John August

Follow Up

FDX Reader turns one

FDX Reader, Follow Up

fdx reader iconFDX Reader, our app for reading Final Draft scripts on the iPad and iPhone, came out a [year ago today](http://johnaugust.com/2011/we-made-an-app).

Usually, when people say, “I can’t believe it’s been a year!” they mean something like *look how time flies* or *it seems like only yesterday.*  

But when I say I can’t believe it’s been a year, I mean that I can’t believe it’s been *only* a year.  FDX Reader feels like something we did a very, very long time ago.

Why is my internal calendar so wrong in this case?

I have a few theories:

1. Digital things move faster.
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We’ve become accustomed to shorter and shorter attention cycles for digital goods. Consider [Draw Something](http://www.nowgamer.com/columns/nowgamer-team-blog/1388920/draw_something_a_licence_to_draw_money.html):

* Draw Something is a hit!
* Zynga buys Draw Something for $180 million!
* Draw Something is tanking!

The rise and fall of MySpace took years. The cycle for Draw Something has run about eight weeks.

Even though the time span has been incredibly compressed, our brains still try to ascribe a certain amount of time for a rise-and-fall cycle, so we subconsciously back-date events.

It’s not just apps that move faster. Many memes are essentially digital, and experience the same time-shift phenomenon.

Quick: When did [KONY2012 happen](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/kony-2012)? Was it before or after the [Mel Gibson/Joe Ezsterhas fracas](http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/joe-eszterhas-explodes-mel-gibson-you-hate-jews-36957)? And what about the [Sandra Fluke/Rush Limbaugh controversy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh–Sandra_Fluke_controversy)?

All of these memes burned bright and died out quick, leaving the embers to float in a sea of the recent past. ((Kony: February 20, 2012. Gibson: April 11, 2012. Fluke: February 29, 2012.))

2. My clock started when we began working on the app.
—-

Here’s what I wrote to Nima Yousefi on December 10, 2010:

> I think there’s an opening for an FDX Reader (called, perhaps, FDX Reader) that would simply register itself to iOS as able to open .fdx extension files. Then, when someone taps a file with that extension in Dropbox or Mail (or whatever) it can launch. That way, you don’t really have to worry about getting files to into it.

> What matters is the reading experience. Make it look nice, like the Instapaper app. Perhaps give the ability to add notes, but don’t try to become a screenwriting app.

> If that’s interesting to you, happy to go halfsies with you. Lemme know.

FDX Reader was our very first app. Not only did we need to figure out how to build it — the design, the coding, the testing — we had to learn how to get an app approved and released in Apple’s odd ecosystem. (Just getting an account set up is surprisingly convoluted.)

That process took a little over six months, so it’s reasonable that the app feels older to me.

3. So much has come after it.
—

In the past year, we’ve released the iPhone version of FDX Reader, several installments of [Bronson Watermarker](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/bronson) for the Mac, the spec for the [Fountain](http://fountain.io) markup language, and successive betas of [Highland](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland). (Come back tomorrow for major news on that one.)

All that activity seems like too much to have occurred in just a year, so I’m mentally stretching the time period.

4. The less attention you pay to something, the further back in time you push it.
—-

We don’t really do much with FDX Reader now. Our last update simply upgraded the graphics for the new iPad. If as rumored the new iPhone has a larger screen, we’ll make whatever changes we need to make. But the app itself is basically done.

We built the app because Final Draft hadn’t come out with its own reader. Now they have. Ours still sells remarkably well — probably because we’re the only one that works on the iPhone.

You never forget your first time, and FDX Reader really has been a remarkable experience bringing an idea to life. In celebrating FDX Reader’s first birthday, I’ll invite you to [try it out](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fdx-reader/id437362569?mt=8&ls=1) if you haven’t.

(Or leave us a nice review if you’re so inclined.)

Spending a year on Ringer

First Person, Follow Up, Television

Last year, Jay Faerber wrote a First Person post on [his experience in the Warner Bros TV Writers Workshop](http://johnaugust.com/2011/transitioning-from-comics-to-tv). At that time, he was just finishing up the workshop and staffing season was underway. I asked him for an update.

—

first personThe great thing about the Warner Bros workshop (in addition to what I learned in the program itself) is that it creates a strong incentive for any Warner Bros show that wants to hire a workshopper: the workshop will pay your salary for about the first 13 episodes. So it really gives workshop people a leg up when going out on meetings and competing against other lower-level writers.

Despite that, as any writer will tell you, staffing season is enormously stressful.

While I had that great Warner Bros backing, I was still competing with the seven other drama writers from my workshop. I ended up going on meetings for two bubble shows, plus another pilot. Then upfronts happened, and the two bubble shows were cancelled and the pilot didn’t get picked up.

