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

**John August:** And we’re done. Yes.

**Craig Mazin:** So great.

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

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

**John:** And this is Scriptnotes. It’s a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

We are here in Seattle for our first ever Seattle live show.

**Craig:** Hear that, John? The sound of people that have been freshly enriched by a higher minimum wage.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** They’re excited. They’re caffeinated. They’re full of their legal marijuana and they’re excited. Excited.

**John:** They are excited and why would they not be excited?

**Craig:** No, of course.

**John:** So, the Northwest Screenwriters Guild has been gently stalking us for several years to try to convince us to come up here and they finally succeeded, so a good lesson is to just stalk somebody for a very long time sometimes pays off. So Northwest Screenwriters and TheFilmSchool, all one word apparently, got us up here. I was here on my Arlo Finch book tour. You generously agreed to like hop on a plane and fly up here.

**Craig:** What happened was – thank you – John said come to Seattle and I said OK.

**John:** [laughs] Yes.

**Craig:** I don’t really do a lot of thinking or what I would say independent thinking or decision making.

**John:** No, it’s not planned.

**Craig:** Normally just John tells me what to do. Earlier I didn’t know where he was and I got scared. So, just so you guys understand, and you probably do, how this works. It’s that.

**John:** Yeah. I text Craig like meet me in the lobby in five minutes and he’s like OK-K.

**Craig:** OK. Yeah. And I was on time.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** Do not show up late for John August.

**John:** So let’s just get a general sense of what’s happening in the industry overall because we’ve done a live show in New York and a live show in Austin, which are both big film towns, a lot of film happens here. But not a lot of film happens in Seattle. So I was curious why Seattle wanted us up here. And so we got a chance to talk to the Northwest Screenwriters Guild at dinner and a lot of the folks who are in this guild who are doing stuff they want to be writing movies. They want to be telling stories cinematically and it’s a group that got together to help them figure out how to do that. And some of their members have gone on to do big cinematic stuff.

You know, there’s cinematic storytelling that’s not just about making big movies. It can be about video games. It can be about animation. There’s lots of other things that involve some of those characteristics as qualities.

**Craig:** Everything is kind of smooshing together these days which is nice. You guys are also kind of on the backdoor of one of the largest production cities in the world. And it’s something to think about. I know you have to sneak across the border. Obviously it’s a little trickier these days with the wall.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** [laughs] The wall between us and Canada. Ridiculous.

**John:** International listeners might not understand that Seattle and Vancouver are just next door neighbors.

**Craig:** Kissing cousins.

**John:** And they are so close together but so much production happens in Vancouver. So little production happens in Seattle because of tax breaks and exchange rates.

**Craig:** And also the general politeness of Canadians. I mean, we should give them a little bit of credit.

**John:** Give a little more credit to the Canadians because the Canadians deserve–

**Craig:** Yeah. I’m not saying you guys are rude. It’s not a “Hey!” See, it’s like “hello, how are you.” Oh, dual citizen? So you’ve learned to be rude?

**John:** So she’s a Canadian today but other days she’s an American.

**Craig:** Yes. Your alternate side of the street parking with your Canadians. Well, anyway, the point is you’re very close but I would imagine also that means there are probably a lot of training and educational resources here that you might not find in another city of Seattle’s size. I happen to be a huge fan of Seattle. I think it’s an amazing city.

Not every city has the spirit of art running through its veins. This one clearly does. So, I think–

**John:** It’s got a spirit of art and a lot of money. These are good combinations for a town.

**Craig:** Art and money.

**John:** Art and money.

**Craig:** Most of the people making art on the street do not appear to have the money. However, there are opportunities here. And so this is actually of all the places I think this is one of the – I don’t know, I think you guys are in a pretty great place. That said, you should probably move to LA.

**John:** At some point.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** You should move to LA. So this was a Twitter thread that I actually got into today. And so I was retweeting some folks about when do you stop your day job which is a really good question. These were novelists who were talking about when you quit your day job, but as screenwriters it’s a tough question of like when do you stop working your day job.

For people who get staffed on a TV show, well, the choice is made for you. You’re now a full-time employee on a TV show so you’re not going to go to your day job anymore. But for screenwriters it’s a much tougher call. And so Shannon and Swift who are a writing team who do a lot of stuff they were saying like they were on the front page of Variety having sold their script and they still went to work that day because you just don’t know. You just don’t know when that next job is going to come, when you’re actually going to get paid. So, that idea of you made it, you didn’t make it, when do you stop working your day job is really tough.

**Craig:** I went through the same thing. The first thing I sold was in I think 1995 I want to say, possibly. And I don’t think I actually quit that job until late in 1996. So for a long time you’re just sort of waiting, which is smart. I mean, honestly a lot of people sell a script. Not to bum you guys out. You guys will sell many scripts. But some people only sell one. Boo those people.

And so I was kind of scared, but it was a weird thing to be – because you feel like you’ve made it. You know, you and I have talked on the show there’s no making it. There’s no breaking in. It’s not a thing. There’s just this strange progression. And then one day someone says to you, “I need you working on this now. You can’t go to your safe job anymore.” And that actually is a scary day.

**John:** It is a scary day. And if you get staffed on a TV show, well great, so you have 20 weeks of work, but then what happens – or hopefully 20 weeks, maybe it’s 10 weeks of work. But what happens after that? And a thing you guys should understand is that as television has gotten just shorter and shorter seasons, well that’s great for a viewer. I like a short season. I like being able to get through all of it. But as a writer that can be really tough because if you’re only working on those 10 weeks, those 20 weeks, well you’ve got to get on another show. You’ve got to find ways to fill a whole year.

And so I think we’re going to see writers having to do a lot more scrambling as they jump from show to show to show, or trying to find the next show down the road.

**Craig:** Yeah. So maybe just quit now.

**John:** Yeah. Maybe just stop. That’s really our message. Or our anti-message.

**Craig:** The crazy part is there’s more jobs than ever before. It’s pretty awesome actually. You guys are in a pretty great time. There are more jobs than ever before. Almost all of them are in television, but that’s OK because television is more movie-like than ever before. But it is true. There is a certain pressure now on the way you live. That said, people are living that life quite successfully and some people are living it incredibly successfully. And I would add that aside from money there are other parts of this job that are so fulfilling and so lovely that they’re worth almost as much as money.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Which you don’t hear very often, but they are.

**John:** So, so much of this conversation we could have every day in Los Angeles. We do sort of have it every day in Los Angeles. But when we decided to come up here to Seattle my first question to Craig is like, well, who should we have on the show? Who is a special Seattle person we could have on the show? And Craig was like, oh, oh, ooh, I know exactly who we should have on the show. So tell me what was your instinct behind having Emily.

**Craig:** So Emily Zulauf is somebody I’ve known for many, many years. I met her when she was working at Pixar. Pixar does this interesting thing where – so they’re Oakland. I was going to say up in Oakland, but it’s down in Oakland. And they are always looking for people to write. You’d think like, oh, they’re Pixar. But the way that animation is done, some of you may be familiar with this, there are so many people creating and so many people writing that a lot of times they’re looking in places for writers that you might not think. And a few years ago Emily came down with Mary Coleman, another development executive from Pixar, to meet some people who they had read some scripts and liked and I was one of those people. And I’m a huge Pixar fan. And we had this lovely lunch. And then I guess about a year later we ran into each other again at the Austin Film Festival which is a fun thing. I don’t know – has anybody gone to the Austin Film Festival?

**John:** There’s some hands up. Great.

**Craig:** Look at all you. Good for you. So we ran into each other there and we just decided – she was like we decided that we would be friends, but mostly I was like I don’t like anyone, so when I meet somebody that I like I’m like, OK, we’re friends now and they don’t have a choice because it’s hard for me to meet people that I like. Because I’m a bad person full of umbrage.

So, we became friends. And she’s got a remarkable story mind and she also came out of this place that is legendary and has created some of the most incredible stories of all time. And, in fact, is one of the few institutions in the world that I think is mostly just obsessed with pure storytelling. And she’s actually in a different endeavor now. She’ll tell you about that. But maybe we should welcome her down.

**John:** Emily Zulauf will you please come and join us here.

**Emily Zulauf:** Hey guys.

**John:** Emily, so at dinner I was trying to figure out how I should introduce you. Emily Zulauf is a blank – but you do so many things. Talk to us about what you’re doing now and how you would describe yourself on a resume.

**Emily:** Oh god. So right now I am running story for a new video game company that I can’t talk about.

**John:** She’s under so many NDAs.

**Emily:** I’m so scared.

**John:** There’s like a red dot aimed at her forehead right now.

**Emily:** I know. It was my honest reservation about doing the podcast was I can’t talk about any of this. So that’s what I’m doing right now in secret. And, yeah, prior to that I did some freelance writing. I was the executive director of a nonprofit for a hot second. And I was at Pixar for almost eight years. I was the script supervisor on Inside Out and I was in creative development for about 3.5 years.

**John:** That’s great. You are also a friend of Tess Morris.

**Emily:** Yes.

**John:** Who is a very frequent Scriptnotes guest. And so I always think of you with Tess Morris, because I always see you at the Austin Film Festival right with Tess.

**Emily:** Yeah. That’s a great association. I totally appreciate that. I want to keep that going.

**John:** You know what? We’re happy to have you by yourself. So, when we have–

**Emily:** Yeah. No more Tess.

**John:** No more Tess. This is a Tess-less episode. So, there’s so many things about what you’ve worked on that I want to get into because they’re different than what we normally experience as screenwriters. First, I want to talk about process because Pixar is just a very different story and creative process than what we’re used to as screenwriters because Craig and I we just go off in our little rooms and we beat ourselves up and we write our stories. That’s not the Pixar way at all.

I remember going up to a meeting at Pixar where I gave a little talk, gave a little class, and then they were like, “Oh yeah, and then we’re going to do a two-day offsite to work on this one moment at the end of the second act.” I’m like I would kill myself. But it works for Pixar. So, how does it work and why does it work?

**Emily:** Like how do people not kill themselves?

**John:** How do people not kill themselves?

**Craig:** There’s actually quite a high suicide rate there.

**Emily:** It’s a very tall building.

**Craig:** They’re dropping like flies.

**Emily:** It’s a very tall building.

**Craig:** There isn’t. No there’s not.

**Emily:** It’s totally a joke.

**John:** People hanging themselves from a little lamp.

**Craig:** So touchy here.

**Emily:** Starting dark.

**John:** So what is – I mean, that two-day offsite was probably a real thing and you probably do that.

**Emily:** Yeah. We didn’t make that up.

**John:** That actually does happen. So, what is the process? So something like an Inside Out, is there a script at the start or is it just an idea that – tell me.

**Emily:** Yeah, so usually what it has been traditionally, and I guess I want to caveat this by saying I’m not there now. They’re obviously in a transitional period and so this might be changing a little bit. But sort of traditionally what it has been is that the director is identified first by some group of the executive team. And that director is responsible for coming up with three different pitches of stories that that person wants to do. And so part of what we do in creative development is sort of support them as they’re trying to figure out what that is that they’re interested in. And coming up with sort of a rough pitch for all of those. And then they pitch that to whoever is in charge.

**John:** Whoever is in charge. Let’s stop though for one second though. When you say a director is pitching three ideas, they’re really pitching sort of three story areas, or they’re pitching three like I want to do a story that’s about this, or about this idea, but it may not have the exact characters or sort of what’s going to happen.

**Emily:** For sure. Yeah, it’s definitely like the roughest outline. It would fit on probably a page or a half a page depending on how much they fleshed it out. And it’s usually trying to find three areas that feel distinct enough and different enough that the president of the company can say I like this direction. You’re certainly not – you know, when they buy off on an idea they’re certainly not buying off on something that looks like a full treatment or definitely not a full script.

**Craig:** And they’re basically saying go ahead and take some time to dig at this little vein in the mountain and see if there’s stuff there.

**Emily:** Exactly. Like run that direction. But certainly not at the point of like this makes perfect sense.

**Craig:** I heard a story that Finding Nemo just began as – was it Andrew Stanton?

**Emily:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Saying “fish.” Just started with fish. And everyone was like, yes, of course, fish.

**John:** We’re going to do fish.

**Emily:** There’s a pretty wide variety in how much people have prepared for those pitches. And some of it has to do with how comfortable you are. You know, we’re asking people to – I mean, with any director you have a lot of different skillsets that have to exist in one person. But certainly we’re asking somebody whose job is not pitching to figure out how to get up and pitch effectively.

**John:** To how big of a group would that person need to be able to pitch?

**Emily:** Well, ultimately – and this is where I’m going to fudge around on it again – historically that was just John Lasseter. I assume now that is mostly Pete Docter. But there certainly are other people who will show up in those meetings. But ultimately there’s sort of one decider at the studio. It’s just sort of how the hierarchy is structured. And depending on how comfortable you are makes a big difference in how you pitch.

**Craig:** I mean animation in and of itself has so much pitching from moment to moment that at some point I assume people just get over whatever kind of baseline of fear they had because story artists are constantly pitching.

**Emily:** Yeah. And the majority of our directors come out of story, too. So most of them do have a baseline of at least being comfortable enough to get up and talk about story. But there’s always a process that everybody goes through when you’re new at anything. And pitching to the head of your company is not the same as pitching to the rest of your story team.

**Craig:** Right. When you know like I have a job now, so the worst thing that happens is I have to just keep doing my job.

**Emily:** Right. Exactly. And then I think they’re doing I think a really wonderful job right now of starting to pull from other places more. So, if you’re coming and I’m totally making this up, I don’t know that this is true. But if you’re coming out of lighting for instance like that’s not necessarily going to be your area. So part of what we would do in creative development is just pitch prep, is just help people get comfortable to talk about their story and how to do it and what the beats are.

**Craig:** I had no idea. That’s so nice.

**Emily:** Isn’t that nice?

**Craig:** You’re a good person.

**Emily:** We’re very nice.

**John:** There’s a whole department that does not exist at a traditional studio at all because–

**Craig:** I feel like this is the opposite department where they teach you – they just remind you repeatedly before you go into a room that it’s quite likely you’ll fail.

**John:** That you’re all terrible and it will never get past here.

**Craig:** But good luck.

**John:** So because we’re in Seattle, Amazon headquarters, I know that Amazon has this policy of when they’re going to start on a new project one of the first things you have to do is write the press release announcing the finished version. And it feels so different from what you’re describing. So these directors who are pitching these story areas they don’t really know what the final movie is. They don’t even know what sort of happens in it. They’re just describing an area, a vision, so it’s not a specific kind of thing.

When Craig and I go in to pitch something, like we’ll get called to the mat on details about like well how do you get to the second act moment.

**Craig:** I just tell them, I’m like shut up.

**John:** Shut up.

**Craig:** It’s a pitch.

**John:** Shut up Sean. I can do it.

**Craig:** Just shut up, Sean. I’ve never said shut up to Sean. He’s a nice guy. Super nice.

**Emily:** In fairness I think they do usually have a story sketched out. I think the difference is that it will change–

**John:** They know it’s going to change.

**Emily:** So dramatically. So a lot of times even though you go in and you pitch a story you’re really pitching the world. And you’re really pitching like do you want to live in this space for a while.

**Craig:** And you’re pitching to a creative person. You know, most of the time for us – not that producers aren’t creative, but we’re pitching to people that don’t write. So a lot of their expectation is tell me a story. But when you’re pitching to people that do write, when a writer friend pitches something to me, sometimes it is just fish because a question that I will always ask somebody, like somebody says, “OK, can you read these first 20. I’m lost. What’s happening here?” Sometimes the question you just ask is what made you feel fascinated in the first place and maybe that’s kind of what happens in those meetings is someone just shows this little piece of spark because they want to tell, there’s like a little thing. Well let’s go back to that seed.

**Emily:** I think that’s totally true. And I think that’s also sort of what our job was in creative development too is to start poking at those questions and help you articulate why does this matter to me so that when you walk into a meeting that’s what you’re–

**Craig:** When they ask you why does this matter to you.

**Emily:** And you’re like I don’t know.

**Craig:** I need my healthcare. That’s not a great answer.

**Emily:** I really enjoy money.

**Craig:** Yeah. I bought a car I should not have bought and…

**John:** Well, Emily, here’s a crucial difference though is these folks who are coming in to do this, the people you’re working with, they’re already working for Pixar so they’re already getting a paycheck. So it’s not that like I’ve got to make this happen or else I’m dead. They’re already working there. So you can support them because they’re already part of your family.

My question though is how many people are pitching their kind of project at Pixar? Because you’re only making two or three movies a year. How many folks are trying to get one of their movies up and running? Is it 20? Is it 30?

**Emily:** No. You have to be invited to pitch a feature.

**John:** OK. And to be invited you probably were a super star on some previous project.

**Emily:** Exactly.

**Craig:** Or you get a Golden Ticket.

**Emily:** Right. Or there’s a line outside the studio and one person comes in a year.

**John:** One person gets the ticket.

**Emily:** But if you want to make a short it’s a much more open process. So that ends up being more of a training ground. And then there’s some people who made a short and did it successfully and then moved on to features. But, yes, if you’re getting to pitch a feature it’s a small group.

**John:** Now, one of the rare things that you get to do which I don’t hear other people talking about is Pixar brings in writers to work for a time on a project and it was part of your responsibility to find those writers who would come in to do that stuff. And so we have a lot of people who want to be writers in animation or writers at all and how would you find their scripts and what are you looking for in those scripts that might say like oh this is a person who could help us out. What are you looking for in scripts?

**Emily:** It’s a lot of matchmaking because we’re trying to match with a very specific director. Right? So it’s matchmaking also in the way that, you know, if your friend asks you to set them up with somebody you have to read between the lines of what they think they want and then what they actually need. And there’s a little bit of that that goes on as well.

**Craig:** That’s why I keep failing at that. I just do what they told me.

**Emily:** Like, OK.

**Craig:** That’s not what they really – argh!

**Emily:** No, I know. Wants and needs, Craig, we’re going to talk about it later.

So a lot of times it’s sitting down with a director and talking about what they think they need for the project. And then, you know, knowing who they are and understanding how they traditionally worked. And so sometimes the people that you filter to them are actually a little bit more informed.

But generally we were looking for people – it sounds sort of cliché because we’ve said it so many times – but it’s smart with heart. People who can write in this space that is both funny and where the character – where the humor is really coming from the characters and driven by the characters.

The thing that we get a lot that we don’t need is people who’ve written children’s animated scripts. Because we make children’s animated movies it’s a really logical idea that this is what we would want to see. And, in fact, we’ve never hired anyone off of a script like that. We’ve only ever hired people off of – you know, we hired Mike Arndt off of Little Miss Sunshine, for instance, which it would be hard to say that that’s like children’s animated.

**Craig:** Talk a little bit more about the heart part. Because I think sometimes people struggle as they’re starting out or continuing their path as a writer to figure out how to be emotionally moving without being formulaically saccharine or sentimental. Can you see what the difference is? Where is the line? And what makes something proper heart as opposed to formulaic sentimentality?

**Emily:** I wish I had like a really easy answer for that.

**Craig:** Take your time. We’re on radio. Take an hour.

**Emily:** I’m just going to sit here.

**John:** I think we’re done. I do have a theory though and maybe you can expand upon this. Is that when you see sort of false heart it’s just spread over the top of it. It doesn’t feel like it’s earned by the characters and it doesn’t feel like the movie itself is generous, that the movie is generous with its characters. That it’s letting them struggle but ultimately overcome some of the things that they’re doing. It doesn’t let them make bad choices and learn from them. It’s just kind of spread over the top of it like frosting on a cake.

**Emily:** And it’s also easy.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Well that to me, because the thing about Pixar movies that’s always fascinated me is how brutal they are to their heroes.

**Emily:** Totally.

**Craig:** Tortuous. Brutal and mean. And when they figured out how to be terribly mean to a character then they add one more thing on to make it awfully mean. And in a weird way I think sometimes when people are aiming for heart what they’re aiming for is happy. They’re aiming for like a happy cry and a wonderful moment. But in fact heart comes from misery.

**Emily:** Yeah. And I think – and I agree with you. I think they do [laughs] – that’s the end.

**Craig:** So you guys got a shot at this.

**Emily:** Heart comes from misery.

**Craig:** Heart comes from misery. Well, because I don’t really care in the end if something nice has happened to somebody whose prior experience was a little less than nice. I want it to be awful. I mean, that’s classic literature.

**Emily:** I totally agree with you. And I think obviously they’re not afraid to let their characters, you know, hit that point. I will say not to – I feel like I’m pitching Michael Arndt today.

**John:** Well Michael Arndt is fantastic.

**Emily:** He’s fantastic.

**John:** He’s a good guy.

**Craig:** We love Michael Arndt.

**Emily:** But when he did – I watched his Endings talk that he did which I guess this is now just a pitch for his Endings talk. But I thought that was also really, really insightful about just this idea that you can’t just flip one set of stakes at the end. You really have to flip the sort of philosophical stakes of what your movie is saying and what it’s about.

**Craig:** Which means you have to know that your movie is supposed to be saying something in the first place.

**Emily:** Well, yeah, there’s that, too.

**Craig:** Your movie is supposed to be saying something in the first place.

**John:** Your movie should have a point.

**Craig:** Yeah. There should be an arguable point. An arguable point.

**John:** Yes. It’s sort of like what we always say. Your question at the end of this has to actually be a question. Your movie actually has to make a philosophical argument that it actually answers at the end of this.

**Craig:** What’s your movie about? Brotherhood. No.

**John:** No, no, more than that. There’s not a challenging thing there.

**Craig:** Family. Hmm.

**John:** Oh, no, no, no.

**Craig:** No. Sometimes the best thing you can do to show love to somebody is to let them leave you. Possibly permanently. When they are all you have.

**Emily:** Which also I have to say–

**Craig:** Doesn’t that feel like a movie? They should make that movie but with fish.

**Emily:** I’m a real sucker for movies that don’t end like “happily,” where you get the emotional catharsis of the film but you don’t–

**Craig:** If at the end of Finding Nemo the mom came back. Like it turned out she wasn’t eaten at all.

**John:** Oh, Nemo.

**Craig:** Oh look, and she’s here. And Dori remembers everything.

**Emily:** Right. I mean, genuinely I think one of the things that Pixar does really well is they do set up that hurt at the beginning. And they don’t undo it.

**Craig:** Yes.

**Emily:** So, once you set it you let that–

**Craig:** They lean into it.

**Emily:** You lean into it. And you let that be the thing that’s guiding your character. And so I think you know, when I read scripts I’m also looking for that. I’m looking for people who are willing to let bad things happen to their characters.

**Craig:** Let bad things happen.

**Emily:** And then let the character react to it.

**John:** So Emily tell us about, like these scripts you’re reading, where do those scripts come from? Because Pixar is not a WGA shop so you don’t have to be a WGA member to be writing for Pixar. Where are you finding scripts that have this smart with heart that work for you?

**Emily:** Well this is the news that I feel like nobody is going to like, which is they’re mostly coming from big agencies. They have–

**Craig:** Well they’re all represented at big agencies.

**John:** Oh absolutely.

**Emily:** Yeah, no everybody. Like me too. You know, mostly they are coming through that way. But we also look at the Nicholls and we look at Austin.

**Craig:** What about short films that come, so not scripts, but rather little films, short films or any kind of expressed art that is coming in not from an agency but something that you just find out in the wild?

**Emily:** I think those are always sort of exciting little gems but they have to be – for us – backed up with written words. So, we have to see, you know, a lot of what we’re asking a writer to do is we have this incredible team of people of story artists who are all dedicated to making the story great. So you’re not by yourself, but you are – if you’re the writer you’re the person who is actually putting words on the page and like dialogue in the mouths of the characters. And so even if you’ve made an amazing short film, unfortunately part of what we’re looking for from a writer is to make sure you can do the structure. Make sure that you understand–

**Craig:** But that’s kind of fortunate in a sense because what you don’t get is fooled by auteurs and directors that aren’t really – because I think sometimes there are people that can make beautiful shorts that aren’t really writers. They’re just doing this little impressionistic wonderful thing. But these people are writers. So that’s a good sign.

**Emily:** Yeah. And I think that the truth is, I mean, anybody who has tried to write a short and then tried to write a feature knows that those are two different beasts, right? And so if you can write a great short but when you try to go expand it into a feature it very quickly–

**Craig:** Jog around the block/marathon.

**Emily:** Yeah. And so I think if you can make a beautiful short I think that’s fantastic and I think that’s an incredible thing to have and it’s another thing in your portfolio. But for animation you’re going to have to have an actual script.

**John:** Emily, my question is like let’s say you meet with a writer and is it a phone call first to talk with her about the script you read and then you bring her up to see if she’s a good fit? What is the dating process like for–?

**Emily:** Thank you for saying her John.

**John:** But you’re trying to get this writer to work on this project and see if it’s a good match. Obviously there’s a personality thing. Let’s say you all agree that this is the writer. This is the one we want. But what is she actually going to do? Is she going to write a full script or is she going to work on some scenes? Because that’s the thing I never really understood about Pixar is does any one writer actually finish a whole script or is everyone just working on little sections and it’s all getting assembled over the course of years?

**Emily:** At the beginning, like when you’re first in development, you probably do have one writer who writes a script all the way through. And it’s like the first draft and it’s really rough and no one will ever see it. But once you get into production everything becomes a big jigsaw puzzle. So everything goes out of order. You start boarding the sequences completely out of order which means you’re rewriting the sequences out of order. Sometimes depending on the project sometimes that writer will be the only person who writes. But a lot of times on a lot of projects there’s either a story artist who also writes or a director who also writes or a co-director or head of story. And so while the writer is still the writer and is still sort of the main person watching the full script you will often have people sort of come in and touch things along the way. But, yes, it’s a big giant jigsaw puzzle. And one of the most difficult things I think for our writers is that you do have to, you know, here’s all these moving pieces. They’re changing all over the place. And yet you still have to have the whole thing kind of in your head, which is–

**Craig:** That’s the job.

**Emily:** Just like a–

**John:** But it’s a very different job than what Craig or I usually do.

**Craig:** Well, it is, but I would say–

**John:** Well, in production I guess.

**Craig:** When you get in production that’s happening.

**John:** So that would happen, I mean, it happens for you on Chernobyl. It happens for me on a Charlie’s Angels where everything is just crazy. But you’re like, oh no, no, this is actually the movie we’re trying to make and you’re trying to remind people. But, there’s a lot of voices. So when I talk about that like we’re going to do a two-day offsite about this thing, so who would be in that two-day offsite? There would be storyboard artists. There would be the writers – writer or writers who are on. The director. And is everyone just pitching ways to get through this moment or new things? What happens?

**Emily:** It would depend on the nature of the offsite. Most of our off-sites are actually brain trust off-sites. So that would be all the other directors at the studio.

**John:** OK, great. So it’s like a council of elders looking at this project.

**Craig:** Nothing creepy about that in any way, shape, or form.

**John:** A brain trust. So they wheel out the brains in jars. They all stare at the project.

**Craig:** We are offsite.

**Emily:** We give them a little special–

**Craig:** Why do they have to go offsite? That building is amazing.

**Emily:** I know. It’s huge.

**Craig:** Where do they go? Like a La Quinta or something?

**Emily:** Denny’s.

**Craig:** Denny’s?

**Emily:** We go all over the place. It’s just sort of wherever the producer finds. But it’s like the idea–

**Craig:** That’s what happens when every movie makes a billion dollars. You’re like we’ve got to spend some of this money. Literally it’s coming out of the pipes. Uh, let’s go to Yosemite.

**Emily:** I don’t think we’ve ever been to Yosemite.

**Craig:** See?

**John:** Yeah. Good idea.

**Craig:** There’s an idea.

**Emily:** Somebody is going to hear this.

**Craig:** Mountains!

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Oh no, you already did – volcanoes did it. Pixar did it.

**John:** So, coming out of one of those sessions you would have new ways to sort of get through this thing. But the brain trust thing is really interesting. So we had Jennifer Lee on the show to talk about Frozen. And she talked about the brain trust and like the Disney brain trust that you’re showing these early cuts and all of the other directors and all of the other big powerful people are watching this and seeing this thing which is not very good in front of them. And having to figure out how we get it to this next stage. And she actually stepped up in Frozen because she had the answers and she became the writer of Frozen.

Because they had all these pieces and she’s like, oh no, the way you do this is to do that. Here you go. Let’s make this movie. And I’m sure–

**Emily:** It’s her own fault for talking.

**John:** It’s her own fault. Now she’s running Disney.

**Emily:** What a tough path.

**John:** It worked out pretty well for Jennifer Lee.

**Craig:** It can happen to you.

**Emily:** Speak up.

**John:** It can happen to you. Speak up with the right ideas.

This brain trust thing is a kind of thing that I think could only really happen in animation because animation is the only cinematic art form where you have this constant iteration. So even on live action features we go through cuts and stuff but there’s only so much we can change in a cut versus a Pixar animated film. You could change fundamental things. That sidekick character could become the main character. You can really revise stuff.

