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Bronson Watermarker Pro, our app for generating personalized watermarked documents, is out today. This all-new version adds support for images (nearly any format) in addition to PDFs, along with many quality-of-life enhancements for professional users.

Like most of the apps we make, Bronson exists because of a very specific pain point I encountered.

While developing the Big Fish Broadway musical, I needed to create 40 PDFs of the script for a rehearsal, each watermarked with the person’s name. There were lots of apps that could do it one PDF at a time, but none that could handle dozens at once.

Faced with the prospect of spending hours generating these PDFs, I asked Nima Yousefi to put something together. Here’s what I wrote:

I need an app that can take a list of names and generate individual PDFs with each of those names, then save each PDF with that file name.

The result was Bronson Watermarker PDF. Over the last decade, it’s become the go-to app for watermarking PDFs in Hollywood. If you’re a script coordinator or assistant, you’ve probably used it. If you’re a writer who’s received a watermarked script, that likely came from Bronson.

Of course, PDFs aren’t the only thing people need to watermark. Many users — especially artists and photographers — asked for the ability to watermark images. We’ve added these to Bronson Watermaker Pro.

Image projects can hold dozens of images. You can tweak the settings per-image to make sure the watermark is visible but not ruinous.

The new app also has two major improvements to the workflow.

Bronson is now a “shoebox app.” All of your projects are now available in the sidebar on the left, which syncs via iCloud with your other Macs. If you’re regularly sending things to the same people (eg. script revisions), just duplicate the project and swap out the PDF.

A second major improvement is the ability to selectively output documents. Say you’ve watermarked forty copies of that pitch deck, but now you need to do one more. You can simply add that additional name and regenerate just that one copy.

Bronson Watermarker Pro retains the ability to create password-protected PDFs, with a new view showing the results.

If you’re already using Bronson, Bronson Watermarker Pro is a no-brainer. It’s everything you’ve loved, updated for the next ten years. If you’re new to Bronson, the free download gives you a trial version with all the features.

Bronson Watermarker Pro is available exclusively in the Mac App Store.

The post Bronson Watermarker goes Pro first appeared on John August.

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Every week, we see new stories of how capable the frontier AI models are becoming. They’re not just generating text and images. They’re making breakthroughs on mathematical conjectures and acing exams. Models like Mythos and Fable can work autonomously for hours to diagnose (and potentially exploit) cybersecurity flaws.

But as of July 2026, they’re surprisingly terrible at solving jigsaw puzzles. No, seriously: they’re shockingly bad. They’re like Olympic athletes who can’t tie their own shoes.

I inadvertently spent a few hours over multiple days exploring just how inept these models are when it comes to jigsaw puzzles. I’m writing up my findings here with two goals.

First, to further illustrate the jagged frontier in AI capability. These models can crush a range of benchmarks, yet they’re hamstrung when it comes to simple tasks any kid could do.

Second, I’m genuinely curious why jigsaw puzzles are — at this moment — so difficult for these models.

In the spirit of Cunningham’s Law, I’m posting about what I tried so people can tell me why I’m wrong. It’s entirely possible that these models can solve jigsaw puzzles much better than I’ve found. I look forward to someone demonstrating their successful techniques.

There is no good reason to do thisI want to stress from the outset that this began as a lark. There was no scientific method, no hypothesis. I just tried a thing.

So: In our house, we’re often working on jigsaw puzzles. Last week, we were midway through a puzzle with a consistent grid and two basic shapes. I snapped two photos of the puzzle in progress, curious whether Codex could solve it.

You’re going to help me solve a jigsaw puzzle. In the folder, you’ll find two images, one of pieces sorted that are long and one that are pieces sorted that are tall. They are all properly oriented. I know that because there are letters on the back that make it clear that that’s how they are positioned properly. Before you try to solve it, let’s take some time to think through strategies for doing so. Do some research on the best puzzle-solving algorithms, presumably using Python. I’ll paste one YouTube video, but there may be other resources you find that are more useful. Write up a plan for how you’re going to do it.

These pieces will all fit together, but there may be some missing pieces. Those are off to the side and they have slightly different shapes. Still, all the pieces that you see depicted in these two images should have matches among them.

As a first step, I’ll only be asking you to find five pieces that match together.

I’ve arranged the pieces in a grid. I’m envisioning that on each image, they will be labeled A through H for columns and then numbered for rows.

Tell me anything that isn’t clear.

Again, your direction now is just to write a plan for what you’re going to do, not actually do it.

I included one link, but my expectation was that Codex would find many more papers, blog posts and videos demonstrating how to solve jigsaw puzzles. I remembered watching a popular Mark Rober video in which he built a robot to assemble a white jigsaw puzzle. It felt like a solved thing. Difficult, but doable.

Codex (5.5 High) wrote a sensible plan. It proposed starting with apictorial solvers using piece outlines alone, followed by compatibility scoring, then segment-first assembly. It gave links to its research. I told it to go ahead.

After a few minutes, it came back with five potential matches, none of them remotely close. Some were literally impossible. When I asked why it was struggling, it reported that it couldn’t clearly distinguish the puzzle pieces from the background and shadows, which led to ragged masks and bad matching.

Fair enough. It wasn’t a great photo. Human vision is pretty incredible, and it’s easy to forget that our eyes, brains and fingers are magic. So I gave it the same pieces on a clean background, nicely labeled.

We’re still in “this is a lark” territory, but barely. I spent some real time here. I had to find the paper, draw the lines, label everything and photograph it. But I figured it would all be worth it once I had a system that could reliably solve jigsaw puzzles.

Codex happily took the new images, traced much better outlines, then completely botched fitting pieces together.

I stopped at this point to think: If I were a super powerful computer, how might I solve this problem?

Computer-me would likely create a catalog of the pieces and what I know about them. For example, how many knobs and sockets it has and on which faces. Surprisingly, Codex hadn’t done this, so I asked it to build a catalog and show it to me. Like examining at the log of a computer program, the catalog revealed serious flaws.

I think we still don’t get a certain piece of crucial logic here. Do you understand what a knob and a socket is?

Pushed, Codex was able to define and ultimately label tabs and sockets.

If I were an extremely powerful computer, how would I figure out which pieces join together?

Two puzzle pieces meet at their faces, and those faces need to be — at least for this specific puzzle — identical lengths with reciprocal curvy bits.

In order to identify the four faces, the first step was to pinpoint corners of each piece. From there, one could split pieces into faces, and measure their lengths. Codex (5.5 High) managed the corner and length task, but consistently came back with unworkable suggestions for actual pairs.

I asked Codex to write a handoff document, then brought the project over to Claude (Fable High). Claude had a plan.

The key move is to stop describing a face with summary numbers and instead store the curve itself in a canonical chord frame: translate so the face’s first structural corner sits at (0,0), rotate so the second sits at (L, 0), then resample the contour at ~100 equal arc-length steps. Use one traversal direction and one sign convention (deviation away from the piece body = positive) for every face of every piece.

The payoff is that “these snap together” becomes algebra. Mating faces trace the same physical cut line from opposite sides, so in canonical frames the East curve of a true match is the West curve reversed and negated. Your match score is just the mean point-to-point distance between curve B and transformed curve A — a number in pixels meaning “how far apart the curves sit when snapped,” with a tiny rigid refinement (±3°, ±4px) to absorb corner jitter. Expect a few px for true mates; validate on your five confirmed pairs first.

This planning talk is where the frontier models shine. I certainly didn’t know the term “canonical chord frame,” yet Claude understood both what I wanted (“the curvy bits”) and how knowing that would help solve the puzzle. I was ready to break out the champagne. But that optimism proved premature.

Claude’s matching was noticeably better, but still generated a ton of impossible suggestions.

After a few rounds back and forth, I declared victory in failure. I hadn’t solved the jigsaw puzzle, but I had assembled the edges of a larger inquiry: Why are these models, which are specifically trained around pattern matching, so terrible at jigsaw puzzles?

For the love of SnoopyCodex and Claude couldn’t one-shot this specific jigsaw puzzle. But the methods and mathematics for solving jigsaw puzzles was well documented. This 2019 GitHub project made it seem easy. So I decided to duplicate its methods.

That meant starting with a much simpler puzzle. I bought a 100-piece Snoopy puzzle, and numbered the back of each piece. I photographed them on a blue mat with soft overhead lighting that minimized shadows. Because each piece was labeled, there was no ambiguity, no human error.

Claude Fable loved the photographs and easily isolated the pieces. Masks were perfect. Still, it completely botched assembly. Once I had it make a catalog, it became clear why.

The pieces in the Snoopy puzzle were bigger, but they were also weirder. Claude (Opus 4.8) had a very hard time figuring out the corners of many pieces, which in some cases fell on a curve.

In this puzzle, the knobs and sockets are all identically sized. Claude’s image system couldn’t recognize this consistency. I ended up hand-correcting its mistakes.

At its request, I flipped the edge pieces over and labeled them on the picture side so that it could have color information to work with. That led to a lot of confusion and mistakes where it had mentally flipped pieces the wrong way.

Despite a lot of hand-holding, Claude never completed a solution for the edge, much less the entire puzzle. I gave up.

Getting even more basicIn both of these cases, I was providing photographs that had to be processed and masked in order for the models to do their work. I wondered what would happen if I kept it entirely digital.

I downloaded some simple print-and-play jigsaw puzzle PDFs. In a separate thread, I had Claude separate them into individual pieces, resulting in a folder of PNGs with random names.

The early results were promising. For a 36-piece puzzle with the pieces already aligned in the proper orientation, Codex 5.5 was able to one-shot the first puzzle. It also completed the second puzzle — but when I asked it to explain its process, it confessed that it had found a solution for it in the folder with the images.

For a third test, I created a puzzle with a colorful bullseye and straightforward pieces. Codex really struggled.

Any human would intuit fundamental things about this puzzle. The green dot should obviously be the center, yet Codex couldn’t understand that. It didn’t have a vision for what the finished image would look like, so I asked it to create one.

Please speculate about what you think the overall shape is of the final complete puzzle image. I’ll tell you that the green circle is at the center of the image and that it’s circles radiating outwards. What color circle is next to the green? What color circle is beyond the green? Beyond that next band. What is the final outside color?

My best prediction, from the center outward, is:
Green → yellow → orange → red → purple → blue
So yellow is next to the green; orange follows it; then red; then purple; and blue is the final outside ring.

Create a square image visualization of what you just described.

That’s really accurate! Using the image as a baseline, I asked it to build out ring by ring. It was slow going, and still made dumb mistakes a human never would.

What’s up with this?I’ve declared my jigsaw puzzling experiments over, but I’m still curious to know what’s going on. Why aren’t these powerful models better at solving jigsaw puzzles, even very simple ones?

My intuition is that there’s very little data in their training sets that’s tuned to this specific need. Sure, they can read up on solving jigsaw puzzles, and attempt to use various algorithms, but they have no baseline understanding of how they work. They can generate text because they’ve read all the text on the internet. They can do math because they’ve specifically been taught to do it. But no one has set out to teach these models about jigsaw puzzles.

In contrast to my ad hoc approach, some researchers have looked at this issue methodically. Bless them.

One study in 2025 created “a novel benchmark consisting of 1,100 carefully curated real-world images with high spatial complexity.” They found that even the best models could only achieve 30 percent accuracy when asked to restore the pieces to their proper order, versus more than 90 percent for humans.

This persistent gap underscores the need for continued progress, positioning Jigsaw-Puzzles as a challenging and diagnostic benchmark for advancing spatial reasoning research in VLMs.

But also: these are just jigsaw puzzles. Solving them is not a economically valuable skill like driving or building a spreadsheet.

Unless, perhaps, solving jigsaw puzzles can generalize to something useful? That’s one of the findings of another recent paper:

The application of rule-based reinforcement learning (RL) to multimodal large language models (MLLMs) introduces unique challenges and potential deviations from findings in text-only domains, particularly for perception-heavy tasks. […]

Our research reveals several key findings:

Firstly, we find that MLLMs, initially performing near to random guessing on the simplest jigsaw puzzles, achieve near-perfect accuracy and generalize to complex, unseen configurations through fine-tuning.

Secondly, training on jigsaw puzzles can induce generalization to other visual tasks, with effectiveness tied to specific task configurations. […]

We observe that complex reasoning patterns appear to be pre-existing rather than emergent, with their frequency increasing alongside training and task difficulty.

In the end, AI wasn’t able to solve my jigsaw puzzle challenge. What started as a lark became a lesson: the jagged frontier is real and sometimes unexpected. These models are so good at some things that it’s easy to forget how bad they are at others.

In my neighborhood of Los Angeles, there are a ton of Waymos. How are these autonomous cars able to drive so safely and successfully? The answer is training. Waymos have millions of hours of experience on the road. It’s not ChatGPT driving, but rather a bespoke model fine-tuned to this specific job, backed up by human operators who can take over in edge cases.

After this experience, I’d say my timelines for having useful robots in the house have gotten longer. Filling and emptying a dishwasher is a lot of jigsaw puzzles, and that’s before you add in robot hands.

My hunch is that solving jigsaw puzzles may be useful training grounds for actually valuable abilities down the road. Until then, I’m happily back to solving these puzzles by hand.

The post Frontier models are surprisingly bad at jigsaw puzzles first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig sit down with Ryan Condal, showrunner of House of the Dragon, just as its third season airs.

They dive into Ryan’s late start in Hollywood, spec scripts, the anatomy of a writers room, and thinking as a product of movement. They also answer a listener question about the mechanics of writing a sequel.

In our bonus segment for premium subscribers, John, Craig and Ryan discuss perhaps the most popular fictional creatures ever: dragons!

Links:

• I Solved My Mystery Fatigue with AI by Amy Deng
• Myst by Cyan, Rand Miller & Robyn Miller
• Dimhaven by Zadbox Entertainment
• NordVPN
• yU+co – Title sequence designers
• Get your copy of the Scriptnotes book!
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription
• Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube
• Follow Scriptnotes on Instagram and TikTok
• John August on Bluesky and Instagram
• Outro by Matthew Chilelli (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Meredith Stedman and edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our intern is Lauren Loesberg.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The post Thinking on Your Feet with Ryan Condal first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig welcome Curry Barker, the writer-director behind this summer’s surprise blockbuster, Obsession. It’s a rom-com, a horror film and a great example of trusting your audience.

We discuss Curry’s roots, his writing process, learning from YouTube, as well as the pressure to follow up a hit.

In our bonus segment for premium subscribers, John and Craig pose the #1 most important question for all filmmakers to consider: What will the popcorn bucket be?

Links:* The Aaron Sorkin Masterclass * The Chair by Curry Barker * Milk & Serial by Curry Barker * The Case of the Golden Idol * Members Only Jackets

Get your copy of The Scriptnotes Book and become a Scriptnotes Premium member today! For more content on the craft of writing check out Inneresting our weekly-ish newsletter about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Scriptnotes is produced by Meredith Stedman and edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our Coordinator is Lauren Loesberg. Outro by Matthew Chilelli (send us yours!).

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com.

Download the full episode here

Full Curry Barker Transcript: ▼* The Ultracrepidarians * Curry Barker’s Path from Alabama to Filmmaking * Writing Obsession: Tone, Structure, and the Test Screening * Handling Success, Comments, and What Comes Next * One Cool Things & Popcorn Bucket Bonus Talk

The UltracrepidariansJohn August: Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

Craig Mazin: No, no, no, no. My name is Craig Mazin.

John: This is episode 742 of Scriptnotes. It’s a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show, we welcome the writer-director of one of my favorite films of the summer, which has become a surprise blockbuster and the subject of countless articles.

Craig: A few think pieces here and there.

John: Yes, positing, what does this mean for the future of Hollywood? No pressure here.

Craig: No pressure at all. [chuckles]

John: The film is Obsession. The writer-director is Curry Barker. Welcome, Curry Barker.

Curry Barker: Hello. Thanks for having me.

Craig: So nice to have you here. I’m going to go a little further than you. Maybe it’s my favorite movie of the year so far.

John: Wow, that’s crazy.

Craig: It’s not that long of a year. I don’t know. It’s not that–

John: No, absolutely.

Craig: It’s really good. It’s really, really good. I just loved it.

Curry: Thank you.

Craig: Loved it.

Curry: That’s so awesome to hear that.

John: We want to talk about the movie. We want to talk about the process of getting it, but really kind of focused on the crafty things. As we said in terms of the warm-up, I’m sure you’re sick of answering a thousand questions about the blockbuster of it all. The blockbuster is wonderful, but if this movie had made $5, it’s still a really good movie that people should check out. In our bonus segment for our premium members, I want to focus on one of the most crucial things that no one is talking about in Hollywood.

Craig: Thank God.

John: It’s not IMAX, it’s not 3D, but it’s a fundamental part of the cinematic experience these days, which is the popcorn bucket.

Craig: The popcorn bucket.

John: The novelty popcorn bucket.

Craig: I saw it happening in your brain before you said it. You know why? Because we’re close.

John: Yes, that’s what it is. We’ve done this for a few years.

Craig: Very close.

John: We have a sense.

Craig: Yes, ever since the Dune popcorn bucket, it’s just been a thing.

John: Yes, it’s a thing now.

Craig: It’s a thing.

John: We will focus in on what we want for our popcorn buckets for our films. Also, going back in time, if we could create a popcorn bucket.

Curry: The potential of the popcorn bucket back in the day.

John: Absolutely.

Curry: What was the Jaws’ popcorn bucket?

Craig: How could it have been bad? What could have gone horribly wrong with a– I could definitely see an exorcist popcorn bucket where she’s barfing the– There’s so many ways to go.

John: In our bonus segment for premium members, we will dive deep into–

Craig: We’ll get there. That’s the last free popcorn bucket people get.

John: We will pick the last kernel out of that popcorn bucket.

Curry: Okay.

John: First, we have some follow-up that I will actually, I promise, tie into our discussion with Curry here. In episode 740, we talked about competence. It was a really good conversation. We were centered around this blog post by Iris Meredith, and there was a word in there which you and I had never heard of, ultracrepidarian.

Craig: Ultracrepidarian.

John: We didn’t spend enough time on that, I think. You are a person who loves words.

Craig: I do.

John: Try to figure out ultracrepidarian, what that might come from. It’s Latin.

Craig: Obviously, ultra would mean beyond or above.

John: Crepeda. Do you have any sense of crepeda?

Craig: Crepeda. I’m trying to think of other words that have– It’s C-R-E-P. There’s crepuscule, which is a red blood cell. I don’t know if that’s connected.

John: It’s not, no.

Craig: Maybe that’s Greek.

John: I don’t think we’ll get there. It’s sandal.

Craig: Oh, sure. I would not have gotten there.

John: It’s beyond the sandal, which seems really strange. Iris actually wrote in. She listened to the episode, and she wrote in, just to tell us where the origin of that is. Apparently, it comes from this painter named Apelles of Kos, who was getting criticism of how he painted sandals in his depictions of people from sandal makers. Sandal-makers are like, “You painted that wrong.” He’s like, “Okay, I’ll fix how I paint the sandals.” Then he started making notes about the legs and other things. He’s like, “No, no, no, you can focus on the sandals, but not above, beyond the sandals.”

Craig: Beyond the sandals. This is it. There’s a comic book artist — is it Rob Liefeld? — who’s infamously bad at drawing feet? Or maybe he’s really good at drawing feet. I can’t remember. There’s somebody who’s notoriously bad at feet.

Curry: It’s like my characters always have shoes.

Craig: Why?

Curry: It’s like it’s in my contract. They have to have shoes.

Craig: Even in the shower, the shoes. Ultracrepidarian.

John: Ultracrepidarian. That’s the origin of that word. The segue I want to make to is with the success of Obsession, I feel like there’s a lot of ultracrepidarians weighing in here on sort of like, they’re not just talking about the little bit of knowledge that they actually understand, but they’re trying to apply much more broadly to things beyond their actual scope of expertise. It’s nice to have the person who’s actually the expert on making the film Obsession to talk about Obsession itself. There you go.

Craig: This is better than a million think pieces about, “Everyone’s got a hot take.”

John: Everyone’s got a hot take.

Craig: You know what? I will say that one of the things that I really loved about the work is that there is an elegance to it. The idea is not complicated. In fact, almost nothing about it is complicated. It’s so simple and elegant, but it’s so interestingly done that I think the reason– I’ll do a think piece on think pieces, the reason there are 5 million think pieces is because it provokes an enormous amount of thought. It gives you space, as somebody watching, to theorize and more importantly, put yourself in the shoes of the people that are involved. I found myself being both of them.

Curry: I think I gravitate towards simple stories anyway. To me, people that would say, “Oh, this is such an idea that we’ve seen before or whatever, to me, when I got excited about this idea three years ago, I wasn’t excited about a wish-gone-wrong movie. I was excited about the version that you saw. I was like, “Oh my God, I have this idea about this crazy movie.” Even if you were just to read the logline, you’d be like, “Oh, what? We’ve seen this a million times.”

I love stories that are simple because there’s so much room. Sometimes simple is just better. It’s kind of like a magic trick. Obviously, the movie’s been out for a while, so spoiler alert, but like Megan’s death scene, right? Crazy. If that happened four times in the movie, then it’s a slasher and it doesn’t really work anymore. Because it’s all leading up to this moment, why I say it’s like a magic trick is it’s like, got you, it’s like this movie is going there. In a way that a movie that does it a bunch of times, you would watch it and be like, “The kills in this movie were just as crazy, so why was this one more effective? It’s just because it’s more simple.

Craig: You can’t kill that character more than once because it’s too good and important of a character. The more you kill people, the less important they are, and the more they are functionaries of plot. It was wonderful how under the skin we got with everyone in the film.

Curry Barker’s Path from Alabama to Filmmaking↑ Back to Top
John: I do want to focus a lot on the storytelling, but I want to give some sense of your storytelling here because I feel like a lot of our listeners can picture themselves in you in the sense of a kid who grows up outside of Los Angeles, outside of New York, outside of the industry, moves here, and figures out how to do stuff. Give us a sense of where you come from. It’s Mobile, Alabama.

Curry: Yes, I’m from a small town in Mobile. Grew up, went to high school there at Baker. I was really involved. I didn’t make good grades, but I was really involved. I was in there–

Craig: Loved extracurriculars.

Curry: I was in the acting program. I was in the marching band. I was in BH1, which was our news where we actually got a lot of editing skills in BH1. I went to acting competitions out in the States. I was constantly doing things. I even started my own film club in school.

John: Classically, you did a lot of the things you could do as a high school student, but it wasn’t like there was a giant film community in Alabama. We made Big Fish in Montgomery. We had to hire everybody from every place else to get up there.

Curry: It was non-existent, really. There is community theater out there. It’s actually kind of a Baker thing. If I wanted to act in film, I had to make it myself. I started really even editing and putting things together at a pretty young age. I think what I really got a sense for is my instincts of storytelling started growing at an earlier age that I think has really given me an advantage. I think there’s a lot of instinct with storytelling sometimes, right?

Craig: No question. There is talent, and a lot of it is connected to that. What is interesting about somebody like you, especially now, as people are coming to their own in their 20s and 30s, is that you do grow up with all the tools to make things, whereas we did not have those. A lot of times what started for us was writing. The first interaction you have with a professional writing is you read a screenplay, and you’re like, “This is what it looks like? Okay.” Can you talk about that aspect of it? There isn’t a lot of practical instruction or do-it-yourself-ishness to that.

Curry: Right. What’s really funny is I never would have saw myself as a writer. If a 12-year-old me were to look up and be like– to see me now and see that I’m a professional writer, and I did air quotes for people that are just listening.
[laughter]

Craig: They were implied in the way you said–

Curry: Yes, right. My 12-year-old self would just not believe. Would be like, “No, you’re not. You’re not good at English class, and you don’t understand grammar too well.” It just didn’t seem like it was in the cards for me to be a professional writer. It’s really about storytelling and the human raw– My bread and butter is conversation and how it can get uncomfortable. Also, I learned a lot from– I did the Aaron Sorkin MasterClass. That was a big thing for me.

Craig: Finally a MasterClass paid off. I’ve been waiting for one of these Masterclasses to pay off. Aaron Sorkin, we salute you.

John: Tell me about the Aaron Sorkin MasterClass. This is an online class where it’s several lesson.

Craig: By the way, this podcast is brought to you by the Aaron Sorkin MasterClass. We’re not getting paid anything. This is outrageous.

John: Tell us about that.

Curry: This thing called MasterClass came out. It’s like this app you can download. There’s a director MasterClass. There’s all these MasterClass. I think when I moved out here, someone suggested, maybe it was even my dad, was like, “You should do the Aaron Sorkin MasterClass,” or something. I just started taking it. I learned so many rules about storytelling.

I took it to heart in a way that probably really enhanced the way that I– the rules are so important. You can’t introduce something in the first act and then not pay it off in the third act. You can’t have something magically appear in the third act that you didn’t introduce in the first or second act. You can’t have all the answers to the equation in the third act. All these things that are pretty important to make sure that you’re either paying everything off or not, that I could really give credit to the Aaron Sorkin MasterClass.

John: It’s great. It feels like, at some point, someone needs to sit you down and tell you these fundamental things or at least point them out in ways that maybe you could have discovered over the course of years. It’s nice to have someone do that.

Curry: Totally.

Craig: The great mystery and magic of it all is that you can– A lot of people have taken the Aaron Sorkin MasterClass. I always feel like, even with our podcast, we’re really broadcasting to some group of people that we’ll be able to convert, which is not everyone. You found it one way or the other. You found what you needed, understood it almost immediately. It was like right into your bones and then, boom, out came something great.

Curry: It’s an instinct thing, really. It’s like you understand that if something doesn’t feel right, it’s probably because it wasn’t paid off correctly. Or if something doesn’t feel satisfying or– What is it that you want to feel fully satisfied at the end, but then also the art of knowing what doesn’t need–

John: To be paid off.

Curry: What doesn’t need to– That’s really hard. Sometimes I just want to ask other people. If I’m writing something, I’m like, “Does this matter to you?”

Craig: Do you?

Curry: Right

John: Did you ask people?

Craig: Is that part of your process?

Curry: Yes. The thing I learned is that you’ll never get an answer.

Craig: There is no answer.

Curry: Yes, that’s the problem.

John: Here’s another thing that’s actually different about how you learned versus how we learned is that you were making things constantly. Talk to us about when you first post– You’ve shot something and you’ve put online for strangers to look at.

Curry: I think the first time I ever– when I first moved out here, we were doing this show called Roommates. It was just about–

John: Who was the we?

Curry: Me and Cooper Tomlinson.

John: Who is one of the co-stars of the movie?

Curry: Yes. He’s my writing partner in crime. We do our sketch comedy show together and everything. He’s great. I’m talking week one. We met in school and we were already doing this thing called Roommates. We were just like, “Let’s make something.” We just had the bug. That was interesting. That was getting 200 views, 500 views, small things. Then the first thing that really hit it off for me, like, “Oh my God, I’m a director,” was The Chair. It was a short film I made for $2,000, which is funny enough, even more expensive than my Milk & Serial movie.

I made it for $2,000. Most of that went to the DP. I remember writing it. I had this small friend group where we would write short films, or even some of our friends were writing features. I wasn’t at that level yet, but some of our friends were. We would all gather and do these little table reads. When I had this chair script, I was like, “I’m going to order some food and I’m going to get everybody together and we’re going to do a table read of this.” People didn’t like it that much. I was like, “No, you don’t understand. It’s going to be weird.” I honestly felt a naive amount of confidence because I was like, “No, I’ve got an idea for this.” People were like, “I don’t get it. It doesn’t make sense.”

Craig: There is, and this is the burden that we share as writers of things that are supposed to be filmed. It’s different. In and of itself, there is a bit of a craft in trying to take something on the page and add a little bit of extra that maybe sometimes is not even necessary to help get them where you want it to be. Sometimes there are things that just need to be made that you won’t get it any other way.

John: That’s a real benefit, I think, your generation had is that you got the chance to experiment a lot. I’ve seen a lot of sketches you did with Cooper, and many of them are great, but I also suspect there were ones that probably weren’t great that you just didn’t [unintelligible]. It is also a luxury because when you’re making something in an afternoon, if it’s great, fantastic, it’s great. If it sucks, you don’t have to show it to the world.

Craig: I can’t take any of my shit down.

John: Whereas as opposed to a movie, the stakes are so much higher, you have to release that movie at some point.

Curry: Right. Totally. That’s so, so true. The experimental phase for me is over. It’s a scary thing. Even if I were to do a short film-

John: The spotlight will be on.

Curry: -the spotlight would be on it. It would be like, “What?”

Craig: And yet?

John: Yet the stakes are actually lower than you think.

Craig: It will all be an experiment from here on out anyway. It’s just that everyone’s staring at you now in the lab.

John: Craig and I both, I think, wish you the most successful failure at some point.

Craig: Fail out loud just as much as you’ve succeeded out loud. You have no option now anyway. Take big swings.

John: I want to point out that we’ve had smart guests who’ve come on the show who would strongly underline what you’re saying. Courtney Kemp was on recently and she was talking about how if she were starting today, she would get together with a group of friends and just shoot a bunch of stuff and learn how to do it because that’s how you do things now. Mike Birbiglia has been on the show and talking about getting a pizza and getting all his friends around to read drafts of things. That’s smart. What I think is crucial about this is it’s finding a group of people you like and you trust who are trying to do the same things. It sounds like moving from Alabama to Los Angeles was how you got that process started.

Curry: Yes. I got lucky, too. I don’t think it’s always going to happen that way to find a group of people. Going to film school, you hopefully will find people that have similar interests. I think, to me, that’s the most important part of film school is meeting people out. First of all, it gets you out here. I’m from a small town. It was an excuse to leave. It felt like–

Craig: Which film school?