At this point, I think most of my workshop colleagues had already been staffed, so I was starting to sweat a little. Then Ringer, which had been developed for CBS, got picked up by The CW, which made it a Warner Bros show and therefore a viable option for workshop graduates. I got a meeting on Ringer and was able to get a meeting on another Warner Bros pilot that had been picked up, and if I remember correctly, I got an offer to join the Ringer staff the evening after I had my meeting.

I accepted the offer and started work the Wednesday after Memorial Day.

Getting down to work
—-

jay faerber ringerThat first day at Ringer had a kind of first-day-of-school feeling, as all the writers got to know each other. It became apparent pretty quickly that I had lucked out — everyone on the writing staff was really cool.

One of the things that really stuck with me from the workshop was the importance of determining what’s expected of the staff writer. Some writers’ rooms adhere to a strict hierarchy and the staff writer is expected to only speak when spoken to (if that!). Others take an all-writers-are-created-equal approach, and everyone’s encouraged to chime in.

But it can get even more complicated than that.

I heard a story of a staff writer who’d been told by a higher level writer to keep his mouth shut and sit back and learn, but then the showrunner declined to pick up the staff writer’s option (after the 13th episode) because the staff writer never contributed. Whether this was a misunderstanding or deliberate sabotage by the higher level writer is up for debate. But I made it a point on that first day to simply ask our showrunner what she expected of me. She made it clear that all of us were expected to contribute.

On Ringer, all the stories were broken collectively by the writers in the room. Once we had the story fully boarded (all of the beats up on the white board), the writer of that episode would go off to write the story arena (or story area — different shows call them different things), then the outline, and then the script.

I’ve been a comic book writer for a long time, so this collaborative way of breaking stories was new to me, but I think I took to it pretty well. And my background helped in other ways. Serialized shows like Ringer have a lot of plot threads to keep track of, as do comics, so my brain was automatically wired for that.

Learning to love the white board
—-

Our writers’ room was lined on three walls with white boards. On the fourth wall was a TV. There were no windows. As the season progressed, two whole walls were taken up with charting the plot developments for each of the main characters in each episode. This helped us keep track of the various plot threads. The remaining third wall was what we used to break the story for each episode.

We’d start out by breaking each character’s story in a linear fashion. Bridget was usually the “A” story, then maybe a Machado or Andrew or Juliet “B” story, then a Siobhan “C” story, then sometimes a Flashback story. Once we had all these stories broken to our satisfaction, we’d start “blending” them — weaving the various stories together and figuring out where they fit into each act.

I quickly became the go-to guy to write on the white board throughout this process. I have good handwriting, and I didn’t mind doing it. It gave me a clear role in the room, and let me feel like I was contributing something even when I wasn’t pitching ideas.

I was also the only writer on staff with an active Twitter account (you can follow me [@JayFaerber](http://twitter.com/JayFaerber)), so I would sometimes Tweet about the show. It was an interesting experience. I wasn’t the “official” spokesman for the show by any means, but I tried to be accessible to fans. Most of my answers were probably vague and unsatisfying, since so many of them were of the “You’ll find out…” or “That’s not my department” variety. And because I was just a staff writer, I didn’t have the authority to be as forthcoming as Shawn Ryan or Jeff Eastin when they’re tweeting about their shows. But it was still fun (for the most part) to interact with the fans.

As is standard in TV, all the writers had initial contracts for the first thirteen episodes, and after that the showrunner could chose to pick up our option…or not. I was kept on, and over the course of the first season I got three scripts: one solo, and two that I co-wrote.

We shot Ringer in LA, and the writers were on set for the entire production of their episodes, which means I got a chair with my name on it and everything.

Someone once said that being a writer on set is like being a fireman — you sit around for long periods of time, and occasionally someone needs you. And that’s a pretty apt description. Most television directors are basically hired guns — they come in, direct an episode, and move on to the next gig on another show. As talented as these directors can be, they don’t always know the show, so it’s important for one of the writers to be there to make sure what’s being shot captures what we intended.

Not every show sends their writers to set. I have friends who wrote on shows that shot out of town, and they never got to be involved in production. And while these friends have been TV writers longer than I have, I feel like I have a leg up on them when it comes to production.

Back on the market
—

Ratings on Ringer haven’t been great and as we ended the season we were very much a “bubble show.” We might get renewed, we might not. The powers-that-be at The CW are probably waiting to see how their pilots turn out before they make any decisions.

This means that I’m going out for staffing season again. It’s a different experience now, since I’m not fresh out of the workshop. I’m competing with every other staff writer and story editor out there — not to mention this year’s new workshop graduates. But I’ve also got a year of experience under my belt, including three produced scripts.

I’m discovering staffing season requires you to be in a weird emotional space.

