The original post for this episode can be found here!
John August: Hey, this is John. Today’s episode was recorded late at night in front of a live studio audience, so unsurprisingly, it has some salty language. Listener be warned. Also, for Premium members, stick around after the end, because we have an audience Q and A that’s actually really good and makes Craig a little uncomfortable. Enjoy.
Hello and welcome. My name is John August.
Craig Mazin: My name is Craig Mazin.
John: This is Scriptnotes. It’s a podcast about what?
Audience: Screenwriting.
John: And?
Audience: Things that are interesting to screenwriters.
John: Wow, so good. So impressive. 581 episodes. They’re so well trained.
Craig: I’m so hurt by what just happened.
John: I want to thank Heidi Lauren Duke for singing our intro. Thank you, Heidi.
Craig: Thanks.
John: We are here at the Austin Film Festival, which we’ve been to many, many times. It’s been a minute since we’ve been at the Austin Film Festival.
Craig: It’s been three, four, five years.
John: Something happened, but now we’re back.
Craig: There was a little bit of trouble.
John: It’s exciting to be back here. Craig, this afternoon we were planning the show. One of the plans was we would get together for dinner. I did not join the dinner. I want to know, how was your dinner?
Craig: There was drinking. I have a vague sense of what will happen tonight, as I often do. It was a lovely dinner, actually. I’m not saying that it was lovely because you weren’t there. I’m simply saying it was lovely despite the fact that you were not there.
John: Also, live shows tend to be a bit loose and a little bit messy. The live show we did in Los Angeles, it was on a schedule there.
Craig: I know. I don’t like that. I like a nice, drunken, stupid, disorganized mess.
John: Originally, I had planned to be at this dinner, but then I had to do a pitch on a Friday evening for 90 minutes on Zoom.
Craig: That’s ridiculous.
John: Not the ideal time to pitch a movie, so I don’t know how it went. Either it’s going to be announced and deadline at some point or it will never happen. We’ll see what happens there.
Craig: Hollywood.
John: Hollywood.
Craig: Hollywood.
John: We’re not in Hollywood. We’re in Austin, Texas.
Craig: I’m so glad to be back, honestly. Thank you guys for showing up, honestly. It does mean a lot. Thank you. I don’t know if you’ve ever done a live show in this room.
John: I don’t think so. We’re usually at the other-
Craig: At the other place (mumbles under breath).
John: For some reason, we’re not at the other place this time.
Craig: I don’t know what happened there.
John: There’s lots of speculation about things that happened.
Craig: There was speculation.
John: I don’t know.
Craig: Perhaps the ghosts.
John: The ghosts finally got-
Craig: The ghosts got the upper hand.
John: We’re here in a big venue full of people, which is really exciting.
Craig: Thank you.
John: It’s 10 p.m. on a Friday night, which feels like the ideal time to talk about really serious issues that are facing screenwriters, television writers, the industry. Over the next three hours, we’re going to dig really deep into some of the fundamental issues afflicting the film and television industry. I think we’re all ready for this. Did we all stretch? We’re good for this.
Craig: I don’t really know what’s going to happen. I know you said earlier we were preparing, but really he prepared, and I was there near him.
John: Classically, we are on the floor of the hotel, which is the best place to plan for these.
Craig: He was telling me what I’m going to do.
John: Thank God we’re in a venue where we can just grab people and say, “Oh hey, do you want to be on this show?” We’ve got amazing guests for you.
Craig: We do.
John: Why don’t we just start with our guests?
Craig: Should we start bringing some guests on?
John: I think we should bring two guests on.
Craig: I don’t know if there’s any reason to delay other than to say… I will say that as the night goes on, at some point, and hopefully not too late in, we will have lots of Q and A. I love Q and A, and I’ll tell you why, guys. It’s not because I care about your questions. I don’t. It’s because I don’t have to prepare anything for it at all. I can just react. If I had my way, that shit would start right now, but because I don’t, I will do what he tells me to do. We have four guests tonight.
John: Four guests.
Craig: We’re going to start with two, Chuck Hayward and Brenda Hsueh. Chuck Hayward writes on or has written on Ted Lasso and WandaVision. Brenda Hsueh has written on a whole bunch of stuff, but the thing that I’m most excited about is the Ghostbuster movie, because I’m super excited about the animated Ghostbusters movie. Come on up, guys.
John: Obviously, we can talk about features, but I really want to talk about television with the two of you. I would love to get to know how you got started getting staffed for your first television show. Chuck, can you talk us through what were the scripts you wrote that got you staffed?
Chuck Hayward: I was an assistant for about nine years in Hollywood. I was doing a lot of coffee acquisitions and excrement consumption. After doing a whole lot of that for nine years, I was like, “All right.” I started sending my scripts around to people, agents’ assistants, managers’ assistants, and, “Hey, if you like this, kick it up to your boss.” Somebody did eventually. Then I got repped. Then the reps started sending me on meetings. I had no fucking clue what I was doing.
John: Chuck, before we get to that, talk to us about the scripts that you actually first approached people saying, “Hey, would you be willing to read this?” because that’s where I think a lot of people in this room are at is like, is this script right for people to actually read and think about you?
Chuck: I’ll tell you where I screwed up. I started writing scripts that were like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if X happened or Y happened or whatever?” My manager told me, “You should write something that’s very personal, write something that shows people, ‘Hey, here’s my view on the world. Here’s what my experiences have been, my perspective is, my humor is,'” because people originally, they were like, “Hey, we like you, but we don’t really know you from the script.” They say write what you know, but just really make sure you put a lot of yourself on the page. After I did that, that’s when I started actually getting hired for jobs.
John: Brenda, any similarities in your experience? What were the first things that you wrote that got attention?
Brenda Hsueh: I think for me, I was an Asian immigrant, and I was like, “Oh, that’s not a real job. Writing is not a real job.”
Craig: You’re right. It’s not.
Brenda: Like, “That’s not a thing.” I was sensible, and I was an English major. I wrote about Jane Austen and stuff. Then I was like, “I’ll be in television news producing or something like that.” My mom got sick, and then I had to take care of her. She was in LA. I was like, “Okay, I’m going to move out to LA to take care of my mom.” I was like, “Oh, I’m super derailed. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know why I would come out here. All my friends are in New York City. My job’s in New York City.”
Then in LA, when I was taking care of my mom, she’s a frugal Asian, and she was like, “Oh, you can’t just take care of me. You have to work and make money.” I was like, “Oh, okay.” I was tutoring overachieving Asian kids in SAT tutoring and anything I could bluff my way through. It was a lot of me going ahead in the book and being like, “What’s dew point?”
I met somebody at the alumni function that was a Seinfeld writer. Then I was like, “Oh, okay.” I was like, “Oh, this is a job. People can make money on this? This is interesting.” Then he was like, “Why don’t you try writing a spec?” Then honestly, I was so lazy, I was like, “Okay, writing. What’s the shortest one?” I was like, “Oh, half hour.” I was like, “Okay, I’ll do a half hour.” Because I was lazy, I’m like, “Oh yeah, that’s the one to do.” Then I was like, “Oh wait, actually that’s the hardest one to do,” because you have stakes and story and character but be funny and do it all efficiently in 22 minutes.
I got tricked into doing half hour. Then I was doing that in my bubble, taking care of my mom. Then I was like, “I don’t know how to get a PA job. I don’t know how to get a writer’s assistant job. I don’t know how to do any of that. I don’t know anybody.”
Craig: I am so amazed to see how this works out. It seems like you’re doomed for failure.
Brenda: For sure. I was like, “Don’t know anybody.” I was a sensible Asian, and I was like, “Okay, I’m going to give myself two to three years to break in.”
Craig: Tip: be a sensible Asian. Go on.
Brenda: I was like, “I’m giving myself two to three years like grad school.” I was like, “I don’t have to pay tuition.” I was like, “Okay, I just have to support myself, try to get better at this.” I basically just read every example of good writing of what I wanted to do, on the internet, guys. Then I was like, “Okay, I’m going to enter a contest,” because that’s what you did.
John: Oh, Craig, you love contests.
Craig: We’re about to hear about the contest that matters. Go on.
Brenda: I was like, “Okay, so since I have no connections, I’m going to enter a meritocracy,” which is a contest.
John: Oh, you think contests are meritocracies?
Brenda: Kind of, because they don’t know anything about-
John: Wow, let’s have a good, long-
Brenda: They don’t know anything about you!
John: Sorry. Tell us.
Brenda: I also am an Asian. I wanted to get paid. There was many contests, but there was only one that paid.
Craig: You know the rest of us want to get paid too? You know that, right?
John: [inaudible 00:09:56] that is. Tell us, tell us, tell us.
Craig: All the people want to get paid.
Brenda: There was an ABC Disney writing fellowship that was the only one that paid. I was like, “I’m going to apply to that one.” I was like, “Okay, if I get it, I get it. If I don’t, I don’t. I’ll do something else.” I was like, “All right, we’ll see.” I literally was like, “We’ll see.” Then I got it. Then I got a job on that. Then I got an agent off of that. I circumvented the whole-
Chuck: How dare you?
Brenda: I know.
Craig: Both of you, regardless of your arc-
Brenda: Very different.
