Scriptnotes Transcript

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2013/qa-from-the-holiday-spectacular).

**John August:** And now here is the part of the show where we actually do the Q&A which will be cut into a separate little part of an episode. So, if you have a question for me, or for Craig, or any of our panelists you can line up at that microphone and we will happily answer your questions.

Now, standard things we talk about when we do Q&As is that ideally the question and the answer if it fit into a 60 second segment would be awesome. So, the shorter your question, the more time we’ll have to answer your question.

**Craig Mazin:** Yes. And as always make sure your question is a question.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Please don’t pitch anything during your question.

**John:** Yes. A statement that ends with a question mark or an up voice isn’t really a question.

**Craig:** No, it should technically be an interrogative.

**John:** Yeah. It should be. It shouldn’t be like a, “Blah, blah, blah, don’t you agree?” But I see someone standing there who I think is our first person asking a question. So, please come up and ask.

**Openings:** Hi. I want to say first off thanks for being awesome.

**John:** Oh, thank you for saying so.

**Openings:** And I had two questions. One I wanted to ask Craig at this point after 123 episodes are you regretting introducing yourself a different way every time?

**Craig:** Uh, yes. [laughs]

**Openings:** Cool.

I have found with the last couple scripts that I write I’m really happy with the product but I just find that that opening — that opening three pages, it just tends to be it’s not the sort of thing that jumps out and grabs people. Do you guys have anything that you do specifically where like this is the checklist that I need for the first three pages in order to just grab somebody by the lapels and just really knock their socks off?

**Craig:** Well, I think that knowing that you’re supposed to do that is probably the first thing, you know. I mean, the first ten pages, I would think of the first ten pages as the most important pages in the script. It’s like you’re making a seed and everything that grows out of the script comes out from that little seed. It’s all packed in there. Who the hero is. Potentially who the villain is. What their problem is. What the world is like. What their voice is like. And also you education of the audience so that they understand what the movie is going to be like is all in those ten pages.

I will spend a month sometimes on the first ten or 20 pages because everything is there. So, take your time and be cinematic. Frankly, watching movies will kind of give you some clues.

**John:** Well, I would say the first — I agree about the first ten pages. The first three pages, we may not really know your hero, but we’ll know what your movie feels like. We know like why we’re signing onto this movie and what the overall shape and feel of this kind of movie is. And that’s crucial. And so that’s why it’s so important that you’re really doing that detailed work there.

Now, I’ve been on a lot of movies where you end up cutting those first ten pages or first three pages. Like those first things you write may not be ultimately in the movie, but that’s what told you as a writer what your movie felt like, so they were critically crucial things to write. Go was an example of that. Big Fish was an example of that for me, those first ten pages, were almost literally like ripping the pages out of the typewriter and doing it over again. I just had to keep figuring out like how I was going to tell the story. But once you break those it’s crucial.

So, no, not a checklist, but just making sure that they feel like the best movie that they could be, like they could stand on their own if they had to.

**Craig:** Yeah. Don’t be afraid to take your time on those.

**Openings:** Great. Thank you.

**John:** Thanks so much.

**Craig:** Sure. Nice shirt!

**John:** Great shirt.

**Scriptnotes Shirt:** I know. I’m rocking the shirt.

**Craig:** Nice.

**Scriptnotes Shirt:** I’d like to hear from you guys and any of the panelists that would like to answer, what movie that you didn’t write do you wish you had written and why?

**John:** Oh, that’s a…

**Craig:** Tommy Wiseau’s The Room.

**John:** Oh, absolutely.

**Craig:** Just because honestly if you could write that on purpose, you’re on a level beyond anyone. I don’t know.

**John:** Of recent movies, Aline already said it, but I thought Frozen was terrific. And what I thought was so smart about Frozen was that it both honored and subverted the expectations of like what a Disney princess movie was supposed to be. It did all the Disney princess stuff really well, and then it sort of turned what the expectation of what that is.

We talked about the Bechdel test on the podcast. It almost passes the reverse Bechdel test in that there’s no two men who say lines to each other that aren’t about the woman, which is actually sort of fascinating. Except at the very end. But, now Richard Kelly who is going to tell us —

**Richard Kelly:** I’m going to sit on the floor for this one.

**Craig:** This isn’t getting weird at all.

**Richard:** I would say Inside Llewyn Davis is one of the — it’s hard to say what your favorite Coen Bros film is, it’s so difficult because they’re so great, but this screenplay structurally is so innovative and layered and it appears to be something that’s a very simple journey over the course of three days of a flailing folk singer. But, after having seen the film three times there are so many layers to this script and the sort of structural innovation of it becomes more apparent upon multiple viewings.

**Aline Brosh McKenna:** Did you like Frozen?

**Richard:** I did love Frozen. I did love Frozen. I thought Frozen was terrific. And I went back and I looked up the Hans Christian Andersen story.

**Aline:** Oh, and?

**Richard:** I really did!

**Aline:** And?

**Richard:** I haven’t read it yet, but I plan to.

**Craig:** So, Inside Llewyn Davis is your —

**Richard:** Is my pick. I mean, that film is extraordinary.

**Craig:** Even though Script Shadow didn’t like it?

**Richard:** You know, um…

**Craig:** You’re still okay with it?

**Richard:** I’m going to see it five more times just because they didn’t like it.

**Craig:** Okay, yeah. Because that’s going to —

**Aline:** Wow. I’m so sad that nobody on the podcast will see that Craig is kneeling.

**John:** Yeah. I hope so — document this please. Thank you.

**Craig:** What, did you not know that my knees worked? What do you think?

**Aline:** It just is a weird thing to do.

**Craig:** I don’t know what else to do. I’m doing it. It’s the David Kwong stance.

**John:** Aline has the microphone that’s going to be passed down, though. You don’t have to do this anymore, Craig. Aline has the microphone with the cord.

**Craig:** Oh she does?

**Aline:** The Kwong kneel! You’re doing the Kwong kneel!

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Oh, she has the microphone.

**John:** Aline Brosh McKenna, save us please. What would you have wished you would —

**Aline:** You know what? People ask that question. I don’t really even understand that question, because I feel like —

**John:** So, pass it to Franklin who I know understands the question.

**Craig:** Yeah. Exactly. Give it to somebody that understands the question.

**Franklin Leonard:** This is why I was kneeling. I actually, as someone who is not a writer, I feel sort of unqualified to answer that question.

But I can say that this year there was one film where I am profoundly and overwhelmingly jealous of everyone involved in any capacity and that’s 12 Years a Slave. That is a film that obviously as an African American it held a special place in my heart, but just as a film itself, the story it told, the choices it made, the simple fact of its existence, I am deeply, deeply and profoundly jealous of everyone who was involved in it.

**John:** Rawson Thurber?

**Craig:** Rawson?

**Rawson Thurber:** Oh, I guess Mud, Jeff Nichols. Mud.

**Aline:** Yeah, that’s good.

**Craig:** Nice.

**Rawson:** I thought it was fantastic. I hope it wins. That’s all I have to say.

**John:** Hey, how short that was. That was terrific. Lindsay Doran?

**Lindsay Doran:** Again, I’m not a writer, and I just saw the movie, so I know that it’s really influencing me, but American Hustle, where I was just dazzled by the writing all the way through. Nothing even happens in that movie for like an hour. It was just phenomenal relationships and phenomenal dialogue and just sort of full-on filmmaking and I’m just kind of — I’m just kind of reeling from it, still.

**John:** Kelly Marcel?

**Kelly Marcel:** I loved Toy Story 3. I thought that was beautiful. And I would have liked to have written Identity Thief.

**Craig:** Ha!

**John:** Oh, nice.

**Craig:** It’s not hard. [laughs]

**Kelly:** That’s why I would have liked to have written it.

**Craig:** It’s just like you could do it in like a week.

**John:** Next up please.

**TV Assistant:** Are you guys willing to answer a TV career question?

**John:** Sure.

**TV Assistant:** Okay, sweet. So, brief setup. I’ve sort of written it down so it will be shorter. I’ve been a writer’s assistant on a network television show for four years. This is the first legitimate show I’ve worked on, so I have no other professional writing contacts, no agent, no manager. Last March I wrote one freelance episode for the show and the experience for me and them seemed acceptable if not good.

But this will most likely be the show’s final season, so I will be out of a job in April. Several of the EPs have sold pilots that have already or will most likely receive pickups for next season. So, here’s the three-part question.

**Craig:** Oh good!

**John:** All right.

**TV Assistant:** I know. I know. Sorry.

**Craig:** Because I thought this was going so quickly.

**TV Assistant:** Yeah. Sorry.

At what point in them producing their pilot should I ask for a job on their show? When I’m asking them how should I handle doing that?

**Craig:** Right. Not like this. Go ahead. [laughs]

**TV Assistant:** This is why I’m asking.

And when or if they say no is it totally unacceptable to turn around and say I’ll still be your writer’s assistant. Is that job available?

**John:** Okay.

**Craig:** Right. Okay.

**John:** So, I have more TV experience so I’m going to answer this question for you.

**Craig:** Please do.

**John:** I think it’s actually a really good question.

So, the short version of this question is at what point as a guy who has written on a show in a very low capacity are you allowed to say to someone who is leaving the show, “Hey, could I get a job on that show?” And that’s a very natural thing to do.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** Like, hey, can I have a job? I would pick the people and your relationships with those people and prioritize them based on who is writing the show that you might actually be a good fit for, who you have the best relationship for. But you’re going to have to be upfront and honest about sort of like, “Hey, I really think this thing is great. I would love to work on this show if you can consider me for it.”

So, you have this sample of the produced episode you did. You should have two other amazing things that they can read that show that you’re a really good writer. Do you?

**TV Assistant:** Specs or pilots?

**John:** Great, so —

**TV Assistant:** No, I’m asking.

**John:** I would say originals. Because they’ve seen you write a show —

**Craig:** Originals.

**John:** Original things.

**Craig:** For sure.

**John:** Because they’ve seen you write the show that they were already on. So, they need to see you write something else that’s great, and brilliant, and shows a side that they didn’t know you could do.

So, you have that, you have those conversations, and one of those three things should work out. Because being a writer’s assistant for four years, you’re there to do what you’re doing. If you got an episode produced, you didn’t shit the bed on that. So, that’s good.

**Craig:** Look, I think you should honestly, it is a good question. I was just kidding with you. I think you should ask all of them frankly. I would cast the widest net possible. And at some point though you need to actually say, “I’m here to be a writer.” They’re not going to ever really take you seriously if they think they can just keep getting you to be an assistant. You’re just going to have to bite the bullet.

**TV Assistant:** So, should I not ask for the —

**Craig:** I think you should say, “I’m here to be a writer. You guys know that. I’ve been doing it for four years. I wrote an episode. This is what I’m here to do.”

Unless you truly want to be a professional writer’s assistant, and I don’t think you do, then I think it’s time for you to find out if you’re a writer or not.

**John:** Great. Thank you so much.

**Aline:** May I interject with something? May I add? One thing that I’ve been talking about recently is there’s kind of more than one component to being a professional writer. And one is —

**Craig:** What?! I’m not trying to electrocute myself.

**Aline:** [laughs] One is actual writing talent. That’s important. But there’s another thing that goes into it which is your EQ and how you understand relationships and how you relate to other people. How you feel about yourself. How confident you are. And those are really difficult things because you can’t learn them, you can’t take them in a class. You can’t do all that.

And you look at somebody like Rawson who out of the box got to direct — he’s like shocked — got to direct his first movie. You know, if you’re super charming, and confident, and outgoing, and people like you, and you can sort of demonstrate that you understand what room you’re in, and that you can be in that room and interact with people and do well at that — that’s just a huge important part of being…

— And I was saying to somebody last night, I had dinner with a screenwriter last night. I was saying, I know some strange people who are screenwriters, but I don’t really know people who are non-functional socially. You know, as I’ve talked about before you have to kind of be —

**Craig:** I do.

**John:** Yeah.

**Aline:** No, you have to kind of be an entrepreneur. You have to be able to go in and represent yourself and sell some things and really forcefully articulate your opinion. And you can be an oddball for sure, but you still have to be able to go sit in a room and understand the feedback that you’re getting from people and present yourself. And it’s very important.

And it’s something that I would encourage you as you go forward to try and imbibe, because it’s something that you learn by doing.

**John:** Cool. I would agree with you. Absolutely. That social skill is crucial. Our next question is…?

**Dodgeballer:** Yes. This question is for Rawson. Talking about Dodgeball, that process of rewriting and going through the different drafts, how different was the final version compared to the first thing that you handed into the production company?

**Rawson:** God, I guess pretty different. I remember going back and reading the first draft, the draft that actually Ben and Stuart got behind and sort of strong-armed DreamWorks into optioning for crackers.

**Craig:** Crackers!

**Rawson:** And I remember reading it, I forget why I was reading it, I reread it and I was sort of shocked at how far I’d come from that draft to the shooting draft.

And I just remember having like this deep sense of gratitude towards Stuart Cornfeld and Ben Stiller for seeing it, seeing it from what in reading it in retrospect was not a very polished script. I still don’t know why they did what they did, but I owe them a great deal for it. I will say, however, that the shooting script to the final movie is very close. Very close.

So, that process of about 18 months, two years of rewriting, and rewriting, and rewriting was really valuable. And I think as a first timer had I not gone through that, had someone been dumb enough to just let me shoot the first thing I wrote, I wouldn’t be here. [laughs] Because it wouldn’t have been a very good movie.

But, thank you for your question.

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

**Josh, a big fan:** Hey guys, I’m Josh, a big fan. So, my question is there’s a lot of information about like how do you get an agent, including an episode of your podcast, which was great. My question is what do you do when you have one and what’s the etiquette?

Because I’ve spoken to a lot of established writers and I’m like, “What are the rules? What do I do now?” And they’re like, “I don’t really know. It’s weird for me, too.” And they’re pretty established.

So, could you guys talk about that and like how do you drive things forward. And how do you do it eloquently and not muddle the relationship and —

**Craig:** Good question. Good question!

**John:** Because we have all these people here maybe we should just ask like how often do each of you guys speak to your agent, or communicate with your agent. Aline, how often do you speak to your agent?

**Aline:** Well, it really depends. I mean, I had one agent for 17 years and we’ve talked probably every day. And then for the last three years I’ve had a team of three agents and, you know, we talk pretty frequently. It’s sort of about what you need and what your communication is. And also it’s interpersonal. It’s one of those things that I was saying about the EQ thing, like you sort of have to read the room and know if you’re the person who is calling too much. You know? And sort of be able to tell if you’re having that right kind of communication.

But it is really, the first agent I had scared the pants off of me. And I was — and there were no cell phones and no email and no, I mean, we had answering machines, but I was so desperate to get him on the phone. And then he would call me and I would have built up all these questions for, you know, a week and a half. And then he would finally call me and I would be like, “I wanted to ask you about, this, this, this…” and he’d hang up on me.

And I always felt like I never got a chance to ask the million things I wanted to say, but he didn’t have time for me because I wasn’t making him any money. [laughs] So, it was, you know, at that point when you’re not making people a lot of money, be really like, I mean, I would even write down on a piece of paper like ask them about this, and ask them about that, and can you send this, and do you know this person, and be really specific. Because later on when you have more of a business going people might be more willing to put their feet and have a chit chat.

But it was definitely very stressful in the beginning and it’s a really, really good question, because it is one of those things you just have to feel out.

**Rawson:** My agent I’ve had for, I guess, almost ten years now, maybe a little bit longer. I speak with him daily at this point. And sometimes many times a day. It just depends on what’s going on. And I think it just depends on the kind of person you are and the kind of person the agent is. And a lot of times the agent that you pick says a lot about you and what you want in your life.

I have friends who have an agent and they’re buddy-buddy. They go to birthday parties together. And they want a friend and a cheerleader.

**Craig:** Argh.

**Rawson:** Right?

**Craig:** Ugh.

**Rawson:** Well, exactly. And I think the world of my agent and I would consider him a friend, but I don’t go to his birthday party. He doesn’t come to mine. It’s a professional relationship. It’s friendly, and cordial, and we root for each other, and et cetera. But, I think it’s really about what you want from your agent.

And I know what I want is someone who is really good at their job and will be on the phone with me when I need to talk to them. But I don’t need another friend. I don’t think anybody does really. Everyone is alone.

**Craig:** Forever alone.

**Josh, a big fan:** Thank you.

**John:** Kelly Marcel, how often are you talking to your agent? Now, how often are you talking to your agent?

**Kelly:** I speak to — I have a team of agents, and I speak to them probably every day at the moment.

My advice to you is that your agent at your agency will have a list of open writing assignments. It’s an enormous, enormous document that goes around all the agencies and talks about assignments that are open, they’re looking for writers on. Ask them to send it to you. They shouldn’t have any problem. It’s a big document. Look through it.

See if there’s anything on there that interests you. Then chase it. And chase it hard.

**John:** Richard Kelly?

**Craig:** Richard Kelly?

**Richard:** I’ve been hanging out in a cave with Smaug writing for four years. My agent doesn’t even remember who I am. But I’m coming back.

I’m kidding. I talk to him pretty often. I’ve been with my agent for 15 years. 15 years.

**Craig:** That’s Richard Kelly.

**John:** So, I would say, you would think that as an aspiring writer versus as an established writer you would talk to them more, or less, or differently, and I’ve found that actually the frequency isn’t all that different, but we have a shorthand now because we talk to each other so often, that even if I only talk to my agent twice a week we can bang through stuff really quickly because we all know the same people. We know what’s going on.

I know why he’s not sending me on that thing. Or he could say, “It’s a fishing trip. It’s not a real job. They’re just trying to figure out what the movie is.” We can have that kind of shorthand which is really useful.

But in terms of like being your agent’s best friend and vice versa, I agree with Rawson is that you want somebody who you can talk to on the phone and you’re not ever scared to talk to on the phone, but it doesn’t have to be like he’s your best friend. It has to be someone who you feel can represent you out in the world and you don’t feel is toxic or poisonous or is going to misrepresent you out in the world.

But it’s the business version of you and that’s a very different kind of person.

**Craig:** All I can really add is that we don’t always get the agents that we want, especially when we’re starting. We don’t really have a choice of these.

**John:** And when you get a bad agent, Craig is the best at firing them.

**Craig:** Yeah. I’m the guy if you need an agent to be fired.

**John:** I have to just say, Craig, we have mutual friends who will have a terrible agent. And Craig is the best at talking them through how to fire their agent.

**Craig:** Yeah. I’m really good at it. I love it.

But, this is really what — to get to the heart of I think what you’re going for here, in order to communicate with your agent unfortunately you have to kind of imagine what their day is like. And I hate having to put myself in their shoes, because they’re supposed to be working for us, but at least in this stage in your career, do it. And really what they need are bullet points. They just need bullet points. And you have email now, which I didn’t really have when I started, you know. Just send them an email and bullet point I want this, this, this. What’s happening here? What’s happening here? What’s happening there?

And then they’ll get back to you. This whole phone tag thing, getting on the phone. They’re distracted on the phone. I had an agent that I fired, one of many, I could hear him typing when I was talking. I could hear the keyboard. He would make me insane. And I’d be like, “You’re typing right now. You’re not listening to me. You’re typing.” [makes keyboard clicking noise] “No I’m not.” He even took the time… — So, anyway. Nice little short bursts of emails. Make sure that you’re getting what you need out of it. Real simple.

But, you know, that probably will get you where you need to go.

**Franklin:** I would actually add one thing. I think people forget this all too often, which is assistants can be incredibly valuable. And you should treat them incredibly well. Both because they have more information oftentimes than their bosses do, but they will either be agents or producers, or executive, or writers, or directors as quickly as six months from when they’re working for their bosses.

**Craig:** Fact. Truth.

**Franklin:** So, treat them well. I mean, if they’re an idiot, ignore them. But they were hired by their boss for a reason. And as a representative of their boss you can oftentimes get just as much information or scripts or whatever you need from the assistant as you can from the agent. And the assistant can also chase up the information you need from the agent in a way that is not going to make you look like you’re annoying.

**Craig:** Great advice.

**Josh, a big fan:** Great. Thanks so much, guys.

**John:** Thank you so much. Great.

And I see you. Please, come on up. I see five people in line and you’re our last five questions, so you’re awesome people. And you have the mic. Come up.

**Adaptation’er:** Thank you. First off, pleasure to meet you all. Mr. Mazin, I have an agent that…

**Craig:** You need me to take care of?

**Adaptation’er:** You could work your magic. But, actually my question is on book adaptations. When it comes to authors, especially, or specifically ones that are known for their language, their pentameter, say like Elmore Leonard for 3:10 to Yuma, and The Devil Wears Prada by Weiner [sic.] and so on, that how much of it was a battle, if there ever was one, an uphill battle or so on to put your stamp onto the script, your own language, whilst also trying to go with the adaptation of the author? How much was it kind of a bargain between —

**Craig:** The negotiation between your voice and the voice of the novelist.

**Adaptation’er:** Yeah.

**John:** I could talk it from Big Fish or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or books I’ve adapted. You’re always mindful that that book exists for a reason and that person wrote that book. And that person wrote the book to write a book. And you are writing a screenplay to make a movie. And they are different things.

And so there are times where the very specific quality of their words or choices, their voice, will translate really, really well to a movie. And so you get the luxury of being able to use that. So, for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory I would highlight one little line from Roald Dahl’s book and use everything I possibly could from his book in there because that felt very much like what the movie was we wanted to make.

Daniel Wallace’s Big Fish, I loved it, but there was very, very little there that I could say, “Oh, that’s the movie version of this voice.” It just wasn’t really going to happen. So, I had to be truthful to what the movie wanted to be.

So, if Derek was here we could talk 3:10 to Yuma. But, in all those cases you’re looking at what is the movie version of this. And if there’s a way that you can use that author’s voice in a way that helps your movie, you do it. If there’s not, you can never feel bound to it because there’s no… — No one is going to benefit if you’re just trying to shove that onto the screen.

Aline, did you have any sense of voice?

**Aline:** You know, with Devil Wears Prada it was like, it was enormously well researched and so I used a lot of that material. And then I did the adaptation and then when it was done I went back and went to see if I had missed any stuff.

I also adapted a book called I Don’t Know How She Does It and I had a little bit of an issue with that book which was I was incredibly infatuated with her writing. I mean, I still am. I worship her. I think she’s such an amazing writer of prose. And so I labored really hard to try and figure out how to get that prose kind of into the script. And it ended up being somewhat in voice over, which in a funny way I don’t know was in the best service of what Allison had done.

I kind of felt at the end of the day that with that book I would have been happy just to watch Allison read the book to me. And that’s maybe not the best starting point to mine things from. Because I always kept going back to bits of language. So, it’s sort of about the relationship you have with the material. And I think there’s some instances where you’re going to want to be more faithful. But in order to make that leap to really a screenplay you kind of have to put that thing down.

I really do think you have to put that thing down.

**John:** I’d offer one last cautionary tale. I think you need to read the book with the mind of like if I didn’t have this voice would I still want to make this movie? Because there could be cases where, I think I Don’t Know How She Does It may be a good example of that. If you just look at the story of it, was there enough story to tell to make that movie independent of that great voice you had in that book? And that may be a useful thing to let you know is this a book I should try to adapt, that wants to be a movie.

Thank you so much.

**Craig:** Thank you. Hi.

**John:** Hello.

**Jeff Pulice:** Good evening and thank you for doing this. My questions are about the Three Page Challenge. It’s my big goal to get on there.

Is that going to be returning? How often do you guys reach out to somebody who has got a really good three pages? And since I’m just chomping at the bit to be mentioned on it, is it better for the three pages to have a thrill or a laugh?

**John:** You know, we have somebody here who could actually answer those questions.

**Craig:** Brett Goldfarb!

**John:** Stuart Friedel, come up here and take a microphone.

**Craig:** Come on, Stuart! I can’t believe we’re letting him talk on a podcast.

**John:** Stuart, take a real seat here.

**Craig:** Come on, up, up. Up in the big boy chair.

**Jeff Pulice:** Hi Brett. My name is Jeff.

**Craig:** It’s happening.

**John:** It’s happening.

**Stuart Friedel:** I wish I was groomed before this.

**John:** You have your hoodie on. Now, Stuart, how many entries do we get for the Three Page Challenge?

**Stuart:** Do we get?

**John:** Yeah.

**Stuart:** We still get like 15 to 50 a week I’d say.

**John:** That’s a lot of pages.

**Stuart:** Yeah.

**John:** And do you actually read every one of them?

**Stuart:** I try to. I try to. I have a theory that some disappear. Like sometimes I’ll accidentally highlight everything and say Mark As Read, because we get a lot of spam in the Ask account. And then I’ll be like, oh my god, there were 15 unread Three Page Challenges in there and I’ll have to remember which those were. But usually I think I catch them all. The odds are still against us —

**Craig:** It’s so weird to watch you lose a job live on air.

**John:** Wow! [laughs]

**Craig:** It’s so weird. What an amazing choice for your debut on the podcast to reveal the most ramshackle method possible for dealing with their dreams.

**John:** Sir, could I have your name?

**Jeff Pulice:** Jeff Pulice.

**John:** Jeff Pulice. Do you recognize his name?

**Stuart:** I do because of your last name. It sticks out.

**John:** So Police like a police officer?

**Stuart:** But —

**Jeff Pulice:** Police, yeah. [sic.]

**John:** So, you recognize that last name.

**Craig:** You haven’t lost his yet.

**Stuart:** I hope not. Or I’ve at least —

**Craig:** I hope not.

**Stuart:** I don’t think that I’ve lost many.

**John:** Or any.

**Stuart:** But it’s possible.

**Craig:** I can’t believe this. This is so embarrassing for you.

**John:** No. It’s not embarrassing for me at all. It’s just delightful.

Stuart, I deliberately — there’s like a little wall, I don’t see any Three Page Challenges. So, tell me about your thought process about, basically I ask you for like send me and Craig three Three Page Challenges, and you just do it. And you’re always really good. You make good choices.

**Stuart:** Well, I hope…

**John:** What is your process?

**Stuart:** Honestly, like —

**John:** I’m fascinated to learn what my employee does.

**Craig:** Yes, honestly. Don’t hold back. [laughs]

**Stuart:** I will not lie.

There’s probably less of a formal process than people think, which I get from the questions that I get. I’m not looking for Something. I’m just like, “Oh okay, that worked.” And then I use the star — the Gmail star colored system. There used to be different folders, and those got too cluttered, so now it’s like yellow star means it’s going to get on, blue star means like, well, if there’s —

**Craig:** What a scientist. Just remarkable.

**Stuart:** Yeah, well, you know.

Basically I’m looking for things that are not bad. Like they can’t be illegible. They can’t be not in English. There are certain pet peeves of badness that bother me that are just like, you know, we talk so often about not using the same first letter and length of name. And I’m not going to disqualify you for that, but if like after hearing that on every Three Page Challenge we’ve ever done you’re still doing that and it’s dated this week then it’s a little bit like, well, you didn’t listen to the lessons we’ve given you so there’s nothing to build off of.

**John:** Yeah. He’s winning us back a little bit.

**Craig:** That’s okay. Okay. Yeah?

**John:** So, sir, what I will say is that because you have bravely stood up there and asked about the question, we will do your Three Page Challenge. That’s a guarantee probably after the New Year.

**Craig:** Now, of course, be careful what you wish for, I mean…

**John:** So, what title should we also look for? Do you know which one?

**Jeff Pulice:** Oh yeah.

**John:** It’s a script called Oh Yeah?

**Jeff Pulice:** How the Genetti Brothers Invented Hollywood.

**John:** How the Genetti Brothers Invented Hollywood. You should listen for that on an upcoming episode of the Three Page Challenge.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Are you excited now? All right, we’re excited, too.

**Craig:** All right. Way to go!

**John:** Hello and welcome.

Stuart, thank you very much. Thank you.

**Craig:** Way to go Stuart.

**Kate Powers:** So, I have had a Three Page Challenge.

**John:** Congratulations.

**Kate Powers:** And it was awesome, so it was horrible, but I used everything. Craig helped me rewrite my opening and I got a freelance off of it.

