What Engineers Can Learn From Film School

Several good tips and ideas to ponder from 101 Things I Learned in Film School from Neil Landau and Matthew Frederick. Ideas that engineers should ponder:

• Show, don't tell.  Engineers get into huge problems when they think more toward telling than showing.  Our work is the showing profession (Law is a telling profession).  In the Age of Screens, we need to get better at showing in terms of video on a wider range of platforms.
• Follow the action.  Your clients and key stakeholders want to be close to your project action.  Give them the optimal view of the project.
• Make psychology visual.  If you want to show the "people skills" of your project team, don't just show the client pictures of your physical stuff.  Show the client people pictures of your project team - - in team meetings, meeting with the public, talking to the operations staff, etc.
• A flawed protagonist is more compelling than a perfect protagonist.  Don't market your proposed project manager as the Jesus Christ of PMs.  Show him or her as imperfect --  with the ability to learn, grow, change, adaptable, and learn from mistakes.  Clients want to work with successful lesson learners and problem solvers/learners and not unrealistic saints.
• Beginning, middle, end.  When you show your protagonist/project manager during an interview or presentation - - think in terms of three acts.  Act 1 - Establish the Problem.  Act 2 - Complicate the Problem (every project has the potential for conflict and tension!!).  Act 3 - Resolve the Problem.
• What's at stake.  The client should always understand what is at stake on every project.  What is it that drives the valve creation chain?
• Create tangible objects of desire.  Engineers should be the masters of this - - bringing the abstract idea of that new bridge into a physical public/award success story.  The combined world of imagination and animation are important in the Age of Screens.
• Practice perfect pitch.  Hollywood is infamous for the 10-minute movie pitch.  Engineers need the same for their 5-minute project pitch.
• A high concept movie can be explained in one sentence.  The next time you listen to a 30-presentation for a proposed project, have the project manager explain the story line in one sentence.
• Have a strong but.  How many project plans and projects don't have a strong but?
• A good title says what a movie is.  An effective title conveys what your presentation is actually about.  The protagonist's quest, the setting, the theme, genre, etc.
• Plot is physical events; story is emotional events.  Engineers care about the plot; you client and key stakeholders may care more about the story - - caring more about how everyone feels about the story.
• Whose story is it?  Your presentation is from the point of view of who - - and understand the difference between an objective POV and a subjective POV.
• Create memorable entrances.  Style, character, behavior - - you must be distinctive and engineers will hate me for saying this - - it matters a lot!!
• Tell a story at different scales.  The American Society of Civil Engineers doesn't get this in their telling of the infrastructure is declining story.  How does a water system of  grade D+ impact my neighborhood?
• The best story structure is invisible.  The best presentations I have seen have a certain unfolding narrative - - hard to pull off but very effective.
• Every scene must reveal new information.  The same holds true for PowerPoint slides.
• Animation provides an opportunity to think expansively, not expensively.  I don't agree with this in the context of the AEC industry - - but look for additional opportunities and cheaper/effective technology to change the way we can tell stories.
• Dialogue is not real speech.  Your presentation must sound authentic.
• Have some showstoppers.  Your next presentation at the national technical conference -- think in terms of several memorable high points.  Have a big scene that the audience will remember.
• Every movie is a suspense movie.  Remember this is how your clients things about the next project.
• Help the audience keep track of your characters.  Assume the audience forgets details.
• A comedy isn't just about jokes.  Remember that good comedy ultimately grows out of its underpinnings - - from creating interesting situations and playing with expectations of how they should turn out. 
• Good writing is good rewriting.  A good model is to write fast but don't hurry and remember a screenplay typically undergoes ten or more full rewrites before it is ready for the marketplace.
• Make rejection a process.  This is the key to business development in the AEC industry.  
• Different lenses tell different stories.  In many project stories you will need to show and discuss both the telephoto and wide angle of your vision of the project.
• Read it aloud.  The next time you write an a SOQ or project approach, read it aloud.  Don't always rely on the voice in your head.
• Rehearsal isn't just for the actors.  For your next practice presentation, have the entire production team attend.
• Don't overtax an audience's good will.  Remember that people are attending your public meeting on the bridge project to learn something.