The original post for this episode can be found here.
John August: Hello and welcome. My name is John August, and you’re listening to Episode 653 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.
Today on the show, we discuss a giant area of television writing we’ve barely covered over the 12 years of our program, which is multi-camera sitcoms, from Seinfeld to Friends to most of the Disney channel programs. These were the shows we grew up watching, and they still account for a sizable portion of the writing happening today. We’ll also look at the WGA’s Annual Report, which, gasp, shows that writer income was down for the years, for reasons we can’t possibly imagine. So we’ll try to get to the bottom of that.
To help us through all this, let’s welcome a writer-producer-director whose credits range from My So-Called Life to My Boys to The Carmichael Show to Superstore. She’s also the secretary treasurer of the Writers Guild of America West. Welcome to the incredible Betsy Thomas.
Betsy Thomas: Oh, John. Wish you’d follow me around and just do that all the time.
John: Absolutely. I’m your hype man.
Betsy: That was fantastic.
John: The first time we met – I think it was the first time we met – you had reached out to me, emailed me or called me, to say, “Hey, can we talk about me running for the board?” We had a drink. We talked through stuff. And I’m so happy you decided to run for the board.
Betsy: I am, most of the time. But yes, that was really fun. We had a drink, and then I was like, “Oh.” Then later, I was like, “Oh, you made an exception for me.” I was like, “Oh, I feel flattered.”
John: It was a Friday afternoon, so it was, “Let’s have a martini,” but I’m not generally a “let’s have a martini-”
Betsy: I know. I learned that later.
John: You can hear that laughter off to the side. That is Megana Rao, who is joining us this week.
Megana Rao: Hi.
John: Hi. Drew and Craig are both out this week. Thank you so much for stepping in.
Megana: Of course. I’m excited to be here.
John: Very relevant, because you’ve just been reading a bunch of multi-cam scripts, right?
Megana: Yes, I have. I am working my way through all the seasons of Cheers through the scripts that I can find in pdf form online.
Betsy: Wow.
Megana: Which is not intentional, but I just started reading the pilot, and I was like, “Oh, this is fun.”
Betsy: It’s very cool that you’re doing that. I hope they survive long enough that you can work your way.
John: We’re gonna talk about multi-cams, but in our Bonus Segment I’d love to talk to you about golf, because you are a golfer, and Megana and I know nothing about golf. I’m speaking for both of us. You don’t know much about golf?
Megana: I don’t know much about golf, despite my father’s best efforts.
John: Very nice. Your father golfed, but you do not golf?
Megana: Correct.
John: Have you ever golfed?
Megana: Yes, I’ve golfed with my dad a lot.
John: Only people who subscribe to the Premium membership will actually-
Megana: Get to hear [crosstalk 02:30] stories.
John: … get to hear all about Megana golfing. Before we get to that, let’s talk about some news. Deadpool and Wolverine opened this past weekend. It made a bazillion dollars. It was really good for movies to succeed. I’m just really happy when things are working. Overall, the box office is down a little bit from last year, but we also have a lot more movies that are still in the pipe coming out. I feel pretty good about it. I see you nodding your head.
Betsy: It’s great. It’s incredibly exciting. I hope this continues. It sure seems dumb that they had that five-and-a-half-month break where people couldn’t do any promo, and they decided to delay all the releases. That seemed like a real waste of momentum.
John: Yeah, it does seem like a bit of that. Deadpool and Wolverine was a movie that famously did have to stop shooting because of the actors strike. That pulled all the people away, which was a hassle for them, because there’s a ton of cameos in that movie, and all those people having to be rescheduled. As the actors strike was going on, I just felt like how they get out of this and how does that movie specifically pull all of its cameo people back in to do those shoots, the logistical nightmare of that seems crazy.
Betsy: Yeah, that’s hats off to the line producer.
John: Yeah, absolutely. Combat pay for them. More big movies coming out. I just want to celebrate when there is good news, because so often we see, oh, numbers are down. It’s like, numbers are actually doing pretty well.
Betsy: Yeah, it’s great. I think we should celebrate all good news all the time.
John: 100 percent. That’s my goal for 2024 into 2025 is celebrate the wins. Let’s do some follow-up. We talked last week about listener who had concerns – he’s part of a writing team. He said, “Oh, the WGA said the gains for writing teams that was not really the gains for writing teams.” We were like, “No, you misread it.” But Megana, could you help us out with some more follow-up we got this week?
Megana: Yes. Chris wrote in and said, “I wanted to reach out and respond to the conversation you had in this week’s episode about the gains in the WGA made for writing teams in the 2023 MBA. In addition to now having pension and health caps applied to each writer instead of the project, which as a screenwriter on a team I think is hugely impactful, we also won that writing teams making the weekly minimum on a TV show will now each receive P and H contributions on the full weekly minimum, not just the half they each take home. My writing partner and I mainly work in features, but I have to imagine this is a substantial win for early career TV writing teams, so I figured it was worth making sure people know about it.”
Betsy: It’s not just early career. Everyone’s getting the contributions based on minimums in television, so it’s huge. My husband has been mostly in a writing team. I’m writing right now a pilot for ABC. Even though we’re not writing partners, we’re a team. We’re co-writing it. So it’s huge to get those full contributions.
John: Yeah, it does really matter. A lot of the gains in the contract this year really did, I think, focus on people who are at that pivotal breakpoint. Script fees for staff writers is a huge win, and making sure that we outsize increases for people who are at that first rung of the ladder, to make sure they can make it to the second rung of the ladder.
Betsy: Yes. The script fees, that is just so huge. It’s something that I have to say. John, you were there when we got that. It was such a thrill, because it’s something we’d fought for for so long. After a certain point, you’re like, “Is that ever gonna happen?” So it was really exciting.
John: Yeah, it really was. Another thing we’ve been talking about on the podcast is about locked pages and colored revisions. I’m curious what your take is, because you work largely in multi-cam – uses the same color cycle, uses the same things. A thing we’ve been discussing is that, particularly for one-hour dramas, like what Craig is doing, they’re not using printed scripts anymore at all, and so this whole notion of colored revisions and locked pages maybe doesn’t make sense.
We’re proposing, what if we just got rid of it and just started numbering stuff and doing it that way? We asked for feedback, and man have we gotten a lot of feedback. Megana, can you help us out with the two things we got this week?
Megana: Yes. I’ll start with Megan, who’s a script coordinator. She writes, “I work as a writer and script coordinator. I wouldn’t say I like locked pages, but once you hit production, I find them useful. One big reason is communication across departments. If a scene is seven pages and I need to talk to another department to quickly resolve an issue, being able to identify the exact page is helpful. And anecdotally, I know art department folks who also write notes in the margins. When a new script is published, being able to know it’s only this one page changing, versus figuring out where in a scene the change is, is helpful to them in transferring those notes.”
John: I get that to a degree. We’re not proposing that you throw out starred revisions. I think starred revisions should be doing that job. The hope is that you can see what’s changed on the page or has changed in the scene, because there’s a star that says this is something new, something to pay attention to. Betsy, what’s your first instinct there?
