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The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2019/how-do-you-like-your-stakes)

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

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

**John:** And this is Episode 402 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the program we’re going to be talking about the idea of stakes, what it means for a writer, and what it means for a character. We’ll also talk a little bit about Aladdin, fandom, and of course some agency stuff.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** But first we got to hype up our live show again. That’s coming up really soon, June 13, at the Ace Hotel. It’s a Thursday night.

It is a benefit for the amazing charity called Hollywood Heart. Our guests include Alec Berg of Silicon Valley and Barry, Rob McElhenney of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and his new Apple show, but also we’ve added Kourtney Kang of Fresh off the Boat and a new show coming up. She is fantastic. I got to work with her on a project. So we’re so excited to have these TV moguls up on stage with us.

And there will be more stuff to do too. We have some prizes. We have giveaways. We have special shirts we’re making just for that night so people buy your tickets if you have not bought your tickets yet.

**Craig:** Yeah. And correct me if I’m wrong, and I’m not wrong so you can’t correct me.

**John:** You’re never wrong.

**Craig:** I’m never wrong. Not about these things. And we have McQuarrie on a loop saying, “I hate to say it but Craig is right.” Hollywood Heart, which is the charity that this benefits, is a legal charity. Meaning if you buy tickets you can deduct them from your taxes.

**John:** I suspect that’s true. Because – and the actual value you’ll receive is just knowledge and joy.

**Craig:** And power.

**John:** Power. Yes.

**Craig:** And love.

**John:** We’re giving away power. Yeah. Love.

**Craig:** Yeah. So I mean why wouldn’t you come to this? It’s a great cause. And you know what? We’re in a bigger place. We got ambitious here. We need to fill a bigger venue so we need you listeners. If you are in the Los Angeles area–

**John:** We need your physical bodies in that space.

**Craig:** Yeah, we need you.

**John:** So that we will feel together.

**Craig:** I mean, look, in all seriousness, you know me. I’m perfectly happy talking to an empty room. In fact, I’m happier talking to an empty room. In fact, no one come. But really here’s the thing: it’s for charity. We’re trying to help kids. So, that’s why you need to show up. It’s not so much for me. Show up for John and the kids.

**John:** Yep. And our guests because our guests are phenomenal.

**Craig:** And our guests.

**John:** And there could be one or two more coming, but we can’t say that yet.

**Craig:** We’re always full of surprises.

**John:** Great. So hyping is done. I had my showing up at a place experience this week. This was the premiere for Aladdin. So Aladdin came out this past weekend in the US and most of the world. So I went to the premiere on Tuesday and it was weird. So I don’t think we’ve really talked about movie premieres so I thought we could spend a few minutes talking about what it’s like to go to a premiere as a writer.

So I guess, let me start how the day begin, because obviously I don’t need hair and makeup because I look just the same no matter what.

**Craig:** Well, makeup. [laughs] You could use a little makeup.

**John:** I get a little blush – no, I do nothing. So basically I get in a car, the studio sends a car, so me, Mike, and my friend Dan, we all went to the premiere together. We hop in a car. We got to Hollywood. This is at the El Capitan. They block off streets around it because they actually have blocked off all of Hollywood Boulevard for this premiere. So it’s actually difficult to get there.

They try – the publicists try to get you there so early. So the premiere started at 6:30. They wanted the car to leave my house at 4:30.

**Craig:** Oh god. Come on.

**John:** I’m like 10 minutes away. And so I said, no, 5:30 at the earliest. So we get in the car there. We get to the place where they’re dropping us off. There’s a greeter there who was fantastic. She took us around and did everything. And I specifically said that I wanted to skip the red carpet, so we’ll get into why I wanted to skip the red carpet, but Craig what’s been your experience when you do a premiere and doing the red carpet? Do you actually answer questions along that red carpet?

**Craig:** I have. It’s only been for certain movies, but I have. It’s weird. Definitely – it was less weird for Chernobyl because they seem to want to ask a writer questions in television. [laughs] When you’re in the movie business, so you walk down this red carpet and all these – you know, people have seen this I suppose in movies. The red carpet and all those people have their cameras and they’re like, “Look over here. Look over here.” And then the writer walks down and it gets real quiet all of a sudden.

**John:** Yeah. So there’s usually a handler beside you saying like, “This is Craig Mazin, the writer of the film.” Or they point to specific people who are already going to be asking you questions. Sometimes there’s little video crews.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** Sometimes it’s just a person with a microphone there to talk with you. And, hey, can you tell everyone at Cat Fancy Magazine about Frankenweenie? And it’s like, are there any cats in Frankenweenie? I’m like, yes, there is. Let me tell you about Mr. Whiskers.

**Craig:** Yeah. And sometimes you speak to people who are from other countries. And, look, it’s all part of the machine. I mean, the thing to remember about these premieres, which I think a lot of writers don’t quite get early on, is that the purpose of the premiere is not to celebrate you, or the director, or the cast, or the movie. The purpose of the premiere is to sell tickets. It is designed to create stuffing for magazines and websites.

And so the parts that get the most stuffing generated that’s where they care. Meaning typically actors.

**John:** Yeah. Because those are the ones who are going to actually move copies of magazines if there were still magazines, but like clicks on websites.

**Craig:** Correct. Like if Will Smith for some reason was not able to go that day, because he had something else going on, they would move the premiere. [laughs] You know, it’s like he’s the thing that’s going to get all of the attention, right? I mean, he is the biggest name. So, it becomes that.

I mean, I watched it first hand at The Hangover 2 premiere. It was extraordinary. And it was right across the street. So Disney runs its family premieres at El Capitan and across the street you have Mann’s Chinese where a lot of big premieres take place. And they close off the street and it’s madness and people are there to see – they’re there to see Bradley Cooper.

**John:** Yeah. They’re not there to see Craig Mazin.

**Craig:** No! No. No one even in my house is there to see Craig Mazin.

**John:** So, approaching this premiere, this is a movie that I had worked on, very hard. I had stopped working on the movie. I had seen it several times. I had given notes on it. But it was not fundamentally my movie. And I knew I did not want to be answering a lot of press questions along the way because I can smile and sort of like, “I’m so excited to be here,” give those generic answers. But it was just going to be awkward and weird.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** And I didn’t sort of want to give some honest answers on certain things. And so I said like, OK, I will go but we’re going to skip the whole red carpet thing. And my handler was fantastic. She whisked me through this little back way so I didn’t have to do any of the red carpet stuff.

And then you get into the theater, which the El Capitan Theater is beautiful inside.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Intimate but beautiful. And there’s like two other people inside the theater. And so even after delaying going there so early we had about an hour to kill.

**Craig:** I know. I know.

**John:** For everyone who was on the red carpet to start it.

**Craig:** I know. The timing of it all is so weird. At some point they start yelling at everybody to go into the theater, but no one is going in. I’ve got to be honest with you. I do not like these events at all. And if I can avoid them I do. If I don’t have credit on a movie but I’ve worked on the movie and I get an invitation to go–

**John:** I don’t go.

**Craig:** I can’t remember the last time I went. I do not like premieres because they’re actually not fun ways to see a movie. It’s so much of a hassle. And I just care about the movie.

**John:** I’ll take that back. The one time I did go was the first Iron Man. And it was a fun premiere and I was happy for everyone involved. And so I was there to celebrate them, but I just loved that it was not about me at all.

**Craig:** And, you know what? I’ll take it back, too. There was one. I went to Hail Caesar, because I was just really excited. I wanted to see it early. And you know what? I was not disappointed at all. I love that movie.

**John:** That feels like a good movie to see with a big crowd and with a group around you. And that is actually genuinely the fun of seeing these movies is because in the previous incarnations where I’d seen Aladdin I’d seen it in a screening room by myself, or nearly by myself, and so I’m watching this thing that is supposed to be a comedy and it is not funny to me because I’m sitting here scribbling into a notebook about things that I would encourage them to work on.

And then to see it with a crowd it’s like, oh, yeah, those are jokes that I wrote. And those jokes are getting laughs. And you actually get spontaneous applause at moments. Yes, the crowd is sort of extra hyped up because they know the folks involved and they’re applauding people’s credits as they show up. But it’s also a joyous moment because also it’s new for people because none of them have been spoiled by reviews or other bits of spoilers that have come out about what actually happens in the movie. So it was genuinely fun to see it with that group.

I met one of the composers who did the great new song for it, so that was cool. So, I’m glad I went to the premiere of Aladdin is the short summary.

**Craig:** I’m glad you went, too. It’s good. I’m glad. You know what? We’ve got to stay positive.

**John:** We got to stay positive. And it looks like, you know, we’re recording this on a Friday but it looks like the movie is going to do pretty well for the weekend and that’s a good thing, too.

**Craig:** It’s Aladdin from Disney.

**John:** It is Aladdin from Disney. That was kind of built in to the whole thing.

**Craig:** Yeah, I mean not to take anything away from the accomplishment, but we’re talking about degrees of success at that point. There’s no chance that people aren’t going to show up. It’s Aladdin. It’s A Whole New World. For You and Me.

**John:** Basically thank you everyone who went out to see it over the weekend. I hope you enjoy it. I’m happy it actually turned out in sort of the right kind of PG. It’s truly a PG that you can take younger kids to. And I’m happy with a lot of how stuff went in the movie.

**Craig:** How many murders, onscreen murders, do you get before you get bumped into PG-13?

**John:** I don’t know. There is one onscreen murder that I really, really argued to cut. Sidebar here for a moment. It’s a thing that you encountered in so many different cuts of movies you’ve seen before where there’s a scene that is wedged in there to establish a character and it breaks the flow of everything else around it. Just like, oh no, this guy is a bad guy. See how bad he is? And I really, really wanted that scene to go and they didn’t listen to me.

**Craig:** Yeah. Well, you know, this is – it’s what happens. You see, I mean–

**John:** It’s a collaborative medium. Yeah.

**Craig:** It’s a collaborative medium and maybe – I think what you should do is maneuver yourself into a position where you don’t have to collaborate that much. [laughs] And I’ve said this on the show many times. There is a way of doing something where you are going to do it mostly by yourself. You are going to make mistakes but the mistakes will be consistent with everything else because it all came from one brain.

It’s the mix and match of it all. Somebody may have a great idea. You know what the problem is? That character we’re supposed to be scared of him, but we haven’t seen him do anything bad. We should establish how evil he is. Great idea. Execution-ally there’s no chance of success because that came from somewhere else. It’s like throwing some weird instrument into the middle of another song.

**John:** And that’s a thing that happens in the writing stage all the time, too. Even what I’m writing right now, there’s a scene that I would kind of love to establish a little bit earlier in the script but like there’s no place to put that without breaking everything else around it. So, you know what? I have to do the hard work of figuring out, OK, if it is coming in at this later moment how can I make it work as this later moment beat. Because it’s not the same scene that would be happening earlier in the movie.

**Craig:** This is the life of the writer.

**John:** Mm-hmm. Writing and editing. They’re closely tied together.

We need to talk about the WGA and the ATA. But I would propose Craig, because last week it went on a long time, maybe could I set a three-minute timer and when the timer goes off we’re just done talking about it?

**Craig:** I need ten seconds.

**John:** All right. I’m starting three minutes, but if it goes less than that that’s great. And go.

**Craig:** Well, last week I was praying to the skies that everybody get back to the table. And they’re getting back to the table. Can’t claim causality there. I’m just happy that it happened. I’m optimistic and I’m very hopeful that you guys in leadership and the agency people can find a deal together.

**John:** Craig, you said you prayed to the skies and heaven, so this is a religious conversion for you is what I’m hearing. That you now understand that there is an all-powerful creator behind these things?

**Craig:** Sort of. By the skies and the heavens I’m referring to myself. So I’m the member of a new religion. The religion of–

**John:** Craigism?

**Craig:** It’s Craigism. And our lord’s prayer, “I hate to say it, but Craig is right.” [laughs]

**John:** [laughs] Yeah, wouldn’t it be so funny if your first disciple was Chris McQuarrie?

**Craig:** My only disciple.

**John:** We should also briefly mention, because we have two minutes left on this time, which we didn’t even need. So another thing that happened this week was – I saw you single this out on Twitter – a writer who had been represented at Gersh shows up for a meeting at Fox. They say like, “Oh, no, your meeting was canceled.” And Gersh confirmed that they had canceled the meeting after he had fired them. That was not a god look for that agency.

**Craig:** No. That’s just dishonorable behavior. And even worse it is ignorant. This is not – in theory this will have an end. And we will want to return to agencies. And new writers are going to want to go to agencies. And Gersh will be one of those agencies, except now if anybody were to ask me about Gersh I would say they’re not great because as an institution they thought that would be a good idea. That’s a terrible idea.

That implies a poor sense of judgment. And that’s shameful. Shameful and stupid.

**John:** I knew almost nothing about Gersh, but this is the only thing I’m associating with Gersh right now is this incident. And so that ain’t great.

**Craig:** Just a huge error on their part and petty. And revealing. This is the problem. You reveal something about yourselves. Why in god’s name would they have done – what did they think they were going to accomplish? It’s the judgment thing that makes me – so it’s not a question of like, boo, you’re anti-writer. If they want to be anti-writer and somehow manage to be successful at the same time I guess OK. But there’s no successful strategy encased in that move. None.

**John:** Nope. None. And also it speaks to the question of who owns a meeting. And so if a meeting is set up between a writer and the studio, to my thinking is a social contract between the two of them that is not a thing that the agency owns in any meaningful way. I don’t think you can own an intangible thing. That’s the frustration to me, too, is that they felt that they controlled that meeting rather than the writer.

**Craig:** I’m sorry. It’s so arrogant. And you’re Gersh. No offense—

**[Alarm timer sounds off]**

Whoa.

**John:** I literally set a timer. That’s three minutes. We’re done. We can’t talk anything more about it.

**Craig:** That’s good. The people at Gersh are so happy. They literally got saved by the bell. [laughs]

**John:** Literally saved by the iPhone bell. Let’s get to some questions from listeners. We have not answered listener questions for a bit.

**Craig:** Somebody at Gersh was like shorten that timer. All right, listener questions. Are we doing listener questions or we doing stakes? What would you like to do first?

**John:** Well, our first listener question is about stakes so I thought we might start with this. Why don’t you take Vera’s question here?

**Craig:** Sure. Vera from Germany, welcome Vera, asks, “How do I raise the stakes in a true story? I’m involved in writing a feature film based on real events. Our producers are worried there may not be enough personal jeopardy in the story and I worry there may not be enough potential for it. The story is about young researchers who learn something of global consequence. They are ridiculed once published and their lives changed drastically after, but they didn’t know that beforehand.

“Almost all our main characters are alive today and still relatively well-known. We’re even in touch with them and they’re supportive of our project. So we can’t make their past selves look worse than they are and wouldn’t want to. They were good. How can I raise the stakes for the characters beginning early in this story?”

John, what do you think?

**John:** Well, first off, Vera, this is a fantastic question because it’s the kind of thing you’re going to face all the time. You have the extra difficulty of having real life people in there so you can’t manipulate backstories in ways that sort of get to reverse engineer what you want them to have.

But let’s talk about stakes overall, because we’ve talked about stakes in previous episodes but it’s good to have a refresher about what we mean by stakes, what development executives mean by stakes, why you hear this term used so much, particularly in features. You hear it some in TV, but you really hear it in features.

I think there’s two main questions you’re asking when you talk about stakes. First is what is the character risking by taking this action? By making a choice to do a thing what are they putting at risk? The second question is what are the consequences if this character or these characters don’t succeed? So it’s both the action that they’re taking and also the consequences of failure. How bad is the failure if they don’t succeed?

Chernobyl, of course, has remarkable stakes throughout the three episodes I’ve seen so far. Characters are faced with these kind of stakes questions all the time. Craig, anything else about the definition of stakes we want to tackle before we get into it?

**Craig:** No, it’s a very simple concept. What are you risking and what happens if we don’t succeed? It’s as simple as that.

**John:** Yeah. So you’re trying to pick the answers to those questions and to me what’s so crucial and so often missing is proportionality. You have to pick stakes that feel right for these characters, this world, this situation. Not everything can literally be life or death. Not everything is the end of the world. And so often I think especially in our blockbusters we try to make everything be the end of the world. Superhero movies especially have to sort of be saving the whole world and they probably shouldn’t be so often.

If you think about the world of the characters, it could be the end of the world to those characters. And so then you have to carefully define, you know, what is their world consisting of. Is it their social grouping? Their standing? Is it their family? Is it their dreams, their hopes, their wishes, their goals? What is at risk for them that isn’t necessarily of global consequence?

**Craig:** Yeah. We are currently in a state of stakesflation in Hollywood where everything gets upped. It’s not enough to destroy a planet, now you must destroy the galaxy. No, now you have to destroy multiple galaxies. Now you have to destroy half of everything that is alive which I assume at some point someone is going to say, “Well, we have to move that up to next time Thanos snaps his fingers it needs to be three-quarters.”

But when you think back to the first blockbuster, generally Jaws is considered to be the first blockbuster film, and the stakes in Jaws are there people on an island that are being eaten by a shark. And our heroes have to stop the shark before it eats another person. That’s it. That’s it. And it captivates to this very day because the stakes there are really not so much about random people getting chewed up, it’s about a man who has a certain sense of self and purpose and that self and purpose is being challenged to the extreme by a creature that seemingly is beyond his ability to handle. That’s stakes. It’s personal. I love it.

**John:** That’s stakes. So obviously when we talk about stakes our key focus has to be our hero, our protagonist, and what are the stakes for that character. But it’s important to remember that there should be stakes for most of these characters and they don’t have to be the same stakes. In the case of Jaws there’s the stakes of if we do this then we could hurt tourism. If we acknowledge this problem there could be issues.

I’m thinking to Chernobyl. So, we have your scientists explaining, no, if we don’t do this thing the next thing is going to blow up and it’s going to be worse. And we have another scientist who is saying if we don’t figure out exactly what happened these other reactors could blow up. But we also have government officials who are saying we can’t let this get out because if we do let this get out then there will be a panic.

Everyone has a different sense of what the stakes are and they’re taking actions that match their own understanding of what are the most important stakes.

**Craig:** Yeah. For some characters in the show the stakes are love. I want to be with the person that I love. I don’t want to abandon them, even though it puts my own life at risk. For other people the stakes are I have to keep this government together. And if I fail to then there’s going to be chaos. Right. Everybody had their different competing interests. And in those moments, for instance in Chernobyl there’s a moment in Episode 2 where Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgård’s characters are on a helicopter and they’re approaching the power plant. And they both have stakes.

One guy is I have an order from the supreme leader of the Soviet Union. That is somebody with nearly absolute power. And I have to fulfill that because if I don’t I understand that my life and my position and my authority and everything I have is under severe threat. And the other character’s stakes are that’s going to kill us. Don’t go there. We’ll all die.

Competing stakes. Always a good thing to have.

**John:** And ultimately the helicopter pilot has to decide.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Who does he need to listen to in this moment? And he actually reverts to sort of a lower [unintelligible] hierarchy of needs to sort of get to, OK, I don’t want to die in the next two minutes and so therefore I’m not going to fly over this thing. I’m going to listen to the other person.

But I think that actually points to really the root of stakes which is needs and wants. I mean, wants are generally sort of the better way of thinking about it. But what is the character going after? And is the thing they’re going after a really primal survival kind of thing? In some movies it absolutely will be. In some movies it is life or death. It’s cliffhanger. It’s those movies where at any given moment you could die.

But for most characters in most movies it’s a little bit higher up the chain. So it’s about comfort, family, stability, self-realization, self-actualization. Their sense of identity is at stake if they don’t succeed in this venture and that’s the risk that they’re taking.

**Craig:** All these levels of things, what it comes down to is what can you make me believe. And when it comes to stakes I don’t really as a writer have to do much to make you believe at home that saving the planet from a space alien is high enough stakes. It’s just sort of baked into the scenario. Strangely, and this is something I wish our friends in the executive suites had a stronger grasp of, that reduces our interest because there isn’t much of a challenge to that question.

John, a space alien, is threatening to blow up the world, and we need you to solve it. OK. I mean, I’m on the world. What am I supposed to do otherwise? I don’t really have a huge choice there. But if I say to you, John, you have a dream of something that means a lot to you but to pursue it will put your relationship with your own family at risk. That is stakes that now I’m leaning forward in my seat and thinking, ooh.

**John:** So Craig let’s talk about another recent movie that did a great job with stakes and obviously this is a movie that had huge end of the universe kind of stakes but also had very personal stakes which was Avengers: Endgame, which I thought did a really brilliant job of blending the two. Because obviously it’s going to have these big superhero stakes. Half of civilization, half of all living things have been eliminated with a snap. And yet there were very clear personal stories that they focused on. The choices of – we see Hawkeye losing his family and sort of wanted to get his family back and so that was so important. But I thought what they did with Tony Stark and Tony Stark being reluctant to even pursue going after this solution because he didn’t want to risk this family that he’d been able to have in this intervening time. It was really smartly done.

**Craig:** Yeah. Markus and McFeely are experts at working what I would call understandable, empathizable, if that’s a term, stakes into movies where the apparent stakes are ka-boom and blech and pow, right. What they say is even something as dramatic and huge circumstantially as half of every living person dying in the universe they narrow it in. It’s like they kind of force you to tunnel into a relationship to that event through individuals.

What does this mean for me and the man I love? What does this mean for me and my brother? What does this mean for me and the sacrifices I’ve made in my own life to get to this point? All of it is – they just tunnel you into that so that the two things are enmeshed. And that is super important. I just think these broader stakes of something is going to blow up is ultimately irrelevant. There’s no Die Hard unless there is a man trying to win his wife back. It just doesn’t matter. I don’t care.

**John:** It doesn’t matter.

**Craig:** I don’t care about who is in the Nakatomi Building. I want John McClane to kind of earn some redemption and get his life back. That’s, you know, what I’m hoping for.

**John:** Yeah. And even movies that have similar kinds of plot devices the nature of the stakes is so key in why they work differently. So think about comparing the first Charlie’s Angels to a Mission: Impossible movie. They both have some of the same beats and sort of plot mechanics and sort of set pieces, but the Charlie’s Angels fundamentally like will this family be torn apart. Will they be able to save their father figure character? That’s a very different dynamic than what you see in a Mission: Impossible movie.

It gets down to those really granular details about what is the relationship between these characters. What do they really want beyond just the plot wants?

**Craig:** Yeah. And this kind of fine-tuning and understanding, this is where unfortunately we do drift out of the area of craft and into the area of instinct which isn’t really teachable. But what I would say to Vera is, in just garnering what I can from your question, Vera, it seems to me that you’re wondering if you have to make them look bad to create stakes and I’m not sure that that’s ever necessary. Those two things aren’t really connected. I think if they were good people but you understood watching it, and you may have to adjust, that they were risking something really important to them to put their research out into the world. And really important it can’t just be my job. Nobody cares. You can get another job.

It has to be how someone they love or admire looks at them. Or how it might disrupt their pursuit of somebody that they love. Or how it might affect who they think they are as a human being and what their value is. It’s got to be something I can feel in my stomach, you know? Then there are stakes. And, by the way, perfectly fine to create a movie with stakes and have a character “bet it all” and lose. That sometimes is the most interesting story at all.

**John:** Yeah. I think back to Erin Brockovich which this is based on a true life story. This character intervenes in these water poisoning situations. But it was the specificity of like what was in turmoil in her life that made it such a compelling story. And Susannah Grant had to look at all the possible stories to tell and pick the one that had real stakes for that central Erin Brockovich character. And her stakes were not the stakes of the people who were drinking the contaminated water. Her stakes are personal. They’re about her relationships. They involve her kid, her boyfriend, sort of the dynamics of her life.

So I would say look at the characters, the real life people you have in this situation. Try to mine for some interesting ways that they either fit together or that in taking the actions they are doing they’re not just disrupting their own lives or risking their own – I say lives, not their physical lives but their own status or place – but is going to have repercussions on those around them. And the degree to which they understand that, those are stakes.

**Craig:** Yeah. 100%. I think that that’s kind of what we’re dancing around here as we talk through all this. We’re really talking about character. I think sometimes this notion of stakes gets separated out by people who are analytic or – and by analytic I mean producers and executives who are trying to come up with something easy for us like, “Well what are the stakes?” And the truth is if the character is working, you’ll know what the stakes are. The character and the stakes should be embedded with each other. It should just be one in the same.

In the same way that the character and the story should be embedded with each other and be one in the same. And the dialogue and the character should be – character is the hub. Character is the hub of the wheel my friends. And stakes is just one more spoke emanating out of it. It’s all baked into character.

In the case of adapting real life, Vera, it’s OK to make changes in order to create some stakes. Sometimes you have to alter that but do it within the spirit of what you know really happened. And if in the spirit of what really happened there are no stakes at all, maybe it’s not a thing. But I suspect that there are some there.

**John:** I think there are. The last little bit I want to add on stakes is there’s a second kind of stakes which is not this overall story/character arch-y kind of stakes, but is very specific to a scene or sequence. And so an action sequence is the easiest way to think about that where if the character doesn’t succeed in this moment these are the consequences or the possible consequences. In those cases it is a little bit more craft, where you actually have to understand that the audience needs to be able to see what could go wrong or what the downfalls are of a mistake or a less than perfect performance in that moment.

When we had Chris McQuarrie on to talk about – on Episode 300 – to talk about the Mission: Impossible movies, he gets a lot into that. Which is basically how can this possibly end well. And to get the audience asking that question you have to make it clear what the jeopardy is. And sometimes as I’ve rewritten my own stuff or rewritten other people’s stuff it’s because it wasn’t clear in that moment, in that scene, what was the thing that could tip one way or the other.

So making sure that in those moments that is really clear to an audience.

**Craig:** Every scene is its own movie. And that means every scene has its own stakes. And all of that is connected back to a simple question: what is it you want? What do you want? Even if the scene is if that fiery gasoline trail hits that fuel tank then all those people are going to die, well, I want to stop that. It still has to come back to somebody wanting something. And ideally there’s somebody else saying, “No, I want it to explode.” And now we’ve got ourselves a scene. But even if the scene is I’m sitting down to tell someone that the nature of our relationship is changing there are stakes.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** So it’s always there.

**John:** All right. Let’s move onto another question. This is from Daniel in Israel who writes, “I’ve been offered to write a TV pilot episode for a local production company. The thing I’m supposed to write the pilot around is essentially only a main plot point. Something someone might call an inciting incident. What I am lacking is the protagonist. Not his identity, but what he wants and what he needs in his life. What I’m trying to figure out is how to create this protagonist in light of this ‘inciting incident.” How would you construct a screenplay and its protagonist when all that you have to work with is this main plot point?”

So, a related question here really. Here Daniel is facing a situation where the plot of it, or at least the start of the plot is really clear. He’s trying to figure out who is the character to drive through this doorway into a story.

**Craig:** Great question, Daniel. And first of all, if we’re in a situation where somebody was just sitting around the house and thinking, “Oh my gosh, I have a great idea for a plot, but how do I come up with a character?” I would say you don’t have a great idea for a plot. Start with character.

But this kind of thing where somebody comes to you and here are your own stakes – there’s money. You’re trying to earn money as a writer.

**John:** There’s money, yes.

**Craig:** And they’re giving you an assignment. You have to figure it out. This happens all the time. I cannot tell you how many times I get a call where someone says, “We’ve got a script. It needs a little bit of work. Story works great. We just need characters. We need character work.” And I just think the story can’t be that great. If the characters aren’t good how is the story good?

So, Daniel, here is I guess the only practical advice I have for you is take your main plot point and ask this question: to whom would it be most interesting for this to apply? Because any random person can go into a situation and be confronted by a problem. But there are certain people who the nature of their lives and the position that they’re in and their past and what they want – they’re the best people to do this to. And typically it’s because this is the thing that will torture them the most. So, think of who that is and you may be off and running.

**John:** I agree. I think back to the How Would This Be a Movie segments we’ve done and they fall into two camps. There’s ones that have a really fascinating character and then you have to figure out like how would you actually build a story around that character. The other ones are the sort of plot machines. Oh, that is a really crazy thing that happened in the real world and you have to then approach it with like, OK, who is the character that should really be driving that story. So, it might be a real life event and there’s myriad characters around it, but you have to figure out whose point of view is actually the interesting point of view.