Craig: Everybody has a different path in, but both of you arrive on your first day. I want to hear what that was like, when you’re no longer doing excrement consumption, you’re no longer just taking care of your mom. You’re not taking care of your mom and doing a job, because your mom is apparently a tyrant.
Brenda: She’s just an Asian mom.
Craig: I have a Jewish mom. It’s-
Brenda: Similar.
Craig: It’s bad, so I know. What was that first day like, when you’re like, “Okay, I made it.” Did you feel like you made it? How did that go?
Brenda: It’s hilarious. When I got the fellowship, there was one show that was like, “We will take a writer.” There was three of us that were interviewing for this show. I didn’t realize in comedy when you go on an interview, you are basically going on a high-stakes date. You just be charming and lovely and funny and a raconteur but not seem nervous. I was such a nerd that I was like, “Oh, how do I prepare for this?” I literally wrote up potential questions and answers for this interview, which would’ve been fine.
Craig: Sounds awesome.
Brenda: I did that. I typed them out, and I printed them out. I had it on a piece of paper. I was in the office, waiting to be called in. I was just reviewing it like a nerd. I was like, “Okay.” This would’ve been fine. Then I get called in. We go for the meeting. I forget to put the piece of paper away. I fold it up. I’m holding it in my hand.
It’s going great. The interview’s going great. For 10 minutes, I’m charming their socks off. Then the showrunner’s like, “What’s in your hand?” I could’ve lied and just been like, “My shopping list.” I’m so honest, and I can’t lie, so I was like, “Oh, it’s the potential questions I thought you would ask and the answers that I would give you.”
John: If I’m the showrunner, I’m delighted by that, by the way.
Brenda: He’s like, “What are they?”
Craig: Did you share?
Brenda: Yes, I had no choice. Literally, they said the question. They were like, “Why do you think you got into writing?” One of the answers is because I had no friends growing up and because I’m a nerd.
Craig: Oh my god. “I’m repellent.”
Chuck: Be a friendless, frugal, nerdy Asian, and that is how you get-
Brenda: You’re getting the picture.
Craig: It’s easy.
Brenda: My older sister and I were best friends, because we had no other friends. We had a world called Dolly Land, where we had stuffed animals, and we would just create a whole world with our stuffed animals.
Craig: That’s terrifying.
Brenda: It’s not terrifying. It’s delightful.
Craig: It’s terrifying.
John: It is a Pixar movie.
Brenda: It’s Toy Story. It’s Toy Story.
Craig: Or a Blumhouse movie.
Brenda: My sister and I would make up stories and narratives and characters with our stuffed animals. I remember she would be the mayor. She was older. She was like, “I’m the mayor.” She’s like, “You are the vice mayor.”
Craig: The vice mayor.
Brenda: Even at seven, I was like, “That’s a fucking made-up-“
Craig: You knew that was bullshit.
Brenda: I was like, “That is not a real office.” I was like, “That’s made up.”
Craig: That’s fucked up. Your sister’s awful.
Brenda: It was a lot of us playing stories and making up stories all the time with our stuffed animals. I was like, “Oh, that’s where I got this.” I was like, “Oh, we were just acting out stories with our stuff all the time.” I had to tell the story.
Craig: It worked.
John: It worked.
Brenda: It worked.
Craig: It worked.
John: You got the job.
Brenda: I got the job.
John: Chuck, what was your interview for your job that got you staffed?
Craig: Tell me please that it was the exact same thing.
John: Were there stuffed animals?
Chuck: My sister and I, we had dolls, but they were Transformers. It’s boring. My agent set me up with a bunch of showrunner meetings. The first seven or eight of them were like, “Go fuck yourself.” I was sending out this script that was basically about a non-stereotypical gay man who was a chronic masturbator who couldn’t get his life together, so semi-autobiographical. I’m like, “I’ll just go in there and I’ll be myself and we’ll toss it back and forth. We’ll go at it.”
Then I meet with Tad Quill, who I adore, who is one of the WASPiest men in the history of WASPing. Whatever I was saying, he would like, “That’s good. That’s funny. That’s funny.” About 30 minutes later, I was like, “Okay, I am not getting this job, so I’m going to get out of here.” Then I got the job.
John: Yay!
Chuck: Turns out, just be yourself and don’t worry about your audience. You might get a cold room, but they end up liking you sometimes.
Craig: I love both of these stories, because as you’re going through this, one no after another, it’s very tempting to just look at it as a part of a pattern that will continue on forever. Then one day you get the yes. You didn’t change. You didn’t change. They did.
Chuck: The nos are great, because then you build your revenge list. I know that at some point down the road, I will take all those people down, and it’ll be fun.
Craig: That’s the only thing that gets me up in the morning is anger, honestly, just anger.
Chuck: Listen, revenge, it’s a dish best served cold.
John: My question for the two of you is… You had studied this job a little bit. You wanted to be writing in TV rooms. What were the biggest things that you guessed wrong about what the job would be like? What were your misconceptions going into that room about what you should do or how it would be? What were the things that surprised you about it?
Brenda: I don’t know if it was a surprise, but I think it was hard for me as a writer, because when I was writing alone, I was like, “Oh, I hear the joke, and I can just write it on a piece of paper.” The thing that you have to do well in a room is pitch. I’m like, “Oh, you have to sell it.” It’s not the same skillset. It’s one thing to pitch an idea and not get a reaction. It’s another thing to pitch a joke and it not-
John: Give us an example.
Craig: Give us an example of your failure.
John: Your first show is How I Met Your Mother?
Brenda: Yes, that was my first show.
John: Great. What is a joke in that? Is it already within the scene, what the next punchline is going to be, or what are you trying to sell?
Brenda: It’s all very character-driven and premise-driven. What I would do is, I would sit near the showrunner and just pitch quietly, but they could hear it. It was the way that I would slowly gain confidence in my pitching. What did you do? Did you have any issues with that?
Chuck: No, I just pitched terrible jokes. I called myself the cricket-maker, because I’d say the-
Brenda: Just embrace it.
Chuck: … funniest fucking thing I could think of it. Then it was like, “All right, I’ll stop doing that.”
Craig: The cricket-maker. That’s funny.
Brenda: You’re like, “That’s a good name.”
Chuck: Unfortunately, that’s where my comedy lay was in my own failure.
Craig: Your lack of ability is hysterical.
Chuck: Exactly. I chose the wrong career. The biggest surprise was I thought you just go in there, and you come up with stuff off the top of your head. You come up with stuff that you feel like is topical or that works in your showrunner’s voice or whatever. A lot of it is sharing yourself. A lot of the times, the likelihood of your pitch getting taken is increased if you say, “Hey, this happened to me. Here’s a story that I went through.” By the way, it can be the darkest, most fucked up, most terrible story ever, and then you can be like, “I felt like our character might be able to do something like this.” I’ll give you an example if you don’t mind.
Craig: Please.
Chuck: On that show Bent, which was my first show, there was Amanda Peet and David Walton. They were dating. We needed a reason why Amanda Peet really wanted to have sex right away. Nobody could come up with a reason. I was like, “Hey, I don’t know if this helps, but I had sex a couple of months ago because if I had waited another month, it would’ve been a two-year dry spell since I had had sex the last time. Maybe that’s her thing. She needs to not hit that awful deadline.” My showrunner goes, “I like it. I like it.” Tad goes, “Let’s make it one year though so it doesn’t sound so pathetic.”
John: He plus-oned it, yeah.
Chuck: That’s what I always say the best part about being a writer is, is the worst thing that happens in your day, in your life, in your world, you get to make money off of it.
John: What I hear both of you saying, which is a truism that we’ve heard throughout 581 episodes of doing Scriptnotes, is that by being your authentic selves, you were cast in that role of the writer of that show, but also you could pitch things that you were the only person in that room who could pitch. You could be very specific that you’re not trying to write for somebody else or some mythical audience or some mythical showrunner. You were writing what you could do.
Brenda: It’s funny, because I’ve been in this business long enough where I think being Asian was a liability in the beginning, but it’s awesome now, which is great. I’m glad we’re on the other side. In the beginning, I wanted to write about my dad and how he’s a real stoic Asian dad that’s repressed and taught me to be a repressed Asian man. Basically, I was like, “That’s hilarious.” I was like, “I can’t really write about an Asian dad. That’s crazy.” I’m like, “What’s a white comp for that?” I was like, “Oh, a CIA dad, a crazy CIA repressed white guy.” I had to make a show about that. I was like, “That’s palatable. That I can cast. That is what a thing is.” That was early on. Now I’m like, “Oh, he could just be an Asian dad. That’s great. I can do that,” which is progress, which has been amazing.
Craig: It is progress.
John: That’s nice.
Craig: Now you can humiliate your father on television or in movies.
Brenda: Now I can just be blatantly about it.
Craig: That’s awesome.
Brenda: I don’t have to hide it.
John: Cool. Chuck and Brenda, stick around, because we’re going to keep you up on stage. You’re not going anywhere. We’re going to play an audience game, because we have a big audience. We want to play an audience game. I asked earlier today who would be willing to be a contestant on this game. I texted with Kelly McAllister. Kelly McAllister, are you here? Kelly McAllister!
