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The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2018/conflict-of-interest).

**John August:** Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

**Craig Mazin:** My name is Craig Mazin.

**John:** And this is Episode 347 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Today on the podcast we’ll be discussing conflict of interest, both as a legal theory and as a reality in the world of film and television. Then we’ll be answering listener questions on TV comedy, establishing time periods, and not writing.

But Craig I’m so excited because you are all the way on the other side of the world. It’s the first time where we’re doing one of these long distance podcasts where you are in Europe and I am in Los Angeles.

**Craig:** Yeah. Not just in Europe but Eastern Europe, so I’m a bit far flungerer than you were last time when you were in Paris. I am in Vilnius, the capital city of the great country of Lithuania. I am 10 hours ahead of you. This is very exciting. We just finished our second week of shooting on Chernobyl and all is going well.

**John:** I’m so excited for you, Craig. I was actually with Craig Mazin as the first shot of his show went off. We were playing D&D and he got the text message with the first still image from the first scene being shot. And this has been a very long journey so I’m so, so happy that you are making your show.

**Craig:** Well, thank you very much. And all, I think, all television and film production should begin with the writer-producer playing Dungeons & Dragons while the first shot goes off. I think that’s fair.

**John:** That is only fair. It’s the way things should be. In a perfect world it would all be Dungeons & Dragons and television programs.

**Craig:** I’ve got here in my hotel room, it’s Rise of Tiamat, the module that I’ll be preparing so that when I return I will be DMing that for you and the boys. So D&D never too far away from me. But we’re making it work, you and I, as we do no matter what time zone we’re in.

**John:** All right. Let’s start our episode. First off I have some news. So, along with John Gatins, a friend of the show, I’m going to be hosting a special Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Q&A with Aline Brosh McKenna and Rachel Bloom on Wednesday May 9, 2018, 7pm, at UTA. So, this is actually at an industry thing, so it’s not like a thing that I can sell tickets for. I can’t send you to a website to come to this screening. But what I can do is Aline says we can put two people on the list to come to this. And I feel like we have a big bunch of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend fans among our audience. But I’m trying to think of the best way to give out these two tickets. And, Craig, this is the first you’re hearing of this. What I think we might want to do is the first listener who can send in an email to ask@johnaugust.com with the lyrics to a song, like just write the lyrics to a song, that expresses why they want to be at this event. That might be the thing.

But, Craig, if you could offer some sort of theme for the song, or maybe even a title for the song that would convey what it should be.

**Craig:** Yeah. The theme is I want to be on the inside at an exclusive event because I’m on the outside normally and I want to be on the inside where not anyone can just go, because you said it’s a special industry fancy people event. And so I think let’s call the title of the song “The Other Side of the Velvet Rope.”

**John:** Ooh, I like that very, very much. So, if you are a person who wants to come to this, we are going to give away two tickets – well, they’re not tickets. We’ll put two names on the list and we’ll put those two names based on the person who writes the lyrics to that song. So, write those lyrics about The Other Side of the Velvet Rope. Send them through to ask@johnaugust.com and we will put those two names on the list.

To be clear here, I think whoever writes that and their plus one will be our guests for this special little thing.

**Craig:** Great. I think that’s a great idea. And it’s not a lyric contest. It’s really just like who can put the effort in, you know?

**John:** Exactly. We want you to jump over a bar. And that bar is write some lyrics.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** But we have an actual real Scriptnotes show to hype as well. So on May 22 we are going to be doing a show at the ArcLight. Tickets are not yet available but I want you to clear your calendars on May 22. There will be a live show in Los Angeles. We are going to have very cool guests. It’s going to be a good, fun time. So, if you have anything scheduled for May 22, now is the time to cancel it because there’s going to be a Scriptnotes live show there. And this is the equivalent live show as when we had Rian Johnson on and Dana Fox and Rob McElhenney. It’s the equivalent of that show. And we’re excited to announce our guests pretty soon. You can’t come if you’ve – don’t schedule surgery for that day.

**Craig:** No, no. Well, listen, don’t schedule surgery if you don’t have to, obviously. We’re not big fans of the elective stuff. But also, folks, this is the event that we do to support Hollywood Heart, which is a wonderful charity that our friend John Gatins supports. And the past two times we’ve done this have been, well, we like to save some of the heavy firepower for those shows. So, the first time we did it we had Dan Weiss and Dave Benioff from Game of Thrones and we had Jason Bateman from Jason Bateman. And then, yeah, last year we had Rian Johnson on the eve of The Last Jedi coming out. We had Larry Kasdan, I believe. Oh no, Larry wasn’t on – he had his own show. He had his own live show.

But we had Rian Johnson and we had Dana Fox. I mean, we’ve had great guests for these. I don’t want to say yet who we’re getting, but we’re going to be getting some great people. So, no elective surgery on that night.

**John:** No. No. All right, so enough hype of future events. Let’s go to the past. Let’s do some follow up. So, a regular feature on the show is How Would This Be a Movie. One of those recent stories was the Worst Roommate Ever, the story by William Brennan. And that story was acquired by our friend Chris Morgan and Blumhouse. They are going to be trying to develop this for both TV and for features.

**Craig:** Yeah. So where did we land on that one? I can’t quite remember.

**John:** I think we landed that it was a very interesting premise and character. I think we may have differed on whether we needed to actually acquire the rights to this specific story or that as a general story space, like the idea of the roommate from hell genre might be a thing worth pursuing. But they decided, you know what, the actual rights to this story were worth it and they locked down those rights.

**Craig:** Well, I think if you are an individual writer and you get inspired by something like this it’s perfectly fine to write your own story as long as you feel you’re basically drawing on public facts as listed in this article. But when you’re a big company, and Chris Morgan has a big company, then you almost always just go and get the rights because you have a certain amount of money to spend and it generally plants a little bit of a flag in the space. You’re saying to other people, “Hey, we’re doing this, so maybe you don’t want to waste money doing it.” It’s a bit of business gamesmanship I should say.

**John:** I would say so. So I’ll be curious to see what project or projects come out of this idea. Almost all of us have had roommates at times. Most of them have not been deranged. But almost everyone has had a bad roommate experience.

**Craig:** I’ve had–

**John:** Actually, some of us have had deranged roommates. I guess you trump most of these other stories.

**Craig:** Yeah. I kind of have a problem with anything called Worst Roommate Ever, because I’m pretty sure I had the worst roommate ever.

**John:** Oh, always good. More recent news. We got an email from Nate. Craig, would you read what Nate wrote to us?

**Craig:** Sure. Nate writes, “I was listening to Episode 345 today and hearing about how Isaac and Elizabeth moved to LA right after college and that hit me harder than it should have. After I graduated I had plans to move to LA from Philadelphia with one of my best friends from college, but I was fortunate enough to be pitching a couple of shows here that picked up some momentum and decided to ride them until they were shelved.

“Once they plateaued I made plans again to move out. Just before putting down a deposit on an apartment I was hospitalized with Lyme disease.” Oh, that’s not good. “At that point my focus was health and put everything on hold again. And that urge was suppressed until today. I currently have a great job at 27 as a post-production supervisor at a large e-commerce company, a comfortable position that a lot of people would kill for in the area. A girlfriend of more than two years who has always supported me and my crazy ambitions but doesn’t want to move to LA and it has come to the point where it physically hurts to not be in LA.

“I guess I have more of an ask of you and Craig than a question. I would appreciate it if you and Craig could just tell me to quit being a coward and tell my girlfriend what I just told you.” Huh.

**John:** All right, well Nate, I can’t speak directly to your girlfriend but I can only tell you what I would tell her which is that if you are 27 and you want to be working in the film and television industry that is centered in Los Angeles, you don’t want to be in Philadelphia anymore, this is the time to do it. And you’re going to want to move here. And hopefully there’s a way you can move here and that she comes along with you. But I will say it’s not unprecedented for a person to leave a two-year relationship at 27 and move to the city they want to be living in. So, I think it’s time. Craig, do you have any more advice for Nate?

**Craig:** Well, look, it’s the girlfriend part that’s kind of stopping me. Because, yeah, all of the details seem about right. I mean, you’re 27. You’re still fairly young. You’re a post-production supervisor. That’s a gig that actually could get you a fairly decent day job working in a similar capacity in LA. So, theoretically there’d be a fairly nice glide path in for you.

I’m a little concerned when you say it’s come to the point where it physically hurts to not be in LA. Obviously it’s a slight amount of hyperbole there, but you seem to have put a lot of hopes and dreams on the location of Los Angeles. You haven’t exactly said why. I mean, you said you were pitching a couple of shows, but you know nothing was stopping you from writing shows while you were in Philadelphia and you weren’t. So, a couple of concerns. A couple of things to think about, Nate.

First, why is it super-duper important that you be in LA, and, if you have an answer to that, can you answer why you haven’t been at least working towards those goals while you’ve been in Philadelphia? And secondly, and more importantly, this girlfriend of yours of 2.5 years, you say she’s always supported you and your crazy ambitions. Well, that’s real. That’s a thing. And if you love her and she loves you, I don’t know, like it just seems – sometimes there’s things that are more important than living in Los Angeles, which is just a place, Nate. It’s a place.

So, I just want you to think really carefully here. I just want to make sure that you aren’t imagining that it is location that’s going to make and break you and location is going to solve your problems and make all of your dreams come true. Because generally speaking while it’s easier in LA, it’s not the be-all, end-all. And I don’t know, breaking up with your girlfriend, I hate to advise anyone to do that, especially because it sounds like you and she have a good thing going.

**John:** Yeah. This last week I spoke at USC. I was part of their Talent Week in which they bring in alums to talk to other alums and current students. And the thing I ended up talking about was the nature of sort of how characters express their wants and how to think of yourself as a character in the story of your life. And so I would urge Nate to think of himself as the protagonist in the story of his life. And if he sees himself that way he’d recognize that heroes of stories have triumphs and setbacks. They go on journeys. They come back from places. He perceives himself as the person who meant to leave Philadelphia but like weird stuff got in the way and he was never able to leave. And the nature of his true quest, where he really should be, is to be in Los Angeles.

He’s never going to be sort of the same person he was at 21. But I also don’t want him to think that like, “Oh well, now his movie is over.” That the thing he wanted is unrealistic or impossible at this point. I think the reason why I’m pushing him to maybe go to Los Angeles or really have the hard conversation with his girlfriend and figure out whether this is a thing that can work or not work is because he maybe really unhappy five years, ten years, 15 years from now if he hasn’t done this thing he always meant to do.

I don’t want him to be with the same woman, married with kids, and still be frustrated that he never tried in Los Angeles. So, that’s where I’m pushing Nate this direction.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, look, those are the two competing movies, right? So you have the movie of the person who never quite follows their dream and suffers in silence and then finally gets a chance and goes for it and wins. Then there’s this other movie, it’s more of the romance. A person who doesn’t realize what they have, leaves to go get something better, and eventually comes back home realizing, “Oh, you know, it was right here in front of me the whole time.”

There’s these two movies. I don’t know which one is Nate’s movie. I do know that when he says, “I would appreciate it if you and Craig could just tell me to quit being a coward and tell my girlfriend what I just told you,” um, you know, I would say to you that’s, generally speaking, good advice always. You should be able to tell your girlfriend everything you’re thinking and feeling in that regard.

I don’t think you’re being a coward, Nate. I think you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too here. And you need to decide what you want and what matters more and make your choice. Real simple. We can’t do it for you, buddy.

**John:** Yeah. Nate, a year from now please write us back and let us know what you have done or decided to do and how it all went, OK?

**Craig:** Good idea.

**John:** Last bit of news is way back follow up. In Episode 32 of this podcast we discussed Amazon Studios, in particular discussed their plans for inviting anyone in the world to send in their movie ideas, their pitches, their treatments and things, and there was a whole service. There was a whole website you could go to to put in your stuff and we both thought it was a terrible idea. And there was news on that front this week.

**Craig:** Yeah. So apparently Amazon finally admitted that it was, in fact, a terrible idea. I think they knew it was a terrible idea almost immediately. And they just sort of kept it lingering there because it didn’t really cost them anything per se. Just sort of hard drive space on servers which is kind of their bread and butter. They’ve got more of that than anyone. They’ve shut it down. They finally said no mas. This thing is over.

And, John, I’m pretty sure that they should have just listened to us.

**John:** Yeah. It would have probably saved some time and some effort. I don’t know to what degree they were actively doing any of this script outreach stuff. I don’t know whether this was a factor for years, honestly. And I didn’t hear anybody talking about it. But I will say if you look at what Amazon Studios is doing right now, they are investing heavily in high-priced IP and expensive talent to try to make big things like a Game of Thrones. That’s why they’re spending a gazillion dollars on the Tolkien rights. They’re making big, big swings because that’s how you make big hits in general.

So, it’s 180 degrees from this sort of crowd-sourcing thing that they started with.

**Craig:** Yeah. And look, I remember when we talked about this, some people got their feathers a little ruffled. You and I occasionally will get hit with the whole, “You guys are elitist, and you’re just trying to keep the little guy out. And that there are all these men and women out there who, if only they could get past the gatekeepers, would be successful. And that crowd-sourcing is the future. And you’re old. And you’re done.” And I believe our thesis at the time was, no, this is not something you crowd source. This is about personal creative vision and intelligence. And, no, we’re not trying to keep anyone out. We’re just being realistic. People generally are fussy about what they watch and it’s really expensive to produce things. So, this isn’t going to go well.

And we were 100% right on this one. And there was no doubt. Sometimes you and I make guesses about things. I don’t think either one of us were guessing back then. We knew. It’s not enough that Amazon does this whole thing – by the way, I also remember that they pushed a very bad contract out initially and then they fixed it. But it’s not enough that they put this out there and then just face plant, but they are now, as you said, all the way in the opposite direction. They’re now chasing all the A-list “elitist” writers because as it turns out writing is hard. Writing for screen and television is hard. It is not a common talent. It takes time to cultivate and to perfect, or at least to progress in. And so, yeah, there’s actually something called a professional screenwriter. Sorry. I don’t know what to say.

The entire exercise I thought was kind of a weirdly cynical bit of false egalitarianism that was never going to work.

**John:** Yeah. It’s interesting. There’s the choices of going wide versus going deep. And so wide is the sort of crowd-sourced model where you get a bunch of different brains working on things, and it’s really good for some stuff. It’s really good when there’s things that could be kind of figured out algorithmically.

But screenwriting, at least screenwriting so far, is not a good candidate for that sort of algorithmic wisdom-of-the-crowd kind of thing. It’s such a specific thing that requires one person’s intense focus for long periods of time. And that’s why both writing a movie or showrunning a TV show requires just this person’s brain to be so intensely focused and have a vision for what things are. And crowds are really good for like vision in a lot of different directions, but when you need an intense, focused vision that ends up being one person or a very small group of people.

And I think this is another example of that.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, Silicon Valley at times gets a little too up its own butt about these notions of things like, for instance, crowd sourcing and the wisdom of the crowd. But even in the case of groups of people writing in Hollywood, for instance television shows, there’s a hierarchy. And there is a person in charge. And things are decided on that level. The notion that there’d be some kind of group pushing something towards brilliance is so bizarre because, you know, what’s everybody’s complaint? I mean, the most watered down Hollywood stuff is movies by committee. And here Amazon attempted to expand the committee to the world. It was dead in the water from the start. It was never, ever, ever, ever going to work. And honestly I do think people should listen to us.

When you and I 100% agree on something it’s not possible that we’re wrong. If we both agree to 100%, everyone just needs to just trust us.

**John:** Absolutely. So, having said that, please don’t go back through the archives and figure out all the cases where we were completely wrong, because I’m sure there are some of those.

**Craig:** Well, yeah, but not when we’re 100%–

**John:** 100%, yeah. That will be the thing. No, no, we were only 99% sure.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** I will say even like recent things like MoviePass, we’re like well that can never work. And right now it seems to be quite successful. But we’ll see sort of how it all goes.

**Craig:** Yeah. And we were a little wishy. I wasn’t at 100.

**John:** We were a little wishy. We were like confused.

**Craig:** Yeah. Whereas I remember with this–

**John:** We were never confused about Amazon Studios.

**Craig:** No. I lost my freaking mind over this one. This was early umbrage. This may have been the first umbrage. I don’t know.

**John:** All right. Let’s get to our feature topic of today. This is conflict of interest. And so I put this on the outline because this came up a couple times the last few weeks and I want to talk about it as a concept. So first thing that sort of came up was the discussions about the agency deal and the deal with writers and the WGA, particularly in terms of packaging and producing. I heard the terms conflict of interest used a lot around that.

And also more recently we have Sean Hannity who is talking about Michael Cohen, but he’s in fact a client of Michael Cohen. And as a journalist or whatever you want to call him, that is troubling. And so the word conflict of interest was also coming up there.

So, I want to dig into conflict of interest.

**Craig:** Well, it’s a tricky little area. I mean, I have often discussed this fact with lawyers. This is one of those areas where sometimes the things that we think of as conflict of interest aren’t necessarily conflict of interest. It seems rather situational. And certain professions are more susceptible to it than others.

So, yeah, let’s talk about how this applies to our lives as writers.

**John:** Absolutely. So we’ll try to define terms a little bit as we start. I think the crucial thing to understand is that conflict of interest is not a crime in itself. It’s not even necessarily a big wrongdoing in and of itself. It’s just a situation. It’s a set of circumstances. It’s wherever you have a person/organization that has multiple competing interests. They can be financial. They can be other kinds of interest. But in trying to service one of those they may end up acting in the detriment to one of the other interests. So each of these interests thinks that they are the primary interest and they can’t be. And so it’s those conflicting things that become a conflict of interest.

So, any situation where your loyalties are divided, that’s the way of thinking about a conflict of interest. And so it can go beyond the strict legal definition to just these murky places we find ourselves where even if there isn’t an actual wrongdoing, there’s a perception that something could be unfair towards the parties involved because you have these multiple competing interests.

Classic examples, if you are buying a house and the real estate agent is representing both the buyer and the seller, that is a conflict of interest. That happens sometimes, but it has to be publicly acknowledged that there is a conflict of interest here because the seller is trying to get the highest price. The buyer is trying to get the lowest price. The agent is also kind of trying to get a higher price because they get a percentage. So, that’s a thing that has to be discussed.

If you are given a bonus based on how many life insurance policies you sell to the clients of this organization, that can be a real conflict of interest because those people you are selling these to, they may not need life insurance policies. But if your salary is based on how many of those you sell, that can be a conflict of interest.

So, it happens in lots of situations. But, particularly for our podcast I want to talk about the situations where it happens for writers.

**Craig:** Yeah, I mean, to me conflict of interest typically revolves around questions of trust. There is a sense of a violation of trust. If you believe that somebody is working on your collective behalf. That is to say on behalf of them and you. Or, if that person is working for you. You’ve paid them and they are advancing your interests. And very specifically what they’re doing is providing you a service in which you can trust. For instance, a doctor. I trust my doctor. My doctor says, “You know what? I’ve done a blood exam and I really think you need this medicine Flamydol.” OK, great.

Now, if he doesn’t tell me that he’s a shareholder in the company that makes Flamydol, that is a conflict of interest and he’s violated my trust. This is something that’s very clear in certain areas like, for instance, doctors, lawyers. Journalists are constantly having to disclose things. They seemingly are the most fastidious about it. So, very typically you’ll read a news article and somebody will be talking about a product or a movie. And then they will say, “By the way, that movie or product is manufactured by such-and-such, the parent company of this paper.” So at the very least by disclosing it you don’t have to worry that we’re trying to put a fast one by you. You can judge that for yourself, but we have not violated your trust.