Betsy: I’ll say in multi-cam, a lot of times you’re just fixing a joke. I think in a half hour in general, if it’s just like, oh, we did a punch-up pass and so there’s eight new jokes, then releasing an entire new script doesn’t make a lot of sense, just because I think a lot of people do still use paper. I don’t. But I think some of the actors do. They just grab the – for the scene. Sometimes in those cases, I think locked pages make sense, because now you’re only delivering 4 pages, 8 pages to the stage, not an entire 32, 35 pages.
John: But in the case of a multi-cam comedy, let’s say there are four new jokes. What if that joke caused page breaks to change, and so you have A and B pages? Is that a hassle in multi-cam? It doesn’t matter?
Betsy: Not really. To me, it’s all wasted paper. I’ll go with the flow on anything. But I do think that it feels like there are more changes in multi-cam than there are in single-cam in general, because oftentimes in multi-cam, the script is changing every single night at such a significant rate that it’s a whole new script anyway. It doesn’t really matter.
John: The thing we’ve been speculating about, at a certain point paper’s just not the best way to capture what the current state of the script is, and so maybe people should just be looking at basically the iPad, where we’re all looking at one source of truth, because that’s what they do actually on late-night variety shows. There’s not a printed thing anymore. They’re all looking at one central, shared document, and that’s what they’re generating the run of the show off of. They’re using things like Scripto to do that.
Betsy: Look, I think it’d be great if we all got away from paper. I listened to that, and I agree. I think getting away from paper and just having a few small ones, I think it’s great. As I said, I don’t use paper anymore when I direct, and I certainly won’t when I’m working on staff. I would much prefer to have this.
But it is true, I think, that still the habit is – and this is true, again, back to multi-cam, because you have a table read and then a run-through and then a run-through – you’re watching the run-through and you’re making notes on the script, your joke pitches, whatever. The same thing on show night; you’re down there with your scripts, and you’re pitching on jokes the whole time through the show. That you can do electronically, obviously, but it’s far easier to just do it on the page.
John: We have one more bit of follow-up on that.
Megana: Sandrine, an AD, writes, “The main reason for keeping locked pages is because of breakdowns. ADs make stripboards that list what scenes will be shot each day, but department heads also make breakdowns of their particular elements, particularly props, art department, and costumes. As writers, directors, and actors, we care that Larry’s motivation changed, but props just wants to know whether or not he’s still throwing the pillow on Page 37. Costumes wants to know if he’s still wearing day 2 nightclothes even though it’s day 3 morning. Those breakdowns are always by scene, but depending on how people organize, can also use page numbers. If new pages don’t impact them, departments will often just keep working with their original script.
“Scene changes as colored pages is much more straightforward than starred revisions. If I get new pages at 11:00 p.m. and have to send off sides to actors, there’s no confusion when sending pink pages versus having to confirm that draft if it only has revision marks. With how quickly things move, particularly the micro-exchanges that happen throughout the production department and with the others, that we work really hard to shield for director and producers, that small detail of clarity can make all the difference.”
John: I welcome Sandrine’s points here. I think one of the things I would stress is that we can’t just stop doing it and not replace it with something that actually takes care of the issues. I think locked pages and colored revisions are a solution that was probably a very smart decision solution for when we first needed to do this. I just feel like there’s probably a better way we could do it now, and I don’t want our inertia to keep us from trying these things.
Betsy: Also, if you use one of those programs, you can download the starred revision. It goes right in your script. You see what’s starred. It lets you know it’s new. It’s not that hard.
John: Absolutely. Some of the software’s already there. Let’s get to one of our two main topics here. The Annual Report from the WGA is out. Over the years, Craig and I have looked at the Annual Report as it’s been published to see where trends are, what’s happening. But Betsy, I don’t think all the guilds do the kind of Annual Report we do. I don’t see the same thing coming out of DGA or SAG or any of the other places. We’re very transparent about the number of people working, how it’s all going, our finances. That’s always been the tradition as long as I’ve been in the field.
Betsy: Yeah, we always are. I think the others have to. I think their membership may not be as-
John: As engaged?
Betsy: Yeah. Writers like to look for the drama and the mystery and the intrigue.
John: Most years, I would say there’s not a lot of mystery and intrigue and drama. As we’ve gone through this, things are growing, because streaming’s growing, or the number of feature writer jobs is decreasing, because that’s just a thing that happened. But this year, there actually is bigger news.
The top line is that a total of 5,501 writers reported employment in all work areas in 2023, which is a 19.5 decline from 2022. The total writer earnings, reported for dues purposes, declined 31.8 percent, to 1.29 billion dollars.
We should say right from the start here, that clause “for dues purposes” is doing a lot of work there, because particularly in television, writers also get producer fees that are not included in the dues process. The total amount that writers in this industry are bringing in is a lot more than 1.2 million dollars, but the 1.29 is how much gets reported to the Guild.
Betsy: Yes, that’s true. Also, did you hear that we were on strike?
John: Yeah. Absolutely. Some of the blowback has been like, “Oh my god, can you see they were down 31.8 percent?” We were on strike for five months, which is 41 percent of the year no one was working, and then there was a SAG strike afterwards. So it’s not a huge surprise that writer income was down.
Betsy: There was already a contraction. I think a lot of people were saying, oh, people are scared because of a potential strike. No, there was a natural – the contraction that we’re feeling now had already begun. I remember I had pitches to take out, and they’re like, “We don’t want to take it out yet, because nobody’s buying.” That had already started. We saw this as a reflection, by the way, in our Strike Fund Loan applications and whatnot.
There were a lot of people that had not been working since 2022 already. My last job was in November of 2022. Then we came back, but the actors didn’t. There was a lot of concern about production and not wanting to maybe start production until after January 1st. The above-scale fees that television writers make, they weren’t getting.
John: A thing we should also notice is that every year this report gets published ,and you see these numbers, and the numbers go up the next time it’s reported, because basically money comes in late. This is only a reflection of the amount of money that came in. If you go back to the ’22 Financial Report, it showed a 6.1 percent decline in earnings, but when they actually did the recalculation, it was up .2 percent. Some of these numbers will actually improve a little bit over time, but it’s not gonna change the minus sign in front of the number. Clearly, writers brought in less money this last year.
Betsy: Yes. I did.
John: I did too. Funny, that. As did Megana. In the report – and we’ll put a link in the show notes to the pdf – it breaks it down by TV and by features. TV took a bigger hit, which kind of makes sense, because those are things that are constantly ongoing. For features, there are people who were writing features before the strike happened, and they delivered once they could get back to work, so it didn’t take as big of a hit. TV employment was down negative 35 percent, and feature employment was down 22 percent.
I think where I get frustrated is when people say, “Oh, look how much money was not earned. You’ll never earn that money back,” and so that the strike was useless, because you’re never gonna get that five months of employment back. It makes me want to strangle people over a screen, because everything we have as the Guild, our health plan, our residuals, everything, was because someone was willing to go on strike and get that for future generations.
Betsy: Completely, I hate that too. I have also been told, “This cost me $500,000.” If that’s how much money you’re making, you’re in good shape to be able to ride this strike out in a way that a lot of other people weren’t. I try to be Zen about it. There are people that think about others and understand that the strikes are not just about today, they’re actually about tomorrow, and so this will affect me to some degree, but it’s gonna affect the younger generation far more, hopefully.
John: Writers who are not even in the Guild yet. Writers who are still in high school are benefiting from this. It was during the strike, not only were you part of the negotiating committee, you also had to work with the Strike Fund, the Good and Welfare loans. And I bless you for that, Betsy, because that’s such tough work.