Craig: Yay.
John: Can you go to that microphone? Craig, you remember our last time here in Austin.
Craig: Yes, I do.
John: It was really fun.
Craig: It was.
John: Then we got a call afterwards.
Craig: Little bit.
John: We had a little bit of a moment.
Craig: We got in a little bit of trouble, because the last time we were here, we did a live show.
John: In the other place where we can’t talk about anymore.
Craig: I happened to be somewhat friendly with Mr. Beto O’Rourke, and he appeared on screen and encouraged everybody to vote, because around this time, obviously, elections are coming up. He encouraged everybody to vote. It was a message about voting. I guess that was maybe too political, and their rules-
John: Their rules. Basically, the Austin Film Festival is a-
Craig: No politics.
John: … nonprofit organization. It shouldn’t have a political agenda. We get that.
Craig: We get it.
John: I had a long, uncomfortable phone call.
Craig: We don’t. I’m going to be honest.
John: I had a long, uncomfortable phone call, because I did this.
Craig: We don’t get it.
John: Tonight, no political content at all. We’re just going to have fun.
Craig: We’re only going to deal with facts.
John: Facts and fun. Facts and fun.
Craig: Facts.
John: That’s the Scriptnotes way.
Craig: Facts and fun.
John: We want to do some movie trivia. In the spirit of spooky season, we’re going to give you, Kelly, some log lines to some scary movies, and you need to tell us the film.
Craig: That’s easy.
John: That’s simple, right?
Craig: Right.
John: Easy, right?
Craig: Easy. Since horror films, as you know, are often commentaries on modern issues, we’re also going to ask you a second question. Please do not answer the first question until you hear the second question, because it’s important. The first question, we’ll give you a log line. You have to name the movie. The second question will be a related question about current events.
John: Current events.
Craig: Current events.
John: Facts. No political content, just facts.
Craig: Nothing political, just facts.
John: Kelly, it is possible for you to score two points-
Craig: Two points.
John: … if you get both of them right.
Craig: Two.
John: Again, it’s just a game.
Craig: Just a game.
Kelly McAllister: I answer both after you say both things?
Craig: Yes, wait until you have heard both questions. Then you may buzz in. We don’t have a buzzer.
John: No, there’s no buzzer. Kelly, are you ready to play Nothing is Scary When Everything is Terrifying?
Craig: Is Kelly playing through all these questions?
John: Yeah, it’s just you and Kelly.
Craig: He’s just doing all of them?
John: Yeah.
Craig: It’s just Kelly?
John: Yeah. Originally, we were going to have two contestants, but now it’s just Kelly. It’s all Kelly.
Craig: It’s just you.
John: Question number one. In this 1974 classic, five friends head to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way, they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover a psychopath armed with a chainsaw.
Craig: Wait. Second question. However, Texans are much more likely to be killed by assault weapons. Yet according to this Texas governor, raising the age to purchase these weapons would be considered unconstitutional. For two points, can you name the movie and the governor?
Kelly: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Greg Leatherface Abbott.
Craig: That’s two points. Two points.
John: Two points. Two points.
Craig: Hold on. Come on.
John: We got [crosstalk 00:23:58] questions here.
Craig: We got a long way to go. You don’t want to-
John: Matthew can’t cut it down this much.
Craig: Kelly at this point is just like… It was the best moment of his life. We have so much to do. Let’s build it for him, okay? Are you ready for question number two?
Kelly: I am.
Craig: In this 1994 sequel, an evil leprechaun selects the descendant of one of his slaves to become his bride, leaving it up to the girl’s boyfriend to save her.
John: However, if they lived in this state, that boyfriend could be sued under state law by any citizen he assisted in getting her health care, such as terminating the resulting pregnancy. Leprechauns are not real, but women’s health is. For two points, can you name the movie and the state we’re talking about?
Craig: Trickier.
Kelly: That is, because I don’t want to instate the fine state of Texas.
Craig: The state, that’s right.
Kelly: Leprechaun 2.
Craig: Yes!
John: Leprechaun 2.
Craig: You get another two points.
John: Kelly, perfect score. Let’s keep going. Hush, everyone. Shh.
Craig: Easy, guys.
John: In this 2019 hit, a family’s serene beach vacation turns to chaos when their doppelgangers appear and begin to terrorize them.
Craig: Meanwhile, in 2022, Texas families with trans and nonconforming kids have their lives upended when this governor, so it’s going to be the same answer, instructed the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate medical treatments of transgender adolescents, such as puberty blockers and hormone injections, as quote unquote, “child abuse.” The policy is currently blocked, by the way. For two points, can you name the movie and the same governor from before?
Kelly: That would be Us and Greg Abbott.
Craig: There we go. He’s on fire, guys. Right about now, the people that did mention to us that we should be less political are having serious regrets.
John: Craig, we’re only saying facts.
Craig: That’s true.
John: We’re not telling anyone to do anything.
Craig: He’s right. It’s facts.
John: There’s no endorsement of any-
Craig: We may agree with what he’s done.
John: A hundred percent. Ask another question.
Craig: In this 2007 sequel, three American college students studying abroad are lured to a Slovakian hostel and discover the grim reality behind it.
John: In September of this year, Venezuelan asylum seekers in Texas were lured by a mysterious woman named Perla and flown to Martha’s Vineyard, part of a plan hatched by this governor. For two points, can you name the movie and the governor?
Kelly: Hostel 2, Ron DeSantis.
John: That’s great. I thought we might get him. I thought that was a trick question.
Craig: I gotta be honest. Kelly’s freaking me out with how good he is with the sequels.
John: These are good. I wouldn’t get some of these things.
Craig: Hostel 2?
John: Megana researched these. I didn’t do any of this.
Craig: I didn’t even know there was a Hostel 2.
John: Let’s try question number five. This 2001 film finds a brother and sister driving home through an isolated countryside for spring break, where they encounter a flesh-eating creature in the midst of a ritualistic eating spree.
Craig: Wait. We all agree that consuming teenagers is bad, but that’s not the only questionable diet out there. This TV doctor turned candidate was grilled by the House subcommittee on consumer protection for hyping green coffee beans as a weight loss secret. He also suggested that maybe he drank pee in medical school. For two points, can you name the movie and the candidate?
Kelly: Jeepers Creepers, Mehmet Oz.
John: Wow.
Craig: That’s exactly correct.
John: I would not know.
Craig: That’s great.
John: I would not know either of those things.
Craig: I love it.
John: This is all news to me.
Craig: I love the fact that, if you notice, Kelly, who is on an all-time high-
Chuck: He’s the Ken Jennings of this game.
Craig: Kelly is the Ken Jennings of the only game instance this has ever happened.
John: Indeed.
Craig: I like that he said Mehmet Oz. He didn’t even give him the honorary doctor.
John: No, took away.
Craig: In this 2014 film, a single mother and her child when an eerie children’s book manifests in their home.
John: Just last night, this enigmatic billionaire manifested his dream of buying Twitter, a move we both thing is great-
Craig: Officially.
John: … and not problematic at all. He definitely knows what he’s doing.
Craig: He knows what he’s doing.
John: For two points, can you name the movie and the billionaire?
Kelly: Strangely enough, Babadook is actually Elon Musk’s middle name.
Craig: What I like is that Kelly’s now just going for flair.
John: He’s riffing. He’s taking over this thing.
Craig: Do you guys see what you’ve done? This was a perfectly decent man, and he’s on his way to being a monster.
John: Final question. You could win it all here.
Craig: All. Or lose it all.
John: Or lose it all. In this 2021 film, a vacationing family discovers that the secluded beach they’re relaxing on for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly, reducing their entire lives into a single day.
Craig: If you think time is moving quickly on that beach, what day this week did CAA drop Kanye as a client over his antisemitic remarks?
Kelly: The film was Old, and I think it was Tuesday.
Craig: Don’t listen to the audience.
Kelly: I think it’s Thursday. I thought Thursday.
John: Come on, give us the answer.
Kelly: Today. Today. Wednesday. Monday.
Craig: Yes!
Kelly: Monday.
Craig: Yes, you got it right!
John: Monday is the answer.
Craig: You got it right!
John: Kelly.
Craig: A perfect score!
John: Thank you so much.
Craig: Perfect score!
Audience: Kelly! Kelly! Kelly! Kelly! Kelly!
John: Kelly, thank you!
Audience: Kelly! Kelly! Kelly! Kelly! Kelly! Kelly!
Craig: Oh, man.
John: As a prize, you get all those applause. That’s your prize. Thank you for playing Nothing is Scary When Everything is Terrifying.
Craig: Well done, Kelly. Good job.
John: Craig, we need some more guests.
Craig: The next two idiots, big friends of ours. Both have been on the show before.
John: Repeats.
Craig: Both are both feature writers and television writers, which I think is particularly interesting, because we have lots to talk about tonight with television, etc. Do I do credits? No. Alec Berg and Phil Hay.
Alec Berg: I found myself carried away during that game. I almost shouted from the front row, “The one about the Babadook! It’s The Babadook! It’s a good one!”
Craig: Kelly didn’t need no help.
Alec: No, he didn’t.
Phil Hay: It is really going to be impossible to follow that man.
