MAKE AMERICA ARCHPLOT AGAIN. To speak in pure archplot structure you almost have to engage in fiction — it’s just too hard if you’re constrained by the truth. Trump laughs at the truth, and is a master of archplot.

THE DEALMAKER

Donald Trump is a master of narrative.  In “Houston, We Have A Narrative,” I offer up a very simple, albeit crude, definition of the word narrative as, “The series of events that occur in the search for a solution to a problem.”  By this definition, Trump lives and breathes narrative.

Trump is legendary as a “dealmaker.”  What does that term mean?  It is a person who sits down at the table, quickly figures out the problem that needs to be solved, then solves it with the deal.  It’s what he does all day long and is how he approaches the world, endlessly.

When you start to listen to him from the perspective of narrative dynamics (again, narrative, not storytelling) you see how much he embodies the core principles.  Here is my list of the top 5 narrative traits I see in him.

1) ADVANCING THE NARRATIVE

This is the antidote to boredom.  Boring people get stuck on one topic and fail to move forward or “advance the narrative.”  Avoiding this problem is built into the ABT structure.  It’s what happens with the word “therefore” — the word of consequence.  If somebody describes a problem, then keeps going, talking on and on about just the problem, eventually someone will blurt out, “THEREFORE … ? Therefore what are you going to do about it?”  That is advancing the narrative.

I’ve heard a number of eggheaded political pundits over the past few months trying to diminish Trump’s communication skills by saying, “he just rambles all over the place in his speeches.”  Well, yes, to some extent, but what they are failing to perceive is the tight ABT structure (And, But, Therefore) on the fine scale which holds the interest of listeners.  And actually, he does have a clear overarching narrative which is the following …

2) SINGULAR NARRATIVE

Trump has a single message of “Make America Great Again.”  You may think it’s ludicrous, but if you do you’re just identifying yourself as someone who doesn’t get how the public thinks.  They don’t want to hear complex, subtle messages.  One of the main critiques of Hillary has been that she’s too caught up in “nuance.”  To Trump, “nuance” is like a cockroach, meant to be stepped on.

At the top of McKee’s Triangle (see Chapter 12 of the new book) is Archplot which I’ll talk about in detail in a bit.  One of the key characteristics is the “singular narrative” — meaning for example that in epic stories, there is still the one character, from Luke Skywalker to Dorothy to Spartacus, who provides the singular overarching narrative structure.

Trump has accomplished singularity from the very start of his campaign with his simple slogan. That slogan wasn’t something his pollsters figured out halfway through.  It was him, him, him from the start.  Don’t you see it?  The guy has deep narrative intuition.  He opens his mouth, what comes out is narratively structured.  This is why he has scored TV ratings for the debates like no one has ever seen.  There has never been a candidate with this deep of a connection to narrative structure.

The one piece pointing this out at the most superficial level to date that I’ve seen was a writer at Vox who noted the recurrent problem/solution structure of Trump’s speeches.  But all that writer did was make a note of it.  He didn’t attempt to quantifying it or pinpoint how the dynamic works or why it’s important.

3) ONE WORD THEME:  GREATNESS

In my new book I offer up what I have labeled as The Dobzhansky Template.  For Trump, he would use it to say, “Nothing in America makes sense except in the light of greatness.”

The more specific term for him for this would probably be, “exceptionalism,” but he’s gone with “great.”  This is his one, singular, unifying term which becomes incredibly powerful.  I could easily see the masses at his rallies just shouting, “Great!  Great! Great! Great!”

That one word conveys his entire message and agenda.  He truly gets this stuff.

4) THE ABT & ARCHPLOT

As Robert McKee tells about in his landmark 1997 book, “Story,” there is a consistent structure to the great stories that persist over the ages reaching all the way back 4000 years to the epic story of Gilgamesh.  This structure he terms “archplot” and identifies it’s key characteristics.  These traits include the singular narrative (making American great again), an active hero (Trump is seen as a fighter), linear time sequence (he rarely jumps back into history), complete causality (everything in his world is simple and makes sense), and closed ending (everything’s going to have a happy ending).

Trump opens his mouth, what flows out is pure archplot.  The simpler version of archplot is the ABT (And, But, Therefore) structure.  Over and over again, you can hear it in everything Trump says.  “We love the Mexicans AND we want the good ones to be part of our society, BUT there are too many illegals, THEREFORE we have to build a wall.”

It is how he views the world — simple problem, simple solution — custom made for the ABT.

This is where he goes off into the land of fiction.  Everyone knows “the wall” with Mexico is not realistic.  It is fiction.  But it is simple and thus powerful.

One extension of the ABT is the simple Narrative Index I have devised.  He scores a 29 which is higher than any politician I’ve analyzed, and his score is double that of Hillary (14) which I promise you will be a major factor this fall.

5) THE POWER OF STORYTELLING RESTS IN THE SPECIFICS

He knows this rule sooooo well.  He uses it to his advantage on offense — naming names in his attacks on opponents, and even further by coming up with SPECIFIC nicknames for Lyin’ Ted, Little Marco, and Crooked Hillary.  Those names are incredibly specific.

