John and Craig were delighted to join the Slate Culture Gabfest on stage to talk about the gulf between critics and creators. We have the audio from that, and additional thoughts on the issue.
Then, how many characters does your movie need? We talk about how to figure out the Goldilocks spot where you have enough characters to make your world feel real, but not so many that they’re tripping over each other.
Finally, business affairs, and how understaffed legal departments create problems for writers and studios.
Links:
* [A few tickets remain](https://www.wgfoundation.org/screenwriting-events/writers-writing-simon-kinberg/) for tonight’s Writers on Writing event with John interviewing Simon Kinberg
* [The Belasco Theater](http://thebelascotheater.com/) is gorgeous
* John and Craig [on the Slate Culture Gabfest](http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/culturegabfest/2014/10/slate_s_culture_gabfest_is_live_from_l_a_the_critics_talk_to_jenny_slate.html)
* [Star Wars Minus Williams – The Throne Room](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj-GZJhfBmI) by Auralnauts
* [Çingleton](http://cingleton.com/)
* [Indie Game: The Movie](http://buy.indiegamethemovie.com/)
* Jalopnik [on the Tesla Model S P85D](http://carbuying.jalopnik.com/will-the-tesla-model-s-p85d-be-the-best-overall-car-you-1644727868)
* Get premium Scriptnotes access at [scriptnotes.net](http://scriptnotes.net/) and hear our 1,000th subscriber special
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Scriptnotes listener Jonas Bech ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
You can download the episode here: [AAC](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_166.m4a) | [mp3](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_166.mp3).
**UPDATE 10-20-14:** The transcript of this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2014/scriptnotes-ep-166-critics-characters-and-business-affairs-transcript).