The original post for this episode can be found here.
Craig Mazin: Hi folks. This episode does contain some strong language so put in those ear buds, put in those headphones. Keep those children safe.
John August: Hello and welcome. My name is John August.
Craig: My name is Craig Mazin.
John: And this is Episode 445 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today it’s our very first ever live video Scriptnotes. We have some number of people watching us live on YouTube, each of them wondering, wait, is that what Craig and John actually look like?
Craig: No. This is not what we look like.
John: No. So we do live shows fairly often, a couple times a year. We do one in Austin generally. We do a holiday show. This is a special occasion so we’re doing one live streaming on the Internet. People aren’t really here to see us. They’re here to see our two very special guests who we’re going to bring out in a moment. We’re also today going to have a game segment. We’re going to have audience questions. So it will be like our normal live show, except I won’t have had 1.5 glasses of wine which is the amount of wine I need basically to do a live show.
Craig: And that’s a bummer because you will be 1.5 times less entertaining. I’m just going to be honest.
John: Yes. So, this is 10am. We’re recording this on a Saturday in Los Angeles. But people around the world are watching this which is so exciting. So, as we’re talking right now I now see that there are, let’s see, how many people are watching this? 654 people–
Craig: We’re on our way to 14,000 which is my – that’s my target, 14,000. Yeah. Seems reasonable. A small arena. That’s how I work.
John: So this is free for the world. This is not a fundraiser for anything. This is just a morale raiser. But for Premium subscribers, Craig you don’t know that we’re going to do this. We’re going to do a postmortem after the show, maybe tomorrow we’ll record this, to figure out what we learned and what went well and what went wrong in the process.
Craig: Great. I’m sure that under what went wrong I will feature heavily.
John: [laughs] It is a weird moment in which we’re all now just broadcasters. Somehow we’re supposed to be doing television, just everyone.
Craig: Yeah, no, it turns out that broadcasting is not the rare talent that we were all told it was.
John: Mm-mm. Anybody can do it in their basement.
Craig: Yeah. People would say you’re no brain surgeon or radio broadcaster. Well, we’re all–
John: We’re all broadcasters now.
Craig: Yeah. We’re all broadcasters now. It’s not hard. It’s not hard.
John: All right. Let us welcome our two very, very special guests. First off can I welcome Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She is an Emmy, Golden Globe-winning writer, and actor, whose credits include Killing Eve and Fleabag. She’s joining us from London. Phoebe Bridge, please turn on your camera and join us on Scriptnotes.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge: Hey.
John: Phoebe!
Craig: There she is.
Phoebe: We did it!
John: We did it.
Craig: She looks just like she does on TV. It’s amazing.
John: It’s incredible. Actors are wonderful, beautiful people.
Phoebe: I know.
John: Phoebe it is so wonderful to have you here. Thank you so much. It’s a fantasy to have you on the show at all, but to have you all the way from London is a special, special treat.
Phoebe: Thanks for having me.
John: Our second guest, Ryan Reynolds is an actor, writer, producer, gin magnate, and somehow a wireless provider. He’s known for such films as Deadpool and The Nines. Ryan Reynolds—
Craig: [laughs]
John: Welcome to Scriptnotes.
Ryan Reynolds: Very nice.
Craig: Hey!
John: Ryan Reynolds!
Ryan: You forgot some of my awards like MTV Movie Award Best Kiss nominee 1998.
Craig: Good year.
Ryan: Very good year.
Craig: Who won? Who could have possibly beaten you?
Ryan: I think Tobey Maguire. Pretty sure it was Tobey Maguire. Hi everybody.
John: Ooh.
Ryan: This is very exciting.
John: It’s nice to have everyone here together, around the world, to talk and do things. And we’re all looking directly at our camera lenses which is something which is a question I want to start off asking the two of you about, because last week on the show we were talking about Clueless. We did a deep dive on Clueless which is one of my favorite movies of all time. And we were talking about how important Cher’s narration was in Clueless because she is talking directly to us as an audience about her experiences and we would not understand the movie without that.
But the two of you are known for looking directly at the lens and talking to the audience and having a relationship with the audience as characters which is so different from most movies. So let’s start with you, Phoebe. As a writer and as a performer how do you make that decision to suddenly start talking directly to the people watching and what’s the decision process in terms of when is the right time to break that seal?
Phoebe: Well Fleabag started as a play and it was a one-woman play. So that was all directed to the audience anyway. And I always felt like I wanted the audiences’ experience to be that they feel like they know someone really intimately and then they get sort of betrayed by her halfway through. So it starts off as a sort of mini sort of standup act. And then you realize halfway through that actually there’s sort of more going on. And that by the time you like her and she’s made you laugh she then divulges things to you that you feel uncomfortable about but you feel complicit in that moment. And so bringing that into the TV show sort of felt like a no-brainer.
But then what was hard was that when I was doing the play I was the only person there. It was a lonely experience. And also I was in total – the character in that was completely in control of the narrative. Whereas suddenly in the TV show there’s actual real life things happening around that are also truthful. So I had to kind of shift it so she wasn’t just the only person describing the world. You could see the world. So then it had to become about her – about having fun with it a bit more. So she would tell you someone was going to behave in a certain way and then they don’t. And then she’s actually a bit knocked by that. So lots of little sort of games and stuff that we were playing throughout it.
But overall for me in the TV show it was to create a relationship between Fleabag and the camera that actually changed and evolved itself. So, at the beginning she’s sort of like, “Come in. This is going to be fun, and sexy, and cool, and I’m in total control.” And then by the end of the first season the camera won’t leave when she wants it to. So she’s like, “Oh, fuck, I should never have done that. I should never have let you in.” So sort of made it a central relationship.
Craig: Is there any parallel to your actual life now that the camera will not leave you alone? Oh, fuck, why did I do that?
Phoebe: I mean, yeah. It cuts quite close to the bone there, Craig.
Craig: Good. That’s my job here is to upset. Ryan, say something that I can then make you feel bad about.
Ryan: Oh, please, there’s ideas, a whole list alphabetical and chronological that you could probably make me feel bad about.
John: But Ryan I was going to say as long as I’ve known you you’ve been trying to make the Deadpool movie. So you were always obsessed with this character and this character in the comic books did break that fourth wall and seemed to be aware that he was in a comic book. But at what stage did it become clear that, oh, in playing this role I will be directly addressing the audience? There’s going to be a relationship between me and the audience that’s different than sort of a normal hero.
Ryan: On Deadpool in particular he has a very intimate relationship with the audience. I mean, even by virtue of the fact that Deadpool exists is exclusively because of the Internet and the audience that made it happen after the test footage leaked that we’d made years before. They were the ones that sort of generated the energy that convinced the studio to say, yes, we’ll make this film.
So, it sort of started off that way and I love it. I love how intimate – there’s an intimate relationship there. Deadpool is constantly acknowledging and playing with the cultural landscape. And I think in doing that there’s a bit of a nod-nod-wink-wink with the audience. So, it’s always been – it’s just something to be judicious about with us. I find that less is more with it. I mean, by the second movie I think we’d done it about half as much as the first one. But I do love it. I do love a good fourth-wall break.
Craig: There’s something about that connection that both of you guys do that I find fascinating in its relationship to comedy particular. Because I do love comedy, you’re both hysterical. Fleabag is wonderfully funny. Deadpool is wonderfully funny. But you are also talking to the man that was crying on a plane at the end of Deadpool 2. Crying. Like a lot. [laughs] And I was crying a lot because I cared.
Ryan: The efficacy of alcohol is much more severe on an airplane.
Craig: I wasn’t even drinking. I was not drinking. It was just that because you loved her and you got to say goodbye. Anyway, the point is when you are having these conversations with people it seems to me that you are also getting at something that is true underneath comedy in general which is that funny characters at their best are funny because we understand also that they are sad. That in some way there is something profoundly sad about everyone that is being really, really funny.
And I’m curious what you think about that in terms of how you create your particular characters that you’re so well known for and why people connect to them so well, especially when they’re kind of one-on-one.
