Archives for 2013

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2013/whats-next).

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

**Craig Mazin:** My name is Craig Mazin.

**John:** And this is Scriptnotes, Episode 111, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

So, this is an odd episode because you are right across from me. We are sitting in the same room at the same table.

**Craig:** With no buffer guest.

**John:** Absolutely, which is rare. So, occasionally you and I have been in the same room but there’s always been a third person to sort of break it up, yeah.

**Craig:** Break up a fight.

**John:** But, no, I’m looking directly at you as we record this podcast.

**Craig:** Right. And the other fun thing is because it’s just you and me, [laughs], I wish you people could see this. So, John has the headphones on, you know, just to make sure that the audio is okay, but I don’t need headphones because there’s just the two of us here. And he looks like I believe the guy’s name is Lobot, the guy from Empire Strikes Back. You now, Lando Calrissian’s dude, because you have this like apparatus around your head and ears. You look awesome. You look very Sci-Fi.

**John:** Well, very good, I’ll be sure to take a photo and tweet it.

**Craig:** Please do.

**John:** When the episode comes out.

**Craig:** Please do.

**John:** So, we are in New York City. Your bags are packed. You are flying back to Los Angeles, but we thought we’d cram in one episode before we go. We’re recording this on Friday afternoon at 1:15 in the afternoon. And you’re catching me at a really strange moment because as of today the show is frozen. Big Fish is frozen. So, for the first time in nine years I’m not writing Big Fish, which is weird.

**Craig:** And you can’t anymore.

**John:** No.

**Craig:** You can’t write it ever again.

**John:** Not entirely true. I’ll have to rewrite some stuff for the cast album, sort of to get those pesky talking bits minimized.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And then god-willing we do well and we tour at some point, we’ll have to change some stuff for the tour. But, for all intents and purposes, I’m done. And that feels really strange. That’s a thing I would actually like to talk to Dr. Craig Mazin about is that feeling of post-partum separation and all that.

**Craig:** It’s a very real thing. Before we get into that, a little bit of — what do we call it — what do you call it, business?

**John:** Follow up.

**Craig:** Follow up? Housecleaning.

**John:** Housekeeping.

**Craig:** Housekeeping. I like cleaning, housecleaning.

At one point apparently a few podcasts ago I mentioned that Sony Pictures Classics was, I maybe even used the word “moribund” because I was under the impression that they weren’t really open for business. And it turns out that’s totally wrong. They’re apparently incredibly open for business and put out more movies than a lot of movie studios do, so I’m really sorry about getting that wrong. It happens from time to time. So, here come the cops to take me away.

Sorry Sony Pictures Classic. You are the opposite of moribund. You are full of life. You are vivacious.

**John:** Indeed. And Craig is wrong sometimes.

**Craig:** It actually happens.

**John:** It’s great to acknowledge when you are wrong.

**Craig:** And sometimes spectacularly wrong. So, yes, in this case wildly wrong. Sorry. Sorry. Okay.

**John:** There are two bits of new things that came up, so let’s just sort of crank through those first. First off, people sent me this link to this new fund called Gamechanger. And the idea behind it is — we’ve talked on the podcast several times about how there are a notorious lack of women directors. And so this fund is designed to help make movies in the $1 million to $5 million range with female directors to hopefully balance some things out. The numbers that this article that we’ll link to cited showed that women make up about 50% of film school graduates but women only direct 7% of the top 250 movies in a given year. And that’s sort of wildly out of proportion.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Craig, what’s your thought about this kind of fund? Do you think it will have an impact? What do you think is possible or probable?

**Craig:** Well, certainly its heart is in the right place. The idea is that this group is going to fund, they’re saying up to 10 narrative feature films. And they’re making a distinction between narrative feature films and documentaries, because women seem to be fairly well represented in documentaries.

So, to finance up to ten of these narrative feature films in budgets going from the $1 million to $5 million range in all genres. And the idea is that I guess they want to use it to both employ women to direct movies but also to sort of show off to the business that there are women who can direct movies and essentially use this as almost advertising and maybe a launching pad for some of these women.

I think these things are always at the crossroads of intention and effect. I don’t know why this would work. And I guess the reason I say that is because I don’t know why it is the case that only 7% of these 250 movies are directed by women in the first place. Why are women well represented in documentary but not narrative feature? And, you know, at some point someone here says, let’s see, Impact co-founder Dan Cogan says, “There’s an unconscious prejudice in which people just don’t feel confident giving their money to women filmmakers and getting their money back.”

I don’t know if that’s quite true. It’s very hard to pin down an unconscious prejudice anyway.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Women are very prominent in our business. You know, Amy Pascal runs Sony.

**John:** Yeah. And it’s not like she’s the only — we have Amy Pascal, we have Stacey Snyder —

**Craig:** Emma Watts at Fox.

**John:** Tremendous representation of women in those higher echelon power ranks.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** So, it is interesting that we don’t use women to direct these feature films of a certain size. And so maybe this will have impact. But I think in some ways it’s not going to have the same impact as if Marvel stepped up and had a woman direct one of the Marvel movies.

**Craig:** No question. Yeah, it’s a bit like — and I don’t mean to ding these guys, but they’re sort of saying, “Look, we have a problem where women are a little ghettoized in feature films, so let’s give them feature films to direct that are of the sort that kind of define what it means to be ghettoized,” living in the $1 million to $5 million range. I mean, there are episodes of TV that cost more than that. And that’s sort of a struggling space. It’s hard for those movies to find audiences anyway.

And I also have to say I always get worried when they put these things out and say, “Look, this is to back women alone,” because inevitably you also start to get that backlash of, “Oh, well she’s doing a movie there because they need women to do their movies.” But, believe me, if somebody else wanted to do the movie, wouldn’t a woman rather just go with the marketplace and the biggest numbers?

So, I guess my question for you is why do you think this is the case?

**John:** Why do I think there are fewer women directors?

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** I don’t know. And I wish there were a simple thing you could point to, but I don’t know that it’s s systematic structural bias. I think it’s more likely that there’s a chicken and the egg problem. And actually interestingly one of the production companies in here is called Chicken and the Egg. Until you actually have — you don’t get to be Kathryn Bigelow directing these big movies until you’ve directed small movies. And if you don’t get to direct those small movies it doesn’t sort of work its way up.

Although, I will say that I feel like I see male writers getting that shot to direct their movies maybe a little bit more often than I see the equivalent woman getting the chance to direct that movie. And maybe that’s a thing that this kind of fund could help.

**Craig:** Do you perceive that there is any difference in the desire — and when I say desire I mean unfettered fully fueled desire to direct between the genders?

**John:** I don’t know that there is, but I think you can point to the larger question of women in the workforce. And there are lots of books written about sort of is there something that happens at a certain, it’s not even a glass ceiling anymore, but it’s the choice you make whether you’re going to give yourself wholly over to a career or if you’re going to have a family.

And structurally in American society it does seem that women who would reach the certain point in their career where they could be directing a film, or it could be running a company, have to make that choice between a family and a career. And sometimes they will choose a family.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** It’s not only women who face that thing, but women face it with a stronger degree of urgency than men face it. That’s a possibility.

**Craig:** Yeah. I’m kind of with you in the sense that when I see this stuff I throw out my hands and say, “I don’t know why.” Now, that in and of itself can be viewed as somewhat of a radical position. Sometimes just denying that there’s an overt prejudicial bias makes you suspect in some people’s eyes. I just don’t’ know that the evidence is there that it’s the case.

And there are too many strange things like, for instance, the fact that so much of Hollywood is run by women that makes me think it’s probably not the case. But, I can’t say it is. I can’t say it isn’t. I wish these people luck.

Listen, here’s how I look at it as a movie-going fan. If they find a director who otherwise would not have been able to make her movie, and she makes a great movie, and I love her movie, and then she makes more movies because of that, then I think Gamechanger Films has done a great thing.

**John:** Fantastic. I would agree with you. If they make 10 movies and two of those films break out and those directors get a chance to make more movies after that, then we’re in a very good situation.

Catherine Hardwicke is an example of a director who got a chance to make little small movies and then got to make Twilight and got to make bigger movies after that.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** If they can keep doing that, that’s fantastic. So, what I did like about sort of how their approach is, it’s not like it’s an open call for submissions. They’re not sort of doing the Amazon Studios way where like all the people who have been overlooked — they’re definitely targeting agents and managers, tell us these people who are tremendously talented who for whatever reason cannot get their movies made, let’s try to get those movies made.

**Craig:** And in that regard, it’s kind of a brilliant strategy on their part because my guess is that there’s quite a talent pool there that is… — By the way, pick any segment and there is an underserved talent pool.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** 49 year olds. There are some great 49 year olds out there.

So, well, good luck to Gamechanger Films. I hope you change the game. [laughs]

**John:** Ah-ha. Second bit of new business was the new announcement that Gill Garcetti, is it Gill Garcetti?

**Craig:** Gill Garcetti.

**John:** Gill Garcetti, our new Los Angeles Mayor —

**Craig:** Not Eric Garcetti?

**John:** Oh, it’s Eric Garcetti, isn’t it?

**Craig:** Isn’t Gill his dad?

**John:** Yeah, I get confused who’s who.

**Craig:** If he’s listening to this he’s like, “I’m the mayor and they’re still doing it to me! God!”

**John:** Mayor Garcetti..

**Craig:** Well done. Yes.

**John:** …has announced that he has appointed a new Film Czar for Los Angeles. We talked earlier on the podcast about runaway production which is the idea that so many of our movies are written in Los Angeles by LA-based film studios and yet they shoot in other states for tax reasons and for other reasons and don’t film in Los Angeles.

And one of Garcetti’s proposals was we needed to figure out why these movies are going away and try to find ways to keep these movies shooting in Los Angeles. He has appointed a Film Czar by the name of Tom Sherak.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Who’s a very familiar name to oversee this operation, this goal of trying to get more movies shooting in Los Angeles and more film production and television production happening in Los Angeles.