**Craig:** Well in live action there are people whose job is simply to get everyone to stop changing things. There’s an enormous compelling force once you start spending money to stop changing things. And very typically as the writer you’ll come on set and someone will walk up to you and say, “You didn’t change anything, did you?” Well, that’s what they’re paying me to do. “Ugh, OK. But now we have to figure things out. We were going to shoot here. Now we have to shoot here. This person was going to wear this. Now they have to wear that. They’re not even available on that day.” And so on and so forth.

Whereas in animation, change it.

**Emily:** Yeah. I mean, in fairness there’s a schedule in animation that–

**Craig:** That they blow through constantly.

**Emily:** That they blow through constantly. There’s still poor long suffering people whose job it is to keep us on schedule who like–

**Craig:** No one listens to them.

**Emily:** They try so hard.

**Craig:** They’ve been moved offsite.

**Emily:** They’re having a permanent offsite.

**Craig:** Exactly.

**Emily:** It’s a Denny’s.

**Craig:** And not in the United States anymore.

**John:** So most of the animated features I’ve done have been stop motion, which is a different beast because in stop motion we can’t tweak anything. So we’ll do cinematic sketch versions, but once we shoot a frame it’s just done and we can’t fix or tweak anything.

**Craig:** Well it’s like live action animation.

**John:** All of the challenges of animation with all of the challenges of live action, just put together. How difficult can we make it?

**Craig:** The South Park guys who did Team America.

**John:** Absolutely.

**Craig:** On day three: why did we do this? This is a nightmare.

**John:** This is a terrible, terrible choice.

**Craig:** Yeah. And we’re stuck. We have to keep going.

**Emily:** It’s true. If you are an indecisive person animation – like computer animation is your jam. It’s a great idea for you.

**Craig:** That’s amazing.

**John:** I think we’re going to go out of sequence here because this feels like a good moment to introduce a brand new game. So, when we come back from this I want to talk about naïve characters, but before we get to that I want to try this new game. So, as I flew in here last night I had this vision for a game. And it partly came from sometimes – and I’m curious what you guys do about this – when you have an idea in the middle of the night do you actually get out of bed and write it down or do you just like, oh no, I’ll remember it in the morning. Craig, do you write down the stuff you think at night?

**Craig:** Yeah. My iPad is over here so I might email it to myself. That’s my quickie note thing. Except it so rarely is any good.

**John:** No, it rarely is any good.

**Craig:** A lot of times it’s just Ambien talking, I’ve got to be honest with you.

**John:** Sometimes I have no idea what the idea was. I just see these things together and I’m like I have no idea what this is. Emily, do you write your stuff down?

**Emily:** Yeah. But I have Evernote on my phone and then I type things. But also I’m really tired so I don’t check to make sure it’s spell-checked, made sense or anything. So, very, very often I open it like a couple days later and it’s actually nonsense words. I did it too fast and it didn’t autocorrect correctly. And then I’m just staring at orange sofa couch and I’m like I don’t know what that is.

**John:** Yes, but it was very important to you at like 12:30 in the morning.

**Emily:** It was so important at the time, yeah.

**John:** This idea kind of comes from that, but it also comes from a very Hollywood concept which is the open writing assignment. And so what an open writing assignment means is that there is a project that a producer or a studio has and they’re looking to hire a writer on this open writing assignment. And it can be just a very vague idea, but they’re bringing in writers to pitch their take on this open writing assignment. And so new writers will spend a tremendous amount of time coming up with takes so they can pitch on an open writing assignment. It’s one of the things you do a lot as a new screenwriter.

And so I thought tonight we’d do some open writing assignments and we have a great audience here who have helped us figure out some of the things we need to incorporate into this open writing assignment.

**Craig:** Cool.

**John:** I gave some people some homework in here. Raise your hand if you did the homework that’s on the slide up there. Oh, a lot of people did this. All right. I’m going to pick six people at random and I’m just going to come to you and ask. And I’m going to ask each of you one piece of what you did up here. So, raise your hand, someone in the second row. What is the genre of the movie that you wrote down?

**Fe**Male Audience Member:**** Drama.

**John:** OK, so we have to write a drama.

**Craig:** I can do that.

**John:** OK, we need to write a drama.

**Craig:** I’ll email it to myself.

**John:** What is the general setting of this drama we’re writing?

****Male Audience Member:**** Los Angeles.

**John:** So it’s a drama set in Los Angeles. All right, I’m going to come up here. I feel like a game show host here. What is the profession of the hero in the movie?

****Male Audience Member:**** Weatherman.

**John:** OK. It’s a drama about a weatherman in Los Angeles.

**Craig:** They’ve made this movie, but OK. Keep going.

**John:** How about you right here.

**Fe**Male Audience Member:**** Find out what is killing people.

**John:** Oh, it’s a drama about a weatherman in Los Angeles who has to find out what’s killing people. And who is the villain? You right there, who is the villain in our story?

**Fe**Male Audience Member:**** Classicism.

**John:** Classicism. Classicism is the villain. Oh, this is really good.

**Emily:** Oh no.

**Craig:** Someone has been to college.

**John:** Right here, I need a big trailer moment.

**Male Audience Member:** A meeting of gangs in the parks.

**John:** A meeting of gangs in the park.

**Craig:** I’m sorry, what was the last category?

**John:** A big trailer moment. It’s a meeting of gangs in the park. So I think what we need to come up with a pitch on is a project that is a drama set in Los Angeles about a weatherman who has to fight classicism–

**Craig:** And find out what’s killing people, which is classicism.

**John:** Find out what’s killing people, which is classicism, obviously. And there has to be a big meeting of gangs. So I kind of have a vision of The Warriors a little bit. Emily, talk me through—

**Emily:** No, I had a little moment of like wondering if you get some sort of weird like weather patterns that are only affecting certain areas of Los Angeles.

**John:** Microclimates.

**Emily:** Microclimates if you will.

**Craig:** Like douchebaggery is causing sleet over Brentwood?

**Emily:** And killing people.

**Craig:** And killing people that we want to die.

**Emily:** It’s a really short movie.

**Craig:** Yeah!

**John:** Well, how about actually–

**Craig:** It’s like over Howard Schwartz’s house.

**John:** But like lightning bolts. Like a lightning bolt could come down–

**Craig:** Schulz. His name is Schulz, right?

**John:** Howard Schulz, yes.

**Emily:** Also, he’s here.

**Craig:** What’s that?

**Emily:** He’s here.

**Craig:** Howard Schulz is in the audience?

**Emily:** No, no. Here in Seattle.

**John:** Hello! Please don’t run for president. Thank you.

**Craig:** I know. He employs most of the people here.

**Emily:** Do you think he listens to your podcast? Wouldn’t that be great?

**John:** Oh, it would be amazing if he did.

**Emily:** Wouldn’t it be amazing.

**John:** What if we were the people who convinced him, no, no, no, stop this right now. Crazy.

**Craig:** He should.

**John:** He should stop. I mean, he should stop.

**Craig:** I mean, he has four billion coffee stores. That’s good. You did it, man.

**Emily:** You did a good job.

**John:** You won. You won the race.

**Craig:** You win. Right.

**John:** Stop running.

**Craig:** We don’t open coffee shops.

**John:** No.

**Craig:** We don’t do that. Anyway.

**John:** Is it a Howard Schulz kind of character one of the villains, like the classicism thing?

**Emily:** Oh.

**John:** I think we have a little thing going here.

**Emily:** Interesting.

**John:** The hero is the weatherman, so maybe the weatherman hero is trying to figure out why these weird lightning strikes are killing certain people, or there’s some sort of–

**Emily:** They’re killing all of Howard Schulz’s primary opponents.

**John:** Holy cow.

**Craig:** This is called Geo Storm. They made this movie, again.

**John:** That’s right! It’s Geo Storm 2.

**Craig:** What if there’s like a science fiction kind of thing where as the weatherman realizes that in areas where income inequality is growing the weather starts getting more and more severe.

**Emily:** Which is actually what I was pitching.

**Craig:** That was? No, no, it’s not crashing down on rich people or anything.

**Emily:** No, no, you said the rich people thing. I was saying, I agree with you, I think it should have to do–

**Craig:** Well what you’re actually saying is I agree with you.

**Emily:** No, I really agree with you. I think we’re the same person.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** Ah. I was wondering if you were doing the thing–

**Craig:** Shush.

**John:** You say the exact same thing the woman said and you take credit for it.

**Craig:** No, I thought I was saying a different thing.

**Emily:** You said a different thing.

**Craig:** I thought I was saying a different thing. I really did. Your circuit is misfired.

**John:** Oh OK.

**Craig:** But I agree with you. I think that’s awesome. But the meeting of the gangs, now it feels like there’s two groups of people that know the truth. And the weatherman gets pulled into one group that’s like we’re going to use this to bring the system down. And then another group is like, no, we have to stop this from happening. The system needs to keep going. And so there are two gangs and they meet in the park.

**John:** The park.

**Craig:** That’s a rough one.

**John:** Parks are a natural open environment. Weather happens in parks.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** Also fascinating that the Weathermen were like a big gang of the time. So, that is an historic. Nothing said this has to be present day.

**Craig:** Can we switch it then? Yeah, so make it the Weathermen. Because that will really make this a lot easier.

**John:** Also it would make so much more sense that they were called the Weathermen if it was actually about weather. Because history is really confusing.

**Craig:** Here’s what’s killing us. Classicism rather. That’s not a villain. That’s a problem. It’s not a villain.

**John:** It’s very abstract.

**Craig:** It’s abstract. Your villain can represent something abstract like classicism, but it has to be someone. Let’s make it Howard Schulz.

**John:** A thing I want to stress here is that as absurd as this is so many projects that you will encounter are kind of like this.

**Craig:** Oh yeah.

**John:** So I think we talked about this on the show before. For about 20 years there was an Imagine project called Clipped. And it was about a guy who got a paperclip shoved up his nose or in his ear or something and Brian Grazer is like well that’s got to really change a person. And so we all had to go in and pitch on Clipped. I pitched on Clipped. You probably pitched on Clipped.

**Craig:** I refused.

**John:** All right. Let’s get another open writing assignment going here. I’m going to go in the back of the audience here because I like walking around.

**Craig:** I’ll write this down again. I thought we did all right with that one.

**John:** We did pretty well. I think it was a good start.

**Craig:** We tried.

**Emily:** Shameless applause.

**Craig:** Yeah. That’s a pity clap if I ever heard it.

**John:** Who up here did your homework? Can you please tell me the genre of the movie we need to write?

**Female Audience Member:** A rom-com.

**John:** It’s a rom-com! We love rom-coms. We saved rom-coms. I don’t know if you remember that. But Tess Morris was on the show and she helped us save rom-coms.

**Emily:** I’m going to be the poor man’s Tess Morris on this.

**John:** The general setting of this rom-com we need to write?

**Female Audience Member:** England during the Regency period.

**Craig:** God.

**John:** England Regency rom-com. I like this very, very much. Who else up here has – please tell me the profession of the hero.

**Male Audience Member:** He’s an assassin.

**John:** Ooh, an assassin. This is so good.

**Craig:** Well at least you didn’t say something like an electrician because that would have been hard.

**John:** That would really be a tough thing. All right, so we have a rom-com set in the Regency period of England about an assassin, that’s his profession or her profession. Right here, can you tell me what is the main goal of this assassin character?

**Male Audience Member:** It’s a rescue mission.

**John:** Oh, an assassin has to make a rescue mission.

**Craig:** As they do.

**John:** As they do. Anyone else back here, right here, can you tell me the villain of this story?

**Male Audience Member:** His old mentor who ruined his career.

**John:** Ooh! An old mentor. I like that very, very much.

**Craig:** An old mentor.

**John:** Finally I need a big trailer moment. Who has got a big trailer moment for me? Going once, going twice – oh right here. Tell me what your big trailer moment is.

**Male Audience Member:** It’s anachronistic. Jumping from a horse onto a tank.

**Craig:** A tank? A tank. In the regency period.

**John:** A tank in the regency period. We’ll get jumping from a horse. I’m not sure we’re going to get to tank. All right. So we’ve got this Regency rom-com. That feels really promising. Assassins are good.

**Craig:** Everything is good except rom-com at this point because that’s, yikes.

**John:** Think about like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. If you could take that.

**Craig:** No, you know what? You can do this.

**Emily:** Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

**John:** You can do this.

**Craig:** Or, or, or – all right, so we have an assassin, oldie England, and he’s been trained by his mentor, but then he does the thing that mentors want you to do which is to become great. He becomes so good that the mentor gets jealous and blinds him. Right? He blinds him. And so now our blind assassin has to be led around by this – let’s make the blind assassin a woman. She’s a woman and she has to be led around by a guy who becomes like her eyes. And then they’re separated and she starts killing people because the guy helps her to kill people. So they start falling in love while she’s killing people, but then he gets taken away and she has to go rescue this guy. But he is her eyes. She’s blind. And she has to find her eyes in the dark.

And…and…has to jump on a horse. [laughs]

**John:** OK. These are fascinating choices. But what I will say–

**Craig:** Did I not get the job?

**John:** So, Craig, we really liked a lot of what you did there, but I would say–

**Craig:** Congratulations on the first–

**John:** Congratulations, yes. But what I will say that in a romantic comedy the villain, the antagonist, often is the other person in the romantic comedy. So I’m wondering if this other mentor character actually is a romance about that which feels very good for like Regency period. It could be sort of like an Emma. It could be like an Emma like this character who you don’t ever think of as being a possible love interest because they’ve always been older or a teacher figure, like oh this is the person. So maybe a young female assassin falls for her assassin–

**Craig:** Daddy figure.

**John:** Daddy figure.

**Craig:** Well, this is getting problematic.

**Emily:** Can we make it a woman?

**Craig:** Can we make it a young woman who falls for an older woman?

**Emily:** Yes.

**Craig:** Why not.

**Emily:** Takes away a little bit of the problematic-ness.

**Craig:** Yeah, we’re going to come up with other problematics.

**Emily:** Slightly.

**John:** There will be problematics.

**Craig:** The presence of the tank will definitely be problematic.

**Emily:** Carry on.

**Craig:** All right, so this is a lesbian romance in Regency England between two assassins, a December-May romance between assassins, but one of them is – so the older one has ruined the young one? No, the young one has ruined the older one’s career, what about that? That’s a natural kind of thing. You trained me to take your place and I did. And now the older one does not want to let go.

**John:** Yes. It’s an All About Eve.

**Craig:** I just got rehired.

**John:** Yeah. Craig brought it back through.

**Emily:** Turned it around.

**John:** So here’s what’s good about that is their relationship is fascinating and why am I forgetting the name of this movie that’s the Rachel Weisz movie—

**Audience:** The Favourite.

**John:** The Favourite. Like that’s sort of The Favourite is what you’re pitching. It’s a funnier version of The Favourite.

**Craig:** Yes. I’m getting replaced by the younger, newer thing.

**John:** Yes. And so that’s a good dynamic and that tension is really interesting between the two of them.

**Craig:** And it’s also something that is always relevant. I mean, doesn’t matter what time period and doesn’t matter what their jobs are. Doesn’t matter what their sexuality is. The notion that you are going to be eclipsed by somebody that you love is something every parent probably on some level considers.

**Emily:** I feel like I’m putting on this development hat and I have so many questions.

**Craig:** Do it. Go.

**John:** Go. Ask your questions.

**Emily:** What is the driving plot thing of our story? Has our older assassin been pushed out at the beginning of our story and it’s a story about them – what’s our driver there?

**Craig:** I think they’re in love in the beginning of the story. I think it’s perfectly good. But there’s a little bit of a thing, right, where the older one feels that the younger one isn’t ready, and the younger one is kind of thinking the older one is holding them back. And then the older one realizes that the younger one is better than her, everyone thinks the younger one is better than her. That’s a terrible moment. She retreats. And now she has to prove herself. But she doesn’t want to let on.

But then she’s going to try to kill the person that the younger one has to kill. So they’re both racing to kill that person. And then I think where it has to go is she has to ultimately probably sacrifice herself because she loves that younger person somehow.

**John:** So I’m going to be Tess Morris here.

**Craig:** Do it.

**John:** I worry we’re losing the rom-com quality of it.

**Craig:** Oh yeah.

**John:** That’s the only thing I want to say here.

**Emily:** I think that’s fair.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** What you’re pitching didn’t feel especially comedic. So–

**Craig:** I don’t like rom-coms. [laughs]

**John:** Ah, after all this you don’t like – we saved rom-coms and Craig still doesn’t like them.

**Craig:** No, you guys saved them. I mean, I was happy for it, but it’s not like my jam. You know, I’m like, meh.

**Emily:** I feel like maybe if you don’t have her pushed out at the beginning but she’s starting to feel like a little instable – unstable/instable? Why can’t I? You know, all of those things. So that the journey is like a lighter journey between two people who are–

**Craig:** OK, so then here’s the question. So then comedy wise what’s – so when we’re talking about a comedy between two characters and a situation. What is the thing between them that now starts to be this fuel for funny situations? What’s the funny fuel? Because if they are – if one of them is helping the other – if one of them is the person the other one has to kill and they know that but they don’t want to get killed, then you could see some farce happening maybe. Or–

**John:** But I think we don’t want to just make a farce most likely. I think we want some real emotional stakes there.

**Craig:** I agree. Where’s the machine? Where’s the machine of the funny?

**Emily:** I also sort of feel like from a rom-com perspective we either need them to – you need some – like they’ve just broken up at the beginning or it has always been a very strict mentor/mentee relationship that is like–

**Craig:** Or it’s in that bed-death phase where they had it but they’re losing it and they’re on their way to losing it.

**Emily:** Yeah. A little bit like – I feel like that’s hard. That’s a hard place to–

**John:** Well it’s interesting when you have characters who are part of Regency England. They have a very rigid social structure. And yet they’re also assassins.

**Emily:** I forgot about the Regency England part. [laughs]

**John:** But they’re also assassins so they’re already outsiders.

**Craig:** And don’t forget the horse.

**John:** And the horse. So they jump off the horse onto the water tank. It didn’t say a tank-tank.

**Craig:** Rejection. It’s not exactly a great trailer moment. Like wah!

**John:** Yeah. Can you turn the tank and water it now. It’s not so good.

**Craig:** Whilst is there a tanketh in our midst?

**John:** At dinner we were talking about sort of naïve characters and so we were talking about Inside Out and the Joy character in there is so – she’s just – I don’t want to say she’s one note, but she has one drive, one focus, and she’s so naïve. And yet she’s not annoying and she’s not dumb. How do you find that balance? And that feels like the kind of situation where on a weekly basis you’re asking like does this actually make sense. Is this actually going to track? I want to talk about naïve characters because I think Pixar has a lot of those naïve characters.

**Craig:** Buzz Lightyear.

**John:** Buzz Lightyear. Wall-E.

**Craig:** Wall-E.

**John:** They’re very naïve characters, and yet they’re not idiots.

**Emily:** Although Buzz is not like the driver of that story, so his naiveté is sort of there for humor and there for comedy as opposed to him being sort of the emotional drive of the story.

**Craig:** Until that moment where he actually has to come face to face with the fact that he is naïve.

**Emily:** Right. Right.

**Craig:** That’s the one value I think of naïve characters is that they always provide that moment. The same thing happens to Joy. This is Pixar. God, they define a terrible weakness that would just ultimately murder this person emotionally and then they do it to them. That’s kind of the gift of those characters I think. I think Pixar does them really well.

**Emily:** And I will say with Joy especially like that character didn’t work for a long time because she was – I guess I can say she was really annoying. She was so happy and peppy and then we played with a whole bunch of different versions of her where she had more edge and less edge. I’ve never been a part of a project that noodled with a character that much. And really honestly the difference was Amy Poehler signed on and Amy Poehler has a level of joy and enthusiasm to her that is kind of infectious. And she’s peppy but she is like pumped about it in a way that we weren’t able to find on the page. And then when she walks in the room and you’re so rooting – like it’s so earnest and it’s so genuine and so even when it’s like over the top and if somebody else did it you’d want to punch them, when she does it it’s like you’re with her and you feel the joy and infectious energy she has.

**Craig:** Well she had this thing in her performance, but I also give all the writers and animators credit for also putting it there in the character and the conception of the character, that Joy isn’t just happy and naïve and loves to be joyful. There’s a desperation underneath all of it which is I’ve got to keep dancing because the second I step dancing I have to look at some painful things I don’t want to look at.

**Emily:** For sure.

**Craig:** And that was fascinating to me. It’s a little bit of a cheat, right? So one of the things about Inside Out that was a little cheaty and it had to happen—

**Emily:** Am I going to be mad at you?

**Craig:** No! Is that you’re taking a human being and you’re fragmenting them into these parts of their personality. But we’re with those parts of the personality and inevitably what we need is to see that that individual part has parts inside of the part. It just has to be there otherwise it doesn’t work.

**John:** Because Joy has to get sad in order for–

**Craig:** Joy has to be aware of it. Joy has to almost be joyful because if I just stop being joyful, whereas Sadness also kind of needs to understand – Sadness is sad that she’s sad. That’s a different thing, right? So that I thought was kind of fascinating. I mean, obviously you have side characters where they can just – Anger is anger, just be angry, it’s funny.

**John:** So we had Pamela Ribon on the Christmas episode and she was talking about–

**Emily:** Oh, I love Pam.

**John:** She’s so great. And she was talking about Ralph Breaks the Internet. And so during the process of that she played Penelope. She played that throughout the whole process. Does a similar kind of thing happen in Pixar where you have temp voices and you’re just trying to do stuff?

**Emily:** Yeah.

**John:** And so somebody else had to play that character who wasn’t Amy Poehler and is that part of the reason why you couldn’t find the voice and the approach?

**Emily:** I don’t think so. I mean, the woman who did Joy for us is a woman named Alyssa Knight who is fantastic and actually a very good actress in her own right. Sort of the thing that you’re talking about – we didn’t have a lock on Joy. We couldn’t figure out what was happening inside of her that was – it just took a long time. Literally I think I was on that project for four years and it took us – yeah, which is like oh my god.

**John:** Four years on a movie.

**Emily:** It took a good two of those years just to find where her center was.

**John:** So I want to talk through this part because during those two years of trying to find her, you know, how she was going to work you did have to map out the rest of the movie. So there were people whose job it was to figure out set pieces and all this stuff. But you still weren’t sure if you had the right character at the centerpiece of this movie who is in almost every scene.

**Emily:** Yeah.

**John:** That’s got to be scary.

**Emily:** Yeah. Almost all the movies hit a point where they hit the skids and it’s really – they’re bad, and they’re really, really bad. And we’re totally lost in the woods. Like quite literally, I mean Pete our director would spend two weeks walking in the woods like at some point.

**Craig:** Oh, he was legitimately lost in the woods.

**Emily:** Legitimately he went into the woods.

**Craig:** Wow.

**Emily:** And he walked around.

**Craig:** He knows that’s just an expression though, right? He doesn’t have to go out there.

**Emily:** He’s a very literal person.

**Craig:** Fair enough. Works for him.

**Emily:** It worked. It worked really well.

**John:** But talk me through that it’s bad because at this point is it bad in a way that there are reels of temp animation that you can look at and it’s like well that doesn’t work and everyone can see that that movie is not actually a movie? You’re looking at a real thing and not just words on a page?

**Emily:** Yeah. What we’re looking at is storyboards that have been edited together with music and sound and voices and all that kind of stuff. And we’re watching it through. You know, the big reboot – we did a giant reboot on the middle of Inside Out where the primary relationship changed. And I think I can say this because I think it’s on the DVD. It used to be Joy and Fear. And the main story was between those two characters which felt like it made sense for a really long time. And it wasn’t until Pete sort of had this revelation that the movie was going to be about connection and the way that we get to connection is allowing ourselves to be vulnerable around people. And that we have to go through sadness sometimes to get back to joy. And it fundamentally shifted the primary movie.

And it shifted those two characters. And so that was about the time that Meg LeFauve came on and she was sort of part of that reboot of rebooting our story so that it was about Joy and Sadness and that being the central relationship.

**Craig:** This requires an enormous amount of creative bravery.

**Emily:** I think so.

**Craig:** Because everybody who has ever written anything I think in part is desperate to believe that they’ve got it. Because writing is hard. So the last thing you want to think is, well, my job was to dig a hole and I dug the hole and oh my god this is not a hole. And you have to do it again. Nobody wants that, but sometimes you just have to do it again.

**Emily:** Well and I found it really – I mean, he’s going to get tired of me singing his praises, but I found working with Pete I found that to be the gift of working with Pete is Pete will do that. He will say I don’t have it and he will go spend the time and the energy and the cycles to find it. And you know I also think there was a gift in there, too, to work on you know this movie that ended up being this huge movie for the studio and to know firsthand that the middle of the movie – somewhere in the middle it was not a movie that any of you would have paid to see. I find that really comforting actually. I find it really comforting to remind myself time and time again that the creative process takes time and it does take that bravery. It takes the bravery to say I don’t have it.

**Craig:** I don’t have it.

**Emily:** And I’m going to go ask people to help me find it.

**Craig:** And isn’t that kind of the story of Pixar. The movie that launched them, Toy Story, was just a different movie. And then they went, no, you know what – animating which was enormously expensive, to dump actual animation was unheard of. And they just said we don’t have it yet.

**Emily:** And we talk about the creatives a lot which we should, but I think there’s also enormous bravery that’s sort of shouldered by the producers because they are at the end of the day the bottom line matters for them. And that is their responsibility. And yet I think they’ve sort of assembled a group of producers who are willing to sit in that discomfort – I sound like Renee Brown. But they’re willing to sit in the discomfort in how messy it is to make something good and creative. And they’re all really, really there for their director.

**John:** That’s so in a world that’s completely different than any live action producer we’ve known.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** “What do you mean it’s not right?” They’re freaking out at all moments. And an animation producer just can’t do that.

**Emily:** Well, I mean, in fairness there’s a point in every process where it’s like, OK, like we’re done.

**John:** We got to release the movie here.

**Emily:** We’re done. It’s going out like this. We don’t have a choice. But, you know, they really do do a remarkable job of shielding the directors when they need to be shielded. And I think it’s one of the most remarkable things about that place.

**Craig:** God, I wish that they would learn this lesson – Hollywood.

**Emily:** Oh, Hollywood.

**Craig:** If you treat the people that make the stories well then they will have a chance to make the stories well. That’s it. It’s so simple. And they don’t – thank you. They don’t do it. They refuse to do it because they don’t – I think on some level they’re cynical and don’t really believe it matters. Like, ah, you could do it twice as fast. Doesn’t matter. Who cares? They all talk like this. I don’t know.

**John:** Yeah. Stereotypes.

**Craig:** Meh.

**John:** Argh.

**Craig:** You know what.

**John:** We’re going to do our One Cool Things.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** We should do our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing is really simple. It is the third season of Man in the High Castle, which I had let sort of sit back for a while, and then I watched the third season and it was just terrific. And so if you have fallen off watching that show, I wasn’t nuts about everything in the second season. There were a lot of pieces sort of moving around. But the third season they did really well.

And this is a very live action thing I’m about to say here, but I watched the first episode and I’m like, wow, that’s a really expensive set. I hope they use that set well, and they use those sets really well. They build all new sets and every character of that show gets dragged through almost every of the new sets they built. And as a person who has seen those line items on a budget they knew what they were doing. They planned that very carefully. They block shot.

**Craig:** I bet you they did not plan it carefully and then someone said, “If you want us to build this go back—“

**John:** And make sure every character walks on that set.

**Craig:** Through this set that we paid for.

**John:** It was really good. Craig, what’s your One Cool Thing?

**Craig:** My One Cool Thing is, so you know I’m a big escape room fan. And there are a lot of sort of escape room in a box things that they’re selling now, which are kind of fun. It’s not the proper escape room experience of course, but in its own way it’s actually really entertaining. Some of them are better than others. There’s a series of them called Exit The Game that I really like. There’s a lot of them – they’re great if you have kids and if you have kids that aren’t dummies, you know.

**John:** You know if your kids are dumb.

**Craig:** I’m just being honest. You know if your kid is an idiot. They don’t like this. Just send them out there to play their sports. But, no, shut up. But roomful of writers. “Oh, you’re being mean to the jocks.” All right. But if you have a smarty in your house the Exit The Game series are great. They have a very interesting mechanism where as you think you’ve solved a puzzle there’s a little wheel and you enter a code and that takes you a card and it shows you a thing, and then success. It’s fun and you don’t have to worry about the timer. Take your time.