Betsy: Thank you.
John: You were constantly being confronted by folks who were greatly struggling because of – as you said, it wasn’t just the strike. They were struggling before the strike, and the strike made their lives even worse. Can you just talk us through what those two programs are and how it worked?
Betsy: The Strike Fund committee, which is made up of the membership of finance committee and then we added a couple more people because of the workload. There basically are two pots to take loans from. One is the Strike Fund loan. You have to be a current active member. That loan is available to people who have been directly impacted. Their work was stopped because of the strike. You apply for that loan, and then there’s a repayment schedule. It can recur. The Good and Welfare loan is actually available all the time.
John: It’s a fund that’s always there.
Betsy: It’s a fund that’s always there. It’s a lifetime maximum of $14,000. Once you reach that, you’ve capped. You can’t get more. That does not require your work being interrupted by the strike. This could just be you’re showing financial hardship. Generally, people go to Motion Picture, and then we get handed people from that. But in this case, it was such an overwhelming need, and also, Motion Picture was so overwhelmed.
John: We should explain Motion Picture Television Fund. That’s an overall umbrella organization that helps people in the film and television industry suffering hardship.
Betsy: They were handling so many loans for so many different people and from so many different unions that their backlog was… We just then started handling it directly so that people could have answers and money quicker.
John: Great. Good and Welfare runs all the time. Strike Fund was just for this. But important to note, it’s not that we’ve burned through all the Strike Fund. We helped a lot of people, but it’s not like we zeroed out. It’s not like we ran out of money.
Betsy: I think in total, I think we had 20 million dollars in the Strike Fund, and I think we gave out 6. Some people are like, “Why didn’t you empty it out?” Because if you empty it out, then we don’t have anything for another strike. What it takes to build that fund up… It is one of the powers we have is knowing that we have the ability to help people. The AMPTP knows that. Our ability to be able to help people and weather the storm was a lot of our leverage.
John: For sure. In addition to writer income that’s happening in the course of the year, the report also talks through residuals. Residuals are this godsend that we have, thanks to previous strikes. For folks who are brand new to all this, residuals are like royalties that writers get in the film and television industry.
In 2023, the WGA collected 598 million dollars in residuals, which is up 3.5 percent. Feature residuals were down 14.5 percent. Basically, we talk about this all the time. Home video is in a freefall. It’s nowhere near the market that it was before. But this year, even streaming and new media residuals were also down for features. That’s the one place of hope people always had for feature residuals, and those were down a bit too. Again, those numbers are likely to drift up a little bit as more stuff gets reported, but it’s good to get an overall sense of where we’re at with residuals.
Betsy: I do want to point out one thing. The total amounts collected in residuals and interest from 2022 to 2023 almost doubled. It almost doubled in 2023. That’s extraordinary. The fact that it then came down a little bit in 2024, obviously year to date, is not as alarming. I don’t think it was ever gonna keep up with that pace of doubling. Part of that was because there were so many shows that had been grandfathered in to the old rates, but then we got those gains in streaming in 2020, and so for the new shows, those residuals finally kicked in. Think about the delay and once it finally is dropped in streaming. That was what was going to happen, hopefully, and it did.
John: The big things that the Guild does money-wise is it’s setting minimum rates, it is collecting residuals, but it’s also going after and enforcing the contract. The enforcement is real dollars here. For 2023, the Guild collected 75 million dollars in underpaid residuals, along with 2.3 million dollars in interest. Already for 2024, it’s collected 45 million dollars, and 1.7 million dollars in interest. That’s money that – no one else is gonna get that for you. The Guild has to go out there and shake people down and say, “No, you owe this money.” God bless. Some of our ability to do that, both in residuals but especially in late payment, is because we now have contracts for everybody, and we can see, “No, this person was due this. You gotta pay them.”
Betsy: The Guild just did a press release about just the late pay, just the fees that they went after because they had the contracts. They were able to actually enforce something without even needing the member to do anything. It was a benefit of the agency campaign. It was something that we won when we renegotiated that contract. It’s been huge in terms of getting writers late pay. Also, this is a thing now that is in the Guild’s system to be able to constantly be policing.
John: Absolutely. The email said the Guild collected more than 1.5 million dollars in interest for late payment for more than 1,000 writers. Some examples would be $14,400 for one individual feature writer. You add all those up, that’s a huge change for somebody, like, “Oh, here’s money I didn’t know I was owed. Here’s a check for $14,000.” That’s great.
Betsy: I would like that.
John: I would like that. Everyone would like that. This is also why you have a guild, because your agency is never gonna collect that money, or your manager, because they have relationships with those studios and they don’t want to piss them off. The Guild does not care about pissing off anybody. The Guild’s not mean, but the Guild’s gonna get money for its members.
Betsy: That’s the only thing they do. Literally, the people that work in that building, this is their entire career is just worrying about writers. I think when you’re on the inside, which, John, you having been on the board and negotiating committees – you really get to know the staff, and you really see how much long, hard work goes into trying to protect writers, deal with them in the kindest and most helpful way. It’s a staggering achievement, I think, what that building does on a day-to-day basis.
John: 100 percent agree. Let’s wrap this up. The back part of the Annual Report talks about the Guild’s financial situation. You’re on the committee. You’re a person overseeing this on a regular basis. Total assets, 137 million dollars. Total liabilities of 37 million dollars. That works out to 100 million dollars left around. I looked it up in 2022. That equivalent figure was 92 million dollars. Even despite the strike and everything else, we’re doing good.
Betsy: We’re doing great. The fact that we weathered that strike and we still have this kind of financial stability is because of the assets and the investments and very, very careful… It’s why we have the Strike Fund. The finances of the Guild are really healthy. I know that was one of those great rumors that people liked to spread during the strike, like, “Oh, this is gonna bankrupt the Guild.” The whole time, I’m like, “I’m looking at the figures every single month. We’re fine. We’re good.”
John: We’re good. Let’s get to non-WGA topics. Let’s talk about multi-cam, because over the course of doing this podcast for 12 years, we’ve talked to a lot of feature writers, lot of TV writers, but they’ve mostly been TV drama writers, or they’ve been single-camera comedy writers. We’ve talked to very few people about multi-cam. Multi-cam is your bread and butter. That’s where you’ve made your –
Betsy: It’s a mix. I do both. I think it’s partly because a lot of them are dead.
John: That’s why we’re not finding so many of those writers. But we definitely grew up on them.
Betsy: For sure, and they still exist.
John: They’re still exist, and they’re still hugely popular in reruns, but the current ones are still going. Big Bang Theory is a classic multi-cam.
Betsy: But also, The Neighborhood’s been on CBS – I think this is Season 8, 7, something like that. Night Court’s been a bit hit for NBC. There’s a new one just got picked up on ABC. Tim Allen. He’s a new talent that they decided to give a shot to.
John: A rocket ship to the stars. Definitely, I could see him. Really, it comes down to him and Glen Powell. Who is the hot new face? I made Betsy laugh.
Let’s talk through development process, because we have a sense of how stuff works in one-hours now, where there’s a writers’ room that’s putting stuff together, and then you build up a bank of scripts, and then you just go forth and shoot. You try to keep on top of stuff while shooting. Classically, multi-cam has been much more week by week by week, like we’re putting a thing up on its feet and then we’re writing the next one. Is that-
Betsy: Accurate?