Curry: It was the New York Film Academy.

Craig: New York Film Academy.

Curry: It was in Los Angeles. It got me out here. It didn’t feel like I was just on my own. It felt like at least I had something. I was going to school. I had an immediate schedule.

Craig: You had a structure.

Curry: Right. The thing I got from it the most was just the people that I met along the way. I was there for like a year.

Craig: When you decided to come out, whether it’s film school or not, I think you made a choice that a lot of people struggle with. We do advise this all the time. I feel bad sometimes because people will ask, “I live,” fill in the blank, “Billings, Montana. I really want to make it, do I have to move to LA?” No. It gets easier. Then I sometimes, I think we feel a little worried that we’re luring a lot of people who have no chance. Then I think, “But wait, we also have to lure the people who do have a chance.”

Curry: Right. I think you don’t have to worry because the people that don’t have a chance– I hate to say it like that.

Craig: There are people that don’t have a chance.

Curry: Right, but those people will weed themselves out anyway. The people that have a chance are the people that won’t give up. In that case, at least they got to see a cool city and be here for a little bit. Also, you’re right in that you probably do have to move here because it just keeps you dreaming. You have to keep dreaming. If I was at home, I would probably feel like this stuff was so far away that I would just be like, after two years, I would have given up. Being here and seeing Warner Brothers and wanting to be on the other side of that fence so bad.

John: Because when you’re in front of the cameras, it’s right by Warner Brothers. It’s across from Universal.

Craig: Right there.

Curry: I’m like, “There it is. That’s where I want to–”

Craig: Your group of friends, they’re doing stuff. It’s not like you can sit around and go, “It’s impossible.” Then a week later, three of your friends are like, “Hey, come on over and watch the thing I just did.” Now you feel like a lazy piece of shit.

Curry: Right. Exactly. It keeps you —

Craig: The culture is one of making things.

Curry: It really is.

John: Give us a sense of that first year or two in Los Angeles. You’re going to this program, you’re making a bunch of stuff. Are you also working? What was the hustle? What was the grind?

Curry: First I was in school, didn’t do anything. Then I had a job at a burger joint, and then I had a very small-time editing job, which to me felt like such a cool thing. I was like, “Oh my gosh.” It was editing these little commercials for local things, like a local little kids’ soccer team. I was getting hired to edit these things. Then I worked at Starbucks for a year-and-a-half.

Craig: Got yourself some health insurance.

Curry: Yes, right. At one point, I was working on a show called This Is Us for two years. First, I was a COVID monitor during COVID.

John: I remember that. Yes, I remember.

Craig: Hold up.

Curry: I was the person that everyone hated it. I handed the masks.

Craig: You were the COVID monitor. Everyone hated– The COVID monitor. That’s the worst job.

Curry: It was the worst.

Craig: No one likes you.

John: You were on sets.

Curry: Everyone was so nice on This Is Us. I guess I was a very ballsy guy because I would just go up to Milo or Yasu, who’s a DP, and just talk and talk and ask them questions. They were nice. They were nice enough to even give me their phone– I was sending them short films, and so crazy that they were nice enough to talk to the COVID monitor.

Craig: You know, the thing is, if you’re not crazy and you’re not boring, it’s wonderful to talk to anybody on a set. It’s cool. Every now and then you do get somebody who’s a little boring and/or crazy. People actually do want to encourage the next generation to come on up and come along, I think, in general.

John: What I’m hearing through all these anecdotes is that you just have a lot of agency. You take a lot of agency. You’re sort of like, “This is the thing I want.” You’re not asking permission. In a very kind of an appropriate way, you’re saying you’re not waiting for someone to invite you in. You’re just saying like, “Hey, can I talk to you about this thing?”

Curry: Yes, I guess so. It’s just so funny because I never would have considered myself that type of person. I’m very chill. I did have that attitude of just, “I’m doing what you’re doing. I want to–”

Writing Obsession: Tone, Structure, and the Test Screening↑ Back to Top
Craig: Maybe this is why the writing in your story rings so true because everybody who is one thing is also the other thing, I think. Here we have Bear is the most timid, diffident, don’t-take-chances, terrified, so terrified of success or even trying. I don’t think you can occupy that as honestly as you did unless it’s there. We are reactions to ourselves sometimes. It’s like, “Don’t be that guy. Go be this guy and do that.”

Curry: Oh, that’s an interesting observation.

Craig: Do you know what I mean?

Curry: Yes.

Craig: I don’t think you could write that character that well if you’re just effortlessly alpha. Do you know what I mean?

Curry: Totally.

Craig: There’s this aspect of it. I’m curious, in your writing process, you do something so beautifully in the movie. To me, it’s very writerly. You are able to occupy two people in a scene with two people, and those two people are so wildly different. They don’t know what’s going on in the other person’s mind. They don’t even understand, really, the truth of what the other person’s saying. We watch them, and we want to be like, “Oh my God, can I do therapy for the two of you?” Not hearing each other or seeing each other.

Curry: I love it.

Craig: How do you get to that when it, because it’s just you?

Curry: I love writing dialogue where two people misunderstand each other, which is exactly what you just described. When you start from a place of wanting that, which is, by the way, just already a captivating way to write any scene, honestly, is like one person wants one thing, and the other person wants a different thing. I wanted every single character in this movie to have different perspectives.

It’s so interesting to have Sarah saying, “Nikki is taking advantage of you. She’s using her opportunity of her dad dying to latch onto you, and that’s not healthy.” It was just so crazy from what’s actually happening. What a fun thing to write, that one person has this crazy perspective, but you know as the audience that– Also, I really, really like to write from one perspective, which is Bear. You can hear what Sarah and Ian are saying, but you don’t follow them home and see their story. You stay with Bear.

John: You have a limited point of view, but we actually understand that the characters are locked to the point of view on him, which makes sense. It reminds me of Jon Favreau in Swingers. This character who we appreciate, we adore, he’s making bad choices, and we’re with him while he’s making bad choices. You set up a character in Bear who feels like he is in a romantic comedy, and yet the genre of the movie isn’t letting him be in a romantic comedy.

Curry: That’s great.

Craig: The voice message seen in Swingers is like the comedy version of Obsession.

John: It’s cringe because-

Craig: It’s cringe.

John: -we were so embarrassed on his behalf, and yet it just keeps going worse and worse. That is what’s happened with Bear up until he cracks the willow.

Curry: Yes.

Craig: Again, credit to the way you approach things because I think you never villainized anyone, really. Even what he does in and of itself, it’s not an act of crime. He’s just going, “Ah, I wish.” If it’s a crime, it’s a crime of cowardice, but there was no expectation.

Curry: Absolutely not, which is so funny, because I see people make these videos of like, “If Bear would have worded his wish differently.” Like, “I wish that I–”

Craig: Oh, [unintelligible].

Curry: I’m like–

Craig: That’s not what this is about? If only he were a lawyer, this would have worked out great.

Curry: Yes.

John: Yes.

Craig: No.

Curry: Or like, “I wish I had the confidence to–” which I get that, like, saying the correct thing, but it was a toy.

Craig: A toy.

Curry: He didn’t know it was going to work. That’s the whole point.

Craig: That’s the whole point. It was just this goofy set. It was almost like when he does it, it’s like, “This is how much I suck. I’m doing this.” What I appreciated was how I understood how he felt. I felt that way. I think actually everyone in the world at some point or another has experienced obsession or– what’s the wo– limerence? Is that the word that people use a lot? of wanting another person and feeling helpless.

It’s not even that you think they would want you back, you’re just scared to ask. You know they don’t. You’re lost, but you can’t seem to get out of it. Everyone’s had this feeling. It’s incredibly relatable. Also, I think maybe not everybody, but almost everybody’s had the feeling of understanding, “I think that person wants me. Eh, it’s not going to happen. How do I deal with that?” I was both of them the whole time.

John: One thing that’s so important to note here is that Bear is making a choice and Bear is kicking off the action of the movie. He’s protagonating the way you want him to start the story. Yet, you as the filmmaker are still doing the thing we always urge our writers to do is you are torturing your hero. You are making things awful for your hero. You’re building this moral staircase where he keeps making choices that are reasonable in the moment that are actually worse overall for him and for everyone else around him. To your credit, it works. We can feel your hands doing that. We’re delighted because that is also the genre. It’s the nature of the kind of story we sat down to see, which is fun.

Curry: It’s interesting to talk about it at such a high emotionally intelligent level at this point because when I first was writing it was just raw. You know what I mean?

John: Tell us about those early drafts. Tell us about what you thought the movie was as you were sitting down to start writing it.

Curry: I knew that I wanted to do some crazy things with Nikki. In The Chair short film that I did, there was this girl character who would flip from different emotions. I was like, “I want to do a movie where that’s the whole gimmick.” Then this came to me. I was like, “Oh my God, I can do that chair thing that I really liked with the girl. This can be that movie.” Something that’s really cool about this movie is that it lends itself well to being in the horror genre in a way that other ideas I have don’t, where I’m like, “Oh, where’s the scary angle?” This idea, just the obsession of something, it’s scary. It’s scary to have someone feel so strongly about you. In real life, it really is.

Craig: It was really, I thought, so smart. Even though Bear’s the protagonist, he’s the character we’re following, and so much of it is through his perspective, we do feel through Nikki like we can see, and you give her moments where she gets to come back, where we understand she’s like those people that have locked-in syndrome, which is the most terrifying thing. Now I’m with her. Now I’m just imagining the terror of what this must feel like.

On both sides of it, the desire to love someone that doesn’t love you, we all know the power of that feeling. The feeling of not being in control of yourself, we also know that feeling. If I were to write a think piece about why this movie works, it just comes down to it is a hyper-presentation of stuff we have all felt. We must feel it because it goes to what love and desire is, which are beneath our forebrains. That is where the scary stuff is.

Curry: Right. Wow, that’s interesting.

John: As you were working on this, in the writing, in the directing, and in the editing, where did you find a line between, we are in a horror space and this is a comedy? Because so much of what you’re setting up is essentially a comedy press, where this girl is so obsessed with you. That’s a comedy.

Craig: There is a Jim Carrey version of this movie.

John: Totally, yes. Where did you find moments where you had to pivot between those two?

Curry: The funny thing is that it just hums naturally for me because I’m not– When I was, I think, 17, I was still in high school, and I saw JJ Abrams say on a podcast or something, “The most successful people in life don’t take themselves too seriously.” I don’t know what it is about that statement that just stuck with me. It was like, “Whoa.” It just freed me up because I was like, “So I don’t have to take this seriously?” I know that sounds like, “You don’t take it seriously,” whatever, but don’t take the art too seriously because there’s something freeing about– You watch these horror movies that are so brute and like, “This is serious. We need to figure this out.” It’s like, but what if that was real? Then you would probably be– You would talk different. You would say–

Craig: What if that were real? I cannot tell you how often I will say some version of the following thing. “Okay, but what would really happen?” When I read somebody’s script and I’m like, “This moment is a very interesting moment, but everything that happens after that.” We do this with our– How would an actual human being respond in this circumstance?

Curry: Exactly, man. Yes.

Craig: It’s a good thing that JJ said that, and I love that you come from a comedy background, and there is something about comedy and horror that just they’re like twin siblings.

John: They both revel in being uncomfortable and just sitting in a really uncomfortable place and not letting it resolve.

Craig: Getting to squishy stuff underneath without taking itself– it shouldn’t take itself so seriously.

Curry: Here’s an example. People would think, “Oh, this is a comedy scene,” but the morning after when Bear wakes up, he’s checking his hair in the mirror. He goes up to her, and he’s like, “Let’s not do that anymore.” That’s funny, and people think it’s funny, but it’s also honest. In every horror movie, crazy things happen, and then the next day, the characters just ignore it. They’re like, “Dude, you just saw some crazy shit. Let’s talk about it out loud because that’s what you would do.”

Craig: What would you do in this circumstance?

Curry: Exactly, yes.

Craig: There are kinds of stories where everything just feels a bit elevated because of the nature of it, if it’s a fantasy or something like this. We understand that in Lord of the Rings– I always think it’s funny, when people die in a movie like Lord of the Rings, everyone should just stop and vomit. Do you know what I mean? They don’t because that’s the world they live in, and I get it. It’s fine.

Curry: Maybe you can accept in a world where war is every day and people die left and right. It’s like, “Fine.”

Craig: Yes, fine. In a story like this where I’m basically a kid and I work at a music shop and I really like this girl, even blood, anything-

John: Literally.

Craig: -is enough to shatter you. If nothing else happened except that one night, he would be in therapy about it for a while anyway. I love that you go right to that question, like, what would really happen?

Curry: It’s almost like when you ask that one question, it opens up so many genres. Now you can think about, “Oh, but what’s the version of this movie that we’ve seen 100 times? What’s the version of it where it happened in real life?” It just kind of excites you. That’s why a simple idea doesn’t scare me off. It excites me because I can think about, “Oh, but what if it’s raw and real and the reactions are–”

Craig: The more real you’re going to be, the simpler you want the idea to be. The more complicated and large the concept, I think then almost the characters start to have to drift away from grounded.

Curry: Because there’s no way to push the plot forward without them doing– You would go to the hospital. Okay, well, that’s boring. Now the rest of the movie takes place at the hospital. There’s so many things that do drag– Even this ghost movie that me and Cooper just wrote, so many times we were like, we want to do the absolute most bonkers crazy thing. It’s like, “Oh, what if we killed off this character right here? It’d be crazy.” It’s like, “Yes, but there’s con artists. They would just give up and go home and be sad.” They wouldn’t carry out the rest of the– We’re constantly thinking about that. Also, not wanting to answer anything is such a challenging way to write. Because when you’re saying to me, we understand that she’s popping into her body at this point in the movie. I never had a scene where Bear’s going to Ian and saying, “I think she’s popping back into her body.” [laughter] You just understand it. When you write that way–

John: You have to talk to people and be like, “Did you understand like this?”

Craig: For this particular movie, was there a process where after you make the movie and you cut it together, did you, for lack of a better phrase, test screen?

Curry: Oh, yes. We did a test screening with– I had just gotten with UTA, and they let us use their screening room. Hayley, the producer, put on Instagram, free movie, because we didn’t want to get friends and family. We wanted to get random people.

Craig: [unintelligible]

Curry: It was just us doing it. It wasn’t some super–

Craig: NRG or any of those research companies.

Curry: Yes, it wasn’t. It was just us. We got as random as we could of people, and we all gave them papers and made them write down things. The number one thing that people said is they were frustrated with Bear and that they didn’t understand why he wasn’t making more effort to fix it. By the way, you’ve seen the movie as it is. You haven’t seen the movie before the reshoot.

John: Talk to us about that.

Craig: There you go. You learned something.

Curry: I did learn something. What’s really interesting is that I did the thing that you hear about in stories where I didn’t take the note. I took the note behind the note, which is everybody wanted me to fix Bear and make him go to that crystal shop sooner to find the One Wish Willow and try to fix it sooner. I was like, “Okay, I get it now.” The problem is that I haven’t done a good enough job of telling people that Bear wants this to work.

Craig: Exactly. He’s not ready to undo it yet.

Curry: Yes. That scene that I was just talking about with the haircut, and he comes and he explains that to her, that was a reshoot. Before, we had this other scene where he’s like, “Where were you?” She’s like, “I was in the room.” The twist is that she was on the ceiling. It was cool, but then I was able to come up with an idea of a scene where he’s trying to say, “Please don’t do that anymore because it freaks me out.” Then she says, “I promise you I won’t.” He goes, “Good.”

Craig: She gives him permission to keep going. Here we have one of our favorite and most horrifying things in writing, which is logic. It is remarkable how people need it. They need logic because–

Curry: Even if they don’t know.

Craig: That’s right. We will trade on this concept of, what would people really do? We will get very far with it until we forget that maybe also people would really do this or this. We forgot to do that. Boy, they go right to it, don’t they? That’s amazing.

John: Two examples I can think of on terms of, what would people really do? I just rewatched Get Out, which we should do a deep dive on Get Out. It’s so spectacular. You are right there with your hero in terms of something is really messed up here, and I’m going to leave. I’m going to leave. We’re going to go right now. He tries to leave at the right, appropriate moments, and there’s the social pressures to continue to stay, but he doesn’t. Also, Blair Witch Project, in terms of these are characters who are encountering these weird things, and they’re responding the ways– They’re freaking out in the ways that they should freak out. A lesson we tend to forget in genre is that people don’t know they’re in a genre. They’re just experiencing life.

Craig: Therefore, it does become corny when they don’t appear to be behaving the way we do. Then you get the classic movie theater moment of, why are you going in there? Get out.

John: Why are you going into the house?

Craig: I think it’s great that you had that experience. It speaks to why I think– Anybody who is going to do this for a long time, right off the bat, you’ve said two things that are very important. One is, okay, I don’t take myself so seriously. I take the work seriously. I don’t take myself seriously, which means I leave room to be wrong. I’m not wrong because they say they don’t like something. I’m wrong if I say, oh, wait, I know why they don’t like something. I did something wrong. I see what it is. Let me fix it. That’s a big deal.

Curry: Thank you. I appreciate it. It comes from that JJ Abrams quote from a long time. I’m just like, “Dang, it is that.” I see people that do take themselves too seriously, and it paralyzes themselves. I went to a film school where friends would have these short films, and they would spend years on this one short film because they just wanted to get it right. It’s like, “Bro, release it.”

Craig: There is no right.

Curry: Yes. “Work on the next one.”

Handling Success, Comments, and What Comes Next↑ Back to Top
Craig: Work on the next one. There’s a paralysis, I think, that happens. Somebody did a statistical study once of Oscar award-winning directors, and the time in between movies after someone wins an Oscar is twice as long as the normal time between movies because they become paralyzed and start to think, “Now I’m an Oscar award-winning director. My next film must be Oscar worthy of my greatness,” and they just stop.

Curry: I mean, honestly, I know I didn’t win an Oscar, but I’m feeling that pressure now. All these awards are breaking. Like, “Better than E.T.” came out. “Beat Beat Blair Witch…” I’m almost like, “Stop. Stop.” I’m like, “Slow down, slow down. I didn’t ask for this.” It’s just a crazy amount of success that that movie is having.

John: One of the advantages you have here is that you already shot this next movie. If you were prepping another movie right now, or that was–

Craig: Or you didn’t know what you were going to do next.

John: Or, here’s this $100 billion thing that you’re going to do… We would turn off the cameras and we would caution you to stop you from doing this. I do think the fact that you have another movie that you already know is going to happen, you’re actually already editing, is a good step.

Craig: It’s in your mind now, right? Partly, you just have to now go through the miserable exercise of forcing yourself to stop thinking about it and to not put what you do now in the perspective of what just happened because it can be terrifying. By the way, it’s okay if the best thing you ever did is– Something has to be the best thing you ever did. It may be that this is not. I’m fully rooting for you that there’s something bigger and better. You just have to forget about it.

John: One thing, you do tend to look to other people and say, “Oh, what did they do?” This may be a good moment to look at other folks who were in similar circumstances and learn from them in terms of what filmmakers you loved who followed up a big hit with another thing that was really great and interesting. That’s the track to follow and not look at the negative examples of the people who just then spun around for years and years because we know them. It’s tough.

Craig: It’s hard. You’re in it now. It’s impossible to see when you’re inside of it. When you look back 20 years later, you may say, “Oh, this is crazy,” because there are filmmakers like this who their first six movies out of the gate are massive and awesome. Then there’s 10 more movies that nobody wants or likes. There are filmmakers who go on, off, on, off, on, off. There are ones who come in clumps. There are ones who just ride along on a B- the whole time. You don’t know. All you can do is what you do in the moment as best you can do it and not repeat yourself. Just trying to not repeat yourself.

Curry: That’s scary. That’s hard.

Craig: It is. It’s scary.

Curry: Harder to say because I want to repeat whatever happened with–

Craig: Of course.

Curry: You’re comparing, you’re like, “Oh my gosh, what worked with this? Why was it resonating with people? Is my next idea, is it deep enough? Am I known as the deep guy now?” All these things that I’m just trying, trust me, and I am. I’m trying to push them out.

Craig: You can’t completely. Listen, I went on many long walks, talking to myself, trying to figure out which disaster would be the best disaster for me to make a television show about after I made a show about a disaster. Okay, well, that’s what I do now.

Curry: I’m a disaster guy now.

John: There was no Chernobyl Two.

Craig: I would be insane to not keep doing the disasters now. Then I would just have to repeatedly hit myself in the face and say, “Do not.” You have to almost forgive yourself for all of the instincts to be afraid. By the way, if you do repeat yourself, you repeat yourself. That’s okay too because, God knows how many sequels I did in my life. I was being paid. It’s all in service of something, all of it.

John: I love this is the most niche advice we can give to a person. After your giant hit, here’s how to follow up the giant hit.

Craig: We’ve had them. We might as well talk about it.

John: Something that would be very practical for a lot of our listeners is, how do you make that first movie? Because you’ve made a ton of shorts. You made sketches. You know how to shoot stuff, but now you have a script, and you actually have to go try to film a thing. What was your process? You mentioned a producer. Ultimately, you mentioned UTA, but how did that all come together?

Curry: I’d already made Milk & Serial, but nobody had seen it.

John: Milk & Serial is found footage.

Curry: It’s a found footage, 60-minute movie. It’s almost considered a short film, but it’s just long enough to be considered a feature.

Craig: It’s a long short.

Curry: Yes, it’s a very long short, which the first cut was an hour 20, which there’s no doubt that it’s a feature. I’d done that, and I’d done The Chair and I did one more horror film, but this producer, James Harris, reached out and said, “Hey, listen, I have this program where I find a filmmaker, and I give them X amount of money and give them basically a shot. If you have an idea– I liked your Chair, are you doing a feature of The Chair, or is that something?” At the time, I had actually written a feature for The Chair. I was like, “Oh my gosh, yes, I have The Chair.” My manager was like, “Well, The Chair could be a cool IP,” which by the way, we’re doing nothing with now.

At the time, it was like, “You’d already written The Chair, why don’t you see if there’s something else for it? Maybe we could have a bigger budget for The Chair, and we could save that, and maybe there’s a different idea.” I was like, “Well, I have this obsession idea.” I’d written the short film of it. I’d had the idea. This was after The Simpsons episode. I was excited about this. I told him, I was like, “Okay, I’ll do Obsession.” I pitched Obsession to James. His response was basically, “I like this idea, but why don’t you write the script?” [crosstalk]

John: What you pitched him was a lot of what we saw in the movie, the four characters that set up.

Curry: I pitched him that it was a movie about a guy that makes a wish that this girl becomes obsessed with him, and she becomes– and I pitched it as a Possession movie, but it was a love story, Possession movie, gone wrong thing.

John: Possession, yes.

Curry: He dug it, but he was also like, “Yes, it’s been done before, but I dig it. Why don’t you write it?” I started, “Oh my God, this is a huge opportunity for me,” which you know what? Looking back, that gives me some hope or makes me feel better that I was still under pressure then, or just a different type of pressure. As a matter of fact, maybe it was even more pressure because it was like, “This has to be good.”

Craig: Oh, yes.

Curry: I never thought about that. I never thought like, “This just has to be good.” I always just was like, [hums], just stream of consciousness.

Craig: When nothing’s happened yet, you are about as free as you’ll ever be. In a way, trying to shut everything out to be that free again is part of the challenge.

John: When I wrote Go, there was no expectation that it had to be a thing. I was writing the movie I wanted to write.

Craig: Yes. Sometimes you just have to turn all– You do, you have to turn all of it off. Everybody out there will drown you. Even their love will drown you. Their hatred will drown you, the love will drown you, the think pieces, the criticism, the awards, all that, which is designed to celebrate what you’ve done, in a way is corrosive because what you’ve done, you did. We’re always dreaming.

Curry: It’s so crazy, humans. I think about this. I’m like, “I’m having the biggest hit ever right now, and I’m thinking about what’s my next movie.” I can’t even for one second-

John: Enjoy.

Curry: -enjoy this. I’m already thinking about what’s my next one, next one, and even next one.

Craig: Okay, so good news, bad news. Bad news is you will never enjoy it. Good news, this is the best, most striking sign that you will continue to succeed. That is the thing that keeps people going. Because the people who were motivated by success, when they get it, they don’t realize it, but they just got fed. They’re not hungry anymore. If that’s not what you’re hungry for, if what you’re hungry for is the next dream thing–

Curry: It’s crazy how it means nothing to me. It drives me nuts, actually.

Craig: I’m really sorry, and I get it.

Curry: It’s like, “This should mean so much to me.” This is so crazy, but I’m like, “Nahh.” It almost just makes me angry. It doesn’t make me excited. I’m jealous of myself. How is that even possible?

Craig: Jealous of yourself, disappointed in yourself for not being enlightened enough to enjoy it. Jealous of the guy who did that thing because you don’t know how he did that, really. Sometimes you’re like, “Did I even do it?” [laughter] It’s terrifying, and then you do it again. This is your personal heaven, hell. I think the people who do what we do, and who do it at length, and who have– everything’s not always a success, but repeated success, this is part of it, is this feeling. I’m suspicious of people who are, “You know what, for the next four months, I’m just going to enjoy this moment.” What?

Curry: What.
[laughter]

Craig: What?

Curry: How are you not thinking, “Oh my God, I got to do that again, and how am I going to do it?”

Craig: If I get to not terrified, that’s a huge day for me. I love hearing this. This means we’re going to get a lot more movies out of you. This is great.

Curry: That’s a thing. I’m trying to figure out what my pace is because some of my heroes, like Ari Aster, even Zack Cregger, even Jordan Peele, they don’t come out with movies every year.

John: I think Zach Cregger’s working pretty hard.

Curry: Yes, he is.

John: Jordan Peele’s taking it at a slower pace.

Craig: Your heroes are not you. Your pace is your pace.

John: Is your pace.

Curry: If I’m not doing something, I would go crazy.

Craig: Then your pace is your pace. There are people who put out a movie a year, some of them famously, and no one who puts out a movie a year makes all good movies. They make a lot of movies. Luca Guadagnino is out there making a movie every 60 days.

Curry: Soderbergh.

Craig: Soderbergh, who retired 20 years ago, makes a movie every month. They just keep coming. That’s the pace. Your pace is your pace. You don’t have to worry about that.

John: Quick questions before we move into one cool thing. You wrote the script. You gave it to the producer. The producer said thumbs up. You shot a ton of shorts. You shot a bunch of sketches. What, from your YouTube experience, applied and what didn’t apply? What things did you have to figure out is different?

Craig: That’s a good question.

John: Because you’re working with a professional set. You’re working with probably a much bigger team than you’re used to.

Curry: Oh, yes, definitely. I’ve said this a lot on other platforms, but the YouTube comments have taught me a lot about that people are really smart, which is not always the thing you learn online.

Craig: You don’t hear that about YouTube comments.

Curry: It’s just people are picking up on things. You know that thing we talked about that was like, when you don’t give any answers, you almost have to ask people, “Are you getting this? Do you understand?” The answer is yes. As long as you’re telling it through subtext enough, people are getting it, and learning that through YouTube has given me the confidence to treat my audience like they’re smart in a way that maybe I wouldn’t have learned. I like to give credit to that.
Also, now I’ve actually learned that comments are very bad for me. Someone said recently, and I was like, “Oh, my God, I love that.” That comments are like food that you put it in your body, and you’re choosing to digest that. If you just don’t eat it, then you don’t have to– you can eat an entire thing of chocolate cake, or you can just not eat that chocolate cake.

John: What’s the difference between YouTube comments and reviews? Are you reading reviews?

Curry: Reviews are the new modern YouTube comment.

John: It’s just the same thing.

Craig: It’s just long-form YouTube comments.

Curry: It’s so funny because people were like, “What’s it like going into a medium where there were comments and now there’s not?” I was like, “There are. There are comments.”

Craig: I’ve struggled with this my whole life, or at least my whole professional life. Where I landed was, I think that it’s me as my most childlike, trying to get what I should have gotten and didn’t, which is some sort of perfect, beautiful, unconditional love and acceptance. You look for that, and you will get it from some of that stuff. It will mean nothing, and then the punches come, and you will feel those so much more.

Curry: I know.

Craig: 200 I love yous and 1 punch, and all you think about all day is the punch-

Curry: Is the punch.

Craig: -because it was not a healthy exercise in the first place, because you’re looking for something that ultimately you don’t actually need or even want. You just have to sit with your own awareness that you didn’t make something perfect. You are trying to get better. There is a corrosive aspect to it, and there is almost an indulgence. It’s almost like a suicidal indulgence, like, “Kill me.”

Curry: It is. You literally are like, “I hope the next one’s not negative,” but you’re still scrolling. Stop doing it.

Craig: You’re waiting for it. It’s like people who don’t stop gambling until they’ve lost everything.

John: It is the emotional slot machine.

Craig: It’s emotional slot machine. It’s bad for you.

John: Let me try to distinguish between there’s the comments you get on the thing that’s still in process. Someone who you want to read an early draft of your script to see, are they getting it, or people who are seeing this at the UTA, the test screening to see, “Oh, is this working?” At a certain point, when the thing is finished, you just have to be finished with it and stop reading.

Curry: Because there’s nothing to be-

Craig: You can’t do anything.

Curry: There’s no such thing about constructive criticism, because there’s no construction.

Craig: There’s no construction anymore. Construction completed. You just don’t like it, and it is me. You don’t like me. You rejected me, and you can see how intense that feeling is. In your movie, the feeling of being rejected and unwanted is baked into the movie. I would strongly urge you. It’s hard. It requires an enormous amount of ego strength. I’m going to deny myself the cheap thrill of fake love to protect myself from–

Curry: It’s so true.

Craig: It’s hard, though. It’s hard.

