The original post for this episode can be found here.
[music]
[applause]
Craig Mazin: Are you guys being paid for this?
John August: I’m going to say, bringing in the warm-up act to get them in the mood, that was really good. It was worth all the hundreds of dollars.
Craig: Yes. Wow.
John: That was great. Thank you for that.
Craig: Sure. Thank you, guys.
[applause]
John: I would say it’s especially impressive that you’re here. Not only were we scheduled against a Rian Johnson premiere, also did you hear this? The Major League Baseball scheduled a World Series game. I’m telling you this now. They scheduled a World Series game against us. Apparently, it’s happening-
Craig: What?
John: -at this moment.
Craig: Yes. I have been told in no uncertain terms that I cannot check the score during this. However, I can tell you right now, it is tied up to two-
John: Which is exciting. Now–
Craig: -in the top of the sixth in Toronto.
John: What I will tell you is that people think, “Oh, John doesn’t like baseball.” The truth is, I like movies about baseball. I liked the episode of Moneyball. We recorded a deep dive on Moneyball with Taffy Brodesser-Akner. If you’re hungering for Craig and I talking about baseball, go back and listen to that episode. Be a premium subscriber.
Craig: I thought you were going to say, “We’ll just do it now.” I see.
John: We can’t recreate the whole experience.
Craig: I think you have agreed that before we get to audience Q&A, I can give us all another update.
John: Hold until then. If you are checking your phone along the way and something happens, cheer on the inside.
[laughter]
John: You can keep that to yourself and save it for the Q&A. All right. Craig, how many times have we done a live show here at Austin?
Craig: Oh, I would say at least twice.
John: More than twice. Eleven times we’ve done a live show here in Austin.
[applause]
John: That’s not counting three-page challenges. We’re doing another live three-page challenge tomorrow. Please come to that if you’d like to. If you want to read the scripts for the three-page challenge, they’re already up on the front page of johnaugust.com. You can read along and see how well-formatted they are on the page. Often, we come here and it’s just fun. It’s just not work.
Craig: Always a great time.
John: This year, we actually have an agenda. Craig, that agenda matches up to the cards that are on your seat.
Craig: I like that you’re acknowledging that I don’t know what the agenda is.
John: No. Craig, we’ve got to sell some books. All right. After 14 years of the Scriptnotes podcast, we now have a book coming out December 2nd. You might think, “Oh, December 2nd. On December 2nd, I will buy that book.” No. We need you to buy that book right now. You need to preorder that book. Here’s what preorders do. Preorders let bookstores know that, “Oh, people really like this book. Maybe we should stock this book.” It lets libraries know, “Oh, hey, maybe we should buy a copy for our readership.”
Maybe it puts us on a New York Times bestseller list, which would not be bad, would not be bad. No, Craig, I don’t know if you got this email, but from our editor, Matthew, who’s fantastic, we’re a month out, and he said, “The numbers look good.”
Craig: Oh, that’s horrible.
John: Yes, because we’re screenwriters, we know that good is bad. Good is not fantastic.
Craig: No.
John: Good is they’re okay.
Craig: There’s only two things, amazing-
John: Amazing.
Craig: -and horrible. There are 1,000 words for horrible. One of them is good.
[laughter]
John: Good. It’s funny that way. The English language is both vast and limited. I’m looking out over here. We have 400 people in this room. A show of hands, who in this room has currently preordered The Scriptnotes Book? Oh, that’s a lot of hands, but I also see a lot of opportunities.
Craig: These were all of the people that preordered the book.
John: More than that.
Craig: Good.
John: Yes. If everyone in this room ordered the book tonight, we have a real shot at getting on those lists that we want to be on, because how cool would it be to have a screenwriting book be on The New York Times bestseller list? That would be cool. It’s scripnotesbook.com. That’s where you see all the places where you can buy it. You can, of course, support your local bookstore. You can buy it through one of the online services. If you want a signed copy, Craig and I signed 500 copies of the book.
Craig: It was pretty screwed up because we thought we were going to sell 500 copies of the book. You guys got to really step up.
John: Yes, you got to buy all of them. Please, tonight, if you would, preorder the book. It really does make a big difference ordering it now versus December 2nd.
Audience Member: Just did.
John: Thank you very much. This man is a hero. All right, another here. If we get one more. All right, we got three. All right, I’m going to ask again at the end of the show how many people in this room have ordered that book tonight.
Craig: I may be able to afford the flight back to LA.
John: That’s the hope.
Craig: This is really great.
John: He bought a one-way ticket. This may be the thing that gets Craig home.
Craig: I commit.
John: You did commit.
Craig: I commit.
John: We have an amazing show tonight. We have a conversation about relationships and really not just what our heroes want, but what our heroes want of the other characters and that two-sided relationship. We’re also going to talk about career transitions, which feels really right for this audience because I see a lot of people in this room who may be transitioning from one career into a writing career. We have a guest who’s done exactly that. We’re going to talk about what that process is like, what that jumping off the cliff feels like. I’m so excited to get into all this.
Craig: It’s going to be great. Then there’s also some other fun stuff that we’re going to do in this audience Q&A.
John: We have another game in here that I’ll be thinking about if this next one is really keyed into who our super fans are. If you’re a super fan of Scriptnotes, this next one’s going to be for you. “Hi, I’m a super fan,” our first guest. Do you want to introduce her?
Craig: Yes. Our first guest is a screenwriter whose credits include Moana, Nimona, Ralph Breaks the Internet, and the Academy-nominated short film with the best title of any Academy-nominated short film-
John: Yes, I agree. I love saying it.
Craig: -or any Academy-nominated film of all time, My Year of Dicks. Of course, she’s a native of Austin, Texas, and a five-time Scriptnotes guest. We really should be getting these folks a nice smoking jacket. Welcome, Pam Ribbon.
John: Pam Ribbon. Oh my gosh.
[applause]
Pamela Ribbon: Yes. Where is my smoking jacket?
John: We need to get you one. Aline has the gold diamond one. You’ve been on the show a lot, and you’ve also been just a great guest again and again.
Pamela: Thank you. I pre-ordered Scriptnotes from Skylight Books, October 11th.
John: Yay. Thank you very much, Pamela Ribbon. In addition to the podcast, we have a newsletter called Inneresting. It’s interesting, but the second N is an N because Aline makes fun that I can’t say interesting with a T. It’s called Inneresting. We have a newsletter. Chris, our editor, came up this week with a post of his own that I thought was terrific. It’s talking about relationships between two characters and a sort of matrix on how much they are aligned and the affection between the two of them. It was a great way to think about relationships.
I want to pose to the three of us, let’s talk about relationships in our scripts and relationships between characters because we so often focus on what a character wants, but we don’t focus on what characters want from other people and how that misalignment is really a source of conflict in our stories. Who wants to field it first?
Pamela: I’ll say something that’s true. I hear in my head, Craig, I don’t know when, I’m sure it was a podcast, but not at my face, this feels weird, you giving me this advice, but you said all movies are about the human experience and the relationships. That is in my head whenever I start any story.
Craig: I got that from Lindsay Doran. Really, it’s Lindsay Doran in your head. She got it from Sydney Pollack. Sydney Pollack is in all of our heads now. He used to say when they were working on a screenplay that somebody else was writing, one of the questions he would ask is, “What is the central relationship of this story?” Which in and of itself requires us to focus in on which one matters the most. Then I guess the question is, when you think about that relationship, I know this is the way I think about it, do you construct characters, and then put them in a relationship, or do you construct a relationship, and out of that, figure out character?
Pamela: It depends on if your protagonist is already well-defined, then you want to find who’s going to drive that character crazy. If you know that it’s a world, then Planes, Trains and Automobiles of like, “How can these people have to be forced together and push each other’s buttons? I always try to figure it out mostly from the point of view, which is when you know what your theme is. Then everybody is orbiting around this concept of whether these two are going to make it.
