E21: Jason Carman on Building Story and Inspiring The Next Generation of Technologists through SciFi

Intro

New SciFi writing and film started declining at the end of the 20th century and we have seen a continued decline in the first quarter of the 21st century. Sci-fi is and always has been the source of inspiration for a better future. It is where the greatest builders of our time got inspired to work on the hardest problems of their era. Whether it was Star Trek, Star Wars or the Foundation Series, if you talk to entrepreneurs building frontier technologies or products; people like Elon Musk, Brett Adcock, Peter Beck, Blake Scholl, Sam Altman, you will likely hear about one of these series as a childhood inspiration.

Friend of the show, Packy McCormick (Episode 14) did a post called the SciFi Idea Bank which lists about 3,000 ideas that haven’t been brought to life. I think one of the biggest reasons nobody is talking about those ideas or listing them as inspiration is because they haven’t become part of the culture. Series like Harry Potter or Star Wars became cultural movements for generations, something people from different age groups could connect on. It has been 49 years since the first Star Wars movie came out. Half a century later, over Christmas break or summer holidays, I know of families who still binge watch the entire series together as an activity. It has been 25 years since the first Harry Potter movie came out, it has had a similar impact on culture.

We are living in the age of shorts and reels. Majority of the new creators have flocked to engagement baiting reels that are usually under five minutes. The purpose is getting eyeballs for advertisers. I am probably guilty of this, that is one of the ways we promote our podcast. Taking out the time to write the script for a film, recruiting a cast, iterating through the creative process, discarding hundreds of ideas, finding a way to finance it with your own money or from your profits would be kind of the antithesis of what you would do as a revenue strategy. Well, not if you have the right masterplan.

Jason has been doing film and media for 15 years. This is his life’s work. He is one of the most long-term oriented, focused and mission driven entrepreneurs I have met. Before this he was Head of Content Strategy at Astranis where he got to see the science make story real. He has a deep understanding and realization of the depth of the crisis we are in when it comes to SciFi film and television and the role it plays in inspiring the future generation.

You can see the decline of new SciFi ideas in the chart below:

Someone had to raise their hand and say I am going to change this. That is how we got every great invention in the history of science, tech and culture.

Jason is leading the SciFi renaissance and is on a mission to make SciFi great again. Hope you enjoy the episode as much as I did recording it. Their 2nd SciFi film, The Greatest Lie is going to be in theatre April 2nd. You can get your tickets here.

Watch on YouTube:

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction02:15 - The making of "Planet" and relearning fiction 06:53 - Why good stories start with novel prose 11:31 - How Astranis gave Jason permission to build a sci-fi studio 15:18 - Why sci-fi writing dropped in the 1970s and why we need it back 21:15 - Sci-fi as the 21st century's latest addition to human philosophy 25:19 - Creation of safeguards for a spacefaring civilization 29:58 - Space Warfare and realistic combat rabbit hole 34:04 - Why bureaucracies fail and the magic of Bell Labs 41:05 - Lessons in leadership46:58 - The biggest risk of hiring all your friends 52:02 - Bootstrapping the company and using the profits to fund movies59:39 - Inspiring the next generation through sci-fi books 1:05:11 - YouTube Strategy1:11:36 - Lessons on marketing1:15:34 - The launch video bubble1:22:15 - Closing thoughts

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