Curry: The difference is videos and stuff, because I know you asked what’s the difference between YouTube stuff versus the more traditional stuff. Nobody makes video essays about— People did about Milk & Serial and stuff. Arguably, that was a feature film. It’s really cool to see the videos of people talking about it. That just feels so much more different than– Because you can read the comments of that, and that’s a bad thing.

Craig: Don’t read that.

Curry: The videos–

John: Where someone’s actually taken the time to look at, pull apart, to contextualize things, sure, I can see that being helpful.

Curry: I’m just also really lucky that it’s been mostly positive for Obsession as far as people having opinions about it.

John: You may still need to stop watching those.

Curry: I know. I will, and I should. [laughs]

Craig: You can have somebody in your life who curates a little bit for you. You can say, “Listen, if you see something that it’s not just somebody going, best thing ever, or it sucked,” but somebody who goes, “Okay, I’m going to make a 10-minute video about the use of perspective in Obsession, that is some thoughtful analytical thing that isn’t about praise or condemnation, just an exploration of something that we do out of respect. Maybe somebody in your life can say, “Hey, this one’s safe for you.”

Curry: Check it out.

Craig: Check this one out.

John: We have curation on the Scriptnotes book reviews.

Craig: Oh, we do?

John: Yes. On the good reviews.

Craig: I’ve not looked at them.

John: I think I sent one thing through to you, which was this essay that I couldn’t believe how long it was. It was actually really smartly done. The fact that this person had spent all this time really looking at what we did on the Scriptnotes book was actually meaningful. It’s like, “Oh, that connected.”

Craig: Well, they spent time on it.

John: They spent time on it.

Craig: It mattered to them. It wasn’t just some barf. So much of it out there is just somebody going, “Blah, blah, blah, next.”

John: They don’t even think about how it could affect somebody at all.

Craig: They don’t think about what they just wrote within a millisecond after they hit send. It’s gone.

Curry: That the funny thing, they may even change their mind the next day.

John: Yes, but they’re not going to go back and change their comment.

Curry: You’re just stuck with the comment. Forever.

John: Forever.

Curry: Forever.

One Cool Things & Popcorn Bucket Bonus Talk↑ Back to Top
John: All right. Let’s do our one cool thing. My one cool thing. This was a study that was done. I want to pose it to you so you can tell us what you think the results were. If you have a bunch of people, schoolchildren even, just in an empty space and just tell them to wander around for 10 minutes, which direction are they going to turn? Are they going to individually turn clockwise or counterclockwise?

Craig: They have to turn. Straight ahead is not an answer.

John: They can move straight ahead, but an empty field, and so eventually they’re going to start turning around. They’re not going to just wander off forever.

Craig: My gut is that most people are right-handed. They’re going to go towards their dominant hand, and I’m going to say to the right.

Curry: I also thought it was this way.

Craig: Yes. Clockwise.

John: Clockwise.

Craig: Yes.

John: It’s counterclockwise.

Craig: What is wrong with us?

John: Universally around the world, and they can’t figure out why. They’ve done all–

Craig: Even in upside-down places like Australia?

John: Yes. I’ll put a link to The New York Times article about this. It’s written by Rachel Nuwer. If you look at the comments on that, everyone says, “Oh, but they should do it in the southern hemisphere because of the Coriolis effect.” That’s not true.

Craig: There’s no magnets.

John: That’s not real.

Craig: Can I tell you something weird? I don’t know if you’ve had this experience. In fact, I know you haven’t. No one else has except for me. This is far beyond random probability at this point. When I write something, I try and be very visual about the space, and I imagine the moments happening. I’m going to say 90% of the time when the production designer comes and shows me, or somebody does a previs or an illustration or a storyboard, they’ve put everybody in the other direction.

Curry: It drives me crazy. Oh, yes.

Craig: I go, okay, “Well, I imagined them the other way.” Everyone’s like, “Oh, that’s weird. We all imagined it like this,” and I can’t explain it. I’m backwards in my head from everybody, and I don’t know why it’s actually terrifying.

Curry: I know what you’re saying because anytime, if I didn’t explain exactly where the couch was supposed to go, then it’s always in the wrong spot.

Craig: Okay, so what’s going on?

Curry: In my head, it’s so clear-

Craig: So clear.

Curry: -that the couch is right here.

Craig: Is it like how our retinas have an upside down image that gets flipped back into our brain? What is happening?

John: As far as this study goes, they’ve a bunch of different theories and none of them pan out. They really have no idea. Scientists, it’s an active area of exploration. It could just be like we are biologically inclined to turn to the left, and they’re not sure why. If you blindfold people, it doesn’t-

Craig: It doesn’t work.

John: -work the same. If you blindfold people and tell them to move straight, I think that bias isn’t there, but it’s just a natural tendency to move.

Craig: It’s all a simulation, obviously.

John: Handedness doesn’t have anything to do with it.

Craig: It’s so weird.

Curry: But we both said right.

Craig: We both said right.

John: I was like, “I’m going to go there.”

Craig: Because I imagined in my mind, and I think maybe this is the problem, is that whatever my brain does spatially, I can see it clearly, and then when I put it, however it comes out on the other end, people are getting the flipped image. It’s so weird. It’s so weird.

John: I would say in probably 80% of scenes where I’m picturing a character entering into a space, I picture them entering in through the left. I picture them moving left to right across the screen. I’m sure statistically if you actually look at the movies I’ve made and things, that’s not the case, but I’m almost always picturing them entering into the frame from the left side of the frame.

Curry: You read from left to right. That’s part of it.

Craig: Then do people who read Arabic or Hebrew go the other way?

John: It’s wild.

Curry: I just learned that books– I don’t know if it’s in Japan or China or just Asia in general, but books are flipped.

John: I didn’t know that. There’s a lot of different cultures where what we consider the back of the book is actually the front of the book, and you’re going the other way through.

Curry: I don’t understand.

John: Manga comics, I think, are back to front.

Craig: You’re reading left to right, but you’re flipping progressively this way?

John: There’s different ways it can work-

Craig: Oh, I see.

John: -in different languages.

Curry: Manga comics is exactly what I’m talking about because I just got one. I was like, “This looks like the back of the book. I had to flip it.” I’m like, “Wait, this feels so weird.”

John: It does feel so weird.

Craig: Now that I think about it, when I went to Hebrew school, where I learned zero Hebrew except the Hebrew phrase for shut up, which every kid who goes to Hebrew school, [Hebrew language] that’s all I remember is the teacher telling me to shut up. This is great education. The books were– the cover was like this, except you would read right to left as you were turning pages this way, which is very weird. It’s all backwards. You should make a movie about that. I don’t know how many of you get that now. This is being weird. We should make a movie about that.

John: We should make a movie about that.

Craig: This is weird. Something happened that’s vaguely and boringly weird to me.

John: Crazy. One cool thing?

Craig: I do. It’s a little bit of a throwback to an old one, I’m pretty sure. It’s a game, but it’s fairly newly released on iOS. I think a long time ago, I did a one cool thing for a game called Curse of the Golden Idol, which was available on Steam. It’s this very strange game. It’s very surreal. The artwork is– sometimes there’s art styles that are aggressively, purposefully ugly. This is that. Grotesque somewhat. It’s a logic deduction game. You get a scene, you find these clues, and you have to piece together what’s actually going on. The scenes become progressively more and more difficult to figure out.
It’s all logic. You become a little bit of a Sherlock Holmes as you go through it. I liked it, but interface-wise, it was a little difficult. As it turns out, it was always supposed to be on iOS or some touch-based because it’s so simple now. It’s so easy. They’ve released two additional DLC things for it. Underneath all of it is this very weird, occult story that begins to unfold of a secret society doing some weird shit. The story’s fun, but mostly, it’s just this really interesting exercise in being very logical and observant. There’s no time limit on it. Games that put a clock on me, I start to freak out.

John: Curse of the Golden Idol?

Craig: Case of the Golden Idol. I’ve been saying Curse of the Golden Idol the whole time. It’s Case of the Golden Idol. I think the people who make it, they have their company name, which we’ll dig up here. It’s like a Pantone or a hex code for a color, I think, which I thought you would enjoy. Yes, Color Gray Games. Their logo for Color Gray Games is like the hex code Pantone. Anyway, the Case of The Golden Idol.

John: The Case of the Golden Idol. I heard you have one cool thing to share with us.

Curry: My dad, for Christmas last year, got me the Scriptnotes book.

Craig: You weren’t a little insulted? Like, “Dad, I know how to do this.” [laughs]

Curry: No, because I’m always trying to learn. I still feel like I know nothing about writing. Every day I’m like, “Oh, how do I learn more? What’s the answer?” I’m constantly chasing. I want the Aaron Sorkin Master Class again. What else can I learn? I’m studying Save the Cat. I’m studying Hero’s Journey and trying to figure out what works better for me and also trying to throw it away at the same time. You know what I mean?

Craig: You’ll find one day you will be teaching a master class where you have digested, synthesized all of it, mushed it with the things that are uniquely you, and you will then give something.

Curry: Three-act structure is important, and that’s what I’ve figured out, I think.

Craig: So far, so good for you, I would have to say. Yes, I wouldn’t dig too– By the way, here’s the one cool thing. You’re wearing a Members Only jacket, and that is the actual– is that like a vintage Members Only jacket?

Curry: No, they still have them.

Craig: That’s like a new version of the old Members Only jacket?

Curry: Yes, but it’s the same exact thing.

Craig: It’s the exact one.

John: [crosstalk] in high school. Oh, that’s cool.

Craig: I had that in 1985, I think. Members Only in whatever the early ’80s was the coolest thing ever, and then one day later, the least cool thing ever. It wasn’t like there wasn’t a middle ground. It was like everyone had one, and then suddenly, “Oh, my God–

John: If you’re wearing one, you’re lame.

Craig: -are you wearing a Members Only jacket, you loser?” I’m like, “It was cool yesterday. What?”

John: Wow, that’s crazy. I didn’t even know that.

Craig: It’s all–

John: Yes, so I assumed it was ironically cool, but it’s just genuinely cool. That’s the generational split.

Craig: I think now it’s all the way just cool.

John: Everything my daughter wears is found at vintage stores and thrifted.

Craig: My daughter as well. They could go thrifting together. She loves it.

John: It’s reminding me, your daughter is in a similar situation with Curry. She’s just making stuff herself, and she’s making music herself rather than making films herself, but she just was able to do the thing that she wanted to do and didn’t have to wait for the rest of the world to catch up.

Craig: She didn’t have to wait for the rest of the world to catch up. They just met her there, which is really– it’s cool, and it’s exciting, but she goes through these same things too. Not everybody survives the withering gaze of the world. It is slightly monkey’s paw. To be ironic, you get what you wish for, and then you’re like, “Oh, no.”

John: Craig Barker, we wish you all the success and luck. We wish all these things for you. It’s going to happen.

Curry: By the way, because I don’t want this to come out a year later, and you’re like, “Wait a second,” you might see more Members Only jackets from me.

Craig: Oh.

John: Oh, nice.

Curry: In a weird way that I won’t say, but you’re going to see it in less than a year, and you’re going to be like, “What? We were there at the birth.”

Craig: We were there at the birth, or the midlife.

Curry: It’s not as random as you think.

Craig: Okay.

Curry: A little teaser there at the end.

Craig: A little Chekhov’s Members Only jacket.

John: Scriptnotes is produced by Meredith Stedman. Our intern is Lauren Loesberg. Our outro is by Matthew Chilelli. If you have an outro, we could use more outros. Please send links to those to ask@johnaugust.com. That is also the place where you can send questions like the ones we often answer on the show. You’ll find transcripts at johnaugust.com, along with a sign-up for our weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing. The Scriptnotes Book is available wherever you buy books, just like Curry’s dad did.

Craig: Yes, cool guy.

Curry: Cool guy.

John: You can find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube. Just search for Scriptnotes and give us a follow. You’ll find us on Instagram @ScriptnotesPodcast. We have T-shirts and hoodies and drinkware. You’ll find those at Cotton Bureau.

Craig: I got to get some drinkware, by the way.

John: Yes, drinkware.

Craig: I need some. Why not have the drinkware?

Curry: I don’t know.

John: I’m going to get some.

Curry: Get the drinkware.

John: Drinkware.

Craig: Yes, drinkware.

John: You’ll find show notes with the links to things we talked about today in the email you get each week as a premium subscriber. Thank you again to our premium subscribers. They’re the best.

Craig: They make this all possible.

John: You’re going to be getting a notice soon, premium subscribers. We’re also going to email you about special things. You’re going to get a special little email soon.

Craig: Possibly a Scriptnotes themed Members Only jacket. Because my understanding is that stuff’s about to go.

John: Can you imagine an orange Members Only jacket?

Craig: We screw them over. We just salt the earth. The members are like, “Oh my God, it’s so overdone.”

John: Absolutely.

Curry: Yes, I don’t want the Members Only to be done before the thing.

Craig: No, we won’t do that, too. We promise.

Curry: I want them to come back when they’re supposed to come back, which is coming soon.

John: Curry Barker, attempting to time culture, which I love.

Craig: So far, so good. So far, so good.

John: You can sign up to become a premium member at scriptnotes.net, where you get all those back episodes and bonus segments like the one we’re about to record on Popcorn Buckets.

Craig: Popcorn Bucket.

John: Curry Barker, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a delight.

Curry: Thanks for having me. This has been so fun.

Craig: Oh, excellent.

John: Yay.

[music]

John: Craig, all right, you had a movie on theaters this summer, you had Sheep Detectives. Was there a special collectible popcorn bucket for Sheep Detectives?

Craig: I didn’t know. Sheep Detectives snuck on into the movie theaters all meek, like a sheep.

John: Meek. Like a sheep.

Craig: It stuck around for a while. Look, I was trying to punch above its weight there. Had Obsession out there.

John: Yes, sorry.

Craig: No, listen, man. Honestly, the fact that our movie got a theatrical–

John: Were you the same weekend?

Craig: No. What weekend did you guys open?

John: It was June 15th.

Craig: We were before that. No, I don’t even know what we were opening.

John: It wasn’t May 15th.

Craig: I think we were like a week before that.

John: Sorry, it was May 15th. Yes, it’s all a blur.

Craig: The movie, which, look, for 10 years, it just sat on a desk at a studio.

John: They weren’t doing popcorn bonanzas.

Craig: No, and then suddenly it got made, and it happened, and we were very–

John: Dude, that movie got praise.

Curry: It got praise, yes.

John: So much praise. It’s like–

Craig: No one saw that. Everyone was like, “Well, that’s going to be dumb.” By the way, advice, make a movie that looks like it’s going to be stupid that would not be stupid. I used to make movies that looked like they would be stupid and they were stupid, but I realized the trick is–

John: The trick is to make them good.

Craig: No, so there was no— We barely got a standee in theaters. Certainly no popcorn bucket.

John: No, the popcorn bucket we can find for Obsession, but only online. I don’t think there were–

Curry: No, it was at the AMC.

John: It was at the AMC?

Curry: Yes.

Craig: What was the popcorn bucket for that?

Curry: It’s funny because I was also aware that this popcorn bucket thing was happening. One of the first things I asked people when the bidding war was happening, I was like, “Well, are you going to do a popcorn bucket?” They were like, “Yes, we were.” The popcorn bucket, it looks like a One Wish Willow–

Curry: Oh, great.

Craig: Makes a lot of sense.

John: Not like the box–

Craig: It’s like a triangular box in the movie. Yes, but it more looks like the container that would hold the triangular boxes.

Curry: Oh, for sure.

Craig: Oh, like for the group sale stuff. Those things, yes.

Curry: Right, but it holds the popcorn, and it’s made of tin, so it’s metal. It feels high quality. I have three of them, but they sold out very quickly at the AMC all around the world. They’re gone. You can’t get them anymore, which is something cool about that. I also am like, “Should have made a little more of them.”

John: Aline had a similar situation with a Devil Wears Prada. It was like–

Craig: What was hers?

John: It was a shoe. It was like–

Craig: Makes total sense.

John: They’re really constrained supplies. That’s partly the design.

Craig: Yes, there’s not really– It makes sense. Yes, because you don’t want to drench the earth in those things. The popcorn bucket, I was not aware of the popcorn bucket even existing as a thing until the infamous-

John: The Dune.

Craig: -Dune popcorn bucket, which–

John: Looks like a sex toy.

Craig: It was a butthole. It just was. It was a butthole and it’s awesome. I think that after that, everyone was like, “Guess this is what we’re doing now.”

Curry: We missed out on the Jaws popcorn bucket, but did you have the Jaws toy, Craig? Were you trying to get the things–

Craig: Of course.

Curry: Yes, trying to get the hook, the thing out of Jaws’ mouth?

Craig: You had to fish the thing out of Jaw’s mouth, and there was a little piece of plastic, and if you caught the piece of plastic, then the–

Curry: Snapshot, yes.

John: What?

Curry: Oh, yes. It’s amazing.

John: They handed that out at theaters?

Curry: No. This is a toy you bought.

Craig: No, you had to bother your parents to let you buy this plastic piece of crap. Milton Bradley probably made it.

Curry: I’m sure. Absolutely.

Craig: It was a real piece of crap, and it would break fast.

John: What’s so fascinating is that was a toy, but we can totally imagine the popcorn bucket version of it, and these essentially are toys. I was looking at the ones for Masters of the Universe, which was a castle gray skull, and the drawbridge opened, and there was all the powers.

Craig: That makes sense, because it was a toy.

John: It was a toy, but I can’t even imagine being the theater employee who has to put all those things together, or just like, where are you storing them at the theaters?

Craig: I don’t know. I do think now I don’t even know what, for the sheep movie, what would it have been like? Just, “Oh, hold the top of a sheep’s head up so that they’ll reach inside and eat its brain?”

John: It could be his trailer.

Craig: Oh, I guess. Who cares?

John: Who cares?

Craig: Yes. That movie shouldn’t have a popcorn bucket. You need to be, I don’t know– The Sheep Detectives is not a cool movie. It’s quaint. It’s throwback. It’s cozy.

John: If you can’t come up with a good popcorn bucket, there’s an argument for should the movie even exist. No, I’m kidding. Oh, my God. Dang it. That’s a joke.

Craig: That’s a total joke.

John: It’s all about the popcorn bucket.

Craig: It’s all about the popcorn bucket.

John: It’s not about the story.

Craig: The bucket.

John: We had Joakim Truer on the show talking about sentimental value. I should have asked about the popcorn bucket–

Craig: The popcorn bucket for sentimental value.

John: I felt like that was really a missed opportunity.

Craig: Yes, because there’s probably somebody that does have a site where it’s like they make modern popcorn buckets for old films.

John: If not, then right now, that should be the thing.

Craig: I would love if somebody is doing that, but all of them were just slightly off, like the doing popcorn bucket, like E.T.’s finger, and it’s just obviously a dick.

John: Yes, I love that.

Craig: Everything’s wrong.

John: It’s like every popcorn bucket should be like, why does it look like that? That would be really funny. I tend to be sort of anti-junk, and so I want to be against it, but I truly am not against it because let people have things that they love, and if they really love a movie and they want that collectible thing, go for it.

Craig: At this point, anything that makes people happy about going to a movie theater is a wonderful thing.

John: It is. You were part of this giant summer. Independent of your movie, it’s been just like a hugely wonderful, I guess really started before that with Project Hail Mary, but it’s just been great.

Craig: This year’s been a big year for movies. It really has.

John: It’s so cool to be even a part of that at all, because I want to keep going to the theater so much, but people keep asking me as if I’m some sort of representative of Gen Z going to the movie theater, but they keep asking me like, why is it that you think your generation goes to the theater more than, by the way, any generation right now? It’s just a statistic. I think it’s because we’re tired of the phones. We’re wanting to grasp onto any reason to get out of the house nowadays, and the movie theater is a place where there’s no social expectation. You’re expected to put away your phone. You’re encouraged to shut up, not talk, and watch the film. I think people really want that, or are craving that more than ever.

Craig: I also think that Gen Z had a chance. They were the first generation since the first generation where movies happened where they could go. We are now going to discover the joy of going to movies because they’d been robbed of it. They were robbed of it by video, and then COVID, and it just wasn’t as big of a thing. Whereas for us, you turn six, you’re getting dragged out to the movie theater. I think Gen Z got to say, “We’re choosing.”

John: Craig, did you have summer movie programs? Was there a thing where local theaters would, for kids over the summer, they would have basically a film series for kids where they’d buy a pass for the whole thing?

Craig: I grew up on Staten Island. Everything was, “Screw you, buy a ticket.”

[laughter]

John: I remember the Basemark Theater in Boulder, and it was Tuesdays and Thursdays, afternoons, and so parents would just drop us off. You basically pre-bought for the whole summer.

Craig: No, we didn’t have that.

John: That’s where I saw Herbie the Lovebug.

Craig: I went on my very first date, which wasn’t really a date. It was me and my friend took two of the girls from our class, and we were all 10. We went by ourselves to see 9 to 5.

John: Wait, let’s share an experience. It was an inappropriate movie for us to see at a young age? Love it.

Craig: Almost every movie back then was inappropriate for us.

John: I learned so much.

Craig: I learned so much.

John: They’re smoking pot in the movie.

Craig: They’re smoking pot. There’s S&M gear at one point.

John: I feel like that’s coming back. Just more movies being inappropriate. Obsession is rated R, by the way. You know what I mean? To make as much money as it’s making, rated R. I don’t know. I just feel like that’s crazy.

Craig: Rated R movies, there was a moment when I think it was, I guess, in the 2000s where maybe it’s American Pie, where just suddenly almost everything had to be rated. There’s a weird cycle that occurs where then suddenly everything has to be. The Sheep Detective says PG, a rating that no one has anymore. It’s either you’re G or you’re PG-13. Nobody wants to be PG. We’re like, “Mm.”

John: I feel like that happened on accident, right? I can’t speak for–

Craig: We weren’t trying one way or the other.

John: You get the rating that you get because the movie–

Craig: Exactly. If you’re trying to get PG-13, there’s a whole process you go through to get out of the R into the PG-13.

John: Or if you’re trying to get from PG up to PG-13, you add one word.

Craig: From PG to PG-13, you add a word.

John: Really, people do that. People try to go up.

Craig: It becomes like, where are you going to use your one use of the F word here?

John: What is the context?

Craig: What is the context? Exactly.

John: All right. Thanks for this discussion of popcorn buckets and the success of films.

Curry: Of course. Thanks for having me.

John: This has been so fun.

Curry: Thanks.

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Our Big Orange Book is finally available in bookstores around the world today. We’ve gotten a ton of preorders and some terrific reviews.

“Bound to be a staple, this guide, just like the podcast, is accessible, engaging, and informative” – Booklist

“August and Mazin’s volume stands out for its wealth of real-life examples taken from cinema and TV over the past decades, its humanizing tone, and its winning combination of the practical with the entertaining.” – Library Journal

“If you’re going to buy one book on screenwriting, then you should probably make it Scriptnotes by John August and Craig Mazin.” – Forbes

A few things you can do to help us out in this crucial first week:

→ Buy it wherever you buy books. Our official LA bookstore is Chevalier’s on Larchmont, which has some signed copies at least for the next few days. Signed copies are also available at Premiere Collectables for shipping worldwide.

→ Post about it on social media. Tag me (@johnaugust) and Scriptnotes (@scriptnotespodcast) on Instagram/Bluesky/Threads and we’ll repost ya.

→ Leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. The early ones tend to set a tone.

We’re excited to see the book on shelves and in reader’s hands. Please enjoy it and share it with others!

The post The Scriptnotes Book is out today! first appeared on John August.

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When we turned in the first draft of the Scriptnotes book in late 2023, it was over 600 pages long. Over the following two years, we continually edited it down until it was only the very best stuff — but in order to do so, we had to make some painful cuts.

One was a 13-page chapter that felt essential, but didn’t quite fit anywhere: “Getting Stuff Written.”

• How do you move from “wanting to write” to actually producing pages?
• When should you start writing, and how do you know you’re ready?
• What actually is writer’s block?
• How do you keep momentum?
• How do you balance tough love and self-care on any given day?

We were sad no one would get to read it. And then we realized: BONUS CHAPTER!

For the past few months, we’ve been encouraging listeners who preorder the book to send us their receipts. Last Friday, we sent them something back — the “Getting Stuff Written” chapter, fully edited and typeset. The response has been overwhelming.

Ian writes:

I’m sorry to tell you this…But you guys obviously messed up big time!

This bonus chapter is absolutely incredible. It’s practical, empathetic, thoughtful, and succinct. It’s also exactly the message I needed at the stage that I’m at right now.

I can’t imagine how the poor souls that did not pre-order the book will get by without this chapter.

Perhaps I should just be grateful that I am part of a small cohort that has been so fortunate to receive this gem of wisdom.

Tania writes:

Wooho! Excellent chapter.

“Perfectionism is protectionism” is gold.

Tom writes:

That was an amazing read. Thank you guys! If that’s what you’re leaving OUT of the book? My god, I can’t wait to read what’s in it

Scott writes:

Oh, my. If you took out that chapter, I can’t wait to see the ones you left in.

That said, I urge you to find a way to distribute that chapter widely. It’s as good as Craig’s ‘How to Write a Movie’ episode in terms of straightforward, overall writing advice. It’s exactly the sort of thing I need to hear. I imagine others need it, too.

Scott’s right. Once the book is out, we’ll share that chapter more widely.

If you’d like to read it TODAY, send your pre-order receipt to ask@johnaugust.com. Drew will send you the bonus chapter.

We hope you like it, and can’t wait for you to hold the full book in your hands (in less than a month). Preorder here!

The post Getting Stuff Written first appeared on John August.

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For our live Three Page Challenge segment at the Austin Film Festival, we look at three entries submitted by attendees.

Download the PDFs here if you want to read along!

Tall Poppies by Becca Hurd

High North by Teddy Johnson

Ancient Grains by Michael Warnecke

The post AFF 2025 – Three Page Challenge first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig discuss short films: what makes a great short, when should you make one, and what should you realistically expect out of it? We also update our predictions on whether the career of “screenwriter” can survive potential global catastrophes.

We then answer listener questions on staff writer wages and using URLs in a script.

In our bonus segment for premium members, John and Craig talk intermissions and why more movies should have them.

Links:

• Remembering Sundance Institute Founder, Robert Redford
• John’s post on Robert Redford
• Digital Dungeons and Dragons Die
• Tally to vote for Scriptnotes Live Shows
• Scriptnotes Episode 334, Worst Case Scenarios, Transcript
• Maccy App
• DEVO Documentary on Netflix
• Megana Rao on Instagram and X
• Preorder the Scriptnotes Book!
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription
• Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube
• Scriptnotes on Instagram
• John August on Bluesky and Instagram
• Outro by Luke Davis (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The post Short Films and Existential Threats first appeared on John August.

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Robert Redford built a remarkable career as an actor and a director, but most industry folk would agree his greatest achievement was creating the Sundance Institute. That’s the organization he co-founded in 1981 which runs the annual Sundance Film Festival. It’s no hyperbole to say that Sundance transformed the American independent film landscape, bringing attention and prestige to films (and filmmakers) that might otherwise go unnoticed.

But while the festival is the public face of Sundance, I believe the less-seen work of the Sundance screenwriter and director labs is an equally important legacy. Under the direction of Michelle Satter and her team, the labs bring together seasoned advisors with emerging filmmakers to work on their next films. I’ve had the privilege of serving as a Sundance advisor since 2000.

Pre-pandemic, the labs happened on-site at Redford’s gorgeous Sundance Resort in Utah. If Redford wasn’t off shooting something, he’d come to morning meetings, listening and offering suggestions. That’s where I met him. Given our handful of interactions, I can’t say I have any particular insight about him, but I greatly admired how he was able to build an organization that operated so well without his direct supervision. He chose great people and let them do great work. It’s a lesson more founders could learn.

I was sad to hear of Redford’s passing today, but I have no worries about its impact on the remarkable institution he envisioned. That’s a legacy to admire — not just what you accomplish in your life, but the good work that can continue long after you’re gone. May he rest in peace.

The post Robert Redford, RIP first appeared on John August.

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John welcomes back Liz Hannah (The Post, The Girl from Plainville) to discuss how to construct and communicate setting in a script. They talk about the balance between establishing a sense of space while avoiding the beginner’s mistake of over-blocking.

We also follow up on accountability groups, last looks, and French composers. Then, we answer listener questions on revisions and getting your Hollywood Card revoked.

In our bonus segment for premium members, John and Liz consider how to explain screenwriting to your kids (and others).

LINKS:

• Bob The Musical has a Director!
• Download Weekend Read on the App Store
• Oxo Carbon Steel Pan
• Dehv Candle Company
• Apply for a student license for Highland Pro!
• Interested in being our new UI/UX designer? More info here!
• Preorder the Scriptnotes Book!
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription
• Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube
• Scriptnotes on Instagram
• John August on Bluesky and Instagram
• Liz Hannah on Instagram
• Outro by Spencer Lackey (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The post Places, Everyone first appeared on John August.

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Over the weekend, a Reddit question showed up as a notification:

What’s the estimated amount a writer could make from a blockbuster movie?
Even residuals too, like how much can the average writer ask for when it comes to a major franchise film or a film expected to do big numbers?

Several redditors helpfully chimed in, but I actually know this answer. Here’s what I posted.

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tl;dr Between the low hundred thousands and low millions.

I’ve written seven WGA-covered features. The two that are most relevant for answering your question are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Aladdin (2019).

Charlie made $475 million worldwide at the box office. Aladdin made $1 billion.

Screenwriters earn money in two ways. The first is upfront. The second is backend.

Your upfront pay is a function of how much the studio thinks you’re worth at the time that you’re hired. It’s entirely based on your track record. At the time I was hired to write Charlie, I had already written two Charlie’s Angels films. My initial compensation was probably a few hundred thousand dollars. For Aladdin, it was more than a million.