And I think Craig nailed it. It’s the character for whom the story is especially suited. Either because they are perfect for it, like they are the one person who could be the expert in the situation, or more often and more interestingly the person who is the least well-equipped to be doing this and is out of their element. And that is going to give you more conflict, more comedy if you’re going for comedy. It’s going to be the person who is relatable to the audience because they’re probably a good proxy for the audience in that they don’t have the information or the expertise to be grappling with this situation.

**Craig:** Yeah. Let’s call it the A side of things. In movies we talk about the A side and the B side. It’s sort of like an editorial term. Like the stuff that happens before, the stuff that happens after. So that’s the A side of it. And then the B side of it is for whom would the resolution of this plot point be the most interesting and satisfying? Think about it from forward and backward and you just might have yourself a solution there.

All right, let’s move along to Alex from New York, shall we?

**John:** Sure.

**Craig:** All right. Alice writes, “I’m in a script writing class and I’m trying to pitch a story where there is no three-act structure. My professor responded by saying that for this class we can only make something that follows the structure. She then pulled out a book with the title How to Write a Great Screenplay.” [laughs]

“And said our script had to contain the six key moments. Of course there are many great movies that follow the three-act structure, but I also know that many of my favorite movies don’t – Boyhood, Nashville, A Serious Man come to mind. I guess my question is do you need a three-act structure to write a great movie or is this a sign that I should drop out of this overpriced school?” [laughs]

**John:** [laughs] I love people who answer their own questions. Obviously the answer Alice is you’re not in a very good screenwriting program. But I want to sort of move past that moment to talk about this idea of how you teach writing. Because it occurred to me this last week, my daughter for her English class has to write these five-paragraph essays. And Craig you remember these five-paragraph essays.

**Craig:** I sure do.

**John:** They have to have–

**Craig:** Thesis.

**John:** The thesis and then you have to–

**Craig:** The examples.

**John:** Exactly. Each paragraph has to be about a different thing of those things and has to summarize and have the evidence within them and then a conclusion. And I find it just a torturous form. And I want to push back against it, and yet I do feel like it’s important that she learn how to write this ridiculous form now so that she understands what it is and will hopefully never have to write it quite the same way again.

A thesis is important. A thesis, you know, a central idea behind which all of your essay hangs together – that’s important. And for screenplays an understanding of a three-act structure I think is important. That sense that movies do have beginnings, middles, and ends. And there is a natural flow through which you move through story.

But I don’t want to be as an adult be forced to pay money to take a class where someone holds up a terrible screenwriting book and says that you have to follow this template.

**Craig:** Someone has written a book How to Write a Great Screenplay. I’m going to go out on a limb here. Because I have not heard of this book. Therefore my conclusion, this is just supposition, is that the individual who has written the book How to Write a Great Screenplay has not written a great screenplay. What else do you need to know?

Now, when it comes to surviving classes and things like that, you can take any movie and slap a three-act structure on it. If you put a gun in my mouth and say, A Serious Man, divvy that up into three acts. I’ll do it for you. No problem.

**John:** Totally. Yeah.

**Craig:** That’s also a sign that it’s useless. It is a very fundamental thing. It’s a little bit like in math class when you were moving ahead and your teacher said, “No, sorry. You need to show all your work. You need to show me the 15 plus 24 equals, carry, the whole thing.” Can’t I just do it in my head? “No.” OK, fine. So that’s what it is. It’s a little remedial.

Our script had to contain the six key moments. Hey, Alice from New York, I don’t know what those are. John, do you know what those are?

**John:** I don’t know what they are.

**Craig:** Well, we’re doing all right. [laughs] You got Aladdin out. I got Chernobyl running. Things are going OK. Somehow we made it without not only reading How to Write a Great Screenplay. We’ve never even heard of it.

**John:** So, here’s what I will try to defend about this idea about teaching people this template-y thing. if the teacher were requiring you to just do an outline, like a one or two-page outline that talked about your story in those beats or like come up with a new story and make it fit those beats, that I could see being a valuable exercise because it might get you to think about whatever these elements are I suspect they are, you know, what is that transition between the first act and second act, which real life screenwriters do talk about. Where you’re really – you’re not in Kansas anymore moment. Where a character has crossed a threshold into a new part of the story. That does tend to happen in most places.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** One of these other elements could be kind of a reversal where the thing that looks like it was close is now actually much further away. That things have gotten much worse. That is probably a meaningful beat. And so if it was an outline thing, but to make you write and entire 100-page screenplay following this template I don’t think is a fair thing to ask.

**Craig:** No. Perfectly fine to suggest that this is how beginners can learn. This is an intro to screenwriting. But if somebody like you says, “Listen, as a paying customer of this institution I would like to attempt to do it this way.” Why in god’s name would they tell you no? Listen, do it that way. And if it stinks, and by the way, higher probability it will stink, because you’re trying something – you’re doing like a degree of difficulty dive here that’s different than the other dives – then people will tell you it stunk and you’ll learn something and you’ll move on. It doesn’t mean that three acts are going to save you from stinking, nor does it mean that not three acts condemns you to stinking. It’s just part of the learning process.

But I would say to your professor stop that. Just cut it out. That’s just bizarrely pedantic.

**John:** I agree. Chris writes, “I recently swapped scripts with a writer friend. Instead of offering me story notes he called out formatting ‘errors’ in my first couple pages such as how I bold slug lines, reference a song, italicize dialogue for emphasis instead of underlining, etc. I explained how I was under the impression that all these things were stylistic choices rather than hard and fast rules. That a writer should use anything to better paint a movie in the reader’s mind.

“As an underwriter he argued that script formatting must be much tighter so as not to give anyone reading it a reason to throw it away. Is this true or is my friend simply being overly nitpicky on things that are really a writer’s choice? I’ve read dozens of screenplays at this point and feel no two really format exactly the same way.”

Craig, where are you at?

**Craig:** This is guy is swapping with his friend. You know who likes that?

**John:** That guy, yes. That guy.

**Craig:** Sexy Craig. So we’re talking about swapping, huh Chris? You going to swap?

**John:** Apparently they’re talking.

**Craig:** Get out of here, Sexy Craig. You can’t answer this question. Angry Craig can answer this question. Umbrage Craig is here. How many times do we have to kill this? This zombie won’t – we shoot it in the brain. We cut off its head. We light its heart on fire. What do we need to do to stop this from happening, John? I’m at my wit’s end. What do we do?

**John:** I don’t know. So I feel like a lot of people do listen to the show, but I’m also aware when people like Chris writes in that not everyone listens to the show.

**Craig:** Wait, what?

**John:** There are a few people who don’t listen to the show, although I’ll say that I had some meetings this past week and I was just surprised like folks who aren’t writers who listen to the show. So shout out to those folks who are not writers who listen to the show.

But, yeah, I don’t know how we’re going to win them over. I think all we can hope to do is to our listeners remind them that, listen, the standard screenplay formatting is helpful. It’s helpful because it creates an expectation about how stuff is supposed to look and if you go wildly off of it we are going to wonder does this person really know what they’re doing. Even as we do the Three Page Challenges when we see things that are like that’s not how it’s done we will comment on that because it is useful because it can slow a reader. It gives a reader an excuse for putting it aside.

I don’t think that’s what you were doing, Chris. The things you were singling out are reasonable choices. Some bold slug lines. I like to bold slug lines. I didn’t always, but now I do. So I use italics fairly liberally. It’s OK.

I think we just need to always remind folks that the standards are there because they’re helpful and they’re sort of standard but they’re not hard fast rules. And anyone who tells you otherwise probably doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

**Craig:** Yeah. Just stop giving your friends scripts. They’re useless. Sorry. Your friend is useless. I don’t know how else to put it. I mean–

**John:** Also, your friend is useless because your friend did not give you constructive notes about the actual story.

**Craig:** Exactly. Correct. All they did was demand that you conform to a system that they insist is real but I can assure you is utter nonsense. Nonsense. That’s what they did. You were looking for advice on the story, the characters, the theme, the dialogue, and they came back and said here are a bunch of things you’re doing that are incorrect factually.

And the only person that was doing something factually incorrect is your friend, who maybe shouldn’t be your friend anymore. Because, I’m sorry, I bold slug lines. And like you, John, used to not bold slug lines. I reference songs all the time. I italicize dialogue for emphasis all the time. I also underline. I use We See. I do all these stupid things.

And your friend, I guarantee you, is going to say, “By the way I heard on Scriptnotes that they were bagging on me, but you know what? They only say that because they’re successful. But if you’re not them then…” this is how he sounds by the way. “And then you’re going to send your script to readers. They’re going to throw it out. If they see that you italicize dialogue they’re going to throw it out.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this. And all I can say is no. No, I’ve been doing it this way since I began when I was nobody. Nobody cared. You know what they cared about? Oh my god, I like a script finally. This month of just sifting through one desperate, soul-crushing failure of a screenplay after another and finally something showed up that was, I don’t know, at least mediocre. It made their day. [laughs] That’s all they care about it. That’s it. They don’t care about the rest of this. For the love of god.

**John:** So I’ll say if people don’t trust my authority as a screenwriter on this, let me go back to 20 years to when I was a professional reader. My job was to read screenplays. And I would read two a day and I would write up coverage on them. So I read 200 screenplays. And it was my job to be that reader who passed things up or said no to things. And not once – not once in 200 scripts – did I ever single out for formatting. Oh, it’s a really good story but warning executives it’s not formatted exactly the way you’d want.

No one cares about that. If you’ve never seen coverage – it’s only pedants who say this.

**Craig:** Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, you know what? John, that – the guy that I was just listening to there, I’m going to call that, that’s Victory John.

**John:** Victory John.

**Craig:** Victory John. He knows when he walks into a room victory is assured. Victory John was great there. Nice work Victory John.

**John:** Done.

**Craig:** Chris, get rid of your friend.

**John:** Craig, let’s take one last question. Can you read Garrett for us?

**Craig:** Absolutely. Garrett asks, oh god, do we have to do this one?

**John:** I think we can – it actually goes into an interesting place.

**Craig:** Let’s do it. Fine. Garrett asks, “So many fans are furious about the conclusion of Game of Thrones. I am nowhere near dealing with this problem personally, but how do writers surprise insatiate rabid fans who spend all their time figuring out where a series or movie will go? It seems as though super fans will be disappointed whether the ending is too predictable or completely out of left field.”

All right, John, dig in.

**John:** Garrett, I think you are correct. Again, I like people who ask a question and then answer the question within their question. There was no way to land that plane that would keep everybody happy. Some people were really upset by how it ended. Some people signed a petition to redo the whole season. That ain’t helpful. That’s not going to happen.

We’re in this weird time where a fan’s ownership of a piece of material and sort of their sense that the culture belongs to them is really challenging and somewhat problematic. As a person who loves the show I was excited to see the show do what the show wanted to do. And I was excited that the creators got to do what they wanted to do. But that’s not going to be to everyone’s taste.

Craig, how do you resolve Garrett’s question?

**Craig:** I think that the shocking part of it all is that it is impossible to get that angry about an episode of television unless you love that episode or that series. You love it. And the only way you can love it is if the people who made that episode made what you love.

This isn’t a case where some other showrunner came along and took it over and everybody goes, nah, they don’t have the magic. That’s fine. I get that. But in this case Dan and Dave who made this thing you loved, not for one episode or one season, but for years, and who gave up years, a decade of their life, while their children were being born and raised, moving back and forth between Los Angeles and Ireland over and over and over. Doing all of these things and throwing their heart and soul into all of this and keeping a massive cast together and a storyline that involved god knows how many characters. I wish I could impress upon people how many decisions are required to make one episode of television. It is insane.

And they did it into the 70s of episodes of television and they did it in the highest level. And the very same creative ambition and bravery that led them to this material in the first place and allowed them to do it in such a remarkable way in the first place is the very same creative bravery and ambition that led them to deliver an ending that they thought was right.

And if you don’t like it, that’s OK.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** But why – the part that blows my mind, and this is where I agree with you Garrett, it’s a huge problem – is why people would suddenly say things like they’re bad writers. How dare you. How dare you. Not on the level of being insulting to Dan to Dave. They’re geniuses and they’re doing just fine. How dare you insult logic in such a crass and outrageous manner. To say that they are bad writers because they didn’t write a good episode of a show we love because they’re good writers.

I mean, get help. Listen, I get it. You can be super angry in an episode. I’ve seen episodes of things of shows that I love where I watch the episode and said I don’t like this. I don’t like the choices they made. But what I would never do is say because they’re bad writers.

I’m sorry, no one is going to bat 1,000. How about be happy for the good times and the joy they brought you, which is a decade of joy. Can’t we celebrate that? It just bums me out.

**John:** I don’t know who proposed this, but someone was pitching that HBO should film a reality show, sort of like a Project Greenlight, where they bring together eight of the biggest petition signers about wanting to do a new season and get them all together to write a new final season. And just film the whole thing.

**Craig:** Oh my god.

**John:** And what that process is like. Because that would be–

**Craig:** What a cruel, cruel joke to play.

**John:** That would be pretty amazing.

**Craig:** And I do. I see things where people say, “I figured it out. Here’s what they should have done.” And they’ll stick it somewhere and then people go like, “Yeah, amazing.” And I’m reading and I’m like that would have been the stupidest, lamest, who cares episode of nonsense in history.

Remember, again, they are somewhat victims of their own success. This is a show where people would spend a lot of time and energy trying to convince each other that Bran was really the Night King. And that level of engagement is amazing. You don’t get to it if the people making the show haven’t done an incredible job. And they did for so long. And to turn your back on them because you didn’t like the last – well, they betrayed us. No. No, you betrayed them. You betrayed them. You bought into that show. You loved it. You cared about it. You told them how great they were. Because they were. And then the minute they do something that’s slightly a – I mean, oh my god, people lost their minds because Jon Snow didn’t hug his dog, sorry, direwolf. Well, guess what? He does later.

And then I hope people go, oh, oh, if he had hugged him there then this hug wouldn’t have meant as much. Yes. Have a little faith.

**John:** That’s probably true.

**Craig:** Ugh.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** I’d probably [cut] myself – I’m going to get petitions now to have my head chopped off. I don’t care.

**John:** Back in Episode 296 I sat down with Damon Lindelof. So we talked through Lost.

**Craig:** Lost. Sure.

**John:** We also talked through The Leftovers. And interesting to compare the response to those two endings because they’re both kind of big puzzle box shows and people were incredibly frustrated by the ending of Lost. People seemed to generally love the ending of The Leftovers. And I do wonder if some of it was expectation management. I felt like on The Leftovers Damon did a very good job from season one saying do not expect that you are going to have one answer that will completely resolve everything about what happened and why it happened. That will not come. And I think that softened the – conditioned things a little bit better. And so that may be one of the things that showrunners unfortunately now have to think about is not only how do I get this plane up in the air but how do I land this plane in a way that is going to – basically how do I tell everybody right while the plane is going up where I expect to land the plane and condition them for what they’re going to be getting into.

**Craig:** It’s hard to stop, especially when the joy of something is in the process of it. I mean, I’m a Game of Thrones fan. I’ve seen every minute of every episode of Game of Thrones. Including every minute of an episode that no one else has ever seen. And I’ve loved the journey. And to me the joy was the process. It was the unfolding of this story over time and the collision of characters and things.

Ending is essentially counter to the purpose of the entire venture. So, of course people are going to be a bit confused or put off by some aspects of it because it goes against the DNA of what that show is. That show, the joy of it, is in that it doesn’t end. The world gets bigger and crazier and wilder as things smash together and the stakes grow higher. That’s the joy.

So, I mean, guys, it’s almost as if you would have preferred that, I don’t know, a piano had fallen on them and there was no final season. Is that what you really want? I shouldn’t have asked that question. Now there’s going to be a petition to drop a piano on them.

**John:** So, I would say if you are considering writing into me and Craig and telling us why we’re wrong, I would urge you to first listen to Episode 235. That is the one where Benioff and Weiss came on our show at our benefit for Hollywood Heart. They were gracious to fill in for Lawrence Kasdan when he could not make it. And they talked about the making of Game of Thrones and Craig’s involvement in that early pilot process. And how this is mostly Craig’s fault.

**Craig:** Like most things.

**John:** Actually, you’re somewhat to blame, Craig. Because if you had not intervened when you had intervened maybe Game of Thrones wouldn’t have become a thing and then we wouldn’t have been frustrated by the events of the end of the last season.

**Craig:** That’s such a – you know what, John? There you go. You want to save yourself disappointment folks, stop watching things. Stop falling in love with things. Stop opening your heart to things because it’s much better to have never loved than to have loved and lost. Is that what you are saying? I’m sorry. No one can deliver it perfectly. And if you point me to something and say, “Well they did it perfectly,” I’m going to say to you no they didn’t. Because they didn’t. There’s no way to do it perfectly. You just do it.

And years later people will come – I swear to you people will come back to this years later and say, “Well actually, here’s a think piece about why it’s brilliant.” That’s just how our culture works. Inevitably.

**John:** Yep. Those are the stakes of making a high stakes show.

**Craig:** Oh wow. Segue Man, that’s beautiful.

**John:** Got to bring it all back around. It’s time for One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing is a book I read this last week which I really enjoyed. It’s by Ryan North. It’s called How to Invent Everything. And the premise of the book is that you are a time traveler, whose rental time travel machine, has broken and this is the manual that comes in the little machine. And so, OK, you’re stranded in the past. Here’s how you have to invent all the things that get you back up to modern civilization.

So it goes down from basics of agriculture to metalsmithing to inventing logic. It’s just a very comprehensive guide to how you would get back up to as close as you can do modern day civilization if you were to be stranded in prehistoric times.

**Craig:** Before being eaten.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** That is a very smart idea for a book. I like that. My One Cool Thing is also some reading material, but as you know big puzzle buy over here. So there’s a magazine. It’s an online magazine called PANDA Magazine which is short for P and A which is short for Puzzles and Answers. It is published by a gentleman named Foggy Brume. That is his real name.

**John:** I would not buy that as a character’s name. No–

**Craig:** It’s his real name.

**John:** I reject the premise of Foggy Brume.

**Craig:** Foggy Brume. Very nice guy. I’ve had the joy of puzzling with him myself a few times. And he puts out a monthly edition. And I think this is true frequently he does these big puzzle boats once a year where it’s like a big mega puzzle to do. And then each issue has a little sort of mini mega puzzle where you solve, in this case in this month’s issue there are 12 puzzles that are difficult and each one gives you an answer that you plug into one big puzzle to get a big answer. PANDAMagazine.com is where you can find this if you’re big into that sort of thing. It’s a good challenge.

Each magazine comes with a whole bunch of puzzles where he provides the answers so you’re not miserable. And then there are some that are more of like a contest where he will eventually publish the answers once the submission date comes and goes. So, PANDA Magazine. Foggy Brume. A good subscription for the puzzler in your life.

**John:** I love it. That is our show for this week. Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao. Edited by Matthew Chilelli who also wrote our outro this week in the style of Chernobyl.

**Craig:** Whoa.

**John:** Who did your Chernobyl music? It’s a woman with a hard to pronounce name.

**Craig:** So her name is Hildur, well I’m going to pronounce it like an American. She is Icelandic. So the cheap pronunciation is Hildur Gudnadottir. In fact it is like Gudnadottir. I can’t do it because I’m not Icelandic and I think Icelandic is the hardest language in the world to learn and speak or something. It’s hard.

She is brilliant. You’re also going to be able to hear her work in Todd Phillips upcoming movie Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix.

**John:** Great.

**Craig:** So she’s amazing. And, good news, I believe that – so HBO has confirmed they are releasing her original soundtrack for Chernobyl for download and other versions of it. And I think it’s coming May 31. I think that’s when it will be available. I believe given the quality of the work she did on Chernobyl that that original soundtrack, that original score, is going to become a staple in editing bays.

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** It’s going to be one of those temp scores that’s going to confound other composers for years to come I hope. Because it’s unique.

**John:** Nice. If you have an outro you’d like us to play you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also a place where you can send longer questions like the ones we answered today. For short questions on Twitter Craig is @clmazin. I am @johnaugust.

You’ll find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find the transcripts. They go up about a week after the episode has aired.

Some folks have started to do recaps and discussion on Reddit so you can head over there and see what people are talking about for this episode.

You can find the back episodes of this show at Scriptnotes.net or download 50-episode seasons in the store at johnaugust.com.

You may also want to check out the Scriptnotes Listener’s Guide at johnaugust.com/guide to see which episodes listeners recommend most.

Craig, thank you for a fun show.

**Craig:** Thank you, John. See you next time.

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* [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_402_how_do_you_like_your_stakes.mp3).

The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2019/notes-on-notes).

**John August:** Hello and welcome. My name is John August and this is Episode 399 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

So, this afternoon Craig and I did something different. We went over to Amblin and spoke to a group of about 30 development executives to discuss what it feels like as a writer to get notes. And to offer them suggestions for how to give notes that will actually achieve what they want.

In many ways this episode reminds me most of Episode 99 where we sat down with therapist Dennis Palumbo to talk about psychotherapy for screenwriters and the weird ways that writers process emotion. In the first half you’ll hear me and Craig sort of giving a presentation. Then we open up for discussion with the whole group. Enjoy.

Ah, so nice. So this is theoretically going to be Episode 399 of our show. 399 episodes of our show, which is crazy – crazy, crazy. And on one of these episodes Craig proposed you know what we should go in and talk to studio executives about how they give notes because we as people who get notes a lot could give them insights in how to give notes. And so Craig made this offer. Someone took us up on this offer. We went and talked to some folks at Disney.

**Craig Mazin:** Yep.

**John:** It was a good conversation. A much smaller conversation than this group. Ben, thank you for bringing us in here to talk with this larger group about our notes on notes. Because usually we’re coming in here to hear these notes and we are filled with sort of this emotional response sometimes to these notes and we’re trying to figure out how to do them.

But I thought if we talked through the process of giving notes and hearing notes we might honestly be all able to do this a little bit better. So that’s the impetus behind this presentation.

**Craig:** Yeah. This is mostly to help you guys help us. I mean, it’s always self-interest really. Because we are kind of allies, whether we realize it or not, there’s a little journey that we’re all going on to try and make something which is impossible to do, as we know. And so we are allies and that means we have to figure out how to help each other along the way. And I think sometimes in everyone’s zeal to help the opposite occurs. I won’t say what that word is. It’s hurt. You’re hurting people.

So, anyway, we know that all the intentions are good, but hopefully we can give you some practical advice just so you can hear how things filter through our minds when we have these experiences with you.

**John:** Yesterday Craig emailed me to say, “That thing we did at Disney, did we have a script? Did we have anything we were working off of?” And I said I don’t think so, I think we just winged it. He’s like, “No, no, I’m pretty sure we had some sort of script.” And then Craig texted me last night saying like, “I found it. I found the shared Google doc.” So this is the shared Google doc we’re working off.

**Craig:** Should inspire a lot of confidence in the two of us.

**John:** Yeah, absolutely. So these are the notes on our notes on notes. And it keys in with this slide show, so that’s why I was hoping we could stick a little bit on this first–

**Craig:** Yeah, let’s do it. Where should we start?

**John:** Why is it so hard to get notes? Craig?

**Craig:** Got it. So, when our work, and I include all of you – your work, everything you do – when it is exposed or critiqued we feel emotional pain. That’s common to every human being in all circumstances. I don’t think that that is a sign of weakness, even though you may have been taught that, particularly if you grew up in the ‘70s. But rather it is a sign of being human. So congratulations.

But here’s a question that might seem obvious until you really think about it. Why? Why should being criticized or critiqued make us feel emotional pain? Well, it turns out there’s a good answer. Let’s talk about a little science. This is the last bit of science you’ll have to deal with today. So Chernobyl – no – neurologists know that emotional pain doesn’t come from this part up here. So our neocortex or frontal lobe, this is all of our rational human thinking/processing/reasoning brain. Emotional pain comes from this little lump underneath called the limbic system. I can’t get there because it’s underneath. But it’s basically an inheritance from rats and lizards and birds. And all it really does is control our fight or flight response.

And this fight or flight response happens before the human smart part of our brain even knows what’s happening. A little bit like if you touch a hot stove your spinal reflex will have your hand moving back before the rest of your brain goes, ow, that’s hot. Well, similarly when you get negative threatening input the limbic system is going to fire off messages before the front of your brain even has a chance to process what has happened. And unfortunately the limbic system only has one alarm message to send. It’s very stupid. Again, it’s from rats and birds. And the message it sends to you, to the front of your brain is you are in danger of dying. That’s the only phrase it knows. You’re in danger of dying.

So, start fighting or starting fleeing. Now, that may sound a little dramatic, but if so–

**John:** Craig, it sounds a little dramatic.

**Craig:** I can make it more dramatic.

**John:** But honestly I’ve had that response to notes in a room where I felt like the floor was collapsing underneath me. And so therefore I have to do something. I have to take an action right now which is not just sitting and listening.

**Craig:** Yeah. Another writer we know told me a story once that in the middle of a notes meeting she just asked if she could take a break to go to the bathroom and then she vomited. And then she came back. This is – I understand this.

Here’s what’s happening. When you’re writing or directing or creating something you’re creating a kind of external expression of yourself. We put ourselves into these things. And what you’re doing is essentially recreating the contents of your mind on page or on screen. And the more you care the better you are at it frankly. The more you invest of your own humanity and passion and love, the more enmeshed you become with it. It becomes hard to figure out where you stop and it starts.

If you have kids, and I don’t know, it’s a pretty young crowd, but if you do have children you will understand this. The children are not you, but if they are threatened well then you will feel fear and pain and adrenaline. The limbic system is pounding its alarm system. You made the so they are you. Rationally we understand that the script isn’t us, but the limbic system sees no difference at all.

**John:** Yeah, it’s sort of the mama bear syndrome. You see your cub being threatened and therefore you must protect your cub. And so how do you get past that sense of like I must protect this thing that is partly me that is in danger.

**Craig:** Yeah. And to try and connect it a little bit to what you guys do, if you’re not also writing things, I want you think of how you feel when somebody criticizes something that is inherent to your identity or your being. There they are. I want you to think about how you feel when somebody criticizes your appearance. Your weight. Your sexuality. Your race. I want you to think about how you feel when someone essentially says you’re not good enough the way you are. I’m talking about your parents basically.

That’s why you’re here in Hollywood. You’re not good enough the way you are. Here’s a bunch of things that are completely wrong with you. Let me enumerate them and go into detail. Here’s what you should be instead. And please listen carefully.

Well, when these things happen it’s quite likely you’re going to want to run out of the room or wring their neck. It’s fight or flight. And in these instances now switching back to writers when they begin to feel emotional pain writers will get angry, they will get sullen, they will get argumentative. They’ll get snippy or passive-aggressive. Does any of this sound familiar? Have you seen this happening? It’s fight or flight.

**John:** From the writer’s perspective, this sort of is a natural reaction. They feel like they’re under attack. From the outsider’s perspective it’s like why are they being so weird about all of this. We all have the same goal. We’re trying to make a better movie, a better pilot. We’re trying to – theoretically rowing in the same direction. Why are they acting so weird?

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s actually a great sign. I know it’s annoying to deal with in the moment. If you’re dealing with a writer who is like, oh yes, who is reacting to your notes as if they didn’t write the script at all, that’s a psychopath. And also probably a bad writer.

But John is absolutely right. That the irony is all of that emotional pain and the response to that emotional pain has nothing to do with making the movie better. And this is where writers kind of start to circle and cycle a bit because the more emotional pain we feel the worse these meetings and encounters get, which leads to worse interaction, which leads to more emotional pain. And we could even start to become viewed as the D word. Difficult.

And it’s hard because the front of your brain is saying, “Hey, they’re going to start thinking of you as difficult.” But underneath there’s this little blurb saying, “Kill them.” And that’s a rough one to correspond. Yes, you will look at it from your side as somebody trying to make some sort of intellectual or angry defense of what they’ve done, to deny what you’re saying, to essentially negate everything you are putting into this. But that’s not what’s happening. It’s just somebody who is terrified that they’re about to die and they’re trying to stay alive, whether you realize it or not.