John: When you think about relationships, so often you think about, “Oh, romantic relationships.” That’s the default thing, but any two characters have a relationship. They could be work friends. Craig and I have a complicated relationship, a good relationship but complicated. There’s tension.
Pamela: It’s a rom-com.
Craig: It’s simple for me.
John: Simple for you. What I think is crucial is that they may not be aligned. One person may have one perception of a relationship that’s different than the other person’s. It’s not just about looking at a relationship from, “Oh, what is this relationship?” It’s like, “What does this character think the relationship is, and what does the other character think this relationship is, and what changes over the course of the story, and how do each of them affect change upon that relationship?”
I want to talk about Nimona for a second because in Nimona, you have the central guy and the girl who’s not really a girl. Their relationship is complicated and evolves, and I’m sure evolved a lot over the evolution of the script and the story.
Pamela: Nimona is a very strong character. Moana had Maui. I’ll just say that you’re trying to balance whose film is this for that central relationship. You have someone who’s questioning everything up against someone who never questioned anything before and thinks, “This is the only way it is. This is how I grew up. My life is because of this system. Now, I’m starting to see that none of it’s real. Now, I’ve got the worst person, Nimona, with me to go through this,” and then you make that relationship test whether or not it’s even real. This was a movie about, like Nimona says, everything is broken. The whole system is broken. What if you just look past what you have been told not to see?
Craig: In that, you start to see how– We all understand that when a hero is facing off against a villain, they’re struggling over power. James Bond versus Blofeld, they’re fighting over who is or is not going to destroy the world. In all relationships, it seems, it’s worthy to pay attention to the power because one person almost always has more power in the relationship than the other. The question is which one, why, and then how do I flip it? It’s usually the case that just as characters change over the course of the movie, the relationship needs to change over the course of the movie.
You mentioned Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Steve Martin has all the power, all of it, until suddenly he doesn’t. That’s what makes that movie beautiful. Talk a little bit, if you could, about how you think about who has the upper hand and how that might help you as you’re wondering, I know what has to happen plot-wise, but what is this scene actually going to be?
Pamela: Oh, that’s such a good question. I think it’s someone very stubborn about their point of view, and they’re going to have to change. You throw someone at them that is an undeniable force of change. They’re just coming right at your heart. Usually, that’s who we put the sweet one as, the kind one, so that you’re rooting for this change. Whether or not they work out. That’s why Bing Bong dies. You want the thing coming at you. Spoiler alert.
John: Sorry. I’m sorry.
Craig: Sorry.
John: The movie’s out there.
Pamela: Score is three-two. I’m not going to tell you who’s up.
[laughter]
Pamela: Just kidding. I’m just kidding. I don’t know. I’ve talked to you the whole time. He’s right at his heart. You want someone who’s going to mess up that status quo of that relationship.
Craig: This is a demonstration of what power is in a relationship, what you just did.
John: We’re talking about power in a relationship, who is doing the thing to the other person. I want to direct us back to what does the character want from the other person? You see people talking about love languages. “What is it that a person is seeking from the other character? Are they getting it? Are they getting it in the way that they need to get it? How do they communicate what it is that they actually want? Does the character need to be seen? Does the character need to feel invalidated? Does the character just need a big hug?” You look at Wreck-It Ralph or you look at any of these characters, they need different things.
They have a hard time learning the language to talk to the other character. That’s actually some of the journey of the script. If they knew it from on page 35, there wouldn’t be a movie. The problem would be solved. It’s not just that they’re trying to change the other character. They’re trying to understand the other character and get the other character to see them as they see themselves.
Pamela: They also need that other character to be a true mirror.
John: That’s the construction.
Craig: That’s the– well done.
Pamela: That felt better than it should have.
Craig: There’s that Wizard of Oz theory that all of the characters are just fragments of Dorothy’s personality. One method is that you have a strong central character and the relationship that that character has with another one, and really all the relationships that character has will be in service of them changing. All of those people through the relationship and you letting them down, making them happy, you change. The other model is that the relationship is the story. Romantic comedies, the relationship is the story. They will tend to lean it towards one person who just needed to learn, but really, it’s the relationship. I have to say, I think in animation, they do a really good job of that. Better than, I think, live action.
Pamela: Also, we come at it so open-hearted. It allows for that love story to– I just keep thinking of the word shipping, because you’re rooting for these characters to just survive everything. Just a side note, my kid is 12 was like, “Hey, I just learned that shipping is about a relationship.” I said, “What do you think?” She said, “I thought it meant that you love someone so much that you go on the Titanic.” I was like, “That is what it means.” I was like, “You mean that you’d let someone be on the door?” She was like, “Yes.”
John: Oh.
Craig: Oh my God. You got that door kind of love. That floating door kind of love.
Pamela: That shipping.
John: He could have gotten on the door.
Pamela: [unintelligible 00:15:14] was the ship.
Craig: Oh, I thought that it meant like, “I love you so much, I will do one of those horrible cruises with you.”
[laughter]
John: I want to circle back to this question about animation, because I do feel like Nimona, Moana, these relationships are really well done in animation. I wonder if it’s partly just the process. The process of you’re going through iteration after iteration, you’re really seeing what’s working there, and you can narrow down and drill into it, versus as we shoot live action, “We shot that scene, we’re done. We’re not going to go back and reshoot that scene again.” That is an advantage.
Pamela: There were many Mauis, because you could take over the film pretty easily. Then you also have all the myths, and which Maui do you want? Is it the Maui who in the end lifts up all the islands and discovers Polynesia, or is he a broken demigod? One of the early versions, she was this big Maui nerd, and she was so excited that she had met Maui. He was just this defeated monster in a cave who didn’t want to be talked to.
John: That’s a good idea, but it probably didn’t serve the rest of the movie. The animation has the luxury of exploring the bad ideas and hopefully getting back on the right path.
Pamela: It gave him the movie, because she was just urging him to come out and come out and come out. There is a line in Moana where I’m like, “That’s the old version,” because she says, “Maybe we were all here for you to realize you’re Maui.” She handed him the movie for a second. I don’t know. I think you always want Moana to win so that when she loses, it is because she learned something from Maui.
Craig: The relationship reinforces who she is. It is far less interesting to watch somebody learn something on their own. It’s really less interesting to watch somebody learn something easily. Having somebody else point out that either you think you learned the lesson and you didn’t, or you haven’t learned anything at all, is helpful. I do think about John Candy confronting Steve Martin. Where you understand that Steve Martin, yes, Thanksgiving is about family. Sure. That relationship made me care about the statement, “Thanksgiving is about family.”
It would not have worked had you not, A, been invested in that relationship, and B, also being even. Steve Martin gets angry at John Candy reasonably. He’s infuriating. He has to be. He has to be. All of that comes out of relationship, as opposed to just characters next to each other.
Pamela: We also see ourselves in both of them. That’s why you want them to come together and heal the both terrible sides inside of you that they are at their worst at in a movie like that.
Craig: I have definitely done this with food. I’ve flicked it right off myself, John Candy style. Absolutely.
John: Now, I would say our feature bias is probably coming through here because we’re talking about feature films that have a clear arc. They have a beginning and an end, and things go through. I want to stress that the importance of relationships is obviously crucial to series television as well. You think about all of the individual relationships in The Office and the differences between them in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, how specific that is. Obviously, our great one-hour dramatic television, how important those are.
Kate and Jack, but also all the other survivors on Lost, you’re tracking where are these characters with each other at all times, and what do they need from each other, what are they trying to get from each other? It’s so tempting to think about characters’ individual goals, but there’s goals within each relationship as well.
Pamela: Craig, when you know you have to kill off a character–
Craig: Like Bing Bong.
Pamela: Like Bing Bong. When you know you’re having to take some character that has been established, so loved, so perfect that it’s the moment they must die, this is for both of you, but do you feel bad?
Craig: Yes, of course, because it’s about the relationship. That particular scene, I think you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about. Are you talking about–
John: Chernobyl, yes.
