John August

First Person

At the table with Kamala Harris

Citizenship, First Person

I first met Kamala Harris at a small lunch in 2010. Just four or five of us around a table. Harris was running to become California’s next attorney general, so a friend suggested we meet her. I found Harris to be incredibly bright and charismatic. I donated to her campaign on the spot.

Afterwards, I described her as a superstar. My friend suggested Kamala Harris could be president one day. I agreed.

In the years after that initial meeting, I crossed paths with Harris several times. My husband and I were seated with her at a fundraiser in 2012. She was there to introduce President Obama. Everything was running late, so we ended up talking with her for more than an hour. She’s incredibly easy to talk to, and funny. She asks questions. She’s curious.

This video in which Harris explains dry-brining a turkey captures a bit of that vibe.

When Harris ran for U.S. senator in 2016, I met her again at a backyard fundraiser. (I keep saying “met” because while I’ve probably spoken with Harris for two hours over 14 years, she almost certainly doesn’t know who I am. And that’s totally how it should be! When it comes to people, “knowing” isn’t really reciprocal.) Harris was still the same warm/funny/smart candidate I’d met at that lunch in 2010. I happily made my donation, excited to see her become our senator.

In 2019, Harris dropped out of the crowded Democratic primary fairly early, but I was delighted to see her become Biden’s running mate. It’s easy to forget Harris has already made history as our nation’s first-ever female vice president. But then again, it’s easy to forget vice presidents if things are going well.

My most recent encounter with Harris was, again, in a back yard. In June 2024, just three days after Biden’s disastrous debate performance, Harris had to convince a group of terrified donors that the campaign could still win. She largely succeeded. She acknowledged reality — that Biden had lost the debate — but then laid out in clear terms the issues and the dangers presented by another Trump presidency. She wasn’t afraid to swear and smile and laugh. She was very much the woman I’d met at a lunch in 2010. I walked away thinking, “Man, I wish she were the candidate instead of Biden.”

And then she was.

In the 106 days she’s been at the top of the ticket, it’s been remarkable to see this singular talent translate the energy she’s always brought to one-on-one encounters to giant arenas. Beyoncé now opens for her.

This ad, the closer of the campaign, accurately captures Harris’s unique blend of compassion, curiosity and conviction.

The election is tomorrow. It could go either way. I’ve donated and phone banked and done all the things. I fervently hope Kamala Harris will be our next president.

Obviously, one votes based on which candidate best reflects their world view and priorities. But you’re also electing a person. Trust matters. So does authenticity. That’s why I’m writing up these observations.

Most people will never have the chance to meet Kamala Harris in person. But as someone who’s been lucky to interact with her over the years, I can tell you that the Kamala Harris you get face-to-face is just as impressive as the candidate on the stage.

If you’re undecided about who to vote for, or worry that Kamala Harris is some manufactured political entity, I can assure you she was this cool 14 years ago.

PayUpHollywood progress, an update from ‘Christian’

Film Industry, First Person, Follow Up, Television

Three years ago — October 8, 2019 — a writer who went by “Christian” emailed about their experience as a writer’s PA, explaining how they were expected to do the jobs of multiple support staff on a tiny salary. We discussed their email on the show, including the issue of needing to have a car.

Last week at the premiere event for The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror XXXIII (delightful, btw), I met “Christian” in person. They filled me in on what had happened in the past three years.

Some legitimate progress had been made, which Christian felt could be traced to the #PayUpHollywood movement. Their pay had gone up from minimum wage — but not necessarily to a living wage — and conversations about pay were becoming more open. That’s the good news.

Frustratingly, studios were still balking at reimbursing staff for things like assistants’ use of their own cell phones. Showrunners weren’t willing to engage on getting assistant and support staff properly compensated for their hours. It felt like the same grind for a few dollars more.

Christian ended up quitting work as a writer’s PA to focus on their writing, which had gone neglected for two years due to stress and overwork. I asked what advice they’d give to a writer who was looking at taking a coveted showrunner’s assistant job.

Honestly, do it for one show, one season. Learn everything you possibly can. Make contacts. Then get a job as a receptionist at a law firm so you can have the time to write.