Ryan: Hopefully this will be pithy, but I do think that the key difference is one is obnoxious and then funny to me is usually steeped or filtered through some kind of prism of pain or you’ve earned it in some way, otherwise you’re just spouting obnoxious jokes. So, that’s always the trick. I know certainly for Deadpool it was always a trick to weight the B side of everything or the A side depending on how it’s constructed but with some pathos or some kind of pain. And it’s also what I find most challenging about writing on Deadpool is that we really have to take everything away from this guy in order for him to exist, otherwise he would just be too much. So you have to – for both of those movies – we have to strip everything that he holds dear away in order to create this real estate in which we can sort of create a bit of a playground. So making that guy the underdog by virtue of his face, he’s all sort of scarred up. He looks sort of hideous under the mask. All those kinds of things. Those are all, I think, those are all the key ingredients to allowing this guy to sort of spread his wings and fly and be as funny as possible.
So, that’s the sort of unsexy work that goes into it. But I do think, I just don’t want to forget this, I think the most beautiful use of a fourth wall breakup I’ve ever seen is Phoebe’s in the last season of Fleabag. That goodbye was, uh, it just – it pulled every vital source of oxygen out of my body. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Craig: It’s also, I mean, let’s just buff her up a little bit more here. The moment where Andrew Scott notices the camera was one of the first acts of actual cinematic invention I think I’ve seen ever. Because I think by the time like I came along in 1971 they’d invented everything. We had flashbacks and montages. People had broken the fourth. But that was astonishing. It was so astonishing – it was a brand new way to tell people in an audience she’s in love with him and he’s special and he deserves it because he’s on that – what a brilliant…what a brilliant thing to do.
Why are you so smart? There’s your question.
Phoebe: Um…well. I’m going to put it down to, do you ever – I don’t know if you guys have this, but you know sometimes when you slightly dissociate yourself from ideas that you have? Because that one I do – I remember having that idea really early on before I’d even come up with the character of the priest. Thinking, fuck, that is smart. And it happens but it’s like outside of you, so like all the painful stuff happens like when you’re actually trying to make something work or fit together, but there are moments – and literally I was thinking – it was less of “fuck this is smart,” more like “that will be cool.” And it just affected me in a way.
And I thought but what would that mean for her? Because I think like Ryan was saying you’re constantly trying to find a way to throw rocks at your characters and like especially if they’re funny. Because being funny takes a confidence. And also to be able to be relentlessly funny takes an awful lot of effort. And I think if you meet people in real life who are just like constantly on, you know, you think the [unintelligible] so hard underneath and you think why are you working so hard?
Craig: Yes. Yes.
Phoebe: And what are you hiding?
Craig: Yes.
Phoebe: What happens when you stop? And in some ways that was what the idea when Fleabag began anyway was that she was just the first five minutes of this, like when I first started writing the play was just joke, joke, joke, joke, joke. And I was getting exhausted. And I was like she is clearly miserable. And then it was finding out what that was.
But I also think there’s g really heroic about people who try and be funny. Because you can die multiple times in a moment and there’s a real risk in it. And so people being really funny in a really heartbreaking situation can feel both heroic or can feel kind of cowardly at the same time. And I think that’s a really fun thing to be able to play with in a moment. And also the moments that the character isn’t funny, or doesn’t crack a joke and actually lets you in a little bit, is a really powerful tool to have.
Craig: Right.
Phoebe: But I think, yeah, I have to believe that the funniest people in the world are in deep, deep pain. [laughs]
Craig: Yes.
Phoebe: Like you say, otherwise it is just endlessly – they just get boring after a while.
John: So a question for both Phoebe and Ryan, as you’re doing asides to the camera, as you’re having this direct relationship with the audience, as the writer and as the actor who are you seeing there as the audience? Are you really playing it to the camera operator right behind that? Or are you trying to picture the viewer at home? Who is the person you’re having a relationship with when you’re doing these asides?
Ryan: I mean, I typically just right down the barrel. I’m also not, you know, I don’t come from any particular – as you may or not know – school of acting. So I don’t have – person, tennis ball, whatever. [laughs] You know, I can do it. So I don’t need to have that extra feedback in order to kind of pull off the two camera look. It dos help if I enjoy the A-camera operator in the moment because, you know, I feel like you’re sort of delivering it right to him, or her. But that’s, yeah, no, it’s just right down the barrel.
If the camera is too close, though, you can get a little cross-eyed. And I’m naturally cross-eyed, so it’s already an uphill battle.
John: Phoebe who is the audience as you’re doing your things?
Phoebe: Just the audience. I think I’m the same. I didn’t think of anything too romantic to think about because I don’t know how I’d act that actually, how I’m going to act continuously that there’s another mysterious person that I’m thinking of and trying to communicate that to the audience would feel like a complicated message to get over which is why I think.
So, yeah, I just imagined an audience. And also I felt like the part of it that Fleabag was just desperately trying to keep their attention. So every time looking at the camera was stay with me, I’m here. And then when it changed it would be like, oh, don’t look at me. So sometimes it was a happy welcoming thing, and sometimes it would feel like, you know, an evil eye.
But, yeah, the relationship with my DP who was the camera operator as well was really important, especially when he was like, “Put your face down. You look gross.”
John: [laughs]
Phoebe: It’s like, “Head up. Head up.” But I really loved in Deadpool 1 as well that really little moment when you just pushed the camera aside and you just give us that little break. And you go, “I don’t think you guys want to see that.” And the fact that he has care for us in it really – because there’s so much bravado and then he’s actually like, “Oh, actually give yourself a break.” I really loved that bit.
Craig: Fleabag and the Deadpool movies both have this meta awareness which does not undermine the reality of what they’re doing at all. It kind of oddly enhances it. It’s a common thing I think for people to think when they’re writing something that if you start to break the fourth wall what you’re doing is blowing apart the reality of the situation therefore people will not care about the characters.
So, I’m kind of curious as you guys went through this process, and Ryan I know you were writing on Deadpool 2, as you were writing was this a concern that maybe by doing this too much or in the wrong places that you would undermine what was real and what people would care about, or did you have an innate sense that if it was done in certain ways and certain times it would actually make us connect more to the fake reality of the world you were building?
Ryan: I think it’s both. I think it’s a cheat, for me at least. I’m not going to speak for Phoebe or anyone else. But for me it’s a bit of a cheat, you know. I think you want to be very judicious with it and you want to make sure that you’re not overdoing it obviously. But there’s a whole sequence. I remember, I don’t know about you guys, but I find I can spend two days – first off, let me just say this is the perfect [unintelligible] – I hate writing. I just hate it. It’s the worst thing ever.
Craig: No, that’s accurate.
Ryan: I find that I can get fixated on two lines for like four straight days. I can just be hammering away, fixated on these two when I should just be moving on. And then other days I can put out 20, 30 pages. But I remember there was this one scene in Deadpool which is like a 15-page scene which is already a bit of a no-no in a film—
Craig: Slightly.
Ryan: Yeah. But it’s a scene where Deadpool has lost the lower half of his body and he has these little child legs growing back. And I loved writing it because as long as you can go in the scene without revealing these child legs to me was very funny. And then we get into some kind of weird cinematic trope where I break the fourth wall and I – oh, we’re talking about time travel that was it, which is also another just horrendous thing to write.
And I remember breaking the fourth wall and saying, “That’s just lazy writing.” So, you know, really that’s a complete cheat because that was lazy writing and we’re forgiven for it to a certain degree by acknowledging that it’s lazy writing. And then kind of carrying on.
But I tend to use it initially as a crutch a lot. And it’s rarely written into the screenplays. I mean, Deadpool we almost never wrote it in. And then Deadpool 2 I think it was written in at one point during an extraordinarily belabored death sequence at the end of the movie. I just did a couple in the script. I wrote, you know, “straight to camera.” But other than that we didn’t, you know.
Phoebe: You had decided to do it before filming though? But it wasn’t in the script?
Ryan: Oh yes. Oh, 100%. Yes. Breaking the fourth wall. That’s actually not an invention of ours. That’s from the comic books. He’s constantly talking to the reader in the comics. But we did this elaborate death sequence at the end of Deadpool 2 and I was just doing everything – at one point I even did somebody’s award speech from the Golden Globes straight to camera. It was another person’s. Absolutely kitchen sink type stuff.