Craig: You’re talking about Chernobyl.
Pamela: Chernobyl. Remember when you had to kill everyone?
Craig: You’re talking about-
John: The Hangover III.
Craig: -the fourth diver in Chernobyl?
Pamela: I just think it was one, it made the trades. That’s a big death.
Craig: It’s a big death. I remember when Mark Mylod, who directed that episode so beautifully, we were sitting there without anyone. It was just the two of us in that room. We were looking around, “Where? Where? Where?” Really, what it came down to is, I think he needs to be here because she’s going to come in here, and they need to look at each other the entire time. They need to be this far apart. They need to be not so far apart that they’re too far apart, but not so close together that they’re too close together. Just the right amount of far apart because it is entirely about what it means to be connected to somebody in a relationship and be pulled away from them, as we often are with everybody in our lives.
You have moments of ebb and flow. You feel yourself drifting away from somebody, but it’s a rubber band. It’s not something that broke, and you then come back in that moment. All of it was focused through relationship. All of it, eyes, the whole thing.
Pamela: Someone mentioned Past Lives today. That’s it, right? You have a relationship that’s been established, and then a relationship that is mostly in the imagination and potential. Then you’re sometimes rooting for it to stay there.
Craig: Yes, exactly.
John: Let’s wrap this up by talking about technique. What we’re doing on the page to communicate where people are at in the relationship. Let’s think about how do we get insight into what the characters are thinking. Obviously, they can say things, but more importantly, we as an audience need to get a sense of each individual character, what they really want, and how do we find moments with each character separately so we can read what that is, or that we can, as an audience, understand a thing that they’re saying the other character doesn’t understand it the same way. That’s subtle, but it’s so important.
When you do that right in a scene, it really transforms what’s happening there. You think, “Oh, that’s the actors, that’s the performances, their chemistry.” No, if it’s not on the page, it’s not going to make sense. You have to be able to read it and get like, “I get why this is heartbreaking.” In Big Fish, I understand the dynamic between Will and Edward because I see each of their points of view, and I’m rooting for both of them. I’m rooting for the relationship to get all together to be healed, and yet, I know how hard it’s going to be because I understand how stubborn each one of them is.
Craig: Yes, when you’re writing a scene, especially between two people, which is my favorite, and it’s where you can focus it all down to relationship, every single thing somebody says should have an impact on the other person. Even if that impact is to make them think, “Oh, we agree, which is encouraging to me. I didn’t realize we agreed as much as we do.” That means they changed, and then mess it up, and then mess it up, and surprise, and go back and forth.
Every single thing that is said needs to have an impact. In our lives, we have conversations all the time where one person is saying the following, and another person’s listening along going, “Oh, that’s interesting. That’s interesting. Here’s something,” and the other person, “Oh, that’s interesting.” No one wants to watch that.
John: No.
Craig: No one.
Pamela: That’s for podcasts.
Craig: That’s for podcasts. That is what a podcast is. I feel hurt.
[laughter]
Craig: You did the thing. Everything, think about all of it. Never give yourself a break there, but all of it is an opportunity then, therefore, to make a conversation about the relationship, and then think about every scene. “Where were these two people in the beginning? How are they on the way out?” Animation, again, because it’s so expensive, every single moment has to be thought like that.
Pamela: $1 million a page. That’s what they said to me. They’re like, “Was this page good?” I’ll go work on that page. I can do some more. This is my improv background, but I always think find the game. Do they play your game? That’s when rom-coms take off. Sometimes, my favorite, bring it on, it’s toothpaste scene, not a line, not a line, but they’re brushing and spitting, and they’re looking at each other, and they’re teasing each other, they’re testing each other, and they’re playing a game. By the end of it, you’re like, “I want this. I want this to keep happening.”
Craig: That’s great. That’s a great example.
John: All right. It is time for our second guest. Would you like to introduce our second guest?
Craig: Yes, I would love to. Our next guest is a showrunner, educator, father, and PhD, so screw us, whose credits include Queen Sugar, The District, The Blacklist, and Bel-Air. Please welcome Anthony Sparks.
John: Anthony Sparks, welcome.
[applause]
Craig: Was anybody in the pitch contest last year, perhaps?
John: These three.
Craig: Yes, we were–
Anthony Sparks: The band is back together. Yes, we’re back and ready to ruin your lives again.
John: Anthony Sparks, in the little bio intro, we talked about your PhD and all these amazing things. Of course, I buried the lede. You were also in Stomp.
Craig: Exactly.
John: You’re a Broadway actor on Stomp. That is where you were starting to do your work, getting into writing. Are you literally backstage writing scenes? Tell me about that.
Anthony: I am. I actually sometimes call Stomp my first writing job-
John: All right.
Anthony: -because I was playing, basically, in classic nomenclature of theater, I was the wise fool in the show. When everybody else would ding, I would dong. The show is written but improved at the same time in pockets. I had a lot of improv. My job was to connect with the audience. The directors were crazy enough to rely on me to change my show every night. I must have done 1,000 Stomp shows. I never did the same show twice. I just had to hit the punchlines, which means I failed a lot on stage in front of hundreds of people, but I would also hit.
I started thinking, “What is my next act? I had always privately written in high school and things like that. I decided that I was going to be a writer next as a practical answer to some things and a creative answer to some things that I was thinking about. I literally started teaching myself how to write TV. I’m sad to say, I missed a few or was late to a few entrances because I was engrossed in my script backstage. That was my sign that, “Oh, maybe it’s time to leave.” [unintelligible 00:25:58] is always working on scripts backstage at Stomp.
Craig: When you said like, “I taught myself how to write TV,”-
Anthony: To a degree.
Craig: -to a degree, how–
Anthony: I’m sure a lot of people here are like, “This is the early aughts,” late 90s, and there are TV writing books and books about the TV business, but not as many as there are now. I was able to get my hands on a couple of books, and I read them. I started just dissecting TV. I started watching. At the time, I thought I was going to be a comedy writer because I had written this satiric play that was getting some attention in New York City that I would put up on my days off from Stomp. I was young and had a lot of energy and was glad to say that I used it.
Just the fact that you had to come at it from a structural standpoint, I knew dialogue, I thought, from theater and plays, and I knew the feeling of structure, but I didn’t know structure to the extent that you go into a writer’s room, you’re able to actually contribute to story advancing. I would say that’s a process that’s probably never-ending for all of us.
John: Sure.
Craig: I suspect that it wasn’t an accident that you were the person the director was relying on stage to change things. I’m sure there were quite a few people on that stage of the director would be like, “Never, ever.”
Anthony: No.
Craig: “You do the bang that lid there then,” and you had a sense of it already. It’s just that you needed then to figure out, “How do I get this instinct from instinct level to craft?” That perfect term.
Anthony: Absolutely. I can’t say that process was complete because is it ever, because otherwise, the same person who won an Oscar last year would win this year because they just repeat it. There is an X factor to writing. In terms of fundamentally understanding story, that process, so I was able to write to the point where I was able to get into fellowships. I was in New York. At that time, there was no TV writer business in New York. There is somewhat now. I was applying to the Warner Brothers writers program. I was applying to the Disney fellowship from New York, getting close but no cigar in some cases until finally, I got one.
Craig: Let’s pause there for a second because I suspect a lot of people here have gotten close but no cigar. I’m sure that’s a feeling you’ve all had. It’s a bad feeling because you don’t know if maybe there will ever be a cigar.
Anthony: Absolutely.
Craig: What keeps you going in the hopes of a cigar?
Anthony: Wow, that’s a deep question.
Craig: Yes, man.
Anthony: What keeps you going? I think there are some people who will go for those fellowships because they’re really hard to win. It’s $1,000, $2,000, $2,500 play. It feels like a crap shoot, and on some level, it is. I know plenty of writers who never got those fellowships who are king and queens of the world in TV and film. I also have met a lot of people who applied once, didn’t get it, and was like, “You can’t win anything.” It was one, you wrote one script. Maybe you think it was great. Maybe it actually was, but a person read it after they had a bad tuna sandwich and took it out on your script. It happens.