And it’s put out by a company called, well I guess I would pronounce it like the River Thames, but it’s spelled Thames. Thames and Kosmos. That’s with a K. So give it a shot. And they rank the games by level of difficulty. So, you can start with one of the easier ones. That’s actually a way to figure out if your kid is smart or not, so try that.

**John:** Yeah. A little IQ test. Nice.

**Craig:** Exactly.

**John:** Emily, do you have a One Cool Thing for us?

**Emily:** Yes. So I watched, this isn’t my One Cool Thing, but I watched one of those Fyre documentaries which was just–

**John:** Fyre Festival.

**Craig:** Fyre Festival.

**Emily:** Insane. But it made me think about the book Bad Blood. Has anybody read this book? Oh my god, OK, it’s amazing.

**Craig:** Do the voice. Do the voice.

**Emily:** No, I can’t do the voice. So it’s a story about Theranos which was that start up that imploded in spectacular fashion and the book is totally riveting. It’s fascinating. It’s like the best beach read you’ve ever read. And it’s all true. It’s insane.

**Craig:** Great villain.

**Emily:** Great. Oh my god, it’s amazing. And they’re going to make it into a movie, so go read it before you watch it.

**John:** Figure out how you would do it and then see how they did it. And yours is probably different/better.

**Craig:** Probably won’t be as good. I’m just being honest. They’re going to get somebody amazing. It’s going to be Sorkin.

**John:** They’ll get Sorkin probably.

**Craig:** I can’t – you can’t–

**Emily:** Yeah. They will get Sorkin. It’s a very Sorkin.

**Craig:** I mean, I’m just being reasonable. Come on.

**Emily:** Anyway, go read it. It’s fantastic.

**John:** Great. We are going to do some questions from the audience. So you questions are going to be fantastic. What’s your question?

**Female Audience Member:** It’s going to be fantastic. OK, my question is you told us at the beginning to go to Hollywood and learn how to do it there and what do you want us to do when we go there? What kind of job would you send a writer from here down there to go do? Because I’ve heard other shows where you said you need to go and you need to make sure that you are on a set. And you want to learn how to write for real actors and write for people who are actually going to be using your stuff. So what kind of a job would we look for even if we were doing an internship or any kind of work? What would we do?

**Craig:** Well, I mean, I don’t know – it is incredibly useful to be on a set, but you got to – you don’t just get there right away. I mean, you can, but that’s more of like a production assistant job where you’re running around and you’re on the walkie-talkie and you’re learning the basics of film production. I’ll tell you what I did, because I didn’t know anybody. I drove out there and I went to a temp agency. Actually I went to three temp agencies. And I took their tests, which is mostly typing. And then they started sending me out for jobs.

But there’s a few of them in Los Angeles that service the entertainment business essentially exclusively. And one of them placed me in a position where I was mostly a file clerk at a little ad agency. And I did that. I did that and then I kind of found an opportunity to write something and show somebody. And then they’re like, OK, you can be a writer now. Sort of like that.

But just get a job near somebody and maybe you’re also in an apartment building where other people are just like you. And then everyone is talking. Things happen. But you’ve got to be there.

**John:** Emily, you live here. So tell us about that kind of experience living here. Two microphones.

**Emily:** Do you remember the Lady Gaga performance from the Super Bowl where somebody held the microphone like this for her? That’s what I’m into. Could you just hold it for me? No, I’m kidding. I do live up here. I’m from up here. I lived in LA for like a hot second and I did actually exactly what Craig just described. I went to like three temp agencies. I took typing tests. And they placed me at Creative Artists Agency where I was like a probably very abysmal assistant for a while. I would recommend that, too.

From up here that’s I think the best thing to do. Because unless you go down and you have all the connections in the world, which you probably don’t, I think temp agencies are the way to do it. And frankly assistant jobs turn over like left and right. So there’s always, always openings. And I would recommend that.

**John:** And I will also say when we recommend people move down to Los Angeles a lot of times it’s folks who just graduated from college. And so we say you’re going to start your life somewhere, start your life in Los Angeles if that’s what you want to do. That’s not always the same advice for somebody who is in their 30s or 40s who is looking for a career change. That’s a different thing. And I know in previous episodes, we’ll try to find a link to it, but we’ve talked about how do you know when it’s time to leave that place. It’s a different equation when you’re not at the very start of your life. 20s isn’t the start of your life, but you’re not at that transitional point.

Another question from the audience?

**Female Audience Member:** Hi. I don’t hear you guys talk much about advising screenwriters to make their own movies and what kind of exposure and success can come from that.

**John:** So I’ve made a movie for myself. You’ve directed a movie. It can be a great thing. If you are aspiring to be a writer-director you need to do both parts of that job, and so directing something you’ve written is a fantastic step.

If your goal is to be a writer, to be a television showrunner or be a television staff writer, having directed a thing may not help you out a tremendous amount. And I’m actually thinking back to even Megan McDonnell who is the Scriptnotes producer, she directed a really terrific short, and it was great, and really showed that she could direct. But that wasn’t sort of her main goal. And so it’s gotten her some attention, but it would get her more attention if she really wanted to be a director. And she really wants to be a writer. So I wouldn’t recommend somebody spend a year of their life directing a movie if that’s not their goal. Thoughts?

**Emily:** Yeah. I agree with John. I think it kind of depends on what your end goal is. And if the thing you want to do more than anything in the world is direct then you should do that. And there’s ways to do that here. There’s a lot of independent movies that do get made up here, even though I know it’s not a huge independent film town. But I agree that it’s a lot of money and it’s a lot of work if your ultimate goal is to get your writing out there.

I mean, as somebody who read a lot of scripts I can tell you there’s a lot of people out in Hollywood reading a lot of scripts all the time. So if that’s the thing you want to do I would just focus on that.

**John:** I think we can take one more question here before we wrap up.

**Female Audience Member:** So this is actually more of a craft question probably. I don’t know why I throw myself in the way of these arguments but I do. And I see the most common response to I’m having a problem with my plot/with my character/I don’t understand this that I see that drives me up the wall is, “Oh, you need to nail down your theme.” I don’t like that.

But I also understand that that means something different to every different person. So, my question is when, 1, is theme the correct solution that is something you need to look at, and 2, when is not the correct solution? When is the wrong thing?

**John:** This is a great question. So when do we need to think about themes. And you just gave a great example of that because Inside Out you had these character who represent these big thematic ideas and you had the wrong two ideas clashing together. So–

**Emily:** I will say I’m probably one of – so I’ve done a little bit of script consulting and I’m probably somebody you would hate to work with because while I don’t always call it theme I feel like theme is at the core of almost everything I’m poking at when I – I think that when you go to ask questions about what your character is doing and what it’s about and what they want and why do they really want that, I think all of that at the end of the day is theme.

So while I totally agree with you that the general note of “work on your theme” is super unhelpful.

**John:** That’s not an actionable note. You can’t–

**Emily:** It’s not an actionable note. But what is an actionable note, which is your theme actually if you dig down into it is about what is your character expecting. What do they want to have happen? What do they expect it’s going to do for their life?

So, all those questions about what your character and what’s motivating them, those are all theme questions. So I feel like when you’re getting that note what you’re actually getting – like when somebody is saying to you, “Oh, you’re theme,” what they’re actually trying to poke at I think probably not very well is that they don’t understand what your main character is doing. What do you think, Craig?

**Craig:** When we are stuck trying to describe these very nebulous things we come up with a word. And so of course when someone gives you this word it’s normal to say this isn’t – it’s not that you’re angry at them, it’s just more like you’re not helping me. What I always think about with this is what is the point of writing this. In a big way, not even inside of the characters. So like why would anybody want to go see this in the first place? Why does this deserve to be made? Why should 1,500 people in various jobs all assemble to create this thing?

And that comes down to something important to you that you’re saying. That’s you. That’s not the character. That’s not this character, or that character. It’s not about the sequence or anything. But you. That thing – that needs to be there.

And if you know what that is, this argument you’re making, this thing you want people to understand, the raison d’être of this, then I think what ends up happening is you find a way to start unifying things. So rather than having characters do things that make sense over here, and a character that is doing a thing that makes sense over here, but they don’t have necessarily some kind of relation, it’s because these things aren’t connected to the point that you’re saying the whole reason to show up is this. And once you know the whole reason to show up it actually becomes really easy to start making decisions about why people should do things. Well what should the ending be? The ending should be the opposite of the beginning and those two things are connected to this thing that you’re trying to say to everybody. This is why people should show up.

Forget people showing up in a theater. This is why people should show up to actually make the damn thing. So that’s what I think about.

**John:** And I think also there’s other useful words that are sort of thrown around that mean the same kind of thing as theme. When people talk about the conflicts, or I don’t feel like these conflicts are really advancing what the character needs, you may have thought of these great set pieces but they don’t actually do anything that your characters need to learn or achieve or accomplish. They’re just interesting set pieces that aren’t really connected to the central idea.

Sometimes we’ll talk about that central dramatic question. The thesis statement. We often talk on Scriptnotes that television sort of never fully answers that question but a movie does answer that question. As an audience member you sit down and you watch a movie expecting that it’s a character’s one-time experience that is going to transform them. And so if you’re not transforming a character, if it’s not that one unique experience then there’s something that’s not really quite figured out yet.

And what you may want to do is kind of what you’re describing here is look at what are the things we have here. What seems like they’re related? What’s the most interesting thing here? How can we bring that forward and build conflicts around it that can really explore that issue?

**Emily:** I also think it’s worth pointing out that a lot of people don’t find their theme on the first draft. So, I think sometimes we want to make it really clean and we want to say my movie is about this blank. And I think for a lot of writers I know they know they don’t have it on the first draft. So part of what you’re doing is you’re poking around and you’re trying to find out where the character wants to go and what the character wants to do. And it doesn’t even quite present itself to you until a draft or two in. And then you go, oh crap, my movie is about this. I get it. Like I had to go in this weird circuitous path to find my center, but you’ll find it.

And I guess that’s what I’m pointing out of like when you’re floating around in theme land and you can’t find it, and I think Craig is 100% right about – it’s the first time – but I think he’s 100% right about theme and that it being more about this larger question. But if you can’t find the question and you’re like, “Blech, I don’t know what it is,” I would go back to your main character and know that it might take you – you might have to just literally write a couple drafts and then it will show up.

And it might be somebody else reading your draft and saying, “You know what I think this is about? I think it’s about this.” Which is why even though this is this sort of isolating process to write something, it’s so good to have other people that you trust who can look at your stuff and help you identify those things because sometimes they’re not apparent.

**Craig:** Seems like a great advertisement for the society that has put this on.

**John:** Absolutely. Brain trust revealed. That is our show. As always our show is produced by Megan McDonnell. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli.

We need to thank Seattle.

**Craig:** Nice job, Seattle.

**John:** And there are several people in Seattle we need to thank. Certainly Jeremy and Kristen for bringing us up here. The Northwest Screenwriters Guild. TheFilmSchool, all one word. Thank you so much for having us up here. This was really fun. And have a great night. Thank you all.

**Craig:** Thank you.

Links:

* Thank you, [Northwest Screenwriters Guild](https://nwsg.org/) and [TheFilmSchool](http://thefilmschool.com/programs/) for making this event happen!
* And thank you to our incredible guest: [Emily Zulauf](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1637392/)!
* [Scriptnotes, 225: Only haters hate rom-coms](https://johnaugust.com/2015/only-haters-hate-rom-coms) with Tess Morris
* [Michael Arndt on Endings](https://johnaugust.com/2018/michael-arndt-on-endings)
* [Amy Poehler](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K25d7QIC27c) as Joy in INSIDE OUT
* [The Man In the High Castle](https://www.amazon.com/Man-High-Castle-Season/dp/B07FDKRJQC)
* [Exit The Game](https://www.thamesandkosmos.com/index.php/kosmosgames/exit-the-abandoned-cabin)
* [Bad Blood](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/549478/bad-blood-by-john-carreyrou/9781524731656/) by John Carreyrou
* T-shirts are available [here](https://cottonbureau.com/people/john-august-1)! We’ve got new designs, including [Colored Revisions](https://cottonbureau.com/products/colored-revisions), [Karateka](https://cottonbureau.com/products/karateka), and [Highland2](https://cottonbureau.com/products/highland2).
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [Emily Zulauf](https://twitter.com/emilyzulauf) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Find past episodes](http://scriptnotes.net/)
* [Scriptnotes Digital Seasons](https://store.johnaugust.com/) are also now available!
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) “Jazz Waltz” 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/38720-20Seattle20Live20Show202019.mp3).

The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2018/Holiday-live-show-2018).

**John August:** Hey, this is John. So today’s episode contains some bad language. It also contains some minor spoilers for Spider Man: Into the Spider-Verse, but probably nothing that would hurt your enjoyment of the movie. Thanks, and enjoy.

Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

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

**John:** And this is the 2018 Holiday Live Show. We are live here in Hollywood–

**Craig:** California.

**John:** This is the state we’re in.

**Craig:** Yes, correct. And we want to thank you all for coming out. We understand it’s a little traffic-y. It’s a little traffic-y out there in Los Angeles, again. So, thank you very much for coming. And we have– I’m going to go with our best show ever. This is going to be our best show.

**John:** It’s going to be the best show we’ve ever done.

**Craig:** Yeah. We kind of went a little crazy this year. Like overloaded it with too much goodness. We should have spread it out.

**John:** There was another holiday live show where we had like 12 guests and we just kept putting them on one after another, but we have like really quality guests–

**Craig:** Right. That was a shitty show. This is a great one.

**John:** So, Larry Andrews is here. He’s a representative of the Writers Guild Foundation. And we were trying to figure out how many live shows we’ve done. Someone could probably Google this.

**Craig:** About 48. 48.

**John:** Yeah, 48 at least. We’ve been on for 50 years. The first two years we didn’t do a live show here at Hollywood.

**Craig:** You know that I believe you. Like if you say we’ve been on 50 years I’ll be like, yeah, that sounds about right.

**John:** So the 20th anniversary of Go is coming up this year, which seems absolutely impossible. [Unintelligible].

**Craig:** That’s great.

**John:** But nothing makes me feel older than having one of your movies be able to drive, or vote.

**Craig:** Yeah, I think we’re coming up on the – what is it – the 98th anniversary of Disney’s RocketMan, a film that if you are–

**John:** Is there going to be a retrospective screening?

**Craig:** For idiots. Yes. Yes. There’s an idiot’s screening.

**John:** An idiot’s screening.

**Craig:** Idiots love it.

**John:** So I love doing the podcast every week with Craig Mazin, who is a fantastic co-host. And, Craig, you’ve been super busy but it’s great to see you here in person and getting to talk through stuff with you.

**Craig:** Oh. Oh.

**John:** No, this is not an intervention.

**Craig:** I’m not–?

**John:** No, it’s not that.

**Craig:** But am I being let go?

**John:** No. No. No. There’s people–

**Craig:** Because this would be a shitty way to do it.

**John:** Well, yeah, but you’d go out with a bang, wouldn’t you say?

**Craig:** No.

**John:** Behind you there are slides. The people at home can’t know that there are slides. But there are slides here and those slides can illustrate the things that you’ve done. It could be a retrospective of all of your greatest and lowest moments.

**Craig:** Really?

**John:** No. That’s not what I’ve done here at all. But a thing we did do on the program recently is we talked about this show and we decided that we wanted to do our first ever gift exchange. So these people are seeing the very first ever Scriptnotes gift exchange. You set a restriction on this. What was the restriction?

**Craig:** $20 or less.

**John:** The price of a ticket. So $20 or less.

**Craig:** That’s rough. It’s actually hard to buy something now that’s not awful for $20 or less.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** So I think I’ve done that. But do you think you’ve done that?

**Craig:** Bought you something awful? No question.

**John:** All right. That’s good. Should I give you my gift first, or do you want to – how are we going to do this? It’s sort of one of those things like who is going to say I love you first.

**Craig:** No one believes that you know what love is, so yes, do it this way.

**John:** All right. So my gift to you will be familiar to – the wrapping will be familiar to anybody who is in the industry in Hollywood. It is the paper that was sent with Marvelous Mrs. Maisel DVDs.

**Craig:** Oh yeah. That was extravagant.

**John:** So people in the industry, we get these screeners basically like “Please give us awards.” And Amazon this year for Marvelous Mrs. Maisel/Maisel–

**Craig:** Maisel.

**John:** Maisel. Sent these posters with it. And everyone is like what the hell are these posters. Wrapping paper.

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s become – it’s like a big cylinder of stuff.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** We just want the DVD. Just give us the DVD. Also, it’s on Netflix, right?

**John:** No, Amazon. Ah.

**Craig:** OK. We all have Amazon. We have it already. You don’t need to send the thing.

**John:** No.

**Craig:** Stupid.

**John:** But I wanted to give you this gift.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**John:** So this gift is wrapped up. So you can open it.

**Craig:** Can I?

**John:** You may.

**Craig:** Thank you for permission.

**John:** This gift was a previous One Cool Thing. Craig never pays attention to One Cool Things.

**Craig:** Liartown. The First Four Years. Sean Tejaratchi.

**John:** So this is–

**Craig:** Do you understand what my life is like? I say things and then it’s just, yep.

**John:** That’s correct. So I think you will like this book because it is really funny and really filthy. So there’s a page I blew up here. This is Anne Geddes Hello Cruel World.

**Craig:** [laughs]

**John:** It’s a baby in an ashtray.

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s pretty cool. That’s pretty great.

**John:** And so my husband Mike will tell you that it’s the thing that I will – just nonstop laughing as I go through it. So it’s an accumulation effect.

**Craig:** Holy shit. This is fucked up. This horrifying octopus Tweety bird saying Stay in School, and there’s a skull under. It’s amazing. I love it.

**John:** So some of the things you can look forward to in this book include – there’s grocery store ads for like impossible things, like owl tips.

**Craig:** Shrimp pull-ups. That’s awesome.

**John:** And this thing over on the right is a little obscure, it’s like an ongoing joke, but it’s about a Japanese businessman who is being sexually harassed by an elk. And I felt like for a person in Hollywood–

**Craig:** That’s the face you make.

**John:** That’s the face you make. So Craig I hope you enjoy Liartown.

**Craig:** Thank you, John. That was awesome. Thank you.

So, everybody knows that I do most of the work for this podcast. But one of the things that you did very early on was you designed our logo. And in doing so set sort of the tone for the show that has now been running for approximately 15 years. And I still see people wearing this t-shirt and it’s sort of become a thing. And I wanted to do something to kind of honor that. And I found these. And they’re kind of really – just take a look at this. Because also you’re very neat.

**John:** OK.

**Craig:** And I wanted to do something to help you continue to be neat.

**John:** Thank you, Craig.

**Craig:** Take a look at this.

**John:** I will say that Ryan Nelson, the person who actually designed our logo, so I want to thank Ryan–

**Craig:** No, in my mind you did it.

**John:** I’m getting rid of the tissue paper here. Oh my gosh. It is a tiny typewriter.

**Craig:** But?

**John:** But, tell me more.

**Craig:** Coasters.

**John:** Oh! Typewriter coasters. Craig, this is a very, very thoughtful gift.

**Craig:** Right?

**John:** Craig, can I give you a hug?

**Craig:** Yeah! I don’t think you know how to hug.

**John:** I know how to hug properly.

**Craig:** But we’ll work on it.

**John:** We’ll work on it.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** It is time for us to talk about the guests that we have on the program tonight because sometimes as we’re gathering guests we can find fantastic people but they won’t have common things to talk about. This year we did a great job I think of finding people with common things to talk about.

**Craig:** Yeah. I’ve been kind of like buddies with – can I say Pammy? Because it’s been Pammy for a long time. Pammy, me and Pammy, are buds. And it’s been kind of amazing to watch this blossom and you can see like that’s pretty good. Nothing against it.

**John:** Smurfs: The Lost Village.

**Craig:** But then, oh shit.

**John:** Moana.

**Craig:** Damn! Right? So like she’s been crushing it at the highest level at Disney Animation and Features and Wreck it Ralph 2–

**John:** Ralph Breaks the Internet.

**Craig:** Correct. Currently in theaters.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** And viewable and you should all go see it. She’s pretty amazing at what she does.

**John:** Yes. Pamela Ribon will you please come up and join us? Pamela, welcome to the show.

**Pamela Ribon:** Thanks. Thanks for having me.

**John:** Our next group of guests, they have some credits of movies you’ve heard of.

**Craig:** Is this Lord and Miller?

**John:** This is the one.

**Craig:** Is it two people?

**John:** It’s two different people. Yeah. It’s not Lordon Miller. That would be a cool name though. Lordon.

**Craig:** What is it then? Lord and Miller. Lord and Miller have done everything that you like. Literally. Just run it through your head. Do you like The Lego Movie? Yeah you fucking do. Do you like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs? Who doesn’t like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs? Be honest. I want to hear. Nobody. Exactly.

**John:** One woman started to raise her hand, but then she brushed it off.

**Craig:** No, she reconsidered. She remembered how good that movie was. 21 Jump Street. I mean, it’s so boring. And they’ve done it again with the latest Spider-Verse movie. Right?

**John:** So would you please welcome up Chris Miller and Phil Lord. Welcome to the program.

**Craig:** They’re two people!

**John:** As you guys all know, Craig sees no movies, and so has nothing he can talk to about the actual things you’ve recently done.

**Craig:** Or anything you’ve done before.

**John:** But I’ve seen both your movies. They’re recent movies. And they are fantastic. They are some of the best animated movies I’ve seen in quite a long time and I loved them both immensely the moment I saw them. So, and also congratulations. You guys are both up for awards. You guys should duke it out tonight to figure out who is going to win.

**Craig:** So, it’s done. Yeah.

**Pamela:** Oh.

**Craig:** Oh, for Golden Globes.

**Pamela:** I’m very strong.

**Craig:** Fact, Pam, former roller derby.

**Chris Miller** Really?

**Craig:** Roller player.

**Chris**: You could definitely takes us then.

**Phil Lord:** What was your derby name?

**Pamela:** Make you holler.

**Craig:** That’s so good.

**Phil:** We have a friend. Her name was Laguna Biatch.

**Pamela:** Oh, I know her.

**Craig:** Was it May Q.? Of course it was.

**Craig:** I love that. Yeah, no, she could definitely kick your ass.

**Pamela:** But Laguna is very good.

**Craig:** What if they bring up Laguna?

**John:** So, Pam, we were talking at dinner about sort of the writing process of Ralph Breaks the Internet, and so this isn’t a situation where usually on a movie a writer writes a script, then you write another draft, and then maybe another draft. How long were you employed on Ralph Breaks the Internet?

**Pamela:** I did over 2.5 years of writing.

**John:** And this wasn’t just like give us a draft and you’re done. You were physically going in there to work on a movie.

**Pamela:** Yeah. At one point I wanted to – I have a cowriter on this movie, Phil Johnston, who is also the co-director of the film. At one point I was just curious how big my Ralph file was. And there were over 800 documents – drafts and rewrites – just that I had had. And I know that those weren’t all of them.

**Craig:** How do you even sort those? Do you have an advance Dewey Decimal?

**Pamela:** We do. Yes. It is. Because you want to know, particularly because Phil and I are passing stuff back and forth, so there’s an initial situation with dates and times. Times, because sometimes it’s like three times in one day you’ll rewrite.

**Craig:** You guys don’t rewrite anything?

**Chris:** No.

**Phil:** First time and it comes out perfect.

**Craig:** First time through.

**Phil:** One and done.

**Pamela:** Very good.

**Craig:** Shoot it. Shoot it!

**Phil:** We chisel it in a mountain.

**Chris:** We write every word and then we just chop away the ones that don’t fit into the story.

**Phil:** Like every word in the universe? Oh yeah, that’s a good way.

**Craig:** Just remove the words that don’t belong.

**Craig:** Are you kind of on the same timeline for an animated feature of about 2.5 years of work?

**Chris:** Or more. Generally. That’s the thing about animated features is it’s so different of a process. It’s such an iterative process. You’re looking at animatic storyboards, various different phases, and every time you get a look at it in its crudest form and you go I thought that was going to work, but nope it sucks, so we’ve got to redo it. Again and again and again and again.

And I think that’s why animated movies end up – a lot of them end up being so good is because people had a chance to see and feel whether things work and they’ve had a chance to go over it again and again.

**Phil:** Right. They were bad ten times first. Then they got good.

**Craig:** Which leads me to a question, because I’ve been thinking about this since I guess Pixar sort of redefined how good storytelling could be on a movie screen, and I think they did. Is there any way for live action to ever catch up or is the gap even widening? Are animated features just perfecting the art of the feature narrative?

**Chris:** Well don’t you feel like live action features are becoming more animated? And weirdly animated features are becoming a little more live action.

**Craig:** Tell me how that works.

**Chris:** I mean, if you look at Wes Anderson, right, after he did Fantastic Mr. Fox his live action movies had more of an animated vibe. Right? When you look at all the big superhero blockbuster type of movies a lot of those sequences, the big action scenes and other things are pre-vis’d and CG. And a lot of that stuff is CG. You look at Gravity and that sort of thing. That one almost qualifies as an animated movie, that film. Which means things get planned out. Things get watched. Things get experienced. And that’s why some of those things end up feeling really visceral.

And then similarly in animation, it used to be a lot of like really one person isolated in a booth. I say my line five times and then I go on to the next line five times. And now certainly after we did the Jump Street movies we started trying to get actors together more often and have them improvise with each other and have things feel more natural. And so it got a little bit more of the spontaneity of live action. So I feel like they’re getting closer.

**Pamela:** Yeah. We did the same thing on Ralph. John and Sarah would want to be in the room together so that they could work with each other.

**Craig:** And that is kind of a new thing. I mean, it’s actually startling to me to think that was never that way because so many of the actors that people bring in to do voices – once they started the let’s get actors to do these as opposed to like let’s get voice actors to do them – they’re all brilliant improvisers and it seemed odd to me that there was a stretch there where they wouldn’t let them improvise. It’s crazy. It’s kind of crazy that they didn’t do it that way.

**Pamela:** Well can you imagine though, like well four years ago I said this line and I liked it. You know what I mean? We’ve made like eight versions of the movie since then.

**John:** But before Sarah Silverman and John C. Reilly are in the room together you have to have a script and you have to figure out sort of what stuff is. Can you talk through what the scratch process is for you guys in terms of getting from words on the page to something recorded that you can actually see and listen to? What is that process like for something like Ralph?

**Pamela:** Well, on Ralph we do a lot of our own scratch. We’re all just trying to crack each other up. So we work together. So Phil, and Rich, and Josie and I tend to do a lot of the scratch so that we can also while we’re recording can improvise and then even in editorial while we’re putting together the screenings we can just go up and rerecord something.

**John:** So it’s like a table read but you guys – at the end of the process of that you actually have a movie you can watch with just your voices in there. And what kind of things do you learn in that process of doing the scratch and doing the temp versions of things?

**Pamela:** Well we start to figure out timing. I mean, a lot of times you’re doing an impression of the actor you’re hoping to get, or you do just have, so you start to play with their timing and the sound of them. You don’t have them for a little while so you can just start to figure out how these relationships might work. And you can land an emotional moment because you hear it in your head. And then, you know, very rarely as a writer do you get to be like, “And say it just like this.” And then have her hand go here and then her foot. You craft the entire moment and that I think becomes difficult when you move into live action when you’re used to working in an animated space.

**John:** I want to say Phil and Chris, one of the things that struck me about your movie is that the opening 20 minutes of it feel like it could be a live action movie. It’s a very grounded reality in ways that you don’t normally see in animation. How early in the process did you come to that realization that you wanted it to feel that way? And what was the writing process and the sort of boarding and scratch process to get you to that point?

**Phil:** Well I think we always thought that the movie was going to start with like a very animated montage-y sequence and then focuses down on Miles Morales and literally starts alone with him in his room and he’s listening to a song and not singing it very well. And it was actually Rodney Rothman who wrote the screenplay with me, he said we really just want to spend time with Miles and see him behave. And the movie basically starts and ends with him alone by himself in his bedroom.

And it was a really conscious choice to go I want to show you everything that a crazy super hero movie can be at the start and then I want to bring you in to a really grounded reality and then slowly we’ll start turning up the temperature on the water that this kid is in, and the movie will get sillier and crazier and more like a heightened reality throughout.

**Craig:** I mean, has technology kind of freed you creatively to write a different way? Because I think in the old days they’d be like every frame is an hour or two hours or 12 hours of someone’s time, or a thousand computers. So, no, you can’t just have him behaving. Right? You’re not allowed to do that. We don’t have that money. I mean, now do you feel like there’s a certain freedom in terms of animation to be a little, I don’t want to say indulgent, but to take a breath?