Phoebe: Oh, I can see just that moment right now.
Ryan: Right. Just on and on and on and on. But it was, yeah, I do love it. I mean, I do really love that sort of after a while it creates a bit of a trust I think there. And just as long as you don’t overdo it.
Craig: You planned for it to happen but you did not plan ahead in terms of actually writing what it was that you were going to say or even when it was going to happen.
Ryan: No.
Craig: Whereas Phoebe, I’m just going to go out on a limb here and think that you planned it all pretty carefully because you were coming from the stage where obviously you had to perform every night in the same way.
Phoebe: Yeah, yeah. And I crumble under the pressure to be able to be spontaneous with the straight to camera. I would lean on the script. In terms of how many times I spoke to the camera that was really scripted. But there were looks that weren’t scripted. I went with abandon with that when we were shooting. And then we just took them all out.
Craig: Not all.
Phoebe: I was like being all creative. And there’s a cut of the first episode of the second series when I just wanted to see what it looked like when there was just no looks to camera or no talking to camera at all. And my poor editor Gary was sort of like, “Are we really going to do this?” And just to see how it sits without it so you can feel the impact of it again. And we just scripted so far back, because I think it can get irritating because there’s a self-awareness about it and somebody being consistently self-aware all the time is a bit like the same thing as someone making jokes the whole time. But it’s almost like commenting on what’s happening. And so I did put it back quite a lot.
But, god, I really went for it in a few scenes and it’s a shame. It’s a shame.
Ryan: You would side eye the camera, though, which was just one of my favorite things that you would do. In an emotional moment there would just be this little side eye glance to the camera. Oh, it was such a great use of it.
Craig: I do them sometimes. I try and do them. Like in my house sometimes if something happens—
Ryan: Always.
Craig: And I screw up. There’s one thing that I always do from the Howard Stern movie Private Parts where he’s gotten his first job at a radio station and he pours Dr. Pepper on a record and he goes [laughs like Howard] and I’ll do that any time I drop something. And now if I screw something up or somebody says something ridiculous I’ll just sometimes look over. I’ll look over to a Fleabag camera and just go…
Phoebe: Oh good. Good.
Craig: You’ve ruined me.
John: Nice. Well, let’s talk about self-awareness because both of you are writing things in which you are going to star. And you’re going to be the principal person we’re going to see on screen. And it must change your relationship to the material and to all your collaborators. So you are the person, you’re the face of this thing, but you have directors, you have producers, you have other actors in the thing. How do you balance, and especially both in production, but when you get to post, how do you balance your relationship as the person who created this thing with the person who is the centerpiece star of it? How do you take in outside feedback to make sure you’re doing the right things? You are the center of this whole project. How do you make sure that it actually makes sense? Who do you turn to and how do you have those conversations?
Ryan, I’ll start with you. Who do you enlist in your circle of trust because the camera is aimed at you and you’re talking directly to the camera, how do you know when you’ve gone too far? How do you know when to rein it back in?
Ryan: First off, fuck everyone else’s opinion.
Craig: There we go. There it is. I knew it. I knew it.
Ryan: Secondly, no. I am so self-loathing. You know, look, this panel of people right here have forgotten more about screenwriting on this call than I’ll ever know.
Craig: That’s right.
Ryan: I’ll start with that. But I’ll say this, though. I am so self-loathing that there is no part of me that is really precious about more me in anything. I do struggle, you know, this film I did this year called Free Guy, which is one of my favorite things that I’ve ever been a part of, I struggled writing other people in it. Not myself so much, but I did struggle making sure that their voices felt three-dimensional and important. It’s easy to give other people jokes. But, yeah, in the post-production process sitting in there I had no problem. My biggest problem is pulling out too much stuff. You know, I’ll start to – I’ll pull stuff out and the editor or in this case Shawn Levy who I was working with, the director and producer, he would say that you’re taking out exposition at this point. You’re taking out important information that we need to know. Just because you don’t want yourself…
So, yeah, that’s never been a huge problem of mine. But then there’s also – the flip side is I can get a little crazy about certain jokes or beats or things that are for whatever reason super important to me. But, you know, I take feedback in a test audience the same way anyone else takes feedback in a test audience. I can walk away and if there’s a resounding no to something then it’s got to go.
Craig: Phoebe, self-loathing also?
Phoebe: Yeah, huge amounts of self-loathing. All the way through every part of the process. I lean really heavily on my director, Harry Bradbeer, and my producer, Tony Robbins. Because they are really brutally honest. No matter how much that hurts it’s so valuable. But also there’s sometimes when I, from a performance point of view, I feel there’s so much going on. Sometimes I just wouldn’t know. And feeling like you’re in it when you’re also running it and that kind of stuff is a luxury. I don’t feel very in it all the time as an actor. I don’t actually know if I’ve felt like that to be honest. It’s so bad.
But so I would – I’d just be like is it funny, is it sad? Basically is like the question that would be thrown across the set. Sad enough? And Harry would be like, “Sadder.”
So, I really rely on them. And then I suppose, I can’t remember what the other thing I was going to say. What was the other thing that Ryan said?
Ryan: I don’t know. No idea.
Craig: He’s not good at writing. And…
Ryan: And now, yeah.
Phoebe: Oh yeah, he’s a terrible actor. He’s terrible at writing. Really bad at producing.
Ryan: I’m OK at some stuff. I’m OK – I can drink like a fish. Yeah.
John: Ryan, I think we can help you out because from the very start of Scriptnotes we’ve been trying to offer sort of useful advice. And to steer people away from bad advice that they often get as screenwriters. Because new screenwriters are sort of inundated – they read the books. They go online. They look through all these guides to teaching you how to be a better screenwriter, how to even get started as a screenwriter. So I thought we might play a game the four of us together to figure out sort of like how to sort through the good advice and the bad advice.
So what I did last night is I went online and I Googled “screenwriting mistakes” and I pulled some of the advice I found online about screenwriting mistakes. And I’m going to invite on a contestant to play this game with us.
Craig: Hey Paige.
Paige Feldman: Hi.
Phoebe: Hi Paige!
John: Paige, can you introduce yourself?
Paige: Hi, I am Paige Feldman. I’m a writer and director. I’m living in Los Angeles. I just signed my first feature deal like on Monday.
Phoebe: Yay.
Craig: Wow.
John: Congratulations.
Craig: How about that? We have really – I mean, our listeners are quality.
John: Yes.
Ryan: Yeah.
John: Now, Paige, this is going to be a game segment. So what I’ve done is I’ve pulled this advice from the Internet but it also introduced some things I just made up myself. And so your job is going to be to figure out what was real bad advice and what is fake bad advice. And so as a new screenwriter this is important stuff for you to figure out.
Now, I should ask you have you ever played on a game show before?
Paige: Yes. I was a contestant on Jeopardy! in the teen tournament when I was 16.
Craig: Wait, hold on. Hold on.
Phoebe: What?
Craig: Where have you been all my life?
Ryan: Yeah buddy. Let’s walk that back a second.
John: Paige, you have to tell us about this teen tournament. So, how did you do? What were the questions that got you? Tell us.
Paige: So, I lost in the first round. Lost on Final Jeopardy!
John: What was the answer, what was the question? Let’s see if we can get it. Craig will probably get it. We’ll see.
Craig: I’ll try. I’ll try.
Paige: In 1859 this man said to Horace Greeley, “I have 15 wives. I know no one who has more.”
Craig: Ooh, that was 18-what?
Paige: I think it was ’59. I mean, it was in 2001 that I was on the show so this is—
Phoebe: Have you got people in your head for the other years, Craig?
John: I was going to guess Brigham Young, but I’m not sure.
Craig: I was going to guess Joseph Smith, but I don’t think we’re right.
Ryan: I was gonna go Joseph Smith.
Craig: [laughs] That was the fakest – I was Brigham Smitherson.
John: Paige, what is the answer?
Paige: It was Brigham Young.
Craig: Oh, you got it. Great. You picked the right Mormon.
Phoebe: Oh my god.
Ryan: John August!
Paige: You could have won the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament, John.
Ryan: Wow.
John: Fantastic.