If you’re a writer, writers write, and you can’t stop after one script. You just cannot. You just can’t. Writers write. You keep putting the coins in the machine. For me, I applied once to Warner Brothers. I had just gotten married. I got married really young, and I had just gotten married, and I applied, and I didn’t get in. For whatever reason, they were having this one-day workshop on a Sunday in Burbank where they were going to talk about what we’re really looking for. I don’t know if that particular batch of scripts that year was really bad or whatever, but they were doing this outreach.
I said to my wife, “You want to go on a working vacation to LA, so I can go to this workshop on this talk in Burbank?” We did. We literally turned into a working vacation. We flew out here, and I went and sat in the audience and took a bunch of notes. There was hundreds of people there, asked some questions, and I went back and took that back, and I wrote a new script, and I got in the next year.
Craig: There are hundreds of people here who are going to be asking questions.
John: Absolutely, yes. Anthony, one thing that really impressed me about talking with you is that you worked really hard. You get knocked down, you pick yourself up. That’s fantastic. I think you also constructed a life that if your writing career never happened, you still had a lot of very meaningful things you were doing. Can you talk to us about the decision? I know you got staffed on a show, but then you also got into a PhD program. You’re balancing those two things.
Anthony: Exactly.
John: Now, you’re a doctor. Talk to us about that decision and what you’re thinking as you’re going through all this.
Anthony: My bio, to some degree, on a good day, looks like I had this master plan for my life. Indeed, I did think a lot about, my wife and I call it, composing your life. It was something that when we first came out here to LA, we went to go hear Maya Angelou speak, and she spoke that. I don’t know. For some reason, we were very impacted by that phrase, compose your life, which means just try to be intentional, try to put some things together. I am mostly a product of just being hard-headed. I should have quit my PhD program five times.
Craig: You’re not a good doctor?
[laughter]
Anthony: As a few professors was like, “You can leave.” I was like, “No, I’m Pearly Mae, boy. We don’t quit.” I am. I’m a hard-head South Side of Chicago by way of Mississippi kid. Those things don’t normally go together. There’s only 24 hours in a day. The day that I almost dropped my baby daughter because I was so tired was a moment where I was like, “I’m quitting. I’m doing too much. I’m exhausted.” This child is three months old. I almost just dropped her on a concrete ground.
Craig: They bounce. They’re fine.
Anthony: Yes. It only takes five seconds.
[laughter]
Anthony: Although there is a text chain today about these migraines that she’s having.
John: A little stressed. Almost, but did not drop his daughter.
Anthony: I did not drop her. What was the question?
John: Going back to finding balance.
Anthony: The balance.
John: There’s a moment where you’re like, “I’m trying to do too much. Also, I love that.” Choosing to do this PhD program and finishing this PhD program, you are giving yourself many opportunities. You’re giving yourself many opportunities just to see it on many different things. All your eggs are on in this one basket and your identity is this because your identity is as a professor you’re teaching, but you’re also a showrunner, and you’re a father and a writer who does his own things as well. You are composing your life like Maya Angelou suggested you do.
Anthony: The only thing I needed to do was to try it. I’m the son of a mom who had a sixth-grade education. It was very hard for me when USC offered me funding for five years to the total of about $300,000, like the little kid from the south side of Chicago. I’m like, “I got to try and make this work. Win one for the ancestors, seriously.” When my show unexpectedly got canceled, the thing that happened was I got staffed. I got the funding. I got the fellowship. I said no to the fellowship because I’m going to go write. My show got canceled. I was like, “Does health insurance come with that?”
There was a practical side to it. I said, “I’m going to start,” because I noticed my first year on the show that I was on as a staff writer, I noticed I was in my office a lot reading. I was like, “I could be reading a book and getting credit for this.” I didn’t know that that’s not how all shows operate. I have been the beneficiary or what results from saying yes to the door that happens to be open at that time.
Craig: I think that’s a wonderful thing. That’s certainly something that I think people who don’t come from privilege feel. The open door is not tempting. The open door is necessary because the doors are usually closed. What I love about your story is you took away some of the innate fear that, “I made it. I made it. I broke in.” People are always asking us, “How do you break in?” The answer is there is no breaking in. You get broken. You think you got broken in, and then show’s canceled, LOL. You had something else to do. You did not go, “Yes. I made it. I’ve arrived. The end,” because it is not a smooth path. I do think that it makes you a better writer when you’re not writing scared.
Anthony: Yes. It was a scary time. This happened because I said earlier today, I got staffed and I was like, “Hey, let’s have a baby.” We did. Then the show was canceled, but you can’t take her back.
[laughter]
John: Also, you weren’t stopping your decision to have a family based on, “If I get writing success, then I will start the rest of my life.” You started your life. That’s a crucial lesson to learn as well. I think sometimes we fall into– we write heroes, we write protagonists, and we assume they have to go through this arc and do all this stuff and have a plan for how it’s all going to be. If you’re not exactly on that plan, then it’s a disaster. That’s not real life. What I like is that you are just like, “No, I’m starting now. I’m starting on things that are important to me now.”
You got married young. You started having a family young, and that’s awesome. As we wrap up, though, I want to talk about teaching because Craig and I, people who have listened to the show, sometimes have opinions about university screenwriting programs, which can be challenging.
Anthony: As you should.
John: I’m really curious, what do you get out of it? What, as a professor, do you take from teaching? You don’t have to.
Anthony: Quite a bit.
John: You do it because you want to, I’m sure.
Anthony: I do it because I want to. It certainly isn’t the money. I am a product of a serious succession of teachers who just kept giving me shots, creating opportunities for me, believing that I was worthy of them. It did get into my bones, that that is what you do. You educate yourself, you learn, you earn, and then you return, as Denzel Washington once said. That is part of me, genuinely. That’s the Pollyanna part of me. The other part of me is that it’s a very practical way for me, not so much with money, but just in terms of I’m always engaged in story.
I don’t walk into rooms desperate because I’ve built out these other areas of my life without compromising my commitment to what it is that we all get to do. It also is practice for me as a showrunner when I’m not running a show. I have to break down story and teach it to people who are in a very different place than I am. I am a better, much better writer since I started teaching.
Craig: Amen. Listen, if everybody had your resume and your validity and your experience, then I would say everyone rush out to go to school. There are other ways to get me, we do this. There are other ways, of course, to do that. One thing I love about what you’re saying is I feel like doing this over the course of all these years made us better-
John: Of course.
Craig: -at what we do because we have to think about it.
Anthony: There’s no way. Many of us make our bones. Writers write a lot by instinct. You can be a great writer who writes by instinct, but I think at some point, when you’re writing and it’s your profession, no one’s waiting for you to feel the muse coming. That’s where craft kicks in to get you from those moments of inspiration to inspiration, which lifts something to a new level. In the meantime, it’s grinding it out. It’s craft. It’s thinking about– Absolutely. I’ve listened to your podcast. I’m ear-hustling. I’m trying to be cool and not be seen taking notes, but I’m definitely taking notes.
Craig: Ear-hustling. That’s the best phrase ever.
John: Ear-hustler.
Anthony: Everybody up here is worthy of being up here for lots of different things. Being a writer is a little bit of a lifetime student thing. Even when you do it well and you’ve had these accolades, hopefully, you’re always, at the end of the day, staring at that blank page going, fade in, “Oh, shit.”
John: Yes. Anthony, thank you very much for joining us here.
Craig: Thank you so much.
John: Great. Now it is time for one of our favorite, but also potentially terrifying segments where we invite the audience up to ask some questions of us and our panelists. Hello. What is your name and what is your question?
Jason: My name is Jason. You can all answer this. What is the first thing you do when you feel stuck in a script?
