The original post for this episode can be found here.
John August: Hello, and welcome. My name is John August.
Craig Mazin: My name is Craig Mazin.
John: You are listening to episode 727 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.
Today on the show, what is work? What is free? Putting those terms together, what is free work? How should writers think about the time and effort they’re putting in before getting paid or after handing in a draft? We will offer some guidelines for both writers and those seeking work out of writers. We’ll also answer a bunch of listener questions. In our bonus segment for Premium Members, Craig, let’s discuss how writers should think about portraying law enforcement in this era, where previous assumptions do not seem to hold.
Craig: All right. I’ll follow your lead.
John: Yes. We’ll talk about cops and FBI, and everything else.
Craig: Nice.
John: First, some news. Birdigo, which is a game I made with Corey Martin, is now on the App Store. You can put it on your iPhone or your iPad, your Macintosh. It turned out great. It feels very native to these devices. We got featured by Apple as one of the Apple games we love.
Craig: Nice.
John: If you’re curious about it, it is free. Just put it on your phone and play it.
Craig: It’s free.
John: It’s free.
Craig: It’s free.
John: It’s a free game.
Craig: Is there any in-app?
John: You can do one migration per day. If you want to do multiple migrations per day, it’s a one-time purchase, four bucks, and everything else is in there forever.
Craig: I like it when there’s an option. I like when there’s an option to kick a little money somebody’s way.
John: There are no ads.
Craig: Oh, thank you for that.
John: Yes, it’s just cute, pudgy birds.
Craig: You may understand this because you create apps. I’ll play a lot of escape games.
John: Oh, yes.
Craig: There’s a lot of junky ones that are made, and they’re just ad-supported. They don’t even give you an option to get rid of the ads. The ads are almost always for some other dumb game.
John: Yes, it’s a whole ecosystem.
Craig: It’s a specific dumb game where you either are mowing down waves of zombies, or you’re like that.
John: Or you have to save the king from being–
Craig: Save the King, some crap about the king.
John: I don’t care about the monarchy.
Craig: Right. Why are we so into that?
John: I don’t know.
Craig: Like, “Oh, my God, I got to save the king.” No. Why don’t we form a Democratic Republic?
John: I like that as a choice. If you are playing Birdigo and want to send through a screenshot of your highest score, your highest playing word, I would love to see those. Those are always really fun. If you are playing it, please give us five stars. Leave us a review in the App Store because that helps people find the game. Another app is Weekend Read. Drew, you have the award season scripts up in there, right?
Drew Marquardt: Yes, I’m not doing Weekend Read as much anymore.
John: That’s right. Of course, Chris is doing it now.
Drew: Chris is doing it.
John: Tell us about the award season.
Drew: We’ve got all of the four-year consideration scripts from 2025 in the 2026 award season. Now on Weekend Read, for the features.
John: All the features.
Drew: All the features.
John: Yes, so it’s good. You saw the movie in the theaters, you loved it. Now see what it actually looked like on the page and see what is the same, what changed. I love that. You can start to see-
Craig: Useful.
John: -what it was like before it became the future that you loved. Very important follow-up. Craig, you have solved your email crisis.
Craig: Well, somebody solved it for me. We had a listener write in to give us some advice, and it turned out that I needed to align DMAC and DKIM, and SPF, and a whole bunch of other things that I don’t understand. But I followed the instructions, and I have to say, the instructions were not written well. There were multiple steps where you tried to do something. It’s like, you can’t do that until you do this. I had to go into the domain system and add a bunch of CNote and blah.
There was so much crap to do. At some point, I thought, I’m probably going to just screw up all my email with this. This seems dangerous. I’m like, “Sometimes you do something where someone will say, ‘Oh, if you want to fix something, let’s say, in macOS, go into the terminal and enter this command.'” You’re like, “I hope this doesn’t blow my computer up.” It was a lot of that, and I thought, “It’s never going to work,” and it worked. It fixed it. It was just one of those things where Google’s very fussy about the domain name needs to match where it’s coming from, and so I needed to do a little bit of alignment. It was fixed.
John: I was so excited when I got your email, and it actually came through properly. It was joy.
Craig: Fantastic news for me. I installed Outlook, like everybody who works. I have 12 different emails based on which company and for what. HBO me email and a me email and a Gmail, but my main one, it was nice that you were able to finally receive it. Now you can receive numerous sternly worded emails.
John: Exactly. That’s what I need daily. In episode 723, we were talking about comps, and Craig, I got some real-time in-person follow-up because you had brought up the idea of, quote, “Jumanji in Space.” Raphael Bob-Waksberg, who was the creator of Bojack Horseman, came up to me and said, “You need to tell Craig that Jumanji in Space already exists. It’s called Zathura, and it was directed by Jon Favreau in 2005.”
Craig: Nice.
John: Yes.
Craig: I’ll tell you something. I know this. Whenever I said Jumanji in Space, the part of me that understood that Zathura existed, it just was turned off. That part of my brain was just switched off. It’s not even like I can say, “Oh, my God, you know what? That’s what I wasn’t.” No, that part of my brain was switched off. It has now switched back on. Thank you, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, for a number of things like A, BoJack Horseman, B, turning my brain back on Zathura because, yes, that is, in fact, exactly Jumanji in Space.
John: Here’s the long line for Zathura. Two young brothers are drawn into an intergalactic adventure when their house is hurled through the depths of space by the magical board game they are playing.
Craig: It’s Jumanji in Space.
John: It’s just straight up.
Craig: You know, he must have been so concerned about me, like, “Is he an idiot?”
John: “Did he have a stroke?”
Craig: Yes. “Did he have a stroke? Does he just not pay attention to anything ever?” Me saying Jumanji in Space should be something is as stupid as me saying, I don’t know, there should be a movie that’s not about pulp fiction, but it is in the style of pulp fiction, and it could be called Pulp Fiction.
John: Yes, or a movie about caddies and a gopher.
Craig: And feature a shack. It’s that stupid. I was that stupid. I like that. You know what? I like that he didn’t lead with, “Hey, Craig’s stupid.” That was really nice of him.
John: Yes, and he kept that in the subtext, which is important.
Craig: Since he listens, I hope he can feel my gratitude pouring through.
John: But, Craig, I could have also pointed out that Zathura existed, and I also forgot. I think it’s just one of those movies that people don’t talk about Zathura.
Craig: No one talks about–
John: They don’t.
Craig: That’s the first rule.
John: That’s the problem.
Craig: Yes, no one does talk about Zathura.
John: It’s this movie star, Josh Hutcherson, who became famous off–
Craig: The Hunger Games.
John: Hunger Games movies and Kristen Stewart.
Craig: Also famous.
John: Yes, Twilight.
Craig: Also famous. Yes. It is fun when you go back, and you see sometimes these movies where there’s a lineup of all these people, and everybody’s the third through seventh character. Each one of those is a huge star 20 years later. It occasionally comes up from time to time.