Alec: A good improviser would try to take the incredible energy-
Craig: That Kelly provided.
Alec: … and humor and power that has happened thus far and build it.
Brenda: “Yes, and” it.
Alec: A great improviser would turn it into quiet tears and introspection. We’re great improvisers.
Craig: Let’s go for that.
Phil: Or just boring.
Craig: Let’s go for that.
John: We’ll go for that. I’m curious. The two of you are working on shows that are in subsequent seasons. I would love to talk to you guys about-
Craig: Mysterious Benedict Society.
John: … Mysterious Benedict Society, Barry, Silicon Valley.
Craig: Barry.
John: I’m curious about the conversations that go into your thinking but also into your writers’ rooms as you approach the second season of a show, because it’s one thing to figure out everything from the start, like, “What the hell is this show?” Then you have a show, and you have to go back and figure out, “Okay, what do we do next?” Phil, you’re new to television. I’m curious, going into Mysterious Benedict Society Season 2, what are the first conversations that you’ve come into that room with?
Phil: I will answer that question, but first I have a question for you.
John: Oh God, he’s taking control of the show.
Craig: Just violating our format, but fine.
Phil: How am I supposed to be funny talking about that?
John: You have no requirement to be funny.
Craig: You can’t be Kelly.
Phil: Fine.
Craig: No one else can be Kelly.
Phil: I’m going to provide content.
Craig: Content.
Alec: Make them cry, Phil. Make them cry.
Craig: Make them cry, Phil. Here we go.
Phil: The second season I would say when you’re making a show… This is the first show we’ve done, so this is new to us. I guess what we thought about right away was how to honor the growth that happened in the first season and to not try to redo what seemed to work and not try to undo anything, but to just grow. We had the advantage of having a second book in the series that we’re adapting that was in kind very different than the first. The first book and the first season of the series is a spy, undercover mission. The second one is sort of like a Mad, Mad, Mad World kind of peripatetic journey. There was a lot of just physical stuff that was different.
I guess one thing to be specific about that we thought about was how to put… There’s a lot of characters in our show. There’s many main characters. I think the one thing we specifically talked about is how can we take characters who haven’t been together a lot and put them together and find ways to see what happens when you take people who don’t naturally tend to each other among the characters and put them together and see what happens.
John: Mysterious Benedict Society has a really huge cast. On Barry, you have a much smaller core group of people. As you’re going into the second season-
Craig: Or third.
John: … or third, subsequent things, how are you figuring out like, “Okay, these the things we want to follow through.” Are you figuring out Barry’s line first and then who tips into it, or are there themes? What are the discussions for figuring out a shape for a season?
Alec: Every discussion we ever have is just about what is the honest, true emotion of what would happen next, what would this character do, and what’s real, not what would be cool, not what would be fun or funny, just what’s the honest emotion of this moment and what would happen. We started from the pilot that way, and we’ve just followed that forward ever since. It’s the fourth season now.
John: That’s right, fourth season.
Craig: Dammit, John.
John: Embarrassing us at our own show. Matthew, cut that out.
Craig: Wait, hold on. Do the question. “As we all know, Barry’s entering its fourth season.”
John: Fourth season.
Craig: As you progress into a subsequent season or a fourth season, showoff, even if you say, “Look, I want to insulate myself from Twitter and the world and all the rest of it,” the world exists. There is a feedback loop. You put the show out there. People have reactions, whether it’s reviewers or people online or anything. It is obviously dangerous to think, “Okay, we’re going to consider all that as we’re preparing to tell this story again.” At the same time, you can’t possibly be completely blind or deaf to it. How do you manage that aspect of it? I ask as a guy that may have to have that problem.
Alec: Honestly, so much of it was so funny to me. I don’t know who has watched Barry. I’m not pandering, I swear.
Craig: No. No. No.
John: No. No. No.
Alec: A seasoned professional.
Craig: That was fishing.
Alec: Seasoned professional. Just because we’re in our fourth season-
Craig: Fishing.
Phil: Just a little show called Barry.
Alec: There’s no reason.
Craig: Shame on all of you for falling for that.
Alec: No, guys.
Craig: Goddammit. You didn’t see these two doing that.
Alec: Why does Kelly get to have all the fun? Some of us are really needy.
Craig: He fought for that.
Alec: He did, and he earned every bit of it, dammit.
Craig: Goddamn you, all of you.
Alec: That man is a legend.
John: He replied to a tweet, so he gets all of it.
Craig: What did you do? Nothing.
Alec: One of the funniest things about Barry is… Sarah Goldberg’s character, Sally, is a lot. There’s a lot of debate online about is she the right person for Barry. People say, “She’s very needy and she’s narcissistic and she’s petty. I don’t know if I want Barry to end up with a person like that.” We’re sitting in the room going, “Barry kills people. He is a murderer.”
Craig: Murderer.
Alec: There are people he kills just because he has to, so he doesn’t get arrested. It’s so funny to me that people are concerned about him ending up with a nice girl. Stuff like that, I just go, “They’re following it in a different way than we are.” It’s nice to have the feedback and the affirmation, whatever. Honestly, for us it’s just about what makes sense to us in the room. If people don’t like it, honestly…
When we started the show, Bill’s movie… Bill did this movie called Trainwreck that was huge. Every day we were working on Barry, I felt bad because he was turning down immense movie offers to keep working on this show. I assured him. I said, “Look, we’re going to write this thing as aggressively and as hard as we can, because if this show fails, it’s honestly going to be the best thing that ever happened to you, because you’re going to get to do all of those movies.” We just said, “Look, we’re not going to try and hold anything back. We’re not going to try and please people for the sake of pleasing people. We’re going to write what is true and real and honest.”
Craig: You like pleasing people.
Phil: I love it, Craig. It’s how I get what I need. I was going to say that we’ve had an incredible experience with the fans of the book, who are very passionate. It’s really a wonderful feeling around these books. Everything that we’ve changed and modified seems to have been received really well, except for one thing. It’s weird, because it’s come up a couple times, where people are like… A lot of invention has to happen when you’re doing a show of some books. These books are beautiful. They’re truly inspiring.
There’s a small contingent that is really hung up on one thing. I discovered this because someone sent it to me like, “Isn’t this funny?” Then it kept happening, which is, “I’m out, because Kate Wetherall has blond hair and a ponytail, and in the show, it’s pretty clear… She’s often wearing a hat, which I don’t like as well, no hat. Beneath the hat, there’s no blond hair, and there’s no ponytail. We’re done.” I was like, “We’re not going to get the blond hair, ponytail people, but hopefully everyone else.”
Craig: As a guy adapting a popular video game, I can assure you I never have to deal with that problem.
John: 100%.
Craig: No one’s ever like, “Pedro Pascal’s beard isn’t full enough. That’s it.”
Phil: No, he uses a seven-millimeter clip or a nine-millimeter clip.
Craig: “I’m out.” I love it when people are like, “I’m out.” No one cares.
John: Great. We’re fine.
Craig: It’s fine.
John: We’re fine. We’re good.
Phil: Of course I care. I want to please everyone.
Craig: Then you’re like, “There’s a guy that’s out.”
John: Alec, you came up working on Seinfeld, which is running 22 episodes a year.
Craig: Guys, no.
Alec: Oh, yes.
John: On a regular comedy-
Craig: Dammit.
John: … there’s just churn. You’re burning through stuff. You’re writing. You’re producing. You’re filming. It’s all happening. There’s a schedule to it, versus something like Barry I suspect is written all in advance of when you’re shooting those episodes. Mysterious Benedict Society is also, I presume, completely written before you get started shooting, so that feedback mechanism is also very different. If you want to make a change, you realize, oh, that thing isn’t working very well, there’s a lot more gears to shift. Can you talk about the planning process when you know you have to get the whole thing done before you start filming versus adjust on the fly? What’s that been like for you?
Alec: Obviously, what’s nice about it is you can plan the whole thing out. The shooting schedule gets more efficient that way. That buys you a little bit more time, which means you can spend a little more time and energy getting that stuff right. Honestly, the big thing is you feel this immense pressure that we had all this time to do all of this, and if it doesn’t work, then we’re that much bigger idiots than we would’ve been if we had the excuse of we just didn’t have time.
John: For Barry, were all the scripts written before you started shooting?
Alec: I don’t know if a script is ever… We were two weeks away from shooting Season 3 of 4 when COVID hit. We finished writing Season 3, and then we were sitting on our hands. We asked HBO if we could put a writers’ room together. We wrote Season 4 also during COVID. Then based on what we had written in Season 4, we went back and rewrote Season 3. Based on what we had rewritten in Season 3, we then rewrote Season 4 again.
John: Oh, God.
Alec: If COVID had lasted three more years, we would’ve just gone back and forth between Seasons 3 and 4. Thank God we finally got to a protocol that was safe enough that we could start shooting. It’s weird. You get to the set sometimes, and you’ve had months and months and months to write something, and as soon as you’re there on set in that moment with cameras and lights up, you run it with the actors and you go, “This shit doesn’t work.” There’s no way you could’ve foreseen it. You have two choices.
Phil: Huh. That’s interesting.
Craig: Not familiar?
Phil: I didn’t really consider that. Interesting.