**Craig:** Yay! Oh great.

**John:** Tell us what you’re Three Page Challenge was because we’ll remember it by topic what it was.

**Craig:** You can tilt the mic down. There you go.

**Kate Powers:** For a shorter person?

**Craig:** Yeah. There you go.

**Kate Powers:** It was a junior producer on a daytime talk show and a bathroom that has a bloody footprint in it.

**John:** Oh, I remember that!

**Craig:** I remember that one. Yes. Yes.

**John:** That was early on in our Three Page Challenges.

**Craig:** That was very early on.

**Kate Powers:** Thank you very much. So, here’s my question and I’m very much hoping there will be some role play or improv on your part in the answer.

**John:** Guaranteed.

**Kate Powers:** So I’m a writer’s assistant and I’ve been really lucky. I’ve been in some really good ruins. And they’ve ruined me. I’m filthy. I’m honest. I say out loud what I’m thinking.

**Craig:** Oh, you mean they’ve made you awesome?

**Kate Powers:** Yeah, that!

And now I’m meeting with people because of the freelance thing and I’m discovering this phenomenon where I’ve worked on shows where like say a guy got gutted with a box knife. And I’ve worked on shows where somebody sweeps everything off the desk angrily but also because secretly he’s in love. And I think these are both equally valid dramatic moments and we talk, agents, managers about what I love, what I respond to.

The box cutter shows are dramatic. The sweeping off of the desk shows are soap operas. And I’m thinking there’s a gender thing going on that when there aren’t as many men on screen an industry shorthand is that’s soapy.

So, and it keeps happening is the other reason I bring it up. So, a great thing for me to know would be a cool, sophisticated, smart way to acknowledge that I’ve just had all the things I like written off as soapy because there are women in them and then keep the conversation going because I would probably just say some really smart ass thing that would burn it to the ground.

**John:** Great. So, your question is as you go into rooms for meetings on shows, to acknowledge that you’re doing both things. I thought you honestly did a nice job setting up that like you’ve done the box cutter show. That’s a good image for what that is. And for the soapy things with women.

But you want to be considered for the job that’s in front of you and you’re a great candidate for the job in front of you because of these things about the show that you’re actually meeting on. And that’s I think the thing to emphasize more than anything else is that, “I can do anything, but I want to do more than anything else is this show right in front of me. Is this show, this job, that you have right here. And let me talk to you about the things I saw in the pilot I read, or the things I think are exciting possibilities…” because they’re hiring you for one job not for everything else you’ve written in your life.

**Craig:** Yeah. I often imagine Hollywood as this multi-armed Shiva the Destroyer who is slapping you in the face with various hands, some of them are the racism hand, and the sexism hand, and the ageism hand, and the “I don’t like your face,” and all the other. And you’re constantly getting slapped.

And you can get so angry about which hand just slapped you that you then — but at some point you realize, “Oh, I’m just going to get slapped anyway. It doesn’t really matter why the hand is slapping me. None of that matters. I’m just in for a good slapping today.”

So, [laughs], with that in mind, I wouldn’t get hung up on why they’re doing it to you because that can send you down a rabbit hole of anger. I would however take John’s advice to say positive and talk about what you’re passion is for the show in front of you. And it’s okay to acknowledge that what they’ve read of you isn’t the show in front of you. Sometimes that’s all they need to hear is that you can see that. Because they get a lot of people who are like, “See, I’ve done it already,” and they’re like, “No, you haven’t. That’s not my show at all.” And everybody thinks their show is special, even when it’s just another show about people picking up blood stains off the floor. Okay?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** So, show your passion for their show and be positive and just don’t worry about all the slapping.

**John:** Yeah. The last thing I’ll say is that you seem cool. And that’s a quality that’s very important. It’s that EQ thing that Aline brought up. You’d be a cool person to have in a room. And so people are going to see you and go, “Oh, she’d be fun to have in the room. She’s be a great person to have in.” So, hopefully your writing is really good. And you seem like a cool person who is going to be good in an interview and you’ll be a good person to have in a room.

These are all good things in TV. I think you’re going to have good success.

**Kate Powers:** That’s awesome. Thank you.

**John:** Thank you.

**Craig:** You’re welcome.

**Female Action Writer:** Hi. My question is why are there not enough female writers who write action movies?

**John:** That’s a great question.

**Female Action Writer:** Because, you know, for like The Hurt Locker we had Kathryn Bigelow be the director.

**Craig:** Right. But she didn’t write it.

**Female Action Writer:** Yeah, she didn’t write.

**Craig:** No. I don’t know.

**John:** I don’t know. We have two women writers right now and we have Lindsay Doran. So, do any you have suggestions on why there are not more women writers being hired?

**Craig:** Oh, I get to kneel!

**Linday:** [laughs] Are you going to propose now?

I used to work for a woman who had been an agent. I was telling I think Aline this story before she was a production executive. And I was asking her why there weren’t more women in general who were writers. And she said, “Well, I can tell you one thing which is that when I told men that their writing wasn’t good enough they would go out and prove me wrong. They would say, ‘Oh, I’ll show you.’ And when I told women their writing wasn’t good enough they’d believe me.”

[laughs] So, I think there, you know, I think that was awhile ago, but I’m not sure how much it’s changed. I think, you know, if you look at the movies that women are making in the independent world they tend to be character based. They tend to be relationship based. They tend to be about people in homes talking to each other. And I love those movies.

When I was working at studios and looking for writers on action movies and making it very clear that I would love to have women being — not just women who had written action movies, but just women who had written exciting scenes. You know, that’s all they are is just exciting scenes. It was very, very difficult to find people who were literally interested in that.

Now, I know that sounds like everybody is sexist and of course there is some sexism. Of course I’ve heard people say, “Well I don’t want women in my room.” But in general people just want good writing. They’re so desperate for good writing. So, I just — I keep wondering, and I feel it’s a very unpopular point of view, whether it just has to do with interest.

You know, are they just as interested in explosion?

**Aline:** I want to ask a question. Are you an action writer?

**Female Action Writer:** I love action, so I write different genres. But —

**Aline:** But is that something you’re interested in writing?

**Female Action Writer:** Yes. I’ve always had this sort of connection to… — Beau Geste was my first action movie. So, movie. So, movies like Hurt Locker, movies like Lone Survivor that I want to see. They appeal to me.

**Aline:** Can I give you some advice?

**Female Action Writer:** Yes. Thanks.

**Aline:** Just do it. Who cares? Who cares? And I’ll tell you something right now. It would work for you because right now if I saw your name on a script and I was like, “Oh, who is that, that’s a female woman who wrote this kickass action script, that’s great. Oh, you have to see her. She’s adorable. She’s got this cute gray coat. She’s going to kick your ass.”

And it’s going to be like, oh, it’s not going to be like the 20 other dudes who look the same who are in cargo pants. It’s going to be like we have this girl. Her action kicks ass. People would freak out. They would be so excited. And if you’re putting up that barrier in your own mind, forget it. Put it down.

**Female Action Writer:** Thank you.

**John:** Thank you.

**Kelly:** Jane Goldman writes action.

**Craig:** Jane Goldman.

**John:** So, we’re listing women writers. So Jane Goldman. Mary Wibberley.

**Linday:** There’s a ton.

**Aline:** Berloff.

**John:** Yeah, Andrea Berloff writes all the —

**Aline:** [Laida].

**Craig:** Kelly Marcel wrote on Bronson which is pretty violent and manly.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** It’s just another one of those hands slapping you around. Just ignore it.

**John:** Our final question of the evening. Hello.

**Real Voices:** My question is for Kelly. I saw Saving Mr. Banks on Tuesday. I’ve been also reading Valerie Lawson’s book. And I want to know, also they play the tapes over the credits, how you adapt that. They didn’t sound exactly like word for word like what you wrote. So, how do you balance adapting what she actually said to what you think she would have said and everything like that, like Tom Hanks’ Walt Disney, how you think he would have said all those things?

**Kelly:** You know, it’s a really tricky one because ultimately at the end of the day you do have to make a decision about who the characters are to you. So, the tapes, there’s 39 hours of those tapes and you hear them over the credits, so if Emma had decided to play her like that and we had written it verbatim you’d be digging your eardrum out with a fork after two hours of watching that film.

And so I think you just take what’s interesting, the most interesting thing about it, and make it as sayable as you possibly can in the most interesting way. You know, she would go on for hours and hours and I need that to become five lines in a scene. So, I’ll just choose the most interesting ones and then have her say them the way I want her to say them.

And with Walt, you know, there’s a lot of research that you can do with him and he’s a very well known character so he needed to be quite specific. But what there is out there is a lot of Walt being Walt. There’s not a lot of stuff that you can find where he’s really himself. So, we had a lot of leeway there.

We’re not making a documentary. We’re making entertainment, so I think you can take a lot of artistic license.

**Real Voices:** Perfect. Thank you. Awesome.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**John:** Great.

**Craig:** Great questions. Great answers.

**John:** And that’s our show. So, thank you guys all so much.

**Craig:** Thank you guys.

**John:** This will be out next Tuesday. And you’re awesome. Have a great 2014.

**Craig:** Thank you guys.

**John:** Oh!

**Craig:** Oh, god!

**John:** Bonus eggnog for us. Thank you!

**Craig:** You spent charity money on this? It’s light eggnog. I mean, ugh.

**John:** Thank you guys all so much.

**Craig:** Thank you guys.

Links:

* [The Scriptnotes Holiday Spectacular](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-holiday-spectacular)
* [Aline Brosh McKenna](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0112459/) on episodes [60](http://johnaugust.com/2012/the-black-list-and-a-stack-of-scenes), [76](http://johnaugust.com/2013/how-screenwriters-find-their-voice), [100](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-100th-episode), [101](http://johnaugust.com/2013/101-qa-from-the-live-show) and [119](http://johnaugust.com/2013/positive-moviegoing)
* [Franklin Leonard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Leonard) on episode [60](http://johnaugust.com/2012/the-black-list-and-a-stack-of-scenes)
* [Kelly Marcel](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2813876/) on episode [115](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-back-to-austin-with-rian-johnson-and-kelly-marcel)
* [Lindsay Doran](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/movies/lindsay-doran-examines-what-makes-films-satisfying.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) on episode [68](http://johnaugust.com/2012/talking-austen-in-austin)
* [Rawson Marshall Thurber](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1098493/) on episodes [100](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-100th-episode) and [101](http://johnaugust.com/2013/101-qa-from-the-live-show)
* [Richard Kelly](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0446819/) on episode [118](http://johnaugust.com/2013/time-travel-with-richard-kelly)
* The [2013 Black List](http://list.blcklst.com/story/7887) and [blcklst.com](http://blcklst.com/)
* [Saving Mr. Banks](http://movies.disney.com/saving-mr-banks) is in theaters now
* Thank you to the [Writers Guild Foundation](https://www.wgfoundation.org/) and the [LA Film School](http://www.lafilm.edu/) for hosting
* Support the Writers Guild Foundation and get something awesome from their [Holiday Sale of Extraordinary Experiences](https://www.wgfoundation.org/holiday-fundraiser/)
* [Intro/Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Scriptnotes listener Matthew Chilelli

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-holiday-spectacular).

**Franklin Leonard:** Hello. My name is Franklin Leonard.

**Rawson Thurber:** Hi, my name is Rawson Thurber.

**Lindsay Doran:** My name is Lindsay Doran.

**Kelly Marcel:** Hey, I’m Kelly Marcel.

**Richard Kelly:** Hey, my name is Richard Kelly.

**Aline Brosh McKenna:** Hi. My name is Aline Brosh McKenna. And this is Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

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

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

**John:** And this is the Holiday Edition of Scriptnotes. And I am so happy to have six of our favorite guests here with us tonight to talk about things that are —

**Craig:** They are, in fact, our six favorite guests.

**John:** Ooh.

**Craig:** Not “of our.” These are our favorite guests.

**John:** Wow. Right now people are doing the calculations like, oh god, who got left off of this list.

**Craig:** Everybody that’s not here.

**John:** Wow. People are going to feel really bad about that.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** So we actually have, obviously you can tell, a lot of guests. We have three topics — that’s common for Scriptnotes. We have a microphone back there so we’re going to do a Q&A at the end of this. So, we have a lot to do tonight.

So I thought we wouldn’t dilly dally too much, Craig, unless you have some holiday topics you want to talk about.

**Craig:** Yeah. I wanted to talk about the eggnog situation.

**John:** Okay, let’s talk about some eggnog.

**Craig:** And how disgusting it is.

**John:** Yeah. I didn’t see you drinking any eggnog.

**Craig:** No. But I noticed people were nogging it up. Noggy mouths.

**John:** Okay, a show of hands. Who out there actually tasted the eggnog?

Oh my god, that was a lot. And so by applause who liked the eggnog?

Yeah. That’s only about half the audience who liked the eggnog. So, a lot of people tasted the eggnog and did not enjoy it.

**Craig:** Gross. It’s drinking mayonnaise. It’s disgusting.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** That’s it. I’m done with dilly dallying. Let’s go.

**John:** Craig has done his contribution to the weekly podcast. So, Craig…

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Yeah. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pick on you.

**Craig:** No. That was accurate.

**John:** Yeah, I sort of nag on Craig and I shouldn’t. Actually that can be a resolution for the New Year is I won’t nag on you so much.

**Craig:** Don’t patronize me, August.

**John:** Because it is. Actually when I say I’m going to do nice things, it actually comes across as patronizing.

**Craig:** Yeah. Because it is.

**John:** That’s how it is.

So, Craig, this will be our 123rd episode of Scriptnotes once this goes live on Tuesday, which is a lot. So, thank you all for listening.

And I realize while we talked about a lot of topics on the show, one of the things we never actually spoke about is what happens when people say yes. What happens when people say like, “Oh yeah, I really like your script. I want to buy your script.” We haven’t really talked about that process.

**Craig:** Yeah. It seems like all you do is hear no, no, no, no, no, no, and then one day you hear yes and it’s not the fake yes, it’s the real yes. And go out to dinner and you tell all your friends and you get drunk. And then the next morning you wake up and, oh no, here comes trouble.

**John:** Yeah. There’s a lot of stuff that happens when someone says yes. It’s a luxury problem, but let’s talk about some luxury problems. And who would be better to talk about luxury problems than Franklin Leonard. Come on back up here.

**Craig:** Impresario of the Black List.

**Franklin:** Hello. Hopefully I can get this part right since I screwed up the introduction.

**John:** No, don’t worry about it. We’ll do a take two and it will all be fine.

**Franklin:** Excellent. [Crosstalk]

**John:** Franklin Leonard, creator of the Black List, a person who deals with a lot of writers who are suddenly hot.

**Craig:** Suddenly hearing yes.

**Franklin:** That’s the hope, yes.

**John:** Our other guests for this segment would be Rawson Marshall Thurber.

**Craig:** Yay!

**John:** Rawson Marshall Thurber who last time you were on the show you had this little indie film called We’re the Millers that ended up doing pretty well.

**Rawson:** Yeah. It did okay.

**John:** Yeah, you can set your wine anywhere. Don’t worry about that.

**Rawson:** Thank you. Sorry. Hi everybody.

**John:** Hi Rawson! So, Franklin let’s start with you because this year’s Black List just came out.

**Franklin:** It did. On Monday.

**John:** So, the Black List is an annual assessment of the scripts that development people liked the most. Is that —

**Franklin:** That is a perfectly accurate description. Yes.

**John:** And so talk to us about this year’s Black List. Were there any changes you noticed? What was the tenor of this year’s list?

**Franklin:** It was an odd list this year. I mean, I think fascinating subject matter. I’ll run through some numbers. There were two scripts about the making of Jaws. There were two scripts about Mr. Rogers. Two scripts written by identical twins, which I think is the first time that’s happened.

**Rawson:** That’s just cheating.

**Franklin:** I suppose it is. Right? It’s like two of the same brain generating one piece of material.

If there was a big trend I think it was bio pics. We saw a ton of adapted stories of a moment in a person’s life, with whom a lot of people are familiar.

**Craig:** We call that the Marcel.

**Franklin:** Ah, yes. Lots of Marcels. Are they as good as the original? Certainly not.

**Craig:** No. No. Maybe.

**Franklin:** I don’t know. I haven’t read them yet. There’s one about Stanley Kubrick faking the moon landing, which I’m particularly interested to read.

I think that was the big trend. But I think what’s really exciting as we’ve seen every year is that when you ask Hollywood development executives the scripts that they love, not the scripts that their boss loves, or the scripts that they think will make tons of money, it is a really eclectic list of really ambitious storytelling that very often succeeds in the execution of that ambition. And it’s not big four quadrant movies that don’t have a soul. It’s an attempt to do something that reminds us —

**Craig:** So there is a place for those.

**Franklin:** There is. No, there absolutely is. I’m a fan of those movies.

**Craig:** And everybody has a soul. But they still want to be entertained.

**John:** Now, how many of the scripts on the list this year are already set up someplace, like someone is trying to make this movie?

**Franklin:** A third of the scripts that were on the list this year already have a financier attached. About two-thirds have a producer attached. Leaving one-third having neither a producer or a financier.

**Craig:** Well, you know, when we think about the questions that we ask when we do a live show I’m always thinking about the folks that are here and coming up with questions that relate to where they are right now in time. And one thing I have to say, you know, I started out with the Black List where my position on it was “do not attack.”

**Franklin:** Which was still the greatest praise we’ve received so far.

**Craig:** But I really now am in favor of it. I am positively in favor of it.

**Franklin:** Wow.

**Craig:** It’s a great service that’s getting results and I like to think that there are people here, there’s somebody here, if not one, two, maybe even ten, who are going to write a script that will get on the Black List, will get them noticed, and then someone is going to say yes.

**Franklin:** Yes.

**Craig:** When you see this happening and I think you are in an interesting position to see it happening to people that may not know what the hell is going on.

**Franklin:** Yes.

**Craig:** What happens? Tell them what they’re in for.

**Franklin:** Yeah, I mean, look, I think it’s a case by case basis. But the way that the Black List website is set up, you know, someone downloads your script and reads it. And we sort of step aside at that point. We sort of joke about the website being eHarmony for people who make movies and people who write movies. And just like you won’t see that guy from the commercials at your wedding night being like, “Where’s my 10 percent?” you won’t see us after we make the connection.

So, a lot of times it can be an email out of the blue like, “Hi, I’m a producer at this company. I’m interested in talking more.” Or, “I’m an agent, I’d like to talk to you.”

And I think at that point, you know, get on the phone with them initially, and then I think trust-but-verify is probably a good rule of thumb. And then the other thing is we — our membership are all legitimate Hollywood people. Like if you’re getting an email from someone who says they read your script on the Black List, again, still trust-but-verify, but in all probability they are a legitimate person who can do something significant with your career, otherwise we wouldn’t have approved them for membership.

But, that’s actually a good time, especially if you develop relationships with other people in Hollywood, to then triangulate that information with them and say, “Hey, I just got a phone call from so-and-so. What do you know about this person? Would you like to read my script now that other people are interested?” I think taking advantage of that is always a good idea.

But I’m loathe to give blanket advice generally.

**Craig:** Yeah, but think specific now.

**Franklin:** But specifically in this case, I actually am loathe to, because I think it really does depend on each individual’s sort of circumstances and who it is that’s contacting them. But trust-but-verify is a good rule of thumb.

**John:** I want to just zoom in on that moment of someone says yes and they say we are going to make an offer on your script, because that’s a moment that sort of gets every writer’s heart pitter pattering. But what does an offer really mean and what is it that you would actually do when that situation happens?

So, Rawson, I remember you were working for me when Dodgeball sold. That was your first script sale —

**Craig:** You were like, “I’m out of here, August. Oh, up this.”

**Rawson:** “I never liked you!”

**Craig:** [laughs] I can’t wait for my turn.

**Rawson:** What did you say?

**Craig:** I said I can’t wait to also tell him I don’t like him at all.

**John:** Ah-ha!

**Rawson:** “I quit this podcast!”

**John:** Indeed. You need to direct like two big successful movies and then you’re totally free to do that, Craig.

**Craig:** Wow. Beat me down.

**Rawson:** Instead of write like half a dozen successful movies.

**John:** So, Rawson, what were those last — the last week, the last day, the last hours. Tell me what that feels like.

**Rawson:** I don’t know. I guess I’d always hoped it was going to be that. Like, you know, the balloons would fall from the ceiling and you’d get hit in the face with confetti. And then someone would hand you a big novelty check and you give everybody the middle finger and you’re gone.

But never, at least for me and for most people that I’ve talked to about this, it doesn’t really — it doesn’t usually happen that way.

**John:** So, Dodgeball, this was Ben Stiller’s company became attached to do it. And they made a deal at Fox because their deal was at Fox. There was like a competitive situation for that.

**Rawson:** Right, well it’s significantly worse than that. [laughs] Lots of stuff happened beforehand. Everybody sort of passed on it. And then we sent it to Ben’s company, Red Hour, and the receptionist there, Will, read it and liked it, who gave it to the junior executive, who read it and liked it, who gave it to Stuart Cornfeld, Ben Stiller’s producing partner, who read it and liked it, who gave it to Ben, who read it and liked it, who met me and liked me.

And then they — well Red Hour, his company, had just left 20th Century Fox and had just made a deal with DreamWorks. And DreamWorks said, “Look, we don’t really get it, but we just made this deal with you. And we want to start off on the right foot. So, here you go, here’s…”

I mean, I think it was whatever is like minimum and then a little less than minimum, [laughs], or as low as they could go.

**John:** So, not scale plus ten, but just scale.

**Rawson:** Yeah, scale. And then please wash our cars, you know, also. And I said, “Yeah, great. Whatever!” So, it was not — and then it was — so then it wasn’t even a sale, it was like a really low option. Like I don’t think you could buy a Kia for like the option price.

**Franklin:** I think the Kia Option is a car.

**Rawson:** Is that right? [laughs]

**Franklin:** I’m not sure, but it should be.

**Rawson:** At any rate. And the check, and then you get to the part where like you’ve got to actually do it.

**Craig:** Kia Option! [laughs] Sorry, he’s funny.

**John:** Yeah.

**Rawson:** And then that’s the weird part where you actually like go from prospect to employee and then you kind of have to — you got to step up and do the work. And I rewrote Dodgeball with Ben and Stuart for a year and a half. And we kept turning in drafts to DreamWorks. And Adam Goodman at the time was the executive and John Fox was the junior. And they were kind of saying like, “Wow, this is getting better.” And we’re like, yeah, it’s not like a homework assignment, like we’re trying to make a movie.

And then they said, yeah, we’re not going to make it. And then the very quick summation is we took it to Fox and we took it there because there was a fantastic executive named Debbie Liebling who was there. And she found — she had just come over from Comedy Central. She had found Matt and Trey. And she read the script and loved it and got it and sort of stood up in like the Darth Vader room at Fox and like the long black table. And at the time told Tom Rothman like, “This is the kind of dumb movie we need to make.” And so then they took it from DreamWorks.

**John:** So, let’s talk about this last week you set up another pitch which was a very different experience.

**Rawson:** Yeah. Completely different. Well, for me, a couple reasons. One is I was attached as the director, not the writer. Simon Rich was and is the writer, a very talented guy from New York, wrote for SNL for a few years, New Yorker, et cetera.

And so we went around town and pitched everywhere in town. He had this idea based on underlying material written by Steve Breen, a sort of comic — a collection of single panel comics. It didn’t really have a narrative to it. Simon came up with one and we went around town and pitched.

And the town was split in half with two different producers, which was really awkward for us, for everybody really. And then we pitched and people really liked it. And it was the first time that I had ever been involved in I guess what amounts to a bidding war. There was like, I think, five different studios wanting the same thing.

I’d always heard of this sort of thing, but I’d never actually been a part of it. And it was really cool. And also awful at the same time, because what I didn’t think about for whatever reason is that you can only say yes to one person. And at this point, you know, I know a lot of the people at the studios and they’re friends and we’ve done other things together and both producing entities are fantastic. And, yeah, it was great. It was bittersweet, I guess.

**John:** It’s like The Bachelor. You can only give the rose to one girl.

**Rawson:** We had the final rose ceremony. And it was —

**Craig:** It’s just like The Bachelor.

**John:** It’s just like The Bachelor.

**Rawson:** It is. It is.

**John:** Craig, have you had bidding war situations? Have you had like a thing where you went out on the town and had to meet with multiple people?

**Craig:** Yeah, early on in my career all I did was go and pitch. And that was all the movies that I was doing were based on pitches. And there was one that an executive that I’m very close with to this very day didn’t talk to me for three years because I didn’t pick him. And, you know, and when he was yelling at me I remember I said, “But you have passed on stuff I’ve offered to you before and I don’t yell at you.”

**Rawson:** That’s exactly right.

**Craig:** And they don’t care. They don’t care.

**Rawson:** I mean, that was part of the fun. The shoe was on the other foot this time, for once.

**Craig:** Here’s the thing and this is why it’s touch. We are actually just nicer people. I’m so sorry. We’re nicer people.

**Franklin:** By the way, I agree with you. I mean, it’s like you could have said —

**Craig:** Oh, don’t jump on our [crosstalk].

**Franklin:** You could have also said, “But they’re paying more money,” and I’ll bet he still would have yelled at you.

**Craig:** Well, yeah, probably. I mean, but it’s hard to make those choices. One thing that’s interesting about the first time you hear yes, and I get it from your story about the scale or the near scale, don’t — I don’t want anyone to think that there’s any such thing as breaking in. I know everybody thinks that there’s a rolling in. There is an endless dribbling in. [laughs]

The first movie that I pitched and sold was with a writing partner and our deal was for $100,000. So, I got $50,000, which means I got $45,000, but really means I got $42,500, I think. And then after taxes and it took like a year and a half. And they took eight months to pay me.

**Rawson:** Yeah. [laughs]

**Craig:** So by the end I think I got $20,000.

**Rawson:** Yeah. Gold Lobster. Let’s go. Awesome.

**Craig:** You know, and so I don’t want anyone to think that that first time is going to be some amazing thing. The angels don’t sing, usually.

**John:** The thing I’ve learned over the course of a lot of pitches being set up and stuff, and not really competitive situations usually, is that when you hear the words “business affairs,” that means like, oh, something is actually really happening. So, that’s just not like idle executives talking about stuff, like, “Oh, we’ll call business affairs.” It’s like, Ooh, they’re going to actually bring real people who make money deals into our situation.

**Craig:** Which is great, but then you find out that the business affairs people are awful.

**John:** They’re awful. [laughs]

**Craig:** All the passion, and the love, and the excitement about what you said and you did, that’s real for the people that really want to make a great movie. But then there is this other place that’s cold. And those people, their job is to pay you the least amount possible. And so somebody in a room — And it’s so schizophrenic, because you’ve seen it on your side.

**Franklin:** Oh, absolutely.

**Craig:** Somebody in a room will say to a writer, “You’re amazing. I’ve always wanted to work with you. I need to make this movie with you. We want this movie. Please, please, please. You’re amazing.” And then your agent will get a call from business affairs guys like, “We don’t think that they’re really worth that much. At all.”

**John:** Yeah. “We see this as a one-step deal for about half their quote.”

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Yeah. That’s literally what —

**Craig:** “Oh, did someone tell you that they liked them? We don’t.” Yeah.

**John:** Yeah. And so the challenge of a writer — if it’s your first day you’re going to end up kind of taking whatever you can take, which is sort of the nature of it. But the challenge of it is that you felt all that enthusiasm in that room. You felt like, oh, this is going to be a thing. I sold a movie. And then it ends up being three weeks of drudgery while that thing gets figured out. And that can be a very long time.

**Rawson:** Three weeks if you’re lucky. Sometimes it’s longer.

**Franklin:** Yeah. I was going to say. Three weeks, you’re very lucky.

**Rawson:** That’s fast.

**Craig:** It can be a year.

**Franklin:** But I think the other thing that’s important to remember, and I say this as someone who is on the other end of the table —

**John:** You were an executive at Overbrook before.

**Franklin:** Yeah, I mean, I was an executive at Overbrook, which is Will Smith’s production company. I was an executive at Universal. I worked for Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company. I worked for Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella.

And on the other side of that table I think it’s important for writers to remember that the moment when someone is interested in your material but you still own it is sort of the apex of your power.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Yeah.

**Franklin:** And once the studio owns it, you have virtually no power. And so essentially make sure that what you are getting for your work, whatever it is, is something that you are okay with seeding the power that you have over the work that you’ve toiled endlessly over to someone who then really won’t feel as though they owe you anything.