John: Or Pedro Pascal being in a random episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Love it.
Craig: Which happened.
John: Happened.
Craig: It happened.
John: It happened for real.
Craig: He knows it. He hasn’t forgotten that. Like I forgot Zathura.
John: Absolutely. That paid his bills for a while.
Craig: Hell, yes. Those jobs will pay.
John: We have some follow-up on AI coverage.
Drew: Michael in Palo Alto wrote us to say, “The depictions of LLMs on the show, especially from Craig, is not keeping up with the rapid advances in these models. The image of LLMs regurgitating and recombining text from their training data set is a fair descriptor of the prior generation of AI. But the current generation was built using fancier techniques like reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards.
For tasks like coding and math, where you can reliably verify whether the answer is correct, this lets the model try lots of different reasoning chains and gradually gets better at thinking by picking the ones that work the best. So my question for you is, do you think similar techniques could be applied to screenwriting or other creative filmmaking tasks in the future? What would be needed to make this happen?”
Craig: Wow, Michael, that’s a really good observation. I feel like you’ve made a pretty good point. I guess I should reconsider. You’re absolutely right. Things are getting better, and I hope they continue on this path, AI. AI talk, AI vibe, AI like, ah, great. I don’t know what to make of this because I don’t know what it means.
John: I recognize a lot of what Michael is saying, and so I do feel that we have this sense that, well, AI is just a text prediction engine, which was really very true to the first versions that were coming out. If you just use the free versions of ChatGPT right now, it still feels like that, but much more sycophantic.
Craig: Exactly. That’s a great point, John.
John: Once you actually pay for can do much more impressive things in terms of synthesizing a whole bunch of stuff and coming up with a meaningful answer on a thing. That’s what I think he’s talking about in terms of when there’s a verifiable ground truth to come out of it, like code that will actually run; it is much better at that now because it can actually work towards an end goal and test to see if it actually worked. It all falls apart when it comes to creative writing for obvious reasons.
Craig: Yes, there is no right answer. There’s no answer. There is no way. In fact, if you look at how what we do is “verified,” I guess you’d have to go to either box office, or ratings, or critical thinking from critics, or from audience scores, none of which ultimately matter either, because it’s all a complicated dance, and some movies which were very popular disappeared from our minds, and other movies, which were bombs in theaters, some became huge hits later, and people discovered them. Nobody can use this method. There is no way to reliably verify anything. Ask any executive in town, “Boy, do they wish there were.”
John: Oh, God.
Craig: Their jobs wouldn’t be constantly on the line. I think that while Michael is in Palo Alto, so, okay, I’m not surprised he’s a little bit bullish. I will give you, Michael, that you’re clearly keeping up with the rapid advances more than I am. No, I don’t think what you’ve described would have application to creating something. What it has is application to getting an answer correct, an answer that we could have also gotten to ourselves. In this sense, we’re still in calculator territory, even though it is quite more complicated and linguistic.
John: Yes. We’ve talked before about one of the– This was a link that I included in an earlier conversation about this. It feels like there’s something about writing and creative writing that actually does involve having a physical body, and actually having a sense of what it feels like to be in a place to actually encounter things, to experience things, to be in a moment that it’s not synthesizable. It is actually the experience of being in a thing, feeling shame, like wondering whether you should interrupt somebody or not interrupt something. The inner talk.
All of these experiences that humans recognize as being like, “This is part of the human experience that inform every choice we’re making, whether we know it or not.” Will systems like LLMs get to something that is a process that makes it so closely that we can’t tell the difference? I don’t know, but I doubt it. I do think there’s something fundamental about the human experience that these things aren’t going to do in a way that will obviate the need for actual people doing this work.
Craig: Another thing that came to mind, I was rehearsing a sequence the other day with the actors, and we were in full costume, and we were going through things. It struck me how even if I hadn’t written it, even if someone else had written it, everyone understands that they are working with and to some extent somewhat accountable to the creative work of someone. Therefore, there is a certain level of respect hopefully built in.
When you say to somebody, or if you were to say to somebody, “Here are the pages, these were generated by AI.” No one has any respect for that inherently. We are quite free, in fact, to say “I don’t care.” Would computer thought this is a good idea? I don’t. Someone else will say, “Yes, this doesn’t– I don’t like this for–” Everybody can tear it apart, because writing can always be torn apart. The veil that protects it sometimes is the fact that a human being wrote it, and we have a connection with each other, and we can dig in and ask that person questions and debate, and consider. I just don’t think anybody would respect the writing.
John: Now, you’re talking about intentionality and accountability, and these ideas that are specific to the social experience of making a thing, and then watching a thing, and the process is really part of it. These AI systems that are just, ‘boom,’ generating these fight scenes on rooftops between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Well, I guess the intention was the prompt, but that’s not actually how you would get to anything in the real world.
Craig: No, nor would Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise want to do that if they got pages telling them to do that. Also, that is an incredibly derivative thing anyway. How do we get to Tom Cruise? We get to Tom Cruise through Risky Business. Good luck, AI. Good luck writing that.
John: Yes, that’s why whenever there’s AI actress signing a deal, well, that’s absurd.
Craig: That’s just a stunt.
John: Oh, yes.
Craig: It’s like, how many times can I see the robots from Boston Dynamics jumping on top of something and then jumping off? I get it. You guys can jump on tables.
John: I get it. I still love it.
Craig: I love it. I get it, but it’s enough already. The stunt is adorable. The stunt of the “AI actress is just internet Ouroboros.” Is what it is.
John: Well, let’s go from new technologies to older new technologies. In 725, we were talking about what should I do with my DVDs? We had a couple of suggestions. Drew, help us out.
Drew: Trent in Seattle writes, “I wanted to flag an option that might not be on your radar. Scarecrow Video in Seattle. They’re a nonprofit that houses over 150,000 titles, and they gladly accept DVD, Blu-ray, VHS, and even Laserdisc donations. It’s the coolest video store on the planet, and it’s one that’s really changed how my family watches movies. Case in point, my four-year-old is obsessed with Godzilla.”
Craig: Nice.
Drew: “Most of the Godzilla catalog isn’t available on any streaming service, but Scarecrow has all of it. Watching him tear up and down the aisles, picking out movies, gives me that same blockbuster on a Friday night feeling I had as a kid, and that’s not something I expected to be able to share with him. Scarecrow even rents nationwide by mail.”
Craig: Whoa, that’s a cool idea for a business, renting DVDs by mail.
John: I know. I love it. I love it. Watch them circle and become another internet thing.
Craig: In like 20 years, Scarecrow owns Warner Bros., Disney. Yes, this sounds great.
John: This is actually like two-level follow-up because, Drew, you said in 662, we actually mentioned them?
