It's geometrically getting better as the costume designer says, "What about this?" And the director says, "What about that?" And the actor says, "Well, what about this?" And the producer says, "What about this?" And all of it gels.

For me, that's the best possible thing, when you sort of say, "I could never have done this on my own and none of us could have. It took everybody." 

So that's the part that, as a producer, you can control a little bit of, and that I find the most fulfilling -- just watching something get better. 

And then there's a moment where you actually sit in the dark room and it works, and it's so much better than you ever could have hoped for. It's a very rare pleasure to experience that. ... 

Or you'll be sitting in the theater and hear an audience member that you don't know saying, "I want to go to the bathroom so bad, but I can't leave." That's when you know you did your job right and you feel really, really great.

Lucy Fisher has held senior executive positions at studios including Columbia TriStar, and is a partner with her husband Douglas Wick in their company, Red Wagon Productions. Her credits as producer include Stuart Little 2 , Peter Pan and the upcoming Memoirs of a Geisha.

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The Hollywood Reporter : To what do you attribute 
your long-lasting partnership with Penn?

Teller : We stay out of each other's face when we're not working -- which, to be honest, isn't all that often. 

His personal life is his; mine is mine. We've also learned how to fight in a way that's not painful. The only things we argue about are creative.

We agree on all of the life stuff: Neither of us drinks, neither of us does drugs, we don't smoke, we don't gamble, (and) neither is a spendrift.

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After all, the sign on the door of her father's company, where she works as vice president of development and production, reads "Mandy Films."

"People can't fault me for being Leonard's daughter. There's nothing I can do to change that. But they could fault me for not doing my job," Goldberg says. ... "All I can do is do my best, be myself and not worry about whether people have a problem with me."

During his partnership with Aaron Spelling, Spelling-Goldberg Productions was responsible for a string of hit television series, including "Hart to Hart," "Starsky & Hutch," "Fantasy Island" and, of course, "Charlie's Angels."

"When Amanda said she wanted to try working with me, that was great news because I'd get to see her every day," he says. 

"But I didn't think it would be an advantage for her to be my daughter. I still don't. With a lot of people, there's an underlying resentment, and she has to go that extra mile to overcome it.... 

"And she has to be sensitive to their feelings and give them more wiggle room when they're horrible to her, because she knows where it's coming from."

I am hopeful that we can change the world if we can start listening to one another again. Simple, honest, human conversation. Not mediation, negotiation, problem-solving, debate, or public meetings. 

Simple, truthful conversation where we each have a chance to speak, we each feel heard, and we each listen well. Conversation is the natural way we humans think together. We may have forgotten this, or no longer have time for conversation, but it is how good thinking emerges into actions that create real change.

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The Turbo Twins

Combining hacked robot kits, scavenged pieces of plastic, circuit boards and wiring, twin sisters Leesa and Nicole Abahuni fuse new technology in an attempt to fulfill the ancient maxim, "know thyself." 

Mingling the spiritual with the spatial, merging natural cycles and modern circuits, the sisters, also known as the Turbo Twins, work together to create their mechanical counterparts -- a family of five robots that collaborate and create art with humans. 

The Turbo Twins' robots have performed around the world. Their next appearance is slated for Aug. 14 at the HalfMachine art festival in Denmark where Linus, the twins' favorite robot, will work with humans on a graffiti project.

"Collaboration is at the root of our thinking and our work," said Leesa. "We believe that the active forging of tactile, aural and visual perception between humans and in collaboration with technology asks questions that can yield ways of better understanding, seeing and hearing natural order." 

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The 26-year-old twins graduated from New York's School of Visual Arts in 2000 with Bachelor in Fine Arts degrees, majors in computer arts and a new moniker. 

"The technicians in the sculpture department called us the Turbo Twins because we were always in the studio running around with power drills and soldering irons experimenting and creating bizarre concoctions of electricity, plastic, metal and found objects," Leesa explained. "The name just stayed with us." 

When asked about the inevitable strain of working with a family member who also happens to be your business partner, they both stress the benefits of their sibling ties.

"We grew up together and watched the same films and TV programs, so our tastes are incredibly similar," explains Jennifer. "I think we'd both like to think it would mean one person does all the hard stuff and the other does all the fun stuff, but what happens is that we work really closely together." 

Adds Suzanne: "Working with a sibling means you are more honest and brutal, both nicer and meaner than you would be if you were partners only on a business level. It allows us to get more done because there is no pretence between us."  ... [Variety, Nov. 14, 2001]

Referring to a variety of research studies, Robert J. Maurer, PhD, a family therapist, writing consultant, and instructor at UCLA, has commented in his classes that those people who are able to reach high levels of personal and professional success have a healthy acknowledgment of fear, and also honor the need to be comforted and supported when extending outside comfort boundaries.