And that’s sort of the price that every writer, every person, whether you work as an accountant for a big corporation, or whether you work as a writer, has to determine for themselves. At what price your soul or in this case your writing?

**Craig:** And that is the moment when they will work the hardest to convince you that you have the least leverage.

**Franklin:** That’s absolutely right.

**Craig:** Because they’re smart. They are. Don’t underestimate these people. They’re not smart about story a lot of the times. But they’re smart about this stuff though.

**Franklin:** I would even argue that they’re not so much smart as that they have almost all of the power, because they have the purse strings.

**Craig:** And a total lack of scruples.

**Franklin:** Right. But like I would love to see, for example, an environment where if you had a spec script you could put it onto the market with a timeline and people would have to buy your script like eBay. Because there’s nothing that sort of throws me off more than this idea that the studio is blocking —

**Craig:** Buy it now.

**Franklin:** Exactly. Buy it now, at this price, and if the price goes up the price goes up. And you are as a writer able to see…

**Craig:** ScriptBay.

**Franklin:** …every single offer.

**Craig:** You should do that.

**John:** Well, no, what he’s really bringing up though is the idea of a deadline. And so we see the giant sales that happen, it’s usually because there’s been enough interest in the town that an artificial deadline has been set. Where the agents have called around and said, “We are taking offers until 5pm. And then we’re done.” And that’s crazy.

**Craig:** Is that what happened to you?

**Rawson:** Well it was almost the reverse or the inverse, I guess. So, the first studio N said here’s our offer and it expires at 6:30.

**Craig:** They love doing that.

**Rawson:** And Simon Rich and I share the same agent. And I got to — at the end of the day, we pitched Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Thursday night we went to CAA and we like sat in his office and watched as emails came in and he was on the phone. It was really kind of fascinating to watch. But I mean he’s done this before. So, he said, “Look, I can’t honor that. Don’t tell me that time because I can’t get to all the parties and get you an answer by that time, so that won’t work.”

He deflected it in such, I thought, a really elegant and sophisticated way. But it’s interesting when they put the other — and then they came back in after that. So —

**John:** Was it the first party who came in who ended up getting the script ultimately?

**Rawson:** No. No, no, it wasn’t. Yeah. That was tough.

**Craig:** Oh, good. I like it when that happens.

**John:** They have to squirm and sweat.

**Franklin:** But here’s the interesting question is that who cares who came in first at the end of the day? At the end of the day it’s like who are you willing to work with who is going to pay you the most money to do it? And I don’t — yes, I respect somebody who says I love this, here’s an offer. But if they’re going to explode the offer at a certain time, that’s a negotiating tactic. They’re trying to limit how much money you make.

**Rawson:** But I also made, oh sorry, I also made a mistake with that. There was another project that was like based on a graphic novel and I set it up and I had two different studios that wanted it. And I went with the one that was going to pay me more. They’re both great studios, great people, et cetera, and I went with the one that paid me more versus the one that said we really are going to make this thing.

**Craig:** Ah!

**Rawson:** And I regretted it. I regret it now. I completely made the wrong choice. And sometimes it’s hard to see that at the time where you feel like, oh, well these people say they want to make it, too.

**Craig:** It’s a mistake everybody makes.

**Rawson:** Yeah, it’s just, you never know I guess is all I can say on that.

**Franklin:** I think that’s true.

**Craig:** Nobody knows. So, that’s bleak.

**John:** A sobering thought of nobody knowing anything.

**Craig:** And we’re talking about success!

**John:** I want to thank our first panelists, Franklin Leonard. I’m sorry, you have a last thought?

**Franklin:** Oh, one thing.

**Craig:** Franklin has a little Christmas gift for everybody.

**Franklin:** I have a little Christmas gift for everybody.

**John:** A holiday present. I’m sorry.

**Franklin:** Craig mentioned that maybe one, or two, or ten people in the audience may have a script on the Black List and end up sort of oozing their way into Hollywood.

**Craig:** Dribbling.

**John:** Here’s a question for our audience right now.

**Craig:** Painful, burning dribble.

**John:** First off, is anyone in this audience on the Black List that was just published this last week. Do we have any people who got that award?

**Craig:** Oh, those people are way too busy to show up to this.

**John:** Yeah, they’re too busy. They’re fielding all the calls that Rawson’s agent was taking. Is anyone here currently on blcklst.com?

**Franklin:** Does anyone have a script on the Black List?

**John:** Oh yeah. Very nice. Very good. So, for people who don’t…

**Franklin:** For people who don’t, and everyone who does I’ll be standing outside afterwards with the coupon for a free month of hosting for a script on the Black List.

**Craig:** Woo!

**Franklin:** You get a script! You get a script! It’s my Oprah moment.

**John:** Franklin, you are our Oprah.

**Craig:** It’s like t-shirt gun kind of…

**Franklin:** I asked for a confetti cannon to shoot them out of and I got a response that I can let Craig clarify.

**Craig:** I talked about my confetti gun.

**John:** [laughs] And Craig made it pornographic is really the answer to that email chain. Franklin, Rawson, thank you so much.

**Craig:** It’s colorful.

**John:** Yay!

**Craig:** Who is next?

**John:** We’re going to talk a bit. So, Craig, I’m writing now. I’m actually writing a screenplay, which is such an unusual experience for me.

**Craig:** What’s that about?

**John:** It’s really fun to write a screenplay, but really hard because you have to have all these characters, and you have to like do stuff.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** No, not at all? Oh, you write comedies, I forget. You basically make a little outline and then Zach Galifianakis says something funny.

**Craig:** That’s not entirely inaccurate.

**John:** All right. So, I’m writing this screenplay and it’s going good.

**Craig:** Oh, look. Look who is angry at you. My little pit bull.

**John:** Oh, Kelly Marcel is angry with me.

**Craig:** Well, Marcel will deal with you later.

**John:** She’ll have her moment.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** But I’m going to be totally honest. I’m having some challenges where I know I want to be able to articulate what the two main characters sort of want at any moment. Both what they would publicly say they want and what they sort of ultimately kind of inherently want. And I’ve been wrestling with it. And there’s stuff in the second act that I’m like leery about getting into because I don’t kind of know the answers to these things. I don’t want to write stuff that I don’t have the answers for.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** But, we have two panelists here who will tell us the answer and they’re going to come up and it’s going to be awesome because they’re going to be helping a lot. Lindsay Doran, the amazing Lindsay Doran.

**Craig:** Lindsay Doran!

**John:** And our inaugural guest, our Joan Rivers —

**Craig:** The Joan Rivers of Scriptnotes. Aline Brosh McKenna. And I should say that for all of the stick I give our brothers and sisters in the studio suites that Lindsay really is —

**John:** Lindsay is kind of amazing.

**Aline:** Let me talk about Lindsay.

**Craig:** She’s pretty amazing. I mean, she is — she is the exception that proves the rule, frankly, that people like you are terrible, but you’re not.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** Yeah, thank you.

**Aline:** I wanted to say two things before we started this topic. The first is this is a holiday party and I’m really glad you guys dressed up. And you can tell they’re dressed up because Craig is not wearing a hoodie.

**Craig:** No, my wife has it over there.

**Aline:** And John is wearing a hoodie.

**John:** I’m wearing a hoodie.

**Aline:** And that’s how you can tell that they’re all dressed up.

**Craig:** You really are the Joan Rivers of Scriptnotes.

**John:** We basically invite you on to insult us is basically…

**Aline:** Yes. The other thing I want to say to insult everyone is you’re very lucky to have Lindsay here, because she is the closest, one of the closest that Hollywood gets to having a guru.

**Craig:** She is.

**Aline:** And she is a guru.

**Craig:** She is.

**John:** Hooray.

**Aline:** So enjoy.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** So, guru, help me out. This is literally the problem I’m having right now. So, I have two characters who are sort of a key relationship. They’re not a love interest relationship but a key relationship. Each of them has different things they need to do. And in trying to articulate what it is, it’s like what would Sandra Bullock in Speed say her — what is she trying to do? If you’re carried along on a ride in a story, what does she say she’s trying to do? And how do I get that out? Does that make sense at all?

**Aline:** How does she articulate her wants.

**John:** How does she articulate her wants?

**Craig:** Isn’t she trying to just go faster?

**Lindsay:** “I don’t want to crash.”

**Craig:** Yeah, like, “I have to go faster than 55mph.”

**Lindsay:** Is that so hard?

**John:** Sandra Bullock was a terrible example.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** So, let me step back.

**Craig:** I’m feeling better about myself right now I have to say.

**John:** What does Demi Moore in Ghost want to do?

**Lindsay:** She wants to, wow, that’s hard, isn’t it?

**Aline:** Is she the main want though? Is Patrick Dempsey, oh Patrick Dempsey. Patrick Swayze.

**John:** Wouldn’t it be amazing if Patrick Dempsey was in that. Patrick Swayze has an easier —

**Craig:** Swayze wants to save her.

**Aline:** Yes, he wants to —

**Lindsay:** The good news is that it changes, right?

**John:** It does, yes.

**Lindsay:** At the beginning she wants this Whoopi Goldberg woman to go away and leave her alone to her grief. She wants her husband back. She can’t get that. She wants this woman to leave her alone. And then at a certain point she wants to believe. And that’s when we can break her heart and show that Whoopi Goldberg is just some fake con artist and then we have to win her back again. So, it’s a long bunch of stuff.

**John:** Does she want to believe? Does she ever consciously realize she wants to believe? Or is it an inner thing that sort of comes out? That’s a want/need question.

**Lindsay:** There’s a remarkable moment, something that we used in the trailer to great effect, where Whoopi Goldberg is trying to persuade her that she’s sitting there having a conversation with Sam and she gets up to leave. And Patrick Swayze says to her, “Tell her that I love her.” And he says it, “Tell her he loves you.” And she turns around and she says, “Sam would never say that.” And it’s so viscous and real when she says that. And in the trailer —

**Craig:** Because he didn’t in the beginning. He couldn’t say.

**Lindsay:** That was the whole thing. He would always say, “Ditto.” And it was in the trailer. It was like, oh god, this is a real movie about real people with real relationships. And then eventually, yeah, you do track points at which she really wants to believe. There’s the thing with the penny coming up into the air. And that’s the moment when she finally does believe.

But, yes, it is difficult. She’s not the protagonist. It’s really easy what Sam wants. But if it’s interesting to anybody, we had a really interesting thing with Ghost because in the pitch, which was very, very long, I had to as the executive in charge get that down to about a 30 second pitch for the head of production. And in trying to reduce it I realized we had a problem.

And I went back to the writer and said Sam wants to be alive, of course. He wants to tell his wife that he loves her, of course. But it’s not concrete. We need something that drives the story. And so it became he has to save her life.

**Craig:** The crime angle.

**Aline:** Right.

**Lindsay:** We have to do something with the guy sneaking into her apartment so it looks as though he has to save her life. So, that was the thing. He comes back from the dead to save his wife. And it’s in the trailer. [laughs] It was in the pitch. It’s barely in the movie. Barely. It was so scrunched in there. But it became, it was so concrete and important as opposed to something as misty as he wants to tell her that he loves her.

**Craig:** That was pretty misty.

**Lindsay:** And it made a good thriller premise as opposed to just a romantic —

**Aline:** It kind of hardened the wants.

**Lindsay:** Yes. It hardened the… — Ooh, that’s good. Harden the wants.

**John:** Oh my god. Aline Brosh McKenna. She nails phrases that become like iconic. Things about squirrels and robots. That’s why we have her on the show.

**Craig:** I mean she really is —

**Lindsay:** But I don’t know if any of that helps you.

**John:** It helps me tremendously in the sense of I always wrestle with the degree to which characters are aware of what they need, what they want and what they need, and the ability to have characters to articulate what it is they’re actually trying to do.

**Craig:** Well, I always feel like what they want and what they need should be in complete opposition in the beginning of any movie, of any story, because what they want is for the movie to not happen. And you’re going to force it on them. That’s why the movie is interesting. Something is forced on them.

And what they need is to go through this very painful thing. Nobody wants to get a splinter pulled out of their finger. Nobody. They want to just not be in pain. But what they need is for the splinter to be pulled out of their finger. So, I like to think of those things in opposition. I like to think of a movie as a progression where want and need slowly finally become the same thing. You know?

**John:** I like it. I like it.

**Lindsay:** That’s good.

**Craig:** Thanks. Yeah, I believe you.

**Lindsay:** I’m a guru.

**John:** Aline, talk to me about characters in films you’ve written. Devil Wears Prada, or as you have a protagonist, are they able to articulate what they’re going for at the start of the film? And is it true to what the actual story is or just what the character is feeling at that moment?

**Aline:** Well, I agree with Craig that the thing, the stated goal, is often not the actual goal. But one thing I’ve been thinking about lately that I think is helpful for this, and might be helpful for the people in this room, is when you first write a script you’re just trying to have it make some sense. You’re just trying to have the goals be really super clear so that, you know, there’s that — what was that song? Things That Make You Go Hmmm, or something.

You want your script to not be things that make you go, huh, and a lot of your first scripts are really that. Where you don’t really know what people want. That’s usually the issue. And then when you get some skill going you can sort of depict like what people want, but it’s a little flat. It’s a little bit direct, so people say, “I want to get the briefcase there by noon on Thursday.” And then you’re watching everyone do that. And it’s very flat. And one thing that I’ve sort of realized in my own writing is — I’m sorry, are we boring you, Craig?

**Craig:** No, no, no, just you.

**Aline:** One thing I’ve noticed is you want to have an evolution in what the want is and you want to have some sort of epiphany moment for the character but also for the audience. And I think a great example of this is in Frozen. In Frozen you kind of think you know what she wants. How many people have seen Frozen? A lot of people have seen Frozen.

**John:** Yeah, good.

**Aline:** I just loved it. And you think you know what she wants and I’m not going to spoil it for anyone, but you think you know what she wants and you see the guy going towards her.

**John:** Who?

**Aline:** The main character. The younger sister. And you see the guy coming towards her. And you’re sort of okay with that want. And you sort of have signed off on that want. And it would work perfectly well and it would track perfectly well and it’s in keeping with what her expressed goal was. And then the movie does this amazing thing where she has an epiphany, we have an epiphany, and it does something which I think is miraculous where it takes the theme and the character to another level that you hadn’t imagined. And I really think that’s what separates a good script from a great script.

And in that moment you have this incredible insight into her, but also this incredible insight into the world that she’s created thematically. And that’s the other level to get to. I think the first level to get to is just to make sure that the audience is not confused about what people want. And then the great thing you can get to is if there is an evolution, an epiphany for the character and for the audience. And if you can do that you’re really well ahead of it.

**Lindsay:** You have to think a lot about what does the audience want. That’s what I — it’s like what do you want the audience to want? Because in Frozen you want them to think they’re invested in that relationship, but you don’t want them so invested in that relationship when you turn the tables on them that they go, wait, what happened to that relationship? And I’ve certainly been in previews where you go, oops, they wanted — I bring up Pretty In Pink all the time. Oops, we wanted them to make the transition for her to be in love with Duckie and guess what, they never got there.

**Aline:** Right.

**Lindsay:** They wanted her to be in love with Andrew McCarthy and we had to change the ending. So, you have to be really, really clear. And a lot of decision making has to go into making sure that you’re tracking what they want and how you’re going to pull the rug out from under them and they’ll go with you.

**Aline:** And there needs to be an evolution in, as Craig said, the difference between the want and the need. There needs to be this evolution between what they think they want and the thing that they really need. And so that is often that little twist where the character makes a shift. It goes past what we think their actual goal is.

And that happens to Sandra Bullock in Speed. I mean, she thinks she wants a certain thing. She just wants to live. She just wants to make it through this day. And then she starts to really want to save this guy and want to save these people and it evolves. And your wants and needs should evolve. If they don’t, you’re going end up with something… — What happens I found once you clear the first barrier of trying to have clear goals is they become flat. And you’ll have these scripts which feel a little flat.

**Craig:** Yeah. You don’t want a movie where you’re just waiting for somebody to do the thing they said they were going to do on page five.

**Aline:** Exactly.

**Craig:** People don’t actually want to do what they’re supposed to do. Nobody wants to exercise. Nobody wants to eat better. Nobody wants to, you know, address the things that were uncomfortable or painful in their lives.

What we do want to do is take pills, and sleep, and do things that are generally papering over the problems that we have. We are really good at just taking the path of least resistance.

**John:** And so the challenge, the screenwriter needs to find ways that the characters are not going to be able to take those paths of least resistance, to continually escalate the stakes to burn those bridges behind them so they can’t go back to those safe [crosstalk].

**Craig:** That’s the fun of it. And Pixar does it so much better than everybody. It’s so simple to see what Marlin wants. Marlin wants to keep the one surviving member of his family alive. The one that’s the hardest to keep alive because of his bad fin. That’s what he wants. It makes total sense. To the point where he will refuse to let anything happen to that kid. But look where he is at the end. What he wants is to let him go and do these things, even at the risk of dying.

That’s, to me, that’s the fun of movies. That’s the fun of storytelling is watching somebody finally realize that what I want isn’t what I need.

**Aline:** And it’s fascinating to me that animated movies, lately, are the ones who really have dug into this storytelling thing in a way that’s really fascinating. I mean, they really kind of take it to the wire in terms of having these stories which are really interesting and complicated, where the characters change their wants.

In some ways I feel like they have a rigor. And it may be because they can do so many iterations.

**John:** That’s what I think it is. Because an animated film goes through scratch reel, so you’re seeing it being built up again and again. So, you get to watch the movie, it’s like, “Well that doesn’t work.” And so then you’re able to change a story and do it again and again.

Even Frozen changed tremendously over the course of their shooting. I remember the stories of new songs go in, new things come out. Suddenly the reindeer could talk, the reindeer can’t talk. You figure out what the movie really wants to be because you get to see the movie in front of you which is a luxury that we rarely have in live action.

Although you can reshoot also. You can —

**Craig:** Yeah, but much, much easier to do in animation. Plus, also, I mean, you have a lot of experience with animation. I mean, I would imagine one gift of animation in terms of making stories is when we make a live action movie the actor has an enormous amount of power on the day. Either I’m saying it or I’m not. You know?

And we, this is it, we’re here once, you know? And in animation we can just try. We can just try. Try it this way, try it that way.

**Lindsay:** Yeah, it’s true. And because I come from live action I’m always saying, “But why couldn’t somebody just write Toy Story and then make it? I don’t understand why it’s been four years getting to that screenplay. I don’t understand it.”

And the argument that came back to me originally from Chris Miller and Phil Lord was, yeah, but look at the number of great animated movies compared to the number of animated movies. And at first I bought that argument. But then I thought, wait a minute, when I’m working in animation, these are the goals: It has to be funny — laugh out loud funny; it has to make you cry; it has to be universal — it has to be so universal that kids all over the world will understand; it has to appeal to children and adults; and it has to have a theme that you want the whole world to understand.

Well, if that’s where you start, of course you’re going to make a better movie. Of course you’re going to have a better — because your goals are so high. They’re so high. On every single one I’ve worked on, and I’ve worked on about twenty now, that’s where you start. And you’re always articulate.

**Aline:** But I always think of that thing that Michael Arndt said in the New Yorker which is we work on our — he says, “We work on the Pixar movies for five years and they suck for four of them.”

**Lindsay:** Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It’s true. But I keep thinking, why can’t —

**Aline:** There’s so many times in the live action movie —

**Craig:** Just get it right the first time.

**Aline:** There are so many times in a live action movie where you’re thinking, oh, if we only had this line covered this way. If we only could reinterpret this. If we could only get him coming from this side saying this. And you just don’t have it and it’s so hard to get. So, the fact that they have this ability to make those changes is really such an advantage. But I don’t know that that accounts totally for — I think what you said, which is the goals that they set out with are so concrete and so specific and so really what storytelling is.

**Lindsay:** Well, I know when I was at Austin this year I was on a panel about theme. And somebody said, “Does every movie you work on have a theme when you’re starting out?” And I went, “Every animated movie does.”

**Craig:** Yeah.

**Lindsay:** It’s not particularly true of every live action movie, but when you sit down that first day on an animated movie, theme is foremost in everybody’s mind. Who does that?

**Craig:** I do it.

**John:** Craig does it.

**Craig:** I do it and everybody makes fun of me.

**John:** [laughs] I never make fun of you, Craig.

**Craig:** Nah.

**John:** Nah. Never.

**Craig:** I know.

**Lindsay:** Does that help you, John?

**John:** That helps me a lot. I guess my last question for you and writers up here as well is to what degree before you started writing the script do you have answers to all those questions about what the character would say he or she wants at this moment? Because this is one of the first times I’m really challenging myself to do it before I write those scenes. And do you have an outline that would really articulate that? Or are you just going by gut feeling that like, “Yeah, she knows what she wants.”

**Aline:** For me an interesting thing was in writing Devil Wears Prada was what she wanted was just to survive that year so that she could do something else.

**John:** And does she articulate that?

**Aline:** And survive that year is not an incredibly propulsive narrative goal. And so it was very difficult to always get to her through the thing where she’s just trying to get through this, trying to get through that. But that is a movie where she takes the thing that is the most important thing and she throws it in the fountain. She literally takes the thing which is her stated goal and just kind of forgets about it and moves on from it.

And that was a good sort of object lesson for me in exactly that thing which is the thing she needed was to see that the world was different from the way she understood it. And that was different from what she wanted which was to have everyone tell her she was a genius.

And so what I think is really interesting about the theme is you can start out thinking something in particular, but I always find that as I write it I think, oh, I thought it was about this, but it’s actually about this. That always happens after the first draft that you really kind of find your theme. And I have found that countless times.

It’s very interesting — that is one of the many weird intangibles about writing is, and it’s not that the characters say it, or they teach you or whatever, but there’s sort of an emerging message that comes out of the script and it’s sort of the script knows that that’s what it wants and the characters start to tell you that.

And it’s almost impossible to know that when you go into it.

**John:** It’s like you know what happens and then finally you realize why it happens. It is just like I know this thing is this way and then ultimately like, oh, this is the reason why it’s happening this way. This is why this character is in this moment.

**Aline:** One thing I would say though which is maybe a helpful crafty thing is if you find yourself, I was just watching a movie where they had a character that was there just so that the lead character could say this is what I want and this is what the movie is about. If you find yourself doing that, try and cut that person out completely. Because it should be completely visible in the action.

And if you find yourself wanting a character who is going to show up and explain, you know, the best friend character, or the kindly train conductor, or the super helpful telemarketer, or somebody who is going to try and draw out those thematic goal things, something is wrong with your storytelling often. And you have to try and get those… — You know, you can get so much about what a character wants from action and that’s really what you want to do.

And I think when you find yourself having people say, “This is all I want is…” there might be something a little hanky in the way you’ve set it up.

**Craig:** I got to tell you I do think about this from the start. I organize my story around this very thing. I really do think about the story as a hero who is not always heroic wants simply to maintain their life of acceptable imperfection. And then the movie happens to them and they slowly start to become aware that there’s something wrong with their organizing philosophy of life, the way that they have — what they have decided their life is about, and that there may be another way to live.

And they get glimpses of it and they get hurt by sort of moving towards it. And eventually must act in accordance with faith in that thing.

**Aline:** But does that change when you’re writing it ever?

**Craig:** It can. But what that — but at least to start with and I know this: my story is connected to my character fundamentally. And if it changes I will change it so that both change together. But there is not character end of story. That story is for that character.

And, by the way, I haven’t always done this, but I’m doing it now. It’s something that I’ve come to and I believe in. So, I would say to you if you’re thinking about that, think about how the only difference between your character in the first scene where we meet her or him and the final scene is that they’ve changed their mind about this most fundamental philosophical question.

**Aline:** And here’s a question I ask maybe Lindsay at what point in the writing process did they write, “I was a better man as a woman than I ever was as a man.” You know? I don’t think they wrote that on day one.

**Lindsay:** Well, when I was working for Sydney Pollack, but not when he was making Tootsie, after that, but he said, you know, when he was asked to do it, because it was supposed to be Hal Ashby or something, and pretty close to production Hal Ashby dropped out and suddenly Sydney was dropped in. And he said that was thing about being a better man by being a woman, that theme was when he sort of decided to do the movie.

He said, “Once I knew that, I knew what to do with everything. I knew there had to be a baby over here so we have a baby over there.”

**Craig:** It tells you what the story is.

**Lindsay:** Yeah. It was like I knew exactly how to —

**Craig:** It tells you what the challenges are. It tells you how it should end.

**Lindsay:** How to organize it.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**Aline:** But can I tell you a really interesting thing? Sometimes you go to make the movie and the director has a different idea of what the theme was.

**Craig:** Mm-hmm.

**Aline:** And I was just talking to somebody who wrote a movie which is a great movie and is up for Oscar buzz and stuff and he was saying that his idea of what the movie was about was different from what the director’s movie was about. And he said to me, “I think my movie is still in there.” But it really is this thing where because that is the intangible, you can always say to someone, well, they need to get the briefcase to Moscow by noon, but if you say to them this movie to me is about someone who understands that love is more important than money, you maybe be giving it to a filmmaker who thinks something completely differently.

**Craig:** Yup.

**Aline:** And what’s really interesting to me is I have made movies where I thought, oh, they’re still going to see what I wanted to do. They’re still going to see what I wanted to do. I know it’s in there. And it wasn’t in there. And it can be the same similar scenes and similar characters and similar dialogue and the thing that made you want to write the movie and the thing you were trying to say can disappear down the bathtub drain. And that’s one of the very strange things about being a screenwriter.

**Lindsay:** One of the things I’ve learned as a script whisperer, because I do all this consulting on things, when I come in on high level, high priority development, is I have everybody in the room, the producer, the writer, the studio executive, the director, whoever is there take a piece of paper without showing it to anybody else, say what is the most important relationship in this movie.

**Craig:** Oof.

**Lindsay:** And frequently I get four different answers.

**Craig:** Mm-hmm.

**Lindsay:** And that conversation is where you discover what everybody thinks the movie is about, what the last scene should be. You know, somebody said, your Devil Wears Prada, it’s about her and the boyfriend. You go, wow, that’s a different movie than if it’s her and Miranda, and that’s a different, you know what I mean? Or it’s Stanley Tucci. It’s like all of those are interesting movies, but everybody has to know who that last scene is about.

**Aline:** And I would actually say in some respects you know you’re in a good process when everyone is saying the same thing. If you actually looked at someone’s piece of paper and went like, “Ooh!”

**Lindsay:** And when that happens they don’t need me, because it means they are all on the same page. And it’s like only when —

**Craig:** What a bummer for you when they know and they’re like, “Get out!”

**Lindsay:** But usually the reason I’m there, the reason that everybody is having problems is that they haven’t quite all figured out that they’re making different movies. And then it’s about everybody figuring out what movie they want to make.

**John:** Well I know that we need you both very much. So, thank you very much for this discussion.

**Craig:** Thanks guys. Thank you.

**Aline:** Thank you very much.

**Craig:** Now it gets weird.

**John:** Now it gets weird.

**Craig:** Now it gets weird.

**John:** Because we know the history on these things.

**Craig:** Yeah, yeah, here we go.

**John:** You’re going to set this up because I don’t even know what to say. You like it when I’m drunk and you saw me drunk.

**Craig:** I love it when you’re drunk. Austin John August is the best John August. We just had the best time with these two. I would love for them to get married.

**John:** Oh my god!

**Craig:** Because then Kelly Marcel would become Kelly Kelly, which is so exciting.

So, we have — I’d like to welcome up here for a discussion of good and bad habits, mostly probably bad, but maybe a few good. Richard Kelly of Donnie Darko fame and Kelly Marcel of Saving Mr. Banks.

And normally, I mean, this is just working out great because I’m sure you haven’t been busy or anything.

**Kelly:** No.

**Craig:** Kelly’s film opens wide tomorrow.

**John:** Tomorrow! Woo!

**Craig:** And it’s really good. Really good.

**John:** Yeah, so Kelly when you were on our last live show in Austin I had not seen your film yet, and so I got to see it right after Austin. It was fantastic.

**Kelly:** You were my date.

**John:** I was your date. What was so wild is you’ve been basically promoting this film that entire time since we last spoke.

