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The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2016/frequently-asked-questions-about-screenwriting).

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

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

**John:** And this is Episode 263 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the podcast we’ll be doing another round of the Three Page Challenge, but this time with a twist. We’ll also be looking at the 100 most frequently asked questions in screenwriting.

But, Craig, a couple episodes ago you were gone when Billy Ray was on because you had a terrible ear infection.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Today, this is my day for a gory ear story. Are you ready?

**Craig:** I am. In fact, I’m more than ready. I’m thrilled.

**John:** So, I guess a general trigger warning. If you do not like stories of ear pain, use the little chapter button to skip ahead right here. I’m going to give you the quick lowdown on what happened with my ear today.

So, as you all know, I’m leaving for Paris in less than a week.

**Craig:** Boo.

**John:** And so I have to do all of these doctor’s appointments for the doctors I will not see over the year that I’m in Paris. Today was the allergist. And the allergist was fine, no issues, but she was looking in my left ear and she said, “You know what? You have a lot of wax build up here. I’m going to send the nurse in and she’ll get that wax out.”

I’m like, great. So it’s like a paid Q-tip. So she comes in and she has this amazing instrument I’d never seen before. It’s like a plastic pick, a clear plastic pick that has a hoop on the end and then attaches to a little light, so she can use that to look inside and see the wax and get it all off. And I’m like well this is amazing. A new technology. I was so excited, until she put it in my ear.

**Craig:** Hmm.

**John:** It was one of the most painful experiences of my entire life.

**Craig:** This is not a gory story at all. This is what happens to me four times a year. I thought for sure there was going to be blood or they were going to find a worm or a nest of spiders.

**John:** So, there was blood. There was quite a bit of blood. And my ear is actually bleeding as we’re recording this podcast. So, in getting this stuff out, they opened something up, and so there’s been a lot of blood coming out of my ear for the rest of the afternoon.

**Craig:** Yeah, I don’t mean to downplay the pain. It is incredibly painful. So, I’m in your boat. My doctor said, “Some people are wax makers. You’re a wax maker.”

**John:** We are wax makers. That’s maybe why we’re screenwriters. Maybe the secret of our podcast. I do wonder if maybe having these headphones on my ears a lot, because I end up wearing them a lot, is part of what is building up all the wax in my ears.

**Craig:** It’s unlikely. It’s not likely.

**John:** It’s genetics.

**Craig:** It’s just genetics. Exactly. And, in fact, there’s two specific kinds of ear wax that are very related to genetics. There’s wet and there’s dry. I guarantee you you have wet, because wet wax people are the ones that have these problems. And then maybe you go in there with a Q-tip to try and clean some out every now and then and you do, but you’re also compressing a bunch in there. And then it gets all slammed up against the wall. And then they can’t see. And then to get it off they’re basically – it’s like they’re ripping a scab off the inside of your ear.

**John:** It really is basically what they did.

**Craig:** Yeah. It hurts so much.

**John:** It hurts so much. It hurts so much more than I was expecting. Because I’ve had tattoos. I’ve had a kidney stone. But this was just a very uniquely sharp pain. Just imagine a toothpick being shoved into your brain. That’s what it felt like.

**Craig:** Yeah. It is an incredibly sensitive part of the body. Unfortunately, it’s not like they can put you under general to take these. And then when you look at finally what they’ve pulled out you feel like, oh my god, you must have pulled out like a pound and it’s like a tiny little pebble.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Very annoying.

**John:** But, anyway, I’m better now. And so I hear you delightfully clearly in ways I probably haven’t for weeks.

**Craig:** Through blood, which is my favorite way to be heard.

**John:** Oh, so good. This week also I was talking with a friend, Elan, who was at Gen Con. So he’s the guy who developed and designed Exploding Kittens. And so he was there at Gen Con, the big D&D conference, with Exploding Kittens and they sold out of that, which is congratulations. Awesome for him.

But, he was telling me about this conference. And as he was describing it I could not believe that you and I were not there. So, this is the once a year giant Indianapolis convention for all the D&D geeks, and other gamers, and with all sorts of board games. But, Craig, we have to go there.

And the specific story he told me that made me certain that we had to be there was this thing called True Dungeon. Do you know what True Dungeon is?

**Craig:** No.

**John:** So, it’s a live action thing you’re going through that is a D&D adventure. So you’re going from these rooms to rooms. It has aspects of an escape room, but also aspects of D&D. You’re there with your party. You are assigning your attributes. You are winning treasure. And based on the treasure you win, the next year you come in with an advantage.

Craig, why are we not there?

**Craig:** Well, I mean, look, the only reason I can think is that I don’t like people, so obviously that’s a little bit of an issue for me with these things. But, it does sound like the kind of convention I would very much like to go to. And don’t you think that they would be interested in like a screenwriter-hosted game of D&D? We could DM, or I could DM, or you could DM and actually play. Would be fun. Do these people care about us, or are we nobody to them?

**John:** That is a question I think it’s worth asking to our listenership. I’m curious what the Venn diagram is overlapping people who know about Gen Con and would know whether we could actually get into Gen Con and maybe speak, or maybe do a live episode at Gen Con. I’m curious sort of how many of the people in our listenership are actually decision makers at Gen Con, or at least know the decision makers at Gen Con.

So, if you are involved with Gen Con and would like us to maybe come to the Gen Con 50, it’s the 50th anniversary of Gen Con next year, August 17 through 20, drop us a line. Drop us a line at ask@johnaugust.com. That’s how we got the Kates on the show, so maybe that’s how we’ll get ourselves to Gen Con.

**Craig:** That’s absolutely true. It’s worked once before, and at this point I have to assume it’s going to work again, because past success is a predictor of future success.

**John:** 100 percent.

**Craig:** Always.

**John:** And while we’re in the follow up topics and we’re talking about The Katering Show – The Katering Show is now on YouTube. So if you did not have a chance to see season two when it was on the weird special channel it was on, it is now available on YouTube. So I would encourage you to watch all the episodes of the wonderful Australian Kates and their amazing television program.

**Craig:** So great.

**John:** So great. To our main topics this week. Way back in the early 2000s, I used to write a column for IMDb, which I was answering a bunch of really basic screenwriting questions. It was a weekly column. It got kind of frustrating. I was answering the same questions again and again. So in 2003 I set up johnaugust.com, the website where you’re probably listening to this podcast through. And on that site I answered a bunch of questions. I did that for a couple more years. And then I got really tired of just answering questions again and again.

And, Craig, you did the same thing on Artful Writer, didn’t you? You’d answer questions about the industry and the business?

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, I probably did it similarly to you and the way we do it on the podcast. I would store up a whole bunch of them and then I would do Q-a-Apalooza.

**John:** Yep. And you would have plowed through them. And then over the years I just got really tired of doing that. And I also got tired of the site as a blog, just always being these questions. It felt like the wrong kind of way to be doing it.

So, when Stuart started working for me, this is five years ago, I said, hey, let’s make up a new site that’s really, really basic questions about screenwriting. It should be the answer to a Google search for any of these things. And so he started generating questions and he set up the site. And then as people would write in questions, he would just answer the questions. And so it was a great sort of way to let Stuart just do all of that stuff. And so he would answer questions like what is a brad. Like really basic questions, but they were just fundamental questions that if you didn’t understand that, then the rest of screenwriting would be very hard to understand.

And so over the years that built up and there were about 500 questions on that site at times. And this last year I said, you know what, let’s take all of the most asked questions and stick them together as one PDF that people can just download to answer all those things.

And so that’s out there right now. So if you go to screenwriting.io, click on the little link, you can download the 100 Most Frequently Asked Questions about Screenwriting. And it’s free. It’s just meant to be the basic answers to the very basic questions that you’re likely going to have.

So, even the questions that we get on the podcast tend to be more sophisticated than these, but I thought we might hit some of the questions that Stuart answered in this book and see if we agree with how Stuart answered the question.

**Craig:** I love that there’s the chance that we can beat up Stuart in absentia.

**John:** Yeah. Isn’t that sort of great? It just keeps going on. I thought we might take a look at three questions and see how Stuart answered them and if we agree with how Stuart answered them. And I want to stress here, Stuart sometimes asked me questions about the questions, so he would say like, “I got a question about this, and what should I say?” And I would just tell him what to say. But I really have not read this book.

And so this is one of the rare cases where I’m putting something out there saying like I think this is probably accurate, but I haven’t read through all 81 pages of this book carefully, because in some ways it’s their thing, not my thing. So I was just the person giving them a job.

**Craig:** I hope so much that it is wrong.

**John:** It would be so good if it were wrong. Let’s start with question number 32. If you look at the index, all those are clickable links, so you can just click on it. Question 32. What does “high concept” mean? Here’s what Stuart said: A “high concept” idea is one that can be easily and succinctly explained. It was originally coined ironically, in opposition to “high art,” which is why to some the term is counterintuitive. A good (albeit extreme) example is Snakes on a Plane — the title itself explains the idea.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** Craig, what do you think of that definition of high concept?

**Craig:** No. No, no.

**John:** All right. Give us a better one.

**Craig:** Well, my objection is that easily and succinctly explained could apply to a low concept movie, such as My Dinner with Andre. A high concept movie to me is one in which the plot circumstance is more remarkable than anything else you’re going to describe. The hook of the movie, or the premise of the movie, is outlandish or big or vibrant. It’s in your face.

**John:** Great. I think that’s a much better definition than what Stuart gave. So, one of the lovely things about an e-Book is we can just change it. And so perhaps even by the time people are downloading this book, we will have changed that.

But one of the reasons why we will ask for your email address when you download the book is we will update it and fix things. And so probably by the time next week rolls around, we will fix this to incorporate more of what Craig said.

**Craig:** I’m already enjoying this process.

**John:** Great. Let’s do question 23.

**Craig:** Are scenes that take place in cars INT. or EXT.? And here’s what Stuart wrote: Car scenes often use camera placements that are both INT. and EXT., so INT./EXT. is usually appropriate for their scene headers. This is not a hard and fast rule. If your scene is obviously either INT. or EXT., indicate it as such. For example, if you have a movie about a family that has encountered a shrink ray, and your centimeter tall characters are adventuring from the back seat of a car to the front, your scenes are probably strictly INT.

John, what did you think?

**John:** I mostly agree with what Stuart said here. I think his example was really weird at the end, like the shrink rays/people in a car, but yeah, you’ll very often see INT./EXT. for car scenes. It very often kind of won’t matter a lot. So, if most of the action is taking place inside the car, I tend to use INT. if most of it is taking place outside the car, I say EXT.

**Craig:** I’m with you. So, Stuart’s 0/2 right now. This is great. This is great.

**John:** All right. Let’s try number 56. What is a two-hander? A two-hander is a movie where there are two main characters of roughly equal importance to the story, and whose arcs are given roughly equal screen-time. Romantic comedies and buddy cop movies are often two-handers, but almost all genres have their examples. The Sixth Sense is a thriller two-hander.

Craig, what do you think?

**Craig:** I think Stuart nailed that one.

**John:** Stuart Friedel for the win.

**Craig:** Nice. This is a good one. How do you format two characters talking at once? When two characters are talking at the same time, it is referred to as “dual dialogue,” and the two speakers’ text blocks go side-by-side. Most screenwriting programs have an option for this. In Final Draft, if you type the dialogues normally with one below the other, highlight both, and select Format —> Dual Dialogue, it will put the blocks side-by-side.

I agree with this, but it also points out how bad Final Draft is at making dual dialogue. So bad.

**John:** Yeah. It also seems strange that Stuart wouldn’t have mentioned how you do it in Highland, which is the app we actually make. Or how you do it in Fountain, yeah.

**Craig:** [laughs] I mean, I’m starting to feel like, I mean, listen, don’t speak ill of the dead.

**John:** Stuart’s not dead. Stuart’s alive and married.

**Craig:** Oh. Oh, he’s alive. Oh, I thought he died.

**John:** No, that’s not why he left.

**Craig:** Oh my god. I sent his parents flowers. What a mistake.

**John:** They deserve flowers. They’ve had to deal with 30 years of Stuart Friedel.

**Craig:** He did actually a very good job for him to have done all this. And, yeah, that’s exactly right. You put them side-by-side. It’s something that you should use sparingly, I feel. It’s actually kind of hard to read.

**John:** It is hard to read.

**Craig:** And so you’re asking the reader to do some math, because of course we can’t hear it simultaneously. We have to read it in sequence. It’s just the way time works and when you’re reading. So, you’re approximating something. That’s why you should use it kind of sparingly. And only when it’s really important. Because you know throughout a script people are going to be overlapping plenty. So just don’t go nuts with this.

**John:** Yeah. You’re other option is always to call it out in parenthetical. And so you can say overlapping, or sometimes it will say “overlapping throughout.” Sometimes I’ll even do that as scene description, sort of like “Overlapping throughout–“and then it’s a big run of dialogue and different people talking.

And that just gives you a sense this is meant to be pandemonium. People are all on top of each other. Don’t worry about how this person’s dialogue interacts with this person’s dialogue. They’re all talking. And that sometimes is the more crucial sense you’re trying to convey.

**Craig:** Yeah. That’s exactly right. If you’re dealing with a crowd and you’re going to have four different people shouting out something in the crowd, rather than give them each a name and dual dialogue it, you can just say make a character called crowd and say the things they’re saying and maybe just shift return to put them on their own lines. Or put little slashes in between them just to get a sense of this is all simultaneous yammering.

**John:** You’ll often see that with news reports, where you’re cutting between a whole bunch of things. Even on previous Three Page Challenges we’ve had that, where it’s a news report going through a bunch of different talking heads describing the scene behind us.

**Craig:** Exactly.

**John:** Cool. Great, so if you want to download that, that’s at screenwriting.io. And you will just click, give us your email address, and we’ll send it to you.

So, Godwin Jabangwe, our Scriptnotes producer, has also gone through and edited this. So, he’s done some proofreading on it, but there will still be mistakes. And so one of the things you’ll see on the second page of the PDF is just a link to click, where basically if someone is broken, something is not right, or something could be better. So people can click that link and we can also improve things along the way.

**Craig:** It’s a great service. Just adds to the pile of good works that you do.

**John:** Why thank you.

**Craig:** All right. Well, I guess it’s probably time for our Three Page Challenges.

**John:** Absolutely. So, as long time listeners know, we occasionally take a look at three page sample sent in by our audience, offering our honest assessment in the hopes that people learn from them. Not just the people who wrote them in, but also our listeners.

If you would like to read along with us, you can find the PDFs in the show notes, so just scroll down and you will see the PDFs and you can see what it is we were talking about.

So, normally this is the point in the podcast where Craig or I try to lamely summarize what’s happening in the three pages, so people who are listening without looking at it can know what we’re talking about. I thought we’d try something different, which is invite our producer, Godwin Jabangwe, on to give us a synopsis of each of these projects before we start describing it. So, Godwin, if you could please hop on the line.