So, John, how do we do this better for us and for them? Can we get into some practicals?

**John:** Let’s do some practicals. Let’s talk about some dos and some don’ts, which are almost always going to be sort of opposite reflections of the natural instinct versus what’s probably most helpful at the moment.

So let’s start with owning an opinion. And so when you have an opinion and you’re sharing an opinion, really take possession of that opinion. Really feel it. Have it be a meaningful opinion to you that you think will actually improve the project. Not just an opinion you’re repeating because you’re supposed to be passing it along.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, that’s essentially why you have your jobs. You have your jobs because somebody says, “Look, you’ve got good taste. I like the way you respond and react to things.” So it’s really important that you own that opinion. But what you should not do is convert your opinion into a fact. It’s OK. Opinions are good enough. It’s just good enough. I think sometimes there’s this game that happens in these rooms. You’ve probably watched it or maybe even participated. It’s called the battle of examples.

Here’s my opinion. And someone says, “No, because they did that in this movie and it didn’t work.” And then someone says, “But, they did it in this movie and it did work.” Someone says, “No, that movie is different.” Someone says, “No, because of this.” No because of this. Everyone is trying to [empiricize] an opinion.

Here’s the deal. The first person to do something well in a movie that works – that’s original and they win. And the first person to do something poorly in a movie that doesn’t work – that’s stupid and it was a bad idea. It doesn’t matter what happened before. There is no way to turn your opinions into fact. You might as well just say it’s how I feel. That actually is good enough.

**John:** Yeah. And when you try to make your subjective opinion into an objective fact or presented as an objective fact we immediately go defensive because we can see logically that’s not actually an objective fact so then we start to doubt everything else you’re saying, too. So saying your opinion as an opinion, as your subjective take on a situation, is great. And it also reminds the writer that they’re being hired for their subjective opinions, for their subjective skills and sort of negotiating this emotional terrain. So keeping it in the realm of opinion is really helpful.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** A do. Do share your reactions and your questions. You are often one of the very first audiences for a script so share what you felt. Share what you felt as you were reading through it because as we’ve been writing a thing we’ve been living with this thing for months and so we don’t have clean eyes on stuff. You guys do have clean eyes. So phrasing what you find in what your first read was, what it felt like to you to be sitting in an audience watching it on the screen of your mind is really helpful because particularly when there’s things that aren’t clear or places you thought the story was going that it wasn’t going that’s great for us to hear.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, you guys have all been in focus groups in screenings and there are people in those focus groups who say when this happened I felt this, but when this happened I felt this. And we think, OK good, we’re getting our NRG money’s worth. And then there’s that guy who, you know, “Actually,” because he goes to cinema school and he’s thought about this during the screening. You’re like that’s useless. What we need are true honest human reactions, right?

So what you want to do is hold on to those for sure, but try to avoid announcing the conclusions of your reactions. Because that’s where you’re sort of short-circuiting a natural process. If something worries you in a script as you’re reading it or confuses you or makes you annoyed or bores you that’s really valuable. We need to hear that. Tell me where it got annoying. Like right here, or this is where I got confused. Where it becomes less useful is when people say to us as writers, “You know what, she’s too angry. This character is too angry. She’s too mean. She’s a turn-off.” That’s a conclusion. And we don’t know quite what to do with it.

And what it really sounds like is, “And that’s a fact and somehow you missed that.” When what is useful is to say, “I don’t understand why in this scene she’s so harsh with him given the circumstances. Can you talk about what you were going for because what I felt was put off?” That’s a discussion. That’s a conversation.

**John:** Absolutely. Because now you’re talking about what your reaction was to something that you read and we can discuss that moment. We can discuss what our intention was behind that rather than she’s too mean. We can’t do anything with that. There’s nothing we can write that fixes “she’s too mean.”

**Craig:** You’re kind of just inviting us to say, “Well, I don’t think she is.” And now we get into an argument over a fact that is not a fact at all.

**John:** A suggestion, speak towards the passion. What you’re interested in. Speak towards what you want. Even if it’s in the context of criticism. So always be discussing where you want things to be going rather than sort of where things are right now that aren’t exactly what you want. So speak towards what is getting you excited about the project, not what is turning you off.

**Craig:** Yeah. You wanted to do this in the first place for some reason. Something excited you about it. If the script isn’t there say, “Listen, when I got to this place I wanted it to go here. How can we get it there?” That’s a thing where you can move toward.

What we really don’t know how to process as writers is how to write away from something. There is really no way to write away from a thing. So, here’s an example. Don’t make this scene so talky. OK. You’ve probably felt that a lot of times. Don’t make this scene so talky. This scene is way too talky. That’s writing away from something. Don’t bother with all this plot language. There’s too much plot language. Less. That’s writing away from something.

And these notes are generally born of fear. That’s not a knock on you guys. That’s really useful. I mean, that fear is necessary to kind of evaluate this material. You’re scared that an audience, to whom you’re accountable to, is going to get bored, or turned off, or confused. Your fear is completely warranted. Just please keep it to yourself because we are drowning in our own fear and we cannot handle your fear as well.

And also to help us write towards something just re-contextualize these things. For instance, OK, this scene is too talky, please write it less talky. Write away from that. Not as helpful. But what you could say is, “These two characters have this great vibe in this scene where they say almost nothing, when they’re kind of just reading each other’s minds because it’s clear that their relationship works like that. They don’t need as many words as two other people might. And so they’re intimating things like for instance this point.

This scene here, how can we move this scene more toward that? Then the writer goes I know how to do that. It’s not even about buttering them up and saying, “Look, you did it really good here.” It’s not that. It’s just giving them something to write toward.

**John:** Absolutely. And you’re giving them characters to write towards. In all your conversations talk about characters and talk about the choices the characters are making. Talk about it in terms of these characters being living creatures within the universe of your movie or your TV show. And what they are literally doing. And so that way you let the focus of choice less on the writer and more on what the characters are doing.

**Craig:** Yep. Because characters are talking. Characters are boring. Characters are beautiful. Characters are interesting. Characters are illogical. What we weirdly don’t know how to work with effectively is discussion of the scene or the script, which seems odd. But the scene or the script is this other thing that is a function of characters. So, when we hear talk about scenes in scripts and stories we’re weirdly jarred out of the mindset, the writing mindset, where we solve problems. Because where we generally solve problems is in the realm of character. Well, OK, if this isn’t working how can I make it a better function of this character? Or how can I change this character to get more like something else?

If all you do – if literally all you do – is write the notes as you would normally write them and then say now let’s just funnel this through a filter of characterize it. Let’s just put all these notes now within the context of character notes, you’re already going to be literally 50% closer to getting what you want.

**John:** When you’re giving notes, give the notes that can lead to meaningful changes in the screenplay. So here’s an example of the most meaningful note I ever got on a screenplay. And so this was right here at Amblin. It was Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen. I was up in their office, they were in one of the bungalows. And it was the second draft of the script. And in the script I’d written Will tells a story of how his father died, but he tells it at the funeral rather than telling it to Edward Bloom while he was in the hospital bed. So their note was what would happen if you told that story to Edward rather than about Edward. And it was just – I did have that immediate like, “oh no, they want me to change something,” but then the light went on and I was like, “oh, that is just so much better.” That is a meaningful change. It is not a huge change, it’s not a huge amount of work for me to do, but it is a huge change in sort of how this all works. And it was just – it was a fantastic note. And it was a meaningful note that changed a lot of things in the script.

There were other small things which wouldn’t have been as impactful. So be thinking about what is the thing that opens up possibilities.

**Craig:** Quality. Not quantity. Here is another kind of note which you and I have seen. This is an actual page note that I received from an actual studio. “Let’s cut Elena saying please at the end of this scene.” Well that’s just stupid. And it’s stupid for so many reasons.

But the most – I guess the most prominent reason is anybody that has spent any time on set or in an editing room knows that of all the resources that are required to make motion pictures and television the amount that is expended to add one more word to the end of a scene is zero. You are already there. That’s dumb. And when we get notes like that it kind of starts to undermine our confidence.

It may be that you think I really don’t like that she says please there at the end. Fine. When it comes time for the editing room if people have still left it in you make that argument there. That’s a meaningful note in the editing room. But it is not a meaningful note when you’re writing the script.

**John:** Yeah. And there’s some meaningful notes that are meaningful on set but not in the script. So this is an example from me. “Page 71, Aladdin’s line at the middle of the page, ‘I want to show her I’m someone worth knowing,’ feels a bit too direct and declarative. Can we find a way to say this with more subtext?”

I get why they gave the note. They were trying to be specific and kind of creative and helpful, but it had no relation to the actual we made. There is not a single moment in Aladdin that is anywhere near this subtle or with this kind of subtext. I can guarantee you.

**Craig:** I mean, that’s already way more sub textual than the rest of it.

**John:** Oh yes. Oh yes. It’s a very declarative movie. And this was like an actor line reading. Honestly it was trying to get way too detailed on a moment that was not – we just weren’t at that place. And so trying to use really fine pens on something where like we’re still kind of at Sharpie level here. And that was the wrong note for the moment.

**Craig:** We understand, by the way, that in many ways the notes process is your last attempt to exert control over this material before other people come and kind of start doing things that you cannot control. And we know that that is terrifying. But just be aware that controlling the script is really a thin substitute for controlling the shooting of the script and the editing of the script and the performance of the script and the direction of the script. It’s not going to get you what you want.

So the real thing is how can you work together with the writer to build in those protections so that you do get what you want?

**John:** How do we set up the world of the movie where this note makes sense? That’s sort of the macro.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Do – present a unified set of notes. Try to give one set of notes to a writer rather than three conflicting sets of notes to a writer.

**Craig:** He said try.

**John:** Try.

**Craig:** Try.

**John:** And the converse is don’t pretend you’re giving one unified set of notes because that’s even more frustrating.

**Craig:** That’s the worst. Because sometimes you will get like the three groups of notes. They don’t overlap whatsoever so you are essentially paralyzed. By the way, paralyzed after reading three different documents explaining why essentially you’re stupid in different ways. So then you call up, say can you guys just agree on why I’m stupid. That would be fantastic. And then they send you an agreement of why you’re stupid and then they call you afterwards and say, “No, no, no, that’s not why you’re stupid. You’re stupid because of this, not because of that.”

And so it goes. Again, you’re trying to do your jobs. And we know that your jobs are difficult. We understand that there’s a lot going on back there. We don’t know what to do. We are – I mean, I will tell you this much: we’re naïve about how the situation works back here. And you want us naïve. You don’t want us thinking about that stuff. We just don’t get it. So if there are battles to be fought and battles to be won, fight them and win them, but do them before you get to us. Because it just stops us dead.

**John:** When you make a note stand by your note. If you truly have an opinion on material it shouldn’t change based on outside opinions or based on what worked last week at the box office. And so we’re going to believe your opinions if your opinions are consistent through time rather than they feel variable. Because if it feels like it’s a moving target it’s tempting for us to just kind of wait and see where the target is next.

**Craig:** It takes effort on our part to get past our pain to absorb the value of your reactions and your opinions, your honest thoughts and your honest opinions. Then we do. And we take them in and we become enmeshed with you and with your opinions. And then someone else comes along, like a director, or an actor, and they say, “Nah, what if we did this instead?” And you say, OK. And it’s all gone, like that, in an instant.

I’m not accusing any of you individually of doing this. But it has happened to me many, many times. And you start to think well then why am I ever listening to you about anything. If you’re not going to stand up for this, if you’re going to be so fastidious and insistent and specific with me, and then so flippant and casual once somebody else comes along, why bother?

**John:** Yeah. And I’ll say that sometimes it just naturally does happen that a director or some other powerful person has a note that directly conflicts with everything else you’ve been trying to do. In those moments acknowledge it to us privately. Otherwise it feels like we’re being gaslighted. That this was all – they never said that thing before. No, they did set it. This really is a change and this is why we’re making the change.

**Craig:** This is a really important point because I think sometimes it’s a natural instinct to think if I call up a writer and I say to them, “You know that thing that I was really on you about that I finally convinced you of that you believed in too that I just rolled over on completely?” If I call that writer up and admit that I’m going to look weak to them. I assure you it is the opposite. You only look weak to us when you pretend it didn’t happen. We know it happened. We know it happened. And we know why it happened. And if you call and say, “I fought as best I could but this is the deal, so I’m saying my powder for another bigger fight. And I apologize, but this is how it’s going.” We get it. And then we love you again.

**John:** Indeed. A do – do make it your goal to love the script. And that your notes are on a path towards loving it even more. The converse would be don’t attempt to win the who-can-complain-more game, which is a thing that happens. Sometimes it has happened in rooms where there’s multiple people all trying to fix a problem. Or sometimes it’s not a thing that I’ve written but it’s a project that I’m being brought in to rewrite and it just becomes this who can bitch most loudly about this thing that’s a problem.

**Craig:** Yeah. A little bit like those nature movies when the gazelle gets brought down and then all the hyenas come in and it’s just like fun at that point. It’s happened. The dam is broken. Let us tear this thing apart. Obviously if you’re doing it to a writer and she’s written something and everybody in the room is tearing it apart that’s incredibly traumatic. And it also begins to feel cruel.

The whole point is that we’re trying to improve something. If the point of the meeting is let’s all try and outdo each other to see who hates this more, why are you having the meeting? Just fire her and move on. You know?

But if you are going to have that meeting then you have to sort of get back to first principles. Why we loved you. Why we hired you. What we hope for you. And it may be that she can’t get there. But she’s definitely not going to get there if the tenor is a kind of one-upmanship of critique. Somebody among you must be the advocate in one way or the other.

**John:** Do ask writers how they like to receive notes. And so what is most helpful for the writer. And so you may have a process that’s your normal process and maybe that’s going to work great, but ask them first. And if there’s a way that you can actually communicate with them better try doing it their way.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, some of us like conversations. My preferred mode is a conversation. I don’t actually read the printed out notes. Just totally admitting it. I don’t read them. It took me a while also to realize that they’re not real. That they are a representation of a lot of – like some sort of power-brokered consensus among a lot of people. And that eventually you get to these notes and you’re like well this is a weird one. And then someone goes, “Yeah, none of us really agreed with that, but X wanted it, so it goes in.”

And the reading of it just for my brain when I just flip through and it just becomes like mush and it doesn’t work. But if I have a conversation, if I can see your eyes, and I can feel your emotional response, because those things are so dry. They’re so dry. Then I feel like I’m getting somewhere and I can have that conversation and you’ll actually get way further with me just talking than handing me the document.

But other people do not get – like the face-to-face thing tears them apart and they run into the bathroom and throw up and they really do need that document to kind of ease them into the process.

**John:** And also because we’re writers we will dwell on a specific word choice far too much. And so “it feels gloomy,” I’m like gloomy? Gloomy? What does he mean by gloomy? Foggy London gloomy? And so I end up getting on the phone and I’m like what do you mean by gloomy? And he’s like, “Well it feels like serious.” And I’m like, oh, serious, OK, serious. That’s not gloomy. It’s like you went through your thesaurus and found gloomy because you didn’t want to say serious, but–

**Craig:** Yeah. You’re bad at wordsing.

**John:** Yeah. You are bad at wordsing. So, that’s why actually conversation is so much more helpful usually than a document.

Finally, do reread your last set of notes before you get the next set of notes before you give the next set of notes because we will and we’ll remember and it’s not a good sign. But at the same time don’t feel like you have to defend your old notes with the new ones. If they’re bad ideas don’t feel like you have to defend them. You can move forward. Just make sure you’re moving forward in a consistent direction.

**Craig:** You’re allowed to be inconsistent. You’re allowed to change your mind. Just don’t pretend that you’re not. That’s the most important thing. It’s the gaslighting factor that makes us feel like we’re going insane. Just say it. I changed my mind. I change my mind all the time. I change my mind while I’m writing. I’ll do an outline and then I’ll do the script and some things are going to change because I changed my mind. It’s totally fine.

But if I was like, “No, that’s what I said I was always going to do.” What? It’s insane.

And, you know, that will kind of get you out of a lot of problems, too. It’s also OK to admit that you made a mistake in notes. Very frequently what will happen is because we know the script better than you do just because we wrote it – that’s not a knock on you – it will say, “On page 86 she says this, but she couldn’t have known that because she never ran into so-and-so.” Yes, she did, on page 5. You just missed it.

“Oh, OK. You know what? My bad.” I’ve been in meetings where they’ve been like, “Yeah, but not really.” And I’m like we’re going to change the movie because you skimmed? Nah. That’s bad policy. Yeah.

**John:** Let’s imagine some perfect notes. So if we could ever see some perfect notes in the world they might describe a movie that you want to green light, not a draft you want to read. And that’s really helpful for you talking in general about notes, it’s like always talk about the movie, don’t talk about the script. The script is a way to get to a movie, but don’t get so focused on this 12-point Courier. It’s always talking about the vision you have for a movie that’s going to be in a theater.

**Craig:** Yeah. I refer to it as the document. And I know that it’s tempting in those meetings to talk about the script, the script, the script, but in every other meeting you have you will talk about the movie. In casting, in pre-production, in budget, in hiring directors, in lighting, locations, movie, movie, movie, movie, movie. You sit in the room with the writer, document. The writer will go along with that completely. The writer will follow you right down that document hole and perfect a document. That’s not what you want the writer to be doing.

What you want the writer to be doing is to helping you perfect a movie, the theory of a movie, the imagination of a movie.

**John:** Perfect notes celebrate what’s working and not just what works in the first paragraph of notes.

**Craig:** Congratulations.

**John:** Yes, congratulations–

**Craig:** On a terrific first draft.

**John:** There’s so much stuff we love here.

**Craig:** However, we have a few remaining concerns.

**John:** Yes. I have to tell you, you know, 20 years at this and very rarely do I get notes that midway through will say like, “This is a fantastic moment. We’re so happy with this scene.” And they may feel that. There’s moments that they’ll independently say it, but they don’t ever acknowledge it in a notes session about how much they love a moment. Telling us what you love about a thing is so helpful because it lets us steer the ship towards something. And lets us know that we’re not crazy. We actually were able to do something good here.

**Craig:** This may be the biggest piece of advice for you guys. Because it does two things at once. Obviously we are desperately craving love and attention that we didn’t get from our parents. And so you can help provide that. In a very real way in the psychological phenomenon of transference you become our parents in this process and we are desperate for your approval, no matter age we are. No matter what level we are.

So, dropping those things in the middle makes us feel good. But John is absolutely correct when he says us knowing what you love is just as useful to us from a writing towards point of view as us knowing what you aren’t responding to because now we get like, OK, there is an aesthetic that we are forming together as part of our relationship. We had an opinion, you had an opinion, we’re finding points of commonality. And from there we make more points of commonality. And the notes process somewhere along the line just became a Negative Nelly list. Which is fine. We’re not running away from Negative Nelly. But we need to know Positive Patty because if we don’t all you really are doing again is writing away from something.

**John:** Finally, perfect notes inspire the writer to explore and create. The times in my career when I’ve had just great notes I’m excited to get back to that next draft because I’m seeing all the new things I can do. I don’t have the answers to things, because the notes didn’t provide answers. They provided really good questions that made me want to explore new things. And they got me past some of my hang-ups. They got me to realize like oh you know what if I did cut all of that then I’d have this space to do all this other stuff. They got me excited to build new things. And that’s what notes should ultimately do is it’s a plan for what is possible to create going forward.

**Craig:** There’s a phrase in family therapy, “Do you want a relationship or do you want to be right?” And that’s kind of how it works with this. You want a relationship. And you can be right, but through the lens of the relationship. If your goal at the end of a notes meeting is to make sure the writer has heard every single thing that you want to change, shape, control, move around, or alter, you haven’t done it right.

Your goal at the end of that notes meeting should be that the writer is excited to get back to the computer to make this new thing better. And that takes effort. And it also means you’re going to have to kind of sublimate some of your needs and your desires, too. But just keep in mind in the emotional tally sheet we’re taking it much harder than you are. Even though you’re the guys that paid all the money. We’re still emotionally taking it harder than you.

**John:** So this is not meant to be just a lecture. It’s meant to be a discussion and a conversation.

**Craig:** I wanted a lecture.

**John:** Yeah, he wanted a lecture.

**Craig:** I’m all about the lecture.

**John:** So now we’d love to talk with you guys about sort of about your response, questions you have, push back on anything you want to push back on. Who would like to ask a question or raise a hand? A silent group.

**Craig:** We also may have just been perfect.

**John:** Yeah, it’s entirely possible.

**Craig:** Oh, no, not perfect.

**Male Voice:** What do you find the note that comes up again and again most frequently in a general sense that you guys either don’t like or you don’t know what to do with? And I know that you’ve given some examples here, but something more specific that, you know, the scene isn’t working, or yeah. Go head.

**Craig:** The, and I think we’ve said this on the show before, the note I hate the most, the note I respect the least, and the note I think should be stricken from everyone’s development vocabulary is “this character isn’t likeable enough.” Good. Those are the good ones. Every movie I’ve ever loved was full of unlikeable characters. We are here – are we allowed to say where we’re doing this? We’re recording this at Amblin, the home of Steven Spielberg. Go watch Jaws and find me the likeable character. It’s wonderful.

So, it just has to go. And I know that it comes from places. Marketing has wormed their way into things and so on and so forth. But just fight back. Fight back as hard as you can. And if you can’t, if you lose that battle, then preface that note by saying, “I am so sorry to say this and I don’t believe it myself, but I am forced to say this. This character isn’t ‘likeable’ enough.”

And it’s particularly bad when it’s about a female character. I find that at that point we’re starting to drift into the whole like trope, you know, she’s got to be, you know. That one.

**John:** My biggest one is probably “faster.” Basically like can we get to this moment faster and basically like can you not do all the stuff that you’re doing to set up the world. And somehow have everything already be set up so we can get to this moment faster. And I think so often because we are rereading scripts and rereading scripts again we know what’s going to happen, and so therefore we’re always anticipating the thing happening and we forget that for an audience watching it they have none of that information. And so they are coming into it at a speed and they have to get that information.

So, I would say that we are constantly in push to get to those moments faster and faster and faster in ways that are not helpful usually for the story.

**Craig:** Yeah. The classic one is the first act is too long. And this ending is a bit abrupt. And I’m always like the first act should be longer and the third act should be shorter. I love first acts in movies. It’s when the people are meeting and I’m discovering them and this world is being built. And when I get to the climax I just want them to blow stuff up as fast as they can and get me back to the relationship because I know like, ugh, [croaking noise]. So yeah, rushing the first act in particular, I think try and fight that one as best you can. Because it does translate into movies where you end up reshooting because people don’t connect with the characters.

**John:** Funny how that works. Yeah. Moments you cut out. Other questions.

**Female Voice:** When someone gives you a note of like this is the bad pitch.

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Female Voice:** Is that a more or less preferable note in general, and also do you prefer having more specific direction or the response and then you guys decide?

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** Great questions. So I would say the bad pitch or the bad version, so the bad version is this, I can hear that and understand why it’s being said that way, which is basically don’t do this thing that I’m telling you to do because I know how incredibly cloying it is or how it is just clunky. But the effect that I’m hoping we could get to is this, so that I can take that really well. Some people will bristle more at it, but I’m actually fine with the bad version.

It’s kind of like giving an actor a line reading. You’ve got to be a little bit mindful of that. In terms of specifics, specifics help if they are giving – if it’s specific to what your response was. But if it’s trying to provide a solution then we’re going to be like then why do you need us in a certain way. So it’s trying to be really clear on sort of why you are feeling this way, you’re feeling it as you’re reading it, but not sort of like therefore this must happen.

**Craig:** Yeah. I think that that’s exactly right. It’s a little bit writer dependent. I mean, the only thing I’ll caution about the bad version is it’s the bad version for a reason. And so John’s right. You’re trying to get at kind of an effect, but just make sure that you’re policing yourself that the effect that you’re not going for is also just bad. In other words, sometimes it’s like, god, that would really solve this here and also make it boring and same-y. Right?

And for suggestions, I find that if someone says, “Here’s a solve, and take it or leave it if you want, but maybe in my proposed solve you find some interesting thing to take off and blah, blah, blah,” that’s great. If it sort of comes down as, “Here’s what I want you to do. Do this and this and this.” Then you begin to just lose your will to live.

**John:** You feel like a typist rather than a writer and that’s frustrating.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** More questions?

**Craig:** Yes, come on down.

**Male Voice:** Honestly, I kind of want to dive in more to the likeable character question, because I think I gave that note yesterday maybe.

**Craig:** Of course you did.

**Male Voice:** And it’s not that I want a perfect Disney princess as the protagonist, but I usually will be feeling that when I’m not connecting to the character. I’m not engaged in their journey.

**Craig:** Correct.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** That’s exactly right. And so there is a mistake that happens in our brains when we are not connecting with a character and that character has qualities that are difficult or confrontational or testing we associate it with that. But those aren’t the problems. I love a great villain. I feel deeply connected to great villains. Like I watched The Little Mermaid again the other day and Ursula is the greatest.

**John:** Fantastic.

**Craig:** She’s not likeable. I mean, she’s a bad octopus lady.

**John:** You understand exactly why she’s doing what she’s doing.

**Craig:** Correct. And so the issue is how do you find a way to make that person’s unlikableness relatable. Relatable is not likeable. Relatable means that I understand it. You know, a lot of Melissa McCarthy characters work this way. And we just talked about this with Mari Heller. She was on the show talking about How Can I Ever Forgive You. Is there an Ever in there? No. How Can I Forgive You? Can I–

**John:** Can You Ever Forgive Me?

**Craig:** Can You Ever Forgive Me? Will she ever forgive me? And the entire process was managing someone who is not likeable. And about finding moments where you can relate to the not likeableness because all of us go through our lives having moments. I mean, unless one of you is just a saint everybody has moments. And so you don’t want to push things into likeable. You want to push things towards relatable, meaning make me understand and sympathize with the conditions that make her or him unlikeable.

**John:** Yeah. Mari Heller was also talking about Diary of a Teenage Girl and how important it was for that character to have a voiceover at the very start, or not even a voiceover, where you’re picturing the world through her eyes so you can see how she perceives herself before she tells you that she’s having an affair with her mother’s boyfriend. So, you know, that is an unlikeable character thing to do is to have that relationship, but we loved her before we sort of knew that thing that was happening. And so it sounds like what you’re describing in this note that you said unlikeable is that you were having a hard time connecting with the character to see the movie through that character’s eyes and to really want to sign up for the journey with that character.

And so Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day is very unlikeable.

**Craig:** The worst.

**John:** But also funny.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And because he’s funny you’re willing to go on this journey with him and sort of see him grow and change. So, phrasing things as not being able to click into them is I think going to be much more helpful to than saying unlikeable because then a writer is going to be like, “Well, can I just spackle something on them? Can I just spray a little likeability perfume on them so that they’ll pass the test?”

**Craig:** Or sand off the edges. Unsharpen the pencil.

**John:** Exactly.

**Craig:** And then everything just gets sort of generic and soft. And we just lost interest.

**John:** Or you give them a puppy to make them likeable.

**Craig:** Give them a puppy.

**John:** Give them a puppy. Other questions or things you want to push on?

**Craig:** You can tell us we’re wrong. We’re OK with that. You can give us notes.

Yeah, so the question is what do you do when you’re developing a comedy and people, meaning the producers, the executives, don’t like the jokes versus the story. So that comes down to sense of humor. And there is no note. The note is we don’t think you’re funny. The note is you’re fired, I’m pretty sure.

Now, there is obviously a lot that goes into a comedy, but I’ve always felt from the work that I’ve done that if the plot and characters aren’t connected inextricably with the sense of humor and the comedy and the jokes and the set pieces then just something is wrong. I don’t know if you can properly write a comedy using somebody over here dumping character and plot sauce on it and someone over here doing the jokes.

I mean, I’m sure you guys have been in a lot of those roundtables where we do like the punch-up. And everyone just laughs for six hours and maybe get one usable joke out of there because none of it is connected to anything. It’s just floating on top. Like that goop on top of soup. So, I think in that case the note is you’re fired. I just feel so bad about saying that, but I mean why torment somebody. They’re not going to become funny the way you want them to be. I don’t think that’s how it works.