**Kelly:** And the month prior to Austin as well. Three months.

**John:** So, that’s a thing we have not really talked about on the show is what the writer’s function is in promoting a film, an award-caliber film that you’ve written.

**Kelly:** I had no idea that you had to do this much stuff to open a movie. I don’t know if it’s the same for every writer. And I think it’s been like this — I think it’s been this crazy because it’s a film that’s got a lot of award buzz. But, we worked out, John Lee and I worked out the other night that we’d had five days off including weekends in three months.

So, I’m a little bit tired. This is the last night of anything I have to do.

**Craig:** Yay!

**John:** It’s Kelly’s last night everyone!

**Kelly:** I’m going to get so drunk…

**Craig:** Well, this means that we could probably get her to say anything tonight. I feel like this is the night.

**Kelly:** This is the night.

**Craig:** Where she calls Walt Disney a Nazi.

**John:** [laughs] Yes.

**Kelly:** [Gasps]

**Craig:** Tonight!

**Kelly:** Melissa! Beat him up.

**Craig:** Oh, no, she’s not going to help. No, no, she loves this chaos. She loves chaos. That’s my wife, Melissa, she’s over there. It’s my wife. I’m married!

**John:** She’s a real person.

**Craig:** Just wave so they know you’re real.

**Kelly:** She just said no. [laughs] No.

**Craig:** That’s it? We’re done?

**John:** She’s gotten embarrassed of this podcast.

**Craig:** We’re done? Yeah. All right. Well…

**John:** And Richard Kelly, we got to hang out some more in Austin, too, and I had known you before Austin but I didn’t kind of really know you until Austin.

**Craig:** And I still don’t know him really. Can you know Richard Kelly?

**Richard:** Yeah, it takes some time. Yeah. [laughs]

**John:** So, since we had a great conversation about Donnie Darko, but you like Kelly are sort of strongly identified with the films you’ve made. And so does it become exhausting at a certain point to be the ongoing representative of the Donnie Darko franchise, of this thing you made?

At what point are you allowed to sort of say like, “You know what? I made that movie, that’s awesome, and now I’m going to go be Richard Kelly over here by myself.”

**Richard:** Yeah, well I mean, listen, it’s a blessing to have a film that stays with people and it continues to haunt you and be tattooed somewhere on your body, or on other people’s bodies usually.

**Craig:** He’s so weird. So weird. I love it.

**Richard:** I’ll take it. I’ll take it. But, listen, it’s all about constantly just evolving and trying to reinvent yourself. And not write the same movie over and over again, or not direct the same movie over and over again. And I think that’s tricky in this business because they always want to, like I said, put you in a category or a box, so to speak.

And for me in sort of trying to evolve as a writer I’ve been trying to just venture out into different kinds of stories. And change things up. You know, it’s like when you work out at the gym you’re supposed to change your weight lifting habit every few weeks.

**Craig:** We do that.

**John:** Yeah, that’s us. That’s us totally.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** You can tell here that this…

**Richard:** But it’s constantly just like changing the way you’re exercising your muscles or your brain. And I don’t know, it’s just switching up the process I’ve found.

**John:** Well, and we’re approaching 2014, so are there any things you want to change up for 2014, or any things that you see in yourself that you want to do differently for 2014, especially in terms of you’re writing, your craft, your filmmaking. Is there anything?

**Richard:** Well, I’ve been writing for myself for probably three years. I’ve written probably three or four scripts over the past three to four years of all different kinds of genres. And I’ve been pushing into new territory. But I think for me it’s about getting back behind the camera, obviously, but in terms of writing, I think venturing into a place where I’m doing like two to three hours a day of really essentially work and that’s it.

I used to try to think I needed to write all day.

**Craig:** Not possible.

**Richard:** That I needed to. And it was just a mistake. I was writing too much. I was over-thinking things. I was creating too many characters that were extraneous. And it was actually an unhealthy process. So, I think I’ve learned now it’s like you just need to make sure when your brain is the most functional, what time of day is that, what environment do you need to be in. It’s a very almost — it’s like a dietary exercise thing in a lot of ways. Not to be too physiological.

**Craig:** No, no, totally applies to us as well.

**John:** Not at all.

Kelly, how about you? Your 2014. Do you have any things you are looking at doing now or in this new year that are different?

**Kelly:** Having a little sleep.

**John:** Sleep is so good.

**Craig:** Sleep.

**Kelly:** Really just want to do that mainly. No, I think I’m going to do some television next year.

**John:** That would be great.

**Kelly:** There was a TV… — When I sold Terra Nova, that brilliant show, [laughs] I also sold another show, I told you tonight’s the night I can just say anything.

**Craig:** Here we go.

**Kelly:** I sold another show called West Bridge to Showtime which went into development but never got made and now because of Banks it’s been picked up. And so we’re going to do it as like a closed end series. So, that will be exciting.

**John:** So, talk about your writing though during this time, because you’ve been so busy doing —

**Kelly:** There is no writing.

**John:** There’s no writing at all?

**Kelly:** There’s no writing.

**Craig:** Very disappointed to hear.

**John:** But I’ve not done as much writing during the whole Big Fish thing as I wanted to, so it’s been exciting to get back into it. But are you on the Richard Kelly plan of a couple hours a day, or what’s your thing?

**Kelly:** I’m trying to do what you told me to do, [laughs], in Austin which is just do three hours a day. And it doesn’t matter which three hours that is. Just do three hours. But, you know, really the way my life works at the moment is I wake up, the phone starts ringing, I do press, I do phone interviews, all that —

**Craig:** Don’t forget the hair and makeup people.

**Kelly:** The fucking hair and makeup people. Swear to god if someone comes near me with another makeup brush! Um, yeah.

**Craig:** We also have a lot.

**John:** Yeah, you can tell. You can tell.

**Kelly:** They call it “grooming,” like I’m a dog.

**Craig:** Yes!

**Kelly:** You need to be groomed.

So, phone interviews happen all day and then I don’t think there’s been a night this week that I haven’t done a Q — I was on this stage last night doing a Q&A. It’s every single night.

**Craig:** And that is, I mean, I have to just say, one of the worst things about Q&As, when you’re doing Q&As for a movie is that you will be asked the same question over and over and over and you start to lose your mind. It’s a weird form of mental torture to be asked the same question over and over and over.

**Kelly:** Yeah. I started to make things up.

**Craig:** Out of curiosity, what’s the one? What’s the one that is driving you the most crazy so that I can now ask it.

**Kelly:** Ha! Normally the Banks questions are kind of what they are, but obviously everybody wants to know about Fifty Shades of Grey. So, I’ve started to tell everyone I’m a virgin and that I don’t really know —

**Craig:** You’re not? I bought that.

**Kelly:** No, that’s true. Yeah. And that a really good friend of mine had told me that, you know, when you have sex like what you have to do is sit on a rabbit or a duck and then you rub a bald man’s head. And then you either get pregnant or flowers. And that doesn’t seem to going down too well with the studio funnily enough.

**Craig:** Walt Disney is not impressed.

**Kelly:** No. [laughs]

**John:** Craig, are you a two or three hour, you’re a two or three hour work person. And what are your two or three hours, because I’ve started to try to make it the morning so that I can get stuff done. The first thing I do when I get in the office, I don’t do anything until I’ve written stuff.

**Craig:** I’m not that way. But what I will do is my plan is as I’m going to bed I’ve actually found a pattern. I didn’t realize I had one, but I found one. As I’m going to bed I start thinking about the next day’s work. And then I fall asleep. And I don’t worry about writing anything down because we all know when your dreams are nonsense.

But then when I wake up and I take a shower, I take a very long shower and in the shower I start to think about the scene. Once I’m out of the shower I should — I usually have a sense of what it is I’m going to write. If I don’t, I know it ain’t happening that day. But if I do, then I know I have all day to pick the three hours. And it’s just waiting for the moment. And then I do it.

**John:** So, Melissa, how long are the showers?

**Craig:** [laughs] She’s not in there with me when this is happening.

**John:** What’s a long Craig Mazin shower?

**Melissa Mazin:** Oh, I don’t know.

**Craig:** That’s my wife. There you go. 15? No.

**John:** Only 15? No.

**Craig:** No, no.

**Melissa:** 20 minutes. I don’t know.

**Craig:** Do you live with me? [laughs] It’s never when she’s there by the way. Here’s the other thing: She wakes up at 6:30 in the morning. I’m going to bed sometimes at 6:30 in the morning. So, she wakes up, she’s gone. So, now I’m talking like 9:30 or 10 I go into the shower. Easily sometimes I’ll go for a half an hour. Easily.

**Kelly:** Why does she get up at 6:30 and you get up at 9:30?

**Richard:** Uh, because he’s a writer.

**Kelly:** This is bullshit.

**Craig:** I got to go. [laughs]

**John:** Because she’s the parent who gets the kids off to school I bet.

**Craig:** She’s the responsible one.

**Kelly:** So you don’t help taking the kids to school or anything like that?

**Craig:** This is neither the time nor place, [laughs], to discuss this matter. We’ll talk about it later.

**Kelly:** I’ve got your back, Melissa.

**Craig:** I regret everything. Everything! This is kind of where it was eventually going to go.

**John:** You still have like the benefits of a bachelor writer life.

**Craig:** I do. Actually she’s great about that. Actually, I will say that if you have somebody that you share your life with who understands what you do and gives you the flexibility and space to do, that’s wonderful.

Now, if six years go by and you haven’t sold anything, that person is going to get super grumpy…

Yeah, she’s like, “Yeah!” She’s like, “I am super grumpy.”

**John:** What is the difference between like an aspiring screenwriter and a freeloader? It’s a really fine line.

**Craig:** It’s so…it’s right there. But, you know, assuming that you are actually earning a living then it’s nice to know that you’re living with somebody who kind of gives you the space you need to do the crazy job that we do.

**John:** Yeah.

**Kelly:** Like sleeping in?

**Craig:** I am so uncomfortable.

**Richard:** Well, the thing is if you’re only really required to work three hours a day, sleeping in is not that big a deal.

**Kelly:** Right.

**Craig:** Thank you, Richard Kelly!

**Richard:** And you need the sleep to rest your brain so you can make those three hours count.

**Craig:** Great point, Richard Kelly!

**Kelly:** No, but my argument is if it’s only three hours a day then there’s all the other hours in the day to help out, right?

**Craig:** That makes no sense.

**Richard:** There’s things like Angry Birds.

**Kelly:** And that’s how you make films.

**John:** And the gym. Don’t forget to go to the gym. That’s another crucial thing here.

**Craig:** Right. Although I’m also forgetting to go to the gym.

**Richard:** It takes a good hour and a half to go [crosstalk].

**John:** Yeah.

**Kelly:** Look at those guns.

**Craig:** I actually think I could fill enormous wads of my day with nothing. I don’t even know what happens. I don’t know what happens. But I do say, look, if you are writing a screenplay I will say this: I’ve never missed a deadline in my career. Not once. I am really responsible. I don’t know how. I just know that by this day it’s happening. And I’ve always gotten there, so I am very responsible. I’m very routinized in certain ways. In other ways, maybe not so much. What the hell! [laughs]

I mean, ugh…

**John:** Well, we’ll be able to ask more questions about Craig and his life during the Q&A.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** But, Kelly, congratulations on your movie. Congratulations on all you’ve done with this part of it.

**Kelly:** Thank you.

**John:** Kelly Marcel, you don’t naively think that you’re done doing press?

**Craig:** Oh no.

**Kelly:** What?!

**John:** No, there will be more.

**Craig:** What?!

**John:** But for now you’re movie is coming out and congratulations, that’s awesome. Richard Kelly, thank you again for being here.

**Craig:** Richard Kelly. The great Richard Kelly.

**Richard:** Well, thanks for having me.

**John:** You guys can get up because we’re going to start our wrap here.

**Craig:** Get off. [laughs]

**John:** We have so many people to thank.

**Craig:** You especially. [laughs]

**Kelly:** Ha!

**John:** We need to thank the Writers Guild Foundation, the giant logo behind us. So, thank you very much for hosting us again. LA Film School for this venue, which was great, and so helpful —

**Craig:** Thank you LA Film School.

**John:** I need to thank Matthew Chilelli. Matthew, are you here? I never actually — he’s right there. He wrote a lot of the best outros you’ve heard. He also wrote the Christmas —

**Craig:** This guy is cool.

**John:** He’s pretty great. He also wrote the opening music that you heard tonight, sort of the holiday remix of the [hums Scriptnotes theme].

**Craig:** It’s amazing what you’ve done with such a mundane tune. Thank you so much.

**John:** Yes. It’s really remarkable what you’ve been able to do. So, thank you again for writing these for us. Thank you.

**Craig:** Thank you. Wait, what about, are you going to get to them?

**John:** I’ll get to them eventually. We’ll thank Stuart Friedel. Stuart Friedel —

**Craig:** Stuart! Stand up, Stuart!

**John:** Tonight the role of Stuart Friedel will be played by this —

**Craig:** Stuart is played by this actor, Brett Goldfarb.

**John:** [laughs] Yeah, he’s fantastic.

So, the Writers Guild Foundation who is this giant slide behind me, every year they have this holiday sale of Extraordinary Experiences, which you can find on their website, so wgfoundation.com.

**Craig:** This is the charitable. They are not part of the union. They are a 501c3 not-for-profit charitable organization. Great organization.

**John:** They do great work with veterans groups, with other aspiring writers, schools, all sorts of special programs. Once a year they do the sale of Extraordinary Experiences where you can have lunch with a certain given writer, or coffee, or someone will read your script.

So, if you go to the website you will see the Extraordinary Experiences that they have up for sale. This year some of our panelists will be also offering new special things after tonight, because we will strong arm them. So, I would encourage you to go there because it’s a great organization and it’s a great way for them to raise some money to pay for the eggnog you had here tonight.

**Craig:** Argh!

**John:** Ugh.

**Craig:** It coats your mouth.

**John:** Yeah. It’s good if you have like hot spicy food though. Insulation.

**Craig:** No, because you’re putting heat next to milk. It’s disgusting.

**John:** Well, at least we’ve bookended the show with the talk of eggnog.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** So, Craig, thank you, and have a very happy holidays.

**Craig:** I thought you actually meant that.

**John:** See! I can feign sincerity when I need to.

**Craig:** Merry Christmas to you, John.

**John:** Aw, thank you, Craig.

**Craig:** I always mean it.

**John:** And thank you all very much for being here.

**Craig:** Thank you guys.

Links:

* [Aline Brosh McKenna](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0112459/) on episodes [60](http://johnaugust.com/2012/the-black-list-and-a-stack-of-scenes), [76](http://johnaugust.com/2013/how-screenwriters-find-their-voice), [100](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-100th-episode), [101](http://johnaugust.com/2013/101-qa-from-the-live-show) and [119](http://johnaugust.com/2013/positive-moviegoing)
* [Franklin Leonard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Leonard) on episode [60](http://johnaugust.com/2012/the-black-list-and-a-stack-of-scenes)
* [Kelly Marcel](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2813876/) on episode [115](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-back-to-austin-with-rian-johnson-and-kelly-marcel)
* [Lindsay Doran](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/movies/lindsay-doran-examines-what-makes-films-satisfying.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) on episode [68](http://johnaugust.com/2012/talking-austen-in-austin)
* [Rawson Marshall Thurber](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1098493/) on episodes [100](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-100th-episode) and [101](http://johnaugust.com/2013/101-qa-from-the-live-show)
* [Richard Kelly](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0446819/) on episode [118](http://johnaugust.com/2013/time-travel-with-richard-kelly)
* The [2013 Black List](http://list.blcklst.com/story/7887) and [blcklst.com](http://blcklst.com/)
* The New Yorker on [live action versus animation](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/17/111017fa_fact_friend?currentPage=all)
* [Saving Mr. Banks](http://movies.disney.com/saving-mr-banks) is in theaters now
* Thank you to the [Writers Guild Foundation](https://www.wgfoundation.org/) and the [LA Film School](http://www.lafilm.edu/) for hosting
* Support the Writers Guild Foundation and get something awesome from their [Holiday Sale of Extraordinary Experiences](https://www.wgfoundation.org/holiday-fundraiser/)
* [Intro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Scriptnotes listener Matthew Chilelli
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Scriptnotes listener Fred Tepper

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2013/young-billionaires-guide-to-hollywood).

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

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

**John:** And this is Scriptnotes, the Young Billionaire’s Guide to Hollywood episode, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Craig, how are you?

**Craig:** Oh, I’m very excited today because of my One Cool Thing, but I can’t talk about it so I’m just atwitter.

**John:** Ah! You’re One Cool Thing is not Twitter itself? That would be redundant.

**Craig:** Oh, oh, it is. Did you know about Twitter?

**John:** I think Twitter is going to be revolutionary. I think it’s going to be great.

**Craig:** Oh man. I thought I was the only one who knew about it.

**John:** [laughs] Wouldn’t that be so amazing. Imagine trying to describe Twitter to somebody from like 10 years ago and they’d be like, “What the hell are you talking about? That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

**Craig:** I know. You’d have to back up so far. I mean, you’d really have to back up. You’d have to start with like, “Okay, imagine everybody’s phone was connected to everybody else’s phone all at once. It’s like that. But, just with typing.”

**John:** Yeah. But try to differentiate it from text messaging, which is really where it started. It’s so odd. And actually I don’t know if you saw this last week that Facebook and I think Twitter, too, made these deals in like third world countries that don’t have data plans so they can actually do Facebook updates and Twitter over like normal text messaging networks.

**Craig:** Oh, interesting. Well, that could actually have political implications.

**John:** This last week I was interviewed KPP — KPCC. I added extra letters to that radio station. I was interviewed on KPCC where they were talking about Mob City who did this promotion of the premiere of Mob City using Twitter. And basically they tweeted every scene, every sort of line from the script in like this long stream of Twitter which I will give them points for trying something new, but it just seems like the really wrong form for screenwriting.

**Craig:** Yeah. That is — I’m not–

**John:** I’m not convinced that’s going to work.

**Craig:** Yeah. Yeah.

**John:** Because here’s the thing about a screenplay. A screenplay, there’s obviously many forms a movie could take, but they are essentially linear. And a screenplay begins at the start and goes to the end and you have to know what happens before it for the next thing to make sense.

Twitter is exactly the opposite of that. Twitter you’re supposed to be able to drop in at any point and just sort of figure out what’s going on. And if you really want to start at the beginning of a thread in Twitter you have to go down to the bottom and read up. It’s just weird.

**Craig:** It is weird. And in the end we still have the capacity to be passive consumers of narrative. And Twitter is not that.

There’s nothing wrong with interactive storytelling. I like interactive storytelling and I believe that such a thing exists. But it’s so different than what is provided by a movie or a television show, or listening to a song for that matter.

And I remember when interactive was everyone’s favorite buzz word and people thought that everyone was going to eventually sit a movie theater and press buttons to decide what should happen next. [laughs]

And people don’t want that actually. They’re okay just watching.

**John:** This last week someone emailed us to say, oh, I think there’s going to be this next wave of stuff where people are going to have their screens on in theaters and doing that stuff, and I don’t see that. You and I both disagreed on sort of that Little Mermaid experience.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** That I can see being like a one-off stunty kind of thing, but I don’t think it’s going to be the future of entertainment. I think there’s something really great about just only the single screen experience, which is one of the last things that the movie theater does very well.

**Craig:** Yeah. Even among younger people, there are certain human demands that are robust. And a demand for silence, shared silence in a communal space, is actually robust. Everybody uses cell phones constantly and everybody wants to be able to use the internet on a plane. But now that they’re talking about letting people talk on phones on a plane, suddenly a lot of people are saying, “No, actually.”

**John:** No.

**Craig:** “I would prefer that you just be quiet.”

**John:** Yeah. I got to be on the plane quite a bit last week because I got to do the thing that you would enjoy most more than anything else on earth, I suspect, which is to be recording a Broadway cast album.

**Craig:** Ooh! God am I jealous of you.

**John:** Yeah, so that was Monday and it was great. It seems impossible that you could record the whole show in a day’s session, but because everyone knows every line of the show and the musicians have been doing this for 100 shows we can just bang out two takes of everything and it was kind of great.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** It was just really amazing to do it that way.

**Craig:** That’s spectacular.

Rian Johnson turned me onto this documentary that is available on YouTube freely. I don’t know if that’s okay or not, but it’s there. And they did a documentary of the Broadway cast recording of the original cast of Company. And there is Sondheim. And so you’re watching them all do their songs and seeing Sondheim make adjustments and ask for things. And then there’s this point where it’s going long. The day is really long. It’s now really late or night or even early in the morning and they’ve left Elaine Stritch for the end and Ladies Who Lunch.

And she just doesn’t have it. It’s just too late. And they go through six or seven takes. And finally they just give up and they have to do another day. And they bring her back and she just nails it on the first one, you know.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** But we’ll toss a link in there if we’re allowed to link to questionably posted material on YouTube.

But it’s a really cool documentary if you like Stephen Sondheim and Elaine Stritch. And who doesn’t?

**John:** Who does not like Sondheim and Stritch?

**Craig:** Nobody. Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.

**John:** Great. And nobody, I think, will not like what’s in our episode today, because this is sort of the classic best of what Scriptnotes is, which is we have three Three Page Challenges which are always fun. Three very different scripts, which is always a nice blend.

And then I thought you and I would talk about something that is a good thought experiment which is we often talk about what if — if somebody came in and threw a bunch of money around, how it would change the film industry? I thought we could generalize this as a thought experiment of if you are a young person with — or really any person — with a tremendous amount of money who wants to get involved with the film, or television, or any sort of Hollywood business, what would you do?

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** So, Craig, let’s talk about this. Let’s imagine we are a person with a lot of money who wants to get involved with the film business.

And I guess we should preface this by trying to figure out what the decision process is for that person. Because is this a person who wants to make money or doesn’t really care about making money and just wants to make a bunch of stuff.

**Craig:** Boy, I think it would be the latter.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** This is not a great way to spend a billion dollars if your goal is to have $10 billion.

**John:** Yes. I would agree with you there. But if you already have a billion dollars, so let’s say you — let’s make our theoretical person some sort of internet billionaire. So, you created something that became Twitter and then like got bought out and now you are free. And you have a billion dollars in your pocket. And you’re like, “You know what? I think I would like to be involved in the entertainment industry.”

There are many people like that I would say.

**Craig:** Sure. We see them. They’re here.

**John:** They’re here. And honestly I think we can offer them some useful advice. So, if you are this person, pull up the chair close, because I think we have some good suggestions for you.

**Craig:** [laughs] And now advice for billionaires from not-billionaires.

**John:** So, a couple opportunities, and let’s talk about the range of things that people could get involved with.

Film. So, big films, and small films.

Television. And so classic model of television or the sort of Netflix model of television. You could absolutely do that.

Broadway I certainly know a lot about now. And that’s one of the places where even just like $2 million or $3 million can have a tremendous impact. That’s a possibility.

**Craig:** Sure. Those are the big ones. The music industry doesn’t really require billion dollar investments anymore, nor do I think the profits are there quite the way they used to be.

**John:** Although it’s probably worth talking about music in a general sense, because you could essentially become really in any of these fields like the patron of an artist that you want to support, and therefore let that person do whatever he or she wants to do.

**Craig:** It’s true, although the money in music is so heavily weighted towards promotion. The creation of music is relatively cheap.

**John:** Inexpensive.

**Craig:** Yeah, compared to… — Movies and television are just expensive to make. And Broadway shows are expensive to make. So, they require a lot of that stuff. I mean, Broadway, I get the sense most shows are kind of group funded by investment pools and not so much by one large backer.

**John:** Absolutely. But, within those investment pools there tend to be some larger backers who are primarily responsible for things.

Let’s talk film first, because I think most people are going to be most familiar with film.

So, films range a huge amount in sort of their budgets, all the way down from like $1 million or even less than $1 million films, to the $200 million, $300 million behemoths.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** So, if you only have a billion dollars, you’re probably not going to want to make too many $300 million movies.

**Craig:** Well, no one is going to let you make a $300 million movie. Once you have a movie of that size, there’s no studio that isn’t going to want to own a part of it. That’s sort of the point of making those giant movies. But they are always looking for co-financing. And that’s a different situation.

**John:** So, let’s talk about what co-financing is. So, often times as the movie credits start to roll you’ll see Warner Bros. and you’ll see the shield. And then you’ll see like some other company, like often it’s Legendary, or it’s Village Roadshow. Those are co-financers. Those are people who are putting in a tremendous amount of the budget and therefore get to have their own little animated logo playing in front of that movie. And those have become incredibly important for the bigger tent pole movies recently.

**Craig:** Yeah. Hollywood tends to want to distribute risk. You say it — as budgets started to escalate, probably in connection with both the escalation of A-list stars and gross point participation, but also the escalation of the costs of visual effects and the audience appetite for visual effects, you saw studios start to do something that they had actually kind of avoided in the past which was sharing risk. Usually you wanted to own everything. That was kind of the fun.

And I remember the first movie where it seemed like it was a big news story was Titanic. Titanic was a Fox movie and they just started panicking that it was costing so much. And in the middle of production, I think, brought on Paramount as a co-financier and basically, I’m not sure how they broke out the costs of the movie, but Paramount essentially got the international profits, and Fox got the domestic profits, so the story goes.

**John:** Yeah. And both of them prospered hugely by doing that.

**Craig:** No question.

**John:** Now, most of these co-finance people — Well, I shouldn’t say most. There’s a huge range in sort of how they work. Some of them actually have their own distribution mechanisms, like Paramount would have, or they are the big distributor in a territory.

So, Village Roadshow, I think, owns Australia and they would have their own relationships, so they would own the movie for Australia, perhaps.

But a lot of times they are just big pools of money. And usually it’s not one individual. It’s a company that has aggregated funds from a lot of different places and is therefore able to invest in these movies — these big giant movies.

For our internet billionaire who just wants to have fun, that’s probably not the best place to start. I mean, yes, you get to go and see a giant Christopher Nolan getting made, so maybe that’s exciting. You’re about to get your name on that Christopher Nolan movie, that’s kind of exciting, but really ultimately that studio is going to have a tremendous amount of control over things. You’re going to have to actually run a business. You’re going to have to do a lot of sort of — it’s going to be a lot of work to do that.

**Craig:** It’s not a bad move, I mean, I’m just thinking about the sort of person who is a billionaire. It’s not a bad idea inasmuch as you are immediately trading on the thing that is of most value in your life, all of your money. When you come to Hollywood no one is particular interested in what you think a good movie is or what you think a good script is or any of that.

You’re just a big — you know, like in the cartoons when they would look at somebody and they would turn, like the sheep would turn into a cooked lamb. You know, they look at you and you’re just a bag of money.

So, you get to be involved in the movie business, and you get to meet people and read screenplays and get to know actors and all that, and you get to enjoy the glamour of it all, which I would imagine is part of it for a lot of these people. But, no, you’re not actually producing, choosing, making creative choices and putting the movies together.

So, I think for some billionaires it’s actually a great fit, but then you have interesting people like Megan Ellison who seems far more interested in actually making movies.

**John:** That’s what I was going to get into is that I think there’s the level below that that’s not the incredibly expensive movie, but not the cheap movie either, where you are spending your money to make movies that would actually have a very hard time getting made otherwise, either because of their subject matter, or because of the filmmaker like, you know, it’s a filmmaker like Paul Thomas Anderson who is incredibly talented but when you’re making The Master on a huge — on a significant budget — that’s a risky movie to get made.

Where if you are coming in with a tremendous amount of money and you kind of don’t care about making your money back, you can just go for it.

**Craig:** Or if you don’t care about making a lot of money.

**John:** That’s true.

**Craig:** There are some movies — there’s one movie, I won’t name the movie or the studio, but there was a movie that had a great script, a great director, and a real movie star attached to it. This was a few years ago. And it was at a studio. And they looked at it and the movie was going to cost $40 million to make, and the director, and the script, and the star more than justified it. And they said, “You know, we’re going to let it go. It can go to another studio.”

And I remember talking to the director and he was so confused why they let it go. And the movie went on to be a very big hit.

**John:** Oh, I know exactly what this is. We can say what this movie is.

**Craig:** I don’t want to. Because I don’t want to talk about the studio, it’s not fair.

**John:** All right. That’s fair.

**Craig:** But my theory was they let it go not because they thought it would lose money, but because they thought it wouldn’t make enough money. That the effort required just wasn’t going to justify the profit, or rather wasn’t going to be justified by the profit.

