One of the most effective mechanisms for communicating is telling a story. We’re hard-wired for stories from ancient times. Probably back in caveman times they were telling stories about the hunt, and in Greek times they passed along the historical record through extremely complex stories.

A very early work that we did in 2000—before videos could even be streamed—was a story where the hero was our client’s software.

Here in Silicon Valley, everybody wants to get into features and technology. We convinced the customer to take a step back and think about how their software could impact a person’s life.

This is the result.

One thing that’s interesting in today’s movie script-writing, is that it is structured around a three-act play, again, like the Greeks.

Here’s a good example of a short 10-minute story in a three-act structure that BMW sponsors. These are great. They’re done by top directors, and star Clive Owen as a driver. This first one was done by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the director of the recent film Biutiful, as well as Babel, 21 Grams and Amores Perros. Check ‘em out.

Guys, you’ll like this one. A lot of racing around and shooting guns. Ladies, you’ll like Clive Owen.