A number of approaches to self-actualization include the idea of taking responsible risk, to "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway", to use the title of Susan Jeffers' book. 

But there is also a need for emotional support and encouragement while doing that.

One growing medium of this kind of support is the Internet, including a wide range of discussion groups, email newsletters etc.

Linda Seger, a script consultant with international clients including film and television studios, writers, producers and other filmmakers has written a number of books on screenwriting and filmmaking, and talks about the value of "web thinking" in her new book with that title.

She writes of the emotional and career values of collaboration instead of hierarchy, and networking as a support for one's actualization, not simply a way to make business contacts.

Seger recalls "When I first started my business, one of the reasons I was afraid to be successful was I thought people would be jealous of me, and would somehow resent that and therefore wouldn't like me.

"But I thought about it, and figured I'd just handle it when it happened - I had a good therapist and a good career consultant. What I did was make sure that there were a number of people I could go to, to help me handle success well."

She thinks, "Collaborative thinking, web thinking, is the model for the future. It's the idea that no one is better than someone else, nobody's life should be considered better than someone else's because they have more money or status or title or education or whatever."

In her book How to Make It in Hollywood, Linda Buzzell writes, "Successful people know how to create support for their efforts. Unsuccessful people keep themselves isolated. Failing to build a support system for your career is a serious form of self-sabotage, especially in the entertainment industry."

Recognizing and honoring our organic needs for interconnection can help us stay energized and creatively engaged.

I call people successful not because they have money or their business is doing well but because, as human beings, they have a fully developed sense of being alive and engaged in a lifetime task of collaboration with other human beings -- their mothers and fathers, their family, their friends, their loved ones, the friends who are dying, the friends who are being born. 

Success.. is all about being able to extend love to people... not in a big, capital letter sense but in the everyday. Little by little, task by task, gesture by gesture, word by word. 

She credits her career and personal happiness to a way of thinking that is more about connecting than competing. She calls it Web Thinking. 

Dr. Seger came to realize early on that "even the Lone Ranger didn't make it alone." Success, she decided, would have real meaning only if it wasn't based on competition and on besting someone else. 

It would bring fulfillment only if it allowed her to work with-not against-her friends and colleagues. 

Her new book Web Thinking... grew out of that conviction. Based on years of research, contemplation, and interviews with archaeologists, anthropologists, biologists, physicists, theologians, musicians, and mathematicians, 

Web Thinking looks at all aspects of our world-and how they all are moving to a new sense of inter-connectedness. "Meteorologists discovered that human activities can affect floods, droughts, heat, and cold," Dr. Seger writes.

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Web Thinking represents a quantum leap away from the linear, competitive ideals of the past. "The view that our lives are independent and disconnected from each other is inaccurate," Dr. Seger writes. 

"We are beings in dynamic mutual relationships with each other and with the earth."   [from press release on her book site web-thinking.com]

Integrating the psychology of love and creativity, this pioneering book explores both how a couple's involvement as lovers influences their creative collaboration and how working together affects their relationship. Representing a variety of genres-painting, sculpture, photography, and installation art-the celebrated couples profiled here include, among others, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, and Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel.

Intrigued by this process of "intimate creativity," psychologists Irving and Suzanne Sarnoff (themselves partners in love and work) decided to conduct in-depth interviews with partners in visual art because they defy the supremely individualistic tradition of their field. Whatever their age or sexual orientation, these artist-couples combine their talents to form a collective identity as a professional team. ... [Amazon.com summary]

To me this little book should occupy the most prominent position on a creative person's bookshelf, and should be under the classification: "A new way to work that's ultimately satisfying." 

I wish, instead of reviewing this book, I could just place a copy of it into your hands and say: "Read this. You'll be glad you did." 

Why? Because it says to me, "In order to be my best creative self, I cannot do it all by myself. I need, as does everyone, whether or not they are creative, other people to help them succeed." 

Web Thinking shows you that people around you make up a web capable of embracing and supporting you. It points out that you need not feel you are alone in your work, and how it is not only okay, but important, to reach out to others. As a creative person, I'm all too familiar with the feelings of isolation that accompany what I do.

From review [in Script Magazine Scriptmag.com] by Sable Jak -
a former actress and dancer..  president of The Screenplayers screenplayers.net

Also see interview [by Douglas Eby]: Linda Seger