If you’re a billionaire and you’re coming into town and you want to make movies, you can make the movies you want to make and you can also make money. You just might not make that much. You know, you might spend $30 million or $40 million and in ten or twenty years you will have recouped plus 20%. It’s not great. But, you know, you’re doing what you love.

**John:** So, let’s talk at the very low end, because these inexpensive movies, I mean, that’s honestly, like, pocket lint could pay for some of these small movies.

**Craig:** Sure. The Jason Blum kind of million dollar horror films, you know.

**John:** Absolutely. And where I would caution the young billionaire on those is that you may end up doing a tremendous amount of work just to make that one little tiny movie. And if it’s artistically satisfying, that’s awesome. And maybe you’re going to be able to make ten of those movies and one of those goes on to become either a huge hit, or wins an Academy Award. So, you’ve created some art in the world. So, that is certainly a possibility.

But, in some ways I feel like it’s, I don’t know, it’s creatively riskier to make some of these little small ones, because they could be giant time sucks and not be especially rewarding.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** On the movie business I would say if you’re interested in making movies I would honestly pick a filmmaker who you want to make their movies and just make his or her movies.

**Craig:** I’m with you on that one. Back ’em.

**John:** Because I think honestly if you love Rian Johnson’s movies, just like go to Rian Johnson and say like, “Hey, whatever movie you want to make, I’ll pay for it. Done.”

**Craig:** Pretty much. That’s a pretty good way to approach it. You know, there are filmmakers that seem to know what they’re doing and deliver movies that people like. And enough people like them that it’s worth them continuing to make movies.

Now, what you’ve got to watch out for is sometimes new people show up in town and they back somebody who then uses that as an opportunity to make the movie that they don’t normally make. And then you suddenly get stuck with the dramatic, the overly dramatic movie from the comic star, or the —

**John:** Dragonfly would be an example.

**Craig:** Yeah. Or you get a comedy from somebody that’s just not funny, because nobody else is willing to give them that shot. And that’s part of it. You know, you don’t want to be the sucker.

**John:** Yeah. Maybe make the third movie of a really talented filmmaker.

**Craig:** Who is making the kind of move that, you know, so that’s something to look out for. You just don’t want to be that sucker who is sitting there at the end of the night and they’re the ones with the money in their pockets and here come the call girls. But, if you are committed to your own sensibilities as a billionaire in this business and you think that there are filmmakers you have a rapport with and you know how to read a screenplay–

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Then you’ve got a shot to at least, I would think, make a pretty good profit actually. Movies still make a lot of money despite the fact that according to Warner Bros. neither of the Hangover movies will ever turn a profit, but… [laughs]

**John:** [laughs] Oh, studio accounting. It’s so delightful.

**Craig:** Yes. Yes.

**John:** But what I would say in a general sense is looking out how this billionaire is going to get involved with the business, none of us are talking about like now you open up your own shingle at this studio where you get a first look deal at this place and you hire on a staff to do all this stuff.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** I’m not convinced that’s going to be the best way to get stuff done. Because what you’ll end up doing is having a bunch of employees who will try to develop movies and that may not — you end up spending a lot of time trying to develop stuff and not actually make stuff.

**Craig:** I totally agree.

**John:** I honestly think that you’d be much better off looking for who are the filmmakers we want to make their movies and get involved in making their movies.

**Craig:** And they will come to you.

So, the idea is that you don’t want to be the place of last resort. But you have to also be aware that if somebody can get — if you’re Chris Nolan and you can get Warner Bros. to give you your budget for Inception, you’re going to do that. And you know now that you don’t have to worry about distribution or marketing, it’s built in.

So, you are getting people that may bring you things that are off the beaten path of the studio, and that’s okay. So, what you’re waiting for are people who have terrific movies that studios simply don’t think they can make enough money on. As opposed to people bringing you distressed movies that people aren’t making for a good reason.

**John:** Absolutely.

**Craig:** That’s tricky.

**John:** Let’s talk television, because I would say television has been a hard thing for an outside third party to get involved with and actually make. And there have been exception like 3 Arts — is it 3 Arts? What’s the big, or Brillstein-Grey.

**Craig:** Yeah, Brillstein-Grey.

**John:** I’m sorry. Brillstein-Grey was a classic… — They made a lot of comedies, which was terrific. So, there has been some outside money, but in general it’s been hard to be the outside people making television because you are so dependent on the relationship between the studio that makes a television show, the network that releases it, which increasingly have become the same thing.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** So, classically it’s been very hard to come in with your billion dollars and say, “I’m going to make a bunch of TV shows,” and have that be a meaningful thing to do.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** It’s changing I would say overall. You look at Lionsgate and sort of what they’re able to do. Granted, they are really a studio, but they’re essentially new money to television.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** And I think with the rise of Netflix and sort of other direct subscription services, it may be possible for someone to just say like, “I’m going to make this TV series and you know what? Netflix will take it.”

**Craig:** Yeah, you’re right. There is a new channel for distribution that is more, I don’t know, it’s just more accessible to independent money. And when I say independent I mean not affiliated with studios, not like small arty money.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** For television, for network television and basic cable television and pay-cable television, the problem is you’re investing in something that you might never even see on the air.

**John:** Absolutely true.

**Craig:** Where you make a movie, you made a movie and you’ll sell it. Even if it doesn’t get theatrical distribution, you’ll sell some copy of it somehow. Pilots that don’t make series, they’re gone. You’ve got nothing.

**John:** Yeah. Yeah, I think if you were going to be this billionaire you would essentially have to commit to just making the whole series, because that pilot that doesn’t get set up is just burned money.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Whereas if you wanted to have an eight-episode series, that could be like the first season, I bet you could go to a Netflix, to a Sundance Channel, to an IFC, to one of the other sort of premiere kind of places and get that thing set up as a special thing set up. Because they’re essentially getting kind of a free show, or the money that they’re having to put out for this programming is probably not especially high.

**Craig:** Yeah. I agree. There’s an interesting distinction in evolutionary reproductive strategies that is, believe it or not, somewhat relevant here. There is the strategy where you put a lot of resources into one child, because you believe that that’s the best chance that child has to grow up and move along. And you see that often in environments that aren’t really dangerous. And then there’s the other strategy of make as many kids as possible because most of them are going to die.

**John:** Yeah. The locust strategy.

**Craig:** Yes. And rats do that. So, elephants have a kid. Rats have a thousand kids. And television requires a little bit of the rat strategy. If you’re making television you need to make a lot of it to get one or two that live. But in movies, you know…

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Especially from our billionaire’s perspective where he or she doesn’t really kind of care if they lose money as long as they made something they wanted to make. It’s really a different motivation for making things because studios have to be thinking about making a profit. This billionaire doesn’t necessarily need to be thinking about making a profit, or it doesn’t have to be her primary concern.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** She might be worried about sort of making art, making something that changes the world in its own little way. And that’s a great luxury.

So, speaking of unprofitable ventures, there’s Broadway. So, Broadway, most shows classically lose money. And some shows that do succeed do succeed tremendously well. So, if you are Book of Mormon, or Wicked, or one of those giant monster hits, you are making so much money, it’s fantastic.

But what I will say my experience going through with Big Fish is that if you have some money in your pocket that you want to spend and you can really afford to lose it, we talked about sort of getting to go the movie premiere for this big giant movie that you made. You get to do that all the time on Broadway, because most of Broadway is really funded by the same kinds of people again, and again, and again.

So, there’s block of names you see above the title in Playbill, and those are people who put in some money. And sometimes on certain shows that might be $100,000, in certain shows that might be $1 million, or $2 million, or $4 million. But, the shows are — an expensive show would be $12 million. That’s not a big cost to a billionaire.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** And you get the hands-on involvement. If you’re writing a $4 million check you get as much hands-on involvement as you sort of want in a show in a way that you could never get in a movie or a television show.

**Craig:** Well that’s the magic for me of Broadway compared to film is the intimacy of it and the fact that it is a performance as opposed to a fixed work. You know, movies, once they’re done, they’re done. And they do not change and they just exist in a permanent frozen state. Broadway is a living thing. And the casts change and the performance changes. And they get re-launched. And they appear in different cities at different budget levels. It’s just a living, breathing thing. It’s very — it’s just a much more intimate process.

So, no question, when you invest money in a movie, mostly everybody wants you to just be quiet, [laughs], so they can make their movie and then you’ll either get profits or you won’t. But with a show, with a musical, you become part of this thing that’s alive. It’s interesting.

**John:** And I would say for the glamour to dollars ratio, I think Broadway is honestly your best bet. If your goal is really to get invited to fancy parties and have people be nice to you, I think Broadway is actually a really smart choice.

I think movies are a more expensive threshold to get in. Television is sort of new for people to be able to invest this way.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Classically, though, I would say rich people, they invested in the arts but they invested in sort of like the big classical arts. So, people invested in the ballet. They invested in opera. Things that sort of would have a hard time sustaining themselves if it weren’t for really rich patrons. And it’s certainly a choice. It’s just I feel like if you’re Mark Zuckerberg you maybe don’t care about the opera.

**Craig:** Well, it appears he doesn’t. [laughs] I mean, based on his lack of participation in the opera. But, that’s always been a fascinating aspect of New York in particular to me is the confluence of enormous wealth and high art. Even Broadway, which is popular art and mass entertainment, is still considered higher art than what you turn on TV, I guess, or movies. It’s fancier. I don’t know how else to describe it.

**John:** It is. It’s fancier.

**Craig:** It’s fancier. And I think there is a rich history of wealthy patrons of art and I love that it’s there and I appreciate wealthy people who pay for us to do what we do.

Frankly, there is — you know, when I did a lot of work for the Weinsteins, look, lots to say on both sides of that coin. But one thing I always liked was how it was immediate. That really there was a patron and the patron for better or for worse was the one person that I was dealing with.

And it wasn’t a corporation. And I never had somebody say, “I personally love this. Unfortunately, the council of the Committee of Blankety Blank was told by some software that I can’t do it.”

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And there were some problems on the other side of the equation, but… [laughs]

**John:** [laughs] There were many challenges dealing with the Weinstein Company.

**Craig:** Yeah. Sometimes you actually prefer the robot telling you what to do.

**John:** On the topic of robots, we left out sort of one other big aspect of the entertainment industry which is, of course, video games, which are in some ways a bigger industry than any of the other ones we described. I would say — so, it’s likely that a young billionaire got his money through some sort of digital means and so therefore they think, “Oh, video games will be a natural extension.”

Having made two video games, I would say that’s actually a challenging way to enter into — a challenging and risky way to enter into the “I’m going to make something market.”

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** Because while you’re going to be able to make a video game absolutely certainly, the chance that you’re going to be able to make something that is going to be groundbreaking or incredibly profitable is slim. And the companies that make the huge things are huge because they make the huge things. So, it’s unlikely that you’re going to be able to make Grand Theft Auto. I guess you could for a billion dollars make Grand Theft Auto. But I think the odds that it’s going to become Grand Theft Auto are very, very remote. So, I don’t know it’s the best use of your billion dollars.

**Craig:** Well, yeah. And you have to look no further than former Red Sox and Diamondbacks pitcher Curt Schilling who ended up losing his shirt doing exactly that, creating a video game studio to make a competitor to World of Warcraft and failed.

**John:** I don’t even know what that is. So, give me some backstory on that.

**Craig:** So, Curt Schilling, not a billionaire, but certainly quite wealthy. One of the best pitchers to ever play and had a long career. He was a big gamer. And he founded a company in Rhode Island to create a game called Kingdoms of Amalur, I believe is what it was called.

**John:** Uh-huh.

**Craig:** And it was designed to be sort of a better than Warcraft Warcraft, to out-Blizzard Blizzard. Somewhat controversially they were partly funded by the state of Rhode Island which was seeking to sort of become more attractive to corporations and business.

And it just didn’t work. They ran into trouble and they started running out of money and they ran into delays. These things happen all the time. And eventually they just ran out of cash. And they couldn’t get more. And Curt Schilling pretty much lost everything and the state of Rhode Island certainly lost their entire investment.

The game exists. Apparently it is out there and somewhat playable. And, you know, I’ve read things about it that sort of say, well, you know, it’s actually not bad. Or, you know, it could have been great or whatever. But it unfortunately is kind of a cautionary tale.

They did everything as if they were Bethesda, or Electronic Arts, or Blizzard, or Square, or Ubisoft. They just didn’t have the money to support it. So, they are actually when you were talking about the billionaire that comes in and makes the $300 million movie, that’s kind of what they did. They kind of came in and said, “Okay, we have all this money. Let’s just spend all of it now.”

But the second you hit a speed bump, you know, and they just couldn’t get it done. If you look on Wired they have some amazing breakdowns of the Kingdoms of Amalur tragedy.

**John:** I’ve always loved reading the stories on Duke Nukem —

**Craig:** Oh boy, yeah.

**John:** And the endless journey towards a reboot for Duke Nukem and sort of everything that could go wrong that went wrong again, and again, and again, which was like a cursed brand.

**Craig:** When I read about, I mean, at last the game finally came out and we were all spared more articles about how it was the King of Vaporware, but when I read those stories about Duke Nukem I would start to get anxious, physically anxious because there’s this terrible thing — you’re on this treadmill where you’re delayed. You’re now behind two years and you turn around and games are lapping you. Now you’re developing a game for five-year old technology. Now you’ve got to start again. But now you’re three years behind. And it’s just quicksand. I would honestly, my heart would start racing when I would read those stories. I had to stop reading them about Duke Nukem because it would freak me out.

And I felt so bad for all the people making that. Even just the world of first person shooters have sort of just gone away by the time that, you know.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** It’s like everything was gone, and then they showed up. Oh, gosh, oh, I feel flushed.

**John:** I will say, not to completely disparage the possibility of involving yourself in games, is that, again, if you’re excited to lose some money, like you don’t really care about making money back, it’s a chance to maybe do something brand new and to do something that is sort of unlike anything else. But I would say like trying to chase a popular idea, like trying to the next World of Warcraft, is probably not going to be a very exciting or good use of your money, or rewarding your money.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** But if there’s some genius who has the idea of like it’s this transmedia thing that’s going to do all this stuff and it’s only going to cost you $20 million and you feel like going for it, if you’re a billionaire, maybe. Because it’ll be one of those ideas that completely breaks out of everything that will catch probably and be the right use of your money.

**Craig:** Yeah. I always wonder like the guys who do the Elder Scrolls game and the Fallout games, Bethesda, ZeniMax Bethesda. I always wondered–

**John:** They’re brilliant.

**Craig:** They are amazing. But prior to Elder Scrolls were they kind of just small and then they just made an amazing game. I guess Morrowind was sort of the one that captured everyone. But, in other words did they sort of build themselves from small to huge?

**John:** That’s my belief but I don’t know that to be true. I think it is like Grand Theft Auto where it’s just, you know, they had a hit and they kept rolling that money back into the next one and into the next one and into the next one.

**Craig:** Got it, okay.

**John:** Yeah, it’s incredibly though.

**Craig:** It is. It’s amazing.

**John:** Yeah. So, let’s wrap up our discussion for young billionaires and our guide for young billionaires.

So, if you are a Mark Zuckerberg who decides to sell Facebook and you want to make movies, make some movies, but maybe pick your favorite filmmakers and make their movies. You know, if you love Wes Anderson, make all his movies. Woody Allen classically had one person who was making all his movies for all that time. That’s great. Do that.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** If you like television, you could probably invent a new television series and just fund it yourself because why not? And there’s going to be a home for it now in ways that there wasn’t before.

**Craig:** Mm-hmm.

**John:** If you like Broadway, the easiest way to spend your money. Lose your money, yes, but you’re not going to lose all of it, so there’s something. [laughs]

**Craig:** [laughs] Worst advice for billionaires ever.

**John:** I mean, but here’s the thing. My advice for billionaires is like you already made your money somehow, so you know how to make more money probably. So, if you’re not interested in like — if you’re not obsessed with like making money just do this.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Because, really, if your choices are between making more money, donating this money to a worthy cause, and worthy causes are great, but perhaps your worthy cause is actually creating art, then I would say there are filmmakers who make art, there are television shows that are genuinely art, there are Broadway shows that are genuinely art. And if profit isn’t your number one concern, those are all good possibilities for you.

**Craig:** Yeah. And you’re welcome, billionaires.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Jerks.

**John:** Yeah, jerks.

**Craig:** I mean, what have I have ever gotten from you people?

**John:** Ha!

**Craig:** I think any billionaire actually listening to this, and I’m serious, if you are a billionaire, a legitimate —

**John:** I bet we have at least one or two billionaire listeners.

**Craig:** Right. So, I speak now to those. To those men and women who are legitimate billionaires. If you listen to this podcast frequently and you’ve listened to all this by now. You, frankly, should send John and I each $1 million.

**John:** Done.

**Craig:** And I pledge to donate half of it, but I’m keeping the other half.

**John:** All right.

**Craig:** I’ve earned it.

**John:** You’ve earned it.

**Craig:** This is really good advice we gave.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Oh, man, I hope it’s $1 million. I feel like we might get —

**John:** Oh, wouldn’t that be so great? Yeah.

**Craig:** I feel like we could.

**John:** So, you can write to ask@johnaugust.com. No, so —

**Craig:** And you better tell me. [laughs] Don’t hide my $1 million from me.

**John:** Because Craig never actually reads the email. He only reads the ones I forward.

**Craig:** I know. And then —

**John:** Even then he claims I don’t actually email him when I do.

**Craig:** You did not email me that one time. I swear.

**John:** So, let us go to our real advice of the episode which is to the three people who have been brave enough to send in Three Page Challenges.

It’s been awhile since we’ve done Three Page Challenges. So, if you’re a new listener here’s how this all works. We solicit listeners to send in the first three pages of their screenplay. Sometimes it’s television shows, but it’s usually screenplays. And we will look at them. We will discuss them. We will summarize them. We’ll discuss them. We will post those PDFs on the site so people can read them. And, these were incredibly brave and generous to send these through. So, even if we are negative or harsh at times, it’s only because we think they’re awesome for sending in their stuff.

**Craig:** Oh, god, you sound like an abusive husband there.

**John:** Oh, yeah. This has been the day of Craig Mazin abuse.

**Craig:** Yeah, I mean, “Hey, just, you know, we may hit you. But it’s because — ”

**John:** It’s only because —

**Craig:** We love you.

**John:** You deserve it. Oh, yeah, that’s right. We love you.

**Craig:** We love you.

**John:** If you would like to send in your own Three Page Challenge, there is a link called johnaugust.com/threepage, all spelled out, and that will give you the instructions for how you send the stuff in because there’s like boilerplate language that goes there so you won’t sue us and things.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** First one up, let’s do Blake Kuehn. How’s that?

**Craig:** Blake Kuehn. Yes, this is the one that opens with the college town somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

**John:** It does. This was actually our first entry that we’ve talked about on the air which is written in Fountain. So, they actually just sent the Fountain file which is so exciting for me. I can summarize this one if you want.

**Craig:** Go for it.

**John:** So, Blake Kuehn’s script opens in a two-story country house where we hear a news anchor talking about a student who was brutally murdered. We meet Raina Finley. She’s twenty-something. She’s doing yoga while Facetiming with her tanorexic friend. They sign off. Raina is getting ready for a date. We see her in the bathroom. She’s text messaging somebody. The text messages sort of float away in the air in a very Sherlocky kind of way.

There’s a new Twitter follower message from @onegoodscare. Raina is in the shower when the lights go out. And that’s when our three pages end.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Craig Mazin, talk to us.

**Craig:** Well, I sense that what we’re looking at here is something in the vein of Scream. Tonally it seems like we’re doing a self-aware horror movie. I think Strode University, I believe, Laura Strode is the name Jamie Lee Curtis’s character in Halloween, although I could be [crosstalk].

**John:** That sounds familiar.

**Craig:** I’m not huge on my horror sort of classics. I’ll be honest about that. I’m an Exorcist guy, but I’m less a slashy movie kind of guy.

At first I thought, okay, we’re getting at least some interesting description. I like the way that the trees were shivering in the gusting October wind.

I was not quite laughing along with the characterizations here. We meet two characters. Raina Finley is basically, it says here “beautiful, but deep as a puddle,” which I thought that was quite good. And she’s obviously really, really sexy. But, you know, she was coming off as a kind of sexy cartoon that I’ve also see before So, I wasn’t — if you’re going to give me sexy carton girl, sexy dumb bimbo girl, maybe something new.

This felt very — it’s just very familiar. Curiously, she’s talking, she’s chatting with a friend of hers who at first I thought was a man. I got a little confused because the voice is a raspy, it’s very raspy, and then douchey Tanorexic Ed Hardy trucker cap, I just, but then she takes a drag off her cigarette. I was a little confused by what I was looking at. Maybe that’s the point.

But, what I don’t like is trying too hard. Let me discover, let me enjoy that this woman is gross. The problem is that you’ve overloaded her with literally a hat on a hat. She’s over-tanned. She’s got terrible makeup. And she’s got an Ed Hardy trucker cap. And she’s smoking. And she’s drinking Monster Energy Drink. It’s just like you couldn’t, other than putting the word douche on her forehead, you couldn’t do more, so there’s too much. I’m not even listening to her anymore and I don’t consider her real because I feel the screenwriter telling me what I want to feel instead of showing me.

They have a little back and forth banter. It just feels like kind of a waste of a scene. And then there’s sort of a Twittery thing of a mysterious stalkery kind of guy that she doesn’t get is mysterious and stalkery, but she’s going to die soon.

I feel like I’ve just seen this before. What did you think? How about you?

**John:** I thought these were overall competent and I felt that like you this was an attempt to sort of figure out what is the Scream for today. And that’s a valid thing to be trying to write. Good on that. And it got me into the genre quickly and competently and that’s good.

But some things didn’t work for me. So, I’m going to start, because I actually had a hard time even getting the script. And so let’s look at those first couple lines.

Okay, but what are we actually seeing? Because I don’t know what that is that you’re showing me. A college town like are we seeing streets, are we seeing — I see college town, but then we go to “EXT. HOUSE.” Well, “a two-story country house with a sprawling lawn.” I would actually be much better off if I hadn’t gotten that first line of a college town somewhere.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Because it made me think like, wait, is she in a sorority house, is she in her parent’s house? I just got confused right from the very start.

**Craig:** I also was confused about the sorority issue myself, yeah.

**John:** Yeah. Because the next block down:

But, are we — is she in a college dorm room or is she in her home bedroom? And that got me confused because those are very different things and especially different things for a horror movie. In horror movies we really need to know kind of what we’re looking at and sort of how safe is she, is she alone, so I was confused where this is.

“The documentation of an exceptional life and an imminent failure to launch.” But, I don’t get that based on what you actually showed me.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** It’s a valid sentence, but I just don’t actually get that point —

**Craig:** I’m going to go a little further. I don’t think that’s valid. I don’t think that’s valid screenwriting. Similarly, “framed confidence-boosting missives.” I don’t know what that is. Nor if you showed it to me will we be lingering on it long enough to get that. I think that we’re cheating.

**John:** Yeah. “Confidence-boosting missives,” you know, just tell me what the actual statement is. So, is it a Hang In There kitten, or is it one of those Confidence, or one of those like generic art things?

**Craig:** Even a missive is a letter, you know. Isn’t it?

**John:** Yeah, I guess. Yeah. So, maybe it’s like a framed letter from her college —

**Craig:** I don’t —

**John:** I don’t know what that is.

**Craig:** I don’t know. I just thought that that whole paragraph was cheating.

**John:** Yeah. And I also had a challenge with Raina Finley’s introduction. So:

So, it’s a run-on sentence that’s not helping us and I really think “deep as a puddle — flows through a series of Yoga poses,” the puddle and flows are not helping us, because that one puddle is about sort of her being shallow, sort of emotionally shallow, but then flowing through yoga poses, we’re still in a water context and trying to connect those but they’re not really supposed to connect.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** I don’t know why yoga is capitalized. It just stopped me so many times.

**Craig:** Although then I got to the fact that that she was in a — that her “nubile figure strains beneath her sports bra and boogie shorts,” and then I was okay.

**John:** But if that were a separate sentence it would be even better.

**Craig:** Yeah, no, I’m just saying that it eliminated the other sentences for me. [laughs]

**John:** All right. [laughs] Very good.

**Craig:** The pages were sexy. Actually really I was into it.

**John:** Yeah. I think they were sexy, too. So, I’m pointing at the things that didn’t work because I think a lot of stuff was nice. I think the idea of a Twitter follower as the bad guy is actually interesting. And I think it was Steve Healey on Twitter actually mentioned or posted that will the first Craigslist killer be someone who kills somebody off of Craigslist, will it be the person who’s responding to the Craigslist ad or the person who posts the Craigslist ad.

Because you know there will be a Craigslist killer, but it’s like which one is it going to be.

**Craig:** You know what would be a cool movie if there’s somebody is trying to — he’s answering a Craigslist ad because he’s a serial killer and he doesn’t realize that the person that posted this particular ad on his eighth try is looking for somebody to kill and they meet each other — somebody should write that.

**John:** Yeah. I think our friend TS will write that.

**Craig:** Oh, TS. That’ll be sexy, too.

**John:** So good. So, I like the general idea of this. I thought there was a lot of writing that needed to be cleaned up in it, but I have hopes that Blake can do that. He or she. I’m assuming Blake is a man, but Blake could be a woman, too.

**Craig:** Well, it could be either one. My greatest concern is less the cheaty and some of the awkward phrasing and a little bit more that this does not seem to have moved the bar enough. I mean, Cabin in the Woods sort of —

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** It just took the Scream, what Kevin Williamson so brilliantly did and kind of took it to the next generation, the next level. And this feels a little bit like I’m watching Scream again. And that’s been done. Repeatedly. It’s not only been done by Scream repeatedly, but it’s been done by lesser imitators repeatedly. And you don’t want to be in there. So, I don’t know.

I don’t know if that’s what this is or if it’s going to go somewhere else, but that was the…

**John:** But, Blake, I really hope that we’re going to have some scene where a girl is like taking a selfie and in the selfie she sees the killer right behind her.

**Craig:** Ooh, I like that.

**John:** That’s going to be a great moment.

**Craig:** That is a cool moment.

**John:** So, that’s our first one. Do you want to do the next one?

**Craig:** Sure. Which one would you like?

**John:** Do you want to do the…

**Craig:** C.L. Stone? Alone or Canary —

**John:** Let’s do Canary in a Coal Mine. Let’s do that. It’s a very different tone.

**Craig:** We’ll break it up. Exactly.

Canary in a Coal Mine by Steven D’Arcangelo. I love that name. Steven D’Arcangelo. It’s a Donnie Darko kind of…

Okay, so we are in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1937. We’re in the dusty Appalachian Mountains and we’re in front of a coal mine. And an old codger is sitting there and he calls quitting time and miners emerge from the mine and they are all carrying little tiny cages with canaries. And this is where I should sort of give it away: it becomes quite evident that we’re in an animated film. And the canaries are sort of work-a-day canaries in the coal mines. And they, where the miners go to their homes, the canaries go to a big aviary. And in the aviary we meet Bobby and Cole.

And Cole and Bobby sort of give us a little tour of their town and we realize it’s sort of Bug’s Life style town except instead of bugs it’s birds, you know. But it’s an anthropomorphized little bird town. And all the canaries citizens worship “he who cares for us” which is a boy who gives them water and such.

And it’s a big day for Cole. Cole is heading towards something. “Good luck, Cole.” People are wishing him luck. Poor Bobby, who is Cole’s sidekick, is also auditioning but no one seems to care. And Bobby is a bit of a klutz. And they enter this gilded cage which “looms above the community like a castle in the sky.” And in that cage is a council of elders who are auditioning canaries a la American Idol. In fact it’s Avian Idol.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** All right, John. What do you think?

**John:** So, having written many animated films I felt like I didn’t know that this was animated quite soon enough. And so I started reading it and everything — I thought like, Oh, I’m in 1937, Scranton, Pennsylvania, so I think I’m watching something real. And then it becomes very clear like, Oh, the animals are talking to each other, so that is not real.