**Chris:** Well, I mean, I think if you go back to the history of feature animation you really are starting with really simple drawings on the storyboard and animators thinking of physical bits for things that kind of describe the character. So in a way it’s very old school to just give the animators some real estate to express the character through movement, which is like what animation does better than anything is that it’s a lot like dance.

It’s hard because we’re like dialogue driven dudes and you’re like jokes and when you put these movies up and build reels you take all the air out because you’re so insecure that your material is not good enough. And maybe if we go fast no one will see. So, when we are able to give characters a little bit of space you realize what dummies you are and then you realize there should be no writing. Or no words.

**Pamela:** The words get in the way.

**John:** Classically animators were people who were in charge of these movies and in this case we have writers who are in charge of these movies. What do you think you bring as a writer to an animated project that is different than somebody who comes from an art background? And in my times doing some animation I felt some friction there. Have you guys felt friction? And what are ways that writers can get through those situations?

**Pamela:** I think for me it’s always like character is the last thing sometimes that’s thought of. It’s these worlds and what-ifs and this is amazing. Why make it animated? Because it’s a place we can’t be in live action. And often the last thing thought of is who is going to be in this movie. And as a writer I think I often approach with well what’s an interesting thing I want to talk about or person I want to think about or a character. And then I put them in this fun world. So, I don’t know, do you guys?

**Chris:** Yeah, I mean, I think that when you’re writing for animation it’s just a lot of the rules that are right for writing in live action just twice as important. Like the idea of you should be able to follow the story with the sound off. Like the next door neighbor on your airplane test. If you can follow the plot of the movie without the headphones that your neighbor is – on the back of their seat – then the movie works. And I think that’s true of live action just as much as animation, but it’s especially true in that medium. So you have to as a writer think extra visually and you never want to be like, OK, here’s two people standing in a room just talking for five minutes in a way that you can kind of get away with sometimes, and certainly in live action television.

But I think in animation you really have to think visually. And then I think the other part is that you also have to be really open and flexible because there’s a lot of people, storyboard artists, designers, art directors that are like give them enough room to try with those things. They’ll come up with a bunch of crazy ideas and maybe half of them won’t work for the larger story context, but half of them will make their scene more interesting. And the same thing is true that someone will come up with a piece of concept art that’s like, oh, that’s way more – that changes everything that we’re doing here. And then you have to be really nimble. It’s why the process takes so long.

But because it’s a team project and it takes so long it’s something that can like – if you open yourself up to a bunch of ideas you get a bunch of free, cool stuff out of it.

**Craig:** And you have this incredible resource of all these people that are there to help. And in live action you’re just miserably alone. And I’m sure you enjoy that.

**Chris:** And sometimes they’re just thinking about the scene themselves. Like the storyboard artist is just thinking about this moment. What would be fun in this moment? They’re not thinking what’s going to be half an hour later, how that’s going to mess everything up.

**Craig:** Yeah. So you have to maintain a global view. On behalf of a lot of people here, some of whom I would imagine are interested in writing animated features, there’s no animated spec world, right? What do you do? How are you supposed to get involved in this?

**Chris:** There’s a live action spec world?

**Craig:** Ish. I mean like every now and then somebody buys something for independent. But, I mean, in a weird way it does seems like there should be an animated spec world because you could – like Wreck it Ralph is – there’s no IP for Wreck it Ralph, right? It is the IP, correct?

**Pamela:** Mm-hmm.

**Craig:** I mean, granted, it’s sort of hoovering up a lot of pop culture.

**Pamela:** Sure.

**Craig:** But it’s its own thing. And if somebody comes up with their own thing then it kind of – you’d think that maybe, you know, somebody would get interested.

**Chris:** It’s possible. It’s totally possible. People pitch ideas for animated movies to studios all the time. And if it has a hooky idea, they’re looking for stuff.

**Pamela:** Yeah, now more than ever.

**Chris:** Exactly.

**John:** But in your cases you guys were both brought in to do these things. So, Pamela, you were brought in to do the second movie in this franchise. You guys, how were you approached to do Spider Man? And was it always this idea that you would take the Miles Morales character and build out the universe? What was the initial thing that got you into that meeting?

**Phil:** Well, Amy Pascal and Avi Arad came to us and said we want to do an animated Spider Man movie and we said no, which is how everything we get into starts. And then we started thinking about it and thinking about how much we liked Miles as a character and we also thought the opportunities in animation for a movie in this genre would be limitless. And then we started thinking about our favorite comics growing up and how they all were drawn by an individual artist, and I really felt the tooth of the paper that they were drawing on. You really felt like somebody was communicating visually to you. And we thought well maybe we can make a movie that feels like that. That feels like the visuals are speaking directly to you and that there’s multiple artists all interpreting different characters and they’re all living in the same frame.

**Chris:** So then we went back to them and said we’ll only do it if it can be about Miles Morales and we can make it look crazy. And they said OK. And then – and we’re like oh really? And then now here we are.

**Craig:** When that happens is there a moment where you think “Oh shit, they were just going to say yes to anything we said, maybe what we just said was dumb.” Like do you ever get worried about that?

**Phil:** Every day.

**Craig:** That’s good though.

**Phil:** We should get more worried at the start.

**Chris:** Yeah.

**Phil:** The problem is you get really worried in the middle.

**Craig:** Oh yeah, that’s a bad worry, yeah.

**Phil:** After you’re too deep to turn around.

**Craig:** Right. That’s a despair. That’s not a worry.

**Phil:** Yeah. That’s despair.

**Craig:** It’s a slightly more advanced situation.

**John:** It does feel like all movies go through a journey, a narrative arc, where like it’s fantastic, it’s exciting, there’s troubles, it’s the worst thing that’s ever been made, and then you sort of salvage it. But I feel like animation has its own special case because usually in a live action feature you’re either in production or you’re in editing and you’re trying to save it in editing. Maybe you get to do some reshoots. But it’s hard to sort of find the movie in that place.

But in animation if something is wrong you can just go fix it because you’re not so locked into the things you’ve done. Was there a lot that changed in the Spider Verse movie from – if you were to look back at your original script for it and the movie that’s nominated for a Golden Globe, how similar are they?

**Phil:** It’s like they’re the exact same movie and every word is different. Like the characters are the same, the basic plot moves are the same, the emotional ambition of it is the same, and maybe the tone. And then everything else changed and it changed completely different and then we put some stuff back the way it was. It’s a mess.

Right, you had 800 documents?

**Pamela:** Yeah. We had nine screenings. Yeah.

**Phil:** Oh yeah.

**Pamela:** It was a bunch of different movies that still kind of like the first table read four years ago.

**Phil:** Right? Like you generated three seasons worth of material.

**Pamela:** Villains gone. Whole act threes. Yeah.

**Phil:** So you learn to like not be precious about this particular moment or this particular scene or even this whole plot because that might go away.

**Pamela:** Yeah. I mean, we get notes from 400 people when you get those screenings, too. That’s a little different. Everybody sees it and then you’re walking through the room with all of them every day for weeks while they’re like, “How’s that coming along?”

**John:** This is a Disney movie and Disney has the magic hat building. There’s a whole history of Disney animation. And so I know there’s a whole process it goes through and every movie goes through that process. Phil and Chris, though, Sony Animation makes animated movies but is not nearly the powerhouse. So did you have those company-wide screenings where you had to sort of show your–

**Chris:** Yeah, we were showing it around a lot. We also had three directors and the two of us on this movie. And so every moment was debated by the five of us. How many beads of sweat are on Miles’s brow in a shot is debated. That’s the thing about animation where like in live action you just spray the mister on his head and then you start shooting. This it would be like I think there should be a little bit more on his upper lip. You’re like, ah, that’s gross.

**Pamela:** And another two-hour meeting of like these are the 20 different kinds of sweat beads we can give you.

**Craig:** That sounds horrifying.

**Chris:** Excruciating.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, I’m actually kind of interested, Pam in the – because these guys have kind of gone back and forth, right. And I know you’ve done live action, but this is a question that I think is sort of a – most people will say, look, you’ve been in live action. What are some of the things you can do in animation that you can’t do in live action? And people go into the idea of the worlds and the control of things. But is there a flip side to that? Are there things that you kind of miss or yearn for that you feel are easier or exclusively capable of doing in live action that you don’t get in animation?

**Pamela:** Yeah. Well I did TV before this and so that’s where you’re used to this sort of room. And so I miss being able to just really go for a run with jokes. You don’t have this kind of time. The movie has to be so short and the words get in the way. And sometimes you’re like, oh, I just would like four more puns.

**Craig:** Right. Like a chance to just live in the moment.

**Pamela:** Let’s be so silly for a minute. Yeah. And you can’t stay still. If they stop moving it looks broken. So everything’s got to keep going. And–

**Craig:** They stop moving it looks broken.

**Pamela:** Yeah.

**Craig:** That’s terrifying. I never realized that.

**Chris:** It’s like Speed, the movie Speed.

**Phil:** The bus has to keep going.

**Craig:** Like if someone stops they still have to have an eye twitch or something or people think the movie broke.

**Pamela:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Wow.

**John:** Phil and Chris, we need you for another five minutes because you are doing another screening on the other side of town, so for people who live in Los Angeles like everyone here in this audience they know that you are going all the way to the west side for a screening. And so we are really tempting fate by having you here for as long as we can.

**Chris:** There’s a helicopter though.

**Pamela:** Oh, that’s nice. That’s big time.

**John:** The Golden Globe gets you the helicopter.

**Craig:** Just for on Waze.

**Phil:** We bumped into each other in our respective helicopters on our way here.

**Craig:** There’s a serious helicopter tie-up though heading out west. Sorry guys. It’s award season. What are you going to do?

**Phil:** What are you going to do?

**John:** Both having made animated features, what do you think live action folks can take from animation that would help them, especially writers to take from animation that would help them? Because it is such a collaborative process working in animation and that can be great but it can also be frustrating. What guidance could you offer folks who are trying to make the best movies, animation or live action, that you’ve learned, the lessons you’ve learned from doing animation?

**Phil:** I mean, I would say two things come to mind. One is what you’re getting at which is that these are collective works of art. That’s what makes them beautiful. You’ve got these huge crews. There’s a thousand people on this movie. Even a small movie that you’re making in film school is still a handful of folks and you’re cooperating and no one is getting murdered. Right? For the most part. And that’s a miracle in and of itself. And then together you’re making a work of art. That’s like to me that almost makes me cry it’s so beautiful.

Sometimes that work of art is terrible, but the fact that you’re doing that together is really great. So we try to – when we are our best selves we try to embrace that and we get a lot from our collaborators, our heads of department, and our fellow filmmakers, in this case these incredible 3D directors and it’s everyone in between. The janitor gives you notes and you take it. And that’s really important.

The other thing is that there’s an emphasis on how you visually and cinematically characterize something or someone. And that lesson should always be applied in live action. Like we start – like an animated movie that we’re directing with walk cycles and like little tests. Let’s just see a character designer move this character around on a piece of paper and see how they emote. Like when you’re talking to an actor or you’re thinking about a character on the page how do they walk? How do they move? How do they carry themselves? Those lessons are so valuable in live action because no one ever really – rarely talks to an actor about that kind of stuff.

**John:** Cool. Guys, thank you so much for joining us here. We’re going to send you guys on your way.

**Chris:** Thanks everybody.

**Phil:** Sorry you guys.

**John:** Thank you. Finally, they’re gone. All right. They were OK.

**Craig:** Jerks.

**John:** We can talk about them now that they’re gone. Pamela, thank you for sticking around.

**Pamela:** Oh sure. My brain is stuck on the sexual harassment elk. I just – hold on. I just have to get it out of my head.

**Craig:** It’s two fingers to the mill.

**Pamela:** The Time’s Up will be called The Buck Stops Here.

**John:** Hey!

**Craig:** Nice.

**John:** Thank you, thank you, thank you.

**Pamela:** That’s been sitting in my brain for so long. I feel better now, thank you for doing that with me. Thank you for humoring me. Thank you.

**Craig:** Hashtag.

**John:** They are gone. So now it’s time to welcome two new guests. First off is Zoanne Clack. She is an executive producer on Grey’s Anatomy. She has written a zillion episodes of the show. She is also a medical doctor. Zoanne Clack, welcome.

**Craig:** So if you guys have any “Is this infected?”

**Zoanne Clack:** Don’t come to me.

**Pamela:** Don’t. That’s gross.

**John:** Craig Mazin is the doctor on the show. But you’re an actual–

**Craig:** I am a doctor. I’m just not licensed.

**John:** All right.

**Zoanne:** I still am actually.

**Craig:** Or educated. Yeah, well you’re fancy. I cannot treat patients without committing a number of fraud felonies.

**John:** But you guys have both done autopsies, so that’s something.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, I haven’t done the autopsy, but I have attended the autopsy.

**Zoanne:** I must admit I have not either done an actual autopsy. No.

**John:** That’s fine.

**Zoanne:** I’ve cut people open.

**John:** I’m a little disappointed in Zoanne. Honestly, I’m a little disappointed.

**Zoanne:** Usually they’re still alive. I try to keep them alive.

**Craig:** Yeah. They would never let me near an alive person. But I went to town on the dead ones because what could happen?

**John:** What is so surprising for all of us here is our next guest has done many autopsies. Cherry Chevapravatdumrong is an executive producer on Family Guy and The Orville. Come up Cherry!

**Craig:** She has not done autopsies.

**John:** No, I mean, I’m just assuming you’ve done autopsies.

**Zoanne:** You don’t have to answer that question.

**Cherry Chevapravatdumrong:** My parents wish. Like it’s a medical thing.

**Zoanne:** I was like, oh, there’s two of us.

**Craig:** It’s three. It’s three of us.

**Zoanne:** Sorry.

**John:** While we’re on the topic, let’s talk about parental expectations, because Zoanne Clack how did you become a medical doctor and then decide, you know what, I want to write about doctors rather than being one? What is the process of going from doctor to writer about doctors?

**Zoanne:** Well, I was one of those doctors who was told I was going to be a doctor from like the time I was like five. So, you know, I made good grades and I’m from Houston, Texas, and I’m the only daughter. Hey, Houston. I’m the only daughter of a single mom. So, all hopes, dreams, and aspirations fell on me.

So, you know, in order to be successful in African American culture, and I think a lot of others, you’re supposed to be a doctor or lawyer.

**Craig:** I can think of one other culture, for sure.

**Zoanne:** I’ve heard of your culture, Craig.

**Craig:** For sure.

**Zoanne:** And so I didn’t want to be a lawyer and so I was like I’ll do this doctor thing. So I basically, you know, I got chemistry sets for Christmas. I did that whole thing. I went straight in the science route. And then in high school I was like, wait, how old do you have to be? How old will you be when you – 26? That’s like forever, to a 17-year-old.

So I actually went to Northwestern and got into the radio, TV, film program. Oh, Northwestern. And then went home for the summer and looked at my mom and went back and did all my premed requirements because I realized that, you know, this whole starving artist thing I just couldn’t do it. My mom was a teacher who struggled through just putting food on the table, two jobs, that whole thing. So, it was like this is the stable way to go. That’s a pipedream. Just go on with your life.

And then it was ten years of straight medicine. Medical school. I went to residency. I did emergency medicine residency at Emory. No.

**Craig:** No, we don’t let those people in.

**Zoanne:** And I – east coast – I was basically burning out like my second year of residency, which usually it takes a lot longer. So I was trying to find what the next thing I was going to do and I tried a lot of different things. I worked for the CDC. I was going to do like another residency which was – that’s too much. I thought about doing binge research which who am I, I don’t know what that is.

So, it was just like I kind of refound that kind of dream that I had. And I started taking classes. And I was like, you know what, I have a pretty good day job and maybe I’ll just move out to LA and just do my day job and see what happens.

So, the most random part I think about the story is that I was kind of setting everything up in LA and I was, again, not the starving artist type. So I had my jobs lined up. I had my apartment lined up. I had friends here looking for jobs for me. And in the back of one of the emergency medicine magazines they were advertising for the ER person, like the onset consultant. And I was like oh my god that would be perfect for me.

**John:** ER the show? The show ER?

**Zoanne:** The ER show. So I sent off a letter. I heard nothing. And then I randomly mentioned it to like my mentor at Emory, which is in Atlanta, and also I never discussed like my artistic goals with my doctor/scientist friends. But I randomly mentioned it to him and he’s like, oh yeah, I trained with that guy who is hiring. Why don’t you mention my name? His name had literally been used in an episode of ER. That’s how close he was to this guy.

And so I sent off a letter with his name in it. Got an immediate meeting. Was the most excited I’d ever been about any job interview ever. Like literally giddy like a ten-year-old. Didn’t get the job. But I came out here anyway.

**Craig:** It worked out.

**John:** She’s doing fine.

**Zoanne:** This is the year 2000, so.

**Craig:** Like you guys know how the story ends. Don’t–

**Zoanne:** Like, aw. A collective sigh.

**Craig:** Oh no. Are you OK?

**Pamela:** She’s a good storyteller.

**Zoanne:** It was a hard like year. So I didn’t get the job, but I thought I wanted to act because that’s what you know when you’re from Houston. So I took some acting classes. And here’s the thing, like actors don’t just put drops in their eyes to cry. They have to drudge up all this mess. So I was drudging up all this stuff on the one hand, and as a doctor was told to push it all down. So, all of that was coming up and I didn’t have anywhere to put it. So I started writing and I was like this is what I’m supposed to be doing. And then I took some writing classes. And then when I had interviewed for ER they were like we’ll keep you in mind, which I thought was just Hollywood talk for we’ll never see you again. And they called me up like a year later and they were making Presidio Med. One of the executive producers, Lydia Woodward, was looking for a doctor. She didn’t know for what. And I was like I’ll be a consultant. I’ll be on set. But I’d really love to write.

So literally I pushed the first script I had ever written into her face and she hired me two months later.

**Cherry:** Wow.

**John:** Aw.

**Craig:** Told you.

**John:** Happy ending. Now, Cherry, how did you disappoint your parents?

**Cherry:** Literally almost exactly the same way. I’m Asian. I was supposed to be a doctor. They told me I was going to be a doctor when I was five. I gave up on that and made them give up on that like halfway through high school, probably. But then after like undergrad I had a very useful psychology degree and they were like, “Yeah, no, now you should go to law school.” And that is shorter than med school. And it’s three years. And I thought maybe I could just sort of – I went to NYU and I thought secretly I could just get a job as a page at NBC or something. You know what I mean? I was just like, oh, I’ll just live in New York and then become a PA at SNL or something. And sort of get out that way.

Didn’t happen. So, wasted three years. It’s fine. It’s fine. You know what I mean? Like racked up a bunch of student loans.

**Craig:** It’s not a waste.

**Cherry:** Oh yeah, no.

**Craig:** It needed to happen.

**Cherry:** Yeah. But honestly it was kind of like three years of living in the big city, whatever, and then after that I was like confident enough and also had no more school to go to. So then I was like, OK, now I will move to LA. And then I got a job on a desk at CAA and that was my first job.

**John:** So you had the classic sort of like working at CAA, figuring out what Hollywood was, and how did you get from that to something that you wrote getting into someone’s hands that got you a job as a writer?

**Craig:** Because they want to know how can we work on Family Guy? They’re like how do we get that Job.

**Cherry:** Oh yeah. Oh my god. OK. So, yes, I did the assistant thing. I sort of like, but yeah, I worked at CAA. And then I worked for a couple TV producers. I was a writer’s assistant. And then at some point one of the – the guy that got me the job that enabled me to leave CAA, he was working on a show called Hope and Faith. He was the writer’s assistant there. Alex Carter. He works on Family Guy now. And he had mutual friends with some of the other people who worked on the show. Chris Sheridan was one of them. And I had applied to the CBS Writers Mentoring Program. A lot of the networks and studios had these programs and diversity initiatives. And as part of that I went and hung out in the writers’ rooms on the show Yes, Dear. And Chris Sheridan, who later became EP and showrunner of Family Guy, when it was canceled for the last time – he’s been on ever since, yay. But he was working on Yes, Dear at the time and I met him there. And he knew Alex Carter. So we kind of like had two ways of knowing each other.

So, yeah, when he was hiring for Family Guy he remembered me from hanging out in the Yes, Dear room. And this was a long time ago. So it’s like not being offended by jokes. He’s like, oh, she seems like she could hang. “Do you have a spec script?” And I was like yes. So that’s how – go – go through the normal fucked up shit that one would normally do in a writers’ room because that’s exactly what happened when I got the job. You got to get used to it. And, again, it’s a different atmosphere than it was over ten years ago now.

But, yeah, so that was kind of the thing. Oh, she seemed like she’d be cool. So, also, let me just make sure that the spec script is good. OK. And then he brought me in to meet with the other two EPs.

**Craig:** And off you went.

**John:** Now, Pam, you came up through television as well. Did you have the experience of being in rooms where bullshit was happening?

**Pamela:** Oh, I almost was like it was the style at the time. But I don’t know. I’m sure some level of assholery still continues in comedy rooms.

**Craig:** I really want you to say, “No.”

**Pamela:** No, every room I’ve ever been in has been very sweet. And we have tea. I was in a room that was mostly – one of my first comedy rooms was all Frasier writers. And so they just did not know what to do with me saying jokes with the word vagina in it. They were like, “What? Who is this youth?”

I came up through sketch and improv comedy in Austin and like I guess the modern day equivalent of how like you get discovered on Twitter, because I’m from the older net and I wrote online before there were blogs. And so, yeah, and then I did the Aspen Comedy Festival. And that led to a Comedy Central show where, yes, my job was to make terrible jokes that kill your soul. And then I got a sitcom after that. Started writing on those.

It’s the same thing. It’s like how much can you hang? How funny can you be? And how – you know, much like animation, you have to stay passionate but you can’t be precious about anything.

**Craig:** Right. This is an interesting kind of – I like the fact that we’re doing this little dive back in history because Zoanne you were in a very interesting position. It is an easy thing I think to ask anybody how has the television business and landscape changed, and even I can sort of talk about it and I’m very new to TV. But I’m kind of curious how has it changed from inside of one show? Because how long have you been on Grey’s Anatomy?

**John:** You were telling us before how many episodes there are. You just wrote –

**Zoanne:** I just wrote the episode that tied ER which was 331.

**Craig:** 331.

**Zoanne:** And we just did the table read for 332.

**Pamela:** Wow.

**Craig:** Grey’s Anatomy starts airing what year?

**Zoanne:** 2004.

**Craig:** 2004.

**John:** We had just started our podcast.

**Craig:** Correct, yeah.

**Zoanne:** Gave them all my best years.

**Craig:** I mean, just for the youngsters in the room. 2004 was three years before the iPhone existed. And so you have seen this landscape change massively and I’m just kind of curious as it has changed around you, inside the room have you felt it? And has the show had to kind of do interesting things as the world around it has changed?

**Zoanne:** You know, our show and Shondaland in general I think was a little ahead of the curve on that whole thing. So, when I first got the list of writers I was very disappointed being a single woman because there were like eight women in the writers’ rooms and like three dudes, all of which were married. I mean, that is like kind of unheard of, especially in comedy rooms I think.

**Cherry:** Come work at Family Guy. Lots of dudes.

**Zoanne:** Are you the only?

**Cherry:** For many years. There were many, many seasons where I was the only. And if I wasn’t, I was one out of two women. So, yeah.

**Zoanne:** Yeah. Completely opposite. So, we had our share of bad jokes and that sort of thing, but they were all acceptable to all of us because we were mostly of the same gender and we were aware of that. So, the only thing I feel like that’s changed is the different writers that I have just seen come and go throughout the years.

**Craig:** That’s kind of interesting in and of itself, right?

**Zoanne:** Yes, but there’s a subset of writers that tend to do well on our show and they’re always lovely people. So, I’ve always had a great time with all new sets through the years.

**John:** So, Cherry and Zoanne you’ve both been in situations where new writers have come on and as Megan and I were driving over here tonight we were talking about like someone that starts on Grey’s Anatomy on this season is there any expectation that they’ve gone back and watched all of the previous shows? You’re nodding. That terrifies me. How about for Family Guy?

**Cherry:** People who work on the show don’t watch the show. It’s fine. You know what I mean.

**Craig:** Slightly different vibe at Family Guy.

**Cherry:** You can miss some stuff.

**Craig:** They say like watch an episode of Family Guy.

**Cherry:** You know who Stewie is? You’re hired. Ok.

**Craig:** He’s the bald one.

**Cherry:** There’s too many. There’s just too many.

**Zoanne:** Our show is so serialized that literally we’ve told people to step out of the room until they have watched every episode.

**Pamela:** Oh my gosh.

**Zoanne:** I mean, but when you get hired it starts. And then–

**Craig:** But 331—

**Pamela:** They come back with like a husband and kids.

**Zoanne:** Well a lot of them have already seen a number of them when they get there because they come in as fans. So, that’s always helpful because you can see it from a fan’s point of view which is really nice.

**Craig:** So not only are you a veteran writer of the show but you are also a repository of an enormous amount of institutional wisdom. I mean, after that many shows it’s like a history of a country at that point.

**Zoanne:** Well, there are two writers with photographic memories, so they’re really helpful.

**Craig:** That works.

**Zoanne:** And then there’s a lot in the room of this phrase, “Uh, we’ve done that before.”

**Craig:** Family Guy, you never experience that, right?

**Cherry:** Oh my, it’s we’ve done that before or The Simpsons did it. Yeah.

**Craig:** Simpsons did it.

**Cherry:** So it’s like, ugh, and then it’s like how long ago was it? Maybe we can do it again and it’s fine?

**Zoanne:** How can we make it different? Like at the beginning it was like how can we do this story that ER had but in the Grey’s Anatomy way. And now it’s like how can we do this Grey’s Anatomy story in a different way?

**Craig:** Right.

**Pamela:** On Ralph most of the storyboard artists and Rich and Jim, they’re all from The Simpsons, and they had gotten in a run on something they thought would be funny. And I was like I’m so sorry to do this you guys but The Simpsons already did it. It was you and you. And they were like, “Oh yeah, we did it.”

**Craig:** You did it!

**Pamela:** Like literally you.

**Craig:** You did it. And they forgot.

**Zoanne:** That’s always surprising when it was yours. It’s like, oh, who’s episode was – oh, mine. No wonder I liked it so much.

**Pamela:** Yeah, that’s right.

**Craig:** There’s something kind of informative. I mean, and it comes out of what you were saying earlier and what Chris and Phil were saying. The volume of notes and work that is required. The 800 files. The 330 shows. I don’t know how many Family Guy is up to now. What are they up to, 14 million?

**Cherry:** Over 300. I don’t know. Something like that. Yeah.

**Craig:** Some insane number. That what you inevitably lose is any sense of preciousness. One of the hardest things about writing something for the first time is your experience, your general world of writing is one thing. And therefore that one thing is incredibly important and meaningful and therefore every scene is incredibly important and meaningful. Every word. These guys don’t have time for that. And in a weird way that’s kind of what you need to do even when you’re starting and you only have the one thing. You have to kind of think like there are 300 things behind this so let me not obsess over this one thing.

**Pamela:** Yeah. Because really you should already be writing your second thing.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**Zoanne:** And Grey’s Anatomy fans will know what this alludes to, but we always say the carousel never stops turning.

**Craig:** So that was an episode where somebody lives. A baby perhaps lived? And gets to ride on the merry-go-round.

**Zoanne:** I love the huge groan.

**John:** So while we’re talking about things you have to keep repeating themselves again and again, I thought we might try a special little game thing that we rolled out. The impetus behind this was a listener question. He wrote in to ask – well, Craig and I say romantic comedies. I don’t know if you guys notice. But there were no romantic comedies, and Tess Morris came on the show and talked and we solved it. And Netflix made a bunch and now there are romantic comedies. And there’s even like big screen romantic comedies because of us.

**Craig:** We changed everything. Again.

**John:** Again. And so after having done that a listener wrote in to say like hey could you save the big screen Christmas comedy. And we said–

**Craig:** Sure. We can do anything.

**John:** We can do anything. And so we wanted to talk about the big screen Christmas comedy and sort of play a little game about this. So give me one second and pull up my notes.

**Craig:** Guys, it’s a John August game. It’s happening. While John is doing that I just want to mention we have a special guest star in the audience. Stuart. Stuart is here. Stuart. There’s no Stuart.

**Pamela:** Oh, that’s your Christmas movie.

**Craig:** There’s no such thing as Stuart.

**Pamela:** If we clap our hands maybe Stuart will appear.

**Craig:** I’m ready to play this game.

**John:** So, Craig, you’ll read the parts that say Craig.

**Craig:** Well, all right.

**John:** All right. Here’s the thinking. So back in 1843 Charles Dickens published his acclaimed novella A Christmas Carol, which tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly merchant visited by three ghosts who bully him into buying a goose for his employee’s family.