**John:** Or an organization like a newspaper might have firewalls between the advertising department and the editorial department so that the people who are selling the ads to those companies are not influencing the editorial decisions of stories written about that company. And that’s a reasonable way of trying to avoid conflicts of interest because even if there wasn’t impropriety, the perception of impropriety is sometimes just as damaging.

**Craig:** Yeah. And in our business I think that’s – well, look, there are some areas where there is clearly a question of financial conflict of interest. But maybe more than half of the time what we’re talking about is the appearance of a conflict. The appearance or sense that trust has been violated because what happens is one party or the other discovers something that someone didn’t disclose to them and that’s where we can get ourselves into trouble or people can get into trouble with us.

**John:** Absolutely. So let’s talk through some examples that writers are going to face. First off is just with their agencies, with their agents, because agents represent you but they don’t only represent you. They represent multiple clients. And so if you are going in for a job pitching on the Slinky movie, well your agency – your agent – might have other writers who are pitching on that same job. And that is going to happen in your life. And sometimes you’ll know about that. Sometimes you won’t know about that. You should know about that. And so we’re going to talk through strategies for like how you have those difficult conversations.

But it’s not just writers. They also represent directors. So, you know, that director who signed on to that movie who wants to fire you, that is a weird conflict of interest that happens all the time where they are trying to keep their director client happy, but also their writer client happy. Same thing happens with actors. They may really want to have their actor from their agency in your TV show. Are they doing what’s best for the show, what’s best for you as the writer? Or are they doing what’s best for them as the agency because they have this big high profile actor client that they want to get into a movie.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, look, there is a certain aspect of this where it’s a bit caveat-scriptor. The agency is absolutely going to represent other people. You know they represent other people. You know that a bunch of them either do the same thing you do, going up for the same jobs you go up for. Or are people that could theoretically fire your, or employ you. Or people who make more money than you do, therefore it would enrich the agency more. They also represent producers.

So, you kind of have to just assume, I think, as a writer no matter where you are represented that unless you, the client, are literally the highest paid client at that agency that at some point or another your agents will be in a position where they have to choose between your interests and the interests of a client that earns more money for themselves and therefore earns more money for the agency. It’s just priced into the situation. It’s kind of hard to, I don’t know, pretend that you didn’t know. It’s sort of out there, isn’t it?

**John:** It is. And so a thing that’s come up recently in discussions about sort of the agency deal is we all know sort of the challenge of the multiple clients situation, but when the agency has their own financial interest in a project that changes the equation. So if an agency has a packaging fee on a TV show, they no longer have the interest in trying to make sure that you’re getting paid – your being paid more salary isn’t helping them because they are not commissioning that salary. They are not taking their 10% on that salary. So they no longer have an interest in trying to make sure your price goes up.

In fact, they may have an interest in making sure the show is sustainable. They want that show just to keep running because they’re getting a fee for every episode produced. If the show is incredibly successful and syndicates they are getting a percentage of the overall profits of the show. So, their interest is in the success of the show and not necessarily interest of the client. And that is, very classically, a conflict of interest.

Similar kinds of things are happening on the feature side where some agencies and other companies are really truly acting as producers. They’re financing projects. And therefore they have an interest in the final product that is not the same as their interest in the client who put the project together. That’s a challenging situation and the kind of thing we’re trying to figure out a way to address.

**Craig:** Yeah. So, look, technically speaking there is a law that governs talent agents, at least in the state of California which is where all the talent agents we’re describing live and work, and it basically says you get to procure employment on behalf of artists and in exchange for that exclusive right no one else can do it without a license you are not allowed to charge more than 10% commission. And you are not allowed to have a financial stake in the employers or the companies that are employing your clients. That’s simple straight up non, you know, conflict of interest avoidance let’s call it.

And what the agencies have done is put a little end run on that. They have created essentially side companies. So there’s the illusion I think of a separate company because they do these things.

So, OK, the talent agency is actually a Talent Agency Incorporated. But the production company is Productions Limited. Well, the finances are comingled and the shareholders are the same. But they’re two different companies therefore this one is not violating the talent agency act and this one is – it’s bull sugar.

And, also, this packaging thing I hate. I hate it. And here’s the – so packaging basically as far as I can tell, the scam is that the agencies have basically performed a shakedown maneuver on studios. They say, look, a number of our clients are in this show. You have to pay us money per episode or we’re going to, I guess, tell all of our clients to not be in the show. Or we’re going to not have our clients show up for your next show. It’s a little bit of a, “Oh, it’s a shame if anything should happen to your network.” And they get this money. There’s no value added, at all, whatsoever. This money is theoretically money that could be spent instead on the show itself. Or, god forbid, on the clients.

Yes, the clients don’t have to pay commission on that. But as you point out the whole point of commission is I want to pay it because that means you’re motivated to get me more money. The problem as far as I see it in that case is a flat-out conflict of interest as far as I’m concerned. The issue is I don’t know if there’s anything we can do about that one, because it seems like the big agencies – UTA, William Morris Endeavor, CAA, ICM – all package. And we are mostly represented by them. And so it’s not like you can leave and go to the other one. It’s going to happen to you again. And it is apparently not illegal.

**John:** Yeah. So these are things that are going to be figured out over the course of the next year. And so if you’ve been to some of the WGA meetings you’ve heard some of the plans on that front. We won’t sort of rehash them here.

I think it’s important to talk about them because it is an inherent conflict of interest and there always are going to be conflicts of interest. Because I’ve heard people talking about like, “Oh, this WGA is to eliminate all the conflicts of interest.” And I want to stress that that’s impossible. That will never happen.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Because conflicts of interest are inherent in any situation where people are representing multiple parties. That’s going to happen. I think what you want to do is get to a place where one of the parties they’re representing isn’t themselves. And that’s not the biggest party that they’re representing. And we’ll see if we can make progress on that front.

But I also don’t want to leave it all on the agency’s doorstep here because studios have conflicts of interest as well. Look at pilot season. Pilot season is conflict of interest season. It’s basically “We are going to create a bunch of TV pilots and some of them we’re going to pick up to series and some of them we aren’t. But we don’t know which ones yet and so we’re going to pretend that each one of them is the most important thing and that we’re going to stick the best actors in each one of them. But really we know we’re not going to actually make it all – they’re not all going to work. And we’re going to be pulling people out of things. And we know it’s going to be a train wreck. But we’re going into it just thinking like, OK, this is our process. This is how we’re going to do it.”

There are inherent conflicts of interest in there. And if you go through like casting in the pilot season process, it’s all conflicts. It’s all people trying to negotiate these things and you don’t know all the information. It’s really crazy. But that’s just the way it is. And no magic wand will ever be waved that can make that all go away.

So as a writer you’re going to be entering into a system where that’s just part of the game.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, look, there’s conflict always. And then there are these times when you have – a very common situation that we encounter where the studio is engaging in conflict of interest. A studio head is fired. A new studio head is brought in or a new network head. They have an inherent conflict of interest when they’re evaluating the shows that are there. They may quietly think this show that this former head was developing is brilliant. But that just makes me look terrible. If I go ahead and greenlight that show and it becomes a big hit everyone is going to say, “Oh, look, see, they fired the wrong person. They hired him. They should have just kept her.” So, I think I’ll just kill that thing.

That’s just a classic conflict of interest. And also internally what a lot of people don’t know is that the – let’s call them the sub-level of executives. You’ve got the boss, and then you’ve got the two underbosses. And then you’ve got the layer of the five under-under bosses. Each one of those executives has shows for which they are responsible and accountable. They are being evaluated by the success of those. It is in their personal interest to see those shows get on the air. And it is in their personal interest to see their colleague’s shows not get on the air because there is an endless churn of competition and survival of the fittest in the ranks of these executives. That, of course, is also conflict of interest if we define the ultimate interest as good show, which John it often is not.

**John:** It is not. I want to quickly go through some of the other flavors of conflict of interest you’re going to find. So, self-dealing. Self-dealing is when you are basically buying something at a reduced price because you’re essentially selling it to yourself. And so that happens in television where a studio will sell its TV show into syndication to the network it itself owns. So that’s become a subject of several lawsuits where they’ve negotiated a lower price than it’s believed they could have gotten on the open market.

That can hurt show creators who are counting on that price to be what’s affecting their profits on the show.

Another situation we all face is outside employment which is basically you’re working on two things at once. A lot of writers are going to be working on two things at once. You kind of on the phone call sort of pretend it’s the only thing that you’re working on. But realistically you are going to be working on multiple projects at once. The buyer thinks that you are only working on their thing when in fact you’re working on multiple things. Usually that doesn’t become a problem. And usually it’s just understood that this is a thing that happens. But it is a conflict of interest.

Am I giving all of my best thoughts and words towards project A or towards project B. Sometimes you are making choices like that.

**Craig:** I think writers do face these situations of potential conflict of interest all the time and it’s fair, if we’re going to whack agents and studio executives for it, we also have to give ourselves a pretty good spanking because it comes up a lot. Writers are constantly playing this game of managing multiple children. Each one of those children is a project of theirs that they love or care about. Someone comes along and says, “Oh, would you be interested in helping us fix this movie?” And you know that you just worked on that movie’s competition at another studio. It would be proper to disclose that. But if you do not, you are engaging in blatant conflict of interest.

If either one of those parties find out that you worked on this movie and its direct competition, you’re violating everyone’s trust. You’re taking money and violating trust. And it would be fair for both of them to question whether or not you did your best on either one and even worse if you did then that meant you took money to hurt the other one. That’s a real thing that comes up all the time, especially because there’s – as we’ve often said – rarely a movie that doesn’t have some kind of direct concept competition at another studio.

**John:** So the most direct competition thing I can think of that’s happened in my career is I signed on to write an Alice in Wonderland movie and Sam Mendes was going to direct it and it was produced by Dick Zanuck. Separately, Tim Burton signed on to do Alice in Wonderland at Disney and Dick Zanuck was his producer so Dick Zanuck joined him in that. So, Dick Zanuck was attempting to produce two competing Alice in Wonderland movies at the same time.

**Craig:** Yeah. Yeah.

**John:** Dick Zanuck was amazing. And I am so sad he has passed away, because he was remarkable. And he was one of the best producers I ever met in terms of just really being honest with me. So, I remember sitting at lunch. It’s like, “Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s crazy that this is the situation. I’m going to do my best to support both things at the same time. I don’t know what’s going to happen. And at some point I’ll have to choose.”

Ultimately the universe chose and the Disney movie went and the Sam Mendes one went away. And I never ended up writing the Sam Mendes one. But those things do happen. And Dick Zanuck himself was – the role of a producer like that is always conflict of interest because he’s trying to protect the movie, and his relationships with everyone involved with the movie. You know, it’s complicated. So, I have nothing but sympathy for the kinds of situations we find ourselves in as we’re trying to make these nebulous, impossible things come to life.

**Craig:** Yeah. I would advise writers, I mean, because in a situation like that – the good news for Dick Zanuck was everybody knew. Right? So, the second studio that says–

**John:** Exactly. He was transparent.

**Craig:** Yeah. So they say, “OK, listen, we know you’re doing this. It’s crazy. We’re pricing it in. Everybody knows everything. We still choose this. Fine.” Conflict of interest has been avoided. Voila.

For writers who are working – professional writers – if something like this should come up, I think in general it is good to err on the side of disclosure. More disclosure than less.

**John:** Agreed.

**Craig:** About most things. Because I believe – and I could be just Pollyannaish about this – but in the long run people appreciate honesty, particularly in our business where it is in short supply. And you will be probably rewarded. You will probably end up if you were to say lose a potential job because of disclosed conflict of interest, the karma would come back around to boost you up later. I just sort of believe that.

I try my best to not get into a situation where if somebody were to find out that I were doing something they would feel betrayed. I think that’s the most important thing. I never want to walk around worrying that if somebody should know something that I’m doing that is true they would feel betrayed.

**John:** Absolutely. I think it’s always good advice to imagine the phone call you’d get if that person found out. And, all right, that phone call would be horrible. I should tell this in advance.

There was a situation where I was working on a movie for Spielberg and I was also working on the first Charlie’s Angels. And both things had to happen at the same time. I had days where I was going between those two meetings back to back. And so I told Steven I’m doing this thing for Drew. He knew Drew because of E.T. And it was all fine and it was all good.

But, if he had found out separately that I was still actively working on Charlie’s Angels, or if Charlie’s Angels had found out I was doing this other thing that could have been a real conflict. And so being upfront about it, just being transparent, is helpful. And just phrase it in a positive way. I want you to know that this is what I’m doing. It’s going to be these three days and then I’m back on yours fulltime. That it will all work out.

That’s much better than the betrayed call that you get from that person. Because it poisons things after that moment. Even when you give them that great draft they’re going into thinking that they’re upset with you. That you are a bad person who didn’t do their very best work because of this other reason. So, disclose.

**Craig:** Yeah. And, you know, it’s not like they necessarily always follow these rules. You will find yourself in situations where you are doing the right thing for someone and then they turn around and do the wrong thing to you. And you may feel that you have firmly discovered the whole nice guys finish last rule. And that you’re a sucker. And you’re a doormat. And you should check your morals at the door. It’s the only way to get ahead. And all I can say to you is no. It is not worth it.

Yes, there are unscrupulous, bad, evil people that work in our business. I think it’s become more evident than ever. And they do succeed. And it is nauseating. The levels of injustice at times can be nauseating. However, that doesn’t mean you have to be a bad person. Nor does it mean you have to embrace any kind of betrayal. You can absolutely succeed by being a decent person.

I’m not suggesting you have to be a saint. This is a tough business. Sometimes you sugar coat. Sometimes you have to kind of bend the truth a bit just to avoid – you know, it’s the whole white lie syndrome. Right? These are things that have to happen.

But, you can be a decent person and succeed in this business. Will you end up with $500 million? Probably not. Do you want that? Eh, you’re in the wrong business anyway.

**John:** Yeah, I think so. So let’s talk about what can be done, or at least what steps an industry can take and individual people can take. So I’d say industry-wide what works for lawyers, what works for doctors, what works for newspapers when they’re run properly are standards. Codes of conduct. Basically public statements about this is what our policies are. And so when you have standards and practices, if you have a fiduciary standard where a client’s needs have to be the primary thing you’re working for, that helps.

So even like the NBA players, they have a code of conduct with their agents which sort of dictates these are the things that are allowed and that are not allowed. And so the degree to which you can figure out ways to codify what the expectations are, that helps. Because it’s when there are no clear cut expectations that these conflicts of interest become so pervasive.

Individually I would say that as a writer you have to acknowledge that those conflicts are going to be there. And that some of them are completely unavoidable. Like your agent represents multiple people. That’s just the nature of it. And so unless you are the only client, that’s going to happen.

And in a weird way the bigger your agency, the more of those conflicts are going to be a factor. That’s just the nature of it. You may have more access to some things at a bigger agency. But you also are going to have more conflicts just because there’s more people and more relationships there.

Some of the things that I think are useful to ask on the phone call is “What’s been your experience with this person?” Just get them talking about like who this person is, who this executive is, who this producer is to see if they have some preexisting thing. I’ve always been surprised where studio execs when they are renegotiating their contracts at the studio, it’s the agents who do that negotiation for them. So, agents have ongoing relationships with these people at studios that go much beyond just their clients working with them.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** So, ask about that stuff.

It’s fair to ask, “Hey, do you have anybody else going up for this job?” I think that’s a fair question. If your agent won’t answer that question, they’re not really your agent.

**Craig:** And also the answer is, “Yeah.”

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** I think that Hollywood and DC are very similar in this regard. The lobbyists and the politicians and the people who run businesses that the laws govern are all way too involved with each other’s lives and there’s simply not enough separation there. That said, like John said, be aware of the stuff that’s obviously there. Just as, by the way, the studios are aware that every time they talk to us about an idea there’s a decent chance that we either have been working on a similar idea on our own, or could love that idea but want to do it on our own and not tell them. Everybody’s kind of dealing with that sort of thing.

So, by and large you can only essentially govern your own honesty and your own sense of decorum and good behavior. And you can only really govern your own representatives in as much as you have a sort of choice. But that sort of choice isn’t great. I got to be honest when it comes to these issues I don’t know of any particular agency where I would look at it and go, “Oh well, they are more, I don’t know, above the board and clean-handed than any of the other ones.”

**John:** Yeah. I would say you can find out reputations of people who are – you can avoid some shady people by asking questions. And that’s why when other writer friends ask us about agents or that they’re moving around we will tell them quite candidly what we think and sort of what’s happened. But in terms of the inherent systemic conflicts that are going to be there, they’re going to be there regardless. Even the best agents are going to have those conflicts. And I would say the agents I would choose to work with are the ones who are going to be most transparent and are going to put my interests as far forward as they can. That’s all you can sort of ask for.

**Craig:** I agree. I agree.

**John:** Cool. All right, let’s get to some other questions.

Jay writes in, “In regards to sitcoms, what factors are used in deciding if it should be a single camera or a multicam? Should the teleplay’s formatting differ based on the camera setup?”

**Craig:** Well, generally speaking multicam shows are fixed in a couple, two or three, key locations. So you’re thinking about your Seinfelds and your Cheers and a number of the Disney and Nickelodeon sitcoms where you’ve got the living room, the bedroom, and the office. You’ve got the movie theater, the kitchen, and the schoolroom. It’s that kind of thing. Or in the case of Seinfeld, it’s Jerry’s apartment and it’s the diner, right?

So, the reason why is if you’re camping down with the multi-camera setup you kind of are living in a space. You don’t want to yank all of your multi-cameras around. The whole point of multi-camera is we’re on a stage. We have a base. So we can set up our cameras and go from there. We’re probably going to have an audience. There’s a fair chance of that as well.

Single camera you have quite a bit more freedom. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have certain sets or locations that you use over and over. In terms of formatting, I don’t know necessarily if the formatting is hugely different as much as the style of the writing itself is necessarily going to be different. You can have lots of shorter scenes when you’re single cam. And obviously you can go outside and you’re going to want to find some different locations to move around and justify your single cameraness.

If you’re a multi-camera format and you’re in the living room, you’re probably not going to do the three or four line scene. You’re going to camp down for a while. You can kind of get this just from watching these shows. It’s sort of intuitive I think.

**John:** So, right now a couple of listeners are screaming at their podcast player right now because multicam is formatted differently. So, if it’s a multicam show it looks really different on the page. It’s double-spaced.

**Craig:** Oh, that’s crazy.

**John:** It does. It’s double spaced.

**Craig:** Why?

**John:** Scene headers are underlined. I’m going to send you a link. It will drive you mad. I don’t know the actual origin of the multicam format, but it is a very different looking thing. So, it’s double-spaced. Action lines are all uppercase. So you’ve got to really look at the shows that are multicam and study that format because if you were to sort of halfway do multicam people would be – they would throw the script across the room. It’s a really different look.

**Craig:** Are the multicam shows all exactly the same? Or are some different than others?

**John:** You know, there are going to be some house styles. But part of the reason why I know what multicam looks like is the new Highland has multicam as a template. It looks so different. Here, I’m sending you a link to what this looks like. I’m going to send you the link in screenwriting.io, a website that our own producer Megan McDonnell updates, to show some of the big differences here. I’m going to throw it in Skype for you.

**Craig:** What the F? This is stupid. I hate it. All action and description is in all caps. Well, I guess they hate – you know what? I sort of understand. How much action and description can you have when you’re in the same damn set every time? You know what I mean? So maybe that’s why they do it that way. That’s so weird. All right.

**John:** And so I also put in an image there.

**Craig:** What the – that’s ugly as F. Oh, and they put the characters underneath. It’s almost like a cross between a play and a – yuck.

