage their local governments to enable recycling. But sometimes you realize that it does come down to arguments of cost. As long as energy is cheap, artificially cheap (which it is), it makes it impossible to enable recycling and other programs that can make a difference on the scale which you and I would like to see happen.

SPhD: You literally traversed the globe to put together this special and you met everyone from scientists, environmentalists, oil workers and ordinary people. Can you recall for us one moment – any moment – from these journeys that really struck you and made an impact?

MS: China was pretty incredible. Because I never expected to spend that much time in the cities in China. Usually I’m going out to the countryside. There really was one moment that was very amazing to me. We went out to a little village outside of a town called Rizhao, which is China’s solar city. A city of about 3 million people that’s gone completely solar in most ways. So we went to this tiny little village right outside it, and walked into a tiny little house that a woman owned with her family. There’s five people in the family, and two rooms in the house, and a tiny little bathroom/kitchen.

She had a new shower that she really wanted to show me. It was basically a pipe that went from her room into a little private shower area. And it has hot water now because of a solar thermal unit that she’s put up on the roof. And she’ll have it paid off in five years because of the savings. She told me that in the winter, she used to endure a six-mile walk to a public bath house to have a hot shower. And now this [solar cell] completely changed their lives. Meeting her, I understood that the energy revolution is not just for the affluent and the well off, but rather it’s for all scales of life. The other thing I got in China was a lump of coal – and I actually have it sitting on my desk. And whenever I look at that lump of coal, I realize what the need is all about.

SPhD: Well, I really appreciate you joining us and giving us some insight into your travels and work.

MS: I guarantee you after watching this special, you’ll never eat a hamburger or fly a plane the same way again.

~*ScriptPhD*~
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ScriptPhD.com covers science and technology in entertainment, media and advertising. Hire our consulting company for creative content development. Subscribe to free email notifications of new posts on our home page.