Again: your upfront pay is a factor of how much the studio believes you can deliver a movie they want to make (and how much that’s worth to them). The floor is WGA scale (roughly $100K in 2025).

For backend, every writer has a net profit definition established in their contract. It’s worthless. The way film revenues are accounted, movies never become technically profitable. (Neither Charlie nor Aladdin are profitable per the statements I’m sent.) But writers often get some money beyond initial compensation for their drafts.

Depending on your contract, you might get a production bonus (say, $100K) on the day the movie goes into production.

You might also have box office bonuses tied to crossing certain thresholds in domestic or worldwide box office. For these two movies, I can’t specifically remember any specific box office bonuses, but they’re relatively common, and wonderfully transparent. They’re a way of rewarding the writer for a movie’s box office success.

Finally, there are residuals, which are collected by the WGA and sent out to the writer each quarter. Residuals are based on the money a film earns AFTER its theatrical run (basically home video in all its forms). Residuals are split between the credited writers for a film.

For Charlie, residuals to date total $3.2M. For Aladdin, it’s $4.2M.

Worth pointing out again that these are giant movies, the exceptions to the rule. My first movie, Go, has earned $389K in residuals, while my indie The Nines has earned $22K.

I wrote more about residuals and the relative mix of sources in an earlier post on my blog. It’s from 2020, but the basic trajectory hasn’t changed.

The post How much can a screenwriter expect to earn from a hit film? first appeared on John August.

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After 14 years, we’ve finally added a proper YouTube channel for Scriptnotes.

In addition to several of our most-loved episodes, we have shorter weekly videos drawn from past conversations. Here are the first two, focusing on Die Hard and Greta Gerwig’s approach to screenwriting.

In the obligatory parlance of YouTube, make sure to hit that like button and don’t forget to subscribe.

The post Scriptnotes on YouTube first appeared on John August.

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Today, we’re launching Highland Pro. It’s the next generation of our flagship screenwriting app, now available on Mac, iPad and iPhone.

Here’s a video I made about it.

With Highland Pro, our mission is to keep you focused on your work. From its clean interface to innovative features like the shelf and /lookup, Highland is designed to help you avoid distractions and get things written.

I’m incredibly proud of Highland Pro and the tiny team who made it. Nima Yousefi does our coding. Dustin Bocks handles design. Chris Csont heads up support, while Daniel Sauvé-Rogan leads our marketing. Drew Marquardt and I tackle whatever else needs to be done, like the video above.

Highland Pro wouldn’t be nearly as good without our hundreds of beta testers. Thank you Team Highland!

Highland Pro is now available on the App Store worldwide, with a 30-day free trial. A single subscription covers all platforms. Try it today!

The post Introducing Highland Pro first appeared on John August.

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Weekend Read, our app for reading scripts on your phone, features a new curated collection of screenplays each week.

This week, we look at works that were made in response to the uncertainties of this current moment, and the myriad of ways writers can reflect and critique the world they live in.

Our collection includes:

• BlacKkKlansman by Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott & Spike Lee
• Don’t Look Up by Adam McKay
• First Reformed by Paul Schrader
• Joker by Todd Phillips & Scott Silver
• Parasite by Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won
• Promising Young Woman by Emerald Fennell
• Red Rocket by Sean Baker & Chris Bergoch
• She Said by Rebecca Lenkiewicz
• Succession – “Pilot” by Jesse Armstrong
• The Boys – “Pilot” by Eric Kripke
• The Handmaid’s Tale – “Pilot” by Ilene Chaiken
• The Post by Liz Hannah
• Uncut Gems by Ronald Bronstein & Josh Safdie & Benny Safdie
• Us by Jordan Peele

Read these and other featured collections only on Weekend Read 2, available on all Mac and iOS devices. Download for free!

The post Featured Friday: Modern Anxieties first appeared on John August.

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Weekend Read, our app for reading scripts on your phone, features a new curated collection of screenplays each week.

This week, we look at the many ways writers have imagined our future, and the astonishing new technology, fashion, problems and ethical dilemmas that might come to pass.

Our collection includes:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick & Arthur C. Clark
• Ad Astra by James Gray & Ethan Gross
• Black Mirror – “San Junipero” by Charlie Brooker
• Black Panther by Ryan Coogler & Joe Robert Cole
• Blade Runner by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples
• Blade Runner 2049 by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green
• Dune by Jon Spaihts and Dennis Villenuve and Eric Roth
• Futurama – “Space Pilot 3000” by David X. Cohen & Matt Groening
• Gattaca by Andrew Niccol
• Her by Spike Jonze
• Interstellar by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan
• Minority Report by Scott Frank
• Star Trek: The Next Generation – “The Best of Both Worlds, Parts I & II” by Michael Piller
• The Fifth Element by Luc Besson & Robert Mark Kamen
• The Martian by Drew Goddard
• Total Recall by Ronald Shusett & Dan O’Bannon
• WALL-E by Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon

Read these and other featured collections only on Weekend Read 2, available on all Mac and iOS devices. Download for free!

The post Featured Friday: Sci-Fi Futurism first appeared on John August.

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Weekend Read, our app for reading scripts on your phone, features a new curated collection of screenplays each week.

This week, we look at how dysfunctional families are portrayed across genres, and how they use specificity to articulate the universal condition of having a weird relationship with your folks.

Our collection includes:

• A Serious Man by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
• American Beauty by Alan Ball
• Arrested Development – “Pilot” by Mitchell Hurwitz
• August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
• Bates Motel – “First You Dream, Then You Die” by Kerry Ehrin & Anthony Cipriano
• Crazy Rich Asians by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim
• Death at a Funeral by Dean Craig
• Eve’s Bayou by Kasi Lemmons
• Everything Everywhere All at Once by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
• Happiness by Todd Solondz
• Hereditary by Ari Aster
• Kajillionaire by Miranda July
• Knives Out by Rian Johnson
• Little Miss Sunshine by Michael Arndt
• Ready or Not by Guy Busick & R. Christopher Murphy
• Shameless – “Pilot” by Paul Abbott
• Succession – “Conner’s Wedding” by Jesse Armstrong
• The Bear – “Fishes” by Christopher Storer & Joanna Calo
• The Descendants by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
• The Ice Storm by James Schamus
• The Kids Are All Right by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
• The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) by Noah Baumbach
• The Royal Tenenbaums by Wes Anderson & Owen Wilson
• The Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola

Read these and other featured collections only on Weekend Read 2, available on all Mac and iOS devices. Download for free!

The post Featured Friday: Dysfunctional Families first appeared on John August.

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Weekend Read, our app for reading scripts on your phone, features a new curated collection of screenplays each week.

This week, we look at at the many blood-draining Vampire stories to see how a sub-genre can continually reinvent itself in order to stay immortal.

Our collection includes:

• Blade by David S. Goyer
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer – “Welcome to the Hellmouth” by Joss Whedon
• Doctor Sleep by Mike Flanagan
• Dracula – “The Rules of the Beast” by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat
• From Dusk till Dawn by Quentin Tarantino
• Interview with the Vampire – “In Throes of Increasing Wonder…” by Rolin Jones
• Let Me In by Matt Reeves
• Near Dark by Eric Red and Kathryn Bigelow
• Only Lovers Left Alive by Jim Jarmusch
• Shadow of the Vampire by Steven Katz
• The Lost Boys by Jeffrey Boam
• The Vampire Diaries – “Pilot” by Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec
• True Blood – “Strange Love” by Alan Ball
• Twilight by Melissa Rosenberg
• Van Helsing by Stephen Sommers
• What We Do in the Shadows – “Pilot” by Jemaine Clement

Read these and other featured collections only on Weekend Read 2, available on all Mac and iOS devices. Download for free!

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Weekend Read, our app for reading scripts on your phone, features a new curated collection of screenplays each week.

This week, we look at movies that use the confines of a single day to their advantage, keeping characters constantly pushing against time and towards their goals.

Our collection includes:

• All is Lost by J.C. Chandor
• American Graffiti by George Lucas, Gloria Katz & Willard Huyck
• Before Midnight by Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
• Before Sunrise by Richard Linklater & Kim Krizan
• Bodies Bodies Bodies by Kristen Roupenian
• Booksmart by Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins
• Dazed and Confused by Richard Linklater
• Die Hard by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza
• Dog Day Afternoon by Frank Pierson
• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off by John Hughes
• Gravity by Alfonso Cuarón & Jonás Cuarón
• Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg
• Locke by Steven Knight
• Margin Call by J.C. Chandor
• Snowpiercer by Bong Joon-ho
• Superbad by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg
• Tangerine by Sean Baker & Chris Bergoch
• Malcolm and Marie by Sam Levinson

Read these and other featured collections only on Weekend Read 2, available on all Mac and iOS devices. Download for free!

The post Featured Friday: 24 Hours or Less first appeared on John August.

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Weekend Read, our app for reading scripts on your phone, features a new curated collection of screenplays each week.

This week, it’s back to school! We look at stories that articulate the excitement and ease the pain of starting another academic year.

Our collection includes:

• 10 Things I Hate About You by Karen McCullah Lutz & Kirsten Smith
• Big Little Lies – “Somebody’s Dead” by David E. Kelley
• Bottoms by Rachel Sennott & Emma Seligman
• Clueless by Amy Heckerling
• Dead Poets Society by Tom Schulman
• Easy A by Bert V. Royal
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High by Cameron Crowe
• Friday Night Lights – “Its Different For Girls” by Andy Miller
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by Steve Kloves
• Lady Bird by Greta Gerwig
• Mean Girls by Tina Fey
• Napoleon Dynamite by Jared Hess & Jerusha Hess
• Never Have I Ever – “Pilot” by Mindy Kaling & Lang Fisher
• Rushmore by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson
• School Daze by Spike Lee
• Sex Education – “Episode One” by Laurie Nunn
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
• Wednesday – “Wednesday’s Child Is Full Of Woe” by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar

Read these and other featured collections only on Weekend Read 2, available on all Mac and iOS devices. Download for free!

The post Featured Friday: Back to School first appeared on John August.

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Back in 2017, friends and I came up with a fun little game called AlphaBirds.1 We’ve been playing it in the office nearly every Friday since then.

It’s a word game like Scrabble or Wordle, but faster and more fun. And it’s ridiculously simple to learn.

1. On your turn, draw two cards.
2. Play one card in front of you, and one in front of any other player.
3. Make words if you can. Longer words are worth more points.

Yes: there are more rules. But that’s the gist. Most players pick it up in 30 seconds or less.

It’s the perfect game for lunchtime or beer o’clock. You can carry on a conversation while playing, and don’t have to keep things in your hand. You draw; you play; you’re finished until it’s your turn again. Most games last about 10 minutes.

We printed 100 copies of the game and shared them with friends. Then we got busy doing other things.

This spring, we decided to officially launch the game. We registered the official trademark, locked down the barcode, and redesigned the box for our new American manufacturer.

We also made a short how-to-play video.

Starting today, you can buy AlphaBirds for yourself! The game is now available both on our site and on Amazon. This isn’t a pre-order. It’s in stock and shipping today.

Because we’re a brand-new game, we currently have zero online reviews. So if you’ve played AlphaBirds and love it, please leave a review so others can see it’s an actual game humans enjoy.

1. Originally it was called Sparrow, but AlphaBirds was a better name.

The post AlphaBirds, our favorite office game first appeared on John August.

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This year’s Academy Award nominees for best original and best adapted screenplay are a terrific mix of genres and styles, with scripts by established names and newcomers alike.

Craig and I talked through a bunch of them on a recent Scriptnotes, but that’s no substitute for reading them yourself. Fortunately, studios have made most of these scripts available online.

To make it even easier, we’ve added a new And the Nominees Are… list to Weekend Read. Here you’ll find everything from American Fiction to Zone of Interest.

Completists will notice that two scripts are missing. The screenplay for Past Lives hasn’t been released, while Anatomy of a Fall has a fascinating non-traditional format that can’t be converted out of PDF.

Weekend Read 2 is free on the App Store.

The post And the nominees are…in Weekend Read first appeared on John August.

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This afternoon, I represented the WGA at a virtual roundtable organized by the Federal Trade Commission on the impact of AI on creative professions. It ended up being a great panel that brought together a range of disciplines from writing to music to visual arts.

In her opening remarks, FTC Chair Lina M. Khan called out the WGA’s recent wins in establishing AI protections, as did commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya.

The full video of the panel will be up at some point, but in the meantime, here are my opening remarks, prepared with our incredible Guild staff members Laura Blum-Smith, Erica Knox and Rachel Torres.

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I’m here on behalf of the Writers Guild of America West, a labor union representing thousands of writers of film, television and streaming series. Our members, and the members of Writers Guild of America East, have just concluded a 148-day strike where artificial intelligence was a key issue. Our fellow artists at SAG-AFTRA are still on strike, with AI as a core issue for them as well. But the fight for protection over our craft and livelihoods doesn’t stop at the bargaining table—while we have been able to achieve groundbreaking protections for writers, we need public policy solutions too. 


Obviously, copyright is an area of government scrutiny, both the copyrightability of AI-generated works, and the degree to which training AI models infringes on copyright. WGA writers do not hold copyright for the scripts we write; those are works made for hire, so the studios—our employers—hold the copyright. But through the power of our union, we have over the decades negotiated an assortment of contractual rights in the works we create, including the right to payment for reuse of our work. It’s a good reminder that while copyright is important, it’s not the end of the story when it comes to protecting artists.


The Guild’s new agreement offers helpful guidance in thinking about future public policy on AI. Our agreement defines that AI is not a writer and that the material it generates is not equivalent to human writing for the purposes of our contract. That means AI cannot rewrite us, nor can it compete with a human writer for credit and the associated financial benefit of that credit. Further, the studios now have to tell us if they are providing us with material generated by AI, and they cannot require us to use AI tools.

We won these protections because we’re a strong union that successfully carried off a nearly five-month strike. But we need to remember that most writers and most artists in this country don’t have unions to protect them. It’s best to think of writers and other artists as tiny businesses, each competing in the marketplace to sell their work. Writers and artists each develop a unique style, voice and brand in order to distinguish themselves. AI fundamentally disrupts that market in ways that could be devastating to the creative economy.


Large language models like the one that underpins ChatGPT have scraped massive volumes of data including our words, our unique perspective. This is theft, not fair use. Our works—protected by copyright and our own contractual rights—are being used entirely without our authorization, without any attribution or any compensation. Right now, you could ask ChatGPT to write something “in the style of” a particular writer, and it would try to do that—appropriate the unique voice of a writer, without that writer’s consent.

As FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya recently suggested, this could constitute an unfair method of competition. It is using stolen goods to undercut the price of a seller and create market confusion. And it’s not a hypothetical. Right now, authors are finding AI-generated knock-offs of their work published on Amazon. They’re having to fight to get those fakes taken down, and protect their brands.

This form of AI appropriation may also have consumer implications. From electronics to organic eggs, consumers expect to be told the origin of a product, and its authenticity. Consumers make choices based on that information. The same will likely be true with AI.

With this strike and this contract, the Writers Guild was able to win groundbreaking AI protections for writers. But it’s important to remember our deal only covers the film and television studios. Most of the real work in AI is being done by companies like Google, Facebook and OpenAI, with which the Guild has no contractual relationship. Public policy will play a crucial role in protecting our members.

In conclusion, AI has the potential to assist the creative community, but only with the consent of that community. Without guardrails, AI poses a profound threat to writers and the integrity of our creative work. AI and its use raises major questions of intellectual property, of transparency, of competition, all of which requires careful oversight to protect the creative economy.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of film and television writers.

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The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice have drafted new merger guidelines outlining how the agencies should approach corporate consolidations.

Here are the key points:

1. Mergers should not significantly increase concentration in highly concentrated markets.
2. Mergers should not eliminate substantial competition between firms.
3. Mergers should not increase the risk of coordination.
4. Mergers should not eliminate a potential entrant in a concentrated market.
5. Mergers should not substantially lessen competition by creating a firm that controls products or services that its rivals may use to compete.
6. Vertical mergers should not create market structures that foreclose competition.
7. Mergers should not entrench or extend a dominant position.
8. Mergers should not further a trend toward concentration.
9. When a merger is part of a series of multiple acquisitions, the agencies may examine the whole series.
10. When a merger involves a multi-sided platform, the agencies examine competition between platforms, on a platform, or to displace a platform.
11. When a merger involves competing buyers, the agencies examine whether it may substantially lessen competition for workers or other sellers.
12. When an acquisition involves partial ownership or minority interests, the agencies examine its impact on competition.
13. Mergers should not otherwise substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly.

These are good principles! Notably, they’re not obsessed with whether a merger is likely to raise prices for consumers. Rather, they look more broadly at how consolidation impacts all the components of an industry.

The FTC has invited public comment on these draft guidelines. As of today, there are over 1,000 comments. The WGA has encouraged its members to share their experiences. Citizens working in every industry should write in as well. Mergers affect all of us, and these policies could shape the next few decades.

I submitted my comment today. Here’s what I wrote.

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I’m a screenwriter and novelist who has seen firsthand the impact of mergers and consolidation in the film and publishing industries. That’s why I’m writing in support of the FTC and DOJ’s Draft Merger Guidelines. We need to revive and rethink antitrust enforcement in this country so that it recognizes consolidation’s impact on workers, sellers, consumers and citizens.

My work as a screenwriter has found me working for both Disney (including 2019’s Aladdin) and what remains of Fox (where I currently have a series in development). I believe Disney should never have been allowed to buy 21st Century Fox in 2019. Not only did it increase concentration and reduce competition for consumers, it did the same for writers. This issue is addressed in Point 11 of your draft guidelines: “When a merger involves competing buyers, the agencies examine whether it may substantially lessen competition for workers or other sellers.”

When Disney bought Fox, it came at the immediate cost of redundant employees’ jobs. It then created downward pressure on the wages throughout the industry, with one less buyer for the services of writers, directors, actors and crew.

I can offer a specific example from my own experience. In 2018, Fox brought me in to meet on a high-profile book adaption for their Fox Family division. By the time it came to make my writing deal, the proposed Disney merger was announced and the division wasn’t allowed to pursue any project that might compete with Disney’s own. All of the executives on the project were let go.

In the process of Hollywood development, projects disappear and executives get fired all the time. What was unique is how this merger broke so many pieces simultaneously, from studio feature films to indies to cable to broadcast television. We should consider not just the immediate negative impact, but also the after effects. Tom Rothman, who used to run Fox’s film division, noted that “Consolidation under giant corporate mandates rarely promotes creative risk-taking. And in the long run, it is always a challenge to compete against horizontal monopolistic power.”

I also work as an author, with three books published by Macmillan and an upcoming book published by Crown (Penguin Random House). Consolidation in the industry means that 60% of books published in English come from just five publishers, and we nearly dropped to four. They have unprecedented control over the market, limiting options for retailers, authors and readers.

I’m a proud member of the Writers Guild of America, West, and have served on both its board and negotiating committee. The entertainment industry’s history of unchecked consolidation is a major factor in the strike of 11,500 writers including myself on May 2 against our employers, who collectively negotiate our three year contract as the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). SAG-AFTRA has joined us on strike, their 170,000 members seeking a contract that fairly compensates us for the value we create.

It is essential that antitrust agencies consider how any future proposed mergers in this industry — such as the long-rumored Apple/Disney deal — would impact writers and other industry workers. It’s not enough to wait and see; antitrust agencies should proactively investigate and announce decisions, so CEOs don’t propose deals that paralyze the industry.

These Draft Merger Guidelines are the solid principles we need to maintain a vibrant, competitive environment that serves all Americans.

Thank you for the consideration of my comments.

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You can submit your own comment on the FTC’s public comment page.

The post FTC proposes new merger guidelines first appeared on John August.

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On Wednesday, I participated in a listening session on AI and copyright hosted by the U.S. Copyright Office.

I was representing the WGA West. Other speakers included reps from the DGA, Public Knowledge, the Motion Picture Association and the National Association of Broadcasters.

Video will be up from the event in a few weeks. In the meantime, I wanted to share my opening remarks, which were a group effort with the team at the Guild.

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My name is John August. I am a screenwriter and member of the negotiating committee of the Writers Guild of America West, a union that represents thousands of writers who create the content audiences watch every day in theaters, on television and on streaming services.

This is a unique moment for me to be speaking to this issue, because the subject of AI and its role in our industry is a major point of contention in the Guild’s ongoing nationwide strike against the major motion picture and television studios.

While writers who work under the Guild’s collective bargaining agreement are not copyright owners—we create works for hire—the Guild has negotiated an assortment of contractual rights in the works we create, including the right to residual payments for the reuse of our work across media platforms.

In the current negotiations, the Guild has made a proposal to regulate AI for the first time in our contract. The broad purpose of the proposal is to prevent our employers from using AI to devalue the work that writers do—to lower our pay, to deprive us of credit or attribution rights, or, in the most extreme case, to eliminate the need to hire writers altogether. The proposal would also prohibit the companies from using material written under the Guild’s agreement to train AI programs for the purpose of creating other derivative (and potentially infringing) works.

The companies’ response has been telling: not only did they reject our proposal, they refused to engage on the issue at all. The most they have said is that the technology is new and they are not inclined to limit their ability to use this new technology in the future. This is an ominous response in the eyes of our members and one of many reasons that 11,500 writers have been on strike since May 2.

We often speak of copyright as a means of protecting works of authorship. But copyright was created with the intention of protecting authors from appropriation and theft. As we discuss the impact of AI, we need to remember the human authors and not just the corporations who employ them.

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Following our opening remarks, panelists had the opportunity to answer questions about what rules and policies the Copyright Office should consider.

Speaking on behalf of the Guild, and its 11,500 members currently on strike, I focused on the need to protect the human creators of work.

You can read the opening statement of John Bergmayer at Public Knowledge, which specifically mentions the WGA strike. I’ll post other statements as I find them.

The post AI and Copyright first appeared on John August.

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John is joined by Megana Rao to give us a first-hand account of last night’s WGA member meeting at the Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles.

Links:

• Megana Rao on Twitter
• Sarah Schaefer on the proposed “day rate.”
• Summary of Negotiations: WGA proposals and AMPTP responses
• 2023 WGA Strike Rules
• Strike Rules FAQ
• Picket Schedules and Locations
• Find more about the 2023 WGA negotiations here at WGAContract2023.org
• John on Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

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The original post for this episode can be found here.

John August: Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

Craig Mazin: My name is Craig Mazin.

John: This is Episode 591 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show, how do we establish what happened in the world before the movie began? We’ll look at collective narratives and ways to get the audience up to speed. We’ll also discuss getting staffed and joining the WGA. To help us do all that, we welcome back our beloved Scriptnotes producer, Megana Rao. Welcome back.

Craig: Yay!

John: Woohoo!

Megana Rao: Hello.

Craig: Aw. Hi.

Megana: I’m feeling very shy.

John: Suddenly she’s shy.

Craig: Nothing’s changed. You’ve done this so many times. You’re good. You’re doing great.

John: She’s like the kid running around all over the living room before the guests come over, and the guests come into the living room and they hide back behind their parents.

Megana: Yeah, exactly.

Craig: You’re doing great.

John: Megana, we lost you because you went off to work on a television show, a Netflix comedy.

Megana: Yes.

John: On a scale of 1 to 14, how has it been working on this Netflix show so far?

Megana: It has been so fun. It absolutely rocks. I’m not saying that in a way… I don’t want anyone’s feelings to be hurt, but I’m having a great time.

Craig: Our feelings are certainly not hurt, although what were the odds that Megana was going to describe her current job as a 1 out of 14?

John: Exactly, like, “Oh, it’s absolutely torture, and all the people in the room who listen to this podcast, they need to know that it’s absolutely the worst.”

Megana: No, it’s the greatest. My head hurts from laughing so much every day.

Craig: Oh, wow.

John: It’s gotta be a huge adjustment though too, because generally, it’s been you and me or you and me and Nima, who comes in the office, and now you’re suddenly around a bunch of people all day. Has that been a huge adjustment for you?

Megana: Definitely. It went from quiet time with just you and me sitting next to each other in the office to around a dozen people just doing jokes and bits all day, talking nonstop.

John: Wow. Megana, in our Bonus Segment, because you’re coming back, I wanted to give you carte blanche to whatever you would like to do for a Bonus Segment. Do you have any thoughts about what you want to do for a Bonus Segment for this one?

Megana: Yes. I recently downloaded TikTok and have gotten sucked into get ready with me videos, which I believe you’re also familiar with, hashtag #grwm. I wanted to talk about those.

John: Fantastic. We are so unprepared to talk about getting ready with me, but you can get us ready for it by talking us through what we need to know about-

Craig: No idea what’s going on.

John: … getting ready with me.

Megana: Wait, really? You guys aren’t watching these?

Craig: Weirdly, no.

John: I have a sense of what I think they are. You’ll tell us. Our Premium members can listen in as we get up to speed with where Megana is already at in terms of getting ready with me videos.

Megana: Great.

John: Awesome. Some news, folks. The WGA Awards happened. It’s this past weekend as we recorded. It’s two weekends ago. No surprise that Everything Everywhere All At Once and Women Talking, two of the features that we had the filmmakers on to talk about, won first place, because that’s what we do. We pick the winners.

Craig: I really wish you hadn’t said that, because now we’re going to get more emails from more PR people.

John: You know whose problem that is? It’s Drew’s problem.

Drew Marquardt: It’s my problem.

John: It’s no longer Megana’s problem.

Craig: It’s Drew’s problem now. That’s wonderful, as long as it’s not our problem, although it is. We get them.

John: We get them too.

Craig: We do. Congratulations to Sarah and the Daniels. Very exciting. Listen, I don’t want to handicap anything. I’m not an Oscars expert or a pro or anything like that, but it sure looks good for Everything Everywhere All At Once going into the final weekend here, because the Oscars are coming up this weekend.

John: They will already have happened by the time people are listening to this. You’ll know whether Craig was wrong or was right. I think he’s probably right.

Craig: I feel like I am, but no one’s going to be watching the Oscars, because it’s the finale of The Last of Us, so oh well.

John: Good timing there. Good planning.

Craig: Sorry, Oscars. Sorry.

John: Megana, do you have any advice for Drew as he deals with the onslaught of publicists who are going to be asking for a prime spot on Scriptnotes?

Megana: Unfortunately, we don’t take solicitations for guests. It’s tough that we have this policy, because there’s a lot of cool guests that are being pitched out there. You two actually end up bringing on most of the guests that you’re interested in talking to.

John: In general, if there’s somebody who we’re really fascinated by, we’ll just reach out to them, and they’ll say yes. Occasionally, we have to go through a publicist. Back in the day, we used to go to Twitter, but now I guess it’ll have to be Instagram. I’ll reach out on Instagram and find these folks or Craig will meet them somewhere.

Craig: I don’t want people to feel bad, like if we haven’t had you on the show, it means we don’t think you’re fascinating. That’s not true. The other thing that I do say to people all the time, because it is true, is that we’re not really that show. We’re not a guest chat show. We’re a John and Craig talk about things that are interesting to screenwriters show, and occasionally, we’ll bring someone else into our marriage to spice it up a touch. Mostly, we’re monogamous. That’s kind of how we are.

John: If you’re a publicist who has terrific clients, there are so many great venues for you to be bringing those clients. Scriptnotes won’t be one of them, but that’s okay, because there’s lots of other great podcasts out there who will be happy to have them. Megana, we have you here only for a short time, so I want to make sure we get the most value out of your time here with us.

We have talked to previous guests about getting staffed. We talked to Ryan Knighton. We talked to Jack Schaefer about running a room. We talked to Megan McDonald, your predecessor, when she got staffed.

I want to talk about that transition period, because there was a time when you were taking a lot of meetings. You were just taking a lot of meetings and going out and meeting with people. What was that like? What was the process? You get the call saying, “There’s this show. They’re interested in you.” Then you’d have to get up to speed. How did you get the call? What prep did you do? It was a couple of months of work on some of these, and some of them happened really quickly.

Megana: I don’t think it was a couple of months on any of them. I feel like with lower-level positions, it happens really quickly. It’s week off. This one happened to be less than 24 hours notice before I went in for the interview.

Craig: Wow.

John: Let’s talk through going in for the interview before you get there. What is the call or the email from your rep saying, “Hey, there’s this show.” What are they telling you about it? What are you reading? What are you watching?

Megana: Somehow, for this show, my sample got passed to this showrunner, but my agent didn’t formally submit me for this role. In tracing back how it all came together, I’m actually not quite sure.

Craig: Wouldn’t it be great if this is where Megana found out that we did it?

John: Behind the scenes.

Craig: We just quietly paid them off.

John: It was us.

Craig: We’re like, “Listen. Megana-“

Megana: “We have had enough.”

Craig: “She needs to go. She’ll sit in the room. She’s not going to write anything. Don’t worry about it. She’ll just laugh. She’s great.”

Megana: “She’ll just giggle.”

Craig: “She’ll just giggle. Then just send her home. For God’s sake, she’s gotta go.”

Megana: Did you guys actually do that?

Craig: Yeah, we did that.

John: No, that’s not true at all.

Craig: No, it’s what happened.

John: There was a friend of ours in college who our ongoing bit with her was that her parents were paying us to be her friend.

Craig: Aw.

John: Whenever she’s like, “You’re being mean to me,” it’s like, “Your parents’ check didn’t clear.”

Craig: Wait, we have to explain to them what checks are.

John: Here’s a good tie-in to that. Megana, literally the day before you got staffed on the show, you were in the office and we were talking about what a check was. You had a revelation about something you had never realized before about checks. Is that correct?

Megana: Yes, but I’ve already forgotten what it was. There’s a form on the back of checks, and you’re supposed to do something with it.

