Scriptnotes Transcript

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2013/50-random-questions).

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

**Craig Mazin:** Mera naam hai Craig Mazin.

**John:** And this is Episode 90 of Scriptnotes, a podcast this week not so much about screenwriting, but things that could be interesting to screenwriters.

Craig, how are you?

**Craig:** I’m fine. I have to tell you that I just spoke Hindi and you didn’t even — you didn’t care.

**John:** Yeah. I just accept that you’re going to do weird things every week, so I just…

**Craig:** I spoke Hindi, per a listener’s request.

**John:** That’s pretty great.

**Craig:** Yeah! I feel good about it.

**John:** You should feel good about it.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**John:** I’m sorry. I should acknowledge when you jump out of your comfort zone.

**Craig:** [laughs] Because it doesn’t happen very frequently.

**John:** I should tell listeners that I offered to let you actually do the intro today, and you said, “No, no, no.” And now I know the reason why you didn’t want to do the whole intro is because you’d already practiced how you were going to do your Hindi for just your one thing. And that’s why you didn’t want to do the whole “Welcome to Scriptnotes.”

**Craig:** Allow me to embarrass myself. I didn’t even think that through.

**John:** Okay. [laughs]

**Craig:** [laughs] I really just think, you’re right, I mean, in retrospect that’s a good point. But more than anything I’m just becoming Rain Man-ish, and I don’t like change.

**John:** Yes. So, last night I hosted this thing at The Academy and it was tremendously fun. And we had like a thousand people there, which was great and nuts, and so I want to thank everyone for coming.

**Craig:** Awesome.

**John:** People came up afterwards. But, it struck me — I knew I would need to start off the evening, and I just wanted to get through the first three sentences without messing up. And so I was going to start like, “Hello and good evening on behalf — my name is John August — on behalf of The Academy it is my pleasure to welcome you.”

But because I always start the podcast as, “Hello and welcome,” it was so hard to break myself of that. And so before I was going up on stage I was just in a loop going, “Hello and good evening. Hello and good evening. Hello and good evening.” But I got through it!

**Craig:** You got through it, buddy. I’m super proud of you.

**John:** Oh, thank you so much. And it made me think about our live episodes of Scriptnotes coming up this summer and how excited I am about those.

The one for the Writers Guild Foundation is a lock. And that is definitely going to happen. The second one in July, dates could be shifting a little bit, but there’s going to be something in July to celebrate our hundredth anniversary. So, I look forward to seeing more of our people in person then.

**Craig:** Yes, our people.

**John:** Our people.

**Craig:** Come to us, our people.

**John:** Craig, you had two items for the agenda before we get to all of these great questions that listeners have submitted. So, let’s talk through the agenda items first.

**Craig:** Yeah, real quick, because we have so much to talk about today. So many questions to answer. Two topics. One, Zach Braff redux. And, two, what’s going on with E! and the Fashion Police strike.

So, real quick on Zach Braff. There was kind of a weird thing that happened over the last couple of days where The Hollywood Reporter basically said, “Hey look, this other film financier came in and gave him a whole big bunch of money, like another $8 million or whatever.” So, he is, according to that article, he is funding his movie with traditional funding and all of you people that gave him $2 million, why? Why would you have done that?

Turns out that’s not exactly the case. Really what’s going on is that it’s gap financing. And Zach Braff had always said in his Kickstarter, “Look, I’m going to fund this movie through Kickstarter and foreign presales.” And foreign presales kind of work in such a way that you sell the movie to people before you make it based on who’s in it. And they say, “Okay, we’ll buy it for this.”

But you need to make the movie now. That’s money is not showing up for awhile. So, these gap financiers come in and say, “We’ll loan you that money, because we have the collateral of all these people who have agreed to pay you the money.” And so that’s kind of how that works.

However, I should just add, I don’t think people really understood how foreign financing presales work and, frankly, the truth is even though he told you this from the start, he was really saying, “Look, I’m going to finance this movie half traditionally for people that get something for what they give, and half not traditionally — you get nothing for what you give.” So, I’m not surprised that people are confused. This is going to come up and up again.

**John:** I didn’t follow it all that closely, but it seemed like there was backlash. And there was backlash-backlash, and it just becomes this big cycle of whatever. It’s very common — what you’re talking about with gap financing — is actually very, very common. It’s how a lot of indies get made. And so there’s nothing wrong with that. It just gets swirled into all of this crowd sourced excitement and enthusiasm and it just becomes weird.

So, I can understand everyone’s perspective on why they’re frustrated.

**Craig:** Right. Normally this isn’t an issue because films are financed by financiers who are in it for profit and not for joy and pro-social activity. Now, we’ve kind of — it’s a strange thing to fund an enterprise with both charity and traditional profit investment.

**John:** Now, while I know almost nothing about the Zach Braff situation, I know even less about this E! Fashion Police thing, so catch me up to speed on that.

**Craig:** So, Fashion Police, I don’t know if you ever watch it.

**John:** No. I don’t. I never actually turn on E! — like for years I haven’t seen E!. So, tell me about it. It’s a Joan Rivers show?

**Craig:** It’s a Joan Rivers show. So, it’s a panel show, Joan Rivers, and Kelly Osbourne, and a very thin woman, and a very funny fashion guy, they critique red carpet fashion. And it’s just a super gay catty show and it’s really, really funny. My wife watches it religiously, so I kind of absorb it. You know, she has her thing of Fashion Police and then The Soup. And it’s actually really, really funny. I mean, Joan Rivers is still super, duper funny.

But, the problem is that the writers of that show just haven’t been paid very well. And they essentially want to be unionized. They want it to be a WGA show. A lot of them are WGA writers, which kind of drives me crazy a little bit, because if you’re a WGA writer you’re not allowed to write on shows that are not WGA shows if there is a contract that exists to cover that show, or that could cover it. You know what I mean?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** It’s one of our rules. And it kind of makes me nuts, but I guess it’s so widespread you can’t do anything about it. Long story short, they walked off and basically said, “Look, we want a union deal.”

And E! said, “Um, yeah, listen, um, all you have to is vote. If you just have an official union election governed by the NLRB then we’ll let you be WGA.”

And I just wanted to tell people following along at home, if you’ve read that, that’s basically baloney. The deal is the writers have already expressed that they want t be union. The great majority of them want to be union. E! has the ability to just say, “Oh, okay, you all want to be union, or a great majority of you want to be union. Poof. Let’s just start negotiating a union deal.”

The reason they’re insisting on an official NLRB election process is because that drags it out, it gives them a lot more control over the process. They have the potential to try and fire some people, even though that’s illegal they do it all the time. They also have the ability to put a lot of pressure on the writers to not vote. They get a chance to make their case very strongly. It’s essentially a union-busty kind of thing.

But the fact is all they have to do, when they’re like, “Just vote.” They don’t need to vote. Everybody that understands how unions work knows what they’re doing, so anyway, what I’m really saying is, hey, E!, come on. They want to be Writers Guild. It’s the right thing to do. It’s a funny show. I’m sure you guys make a lot of money on it. Please, just come on.

**John:** Yeah. In previous situations we’ve talked about reality shows and it’s a question of like is that really writing, what are they really doing, and there was a whole controversy when the WGA was trying to cover these shows. There was a real question of is that the kind of thing that should really be covered.

But here, this is writing…

**Craig:** Oh, clearly.

**John:** You’re writing material that’s being performed on the show.

**Craig:** Yeah, it’s a comedy variety show. So, come on, E!. Enough with the, “Oh, we need an election.” Gee, golly, if only they would just vote.” Yeah, come on, please. Too smart for you.

Okay. So, those were my follow ups.

**John:** Hooray. My only bit of news that I will launch before we go into our big questions is Highland Version 1.0.2 is in the Mac App Store right now, so if people are using Highland they can download the new version. The new version has a really cool way of making things uppercase. You can hit shift-return and it makes that line uppercase, which is incredibly useful in Fountain.

And it has lyrics, because I needed people to sing. So, this is completely scratching my own itch. I needed lyrics, and now there are lyrics.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** Hooray.

**Craig:** Fantastic.

**John:** But our podcast today, I’m so excited, is all about things other than screenwriting. That will be the last screenwriting thing we’ll mention today, because for now on it’s just John and Craig talking about stuff we are probably not really qualified to talk about, but we’re going to talk about anyway. We’re going to answer these questions.

**Craig:** Yeah!

**John:** So, people wrote in. We had 90 questions or something. We had a tremendous amount of questions. We culled the list down a little bit. People wrote in at ask@johnaugust.com. They sent us Twitter questions. They went on our Facebook page and asked questions. So, let’s hit it.

**Craig:** Let’s do it.

**John:** Maybe we’ll alternate, so I’ll start with the first question which is from a guy named Jason. “If I someday have the opportunity to be uploaded into a robot body, should I do it?”

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** I say yes also. And, obviously, the topic of mortality and sort of what it means to be alive are valid questions. They’re good philosophical questions. They’re good questions for a movie. But, if I had the opportunity to like not die, and be a robot, I’m okay with that.

**Craig:** Yeah. You definitely want to do this, because you are just your brain. I’m assuming when you say “uploaded into” you mean your brain as exists uploaded in.

I’ve often wondered what happens if — I guess it doesn’t matter — you upload your brain, you make a copy of your brain into a robot. Now, you and your robot friend are kind of in that moment the same, but now it’s just that your robot friend who is you just diverges from that point because of their different experiences.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** But, it would be fun to know that person.

**John:** It’s like the software has forked and it’s gone in different directions. It comes down to the question of software and hardware. And is the person the hardware, is the person the software? I am a software person. I think the person is the code that’s running. And if that code can run without your physical body, I’m cool with that.

**Craig:** Totally. Now, the key for me is if you upload me into robot body, I kind of actually want you to kill my other self. [laughs] Because there can only be one.

Next question. Do we say who wrote in, or no?

**John:** Yes, we’ll say the person, but not the last name. But you can say Vancouver.

**Craig:** Yeah, Sarah in Vancouver. “This year I decided to stop coloring my hair and let my natural dusky silver grow in. Seeing as you’re both the same vintage as me, and the kind of men I’d be attracted to…”

**John:** Mmm.

**Craig:** Oh, hmmm…”I’m wondering what your thoughts are on the attractiveness and sex appeal of women with gray hair. I seem to be the only one excited about being natural again. People either find it amusing or disturbing. Am I alone out here? What should I do?”

**John:** Yeah. She didn’t include a photo, so we don’t know whether she’s a woman who looks amazing with gray or silver hair.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Look, I think natural can be awesome. And I think if you like being natural the way your hair is, that’s great. The most important thing about being attractive is being confident. And if being natural gives you confidence there, that’s terrific.

**Craig:** Yeah. I basically agree. I mean, definitely what happens is your physical appearance is the thing that kind of starts the ball rolling with men, but those of us who are into women, a lot of it then is what happens after. So much of it is what happens after. What happens when you open your mouth and you start talking? Are you interesting? Are you fascinating? Are you funny? Are you cool?

It’s a fact that biologically men are programmed to be attracted to youth. It just comes down to the whole spread your genetic material around pregnancy, animal behavior theory of sex and sexual attraction. So, it will probably stop a few guys in their tracks. It may make it a little more difficult for some guys.

But, you know, whatever. Who cares? If you’re cool and you’re awesome, I don’t really think it’s going to stop anyone.

**John:** I would agree. Next question comes from Ben in San Angelo, Texas. “If you had to start from scratch, let’s say your current mind got zapped to your teenage body, would you do it all over again?”

**Craig:** Interesting theme that keeps emerging. Well, yeah, I would do it all over again because I love my life, and I love all of it, even the parts that are terrible.

**John:** Yeah. I thought about this a lot. And if I could go back and sort of do junior high and high school, all that stuff over again, I would because there was stuff I definitely enjoyed, but there is stuff I know I would enjoy differently knowing what I know now.

**Craig:** Oh, wait, you know what you know now?

**John:** Yeah. That’s the trick of the question — do you get to take your current experience with you back to the past?

**Craig:** Oh, no, I don’t want to do that. I just want to basically do everything that’s happened already again. I want to rewatch the episode.

**John:** Yeah, I don’t know that I want to do everything that’s happened again. I mean, I’ve had…

**Craig:** So, you don’t want to meet Mike? You’re going to meet some other guy. You might not have a kid. You get run over, [laughs], by a cart.

**John:** Yeah. There’s a Sliding Doors quality of like if you got to live your life again would stuff necessarily turn out better for having the information. Maybe not.

**Craig:** All right.

**John:** All right. Cool.

**Craig:** So, finally a difference there. Justin from Arlington, Virginia with a great question. “Croissant, English muffin, or biscuit?”

**John:** I think they’re all excellent choices. I can enjoy any one of those things. I find that a great biscuit at the right moment with a little butter, a little honey, there’s maybe nothing better.

**Craig:** I find biscuits to be big handfuls of glue and croissants are too greasy for me. I’m an English muffin guy.

**John:** English muffin for a hamburger, by the way, a fantastic choice.

**Craig:** Yeah, I do it all the time. Whole wheat English muffin. Hard to beat.

**John:** Ed writes, this is a question for you, “What E-cigarette brand do you recommend? Any cons to e-cigging?”

**Craig:** Interesting that this question comes up because I quit smoking those things.

**John:** I’m so glad, Craig.

**Craig:** You know, you don’t have to be that glad. It’s not that big of a deal, although I have to say it’s — ugh, quitting nicotine is the worst. What it does to your brain? Ugh, anyway. It’s been a weird week. You can imagine.

So, look, what I recommend is just not starting, but if you’re smoking regular cigarettes, definitely. And you don’t want to deal with cold turkey. Definitely switching over to e-cigarettes is good. I recommend just generically using the Boge Cartomizer. That’s B-O-G-E.

And you can get standard — there are these standard batteries. I can’t remember the model number, but they’re sort of skinny black batteries with either blue or red tips at the end. If you go to — there’s a cool website called Cignot. Cignot.com. They sell all that stuff.

And then in terms of the liquid, I recommend Johnson Creek because they are made here and it is actually looked over by people that seem to care as opposed to, I don’t know, a Chinese factory somewhere just dumping spare melamine and liquid lead into a vat. [laughs]

Yeah, the cons of e-cigging: incredibly addictive and when you quit those it will suck.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Did I tell you that we were at Disneyland, and so we were on the Silly Symphony which is those swings that spin around? There’s never a line because it’s never actually all that fun.

**Craig:** I know those, yeah.

**John:** But my kid likes it. So, there’s this woman in front of me and she had something glowing in her hand. I’m like, oh my god, she has an eCig and she’s like using her eCig while she’s on that swing.

**Craig:** Cool lady. I mean, she just doesn’t care. [crosstalk] Yeah, I like it.

Here’s a question for you, [laughs], from…

**John:** I think it’s really a question for you.

**Craig:** I know, it’s really a question for both of us, I think. It’s from our friend TS and he wants to know, “Should I seduce a married man?”

I’m pretty sure we have the same answer.

**John:** I would say probably not.

**Craig:** No. No.

**John:** Yeah, here’s the question — are you wrong to go into, not knowing what somebody’s marital situation is. You know, somebody could be married but they could be separated, or they could have an open relationship. There could be reasons why you’re not a terrible person for going into that situation. You’re not a morally terrible person.

Are you going to be emotionally hurt trying to seduce a married man? Yeah, very likely. So, I think you’re better off sticking with people who are actually available.

**Craig:** Yeah, it’s the word “seduce” that’s the problem.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** I mean, “sleep with,” if the guy is living a closeted life and he’s into you, whatever. But “seduce” is sort of, that’s a tougher one.

**John:** Yeah. Should you seduce anyone? Well, yeah, I guess you can seduce a single person.

**Craig:** Yeah, no of course. Yeah, sure. But seducing married people is kind of — don’t do that.

**John:** Yeah. It’s kind of crappy.

**Craig:** That’s not nice.

**John:** Clint asks, “I’m considering replacing my lawn with Buffalo grass. If memory serves, John August made the change a while back. How is that working out? Is it worth the expense and effort? Anything you’d do differently?”

So, yes, and I’m actually looking at the Buffalo grass that is growing in our backyard right at this moment. And it was pretty good.

So, the deal with Buffalo grass is unlike normal grass where you can put out a seed or you can roll out the big long strips of it, Buffalo grass actually has much, much deeper roots, and so you have to plant little plugs. It’s sort of like you are getting a hair transplant and they’re putting those little plugs into the dirt.

And that’s a hassle and it just took a tremendous amount of work. And the crows came after the plugs and pulled them out, so we had to scare away the crows and redo it. But, once it grew in it’s been really, really solid. And you kind of don’t have to water it much at all. And it looks pretty good. So, I would do it again.

We used UC Verde Buffalo Grass. It was the type that they figured it… It was the UC System that studied all the kinds of Buffalo grass and this is the one that actually works well on lawns.

It’s been really solid. And if you have dogs or cats or whatever, they won’t burn holes in the lawn they way they can with normal grass. So, that’s a good thing.

**Craig:** Nice. That would be — maybe I should think about that.

So, Patrick here in Los Angeles writes, “What’s your favorite weeknight meal to cook for your families?”

**John:** Do you cook, Craig?

**Craig:** I do. I love cooking. But when I cook it’s either like a big, adventuresome cooking thing, or I tend to do little smaller things like on-the-spot breakfasts or lunches. So, I don’t have a routine weeknight meal that I cook. But my daughter does love my famous grilled cheese sandwich. I like making a nice grilled cheese with a little tomato soup. But when I cook I go crazy and I just go nuts.

I like making desserts.

**John:** Yeah. So, I am by nature more of a baker rather than a cook. So, for a long time I would make like a lot of desserts. And I’d bake cakes, and cookies, and all that kind of stuff. And now I don’t do that very much anymore because we don’t eat that kind of stuff anymore.

My husband does most of the daily cooking, but when I do do cooking, turkey meatloaf is sort of a good staple for us. We have a really good turkey meatloaf that we like. Mini turkey meatloaf — that’s the crucial thing. When you make that giant meatloaf, only the little outside of it gets browned. But if you make little small meatloafs, then it all gets good and brown.

**Craig:** Like in little ramekins?

**John:** No, you actually do it on a baking sheet, flat on a baking sheet.

**Craig:** Oh, okay. You just make like little mounds on it.

**John:** Little mounds. And the key I have learned is to sort of mound them up like a shark fin, because they will sort of soften down a bit as it bakes, but it will end up with a nice shape if it’s sort of pointy at the start. And every little bit gets a little more ketchup. So, that plus roasted cauliflower and maybe some spinach or something else, that’s a really good weeknight meal.

