Follow Up

What I did in 2025

December 23, 2025 Follow Up

This was a tough year. American democracy strained under authoritarian assault. Here in Los Angeles, friends lost homes in the fires while many in the industry struggled to find work.

But good things happened as well. Babies were born. Terrific movies and TV shows debuted. My family was happy and healthy.

My husband has a great memory when it comes to personal history — he can tell you when we last had dinner at a particular restaurant — whereas the past to me is a smeary blur. So this year, I decided to go through my calendar, photo roll, and Day One entries to piece together what the hell I actually did in 2025.

Here’s a slightly redacted version, with names of certain people and projects omitted. In these redactions, I’m always referring to the same title, person or place. “Studio” is the same studio throughout, for example.

January

Went skiing at Mammoth with our nephew, Ben. Finished script and score prep for a new Big Fish musical reading, now a one-act. Pitched remake of Tentpole Movie to Studio, which controlled the rights.

February

Big Fish 29-hour reading in New York, with Jerry Zaks directing and Patrick Wilson as Edward Bloom. Recorded interview for Corpse Bride’s 20th anniversary. Released Birdigo on Steam. Studio said yes on Tentpole Movie remake. Finished the D&D campaign (Bandits!) I’d been running for the past year.

March

Released Highland Pro after a lengthy beta. Delivered final edits on Wolf’s Belly, a graphic novel illustrated Simón Estrada. (It comes out July 2026). Met on an animated Riot Games movie that never went anywhere. Remodeled primary bathroom shower. Studio realized Tentpole Movie was too close to another movie in development, and passed.

April

Celebrated 25th anniversary with a 14-day trip to Jordan and Egypt. We flew in and out of Dubai, where a hotel gym weight bench smashed my left thumb. Placed third in Rachel Bloom’s birthday Spelling Bee.

May

Pitched a feature based on Mattel’s Little People to various buyers. Got no takers. Had a general meeting with president at Studio, which led to a protracted series of meetings about a remake of Classic Title with Famous Director and Movie Star.

June

Zoomed with various tabletop RPG designers about a potential heist game. Announced feature I’m writing for Laika — my first WGA-covered animated project. Participated in the first No Kings protest in Anchorage, Alaska, before a weeklong cruise along the coast with my extended family. Served as an advisor to the Sundance Screenwriters Lab online. Staycationed in Venice (CA) while contractors replaced 20 windows and doors in the house.

July

Visited our friends in Cambria on our way to San Francisco, where we ran the San Francisco Half Marathon.

August

Turned in first draft of Laika project. Received first printed galleys of Scriptnotes book. Took various meetings and zooms about Classic Title. Agreed to co-chair the WGA negotiating committee. Went to Bears in Space.

September

Met with potential designers for a new software project. Hired first international contractor. Finished construction at the house. Stayed two nights in West Hollywood during termite tenting. Hosted a pool party. Zoomed with International Director’s development team about Series. Studio said no to Classic Title.

October

Visited daughter in Australia, where she was studying for the semester. Traveled to Hamilton Island with friends. Saw the Great Barrier Reef and Blue Mountains. Attended the No Kings protest in Los Angeles. Pitched Series to streamers. Hosted two live Scriptnotes at the Austin Film Festival, where Highland Pro was a sponsor this year. Spoke with producer about moving Long-Dormant Project to a new home.

November

Visited the set of Indie Film shooting in Palm Springs. Attended first meeting of AI Coalition. Traveled to Las Vegas to see Kelly Clarkson, along with The Mob Museum, The Neon Museum, and Meow Wolf.

December

Launched the Scriptnotes book with a live show at Dynasty Typewriter. Turned in rewrite of Laika project. Finished office sound panel installation. Spent a week in Mexico City. The thumb I smashed in April has finally regrown its nail. Apple featured Highland Pro as one of its 26 Amazing Apps for 2026.

25 for 25

Last year, my husband and I made a list of goals for things we want to do together, which we called 24 for 2024. This year, we completed 17 of our 25 goals, including hosting three game nights, attending two sporting events, and seeing our first-ever opera.

Movies I saw in the theater

28 Years Later
After the Hunt
Captain America: Brave New World
F1
Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man
Mickey 17
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
One Battle After Another
Opus
Predator: Badlands
Showgirls (revival screening)
Sinners
Suspicion (revival screening)
Superman
The Fantastic Four – First Steps
The History of Sound
The Naked Gun
Thunderbolts
Tron: Legacy
Twinless
Weapons
Wicked: For Good

Shows I saw on stage

Channing/Tatum
Cult of Love
Eureka Day
Mike Birbiglia’s The Good Life
Parade
Pump Up the Volume
Rent
Stereophonic
Sunset Boulevard
WEER

Books I read

Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny
Strange Houses by Oketsu
Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World by Mark Waddell
Darryl by Jackie Ess
If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nate Soares
More Everything Forever by Adam Becker
The Ideological Brain by Leor Zmigrod
Self-Sabotage by Jeffery Self
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
The Keep by Jennifer Egan
The Scaling Era by Dwarkesh Patel
Antimemetics by Nadia Asparouhova

Other Stats

I ran 692 kilometers. I went to the gym 47 times. I played 39 sessions of D&D.

The Scriptnotes Book is out today!