**John:** My guess is that the multicam format evolved sort of with the birth of television and it was a little bit more like a play. And if you really think about it, television and film came from kind of different worlds. And so film was done out here in Los Angeles. It was a thing that sort of grew up 100 years ago. TV had its own origins. It sort of came out of radio and plays and multiple cameras doing stuff. And they’ve co-mingled, I mean we think about them in the same way, but multicam shows are written in this different way. And it’s jarring when you first see it.

So you still see INT. You still see DAY. But character names are listed in there. There’s much more underlining, all uppercase. It’s a really different looking thing on the page.

So, getting back to I think Craig’s more important point is that the writing is also different. There’s an expectation in multicam shows that we are getting to jokes and that the jokes are presented and are landing and they are acknowledged by generally a laugh track and an audience. And there’s just a timing and a spacing. We’ll put a link into the show notes for this great YouTube clip of Big Bang Theory without laughs.

**Craig:** It’s so great. It’s eerie.

**John:** It’s so disturbing. But it’s this moment that like plays totally natural with laughs, but if you take the laughs out feels just bizarre. So, you will know whether your show is meant to be a multicam or a single cam. It’s also weird we still use the term single cam because all of the “single cam” shows they use multiple cameras. It’s just they are shot more like a drama or a TV show in that they have – yes, they have coverage. They’re shooting A and B camera. They’re doing more complicated things.

So, the shows, half-hour comedies that are single camera include things like Modern Family, Blackish, The Office. A lot of these shows have that sort of half-conceit of there is a documentary crew there. But the other ones that are just truly fully dramas that happen to be half an hour long.

You will know whether your show is which one. But they are actually very different. I’ve never written multicam. But some people love it.

Roseanne is a modern example of a multicam that is hugely successful.

**Craig:** Yeah. I obviously have never written in it because I didn’t know that it was a different format. And I’m kind of hoping that there’s somebody out there that’s working on a multicam show that’s striking some sort of blow against the tyranny of this very silly format.

**John:** Absolutely. Another format which is related to both of these but different still is the graphic novel format. Graphic novel format is not as standardized as either screenplays or this multicam format is. But it’s a way of sort of reflecting the script of a book and sort of where the panel layouts are and what is dialogue. It’s not just screenplays, you learn.

**Craig:** Precisely.

**John:** Charles writes, “When writing a period piece, how would you establish a time period? I suppose putting something like The 1920s in description would suffice, but it feels a little too simplistic and the opposite of artistic.” Craig, how would you specify the time period for something like Chernobyl? What details do you put in there to let us know – to anchor us in a time and place?

**Craig:** Well, you have some choices. I mean, the first thing you can decide is exactly how you want your reader to discover the time period and by extension the audience. Obviously the audience does not see scene headers, right? So I don’t like to put in the establishment of a time period in a scene header. I feel like that’s the least interesting way because, again, the audience won’t have it.

So what you start with are some key things. We know that there are certain things that stick out. Appliances. Streets. Clothes. Technology in general. And even language. There’s all these little bits and bobs that kind of make indications. Smoking in a weird way has become a signifier of a time period.

So, little things like finding a cool reference to a brand that no longer exists. Little subtle ways so that people can figure out the mystery on their own. And then, if you desire, if it’s important for your story, you can indicate exactly when this is. It depends on the time period. People may think, well, this is 30, 40 years ago. If it’s important for them to know which then you throw the subtitle up on screen.

But first I like to kind of let people figure it out on their own. So we’re talking about our environment. Hair. Makeup. Props. Location. Language choices. All the things that make a period as vibrant as it is.

**John:** So situations where you may want to put the year in there is if it has to – like there’s multiple time periods in your script and you need to make it clear which time period you’re in for this thing. That’s a great time to put some time period in your scene header.

Or if you’re anchoring two specific real world events, then that’s a situation where you might honestly just put it on screen because it’s clear that this is a very specific moment in time and you want the audience to be crystal clear on exactly when you are in time and space, because this is going to be a hugely important part of your story.

But what Craig describes is right. I think your job – remember always – in the screenplay is to be the movie in paper form. So if there’s specific things we’re going to see and hear in the film that are going to clue us into what time period we’re in, those should be in your script.

**Craig:** Yep. Even sounds. You may have somebody walking along a street at night. And it might not be necessarily evident from the way that they’re dressed what the time period is. But you hear a car going by in the background and a horn. And there’s a certain kind of old car horn. That alone just puts you in a space. So use all of the things that exist. And I can tell you now that I’m here and we’re shooting a show that is period, every single thing has to be thought about. Everything. And the question that is often asked is “Did they have this?” That would be the worst thing of all. Like, “Oh, we put a thing in that just didn’t exist during that time.” That would be a nightmare.

But every single thing there is an attempt to source it to period so that it is accurate and the world feels true.

**John:** Absolutely. All right, so it’s time for our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing could not be more related to what you just talked about. So in terms of anchoring you into a place and time this is a re-endorsement actually. Dana Stevens on Slate Culture Gabfest mentioned this. It’s from 1911. And so the Swedish company Svenska Biografteatern took a trip to NYC and they filmed it on the motion picture cameras of the time. And so we’ve all seen that kind of footage. It’s all herky-jerky and odd because the frame rates are different. But this person named Guy Jones on YouTube has taken that footage and adjusted the frame rate so it’s smooth to modern eyes. And he added sound effects. He added ambience and full sound effects. And it’s really amazing because it’s like, “Oh, that’s what it actually looks like.” So we’ll put a link into the show notes, but you see horses and cars both simultaneously moving around NYC. You see the Flatiron Building which looks just like the Flatiron Building.

Everybody wears hats. We’re in Chinatown. You see this little Chinese kid and he’s doing what kids now would do is like, “Oh, it’s a camera. I’m going to try to get in front of the camera.” And that’s just a great sort of instinct. It’s just really cool to see the real version of this, because I’ve seen movie versions of the same time period a lot, but we can never actually build something this big. I mean, you see all of these people on these giant sets and it really is incredible. So I encourage people to take a look at this thing. And also just to – the sound design on this is really good. It’s very convincing and it’s more believable and more interesting because it feels like you’re really there in the time. Because this was a silent film, but they built a really good ambient track for it that feels like the period.

So, that’s my One Cool Thing.

**Craig:** Well, my One Cool Thing is somewhat similar, but I’m not looking at the way things really were in 1911. I’m looking at the way things really were in Cleopatra era Egypt.

**John:** Ooh.

**Craig:** And Greece. Yeah. Because I’m playing Assassin’s Creed Origins. Of course. And I believe it is accurate in all ways. So naturally at the time I would have been this wonderful man named Bayek who goes around – only in pursuit of justice – just shedding massive quantities of blood. But it’s a really good game.

I like the Assassin’s Creed series. Have you ever played an Assassin’s Creed, John?

**John:** I never have.

**Craig:** There’s this underpinning concept to it that is so stupid I don’t even – it embarrasses me to say it. But you’re not really – the idea of the game is you’re not actually an assassin running around in ancient Egypt or in 1800s London or in Renaissance Florence or all the things that they’ve done. You’re actually a person in the modern era accessing genetic memories of somebody. It’s absolute nonsense. I hate that part of it.

**John:** I saw that in a trailer for the movie. So I saw Michael Fassbender in this big rig. And so that’s what you’re describing.

**Craig:** Yeah. Like if it had been me – no one asked me to write Assassin’s Creed – but had they asked me I would have said just slice away this ridiculous thing and no doubt they would have said to me, “Um, Ubisoft, the company that’s licensed us the rights, they’re not going to let you do that.” Then I would have just fired myself.

Regardless, the actual gameplay though of Assassin’s Creed is really good. They’ve made a lot of them. They seem to make one a month. So, I had kind of gotten off the Assassin’s Creed wheel. But the aforementioned Chris Morgan said, “Oh no, this one is really, really good.” And it is. It’s really fun playing as somebody in a completely different culture. The Assassin’s Creed games have generally been white, white, white, white, white. So, it’s fun to be an ancient Egyptian. Well, I wouldn’t say ancient. I mean, you’re talking a little bit before the Common Era as they say.

But it’s just a cool time period. You’re riding a camel. You’re lopping people’s heads off. It’s great. So, you know, I’m a big fan. I say yes Assassin’s Creed Origins.

**John:** Yes Assassin’s Creed. The common thing said about Cleopatra is that she lived closer to our time than to when the pyramids were built. I don’t know if that’s actually true. But it’s a thing I hear repeated a lot.

**Craig:** It is true. And, in fact, it is mentioned in a splash screen at one point while the game is loading up.

**John:** Ah-ha.

**Craig:** Yes, so that is true. Cleopatra was fairly modern. I mean, we’re talking just – we’re starting to edge towards the 0 Common Era. But you do – there’s one point where you’re running around. You’re doing stuff. And you just happen to turn to the left and there in the distance are pyramids. And it’s quite breathtaking. So big fan.

**John:** Very nice. That is our show for this week. So, as always, our show is produced by Megan McDonnell. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is by Tim Garcia. If you have an outro you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That is also the place where you can send the lyrics to the song you’ve now written about being on the other side of a velvet rope so you can join us for the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend special Q&A thing.

If you have longer questions like the ones we answered, those are great at ask@johnaugust.com. But short ones are easy on Twitter. I’m @johnaugust. Craig is @clmazin.

You can find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If you would like to leave us a review, that’s lovely. It helps other people find the show.

Here’s my reminder that we have a game that is out there in the world that is called AlphaBirds. It is a fun game for people who like words and like Scrabble or Boggle. Craig played it along with Melissa, god, like two or three years ago at Austin Film Festival.

**Craig:** Yeah, in Austin, right? Yeah.

**John:** It’s a fun game.

**Craig:** It was fun.

**John:** Back then it was called Sparrow. It’s now called AlphaBirds and it’s available for purchase. So that’s at store.johnaugust.com. Or alphabirdsgame.com.

You’ll find show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. The transcripts go up about four days to seven days after the episode airs. All the back episodes are available at Scriptnotes.net. It’s a subscription. It’s $1.99 a month.

We also have a few more of the USB drives that have the first 350 episodes of the show on them. Craig, delightful talking with you across the world.

**Craig:** Indeed. Thanks, John. I’ll see you next week. Bye.

**John:** Bye.

Links:

* To win an invite to the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend event on Wednesday May 9th, send your lyrics to “The Other Side of the Velvet Rope” to ask@johnaugust.com
* Amazon Studios is no longer accepting [unsolicited submissions](http://variety.com/2018/digital/news/amazon-studios-shuts-down-open-script-submissions-1202753480/)
* The Deadline [article](http://deadline.com/2018/04/talent-agency-business-writers-guild-deal-proposal-shakeup-packaging-deals-1202373395/) that outlines the WGA’s proposal to renegotiate the Artists’ manager Basic Agreement
* [Dick Zanuck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_D._Zanuck) and his [credits](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005573/)
* Multicams are [formatted differently](https://screenwriting.io/how-are-multicamera-tv-scripts-formatted/). This clip of the [Big Bang Theory with the laugh track removed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASZ8Hks4gko) shows how different the rhythm of a Multicam can be.
* Swedish company Svenska Biografteatern’s [footage of New York City](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aohXOpKtns0) as adjusted by Guy Jones
* [Assassin’s Creed Origins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_Origins)
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* [AlphaBirds](http://alphabirdsgame.com) is our fun new word game!
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
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Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_347.mp3).

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2018/whats-the-plan-anyway).

**John August:** Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

**Craig Mazin:** My name is Craig Mazin.

**John:** Episode 340.

**Craig:** Sexy Craig.

**John:** Specificity.

**Craig:** Umbrage.

**John:** Segue Man.

**Craig:** Don’t you die on me.

**John:** That’s why they call it a One Cool Thing.

Today on the podcast it’s another round of the Three Page Challenge where we look at the pages that listeners have sent in and tell them what’s working and what’s not working. We also have some follow up. We have a deep dive into the plan behind Return of the Jedi.

**Craig:** If one can call it that.

**John:** Yeah. But I think we’ll actually be able to talk about plans in general, especially opening plans of movies. Because I think it’s sort of a special case.

So that is our episode for today. But first we have some follow up. Wyatt from Florida wrote in, “On Episode 80 of Scriptnotes, Craig Mazin said that it takes four hours to drive from Miami to Atlanta which is a grossly inaccurate statement. To give some context, he was talking about how in Stolen Identity it was mostly filmed in Georgia, making for a less breathtaking road trip than he desired. But, still, I find this to be upsetting as a resident of Florida. Google says this trip takes about 10 hours with a car, which will probably be more like 14 hours after you’ve stopped several times to keep your brain from exploding.

“While I agree that the trip from Miami to Atlanta is not an interesting drive, quite the opposite, it does take a very long time. I think it’s understandable that I would take a certain amount of umbrage with this claim.”

Craig Mazin, how do you answer Wyatt from Florida?

**Craig:** Well, I think I was using a little bit of poetic license there, Wyatt. If you’re going to do a road trip movie, probably you should limit your units to days. How many days will this road trip be? Will it be one of those weeklong road trips? Is it a three-day road trip? A one-day road trip is not a road trip. That’s just a long drive for the day. So, yes, the trip does take about 10 hours in the car. That’s true. You are absolutely correct that visually speaking the trip from Miami to Atlanta is a festival of flat unchanging landscape.

But the sentence here that I’m going to seize on, Wyatt, is, “But, still, I found this to be upsetting as a resident of Florida.” I think you have other things to be upset about right now, Wyatt, as a resident of Florida. I can think of like 20-hundred things that as a resident of Florida you should probably be worried about. But that said, you’re right. And, yes, tip of the cap.

**John:** Yes. We want to be an accurate podcast. I mean, we have a whole staff of fact checkers behind the scenes, but even they will let some things slide through. So that’s why we rely on our listeners to keep us honest and keep us – we don’t want any fake news in this podcast. We want this to be a completely accurate podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. So, Wyatt, thank you.

**Craig:** I kind of imagine Wyatt was listening to Episode 80. He was like loving the podcast, right? He’s just totally gorged on one through 79. And here he is on 80, he’s just humming along. And then he hears me say this and he turns white. Like white as a ghost. Then he rips his headphones off, finds a baseball bat, and just destroys his computer in a rage and then finally calms down, breathes, breathes, breathes. Gets out his phone and is like, “OK, I got to fix this. I got to make this right.” And then he sends this email.

So, I hope that’s not what happened. But if it did, I get it, Wyatt. I also get angry.

**John:** So Wyatt is listening to Episode 80 of Scriptnotes, so quite a long ways back. So either he’s listening to Scriptnotes.net where all the back episodes are, or he has the 300-episode USB drive. So I could envision that maybe he pulled the USB drive out from his device and broke it in half, because his faith had been shattered.

Although his email does go on to say, “Love your show. Hope to send in a Three Page Challenge soon.”

**Craig:** Yeah, no, I think he calmed down. In my scenario he got a hold of himself. I get it.

**John:** You get it.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** All right. A thing that caused umbrage on Twitter this week was a tweet by–

**Craig:** That’s weird. That never happens on Twitter.

**John:** This is actually an article by Mike Ryan from Uproxx. And I first saw it as a tweet, but then I clicked through the article. We’ll link to the article. Mike Ryan was talking with his friends about Return of the Jedi. And they happened to be discussing the opening of Return of the Jedi, which if you’ve not seen it for a while involves a plan – well, a bunch of actions that are taken to free Han Solo from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt, which was he had been sold off at the end of Empire Strikes Back. And Mike and his friends were wondering, wait, what was the original plan before everything went south.

Craig, can you talk us through either what does happen in the movie or what might have been behind what was happening in the movie?

**Craig:** Well, I can try. So, this is a movie that we all know really, really well, generally speaking. So you’d think that we would have noticed this collectively many, many times before. This is a movie I’ve seen, I don’t know, probably 20 times since it came out in the early ‘80s. And then the question that he asked here, “If Luke’s plan to rescue Han from Jabba had worked perfectly, what would that plan have been?”

All right, well, great question. So here’s what happens roughly in this opening sequence. This rather long opening segment of Return of the Jedi. First, we know that Jabba the Hutt has Han Solo. He’s got him frozen in carbonite. So he is a prisoner. He’s like a decoration in Jabba’s palace.

We see that Luke has started his plan by sending in C-3PO and R2-D2. R2-D2 plays a little message that basically is like, hey, I know you’ve got Han. Let’s bargain for him and I’m giving you these droids kind of as a show of goodwill. And Jabba is like, great, I’ll take your droids and I’m not bargaining with you at all.

OK. So now the droids are there. We also reveal that Lando Calrissian is working in Jabba’s palace kind of clandestinely. Right? He’s incognito, disguised as one of the guards. We’re not sure what he’s doing exactly, but we know that he’s a good guy and he must have a plan, too.

Then, next, Princess Leia arrives. We don’t know it’s her at first because this little bounty hunter with a mask comes in. You know, who talks like that. And the bounty hunter is bringing Jabba another prisoner, Chewbacca. And the bounty hunter, you know, is bargaining for money and then Jabba makes a deal. And now Jabba has captured Chewie.

Later on that night, the bounty hunter is revealed to be Princess Leia. She tries to rescue Han Solo. And they are caught really easily by Jabba the Hutt who now enslaves Leia and makes her wear the crazy metal special bikini.

**John:** The iconic bikini.

**Craig:** The iconic bikini. At this point, at long last, Luke – the Jedi – shows up, does a quick Jedi mind-trick on some of the pig-faced guards. I know they have names. Whatever. And then he shows up and he basically tries to Jedi mind-trick Jabba and Jabba is like, no, that’s not going to work, hits a button, and Luke falls through the floor, lands in a pit, and has to face a big monster. I know it also has a name. I think that one is called the Rancor. And he beats the Rancor, but you can tell he was not at all planning on falling into the pit and having to face that thing, because he almost dies. But he doesn’t. He beats the Rancor. And then Jabba is like, “OK, fine. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to throw you all into the Sarlacc pit, which is terrible.”

And during the Sarlacc pit execution scene Luke gets everybody to sort of work together to kill Jabba and rescue Han and save everybody and off they go. That’s how that all works. At no point until this gentleman, this mind-blowing Mike Ryan, mentioned that that makes no damn sense did it ever occur to me that that makes no damn sense.

**John:** Yep. And here’s my theory about why you never worried about it. Is because I think we give special dispensation to opening sequences in movies, where we see a plan that’s already in the middle of action. For whatever reason we don’t go too deep into thinking about, wait, how did this all come to be? What are they exactly trying to do? What are the next steps? Because we’re enjoying it. So as long as we’re buying it moment by moment we’re like, oh “OK, well this is the next thing that’s happening.” We’re always curious like well what’s going to happen next.

Because most plans in movies, most heists if you think about like in Ocean’s 11 or any sort of big thing that has a plan, we’ve seen the characters make the plan. And there might have been certain details omitted, but we know what the general steps are supposed to be and so then when things go wrong we know that they went wrong because we saw all this.

But with opening sequences like this we don’t see any of that planning. And so we’re just assuming that they have some kind of plan. And as long as they seem to be behaving competently we just don’t kind of question it. So think back to any James Bond movie you’ve seen, they almost always start with some kind of big stunt sequence. It never really kind of makes sense how he got into that situation or why there’s a nubile young woman waiting for him at the end of it, but it’s James Bond so you just kind of go with it. And it’s interesting how for 20+ years we’ve just gone with it for Return of the Jedi.

**Craig:** Well, I’ll push back a little.

**John:** Sure.

**Craig:** So, for James Bond, those opening sequences are clearly picked up in media res, right? So we are in the middle of a plan and we don’t need to therefore know how he got into that place. What we’re excited to see is how he gets out of it. And each James Bond movie, with a few notable half exceptions, stand alone as their own stories. They are not sequels to prior movies.