**Craig:** That’s good. I’m still kind of into making desserts. I like making pies from scratch, crusts from scratch.

**John:** I like pie crust, too.

**Craig:** Chocolate mousse. I like chocolate mousse. I like making complicated things. I feel like I like the chemistry a little.

**John:** And people are always intimidated by like a Thanksgiving turkey dinner. Turkey is one of the easiest things you could possibly ever make.

**Craig:** Brine.

**John:** Well, yes, we’ve talked about the brine. But essentially, you know what you do? You clean the bird and you stick it in a hot oven. People make too much of a deal of it.

**Craig:** Brine it, stick it, don’t put stuffing in it like a dope.

All right, so what do we have next?

**John:** Billie Jean asks, “What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve done in front of an idol, or a celebrity, or a mentor?”

**Craig:** [laughs] Well, I can remember mine. It’s so stupid. So, it was — I’m going to say it was 1993. And I was sitting with a friend. We were by Johnny Rockets at the Beverly Connection. And we look over, it’s like around 10pm actually. And we look over and there’s Jerry Seinfeld talking with a friend.

Oh my god. Jerry Seinfeld. You know, it’s 1993; Jerry Seinfeld is the king of the world. And I’m like, “I got to go, I got to go say hi to Jerry Seinfeld. I’ve got to shake his hand or do something.” And he’s like, well, do it.

So, as we’re leaving, I start walking, I’m parallel to Jerry Seinfeld. I’m too scared. I’m now a step past him and I’m like, no, no, no, I can’t not do it. So then I just whirl around and I go, “Mr. Seinfeld, it’s really nice to meet you.”

And he was like, “What?” Because he really thought that I was going to stab him. Because that’s the motion I made. It was the motion of a guy walking past somebody and then suddenly flinging themselves into their personal space and then saying, “It’s really nice to meet you.” But he hasn’t met me. There’s just a man suddenly in his face. It was terrible.

**John:** That’s pretty bad.

**Craig:** It was so stupid.

**John:** Mine is not embarrassing as much as just like really, really awkward, and especially awkward because there’s a photo of it that my husband insists on keeping because it’s just so awkward.

So, this is at the opening of the USC Film School. They had this big gala event where they had celebrities and famous people there. And so I was downstairs touring the post-production area and Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise are there. And so I know Katie Holmes but I hadn’t seen her in years. And so, they’re like, oh, say hi to Tom and Katie. Like, oh great.

So, we’re in this really narrow space, and so I’m shaking hands with Katie. And it’s like, “Hey, how are you?” Trying to talk about her kid, because we have a kid about the same age. And I meet Tom Cruise. And Tom Cruise, anyone who has met Tom Cruise, he sort of like locks eyes on you. And it’s just this weird sort of like tractor beam thing that Tom Cruise does.

And so there’s this photo of us having this really awkward meeting in this narrow hallway from this angle, and I look bizarre in it. I look like I’m some sort of Martian who is talking to people from Venus. And it was incredibly awkward because of just…and then of course the whole Tom and Katie of it all, because this is right when, you know, their sort of sudden relationship and what all that was.

**Craig:** Yeah. That does sound weird.

**John:** That’s an odd thing.

**Craig:** That is odd.

**John:** One thing I should say about meeting a celebrity is it’s also that always awkward thing of like, you know, “Hi, I’m this person,” and they’ll say their name back. It’s like, well, of course you’re that person because you’re Tom Cruise.

**Craig:** I know.

**John:** So, when they say like, “Hi, I’m Tom,” it’s like, yeah, I know you’re Tom Cruise.

**Craig:** Isn’t that funny? There’s like a weird contract that you have with famous people that they’re going to tell you their name and you’re going to go, “Hi, I’m Craig,” like, I did not know that. This is a normal meeting. You’re not famous.

**John:** What I found, like even last night at The Academy thing, when someone is coming up, and there was a little bit of a receiving line kind of quality that happens, the next person that comes up, I’ll just say, “Hi, I’m John,” because it just starts the conversation. So, it’s natural that we do it.

**Craig:** Maybe that’s why these people do these things. I find it easier to deal with celebrities and famous people now because I think once you hit 40 you start to realize you’re older than a lot of them.

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Craig:** You know? I’m older than Bradley Cooper. It’s kind of weird.

**John:** It is weird.

**Craig:** But I am, because I don’t know, he seems like a man. He is a man.

Here’s a question from JD. “You’re both in love and in some states both married.” I think you’re just married. “Do you think it’s important to have more common interests than not with a significant other? Or, are opposite interests okay as long your personalities and respect for one another’s wants and needs remain constant?”

**John:** I would say that shared interests are very, very useful so that you have something to talk about. And I think it’s going to be hard to get very far in a relationship if you don’t have some good overlap in things that you are interested in other than sort of like kind of generally digging the person. But you don’t need to have that 100 percent match. And there should be things that one person loves and obsesses over and the other person couldn’t care less about, as long as they don’t openly mock. That’s good and fine.

But you want to be able to go places and do things and have some reason to be able to go out to certain events at nighttime. If one person hates the theater, that’s fine. You’ll always find other people to go to the theater with. But, if that person hates theater, and movies, and concerts, and everything else, and you like those things, then it’s not going to work out well.

**Craig:** I tend to shade a little bit more to saying opposite interests are actually a great thing. And what keeps us together as bonded pairs is our intangible love and assistance for each other. And the things that are going around outside of us are so much less important. And, frankly, it’s nice to be able to get away from my wife and do things I like doing that she doesn’t care about and vice versa.

It’s so hard to find someone, I mean, of course, if really there is no common interests it is unlikely that the two people will fall in love anyway. But, I think that sometimes people make too much of “we both like doing the same thing.” Uh, yeah. It’s that we do something for each other that we like.

**John:** Absolutely. I mean, the ideal spouse is somebody who is always on your side, is like always on your team. And that’s a really crucial thing. It doesn’t mean you have to have 100 percent alignment on everything.

I’m always amazed though by the mixed marriages where people have radically different beliefs and somehow they make it work. And that I just don’t know how they do it.

**Craig:** I get it. Because, the truth is for those people they’re getting something from the other person that’s so much more valuable than agreement on a topic. You know, there are things that go to our survival, our sense of safety and security and feeling loved.

You know what? Look at children and their parents. So many children have different political views than their parents. The still love their parents. The parents still love the kids, you know?

**John:** Well, that’s a central theme of Big Fish, though, is that throughout your entire life you get to pick your relationships, you get to pick the people who are going to be your friends, you get to pick the people you are going to marry, but parents are just sort of assigned to you. It’s just like a big lottery and you end up with these people. And you’re supposed to have this amazing relationship with these people.

But, you didn’t pick them. They didn’t pick you. And somehow you’re supposed to get along on everything. I think sometimes we put unrealistic expectations on what that relationship is supposed to be, “Because he’s your father, how could you not love him?”

“Well, I didn’t pick him.”

**Craig:** Yeah, you don’t have to get me started on that topic.

**John:** Ah-ha.

**Craig:** Yeah, no, I totally agree with you on that one.

**John:** Kristen in Seattle writes, “I would like to know if you guys like cats. And if you know why of all the animals in the animal kingdom cats purr?”

**Craig:** Well, a two part question. No, I don’t like cats. I find them annoying. I love dogs. Actually, I once talked to a veterinarian about this whole purring thing, and the truth is they don’t really know. I mean, there’s like some cockamamie theory that purring helps healing because there’s like some vibration thing that happens. I don’t believe that.

I think it’s probably just something they do.

**John:** Yeah. Because I think big cats purr, too. So, it’s not something that we kind of bred into cats. I think it’s a natural thing that cats do. But, it’s like there’s lot of other animals that do weird things, just they’re not around us all the time so we don’t notice it.

I like cats. And I did not grow up with cats. And I’ve always been very allergic to cats. But I learned to love cats because my friend, Elizabeth, had cats. And so I would talk to her on the phone, this is sort of pre-internet, so we would just talk to each other on the phone for like an hour a night. And so I would hear all about her cats. And so I knew all these details about her cats.

And then in our house here we don’t have cats because I’m allergic to cats, but in Los Angeles people should understand that there are cats everywhere. Los Angeles is just full of cats. And so there are some feral cats, but also some house cats that sort of just wander through our yard. And they’re really cool. And like one of them is actually Patricia Arquette’s cat wanders through our yard.

**Craig:** Is her name Patricia Arcat?

**John:** Wouldn’t that be amazing? I never even thought of that. That’s why you’re the comedy writer.

**Craig:** Yeah, that was a really good joke, man. [laughs]

**John:** That’s a great joke. You could get fifty bucks for that on Fashion Police.

**Craig:** At least.

**John:** [laughs] Rollie is just the best cat in the world. So, we eat lunch outside — Stuart, Ryan, and I eat lunch outside — and Rollie will just come over and hang out. Just the best cat in the world. But I like cats that are sort of like dogs, and that’s why I like Rollie so much.

**Craig:** Yeah, I mean, cats don’t do it for me.

**John:** Cats are great.

Next up is Victor from Pittsburgh.

**Craig:** Victor, yeah. Are you reading this one? I’m reading this one?

**John:** Go.

**Craig:** Okay, this guy is moving, and Victor is “moving into an apartment that for the first time is all [his] own, a real home to call [his] own.” I guess he’s been living in dorms and things like that. “It’s a blank slate coming with no furniture. As the hip artsy fellows that you are, I’m sure your lovely LA homes are decked out with only the finest in furniture and decor. What do you suggest for a first time home renter? Goodwill, IKEA, or anything else? Standing desk? Specific recommendations? First time apartment stories worth sharing?”

**John:** I think IKEA gets a bad rap. I think some stuff from IKEA is absolutely fine. And, I mean, that’s the motto for IKEA: For now it’s fine. That should just be their tag line. I give it to them for free.

Because there’s decent stuff you can get that will work okay in your apartment for a while. So, IKEA or CB2 or sort of the lower rent brands for sort of the big furniture companies, they’re absolutely fine. I would say you’re not going to have a lot of stuff, so sort of embrace a nice minimalism that looks good.

The best thing you can do for your apartment to look nice is to clean it and to not let it be a mess.

**Craig:** Yeah. I totally agree. Don’t get cluttery with it. Apartments are small. In general, small spaces look best when they are minimally appointed, because they can’t handle a lot of clutter, they can’t handle a lot of different heights, and shapes, and things. Low, sleek, simple, small. I totally agree on IKEA as far as, you know, look, your job at this point is to succeed and move on save your money. Don’t spend money on furniture now, that’s crazy.

So, yeah, sure, go to IKEA. Get disposable Swedish furniture. Enjoy putting it together yourself. There are some nice tasteful things that they have there. And just do it.

There are people that really get into, “Ooh, look at my cool vintage sofa that I found at Goodwill, that’s full of bed bugs or smells.” Eh, you know, you’re going to have to move it, you know? You’re not living in this apartment the rest of your life. Think about that, too.

**John:** One of my favorite pieces of apartment furniture was something I found in the dumpster of the apartment building. It was this big green dresser. And it had these really handles on it, so I took them off and I put like cool handles on it. And that was my dresser for six years.

And that stuff is fine and good, too. Yeah, don’t worry about it too much.

**Craig:** Do not.

**John:** Steve asks, “How much can you guys bench press?”

**Craig:** Hmm, good question. Well, I haven’t been to the gym lately, and you know, my maximum bench press, I was never that strong. I think like one time, like one up and down, I think maybe like — I don’t know — probably I could do 200 pounds or something like that.

**John:** I did 205 for eight.

**Craig:** Nice.

**John:** Yeah, so I was checking with my trainer today, because I asked him. And he said, “Oh, that’s what you can do.” So, that’s great. I actually probably couldn’t do that right now because I’ve been in Chicago and I haven’t had a trainer for awhile, but that’s what I could theoretically do.

**Craig:** Yeah, I was more, I like dumbbells. So, I like to do multiples with like two-50s. You know, not 250s, but two individual 50-pounds dumbbells and do like twelve reps or something like that.

**John:** Yeah, I do find that dumbbells, I don’t have that fear of dying, because there’s not going to be that bar that’s going to crush me.

**Craig:** Right!

**John:** That’s the thing about bench pressing is that fear of like you’re actually going to be trapped underneath this forever. At least I could also like drop free weights.

**Craig:** And dumbbells are harder because you have to individually steer and balance, you know, whereas the bar of a bench press bar helps kind of stabilize.

Kyle from Salt Lake City says, “If you could have any super power, what would it be and why?”

**John:** I would choose flight, the two-handed arms pointed out at the sky flight.

**Craig:** I would go with invisibility. Super useful.

**John:** Yeah, that one is really useful.

**Craig:** Super useful. Flying, though, would be great though.

**John:** Yeah. Lawrence from New York City asks, for me, I guess, “Are you spoken to in a different manor because you are gay/straight??? Do they expect more or less of you because of your sexuality??? Do they believe you should be better at melodrama and weepy stuff, and sports films or action??? How does sexuality affect your career??? Does it???” All of these questions end with three question marks, which…stop doing that.

Lawrence, stop asking questions with three question marks.

**Craig:** [laughs]

**John:** So, Lawrence’s basic question is has being gay impacted my career at all in Hollywood. I don’t think it’s had a huge impact. I think, yes, I don’t get considered for sports movies as much. That’s not a huge tragedy in my life. But John Logan who’s gay, he wrote Any Given Sunday.

**Craig:** Yeah, I don’t think that’s because you’re gay.

**John:** No. I think it’s because I don’t give a rat’s ass about sports.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** But I write action movies and people call me in for that. I don’t think that it ever comes up that much. I will say that when I was writing the first TV show I did, D.C., it was the only situation in my whole Hollywood time where I walked into a room and I felt like “faggot” had just been said, because it was this weird energy that had happened.

And I’m not sure who it was, or what was going on, but it was really, really uncomfortable. But that’s kind of been it.

And so a lot of times I will, they’ll ask me like, “Hey, do you want to become a bigger part of the Writers Guild Gay Writers Group?” I’m just like I don’t know that I need it. I don’t know that we need it. I don’t know that it’s actually a hue problem. It hasn’t been a huge problem for me, so I don’t relate to it.

**Craig:** Now there are so many gay producers, so many gay executives. It’s just, I don’t know. Yeah.

**John:** I think it would be much harder to be homophobic in this town than to be gay.

**Craig:** Openly homophobic? Oh, yeah, good luck. [laughs] I don’t think that can work. No.

**John:** It’s not going to go well.

**Craig:** I don’t think that would work. And, frankly, you’re just in the wrong business. I mean, if you don’t enjoy gay people and you don’t enjoy the expression of gay culture and gay humor and gay aesthetic, you’re just in the wrong business.

Earling writes, “Can either of you actually sing? Which musical production do you wish you could have had the chance to experience in person? And which musical to film do you think has resulted in the greatest or poorest film adaptation?”

**John:** Great. So, we’ve established that Craig can sing, because Craig sang on an earlier podcast.

**Craig:** Yeah, come on Earling.

**John:** Yeah, go back and do your research.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** I can sing well enough to get the point of a song across. And so I’ve gotten to be a better singer through Big Fish. So, I can sing a little bit. I can’t sing the way that the actors can sing in Big Fish, but I can sing well enough that I’m not scared to sing.

Which musical production do you wish you could have seen in person? I don’t know.

**Craig:** Good question.

**John:** I mean, I’ve never actually seen any production of Funny Girl, but Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl was probably awesome.

**Craig:** It probably was awesome. Yeah. I’d probably go with Fiddler on the Roof. The original Fiddler on the Roof. I just love that show. And I just think that would have been amazing to see that. Every song is just so great.

And what do you think about this musical to film, up and down?

**John:** I loved Chicago. And I love Chicago as a stage play, but I love it as a movie, too. And I think it was just a really, really smart version that captured the stuff I loved about the stage version and made it a movie.

**Craig:** It did. That’s a very good choice. I would probably go with West Side Story only because it may be the best musical ever and it also happens to be a great, great film, too. So, that’s a very high risk/high reward kind of thing to go from something that’s truly brilliant, take it to film, and not blow it.

Poorest, you know, I hate doing this, but The Producers, because The Producers was a great movie, and then they surprised everybody by doing a terrific musical of it. But the movie of the musical of the movie just didn’t work.

**John:** I have not seen it.

**Craig:** It just didn’t work. And I love everybody in it. And, yeah, it didn’t work. Plus, they cut out the best song, King of All Broadway.

Anyway, those are our answers.

**John:** Cool.

CC from Calabasas asks, “I love to hear about your solar panels and your electric cars. What are some other fun high end toys or home improvements that you recommend?”

**Craig:** Well, there’s one thing that I’ve signed up for, you know, when they make a big splashy thing, “Look, we have this new product coming but it’s not ready yet,” so you put your email on it and they tell you when it’s ready. And it’s called Kevo and it’s basically a lockset for your door that fits right in the regular deadbolt that locks that thing, but it’s controlled by your phone.

**John:** Great.

**Craig:** And I think it’s as simple as like a Bluetooth thing. So, you walk up to your door and it unlocks.

**John:** That would be great.

I like our Nest Thermostats. They’ve been really useful for us.

**Craig:** Love those.

**John:** I love that I can on my iPhone app see like, is the air conditioner running? I will turn it on. Or, I can turn it on like when I’m at the restaurant saying like let’s get it cooled down before I get home. That’s been awesome and great.

My husband has also been really good about sort of switching out all of our light bulbs to LEDs and energy efficient lights. So, throughout the whole house we’re all that way, and that’s part of the reason why we’re able to generate so much power and sell so much power back to the City of Los Angeles. We actually use very little power now which has been terrific.

**Craig:** Excellent.

**John:** Next question, John Ligget asks, “Hey, I think you should talk about food on your podcast and your favorite restaurants.”

Favorite restaurants in Los Angeles. I love Mozza. I love — both Osteria Mozza and the Pizzeria Mozza are fantastic. What are your favorite restaurants in Los Angeles?

**Craig:** You know, I’m not like a favorite restaurant guy. I guess if I had to say one, I really love Sasabune.

**John:** Okay. I don’t know what that is.

**Craig:** Sushi place on the west side. And Sushi Nozawa and Sugarfish. I like really, really good sushi. But I’ll go to any restaurant. I’m pretty easygoing about restaurants. I’m not really a foodie. I love interesting food. I love the food that foodies eat, I just don’t love obsessing about food, and the trucks, and, oh, this new spot, and this guy used to own this place, and opens that place. And when people start having that discussion my eyes roll back in my head and I lose consciousness.