**Craig:** You know what’s great? Poor Godwin just listened to us beating up Stuart, and now he’s thinking, “The day I leave, they’re going to turn on me. This is terrible.”

**Godwin Jabangwe:** I’m never leaving.

**Craig:** Oh, smart. Smart.

**John:** So, would you start off with Tierra Blanca by Salvador Medina?

**Godwin:** All right. We open in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico, on a blazing hot morning. Ben, a man in his early 30s, tries to evade a truck that’s trailing him. He pulls into an auto shop where Diego and Rob are playing cards. Ben tells the mechanics to take their time. He’s in no rush. He’s resigned to his fate as the truck he’s been trying to escape waits patiently outside.

We cut to the past, two years earlier, to meet a younger, skinnier Ben. And that’s it.

**John:** So, everyone who has listened to this segment before knows that when we cut to the past at the bottom of page three, what is that called?

**Godwin:** It’s a Stuart Special.

**Craig:** I mean, do we rename it at this point, because Godwin picked this one. So this is on Godwin.

**Godwin:** This was an homage to Stuart.

**Craig:** Oh, OK. Fair enough. Fair enough.

**John:** We were discussing maybe a Godwin Gotcha.

**Craig:** [laughs] I like that. A Godwin Gotcha. So, Tierra Blanca is writing by Salvador Medina, who is Mexican. We know this because he put it on his title page, his contact information is that he lives in Mexico City. So, I’m going to avoid commenting on maybe some little tweakity things with English, because his English is vastly better than my Spanish.

This is a perfectly good way to start a movie. And we give the Stuart Special a lot of grief, but here’s what really works – I can see everything. I can see the streets. I can see the time of day. I can see the light. I can see what Ben looks like. I can see the heat. I can see the colors of the trucks. All of this is working great.

But, this I thought was not a great use of real estate in terms of the first three pages in the sense of what was happening. Here’s what’s happening. Ben is driving along. He’s in Mexico. He is not Mexican, clearly. And he realizes someone is following him and in that moment realizes that he’s going to die.

Now, what I just said, that’s not on the page. What’s on the page is that he sees the pickup truck behind him running a red light to keep up with him. And then Salvador writes, “Ben, surveys with his eyes.” That’s it.

**John:** There’s under-reaction there. And that’s the case where you’ve got to make that a playable moment for the actor. Surveys isn’t the verb there that sort of tells you what he’s doing.

**Craig:** No, exactly. It doesn’t give us a sense of what’s in his head. And what is in his head there should help us transition to this next scene. In the next scene, Diego, who runs an auto shop, is going to just greet him like he’s any customer. And Ben is going to explain to him that he can’t go outside because they will kill him as soon as he does. And Ben is depressed. He’s miserable. He’s in despair. That would all work if I understood the moment that caused the despair was actually causing despair.

That said, there is a card game going on between Diego and Rob, who are coworkers, that doesn’t really seem to be adding anything. I didn’t care about it. I don’t know what it could possibly be doing for us other than taking some time and setting some flavor, but once I see that Ben knows he’s going to die, I need to be with him.

**John:** Yeah. I think that aspect of being with him is my biggest question about this. It seems like we’re in Ben’s POV, but we break POV to come to Rob and Diego who are playing this card game, yet they’re not given very specific characters. And so my question going forward is are they main characters? Are they supposed to be main characters? Is there a reason why we’re shifting to their POV?

A strange thing that happens on page two, “Rob chuckles and takes the money. A white pickup truck parks in front of them.” Well, that’s Ben’s white pickup truck.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** But to say a white pickup truck, like wait, is it the same pickup truck? And so I ended up having to skip back a page and I was looking for who has a pickup truck, who has a pickup truck. And I see the first INT./EXT., there you go, answer to a Stuart question. It says Ben’s car rather than Ben’s truck, or Ben’s pickup truck.

And so, again, this may be an English thing, but when I see car, I’m not necessarily thinking truck. And so I was looking to try to match up what was actually happening here. And so my belief is that you’re trying to set a Tarantino kind of world where there are multiple people who can have storytelling power and people can cross over, but it’s only page two. And so it felt really strange for it to suddenly be shifting to these guys’ POV and to not really be focusing on Ben through these moments.

I can imagine a scenario in which Ben sees the car behind him, decides to pull into the auto shop, and we’re staying on his POV about what it is he’s trying to do next in order to watch the guy who is waiting for him to come out.

**Craig:** Yeah. This thing between Diego and Rob, it only really works if it happens before I know there’s any trouble at all. So for instance, there is a version here, Salvador, where you cut the scene, i.e. Ben’s car. Take all of it out. We’re not meeting Ben there. We’re not seeing him driving. We’re not seeing his truck. We’re not seeing somebody following him. We just open on Sinaloa, and you have subtitle that’s explaining to us that this is home to Mexico’s biggest drug lords. And that this Tierra Blanca is the neighborhood where most of them come from. So, we’re in a dangerous place.

And the next thing we see is an auto shop where a couple of guys are goofing around playing cards. And that doesn’t seem dangerous at all. Well, that’s an interesting contrast. So they have their little back and forth chit-chat, and then a guy comes in. Some white guy walks in and they’re like, oh okay, yeah, we’ll fix your car. This is all very mundane. Until he says, “They’ll kill me as soon as I leave here anyway.”

And then you have surprised people. And you have surprised Diego. And we are surprised with him. I think this is just a better way to think about things. How do you manufacture surprises, even though, look, let’s face it, it’s not really that surprising, right? You’re making a movie about drug wars. There’s going to be a problem.

**John:** We’ve seen movies before.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** I think what I would pitch though about your version of this is that initial conversation between Diego and Rob just has to be a lot better. You only get one first line in the script, and one first moment, and so like whatever that card game is, it has to feel like even if the other stuff never happened, we’d be interested enough in these characters based on the dynamic that we saw there.

And so look at what that card game is. It can feel very naturalistic. But just it needs to tell us more. It needs to be more important for why it’s there.

**Craig:** 100 percent. And I’ll point, Salvador, to a scene that I love in a movie I love. Kill Bill. This was in the first one. Uma Thurman’s character goes to meet a man named Hattori Hanzo, who makes these brilliant Japanese swords. He’s the best. But he’s since retired, and now he just works as a sushi chef. And he has this guy that’s basically his underling. And she walks in there pretending to just be some ding-a-ling American tourist who can’t speak Japanese.

And he’s just, you know, it’s a goofy scene. And all of his back and forth with the guy that’s working for him is funny. And it’s the comedy of the mundane and the ridiculous. He’s not moving fast enough. He’s so stupid. And then she finally drops the bomb that she knows who he is. And know he’s talking Japanese to her and it takes on a very different pallor.

You got to find some life if you’re going to do this, right, because that’s the point.

**John:** So, last things I want to look at, first off it starts with a title card. And so here’s the text of the title card: “Culiacán, Sinaloa, home to Mexico’s biggest drug lords. Most of them come from one of its oldest neighborhoods: Tierra Blanca.” I really like that as an opening thing. I can see that being really helpful for setting the mood. But if we’re going to say that, then three lines later you don’t have to say, “We’re in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico.” We got it based on the title card.

**Craig:** Agreed.

**John:** Other thing I want to focus on is the first page, he has his WGA registration number. You don’t need it. It’s one of those things that automatically smacks as being like doesn’t really get it. You won’t see those on scripts in Hollywood. You just won’t.

**Craig:** Nor will they actually ward off any trouble.

**John:** Not a bit.

**Craig:** It doesn’t work. Yeah, it’s like taking vitamin C when you get on a plane. Just turns your pee bright yellow. Doesn’t save you from anything.

**John:** Not a bit. So what is important on that title page, email address, so that people can email you to tell you how much they love your script and that they want to make it with a big star.

**Craig:** Mm-hmm.

**John:** All right. Godwin, come back to us and tell us about Normal Park by Laura Bailey.

**Godwin:** We follow a beat up minivan as it drives through Normal Park, a desolate manufacturing town in the mountains. The residents of Normal Park, led by Manfred, watch the first cut of a promotional video to lure the movie industry to town. The dissenters, led by Bonnie Duncan, argue the video should be live action, not animated. Manfred fires back that he couldn’t afford actors and that Bonnie herself can show the mayor the video since she’s the mayor’s wife. We end with a question: where is the mayor? And that’s it.

**John:** So this is a comedy. I’m taking this as a comedy. And for a script called Normal Park, I had a really hard time placing where Normal Park was. I think Normal Park is the name of the town, and yet I didn’t quite see the town. And I didn’t quite know where to place the town in my mind. I needed someone to say like, oh, this is in Michigan, or this is in Ohio. It’s someplace. But someplace that needs to be very specific. And I just wanted to know on page one what state am I looking at. And I wasn’t getting that here.

We open up with this sort of montage that’s showing us what Normal Park looks like, I guess. It felt like something that would play under credits, which could be great. And then we get to this cartoon movie that’s talking about the real people of Normal Park and this discussion about how to attract the movie industry. I really started getting into it once this whole idea of like how are we going to attract the movie people. That felt like a great premise. I just wasn’t getting hooked on that premise until page three, and I didn’t sort of know what movie I was watching for quite a long time.

Craig, how did you react to it?

**Craig:** Yeah, I had trouble. I was struggling here. First, I will start by letting Laura off the hook. So, Laura chose to include scene numbers on all of her scenes, which is something we do when we go into production. And you don’t do that unless you’re in production. But, lest you feel ashamed, Laura, I made that mistake.

So, John Glickman, whom John August went to school with at USC, was my producer on the first movie I was ever hired to write with my writing partner Greg Erb. And when we turned our first draft into him, we had put scene numbers on. We just didn’t know. We were very young.

And I will never forget. He said, “By the way, I like that you put scene numbers on. Very confident. Take them off.” [laughs] I just liked the idea that, well, if you put scene numbers on, we have to go into production, right?

**John:** Totally. Yeah, the scene numbers are set.

**Craig:** Yeah, we’ve done it, right? So, take the scene numbers off.

The initial drive through with the minivan is described in a wonderful way. “A minivan held together by rust and curse words.” It’s good. I really enjoyed that, because I understood what it was. However, that minivan is going to naturally start to color what I’m seeing around it. So when you say, “It’s held together by rust and curse words, backs down the driveway of a modest ranch and starts through a post-war neighborhood,” in my mind I’m thinking this town is a mess.

Because the minivan is a mess. It may not be that that’s exactly right, but that’s what – I’m just telling you that’s how it kind of works through me. The big problem is once the van passes the mountainous abandoned auto plant, and goes through downtown, the next thing is we’re inside a community center. That is not an acceptable transition, especially on the first page of a screenplay.

You can’t have me following a car as it winds its way through town and then suddenly I’m in some building. Where? I need a transition. The minivan can go past a particular building where somebody is walking in and we can see that person entering. They’re late. And these people are watching this thing on screen. Somehow or another you need to connect that.

**John:** It’s a very natural audience expectation, that if we’re following a car for a long period of time, we are going to see the person in the car and they are going to be a central character. That’s a natural expectation. You don’t have to obey that expectation. But we’re going to expect that. So, I think the minimum you need to do is what Craig said. Where it’s a drive-by and it hands us off to the next character.

It’s very Tampopo way of doing it.

**Craig:** Oh, excellent reference. Yes, the handoff – I mean, the most cliché opening transition shot in any movie is, you’ll see this all the time, it’s a party scene or a ball or a gala of some kind. And the director will start maybe like on a nice shot to show the room, and then he booms down, and a waiter, he starts following a waiter. And then the waiter sweeps by a table and now the camera stops at the table, because there are your actors. Right? There’s a way to do the handoff.

The issue with the movie, first of all, the movie is not funny. We only see like one second of it, which I think is a mistake. If the movie is bad, I want to see it. And make it funny. Make it ridiculous. And I will understand the tone of the movie and all the rest. This feels Waiting for Guffman-ish. That’s the problem. This is nowhere near as sharp as Waiting for Guffman is.

In particular, there’s a kind of a clunky exposition going on on page three, where Bonnie instead of continuing her argument with Manfred, which I think feels too back-and-forthy and samey, turns to the room to announce the plot. This is inelegant. And it just wasn’t kind of sizzling on the page.

You know, it’s the curse of the big idea, the big comedy idea like this, is that you kind of got to make me laugh pretty early, or at least smile, you know, something. It just felt flat.

**John:** So here’s what gave me some hope, is that I felt like just like the description of the minivan, some of her descriptions of characters were actually really charming. So, Manfred always walks like he’s wearing epaulets. Oh, that is useful. I can see what that person is like. And that tells me about his posture. It tells me about sort of how he perceives himself. I loved that.

Nick is described as, “Window-licking stupid.” Great. Another really good description. I need to see them doing that, though. It can’t just be the surface description of them.

I have a suggestion for a trim on page two. An example of how tightening up might make things work a little bit better. So, Bonnie says, “You didn’t see anything wrong?”

Manfred, “No. What’s the problem?”

“It’s a cartoon. The real people of Normal Park are cartoons.”

“We wanted to tell personal stories.”

“Then use people.”

Skip these next two lines. Go to, “They aren’t camera ready.” Continue with Manfred, “As director of the Normal Park Community Theater program you rely on my professional opinion.”

Too often I felt like we were stopping the possibility of jokes to just get other lines in there. Let it keep going through. Less will give you more here in terms of the ability to deliver character punchlines.

**Craig:** You know, you’re right. And you’re making a great observation that Laura is very good at character description. That’s where the best writing is. Unfortunately, no one will ever see it. Ever. Right? So, I love that epaulets line. I like that Bonnie is wearing enough bling to decorate a Christmas tree. And these things are fun and the town is a “town only a mother could love.” I mean, this is all clever.

It’s all wasted. All wasted cleverness, because we’re never going to see it, and we’re never going to hear it. Now, there is a kernel of a comic confusion going on here that also I thought, well, I’m not sure what she was going for, but when he shows this cartoon and then he says, “What do you think,” and Bonnie says, “You don’t see anything wrong?” And he says, “No, what’s the problem.”

And she says, “It’s a cartoon. The real people of Normal Park are cartoons.” Now, I think she means aren’t cartoons. And I hope so, because that makes–

**John:** I think she’s meaning air quotes around the real people.

**Craig:** Oh, meaning in the movie the real people are cartoons. That’s fine. The point being, is Bonnie upset because she thinks that people are going to think that people in Normal Park are actually cartoons and not people? You know, that’s a weird objection to make unless you are profoundly stupid. Which makes me think maybe that should be – Nick’s problem is that we’re not cartoons. Of course we’re not cartoons. Why would anyone think we’re cartoons? Because that’s what you told them that we are.

**John:** Maybe they could film an animated movie in this town.

**Craig:** [laughs] Exactly. That’s a really funny joke. See, that’s funny. I don’t know. I’m just saying it needs to be funnier, it needs to be sharper. It feels a little shaggy dog in its execution. The argument feels circular. And it just doesn’t have that thing, you know, that kind of – there’s something about small towns, and Christopher Guest, he understands this so, so well. You see it in so many of his movies. It’s the comedy of people fighting while being polite. Which I find fascinating.