Drew: Yes, we mentioned that they were doing, Scarecrow Video had a fundraiser to save the store. I mean, it sounds like it worked.
Craig: Oh, great. Wow, maybe it worked too well. These guys are out there, they’re crushing it.
John: Yes, if I can find a place to take these, I will gladly put them in someone else’s hands because I think about these the same way I think about books in my library. As we’re sorting through stuff, it’s like, “Is the best place for this book my shelf, or somebody else’s shelf?” If I’m never going to read this book again, it should be on somebody else’s shelf.
That’s why I always donate books to a library, because they have the library sales. Some stuff would go into the collection, but most stuff is just generating money for the library. Good. If someone else wants to read this book, that’s awesome. If nobody wants to read this book, at least they probably have a good way to recycle a bunch of books and chop them up to make new books.
Craig: Chopping them up, new books.
John: Yes. Unfortunately, you can’t chop up DVDs very well to make new DVDs.
Craig: No. All right. Well, thanks for that, Trent.
John: Teresa writes about why physical media is important.
Drew: “When stuff is on streaming, or even if you buy a digital copy of something, it can be taken away from you at any time. There’s things that are not only taken off of streaming, but now aren’t even offered on DVD or Blu-ray anymore. Shows by marginalized creators that were made during the streaming boom, like the Gordita Chronicles or Minx, are just gone now. You could say that people weren’t watching anyway, so who cares?
A big part of why people weren’t watching was because these shows were created in a glut of shows, and they flew under the radar, and they weren’t supported properly. Many of those that did find the shows or films, they loved them, but they can’t recommend them anymore because they’re hard to find or purchase or buy or whatever. Remember, Ellie in The Last of Us didn’t learn Take On Me from finding the song on Spotify. She learned it from a cassette tape or a CD that someone preserved.”
Craig: She actually did learn it on Spotify. No, she didn’t.
John: The whole world went away, but then somehow Spotify was formed early in your universe.
Craig: Yes. No, we do think about that all the time, that if the world ends in 2003, physical media is still king. People do watch movies in the apocalypse because they have cassette tapes. In fact, we’re going to feature one of those movies soon in season three, in fact. She did learn it from Take on Me. You’re right, Teresa. They have been sending stuff away, and they can take it away. Even though technically you are only licensing something to watch when you purchase a DVD, there’s really no effective way for them to revoke that license.
What it comes down to, actually, I think, is the viability of the playing devices. Those are the things that actually we got to think about because they don’t make them. If they stop making Blu-ray players and they stop making, just like they stopped making Walkmans and so forth, it can get tricky. If we have ways to preserve some of the methods to play these things, I think Teresa’s right. Physical media is important, especially if you have something that you suspect would be the thing they might stop providing.
John: Yes. The idea of you cannot see the thing that you created anymore is incredibly frustrating. Also, I remember that showrunners throughout time have made things that they couldn’t show to people anymore, also. In a pre-streaming era, anything that was not on the TV was just not available.
Craig: It’s gone. If it didn’t get syndicated. You could do four seasons of a show, and it wasn’t enough to get syndicated, and no one would ever see that show again in any form whatsoever. The thing is, you and I are used to this, actually.
John: True.
Craig: In fact, when we were kids, if you missed a movie in theaters, you didn’t see it because there was no video for a while, until what, were you maybe nine or something?
John: Well, people will bring up H.R. Pufnstuf, people of my generation, and I have just no idea what it was because it didn’t broadcast in Colorado, where I grew up. I’ll talk to my Boulder friends. It’s like, “Have you been haunted by H.R. Pufnstuf?” It’s like, “Yes.” It’s a thing that other people know that we just don’t know because it just never aired in Denver.
Craig: Yes, well, in New York, we got H.R. Pufnstuff.
John: Yes, see?
Craig: They were awesome. Witchiepoo. Man, they were high. Wow, those guys are– For people who don’t know what this was, it was a children’s show, and it was like kids in a
special island with a bunch of big puppets, and the people who made it were just so clearly high in the best, most lovely way.
John: All good points. I think as I go through and sort through these DVDs and things, maybe I will hold on to the movies I just genuinely love, that I would actually be heartbroken if I could not watch them when I wanted to watch them, but that’s going to be a small subset of these movies. Most of them should go to Scarecrow Video or someplace like that, so other people can use them.
Let’s get to our main topic this week, which is free work. Craig, free work is a comparatively new name for something that we’ve encountered our entire life as feature writers because we just [crosstalk] from every angle. As feature writers, we are constantly going in to pitch on projects and doing a lot of stuff to figure out how to win this movie, win this job, and before we got paid anything to write it, and then a bunch of free work for after we hand in a script, people are always asking for more and more stuff before they pay us again. As feature writers, we’ve always encountered this.
In conversations with TV folks, they’re encountering a lot more of it now, too. Not just in the development process, trying to get that pilot to happen, but sometimes writing scripts after the room has closed because the scripts are just not done. Let’s just talk through the kinds of free work that writers are apt to encounter, what to do with different stages, and try to hopefully find some framework for thinking about, “Is this a thing I should consider doing, or is this an absolute red line, don’t cross this line?”
Craig: Let’s start with what the law is. The law, per the WGA, is you can’t do it. The WGA has, I think, it’s a Working Rule 8, that says, “You cannot write without an employment agreement under the WGA contract for anyone.” The end. Also, that is an impossible standard to hit in a sense. Part of the problem is even defining what writing is. What if I’m just sitting with you and we’re coming up with some ideas for something, but we don’t write it down, or just you write it down, we’re just thinking about it? What if we’re emailing each other?
Again, technically, everything that’s written down is writing, but it is probably an untenable position to say, “It’s never going to be the case that you’re going to write something down without an agreement.
John: Let’s wind it back to, obviously, writers have the luxury. We can just write anything at any time. We can write spec scripts. We just write our own things. That’s how we all get started, is writing our own things. That is the great luxury of being a writer. A director has to have a piece of material to go off and direct, an actor has to have a piece of material to audition with, to stand in front of the camera and say. Writers can just do these things. What often happens is it can be a vague line between this is the thing I’m writing for myself or this is the thing I’m writing for somebody else.
I describe this idea to a producer. The producers like, “Man, I really love that. You should write that.” Are you writing it for that producer, or you’re writing this for you, and that producer may become involved at some point? Those are the blurry lines that feature writers have always been experiencing, but TV writers increasingly are experiencing too.
Craig: You have some things that help balance it out. The biggest one is if you’re writing something and it’s “free,” maybe a better, even though no one will ever call this a better term, would be unhired writing. If it’s unhired, that means they can’t use it.
John: Exactly.
Craig: Now, a lot of times you can’t use it either because it’s based on something existing. They may come to you and say, “Here’s a book, The Chronicles of Narnia,” even though Greta Gerwig’s doing that movie, but let’s just pretend in there, “Here’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Can you give us a sense of how this might go?” Then they just keep– “Can you write it as a summary? Can you write it as this? Can you write us the first 10 pages?” By the way, they’re not allowed to do any of that either, but they can’t use it if they don’t pay you, if they don’t hire you for it. It is not usable by them.