But then he also uses the reverse of this rule in his statements on policy, at least right now, holding off on specifics and thus weakening what he’s saying, leaving less to attack.  This week on Meet the Press he was vague, waffling, and two-sided on everything from minimum wage to tax cuts.  He knows better than to get pinned to specifics this early.

BOTTOM LINE:  NARRATIVE EQUALS ENTERTAINMENT

Not sure how many times I can keep repeating this.  People who are thought of as “entertaining” over the long term achieve that label for one main reason — they succeed with narrative.  If they fail with narrative, no matter how outlandish they are, they will ultimately bore then annoy the public.  That’s because they do the same repetitive schtick, meaning they fail to “advance the narrative.”

No one major is calling Trump annoying or boring (aside from those who hate him for his politics) in terms of his communication style.  More importantly, no television network is calling him annoying or boring.  They continue to give him endless free coverage.  Why not, he generates huge ratings.

THE MEDIA IS STUPID IN IT’S ANALYSIS OF DONALD TRUMP

This past week the media critic Jim Rutenburg at the NY Times talked about the shoddy job the media, including NY Times, has done in covering Donald Trump.  He said, “… this season has been truly spectacular in it’s failings.”  He added, “The mistakes piled up the bad predictions, the overplaying of every slight development of the horse race to the point of whiplash, the lighthearted treatment of what turned out to be the most serious candidacy of the Republican field.  The lessons learned did not.”

The analysis of Trump’s communication skills have been pathetically bad.  Just as Ruttenburg says — the media have laughed at Trump and done silly, substance-lacking “analysis” such as talking repeatedly about the level of grade school he communicates at or his tendency to use “we” and “us” more than other politicians.

Stupid media analysis.  That’s what it’s been.  Incredibly lame and stupid.

I have warned since last summer that this guy knows media better than ANY politician in history.  As Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio was quoted in USA Today on Sunday, “Trump is the most manipulative person in the world.”  Amen, brotha.

The New York Times should be ashamed of themselves for the shallow, lame job they have done in analyzing Trump.

Sheesh.

Three things.  1)  I’m not a fan of climate skeptics, ever, 2) there is no “jugular” for anti-science movements when it comes to communication — the zinger logic works both ways, 3) “Climate Hustle” (and Marc Morano) scored it’s highest pinnacle of media exposure Monday night in being mentioned on Jimmy Kimmel Live.  Way to go, Jimmy.

NOT CLEVER, NOT HELPING. This is the current “Moviemaker” plot for “Climate Hustle” from IMDB Pro (you have to subscribe to get access to it). It’s the Hollywood scorecard for a movie. This is up to May 1, the day before “Climate Hustle” scored it’s highest profile media hit as the subject of a 7 minute rant on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC. Next week’s rank will be higher.

JIMMY KIMMEL GIVES AIR TIME TO “CLIMATE HUSTLE”

On Monday night ABC comic host Jimmy Kimmel delivered a 7 minute comic rant about Sarah Palin and “Climate Hustle,” the new “documentary” from climate skeptic Marc Morano.  While some people inside the bubble of the climate community thought it was “devastating,” I would suggest it was more of a major coup for Morano to receive such high profile attention.  And for free.

Everyone talks about how much free “earned” media exposure Donald Trump receives.  This is the same thing.  The Trump exposure is mostly about what a fool he is, yet has been a major key to his success.  The content of what is said is irrelevant, it’s that they are talking about him at all.  Same thing for Morano.

THE MOVIEMETER RATING FOR “CLIMATE HUSTLE”

How well is “Climate Hustle” doing in Hollywood terms?  Here’s a list of current rankings of a variety of recent documentary feature films according to the Moviemeter score calculated by the industry website IMDB Pro.  It includes all the Oscar-nominated documentaries for this year.  It’s already scoring on the same level with one of them, “Winter on Fire.”  I’m sure if you check next week it will have jumped ahead of lots of these films, in part thanks to scoring a mention from Jimmy Kimmel.

ZINGER LOGIC WORKS BOTH WAYS

I’m so tired of people in the climate community bubble celebrating non-victories.  Much of the “look how dumb climate skeptics are” humor relies on logic that can just as easily be tossed back at the science community.  Kimmel says he’s going to deny the existence of yogurt saying, “I’ve seen the containers, I just don’t believe there’s anything in them.”

Well, sorry, but you find the same logic throughout the science world.  I’m dealing right now with methods of teaching that common sense tells you they work, but running up against scientists who say they are not going to believe it works until they see data to show it.  Same thing.

On a broader scale, this is the same way that the climate skeptics learned “doubt casting” from Rachael Carson and her attacks on pesticide use.  Andy Revkin gave a nice review of this in 2012. Both sides are using the same basic logic when it comes to humor.

THERE IS NO “JUGULAR”

Academics and scientists have a tendency to think there is a way to “slit the jugular” of their opponents simply by out-arguing them.  It was one of the most annoying comments I heard about my movie “Flock of Dodos,” in 2006, coming from some of the top academic evolutionists — that they found the movie disappointing in that they had hoped it would have “gone for the jugular” more.  As if there was some way to make a movie about academic discourse that could somehow with a single zinger or dramatic moment bring about the collapse of the entire opposition.  There ain’t.