**Craig:** I’m sorry. What? That is not – they don’t bully him. Bully?

**John:** I think they’re bullying him. Aren’t they?

**Craig:** Whoa, that is a weird take on that. But OK, he’s a bad dude and they’re – OK, anyway. I mean, god sent those ghosts.

**John:** All right.

**Craig:** This slender book has inculcated the idea that corporations rather than the state are responsible for lifting children out of poverty and starvation. What’s worse, they’ve made it so that every Christmas story must end with the hero learning a valuable yet incredibly obvious moral lesson. But what is that lesson?

**John:** So tonight we are going to try to figure it out with a new game we’re calling Santa Claus is Bumming Me Down. Do we have anyone in the audience who would like to play this game? So you’re going to have to guess which is the right moral lesson for these movies. Show of hands, somebody? Ideally fantastic would be somebody who did not grow up in the United States.

**Craig:** There we go.

**John:** That’s you. Right there. Did not grow up in the United States. What is your name sir?

**Mario:** My name is Mario.

**John:** Mario!

**Craig:** Mario.

**John:** Fantastic.

**Craig:** Italian Mario?

**Mario:** Originally I think, but potentially – I grew up in Mexico till I was like 14.

**John:** That’s good.

**Craig:** It counts.

**John:** That’s going to be good.

**Craig:** That’s not this country.

**John:** So let’s–

**Craig:** You’re lucky.

**John:** Yes. So let’s talk through and we’re going to start our odyssey of Christmas movies with Four Christmases. Four Christmases tells – it’s from 2008 – tells the story–

**Craig:** Do you know this one?

**Mario:** Do I know the movie? I think I’ve watched it.

**Craig:** I think I’ve watched it is good enough.

**John:** Yeah. Close enough. In this story from 2008 a young couple struggles to visit all four of their divorced parents on Christmas day, learning about each other in ways that test their relationship. Is the moral…?

**Pamela:** A, Reese Witherspoon’s character may seem controlling and uptight, but really that girl is just whiskey in a teacup.

**John:** Or is it B?

**Zoanne:** B, if you’re dating a Vince Vaughn character be warned that his family will be drawn even more broadly to make him seem sympathetic.

**Craig:** Damn.

**John:** Or is it C?

**Cherry:** C, family is important, even if it seems a little dysfunctional.

**John:** Mario, what is it? Is it A, B, or C?

**Mario:** I’m going to go ahead and say C.

**John:** It is in fact C. He’s seen the movie. That’s obvious right here. Next up, Craig, do you want to take it?

**Craig:** Yeah, have you seen Jingle All the Way from 1996?

**Mario:** I don’t believe so.

**Craig:** Good. Here we go.

**Mario:** Oh wait a second.

**Craig:** Do you know who that is?

**Mario:** We probably got this in Mexico in like 1998. That’s what happened.

**Craig:** That doesn’t help this. OK, we’ll try it anyway. A workaholic father promises to get his son the hottest toy of the season even though it’s Christmas Eve and the toy is practically sold out. As he hunts down the toy with Christmas morning approaching his ethical code is tested. Is the moral A…

**Pamela:** As Kahlil Gibran writes – never had to say that out loud – “You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give up yourself that you truly give.”

**Craig:** Or B…

**Zoanne:** As Charles Darwin writes “A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.”

**Craig:** Or is it C?

**Cherry:** As Sinbad says in his straight to video movie Shazaam, “This movie never existed. You’re suffering from the Mandela Effect.”

**John:** Mario, what is it? What is the answer?

**Mario:** I love C, but I’m going to go with A.

**John:** It is right. That’s the moral of that story. So far you’re two for two Mario. We need to stump you here. With Deck the Halls.

**Craig:** Did you say you’re from Mexico or New Mexico? Just be honest.

**Mario:** Mexico. Mexico City.

**Craig:** I just want to make sure.

**Mario:** Yeah, no, I was born in Mexico City.

**John:** Deck the Halls from 2006. A suburban dad and Christmas enthusiast tangles with his new neighbor who has plans to eliminate his house with enough holiday lights to make it visible from space. A war of one-upmanship threatens to drag Christmas through the slush. Is the moral, A?

**Pamela:** White suburban dads are a menace to the earth and must be stopped.

**Craig:** Do we need to go further?

**Mario:** I think that was it, yeah.

**Pamela:** It’s the answer to all these movies.

**Craig:** Well, just for fun let’s hear the other ones.

**Zoanne:** The Christmas spirit should illuminate your heart, not your neighbor’s bedroom.

**John:** Or is it C?

**Cherry:** Don’t cross Danny DeVito. Seriously. He’s short but he’s scary.

**Mario:** It’s clearly C. No, B.

**John:** B. That is in fact correct.

**Craig:** Although I’ve got an argument for A. I got to be honest with you. As one, I have an argument for A.

**Zoanne:** A is strong.

**Craig:** A is strong.

**Pamela:** We would have accepted.

**Craig:** Let me ask you this. Have you seen Fred Claus?

**Mario:** I have not.

**Craig:** OK, here we go.

**Mario:** Neither had I seen the previous one.

**Craig:** Ok, good. Good. Fred Claus. Here we go.

**Pamela:** I don’t know this one at all.

**Craig:** When Santa’s criminal brother lands in real trouble – this was a real movie – I’ve written worse movies than this. When Santa’s criminal brother lands in real trouble Santa bails him out and brings him to the North Pole to work off the debt by making toys. The headaches mount for Saint Nick, who not only must deal with his trouble-making brother, but also an efficiency expert – shit – who has come to evaluate Santa’s operation, threatening the future of Christmas. Really?

**John:** I didn’t see this movie. But Megan wrote up the synopsis. I trust her. You can Wikipedia.

**Craig:** Is that right?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** All right. Is the moral…Mario is the moral A?

**Pamela:** Differences can make for a stronger team and provide opportunities for personal development.

**Craig:** Or is it B?

**Zoanne:** Vince Vaughn has essentially one character, a snarky ne’er-do-well who is barely redeemed in the third act by making the absolute minimum contribution to the social contract.

**Craig:** Or is it C?

**Cherry:** Like the journalists of Slate and New York Magazine, the elves of the North Pole need proper union representation.

**Craig:** It’s a tough one.

**John:** You’re doing good. Mario, which is it?

**Mario:** I’m going to go with B.

**Craig:** B, Vince Vaughn has essentially one character?

**Mario:** No. A. I’m going to go with A.

**John:** It’s A.

**Craig:** It’s A.

**John:** It’s A. All right.

**Craig:** This is not a hard game.

**John:** No, it’s not a hard game.

**Mario:** I know.

**John:** The conceit is that there’s two funny answers and one correct answer.

**Craig:** It’s not a strong – it’s not a challenge.

**Pamela:** But doesn’t it seem like the note the movie got? Do you think this movie could be about…?

**Mario:** I noticed there’s a lot of Vince Vaughn in this movie.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** There are.

**John:** I would say that never having seen Fred Claus, you know that Vince Vaughn hooks up with the efficiency expert. That is guaranteed based on the description.

**Pamela:** Yeah. Place is a real mess when they’re done.

**John:** Now Mario have you seen Jack Frost from 1998?

**Mario:** I have not.

**John:** Oh, all right. We’re good here.

**Craig:** Who has?

**Zoanne:** It looks frightening.

**John:** Show of hands.

**Craig:** No way!

**John:** Wow. So many people have seen this movie.

**Craig:** You guys have way too much time on your hands. Let’s go.

**John:** So, Jack Frost. A year after his tragic death an inattentive father is magically resurrected as a snowman. Given this second chance the father and son struggle to make up for lost time. Is the moral – sorry Pam.

**Pamela:** Oh my goodness. Does he hug him? There’s so many scenes in my head. I’m sorry. Is the moral do you want to build a snowman? You won’t after seeing Michael Keaton’s turn as a Colorado jazz man who wants to prove he’s literally the world’s coolest dad.

**John:** Or is it B?

**Zoanne:** “Snow dad is better than no dad” is actual dialogue from the movie.

**John:** That is confirmed.

**Pamela:** Oh my god.

**John:** Or, bring us home Cherry.

**Cherry:** Don’t take the people you love for granted because you might die and not be resurrected as an ice gollum.

**John:** Mario, help us out.

**Mario:** I’m going to go with C.

**John:** It is. It is C.

**Craig:** Yeah it’s C.

**John:** All right. Craig, we are up to Surviving Christmas.

**Craig:** Have you seen that one?

**John:** From 2004.

**Craig:** They’re all blending together now, aren’t they?

**Pamela:** Yes.

**Craig:** It’s all a big mush.

**Mario:** I don’t think so.

**Craig:** All right. Here we go. Focus Mario because this is hard. It’s as hard as all the other ones. A wealthy executive has no close relationships and becomes nostalgic for his childhood home as Christmas approaches. When he visits the house and finds another family living there he offers the residence a large sum of money to pretend they are his parents. Soon, he tests the couple’s patience and things get increasingly complicated with the arrival of their real daughter. Is the moral, A?

**Pamela:** The spirit of Christmas is not about the hollow traditions but about the people you share them with. For instance, Tony Soprano.

**Craig:** Or is it B?

**Zoanne:** If Vince Vaughn is unavailable for your Christmas comedy, Oscar-winner Ben Affleck can and will fill that role.

**Craig:** Or is it C?

**Cherry:** Never invite a yuppie into your home.

**Craig:** This one is hard. I actually don’t know this one. What do you think?

**Mario:** Sounds like it’s C, but.

**Craig:** Never invite a yuppie into your home?

**Mario:** We’re going to go with A.

**Craig:** A.

**John:** The spirit of Christmas.

**Craig:** That’s obviously what it was. It wasn’t hard. I was kidding.

**John:** These are gimme questions.

**Craig:** Should we do one more?

**John:** We’ll do one last one.

**Craig:** Let’s do one more.

**John:** So the last one will be The Santa Claus 3. Did you see the three-quel? Did you see Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause?

**Mario:** I was not aware there was a first one.

**Craig:** Oh, this could work.

**John:** This is the 2006 one. So this is the synopsis. Christmas cheer turns into holiday chaos when Santa invites his in-laws for a visit and must simultaneously contend with Jack Frost’s scheme to trick Santa into renouncing his title and creating an alternate timeline devoid of Christmas cheer.

**Craig:** That is a great idea for a movie. No. No. No.

**John:** Is the moral?

**Pamela:** A, when making a sequel to a sequel start with the tag line and work backwards.

**John:** Or is it B?

**Zoanne:** Be true to yourself.

**John:** Or is it C?

**Cherry:** There is no moral. There is no objective reality. We are simply living in a snow globe on the shelf of some alien civilization, or maybe some kind of Matrix-like simulation.

**John:** Mario, what is the moral of Santa Claus 3?

**Mario:** I have to go with B.

**Craig:** I like that Mario would never even go with the wrong answer just for fun.

**John:** Absolutely. Mario, the moral is to be true to yourself. And there you’ve done it. Mario, you have completely aced the game. Thank you very much.

**Craig:** You aced it. Thank you Mario.

**John:** As our winner you get a Writer Emergency Pack. We’ll give it to your afterwards. Come up afterwards.

**Craig:** Outstanding work.

**John:** Outstanding work. That was good. So, I would say if we’re going to bring back the Christmas movie we’ve got a lot of work because I don’t want to necessarily see any of those movies remade.

**Craig:** It’s sort of the problem is that Christmas is about essentially one thing, you know, which is it is better to give than to receive and family stuff.

**Pamela:** And learning the true meaning of blah-blah-blah.

**Craig:** Right. Learning the true meaning of blah-blah-blah.

**Cherry:** And Santa Claus.

**Craig:** And Santa Claus doing something involved – because even when they’re like, oh, let’s do a funny thing where Santa Claus is this, or the elves are that, and it still always comes down to the same. But I guess people like that. It’s Christmas.

**John:** It’s Christmas.

**Craig:** You know there’s a song.

**Pamela:** Oh!

**Craig:** I sometimes do that.

**Pamela:** Oh, I wanted a piano to just slide right in. Animation.

**Craig:** A new song in 1994, wait, let me get this right, was on the Billboard Top 100 list and it has been on the Billboard Top 100 list every year since 1994. What is that song?

**John:** All I Want for Christmas is You.

**Craig:** All I Want for Christmas is You. Mariah Carey. Yeah. Christmas, man. It works.

**John:** That’s the point of this.

**Craig:** Well, you know, Jewish people are always just like ooh.

**John:** Ooh, Christmas.

**Craig:** That shit works on people.

**Pamela:** They’re fun to come up with though. Like at dinner last week my girlfriend and I were like here’s one.

**Craig:** What, oh like a Christmas movie?

**Pamela:** Yeah. We came up with a Christmas movie. It’s really good.

**Craig:** OK, what’s yours?

**John:** You don’t have to pitch the whole thing. Just at least give–

**Craig:** Just give us the basics.

**Pamela:** I don’t have the whole thing. It’s about a girl who is lonely at Christmas so she goes to rescue a cat and she falls in love with the guy at the rescue shelter and like the cat is trying to teach her the true meaning of Christmas because Santa is trapped inside the cat. And it’s called…

**Craig:** What’s it called?

**Pamela:** Mr. Claws.

**John:** That’s the way.

**Craig:** I like it.

**Pamela:** She wanted to call it The Nine Lives of Christmas though.

**John:** No, no.

**Craig:** Well, she sucks and you’re awesome.

**John:** It’s probably a Kevin Spacey movie.

**Craig:** Can you do an animated movie about two snowflakes that are friends except they’re exactly alike and in the snowflake world that’s terrible and so they have to split up. And then they make their way back to each other but then one of them melts or something? Isn’t there like a–?

**Zoanne:** Oh.

**Craig:** Yeah, right.

**Pamela:** Isn’t that Frozen?

**Craig:** That was about ladies.

**Pamela:** Yes, I know, but.

**Craig:** These are snowflakes.

**Zoanne:** Anything in the snow world I think is now Frozen.

**Craig:** You’re a sicko.

**Pamela:** I’m sorry.

**John:** It has come time in our podcast where we invite you guys to ask questions of us. And so we have two microphones. We have people who will hold these microphones. If you have a question you would like to ask me and Craig or our wonderful panelists you may raise your hand and a person will find you and bring you the microphone. So I see some people over here. How about you over here. We’ll start with you.

**Audience Member:** Hi. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about specifically writing for animated movies, about not forgetting what you wrote. Especially when it comes to emotional connectivity with your character from the beginning.

**John:** Pamela what was the emotional connection for you as you started approaching this Ralph movie?

**Pamela:** Well, you know, this is a sequel so you know it’s about Ralph and Vanellope and their friendship and so there’s a feeling that comes with that that you’re aiming toward. So, sometimes it will get far away from that. It will start to get dark or it becomes someone’s movie more than the other movie. And it just doesn’t feel true to them. I think it’s a little harder on something like Moana where there isn’t – you’re like well what will she be? But you definitely know that feeling when she’s working, when she is that navigator with that spirit.

So I think you’re really more emotionally feeling through that movie than anything else. We know that we can make it funny later. And we know that the action is going to be there. So you really are more I think writing towards the emotion most of the time.

**John:** In the Ralph movie, not a huge spoiler here, but actually in kind of both movies but especially the second one I noticed that Ralph is protagonist and villain. It’s his needs are what is creating the story but also destroying the world that he’s built. Was that part of it from the very start? Was there a villain in the story for a while but it got tossed out?

**Pamela:** We did have a villain in some versions. She was a virus. She was built to eradicate viruses. She was a security guard based off of Phil’s mom. And the problem was, whenever we had another villain, Ralph and Vanellope would sort of arc too early. You know, they’d get along and then they’d save the day and it just felt like the movie kind of ended as soon as they were in love again.

**Craig:** There’s no conflict.

**Pamela:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And you need conflict.

**Pamela:** Well, and you mostly want – you’re just rooting for them to fix what’s wrong. You know they can get through anything together once they’re together.

**Craig:** Yeah. It seems like honestly to answer your question that animated movies are pure story and therefore the thing that people would obsess over the most is the emotional integrity of the piece. And then on top of that you layer in the fun.

**Pamela:** Right. Because when the demographic is every single person in the whole wide world you have to make them feel. Not everybody is going to get every joke and not everybody wants every action sequence, but they want to feel the whole time no matter how old or young they are. And so that’s what you’re talking toward, the inner child.

**Audience Member:** Thank you so much.

**John:** Thank you. Another question. I see a hand back over there.

**Audience Member:** Question for all of you. The most useful and least useful note you’ve gotten from executives.

**John:** The single most useful note, and I think I’ve told this on the podcast before, was I was in a meeting on Big Fish with producers Dan Jinx and Bruce Cohen and we had been through a couple of drafts and we were at sort of this place like is this movie getting made or not getting made. And Dan Jinx said to me, he’s like, “You have Will saying this great story about his father at the funeral. What would it be like if he said that story to his father before he died?” And it was such a simple thing but so completely transformative that I stopped him and was like, OK, no, no, we’re done. I’m going to do this. It’s going to be really, really good. That was a fantastic transformative note.

The bad notes I’ve gotten have been the ones where they’re trying to transform a thing I’ve written into something that is just completely not what it wants to be. And either moving out of a place of fear or just like they just had a completely different vision and there’s just no way that this is going to overlap. Craig?

**Craig:** I mean, the best note I ever got I think was just it’s like an overall thing that I think about all the time from Lindsay Doran. Because I used to think about character as the most important thing. Like the character, the character, the character, the character. And she said, “Don’t think about character. Think about the central relationship.” And therefore there’s no more character, there’s characters, and there’s the magic in that stuff that happens between them. That actually is what we think of. That is where the fun and all the dirt and the grit and the relief and joy is. So, I always think about relationship now instead of character.

And the worst note in general is anytime someone says, “This character is not likeable. Can you make them more likeable?” And my instinct is I’m going to make them less likeable now. Like me.

**Pamela:** I once got this note, “Be mindful of the pacing. The scene is too long and too short.” And I wrote it down because that note was given to my face. And then I printed it out and I put it on the wall and I was like – and then a few years later I was telling that story to someone and they went, “That’s actually pretty profound.” And I looked at like the scene I was writing at that point and I was like, “It is too long and too short.” And it went from being the dumbest note to like it’s a really good note. A scene really can–

**Craig:** It can.

**Pamela:** Just do both.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Zoanne?

**Zoanne:** On Grey’s Anatomy we live in this fantasy lovely world where we don’t get notes anymore from executives. We get notes internally. But it’s a lovely world. You should join us there. But I am working on pilots now and one I’m working on now I would say is probably a good and bad note all tied in to one. I mean, I was trying to introduce three characters at the same time in a pilot where you have to like set up everything. And they were like, “Let’s focus on one character,” after I literally like pitched for months these three characters. And so I’m still working through that. But I feel that it was probably a good note, but it feels like a really bad note.

**John:** Cherry, any good note and bad notes you got?

**Cherry:** A good note, this was from my manager, not a network executive. Can’t think of a good one from a – but early on she said that, you know, it’s like comedy writers always joke, joke, joke, joke all the time. And she had a note like towards the end of one of my scripts that you can sort of let the scene be emotional and not have to suddenly turn around at the end and like funny, funny line.

Bad note, I literally think somebody at Family Guy once gave a note to have like Stewie talk to Lois or something, but the whole point was not that Seth doesn’t have – you know what mean? I was just like, wait, what’s happening? It was just very like–

**Craig:** Your brain shut down it was so bad.

**Cherry:** I think it was a weird mistake or just like what? Because usually especially later on in a show’s run you’re like, please, don’t even try. Thanks.

**Craig:** That’s fun.

**John:** All right. We’ve got time for one more question. Who has that question?

**Audience Member:** My question is for the ladies. I know a few of you mentioned – sorry Craig.

**Craig:** No worries.

**Audience Member:** A few of you mentioned the experience of being the only woman in the room and that’s something that I’m really interested in. And as someone kind of coming up now what advice do you have for women, people of color, people with disabilities, anyone who feels like they’re the only one in the room?

**Pamela:** Well, I have always made a point to point it out if I find I’m the only woman in the room, just with a simple gentleman. Like the amount of times I’ll start an email that’s all notes I’ll be like, “Gentleman,” and I’m not even trying to be a dick. I’m just saying like hi, this should not be the case, this is a sitcom about women. I’m the only one. And I’m a staff writer. And so let’s get some ladies.

You know, now I find if there’s another woman and she’s near the room I’m like do you want to – how can you get in the room? Do you want to be in the room? So there’s that. It’s like find your peers. Talk. If we all stay isolated as the only woman in the room we don’t learn that we’re all going through the same thing in all these different rooms. And you just have to get – I think there was a long time of women being grateful to have the one seat. So it’s like we have to be past being grateful and start finding more chairs.

**Zoanne:** Well, again, I live in a fantasy world in which women rule everything.

**Pamela:** It’s like Wonder Woman, right, where you guys are.

**Zoanne:** There was one man/woman partnership at some point, but they have all been women, and usually it’s predominately women. I think right now it’s like 60/40 in the room. But I will say that this is a wonderful time for women and people of color to be breaking in just because people are – it’s very much on their minds. It’s very much a thing. And if you have that good work to back you up people are trying to include us. They’re trying to be inclusive.

There was just a layout in the Hollywood Reporter about the black women writers and there were – it’s just a beautiful spread and it was a lovely time and I find of forgot to turn in the questions so I don’t have any quotes, but I’m in the picture. And it was wonderful to see all of these working black women writers who were lifting each other up and supporting each other. We have like a Facebook page that any time there’s an assistant thing that comes up, or a writer’s thing that comes up we post on that page so that we can have more of us knowing who is out there.

So, it’s really about networking and trying to find those people and lifting each other up.

**John:** Cherry, any thoughts?

**Cherry:** OK, here’s, no.

**Zoanne:** Tell me the secret.

**Cherry:** I mean, I think it would be much rarer for anyone today to go through the same kind of room that I went through when I started just being such a vast difference because they’re trying harder to make rooms more diverse in all ways. So I actually think you have a good shot at not having to deal with it.

But I think today you could stand your ground. Like I would say for sure in rooms 10, 12 years ago, you know, somebody said something you’d just be like, “Ha, ha, ha, it’s cool.” Because you just want to show up, you want to do good work, you want to keep your job. And then one day hopefully you will be in charge and you can like women and all that.

But, today I think actually if you decided to point something out it would – people are more willing to listen. It would go over better today than it would a decade or so ago.

**Pamela:** Yeah. It’s also not necessarily your job to have to point it out, but it’s someone’s job. So you can go find the person who is supposed to be fixing this shit.

**Cherry:** And don’t feel like you have to do it, but if you – I think today if you wanted to and you wanted to be that person it would go over better than for instance my advice to someone like from ten years ago might be like, “You know what, just like let it slide. That’s just how rooms are.” And I think today rooms are not necessarily like that anymore.

**Craig:** I wonder if there used to be an attitude when anybody would complain about any kind of just feeling excluded, or being treated differently, or an other, that someone would basically address the complaint by saying, “No, actually you don’t have that problem. There’s not a problem.” And I think now if you were to say that people would immediately start to sweat. But then once they got past the personal terror phase they would say, “OK, I acknowledge there’s a problem. If you’re saying there’s a problem there’s a problem.” It has to be a different–

**John:** Well, the cost of doing nothing is a lot higher now.

**Craig:** Yes. Yes.

**John:** So that’s a positive change that’s happened.

We have a tiny bit of follow up here at the end of our show. This is John’s WGA Corner. But actually Craig is a former WGA and Zoanne Clack has just left the WGA board after several terms there. Zoanne Clack has moved on to be – she’s now on the WGA Health Fund.

**Zoanne:** Pension and Health Trustee.

**John:** Oh, she’s a trustee of pension and health.

**Craig:** Oh good.

**John:** We have an actual doctor on that. So thank you very much for that. The things I want to remind you about, if you are a WGA member, east or west, you got an email from the guild asking you to take a quick survey about where you’re represented, meaning your agent, your manager, your lawyer. Craig, Aline and I just sent out an email about that.

**Craig:** Apparently.

**John:** Yeah. You signed your name on it.

**Craig:** Yep.

**John:** So this is your second reminder to fill out the damn survey. And Craig, talk to us about our next live show.

**Craig:** Our next live show will be January 27th at the WGA Theater. That’s the one in Beverly Hills. Where we will be screening William Goldman’s The Princess Bride. You know we do our little deep dive every like three years. We’re going deep dive on The Princess Bride.

**John:** So please join us for that.

**Craig:** You’re going to want to be there for that. That is open to everyone. That is not WGA only. That is open to everybody. More details as they become available.

**John:** Great. And that is our show for this evening. We have some people we need to thank. Thank you to our amazing guests.

**Craig:** Thank you guys.

**John:** This is a benefit for the Writers Guild Foundation. We need to thank Enid Portuguez and Dustin Fleischmann for putting tonight together. Here at the LA Film School I especially want to thank Jared and Tayshaun for getting our audio fixed and figuring it out. Bless you guys for that.

Our show as always is produced by Megan McDonnell. And edited by Matthew Chilelli, who are both here tonight. Thank you guys very, very much. And thank you guys all very much for coming out here. Thank you. Have a good night.

**Craig:** Thanks guys.

Links:

* Thank you, [Writers Guild Foundation](https://www.wgfoundation.org/) for making this event happen!
* And thank you to our incredible guests: [Pamela Ribon](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0962596/), [Phil Lord](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0520488/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1) and [Chris Miller](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0588087/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1), [Zoanne Clack](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1333505/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1) and [Cherry Chevapravatdumrong](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2213739/?ref_=nv_sr_1)!
* Featured movies in the Santa Claus Is Bumming Me Down game are [Four Christmases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Christmases), [Jingle All The Way](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingle_All_the_Way), [Deck the Halls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deck_the_Halls_(2006_film)), [Fred Claus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Claus), [Jack Frost](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Frost_(1998_film)), [Surviving Christmas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surviving_Christmas) and [The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Santa_Clause_3:_The_Escape_Clause).
* T-shirts are available [here](https://cottonbureau.com/people/john-august-1)! We’ve got new designs, including [Colored Revisions](https://cottonbureau.com/products/colored-revisions), [Karateka](https://cottonbureau.com/products/karateka), and [Highland2](https://cottonbureau.com/products/highland2).
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [Pamela Ribon](https://twitter.com/pamelaribon) on Twitter
* [Phil Lord](https://twitter.com/philiplord) on Twitter
* [Chris Miller](https://twitter.com/chrizmillr) on Twitter
* [Zoanne Clack](https://twitter.com/zoanneclack) on Twitter
* [Cherry Chevapravatdumrong](https://twitter.com/cherrycheva) on Twitter
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The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2018/writing-animated-movies).

**John August:** Hello and welcome. My name is John August and this is Episode 356 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

This week Craig and I have switched places. He is in Europe while I am back in Los Angeles. Luckily I am not alone. Across from me I have Linda Woolverton, a screenwriter whose credits include The Lion King, Homeward Bound, Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent, and of course 1991’s Beauty and the Beast. She also wrote the book for the stage musical Beauty and the Beast for which she received a Tony nomination. Linda Woolverton, welcome to Scriptnotes.

**Linda Woolverton:** Well thank you.

**John:** I could have gone on for about another five minutes with your credits because they are so vast. And like these are just some of your feature credits, but you also had TV credits from before then and after then. You’ve done a lot of stuff.

**Linda:** Well, I’ve been writing professionally since over 20 years.

**John:** Yeah. Well, I’ve been writing for more than 20 years, but I don’t have anywhere near the credits that you do. It’s just remarkable.

**Linda:** Well, thank you. You know, it’s hard work.

**John:** I sort of want to start with that last credit because Beauty and the Beast, the 1991 movie, I looked it up on Box Office Mojo and I looked up the adjusted gross, all-time adjusted gross income for it. It ranks number 133 of all films adjusted gross income. And that is higher than Iron Man. It’s higher than Toy Story. It’s higher than five of the eight Harry Potters. And then, of course, that also spawned the live action movie from 2017 which made $1.2 billion. So I guess this may be an insensitive question, but Linda Woolverton you must have gotten so much money off of Beauty and the Beast. Can you just give a sense of how much money you’re really talking?

**Linda:** That is a really appropriate question given where we are right now in terms of the business and feature animation and feature animated films being made into live action films.

**John:** Of course.

**Linda:** So, the important thing to note here, we’re going to talk about financial gain, is that feature animation is not covered by the Writers Guild of America. Which means that there are no residuals. There’s only up front. And I was paid I’m going to guess $35,000 to write the script. Took me four years, as animation does. There was nothing else. Oh, there was a bonus when the movie was made that Jeffery Katzenberg gave us checks. Howard Ashman was there. Alan Menken was there. And the directors, Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. He handed us a check for $100,000 each. I was blown away. I had never seen that in a check before.

