John August

Transcribed

Losing sleep over critics

Episode - 49

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Follow Up, QandA, Scriptnotes, Transcribed

John and Craig talk critics, and how trying to anticipate their reviews can cause paralysis.

It’s funny how the screenwriter only seems to get mentioned in negative reviews. Well, not funny, actually. Frustrating. And possibly statistically verifiable, so listen in if you’re looking for a research project.

Also this week: Craig’s insomnia, traffic apps, bake-offs done better, and capitalizing on a big star attachment. Plus fun things you can do in the shower!

All this and more in this slightly-delayed Scriptnotes!

LINKS:

You can download the episode here: AAC.

UPDATE 8-14-12: The transcript of this episode can be found here.

Craig dreams of sushi

Challenge, Scriptnotes, Three Page Challenge, Transcribed, WGA

Craig and John look at the results of the WGA screenwriter survey, which found widespread reports of bake-offs, prewriting and other shenanigans.

If there’s any solace to be found, it’s that it’s not just you. Things are frustrating for the vast majority of screenwriters.

After some follow-up discussion about the low percentage of women screenwriters, we get to the meat of this week’s podcast: round two of the Three Page Challenge, in which we look at the first three pages of listener-submitted samples. If you have a chance, read the PDFs ahead of time. You can find them in the links.

Big thanks to Sarah Nerboso, Jesse Grce and Austin Reynolds for inviting us to talk about their work on-air.

Also discussed this week: groin injuries, Japanese documentaries, earworms, and John’s feel-free-to-use motto: “Ikea: For Now, It’s Fine.”

LINKS:

You can download the episode here: AAC.

UPDATE 8-2-12: The transcript of this episode can be found here.

What script should you write?

QandA, Scriptnotes, Three Page Challenge, Transcribed

Craig and John tackle a question screenwriters ask themselves at every stage in their careers: of all things I could write, which thing should I write?

For working screenwriters, these questions are complicated by rights and money and personalities. But for the aspiring screenwriter, the choice is just as daunting. A screenplay is a huge undertaking, involving months or years of work. Each script carries an opportunity cost: choosing to write this project means not writing something else, or at the very least pushing it further back.

While the variables are different in every case, John and Craig offer some framework for answering the question.

Also this week, John discusses the death of Richard Zanuck, who produced three of his movies. From listener questions, we look at pitch-fests, illegal acts, and shows about your buddies.

And in cool things, Craig talks e-cigarettes while John has mixed opinions on the Nexus 7.

LINKS:

You can download the episode here: AAC.

UPDATE 7-26-12: The transcript of this episode can be found here.

Mistakes development executives make

Challenge, Film Industry, QandA, Scriptnotes, Transcribed

Craig and John skip Comic-Con so they can discuss annoying and unproductive habits of development executives, along with advice for working with screenwriters.

The back half of the podcast is devoted to the first-ever three page challenge, in which we critique listeners’ samples and offer suggestions. If you have a chance to read the samples before listening to the podcast — they’re in the links below — you’ll get more out of it, but we try to summarize things so that it’s useful even without the text.

Let us know what you thought of this experiment (on Twitter @johnaugust and @clmazin) so we’ll know whether to do a round two. We received more than 200 entries for the challenge — more than enough, so please don’t send any more. If we do another pass, we’ll pull from what we have.

Our thanks to everyone who wrote in, and especially to Ajay, J. Nicholas and Bryan for letting us talk about their stuff online.

Also discussed this week: standing desks, music theory, laptop speakers and inflated podcast numbers.

LINKS:

You can download the episode here: AAC.

UPDATE 7-19-12: The transcript of this episode can be found here.