John and Craig investigate actual villains in this installment of How Would This Be a Movie? From the eerily prescient writer of “How to Murder Your Husband” to the dark comedy of Jacob Wohl, sometimes reality provides the character — now you just need an actual story.
We also look at the craft behind writing for ensemble, plus follow-up on the end of FilmStruck, “No Writing Left Behind,” specifying character race in scripts and the hopeful resurgence of family-friendly Christmas movies.
Links:
- FilmStruck is Shutting Down
- Aaron Sauerland’s tweet about writing for ensembles
- Novelist Who Penned ‘How To Murder Your Husband’ Essay Charged With Husband’s Murder by Laurel Wamsley for NPR
- Never Go Full Trump: The Lena Epstein Story by Josh Marshal for TPM
- The Humiliating Crash and Burn of Pro-Trump Media Star Jacob Wohl Is the Best Political Story of the Season by Dustin Rowles for Pajiba
- ‘Nicole From Last Night’: University Of Calgary Student Mass Emails 247 Nicoles by Maija Kappler for Huffington Post
- Meet the gallant all-black American female battalion that served in Europe during World War II by Elizabeth Ofosuah Johnson for Face 2 Face Africa.
- Mary McLeod Bethune
- 6 Tips for Getting Your Solo Play to Broadway by Mike Birbiglia
- Decrypto
- T-shirts are available here! We’ve got new designs, including Colored Revisions, Karateka, and Highland2.
- John August on Twitter
- Craig Mazin on Twitter
- John on Instagram
- Find past episodes
- Scriptnotes Digital Seasons are also now available!
- Outro by Matthew Chilelli (send us yours!)
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode here.
UPDATE 11-14-18: The transcript of this episode can be found here.