Craig: Who did you pick out of curiosity, Paige?
Paige: I had absolutely no idea because I didn’t know who Horace Greeley was when I was 16. So, I just—
Ryan: For shame!
Paige: I just chose the only person I knew who had a lot of wives which was Henry VIII, even though I knew he only had six. And I enjoyed myself on the show until I got eliminated and then I got to watch all of my friends do fantastically. So.
Craig: All right. Well, I hope that they all paid for it somehow.
John: Let’s hope you can do better on this one. I think you probably will do better on this one.
Craig: High stakes.
John: All right. So let’s start with some really basics. We’ll have Craig start with a first bit of advice. So this will be A, B, and C. Craig, you start.
Craig: Basics of formatting. Is it, A, only use Fade in and Fade out at the beginning and of your script?
John: Or is it B?
Phoebe: Dissolve to is the proper transition to use within the script if needed.
John: Or is it C?
Ryan: Make sure to underline jokes in your script so that even idiot actors can understand them. Save italics for dramatic moments like when Deadpool remembers his hot dead wife.
Craig: I love that moment.
John: So, Paige, which is the fake answer there?
Paige: I am going to guess it’s C unless Ryan was adlibbing the idiot actors part.
John: C is the correct one.
Phoebe: She’s good, guys. She’s good.
John: She’s good. She’s good.
Craig: She’s on it.
John: A pro.
Craig: She’s on it. We’re going to have to step this up.
John: Question two, let’s talk about technique on the page. Phoebe, why don’t you start us off? Is it A…
Phoebe: When you’re writing scene description it’s OK to use “we see” as a way to communicate an image or action every now and then.
John: Ah, the controversial “we see.” All right, Ryan, B?
Ryan: Slug lines should not contain dates or times.
John: No dates or times in slug lines. Or is it C, Craig?
Craig: Every screenwriter worth his or her salt uses Final Draft.
John: Paige, what do you say, A, B, or C?
Paige: This one is a little bit tougher but I’m going to guess it’s A because there’s so much like “no one should ever use we see” happening which is silly.
John: The correct answer was C. I made it up just so Craig would have to say to use Final Draft.
Craig: I’m so angry. I’m so angry for so many reasons. One, Paige, I thought you knew me. You don’t.
Ryan: Craig, are you like John where you just charcoal sketch your scripts?
Craig: No, no, John goes from legal pads to his own proprietary software. And then at some point I think he ultimately does the formatting within one of his many multiprocessors. Whereas I use a lovely program called Fade In Pro. But I do not like Final Draft. I’m on record.
Paige: I just switched to Fade In.
Craig: Oh, good for you. Well done. And John has Highland.
John: Mostly Craig I wanted you saying that on the air so that they can snip that out and use it.
Craig: I know exactly why and I’m not upset, but a little bit.
John: Question three. Talk about nuance and detail. Ryan, can you start us off?
Ryan: In screenplays detail is poison. Film is a collaborative art form. The director, cinematographer, set designer, makeup artist supervisor, special effects supervisor and so many others will decide the details. Now, your job is to convey the broad stroke image as quickly as possible so the reader can visualize it quickly and move on to the next image they’re supposed to be seeing.
John: Or is it B?
Phoebe: Whatever you do don’t have your protagonist look to the camera and deliver a devastating line. [laughs]
John: Or is it C?
Craig: If you character isn’t listening to music and you simply included the song as something to be played over the scene that is not your job.
John: Paige, tell us. A, B, or C?
Paige: While I would assume that B would be given as advice of someone who wanted to, I’m thinking that it’s probably a little too specific to Phoebe, so I’m going to guess B.
John: You are correct. Correct.
Craig: So just to be clear, the other ones they’re real things that you’ve read?
John: They’re real things. So in the show notes I’ll provide the links to where I took these all from. These are actual articles online. So things about “detail is poison,” that came from an online thing.
Craig: Well, we’re going to ruin that person’s day, month, year, life.
John: All right. Question four. Structure. Oh, structure is a big bugaboo. People have a hard time with structure. Whole books are written about structure. Phoebe, can you start us off with answer A?
Phoebe: A, in a properly structured movie the story consists of six basic stages which are defined by five key turning points in the plot. Not only are these turning points always the same, they always occupy the same positions in the story.
John: Ooh, or is it B?
Ryan: At the exact midpoint of your screenplay your hero must fully commit to her goal.
John: Or is it C?
Craig: Do not indicate where to place the title of the film or where to roll the credits. These notations are superfluous in a speculative script. Such matters are usually decided by the director.
John: Paige, tough one here. A, B, or C?
Paige: I feel like I’ve heard all of these. I am going to guess – I’m going to go with B.
John: It’s a trick question. They were all actual things I pulled out.
Craig: God.
John: So-called experts said all of these things.
Phoebe: So my first instinct was correct.
John: Your first instinct was correct. We’re going to give you the chime. All right, final question. These are takeaway lessons we can sort of get out of what we’ve learned. Craig, start us off. A?
Craig: For a character to be engaging, even likeable, they have to be deeply flawed.
John: All right. Or is it B?
Ryan: Physical descriptions including race, height, clothing, etc. matter far less than most writers think. Leave the costuming up to the costume designer.
John: Or is it C?
Phoebe: You may think that there are rules for how a screenplay is supposed to work, but in fact there are merely conventions. And while it’s important you understand the conventions you should use them as a foundation upon which to build your own work, rather than a straightjacket to constrain you because after all isn’t that the point of art?
John: Paige, what’s the answer?
Paige: I mean, this is about the bad screenwriting advice and C was very good screenwriting advice, so let’s go with C.
John: C is correct. Paige, you have won the game. I’m not sure what you won. You got a chance to hang out with us on the Zoom.
Paige: That is winning.
John: Thank you so much. Good luck with your screenplay. Sorry about Teen Jeopardy! but I hope this made up for it.
Paige: Absolutely. It’s better than Teen Jeopardy! Thank you guys so much.
Ryan: Well done, Paige.
Phoebe: Nice to meet you, Paige.
John: Thanks Paige.
Paige: Nice to meet you.
Phoebe: Killed it.
John: Bye.
Ryan: Bye-bye.
Craig: You know, better than Teen Jeopardy! was all I ever wanted.
John: Yeah. It is.
Ryan: John, Brigham Young, like just pulling that out.
John: That’s Colorado. Growing up in Colorado. So Horace Greeley, there’s Greeley, Colorado is named for Horace Greeley, so I had a sense of the time and place of it all. It’s just sometimes you’re born lucky.
Phoebe: Very good.
John: I have a specific question for Phoebe and Ryan, because you are the two people who actually have done this. Hosting Saturday Night Live, you both hosted. When you get to the end credit things how do you know which person to hug first? I always stay for the end credits because I want to see the hugs. How do you know which person to hug first? And does one of the cast members come up to your first? Usually it’s the musical guest you sort of huge first. But tell us what is the decision process on who to hug first at the end of Saturday Night Live?
Ryan: I aim for hierarchy. I just go for the most powerful person on the stage first. And then work my way down to the audience.
Craig: Right. And then through the audience in hierarchy as well?
Ryan. Yes. 100. And then to my family. Through that hierarchy as well. By the end I’m just hugging sperm.
Phoebe: I actually got stuck in a non-hug world of pain at the end of mine. Because I was sandwiched between Taylor Swift and Matthew Broderick. And I’d already hugged Taylor earlier. And I’d never even met Matthew. So suddenly when they were like now is the time to fucking touch them I was like, well I turned to Taylor and was like well we’ve done this so I should probably go and do it. It all happened in like split seconds. I should probably go to Matthew and I gave her a look, as she was coming in. So I like—
John: Oh no.
Phoebe: [Unintelligible] Taylor, turned to Matthew who was already on his way back, had to like claw him back. And then he kind of already gone. Then I turned around and Taylor said to me, “I’ll hug you.” And then we hugged. And then someone actually sent me a gif of the whole thing.
Craig: Oh, that’s wonderful. None of us will be watching that right after this. In fact I may–
John: We’ll put a link to that in the show notes.
Craig: I may leave for a moment to watch it. I mean, I need to see it now.