**John:** Yeah. I like to go to dinner with friends, but I’d much rather go to a mediocre restaurant with good friends than a great restaurant with people I don’t like.

**Craig:** 100 percent.

**John:** Next up.

**Craig:** All right, next up we’ve got Hanu Carl. [laughs] Hanu Carl — so cute, in the Valley, question mark, exclamation point, exclamation point. “Kwanzaa or Diwali? Which of the non-Christmas holidays is cooler? Feel free to address history, music, fashion, and food.” My answer is none of them. The only cool holiday around Christmastime is Christmas. Sorry.

**John:** I’m 100 percent Diwali. I love Diwali. I love kind of everything Indian and I love Indian food. Come on, Diwali for me.

**Craig:** I love Indian food, too. I love everything Indian. I’m a big fan of the culture. I don’t need to celebrate Diwali though, or Kwanzaa. Frankly, I don’t even celebrate Christmas. Here’s the truth: I’m the Grinch and I don’t like celebrations. But I do love Indian food.

**John:** You’ll love the hundredth episode of Scriptnotes celebration, though. That’s a celebration you’ll endorse?

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s not a holiday, you know?

**John:** I heard they’re actually going to shut down the town, though. I mean, everyone is going to take the day off and it’s going to be big deal.

**Craig:** Fantastic!

**John:** Carmen in Missouri asks, “What are your thoughts on bacon? What are your thoughts on bacon in desserts?”

**Craig:** Yeah. Bacon is very good, it’s very tasty. I don’t care for the ridiculous internet obsession with bacon. You know, this is the worst of the internet. Take something that’s perfectly good but a little downscale and then turn it into like a meta, quasi-ironic worship thing. Yeah, it’s bacon, whatever. Isn’t there other stuff to talk about?

I do think that bacon in desserts is perfectly fine in the sense that savory plus sweet can be a nice thing. But, the whole bacon thing, it drives me nuts.

**John:** I’m glad to hear you say, because it drives me nuts, too.

**Craig:** What is that, John?

**John:** I don’t know. It’s the obsession over things that you don’t need to worry about being obsessed with. So, I don’t eat normal bacon, because I don’t eat beef, or pork, or mammals. So, I eat turkey bacon. And so I obviously like suspect because I eat turkey bacon which is not really a thing and I should be shunned for eating turkey bacon.

But I like turkey bacon just fine.

**Craig:** Turkey bacon is good. I like turkey bacon.

**John:** It’s delicious. And so whatever you want to do with bacon, great, go for it. But don’t push it at me.

**Craig:** Yeah. And like stop inventing fake obsessions, the point of which is that obsessions are silly but yet cool. All right, hipsters, go ahead with your bacon.

Ooh, Fabrizio from Italy. “If your podcasts weren’t about screenwriting or anything related to filmmaking, what would it be about?” Huh? What?

**John:** Mine would be yet another tech podcast, another sort of Mac Geekery podcast. And so I guest on some of those podcasts at times and I enjoy talking about that stuff, but really we don’t need another one, so I shouldn’t do it.

**Craig:** Yeah. I don’t think I would talk about anything else. I’m just simply not qualified. I’m barely qualified to talk about this. Let’s put it that way.

**John:** Chris Han in East LA writes, “What lessons do you have for nerds for a successful marriage?”

**Craig:** Uh, I don’t know. Because they’re nerds?

**John:** Or for anybody.

**Craig:** You know, okay, here’s my big lessons — these are not shocking. Be faithful to your spouse. Don’t be afraid to spend a little bit of time on your own. Don’t be afraid if they spend a little bit of time on their own. Don’t be contemptuous of your spouse. And, you know, avoid things like violence. I mean, it’s not really — I’ll tell you the number one, the number one thing. Honestly, everybody’s going to give you a bunch of platitudes. Number one thing: Be faithful. Be faithful. There you go.

**John:** I think all your points are very good. The other thing I would say is to always understand that your spouse is his or her own person and to always keep in mind what do they want or what do they need to do. And to figure out how you can be supportive to what they want or what they need to do, because their needs and wants may not immediately line up with what your needs and wants are. But you need to be aware of what they are so you can together both get to places you want to get to.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** So, part of that is respect, but that’s also understanding that it’s not just about the two of you. It’s also about you as individuals.

**Craig:** Correct.

Oh, look at this, Robert…

**John:** Robert James Cross asks…

**Craig:** Robert is, yeah, he’s going for this question we’ve kind of trotted all over, kind of gone over this a little bit. “Where’s the best place for sushi or pizza in Los Angeles?”

**John:** Yeah, so when I was in Chicago we had the conversation about Chicago pizza and New York pizza. Honestly, the pizza I love the most is Los Angeles pizza. It is at Pizzeria Mozza. I think it’s just the best pizza you’re going to find.

**Craig:** That pizza is not what I call pizza, but that’s sort of what I call Italian fancy pizza. And that is excellent Italian fancy pizza. No question.

For traditional pizza, the kind of pizza that comes from New York, there are a couple places in and around there. There’s a Joe’s, I think, in Santa Monica now which is a transplant from New York. And there’s actually a little booth in The Americana on Brand in Glendale that sells pretty good pizza.

Sushi wise, like I said, Sasabune. Big fan of that. Nozawa. Sugarfish.

**John:** So, I go to Nobu and I like Nobu quite a lot. I’ve been to Nobus in many different countries, but the Nobu in Los Angeles is lovely, as is Matsuhisa.

But my favorite sushi, actually Sushi Azami which closed, but the owner Niki has opened up another restaurant on the west side which is amazing, but it’s always omakase, and it’s like a three-hour thing to eat dinner there. It’s completely worth it, it’s just that you have to plan for three-hours to do it. So, I’ll have a link to her restaurant.

**Craig:** That’s interesting that it’s three hours long, because Sasabune is the same thing, it’s omakase, but it doesn’t take that long.

**John:** Yeah. I was with Josh Friedman and we drank a lot of wine, so maybe that’s why it took three hours.

**Craig:** Maybe you thought it was three hours, it was 20 minutes.

**John:** Ha. We actually had to walk around the block just a few time just to, you know, settle your stomach and feel like you could actually move in a car again.

**Craig:** I like it.

**John:** “You’re on the first passenger flight to the moon,” oh, this is a question from Jessup, I love Jessup, from Vacaville. “You’re on the first passenger flight to the moon. Because of carryon restrictions you only get to bring one book, one snack, one beverage. What are they?”

**Craig:** I don’t care.

**John:** I have answers for all of this. My book would be Pride & Prejudice, because I just love Pride & Prejudice. I could just read it again and again. One snack would be almond butter. And it would specifically be Whole Foods Almond Butter, the one that you can actually get from the grinder. Like fresh ground almond butter is one of the best substances on earth. And one beverage, I suppose if I’m going to go…well, it’s a question, do you go for the alcohol? You’re flying to the moon…

**Craig:** You’re going to the moon. This is what I don’t understand about this question. You’re going to the moon and you’re reading? My eyes are glued. I’m like, I want to just watch the trip entirely. I don’t care what my snack is. I’m going to the moon!

**John:** Yeah, the moon.

**Craig:** You know what I’ll have, moon snack. Whatever moon plane gives me. I feel so simple.

**John:** I will say one of the things I miss most about Chicago is a chain called Protein Bar. And Protein Bar is this sort of healthy fast food that is all over Chicago, and I haven’t seen here, and I really which were here. But they have these amazing smoothies. And they have like a peanut butter/chocolate chip smoothie that’s actually kind of healthy that’s really great. So that would be my beverage.

**Craig:** That sounds good.

Josh from San Luis Obispo. “If you had the option to either own a real life light saber, or an actual working hover board from Back to the Future, which would you choose and why?”

**John:** I’m full on light saber. I would love to have a light saber.

**Craig:** Yeah, of course. That’s not even a good question.

**John:** It’s not a good question at all.

**Craig:** No, it’s not a fair question.

**John:** It’s a light saber. How can you not pick light saber?

**Craig:** Yeah, working hover board? Who cares?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** “Oh, look at me, I’m on my hover board. Whoop-de-do.” All right. Or, you can just go get a Segway and also look like a dork.

Or, you can have a light saber. Come on, Josh. [laughs] I’m getting angry.

**John:** Mark Thorson writes, “Now that even Rush Limbaugh has admitted the gay marriage issue is lost, what’s the next milestone for gay rights? The only thing I can think of is the first gay president. Is anything more important that happens earlier?”

Uh, yeah, I think marriage is happening really quickly, and I’m delighted that it’s happening so quickly, and delighted that just last week we picked up another giant state. And whatever the Supreme Court decision is, it will be incredibly useful. And I’m excited to be able to get off of planes and be married in more states. That’s a wonderful thing.

I talk to the people who run these organizations and one of the things I say when I talk to these people is it’s fantastic that gay and lesbian couples can have the rights they need, I think the next frontier is going to be to make sure that people who don’t fit into nice categories, transgendered people, get the same rights that everyone else does. And I think that’s one of the things where, you know, we talk about gay people as minorities. Those people are super minorities. And making sure that they have full and inclusive rights to things that every American should have.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, ultimately the most meaningful milestone beyond this one is that there’s no longer a topic because it’s just nobody cares and everything is equal and fine and it’s just not an issue.

I think that employment rights are probably where I would look if I were running one of these organizations, because there are going to be states soon, I think, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of federal gay marriage — there are going to be states where it is legally possible for two men to get married but also legally possible for both of them to be fired from their jobs because they’re gay. That’s bizarre.

**John:** Yeah. That is bizarre.

**Craig:** So, I mean, it’s bizarre right now, obviously. So, that’s where I would probably — that’s where I would load up my ammo.

Let’s see, we have Brian from Tampa, “Morally speaking, what’s the worst thing you’ve done to get out of some type of obligation?”

**John:** I will say personally I feel good that I’ve never used my kid as an excuse. I’ve never pretended that it was like my kid that was why I couldn’t do something. But I have, I feel like I’m coming down with something, I have done that. And I feel terrible when I do it. And sometimes I get sort of the symptomatic cold that I imagined from doing that. But, I’ve feigned some illness to get out of a meeting or to reschedule something.

**Craig:** Yeah. I’m sure I’ve done that, too. I mean, it’s hard to quarrel with somebody who’s telling you that they just threw up. Even if you think they’re lying, even if you think there’s a 90 percent chance they’re lying, that means there’s a 10 percent chance that you’re forcing somebody to show up in your office and they might throw up.

**John:** Yeah. You don’t want to do that.

**Craig:** Near you. Yeah.

**John:** Malibu Jack asks, “If the universe is infinite, how can it be expanding? And if space is mostly empty, how can it be warped by gravity?”

**Craig:** I can’t answer the first question, because I don’t know. The second question I think misunderstands gravity and space time. But, I’m not smart enough to explain why. I just know that in my head I’m looking at that diagram in A Brief History of Time and Thinking. No, that’s not a good question.

**John:** I think it’s a reasonable question, but it’s not a good question in the sense that we are not — as human beings we’re not well set up to deal with things at a giant, giant, giant scale, or at a really tiny scale. We’re used to being able to deal with things at a scale that we can see.

Our whole mind is set up for like there’s that bison over there. I will throw this rock and hit this bison. And so our minds work really well for that scale of thing. And so scale of things we can see and scale of things we can do.

And so we have this tendency to try to use our understanding of that kind of world and apply it to much bigger things, and it actually just doesn’t hold up very well. And so we say the universe is expanding, but it’s infinite. Well, that makes sense at the giant levels that we’re talking about. And, you know, say, “Well what is this expanding into?” It’s like, well, that’s actually not meaningful in a way that you sort of want it to make sense. This is because we think in very physical, relatable terms that aren’t actually accurate to how the big universe works or how the tiny universe works.

**Craig:** Yeah. Or, spice.

**John:** The spice. The spice explains it all.

**Craig:** The worm. The spice. What is the connection?

**John:** Exactly.

**Craig:** That’s my favorite line from a movie ever. “The connection is that the worm is the spice.”

**John:** The worm is the spice.

**Craig:** And then he just kept asking the question. “It’s got to have something…the worm and the spice. What is it?” [laughs] “They’re the same. They’re the same thing.”

**John:** Let’s skip this next question because another one down the list asks the same thing.

**Craig:** Yeah. Agreed.

**John:** Ferdinand from Constantinople asks, “If Craig and John did a life swap, who would be better at being the other?”

**Craig:** I think I’m good at impressions, so I think I could actually convince some people that I was you.

**John:** Yeah. I think you’d actually do a pretty good job with my life. And my life is not that difficult. I think I would have a harder time being you because I don’t care anything about baseball and I would not be able to coach your son’s baseball team.

**Craig:** Yeah. But there are lot of dads that also can’t coach their kid’s baseball teams. And, you know, you would just watch.

**John:** But I could love your woman. There’s no question.

**Craig:** [laughs] I’d like to see you try!

**John:** [laughs] Gary from Orlando, Florida asks, “Craig, how’s the Tesla been so far?”

**Craig:** Awesome! Greatest car in the world. And it was terrific to see that Consumer Reports, which is very fussy, super nerdy guys — one thing I like about Consumer Reports, when they review cars they don’t get a car from the factory. They have somebody go and buy a car anonymously. So, it’s actually just a random car and they put it through ridiculous paces. And it got a 99 out of 100. Only one other car in history has every gotten that. It was a Lexus from 10 years ago.

And they said essentially, “This may be the best car we’ve ever tested.”

**John:** Oh, fantastic.

**Craig:** It’s an awesome car. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

**John:** Hooray. And for the record, I still love my Leaf. It’s been a great car, too.

**Craig:** Hmm.

**John:** Doug Jay asks, “What are your thoughts on automobile safety ratings? Would a bad safety rating be a deal breaker for you?”

**Craig:** It would for me. Absolutely.

**John:** It would for me, too.

**Craig:** Yeah, this guy mentions that the Camry rated poor in the IHS Small Offset Crash Test. Well, it turns out that most crashes are offset. I mean, very few people just slam into each other headlight to headlight. And if a car structurally is doing very poorly in a test like that, well, yeah, of course it’s a deal breaker. What, like a Camry is so awesome that I need to overlook the fact that it could possibly be a death trap? It’s a Camry.

**John:** I honestly feel the same way about motorcycles. Because, you know what, no motorcycle survives a crash well.

**Craig:** That’s right. No, motorcycles are just dumb. And, listen, if you ride a motorcycle, I get it, and that’s cool. I understand. My wife has this whole theory — you deserve to die. It’s the whole “you deserve to die theory.” That she just can’t muster sympathy for people who die doing things that are kind of safe but just generally not safe. Like it’s kind of safe to go skydiving. But not really. So, if you die skydiving, screw you. [laughs] That’s basically her theory. So, I don’t do a lot of — I used to go diving in the ocean. Don’t do that as much anymore. No.

**John:** No.

**Craig:** Bryce from LA wonders, “What were both of your drinking habits before you made it and while you were rising the echelons of the industry? Perhaps to a lesser degree, what are they now? And would you mind speaking to Hollywood’s atmosphere of rejection in conjunction with the drunken writer stereotype?”

**John:** Yeah, so I think, you know, we have this stereotype that like writers are drunks who, you know, are functioning alcoholics and that kind of thing. And there are some. I don’t think there’s very many. And you won’t meet a lot of drunks and you won’t meet a lot of drug addicts who are actually working in the industry. That’s been my experience.

**Craig:** Yeah, people go through their phases, like everybody else. Personally, I’ve never had a problem with alcohol, at all. I’ve had a problem with nicotine, food, wanking. I don’t have any problems with drinking. I am that guy who can have one or two glasses and then just drop, in fact, prefers to stop.

You know, it’s funny — I often think, sometimes my wife will buy like a cake. And the cake will sit there for four days in the fridge. And I’ll think, “How is she buying the cake and not eating it?” Like if I buy a cake it’s to eat it. Do you know what I mean? So, she’ll just buy a cake and just leave it there. And then I think, but wait a second, that’s the way I am with alcohol. Like I’ll buy a bottle of wine or a fancy bottle of scotch or something. I won’t open it for a year. I don’t care. So, there you go.

**John:** Yeah. I feel like I’ve been pretty lucky, too. So, I will have a glass of wine or two, and that’s been fine, and great, and good. And I was never much of a drinker-drinker. So, you go through your periods of your 20s, and those are going to be those times when you’re out drinking with friends and you’re going out to much and drinking too much with people. But you sort of grow out of it, and I just grew out of it. And I was happy and lucky.

So, there is some sort of going out with the gang to do stuff, or that sort of social drinking, that happens. But it’s not awful. I would also say that my husband when he went to get his MBA, that crew would drink so much. And they would drink all the time that it was really surprising and kind of crazy to me that they were able to sustain a graduate school program.

**Craig:** You know, I live in La Cañada, this little town, and it’s not a Hollywood town. It’s very kind of finance and law and accounting and so forth. Good god people drink in my town. I mean, I go to these parties, [laughs], and people get wasted. And they’re adults. I don’t get it.

**John:** I want to fall back on a piece of advice I gave on the blog a long time ago, but I would say if you’re out drinking, my basic rule is alternate with water. So, if you don’t want to get drunk, you don’t want to be problematically drinking, you have a drink, great. Have a full equal glass of water before you get your next drink, and that will slow you down. It doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t be — it doesn’t mean you’re safe to drive, but it means that you’re not going to make a horrible decision if you were to stick to that plan.

**Craig:** Good idea.

**John:** Josh asks a series of questions that we’re going to get to really quickly. “How much weight, if any, do you give to conspiracy theories about the new world order, water fluoridation, 9/11, JFK assassination, etc?”

**Craig:** I give negative weight to those.

**John:** I give negative weight. And anyone who believes them, I have a hard time taking seriously.

**Craig:** Yeah. I just don’t like you. I think you’re an idiot.

**John:** “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

**Craig:** No.

**John:** No. I think you die, you die.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** “How have your feelings about money changed throughout your life?”

**Craig:** They haven’t.

**John:** I would say they really haven’t. I’ve always been like hold on to as much money as it makes sense to hold onto.

**Craig:** Save.

**John:** Save.

**Craig:** Save. Yeah. Don’t spend a lot. Don’t need to.

**John:** “Do you believe we are alone in the universe?”

**Craig:** No.

**John:** No, there have to be other civilizations. Here’s the thing — I don’t think the Earth is actually all that special. I think we’re going to find that there’s actually a lot of earth-like planets and it’s going — other planets will have life that has existed or will exist. Will we be able to talk to those other civilizations? I don’t know.