John: Yeah.
Betsy: I think to some degree, yes. But I think you hope that you bank a bunch of scripts before the beginning of the year. It’s done a lot of different ways. I worked on a show called Superior Donuts. The way that show worked is we all group-wrote, which I think is really how Chuck Lorre does it too. By nature, you have to have several rooms going, because you’ve got one room who’s working on a script, a future script, you got one room that’s working on the current script on the stage, and so you have that.
It necessitates, I think, a lot more collaboration, multi-cam, because the problem is – it’s not like single-cam, which is why I like single-cam, because you write your script, and it goes to the table read, you have several days or whatever you need to do that rewrite, and then you’ve got your shooting script and you’re off to the races.
But in multi-cam, you get your notes from the network or the studio and everybody. “Okay, here.” Now, you do table read. Table read, you get notes. Then you do a rewrite. You have to get it done by the morning, because it’s gotta be on the stage when the actors get there at 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. That’s why sometimes you’re there late at night, because by the time –depending on when your table read is – and you get notes, and you get back to the room, and it’s 3:00. And then you gotta get Pinkberry, and so now it’s 4:30. It’s easy to be there at 11:00 or midnight. I think in many ways, multi-cam is a lot harder, in my opinion, job.
Then the next morning, you gotta be working on breaking Episode 3 or 4 or 5 before you go to run-through, which is at 2:00. Then the whole thing, you get another rewrite, another set of notes, rewrite. Same thing Wednesday, and then you get another set of notes. And then Thursday’s pre-shooting and camera blocking. So you need to have basically as much of a locked script as you can. Then you shoot on Friday. Let’s just say that’s the week.
John: Let’s talk about the difference between multi-cam versus single-cams. I think about a Modern Family as a single-camera show. In theory, they could’ve written the script well in advance and they made up a schedule. These are the sets we’re shooting. This is how we’re making this whole thing work.
When you think of multi-cams, you think of, okay, now the whole writing staff is there for tape night and where you’re actually shooting the whole thing and you can make those changes on the fly. But generally speaking, multi-cam’s all done in just one shot. You’re just doing the whole thing at once, versus splitting it out like normal production.
Betsy: Yes.
John: Those shooting nights must be really exciting but also terrifying, because if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and you’re screwed.
Betsy: Yeah. There’s a famous story I’m gonna butcher, but it illustrates this. I think it was Bob Newhart. I think The Bob Newhart Show, in the episode, they had a character, and they kept calling him back. I think his name is Mr. Nakamura. I think I’m right, but I just pictured all these comedy writers going, “That’s not it!” The very first joke died. The writers were all like, “Oh, no. We have four callbacks coming.”
Sometimes it doesn’t go well, or you get a groaner or you get something and you’re like, “Uh-oh.” Then everybody furiously is getting together to try to figure out – “Let’s fix it. Let’s fix it.” In general, I think jokes are what you want to be fixing, not like, “Oh, they don’t understand. They don’t even understand this plot point.” That’s really bad. I’ve not been on a show like this, but I know friends, from what I’d heard, they would shoot the show, let the audience go, then rewrite whole scenes and reshoot them completely differently.
Megana: Wow.
Betsy: That gives me anxiety. I can’t even imagine that. I like to be prepared. Not that they weren’t prepared. I can’t work that way. It’s too chaotic for me.
John: Yeah, that sense of, this was the plan going in there, and it’s suddenly not working, and you’re just under such pressure, because you actually have your entire cast, you have the entire crew, and then in theory, a studio audience. Talk to us about studio audiences now. The shows that have laughter in the background, are most of those shot with audiences now?
Betsy: Yes. They have been. People talk about the laugh track, but the truth is, it’s not really a track. There’s mics. That’s what the studio’s done. Sometimes if you’re using something from the pre-shoot date – oftentimes you’ll pre-shoot scenes, get them in the can, and then you shoot it once in front of the audience, just to get their response and their reaction. Sometimes the audience show performance wasn’t as good or the camera had a bump on it. For some reason, you need to use the one from the – so somebody will borrow the laugh from the – even though that’s not what was under the original. It isn’t really a laugh track. It’s a falsehood. Those laughs are all from the audience itself.
John: Melissa McCarthy was talking about how on Mike and Molly, they would pre-shoot some stuff. If there was a scene where they were driving in a car, they would pre-shoot that, but then on the night of actual filming, they would just be sitting on apple boxes and doing the same scene so they could get the laughter and get the real audience reaction from that.
Betsy: That’s right. Some stuff you’ll play back, and then you’ll get the audience laughs for the thing you’ve played back – that car scene.
John: Shooting some multi-cams, because you’ve also directed, can you talk to us about how you approach shooting a multi-cam scene? Because we’re so used to the camera’s here or the camera’s here, but you’re having to watch a bunch of stuff simultaneously. You’re trying to make sure the performances make sense, but also that the cameras are capturing the performances in the right way. What are you thinking about as a director looking at a script?
Betsy: I was a theater major, so multi-cam is really natural for me, because it’s just a recorded play. That’s really all it is. You’re in this set. The way I always work – and I do this a lot of times with single-cam too – is I go to the best joke in the scene and I work backwards from that.
John: Interesting.
Betsy: Because I always feel like you want to make sure that that thing that it’s building to is landing in the best possible way. A lot of times I’ll look at that and I go, “I know I want this here. I know I want him leaning over the kitchen counter and grabbing for her at this moment.” Then I’ll try to go, “If that’s where I’m ending, where do I start, and where do I have everybody go?”
I like to have a lot of movement in scenes. There are directors that just put two people on a couch. As a writer, that’s death. I know how many scenes have died because a director… Because let’s face it – no offense to actors – with the exception honestly of Helen Hunt, who always wants business and wants to move, a lot of actors are happy just to be sitting on a couch.
John: Park and bark, yeah.
Betsy: I think if you let them do that, sometimes a scene can really die. I always try to keep a lot of life. I like it to feel like it’s natural, not like it’s artificial. I try to help the actors by giving them business that feels organic to what they should be doing and gives them purpose. That’s the other thing that I always think about when I’m directing is figuring out…
Then I also like to be flexible, so that when we get to rehearsal, I can say, “I was thinking this was my plan. What do you think of this plan?” Sometimes they love it and they’re like, “I was feeling like I didn’t want to walk on this moment. I wouldn’t want to be near him.” You’re like, “Great, then don’t do that.” Then you gotta just be flexible with the plan.
John: I want to rewind back. Let’s say this is a script you didn’t write, but this is a script you’re gonna be directing. You’re handed the script. You’re visualizing in your head, “This is the biggest joke. This is where I would see this going.” Are you then having a conversation with the writer, with the team, about putting that stuff in the scripts, putting the business in the script, or is that something you’re holding onto for yourself?