John: What is the first thing we do when we get stuck in a script? Pamela, what’s the first thing you do when you get stuck in a script?
Pamela: I complain. I complain about it. I walk around the house with this face. Everyone thinks I’m mad at them. I’m like, “I’m thinking.” I have my thinking face. Then you try to figure out why you’re so irritated because you think, I know how to do this. Why don’t I know how to do this right now?
What that is why you’re stuck. That’s the problem you’re solving. Then you go talk to someone else about your problem. Then they tell you their problem. Then you help them with their problem, and then they help you with your problem.
Anthony: Getting an outside perspective. When we’re writing, we’re making a thousand different decisions that we hope will somehow add up to something that is compelling and believable, so sometimes the outside perspective. If I can’t get that, I will sometimes step back and simply ask myself, what is the logical thing that would happen here?
I can get overly whatever in my head, and so break it. What is the simple thing? Not what is the interesting thing. That comes after. What’s the logical thing that this character would do or feel or say in this moment to at least make the dots connect, and then I can go back and try and find a way to make it–
I sometimes will say when I’m leaving a room, like, “Let’s do the boring expected version, get it up on the board. This will, in no way, be what’s in the script, but let’s at least make it make sense, and then we can go back and make it interesting.”
Craig: That’s great. Both of you, great advice. I sometimes feel myself trying to solve the problem, then I stop myself because you’re not going to solve it well if you’re trying to solve it because you’re thinking about it like a problem. Then I just go, okay, I’m going to forget about the problem. Let me just think about my characters. Let me just put them in different scenes. Let me play around in my head. Let me take a long shower. Let me think about this.
Let me also, and I’ve gotten much better about this, look at this as good news. It’s actually good news. We tend to think that if we’re stuck, we’re dying. We’re not. It just means we don’t see it yet. You will, and you will because you know you don’t have it. That’s how you know you will see it because you’ll know it when you know it. It’s coming. You just got to let it come.
Pamela: It’s the puzzle lover in you. I try to remind myself, this is just a puzzle I haven’t solved, and if this was a crossword puzzle, I wouldn’t be this mad.
Craig: Exactly.
John: For me, I make a deck of cards called Rider Emergency Pack, which is for this purpose. It’s the little things I do when I get jammed up in a thing. You can find it in stores or Amazon or wherever. The philosophy behind it is, sometimes you just really need to change your focus. A card will be magnified. What if you were to zoom in super tight on this thing or on this character or zoom all the way out? What if you were to change genres?
Imagine this is a spy thriller rather than this comedy that you’re writing. What would be the solution to that kind of movie? Getting yourself off this track that is jammed into this place and realizing, oh, there’s a whole range of possibilities I’m just not considering, that tends to help.
The other thing which is true for all of this is that when you hit a problem, rarely is the problem right where you’re at. The problem was a while back, and you probably just need to lay some different tracks to get around this thing that’s in front of you. You may be imagining a perfect solution to this problem that really does not exist. Really, to create a different situation doesn’t end up in the same place.
John: Cool. Great question. Thank you so much. Thank you all. That was honestly a paradigm example of an actual question.
Craig: It was a master class in asking a question. No pressure.
John: No pressure. Now, what’s your name and what’s your question?
Craig: Hi, I’m Im Tay. As an actor by training, I was taught that acting rests on a three-legged stool of imagination, relaxation, and concentration.
John: Wow, Craig.
Craig: I was wondering if there is a similar kind of philosophy when it comes to writing. If so, what’s the hardest leg for each of you and how have you worked to develop that?
John: Remind us of the three things that you were taught, so imagination.
Craig: Imagination, relaxation, and concentration.
John: Those are really great principles. I haven’t articulated something like that of what those things are, but those are all crucial things as we’re putting ourselves in a place and watching what happens, which to me is what writing largely is.
Pamela: To capture the true moment. I get that that relaxation part is so important because I was like, writers have an 18-leg stool. [laughter] Then we were like, “I think I have too many legs.” That key, I think, is the relaxation to let the moment come and to breathe with your script and to just be okay.
John: Honesty is somewhere in there. Are you being honest to the moment? Are you being honest to these characters? Are you trying to force a thing that’s not supposed to be there? Relaxation is probably part of that. Really, it’s like, is the scene true? Is the moment true or is it fake? Does it feel fake within the context of this script?
That’s a crucial thing for me, too, because sometimes when we’re talking about problem solutions, there’s a fake solution. There’s a thing which is, this is not honest to the thing. You’re always going to hate it because you know that you lied to get there.
Craig: I wish I had good stool legs for you. I think, ultimately, in acting, those are three great things to consider. None of them will help you if you’re not a good actor. All of them will help you if you’re a good actor. There is something that is instinctive to artists and craftspeople.
Sometimes the answer is to say, “Okay, I’m not good at everything as a writer. What am I good at? What is that telling me right now? Let me listen to that because that’s what I’m good at.” Follow that. The rest is absolute mystery to me. I got to be honest. I don’t know where I go. I don’t know how I do it. When I read things that I’ve written in the past, I’m terrified because I don’t know who wrote that and I don’t know how to do it again.
John: Same.
Craig: Don’t remember it. I was gone.
John: I’ll read something and I’m like, “Oh, that sounds like me,” but I have no recollections. I don’t know who these characters are.
Craig: That’s terrifying actually. There you go. It’s like an upside-down stool with one leg. Think of it that way. [laughter] That’s what it’s like.
John: Crazy. That’s crazy. Thank you so much for your question. Good question. Hello. What’s your name and what’s your question?
Joe: My name is Joe. Podcasting and screenwriting are clearly two different mediums. What is something you have learned about yourself either as a podcast host or a guest that is something you would not have learned during the creative process?
Craig: That ties into what we were saying earlier about educating is education. I know that I have had to think a little bit more clearly about some of the things that I do believe philosophically. It’s different than what is an inspiration in a moment when you sit back and you go, okay, there’s artsy-fartsy Craig, but then there’s also outline Craig who’s got a job to do and understands it needs to fit within a certain amount of time.
It needs to achieve certain things plot-wise. There has to be surprises and all these nuts and bolts things. I think doing this and being forced to talk about those things helps me codify and make some of those a little bit clearer in my own head. It’s like forced organization.
John: I would say I’m always riveted to being a segue man. I’m always moving on to the next thing. What that really is, is it’s recognition of being very present in the moment, but also always knowing where you’re headed and where you need to get to next. That’s also writing. That’s also what a scene needs to do. You need to set a sense like we are fully in this moment, and yet we’re going to the next thing.
Just the way a scene can just die and people are just sitting there and nothing’s happening, you don’t feel any momentum, you’ve got to keep the momentum there while still letting it be present for the characters who are in that scene.
Craig: That makes sense.
John: Great question. Thank you so much.
Craig: Thank you.
[applause]
Silas: Hi, there. Big fan. Sorry, I’ll be a little bit farther. My name is Silas. You guys did a podcast episode relatively recently, I don’t know how well in advance you record these, about short films. I’m a sci-fi writer. I’m a sci-fi fantasy writer, genre writer.
I sometimes have a really hard time balancing the line between being super obnoxious and explaining everything way too heavily, the whole Star Wars scroll thing, whatever, and people asking me, why are they doing that, what is happening. That’s a huge problem to have in short films where everything is super compact, needs to be super tight. My question is, how do you balance that line between exposition and mystery?
Craig: Sure. I’ll turn that over to you guys because we all deal with this one. Everybody needs to know things. Also, you don’t want them to know things.
John: You don’t want to spend a lot of time explaining things.
Craig: What are some of the things– I think about in animation, again, $1 million a page, what are some of the tricks you use?
Pamela: The story in Frozen is there were all these backstories and all these minutes they had to get rid of, and it changed into the line, was she born with it or was it a curse? That’s an interesting question. It gets answered, and now we know everything about why we’re here.