John: Yeah.

Craig: Good lord. You endorse it.

John: You endorse it. You sign it for a deposit or for deposit only. That was a new thing for checks for you.

Megana: What happens if you don’t do it? Because I’ve never done that for the three checks I’ve written.

John: I think it actually doesn’t matter anymore, because now you’re just putting the thing on the ATM, and so it doesn’t matter.

Megana: Got it.

John: Technically, you should be doing that.

Craig: There was a while where I never did it. Then with the advent of digital deposits, where you take a picture of your check, the algorithm needs you to sign the back of it or it kicks it back at you, so we’re back to it.

Megana: The other thing I didn’t realize is that checks were numbered. That was the big surprise.

John: That was a big one. I wanted you to say it rather than me say it.

Craig: What?

John: The checks are numbered sequentially.

Craig: What? You didn’t notice that there was a number on each check that got bigger with each check that you went through?

Megana: Craig, there are a lot of numbers on checks, and I don’t go through checks.

Craig: First of all, how dare you? You have to come at this with some humility, because that’s crazy.

Megana: I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a check before, but there’s-

Craig: There are a lot of numbers on it. I’m like, “Oh yeah, you’re making a great point.” Wait, no, you’re not, because all the numbers on the bottom of a check are in that weird check font, but then there’s a normal font in the top right, or that’s usually where it is, which is just a four-digit number. John, are we-

John: Old? Yeah.

Craig: God.

John: She grew up in a time when checks were just no longer a thing. They’re not a thing now. There was never a period where she needed to worry about a checkbook and the sense of, “Oh, did I grab the right checkbook?” It doesn’t matter, because she never had to deal with it.

Craig: Did you have the same experience that I did, John, in high school, where we took half a semester in some class that was like home ec? I don’t know what else you would call it. It was learning how to write checks and keep track of them in the white parts of the checkbook that no one ever uses except old, old, old people.

Megana: Aw.

Craig: I know. Aw, we’re cute.

John: I think it was part of our math unit. I think it was just built into basically that.

Craig: That’s awesome.

John: I think we were explained what a mortgage was.

Craig: You get to pause on math and then they just make you do checks?

John: Probably math.

Craig: That’s crazy.

John: Also, they shoved logic into the geometry section. They’d have to find a place to do it.

Craig: Technically, geometry does require proofs and theorems.

John: It’s logic.

Craig: A lot of logic. I don’t really think they shoved it in there. I’m going to challenge you on that.

John: We’ll see.

Craig: I’m fighting today. I’m fighting everyone.

John: How would we find the answer to this? Where is the source of truth people go back to? What was the curriculum in Fairview High School in 1987? Who can find that out? If you’re a listener who could tell me when I learned about checks, that would be fantastic.

More crucially for screenwriter issues, I want to get back to, in general, Megana, as you were hearing about a show, your reps were trying to set up a showrunner meeting with you on the show, what are they sending you? What kind of prep can you do for that?

Megana: Typically, I would get at least a pilot script, maybe a couple of other scripts, and a little blurb that my agent would send with a log line and a little synopsis of where the season was going. Oftentimes, that’s been it.

John: Do they give you some sense of why they’re meeting with you? Is there a specific role they might be looking for you for, like, “We need a funny person.” Because talking with showrunners, it seems like sometimes they’re casting rooms to make sure, like, “We need somebody who’s really good at mysteries. We need somebody who’s good at structuring a one-hour show, someone with this kind of experience.” Do they give you a sense of why they’re meeting with you, or just you’re on their list?

Megana: I’ve never really had that information beforehand. I’ve tried to come up with a pitch based off of those materials, but typically, I don’t think so.

John: You’ve had a little bit of time to prep. You’re going in and meeting. Are you actually going in meeting somebody, or is it all just Zooms at this point?

Megana: My interview was in person, and the room’s in person, which I am so thrilled about.

John: That’s great. Has that been typical for all the showrunner meetings you’ve been taking over the last couple months?

Megana: No, I think this is the first one. In the past few months, it’s been like, “Hopefully, we would do something in person or hybrid if possible,” but this is the first one that’s been like, “Nope, we’re definitely physically here.”

Craig: Do you feel the love being in person? I certainly prefer it, but I know that that’s been the way it’s always been with me, that people I’ve worked with have been in the room, and then there was this brief interruption. For you, since you haven’t had the experience of a writing room really until now, does it feel good knowing that you’re there in person or is it a 50/50?

Megana: I’m so happy that we’re in person. Everyone in this room has had prior relationships with each other. I can’t imagine coming into this room over Zoom and not having the ability to make small talk on the way up the stairs or in the coffee room. I just think it’s been hugely important. Also, the energy of being there together is not something that you can easily replicate.

John: Especially for a comedy. It’s a sense of was that funny in the moment, was it funny in the room, did it actually land. I feel like that’s much more important for something like this. If you’re doing a very structured procedural, it may not be as important that you all physically be in the same space, because it’s not going to have the same vie.

Megana: Totally. I think I didn’t appreciate how much of the job is just reading body language. You just can’t do that over Zoom in the same way.

John: A thing we’ve heard from a bunch of showrunners and also previous staff writers on the podcast is that it’s hard when you’re first in a room to know when to speak up, when to stay quiet, what the first thing is you should actually say, the first pitch you should give. Is that the experience you’ve found? What was it like based on your prior expectations based on Scriptnotes versus being there in person?

Megana: I don’t know. I guess I’m still figuring it out. Luckily, my showrunner is very into mentoring, so I have felt very supported through this process. I think it’s certainly something I’m still navigating.

John: A question we often get is, if you are a staff writer in this room, on a daily basis what are you actually writing? Are you taking notes? Are you doing anything, or is it just entirely your brain, and you’re talking in the room? Is there anything that you are actually physically writing at this point?

Megana: It’s mostly talking, but we’ve recently started working on outlines.

John: That’s exciting. You said there were maybe a dozen people in a room. Does that include support staff? Because we obviously talked a lot about support staff on this podcast. Who’s in the room on a supporting level, who’s not a writer?

Megana: There’s a script coordinator and a writing assistant.

John: Are they just there to physically write stuff down and move stuff around, or are they contributing as well? Are they speaking up, or are they mostly there to make sure everyone else is facilitated?

Megana: Both. They’re definitely speaking and contributing. The room is just so many whiteboards.

Craig: You don’t want to give anything identifying here in terms of size, but is there ever any frustration, asks the guy who works alone, with either some people talking too much, some people never talking, having something to say but waiting and then it’s too late and then we’ve moved on? How do you deal with the frustration of a large group of people talking about something?

Megana: I don’t think I really have to deal with the frustration of it, but a lot of these people are very seasoned writers, and there’s a certain pace and momentum that they just understand. The showrunner is so great, because he’s really responsive to what everyone says, but he’s also very clear on the direction that he’s looking for, the types of things that he’s looking for.

John: It also helps that you’re not coming in from scratch. There’s already a sense of what this show is or at least what the show is supposed to be. You didn’t come in on day one of this. That also helps a little bit too, that there’s some sort of structure, a sense of what this is that you’re trying to make.

Megana: Totally.

John: Megana, when I took you out to celebrate getting staffed on a show, one of the things [inaudible 00:15:19] you can potentially be joining the WGA based on this show, based on staffing on this show, which would be so exciting, because we’d get another WGA member in our fold. I realized that we’ve never actually talked on the podcast, or at least not recently, in 591 episodes, about the actual point system it takes to join the WGA, because it’s not just a club that you sign up for you. You actually have to qualify to join.

Megana: I had no idea how any of this worked.

Craig: Few do. Few do. This is arcane knowledge that only the oldest of wizards and witches know about. You know when Gandalf goes to research the ring and he goes into that super old library and finds some scroll and he’s reading and goes, “Oh,” and then he’s running back? That’s me.

John: You are the old scroll.

Craig: There’s somebody on Twitter who was doing the thing that people do on Twitter, professing his great knowledge about the screenwriting world, as often. One of the things he said was, “A lot of people don’t know that just because you sell your spec script, that doesn’t mean that you automatically become a WGA member.” Yeah, it does. Then I was like, “Okay, I don’t know where the misconception is,” but let’s talk through how it actually works, because it’s weird.

The way it works is there’s units. To become a full-fledged, current, active member of the Writers Guild of America West, you need to get 24 units at a minimum. You have 3 years to accrue those 24 units, or the ones that start to expire, basically. You need to figure out how to get your 24 units in within 3 years, at which point, hooray, you’re a member. The thing about selling a screenplay, if you sell a screenplay for a feature length theatrical motion picture, boom, 24 units, you’re done. Welcome to the Guild.

John: Craig, I want to raise one potential hand here. In theory, someone who’s not a WGA member, could sell a spec screenplay to a company through their nonsignatory arm and not join through that. There’s ways I’m sure this had happened in the past, where someone has sold a thing and it’s not happened for them.

Craig: If you sell a screenplay to a nonsignatory, you get zero units, and may God have mercy on your soul. What he specifically said was you have to sell your script, and then you have to do another pass on it. That is not the case, although you weren’t guaranteed another pass on it. It’s part of our deal. The tiniest amount of units is two.

I think this is the way a lot of people get into the Guild. Each complete week of employment within the Guild’s jurisdiction on a week-to-week basis gets you two units. If you’re hired as a staffer on a show, and you are in the room, covered by your employment deal for 12 weeks, boom, Writers Guild. You’re in. That’s 24 units.

John: That’s the way it helps for Megana.

Craig: Indeed.

John: She’s accruing two units per week.

Craig: Two units per week. There’s lots of things in between writing a story only, writing a short film, writing a radio play less than 30 minutes, shall be prorated in 5-minute increments. These rules have been around for a long… Like I said, Gandalf in the library.

John: You can tell these are old.

Craig: The story for a TV program of less than 30 minutes, again, prorated in increments of 10 minutes or less. I think it should be 10 minutes or fewer. In any case, there are lots of subdivisions, but the point is, the way most people get into the Guild is either through selling a screenplay for a feature film or working week to week as a staffer and getting those 12 weeks under their belt, at which point the Guild calls you and says, “You owe us money.”

John: That’s one of the exciting calls you love to get. Craig, I got into the Guild because I was hired to write a feature screenplay, which is 24 units of credit, for How to Eat Fried Worms. It was for [inaudible 00:19:22] Pictures, which is a Guild signatory. I got the message from the WGA saying, “Hey, congratulations. You are now eligible and must join the Guild and the pay $3,500.” It was some pretty significant fee to join. Then you are in the Writers Guild, and you’re there for good until you could go post-current at some point. You were then in the Writers Guild and you are fully a member thereof. Craig, what was your thing that got you in?

Craig: I was the same. With a writing partner of mine, we sold an original screenplay idea to Disney, and we were hired to write the screenplay. Of note, both of us immediately accrued 24 units. It wasn’t like they spread the units, 12 and 12.

I have never had a faster call in my life from a union. I don’t know how they found me. It was like seconds went by, and then suddenly the phone rang, and then they were like, “Hey, kid.” There was a woman who used to run that department. I can’t quite remember her name. She was a very nice lady, but older. It was like they sent the tough lady after you, like, “Listen, kid, you owe us money.” I was like, “Okay, great.”

What was funny at the time, of course, was LOL, I hadn’t gotten paid anything, and neither had my writing partner. We both owed each the full initiation fee. I was like, “I’m out of money now. I don’t have any money. I just gave it all to the Writers Guild. This is going great so far.”

Obviously, all said and done, a fine thing to get into the union. You just have to be ready and prepared, particularly if you’re endeavoring to get into the Writers Guild. If you want to be optimistic, and I think you should, sock the initiation fee away. What is it, $2,500?

Megana: Mm-hmm.

John: I think so.

Craig: Sock that away. You’ll need it.

Megana: The one funny thing in the communication is that it was like, this assumes that you live West of the Mississippi River. I was like, “I’ve never thought about where I live in those terms.”

Craig: Unfortunately, we have two Writers Guilds. Ask me why, Megana. Ask me why.

Megana: I can tell you’re in a fighting mood-

Craig: Do it. Do it.

Megana: … which is why we don’t record evenings.

Craig: Ask me. Ask me.

Megana: Craig, why do we have two unions on opposite sides of the Mississippi?

Craig: Because we’re dumb. We are dumb. We weren’t dumb. Back in the old days, the business was divided between New York and Los Angeles. New York handled a lot of television, and Los Angeles handled a lot of other stuff. New York in particular handled all the news and stuff like this. Then shortly thereafter, everything just ended up in LA, but we still kept this weird, archaic structure, where we have the Writers Guild East and the Writers Guild West.

We negotiate together. We have the same minimum basic agreement. There’s no reason to have two unions. It’s all so stupid. For the love of God, they were able to put Berlin back together. The dividing line between the East and the West per chain-smoking, bourbon lunch drinking from 1943 was the Mississippi River. I’m sure it was a difficult compromise to make. It’s so silly.

By the way, anybody in the Writers Guild West can, by choice, join the Writers Guild East, and vice versa. It’s just so stupid. I’m glad you asked, Megana. I’m glad you asked.

Megana: I’m not.

Craig: You asked.

John: Just to close out the topic, let’s say you were hired to do a rewrite, not to do a full first draft. That would count for one half that number of credits. A polish is one quarter. An option can do a thing, which I’ve never heard of somebody getting into the Guild through options, but theoretically it’s possible. We’ll put a link in the show notes to the full explanation of things. Megana, I’m curious, because you said that you got this email. Did you get an email from the Guild saying, “Hey, this is your path to joining the Guild.”

Megana: Yes. They were like, “So-and-so has told us that they’ve employed you,” and then this big email with lots of attachments.

Craig: We got our eye on you, kid.

John: In the case of Megana, she’s working on a Netflix show. There is a thing called a work list. Every week, the employers have to report who is writing for them. Craig, they could’ve found you through a work list, but they also could’ve just found you through Variety. There’s some article that you sold a thing.

Craig: I don’t know. They were on it fast.

John: Love it. I love that kind of efficiency. I want to get to our marquee topic here. I am writing something right now that is set in 1962. I say 1962, you think, oh, it’s the ‘60s, but really 1962 is not the ‘60s. It’s sort of more the ‘50s.

We have this desire to decade-ize time, and things don’t fit nicely. Yet it’s so helpful that we can talk about the ‘40s, the ‘50s, the ‘60s, the ‘70s, and have an image of what it is we’re talking about. There’s a shared collective understanding of like, we don’t have to agree on exactly what happened in that decade, but we can at least agree on what everyone thinks about that decade. If I say it feels like the ‘70s, we get a sense of what that is.

I’ll put a link in the show notes to this article by Noah Smith, who’s talking about conceiving the 2000s. Weirdly, the 2000s and the 2010s, I don’t feel like we do have a good sense of what those are like. We haven’t decided on a collective narrative for what those feel like. There’s moments in there that we can point to. Even when we were living in the ‘90s, I think we could point to the ‘80s and say, “Oh, that feels very ‘80s.” It’s hard for me to say, “Oh, that feels very 2000s,” or it feels very 2010s. We haven’t found a good collective narrative about what those decades are like.

I thought we might talk about why collective narratives like that are useful for screenwriters in framing things in real world things, but also important for establishing collective narratives for the characters inside your world, if you’re creating a world from scratch, because we look at fictional worlds, like what happened with the Snap at MCU or how the robots came out sentient in the Terminator universe. The characters in that world know that stuff, but we have to tell the audience all the stuff that normal characters in that world might know. I thought we’d spend a few minutes talking about both why it’s important and how we establish those things in the fiction worlds they’re creating.

Craig: You’ve got to start, I guess, with culture. It seems weirdly as we are creating culture, we are studying culture, and the snake eats its own tail, as the uroboros [uh-RAH-boo-ruhs] does. That’s right, I said uroboros [uh-RAH-boo-ruhs].

John: I would say ouroboros [or-uh-BOR-ohs]. You say uroboros [uh-RAH-boo-ruhs]?

Craig: I think it’s uroboros [uh-RAH-boo-ruhs]. I don’t it’s ouroboros [OR-oh-BOR-uhs], because that would be… It might be.

John: I think I’ve heard it said ouroboros [or-uh-BOR-ohs] though.

Craig: Here we go.

John: I’m not sure.

Craig: Hey Siri, how do you pronounce uroboros [uh-RAH-boo-ruhs]? It said, “How to pronounce Robert Henry Rose.” I guess I should realize that that was going to happen, because if I’m mispronouncing it, then it won’t know. If I’m pronouncing it correctly, I didn’t need to ask. I’m going to the dictionary.

Drew: Google says uroboros [yur-oh-BOR-uhs].

John: I was close though.

Drew: You were close.

Craig: That’s really close.

John: Uroboros [yur-oh-BOR-uhs].

Craig: I’m going to give that to you. I think that you’re right, because you said ouroboros [or-ruh-BOR-ohs], but the adding of the Y, that’s insignificant compared to my uroboros [uh-RAH-boo-ruhs], which is just wrong. Uroboros [yur-oh-BOR-uhs].

John: Uroboros [yur-oh-BOR-uhs].

Craig: The nature of the uroboros, we obsess over pop culture and/or just regular culture, high culture, low, it doesn’t matter, as signposts for the world around us. Clothing is maybe the most immediate thing that we think of. Then music is a hot second right behind clothing.

John: Definitely.

Craig: Hair is right there in third place. Then in fourth place you will often see fads, the things that captivated culture at a time. In the 2000s, for instance… Were Tamagotchi big in the early 2000s?

Megana: That feels like ‘90s.

Craig: Late ‘90s.

Drew: It’s the late ‘90s.

Craig: That feels like ‘90s. Something that just comes along where people are like, “Oh my god,” obsess over something from 2003. That sort of thing paints this broad sense of where we are.

More than anything else, I suppose the other thing we do draw from are these main historical events. It seems like in half of the movies about the ‘60s, somebody will run into a room and go, “Did you hear about John F. Kennedy’s been shot?” He gets shot constantly in those movies. That’s understandable. Makes sense.

Megana: It’s interesting in the examples that Craig brought up, I would associate most of those things with teen culture, but teens, I don’t know, they’re not typically creating culture. They’re responding to it.

John: I think teens are often creating culture. I think stuff does bubble up there, because Craig’s examples were fashion, music, and hair, but if you think about the decades that we can actually distinctly remember, it’s when those three things intersected. ‘90s, you have grunge. ‘80s, you have hair metal. You also have ‘80s fashion. ‘70s, we have a look. ‘60s, ‘70s, we have the hippies. Again, music, fashion. ‘50s, the Beatles. We have all these things that are gathered together. It’s that perfect storm. It’s really teens who are creating that culture.

Beyond just the culture, what this space feels like, there’s a sense of a shared story about how we got to this place. We have a collective narrative about the fall of Roman Empire. We don’t need to know the details. It’s just like, oh, the Roman Empire got really big, and then it collapsed.

Craig: Too big.

John: Too big.

Craig: Too big.

John: Too big. Got too big, got too spread out, the fall, fiddling while it all burned. We have a sense of a collective story about how the first peoples arrived in North America. That’s the crossing of the land bridge. We don’t need to know the dates of it. We just know that essentially the land was pretty empty and then a bunch of peoples crossed over the land bridge from Alaska, spread out over the whole North and South America and Central America, and that’s how people got here.

Those are helpful things that we can assume that anybody watching our stories would understand. We wouldn’t have to explain those to people. Yet if we were doing a fictional world… Need to explain the Empire or the Federation in Star Wars or Star Trek. You gotta be doing some work there to get up to speed, where any character within that world would already know that stuff.

Craig: Knowing things and figuring out what your audience knows is actually trickier than you think, especially the older you get. One of the things that happens as we get older is we start to take for granted that people know stuff that we know that they don’t, and similarly-

John: That the checks have numbers on them.

Craig: Correct. Conversely, there’s a whole bunch of stuff we don’t know, and we don’t know that we don’t know it. That’s how you become out of touch. That’s how your references get dated. That’s also how you make missteps and incorrect assumptions. What we assume about what the audience knows is essential. Otherwise, we are either wasting time telling them stuff they already do or we are presuming they know things that they don’t, and they just won’t understand what’s going on.

Megana: As you were talking, I was thinking about, Chernobyl is obviously so rooted in time and place, but actually, so is The Last of Us, because it’s 2003.

Craig: There is a genre of frozen in time, where the world stops and everything stops at a kind of time period. It is interesting, 2003. We were a little short on fads and things like that. In terms of the technology…

I guess technology is also now a huge one, not so much before, but now, because it changes so rapidly, what kind of phone were people using, and what did the cars look like and what did the radios in the cars look like, and even the fact that there is a radio. All those things were frozen in time and do help mark where you are as you’re going through. Then of course everything decays and turns into its own vibe.

Megana: I also remember, John, once, I think very early on when I was working with you, you were working on a project that was set in the ‘50s, and you and I made a timeline of when different things happen and trying to map out what the social cultural attitudes towards these things were, and that was shocking.

John: I think that’s important to do, because you need to understand what the baseline of it was and the characters in that time period, what they thought, and also always remembering what people now think about that time period. I think when there’s a mismatch there, you can actually create some good cultural moments.

I think the movie Hidden Figures is a great example. We have a sense of what the role of Black women was in that time period, we have a sense of what getting a man on the moon was like, but we didn’t have a sense that those two things were related. We didn’t have a sense that there were Black women who were involved in NASA’s work there at that time. That’s exciting when you can find those moments that both use people’s cultural narratives, a collective narrative we have about that time period, and can push beyond it, show an attitude that was different.

I think Chernobyl did a great job of that also, because we have a sense of what Chernobyl was, this moment that happened, but Craig was able to fill in details that people would’ve never known about what was going on there. Talk about uroboros. Craig’s show not only exposes things, but really changed people’s cultural expectation of what Chernobyl was, because it became the narrative of what Chernobyl was. For better or worse, just like we were going to think that the Titanic sank the same way that James Cameron showed us, because that’s the biggest cultural marker we have for that event.

Craig: If you can find some undermined cultural territory for collective narratives, that’s always exciting, not only showing the flip side of things that we know, but even just general… I think Mad Men was so interesting, because they were like, “You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to do the early ‘60s, which actually no one thinks about,” because as you put, when you would say, “What were the ‘60s like?” “Hippies. Boom, it’s hippies. Let’s go.” Actually-

John: That’s late.

Craig: That’s late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The early ‘60s, they’re not the ‘50s. It’s not poodle skirts. It’s not Grease. It’s this other weird thing. Mad Men just went, “Oh, there’s this fun little hinge point between regressive and progressive society and major change versus stagnation. We’re going to just sit right in the middle there and find this other little special spot.” That was exciting, because honestly, a lot of people, myself included, I’d never really considered that time as a thing, but it is a thing.

John: Once we have Mad Men, then we can use that as a jumping off point for other things that are around that same time. X-Men: First Class would’ve had a harder time explaining itself if we didn’t have Mad Men, I think, as a reference back to us. Also, this thing I’m working on right now in 1962, Mad Men is a useful reference for it. Not that Mad Men has to stand in for everything, but at least we can visually see that’s the feel we’re going for.

Let’s talk about when we have to establish the collective narrative of a place in time that is not just strictly our decades. I’m thinking about fictional universes or we’ve made a big change in the universe.

A couple different techniques you might want to use. The first is brute force. We’ve seen things that start with “once upon a time.” They’re just going to lay it out for you, like, “This is what you need to know about our world for this all to make sense.”

The Star Wars opening crawl is basically a once upon a time. It’s just like, “You gotta get up to speed here. Go with us here. Trust us as you’re reading this thing for two minutes, and then it’ll be worth your while to go through it.”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer opening credits, “In every generation, a slayer is born,” establishing this is the premise, that there’s a history to this moment that was here from before.

Megana: I think one other different category off of that is something like The Watchmen or For All Mankind, where they’re using collective narratives to introduce us to a world that’s slightly different. Would you call it science fiction, alternative?

Craig: Yeah, alternative history. That’s a whole category where they’ll reference President Robert Redford, be like, “It’s our world, but it’s not our world. It’s an alternate version of history,” and helping people figure out, okay, so there was a Vietnam War, but in this world, America won, and how would that go? That’s a good way of orienting people into your new collective narrative, your ultimate historical collective narrative.

John: It seems important that you would have to introduce some of those elements quite early on, so the audience knows that it’s not just our universe, because you could probably do it at the end of the first episode or something like that, or a ways in, but at a certain point it’s going to feel like a betrayal if you didn’t reveal it was a different universe pretty early on.

Craig: Do they not know that Robert Redford wasn’t the president? Maybe they don’t know. They don’t know. I’m going to write a stern letter.

John: Those numbers in the corner of checks, what are those for?

Craig: Yeah, what are those?

John: Another way, if you’re creating a fictional universe or having to really change the collective narrative of something is to explain to an outsider or to a newcomer. You see this in a lot of things. Indiana Jones, he is explaining to somebody who is not an archeologist the important things to understand about this culture, this thing, these rules of this universe.

The Matrix works that same way too, where Neo is an outsider being introduced to the truth behind The Matrix. He’s a convenient place to exposition dump upon. We’ve talked about The Matrix a lot. It’s a good example of a movie that starts in a mostly real world and then has to bring the character through the looking glass into the other side.

Lastly, I would say that sometimes you’re doing multiple things at once. Star Trek: The Original Series, those opening credits every time told you what the mission was of the Enterprise, but each time, they were also meeting a new civilization, and through that way they could introduce concepts like the Federation or we’ve moved beyond money, all the ideals of what their show is like and how stuff is structured and set up.

There’s a big science fiction project I’m talking about doing that the explanation of what has happened to the world is so lengthy that even at the conceptual stage we have to think about how much are we info dumping to audience right at the start versus exposing people piece by piece as things come up.

Craig: I do love an info dump. I love a creative info dump. It’s one of my favorite things to do.

John: Some of that has attention in the moment, but it’s also getting you through that, getting over that bump. Megana, because we have you, we actually have some listener questions that came in that were specifically exactly for you. I’m wondering if Drew might want to read you some of them.

Drew: Wait a second. This is (singing) We Have a Question for Megana.

John: Yes.

Drew: Cool. Fred writes, “Congratulations to Megana!”

Craig: Woo.

Megana: Woo.

John: Yay.

Drew: “I’d be interested in hearing about Megana’s journey, leaving the corporate world and becoming a screenwriter. Can she share her story and offer any tips to aspiring writers?”

Craig: Megana, you have 40 seconds. Go.

Megana: Oh my god. This question is tough, because it’s so hard for me to emotionally relate to what I was doing at that point, because I feel like I made a lot of bad decisions. If I were to give advice to somebody else, I’d be like, “Have a plan. Line up another job.”

I worked at Google for five years, and then I quit my job, and I had no plan. I moved out to Los Angeles. I had money saved up. I had a family friend, who was my mom’s best friend from when I was six years old. I knew that she had an extra bedroom in her place in Long Beach that I could stay at rent-free for a while. That was my path to coming out to LA. Then once I was here, I just tried everything and threw myself and tried to talk to as many people as I could and luckily started working for John within that year.

Then in terms of offering any tips to aspiring writers, I think looking back, there are so many things I might’ve done differently, like writing more or doing some more of the planning when I have the security of a full-time job, but also things worked out because I had made room for changes in my life, if that makes sense.

It’s something that I think about a lot is that if you want change in your life, you do have to make room or space for it. I think that if you are writing for five minutes or 30 minutes a day, you’re going to see progress or change, but it’s going to be proportionate to the amount of time you’re giving that activity.

Craig: It just strikes me that what you’re maybe… It’s not that you’re dancing around it, but I think what you’re struggling with is something I’ve struggled with so many times when I’ve been asked this question, which is, yeah, I can share my story, and I suppose I could offer you tips, but really what I’m what saying is here’s the unique thing that happened to me, and here are the tips that I learned along the way that are applicable to me but may not be at all applicable to you.

The way I got here isn’t how you’re going to get here, so I don’t know. Is this a great question or not? That’s the thing. Everyone asks it of everybody, but at some point, you do start to wonder, does it matter?

Megana: It’s also so hard because it’s really hard and heartbreaking in ways that I could never have predicted, and so it’s hard to encourage anyone or offer tips looking back on things retrospectively, because I don’t know, it feels like it was just luck.

John: It was luck, but it was also you put yourself in a situation where you could get lucky. You put yourself in a situation where you stopped working for Google and you moved out to stay at your aunt’s house in Long Beach, where you could be lucky when Megan got staffed on Wandavision, and suddenly there was an opening and you could interview for her job and be like, “Oh, of course, Megana should take over.” You put yourself in a position to be lucky.

I think that’s the common thing I’ve seen among everyone who’s been in your job and gone on and done great things is that you were working really hard, but you were also open to situations that could happen. When those opportunities presented themselves, you had writing samples to show. You had a work ethic that you could demonstrate. You had people who could recommend you. You were ready for when luck was ready to strike.

Craig: Chance favors the prepared.

John: Last thing I’ll say, sometimes when you think back like, oh, you spent your five years working at Google, does one regret that? Tell me what you think. I’m not sure that regret is really useful, because you don’t know whether starting your writing career five years earlier would’ve helped or not helped. You can’t say.

Megana: I think that those experiences really informed me. When I talk to a college student, I think just take any job. Working and having experience showed me what I didn’t want to do, what was important to me. I wouldn’t have been able to come to those conclusions if I didn’t try something.

I think it was really useful to be working there, because it was a really awesome company to work for. The perks were incredible. I met such smart people. I still had this thing in me that wanted to pursue screenwriting. No matter how great the company was, I realized that that thing wasn’t going to go away.