I felt like I needed to be tipped off, even if it doesn’t say like “animation,” give me some sense of sort of what this world feels like because I’m having a really hard time from page one getting clear visuals on what things look like.

So, you referenced Bugs, which I thought was a very good choice for sort of what this is sort of trying to be. And yet they’re anthropomorphized sort of beyond what bugs can do. Because Bugs made very smart choices in the sense of like they had hands so they weren’t so scary looking where they only had feet. But, so they could pick things up. But everything they picked up was real and everything was tactile, whereas here there’s like newspapers being delivered. And it says Avian Idol as it lights up.

So, the world is pushed beyond sort of what I’m expecting. And that’s okay. I just didn’t — I wasn’t getting into the movie the right way because it was feeling so pushed. And because we started off so — I believed realistically that my mind immediately was going towards Bugs and it was actually much further than Bugs.

**Craig:** Yeah. Yeah.

**John:** And here’s an example, and it’s writing that confused me. “Behind Cole paces BOBBY, an anxious canary the same age who wears Coke-bottle glasses made from real Coke bottles.” So, that stopped me for about a minute because I’m thinking like, wait, so how big is he? Because Coke bottles are big.

**Craig:** It’s an enormous bird.

**John:** But wait, are they actually like vertical Coke bottles? I don’t understand what this is.

**Craig:** Or the bottom of Coke bottles? But even if they were the bottom they’d be too big.

There are multiple issues here. I agree with you that it takes a little too long to figure out what’s going. In part I think it’s not that it takes too long as much as that the reveal that we’re supposed to be paying attention to the canaries is mundane. I mean, I think if you’re going to tell a story about the unsung heroes of mining and their secret world, then you’ve got to get us into it in the proper way. We’re in a mine. They’ve found coal. Something is going on. What’s going to happen?

And then you realize — and there are voices in the dark talking about it — and then you realize they’re canaries and they just get picked up and brought down to the mine.

But somehow or another we need to get into this in a way that’s fascinating, and visual, and interesting, and somewhat ironic, I would think.

The world, go ahead.

**John:** I was going to say that we start with this old codger, this human who is sitting in a chair rocking, and that feels like that’s tipping off that the humans are important. If the important characters are the birds I would honestly say start with the birds.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** And so see the work. And so you look at Frozen, which I absolutely loved. They start with these, and not everything has to have a song, but they start with this song that sort of sets up the world and these ice harvesters. And you see what the work is and then we’re able — but we don’t actually focus on any faces — and then we find the boy and his reindeer who are important characters who are going to be following through that. It’s a very good job of setting up like what’s actually important in our world and our movie.

This, I feel like, well, the humans are the important thing, so I’m looking for miners. I’m looking for what the conversations are. And so by the time I get to the birds I’m like, huh? What?

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** So, if the birds were one of the first things I saw then I would know I’m in a move about birds.

**Craig:** Or, if you start with the humans, you’re just looking at their feet, you know?

**John:** Yes!

**Craig:** They’re not important. I totally agree. And the first line of dialogue from the old codger is, “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit.” And I’m already kind of checked out because it’s just so broad.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And goofy, you know? It’s just not… — And if that world is goofy, then oh my god, the secret world is going to be triple goofy. So, there’s a tonal issue with that.

**John:** Because we’re starting, the first thing we’re seeing inside the coal mine or near the coal mine are pick axes and shovels outside the mine entrance as we’re seeing people leave. Well, maybe show us the inside of it. Show us what it’s like in there —

**Craig:** I think so.

**John:** So we see that work and see them like coming up the elevators. Show us that journey to sort of set up our world and get us situated as an audience into the story you’re about to tell.

**Craig:** Yeah. You can even start with danger. I mean, animated movies have great success sometimes starting with danger. But it doesn’t really improve when we get inside the aviary. There isn’t a sense of a revelation here. We’re not having that moment where the doors to Oz open, or the moment when Andy leaves his bedroom and the toys come to life. There’s no excitement to this reveal. It’s actually very like here we are. We’re in an aviary.

I couldn’t really get a grip on what this place looked like.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** I know there’s the notion that it’s a town. And there are streets, I guess, and a square. But I can’t quite figure out, because I’m not really sure how an aviary works, like where they sleep? Are there houses? Do the humans know that this aviary looks different than they think?

**John:** That’s what I was most curious about. Because you look at Bugs as a secret world and you believe that humans just weren’t sort of noticing was there. But here like the birds are dropped off at this place, so like it’s a real place that humans kind of know about, too.

So, the description of what this town is like, “Houses (nest boxes), police precinct (donut box), bank (piggy bank), movie theater (View-Master),” and that feels — and then it says, “You get the idea, right?” It’s that in-scene description. That feels like Bugs — A Bug’s Life.

**Craig:** Yeah. But in Bug’s Life they put an entire carnival inside garbage. You don’t see it. They’re really clear about that. You just don’t see that world. You’d walk by it and just think it was a paper bag.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** But here’s a boy actually coming over and putting water into this thing, so I’m confused. Maybe there is no confusion in this world and everybody gets that birds talk. But then I’m kind of curious to see how that develops. It might.

And they literally say, “All hail He-Who-Cares-For-Us,” and the boy lovingly pets them. But does he — I need to know, can he hear them talking, or does he hear them just tweeting?

These are these questions that animators really suffer over and think about. And that hasn’t quite been worked out here.

**John:** Yeah. I thought Frozen did a very nice job with the animals talking. Essentially the animals don’t talk and yet the one guy can talk with his reindeer who understands him and it’s really clear that they understand each other but they don’t actually talk to each other.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And that makes sense and that can work really well. But this is clearly mostly a movie about the birds. I should back up and say I think it’s a reasonably good idea to make a movie about these birds if there is really enough story here, but that’s an interesting world. I think the idea of a mining town, and the birds, and birds who fly versus birds who are underground, which is sort of unnatural. A caged bird singing. There’s lots of potential here. I just got really confused what movie Steven was trying to write.

**Craig:** I agree. And any time you’re talking about canaries and coal mines there’s going to be death and there’s going to be drama. And there’s lots of interesting stuff and it seems like we are looking at an underdog story, which frankly we get a lot of I think in these kinds of movies, but so be it.

I will lastly say that I got really thrown off by this Avian Idol/American Idol rip-off, because at this point now I’m like, okay —

**John:** Feels stale.

**Craig:** Now, I’m in total goofy spoof territory. Like even more strange than the spoofs that I used to do, because those were at least, you know, that was live action.

But you start putting spoof of pop culture, current-ish pop culture, in a movie that’s set in 1937 that’s animated, and they’re birds, I am just so confused by what’s going on and what I’m supposed to believe and feel is real. Yeah…

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** So, I think that this, Steven, is not an uncommon problem. It’s a problem of tone. And you can pick a lane but you’ve got to stay in that lane. And some lanes are better than others.

**John:** Yeah, I would say tone and also just visual storytelling. And just letting us know what it is that we’re going to be seeing in this world because we just get too confused right now.

**Craig:** Yeah. Go ahead and be dramatic about how you reveal things. All the reveals in these three pages are just we see this, we see this, we see this, we see this. Let us find it. Make a big deal out of it if it’s interesting. If you’re going to change our perspective or inform us that the world is not what we think, be dramatic.

**John:** Yup.

**Craig:** All right.

**John:** Let’s go to our third one for this week. Our final one. This is Alone by C.L. Stone.

So, we meet Zoe, who is 28. She’s in an abandoned supermarket. And it’s really abandoned, so like dirty windows, possibly post-apocalyptic. She has two German Shepherds with her, Dino and Hulk, or Dino and Hulk, I don’t know.

She’s loading up on food and as she’s leaving she has this little — she finds a mouse in this box and leaves some poison for it. When we’re outside we see we’re in the City of London, which is similarly abandoned. She has an encounter with this menacing feral dog. She drives it off with a super soaker.

She visits an overgrown cemetery where we see gravestones of Loving Mother, Mary Last, and Taken Daughter Pollyanna Last.

At Zoe’s house there’s a vegetable garden growing out front. As she enters we sense that something is wrong, but that’s the end of three pages.

**Craig:** Right. Well, there’s a lot of interesting writing here. There’s some that’s a little clumsy. As an overall note for C.L., I would say I’m not sure you needed three pages for what you delivered here.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** The deserted supermarket, for an audience — and this is again a somewhat common thing. I still do it, and I watch myself doing it. We get things faster than you think we get them. So, once I see:

In my mind I go we’re post-apocalyptic or we’re zombies or we’re something. But that’s the deal.

I get that already that fast. And this is working really hard to convince me of it. And I don’t need to see her select every single thing from the supermarket. You did leave out this in your summary, “Whizzing happily past the aisles, there is a blurred glimpse of a dark figure stood at the end of one.” [laughs]

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** Which is one of the worst sentences I’ve ever seen in my life.

**John:** [laughs]

**Craig:** But, assuming that it’s just a typo or just a grammatical stroke moment, the idea is, okay, a-ha, there’s dark figures. Are they ghosts or are they zombies? Are they bad? Whatever they are, that’s our element that we’re going to be dealing with. And then it’s gone.

That’s good suspense. The problem is it’s not revealed suspensefully. And then once she decides it’s not a big deal, it’s gone anyway. And then she’s bothering with mice and so forth.

And, you know, it gets a little — we see City of London, the street is abandoned. Then there’s a dog. She water soaks the dog to make it go away. Okay, so she’s resourceful. I get that. And now she’s in a cemetery with mom, I assume what was her mom and her sister.

There’s another sentence that just took me — I understand what C.L. means, finally, but it took me awhile. And I took it as a challenge. And I want to know if you got it faster than I did. “Zoe sits, tearing up grass to split down the middle of the blade, keeping company with the dead.”

**John:** Yes. I did finally get it. And I think it’s actually a beautiful image, it’s just a very bad sentence.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** So, that’s the idea of like where you take your thumbs and you split apart a blade of grass. And that’s actually a great image. And it’s a very hard sentence to —

**Craig:** Correct. To the point where I started wondering is C.L. Stone, is English their first language, because that syntax is so tortured. Because at first I was like, what blade? And I started looking for a sword. [laughs] And then I was like, what is she doing? Why is she tearing up grass? And then I realized what she meant.

So, you’re right. It actually is a very beautiful image and I like the peacefulness of it. It just needs to be written better.

**John:** Yeah. I’m guessing C.L. Stone is British or a non-American just based on some choices.

**Craig:** Trolley.

**John:** Choices on trolley and tins.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And so even an American writer who is trying to write something set in London would probably say cart.

**Craig:** Yes. And cans.

**John:** Right.

**Craig:** Yeah and also it is —

**John:** And there were other things that I thought were actually really terrifically done here though. I really thought that little rat poison moment was kind of nice. So, essentially you find this mouse and then you’re like, screw it. So, she shakes some rat poison on the shelf. I thought that was kind of an interesting thing.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** And I love — I mean, abandoned supermarkets are sort of a familiar territory but they’re also really — I could immediately see it in a way that’s helpful in these things. I mean, we were talking about Bethesda earlier, but Fallout 3 has great abandoned supermarkets.

And I immediately saw that and it put me in the right place. I agree that it just went on too long.

**Craig:** It just went on a bit too long. And similarly when she walks into the house, something’s going on and I feel like, well, we’re here at the bottom of page three and we’re just repeating what just happened on one.

I almost wonder if it’s better to, well, here’s what I’m missing more than anything from these three pages. I know that Zoe’s mother and sister died. I know that she’s resourceful when it comes to dogs. And she’s scrappy because she can go collect food and such. But I don’t know what scares her. I don’t know what makes her sad even. I mean, even the blade, grass blade. I’m not getting that one thing that I want to hook in that makes her interesting to me and not just girl in post-apocalyptic London. I’m looking for that character thing.

**John:** So, first I need a theater, but if I only had these three pages to work with, and wanted to rearrange it and do something that I think would work a little better, I would probably actually stat at the cemetery and start with that blade of grass splitting and sort of looking up to the clouds and so we don’t know sort of the full context.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Then go to the supermarket. It’s like, oh, we’re actually in a post-apocalyptic world here. And then go to the house. Because right now it’s a little bit strange that we like start with the supermarket and the cart and then we stop and she just like hangs out at the cemetery for awhile. And then eventually goes home. Like once you get stuff in the cart, you should use the cart to take it home.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** That’s sort of the narrative logic that would seem to make sense.

**Craig:** I agree. The other way to open is to just see this girl in a store just looking at rows of cereal. And then she picks a box and looks at the ingredients and considers it. And then is like, eh, I could get this one. [laughs] And then she finally picks on. And she starts walking away and you pull back and you see: oh my god. This person is making choices about cereal and she’s alone.

**John:** Yeah

**Craig:** But, yeah, there is a little bit of a missed opportunity to kind of, again, dramatic reveals of the world around us. And they don’t always have to be misdirections. But, you know, the deserted supermarket is a little bit of a trope, frankly, at this point.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** So, making something special out of it or finding another way. But, there is really good imagery, there’s good writing. I liked that it’s quiet. And I like the challenge of writing without dialogue. Some of those sentences though we’ve got to — we don’t put sentences in there like that one sentence. [laughs]

**John:** I would agree.

Also, I would say if you have stuff that needs to be printed on screen, like Mary Last, Loving Mother, I would have probably put that, I would have centered it. I would not put spaces in between those lines, and just kept those together as blocks. I honestly probably wouldn’t have put in all that information because when I see dates I start to do math on dates, and you don’t ever want your audience doing math. You don’t want them to think about anything you don’t want them to think about.

So, I think you can be in the cemetery and just sort of show names, like Loving Mother, but don’t worry about dates.

**Craig:** I didn’t mind in this case. I know what you mean. But 2000 and 2008 is such easy math. And it does tell us how young this girl was when she died, which is good.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** But then there’s also a picture of a girl, so that kind of covers that. But I do agree you want to maybe bold that, center it, do something, make it interesting.

**John:** And in my proposed reordering of things we may not need to have that residential street. But on page two we go to:

“Zoe whizzes past a street sign. Underneath the name it reads ‘City of London’. The street is abandoned. Almost.”

The street is abandoned, but that’s not telling me enough. Like you’ve done this whole supermarket thing to set up some sort of world, but like what is that abandoned street like? Are things burned? Is everything untouched? Is it overgrown? It really does matter. Like are windows smashed out of cars? What is it like?

**Craig:** Yeah. You never want to say something like “the street is abandoned,” because that’s facts not in evidence. You just want to show me what I’m supposed to see and let me determine that maybe this place is abandoned. But there’s such a different kind of abandonment on a street where there are overturned cars and they’re all burnt out, or a street where everyone is still parked, neatly.

**John:** Yeah. Agreed. So, she gave, I don’t know if C.L. is a man or woman, but abandoned is just giving us an adjective. Give us some nouns. Give us some things to look at that will help us build the scene and sort of know what it is that we’re looking at in our head. Because adjectives alone won’t do it.

**Craig:** Correct.

**John:** Cool. So, again, three interesting, very different Three Page Challenges. Thanks, Stuart, for reading all of these entries.

**Craig:** Thanks Stuart.

**John:** And picking these three to send us.

**Craig:** And thank you to our writers. And whatever we’ve said here, take it to heart, or kick it to the curb, but keep working.

**John:** Keep working. Craig, you have a One Cool Thing that you’re excited about sharing, so I don’t want to hold you up any longer.

**Craig:** I’m so excited. I should have been on top of it but I wasn’t and then someone sent me a tweet and I got all crazy. The Room Two is out. The Room Two.

**John:** Holy Cow.

**Craig:** It’s out for iPad. Not The Room, the movie, the Tommy Wiseau film. No, The Room Two, the sequel to the extraordinary game for iPad, The Room. It’s my favorite game that I ever played on the iPad. It’s one of my favorite games period in my life. And the sequel is out. I’m super excited.

**John:** Have you played through it yet?

**Craig:** No. I’ve only played about ten minutes of it this morning and then I had to go, but it sounds beautiful. It looks gorgeous, I mean, just gorgeous. The attention to detail these guys do is amazing.

**John:** So, for people who aren’t familiar with The Room, it is a sort of Myst-like in many ways I think where you have this box, at least in the original, you have this box that you need to figure out how to open. And it’s incredibly challenging to figure out how the different pieces connect and how you’re supposed to get the next part of the box to open up.

**Craig:** And it’s very tactile. You’re constantly turning things, hitting switches, pulling on things. You’re feeling it. It’s really beautifully implemented for the iPad. You can tell it was designed for touch. It is one of the few games I’ve ever played where I just thought this could not be done without touch at all in any way, shape, or form. It’s beautiful that way. And so this seems so far so good. So far so good.

**John:** And I’m excited to see what they did in terms of building out the narrative. Because in the first game of the room there’s a sense that you have gotten this box because an uncle or somebody else has died and/or has disappeared and you are following these instructions to figure out what he was getting into. And it’s super creepy. It’s like The Room, not The Room, like The Ring kind of creepy.

**Craig:** Yes. Very Ring-like.

**John:** The Ring or Hellraiser. There’s some dark forces that he was investigating, Lovecraftian forces perhaps. And that’s awesome. I love that when it’s done so well.

**Craig:** Yeah, they seemed to have picked up that narrative and I can’t wait to see where it goes. And I think it’s $5. It’s ridiculously cheap.

**John:** It’s a steal.

**Craig:** I mean, honestly, if you have an iPad and you haven’t bought the room, you’re nuts. And if you have and you haven’t bought The Room Two yet, run, run, run and do it.

**John:** I agree.

My One Cool Thing is also a software solution. So, I’m working on this movie that I’m hoping to direct this next year. And so one of the things I needed to do is find some location images. So, not necessarily the locations that I’m going to be shooting in, but some sort of visual references for things that I — sort of for the world where this movie takes place. And Google is your friend for that, so Google Image Search is incredibly useful for finding, you know, you type in the search terms and you find those sort of interesting places.

But I wanted to store them in some place. And so Evernote is really good for that. And Evernote plus Skitch is a really good combination. So, what I’ve ended up doing, which has worked out really well, is I’ll find something that’s correct and it’s up on my screen. I’ll hit the command key for Skitch which is this image annotator that partners with Evernote. And so you select the part of the screen that has the image and it saves it to Evernote along with whatever notes you have for it.

And so I’m able to build sort of location files for the things that I’m looking for for this thing. It’s been incredibly useful because classically what I would have done is like drag the image off and stick it in a folder and remember where that folder is, or stick it into iPhoto. This was a much better solution for me.

I’ve tried to lean into Evernote a little bit more for this project for keeping all the notes about a project together so that I can tag them all the same way. And then if I’m looking for something, be it a video, be it a website, be it an image, it’s right there, or notes on projects.

**Craig:** You’re like a handyman. You’re like a Mr. Fix It except for these things. You know, there are people that go around their house like, huh, I don’t like the water pressure coming out of my shower. I’m going to open up my walls. And you’re that guy, but for this stuff. You really are.

You’re just like, “I don’t like the way things are going. I’m going to just make stuff and fix it.”

**John:** Yeah. So, Evernote plus Skitch I think is a really good solution for that. Evernote is kind of free. I think above a certain amount of storage you have to pay a monthly fee, but it’s been really well worth it. And Skitch I think is a free add-on for Evernote. So, I recommend the two of them together.

**Craig:** Sweet.

**John:** Sweet. So, standard boilerplate here at the end of our show. If you have a question for Craig or I —

**Craig:** For Craig or me.

**John:** Oh my god. I can’t believe I just did that.

**Craig:** You did it. Keep it. Keep it. [laughs]

**John:** I’m not going to change it. No, we’re not going to edit that out. Yeah, for me, for I, that’s one of those frustrating things, and especially you hear it in lyrics where they’ll make the rhyme because they want an I or they want a me —

**Craig:** Say a Little Prayer for I, that’s the one that just makes me nuts.

**John:** Yeah. If you have a question for me or for Craig, if it’s short, Twitter is your friend. So, I’m @johnaugust. Craig is @clmazin. Longer questions or notes to explain why were wrong about something we said on the show are ask@johnaugust.com.

If you want out the notes for this episode or any of our episodes or the links of things we’ve talked about, you can always find those at johnaugust.com/podcast.

We also have an app now that people are downloading and using.

**Craig:** So cool.

**John:** Which is exciting. So, that’s for iOS and for Android. Totally optional. You don’t have to use the app. You can just go through iTunes if you like to. But if you like to use the app, you’re welcome to. And it also gives you access to all the back episodes.

If you’re on iTunes, leave us a rating and a comment because that helps people find the show. And I think that is it.

**Craig:** It’s a good thing, because I really got to pee.

**John:** Go! Craig, enjoy your week.

**Craig:** Thanks, John. See you soon. Bye.

**John:** Bye.

LINKS

* [Company, Making of Original Cast Recording](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVf78joLfSg) part 1 of 6, on YouTube
* Boston Magazine on [Curt Schilling and 38 Studios](http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2012/07/38-studios-end-game/)
* The [Development of Duke Nukem Forever](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Duke_Nukem_Forever) has its own Wikipedia entry
* [How to submit your Three Pages](http://johnaugust.com/threepage), and [Stuart’s post on lessons learned from the early batches](http://johnaugust.com/2012/learning-from-the-three-page-challenge)
* Three Pages by [Blake Kuehn](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/BlakeKuehn.fountain)
* Three Pages by [Steve D’Arcangelo](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/SteveDArcangelo.pdf)
* Three Pages by [C.L. Stone](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/CLStone.pdf)
* [The Room Two](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-room-two/id667362389) is available now
* [Skitch](http://evernote.com/skitch/) and [Evernote](http://evernote.com/) are great together
* Download the Scriptnotes app for [iOS](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scriptnotes/id739117984?ls=1&mt=8) and [Android](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.johnaugust.android.scriptnotes) devices
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Scriptnotes listener Andreas Hornig

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2013/my-girlfriends-boyfriends-screenwriter).

**Disclaimer:** Hey, this is John. Two things about today’s episode. First off, this is one of those episodes where Craig swears a little bit. So, if you’re in the car with your kids, standard warnings there. It’s not terrible, just a few f-bombs, so they’re near the backend of the episode.

Second off, we now have an app for Scriptnotes. There’s an app for iOS and for Android. So, I talk about it at the end of the show in the One Cool Things, but in case you want to listen to this episode through the app, you can. It’s available right now for iPhone, for Android devices, however you want to find it.

On iPhone it’s in the App Store, so just go to the App Store on your phone and you’ll find it there, Scriptnotes.

For Android, I don’t know how you find Android apps, but it’s there wherever you find Android apps it should be there.

A few things about the app and how it all works. Scriptnotes is always free and it will always stay free so that the most recent episodes will always be free the way they always have been. The app is going to let us sell the back episodes. So, it’s a subscription that you can get all the back episodes you want, sort of the Netflix model, all-you-can-eat. Nothing has really changed except that if you want to listen to it through the app, or to go to those back episodes, they’re all available now.

So, if you like your current setup, don’t change anything. Stay awesome. Stay cool. And enjoy this episode of Scriptnotes.

[Intro tone]

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

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

**John:** And this is Scriptnotes, the Mike Birbiglia episode of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Craig, you are in my house. We are doing one of those rare episodes where we’re actually live in the same room together.

**Craig:** Yeah. And as always there’s a certain frisson. There is a je ne sais quoi.

**John:** Yeah. It’s a little bit different when you’re here.

**Craig:** I noticed that everything that I said was very positive and what you said was studiously neutral to negative.

**John:** It’s good to have you here.

**Craig:** Mm-hmm.

**John:** So, we will just do a little bit of quick follow up on our last episode. People tweeted us saying like, “Oh, I’m a reader at CAA and what you said about coverage was not accurate. It was only half true.”

**Craig:** I noticed that. Now, did that individual follow our invitation to explain? [laughs]

**John:** No. That’s the reason why we’re doing follow up. So, if you listen to our podcast and somebody says, one of us say something that’s actually incorrect or you disagree with, that is an ideal opportunity to write in and say, “You were wrong about this thing.”

And so I would invite this person who said I was wrong about coverage to email me and tell me how I was wrong, because that’s the only way we can grow is by being corrected.

**Craig:** We’re not particularly sensitive about being wrong. We like learning.

**John:** I love to learn.

**Craig:** There was another person who wrote, who tweeted both of us, and said something like, “I really liked how John and Craig said they didn’t know anything about drugs and then spent 40 minutes talking about drugs.”

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** I actually know a lot about drugs. And I’ve done drugs.

**John:** I know quite a bit about drugs. Yeah.

**Craig:** And you’ve done them.

**John:** But we’re just not doing them now.

**Craig:** Just right now. All we were saying was don’t do them while you’re writing. Why did that get — I didn’t understand that. Sometimes people are mean.

**John:** Sometimes people are just irrational. And I think Twitter brings out the worst characteristics of that where it’s just like it’s 140 characters, “I’m going to send it off.” Not as bad as like comments on a blog post, like reading below the fold of the post.

**Craig:** YouTube comments are the Mos Eisley of the internet.

**John:** They really are.

So, the third voice you hear in the room with us today, laughing occasionally, is Mike Birbiglia who is our special guest.

**Craig:** Woo!

**John:** And so Mike Birbiglia is a writer, director, performer, what other — ?

**Mike Birbiglia:** Yeah, sure.

**Craig:** Standup comedian.

**John:** Standup comedian, yes. Performer, that’s sort of a catch all category for that. Now for people who can’t think of who Mike Birbiglia is off the top of their head, he was in the second episode of Girls and he was —

**Mike:** In the first season.

**John:** That’s a very crucial point. So, you were the guy who she was interviewing for a job at some sort of publishing company?

**Mike:** Yeah. I don’t remember! [laughs]

**John:** Anyway, you were a guy at a desk.

**Craig:** Method actor. You were really into it that day.

**John:** He was deeply into it.

**Craig:** “I don’t remember.” What’s your character’s name? Uh…

**Mike:** But it was a fun scene. I loved shooting the scene.

**John:** I honestly feel like that scene kind of codified what her relationship was going to be towards work from that point forward. It was a really crucial moment. So, this is Mike Birbiglia and Lena Dunham in their first meeting in Girls.

[Girls scene begins]

**Mike’s Character:** I think the only other place that you’re allowed to brag like that is on your online dating profile. Not that I have one.

**Lena’s Character:** Oh, no. Of course not.

**Mike’s Character:** Mm-hmm. So, you live in Brooklyn. Is it Williamsburg?

**Lena’s Character:** No, I live in Greenpoint.

**Mike’s Character:** Oh.

**Lena’s Character:** You know, big difference, Williamsburg/Greenpoint.

**Mike’s Character:** Oh sure.

**Lena’s Character:** Are you in Brooklyn or?

**Mike’s Character:** Yeah. On Cobble Hill.

**Lena’s Character:** Oh, that’s like grownup Brooklyn.

**Mike’s Character:** Yeah. I’m like a real live grownup. Can’t you tell?

**Lena’s Character:** [laughs] So, in your neighborhood do you ever drink at that place Weather Up?

**Mike’s Character:** That’s a little bit hip for my taste.

**Lena’s Character:** Are you kidding? You’re very hip. But I do object to any bar that calls its bartenders mixologists.

**Mike’s Character:** Exactly.

**Lena’s Character:** And they wear tiny vests.

**Mike’s Character:** I know!

**Lena’s Character:** If I’m going to drink in your neighborhood I want to go to Washington Commons —

**Mike’s Character:** — Washington Commons. Oh my god! I love that place.

**Lena’s Character:** Hands down.

**Mike’s Character:** I like a bar where the median age is about 55.

**Lena’s Character:** I like a bar where the average patron would be described as crotchety.

**Mike’s Character:** Crotchety is good.

[Girls scene ends]

**John:** Welcome Mike Birbiglia.

**Craig:** Mike Birbiglia!

**Mike:** The part they don’t hear devolves into this really awkward rape joke.

**John:** Yes.

**Mike:** She makes a rape joke kind of flippantly and then I say, “That’s really not work language.”

**Craig:** [laughs]

**Mike:** That’s not — off is okay.

**John:** What was so great about that scene is it happens in a very natural romantic comedy kind of way. Like, oh, this guy is going to be a love interest. And then it so abruptly curtails in a way that I think is a remarkably good scene.