John: Tell us about the Mysterious Benedict way.
Craig: I don’t know what that’s like either.
Alec: You have two choices, Phil.
Phil: I feel for you, man.
Alec: You can either ignore those feelings and simply shoot what you have, or you can make everyone very uncomfortable and you can risk looking like an idiot. Bill and I have done this, when we’re sitting there about to roll. We’re both sitting there scratching on the back of our scripts, writing a new scene. We have actors who are very nimble and happy to roll with that. We also have actors that have a real system. They really work the dialog, and they want to own it and really have it in their bones by the day you show up. When they see you writing on the back of pages 30 seconds before they’ve gotta shoot something, they do not like it.
You have the conversation of, “Look, we could shoot what we had, and it might be a B-minus, or we can strive for something better, and we can all be very uncomfortable, and you can feel very exposed and betrayed and like we put you in a bad spot. We’re only doing it because I’m not happy with a B-minus, and I would rather take a shot at having an A-plus if it means that it brings a C-minus into play.”
John: Alec, I want to ask you a truthful question in front of all these people here. Are there any of those situations where you went through and rewrote the B-minus scene and it didn’t make it better or you actually broke something that needed to work a certain way? That’s always my fear in those situations, in trying to fix this thing you don’t realize everything else it’s going to break.
Alec: Again, the virtue of having Bill and I there is that we have been through every inch of it. We are shooting it. We direct. Now we direct all of them. He’s directing the entire fourth season himself.
Craig: Fourth season you say?
Alec: Yeah.
Craig: Of Barry?
Alec: Yeah, and not the movie about Barack Obama either. The series Barry.
Craig: I thought you were talking about Barack Obama this entire time.
Alec: No.
Craig: You have a show called Barry?
Alec: Not for much longer.
Craig: You’re on Season 4?
Alec: Yeah, believe it or not.
Craig: Did you guys know this?
Phil: Could I add something?
Craig: Yeah, please.
Phil: I do think there’s something interesting about what we’re talking about, because I think there’s a danger sometimes that happens when everybody gets bored with the A-joke, because they’ve heard it so many times. It happens in pitching, for sure. I think it really happens less in a show than it does when you’re selling something or you’re writing.
John: It happens in features too. We’ve all had the experience where, oh shit, they got to the set, and they just didn’t shoot the scene you actually needed them to shoot.
Phil: Everyone’s doing the joke on the joke on the joke because they’ve all heard it, but nobody in the audience has heard it. The A-joke is the best joke. I think there’s something interesting about that. I also think there is a cultural bias toward making it up on the day that I don’t think is good for everybody. It’s good for some. It’s really interesting. It’s different, the process you’re talking about, where you have the thing, you refine the thing, you refine the thing, you refine the thing. I think many of you probably feel the same way.
It’s crazy how desperately people want to believe that the actor just made it up on the day. You go to a film festival, and they’re like, “I have a question. How much was improv?” They’re really bummed when the actor’s like, “None of it. It’s written, and then I do it.” I wonder about that. There is a bias toward what just happened, the last thing you thought of. That can be dangerous actually, because it’s not always the best thing.
Craig: For sure.
Phil: It’s the last thing you thought of.
Craig: Sometimes you have to do a little bit of a rescue mission at times, because the plans aren’t working. I definitely had an experience with Pedro Pascal in particular, where sometimes I would think, “I wonder if we could maybe just do this or this,” because sometimes it’s not even that it’s not working. It’s that you’re running out of time on the day. “Maybe we can make this a little shorter,” or, “You know what? We needed it to be like this. It’s not like this. We needed a car to be there. The car never showed up. Let’s figure something else out.” Sometimes I would say, “Okay, why don’t we just do this instead?” He would say, “Okay.” Then he would come back to me about 10 minutes later and go, “Listen, I’m going to defend your writing,” which he wasn’t really doing. It’s not that nice. What he was doing is like, “I actually like the way it was, and here’s why.”
Then he would remind me about things that I had forgotten about, even though I was writing it, because when it’s narrowed down to just writing, you can actually think about all the specific things that are going to happen throughout the show. You’re laying these little breadcrumbs down and setting things up. Sometimes you just forget on the day. It’s why directors should not be in charge of feature films, because they didn’t write it. They just don’t know.
Audience Member: Yes.
Craig: Exactly, person, yes. Sorry, feature directors.
Alec: It is interesting sometimes when you’re shooting something. I’ve had this happen a few times where you do a take of something, and one of the actors is doing something, and you’re just like, “What the hell is that person… Why are they playing it that way?” You cut, and you go over, and you go, “Hey, just a reminder. Remember, the scene before this, you just found out that your dad died. Remember?” They go, “You mean you want me to play it correctly? Okay. Can you roll again, please?” They just forgot where they were in the-
Craig: Because you’re shooting everything wildly out of order.
Alec: Honestly, when I direct, one of the things I always do is I just talk to the cast and I go, “Remember, this happened, then this happened, and now we’re here, and tomorrow this is going to happen.” A lot of times, people go, “Oh my god, I was about to make a huge mistake about how I was doing it.”
Craig: It’s very human.
Alec: It’s just the simplicity of knowing where you are in the story.
John: Brenda and Chuck, I want to talk to you guys about this, because oftentimes as shows are being written, as many rooms are rooms way before production happens, writers are not getting the opportunity to go to set and learn how things are working or just to visit and see how the scripts are being shot. Chuck, did you have the opportunity on something like Wandavision or other shows you’ve worked on to visit an episode that you wrote six months ago?
Chuck: Yes. That was actually the first mini room I was on. All the rooms I was in before then, we were doing writing corresponding with the production, so we could just run across to the set and do whatever. I think that’s invaluable. I think with this mini room thing where there’s 10 weeks or 20 weeks or whatever of a writers’ room and then production happens, these writers are not getting the on-set experience that they need to become really good showrunners later in life. They’re not learning how to talk to actors. They’re not learning how to talk to directors. They’re not learning what everyone does on a set. I think it’s a problem that’s going to bite us in the ass in a couple of years. To your point, it is cool to have all the scripts ready by the time production starts. Then we can go back and adjust them.
Anybody under the rank of executive producer has no fucking clue how to make a television show. They know how to write one, but they don’t know how to make one. I think that’s something that really needs to… I know with talks within the Guild, people have been really voicing that concern, being like, “There’s gotta be a way that we can address this,” because mostly streamers, but I think cable companies are starting to follow suit, is doing this cost-plus model where they don’t want to have to pay all the writers through production, so they’re like, “Get the nerds to write the shit, and then tell them to go home so we can make the thing, and it can be fine.” I think it’s penny-wise and pound-foolish, and I hope that they find a better way.
Alec: I was just going to add that I think another thing that makes a huge difference is shorter orders. When I was working 22, 24 episodes a season, the showrunner could only be in so many places at once. As a very junior writer, the showrunner would say, “Hey, can you go into casting and read the people for waiter?” or whatever. Even if it was a smaller level of importance, just being in a casting session and getting to see what that was… Or they’d go, “I don’t have time to look at the new cut of your episode. Can you go down to the edit, watch it, and if anything is glaring, let me know.” I started directing movies at some point after Seinfeld, and there was not a single part of the entire process that I hadn’t been exposed to by working as a writer on Seinfeld, because I just had to cover…
Now that we do 6, 8, 10 episodes, the showrunner can… It’s still tight, but they can pretty much be in every room. You don’t need people to cover all that stuff. They’re not getting that experience.
Chuck: They’re not getting the experience. Also, if you’re showrunning and you’re directing a bunch of episodes, it would be nice to be able to have somebody to delegate to, so that you’re not putting an undue pressure on yourself or the two or three other co-EP-level people are bearing the brunt of work that used to be covered by 5 to 10 other people. I feel like everybody has to work a lot harder because they want to spend less money on fewer people.
Again, the long-term issue is that we’re not training our next generation of showrunners. Honestly, selfishly, it’s great for all of us, because they’re going to have to pair us up with younger people who don’t have that experience. I think that that’s an experience that they should have, because it strengthens your confidence as a writer. It makes you feel like showrunning is not this crazy thing that I maybe one day can sort of, kind of do. No, it’s the thing I’ve been doing for the last several weeks whenever the showrunner taps me in. That to me has made me feel way more involved, way more invested, and just way more like this is something I can actually do, and do well.
John: Brenda, I want to get back to one more point with you. Your first thing was a television writing workshop.
Brenda: A fellowship.
John: Fellowship. Talk to us about that, because Warner Bros is potentially closing down their television program or they’re changing their television program.
Craig: They opened it back up.
John: They brought it back.
Craig: They hit Command-Z on that shit.
Chuck: Command Zaslav.
John: Talk to us about those workshops-
Craig: Command Zaslav.
John: … because I think a lot of people in this audience look to those things and say, “Oh, is this an opportunity for me to actually learn my craft?” Was it constructive for you?