Yes, “Blackfish” did do an amazing job of crippling Sea World, but they had stories of death to use for ammunition.  That’s different.  When a comedian like Jimmy Kimmel ridicules an anti-science movement it’s not in the same league.

So as funny as Jimmy Kimmel may be, and as admirable as it is for him to take on social issues seriously at times, he is not the person who can actually damage the climate skeptic crowd.  He has no real gravitas, and more importantly, all he did was create an equally silly scene of humble scientists using profanity.

STILL ONLY ONE GOOD PIECE OF CLIMATE COMEDY

To date I have still seen only one truly brilliant piece of climate comedy, which was the prank the Australian group “The Hamster Wheel” pulled on climate skeptic Lord Monckton.  I just now watched it again.  If only anyone in this country had the cojones to create that sort of comic material.  So brilliant.  So utterly, utterly brave and brilliant.  If someone went after the climate movement with that level of coldheartedness it might actually be possible to slit their jugular.  But it ain’t gonna happen in America.

From “Climate Hustle” on the right to “The Congressman” on the left, the fact is, you gotta tell a good story and pull of high production value if you want your movie to change the world.

CEREBRAL BROWN OUT. I felt the synapses in my brain momentarily go dim as the Grizzly Mama, former-governor of Alaska Sarah Palin walked within ten feet of me and I took this snapshot. On the far right is Marc Morano, writer-director of “Climate Hustle.” This was after the premiere two weeks ago of “Climate Hustle” in Washington DC at the Rayburn building.

“MEANS WELL” MEANS “FILM WARNING”

Last night Marc Morano’s film “Climate Hustle” screened in nearly 400 theaters across the country while on MSNBC’s “Hardball” Chris Matthews very generously gave prime time exposure to the new movie “The Congressman” starring Treat Williams.  Both films have high political aspirations, but neither is very good in terms of basic filmmaking.

I wrote a review of “Climate Hustle” last week on Andy Revkin’s NY Times blog Dot Earth in which I said my heart is with Morano as a fellow filmmaker, but I found the film weak on both story and visuals (not to mention most of climate skepticism is bunk starting with the fundamentally dishonest portrayal of “global cooling” in the 70’s as a major story — it wasn’t).

For “The Congressman,” while Rotten Tomatoes has it teetering on the edge of a rotten tomato overall with a score of 60%, the Hollywood Reporter is more direct in their assessment.  They concede that the film “means well,” but they also say, “… the film is rather overstuffed, with Mrazek injecting too many themes and subplots into the mix. And to say that some of those elements don’t quite work dramatically is an understatement …”

Filmmaking is incredibly difficult.  Anyone charging out to make a “documentary” simply by interviewing everyone they can find who has something to say about a subject really needs to be aware of this.  No one talks about the cost of boring an audience of like-minded thinkers.

Nothing worse than ending up with a group who previously might have cared about your issue, but after viewing your painfully dull film end up saying to themselves they never want to hear anything further.   Which happens all the time.

Nice guys (with good intentions) finish last, a lot, when it comes to making movies.  Sad, but true.

Nothing like a challenging 14 hour day.  Things started at 8:30 in the morning and finished after dinner at 10:30.  In between was one fascinating discussion after another with the brightest group of scientists I’ve been around in a long time.  It was the perfect place for the message of striving for excellence by reaching for the ABT.

SRO. Nothing better than Standing Room Only where just about every seat is taken by someone with a PhD in science. I took this photo as Alex, my host, was introducing me at the start of my talk. Amazing group. And best of all, they laughed in all the right places.

“CAN’T I TALK TO ONE DUMMY?”

I was expecting a challenging day at Genentech, but it kind of exceeded expectations.  I guess it’s what you get in the corporate world — no laggards.

The place is huge — about 50 buildings split into north and south campuses right on the San Francisco Bay.  It was one meeting after another with folks working on drug development, structural biologists, neurophysiologists — on and on.  Lots and lots of science that was beyond me, but all of which could benefit from narrative structure.

The most interesting story I heard all day was from a woman who had worked a couple years ago at Theranos.  Wow, what a mess.  I had no clue about that scandal.  Among many things it’s kind of an indictment of the bullshit nature of so many TED Talks.

If you don’t know the bizarre story of Theranos and it’s weird “visionary” leader Elizabeth Holmes, here’s a video from just a few days ago that tells the whole strange scandal of their massive valuation over a product they don’t appear to be able to deliver.

The toughest part of the day was a neurophysiologist who had read my book and grilled me for a half hour, unconvinced that teaching narrative would move the needle in the right direction.  He was concerned that teaching scientists to be “better storytellers” would just make them more adept at publishing false positives.  But that’s not what I’m advocating.

The book is not about “storytelling for scientists.”  That’s what people who do a shallow job of not reading it think it’s about.  But if you really dig into it you will see it is about “narrative knowledge for scientists” with the belief that the better you understand narrative, the more you will be aware of the blind spots towards positive narratives that come with being human and lead to telling big stories that are wrong (i.e. Theranos).  He understood this and I think by the end I had allayed his fears at least a bit, but a tough discussion for sure.