So, Tom Sherak, I thought, was a really interested choice for it, because Tom Sherak is former president of the Motion Picture Academy, former chairman of Fox, and many other titles throughout there. And he really knows the film and TV business. So, it seems like he would be a good person to be able to lobby to his peers who are running these studios to say, “No, no, shoot your movie here and let’s try to find a way to make it make sense to shoot your movie here.”

**Craig:** Yes. He is a great choice. He is exactly the right kind of person for this. The problem is I don’t know what there is to do. You know, he, Tom Sherak, more than anyone understands that you can’t sit down in an office across from somebody who is doing the job he once did and say, “Shoot your movie here even though it costs $8 million more just ’cause.” It’s not going to work.

And in the end I’m not sure what else there is to do. Maybe these guys know of something creative that we don’t know about. All we hear about on our end of things is you can — “Here’s how much money we’re spending. You can shoot it here or you can shoot it here. If you shoot it in LA you get 8 fewer days and you can’t have that cast or that song. And if you shoot it there you can.”

Well, everybody always picks the movie. Everybody. So, I don’t know what he’s going to do. I’m concerned that this is window dressing designed to satisfy political contributors to whom promises were made. But, we’ll see.

**John:** We’ll see. What was promised in the article was Tom Sherak will lead sort of the lobbying effort in California to try to get in Sacramento to try to get funds to do this. As we talked about on the podcast before, it becomes one of these sort of race to the bottoms where everyone is starting to throw tax money at this thing which isn’t really a sustainable goal.

There are certain things about shooting in a city which can make life easier and harder. And one of the things that New York City did was try to make it vastly easier to shoot in this city by cutting away the red tape and trying to make it simpler to permit, and shoot, and sort of get it all working out. And that might be a thing that a Film Czar could really step in and help if it has the mayor’s support to do that.

**Craig:** Yes. And certainly any kind of elimination of red tape, and this is where the other constituencies in LA start to get angry when you shut down commercial streets or things like that and people get angry. And so there’s always interests bumping into each other, but the truth is in the final analysis the reason that productions have left LA isn’t because of the Film Office or red tape. It’s because of tax breaks.

So, they have the lottery system now in California where a number of movies can get tax breaks up to a certain amount. And you’ll see this, also Massachusetts I think is a similar situation, but it is a race to the bottom. That’s the problem. It’s a race to the bottom. And it’s disturbing. I don’t know the answer. It’s one of the, [laughs], this is one of those areas where not just being one state like one country but actually 50 independent municipalities can hurt us.

**John:** Agreed. Although I think if we were one country and we were France, then there’s always the thing of like, “Oh, no, they’re going to shoot in Belgium because Belgium has a tax incentive.”

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** This is the podcast that there are no good answers.

**Craig:** I know. It’s true. Because, in fact, also then if there’s only one state and your France, then they say, “Okay, you know what? We’re taxing you. We’re taxing you. And people can only work 30 hours a week.”

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Yeah, so…

**John:** Challenging.

**Craig:** And then everything, everything dies. [sighs]

**John:** Oh, sigh.

**Craig:** Maybe we can fix your problem today.

**John:** Let’s focus on things that are easily achievable — what’s wrong with John.

**Craig:** Before we talk about wrong with you, let’s talk about what’s right with you.

**John:** All right.

**Craig:** So, I saw the show, Scott Frank and I went to go see Big Fish a couple a nights ago, a few nights ago. You were right there with us, sitting right next to me, and I really enjoyed it. I think the show is terrific. And I think that it’s a hit. I personally do.

I don’t know, it just has that “hit” feel to it. It’s very accessible. I think it’s really great for families. I don’t know how you’re targeting it or marketing it, but I don’t know, if it were me I would just think I’d love to take my kids. It’s a great spectacle.

It’s not overly long. I mean, Broadway shows tend to be long. Musicals tend to be long. The first act I thought really moved great. And there is some terrific stuff that happens in the second act. It’s very emotional. I just have a really good feeling about it. And I’m — I can’t change the world with my predictions. That is even too much for me to believe. But I still feel like I’m right a lot…

**John:** [laughs]

**Craig:** …despite the Sony Pictures Classic thing, so I’ve got a really good feeling. Plus, it seems like you guys are selling the place out in previews anyway.

**John:** Which has been great. So, it definitely has felt like, you know, as you go through life you sort of feel the universe forking and sometimes you end up in the fork where things go really well and sometimes you end at the fork where things go really badly. And I do feel very lucky that I feel like we ended up in the fork where things went really well with the show. And so creatively I’m really happy with it. And we’re selling a lot of tickets, which has been fantastic. So that is really amazing.

It was great to have the two of you guys there at the show to see what this has turned out to be, and, of course, to get a drink afterwards. And to witness me just strangle the woman —

**Craig:** That was great. You know, [laughs], so here’s what happened.

**John:** Because actually I’m fascinated to hear your account of it, because I’ve actually recounted this story to a bunch of people but I feel like I just exaggerated it in my head. So, please tell me your opinion of what actually happened.

**Craig:** I don’t think you’re capable of such things. So, during the show, in the very beginning I noticed this man showed up late as I think the music was beginning. I think it was the same guy. There was a just a problem with these two people that were about three rows ahead of us. So, we were in Row G in the orchestra which is essentially, what, the sixth row? Is that right? A, B, C, D, E, F, G…oh, 7.

So, they’re like in the fifth row. It’s a man in his thirties and his girlfriend who I assume is, you know, a similar age. And they’re just annoying. They get in kind of late. Then he leaves at one point. Plus, you can get drinks delivered to you at your seat, which I think is weird, by the way.

**John:** Not in this theater.

**Craig:** Oh, what was that?

**John:** At Scriptnotes you could. But did someone actually — ?

**Craig:** No, yeah, some lady came by. Oh, no, that’s right. There was like an usher that came by at some point to help him. He was carrying his drinks. That’s right. She was helping him get back into his seat. My feeling is she should help him leave — at that point he’s late.

Then after the intermission he came back again. Now, here’s what I didn’t — and he did it again — here’s what I did not notice. I did not notice that this woman was holding her phone up and taking pictures constantly throughout the show, which is a super big no-no. It’s the very thing that got a man screamed at by Patti Lupone. And we should put a link to that amazing — it’s just such a great. Because, okay, Patti Lupone, she’s in Gypsy. She’s paying Mama, Mama Rose, right?

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Craig:** And she’s singing, I can’t remember what she’s singing.

**John:** Was it her big song?

**Craig:** I think it might have been Here’s Rose or whatever. And some ding-a-ling is taking pictures and you just hear Patti Lupone go, “Stop! Stop! Stop!” And everyone stops. And she just goes crazy on this guy in such a, like diva, “How dare you! Who do you think you are?!” in like full Broadway voice. And everyone is applauding. It’s great.

Anyway, the guy gets kicked out. Well, this girl is doing the same thing. I don’t notice that. All I notice is that at one point when the usher brings that guy back, you lean across me to the usher and you point at that lady. And you point. And I thought, “Oh, he’s angry because they’re annoying, [laughs], because I didn’t realize. But I was like, aw, but then the usher I think didn’t understand what you were saying and just kind of gave up. Plus, did she even know who you were?

**John:** She did know who I was.

**Craig:** She knew who you were. Okay. So, she just didn’t know what was going on. So, she took the coward’s way out which is just to nod pointlessly and then disappear.

At the end of the show you said, “I’ve got to talk to those people. That woman was taking pictures throughout the entire thing.” And I went, “Oh, that’s not good.” So, Scott and I get out of our seats. We walk up to the stage. And you wait for those two people to come out and when I turn around I just see you heatedly — and I catch little bits like, “You absolutely cannot do that. That is unacceptable. You cannot take photos during a show. It is totally not cool. You can’t do it.”

And then she’s like, “I wasn’t doing…”

“You were! I saw you. I saw you. I saw you do it. Get out your phone. Take out your phone.”

And her boyfriend is like a pretty big dude. And she’s kind of like, “Eh, she’s got that “eh” face. You know? But you made them take out the phone and then you made her go through the photos and you made them — and then the last thing we heard was you saying, “Great, good, fine. I don’t care. Yeah, you too. Don’t care. You too. Whatever. Don’t care.”

And then they left. And then you told us that in fact that exchange was…[laughs]

**John:** And it came — so this guy — basically the girl was so drunk that I kind of couldn’t really deal with her, so I could only deal with idiot boyfriend.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And he was at first sort of like, “How dare you talk to my girl that way.” And then when I said like, “She took photos. She cannot take photos.”

And then he asked, “So, do you work here?”

And I’m like, “I wrote the effing show.”

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** And I was really just rage-filled. It’s one of those things where like almost like Fight Club, like I kind of wanted him to hit me. I kept thinking like just hit me. I would love a black eye right now because I am so incredibly incenses right now.

**Craig:** [laughs]

**John:** But so anyway, he weirdly sort of backed down and he’s like, “Oh, give me your phone.” So, she couldn’t even find her phone. She opened up her purse and all she had in there was like confetti that she stuffed in there from like the end of Red, White, and True.

And it’s like, “Where’s my phone? Oh, it’s in my…”

It was in her bra. So, she pulls out her phone.

**Craig:** Oh boy. Okay.

**John:** Figures out how to unlock it. She already had iOS 7.

**Craig:** Nice.

**John:** So, she’s capable enough to upgrade her phone.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Or maybe Apple has made it too simple to upgrade your phone. [laughs]

**Craig:** It appears so. It appears that they’ve crossed into Idiotville.

**John:** So, he deletes off the photos. And I wanted the photos deleted, but I mostly wanted him to understand that like you cannot do this. You cannot take photos in a Broadway show.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Because not only could all the actors on stage see. I checked later and like they all saw it.