That is something that they’re aware of. Sometimes I feel like they’re not, but it seems to me like the biggest areas where I would have red flags on so-called free work or unhired writing, or whatever you want to call it, [chuckles] is when you are feeling coerced, when you are being told it is a quid pro quo, “Do this in order to get that,” which should not happen, or when you feel like you actually have been paid. You have been hired. They’re just trying to get more steps out of you without paying you for steps. Those are the three danger zones to me. The problem, just as is the problem with all areas of human behavior, is power dynamics. “Am I being coerced?” Hard to say sometimes.
John: Are you being coerced, or are they meaningfully trying to get this thing to exist and to happen? “Listen, I think your script is good. I think if you were to do this, then we can take it out on the town to do a thing.” If it’s a producer saying, “Ah.” If it’s a manager saying that, you’re like, ” Now look.” If it’s your agent, who is in theory your fiduciary person who’s there because they’re going to make money only when you make money, that’s a cleaner attachment, but it’s still always tricky and challenging to figure out what this is like. I do want to acknowledge that we’re talking about writing here.
Obviously, any artist, any person who creates creative output, this resonates a bit with you too because so often, “Oh, could you design this brochure for me? I can’t really pay you, but it’d be an exposure, or this could lead to something else?”
Craig: There’s wonderful examples online of people posting their graphic artists, and people are saying, “I want a logo. I’m not going to pay you, but I will give you exposure.” Then they’re like, “Sorry, no, I get paid to do work,” and then people throw fits, which is hysterical. I think for us, we just always have to be aware that people are trying to take advantage of us. I don’t even want to villainize the people that are trying to take advantage of us. I think they’re taught to. I think that’s part of their job. I think that the idea of getting something for nothing is extremely attractive to people who work in business.
We don’t work in business. We write inside of a business. They’re trying to take advantage of that, and they will try to convince you. Sometimes, as you say, they’re right. Sometimes you’ll want to do it. You will want to do more because you feel like it’s in your best interest, but figuring out which is when–
John: Let’s give a concrete example here. There is a book that a company owns. They’re talking to writers about adapting this book, and they’re meeting with writers about adapting this book. For me, that was How to Eat Fried Worms. The very first project I ever landed was one of these open writing assignments. They were meeting with me and several other writers about this.
We were doing a lot of work and a lot of writing that we were not handing in, but a lot of writing on our side to convince the production entity that we are the people who should be adapting this book. Weeks of my life, a lot of my writing time, doing this to try to land this job. It was the right choice for me because I landed the job, and it got me started. If the situation had been set up, if there were a rule that you had to be paid to pitch, basically, anybody going on this project had to be paid for it, I wouldn’t have had a chance to pitch on it. That’s–
Craig: Worse than that. Pay to pitch is such a bad idea because for some pittance, A, it’ll weed out a lot of people that would have gotten a chance and now suddenly don’t, and B, they just bought everything you said for five grand. You know what I mean? It’s such a bad idea, but I did the exact same thing you did. That was quite a common thing, I think, in the ’90s, and the way that the feature business ran was, it’s funny, I think it’s changed.
Back then, it seemed to me what would happen is there’s something out there like How to Eat Fried Worms or I think Stretch Armstrong was one that was across my desk and many, many others. You would sit, and the expectation was that you would come in and you wouldn’t pitch a take or have a conversation about, you would describe a movie beginning to end. You weren’t handing them anything on paper, and they would often ask.
John: They would ask.
Craig: [chuckles] I would say, “Hmm, now the thing is actually don’t have a written on paper in a way that would make any sense to anybody. It’s all scribbles,” which is not true. That was part of how you got the job, but the real important thing is you didn’t give them writing. You spoke it. Technically, you’re skirting around the thing.
John: There was no literary material being exchanged.
Craig: That’s right. They don’t have it. They can’t hand it to anybody, and they will have to pay you for all the words that happen on paper, but to me, of course, that’s writing. It’s mind writing. It counts.
John: It’s mind writing. Оbviously, there could have been a person in that room writing down everything you said. Now, of course, with AI, they can just pull the transcript of exactly what you said. It’s a little bit moot whether you’re handed in the thing, but it’s also important you didn’t hand it in the thing because there’s no implied that you were giving them this thing, which they couldn’t own anyway because it’s still your work.
Craig: Exactly. That is correct. It is still your work. You did not sell it. They can’t own it, but that was a free writing.
John: What we’re describing here is pre-writing. This is before you got the job. This is actually– it’s a challenge for the guild, any guild, to enforce rules about this, because you’re not an employee of this company yet. You’re trying to land a job. We can talk about why no writing left behind, why you’re not doing these things, but the guild can’t, and sure shouldn’t stop you from going in and pitching on things, because that’s how you get jobs. That is the thing. The other kind of free work is you are an actual employee. You’ve delivered something, and they’re still asking for free work after that.
Craig: That’s a rough one.
John: Which is bad, but really common.
Craig: Very.
John: That is a situation where it’s about you recognizing your own self-worth and saying no, having reps to say no, and honestly, having the guild to say no at a certain point, or even go after and get payment that you should have gotten for work that you really were doing that they weren’t paying you.
Craig: Yes. I will say that we’ve been in the WGA for about 30 years now, you and me?
John: Yes.
Craig: They’ve been talking about this for 30 years. They have not fixed it in 30 years. There have been some great ideas and so many different kinds of ideas. Ultimately, the problem is the guild is not in the room. If the studio executive, or let’s say more commonly, the producer and the writer agree to do a thing, they’re doing it, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Yes, writers will say, “I don’t want to agree,” but you did. We’ll say, “Well, okay, call the guild.” “Well, I don’t want to do that because I don’t want to get in trouble.”
My favorite proposed solution, there is a guy in the 2000s. His solution was, every meeting that happens between every member of the WGA and any producer or student executive has to be recorded and transcribed, and all transcriptions sent to a clearinghouse that looked through to see if there’s– I was like, that also wouldn’t work, but it would cost a billion dollars.
John: It would cost a billion dollars less now with AI, but yes.
Craig: Also, people would just be like, “Hey, we need to meet.” [crosstalk]
John: Absolutely. Whisper, whisper.
Craig: Yes. Of course, you can get around everything. When there’s a will, there’s a way. When people are twisting someone’s arm, and that person is new, as you and I once were, it is difficult. Of course, I was in situations early on in my career where I–
John: Well, and there’s also going to be moments where the producer says, “Hey, listen, this is great.” These are two things. These are two red flags before we hand it into studio,” because I know this is a situation. You can’t fight back against that, because that’s actually good advice at times.