So, anyway, stuff to think about there.

**John:** Great. I also have a question, last final question on page one. “Guttering light from the streetlamps glints off a baby crib strapped to the roof and overflowing with possessions.” What is guttering light?

**Craig:** Uh, I don’t know.

**John:** I don’t know either.

**Craig:** And I’m pretty good with words.

**John:** I’m looking it up right now to make sure if there’s actually a–

**Craig:** Is it glittering light?

**John:** Oh, it’s absolutely true. Examples being the candles had almost guttered out.

**Craig:** Huh.

**John:** But if I don’t know it, then most people reading this won’t know what that is.

**Craig:** I didn’t know that word either. I’ve never seen that. I’ve never even – I don’t even think I’ve seen that printed. But, let’s say I did know it. It doesn’t really matter, because your choice of vocabulary should generally match your movie. You don’t want to get highfalutin with vocabulary in a movie that’s probably going to be a broad comedy. This feels like a broad comedy.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** So, and when I say broad I mean, you know, meant to be a comedy-comedy. So, yeah, not a great choice there.

**John:** Cool. Godwin, come back and tell us about our third script of the day, which is The Reconstruction of Huck (Over Mark Twain’s Dead Body!) by Tim Plaehn.

**Godwin:** All right. We open on the escape at the end of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with Tom Sawyer shot, Huck offers Jim the chance to go on without them. Jim says, “Tom wouldn’t desert him, so he will stay.”

Cut to 17-year-old Allie Chesnutt’s bedroom. A firebrand feminist, Allie is enraged by what she just read. She takes umbrage – yes umbrage – at Huck saying he knew Jim was white inside. She listens to the Shaft theme song and gets even more riled up.

In the kitchen, Allie’s mom gets ready for work while listening to NPR discuss the Freddie Gray case. Mrs. Chesnutt asks her daughter if she finished the essay she was supposed to be working on. But Allie is too incensed with Mark Twain to respond. Mrs. Chesnutt concludes that Allie did not work on the essay. And that’s it.

**John:** Cool, Craig, what did you think?

**Craig:** Well, let’s start with the title. It’s fantastic. It’s such a great title. The Reconstruction of Huck Finn (Over Mark Twain’s Dead Body!) Talk about like if you’ve got a pile of scripts to read, you’re probably going to pick that. You’re not going to just go, oh yeah, there it is, same damn thing. What a great, great exciting title.

And there’s a note on the title page which probably would be better served going inside the script. I suspect that maybe Tim did this because he wanted – he had three pages and he didn’t want to lose a bit. But he’s saying essentially that the screenplay is going to be doing double casting where the same actors who are playing scenes from Huckleberry Finn are going to also be playing scenes in Allie’s real life. So, it’s an interesting concept. You can see how this is going to sort of unfold. And it could be fantastic.

Now, I was not as thrilled once I got through these three pages. In part because I thought maybe I was a little bit too long with this initial bit of Huckleberry Finn. Jim’s speech in particular is quite long.

**John:** And Jim’s speech in particular is very, very hard to parse, because it’s written in dialect. I think this was a great choice for Godwin to put here because it’s so tempting to write character’s dialogue in a dialectic kind of speech. And yet it is so impenetrable when you actually have to encounter it.

So, on page two, there’s a big long chunk. And I’m sure this is taken from the book. I’m sure it’s probably what he said in the book. And it may be written the exact same way, but it’s so hard to parse in the script. You’d be much better served by cleaning that up, using the same word choices, but not trying to make it phonetically exactly the way that Jim is speaking.

**Craig:** Yeah. You need to use your license here and appreciate, Tim, that if you are – in fact if your intention is these are the words from the novel, you are allowed to rewrite the spelling of the words so that the reader here, you know, I don’t think it’s a desecration. You’re not changing the text. You’re simply changing the way people are reading the words phonetically. Help them out. I think that’s a great idea.

When we get to Allie’s bedroom, I was a little concerned by how on the nose everything felt. I just felt like I was being punched in the face. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe the point is that Allie is – that we’ve gone from the stereotypical view that was enshrined in Huckleberry Finn of Jim the slave to this stereotypical 17-year-old moral crusader who isn’t just a feminist but needs posters of Gertrude Stein and Hermione, and Angela Davis on her walls.

That kind of production design is really beating me in the face. And it’s also – it makes her boring to me, because to me an exciting young woman with strong political attitudes, who is progressive, and who is really feminist would have far more interesting people on her wall than that. That’s like the feminist version of, you know, [unintelligible] The Kiss, which is on every boring bedroom in a dormitory.

It just feels so cliché.

**John:** What’s challenging is that we’re always telling people who submit the Three Page Challenge that we need to know who the characters are. We need to get a sense of who they are. But in this case, sometimes you’re telling us way too much too quickly. Or you’re basically painting this stereotype so quickly that you’re going to have a hard time surprising us with new information later on.

Like, we’re so locked into one point of view on who she is by the bottom of page two, that I feel like, oh, I know exactly who this is. And Chloe Grace Moretz is already in hair and makeup. It’s a very sort of set specified thing that we’ve just seen before. At least how we’re getting to the story on page two.

**Craig:** Yeah. There’s a bit of a challenge that you have in your transition from fantasy world to the real world, or imagined literary world to the real world. You have Huck say, “I knowed he was white inside…”

That’s in voiceover. Because I guess Huck thinks it in the novel. And then we have off-screen, “Ahhh!!!” That’s going to be very challenging. Because he’s thinking something in fantasy world and then real world is going to come in, but they both come from the same place, essentially.

**John:** Absolutely.

**Craig:** Which is off-screen. That’s just not going to work cinematically at all. It’s going to be extraordinarily confusing. We’re not going to know what the hell is going on. It would be better, frankly, to unfortunately bend a little bit – bend a little bit there – and have Huck say out loud, “I knowed you was white inside…” And then hear, “Ahhhh.”

And then you cut to – now, here is the other problem. You want her screaming over there, because you think that’s interesting, and it may very well be so. Then it locks you into her having already read it. So, when we cut to her she’s throwing the book across the room. And then, “Ahhh,” it’s painful for her to announce, “I knowed he was white inside. What kind of blah-blah-blah is that?!” She’s just repeating what we heard and telling us so that we understand that, you know what I mean, it’s clunky.

**John:** Yeah. I mean, if she’s going to be reacting to that specific line, she either throws the book, or she repeats the line, but she doesn’t do both. And I felt like there was too much here. Plus, she’s going to throw the book and then we’re going to spend an eighth of a page sort of describing her before getting to her dialogue right now. It’s not the best use of our time and our space.

**Craig:** Yeah. And the end of the scene is simply not continues in any recognizable human fashion. A girl is reading a book. It enrages her. She throws it across the room. Pronounces out loud why she’s thrown it across the room. Then, the theme song from Shaft begins playing. I’m not sure if that’s inside the scene or if that’s score. Regardless, Allie chooses now to pack up her books, pull back her hair, and then start singing along with it, so I guess it is in there, but where did it come from?

Did she start playing? And what a weird thing to ask the audience to do. To watch a girl pack up her backs in her bag. You couldn’t ask for something more likely to be cut.

**John:** Agreed. So, I don’t think we’ve really dug into diegetic and non-diegetic sound in previous episodes, but diegetic means we can see the source of the sound within the room. And so if she presses play on her Walkman, or on – depending on what era this is – or she’s putting in her ear phones, then we believe that’s diegetic sound. That is sound that the characters are actually experiencing in their world.

If it’s stuff that’s just playing on the soundtrack, that’s non-diegetic. And so the same thing can be said for Huck’s voiceover and her voiceover, that sort of scream that gets us out of the Huck Finn stuff. You got to have an answer for where that stuff is coming from. Because right now it seems like she’s reacting to something that we’re not sure she should be able to hear.

**Craig:** Mm-hmm. Exactly. So you just got to figure, you know, it seems to me like it is diegetic and he’s just missed the moment where she turns something on. Otherwise, I don’t know how she could possibly be singing along to non-diegetic.

Then, we finish off with a kitchen scene that feels so cliché that it is almost too cliché for commercials. A busy business mom, checking her iPhone, while the little brother eats cereal from the box. There’s that little brother and his cereal box. That kid gets around. He’s in everything. It’s rough to see those–

**John:** He’s a Clip Art kid.

**Craig:** He’s a Clip Art kid. He really is. And this is where maybe if I’d just been hit in the face one time with the “Look at me, I’m a feminist” posters from the “Look at me, I’m a feminist” factory. Then we’ve got this NPR thing playing about the Freddie Gray situation. So, now I’m getting hit with like, oh okay, I understand – believe me, you’re making a movie called The Reconstruction of Huck Finn (Over Mark Twain’s Dead Body!), I know you’re going to be tangling with issues of race and gender and politics and all of it.

It just starts to feel like, oh god, this is going to be an afterschool special.

**John:** Yeah. So, I want to highlight one moment on page three which I thought worked really well, so people can look at this. So, Mrs. Chesnutt asks, “Did you finish your Rotary Club essay.” In action: Allie considers lying. Continues on. “He just made white the only way to be good. White!” A very smart way to let another character think about what they’re going to say and choose not to say it and then just plow ahead. It calls it out without sort of stopping everything to do it.

And you can do that in a parenthetical, but I really liked how Tim did it in this moment.

**Craig:** Yeah. I did, too. And I thought that he could probably cut the next reiteration of it and just have her mom say, “That means you didn’t.” Because her mom is smart enough to know that, yes, you may have a fantastic point about the inherent racism of Huckleberry Finn, but you didn’t do your homework. And so that works. I just feel like this is such an audacious and smart idea and frankly something I think would find an audience. It can’t be done like this. It has to be done with far more subtlety I think.

**John:** So, I would say about this title and this idea is it’s the kind of thing that done really well gets on the Black List, because it’s a thing that people – it sticks in people’s heads. It has great execution on the page. It may never get made, but that’s OK, too. It’s a thing that sort of announces you as a talent. It’s a thing that gets you meetings. It’s a thing that gets you rewrites assignments. It gets you staffed on a TV show. I think it’s a really nice idea that’s very execution-dependent. And so I think what we’re pushing Tim to do is just make sure your execution can match what we think is a really nice idea.

**Craig:** Yeah. And I’ll tell you what, Tim. You really need to listen to us here, because the thing is – here’s what’s real. We rarely talk about this in Three Page Challenges, because usually we’re just dealing with three pages. But let’s talk about how this business actually works.

John’s right. This is the kind of title that is grabby. And it’s a kind of subject that is grabby. And I could absolutely see this ending up on a Black List. I could see this getting attention, assuming that it plays out in a surprising and enlightening way.

But, it is exactly because it is execution-dependent, it is exactly the kind of script that comes along I’m telling you once a week. There is a script that comes along where people go we just got a script. It’s an amazing idea. It’s an amazing title. We can cast it. We got to find somebody to rewrite this right away. Somebody who knows how to write a movie.

You don’t want to be that guy. You don’t want somebody else coming in and redoing this. You want to be that guy.

**John:** Agreed. Well, that’s our Three Page Challenge for this week. If you have three pages you want us to take a look at, actually if you want Godwin to take a look at it, because he’s the person who looks at all of them, there’s a form you fill out. So go to johnaugust.com/threepage, all spelled out. There are instructions there. You click some things. You attach a PDF. And it goes into Godwin’s inbox, so he will look through them.

Godwin, thank you again for picking these three and for all the other ones you didn’t pick, but you had your read. So thank you very much for joining us.

**Godwin:** Thank you so much. This was fun.

**Craig:** Good job, Godwin.

**John:** All right, now it’s time for our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing is a creature. It’s a creature that was newly discovered, but what was discovered this past week was how old they lived to be. So, this is the Greenland Shark. So, a lot of things that live in the sea live for a very long time. Jellyfish are essentially immortal. They keep reforming themselves. Koi can live a long time. Shellfish. But now they’ve discovered that this Greenland Shark is the longest living vertebrae.

It can live at least 400 years, which is basically two centuries longer than the previous record holder. So, how do you find out how long something can live given that you weren’t there around when it was born? So, it turns out that in the mid-1950s, back when they were testing a bunch of thermonuclear devices, they left residue. And so that residue gets into the ocean and that’s how they can actually track how old something is based on how much of that residue is stuck in the creature and where it’s stuck and sort of they can use that as a marker for like how old something is.

And so the new estimate is these things can live to be 400 years old.

**Craig:** 400-year-old shark.

**John:** Yep.

**Craig:** So, inevitably people are now going to catch the shark, kill it, and then try and figure out why it lived so damn long.

**John:** Exactly. So, some of the secrets of living a very long time seem to be you grow super slowly. So, the slower you grow, the slower you grow old, I guess. But, yes, they will try to figure out why it lived so long and people will sell pills that are supposed to have shark cartilage in them or something like that.

What I found most interesting about this, though, is thinking back 400 years and sort of like how much has happened in the last 400 years, specifically what life was like when one of these sharks was born. So, 400 years ago, who else was alive? Well, Shakespeare. Rene Descartes. Galileo Galilei, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Elizabeth I, Peter the Great. Ice cream was just invented. Paper money was just being figured out in the form of bank notes. They had just invented calculus. And also they just printed the first King James Bible.

So, one of these creatures was alive when all that stuff was brand new.

**Craig:** God. That’s amazing. I can’t believe that ice cream was invented.

**John:** Yeah. You had to invent it.

**Craig:** Somebody had to sit there and do it.

**John:** Yeah. All you need is ice and cream and a churn, but you have to figure it out.

**Craig:** Salt. I think you need salt.

**John:** You need salt. You have to have it colder than just ice. You have to have like super cold ice.

**Craig:** That was probably whoever Mr. Ice Cream was, that’s why he got to name it that.

**John:** Yeah, he’s really lucky to have such a good name. What if his name had been like Basselfaffer.

**Craig:** [laughs] Like the Earl of Sandwich. Or Lord and Lady Douchebag. OK. That’s classic Saturday Night Live.

**John:** I like it.

**Craig:** my One Cool Thing also scientific. This is kind of remarkable. Scientists in Australia, Sweden, and the United States – so they’ve been working across the world together – have identified a molecule that may hold the key to identifying the cause of suicide. Suicidality. Now, here’s a shocking thing. It turns out that when you test people who are admitted to hospital for suicidality/suicide attempts/suicidal ideation, and you compare their cerebral spinal fluid with those of other people admitted to the hospital for not suicide-related things, there’s this thing that is much higher in people who are suicidal.

And it is a marker essentially that it’s a Quinolinic acid. And it is a marker of chronic inflammation in the spinal fluid. Essentially there is some kind of inflammatory response in the central nervous system itself. And they have also found that suicidal patients have reduced activity of a certain enzyme that lowers production of this other asset that protects against. You know, because all of these things are layered systems.