**Craig:** Yeah, the mermaid tweeted that they were all like, “Who the hell is that girl?”

**John:** The worst thing about taking photos in this day and age is you’re holding up a glowing iPhone.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Everyone behind Row E could see that and could not — and they’re attention is being pulled down there rather than what was on the stage.

**Craig:** Obviously it’s a no-no. And they all know it’s a no-no. But let’s back up for a second. You know what else is a no-no? Getting drunk in the middle of a Broadway musical.

**John:** I agree.

**Craig:** Can’t you wait? I mean, it’s not cheap. It’s not like you’re going to see a movie for 12 bucks. It’s a show. And it’s over and it’s gone forever. You can’t catch it again on HBO tomorrow.

**John:** Those were expensive seats. Those were like $150 seats.

**Craig:** Really expensive. They’re dead center fifth row. I don’t know if somebody gave them that or they’re just the kind of people that just don’t care.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** They didn’t look like swells, you know?

**John:** No. I think they were just douchebags. Douchebags with some money.

**Craig:** Douchebags. That’s what he kept brining was beer, I think, so they were drinking beer.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Something, also, don’t drink beer in the middle of a show. They shouldn’t allow that at the theater.

**John:** They should stop the bar during the show.

**Craig:** They should stop the bar during the show.

**John:** I think that will be discussed.

**Craig:** It’s not like a ballgame.

**John:** No.

**Craig:** In fact, and then they stop beer at the ballgame after the seventh inning so that people don’t beat each other up in the parking lot the way they used to when I was a kid.

**John:** Oh, back in the day.

**Craig:** Back in the day.

**John:** So, no blows were thrown at Big Fish, even though I sort of wanted to get hit. What I recognized, and I ended up apologizing to the theater manager because he came over to see what was going on.

**Craig:** I saw that, yeah.

**John:** And so the usher had recognized that she was taking photos but couldn’t figure out which one it was. And because she was in the middle of the row they couldn’t pull her out.

**Craig:** There was no way to get to her, right, without stopping the show. It’s a really tough spot to be in in theater maintenance.

**John:** Yeah. And so then I sort of was putting him in a bad spot because he knew who I was, the theater manager knew who I was, and if it had come to blows then it would have been a terrible situation for him and for everybody involved.

**Craig:** It would have been bad. Plus, also, I find it interesting that your wish was not to beat him up but rather for him to beat you up. [laughs] That was your fervent wish.

**John:** Yeah, I kind of wanted to get hit.

**Craig:** “I was so angry I wanted him to beat me up.”

**John:** It’s odd. It tells a lot about me.

**Craig:** All right. Now let’s get into your real problems.

**John:** My real issue right now at this moment is for the first time in nine years I’m basically done writing Big Fish and it’s been a very long haul. And literally today I’m turning in the last two pages of like small corrections to the show that’s on, because we have to freeze at a certain point so that next week we are running the exact same show the whole week.

**Craig:** One week prior to your official opening.

**John:** Because critics actually come this next week. The critics don’t come to opening night. Critics come the week —

**Craig:** Of course, so they have time to write their nonsense.

**John:** So that… [laughs]

**Craig:** Sorry, don’t take that out on John.

**John:** That was Craig Mazin who said that.

**Craig:** That’s Craig Mazin. I believe that it’s all nonsense. I’ve already decided the show is good. Who needs to know what you think.

**John:** Craig Mazin has rendered his opinion. So, it’s this weird feeling of — it’s like the end of college to a degree, where you’re packing up your room and you’re like, “Oh my god, I’m so sad to leave all these people.” But it’s also weirdly like dropping your kid off at college, because it will still be running there and I will get on a plane the day after opening and fly back to Los Angeles and it will keep going without me.

**Craig:** Right. Night after night without you.

**John:** Which is a strange thing for me to feel.

**Craig:** Very bizarre. But the strangest thing I would imagine is just that feeling that we all get when it’s over.

**John:** So let’s talk about like when it’s over, because when I was first writing scripts my ritual when I would finish a draft and be done with that — I think I’ve told this on the show — I would treat myself and I would let myself go to Panda Express at Century City and spend the $10 to get like the extra — including egg roll.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Which was like a lot of money for me to spend back then. And that was my ritual for the end of a draft. But it’s a different thing when a movie is finished. When like production has stopped, or really this is like picture lock essentially where there’s no more creative changes you can make. You can just tweak lights on things. It’s a strange thing when that huge portion of your life is just in the rearview mirror.

**Craig:** Right. I know. There’s a bunch of sadnesses that occur and a bunch of anxieties that occur along the way. Sometimes when we’re writing in a very childish way we think, “Oh, this is the worst of times.” But it’s certainly not. It’s actually the best of times.

When you’re done writing something and they say, okay, now we’re going to shoot it or we’re going to mount it as a production there is a certain death that occurs. Now, it’s the death of letting go of an enormous amount of control and getting into the world of sharing with everyone. And so whether you have your director and your choreography, or you’re now on set and the director is directing, or you’re the director, and that’s rough.

But I find actually that the period you’re in right now is the roughest of them all. It’s the period where you’ve lost all control because it’s done. You can’t change it anymore. This is picture lock in film. It’s show freeze on Broadway. But the accountability has yet to come.

**John:** Yes!

**Craig:** It’s a very scary time. So, I remember I was talking with Todd Phillips and he said the only thing he thinks about once that happens is how can I jump ahead in time to after the movie has come out, done what’s it done, and then gone. That’s what I want to get to.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Because that’s the time when you go, “Ah…” I’m not talking, because look, here’s what’s coming up. You’ve got a ton of press you’re going to have to do. You’re going to have the hullabaloo and the reporting and the critics and the business. And the this, and the that, and the finance, and the crowds. And all of that is what people dream about when they’re kids and you get there and you realize, that’s the worst, worst of it.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** You just want that to be done. So, really what I guess I should say to you is in four months I think you’ll be there.

**John:** Yeah, I think so. And four months, time will pass. If we’re still running and award stuff is coming up, then I’ll have to sort of reengage with it. I think —

**Craig:** But that will be like dessert. That’s fine.

**John:** It’ll be dessert. It’ll be fine. It should be good stuff.

What is exciting about this time right now is I suddenly have so much free brain space where like I don’t have to keep running the show over and over and over in my head. Because really for the last nine years, sometimes intensely, and sometimes less intensely, I’ve had the Bloom family and the Bloom family house in my head. And I had to keep it running in sort of a continuous loop so that that reality sort of exists.

And I won’t have to do that. And so all of the brain cycles that are taking to keep that alternate reality existing I can free up to do other stuff.

Then comes the sort of paradox of choice. There’s a lot of things I could write. And I have to decide what I want to write.

**Craig:** Mm-hmm.

**John:** And so, Craig, if you would permit me, I’m going to actually talk through some of the things I’m thinking about writing in a general sense.

**Craig:** And then can I say what I think you should do?

**John:** Yes!

**Craig:** All right.

**John:** All right. So, let me talk you through the possibilities of what I’d be writing in the next six months. So, there is a book adaptation of a book that hasn’t come out yet. It’s a YA title that could potentially be huge. It could be like a big breakout title.

**Craig:** Hunger Games-y kind of thing?

**John:** Yes. As I’ve talked before, I’m not sure if I was officially offered the Hunger Games, but I did pass on it because like, “No, I don’t want to see a movie about kids killing each other.”

**Craig:** Uh…

**John:** I was wrong.

**Craig:** Yeah, no, I would have totally done that. I like those books.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** You should ask me about these things on the podcast before you make that decision.

**John:** Well, I should have asked you. This was a good couple years ago. Time machine.

**Craig:** Yeah, time machine.

**John:** And I wrote The Hunger Games. So, there’s this big YA title. And it might happen, it might not happen. So, it’s one of those situations where it could come together or it could not come together. I really like the project. But, it’s another book adaptation, so it’s not wholly mine. There’s a possibility.

There is an adaptation of another existing property that has — it’s hard for me to describe in — it’s an existing IP property that’s not a book that could be adapted and could be a thing. I have less of a clear idea right now what it is as a movie. And I also can already recognize all of the obstacles in its way of getting it to be a movie.

**Craig:** Okay.

**John:** And so it’s people I would love to work with. It’s a question of whether we could get the everything of it to work.

**Craig:** Understood. Got it. Okay. That’s option two.

**John:** That’s option two. Option three is to buckle down and write the thing for myself to direct in 2014.

**Craig:** Got it.

**John:** So, this would be a follow up to The Nines. Not related to The Nines at all, but with many familiar faces of people who I love who I’ve worked with before. So, that is —

**Craig:** That’s option three.

**John:** A third, option three.

**Craig:** Option for?

**John:** Option four — I would say those are the only strong contender writing projects for me. I have a lot of other stuff.

**Craig:** Stuff, right.

**John:** And so there’s a lot of app stuff that’s going on which I’ve been able to keep going on in a better way. There are some physical goods that we’re talking about making late this year which would also be fun and exciting.

**Craig:** Okay.

**John:** But writing wise, those three are the top contenders.

**Craig:** I have my strong feeling —

**John:** Life Coach, Craig Mazin, talk to me.

**Craig:** I have a strong feeling. Let’s get rid of option number two because it sounds like there’s trouble involved in option number two. And the trouble — the one thing you don’t need right now is trouble. You’ve had a lot of trouble. Not bad trouble, but it’s been a war to mount a musical. So, what I’m thinking is I’m always looking to kind of like rotate the fields, rotate the crops, right?

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Craig:** You plant corn, you plant wheat. Da, da, da. Then you go pot.

**John:** [laughs]

**Craig:** And then do pod peas. Because you’ve just done this, and because this is such an expression of what you wanted to do, and it was really the will to power of John August and Andrew Lippa, my feeling is your thing that you want to direct for you, you can do that, and you’re going to do that, but why not have a nice almost — how should I put it — let yourself be carried along a little bit by something that’s a little easier.