Craig: No one’s upset about that.
John: Let’s talk about some actual remedies here. Things that have worked for us. Giving us a producer before the deadline. If it’s eight weeks, and you give it to the producer at seven weeks, and you can say, “Hey, I’m turning this in next week,” and make it clear, “This is going in, whether you like it or not. This is what’s going on.” That has worked for me.
Craig: It can be taken as a declaration of war by a number of producers, because you can say, “Hey, well, it says in my contract, I got turn it in.” A typical writing period, I think, is 12 weeks. “It’s been 12 weeks. I got to turn it in.” They’ll be like, “No, you don’t.”
John: No.
Craig: They don’t care. They just want it to be good. They’re right in that the studio is like, “Please, keep writing. We paid them for 12 weeks. We’re not paying them more. Keep writing.” That is the silent conspiracy that’s going on behind the scenes to get you to write more when there are perfectly described steps in your contract for writing more.
John: In terms of perfectly described steps, on one project, the producer/director came to me and said, “Hey, I’m about to turn this in.” They came with a whole ton of notes. I said, “This is too much for me to do,” and we actually did negotiate that we took a step out of sequence, so I did my polished up before my rewrite, and that was a solution.
Craig: They’re well defined. This has worked for me, where I will give something to the producer. Generally speaking, if I agree with their feedback or requests, it’s probably not that hard to do them. I want to do them because I think it’s going to make it better. There’s no value in me turning something in and saying, “By the way, I know how to make this better. I just didn’t yet.”
John: [laughs]
Craig: When it’s not great, which is honestly more often than not, then at some point you say, I want the benefit of everybody’s point of view on this, because I want to make sure, especially as you get later on in your career, I’m getting paid this much money. It seems like the person who runs the studio should get a vote, too. What the producer can’t say is they already did. If they did, they broke the rules, and it got submitted. Now they got to pay me, so they can’t say that, so it jams them up. That’s worked a few times for me. Early on, unfortunately, what it comes down to is your agent has to say enough is enough to them, because the agent has other clients that have more power than you do.
John: Agents classically have so many other relationships with that producer that they don’t want to rock the boat too much. It’s-
Craig: It’s tough. The thing is, I feel like you get to a point as a representative where you can call somebody and say, “We have a lot of business together. I’m asking you, please, this one went too far. We will continue to have lots of business together, but we have to do our jobs, and this is part of my job.” Those conversations happen all the time. At that point, that is when the person who’s been trained to get as much as possible for as little as possible says, “Okay, you got me.”
John: Other things that have worked for me in the past, is making sure you have a relationship with the studio executive independent from the producer. If I can talk to the studio executive and say, “Hey, I finish, and the producer wants all this stuff. Do you want me to do all this stuff?” Like, no, they honestly, generally, probably just want the script in their hands.
Craig: Of course. We did help things along in our last negotiation, because we won this thing that I’ve been crying about for so long, which is two steps for writers who are earning under a certain number. It doesn’t apply to because the studios make a point. If I pay Scott Frank $3 million to write a script, I really don’t want to get nickel-and-dimed on drafts. We’re paying somebody $250,000 for a draft; you can get 12 drafts out of them if you’re going to be a jerk about it.
Now, because we built that second step in, that’s guaranteed, the producer feels like we can get it in. It’s not over. It’s not like if everybody reads it and hates it, it’s not over. We have another draft.
John: Other things that can work. It’s recognizing that the opportunity cost of pitching on things that don’t go anyplace. That’s why I always ask, how real does this feel, or is this a fishing expedition? Are they just like they kind of have an idea, they have a book, but it’s not clear that they actually want to make this a movie. It’s not clear that anyone up the food chain even knows this thing really exists. Asking, do they actually own the IP? When you go in and pitch on a thing, and then you realize-
Craig: Incredible.
John: -wait, they don’t even own it yet. They’re just thinking about getting it.
Craig: They spring it on you real late. It’s happened to me a few times.
John: They’ve been trying to make my deal, and it was, “Oh no, we need to get the underlying rights first.” Come on
Craig: Wait. What? That is Hollywood flim flam for you.
John: My friend, Michelle, has a three-meeting rule, which I really respect, she and her writing partner will take three meetings on a project, but if there’s not a decision after three meetings, they’re done.
Craig: Oh God, yes.
John: Love it, great. They’ve done that since the start of their career.
Craig: It’s a great rule, because at some point, put up or shut up. It’s pretty obvious, like, are we dating or not?
John: We got a listener question that is on this topic. Drew help us out with what Nick wrote.
Drew: “In Steven Soderbergh’s recent interview in Variety about his canceled Star Wars movie, he says, “That was two and a half years of free work for me and Adam and writer Rebecca Blunt. What is happening here?”
Craig: [laughs]
Drew: “Has it become common practice for guild members to write years’ worth of drafts on spec for major IPS held by signatories? John and Craig have been tremendous advocates for writers getting paid. My understanding of the MBA is that unpaid writing like this shouldn’t be happening. Is Lucasfilm leveraging creatives’ desire to contribute to their franchise to eliminate development costs, or did Soderbergh convince a writer to engage in fan fiction on the hope that it would lead to a future payday? I’m hoping you might shed some light on what might be going on here and what the WGA’s role would be in such a situation.
John: I looked back at the original Variety article. Nick is inferring some stuff here that I don’t think is actually in the Variety article. I don’t know whether anybody was paid for anything at any point. The overall frustration that Soderbergh is expressing absolutely resonates for me. I want to talk about it because directors also have a ton of unpaid work that they’re going through. It’s all this trying to land the movie, trying to get the movie greenlit. A lot of that stuff is not paid, and they are doing months and months of work, in some cases, for things that don’t happen at all.
Craig: I don’t know the specific details, but I’m going off of Soderbergh’s quote here. Is this kosher per the MBA? Nick says, “My understanding is that unpaid writing like this shouldn’t be happening.” Correct. Unpaid writing like this shouldn’t be happening. As I said earlier, it is a nearly impossible standard to hit in the world, and sometimes it does bend to a writer’s benefit to bend that a little bit.
In this case, what does sometimes happen is there’s going to be a movie. There’s a big machine like Marvel or Star Wars or DC, who knows, and they say there’s going to be a movie, and the movie is going to be based on this thing. You come in as somebody like Soderbergh, and you’ve got a producer, and you’ve got a writer, and you guys pitch, and they’re like, “You guys even do the thing, but the higher-ups aren’t going to let us do the thing unless we know what the thing is, and that it fits in with these other things so da, da, da,” and so suddenly, you become– Maybe they’re even like, “It’s happening, we’ve just got to work out the rights,” something like that. Then one day, someone gets fired, or someone changes their mind, and that thing is not a thing anymore, and it’s gone.