But the point is the way we’ve always treated people who are suicidal is to treat their presumed depression. And what these people are saying is depression works more on a serotonergic pathway. This is something else. And we need to treat the something else. And what’s fascinating to me, just fascinating, is that as we go forward as a human species, we become more and more aware of how things we presumed were entirely within our control, or aspects of our “personality” are in fact not at all.

**John:** Yeah. Obviously correlation is not causation. So, as they do more studies they’ll need to figure out is this inflammation marker – is it the cause of the suicide ideation, or is it just another byproduct of something else that’s going on in the body?

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** But as they do more research on schizophrenia they’re finding really interesting reasons behind how some of that stuff happens. Things that are genetic but also not genetic, that are things that happen just through environment.

So, yeah, it’s an exciting time to be studying brain stuff.

**Craig:** It really is. And also I think it’s an exciting time to reconsider how we view each other, particularly when we’re talking about people who either have committed suicide or have attempted it. That it is not as simple as, oh, you gave up. Oh, you are a quitter. Or, oh, you didn’t get the help you needed.

There is a strong possibility that this is very physical in nature, and that is just shocking and amazing to me. And a lot of cause for hope.

**John:** I would agree. That is our program for this week. So, if you have a question for me or for Craig Mazin, you can reach us on Twitter. I’m @johnaugust. Craig is @clmazin. If you have a longer question, you can write in to ask@johnaugust.com. And Godwin looks through those and forwards them appropriately.

If you would like to leave us a review on iTunes, that would be so much appreciated. Just search for us, Scriptnotes on iTunes. That’s also where you can find the Scriptnotes app that gives you access to all the back catalog. We also have a few of the 250-episode USB drives that give you all the back episodes and all the bonus episodes as well, so you can find those at the store at johnaugust.com.

There will be links in the show notes to most of the things we talked about, including the Three Page Challenges. So, if you are on one of the popular players, you can probably just scroll down a little bit and see all of those links there. They were missing for a week, but we figured out what was wrong, so Godwin has them restored. So you click and get all that stuff right there.

Our show is produced by Godwin Jabangwe and edited by Matthew Chilelli, who also did our outro this week. And next week will be our last episode from Los Angeles.

**Craig:** Oh boy.

**John:** Oh boy. So the plan is that we will still keep doing the show over Skype the way we usually do it, just with a huge time gap between us. There may be some more episodes that are Craig with a person here in Los Angeles. There may be some episodes where it’s me and someone in France or the UK. But, we will try to keep doing Scriptnotes every week. We’ll let you know if we fall off of that schedule, but I think we can do it. I’m optimistic.

**Craig:** Yeah. I know we can do it. I know we can do it because I’m sure that you will do it. How about that.

**John:** [laughs] All right. We’ll find a way. Thanks.

**Craig:** Bye.

Links:

* [Gen Con](http://www.gencon.com/)
* [True Dungeon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdQz4XLPzkk&feature=youtu.be)
* [The Katering Show](https://www.youtube.com/user/LeadBalloonTV)
* Download [The 100 Most Frequently Asked Questions about Screenwriting](http://screenwriting.io/)
* Three Pages by [Salvador Medina](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/SalvadorMedina.pdf)
* Three Pages by [Laura Bailey](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/LauraBailey.pdf)
* Three Pages by [Tim Plaehn](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/TimPlaehn.pdf)
* Send us your [Three Pages](http://johnaugust.com/threepage)
* [The Greenland Shark](http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/11/health/greenland-sharks-long-lives/index.html)
* [The Suicide Molecule](https://scienceblog.com/486875/scientists-discover-key-identifier-suicide-risk/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Matthew Chilelli ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/Episode_263.mp3).

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2016/the-exit-interview).

Previously on Scriptnotes.

**John August:** Subject: Podcasts. Wondering if you’d have any interest in doing a joint podcast on screenwriting?

**Craig Mazin:** A podcast would solve my “I want to talk about screenwriting, but I’m tired of writing about screenwriting” problem. So, yes, count me in.

**John:** Bonjour. Et Bienvenue. Je m’appelle John August.

**Craig:** Je m’appelle Craig Mazin.

**John:** There’s NaNoWriMo, which is National Novel Writing Month. I’m strongly considering actually just doing it this year.

**Craig:** Wow.

**John:** And there’s an idea I have that is not a movie idea, or at least it’s not an idea that wants to exist first as a movie. And so I’m thinking about actually doing it this year and writing a book.

Bin Lee asks, “When can we hear Stuart’s voice on the podcast?”

**Craig:** I don’t know. I mean, we could just keep him like Maris, Niles’s wife on Frasier. Sort of a presence.

**John:** Indeed. Like in Fight Club the whole time through. I’ve always – I’ve actually been Stuart the whole time through.

Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

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

**John:** And this is Episode 259 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the season finale of Scriptnotes, we have major announcements about the future of the show that listeners may find exciting and/or troubling. So, if you’re driving a car, please don’t swerve and hit a Pokémon Go player.

You might want until you get to a safe space. We will also be discussing that computer algorithm that says that there are only six plots, which is pretty much a layup. And, Craig, welcome. You are here in person. This was a big show, so we couldn’t do this by Skype. You had to be here live.

**Craig:** No, I had to be here live. I wanted to be here live. I did, unfortunately, mow down 14 Pokémon Go players.

**John:** Were they in a parking lot?

**Craig:** And nothing of value was lost.

**John:** [laughs]

**Craig:** I mean, what? What?

**John:** So, here’s what we were talking about before you came. It’s like if a Pokémon player dies while collecting Pokémon, do they all spray out like the rings like from Sonic the Hedgehog?

**Craig:** That would be amazing, because then the amount of murders – Pokémon Go related murders. Because then we would be living in Grand Theft Auto 5.

**John:** Yeah. It kind of feels like we already are. So, it’s a nice time.

**Craig:** Actually, that reminds me of my One Cool Thing. Because, as you know, I do believe in the fact that we are. But there’s maybe a way out. So, my One Cool Thing is going to be about the way out of that. But, no, I’m happy to be here. It’s very exciting. I don’t know what season finale of Scriptnotes means, since I believe our new season starts next week.

**John:** Our new season starts next week. But this is the end of five seasons. So, this is our fifth anniversary we’re coming up on.

**Craig:** Aw.

**John:** Which is crazy.

**Craig:** What you get me?

**John:** Uh, nothing. I got you some changes. I got you some changes to the show, which is sort of exciting, too.

**Craig:** I hope they’re good ones.

**John:** And the reason I was thinking about the season finale concept is that when a television series comes to its series finale, there are certain things that are sort of tropes that are going to happen. And so there tends to be the defeat of a big, bad villain. I don’t know if we have any villains on our show. Do we have any villains?

**Craig:** Stuart.

**John:** Well, yeah. We have the death of a major character. The removal of a major character. Someone leaves the show. We have a change of venue.

**Craig:** Stuart.

**John:** He’s not a venue. He’s sort of a world onto himself.

**Craig:** Right. Good point. Good point.

**John:** We have meta conversations about the series and sort of how far we’ve come. There’s always that thing. There’s always that thing where you’re reflecting back on sort of all the stuff you did. Or like, hey, do you remember when.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** So like at the end of a season of Survivor they used to do that thing where they had like all the torches, the torches of the fallen, and they got through all that. Jeff Probst listens to the show, so–

**Craig:** I know! I know. I think you and I are one of the 12 people that he follows on Twitter, which I think is fantastic. I was for a long time a longstanding Survivor watcher. It is a huge commitment of your life to be a first season to current season Survivor watcher.

**John:** I’ve watched every season.

**Craig:** That’s amazing. Admittedly, I – my wife continues, but I fell off somewhere in there. But that show is brilliant.

**John:** It’s really, really good. And so on that show they would always pass the torches of the fallen. And basically it felt like a huge filler, but it was excuse for showing footage of all the people who used to be on the show who are no longer on the show.

**Craig:** Well, it’s like in the Hunger Games when somebody dies, and then they show their face in the clouds. And they play sad music.

**John:** Yeah. But the last thing you always do on a season finale is really set up the next season. So that the wheels are in motion for next season. And like True Blood used to do a really good job of like they’d wrap up all their business like halfway through the final episode of the season, and then like introduce the whole new thing that was going to happen. Sort of tease that next thing.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Or in books sometimes they’ll have the first chapter of the next book at the end of the book. The kids’ series will have that.

**Craig:** Yeah, like when the season – I think two seasons ago on Game of Thrones, the last shot was Arya Stark heading off to Bravos. So, you knew, okay, exciting things would be happening with her in Bravos, which curiously just was kind of a zero in terms of it’s actual – like the one thing I can criticize about what those guys have done character-wise, and I don’t even think it’s their fault, because I think they had to… – It’s like, look, that’s a huge chunk of the books. But, narratively, if she had missed that boat and then hit her head and slept for two years, she’d be right back where she is now.

Well, with little changes.

**John:** With little changes.

**Craig:** Yeah. Little changes. She’s got some new skills.

**John:** So, we are to some degree sailing off to Bravos. Hopefully there will be some growth and some change, but that’s this episode.

And so we’re going to dig into it after we do some follow up. And we’ll start with some boat follow up, though. So, in an earlier episode we talked about magical dad transformation comedies, and someone brought up the Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell comedy, Overboard. And we both, I think, commented that like that movie is really dark when you think about it.

**Craig:** Yeah. The actual circumstances of Overboard require a man to take massive advantage of a brain-injured woman, gaslight her, total gas-lighting her into believing that. And then kind of employ her as a domestic slave. And then also have sex with her.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And then in the end convince her to stay of her own volition.

**John:** So a troubling premise, really. And so we said on the show, someone could easily recut that trailer as a dark kind of thriller. And one of our listeners – because we have the best listeners in the entire world–

**Craig:** We do.

**John:** Did this. So, Fredrik Limi, we’ll provide a link in the show notes, he did what’s sort of a David Fincher version of it called Girl Gone Overboard. And it’s nicely done. I found it a little bit long, but I thought he found the really good shots that sort of told that very dark story from her point of view. Questioning like, wait, am I really the woman you say I am?

**Craig:** Right. Exactly. I wanted creepier music.

**John:** Yeah. Creepy music is very important.

**Craig:** We can’t help but criticize everything, right? We’re the worst.

**John:** We are the worst.

**Craig:** We’re the worst.

**John:** We’re the worst.

**Craig:** This guy did us a favor.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** And we’re like, eh, it’s too long. Change the music.

**John:** I thought he did a brilliant job selecting out those moments.

**Craig:** He did. Actually, there were moments that I had forgotten happened, like when he’s pushing her head in the water. And you’re like, “Oh, god.”

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** It’s a terrible, terrible premise for a movie.

**John:** Terrible premise for a movie. Today’s episode is unique in the history of our podcast, because in this episode Stuart Friedel, who has always been a man behind the curtain, a person we refer to but don’t actually invite onto the show itself–

**Craig:** For good reason.

**John:** Yes, Stuart Friedel is here because this is his going away. This is his exit interview.

**Craig:** Wow.

**John:** Stuart Friedel, the producer of Scriptnotes for five years, is finally leaving the nest. So we thought it’s about time to have him on the show to actually talk about what he’s done, what he’s doing, what he’s going to do. Stuart Friedel, welcome to Scriptnotes.

**Stuart Friedel:** Thanks for having me.

**Craig:** Wow. He did that so well. It’s like he’s learned. This is bizarre, because as you know, I still – even though I’m looking at you, Stuart – right now I’m not quite sure you’re real.

**Stuart:** I’m not either, frankly.

**Craig:** Good. So we’re on the same page.

**Stuart:** Yeah.

**Craig:** So, I guess we should probably start by finding out why you’re leaving, right?

**Stuart:** Yeah. That’s a good question. I would say that I’ve hit the critical mass of other projects, so it’s just time for me to pack my bags and hit the road.

**Craig:** And your other projects are of what nature?

**Stuart:** TV writing, kids’ TV primarily, which is my – I’d say my life’s work. My passion.

**John:** So, I think it’s good for us to fill in the backstory and really chart the entire person who is Stuart Friedel, because so far he’s always been this name, or the person who answers the emails, or like sends out the tee-shirts, or gets yelled at when the phone rings while we’re trying to record.

**Craig:** Yeah. That’s my favorite part.

**Stuart:** [laughs] Those are all things that I do. This is true.

**John:** So, Stuart has been my assistant for five years. And I hired you from Disney Channel.

**Stuart:** You did. Yeah. I was working as the Assistant in original programming development at Disney Channel.

**Craig:** And how did you even come to find him there and pull him out like a bird stealing another bird’s egg?

**John:** That’s what it was. Stuart went through the Stark Program, the same graduate school program that I went through at USC. And so when Matt Byrne, when my previous assistant, was time for him to go, he got staffed on the TV show Scandal and is still a big writer on Scandal.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** We put out the call to Starkies saying, “Hey, this job is open.” Whenever that job becomes open, people scramble for it. So, we don’t sort of put out the call too wide. How did you find out about the job?

**Stuart:** I was at the time teaching – is a very loose word – but I was instructing a third of a Stark class at nights, The Negotiation Game, which is awesome. And one of co-“adjunct professors” was on a Stark email list that I didn’t know existed. And they were like gossiping about it after class.

And I kind of kept my ear to the ground. We had Chad and Dara come speak to us, and I guess Dana come speak to our class, while I was at Stark.

**Craig:** All former John August assistants.

**Stuart:** Yeah. They all gave the advice, like if you have any interest in writing, you know, keep your ear to the ground. And my time at Disney, for this job specifically, my time at Disney was fine. I was definitely at a point where it was like a crossroads. And I was either going to be there for a long time, or not. And for a few reasons I kind of wanted to be in the “not” camp. And so this was like fate. It was the exact right moment. I was at Disney for 365 days on the nose. And I had always said I don’t want to do it for less than a year.

**Craig:** This means something.

**Stuart:** Yeah. So it was, you know, kismet.

**Craig:** Nice. And so then John plucks you away.

**Stuart:** Yeah. The application process was long.

**Craig:** Long and arduous.

**John:** Yeah. So I think during your session I met with like five different candidates, and I had you edit together a bit of the blog – because at this point there was no podcast, so it was mostly about the blog. It was mostly about johnaugust.com. And I had you read a script? What else?

**Stuart:** Yeah. So I remember the job description was like don’t write a typical cover letter. So I remember writing this two-page cover letter and like going over it. I remember I had line that was like “In the grand Disney tradition, I’m ready to be rescued,” and like all that stuff. I was really proud of it.

**Craig:** That’s adorable, Stuart.

**Stuart:** That was true. And then came in for an interview. And first round interview was just meeting. You sent me home with a script and said do notes on this. And it was like this whole prompt. And the last line was, “And proofread it.” Come in with like casting, all this.