Betsy: No, I just have it, because we’re gonna rehearse, and it may or may not work. We may not like it. They’re gonna see it the next day. They’re gonna either go, “God, that scene worked great,” or…
Occasionally, if we’re deeper, it’s Wednesday night, I’ll say, “For him to get to the door in time to open the door and she’s there, I need one more line, because it’s too big a cross. He can’t get there.” That stuff I’ll say. I try to go up to the writers’ room after on multi-cams. I try to go up after our rehearsal day and go, “Everything worked great. This was beautiful. This thing is wonky. You’ll see tomorrow. But I think we’re missing some words here,” or whatever. I’ll give them a head’s up, because I liked that as a showrunner when I would get that head’s up, because it helps you start to think about and prepare as you go through the rewrite.
John: How do you as a director interact with the showrunner or other writers on rehearsal day? Basically, we recognize this thing isn’t working. Is it their responsibility to notice that and point that out? Is it your responsibility as a director to figure it out? What is the communication there?
Betsy: I would say it’s normally just like you put up the play, the thing, and then the writers are looking at it like, “How do we fix the script to make it better?” I think there are times where they’ll say, “Hey, we actually were thinking this instead of the way you staged it.” They’ll say that to the director. Then sometimes I’ll say, “I tried to make this thing work. We had it this other way. Do you want me to show you that? That didn’t feel right either.” We have a conversation.
I would say because I’m a writer – and I would even say I would identify as a writer principally. That’s where my heart is. That was my first guild. I always try to make the script work as best as I possibly can, and I’m super collaborative with the showrunner. I’m always like, “Come down to set. Come watch rehearsal. Do you want to just come down and be here for this scene? I can let you know.” I like to have them as involved as they possibly can be.
The other thing that sometimes happens with actors occasionally is, there can be some badmouthing of jokes or a little bit of eyerolling. I don’t like that. No one tried to do anything but a great job in the script, so you gotta give them what they wrote.
John: You talk about it’s basically putting up a play, but the difference is, of course, you then can go into the editing room and change the play after it was put up. Can you talk to us about the editing process as a writer, as a director? How much flexibility do you have in the editing room to improve something that was like, eh, on the day? Have you found things in multi-cam where that didn’t really work in person, but then it just killed in the edit? Is that a thing that’s possible to do?
Betsy: Yeah, I think it is. I think it’s less likely in multi-cam. I think there’s definitely more in single. Smash cuts don’t really work in multi-cam the way they do in single, but I will say there’s a couple things that do matter. I worked on a show called Outmatch. They would oftentimes be pretty long. The cut would come in long. I started saying to them, “If you think you’re gonna lift this page, you won’t be able to do that in editing, because people are making crosses.”
What I hate is, unlike single, it can be very difficult to make cuts, because people jump space and because it is a play. You have to be a little more disciplined as a writer to get a little closer to time. Obviously, you want a little bit of fat. Then I always try to think, “What are some things that might go away?” and making sure that two people are not moving during that, so if you want to take that lift, it won’t be hard in the editing room.
John: It’s a thing I hadn’t really considered, but shooting multi-cam, you’re not gonna have the clean singles often that you could use to jump people around in space. They would exist naturally.
Betsy: Yeah, you don’t have as many options.
John: When you are doing multiple takes in multi-cam, let’s say you run that, like, “Oh, that’s pretty good. We’re gonna do it again.” Will you change up cameras just so you have more options in editing?
Betsy: We do. The idea is you got the four cameras. Sometimes it’ll be like, the best two shot is over here actually of these two, so we’ll do a single and a single, but even maybe we’ll do I’ll say a two. But we work with a camera coordinator, and they really helped. You say, “I know I’m gonna play this joke in a two, so let’s make sure we get that in front of the audience the first time,” because it’s the first time they’re seeing the joke, which tends to be the biggest laugh. I don’t want to start in a single. I want to start in a two shot, so I make sure I have that.
John: It does feel weird that we bring in an audience to watch this thing and they’re seeing the action in front of them, but you also want them watching the monitors.
Betsy: It is, yeah.
John: Because that’s the show.
Betsy: I think in general they do seem to watch the monitors. They’re watching the actors, but I think when you’re rolling, I think they go to that, which is good, because a lot of times you need somebody in a close-up for something to play.
John: Now, Megana, you’ve been reading through a bunch of sitcom scripts. Can you talk through about what you’ve learned? We’ll put some of these examples scripts in – put links to them in the show notes. Talk to us about what you’re seeing on the page, because they look different than what we’re used to in single-camera.
Megana: Yeah, they look different. The ones pre-2000s are all two acts with a cold open and maybe a tag, and formatted differently. The action lines are all capitalized, mostly interiors. I was very surprised, roughly six scenes in a script.
Betsy: Depends. How I Met Your Mother was one that really broke that, where they had a lot of scenes. It was a single-cam multi-cam. Yes, the old-school way to do it is to do far fewer scenes. By the way, that makes for a lot more fun show night also, because you get through it quickly. The audience is completely engaged. If you don’t have to wait for a wardrobe change, if you’re able to keep it in that, it really makes the show, I think, really sing.
Megana: Much more characters, I’ve realized, than in most of the single-cam scripts that I’m reading. In a multi-cam, obviously, you’re gonna have a bigger ensemble, typically.
Betsy: Yeah, I think that’s true. When I think about my favorite moments in multi-cam, I directed a few episodes of The Carmichael Show, and there were some scenes in their living room which were hard to stage, because it’s a lot of people in that scene. You have Tiffany and Lil Rel and Jerrod and David and Loretta. It’s not that big a set. You’re also like, “How do I keep it where not everybody’s just sitting down?” because then it gets stagnant. It was really hard to direct.
Those scenes, sometimes they were seven, eight pages long. That’s a lot for actors to get through. Old-school ones, David and Loretta, who come from theater, who come from the stage, it’s not as difficult for. But I think a younger generation, they’re not used to that, particularly if you’ve not come from stages. But those scenes just pop. The audiences love them.
Megana: You mentioned being able to do smash cut jokes in single-cam. Are there any other differences you think of between multi-cam versus single-cam comedy when you’re writing?
Betsy: I worked on a multi-cam called Abby’s that was short-lived. Mike Schur was the EP. Josh Malmuth created it.
John: Is that the one that was all in a backyard?
Betsy: Yes, with Natalie Morales. Josh had a little bit of multi-cam experience when he was much younger, but I think I was the only other person that really had… The rest of the staff was young, and they only had had single-cam experience. I found myself a few times saying, “That doesn’t really work, and the reason it doesn’t work is because you have these run-throughs.” To stage a smash cut is weird. It’s like, smash cut to the car. Where is the car? We don’t have that set. Then you’re having two actors run over to sit in a… I don’t know. It can be really awkward, which doesn’t mean that you can’t do it in the cut. But it can be awkward in terms of the run-throughs and things like that.
Megana: I didn’t realize that all of these scripts were filmed sequentially when you shoot them in front of the audience. I don’t know why I didn’t put that together.
Betsy: Yeah, they are. There are also things that they’d say, “Oh, and then he blows up the mailbox.” I’m like, “How is that gonna happen in front of an audience? It’ll look terrible, because we can’t really do… ” I think there are ways to do things in multi-cam with special effects in post that didn’t used to exist, so I think there’s a lot more flexibility now, but there’s a reason that the great multi-cams were Mary Tyler Moore Show and Cheers. They were people just doing their thing, walking through telling funny jokes and leaving.
