Increasing the supply of people becoming inventors is possibly one of the most significant, world-changing things that anyone can do. Some thoughts on how to do it through film.
In college, I saw an original musical about Edison and Tesla (also called The Current War) with an entire song about painstakingly iterating through different filament materials for light bulbs ("Heave ho, throw it out, try again...").
I do love October Sky from your list. I like watching shows like Forged in Fire, which aren't about inventing, but do involve doing physical work, revising as you go.
In my professional role, encouraging people to show interest in the process of innovation is by far one of our biggest problems. After all, presenting the logical process that leads to the innovative conclusion that one has derived is one of the primary means to demonstrate that a solution is valid - particularly in the early stages of design when real numbers are rare and expensive, and one can lean only upon the rhetorical argument to make one's case. However, try as we might, even those you might expect to be highly motivated to understand are actually frequently quite disinterested in the process itself. The outcome is all that seems to matter. Hence, I am provoked to experiment with how one might demonstrate this process in an engaging and entertaining manner. My latest effort can be found here ... https://gordonhart.substack.com/ As for movies, to commit the innovative process to film one surely must answer the following question - what does the process of innovation *look* like? I'll take a look at Pad Man, thanks.
I find that in most movies about scientists or scientific matters, the science is subject to the human drama - and the human drama always needs to be exaggerated. It is as if the drama and excitement of the scientific issues can never be enough to engage the audience.
I’m glad you liked The Founder’s first 30 minutes. From the list you assembled, it’s the one I’ve seen that I think does the best job. Not I’ve got to watch padman!
What about the books list? I understand the allure of movies as an easier access route to public culture or public opinion, but books can be more specific due to the nature of the medium. Or podcasts for that matter. A recent one I heard, which made me drop my jaws, was the one with Dr. Martine Rothblatt inventor and founder of Sirius XM on Tim Ferriss show.
There is another thing which I wanted to comment on, nowadays there are these super companies like Google, Apple and so on, which are really like innovation superpowers on their own. An when a small individual compares his or her ideas with these groups, you feel really small and insignificant. What can you achieve which others haven't already considered or done? It is kind of self defeating, you don't improve or innovate because you are small, and you stay small and insignificant because you don't improve/innovate.
It is not that you cant do it, is is more like you don’t want to, because of these distorted reality lenses.
The first half of the first *Iron Man* is not *that* bad ? Yeah, later it gets attributed a bit too much to his incomparable genius, but then the conditions, the need, and the process itself ! ("He but it in a cave with scraps !")
I have seen several people mentioning this specific part of the movie pushed them into engineering !
Speaking of which, how come nobody mentioned Mac Gyver ??
In college, I saw an original musical about Edison and Tesla (also called The Current War) with an entire song about painstakingly iterating through different filament materials for light bulbs ("Heave ho, throw it out, try again...").
I do love October Sky from your list. I like watching shows like Forged in Fire, which aren't about inventing, but do involve doing physical work, revising as you go.
In my professional role, encouraging people to show interest in the process of innovation is by far one of our biggest problems. After all, presenting the logical process that leads to the innovative conclusion that one has derived is one of the primary means to demonstrate that a solution is valid - particularly in the early stages of design when real numbers are rare and expensive, and one can lean only upon the rhetorical argument to make one's case. However, try as we might, even those you might expect to be highly motivated to understand are actually frequently quite disinterested in the process itself. The outcome is all that seems to matter. Hence, I am provoked to experiment with how one might demonstrate this process in an engaging and entertaining manner. My latest effort can be found here ... https://gordonhart.substack.com/ As for movies, to commit the innovative process to film one surely must answer the following question - what does the process of innovation *look* like? I'll take a look at Pad Man, thanks.
I find that in most movies about scientists or scientific matters, the science is subject to the human drama - and the human drama always needs to be exaggerated. It is as if the drama and excitement of the scientific issues can never be enough to engage the audience.
I’m glad you liked The Founder’s first 30 minutes. From the list you assembled, it’s the one I’ve seen that I think does the best job. Not I’ve got to watch padman!
What about the books list? I understand the allure of movies as an easier access route to public culture or public opinion, but books can be more specific due to the nature of the medium. Or podcasts for that matter. A recent one I heard, which made me drop my jaws, was the one with Dr. Martine Rothblatt inventor and founder of Sirius XM on Tim Ferriss show.
There is another thing which I wanted to comment on, nowadays there are these super companies like Google, Apple and so on, which are really like innovation superpowers on their own. An when a small individual compares his or her ideas with these groups, you feel really small and insignificant. What can you achieve which others haven't already considered or done? It is kind of self defeating, you don't improve or innovate because you are small, and you stay small and insignificant because you don't improve/innovate.
It is not that you cant do it, is is more like you don’t want to, because of these distorted reality lenses.
The first half of the first *Iron Man* is not *that* bad ? Yeah, later it gets attributed a bit too much to his incomparable genius, but then the conditions, the need, and the process itself ! ("He but it in a cave with scraps !")
I have seen several people mentioning this specific part of the movie pushed them into engineering !
Speaking of which, how come nobody mentioned Mac Gyver ??