John: Also, keep in mind, you were heavily involved with all of the Pay Up Hollywood stuff and speaking up for supporting staff pay and conditions. Had you not spent five years working that actually had a structure and had some sort of standards, would you have had the experience to say, “Oh, no, that’s not right. This is not how a reputable company should be working.” I don’t know that what we were able to do helping supporting staff would’ve been the safe if it hadn’t been for you and your experience.

Megana: I did have a very different context in standard, reading those emails. I also think your first few years of working, and this is something you talk about all the time, is just learning to be a professional. I think Hollywood is such, I don’t know, Wild West of an industry that it can be hard for people who only come up through the entertainment industry to know how to navigate that.

John: Another part of your story which I will say is useful and a good reminder is that you moved out here and you’ve kept your expenses low, which Craig and I often talk about. By staying at your aunt’s house, you didn’t have to take the very first thing that was offered. You could really figure out what it is that you were trying to do. You didn’t have to be so desperate, which I think was a great choice that you were able to make. Craig, I don’t know if you even know that. The first couple weeks that Megana was working here, she would drive to and from Long Beach to the office here.

Megana: It was the first three months.

John: First three months.

Megana: It was rough. It was really rough.

Craig: John was paying careful attention to your pain.

Megana: John would be like, “I can’t even think about it. It’s going to stress me out too much.” I’d be like, “Okay. It’ll be two hours until I get home. Bye.”

Craig: These are the things we do. I will say when you are in your 20s, there is a certain amount of stamina there and an ability to bear the kind of stuff that you deal with when you’re an up-and-comer. There are also things that as time has gone on have made things a bit easier.

For instance, when I started out, let’s say I knew, okay, I have to go to a meeting at Fox. Uh-oh, I live in North Hollywood in my small apartment. It’s going to take a while to get to Fox. How long? I don’t know, because there’s no internet to tell me. In fact, there’s no computerized maps. There’s the Thomas Guide, which is a large book that shows me things, but basically, I’ve figured out how to get to Fox. That’s how I’m going. There is no Waze or Google to say, “Oh, by the way, don’t go that way today.”

You’re just going, “I could go one of two ways. I can go down and to the left or I can go left and down. I’ll go down and to the left today.” Oh, wrong. Looks like it’s going to be an hour and 45 minutes and you’re going to miss your meeting. You can’t even call them to tell them-

John: I’ve done it.

Craig: … because you’re in a car without a phone. This is how it used to be. We’ve all carried the burdens. Driving a long way, a long commute, is something that so many Americans deal with. So many Americans shoulder that burden. There is a privilege in living near your workplace if you work in a city. It just gets more and more expensive the closer and closer you get to work. This is part of life. God, I did a lot of commuting back in those days, a lot. You do it.

John: We’ve got one more question here from Ben.

Drew: Ben asks, “Megana, with access to John and Craig and guests as knowledge resources, what advice have you learned from working there that you have found most useful on your writing journey?”

Megana: Wow, another really big question.

Craig: These feel unfair.

Megana: It does relate to the thing that you were saying earlier. I would say a big thing that I’ve learned from having access to so many guests and the both of you is your creative processes are so different from mine, and so is everyone’s. It’s unique.

I think one thing that I have learned is finding models that work for me, finding validation that some people work in the same way that I do, but also maybe permission that my process is going to look different, because I think one thing that all of the guests and you guys have in common is that the creative process is ugly and difficult and surprising and can be heartbreaking. I think just setting those sorts of expectations is really helpful.

Also, I feel like I’ve learned that just because things feel awkward or strange or difficult during your journey or your writing doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re wrong. I don’t know, sometimes things do feel really great, and you should actually chase that feeling and maybe not keep… This is more to myself to not keep writing the thing that you can’t figure out.

Craig: Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s correct.

Megana: It works both ways.

Craig: There’s no doubt. It does. It works both ways. You’re absolutely correct that John and I have different processes from each other. One of the things that I think is most admirable is when people in our business, when asked how ought one do something, respond with the way that works best for you. What I loathe is when people say, “Allow me to tell you how to do stuff,” and, “Real screenwriters do it like this, and failures do it like this.” Oh, shut up.

Megana: The episode with the Daniels was so cool, because in watching Everything Everywhere All At Once, it’s like, “Oh, this is so well done. They must have had this plan or this guide or whatever.” To hear their process, it’s like, “Oh wow, that’s kind of like how I feel when I’m stuck in the weeds.” The fact that they were able to produce this beautiful thing is just inspiring. I think that it’s been so helpful to hear these stories week after week and from the both of you, then just encourage that process and just the practice of continuing to do things that feel difficult.

Craig: That’s the way.

John: One last question for you on behalf of Drew. What advice do you have for Drew stepping into your role producing a Scriptnotes podcast? Any things you think Drew needs to know?

Megana: I have trained Drew on a lot of the things I think he needs to know. I think he’s doing a pretty great job so far.

Drew: Can I ask you a question?

Megana: Yes.

Drew: How do I get Craig to stop texting me? It’s just constant.

Megana: I am so jealous. Just tell him that your phone number is mine, because I would love to be texting with Craig more.

Drew: I’m going to do that.

Craig: I have literally never texted him once.

Drew: You text me all the time, Craig.

Craig: Why am I texting you? What am I texting you about? Tell me.

Drew: It’s just compliments.

Craig: Compliments, yeah. Just like, “Who does your hair?”

Drew: Yeah, exactly.

Craig: Sometimes I’ll text you in the middle of the night. I’m just like, “You up?” Yeah, I do. Then an hour will go by. Even though it’s the middle of the night, an hour will go by, and then I’ll be like, “Why aren’t you talking to me? Are we fighting?” I’ll do it all night. Then when he wakes up in the morning, he’s like, “Oh my god, what do I do about this?”

Drew: Look, it’s a back and forth. It’s okay. I was just hoping Megana might be able to [crosstalk 00:51:12].

Megana: I know this is a joke, but I’m still incredibly jealous and fuming.

Craig: She’s jealous of me stalking you. I’m going to do it. Megana, I swear to god, I’m going to set an alarm. I’m going to wake up at 2:30 in the morning. I’m just going to text you, “You up?”

Megana: Please do.

Craig: “You up?” is the funniest… Oh my god, I just love that. “You up?” Hysterical.

John: It’s time for our One Cool Things. Megana, you get to start us off, because I’m curious what you think is cool.

Megana: That’s so sweet. I have three One Cool Things, but I am going to choose just two, so that you guys invite me again.

Craig: I have none, so go ahead, cook.

Megana: I’m going to choose the two that have to do with collective narratives. The first is this book called Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy. It’s by James B. Stewart and our Scriptnotes friend, Rachel Abrams from the New York Times, who we worked with on Pay Up Hollywood stuff.

John: Great.

Megana: It is about Sumner Redstone and the family. It is such a fun read and so informative of I would say the early aughts, like what we were talking about earlier.

John: Cool. We’ll definitely take a look at that. Does it feel Succession-y?

Megana: Yes.

John: I think obviously there’s a lot of Redstone stuff happening in Succession.

Megana: In reading it, I’m constantly like, “Oh, is this where they got that Succession storyline from?” It’s really fun and fun to read in advance of the fourth season coming out.

John: Awesome.

Megana: Then my other One Cool Thing is The Romantics on Netflix. It is this docuseries by Smriti Mundhra, who is this really cool director. She did Indian Matchmaking for Netflix as well. It’s about Yash Chopra Films. Yash Chopra is a very influential filmmaker in Bollywood. I think whether you’ve watched Bollywood or not, it is so delightful. She does such an incredible job of tying how films and media were in conversation with Indian politics at the time. Would definitely recommend.

John: Is The Romantics a documentary?

Megana: It’s four episodes. It’s one of those docuseries things.

Craig: A docuseries.

Megana: I guess it’s not a thing.

John: Love it.

Megana: It’s a docuseries.

Craig: Like Tiger King, but without tigers or the Tiger King and with Yash Chopra and Bollywood.

Megana: Exactly.

Craig: Nailed it.

John: Nailed it. My One Cool Thing is incredibly basic. It is a vertical mouse by Logitech. It’s called The Lift. I’ve used a vertical mouse for many, many years. If you are having a hard time visualizing it, imagine you’re shaking somebody’s hand. That’s the position you want to keep your hand in.

Craig: What is going on with you? You’ve verticalized every interface.

John: I originally got my vertical mouse because Dana Fox, who you love, and has been on this show many times, she introduced me to the vertical mouse. It is so much better for your wrist, because you’re not turning your wrist down. You’re keeping your wrist up.

I’ve been using one for many, many years. It crapped out on me. I got this one from Logitech. It’s maybe a tiny bit small for my hands. I kind of have small hands. It works seamlessly. It has really good resolution and tracking. We’ll put a link in the show notes to it. If you’re loving for a vertical mouse, especially for a Mac, I highly recommend it. It works great for me.

Craig: I like pain!

John: I love it. He wants brutal pain.

Craig: Meh!

John: Craig, you’re passing on your One Cool Thing? You’re just taking one of Megana’s?

Craig: Absolutely taking one of Meganas. Mine is also The Romantics on Netflix.

John: Love it. That’s our show for this week, guys. Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt.

Craig: You know it.

John: It’s edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is by Lex Kornelis. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also where you can send questions.

You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find transcripts and sign up for our weeklyish newsletter called Inneresting, which has lots of links to things about writing. We have T-shirts and hoodies. They’re great. They’re from Cotton Bureau. Just go to Cotton Bureau. You’ll find them there.

You can sign up to become Premium member on scriptnotes.net, where you’ll get all the back-episodes and Bonus Segments, like the one we’re about to record on getting ready with me.

Megana: Hashtag GRWM.

John: Only for Scriptnotes Premium members. Megana, it was so great to have you back.

Megana: Thanks, guys.

Craig: Thank you.

[Bonus Segment]

John: Megana Rao, talk us through get ready with me. I barely know what this is.

Megana: Get ready with me is a, it’s now new, but it has been increasing in popularity, trend on TikTok where different influencers will look into the camera and do their makeup for whatever event as they are chatting to you about what’s on their mind, about things that they are experiencing. Drew, please jump in if you’ve been watching any of these.

Drew: I haven’t been watching any of these.

Megana: Okay, cool.

Drew: I really wish I knew.

Craig: Drew, you’re gonna be fine.

John: I may have a reference for this though, because Drew Barrymore, who is a friend, she will have her camera up in the bathroom as she’s doing her makeup and she’s watching her face and doing all that stuff. She’s talking to the camera while she’s doing all that. Is that get ready with me?

Megana: Yes, exactly. It’s like, “Get ready with me as I go to New Year’s party,” or, “Get ready with me for a day of work,” or something like that.

John: Is it a similar thing to, there’s this young blonde influencer woman, she’s a stay-at-home girlfriend, who’s like, “Now I make a smoothie for my boyfriend and I take it to the gym and he really likes it.”

Craig: Which just sounds scary.

John: It’s [crosstalk 00:57:03].

Megana: Is that the voice or are you doing the computer automated voice that they put on top of their videos a long time?

John: I wasn’t doing a TikTok voice, but she has that voice herself, dead inside.

Megana: It’s really strange, and it’s so boring. It’s people cleaning their apartments or making smoothies for their boyfriends, but I spend hours watching these things.

Craig: Wow. If I made a get ready with me video, it would just be like, okay, shower, clothes, go, done. I don’t use products. There is no getting ready. Every morning of my life is just me launching myself out of a cannon and doom scrolling and then flinging myself into the car. There’s just no getting ready.

Megana: It is this gendered thing. It’s part beauty tutorial, part makeup tutorial, I mean.

Craig: Fashion.

Megana: It’s just so interesting to me, because getting ready, it’s an intimate thing. It’s your bridge between your private and public life. I don’t know, it’s just so weird to me that I now have access to all of these people’s process for how they transition from their home to the public world.

John: One of the things you put in the Workflowy here is this Alix Earle, A-L-I-X, Earle. One of the videos in her Instagram or her TikTok was her and her little sister, and they’re doing their makeup together. It was an ad actually for something. It was for some concealer. They were side by side.

It feels like that’s what you’re describing. It’s the kind of experience you normally would have with a big sister, watching her do her thing and being side by side while she’s doing her thing, but because maybe we’re all only children, we’re all by ourselves all the time, it just feels like there’s somebody there. It’s nice to just be next to somebody while they’re doing their thing. Is that the feel?

Megana: Yes, exactly, because I have this experience where this 13-year-old’s get ready with me came across my TikTok, and she’s getting ready for this bar mitzvah. Then I don’t know, however many videos later, I’m so invested in her life. I’ve seen all of her different bar mitzvah outfits. I’m like, “I shouldn’t have access to this.”

Also, when I was 13, so much of the fun of getting ready for an event like this is being around your friends who are also getting ready and learning in the same physical space. Yet me as a 30-year-old woman just watching this 13-year-old get ready for her bar mitzvah is so dark.

Craig: Ew, strange. Obviously, the easy cliché question is are you really seeing them getting ready or are you seeing them doing a version of getting ready that is being seen, so it’s a different thing? Let’s say it’s all honest. This is really them getting ready. It does also promote this notion of perfectionism, I think. All of this, I find it disconcerting.

Megana: It’s interesting that it’s an anti-perfectionism, because they are letting you behind the mask. They’re letting you see their blemished skin and all of those things.

Craig: Let me push back. They’re letting you see their blemished skin, and then they’re showing you how when they’re done, it’s not blemished anymore and how they have perfected it before they walk out the door. It’s like when very beautiful people are like, “Look, here’s a picture of me without makeup.” I’m like, “You’re still hot. You’re still beautiful. You know you’re beautiful. That’s why you’re doing it.”

To show them all the layers and stuff, and then they’re go off to something cool or whatever, I don’t know. It feels aspirational in a dangerous way, the way that all advertising has always been. That’s not even a gendered thing. Maybe the nature of it is gendered. “You want to look beautiful, don’t you? Here’s how you do it. You want to have an awesome car. Here’s how you do it.” I don’t know. It’s just when I hear about a 13-year-old girl commoditizing her life, it’s scary to me. It’s scary.

Megana: It’s so frightening. In the article that John linked for collective narratives, that Substack article, he talks about how teen happiness in the early 2000s was at an all-time high, and he had this theory that it was because it was early internet, where kids are just sharing memes online, but they’re still in physical spaces together. I was so struck by that compared to… When I was younger, we used to watch makeup tutorials on YouTube, but the women were much older than us. The idea of being a 13-year-old and creating content in this way is so wild and terrifying to me.

Craig: Terrifying, yes. Let the kids be kids. I understand that every sentence that comes out of my mouth will be something that an old man says. I don’t know. As a parent, I worry about it. I worry about the fact that your life becomes memorialized permanently and belongs to everyone, that there is a sense that you’re curating your own moments.

One of my kids was talking about BeReal the other day and saying how it’s literally become the opposite of BeReal. Literally. It’s like, “Oh my god, BeReal. Here I am riding a unicorn and drinking champagne while my hair’s on fire, and there’s my new boyfriend. Oh my god, you caught us at just the right time.” Did we?

John: An option I would see with get ready with me videos, because now I’m realizing there’s other things that are actually part of that trend. I just didn’t recognize it. There’s a guy who’s blind who, basically just like that, basically like, “This is how I figure out my closet and what I’m going to wear in the mornings. This is how I make breakfast.” It’s his boyfriend filming the whole thing. That’s a perspective I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a blind person getting your morning routine together, or I don’t know what it’s like to be getting your morning together if you’re using a wheelchair. In the sense of giving you a window into other people’s spaces and daily lives, that could be really useful.

I think that’s one of the good things about the internet that we didn’t have before is that it could give you some perspective in what a life is like that is not yours. That’s good, but I do share most of our other horrors about especially teenagers feeling like, “I have to perform being myself.” That I don’t think is healthy.

Craig: What you’re saying about seeing a window into other people’s lives, that makes sense. To the extent that these things can be empathy building and instructive and help us understand other people is great. To the extent that they are about a calculated lack of calculation and about physical perfectionism and lookism and sizism and all the other isms… Remember, these things are, I assume, heavily featured people who have very typical Western standards of beauty and the typical body size that the media says we’re supposed to have. I don’t know.

I don’t know how I would feel about watching even a guy my age. Like, okay, you’re 50 years old. Here’s a 50-year-old guy who’s like, “Get ready with me.” Then I’m like, “Aw, man, he’s in awesome shape, and he’s really handsome, and he’s got a full head of hair. He’s gonna put on his… Oh, that’s an interesting shaving lotion. Okay, I can see how that might help with razor bumps. Oh, okay, those are possibly cool shoes to wear with those pants, but really, it doesn’t matter what the hell he wears.”

Drew: Do you find any comfort in a ritual though? I feel like I do find comfort in watching a ritual.

Craig: I will tell you this very strange thing I’ve noticed about myself. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it on this show. It occurred to me one day that when I wash my hair, or my head I guess at this point I should say, my hands do the exact same thing in the exact same way for the exact same amount of time every single time. I have completely ritualized the movements of my fingers and hands over my head. It’s remarkable. I don’t know how it happened. There’s no variation whatsoever. I’ve created some strange rituals for myself. I don’t think that they’re signs of OCD as much as just humans ritualize things.

I don’t have any great interest in that stuff. I don’t. If people were like, “Oh, why don’t you walk us through getting to ready to write,” I would be like, “Eff on off out of my office, friend. You don’t want to see that, and I don’t want to show it to you.”

Megana: I guess it just feels like, and I feel old saying this too, the amount of time that your camera is recording is just longer and longer. The one-way intimacy of it is confusing to me for young people growing up. I don’t know. I guess I’m in the situation where I’m very invested in this person’s life. I know what their rituals are. I know what they’re doing. They’ve shared a lot with me. It’s so weird to have that intimacy flattened and unreciprocated.

Craig: You taught us all about parasocial relationships. I get it completely. I would argue that for people who listen to us on this show and have listened for a long, long time, they actually know us pretty well, because this is us. I know John. It’s not like when the mic goes off, I’m like, “Okay, now the real John pops out.”

John: [inaudible 01:07:08].

Craig: We are this, so they actually do know us. The intimacy is a product of time and exposure. There is no calculation. That’s one of the best things I think about audio only is that it removes a certain kind of vanity or insecurity from the equation, which I have seen my face on television way too much.

This weird thing that’s happened is because… Sometimes in LA, I would get recognized because people just knew that I was on Scriptnotes, and it’d be like, “Oh, you’re a Scriptnotes fan.” What’s happened now is, because I do those little segments at the end of The Last of Us-

Megana: They’re so cute.

Craig: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Megana: I’m always like, “Aw.”

Craig: “Aw.” That’s what I go for, unthreatening. That actually means that now people are recognizing me. I swear to god, I’m confused every time. I gotta figure out how to get around this. I know I’m not Brad Pitt. What I feel almost every single time is a certain twinge of insecurity.

John: Megana, I’m curious, because we’ve talked about this off mic, but you are recognized some just because of your role on Scriptnotes. To what degree are you finding it helpful? To what degree is that annoying? How are you feeling about your semi-fame off of here?

Megana: I would say our listeners are very niche and specialized. They are people who are interested in screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. It’s cool, because they’re also people in my industry. I’m not recognized that often, so it’s not something that I have to deal with like Craig. It’s fun because it means that the person listens to Scriptnotes, and then I have something to talk about with them.

Craig: You have a famous name, I think, because you are the only Megana I’ve ever met in my life.

Megana: Keep it that way.

Craig: Oh, I will. Trust me. If I meet another one, I’m just gonna turn around and walk away. It’s just a very specific name that there’s not a lot of them. I think when people probably see it on a piece of paper or something, they’re like, “Oh, I know who you are.”

Megana: You guys did do a very nice thing when Drew started, which I also appreciated, because I didn’t know how to say your last name, where you had a whole bit about pronunciation and who he was. I would say that people still think that I am Megan McDonald who just got married.

Craig: Married to a guy named Arao. It really does flow. I gotta say, 999 people out of a thousand, or perhaps all thousand, if you said, “Can you write out the name Megana Rao for me?” would say Megan, and then they would be like, “How do you spell Arao?” Is it a common name in India?

Megana: Yes, it is. It means “of the clouds,” because mega means cloud in Sanskrit.

Craig: Of the clouds.

Megana: I’m not resentful at all of the portion that you guys gave Drew to explain his name.

Craig: We finally got around to it.

John: We learned. We’ve learned our lesson. I will say-

Craig: You’re so ethereal. You’re of the clouds.

John: A friend of ours was hiring a new assistant. One of the assistants who was under consideration was also Meghna, which is the other spelling of Meghna, so just-

Craig: Oh, Meghna.

John: M-E-G-H-N-A, which is the same name, correct?

Megana: Correct, yeah.

Craig: By the way, Megana, it feels a little weird as a white guy to be like, “Okay, now your name is Megana. What does that mean?” It’s a little weird.

Megana: Fair enough.

John: This would’ve been a great way to first introduce you on the podcast if we’d said, “Your name is Megana. It’s the same pronunciation as Pamela.” It’s not hard for people to do, because my frustration was people saying, “Oh, is Megana [meh-GAH-nuh] gonna be setting that up?”

Craig: Megana [meh-GAH-nuh].

John: You hear it all the time.

Megana: Yeah, and Megna [MAYG-nuh], Megana [MEH-guh-nuh], all of those are fine. Megana [meh-GAH-nuh] though is what people reach for first though, in a way that’s confusing.

Craig: Megana [meh-GAH-nuh]. I’ve been getting Craig Mazin [MA-zn] my whole life. My whole life.

John: That’s why I changed my name.

Craig: Exactly. Listen. You changed it to a month.

John: Megana, thank you for coming back on the show. You’re welcome back any time, of course.

Megana: Thank you guys.

Craig: Thanks, Megana.

John: Open invitation.

Drew: I’m so glad you’re here.

Megana: Bye.

Craig: See you guys.

Drew: Bye.

John: Bye.

Links:

• How to Become a Member of the WGA
• Conceiving the 2000s by Noah Smith
• Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams
• The Romantics on Netflix
• Logitech Lift Vertical Mouse
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Instagram
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• John on Mastodon
• Outro by Lex Kornelis (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The post Scriptnotes, Episode 591: Collective Narratives, Transcript first appeared on John August.

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John and Drew discuss the newly-released WGA 2023 Strike Rules and how guilds across the industry are showing support for the WGA.

We then answer listener questions about what writers – union and non-union – can do during a strike. Are any meetings are ok to take? Can you sign with a manager? And what if your optioned material is sold?

Links:

• WGA Sends Out Strike Rules To Members As Potential Hollywood Labor Shutdown Looms Next Week by Dominic Patten and David Robb for Deadline
• Teamsters Statement on Writers Guild of America Negotiations
• DGA Statement of Support for WGA in Contract Negotiations
• IATSE President Issues Statement of Support for Writers as Strike Deadline Approaches
• SAG-AFTRA Statement in Support of WGA Negotiations
• Find more about the 2023 WGA negotiations here at WGAContract2023.org
• John on Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The post SC5 – Solidarity and Strike Rules first appeared on John August.

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In this mini-episode, John and Drew discuss the results of the Strike Authorization Vote, and what’s next for negotiations.

We also answer a listener question asking how preWGA writers can show support during a possible strike.

Links:

• Strike Authorization Results
• Find more about the 2023 WGA negotiations here at WGAContract2023.org
• John on Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The post SC4 – SAV Results first appeared on John August.

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John returns from the negotiating room to chat with Drew about the upcoming Strike Authorization Vote. What does Strike Authorization actually mean? How do WGA members vote? And what can writers do this week before voting begins?

We also answer a question from a listener wrestling with their fears of a potential strike.

Links:

• Find complete information for the Strike Authorization Vote here.
• Find more about the 2023 WGA negotiations here at WGAContract2023.org
• John on Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The post Sidecast: Strike Authorization Vote first appeared on John August.

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In an extensive deep-dive, John and Craig attempt to create the definitive explanation of screenwriting credits. How are they determined? Who has copyright? And what really happens when a screenplay goes to arbitration?

In our bonus segment for premium members, we look back on the 2023 awards season and pitch a potential awards show of our own.

Links:

• WGA Additional Literary Material Credit
• Scriptnotes, Ep 20: How credit arbitration works
• Jurassic World Script Credits Resolved; Helmer Colin Trevorrow Speaks On Arbitration Process on Deadline
• Big Fish poster
• WGAw Screen Credits Manual
• WGAw Credits Department contact information
• WGAw residuals look up
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Instagram
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• John on Mastodon
• Outro by Rajesh Naroth (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Stuart Friedel and Drew Marquardt, and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The post How Writing Credits Work, Rebroadcast first appeared on John August.

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John and Drew discuss the WGA’s Pattern of Demands for the 2023 MBA negotiation. In order to best understand what the WGA is asking for, John explains each bullet point in detail and helps to define terms such as mini-rooms, span, new media, and two-step deals.

Links:

• Find more about the WGA negotiations here at WGAContract2023.org
• WGA Seeks Approval of ‘Pattern of Demands’ for Upcoming Studio Negotiations by Gene Maddaus for Variety
• Scriptnotes Episode 407: Understanding Your Feature Contract
• Scriptnotes Episode 553: Adapting Station Eleven
• Scriptnotes Episode 546: Limited Series
• John on Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

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The original post for this episode can be found here.

John August: Hey, this is John. Today’s episode was recorded live last week at the Austin Film Festival. This was the day after our big, raucous live show. This is a more sedated affair, but still a pretty full house. We have a bunch of the writers who wrote their scenes for the Three Page Challenge in the audience. We’re going to talk to them about what they wrote, why they wrote it, and get some real feedback from them. If you’re a Premium Member, stick around after the credits, because we’ll do some Q and A with the audience. Some really good questions were asked and hopefully answered. Enjoy.

Hello and welcome. My name is John August. This is a sort of version of Scriptnotes, which is a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. We’re here live in Austin, Texas. How many people in this room have submitted a Three Page Challenge to Scriptnotes, either now or at some point? That’s a lot of hands here in the audience, a lot of brave screenwriters here.

For folks who are not aware, the Three Page Challenge is a thing we’ve been doing on the Scriptnotes podcast for 10 years, where we invite people to send in the first three pages of their screenplay, their teleplay, and we give them our honest feedback. It’s criticism, but hopefully really genuinely constructive criticism about what we’re seeing on the page, what’s working great, and what could maybe possibly work a little bit better. Craig Mazin, my cohost and I, we talk through this. We do it every couple of weeks. It’s been really fun and educational for everybody, because it’s great to have a podcast about screenwriting, but it’s really hard to talk about screenwriting without talking about the words on the page.

Today is all about the words on the page. We have some other brave writers here who submitted samples so we can talk through these things. If you’re listening to this at home, later on it’ll be attached to the podcast episode. You just click on those links. A good chance to see what these things look like on the page, what we’re talking about literally, like transitions and the language choices that you’re seeing.

When we ask people to send in these script pages, I don’t read them, Craig doesn’t read them. It’s Megana Rao who reads them. Let’s bring up Megana Rao, our producer. Megana Rao, when we call for Three Page Challenges, we’ll put it on Twitter or we’ll announce it on the podcast. How many submissions do we typically get?

Megana Rao: We usually get a couple hundred.

John: A couple hundred submissions. These are writers who are writing in, saying, “Please talk about my thing on air.” For Austin, how many people did you get? We had a special little tick box like, “I’m going to be here at Austin.” How many did you read through?

Megana: Oh god, I didn’t count this time. I’m sorry.

John: It was a lot. It was a good number. These are people who could actually join us up on stage, because that’s what’s fun about the Austin Film Festival is we can actually talk through with these people about what they did and what their intentions were and what we saw versus what they were attempting to do, because so often it’s just a vacuum.

Megana: Totally. We’re just assuming, and we don’t get that feedback.

John: Talk me through your general selection process, because this isn’t a competition. You’re not looking for the best scripts pages. What’s helpful for you in picking a Three Page Challenge?

Megana: I think first of all, I want to make sure that no one ever feels embarrassed and that these are pages that I would be comfortable if I had written being on our website and seen by people. I want to make sure there’s no formatting issues or too many typos or anything like that, that there’s a certain level of professionalism.

Then typically, they are pages where I am surprised or excited. I feel like there’s something new, there’s something I’m rooting for in those pages, but maybe it’s not quite landing on every point. I really feel like I want to champion those writers and those pages to be the best that they can be. I usually put those in a selection pile, and then you and I go through the top five or seven and narrow it down from there.

John: Absolutely. It’d be great to be like, “Here’s three perfect pages. Everyone do these three perfect pages.” Then we wouldn’t have a lot to talk about. We could just say, “Oh, these are great. I want to read the next 30 pages of the script.” It’s the ones who have some like, “Oh, there’s something really promising here, but there’s also something we can work on, that we can discuss.” As you’re looking through, why we picked these three samples is because we saw things that were really promising but also things that we could discuss.

Megana: Totally.

John: We don’t have Craig here with us today, but we do have, luckily, someone who has to read scripts for a living. Can we welcome up Marc Velez? Marc, you are a production executive. You are working at Universal?

Marc Velez: Yes. I oversee development for a division at Universal Studio Group. There’s many television studios within the studio, and so I work at one of them.

John: Great. What is your experience on a daily basis with scripts? Are you reading submissions from writers you’ve never hear of, or are you reading to help put together staffing for shows? What is your experience working with scripts on a daily basis?

Marc: I would say it’s a combination of all three. We have overall deals with a lot of different writers and directors and production companies. They will send us material that they want us to option and work with them and then take to platforms, so there’s that. Then agents will call us and say, “Hey, you should know this writer. They have a really great script,” so there’s that. Then there’s, third, I guess, submissions that are just being considered for pilots.

John: Great. What was your background before this? You were working with Lee Daniels’s company.

Marc: My first job was at Planet Hollywood.

John: Wow. That’s a whole origin story.

Marc: That’s a whole story.