**Craig:** Not any time soon. [laughs] No, that’s narcissism to believe that we happen to live in the time…

**John:** The best of all possible worlds.

**Craig:** Yeah, exactly. No, no, they’re out there, but they’re way out there.

**John:** Yeah. “What’s the secret to a close and comfortable shave?”

**Craig:** Get yourself in the shower, get a nice hot shower going. Get your face nice and steamed out. And then shave with the grain, not against the grain. And then after you’re done shaving with the grain, which changes depending on what part of your face your shaving, then go against the grain.

**John:** Yeah. Shave in the shower. That’s where you should do it.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** David in Wellington, New Zealand asks, “I’m ready to propose for marriage next month.” I love that he says “propose for marriage.” That’s not how we would say it in the US.

**Craig:** Yeah. Propose for…

**John:** “Can you give some creative ideas on how to ask the big question. Cheers. Please no Hobbit jokes.”

**Craig:** Well, Gimli, oh no, he was a dwarf, sorry. No, no Hobbit jokes whatsoever. I like people from New Zealand. They’re very cool people. They’re good people.

I can only tell you how I did it. I had kind of a cool idea. And that was I like cold places. So, I surprised my then girlfriend by flying us to Alaska. And, by the way, I wasn’t rich. I had no money, but it just seemed funny. I saved my money and then I flew us to Alaska. And I went all the way out to the middle of Alaska in Fairbanks, and it was around the beginning of April. And I had sort of timed it because I knew that the Northern Lights were super, duper active around that time.

And so we went outside at night under the Northern Lights and I proposed to her.

**John:** That’s beautiful.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**John:** Nice. But she kind of had the idea that you were going to propose if you were…

**Craig:** Oh, for sure.

**John:** So, I didn’t have the proper proposal because essentially we always talked like, oh, whenever marriage becomes possible let’s get married. He’s like, so of course. And so suddenly the California Supreme Court decision came down saying that yes they have to have marriage. And so suddenly it just could happen.

So, I was in Arrowhead writing on something. And so Mike called. He’s like, “Oh, it went through. Great. So, let’s get married.” And like we literally picked a date. But neither one of us asked the other person. It just happened.

**Craig:** Right. You guys actually kind of got saved. I mean, the truth is that men don’t really care about any of this stuff. We just want to jump to the conclusion. Women care.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** So, even if this hadn’t been shortchanged by legal maneuvering, my guess is that you probably would have been like, “Marriage? Yeah, cool.”

**John:** Yeah.

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

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

**John:** Yeah. So people last night, Stuart was there, and people would ask, “Is Stuart…?” And I was like, yeah, I pointed, “That’s Stuart. He’s a real person. He’s not Snuffleupagus. He’s a real live little boy.”

**Craig:** And you pointed to an empty space in the room.

**John:** [laughs]

**Craig:** And everyone slowly backed away from you.

**John:** Indeed. It’s like in Fight Club the whole time through. I’ve actually been Stuart the whole time through.

**Craig:** Hercules Rockefeller the Third, certainly his real name, asks, “How can someone stop falling for the wrong woman and/or man?” Answer, you can’t.

**John:** You can’t. The heart wants what it wants.

**Craig:** That’s why they call it falling. If you can stop falling, that would be great. But, eh, I don’t think so.

**John:** But, going back to an earlier topic, you know, maybe don’t fall for married people.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** That’s a good choice. And so look for what your type is and find your type in a type that is actually available. Because maybe your type is unavailable people because you don’t actually want that commitment of a relationship. And then you need to have some therapy and deal with your issues.

**Craig:** Yeah. Deal with your issues, Hercules.

Who’s next, Hector?

**John:** Hector from Canada writes, “Serious question here, perhaps life’s most serious question. How do you cope with mortality? Does the inevitable prospect of death borrow you? If not, why not? If so, how do you cope, or do you?”

**Craig:** It bother me now, but I know that when I am — assuming that I don’t die an untimely death — I’ve talked to enough elderly people to know that you, your mind starts to prepare you for death as you get older. And you get to a point, frankly, where you’re not afraid of it at all. It’s just a natural thing. It’s almost like, well, this is what all my friends are doing. Might as well do it, too. It’s cool. It’s okay.

You don’t get scared anymore. I asked my grandmother. She was 94. And she said, “No, somewhere around like 82 or 83 you totally stop caring.”

**John:** Maybe so. I’m afraid of death, but not in a weird way. Not so much the fear of like well I will stop existing, because I don’t believe in an afterlife necessarily, but just having a family and a young kid, that’s what I think about, sort of most afraid of sort of mortality wise. And you want your kid to be able to get to a place in life where they are stable and they don’t need you as much.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** But, the truth is, they always kind of need you. And as I face sort of my own parent’s mortality, that’s, you know, it’s tough.

**Craig:** It is, but the truth is, let’s say you’re 85. You’re daughter will be 40-something I assume, or something like that, right? She’s an adult. She’s your age now.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** She’ll be fine. She’ll have her own kids, you know.

**John:** Yeah.

Clint Williams asks…

**Craig:** Good question. Yeah, Clint Williams.

**John:** “Adoption of the designated hitter by the National League? Idle chatter? Good for the game? Umbrage?”

**Craig:** I think it’s idle chatter. I don’t think it’s good for the game. I don’t have any umbrage about it. I’m a Yankee fan, so I grew up in the American League. So, the designate hitter isn’t a matter of religious objection to me. But, you know, we’ve changed so much about baseball in the last ten years. You know the wild card, and the expansion of playoffs, and teams bouncing around from national, to interleague play. All this stuff. Yeah, leave it. Leave it the way it is. No DH in the National League. No DH.

**John:** I barely understood a word you said.

**Craig:** Fantastic. You’ll understand this. John from Albany, New York, says, “Should I buy my 16-year-old son condoms now that he has a steady girlfriend? And at what age did you lose your virginity? Full disclosure: I was 16. So, that’s why I ask question number one above.”

**John:** So, number one question, yes, you should buy your 16-year-old son condoms. And you should have those frank conversations. People freak out way too much about having the conversations about sex and they shouldn’t. Just have the conversations. It’s awkward at the start, but then it’s fine.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** It’s better that you have the conversations. And don’t be intrusive but just make sure they know that it’s an option there and it’s there and you want them to be around.

**Craig:** Yeah, he could also buy his own condoms. That’s what I did. [laughs] I mean, he doesn’t have to have daddy go buy him condoms. There’s no condom law, is there?

**John:** Yeah, there’s no condom law. But, I think it’s a good first gesture to buy condoms for your son.

**Craig:** I totally agree. And at what age, and certainly you should not just let him go condom-less. At what age did you lose your virginity, John?

**John:** If we were going to define virginity in a sense of the activity that I was engaged in if I was engaging with a woman could have led to a baby…so, like, it’s a question of virginity. Like, what’s fooling around and what’s more than fooling around?

**Craig:** I would say penetrative sex is virginity.

**John:** Penetrative sex — 23.

**Craig:** I was 16. I was a man-whore, obviously. [laughs]

Kevin Williamson, for real.

**John:** The real Kevin Williamson?

**Craig:** The real Kevin Williamson, creator of Scream and so many other wonderful television shows, Dawson’s Creek and so forth, his simple question, “Zoloft or Lexapro?”

**John:** I’m on neither anti-depressant, but I think they’re both good choices for people who need an anti-depressant.

**Craig:** Neither am I. I’m not on anti-depressants. And I suspect that they don’t work as well as people think. But, you know what does work? Kevin Williamson.

**John:** Yeah. He works hard.

**Craig:** Best guy ever.

**John:** Nima, the actual Nima, wrote in to ask, “I want Bride & Prejudice,” which is apparently a movie. “iTunes has it in SD to buy and HD to rent. Should I buy SD or wait for HD?”

So, I would say you should never wait. I think waiting for almost anything that’s going to cost $3 or $4 or $5 is never a good idea, because the world could end tomorrow. So, if you want to watch this movie, do whatever it takes to watch this movie now and don’t wait another second.

**Craig:** Yeah. Totally. Just rent it. Yeah, of course. I mean, how many times really are you going to watch this thing? Also, I should say that we do better on residuals when you rent things.

**John:** Yeah. Rent it.

**Craig:** Matthew Kingshot wants to know, “Where does the podcast’s opening musical riff come from?”

**John:** So, that actually is something I wrote and it is from The Remnants, which was a web pilot that I did during the strike, so 2008. And I needed some opening little jingle, so I wrote that opening little jingle. And I liked it and I needed something for the podcast, and so I put it there.

So, if you go back to really early episodes of the podcast, I would use sort of super hero or cartoon music for the thing, and I just got really tired of looking for new stuff every week.

**Craig:** Finding new ones, yeah.

**John:** Yeah, so I went to [hums opening]. And that’s what it is.

**Craig:** [hums opening] What’s next? We’ve got David Wells. David Wells, great picture.

**John:** Yes. He writes, “What surprised you about being a father?”

**Craig:** I think the — when I had my son and I became a parent I was surprised by the amount of innate violence that had been in my bloodstream and I didn’t realize it was there. I’m not a violent person. I’ve never been in a fistfight. I don’t believe in hitting. I don’t hit my kids. I don’t spank them or do any of that stuff. I’m not a violent person.

But, I remember somebody accidentally waking my baby up and I wanted to kill them. Not like, ha-ha, I want to kill them; I mean, I actually wanted to kill them. It’s powerful stuff.

**John:** I would say that I was not prepared for sort of how, I would say sort of like your violence — how primal it feels when you have a newborn kid who you are protecting. And how you are — it’s like this beautiful jailor who has like locked you to care of them. And how day becomes night, night becomes day, and you’re just in this weird dreamed fugue state of taking care of the newborn.

And eventually you sort of pass through that thing. But, because of that intensity you feel this tremendous connection to this kid. So, like any scratch on the kid becomes an affront to you.

**Craig:** Yeah. It is intense. Indeed intense.

**John:** Jeff Orrig writes, “How would Craig redesign Kickstarter?”

**Craig:** You know, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t redesign Kickstarter. I would just simply say to the people who are participating on Kickstarter to Kickstarter Emptor, you know. Oh, I’m sorry, Caveat Kickstarter. I got it totally backwards.

Just really think critically before you toss your money out there. Kickstarter can be a good thing. Kickstarter appeals to your most pro-social noble instincts. That doesn’t mean that the people appealing to you are pro-social or noble themselves. So, just be skeptical, be cautious, and if somebody is asking you for money that you think ought to just be asking a traditional investment community for money, don’t give them money. There’s other things you can do with your cash. That’s all.

**John:** Sounds fair.

**Craig:** Yeah. Let’s see, we got Mike Bowman in LA saying, “We often hear about the crazy things athletes and actors do with their money or fame once they have it, what was the craziest thing you did once you became a working screenwriter simply because you had the money or recognition to do it?”

**John:** So, this wasn’t right when I first became successful, but I really liked the movie Lost in Translation a lot. And so we got the idea, my husband and some friends and I, like let’s just go to Tokyo for 48 hours. And so we did. And it was kind of amazing. So, we flew to Tokyo. We stayed at the Park Hyatt, the same hotel they used in there. I swam in that same pool they shot. And we had like a Lost in Translation weekend. And it was kind of amazing.

And we sang at karaoke bars. And we went to the Imperial Palace, which happened to be open that day. And it was kind of great. So, it was a lot of money to blow, but it was also a really great time and a great experience.

**Craig:** I haven’t done really crazy things with money. I mean…

**John:** Tesla.

**Craig:** Well, is that really crazy? I mean, it’s a car and people have cars and people have expensive cars. I don’t know if that’s that crazy. You know, it’s okay. Does that count? Okay, Tesla.

**John:** I think it counts.

**Craig:** Okay. That’s it. Cool.

**John:** Hawke from Berlin, Germany writes…

**Craig:** [How-ka].

**John:** [Ho-ka], sorry, I should have put the E in there. “I always feel guilty for the Holocaust. I am 30-years-old and I had nothing to do with the war, or the Holocaust, or anything. Even my father was born in 1947 when the war was already over, but I want to apologize as soon as I meet a Jewish person. Do you think that a person should carry the weight of the most horrible crime ever, or let it die after my grandfather left this world?”

**Craig:** Hawke, you are adorable. No, Hawke, you should stop. That’s ridiculous. You don’t — first of all, don’t apologize as soon as you meet a Jewish person. As a Jewish person, that would probably be the only thing you could do to me that would make me feel kind of awkward and weird.

You didn’t do anything! And your dad didn’t do anything. And, frankly, people who were alive during the war, a lot of them didn’t do anything. A lot of them did, but a lot of them didn’t. And a lot of them were just kids, you know.

And the truth is that it was a terrible thing that happened but I don’t believe collective guilt. I don’t believe in sins of the fathers. And, no, you should just stop. You should just stop and breathe easy and be a good person. And you’ll be fine.

**John:** Yeah. Sins of the father just drives me crazy in that sense of like things carry over past a generation. You didn’t choose to be born to that person, so why should you inherit any of their guilt for things? That’s nuts.

And so we have the equivalent in America, it would be slavery. And so slavery was a terrible thing that we can look at, learn from. We can recognize, are there aspects of what happened there that are still happening in society now. But we can focus on what is the present tense and not focus on that thing that happened back then, or of feeling culpable as a modern day human being for what that was then.

We can acknowledge what happened and try to avoid that sort of situation happening again. But, we shouldn’t feel guilt about it.

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s not about you, basically. You know what I mean? It’s not. You don’t have to feel this personal connection to that because you’re not personally connected to it. And that’s just a fact.

Let’s see, Tim says, “Describes your home entertainment setup and talk your tech in general perfected platform/gamers. Outside of movies, what’s the first thing you read or seek information about each day?”

**John:** That was too much. Let’s just talk about home entertainment center.

**Craig:** Home entertainment center. Done. What do you got?

**John:** Our main TV, our DVR is just the standard Time Warner, no, I’m sorry, it’s the DirecTV box, which is actually just fine. It’s the DirecTV DVR.

**Craig:** Yeah, that’s what I have.

**John:** It’s just fine. And I was for a long time holding onto my TiVo but then I got this thing. And you know what? It’s just fine. So, we use that and then we use a Mac Mini that we use as both our DVD player and to watch things off Hulu or Netflix or anything else with that. So, we just switch between the two. It’s fine, it’s painless, it’s easy.

Our old house had a projector and all that stuff, and we never used it because it was a giant hassle. Some people love the projector stuff, but I honestly believe in a TV that you can turn on, you can watch, and it sounds good.

**Craig:** Yeah, we have TVs and we have the DVRs for DirecTV. And then we have a couple of nice setups with surround sound, which I like. Surround sound things are — one particular super cool surround soundy thing which I like a lot. But, yeah, you know, nothing crazy.

**John:** I think people will spend way too much time and money tweaking and adapting their situations which they shouldn’t.

**Craig:** Well, and that entire industry is based on a fastidiousness that simply doesn’t apply. It just doesn’t apply. It’s ridiculous.

**John:** Treat asks, “So, how do you and Craig feel about marijuana? Have you ever smoked before writing? Do you know other screenwriters who do this, or on an occasional or regular basis?”

**Craig:** I mean, I don’t care about marijuana. I had my get high a lot in senior year of high school phase, and then I smoked a little bit in college but not that much. The truth is I don’t smoke marijuana. I don’t get high ever really anymore just because I kind of don’t want to. Again, it’s sort of the alcohol thing, frankly.

And the other issue with marijuana is the dosage concept, because I know exactly how much alcohol is in a glass of wine, or in three fingers of scotch. I just don’t know if I’m smoking marijuana, what is it, how much — how intense is it? There are so many different kinds.

No, I wouldn’t smoke before writing. I just think that that’s crazy. I don’t drink before writing, either. I just think that would be dumb.

**John:** Yeah. I don’t smoke pot. I smoked pot in college some, and a little bit since then. But, the problem with pot for me is I’m really stupid the next day. It just lingers with me for a while in a way that’s not helpful or useful. So, I think it should be legalized. I think we should tax and regulate it and treat it much the same way we treat alcohol, but it’s not a useful thing to me.

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

**John:** Next question.

**Craig:** Oh, Hugo von Giggle-Bottom.

**John:** Ha. Hugo von Giggle-Bottom writes, “I’m interested in your opinions on baldness, John more than Craig, because you are winning the race to hairlessness. Do you care? Does it affect your confidence?” And related questions.

So, here’s my hair situation. I started to lose my hair in my early 20s. And at a certain point, my friend Tom Hoffman says, “You know, if you ever want to just shave all your hair off, I’ll totally do that.”

And I was like, “You know, we should do that, and we should do it as a public event.”

So, I was at my friend Jen’s house and it was sort of like a white trash party and we were watching Miss America. And it was like, yeah, shave my head. And so we shaved it. And I don’t regret it at all. I never looked back.

The weirdest thing about shaving your head though for the first time is I would catch my reflection in a mirror or even just like walking by a window it was like, “Ah, who is that?” I did not recognize myself for a while. But, then, god, my life is just so much easier not having to think about hair.

**Craig:** Yeah. I would totally shave my head, I guess, but my wife doesn’t want me to. She just likes a very close-cropped balding look. The one thing I won’t do is anything to delay the balding. I don’t put any medicine in there. I don’t put any of that stuff. I don’t take the pills.

I know guys that are injecting stuff directly into their scalp. I don’t do anything. I don’t care. This Dr. von Giggle-Bottom, who is German nobility, apparently, says he’s been struggling with hair loss for years and “I just can’t seem to get comfortable with being a bald guy.”

Dude, you’re not a bald guy. You’re a guy. No one cares.

**John:** No one cares.

**Craig:** No one cares. Honestly. It’s just hair. It’s hair.

Let’s see, Jessie asks, “Did Craig ever get to read the rest of the script for that three-page challenge he likes so much? Did he like it?”

I did. And I did. It turned out that it was actually a short. It was about 10 pages, so I got super lucky. Because, you know, you ask to read something, you’re like, oh boy.

It was a very fun read. And when I read it I thought it felt very — it felt like a script for something animated which didn’t come through necessarily when we read it as just three pages. And it was a little reminiscent of Paper Man, the Oscar award-winning animated short. So, I’m actually hooking up the writer with somebody at Pixar who is going to read the script as a writing sample.

**John:** Great. That’s a perfect choice for that.

**Craig:** Yeah. I would think so.

**John:** Matthew from California writes, “I have a hard time waking up in the mornings, no matter what I do, no matter how much sleep I’ve gotten, I cannot seem to rise when my alarm says it’s time to start the day. Part of me thinks it’s a habit ingrained to me after a long period of depression, but regardless of its origins it’s really messing with my ability to get stuff done. Any advice?”