Brenda: I think it’s amazing. I was like, “This is my way in.” I didn’t have any way in. I didn’t know how to get connections and stuff. I thought it was a great opportunity. The one thing that was hard for me as a lady in comedy early on was just that I was always the one lady in the room. It was difficult. Then I realized I was doing this thing where I… I got this thing called vocal nodes. I had this hoarse throat for many, many months and no other symptoms. I’m like, “What is this?” I went to the doctor, and he’s like, “Oh, you should go to an ENT.” Then an ENT put a scope down my throat. He’s like, “Oh, you have vocal nodes.” I’m like, “Oh, that’s what Adele has. That’s what she does [inaudible 00:53:18] singing.” I’m like, “Am I talking too much?” They were like, “No, you’re not talking too much. You’re talking at the wrong pitch, at the wrong volume.”
Phil: Are you singing too beautifully?
Brenda: I was like, “What? What?” Then I was talking to my female writer friend. She’s like, “I think this is a female writer problem.” She’s like, “I had vocal nodes.” I’m like, “Really?” She’s like, “Oh, and Kristin Newman has vocal nodes too, and she’s also a female comedy writer.” She’s like, “I think this is a female comedy writer problem.” I’m like, “What do you mean?” She’s like, “Oh, we’re all talking at a pitch that is not our natural pitch, that is too loud.” I realized, I’m like, “Oh my god, I think I’m trying to sound like a guy.” I’m Elizabeth Holmes-ing.
Craig: Elizabeth Holmes-ing.
Brenda: I was like, “I’m fucking Elizabeth-“
Craig: You’re Holmes-ing.
Brenda: Subconsciously. I was like, “I’m inadvertently Elizabeth Holmes-ing. I’m trying to sound like a guy.”
Craig: I’m doing it right now.
Brenda: I also want to be heard, so I’m talking at a low voice that’s not my pitch, that’s too loud. Then I’m getting vocal nodes. I was like, “This is crazy.” The irony was, so then I go to a doctor, and he’s like, “Oh yeah, so take some steroids, just anti-inflammatory.” I’m like, “Okay.” I take these steroids, and they actually give me shingles, because they suppressed your immune system. Then I get shingles on my boob. I was like, “What?” I can’t wear a bra, because it hurts. I’m like, “Oh my god, now I can’t wear a bra to work!” I’m like, “Oh my god!” I’m like, “The whole point is to not be a lady! It’s hot!” I’m like, “I can’t wear a sweater! It’s 90 degrees outside!” I’m like, “What?”
Craig: You got boob shingles?
Brenda: I literally was like, “Oh my god! Oh my god! How do I hide these?” I was like, “This is crazy!” I’m always aggressively trying to be unattractive. I was like, “I have to wear glasses, never wear makeup, always have my hair up, and never show my body.” I was like, “I have to sound like a man.” Then I was like, “Oh my god.” This is the irony. Whatever, I couldn’t wear a bra. Finally, I went to a speech therapist. She was like, “You’re talking at the wrong pitch. I’m going to teach you how to speak correctly.”
Craig: And put a bra on.
Brenda: “You can wear a bra again.” Isn’t that fucking crazy?
Craig: That’s insane.
Brenda: I’m like, “Oh my god!”
Craig: Because I’m obsessed with the Elizabeth Holmes thing, can you give us just a sample, without giving yourself nodes?
Chuck: Don’t set her back on her journey. What are you doing?
Craig: Don’t give yourself nodes. I just want to hear it.
Chuck: Don’t do it, Brenda!
Craig: I want to hear what it sounded like.
Brenda: It was low. It was low. It sounded like a guy. Sounded like a guy, and then it was loud. It was not good for me.
Craig: It was not healthy.
Brenda: It was not good for me, guys.
Craig: No, clearly.
John: Don’t do that.
Craig: Clearly.
Brenda: Can you believe I did that for years, and I didn’t realize I was doing that?
Craig: Don’t do that.
John: Bring this all back.
Brenda: It’s fucked up.
John: You were hired for this writers’ room because of who you uniquely were. Then you felt you had to completely change yourself in order to be heard in this room.
Brenda: Yes. That’s not cool. I think that’s changed. Obviously, that’s different now.
John: Everything’s better now. We solved Hollywood.
Brenda: Better now.
John: We have to thank our producer, Megana Rao, who’s right here.
Craig: Megana.
John: Megana!
Craig: Still no Megana. Megana. She is beloved.
John: Scriptnotes is edited by Matthew Chilelli, who will cut out all the stuff we tell him to cut out.
Craig: Hooray!
John: Yay. We need to thank Colin Hyer and all Austin Film Festival for having us back.
Craig: Colin over there.
John: Colin, thank you very much.
Craig: Thank you. All the volunteers who have been working so hard this weekend.
John: I need to thank our incredible panelists.
Craig: Thank you guys.
John: Oh my god, Phil, Alec, Brenda, Chuck.
Craig: Chuck.
Chuck: Thanks for having us.
Craig: Brenda, Alex, Phil.
Phil: Thank all of you.
John: Thank you all so much!
Craig: Thank you guys for coming out.
John: Thank you! Have a good night!
Craig: We release you into the wild!
John: Austin!
[Bonus Segment]
John: We gotta do questions.
Craig: I know. I’m so excited for questions, finally.
John: Craig’s been looking forward to it for weeks. Questions!
Craig: I made it through the rain.
John: Hello and welcome. Tell us your name, and what is your question?
Jerry Jerome: Hi, my name’s Jerry Jerome.
John: Hi, Jerry Jerome.
Craig: Hi.
Jerry: I’ve been listening to Scriptnotes for a long, long time.
John: Thank you.
Jerry: I know you said it’s no statements. I’m going to have to break a rule.
Craig: We just said. We literally just said.
Jerry: I was writing. I was going to film school to make Craig happy. I got hurt at work, and I had to take care of my own health. It took a while for me to get back to writing. Listening to you guys really helped me out.
Craig: Thank you.
John: Thank you.
Craig: We accept that. That is allowable. I should’ve added non-questions that make me feel good about myself are completely allowable.
John: Also, praise makes Craig really uncomfortable, and I kind of like that too.
Craig: That is true.
Jerry: It made John feel better. Before I got hurt, I turned in to Austin. I didn’t make second round, anything. This time I made the semifinals.
John: Hooray. Congratulations.
Jerry: Now for my question.
Craig: Thank god.
Jerry: When I was listening to Scriptnotes all the time, my girls loved it. Sometimes I would try to go through different episodes. What they would always love and laugh at was every single time Craig would say his name differently. There’s one outro where I believe you guys had a mix where it was just Craig saying his name differently each and every time set to music.
Craig: That’s terrible.
Jerry: I cannot find it.
Craig: Let’s get you that.
John: We gotta find it.
Craig: Did he dream it, or was it real?
John: I think it’s real. Megana, we can find that.
Craig: Megana’s like, “Is it real?”
Jerry: That’s my only question, to make my girls happy.
Craig: I have to say I remember this. I also remember it.
John: We’ll find it.
Craig: It’s real.
John: Also, we’ll put it in the episode. Someone will do the research for us and find it.
Craig: We will get you this.
Jerry: Thank you very much.
Craig: We will get it for your girls. Absolutely. Gotta look out for the dads. Dads look out for dads. It’s what we do.
Audience: Aw.
Craig: Don’t you dare.
John: Hello. What’s your question?
Craig: Hi!
Teresa: Hello.
Craig: Hi!
Teresa: My name is Teresa. Thank you all. I love Mysterious Benedict Society. I’ve never read the books. It’s the sweetest nugget of television ever.
Phil: Right on. Thank you.
Teresa: My question is… It’s related to something that Chuck said regarding the future of television. Something that I’m hearing when I’ve been sent out on meetings and stuff is, “We love you. You’re great, but we’re only looking for upper-level writers,” or a lot of writers sometimes might even write all the episodes of their show and not even have a staff. I’m not thinking of anyone in particular. I’m just thinking out loud. My question is, why does this happen, and are there any efforts being made to try to re-incorporate staff writers and get those lower levels going?
John: Great. Do you guys want to talk about this?
Phil: Sure.
John: Talk about your plans on Mysterious Benedict Society, how you guys did it.
Phil: We do have lower-level writers on our show. That’s definitely one of the points, and who have frankly performed as well as anybody else on the show. Sometimes you have a certain amount of budget slots, basically how it works. Every show is different. There are shows where one person writes every episode. Writers’ rooms seem to be smaller now because the orders are shorter, but also because you want everyone to have a script. We only have eight scripts, and we are going to write two of them, and our partners are going to write two of them. We want to make sure that everybody has a script. We try to very carefully offer those opportunities.
I think in the case of our show, we’ve always had people at every level. It’s not a staff of 12 people or 15 people or more that might be in a traditional half hour or something like that. I guess what I’d say, it’s different for every show, but for our part, it’s not just because it seems right to us. That’s true, but also, I will say those writers have performed tremendously. You’re trying to find the right person regardless of level. Sometimes you have to have a certain number of every level. I think not every show is served by a writers’ room. If you have a writers’ room, I think you’re served by having all of those different, not just different perspectives, but actually people at different points in their career.
John: Teresa, this last year while Craig was gone, I had some showrunners who came on for just one episode and we talked through how they did things. One of the things that came up off mic pretty frequently, I would ask, “What was your process for putting together a room?” The thing I heard probably most consistently is like, “Man, I really need a mix of experienced people who knew how to do stuff and some brand new folks,” because some rooms were so top-heavy with just like, these are the power hitters, but then they disappear and they can’t do anything, or just brand new people who didn’t know how to do stuff.