It’s like you were trying to get this job, really, really assiduously, and then they just eliminated that office, and there is no job. That can be incredibly frustrating. I don’t know the specifics of what happens here. What I would say is, did Soderbergh convince a writer to engage in fan fiction on the hope it would lead to a future payday? No, I don’t think somebody like Steven Soderbergh just blindly engages in something like that. There must have been an understanding that then became undone. I don’t know the specifics, all I can say is that the person that I feel the most for is Rebecca Blunt because she’s identified as the writer.
John: For sure. Let’s answer some listener questions. We have one from Nicholas.
Drew: “I’m writing on behalf of a French Screenwriters Association. Each year, we award a trophy to a person who has significantly contributed to supporting and fostering emerging screenwriters. The name of this trophy is a schmuck.”
Craig: [laughs]
Drew: “A reference to the oft-quoted anecdote that Harry Warner referred to screenwriters as ‘Schmucks with Underwoods’.
Recently, one of our American members, who is Jewish, raised a concern that the use of the term schmuck in this context may carry anti-semitic implications. According to this concern, Warner may have used this term specifically toward Jewish writers, and therefore the expression, and by extension our trophy’s name, could be rooted in an anti-semitic attitude.
We’ve tried to research the historical background of the anecdote, but have not been able to find reliable sources clarifying whether the phrase was directed specifically at Jewish writers, or was instead a more general, if dismissive, remark about screenwriters.
Given both of your deep knowledge on Hollywood history and culture, we’re hoping you might have insight into the historical accuracy and context of this expression. Our intention has always been affectionate and ironic, and to highlight the often underappreciated position of writers in the industry. However, we want to ensure that we’re not perpetuating something potentially harmful or insensitive. Any guidance or perspective you could share would be greatly appreciated.”
Craig: As the Jew. [chuckles] It’s always a weird thing when you’re asked to make some sort of decision on behalf of your people because [laughs] I’m not the king of what is or is not anti-semitic. Schmuck, specifically, as a Yiddish term, means penis. It’s like saying dick.
John: Generally, it implies, in the sense of an idiot or a dummy.
Craig: A jerk, a nobody. My dad called me a schmuck many, many times. [laughs] Anybody on the road that wasn’t driving the way he wanted would be called a schmuck. Harry Warner was Jewish. I don’t think Harry Warner was saying ‘Schmucks with Underwoods’ because he was being anti-semitic, I think he was saying ‘Schmucks with Underwoods’ because that’s what a guy like that would have said. [laughter] I personally don’t agree that this term has anti-semitic implications. Anyone can be a schmuck.
More often than not, my parents would call non-Jewish people schmucks. I personally don’t see it. I think they’re using it as it should be used. It’s a tricky thing. It’s very kind that people are concerned and doing their diligence. I cannot render a final decision; all I can say is, I’m fine with it.
John: Related, and a little off to the side, it feels kind of improbable. I don’t use the word schmuck. I sort of know the word schmuck, but I’ve never used the word schmuck because I associated that as a– It’s not a word of my culture for me to use. For a French Screenwriter Association to use it feels a little bit weird to me. That’s the only vibe I get off of this.
Craig: If there weren’t the expression ‘Schmucks with Underwoods’, what I feel is that in a very sweet sort of way, they just didn’t really necessarily know how Jewish that term was. [laughs] They’re like, “This is a fun self-deprecating term that Harry Warner used to describe screenwriters, why don’t we?” I think it’s innocent, and I think it’s fine. If that phrase didn’t exist, that might be a little odd to just suddenly say that, but if you called somebody a schmuck, I would be pretty amused, actually. It’s fine. I’ll give you a pass. [laughs]
John: Give me a pass. Look at that. “Each year, we award a trophy to a person who has significantly contributed to the supporting and fostering of emerging screenwriters.” Actually, it’s more of a mensch, though.
Craig: Yes, that’s the thing. The one real problem I have is that schmucks are assholes, [laughs] so why would you– They’re misusing it. I would be okay if–
John: That’s my bit where I’m very concerned. I just feel like they could find a better term for it, honestly, like a French term for it. There’s got to be something that is specific to what they’re doing.
Craig: If they want to give it a little bit of an American Hollywood spin, mensch would be-
John: Mensch is a better word for it.
Craig: -a perfectly great word.
John: It describes what they’re trying to get to.
Craig: It’s also a Yiddish term. It’s a German word as well. Yes, a good guy. A schmuck is not really– You don’t want to win a schmuck.
John: It’s a weird thing. Just like I have no problem using the word mensch. I’ve actually used the word mensch because I know what it means, but it’s also a positive thing. Appropriating a positive word for a thing feels different than appropriating a negative word for something.
Craig: I think so. Yiddish as a language is dying anyway, so I’m all in favor of people– From my point of view, I wouldn’t even call it appropriation, just keep it alive. Let’s keep the spirit of that. It’s such an expressive language. My parents spoke it with my grandparents, and so I was raised listening to it. I don’t have it; it’s gone for me, it’s gone by pretty fast. To that extent, let’s keep the words going, but it’s just not– I don’t think it’s anti-semitic personally, I just think that it’s–
John: It’s a little off target.
Craig: It’s just off target in this case. Save it for the person that failed the screenwriting [laughs] should get the schmuck award.
Drew: Jane wrote in. “I am currently a development intern at a production company headed by a very successful A-list actor, and I hope to be a working screenwriter in the future. I’m happy to report I love my internship. I get paid, it’s in person, so I’m connecting with members of the company. I even get to pitch IP and ideas to the company’s president on a regular basis, and will be pitching to the actor at the end of the internship. I have an idea I think would really work for this company.
I floated the basic premise, and was met with a good amount of interest. However, some people have told me I shouldn’t just give this idea away, and I should write it myself. I love this idea. I’m invested in it, and I want to be as involved as humanly possible in it. I’m conflicted. If I go forward with this myself, I feel like most likely it becomes a sample for me. If I pitch it to the company, and let’s pretend, best-case scenario, it moves into development, would I likely get cut off there, or would I? What should I do? Should I write it? Pitch it? Both?”
John: Jane’s in a real dilemma there. I can feel what she’s at. The fact that she does want to be a screenwriter is important because she could theoretically write this herself, but she’s working as an intern at the company. It’s a good experience to learn how to pitch to the movie star, that feels good as well. I was talking to a colleague who works for an A-list actress, and had an idea, and he got it. He said, “Should we do this?” Like, “Yes.” They partnered up with another movie star, and they sold the idea, and it was great, and he’s now working.
It can work, and that would be a good experience for you to see how stuff happens. I doubt they’re going to just steal your idea, but it’s a question of what would your actual involvement be with the project if it were to move forward. What’s your instinct for Jane?