Give yourself a nice easy thing to do. It’s an adaptation. It’s a book. There’s a narrative. There’s stuff there. Maybe take a warm bath of a project for a little bit, you know what I mean?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Make a little money. Chill out. Don’t feel like your life blood must be squeezed out of you for this thing to work, because that’s what a movie is, right?

**John:** That it is.

**Craig:** And you want to make your own thing. So, you’ve been doing that. You’ve been kind of squeezing your life blood out into something. Maybe you just eat the bag of Funyuns instead of something a little more challenging.

**John:** [laughs]

**Craig:** Then you can have your sushi. So, my advice is option number one just for mental —

**John:** Yeah, okay, you make good points there. Some of those which I’ll parse out. Making some money would be a really good idea.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** Just because I’ve been in this world for so long and have passed on other writing things that would pay me money, which would be a lovely thing to have is a little bit of money.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** It’s something simpler that I can invest all of my words in but not have to invest my heart and soul and self-esteem into would be probably a very useful choice. And something shorter. Something shorter and faster because what makes me nervous about immediately going into the directing project is I know that’s a marathon.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And just finishing, I call this a migration, it’s more than even a marathon. I’ve just been walking for so long that I should probably focus on something small. There’s even like a short film that I was thinking about going off and directing just to sort of stretch those muscles but not, you know.

**Craig:** I think varying things as much as possible helps us stay excited.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** You know, you and are married men. We’re married to one person. So, we don’t have that excitement.

**John:** People are going to be so confused that we’re married to the same girl. [laughs]

**Craig:** We’re married to one, yeah, to one guy and girl. But, you know, we don’t have the excitement of, you know, there’s the new love excitement. We get our new love excitement from what we’re doing, from what we’re working on. And I do feel it all the time. And I find that if I’m doing three of the same kind of things in a row it just gets diminished. If I’m doing three of the same efforts, three of the same lengths. Anything that’s the same, I start to feel… — I mean, listen, I got stuck doing spoof movies for a long time. I loved doing the first one. The second one I was like, “Okay…”

But, you know, and then by the time I got to the third one I was just on fumes.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And I had lost sort of any passion. It’s just samey, samey, samey. And it was also the same length, and it was the same amount of effort, and it was the same people.

So, I go for different every time. So, I say change it up.

**John:** That does sound like a good idea. So, on the writing musicals side, there are two projects that are coming, and some of it I do kind of need to start because this was nine years for Big Fish. I think five years is sort of the minimum I’ve seen that a musical actually really comes together. So, if I wait too long I can’t start on that. But I am choosing things that are — I don’t have to drive everything along which could be a useful thing, too.

**Craig:** Yes. Very much so. It takes a lot out of you. People — this is their lives. You know, musical theater, there are people that just mount these productions and they just do it. And you look at Sondheim and you look at Andrew Lloyd Webber and you think, okay, well that’s all they do. They don’t write movies. They don’t direct things. They don’t do podcasts.

**John:** [laughs]

**Craig:** You know, I’m not even sure they have kids.

**John:** Yeah, most of them don’t.

**Craig:** Yeah. This is it. This is what they do. And you can’t keep that kind of pace with them, nor do you have to. It’s not what it’s about anyway.

**John:** Yeah, it’s not a race.

**Craig:** It’s not a race. I know you keep telling yourself that because it’s true. It’s true. It’s not.

So, anyway, I say option number one. Whoever is producing option number one you may send your check to me. Oh, I’m going to move the thing. Yeah, I want money. The point is I deserve money every time you make money.

**John:** [laughs] As life coach and adviser.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** Let’s wrap this up. That was very helpful.

**Craig:** Great. I’m glad I could help.

**John:** So, I have a One Cool Thing this week which is this very cool video on Vimeo. It’s called Box. And in Big Fish we use projections to sort of change our set around. And the projections were incredibly difficult to get working right, but are incredibly rewarding in the actual presentation we’re doing.

**Craig:** They’re very cool. Yeah.

**John:** This video that I saw called Box uses projections but in a very clever and innovative way. So, projections are happening onto this white surface, but that white surface is mounted on a mechanical arm that is robotically controlled and precisely robotically controlled. And so the projections know exactly where it is in space and time. And because it can match it up it can do some really amazing things.

And there’s a guy who looks like he’s actually pushing the thing around, but of course he’s actually just — he’s a dancer who carefully makes it look.

**Craig:** Got it.

**John:** But it creates the illusion of three dimensions and impossible things through really, really good projections. So, I’ve learned so much about projection in this, in making Big Fish. This has me really excited about the possibilities of what projection can do next to create space. Something that you’re experiencing live and in person in front of you.

So, it’s not post-production. It’s projections that are happening right there in space and time.

**Craig:** That’s interesting. I’d like to — I’m going to see that.

**John:** A movie that did it actually really well this last time was Oblivion. Did you ever see Oblivion?

**Craig:** I didn’t see Oblivion.

**John:** I didn’t love the movie but I did love some of the environments that they created in it. And one of them is this house that the Tom Cruise character is in. It’s sort of this lookout post. And it’s sort of like the Chemosphere, that sort of famous house in Los Angeles that’s round, all glass on all sides. And it’s beautiful every way that you look.

And so I assumed originally that they shot that with the normal green screens and then they just stripped in the sky afterwards. But then I read the American Cinematography article and they actually did it all with projections. And so literally if you were standing on that set it looked like you saw the sky around you at all times.

**Craig:** Wow. Cool.

**John:** And because they could do it that way they had this freedom of being able to look in any direction and have it make sense. And they can essentially light with the sky outside which was brilliant.

**Craig:** It’s kind of a return to the old school way of doing things.

**John:** Absolutely. It was false sun, but it was terrific. It was exactly, I think, the right way to do this movie. And with the prep they were able to sort of, you know, they color the sky in the certain way and they could animate the clouds in a certain way. That was really, really rewarding for that movie.

So, I recommend Box as not only sort of something that’s really cool now but as inspiration for other great filmmaking techniques.

**Craig:** I have to say that I love it. I kind of want projection and rear screen projection and all that stuff to come back. It used to be so clunky, obviously, but now if they’re getting it done and making it awesome. I hate green screen. I hate it. I mean, it’s useful but —

**John:** Everyone hates green screen. There’s not an actor or director. No one on earth other than people who make their living in post-production really like green screen because it’s so hard to know what a moment feels like.

**Craig:** There’s a sequence at the end of Hangover III where John Goodman has met up with the guys on this little cliff overlooking Las Vegas. They’re out in the dessert and it’s basically dawn. And it’s really hard to shoot at dawn, because you get about 10 usable minutes of dawn.

And to shoot this scene with all these characters, I mean, first of all it was a long scene. It was like six pages. And everybody was talking.

**John:** There are like 12 people in that scene, too, so any kind of coverage is going to kill you.

**Craig:** Exactly. It’s crazy, right? But we wanted dawn. Todd and our DP, Larry Sher, came up with this plan and basically it was that we would shoot at dusk for dawn. We would shoot all night. And then we would shoot dawn for dawn. And once the sun got out of the way, the green screens went up. So, we shot plates. So, so much of that stuff is actually green screen. A bunch of it is live and a bunch of it is green screen.

And in the end, the green screen is remarkable. You just don’t know that any of it is green screen. But, shooting at three in the morning with people floating in front of space-less green is so disorienting. It is so hard to believe what you’re seeing because the frame has no context. You know you’re framed correctly because you have your references. It’s just psychologically really difficult.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Everyone, you’re right, everyone hates it. It’s a tough thing to do. The only area where it makes life wonderful is when you’re shooting cars because inside a car is just like — driving the process car up and down the road is the worst.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Can’t talk to — and then it’s easier. You can talk to the actors. You can adjust and all the rest.

Well, that’s very cool. And Big Fish did have some terrific projections. Really cools stuff. I love the way that the sort of wood slats moved up and around. I mean, technically it’s a remarkable production.

**John:** Yes, it was very, very difficult. But one of the goals behind it, and Julian Crouch was our designer. And he brought us these reference photos of this old barn he’d found. And like the sun was blasting through this old barn and he’s like, “Well that’s terrific.” So it makes this really warm thing. But then by projecting onto it we can create the other spaces we need to create.

And the challenge has always been when to do enough and not do too much. And we’ve had to sort of be very careful about, you know, when you have those tool boxes where you can do anything, the expectation to do everything.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** And we had to stop that. An example would be in the second act there’s a moment where we go to visit this woman who has a house. And we illustrate sort of — there’s a very specific plan around how we animate in the other houses and the trees. That was terrific. But, I had to say like the clouds can’t move. Because the clouds were originally moving and they were so beautiful that I could not pay any attention to the scene because the clouds were incredibly beautiful.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** So, we had to sort of take it back a step so that you see that. Yet, later in that scene there’s an animation that shows time passing, and so this tree that’s a certain size grows to a full size.

**Craig:** Yes. And everybody goes, “Ooh-ah,” when it happens.

**John:** Yeah. There’s a gasp.

**Craig:** Which is funny because it’s the animation you could see on like a Saturday morning show.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** But there’s something about being in the theater where like, “Oh my god! Look at that!”

**John:** It’s absolutely true.

**Craig:** Yeah. People really liked it.

**John:** That’s been a rewarding scene to see.

**Craig:** Well, you know, I had a One Cool Thing. I’m going to call an audible and change it. Because in a larger sense my One Cool Thing is Big Fish, but really specifically there’s one guy in the show that listens to our podcast, Ryan Andes.

**John:** He’s the best. I gave Ryan Andes a giant hug yesterday because he literally saved — he emotionally saved my life at a very difficult juncture.

**Craig:** He did?

**John:** Yeah. We put in a change yesterday that would not have worked if he had not just been a grounded, amazing person.