I would say that you are not a morning person and you should somehow rearrange your life so that you don’t have to be a morning person. I think it’s honestly kind of maybe okay that you’re not a morning person. Just take night shifts or something.

**Craig:** Yeah. That’s possible. There are a couple things that you generally ask in a situation like this. What is your caffeine intake? Try stopping all caffeine after noon. Don’t smoke. Exercise a little bit more. And then just try for three or four days to wake up when your alarm says wake up, let’s say 8 o’clock. So, don’t get crazy and say, “I’m waking up at 6:30.” 8 o’clock. Give that a shot. Do that for three or four days in a row and see if you don’t start to get super tired around midnight.

And then you may be able to adjust, if it’s important to you.

**John:** I will say the 11 weeks I was gone in New York and Chicago, that whole time I did not have to set my alarm once, and I could just wake up when I woke up, and I was so much happier for it.

**Craig:** Yeah, for sure.

**John:** Jonathan writes, “Two questions because I’m a greedy bastard. What was the clichéd love at first sight when dating? Or was there a clichéd love at first sight meeting? And since you guys are fairly popular, what would you say is the proper etiquette for people to come up and say hi?”

**Craig:** You walk past them two steps and then turn around, thrust yourself at them.

**John:** And say, “So good to meet you Jerry Seinfeld.”

**Craig:** “So good to meet you.” And then walk away.

**John:** So, let’s handle the second question first. It’s fine to say hi if we’re not clearly engaged in some other conversation or place. It’s situational, but I was at a restaurant and the server recognized who I was and could say, “Oh, I’m a big fan of your podcast.” That’s lovely. That’s great. If I’m in the middle of doing something, or if I’m sort of like doing stuff with my kid, that’s the only time it gets kind of weird, because I’m busy doing other stuff here and there isn’t a great time for me to talk with you.

But, our fans are super cool, so I’m never scared about that.

**Craig:** Yeah, it’s a good rule of thumb to not approach any famous people or people that you don’t know when they’re with their children for the aforementioned reason that parents get — they’re like bears with cubs. They just get weird about that. I mean, the people that have said things to me that I’ve met about the podcast have been very nice.

And, look, the truth is there’s not a great reward. There’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow of meeting me. I just go, “Oh, that’s nice, good to hear.” And then I just move on. But, yeah, just don’t trust yourself into my personal space, because that’s the sort of thing an idiot does to Jerry Seinfeld.

**John:** Yeah. Don’t be an idiot like Craig Mazin.

**Craig:** Don’t be an idiot like Craig Mazin.

For me and my wife it was not love at first sight. It wasn’t not love at first sight. It was interest at first sight. I don’t know if there is a love at first sight. I’m suspicious of that sort of thing.

**John:** Yeah. I think there’s lust at first sight. And so we weren’t love at first sight, either. We were like, this is good. This is great. And then three dates became four dates, became ten dates, became, you know, everything else. So, I think sometimes we’re guilty in movies of creating this situation of love at first sight and it becomes the expectation about how love is supposed to work. And that’s not how love usually works.

**Craig:** That is exactly right. It is not.

**John:** Cool.

**Craig:** So many books just are lies. The world is a huge blanket woven from threads of lies. We just cover ourselves in it.

**John:** Craig, that was actually our last question.

**Craig:** Fantastic.

**John:** That’s so anticlimactic, but that was love at first sight, so that’s a good way to end a podcast.

**Craig:** Why not?

**John:** Why not? So, I have no One Cool Thing, because I thought that was about 90 Cool Things.

**Craig:** Oh my god, yeah, no, we can’t keep talking. That would be ridiculous.

**John:** But thank you everyone who sent in these questions. I’m looking at the list now. There were 106 questions. We answered maybe like 50 of them. That was a lot of questions.

**Craig:** We answered a lot of questions. I think we answered them well. We didn’t fight.

**John:** No, we didn’t really fight. We didn’t even disagree. I would say our answers lined up much more than I would have guessed they would.

**Craig:** Well, because, here’s the truth — the two of us are right.

**John:** That’s the thing.

**Craig:** We’re right. And I wish people would just stop fighting it.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Just let us be right.

**John:** Cool.

**Craig:** Fantastic.

**John:** Craig, thank you for another fun podcast.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**John:** Standard boiler plate language here: If you like the show, find us on iTunes, give us a rating, tell people that you like the show. And if you have questions about screenwriting, which is mostly what we talk about here, you can send them to ask@johnaugust.com. And you can follow me on Twitter. I’m @johnaugust. Craig is @clmazin. And thank you very much and we will talk to you guys next week.

**Craig:** [hums opening] See you later.

**John:** Thanks, bye.

LINKS:

* The Writers Guild Foundation presents [The Screenwriter’s Craft: Finding Your Voice](https://www.wgfoundation.org/screenwriting-events/the-screenwriters-craft-finding-your-voice/) featuring Scriptnotes Live
* [Zach Braff’s response](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1869987317/wish-i-was-here-1/posts/482298) to [The Hollywood Reporter’s article](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-zach-braffs-kickstarter-film-523352) on his film’s gap financer
* The Hollywood Reporter on [E!’s Fashion Police writers strike](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fashion-police-writers-strike-begins-441421)
* [Highland v 1.0.2](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland/) brings shift + return caps, lyrics and various minor bug fixes
* Try [Cignot.com](http://www.cignot.com/Default.asp) for all your eCig needs
* Thumbs up for [UC Verde Buffalo Grass](http://ucverdebuffalograss.com/)
* [Kevo](http://www.kwikset.com/Kevo/default.aspx) is on its way
* The [Nest Thermostat](http://nest.com/) is fantastic
* For LA pizza, check out [Pizzeria Mozza](http://www.pizzeriamozza.com/), [Joe’s Pizza](http://www.joespizza.com/Tel_310_395-9222.html) in Santa Monica or the pizza kiosk at [The Americana](http://www.americanaatbrand.com/)
* And for LA sushi, we like [Nobu](http://www.noburestaurants.com/) and [Matsuhisa](http://www.nobumatsuhisa.com/), [Sugarfish](http://sugarfishsushi.com/) and the former [Nozawa](http://sushinozawa.com/), [Sasabune](http://www.trustmesushi.com) and [Chef Niki Nakayama](http://www.n-naka.com/about/chef/)’s n/naka
* If you’re in Chicago (or Washington D.C.), try [Protein Bar](http://www.theproteinbar.com/)
* Craig still loves his [Tesla](http://www.teslamotors.com/) and John still loves his [Leaf](http://www.nissanusa.com/electric-cars/leaf/)
* [Alternate with water](http://johnaugust.com/2009/alternate-with-water) when you’re drinking
* OUTRO: George Michael’s [Father Figure](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_EGdiS2PEE) covered by Cantaloop

The original post for this episode can be found here.

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

Craig Mazin: My name is Craig Mazin.

John: And this is Scriptnotes, Episode 89, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Craig, we have actual news this week, exciting events that we can talk about finally.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, we’ve really been struggling making stuff up on the fly, but now we can talk about things that are real.

John: Things that are real, including a long-promised and wished and hoped for live event in Los Angeles. Not just one, but two.

Craig: Two!

John: There will be two live Scriptnotes this summer in Los Angeles. The first of which will be Saturday, June 29th, at 10am, at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. It’s part of a larger event that the Writers Guild Foundation is throwing. Tickets are not yet available, but they will be available soon, and there will be a link when those are available.

But, if you are in Los Angeles and would like to come to that you can mark it on your calendar and make sure you don’t have any other plans for 10am on Saturday, June 29th.

Craig: I can’t wait to get a look at our listenership.

John: Yes!

Craig: I want to see what they look like. I want to get an eyeful of these people.

John: So, to date we’ve only done one live event and that was in Austin. And that was at the Austin Film Festival. So, it was already the people who we were seeing every day at the Driskill Hotel. So, this is a chance to see our Los Angeles fan base, including people who I do see at like Trader Joe’s, or at the Nobu restaurant. But this is a chance to see them all together to see us on one stage. It’s going to be exciting.

That is the first of two events. The second event will be Sunday, July 28, at the evening, probably a 7:30 show. That’s going to be at the Pickford Center in Hollywood, which is part of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It’s their big complex on Vine. And we’re going to be having the theater there to celebrate our 100th episode of Scriptnotes.

Craig: Woo! That’s going to be fun.

John: That’s going to be fun, in quotes. So, that’s one where we’ll be actually selling tickets sort of separately. It will be our own thing. And that will be a celebration of 100 episodes of you and I talking at each other over Skype.

Craig: And when we say we’re selling tickets, are we making money off of this?

John: I don’t think we’re making any money off of this.

Craig: Ah!

John: So, I’m sorry, Craig. You won’t be able to raise some money for your electronic cigarette habit.

Craig: Hmmm, maybe we could do a Kickstarter for that. [laughs]

John: That’s what we need to do. But there may be something you could take home with you after the event, and that’s still in discussion. So, the elves are busy working on those things.

Craig: Fantastic.

John: Yeah. So anyway, those are the two dates for the summer. We can’t sell you a ticket right now, or send you to a link, but you can mark them on your calendars. So, the first is Saturday, June 29th, 10am. The second will be Sunday, July 28th, in the evening, probably a 7pm or 7:30 pm. Those are two chances to come see us and come to a taping of our show.

Craig: Yeah.

John: Now, there’s one other chance. If you are in Los Angeles tomorrow night I will be hosting an event at The Academy, which you are all welcome to come. Tickets are $5. This is storytelling in a digital age. It is me hosting a big panel of screenwriters and editors and DPs talking about the challenges and possibilities of making movies in the age of technology that is quickly advancing. So, we will have amazing guests like Mark Boal, and Damon Lindelof, Maryann Brandon, William Goldenberg, Mary Jo Markey, Dylan Tichenor, and also some DPs who I can’t announce yet, but by the time this airs people will know who they are.

So, it should be a really fun time. We’re showing clips. There will be clips from Zero Dark Thirty, from Argo, from Star Trek. There’s an amazing clip from Star Trek which I got to see, which everyone will get to see before the movie even comes out. So, come to that event tomorrow if you would like to.

Craig: And you’re the perfect host for that.

John: Well, thank you. I hope it will be a good, fun time. I love technology. I love making movies. I love talking to people. So, hopefully it will be a good, fun time.

Craig: Nice.

John: But now you’ve jinxed me, and I will just completely stumble and fall.

Craig: There’s no way you could blow it.

John: Thank you. I will find a way to blow it.

Craig: Certainly you’ll enunciate every word and no one will ever turn to somebody in the crowd and say, “What did he just say?”

John: “What did he say? What was that? What did he say?”

There’s a pre-reception for like press and with wine, so I’m having to very carefully moderate my alcohol consumption before I start. Because, one glass of wine I’m better than normal. Two glasses of wine, you don’t want me on stage.

Craig: It’s so funny you mention that, because I brought up before my favorite British comedians, Mitchell and Webb. And they have this amazing — so here’s another link — an amazing sketch whereby we find out that the world is run by this Illuminati group and their entire philosophy is based on the fact that anywhere between one and two glasses of wine makes you a super human.

But if you have less than one glass of wine you’re just a loser. And if you have more than 1.5 glasses of wine you’re an idiot. [laughs] So, you have to have exactly 1.5 glasses. It’s pretty smart.

John: I will confess that there have been times over our 89 episodes that we’ve recorded of the show that we’ve done it late at night, so I’ve already had my one glass of wine at dinner, and it’s just vastly easier with one glass of wine in me.

Craig: I walk around naturally with one glass of wine in me. I don’t drink the wine, it’s just I think I live on a level of one glass of wine.

John: That’s nice. It’s three in the afternoon as we’re recording this, so I have no wine in me. But, if we lived in a different era, if we lived in a Mad Men era, I’d have two martinis in me already. And maybe that would be much, much better.

Craig: That’s right. But you’d be married to a woman.

John: Yeah.

Craig: Bummer.

John: There’s pros and cons. [laughs]

Craig: Exactly. [laughs] Up and downs.

John: I would have the two martinis because I was married to a woman.

Craig: I know, exactly. And then you’d just stare at her, “Ugh.” And she would cry, “Why?”

John: “Why doesn’t he touch me the way I want to be touched?”

Craig: [laughs] Stupid.

John: Today on the agenda we have three things to talk about.

First we want to talk about this $23 million lawsuit filed by two of the writers from G.I Joe.

Second, we’re going to talk about shots that we need to stop putting in movies. So, it’s sort of a corollary to our Cut it Out things, but these are visual things that are in movies that we just need to stop putting in movies.

Craig: Yup.

John: And, finally, a topic that you suggested was transitions. And I think that will be very useful for us to talk through. The craft of transitioning from one scene to the next.

Craig: Great. Big show.

John: Big show. Craig, let’s start by talking about G.I. Joe. So, this was a piece of news that came out this last week, I think. Maybe it will be next week by the time this show airs. Two of the writers from the original G.I. Joe movie, the one that came out — I don’t know — eight years ago? Whenever.

Craig: Well, no, not eight years ago. I think it was like 2009 or something.

John: Well, everything happens…

Craig: 2009. Yeah. 2009.

John: 2009. Because it happened sort of during the strike. It was shot during the strike.

Craig: Yes.

John: It happened during that time. So, David Elliot & Paul Lovett, who are two of the writers credited on that movie, filed a $23 million lawsuit against the makers of the sequel movie, the one that just came out. And it’s interesting for a whole host of reasons. There have been lawsuits filed over movies over people who claim, “Well, I should get credit for writing that movie,” or, “they took my ideas before.”

This is a very unique case in the sense of these aren’t just two guys off the street. These guys wrote the first movie. And they’re arguing here that much of the second movie was work that they actually did and stuff that they had pitched. And raises a whole host of interesting issues, not only for this one lawsuit, but potentially this is the case that you and I have talked about for a long time that could change a bit of how we handle paper in Hollywood.

Craig: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Exactly right. This is the proverbial time bomb that I’ve been going on and on about for a long time. And kind of ironically as part of our little CPSW stuff, our Committee for the Professional Status of Screenwriters, a few of us have gone to studios to talk to the people who run the studios to say, “Look, here are some practices that we think aren’t very good. They’re not productive. They’re hurting writers. We should stop them.”

And you can imagine what they are. Let’s try and have more two-step deals. Let’s try and pay writers on time. Let’s stop asking them to write stuff in order to get jobs. And on that point, I have said repeatedly — including to the folks at Paramount — this is going to blow up in your face. There are divisions of lawyers at these studios who are obsessed with making sure that they own the copyright on every single thing that goes in and out of the gate.

And then you have these other people working there, whether they’re studio executives or producers, who very cavalierly demand that writers write stuff before they get hired and then they don’t get hired. Well, they don’t own that stuff. And if it should happen to turn up in a movie, uh-oh, right?

So, let’s talk a little bit about the details here, because there are some things that I want to be clear about. First of all, it is tempting to side with the writers always the second you hear something like this. But, please always remember that there are other writers on the other side of this issue, namely Reese & Wernick, who wrote — or are credited with writing, and I assume did write — the actual sequel that it is currently being litigated.

I happen to know Rhett & Paul and they’re great guys. And there’s no chance in the world that they would actively rip somebody off. That’s just not possible. So, the question then is, okay, did these guys who wrote stuff down and handed it to the producers in the company, and who then did not get the job, did their material by way of producers repeating things back and so forth sort of contaminate the pool of ideas that were given to Rhett & Paul?

And, again, personally, there’s just no way that Rhett & Paul stole anything.

One thing that is concerning for me about this when you look at David Elliot & Paul Lovett’s case is that the Writers Guild determined that they weren’t participating writers on the project. And that doesn’t bode well for them, because the Writers Guild does take a look at material and say, “Okay, well, this person wasn’t hired, but if they wrote on it they are a participating writer.” And somebody looked at that material over there and said, “We don’t think you wrote on this movie.”

John: So, clarify this for me, because this is something I could not see from the material that I read through. In the pre-arbitration hearing, or was there a pre-arbitration hearing that established that they were not part of this group of writers?

Craig: Yeah, it appears so. Yes. So, what happens is, let’s say you write a script and you’re not hired by a studio. It’s a spec script, or spec material, anything really. You’re not hired. And then you see the script that arises when the credits are being determined and you say, “Oh my god, there’s a whole bunch of stuff that I wrote that’s in this script. And I should be a participating writer. I should be able to get credit on this if I deserve it.”

The Writers Guild will do what they call a participating writer investigation where the material is read by a writer at the Guild, and that writer’s simple determination is, “Yeah, this person’s material actually is evident in the screenplay,” or, “No, this person’s material is not. They shouldn’t be a participating writer.” All you need really is a couple of lines, frankly, that are sort of word for word, or like a very specific kind of scene or moment, or something like that, I would imagine.

I’ve never done one of those myself, but point being these guys were not awarded participating writer status. So, that certainly call their claim into question. We can’t — we don’t know. We don’t know all the details. All we know is what the court is going to decide, or what a settlement determines, and certainly a court doesn’t care what the WGA thinks.

But what does matter ultimately in the end is that the studios have to really now take a very strong look at who is asking for written material, because at this point if they don’t issue a blanket policy that they can’t accept written material from writers trying to get jobs, they’re nuts.

John: Yeah. So, let’s do step away from the details of this specific case, because I don’t know these writers at all and I don’t know the specifics beyond what I read. And so if people are curious about the specifics, there are PDFs up that show not only the lawsuit as it was filed but also attached are the emails that were sent through describing in detail what these writers had pitched. And so that’s one thread to look through if people are curious about that.

But, I do think the general topic of prewriting, which is basically this is stuff that you are writing before you’ve gotten the job, and maybe you’re writing that for yourself, but the minute you hand that over to somebody, you are creating written material that could potentially become part of the movie, and that is hugely troubling for the studio, and for the writers, and for the producers.

And let’s also take a look that this is G.I. Joe. So, this is a preexisting property. When you come into this property, they did not create these characters, so these are preexisting characters. So, they can show that they created the situations in which these characters are doing things, but they didn’t come in from scratch writing brand new characters, which is also a complication in this situation. But, very, very common for the situations where there are a bunch of writers going up for a job.

Craig: Yeah.

John: And when people are asking you to come in and pitch a take they are saying, “Okay, we have this material, we have this book, we have this preexisting property. Let’s redo The Addams Family. Well, how would you do the Addams Family?” Well, if you’re going to do The Addams Family you’re going to look at, well, this is The Addams Family. These are who the characters are. And so anything you’re pitching is going to be using those characters in a specific way.