Really, I think just communication in terms of making sure people are thinking about the whole range of experiences in rooms is going to be important. I don’t see the studios making a big change. I don’t see them pushing for that. The Guild’s not going to push for that. That’s not a thing. It’s going to be just changing the culture, hopefully. Chuck, thoughts?
Chuck: I think it’s also important because, I don’t want to speak for the rest of you guys, but I stopped being cool about 15 years ago. I think it is important to hire staff writers that are younger so that they actually talk the way that people talk for the last decade or so. I think you, A, have that, and then B, to your point a second ago, John, upper-level writers are all allowed to develop. Their attention is a little splintered in a way that a staff writer’s would not be. If you have these people that are there, that haven’t learned a bunch of bad habits from other showrunners that aren’t running the show the way you are, I think it’s very important to get them in there to add authenticity, to add a youthful vibe.
I find that younger writers inspire me. They make me want to work harder, because I’m like, “I had that excitement in me before they beat the shit out of me in this town for all those years.” I think it lifts all boats. It’s a [inaudible 01:04:24].
John: We were talking beforehand about Megan McDonald, who was a previous Scriptnotes producer, who went on to Wandavision, is now a superstar and is doing a bunch of stuff. She was hired on as just a staff writer.
Chuck: The Wandavision room was full of staff writers. I think I was the most senior at… I think I was 38 at the time or something like that. The younger people were really the ones… It was funny, because you could tell the demarcation, because they were like, “Oh, it’s like in Harry Potter when blah blah blah.” Me and Gretchen were like, “I’ve never seen any of those movies.”
Craig: What?
Chuck: They grew up with all this-
Craig: Really?
Chuck: Yeah, not a single one.
Craig: I’m older than you are. I saw all those movies.
Chuck: You have kids though, right?
Craig: Yeah, but I still like them alone.
Chuck: They came into it with such enthusiasm and with such lore from fantasy projects that we hadn’t had exposure to, Fantastic Beasts. I’m going to stop naming things, because I don’t know. That’s the whole point. They made that show as inventive as it was.
Craig: I will also say, if they say, “Hey, you know what? We’re looking for more seasoned or senior writers,” they still met with you. There will be a day when they want staff writers who are newer. You just give a great meeting. Give a great meeting. Trust me, no one else is.
Brenda: As a 43-year-old woman who watches Mysterious Benedict Society, new writers, because not all new writers are young.
John: Very good point. Hundred percent.
Craig: I like that. Good for you.
Chuck: Totally.
Craig: You showed him.
Phil: Can I just underline something quickly before we go to the next question, really quickly?
Craig: Yes.
Phil: Something Chuck said earlier which relates to this is, there is a cultural thing that is not good, which is the idea that we’re strip mining the culture right now and the idea of just development, developing people, developing talent, developing writers. Again, whenever you start in that journey and wherever you’re at, that is devastatingly shortsighted. We started in features with the idea of development just getting crushed. That’s the R and D of the business. Writing staffs are the training ground of people who are going to… Again, it’s not just like it’s great to give people jobs. That is. It’s people who are going to make the culture. I think it’s really dangerous that we’ve created a thing where somehow we don’t care about developing people, just right now, what can you do right now.
Chuck: It’s also shortsighted financially, because as an established executive producer, if you have a young show writer or an unseasoned show writer that you’ve given an opportunity to, you can utilize them. They’re part of your camp from now on. Whatever idea they have, you put your name on it as executive producer. You make money off of it for the lifetime of that show. You have a farm team that you’re creating that you can continue to make money on in perpetuity. I think it’s shortsighted, both for the career and for your wallet.
John: Our next question, sir.
Craig: Here comes a Dodger fan.
Marc Blitzstein: Oh yeah.
Craig: Sorry, man.
Marc: I think it was six to five Phillies last I checked. I don’t know what the score is now.
Craig: Oh wait, Phillies came back?
Marc: Phillies came back.
Craig: Good, because honestly, I’m sorry-
Marc: Oh hell yeah.
Craig: Fuck you, Astros.
Marc: Fuck you, Houston.
Craig: I don’t give a shit.
Marc: Fuck you, Houston.
Craig: Fuck you, Houston.
John: Everybody go to the bar.
Marc: Cheating pricks.
John: Go to the bar right now. Let’s go.
Craig: Fucking Houston. We’re in Austin. It’s cool. Go ahead.
Marc: Hey, guys.
Craig: You don’t know what we’re talking about. It’s baseball.
Marc: John, it’s okay if you don’t know what we’re talking about.
Craig: It’s baseball.
Marc: Honestly, I’m huge fans of every single one of you on this stage. I’m honored even to be in the room. My question is on packaging right now. My writing partner and I, we go out with projects all the time. Ever since we all collectively fired our agents, there seemingly has been a power-
Craig: You’re going to hire them back now. You know that, right?
Marc: I know, but since that happened, since that inciting incident, the power seems to have shifted away from the writers, and it’s gone to the directors and to the actors. My question is, at this stage when we go out with a project to pitch, we’re seemingly introduced to more and more obstacles that are too high or moving, that you have to come with a showrunner, you have to come with a director, you have to come with a piece of talent. That burden is now on the writer to package that or for our management to assist in that. I know you’re at a different level where that’s not necessarily as important. For guys like us, how do you navigate something like that?
John: Great. I didn’t get your name. What’s your name?
Marc: Sorry, my name’s Marc Blitzstein.
John: You’re mostly working in television or [crosstalk 01:09:20]?
Marc: I am. I’m a television writer. I’m a Guild writer.
John: Great. He’s being asked to put more of the show together before he’s going into a studio or to a streamer or anywhere?
Marc: Anywhere.
Craig: Anywhere. I guess my question is, do you feel like based on what you’re hearing, what they are saying is you’re not going to really be the showrunner.
Marc: Of course.
Craig: That’s what they’re saying. Take that to heart and do what you need to do to be the showrunner, because if you’re not, there’s nothing anybody can help you with. What they’re saying is, “Hey, we don’t think people are going to put you in charge of this show. They’re not going to put you in charge of the show possibly for the reasons that Chuck was talking about, that you maybe don’t have the experience.”
Running a show, as everybody here that does it can tell you, is you still have to be a writer, you still have to be an artist, you still have to be creative. You also have to be the CEO and CFO and COO of a company. You are dealing with a business. It’s a whole other shitload of shit to do. What they’re saying is, you don’t have that yet. All the other stuff, what they’re really doing is backfilling in what they think they need based on what is lacking from your repertoire. Then the question is, how can we get that experience? My then asking back to you is, have you worked on shows? Have you and your partner worked on any shows together?
Marc: Yeah, we’ve been staffed.
Craig: Great. Then I’m going to turn to you guys, turn to all of you and say, okay, there is this military hierarchy within a television room. Here’s the executive producer. Here is whatever the staff writer is hired at. How do you start to make your way up the rungs of that ladder in an effective way, so that when you do have an idea, you are not being told you are not enough. We don’t have to add on a bunch of crap to sell this. You guys are now considered whatever you need to be to be a showrunner.
Phil: I figure that out, I will gladly let you know, because I’m stuck in [inaudible 01:11:29].
Alec: One thing I would say is that I actually think that you don’t graduate from that. Right now, we have a television company. Fortunately, our television company comes with a great director with it. Sometimes that’s the package. Sometimes we have to go get an actor too. I think that’s definitely been a much increased expectation recently. That is just yet another difficult obstacle to get to, depending on how much access you have or what the thing is. I guess it’s the same thing that you’d say anyway, which is it puts even more pressure on writing a spectacular character. Beyond the story, the idea, the concept, the other stuff that could sell your show, it seems like it’s putting more of an intensity on a lead character who is spectacular, because I think it’s true.
I’m interested to hear what you guys think. All of the stuff that we’ve gone out recently, we have attached an actor to. Sometimes that takes a really long time. That’s an expectation right now I think generally. Do you guys think the same?
Phil: Yeah, I think it varies project to project. I think one really interesting thing is that when I started as a TV writer, the specs that I wrote were scripts of existing shows. The idea of writing a pilot was so foreign to me. I didn’t write an original pilot probably for the first five or six or seven years I worked professionally. I think now that people write specs from the jump, I think it changes the way people think about when they’re ready to put a show on the air.
Brenda: Run a show, yeah.
Craig: Right, because original material is not the same thing as running a show based on original material.
Phil: It’s interesting. Literally, there was not a showrunner on earth when I started who hadn’t been on a staff for at least six or seven years before a network would even consider hearing a pitch from them.
John: One of the things that you’re pointing out is that it used to be very hard to even get in that room to pitch your thing if you didn’t have all these credits, but now because people don’t have those credits, because we haven’t built the farm team system, people can’t progress up the seasons. Now you suddenly have the ability to get into those rooms sometimes to pitch this idea, but they’re saying, “Who are you? What are you bringing?” You’re not bringing your experience, so they’re expecting you to bring in all these other people. That’s really fucking tough. It was always tough. It was always tough to get that actor to read that thing, to get that director to do that stuff, because they’re getting a lot of other requests for those things. What these people are saying is having that thing that feels like, “Oh shit, that person is going to really want to play that role,” that may be the way through. That’s something that’s really specific to them.