It was after that session that I asked my host, “Don’t you have one dummy I could meet with just to get a break?”  The answer was no.  Awesome place.

UPDATE TODAY:  A good OpEd in the NY Times on the Theranos mess which Silicon Valley had enough good sense to avoid.

I don’t mean any disrespect, I’m just talking narrative structure here.  The Gettysburg Address is a structural masterpiece.  Tyson’s exercise, while having a nice point to it, is narratively muddled. Although Neil Degrasse Tyson is a fun media icon, it’s worthwhile to point out he does not have deep narrative intuition — not like novelist Michael Crichton nor Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman.  And did he really mean to say, “comprised of”?

LINCOLN KNEW NARRATIVE (TYSON NOT SO MUCH). Lincoln had a Narrative Index of around 21. Neil Degrasse Tyson is more in the range of 11 (the three speeches I’ve found score 9, 11, 14). It shows when he attempts to emulate Lincoln.

NARRATIVE ABE

For three years now I’ve been holding up the Gettysburg Address as a model of the ABT structure. I examined it in detail in my book last year. I’m willing to argue with anyone who wants to disagree that the number one reason the speech retains it’s power and has stood the test of time is it’s narrative structure.

Nobody has really pointed to this attribute of the Gettysburg Address so far, or if they have they’ve done it in a overly-complicated way. Ken Burns did an entire NOVA episode about the Gettysburg Address, but narrative structure wasn’t even on his radar screen. You kind of need to have some feel for ABT structure to really see it.

GETTYSBURG ADDRESS: A PARAGON OF ABT STRUCTURE

The speech is simple and has a solid ABT form. The first paragraph is exposition. The second paragraph begins by stating the problem (“Now we are engaged in a great civil war”). The third paragraph has more than one “therefore” but is essentially “it is for us the living” to make sure that “these dead shall not have died in vain.”

This narrative structure, more than anything else, accounts for it’s enduring power. Joseph Campbell would be the first to agree with this. It’s about story, dude.

Which means that anyone wanting to put themselves in the same company of Lincoln and his great speech really ought to attempt an equally clean and powerful ABT structure.

SAME LENGTH DOES NOT EQUAL SAME LEAGUE

Astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson, who is a great promoter of science and lots of fun, attempts exactly this with a new video. He delivers his own speech of the same length as the Gettysburg Address. He has a very nice point to it — that Lincoln also created the National Academy of Sciences which is today very important. But the way he presents his argument is muddled.

His first paragraph is an ABT, sort of, using “yet” instead of “but.” But the “therefore” is disconnected in terms of logic — opening with war, then suddenly jumping to science.

From there he slumps solidly into “and, and, and” mode stating a series of facts about science. The net result of his speech conforms to the section in my book I titled, “And, And, And, not that there’s anything wrong with it.”

There’s not anything informationally wrong about Tyson’s speech, it’s just that narratively it’s a jumbled mess. The over-arching ABT structure is lacking because the “problem” is not clearly laid out.

With the Gettysburg Address Lincoln laid out the problem clearly in the second paragraph — that we are torn apart by war. The whole paragraph elaborated on the problem, leading to the build that was paid off in their third paragraph with the clear admonishment (the “therefore”) that “these dead shall not have died in vain.”

There is a “therefore” in Tyson’s last paragraph, but it’s not all that compelling. Basically he says “the time has come” rather than, “we must,” as Lincoln did.

Therefore … I’m sorry to be rude, but there is a science to great communication. A major part of it is narrative structure. Without it, it’s hard to ascend to the greatest heights.

NEIL’S GETTYSBURG REPLY

Here’s the text of what Neil says in his short video. Again, there’s nothing wrong with this, it could just be more powerful with some attention to narrative structure, as I do in the next section.

One and a half centuries ago, civil war divided these united states of America, yet in it’s wake we would anneal it as one nation indivisible. During the bloody year of his Gettysburg address President Lincoln charted the NAS comprised of 50 distinguished American researchers whose task was then, as now, to advice Congress and the executive branch of all the ways the frontiers of science could contribute to the health, wealth and security of it’s residents.

As a young nation, just four score and seven years old, we had plucked the engineering fruits of the industrial revolution that transformed Europe, but Americans had yet to embrace the meaning of science to society. Now with more than 2000 members the National Academy encompasses dozens of fields undreamt of at the time of Lincoln’s charter. Quantum physics discovered in the 1920’s now drives nearly one third of the world’s wealth, forming the basis for our computer revolution and the creation, storage and retrieval of information. And as we continue to warm our planet, climatology may be our only hope to save us from ourselves. During the centennial of it’s charter, President Kennedy addressed the Academy, noting the range and depth of scientific achievement in this room constitutes the seabed of our nation’s future.

In this, the 21st century, innovations in science and technology form the primary engines of economic growth. While most remember Honest Abe for war and peace, for slavery and freedom, the time has come to remember him for setting our nation on a course of scientifically enlightened governance, without which we all may perish from this earth.