Now, in this case, we don’t start in media res. We begin with a plan. So at this point in the beginning of the movie Jabba the Hutt only has one prisoner, which we know he got at the end of Empire Strikes Back. He doesn’t possess Chewbacca. He doesn’t possess R2-D2, or C-3PO, or Leia, or Luke, or Lando. And so we’re starting in the beginning, and Luke kind of just wings it. And then everybody seems to be winging it independently of each other. And I have to say even though I didn’t notice that this plan made no sense, now that I look at it and I see that it makes no sense it explains something to me about my own reaction and relationship with that movie, which is I don’t like it as much as the other two.

And one of the reasons I think I don’t like it as much as the other two is because that long opening sequence felt a little – character-wise it was always missing something for me. So, in The Empire Strikes Back, for instance, there’s a scene where Lando Calrissian sells out his friends to Darth Varder. And we can tell that Lando is conflicted because he’s trying to protect his own place, but you know, what are you going to do and he’s selling out a friend and he feels guilty. And all of that is good character stuff. There’s no character stuff in the beginning of this movie. Nobody is doing anything from character. Jabba just happens to be able to resist Jedi mind tricks. Luke doesn’t really seem like a very good Jedi, nor does he seem to have an interesting plan. It seems all a little light. And, yeah, you know, it’s not great. And I’m not sure that there is any way to logically explain the rationality behind his plan.

First of all, for this to make sense at all, Luke cannot know what Leia is doing. Right? Because what she’s doing has literally nothing to do with what he has done.

**John:** Yes. That is true. And if you look through this original article we’re going to link to, there are some alternative theories laid out about what we might be missing. What the original plan could have been that could have gotten us there, including the possibility that these people are actually kind of working independently. That like Leia had her own plan. And Luke had his own plan. They were essentially acting independently and really had no sense of what was going on.

But here’s where I will push back against you. You said like, well, this isn’t in media res. Clearly this is in media res to a large degree because Lando is somehow there. So he’s already part of something. He’s already in the middle of some thing is happening. Luke has already hidden his light saber inside R2-D2. So there was some thought of putting that thing in where he could get to it later on. But the question of like do they anticipate they were going to end up in the Sarlacc pit together at some point?

**Craig:** No.

**John:** That seems like an impossible stretch.

**Craig:** It’s crazy, yeah. No, that’s crazy. And also, you’re right, Lando is definitely in media res, but how? And why? What’s he been doing that whole time? What was his purpose there at any given point? And why would Luke hide his light saber in the droid? What’s the point? Just show up and start swinging it and kill people. I don’t get it.

**John:** The only thing I can sort of be happy about is that I know David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have just announced they’re going to be doing the three Star Wars movies. Apparently they’re all about how we got to this moment at the beginning of Jedi. That’s really–

**Craig:** I would watch it.

**John:** That’s where they’re going to spend $300 million to fill in this missing detail of how Luke got to this point.

**Craig:** I would love to do a kind of weird gritty – like a $10 million movie that’s just a gritty film about how Salacious Crumb came to end up sitting on Jabba’s lap like that. But like where he comes from, the whole Crumb family.

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** And just living on the streets and hard times. Drugs. Drugs. And, you know, prostitution. And just like — he’s seen it all.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And he’s lost his mind. He’s just lot it.

**John:** Yeah, but I mean maybe it’s not that bad of a gig for Salacious Crumb to be there, because you know he’s got – he has interesting people. I mean, he’s surrounded by interesting people all the time.

**Craig:** And he loves to laugh.

**John:** Yeah. And there’s lots of opportunity for comedy, which is a – he’s sort of like a Dobby the House Elf but in the Star Wars universe.

**Craig:** But I think he’s hiding an enormous amount of pain. I mean, that’s the story I want to see is sort of like what are you running from, man.

**John:** Yeah. Well I think the stories where you can take the villain and really re-contextualize him as an anti-hero and ultimately a protagonist, those are the most rewarding. So, again, I think that’s why – I mean, David and D.B. have told us secretly that this is really what their whole mission is. Is to fill in this crucial bit of logic behind this important piece of Star Wars canon.

So let’s try to generalize back out. This idea of opening sequences and plans where you don’t know what the characters are planning but the ones that work and the ones that don’t work. I’m thinking back to Pitch Perfect 3. And Pitch Perfect 3 opens with a sequence on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean and suddenly Rebel Wilson and Anna Kendrick are there and they are trying to save the rest of the Bellas from something.

It’s absurd, but it also gets to play in with our expectations of like what kind of movie this is. You know, it’s Charlie’s Angels. It’s deliberately sort of nuts. And ultimately we’re going to come around to see that moment again.

So, it was crazy when we first see it in the movie. It’s crazy how it actually happens in the movie. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. But it’s fine for that kind of movie.

Other genres have much higher expectations of like these pieces all have to fit together.

**Craig:** Yeah, I mean, in comedy yes we do have a little bit more leeway on these things and they usually are not quite so complicated. But I can’t disagree with you. We have a grace period at the beginning of the film. People are more accepting and maybe you can get away with a few things that you wouldn’t be able to get away with later. But, there is a kind of weird hidden cost.

Nobody, you know, with rare exception people don’t have access to their – whatever the underpinnings are of their response to a story. There’s always going to be some weird impact that these things have on some people. And until I read this I didn’t realize that this was part of my – you know, it’s not that I don’t like it. I do. I just – I’m not a huge fan of that whole sequence. And I think now this is why. Because it just kept like – at one point he describes it, it’s becoming sort of like bad comedy. Because the plan is: droids show up, Jabba takes them. Chewie shows up. Jabba takes him. Leia shows up. Jabba takes her. Luke shows up. Jabba takes him. It’s just like what is this clown car being taken – and they definitely were not doing the whole “Don’t you understand I wanted to get arrested.” None of them wanted to get captured. Clearly.

Clearly. So it just became, I don’t know. I don’t know, Mike Ryan has really opened my eyes. And, you know, F-d up my head.

**John:** Yep. Now Craig, I know I have had experiences as a screenwriter where, over the course of development and then production, things that were simple and logical became much less simple and much less logical. And it’s maybe worth discussing sort of how these things happen. And we don’t know how it happened with the case of Star Wars. We don’t know whether this was the initial vision as written down in the script and this is what they shot, or if just a bunch of ideas all got thrown together and this is the result of a bunch of competing ideas being thrown together.

But in my experience when stuff doesn’t make sense, it wasn’t because the screenwriter said like, “I want to make the least sensible version of the sequence possible.” It was that people with strong opinions came in with specific agendas and someone had to find a way to match these specific agendas. So sometimes it was actor agendas. It was a studio saying we need more of this character, or could we shoot new stuff so this character is actually part of the sequence that they weren’t originally part of. Could we get rid of that scene that actually explains why they’re here and what they’re doing?

There are a lot of reasons why sequences which should make sense don’t end up making a lot of sense in final movies. Are there any other factors you’ve encountered over your years of working on movies?

**Craig:** Yeah. I consider logic to be a very dangerous weapon in the hands of certain people. And what happens is everyone is looking at a script and somebody might say, oh you know what, there’s a problem here. I don’t quite understand this. Or this doesn’t make sense. Or this maybe feels contradictory. And a good writer will attempt to solve problems from a place of character and simplicity and elegance. But a lot of other people, what they have is logic. They just have hard cold logic. And they will begin to add things to fix it. They are “helping it.”

So when you’re watching a movie and somebody suddenly just starts saying some stuff because apparently you need to hear it so that something makes sense, it’s rarely a screenwriter. It is typically a producer or a studio executive or somebody well-meaning who is attempting to solve a problem by just pouring logic ketchup all over it. But that is not good storytelling. It’s just fixing a problem. We don’t come to movies to see that. So I worry about that when that happens.

**John:** Yeah. And I would say in some ways the Star Wars situation is the opposite of that where no one is talking about what they’re actually trying to do. And so therefore it’s completely opaque. And it almost feels like there was a mandate of like all these characters need to be involved in this thing. Just introduce them separately. They can’t sort of be coming in as a block, except for C-3PO and R2-D2 because we always love to see them together. And everybody has to have heroic moments. And it is actually one of the challenges of supporting a large ensemble cast is finding things for each of those characters to individually do. And sometimes you end up with these kinds of sequences which are a little bit mish-moshy.

**Craig:** No question.

**John:** Any of these movies that we talk about that have sort of large ensemble casts – Charlie’s Angels, the Pitch Perfect movies – you want each of those characters to have their little moment of shine and spotlight. You want to get to them as quickly as you can. But in doing so you end up sometimes creating kind of Frankenstein sequences.

**Craig:** Without a doubt. I think that’s a really good point. There’s also a demand of sequels, because you’re not sort of meeting these fresh characters. I mean, Jabba is sort of a fresh character. But we’re not meeting fresh heroes like we do with say Lando or something like that in the second movie. So in sequels it’s basically, OK, everybody knows these people already. Give them stuff to do. What you don’t get to do are these quiet, like look how we meet Han Solo in Star Wars. He’s sitting at a table, chitchatting about his ship. And then another guy comes along and he has a chitchat with him and then he shoots him.

Well, by the time we get to the third movie, when people make their entrances they’re dressed up as bounty hunters and threatening to blow you up. And then they’re saving the one that they love. And he’s blind. And then another guy comes out and goes, “Ha-ha, I knew you were there and now you’re going to wear a bikini.” And you’re like, wait, this is what sequels do to you. And believe me, I’ve written enough of them. They are very, very difficult to write because all of the tools of surprise and freshness and introduction are gone. It’s tough.

**John:** It’s tough.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** The lesson we’ve learned. So I guess the takeaway we could give to our screenwriter friends is if you are hired to write the third movie in a giant franchise that’s sort of world-changing, be careful with your story logic.

**Craig:** Yeah. But also you could say the other lesson is don’t worry about it. That movie did pretty well.

**John:** No one will notice your story plot holes for another 20 years.

**Craig:** It’s literally another 20 years. And then two nerds will talk about it on a podcast. But even then you’ll be all right.

**John:** You’ll be just fine.

**Craig:** We should do some Three Page Challenges right?

**John:** We should absolutely.

**Craig:** It’s been so long.

**John:** It’s been a very long time. So I think the last time we did this was the Austin Three Page Challenges.

**Craig:** Oh my. Whoa. That’s like a half a year has gone by.

**John:** Maybe so. Or I could be forgetting another one, but anyway we have three great new entries that Megan has picked. So the general theme she decided for this one was point of view. So characters who have either limited point of view or sort of different point of views that are uncharacteristic of other movies. So we’ll start with Pudgy by Jay Emcee.

We’ll have all of these Three Page Challenges linked in the show notes, so you can read the PDFs along with us, but here’s a summary in case you’re driving in the car:

A 10-year-old named Pudge observes his neighborhood from his stoop. He plays a CD in is well-worn portable CD player and starts nodding along to the gritty East Coast hip hop. Phat Boy, who appears next to him in Timberland boots, died jeans, and a gold chain raps along like it’s his music because it is his music. The two sit side-by-side on the stoop in the freezing cold, pouring rain, and blazing heat.

Fat Boy’s outfit never changes. Pudge makes sandwiches for himself and Phat Boy, though Phat Boy has more sophisticated taste than the ingredients left by Pudge’s mom than the fridge can accommodate. Craig, get us started on Pudgy.

**Craig:** Well, I generally liked this. Just to start, I don’t know if there’s a reason why our writer Jay Emcee has not told us what city we’re in. It seems like it’s New York. If I see brownstones and I’m hearing East Coast hip hop then I’m feeling like it’s New York, but I’d love to know. Just helps.

And I like the way we revealed his imaginary friend, right? So this is sort of like Hip Hop Harvey. We have a character who sees an imaginary person that nobody else sees because he’s not real. And I liked the way that this guy was introduced. This is a smart way to introduce somebody. You have a fact. He’s not real. Well, there are a lot of uncreative, boring ways to show that, like I’m sitting there and he’s rapping and then I cut to somebody else’s POV and there’s nobody else there except for this little kid named Pudge. And then we go, “OK, we get it. That guy is not real.” And what I like is that he didn’t do that.

Instead, what he did was he showed time passing, and because Phat Boy never has to change his clothes, never gets wet in the rain, never gets hot in the heat, our suspicion, which I think we will all have from the jump that Phat Boy is not real is confirmed. That’s a creative way of doing this. So I really liked that.

And there’s an interesting promise of a story here. And I liked that there was a kind of well-worn relationship between the two of them. I think sometimes people will create a kind of internal relationship that you would have say with an imaginary friend, somebody who lives in your head. And once those two characters start talking it’s like, wait, have you guys met each other because you’ve lived with each other your entire lives. There should be a complete, total, easy intimacy between you two. And that’s exactly what you see here.

I don’t quite get what’s happening on page three in terms of the food. I was a little thrown by that because Phat Boy seems to fill a role which is to be the kind of musical hip hop star that maybe Pudge wants to be, but Phat Boy also has really specific and quite extensive dialogue about how picky he is about food. If that’s meant to just be kind of flavor and sort of fun flavor, I don’t know if we need basically six-eighths of a page or whatever it is, three-quarters of a page to deal with that. I would probably limit that and get quickly to what we want to know which is what is Phat Boy doing for Pudge. Why does he exist for Pudge?

**John:** I agree. So I think “aioli” is a funny word. It’s used a little bit strangely here. Aioli is mostly a mayonnaise kind of situation rather than a mustard situation and it’s confusing that we haven’t gotten to the mayonnaise situation when he starts complaining about the aioli. So there’s some sequencing issues on page three that don’t really track for me. But I mostly agree with you. By page three I got it and I’m ready to sort of know what kind of movie I’m headed in for. Because at this point you’ve established this is a really good Hip Hop Harvey kind of situation, but I have a hunch that it’s not just about the two of them and their relationship. There’s going to be a third thing and I’m curious what that third thing is going to be. What does Pudge want? And he hasn’t really expressed anything that he wants.

We sort of get his situation. Now we know what his normal situation is. What is the change that’s going to come? What is the thing that he’s yearning for that’s going to take him on this two-hour journey? So, but I really liked the writing. I agree with you that the way we’re introducing Phat Boy and sort of going through the time passage is really well done. The observations of the other people on the other brownstones are really smart. It’s a little central casting, but it also feel specific to the thing he’s trying to do.

A moment that didn’t quite work for me is on page one he opens up his CD player and takes a look at the disc so we can see it. And then he closes it and plays it again. Like, well, you wouldn’t do that. And so maybe we need to find a way to introduce the name of Phat Boy without doing this. Or maybe he’s sitting down at the start of this and he’s putting in his headphones and we see the disc spin up or something. But it felt weird to really make a big show of opening it, looking at the label, and starting it again.

**Craig:** I had the same feeling, too. That was the one bit of clunky exposition and you don’t need it because you can just see it spinning inside or you can just see that he’s written Phat Boy, Money Hungry on his sneakers because that’s his thing, or whatever it is. Like there’s ways – I mean, kids write the names of their favorite artists all over things. There’s other ways to do it. And, by the way, he’s rapping. I mean, rap stars have been known to announce themselves in their songs. So, you know, that’s OK too. I think he could do that. So, yeah, that felt a little kind of, yeah, like ‘80s TV.

**John:** Yep. Because I’m a person obsessed about fonts, I’m going to talk about the fonts for a second. So this script is written in Courier Prime, which is the typeface I commissioned. It looks beautiful. It is delightful. But there’s other fonts used in here, too. So on page one where it says Phat Boy, Money Hungry that is in a bold type face, like it’s some sort of Sans-Serif bold. On page two there’s a note from his mom says, “Fresh cold cuts in the drawer. No music after 8pm. Xoxo, Ma.” Some people get really annoyed by this. For me, it’s fine. You’re trying to break something out as the thing you’re going to be reading on the screen and so to stick it in a different font for me is kind of fine. It doesn’t feel too cheaty for me. But I’m curious what you think, Craig.

**Craig:** I have no problem with it whatsoever. In general, I’m so bored with reading scripts that the one thing that blows my mind is this notion that people who read scripts are desperate for absolute violent conformity. That there must be always one Courier and this…and I’m just thinking oh my god if my job were to read scripts all day I would be desperate for one little blob of some other font there every now and again just to wake me the F up. So I have no problem. As long as it’s purposeful, and here it was, cool.

**John:** Cool. Last note on the title page. It just Pudgy, Written by Jay Emcee. That’s all fantastic. If I were to be turning in these three pages to somebody or showing them in the world, I might stick a date on them just so I could show when I wrote it. I would also put an email address just so if somebody loved them they could reach me. Because with a name like Jay Emcee, which doesn’t even feel like your real name, no one is going to be able to track you down otherwise. And so it’s good work. So, make sure that people can find you to tell you that it’s good work.

**Craig:** Yeah. I liked it. Good job, Jay.

**John:** Cool. Do you want to take the next one?

**Craig:** Yeah, what should we do? Which one do you think I should do?

**John:** Do you want to do Trucker?

**Craig:** Yeah, man, I’ll do Trucker. I’ll do it. Sure. Trucker, written by Erno van der Merwe. That’s a pretty Dutch name right there. Merwe. That’s a great name. Anyway, Trucker. So, here’s the story with this:

Sarah, 13 and tiny, observes a butterfly as Baron, 40s, packs up a truck. They prepare to drive off, but Sarah sensing that something is off asks if everything is OK. Baron offers a reassuring smile. As they drive, Sarah points out that they haven’t taken a vacation in a while and she pitches a beach in the Caribbean that she’s seen in a magazine. She shows him the picture and it does look lovely. She’s flipping through the magazine when Baron shouts at her to get down. She scrambles down to the floor of the truck’s cockpit. They are approaching a police checkpoint. An officer shines her flashlight in as she inspects the truck. It’s tense. Finally, she waves Baron on.

Good summary there, Megan. I like that.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** So, John, kick us off with Erno van der Merwe’s Trucker.

**John:** All right, so if you’re looking at the PDF of this you’ll notice that Erwin has chosen to sort of keep all the lines on the left hand margin. So they’re not paragraphs, they’re just single lines. That’s a style. It doesn’t really bother me. I don’t think it especially works for this script and we’ll talk about why.

I had a bigger problem with, actually, descriptions overall. And so I don’t know if English is Erno’s first language. I don’t know where Erno is from. It’s not the US because there’s definitely British choices in here. But the overall choice of words didn’t help serve the story especially well. So, start with the truck. First line, “SARAH is lying on top of a truck’s bonnet.” So, bonnet, the hood. This is the hood of the car. We know this is a British word. But, wait, what kind of truck is this? Because when I saw this I’m like, oh, it’s like a pickup truck, it’s something like that. But, no, it’s a big truck. And so if it’s a full big truck, how are you lying on the top of a big semi-truck? I just had a hard time envisioning what kind of truck this was.

Later on, you know, halfway down page one we are INT. COCKPIT – LATE AFTERNOON. I don’t think they call that a cockpit in British English either.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** That is the cab of the truck. Or just say INT. TRUCK because we know that we are in the part of the truck that you can sit in, the cabin. But don’t call it a cockpit because suddenly I’m in space, or I’m in a jet. So, when I see words that aren’t the actual words for things it just makes me lose a little faith in the writer and the writing. And so pick those right words because in screenwriting you have so few words. They really all have to be the right words.

A few other small things. Second line, “An orange sun is lighting up her face.” An orange sun? There’s two orange suns? The orange sun. Orange sunlight. Sunlight is lighting up her face. Just giving us an orange sun, are we looking at the sun or are we looking at her face. And there’s a whole subject predicate thing that happens when you have sentences this short that we focus on, “Wait, what are we actually looking at here.” And by line two I was losing a little bit of faith.

Craig, talk me through what you’re experiencing.