John: You went from all the props in movies to actually working with the people who make those things.

Marc: I didn’t know anybody in Hollywood. I thought the way to get to Hollywood was work at Planet Hollywood.

John: Of course. It’s got Hollywood in the name, so you’d figure. You were that close.

Marc: Prior to working at UCP, I ran Lee Daniels’s company for the last six years as a producer. We did Empire. We did the new Wonder Years. We did a Sammy Davis limited series on Hulu.

John: For something like that, you are helping to staff up those shows. You’re helping to find writers who could be making these things possible. You must get a lot of submissions. You’re probably going through a lot. You may not be stopping at three pages, but what gets you excited to finish a script, and what makes you go like, “Oh, you know what? I think I can set that down and never pick it up again.”

Marc: That’s a really good question. I would say it’s just a gut thing that I connect with the material at the core of it, the character, the point of view, the emotion in the script.

John: Sometimes you’re reading specifically for staffing on a given show, and so does this fit this thing. Also, I bet you can recognize this is a writer with a voice, this is a writer who feels confident on the page.

Marc: Yeah. I would say it’s almost like three buckets. There’s, like you said, the staffing where if I’m staffing a specific show knowing that I need to mimic something in let’s say the spy genre or if it’s an agent who has just sent a script in just for a general meeting and I’m just writing it for their voice. Then there’s the third, which I always think is the hardest. I’m reading the script to see if we want to option it to actually make a show, which just has a different kind of structure to it.

John: Yeah, because within a third one, you’re really looking like, “Can I see Episode 2? Does it feel like there’s a thing here to keep going?”

Marc: Exactly.

John: Which is challenging. Let’s apply some of that structure and thinking to these three pages that we’re looking at from these three samples today.

Megana: We’re going to start with Michael Heiligenstein, who wrote The Encyclopedists. The summary, “King Lear the 15th smiles to himself as he seals an order and passes it to his attendant. As we watch the order travel from the palace to the police barracks through the streets of Paris, we hear Denny Diderot in VoiceOver describe the corruption of the monarchy and society. We see scenes of Denny writing in his apartment until the police show up to his home with the royal order and drag him out and throw him in a police carriage.”

John: The Encyclopedists. Marc, let’s say this landed on your desk, virtually or physically printed, The Encyclopedists, a pilot for a limited series. Just even on the cover page, we have Michael’s name, written by, copyright. Everything looks good to me. Anything trip you up at all?

Marc: No, it looks great.

John: Cool. Let’s get on to first instincts after reading these three pages. Did you see what this show was going to be? What was your feeling after the three pages?

Marc: I would say a couple things, Michael. I would say the first, actually I didn’t know this story, so then I did a real deep dive after, which was really cool.

John: Which is great when you get that.

Marc: It’s rare to have somebody educate me on something that I didn’t know. That was really cool. I would say overall, I got what the premise was of the show and this man being persecuted obviously for writing encyclopedia within this world. It was a pretty clean, clear premise within the first three pages.

John: I would agree. I had a sense that this is going to be this guy’s story, Diderot’s story. I could see there’s going to be a journey here. I was excited to see what happened. He gets thrown in jail by the end of the three pages. Things were moving quickly. We’re essentially intercutting between Denny Diderot writing this thing about the abuse of power and how kings work, while we see his arrest order come through. The intercutting was nice.

I did have some questions though. We’re in a time period, but I don’t really know the time period. I didn’t know the year. I wasn’t anchored into a moment or a year. I didn’t know King Louis the 15th’s age. I like that the writer was telling us to call him Denny, D-E-N-N-Y, so we would actually pronounce it right in our head, because the French name would be Denis Diderot. It didn’t have a great visual on him. I knew that his hair kept falling in front of his eyes, but I couldn’t quite see him. In these three pages introducing this central character, I need to have a clear visual on who he is and be able to cast him in my head.

Marc: If you had the timeframe on there, it would’ve just been more helpful to clarify. I know voiceover’s always really tricky. I felt like in those three pages specifically, what did you want to say in the VoiceOver, because the VoiceOver jumped around a little bit from explaining the king is beholden to the realm to then the king, if he is corrupt, makes bad decisions, and then there was something about the guards basically deciding what they want to do. I was looking for a little bit more consistency in tracking that VoiceOver, because I think that VoiceOver was really key in the first three pages.

John: It’s an interesting use of VoiceOver, because it’s not a VoiceOver that’s directed just to us as an audience. We’re supposed to believe that this is what he’s writing, because he’s going to get stopped mid-sentence as he’s writing this thing. Essentially, he has that compulsion to write. What he’s writing is what we’re hearing in our heads.

Other things I noticed as we went through on the page, we’re lacking ages on people. I was lacking some sort of physical details on some people that could’ve been helpful. I didn’t necessarily believe at the bottom of Page 1 that Rene Berryer was eating a steak at his desk. That just felt like a modern thing versus a whatever year this is supposed to be thing, a horse-drawn carriage kind of year thing.

Then on Page 2, midway through, “Over his left shoulder, a window; through it you may notice the police pull up outside.” I had trouble visualizing that, because for some reason I saw us on the second floor, and that was a challenge. The “you may notice,” it’s either we notice or we don’t notice. Are we supposed to notice or are we not supposed to notice? I needed a little bit stronger of a choice there.

Marc: Yeah. Then for me a little bit on Page 3, I was curious what happened to the blade and if he put that in his pocket for later and what that reveal was to come. I was curious where it went, because for me it dropped out a little bit. Then I just was curious in terms of his point of view. He seemed so nonchalant about getting whisked off by the police. It was just curious getting in his POV a little bit, as well as, if he knew that they were taking him because he was a writer, would he not hide the stuff he was currently writing in that first scene?

John: We approach things with an expectation based on… We see this person writing. We see the police coming. We’re setting this up. For his writing just to be out there felt a little bit of a risk.

Marc: Yeah. I will say I did not see the reveal coming at the end. That was great. I thought they were going to apprehend somebody else, and you were just cutting between the two when he was narrating the story. That was a really nice reveal that I didn’t see.

John: Great. One of the things we love about doing the live Three Page Challenge is we actually get to talk to the folks who wrote the script. Could we have you come up and talk to us about your pages here, Michael?

Michael Heiligenstein: I think I’ve gotten so good at taking feedback in the past couple years, I’m finally ready to do it live on stage.

John: Nothing at all nerve-wracking about this. Michael, did we misunderstand anything you were trying to do in these three pages?

Michael: No, I think that you pointed out a couple things that were unclear and could be clearer on the page. You get the premise. I’m glad that you understood where it was going, what was going on.

John: Great. Talk to us about what’s going to be happening on the next 10 pages. What goes next?

Michael: I love the next 10 pages. This is a script where the final 30 pages of this pilot I’m less sure about, but the first 15 are why I wrote it. When he gets thrown in that police carriage, Denny is about to find out he is not being arrested for what he wrote. He is being arrested for who he loves, because France is so restrictive at this time, the union of the clergy and the king are such that even though Denny is 33, he needs his father’s permission to get married, who he’s estranged from.

He writes his father to ask permission, and his father calls in a favor from the king to have Denny arrested. He is hauled 80 miles from Paris and imprisoned in this monastery where the monks hate him, because he scammed them at one point in the past. They beat him. They starve him. After a couple weeks, all he wants to do is get back to Annette, who is the woman he’s in love with.

After a couple of weeks, in the middle of a rainstorm, he jumps out the second floor window and hikes back to Paris 80 miles in the rain, shows up at her doorstep sopping wet and 20 pounds lighter than last she saw him. He says, “Annette, I don’t care what my father says. I don’t care what he does. Come what may, I want to be with you. Will you marry me?” She says no. That’s the next 10 pages.

After that, he gets involved in the Encyclopedia Project. His friend Rousseau pulls him out of his slump and is like, “Look, you need to work. You can’t stay in this apartment. You need to rent someplace else, so you need money. This project pays well.” He gets pulled into this Encyclopedia Project that’s already going on. By the end of the episode, he’ll become the co-editor of the encyclopedia.

John: Great. Talk to us about tone then, because what you say, having this romance, he feels like a romantic character who’s drawn to great extremes to get back to this woman he loves. Is that the tone? Is it serious romantic?

Michael: My overall impression of it is it’s about his life and it’s about both his relationships as well as this political philosophy bent where he’s somebody who wants to write about the world as it is. There’s two fronts, but you see so much of it is about his personal life and the relationships as well, his relationship with the woman who becomes his wife, as well as with eventually his mistress, this other affair. To me, it’s both sides.

John: Marc, let’s say this is a project that crosses your desk. There may be these people, things attached, or there’s nothing attached. What is helpful for you to think about this as a property that you could develop at Universal or with Lee Daniels’s company? What are the things that we’d say, oh, these are the comps, this is the framework in which you can see making this series? What else would he need to bring?

Marc: I would just ask you thematically your point of view and why you wanted to tell the story from a thematic principle, because I think that would help.

Michael: To me, Denny’s situation is not that different from the situation that any writer is in. Some writers are going to chafe at it more than others, but everybody works under some ruling system. For us, that is capitalism. Look, I’m cool with it on some level. I’m here to make stuff that sells and finds that audience. There are constraints. If you’ve got to pull together $30 million, $50 million to put something together, that’s the constraints that we work with, and that colors the storytelling, and not just the storytelling, but what we write about in the world.

I work in marketing currently. I worked at a website in content stuff. The topics that get covered online, working through that industry, I saw how the stuff that gets covered extensively and written about in detail is all stuff that makes money. There are subjects, for instance, like history, American history. I love history. You can’t find really great information about it online. There’s subjects that are just not covered well. To me, that’s because you don’t make money off of that, so it’s not important, I guess.

John: What is the pitch for somebody who doesn’t know anything about the Encyclopedia Project? Is that the Wikipedia of its day? How do you talk about that in a way that resonates with somebody who is just… It’s 2022. Tell me why this matters.

Michael: It’s a banned book. He’s not just a philosopher. He’s a fugitive philosopher. He’s a renegade philosopher. The book is not able to be published in France, so he has to go back channel through all this stuff. He’s arrested twice in the course of his life. This is the book that eventually is going to be considered foundational to the French Revolution. This is the precursor to the part that we all know about. There’s other fun stuff in there. You get the salon culture, the intellectual culture in France at the time. To me, the core of the pitch is this contrast. He’s a philosopher and he’s a fugitive.

John: Now, Marc, I asked about what else he needs for a series. Talk about a pitch book or a pitch deck. If you were taking this to buyers, what would you need?

Marc: I would say the first script, it’s a format. It’s between a bible and a format, and so it’s about 10 to 15 pages where you map out episodically where the show goes. Ideally, we would send the script around, buyers would be interested, then basically you would go and you would pitch how you see the show, and then you could leave behind that format for them to decide.

John: Since the pandemic, those going around towns have resulted in a lot of Zooms with slideshows, where Megana’s driving the slides. It’s complicated, but it works, and so it does feel possible to do. Michael, thank you so much for sharing this.

Michael: Thank you.

John: Thank you for coming up here.

Marc: It was really good.

Michael: Thanks.

Marc: It was really good.

John: What script should we talk about next?

Megana: Next we are going to talk to Liliana Liu. “Nicole, 22, sleeps in the control of a facility where she monitors conversations. She’s woken up, and we see her travel in a driverless pod through the Mojave Desert on her way to her mobile home. At home, Nicole makes instant ramen and exercises in front of a series of monitors. We cut to baby Sophie’s room and see her parents put her to sleep. In the living room, we see Sophie’s mom accept a call from Sophie dated April 22, 2032. They speak, and we cut to Sophie, age seven, in a pod with her dad. Her dad encourages her to talk on the phone to her mom normally. Sophie refuses until she hears her mom’s lullaby. We cut to the control room where Nicole watches the scene.”

John: Great. I’m so excited to talk about this because I love near-future. I love this space. The premise feels like a Black Mirror kind of premise, like there’s something, what if you could do this, and what are the consequences of being able to do this, which is really exciting.

There’s also some challenges on the page I think we could really talk through and clean up, because sometimes you don’t recognize what’s confusing in a bad way on a page. By clearing those up, you can actually really lock your reader in, because we always talk about there’s a difference between confusion and mystery. Mystery’s great, because that makes us want to keep going. Confusion’s like, I don’t know, and I lose some confidence. Let’s figure out ways to make us more confident about what’s happening on these three pages. Marc, what was your first read on this?

Marc: I would say I love the tone. I think you really created a beautiful minimalist tone that I thought was really cool. I definitely was leaning in. Then honestly, after the three pages were over, I did have some confusion, to John’s point, but I still was leaning in, curious to see what the show was about that I didn’t quite understand, but I think in a good way too.

John: I want to focus on something on Page 2 which I thought worked nicely and just the description of what’s inside Nicole’s home. I’ll just read a little bit here. “She closes the door. Boots off. Black backpack and a pair of red over ear headphones go on a hook next to the door. Small yet not cozy. Only the essentials: a table, one chair. Rustic. Retro. Wood and white dotted with red. No photos. Nothing personal. Nicole (22), maroon tunic over black tights, turns to the kitchenette. She is also unadorned, small, not cozy. She grabs a red kettle, fills it, taps it on. Psst – boils in an instant. Grrl – straight to a Nongshim spicy cup noodle.”

I can see it all. I can see what’s happening here. I can see the order of things, which is really nice. It’s giving me that near-future vibe. I get a sense of who she is and where that is. That moment works really well. I think I want to try to bring that clarity to the rest of this, because I got lost a few other places.

Marc: Yeah. I loved your description. I thought it was so beautifully crafted, but I was looking for a little bit more of a POV from Nicole at times, because her description was pretty thin, but maybe that was a choice you chose. You had a full page of the surroundings, and I was looking for a little bit more of her as a character within that page.

John: Yeah. Let’s go back to Page 1. We open with, “Over black. Silence. Flat green line. Steady. Then a small ripple.” Really what we’re seeing, we’re going to see the voice pattern go past. There were a lot of words to say that there’s a green line on a black screen. I think we can be a little more minimalist here, so, “Flat green line on a black screen. Steady. Then it ripples.”

“A distinctive voice, deep, smoky.” Then we go into the Older Woman and Younger Woman’s dialog here. It was mysterious. That’s mysterious, and then the next moment’s mysterious, and the next moment’s mysterious, and you’re not telling us people’s names. They’re just figures. I need to be a little more anchored in what I’m actually seeing and who these people are, because there’s apparently Nicole that we’re seeing in this control room. Great. Just tell us her name then and don’t keep the mystery until we finally reveal her at her little mobile home pod, to me.

Marc: I agree. I was searching, like I said earlier, just for a little bit more Nicole up top and getting in her POV, because I think you beautifully crafted the world really well and the tone. I was looking for a little bit more of the character up top.

John: Then on Page 2, we’re moving between Nicole’s home and Sophie’s home. There’s projections in both places. I got really confused. I didn’t know that we’d gone to a different place and that we were establishing a new location and a new time. Give us a transition line. Just make it clear that this really is a jump to a new place that we’ve not been to before. Also, it took me three times to read it to realize that by mobile you meant a phone. I thought it was actually a mobile, like he was running in with-

Siri: I’m not sure I understand.

John: Sorry, Siri. Sorry, Siri. I thought he was running in with some sort of mobile to hang over the baby’s crib or something. This is really confusing. It’s a phone. Again, it’s one of those American English versus British English things that I read it the wrong way.

The only other point I’ll make is that the premise of what you seem to be setting up, the Black Mirror of it all, is what if you could set up a call between someone who’s 7.14 years ahead or behind. Intriguing. It’s a little strange that we’re in Nicole’s POV for so much of this rather than Sophie’s POV, that we’re starting with this tech worker rather than the actual family at the heart of it.

Marc: Also similar, I think the transitions I had to read a couple times to make sure I was tracking timeline, in addition to then when Nicole was back at work watching Sophie, I was a little confused of the point of view that we were in.

John: Luckily, we don’t have to stay confused, because we have the writer herself here. Could you come up here? Liliana, thank you so much for being here with us.

Liliana Liu: Hi.

John: Hi. Talk to us about this script. What’s the status of it? Is the whole thing written or just these three pages?

Liliana: Completely out of my depths here, just to say that. My husband is the only one that has ever read any pages, were those pages.

Marc: Wow.

John: Wow. Brave choices here. Nicely done, Liliana.

Liliana: Just a little background, I’m a full-time mom and a part-time software developer. I literally started writing sometime last year. This is a kick in the ass for me to do something, just to embarrass myself and get it out there.

John: You did. You’ve done a great job. Black Mirror, is that right? Is that what you’re going for? Is that the feel?

Liliana: Yeah. I discovered that all my ideas were all sort of sci-fi-ish but sort of a little realism, grounded in real life, sci-fi. This is my first feature script. In fact, it’s still in the middle of writing this, as I’m trying to propel myself to actually finish writing it. I would say the genesis is very personal, even though the theory behind it is not. I’m a sensitive person. I think a lot of writers are. I grew up in a home where my mom was ultra-sensitive. A lot of times, there’s this thing about going back. You replay things. You talk to people or make decisions or you didn’t say certain things or even make certain decisions. It plays back in your mind. It haunts you. Then you wish you could go back. It could be something very small. You want really hard to say something or do the thing that you didn’t, stuff like that. That’s the genesis of where this whole thing comes from.

John: There’s this phrase, esprit d’escalier, that thing you realize you should’ve said as you left the place. This is with a seven-year time period, a bigger gap. It’s a great premise. You’re saying this is a feature. Who is our central character, and who protagonates over the course of your feature?

Liliana: Nicole is the central figure. This is a big company. I think the only other thing I found was some movie with Daniel Quaid about, I think, firefighters calling between dinner times. This is more like there’s a company now, like Amazon or something, that provides this service. She is working behind the scenes. There’s some complications around… People think this is an artificial intelligence provide the service, but in the background, because a lot of times this happens, I work in the background software, that that’s not real, there’s no AI yet. She’s one of the people behind it that’s actually making it happen. People don’t know that it’s her job. I guess another complexity layer is that originally I wanted to do something like Lives of Others where she is just almost in the background.

John: An observer, yeah.

Liliana: Nobody knows she exists. Then she makes an impact to a particular client. I don’t know if this is the right direction. I wanted to make it more personal for her, where she wasn’t just opaque character who just is an observer, like you say. I’ve found basically an angle where she has something very, very key in her own life.

What you see in the first page, that first conversation, now that I think about it, maybe it’s too mysterious. The Older Woman is her mother, and she is the younger woman. She left home when she was 15 and had basically a broken relationship with her mother. Even though she won’t admit it to herself, that’s what’s been haunting her all this time.

It’ll come to pass in the first 10 pages or so that her mother is going to become a client that comes in, but she works behind the scenes. It’s a voice thing. She overhears another worker there that talks to her mother. She’s been listening to these conversations with her mom day in, day out, but she hasn’t talked to her or seen her for seven years. That’s the inciting incident is that her mom is now a client.

John: A pitch, and not necessarily a thing you need to do, but the story you’re describing, it may make sense to have an opening vignette that sets up the premise of what this is and what the service does and if we can establish that she works at this company that’s doing this thing, just so we’re clearly anchored in like, oh, this is what normal life is like before things get upended. Right now, it feels like you’re trying to set up so many mysteries, and we get a little bit lost in that.

Marc, let’s say that the cleaned up version of this script crosses your desk. It’s a feature length thing. Is it something you would say, “Okay, this is great. Let’s think about it as a series.” How much does that happen, where you take something that shows up as a feature, you think, “We could do this as a series.”

Marc: I’ve actually done it a couple times. I’m doing it recently, where there was a feature script I read that I loved. You met with the writer. You could easily see how you could open up the world. We’re just breaking it up into episodic now. I’m super impressed that this is your first thing you’ve ever written, because it’s a really clear, concise, high-concept, grounded genre piece. There’s something really fresh and cool about it.

John: Absolutely. I’m also thinking the cleaned up version of this could be really good staffing, because it reads well for that. This writer can do near-future sci-fi, grounded sci-fi, which is not easy to do. We’re making a fair number of those shows right now. The Nolans would need to have people like you to do that stuff.

Marc: It reminded me of Arrival the movie or Severance, a little bit in that tone.

John: Cool. Now she’s excited that you did this. Liliana, thank you so much. Thank you very much for coming up here. Thank you so much for coming up here. We have a third and final Three Page Challenge here to talk through. Megana, I think we have a listener question that is relevant here. Why don’t you start with a listener question?

Megana: Carrie asked, “Are there legitimately good reasons for the protestant adherence to the unexpressive screenplay format we all use, as in more than, ‘Well, that’s because that’s the way we’ve always done it.’ Several episodes ago, you read a Three Page Challenge with a title page designed like a wake flier, and everyone was so delighted. As a career graphic designer, it seems obvious to me that typography, layout, color, imagery are evocative storytelling tools, but screenwriters are still debating whether bolding a slug line is showing too much ankle. What are some of the good reasons we’re using our great-grandfather’s typewriter constraints in 2022?”

John: Provocative question there. We talk a lot about the formatting on the page on normal episodes. I really want to focus on title pages. Marc, if you see a title page that is designed versus just the 12-point Courier, maybe underlined title, what do you think?

Marc: It doesn’t really register.

John: It doesn’t register for you?

Marc: As long as there’s the title, I’m good.

John: Great. It doesn’t help you? It doesn’t scare you?

Marc: Me, no.

John: Our third Three Page Challenge has a very well-designed or a very graphic cover page. I’m holding it up here. For our listeners at home who can’t see this, it’s The Untimely Demise of That Awful David Schwartzman. The title is very big on the page. It’s single words in probably 72-point font, “Original teleplay by Rudi O’Meara.” The background is a photo that is a gradient from red to blue. It’s stylish. It’s big. It’s not anywhere like a normal title page would be. It’s a very strong, bold choice. Megana, could you give us a synopsis of what we see in these three pages?

Megana: Yes. This is The Untimely Demise of That Awful David Schwartzman by Rudi O’Meara. “We open on a middle-aged man floating facedown in a pool, wearing a kimono and covered in blood. In VoiceOver, Clay, early 20s, aspiring screenwriter, tells us he can’t believe that David, the man facedown in the pool, is dead and that he’s one of the ones trying to figure out who did it. Clay warns us that David wasn’t usually this calm. We hard cut to production offices, where we see David Schwartzman, a famous indie producer, storm in and scream at Clay about work, looking for some guy named Phil, and picking him up food from Canter’s.”

John: Great. Marc, this producer did not remind you of anybody you’ve ever heard of, right?

Marc: Many a producer I worked for back in the day as an assistant.

John: Back in the days. This is a story about Hollywood. It’s focused on that. There’s a little bit of PTSD that comes up as I read these things, both from having experienced these people and also having read things about these people and the Swimming with Sharks and all this stuff. As I sit down at this, I’m like, oh, so it’s a Sunset Boulevard opening with someone floating in a pool and a screenwriter talking, the narration that’s going onto this. As you finished these three pages, what was your first thought? What was your first feeling?

Marc: I would say I love the title.

John: I think the title is fantastic.

Marc: Yeah, that definitely brought me in. I would say after that, if I was looking at it for development, it would be a harder point of view, just because Hollywood stories are just really hard to sell. I would then assess more of as a staffing sample.

John: The Untimely Demise of That Awful David Schwartzman is a really strong title. We’ve talked on the show before. There’s been periods at which spec scripts with very provocative titles would get a lot of attention. Then they would always be released as something completely different than the actual movie. I’m going to remember that. Saying That Awful David Schwartzman is really great. This is apparently Episode 1: Who the F is Phil.

Some other things I’m noticing on the title page here, we’re given an address, we’re given a phone number, we’re given an email address. Once upon a time, we maybe wanted all those things. Email address is great. We don’t need anything more than that. WGA registration number, you don’t need it. We don’t care. It honestly looks to me a little unprofessional. I just don’t trust that people know what they’re doing if they’re putting that number on there.

Marc: I agree.

John: As everyone who listens to the podcast knows, I’m the one on the podcast who actually is pro-WGA. I think WGA is a fantastic organization. I don’t think WGA registration is meaningful for almost anything. If you decide to do it, great, if it makes you feel good. It’s not any more protective than copyright is in general. Do it if you feel like it, but you definitely don’t need to put that registration number on here. I haven’t registered anything with the WGA for 20 years. Don’t worry about doing it.

Megana: Also, it’s because you email drafts. That’s important.

John: Emailing a draft around is also a proof that it existed at a certain point of time. That’s all the WGA registration does is just prove that this thing actually did exist at a certain point in time. There’s other ways to prove that.

Marc: Also, if you have an agent manager or a lawyer, they’re going to protect you when you submit things to production companies and studios.

John: Our point of view is Clay. Clay is giving us the VoiceOver. He’s the one who’s working for That Awful David Schwartzman. He has a VoiceOver power in the story. Not only does he have VoiceOver power, he has ability to stop time and freeze-frame us and be live in scenes while he’s talking to camera. It’s a lot. Did it work for you?

Marc: I think at points it worked for me. I think the thing that was hard for me to track was Clay as a character, because in the VoiceOver he was really brash and confident, but then in the description he was fresh-eyed and young. I was trying to find a way to track him as a character when you’re introducing him in the first three pages.

John: Yeah. We have basically two characters we’re setting up here. Let’s talk about David Schwartzman. He’s described as “mid-50s, long, thinning gray hair, wire rim glasses.” Love it. “An infamous independent producer with a checkered past” in the description, no. That’s too much for me. I’m always a fan of being able to cheat a little bit on that first character introduction in terms of a thing that an actor can play but is not necessarily visual or something we’re going to see. “An infamous independent producer with a checkered past,” we don’t know that from just that description. If you can quickly get that out there, we’re going to feel it. That just felt like cheating to stick that in his parenthetical there.

Marc: Yeah. I don’t know if this is intended to be a comedic murder mystery, but I thought when Clay says, “We’d be the ones trying to figure out who did it,” it felt like it tipped your hat to the mystery a little bit. I wanted a little bit more intrigue and not laying out all your cards in the first page.

John: Yep. We have another character cheating thing here when we finally get to Clay’s actual introduction. He’s been voiceover-ing, but only on Page 2 do we actually meet him in person. “The camera wheels around to reveal our narrator – Clay Wilcox,” parentheses, “early 20s,” comma, “a fresh-faced former English major and aspiring screenwriter then unaccustomed to David’s fury.” That whole last sentence there, “then unaccustomed to David’s fury,” facts not in evidence. Show us that, but you can’t just tell us that in a scene description.

Marc: Yeah. Similar to the way he talked in VoiceOver, and then when he was freezing, it felt like he had been doing this for a while, so it was hard to track which kind of, I guess, Clay we were tracking and following.

John: Yeah. That’s where I had a hard time buying Clay as a character, which is important, because he’s our POV character. He’s the one we’re going to see going through this. All that said, I’m curious and intrigued about the tone, because like you, I thought it was maybe a comedic murder mystery, sort of Only Murders in the Building. There’s something fun about that and piecing that together, we have a dead body, and figuring out who could’ve done this thing, when it seems like everybody probably did want to kill this person, because I want to kill this person, and I don’t even know him. Luckily, we can ask the question of the writer himself. Can we bring up Rudi O’Meara? Rudi, thank you very much for being here.

Rudi O’Meara: Thanks for having me. Great feedback though. Thank you so much.

John: Great. Thank you for being here. Talk to us about your experience with David Schwartzman. Was he really that bad?

Rudi: Yes. Actually, the title, the “That Awful,” so the person… It’s kind of from my life experience in some ways. It’s the reason I left the industry when I was younger. Later in the script, it’s mentioned that he was actually part of The Factory with Andy Warhol. When I was told that I got the job, I was working at a bookstore. The Warhol Diaries had just come out. I went to the index, and his citations were long in his name. I went to the first one. It was like, “Went to so-and-so’s house, ran into that awful David.” His last name was not Schwartzman. Next citation was exactly the same. Twenty citations later was exactly the same. That’s where the title comes from.

John: That’s awesome. I didn’t know that it was based on… I think it’s a sad state of Hollywood that there’s a bunch of other people who I assumed it could’ve been based on.

Marc: Exactly.

John: A bunch of terrible, terrible people, some of whom we’ve discussed on the Scriptnotes podcast, who we could assume that it was inspired by. Was our guess that it’s a comedic murder mystery at all correct? What is the tone for you?

Rudi: Ding ding ding.

John: Great. Someone killed him, and it’s Clue, and we have to figure out who could’ve done it.

Rudi: Correct. Like you said earlier too, it really could be anyone. That’s part of the both episodic nature, but also… Every single person from the financier, basically every aspect of the production, everyone has a motive. They’re trying to figure out how to solve it.

John: Talk to us about the engine of the show though, if it’s an Only Murders in the Building, or it could be The Afterparty. Are we switching POVs episode to episode? How does it work, or do you know?

Rudi: Clay is the protagonist. There is a time-swapping element. It jumps forward, jumps back. It’s a little bit like Only Murders but then also like The Big Lebowski meets The Maltese Falcon in some ways, where it jumps around, but it’s also a little trippy. In some ways, the narration is maybe faulted for that a little bit, because it does feel like you’re hearing from him at a different stage of his own understanding. At the same time, when he’s speaking in the first person or interacting with characters live, sometimes it’s a little bit disconnected from his later wisdom. It jumps around in time a little bit, and that can be a problem.

John: Making it clear to the audience that there is that gap is really challenging, and on the page, feeling the difference between that too, because we’re just seeing Clay with dialog, and so we’re not necessarily always clocking if it’s a VoiceOver dialog versus what’s happening in the scene. It’s a challenging thing to have characters be able to VoiceOver in a scene and talk in a scene, and yet many great movies do it. Clueless does it, and it works flawlessly when it happens. Maybe we’re actually looking at how those things worked on the page and what you can see and feel and steal from how they’re balancing those two things. You mentioned before, Marc, that movies about Hollywood, shows about Hollywood are really tough. They’re tough to get made, and they don’t tend to work especially well. Why is that? Do you have a sense?

