A Meeting on an Airplane

So I'm sitting near the back of the airplane flying from LA to New York, and I pull out my favorite screenwriting magazine, "Creative Screenwriting". And next to me is this older gentleman. He looks at the magazine and starts chatting. "You're a writer?" I say yeah, filmmaker... and we start talking. And for the next five hours, I discover that I'm sitting next to the wonderful filmmaker, Robert M. Young. At 82, the man is tenured. Among his credits are TV shows like "Battlestar Gallactica" and "Young Indiana Jones", documentaries like "Nothing But a Man", and feature films like "Triumph of the Spirit" and "Dominic and Eugene". We talked for almost the entire five hours. I was blown away by this man's experience. He's traveled the world making movies. Lived with the Eskimos for six months, lived in the sea for six years, traveled from China to the African wilderness making documentaries about the world. And here was little me, blown away by how humble and gracious this man was. He's even given seminars at AFI back in the day, and also worked with my hero, Michael Kamen on one of his films.

What continues to inspire me the most is how humble so many of the filmmakers I've met over these last couple of years are. The more accomplished they are, the more down to earth they seem to be. And I love that. That's all.