**Craig:** Well, yes, so we definitely do have a non-native English speaker, or American English speaker at the very least. You know this from the very first scene header, EXT. PETROL STATION. So, petrol is what they call gasoline in the UK. And bonnet is a UK term as well. And in general I’m OK – look, I just had to go through this process with every single page of Chernobyl putting in Briticisms and taking out Americanisms just because everybody is UK or European on the crew and in the cast. So, you can write flashlight, but they call it a torch and, you know, why just not make it easier for them. Call it a torch, you know.

So, I sympathize and I’m not going to go after Erno so much on that stuff. I also really weirdly love this format. It is its own weird format. I don’t know if Erno is doing this because he’s just cool and doesn’t like to follow instructions. Or if he’s doing it because he doesn’t know. Either way, it was kind of cool.

I agree with you that there were some descriptive problems. There was some confusions. I do need to know what kind of truck we’re dealing with. It appeared to me that what we were talking about was a semi, like the kind of truck–

**John:** Tractor trailer.

**Craig:** Yeah. Tractor Trailer. That hauls a big thing. I don’t know how the hell she would get up on the hood or bonnet of that truck. They are way up there. And I don’t think she could just hop on down easily either. She jumps off the bonnet. She jumps off that bonnet, she’s dropping a good six feet I think. So, yeah, I need to know what kind of truck we’re dealing with. But I really liked the back and forth between these two. I’m curious, this is good mystery as opposed to confusion. I don’t know what their relationship is. I don’t think they’re father and daughter. It seems to me more like a situation where he is taking her somewhere where she can be safe. That maybe somebody is looking for her. I just got that feeling.

So I liked the way that they went back and forth. I liked how much more she talked than he did, which felt very real to me. I got so much of her personality just from the way she kind of pushed him and kidded around with him a bit. She seems like she’s almost in charge, and then he gets in charge because here come the police. That was all really good. So I actually think there’s some really good character work here. There’s some good back and forth. It kept me going.

In general, Erno, you know, if you can sort of pull back a little bit on some of the fancier descriptions, because they do distract a little bit from the nice spare nature of your characters and their dialogue. For instance, “The truck roars to life and shoots out a ball of smoke. They drive off towards the sunset into the night. Slowly disappearing over the glazed horizon.” I get it. And I know exactly what you’re seeing. But, when you read it like that, it starts to sort of mush over into Bad Poetryville. Especially from your formatting.

So, I would maybe get a little – just pull back a little bit on some of that stuff. But I kind of loved it. I did.

**John:** OK, so I did not love it. And for me it fell apart in the character work really. I thought all of the scene description lines where he’s trying to do essentially the parentheticals about what’s going on between the characters, it was too much and it didn’t really work. So, if we took those all out and just had what was just in dialogue I could track it better, but I still wouldn’t love it. So, let’s just hear just the dialogue. Sarah says, “You know, we haven’t taken a vacation in a while.” “Oh yeah?” “Yeah. We’re always so busy. We need to relax every now and then.” “Look doesn’t that seem really cool?” “It looks nice.” “Ah-huh. It says it’s in the Caribbean. We should go.”

So, if I had that all together as one piece, I would be fine with it because I get what’s happening in there. I get sort of what she’s trying to do. He’s kind of engaged but not fully engaged in it. But instead in the actual what we have on page two is, “Baron knows what she’s trying to do. Always trying to be the optimistic one. He decides to entertain her.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Yes! She has his attention. Now it’s easy.”

“Yeah. We’re always so busy. You need to relax every now and then.”

“She sits up on her knees and turns her back. Shuffles in the back of the truck and pulls out a pile of magazines. Falls back into her seat and gives him a bright smile. Baron shakes his head. He is slowly loosening up. She takes the top magazine and opens it up to its centerfold. Holding it in front of her face she shows it to Baron.”

All of that action that he’s describing along the way is getting in the way of understanding what the real dynamics are between these two people which was done perfectly well in the dialogue. So, that’s my frustration with the character work in here. It’s making it seem like a whole bunch of stuff has happened when really nothing has happened and just dialogue in a screenplay can do that work for you.

**Craig:** I can’t disagree with that. I think it’s also exacerbated by the format because what would be three lines of action are seven lines of action when you present it this way. And that’s a long bit of page real estate to cover to get to the next line. And I agree. I think just pulling back on these descriptions would help a lot. But I could see his face and I could see her face. And I could see the place and I could see what she was kind of needling him on.

I’m kind of forgiving a bunch of that, but I will say Erno that don’t rely on people forgiving you anything. Maybe I’m just in a weirdly good mood today.

**John:** A generous mood. Then on page three, so this is the first real action of the piece which is like they’re slowing down because of the roadside check ahead. Here’s where Erno’s style is getting in his way a bit here. Because breaking it down into single sentences can work for moments of tension and sort of give you a sense of shot by shot by shot by shot. But by not putting any white space in here and just stacking the lines it is a real temptation to give up. And when you see a big block of text like that you’re like “I don’t know what to do with that.” That’s why poetry is broken into stanzas. You’ve got to give us a little space here so we will actually follow and see what’s important and what the changes are as we’re going through this.

**Craig:** Can’t argue with that either.

**John:** Cool. All right, Erno thank you for sending in your pages. Next up we have an untitled script by Sarah Paradise:

Lou Abern, a woman in her 30s, is getting viciously beaten by Keenan, who is also in her 30s. Both women are beautiful, tough, and fighting like they mean it in a glamorous LA nightclub. Onlookers heckle and cheer. Keenan grabs Lou by the collar and drags her across the bar top, sending all the glasses to the floor in chards.

Mitch shouts for them to stop from behind the bar. After a vicious bout of wrestling, Keenan emerges victorious. Lou exits to the alleyway and stretches her sore shoulder. Keenan playfully scolds her for giving her a small cut on the face. Lou counters that it’s not like she has a photoshoot tomorrow. Keenan mentions a movie that she’s working on that they need a stunt woman. Lou says she has retired from stunts but Keenan says she wasn’t asking.

Mitch pays them for their performance, but it was less than they agreed on. He scolds them for not avoiding the bar top like he told them. Glassware is expensive.

Craig, what did you think?

**Craig:** OK, so the generosity is over. I have many issues. Issue number one, we meet Lou Abern who is blonde and we meet Keenan who gets one name for some reason who is black. And they are women in a bar and they are having a crazy fight. Like a full-on punch you in the face fight, throw you over bars, smash into glassware. They land on a booth. They jump on booths, grabbing each other. At one point one of them slams headfirst into the end of a bar.

And this is not on a movie set. This is in an actual bar. And people are going crazy. And they’re shouting drink orders because apparently in the world of this movie people only order drinks at bars when two other people are fighting, when in reality when two people are fighting in a bar everybody backs the hell away because it’s dangerous.

Regardless of that, the next scene we see them and it’s like, “Oh, get it? They’re stuntwomen and they are putting this on kind of like professional wrestling to fool people into thinking there is a fight because according to this script that’s what gets people to buy drinks.” By the way, this has never happened in any bar in the world. And despite the fact that they have been punched in the face and had their heads smashed and fallen, it’s no problem. Keenan actually runs out and is like, “Wee!”

And they have kind of banter. So, which is it? Am I supposed to watch this fight and go “Oh my god this is a crazy fight. I understand that everybody is screaming for a reason. It’s a wild fight.” Or, is it just fake? Because when I watch professional wrestling I know it’s not a real fight. Everybody in the crowd knows it’s not a real fight. People don’t just punch each other in the face over and over and not fall down or bleed. And that’s what’s happening here.

The page two and three is a long discussion that feels mostly quippy and fake. I don’t know anything about Lou. I don’t anything about her. I don’t know where she’s from. I don’t know how she thinks. The way she talks is not particularly different than the way Keenan talks. I don’t know anything about Keenan. I just know that the two of them are stuntwomen who do this scam that isn’t real. And then Mitch is like central casting jerky sleaze ball. Like, “Sorry ladies, you broke a bunch of glass.” This all felt fake to me.

So top to bottom, I would say this to the writer. This is decently structured. You have a good sense of shape. You know how to begin, middle, and end a scene. You get pace. You have all these things working for you that a lot of people don’t. Like a lot of the stuff that’s in between the words. Where you’re going wrong is just simply believability. You have created unbelievable – and I see this so many times. You come up with what you think is a good idea and then you just start jamming this non-reality into words using the skill that you clearly have to do so.

So, I don’t believe the reality of this. I don’t believe the premise. I don’t believe that that’s the discussion they would have. I don’t believe the guy in the bar. I just didn’t believe any of it.

**John:** I liked this so, so, so much more than you did. I thought this first page was delightful. And I – and this is just people read things different ways – I read this as a crazy knock down roadside bar brawl that I have not seen two women ever have before. It seemed over the top, but kind of delightfully over the top. When they smashed the glassware on the bar I’m like, “Oh, that’s so cheesy, we’ve seen that so many times.” But then I was delighted to know that it was all faked. I guess I started reading this thinking like, OK, well this isn’t probably real. This is not actually the way it should go. And when you read it with that intention it’s like, “Oh yeah, I can see sort of kind of why they’re doing it.” Does the whole thing make sense? I don’t think we have enough information to know the degree to which the audience, the bar patrons, know that this is real or know that this is not real. I think it would be more fun if midway through this fight we sense that the people were there for the show. That this is a thing that they do. Because I would go to see that. If I could see two really good stunt people having a staged brawl in a public space that could be great. If I knew they weren’t really fighting that could be really, really cool.

So, I think it would sell drinks. I think there would be a reason why you would go to that fight, that bar to see that kind of fight.

The dialogue afterwards is not fantastic, but it’s getting us out of that setup and we’re trying to establish who Lou is and sort of what her background is. I don’t think it’s great. And I think we need to have more spin on Lou to know sort of what it is she tries to want. All we’re getting out of this right now is that she does not want to be a stunt woman anymore. And that doesn’t really seem to track with the brawl we just saw.

**Craig:** No. And also if this were in some skanky roadside bar somewhere I guess maybe. This is in a Los Angeles nightclub. You can’t get a Los Angeles nightclub to probably allow people to dance on a table, much less sponsor brawls that break glass. The liability problem is insane.

**John:** Well, but it’s fake glass.

**Craig:** Fake?

**John:** I took this whole – yes.

**Craig:** It’s not fake.

**John:** Well, I chose to believe that the things they were doing were stunt person kinds of things that they could survive. The sort of things that stunt people could do and so that stuff was deliberately staged, but some of the stuff that they broke was stuff they weren’t supposed to be breaking.

But I would say I totally believe that an LA nightclub would do it just because they want to get desperate attention. There was a bar on Santa Monica that used to have like Cirque du Soleil acrobats on Friday and Saturday nights who do the stuff like true acrobatic stuff above the crowd.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** That was really cool. This is not that different than Cirque du Soleil acrobatics in a bar.

**Craig:** It is massively different.

**John:** I don’t think so at all.

**Craig:** I can’t think of something more different. Here’s the thing, for me at least, if people believe that this is a real fight then a bunch of them are going to call the police. If they don’t believe–

**John:** So where on page one does it say that the crowd believes this is real? I see, “The crowd REACTS riotously to this while MITCH,” so they’re shouting, they’re cheering.

**Craig:** Here’s what I see. I see she’s punched in the face. That means it is real. You don’t get actually punched in the face in movies. They fake punch. She’s punched in the face. That’s a real fight. In fact, if you’re faking a fight and you punch somebody in the face it has now crossed over into a real fight. But, also, you’ve got drunk men heckling them. She crashes into – she gets kicked in the stomach. Again, real.

**John:** See, I guess I don’t understand why you believe that this fight has to be real, because we’ve seen good fake fighting a lot of times.

**Craig:** Because he’s selling it – or he or she – they’re selling it as real. I’m looking through this thing and I’m like so she gets her head slammed into the end of the bar and falls to the ground. Defeated, she rolls over and looks at the ceiling, breathing hard. That’s not from anyone’s POV. That’s meant to see like – that’s that shot at the end of a fight when someone is like, “Ow, that hurt. I lost.” And there’s broken glass, which is not fake glass. It’s real because at the end he says, “I’ll go bankrupt buying glassware.” Also, stunt people don’t smash into real glasses because they’d cut themselves and die.

None of this makes sense to me. I don’t get it at all. We’ll just have to agree to disagree. I just think if I saw a trailer for this movie I would be like, “Fake, not going.”

**John:** All right. That’s fine. I think there is an interesting idea here. I don’t think that pages two and three work especially well. But let’s go back to the actual writing on the page. I thought if this were meant to be a real fight, so take out the fact that it’s in a bar, just the action of two people having a knock-down, drag-out fight, it was pretty good writing. I never jumped out of the action writing.

**Craig:** Totally.

**John:** And that’s a hard thing because this first page is nothing but action. There’s no dialogue at all. And it got me all the way through the page and that’s a hard thing to do on a page one. So I want to give her props for that.

**Craig:** 100%. In fact, I liked page one so much that when page two showed up I got super angry because I thought that it was just undermining something that was good. Like I agree with you. I’m watching these two women in an LA nightclub having a drag-out, vicious physical battle, and they’re not like two 21 year olds with long hair and high heels who are kind of, you know, having that fight that we see on YouTube or World Star. This is like – like they could kill each other. These are two tough women going at it and I love that. And I was like who is this lady and what is her problem and how did she end up here. And then I get to the second page and I’m like, “Oh, never mind.”

**John:** Never mind.

**Craig:** This is baloney. It’s all baloney.

**John:** All right, I guess we both agree that page one is really good. We disagree on whether pages two and three deny the premise that this could ever be a real thing.

**Craig:** Welcome to real life, author of this script. This is how it goes. And here’s the good news. It doesn’t matter who doesn’t like it. It only matters who does like it. So, in this case, you would succeed, at least if John and I were in the business of buying screenplays.

**John:** Which we are not.

**Craig:** God no. What a silly business.

**John:** It is. I got asked to participate in an article that was being written about the death of the spec script market. And I was like I don’t know that it’s dead. I don’t know anything. I don’t try to sell spec scripts, so I’m the worst person to ask for it.

**Craig:** Yeah. Spec script market, well it’s like this new phase of the spec script market where there’s no longer a spec script market. It’s a spec project market where people will go around – Rawson just did this.

**John:** Of course.

**Craig:** Where you come up with an idea, you find an actor that’s meaningful for studios. You find a director or you are also the director. And then you go studio to studio and say here’s our package. It’s what Stephen Gaghan did with Dr. Doolittle and it’s what Rawson just did with the Rock, with Dwayne, on – what is it, a skyscraper movie?

**John:** That’s the one he already shot. So the next one is called Red Notice, I think. So.

**Craig:** Yeah. So it was a huge, huge deal. And so you go and you go to like five studios. Five studios used to all read a script on a Saturday and then get into a bidding war on a Sunday. Now, you go around to every movie studio on Monday and Tuesday and with just a meeting and a presentation and they’re bidding on something where there is no script yet on Wednesday. Fascinating. But it is akin to the same kind of market.

**John:** It is. It’s just a different kind of thing. And there have always been spec scripts that went out with talent attached. This is sort of a super version of that.

**Craig:** Yeah. I will say this much, and not good news for everybody listening. The barrier to entry for this version of a spec market is way higher. Way higher. It’s rough.

**John:** It’s tough.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** All right. Let’s wrap up our Three Page Challenge by thanking our three entrants to the Three Page Challenge. If you have a Three Page Challenge you would like to send in to us, just go to johnaugust.com/threepage. It’s all spelled out there. And in there you’ll find the instructions for what we’re looking for, how to attach a PDF. You’ll sign a little thing that says it’s OK for us to talk about your three pages on the air. And we might look through it.

So, Megan reads everything that comes in. So, send in your three pages if you have three pages you think we should discuss on a future episode of Scriptnotes.

All right, it’s time for our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing is also font related. It’s called What the Font? And I may have talked about this years ago, but the app sort of stopped working and now it’s working again, so let me describe what it is.

So often I’ll be out in the world and I’ll see a type face and wonder what is that type face. Like I kind of recognize it but I want to know specifically what it is. So I pull up my phone, I open What the Font? It has a little camera. I click, take a photo of it. It scans it and tells me what typeface that is. It is a thing that is delightful for me. So I think if you are a type nerd like I am you will enjoy this.

There’s a web version of it, so if you’re just finding stuff on the web you can make a screenshot and do it through. But mostly I use the camera on my phone to do it, and it’s great. It’s so very useful. It’s put out by the people who sell a lot of typefaces so that’s really the business model behind it is they’re trying to sell you these typefaces that you identify. But it’s really good, so I recommend it. What the Font?

**Craig:** You know, nothing is as saucy as a font-based joke. What the Font?

**John:** What the Font?

**Craig:** So fonty. That is the most John August thing I can imagine. Here is the most Craig Mazin thing I can imagine. My One Cool Thing this week is Weird Al Yankovic’s Hamilton Polka. He has done a very bizarre kind of overture style summary of the show Hamilton by the great Lin-Manual Miranda. But he has done it in polka style. It is disturbing. It is weird. I love it. And you can enjoy it too, for free, on the YouTube.

**John:** Nice. That’s actually interesting. I mean, YouTube feels like the right place for Weird Al Yankovic to live. I mean, I have always perceived him as being a comedy and really kind of video person. And so YouTube feels like a very good fit for him.

**Craig:** Weird Al Yankovic, his career is fascinating. He has had this remarkable longevity. You know, a lot of these – you would think, like “Oh well, it’s a novelty act. It will come and go.” When you were a kid did you ever listen to Dr. Demento?

**John:** I was just about to ask about Dr. Demento. Of course I did.

**Craig:** Yeah. So Dr. Demento for the vast majority of you who are too young to know what the hell we’re talking about. Like, OK, first of all there used to be a thing called radio. And then you would tune into a station. And on some random night in your town, whatever your local weirdo station was, Dr. Demento would come on. It was a nationally syndicated radio program. And it was just this fun, old, kind of dorky nerdy guy who curated novelty records. And novelty records and comedy songs have been around forever. But you can’t really point to any one act other than Weird Al Yankovic that lasted beyond maybe two songs.

I mean, most of them it was like, “Well, there’s the guy who sang One-Eyed, One-Horned, Flying Purple People Eater. And there’s the guy who did Monster Mash. And there’s the guy who did, you know, whatever it was, like Fish Heads. And here’s Weird Al Yankovic with two decades and multiple albums.” And it’s remarkable. He’s just unstoppable. I love it.

**John:** So we will put a link in the show notes to Dr. Demento, the Wikipedia article. I am finding out that Dr. Demento is still alive. He is 76 years old. His real name is Barret Eugene Hansen. I don’t think we would have a Weird Al Yankovic without his radio program.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** Oh radio. It was nice.

**Craig:** You know what? This is amazing. Dr. Demento you’re saying is 76 years old now?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Because he seemed like he was 76 when I was listening to him when I was 12. He’s always been 76.

**John:** Craig, I assume you are not watching The Crown on Netflix.

**Craig:** Well, I watched a bunch of the first season because it was part of my general Jared Harris deep dive. And I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really, really good. I loved – particularly it was an episode about his portrait being made. Churchill’s portrait being made, which I thought was fascinating. But, no, I haven’t gotten around to the second season. I’m scared because I suddenly realized, “Oh god, The Crown will never stop because, you know, they’ve got many decades to go.”

**John:** Yeah. They’re jumping ahead quite quickly. But the second season is fantastic. The reason why I ask is because I’m looking up that he’s 76 years old. I was watching an episode last night that was largely about Philip, and Philip is 96 years old. I had no idea he was still – I mean, I knew he was alive, I just didn’t have a sense that like he’s 96 years old and still a person in public life. That’s kind of amazing.

I intend to be a person who is 96 years old and still in public life. That’s my goal.