This week, Christian wrote in with some follow-up thoughts.

first personI wanted to thank you for not only graciously listening to me ramble last night, but asking me how things were going. As you could probably assume from what I said, it’s been a lot of ups and downs.

I won’t bug you further with the details behind my experiences, but just want to make it known that my toxic boss and the refusal to provide pay parity or stipends for what we were legally owed was happening on essentially both the studio’s and network’s biggest drama cash cow. So there really isn’t any excuse for nickel and dime-ing the assistants, other than the fact that they can.

But really, it doesn’t matter what the budget is, there’s no excuse for screwing the lowest paid workers out of fair wages when these corporations are making billions of dollars a year. The money is there. They just don’t care.

It doesn’t help that there’s a huge line of people willing to accept things as they are because they believe getting an assistant job is a ticket to staffing. (The person who took over my desk when I left was a previously staffed writer, who had left the industry for personal reasons, and was so hell-bent on getting a foot “back inside” that they accepted the demotion to Showrunner’s Assistant on a desk that doesn’t promote up and isn’t particularly kind. So there were really no consequences to my toxic former boss or the show for behaving so poorly.)

And I’m not sure that there’s an easy solution, because even though my boss was not supportive, I know countless assistants who do have supportive bosses, and even their bosses have gotten stonewalled when trying to help their assistants get paid what they’re owed. One example: a friend’s boss actually carved out the show budget so that there would be enough to pay each assistant $20/hr (this is back in 2019 I believe, well before union negotiations), and the studio refused to allow the Showrunner to pay the assistants that because it would “start a precedent.”

Even today, I have a friend who got promoted to manager at her POD, but is still getting paid at the assistant rate AND having to cover her former boss’s desk because the studio won’t give the POD the budget for a managerial wage and a new assistant until the POD has “more projects in development.” Currently, this POD has the #1 show on its network, a spinoff in the works, and several other projects being pitched around town.

I feel as though ultimately the only solution seems to be to unionize every assistant position at every level, but that is a hefty, years-long goal filled with complications and extra financial barriers for those who are already struggling to make ends meet, or even just to break in.

And in the meantime, I think the only other thing to do is to make it really, REALLY clear that being an assistant isn’t a gateway to becoming a writer anymore. It’s purely a networking tool at this point, and you should use it to build up connections with supportive writers, then get out and find something that pays better with less hours so you can hone your craft (unless, of course, you are lucky enough to land a boss who actually will lift you up). And, just to note from my own job search over the past few months, almost everything pays better for less hours outside of the entertainment industry.

One more thing that I really think assistants need, and I wish that the WGA or even IATSE offered, was a course on financial literacy. I know this isn’t something that’s a problem specific to assistants, or even to this industry, but it’s something I think every assistant would really benefit from, and it would give them more capability to walk away from bad situations, rather than staying because they need the money.

I think the biggest takeaway I’ve gotten from becoming financially literate is that you don’t need a lot of money to learn how to better manage it. I was essentially broke when I started to understand my finances. In fact, I think it’s more important to understand money when you don’t have it. Especially if you’re also trying to pay off debt. That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot and also contemplating in the context of being an assistant.

Sorry for such a novel of an email. After our conversation, I felt there was a lot I had left out that was more useful than what I had actually said, so I hope that this has been of value for your time.

The Odd Joy of the Wizard/Paladin

Film Industry, First Person, Random Advice, Television

On Scriptnotes 541, Craig and I discussed which of the classic D&D attributes (Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity and Charisma) were most important for an aspiring film and TV writer. We ranked intelligence first, while acknowledging that charisma was important for the social aspects of the job. We felt wisdom was gained through experience — which it is, in the real world.

Our discussion generated a lot of listener emails. Nick Roth’s response felt like it deserved its own post. So here it is in full.

Sometimes, as a writer earlier in your career, and especially in the context of tv writing (my background is as a lower level writer on a network sitcom), it feels like you can’t just be a wizard who has maximized intelligence with secondary emphases on charisma and wisdom.

It feels like you have to multi-class as a Wizard/Paladin.

It’s a stupid multiclass. You have to approach your work like you’re on a holy quest, and everyone expects you to be a melee tank, but all you really want is to cast spells from the shadows. You have to have intelligence and charisma, and you have to have both strength and constitution to survive in a writers’ room, where you need thicker skin than mage armor can provide. And you also need to get yourself into the right place at the right time, so you can’t even take dexterity for granted, because there are barbarians out there with advantage on initiative rolls who will beat you to opportunities.