Trying to find a way to take all of that that you think they need to know, you think they need to know it, they don’t. They don’t think that. They want to know, what do I care about? I don’t care about the backstory until I know why they’re not in love, why they hate each other. Then I can start to learn all the worlds and what your currency is and why it’s a patriarchy or whatever it is that the sci-fi world wants you to know. That stuff is interesting for you to know what your tone is, but we don’t need to know all of it to care about your characters.
John: Silas, thank you so much.
Craig: Thank you, Silas.
[applause]
John: Hello.
Brenna Kwan: Hello. My name is Brenna Kwan. My question is, what is your opinion on, let’s say, sizzle wheels or proof of concepts from, let’s say, emerging filmmakers that’s created out of AI? Do you consider that as a red flag or–
John: Hey, it’s a good question.
Craig: I think everybody in here is going to give an answer, but let’s see what you say.
John: Let’s talk about sizzle reels in general. Sizzle reels, we’re cutting together stuff from other movies that give a sense of what this thing feels like. For directors who are putting together a project, sometimes it’s a really helpful way of showing what it is that you’re trying to do and sort of do this thing.
Where I get a little bit frustrated is when you have to do a sizzle reel for just a script that you’re not trying to direct, just to get someone to read the script, that’s really annoying. I really wish we could stop doing that because I think it’s a waste of time because you’re here to be a writer, not to be a sizzle reel maker.
Whether you’re cutting out of other films or using AI or whatever to do it, I just don’t think it’s a good practice for us to be in. So many strong opinions on use of AI and what things feel like, okay, well, it’s a person using that thing to do the job they would otherwise be doing to do.
I don’t have problems if a visual effects artist is using some new tool that uses some of the stuff in there. I just don’t want it to replace their job. I do feel like using a sizzle reel to do that kind of stuff, it’s just putting more of that stuff out there in the world, and I’m really frustrated with it.
Craig: I think it’s an indication maybe of lack of commitment, or even, dare I say, laziness. Remember, a sizzle reel is already taking what other people have done and putting it together to sort of go, it’s kind of like what these people all worked really hard to do, which is already sort of a cheat code, which is fine. Then to say, and also I just asked the slop machine to barf out somebody with seven fingers to help me, it’s indicative to me that maybe the heart isn’t in it.
John: I guess here’s my concern. If I see your thing, I feel like, “Oh, this was done with AI,” and then I’m going to read your script, it’s like, “Well, did she really write it?” I don’t think it reflects well on you.
Craig: Where does it stop? [chuckles]
John: That’s why I’m going to say no. I’m going to say it’s a no for me.
Craig: I’m going to say no. What do you guys think? Big pro, oh, Pam Ribon loves AI. Is that the headline here? [laughter]
Pamela: No. Just trying to get controversial. People listening, I am not nodding or excited. No, AI makes me feel scared. When I watch it, I get uncomfortable. What is it called? Sora? My husband will be like, “Look at this.” I’m like, “That’s a cyborg. We must run. We must run away from it.” I would worry that when you think this is going to explain how it feels, you have to worry about how it feels when it’s not real.
Craig: You might not feel the way you want it to feel. Is it budgetary? What is the reason behind why one would do this?
Pamela: I’m trying to recreate my pilot into a web comic or a Webtoon and to perhaps advertise for it. I was playing around with Sora, so that’s where the question stemmed from.
John: I can understand what the instinct is behind that, but I would say look for what Webtoons are doing, like the things you actually like that are Webtoons that you enjoy. Also, I would say, don’t turn your script into a Webtoon just because that’s a thing you can do, unless you really love that as a medium.
I feel like, so often, it’s like, “Oh, I couldn’t sell it as a movie, but we’re going to do it as a dramatic podcast.” It’s like, “Well, do you actually love dramatic podcasts, or are you just spinning your wheels because you want to do something?”
Craig: I hope that the robots don’t listen to this later and come after us. There’s that whole thing where you will be the one that they’re like, “Well, you live.” [laughter] Right.
John: Thank you so much for your question.
Brenna: Thank you.
John: Thank you for coming out tonight.
[applause]
All right. Let’s do two more questions. These next two, and then we’ll be done for tonight.
Craig: Two more.
Jordan: Hey, guys, I’m Jordan. My question is a little specific, but maybe we can make it a little more universal. Say you’ve got a great adult animated pilot that you’re taking out and you’ve gotten a little bit of feedback. You’re leaning towards serialized, but everybody’s telling you, “Well, we want episodic.” Do you go and do you rejig it?
You could go either way with it, really, but you’re leaning towards serialized. Do you go and adjust for the market, or do you write the thing that you want to write and just wait for it to be the right time for it?
John: I think you know your answer, but let me make sure that the rest of the crowd understands this. You have an opportunity. People like the thing you’ve written. You could make it serialized where you’re supposed to watch all the episodes in order, or episodic where you can watch them in any order whatsoever. You’re going to have a sense to me. You’re going to have a sense of what is more fun and interesting for you to write. Do that.
If the buyer says, “No, we really want it this other way,” and you get a chance to do it, do that. I think you have to both be steadfast and adaptable in this business. You have to be true to what’s important to you, but also flexible to actually get things done and get things made. We both know filmmakers who just, they made a great film, and then they were so steadfast about, like, “I’m not going to compromise a damn thing for my second film.” They’re not making films anymore.
Craig: There is no second film. I believe that there will be another thing. I never like to think that whatever I’m working on now is it. A little bit like the don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Anthony: That’s a really great thing to remember. I think the business will go on without any one individual. [laughter] That’s really horrible to say.
John: Even if Ryan Murphy were no longer making all his things, we would still have a television business.
Anthony: Economically, it would take a hit.
John: It would take a hit, but yes.
Anthony: Sometimes people have to remember that. What can you do that feels like it’s not absolute betrayal to the center of what it is you’re writing that you can collaborate on?
Pamela: Also, why not try? Then if it doesn’t work, you can say, “This is why I really wanted it this other way.” I can see why you asked me to do this because The Simpsons or whatever, they’re all episodic, but BoJack worked for a reason. Once you try the way that they think they want or they need, maybe they need it. That’s the mandate. Try for the job that you can get, always.
John: Good luck. We’ll see you at a future AFF.
Craig: All right. Bring us home.
John: Bring us home. Who are you and what is your question?
Emmett Farnsworth Guzman: My name is Emmett Farnsworth Guzman.
John: Emmett Farnsworth Guzman is a fantastic name.
Emmett: Thank you. My parents gave it to me.
Craig: I think you invented television. Did you invent television?
Emmett: Actually, that’s my great-great-uncle.
Craig: Is it, really?
Emmett: He’s Philo T. Farnsworth.
Craig: That’s actually your great-great-uncle?
Emmett: Yes.
Craig: That’s amazing.
Pamela: What is happening? [laughter]
John: This man’s great-great-uncle invented television.
Emmett: They cast him right here.
Pamela: Really?
Craig: Philo T. Farnsworth.
Pamela: Why is he here? [laughs]
Craig: Are you hired?
Emmett: I feel seen right now.
John: You feel seen. That’s when we get back to relationships. You’re leveling, which is validations, feeling seen, feeling heard. We’re giving it to you right now. All right.
Emmett: I wasn’t expecting that.
Craig: What’s your question? Really, you’re [unintelligible 00:56:51].
Emmett: They really did. The thing is I’ve listened to an inordinate amount of you guys over the past year, starting from the beginning. Incredible. You have very terse words for people selling books. Why did you decide to write this?
John: Thank God someone finally asked the question.
Pamela: Someone got the question.
Craig: I’ve been waiting all night. I can’t believe none of these terse words. It was an open goal. None of you took the shot. It’s a great question.
Emmett: I have to.
Craig: John, can you explain why we have the book?
John: I would say our listenership kept saying, like, “Hey, you should make a book,” or, “You should put a book of your transcripts out there.” We literally did the math. What if we just did a book of our transcripts? It was impossible. It was bigger than this entire room to do our transcripts. It was like, “Well, what if we could do a best-of?” It’s the synthesized version.