John: Absolutely. I want to talk about entering and leaving, because I think that’s actually a difference, because there’s the expectation in multi-cam that people come in, people enter, and they exit. That’s a thing that actually happens, which you just don’t see as much in single-cam. People are already seated or they’re already in the middle of a thing versus walking into a thing. Entrances and exits are so important and so funny, hopefully, if it works well.
Betsy: I think it probably comes from the energy that that brings to a scene, because again, it’s just like theater. If you’re watching a theater scene of four people sitting around a table for 10 pages, it’s fine, but it’s a different energy when somebody walks in with news, somebody walks in with a complication. It has a really different energy.
John: A lot of the things we’re gonna be linking to are older things, so Cheers or Friends. But this Night Court reboot is new. It’s from 2021. A thing I do notice is underneath the scene header, in parentheses, it says which characters are in the scene. Is that a common thing?
Betsy: Yeah, always.
John: Always. Cheers and Friends don’t do it, but this one does.
Betsy: They must’ve added it later, but it is part of what the coordinator does. Obviously, it’s because it gets back to this thing of all the departments want to just see, “Who’s in this scene? What cats do I have wrangle?”
John: The decision to make dialogue double-spaced, it looks so terrible to me, but it’s convention.
Betsy: It is. It’s a lot easier for an actor to read when they’re walking through with their script, because they don’t have it memorized. All these run-throughs, they’ve got their script.
John: They’re just holding it.
Betsy: They’re walking through the scene on the run-through day, reading from their script while – “And I love you too, sweetie,” and then they… We encourage them to not try to memorize it, because we want the words. I don’t want an approximation of the words. I want to know the exact words, because then I know what I have to fix. Somebody’s saying, “I really like you too, sweetie,” that means something very different.
John: Parentheticals are part of the dialogue block itself. Things just look different in ways that just feel arbitrary.
Betsy: I know. I know.
Megana: Your scripts end up being 40 to 60 pages long.
Betsy: Hopefully not 60. That’s really long. But yes, I would say in the 38 to 42 is the sweet spot, depending on the show. Then some shows, they spread. Who knows what? They just spread, and so it’s just better to have shorter page count. Other shows can get away – I think Friends scripts were usually pretty long, because that dialogue just went so quickly.
John: Let’s say you’re a listener to the show who really loves the multi-cam format and wants to work in that. Would you recommend they write a multi-cam script, or should they write something that’s more single-camera-y but has funny jokes in it? What’s gonna be a better thing to get them noticed and read?
Betsy: A time machine.
John: That’s a good one. First, invent time travel. Then show them your Friends script.
Betsy: I don’t think it matters anymore, from what I can gather. I just had this conversation with my husband last night. He said, “I hear spec scripts are coming back.” I was like, “Really?”
John: Specs of existing shows?
Betsy: Specs meaning specs of existing shows, so you write a Night Court. My friend Corey Nickerson wrote her spec years and years ago. She did a spec Mary Tyler Moore.
John: So exciting.
Betsy: But it was R rated. It got her a lot of attention, because it just was a really cool way to reinvent that idea. For example, I think if you wrote a Modern Family spec, I think that’s gonna work for a multi-cam just great. I don’t think you have to do one or the other. I think if you wrote a Baby Reindeer spec, I’m not sure that’s gonna really translate to the Tim Allen thing.
John: Yeah, somehow, yeah, I could see that being a talent. A guy who we were on the negotiating committee with was working on the new Frasier. That’s another example of a present-day sitcom that’s out there.
I remember when my daughter was young, she was obsessed with one of the Nickelodeon shows, and so I got her onto the set of one of the Nickelodeon shows. It was very much a classic sitcom-y kind of thing, but they filmed it arbitrarily in the afternoons. There was a laugh group. It was just a bunch of people in lawn chairs who’d sit at a TV and laugh with the jokes. It was the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.
Betsy: I’m trying to think of what the equivalent is. It feels like there’s some sort of sex worker equivalent. As a copywriter, you feel so cheap, because you’re like, “I didn’t earn that.” That’s what we had in COVID. We had the laughers in COVID, because you couldn’t have an audience. They would hire these, because then you could test them all. They could be properly COVID tested in the audience. I think it bothered all of us, and particularly actors or standups who are used to earning those laughs. It feels real dirty just to get a big guffaw. You’re like, “It wasn’t that funny. Now it feels like you’re mocking me.”
John: I just remember the producer would walk over to laughers between, like, “Can I get a bigger laugh on this joke?” I’m like, oh, no. Finger on the scale there.
Betsy: It is. It’s got real fake orgasm vibes.
John: It does. Let’s talk about some listener questions. Megana, can we start with this one from Annie?
Megana: Annie writes, “I hooked up with a director who loves one of my scripts, a feature film. He’s put a lot of work into moving the project forward and recently found a producer who’s on board. I trust the director’s taste, and we have good communication. The producer, not so much. I don’t want to be all precious. After all, a script produced is better than one on your hard drive. On the other hand, if the result is completely awful, then what? Any tips on how to navigate this process?”
John: I think we’ve all been in situations where like, “Oh, I really like your perspective, and this other person’s, I don’t, and I am stuck with both of you.” It’s a tricky place to navigate.
Betsy: My advice would be talk to the director as politically savvily as possible. Just say, “Here’s where I’m struggling. I feel like we’re very much in the same page of what this movie is. I’m not feeling like the input from the producer is rowing in the same direction. Tell me how you feel about their notes, how you’re experiencing. Maybe I’m not understanding something or I’m not seeing something,” and see if they can be – because they may be feeling the same way, and by you saying that, be like, “You know what? I actually feel the same way.” Or they may say, “Oh, I’ve worked for this person before, and take this with a grain of salt.”
John: The opposite situation is worse, when you agree with the producer, and the director has terrible notes and terrible instincts. Then you’re gonna get replaced and things are bad. It’s not gonna work out well. Ultimately, that director is responsible for executing your script. Yes, the producer’s gonna have an important function, but you’re better off seeing eye to eye with the director than with the producer.
Betsy: Yes.
John: A question here from Cayenne.
Megana: Cayenne asks, “Sometimes when writing dialogue, I find my characters being sarcastic or deadpan, saying what is phrased like a question but flatly and more as a shady statement. I like to write these with no question mark, because it feels like it makes their tone much clearer. For example, ‘Oh, really?’ versus, ‘Oh, really.’ But I’ve had a friend proofreading catch these, insisting that they’ll snag a reader out of the scene more than help. Do you have any opinions on when or when not to break grammatical norms to communicate tone?”
Betsy: I use punctuation however the hell I want. But also, you can say “flatly.” You’ve got parentheticals available to you. I usually do a combination of parentheticals and punctuation. I don’t know. I hear what the person proofing it feels, but I also think I want to know what the tone is more importantly than anything else.
John: I agree with you. I think if it’s crucial, then that parenthetical could be in there. But I do like that question marks actually kind of have a sound now. Putting a question mark on or taking a question mark, you can kind of hear it. We mentioned a couple weeks ago, someone had two question marks at the end of a sentence. I can hear what that sounds like. It felt appropriate.
This last week there was a press release that came out from Kamala Harris’s campaign, and one of the bullet points was, “Trump is old and quite weird?” with a question mark. That question mark was absolutely perfect. Choosing to put the question mark there or put a question mark on a thing that’s otherwise a statement is a total valid choice. Everything on the page matters. Don’t worry about it being grammatically perfect.