So, I was like, “No!”

**John:** So many zeroes.

**Linda:** Really. Howard Ashman tore it up and threw it him.

**John:** Because that was a pittance. Even back then.

**Linda:** For him.

**John:** Yeah. At that time to be paid $100,000 as a bonus. So I want to make sure everyone’s clear. You were paid $35,000 up front for these four years of work on Beauty and the Beast. And your backend was zero. Well, $100,000, it was that $100,000 check.

**Linda:** Gift.

**John:** Gift. That was what you’ve received from writing one of the biggest movies of all time.

**Linda:** Yes, now, luckily I wrote the theatrical version of Beauty and the Beast, which is a whole different ballgame.

**John:** Having done a musical adaptation, it’s a very different thing.

**Linda:** Completely different thing.

**John:** You control copyright in these stage play versions of what you’ve done. And that is probably a much more lucrative thing. I can guess you’ve made more than $35,000 off of that.

**Linda:** A little. Because the show ran 13 years on Broadway. Traveled around the world twice. And it just opened in China. So that’s very lucrative. Just a little note here, when we did the deal for the theatrical version, Disney – it was really interesting – they had ownership of the movie. Right? Because they owned the movie. So I had to proportion out my royalty as per all the new stuff I wrote. So my royalty, which if it had been a full royalty it would have been a wonderful thing. But it’s only partial royalty.

**John:** I am in the same situation with Big Fish. So I wrote the stage play version of Big Fish, having written the screenplay of Big Fish, but Columbia is considered the author of that. And so they could have brought somebody else in to have written the stage version of Big Fish and I would have had no participation in it whatsoever.

**Linda:** Right. Exactly.

**John:** It’s not a great situation. But, in your case and in my case we got to stay on those projects and that’s fantastic. But I think what’s so interesting is not only did you not get residuals on the animated version of Beauty and the Beast that you wrote, but while your name is listed in the credits for the live action Beauty and the Beast you don’t have a piece of that either because that is – animation is not covered by separated rights. Had the original movie been live action and covered by the WGA, you would have gotten a piece of the live action remake as well.

**Linda:** Probably. Because if there had been an arbitration, because I did not work on the live action. If there had been an arbitration I’m 99% sure I would have gotten at least shared credit, which means I would have had a participation. So, it’s unfair with a capital U. But it is what it is.

**John:** So let’s get into that. Why animation is not covered. Because Craig and I have talked about this before, back in Episode 317 a listener wrote in with a question basically saying “How could animation not be covered by the Writers Guild of America?” And the long answer is long, but the short answer is that back in the days when animation was new the WGA didn’t think it was necessary to cover that. And so the Animation Guild began covering the writing of animated features. The Animation Guild is part of a larger guild, IATSE. They represent animation writing at the major studios. And the WGA can’t just go in and take it back because it’s another union thing. So, US labor law is preventing us from trying to go in and get that.

So it is a real frustration. And I think also a real cautionary tale for people writing in other genres that don’t seem like important things at the moment, but will become very important things.

**Linda:** Right.

**John:** I look to videogame writing. And I look to people doing things that don’t yet feel like they are on the level of film and TV writing but could be one day.

**Linda:** Yes. Yes. It is definitely a cautionary tale. And I didn’t know. Someone from the guild Board of Directors asked me, you know, well you signed the paper. True. I signed the paper. But I didn’t even know that there was a WGA at the time. I was this Saturday morning writer. I wasn’t in a guild at that point. And I went over and wrote a feature film.

So, you don’t know what you don’t know.

**John:** So let’s go back into some of that history because you were a Saturday morning writer, but what were your first writing credits? What got you started? And what made the leap into being able to write a feature animation?

**Linda:** It all began when I wrote two young adult novels. I had just left my job at CBS. I was on a desk and I wanted to be a writer. So I wrote a spec Muppet Babies.

**John:** I remember Muppet Babies. It was a great show.

**Linda:** I wrote a spec. And I didn’t sell the spec but I got work off of it. I started writing Berenstain Bears for Saturday morning. And then my career just never stopped. I was writing Saturday morning for like four years.

**John:** That was here in Los Angeles?

**Linda:** Yes. Here. Really fun. Really fun. Great group of people. You know, it’s just a little group.

**John:** So, in that era of TV animation were you writing as a room or were you just going and pitching a show and being sent to write it? What was the process of writing a half-hour like a Berenstain Bears, or they aren’t even half-hours. You’re writing little smaller segments.

**Linda:** They’re like 15 minutes.

**John:** So Muppet Babies. Was that written as a room or was that written – each individual writer just went off and wrote it himself.

**Linda:** I have never written in a room. Ever. Don’t know how to do it. No, you know, Berenstain Bears, it was very funny. It was my first job, so they gave me an outline. And they said here’s the outline. We want you to write the script. If it’s no good we won’t pay you. And there you go.

**John:** That’s a non-WGA sort of situation.

**Linda:** Exactly.

**John:** Here, work on this for spec, and then if we like it we’ll choose to pay you.

**Linda:** Yes, we’ll choose to pay you.

**John:** But if not it’s a useless thing that you’ve spent weeks writing.

**Linda:** Yes, exactly. So, that worked out. And the process was here’s an idea. Pitch the idea. Just like anything else. Here’s the idea, pitch the idea, pitch a take, and then they hire you and you go write it and then you get paid. So, that went on for – I had a really fun time. And then I just couldn’t think of anything more for silly creatures to do. And I had just seen a Disney animated feature that I didn’t think was very good.

**John:** Are you going to say the name? This pre-Little Mermaid. Little Mermaid is the moment where–

**Linda:** Little Mermaid is the revolution, whatever it is, of animation.

**John:** It was a ground-breaker. And that’s a whole special episode of Scriptnotes. We had a whole episode just talking about The Little Mermaid as a breakout moment.

**Linda:** Oh really?

**John:** Yeah. So, it was a pre-Little Mermaid feature you saw which wasn’t especially good, and that inspired you to say, “I can do better than that.”

**Linda:** Yes. So I went to my agent. I did have an agent. And I said I would like to go try to work at Disney. And she said, “No. They don’t read animation Saturday morning writers, because it’s not real writing in an interview.”

**John:** That whole thing about it’s not real writing is an ongoing thing in animation, isn’t it?

**Linda:** Yeah. It’s an ongoing thing. Yeah. What real writing is? Real writing? So I said, but I have these books, you know, I am a real writer. Here’s a hard cover book published by Houghton Mifflin with my name on it. Does that prove anything? So I drove my book over to the lot and it there was no dwarf building. This is way–

**John:** Pre-dwarf era.

**Linda:** Pre-dwarf. And there was no guard. So I just walked in and put it on the desk and said maybe somebody here wants to read this. And I left.

**John:** Wow. I can’t believe that worked. But it worked apparently.

**Linda:** It worked. My phone rang on Sunday and it was Charlie Fink had picked it up. He was probably hanging out with the receptionist. Picked it up. Read it over the weekend and called me and said you have to come work for us.

**John:** Well that’s great. So they say come work for us. Was it a specific project already at that point, or was it just a general come in and pitch things? What was the idea?

**Linda:** I did have an idea. Several ideas and pitched them. I came up with an idea that they didn’t do. But they offered me a live action Winnie the Pooh.

**John:** Sure.

**Linda:** I mean an animated Winnie the Pooh feature.

**John:** Feature.

**Linda:** I wrote that. They didn’t make it. But it opened the door to Beauty and the Beast.

**John:** I think a lot of writers we talk with, they get hired to do something that doesn’t actually go, but they can demonstrate that they are a good writer who can work with people and that’s what gets them the next job. And one of those things becomes the assignment that actually happens.

**Linda:** Right. Exactly. So that’s OK. You know, you’re getting paid. You’re honing your skills. You’re proving what you can do. And you’re bringing what you bring, which is really important I think.

**John:** So at the time that you’re writing the animated Winnie the Pooh, or eventually you’re brought in to write Beauty and the Beast, are they bringing you in as a special like they’re assigning you this project and you’re writing this, or are you working on a weekly basis? What was the nature of your relationship with Disney at that time?

**Linda:** It wasn’t weekly. It was a contract.

**John:** So just like writing any other feature.

**Linda:** Any other feature. Yeah. Only I didn’t know how animation worked.

**John:** Let’s talk about how animation works, because this is so different. I’ve done three animated movies. And so much of the process of writing an animated film, like the script looks almost exactly the same, but the actual process of making it is so different from live action, not just in terms of the development of it, but then with the live action feature you are writing it, and then you’re shooting it, and then you’re editing it. And those stages are pretty distinct. In animation you’re sort of doing all those processes at the same time. You’re writing a script and you’re hopefully going off and you’re able to get at least one chance to write a script when it’s just a script. But from that point forward it goes through this process of being broken down into shots and storyboards and then into animatics. And it becomes this living thing.

And your script, while still important, isn’t as central as this animated thing that’s in this sort of raw form in front of them. And you have the ability to keep changing story things quite a lot later in the process than you do in live action. It’s a very different situation. It’s not like the editing room. It’s like the clay is still moldable a lot longer.

**Linda:** It’s moldable for years and years.

**John:** Yes.

**Linda:** And what’s interesting about the process, you know, it’s sort of a given that the project will take on a different form from the written word to a different medium, which is usual. Then it will go from that to the next step. But it’s sort of a given that at some point in time the whole thing will get thrown out and you start again.

**John:** Yeah.

**Linda:** If you’re lucky. So, that’s just how that process works. And there’s a lot of, you know, I would say it’s difficult to be a writer in feature animation because they really – you sort of like aren’t on the same par as people who are artists. It’s an artists’ medium. It is not a word medium, even though it’s a story medium.

**John:** It is very much a story medium. But that story is being translated through artists’ hands who are doing some of the functions where in live action the actor would be doing it. The artists are the actors who are making this thing come to life.

**Linda:** Exactly.

**John:** And stuff changes through that process.

**Linda:** It does. It absolutely does. But, again, story is the most significant thing. And the story as a writer as the story-maker, you know, I still believe that we are as significant in feature animation as in a live action feature film.

**John:** Absolutely. And especially the movies that have done well have had their writers as an integral part of the process the entire time through because those are the people who just the keepers of story. The people who can see past that beautiful artistic moment that you created to this is the journey the character is on and this is how we have to get through this.

**Linda:** Because it’s so fragmented. And one person is in charge of this sequence and one person is in charge of this sequence. Which was so confusing to me when I first did Beauty. It’s like well how do you have a singular voice? How do you keep that singular voice? Because every sequence had a different tone as per the person who was boarding it.

So, you know, I fought. I had to fight. I had to fight for Belle. Because Belle was losing her way. She was going backwards, back to being the victim princess, and I had to kick and scream to make her not.

**John:** Also she’s in many situations the only human character on the frame. And everyone else is big and broad and special. And so that’s a thing that happens, especially in animation, but also in live action where the hero becomes the least interesting character on the screen because everybody else can be wild and crazy and be driven by their Id. And the hero has to be this sort of moral compass moving board. And I can totally imagine how Belle could be reduced to just princess of the castle.

**Linda:** Yes. So we couldn’t let that happen.

**John:** No. And you didn’t. Am I correct that Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture?

**Linda:** Yes.

**John:** And that was a crucial ceiling to break through, because to be able to think of these movies as not just like a good movie for children, but an actual good movie for adults and for everybody else.

**Linda:** That was a huge breakthrough. It was like on a par with all the other live action movies that year. Silence of the Lambs won.

**John:** Yeah. But Silence of the Lambs is a great movie.

**Linda:** It is.

**John:** Nothing to take away from that. But I think just to be on the same list as Silence of the Lambs–

**Linda:** Yes.

**John:** Or these other sort of movies for adults is a crucial thing. And I don’t know if we’ve gotten to a place where Pixar movies could be Pixar movies if we hadn’t gotten an Academy Award nomination for Beauty and the Beast. I do think it was a ground change of sort of how seriously we’re going to take animated films.

**Linda:** Well that’s about the money, isn’t it? Isn’t it about the box office?

**John:** Well, yes. So, I think the box office is a crucial thing to be talking about though because we’re recording this as the Incredibles 2 has just opened and sort of set all sorts of records. Like everybody wants to be that movie. It’s a well-liked movie that is making a tremendous amount of money, so everyone wants to be able to do those things. And very few people can do those things. Disney can do it. Pixar can do it. They’re the same company now. Every once and a while Fox Animation or Warners will have something else that breaks through. But it’s really tough. And it takes a tremendous amount of investment and years of commitment to make an animated movie. Much more so than to make a live action movie.

**Linda:** Yes.

**John:** Anybody could just write a check for $100 million and make a big live action movie. You can’t just write a big check and make an animated movie. Essentially the research and development on making it is just so much greater.

**Linda:** It is. It’s much greater. Yeah. And I’m writing one right now for a company called Skydance.

**John:** So Skydance’s logo used to be often in front of like Paramount Features. They’re a big pool of money that invests in movies and they’re starting animation now.

**Linda:** Yes. They’re starting a live animated feature division, but I guess they produce television now as well. And big budget live action features under the Paramount umbrella I guess. So, there’s three in the pipeline at this moment in time. My one was first, but we got put back because it’s a hard subject. Again, it was one of those like let’s throw it all out and start again. So, you just sort of like I had forgotten all this.

**John:** Well, you choose to forget that. It’s like having a newborn.

**Linda:** Oh, yeah right.

**John:** You forget the darkness of those first months. And then it’s like, “Oh no, but they were so cute. You look at the photos, like oh it was delightful.” And then you’re like, “Oh that’s right, this is what it’s like.”

**Linda:** That’s right. This is what it’s like. I forgot.

**John:** Here’s one of the differences is that making a normal live action movie you’ll go through those places where everything falls apart, but it will fall apart in sort of script land and then you’ll start shooting and then you’ll have troubles during shooting and there will be challenges and there will be a terrible first cut and you’ll get through it. But at no point will you be sort of like a ways into it and then just like, “OK, we don’t know what this is. We’re going to change who the lead character is of the story.” And that happens almost every time in animation. It’s just so regular to know that you’re going to have the complete upset.

**Linda:** Yeah.

**John:** And it’s still surprising. I will say the stop motion movies I’ve made with Tim Burton have been somewhat of an alternative to that because you can’t go back and rejigger things very easily. Because once you’ve shot a frame it’s just sort of shot. And so the most that could happen to us with is we could reboard and reschedule some things for sequences we’re not quite sure of yet, so like if there’s things where like we’re not quite sure how it’s going to work out we’ll put those towards the end of the schedule and so we can sort of see what we’ve got and then write towards those sequences which were not set on, but we can’t do that thing which they can do on Frozen and other movies and just like let’s change that entire sequence and let’s make Elsa a very different thing.

We can’t do that in stop motion the way that you can in traditional or sort of CG animation.

**Linda:** I had the best time of my life working with Tim Burton.

**John:** So tell me about your experience. What was good about that for you?

**Linda:** Working with Tim?

**John:** Yeah. I have my memories of Tim, but I’m curious what it was like from your side.

**Linda:** From my side it was, first of all I was intimidated by him. But he agreed to direct Alice in Wonderland. And I went to London to meet with him and I was intimidated. You know, it’s Tim Burton. But when we started talking, you know, he doesn’t make complete sentences because he finishes it in his head.

**John:** Absolutely true.

**Linda:** So he’ll say something and he won’t finish it, and then he’ll say, “But you know what I mean?” And I realized first of all I did know what he meant and I knew who he was.

**John:** Yeah.

**Linda:** Because he came from here. And it came from animation. So, I got it. And then I was able to kind of connect. And I found him to be so open and many directors I’ve found they want to put their stamp on it immediately. They want to just stomp on what was there and sort of show it around and make it theirs. And I didn’t find that with Tim at all. I found suggestions and he’d say, “Well try this,” and they were great suggestions. And he was very, very supportive. And, you know, we had to throw a bunch of stuff out for budget-wise, and I would say how about we throw this out. “No, no, no, we’ve got to keep that.” So I found him to be fantastic.

**John:** Yeah. What I love about Tim is that he treats a writer like a department head. You are the department head in charge of the script and the story. And he treats you with the respect that he would treat a costume designer, you know, a Colleen Atwood, or a great DP, or a production designer, and like lets them run with this thing. And will give them guidance, but like he sort of trusts that you know what you’re doing. And so often directors don’t trust that you know what you’re doing. And that makes a huge difference.

**Linda:** Huge difference.

**John:** Do you know the backstory? I had the competing Alice in Wonderland project. You know that there was a whole thing here right?

**Linda:** I don’t really know the whole thing.

**John:** Well, let’s go through it. So here’s what happened is at the same time that Disney approached Tim about your Alice in Wonderland, because you had written it first for Disney, right?

**Linda:** Yes.

**John:** I was approached to do an Alice in Wonderland project for Sam Mendes. And Dick Zanuck was the producer of both movies.

**Linda:** Right.

**John:** Which is just an impossible situation for Dick to be in, but being the uber-producer he was and the wonderful gentleman he was he was making it work as best he could. But it became this crazy situation where like I was trying to write this movie for Sam and Sam was going off and doing another movie. Tim was going to do his movie. Mine was for Warners. Yours was for Disney. And it became a place where it’s just like “Well this is just silly. This is just not going to happen.” And so ours went away and yours went into production. And so the choice was made for Dick. He didn’t have to sort of choose between which of his directors he was going to work for. But it was nuts that there were going to be two live action Alice in Wonderland movies in the same space.

**Linda:** I find that when that happens, when you hear that there’s two competing versions of a project, one of them ultimately goes away.

**John:** But sometimes they don’t and it’s always crazy. So Deep Impact and Armageddon is an example of where both things happened. There is the other Jungle Book movie which is coming out. That’s crazy. Mowgli.

**Linda:** That’s right.

**John:** So it does sometimes happen that both movies exist, but you don’t want to be the second movie most times.

**Linda:** No. No you don’t.

**John:** And we were going to be the second movie. So I wrote a movie called Monster Apocalypse for Tim. And we were getting close. And Pacific Rim went into production and we looked – someone read both scripts and is like that’s too close. We’re going to be the second giant robot movie and we don’t want to be the second giant robot movie.

**Linda:** Right. So whoever gets there first.

**John:** Yep. First to cross the starting line is the thing. It’s tough. But, anyway, I’m glad your movie exists and you got it made and you got to make a sequel and that’s fun. I visited Tim on the set while he was doing your movie and it was in Burbank and they had – actually, no, it was down in Culver City. And they had this giant green screen stage and I’d never been in a space that was that much green. It was really painful to be in that set. And Tim had these special weird tinted glasses so he wouldn’t get headaches from it. But it was just so strange being in a space where I just had no idea what anything was.

**Linda:** What was up, what was down.

**John:** Yeah. I mean, the costumes were beautiful, but there was no set.

**Linda:** He kept having to leave and just get his perspective and reality in the blue sky and all that during that whole process. So, yeah.

**John:** But let’s talk about – that movie was a live action movie and there was a tremendous amount of CG and animation. But there’s other kinds of movies like Justin Marks and his Jungle Book that Jon Favreau directed which are essentially animated movies with like one live action element. And now you wrote the original Lion King, but now they’re going to do The Lion King as an all CG thing with real actors voicing those parts. We’re at a place right now where it’s really difficult to say whether that movie is an animated movie or a live action movie.

My understanding is its being shot as a live action movie technically under WGA, but we’re going to run into situations where is that animation or is that live action and we have to fight to keep them.

**Linda:** Who is going to make that determination though? Studios aren’t because it doesn’t behoove them to because they will have to give up something. So, who’s going to decide? What percentage of real people are in it? So, if it’s all CG, does that make it animation?

**John:** That’s the question. I mean, the original Lego Movie is a WGA movie because there’s a live action element to it. The second movie does not have that and it is not a WGA movie. And the difference for what a writer gets off of writing One versus Two is tremendous. And so my hunch is that there will be some movie that will come up, it will be a big enough fight to say this should actually count as a live action movie that WGA and SAG and DGA will all step in to say like this really needs to count as a live action movie. And whether that becomes a lawsuit or there’s some way that you intervene to say like “You have to be acknowledging this as that kind of movie.”

Zemeckis with his stop motion things, those have been WGA movies to date. And so hopefully that’s a good precedent.

**Linda:** That would be wonderful. So that’s it? So the last Jungle Book was WGA.

**John:** Yes.

**Linda:** The Jungle Book. Is there a definitive–?

**John:** No, there’s not. It’ll be figured out at some point. Well, most people go by if there’s one live action person in it, if there’s a real identifiable human being in there that is filmed then it’s not an animated movie. But there’s going to be weird test cases where you’re just not quite sure what it is.

And what happens if the original Lego Movie, if they’d taken out the live action element would it still be a WGA movie? If something starts as a WGA project can it go into animation and come back out? These are difficult situations and you and I both know writers who are in those situations.

**Linda:** Yes.

**John:** Folks who are being hired on to write projects where it’s not quite clear whether it’s going to be animated or live action or a combination of it. And they’re getting hired generally by the worst possible terms.

**Linda:** You know when you’re being hired to write a story, to me it’s like the furthest thing on my mind in the beginning anyway, when I was young and naïve, is how much I’m going to get paid, or how, or what it’s going to land as. I’m concerned about telling the tale. And I’m thrilled to be able to tell the tale. And much less for a big company like Disney that it’s going to be seen around the world. That’s huge.

**John:** Yes.

**Linda:** So the last thing on my mind is like, “Well, do I get residuals for this?” Didn’t cross my mind. So, I think it’s really important for writers who are making a leap from live action to animation to be very conscious, especially the new marketplaces.

**John:** Absolutely. So we were talking about, so Skydance is a new marketplace. But there’s Netflix. There’s Apple. There’s Amazon. There’s new people who are making movies. And if those people make movies under a WGA contract that is so much better for writers like you and me who are trying to make a good movie and actually get paid for it.

**Linda:** Right.

**John:** Than if they were to do it under an Animation Guild contract or no contract like Pixar is done under.

**Linda:** Right. So, when I went to Skydance, you know, I understood intimately the unfairness of it. So, I said, “Well, if you want me to do this then you have to give me a contract that’s as if it’s a WGA deal.” And I actually foolishly didn’t sort of press them to join the WGA, because I actually didn’t know that I could do that, or had that sort of clout in any way. But they agreed. So my contract is as if a WGA contract.

**John:** Which is better. And so I think what we’re going to be looking for in the next ten years for feature animation writers is places where we can get an actual WGA deal, best case scenario. That’s fantastic. That’s great. But in places where we can’t, how do we get coverage there on individual projects, for individual writers, that give them some of the benefits of a WGA contract. That gives them some protection, some backend, hopefully some credit protection.

I looked at some of your credits and you’re listed as additional material by, which is not a WGA credit.

**Linda:** No.

**John:** It’s madness that you could have worked on a movie and clearly would have gotten credit under WGA, but wouldn’t get credit because the studio decides.

**Linda:** The studio decides. Yes. So even in the Skydance project, it won’t be WGA arbitrated. If there are other writers, they’ll decide.

**John:** So ideally you want to get some coverage for that. The other situation which many writers find themselves in is that maybe you’re going back and forth, you’re writing some animation, you’re writing some live action, and getting your pension and health covered between those two things can be really difficult. And so a writer you and I both know said like “Well thank goodness I’m on my wife’s health insurance because otherwise I wouldn’t have health insurance because I don’t work enough in WGA projects. I don’t work enough in Animation Guild projects to get it covered.” And that’s foolish.

**Linda:** And that’s a really scary thing. Like I don’t get WGA coverage on this project and I’ve been on it for two years already. So, thank god I have points, the points system is still working for me.

**John:** So, we’ll explain to listeners that when you work on WGA projects you accumulate points which sort of count against times where you’re not working. So, because Linda and I could be on a project for two years without sort of new income coming in there to sort of pay your things, you have points that sort of carry you over those stretches where you’re not on a new project.

**Linda:** It’s like credits.

**John:** It’s like credits essentially.

**Linda:** Yeah. Then you use them up.

**John:** You use them up. Yeah. And so then you’re looking for the next WGA job because otherwise you’re going to be out of health coverage.

**Linda:** Right. Exactly.

**John:** Scary things. Well, let’s talk about other changes that are out there because just this last week it was announced that Jennifer Lee is taking over as Chief Creative Officer at Walt Disney Animation. Jennifer Lee was on here to talk about Frozen. She is fantastic. She’s a real writer, so it’s great that she’s taking that over.

Pete Docter is taking over that slot at Pixar. Again, a real screenwriter. I would hope that’s somewhat good news for writers overall. They’re both places that really value story. So, maybe there could be some progress made at those two places, at least in terms of we can’t get WGA deals, but at least we can get some better consideration of what it’s like to be a screenwriter working on these projects. A little bit more parity with what we’re getting for writing live action and what we’re getting for animation. I would hope.

**Linda:** Right. I would hope, too. I don’t know if he’s going to change the nature of Pixar, because they’re a non-union joint. So, who knows?

**John:** Who knows?

**Linda:** I hope though that can change a little. And I don’t know Jennifer Lee.

**John:** She’s great.

**Linda:** Well, that’s fantastic. It would not be anything I’d want to take on because, you know, being a screenwriter is one thing and being in charge of all the everything of animation is a whole different ballgame. So, I wish her luck.

**John:** I mean, yeah, it’s more like producing. Or, it’s running a studio really.

**Linda:** Yeah, it’s running a studio.

**John:** It’s all the management aspects of that, but also the creative choices. And so I have a hunch she’ll do a fantastic job of it, but it’s tough.

Like you, she’s also – she went through and adapted her own thing for the Broadway stage, so she’s got that experience too. So, we’ll see.

Do you have any regrets not having gone back and tried to sort of run the show? You haven’t directed any features. You haven’t produced other things. If you were to do it again would you have made different choices in terms of the kinds of things you – the kinds of other roles you would want to take on?

**Linda:** I produced. I guess I have a credit producing a few. You know, people ask me a lot if I want to direct. And I have a skillset. I have big imagination. I have a skillset. I’m a storyteller. I’m a world-builder. And just because I can do that doesn’t necessarily mean I can do something else.

**John:** Yeah.

**Linda:** And maybe I don’t have a director’s eye. Maybe I don’t know where to put the camera. And that’s OK. You know, I create the world, I put the people in it, and when I write I write really specifically, very specifically on the thing. I overwrite, which annoys directors. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m going to be a good director. So I have never taken that on. Because I think I know myself. I also know, I mean, here’s what the really horrible truth is: I get bored.

**John:** Yeah.

**Linda:** Right?

**John:** Totally. And to be stuck on something for three years on the same thing is so tough. At least as a writer you can dip in and dip out. A director, you’re there every day.

**Linda:** Yeah. I can dip in. I like to dip out. [laughs] And do something else, you know. So, if I were to go back and do it again I’d probably just write novels like you have.

**John:** Yeah, writing novels is – that sense of control you have writing a novel is great. So, after your YA novels you haven’t gone back to do prose?

**Linda:** I never have.

**John:** It’s so many words. Man, just so many words.

**Linda:** It’s a lot of words.

**John:** It’s a lot of words.

**Linda:** You have to fill up the white on the page. Right?

**John:** Yeah, you can’t just sort of sketch it in there.

**Linda:** No.

**John:** That is a tough thing. But I’ve enjoyed it. But it’s much more work than I sort of anticipated going into it.

**Linda:** Really. Yeah. I might still try my hand at it.

**John:** You should. It’s fun. I had two listener questions that I thought would be great for you. So I’m going to start with Ben in LA who writes, “I was just wondering if there is such a thing as a bad character want. A character should always want something, but is there an example of something a character shouldn’t want?”

And I’ll sort of put parenthesis around this to say that we talk about want a lot on the show in terms of that driving force behind that character, and really I think animated musicals are a great example of character wants because so often that second song in a Disney movie is the I Want song. It’s basically them singing their wants.

As you’re working on one of these movies how early in the process are you articulating what that character wants? Is it from the very first pitch you’re describing that want?

**Linda:** The I Want issue holds true in musicals, but again I think that if you lean on one thing too heavily it becomes formulaic. And I live in fear of that happening. You know, so my protagonist wants something. And to make them proactive as opposed to reactive they have to proceed through the world with a desire. And however that’s not how everybody lives. So every single protagonist isn’t going to be like the person with I Want who has like I’m never going to stop until I get this thing. That’s not every character in the world.

You know, some characters – isn’t it interesting to have like a normal person who has something remarkable happen to them and then their want becomes to get it back to the way it was.

