In hindsight, it’s easier to find the meaning of suffering because you are removed from the cloudiness that suffering itself can cause.

Harrison Ford's role, playing the legendary John Thornton from Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, may be his most personal project to date.

Collection of illustrations by designer Antissima, created for Pipeline Artists.

Collection of illustrations by designer Graham Sisk, created for Pipeline Artists.

Collection of illustrations by designer, screenwriter, and all-around multi-hyphenate creative Nathan Patton, created for Pipeline Artists.

Collection of illustrations by designer and illustrator Emily Barnes, created for Pipeline Artists.

I was busy imagining other worlds where gravity was different and people grew differently. I was inventing stories in these other realms. It wasn’t science I loved—it was science-fiction.

My whole process of writing the story was just imagining, what kind of person would actually do this? And what kind of person would pay for this?

If I were going into a meeting with a potential agent ... I’d try to be familiar with every title the company has recently produced, and learn as much as I can from social media about anyone who I know will be in the meeting.

It was really therapeutic to have something I could throw myself completely into and take my mind off of whatever was giving me stress during day-to-day life.

Honestly, I listened to a lot of Tupac. How he is able to make each song an ode to a person or an ideal or a memory was the magic I needed. I paid attention to his meter, to how he is able to captivate an audience.

I ended up inserting a lot of the challenges I faced growing up as a Chinese American into the character: expectations from my parents, from society, and even from my Asian American peers on “what” or “how” I should be.

... the more meetings I took and the more people I spoke with, I realized that it’s not about settling for some light, some immediate relief. I needed to look at the long-term.

I try not to write scenes and dialogue too early—it’s my favorite part so I treat it almost as a reward—and find that when I take more time to research and solidify plot and structure things go more smoothly.

Whether it was drugs or gang violence, we can now articulate how the system created roads that are limiting in opportunities and long in redemption for people of color, and we are better equipped and empowered to change our landscape.