**Craig:** Really?

**John:** And he got two big hugs because I wouldn’t be here without him.

**Craig:** Wow, well you’ll have to tell me what the changes are.

**John:** After the show I’ll tell you what the changes were.

**Craig:** So, Ryan Andes plays Karl the Giant.

**John:** Yeah, Karl with a K. You said C in the tweet.

**Craig:** Oh, I did?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Sorry.

**John:** Because Cs aren’t funny. Ks are funny.

**Craig:** But I didn’t know if he was an American. He seemed American and not a German Karl.

**John:** But a giant should always be a K.

**Craig:** Perhaps a giant should always be, yeah. He’s great in the show. He’s my favorite character in the show, not including the main character, but of all the menagerie of larger than life characters in the show he’s my favorite.

He’s sweet. He’s adorable. And he was the guy who says the thing that finally got me to tear up in the show, that finally squeezed tears out of my miserable dark heart, full of umbrage. Roiling pit of resentment.

**John:** Karl made Craig cry.

**Craig:** Yes, Karl was really good. And it turns out, so I’m walking out I’m like, god, that Karl, I told you , is the one who made me cry. And you’re like, “Well, you know, he listens to the podcast.”

And I’m like no way! So, we walk outside, you know, the little stage exit where all the people are there to get their autographs and so forth and there’s Karl. And Karl seemed more excited to meet me, [laughs], and I just thought it was like you have to stop, it’s freaking me out. It’s weird. All I did was sit there and watch it. Karl I loved. He was such a great guy.

Ryan Andes is such a great guy. And he’s so good in the show. Kids will love him.

**John:** Kids do love him.

**Craig:** Everyone is going to want a Karl doll.

**John:** That’s what we need to sell. We’re still working on our merch, so maybe we’ll get a —

**Craig:** Karl doll obviously in the squirrel fur suit.

**John:** Exactly. Yeah, Karl has a couple different wardrobe changes, but it really is original.

**Craig:** Yeah. You want to go for the long hair, giant face, giant beard, crazy Karl.

**John:** Crazy Karl.

**Craig:** Cave Karl.

**John:** Cave Karl is what you want.

**Craig:** Cave Karl is the toy.

**John:** He actually sort of has a Captain Caveman feel. Captain Caveman, the animated character, and just stretched him to —

**Craig:** Elongated. Correct. He was great and he’s such a good guy. So, Ryan, thank you for listening all this time. You were terrific. I was far more excited to meet you than you were to meet me, I promise you.

**John:** Hooray. Standard housekeeping. Here’s stuff at the end. If you are listening to us on a device, you probably subscribe to us through iTunes, but if you didn’t you should subscribe to us through iTunes. Just search for Scriptnotes and we’re there. And we love comments. So, if you want to leave a comment that’s great.

**Craig:** Yeah!

**John:** On iTunes you will see the most recent 20 episodes. If you wanted to go back into the archives, those are available. So, at johnaugust.com/scriptnotes you will see all 111 episodes are available there. The most recent 20 are free for anybody.

**Craig:** Free.

**John:** Free. The further back episodes you can subscribe. It’s $1.99 a month for all you can eat, all the episodes.

**Craig:** Forever.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** Forever! Two bucks a month.

**John:** Two bucks a month.

**Craig:** Come on!

**John:** You can save a child’s life or you could listen to Craig… [laughs]

**Craig:** You actually can’t save a child’s life on $2 a month.

**John:** No, you really can’t. You can’t do anything

**Craig:** I feel like people lie about that.

**John:** I don’t know. Maybe you could blow a kid’s nose for $2 a month.

**Craig:** For $2 a month you could probably send them $1 month. [laughs]

**John:** [laughs] So, that’s an option if you want to listen to those old episodes.

**Craig:** And when we do our next podcast together will you be back in Los Angeles?

**John:** Wow, I think I might be. This is a Friday. I’m bad at time math. No, I think we’re going to do one more where I’m on Skype.

**Craig:** Okay.

**John:** I should also say if you would like all of those episodes in one handy package…

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** …we are making more of those USB drives that have all 100 of our first episodes.

**Craig:** That’s the way to go.

**John:** That’s a simple way to go.

**Craig:** It’s like buying the first few seasons of Breaking Bad. And then we’ll do another thumb drive for the second 100. Then we’ll do some mega — by the time we get to 500, it’ll just be brain drive.

**John:** Totally. There won’t be USB drives anymore.

**Craig:** You know, brain drive is right up there with flying car. We’re going to keep talking about piping things directly into people’s brains and flying cars, neither will happen.

**John:** I think there will be some sort of embeddable device that lets you reference things.

**Craig:** Not going to happen.

**John:** Because they already have those things where you can see on your tongue. They can map a camera to your tongue. And so like blind people can actually use a video camera to see which is nutso. So, there’s going to be ways to —

**Craig:** Wait a second. You mean they can…?

**John:** So, essentially they put a little sensor on your tongue, this little white square strip.

**Craig:** So, it’s pushing on your tongue.

**John:** No, it’s actually electrically —

**Craig:** Sending an image. To what?

**John:** To the receptors on your tongue. And your tongue is actually sensitive enough that it starts to be able to see, just a black and white image, but like blind people can navigate with these little video cameras and that could be next week’s One Cool Thing. We’ll send you the link.

**Craig:** Does it work with porn? [laughs]

**John:** [laughs] That would be so awesome. The soldier is like, “I can finally watch porn!”

**Craig:** Yeah. Exactly.

**John:** It would be like one of those terrible GIF kind of porn things. But, yeah.

**Craig:** I mean, you know, any technology, within minutes, porn.

**John:** It would seem like magic. Any technology —

**Craig:** Adam Carolla once said, it was so funny, he said, “Just the fact within 15 minutes of something new being invested, some new physical thing being invented, within 15 minutes someone is putting it up their butt.” [laughs]

**John:** [laughs] Very likely.

**Craig:** I think he’s right.

**John:** Yeah. And that is or show this week. So, if you have a question for me or Craig, you can write into ask@johnaugust.com and we occasionally go through those questions and try to answer them on the air. You can talk to Craig @clmazin.

**Craig:** @clmazin.

**John:** On Twitter. I am @johnaugust. And, Craig, thank you for coming to New York.

**Craig:** Thank you for having me. Great show. And I’ll see you on Skype.

**John:** Awesome. Bye.

**Craig:** Bye.

Links:

* [Lobot](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lobot)
* LA Times on the [Gamechanger Film Fund](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-film-fund-gamechanger-female-directors-20130926,0,4152777,full.story)
* LA Times on [LA’s new Film Czar](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-garcetti-appoints-sherak-film-czar-20130926,0,6798783.story)
* [Patti Lupone stops the show to yell at a photographer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WruzPfJ9Rys) on YouTube
* [Box](http://www.botndolly.com/box) by Bot & Dolly
* [Rear projection effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_projection_effect) on Wikipedia
* Big Fish production designer [Julian Crouch](http://juliancrouch.com/portfolio/Welcome.html)
* Big Fish’s [Ryan Andes](http://ryanandes.com/), and [on Twitter @AndesRyan](https://twitter.com/AndesRyan)
* [Blind soldier uses tongue device to ‘see’](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/mar/15/blind-soldier-tongue-sight) at The Guardian
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Scriptnotes listener Matthew Chilelli

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2013/putting-your-pain-second).

**John:** So, I see a microphone stand. If you have a question that you would like to ask me, or Craig, or Andrew Lippa, come down this aisle and come to this thing and we’re going to —

**Craig:** There is no microphone there at all.

**John:** But we’ll make the microphone happen. You can just put up one of ours.

**First Questioner:** Hello.

**Craig:** Hello!

**First Questioner:** Longtime listener, first time live attendee. I guess I was wondering, you know, we’re here on Broadway and you’ve been working on this for 15 years, this path. Other than just sort of raw, human grit and tenacity — and I guess this obviously applies to screenplays as well, maybe less so to TV — do you have any specific creative strategies that you employ to see the forest through the trees, just to get, you know, spiritually excited about something again that’s so close to you when it begins?

**John:** Quite early on when I read Daniel Wallace’s novel, as I was flipping pages I was sort of building out sort of the Bloom family and the world, because Will Bloom is just the narrator in the book, so I had to sort of create him. And I just literally put myself in it. And so I made Will Bloom my age, and Edward Bloom my dad’s age so I could keep the timelines straight. I made him a journalist because I was a journalism major. I gave him a French wife because I’m gay and that’s the closest I could get.

[Audience laughs]

And so I literally put myself so deeply into it, which was very helpful, so it was very easy to stay invested in it, but it was also very emotionally not necessarily the smartest choice or person in my life, because when it came time to kill Edward Bloom and do all that stuff, I got really method and I would drive myself to tears and write those scenes.

So, every time I have to touch any part of it, it’s just like it’s incredibly live wires which is dangerous. But, in my head, I have the whole Bloom house and the whole Bloom family. And so I can do anything. I can write Edward Bloom and Will Bloom in space. And I can make that all work because I know them really, really well.

And so every word of the show has changed over time, yet it still feels like the real — the same thing — because it’s coming through me and through those same patterns I set up. So, it’s investing deeply and it sounds weird to say sort of never give up, but I just never gave up. And there was a long time where we couldn’t get the studio to make the movie and I found the right people to get it to the right director to be able to make it. This wasn’t happening for a long time and there were many moments I didn’t think it was going to happen.

And yet every time Andrew and I would get together to work again, we’d make something cool that I really wanted to see on stage. And so that’s been the process.

Thank you so much.

**Ramona:** Hola. I just wanted to say thank you so much, gentlemen, for coming out and showing New York some love. We really, really appreciate it.