MY REWRITE OF HIS FIRST TWO PARAGRAPHS

Hate to be a school marm, but this is for the benefit of everyone interested in seeing the power of the ABT approach. Here’s a rewrite of his first section, and the start of the second. I’m not attempting any flowery prose, just laying out the fact of the “argument” that ought to be made. The object is to keep the exposition singular and clean — meaning no narrative twists. The story begins with the second paragraph.

America is a great and mighty nation with a complex history. Certain aspects of it’s founding were misguided and resulted in a tragic civil war. Abraham Lincoln presided over those most painful years. He was a visionary who played a fundamental role in righting those societal offenses.

But there is something more to what Lincoln gave us during his truncated presidency — something that plays an enormous role in our society today. He created the National Academy of Sciences. (details on what this has meant)

Therefore today …

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

And here is the actual Gettysburg Address — one paragraph of exposition, one paragraph of contradiction, one paragraph of consequence. A veritable masterpiece, though not perfect as Abe was clearly conflicted in the third paragraph — torn between his feeling of impotence of a mere speech (“the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here …”) versus the enormity of what the deceased had done.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Lest anyone think Wednesday was a fluke, here you see it again — the ABT structure in the opening of almost all stories on the front page of the NY Times.  For today you see 3 of 6 stories start their second paragraph with “but.”  Two of the others have the ABT structure without saying “but.”

COUNT THE BUTS. Stories on the front page of the NY Times cannot afford to ramble or confuse. They need to engage the narrative part of the brain. They do this with the ABT structure. The writers and editors all know it, they just haven’t had a simple term for it.

BUT IT HAPPENS EVERY DAY

There it is again, the ABT in plain sight on the front page of the NY Times.  Three of six stories start their second paragraph with “But.”  It’s not a coincidence.  It’s the ABT.  It’s everywhere.

There it is, in story after story. Of the 6 stories on the front page of the NY Times today, 3 of them start their third paragraph with “But.” Two others clearly have the ABT structure without using the word “but.” The last one has an AAA (and, and, and) opening leading to a summary statement. When will journalism programs start teaching the ABT? Like it or not, it’s right there in plain view on the front page of the NY Times.

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT. This is today’s NY Times. The numbered circles are the three stories that begin their third paragraph with “But.” The other two circles are articles that have the ABT narrative structure but not “but” — but … you could drop it in and it would read just fine. Look at the articles — each one starts by setting up the “ordinary world” before establishing the narrative direction with the most common word of conflict, “but.”

DRAMATIC STRUCTURE ON DISPLAY

I’ve been noticing this for the past few months.  Pick up any issue of the NY Times, look at the stories on the front page and you’ll see the ABT structure, loud and clear.

Are the writers and editors consciously following the ABT Template as they craft these articles?  Of course not.  They just all have deep “narrative intuition,” from countless years of writing and rewriting stories.  This is what happens — you work on the narrative part of your brain for enough years, it eventually takes this form.

Once you have narrative intuition I think there’s a tendency to assume everyone see things the same way as you.  I call this “narrative elitism.” It’s the “let them have cake” attitude of writers towards those who have never really developed the narrative parts of their brains.

IMRAD INTUITION

I’m making this stuff up as I go along, but I think I see the exact parallel of narrative intuition with what could be called “IMRAD Intuition.”  The IMRAD Template (I – Introduction, M – Methods, R – Results, A – And, D – Discussion) is the narrative structure forced on scientists by almost every journal.

Virtually every working scientist has IMRAD intuition.  When they sit down to start writing a research paper they don’t need to look at the “Guidelines for Writers” that every journal provides.  In the Guidelines they would be told that they must shape their paper into the four standard sections.  They don’t need their brains to know that — it’s already present in them at the gut/intuition level from so many years of reading and writing these papers.

In fact, it is programmed so deeply into them that they don’t even know there’s a name for the structure.  As I tell about in “Houston, We Have A Narrative,” when I asked huge groups of scientists how many knew what IMRAD stands for, less than one percent raised their hands.

This turns out to be the same thing with journalists.  I’m sure if I asked a large group of them how many know the ABT, almost no one would raise their hands.  Yet when I explained it they would all say, “Oh, yeah, that thing.”  Just as scientists do with the IMRAD.

THOU SHALT ABT

And so there you see it, on the front page of the NY Times — the ABT structure, over and over again.  As a result those stories are never boring or confusing.  Which means that if scientists could absorb the ABT structure as deeply as the IMRAD there would be an end to boredom and confusion in the communication of science.

Hate to say it but a TED Talk without strong narrative structure is a boring TED Talk.  In “Talk Like Ted: The 9 Secrets of the World’s Top Minds” the author leaves out the most important “secret” — how to make the jump from the non-narrative to the narrative worlds. There’s even a chapter on “Mastering Storytelling” that does exactly what happens everywhere — she tells you to tell great stories but doesn’t give one analytical clue of how to do it (i.e. using the ABT).  This is exactly the problem I hear about everywhere I go.  So much excitement about “storytelling” yet so much arm waiving.  She even thinks “narrative” and “storytelling” are the exact same thing.  Nope.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM THE SOUTH PARK GUYS: Narrative structure is so important, yet so, so hard to get right (even though this book makes no mention of that part of it).