And I got here an hour early and I was sitting in the car, and I was like all ready with my notes and my casting. And then it was like, “And proofread it,” and I had totally forgotten to do that. And I remember coming in during my interview and saying like you asked that at the end, and I was like I thought I had gotten through the whole, and forgot that you wanted us to proofread it. And I was like, “I got to be honest,” and I told that story. And I was like, “And while I was reading it, I found one mistake, which was you wrote four-poster bed, but it’s supposed to be four-post bed.” But then I looked up on my iPhone and it actually is four-poster bed.

So, not only do I have no mistakes, but the one mistake that I found wasn’t actually a mistake.

**John:** Yeah.

**Stuart:** And then, for some reason, you didn’t count me out. You sent us home again–

**Craig:** Yeah, I would have – just that ridiculous story, I would have, absolutely, I would have removed you from my premises.

**John:** So not only did you not follow instructions, then you were wrong when you attempted to follow the instructions, but at the last minute you scrambled.

**Stuart:** I owned it. And I admitted it. Hopefully I–

**Craig:** That’s the worst part. That’s the absolute worst part, is now you’re making me have to care about your problem. I would have had you removed from the premises.

**Stuart:** Yeah. I mean, that’s what I figured. If I make him internalize it. If I–

**Craig:** Well, that worked on him.

**Stuart:** [laughs] Yeah. And then you sent us home and it was like the next prompt was – or the hypothetical. I want to write a book that is the blog as a book, that’s very much like Chapter Three of Tina Fey’s Bossy Pants. And went to Barnes & Noble that day and I read cover to cover at work the entire book. And then you were like, “So what’s the table of contents of my book.” And we went, I think, three notes sessions back and forth.

And then I remember the day that you called me, and I went to the Disney Channel parking garage to take the call.

**John:** Aw.

**Craig:** Aw.

**Stuart:** And I got the job.

**Craig:** That’s spectacular. Now, for people that are thinking about breaking into our business, I don’t know – because I actually never did the typical assistant job. My first job was through a temp agency really. So there wasn’t much of an interview process. It was just, “How fast can you type? Yeah, you seem to wear clothes. You’re fine.”

Is this normal or abnormal?

**John:** I think it’s abnormal in the sense that most times when you’re hiring an assistant, you’re basically like can you keep track of my calendar and schedule and–

**Craig:** Phones.

**John:** Phones, yeah. And that kind of stuff. And I recognized that over the years, my assistants, there wasn’t a lot of that calendar and phone stuff. But there was a lot of like the ability to talk about the script I’m working on, the ability to read stuff and proofread it. The ability to sort of recognize what was important and what was not important.

So, some backstory on my side. Like I’ve been lucky to have this string of remarkable assistants. My first assistant was Rawson Thurber, who has been a guest on the show. Then I had Dana Fox. I had Chad Creasey. And the Creaseys went on to do great stuff. I had Matt Byrne. And now Stuart Friedel.

And so I got to recognize over time that it wasn’t just about the person sitting there being barely level competent. You wanted somebody who could actually do something really good. And somebody who I wouldn’t be annoyed with sitting downstairs and doing their own stuff the whole day.

**Craig:** That’s the huge part. Because that eliminates almost everyone for me.

**John:** Yeah. Exactly. You don’t want anyone else in your space.

**Craig:** No. No, to look at somebody – I do have someone who works with me, and she’s been with me for years. And I can’t do – like if she came to me and said, “I’m thinking of moving on for a reason,” I would just say, “Well, then I’m retiring.” Because I can’t do this again. I can’t meet anyone new. I can’t look at a new person. It’s going to be terrible.

**Stuart:** Yeah.

**John:** The other difference is that I’ve hired a lot of other people sort of in addition to assistants, so I’ve had designers, and I’ve had Nima who does our coding. So there’s been other people who have sort of come through the world. And so you get a sense of who is going to fit in and who is going to be additive in a great way.

**Stuart:** I remember in the final interview you said like, “I’m not always the best roommate, but in this situation we’re not roommates. I’m the boss. So you just have to be aware of that.” And I think that’s a very–

**Craig:** Perfectly. I mean, that is accurate. I wouldn’t have said that either. Because, to me, what do you not know that I’m your boss?

**Stuart:** Right. Right.

**Craig:** I’m already – you could see the problem with me, right?

**John:** So I’ll tell you that when I hired you, I really didn’t think you would last five years.

**Craig:** Yes!

**John:** I thought you would last one year. And here’s why. I remember telling Mike my husband this. Is I thought like, well, he’s really good. I bet in a year he’s going to go back to kids’ TV, because he’s the only person I’ve ever met who actually genuinely loves kids’ TV. Like you’re not faking it. You really do love kids’ television. And when we come back from a trip, on the DVR we’ll see all the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon shows that you’ve recorded that you’ve actually watched because you keep track of that stuff. You actually know the names of the actors. You can recognize sort of trends and things.

**Craig:** Well, Stuart, you should be on children’s TV. I mean, people don’t necessarily know what you look like. But you look exactly like the sort of guy I would be thrilled to have my young child watching a la Blue’s Clues.

**Stuart:** Oh wow. I thought you meant as a child.

**Craig:** No, no. Steve from Blue’s Clues.

**John:** He very much has a Steve from Blue’s Clues quality.

**Craig:** Right. I mean, you look like fun. And you look safe.

**Stuart:** All right. Cool.

**Craig:** And you look nice and kind. And you would be – you should make a show for yourself.

**Stuart:** All right. I’ll take that one to the bank.

**Craig:** Only if you do it. If you don’t do it, now it’s just tragically upset guy.

**Stuart:** If I were a kid that lived in LA, there’s no doubt I would have pressured my parents to getting me on at least in the room for those things.

**John:** Stuart, who is the one kid I see on everything now who has the red hair, who is in the recent version of Wet Hot American Summer, but he was also the pseudo bully kid, but he’s also in Another Period recently? He’s in everything.

**Stuart:** Yeah. And he was on those commercials as the fairy that flies through that room. I don’t know his name, but you’re right that he is on everything now. He’s not really on many kids’ things though.

**John:** No. he’s always the kid in an adults’ thing.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** But that’s sort of – he grows up to be you.

**Stuart:** Yeah. I had a kid when I was a camp counselor who I really liked, but he was like the punk red-headed kid that was in my cabin. He’s that kid, but this generation’s “that kid.”

**Craig:** That kid. Yeah.

**John:** And so I thought that you were going to be leaving about two years ago, also, because when my assistants are working for me they’re always writing stuff, and I never read their stuff until they ask me to read it. And so finally you asked me to read something. And I read it and it was really good.

And it may not have been the very first thing I read that said like, “Oh well, he can really do it,” but like the second thing I was like, oh, that’s really good. I can totally see–

**Craig:** Stuart can do this.

**John:** He can do this. And like you are going to get staffed, and then all this stuff was going to happen. And I remember actually talking with a showrunner who called in sort of doing a background check on you. And I was like, well, he’s totally—

**Stuart:** Oh really? I didn’t know that.

**John:** The MTV show.

**Stuart:** Yeah. I know what you’re talking about. I didn’t know that they called.

**John:** Oh, no, they called.

**Stuart:** I didn’t get the job.

**John:** No, you did not get the job.

**Craig:** What did you say, John?

**John:** I said lovely things about how talented he is.

**Craig:** Stuart should be a character on a child’s show. He appears to be an animated Muppet. Yes. Oh, what is your channel? MTV? Oh, no, no, no, no.

**Stuart:** Glad to hear that that staffing meeting went well, because I thought it went well, and then I was sort of disappointed that I didn’t get the job. But at least if they were calling about me it means I wasn’t crazy.

**John:** I’m sorry that for the last two years I haven’t told you that the meeting went well.

**Craig:** What else have you not told him?

**John:** That’s sort of the bulk of it. So, as Stuart is preparing to leave, I can tell you that there’s a pattern that happens where people’s scripts get passed around without them knowing they get passed around. And so when I started hearing from Stuart that like, oh, someone else read this thing and I didn’t even know they were reading it. When I started hearing those kind of conversations I was like, oh, his clock is ticking. This is all happening here.

And then people come to a point where the number of meetings they have to have and the number of phone calls they have to have is just tremendous. And I was able to sit down with Stuart and say like the most important thing for you to do is to take all these meetings and do all these things. And I need somebody who is here to answer the phones and do stuff. And so we’re at this threshold now. And I’m happy that we’re at this threshold.

And also, you’re–

**Stuart:** A lot of good stuff is happening.

**John:** And you’re getting married.

**Stuart:** Getting married in three weeks.

**Craig:** I’m so excited. I’m going to be there.

**Stuart:** Me too. Yeah. I’m pretty stoked.

**Craig:** Are you going to be there?

**John:** I’m going to be there.

**Craig:** Awesome.

**Stuart:** The all-stars Scriptnotes team.

**Craig:** Absolutely. Is your dad going to be there?

**Stuart:** My dad will be there.

**Craig:** I love Stuart’s dad so much.

**Stuart:** Me too.

**Craig:** Your mom is great.

**Stuart:** Yeah. I love my mom also. It’s her birthday today actually.

**Craig:** But there’s something about your dad. Oh, it is? Happy Birthday, Mrs. Friedel.

**Stuart:** I’ll pass it along.

**John:** Congratulations. Indeed. Stuart’s parents and even grandparents would come to live shows, which I just found remarkable.

**Craig:** Amazing.

**John:** Because live shows can be really filthy. Like, this is a clean episode, but sometimes they’re not clean.

**Stuart:** Yeah. I have a brother who lives out here. And he in the course of my working here has had two babies. And so I’ve been lucky enough to have four grandparents that will come for those things. And those things also seem to coincide with live episodes.

**Craig:** And all of your grandparents are alive?

**Stuart:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Wow. Good genes.

**Stuart:** Yeah, right, it’s kind of crazy.

**Craig:** Is everyone red-headed?

**Stuart:** No one. I’m the only one.

**Craig:** Oh, really?

**Stuart:** Back to post – like before my grandparents. I’m the only one.

**Craig:** Then, if the pattern holds, you will also be the only one who dies young.

**Stuart:** There we go.

**Craig:** Congratulations.

**Stuart:** As a statistician, you understand how these patterns and things work.

**Craig:** Absolutely. What I just said was mathematically valid.

**John:** We have questions from listeners and you’re here, so let’s have you answer some of these. Kevin writes, “I wonder, does Stuart – hi Stuart – keep a mental track of the best entries in his opinion in the Three Page Challenge? If so, that could be a great post on your blog, or yearend podcast material.” Stuart, do you keep track of the best entries in Three Page Challenge?

**Stuart:** Well, first of all, hi back Kevin. No I do not. If you’re saying best as in like most professional, I wouldn’t feel comfortable judging these scripts in three pages for that in and of itself. We were talking earlier about the Stuart Special–

**Craig:** Oh, the Stuart Special.

**Stuart:** It’s sort of something that happens–

**John:** Describe the Stuart Special.

**Stuart:** So, what has been deemed the Stuart Special is–

**Craig:** No, it’s the Stuart Special. [laughs]

**Stuart:** Is something happens exciting and then it’s like “two months earlier, six hours earlier,” you know, the flashback. The tease and then the flashback. And I do not go out of my way to purposely pick those. I think what happens is, so we say you can turn in any three pages of your script. Most people – and by most I mean over 99% of people – turn in their first three pages. And in your first three pages, you should hopefully be writing something eye-catching in some sense.

If it were me, I wouldn’t be turning in my first three necessarily. I would be turning in–

**Craig:** Right. I’ve always been surprised by that. I’ve always thought that more people would–

**Stuart:** I think people think it’s a precedent. I think people think like, oh, it’s supposed to always be your first three because they usually pick the first three.

**Craig:** We’ve only done the first three I think, right?

**Stuart:** I think we had one. I think we had one that wasn’t.

**Craig:** One that was in the middle? Okay.

**Stuart:** But, not only have we never said that, but it clearly says it I believe on the submissions page.

**Craig:** For sure.

**Stuart:** At least it has. So I think that people turn in their first three and then a lot of times there’s not something eye-catching there, or just not something to talk about or something exciting.

**Craig:** You mean, so they’re kind of forcing – they rewrite it to create a Stuart Special?

**Stuart:** Or, it’s just that those are the ones that wind up getting picked because those are the ones that have something in it that are not first three page moments. And so even though they are “the first three pages” but there’s something happening that’s actually a third-act or a second-act moment.

**John:** Because they’re actually starting in the middle of some action, so therefore there’s things to discuss that isn’t just like clearly like let’s open up the story.

**Craig:** Right. That makes sense. But you don’t necessarily pick the ones that you think are “the best.” You’re looking for the ones that you think will give us the most to discuss.

**Stuart:** Right. And I should be clear that if you are chosen, you are in like at least the 85th or 90th percentile. I am not picking the ones that are not competent. I am picking ones that are – I don’t think these people should be embarrassed to have their pages exposed. I would never purposely embarrass somebody.

And don’t think – like sometimes I would go on like Reddit Screenwriting or something in the early does of Three Page Challenges and see the way that people were talking about ones that got ripped apart. And I felt really bad because I was like I wanted to reach out to those people and say, “Oh, you were so much better than 75 others that I read at the same time that I read yours that I flagged yours for a reason.”

So, I’m not picking the best ones. The best ones – there’s nothing to talk about. Oh, you want to read good writing, I will tell you what professional screenplays you can read that’s good writing. You know, like it’s the one that if – my goal is we’re teaching a class and we’re going to take out that little slide projector thing that puts some pages on the wall and we are as a class going to go through this together and dissect it.

And what three pages of this pile of 1,500 submissions has something in it that the whole class will benefit from?

**Craig:** That’s the current amount that we have?

**Stuart:** It’s over 1,500. And by the way, since we switched to entering through the web page – it used to be an email submission, and we had however many more even before that.

**Craig:** Oh wow.

**John:** It’s a lot. So, you’re going to miss Three Page Challenges tremendously. You’re going to wake up in the middle of the night going how could I possibly – people will just start sending your Three Page Challenges just so you can enjoy them.

**Stuart:** Yeah. Yeah. I have no doubt. I mean, I’ve gotten that before. Like, I’ve met people at parties and they hear who I am and they’re like, “Oh, I’m going to send you three pages.” Or, “Oh, I sent my three pages. Can you go read them?” And I’m like, “Well, I probably read them.” My answer is, I never say like, “Yeah, I’m going to go home and read it today.” It’s either like I’ve read it, or I will read it, or, you know, and you don’t get special treatment. And–

**Craig:** I’m just, you know, I get very frightened when the reality of the podcast enters my vision, you know, because I like to just think that we’re talking and no one is listening to this. So that story makes me nervous. [laughs] I don’t like it. It’s scary.

**Stuart:** And you guys, and now I’m an old man, I’m settling down and getting married, but in the day when I was going out on Saturday nights and meeting random people–

**Craig:** Oh, really?

**Stuart:** Well, you know, at parties. It’s Los Angeles. Go to Los Angeles parties. Then I’d fairly regularly come across people that were listeners and had entered.

