Around a table at the institute's campus, they and their colleagues, chosen from some 50 applicants, listened this week as Syd Field, author of some of the most popular how-to books on screenwriting, steeped them in the ABCs of three-act structure.
They wrestled with how to reconcile the cinematic suspension of disbelief with the scientific method and with their basic purpose of bringing accuracy to the screen.
And they got feedback for their own script ideas. A disaster movie set at the Olympics, where athletes get a virus that makes them smarter? (Problem: The main character was the virus.) A biopic on the inventor of the Ferris wheel, who died a sad and lonely alcoholic? ("Do I have to like the character?" asked its author, Jeffrey Hoch. Hardly -- think Raging Bull, he was told by Alex Singer, a veteran television director.)
Hoch was full of searching questions. "When I'm writing for a scientist, I write for my peers," he said. "Who are we writing for? The viewer? The director? The money people?"
"Tell your story for you," Field urged him. "Then, go back and rewrite it."
Gundersen chimed in, "It's different from writing for a science journal. That has to be right; you'd better not make a mistake, because people will beat the hell out of you. In a movie, I wouldn't want to say it doesn't have to be right, but it's different."
Singer added, "They will not forgive you for being bored. They'll forgive you for anything else."
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