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"What I am about to show you next may shock and educate you." 
"We learn by doing." "Modern museum perfection. Very, very good."
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Museums Although much of my public educational writing work has happened under multimedia planetarium domes, I've also been asked to research and craft content for museum exhibits. No matter what the medium is, my dedicated goal is to inspire as well as educate, to instill in the audience the desire to continue exploring on their own the topics illuminated. To evoke as well as inform. In my work for museums, my overarching philosophy is that the material should connect with you on an emotional as well as intellectual level. After all, knowledge is no more just a collection of facts than a house is just a pile of bricks and lumber, and you always remember the connections that move you to go "Aha!" or "Wow!" or laugh at an unexpectedly humorous yet lucid point. Just like when I'm when writing fiction, it's up to me to discover a compelling way for the material to tell its story. Good Impressions
Here's a favorite that came to me again via Discovery for the Seattle Art Museum, who apparently liked my earlier work enough to ask for me again. (Awesome, I liked them too.) This time the exhibition was Inspiring Impressionism: The Impressionists and the Art of the Past. Spending quality time with some of my favorite painters and their work? From a favorite artistic period? Plus with the much older masters, such as Titian, who inspired them? Yeah, that works for me. From Khe Sahn to Saigon
Again for Discovery, I crafted the script for the U.S. Marines Command Museum in San Diego, specifically their hall devoted to the Marines during the Vietnam War. Out Roman Around
Getting Presidential
This big project for Discovery Communications stretched my mental and creative muscles in new directions. I was the scriptwriter for media used throughout the new high-tech makeover of the George H.W. Bush (that's the father, mind you) Presidential Library and Museum. Now I can say that I've written a script for a former U.S. president — his part of the production took place in a studio in Kennebunkport — and got to touch a section of the Berlin Wall.
The Boston Museum of Science
The exhibition's travel itinerary included the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, which is the science center that brought me to the Pacific Northwest in the first place. While at OMSI I was the head writer for Star Trek: Federation Science — which toured to the Boston Museum of Science. "The circle is now complete." Chicago's Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum
Now at Chicago's Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, a cool multimedia item I scripted. It's the hour-long "journey through time and space to explore the museum's world-class exhibits and famous collection." My interview subjects for this one included Capt. Jim Lovell, a.k.a. the guy Tom Hanks played in Apollo 13.
It was an exceptionally enjoyable production experience, with my thanks to the Chicago staff and the superb team at Discovery Communications' Antenna Audio. As
luck would have it, my biggest job in this realm was as Lead
Writer for one of the largest
and most popular, not to mention one of the most fun, educational
exhibitions to tour across two continents. This
tremendous blockbuster science exhibition was produced by the Oregon
Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in collaboration with Paramount
Pictures. As visitors interact with 40 modular stations, they explore
the real-life science behind Star Trek fiction. As the Lead
Writer, I researched and wrote text for activities employing modern
museum technology and touch-screen computer displays to present issues
of biology, physics, communications, living in space, space flight
history, and more in an illuminating and entertaining way. And I'm pleased to say that it was all a screaming success. These
challenging computerized mission puzzles lead you through important
pieces of science fact and activities step by step. If needed, pressing
an info button brings up a Next Generation crewmate such as
Data, Worf, La Forge, or Riker, who guides you through the knowledge
you need to complete the tasks. By successfully completing a mission,
you get to choose from a number of visuals to display on the giant
viewscreen, from firing the Enterprise's phasers to selecting a starship maneuver to viewing alien vessels flying by.
Some
activities are just for fun, such as the "Transporter Room" that uses
state-of-the-art video technology to "beam" participants into virtual
computer-generated interactive environments; or "Aliens and Me," where
clever optical trickery helps you visualize yourself as a Klingon or
Ferengi (all part of Starfleet diplomatic training, of course). Plus, throughout the exhibition are videos featuring Star Trek: The Next Generation cast members, props and costumes used in the series and movies, and quotations and images from Star Trek old and new. And yeah — it's pleasant to see my writing formatted and displayed like read-out panels on the Enterprise.
I have a special warm spot in my heart for Star Trek: Federation Science.