**Craig:** Well, you know, there’s a possibility that right around before we croak they’ll come up with a way to just keep us alive forever.

**John:** Whether we’ll hit that magic spot right now. I think our kids probably will.

**Craig:** Yeah. If they want it. If they want it, you know? Yeah, I mean, who needs it.

**John:** Who needs it?

**Craig:** Ugh, enough already.

**John:** That’s our depressing way of ending this episode of Scriptnotes. Our show is produced by Megan McDonnell. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Matthew also did our intro/outro. If you have an intro or an outro, or really more an outro, you can send us a link at johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send questions or follow up like the follow up we answered today.

You can find us on Facebook. Search for Scriptnotes Podcast. You can find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for Scriptnotes. Leave a review there if you can.

All seven episodes of Launch are now up and available. That series is basically done, so I’m really happy with how it turned out. If you are person who doesn’t like to listen to series until they’re done, well, now it’s done, so you can hear it all together.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. If you have a Three Page Challenge you want to send in it’s johnaugust.com/threepage, all spelled out.

You can find all the back episodes of Scriptnotes at Scriptnotes.net or on the USB drives we sell at store.johnaugust.com.

**Craig:** You sell them.

**John:** Well, I guess Shopify technically sells them, but they exist in the world.

**Craig:** Mm-hmmm.

**John:** Mm-hmmm. Craig, have a great week.

**Craig:** You too, John. See you soon.

**John:** Thanks. Bye.

Links:

* [We Dare You To Explain Luke’s Plan To Rescue Han In ‘Return of the Jedi’](https://uproxx.com/movies/what-was-lukes-plan-star-wars-return-of-the-jedi/) by Mike Ryan for Uproxx
* Three Pages by [Jay Emcee](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/Jay_Emcee_PUDGY.pdf)
* Three Pages by [Erno van der Merwe](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/Erno_van_der_Merwe_TRUCKER.pdf)
* Three Pages by [Sarah Paradise](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/Sarah_Paradise.pdf)
* What the Font? [site](https://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/) and [app](https://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/mobile/)
* Weird Al Yankovic’s [Hamilton Polka](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v0c6smpHSk)
* [Dr. Demento](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Demento)
* [The Scriptnotes Listeners’ Guide!](johnaugust.com/guide)
* [The USB drives!](https://store.johnaugust.com/collections/frontpage/products/scriptnotes-300-episode-usb-flash-drive)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Find past episodes](http://scriptnotes.net/)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Matthew Chilelli ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_340.mp3).

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2018/mostly-terrible-people).

**John August:** Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

**Craig Mazin:** My name is Craig Mazin.

**John:** And this is Episode 339 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Today on the program it’s one of our favorite features, How Would This Be a Movie, where we take complicated real life situations and boil them down to two hours of filmed big screen entertainment. The only way we know how to process life.

**Craig:** Yeah. Exactly. Can I just stop for a second and say Episode 339 – we almost have a year of podcasts.

**John:** Very true. You could listen to a podcast a day, which would be a way to spend your life. I don’t think it’s necessarily the best way to spend your life. But an hour with John and Craig every day. And actually if you counted all the bonus episodes I bet we’re super, super close to a full year.

**Craig:** We are. We’re probably super close. I’m just quickly doing the math in my head. This means we’ve been doing the podcast for roughly seven years, or 52 years.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** It’s one of those, right?

**John:** One of those two. Math is hard for us. But it’s one of those two choices. It’s been a good, long time. But it’s a been a good, fun time. A few weeks ago we aired an old episode because you and I were both traveling and people said like, “Huh, the sound quality wasn’t so good.” And you know what? You’re right. The sound quality wasn’t so good. Expectations have increased.

**Craig:** Well, you know, technology and all the rest of it. We’ve gotten better at those little bits and bobs. But even so, I’ve got to say – you know what it is? I’ll tell you, John. You and I, we’re the marrying type. So, when we started this podcast it’s like we got married.

**John:** Yeah. Absolutely true.

**Craig:** We don’t get – our heads don’t get turned.

**John:** Not a bit. So I’ll say that on an early episode I said like, “You and I, Craig, we’re not really friends. We’re not talking outside of this podcast.” And I could sense that you were really crushed by that. And, fair. And then I think we’ve become much better friends. We weren’t even playing D&D together when we started this podcast. That’s how long it’s been.

**Craig:** Which seems impossible. I’m crushed when anyone says that we’re – well, you know, we’re not really friends. And I think to myself, but why?

**John:** But why aren’t we friends?

**Craig:** I’m delightful. [laughs] I don’t understand what the problem is. No, I think we are friends. It’s true. I mean, it takes roughly 339 hour-long recorded conversations to really get to know you. But approximately one or two to get to know me.

**John:** And I always feel gross when I drop the word friend with somebody who is not really a friend. So I was on Chris Hardwick’s show a few weeks ago. It was a delightful conversation. You should listen to it because it was a really good time. And he’s on episode like 900 of his show.

**Craig:** Oh god.

**John:** But when they first proposed this, I was like, “Oh yeah Chris and I have been friends for years.” And then I realized like are we actually friends? No, we’re people who know each other well and when we recognize each other we’ll say hi and catch up. But it’s not like we’re hanging out every weekend. And so it was weird that I would ascribe Chris Hardwick as being a friend and not you back then.

So, I apologize.

**Craig:** Yeah, well no apology necessary. I think the word friend has been absolutely shredded to bits by the modern age, and particularly Facebook, which as it turns out is not this vaguely annoying thing. It turns out to be a bit of a melanoma on the skin of society.

I used to think like, ugh, Facebook is just annoying because it has distorted what it means to be a friend or to have a friend. And everybody is now engaging in this strange narcissistic display. No, it turns out Facebook is much, much worse.

**John:** But, Craig, they’re going to fix it all because they’re tweaking the algorithms.

**Craig:** Oh yes. Of course.

**John:** So all those problems of the past, they’re going to go away.

**Craig:** Is there a more annoying Facebook post than the, “Dear friends, they’re fixing the algorithm. If you wish to keep hearing…” No. No. Don’t talk to me.

**John:** Do not do that.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** Facebook should only be about cute photos of babies and dogs. That’s all I want to see.

**Craig:** Pretty much. Anytime someone is like just respond so I know that you’re still listening to me. Mm-mm. Mm-mm.

**John:** Don’t do it. But on the topic of responding so that people know that you’re listening, Sundance Episodic Filmmakers Lab, which is actually like TV lab. We’ve talked about this before. It’s a really good program and they asked us to hype it up again so that they can get more great entries. The Episodic Story Lab is really, really great. And so it’s people who are doing television series, but also things that are kind of like television series. They put together showrunners and TV staff writers and people who are aiming for that kind of job together in a room up at the top of the mountains and they make great TV the same way they’ve been able to make great indie films.

So there’s going to be a link in the show notes to the application process for the Episodic Story Lab. Definitely consider if you’re considering writing TV. And if you are a writer headed towards this industry why aren’t you considering TV? So it feels like a good thing to consider applying for. I think the technical deadline for applying has passed, but they are still reading stuff realistically. So, get your stuff in there. Get into the Episodic Story Lab.

**Craig:** Yeah. Just a fine organization and we keep seeing great people graduating from that program and doing great, great things. So, seems like a no-brainer to me. Yeah.

**John:** All right. Let’s get to some follow up. Craig, will you take the first one here?

**Craig:** Yeah. We’ve got Steve in Los Angeles who writes in, “I’m a regular Scriptnotes listener and years ago I attended a Q&A with you at USC. Someone asked,” is he talking to both of us or just you?

**John:** I think it’s probably just me. We’ll see.

**Craig:** Just you. Because who is you? I mean, I’ve done Q&As at USC, but you’ve probably done more.

**John:** I’ve done more.

**Craig:** Your name is on a room there.

**John:** I got a name on a room.

**Craig:** Yep. “Someone asked you the proverbial question how do I break in as a writer.” That is not a proverbial question.

**John:** Yeah. What is a proverbial question? Let’s discuss proverbial questions. Is it an unanswerable fundamental question?

**Craig:** I don’t even know if there are proverbial questions as opposed to proverbial examples or the proverbial complaint or the proverbial – but a typical question, or the often asked question, but proverbial, I don’t know. Because proverbs aren’t in the form of questions.

**John:** No they’re not. They’re just sort of statements. [Unintelligible].

**Craig:** Yeah, I would say someone asked you the hackneyed question, “How do I break in as a writer? You answered that selling a spec screenplay is like winning the lottery. The best way to win is to buy as many tickets as possible. I took your advice to heart and my writing partner and I worked hard to stack the odds in our favor. There have been countless rejections over the years, but last week after writing 17 spec scripts we won.

“Our sci-fi spec, Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers, sold to Warner Bros. I wanted to reach out and say thank you. Your advice motivated me to keep buying lottery tickets.”

Wow.

**John:** Wow. Well congratulations, Steve, and to your writing partner. It’s awesome that you sold your spec. It’s awesome that you wrote 17 scripts. And I think it’s good for people to hear that it’s not about writing a script, or writing two scripts. It’s often about writing a whole bunch of scripts.

You know, Jonathan Stokes, who has become a friend, he is a middle grade fiction writer but he’s also a screenwriter. He works a lot in both. And it took him a long time to get his first purchase or his first spec sale, but then he ended up selling a bunch and he basically had this big old trunk full of scripts and he kind of sold them off one by one. So I’m curious whether that’s going to happen for Steve.

**Craig:** It’s a very common thing when people are interested in your work and hiring you for them to say what do you have in your drawer. So, Steve and his writing partner have another I guess 16 scripts in their drawer. But another thing to point out here, if we extend the analogy of the lottery ticket, unlike normal lottery tickets in which your odds remain the same, i.e. horrendous, in spec screenwriting with every script you write I think your odds get just a little bit better, because you theoretically at least are getting a little bit better each time.

**John:** Yeah. In the next episode of Launch, which I guess came out the same day as this episode of Scriptnotes, which is crazy, the final episode of Launch actually we talked to Tomi Adeyemi who has a book that comes out next week and her book is going to be huge. And sort of like Steve’s situation though, it wasn’t her first book. It wasn’t even really her second book. It was a bunch of stuff before this. And so she’ll seem like an overnight success, but there was a lot of work behind that overnight success-ness. So I would definitely tune in for her story in the next episode of Launch as well.

**Craig:** Yeah, there is the proverbial overnight success – proverbial used correctly there. And typically people will say, “Yes, my overnight success came over the course of 4,000 nights.” We just don’t see all that other stuff. What we see is the result. We see the outcome. So don’t get fooled by outcomes, folks.

Take a lot at the process. Steve has shun a light upon it.

**John:** Indeed. Winston in Los Angeles writes, “I recently wrote to you about my creative paralysis and I want to thank you for the advice you gave me on the podcast. It was affirming and encouraging. And now I’m happy to report that a production company has since agreed to produce my passion project. Of course, this is very exciting and I’m now in the process of attaching a showrunner before we take the project to the market. I’ll be having my first meeting with a potential showrunner very soon. And this writer on paper seems to be a great fit for me and my project.

“My question to you, John and Craig, is how should I approach and handle this meeting?”

So Winston is talking about a situation where he has written something and they’re going to partner him up with an experienced showrunner to go out to market. Like this is a person who would sort of godfather the project and sort of be the backstop to guarantee to the studio and to the network that this is really a show that can happen. And Winston who doesn’t have experience running a show will have somebody who does have experience running the show.

So, Craig, if you are meeting up with a potential creative partner for the first time what do you recommend you do?

**Craig:** Well this one is a tricky dance. I’ve never had this meeting, but I’ve definitely talked to people who have, from both sides. And so I think if you are aware of the potential pitfalls from both sides you’ll probably be well served.

So the showrunner is someone who has experience doing a lot of the things that Winston you may not have experience doing. Some of those are very managerial tasks. Managing human resources, as the corporates say. We are going to be hiring writers. We are going to be assigning writers things. We’re going to be figuring out our budgets. We’re going to be firing writers. We’re going to be hiring writing assistants. We’re going to be promoting writing assistants. We’re going to be dealing with notes from the studio. We’re going to be dealing with notes from the network. We have postproduction schedules to hit. We have staff to hire. We have staff to fire. We have crew to hire. Crew to fire.

We have directors to deal with. On and on and on. Oh, and let’s not forget the actors who occasionally will tromp into a trailer and complain about their characters or ask for more money or ask for more lines. All of this stuff is business-y stuff. So, I think Winston you should just be aware that when you’re speaking with the showrunner that there is a certain amount of experience they have that’s valuable to you, as opposed to going into that meeting and thinking, “So, nobody trust me because I’m new but they should trust me because I’m great. And so they’re just sticking somebody on here to be my babysitter.” That is not at all the case.

However, also then from the other side of things, for the showrunner, I think it’s important for a good showrunner to realize that somebody new to the business has created something that is unique and worthy of attention and thus has created a job for the showrunner.

**John:** Yep.

**Craig:** And that’s really valuable. So, the more the two of you can learn to trust and love each other, and the more the two of you can recognize what the other brings to the relationship that is irreplaceable, the better off it will be. If you feel like the showrunner is dismissive or disinterested or imperious then I think it’s fair for you to say I don’t want them.

**John:** Yeah. You got to trust your gut instinct there. And if the first meeting does not go well, I doubt that the third meeting and the 17th meeting will go well. In many ways I would recommend that this not be a meeting. If there’s a way you can have this first encounter not be in someone’s office talking over stuff, I think you’re going to be better off. Because so much of this relationship is going to be kind of a relationship, a mutual trust in that we’re trying to make the same thing. So if you can find some neutral happy spot to have some coffee in and chat that could be great. Where it doesn’t feel like you’re in an office environment necessarily, where you can just talk about overall visions, overall strategies. Where challenges could come up. What some of the opportunities are. Talk about your vision for what is going to happen over the course of the season.

You know, you are the person who wrote this thing that got this all started. And they are going to be the person hopefully who is going to help you carry this all the way through to the end. So, if you can find a neutral place to talk through the story that way that will be great.

A dynamic I don’t think you want to see is where they are suddenly kind of in charge of everything and you are their employee. That’s not going to be healthy either. So, you got to find some place where there’s a good balance that you’re trying to work together to make something rather than you are working for them.

**Craig:** 100%. And it’s good to be able to point to examples of the kinds of working relationships you admire and desire so that there isn’t any of those weird fussy moments where – you know, I was just talking to somebody today, a journalist, and she’s doing an article about our casting director on Chernobyl who is also the casting director of Game of Thrones, Nina Gold, and the journalist asked me this interesting question about how it works with hierarchies where everyone is sort of together in a room. You’ve got your executive producers. You’ve got your director. You’ve got your casting directors. And there’s a difference of opinion. How does hierarchy come into play?

And I had never really thought about the question before, but it did seem to me that in cases where things are working well, like for instance on our show now happily, it doesn’t. That hierarchy is irrelevant. What matters is general trust and faith and another person’s instincts, respect for another person’s feelings and opinions. Respect and belief in your own feelings and opinions. And a general appreciation for passion. Both strong negative and strong positive. And then things get hashed out.

Rather than situations where rank suddenly becomes very important. I find those to be diminishing and dispiriting and I think sometimes what happens is showrunners can take over a show and then you realize, “Oh, they’re a general and I’m some sort of weird lieutenant colonel that no one is saluting or carrying about because they don’t have to because the showrunner is ranked higher.” That’s a bummer.

**John:** Yeah. You’re sort of the founder, but they’re the CEO who got installed above the founder. That sort of thing does happen. I haven’t had a lot of like long term creative partnerships, but the longest I’ve had has been with Andrew Lippa on Big Fish. And a thing that Andrew and I figured out very quickly is that we’re not always going to agree on everything. But publically, when we’re in front of other people, we are in 100% agreement. And we will never disagree with each other in front of other people. And that may be a dynamic you find with this showrunner is that you can close a door and work through all the stuff you need to work through, but when you’re in the room with a network, when you’re in the room with the studio you are one united front.

And if you’re not one united front, they will find ways to pit you against each other, not because they’re trying to bring the show down, but they’re just trying to get their views heard and understood. So, the degree to which you can talk about how to be united in your vision publically, even when you are still figuring out privately what that vision should be. That’s got to be a goal.

**Craig:** And I would even carry that through to writing rooms.

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** And to casts. Basically, you guys form your own little mafia and you don’t take sides against the family in public. Because you need to be a little mafia. You need to protect each other. Making television shows and movies is a process that is both necessary to make creative dreams realized and also it is a process that is corrosive to creative dreams. And the only thing that will protect you from the corrosive aspect is a mafia-like you and me. You and me, buddy, no matter what, back to back.

And if we have a fight, let’s fight behind closed doors. But when we come out, our ranks our closed. And it’s us against the world. And then everybody will follow along.

**John:** Yeah. That’s the goal.

All right, our last bit of follow up is a slightly different piece of follow up. So we’ve talked about MoviePass several times on the show. So MoviePass is a service. You subscribe for a monthly fee. I think it’s now $10 a month. And with that you can see unlimited movies basically. Or a movie a day.

We originally questioned well how is this possible. This is a way to lose a lot of money for a company called MoviePass.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And then people wrote and said, “Oh, you know, I think there actually is maybe a viable business plan here.” And then when we were doing our live show in Hollywood, a guy came up afterwards named John who said, “Oh, you were talking about MoviePass. I’m a MoviePass user. I’ve seen a movie every day on MoviePass.” And like well that’s crazy and great. And would you please write in and tell us about your experience. So, he did. And so here is his testimony of his experience using MoviePass.

And I thought I would just play it in total because if we were to get him on the phone and talk to him about it he’d be answering exactly the same stuff. So, here is John Parker talking about his experience with MoviePass.

**John Parker:** Hey John and Crag. John Paul Parker here. I’m a MoviePass subscriber and I just want to let you know that the service is not a scam. It actually works as advertised. I received my MoviePass card on January 5, 2017. And since receiving my card I have seen a new film in the theater every day. I’ve literally not missed a single day at the theater since getting my card.

Living in Santa Monica there are major multiplex chains like AMC, and also smaller art house shops like the Laemmle Theaters all around me, so I have yet to run out of a new film to watch each day.

The greatest thing about MoviePass is not how many films you get to see, it’s how many really good smaller budget independent films you will see and support. Films like Maude, Tragedy Girls, Ingrid Goes West, Good Time, and Landline are all films I went into completely blind and absolutely loved them. If it wasn’t for this service it is very unlikely I would have dished out the cash to see these films in the theaters unless someone strongly recommended one of them to me.

While the service is not perfect due to its nearly impossible to reach customer service when there are issues, or the inability to get seats early, for what you’re paying for it’s really hard to complain. When I got my card in early 2017 the plan was $500 for the year. It’s now dropped down to $120 per year. Seeing the amount of movies that I have has added up to roughly $5,000 for this year. So I’m definitely getting my money’s worth.

Originally it seemed like MoviePass’s business model was to hope that people wouldn’t use the service as much as the monthly plan is actually worth. Kind of like a gym. But now that the price has dropped down to $10 a month my guess is that what they’re trying to do is just acquire enough customers so that they can use their members to leverage them against the studios and theaters.

The App Store says that they have over 500,000 downloadable users. If that number rises to say 5 million users and each one of their customers sees at least one film a month at an average of $10 a ticket, then you’re looking at $50 million of US box office sales a month that they control.

I hope this information helped you out. All the best to you.

**John:** John Parker that was amazing. Thank you very much for writing in with that. And I should say that Megan McDonnell, our producer, she also uses MoviePass and she’s had a pretty good experience with it. So, I guess I’m wrong. Or I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know how long MoviePass is going to last. I don’t know what it’s going to become. But for me to have dismissed it out of hand was incorrect I think.