Megana: Just an example to look at, because we’ll probably link the Friends pilot in here, they set up Chandler as droll, and he doesn’t have any question marks in his sarcastic statements. It’s just a period.
John: Let’s do one more. This one from John.
Megana: John writes, “I’m writing a screenplay where, in Act 3, the protagonist is hit with a massive flashback of memories while standing in a room with other people. Like 5 to 10 pages of flashbackery. It’s important stuff and informs what happens next in the story. My question is, during the flashback, what’s happening in current time and space? Has it been presumably caused? If so, can you return right from a flashback and assume no time has passed? Is it better to return by jumping forward a bit in time, or is there a better way to handle this?”
John: I definitely have felt this, where I was like, “Oh, wow, we’ve been gone a long time. Was he actually in real time experiencing all this together?” If you’re gonna be gone for more than a minute, I think you gotta return to the present tense with some sense of, okay, just tell us whether he was experiencing this too, or was this flashback for us, or was it the thing that he was experiencing at the same time.
Betsy: I agree. I would also say use it to the advantage of the scene, in other words that time didn’t just stop for everybody. But it’s like, were they boring? Was somebody in the middle of telling an incredibly emotional story and you just went into flashbacks? Then you come back and they’re like, “And then he died.” You can use it in all kinds of different ways. I would say I always try to think what is the real. Then the real is, if I’m going into a bunch of flashbacks that take three minutes of screentime, that’s three minutes the other person has been doing something, or the other people have.
John: It is weird to do the introspection of what was actually happening while I was having these thoughts. Sometimes it’s in a place where nothing else was happening. I will time travel while I’m in the shower. Nothing else was happening. But if I’m time traveling during the middle of recording this podcast, you two would notice that.
Megana: It happened a few times actually.
John: It has, where I’ve just been like, “I’m not in here anymore.” It has come time for our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing is this article by Mary HK Choi for New York Magazine, or The Cut. I always get confused what’s what there. The headline is What My Adult Autism Diagnosis Finally Explained. I’ve seen other people talk about adult diagnosis of autism. It’s like, okay, sure. But her description of where she was at and how it made things click together was really fascinating. Then I like that she also pushed beyond to say, yes, but also I’m an immigrant and some of what you’re seeing here is also just a pretty understandable response to what my situation was. Yes, there’s probably some brain stuff, but there’s also probably some cultural stuff there, and it’s impossible to disentangle them.
I thought it was a really great article. There were so many things I wanted to highlight and underline. She’s a workaholic who’s, quote, “bad at Christmas,” which is such a great character description.
Betsy: That is great.
John: It’s so good. This is a article by Mary HK Choi. Everyone should look it up.
Megana: Awesome. My One Cool Thing is Season 2 of Unstable.
John: Tell us about Unstable. You watched the whole first season, and you should watch the second season now too?
Megana: Yes, I watched the whole first season. Everyone should watch the second season. This is the show that I had to leave my beloved Scriptnotes producing job for.
John: Absolutely. You can see Megana’s name on screen as a staff writer on Unstable Season 2.
Megana: Yes. It is a single-cam comedy on Netflix starring Rob Lowe and his real-life son John Lowe. There’s also Fred Armisen, Sian Clifford. This season has Lamorne Morris. It’s a delightful, quirky comedy. The episodes are 20 minutes long. Check it out.
John: Delightful and very exciting. Here’s the secret about Netflix, which we should just tell everybody. Start watching it and just watch the whole thing, because they really care about things being completed. Be a completionist. If you don’t have a chance to watch it all when you first sit down, maybe just let it play, so you get credit for it. Then you can go back and watch the episodes again.
Betsy: Who has time to watch an entire series in one sitting? I’m lucky to get through one.
John: I know.
Betsy: I don’t know. I guess people who don’t have kids. I don’t know.
Megana: I have a lot of time to do that.
Betsy: If you’ve had a couple glasses of wine at dinner and it’s… If it’s 9:45 and I’m not on my way to bed, something’s wrong.
John: You and me, we’re right in that zone. I could start watching something, but it’s already 9:00, so soon that means I’m gonna be tired and I’m gonna want to be upstairs.
Betsy: That’s exactly right. I feel bad, because you guys had cool things. But you could prepare. All I’ve done – this is a callback to the flashback.
John: Please.
Betsy: All I’ve done this entire time you guys were saying yours was – my brain was racing through, “Come up with a cool thing!” I barely heard either one of you. You know what I saw that I really enjoyed is a little movie called Wicked Little Letters.
John: Tell me about this.
Betsy: It’s a English movie – as John knows, we love all things English – with Jessie.
John: Jessie Buckley?
Betsy: Yep.
John: Jessie Buckley from Chernobyl.
Betsy: Yes. She’s delightful. It’s Olivia Colman.
John: Come on.
Betsy: It’s written by this fantastic writer, who’s also an actor, named Jonny Sweet.
John: Great.
Betsy: That we’re somewhat obsessed with. It’s a delight.
John: Great. Wicked Little Letters.
Betsy: It’s on streaming now.
Megana: It’s on Netflix. I’m glad you recommended it, because I saw it and I was like, “This looks really good,” but I haven’t heard people talking about it.
Betsy: It’s a delightful romp. It has some serious stuff, and it’s also loosely based on a true story.
John: Fun. You’ve not heard anybody talking about it until Betsy Thomas shows up to talk about it. Now, that broke the dam.
Betsy: Exactly. I just made Jonny Sweet a billionaire.
John: Absolutely. The little title will go to the top, what’s trending now on it, just because of your recommendation.
Betsy: Exactly.
John: That is our show for this week. Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt with, this week, special help from Megana Rao. It’s edited by Matthew Chilelli, who also did our outro this week. A special outro in celebration of the Olympics. It’s Scriptnotes themed in celebration of the Olympics.
If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send questions. You’ll find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com, where you’ll find the transcripts and sign up for our weekly newsletter called Inneresting, which has lots of links to things about writing. We have T-shirts and hoodies and other gear that’s all great. You’ll find those at Cotton Bureau. You can sign up to become a Premium member at scriptnotes.net. You get all those back-episodes and Bonus Segments, like the one we’re about to record on golf. I want to hear about golf.
Betsy: That’s the least honest thing you’ve ever said.
John: Betsy, as always, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Betsy: I had a blast, you guys. Thank you so much.
Megana: Thank you.
[Bonus Segment]
John: I actually am genuinely curious about golf, because there’s things that I probably never would do myself but I’m still curious about, and golf is one of those, because this is my perception of golf: It’s hot and sunny out, two things I don’t like. I’m gonna go walk around carrying a bag of things, trying to hit a ball poorly while talking with people. None of these things are clicking for me, but they do click for you. Tell me, what got you into golf?
Betsy: First of all, the birthplace of golf, it’s not hot and sunny. It’s actually the opposite.
John: It’s Scottish.
Betsy: It’s cold and windy and rainy. What is it? A lovely walk spoiled is what I think somebody called golf. Of course I can’t remember who. I’m trying to think of how to say to somebody who doesn’t play golf what’s good about golf.
Golf takes extraordinary amount of skill, practice, discipline, mental tenacity. You are always kind of just playing yourself. Even when you’re playing in a match, you’re playing competitively, the person you’re trying to beat is usually the person in your own head. That’s what I struggle the most with.