**Mike:** That was so fun. That was the most fun day of work I’ve ever had.

**Craig:** Aw.

**Mike:** It was the easiest, most fun day of work. I love Lena.

**John:** So, can you come back and do another arc on Girls?

**Mike:** I’d be thrilled. Yeah. I don’t know that it’ll ever happen, but that character kind of discounts himself by the end of the scene as being anyone she’d ever want to run into again.

**Craig:** Just like your real life.

**Mike:** [laughs] Yeah, exactly.

**John:** So, Mike is here because you are in town doing big legitimate shows. So, you just did Jimmy Kimmel. You’re going to be doing Conan.

**Mike:** Yup. Conan Monday and then I had tweeted at you guys I’m fans of you both and I listen to the podcast aggressively.

**John:** Wow. So what does that mean? You actually get yourself really pumped up and you start pen in hand?

**Mike:** I think it’s one of the favorite things in my life is listening to the podcast.

**Craig:** Oh my god.

**John:** Holy cow. That’s some high pressure.

**Mike:** You know what it feels like? I’ll tell you what listening to the podcast feels like. I said this on Twitter, but it’s like hanging out with really smart people and talking about writing except you don’t have to talk.

**Craig:** That’s very nice.

**Mike:** And I love not talking. Because I talk for my living and after awhile you’re just like, “I just like listening to people who are really smart.”

**Craig:** I’d like to get that deal where we could do the podcast but not talk.

**John:** That would be fantastic. Craig, that’s called listening to a podcast.

**Craig:** Oh yeah.

**John:** But because you don’t listen to any other podcasts, you have the joy of the monologue that you don’t have to be a part of.

**Craig:** Oh yeah, I don’t… — How many podcasts are there at this point, like four or five now?

**John:** There might be at least six or maybe a dozen podcasts out there.

**Craig:** I just don’t have the time.

**Mike:** I mean, once it gets to ten they’re going to just stop making —

**Craig:** They’ll stop making.

**Mike:** Yeah. I’m sure. We’ll all have the good sense to do that.

**Craig:** Right.

**Mike:** But I’m just a big fan of the podcast and as a guest I just want to say up top, I want to discount myself and say I am the least pedigreed of your writer guests admittedly, but I’d like to think of myself as a writer/listener who like won a contest.

**John:** [laughs] Indeed.

**Craig:** [laughs] You’re a little better than that.

**John:** Yeah, underneath your seat at Jimmy Kimmel there was a little note saying like, “You get to be a guest on this podcast.”

**Mike:** It was part of a gift bag.

**John:** I first met you at the screening of your film Sleepwalk with Me. And so that was the Writers Guild Foundation, I think, did a thing at the Writers Guild Theater. And Joss Whedon hosted a Q&A afterwards. And so you and I were up there. And so we talked very briefly in the lobby beforehand about Lena and how awesome things were.

Congratulations on Sleepwalk with Me.

**Mike:** Thanks.

**Craig:** Great movie.

**Mike:** Thanks.

**Craig:** Great movie.

**John:** So, it’s a movie that people can find on iTunes and Netflix and it came out last year and had the indie release, the big thing you were sort of marketing was to make more than Avengers did.

**Mike:** Yes.

**John:** And how did that go?

**Craig:** You got close.

**Mike:** Here’s what we did. Opening weekend we had the highest per screen average of any film that year, higher than Avengers. The one caveat is that we were on just the one screen.

**Craig:** Right. Of course.

**Mike:** And Avengers was on the 2,000 something screens. And so we did beat them in that category. In the overall I think they did close to $1 billion. We did about $2.3 million.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Still, that’s close.

**John:** Yeah, that’s right. I mean, with a margin of error.

**Mike:** They both have the word part “illion.”

**Craig:** That “illion.” A lot of kids who haven’t yet gone to second grade will flip the billion and million.

**Mike:** Yes, exactly.

**John:** That’s the original thinking. Generations —

**Craig:** For that age group you have done better than The Avengers.

**Mike:** Absolutely. And, honestly, it’s thrilling. Jokes aside, it’s thrilling to be able to make a movie that eventually gets to an audience. And people who love it, love it, and then people who hate it, hate it. And that’s fun, too.

**Craig:** I don’t know how anyone hates this movie. I mean, I don’t know why people hate movies in general anyway, but —

**John:** Positive moviegoing.

**Craig:** Positive moviegoing right here.

**Mike:** I loved that episode by the way.

**Craig:** Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And we’re talking about, you know, the guy, the Hulk, Hulk Film Crit, And Hulk Film Crit, one of his things is he had this amazing encounter with Quentin Tarantino who sort of lectured him on never hating a movie, which we’ll get to that later.

But I want to talk to you about your movie because the truth is you’re not any less credentialed than anyone. You wrote a screenplay and you directed your own screenplay and you made a movie. And you made a great movie.

As far as I’m concerned there’s no other credentials required. What’s fascinating about that movie is that it is, I think, unique in the history of adaptation. I don’t know if anyone has quite done what you’ve done, which is to take what is essentially a well crafted standup act in the vein of a one-man show kind of standup act, and adapt it for film and not just do kind of…forgive me, the guy who did the one-man show and then committed suicide, which is probably where you’re headed.

**John:** Spalding Gray.

**Craig:** Spalding Gray. So, before you Spaulding-Gray yourself, just know that even what he did, he shot himself talking to an audience. You dramatized the whole thing. So, my first question for you, if it’s not too early with the questions…

**John:** Go. Go.

**Craig:** Is how did you do that?

**John:** What was the genesis? I don’t know sort of how Sleepwalk with Me came about.

**Mike:** The genesis was I studied screenwriting undergraduate and I was very serious about it. I went to Georgetown and I was with a bunch of peers who were very serious about it. Jonah Nolan was in my class. Jordon Nardino. A lot of really great writers who went on to be working Hollywood writers.

And then I was not able to figure out how to come to Los Angeles and be a writer, and I was pursuing standup comedy at the same time. And so I was like, well, standup comedy at least, similar to the character that I play in the film, Matt Pandamiglio, not unlike Mike Birbiglia —

**Craig:** Yeah.

**Mike:** I was working at the DC improv comedy club and I could see that there was a business model to standup comedy that I could understand. It’s a meager business model, but it’s a business model. You drive somewhere, you perform for 20 minutes, they give you $50. Like it made sense to me. And because I’d been on both sides of it at a comedy club I understood that. So, I pursued that for many years and at the same time I simultaneously started merging the dramatic playwriting standup, or playwriting and screenwriting elements with my standup comedy. And that is what became the one-man show Sleepwalk with Me, and then subsequently My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend.

**Craig:** Right.

**Mike:** And then what I really wanted to do was make a film. And then there was a company that was interested in adapting that into a film. They paid us to write it. They didn’t like the script. They didn’t see it. And I asked them if I could take it from them and make it myself. I was going to — we made it for about $1 million, which in film is nothing.

**Craig:** No, that’s a challenge.

**Mike:** I know people think it’s a lot of money, but in film it’s almost nothing. And so that’s how it happened. I mean, writing the one-man show took about seven years. And then the adaptation took about two or three years.

**John:** But so let’s talk about writing a one-man show, because I see you doing things that sort of look like standup but you actually look at what that show is, or what My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend is, and they’re much more structured experiences where they’re clearly like and now we’re in a flashback where we’re telling this kind of thing. And they have rhyme and they have structure to them.

What is the writing process like for this? Are you thinking about like this is that story and this is how I can get that story to hook into the next thing?

**Mike:** Well, I was very lucky. Early on when I moved to New York City I started seeing all of the one-person shows on and off Broadway. I saw I Am My Own Wife. I saw Bridge & Tunnel. And then the one that really hooked me emotionally was this one called the Tricky Part.

And if writers are in New York, by the way, see cheap theater. It’s totally available.

**Craig:** Right.

**Mike:** See tons of it. It’s so educational. You can go on these like BroadwayBox.com and there’s all these like Broadway deals if you Google just like “theater deals cheap tickets.” You can get cheap tickets and see a lot and learn a lot.

I saw this one called The Tricky Part, directed by Seth Barrish, and starring Martin Moran. It’s this very dramatic story but had a lot of levity to it as well about this guy who was sexually abused by a clergy person in his church growing up. But it was very funny.

**Craig:** Not a rabbi. I should point that out.

**John:** You never hear that, do you.

**Craig:** You do, but less.

**Mike:** But there was so much humor to it, and it was so — how do I say — very conversational the way he told the story. You felt like you were talking to a friend. And I thought, oh my god, I got to talk to that director, Seth Barrish.

And I really like sent him a letter. I sent him my comedy CD. And I said, “This is what I’d like to do.” And I sent him the script for Sleepwalk with Me, an early draft of it, the one-man show, and he was not so interested but he listened to the CD and he said, “It’s funny, but it’s not quite there yet. And I’ll teach you sort of how I approach one person theater.”

And what he taught me, and I think this applies for film, I still use it for the films I’m writing right now, and he and I still use it when we work together with our one-person shows, is finding a main event that the whole film or play builds towards. And if that main event is interesting enough, all you have to do is build backwards to it so that secretly, as a writer, your little trick is that you know that no one has any idea that where you’re going is pretty fascinating.

**Craig:** Right.

**Mike:** And I feel like that’s been the guiding principal for all of me and Seth’s work.

**Craig:** In the movie, it’s the wedding.

**Mike:** I can say what it is.

**Craig:** We can give spoilers. It feels like it’s the wedding to me. Or the —

**Mike:** Yeah. I think we can say, I mean, I feel like it’s been out so long that we can say what it is.

**John:** It’s the jumps through the window.

**Mike:** Yeah, I would say —

**Craig:** Well, the jump through the window is sort of the breaking point.

**Mike:** Right.

**Craig:** But so that’s like, I understand what you’re saying. There’s a surprise thing that happens that you never see coming.

**Mike:** Yeah. In Sleepwalk there’s two simultaneous. One is the wedding. Or one is us getting engaged and the wedding plans. And then jumping through the window. My sleepwalking getting so bad that it nearly kills me.

And then once you have that, that interesting main event, I feel like you can build backwards towards that. I feel like it’s something you guys talk about all the time is finding your ending before you begin.

**Craig:** You got to know what your ending is.

**John:** Now, talk to me about writing this stuff, are you perceiving yourself as a character or are you perceiving yourself as I am just the —

**Craig:** Yeah. That’s the part that I find so fascinating that you would —

**John:** The boundary between who you are as an actual person, Mike Birbiglia, and who you are as this character playing. Because in the one-man show version of it, is it Mike Birbiglia or is it Matt?

**Mike:** Yeah. In the one-man show version it’s me. Definitely me.

**Craig:** And why did — I’m stacking questions.

**Mike:** I get this question a lot.

**Craig:** What’s the point? [laughs]

**Mike:** Of changing the name?

**Craig:** Yeah.

**Mike:** So, two of the models when I was writing the film, two of the models for the film were Private Parts by Howard Stern.

**Craig:** Sure.

**Mike:** And Annie Hall by Woody Allen.

**Craig:** Okay.

**Mike:** And in Private Parts Howard Stern keeps his name, Howard Stern. In Annie Hall he’s Alvy Singer. And I thought Woody Allen is a career that I like to emulate. He’s made some 30 or 40 films at this point.

**Craig:** Right.

**Mike:** Howard Stern is doing a great job in radio but he doesn’t want to make more movies. And I just want to make a lot of movies. And so I thought I don’t want to set myself up for this odd paradigm where people are expecting to come see Mike Birbiglia do Mike Birbiglia things over and over again, because I just honestly don’t have enough stories for that.

**Craig:** Your life is not interesting enough to support the entire career.

**Mike:** By no means.

**John:** And people, I feel like they set up their lives in ways just so they’ll have interesting stories. It’s like they’re deliberately seeking danger and seeking these crazy events so that they can have that.

**Craig:** Which is one thing I love about Mike and his story is that you seem like the kind of person who is, in watching your film, incredibly resistant to anything happening to you that’s exciting.

**Mike:** True.

**Craig:** And that, in fact, it is only when you’re sleeping that the exciting things happen, totally against your will, and I love that.

**Mike:** Thanks.

**Craig:** I think you’re a great character for somebody to have written. Granted, in real life it’s got to be a huge pain in the ass.

**Mike:** Also it was really challenging dramatically to write a character who is incapable of doing most things.

**Craig:** Right.

**Mike:** Because so much of drama is based on action and his character is based on kind of inaction.

**Craig:** But then there’s an action that comes out, I mean, the first sort of — well, it’s not the first one. But the first time in your movie I got fooled, obviously I don’t get fooled when the sleep doctor is talking to you. I get what’s going on there. But I got fooled with that woman in that room until she gives you the pizza neck roll.

**Mike:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Because I thought it was happening.

**Mike:** Yeah.

**Craig:** So, you kind of trickily were able to be active. It’s kind of the point really is that you’re active when you’re not guarding against being active.

**Mike:** Yes.

**John:** Now, a question about the writing process on that. Were you able to incorporate like bits of stories into your act, into your standup, to figure out sort of what was funny?

**Mike:** Yes.

**John:** And that’s a unique thing that a normal writer wouldn’t have the opportunity to do.

**Mike:** Yeah, very much trial and error based. And that’s the thing that I love about standup comedy is that as a writer I can write, I can put something on stage that night and I can get a sense this either works or doesn’t work, or it needs work. And in my screenwriting process, like I’m writing two scripts right now, and I’ll just invite my actor friends over and we’ll just do readings of it.

**Craig:** Great.

**Mike:** And it’s so helpful.

**Craig:** Isn’t it? I mean, it’s amazing. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do this. Even if your acting friends are terrible actors, it’s okay. Just to hear it out loud is so informative.

**Mike:** I encourage it so much. That was actually the thing — I made a bullet point thing of what I actually could talk about on this podcast that could be helpful and my biggest thing is DIY. Which is just people wherever you are, if you live in Washington, DC, you live in Cincinnati, you live in a suburb of Nebraska. You can develop a community and you can do readings and you can shoot shorts on really inexpensive cameras. And you can learn things on your own and kind of get better.

**John:** One of the things that I think is so fascinating about filmmaking is that everyone feel like, well, I would never be able to be a director. I could never do all of these complicated jobs. But I guess I can write a script. And so they write their scripts in secret and in private and then they get frustrated like, well, what do I do next? Well, you have to do something. You have to do something beyond just sitting at your computer.

You have to like get it out there in the world and let people see it and do things. So, readings are great. Shooting short films are great. People need to experiment with what it is that they made on the page and what it actually feels like out there in the world.

**Mike:** And failure is great.

**John:** Failure is wonderful.

**Mike:** Failure is the best thing that can happen.

**Craig:** That’s good news, because it’s here constantly. [laughs]

**Mike:** [laughs] This is the town of it.

**Craig:** Yeah. It walks hand in hand with all of us, doesn’t it?

**Mike:** Well that, when I was in college I directed my first short. It was actually called Extras. It was in the late ’90s, before the TV series, and it was about three professional extras who were roommates and two of my friends played the other parts. And it was a complete disaster. I lost like thousands of dollars, but I learned so much from it.

**John:** Yeah. That’s your film school. It’s really trying stuff out and seeing what works.

**Mike:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And, you know, it’s interesting because in your film, when you look at the character of —

**Mike:** Matt.

**Craig:** I was just going to say you. I’m saying you.

**Mike:** Yeah, yeah, my character.

**Craig:** Look at you. Everything you’re doing circumstantially would make me not like you. Right?

**Mike:** [laughs] Yes.

**Craig:** And you very candidly turn to the camera and say, “Before I get to this next part, remember, you’re on my side.” But we are on your side. And the reason we’re on your side is because you are in a very kind of modern, confessional way sharing with us your failure. We watch you fail. We’re watching you fail at work. And we’re watching you fail at home with your parents, and your girlfriend. Just the negotiation of the apartment is a failure.

Everything is a failure. The awesome woman — who is the woman who plays your manager? She was hysterical.

**Mike:** Sondra James. A wonderful actress.

**Craig:** Hysterical.

**Mike:** She’s on Girls sometimes.

**Craig:** Oh, okay. Great. I mean, she was just pitch perfect. There is that amazing segment of just incredibly old, food coming out of their mouth, managers. But you’re failing everywhere and so we love you. And we love you so much that we’re kind of doing, we’re peeking through our fingers sort of in fear because we know you’re doing the wrong thing.

**Mike:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Which is so interesting to me. It’s hard to ask you these questions, “Is that intentional?” It’s what was true.

**Mike:** Yes.

**Craig:** But was it also something that you were aware of as you were writing that you were doing something that you would have to do anyway if it were a fictional character?

**Mike:** I’m not sure what the question is.

**Craig:** The question is, if you write a character who is agreeing to marry somebody that they don’t want to marry.

**Mike:** Yeah.

**Craig:** I don’t like that guy. We need to do something about that character to make us connect with him so we are on his side.

**Mike:** Yes.

**Craig:** And experiencing his journey. So, when you were writing were you aware of that?

**Mike:** Well, one of the things that’s odd about the process of the film is that the monologues that are in the film where I’m driving and talking to camera are in the past tense. And I look and I say before I tell you this part of the story I want to remind you you’re on my side, etc, etc.

When we filmed it, we filmed it in more of a Ferris Bueller style where in the middle of a scene I would break and look to camera and speak to camera. When we got in the edit we were like, “Oh, this doesn’t work at all,” because it’s actually too sad what’s happening.

**Craig:** Right.

**Mike:** And it needs to be in the past tense.

**John:** Yeah.

**Mike:** It needs to be tragedy plus time to be funny. And because we need to know that he’s okay. And so when I’m driving and I’m looking at the camera you’re like, oh, he’s all right. He’s telling us the story and he’s telling us in the past tense, so he’s clearly okay. He’s not dead.

**Craig:** Right.

**Mike:** He’s figured it out. He seems like his mood is okay.

**Craig:** There’s a happy ending somewhere.

**Mike:** So we did that and we picked that up in post as a past tense thing. And it actually fixed the movie. The movie was tanking with our test audiences before that point.

**Craig:** Right. And then you take that out and you see this big jump.

**Mike:** Yeah, because people were like, “It’s just too sad. This story is so sad. This guy keeps failing and he’s messing up other people’s lives. And we’re not okay with it.” That’s how people were when they first saw it.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Well, getting back to the sort of the losery persona of the main character here, I would say we identify with a lead character who is trying. This goes back to Lindsay Doran’s argument. If you came in as being really cool we wouldn’t kind of care about you because we wouldn’t have —

**Mike:** [Crosstalk] …it’s like my least, it’s my biggest pet peeve.

**Craig:** Right. Cool characters.

**Mike:** Cool characters.

**Craig:** I got a note, my favorite stupid note I ever got was can the main character be a hero in the beginning.

**John:** That’s one of the worst possible notes.

**Craig:** Sure. Absolutely. How long would you like to shoot — we can shoot it in a day and put it out. It will be called Nothing Happens.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And just a guy will come in, punch a bad guy, and then roll credits.

**John:** Definitely. That’s a trailer. You get to make a trailer.

**Craig:** You can’t even make a trailer.

**John:** That’s true —

**Craig:** You would run out of time. You would never get to the point where James, what’s his face, sing’s I Feel Good. Yeah, you would never get there.

**John:** It would be very rough. So, we need to see your character trying.

**Mike:** Sure.

**John:** And it’s great that your character fails and fails a lot, but able to pick himself up and dust himself off. And so shooting those extra bits that put it all in the past tense let us know like he is going to be able to pick himself up and dust himself up. So, even though things will get worse, they’ll ultimately get better. There’s a happy ending there at the end. You created a bookend for it that let us know we’d be okay.

**Craig:** So, you’re sitting there in a movie theater. The movie is done. And there’s a focus group and they’re saying things like, “This guy Matt Pandapiglia is just an asshole. And I hate him. I hate what he does. He’s a jerk. This character sucks. Why is she with him at all?”

And you’re sitting there like, It’s me!

**Mike:** It’s even worse after the movie comes out.

**Craig:** [laughs]

**Mike:** Like I think there was a Jezebel article that came out after the movie came out.

**Craig:** Oh Jezebel.

**Mike:** And they said —

**Craig:** They’re angry.

**Mike:** Well, they said, and I like the site. I like some of the writing on the site a lot. I consider myself a feminist. They said, “Why Matt Pandamiglio is bad for your relationship,” or something like that. I’m paraphrasing. I might get it wrong. You can look it up if you want. But something to do with the fact, like this kind of personal jab. And I just disagree. I disagree. I think this movie is about these two characters who are not together at the right point in their life and at the end they go separate ways and it’s better for both of them. I truly believe that.

**Craig:** She’s since gotten married.

**Mike:** She’s wonderful. She’s doing great. [laughs]

**Craig:** And you’ve gotten married.

**Mike:** She’s married. I’m married. We’re both very happy. We’re very close.

**Craig:** Right.

**Mike:** And very happy. Like when she saw the movie, we had an opening night screening in the Opera House at BAM. She came to the screening. She was crying afterwards. She said it was like so moving to see that part of our lives documented.

**Craig:** Right.

**Mike:** And for people to criticize it for that, I just, it was really disconcerting.

**John:** Well, okay, let’s talk about this aspect of autobiography, because you can’t write autobiography without other people and other real people being involved in that. So, as you’re figuring out the standup, the one-man show version of it and the movie version of it at what point did you have to figure out much you’re writing the real people versus the — this is the real person and this is what the person is in the drama —

**Mike:** That’s a good actually and that’s part of the reason I changed the names. I didn’t want my dad to be my dad. I wanted it to be Gary Pandamiglio. I didn’t want it to be Vince Birbiglia, I wanted him to be Gary Pandamiglio. Interestingly, and the same with my mom, and the same with my girlfriend.

I think there’s a degree to which you really need to protect people in your life, even if it’s just changing names, things like that. That’s just how I feel. What’s amazing is my parents saw the movie and they had no sense that it was based on them at all. They thought it was entirely fiction.

**Craig:** This is very common.

**Mike:** Didn’t recognize any —

**Craig:** People don’t see themselves.

**Mike:** They didn’t recognize any qualities that they have.

**Craig:** [laughs] While they were probably exhibiting those qualities —

**Mike:** With some direct quotes.

**Craig:** The direct quotes. They did not recognize. Well, you know, famously Dr. Evil is just an impression of Lorne Michaels.

**John:** Yeah. And he doesn’t see it at all.

**Craig:** Did not notice. In fact, as the story goes, Mike Myers takes Lorne Michaels for a walk before they’re going to show the movie —

**Mike:** Oh my god.

**Craig:** And he goes, “I just want you to know, so you don’t freak out, but Dr. Evil is basically you. But don’t, you know…” And he’s like, “Okay.” And then he sees the movie and he goes, “I don’t see it. I didn’t really see it.”

**Mike:** That’s so good.

**Craig:** But you also get a license to push the characters a little bit, I mean, by changing the names. I mean, I’m sure that they are exaggerated and —

**Mike:** Absolutely. And that’s what I want to do moving forward with my next movies, too. But while we’re doing impressions, I want to do my impression of you guys.

**Craig:** Oh yeah, he’s got an impression of us.

**Mike:** I don’t do impressions. I want to preface it with that.

**Craig:** I’m so excited.

**Mike:** But I feel like, so we just have to name an object and then we’ll have me do John and Craig talking about the object. So, like this is a coffee cup.

[as John] Yeah, I’m holding a coffee cup. So — so this would be like, so today we’re going to talk about coffee cups. And, I think, I love coffee cups. I think we that we should give coffee cups a chance.

[as Craig] What are you talking about? This coffee cup is garbage. They’re giving you something that’s practically garbage. There’s almost no coffee in it. You’re going to hurt your hand. It’s scalding hot. There’s no insulation.

[as John] Yeah, but, I think we should all — let’s give coffee cups a chance.

I feel like that’s the show in a nutshell.

**Craig:** Which one was which? I don’t know, was I the first one? [laughs]

**Mike:** That’s the show in a nutshell.

**Craig:** Yeah, pretty much.

**Mike:** And I love that. I love the scenario. I don’t do the voices, but it’s the essence of the show.

**Craig:** The essence of it, yeah. Well, you know, John is from Colorado. He’s American. And I’m from New York. [laughs] And I’m an ass. But for New York, I think I’m a nice New York.

**John:** You’re on the nice side of New Yorkers.

**Craig:** Yeah, it can be much worse than this. It could be much, much worse than this. That was disturbingly accurate.

**Mike:** I identify with both, so the yin and the yang of that. Like when I hear you points I’m like, oh, that’s a nice bit of positivity about that. And then when I hear your points I’m like, yeah, these motherfuckers.

**Craig:** Ha! [laughs]

**Mike:** Fucking idiots.

**Craig:** Yeah, come on, man! Right?

**John:** So, to transition to the next film you made, which was much more like a Spalding Gray, sort of one man talking in front of an audience thing, this is My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend. So, was this a monologue you had already, or a one-man show you’d already put together before you had done? Tell us about the history of this.

**Mike:** Yes. It actually is. It’s a concert — it’s now a concert film that’s on iTunes and Netflix if people want to see it. And it’s an album on iTunes. And it’s a one-person show that Seth Barrish, again, directed. And that we worked on starting — I did a piece on This American Life. People might know me from that as well. I’ve done a handful of stories over the years on This American Life. And Ira Glass, who co-wrote my film, and My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend was based on this incident I had. The main event is that I was hit by a drunk driver in Los Angeles. And then in a really strange turn of events made to pay for the other driver’s car.

It was $12,000. And it was infuriating. And the parallel story in that is that my wife and I, my now wife and I, were going through this really hard situation where we were deciding whether or not we were going to get married. And neither of us really believed in the idea of marriage but we were getting pressure from all sides.

And so — and I have this problem where when I think I’m right about something, it can be a real issue. A little bit maybe like Craig, where I just want to be right. I’m like, “Argh,” I get really riled up and it’s like, “I’m not paying for this car! And I’m not getting married! And I’m not going to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

And the whole show, and the concert film, builds to a head where I’m dealing with both of those things at the same time and it’s —

**Craig:** Like most good stories, the object is to be less like Craig. Ultimately to get over that.

**Mike:** It’s not always written that way, but it’s the subtext.

**Craig:** The subtext is don’t — that I am the pre-actualization character.

**John:** Yes. Let’s listen to a clip from it. This is from My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, and this is as you are first meeting — you’ve met this girl Jenny who you have a crush on and you agree to sort of go out on a three-person date and hopefully not have it be a three-person date at the end of the night. So, let’s listen to a clip.

[Clip begins]

**Mike:** We’re at the pub and it had taken so much convincing for Andy to get Jenny to come out there. By the time she came out she thought she was on a date with him. Yeah, that wasn’t the idea. And so I had to convince him to fall away as the night went on, like the red rockets and the space shuttle. And eventually she realized she was on a date with me. And she was not happy about that.

But, she warmed to me as the night went on because she was drinking and like, no, by the end of the night we’re laughing and having a good time and I caught a break which is we shared a ride back to our hotel with one of their friends. And she and I were stuffed in this little backseat together. It was really quiet, so I could hear her soft voice. And she told me she had just come off a long difficult breakup.

And I told her about my breakup. And for a moment there in the backseat it felt like we were holding up two halves of a broken paper heart. And we get back to the hotel and I offer to walk her to her room and she said, sure. And we get to the door and I didn’t want this night to end. And so I build up the courage to lean in to kiss her and she says, “Oh, no thank you.”

[Clip ends]

**Mike:** It’s entirely true that story.

**Craig:** “No thank you.”

**Mike:** Oh, no thank you.

**Craig:** That’s one of the greatest responses to an attempt at a kiss ever.

**Mike:** Yeah.

Craig. “Oh, no thank you.”

**Mike:** [laughs]

**Craig:** “It was nice.”

**John:** I want to talk about the visuals you built in there because actually it’s much more sophisticated than a person might guess at the start.

**Mike:** Oh thanks.

**John:** The visuals of this crowded Irish pub. And then being in the backseat of the car. So, by telling us specifically they were in the backseat of the car we have an image of the two of you guys together there. The image of like the broken paper heart, holding up the two halves of the broken paper heart.

The hallway. We’re seeing these places that you’re putting us and it’s very specific and it’s very — it’s writerly. And it’s not simply just a joke. You’re actually creating — you’re painting a scene which is a crucial thing that we don’t think about people doing in monologues. But it’s so smart.