**John:** Absolutely. Return to normalcy. Yeah.

**Linda:** Return to normalcy, or to find happiness in another way. So, I fear the I Want and it’s also kind of like so getable and kind of easy. Land this I Want on this person and then like whatever obstacle comes at them. They still have this I Want. And then to me it seems like then all the characters become the same. It’s like this relentless pursuit of their desire. And the world is a big place filled with remarkable people who have different experiences and not all of them are the I Want. That’s my rant about the I Want.

**John:** I like that rant. I would say that sometimes I notice that if things aren’t working it’s that the character wants something that I don’t really want for the character. Or the character wants something that I feel like I don’t think the story is set up to give them that want. You know, an example of like it’s a medieval dragon story but the character really wants to sing, or really wants a moment in the spotlight. And it’s like, yeah, but it’s not really a good match for that. It doesn’t seem like you created your universe and your character to fit quite right together. What you’re saying in terms of like there’s characters who like they’re so want driven that it’s the only thing you can see, I get that. And it can be–

**Linda:** It makes it really one-dimensional, or two-dimensional, but it just becomes that. So, then story becomes really simplistic in my view. You just have this drive to get what you want no matter what and then the interesting sub characters come in and out. And then the villain stands in your way. And then you get rid of them to get what you want.

**John:** Yep. You know, some of the fascinating movies, it’s not that the protagonist is opaque, but they’re self-defeating in interesting ways. Like, you may be able to see sort of what they’re going after, but they’re making choices that interfere with their ability to get that. And that draws you in closer because you recognize that weakness in yourself.

**Linda:** Right.

**John:** I think also part of the reason why we’re so attracted to longer form great dramatic television is because it doesn’t have that pattern of like this is the one-time story that you’re going to see this character go on this one-time journey that’s going to epically change everything. It just doesn’t happen that way.

**Linda:** No.

**John:** So they have a bundle of conflicting wants and you see them juggling those different things. And movies tend to be focused for better and for worse on that one road. You started here, you got there, and that is the path of this movie.

**Linda:** Yes.

**John:** Second question comes from Tommy in Toronto. He writes, “At what point during the process do you break down story days? Is this something you tackle in outlining? I’m nearing the completion of a new draft and it’s occurred to me that certain story days seem extremely packed in terms of events while other story days are quite light.”

So, what Tommy is describing is like let’s say you’re watching a movie that takes place, it seems to take place over the course of a week. And if you really look at sort of like day by day by day you could figure out like this would be the Wednesday of the week. I personally don’t find myself thinking about that too much. Do you find yourself thinking about like what day of story this is in your projects?

**Linda:** No. I don’t. I can only think of that where it happened if the time clock was part of the plot, then you would think, OK, well like in 24, whatever it was, this is hour 23. We better get it together. I’m just really old school. I think in the three act structure. And I just do. Beginning, middle, and end. You know, Billy Wilder’s quote, “Get your guy up a three, throw rocks at your guy, get your guy out of the tree.” I think it’s pretty good.

I’ve also never read a screenwriting book, so I don’t know anything.

**John:** Then you’re Craig’s hero, because Craig hates screenwriting books. He rants about them endlessly.

**Linda:** Screenwriting books?

**John:** Yeah. Just like, again, it’s that frustration of formula in the sense that everything has to fit this one model for how things work.

**Linda:** I guess because you’re always looking, you know, if you want to start something you’re always looking for like, because there is no path. There’s no path to being a screenwriter. There’s nothing like if you do this, and you do this, then you’re going to be a screenwriter.

So you grab onto what you can that’s going to guide you through that process. And sometimes screenwriting books are a help, I think, to a lot of people. I steer clear because I don’t want to be on a formula. I don’t want to put – I don’t want to shove my stories or my ideas into this formulaic how to do it.

**John:** Yeah. Getting back to Tommy’s question, I feel like sometimes it is good, like after you finish a draft to just take a step back and look at like realistically could all these things happen over the course of this amount of time. And does it feel like this is happening over the course of a week or a year? And sort of where you’d fall.

A thing that happened in the first Arlo Finch as I got notes back from I guess it was the proofreader or the first production editor was pointing out like the week logic, the week’s logic didn’t really make sense. Like if this was September and this was January, we skipped over Christmas, and so we should at least acknowledge that we skipped over Christmas. There were some interesting things where she was pointing out like, “OK, time does still happen in a normal fashion.” So, trying to figure out sort of when roughly some things could have happened was really good.

And the same thing will happen in movies. At a certain point, you know, they’ll break down and go into boards, but I think even before that process you need to look at did characters wake up twice in a row. I mean, there can be situations where like, OK, that’s actually not possible. Where it went day to night to day again but it’s still sort of the same day. So you got to be looking at that.

**Linda:** I do look at that. It’s like are we at night now? And, again, the time of day, the weather, all plays into it.

**John:** Totally.

**Linda:** Plays into whatever is going on anyway. So, I do step back at a certain point. I don’t realize I do, but I do I guess.

**John:** At a certain point in every project I have kind of a color scheme in mind for the movie or for the book in the case of Arlo Finch, and I sort of see myself moving from like, OK, I’m in here, and then into this new color, and then into this new color. And it’s a helpful way of me thinking about what’s changed along the way. I’m in the green section now. And so if I’m in this section it literally looks more green to me. It’s just the basis of how it is. But some of those logic things aren’t going to be such a thing because I’ve moved forward to a place where I’m in this section now and I know I’m in new days. I know I’m in new places. And even if I’m not like mentally changing the clothes on characters I know that they’ve woken up and gone to sleep again a few times. Things have changed in their life.

**Linda:** I know that actors do that. They’ll color code their script as per what emotions or whatever it is that they’re going through at the time. But that’s interesting. You’re in the green.

**John:** I’m in the green section now. Some interview I was listening to years ago was talking about My So-Called Life. And Winnie Holzman was talking about one of the crucial things she and ultimately the directors had decided is that they wanted her, the lead character’s wardrobe, to repeat. Basically like for her not to have new outfits every time, but to see that she would wear the same things again, because realistically characters do wear the same things again. And they never do on TV, but in this case they wanted to make sure that she was actually a middle class girl who has a limited number of outfits, which I thought was a genius choice.

**Linda:** That was good. Yes it was.

**John:** I’m thinking back to some of your movies and in so many of them characters don’t get a lot of wardrobe changes because they are theoretically just on one quest the whole time through. Like Belle–

**Linda:** Belle gets her yellow dress.

**John:** She gets her yellow dress. That’s crucial and iconic.

**Linda:** She wears her blue dress and then she gets her yellow dress. And then she gets her yellow dress. Or she goes home, and then she comes back and she has her yellow dress.

**John:** I guess with few costume changes each costume change is really meaningful and it really does, you know, it lands bigger.

**Linda:** Yeah. I think you’re right actually. And the yellow dress became such a big thing it needs its own agent. The yellow dress. That’s interesting. Alice shrunk, so she had to get a little mini wardrobe. What else have I written? In Lion King nobody wears clothes.

**John:** Naked people running around the whole time. Rafiki has some like beady kind of stuff, but that’s about it.

**Linda:** And let’s see, Homeward Bound, same thing.

**John:** Not a big wardrobe movie.

**Linda:** Yeah, yeah.

**John:** You know that Linda Woolverton, lovely. Won’t dress her characters at all.

**Linda:** Yeah, sorry, no clothes. You don’t get the clothes.

**John:** All nudists. We do a little thing on Scriptnotes called One Cool Things. Did I warn you about this? Do you have a recommendation?

**Linda:** You did. I was trying to think of – well, I guess, it is a recommendation?

**John:** A recommendation or something you like. If people want to check it out.

**Linda:** OK. Go to Shanghai.

**John:** OK, Shanghai.

**Linda:** Go to Shanghai, China. Go to Disneyland. Disney Shanghai, or Shanghai Disney, and go to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

**John:** So why should they check out at that ride?

**Linda:** It’s so awesome.

**John:** Tell me.

**Linda:** If you know Disneyland and the Disney ride, they’ve completely re-envisioned it for like the new version of Pirates, the Johnny Depp version of Pirates, but the whole thing is three domes. And you’re in your little boat. And you go under the sea–

**John:** Of course.

**Linda:** In this little boat. And you’re still on the floaty boat. It’s real water. But these domes are sort of like above you and they’re moving the boat around in circles. And there’s like creatures and there’s a big fight between battleships, you know, the ships. It’s really so imaginative and so impressive. So get on that plane and go to Shanghai.

**John:** My One Cool Thing was almost a Disney Imagineering thing also. So, I’ll put a little bonus. I read a great article, I think it was called Adventure House, and so they were going to do sort of a sequel to the Haunted Mansion. So they have the Haunted Mansion ride or attraction at Disneyland. They were going to build a second one called Adventure House. And so they have all the Imagineering plans for it and what was going to be there and there was like a sleeping bear in a bed and it sounded kind of great. And so I sort of wish they had built that.

But my actual One Cool Thing is an article I read this last week about Climate Central. And I’ll put a link to the NBC News article and also the real website. But what this organization does is a non-profit and they provide information about climate change to local weather stations. So if you’re watching the local news they always have the weather man who is mostly talking about the seven-day forecast. What this group does is they provide charts and graphics and little video packages for local news stations to talk about how climate change is affecting local places.

And so like how pollen counts are going up. And the effect of climate change on pollen counts or on hops brewing and how it will change beer taste because of climate change. It was just a very smart way of getting local news stations to talk about climate change.

**Linda:** Wow.

**John:** In ways they might not.

**Linda:** Interesting.

**John:** This was a really bleak news week and so this was like one of the few little moments of like, “Wow, there’s some really smart people doing some very clever placement of good information.” So, Climate Central, you’re a One Cool Thing.

That is our show. So, as always, our show is produced by Megan McDonnell. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is also by Matthew. 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 shorter questions on Twitter I’m @johnaugust and Craig is @clmazin. Linda, are you on Twitter?

**Linda:** No.

**John:** Good. Safe. Stay away.

**Linda:** I know. Those knee-jerk reactions, not good. Yeah, no.

**John:** You can find us on Apple 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. We’ll also have transcripts up within the week.

You can find all the back episodes at Scriptnotes.net. It is $2 a month. And you can get all the first 355 episodes of the show.

Linda, thank you so much for being here. It was so great to chat with you.

**Linda:** I know. So much fun. Thank you so much for having me. Bye.

Links:

* Thanks for joining us, [Linda Woolverton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Woolverton)!
* Adjusted for inflation, Beauty and the Beast ranks [#133 in domestic grosses](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm), above Toy Story, Iron Man, and other huge films.
* In [Episode 317: First Day on the Job](http://johnaugust.com/2017/scriptnotes-ep-317-first-day-on-the-job-transcript), we talked about the history of why animation writers are not represented by the WGA.
* In [Episode 92: The Little Mermaid](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-ep-92-the-little-mermaid-transcript), we did a deep dive on the animated film that changed the game.
* [Shanghai Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean](https://www.shanghaidisneyresort.com/en/attractions/pirates-of-caribbean/) ride is amazing. This [POV video of the ride](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vIchXwRw7U) is definitely a spoiler.
* [Climate Central](http://www.climatecentral.org) is an independent organization of leading scientists and journalists researching and reporting the facts about our changing climate and its impact on the public. It helps [localize reports](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/global-warming-now-brought-you-your-local-tv-weathercaster-n884831) of the effects of climate change.
* [The Scriptnotes Listeners’ Guide!](http://johnaugust.com/guide)
* [The USB drives!](https://store.johnaugust.com/collections/frontpage/products/scriptnotes-300-episode-usb-flash-drive)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Find past episodes](http://scriptnotes.net/)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by 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_356.mp3).

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2017/pitching-television-or-being-a-passionate-widget).

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

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

**John:** And this is Episode 328 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Today on the program we’ll be looking at how you pitch a television show. We’ll also wade back into the turbulent waters of sexual harassment to discuss what the responsibilities are of men, women, and labor unions to remedy it.

**Craig:** That’s not at all a minefield.

**John:** Not a bit of one. But a reminder, we have a live show coming up. That’s next week. Actually this week as you’re hearing this. This Thursday, December 7, in Hollywood we will be welcoming guests Julie Plec, Justin Marks, and Michael Green to talk about wonderful things, including television programs, so you should come. If there’s still tickets you should come.

**Craig:** That’s quite a group there. I mean, got some big movies in there and some big time writers and producers. And as always it benefits the Writers Guild Foundation, which is our favorite charity.

**John:** It is a fantastic charity. If you would like tickets go to wgfoundation.org/events and you will see us there and you can grab yourself a ticket. So, we still haven’t planned everything that’s happening, but I will have some surprises for you, Craig. Things you do not even see coming.

**Craig:** The good news is I don’t ever see anything coming. Everything is an endless surprise to me. I’m like a child.

**John:** Yeah. It’s lovely. You know, persistence of memory, you know, you cover something over with a napkin, oh my god it’s a surprise to you.

**Craig:** Right. You can play peekaboo with me and it still works.

**John:** That’s fantastic. It’s good stuff.

**Craig:** It is good stuff. Great stuff. That’s how I stay young.

**John:** It is. So, let’s get into sexual harassment because this is essentially follow up because in a previous episode we were talking about sexual harassment. Craig, you had some suggestions and guidelines you wanted to propose. And you got some feedback from that, so why don’t you take it from here.

**Craig:** Sure. I got a really interesting email from somebody that I know and I wanted to share it. And I spoke with her and so we’re going to leave her name out of it. We just agreed on the guidelines of things. And I’m editing down the email a little bit, but I think I’m hitting the important points. So I’m just going to go ahead and read this from an anonymous friend.

“Craig, you know that you’re one of my favorite humans.” You know, I wish I could I just stop there, John, honestly, because that’s amazing, right?

**John:** Like on a little thank you card, just write that. Just send it.

**Craig:** Just send it. Because I really appreciate that. Well, it goes on.

“Craig, you know that you’re one of my favorite humans but I feel compelled to disagree with some of what you guys said on the latest episode. I’ve been incredibly lucky to have had a minimal amount of weird and inappropriate interactions in my work life. I happened to have worked for mostly gay men and women. I’m cautious by nature and tend to remove myself when I feel uncomfortable. I’ve worked mostly in progressive areas in well-respected organizations and none of that has stopped me from having awful moments and interactions I would like to forget.

“You said that no one will be offended if you say you’re uncomfortable and I simply cannot stress how untrue that is. Offended may look different on different people. It may come off as anger, acting dismissive, annoyed, patronizing, etc. But it will be there every single time.

“I have been told I have offended people for far less than standing up for myself after a moment of questionable behavior by a colleague. The result of offended, no matter what it looks like, is the same. You will be someone that no one wants to work with.

“You also said to remove yourself when something feels rapey. Two things. I can’t ever remember worrying that a colleague would rape me. It’s almost never that cut and dry. If someone has a rapist t-shirt then, yeah, you should leave. Short of that, it will often just feel like you’re dealing with a guy who is maybe a little too interested but not crossing any big red lines.

“Second thing. If I remove myself from every workplace where there were someone that I had a bad gut feeling about, I wouldn’t ever work again. The conversation I would much rather have is around how do we talk to men about this situation. For women, this is almost mundane. It is such a part of our lives. Rather than us twisting ourselves in knots to figure out workarounds, can we talk about how men treat women?

“Let me tell you why this matters to me. The situations I had didn’t physically scar me or even traumatize me. Again, I’ve been very lucky. What they did do is slowly chip away at my sense of self-worth. They subtly tell you that the only reason you’re in the room is because you’re young and female and that your voice or opinions are irrelevant. You don’t get attention when you succeed or when you fail, which are net positive things. You get attention when you look nice and no other time.”

So, I read this and I thought this is a very fair criticism. I mean, first of all there’s a lot of great insights in there that I think you and I probably wouldn’t be able to have access to because we’re not in the same situation that women are in, so I really appreciated that point. And I also think that the larger point that she’s making which is it’s not easy to just say I’m offended and I’m walking away is true. And they’re right about that. They meaning anyone who agrees with that.

And I also think that it is true that even though we are trying to do a service by telling people how to manage difficult situations that are imposed upon them, it is true that we – I think you and I have a responsibility if we’re going to talk about that part of it to talk about the other part which is, “OK boys, how are you supposed to behave.”

**John:** Yeah. Fair. I think what I got so much out of her letter is that how do you deal with these difficult situations without being labeled difficult. And that she wants to be in that room. She wants to be doing her work and she feels like if she calls anybody on their behavior she’s immediately sort of ostracized as that person who is like, “Oh, she can’t play. She can’t hang. She’s not one of us.”

And that is a terrible situation. And so I think you’re right. We need to look at what are the responsibilities of men, women, and everybody else in that room and in those working situations to not let that happen. Because I think your advice was well-intentioned. You said that if you feel that you’re at an unsafe place, get yourself out of that place. And that is one end of this horrible spectrum of behaviors we’re seeing where there are literal attacks and assaults happening.

But in attempting to get yourself out of those possible bad situations, she’s saying you are opening yourself up for the other kind of bad thing that we see happening on the other end of the spectrum which is just like opportunities being taken away because you’re not longer seen as cool.

**Craig:** Yeah. And I think we heard a bit of this too from Dara Resnik and from Daley Haggar when they were on. And it’s a sense of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If you don’t say anything and you just stay there, you become a victim. If say something, protest, or try and get out, you become a complainer. And so what I think we’re hearing here, and it makes total sense, is that there are certain situations where there are no behaviors that women can engage in that end in a kind of victory. That really it’s just a competition between negative outcomes and you’re trying to look for the least worst situation, which isn’t ideal, so maybe we should be coming at this from the other side which is what can we say to the people perpetrating this stuff so that women aren’t in this situation of having to pick the lesser of evils.

**John:** Yeah. So I mean a couple thoughts. First is to listen to letters like this that make it clear that these situations happen. Because I feel like a lot of times I think men aren’t aware that they’re creating these impossible situations for the women they’re working with.

**Craig:** I agree. I think that that is very much part of what happens. I also think that there are a lot of guys who know exactly what they’re doing and just don’t care. And maybe, perhaps I’m naïve, but maybe if we just codify certain things it will be a little harder for them to get away with it.

**John:** Well let’s talk about codifying things, because I had a great conversation with a writer who is on a TV show this last week and he said that they’re looking in their room as they’re sort of figuring out for next season. They want to come in with a list of like “These are going to be the house rules. This is what we’re going to be doing. This is how it’s all going to work.” And the writing staff is going to vote anonymously on those things. And any one of those rules that gets like two people voting for it is part of the rules for that room. It’s part of the rules for how that show is going to work with the writers.

Will that solve everything? No, it won’t. But at least there’s a thing you can point to saying like, “Hey, this is how we’re going to do it.” And so if someone is breaking one of those rules, everybody sees that he is breaking one of those rules. And I think that helps not only the woman who is being harassed or bullied. It helps everyone else in that room be able to point out like, “Hey, this is not right. We agreed this was not right. You’re breaking the norms of what’s happening here.”

I think with rules you can help set norms. And norms are what’s not being followed here.

**Craig:** I totally agree. I think that’s actually really important that we distinguish between norms, social mores, and laws. It is illegal to sexually assault someone. But it is not illegal to make a joke that makes someone uncomfortable. And what it is is just a violation of a social norm and a social more. And I think a lot of times what happens is people throw up their hands and say, “Well you can’t legislate behavior.”

No, you absolutely can. Here’s an example. Let’s say I work in a writer’s room. And it’s lunch time. And we all eat lunch around the table. When lunch comes, I have the soup. And I decide to eat it with my hands. I just lift up handfuls of soup and just rub them into my face. That’s not illegal. There’s no law against that. It’s weird. It’s creepy. It’s wrong. It is a violation of a social norm.

Similarly, I can’t take my socks and shoes off and put my bare feet up on the table. It’s gross. We all know this. But somehow when it comes to creating a sense of social mores around the way we respect each other and particularly the way men respect women in a room, we get – we become uber libertarians who can’t imagine the notion of any kind of restraint.

Well, I have a bunch of restraints I’d like to suggest.

**John:** Well, Craig, I will say though both your soup example and your taking off your shoes and socks and putting your feet on the table, I have not worked on a lot of TV staffs, but I will guarantee you that someone could write in saying like that exact thing happened on our TV show. And the more powerful the person is who is taking off the socks or eating soup with his hands, the harder it is for other people in the room to call him out on that behavior. And so that’s I think part of the reason why you want to have some written out thing of like these are the things we – like if it says on the wall “Don’t take off your shoes and socks and put your feel on the table,” then we know not to do that.

And that is I think what I’m asking for people to try to do is to have a little bit more codifying of what it is that’s going to be OK and what is not OK.

**Craig:** I completely agree. I mean, I only really raise that point to say as a response to people who can’t imagine that it’s even possible to create rules.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** So I have some rules.

**John:** Go for it. I want to hear them.

**Craig:** I have ideas of rules. Here’s an easy one. Keep your hands to yourself.

**John:** Yep.

**Craig:** I mean, this is a nursery school rule. This is kindergarten stuff. Apparently it’s difficult for some people. So, let’s just make it a rule. Keep your hands to yourself. I don’t need to touch anybody to do my job. We’re not massage therapists.

**John:** Josh Friedman had an interesting tweet back as all this stuff was starting to break that when he is in a work situation, like when someone is a writer on one of the shows that he’s working on, like even if that woman is a friend they’re not hugging. They’re not hugging in the room because it’s just this weird moment. And so let’s just maybe not touch each other.

**Craig:** Keep your hands to yourself. And then when it comes to things like jokes, which seems to be an area where a lot of things go wrong, here’s a general guideline and I think these are all incredibly followable. I try to follow them myself. Until you have a sense that a certain area of comedy is safe with another person, just presume that their mom or dad is there with you. Then you’re not going to say that certain kind of thing. You got to find out if someone is OK with some sort of comedy before you get there. And we all know what we’re talking about. We all understand that some humor pushes the envelope. Some humor is edgy. Some isn’t.

You know what? Hold off on the super edgy stuff until you get a sense of whether or not it’s OK with the other person. And if you think it is, and it turns out you were wrong, and the person is upset, stop. Just stop. Apologize. You misread it. That’s it. Say you’re sorry and don’t do it again. That’s that.

**John:** So when Dara and Daley were on the show they talked about you have to have a freedom in the writer’s room to sort of pitch out stuff and not censor yourself from bad ideas, bad jokes, and sort of going into dangerous territory. I get that. And also people are going to point out the Friends’ decision which I will quickly summarize by saying there was a lawsuit against the Friends TV show by someone who was working in that writer’s room and she lost. And essentially you could read it to say all is fair game in the writer’s room. That’s too broad a reading of that. That was a very specific situation.

What I would point you to is like there’s still the possibility of sexual harassment in a writer’s room if things go too far, if you create a situation where people feel unsafe.

Here’s a good tip for a joke. Pitch a joke about a character. Don’t pitch a joke about somebody in the room. Don’t aim stuff at people who are in the room in general. Just let it be about the characters and the show, not about the folks who are sitting around you.

**Craig:** I agree. And look when I talk about a sense of humor, a show has a sense of humor. If you go to work on a show that is dark, then the room will be dark, because people are trying to pitch for the dark show. If you go into The Simpsons, then you know what that sense of humor is. You should be pitching within it. This is less to me about what you’re pitching in a room to try and get comedy going. It’s more about what you’re doing when you bump into somebody by the coffee machine, or in the hallway. That’s what I’m talking about.

I think that’s where it gets particularly pernicious when you’re just invading somebody with a sense of humor that they don’t like. What is the point of a sense of humor if the other person isn’t laughing? Just stop.

**John:** Yep. Agreed.

**Craig:** Physical guidelines like — there’s certain rules that people generally follow, I’m talking to boys. You meet somebody, a woman, in professional situation. You don’t know her, or you vaguely know her. Maybe you met once a long time ago. It’s a handshake.

When you are working with women and you know each other very frequently, it is just very common in our business that people will hug. There’s nothing wrong with it. I call it the business hug. Nothing wrong with a business hug. But make it a business hug. There’s apparently a problem where people don’t understand how hugging works. It’s about a second long. And the purpose of the hug is to finish the hug as fast as you can. That’s the way I look at it. There’s no squeezing. There’s no holding on. It’s not a real hug. I mean, how did people miss this? It’s not a real hug. It’s not the way you hug your child or your spouse. It’s a quick business hug. It is a formal act.

Same with the cheek kiss. I don’t really like the cheek kiss.

**John:** I don’t like the cheek kiss either. Let’s rule out the cheek kiss. This isn’t France.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** It was lovely while I was living in Paris. We don’t need it here. Here’s what I’ll say about the hug is it should be the same kind of hug if you’re hugging a guy or you’re hugging a woman. And guys hug here. It’s fine. It’s natural. But it’s quick. It’s really quick. So don’t linger. It doesn’t need to linger.

**Craig:** Yeah. No, that’s a great guideline. Basically you’re hugging this person because they’re a professional and this is what we do to greet each other as professionals and that’s it. So the hug is the same for a man. It’s the same for a woman. That’s that. Real simple.

And I would also say — another guideline I would give to boys is – I like saying boys, by the way. We don’t say boys enough.

**John:** Boys.

**Craig:** Women refer to each other as girls all the time. It’s affectionate.

**John:** Craig, I would say though does boys infantilize or take away some of the sting of it. So essentially you know like, “Oh, they’re just being boys.” That’s my only worry about the “boys” term.

**Craig:** All right. They’re men. They’re people with XY chromosomes who are moving through the world and they’re adults. Men.

**John:** Men.

**Craig:** Don’t be a physical reviewer in the workspace. It’s fine every now and then if somebody changes their hair to say, “Whoa, cool. Nice haircut.” And it’s perfectly fine if somebody walks in with some awesome new shirt or some amazing new kicks to go, “Oh, I like that. I like the shirt. I like the sneakers.” But otherwise just shut up about it. Nobody cares. Nobody wants to hear your opinions about how people look about their hair, their makeup, their clothes, their body type, their shoes, whether or not they smile, whether or not they don’t smile, their funny eyes, their beautiful eyes, their stupid eyes. Whatever. Just shut up. Nobody cares. That’s not why people are there.

So when our friend writes in and says you get attention when you look nice and no other time, that is such a disaster. And if you are in a workplace and you are sharing your workplace with women, as I imagine you are and should be, then you just have to get it through their head that they’re there because of their minds.

I mean, we are creative people. We’re not doing physical labor. They’re there because of their minds. Comment on the quality of their minds. That’s it.

**John:** So, here’s an opportunity. If you are about to make a comment about someone’s physical appearance, you might stop and think if there’s something else you could say. I mean, you’re basically just trying to start a conversation or just like to fill an awkward silence or just do the normal social interactions of things, think of something else you can say rather than commenting on how the person looks.

**Craig:** I think that you and I have a decent starting list here, but this is by no means all-encompassing and I’m sure that different places have different call for different rules and different guidelines.

I think the important thing though is that men in this business have to start talking to each other about generally speaking how we’re supposed to be. And I do believe that if you are in a situation where you are saying things that you know would be hurtful to somebody but they’re not there and they’re never going to be there. Look, humor does as humor does. And there’s different levels of intention.

I know that people are flawed and imperfect. This isn’t about perfection. This is about when you are with people and it’s about not making life miserable for these other human beings. And I cannot promise you that you’re doing it because it’s going to make your life easier. I’m just telling you you should do it because it makes you a better person. It makes you a more honorable person. It’s just basic human decency. And I think we’re all better off for it.

**John:** Yeah. So I would say that if people have additional suggestions for things that should be on that list of like how not to be a jerk as a man, tweet at us. Send us an email. And we can certainly add to this list and maybe post this for things that people can think over as they’re moving out into the world.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** We have an email from Carlton who writes, “I wonder if you could see any role for the WGA in preventing sexual harassment in your industry. Could you imagine the WGA or other unions calling for a mini-strike at a company where there are allegations of sexual harassment or assault, which are safety issues if nothing else? One thing that victims have been saying in all these stories is that there was no point going to HR or even no HR department at all these companies. I know if I had a problem at my workplace I could always go to my union.”

So, Carlton has a fair question. You know, unions are set up to help the workers of an industry. Basically we are there to provide workplace protection. And this is a situation where some of our workers are either physically not safe or they are being treated poorly on the job.

So, yes, that is that is a union concern. It is a concern for the WGA, for the DGA, for SAG, for everyone below the line. Yes, every union needs to be thinking about sexual harassment and how they can make sure that their members who are working at these places are being treated OK.

So, there’s a lot kind of going on behind the scenes. And so I would say that you’re going to see a lot of stuff in the New Year about what happens next in terms of how the unions can address this individually but also impressively together to have systems that help protect workers in these situations.

**Craig:** well that’s good to hear. I don’t think that we can pull strikes per se legally against an entire company. Like I don’t think if somebody experiences sexual harassment at CBS that the Writers Guild could strike all of CBS. I don’t think we could do that legally. But certainly the union should be involved in these things. All those unions you mentioned should be.