**Craig:** You know what I’m going to ask you now?

**Stuart:** What’s that?

**Craig:** Did it ever?

**John:** Did it help?

**Craig:** Did the whole, “I’m the producer of Scriptnotes,” did that – did it Stuart?

**Stuart:** Uh, it most certainly did not.

**Craig:** I had a feeling. [laughs] It probably does the opposite.

**Stuart:** It’s a conversation starter for certain people, for sure. And, great, I’m happy to talk about it. If you ever see me, I mean, there’s a gentleman who I’ve seen at Village Bakery in Atwater a few times who is really nice and said hi to me. And I was like, cool, I’ve officially been recognized now.

**Craig:** Oh nice.

**Stuart:** First time in my life. And probably only. He’s probably listening to this now.

**Craig:** Until you get your show.

**John:** Till now. Next question is from Andrew in DC who writes, “After a few years of development hell, the $200 million movie is finally being made. Who plays John and who plays Craig in the Scriptnotes movie?” So, Andrew proposes Thomas Middleditch for me. Tony Shalhoub for Craig.

**Craig:** It’s the worst.

**John:** And Douglas Rain for Stuart. And Douglas Rain being the voice of HAL in 2001.

**Stuart:** Great.

**Craig:** This is terrible.

**John:** Terrible question. So who plays you though?

**Craig:** Who plays me?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** I don’t know. That’s a tough one.

**John:** I could see like Paul Giamatti, but you’re much younger than Paul Giamatti.

**Craig:** That’s the thing. I definitely have the hang-doggy, grumpy, and then vaguely ethnic–

**John:** Steve Zissis could play you.

**Craig:** That’s who I want. I want Steve Zissis to play me. You are not played by–

**John:** I’m not Thomas Middleditch. He hasn’t seen me.

**Craig:** You’re older and you should be, ooh, there’s those actors that look like you.

**John:** So, I’m blanking on his name right now. He’s always the villain in things. He’s always a secondary character.

**Stuart:** Danny Trejo?

**John:** Danny Trejo is really who I should be.

**Craig:** That’s who should play John.

**John:** I’ll think of his name in like five minutes. But he was the villain in Ant-Man.

**Craig:** You know what? When I was a kid, I don’t know if you guys had them where you lived, but we had the commercials for Hebrew National hot dogs. And the mascot for Hebrew National hot dogs was Uncle Sam. And he said we answer to a higher authority. It was like, okay, god is telling us what the…

And that guy is probably dead by now, but in his prime, that’s who you were.

**John:** Sounds very good.

**Stuart:** He may have been, I don’t want to say a One Cool Thing, but I think that – I mean, I’ll find the link again for this episode, but I think we’ve actually linked to that in a previous episode of Scriptnotes.

**Craig:** To the Hebrew National guy?

**Stuart:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Sweet.

**John:** Corey Stoll is who I was thinking of. Corey Stoll as the Ant-Man villain.

**Stuart:** He’s great.

**Craig:** That works.

**John:** I’ll be Corey Stoll. But who should be Stuart now? Because obviously this person has no idea what you look like.

**Stuart:** Is it just a voice?

**John:** Yeah, I guess you’re just a voice.

**Craig:** No, I mean–

**Stuart:** If it’s just a voice, it’s Billy West, who is my favorite voice actor.

**John:** Is he on Futurama?

**Stuart:** He is on Futurama. And he is on Doug. And he’s on Honey Nut Cheerios commercials. But, if it’s just a voice, I mean, I might as well shoot for the stars.

**Craig:** Yeah. No, it shouldn’t be a voice. Obviously we get that kid that we were just talking about.

**Stuart:** That child? That 13?

**John:** Because in the movie version, he is a child.

**Craig:** That child? By the way, the best thing is that Stuart is played by an 11-year-old, but we give him all the dialogue of an adult. And we never comment on the fact that this child is producing our show.

**Stuart:** Louis C.K.’s agent in Louis.

**Craig:** Right.

**Stuart:** I wrote a pilot that I’ve done nothing with called Recessive Genius, about a redhead that wants to be a rapper, and all of his red-headed family members. And so I have a cast list somewhere of all the redheads in Hollywood. We can pull that.

**Craig:** There’s a good amount.

**Stuart:** Yeah, there is. I mean, it’s cast-able. Homeland.

**Craig:** What’s her name?

**Stuart:** Faye Dunaway?

**Craig:** Ron Howard’s daughter.

**Stuart:** Paige. Oh, Bryce Dallas. Sorry.

**Craig:** Bryce Dallas. Bryce Dallas Howard.

**John:** Good stuff. Our final question comes in from Mark in LA. He says, “Have you seen the writing credits for the new film Ghostbusters? I almost fell out of my chair when I saw that Ivan Reitman’s name is listed in the writing credits as Based on the 1984 film Ghostbusters, directed by.” So, let’s talk through sort of what the writing credits are, the writing credits block on the new Ghostbusters, because it is a little bit strange.

So, it says written by Katie Dippold and Paul Feig, based on the 1984 film Ghostbusters directed by Ivan Reitman, written by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd.

Craig, you are the credits master. Talk us through what’s going on here.

**Craig:** Well, it is very odd. Typically you will have a “Based on” when there is source material. And that’s the company can sort of say, okay, we’ve assigned you a certain amount of material. So, in this case, certainly when Katie and Paul sat down and made their deals to write Ghostbusters, they were assigned everything. So, I guarantee you they were assigned every prior Ghostbusters, the scripts that have been written, like Lee and Gene had done one, and a whole bunch of people, right?

So, all of that was assigned to them. And also Ghostbusters 1 and Ghostbusters 2, the original movies were assigned to them as source material. So, yes, normally what you’d see is it would say “Based on Ghostbusters,” but it doesn’t have to say that, by the way.

I mean, on remakes typically they don’t bother with that. So, in this one they did. And then they added the credits in. So, Mark is not correct. Ivan Reitman’s name is not listed in the writing credits. The credits are actually accurate. He’s the director. And then Dan and Harold are listed as the writers, which is correct.

So when I saw this, I assumed that what happened was Paul Feig and Katie Dippold went to the Guild and said this is something we want to do. Would you grant us a waiver? It would require a waiver. So, the Guild can – because our credits are governed by our contract, right? So any time we want to do a different kind of credit, and the studio wants to do a different kind of credit, the Board of Directors has to vote to grant a waiver. And so I suspect they went, because they wanted to do this, and the Guild said sure.

**John:** To clarify, the based on, that whole section is considered the underlying materials credit. So that’s not the actual writing credit on this movie. That is the source material credit. And does the Guild have like final authority on determining what is the source material for the project?

**Craig:** Yes. So, typically what happens if there’s any dispute about it, then that’s a pre-arbitration and that has to do with the company. But usually it’s pretty well-governed because the contract that we all get is a – we call it a Guild-covered contract. That means the contract is conforming to our collective bargaining agreement. And one of the ways you conform to it is you say I’m assigning you the following material. That now becomes underlying material. So the Guild doesn’t actually have to do after-the-fact choices. It’s just sort of baked in.

But like I said, on remakes – one thing that does happen on a remake is the writers of the original movie actually go in to the arbitration as Writer A, which is an interesting thing. Now, it’s rare that that writer does get credit, because usually on a remake quite a bit changes.

But there have been cases of it. 3:10 to Yuma. And most notably the new – the remake of The Omen. Only the writer of the first movie got credit because essentially they felt that nothing had changed substantially in such a way that another writer should have credit. That’s remarkable. And I don’t know of any other movie like that.

But, so for instance, when Gus Van Sant remakes Psycho word-for-word, the first writer gets credit alone.

**John:** So in the case of the new Ghostbusters, Harold Ramis’ estate and Dan Aykroyd, they are not getting residuals for this new thing because they are not the credited writers on this new movie.

**Craig:** Right. So all of the residuals for this movie will go to Katie and Paul. They will be split in half exactly.

**John:** Because they are ampersand, we should clarify. They are ampersand as a writing team.

**Craig:** Whether they were ampersand or not.

**John:** They’re a single writing credit, yeah.

**Craig:** Exactly. So, if one team, they would share it. If two separates, they would share it. And they are the only ones. It’s possible that Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis had a separate producing kind of thing, but that’s aside from what the Guild does. That’s extra money on top of things.

So, the writing credits are – in terms of who actually wrote the screenplay of the Ghostbusters that’s in theaters now – Katie Dippold and Paul Feig, and that’s it.

**John:** Very good. All right, many people on Twitter this week wrote in talking to us about these six plots. So, essentially what happened is a bunch of researchers at the University of Vermont in Burlington, they used sentiment analysis, which is where you look at strings of words to determine their emotional content. You set algorithms in computers to do all of this.

And they mapped the plot of 1,700 works of fiction. Most of these are novels, but some of them are plays. And so they track the changes of sentiment from moment to moment. And they build these charts of the overall arc of these different works. And from there, they determined there are basically six categories of works.

There are works that have fall, rise, and fall, like Oedipus Rex. There’s rise then a fall. There’s fall then a rise, like a lot of super heroes. There’s the steady fall. There’s the steady rise. There’s a rise, and a fall, and a rise, like Cinderella. So, we’re basically out of business because the computers have figured out that there’s only six plots.

**Craig:** Yeah, I mean, look. Everyone knows that Romeo and Juliet is a timeless classic and still works to this very day because it has a steady fall.

**John:** Yeah, that’s really–

**Craig:** WTF to the maximum level of WTFs.

**John:** Because there’s no moments of happiness or joy in Romeo and Juliet. There’s no rise, there’s no love, there’s no flash of love.

**Craig:** There’s nothing frankly at all except a steady fall? This is the dumbest of all these things. And many of them are dumb. I love the graph. A stupid graph. And then the fact that these… – This is what happens, unfortunately. I love science. You know, I’m a scientist. But, see, I don’t go into labs and start pressing buttons. And I really wish that scientists would not go into novels and start pressing buttons, because what they’re doing is they’re just engaging in a kind of reductive analysis, which anyone could do.

You could also say that there’s really only one plot: beginning, middle, end.

**Stuart:** Right. There’s arrows. There’s up and down. And in a macro view – we’re not even going to look at the way there’s up-down-up-up-down-down – just in a macro view, look at where the up is, and look at where the down is. There’s only six plots.

**Craig:** And also, why are the ups and downs now how they define plot? That’s not how I define plot at all.

**John:** Nope.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** So, Nima who works for us, he was pointing out that essentially there were theoretically eight different plots you could find. But they compressed them down because you could theoretically have rise-rise-fall, or rise-fall-fall, but they compress those down to just rise-fall.

So, even in potential plots, they’re just compressing them down.

**Craig:** It’s like trigonometry. Side-angle-side. Side-side-angle. Angle-angle-side. It’s the dumbest. Of all of these, this one truly is the dumbest because it is useless. It’s bad science that provides click-baiters something to say. It teaches you nothing. It informs nothing. It doesn’t inform you as a reader. It doesn’t inform you as a writer. It doesn’t help you think about the world in any way. It is the emptiest of noise.

I hate it.

**John:** [laughs] I knew this would be a simple layup here.

**Craig:** I do always rise to the occasion. I mean, never once will I ever resist umbrage. When you wave a red flag in front of me, I’m going to do what I do. I’m a simple man. Rise-fall-fall.

**John:** All right, so it’s time for our second big announcement on the show, about a huge change that’s happening. Which is something that, Craig, you’ve known about for quite a long time, but I’ve deliberately sort of not said anything about it because it’s one of those things where you tell people that it’s going to happen and then everyone is like, “Ahhhh….” And it makes people sort of nervous.

And so now it’s 30 days away, so it’s time for us to say. I am leaving Los Angeles. I am moving to Paris. And so I’m going to be living in the City of Light. I’m going to be a writer there in Paris.

**Craig:** But not permanently.

**John:** Just for a year. So, for one year, I will be in Paris. And I’ll be living there. So, it’s always been the plan. This is not in reaction to something. I don’t have like insight about what’s–

**Craig:** You’re not fleeing.

**John:** I’m not fleeing. There’s no investigation. I’m not nervous about sort of the – well, I am nervous about the election. It always has been the plan that I’d be gone for the last part of the election.

**Craig:** Well, Europe seems to have managed to screw themselves up even worse than we are.

**John:** Absolutely. And there’s a French election coming, too.

**Craig:** That’ll be brilliant.

**John:** Really genius. And so the plan has been for quite a long time that my family and I are going to be moving to Paris starting in August and going through next August for my daughter’s 6th grade year of school. So, she’s been at a K-5 school. The schools we want to go to start in 7th grade after that. And so for 6th grade we had to do something.

And so a bunch of years ago Film France took a bunch of screenwriters over to Paris and showed us a bunch of locations that they wanted us to film in. So, I was on a trip with Derek Haas, [Unintelligible], and John Lee Hancock. And John Lee Hancock – and Justin Marks – but John Lee said, “You know what? I’m loving this. I’m going to pull my kids out of school and we’re going to live in Paris for a year.”

And I said that’s a great idea. I’m going to steal it right now. And so that’s been the plan for–

**Craig:** But he didn’t do that.

**John:** He never did it.

**Craig:** No. Because I could have told you that John Lee Hancock does not run his household. Holly Hancock, on the other hand–

**John:** Yeah. Holly Hancock is fantastic.

**Craig:** Amazing. And surely said to him, “No.” And that was the end of that discussion.

**John:** But you’ll notice that now they are single parents because their kids are off in boarding school.

**Craig:** Not far from here. So they’re visiting them plenty.

**John:** They’re visiting them plenty. So, anyway, I stole John Lee Hancock’s idea. It’s been the plan for the last five years that we’re going to be moving to Paris. And now it’s finally suddenly here.

And so I want to talk about why you don’t expose that ahead of time, because I didn’t want sort of everybody in Hollywood to know that I was moving because then it’s that weird thing like, well, are you going to hire somebody for a job knowing that they’re not going to be around to deliver the second trip.

**Craig:** Absolutely. This comes up. I remember actually – not to bring everybody down – but I remember having a long talk with my friend Don Rhymer, who was a working screenwriter for many, many years.

**John:** He did the Rio movies.

**Craig:** He did the Rio movies. Exactly. And Surf’s Up. And then he had worked in television for many, many years, like on Evening Shade and other shows like that.

And he got sick. He got cancer. And he was really worried about who do I tell, because I don’t want people to not hire me, because right now I’m happy to work. And he did, by the way, he worked – it was remarkable. His whole cancer odyssey was about four years long and unfortunately did not end successfully. But, the entire time he worked.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And at some point he was unable to keep it from people. But, it’s a real thing. You don’t want people to suddenly put you in the box of, “Oh, you’re moving to Paris. Well that’s like you’re dead.”

**John:** Yeah. Women writers often face this with pregnancy. And so our friend, Dana Fox, who was on the show – I’m not sure quite where it was in her development process – but she had a pregnancy that required her to be on bed rest, and yet she also had a tremendous amount of work to do. And she had writers to meet with.