December 2, 2025 Follow Up, News, Scriptnotes Book

Our Big Orange Book is finally available in bookstores around the world today. We’ve gotten a ton of preorders and some terrific reviews.

“Bound to be a staple, this guide, just like the podcast, is accessible, engaging, and informative” – Booklist

“August and Mazin’s volume stands out for its wealth of real-life examples taken from cinema and TV over the past decades, its humanizing tone, and its winning combination of the practical with the entertaining.” – Library Journal

“If you’re going to buy one book on screenwriting, then you should probably make it Scriptnotes by John August and Craig Mazin.” – Forbes

A few things you can do to help us out in this crucial first week:

→ Buy it wherever you buy books. Our official LA bookstore is Chevalier’s on Larchmont, which has some signed copies at least for the next few days. Signed copies are also available at Premiere Collectables for shipping worldwide.

→ Post about it on social media. Tag me (@johnaugust) and Scriptnotes (@scriptnotespodcast) on Instagram/Bluesky/Threads and we’ll repost ya.

→ Leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. The early ones tend to set a tone.

We’re excited to see the book on shelves and in reader’s hands. Please enjoy it and share it with others!

Writing for microdramas, aka verticals

September 24, 2025 Film Industry, Follow Up, Los Angeles, Television

Over the last six months, we’ve discussed microdramas (aka verticals) several times on Scriptnotes. For readers who don’t know, microdramas are a format originating in Asia in which a filmed narrative is broken into very short episodes intended to be watched on your phone. They’re often called verticals because they’re shot to be watched on a phone held vertically.

Typically, the first few episodes are free, and then each subsequent episode requires an in-app purchase. The overwhelming majority of microdramas are romances, often feeling like a heightened soap opera.

They’ve recently hit American shores, with U.S. productions shooting in Los Angeles, largely using non-union crews. They have provided work for underemployed actors and crew members — particularly recent film school graduates — and have some experienced producers kicking the tires.

Here’s an example from the ReelShort series The Hidden Billionaire in First Class.

Note that the WGA contract does cover this type of work. Guild writers should not be working on these productions unless they’re under a Guild contract.

We asked listeners who have written on these productions to share their experiences. Several wrote in. Here are two examples.

Risky Business writes:

I spent six months writing for Reelshorts. As a writer, it was terrible.

The first 10 chapters were pored over with repeated rewrites until all the joy was taken out of them, then pretty much they didn’t care. The rest of the story had little oversight as they didn’t expect people to watch.

The CEO repeatedly criticized the writers in company wide messages, while giving 100% of the credit for successes to the editors.

All while paying $22 an hour, with ‘no work’ orders between feedback cycles, and a constant “your contract can be cancelled at any time” hanging over your head, and expectation that you’d be immediately available the second they had feedback, which sometimes took over a week to receive. It ended up being less than minimum wage to basically hold all the blame for a possible failure poured on you from the entire company.

Creative decisions were entirely made by algorithms based on what was selling. The whole prediction model that hollywood is always trying to master contracted by the short production schedule.

I have not had the pleasure of joining any union, but the success of reelshorts definitely scares me. If the model succeeds, AI will definitely be writing the scripts, and the CEO can have his dream of never having to rely on a writer’s creativity again

Another listener wrote in with their experience:

In episode 693, Risky Business shared about his negative experience writing for verticals. I recently started as a screenwriter for one of the larger vertical drama companies as well, and I wanted to offer my perspective since I’ve had a more positive experience.

My salary is about $1540 a week–about $40/hr–with benefits. My lawyer also negotiated that my agreement be non-exclusive, so I am free to keep developing and writing non-vertical projects. Since I’m staffed, I still get paid when I’m waiting for feedback.

For sure, figuring out the soapy, melodramatic tone and structure of verticals has been a tough nut to crack. Even though there’s some room for innovation and creativity, at their core verticals are reverse-engineered around data-driven formulas. It’s kind of like doing a fill-in-the-blanks puzzle. It can be fun and even playful, but it’s a very different process from anything else I’ve done.

Because writing verticals often feels more like solving a puzzle than writing from scratch, I usually have a lot of creative energy left over to keep working on my own projects. I’m also able to write remotely outside LA, which has been a godsend for family reasons.

As a non-WGA writer, I’d love to see verticals get WGA coverage. But at this point, especially with the current state of the industry, I’m grateful for a screenwriting gig that pays the bills while leaving space for my own stuff.

To clarify, verticals already do have WGA coverage. WGA writers shouldn’t be writing on them, just as they shouldn’t be writing any film and television that’s produced without a Guild contract.

More on AI environmental costs

January 23, 2025 Follow Up, Geek Alert

In my earlier explainer about recent AI developments, I linked out to a Wikipedia entry that ran through some of the environmental impacts of AI models, mostly in terms of energy and water usage.

Since that post, Andy Masley came out with a much more useful comparison of AI costs. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but the short version is these costs seem much less massive when you compare them to everyday things like hamburgers and leaking pipes.

Low costs are not zero costs. But if you’re making choices as an individual, there are many more effective steps you can take to reduce your carbon footprint.

Masley’s whole article is worth reading, and a good reminder that big numbers (20,000 households!) and tangible metaphors (a bottle of water) can often lead to framing effects and vividness bias.