John: All right, we have 1,277 people watching the show right now live.
Craig: 13,000 fewer than I thought, but OK, go.
John: Some of those people have written in with questions already. Megana Rao our producer she’s going to read some of the questions that people have joined us with. Megana, welcome.
Megana Rao: Hello.
John: Megana start us off with a question from our listeners/viewers.
Megana: OK. We’ve gotten in so many questions. So the first one is from Brady. And he says, “Aside from Beyoncé who inspires us all what’s the most obscure place you’ve pulled creative inspiration from for your projects?” Brady also says, “PS, I love you all.”
John: Aw, Brady. We love you, too. Obscure place of inspiration, where you get stuff from?
Phoebe: I accidentally, I was a little bit stuck and I just try and pick up like random things when I’m a bit stuck and just have a read, sometimes like three sentences can just get your head out of something. And I picked up a book called Vagina by Wolf that was on the side, it was my friend’s book, and I’d seen it hanging around and I wanted to read it for ages. But I literally opened it at one chapter and I read like five sentences of it and it gave me the idea of the godmother orgasming when she paints, which then rolled into [unintelligible]. This beautiful chapter about how orgasms can connect to your creativity. And so it really helped. So I just dove straight into a vagina.
Ryan: Wow.
Craig: I’ve done that, but it hasn’t – I mean, I haven’t gotten any great work out of it. Got to be honest with you. It’s distracting frankly.
Phoebe: Uh…
Ryan: I usually – I’ll dip into music. I find anthemic synth rock, Phil Collins. I don’t know why. That will just pull me right out of whatever kind of funk I’m in. Yeah, Enya. Stuff you wouldn’t expect. Weird sort of not – unexpected kind of stuff that’s melodic and synthy and, I don’t know. For some reason it shakes me out.
John: Cool. Megana, another question.
Megana: OK, this one is for Ryan but I guess you can all speak to it. It came in from another Ryan and he says, “After being in a one-room film like Buried how did that change your relationship with locations in any given–?”
John: Yeah. Buried. I enjoyed your film Buried. So in the film Buried you are in a coffin for basically the entire film. How did it change your feeling about sets?
Ryan: Well, the funny thing about Buried was it was shot in Barcelona. It takes place in a coffin. And I was like can’t we just shoot this in my fucking living room? Why are we going to Barcelona?
I don’t know if it changed my relationship to sets but it certainly was a lesson in that, because you do think, OK, this thing is a single location, it’s a claustrophobic movie, isolationist kind of film. But actually there were 17 coffins that we shot in. Each one had a different sort of purpose. So it really did require a tremendous amount of engineering and crew and space and that sort of thing.
But, yeah, locations are – my mentality they’re kind of irrelevant. I don’t really think about it like that necessarily. But, yeah, I do remember that. That was a lot of travel for one coffin.
John: Phoebe for Fleabag did you write to specific locations? Do you know like this is the coffee shop I want to be using? Do you have places in mind as you’re writing or is that just normal location scouting after you had scripts?
Phoebe: Well, a mixture of both I think. There were one or two places I felt I would write to and I felt really connected to. Like there’s a scene in a Quaker Hall in season two and actually Andrew Scott who plays the priest in it and taken – when I was first pitching the idea to him for the show we met up in Soho and we were talking about religion and all sorts of stuff for hours. And then he at the end of it said I want to show you something. And he took me into that Quaker Hall.
And we sat and spoke in there. There was no one else in there. We weren’t breaking the rules. But then I really desperately wanted that location for the real thing, because it was gorgeous, but also it was in the center of London. This felt really good. And also it had that history between us. And we couldn’t get it. And so we got another place somewhere else. And at the last minute that one fell through and the one we loved became available. And so we got to film in there in the end. And it is really joyful I think when you find yourself in locations that you’ve written to. But it’s rare I think that everything falls into place that you can.
John: Megana, another question.
Megana: OK, awesome. So Eleanor asks, “As a writer are you ever insecure about using autobiographical elements in your work?” With a follow up from Andy who says, “When you incorporate something that’s vulnerable are you ever surprised when people praise you for that instead of judging you?”
John: Great. So incorporating autobiographical elements and sort of the vulnerability that happens with that. I mean, Ryan, you and I can speak to the movie we did, The Nines. That middle character that you play, you play three characters, the middle character is sort of me. And so one of the initial conversations we had to have was sort of like you’re free to take anything you want to take from me. My mannerisms. My whatever. And it was really great and weird to sort of see it being mirrored back. But it worked well together. So, you’re incorporating stuff from the real world.
If it’s a moment that I’m sharing with another writer I will sometimes ask like are you going to use that thing that just happened between us because I want to – I don’t want to take it if you’re going to take it. Phoebe or Ryan, do you encounter that, stuff in your real life that’s maybe becoming part of stuff you’re writing where you have to feel some protective bubble around certain things?
Phoebe: Ryan? [laughs]
Ryan: I was so excited to hear what you were going to say.
Craig: I mean, I was on the edge of my seat.
Ryan: Well, I mean, I don’t know about protective. Sometimes something – if something completely wild happens and you have some sort of expectation that we come 90 degrees to and we’re all sort of freaking out about this funny thing that just happened. And I’m amongst a group of people that may or may not be writing screenplays, I might sort of do the same thing John is doing where I might say can I use this because it’s fantastic. I think I could do it justice.
And certainly I don’t write anything autobiographical other than it’s about myself. And I did enjoy playing John with John five feet away from me every scrutinizing moment in his home lo those many years ago. But, no, I look at it more like influence. When I was younger I was in a writer’s circle online. This is about 15 years ago and there was heavyweight writers on this thing. I mean, all over the place. But you could sort of lurk as well. And I was always too nervous to jump in this circle and, you know, write stuff. But I certainly learned so much from the voices. There were so many distinctive voices in these writer’s room. And while trying never to steal from any of them, I did sort of learn about sensibilities and how they can just so be so completely polarized. So, yeah.
Craig: Phoebe, do you ever wrestle with the fact that a lot of people think you are Fleabag and Fleabag is you?
Phoebe: Yes. But it’s not so much of a wrestle. I just sort of realize that – because it’s not autobiographical but it’s really, really personal. So I think – and I think that question is beautiful about do you feel like people actually reach out a bit, they don’t judge you. They actually are so relieved when they feel that something is honest and truthful. And I think when I was writing stuff before – Fleabag was the moment where I just thought oh fuck it, I’m just going to write this. And I think when you have that feeling sometimes that’s when you kind of – I don’t know if you guys have had that – but when you just go off.
And when I first started writing the series I was writing what I thought a TV show version of Fleabag should be. And I was writing that and I was getting really angry. No one told me to write it like that. No one said it. It was just a part of my brain that said this is what people are going to want. And then I was angrily writing that and I got so angry writing it that I started writing what turned out to be the TV series as like rebelling against myself for writing the sitcom version. And I was like I hate that they’re making me do this. And I’m like this is what I’m really going to do. And then I sent that one off with a real like Fuck You to my producers. And they read it and they were like OK. And then I was like and this is what I really want to make. And they were like, “Well good, because that is so much better. Why are you wasting your time doing that?”
And so it was quite confusing at the beginning trying to write something that sounds and feels like something people would like. But then there’s always an emptiness about that. And then the moment you start writing something that feels really personal and you get a little bit nervous writing it. Or I remember in season two of Fleabag when I was writing the speech. She does the speech like two-thirds of the way through when she’s saying “I just want someone to tell me what to do.” And she just does this whole list of “I just want someone to tell me what to wear, what to eat” and it felt a little bit dangerous writing that as a central female character just going like, “Just tell me what to do.”
And I was writing it going like, oh god, I’m going to get bashed for this. How dare I say that that’s what a woman or anybody secretly wants underneath it all, let alone a kind of heroine of the story? And that was one of the speeches that people have been so responsive to. And that’s a really comforting feeling.
Craig: I think the audience is very good at detecting something that is true, as opposed to something that is designed to seem true.
Phoebe: Exactly.