**Craig:** Yeah. So certainly someone like John is rare. I don’t think a lot of people can – even have the time or the freedom – to see a movie a day like he does. But the deal, just to refresh my memory, is MoviePass is reimbursing the theater and therefore the studio for the cost of the ticket?

**John:** Essentially what happens is through the app you go in, you say I’m going to see this movie at this theater. And basically it’s GPS bound so that you’re literally at the theater. You’re clicking the button. It’s activating. It’s putting that money on your special MoviePass credit card. You’re using that MoviePass credit card to buy the ticket. So that is the transaction that’s happening.

So from the theater’s perspective, it’s essentially invisible.

**Craig:** It’s the same. It’s the same thing. Right. So, listen, we kind of went through this last time where it seemed like maybe what MoviePass was doing, and John is getting to this as well in his comment, they’re building a database of information and customers that could theoretically then be leveraged. Which is frightening, a little bit. I get frightened by – what’s the thing? If you’re not paying for something, then you are the product?

That worries me somewhat. But for now I guess, you know, go John Parker, go.

**John:** Yeah. I like that it has challenged himself to see a movie every day. He’s seeing a lot of movies he wouldn’t have otherwise seen. So that’s great and that’s fantastic.

I know there’s also been some challenges where certain theaters in Los Angeles and other markets are no longer on MoviePass and that was an unpleasant surprise to some folks. But I’m curious about new models. I would love for it to actually help the theatrical experience to get more people into theaters on a regular basis, because I think big screen entertainment is something worth fighting for.

So, I want it to help big screens and not hurt big screens. I’m not quite sure how it’s going to end up three or five years from now. But we’ll see. Because after all this podcast is going to go on for the next 20 years. So we’ll go through all of these cycles and see what it is. And we won’t believe what we were saying way back in 2018 about MoviePass.

**Craig:** Well, I mean, look at what we were saying in 2016 before things changed.

**John:** Indeed.

**Craig:** Long sigh. Long sigh.

**John:** Imagine that different world we lived in way back when.

**Craig:** Yep.

**John:** All right. It’s time for one of our favorite features. This is How Would This Be a Movie. Listeners send in articles from the news on Twitter to us, @johnaugust and @clmazin. They say, “Hey, this is like a How Would This Be a Movie.” And usually they’re correct. And so I hit the little fave button. Or if I really like it I save it to my pin board and we gather them all up. And occasionally we go through and take a look at these stories and ask, well, how would they be a movie?

So, we have five different articles that were suggested in. Many of these were by multiple listeners. So we will tackle them and see which of these stories might really be well-suited for the big screen.

**Craig:** Right. Or maybe amend that slightly to big screen or Netflix screen, you know, like perhaps an Amazon movie or a Netflix movie, but a feature film.

**John:** A feature. And sometimes we should say we’ll go through a story and say, you know what, it’s really a TV idea. It’s really a TV series idea.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with television.

**Craig:** Not at all, says the guy who’s writing television right now. So, I agree.

**John:** We are not big screen chauvinists. We just know more about big screen stuff.

The first article is by Zeke Faux for Bloomberg, which is just what an amazing name.

**Craig:** Right? Like Zeke Faux? Faux. That can’t be real. That has to be faux. It’s just crazy. That’s crazy. I mean, it would be like meeting somebody whose last name was “False.”

**John:** Yes. The headline of the article is Millions Are Hounded For Debts They Don’t Owe. One Victim Fought Back With a Vengeance. One of our listeners said, “There’s an intriguing criminal network and a great, great persistent protagonist, but also a lot of dramatic action based around spreadsheets and phone calls. Shruggy face.”

I love shruggy guy built out of punctuation.

**Craig:** Shruggy guy is the best. You know who introduced me to shruggy guy?

**John:** Who?

**Craig:** Stuart Friedel.

**John:** That feels completely Stuart Friedel. Stuart Friedel, our former producer.

**Craig:** Yeah. He actually is the human shruggy face guy. Occasionally you can just imagine Stuart going, “What? What are you going to do?”

**John:** Our story follows Andrew Therrien. I guess I’m pronouncing his name right. He is a normal person with a normal job. Gets a phone call from a bill collector about a bill he does not owe. And a second phone call. And a threat to rape his wife. And other violence from these bill collectors. And most people would be frightened, annoyed. Andrew, it almost feels like one of those death wish things where you cross the wrong person.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** And he goes on a mission to track down who this person was who is harassing him. But really what the whole industry was like of these people who are trying to collect debts, especially these really basically fake debts. And so this is a long dark slide I would say I would describe this article. Craig, did you feel a sense of a movie in here?

**Craig:** I did. I did. I don’t think it’s necessarily something that’s going to park in cinemas, as they say, but it could be an excellent feature on a Netflix or an Amazon or something like that. And here’s why. There is some general kind of interest in a new sort of villain and a new sort of scam. There’s a great tradition in movies of the little guy fighting back against a shadowy network of bad, bad people. I remember seeing that George C. Scott movie Hardcore, which was really gut-wrenching. But you could feel it. It was like there was a decent person trying to fight this thing that was so much bigger and just so much dirtier than he was. And how was he ever going to possibly win?

And so I like that. That’s good old traditional stuff. And there is an interesting onion-like method to this where you keep peeling layers and finding more and more stuff underneath. And finding people that are oddly sympathetic. And in fact in one point one of the middle men that was handling some of these fake phantom loans ends up killing himself because he’s so miserable about what’s happened and his life has fallen apart because of it.

But the reason that I think this actually could be really interesting to watch and unique is that there’s this fascinating notion of extreme people colliding. So you’ve got – and in the center of this onion there is a bad guy. The bad guy is named Joel Tucker, I believe. Joel Tucker kind of sits on top of this empire of awfulness. And he’s the one that has put all this in motion and he’s the one that has to be stopped.

And Joel Tucker, his scheme impacted millions of people. And if you impact millions of people the odds are you’re going to run into that one-in-a-million guy. And to me that’s sort of already the movie poster. You know? If you hurt a million people, you’re eventually going to hurt that one-in-a-million guy. And the one-in-a-million guy is our hero.

And our hero simply doesn’t care. It’s like, “Oh my god, I found the man who will not stop. His life is designed to find someone like me at any cost.” And he does. I love that.

**John:** In many cases that type of character is the villain. It is the unstoppable killer. It is the Terminator. It is the Freddy or the Jason who just keeps popping back up and is just relentless. And so it’s nice to see the relentless hero for a change, because looking through this guy’s basic makeup it’s not that he classically has the great story or the arc where he was this mild-mannered thing and then someone killed his wife. It’s not that.

It’s just like something was going to piss him off and this was the thing that pissed him off. And once he got pissed off you just don’t stop.

When I first started reading this I thought like, “Oh, there’s an interesting story to be made overall about this predatory bill collecting, about payday loans, about this whole industry that preys upon people who are just between checks on things.” And so you could do the Adam McKay version, The Big Short version, where you’re really looking at it as an overall industry. But in some ways I don’t think it’s as rewarding as the one that focuses on a single person.

We often cite Erin Brockovich as that story of the one person who stands up against a system. And this guy feels like that person standing up against the system.

**Craig:** Yeah. This is a little bit like an Average Joe version of John Wick. Now, movies like John Wick are fun and they’re very similar to Taken and Taken is very similar to other movies before it where there is somebody who is an established dangerous person that other people in the world of danger know about and respect. And then somebody mistakenly comes along and screws with them. And then we just have the visceral fun of watching a guy on God mode, basically playing a videogame level, you know. I mean, Old Boy and all that stuff. It’s basically just videogames on God mode.

But this is different because nobody knows who this guy is. And, in fact, it’s almost like this man was waiting for this moment. That his life had been just about being on pause until such a moment that his super power could be required. And his super power is to never stop until he gets the right guy on the phone, and gets that right guy to admit what he’s done, and bring him to justice.

It is the strangest story. And it’s fascinating.

**John:** Well, because usually he would have some sort of structure backing him. So either he’s a journalist who is doing this for a newspaper article. Erin Brockovich, she is working for a law firm who is investigating this. But this was just – he was personally offended. And personally wronged. And that is what starts him on his quest, which is very relatable but also just unusual for this kind of story because he doesn’t have the backing of a greater thing behind him.

**Craig:** Right. That’s why I love it. In fact, there’s no evidence in his life as far as this article indicates that he would have even had the capacity for this. This man’s job – Andrew Therrien, his job was salesman for a promotions company. And then later in the article they talk about what he specifically did as salesman for a promotion company. He was promoting ice cream brands and hiring models for liquor store tastings. That is not a dangerous man. That’s also not a man who becomes obsessive about avenging this harassing phone call for $700.

Just to be clear, it started with a request for $700. And this guy went bananas. And I love that. I just think that’s so cool. And this is the kind of movie where if you got somebody like let’s say Leonardo DiCaprio to just become sort of bizarrely fascinated by this nut as I am, and he’s like a good nut, then you actually would get that in the movie theater. Because it’s like, “Oh my god, he will not stop. This is awesome.” I love that.

**John:** Here’s also why I think you might make the movie version of this is the situation he finds himself in general is relatable. So, I’m not behind on debts but maybe once a year I’ll get that call from a bill collector who is after somebody who used to work for me, or like they’re trying to collect the debt on the sister-in-law of someone who used to work for me. Basically they’re casting out the widest net possible to see if they can put pressure on somebody for some bogus debt. And it is horrible and I hate these people when they call and I let them know how much I hate them when they call.

And so we all have that experience either directly or by one step away and so I think we can relate emotionally to what that experience is like. It’s just like we are the people who wouldn’t snap, and he is the person who snaps.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, this guy bucks the trend. If the world feels like all of the chips are stacked against you, and here is a guy who just walks into a poker game with no chips. And just doesn’t stop until he wins. It’s fascinating. That part of it to me is remarkable. And I think it’s one great actor away from being a thing. But you need that great actor.

**John:** Well, and a script, too.

**Craig:** Oh, yes, of course.

**John:** We always forget somebody has to write the script. Another potentially great role is in Worst Roommate Ever. Do you want to set us up for that?

**Craig:** Sure. Worst Roommate Ever. This has been going around and around. And I got sent this because a lot of people were like, “See, you didn’t have the worst roommate ever.” I don’t know. I think I still did. I think Ted Cruz was worse than this guy, even though this guy turns out to be a murderer. But in his own way, Ted, I believe – you can make an argument he’s complicit in murder. Side thing. We have to get to our – we owe people the – you know, every now and then we do the Scriptnotes side show. And I think gun control. We may need to do the gun control one. We had promised at some point.

**John:** I think we need to. I think we had promised that, so we should dig into that.

**Craig:** We’ll get to it. OK. So, this story is about a man who, again, a bit of a one-in-a-million kind of guy. And here’s what he would do. He would look for people who were advertising sublets, like I need somebody to help split the rent with me. I’ve got a spare room so you’ll pay a little rent and you can move in. And he would move in. And he was a 60ish kind of guy. And for a few months he would be just the best. He would be the best roommate. A gentleman. A kind man. He would pay on time. And then things would start to get bad.

And he would become sort of a nightmare tenant. And what he was doing as it turned out was trying to get people to sue him. This is where this one goes so weird. His whole thing was essentially to create conflict for conflict’s sake. He wasn’t really trying to steal people’s homes from them. He wasn’t trying to extort money from them really. He just liked getting into fights. A little bit like the Joker. Just chaos for chaos sake. So he’s like Roommate Joker.

But eventually it gets much, much worse. I mean, he clearly had serious mental problems and eventually he does end up killing his own brother and goes to prison. And when he is in prison he commits suicide. So he’s not around to torment people anymore. But it is a remarkable story of somebody that would go from rent share to rent share with only one motivation: to enter into a chaotic relationship.

**John:** The article we’re talking about is written by William Brennan. It is in New York Magazine. And what I found so fascinating about him as a villain, it reminded me a lot of the villain in Dirty John. So if you listened to that podcast or read the newspaper series, where superficially charming or charming enough, and sympathetic to the degree that he’d moved to town because of a sick family member and he needed to be closer to the hospital or he’d just been displaced by some natural storm. He showed up with a cat and a dog who he seemed to care for a lot.

So, you felt sympathy for him. And it’s a very classic technique where when you do a favor for somebody you feel extra indebted to them. And so he was doing a favor by moving into the apartment and helping to pay your rent. But, you know, in you doing a favor for him by taking him in you felt this bond. And then he clearly is – Craig, I mean, you’re the psychologist, but like a psychopath? Sociopath?

**Craig:** I don’t know.

**John:** To some basic degree he did not seem to – maybe he understood people’s misery and trauma but he liked to inflict it. He seemed to just really get off on just twisting the knife in there.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** And he went to law school and was apparently a brilliant law student. Failed the bar and never took it again. So, he had this legal background that he could use. But not necessarily use particularly well. He may have perceived himself as the victim in all of these stories. It’s not quite clear. But he’s not a person you should ever let into your home.

**Craig:** No. He’s not. And so there’s a – you probably saw that movie Pacific Heights. It’s a couple decades old now at least. Michael Keaton is essentially in a similar situation. A couple is looking to rent out some space in their home and Michael Keaton shows up and he seems perfect. And then he never wants to leave. And then he becomes a nightmare. And then it becomes a thriller and stabby and so forth.

The reason why I think this is not a movie is actually because the nature of this bad guy is puzzling. I don’t mind watching puzzling heroes because I’m meant to empathize with them, so I will learn about how they are and maybe even aspire to be a bit like them. But this guy’s problem is so strange. His reasons are so strange that they feel a bit arbitrary. And in real life that happens all the time and it’s a very, very scary thing. In movies, it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating if we feel that our villain is purely arbitrary.

And even in a movie like Dark Knight where we are meant to think, at least for a while, that the Joker is arbitrary and loves chaos, he has a point he’s trying to make about the nature of humanity to Batman. This guy has no point. He just likes getting into fights. And that strikes me as just a profound personality disorder. It is bizarre. And there is no explanation for it, nor do I find it particularly satisfying. I don’t want to hate him because I don’t understand him. I feel bad for everybody involved. And then he dies in the end and there’s no real sense of tragedy. The person that he kills, his own brother, there’s not much of a narrative story between those two either. I just don’t think this is a movie.

**John:** Yeah. I don’t think it’s necessarily a movie either. But I think it’s an interesting example of the Blank from Hell genre, which we went through a whole bunch of those. It’s the Nanny from Hell. It’s the Roommate from Hell. It is–

**Craig:** The Adopted Daughter from Hell.

**John:** The Assistant from Hell. That sense of like you’ve invited this person into your life and then this person becomes someone incredibly dangerous to you and to your sense of normalcy. And that happens in real life. We all have experiences where somebody who you thought would be cool ends up not being cool and being kind of a nightmare. And so to take it to the nth degree is really interesting.

But I think you hit a crucial distinction is that when a hero is complicated and it’s sometimes hard to understand exactly how their head is working we kind of lean into it because, all right, I’m going to try to sort this out. When a villain is doing that, particularly a villain who wouldn’t necessarily have full storytelling power, we’re like, yeah, I don’t get it. That doesn’t make sense to me.

Even movies that are, I think, have really great things to them can be frustrating because of that opacity. I really liked I, Tonya, but at the end of the day I have a hard time saying what I believe about Tonya Harding or Jeff Gillooly or actually a lot of the people involved in that story because I don’t think we can really even know. And I don’t think the filmmakers can definitively tell us what was going on inside their heads. And that is frustrating on a narrative level.

**Craig:** Yeah. There is a difference between moral ambiguity and I’ll call it motivational ambiguity. I don’t mind wondering at the end of a film if someone is good or bad, because the truth is usually we are both. It’s a very human thing to be morally complicated. And those are interesting endings to movies when you are left discussing with your friends and loved ones afterward what do you think about that character and can you understand why they did what they did. I think we see the villain in Black Panther, Killmonger, is a great example of someone who is morally complicated. And at the end of the movie you can have great discussions about where he came from and why he did what he did.

But motivational ambiguity is frustrating. Why he did what he did, crystal clear. Whether it was wrong or not, that’s a different story. But actually motivated him, no question. He tells you. And when we don’t quite know why people are doing things from a simple motivational point of view it does get frustrating.

**John:** Yeah. So a writer who chose to adapt this story would have to make some fundamental choices like he’s doing this because of X. You’re going to have to pin something down which may not be really true or based on reality, but you’re going to have to give the audience some clear framework for why he’s doing this, or I think you’re going to end up with a very frustrating movie. Or more likely a movie that doesn’t get made because the notes are like, “I don’t get why he does this. It’s a pass from us.”

**Craig:** Yeah. And also pretty good litmus test for whether you should adapt something or not. If you have to invent the beating heart of the thing, what are you adapting it for? I mean, the whole point of these things is that you find something that gets you excited in it. That is inherent to it and honest to it. You can then, you know, paint outside the lines and invent, but there is a connection to something true. If the thing that you are ultimately connected to in a story like this is your invented reason for why this guy does stuff, then what do you need this for?

**John:** Yep. All right, let’s go to another story with a complicated hero, or villain. A character at the very center of the story who we’re not quite sure why she’s doing what she’s doing. So this story is Teen Girl Posed For 8 Years As Married Man To Write About Baseball And Harass Women. This story we’re reading is from Lindsey Adler who is writing for Deadspin.

So it tells the story of baseball fan turned writer Becca Schultz who for eight years was pretending to be a man writing about baseball. She started this persona when she was 13 years old and it was revealed much later that she was in fact a woman ,but she wasn’t just writing about baseball. She was harassing women online and doing some things which are kind of despicable. And it’s very hard to say exactly why.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, well, she tries to explain it. And the explanation starts, well, the way you would expect which is “I wanted to be a valid heard voice in a man’s world. And I was not a man, nor was I even an adult. And so I took upon the mantel of an adult man to be heard.” And that’s a fascinating thing and it’s an interesting commentary on our society.

It’s also – you could look at her performance as an adult man as a horrendous critique of adult men, because she went ahead and did the things that adult men so often do, which is harass women, make them feel bad, pressure them sexually, get them to do things they didn’t want to do sexually, berate them. Except as she says, you know, at some point it wasn’t intentional like an act. She says it slowly led her down a path to some things that she was very uncomfortable doing but didn’t even realize were happening. And then she was in too deep. And I think what ends up going on is people like this create relationships that matter to them.

Everybody, myself, everybody has had a relationship with somebody – even if it’s brief – on the Internet. It doesn’t have to be sexual. It could be a combative relationship. It could be anything. Where you realize I’m in a relationship with this person, for better or for worse. And it’s doing something for me, because I keep coming back to it. And it is a fascinating sort of example of how human relations can become quicksand when you remove accountability. But that in and of itself doesn’t feel like a particularly new or fresh observation to make cinematically.

**John:** Yeah. So at the heart of this is the concept of catfishing. And so this is catfishing where you’re not going into this proposing a relationship where you’re like presenting yourself in a relationship as a person you’re not. We’ve seen tons of stories of that. And I don’t know if there’s been a great movie version of that, or at least a great sort of big screen movie version of that. This one is weird because of the addition of baseball. And the sense that she was just a teenager when she was starting to do this.

But, I mean, teenager-hood is the time when you are trying on personalities anyway. So to try on an adult male personality online, and then carry it through to making up a fake wife and fake kids and then have these online relationships with these women who believe that you are a man – yeah, you can see sort of how it happens. I have a hard time understanding or envisioning how you would make this a movie in the sense of like whose perspective are we in.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Because if we’re just seeing her go through all these steps it’s hard to really picture what are we seeing onscreen. This is the kind of thing where I feel like you need the internal voice of the main character who is doing this. And so it feels like a book rather than a movie. I just don’t know how you make sense of this character without having real introspection.