You have however many shots to get to the hole. But there are so many different versions of those shots. Tennis, you’ve got however many you have. But golf, it’s so much more complicated and more difficult. It’s a game that is very difficult to master. You can continue to play it until you’re old. It’s very social. You get four to five hours with your loved one, your friends, whoever.
John: A thing you brought up today, which I’d never really considered, is it’s less like poker and more like Solitaire, because you’re really just playing yourself. It doesn’t really matter how everyone else does. Ultimately, you’re gonna compare your scores, but you’re not playing against each other directly, the way you are in tennis or really almost any other sport.
Betsy: You are in match play. I’m playing in our club championship this weekend. Tomorrow’s my first match of match plays. It’s a bracket, and you have to win. When you are playing somebody else in a match, you are playing them directly. Hole by hole is what you’re winning.
John: How they perform really has no bearing on how you perform directly.
Betsy: No, except for if they’re on the green in two and they’re putting for birdie, and I’m in the fairway, I’m like, “Uh-oh, I have to get up and down, or I’m gonna lose this hole.”
John: Megana, you said your dad is a golfer?
Megana: He is a golfer. He’s a big-time golfer.
John: Did he golf before he came to the States, or how did that all start?
Megana: No, it’s really a hobby that he picked up, gosh, I think when I was like – it was once we moved to Ohio. Him and his friend just started golfing. Now they’re out there on all of the hot and sunny, humid days in Ohio, because there’s very limited days that you can golf there.
John: Your dad’s a doctor, so that also ties in. I think about doctors golfing.
Megana: Yeah, I guess some of his friends who are doctors also golf. My mom’s gotten into it recently.
John: Oh, interesting.
Megana: It’s a cute thing they do together.
John: My dad golfed some. I remember my mom decided, “I’m gonna take lessons so I can golf with him.” I would sit in the car at the edge of the golf practice range where she’d have her lessons. She just hated it. I really respect my mom for just stopping. She was like, “I don’t like this.” She just stopped. Learning it’s okay to quit was just such an inspiration to me.
Megana: I do feel really inspired when I see that. Betsy, when did you start golfing?
Betsy: I got clubs for my 30th birthday.
John: So not as a child then.
Betsy: So four years ago.
John: Four years, you’re already playing in the championship. That’s really great.
Betsy: Yeah, I’m the wunderkind.
John: Why did you get clubs? Did your husband golf?
Betsy: No, my friend JB Roberts, who is a manager here in LA, but we went to college together, he just decided I should be a golfer. I was an athlete. I was always an athlete. I was a tennis player. I played lacrosse growing up. I had hit the golf ball. I’d hit around a little bit. But I was not a golfer. I had no clubs, whatever. He had decided I should be a golfer. He got my friends to all pitch in and buy me clubs and lessons for my 30th birthday. That’s what began it. It was great though, because I really did enjoy it.
Then when I met my husband, Adrian, he is a very good golfer. We found that out on our first date. Then that gave us a thing to do together. We’ve been able to have that, and now our son is an excellent golfer. The three of us do golf trips all the time. We’ve been to Scotland. We get to travel.
One of the things I love about it is, A, you can drink. It’s like, oh, I’m getting my steps in and I have a vodka tonic. But here’s the terrible thing about the elitism of golf. It has some of the most beautiful land in the world – are golf courses. You get to see spectacular places wherever you travel. You get to see some of the most gorgeous landscape. As a family, we travel, and we always have this thing that we do together.
I know it sounds weird. It’s like, how is that romantic? Adrian and I are going to Ireland in October for our 25th wedding anniversary, and we’re gonna play golf. It’ll be just the two of us walking around a course together for five hours or four and a half hours. It’s actually beautiful and lovely. I know it sounds strange, but it is weirdly romantic.
John: You’ve done a really good job selling golf. I actually am much more appreciative of a thing now. The other perception I have of golf has always been people making deals over golf. How useful or not useful has it been in terms of the industry that you work in to play golf? Do you golf with industry folks? How does that tie together?
Betsy: I don’t really, but I think it’s more of sexism, because there aren’t that many women that play golf. I think that it’s a thing that guys do, because the guys all play Saturday morning together. In the club we belong, there are a lot of showbiz people. I don’t really have that, because I play with my family or I play with the ladies. We’re not normally doing that kind of thing. But I do think that is a real thing. I think there’s a lot of friendships that are formed through that.
John: Megana, was your dad golfing – do you think it was also part of, not even assimilation, but just a way to become more American? Was that a goal at all?
Megana: That’s an interesting question. I’m from the suburbs in Ohio. There is one really big golf course in the middle of our town.
Betsy: Where?
Megana: It’s Yankee Trace Golf Club in Centerville, Ohio. Are you familiar with Ohio at all?
Betsy: I am.
John: You’re saying you and Adrian are not gonna be traveling to Centerville, Ohio on your next romantic golf trip?
Betsy: I don’t think so. I’m not thinking. But there are some amazing golf courses in Ohio, actually. That’s why I was asking.
Megana: Yeah, there’s the NCR Country Club golf course, which is the National Cash Register, which is a huge part of Dayton, Ohio lore.
John: I love it.
Megana: But a lot of his friends that he golfs with are Indian, so I don’t know if it was totally an assimilation thing. He really wanted me to get into it because it is such a mental game. I don’t know. I was just such a hormonal teenager. I think he was like, “This will help,” and it did the opposite. It made me so mad.
John: It wasn’t a Venus and Serena Williams situation where suddenly-
Megana: No, absolutely not.
Betsy: I will tell you about the doctors thing that it is one of the great things. There actually are a lot of doctors who play golf, and it’s one of the great things about golf, because I turned my ankle really badly and couldn’t put weight on it, and it was like, “Oh good, there’s Dr. Dave. He’s head of orthopedics at Children’s.” I was like, “Hey.” He checks it out. Then the guy we were playing with is actually an acupuncturist and a Chinese medicine doctor. He took me into the gym, and he did a bunch of pressure point stuff on me. I said to Dave, “What should I do?” He’s like, “Ice and vodka, in any combination.” See?
John: Absolutely. The cure for most issues though really.
Betsy: That’s so true.
John: Betsy, an absolute delight having you on.
Betsy: I just had a great time.
Megana: Thank you.
Betsy: Unstable, I’m gonna watch it.
Megana: Please.
Links:
- Betsy Thomas on Wikipedia and IMDb
- Megana Rao on Twitter and IMDb
- WGA West Annual Report
- Writer Earnings Fell $600 Million Due to Strike and Industry Contraction, WGA Says by Gene Maddus for Variety
- Cheers – “Give Me a Ring Sometime” by Glen and Les Charles
- Cheers – “Father Knows Last”
- Night Court – “Pilot” by Dan Rubin
- Friends – “Pilot” by David Crane & Marta Kauffman
- What My Adult Autism Diagnosis Finally Explained by Mary HK Choi for The Cut
- Unstable – Season 2 on Netflix (hooray Megana Rao!)
- Wicked Little Letters on Netflix
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
- Craig Mazin on Threads and Instagram
- John August on Threads, Instagram, X and Mastodon
- Outro by Matthew Chilelli (send us yours!)
- Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt, with help this week by Megana Rao. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode here.