Craig: I’m always wondering who these people are. “Some people have told me that I shouldn’t just give this idea away.” No one’s giving anything away. There’s no giving away. I would say to Jane, it sounds like you’re so invested in this that you should write it. If you write it as an original screenplay, the next thing you can do is give it to this company to say, “Are you interested in this original screenplay I’ve written?” Now, if the deal that you’re under as an intern, you’ve got to check the fine print here is that they own the contents of your brain from wake up to go to sleep, then you’ve got an issue.
If you have it carved out so the things you work on during the day belong to them, and the things you work on at night belong to you, then I think you would say, “Hey, company President, I wrote a script. Read it.” If they like it, then they have a real decision to make. If they don’t, you have a script that you can sell to somebody else. Either way, no one’s giving anything away. I do worry a little bit about a pitch in the sense that they could– If it’s a pitch and nothing else, then they need a writer, and they may then say, “We’re not going to hire you to write this.”
John: I don’t think she should expect that she’s going to pitch it to the company and they’re going to say, “Oh, you should write it.” They’ll just say, like, “Great. Come up with a list of writers-
Craig: Exactly.
John: -to do this idea.” That is a reality there. The only other thing I would remind Jane is you have this good idea, which probably came into being because you were working with this actor, but you also have a lot of other really good ideas, too. This isn’t the only good idea. This idea is percolating at the top because you have an opportunity there with this actor. My instinct would probably be to pitch it and just to see how high up it goes, and see what happens with it, and just maybe let this one go a little bit, and just see what happens with it, because you’ll write many other things.
Craig: Feel so bad, she was like, “Should I write it, pitch it?” I’m like, “Write it,” and you’re like, “Pitch it.”
John: Yes, I think they’re both good choices, honestly.
Craig: They are. I think the most important thing, Jane, is to not worry about this notion of giving it away.
John: Yes.
Craig: I don’t know, people get real tight about this stuff early on. Everyone thinks they know stuff. Nobody knows.
John: Yes.
Craig: Somebody once said,-
John: Somebody once said.
Craig: -“Nobody knows anything.”
John: Yes, whoever that person was.
Craig: That was a gold man.
John: That was a gold man who said that. It’s time for one cool thing.
Craig: Woo-hoo.
John: Mine is a physical thing. It is a running belt. I’m about to run another half-marathon.
Craig: Congrats.
John: Usually, when I run, I keep my phone in my pocket, and it’s fine, it swings around a little bit, but it’s fine, I’m used to it, but on longer races, I also have to have gel packs for calories along the way, and there’s other stuff to hold on to. I got this running belt, which is a 4-inch wide piece of fabric that has slots in it that you can slide your phone in and slide the gel packs in. It actually is much better than keeping my phone in my pocket. I’ve really enjoyed running with it. It just keeps stuff centred on your body and stuff from moving around so much.
Craig: Good.
John: I liked it. It’s like a $30 little belt. It’s made my running life better. The FlipBelt Classic running belt, if you are a runner. There’s no adjustment to it. You have to actually measure it to see what’s the right sizes. It’s worked out really well for me.
Craig: Awesome. My one cool thing is, it’s fairly localized. It’s for those folks who are up here with me in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. You know I love an escape room.
John: Oh, yes.
Craig: I also love a puzzle hunt, and we don’t get many of those around. There’s a group up here called Secret City, and they run a number of events. It’s a little bit of an improv theatre. In this one that I went to, it’s called The Wedding Party. You go to a wedding, and they serve you dinner at a restaurant, and you meet characters, and they interact with you, move around, and then there are puzzles.
John: Great.
Craig: I had such a great time. They were really good, fun, and engaging. The group that I was with, I don’t think they were used to professional puzzle hunt people.
[laughter]
John: They were destroying them.
Craig: The woman who ran it walked out at one point, [laughs] because she was like, “I just want to be clear, there’s another hour left,” and we’re like, “Yes.” She goes, “But an hour,” because we were basically done. We were like, “No, it’s cool. It’s totally cool. We’re having a great time.” We would talk to the actors, have fun, and interact. It was just a fun evening.
They have a number of events. I think the one that I went to, which was The Wedding Party, has been extended now through into possibly May. They have, I guess, another one that they run up here that I’m going to go to. If you’re up here in BC, check them out.
John: Drew, was I remembering correctly that you’re headed to a murder mystery tonight?
Drew: Tonight.
Craig: Oh, nice.
Drew: We all get roles. I forget my guy’s name, but yes.
Craig: Oh, you’ve already forgotten your guy’s name?
John: Well, he’s internalized it so much that it’s actually just a part of him now.
Drew: Yes.
Craig: Or what if it was like a memento, murder mystery party?
Drew: [unintelligible 00:53:24]
Craig: You have no idea who you are-
John: You have to figure out who you are.
Craig: -or if you killed somebody.
Drew: Yes, who am I?
John: Why am I even here?
Craig: Is there a company that runs it, or is it just your friends?
Drew: My friends have gone through a company. It’s in the Partiful, which is always just such a nightmare to–
Craig: Partiful suddenly is part of my life now. There was no Partiful, and now there’s all Partiful. Where did Partiful come from?
Drew: It costs money, too, doesn’t it? Partiful? To send out an invite on it?
Craig: I think it doesn’t. I think they’re just mining your data. I think it’s actually controversial because it’s like the Palantir people.
John: Oh, [unintelligible 00:53:57] [crosstalk]
Craig: What’s the other service?
John: Well, there’s Evite, which I’m used to.
Craig: Yes, [unintelligible 00:54:01]. Yes.
John: So then the other is Partiful. I’m like, “Where did this even come from? Was Evite falling down on the job?”
Craig: No. Apple has invites as well, but no one uses them.
John: No one uses them. Well, now we live in the Partiful era.
Craig: Tell us what you found, Drew.
Drew: It’s Eclipse 54, and I am playing Reggie Rich, the mysterious businessman. Reggie’s presence adds a touch of roughness to the venue.
John: All right.
Craig: I’m not sure about this casting. I got to be honest.
John: Drew is a coarse businessman, yes, it’s well cast.
Craig: I don’t like this casting, to be honest with you. [laughs] It’s the rough part. You’re going to have to work there.
Drew: You don’t think I can be rough?
John: This man went to Scottish– wait, what academy did you go to?
Drew: Yes, Royal Scottish Academy.
John: Royal Scottish Academy.
Drew: I’ve been jumped.
Craig: Right, exactly.
Drew: I haven’t been in fights. I’ve been jumped.
Craig: I’ve been beaten up. I’m rough.
Drew: I’ve been beaten up.
Craig: No, you’re a victim.
[laughter]
Drew: Yes.
John: That is our show for this week. Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt–
Craig: Victim.
John: -and edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Craig: Hero.
John: Our outro this week is by Eric Pearson. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That is also the place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today. You will find transcripts at johnaugust.com, along with a sign-up for our weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing. This Scriptnotes book is out and available wherever you buy books. Thank you for keeping and buying the books.
Craig: Oh, how’s that going?
John: Our numbers are still trucking along.