And if you create, you know, you may be writing stuff for yourself, but if you hand over that written material, that’s the problem. And let’s talk about why you would hand over that stuff. Because here’s what happens when I’m in a meeting. They’ll say, “We love that. That was fantastic. Do you have something I could have so I can pitch this to my boss?”

Craig: Right.

John: That’s invariably sort of how they phrase it, because you are talking to some lower level creative executive who has to then go turn around and pitch your take to his or her boss. And they’ll say, “Can I have something to refer back to?”

And from my earliest jobs I’ve sometimes done that. I’ve given that paper over. And that’s not a good choice for the writer, and it’s certainly not a good choice for the studio.

Craig: Yeah. It’s a mess. And I don’t really know any way around it other than the studio saying, “We’re not doing that anymore.” Because if you were to say, “Well, why don’t we do this: everybody who comes in, you want to give us some material, that’s fine, but we’re going to pay you for it. So, we have a new deal. We’re going to pay you $5,000 for it. Everybody who comes in.”

Well, that’s great for the writers. They get five grand. And great for the studio. They’re covered on all that material. They own it lock, stock, and barrel. But, the problem then is when you get to your credit arbitration you have about 40 guys all with pieces of a story. And the poor guy who actually wrote the movie is like, “What?! Who am I sharing story with? Which one of the guys that didn’t get the job am I sharing story with?”

It gets crazy. The fact is studios cannot per the terms of our collective bargaining agreement insist that there be written material as a condition of employment. They are forbidden to do that. And they do it all the time. So, that has to stop.

And then as far as the writers go, writers can offer that material. I think, frankly, the studio is going to have to say no. “If I want you to pitch this idea to my boss, I’m taking you to my boss and you’re going to pitch it.” Because once it’s written down on paper it exists and they’ve accepted it.

John: So, let me back you up one step. You said that the studio cannot require writers to do this prewriting as a condition of their employment, but they could pay them for exactly what you’re describing. They could pay them for a treatment.

Craig: Yes.

John: So, in television that’s common. And I have to say like television has somewhat solved this problem to some degree. Granted, you’re not bringing in a bunch of people to pitch on one particular project so often, but in television you do get paid for those steps along the way. You get paid for those outlines. You get paid for those things, or at least they’re considered part of your overall employment. So, basically upon giving your pitch, part of your deal is that you’re going to be writing this material and you’re going to be working through these drafts of stuff before you actually get to your script.

And that may just be a way that smart studios may want to proceed is that they’ll hire you to certain steps and then pull triggers to get you to the next step. And that may be a way to cover themselves.

Craig: Well, I’ve always been in favor of that. I believe that’s a great part of the process, and it used to be a formal part of the screenwriting process and it sort of went away.

The major difference between television and film I think in this area is that most television projects are generated by the writer. So, the writer comes in. They say, “Look, here’s the idea. Here’s the world I want to do,” and they say, “Great. Let’s start developing it. Here’s some money, write a treatment, do all these steps.”

In features, so often they’re coming to you and saying, “We have something we want to do. Five, six, seven of you come in and wow us,” whether it’s a sequel, or a book, or a remake. And in those situations they very typically engage in the sweepstakes pitching stuff where a lot of writers are coming in.

And those situations in particular are the most treacherous for the studio to accept written material for. And yet that’s the situation in which they are most likely to accept written material because the writers are all competing with each other and basically racing to the bottom of the barrel in terms of working for nothing.

John: Yes. And it’s very unlikely that if you had seven people come in and pitch their takes, there would be great similarities between those seven takes.

Craig: Yeah.

John: Let’s talk Charlie’s Angels, or whatever. If you were coming in to pitch Charlie’s Angels, well, you know there’s going to be three Angels. You know they’re going to have different types. And so you’re going to probably find there’s going to be some overlap of who those types of women are.

There’s going to be a nature of who is the Bosley type character? What is his function? What is the plot of this big movie? And so the movie version of Charlie’s Angels, well, it’s pretty natural that someone is going to try to kill Charlie. That’s kind of an obvious idea because it’s a movie idea.

So, those kinds of things are going to happen a lot. The idea that there’s going to be an old Angel that comes back — which is what we did in the sequel — who is the villain, that’s kind of an obvious idea. And yet, if you were to sort of track through and say like these things are all similar, and this must have influenced this, well, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it influenced. It just means that like that’s the kind of idea you have for the movie version of this property.

Craig: That’s right. And unfortunately the rules of these things are fairly dumb. They very dumbly look at chronology and little else. And the assumption is, okay, if it came first, everybody else looked at it and saw it, and if it’s the same thing then you must have taken it. And that’s just not true. You’re absolutely right. Frankly, so much of our film language is influenced not by writers that precede us on a project but by movies that precede all of us and oftentimes are berths.

So, it was a former Angel that came back. Well, you know, we’ve seen that in other movies. That’s sort of a time tested thing of the former ally coming back now as an enemy to write a wrong. Bond has done that at least, what, three times?

John: Yup.

Craig: So, that’s not what makes, frankly, the movie interesting. You know what I mean? And there are movies where the characters, the tone, the action is the fun stuff, and the intricacies of the plotting is not. That’s not the point. And frankly G.I. Joe 2, I’m guessing, is probably in that category.

And how many different ways can you do a sequel based on a cartoon property like that, a toy? You could easily see three or four writers coming up with very similar stories. And then it’s just about the execution, tone, and all the rest.

John: Agreed. You and I have both been part of lawsuits where someone has come in to sue and say like, “Well, I wrote this script first. And this script existed afterwards. And clearly it must have influenced. We can’t prove that you read this script, but clearly this must have influenced it. Because who else could have the idea of doing a script like this?”

And that’s the most maddening kind of thing at all. Who would have the idea of doing a movie about bowling? Well, everyone had the idea. And so my defense in those situations, which I’ve never actually used legally, but I think my sort of emotional defense is that if I can show any other script that existed about bowling before your script, then you have no case. Because therefore you must have stolen that idea from somebody else before.

Craig: Right.

John: Prior Art as sort of the defense against those kind of copyrights.

Craig: That’s exactly right. But, you know, look, there are crazy people who are crazy. There are narcissistic people who are narcissistic. And self-delusional people. That’s always the case. This is not what’s going on here. I mean, in truth, we are dealing with two professional writers who had a very privileged relationship with the people that they’re suing. And that has to give everyone cause for concern. It certainly gives me cause for concern.

And, listen, if these guys have a case, and they were infringed upon, I wish them nothing but the best of luck in this, you know. I feel bad for Rhett & Paul, because you don’t want this hanging over your head as writers.

I just feel like the larger answer for the studios has to be that they just can’t get involved in this stuff anymore. If their lawyers knew the way that the producing world in general was behaving, they would lose their minds. They would.

John: Yeah. I would agree. I’m sort of on the side of all the writers in the situation. And I’m not rooting for or against anybody. I’m more rooting for the case changing something, because I feel like this is the kind of lawsuit that you and I have been taking about for years. That someone who has — not just some Joe off the street — but someone who actually has a career is going to step up and say, “This is what happened.” And people are going to have to acknowledge the reality behind it.

Craig: Yup.

John: Cool. Let’s move on and talk about, this was a list that I found today, or actually I think Stuart actually found this list and passed it on to me, so thank you, Stuart, for finding it. It’s from a blog called Reverse Shot. And it’s a list of sort of visual clichés.

In a previous podcast you and I did this thing called Cut it Out, which is like things we see way too often in scripts, or just tropes that need to stop being used in screenplays because they’re clammy. They’re just not original anymore.

Craig: Although, literally, I think people called out three that I’ve used recently. [laughs]

John: Which is fine.

Craig: So, I don’t think those count.

John: No, they’re not clammy then.

This was a list of sort of visual equivalents of that. And so it’s things that you see, that wouldn’t necessarily show up in a script, but then you see them in movies and you’re like, “You know what? Let’s stop doing that because we’ve seen that shot way too many times.”

So, I thought we’d take some turns reading through this and discussing some of our favorites.

Craig: Sure.

John: So, I loved the first one on this list which is moving clouds that are sped up.

Craig: Yeah, Koyaanisqatsi time-lapse.

John: Yeah, exactly. So, time-lapse is lovely and great, but we’ve seen those moving clouds a lot. And so maybe we could do something else rather than those moving clouds.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, sometimes when they’re part of something else that’s going on, I’m okay with it. If it’s just the clouds and that standard shot then it is pretty boring.

John: It’s pretty boring.

Craig: Yeah. The next one is we’re in a long shot and a guy is really far away and walking toward the camera and you’re thinking, “Oh, I’m going to have to watch him walk the whole way.” And it turns out, yeah, you are going to have to watch him walk the whole way.

Does that happen? [laughs]

John: It does happen. And it happens a lot over opening credits where we see somebody walking, and walking, and like the credits are just showing up on the screen. And like, oh my god, I’m going to have to watch this person the entire time?

Craig: It’s kind of an indie vibe sort of thing?

John: It’s sort of an indie vibe thing. Sometimes it’s a walk and talk where literally the camera is stationary and it’s a walk and talk towards the camera. And every once and awhile that will work just great. But, man, it just drives me crazy because I start to notice that, wow, we’re just going to stay in this shot for forever.

It has to be a really fascinating moment for me to want to stay in there and not really notice that we’re staying in this moment. A Steadicam can be the same kind of situation. Like, if I notice that you’re Steadicam shot has gone on for two minutes I’m going to just start looking for the cut and I’ll stop paying attention to the scene.

Craig: Unless it’s Goodfellas.

John: Unless it’s Goodfellas. But Goodfellas, it’s just such a good shot that it’s amazing, but how often is it really going to be that shot?

Craig: Are you Martin Scorsese?

John: Yeah. I mean, Joe Wright does it a lot, too. And I got fatigued by Joe Wright doing it.

Craig: All right.

John: Third one. An alienated teen or adolescent girl in the passenger side of a car driving down the highway, window rolled down, her hand swaying in the wind as it zips down a road to who knows where.

Craig: Yeah.

John: Yeah. We’ve seen that a lot folks. I mean, if she has something in her hand that she lets go, that’s also a cliché.

Craig: [laughs] Top down. Feeling youthful. Yeah, we’ve seen it.

This one’s pretty great. Overhead shot of protagonist in the rain, arms spread, just letting the downpour come. Yeah. That is really baroque.

John: Yeah. So, Shawshank Redemption is sort of the classic version of that, but like in Shawshank Redemption he just did crawl through a sewer tunnel. So, you give him, like he kind of wants the shower. But we need to stop doing that.

Craig: Yeah. Because people don’t do that.

John: People don’t really do that. People really don’t want to be in the rain overall. In movies they seem to kind of love it, but whenever it’s raining I’m kind of like how fast can I get out of the rain.

Craig: I mean, maybe you like the rain, but then you don’t put your arms out and look up at the sky and go, “Yay!”

John: Yeah, because it’s not comfortable.

Craig: It’s not!

John: Rain hitting your eyes is not good.

Craig: It’s weird. That’s how turkeys drown.

John: Number five. So it’s a side angle, above-boob shower shot of women cleaning themselves after the previous events. So, it could be like a terrible date, or something awful happened, but it’s that sort of frantic scrubbing. Also in the bathroom here, things like shots are into the mirror, people washing their faces and looking up to examine their wet face in the mirror with their mouth open.

Yeah, people looking at themselves in mirrors is happening a little too much in movies overall, but that washing and then looking at yourself in the mirror, that’s just a kind of cliché.

Craig: Yeah, washing and looking at yourself in the mirror, I do feel like I can make a list of 20 movies that do that.

John: Not so good.

Craig: Good point. Next one we have is protagonist on mass transit, looking pensive. Everyone else also looking miserable. And maybe layered with some “melancholic electronica.”

John: Yeah, the point being, so you’re on mass transit. So, you don’t have a car, I guess. But just being miserable on a train is just, well, yeah, people are miserable on trains.

Craig: Don’t you get it man, we’re all alone. Together.

John: That’s what it means. Yeah. We’re all alone together. And everyone has got their headphones on. It’s meant to be a great, big point. No, not so much really. I think if you’re going to put somebody on a train, we should know the reason why they’re on that train. Something should happen that they’re on that train. Because if it’s just them going to work, then it’s just kind of a stock shot of people going to work.

Craig: Yeah. They’re sad on a train.

John: They’re sad on a train.

Next up, this would be a Mexican, or Sicilian, or Indian, or Iranian child running through the streets without a care in the world, smiling and laughing, running right by a mother who hardly notices them, so busy she is hanging laundry.

I do see that a lot. It’s sort of like a third world/happy children/mom is doing laundry.

Craig: Tired mom.

John: Tired mom.

Craig: Happy kids/tired mom. Yeah, I guess that, generally speaking the running, laughing children is annoying to me. [laughs]

John: [laughs]

Craig: You know, what is that? Is that a game? The run and laugh game? I don’t know that game.

John: Yeah, what are they doing? They’re running and laughing because they can. Maybe they have a stick in their hand and they’re running it across the fence.

Craig: Yeah. Exactly. And laughing. And, yeah, no, no.

John: Stop.

Craig: Cut it out.

Guy goes to open a safe, or refrigerator, or something like that and BOOM, all of a sudden we’re shooting from inside out that thing, looking out at them.

Yeah, that’s even cliché for bad commercials.

John: Yeah.

Craig: You know, the beer ads, you know.

John: It goes back to point of view. It’s like, so why are we inside the refrigerator? Is there a really good reason why we’re inside the refrigerator? I mean, is there an important story point happening in the refrigerator? Or are you just doing it so you can do it? And if you’re just doing it so you can do it, that’s probably not the best choice.

Craig: Yes.

John: Worst choices would be sort of like shooting up from the sink’s point of view, or something. Don’t do that.

Craig: Yeah. Unmotivated camera work. Just, why?

John: Next up. Epiphanies while jogging. So, often it’s like the big tracking shot, the gliding tracking shot. Then we pull up short while they suddenly have a revelation.

Yeah, you know, you can have good ideas while jogging. Things can happen. You can be interrupted from your jogging by something. But, if you suddenly stop short, and often the music will tell you that you had an epiphany. It’s like you’re responding to the score rather than actually to an event that happened.

Craig: It totally agree. There is this very famous moment from Good Times where the dad dies. He dies because John Amos wanted too much money. I think that was the actor’s name, John Amos. So, Norman Lear was like, “Eh, now you’re dead.”

And Esther Rolle, I believe, is the woman who played his wife. And they go through this whole episode where he’s dead, and the funeral and everything, and she’s kind of like keeping it together in this amazing way. And then at the very end she’s alone in her kitchen, she’s just cleaning up. And she just takes a dish and then she suddenly smashes it into the ground. She says, “Damn, damn, damn!” And it’s awesome.

And it’s awesome because she didn’t need to go jogging. There was no music. [laughs] It was absolutely quiet. And for sitcoms to be absolutely quiet it is very eerie. And you suddenly feel like, oh my god, I’m watching a reality show, because nothing is happening at all. They’re wasting broadcast time watching a woman literally clean for 20 seconds.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. And you don’t have to go in the rain, or jogging, or punch a punching bag to suddenly realize something important. “Damn, damn, damn!”

John: “Damn!”

You’re up.

Craig: Oh, yeah. Well, “Damn, damn…” I’ll just keep doing it. So good. That show is so good.

So, in documentaries, stock footage of 1950s appliance ads and educational reels for a goofy, eerie conformism effect. That is super, duper clammy. You know, the whole point is that the ’50s were terrible, and robotic, and nobody was free, and everybody was just a cog in a huge machine, when that’s not at all true; it’s just the style of making those movies of the time.

John: I also have a hunch that a lot of times the reason why we see them in documentaries is those are free to license. And so it’s a simple, easy thing to stick in there. And because we’ve seen them so much in documentaries it becomes sort of default, like, “Oh, we should cut to that.”

Craig: I mean, I think that there’s probably stuff from the ’60s and ’70s you could license as well with like that wah-wah-wah. Like, you know, when we were kids, remember those film strips? And they were always like wonka-wonka with the crazy Wah-wah pedal.

But, I think the point is like, “Ha, ha, ha, stupid ’50s people.” And you know, I’m sorry, they were just in a war. Lay off. There’s nothing wrong… — So, I’m sorry, they all worked in a factory and they all look clean. Oh, whoop-de-do.

John: It’s a terrible thing for that. Related in documentaries is that when you hold on a shot just slightly too long after someone said something ridiculous.

Craig: Yeah.

John: You get that. It’s just like leaving tails on something to sort of makes somebody look like an idiot.

Craig: I know. And you know what? It kind of bums me out. I happen to love Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! I don’t know if you ever watched that show on Showtime. It’s really good. They’re so smart. They’re so good. And they do such a great job of being skeptics, and certainly I am one of them.

But one thing they do that bums me out is that. They’re always having people say things, or responding, or saying a line, or responding to a question, and then they just hold on them pointlessly to make them look dumb. And that in and of itself is bullshit.

John: Yeah. Because really the reason why there’s that silence is because you haven’t said the next thing, and you’re creating that space for them to look stupid.

Craig: Right. Like there could be somebody talking on the other side of that, and they’re just listening. But if you take that audio out, then it just looks like they’re dummies that say a line and then suddenly turn off like robots running low on battery.

John: Yeah, it’s not good.

Craig: No.

John: This is an obvious cliché, but when something is blowing up behind somebody and they don’t look back or acknowledge it blowing up.

Craig: “Damn, damn, damn!”

John: [laughs] Uh, yeah. It’s been such an acknowledged cliché that to do it now it sort of has to be sort of, you have to do something special with it because we’ve just seen it way too much — the being cool while something is blowing up behind you.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, that’s ridiculous.

John: That’s ridiculous.

Craig: Old-timey camera flashbulb close-up opening a shot. Often in slow-mo so you can see the scorching filament. And this is, yeah, with that sound that goes, [camera flash sound effect]. Yeah. That should stop.

John: Yeah. And actually that’s a perfect opportunity for us to transition to our third topic today which is about transitions. Because that is an example of a transition.

Craig: Right.

John: It’s sort of a hacky transition. But, it’s a transition that somebody probably wrote in there. Okay, maybe it was written into the script, or maybe it was a thing that was done on set with the anticipation of like, well, this will be our transition to get us into a new moment. A sudden flash of light that will carry us into a new world.

So, let’s talk about transitions because it’s an important part of screenwriting that we really haven’t touched on so much over our 88 episodes.

Craig: Well, one thing that we should probably say right off the bat is that there are people out there in the screenwriting advice world who spread this nonsense that writers shouldn’t direct on the page. “Don’t tell the director what to do.”

