Scientific Screenwriting
In Nature, an account of an American Film Institute workshop for scientists who want to write screenplays. The goal is to improve the image of science in public entertainment.
(Nice to see that one of the speakers was Martha Coolidge, director of Real Genius, and another was Prof. Martin Gundersen, who was a technical adviser on the film and played a bit part. RG was a wild comedy, but it was grounded in truths about the people of the technoculture.)
Though it was apparently funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and not the Sloan Foundation, this reminds me of Sloan's various efforts to influence the portrayal of science and scientists by funding film festivals, workshops, prizes, scholarships for techie screenwriters, and so forth. Some of these also involve AFI.
This may all be tilting at windmills; science on TV and in the movies may be far too warped to repair by such well-meaning projects. But let us hope.
(Nice to see that one of the speakers was Martha Coolidge, director of Real Genius, and another was Prof. Martin Gundersen, who was a technical adviser on the film and played a bit part. RG was a wild comedy, but it was grounded in truths about the people of the technoculture.)
Though it was apparently funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and not the Sloan Foundation, this reminds me of Sloan's various efforts to influence the portrayal of science and scientists by funding film festivals, workshops, prizes, scholarships for techie screenwriters, and so forth. Some of these also involve AFI.
This may all be tilting at windmills; science on TV and in the movies may be far too warped to repair by such well-meaning projects. But let us hope.