Craig: Okay.
John: That is really nice.
Craig: I think we wrote something that will stand the test of time.
John: I certainly hope so.
Craig: At least from a color point of view.
John: Yes, it’s bright. I hope it doesn’t fade in the sunlight. We’ll see.
Craig: I think the sun fades in the light of the book.
John: Yes, that’s what it is.
Craig: Yes.
John: You’ll find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube. Just search for Scriptnotes and give us a follow. You can find us on Instagram @scriptnotespodcast. We have T-shirts, hoodies, and drinkware. You’ll find all those at Cotton Bureau. You’ll find the show notes with links to all the things we talked about today in the email you get each week as a premium subscriber. Thank you again to our premium subscribers. You make it possible for us to do this each and every week.
Craig: Yay.
John: You can sign up to become one at scriptnotes.net, where you get all those back episodes and bonus segments like the one we’re about to record on law enforcement and depictions on screen. Craig and Drew, thank you for a great episode.
Craig: Thank you, John.
[Bonus Segment]
John: All right, Drew, help us out. We’ve got an email from Cooper setting us up.
Drew: Yes, Cooper writes, “I’m currently writing a script that features an FBI agent. Generally, I wouldn’t have an issue with writing a character who is competent and is somewhat respectable. My problem is that our current FBI is neither of those things due to a number of circumstances in the past year. My question is, how does one go about writing a job that isn’t just what it used to be, or a job that is perceived differently? Do I just write whatever best fits my story, or should I factor in reality a bit?”
John: This is a real thing.
Craig: Yes.
John: It reminds me a bit of the panic among screenwriters when cell phones became prevalent. [laughs] What do we do about this? At what point do we just all agree that everyone’s walking around with a cell phone? At what point do we all agree that federal law enforcement has become compromised and is a laughingstock, which must be incredibly upsetting to what I imagine are a lot of very respectable, very good, competent, thoughtful, caring law enforcement officers.
My gut is that you can absolutely write anybody to be competent and good and decent, but it probably makes sense to acknowledge that the agency they’re working for has changed, and it isn’t the same, and that there are problems if that is the way you want to go. It just feels like, for me at least, I would struggle to write a story now about an FBI agent without acknowledging that it is no longer Eliot Ness & Co.
Craig: Yes. Really, I think what Cooper is touching at is like you’re always trying to establish the reality of the world that you’re putting up on screen, and so you can absolutely write a story with FBI agents who are doing detailed, thoughtful, neutral work that is not politically motivated, who are not corrupt, but you’re going to have to establish the very setting of the movie. We’re going to have to meet these characters and understand how they’re working and what they’re working in and what the universe of the FBI is like in your specific world.
I’m thinking about a show I really love, The Diplomat on Netflix, which is just terrific. In that world, the people are conflicted, but they are all hyper-competent and they’re really good at their jobs in a way that it does not match up with the current federal administration. Yes, the show started before this administration was in office.
John: That helps.
Craig: It helps.
John: It helps.
Craig: It helps.
John: Yes.
Craig: We still have a memory of what that would be like. We still know what competence looks like, and that can absolutely still work. Some choices you can make is you could set this a few years back in time. You could make sure that the world feels enough different that it actually makes sense, but anybody who’s working with local law enforcement always had to deal with this because the idea of corrupt local police or misdeeds, that’s always been there and you’ve always had to make choices about how you’re going to portray this and how you’re going to establish that these are good cops versus the bad cops who we also know are out there and often it see on screen.
John: It provides you also a vector for conflict, which is a good thing for drama.
Craig: People that approach these things from, let’s call it charitably, the conservative side of things– I don’t know, Cooper, if you’ve ever watched any of the Dirty Harry films, the idea of the Dirty Harry films was these soft, liberal judges and bureaucrat chiefs of police were thwarting real cops from cleaning up the streets and kicking ass. That tension creates a situation where you have a hero who’s in direct conflict with his superiors and goes out and does the right thing and shoots people. That’s their point of view of what good is.
They never had a problem saying the mayor is a weak, lefty, and the judges are bad. I’m not sure why there wouldn’t be an opportunity here to say, “I’m an FBI agent who was trained under this guy in this manner. The person who’s running the FBI now is this guy.” That’s a problem. That’s an opportunity, I think, for drama.
John: Absolutely. Even if your story is not focused directly on that, like it’s FBI doing an investigation of something, that as a subtext and a threat could be really good. You actually don’t trust that the higher-ups are doing things for the right reasons. That’s great. Or that they’re undermining you. In our deep dive on Die Hard, when the FBI shows up, they are a problem more than they are a help. That is useful. That’s interesting.
Craig: Yes. There’s also an opportunity for a story that is specifically about somebody who comes from a tradition, and they are partnered with somebody new. Generally speaking, when that happens, we get an interesting story. The movie I’m thinking of now is Colors. Just recently died, Robert Duvall. And Sean Penn. Robert Duvall is the old guy, and Sean Penn’s the young guy. Sean Penn is a hothead. Sean Penn also can chase guys down on foot, and Robert Duvall has one more day to retirement, so you know what’s going to happen to him. There was interesting exchanges of wisdom, and then Training Day flipped that entirely around.
John: Of course, we have to talk about Training Day.
Craig: So great.
John: The idea of mismatched costs, but also that taken to the extreme in Training Day.
Craig: Well, so normally, you’ve got the old guy who is wise and he teaches the young, crazy rook to calm down, and this one, the old guy’s corrupt. The young guy is the Eagle Scout. You can play around with these things, but to me, the one thing I don’t think you can do right now is just pretend that everything is fine. [laughs] I mean, if you establish a fake administration, then the fake president in a fake world, and maybe it’s even set after the era of the madness that we’re currently in, maybe then, but I think probably you’d want to recognize it.
John: Yes, it’s also important to recognize that when we’re watching a movie or watching a TV show, we already know that we’re in a cinematic universe of things. Our assumptions about how things work in fictionalized crime things is different than how they work in the real world, when we have legal experts on. We had Ken White come on, talking through like, we have TV law versus actual law, and they are just different. I think audiences have different expectations about that, and so whatever you want to bring in from the real world to this is going to add great texture and flavor, but the Dick Wolf crime shows aren’t going to suddenly dismiss the whole FBI industry is corrupt because that’s the franchise that’s been established.
Craig: Yes, but it is a challenged one at this point.
John: It is a challenged one.
Craig: I think there’s legacy shows, but it’s harder to start a new one, I think.
John: Oh, I guess that’s fair.
Craig: Yes, it’s just until there’s a reckoning– A reckoning is a coming.
John: I agree with you.
Craig: Then maybe we’ll see some interesting things. It is, in its own way, fodder for drama.
John: Yes.
Craig: Just have to figure out how.
John: Yes. All right, thanks, guys.
Craig: Thank you.
John: Thanks.
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