HOCUS POCUS, AMAZE (AND BORE)

A couple years ago I was invited to run our “Connection Storymaker Workshop” with Deloitte in Boston by an executive who said, “Our executives are being told these days they need to do a better job of ‘telling their story’ but nobody seems to know how exactly to instruct you on telling better stories other than by ‘telling better stories.’”

I hear it all the time.  But if you want to see exactly this conundrum in print just look at the book “Talk Like TED” where the author lets you in on “Secret #2:  Master the Art of Storytelling.”  Shhhh — don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret.  In fact, it’s such a secret she doesn’t even tell you about how to cross the divide from the boredom of the non-narrative world into the power of the narrative world.

Instead, what you get is a fun hodge podge of encouragement to tell personal stories, and tell stories about heroes and villains, and tell stories that are full of surprises, and … zzzz.

Bill McKibben spoke at Pepperdine on Tuesday night. I was deeply impressed. He has powerful narrative intuition.

THE PLANET’S BEST HOPE.

BIG MONEY ENVIRONMENTALISM MEANS BIG WASTAGE

In the 1960’s the American environmental movement came of age and crystallized with the first Earth Day in 1970.  But in the 1980’s it lost its way, as was so perfectly documented in Mark Dowie’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, “Losing Ground,” which every student of environmentalism should read.

By the 2000’s the landscape was cluttered with big eco-corporations — meaning the large NGO’s like the big three: Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International.  They had become heartless machines employing marketing and communications professionals straight out of the corporate world bringing competitive practices against each other in the relentless search for donor dollars.

By 2003 when I launched my Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project I had grown so disgusted with the NGOs that I figured there was little hope for conservation in the long run.  In 2007 they demonstrated their ineptitude when they put together their “Design to Win” master plan for combatting global warming (analyzed and critiqued by Matt Nisbet who did such a good job of pointing out their neglect for the importance of effective communication).

They drove the climate bus into the ditch by putting all their chips on Cap and Trade.  Because it had worked so well for acid rain, they figured it would work for climate and be an easy sell requiring almost no communication effort.  Wrong.  By 2010 the last piece of climate legislation had collapsed and the movement was blaming it all on the evil oil corporations when in fact they had bungled their side of it.

THROWBACK BILL

As the environmental movement was squandering upwards of a billion dollars on their sadly misguided efforts, one guy began to emerge at the grassroots level in a more humble, 1960’s style of environment activism — Bill McKibben.  I’ve been somewhat of a fan of him over the years, but on Wednesday night he spoke at Pepperdine University and I became a complete convert.

He’s a unique mixture of soft spoken, friendly camp counselor demeanor, but inside there’s a firmness and conviction that makes it not surprising how successful he’s been.  I first started becoming a fan when he led a group of youngsters in asking why the solar panels that were installed on the White House during the Carter Administration, then removed by Reagan, couldn’t be re-installed.  That’s what I mean by 60’s style activism.  He’s awesome.

“IT’S ABOUT THE CONFLICTS”

So before Bill’s talk I was invited to a small gathering with him where he answered questions for about an hour.  I asked him my standard whiny question about the non-collaborative spirit of the big environmental NGO’s — does it have to be that way.

Instead of launching into a bitchfest (as I would have done), he took a far more positive direction. He said he’s come to the realization that “it’s all about the conflicts.”  He realized that when the groups get together at big meetings to waste countless hours blabbing about what to do, the non-collaboration does emerge and it can get frustrating.  BUT, when you have a clear conflict and action coming together, that’s when the groups actually will join in and collaborate.

In particular, he talked about the Keystone Pipeline protests that he’s led.  I was actually in DC in November, 2011 and was in a taxi as I suddenly realized why we were moving so slow — we were driving through Bill’s big action of circling the White House.  It was amazing and I did a blogpost on it.

BILL KNOWS NARRATIVE AS WELL AS MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. DID

In the discussion some of his answers to questions were a little rambling and lacking in specifics, but when it came time for his big talk he was truly amazing and inspiring.  I really can’t think of any better speaker for the environment today.  He was funny, articulate, incredibly knowledgeable on religion (which was appropriate given the religious orientation of Pepperdine), and as I said, firm in his convictions.

But here’s what’s coolest.  In preparation for his visit I ran my Narrative Index on his 2011 “Power Shift” speech.  He scored an exceptionally high 51 (a typical score is in the teens, great communicators are in the 20’s, exceptional in the 30’s).  That’s amazing.  But not surprising.  Just look at the ABT structure of his opening.  He begins by saying how “easy” the science of climate is. He lays out all the facts that everyone agrees on — we have a bad situation. Then he says this: “But if the scientific method has worked splendidly to outline our dilemma, that’s how badly the political method has worked to solve it. ”

If you were an editor on a TV show you would call that “the turn.”  He presents his overarching ABT narrative — basically “we’ve done the science, but the change isn’t happening because of the politics THEREFORE we are here today to do the politics.”