**John:** No. The other thing to remember about comedy is that if you’re reading the same script ten times, 15 times, it’s going to stop being funny. And nothing changed about the jokes, it’s just that it’s not fresh to you anymore. And comedy is about surprise and unexpected twists and characters doing things you couldn’t expect. And once you expect them it’s not funny anymore.

I’ve been to so many test screenings where suddenly the audience is laughing, they’re like, oh that’s right that was a joke. I completely didn’t remember that that was a funny thing, but that’s a joke apparently. And that absolutely happens.

One of the most edifying experiences for me was I did the Broadway version of Big Fish and I’d have to swap out jokes from one run to the next run to the next run. And you’d just see like what gets a laugh and what doesn’t get a laugh. And you just don’t know until you try it. And that’s the hardest thing about comedy. You won’t know if that script just in 12-point Courier is funny until you get it on its feet and sort of see it with people. That’s why if you can get a reading together that’ll help.

**Craig:** I will say for comedy features that generally speaking the people that write them are technicians. And so they’re way more concerned about getting laughs than you guys are. Way more concerned. I mean, every first screening of a comedy I’ve ever done I’ve gone with a Xanax in my pocket, right here, and I’ve had to take it a couple of times because when you’re not getting laughs it’s the worst feeling in the world. So, partly I would say if they have a track record trust the track record. If they’ve made people laugh in a dark room before, they’re going to make people laugh again.

You may not necessarily see the connection from the page to the room but they’re working it and they know what they’re doing in theory. So, some of it is an act of faith. Which is scary.

**John:** So the question is what are the best practices for when a writer is brought on to rewrite a different project. How can you set them up for success as an executive? So what I always tell writers who are being brought on to a project is if at all possible talk to the previous writer. And that way you can sort of know where the bodies are buried. What things were tried that didn’t work? It’s a cleaner handoff. It won’t always be possible. Sometimes it’s not a happy situation and it’s just not going to be realistic.

But for you as an executive who is like bringing in a new writer to the project I think having a discussion about some of the things that have happened before, but most importantly is where you see this headed and sort of what the overall goal is and what the intention is. Again, talking about what the movie is going to be rather than what the script is right now. And the times that I’ve come on to rewrite projects where it’s gone well I could take a look at the script and say like I can see what the intentions are here. I can also see where there was a bunch of just crud that built up over time. A lot of my job is just to scrape away the crud and get you back to what the clean movie of it is and make it all read better so you can see like, oh wait, we had a really good movie here and I couldn’t see it anymore because so much stuff had been built on top of it.

**Craig:** Yeah. When a movie works it all seems just intentional, like it just fell out of a camera in one big chunk. And there it is and it’s done. And sometimes when you arrive as a rewriter what you’re looking at is a script that’s more like, you know, the way the city looks in Blade Runner. It’s like a city built on top of a city with a thing that’s sticking out this way. And it doesn’t look intentional at all. Nor will it ever look intentional. And it has to be kind of torn down.

One thing that helps me when I come in is an understanding that the people involved are aware that they’ve gone wrong. I mean, unless it’s one draft – unless it’s one and done, and even in that case there has to be some shared culpability for kind of it just didn’t work. We’ve made mistakes. We as a group have made mistakes. There is no shame in that. And being able to say, “You know what? We think our mistake is this, but what do you think our mistake is? And we definitely shouldn’t have done this, and what do you think we should do?” That’s all fine and good.

But the dangerous thing is when you come in, the jobs that I will routinely turn down are ones where people say, “It’s just two weeks. We just need two weeks.” And I go you do not. You need all of this – there’s no way to – “Oh, we just have to fix the first act. That’s it.” What? Oh, we’re going to change the first act and everything – all we have to do with this house is fix the foundation. That’s all we’ve got to do. That’s all we’ve got to do. The rest of it will stay just fine. We’re just going to undermine everything and it will magically float and then we’ll put…

No. And so owning it a little bit I think and just being honest about the work that’s going to be required and thinking about your rewriter as a craftsperson. You know, like if a plumber says to me, “Look, I could do this, but you don’t want me to do this,” then I go, you’re right, I don’t. Don’t do the thing that you don’t think I should do. Let us be plumbers. If we say, “You need to do this the right way,” and then you go, “OK, do it the right way.”

**John:** Sir?

**Craig:** OK, so the question is how do you breakup with someone? It’s coming to an end. You can’t continue working with the writer. You would love to. That was your intention. But it has to end. What’s the sort of best way to end it and still stay in a relationship and maybe something in the future will happen?

**John:** The best example I can give you is Dick Zanuck. So Dick Zanuck produced a zillion things but the first time I met him was on Big Fish. And I remember he called me on Dark Shadows. And he called to say, “John, I’m so sorry to tell you but Tim and Johnny decided to bring on a different writer to do this next pass. These are the things that they said they want me to do. I talked with them about it, but I wanted to make sure you heard it from me before you heard it from anybody else.”

And he was so awesome and such a gentleman. I was upset and he let me be upset and angry, but I wasn’t upset and angry with him. I was upset and angry with the situation and sort of the stuff that was going on. But I would have willingly worked on another movie with him tomorrow because he was so straightforward with me about what was going on.

What kills you is when you’re just ghosted. Or when you find out from somebody else. When Craig texts me and says like, “I can’t believe they hired this writer.” I’m like, oh, on that thing that I thought I was still on. That’s–

**Craig:** I didn’t know that that was happening. I swear to god. I thought you knew.

**John:** Yeah, I know. And I didn’t know. And like that is what kills you when you find out, you’re like I assumed this was my movie and it’s no longer my movie. That is what sort of really kills you. And so just as soon as you can and being really clear that you value them and the work that they’ve done. And that you would like to work with them again. I think that’s the message you want to–

**Craig:** The spirit in which you ask the question is your answer. You feel something for this person. You have a natural empathy for them. Let them know. It’s OK. I mean, this is business. Things happen. Things are going to happen to us. Things are going to happen to you guys. But let them how you feel. And let them know that you tried your best and they tried their best and if it’s your decision let them know why and how it’s sad for you, too, but it’s what needs to happen.

It is always I think about intention. And if we feel seen and heard and treated like a human being. Of course, there’s no way to make us not feel sad if we want to stay, but at the very least we know that the relationship that we had with you it was legitimate. Because you’re feeling something, too. That’s why I would come back because I know, OK, if you’re all puppy dogs and sunshine and then one day it’s like ghosted, bye, or oh, sorry yeah, we’re moving on, OK, well why would I ever go back to you? The puppies are not real. That sunshine is a lie.

So, just, yeah, and that requires you guys to be vulnerable. And I’m sure somewhere there is a kind of like executive and producer school where they’re telling you don’t be vulnerable and don’t show any of this stuff and don’t get embedded with these people. And stay like tough. And all I can tell you is it’s not going to work well with us. You won’t get better work out of us that way.

It requires you to feel. I mean, my favorite development person in any capacity is Lindsay Doran. And Lindsay Doran feels more for my work than I do. The hardest arguments I’ve had with Lindsay are about things that I wanted to cut. I’ve literally had a discussion with her where she read it and she said, “Well, you cut that one line and now I just don’t care about the characters anymore.” I’m like that’s not possible! It was a line.

But she is so emotionally invested and, you know, we have a movie together that’s set up here and we had a director on it that we loved and then the studio just wanted to go a different way. And we had to say goodbye to somebody. And we both felt a lot. And we shared that with that person. And I would like to think that that mattered. It may have not made things better at that moment, but it means that we showed what is true which is that our relationship with this person was real.

So, do that. And you will be rewarded with repeat business.

**John:** Cool. Last question.

**Craig:** Oh, she’s reading a question. Oh, this is a great question. Boy did you just stand in front of a target and ask us to wheel a cannon in front of you. So the question is what should be achieved in a producer’s pass. And the answer John is?

**John:** Ah! I mean, we should just stop on the term “producer’s pass.” Producer’s pass does not exist. You won’t find it in any contract. You won’t find it written down anywhere. Here’s the reality from a writer’s perspective is that we think we’re done. We hand it into producers. I think I’m done. And they’re like, great, there’s just a little fix up. And it’s like, OK. And so we do this little bit and it’s like, oh a little bit more, a little bit more. And then we find out they actually did turn it into the studio and we’re actually getting the studio development executive’s notes back. And so it’s a whole extra pass before we’ve turned it in.

I get this at my level, but when I talk to newer screenwriters it’s endless drafts for them to actually get a thing in. And producer’s passes are a useful way of pretending that it’s not a real thing but it is a real thing. So here’s what I’ll say is that if a writer is choosing to give it to this producer for a weekend or whatever for sort of last looks/clean some stuff up, that’s fantastic. But it can’t be about profound changes to the script. It can’t be a week’s worth of work or two weeks’ worth of work. That’s just crazy.

**Craig:** Yeah. There is no producer’s pass. And producers have gotten away with murder. They really have. Congrats. Good job.

**John:** I will say some sympathy for producers. I think they have a really tough job right now too because they are scrambling to get movies made in a tough environment. They have tremendous expectations on them. Writers are often dealing with one-step deals which is a problem.

**Craig:** No question.

**John:** I don’t want to slam producers for trying to get too much free labor out of us, even though I sort of am slamming them for getting too much free labor.

**Craig:** Well, but it’s logical. I mean, look, the economics of producing are such that you don’t really get paid unless the movie gets made. Development isn’t a job. Getting movies made is a job if you’re a producer. That’s where all the money is. And everybody deserves to make a living. And then on top of that the studios have taken away two-step deals. They give you one step. You now have one shot with this person that you argued for to make it work. And if you don’t maybe this whole thing dies. So of course you want a thousand drafts for that one draft.

The problem is that’s not fair to the writers. What we should be saying to our partners at the studios is make two-step deals. If you want a producer’s pass how about we all get the pass together? It’s called the second draft. There used to be a thing called the second draft. It’s less important honestly for me or for John than it is for new writers. I really strongly urge you guys if you know a writer is getting paid less than twice scale, which is lot of writers, give them two steps.

It removes this panic. And then you’re able to get the draft. If you want to do your three days of twinklies, do your three days of twinklies. And then turn it in and then everybody can talk about it. And everybody can have the conversation. And then they write a second draft.

But if that’s not there what ends up happening is people do get abused. So, that’s my big thing there. For me, when it comes time to – and look, we’re going to have this experience. You and I are about to have this experience. I’m going to hand over a script to Samantha. You know, if you need a couple days here or there, no problem. A couple days, here or there.

**John:** But let’s say you need more than a couple days. Let’s say you have a writer who is making scale or twice scale, but not a lot of money. And you do need more than just a couple days. It’s gone into the studio and they’re like, there’s just this little thing before it gets up to our top boss before we can actually get it – we just need a little bit more work.

There’s already a provision in there for a little bit more work. Everyone has a weekly. And there’s a scale weekly which is not expensive. Pay that writer for the one week or the two weeks of work it takes to get that next thing in between their real steps.

**Craig:** Pay them an optional polish if you want.

**John:** Move stuff out of order, but it’s when you hold somebody on with the promise like maybe they’ll get to that second draft that’s where it becomes exploitive.

**Craig:** And the say like, “Look, if you don’t do this then you’re going to get fired and the movie is not going to get made.” And it just becomes this kind of thing of, well, if what you’re telling me is I’m going to get fired unless I work for free, yeah, I’m fired. That’s what fired is.

**John:** You’re taking a person who is making scale and making them the villain in the situation, which isn’t good. Them not doing that free thing is–

**Craig:** We just got all Che Guevara on them. I love it. That’s great.

**John:** Sorry.

**Craig:** But it’s true. It really is true. And I will also say that for – if you can – if you’re working with a writer and they agree early on, before deals are made or anything, if they agree early on to write a treatment, some writers don’t write them. I don’t think you’re a big treatment guy. You know I’m a huge treatment – I love a treatment. I’ll write a 60-page treatment. I’ll write the hell out of that thing. You’ll know what the movie is before I ever write in Fade In or Final Draft.

If that happens, then your producer’s pass is baked in because you’ve had a chance to discuss and go through that. And I like to do that specifically so that when I’m done with the draft I’m done. There it is. Now you know what the weekend is going to be like. But you’re going to like it. It’s good. It’s good.

**John:** Thank you guys very much.

**Craig:** Thank you guys.

**John:** And thank you for putting this together.

**Craig:** Thank you guys so much. Thank you guys.

**John:** And that’s our show. Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao. It was edited by Matthew Chilelli. Special thanks to Ben Simpson and Samantha Nisenboim for putting this session together and for the folks at Amblin for hosting us.

Our outro this week is by Mackey Landry. If you have an outro you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com.

That’s also the place where you can send longer questions. For short questions on Twitter Craig is @clmazin. I am @johnaugust.

You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find transcripts. We try to get them up about four days after the episode airs.

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If you’re doing either of those things you may want to check out the Scriptnotes Listener’s Guide at johnaugust.com/guide to find out which episodes our listeners recommend most. Thanks. We’ll see you next week.

Links:

* Episode 99, [Psychotheraphy for Screenwriters](https://johnaugust.com/2013/psychotherapy-for-screenwriters)
* Episode 394, [Broken but Sympathetic](https://johnaugust.com/2019/broken-but-sympathetic) with Mari Heller
* Now accepting recommendations for updating the [Listener’s Guide](johnaugust.com/guide)
* Submit to the Pitch Session [here](https://johnaugust.com/pitch)
* Watch Chernobyl May 6th and listen to [The Chernobyl Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-chernobyl-podcast/id1459712981) with Craig and Peter Sagal
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
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John August: Hey this is John. Today’s episode has some strong language – barely strong language, but if you’re in the car with your kids this is that warning.

Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

Craig Mazin: Hey baseball fans, my name is Craig Mazin.

John: And this is Episode 394 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Today on the podcast we’ll be talking about how to create a hero the audience is rooting for even while establishing that character must change. Then we’ll be answering listener questions about conflicting notes, meet and greets, and true life stories. To help us sort through all of this we welcome back Mari Heller. She joined us all the way back in Episode 212 when she had just written and directed Diary of a Teenage Girl.

Since then she has directed the Oscar-nominated Can You Ever Forgive Me? and the upcoming Mr. Rogers feature starring Tom Hanks. Welcome back Marielle Heller.

Marielle Heller: Yay. Thank you. Back to my favorite podcast.

Craig: Back to your favorite, the one and only, the greatest.

Marielle: But unlike you I listen to podcasts, so it actually means something that I said that.

Craig: It actually does mean something. I know that you listen to this and it actually makes me feel very warm and fuzzy. And it’s been so much fun to have you be part of our little podcast family because we get to watch you do these incredible things. And now they’re like throwing Oscar nominations around and people are winning Oscars. I mean, you won a guy an Oscar. That’s how I like to think of it.

Marielle: I don’t think we won any though.

Craig: Richard Grant didn’t win an Oscar?

Marielle: No. He did win an Indie Spirit.

Craig: He won an Indie Spirit!

John: That is an Oscar.

Marielle: And they got nominated for BAFTAs, Oscars, Indie Spirits, I mean, everything. Yeah.

Craig: I don’t watch the Oscars.

Marielle: Do you really not? That’s kind of great.

John: We were playing D&D during the Oscars.

Marielle: Good for you.

Craig: I don’t really understand anything about awards, but I did know that a lot of people got nominated, obviously our beloved Melissa McCarthy.

Marielle: And Melissa, I know.

Craig: The greatest.

John: We’ve all made movies with Melissa McCarthy.

Marielle: That’s so weird. Maybe we should change the title of this episode to be something about Melissa McCarthy.

Craig: We love you Melissa McCarthy.

Marielle: One degree of Melissa McCarthy.

John: Something about Melissa McCarthy is now the title of this episode.

Marielle: Great.

Craig: There’s something about Melissa McCarthy. Well, anyway, it’s just been amazing to watch how you’ve kind of grown. And now you’re making movies with Tom Hanks.

Marielle: Crazy.

John: And you often direct commercials. That’s good.

Marielle: I do sometimes. Yeah. I know.

Craig: No, you’re big time. Basically what we’re saying is you’re big time.

Marielle: How did that happen? I don’t know. I guess. It doesn’t feel like it though, right.

John: Here’s how I think it happened.

Craig: You never know, right? Because actually you are not big time. The world perceives you as big time. But you’re still a seven-year-old girl.

Marielle: Exactly. It doesn’t make any sense in your own brain when that’s happening.

Craig: Never. Yeah.

Marielle: I’ll always feel like an outcast. It’s just part of–

Craig: You are.

Marielle: Part of my DNA. I’ll never feel like I am part of Hollywood in any way.

John: Then you’re truly a writer-director.

Marielle: Exactly. [laughs]

Craig: Well it’s so good to have her back.

John: Before we get started on your topic, which you actually suggested this topic which is a great topic, there’s a little bit of news to get through. So by the time you’re hearing this we’ll already know the results of the vote on the code of conduct.

Craig: Ooh, can I throw out a prediction?

John: Throw out your prediction.

Craig: It’s going to pass.

John: Yes.

Craig: I’m going to say it is going to be a 93% yes.

John: All right. So the people who are listening to this podcast will know whether you’re correct or not. I have no idea what the percentage is going to be.

Marielle: I voted on the plane yesterday.

John: Congratulations. Thank you for doing that.

Craig: Thank you for voting. That’s the most important thing. Please, oh, I would exhort people to vote. But that’s in the past.

John: It’s already in the past.

Craig: Oh my god.

John: So, what happens this week as you’re listening to this, well, we are negotiating and we’re going to try to reach a settlement. But what happens the week after that is really an open question. But it’s something we’ll talk about on the show if we get to that point.

Craig: I’m sure we will.

Marielle: You guys are so helpful the way you talk about it on the show though. I think a lot of us look to the show to help us understand some of these issues, especially when our lives are so busy and it’s hard to follow everything.

Craig: That’s good to hear. And, you know, you tweeted the link to the WGA, but it may be the first WGA video that I’ve ever thought was well done. Literally the first. I have to presume you had something to do with it.

John: I had nothing to do with that video whatsoever.

Craig: I don’t believe you.

John: It’s a fantastic video. There’s a video about conflict of interest. We’ll put that in the show notes so you can see it.

Craig: It works. It reminded me of those videos that explain why vaccinations are important.

John: Yeah.

Craig: Yeah.

John: Helpful. I was at a couple of the big WGA meetings this past week and in one of the meetings a young writer stood up and asked a question. And the point of it was really how much is she allowed to do by herself, like without an agent. And I just wanted to talk about that for a second because I don’t we’ve necessarily talked about the entrepreneurial aspect of your career. You know, obviously at the very start before you have an agent that becomes important, but it doesn’t stop. And so what I urged her to do is to – basic things like write down the names of everyone you’re meeting with, all the people you’re going to talk to. You can call those people directly. You can email those people directly. You don’t have to do everything through your agent.

Craig, what other advice would you have for writers thinking about themselves entrepreneurially especially if they find themselves without an agent in the next few weeks?

Craig: Well the first thing to recognize is that there’s absolutely nothing that an agent is allowed to do that you’re not allowed to do. There’s no legal thing there. It’s the other way around. Agents are limited in what they can do. But on your own behalf you can do whatever you want.

Ideally, if you have an agent you almost certainly have an attorney. At a minimum. If you have a manager then that’s a different sort of thing and they will keep doing what they do. But if you don’t, don’t necessarily feel the need to run out and get one. If you have an attorney who can at least say, all right, I can kind of field or at least handle the negotiation part of things so you don’t have to worry about that. And just sit down right now, make a list of all the people that you would wish your agent would contact and lobby on your behalf. And if something should come to pass where you don’t have that agent, I would agree that you will probably be better served by yourself in that regard than the agent will serve you, partly because of the very problem that we are tackling right now.

John: Yeah. Mari, how much are informal networks helpful to you? As you’re putting together a movie, obviously you’re dealing with agents, you’re dealing with managers and stuff, but how much is it you reaching out to folks?

Marielle: Huge. Hugely. I mean, Alexander Skarsgård was in my first movie because I actually – I had been trying to get him the script through the normal channels. I had been getting nowhere, because nobody wants to give their client a script for a movie that has no money. And then I saw in an US Weekly that he was friends with Jack McBrayer who I am friends with. And I called Jack and said I’ve been trying to get this script to Alex, can you help me get it to him. And the next day I got a call from Alex.

Like it all happened because of, you know, little circles and connections. And it continues to be like that. Always. I mean, it helps to be able to get to people through their agents as well. But often I find myself trying to go rogue.

Craig: Yeah. Well because the agency method is an institutionalized thing. They represent a thousand people. They have to handle outcomes in that context. So they call, they get an official no, it is over. The no has been received. Moving on.

But we don’t do that for ourselves. We’re like, OK, who said no. Why did they say no? Let me go around that person.

Marielle: And the number of times I’ve talked to actors and I’ve said did you ever get that script and they say, oh no.

Craig: By the way, I don’t get theirs.

Marielle: I don’t either. As a director I don’t either.

Craig: They’ll say to me, oh you know, we were hoping that you write this thing but we heard you were busy. What thing? What?

John: Ha.

Marielle: Me too.

Craig: And then when I hear about it I’m like oh yeah, no, I was busy. [laughs]

Marielle: Yeah. My agents were protecting me.

Craig: Pretty much.

John: I was reminded about all of this this last week because we were gathering names, we gathered like 770 names of showrunners and high profile screenwriters, Marielle Heller.

Marielle: And Jorma Taccone both signed.

John: And Craig Mazin.

Craig: The Jorma.

John: And as we were doing that it was interesting because we couldn’t go to agents to say like, hey, we’re trying to get to this person. We had to figure it out ourselves. And so you recognize like, oh, the informal networks you have are really important. And so we’re emailing like who has Aaron Sorkin’s email address? Who knows Aaron Sorkin? And you eventually find the person who knows Aaron Sorkin and Aaron Sorkin signs the list.

Marielle: I got an email from Jorma from you, but he passed it on to me saying we should all sign this thing. It was just going around.

Craig: It’s just going around like a bad penny.

John: Yep.

Craig: Keeps turning up. But a lot of people did sign it. A lot of people are going to vote yes.

Marielle: Do you want to tell Aaron Sorkin’s email address on the air right now? Sure.

John: What if it was aaron.sorkin@gmail.com? Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Craig: It probably is.

Marielle: It probably is.

Craig: I think you might have just done it. It’s actually probably like Imamazing@hotmail.com.

Marielle: Also, you know, all the Gmail addresses it doesn’t matter if there’s a dot or a dash, it’s all the same. So it’s aaron.sorkin or aaron-sorkin. Oh, you didn’t know that?

Craig: What?

John: In Gmail addresses the periods don’t matter at all.

Craig: My mind is blown.

Marielle: The periods don’t matter. Yeah.

Craig: They just strip them out.

Marielle: Which is so smart.

Craig: It is. Because then you don’t get confused between mariheller and mari.heller.

Marielle: Exactly.

Craig: Whoa. I’m freaking out.

Marielle: It’s weird.

John: Strange.

Craig: John, I have an amazing idea.

John: Tell me.

Craig: OK. The Writers Guild should create a list or some sort of system where if a writer wants to be staffed and the agents are out of the picture they can contact the guild through some kind of system and then there would be showrunners on the other end of that system who would then be able to see and get submissions. Wouldn’t that be an amazing idea?

John: That would be an amazing idea that is called the Staffing Submission System.

Craig: Wait, it’s happened?

John: It’s actually happening. So it’s rolling out. It’s a limited thing. I don’t want to sort of oversell it, but it’s a thing that’s out there for WGA members East and West to submit on shows.

Craig: All right. That’s exciting.

Marielle: That’s a really good idea.

Craig: It is. If it works.

John: If it works.

Craig: Like I always remain my, I have to be guild skeptic. And this is exactly the kind of thing that I could see them just fumbling. But lately, I got to say, just from that video alone, something is going on over there. I feel like it’s a John August influence.

Marielle: But I do think we’re at a time right where the gatekeeper thing is being broken down. And that is one more step toward the gatekeeper kind of being dissolved and it being direct-direct, artist-to-artist contact, which is great.

John: Julie Plec, a former guest who came to our live show, for staffing for her new show she went on Twitter saying like, “Listen, I need to find new writers. And so send me the writers you think are fantastic.” And so she went out to Twitter and she found some people off that. So it happens.

Marielle: That seems dangerous, but.

Craig: Well, exactly.

Marielle: For murderers and stuff like that.

Craig: Murderers–

Marielle: On Twitter that’s what I think of.

Craig: Always dangerous.

Marielle: I’m scared of Twitter.

Craig: Yeah, if you’re a showrunner the threat is that you will be, you know, just subsumed by a tidal wave of scripts. And I understand that. Even if you were to limit it just to people in the WGA my guess is there’s a good 4,000 people with scripts that would like to be on, and then name a show.

John: So the system limits people to apply into three shows, submitting to three shows.

Marielle: Oh that’s actually really good.

Craig: OK, cool.

John: Pick the shows that you think you’re actually appropriate for.

Craig: God, I hope they all pick the same show.

John: That would be amazing. [laughs]

Craig: I really want them to. What do you think that show would be?

John: Chicago Fire.

Craig: Chicago Fire.

John: 100% Chicago Fire.

Craig: No question. Oh, let’s do it to Derek. Let’s see if we can. It would be lovely.

John: Oh, it would be so good.

Craig: Just truckfuls of scripts showing up. Beep. Beep. Beep.

John: My favorite ideas for episodes are ones where the guest has an idea for an episode and says why don’t you do an episode about this and we can bring in a guest to do the episode.

Craig: Such a smart idea, too.

John: Such a smart idea. Mari, tell us about what you emailed us and what we can talk about today.

Marielle: Well, I feel like we talk a lot about how you begin a script. You guys obviously do your Three Page Challenges. What are the first five pages of a script? How do you set up a world? How do you set up what type of movie you’re going to tell? What are the rules? All of those things. And I’ve noticed in particularly the edit process of making movies that there is a script issue that can come up which is not how you set up your world but how do you introduce your main character who is going to be your hero who has a major journey that they have to go on, so you can’t meet them at a point in their life where everything is going great and they’re perfectly mentally healthy or whatever it is.

And how do you set them up as a person with problems but a person you can engage with emotionally, that you feel connected to, and that you’re rooting for? And it’s different than the likeable question that comes up a lot.

Craig: Correct.

Marielle: Which is the note we tend to get about the beginning of a movie or the beginning of an introduction of a character is how do we make this person likeable. And I think that that note has come around because of this actual bigger question which is how do we set up a new character that the audience has never met before in a way that is engaging and makes you root for them and makes you connected to them in your gut and in your heart?

And I dealt with it in different ways with Diary and with Can You Ever Forgive Me? And it was such a struggle with Can You Ever Forgive Me? that figuring that out. It finally dawned on me like this is a script problem and it was a problem that I handled in the script phase for Diary and it wasn’t a problem therefore in the edit. And I didn’t handle it in the script phase with Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Craig: Ah-ha.

Marielle: So then I had to solve it in the edit, which is much harder.

Craig: Way harder.

Marielle: Yeah. So I just thought it was a good idea to talk about because it’s something I keep thinking about recently.

John: It’s a fantastic idea. It’s an Oscar-winning idea in terms of–

Craig: At least a nomination.

Marielle: All my ideas are.

John: At least a BAFTA. An Indie Spirit. It’s an Indie Spirit–

Craig: Full on BAFTA.

Marielle: Indie Spirit winner, Oscar-nominated idea.

Craig: Correct.

John: Scriptnotes episode idea. So, a couple things that you’re talking about here is what is the author’s intent, like what does the movie need to do with this character and what is the audience’s first interaction with this character? And how do you line them up in a way that the audience’s first encounter with this character is positive. That they are curious and engaged. They understand the character well enough that they’re willing to go along with them, but also they want to know more. How do you set it up so that you have the runway that you need to get them through to the end of the story?

Marielle: Right. Because I think the tendency with notes around this is people tend to say, “I just want her to be more likeable in the beginning and I want her to be easier to stomach,” which I don’t think actually is the answer.

Craig: It is not.

Marielle: Because there’s a wonderful way that you can show somebody with a lot of problems but that you have to find a way to engage.