And so she had to sort of keep the pregnancy a secret from the people she was working with so they wouldn’t freak out about her TV show.

**Craig:** She just pretended to be incredibly lazy?

**John:** I think she’s fine with me telling you. She faked a back injury to sort of explain why she was having to take meetings at her house rather than at the office.

**Craig:** In her bed.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** I feel like I want to that now, just so I don’t have to get out of bed.

**John:** It’s a really good plan.

**Craig:** It’s amazing.

**John:** It’s an amazing plan. So, obviously we live in 2016 in a time where I can remotely on anything, and so most of what I do is emails anyway. It’s not going to be significantly impacting my ability to do my work. But it is a real change. And even when I was in Chicago doing Big Fish, or New York doing Big Fish, I was always sort of in the country and in the same time zone.

And so a challenge for our show is that we do the show by Skype, and so that’ll be the same. But we’re also on really different clocks.

**Craig:** That’s the problem. So, Paris is 10—

**John:** Depends on what time of year. But, yeah, 10 hours.

**Craig:** Does it go down to nine when we–?

**John:** I think there’s some times where we’re at nine, and sometimes where it can go more.

**Craig:** Based on Daylight Savings. So, that’s a terrible time split.

**John:** It is.

**Craig:** It’s nearly flipping AM/PM. So, it’s always going to be one of us either too early or too late. But I’m happy to take the late shift by the way. That’s my jam. I don’t like getting up.

And then the nice thing is, you’re right, we could be on different planets the way we do the podcast normally. But, you know, we have some plans to – that I don’t think will disrupt your… – I mean, I’d like to think because – not because we care about our listeners but because we’re just the way we are—

**John:** We are the way we are.

**Craig:** We deliver a consistent product.

**John:** Agreed. And so you’ve done episodes without me. Like the Alec Berg episode you did, which was terrific. And so there’s already a plan for a solo one that you’re going to be doing very soon. There are writers in the UK and in France who I may be talking with in doing some solo things, too.

We’ll find ways to make it work. You don’t listen to any other podcasts, but if you did, you would know that some of them actually go to like a season format where they’re off a few weeks, and then they’re on for a bunch of weeks. So, Serial does that. And other shows do that. I don’t think we’re going to go quite that far, but there may be some weeks where we’re doing a best-of, or we’re just off. And we’ll let you know if that happens. But I think we’ll be able to keep up sort of like a normal schedule.

**Craig:** Yeah. I think so. Certainly we’ll have plenty to discuss. I’m not freaked out about it completely. I’m freaked out like 78%. You know, because I’m your child. Daddy is leaving.

**John:** And Stuart is leaving. So it’s a lot of change.

**Craig:** But I never believed Stuart was really real. So, that’s not a problem for me at all.

**John:** Matthew though is staying put. Matthew is still editing our show.

**Craig:** Thank god.

**John:** Matthew, you’re listening to this right now. Please – please stay.

**Craig:** Good. Okay.

**John:** The other sort of big change and sort of big bit of news is this next year I’ll be doing a lot less screenwriting because I sold a book. I sold a series of three books, which is very exciting.

**Craig:** Woo!

**John:** So, this next week, sometime they’re going to announce it. By the time you’re hearing this podcast, it may already be announced. But we’re recording this on Thursday, so I couldn’t be sure that the news is going to be out there. But back when we were at Austin Film Festival and you remember this last year there were those horrible storms and everything. And Melissa was there and my husband Mike was there.

I was talking on the phone with this novelist who had written this middle-grade fiction book that was really good. And we were talking about whether I would adapt his book. We had a great conversation and I asked him a lot about sort of the history of the book and sort of the history of writing and sort of stuff, and over the course of this hour-long conversation I realized like I really don’t want to adapt this book, but I think I kind of want to write a book like this.

I don’t want to be the guy who gets sent all these adaptations, but actually the guy who like writes the original book. And so that was October 30. And then November 1, start of NaNoWriMo, I just sat down and I started writing the book.

**Craig:** So this is the one that came out of NaNo – I’m not going to say that word, because I hate it. Hate it. It’s a nonsense word. It’s nonsense. This is the one that came out of the National Book-writing Month?

**John:** Indeed.

**Craig:** Fantastic. You may be the only person that has ever made a dollar. I’m a terrible person. I’m a bad guy.

**John:** That’s fine. You’re not bad at all.

**Craig:** No, I’m bad.

**John:** So for people that don’t know NaNoWriMo at all, we actually mentioned it on the air that I was thinking about doing it, and then I did it. It’s this idea where you write every day in November and you can build up to a full book by the end of November. And I didn’t write the entire book then, but I wrote enough of it that like, oh, this feels like the outline of this book.

And so it’s middle-grade fiction. It’s the same genre in general as a Harry Potter or Percy Jackson. It’s very much sort of my childhood and sort of pushed into a fantasy realm. And it was just a delight to write. It was a delight to write fiction. You’ve written some fiction over the years.

**Craig:** Yeah, not much. I mean, honestly, I’m still deeply on the hamster wheel of screenwriting.

**Stuart:** Popcorn Fiction.

**Craig:** Well, yeah, no, I’ve done it. And I have a little secret novel that I work on every now and again that, you know, is mostly for me. But, yeah, no, I can’t tell if I’m envious of you or not. I think I am. Because I’m currently on a – it’s a hamster wheel.

**John:** So, what’s interesting is we obviously know a lot about how screenwriting works. We know how the screenwriting industry works. We know about Hollywood.

And when I went off and did the Broadway show, I got to learn how all that works. And you recognize: these are things that are the same, these are the things that are very different. These are the gatekeepers. This is the process. And with the book, I got to learn all that again. And I’m still learning it now. So I’m just taking a lot of notes as I sort of see it. But, I’d written this first third of this book, I’d written the proposal for the rest of it. You show it to your agent. Your agent shows it to another agent. You find a really good book agent. You’re very lucky that she says yes.

And then you go out with it, and it’s very much like going out with a spec script. But rather than going to studios, you’re going to the big publishing houses. And there’s this whole conversation about which editor at which house is the right one. And all these discussions and debates.

And then you make your top choices. You go out. And I was very lucky that the place we wanted to do it said yes.

**Craig:** Fantastic.

**John:** And bought it up and bought it for three books.

**Craig:** And that’s Hustler? Hustler Press?

**John:** Hustler Press, yes. That’s what it is.

**Craig:** Got it. Good. Good label.

**John:** Raunchy middle-grade fiction – it’s really – that’s the future there.

**Craig:** Well, they put a lot into marketing.

**John:** They do. So, anyway, I’ll have more to say in the coming weeks about it, and I’ll have stuff on the blog, and there will probably be a second site that’s geared more towards the people who would ultimately be reading this book.

It’s weird writing something that is not sort of for my age to read. It’s a strange thing, too. But I’m really looking forward to all of it.

**Craig:** Well, that sounds fantastic. And since I have, you know, our daughters are essentially the same age, so I’m sure that my daughter will be reading. In fact, she can be one of your beta readers.

**John:** Absolutely.

**Craig:** Or even gamma reader. Is that–?

**John:** Alpha.

**Craig:** Oh that’s right. It goes–

**Stuart:** There’s an alpha bed.

**Craig:** Right, so gamma would be like, oh my god, we’re almost about to–

**John:** Yeah, absolutely. So there’s a whole thing called Advanced Reader Copies Arcs that you send out ahead of time. And our mutual colleague, Geoff Rodkey, is a writer and he’s been incredibly helpful sort of in those initial conversations about like what do I even do. What is the process here?

And so I’ll be trying to sort of keep track of the process. And I may end up doing a second podcast that is just like a six-episode leading up to the book to sort of show this is how you actually do it.

**Craig:** I don’t have to do anything for that?

**John:** Nothing.

**Craig:** Fantastic.

**John:** No.

**Craig:** Because then I can just – now I can stop paying attention to that.

**John:** You can not even listen to it.

**Craig:** I’m sorry. What were you saying? [laughs]

**John:** That would be the most Craig thing you could do.

**Craig:** Got to be me.

**John:** The last and most crucial thing we need to do today–

**Craig:** This is the big one.

**John:** This is the big one.

**Craig:** You thought that all that stuff was big.

**John:** That’s all–

**Craig:** Jettisoning Stuart. Moving to France. Writing a book. None of that matters.

**John:** Yeah. So some of you listening to the show may go like, well, without Stuart, like what’s going to be here. Or should I polish up my resume because Stuart’s job is now open?

And so we need to hire somebody. Maybe there’s going to be a giant competition, where we’re going to ask our listeners to send in stuff.

**Craig:** That sounds great, John. Let’s do that.

**Stuart:** The best Three Page Challenge gets picked.

**John:** Becomes my new assistant and becomes the producer of Scriptnotes.

**Craig:** What a great idea.

**John:** It’s a great idea.

**Craig:** Or, no.

**John:** No. Or actually no. But I think we are going to do something very different. And we sort of hid Stuart away for five years, our new producer is not going to be hidden away anymore. It is time for us to actually introduce our new producer of Scriptnotes. We’d like to welcome Godwin Jabangwe.

**Godwin Jabangwe:** Hi.

**John:** That’s Godwin Jabangwe!

**Craig:** That’s perfect.

**John:** That’s fantastic. Godwin, you are my new assistant. You are the new producer of Scriptnotes. Have you listened to the show ever?

**Godwin:** Yes. I have. And I love it, obviously.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**Godwin:** And I’m really, really excited to be here and to be playing a part in this.

**Craig:** Well, I already like him better than Stuart.

**Stuart:** Great, thank you.

**Craig:** But that’s not saying much.

**Stuart:** The bar is low.

**John:** Godwin, some backstory, you are currently at UCLA. You are studying screenwriting?

**Godwin:** Yes, I am. I just finished my first year. I am going into my second and final year at UCLA. Go Bruins. And I just have to throw that in.

**Craig:** Of course.

**Godwin:** And, yeah, I love it. I am excited. I’m from Zimbabwe, so this is like a big deal for me.

**John:** So you were born and raised in Zimbabwe, and from Zimbabwe you went to–?

**Godwin:** I went to a small college in Michigan where I got my undergrad in film production. And then I applied to UCLA and somehow they said yes. So, yeah.

**Craig:** Well, I mean, they obviously saw what – I feel like whatever we saw in him, and really it’s John. I mean, that’s the truth. John, no big surprise, did all the work here. Obviously.

**Stuart:** Hiring his own assistant.

**Craig:** I would have also picked you. I would have done it quicker. I would have done it with much less drama. But, no, of course, they saw in you whatever John saw in you. It’s exciting. And I believe that we know your instructors at least are the Wibberleys.

**Godwin:** The Wibberleys. I took a class with them last quarter. And they are fantastic. If they’re listening, hey.

**John:** So, the Wibberleys are married screenwriters. They worked on – they did the National Treasure movies. They also worked on the second Charlie’s Angels movie. I met them because they rewrote me on the second Charlie’s Angels movie. And the very first time we had a phone call, the very first time I actually met them in person, was at the Charlie’s Angels premiere. They were seated behind me. And so we just talked.

And they were so cool. And they’ve been great. So, when it became clear that Stuart was leaving, I did put out some small feelers, both to Stark Program which is where I’ve always gotten my assistants, but also to other folks. And the Wibberleys raved about Godwin and they were correct.

**Craig:** So, not a Stark guy.

**John:** Not a Starky. First non-Starky.

**Craig:** Good. Let’s break that tradition.

**John:** Let’s break that mold, yeah. So, I was able to meet with five fantastic candidates. And there are just remarkably talented people out there. And gave them different assignments than what Stuart had, but a chance to sort of talk through their work, to sort of see how their brains worked. And it’s been a pleasure to have Godwin be part of this.

**Craig:** So how does this work with Godwin being a student and also doing this job? Tell us how that’s going to- or one of you can tell us.

**Godwin:** Well, it will be a lot of work. But it’ll be fun work, because what I am hoping to learn and pick up is what I’ll be applying to my schooling. You know, the writing program at UCLA is intense and it’s a lot of work, but I’ve been doing this for a while and I know that I am not – I’m not here to play, either in school or at work. So, it’ll be a fun challenge.

**John:** Stuart, any advice for?

**Stuart:** Your classes are at night, right?

**Godwin:** Yes. I mostly take my classes at night.

**Stuart:** I mean, honestly, I think you will find, especially with John away, that this is like – sometimes you get detention in high school and it’s a blessing because you get all your homework done. I think you’re going to find that your life is actually kind of a little easier. You’re getting up. You’re going into an office. And you’re just going to do the work that you are going to be doing.

**Craig:** That’s another good point. So, you’re going to be John’s assistant, but John is going to be in France.

**John:** Yeah. So one of the things I had to warn him about, all the applicants before they even applied, saying like we’re going to be starting work at 7am LA time, so that we have some overlap of hours.

**Godwin:** Yeah. So, but–

**Craig:** Oh man.

**Godwin:** I wake up early anyway. So I’ll be fine. I can handle it.

**Craig:** All right. I wouldn’t have taken this job.

**John:** No, clearly.

**Craig:** I mean, 7am.

**John:** It’s early. You’ve seen 7am, but usually on the other side of 7am.

**Craig:** No. I’ll tell you, this is why – I love production, but the worst part of production is waking up.

**Stuart:** Oh god.

**Craig:** I hate it. I hate it so much.

**John:** For me, the worst part of production is when you’ve done a night shoot, and you’ve done all night, and then you’re racing to finish night shots before the sun comes up. And when you’re cursing the sun for rising, that’s a bad sign.

And then you’re driving home against rush hour traffic. That was Go. And I will never write a movie that’s mostly shot at night again.

**Craig:** I love shooting nights. Oh my god.

**John:** I love how quiet it is. But then I hate the end of it.

**Craig:** So great. I love it. I just love being – because now, yeah, the world has gotten out of your way. There’s just something, I don’t know, calmer at night. But I got a lot of mental problems.

Godwin, I’m very excited. And now as the producer of Scriptnotes, maybe you could finally explain to me what the producer of Scriptnotes does. Because I don’t know.

**Stuart:** I would love to hear this.

**Godwin:** I’m looking at Stuart like help me out here. I think creating the transcripts of the show. Making sure that everything is right with each episode. Making sure that it’s uploaded to the website. That it is shared on Facebook. You know, just bringing it to the people.

**John:** I always forget that Stuart actually has to manually share it on Facebook.

**Stuart:** Yeah. I think, honestly, I think that the credit I’ve been given is a little generous at times. At the same time, I think that there’s probably a lot of little things that you guys don’t even realize I’m doing to help the machine stay well-oiled.

**Craig:** I didn’t realize you were doing anything. So, it all goes under the folder of “What does Stuart do?”

**Stuart:** Yeah. And sometimes I – when I talk to my dad about it I say like, it wasn’t something specific, but we’ll have a conversation at lunch, and then next week that conversation is the fodder for what becomes the episode. As simple as that.