It was one of those splendid professional projects that come along all
too rarely. And without this project there would have been no Star Trek: Orion Rendezvous planetarium show, and without that I likely would never have met a certain computer graphics expert who is now my wife. As detailed elsewhere on this site, my other responsibilities as Writer included scripting Star Trek cast videos and writing/directing the Star Trek: Orion Rendezvous planetarium show. The
OMNIMAX Theater's giant curved screen spans more than 100° and is
as tall as a five-story building. In cooperation with EdgeLight
Productions, my job was to help create a show that entertainingly
introduced audiences to the theater's technology and environment. So
the script, titled "The Big Red Button," involved two school kids who
sneak into the OMNIMAX control booth and press (you guessed it) the Big Red Button, bringing the theater to life — complete with robust narrator and explosive visuals. Elizabeth
served magnificently as the visual designer (her giant T-Rex was an
animated marvel), and between us we created an imaginative, eye-popping
audio-visual introduction to the OMNIMAX experience. So even though it's not the biggest show I've ever done, it is unquestionably the biggest show I've ever done. I composed descriptive text for OMSI's Voyager Gallery, an exhibition of interplanetary photographs beamed back from NASA's two Voyager spacecraft. This
one was right up my alley. The Voyager photos of the outer planets are
among the most breathtaking ever seen, and supplying the text for this
project allowed me to study large reproductions of them up close and
personal. Voyagers 1 and 2 made it clear that art and science can be
kissing cousins, and that the greatest art gallery of them all is
located above our heads. This game actually started its life as one of the videos commissioned for the exhibit (see the Video page for more about that). However, due to budget constraints, it was
decided that the script on alternative energy sources would be adapted
toward a computer game that conveyed the same information in an
interactive, fully engaging manner. So adapt I did, working with the
game designer and programmer to expand the video's narration to two
wryly humorous "talking head" talents who guide (or goad) the player
toward greater understanding of alternative energy issues. Voila! A few months later my first CD-ROM-based game became a permanent part of the exhibit. I hope to do more. |
Via 
From the 
This time my interviews included Dr. John Donoghue from Brown University on mind-machine interfacing (chosen for Discover magazine's Top 100 Science Stories of the Year for his revolutionary mind-machine interface system, the topic I interviewed him about), and an hour and a half with actor Anthony Daniels on his experiences filming the series and his approach to making C-3PO "human." 
Here was a dream job for a writer who is also a science buff and long-time Star Trek fan. This was a big responsibility, creating informative and entertaining text for three dozen interactive stations that use Star Trek design and concepts to explore and illuminate diverse areas of science and technology.
Arguably
the most popular section is the Bridge, complete with interactive
"mission" program consoles and a 120-inch viewscreen. Facing the screen
are four consoles that run real-world science "solve the problem"
programs: using the ship's tractor beam, apply trajectories and forces
to move an asteroid that's on a collision course with a planet; employ
spectography to analyze a planetary atmosphere; solve a navigation
problem using triangulation; or pilot the ship into a proper docking
orbit with a space station. 
Other highlights include thematic representations of science stations throughout the starship Enterprise.
The Engineering section examines questions of propulsion, gravity,
magnetism, radiation, antimatter, cosmic rays, the electromagnetic
spectrum, and gyroscopes. Sickbay looks at the human immune system and
the way antibodies react to fight off "invaders," and how the modern
equivalents of Trek's tricorders measure pulse rate, heartbeat and
blood oxygen levels. An Away Team area called Living in Space explores
the realities of space travel as we know it, from food to life support
to going to the bathroom.
Last I heard, a version of Star Trek: Federation Science wowed 'em at science centers across Europe. (So how, I ask with a
Spockish eyebrow-lift, can I spin this — with my fiction reprints
in France and other overseas markets — into a profitable European
fan base?) Another edition was a scaled-down version of the original
for small-to-mid-sized museums in the U.S.
A
great deal of my work for this exhibition became the text for a 61-page
color exhibition guide published by Science Network. The SciFi
Channel's web site liked the exhibition book so much they
devoted a "Cool SciFi Stuff" page to it.
Creative director and scriptwriter for the OMNIMAX Theater inaugural multimedia show at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.
I
scripted text and character roles for a touch-screen computer game that
is part of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry's More Power to You! exhibit.