The other thing I’ll say is younger writers, newer writers who are having some success right now, that I see in my life, it’s not necessarily they’re getting a big director or a big star on, but they’re getting a producer who has some juice at that place to read it. That’s always been the class leading the way. They have some deals someplace. They have relationships someplace.
Craig: It’s true.
John: They’re getting you in. Maybe don’t focus all your energy on that director or that actor. Think of who has the deal in that place, who might want to be able to make [crosstalk 01:14:49].
Craig: That’s great advice. That’s true, because when I went to HBO to pitch Chernobyl, I did not have an actor and I did not have a director. I just had myself. I didn’t even have a script. What I did have was Carolyn Strauss, who was one of the executive producers of Game of Thrones. That made it a lot easier, I imagine. I still had to do my job. It certainly was enough to put that meaning in context. That’s great advice, because I do think that when we get into this mode of, “What do we have to throw on this to get them to say yes?” the problem is, oh shit, they said yes, and now I’m stuck with this fucking idiot and this fucking idiot-
John: That are never available.
Craig: … that I don’t want and I never wanted. That’s a huge problem. I guess at a minimum, if you need to go in with somebody, go in with somebody you actually like, because you’re going to get stuck with them.
Chuck: A hundred percent.
Marc: Thank you guys, all of you.
Craig: Thank you for that one.
John: We have time for one more question.
Craig: Aw, one more question.
John: One last question. You’ve got a great one. I can tell. I can see it.
Craig: This is it.
John: This is going to be the one.
Catherine: The pressure is crazy now.
John: It should be good. What is your name?
Catherine: My name is Catherine, and I represent all of the final questions.
John: Oh my gosh.
Catherine: That’s what everyone said.
John: You are the final question.
Craig: You’re doing great so far.
John: Amazing.
Catherine: Thank you.
Craig: You’re welcome.
Catherine: My question is for whichever ones of you, which I think is actually the majority… When you’re reading scripts, looking for your staff writers, obviously you’re reading hundreds potentially, what is happening in the moment before you stop reading?
John: What a great question, Catherine.
Craig: You mean what’s the thing that make you stop is what you’re asking?
Catherine: Yeah.
John: My god, Catherine maybe asked the best question, because-
Craig: That is a great question.
John: It’s answerable.
Craig: Yes, answerable.
John: I want to start with Phil Hay, because Phil, this is your first time reading for staffing probably.
Phil: Yeah.
John: As you’re reading through scripts, you probably had to read a lot of scripts, what were things that were just like, “Okay, I’m done. That’s enough. I get it. This is not my jam.”
Phil: I’m not really like that, John.
John: You read every script to the end, didn’t you?
Phil: No, I did not, but I relied on other people to curate the scripts before I read them. Generally, they would all be of a certain level of accomplishment. It’s hard for me to say what would make me stop if I felt something, if I felt anything, because a script can be amazing, it can be really technically good, it can be very accomplished, but I might not feel anything. A script can be a little rougher or a little more off or a little wandering. That doesn’t bother me if I’m feeling something.
I guess what I’d say is I love to be surprised somewhere in the first 10 pages of the script. Maybe that’s the way you say it, like that. That can be any kind of surprise. It can be like, “Oh shit, that was really funny,” or, “I’ve never really seen a character like this before.” That’s gold. It’s just something surprising, and not relentless surprise, just a nugget of little inspiration and weirdness to me. The weirder, the better I guess I would say.
Craig: Alec, what stops you in your tracks?
Alec: This is my own personal pet peeve, but typos drive me fucking nuts. It’s not because I don’t like typos, because I’m one of the worst typists on earth. It’s because if you’re sending a script out to get a job and you can’t be bothered to read your own script over two or three times, why would anybody else feel like they should read it too? It’s one of the easiest things to fix.
Craig: There’s a machine that does it for you.
Alec: They just drive me… That said, to Phil’s point, if I start reading, and I’m like, “Where is this going?” or, “Where is this coming from?” or, “That was hilarious,” I can see past typos. That’s just one of the things that personally drives me nuts. Again, it’s just because I start to get into this conspiracy theory of like, how much does this person not care that they didn’t bother?
Craig: Brenda, what stops you in your tracks when you’re reading a script?
Brenda: I think I am trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, but you’re right, I think it’s really hard to be surprising, especially given we all know the structure of things. Anything that’s going to throw me, I’m like, “Oh, let’s keep going.” If it’s humorless, I’m kind of over it, something that’s too self-serious, even drama. Life is never humorless. I think there’s something about if you’re trying to say something, you can’t be funny at all. I’m just like, “No, you need a foil.” That can stop me in my tracks.
Craig: Chuck, what stops you?
Chuck: I think I understand the question.
Craig: You left without even asking.
Chuck: Listen.
Craig: You just left. We have a whole system where you ask to leave.
Phil: Don’t make us call the hospitals, Chuck! Don’t make us call!
Chuck: What stops me in my tracks is my tiny bladder. That’s why I had to get the hell out of here and then return. I’m going to be petty with mine. What stops me in my tracks are character introductions. I feel like there’s two things. Number one, when you tell us stuff that you couldn’t possibly show on the screen in order to say, “Hey, this is Barbara. She’s a Princeton grad who bakes a hell of a fucking double baked potato,” or something. I’m not going to see that on screen, so just give me what her physical description is, maybe a little bit about her attitude, and move on. Second thing is assuming that all characters are white as a default, so not listing the ethnicity of a character as white-
Craig: Unless they’re not white.
Chuck: Unless they’re not white. That’s what I’m saying.
Craig: [crosstalk 01:20:35].
Chuck: I think in order to really help me understand what I’m seeing, I want to know who everybody is. A lot of times, I understand if it’s not pertinent to whatever the story is, it might not feel like it’s a big deal. For me, in order to paint the picture, which is what we’re supposed to be doing as writers, I want to know who that is. I don’t want to assume that everybody’s white unless stated otherwise.
John: Catherine, thank you for your question.
Craig: Well spoken. Well spoken. I have a very short answer for you. The thing that stops me in my tracks is when I read somebody saying something and I just go, “That’s fake. Fake.” Almost everything I read, at some point I’ll go, “Fake.” It’s tempting, because sometimes we, “Oh, I’ve got a great, clever… Oh my god, I’m so clever. I can’t wait to… This line of dialog is so clever.” Fake.
When I read things where I just feel like the writer is disconnected from the simple question, like Alec was saying, what would a human actually do in this situation? How would they respond? So much of what we talk about when we’re doing our Three Page Challenges, which is this endless “where did I stop reading” challenge, is when a writer writes something, and both of us say, “Who would say or do that in this circumstance? No human being.” As much as you can, try and be honest.
John: I’m going to just phrase it the other way around, what keeps me reading. To me, the things that keep me reading is envy, where I feel like, “Shit, I couldn’t have written that. Oh yeah, that was really good.” That’s a big one, “I don’t know if I could’ve done that.” That’s the thing that keeps me going. It’s like, “Oh yeah, I’m intrigued and impressed and a little intimidated. I love it. That’s the person I want, because you can see that talent. That’s great.
Phil: Can I add one more thing on that, that I think may be [crosstalk 01:22:30]?
Craig: Sure.
Phil: Is mystery, is the confidence-
Craig: You love a mystery.
Phil: … to ask a question and not answer it. That is so intriguing to me, because that shows so much confidence. Also, what you want to see is confidence, someone who is just boldly doing their thing.
Craig: That’s how I know you’re not a network executive. You enjoy mystery.
John: I love it! Like humans for thousands of years.
Craig: Exactly.
Brenda: Don’t have to know the answer.
Craig: You like not knowing things.
Phil: I was saying this in another panel. The best spec I ever read, I couldn’t stop, and I couldn’t stop, and entirely because I’m like, “What lunatic wrote this? This could never get made.” It was Being John Malkovich. The reason that got made is Spike Jonze read it and went, “This is unmakeable. I have to make this movie.” It just was the most insane thing I’ve ever read.
Craig: Just do that.
John: Do that. That’s all.
Craig: What have we learned?
Catherine: I’ll do that. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Craig: We learned be Asian, I believe was one of the things we learned, write Being John Malkovich. What other lessons did we cull out of this?
John: Authenticity.
Audience Member: Tiny bladders.
John: Tiny bladders.
Craig: Tiny bladder. Tiny bladder.
Brenda: Talk like a boy.
Alec: Doesn’t have to hold you back [crosstalk 01:23:49].
Brenda: Don’t be humorless.
Craig: Don’t be humorless.
John: I think most crucially, we managed to avoid any political content in this episode.
Craig: Correct!
- Thanks Heidi Lauren Duke for singing our intro!
- Brenda Hsueh on Instagram
- Chuck Hayward on Twitter
- Phil Hay on Twitter
- Alec Berg on IMDb
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
- Craig Mazin on Twitter
- John August on Twitter
- John on Instagram
- Outro by John Venable originally from 266 — this is the outro Jerry was looking for! (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.