**Craig:** Yeah. Yeah. I understand her. And it is a very juvenile kind of thing that she did. And it was a – I can empathize with the desire for intimacy, even when intimacy goes wrong and turns abusive. I understand essentially what was going on. It doesn’t puzzle me. I just don’t think that there’s anything larger to learn. So it doesn’t need to be represented as a movie, I don’t think. I hope she gets help.

**John:** Yeah. I hope she gets help, too. And I think if there’s a story to be told out of this, or something that’s not quite this story but this general area of a story, it feels to me like a book. It can weirdly be like a stage musical where you can have the ability to sing the song of who you are inside. Or do double casting where you are the same people. She is both herself and the person she is presenting herself. Those are compelling ways to do this. I just have a harder time seeing this as a piece of visual entertainment up on a screen.

**Craig:** Yeah. I think actually a musical is a pretty good idea.

**John:** Yeah. I will always fall back on a musical. But yes.

**Craig:** Well, I mean, isn’t Dear Evan Hansen is kind of in this world, right, of a kid who tells a lie and can’t get out of it.

**John:** That’s true.

**Craig:** So, yeah, anytime you are dealing with a very internal, complicated, ugly, greasy, yet beautiful and sad and lovely mush of human emotions, I hear a song.

**John:** I hear a song.

All right. Our next story is from The New Yorker. It is a piece by Rachel Aviv entitled What Does It Mean? “When Jahi McMath was declared brain-dead by the hospital, her family disagreed. Her case challenges the very nature of existence.”

So, Craig, you are our resident almost-doctor. What did you make of this story? And do you want to talk us through the framework here? So essentially a young woman goes in for a tonsillectomy. Something goes wrong. She ends up in a coma. And beyond a coma she ends up brain-dead. The family does not believe that. And essentially keeps her or her corpse, you’ve got to decide where you stand with whether she is alive or not, for years it seems now. And she’s still in this state in their apartment. And I guess it makes you question are they right, are they wrong. Who are the heroes and who are the villains in the story?

**Craig:** This is a classic bioethical conundrum tale here. This girl had – at least it’s suggested – may have had a physical condition where her corroded artery was really close to her pharynx and when that happens that can raise, as the article points out, potentially raise the risk of hemorrhaging. It does appear, in fact, that she was hemorrhaging. And ultimately that led to her heart stopping, a loss of oxygen to the brain. The heart eventually restarts but the brain appears to be dead.

So, you have these situations where Patti [sic] Schiavo was sort of the one everybody knew about. Someone whose brain shows no provable activity on an electroencephalograph. But the rest of the body can be kept alive with a ventilator and all the rest of that. And so the heart keeps beating and so on and so forth. And you’re on a feeding tube, etc.

So, what do we have here? And this is where it gets mushy because this article kind of paints everybody out weirdly to be a villain. That’s how I felt. Like the doctors all felt a little too callous about it and a little too dismissive and a little too, “Ugh, whatever, it’s a vegetable, she’s dead.” And there’s implications that race was a factor.

The family seems to be reading a bit much into some of the body movements that occur with their daughter. Which, you know, sometimes it could be a real thing. I mean, there’s locked-in syndrome and all the rest of it. But it still doesn’t look like she’s alive. I mean, they do bring a doctor in from Cuba who insists that she’s alive. But it’s a little upsetting. And there’s this other strange thing that’s happened. So they talk about the Jahi McMath shadow effect. A rise in the number of families, many of them ethnic or racial minorities, going to court to prevent hospitals from unplugging their loved ones from ventilators. The notion there being white doctors are telling us our kids are dead when they’re not really dead, because they’re racist and don’t care, or care less. And we’re going to fight back.

I don’t believe that that is the case. I don’t.

**John:** I don’t believe that is the case either. Here’s my real worry about this as a movie is I could see this being made as a movie and in the movie version of this the family are heroes and the doctors are bad guys and she clearly is still alive and this is Lorenzo’s Oil and she probably wakes up at the end. You bend it just enough to see like, “Look, they persevered. They believed when no one else believed and look at where we are right now.” And that version of the story doesn’t tell about all the loss and of the costs that happened because of the decision to keep believing that she’s alive when everyone says she’s dead. The costs to the rest of the family. The costs to the medical system. The costs to other people who didn’t get help because this money and time and resources were being spent on this situation.

So, I get so nervous about this because I can’t envision a movie version of this story that doesn’t have this family as the heroes in it.

**Craig:** Yeah. You’re right. I mean, you don’t want to do a story where the point is these people are delusional and need to let their kid go. I mean, you could, and generally speaking the way you would do that is by having a disagreement between family members so it didn’t feel like there was some outsider coming in just yelling at them until they finally said, “Oh you’re right. What are we doing?” And then they bury their kid.

But this is not something that really is part of the common human experience.

**John:** Well, I say it is part of the common human experience in like that faith in miracles. That faith in like, no, no, we just have to keep believing longer and then we will – all our faith will pay off. I mean, that’s ultimately what this is is that if we believe hard enough and long enough we will be proven correct. And that is a common experience, whether it has to do with death or not death. And every one of us is also going to face end of life decisions. We’re going to face those choices of like do we start hospice or do we do some other great intervention on behalf of an elderly parent. Like we all do face this. This is just the more extreme version of it.

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s tough when it’s a kid because the whole point of a child is that they’re supposed to live. You know, if there’s someone who is 85 and then the doctors are like “Brain-dead,” you’re like, “No, grandma is still alive.” Well, it’s grandma. What are you going to do? So, I understand the misery of it. And my heart goes out to anybody that has to suffer from this. But I think that we have yet to really come to grips with accepting the notion that we die and that people die. And there is also, look, if you believe religiously then you’re just going to keep these people alive because you believe in a soul and neuroscience doesn’t. Neuroscience believes in electricity.

**John:** Yeah. But you’re going to keep these people alive even though they’re being kept alive by artificial means that were not sort of part of your cultural tradition before this moment. So, that’s the weird thing, too. It’s only going to, in many ways these kind of decisions are only going to get harder as we get better and better at keeping more and more people, their bodies functioning even after what we had decided was death has occurred. That’s an interesting thing, too.

Also I should have said the other big cost of this is, of course, organ donation which is the one thing that can actually save people’s lives.

**Craig:** Yeah. That’s the part that’s so rough because it’s impossible to say how you would handle something like this, but I’d like to think the way I would handle it would be to let my loved one go and then save as many lives with their organs as I could. And certainly, oh my god, if it’s me – I mean, if I get a bad headache, go ahead and harvest my organs. [laughs]

**John:** There’s a story this past week, I’ll try to find a link to it, about the actor Jon-Erik Hexum. So he was–

**Craig:** Oh yeah.

**John:** He was a star who was on this show called Cover Up. He was like a big hunky model guy. And he was messing around with a prop gun and fired a blank that lodged a piece of paper into his head and he died. What I hadn’t heard about the rest of that story is like they donated all of his organs, because it was the perfect death because everything was in ideal condition. And so parts of him are still alive in so many different people, which I think is just an amazing legacy to carry on.

**Craig:** I knew him from Voyagers. He traveled through time. No question. That was a joke that did not work and he died. But, yeah, you save all these lives. And I think that’s wonderful. I would love to do that. But, you know, is this a movie? No.

**John:** No. It is not a movie. It is an interesting story to talk about at a dinner party when you want to depress some people, but it is not a movie. What will not depress them is our final opportunity. A Carnival Cruise Descends into Anarchy. There’s many stories about this one, but it’s Avi Selk writing for the Washington Post is the one we’ll link to.

Essentially on a Carnival Cruise ship, apparently one family that had like 12 or 24 people just created this tremendous chaos. And there’s video of just these brawls happening. Passengers were scared for their safety on the boat. They were like locking themselves through the cabin. We laugh because it’s absurd. I’m sure it was terrible for the people involved. I feel like there’s a movie space here, or at least there’s an episode of a TV show here, because that is sort of like one of my fears. Because it’s awful when you have people on a flight who are misbehaving. Like that’s terrible. But on a boat where you’re there for a week and these people are always around. It’s that sense of like a small village in the middle of the ocean. There’s something really interesting and fun to do there.

**Craig:** Yeah. There’s some broad comedy to be done about a cruise. I mean, they’re Australians. They’re like a family of Bogans basically. That’s a word that we learned from Rebel. Yeah, there’s something. I mean, I don’t know. What bums me out is this is the one that probably most studio executives would be like, “Get me that Carnival Cruise thing. Get me the rights to that.” Because it just feels like, you know, it will be that movie. So I don’t even want to help them. I don’t want to help them.

**John:** It’s like Murder on the Orient Express but like funny and on a boat.

**Craig:** Exactly. Yeah. That’s what they’ll say.

**John:** And could we make it less snowy, and funnier, and could some people be in bikinis. And could we put Seth Rogan in it?

**Craig:** You’re helping them. Stop helping them.

**John:** That’s a movie.

**Craig:** Stop it.

**John:** [laughs] Yep.

**Craig:** No help.

**John:** All right. So, of the How Would This Be a Movies that we talked through, I think it’s clear that the debt collector one is probably the most compelling movie of this batch.

**Craig:** Yes. For me. But the most likely to be made is the Carnival Cruise descends into anarchy.

**John:** I think you’re probably right. Here’s what I’ll say. The Carnival Cruise, you do not have to buy the rights to that Carnival Cruise. There’s really nothing especially great or remarkable about the scenario there. The general sense of like what if you had Animal House but on a cruise ship. That’s a free idea. Free idea for anyone in Hollywood to run off with.

**Craig:** And begin…type…type…type.

**John:** It’s time for our One Cool Things. I have two One Cool Things. My first is Portal Bridge Connector. So, Craig, you’ve played Portal. You’ve played the amazing videogame Portal.

**Craig:** The cake is alive.

**John:** The cake is alive. The cake is delicious. Portal Bridge Connector combines all the fun of Portal along with the Bridge Connector games where you’re trying to move a vehicle from one side of the screen to the other side of the screen by building a physics enabled bridge. It’s really ingenious. I’m playing the version for the Mac and I’m sure there’s other versions, too. But it does all the fun stuff about bridge things with all the warped sense of humor of Portal. It’s very, very clever so I recommend you waste a lot of your time on Portal Bridge Connector.

**Craig:** OK.

**John:** My second one is a great podcast by The Onion called A Very Fatal Murder. It is a parody of true crime podcasts. It is ingenious. It is so, so good. So I don’t want to say too much and spoil it for you, but the episodes are really short. So, download the whole season. You can burn through it in a little over an hour. But it just so nails all the tropes to the degree to which you won’t be able to listen to other true crime podcasts because you’ll recognize, oh yeah, that’s a trope. It’s just ingenious.

**Craig:** See, now I’ll listen. And you don’t have to worry about me not listening to other true crime podcasts, because that wasn’t going to happen anyway. But I do find that whole thing pretty up its own butt. And so I love the idea that they’re taking the piss, as the Brits say. Because it is all very kind of formalized.

You know, this is my problem with podcasts.

**John:** Now that you’ve listened to three podcasts–

**Craig:** These things keep popping up, even in the three I listen to. There’s like – have you ever seen the video that someone did about YouTube voice?

**John:** I haven’t seen that. I should find it.

**Craig:** So, YouTube voice is this thing. People who do YouTube videos where they’re talking about whatever the hell interests them, they all speak somewhat similarly. And they also edit their sentences so that there’s never any breaths. And in fact a lot of times purposefully clip off the ends of words. It’s so strange.

**John:** Yeah. That editing style is really annoying. It’s really clear when you see it.

**Craig:** There’s also podcast voice. And I don’t like it. [laughs] I don’t like podcast voice. And you know what? Neither one of us have podcast voice. Although I will say that in Launch you kind of have podcast voice. You have podcast voice in Launch.

**John:** I do have more podcast voice. And so in the later episodes where it is just more just chatting because I’m literally just in a hotel room and I’m exhausted, I’m a little less podcast voice-y later on. But finding my right voice was hard. And we threw out the entire first episode and rerecorded it because I was too podcast voice-y. It really felt weird and forced.

But it’s the difference between me spontaneously talking like I’m doing right now and reading off a script. And I have to read off a script because I have to be able to make these points and connect these dots in ways.

**Craig:** Well sure.

**John:** That I wouldn’t have to just speaking.

**Craig:** There’s this cadence that we are familiar with for instance on news broadcasts. The local reporter, “I’m standing here where just minutes ago,” and then in England it’s very much – there’s a wonderful, again, a person did a video where someone is just saying garbage but in the intonation of a British news reporter. And you realize how formalized that is. And it’s becoming formalized for podcasts, too. But you know who does a great job of not doing podcast voice, even though it’s an incredibly scripted show? Karina Longworth.

**John:** Yeah. I would agree. I would say part of it is that when you actually just talk to Karina in a normal setting that’s her real voice.

**Craig:** That’s right.

**John:** But it fits really naturally. Her normal speaking voice is a little bit not like how other people would speak.

**Craig:** Her voice is authentic there. You don’t get a sense that she’s doing the podcast voice. Like for instance Leon Neyfakh, and I really, really enjoyed the Slow Burn podcast, so I hope he doesn’t take this as some sort of terrible insult, but he’s got massive podcast voice. And I actually want to say to him, you know what, you don’t need the podcast voice.

**John:** Well as the expert in podcasts, I feel like you should step in there. Having listened to so many podcasts, you are the person to–

**Craig:** I’ve listened to ones of them. Ones and ones of podcasts.

**John:** Tell us about your One Cool Thing.

**Craig:** Super-duper late to the party here, but I went on a binge and watched The Good Place. And I love that show so freaking much, written in part by my cousin, Megan Amram. So sorry that I’m so late to the show. But I hope you guys are watching it. If you’re not, watch it. There have been two seasons so far. Each season has I think ten episodes. So, very manageable. The cast is so, so good. I mean, the writing is amazing and the cast is great. Jameela Jamil – do you watch the show? Or have you watched the show?

**John:** So I’ve watched every episode and I watched the first season twice because I went back and watched it to sort of see what really happened. And I watched it with my daughter who is 12 and she loves it as well.

**Craig:** Yeah. Jessie, my 13-year-old, thrilled. Jameela Jamil may be the prettiest person in the world. Just like – I’m doing the thing where I’m fanning my face because she’s the hottest person alive. And hysterically funny on that show. William Jackson Harper plays Chidi and I want to be his friend so much because he’s basically like every nerd friend I ever had in college where we would sit and talk about Nietzsche and nonsense like that. And just loved it. And even like earlier in the episode I said Leap of Faith and in my mind I hear Chidi saying, “Well actually you know Kierkegaard, really it was better translated as a leap into faith.” It’s just so great.

Kristen Bell, the greatest, has always been the greatest. She’s first ballot Hall of Famer. And then Manny Jacinto is the latest in this wonderful television tradition of impossibly stupid people. I want to do a history of the impossibly stupid person on TV. You know, like Woody Harrelson on Cheers was one of the early ones I remember seeing. Like that’s not possible to be that stupid. And then Homer, of course, one of the great impossible. And then Manny Jacinto is even dumber than all of them.

And then lastly I just want to point out that on The Good Place they do diversity properly. You don’t get a sense that the show is diverse because a social justice warrior was whacking them on the knuckles with a ruler saying, “Come on. Fulfill the quotas.” It’s diverse because the show is about humans who are dying and going to the afterlife. And if you just go by the odds, I looked this up. If you by the odds, and you’re just going to randomly scoop up ten people that just died on our planet, the odds are that out of those ten people two of them will be Chinese. Not Asian. Chinese. Two of them. Two of them will be Indian. Two of them will be of predominately African descent. So we’re now up to six people. We’ve got two Chinese people, two Indian people, two people of predominately African descent.

There’s probably going to be one more non-Chinese, non-subcontinental Asian, so we’re talking about Indonesian or Filipino or Thai or Vietnamese, or Japanese, or Korean. So now that’s seven people.

We’ve got three people left. Divide them roughly up between Hispanic and non-Hispanic white people. That’s basically the world. If anything, they’re a little skimpy on the Chinese people. Other than that, they’re really good about being appropriately representational of the world.

And also there’s one person from America, which I loved. You know, it’s great. Because there’s not that many Americans.

**John:** You left off one person who is fantastic in the show who is Ted Danson who anchors it in way that is just so remarkable. And is clearly having a fantastic time doing it, but also has a weirdly difficult role that he just nails. It is just an incredibly ingenious show. Megan Amram’s puns are worth it. It’s the show where you actually do pause to look at all the signs that they’re constantly changing out. Drew Goddard directed the pilot and it’s hard to imagine that he had such a vision for what that show is going to be so early on. The writing across the board is fantastic. So, hooray.

**Craig:** Yeah, it’s just so good and so smart. And it’s legitimately laugh out loud. I cannot wait for the next season.

**John:** Cool. That is our show for this week. As always, our show is produced by Megan McDonnell. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week comes from Rajesh Naroth. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you send questions and follow up and feedback-y things.

If you have a short thing, on Twitter I am @johnaugust. Craig is @clmazin. That’s where you can send us articles for us to consider for How Would This Be a Movie.

We’re on Facebook. Search for Scriptnotes Podcast. You can find us on Apple Podcasts. Just search for Scriptnotes. Leave us a review while you’re there. That is lovely if you do that.

You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. It’s also where you’ll find transcripts for this and all the back episodes. You can find the most recent 20 episodes or so are on iTunes, but the whole back catalog is at Scriptnotes.net. It is $2 a month for all the back episodes. There’s also some USB drives with the first 300 episodes available at store.johnaugust.com.

Craig, thanks for a fun exploration of How Would These Be Movies.

**Craig:** John, it was a great show. And 339, ooh, 340. We’re coming up on 340. So excited.

**John:** Oh, it’s going to be good. All right, have a great week.

**Craig:** See you next time.

**John:** Bye.

Links:

* Applications are being accepted for the [Sundance Episodic Lab](http://www.sundance.org/programs/episodic-storytelling#/)
* [Millions Are Hounded for Debt They Don’t Owe. One Victim Fought Back, With a Vengeance](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-06/millions-are-hounded-for-debt-they-don-t-owe-one-victim-fought-back-with-a-vengeance) by Zeke Faux for Bloomberg
* [Worst Roommate Ever](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/jamison-bachman-worst-roommate-ever.html) by William Brennan for New York Magazine
* [What Does It Mean to Die?](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/05/what-does-it-mean-to-die) by Rachel Aviv for the New Yorker. John also mentioned [this story](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5381943/How-actor-accidentally-shot-dead.html) about Jon-Erik Hexum by Gareth Davies for the Daily Mail.
* [Teen Girl Posed For 8 Years As Married Man To Write About Baseball And Harass Women](https://deadspin.com/teen-girl-posed-for-8-years-as-married-man-to-write-abo-1820305588?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark) by Lindsey Adler for Deadspin
* [A Carnival cruise in the South Pacific descended into violent anarchy](https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/02/17/a-10-day-carnival-cruise-in-the-south-pacific-descended-into-violent-anarchy/?__twitter_impression=true) by Avi Selk for The Washington Post
* [Bridge Constructor Portal](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bridge-constructor-portal/id1311353234?mt=8)
* [A Very Fatal Murder](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/a-very-fatal-murder/id1333714430?mt=2)
* [The Good Place](https://www.nbc.com/the-good-place?nbc=1) on NBC.
* [The Scriptnotes Listeners’ Guide!](http://johnaugust.com/guide)
* [The USB drives!](https://store.johnaugust.com/collections/frontpage/products/scriptnotes-300-episode-usb-flash-drive)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Find past episodes](http://scriptnotes.net/)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Rajesh Naroth ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_339.mp3).