Craig: And so their willingness to forgive things, because we are complicated people. There’s a subtlety there that they just got. I got it when I saw it. I just thought that, oh, this actually – I understood why it was a dangerous thing for her to be saying AKA you to be saying. And I also understood therefore that it was a different thing than you are weak and I do want to be dominated or told what to do. It was really more of this – it was an instinct we all have that is different from our – it’s complicated. I got the complexity. It worked. It worked beautifully. Well done. Good job, Phoebe.
Phoebe: Thank you. But it’s funny because when you do something like that you just don’t care how you get judged because you feel like it’s truthful. And then I was just like that is true. And I’m going to stand by that character in that moment.
Craig: It usually works.
Phoebe: Whereas when you’re being false it’s far more scary. They’re going to find out. They’re going to find out. And they always do. They always do.
Craig: Yeah.
John: It’s come time for our One Cool Things. Craig, do you want to start us off with a One Cool Thing?
Craig: Yes I do. And, look, we’ve done a great job I think of keeping this a light, lovely podcast. We’re not getting all down. But even in the best of times I have some anxiety problems. Just vague medicated anxiety problems. And so I’ve tried all sorts of the cool mediation apps and the things like that. But the thing that generally works the best for me is just good old breathing. Just simple deep breathing does miracles.
But then I start getting in my own Jewie way, I start freaking out that I’m breathing wrong which is the most Jewish thing I can think of. Like am I breathing right? Did I count enough? So I’m trying to remember this. And a couple of years ago and this just got recirculated around a guy named Nathan Pyle made some little animation, some little web animations to help you breathe rhythmically in a nice deep breathing way. And they work so beautifully. And they’re very simple. It’s just like a ball rolls down a little hill. And up the hill. And you can sort of breathe along with them. And they’re wonderful.
And for whatever reason these days I’ve felt the need to do quite a bit more of that. So, if you’re prone to anxiety and you’re prone to those moments where you’re feeling a bit jelly-legged or butterflies in the stomach or just afraid and you feel like a nice little deep breathing session would help will include a link to those because I find it a wonderful tool.
John: Excellent. Now, Craig, on a previous show you had talked about Horse Paste which is a version of Codenames that’s online. Megana and the rest of the office we were trying to play that yesterday and it was down. So instead we went – maybe it’s back up now, but instead we played Drawful 2 which is on Jackbox.tv which was actually tremendously fun.
So, it’s a thing that’s probably most designed for playing on AppleTV with people in a room together and you’re drawing on your phone. But it actually works really well over Zoom. And so you can share one person’s screen and then everybody else is drawing on their phones. And so it’s a way to have a party game when you cannot physically be together. So, Jackbox.tv. It’s a game called Drawful 2 if you’re looking for something to play with your family, no matter where your family is, or your friends.
Craig: Excellent.
John: Something out there in the world. Ryan Reynolds, do you have a One Cool Thing to share with us?
Ryan: I have one particular podcast that I’ve been going back to since Christmas. John, I think I sent it to you. It’s Anthropocene Reviewed. It’s John Green, novelist/screenwriter. He has this great podcast. It’s once a month. It’s called The Anthropocene Reviewed. I think it’s the last Thursday of every month. But there’s one particular episode that I revisited right now in these times that we’re living in, like you guys, we’re all needing to take some deep breaths. But it’s basically about Auld Lang Syne, the history of Auld Lang Syne, the song. Auld Lang Syne and where it comes from and its use, because it does actually have a use. And it’s heartbreaking. And it’s so beautiful and it’s one of the most beautiful 22 minutes of podcast I think I’ve ever heard in my life. And I think it’s really resonant for right now. So I keep going back to that.
It’s the podcast from I think this last December. John Green. The Anthropocene Reviewed. I highly, highly recommend it.
John: Yeah. I listened to that in a train in Japan on your recommendation. It really is a terrific episode.
Ryan: Yeah. Beautiful.
John: Phoebe, do you have something to recommend for us?
Phoebe: I do. It’s a TV show. So it’s not quirky, but I feel so passionate about this TV show that I just have to say. And I don’t know if it’s actually out there. I think it’s being remade. It’s a BBC show called This Country. Do you guys know of it?
Craig: This Country?
Phoebe: This Country. And it’s a brother and sister, Daisy May Cooper and Charlie Cooper wrote it together. And it’s based on their experiences growing up in the Cotswolds.
Craig: Oh, I’ve seen much of this. It’s excellent.
Phoebe: It is so good. And it gets right under your skin. And it is so funny and so witty. And it’s a kind of documentary style but their performances are so, so detailed and so extraordinary. And I was grief-stricken when it ended. And they’re not going to make another one. They’ve made three series. But I think Paul Feig is remaking it in America. But catch theirs before because it has so much heart. It is so funny. And it is a really accurate depiction I think of the Cotswolds life for teenagers.
Craig: Yeah. I don’t know if it’s watchable here unless you’re—
Phoebe: Well find a way.
Ryan: In that case just go with CSI: Miami.
Craig: It’s a similar show.
John: One or the other.
Craig: If you use a VPN and you can fake where then I think you can probably watch the BBC.
Phoebe: Maybe you can buy it on iTunes? I don’t know. Maybe there’s–
Craig: It’s possibly purchased. Obviously you’d want to ideally purchase it if you can. It’s extraordinary. And it’s one of those shows where I started to feel like I was starting to learn a little bit about Britain. I was starting to learn a little bit about people.
Phoebe: Yeah. And it’s not a side of it you see very often.
Craig: No. No it’s not. And it was fantastic.
Phoebe: What do you feel like you learned from it?
Craig: Well there is actually this fascinating connection, because now I’ve spent a bunch of time in the UK, and I’ve started to become closer to this fascinating connection between people in Britain and people in the United States. I mean, growing up I used to think that British people were, you know, quite British and quite posh and everything was wonderful. And then we were just a bunch of rooting, tooting Yosemite Sams just shooting in the air.
And as it turns out I guess there’s a huge swath of rural America that matches up quite nicely in a weird way with Northern England and some parts of Southern England. And it’s just the accents are wildly different. Wildly. But the general deal is not wildly different. And I was shocked at why I was shocked. Because it’s where everybody came from.
Phoebe: Of course. Of course. It’s the same everywhere.
Craig: It’s literally the same. And we did spend, you know, for Chernobyl we had, I don’t know, probably of our cast I think 90% was UK and of that 90% probably 50% were Northern England. And, I mean, and this isn’t to say that I didn’t love everybody from London, but the folks from Northern England are awesome, and Scotland are awesome. I mean, it was just – I had the best time. They just felt like home in a weird way. They felt American and so I love that show because there was a weird camaraderie in the clumsiness and the brokenness but beauty of our people together. I thought it was great.
Phoebe: Aw, that’s lovely.
John: That is our show. So, Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao, who I get to see. Hi, thanks Megana.
Phoebe: Thanks Megana.
John: It’s edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Craig: That’s right.
John: Special thanks this week to Nima Yousefi and Dustin Box for helping us out. Our outro is by John Spurney. If you have an outro you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send longer questions. But for short questions on Twitter Craig is @clmazin. I am @johnaugust. Phoebe, you’re not on Twitter. You’re so smart.
Craig: So smart.
Phoebe: So scared. So scared.
Craig: And then tell us what dummies thing is. What is it? @Vancity?
Ryan: @VancityReynolds.
John: Excellent.
Ryan: Ryan Reynolds was taken.
Craig: Of course. Of course.
Ryan: True story.
Craig: Yeah. [laughs]
John: You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find the transcripts. You can sign up to become a premium member at Scriptnotes.net where you get all the back episodes and bonus segments including the postmortem on this episode.
Craig: All that money. Oh, so much money coming into John.
Phoebe: Still on air. Still on air.
John: Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Ryan Reynolds. Thank you so much.
Craig: Thanks guys.
John: Thank you so much for being our very first ever video guests. This was remarkable. Thank you so, so much. Thank you to everybody who watched. I’m supposed to tell you because we’re on YouTube that you have to push that like button and subscribe.
Craig: Smash that like button. Smash it.
John: I don’t care.
Ryan: Smash button. Yeah.
John: I don’t care. Don’t subscribe if you don’t want to subscribe. But thank you both very, very much for being on the show. It really means a lot that you came on board.
Ryan Reynolds: Thank you guys.