**Craig:** You’re welcome. You know, I grew up on Staten Island.

**Ramona:** Staten Island.

**Craig:** Yo, what’s up? Shelly, come on!

**Ramona:** John August, thank you for sharing a part of your baby with us tonight. We can really feel the love and everything that you’ve poured into it. And just really looking forward to seeing you on the Broadway stage. Craig Mazin, I didn’t think I would ever say this. I’ve officially fallen in love with you tonight. Your voice is melodious, sir.

**Craig:** I knew you would say it.

**Ramona:** I know. I couldn’t help it. And Andrew Lippa, you are a phenomenon. Thank you so much for sharing your talent with us tonight. And if you and Hugh Jackman ever had a sing-off, I’d be there in a heartbeat. Thank you again. Thank you so much.

**Craig:** That’s so nice. Thank you so much. You’re super nice. What’s your name?

**Ramona:** My name is Ramona, sir.

**Craig:** You’re the best.

**Ramona:** Thank you, Craig Mazin.

**Craig:** Thank you. Thank you for coming.

**Rob:** Hey guys, I’m Rob. I had a question for each of you. It was interesting to me to hear about a film that was almost kind of I guess reverse engineered into a musical. It usually maybe goes the other direction, the musical that gets made into a movie. I was wondering if each of you might — if you could think about a film that you would, another film, that you would think, maybe one of yours, or maybe somebody else’s that this process would work for, too, turning it into a musical and kind of why that particular film might work.

**John:** There’s one that neither Andrew Lippa or I will mention, but there’s another thing which we think is a great idea, so we’re not going to mention that one. But I will say that the movies that will work well is if the characters have a rich emotional inner life that wants to be sung. And some things want to be sung and some things don’t want to be sun.

Charlie’s Angels does not want to be sung. But an example, like Corpse Bride, when I came out with Corpse Bride it wasn’t a musical. And I was like, “Tim, let me have one song, so I can at least set up the world.” I wanted a sort of “welcome to the world” song that became according to plan. And then once I broke the seal we were able to get those characters singing more.

You know, we just were talking about Michael Clayton, which seems like the weirdest thing to do. Craig is shaking his head. Here’s why it’s a terrible idea is that it’s incredibly plot-driven. And if there’s plot, or if plot or detail is going to be driving the story that’s not going to work.

**Andrew Lippa:** I’ve got one.

**John:** Go.

**Andrew:** Do you remember the movie 21 Grams?

**John:** Yes.

**Andrew:** The Alejandro González Iñárritu film. That film is like so crazy. It plays with time. But at its heart it’s really about four people and this crazy sense of coincidence/fate universal, spiritual thing bringing people together. One dies, one lives, and I think it’s an opera. And I’m just so fascinated with that film as something to sing about because I think what goes on in it is so human and so it’s like in the back of my head. It’s a crazy idea that I’m sure nobody would want to pay for. So, I probably will never get it done.

**John:** I actually thought of one. The Spectacular Now, the recent movie, would be a great musical because those characters — you have a character who is aware that he’s actually the source of the problem and that’s fantastic. Craig?

**Craig:** Well, I mean, The Wizard of Oz. That’s one. Totally. It’s never been done. [laughs]

[Pianist beings playing Somewhere Over the Rainbow]

This guy is the best.

The movies that I do really can’t — they shouldn’t be musicals. I mean, for so many reasons. Women with dicks, you know, they’re just — film comedies are meant to be laughed at and laughed with. And musicals, you’re supposed to be quiet when people are singing, you know. The movies that I make are really about not being quiet. So, I don’t think I’ve ever written anything that I would want to see as a musical.

I know that, you know, I did a bunch of movies with David Zucker and Jim Abrahams of ZAZ fame and people have been after them to do an Airplane! musical forever. And they keep saying, “No, no, no. It would just be really…” It’s just the whole point of Airplane! is to make fun of what’s serious, you know?

**Andrew:** There’s also the idea of what’s perfect in the medium. You know, like Airplane! is perfect in its medium.

**Craig:** Right. Right.

**Andrew:** It is a perfect comedy. It is absolutely spectacularly wonderful. And so I don’t know how you make it any better when you make it a musical. And so there are lots of projects out there, and I won’t name them, but there are lots of projects like that where there are films that are being turned into musicals where I ask myself the question, well, I try not to because I try not to worry about what everybody else is doing. I just worry about what I’m doing. That’s hard enough.

And especially when I’m falling in bathtubs. But, if the thing was super perfect in that medium, then it’s really hard to change mediums, I think.

**Craig:** Producers worked.

**Andrew:** Big Fish is a beautiful film.

**Craig:** Producers.

**Andrew:** The movie Producers was one of the biggest flops ever.

**Craig:** No, no, the original movie.

**Andrew:** Oh, the original movie.

**Craig:** And then the musical I thought was, I mean, I enjoyed the musical. You don’t think so?

**Andrew:** Oh, okay, so there’s — oh, great, he’s that guy.

**Craig:** [sings] “I used to be the king, the king of old Broadway.”

**Andrew:** There’s always one example. Okay, that one.

**Craig:** Thank you. I’m just saying.

**Andrew:** 10 Commandments the Musical, try that. They did. They did! They did. Lord of the Rings, The Musical.

**Craig:** Oh, that would be awesome!

**Andrew:** They did it! And it failed, unfortunately. Like King Kong is supposed to be amazing. So, go figure.

**Craig:** All right. Okay. Yeah.

**Andrew:** But for the most part I find that to be true.

**Craig:** Agreed.

**Rob:** Thank you.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**Andrew:** Thanks.

**Jaime:** Hey there. My name is Jaime, and I’m a screenwriter, of course. He asked exactly the same question I was about to ask, so I’m going to ask a different one.

**Craig:** Oh, good, we’re going to hear a B question here.

**Jaime:** Right, this is the B question.

**Craig:** Yeah, you’re getting the one that you made up in a panic while he was asking your question.

**Jaime:** Absolutely.

**Craig:** Very good.

**Jaime:** The last ten seconds. Movie musicals is different than stage musicals, is different than movies. So, in my opinion from — in a movie…

**Craig:** We’re starting to see the improvisation occur.

Male Audience Member: Exactly. In a movie theater you don’t applaud at the end of a song. And I’ve seen many Hollywood movie musicals that end on a ta-da! And silence, whereas on stage there’s applause.

**Craig:** That’s a tough one.

**Jaime:** Is that something — when you write something like Corpse Bride or a movie musical, how does that affect the writing process?

**John:** Absolutely. What you’re describing as that ta-da is the button, where it’s like, “Pang” and then everyone applause and that doesn’t happen in a movie and it shouldn’t happen in a movie.

**Jaime:** It shouldn’t.

**John:** It just feels weird when it happens in a movie. Making a movie musical, like a lot of what we’ve talked about, sort of like setting up the world and the “I want” song, all of that stuff plays through. But you also have all the power you have of a movie, which you have close-ups, you have all these things where not only you have the song providing an x-ray into their soul, but you also have that nice tight close-up which is helping you do that as well.

So, in some ways you get all that luxury but you lose that where there’s a live person singing on stage in front of you. And so while a stage musical, yes, the whole thing is in a wide shot, but it’s happening there right in front of you. Magic is occurring right there. And so things like how the set is transitioning from one thing to another thing can be beautiful and that can be an applaudable moment in and of itself.

You have to recognize that you’re making something for a live space versus making it for a movie.

**Andrew:** It’s also the thing that John as taught me about is how literal movies are. They are what they are when you see them. And that musicals, the suspension of disbelief is high because people are singing and they’re not supposed to be. And they do. And so the most successful movie musicals of late are the ones where the characters are singing and they know they’re singing. Or that they have reasons — they have good reason to be singing. Oftentimes that helps us bridge that gap between believability and the literalness of seeing people singing on a film.

**Jaime:** Thank you.

**John:** Thank you very much.

**Source Materialistic:** Hi guys. My question is about adaptations and source material. Is it ever worth it in your view to adapt something that you can’t get the rights to? Is it useful as a calling card or as just a fun exercise for yourself to prove that you can do it?

**Craig:** We get this a lot. Part of the answer depends on the nature of the source material. If you’re going to adapt source material that’s particularly popular, or source material that you know is already being adapted, it is probably a waste of time and maybe even — if it’s not being adapted somebody activity but it’s really popular and clearly IP that it has value, intellectual property that has value, you might even come off as bit of a ding-a-ling.

But, if there is something that you believe in that’s interesting to you that you’re kind of in love with that isn’t really obvious, I actually think it’s okay because it is a calling card. And it may just so happen that if somebody falls in love with it then they’ll go and get the rights.

To me, so much about becoming a professional screenwriter is about writing something that rises above the enormous ocean of crap that’s out there and getting attention and being viewed as a writer. And so I always tell people, it used to be in the ’90s that you would write a spec screenplay to sell it. And now I always say write a spec screenplay to promote yourself as somebody who can write a screenplay.

Of course, you can also do what John did which is to actively go after the rights to something. And sometimes they’re available for very little. But, I don’t think it’s always such a… — You know, I would avoid the fan fiction syndrome. Don’t write your Star Trek movie. That’s cuckoo territory. You know, don’t be a weirdo.

**Source Materialistic:** Yeah, great. Thanks very much.

**Craig:** You’re welcome.

**Work Lover:** Hi, first I just want to say thanks for doing the podcast. It gives me a reason to wake up on Tuesday mornings.

**Audience:** Aw…

**Craig:** That’s so depressing! [laughs]

[Audience laughs]

**Andrew:** Yeah. I want to know why he wakes up on Friday mornings. That’s what I want to know.

**Work Lover:** Drugs. I’m kidding.

**Craig:** [laughs] He’s the coolest guy.

**Work Lover:** I’m kidding. I love to work.

**Craig:** Of course.

**Work Lover:** So, I’ve actually gotten involved with a Broadway project, so listening to the podcast has been slowly shepherding me towards gearing up for this. And I’m writing the book with my partner. And so this actually is a perfect question. The form is something I’m not familiar with. I’m not well versed in musicals per se. But I was just wondering if there’s like — this is going to sound ignorant — but like a Syd Field for the libretto.