You have literally no dump stat. And, in this campaign setting, there are famously OP Backgrounds you probably don’t have access to — like having famous parents or being literally Malia Obama.

The point is it can feel impossible to roll this character. But here’s the thing: the best characters and the best campaigns aren’t made by rolling great attributes and min-maxing your abilities. They are made by figuring out the most hilarious and surprising and heartwarming ways of interpreting your critical successes and your critical fails. Okay, so you’ve insanely chosen to be a wizard-paladin and you rolled three negative modifiers. Big whoop. You can still have the best time saving the multiverse with this zany School of Police Procedurals Wizard who has taken an Oath of Musical Comedy. Maybe you fight a dragon, or maybe you reboot Cop Rock!

I feel like I lost the thread there, but you get the idea. Just like we must imagine Sisyphus happy, we have to love all the parts of being a screenwriter, no matter how absurd a multi-class it requires, even when we roll a 1 and had -3 to the check to begin with.

Writing with an invisible illness

First Person

Annie Hayes is a longtime friend of Scriptnotes, who first helped me out at the Austin Film Festival.

first personI’m currently a staff writer on the CW’s In the Dark. I previously had several different assistant jobs in the industry. I also have a genetic disease called cystic fibrosis.

As an assistant in Hollywood, you’re often told that this is the time for you to pay your dues, to work long hours and run yourself ragged for the pocket change they throw at you every week. You’re young, you can handle it.

Before I moved to LA, a producer I met at a CF research conference told me I would be crazy to try to get one of those jobs with my condition. I should stay home, write, and live off my mother for as long as I could get away with. I didn’t take his advice, but his words got in my head. No one really talks about what it’s like to navigate such a demanding industry with a chronic illness. I’ve learned it is possible, but I wish more people had been having this conversation a long time ago.

In Scriptnotes episode 530, Jack Thorne mentions his complicated feelings about the word disability. I share them. I don’t feel “disabled” applies to me, but neither does the word healthy. We don’t really have commonly understood terms to describe the people who fall somewhere in the middle.

Our society still has a long way to go in terms of employers making workplaces accessible for the physically disabled. Accommodations for people with invisible illnesses are barely on the radar. I in no way mean to imply that I have it harder than someone who is blind or uses a wheelchair — working with disabled writers on a show about a disabled character, I am acutely aware that I do not. But it can be a very thorny path to navigate.

Over the past several years, I’ve come to realize that I greatly prefer being open and vocal about my illness. To anyone else with the same situation, I would say it’s important to present the people you’re working for with the solution rather than the problem. You may need to work a little differently or have a different schedule, but if you’ve figured out what that looks like and all they have to do is go along with your plan, it will be so much easier to get them on board.

For me, that once meant having to do my brand new script coordinator job from a hospital bed for a week. But nothing fell through the cracks, so in the end, no one gave it a second thought.

For aspiring writers, there’s also the question of trying to find the time and energy to write your own stuff on the side. I certainly know what it’s like to be so wiped out from the cumulative stressors of work and health that you have nothing left to give your own writing at the end of the day.

I just had to learn to forgive myself. You’re not being lazy, and you can’t judge yourself by other people’s standards. I’ve seen plenty of very healthy people struggle to get any writing done at all, so you’re not falling as far behind as you might think.

Cystic fibrosis is a progressive condition, so I have a lot of uncertainty about what my health will look like down the road. The silver lining of working in an industry this precarious is that our jobs rarely last more than a year, giving me built-in opportunities to continually re-evaluate what I’m capable of.

That’s changed over time; frankly, right now I probably couldn’t do the agency assistant job I loved five years ago. But I’m at peace with that. I never take a job with responsibilities beyond what I know I can currently handle. And if that were to change suddenly, I would just have to be honest with my boss. Granted, that’s easier as a writer, but I managed it as an assistant, too.

Ultimately, I wish I had known when I came to LA in 2016 that I would be able to handle it. That even though my health would get worse, it wouldn’t affect my career. To anyone else out there who may be having the same doubts, I say give it a shot.