Craig: Thanks guys. You’re the best.
Phoebe: Thanks so much.
Craig: Have a great one.
Ryan: Lovely. It was a pleasure.
John: Bye guys.
Phoebe: Bye.
[Bonus segment]
John: All right. It is 25 hours later. Craig how was that live show for you?
Craig: Well, I mean I thought it was deeply enjoyable. First of all, it worked, so thank you because you did everything. You and Megana and your crew put the whole thing together. I thought it worked kind of flawlessly, from my point of view at least, because we could see them. There were a couple of moments where there was a little bit of video lag, but honestly in today’s day and age for there to be not a ton of that is lovely. And we were able to have a great conversation. It seemed like a lot of people watched it.
John: So we had a bunch of viewers. We had simultaneously like while we were recording it the peak number of viewers was 1,315. Overall, so we’re recording this on Sunday, there were 10,559 views to the video so far.
Craig: Great.
John: So a normal episode of Scriptnotes gets about 40,000 or more people listening to it over the course of the week. So it was good to have for our first ever video thing it felt really good that we got that many people watching. And the report back from the folks who I had moderating the comments was that everyone was lovely and positive and they didn’t need to ban anybody or put anybody on time out. Everyone was great in the comments section.
Craig: [laughs] What a weird thing. That our expectation is that adults will behave like little nursery school kids and need time outs. But unfortunately that’s kind of the way the world works.
John: So I want to talk a little bit about the technical side of this for folks who might want to try to do something like this at home. The four of us and our guests were speaking in Zoom. And so Zoom is a privacy and security for nightmare for a lot of reasons, but it also works really well. And so the fact that Phoebe was all the way in London and our latency was not bad at all that’s credit to Zoom. So despite all the scary things you read about Zoom are probably true, but they actually do work really well.
So we were all talking in Zoom and then if you use the Zoom webinar feature which is about $40 a month you can pipe that through to YouTube Live. And so that was my choice to not have our normal viewers watching us in Zoom which was possible. I pushed it all to YouTube Live just because that way no one can Zoom bomb us because we were safely behind a wall. That was the instinct behind that.
It went OK. I would say that Megana and I and you actually at one point were in little test screens where we were seeing to make sure that it all worked right and every time we did that it started a new YouTube Live session. And so people would join us and then finally when we actually got the real thing going it could happen.
But I wanted there to be an ability to sort of pause the YouTube streaming so that we could actually talk to Ryan and Phoebe before we went on camera and there really wasn’t a good way to do that.
Craig: Well, it still worked.
John: It worked.
Craig: And I thought you did a great job.
John: Aw, thank you. Thank you. And I thought it was a good conversation and they were just lovely, smart people. They had never met before and they felt like, you know, they should have met.
Craig: Yeah, I mean, I can’t be the only who was just watching them and listening to them talk and thinking, yeah, I could see these two guys in a movie doing something together.
John: 100%.
Craig: Yeah. It feels like a decent team up.
John: I don’t remember if Ryan was texting me this or tweeting me, but back when he had watched Fleabag he was like, “Oh my god, I hope she will put me into a movie or a TV show at some point.” He was so impressed by her way back when in the day. And she’s just great. It was lovely to have them together.
I don’t think Scriptnotes is overall going to pivot to video. I don’t think we’re going to be a regular television show.
Craig: Oh good.
John: But how are you feeling about doing more of these?
Craig: I’m fine with it. I mean, I don’t get nervous about any of this stuff. I don’t mind it. As long as there’s no expectation of people getting all dressed up and things. But there seems to be a fairly robust environment of podcasts that are now also video casts where it’s like there’s a camera stuck in a recording booth so you’re looking at a guy talking into a microphone.
Personally, look, I find the whole thing bizarre in the sense that any – I’m excited that people listen to our podcast. As you know, I’m endlessly amused and shocked that anyone listens at all. And then the thought that people would watch something also seems kind of crazy. If they want to, I guess. Yeah.
Look, I’m a bigger fan of our actual live shows because there are people there and you can feel a room and warmth and an audience. It’s a very experience. So I’m on the ends of the spectrum. I like a nice quiet just you and me. We’re out on our couples date alone. No one can bother us. Or, we’re at a big party.
John: Yeah. I will say that when you and I are just recording the show by ourselves there will be times where we’ll get into tangents or we’ll get on a thing. It’s like, you know what, let’s cut all of that out and pretend we never had that conversation. And in a live show or live stream we really can’t do that. I was mindful that I had to watch myself a little bit more because everyone was listening to us live as it was happening. So there’s something comforting about when it’s just us on tape because you and I both have the ability to cut anything out.
Craig: Right. Yeah. I mean, I’m so generally oblivious. I mean, it’s a rare thing for me to go, oh god, why did I? Oh no, I shouldn’t have said that. And I do every now and again and I say, “Hey John, can we cut that out?” But every now and then it would occur to me that we were live, but you know the nice thing is when you’re doing this with two very accomplished actors they’re so calm, even if they tell you later that they were not calm at all, but at least in the moment they appear so calm that you can’t help but mirror their general demeanor.
John: Now we may want to talk about this in the real episode that we’ll record for this next week, but we’re recording this on Sunday where all of Twitter is abuzz about the New York Times Maldives story. So we should maybe have a quick moment because this was actually part of my morning was this conversation about like, oh, is this going to be a movie? And of course it’s going to be a movie.
Craig: Oh yeah. I mean, writes itself basically. Actually the problem is it’s so obviously a movie that you almost don’t even want to see it because you’ve seen it. Like I’ve seen it in my head. But then again, if somebody does a really good version of a great formula picture then it can be wonderful. I mean, I’ve already put my own little spin on it which is that a couple gets married. It’s not like an arranged marriage or anything, but there was pressure from everybody because they were perfect for each other and they kind of bought into it and they got married. And they both realized individually and separately like minutes after they said “I do” that this was a huge mistake. But the honeymoon is already booked and so they decide I’m going to tell my partner on the honeymoon that this was a mistake and it has to end. And they’re both thinking it. And then they get there and then they both say it to each other and they’re both hurt. And then seconds later they’re told they cannot leave.
John: Absolutely. So that’s easy good approach. I’m not dying to see that movie honestly.
Craig: I don’t want to see any of them. [laughs]
John: I was texting with Ryan this morning about this saying like, hey, this could be a movie. And he was like, yeah, my executive assistant just sent this to me. And he’s like do you want to do it, we could do it together. And I’m like give me a second for my morning coffee to wear off and then I’ll get back to you. And I ultimately – I “passed” on it, not that it was ever offered to me, but to me it was like there are – I can think of 20 writers who could do a great version of this story, or at least could do this movie. And if 20 other writers could do this and do a bang up job on it like there’s no reason for me to be chasing this movie.
What I do think is interesting about a possibility for this is in some ways it feels like a play. Because it is contained.
Craig: Mm-hmm.
John: It’s within a single space. Except that it’s the Maldives so you don’t want it on a stage. You actually want it beautiful shot everywhere. You want it to feel like you’re on location or some sort of Lucas Film Mandalorian where you create the Maldives through the magic of video screens. So, it wants to be a movie just because it’s going to be gorgeous and beautiful, but it is essentially a chamber drama or chamber comedy between these people.
Something that people have been bringing up on Twitter which I think is a good point is that it can feel like Beauty and the Beast where everyone else who works at that resort are kind of like–
Craig: Oh yeah.
John: These animated things. And that is potentially really problematic.
Craig: Hugely.
John: To not have their perspective on what’s actually going on there.
Craig: Hugely.
John: I think the opportunity would be to do sort of a Wes Anderson kind of thing. They’re trying to keep this couple here because they actually – as long as this couple is here they don’t have to go through quarantine. There’s like a whole process. So they’ll do whatever they can to sort of keep this couple together.
Craig: I like that. That’s fun. So, then it’s really like the company said, OK, well, we’re going to fire you as soon as the last guest is removed. But if there is a single guest there, of course, you have to stay because that’s our policy. And so they cannot let those – and those people really want to leave but they can’t let them leave. The problem is then the quarantine aspect gets a little mushy.