Marc: There’s always the Entourages of the world that work. I think it’s hard because for the most part, people don’t want to access behind-the-scenes movies, TV shows about Hollywood. I think that’s been always hard. Can I ask you a question about the script though?

Rudi: Yeah, sure.

Marc: In terms of Clay, and you might not have this figured out, is there a detective that comes in? If Clay is new to this guy’s world, why does he want to figure out who killed him?

Rudi: There is a detective later. I’ve only written the pilot, but I’ve mapped out the first season. That’s very presumptuous, first season. In Season 4… No. There is a detective, but also at the same time, they have the motivation in that just before the murder happens, the film that has been in production is failing, and out of desperation, the producer, David, taps Clay for an idea, like, “Give me a spec script of yours.” He’s like, “Oh here it is. I got one.” It starts moving. Things go into production. David gets murdered. They want to keep that moving. Also, at the same time, they’re under threat, because they’re seen by all these other people who are also suspects as possible suspects themselves. Everyone’s on the table in terms of who could’ve killed David.

John: Great. Rudi, thank you so much for these three pages.

Marc: Thank you.

Rudi: Thank you very much.

John: I want to thank everybody who sent through the three pages for us to talk about, especially our brave writers who came up here to talk about the things they wrote, because that’s so intimidating to have us talk about problems and then you come up here and do it. Thank you very much for that. Thank Megana Rao, our producer, for reading all of these pages. Thank you to the Austin Film Festival for having us again. Thank you for a great audience. Thank you. Have a great afternoon.

It’s John back with you kind of live again. I want to thank the Austin Film Festival for having us yet again. Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao, edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is by Jeff Graham. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send longer questions. For shorter questions on Twitter, Craig is @clmazin, I’m @johnaugust. A reminder that if you want to submit your own three pages for a Three Page Challenge, the place to do that is at johnaugust.com/threepage, all spelled out. You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find the transcripts and sign up for our weeklyish newsletter called Inneresting, which has lots of links to things about writing.

We have T-shirts, and they’re great. We saw so many of them at the Austin Film Festival. You can find them at Cotton Bureau, and actually only at Cotton Bureau. There’s now knockoff Scriptnotes T-shirts, which is wild. The real ones are at Cotton Bureau. You should get them there, because they’re the only ones that are soft enough to merit the Scriptnotes brand.

You can sign up to become a Premium Member at scriptnotes.net, where you get all of the back-episodes and Bonus Segments, like the one we’re about to put on the end of this episode, which has questions from the audience after our Three Page Challenge. Thanks.

[Bonus Segment]

John: At this point in the podcast, I’d love to talk to you guys and get your questions you have in the audience about either the pages that we talked through today or the general thinking about what on the page works for a person who’s trying to get staffed on a show or get a show set up at a company like yours.

Do we have questions in the audience? Right there in the white. Just say your question. I may repeat it back so we have it on the air. The question is about the layout of each particular page and whether, especially in those early pages, are we trying to make sure there’s a cliffhanger at the bottom of the page and what those all are.

The first couple pages are incredibly crucial to make sure that you’re just drawing people down that page, and they want to keep flipping. The goal is just get them to the next page, get them to the next page. That’s not necessarily a cliffhanger. You don’t want to break the actual story to get you to the next thing. You are really thinking about how am I going to get this person to read. A very common cheat you’ll see in a lot of scripts is that putting a few extra blank lines at the top, so that the first page is just a little bit lighter and so that we’re starting about a quarter of a page down, just to get you flipping and just make it less intimidating to get through.

A thing we talk a lot about when we do Three Page Challenges is just the page feel and how dense it is on the page and how light it is. The samples we’ve gone through today are pretty good examples. The longest blocks of scene description are about three lines, four lines. There’s no 15-line things. If you look back at older scripts, sometimes they had really massive things. Those are intimidating. You might start skimming.

As a writer, you never want your reader to skim. You always want the reader to feel like every word, they got it in there and they took it. The only thing you want your reader to be able to skim is character names. At a certain point you can get into a flow where you don’t have to look at the character names anymore. You have a feeling of it’s ping-ponging back and forth between these characters. It’s great. You basically want to make sure that you’re keeping the reader glued to every word and flipping the next page.

Again, one of the things we always say at the end of each of these samples, would I want to read Page 4? Sometimes, yes. In the case of these scripts, yeah, I would keep reading a little bit longer, which is a great sign.

Right here in the first row. Julie, you’re asking a really good question, because classically, we talk about structure, especially for film structure, like, oh, the inciting incident needs to happen at a certain point, or there’s an act break and these changes. I think the thing we kept trying to stress is that even before then, by the end of three pages, we need to have a sense of what this world feels like, what this movie feels like, what ride am I going on. If you’ve done that in three pages, that’s important. If we’re hooked into who you are as a writer and feel confident, that’s greater. I asked you earlier what makes you stop a script. That’s one of the things you said is just that feeling of, “I want to keep going.”

Marc: I don’t think it needs to be somebody gets murdered in the first three pages. It could just be a really beautiful tone that’s intriguing, that you are excited to read more.

John: Another question. Right here. Great. The question is, how worried do we need to be in the first three pages of being either too irreverent or saying something, doing something on those first three pages that make someone feel like, “I don’t ever want to meet this writer.” Marc, has that ever happened to you?

Marc: No.

John: Have you ever been like, “Oh my god, this person seems like a jerk.”

Marc: No. Be as authentic as you want to be in your writing, I always say.

John: On the live show we did last night, we had two great guests, Chuck and Brenda, coming on. One of the things that they made most clear is that what was key to them getting staffed on shows finally was just writing what they uniquely themselves could write, that no one else could do this. When people read their sample, it’s like, “Oh yeah, I want that guy who did that thing.” It wasn’t a generic thing that someone else could’ve written. It was only a thing that Chuck could’ve written or that Brenda could’ve written. Using something that shows your own voice is crucial.

People also come to me and say, “Oh, I’m working through a couple different ideas. I’m not sure what I should be writing next that might be a good sample.” If there’s something you could write that the central character or premise feels like it matches you, that can be really useful, because then the person who’s reading it can have you in their mind, and so when they sit down and meet with you, they’re like, “Oh yeah, that character and her, yeah, I could see them jiving.” That can be really useful.

Marc: I will say there’s scripts that I’ve read in my career that are batshit crazy ideas, but I will always remember them. To John’s point, as I’m staffing a show, I might say, “I really loved that script two years ago,” and then I’ll flip it to the showrunners because it stuck with me as something that just felt noisy and different.

John: Noisy can be good. Right here. Marc, are you pro-splat?

Marc: I’m always open to a splat. Are you?

John: Yeah, I think so. On the podcast, we often call this a Stuart Special. Stuart Friedel, who’s one of our previous producers, as he picked Three Page Challenges, sometimes there would be this big dramatic thing happens, and it says then “two weeks earlier,” and then it goes back. We call that a Stuart Special, because it’s got that flashback thing. Those are often splats, where there’s a whole horrible death or a thing happens and then everything can go back to normal life beforehand. Those can totally work. They can be cliches, but if they’re cliches that are done really, really well or have a spin on them, they work and they can be really, really helpful. Don’t be afraid of them.

Right here. The question is about character introductions, character descriptions that have a lot of psychological insight or they really talk through the psychology of characters and how we feel about that. I want to contrast that with some of my criticisms of this last script, where they weren’t psychological insights, they weren’t things that an actor could play. They were just facts that we couldn’t see. I think that is really the distinction for me.

I haven’t read the Mare of Easttown scripts, but I suspect that if I were an actor reading through that script, I’d say, “Oh, that is really useful for me. That is a thing that I can figure out, how to embody what you’re describing there. That is great, whereas I can’t embody being a despised producer. That’s not a thing I can take into my body.” I’m great with it. You always have to recognize that if you’re throwing a lot of scene description at us, we’re going to be tempted to slow down or stop reading or we might skim it. It’s always that balance. If it works, it can be great. How do you feel when you see those things on the page?

Marc: I haven’t read Mare of Easttown. I’ll be actually curious to see how it maps out. I would say I agree. If you could be a little concise with your descriptions, I always think that works better just for the read and the flow.

John: Great. Another question. Let’s go all the way to the back. I see you, sir. Great. The question is about companion material, so if there’s a deck that comes with a script or there’s some sort of link, would you click that first or look at the deck first before you read the script?

Marc: I think it just depends, honestly. I would actually look at the sizzle first, just so I get the visual tone of what they want to do. Then I would read the script.

John: Just so we’re sure we’re defining terms, what is a sizzle to you, and how long is a sizzle reel?

Marc: A sizzle reel could be anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. That’s almost like a proof of concept for the tone and the look and the feel of the series, or if it’s a deck, I’ve gotten decks anywhere between 5 and 20 pages of templates for who the characters are, the world. A lot of times with genre stuff in big world-building stuff, they tend to put a deck together so you understand the scope of the world.

John: I’m working on a project for the first time that has a deck that goes with it. It’s exciting. Also, it kind of feels like cheating, because I can show you what this all looks like. This is this giant movie star in this role. That’d be great. Of course you want to make that movie or that show. We didn’t used to do them, but they are helpful. Curious what you think about it. We now can embed links in scripts. We can embed links in things. Do you ever click links in a pdf?

Marc: The only thing I’ve seen, which I thought was super cool, was there was a Spotify playlist at the top of the title page, because it was a Southern show, and they wanted Southern music bands. It was actually just really nice at the end just to play that playlist, which I thought was cool.

John: That was on the title page or at the end?

Marc: It was on the title page, on the QR code.

John: Great.

Marc: It was pretty cool.

John: [inaudible 00:51:15]. A question right over here. The question is, beyond just a link, embedding images, putting other stuff in a script, and do we think that the screenplay format will evolve beyond where it is right now? Craig Mazin who’s not here, would say, “Yes, it’s going to. We’re going to break the whole script format.” Me, as the person who actually makes apps that do it, it’s like, eh. I’m maybe a little more conservative on some of it. How do you feel when you see an image in a script?

Marc: I would say at the end of the day, at the core, it’s about the actual script. You can jazz it up and put bells and whistles, but at the core, I think I just look at the script and assess the actual script.

John: Yeah, because to be the entire cliché here, the script is the plan for making a TV show. The photo is in the plan for making the TV show. The photo can be really helpful for other things. I think those decks and other stuff can be really helpful for showing what stuff is. The script is the plan for what the scenes are and how we’re going to get through this important storytelling moment. If an image is absolutely crucial for doing that or if you could not possibly understand this without that one image… Rian Johnson did it in Looper. If there’s one image that you have to see for it to make sense, great. If you can’t do it with your words, maybe there’s some reason why your words need to be improved.

Marc: I also thought for a deck over Zoom, for my writer friends who have to talk for 30 minutes, it’s a nice break to show visuals.

John: Yeah, it really is so great. Because of the pandemic, we first started having to do this. It was better, because suddenly, I can have my cheat sheet of what I’m pitching off of right close to the camera line, but the deck’s filling up some space. It does help, because I’m the person who always used to bring in boards. I would art-mount my boards and bring them in. Slides are just better.

Great. Right here. The question is, we talked about some scripts being really good for thinking about making this into production versus staffing and what the split is here. Can you define what is a useful thing to be thinking about, like, “Oh, this is a good sample for staffing,” versus, “This is something we would actually make.”

Marc: I would say the first step is I would talk to the creator/showrunner and say, “Ideally, what are you looking for? What are your needs?” because at the end of it, it’s the writer’s, creator’s decision on who he or she wants to hire. Then off of that conversation… Let’s say it’s a cop show. If they want somebody who has a cop procedural, then I’ll look for specific scripts that mimic that, or if it’s a genre piece, but it’s a real character piece, then look for something specific in line with what the showrunner wants. It really depends on what the show is.

John: Of course, back in the day, if you wanted to write on a half-hour sitcom, you would write a spec episode of Seinfeld or some existing show that was on the air. It’s like, “Oh, he can write that show.” You wouldn’t write the show that you were staffed on. It was just to show that you can actually do that thing. Mindy Kaling says she really misses those days, because she misses being able to staff off of like, “I know they understand how shows work and how to write in the voice of a given show.” We don’t do that anymore, because you probably read very few specs of existing shows anymore.

Marc: When I first started my career, it was a lot of CSIs, Law and Orders. I hadn’t watched CSI a lot, so it was hard for me to track if they were mimicking the show, because ideally when you’re staffing, you’re mimicking what the show and the creator is creating. Now it’s really refreshing, because it’s all about originals. There’s plenty of playwrights that I’ve staffed off just an amazing play sample that just has a really great character that tonally fits what the creator’s doing in the series too.

John: Marc, talk to us about reading things that are not scripts, because reading a play, do you feel like you are getting a good sense of whether they could do it?

Marc: Yeah, sometimes if there may be a lower-level writer, so a staff writer or story editor, where they’re not an upper-level writer, but they just have a really great, unique voice, and we just need a really unique perspective in the room, that will help. A couple years ago, I got pitched somebody who had a Twitter handle as a way to staff a show.

John: Great. Was it a very serious Twitter handle? It wasn’t funny at all.

Marc: No, it was funny. It was for a comedy room. They hadn’t written a script yet, but they had really funny tweets.

John: Diablo Cody, quite famously, she was funny on Twitter, and sure enough, she could actually write. Who knew? That is a way to show a very specific voice. Great.

Let’s take one more question here. Right there in the back, I see you. Great. Our question is, we were talking about specs, which is so confusing. In TV, a spec is writing an episode of an existing show that’s on the air, or are people just reading originals? For our writer there, would you recommend she spec an existing show or just do originals?

Marc: I’d say originals. I did read recently a Golden Girls spec. That was really fun and new. It was interesting how they told the story. I think it was noisy, the way they planned out the story. For the most part, originals. I would say have two, because you never know if there’s a great genre show that you want to get staffed on or a great drama. To have two samples is always really good.

John: Some things I took from this conversation today, I’m going to use the word noisy a lot as a describer, because really, a noisy thing you notice. You just notice people who are noisy, and you notice a script that is noisy. It just sticks with you. Things that are just quiet and subtle and disappear and they’re not objectionable but they’re not memorable, that’s not going to help these people.

Marc: I think it mimics… There are so many platforms right now. What buyers are saying, they need things that are noisy to break through the immense amount of content that’s on the air right now.

John: Great.

Links:

• Marc Velez on IMDb
• The Encyclopedists by Michael X. Heiligenstein
• Call Me 7.14 Years Ago by Liliana Liu
• The Untimely Demise of That Awful David Schwartzman by Rudi O’Meara
• Thank you to the Austin Film Festival! and all our participants in the three page challenge.
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Jeff Graham (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The post Scriptnotes, Episode 573: Three Page Challenge Live in Austin, Transcript first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig discuss a doppelgänger murder, the true life of a Hollywood rebel, an unexpected roadtrip, and more in this week’s installment of How Would This Be A Movie, where we analyze how stories in the news would translate onscreen.

We also follow up on Chat GPT, Celebrity Jeopardy, and writing in other people’s voices. We then answer an embarrassed listener’s question on unfavorable movie reviews.

In our bonus segment for premium members, we discuss overpowered characters in D&D and how character strengths factor into our own writing.

Links:

• ‘Doppelganger murder’: Woman accused of killing Instagram lookalike in plot to fake her own death By Andy Eckardt and Aina J. Khan for NBC
• The Godfather, Saudi-Style by Anuj Chopra for the Guardian
• The Last Days of Nikki Finke by Jacob Bernstein for the NYT
• The Nun and the Monk who fell in Love and Married by Aleem Maqbool for BBC
• 13 stranded strangers went on a road trip. Here’s what happened by Francesca Street for CNN
• ‘Nothing, Forever’ Is An Endless ‘Seinfeld’ Episode Generated by AI by Chloe Xiang for Vice
• Manta Sleep Mask
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• John on Mastodon
• Outro by Timothy Lenko (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The post Toldja! The Nikki Finke Movie first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig take a look at ‘writer fingerprints.’ They break down how idiosyncratic choices make up an individual’s style on-the-page and offer advice on how to mimic someone else’s voice.

Follow up includes pet rock, a defense of script consultants, the preface page in Tár, and the anti-“actually” mindset.

In our bonus segment for premium members, we offer advice to a producer who needs help working with a writer who can’t seem to finish — or deliver — a script.

Links:

• Scriptnotes episodes with 2023 Oscar Nominees Sarah Polley, Rian Johnson, Daniels, Pamela Ribon
• Weekend Read Beta Try it out — now updated with all FYC scripts!
• Writing in another writer’s style on John’s blog with advice from Dara Resnick Creasey
• Algorithms were able to figure out that Robert Galbraith was JK Rowling
• Good Conversations Have Lots of Doorknobs by Adam Mastroianni
• The Case of The Golden Idol game
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Luke Yoquinto, who discovered it in the score to Coming to America by Nile Rodgers (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

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In this How Would This Be a Movie case study, John interviews screenwriter William Nicholson (Les Misérables, Gladiator) on the challenges he faced with his script for Thirteen Lives, a film that follows the attempted rescue of a Thai soccer team trapped in a cave in 2018. They cover issues of life rights, competing projects, narrative point of view and cultural sensitivity.

Before that, John and Craig discuss end-of-year news in Hollywood, the recent changes to HBO Max, and what that means for creators and audiences in the new year.

In our bonus segment for premium members, we discuss our aspirations and resolutions for 2023.

Links:

• William Nicholson on IMdB
• Watch the conversation between John and William here
• Thank you to the Writers Guild Foundation for organizing the event!
• Use Promo Code ONION for two months free in our annual Scriptnotes premium membership
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Welcome to Digital Nomadland by Kyle Jeffers for Wired
• Fleischman Is In Trouble on Hulu
• Andor
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Michael Lane (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The post Finding a Way In, and Out first appeared on John August.

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For this week’s Inneresting rebroadcast, editor Chris Csont chose this 2011 blog post in which I wondered how much of ourselves we present online. Even then, I was looking backwards:

In the seven years I’ve been running the blog, I’ve noticed the online version of myself drifting closer to the “actual” version. But there is still a difference, and that’s deliberate. Even though this site has my name on it, it’s still a fairly controlled product: a ton of useful information on screenwriting. You’re getting the screenwriter John August, not the Eagle Scout, the cook or the Real World/Road Rules Challenge completist.

For the newsletter, I wrote up a blurb to put the post in context which ended up nearly as long as the post itself.

Eleven years ago, I was talking about Facebook, a platform I’ve largely abandoned. Nearly all the same points apply to Twitter and Instagram today.

Twitter has been problematic for years, with its trolls and mobs and twitchforks. But I’m honestly grateful for it. It’s where I first met many colleagues and learned new ideas, mostly by listening in on conversations from communities I wasn’t a part of.

For all the talk about Twitter leveling the playing field, allowing direct access to powerful people, I found my blue-check status to be incredibly useful. The moment I followed someone, they would get a notification and often follow me back. That digital introduction made it easy to DM them a question like, “Hey, would you ever want to come on Scriptnotes?”

Scrolling through someone’s Twitter gave you a sense of who a person was, or at least how they wanted to be perceived.

I’m talking about Twitter in the past tense because I think it’s dead. It may still exist in six months or six years, but Elon Musk’s erratic decisions have broken its hold on the conversation. It will ever feel essential again. Maybe that’s good. Other weird things can flourish in its absence.

Meanwhile, I still use Instagram, particularly Stories and DMs. If I meet someone at a party, Instagram is probably how we’ll keep in touch. Yet it’s an every way a more extreme version of what worried me back in 2011. It’s curated, performative and artificial. It feeds body dysmorphia and parasocial relationships. But it doesn’t feel like it’s contributing to imminent collapse of democracy, which in 2022 is the low bar we’ve set.

As I’m posting this, I haven’t officially left Twitter. I still skim and reply. But I’m not going to be engaging in any discussion or debate. I’ll certainly try out Hive and Post and Mastodon, just like I used to have Tumblr and others. But I don’t expect any of them to replace Twitter for me.

Just as it was 12 years ago and seven years before that, I suspect this blog will remain the official version of me, so follow me here. RSS forever.

The post Social media has always been dying first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig analyze what lessons writers can learn from acting techniques (such as staying present) and working with actors (like staying open).

We also discuss writer retirement, how Craig’s “central dramatic argument” applies to TV, and the skill of cutting a character to save a scene.

In our bonus segment for premium members, we discuss The Future and what we owe it.

Links:

• Writer Emergency Pack XL is funded! Support here on Kickstarter!
• Green Burial Council and Is California ready for ‘human composting’ as an alternative to casket burial, cremation? by Anabel Sosa for the LA Times
• John’s Blogpost on Fake Tears
• Scriptnotes Episode 76: How screenwriters find their voice
• Scriptnotes Episode 403: How to Write A Movie
• Patton Oswalt on King of Queens
• Cut A Character Save A Scene on John’s Blog
• Ants Outnumber Everything by Dino Grandoni for the Washington Post
• Why Question Words Start with Wh on Reddit
• Bo Shim’s LA Food Guide: Western Doma Noodles hole-in-the-wall treasure, MDK Noodles in K-town, Zzamong for Jjjangmyun, KyoChon for fried chicken–especially the honey wings, Aliya Lavaland for (lava) mooncakes, Mandarin Noodle House in Monterey Park
• What We Owe the Future by William Macaskill
• Candy Corn Infused Vodka
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Nico Mansy (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

UPDATE 11-1-22 The transcript for this episode can be found here.

The post Writing as Acting first appeared on John August.

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My friend Nima recently pointed out that most of the stuff our company makes is free. That’s probably not a great business model, but it’s always been our culture. We only charge for those things that have significant ongoing costs — like upkeep and hosting — or a per-unit cost to produce. If you’re a […] The post The Free Stuff first appeared on John August.

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The original post for this episode can be found here. John August: Hello and welcome. My name is John August. Craig Mazin: My name is Craig Mazin. John: And this is Episode 502 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show we keep saying it’s important […] The post Scriptnotes, Episode 502: Free Will (Or, It’s Okay to Not Be a Screenwriter), Transcript first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig host a round of the Three Page Challenge where they look at listener pages and offer feedback on what’s working and how to avoid common pitfalls. This week we look at time jumps, reveals, and ticker-tape dialogue. We follow up on confusing credits, then answer listener questions on narrative geography, professional development […] The post Parentheses Would Help first appeared on John August.

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John welcomes writers John Hoffman (Only Murders in the Building, Looking) and Brittani Nichols (Abbott Elementary, A Black Lady Sketch Show) to bring us behind the scenes of the comedy writers room. They explain ‘alts’ (alternative line jokes), crafting tone, and the process of pitching. We also discuss the sophomore season and different comedic engines. […] The post Making the Modern Comedy Series first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig discuss the mechanics of getting characters in and out of scenes. They cover why writers might show a character’s entrance or exit, both what it accomplishes for the story and the expectations it sets up for the audience. We get an update from ‘Please Convince Me to Drop Out of Film School’ […] The post Entrances and Exits first appeared on John August.

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John invites Anna Jane Joyner and Quinn Emmett from Good Energy Stories to discuss climate change on screen. Climate change affects every creature on our planet, so why don’t we see it more on television? They discuss opportunities for writers to inspire change and raise awareness to capture the environmental concerns of our time. We […] The post Good Energy first appeared on John August.

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John welcomes writer/director Leigh Whannell (Saw, Upgrade, Invisible Man) and astrophysicist/science consultant Dr. Erin Macdonald (Star Trek) to explore the science of sci-fi. They follow the evolution of an idea through the brainstorm to edit phase, advising how to titrate the proper amount of fact to fiction along the way. We look at how science […] The post Science Movies first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig discuss the craft of leading a creative life: What counts as practice? How do you make friends? When is it okay to take a break? A Scriptnotes listener suggested a lifestyle compendium episode, so we reach back through the archives to explore the artist’s soft skills. We touch on the dangers of […] The post On Being A Screenwriter first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig welcome the new year by discussing the art of transitions. They go beyond screenplay-specific terms to examine the psychology of moving through story beats. We cover the history of screenplays, the different ways to think about a scene, and how to create a punchline for each scene. In our bonus segment for […] The post Scene to Scene first appeared on John August.

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The original post for this episode can be found here. John August: Hey it’s John. Craig Mazin: And Craig. John: So this podcast has some of the most swearing I think we’ve ever done on a podcast. It wasn’t intentional. It just ended up being a really high density of swear words. Just I wanted […] The post Scriptnotes, Episode 521: Action Density, Transcript first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig check character blindspots, looking at how ‘over-security’ drives characters to humor and heartbreak. We also discuss natural structure: how certain events (weddings, sports, school) can create narrative scaffolding. The death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust has the industry talking about safety. Craig explains the protocols for guns on […] The post Blindspots and Natural Structures first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig talk action! They examine iconic scenes in classic movies to illustrate the relationship between intensity and density on the page. We also host a Three Page Challenge: Spooky Edition, our segment that invites listeners to submit writing samples for critique. This week we’re specifically looking at thrilling and chilling scenes. We follow […] The post Action Density first appeared on John August.

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This week, the WGA announced an upcoming referendum on a proposal to create an “Additional Literary Material” end credit for feature films. I was part of the committee that drafted the proposal, and took the lead in writing up the exhaustive explainer and FAQ.1 Outside of my role on the committee, I want to talk […] The post Why I changed my mind on end credits first appeared on John August.

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John welcomes back writer/performer Ashley Nicole Black (A Black Lady Sketch Show, Ted Lasso, The Amber Ruffin Show) to prove good things come in twos. They dive into her two Emmy nominations, joining a show in its second season, and the opportunities of both writing and acting in a series. We follow up on the […] The post Ashley is Back first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig take a look at the WGA East elections, specifically the debate over who the WGA should represent and how to prepare for new trends in digital media. We revisit predictions we made about superhero movies and break down logical fallacies in a follow up to our conspiracy discussion. We also answer listener […] The post Looking Back and Forward first appeared on John August.

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John welcomes back writer/producer Kelly Marcel (Venom, Cruella) for an action-packed episode. They break down a scene on the page, and then Kelly walks John through how she adapts and rewrites scenes in real time on set. We also discuss writing scripts with a star and why you should always cast your movies before writing […] The post Writing For Stars first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig examine why and how writers need to make bad things happen to their characters, and the ways in which hero suffering differs between features and television.

We also answer listener questions about WGA jurisdiction, becoming a signatory, timing a script for television, and why all scripts aren’t available online.

Then in our bonus segment for premium members, John and Megana discuss why she picked this episode to replay, what she’s learned from the archives, and how to follow up on a general meeting.

Links:

• The Team America: World Police puke scene, with some bad language
• The opening of Finding Nemo
• Aslan’s sacrifice in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
• Can We Stop Suicides? by Moises Velasquez-Manoff for the New York Times
• The environment in Red Dead Redemption 2
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Michael O’Konis (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli. And special thanks to Megan McDonnell, the original producer of this episode!

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

UPDATE 8-13-21 The transcript for this episode can be found here.

The post 378 – The Worst of the Worst first appeared on John August.

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John and Craig discuss preproduction, with Craig sharing how he’s prepping for an entire season of television. From costumes to casting, we look at the showrunner’s decisions beyond just the words in the script.

Then it’s another round of How Would This Be A Movie, with further analysis on why certain movies get made.

Finally in our bonus segment for premium members, John and Craig debate what information belongs on a time traveller’s cheat sheet.

Links:

• Zola Movie discussed in our HWTBAM segment on Episode 222.
• The Criminals Thought the Devices Were Secure. But the Seller Was the F.B.I.
• 1,000-Word Job Listing for a “Household Manager/Cook/Nanny and follow up An Interview With the Woman Who Wrote the Viral 1,000-Word Job Listing for a “Household Manager/Cook/Nanny from Ruth Graham on Slate.
• Couple breaks up after being handcuffed together for 123 days
• Must I really indulge my ‘psychic’ sister-in-law?
• Decoder Ring: The Tootsie Shot
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• John August on Twitter
• Liz Hannah on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Michael Karman (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

UPDATE 7-15-21 the transcript for this episode can be found here.

The post Preproduction first appeared on John August.

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In this rebroadcast, Aline Brosh McKenna joins John and Craig to discuss how movies featuring good mentors (Dead Poet’s Society, To Sir with Love) differ from films with bad mentors (Whiplash, The Devil Wears Prada). It’s not just that the teachers are bad guys; rather, the stories are structured completely differently.

We also discuss the “default male problem,” especially how it relates to comedy and the cleanest version of a joke. John asks Craig and Aline about some ethical quandaries he’s been facing, ranging from awards voting to who is a “friend.”

And in our bonus segment for premium members, John and Craig have a dialogue on dialogue. They discuss the process of developing the Scriptnotes book and the differences between how we speak/write/write speech.

Links:

• Sign up for updates and sample chapters on the Scriptnotes Book here!
• Aline Brosh McKenna on episodes 60, 76, 100, 101, 119, 123, 124 152, 161, and 175
• Raphael Bob-Waksberg Breaks Down Comedy’s “Default Male” Problem
• Writers on Writing: Simon Kinberg available in season four.
• Read the Whiplash screenplay on Weekend Read
• Evernote Scannable
• The Comeback on HBO
• Jason Hall in WGAw’s Written By
• Ryan Reynolds is now on Twitter
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• John August on Twitter
• Aline Brosh Mckenna on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Rajesh Naroth (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The post Rebroadcast, Ep 180: Bad Teachers, Good Advice and the Default Male first appeared on John August.