Craig: Yeah. If you mess up this little balance in the beginning the character will be alienating. It’s a turn-off, right? So it’s not a question about likeability. I agree with you. It’s really more of a question of the ability to inspire some kind of empathy in the audience.

Marielle: Yes.

Craig: So that’s the one side of the misbalance is that. The other side of the misbalance is they’re boring, because they’re just good. And this entire movie is maybe predicated on the fact that they’re difficult people.

Marielle: Right. With Can You Ever Forgive Me? that was definitely the case.

John: Oh yeah.

Craig: Right. So I believe that there is a theory of behavior that people bring with them into a movie theater. And the theory of behavior is if somebody is behaving monstrously, not in a criminal way but more in a way that violates social norms that underneath that surely there is some kind of understandable, empathizable with pain. And if you can show me, even if you don’t explain what it is, if you just show me that you know it’s there and you give me a tiny little glimmer of it, just a tiny peep, then I will be OK.

But if you don’t, I mean, we had the same thing with Identity Thief with Melissa’s character, too. It was the same thing. Show me one little peep and then I’ll be OK.

Marielle: With Diary I kind of had this chance to work this out because I did it as a play. And I got to realize when the audience connected to the character and when they didn’t. And the book started with her immediately, her first confession of I had sex with this guy and it’s my mother’s boyfriend, it goes right into it. And what I realized was in order for the audience to engage and go on this journey they first had to meet her and her philosophy of the world without knowing that little piece of information.

So, I wrote this scene where she’s walking through the park in San Francisco and we literally get to see the world through her eyes. She says, “I had sex today. Holy shit.” And you don’t know who it is with, but you see she’s really excited about it. And then you watch her looking around at kids smoking weed, and there’s like smoke wafting up around a cute boy, and a woman jogs by with big boobs and she imagines animated stars on her boobs and she kind of giggles to herself. And you get to see this creative mind at work. And you get to see this character who the way she sees the world is sort of infectious. You’re like she’s raging with hormones. She’s seeing the world through a sexual lens, but innocently sexual also. And she’s got something going on inside of her that’s bubbling out. And you fall in love with her before she tells you, oh by the way, the person I had sex with was my mother’s boyfriend.

Craig: Well, that’s so smart because I remember watching that and having a feeling – and I don’t know if this is what you intended or not – but when I watched it the feeling I had was worry for how vulnerable she was.

Marielle: Yeah.

Craig: Because that is actually – she was “irrationally exuberant,” to quote Alan Greenspan. That is not the way you should be feeling of those things. But we have all felt it.

Marielle: Right.

Craig: Particularly the first time after you have sex, you’re like this is it. I’ve stared into the eye of god.

Marielle: Right. She’s like walking around wide open.

Craig: Wide open.

Marielle: Her whole self has been opened up and she’s walking around totally vulnerable.

Craig: And then when she tells you what she did, you already know that her heart is going to get stomped on. And so somebody that’s done something, yeah, if you start with just like meh, whatever.

Marielle: Right. And I didn’t really realize at the time, but it developed over years of realizing what the audience needed in order to be engaged in the story. And I didn’t realize how hard that is to do until I was in the edit room with Can You Ever Forgive Me? and I realized – I did a lot of work on the script of Can You Ever Forgive Me? but I actually barely touched the first act. I kind of felt like I’d never done anything crime related before and I sort of trusted that I didn’t know how to set that up. And this must be setting it up right because I don’t really know to set it up, not realizing from a character point of view we’re actually not quite setting up what we need to set up to engage with this character. We’re pushing the audience away a little bit. And how can we get on her side? Because I actually do love this character. I think she’s wonderful and amazing. So how can we give the audience enough?

John: Well let’s talk some techniques because you describe it in Teenage Girl about you literally are showing her POV. So you are showing her POV on things and letting the audience know that this is from her POV and this is how she sees the world. And so once we are seeing what she’s seeing then we’re kind of in her shoes and that’s a very helpful technique. So by literally setting her up as the focus of the universe and the lens through which we’re going to experience the entire story.

Marielle: Yeah. And I think if you can set up what makes that person special. The way they see the world and how that is something unique and special, which Lee Israel, the Melissa McCarthy character in Can You Ever Forgive Me? also had a very special lens through which to see the world, which is really jaded, and funny, and dry, and self-involved, but enjoyable. And so we had to open it up enough so that you can see the way she was experiencing the world and be able to laugh with her, not just at her.

It’s also a matter of giving I think that character enough power that you’re not terrified for them the whole time. Like it’s this balance, right? Because you want to show – often you want to show your protagonist in a position where their life is going badly. You know, I think about Breaking Bad. You want to see the ways in which the world is not treating them well. But how do you do that in way but you also see where their power does lie when they had it, or you see their struggle for power, or whatever it is, but you don’t see them so deflated that you can’t feel like there’s any fight left or something.

Craig: Right. Well, I think sometimes people that – we’ll call these people challenging people, challenging characters. A lot of this stuff is they don like armor. This is their armor against the world. And one of the techniques you can use to create empathy is essentially show them nude. Not literally, but in As Good as it Gets which is, you know, Jack Nicholson is playing an incredibly challenging character. He’s a racist. He’s a homophobe. He’s just viciously cruel to everybody, including children and waiters. And then he gets into his apartment and we just see him go through the motions of having to do the locks a certain way, and having to move his things around a certain way. And because in here he’s naked. And it’s not that he’s pathetic. He’s not depressed. He’s not crying himself to sleep. But now we see what he looks like without the shell.

Marielle: Right.

Craig: And then we go, oh OK, there’s somebody to love in here.

Marielle: Totally.

Craig: And the one thing we know for sure about almost all of these characters is that they are alone. And showing loneliness is a huge—

Marielle: That was the key for us with Can You Ever Forgive Me? was the scene we could feel the audience connect to Lee is when she’s at home watching an old black and white movie. She’s speaking along to the movie with her cat, eating shrimp out of a napkin that she stole from a party. But she’s enjoying herself. You’re seeing what she loves. She’s lonely. But it’s funny. Like it had all of these elements that made you connect because you get to see her vulnerable. And there is something about seeing people in their place that they live when they’re alone and giving them that one little moment to let their guard down, especially if you’re established them as somebody with a thick armor before that. Seeing them drop their armor is really effective.

Craig: Seeing what makes this person smile. What makes them laugh? What makes them happy? And understanding how they’ve built their state of acceptable imperfection around themselves to protect from the world outside. And then you start to go, OK, oh yeah, you know, when you go outside put your armor back on because you are not equipped for out there. And now you’re with them.

There’s a question of timing as well. When do you do this? Because if you start this way you kind of let air out of the balloon. You kind of need to start with Bah and then go, but OK.

Marielle: Right. But it can’t be too late.

Craig: Precisely. You’ve got to measure it out just right.

John: Well how long do you think you have before an audience decides, OK, I’m onboard with this movie or I’m not onboard with this movie?

Marielle: Ten minutes?

John: Is it ten minutes? Do you think you can get all ten minutes? I don’t know if–

Craig: I mean, I think about it in terms of scenes. I think once you have delivered the scene that shows that they are a challenging person, I don’t want to see another one. If it isn’t within that scene I need the next one to be–

Marielle: That was the exact issue we had with the first act of Can You Ever Forgive Me? was it was scene after scene after scene of showing the same armor and the same pain and the same being shit on by society. And it was taking too long to get to the moment of vulnerability. To get to the moment of the soft underbelly where you get to see somebody naked a little bit. And yet we knew we needed to set up these circumstances to show why she was going to go to this life of crime. So we had to show her dire straits. We had to show all of these things of how bad it was. Because when we stripped them out and we only showed one or two things you went, “She didn’t try hard enough.”

Craig: Correct.

Marielle: And so it was this fine balance. But what we ended up doing, our editing trick we ended up doing, is we tried to turn all of the pieces that were separate scenes, that were written as very, very separate scenes into a sequence.

Craig: Exactly.

John: Yes.

Marielle: And we did it with music.

Craig: That’s the way to go.

Marielle: We had recurring music that came back between each piece. And we tried to make it not feel like and we’re going to start again, and then this one is going to have a beginning, middle, and end, and then we’re going to start again. Because that felt way too repetitive.

Craig: There’s an enormous amount of pressure on any scene that starts from a dead spot and then builds, right?

Marielle: Yes.

Craig: Those have to be pretty good scenes. And if there is a sense of repetition in them, right, then all that pressure just begins to crush you. So what you effectively did was kind of follow the do a scene and then give me the vulnerable scene. You just took a bunch – it’s a very smart solution.

John: Sequence.

Marielle: We took a lot of scenes and smooshed them together. And it was tricky to figure out and I don’t think it’s perfect by any means. It’s one of those things that I’ll – I mean, I don’t think you ever feel like any movie you make is perfect, but it’s one of those things I’ll go down feeling a little bit frustrated about because we worked so hard on it and I think it works, but it could have been better, and it could have been better in the writing phase and then we wouldn’t have had that problem.

John: A lot of filmmakers in your situation would have tried to do a voiceover or some way to get us inside of her head so we understand that the character that we see on screen is not the full character. There’s another way to do it. And voiceover that’s not planned, voiceover that’s glued on at the end it just doesn’t work. It’s disastrous.

Marielle: I did voiceover in Diary that was so baked in because she is writing a diary and when I made it into a movie I thought, OK, I don’t want to see her just sitting down and writing and hearing her voice. I want to see her physically recording herself on a tape recorder because that’s something I did as a kid. So that became part of the DNA of the movie.

John: It was natural. You can feel when it’s just been spackled on to try to fix those things.

Marielle: Totally.

John: But that instinct for voiceover is good to hear. Sometimes if you’re looking at a first act, a first ten pages that isn’t working, it might be good to think of what that voiceover would be. If you did have the insight into what the character was really thinking write that voiceover, set it aside, and then figure out how do I get the effect of that voiceover with actual scenes.

Marielle: Totally.

John: What are the actual scenes you could write that would give you that information?

Marielle: What would the action that I could see, the physical action, the visualization of that voiceover. Because I do think it’s also a lot about what you see, what your visuals of that person are. Whether it’s them in their space, how do they move in their space, what are their actions that they’re doing? Are they active? Are they passive? You know, what speed do they move through the world? Is it that you’re doing a slow-mo shot of a person with their head down walking through a crowd? Everyone else is moving fast, they’re moving slow. What does that tell you, that visual, about that character and where they are in their head? Are they depressed or whatever it is?

But if you can try to figure out what the visual way to tell that story of their internal dialogue it’s all the better.

John: For sure. Now, we’re talking about difficult characters, but some of these lessons apply to any character. Because every movie is theoretically a character’s one-time journey, one-time adventure. So what are some lessons we can take for more traditional heroes who are not – I mean, obviously all heroes need to have some flaw, something that they can overcome, some journey that they can go on, but what are the lessons we can take from these really difficult characters and apply them to characters who may not be so challenging?

Craig: Well, it’s a craft thing for me. It’s giving the audience a glimpse at some truth that that character is not willing to even acknowledge themselves. So they may look happy, right, because this is what we do as people. We create a situation to cover up some sort of pain and go, good, good, I’m happy now. No you’re not. And I need to see that. But you don’t get to see it yet as a character. I get to see it and I get to see that you don’t get to see.

I may be dreaming this, because I haven’t seen Groundhog Day in a long, long time, but I believe at the very beginning when Andie MacDowell first comes in he looks over and he sees her kind of goofing around with the green screen and there’s this little weird moment where he’s a human being. And he’s just sort of taken by this person and how kind of free and happy she is. And then he returns quickly into being an absolute wretch, as she calls him. And it’s so important because we see him go, you know, nah. Let me just go back to being a wretch and a letch and all that. That’s my speed. That’s what I do. I don’t actually have the equipment to, I don’t know, appreciate someone as a human.

Marielle: Right. And we were just talking about Groundhog Day for this exact reason which is even though Bill Murray is obviously so troubled and he’s somebody who can’t be happy and he’s a miserable person by all accounts, but he’s so enjoyable to be around as an audience member.

Craig: Right.

Marielle: You wouldn’t want to be his friend. But watching him is just a joy because watching somebody have terrible thoughts and say them out loud, or do the things you’re not supposed to do in life, or say no I don’t actually want to talk to the guy I just ran into from high school. Sorry. There’s something actually really relatable about that, even though you know it’s bad.

John: Yeah.

Craig: Right. And he’s so good at it. I mean—

Marielle: He’s so charming.

Craig: That’s another lesson I think for heroes in general is give them their flaw but then make them smart. Or make them powerful. Make them do something–

Marielle: Make them specific.

John: Yeah.

Marielle: Make them specific and make their – whatever their problem is, whatever their flaw is, it should be baked into the thing that makes them interesting.

Craig: Right.

Marielle: Like it should be – with him, part of what’s interesting about him is that he’s kind of a jerk and he moves through the world and you feel like that’s why he’s successful. You feel like that’s why he’s gotten where he has gotten in life. It’s not like he’s somebody who is living in a ditch and can’t make a living. He’s actually a successful kind of celebrity guy who everybody wants to talk to.

John: The superficial charm is partly what gets him where he is.

Marielle: Right.

Craig: And therefore you understand that it’s actually hard to remove that person from this path. In fact, it takes a metaphysical, cataclysmic event of time looping to force him to stop doing this because he can. And I think that’s for all characters in the beginning of a movie whatever their flaws, whatever their dire strait is, it should be something that theoretically they could keep doing forever if not for you as the writer just changing one little thing. Moving one toothpick.

Marielle: Knocking them off balance.

Craig: That makes it no longer possible. Which is the worst feeling for them. And really all they want to do then is just try and get back to where they were at the beginning of the movie for the longest time.

Marielle: And I think, something I thought about a lot when I writing Diary was that often when that protagonist is a young woman particularly they end up becoming less than an active participant within their world. They’re more like a blank slate that we tend to see things happen to and we project ourselves onto that character more. And I was so aware of the fact that I wanted her to be active within her life. I mean, she was within the book, so I’m not making up who this character was. But what I loved about her was that she was so active and she was such an active participant in all of her problems. And that made it so that – but I realized that that’s a major problem we have, particularly with female protagonists, is that things tend to happen to that person.

John: Yes.

Marielle: Rather than their inherent philosophy about their world or their inherent problems within themselves are the thing that’s driving something.

Craig: That drives it. The passive hero is bad in all shapes and flavors. But you’re right, there is a certain brand of plot where something crashes through the window and I fall off a boat or I get hit by a thing or a wizard turns me into a something and you’re just dealing with it, you know.

Marielle: Right. You’re sort of perfect to begin with and then something bad happens and something.

Craig: I know. And you know there is this thing, I’ve become really, really weary lately of beautiful people and their problems.

Marielle: I’ve always been weary of that.

Craig: Yeah, I just like, you know, I get it, it’s hard whatever the circumstance is in this movie, but you are objectively beautiful in a world that prizes that above everything.

Marielle: No, it’s really actually a major challenge to get an audience to totally sympathize with somebody who is super beautiful, super rich.

Craig: Good.

Marielle: It’s just really hard.

Craig: Yeah, maybe we should stop. Maybe we should not do that anymore because it’s–

John: Or if we’re going to do it we should look at the examples of movies that do it really, really well. I go back to Clueless where you have a beautiful rich girl who is the center of the movie and what Amy Heckerling does so genius-ly is set her up as this very flawed character even within her very skewed world and let her – she’s making the decisions that are leading her down these paths to discovery.

Marielle: And she’s not just flawed. She has a really funny way of seeing the world. Her mind is really interesting. And she’s not smart in a book smart way, but she’s smart in this other kind of way.

Craig: And she’s not evil.

John: No.

Marielle: She’s good.

John: She has very good intentions.

Craig: She’s a good person. Which I think is partly what saves that there.

Marielle: She’s also young. Like if she were a character who were 40 you’d kind of be like, you know, I don’t know if I care anymore.

Craig: Yeah.

Marielle: But there’s a vulnerability to being young that is almost similarly to a vulnerability of not being beautiful or something.

Craig: Yes.

John: But also because she’s young, we’re talking so much about the very start of this and how you set up this character, but we set up these characters so we can give ourselves the runway to have a full arc. And so in seeing Cher at the start of this movie we can see what her problem is and she needs to grow into. And we sense that she could grow into this thing if she could make the right choices.

Marielle: Do you have a memory of what the first thing we see of Cher is? I can’t pull it out of my head.

John: What is the very first moment of this? You know, we’ve always talked about doing, we should do a Clueless deep dive on it, because it’s one of my favorite movies.

Marielle: You should.

John: I’m trying to remember what the very first–

Craig: We should also have Amy on.

John: We should have Amy Heckerling on.

Craig: She’s the best.

John: Resolved.

Marielle: Can I sit in the corner while you do it?

Craig: Yeah. You don’t even have to sit in the corner.

Marielle: I’ll just listen though.

Craig: Yeah. You can sit in her lap. She’s very tiny though. She’s a very tiny person.

John: Maybe she can sit in your lap. Nice. So what basic lessons do we want to take from our flawed but improving characters discussion? So, it’s about how we first meet this character, the situation, what insight we’re getting that they may not want us to see perhaps. Sometimes it’s seeing them along. Sometimes it’s seeing their point of view. Giving us a sense of what is specific and interesting about this character and this situation. What else?

Marielle: There was like a moment in Homeland that I remember my writing partner Katelyn pointed out, because it was such a great character moment where Mandy Patinkin’s character is alone. They’d been working late. He’s at his desk and he pulls out a box of crackers and some peanut butter and he doesn’t have a knife. And then he takes a metal ruler and he scrapes the peanut butter and puts it on his cracker. It’s the saddest thing you’ve ever seen.

Craig: I feel like I’ve done that.

Marielle: Like 1am at your desk.

Craig: I may have done that this morning.

Marielle: Yeah. But there’s something – it was specific, it was character related. It was so defeated. Like something about it was like, ugh.

Craig: Well you see how deprecated someone’s – whatever the part of our life we reserve for us it has withered away for this man. It’s just the job now. Everything else, like the comfort of a meal or anything, it’s all gone.

Marielle: And it wasn’t the introduction of his character, but it was something that let you connect to him in a real way.

Craig: Which in television as you go on and on you get opportunities to flip the script on people. So this person is just an absolute awful villain, and then we get the episode where we go, oh god, you’re a person, too. But in a movie we’re on the clock. And so one lesson definitely is once you show us – introduce to us a challenging character, you have pulled a pin on a grenade. You are running out of time.

Marielle: It’s so true.

Craig: So make sure we get to see them as a vulnerable person we can empathize with before the grenade blows up or else you’ll never get a chance. Because they won’t believe it later. It will contrived.

Marielle: It will. It’s true. You have to see something that is innate to who they are. And you have to see it early enough that you go, oh, OK, now I’m connected to that person. They’re my person. I’m on their side. I’m with them. I’m going to see this story through their eyes. Which it actually really matters. I mean, it’s so tricky, but if you’re not on the side of your character you’re screwed.

Craig: Jack Nicholson does something in As Good as it Gets that always blows my mind. It’s early on when he’s delivering one of his horrendous rants that are so shocking you laugh because you’re shocked. And once he’s done, and he does it with pure conviction. There’s no hesitation. He just does it. And then the person just sort of reacts and then he reacts like them, like he didn’t get it until that moment that he could hurt someone with this. And then we see inside of him is guilt. And that’s also – it doesn’t excuse it, but you start to say there’s more going on here than just a jerk.

Marielle: Totally.

John: It’s a relatable moment. Because we’ve all done that thing where we overstepped where we didn’t mean to and then you’ve embarrassed ourselves and yes.

Marielle: It’s a naked moment.

Craig: Yeah. It’s a naked moment.

Marielle: In that small way.

Craig: It’s a revealing vulnerable moment.

John: Cool. We have a bunch of questions that are stacked up because we’ve not answered like crafty questions in a long time. Craig, do you want to take the first one here?

Craig: Yeah I do. All right. So Connor in Koreatown asks, “Lately I’ve been getting notes in meetings from two different executives that seem to tug in vastly different directions. Sometimes the people involved realize and remark upon this. ‘Ha-ha-ha isn’t this funny?’ And sometimes it seems to not even occur to them that they have just shoved an idea down the opposite path that the previous note did. What’s the best way to handle this? Is it our job to make the execs aware of this conflict and attempt to work it out with them there in the room? Is this something that we should just keep to ourselves and work out later on our own?”

Well this has never happened to me, or to you, or to you. So how could we possibly answer this question?

John: First time ever happened in Hollywood.

Marielle: But I do think that it’s always the best thing when you get two conflicting notes because it makes you get in touch with what you actually want. Because you feel in your gut somewhere one note making you go, oh, and one note making you go no, no, no, no. And sometimes only getting one set of notes – dealing with the exec is a totally different question. But in terms of what it does for you in your writing process, and it’s what happens at the Sundance Labs which is so helpful, is when you get conflicting feedback it puts you in clearer touch with what you really want.

John: Yeah. So, as a practical matter when you get those conflicting notes, I think it’s fine in the room to sort of let’s talk through this. And you don’t need to necessarily need to bring up that they’re conflicting notes, but I always like to bring it back to your work and your next step or like what you want to do. That you want to be the person who can give them what they want. And so you say like, OK, so is the goal to do more of this or to do more of that, because I can see that it’s going to be hard for me to do both things simultaneously. And so that way you can bring it back to the fact that you are going to be doing work on an actual script, an actual draft that they’re going to read next and talk about that as the future work rather than what an idiotic thing that just happened in front of you.

Marielle: You know, you guys talk about this all the time, but when people are giving notes I think there’s often very little thought about what that actually means for the work that you’re going to have to do after those notes come. It’s often that people want to feel engaged in the project. They want to feel like they got to give the smart note. They want to feel like they said the thing in the meeting that made a change. They want to feel like they’ve been involved in the creative process.

But they’re not necessarily thinking through the fact that one of their notes could take you down one path and the others could take you down another path. So clarifying and being like let’s unpack that a little bit, where does this lead us, where does that lead us, or, oh, that makes me think of this can kind of be a helpful way to make both notes feel heard yet do what is right for the story. Because I don’t know, I just also don’t think it’s our job to always do every single note. Our job is to filter those notes through our brain, take those notes, and say OK the reason that that’s not going to work is this. Or I totally understand why you think this note makes sense. I went there, too. And when I went there here’s what happened. You know, when I tried that in a different draft then this is what went down.

And explaining the process then they feel heard. Their note has been addressed essentially, even though it’s not making it in the script.

Craig: I mean, from a practical point of view Connor I think it’s perfectly fine to say – if you have a lot of conflicting opinions it’s fine to say, listen, it’s probably going to work best if you have a pre-discussion and come up with one unified set of notes here that you can discuss with me and advocate for. I’m happy to have the conversation with everybody here, but for the sake of clarity what I can’t do is do both of those at once. So let’s try and figure out where we’re going. And also let’s have – because sometimes the conflict between notes is not about notes. It’s a conflict between how two people see the movie.

John: Totally.

Craig: Or see the script or the show. It’s very fundamental. I try and have a conversation. And I try to ask questions. I think Connor one thing you can do is get out of the mode of receiving notes and get into the mode of having a conversation with them about notes as if you didn’t write the script. Put yourself in the shoes, you are also a creative executive on this project. So start having a conversation and ask questions. Ask them – go into that more. OK, well happens if this? Or why do you think that that would be better this way? Just ask questions.

Marielle: Dig.

Craig: The more they talk the more of a chance that they will either finally figure out what they’re really trying to say or also finally realize that what they’re saying is stupid, which happens all the time. I do it. I’ll say something and someone will ask me a question and I’ll go oh my gosh I just realized that’s stupid. Never mind.

Marielle: We all do that.

Craig: Yeah. That’s human. So give them a chance. Or rope. Whatever analogy we’d like to use.

John: The last bit, that spelunking you’re doing to try to ask questions about the questions might also reveal what’s really behind the note, which sometimes isn’t really about the script in front of you. It’s about the executive who’s above them or something else that’s going on. And so it’s good to know that.

Marielle: Or it might be revealing a problem with the script that’s different than the problem they’re identifying in the note.

Craig: Right.

Marielle: It may be that those two executives both are having – if they’re having conflicting notes about the same scene or the same moment or the same character or whatever, OK, so they have two philosophies about how that should be solved. But they’re identifying a problem. There’s a common problem there. There’s something wrong with the way that’s being developed.

Craig: It’s snagging. Something is snagging.

Marielle: That’s a good thing to identify and you can dig to find out what the deeper problem is.

Craig: You as a writer will always have more permission to propose a radical change than they will.

John: Oh yeah.

Marielle: Yeah. That’s a good point.

Craig: So what they’ll do is they’ll nibble at something and they’ll say, “I think in this scene she shouldn’t come in until the end.” And they’ll say, “No, no, I think she should come in sooner.” And you can go, “I think I know what you’re both reacting to. That scene shouldn’t be there at all. In fact, that character should be this character.”

Marielle: And people are blown away when you’re able to do that.

Craig: Yes.

Marielle: When you’re able to go, “You know what? It’s actually bigger than anything we’re talking about. This whole thing needs to go. Or that character is just not working.” And they go, “I didn’t want to say that, but that’s clearly the problem.”

Craig: And by the way I’m glad they didn’t want to say it, because the truth is—

Marielle: You do.

Craig: If somebody says that to you before you—

Marielle: Then you’re like, “No.”

Craig: It sounds horrifying.

Marielle: Absolutely.

Craig: It sounds like you’ve just suggested 14 years of hard labor in a gulag. But if I come up with it it’s like, oh no, but I know what to do, so it’ll be a joy.

Marielle: And let me tell you that that’s how it feels the whole way through that. Feels the same way in edit. If somebody else suggests that a scene needs to get cut out that I spent two days filming it makes my heart race. But if I come to the conclusion that I need to cut that scene out and I go to them and they go, “Wow that was really bold.” I feel great.

Craig: Yes. Exactly. Like look at me.

Marielle: Look at me. I killed my darlings. I did that really hard filmmaking thing where I cut something out and it made the whole better. But also I think with writing as the exact same thing as with editing. Sometimes it takes a while to get to those points. Sometimes getting to a point where you’re ready to make some big change, because often it’s something that you felt – it might be the first thing you wrote in a script. It might be that scene that you’ve had in there the whole time that made you love the character. And then you realize it has to go. You have to come to that on your own in some way.

Craig: You do.

Marielle: And you can get nudged, but if someone tries too hard to get you to lop that arm off it’s just really—

Craig: Your muscles tighten up. Dennis Palumbo talks all the time about how there are lines that we write that we are so resistant to cutting not because the line is good but because its creation meant something to us.

John: Of course.

Craig: It was a signifier test that we had changed as a person or as a writer or something.

Marielle: Oh, that’s so sweet.

Craig: You know? But then you have to cut it. [laughs] You just have to take the lesson of I can do something like this, but also it should not be in this. It’s hard.

Marielle: Right. It is, really.

Craig: So, good question Connor. Hopefully we helped you out there.

John: Jordan asks, “I’m a youngish writer trying to make it my day job. I have a lawyer and I’m in the WGA so I’m starting to meet with managers. It’s not going great. In one meeting I asked the manager if she was going to represent me after 45 minutes of chatting about work and personal life. She seemed uncomfortable and said she needed to read more but that we would be in touch. I understand now that maybe it isn’t very cool to ask, but I was under impression that that was why we were meeting. How do you ask that question? Or is that the manager/agent’s job? Is there a way to know if a meeting is going to be a general meet and great before I slog through traffic to get to general advice like apply to Sundance Labs?”

So, Mari, you’re of the Sundance Labs. So Jordan is asking this really kind of natural—

Marielle: Oh, it makes my stomach hurt.

John: Yeah. Because it’s like dating.

Marielle: It is.

John: Is this going well? Is this not going well?

Marielle: And it’s so kind of wonderfully bald – like I would put that in a script the person just being like, “So are you going to represent me?” Because that’s the naked moment that you’re not supposed to do. I mean, not that you’re not supposed to, because I don’t think there’s a supposed to, but yeah, it’s uncomfortable because there is this – I mean, there’s such a thing in this town particularly of having a million meetings and never knowing where that meeting is leading or if it actually means anything. And we’re supposed to just be OK with that. Like what was that meeting about? Why did we meet and talk? It’s just part of – and everyone will say, “Well you’re building relationships. You’re building relationships.”