John: It does. So, there’s problems. I think the other opportunity in terms of that central couple is that the way you can chart an entire marriage in this very hot box environment is potentially great. All the progress when you can’t actually leave this person sort of what happens. It can be a microcosm of a marriage within this small period of time.
But someone else can write it. I’m not going to write it.
Craig: I agree. And sometimes I think when everybody looks at something and goes, oh my god, that is so a movie. What they’re really saying is oh my god that reminds me of a lot of movies I’ve seen.
John: Yep.
Craig: What was the movie that Dana Fox worked on? Couples Retreat.
John: Couples Retreat. Yeah. The one where she’s in a resort in the Maldives and she’s just crying and trying to figure out a way to print pages.
Craig: It was actually Bora Bora in French Polynesia. And that’s a movie is Dana Fox writing that movie in Bora Bora. But that movie is very much couples in paradise except that it’s contrasted with the trouble inside their relationship and all that. So, you know, makes sense. Yeah, I can see – there’s all sorts of–
John: Couples Retreat meets Contagion is basically the pitch on that.
Craig: Right. Exactly. And this is almost now we’re starting to put our finger on what the problem with Hollywood is is that that requires zero effort. So there’s an entire merchant class of producers who do nothing but sort of just go, neh, heh, and then someone else goes, meh, and then they have to go find writers. It’s like it’s not necessarily a thing. It’s just because it sounds like stuff you’ve already seen. But that’s kind of a blemish isn’t it?
John: Yeah.
Craig: I mean, isn’t that partly why you just don’t want to do it? Because it just feels like what new thing can you say with that kind of high concept? Yeah.
John: There’s a couple projects that I’m writing right now and what I will say about them is that they are things for which I am incredibly passionate about doing and I feel like, yeah, I’m the right person to do it. So that’s why ultimately I was like you know what let one of the other 20 writers who would be great at this pursue this project and I’m going to try to chase less in this next decade.
Craig: Yeah. I don’t know what I’m perfect for.
John: You’re perfect for The Last of Us.
Craig: You know what? I do love it. I love it. God, I love it. And weirdly also a pandemic just happened.
John: Yeah.
Craig: That is the strangest of things. Yeah.
John: Craig, one last question for you. What is happening in Russia and are they just completely concealing the actual numbers? Is it actually just horrible there and we’re just not hearing about it?
Craig: Well, you won’t until you will. But certainly in the initial days of sort of Russian reporting on COVID if you looked at the maps of the world and you start to see where the cases were every now and then on the map there would be this little white spot on their color chart. And that indicated there was no COVID there whatsoever. And Russia was this enormous white spot. See, there was no COVID there according to them. In fact, there was. Of course there was.
What was happening was they were simply failing to classify it. Not failing, deciding, determining under pressure to not classify pneumonia cases as COVID. That is akin to just sort of saying, oh yeah, there’s been a lot of pneumonia, like weird cystic pneumonia and it’s not because of AIDS. It’s just pneumonia. But it is because of AIDS. Because we know that. So, that’s what they were doing.
And then they’ve stopped because it got out of control. So there is sort of – suddenly Putin starts doing things. I think because he started to realize how bad this could be.
It is remarkable that the same delusion has landed on the doorstep of very similarly minded political people. And it’s not about – I wouldn’t say that it’s about being strong men per se. But there is this group of political leaders that are men who feel like they don’t need to take no guff from the experts. And that it’s the damned expert elites who are ruining everything and just good old fashioned common sense like back in the old days, John Wayne types, you know?
John: Yeah.
Craig: So Trump, Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson, and of course the uber Vlad Putin, all of them have the same responses which is, oh, boloney. I’m not crying over some flu. That’s what the French do. Well, the French didn’t really do it well enough either. Well, now they’re crying. So he’s finally now, or at least over the last two days, he started to shut down Russian businesses and places where people can gather and so on and so forth.
They are not in good shape. They’re in bad shape. This is not an economically healthy country. Their “democracy” is incredibly fragile. They have had a number of political convulsions that Putin has successfully knocked back. But it’s things like these that cause real problems.
I don’t know how bad it’s going to get over there. Obviously I never wish ill will on anyone. Certainly no one wants to see a bad leader suffer by his citizens dying. But I do suspect that it’s going to be quite bad over there.
John: Well, it strikes me that looking back to the Chernobyl age, you know, at least then there was a central planning sort of authority. It felt like they bungled, they lied, they did bad stuff, but they actually could sort of muster their forces and do massive things. I don’t know that Russia today can do that. So, that is the challenge. You have all the problems with none of the actual solutions.
Craig: Well, there was a strange kind of spirit in the Soviet Union. They were obviously more than happy to deny reality and to make decisions that cost lives and to lie to the rest of the world. But once they understood the enormity of something they were capable of reaching back into this interesting collective Soviet spirit of fighting. So World War II the Soviets I think something like 40 million–
John: The meat grinder of, yes.
Craig: Yeah. I mean, 40 million casualties, military and civilian combined from World War II. That’s a five-year, six-year stretch. That’s insane. We don’t understand what that means here. We have no sense of it. They do. And that was after World War I and the Revolution. So, they have a certain kind of spirit.
Over here what we’ve done is fragmented ourselves into 50 fiefdoms. We have a central leader that doesn’t lead. And our John Wayne go-it-on-your-own spirit is currently being tested in the sorest way by a little clump of RNA surrounded by a lipid layer.
John: Yeah. It is not a great time.
Craig: No.
John: No. But to bring us back to a happier note, thinking back, the postmortem on our show, and the possibility of a Maldives movie, I do think Ryan Reynolds and Phoebe Waller-Bridge writing and starring in that couples movie could be ideal. I could picture them together. They are beautiful. They are funny. That is the movie we need right now.
Craig: Yeah. I mean, I’ll watch anything with those two. I think that would be awesome.
John: Craig will watch a livestream of a podcast with them in it. That’s how much he enjoys the two of them.
Craig: I watched it as we were doing it. First of all, you’ve been friends with Ryan forever. And that was my first time meeting him. And he really, like I said on the show, his reputation is just sterling. I mean, it’s a rare thing when you hear somebody just say, oh yeah. And it’s not that every Canadian has that reputation, by the way. Don’t get fooled. There are some bad Canadians out there. Not many. There are some.
But he’s just terrific.
John: So I’ll put this in the real follow up show notes, but for folks who might be curious about it Ryan texted me afterwards to say that he kept meaning to talk about the original fourth wall-breaking movie. It was Mary MacLane’s 1918 silent film Men Who Have Made Love to Me. And so if you look up the Wikipedia entry it’s actually fascinating. So it’s a lost film. There’s no prints of it left. So there’s only reports about what actually happens in the film. But it is a silent film where the writer-director star, this woman who actually kind of looks a lot like Phoebe Waller-Bridge, does turn to camera and speak directly to camera and acknowledge sort of what’s happening.
So that was sort of the first – apparently the first time in cinematic history where that fourth wall was broken.
Craig: Men Who Have Made Love to Me.
John: Yeah.
Craig: So she would turn to the camera and then–
John: And then title card.
Craig: Title card.
John: So, I mean, she’s a pioneer.
Craig: I love it. I love it. Well, I mean, first of all like what a cool proto feminist thing that in 1918–
John: What a great title.
Craig: Yeah. She’s like I’ve had sex. [laughs] I like it.
John: All right. Craig, thank you for a fun show and we’ll do one of these again sometime.
Craig: Awesome John. Thanks.
John: Bye.
Links:
- Watch the episode here – Scriptnotes Live: Episode 445
- Deadpool and Deadpool 2
- Fleabag and the play to release soon!
- Huge thank you to Phoebe Waller Bridge and Ryan Reynolds!
- Breathing Cartoons by Nathan Pyle
- Anthropocene Reviewed: Auld Lang Syne
- This Country, now on Hulu in the US
- Free Guy
- Drawful on Jackbox Games
- Bonus How Would This Be A Movie, Couple Stranded in Maldives
- Men Who Have Made Love to Me
- Sign up for Scriptnotes Premium here.
- John August on Twitter
- Craig Mazin on Twitter
- John on Instagram
- Outro by Jon Spurney (send us yours!)
- Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode here.