**John:** If there is, I don’t know what it is. And I’ve written exactly one book. And so far no one has come up to me and said like, “You did it all wrong,” so I guess it’s worked out okay. The form is a little bit weird. And so you think about it, it kind of looks like a screenplay but there’s a little bit less. There’s all the song bits which are over on the left and they’re all in caps. You get used to that though and it becomes pretty natural after awhile, sort of seeing how it flows.

And you’re always — you’re never cut into anything. Everything has to just transition. You always have to figure out how you’re moving from one thing to the next.

It’s not awful. In terms of the Syd Field of it all and sort of like how it all works, I wouldn’t look — [to Andrew] Syd Field is this guy who wrote this famous screenwriting book. I just love that Andrew has no idea who Syd Field is. It’s just fantastic. He’s a guy who wrote this classic book about how to write a screenplay and no one should — you should sort of read it and then forget it.

I don’t know what the equivalent of that is for this, but Andrew you were actually talking about a book you just recently started reading about book writing.

**Andrew:** Oh, it’s about, no, it’s about mythic structure.

**John:** So, all that stuff applies. Hero’s journey, whatever. We have challenges. Unconquerable mountains.

**Andrew:** Chris Vogler. That’s right.

**Craig:** You started reading that?

**Andrew:** A friend recommending it to me and I’m like, “Yeah, I’m probably too old for that.” But, you know, I could learn — maybe I could learn something. You know, it never hurts to read something.

**John:** But what I will say, the same advice I always give towards just normal screenwriting is like read the movies that you love most. Read the books you love most. And then figure out how they actually looked on the page and how they worked on the page. It’s not that hard to track down.

**Andrew:** Yeah, that is the advice. Go read other musicals — read 10 other musicals and you’ll see how it’s formatted and see how they do it.

**John:** Yeah. And you’ll see that the formatting isn’t nearly as consistent as it is — they don’t look the same way that all screenplays look the same. But you’ll see like how it actually worked on the page.

**Andrew:** And you know what I’ve learned more than on any show I’ve done, on this one, is that actually the writers should be the director as much as possible when you’re writing. And that means think — you can’t write, “And then there’s a car chase,” or what the stage equivalent of that would be. The more you think about what the dance — if you say, “And then there’s a dance,” if there’s a dance, what is it trying to accomplish, what is it trying to get from A, to B, to C? Write out every detail you can of the physical life of the play. Any director who reads it will just say, “I’m going to do some of these ideas and I’m not going to do some of these ideas,” but directors love when you give them things. Give them things to think about and to talk about.

It’s much better than just leaving it open I find.

**John:** An example is in Big Fish there’s a dance sequence where Will and Josephine, right at their wedding, they start their dance, and then Edward cuts in and dances with Josephine and sort of shows off how much better a dancer he is. And it’s actually a very important story point, and so it’s written out that way and it’s written out to sort of be very specific about what it is.

So, Susan Stroman comes on board and she has it on an eight count. She has this whole master plan for it. But if it hadn’t of been on that page, it never would have happened. So, it’s important to really think about how you’re filling that stage and how things are moving across that stage just so the director has an idea of what you can start with.

**Work Lover:** Okay. Great. Thanks so much.

**John:** Thank you very much. And just so we have a sense of time. The last person in line who’s like hidden in shadows will be the last question. So you’re the — you — you’re the last person. But you’re the first person, so ask your question.

**Loud Mic:** Okay, my question is — it’s [the microphone] kind of loud — my question is thinking back to when you were talking about having to rewrite the beginning of Big Fish. You kind of had that “oh shit” moment of this doesn’t work and we need to figure out what will work. It would be interesting to hear other examples that you had in your career of where either midway through your project you realized something didn’t work and it seemed like it was unsolvable.

Or, going into a project that you thought was going to be one thing and by the end it completely changed.

**Craig:** Yeah, it’s everything. I mean, that is a common thread throughout everything. If you’re doing your job right, at some point you will realize, “Oh shit.” In fact, it happens so regularly that at some point you stop saying, “Oh shit,” and you go, “Oh, well here we are at the ‘oh shit’ moment. Okay. Let me have a drink. I’m going to take a walk. And now let’s recover from it.”

Because the truth is the best laid plans, okay, you create the best plan you can. And you go into it because so much about what we do is about intention. In fact, what you were just talking about, the idea of, okay, tell the director what’s going to happen here, how they’re going to dance. It’s about intention. What do you want the audience to feel, right? We’re constantly making our plans.

Where we run ashore is when we get to a place and we realize, “My intentions either aren’t coming out right or they’re not the right intentions or I have better intentions and it’s not working.” That’s okay. The difference, I think, between the professional and the amateur is that the amateur panics and either digs in and doubles down or quits. The professional says, “Eh, I’ve been here before. Call an audible. Let’s fix it.”

It’s fixable. Everything is fixable. The only thing between you and the solution is figuring out the solution, which you can do, and work, which you can do. So, once you defang the dragon, you just do it. And that’s as simple as that.

**John:** Hello.

**Interested in Assistants:** Hey, how are you? Longtime listener. I just want to thank you guys for losing money to do this. My question is actually for Craig. I love learning and hearing about process and you kind of said something on a one-off on a podcast about how you work with someone in the room nowadays. And I started to think about that. I’m like, well, who is that person? How much do they get paid? Is it a different person for every project? Is it your assistant? How is the interaction? Is there no interaction?

I’m just really interested to hear more about that.

**Craig:** Well, this is something I started doing somewhat recently. It’s been two different people actually. I started doing it right before Identity Thief and now I’m doing it still, the project I’m doing now. I do a lot of work with Todd Phillips. And when I’m working with Todd Phillips it’s just me and him. — Yes, it is me, it is I, no, it is he and I. Thank you.

**Andrew:** You’re welcome.

**Craig:** Thank you for understanding my conundrum there. So, it’s just he and I together. And that’s all — I need somebody across from me sometimes just to talk things out. But a lot of things that I write on my own I don’t need somebody to write it with me. I just need somebody there to listen. I need to talk.

I find that sometimes when I start talking all the sort of, you know, sometimes I feel like my brain is like Jacob Marley dragging all these chains around, you know. And just by talking they all go away. And you start to see what should happen.

So, basically, it’s like a therapist. I’ve hired a therapist basically and someone to listen to me. So, for instance I have a woman who works with me now. Her name is Jacqueline Lesko. And she’s actually a producer in her own right. And she’s produced this documentary called Spinning Plates that’s out now. It’s a really cool documentary.

But she listens to me. And then she writes down what I say. And then I look at it and then I go “yes,” “no,” “okay,” “let’s not do that.” “Let’s do this — let’s not do that.” And then I write. And she also reads for me, so she reads and she’ll say things like, “I don’t think you need to say that. You could probably delete that line,” or, “I got it,” or, “I was confused.” It’s basically just feedback and listening.

I find it incredibly helpful. I’m not going to say what I pay her. That would be gauche. But I do pay her. It’s an odd job. I don’t think a lot of writers employ people like this just to… — Frankly, it’s a bit of a luxury to hire somebody to listen to you. It’s also a sad commentary on where I am in my life.

But it works for me. And I basically justify it by saying if this helps me write a script better and it gets made, then it’s well worth it. So, it makes me happier.

**Interested in Assistants:** Thank you.

**Craig:** You’re welcome.

**Asking by Example:** Hey, how are you guys doing? Thanks for coming to New York. I hope you guys come back again soon.

I guess this is question by example really. I really enjoy screenplays by Billy Wilder. And I love Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple, the musical, the screenplay to the movie. And I’d like to hear from all of you about how what I find missing in contemporary scripts, take for example your Focus Feature kind of movie, is the stage direction and how the character just does not at all interact with their environment.

In the Billy Wilder script, like let’s say The Apartment, he goes on for lines about touching this, and opening the door, and you know. And it’s great. And it all goes to the story. Like, they don’t do it for no reason.

**John:** Yeah, what Craig was whispering in my ear is that it speaks to Billy Wilder as a writer-director. And he’s writing these scripts as the person who knows how he’s going to shoot these films. And with that, he has a sense of what he’s — you know, the screenwriter is always the first person who sees the movie. The writer sees this movie in his head. And Billy Wilder is seeing these movies, he’s seeing these movies as the writer and as the director and has the good sense of like what it’s going to be like to have a person in that space and how that space is going to interact with somebody.

It’s a great lesson to learn. And it’s kind of a lesson that a good screenwriter can apply, even if they’re not going to be directing their own thing. Just looking at sort of how this person, this character interacts not just with the other characters but with the environments that they’re in.

So, are you actually reading the scripts or you’re just watching the films?

**Asking by Example:** Reading the scripts. Loving the words. Reading the scripts. And he’s got four or five lines that you can just breeze through it and they’re brilliantly written. And the movements have to do with the story. And they reveal the story.

**John:** So, what I think is great is you’re pointing out something that we try to say a lot. Look at the films you love the most and then find the scripts and see how those films looked before they were shot and what they looked like on the page. Try to take those lessons and apply them. I can’t tell you that it’s going to work for other people and that we’re going to suddenly going to be able to make better movies by having characters interact with their environments more. But you can hopefully write those movies better for having read those scripts.

**Asking by Example:** You don’t think contemporary scripts are really broad and they just leave it out? Like they’ll say in the script, “Somebody gets up a from a chair,” but they never put them in a chair. Or like you said, there’s all this dialogue and they never mention, you know, it’s just a page full of dialogue which I think Craig mentioned on the show. And it’s like a visual medium because everybody is afraid to go four lines. No?