I want Ringer to come back because I love working with the writers and I really enjoy the world we spent the past year building. It’s a good job, and I’d like it to continue.

But in order to go out and meet with the showrunners of other shows, I have to sort of emotionally disconnect from Ringer so that I can allow myself to get excited about the idea of working on something else.

This isn’t a unique situation I’m in — a lot of shows end their season not knowing if they’re going to renewed. This type of emotional disconnect seems to be something worth developing if you’re going to have a career in TV.

I’ve spent the past couple months reading pilots and going on meetings for new shows, but I’m also still in touch with all the writers from Ringer. Hopefully we’ll be back in our writers’ room next season, and if not, I can only hope my next job is as great as my first one.

Confessions of a trust-fund screenwriter

Film Industry, First Person, Follow Up, Psych 101

In response to [the podcast discusson](http://johnaugust.com/2012/professional-screenwriting-and-why-no-one-really-breaks-in) Craig and I recently had about the perceptions of nepotism and wealth in the film industry, a listener wrote in to share his experience.

—

first personI am a trust fund screenwriter. Or was. I moved out here with a lot of family backing (though no real connections). For my first two years in LA, I sat in my apartment all day, trying to make myself write, as I could afford it and thought it the best use of my time.

But the key word there is ‘trying.’

Having a trust fund is nice, but it didn’t help me become a writer. It’s very hard to sit down and force yourself to write for eight hours a day when there’s nothing else in your life.

Even when I did write, it didn’t make me a screenwriter; there’s still the whole business side of the business I needed to learn.

And when I didn’t write (because of writer’s block or whatever) the thought of “I’m wasting my time” crept into my head, and made it even harder. That’s not the only issue, though.

The issue is one of access. Yes, I have some family money (enough to live on for a while, but not enough for reality TV), but I don’t have family connections in LA. And so, while spending two years in my apartment trying to write all day, I met no one — no executives, no agents, no managers — assuming that once I’d completed my perfect script, they’d come flocking to me.

And that was wrong on two counts.

One, they wouldn’t have come flocking. From my couch, I didn’t meet anyone willing to read my script and help my career.

Second, I couldn’t write a perfect script, or even a very good one. While I was wasting time in my apartment, I wasn’t learning. I wasn’t living. I didn’t grow as a person, and the stagnancy I felt in my life was reflected in my scripts. They were interesting ideas, but, like me, had no life.

I’d never leap in from the outside. I’d never write anything great by staying on my couch. I wouldn’t meet the right people, learn the way things work. I still needed talent. I needed to know the industry outside and in before I could expect to fully be a part of it.

Staying at home, living off my trust fund and writing didn’t work.

My father, who unlike me worked himself up from nothing to the point where he could give his children trust funds, always said the thing that drove him was the knowledge that he didn’t have any other options. And for me, the trust fund is always another option. I’ve always had a safety net. Which isn’t to blame the trust fund or to imply in any way that having a trust fund isn’t a good problem to have. I’m not that blind.

But my money couldn’t buy connections, and reveling in my financial comfort didn’t breed creativity.

Getting off the golden couch
—-

I started going out more. Because I have enough to live on, I could afford to work internships, which I did for a year. That’s an advantage I have. But I don’t think most of the other interns at my level had that advantage.

Now, finally, after almost a year of working for nearly nothing, things are happening. I’ve met lots of people who are able and willing to help me, whether by reading my scripts or making introductions for me. I’m working now—for actual, cash money—as a script reader, as an administrator for a screenplay contest, and as a freelance video producer.

And I’m still writing. Better than ever before.

I’ve grown as a writer exponentially more while working than I grew in the two years I spent just writing. There’s nothing like reading 400 scripts as a contest judge to teach you what not to do in a screenplay.

I’m not a professional writer yet. And it’s possible that if I’d had to work to support myself, I’d have found myself so stressed and overworked that I’d have given up long ago. But I don’t think so. I’m working now, and I’m writing just as much as before.

Maybe the money held me back. It’s possible that if I’d been working in the industry, supporting myself and meeting people while writing in my free time, I’d be much farther along than I am now. I’d have experienced failure and hardship in my career sooner, and maybe I’d have learned sooner how to translate that into a truly great screenplay.

And maybe I’d have written that screenplay in my spare time instead of the crap I wrote from my couch. And maybe one of my friends and connections and mentors — which I never had from my apartment — would have read that script and passed it on, and I’d be a professional writer right now.

Maybe they’d pay me millions of dollars to write the next big movie. I’d spend all day by the pool in my Beverly Hills mansion, trying to write for eight hours because it’d be my full-time job.

I still probably couldn’t do it.

Not for eight hours a day. Not from home. Not by myself.

My trust fund is a blessing, and I recognize that. Many things are easier for me than other people. Being a screenwriter is not one of them.

