Johnny Nguyen.
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Script · SPARQ · 2025

Alta

Chasing a dream twelve hours away, with no one in the passenger seat but SPARQ.

The brief
SPARQ AI is there for you in moments of need, with your car and beyond. AI has been villainized as soulless, the Terminator. These :75 films flip it: a tool that amplifies people's humanity and empathy, helping drivers claim their safety, their trust, and ultimately their freedom.
My role
Writer, concept, treatment
Film · As shotPlay ▸

01 · The treatment

Reinvention. Alta has danced her whole life and is about to bet it on an audition 12 hours away. Her dad isn't sure. SPARQ checks the car and, without meaning to, answers the bigger question: you're on the right path.

02 · Copy direction

  • Three people, three visceral life stages: reclamation, reinvention, returning to roots.
  • Tell it through phones and artifacts: texts, a box of his things, old trophies. Barely any spoken lines.
  • SPARQ never sells. It runs a diagnostic and says one human sentence.
  • Warm light, less shadow. AI as a friend in the passenger seat, not a robot.

03 · The rewrites

  1. Early beatCut

    Alta drives off toward the audition.

    Too easy. The win is being understood, not leaving.

  2. Draft 2Cut

    Mom's texts land: "Stay for dinner."

    Adds the pull of home so the choice costs something.

  3. Final beatFinal pick

    "Dad says he believes in your new dream." She sets the car in park.

    The family catches up to her. SPARQ just said it first.

04 · The final product

Diagnostic complete. You're on the right path!

05 · The metric

  • Skeptics who were worried about AI taking over their car asking for product demos with genuine curiosity.

  • Audience consistently reference the spot to ask if that was within the “real” capabilities of our AI since it sounded so human.

02 · The script — sample

EXT. HOUSE — IRVINE — DAY

Car parked outside. A hand swipes through old videos and photos.

TEXT FROM "DAD"

"You've spent your whole life dancing, I just don't want to see you throw that away!"

CLOSE ON ALTA

She's watching a younger version of herself. Unsupported, on the cusp of tears. Mouth in her sweater sleeve. (Not being seen feels like a lifetime for every second.)

ARTIFACT

"Emmy Award Winning Mini-Series Opening Up Core Character Audition."

NAV

She types in the destination. 12 hours away. Celsius and coffee up front; old dresses, trophies, contestant numbers on the passenger floor.

SPARQ

She sighs, then runs the diagnostic.

TEXTS FROM "MOM"

"Honey, it's just a big change." "Stay for dinner." "We'll start fresh in the morning." … "Dad says he believes in your new dream."

SPARQ

"Diagnostic complete. You're on the right path!"

END

She sets the car in park. Relieved. Understood.

Screened inside the SPARQ home-show keynote, "Reverse."

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