The thing that happens to me and Craig constantly is like, “Hey, I have a question about blah, blah, blah.” It’s like, “Okay, we talked about this on episode, I don’t know, 346.” You can send somebody and say, “Oh, go back and listen to episode 346.” If I could just give you a book, this is what we’ve talked about.
Our Natalie and Luke, who have the galleys here, you can track them down and look over their shoulder to see what’s in the book. The book is very specifically synthesized versions of what things we talked about over the course of the podcast. It’s not like how to write a screenplay. There’s one chapter–
Craig: Called How to Write a Screenplay.
John: How to write a screenplay, literally. [laughter] Which is mostly about Finding Nemo, really. People love it. The book consists of distilled versions of all the things we’ve talked about, stuff about relationships and stuff like that. It’s not like, here are the plot points, and here’s all the Syd Field stuff. It’s not that kind of book. It’s a book about screenwriting and not how to write a screenplay.
Craig: John and his team, of course, did all the work. You guys know I suck. What I think is great about it is, and I don’t mind sounding like a jerk, we know what we’re doing. This is our jobs. This is our careers, our lives. We have spent decades working in this business as professional writers. We are still doing it to this day.
Sometimes we have hits, sometimes we have losses, but we are still here. After breaking into the business in the mid-90s, we’re still here. We must know something. That is actually a perspective that generally doesn’t exist in the 4,000 other books. They’re written by people that don’t.
John: I’ll also say that the stuff we don’t know, every other chapter is an interview with one of our guests who’s come on the show. It is Christopher Nolan, or it’s Greta’s coming in. We’re talking to everybody, Aline and everybody else, about their experiences that are very specific and that are not our experiences.
Craig: They’re not just us.
John: We don’t have the hubris to say if we actually know everything. We know a lot, but we also have guests who know-
Craig: We know so much.
John: -a ton of stuff that we don’t know, which has been great, too. It’s honestly so people don’t– give people a book. Do a book. Thank you for the question. Also, this is a time, a show of hands, who has pre-ordered the Scriptnotes book? [laughter] [crosstalk] I had to be informed.
Craig: Thank you. Thank you for that.
John: Thank you so much.
Craig: Thank you, everyone.
John: Thank you for the softball there. Thank you very much, Mr. Farnsworth.
Craig: It’s like he was sent by the publishing company.
John: Oh my God. That is our show for this week. If you want to hear this as a podcast, you can subscribe to Scriptnotes, and you’ll get this in the feed on Tuesday. Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt, who’s over there. He’s a superstar hero.
[applause]
This show will be edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Craig: As always.
John: God bless you, Matthew Chilelli, for making us sound better and smarter than we are. Our intro and outro, he also wrote all our music. He’s so fantastic. Thank you to Emily Locke and everyone at the Austin Film Festival. Who here is a Scriptnotes premium subscriber? Oh my God.
Craig: Thank you.
John: Thank you so much. You guys don’t realize it, but you keep the lights on at Scriptnotes. You pay for all the stuff.
Craig: Thank you.
John: Craig, where can they sign up to become a premium subscriber?
Craig: You can sign up to become one at scriptnotes.net, where you can get all the back episodes and bonus segments like the one we did not do tonight.
John: The Q&A will be the bonus segment when you listen to it, so no one else has to hear those great questions there at the end. This was our 11th live show.
Craig: Not a bad one.
John: Not a bad one.
Craig: Not a bad one.
John: Really good. I’ve loved it. You’re a great crowd. Thank you so much. Have a great night.
Craig: Thank you, guys, so much. What a great crowd. Thank you guys for coming out.
[Bonus Segment]
John: Pamela Ribon, you have been volunteering and he said yes to help us out with this game we’d like to play. This is another chance to win a galley copy of the Scriptnotes book. Here’s how this is going to work. We need to find two Scriptnotes super fans who will compete to see who gets the copy of the book. It’s already signed. It’s a galley copy. There’s only 20 of these in the world. We need to find that person.
Here’s the strategy for how we’re going to find super fans in the room. It’s also a chance to stretch a little bit because that’s a thing that people do. In this room, please stand up if you have listened to 10 or more episodes of Scriptnotes. That’s a lot of listeners. That’s fantastic.
If you have listened to more than 100, stay standing. Otherwise, sit down. 100 episodes. These are people who say they have listened to 100 episodes.
Craig: That’s a lot.
John: Who is wearing a Scriptnotes T-shirt? If you’re not wearing a Scriptnotes T-shirt, sit down.
Pamela: Wow. They all fall down. [crosstalk]
John: I see three.
Craig: Three, two. Two, three?
John: I see three. One, two, three.
Craig: Three. One, two, three.
John: All right. You guys stay standing. We have some tiebreaker questions that we figured out.
Craig: You’re one of the three.
John: You’re one of the three. Some of these, they start easy, but they get really hard. Of just the three of you, please, no one contribute. Just the three of you. Raise your hand if you believe that Craig’s least favorite condiment is mustard. Craig’s least favorite condiment is mustard. Raise your hand if you believe that is true. That Craig’s– three, two, one. You all got it right. What is your least favorite condiment?
Pamela: Mayonnaise.
Craig: If you want to call mayonnaise a condiment, it’s really more of a disgusting substance.
John: All right. On Scriptnotes’ three-page challenge, we often refer to a Stuart special. Raise your hand if you believe a Stuart special refers to starting with a flash forward. I would actually say it is a flash forward. You’re definitely in. What’s your name? Natalie is in. Now it’s between the two of you to see who’s the other– who’s going to face her off in the final thing. Just the two of you.
All right. Raise your hand if you think there has been a deep dive episode on Unforgiven. A deep dive episode on Unforgiven. You say yes. She doesn’t know. There has been one. It’s one we rarely refer to. All right. Coming up, Natalie, coming up.
Craig: It’s like The Price is Right.
Pamela: Oh my gosh.
John: All right. What is your name?
Luke: My name’s Luke.
John: Luke, hi.
Craig: Luke. Hi, Luke. Natalie, come on up.
John: Natalie, come on over here.
Craig: Natalie’s got the cool S Scriptnotes shirt, by the way, which is my favorite.
John: It’s Scriptnotes University and Scriptnotes Cool S.
Craig: Scriptnotes University and Scriptnotes Cool S.
John: Very good. Now, Drew is going to give you some signs. The sign will either say John or Craig. Pamela’s going to read.
Pamela: These are fancy.
John: Yes, fancy. You can tell we’ve thought a lot about this.
Pamela: Oh my gosh. We’ll tell you what they say in the back.
[laughs]
John: All right. We have some things that Craig and I have said over the years on the podcast. Craig and I don’t know what these are. Drew compiled all these. We have no idea. Pamela Ribon is going to read these things, so you have to decide, did John say it or did Craig say it?
Craig: This will be exciting.
John: This will be exciting for us. We can’t help you. We don’t know.
Craig: We don’t know. We can’t help.
John: All right. Pamela, the floor is yours.
Pamela: Thank you. I’m going to do my best to not let you know who said it by always sounding with, I have slight umbrage. Number one, “I don’t like it when you hold me accountable for the things I say and do.”
[laughter]
Craig: Oh, so fast.
John: Natalie says Craig. Luke says Craig.
Pamela: It is Craig.
Craig: Because I don’t like that.
John: Drew is keeping a score. The winner gets the book. This is important. All right.
Pamela: “No more being stupid. That’s dumb.”
[laughter]
John: Both Natalie and Luke say it’s Craig.
Pamela: It is Craig.
Craig: It’s dumb.
Pamela: Number three, “No undamaged woman owns a bar in Tibet.”
[laughter]
Craig: Such a good observation.
John: We have Craig. Luke says Craig. Natalie says Craig. What is the answer?
Pamela: It is John.