And guess what — that’s the same basic narrative structure as Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech of 1963.  In his opening paragraph he basically said, “100 years ago Lincoln set in motion a process, BUT we still have problems with making the change happen, THEREFORE we are here today to make it happen.”

NARRATIVE IS LEADERSHIP

That’s the bottom line.  Great leaders know narrative.  They have narrative intuition.  Nobody follows a bore.  Bill McKibben is a great leader and the best hope for the planet.

Chris Palmer, one of the leading lights of wildlife filmmaking, gave a great speech recently in which he offered up his choices for the five best conservation films of all time.  To give contrast to his top choice he cited some of my rotten comments.  Yay!

WITH A VOICE LIKE A FINE MERLOT. Somebody made that comment about Al Gore in a flattering article about “An Inconvenient Truth” a few years ago. My mother read the comment and said, “Merlot puts me to sleep.”

 YOUR STORY NEVER STARTED

In 1990, four years before I left my tenured professorship of marine biology to become a filmmaker, a friend introduced me to Chris Palmer who was head of media production at National Audubon.  He was already a big cheese in the wildlife filmmaking world while I was a non-existent cheese as a filmmaker.

I sent him a copy of my very first screenplay I had written after taking part in an intensive weekend screenwriting workshop at the Boston Film and Video Cooperative taught by Christopher Keane (whom I would track down 20 years later to co-teach a fun storytelling workshop).  I met with Chris Palmer, he pulled out some notes and said, “I had one of our writers read over your screenplay — do you want to hear what he had to say?”

The comments were horrible and devastating.  Plus they were based on only the first ten pages of my script, which was all the guy said he could stand to read.  His major complaint was, “Nothing happens in the first ten pages.”  I thought lots of stuff happened, but I was young and very stoopid.

It was my first experience with the idea that, “A story begins when something happens” which I didn’t know back then.  So while the guy’s comments clobbered me on the head, today I realize he was painfully correct — I was in love with all the “and, and, and” details I had opened with.

Anyhow, I circled back to Chris many years later and became a “Uge, Uge,” fan of his books and essays that strive to set ethical standards for wildlife filmmakers — especially his book, “Confessions of a Wildlife Filmmaker.”  He’s done a ton of great and important work where others fear to tread, and I have a world of respect for him as I tried to convey in this 2013 Benshi post.

TOP 5 CONSERVATION FILMS

Chris is now a professor at American University and contacted me a couple months ago about a speech where he wanted to talk about the five best conservation films of all time.  He asked for my suggestions, for which I pushed hard for my favorite, “DamNation” which I reviewed on the Benshi.

But it turned out the comments from me he liked best were my standard pooping on “An Inconvenient Truth.”  So he ends up using me as his “villain” in his speech — the one person who does anything other than gush and rave about nature films (which, btw, have a longstanding tradition of being bo-ho-horing).

Here’s his whole speech which is great.

“An Evening with Chris Palmer”

THE BEST CONSERVATION FILMS OF ALL TIME

Presentation at the Environmental Film Festival in DC

By Chris Palmer (palmer@american.edu)

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

This event is pretentiously called “An Evening with Chris Palmer.” The Festival first asked me to do this event ten years ago, and I’ve been doing it annually ever since.

Tonight I want to talk about the five best conservation films of all time.

Now everyone please stand up, find someone you’ve never met before, and discuss for two minutes the best conservation or environmentally-themed films you’ve ever seen. Go!

Ask audience members for their ideas!

You may have noticed that I didn’t give you much structure for this question, and so coming up with answers is challenging because the question begs further questions. What do I mean by conservation films? What do I mean by best? How do you define success? By acclaim? Effectiveness? Total viewership? Actions taken? Links shared or liked? Stories told or lives changed? Public policy or laws made? What about fiction films? Or old films from early cinema before we understood many of our current environmental issues?

Now, if you’ve heard me speak before or read my two books on this issue, you might be familiar with some of my thoughts on these questions.  I have said that what really matters is whether a film achieves any impact.

Films which have no impact are not worth making. The only reason to make a film is to change the world.

What do I mean by that? I mean the only reason to make a film is to change the minds of the audience, to inspire them to think differently, and ultimately to move them to take new action.

So what are the most impactful films, then? With the help of one of my top grad students, Sam Sheline, I came up with an idea. I wrote to over a dozen of my most successful filmmaking friends and ask them for their opinions.

These folks included Dereck and Beverly Joubert from Botswana, Mark Deeble and Vicky Stone from Kenya, Bob Poole from Idaho, Adam Ravetch from Vancouver, Howard and Michele Hall from California, and Tim Martin from the BBC in England.

They are among the best wildlife filmmakers in the world and have all been honored with top prizes at Jackson Hole, Wildscreen, and other highly esteemed film festivals. Derek and Beverly Joubert, for example, have not only produced some of the best films ever made on big cats, but have also performed pioneering conservation work for animals like rhinos.

As you can imagine, I received a variety of replies. My filmmaking friends recommended films that were at the top of my list, but also some new ones.  Here is a compilation of clips from their recommendations, along with others that Sam and I came up with during our discussions. Let’s watch that now and see how many you can recognize.