**Craig:** Yeah. And while you’re painting the visuals, you’re also telling us something about your internal life which is that you are a romantic but you’re also anti-romantic. You’re anti-romantic enough to make fun of the idea of holding up two halves of the paper heart. And yet you thought of that. You know? And that’s a great human kind of real romanticism which I love.

**Mike:** Yeah. I think that — I actually think, and that’s why I’m saying I encourage people to make things. I feel like by making and directing Sleepwalk with Me I actually — this show became better. I had started this show and it was Off-Broadway before I made Sleepwalk with Me. And then I toured with it after Sleepwalk with Me to about 100 cities around the world, London, Australia, Canada, 70 cities in America. And it actually — I rewrote it, and rewrote it, and rewrote it, even after it had closed Off-Broadway. And then by the time I filmed it, like you said, it had become more cinematic.

**John:** So, structurally the show works as an extended flashback, basically.

**Mike:** Yes.

**John:** So, quite early on we’re establishing like who you are as a character in this story that we may be hearing. That there’s a girl. That there’s going to be this car crash. And you have a very specific rhyming element that you say for the car crash. It’s T-boned. And it’s not actually even that funny, so it’s basically the car gets hit from the side and being hit in the side is called being T-boned.

And I thought it was so smart because I noticed it when you first did it. It’s like, that’s a strange — it’s not getting a laugh, and he knows it’s not going to get a laugh, so it much be there for a reason. And the reason why it’s there is because at the end of the show you’re going to come back to T-boned and it’s like, “Oh, we’re back in that same moment and this is all — this extended flashback is now over.” It was very smartly done. It felt very cinematic in a way.

**Mike:** Thanks.

**John:** It’s like, you know, this was the signal that we were out of this flashback and now we’re back into the present time.

So, talk about touring around and doing things, because when you say you rewrote it does that mean that you have — the show is not on index cards. It isn’t like joke cards anymore.

**Mike:** No, I do do it on index cards also. I have a running document which is, you know, at this point I probably did 30, 40 drafts of that show. And then —

**John:** What does it look like to you? Because since it is just you talking, so is it —

**Mike:** It’s just a Word Document.

**John:** It’s just a Word Document where you have it in paragraphs?

**Mike:** Yeah. A lot of times if it’s a joke it’ll be it’s one paragraph and that kind of thing to give it a tempo feel on the page. But, yeah, I keep rewriting and rewriting. And there’s a lot of things where I feel like the best movies and plays as well are things where you’re laughing, you’re laughing, you’re laughing, you’re laughing, and then at the end you go, “Oh my god, it’s a fucking story.”

**Craig:** Yeah.

**Mike:** And that’s what really lured me into like the stuff that I sort of model my own stuff after is like James L. Brooks’ films, Broadcast News and Terms of Endearment. Like you look at a film like Broadcast News which I’ve probably seen 10 or 15 times, and it’s just — I’m just laughing all the way through. And then when it just punches you in the gut at the end of the movie you just go, “Oh my god, this is why we see movies.”

**Craig:** Well, laughing opens you up. You know?

**Mike:** Yes, that’s right.

**Craig:** You’ve lost your defenses and you’re expecting to laugh again. So, nobody sees it coming, you know? I remember talking to David Zucker and Jerry Zucker about the first time they screened the movie Airplane! for a test audience. And in their minds everything was jokes. They were just obsessed with how the jokes would play. And they were just thrown on their heels when at the end of the movie the plan finally lands and the audience bursts into applause.

**Mike:** Oh, that’s amazing.

**Craig:** Because they cared that the plane would land. You know? And they just thought, “It doesn’t matter. We’ve told them in every possible way this is not a real plane.” It is to them. It matters. And so the human desire to give a shit is not defeatable.

**Mike:** Yes.

**Craig:** So, you might as well work with it, which you did. I mean, you really did it beautifully in your movie. It’s even interesting watching you — if you were to say to me here’s a movie by a comedian about his career in which he gets up and starts getting laughs I would go, “Wow, that sounds kind of like a douchebag scene.” And it’s not.

**Mike:** Totally agree.

**Craig:** It’s not because you earned it, you know, because I watched you suffer. So, I totally agree. I know exactly what you mean.

**Mike:** Yeah. Well, one of the obstacles of that in the writing process and we really struggled with this is there were certain drafts where it was how do we show that he’s doing better. And it would be like, “Well, the audience applauds more.” And it’s like, nope, it can’t be that, because the audience watching it in the theater, if they disagree with the applause then you’re screwed.

**Craig:** Right.

**Mike:** The movie is over.

**Craig:** The movie is fake. Right. It’s self-congratulatory.

**Mike:** How many movies have we seen about performance where you’re not applauding when the characters are applauding and you just hate it? And so we were like — I love the movie Once, the film Once, I really love. And I thought that that’s the perfect treatment of performance which is at the beginning he plays covers and this woman convinces him to play originals. And then he plays originals and we get it. We don’t have to like the originals.

**Craig:** But he’s grown.

**Mike:** We just get that there’s a growth happening. We can relate to the growth.

**Craig:** Well and even then, in your moment, the turning point, you see a guy laugh. I mean —

**Mike:** Exactly.

**Craig:** I mean, you were kind of close on one guy.

**Mike:** I’m glad you noticed that.

**Craig:** Yeah. And then I see you going, “Holy shit. Someone laughed.” You know.

**Mike:** I can’t believe someone laughed.

**John:** Your reaction is more important than his reaction was.

**Craig:** Absolutely. And it was great that it wasn’t like [loud laughter], you know, it was just one guy going, ha! [laughs] And you’re like, huh.

**Mike:** The guy laughing is our producer, Jacob Jaffke. He’s the audience member.

**Craig:** Yeah, he’s kind of just slouching.

**Mike:** Yeah, it was a great moment.

**Craig:** Yeah, it was very smartly done.

I have sort of a question that’s more about your style of comedy.

**Mike:** Sure.

**Craig:** Partly it feels modern to me because it is confessional. And I think there is a spirit of confession in modern comedy, you see it with Louis C.K., and you see it with Patton Oswalt. And you see it with a lot of guys.

**John:** We see it with Lena Dunham. You see it with —

**Craig:** Absolutely. Yeah.

**John:** Or, were you talking about this on stage?

**Craig:** I’m talking about on stage. And it’s not like that that’s new because Richard Pryor was doing it, too, but it’s very au courant. But you’re also very old fashioned actually in a way. You don’t curse in your act, so very kind of Seinfeld in that regard, or Cosby. And like Cosby, there’s a craft. You’re not winging it. But you’re not delivering something that feels over-workshopped or stale either.

Where do you see yourself sitting kind of in the continuum of comedy?

**Mike:** It’s funny you should say that because my new tour, which if people are interested in seeing me, for exact time/tour dates, you can see thirty cities, it’s going to be 100 cities, which is like I haven’t really told people.

**Craig:** Oh, we’re breaking news. Nice.

**Mike:** Yeah, breaking news. And it’s called Thank God for Jokes. And it’s all about what jokes mean to me. And I think what they mean to everyone. Which is to say that I feel like the moments in my life where I felt closest to anyone, to my family, to my wife, to my friends is when we share jokes.

And I feel like culturally we’re not really allowed to tell jokes at work. We’re not really allowed to tell jokes to strangers. You can do it, but there’s a real risk to it. And I think that the reward of comedy is worth the risk, like taking a chance and making a joke with someone actually payoff in this way that’s kind of amazing.

**Craig:** Right.

**Mike:** And makes you feel really close to people. And I actually talk about cursing in the show because I have four albums out there at this point and none of them have curses on them, none of them have explicit lyrics. And the reason is — I’m not proud of this reason, but it’s true — is that when I started doing comedy my mom was so ashamed that I was doing it that she said, “Just don’t become one of those dirty comedians.”

**Craig:** Ooh.

**Mike:** And I said okay.

**John:** Oh little Mike.

**Mike:** She goes, “You don’t have to use words like that. I mean, for example, Oprah is very funny.” And I was like —

**Craig:** Hysterical. [laughs]

**Mike:** So be kind of Oprah.

**John:** You need to be more like Oprah.

**Craig:** You are almost as funny as Oprah.

**Mike:** Yeah, I’m working on it. But so I didn’t curse.

And then oddly it ended up being this really good turn in my writing because even if you think about, you don’t want to really as a writer say any word 75 times more than another word. If I walked on stage and said “avocado” 75 times in an hour, after awhile people would be like, “This guy talks about avocados a lot. Is he selling us guacamole?”

And it ended up being a really good thing. In this new show I do curse a few times, but it’s with real purpose. And so, yeah.

**John:** So, this new show, is it more like standup, or is it more like a one-man show?

**Mike:** Right now it is standup. The way my shows have evolved over the years is by the time I film it it probably will have more of an arc to it. I have in mind an arc, but I want to let it evolve.

**John:** Well, let’s talk about what else you’re going to be doing because you said you’re working on two screenplays, so these are things for yourself to direct or things for other people?

**Mike:** Those are two films for myself to direct and I think in one of them I play a big part and one I play an ensemble part. And it’s really funny because a lot of times people go, “Who are you writing them for?” And I’m like, “I’m writing them for me.”

I feel like it’s almost old Hollywood in a way to say, to brag and say I’m writing this for New Line. It’s like I feel bad when people say stuff like that. I’m like, “Oh, too bad about you.”

**Craig:** Yeah.

**Mike:** How’s that going to get ruined.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** That’s my life. Okay.

**Mike:** I’m sorry!

**John:** And do you see yourself sticking to films? Are you going to try to do some television? If I were a television executive I would say, “Well, let’s give him a show.”

**Mike:** I feel like, and I get that phone call quite a bit, more than one would think, and I don’t want to do that. Because I don’t think I have a lot to contribute to television and I feel like — I look at Louis and Lena and I just go, “You guys got it. You’re doing it. Way to go.” And I just don’t think that I have much to add to that conversation. But I think in film I — I think you got to do what you love. I love films. I feel like that’s why I like the podcast so much because you guys do, too.

There’s something about that 90 minute to two-hour experience that you cannot compare to anything.

**Craig:** And one story that resolves that exists in its own space. I’m with you. That’s always been, you know, that’s what I… — I mean, I talk about television all the time with people and I don’t, I think that’s the best way you just put it. That’s what I’m going to start saying instead of, “Uh…” which is my usual answer. I can just say, “I don’t think I have anything to add to that conversation.” That’s exactly right.

I think in terms of — and you clearly do as well, which is interesting, because standup comedy is very segmented. It’s serialized. And you can see how somebody like Jerry Seinfeld was able to just serialize it. But you really do tell encapsulated stories with conclusions. So, it makes total sense.

There’s something, you know, you said you love movies. And you seem like a very positive person, which I love, and when I was watching your movie there’s that scene where you talk to that other comedian and he’s so pissed off.

**Mike:** Yeah. Marc Maron plays the character, Marc Mulheren.

**Craig:** Well, no, not Marc Maron.

**Mike:** Oh, Alex Karpovsky plays the guy, yeah.

**Craig:** Marc Maron actually was very kind of avuncular. I liked his spin. He was sort of like, “Hey kid, it’ll get better. Now let me go bang this chick.”

Why, I think as somebody that works in comedy but would just be terrified to do what you do, to go on stage and do this, it seems so hard and it seems so raw and vulnerable. Why are comedians so mean to each other?

**Mike:** [laughs]

**Craig:** Can’t they just love each other?

**John:** Are they mean to each other? Or is that just one perception?

**Mike:** I think Craig’s right. I’ve been doing, at UCB Theater in New York, I’ve been recently doing an improv show. I was in an improv group in college actually with Nick Kroll who is another actor.

**Craig:** Yeah, funny guy.

**Mike:** Yeah. And I’ve been doing this show in New York called Mike Birbiglia’s dream. It’s a long form improv show with Chris Gethard who is super talented. And sometimes Vanessa Bayer does it, and Aidy Bryant, and Christina Gausas, and Tami Sagher, and all these really great people. And I love the camaraderie of it. That’s why I do it.

With standup comics, a little less camaraderie there. It’s a little bit — I don’t know, it’s a little bit of a Rat Packy thing. People break each other’s balls a lot.

**Craig:** Sure. But that’s different. I sense that there’s a —

**Mike:** Yeah. But I agree with you. I don’t know what to say about it. I think it’s a very lone wolf profession.

**John:** Yeah, is it because of the lifestyle? Is it because of the touring and because you’re always on your own and you don’t have your own group?

**Mike:** Yeah. I think you spend a lot of time alone and there’s just, I don’t know.

**Craig:** There’s that sense that people are clawing for some diminishing resource that’s being dangled in front of them, you know, when in the movie he says, “All my friends, they’re hacks and they’re getting sitcoms.” You know, that idea that there’s some closing window of success.

**Mike:** Yeah, I agree. And I think on your episode about positive moviegoing, the title of the episode Positive Moviegoing, I really liked how you guys were talking about screenwriters want other screenwriters to do well.

**Craig:** Largely. [laughs]

**Mike:** For the most part.

**Craig:** Yes.

**Mike:** Cinephiles, I mean, I consider myself just a lover of movies. I just want movies to be great. Like this year, I love Spectacular Now, and Frances Ha, and I love Gravity. You know, and those are three very different types of films. And I loved that they were all made. And I want more made. I want more great movies.

**Craig:** Yeah, screenwriters, maybe it’s because it’s not us, it’s our work. We write screenplays, we hand them over. They’re made. We make them sometimes. But you guys, it’s you, it’s your faces. It’s your voices. And it becomes very personal. I could see that where it’s sort of like, okay, if John hands me a script or I hand him a script and we go back and help each other and say, “Well what about this? What about this?” That’s about the work.

If John walks off a stage and I’m like, “No, no, no. Your face — your hands, what are your hands doing buddy?”

**John:** Yeah, everything is wrong. Let’s talk about from the perspective of a 20-year-old college kid listening to this right now. And so he’s like, “I want to do what Mike Birbiglia is doing, that thing where I’m writing for myself and performing stuff.” How would that kid get started? What’s the roadmap for him or her?

**Craig:** Sleep disorder. [laughs]

**John:** Figure out what your biggest, strangest tick is and really dwell on that.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**Mike:** It is a really hard thing to say. And I think, I’m sure you guys have this with screenwriters all the time where it’s like, so I always feel like saying, “So the path is there is no path. And I’m sorry about that.” And you have to figure out what it is by studying what other people’s paths are. There’s tons of books on it. There’s this podcast. I would honestly say listen to every episode of this podcast to people who are aspiring writers. It is a wealth of information and it’s free.

**Craig:** There’s our promo. There it is. [laughs]

**Mike:** It is really a service. And what writing comes down to, being a performer, too, a writer-performer is you have to write and you have to perform. And that means you have to write anything and you need to perform anywhere. And because it’s about the ten thousand hours that Malcolm Gladwell talks about. You have to get on the stage for ten thousand hours. You have to write for ten thousand hours.

**Craig:** You drove around from town to town. I mean, that happens.

**Mike:** I hosted lip sync contests. I performed in the center of a walkathon for lupus in a gymnasium, you know. I mean, these are real life stories. This is still my life. I mean, I get booked at corporate events where I’m performing for bankers. And I have to do it. And, like, it sucks. It’s not fun. But it’s part of my job.

**Craig:** You should open with that. “This sucks.”

**John:** “I resent being here.”

**Mike:** This isn’t fun!

**Craig:** Yeah. “This is not fun. It’s part of a job. But you guys understand what it’s like to do something that sucks, that’s not fun. You work for AT&T.”

**John:** Yeah. And in about two hours I’m no longer working for AT&T and you’re still stuck working for AT&T.

**Mike:** You guys are really good at this.

**Craig:** I can’t believe that half of you haven’t killed yourselves by now.

**Mike:** You guys are coming up with great ways to not get the check afterwards.

**Craig:** We’re really good at that.

**John:** That’s how it works. But what you’re saying in general is what we kind of say on the podcast about screenwriting in general. There’s no one path that sort of goes through it. And so you can’t get started until you get started. And you have to write. And in this case of performing, you have to find places to perform. And whatever those places are you have to do it. And just make that leap and trust that you’re not going to — you will fall on your face, and that’s okay.

**Mike:** Yeah. I remember in Washington, DC when I was starting out, I would go — there were not — this is in the late ’90s, there were not standup comedy open mics. I would go to music open mics and I would sign up. And then they would say my name and I would walk up and I would do standup comedy. No one is expecting standup comedy.

**Craig:** Right. The guy says, “Um, that was a comedian.” [laughs]

**Mike:** And a lot of times it’s pushing a square peg into a round hole, or whatever that expression is, and it sucks.

**John:** People always forget that Lena Dunham made two movies before she made Tiny Furniture.

**Mike:** Yes.

**John:** And so she just started. And she didn’t ask for permission. She just went and did it.

**Craig:** Well, you know, people ask us how do you get started, how do you break in, da, da, da, tell me how you…

And I’ve done it. We’ve done it. We’ve both told the “how we got started” story. But always with the caveat this could have only happened to me.

**Mike:** That’s right.

**Craig:** There’s no one else that could possibly succeed following the Mike Birbiglia plan. Not possible. Even if you replicated all of it and jumped out of a window, you can’t do it. The only thing that we individually have to offer is what’s unique to ourselves, which means that we’re going to all start differently.

The only thing I see that is common throughout all these stories, other than some — hopefully some — level of talent and some level of drive, is honesty with one’s self.

**Mike:** I agree.

**Craig:** I just don’t know how delusional people can make it. And there’s a lot of delusional people out there who substitute delusional confidence for substance.

**Mike:** I always say that when I go back to the screenwriting class, I studied under this guy, John Glavin, taught me screenwriting in college. And whenever I go back I always say as a writer all you have to give is yourself.

**Craig:** That’s it. That’s all you’ve got.

**Mike:** And if you’re not willing to give yourself, go home.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Cool.

It’s time for One Cool Things. Did you come prepared for the One Cool Thing? You can take a pause while we —

**Mike:** Yeah, I can pause. I’m going to pause.

**Craig:** I got to pull mine up on my thing here, because I wrote it down in my thing.

**Mike:** I want to do the one that you guys did a few things ago, like Knock Knock, where you knock your phone.

**Craig:** Oh yeah. That’s great. I use it all the time.

**Mike:** That’s so cool.

**Craig:** It seems like it might have updated.

**John:** It did update.

**Craig:** It’s getting much, much better. They must have listened to me.

**John:** They listened to Craig complain about it enough.

**Craig:** They must have listened to the center of the world. Yup.

**John:** So, while Craig and Mike are figuring out their One Cool Things, I will tell you my One Cool Thing is actually a podcast One Cool Thing is that we finally have an app for Scriptnotes.

**Mike:** Oh, great news.

**Craig:** What?!

**John:** I sent you the link to this and you didn’t even open it.

**Craig:** No you didn’t. You totally did not send me the link to this.

**John:** Okay. Well, I’ll show it to you on my phone.

**Craig:** How dare you make an app and not tell me.

**John:** So, there’s now an app. The whole reason why we switched to our library over from where we were hosting to this new thing which was complicated was because there was this hope of being able to offer an app so people could listen to all the back episodes and all the episodes we’ve done on one handy app.

So, if you are listening to us on iTunes, that will continue to work great, and our last 20 episodes will always be free for people to listen to and that’s great. If you have the USB drive and want to buy the USB drive with the first 100, that’s always an option.

But what the Scriptnotes App lets you do, it’s available for iOS, for your iPhone and for Android, it lets you listen to any of the episodes of the show. And if you want to listen to those early episodes there’s a monthly subscription which is — we’ve already talked about the monthly subscription.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** But it’s $1.99 a month and it lets you listen to any episode from anywhere back. The Netflix model of all you can eat. So, if you want to subscribe for a month and listen to 100 episodes and then cancel, that is absolutely welcome. And you can do that.

**Craig:** Does this charge recur?

**John:** The charge recurs.

**Craig:** Oh, so we’re like porn now?

**John:** We are basically.

**Craig:** Oh, well, it’s worked for them.

**John:** It’s worked great for them. So, cancel after a month if you have caught up and don’t want to listen to more.

**Craig:** No one is going to cancel.

**John:** No one is going to cancel.

**Craig:** They’re going to find these $2 charges on Grandma Tilly’s bill in 2070. And I love it.

**John:** So, if you would like the Scriptnotes App it is available right now in the iPhone App Store.

**Craig:** I’m so excited. The best thing about doing the podcast with John is that I know no more about what’s happening than anyone else listening.

**John:** So, Craig, you will check your email and you’ll see it’s there. So, this is what the little app looks like.

**Craig:** Yeah, I’m going to check my email. You totally didn’t send that to me. You totally did not.

**John:** I totally did.

**Craig:** You totally didn’t.

**John:** And so here’s all our episodes.

**Craig:** What?! Oh, come on, that’s awesome.

**John:** So, it looks a little iOS 6-y because it’s actually the Libsyn people who do most of the podcasts in the world. It’s really their app with our sort of content in it. So, it doesn’t look as good as Ryan Nelson, our own programmer had done himself, but it works. So, it’s there for you and it’s available on iOS and even on Android because we don’t want to be just —

**Craig:** Snobby.

**John:** Snobby Apple people. So, that’s my One Cool Thing.

**Craig:** All right. That’s pretty freaking awesome.

**Mike:** I got one.

**Craig:** All right. Let’s hear it.

**Mike:** Well, actually I did a really small part in this film this fall called The Fault in Our Stars. And it’s with Shailene Woodley and a bunch of really great actors. But the cool thing is it’s based on a YA novel by John Green of the same name, The Fault in Our Stars. And I guess, I have to say before I read it I had never read a YA genre book, because I thought it wasn’t for me. But it’s like this really compelling book about these two kids who have cancer and they fall in love in the cancer support group. And it’s about their journey.

And I just think it’s one of the best books I’ve read in years. It’s really touching. For any age.

**Craig:** YA novels are actually — one of the things I love about that genre is that they are still dedicated to storytelling, to proper storytelling.

**Mike:** Yeah.

**Craig:** They don’t need to soak you in a —

**John:** Wild conspiracies. The Dan Browns of the world.

**Craig:** Or just confuse me. You know, like a DeLillo novel. You’re confused, you know, or Pynchon. They’re not aspiring to that. They’re just trying to tell a good story. And there is something nice about a good well crafted piece of mainstream narrative.

I remember reading the Hunger Games books, and I struggle sometimes reading first person books, but I was like these are really well put together. So, all right, that is cool.

This is kind of a One Cool Thing in advance of Christmas because people are looking for gift ideas. And I try not to put things that are like super expensive, but this is kind of like $300.

**John:** That’s expensive.

**Craig:** It’s expensive. Okay, so it’s $300. All right. But it’s Christmas.

**Mike:** Okay, yeah. So, maybe your one gift.

**Craig:** I love karaoke. I love singing. I love karaoke. But the home karaoke modules and things —

**John:** Are terrible.

**Craig:** They’re terrible.

**John:** You shouldn’t use those.

**Craig:** They’re awful. Until…there’s this new thing now called Singtrix. And it’s pretty cool looking because basically they have a pretty good speaker and then they have this module that lets you actually properly affect your voice. You can add some reverb, or this or that, and they’ve broken out also the different parts of the music so that you can adjust it and make it sound good, so it doesn’t sound terrible. And then their library is enormous, but it’s based on, it’s through an app.

So, then you mount your iPad there. It comes with your microphone. And if your family or your friends love karaoke, and you have $300, you have more money than sense, Singtrix!

**Mike:** Singtrix.

**John:** The model of this, is it a razor and blades model? Are they charging your per song also?

**Craig:** No. I believe that you have access to their library as part of your purchase of the $300 exorbitantly expensive Singtrix.

**Mike:** But that could be for the whole family.

**Craig:** That is in fact for the whole — so that is a gift that the family got for itself that really is just about the one person in the house that wants it, imposing it upon everyone else, and then angrily insisting that they will enjoy it, which is what will happen in my house with me, explaining to my kids.

**John:** “No, it’s your turn to sing a song. You will sing the song.”

**Craig:** “I said we would do things together as a family which means you’re all going to sit there and listen to me do something for myself.”

**Mike:** [as Craig] You will sing the song!

[as John] I think that you should sing the song.

That’s John.

**Craig:** Yeah. Sing it!

**Mike:** [as John] I think that you should sing the song.

**Craig:** Just sing it.

**Mike:** [as John] Well why not sing the song.

**Craig:** Ugh, sing it already.

**John:** There’s nothing better than when you sort of force your kid to like play a board game as a family and like they resent every role of the dice.

**Craig:** Any time a parent says to a child, “We’re going to do something together as a family,” the child knows they’re about to do something they don’t want to do.

**Mike:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Nothing is more anti-family than family activities.

**John:** Except half an hour into it they’re totally enjoying it and you can remind them, by the way, you did not want to do this.

**Craig:** You’re the worst dad ever. That is the move you should never do. “By the way, if you go back a half an hour ago you will see that you were acting like an asshole.”

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And then you’ve lost them again.

**John:** Noted.

**Mike:** I also want to say, I know this doesn’t count as my One Cool Thing, but my friend Mike Lavoie who was a producer on Sleepwalk with Me and worked with me for many years, like seven or eight years, introduced me to your website many years ago. He was the one who introduced me to it. And so I want to say hi to him.

**John:** Very nice.

**Craig:** A little shout out.

**John:** A little shout out. Mike, I am so glad you came in here.

**Mike:** That was awesome.

**John:** You’re a fantastic guest on our show. For like a damn near stranger, I can’t believe how well this —

**Craig:** He’s a super fan.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** A super fan.

**Mike:** Avid listener.

**John:** And that helps. It does help a lot.

**Craig:** Writer, director, actor.

**John:** But talk about things we didn’t even know about, the performance stuff, the standup stuff. It was great.

**Mike:** It was all the insecurity I had as we were going through is that people will go, “They’re assuming as they talk about it that we like his movie, too, and we hate it.”

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Oh, you mean the people at home listening?

**Mike:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** Oh, yeah, they may very well hate it.

**Mike:** Yes. So, if you are writing in the comments, don’t write like, “Hey, by the way, I hate it.” We know. I know you exist. You don’t have to write about that.

**Craig:** Yes, we’re aware that some of you out there. No, if you hate this movie —

**Mike:** Then maybe it doesn’t apply to you.

**Craig:** Yeah. And also I hate you. Stop listening.

**Mike:** [laughs]

**John:** Thank you all so much and join us again next week. Oh, we should do our normal boilerplate here at the end. So, if you have questions for me, or for Craig, or for Mike Birbiglia, we’re all on Twitter. I’m @johnaugust.

**Craig:** I’m @clmazin.

**Mike:** I’m @birbigs.

**John:** And @birbigs would be a great place for you to find out more information about his upcoming tour and for new dates. You’re going to see him all over your television on various talk shows as well, so tune in for those.

**Craig:** Yeah, lesser shows than this, like Conan.

**John:** But while you’re on iTunes leaving us a comment about our show, you should also check out his movies and specials and comedy albums.

**Mike:** Yeah. Sleepwalk with Me. My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend.

**John:** They’re both there as movies and then also your albums are there as well.

**Craig:** Buy all of it. Just buy all of it.

**John:** Just buy it. Don’t think about it.

**Craig:** Don’t bust my chops over here. Just buy everything.

**John:** Buy it all.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Cool. Great. Thanks Mike.

**Craig:** Thanks guys.

LINKS

* Write in and [tell us if we’re wrong](mailto:ask@johnaugust.com)
* [Mike Birbiglia](http://birbigs.com/), and on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Birbiglia), [IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1898126/), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/birbigs) and [iTunes](https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/mike-birbiglia/id25234092)
* The Tricky Part [write up in The New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/nyregion/a-map-of-the-soul-combines-two-one-man-shows.html?_r=0), and in book form [on Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0307276538/?tag=johnaugustcom-20)
* Use [BroadwayBox.com](http://www.broadwaybox.com/) to find discounted shows in New York
* Download the Scriptnotes app now for [iOS](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scriptnotes/id739117984?mt=8) and [Android](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.johnaugust.android.scriptnotes) devices
* [The Fault in Our Stars](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0525478817/?tag=johnaugustcom-20) by John Green
* [Singtrix](http://www.singtrix.com/) home karaoke
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Scriptnotes listener Cole Parzenn