John: It is me. I suspect that’s from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Craig: It must be from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yes. Marion.
Pamela: I bet you sounded sweeter when you said it. Number four, “You can’t sink the same boat twice.”
John: Luke and Natalie, what do you think? Who said that? Why don’t you say that and I’ll say it to see which sounds better.
Craig: “You can’t sink the same boat twice.”
John: “You can’t sink the same boat twice.”
Craig: I think it’s John.
Pamela: It is John. That was hard because you could tell that was helpful.
Craig: Yes, exactly. [crosstalk]
Pamela: Which really are the same. They’re the same.
Craig: Also, I think you can sink the same boat twice.
Pamela: You sure can.
Craig: Of course you can. Get it back up.
Pamela: Bring it back up.
John: Bring up of the Titanic. Sink the Titanic again.
Pamela: That’s right. Do it twice.
Craig: Sink it again.
Pamela: It pops back up. We saw that in the Titanic. Number five, “I’m not one to toot my own horn, but I think that I could kill you.”
[laughter]
John: Both Luke and Natalie say Craig. What’s the answer?
Pamela: It is Craig. If John said it, there would be a lot of call-ins. There’d be a lot of emails.
Craig: I think I could do it.
Pamela: How’s John doing? Number six, “Acknowledgement is hype.”
Craig: Ooh, that’s deep.
John: Both Natalie and Luke are saying John. What is the answer?
Pamela: It is John.
Craig: John, yes.
Pamela: I’m going to do this since they’re so– [crosstalk]. It is a little–
Craig: [unintelligible 01:07:26] [crosstalk]
Pamela: It depends on if he’s complaining. The apology, it’s just hype.
John: I wonder if that was probably in reference to sexy Craig, wasn’t it?
Pamela: God. All right. I guess I could try sexy Craig for number seven.
Sexy Craig: Did someone say my name?
Pamela: “It’s a cross between a play and a yuck.”
[laughter]
Craig: Ooh, a split.
John: Oh, a split.
Pamela: Oh, we have a split.
John: Luke says John. Natalie says Craig. What is the answer?
Pamela: It is Craig.
Craig: I am shocked. Well done, Natalie. You know me better than I know me.
Pamela: Oh boy, sexy Craig. Number eight, “Anything can be a sex toy if you’re imaginative enough.” [laughter] Do you two know which one of you said it?
John: I have no idea.
Craig: I have a suspicion.
[laughter]
John: All right. I’ll try it out. “Anything can be a sex toy if you’re imaginative enough.”
Pamela: That’s your Play-Doh pitch.
Craig: “Anything can be a sex toy if you’re imaginative enough.” Oh, another split.
Pamela: Another split.
John: Luke says John. Natalie says Craig.
Craig: I think it’s John.
Pamela: It’s John.
Craig: It’s John.
John: Oh, I said it.
[applause]
Craig: Only because I think there are some limitations on sex toys. Just a couple.
Pamela: Talk to John.
Craig: Not many, just a couple.
John: Narrow-minded Craig.
Pamela: That’s right.
John: Once again.
Craig: It’s too little.
Pamela: Number nine, “If you want to see a twink navigate a chocolate river, you’re probably not going to the multiplex.’ [laughter] I just had to do that one in my voice.
Craig: God, I hope that was me. I really do.
John: Oh, a split. Natalie says John. Luke says Craig. I don’t know. What is the answer?
Pamela: It’s John.
John: It’s me.
Craig: All right. I’m jealous. I wish I had said that.
John: Was that Jen? Was that it?
Pamela: Do you want a score check? We’re about to do 10.
John: Yes, a score check. Where are we at?
Drew: Natalie’s up by one.
John: Natalie’s up by one. All right. That’s the only score that matters.
Craig: I wonder if anyone else is up by one. Okay, go on.
Pamela: Number 10, [laughter] “I’ve never done a Latvian escape room.” It’s hard to say.
Craig: A Latvian escape room.
Pamela: A Latvian escape room.
John: Latvian escape room.
Craig: Latvian.
Pamela: Latvian like the Latvian.
John: We both try it. I’ve never done a Latvian escape room.
Craig: I’ve never done a Latvian escape room.
Pamela: That’s tough.
John: Two Craigs.
Craig: I think you’re both wrong because-
Pamela: Two Craigs.
Craig: -I have done a Latvian escape room.
Pamela: That’s right. Two Craigs make it John.
John: John is the answer, right?
Craig: Yes.
Pamela: All right.
Craig: Oh, yes, I have. If I’m in Latvia, what else am I going to do? Latvia as a whole is an escape room.
Pamela: Do you think you were just saying it as a segue? You’re like, “I’ve never done a Latvian escape room.” Speaking of escape rooms, for the room that we’re in now. Number 11. We have five more.
John: Five more. Right.
Craig: Oh, God.
Pamela: “We’re not hiring people because of the size of their bones.”
[laughter]
John: Both say Craig. What is the answer?
Pamela: It’s Craig.
John: It’s Craig, yes.
Craig: It’s true.
Pamela: Number 12, “I couldn’t have been wronger.”
Craig: We’ve got a split here.
John: A split. Natalie says John. Luke says Craig.
Pamela: It’s Craig.
John: Ooh. Are we tied up? Drew, are we tied up?
Drew: Tied up.
John: We’re tied up. All right.
Craig: Damn.
Pamela: This is the World Series. Number 13, “Maybe try laughing at something funny.”
[laughter]
Craig: What does that mean? What was the context of that?
John: All right. Natalie says Craig, but Luke says John. Who said it?
Pamela: It’s John.
John: I said it? Oh, that was mean.
Craig: I knew it. I don’t think you were saying it to me.
John: Luke, you’re ahead. All right. Up by one.
Pamela: He’s up by one?
Craig: Luke is up by one.
Pamela: All right.
Craig: Luke is up by one.
Pamela: We have two left.
Craig: We have two left. This is actually a big deal.
Pamela: Number 14, “It takes maybe five seconds to fully maul a child.”
[laughter]
John: Both say Craig. Is it Craig?
Pamela: Yes. He said it back there.
John: This is it. If Luke gets this wrong and Natalie gets it right, we’re tied. Otherwise, Luke’s won this game.
Craig: Let me just say, strategically, whatever he says, say the opposite. You can’t win otherwise. You’ve got to go for this.
Pamela: Shout out to Katie P. for these quotes. Number 15, “I’m excited for your socks.”
John: Ooh. We’ll try to give them a shot. “I’m excited for your socks.”
Craig: “I’m excited for your socks.”
John: Very similar, actually.
Craig: Luke, you’ve got to throw it out there. You’ve got to throw it down.
John: Three, two, one, show. Oh, so you say John. Luke says John. Natalie says Craig. What is the answer?
Pamela: It’s John.
Craig: It’s John.
John: Oh, the big winner is Luke.
[applause]
Craig: Way to go, Luke.
John: Congratulations. All right. Stay right here. All right.
Craig: You did great, though. I consider you my great supporter. Thank you.
John: Natalie, I’m going to give you a book, too.
[cheering]
Craig: I’m so glad.
John: That was really fun. Thank you, Pamela, for doing it.
Craig: Great job.
John: Well done.
Pamela: Do it anytime. I love impersonating you both.
John: Killed it.
Craig: Five seconds, John. Five seconds to maul a child. Accurate.
John: I’ve learned that I’m meaner sometimes than I thought I was, which is fine.
Craig: Yes, you are.
Links:
- Pamela Ribon and Anthony Sparks
- Austin Film Festival
- Preorder the Scriptnotes Book!
- Our Moneyball episode
- Enter the Relationship Matrix by Chris Csont
- Bring It On toothbrush scene
- STOMP
- Writer Emergency Pack
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription (now with fewer emails!)
- Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube
- Scriptnotes on Instagram
- John August on Bluesky and Instagram
- Outro by Matthew Chilelli (send us yours!)
- Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode here.