Show 7-10 minute compilation of clips and trailers.

Okay, let’s see who recognized any films. (Call on audience members)

Read out list of films in compilation tape. The clips in the compilation are (in order): The Plow that Broke the Plains, Food Inc., Die Serengeti darf nicht Sterben (Serengeti Will Never Die), Virunga, To Fly, Never Cry Wolf, Eternal Enemies: Lions and Hyenas, Born Free, The Emerald Forest, The Trials of Life, Wall-E, DamNation, Whale Wars, End of the Line, Mission Blue, Green, Miss Gooddall and the Wild Chimpanzees, Whale Rider, Grizzly Man, Racing Extinction.

Those are all great films. But as promised, I want to tell you my top five conservation films of all time.

Let’s show the first clip. SHOW CLIP OR TRAILER (An Inconvenient Truth)

Now, my friend Dr. Randy Olson, who is both a scientist and a filmmaker, dismisses Al Gore’s film, calling it “stupid.”

Randy says, “Laurie David panicked in the fall of 2005, grabbed Al Gore, and with almost no story development filmed him giving his slide show. She ended up with the predictable “and, and, and” presentation with no story that wowed the choir but bored the masses.”

But I include An Inconvenient Truth in my list because it came up in responses from my filmmaking friends more than any other film, and it changed the discussion over climate change. A Nielsen and Oxford University survey found that two-thirds of people who saw the film changed their minds about climate change, and three-fourths said they had changed some of their habits because of the film. And many people saw it: in the US it’s the 10th highest-grossing documentary of all time.

It also broke the mold as far as conventional wisdom about documentaries goes. It’s a film about a scientific process, based on a PowerPoint presentation. It appeals to our heads more than our hearts—long thought to be a mistaken approach for documentary filmmaking. It gives me hope that we can continue to use meaningful science to talk about big issues in films that lots of people will see.

Take questions from the audience.

Let’s show the second clip. SHOW CLIP OR TRAILER (Blackfish)

Blackfish also came up on many of my colleagues’ lists. 

Blackfish brought an important ethical issue about the mistreatment of some of the world’s most intelligent creatures into the international spotlight. Most people were not aware of the issue before the film, and afterwards it created a huge dialog around the subject.  SeaWorld has been severely impacted. The number of visitors has sharply declined. I wrote about this extensively in my recent book Confessions of a Wildlife Filmmaker. Just last week, SeaWorld announced it will stop breeding orcas and phase out theatrical orca shows. I believe captivity should end and that all the remaining captive orcas should be released to seaside sanctuaries or pens.

Take questions from the audience.

Let’s show the third clip. SHOW TRAILER (The Cove)

The Cove came up on many lists, including mine and Sam’s.

The ingenious structure of the film, which ramps up in tension until the final reveal of its grisly footage, leaves a lasting impression. The Cove made over a million dollars during a limited box office run, and won both the audience award at Sundance and the Oscar for best documentary in 2010. Although the Taiji dolphin slaughter has not been completely stopped, it recently reached its lowest levels ever, and the film increased awareness of cetacean conservation around the world.

Take questions from the audience.

Let’s show the fourth clip. SHOW CLIP OR TRAILER (Bambi)

I wanted to include an old classic to highlight the fact that environmental themes have been coming up in films, including mainstream fiction films, for ages. Bambi, the 1942 Disney animated film, was the first film to show animals with family lives destroyed by man.  It allowed audiences to form an emotional connection to wild animals. Many of my own films have followed in Bambi’s footsteps in showing the familial relationships and personalities of wild animals.  This film is still having an impact on how children think about animals.

Take questions from the audience.

Let’s show the fifth and final clip. SHOW CLIP OR TRAILER (Cousteau’s Silent World)

Although there were ethical issues during the filming of this 1956 classic, it began a new era in ocean conservation. It was the first film to show the ocean depths in color, and Jacques Cousteau went on to have one of the most distinguished careers in the history of conservation or filmmaking. Ted Turner even calls him the father of the environmental movement. It was also the only documentary to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes until Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 repeated the feat almost 50 years later.

Take questions from the audience.

There are many films which were close contenders to get on my list of the five best conservation films of all time. For example, Whale Wars, Grizzly Man, Racing Extinction, Avatar, Born Free, Local Hero, Whale Rider, DamNation, The Day After Tomorrow, The Plow That Broke the Plains, Miss Goodall Among the Wild Chimpanzees, Wall-E, Planet Earth, The Trials of Life, Emerald Forest, Green, Eternal Enemies, Never Cry Wolf, To Fly, End of the Line, Gasland, Food Inc, Cowspiracy, Last Call at the Oasis, Serengeti Shall Not Die, Mission Blue, Year of the Wildebeest, Disney’s Living Desert, Chasing Ice, and Virunga.

I could list many more of course, and I apologize if I did not mention your favorite.

Sam and I both got a lot out of this thought exercise, trying to decide what makes a truly effective and impactful conservation film.

I hope you enjoyed it too. Remember that the only reason to make a film is to change the world.

Thank you very much.