**Craig:** No. I don’t think this is a problem. No. I mean, for instance, if somebody gets up from a chair in a movie, they were in the chair. You know, in the screenplay if they get up from the chair but it wasn’t mentioned prior that they were in the chair, it’s probably a little odd. I probably would have mentioned that they were sitting. But it’s not the end of the world. No, I think that movies are just as visual now as they were before.

There’s a slightly less ornate writing style to some of the action descriptions now just as a matter of course. But, personally, I don’t perceive this as an issue. Yeah.

**Asking by Example:** Okay. Great.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** Thanks.

**Pitch Tips:** I want to thank you guys for the lovely singing tonight. John and Craig, nice job.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**Pitch Tips:** Andrew, beautiful song. So powerful. The father is a stranger. I think it’s a beautiful line that was written and to see the music that was placed to it, it’s amazing. You know, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like in the show.

One thing that really struck me was when you were talking about the nine years when you were pitching this to investors and people and executives and trying to get this thing made. I want to know if you have any tips that you learned over the years. You know, once we have that great idea and we’re in front of that very important person, is there something, you know, a couple little tips that you picked up in the last nine years?

**John:** Well, it’s a different process than pitching a movie. So, pitching a movie, you usually go in, you have the five minutes of bullshit chitchat talking about other movies, just the boilerplate sort of stuff. And then you eventually start pitching the movie.

What has been so different about doing this is that rather than pitching anything, Andrew sits at the piano, I sit close to the piano, and we just perform the whole thing, or at least as much of the show as is written to a point. And what was good about us doing that is clearly we’re deeply invested in this because Edward Bloom sounds like Andrew Lippa because Andrew Lippa was singing all those songs for the first six years, just himself, and I feel like Will Bloom because I was always sort of playing Will Bloom. And so it was very clear that this was sort of what the experience was going to be like.

And we loved it. And I think it was also clear to anyone who was listening that we really loved this thing we loved what we were doing.

**Andrew:** Whenever we went in and pitched it and sang it, the first thing I would do is make sure that John didn’t smell.

[Audience laughs]

Yeah, a big sniff.

No, you know, one of the special things for us about Big Fish is that it is about us. And we are those characters. And for me it’s more than anything I’ve ever written. So, there are all kinds of writing assignments and one of them is to write something where you see yourself really deeply in it. And I see myself and my family very deeply in Big Fish.

And so I never worried about it. I was like, you know, it’s like going through the world. If I worried about people liking me all the time I would be in the crazy asylum. So, I would not be able to function so I just don’t worry about everybody liking it. And I hope that I gather enough people who like it. And we had great leadership with Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen. They were always great champions and helped make it happen from the beginning. So, that was also [crosstalk].

**John:** I would also say not everyone liked it. And there were people who just really didn’t like it. There was one executive who specifically just hated it. And it’s just like, “Well fuck him.” I mean, seriously. At a certain point if they’re not onboard with what it is we’re trying to do, fuck ’em.

**Craig:** Great advice. Fuck ’em.

From a general sense, no matter what you do, if you’re trying to go get a musical put together, you’re talking to investors, or you’re talking to employers, people that maybe could hire you to write a screenplay or buy a screenplay or anything, the two things that I always keep in the forefront of my mind is what these guys just talked about, sharing your passion, make them feel your passion, therefore you must actually be passionate.

And then remember that in the end everyone is afraid, particularly people who are giving you money. If you’ve ever given somebody a lot of money that you might not see again, it’s scary. So, share your passion, but remember that it’s a good thing to be comforting. And one way to be comforting is to be competent and to be passionate. But another way to become comforting is to consider who you’re talking to and ask yourself, “I wonder what would comfort this person?”

It seems obvious. [laughs] It’s amazing how few people do it.

**Andrew:** Well, it’s a really spiritual concept. It’s the idea that you go into pitch something and you want someone to do something for you. But the idea is you’re actually there to do something for them. I’m here to love you and to share my passion with you and to give you something beautiful. And you may not be ready to accept it and that’s okay. But if I got in always wanting something from somebody else, you can see that hunger and that fear and the fangs. And it drives people away. So, I think it is a really great concept.

**Craig:** This works for picking up women, too, by the way.

[Audience laughs]

**John:** Thank you very much.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**Bad with First Names:** Hello. John, Craig, Andrew, Mr. Green, thank you.

**Craig:** Oh! Mr. Green. Okay.

**Bad with First Names:** I’m not good with first names.

Recently I got a little job to make a small short film as a promotion for a haunted house. Good news is that I got paid to write something. Now, onto the bad news. Every step of the way was a fight uphill and after the director, the producers, the owners of the haunted house had their say, none of themes made it across, none of the jokes made it across. It was overall a very arduous and tortuous process. And I like to describe it as “ego death” for lack of a better term.

My questions, have you experienced this?

**Craig:** No!

[Audience laughs]

**Andrew:** In Hollywood, no!

**Craig:** But, please, continue.

**Bad with First Names:** I guess I really am alone.

[Audience laughs]

**Craig:** [laughs] That’s a good joke! You should have gotten that one in there.

**Bad with First Names:** How would you go about preventing it and how do you just deal with it?

**Craig:** Ah-ha. Well, of course, we experienced — anybody who works with, [laughs], anybody creative that is touching the life of somebody that isn’t will experience this. That’s it. Right? Everyone.

So, then the question is how can I maybe ameliorate the… — First thing, understand sometimes you can’t. I did a number of movies for two gentlemen who live here in New York City. They may be brothers.

**Andrew:** The Koch brothers make movies?

[Audience laughs]

**Craig:** [laughs] That was — there are some battles you can’t win. Okay? There are some situations that are just, that’s it, charge the light brigade. It is not yours to ask why it is yours, just to die. But I think that when you’re dealing in a situation where there are a lot of different people, some practical things you can do.

One, respectfully ask that they all — if they all have something to say, ask that, so that you can do your job and make them happy, that they agree on one list of things. This is amazing how many problems it solves. And it’s very hard for them to say, “No!’ It’s such an incredibly on its face very rational request, right?

So, ask them to give you a united set of notes. And then the other thing that I recommend is, as much as possible, to not think about your script, to not talk about your script. Talk about the show. Movie. Haunted house. Musical. Always talk about the show. Always talk about the show, because that’s what they’re thinking about. Sometimes as writers we’re concentrating on our jobs as we should, and suddenly everybody is going, “Well, they’re talking about paper. We’re talking about what we actually are going to be exposed for and on the hook for.”

So, try and keep that on the level. And the last bit of advice I’ll give you is this: the biggest enemy we have in this process is unfortunately the one that’s always there. And it’s not them, it’s our emotional pain. And when our emotional pain starts to rise, as it inevitably does, we have two choices. We can put that first, or we can put the goal first. The goal is make a haunted house movie. Make a haunted house film, right?

It’s hard to put your pain second. The pain is real and it’s earned. But it’s hard to put it second. Try. Try basically not letting the pain and then your sense of protection drive you in those moments with them. Just cry in your car on the way home. [laughs]

[Audience laughs]

**Bad with First Names:** I do.

**Andrew:** Do you offer private therapy sessions?

**Craig:** Yes.

**Andrew:** This is better than my therapist for eight years.

**Craig:** Absolutely.

**Andrew:** Fantastic advice.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**John:** Well done, Craig. Thank you very much. It’s our final question of the night. What is your name?

**Liz:** Liz.

**John:** Hi Liz. Thank you for coming to our show tonight.

**Liz:** Thanks for having it. I’ve been looking forward to this for a month.

So, you talked a lot about putting yourself in characters and I think my question is sort of the opposite. They say write what you know and how do you move past your protagonist being a version of you and the other people being friends and family and all that?

**John:** Liz, that’s a great question. We do say, “Oh, write what you know.” And therefore people always write about college, or the little thing that they just experienced. And so what I would say is don’t… — There’s more to you than you know that there is to you. And so when they say write what you know, write about the things that terrify you. Write about the things that you’re afraid of. Write about the things that inspire you. Write about the things you wish you — the things you would never tell anybody else.

And you probably have a much more conflicted, interesting, darker, but magical inner life than you sort of realize. And writing feels true when it can go to fantastical places and it feels grounded because you recognize the inner life of that character is consistent, and real, and interesting, and you recognize like I’ve never gone to Botswana, but I feel what it feels like to be that person outside of themselves.

It’s to do that introspection to find those moments that are really meaningful to you and how could those translate to a story. How could those translate to someone else in another kind of experience, in another kind of life and universe?

**Andrew:** Anybody can do research. We all did research papers in high school. And so anybody can go and learn about neuroscience if you went and read some books about neuroscience. But I’ve always found write what you know to mean write what is emotionally true for you, what is really how you feel about the thing.

So, whether it’s — write what you feel. So, if it’s in outer space, or it’s neuroscience, or it’s the African animals or things you don’t know anything about, it’s not about that stuff. That stuff you can find out about. But you have to write from that emotional centered place. And that’s you. And you’re the only one who can write like you. So, that’s what’s going to make it unique and special.

**John:** I’ll leave in one last little joke which is throughout your whole life you’ve been recording, even if you just didn’t realize were recording, you have this breadth of experience. And so there was a joke I needed for Big Fish. And so there’s a moment where young Will is in bed and Edward is there. And it’s like, “Did you really meet a witch?”

“Yeah, I did, but your mom says I can’t tell you that story because you’ll get nightmares.” But then he comes back and he starts to tell the story. “It’s a well established fact that most southern towns of a certain size have a witch.”

**Andrew:** “Do we have a witch?”

**John:** “No, but we’ve got two Dairy Queens, so we’re still coming out ahead.” And the Dairy Queens joke was because being in the Midwest, like two Dairy Queens in a town was a certain size. So, it was that experience of that.

And so I didn’t know that that was useful. But you got to a place where like, oh, that feels real and that feels true. And it gets a good laugh because people recognize that as an honest moment.

Guys, thank you so much. And thank you for your great questions!