When you don’t get the job

Follow Up, Meta

Two years ago, I announced on the blog that I was [hiring someone for a new job](http://johnaugust.com/2010/hiring-a-new-person) called Director of Digital Things.

Greg Tung was one of the final contenders for the position, and recently [wrote about the experience](http://blog.scareyourselfeveryday.com/?p=47):

> It sounded like a job that was hand tailored for me. It sounded like a way out of the job I hated. But most of all, it sounded like the perfect way for me to get my foot in the screenwriting world door. I would be working shoulder to shoulder with one of the big names in screenwriting. Eventually he’d have to agree to at least read my script or help get me started, right?

> I made a silly little animation to send along with my application. It gave a bunch of funny reasons why John should hire me. Sprinkled in were some legitimate ones. I thought I nailed it and pretty soon after I sent it, John emailed me and said he wanted to interview me through iChat.

Greg’s application was terrific, and his animation/design skills were spot-on. I got 67 applications for the job. I interviewed five candidates. Greg did great.

> I can’t tell you how nervous I was for that interview. I’m terrible at interviews for jobs I don’t give a shit about. Now imagine what I was like when I felt this was my dream job (well, second dream job next to writing). I took a tough yoga class in the morning to tire me out but it didn’t really do anything, I was still bouncing off the walls.

> The interview went ok. Not great by any means but probably not terrible. I waited for days in agony for a response from John. I finally got one. He informed me I was one of three finalists. Joy! The next step? We would all be given a test project and the one he liked the best would be hired.

For the test project, I challenged the candidates to build a site somewhat like [Snopes](http://snopes.com), but centered around logical fallacies rather than hoaxes. You can read the [original instructions](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/digital_challenge.pdf) to see what I was looking for.

I was curious to see both artistic skills and problem-solving. I encouraged candidates to contact me as much as they needed to while they were working. After all the candidates submitted their sites, I looked at what they did.

> Later that week I got a call. I didn’t recognize the number but it was a fancy 310 area code. My heart raced. I picked up my cell phone and ran out of the office while I answered it.

> “Hey Greg, this is August,” the voice on the phone said. It was John. And he didn’t even call himself John. Is that what all big screenwriters do? Call themselves by their last name?

I’m pretty sure this was misheard or misremembered, because I’ve never called myself August in my life. (But if I somehow actually did, I apologize. Perhaps I’ve blocked it out my memory for douchiness.)

> I went into my car for some privacy. I could hardly contain myself. He was calling me. That had to be a good sign right? I was finally going to get out of this shitty job and start headed towards being a screenwriter. All would be right with the world!

> “I wanted to call and let you know that I decided to go with someone else,” he said.

> “Oh. Ok. Thanks for letting me know,” I said, in shock.

> “Sure. Thanks for applying. I wish you the best in the future,” he said and hung up. That was it. There was no explanation. No consolation. Just a short little rejection.

> I sat in my car for a long time after that. I was crushed. Beyond crushed. I was like the T-800 in the hydraulic press at the end of The Terminator.

I can honestly say the worst part about hiring people is not-hiring people.

I don’t remember calling Greg specifically, other than a fuzzy representation that’s probably a fabrication. But I remember making those calls. They killed me.

There’s no clear protocol for how the conversation is supposed to go after the news is broken. Should I explain what was not-especially-awesome about their work, or how they seemingly misunderstood the assignment? Should I tell them that, honestly, some of the contenders were just head-and-shoulders better?

Maybe I should have asked each applicant during the interview: “Hey, so, if you don’t get the job, would you rather I call you or email you?” But I hadn’t done that. So I called. And it sucked.

As a screenwriter, I’m used to being on the other end of these calls. I don’t get most of the jobs I want. I meet on projects that don’t go anywhere, and write scripts that never become movies. I get fired and rewritten. While my economic well-being doesn’t depend on a single job anymore, it never gets less painful.

Sometimes it’s my agent who calls to break the bad news. Other times, it’s the producer. (It’s never the director, FYI.)

I can’t say whether it’s better to rip the Band-Aid off quickly or slowly. But I’ve definitely found that it hurts less if you have something else to focus on. One of the luxuries of screenwriting is that you can always just write something new. You’re not waiting for permission. The studio may own one project, but they don’t own you. Fuck’em.

Greg Tung said fuck John August, and good for him. He went on after this to create a very cool site called [Scare Yourself Every Day](http://scareyourselfeveryday.com/), which has gotten him a lot of notice:

> And SYED has been the best thing that’s happened to me. Better than that job because this is something I did on my own. Something that actually affected other people. Something that inspired. If you said I could go back in time and get that job but SYED would not have happened, I’d never take that deal. Not in a million years.

You can read Greg’s full post [here](http://blog.scareyourselfeveryday.com/?p=47).