Interestingly and trick-ily, who are the people that are doing the sexual harassment? Sometimes it is management. Sometimes it is our own members. I mean, when we talk about some of the showrunners, we’re talking about Writers Guild members. When we’re talking about a director with an actor, we’re talking about DGA members. So it’s not quite as clear cut as it might be say for somebody who is working in food services at a plant and so you’ve got your shop steward saying, OK, management is doing something to one of the workers. It’s complicated.

**John:** It’s also complicated because sometimes if it is management or if it’s a producer or if it’s somebody else, a manager, that is a person who is not under any sort of union control. So how do you – and that same person could be harassing writers and harassing PAs and harassing actors. And so how do you keep track of all that? Well, I think there has to be an industry-wide response to these situations.

Carlton’s also question about going to HR, well in order to file some of these lawsuits to get some of these actions to take effect you do need to go to HR. But what I’d urge anyone listening to this to know is that you also need to go to your union. And so the same time you go to file an HR complaint, you go to the union and the union can come with you. I know it’s true for the WGA. I’m sure it’s true for SAG and for DGA.

So there’s people there who have your back. And so it’s important to sort of like – the union has a role to play here and so does every member of a union.

**Craig:** Do we have a specific person at the Writers Guild that people should be contacting?

**John:** Yes. And so I’ll put a link in the show notes to that. So, yes, there’s a whole plan. And you’re going to see more stuff coming out from the Guild about exactly what steps to take if you’re encountering these situations.

**Craig:** Great. That’s very useful. Good.

**John:** Cool. A follow up question from Ben in Colorado. “On a recent episode you were both talking about how the screenwriters should not end dialogue with a parenthetical under it, except in animation. Can you talk about this exception and some of the other differences between writing for live action versus animation?”

All right, I can take this. So, in animation you do sometimes leave parentheticals underneath actor’s dialogue for sound effects or for like gasps. For things like that that would just be assumed in live action, but because you’re recording audio separately you actually mark all those gasps in there or like sneezes and other little things. You put them all in dialogue to make sure they actually get recorded when they go in to do the sound recording.

**Craig:** Efforts.

**John:** Efforts. Yes. The grunts. The groans. All that stuff. You put that in the dialogue track whereas you might drop that into action in a live action feature. Otherwise, animation scripts look almost exactly the same. The numbering happens a little bit differently because they do things by kind of these sequences, these reels situations. But other than that there’s not huge differences between the script that we as screenwriters are doing and for animation and what we would be doing in live action.

There’s, of course, a second step. So it goes from the screenplay into storyboards. And storyboards are these picture versions of our scripts. And things do change in that process. And so a lot of times the screenwriter will have to come back in and tweak dialogue based on the order of shots and sort of how the scene is shaping out when they actually board it. But script-wise it doesn’t look that different.

**Craig:** Yeah. I wouldn’t get hung up on it.

**John:** Last bit of follow up, the switch from documentary to narrative film. We had several people writing in to offer examples of adapted documentaries. On a previous thing you had said like, “Oh, it’s not a common thing to do to go from a documentary to a feature.”

**Craig:** [laughs] Apparently it happens literally every day. Sometimes I’m so wrong it’s like shocking.

**John:** Yeah. So do you want to read through some of these?

**Craig:** Well sure. So some examples that people sent in. Hands on a Hard Body was a documentary that follows a competition to win a new truck which Doug Wright and Trey Anastasio turned into a Broadway musical. A Broadway musical I saw.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** Hunter Foster, brother of Sutton Foster, was starring in that one.

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** Man on Wire becoming Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk. And Loving based in part on the documentary the Loving Story. So, those were three. But it was like a cascade of them. And someone even said like, you know, I used to work in acquisitions where all we did was try and find documentaries and turn them into movies. So, I’m an idiot basically is the point.

And it’s important to say to people, you know, you can’t just trust people because they have a stupid podcast. That doesn’t mean a damn thing. Just don’t trust me.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Not a word.

**John:** I’d also say that it’s important when you are wrong to admit that you’re wrong and to say it on subsequent episodes.

**Craig:** Oh god, yeah. Sometimes I’m not just wrong. Sometimes I’m gloriously wrong. I actually feel like that’s really the goal. It’s not very interesting to be slightly wrong. You know? Like you stumble and people don’t really notice. But if you can really trip and land with your hands to your side, so you’re catching the ground with your face, that’s fun.

**John:** That’s the way you do it.

**Craig:** That’s how you do it.

**John:** All right. Let’s see if we can be gloriously wrong in our next segment which is about pitching television.

**Craig:** Oh, no, I’m going to nail this. This one I’ve got. Yeah.

**John:** Previously on Scriptnotes we’ve done episodes about producers and pitching. That was Episode 55. And pitching an open writing assignment. That was Episode 248.

But we got an email about how do I go out and pitch a TV show. And some of our other writer friends have been chatting about that recently, too, so I thought we’d just dig into what it’s like to pitch a TV show. Because I’ve done this three times. Craig, you did it for your Chernobyl show, but have you pitched other TV shows? Or was that the only one?

**Craig:** That’s the only one.

**John:** Great. So I can go through my experiences and we can hear what Craig’s experience was with Chernobyl. But it’s a lot like a feature pitch but you’re pitching some different parameters and they’re looking for very different things as you go into that room. So, let’s talk through pitches in a very general sense because this is what happens in every pitch meeting. You go into a room. There’s five minutes of chitchat. And eventually you transition into, OK, now we’re going to start talking about the thing that you’re here for.

What’s different about television versus feature pitches is in television they’ve invited you in for a specific reason. So, either you’re going into the studio or you’re going into the network. They know in a general sense what the story area is. They want you to be in that room. They’re in theory happy to hear your pitch.

In features, previously we talked about the elevator pitches, that really tight version of a pitch which you don’t use that much. We’ll have pitches where we’ll go into pitch on an assignment that started there, so it’s like an open writing assignment or it’s based on a property.

With these TV pitches it’s this weird kind of middle form where you’re going in and they know the general area that you’re pitching but you have to really walk them through the whole idea. And so a pitch might be 15 minutes. It might be 30 minutes. But it has to be a really complete package, not just for what the pilot is going to be, but for what this series is going to be and why they need to bid right now to get this series so they can make it for their season.

**Craig:** Yes. I find it to be a very different kind of pitch than a feature pitch only because of the nature of the medium itself. I feel like it’s actually much easier to pitch television because what you’re trying to do is create a sense of ongoing interest. And in features you’re trying to create something that is whole and finished. It’s really hard to pitch something to somebody and then tell them how it evolves and then tell them how it ends. It’s hard.

And in television you’re just – I think your job is to get them as excited about the potential as you are. In features, it’s not about potential. It’s about you’ve done it.

**John:** Well, it goes back to the very nature of what is a feature versus what is a series is that a feature is about a story that can only be told once. A television show is a story that can repeat itself, or can grow and change and become a different thing. And so for a feature you’re pitching this is exactly what I’m going to give you, versus a TV show. This is the area in which this thing would go. Like you’re pointing towards a trajectory rather than one destination.

**Craig:** Right. See, in television I always feel like you’re pitching – I always feel like. I pitched one thing for television, but in my mind if I go and pitch another thing this is what I believe. You’re pitching an experience. And in features you’re pitching a product.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And it’s natural, I think, for feature purchasers to want you to give them more of a sense of completion and more of a sense of the details having been worked out because you have one thing that you’re pitching, a beginning, middle, and end. In television, I think there’s a general relief valve. No one is expecting you to be able to pitch the beginning, middle, and end of ten episodes or 22 episodes. Not at all.

So, you can talk more about what the nature of the experience will be. I find that to be much more engaging for me. And I can only assume it’s more engaging for them.

**John:** So a writer colleague passed along this list by Peter Micelli who is an agent at CAA. I assume this is the list that he sends to his clients to send out. But it was a very good general sense of this is the flow of what a lot of TV pitches are like. You start by talking about the inspiration. Really like what the idea means to you. What you’re trying to convey is that this is, you know, something that is deeply emotionally connected to you, because remember you’re pitching not just this idea, but that you are the person to bring this idea to life. And that you are the person who is going to work 23 hours a day to get this show exactly right and perfect. That you’re passionate about it. So they want to hear that kind of from the start.

Then you’re pitching the general themes and sort of the concepts of it. This is what areas this touches on. This can also be the answer to the question why now. Why would we do this TV show in 2018 versus 2005? What is it about today’s world that makes this show especially compelling and really demands to have this kind of show be on the air? Why does it fit?

And only then are you sort of getting into kind of the show itself. You’re giving them the sense of the kinds of things that happen in the show. You’re starting to introduce the characters. But really at first you’re pitching a vision – a personal vision and then sort of a global vision. And only then are you getting into the meat of like so here are the characters, here’s how we’re seeing the characters do their thing. This is what happens in the pilot, but these are the intriguing things that are happening. These are open threads that are going to carry us through to future episodes, and ideally in the fantasy world into season two.

Was that at all your experience going into Chernobyl? Did you start with your personal connection, Craig?

**Craig:** Yeah. I had not seen this, but this is essentially what I did. And this is a guess, because I never sit in a room, nor have I ever sat in a room to hear a writer pitch me something to get me to give them money for it. But I have to imagine that the thing that person fears the most is somebody coming in there in order to get money from them. There are people, I mean, writing is a tough gig, and sometimes people need work. And sometimes people are desperate and sometimes people are trying. Sometimes people are trying to manipulate the system or game the system or get some employment. Whatever it is. And they come in and they just start going through the mechanics. And on the other side of the table they’re like, “But where is the heart? Where is the soul here? Why? I feel like you just want to get a job.”

And bizarrely that’s the worst way to get a job. It would never occur to me to walk into a pitch for a television show that I wanted to do and not begin with, “I want to do a crazy thing. It is going to take me a long time. It is going to be really, really hard, and I really want to do it. And here’s why.” Simple as that.

**John:** Simple as that. When we had Benioff and Weiss on to talk about Game of Thrones, their backstory on Game of Thrones was that they were just obsessed with the book. And I remember an anecdote where one of the HBO guys was at the gym and he saw – I think it was D.B. Weiss – just like going – like D.B Weiss was on the treadmill but still going through the book and marking stuff. And that’s when he saw like, oh, the passion. These guys are obsessed with making this TV show. That’s what networks and studios want is obsessed people who will work to death to try to make these shows happen.

So you have to start with that sense of like this is something I must do. I am the perfect person for this because of XYZ and this is the perfect time to do this kind of show.

**Craig:** Yeah. You become a force of nature then. See, like when I came into pitch my miniseries, I think they must have noticed that I was kind of on fire about it. And I had been thinking about it and researching it for a long time. A long, long time. And I was able to answer a lot of questions. And I was able to talk about specific moments. And really instead of trying to convince them of anything, all I was doing was sharing what had convinced me. So, that’s kind of the deal.

Nobody wants you to manipulate them into a decision. What they want from a good pitch, and I think this is true for features, too, is they want to be able to see, and feel, and experience what you saw and felt and experienced when you fell in love. And then, listen, sometimes they say, “You know what? You look at that and you see beauty, I look at it and I don’t. So, it won’t work out here.” But a lot of times they say, “Oh my god, yes, I’m seeing this through your eyes now and I’m excited.”

That’s the most important thing.

**John:** I’ve sold three TV shows as pilots. And in each case I genuinely loved it. I was genuinely obsessed with the idea and I could completely see what the vision was for the show. And I’d say – so I pitched to studios, and then I had to pitch to networks. And in every one of those meetings I was just as passionate about it. And some of them were like, “Yes, yes, we absolutely want this show.” And some of them were like, “Nah, not for us.”

And a lot of times I could feel as I left the room it was like, oh, that did not go well. That is not going to work for them. But in each time I was conveying the same excitement and the same enthusiasm because I really genuinely did want to do this. I wanted to put aside feature stuff to try to do this TV show. And they respond to that. They see that.

And even the places that didn’t pick it, they didn’t pick it because they didn’t believe in me. It just wasn’t a good fit for them. That’s still going to happen. You’re still going to have situations where they say no. But you’re going to have a much better likelihood of saying yes if they see that you are the right obsessed person for it.

**Craig:** That’s a really good distinction to make. I think for a lot of people that work regularly as screenwriters, television writers, we are being asked to come and help on things. And at that point what they’re saying is we want you. We want you for you. And there may be writers who hear, “OK, there’s an open writing assignment. A rewrite on blah-blah-blah. And so you’re going to go in and pitch on it.” And five other people are pitching on it. And what you’re pitching is you and your suitability for their needs. And when they reject you or pass on you, it is about you. And that can hurt.

When you’re pitching your own material it’s not about you at all. It’s about the material. They may love you, they just don’t want to make a movie about this. They may love you, but they have a television show already in development that’s kind of close to the one you have, or they once made a show that was a little bit like yours and it was a disaster for them so they just don’t want to deal with it. So it’s not about you. And that actually psychologically I think is a nice benefit if you are aware of it.

**John:** Absolutely. So, I would say it is about you in terms of like they want to see your passion and your excitement, but they can still see that and pass. And if they’re passing, then it’s not about you. It really is truly about sort of how it fits in their plan for what they’re going to try to make.

So when you were pitching Chernobyl, did you talk about the characters by their names? Did you talk about actor names? How were you describing the principal people who were going to be in your show?

**Craig:** Well, I narrowed it down to the three that I felt were the most important. And then a fourth that was important just so we understood what was happening with the other three. There are something like 100 speaking parts on this show. You can easily drown somebody in details. But ultimately I was able to say this is why I wanted to do this because of this person. And what this meant. Not only what they did, but what their whole connection to this whole process was. What it did to them. What it signified. And what it signifies for all of us. And their key relationships with these two other people.

And you sort of use that as a touchstone, because I do believe whether it’s features or television you should never talk about something that happens in a show or a movie without pointing out why it matters to a relationship, hopefully a relationship, but at a minimum to a character.

**John:** Absolutely. So when you are talking about these three characters, you used their – they’re based on real people – do you use their character names or do you refer to them as a Stellan Skarsgard?

**Craig:** No, I use their names. And because I don’t want to seem, I don’t know, too desperate or showy. I also feel like when you start mentioning actors you’re giving too much rope to the other side of the table with which to hang you. Because they may not like those actors for some reason. They may have worked with those actors and hated them. They may decide that your interest in those actors implies a certain poor taste.

You never know. So, what I like to do is only discuss that at the end if there seems like real interest. And then they say, “Well who do you see?” And then I’ll say, well, these are the kinds of people that I’ve been thinking about. And I never just put one down. But I have the one that I want.

And at that point I’m really kind of now – now I feel like I have them and now I’m actually kind of checking on them to see if they’re on board with me.

**John:** Absolutely. That can be a very useful thing. In a pitch I did last year, I needed to convey that it was a certain type of person. And so I ended up falling on it’s a Chris. It’s a Chris Evans, it’s a Chris Pratt. It’s a Chris Pine. It’s one of the Chris’s. Which was a useful sort of joke in terms of like there are a bunch of people who are sort of in that space who could do one of those things.

If you were in a TV show situation you could say, “Sort of like a TV Chris Pine.” That is a thing we can sort of understand. And so it provides a context for like the kind of person you should picture in your head for this role. And it was just helpful just for the pitch. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to cast a Chris Pine-type in that part, but just to get them through this 15 minutes of story it’s helpful if they have some image in their head of who this person is.

Some writers will bring in little boards with pictures on them to show different characters. I’ve done that. Sometimes it’s really helpful.

What can be helpful about having a physical thing is then when they’re going back through the pitch or they’re asking you questions they can point to the board that you were talking about then and it helps to remind them like, OK yeah, there was that moment. Tell me more about this guy again. And so having something physical they can point to can be useful.

Did you bring in anything in for Chernobyl?

**Craig:** Not a thing. And, you know, listening to you talk about the image board it strikes me that one of the mistakes that so-called gurus make, other than advertising themselves as gurus and taking people’s money, which they shouldn’t, is that they prescribe solutions as if this is the way to do things.

It seems to me that we are all very, very different. And the most important thing you can take with you into a pitch is your best move. The move that makes you most comfortable and the move that advertises your strength. And it’s not necessarily your strength as a writer you’re advertising, but your strength as an employee. So, you go in there and you show them this board and these images, because you’re comfortable – that’s your safe place. That’s a good place for you. You’re organized. You’ve thought it through. You’re planned. You have this thing here.

And for me, I find that more of an ad-libbed conversation, a back and forth, like a sense of mutual discovery of the show together is kind of – that’s how I’m happy. And while I’m doing it of course I’m leading the conversation. But I like a conversation. And whatever it is that works for you, do that. I mean, for god’s sake never let anybody tell you that you can’t do something like bring in an image board or just show up and talk if that’s what you’re best at.

**John:** Definitely. I had the opportunity to be on the other side of the table once for a project. We were going to do Tower of Terror over at Disney. And it all fell apart because it no longer exists as a ride.

**Craig:** That’s a good reason.

**John:** That’s a good reason. It no longer exists. I got the opportunity to sit across from three writers, or three writing teams, who had come in to pitch their version of it. And they were all fantastic. And I would have loved to have hired all three of them. We hired none of them because it never existed as a project.

But it was fascinating to see the different ways they were approaching the same material and the different ways they were approaching the process of pitching. And some of them were – they were all writing teams, so in some cases one person just did all the pitching and then the other person would come in for the questions and stuff.

Other times you could see it was a much rehearsed, like they’d worked through the whole thing. It was all a bit. It was funny along the way. Other times it’s just like one guy reads a paragraph, the other guy reads a paragraph. They can all work. The last one was probably the hardest to get through.

**Craig:** That’s a little rough.

**John:** But I will say that the ones that stuck with me most was not a person reading off a piece of paper. Because I can read. I don’t need you to read something to me. I need to see you describe it to me. And I need to see what your vision for this really is. And that’s especially important in television where they are making a long-term contract with you to be creating this show, running this show, to be there when everything goes horrible. So they need to see in your eyes that you really do have a vision for how this is going to work.

**Craig:** Such a great point. Because in features, in the back of their minds they’re always thinking, “Well, it’s a great idea. Let’s just—“

**John:** “Who could I have write that?”

**Craig:** Yeah. “You know what? Let’s pay this dude whatever we got to pay him, and then let’s bring her in because she’s great and we’ll pay her a lot. And she’s really going to write it.”

You can’t do that in television. I mean it’s theoretically possible. Occasionally it happens. But by and large they’re trying to avoid that.

So you’re absolutely right. For television they really are looking for long-term partners. I can only imagine they respond much more readily to confidence than to sweatiness. When you sound desperate, feel desperate, seem desperate, you are just immediately less attractive. There’s just no way around it. As an employee. There’s just no way around it. I’m not even sure that’s fair, because I think that a lot of people are not confident in that situation. But then would be remarkably confident in the room. And hopefully you have somebody on the other side of the table who can price that in. But generally speaking if you can be confident and most importantly if you can seem alive and interested.

**John:** Yep.

**Craig:** Then I think there’s something to hold onto. You want to be near people who have that positive passion.

**John:** Definitely. So a thing I think we should stress is that if you’re being invited in to pitch to the network, to pitch to the studio, you’re probably not a brand new writer. You’re probably a writer who has some credit under your belt. Either you were staffed on a TV show or there’s some other reason why you’re interesting or notable.

But that reason could be something really small or recent. So like when I came in to do my first TV show, D.C., my first feature Go had shot but hadn’t come out yet. I was newly hot. And so they were excited to meet with me because they liked my writing, they thought I was going to be a pretty big deal. And so I was able to convince them and convey that I’m the person who could do this show. But I was also coming in with an established producer who they had as a fallback. So they could look at my eyes and see the passion. They could look in his eyes and see that he can at least get a show on the air. And that was the combo.

So, it may seem like we’re pitching this pitching topic to the folks who are already staff writers on something or who are moving up the food chain, or the feature writers who are switching over to TV. But I really do think it’s not that far in the future for really anybody as a writer.

**Craig:** I agree. I mean, sooner or later, right?

**John:** Sooner or later.

**Craig:** I think everybody is going to be in a situation where they’re pitching something and they have nothing going for them. It may not be in TV, it may be in features, but I mean you and I both had those experiences. Every writer has that experience at least once.

**John:** Yep. The Duffer Brothers were just brothers at one point.

**Craig:** They were just brothers. [laughs]

**John:** The Duffer Brothers.

**Craig:** That’s right. And I remember those days and I remember understanding, OK, so I’m being brought in as a widget. They don’t know who I am. Their expectations are incredibly low. Every other widget is a certain kind of widget. I’m going to surprise them. I’m going to be memorable. I’m going to be smart and I’m going to be passionate. I’m going to get myself out of widget category. Sometimes you can. Sometimes – I remember very early on in my career I was pitching something — I won’t say who the executive is. I don’t think he’s in the business anymore.

And he just looked so bored. And so I just stopped and I said, “You know what? I’m boring you. I don’t want to bore you. Let’s just wrap it up. Let’s wrap it up.”

And he’s like, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You weren’t boring me. You weren’t boring me.”

I’m like, “It’s OK. It’s OK.”

And he goes, “Oh, you know, I’m tired.” And he had some excuses, but I got out of there. Because–

**John:** I’ve gotten out of that room, too. And I wasn’t so forthright to say like, “Oh, I’m boring you. This is done.” But you’ve ripped cords in your pitch. And we’re going to jump through and now we’re done. Clearly it’s just not going to connect.

**Craig:** Let’s just get to the end here as fast as we can.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** For those of you who are yet to do this, to have this experience, there are some bad pitches in your future. And nobody – nobody – manages to avoid them. At some point they will happen. Generally speaking part of the problem is, aside from the fact that you are new, because you’re new you’re pitching to people who are also either new or even worse not new but just slowly sliding down the ladder of Hollywood.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** It’s the worst. Just the worst. And those are just awful because now everyone seems desperate. It’s like, “Oh my god, Willy Loman has come in to pitch Willy Loman.” Ugh.

**John:** [laughs] Yeah, both of you are just thinking let’s make this work. We could rub some nickels together.

**Craig:** Right. Everyone is just pathetic. It’s just like Jack Lemmon from Glengarry Glen Ross and Willy Loman. It’s the worst. And everyone is sweaty and sad and you didn’t even know what’s going on, or why. They’re coming. You can’t avoid them.

**John:** Yep. It’s gonna happen. All right, let’s do our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing is super simple. It is a hair brush that was recommended on Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools, which is another thing you should check out because it’s a really good blog. I’ll put a link to that.

But my daughter has long straight hair and it is just a disaster to try to get a hairbrush through it some mornings. And so I’m usually the person who has to do that and I get sort of elbowed for hurting her.

**Craig:** Ah yes.

**John:** This hairbrush is really good. It’s called the Tangle Teezer. It sort of looks more like something you’d use to brush a horse. It has these really thin plastic things and you think, well, this wouldn’t work. But it works remarkably well. So you just go zip-zip-zip and it’s just a great piece of technology in plastic form. So I would recommend if you have long hair or hair that is difficult to brush with normal brushes, I’d say check this out because I was skeptical and incredibly impressed.

**Craig:** Yeah, the stuff that you and I know about hair. Oh boy.

**John:** Oh my gosh. Yes.

**Craig:** I’m lucky my daughter has always liked having her hair short. She has very thick hair and very straight hair, but she likes it short and purple. I think it’s currently purple.

**John:** Nice.

**Craig:** So I don’t have to worry about that. I do recall when she was younger and she had longer hair I remember hearing Melissa and her just having that classic argument. The ow…stop…you’re hurting…you have to…ugh.

See, oh man, your daughter is lucky she has you because if I were her dad she would just go to school with crazy hair. Real simple. Real simple.

I have a One Cool Thing this week that I just started with but I’m so far – so far so good. So far I’m impressed. It’s an app for iPhone and iPad called Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock, which is a bizarrely generic name for what it does.

So, it uses the microphone on your iOS device and it essentially analyzes your sleep and your snoring. And what it’s doing is it’s listening to you and it’s gauging how frequently you’re moving around. So we’ll put the snoring aside, just the moving around. Generally speaking, the deeper our sleep the less we move. The lighter our sleep, the more we kind of turn over or toss or wiggle.

And by listening to it and doing this analysis over a few days it starts to show you, OK, here’s how your sleep cycle is working. And it also will record you if you start to snore. So you can see how frequently you might have snored during the night and how loud it was. And you can play it back.

It’s also pretty smart. It knows to ignore your partner on the other side of the bed. It also knows to ignore kind of steady noise like a white noise machine or a fan. So it’s really looking for changes closer to it. It’s very smart. So far so good. I’m kind of digging it.

Oh, and the other thing it does is after it kind of gets you down, then you say, OK, look, I want to wake up – like I need to wake up tomorrow at 7:30. So you’ll say, OK, I need to wake up around 7:30. And it will say, “OK, we’re going to wake you up between 7:15 and 7:35. And we’re basically going to try and catch you on the upswing towards lighter sleep.” Pretty smart.

**John:** That’s nice. That’s very smart. So, I’ll check back in in two weeks and see whether you’re still using it.

**Craig:** Or find that just like, “Oh my god, I’m so tired. This thing is wrong.”

**John:** It would also be great if it was transmitting all your snoring data to be analyzed by machines or like if you’re talking in your sleep they’re building up evidence against you.

**Craig:** Yeah, that’s probably what’s happening.

**John:** That’s probably what’s happening.

**Craig:** Now that you’ve said it that actually does make the most sense.

**John:** Yeah. Maybe we could have a podcast that’s just Craig snoring.

**Craig:** I still wouldn’t listen to it. [laughs]

**John:** All right. That is our show for this week. It is produced by Megan McDonnell. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is by Phil Baker.

**Craig:** Oh, he’s new.

**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. For short questions on Twitter, Craig is @clmazin. I am @johnaugust.

We are on Facebook. Search for Scriptnotes Podcast. You can find us on Apple Podcasts at Scriptnotes. Just search for Scriptnotes. While you’re there, leave us a review. That helps people find us. Also, if you’re listening on some other platform, there are other platforms, yeah, leave us a review there. That’s always great.

You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. I’ll also put up the outlines I have for the three TV shows I sold. So, basically I have kind of the pitch document that I went into the room with. It’s not exactly sort of what happens in the room, but it’s a good representation of the things I was talking about.

**Craig:** That’s good. You know, after Chernobyl airs, so we’re about–

**John:** [laughs] Three years away.

**Craig:** Well, a year and a half. About a year and a half away. But once it airs I will put all of that – I’ll put the scripts, the pitch documents, the bible. Everything. I’ll put it all up on your site.

**John:** Fantastic. You can find the transcripts for this episode and back episodes at johnaugust.com as well. Come join us on Thursday so we can talk to you and Julie Plec and Michael Green and Justin Marks about television and features and other great things. We’ll see you there at the live holiday show. Go to wgafoundation.org to get your tickets.

And if you want any of the back episodes, go to Scriptnotes.net. That is your best source. We also have a few of the USB drives left. They are $30 I want to say. They’re at store.johnaugust.com. They have the first 300 episodes of the program.

**Craig:** Doesn’t matter to me how much they cost because I don’t get any of the money.

**John:** You get none of the money Craig.

**Craig:** Go ahead. Charge $1,000. I don’t care.

**John:** Absolutely. The more we charge for them, the more we have to pay Megan and Matthew.

**Craig:** And to steal from me.

**John:** Yes. That’s the goal. Have a great week.

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

**John:** See you, bye.

Links:

* Holiday Live Show [tickets](https://www.wgfoundation.org/screenwriting-events/scriptnotes-holiday-live-show-john-august-craig-mazin/) are available.
* A sexual harrassment [resource guide](https://www.wgaeast.org/resources/sexual-harassment-resource-guide/) from the WGA.
* The [Tangle Teezer](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001S261Q6/?tag=johnaugustcom-20) hair brush as recommended on Kevin Kelly’s [Cool Tools](http://kk.org/cooltools/)
* [Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sleep-cycle-alarm-clock/id320606217?mt=8)
* Initial write ups/pitch documents for [DC](http://johnaugust.com/downloads_ripley/dc-what-it-is.pdf), [The Circle (a.k.a. Alaska)](http://johnaugust.com/downloads_ripley/alaska_writeup.pdf), and [Ops](http://johnaugust.com/downloads_ripley/ops_writeup.pdf).
* [The Scriptnotes Listeners’ Guide!](johnaugust.com/guide)
* [The USB drives!](https://store.johnaugust.com/collections/frontpage/products/scriptnotes-300-episode-usb-flash-drive)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Find past episodes](http://scriptnotes.net/)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Phil Baker ([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_328.mp3).