Oh, please! We’re not selling screenplays to directors. Directors aren’t hiring us to write. We’re writing screenplays for people to read so that they can see a movie. And part of our intention when we write screenplays is to show what the movie should look like. The director doesn’t have to do what you say on the page. But, you know what? I find that they tend to appreciate that you’ve written with transitions in mind because it’s really important to them. And, frankly, if you don’t write with transitions in mind, some directors aren’t going to notice and they’re just going to shoot what you wrote and then it won’t connect.

Transitions are a super important part of moving from one scene to the next so you don’t feel like you’re just dragging your feet through a swamp of story, but rather being propelled forward through it.

John: So, let’s clarify some terms. There’s two things we mean when we talk about transitions. And one is literally just the all uppercase on the right hand margin of the page, CUT TO, or TRANSITION TO, or FADE TO, or CROSS-FADE TO. That is the element of transition. That is a physical thing that exists in the syntax of screenwriting.

And we’re only kind of half talking about that. That’s a way of indicating that you are moving to something new. Most modern screenplays don’t use CUT TOs after every scene. That’s a thing that you were sort of originally taught to do. And you can sort of tell first time screenwriters because they will always say CUT TO.

Craig: Right.

John: In most cases you won’t really use a CUT TO. In personal life, I only use CUT TO if I have to really show that it’s a hard cut from something to another thing, to really show that I’m breaking time and space to go to this next thing.

Usually you won’t do that. Usually what you’ll do is you want a scene to flow into the next scene. And that’s really what I think we should talk about today is how do you get that feeling of we’re in this scene, and now we’re moving into the next scene, and there’s a reason why we left that scene at this moment, or we’re coming into this scene at this moment.

Craig: Yeah. And this is a very kind of nuts and bolts craft thing. There are techniques. I mean, I wrote down a few techniques which I will run through. And you tell me what you think.

John: Great.

Craig: The first and the easiest one is size. A size transition is to go from a very tight shot to a super wide shot, or to go from a very wide shot to a super close shot. Sometimes you can even be in a medium shot where two people are talking, and then the next thing you see is a close-up of a watch, and then we’re into a scene where somebody is checking the time.

So, just using the juxtaposition of size in and of itself helps feel like things are happening and they’re connected.

John: So, let’s talk about what it actually looks like on the page, because you’re not describing every shot in a movie obviously. But, if you were in a dialogue situation where it was two characters talking, and they’d been talking for awhile, the assumption is that you’re going to get into some fairly close coverage there. So, if it’s just about those two people, then if your next shot is described as a giant panorama of something, something, something, that is a big size transition.

Similarly, if you were to cut to the close-up of the watch, or some fine little detailed thing, then we’d say like, okay, that’s a huge size transition. Even if you’re not describing what that shot was on the outside, we have a sense of relative scale there. You don’t have to necessarily draw our attention to it, because we’ll notice that something different has happened.

Craig: It will help your reader see your movie instead of read it. I mean, it’s just real simple things like that.

Another simple one is music or sound. There’s nothing wrong with calling out a piece of music. It doesn’t have to even be a specific song. You may just say, okay, like we’re looking at two cops and they’re in the break room. They’re chitchatting. And then over the sound of hip-hop we are…and now we’re South Central, LA. Rolling down Crenshaw. Just to kind of help the reader understand there’s a connection here.

Similarly, you can use sounds. Two people are talking quietly about what needs to happen, and then the next thing we hear is a siren. And, by the way, you can pre-lap that audio, or you can have it just be a hard cut. But something that jolts us. In a weird way, the funny thing about transitions is they’re almost anti-transitional at times. It’s not about… — Because the point is you want people to understand I’m in a new place at a new time. And if it all just flows together like mush, it’s almost too transitional.

John: Absolutely. There are time where we want that really smooth legato sort of flow from one thing to the next thing. And there are times where you want big, giant, abrupt things, like that cliché flashbulb, to tell us we are at a new place at a new time, and brand new information can be coming your way.

Craig: Exactly. One cool thing you can do, I wouldn’t overdo it, but it’s fun here and there, is what I call misdirect transitions. So, a guy says, “They’ll never see us coming,” and he’s got a gun. And we go to a close-up, bullets going into the gun. Pull back to reveal, interior, it’s another character loading a gun.

John: Exactly.

Craig: Little tricks, basically.

John: Yeah, and again, that’s a thing where if you did that three times in a movie, you’d be golden. If you did that ten times in a movie, we would want to strangle you.

Craig: Probably. Unless it was just like everything was so clever and it’s kind of like a, I don’t know, like a Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels kind of movie or something.

John: Yeah, I was going to say sort of the Asian action films might do that more often. So, yeah, if that’s your style then it’s going to work, but otherwise it’s going to probably feel too much.

A similar related thing is Archer does these amazing transitions from scene to scene where a character will — they’ll pre-lap the character — they will pull a line of dialogue up above the cut that seems to be about the scene that you’re in, but it’s actually about a completely different moment that’s happening on the other side of the scene.

It’s very clever how they do it. And that’s a way of misdirecting you sort of comedically from what you thought you were talking about to something completely different.

Craig: Right. Exactly. And there is a general kind of, I suppose the most conventional transition is the pre-lapped audio. So, two people say, “Well, that didn’t go very well.” The next shot is a courthouse. And over the courthouse we see, “Everyone please come to order.” It’s the most standard kind of TVish thing. But, it helps you move at least inside and outside in ways that are not so clunky.

Another sort of tricky dialogue method is the question-and-answer transition.

John: Exactly.

Craig: Or, someone will say, “Someone isn’t telling us the truth.” And the next shot is a woman smiling. [laughs] You know? It’s just little, it doesn’t even have to be a dialogue answer in other words. But just the transition itself is giving us information.

John: That’s very much a TV procedural kind of thing. That’s a thing you would see in Law & Order where the “We need to find a witness who can…” and then the next shot is going to be the witness who can do that.

Craig: Right.

John: Or like this is the question we need to have answered. So you ask a question on one side of the cut and you come to a possible answer on the other side of the cut.

Craig: Right. Right. “Does anyone know where Luke is?” Cut. A guy on a boat. Drunk. You know?

John: In a very general sense, what you’re trying to do as you end a scene is you’re trying to put the reader’s head, and really the viewer’s head, in a place where they have a certain image in their head. And so when you come to the far side of that cut, that is changed or that is addressed in some meaningful way.

So, thematic cuts are another common way of doing this. A classic is sort of Lawrence of Arabia, the match that transitions to the sunset. That is a fire. There’s fire on both sides of the cut. So, you’re thinking fire, and then you see this giant image of a fiery sun. That is a natural transition.

Sometimes you’ll do that with imagery. Sometimes you’ll do that with a word that matches. Sometimes you’ll do it with a question that needs to be answered on the far side. Those are natural ways to sort of get people across the bridge there.

Craig: Yeah. The ones we’ve gone through here are very rudimentary. And they’re generic because we’re discussing them in generic terms. Find your own and find ones that are meaningful to you and your story. But really do make sure as you’re writing that you’re not just bone-on-bone here. That there is something that helps more us through, little tiny things.

It makes an enormous difference. It really, really does. And, frankly, it puts you in greater control over the movie that will eventually exist.

John: I would agree.

Another thing I would stress is that you probably want to save your powder a bit, and use those big transitional moments for big transitional moments. So, don’t paint a big giant landscape of something if it’s not an important moment that we’re going to, something new. Don’t always give us those big transitions. Some things should be sort of straight simple cuts, where we’re just getting from one thing to the next, so that when we do the bigger thing we as the reader will notice, “Okay, something big and different has changed here.”

When you’re reading through scripts, after awhile, well, the first couple scripts you read, you probably read every word because it’s all a new form to you. But after you’ve read like 30 scripts, you recognize that you stop actually reading the INT/EXT lines basically. They sort of just skip past you. And you can sometimes jump back at them if you’re curious, but you’re really just sort of looking for the flow of things.

And so most times you’re just jumping over that; you don’t really kind of know or care where you are. So, even though we tell people to be very specific in those things and give us those details, a lot of times people aren’t going to read those. They’re just going to read the first line of action that happens after the scene header, if you’re lucky.

So, save those bigger moments for the bigger moments that you really want that reader to stop, and slow down, and pay attention to the fact that we are in a new place, a new time, this is a new section of the movie.

Craig: Well said. Well said.

John: Great. Craig, are you ready for some One Cool Things?

Craig: I have Two Cool Things.

John: I have Six Cool Things.

Craig: I have Twelve Cool Things.

John: It’s going to be an arms race. You go first.

Craig: Okay, well one is fast and one is a little longer, but they’re both sort of linked together by charity and the notion of charity.

The first Cool Thing is that, and I had no idea this was going on, but studios are —

I read this in the LA Times. This was forwarded to me by Todd Amorde at the Writers Guild. Studios are donating their old sets to Habitat for Humanity. And Habitat for Humanity actually, they’re not using the sets to build houses, because sets are not built for people to live in, but what they do is they sell a lot of the stuff that they get to people, and then they collect the money and they use that help build homes for people.

And , in fact, The Hangover Part III sent over a whole big bunch of stuff to them, ten truckloads of stuff, [laughs], to Habitat for Humanity. And there is an interesting — there is a scene that happens in the movie in a cellar basement, and the walls were this kind of cool faux brick, rocky wall kind of stuff. And I remember thinking, “Oh, that looks real.”

John: It’s actually just foam, right? It’s painted foam?

Craig: It’s kind of painted foam. And somebody bought that stuff. [laughs] “Habitat received about 60 sheets of faux brick wall used for a wine cellar set in The Hangover Part III. One customer bought 40 sheets for $25 each to use in a custom-made space.” Now, I may not want to go to that spa, that might be weird, but I think that’s cool. So, well done — Sony, I think, kicked this thing off. But, they’re all doing it now. That’s really, really great.

I never really thought, oh, where did all that stuff go?

The other thing is a repeat of something that we helped promote last year, and that’s Joe Nienalt who is a screenwriter is once again dong the fundraising for the Heart Walk 2013/2014. Last year they raised almost $45,000. And they are looking to do it again.

And they are doing their same campaign. And the way it works — listen up people who say, “No one will read my script. No one is going to read my script!” Well, shut it. Here’s the story:

Daniel Vang is a manager at Benderspink. They are a real, legitimate production management company, unlike some of the people cited in your average Brooks Barnes article. [laughs] Is that his name, Brooks Barnes?

John: Oh yeah.

Craig: Brooks Barnes. Eh. I tried to forget his name.

Anyway, they’re real producers. They’re real managers. Daniel Vang is an actual human being who reads things and is involved in this business. If you donate $25, Daniel will read the first ten pages of your script. If you donate $50, he will read the first 50 pages. If it’s great, he’ll keep going.

If you donate $100, he will read your entire script. $100 and a guy at Hollywood will read your script. Not a guru. An actual guy. And here’s the best part: He doesn’t pocket the money! It goes to charity. It goes to the American Heart Association.

So, we’re going to put the link on John’s website, so you can go there and take advantage of this. And stop whining. “No one will read my script!” Save a life. Do something positive for once!

John: Absolutely. The angry man is yelling at you to do something positive.

Craig: Do it! [laughs] Stupid idiot!

John: [laughs] No, it sounds very good. And so last year a lot of people did take advantage of that, obviously. And I think it’s a great opportunity for people to get their scripts read.

Craig: For sure. Do it.

What about you? What’s your One Cool Thing? Couldn’t be cooler than saving lives, but okay.

John: So, for the last 12 years, 13 years, I’ve had an assistant. And so I’ve had a string of assistants who have all gone on to do really, really well. And I got to thinking about them over this time that I was in Chicago because Stuart — poor Stuart who edits this show, god bless Stuart — was here sort of alone, keeping the home fires burning. And working on his own crafts and projects.

But this summer was actually a very eventual summer for many of my former assistant, so I thought I would actually sort of go back through my last six assistants — my only six assistants — and just sort of track their progress.

Craig: This honestly is an amazing thing.

John: [laughs] So, Stuart is my current assistant. And Stuart keeps all the stuff running here. So, god bless Stuart.

My assistant before him was Matt Byrne. Matt Byrne is working on Scandal now. And when he started working on Scandal it was like, oh, that show, is it going to last? Is it going to work? The ratings were dicey. Now the ratings are really, really good. I think it’s the top drama running right now.

Matt was just — so he’s a staff writer on Scandal. And he was just today in a podcast for Scandal. So, I will put a link to the podcast in which Matt talks about his role in Scandal.

Craig: Nice.

John: It’s been fascinating to watch Matt sort of become a big TV writer, which is fantastic.

Chad Creasey and his wife Dara Creasey, Chad was my assistant before Matt, they are writers on Mistresses which is a show that airs on ABC this summer. It’s very exciting for them.

Craig: Excellent.

John: Dana Fox, who is a friend of the show, Dana ran the show Ben and Kate. She has written a gazillion movies. But this last week she got named Hollywood Reporter’s Comedy Class of 2013.

Craig: Nice!

John: For all of her rewriting.

Craig: And she is a member of The Fempire.

John: She is a member of The Fempire.

Craig: She is a Femporer.

John: Yes. With Diablo Cody and the other very talented women who write movies and television shows.

Craig: Yes.

John: Rawson Thurber, who was my assistant before Dana…

Craig: The king of them all.

John: The king of them all. Well, he got engaged which is why I’m so personally happy for him, but he also has a movie coming out this summer called We’re the Millers.

Craig: Wait a second — he got engaged just recently?

John: Yeah.

Craig: No way. I thought…okay. So, I’m so traditional. I was at his house, I met his — now — his fiancé. I thought, oh, I guessed he’s married. Stupid me. Wasn’t even engaged.

John: No. So, we’re very happy that he got engaged. And we’re very happy he has a movie coming out this summer.

Craig: Yeah. Great guy. Great guy.

John: Great guy. And, so back to my very first assistant who predated Rawson by only like two days, but Sean Smith had a baby.

Craig: Hooray! Congratulations Sean.

John: Sean Smith, who is a television writer, who created the TV show Greek, just had a baby. So, yay!

Craig: Nice. So he made life.

John: He made life. Other people made television shows, but he made life.

Craig: Now, you’ve got to be leaving out one assistant who is like, eh, he’s in his mom’s basement.

John: I’ve had essentially really no dud assistants. The only people who I’m sort of leaving out are people who like filled in for a week at a time, but those are not the real assistant people.

Craig: So, Stuart, I assume, sits there thinking, “Soon it will be my time.”

John: Soon it will be Stuart’s time.

Craig: Yes.

John: It was tough while I was in Chicago because I didn’t have — for the first time I didn’t have an assistant. I didn’t have like a full time person who was my person. So, I ended up drafting in some people from the music department. And there was an observer from the Director’s Choreographers Guild who was there, who ended up sort of de facto becoming my assistant because there were things that I needed someone to do. So, Amber Mak, I thank you very much for that.

But, it was weird sort of just being solo for a time, and having to figure out how to get this thing to print. So, I’m very grateful to be back with an assistant.

Craig: Well, that sounds wonderful. I have assistants — I underutilize them. I tend to do everything myself. Sometimes I forget that there is somebody who can do it.

John: Honestly, the last ten years have been a process of gradually recognizing that certain jobs are better performed by somebody who is not me. And so with an assistant, and then with Ryan Nelson who does all the digital stuff for us. I was recognizing that people have skills that they’re better at.

And when directing a movie I’ve had to definitely step back and recognize that I have an idea of how to light a scene, but I should never be anywhere near a light. I shouldn’t really edit. I sort of know how to edit, but I really shouldn’t edit. These are things that people are going to be better at than I am. And it’s not about humbling, it’s empowering when you realize that someone else can do that job.

Craig: When you’re directing, also, your personal life needs to be attended to. I mean, you suddenly are like a baby.

John: Yes.

Craig: Somebody has to put food in your mouth for you.

John: Yeah. Someone has to like literally bring food and say, “Eat this food,” because otherwise you will not eat that food.

Craig: Right. Exactly.

John: It’s a good thing.

So, listeners, if there is anything that we talked about on today’s show that you would like to find a link for, well, you can find links at johnaugust.com/podcast. And so all the previous episodes will be there as well, but on this episode you will see links to things like the Heart Walk. What was the thing called? The Heart Walk?

Craig: Yeah. The Heart Walk.

John: Heart Walk. See things to the podcast that Matt is featured in. You’ll see stuff for this lawsuit.

Craig: And the sketch for between one and two glasses of wine. [laughs]

John: [laughs] Exactly. We’ll have Stuart find that and put that as well.

Craig: Yes.

John: If you like the show, you can subscribe to us in iTunes. That helps other people find us. You can leave us a comment there. I was looking at comments today. People leave really nice comments for us.

Craig: I got to go. I haven’t been back in a long time. I tend to spend my time on the internet just reading the terrible things people say.

Some guy out of nowhere the other day, some guy sends me a tweet. I just love these people. They’re like, “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to send a guy a tweet telling him he’s not funny. That’ll be fun.”

John: That’ll be good.

Craig: Why don’t I do that? Let me start a fight.

John: Yeah. That will make everyone’s day better if you say that kind of thing.

Craig: Right.

Oh, well, okay. All right, fine, I guess I’m not funny. But you didn’t make me any funnier. You didn’t make me less funny. I’m as you found me.

What’s wrong with people?

John: I don’t know what’s wrong with people.

Craig: What is the story?

John: So, Craig, I would like to propose — and we haven’t talked about this — so I’m going to propose it here on the air. I would like to propose for next week, perhaps, that if people have a question that’s not about screenwriting, but about like their personal life, or other advice, they send in that question.

Craig: Whoa!

John: Because I feel like we talk a lot about sort of screenwriting here, but we have a lot of listeners who are not screenwriting people. And we have a lot of opinions.

Craig: We do. And we’re so wise!

John: So, next week let’s have an episode that’s just entirely off-topic.

Craig: Oh, yeah.

John: Where we just talk about what should, you know, really anything is fair game. And so obviously we’ll pick which questions we’re going to actually answer.

Craig: Sex.

John: But I’d like a very wide, I’m going to cast a very wide net here.

Craig: Sex.

John: So, anything you would like us to answer, we’ll happily try to answer on the podcast next week.

Craig: Sex.

John: Sex. I’m happy to talk about sex. It can be our first sort of mature-rated thing. I’m happy to talk about sex.

Craig: I think this is a great idea. More than anything, because I’m kind of fascinated to see what you think about some of these things?

John: I’m happy to talk about it.

Craig: I feel like the two of us are so different but we’re so similar. We have different styles.

John: We are really different about a lot of stuff.

Craig: We are. But I feel like we always end up in the same place.