**Craig:** Well, you know, Stuart, I like to tease you, because you’re adorable.

**Stuart:** Well, thanks.

**Craig:** But you’ve done a spectacular job. And I know it’s a lot of work, because I know I’m not doing it. So, we’re going to miss you.

**John:** We will both miss you very much. You’ve done a fantastic job.

**Stuart:** Thanks guys.

**Craig:** You have big ginger shoes for Godwin to step into.

**Godwin:** Yes.

**Stuart:** Get ready.

**Godwin:** I’m looking forward to it.

**Craig:** But you will be available, I assume, as a resource if he calls you?

**Stuart:** Well, let’s put it this way, if you ever need me, feel free to email me. I will reply to you as quickly as I can. I hope to be too busy to be [unintelligible] very quickly.

**John:** Yeah, we’re being cagey about sort of what he’s heading off to do. But I think it’s going to be a big, noteworthy announcement.

**Craig:** It’s not war?

**John:** It’s not war.

**Stuart:** It’s as much war as waking up at 7am for production is war. Hopefully. We’ll see. Knock on wood things continue to go well.

**Craig:** I like this. This is exciting. Perhaps one day Stuart will be our guest.

**John:** Oh, that would be very exciting, to announce the launch of a certain project.

**Craig:** Oh!

**John:** That could be good.

**Stuart:** I’m coming back.

**Craig:** That’s right. It’s like coming back to host Saturday Night Live.

**Stuart:** Yeah. Like graduating, you come back to your old college.

**John:** See all the people who are still there, yeah.

**Craig:** I love it.

**Godwin:** So, one thing, you guys were talking about who should play Stuart. Justin Timberlake.

**Craig:** Kinda, yeah. Actually, I kind of get it.

**Stuart:** One of my first days here, John’s daughter told me I looked like Phillip Phillips, who I had never heard of at the time. And I looked him up and I look nothing like this person. And I’m the worst singer in the history of the world. And now I’m apparently being compared to another very good singer, who is significantly better looking than I could ever dream to be.

**Craig:** I would love to hear you sing.

**Stuart:** Oh, well, you know, if you guys stick around for 150 episodes, I’ll take out my guitar, and then we’ll delete it before we put it in.

**Craig:** Nice.

**John:** It’s time for our One Cool Things. Mine is actually a recommendation from Aline Brosh McKenna, who is our favorite sort of go-to guest. She recommended this podcast called My Dad Wrote a Porno. And what it is is these three guys, three British people, one of whose father was trying to be Fifty Shades of Grey, but he’s like a 60-year-old man trying to write erotic fiction.

**Craig:** Oh no.

**John:** So they read aloud the chapters and it is sort of half commentary while they’re reading it. It’s just delightful.

**Stuart:** That’s fabulous.

**John:** It’s fantastic. So, the book that they’re reading is called Belinda Blinked.

**Craig:** Belinda Blinked?

**John:** It’s just remarkable. So there will be a link in the show notes to My Dad Wrote a Porno.

**Craig:** Wow. Awesome. My One Cool Thing is a little bizarre, but you know I talked before about how I think that this is not real and that in fact what we think of as reality is a computer simulation. And there are a lot of very fancy physicists who have put this theory forward.

And one of the arguments for it goes like this: if we can create – eventually we’ll be able to create a simulation in which the people in the simulation don’t know that they’re in a simulation and they are fully intelligent. And if that’s the case, what are the odds that some other civilization like us hasn’t existed and made us that?

Okay, so an interesting argument has emerged against this. And the argument basically boils down to pi, the irrational number. Because pi never ends. And the argument is if we’re in a simulation, the simulation must be finite because it is created. If it is finite, you can’t have a number that never ends.

And I think we now have a computer that has calculate pi to the three-trillionth digit, with no repetition of pattern, and no suddenly a trailing bunch of twos. Basically, think of pi as like Truman in the Truman Show sailing on that water. But he never gets to the wall.

So, it’s possible that this might – I’m now saying this is a chance this is real. It’s a slim, slim chance.

**John:** But the counter-argument would be that there’s some programming that’s happening that’s making us believe that pi is incalculable. Essentially, Nima, our coder, says that’s absolutely true.

**Craig:** That we are essentially being manipulated in this. But what a bizarre and pointless manipulation. Or is the point of the manipulation to make us think that it’s real? This is the great trick.

**John:** Exactly. That’s the great trick. The greatest trick the devil ever played.

**Craig:** Okay, so then whoever is listening now above us, and watching our simulation, must be concerned that we’re onto them.

**John:** What if this is actually the last episode of Scriptnotes?

**Craig:** Or the last episode of existence.

**John:** That, too. Both are tragedies.

**Craig:** Wow, man. One Cool Thing.

**John:** We’re going to give Stuart the last word, so Godwin, why don’t you give us your One Cool Thing.

**Godwin:** My One Cool Thing is something that is happening in Zimbabwe. We have this incredibly brave one man who has stood up and started what can be called the Zimbabwean Spring. And so you should check out the hashtag called #ThisFlag and see how people are finally speaking up in Zimbabwe and it’s about time.

So, I’m really thrilled about that.

**Craig:** What is the man’s name?

**Godwin:** His name is Pastor Evan Mawarire. And so—

**John:** Say that back three times.

**Craig:** Well, I knew about Morgan Tsvangirai.

**Godwin:** Tsvangirai. He was an opposition leader. This guy is not a politician. He is not starting a party.

**Craig:** He’s a religious man?

**Godwin:** He is just getting the people to get up and—

**Craig:** Robert Mugabe cannot leave soon enough from this earth as far as I’m concerned. Well, we will definitely check that out. That’s excellent.

**Godwin:** You should.

**John:** So, the hashtag is #ThisFlag?

**Godwin:** #ThisFlag.

**John:** Great. Stuart Friedel?

**Stuart:** Thanks for making me look petty.

**Craig:** So, his was that entire nation. Mine was about the nature of reality. And tell us, Stuart, what’s your One Cool Thing?

**Stuart:** Right before we started recording, John said like do you have a One Cool Thing? And my response was it’s 260 episodes. I’ve had over 260 One Cool Things. I just haven’t been able to say any of them. And in the time that I’ve worked here I think I’ve introduced John to some things that I’m proud to have introduced him to, like Nathan for You, and the iced tea that we drink in this office.

But there is one thing that I’m perhaps most proud to have introduced him to. And it is my One Cool Thing. And I’m going to pitch it to you, to all of our – I think it’s going to be helpful to our listeners as well. And that thing is specifically the chicken kabobs at Fiddler’s Bistro on Third Street, right near the Grove. And here’s my pitch.

**Craig:** That’s right up there with #ThisFlag.

**Stuart:** Right. Exactly. So, you’ve probably all seen Fiddler’s Bistro. Like you drive down Third Street. It’s just sort of there. It’s unremarkable. It’s just a sign. It’s just there. It’s near the Grove. It’s next to 7-11.

**John:** It’s part of a motel complex, right?

**Stuart:** Part of a motel. It’s the bistro in a motel. Exactly. And I remember once a few months ago, or I guess a few years ago, you and Mike made a joke that I had heard before that’s like, “Whoever goes to Fiddler’s Bistro?” And I was like, ah-ha, I have. And it’s awesome.

It is right near the Grove. I hate the Grove. I absolutely hate the Grove. And my least favorite part about the Grove is parking there.

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s terrible.

**Stuart:** So, if you go to Fiddler’s Bistro, there is parking on the street. There’s also a little lot and there’s parking right around the corner, so you can park there if you’re going right before the Grove and then walk to the Grove. Leave your car there. Easy.

But the best part are these chicken kabobs. So you get there, you walk in, it is unpretentious. There are a lot of restaurants in Los Angeles that look really fancy and pretentious and their food is not very good. Fiddler’s Bistro is the exact opposite of that.

It caters this motel, so they have everything on the menu – breakfast all day. But, there’s one section that is differentiated, that sticks out, and that’s the kabobs section. And there’s a reason for it. Their chicken kabobs are out of this world.

So, you sit down. First thing they give you is warm bread with this roasted red pepper dip that is fantastic. And then the chicken kabobs. Simple marinated chicken that is so succulent and delicious. You have no idea.

**Craig:** This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.

**Stuart:** Some of the best hummus you have ever had. Really good pickled beets. Great rice. Peppers. Onions. Pita bread. Absolutely delicious. If you live at Park La Brea, you’ve probably seen it 500 times. You never thought to walk in. It fabulous. And if you read the reviews online, you’ll see that it’s either five-star or like two-star. The five-star reviews are all from people that either got the kabobs or this chicken couscous soup that I’ve never tried, but now I have to try.

And the two/three-star reviews are all from people that were staying at the motel that just got regular food and were not terribly impressed. But the chicken kabobs at Fiddler’s Bistro. My One Cool Thing.

**Craig:** My mind is blown right now by the – I love – I’ve never seen you this enthusiastic about anything.

**Stuart:** Find something I love, and I—

**Craig:** Turns out the answer was chicken.

**John:** Chicken kabobs at one place. So, Stuart brought in the kabobs from there this week. And the hummus was wrong. And there was no red pepper sauce.

**Stuart:** And the credit card machine wasn’t working. But first time in seven years that I’ve been there that there has been any sort of blip.

**John:** Everything is falling apart.

**Stuart:** Now that I’m leaving. Such a forgivable blip, though.

**Craig:** But how were the chicken kabobs, John?

**John:** They were fine. But without the red pepper sauce, it’s just not the same. The red pepper sauce is what sort of pushes them over the edge to me.

**Stuart:** Well, John had this idea that in all my years of going there, I first was introduced to this place by a friend of mine from Stark. Matty C. Matt Conrad, if you’re out there, hi Matt. And Matt lived near me.

**Craig:** He’s doing shout-outs now. This is unbelievable.

**John:** I just love that. He’ll be like turn down the radio while I’m talking on the phone.

**Craig:** When did we become the Morning Zoo?

**Stuart:** Five years. Five years! Five years!

So, Matt was like, oh, we got to try Fiddler’s Bistro. And I was like, “That place I’ve walked by a thousand times? Why would I go there?” It’s a perfect place to like sit back, relax, and write.

This red pepper sauce is what like – the second they brought that out, I knew I was somewhere special. And when I brought it here the first time for work, John saved some. And the next day I came in and was like, “I use that on my eggs.” And that is a game-changer.

**Craig:** Oh, the red pepper sauce on the eggs?

**John:** That’s how you do it.

**Stuart:** Get it to go. Save some of the extra. Use it on eggs the next day.

**Craig:** I’m just—

**John:** You’ve learned so much.

**Craig:** I’m happy. But, that was pretty great, actually. I got to say.

**Stuart:** Oh great, good.

**Craig:** You delivered.

**Stuart:** Thank you.

**John:** Well done. That is our season finale, but we’ll be back next week with the start of the new season.

**Craig:** Which is the most ridiculous thing. I’m going to miss Stuart.

**John:** I’ll miss Stuart, too.

**Stuart:** Thank you guys for five fabulous years. I mean, all I’m doing is pushing buttons. You guys are the—

**Craig:** Yeah, but we love you.

**John:** You’re the only one here getting paid, so.

**Craig:** Exactly. That’s not true. I know you are. I know you are, John. I know it. I know it.

**John:** At some point there will be forensic accounting and you’ll see all the millions that we’re raking in.

**Stuart:** We’ll show you the numbers. You’ll have a good laugh.

**John:** The other person getting paid is Matthew Chilelli who edits our show. Thank you, Matthew. And our outro this week comes from Rajesh Naroth. If you have an outro for us, you can write in to ask@johnaugust.com and send us a link.

Scriptnotes is produced by Stuart Friedel and Godwin Jabangwe. And, yes, we did pick him because he had a good NPR-sounding name. It’s just a fantastic—

**Craig:** That was the only reason?

**John:** It’s a reason. Not the only reason.

**Godwin:** It’s funny you say that, because I have been writing like tweets to NPR for years saying I have the perfect name for NPR. It’s paying off.

**Craig:** It’s finally paying off.

**John:** It’s finally paying off.

**Craig:** Godwin Jabangwe reports.

**Stuart:** Close enough. It is so phonaesthetically pleasing. It’s like Cellar Door. Godwin Jabangwe just flows so – it’s like Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Texas. You know that song by Mountain Goats?

**John:** No.

**Stuart:** It just flows. Like your tongue is in exactly the right place for the next syllable.

**Craig:** Godwin Jabangwe. You’re right. It’s like typing the word point.

**John:** I’ve been looking forward to it all week to be able to say it.

**Craig:** All right.

**John:** Guys, thank you very much, and thank you to our listeners for five years. That’s just crazy and remarkable this has been going on for five years. And we look forward to what happens in the next couple years. See you.

**Craig:** Bye.

Links:

* [Girl Gone Overboard](https://vimeo.com/174427174), cut by Fredrik Limi
* [Stuart Friedel](https://twitter.com/stuartfriedel) on Twitter
* [The Peter Stark Program](https://cinema.usc.edu/producing/)
* [Matt Byrne](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4791766/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1), [Chad Creasey](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1548657/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1), [Dana Fox](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1401416/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1) and [Rawson Thurber](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1098493/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1)
* [Thomas Barbusca](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4564958/?ref_=tt_cl_t13)
* [The Three Page Challenge](http://johnaugust.com/threepage)
* [Steve Zissis](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1587813/?ref_=nv_sr_1) and [Corey Stoll](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1015684/)
* One of John’s doppelgängers [as Hebrew National’s Uncle Sam](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf2j-YzZRAA)
* [Ghostbusters (2016)](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1289401/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm) credits on IMDb
* Gizmodo on [The Six Plots](http://gizmodo.com/data-analysis-suggests-there-exist-only-six-book-plots-1783263768)
* [NaNoWriMo](http://nanowrimo.org/)
* [Godwin Jabangwe](https://twitter.com/itaizhou) on Twitter
* [The Wibberleys at UCLA TFT](http://www.tft.ucla.edu/2015/02/the-wibberlys/)
* [My Dad Wrote a Porno](https://overcast.fm/+FQ0rlFek8)
* [Do irrational numbers like pi disprove humanity being a simulation?](https://www.quora.com/Do-irrational-numbers-like-pi-disprove-humanity-being-a-simulation) on Quora
* [Pastor Evan Mawarire](https://twitter.com/pastorevanlive) on Twitter, and [#ThisFlag](https://twitter.com/hashtag/thisflag)
* Fiddler’s Bistro [chicken kabobs](https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/fiddlers-bistro-los-angeles?select=O5lDBWpGnHsPoGEcP69Qxw) and [red pepper dip](https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/fiddlers-bistro-los-angeles?select=0ASoVfJyY3ahUW_S2p3Uwg)
* The phonaesthetically beautiful [cellar door](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellar_door) and [The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IsXKMkDAMQ)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Rajesh Naroth ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_259.mp3).