Craig: No you’re not. What you are is a piece of sand in a sieve that somebody has gathered up and they’re shaking the sieve to find what they think is gold. But they have to tell you, “Oh no, no, you’re an important piece of sand to me, therefore let’s have this 45-minute meeting.” But in their mind you either are that gold that they were not expecting to find, or you’re just another piece of sand.

Marielle: Or they’re not even really judging you in that moment on whether you are that gold. They’re waiting to see what you’re going to do without them so that then they can say, “Remember, we know each other. Now I do want to represent you because you’re already working.” So in so many ways having that meeting, you just should be spending that time writing the script because whatever you make is what matters. Those meetings matter once you’ve made the thing, once you have the thing, once you have some value to them that they could then help you with. And then they can be incredibly valuable. But until that thing exists, whether it’s a short film or a script, or whatever, those meetings are just to lay the first ground work and–

John: Yeah. I think those meetings are important because they teach you how to have those meetings and they’re practice for important meetings that are going to come later on. So you have to take them. I think Jordan’s awkward overreach of like, “So are you going to be my manager?” in the room, that’s a lesson learned.

Marielle: Totally.

John: And so it’s good that you learned that lesson in something that didn’t matter so much.

Craig: Let’s give him just the practicals here. It seems like the best practice would be to let them tell you that they are or are not going to represent you. So you have your meeting, you say well this was lovely, and then they say, “Yes, I really enjoyed our meeting.” Great, well let’s keep in touch. Or follow up if there’s interest. Whatever you want to do. Meaning I don’t need you.

Marielle: Yes. I think that’s actually the most important thing is to give off the air of like–

Craig: Non-desperation.

Marielle: Non-desperation.

Craig: But we’re all so desperate.

Marielle: And that they would be missing out if they don’t take you on.

Craig: Right. By the way, everyone is doing that. Everyone is desperate.

Marielle: Absolutely.

Craig: Everyone is doing this to each other. Yeah, I’m cool.

John: I’ll tell you about an early meeting I had. So my attorney is Ken Richmond. And so my agent had apparently set up several meetings with different attorneys. This is when I was selling Go. And so I went in and met with Ken Richmond. And we talked for about 20 minutes and I said like, “You’re fantastic. I want you to be my attorney.” And he’s like, oh, OK, OK, this is good. And there were other attorney meetings already set up that I was going to be blowing off for this. But he was the right person and sometimes you know. It’s dating. Sometimes you know.

Craig: Sometimes you know.

Marielle: That was the question I was going to ask, too. Did you want this person to be your manager? Is this the person who when you were sitting there you went, “I want you to be my manager?”

Craig: Or is it that you just want a manager?

Marielle: A manager.

Craig: Which sometimes people can pick up on. And then it’s like, right, well I just don’t want a client. I mean, you have to find somebody that you care about.

You know what? Listen, Jordan, totally understandable. And we’ve all done stuff like that.

Marielle: Oh gosh yes.

Craig: And it’s annoying to have to game anything, play any kind of game.

Marielle: It’s the part of the business I hate the most.

Craig: I agree. And you know what? You do it a little bit here or there. Or, by the way, maybe Jordan you sit down with somebody at one of these meetings and you just be yourself. And you just say, listen, this is how I am. I’m not good at playing the game. So, just let me know if you’re interested or not. And they might go, “Oh no, I’m totally interested.” And then you’ve found your person.

Marielle: Right. And I actually think the way to not play the game is to make it that you’re doing enough that you actually aren’t playing the game. That you actually don’t care.

Craig: Right.

Marielle: Like you want to pretend you don’t care if that person signs you, but actually if you have enough going on on your own you actually won’t care that much.

Craig: Correct.

Marielle: So, do the things that make it that you don’t care for real. Then you’re not playing a game. You’re not pretending.

John: Great. Chris from Brooklyn writes with a question I think you’ll be especially good to answer. “I started sketching out a screenplay based on a true-life murder case from the 19th Century which about only three historical nonfiction books have been written, as well as many articles. Although I’m using them all as sources, one book in particular encapsulates the story best. Mostly looking at it from the same angle and shares the title I want to use. But that title was also used in several Penny Dreadful dramatizations of the story way back when.

“However I’ve been reluctant to reach out to the historian who wrote this book because he is known and well-regarded and if asked I’m not in a financial position to afford the option I imagine he would want. But I’m not sure an option is necessary because the true story involves no living persons. Based on what I found online it seems as if the book in question was either optioned or purchased nearly a decade ago with a name actor attached but nothing appears to have happened with the project since then.

“So, given all that, and given that the book is my primary source but not an exclusive one, should I reach out to its author to avoid any potential legal challenges down the road? Or just stop worrying and write the darn thing?”

So you guys have both written things based on true-life things. What’s your first instinct for Chris here?

Marielle: I would do both. I would keep working on the thing. I wouldn’t hold everything up. But I would reach out to the person who wrote it. I would first of all if you have an agent or you have a lawyer they can look up the option and who owns the option, or if there still is an option. If it was 10 years ago and no movie has been made about it.

Craig: That would be a lapsed option.

Marielle: And also you’re probably fine. Like most books after the first few years they’re coming out if they haven’t been optioned and no one is holding onto that option they’re not going to be some crazy hot commodity that’s impossible to get the option for. And you can actually get a very affordable option, especially if – in my limited experience – if that author feels like you’re the person with the most passion who has a reason behind it and you can connect to them in a real way and you appreciate their artistry and they can appreciate your artistry. Then actually it’s more about that relationship then about how much money you’re bringing to the table. They may not have anybody else who is even considering doing this weird historical thing that they wrote 10 years ago and it lapsed. You know?

So you might be getting it at the perfect moment.

John: Yeah. Craig, what do you think?

Craig: I’m in slight disagreement. I think no question you should keep writing it. I actually wouldn’t reach out just yet because you don’t need to. The facts are the facts. This is a nonfiction thing. The title is a question mark and I would strongly consider a different title at this point. But there’s nothing in – if it’s facts there’s absolutely nothing in any of those books that the authors own in terms of fact. They own the expression of those facts. They own their sentences. They own the way that they lay it out. And even then in a very specific way.

So it’s just research. They’re research sources for you. If as you get closer to selling this or setting it up, in that moment you should say these are the sources I used. These are the books I used. This one has an amazing title and it inspired me the most. We might want to consider reaching out. If you reach out now and they say no, now you’ve got a problem. Because merely by reaching out—

Marielle: You’re right.

Craig: You have indicated that you are basing this on this book.

Marielle: I take back everything I said. Craig is right.

Craig: [laughs]

Marielle: No, no, really. I think you’re totally right. Because historic is so different. Like the book that I optioned was about someone’s personal life, written by the person whose life it was. That was very, very different.

Craig: Yes. There’s life rights involved. If somebody writes about their life, everything that they’ve written about now becomes public record. But all the stuff behind it that you would want to have, and also just to avoid – the one thing that you definitely don’t want is to say, OK, I’ve written something. It’s based on someone’s description of their life. They’re alive. I didn’t need their permission, but they hate this, and they are now telling people not to go see it. That’s bad news.

Marielle: No, it’s bad news.

Craig: Right. You don’t want that. So those are considerations that come later down the line. But you know for Chernobyl we kind of in conjunction, they had somebody – HBO had somebody that does this and then I had a researcher that was helping us kind of do our version. But we had to make an annotated script for every single page. Everything had to be sourced. I mean, it was the biggest term paper of my life.

Marielle: Do people even really still do that in college anymore? I mean, is that like a thing you do? Do you cite your sources?

John: Oh you cite your sources in college.

Craig: They’re required to. I mean, there’s probably some app that does it for you now. Sourcy.

Marielle: That’s my – are these things kind of going to the wayside that these things being learned–

Craig: Everything is going to the way. Everything. It’s all collapsing around us.

Marielle: Like the Dewey Decimal System.

John: Irene Turner came on the show to talk about her movie which was historically based, and so we’ll put a link in the show notes to her conversation because she had to do what you did which was basically cite every little thing about it, because it was a well-known public figure but where that information came from was important.

Craig: And I had to defend my thesis at times. The gentleman that HBO used, that was as thorough a prostate exam as I’ve ever had.

Marielle: You should try to submit these scripts to some college, to like Harvard or something, and see if you could get a Ph.D. This could be your dissertation for some degree you didn’t want anyway.

John: Professor Craig.

Marielle: Professor Craig with a Ph.D. in Chernobyl.

Craig: Surely there’s an easier way to get a degree, like bribe them?

Marielle: Ooh.

Craig: There’s got to be some way to bribe them. I’m sure there is.

Marielle: No.

Craig: Not anymore. Not anymore.

John: Craig, do you want to take the last question?

Craig: Last question. Craig from La Canada writes, “Mari, you’re married to Jorma Taccone right? When is MacGruber 2 coming? Thanks.”

Marielle: Oh my gosh. I love it.

Craig: You don’t have to say if you’re not allowed to.

Marielle: No, I think it’s OK. Jorma has been talking about it. I think it’s fine. Jorma and Will and John Solomon, so Jorma Taccone, Will Forte, John Solomon who all created MacGruber together have been pitching it as a miniseries.

Craig: Great.

John: Fantastic.

Marielle: Instead of doing it as a sequel movie. They started to realize it would be better as a very short miniseries.

Craig: But it needs that canvas. Because we’re talking about a work of literature. It needs to occupy the space it demands.

Marielle: Yes. And so they’re in the process of writing it with Hulu.

Craig: Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. I can’t wait.

Marielle: I know. The pressure is real.

Craig: I’m the biggest fan.

Marielle: There’s somebody on Instagram who anything Jorma posts just writes, “MacGruber 2 or get the fuck out.”

Craig: That’s me.

Marielle: That’s probably you.

Craig: MacGruber 2 or GTFO at Insta.org.MacGruber.

Marielle: Which I like that the MacGruber fans are so rabid. You know, it’s the thing – I talk to Jorma about it all the time. He has made a lot of projects that are his total passion projects. The things The Lonely Island makes, they’re weird brain child things that they love. But MacGruber was one of those things where he was so happy when they made MacGruber. And they got to make another one.

Craig: Because he made one of the great movies of all time. Of all time.

Marielle: Yeah. And they have to make another one.

Craig: They have to. Oh. I could go on.

John: All right. It has come time for our One Cool Things.

Marielle: Already?

John: My One Cool Thing is these new door locks being installed at my house and my office. They’re by Schlage. They’re good.

Craig: Is that how you pronounce that?

John: I think it’s Schlage or Schlage.

Craig: It’s not Schlage?

John: I don’t think it’s Schlage, but maybe it is. People can write in and correct me if I’m wrong.

Craig: Yeah, thank you. Germans, tell us.

John: What’s cool about it is we already had – we didn’t have to rekey the locks at all. So our normal keys still work, but then this thing works for the deadbolt and it’s cool. So I just don’t have to carry my keys around as much which is just great. I punch in my code and the door opens.

Craig: And you can do it with your phone.

John: You can do it with your phone. You can tell Siri to open your things. I can tell Siri to check if the door is locked. So, it’s nice.

Craig: You talk to Siri?

John: I talk to Siri.

Marielle: Doesn’t that make you feel like you’re – I know I sound paranoid, but couldn’t you be hacked or something and then somebody could just get into your doors that way?

John: Yeah. Probably. Probably so.

Craig: But you can also be physically hacked with a hammer and a screwdriver.

Marielle: And a sledgehammer. Yeah. But I don’t know. There’s something about – maybe this is not true, but in Brooklyn there’s this thing going on where everybody – some of us have cars, which is crazy, but you end up parking blocks away from your house. But if you’re keyless key is within 30 feet somebody has figured out some machine that can just open your car door with that and people are stealing cars that way.

Craig: Sweet. Awesome.

Marielle: So people are like put your keys in the freezer and it won’t work. And I can’t tell if that’s true or not, but there’s something about like all this car theft is happening because of these keyless keys.

Craig: Oh, Brooklyn. Yeah, don’t have a car.

Marielle: I know. That is the solution.

Craig: Just don’t have a car.

Marielle: Or have a car and just don’t care.

John: Not caring is—

Marielle: That’s actually the key in Brooklyn or in New York is if you have a car you can’t care.

Craig: Have a piece of crap car. Just don’t care. Don’t get something nice.

John: Craig?

Craig: What is my One Cool Thing? Ooh, yeah. OK, my One Cool Thing, so every year in Stamford, Connecticut.

Marielle: Jorma’s grandmother lives there.

Craig: That’s my One Cool Thing. No. It would be weird if I started referring to his grandmother as a thing. Yes, you know that thing.

Marielle: She’s, yeah, that would be weird.

Craig: And he’s related to. In Stamford, Connecticut every year there is the Annual Crossword Puzzle Tournament. There are many, but this is the big one. It’s run by Will Shortz who is the editor of the New York Times Crossword Puzzle which is the gold standard of crossword puzzles. And this is where everybody comes and it’s a lot of people. They all descend upon some Marriot or La Quinta and they do puzzles. And they compete. And then there’s the ultimate prizewinner. This year again Dan, I think, Feyer, who is insanely brilliant at crossword puzzles in a way that is just disturbing.

In any case, you at home can do it. They have the exact same puzzles that they did there available online. And you pay I think it’s like $20 or something like that and you click on puzzle number one. You do seven puzzles. Puzzle number one and it times you just like them and it scores you just like them. Currently I am number 15 out of like a thousand online participants. Meaning, this is a challenge to–

John: To knock Craig down.

Craig: Come on people. Knock me down.

Marielle: It’s going on right now?

Craig: It goes on—

Marielle: Infinitely.

Craig: Well, until the next year, right. So they’re all available for you to purchase and do now. And as people purchase and do them they will change the – but I’ve been number 15 for a bit now. So, you know, if you’re listening and you think you’re a bad ass, come at me bruh. And see if you can knock me down. And if you do, if you’re the one that knocks me down a peg let us know.

John: All right. Write in to ask@johnaugust.com. Let us know. Take a screenshot.

Craig: Oh yeah. Definitely take a screenshot. Well, just write in and tell us what your name is because I can look on the standings. We can, yeah. Don’t cheat.

Marielle: OK. My One Cool Thing is a play that’s opening on Broadway I think this week called What the Constitution Means to Me.

John: Nice.

Marielle: And it’s Heidi Schreck. She’s a writer. And an actor. Comes from theater like I do, but she’s written on a bunch of TV shows and stuff, too. And it’s an incredible play that I got to see in its Off-Broadway form and it’s now coming to Broadway. Very personal. It’s sort of about when she was a teenage girl and part of how she was raising money for college was she was going around and doing these constitutional debates at rotary clubs and things like that.

But what she’s really digging into is how the Constitution treats women and how it has historically treated women and what that means for herself personally within her own family dynamic. It’s so brave. It’s so personal and deep. And it makes you question everything you know about the world. But it’s just an incredible play.

Craig: What the Constitution Means to Me. And so as you’re describing it in my mind I thought, OK, now that title is like the kind of clunky debate thing.

Marielle: It is.

Craig: Oh, that’s great. And then it takes on this whole other meaning.

Marielle: And she starts off the whole play kind of going back in time and acting like this plucky 15-year-old girl who is going off and doing all of these debates about Constitution.

Craig: She sounds like the light reflection of the very dark and evil Ted Cruz who also spent his childhood—

Marielle: Oh, he did?

Craig: Roaming around and memorizing the Constitution and explaining to people what it means to him, which is bad, because he’s bad.

Marielle: I guess that was a thing that people did and you could win scholarships doing that and it was–

Craig: Yes, it was a thing.

Marielle: My sister did debate and was a very accomplished debater in high school, but it wasn’t specifically these sort of competitions where you would win money and go to these sort of rotary clubs. She did the kind of classic debate.

Craig: Who are the people that are like, “Good news, it’s Friday night, which means we go to the club and we hear kids talk to us about the Constitution. Let’s do it.” Kiwanis, Rotary, Knights of Columbus.

John: Elks.

Craig: Elks.

Marielle: Exactly. Elks.

Craig: Let’s go.

John: Yeah.

Craig: And they love it.

Marielle: They do.

Craig: They love it. They’re like—

Marielle: But the play is – even if you have no interest in the Constitution or what that would be, and that type of night sounds like a terrible night, the play is so moving and Heidi – she wrote it and she performs it herself. And the fact that it’s going to Broadway just feels like this wonderful gift to the world. It’s so cool.

John: Oh yeah. Our friend Mike Birbiglia does the same thing. He does those one-man shows.

Marielle: I know.

Craig: I was going to say. Mike Bags has blazed a trail here and it’s happening. Well, we should obviously did up a good link to this show. It sounds amazing. So congratulations to Heidi for getting something like this to Broadway. That’s remarkable.

Marielle: It’s a huge deal. Yeah.

Craig: That’s great.

John: That’s our show for this week. Our show is produced by Megana Rao. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is by James Launch and Jim Bond. We have some Sexy Craig, but we’re not going to use those yet.

Craig: No, you keep those bottled up.

John: If you have an outro you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send longer questions like the ones we answered today. For short questions, on Twitter Craig is @clmazin. John is @johnaugust. Mari, are you on Twitter?

Marielle: No.

John: She’s not a Twitter person.

Craig: Your sister is a Twitter person.

Marielle: My sister is and she’s funny.

Craig: I follow her.

Marielle: Oh good.

Craig: I think I do.

John: Is Emily your sister?

Marielle: Emily.

Craig: Accomplished comedian.

Marielle: Accomplished comedian. She has a special out right now. And she also writes for Barry.

John: Oh nice.

Craig: Nice. That’s fantastic.

John: Oh yeah. I think I knew that.

Craig: With our friend Alec Berg.

John: You can find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Just search for Scriptnotes. While you’re there leave us a comment. You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find transcripts. We get them up about four days after the episode airs.

You can find all the back episodes at Scriptnotes.net or download seasons of 50 episodes at store.johnaugust.com.

Craig: Mari Heller, thank you so much for coming in. This was a delight.

Marielle: Thank you guys for doing my question. It feels so good to suggest a subject and get to talk about it.

Craig: It was a good question, you know. Boom.

John: Boom.

Marielle: Boom.

Links:

• WGA Video Explaining ATA Negotiations
• Can You Ever Forgive Me?
• A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
• Scriptnotes 212, Diary of a First Time Director with Mari Heller
• Schlage Locks
• American Crossword Password Tournament Online–let us know if you unseat Craig!
• What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck
• We’re hiring a coder! If you’re interested please send an email to assistant@johnaugust.com
• Submit entries for The Scriptnotes Pitch Session here.
• John August on Twitter
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Find past episodes
• Scriptnotes Digital Seasons are also now available!
• Outro by James Llonch and Jim Bond (send us yours!)

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The original post for this episode can be found here.

John August: Hey, this is John. So today’s episode of Scriptnotes was recorded live at the Austin Film Festival. There is some swearing, so keep that in mind if you’re listening in the car with your kids. There’s also a very special introduction by Beto O’Rourke. So, if you want to see the video of how that all went you can click on a link in the show notes. So, enjoy.

Beto O’Rourke: Good evening Austin and welcome to Scriptnotes Live. I’m just going to take a quick moment to remind you that you can vote any time between October 22 and November 2, early voting in your polling location of choice in the county that you’re registered. And then if you didn’t get a chance to vote early, vote the 6th of November, Election Day.

Craig Mazin told me to tell you so. And we’re all counting on you turning out and winning the victory of our lifetimes for Texas, and for the country.

And now on with the show.

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

Craig Mazin: My name is Craig Mazin.

John: And this is…this is Scriptnotes. It’s a podcast about screenwriting and things that are…?

Crowd: Interesting to screenwriters.

John: You guys are so good.

Craig: Well trained. Well trained.

John: This is the 19,000th year we’ve done a live show at Scriptnotes.

Craig: Yes indeed.

John: Here at the Austin Film Festival.

Craig: Correct. Although we’ve never quite had that amount of firepower to open it up.

John: That was a lot of firepower.

Craig: Concentrated firepower. I have to say I was a little concerned because there was a chance that maybe all these people would be Ted Cruz fans. [laughs] Just a small chance. And if you are, get out!

John: Done.

Craig: Not a Republican/Democrat thing, just a me thing. It’s just a me thing.

John: Yeah. Because you have a personal issue.

Craig: A little bit of a thing. Little bit of a thing. But we’re so happy to see you all here. What an incredible crowd. And this is our favorite, honestly, it’s my favorite show of the year because there’s just a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and we love seeing you all and we have great guests and we have so much cool stuff, although we’ve sort of piqued, so you know, lower the expectations now and everything will be great.

John: So, for people listening at home I always think of the listeners at home. And so it is 10pm at night. It is a Friday. I have lost all track of what day it is.

Craig: It’s a weekend night.

John: It’s Austin time. And we are in an incredibly crowded room with standing room only with amazing screenwriter people. They’re all wearing something around their necks. It’s like a blue band. Do you recognize what this–?

Craig: Yeah, I don’t have to do that shit.

John: Yeah. So they’re all wearing–

Craig: I’m too cool.

John: They’re all wearing these lanyards that say Highland 2 on them.

Craig: Wait, what?

John: Yeah. If you notice they all–

Craig: Oh my god, you did that?

John: I did that, yeah. And so I got this for you. I spent thousands of dollars so that Craig would have to use Highland 2 for a weekend.

Craig: I’m not going to use it, but that’s, I mean, no, that’s actually pretty amazing. I can’t believe you – god, I’m not paying for this, am I?

John: No, no, no.

Craig: Oh, you’re paying for this. OK, great.

John: You pay for nothing and I pay for everything.

Craig: Phew. Got a little freaked out there. That’s actually pretty impressive. And I will say that I have bumped into a bunch of people that do use Highland 2.

John: Yes.

Craig: And they love it. I’m not an anti-Highland guy in any way, shape, or form.

John: No, you just promote my competitor at every moment. And that’s OK. That’s absolutely fine.

Craig: I like his work. Yeah.

John: Absolutely. Let us sit down and we can do some follow up, because one of the first things we have to do in any normal episode of Scriptnotes is some follow up.

Craig: Follow up. Yep.

John: So in the last episode of Scriptnotes we talked about this WGA campaign for No Writing Left Behind. So that’s a thing which happened. So we got some great emails back from people and some representative stories. We got some, you know, well what about this situation. But we got this email that I was like oh yeah that’s exactly the right thing to talk about.

So this is an email from Eva. So I’m going to read aloud Eva’s letter because this is what a good live podcast is is reading aloud stuff.

Craig: We should, before you know Eva is going to be listening to this, we have to let her know just as a disclosure that we’re a little drunk. So, OK. Traditionally this is our drunk show. We’re not Austin drunk. This is like Austin breakfast level alcohol. But still for us, yeah.

John: For me especially. All right. So Eva writes about No Writing Left Behind. She says, “This just happened to me in a very brutal way. I was asked to read two novels a company had just bought rights to and they asked about what I thought about them and what was in my opinion the best way to adapt them. When we finished our meeting I was asked to put together a document that talked about all these things. So, I’m aware I’m a ‘new writer,’ so I will only do that if it’s clear that I will get the job. They say I am the frontrunner. That my credits are not an issue.

“Fast forward two weeks later, and they have a pitch booklet/look book, complete bible for a premium TV series adaptation with a breakdown for the entire 12 episodes of the first season. And then I am called into a meeting with all parties involved. I am praised for my work. Everyone is so impressed. They just need to send to the director and see what he thinks.”

Craig, what happens?

Craig: “A week later I receive a call. The director doesn’t feel comfortable having someone so new onboard. So they’ve decided to look somewhere else, meaning a more established writer.” You didn’t take that job, did you?

John: I did not.

Craig: That would have been brutal. “Before meeting with me they didn’t even know what they were going to do with the source material. Now they have everything they need to develop a TV show, and they have literally thrown me to the curb.”

She doesn’t mean literally there. “And what control—“

John: Figuratively.

Craig: “And what control do I have in how they use those documents moving forward? Zero. If you need a clear example to support your cause I am more than willing to share. This is a very big company we all know and the director and other producers are also very big. Thanks for giving a voice to us writers.”

John: “Thank you guys for making us feel less lonely.”

Craig: Yep. Just checking the grammar on that.

John: So, Eva’s situation is sort of a why we were talking about that last week because that is the thing that happens where you’ve gone in and you’ve done all this work for somebody and then it’s not your work because you didn’t own those books. You didn’t own the stuff underneath that.

So, we were talking this afternoon Craig and you and I had two different opinions about sort of what Ava’s situation was and what her best play was now. So the best play Ava could make would be to build a time machine, go back, and not give those pages. And not do all that free work for those people. Best scenario. Second best scenario in my mind would be to go to those people right now and say like, “Look, I wrote all this stuff. I clearly wrote all this stuff. You are in a weird place because all the stuff you’re basing this on is stuff I wrote. Make a deal with me now. It’s going to be a scale deal. It’s going to be some deal that sort of says that I am the first writer that wrote this stuff. Even if you go with the other fancy writer, I was in the chain of title. That’s my play. What’s your play?

Craig: And that is what a reasonable person would do.

John: All right. Let’s hear Craig’s version.

Craig: What I say is: lie in wait. Because one day they’re going to make that thing and then about, oh, I don’t know, three weeks before the first air date you call them up and say, “I’m suing you. Because you stole my shit.” And then they’re going to settle. And it’s happened. This happened before. It’s just maximizing your leverage via evil. And the service of an attorney. But it’s deserved. They asked for it. They are doing a bad thing.

And the reason I’m so glad that you made this our follow up here because for you guys out here there is a decent chance this is how it’s going to happen to you when it happens. Your first encounter very frequently when you have that first sale, that first good meeting, that first kind of yes/almost yes, there’s a decent chance you’re going to be dealing either with peripheral people who are maybe a touch on the shady side, or you’re going to be dealing with established people who are still on the shady side.

The cost of someone asking you to just do a little free work is zero. Zero. So they’re going to do it. And then you are put in this terrible spot. But we’re here to tell you it’s actually not that terrible. The answer is nah. And if you’ve done a good job and you’re impressive and the work you’ve done at least in describing what you want to do is impressive that should be enough.

If you have to write a bunch of stuff up the potential for abuse is enormous and the potential for wasted time is enormous. But I guess there is the one up side that you may be able to lie in wait and sue. But if you’re not particularly litigious, don’t leave anything behind.

John: Yeah. All right. The other categories of responses we got in Twitter would fall into sort of four basic general buckets. The first one is the question of like well what if it’s my own thing. What if I came up with this original idea, this original pitch, this original thing, and went in to describe to these people and they said like, “Oh, could you send me through that thing you wrote about?” You could theoretically do that. That is your own thing. That is not mostly what we’re talking about here. You own that idea. The only thing I will caution you is the moment your idea becomes four paragraphs you’re sending through, then it’s all about those four paragraphs and it’s not about you and you as a visionary writer with those ideas. It becomes about that thing. So while you can legally do that and maybe in some situations it makes sense to do that, the more you can keep it in the realm of talking before you get to a screenplay is usually a good thing.

Craig: Professional writers get paid to write. So if you want to be a professional writer, and I’m thinking a lot of you do, get paid to write. If you are writing something for free you must control it all the way, meaning it’s your own spec work. It’s your original work. If someone is saying to you I have a book, I have an idea, I have a piece of this, I have a song, I have a toy – anything – that you don’t control completely you start writing when they agree to pay you, in writing, period, the end.

John: The other thing which showed up in our Twitter feeds, Craig what would you call this category of like people objecting to this idea of not leaving stuff behind?

Craig: There were a certain category of people who said, “Don’t interfere with my right to take abuse in order to get a job.”

John: My process is to be abused.

Craig: Sort of like you fat cats are trying to keep us out of the business by taking away our ability to write for free.

John: How dare you, Craig.

Craig: Right. Your rhetoric has disqualified you from our business. I don’t know how else to say. It’s just a silly line of reasoning. If your way into the business is writing for free, big headline, you’re not in the business.

John: Yeah. A related category of criticism was “but what about…” It’s what about ism. It’s basically like this thing you just said, yeah, but this other thing is more interesting. OK, great. This thing we’re talking about is specifically leaving stuff behind in a room. There are many challenges facing feature writers. They all are worthy of attention. Most of them are worthy of attention. This is about the one thing. So, what about ism I’m always vigilant for.

Craig: “Tu quoque”, is that how you pronounce that?

John: I don’t know.

Craig: It’s the you too. It’s a fallacy. It’s Latin. Guys, it’s Latin.

John: Latin. Latin.

Craig: It’s Latin for what he just said.

John: The last thing which came up a lot in this thing was the sense of like “Well why did nobody tell me about this before?” And the somebody telling you about things from before that’s institutional knowledge. And I feel like that’s a thing maybe we haven’t done a great job on is like when Craig and I were starting in the business other screenwriters would say like, “Oh, no, whatever you do don’t leave stuff behind.” And I guess we didn’t communicate that message through to everybody else. And so part of the reason why we have these amazing guests with us here tonight is so we can pass along some of our institutional knowledge of what’s happened before and hopefully fix people in the future.

Craig: Yeah, you know, maybe whatever happens, maybe it’s a little late. Maybe we should have said this earlier. Acknowledge/stipulated. But that’s not a reason to suddenly question the validity of it now. It is valid now. And so we’re saying to all of you don’t do that. For yourselves. Honestly for yourselves. It doesn’t change our lives, but for yourselves. And also I guess for the people that are with you in the room tonight. There is a certain impact we have with each other. And every time we agree to a condition that is unprofessional and debasing we’re making it a little harder for the next writer, or the writer next to us, to be treated well.

So, consider that as you go through your lives, you wonderful people.

John: Let us bring up a panel of institutional knowledge we are so lucky to have. First off, Wendy Calhoun. She is a writer whose credits include – Wendy Calhoun – credits include Station 19, Empire. She’s on a development deal right now. Wendy Calhoun, welcome to the show.

Wendy Calhoun: Thank you. It’s such an honor.

John: Yay. Next up we have Phil Hay.

Craig: Phil Hay.

John: Phil Hay, oh my god. Phil Hay has done a ton. The Invitation, which was amazing. Destroyer, which is coming out soon. Crazy Beautiful. Ride Along. Clash of the Titans.

Phil Hay: Right on.

John: Phil Hay, welcome to our program.

Phil: Can I ask a quick question before we start?

John: Yes.

Craig: There’s another guest coming. You know that right?

John: Two more.

Phil: Yes, no, it’s addressed to Craig and it’s regarding the video. How the fuck did you get so relevant? I can’t believe it.

Craig: I was born relevant, yo. When I came out people were like this means something.

John: This guy is…

Craig: This is important.

Phil: In relation to something else, this guy…

Craig: Nurses who literally deliver nothing but babies all day long, day after day, were like, “Stop everyone. Something just happened.”

John: One day you will have a famous roommate. He’ll have a famous college roommate and everything will change.

Phil: That’s it.

John: Nicole Perlman.

Craig: Yeah!

John: Nicole Perlman. Her credits of course include Guardians of the Galaxy, the upcoming Captain Marvel, Detective Pikachu. Nicole Perlman, welcome to our program. Thank you very much.

Nicole Perlman: Thank you for having me.

John: Finally Jason Fuchs. Jason Fuchs.

Craig: Fuchs.

John: Writer whose credits include Wonder Woman, Ice Age: Continental Drift. Jason Fuchs, welcome to our show, a return guest from last year. Nicely done.

Jason Fuchs: Thanks for having me back.

John: Yeah. So you passed some test with Craig.

Craig: Did you guys hear the show last year? Do you remember the greatest story in the world that Jason Fuchs told us? He can’t top that this year, can he? No, not a chance. Try. That’s a challenge.

John: We’re not trying to top, we’re trying to educate. We’re trying to discuss.

Phil: And what about the year before, Craig? What about the year before that?

Craig: Phil killed it.

Phil: It was fantastic.

Craig: Phil killed it.

Phil: This is a very controversial item with John.

John: Craig wanted like 20 people on stage and I said like let’s limit it to four.

Craig: Oh, I’m sorry I wanted to give you guys more.

John: Always the buzz kill. I sent through a depressing article for everyone to look at. So if you’re following me on Twitter you see that we’re going to discuss this article. This is an article that came out by Nicole Laporte on Fast Company. It came out yesterday. And it’s titled The Death of the Middle Class, but it’s really about how streaming has effected writers’ lives and streaming not just for TV, because you think about TV being all the TV shows that are going to Netflix and other channels, but also increasingly for features. So, I want to–

Craig: Happy time is over.

John: Happy time is over.

Craig: Here we go guys.

John: So we have four writers up here who work in sort of various capacities. Now Craig now has a TV show for HBO. And I want to talk about the change that’s happening for writers right now because these are mostly people who are moving into this industry and while there are more TV programs on the air than ever, in some ways it’s harder to make a living, or at least a middle class living in this. In this article that she lays out the people at the very top, the people who are making the giant deals, they’re making a lot. But the people who are going show to show, it’s actually harder than ever.

So, Wendy, I want to start with you because you have the most TV experience of the people here. What have you seen changing over the last maybe five years? And as you talk to writers who are trying to make a living, what’s different now?

Wendy: Well, I mean, I can use a very personal example. How about that?

John: I like those.

Wendy: I was on a show called Nashville. I worked on the first two seasons of that show.

John: Heard of it.

Wendy: I don’t know if anyone has seen it. Thank you. It’s about country music. The show was the hardest show I’ve had to launch. I’ve been a part of seven new series and that was the hardest. So to break up a bit of the sadness and monotony that we had in the room I would come in and pitch the black version of the show. And very often those pitches landed, by the way.

So, when we were in season two and I got sent by a friend a pilot script that had not been shot yet but was to star Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard called Empire I read it and I said, holy crap, I’ve been pitching this for two years.

So, I had to quit my job at Nashville without having an offer yet for Empire. It was a real flyer. I had kind of built my entire career writing, sorry to say, but white men with guns. And I thought this would be a really kind of different thing. I’d like to write a show with black people. That would be interesting, wouldn’t it?

I did get the offer, thank goodness. I went on as a co-executive producer of the show. I worked my ass off. The show came out of the box and it was a big hit. Now, we on Nashville were making 22 episodes a year. Fox ordered 11 episodes of Empire. That’s a half pay cut for me. Right?

Craig: Because just be clear, when you’re working in television you are paid per episode. Not by time, but by episode.

Wendy: By episode. Right. So do this math. So we got that going. And on top of that they added 12 weeks to the schedule before we actually shot. So, we had scripts written before we actually shot, which is different for broadcast television. So my money is not only half but it’s stretched out over three extra months.

Now, the show comes out, is a big hit. And I’m thinking, well, those residual checks will start rolling in. The green envelopes will start coming, right? No. The show goes directly to Hulu and I don’t get any–

Craig: I love the way you say Hulu.

John: I love that you say Hulu.

Wendy: Hulu.

Jason: I can tell you, Hulu actually pays way better.

John: Directly for Hulu, yeah.

Wendy: Not for broadcast repeats it does not.

John: But Hulu, the other one, it’s the wrong one. That’s the problem.

Wendy: Because it’s sponsored by Le Croix. Anyways, so you can kind of see how that is just one example of the economic impact that’s happened in the last five years. And that is to a broadcast television writer-producer. So you can only imagine when you start talking about cable where you’re making, what, $0.60 on the dollar? When you’re talking about digital where you are trying to – you have to rely on your management and agents and reps to try to get you some sort of back end participation so that you actually see some sort of money for all of your shows being shown again. And it becomes a real issue. A real issue in the middle when you’re in the middle.

Craig: So this is something that the Writers Guild had a big deal with the companies and we kind of went up to the edge of a strike with. So the old way of doing things, if you became a writer, a new writer, and you worked on staff at a show like Nashville, which was a classic network show, 22 episodes a year, you were paid per episode usually some sort of producing fee or consulting or something per episode. You got your episodes that you wrote. They had a rerun. Those generated a lot of extra money for you.

Now they cut that in half or even less. Sometimes it’s just eight episodes. That’s all you’re getting paid. But the amount of time you spend on it gets expanded so essentially what was a living at a certain number has been quartered in some senses by this evolution that we all kind of love as consumers. But as writers it’s become a real problem. It’s a real squeeze.

Wendy: Yeah. It’s an interesting conundrum because on the one hand side I love what digital has done in terms of democratizing our ability to distribute content. On the other hand side, this digital revolution is led by disruptors and they are disrupting the content creators so that they can have content for their technology.

John: Nicole, what are you seeing? So right now you are doing Captain Marvel, so it’s going to be a giant Disney/Marvel/Touchstone, or Guardians of the Galaxy. That is a big movie that gets a big theatrical release. It has a whole residual life to it.

Nicole: I mean, yeah, all the movies, the hope is that you’ll make a lot of money and the residuals and that will sort of make up for all the pain and suffering that goes into the writing process. But I haven’t written for television and frankly I’m so in the dark about all of it. I always assumed that my reps would warn me about it. And then just talking to you guys out in the hallway they’re like, oh, that company that you’re pitching for, yeah, that’s rough. And I was like, what? Wait, what?

And it’s not that I haven’t been paying attention, but I haven’t been paying attention.

John: And one of the challenges, so classically what Wendy is describing is a thing that’s been happening to TV writers over a period of time. But increasingly it’s happening to feature writers, too. So I went in to meet on a project at Fox, a big Fox movie. And my question was like but, wait, will there still be a Fox? Where does this movie go? And so you ask this question and they’re like, well, we’re not sure. I’m like, wait, is this going to go to the Disney streaming thing? They’re like “Maybe.”

And so I said like, OK, on one hand it’s going to be great if the thing got made. But then I’m thinking like, wait, then there are no residuals because then it never goes anywhere else. And so then it’s only showing up on Disney. It’s like, wait, then I don’t have a back end. Or that thing that I had in my deal with like box office bonuses if it crosses a certain threshold, well, there’s no box office, so it all goes away.

Phil, have you encountered that in any of your deals yet? Have you started looking at feature stuff where it’s like you don’t know where the feature is going to end up? Like you just did Destroyer. It was an indie movie. So you didn’t know who the distributor was going in.

Phil: Yeah, I mean, I think that if you make independent movies you’re comfortable with the idea that you don’t know what that end is. And that you don’t know if the movie that you’ve made and intended to be released in theaters is going to ever be released in theaters because for example Netflix has the power to take whatever they want. So, had we – we were fortunate that we’re with the distributor Annapurna that is committed to releasing movies in theaters. But we were well aware that Netflix could have at any time decided to take the movie because of the amount of money that they offered and there was not much you could do.

And many people are thrilled with that actually, but I think when I think about some of the stuff we’re talking about what strikes me is that there’s a real short-sidedness that is happening with the kind of business strategy that’s going on that I think is extremely inhumane and very brutal. And there’s sort of I think maybe a culture that certainly in Hollywood and in Silicon Valley that kind of values brutality. That there’s some truth to that. There’s some core Hobbesian thing that they’re chasing. When in fact I think that when we talk about the demise of the middle class of writers that the idea that it’s very short-sided to kill the ability of people to develop and to be able to create the things that are going to make you a lot of money. Because people have options, right? I mean, you know, I grew up wanting to be a screenwriter and people grew up wanting to be TV writers and people still want to do that because there is something truly magical and special about it.

But people can do other stuff, right? And the business as a whole has an interest in keeping people able to have a life and a family and develop their craft to then create stuff that makes money. And I’m afraid that now all the opportunities are at the very beginning level, which is great because you need those opportunities, and at the very, very top level. And if you’re at that level that’s great because you can do those things. But that part in the middle that we’ve talked about for several years and seems to be accelerating, I think it’s beyond a business problem. It’s a societal problem. It’s not valuing the ability to make a living at something, and to develop, and to work, and thus you’re going to drive talented people into other businesses. And that’s my biggest worry for us as a business.

Craig: Yep. And my guess is they won’t stop until they start feeling the impact of it, of their loss of talent. I mean, for you guys the thing to understand about the way a career in television – because television is just statistically where you will get your start. They just make a thousand television shows now. Netflix will have 700 titles. 700 original Netflix titles. It’s insane.

So, they’re making thousands of these TV shows across these new platforms. But traditionally television writers, the people that ran the show, these were the big guys, the big guns, and they were the new writers. But the bulk of people kind of – what they would do is they would get a job working on a show. And maybe if the money they paid you to write a script or two or work on that show wasn’t quite enough to afford to live in a place like Los Angeles, which is expensive, there were these residuals. That was the reuse money. When they would do reruns you would get this extra money and it would keep you going and you could raise a family and support a family and send your kids to college. The American dream.

And what they’ve done – and I think part of it is what Phil is saying, it’s a Silicon Valley, well, humans are just meat and computers are computing. Like we don’t care. They’ve eliminated a lot of that rolling support. So you now are hand to mouth. And when you are hand to mouth you tend to, I think, emphasize younger workers, newer workers who are willing to deal with it. And then when they get to a certain point if they don’t have their own show they look around and go I can’t make a living at this.

John: I think what you’re describing is that in some ways the proliferation of all these services and all the shows mean there are more jobs, total number of jobs, for writers. And so in many ways people entering the business like there’s more spots open, there’s more chairs. The thing is you’re not advancing because the shows don’t go on, or they’re only half a season so you’re jumping from show to show. It’s very hard to build up from one to the next. Agents aren’t pushing to advance your quote so your quote is how much you got paid on your last job, how much you’re getting paid on your next job. There’s not an incentive to sort of keep pushing your quote up. And so it makes it harder and harder to grow up the ranks of a business.

Wendy: I thought it was really interesting the fact that linking, I mean, maybe it’s obvious, but linking back that Netflix doesn’t release data on how well your show is doing, it takes away a leverage that you might have to say this is a top three rated show that you have. We deserve to be getting paid more. You can’t say that if there’s no data to point to.

Jason: I think everything everyone is saying is spot on.

Craig: Thank you. Thank you, Jason.

Jason: It’s probably something that the guild – particularly you Craig.

Craig: Thank you. I agree.

Jason: But isn’t there a certain component of this that’s organically also going to tilt a little bit in our favor? What you said, John, or Craig, you said 700 Netflix shows, so it feels like there’s this proliferation of material, but really it’s not competitive because you can’t very well tell Netflix you’re going to go off and do this other Netflix show. It’s still them.

As the studios all develop their own streaming platforms, right, Disney over the top has won. But at a certain point Time Warner has already announced it. It’s going to make sense for all of these studios to develop streaming platforms. There’s also going to be a proliferation of competition. I’m not saying that’s going to be enough to create a playing field where we can negotiate fair deals, but I also think it will help level the playing field a little bit.

John: I have a very specific question for you, because on a previous panel you were saying how you developed this new project with a director, you were very excited to do it, like it was a shared interest, a piece of property that you guys did together. As you have developed that property did you say like oh we want to go to a studio, or were you open to the idea of going to a Netflix, of going to an Amazon, or going to an Apple rather than going to a studio? Because it changes the equation of what that is.

John: The project he’s referring to is Robotech, which I’m writing for Sony and Andy Muschietti is directing. No, it wasn’t a conversation on that because Sony controlled the rights. It was something we knew Sony had and had been developing. So it wasn’t–

John: But if Sony wanted to do it for a Sony streaming platform would it have been as interesting to you?

Jason: For me it would have. I can’t speak for Andy. For me, I’m still in shock at the opportunities that I have. Robotech is a property that I loved. I loved the series growing up. So, yeah, for me the creative would have driven me to do that regardless of whether maybe it was a less financially rewarding situation. But I think it’s something we’re all going to face. I mean, as I’m developing more original stuff, it’s a big conversation with filmmakers. Do you want theatrical or not? Does it matter? Does it have to be a theatrical experience? And every writer is going to have to make their own choice.

Craig: I’m kind of curious what you guys think. I hate to do the Applause-o-meter but if you think that something means more because it’s in a theater as opposed to being on a streaming platform please applaud if it means more. OK. Now, if you don’t really care one way or the other whether it comes through a streaming platform in television or if it’s in theater, please applaud.

Interesting. Now. You do that six years ago, that’s everybody in the first applause, no one in the second applause.

John: So I’m here at the Austin Film Festival, but I’m also here at the Texas Book Festival which happens to be the same weekend. And so for Arlo Finch I’m doing all the book events for that. And so this morning at 7:20 in the morning a van picked me up and I went to a grade school and I talked to 300 kids about Arlo Finch and did my little slideshow. It was great. I’m really tired now.

But, I asked the same question. And so there’s been a lot of talk about will you do Arlo Finch as a movie or as a TV series, and so I polled the audience. I did the same thing. You don’t let kids clap. They had to raise their hand quietly. And so I asked them “Should Arlo Finch be a movie or like a Netflix show?” And it was pretty evenly split.

Craig: And so I’m glad that some of the kids knew what a movie was. That’s very good.

John: Yeah, exactly. What’s a movie?

Craig: A theater?

John: A recurring topic that will be a topic on Scriptnotes for the next however long we do the show is what is a movie? We talk about like is a movie a piece of entertainment that’s about two hours long that is a one-time story? Probably, because right now we have these definitions of what a movie is versus what a TV movie is for Netflix, which are just ridiculous. They don’t match reality at all.

Phil: But I think it’s a cultural. It’s not just the responsibility of the people making the stuff, or the people distributing the stuff, because you know what I would say as a person who is a diehard believer in the theatrical experience. It’s just what I love. But to look at it and say that it’s really the responsibility of people who write about movies, people that talk about movies. For example, right now I would say – and this may be changing really fast – but I’d say right now a TV show on Netflix, there’s no difference in the culture between a TV show on Netflix and a TV show anywhere else. It is not less than, it is not different than. It just is.

For some reason, and I think it’s because maybe the critical establishment or maybe the press doesn’t treat them the same, a movie that’s on Netflix is not quite the same. And that can change. That just takes the culture changing to kind of embrace and treat them the same way. So that’s the thing that I’m interested in seeing is if the people that kind of keep the culture alive decide that there’s no difference between a movie that is streaming only versus a movie that appears in theaters for however long it does. That will be different. There’s power in that in itself.

Jason: Is that also just a qualitative distinction? Like the reason that there’s no difference between a Netflix show and a broadcast show or cable show, I think, is because it’s just so good. Right? There’s started to become content on streaming and Netflix–?

Craig: Wendy hates what you just said.

Jason: No, no, no, but there were so many shows–

Wendy: That’s a relative opinion though, isn’t it?

Craig: Finally a fight.

Jason: It’s all a relative opinion. But didn’t – there started to become content on streaming that people were really excited about and so people started to take it seriously because they loved it. And I think that it’s not to say there aren’t films particularly in the last year like Roma that have come out in streaming, but I suspect that as there are more great films on streaming platforms, perhaps that will change people’s opinions just a little bit of what a streaming two-hour film could be.

Craig: In rebuttal–

Wendy: Having developed for both Netflix and broadcast television–

John: The expert in the room.

Craig: Here we go.

Wendy: They’re very, very different. They’re completely different. They have totally different models about how they approach content and about the kind of content they want to create. Typically what I find is when I’m developing with a streamer or with a cable, they want to do something that is absolutely the opposite of what’s happening on broadcast. And when I’m developing with broadcast, which by the way I’m developing two at this very moment, they are still playing by an old rule book.

So, I’m not going to say necessarily that what you’re saying like all of Netflix’s content is great, because I think some people here beg to differ.

Jason: No, I don’t think it is.

Wendy: You can’t have that volume and have that much greatness. But there is still something to really be said for broadcast. I mean, I love developing in broadcast and I’ll tell you why. I do believe that the Netflix, let’s call it a revolution, is changing the landscape of what kind of stories can be told and how much an audience can absorb and how smart audiences can be. And that is something that the broadcasters are catching up to fast.

There’s a reason that Fox gave us 12 extra weeks in the room, because they know how impossible it is to write a series in the short amount of window that was that traditional broadcast model. Right? A lot of times if you were on a broadcast show you would start writing in May and you had to start shooting by July. So they realize that that time crunch was an issue.

And, you know, people that are working on Netflix shows, they may be developing for a year before that show is even shot. I mean, it could go on forever.

John: Yeah. But in developing for a year, the extra time in Empire, the extra year for Netflix, that’s costing you as a writer money.

Wendy: It’s costing us money. Absolutely.

Craig: They’re penalizing you for the care you put into your own show.

Wendy: That’s right. And people say this all the time. I’m not the first person to say this. They say well the quality of shows, these shows are winning all these Emmys. OK, I got an opinion about that, too. But, winning all these Emmys versus broadcast and it is true. And broadcast is a completely different monster that you’re playing with. You are on a train that you’ve got to deliver every week a certain amount of content that is not equal to what’s happening on Netflix or even FX or anything.

Craig: And Nicole you were ready to jump in there as well.

Nicole: I was just going to say exactly what Wendy said. Not at all.

Wendy: Now that you got me fired up. Now that my Coca Cola has kicked in. Coca Cola.

John: Coca Cola, nothing more. Well, we need to move on to a craft topic that everyone can relate to. So we’re not all going to be making TV shows, but we’re all going to be writing stuff.

Craig: Most of these people will be making TV shows.

John: Absolutely.

Craig: If Netflix continues at this rate.

John: Everyone in this room.

Craig: Almost everyone here will have a TV show.

John: As you walk out, please pick up your No Writing Left Behind sticker and your Netflix deal.

Craig: You will all work for Hulu.

John: This was a tweet that was sent to me and to Craig. Nicola Prigg tweeted, “Is there any storytelling reason why we get bored during an episode of television? Or why we feel a story is slow in a movie?”

So Craig and I both saw this tweet. Craig said, “Yes, that’s a good topic for an episode.”

Craig: Yeah. Do something about it, John.

John: And so I said, yes, let me put it in the outline where we actually keep these ideas for episodes.

Craig: He’s scolding me now. Because I’m lazy. But it worked.

John: But Nicola Prigg actually had a really good topic. So why sometimes as you’re watching TV or watching a movie–

Craig: Or reading a script.

John: Or reading a script, yeah, which is the prototype to sort of both of these. I’m bored. And this actually happened to me this last week. I was talking to a writer-director about his script, which I loved, but I had to say like, starting at about page 45 I got kind of bored until we got to this moment. And I could describe exactly why it was. And so I want to talk with this panel here, as you’re watching a movie, as you’re reading a script, the things that get you bored.

And so I can tell you what happened to me was the writer had set up that in like two days this thing is going to be happening. And so once he established that landmark, like this is a thing we’re going to be watching for, everything that wasn’t that was kind of filler and felt boring to me. So that was a reason why I was getting bored in that script. As you’re reading–

Phil: I know the answer, John.

John: Tell me why you get bored.

Craig: Came out of the gate very strong there. You have nothing. Got nothing.

Phil: No. I think that one of the best pieces of advice I ever got about writing in classic form, I don’t remember who gave me this advice, but I remember the advice. And the advice was to get rid of everything in your script that seems remotely obligatory. And so I think people get bored when they smell that there’s something even in a well-written, engaging, funny, interesting script something obligatory is happening. We have to show that this is a good person. We have to show that they’re really worried about this. Any statement that starts with we have to do this, and I think you hear when you work with people, a lot of times you hear that exact verbiage. We have to see this. We have to see this. We have to know that.

Sometimes that feeling, sometimes you do have to know stuff, yes, but to me that’s the thing like if I’m watching a movie or I’m reading a script, when I get bored is when I can smell that the person is doing it because they think they have to. And the scene is over and it’s not over because there’s still a little bit more – we have to show how nice this guy is now, or something.

So I think the word obligatory is what always comes to me as boring.

Craig: I think that’s good advice.

John: So that sense of like you’re doing a thing because you feel like you need to do it rather than you want to do it. There’s not an excitement. And there’s no curiosity from the reader because—

Phil: They see it coming. They’ve already seen this story.

Craig: The calculation is evident right. When you’re reading it you go, oh, they’re doing that thing because they feel that they have to do the thing. That immediately is boring. And it’s probably a sign that you didn’t need to do the thing at all.

Phil: And maybe the remedy or the experiment doesn’t work every time is to try to do exactly the opposite and see what happens because sometimes that does work. To truly deny the thing that everyone has told you to do could. So just even as an experiment in your writing, I mean, I found that helpful in our writing is to sometimes do the thing that’s the opposite and see what happens.

Craig: Nicole, you are particularly good at entertaining me, in particular. And you’re not at all boring, you’re the opposite of a boring writer to me. What are you doing to avoid being boring and what are worried about when you read things and you go, oh, it’s happening?

Nicole: Of my own work?

Craig: No, of other people’s. You are never boring.

Nicole: Well, so I read a lot of scripts because I mentor a lot, so I do a lot of work with Sundance and with SF Film and with Sun Foundation. And so I’ve read a lot of scripts that I would say, there’re a few things. I mean, I could speak many things of this. But one is when the writer doesn’t trust the reader to be following them, and so it’s not breadcrumbs, it’s like loaves of bread being heaved at you. And you’re like, yes, I get that they have an issue with their mother. OK. This is like the fourth time you told us. So obviously the thing with the girlfriend is going to echo the mother. We know. And then you’re just waiting for it to happen.

And I think a lot of times I’m sitting around reading a script waiting for them to get to the part where the story really should start. Or just like get past the thing that is the big reveal that we all saw coming. So I would say people who don’t trust their reader to be more subtle or to be more complex or sophisticated. Or they’re just telling us too much. Shoe leather I think can be really boring. A lot of the like how did they get from this file that they found on the desk, and then they have to go to the gas station to talk to the guy. And a lot of the times it’s just following a paint-by-numbers kind of thing and it’s just not that interesting because there’s not necessarily any compelling emotion or conflict that’s inherent in that scene. They’re just sort of following a to do list. And so then we feel like we’re reading somebody’s to do list.

And the other thing I would say is that as much as I love research and I’m a big research fan, I think I’ve read a lot of scripts especially because I frequently am given science-based stories that are just like there’s an interesting fact that I’m going to shoe-horn in there that isn’t that interesting. And it’s like maybe if I was reading it in a game of Trivial Pursuit, but not in the second act reversal.

Phil: And just to add to that, I think that what you’re saying is so right because I think a lot of times there’s a false value that has kind of taken hold which is no one should ever be confused for even a second. No one should ever wonder for a second. Or just think, whoa, what, for a second. That there’s this weird impulse that everything has to be explained. It doesn’t come from us. It comes from other people.

Craig: Them.

Phil: But that idea that it can be fun and entertaining to sit in not knowing and wondering. It’s a whole concept called suspense. That’s a great concept but that is kind of weirdly under attack all the time, with the fear that the audience will just be so mad that they don’t know right that second. And I just don’t believe in that, but I know that there’s a lot of people who do. And so I think a lot of the stuff that you’re talking about is exactly that. That people are trying to cover all their bases and make sure no one is ever wondering for a second. And to me wondering is an amazing thing. That’s a great thing.

Craig: Wendy?

Wendy: Sure.

Craig: Love of my life.

Wendy: Hello. What’s your number? Just kidding.

Craig: I just love, “Wendy, love of my life” is the greatest movie quote of all time. Any time I hear your name I’m like, “Wendy, love of my life.” You guys know what I’m talking about, don’t you?

Wendy: The Shining.

Craig: Thank you, Wendy. The Shining. I’m not being creepy. I mean, I am.

John: We’re in a hotel.

Craig: I mean, I’m being creepy a la The Shining.

Wendy: A couple of things. When I go into a writers’ room and we are breaking the story for an episode of television, I’m going to stick with broadcast because the gauntlet has been thrown down there. So, in broadcast television, which millions upon millions of people watch–

Craig: Do it. Keep going.

Wendy: Maybe less than five years ago.

Craig: Yes.

Wendy: But there’s still a lot of people who don’t pay for content and want to watch it for free and don’t bother watching a tampon commercial. OK, so.

Craig: You’re the villain of the podcast now.

Jason: Just to clarify, I was not taking down broadcast.

Craig: No, no, no, it’s too late. It’s too late. You’ve been defined.

Wendy: He likes the conflict. And that’s actually what this is all about.

Craig: I love conflict.

Wendy: This is where I’m going. I always go into the room when we’re breaking a new episode and I say, OK everybody, what is the climax of this story. Show me the climax. I want to see what’s happening at that act five break. And I drive people bananas because they’re like, well, we want to talk about the teaser. And we have an idea–

John: You have act breaks. That’s a crucial difference in broadcast. You have act breaks that you’re building up to.

Wendy: Yes. And if you have story blocks that don’t service that climax, bye. It’s not here. We’re not using that. And, by the way, it takes me a while to get there. As a writer I’m very honest about this. What I find in my drafts as I go along is I’ll just – I don’t know, we’re in Texas so I’ll use a gun analogy because ya’ll understand that.

So like, OK, imagine you’re at target practice, right. You’ve got your gun. You’re looking down range. So, what I find in my scripts, especially the first few drafts, is that I’ve shot all around the middle target. Like the scenes are almost there, but they’re not quite there. And when I hit the bullseye, damn, you know that’s not boring. Right? So to me that’s really how I feel. I often say what is the highest point of drama that I can find in this story I’m trying to tell and then what are the highest points of drama that will get me to that place.

And so that’s how I keep it from getting boring.

Craig: That’s kind of where I’m at. Well done. And I think when I’m reading something and I get bored, or when I’m watching something and I get bored it’s because the show has decided to take a break, or the movie has taken a break. And what I mean by that is there is a propulsion going on. Somebody needs something. At all points something must be done about something, or someone. And then another thing happens that makes it really hard, or really surprising. But every now and then a show will take a break and go, OK, let’s just have a chat. Or, you know what, I want to tell you what I think. That’s a break.

I don’t want it. Even when people – sometimes you’ll have that moment in a movie where someone will sit down and there will be a little fireside chat of some kind and someone will start telling a story, but you don’t get bored because there’s a meaning to the story that impacts the end. Case in point, Gandalf sits down at one point. They are lost in the mines of Moria. And little Frodo notices that Gollum has been following and he says, “Oh, Gollum has been following me.” “Yes, he’s been following us for a long time.”

And then they have this very long – this is an action-packed movie and now it’s just two people talking. But what it comes down to is Frodo says, “I just wish I were not alive right now.” And he says, “It’s not our choice to determine when we’re alive. It’s only our choice to determine what we do with the time we have.” That is literally the theme of the entire series and it is why in the end the end happens the way the end happens. That is not a boring scene.

Right? Because they understood if you dare stop and take a break you better deliver something that matters. OK? If you dare to stop it’s got to be amazing. Like that. Just so you know, write Gollum.

John: So that’s a quiet moment. But so often I get bored during really loud moments. So like a bunch of stuff, like cities are being destroyed, and I’m like I’m just so bored. And because I’m not watching characters do anything that I care about. I’m just watching stuff happen. And it’s basically they’ve stopped actually the story of the movie just to show a bunch of special effects. And you can only take so much of that. It’s just like, no, I’m done, let’s get onto the next – stop. Stop destroying the buildings.

Craig: How many buildings can you blow up? At some point there’s just enough–

John: So many it turns out.

Craig: Oh no, the city is, again with the buildings. And I also think about the insurance adjustors.

John: Yeah. That poor man.

Craig: Or just like people that erect and take down scaffolding. There’s so much work to be done.

John: There’s a lot of work to be done. So, Jason, I wanted to get to you because you have done some of the big smashy things. So, can you give us any suggestions for a bunch of smashy stuff is happening, what are you doing to keep us engaged during the smashy-smashy bits?

Jason: I think the thing about broadcast is…

Wendy: Bring it.

Craig: You’re so funny. You’re so funny.

Jason: When you’re writing these big action sequences I think it’s very easy for audiences to tune out. It’s very easy for it to become about the logistics, about sort of the physics of what’s going on and the visual effects. And it just has to be about character. And it’s so rare that you have big action sequences that are driven by character. And I think Nicole you did something really brilliant with the finale set piece of Guardians of the Galaxy where it’s just about this group finally learning to trust each other and to work as one. And so it really is just a group of friends who all got thrown together, or hate each other, trying to figure out how not to for one moment.

And the stuff that’s going on around them is cool and beautiful and James Gunn does an amazing job of visualizing it, but it really does feel like it’s just a character piece. That’s what I aspired to do with Wonder Woman. And I think it all stems, you know, to your earlier question about why audiences get bored when they get bored. I think a big part of it is familiarity. And everyone was sort of hinting at the same thing which is lack of faith in the audience.

And I think audiences are ready for smaller act three set pieces. I think an example, well, World War Z is a movie that’s not necessarily beloved.

John: Oh yeah.

Craig: So World War Z is a great lesson because initially the climax of World War Z was a massive action set piece that took place in Moscow.

Jason: Big Red Square finale set piece.

Craig: Where Brad Pitt faced off against waves of Russian zombies, which we wouldn’t know anything about now today, but when it was revised it was determined that actually Brad Pitt versus one zombie.

Jason: And it works way better because it’s character.

Craig: Much better.

Jason: But I think underestimating – we’re still I feel like–

Phil: Would have loved to see a sky portal in that opening.

Jason: Sky portal would have been nice.

Phil: Just for me.

Craig: Just one portal.

Jason: But I do think we’re still a little bit behind the audiences in big studio feature film land. I think audiences have gotten so smart and so willing to experience different things from characters. And it’s not just about, I think confusion is a good point. There’s a real aversion to allowing audiences to live in that space of confusion which I think is valuable as he was saying. But I also think audiences are able to process complicated characters. I think probably all of us, or at least maybe this is just me, you get the note about characters being likeable. Your hero being likeable.

Craig: Oh, that’s the worst note.

Jason: Heroic enough. And that’s boring.

Craig: Never do that. Never do that.

Jason: People can be unlikeable.

Craig: If anyone ever says to you your character is not likeable, you say thank you.

Phil: And even worse if they say the word relatable. Because honestly, you know, we just made a movie about a character who is not likeable and not relatable. And the only thing that’s important to me is if you think the character is interesting. That’s all that matters.

Wendy: And now add gender and race to that equation. Tell me. You know what I’m saying.

Phil: Exactly.

Wendy: It’s very, very different.

Phil: Exactly.

John: You can’t throw that out there and not do anything more with that.

Craig: What else is there to say? She said gender and race. End of discussion.

John: End of discussion.

Wendy: If you don’t know what that means I can’t help you.

Phil: But relatable to who, likeable by who.

Wendy: Exactly. Exactly. Who says what’s relatable? Who says what’s likeable?

Craig: There we go.

John: There it is. I wanted some closure on that moment. This next moment–

Phil: You did it again. Perfectly.

John: Is a moment we’ve been waiting for for 370 episodes perhaps. So this is about a character who is perhaps relatable.

Craig: Not likeable.

John: Not always likeable. Not always entirely consistent. But it’s a character who we’ve all come to know really, really well. So this is a new game we’re going to play tonight called Why is Craig So Mad?

So, one of the things we did very early from the start of Scriptnotes is we have transcripts of every episode. So I can Google words to see certain words. Words like “angry,” or “umbrage.” And so what I did yesterday–

Craig: Or “fucking.”

John: Is I went through and I looked through the transcripts to find examples of like Craig being angry. And the question is would even Craig remember what he was angry about. So, in previous years we’ve brought a person out from the audience to guess. When I showed this to Craig, Craig had no idea so Craig will be the contestant and the host of this.

So, we’re going to take things, real things from the transcripts and Craig is going to have to figure out what he was so angry about. And our panelists here, so you have this Why is Craig So Mad? And so we’ll be reading down A, B, C, and D so you’ll be offering these alternatives.

This is from Episode 34, way early on. Episode Umbrage Farms. Craig, can you reenact your speech here?

Craig: The thought that you would poison your show with somebody because their daddy was somebody is insane and inane. I mean, I don’t know, I haven’t watched the show. Obviously you do and you like it. I haven’t seen it yet.

John: All right. What is Craig so angry about? Option A.

Wendy: Now do I read the parenthesis as well or no?

John: Including the parenthesis, yeah.

Wendy: OK. He’s really angry about Zoey Deschanel on New Girl. Her father is acclaimed cinematographer Caleb Deschanel.

John: Or Option B?

Phil: He’s actually angry about Allison Williams on Girls. Her father is disgraced news anchor Brian Williams.

John: Or is it Option C?

Nicole: Angelina Jolie in Girl Interrupted. Her father is wackadoodle actor Jon Voight.

John: Or is it Option D?

Jason: Jason Ritter, in Another Period. His father is actor John Ritter, rest in peace. Why did I get the sad one?

John: So, Craig, talk us through your mental process here.

Jason: Tonal train wrecks in this show.

Craig: By process of elimination it can’t be Jason Ritter because it can’t be. That would be crazy. I can’t imagine that happening. Who would dare question lovely Jason Ritter? And I can’t imagine Angeline Jolie. I’m torn between Zoey Deschanel and Allison Williams. I’m going to go with Allison Williams on Girls.

John: You are correct. It is Allison Williams on Girls.

Craig: I’m so proud of myself for guessing something I said once.

John: Indeed. Zosia Mamet would also have counted for the same thing. All right, by the way, I should say you weren’t angry at her. You were angry at people who were angry at her being cast on the show.

Craig: Correct. Correct. I was in support of Allison Williams.

John: Yes. Next up is Episode 305. Forever Young and Stupid. Craig, take it away.

Craig: Second of all… [laughs] You can see by Episode 305 I had really fallen into my kind of rhythm. Second of all, screenwriters working in the feature business, I mean, the people that are constantly telling us, hey, things have to change are directors. And now directors are just shocked. Hey, it’s the same deal with us. You took a check. You did something as a work-for-hire piece. Shut up. Piss off.

John: What is Craig so angry about?

Craig: I don’t know.

John: Option A?

Wendy: Sony’s plan to sell clean versions of its movies with none of that upside down kissing in Spider Man.

John: Or B.

Phil: Bryan Singer complaining that he was fired off Bohemian Rhapsody after, you know, not showing up for days at a time.

John: Or Option C.

Nicole: Louis C.K.’s movie, I Love You Daddy, being pulled from theaters after Louis C.K. pulled his dick out.

John: Or Option D.

Jason: DGA complaints about Netflix not showing director credits on the ten thousand billboards they buy around Los Angeles.

John: Craig Mazin, which of these things were you so angry about?

Craig: Oh no. Sony’s plan to sell clean versions of its movies?

John: Craig was right!

Craig: Again, I’m so bizarrely proud of something that should just be normal.

John: Yeah, so I don’t even know, did Sony do the clean versions? I don’t know. But we talked about it.

All right, last one. So Craig has two so far.

Craig: Two out of three. Basic memory, yeah.

John: Absolutely. Episode 221, Nobody Knows Anything Including What this Quote Means.

Craig: Because you’re a good person – I’m talking about you – because you’re a good person. You know, here’s the difference between you and me. A good person sees something that is deserving of vomit and says I don’t understand. Those words don’t fit together. I’m puzzled. I will take a nap. The bad person says I am filled with rage because I can see the bad conscience behind this.

John: What is Craig so angry about? Is it?

Wendy: Warvey Heinstein? Or, I’m sorry, Harvey Weinstein.

John: Harvey Weinstein. Or is it, B?

Phil: Final Draft!

John: Is it C?

Nicole: College students protesting Kimberly Peirce.

Craig: Ooh.

John: Or is it D?

Jason: The Blue Cat Screenplay Competition.

Craig: Shit.

John: That’s a hard one. I got a good one for this last one.

Craig: I mean, they’re all really good. God, it would be so depressing if it was the Blue Cat Screenplay Competition. I got to go with an old chestnut here. Final Draft.

John: It was the Blue Cat Screenplay Competition! Oh, Craig, you almost won the whole game.

Wendy: You’ve got to trust your gut.

Craig: You’re right.

Wendy: Trust your gut.

Craig: Never change your answer.

John: Yeah. You could have won the Showcase Showdown. Instead you gave it up at the end.

Craig: Could have spun the big wheel. Dammit. That’s great. I’m smart. “A good person sees something that is deserving of vomit.” That’s great.

John: We have transcripts for the whole thing. If you listen to the show or read the transcripts you would have an idea of what our show actually is.

Craig: I just finally got why they listen to the show.

John: Yeah. Sometimes it’s funny.

Craig: It’s actually quite entertaining.

John: Yeah. With some planning it sometimes works out pretty well.

Craig: You guys aren’t crazy. This makes sense.

John: We have time for some questions. So, who would like to raise your hand to ask a question?

Hello, what’s your name?

Atticus: Atticus.

John: Atticus like Atticus Finch?

Atticus: Yeah.

John: All right. Very nice.

Atticus: So my question has to do with like writing for TV and streaming and stuff like that, like the difference. So, with the culture of like binge-watching shows now where like on Netflix and streaming stuff you can do a whole season in a day, like do you have to tailor your writing of a TV series differently nowadays?

Craig: That is a great question.

John: Yeah, because you do that.

Craig: That is a really good question. It deserves commendation. It does. You guys have been around these festivals. They’re not always good.

John: So let’s talk about why that was a good question. So that is a good question because it speaks to the expertise that people have on the stage. That’s always good. It is a thing that will be generally interesting to everybody else around you. That’s another good thing.

Craig: Also, there’s something very real and craft about the way that has changed. So, I’m going to start with you here on this one and maybe you have the full answer to this one, Wendy, because you are primarily working in network where you do write week by week, but have you written anything in the binge space?

Wendy: Yes.

Craig: So do you do it differently?

Wendy: Yes.

Craig: Tell us.

Wendy: The companies that make binge product [laughs] really believe that their audience will sit through probably the first three episodes before a major incident happens. That’s very different from network television, where we have about 15 minutes. So that’s a completely different way of thinking. So, that extra two to three hours allows you to develop character, place, set a world that in broadcast your window is about that big. So, you can imagine then the type of choices you can make as a writer.

So, when you’re writing in broadcast and you’ve only got 15 minutes to sell it, you have to go right for the punches. And when you’re doing something on a streamer you can take your time with it. You can flow with it. You can let it go a little looser.

Craig: And you’ve got, I guess the most helpful tool in your tool belt to ensure that somebody comes back seven days later because they don’t have another episode to watch is the cliffhanger.

Wendy: Right. Right. I mean, both models use the cliffhanger. That’s for sure. Because they do want you to keep watching. But I would say that on the streamers, because they do slow it down so much – sometimes too much if you ask me. Sometimes I’m not willing to invest that amount of money. Money, ha. Time. Time is money. What am I saying? But you know what I mean. So it is interesting, because it does change the way you approach the story. It changes the way you approach the season because when you’re making the season and you’re not having the constant interaction of an audience that comes through social media or through ratings or through any kind of, you know, that sort of constant interaction that you have when you have a show that’s on week to week, and you’re making it in a bubble and you’re going to release all of them at the same time you can really approach your storytelling in a much different way.

I know that the way they try to emulate is they imagine that it’s – if you’ve got ten episodes you think of it as a long feature. Right? So your first act break is actually the third episode. Second act break is actually towards the seventh or eighth episode.

Craig: All right.

John: So another episode you might want to listen to, Stephen Schiff came on and we talked about The Americans. And so The Americans is a show that kind of feels like it was streaming, but it was a week to week show. And so they talked a lot about the previously ons and sort of how you have to build in the expectation like a person could be watching them all at once or the person is watching them week by week and you have to make sure that they’re caught up in a way that’s different. Because classically on Netflix there’s no previously on. It just assumes that you’ve watched all of them all together.

Another question. Who has a question?

Male Voice: Hi. After writing so many successful comedies, how did you come to Chernobyl and what was the experience like?

Craig: And who is that question for?

Male Voice: For the whole panel. And when do we get to see it?

Craig: Thank you for asking. Don’t know when I’m allowed to say.

John: Not when it comes out, but you can say why you wrote it.

Craig: It will be coming out next year. Not past the halfway point. The first half of next year.

The way I came about writing it is, I mean, the thing is it doesn’t matter the other stuff I wrote. Like Phil for instance writes all sorts of stuff. I don’t know if you saw The Invitation. It’s a wonderful movie that he wrote with Matt Manfredi and Karyn Kusama directed. It’s a fantastic movie. It is not at all like for instance Ride Along. But he also wrote Ride Along.

I generally think that people that write funny things can do anything. I like the Vince Gilligan method of hiring funny people to play dramatic parts. But I’ve always been interested in not funny things. It’s just that they were mostly paying me to write funny things, so I just did what I could. But probably Chernobyl is the most me thing I’ve ever done. So, really I guess it was just me being me. There you go.

John: You being you. We have time for one more question. So, right behind him is a gentleman who is wearing a shirt. Great, you, sir. The gentleman in a shirt. That’s a really specific thing. You sir, what is your name?

Christian: Christian.

John: Hi Christian. What is your question?

Christian: OK, so Oscars are coming up, award season. What’s one screenplay for each of you that you hope gets nominated, besides your own?

John: I would hope that Black Panther gets nominated, because Black Panther is fantastic. And it’s a fantastically well-made movie, but it’s also a great script. And so Joe Robert Cole and the director also deserve huge credits for how good the writing was in that. I’m trying to think of another – there’s other good stuff, I just wasn’t thinking about what was great this year.

Craig: Oscars are coming up now already? Didn’t we just do them?

John: No. I know it feels like we did.

Craig: I so don’t care.

John: Yeah. Franklin was the show and we talked about like we just don’t care about the awards.

Craig: I mean, I just like movies. The whole rat race of it all. I mean, I know people do get into and everything. I just wish – I love the way the AFI does it where they’re just like it’s 2018. Here are ten movies we loved. Let’s celebrate these ten movies. They’re great. Instead of like pitting them against each other in a fight. But that’s just – oh, probably also because I’m never going to get an Oscar so it’s easy for me to say that, isn’t it. To be like oh Oscars, blech.

John: Can I punt your question a little bit and say that one of – the only good thing I will say about the whole award season bullshit is that the studios all publish their scripts. And so you as writers who are like curious about screenplays–

Craig: Oh, that is true. This is good.

John: You can now read all the screenplays. And like us growing up, it was hard to find screenplays–

Craig: Is there an app that they could read those on?

John: You could read it on Weekend Read, for example. So, Megan, is also going to be putting all of those scripts as they become available up on Weekend Read. So that’s a place you can read them, but you can also find the PDFs other places, too.

Read good scripts. You should also read some terrible scripts so you can understand what never works in scripts. But reading really good screenplays is a great way sort of to develop those muscles and sort of see like, oh, I should aspire to do these really good things. And you see like what it looks like on the page before it becomes the movie.

Craig: I feel like there should be one more question.

John: There should be one more question because I kind of punted that question.

Craig: Can maybe not a dude ask the last one?

John: Which woman in the audience – this young woman right here has raised her hand. She’s wearing a–

Craig: A shirt.

John: She’s wearing a shirt.

Female Voice: I’m also wearing a shirt.

John: All right. People in shirts. But it’s the same color. Is that an Austin Film Festival shirt?

Female Voice: No, it’s just palm trees.

John: Because that is the Austin Film Festival color. The official staff are wearing those shirts.

Female Voice: Oh that’s true. Please don’t ask me anything. I don’t know anything.

John: All right. But you have a question for us.

Female Voice: So my question is at this level of your writing I hear a lot of you guys talking about assignments and I want to know how often, I don’t know, weekly or if it’s maybe daily, you get to work on your kind of pet projects and your own things that nobody pays you for. Or, are they paying you for those?

John: They’re not paying. So, let’s talk about that. Let’s start at the end. Jason Fuchs, how much are you chasing or writing on assignments versus your own thing?

Jason: I would say right now it’s probably weighted more heavily on assignment stuff. But I think that part of staying sort of fertile and fresh creatively is focusing on things that are originals that mean a lot to you. So my time for the most part right now is divided between Robotech which is, although it’s a passion thing, it’s obviously something was an assignment. And an original. And so I try to split time between that and then in the back of my mind there are always original ideas percolating. But I think it’s really easy to get excited about open writing assignments and these are things that you have to work very hard to get.

And oftentimes they’re properties that you fall in love with and that you care as much about, at least in my case, certainly as some originals. But I think it’s really helpful to still focus on what those originals might be.

John: Nicole, what’s your split?

Nicole: Well, let’s see. The last year has been really intense. So, I did a studio project that was an assignment but it was based on an IP that was just basically a title and like a bad guy, so it felt like an original but it wasn’t. And a pilot that was also based very, very loosely on a short film. And then I wrote my own short film and adapted it from a New Yorker short story and directed it. That was a passion project which was great. My agent was like where have you been for three months? So that was fun. And then I have two passion projects I’m working on now in addition to the writing stuff. So, I would say that it’s about 50/50, but this year it’s been more like 60/40. It’s been a lot.

John: So Phil Hay, you do assignments but also this Destroyer, would you consider that – that’s your own thing? That’s your fun thing?

Phil: Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, it’s changed for us. So, my partner Matt and I who have been together for a really, really long time now work with my wife, Karyn, so the three of us – we basically have a family business. So we try to always have – we have one way where we’re trying to just make our own stuff at whatever budget level that is. And sometimes the next thing we do might be a studio. We have a studio that we might do next, but we also have an independent thing that we’re writing. So, for me personally and really fulfillingly the needle has shifted way toward just building stuff originally from the bottom up. And then doing assignments that really has a goal because it’s just our little group doing it.

But still doing some studio assignment work. But I would say like generally my lesson of my whole life and career, and I’m sure you guys feel similarly, you said something similar, is that you need to be doing your own stuff. Regardless of whether the results of it, just for you to be you as a writer and to stay alive emotionally and intellectually.

So, the original stuff always had a huge spot for me. But sometimes it’s had more of an economic spot and sometimes it’s had less of an economic spot. But it’s always been equally important.

Wendy: Yeah, I mean, he’s clapping. Like a dad.

Phil: I’m going to buy you a beer. Let’s go.

John: Wendy, do you get a chance to do your own original stuff? You’re doing TV for folks?

Wendy: Well, god, I’m so lucky right now. I feel kind of shamed.

Craig: You’re ashamed because good things are happening to you?

Wendy: Because good things are happening. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig: That’s the most writerly shit of all time.

Phil: Here truly is a writer.

John: Tell us why you said that. Why do you think he said that?

Craig: That is so writerly.

Wendy: Because I’m so used to losing, man.

Craig: There you go. There you go.

Wendy: I’m so used to being the – I had actually a showrunner once say to me in the room, “Learn to take a yes.” And, I mean, that’s me. I’m so used to fighting. I’m so used to having to push so hard. But this year was pretty brilliant.

So I’m in a deal and I sold two projects that I love. And so they’re assignments, but they were created by me. So, I don’t know, where does that fit in? So I would say 45% on the one piece that I sold, probably 45% on the other piece that I sold. But you know me. I always save 10% just for me. So I got 10% of things that are stories that I’m incubating that I’d like to go sell next year. Because, I mean, it takes a long time to develop what could be the concept for a television show.

You’re talking about millions upon millions of dollars of investment. So it’s important. I take that 10% and I invest my own money, not very smart but whatever. I invest my own time and really try to develop those stories so that come next June when the wonderful studio I’m working for comes and says, OK, what do you want to go pitch, I can say I got this ready, I got this. What are we going to do?

Craig: Great.

John: Craig Mazin, obviously Chernobyl is a passion project. It’s your own thing that you sort of came out and created.

Craig: It’s my own thing.

John: But the sort of – the stuff you don’t talk about on the show, you’ve also done a lot of work for other folks this last year, too.

Craig: Mostly. I mean, the truth is I have deferred for the longest time any kind of me time.

John: The personal enjoyment.

Craig: Like I’ve just always been somebody that’s helping someone else do what they do. And a lot of it has been wonderful and fulfilling. I don’t mean to ever suggest that I was not grateful for it. And a lot of it I loved doing. I mean, I loved working with Todd Phillips. That was great. But those were his things, you know. And I’ve spent so much time helping other people with their things, or coming in and fixing things, or dealing with distressed property, whatever it is, and to finally just do my own thing was wonderful. And I want to keep doing it. And so I think I’m going to.

And, you know, you can do the other kinds of stuff if you need money and you’ve shown that you have a track record of doing those things. That’s great. But I’m an odd one actually. I do feel like I’m very odd in the sense that I kind of started in a weird way, even though the first thing I did was like my own thing kind of. But it was really honestly it was a service job. It was like you guys need a movie like this. I’ve always been that. And only now weirdly after fucking 23 years am I finally just – so it’ll be tragic if it’s awful, wouldn’t it? I hope you don’t think it’s awful. Because if you do, then you think I’m awful.

John: No, we don’t think you’re awful, Craig.

Craig: I’m a little bit awful.

Wendy: Would somebody buy him a beer?

John: And so I will say from my perspective like doing Arlo Finch was a chance to just do completely my own thing. And so the best thing about making movies and television is it’s incredibly collaborative. The worst thing about making movies and television is it’s incredibly collaborative. And no matter what your vision is going into a thing, it’s always being filtered through a bunch of other people. And so to actually say like, oh, you know, that comma is there because I want that comma there and it matters to me was a great change for me and really, really good.

I won’t ever have that in features because it doesn’t matter. The screenplay is a plan for making the other thing. But to make the thing as a book was great. So that’s been my three books of doing my own stuff.

Craig: That was also a good question.

John: Yeah, see.

Craig: This row was nailing it.

John: The question row. Another free beer.

Phil: Another free beer.

John: This was a really – this was a pretty good Scriptnotes I think.

Craig: I don’t know. Was it?

Phil: It’s really up to them.

John: A good audience! We need to thank some very important people, starting with Beto O’Rourke.

Craig: Yes. And in all seriousness, how many of you – just raise your hand if you are a registered voter in the state of Texas. Now, lower your hand if you have not yet voted. So if you’ve voted lower your hand. If you still have yet to vote keep your hand up. You haven’t voted yet. And you can vote in the state of Texas. Very few of you. Wonderful. You’re voting, right? Good.

John: Good.

Craig: Yeah. Yep. I’m not going to tell you who to vote for, but I will tell you do not vote for Ted Cruz.

John: The only thing he asks is not to vote for Ted Cruz. We need to thank Megan McDonnell who made this whole night possible. Megan McDonnell, our producer.

Craig: Where is she?

John: She’s right there.

Craig: There she is.

John: Our show is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Thank you Austin Film Festival’s Colin Hyer. Thank you very much for having us here again.

Craig: Always wonderful.

John: Olivia Riordan. Travis, Joseph, Sonja, James. All the Austin Film Festival volunteers. You are fantastic. So let’s thank everybody here at Austin Film Festival. And Ben thank you very much for the lights. Hey guys, thank you very much. This was another fun year to do this.

Come tomorrow if you can get into our Three Page Challenge. We’re going to be talking through three Three Page Challenges.

Craig: We’ll be tearing humans apart in front of you.

John: Indeed. And we won’t be drunk. Well, we may be a little bit drunk.

Craig: Yeah.

John: Thank you all very much. Have a good night.

Craig: Thanks guys. Have a great night.

John: And Craig has one more thing to say.

Craig: So, if you’re a WGA member you now know that you can vote on our proposal to amend the credits rules for screenwriters. We strongly, strongly, strongly, both of us, urge you to vote yes on this. If you have questions, take a look in the booklet. There is a statement against it, which I strongly disagree with. And in fact you’ll see that the committee, including a lot of terrific screenwriters, have put together a very clear argument rebutting all of those points. So we really, really urge you to vote yes. It’s something that we need as writers.

Links:

• Thanks for joining us, Wendy Calhoun, Phil Hay, Nicole Perlman, and Jason Fuchs!
• And thank you, Beto, for the message! Check out the video from the audience.
• The Death of Hollywood’s Middle Class by Nicole Laporte for Fast Company
• This tweet by Nicola Prigg
• Keep an eye on Weekend Read for screenplays this awards season.
• T-shirts are available here! We’ve got new designs, including Colored Revisions, Karateka, and Highland2.
• The USB drives!
• Wendy Calhoun on Twitter
• Phil Hay on Twitter
• Nicole Perlman on Twitter
• Jason Fuchs on Twitter
• John August on Twitter
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Find past episodes
• Scriptnotes Digital Seasons are also now available!
• Outro by Matthew Chilelli (send us yours!)

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.