John: I think it’s largely because I create a very open space where I allow you to be over on the edge of crazy.

Craig: [laughs]

John: I say like, well, it’s fine that you’re on the precipice of crazy. Here’s the other side of that line.

Craig: I get it. I get it. You’re just humoring me. That’s cool, too. I think it’s going to be a great show.

John: [laughs] I think it should be a good, fun show. So, we’ll encourage people to send in any question you want to ask about anything. You can send those questions to ask@johnaugust.com. You can also tweet us if it’s something short, but why don’t you just send us a longer thing and we’ll read it on the air?

Craig: “Dude, you’re not funny.”

John: Yeah. That’s always a good thing to say.

Craig: “Be funnier.”

John: “Be funnier.”

Craig: Okay! All right, Twitter. I’ll get on that.

John: That’s going to be good. Last thing, so if you want to see me tomorrow night at The Academy, there should still be tickets left. I don’t know, we’re recording this on a Friday, so who knows. But they tell us that even if it is sold out, they always have a line. And people who are in line almost always get in.

So, if you want to come see us tomorrow at 7:30 — me tomorrow at 7:30 at The Academy — you can come to that. And you can mark your calendars for — god, I’m going to forget the days — June 29th and July 28th for live podcasts.

[Sirens in background.]

Craig: Nice. Look, the sirens are coming. The sirens are coming to tell us it’s over.

John: This is the end of the episode.

Craig: This is it.

John: So, Craig, thanks for a good podcast and I’ll see you next week.

Craig: Thanks John. Bye.

John: Bye.

LINKS:

• Turning the Page: Storytelling in the Digital Age at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater
• The Inebriati from That Mitchell and Webb Look
• Paramount & MGM Sued By ‘G.I. Joe’ Writers and the complaint from Deadline
• Twenty Shots to Be Henceforth Retired from Film Vocabulary on Reverse Shot
• The Los Angeles Times on Studios donating film set materials to Habitat for Humanity
• Joe Nienalt and Daniel Vang’s will-read-your-script fundraiser for the American Heart Association
• Listen to Scandal Revealed episode 221 featuring Matt Byrne
• Chad & Dara Creasey are on Mistresses on ABC
• The Hollywood Reporter Comedy Class of 2013’s writeup on Dana Fox (and John Hamburg)
• Rawson Thurber’s We’re the Millers on Wikipedia
• New dad Sean Smith on IMDb
• Email us or Tweet John and Craig your questions on anything
• OUTRO: Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun covered by Busby Marou

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2013/ugly-children-and-cigarettes).

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

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

**John:** And this is Episode 88 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Craig, we have a very big show today and we’re already getting a late start, so I thought we’d just dive right in. Is that okay?

**Craig:** Boom. Dive. Go.

**John:** Boom. Three things I want to do today. I want to talk about this New York Times article that everybody tweeted me this morning, because I think it was just designed to provoke outrage…

**Craig:** Umbrage.

**John:** …umbrage from screenwriters. We will answer some questions that have been stacking up in the mailbox. And we will look at three Three Page Challenge entries from our listeners.

**Craig:** Great. Oh my god, so much. Let’s go.

**John:** So much.

The only bit of housekeeping I need to do is that on May 15 of this year I will be hosting a panel for the Academy with some nice screenwriters and other film professionals including Damon Lindelof and Mark Boal. We’re going to be talking about the impact of technology on filmmaking. And it is a $5 panel, so come see us at the Academy Theater if you want to. That is on May 15.

And there will be a link in our show notes for how to come see that panel if you’d like to come see it. So, please come.

**Craig:** Nifty. Good group.

**John:** Yay. Let us start with this article that everybody tweeted me this morning. It’s an article by Brooks Barnes in the New York Times and it is about a man…

**Craig:** Vinny Bruzzese.

**John:** Vinny Bruzzese, who is, “‘The reigning mad scientist of Hollywood,’ in the words of one studio customer.”

**Craig:** [laughs]

**John:** Yes. What Mr. Bruzzese does is he provides notes for filmmakers — really studios — on screenplays they are considering going into production. And he’s looking at them from the perspective of here is the data of a whole bunch of other movies and these are concerns about the script based on genre, based on specifics in the actual script and giving them suggestions on how to improve the screenplay based on the data that he has. So, for this knowledge he may charge $20,000 for this consultation which results in, I think, a meeting and also 20 or 30 pages of notes.

The article ran this morning and I think it’s interesting to talk about both from the perspective of what this guy is doing, but also to talk about from the perspective of entertainment journalism, because I think there are concerns I have about both areas.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Craig, where should we start? Should we start with the article or start with what this guy is doing?

**Craig:** I mean, why don’t we start with the article because that will probably go faster and then we can did into Mr. Bruzzese.

**John:** Great. So, this article is written by Brooks Barnes, and I met Brooks when he first started working for the New York Times and he does a lot of these kinds of articles which is talking about the nature of the film industry.

And I was about halfway through the article when I scrolled back to the top thinking, “I bet Brooks Barnes wrote this,” and I was right.

Here’s what tipped me off that I thought it was a Brooks Barnes article, because he used the word “script doctors” in a way that’s actually not the way you use the word script doctors. He meant script doctors in the way talking about like a script consultant, which is what Vinny Bruzzese is.

But Vinny Bruzzese is not a script doctor. A script doctor is a screenwriter who comes in to fix a problem in a script. So, at times in my career I am a script doctor. That’s not what this guy actually is or what he’s doing.

The other concern I had sort of overall was that no one was on the record. Other than this guy, Vinny Bruzzese, and one screenwriter who was horrified, nobody was actually named by name in the article, which I think was really telling.

Now, at the end of the article Brooks Barnes talks about his theory on why people don’t want to go on the record, they don’t want to offend people. But I think it’s just really telling that nobody wants to actually talk about this by name because it doesn’t seem like a good useful thing that’s going to track well into the future. And nobody wants to be able to be Googled that they contributed to this practice or behavior in the industry.

**Craig:** Brooks Barnes…you know, I teed off on this guy years ago because he wrote an article — I think it was about residuals and he simply did not understand how they work.

Brooks Barnes tends to approach Hollywood the way that an anthropologist sometimes approaches some local tribe that they’re just encountering, describing it as if they’re alien life forms. This guy needs to just stop writing about Hollywood because he doesn’t really understand it. He doesn’t really get it. And the people he’s talking to, frankly, it’s like, you know, some of these people that he’s quoting, you know…Scott Steindorff? Okay.

I mean, is Scott Steindorff really representative of people that are actually holding Hollywood up with their hands? Not really.

**John:** I will actually amend my earlier statement, because Mark Gill is also mentioned by name, and Mark Gill is a person whose name you will see in actual trades and is actually making movies. Mark Gills is president of Millennium Films.

**Craig:** Yeah, but he’s president of Millennium which is just… — I’m sorry, I guess this will disqualify me from working for Millennium. They stink! That’s a bad company.

**John:** Millennium is a genre filmmaker that does a very specific kind of movie.

**Craig:** Well, they also do a very specific kind of thing where they treat writers poorly, I have to say, in my opinion. I think they treat writers poorly. We’ve seen this before from there where, you know, there was a whole thing recently where they had been asking writers to write stuff on spec for them in order to get a job, at least that’s how I recall it.

I just think that…I’m going to get sued now by Millennium films. Oh, whatever. What am I going to do? This is my opinion. My opinion is that they stink!

**John:** Yes. Now, let’s bridge a little bit into the actual work that Mr. Bruzzese is doing. So, basically they are providing this advice and in the article says, “But you can ignore the advice at your peril, according to one production executive. In analyzing the script for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer…Vampire Hunter…”

So, this is the example they’re actual citing. It’s the only movie that I think they’re actually talking about by name. “The company worked on behalf of the film and the production company supplied 20th Century Fox with notes. The movie flopped. Mr. Bruzzese declined to comment.”

So, the one movie you’re going to hold up as like, “Oh, this is the movie we worked on,” was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer? Hunter. God, I keep saying Slayer.

**Craig:** I know. I like it.

**John:** Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. This is the movie that you’re going to hold up as like, “Oh, this is one we did notes for, and they didn’t take all our notes, and that’s why it flopped.” Really? Really? That’s why it flopped?

**Craig:** Well, now let’s get into this dude. So, can I just say first of all I kind of love some parts of him. So, first of all, I love that he’s Vinny Bruzzese because, you know, I’m from Staten Island and there’s a lot of Vinny Bruzzeses. And he seems like a cool guy actually in that regard.

I love that he drinks Diet Coke and Diet Dr. Pepper and smokes Camels all at the same time. I mean, the guy is cool. And I will also say this much about this guy: I love how totally upfront he is about how he’s trying to make money. And I have to say one of the things that drives me nuts about the cottage industry of these awful so-called script consultants — or people that Brooks Barnes bizarrely calls script doctors incorrectly — is that they’re always couching what they do in some sort of altruistic, artistic form.

And this guy is the opposite. And I love that he’s literally like, “Yeah, you know, basically I got into this to make money. And I really like making money. And I also am providing the service to studio executives so that they can cover their ass in case of a failure.” He literally says that.

**John:** He does actually say that. I do totally respect that.

**Craig:** I think that’s so great.

**John:** And so I will also defend him to some degree in the sense of using data to look at which movies should get made, because there is some value to that. And if you step back, studios have been doing this for a long time because there is actual Data-data that you can look at. You can look at what movies you’ve made. You can look at what movies have grossed. You can look at what dates you release them. You can look at what actors were in those movies and what other actors were in those movies with them.

There is a whole big giant set of data that you could look at that can be invaluable for determining, like, do I green light this movie? Do I not green light this movie? That is valid. And that is especially valid when you’re looking at, like, how will you be able to market this movie?

The challenge is that’s actually objective data. When you’re looking at a screenplay there’s almost nothing objective you can say in there. And one of the examples they cite quite early on in the article which I found just the best, and worst, and most telling was he talks about movies about demons and horror movies.

So, it says, “‘Demons in horror movies can target people or be summoned,’ Mr. Bruzzese said in a gravelly voice, by way of example. ‘If it’s a targeting demon, you are likely to have much higher opening-weekend sales than if it’s summoned. So get rid of that Ouija Board scene.'”

What is that? So, you’ve created a distinction between summoned demons and targeting demons, which I’ve never even considered. I don’t think any writer has really ever considered. You’re saying, “Well that’s the difference between why this movie does a certain amount of box office, and this one does a different kind of amount of box office.”

**Craig:** It’s ridiculous.

**John:** Yeah. So, with data, when you have enough data you can look for correlations and you don’t necessary need to say that that’s the cause of why this thing was what it was, but if you’re just making arbitrary distinctions you’re just cherry-picking little things in whatever movies were hits and whatever movies were not hits. And you’re using that to defend what really your decisions are. And that’s not actually using data. That’s just manipulating things.

**Craig:** Yeah. Let’s take the demon example, because it’s so bizarre. First of all, it’s pretty rare for marketing to specify whether someone has been targeted by a demon or has summoned a demon. So, right off the bat people don’t read the script for opening weekend. I’m not sure how anybody would know that for opening weekend.

But, let me give a counter example, and this is where this guy kind of, you know, look, you made your bed, let’s sleep in it. There’s a Ouija Board in The Exorcist. She uses a Ouija Board to talk to Captain Howdy. I’m pretty sure that’s in there. I’ll have to check and make sure, but either way there’s some kind of implication that she has summoned Captain Howdy. It’s just dumb.

Look, the thing about this guy is he’s not the villain here. What he’s really doing is basically hustling and giving notes on stuff. If his theory is that people like some things more than others…duh. Right? Okay?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** If his theory is that, I don’t know, let’s go out on a limb here. I’m going to crunch some quick data here using my statistics program. In romantic comedies, people like it when the couple ends up together. Duh! Okay. We all know. We get it. We got it, okay? That’s called giving notes and that’s what studios always do. They’ve always done that. And we as writers have always tried to write towards an audience, but also sometimes challenge an audience, maybe turn things on their head a little bit.

The villain here are the people hiring this guy! Because it used to be — it used to be — that people in Hollywood who gave notes, while maybe not the smartest people all the time, had the courage of their convictions. That’s why they had a job. What the hell is their job if they’re hiring this guy to do exactly what they’re supposed to do? And the data doesn’t mean a damn thing. We all know that. The data…Fight Club.

Let me back up for a second. One thing that this kind of stuff will never account for are the Black Swans. You’re familiar with the whole Black Swan theory?

**John:** Absolutely. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, I think, is his name.

**Craig:** I believe that’s correct.

**John:** And so his theory is that — a gross simplification of his theory — that there are going to be events or things that happen that are so outside of your expectation that you can consider them Black Swans. And those events you can’t fully prepare for but in a weird way you have to be ready for the fact that because you can’t prepare for them you have to prepare for them.

**Craig:** And also that when Black Swans occur they tend to have very large impacts, because the world is set up in such a way that we expect things. And when the unexpected happens it is either very, very good, or very, very bad.

In Hollywood, I think what we find is that there are a lot of Black Swans that in retrospect we look back as White Swans because so many White Swans follow them.

So, Star Wars is a Black Swan. Nobody thought Star Wars was going to work. Nobody. Fox literally let Lucas put his own money into it and gave him merchandising, because they didn’t — I mean, everybody thought the thing was going to be a disaster. And, frankly, based on the early screenplays and ideas it probably was going to be a disaster.

And, by the way, it may even be a Black Swan within the world of George Lucas. It may have been that Lucas just fluked himself into Star Wars and really Lucas is far more Howard the Duck than he is… — I don’t know. I mean, he did a good job on American Graffiti. But I guess the point is those are the things that make Hollywood Hollywood.

If you want to be in a business that follows various predictable patterns in order to grind out predictable income, what the hell are you doing in Hollywood anyway? The whole point is to chase things that are surprises. Isn’t that the point?

I mean, yeah, of course, you want to make Avengers, go for it, make Avengers. And when that works you can point to how it basically fit everybody’s expected pattern. Except take three steps back and then say, well then why didn’t the Hulk make all that money? And why didn’t the Bryan Singer Superman make all that money? And why didn’t, you know, they’re on their 12th iteration of Iron Man, it’s still working great, but when they hit the fourth Batman back in the ’90s it didn’t work great.

Nobody knows. And you can come up with all this nonsense, but the truth of the matter is what this guy is peddling is nothing special at all except comfort.

**John:** Yeah. He’s peddling comfort. I mean, he’s doing that retroactive pattern fitting to say, “This is the reason why these were successful, therefore we’re going to take this pattern and template and apply it to these future things. Oh, but never mind the things that don’t fit that template because those were flukes or we’re going to find somebody to explain why they do fit the pattern magically.”

What I will say is especially telling is that nowhere in this whole article does it talk about the quality of the actual product. And in a weird way I’d argue that the quality of the product is largely irrelevant to sort of how well it does. It’s not completely relevant, but it’s not the most important factor in how well it does. So, his notes and his opinion on what movies you make and how you make those movies is about the screenplay and it’s about sort of the actual movie you’re going to make.

But, the movie you made has very little impact on the actual opening weekend. The opening weekend is the biggest predictor of how much a movie is going to make. And nothing that they’re doing here is going to bump that needle for what that opening weekend is.

**Craig:** It’s right.

**John:** Your opening weekend is determined on somewhat the movie that you made, somewhat to a large degree the stars you have in it, to a huge degree the weekend that you’re choosing to open, the competition around that weekend.

So, all of these factors have nothing to do with this 20-page report that you pay $20,000 for. And it’s maddening to think that it’s going to all come down to these formulas.

**Craig:** I totally agree. And I have to say that his whole, that Brooks kind of skews this article and Bruzzese feeds into it, to suggest that the only people — the ONLY people that don’t like this are the writers. We’re the only ones.

I don’t care. Let me tell you something. If I’m working for somebody and they want to give this guy $20,000 to write up a bunch of notes, great. I’ll read them. If they’re good, I’ll do them. I have no problem with that. I mean, the fact that Mr. Bruzzese bills himself as a distant relative of Einstein, notwithstanding, if he writes good notes, terrific.

It’s just that what he’s trying to do is this game that I’ve been watching. He’s formalizing a game that I’ve been watching and experiencing for nearly twenty years now. And that is the game of, “My opinion is not an opinion; my opinion is a fact.” That’s the game people play.

When I’m sitting in a room with people and they’re like, “I think it should be like this.” Really? Because I think it should be like this. “No, no, no, it can’t be like this. It has to be like this because of this, this, and this. It’s a fact.”

No it’s not. Your opinion is not a fact. Nobody’s opinion about any screenplay is a fact. Ever. I can’t take it! That’s got to stop.

And all this guy is doing is dressing up opinion as fact so that these executives who don’t have either the courage of their convictions or convictions at all can present them to the writers as fact. But, look, if you can come up with all the pieces, do it! Go, spend another ten grand, maybe he can actually give you the demon movie that will do the best. But, until you can do that you have to acknowledge that there is an enormous ghost in the machine over which you have no control.

And, frankly, that’s what we do. So, I don’t mind that this guy is doing this. I applaud any hustler. I am so sad that people are lining up to play his three-card monte though. That is…oh god.

**John:** I wonder how many people are actually lining up to play his three-card monte, though. Because if you look at it, like no one else went on the record. No one else said that they were actually talking to him. So, my concern sort of from the journalistic perspective is it feels like a terrific press release for this guy. And in some ways selling the controversy is a way to sort of get more people talking about him and talking about this idea and this service that he’s providing when there may actually be nothing to it. There may not have even been sizzle before this article ran yesterday.

I don’t know. I mean, there’s a photo of them in a nice-looking office where he’s talking to some young woman who is a development executive there. Great, but I don’t know that there is anything to this at all.

**Craig:** We don’t even know that that’s his office.

**John:** Yup.

**Craig:** [laughs] I don’t know where he is. But I just think, I mean, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just not plugged in enough, but for instance it says, “Major film financiers and advisers like Houlihan Lokey confirm…,” who?

**John:** Who is Houlihan Lokey?

**Craig:** Houlihan Lokey doesn’t even sound like a real name. Is that a person or…?

**John:** It’s an amazing name, though. I love it.

**Craig:** It is a pretty good name, like Houlihan Lokey. Houlihan Lokey is like the old drunk in the saloon who ends up killing everyone because he’s still really, really good with a six-shooter.

**John:** Yeah. He’s notorious.

**Craig:** “Who did this? Houlihan Lokey! Ugh.”

I don’t know how that would be analyzed by Mr. Bruzzese’s spreadsheets, but all I can say is my reaction is not… — In the end he tries to, I love it when people do this, they try and basically pre-but you, you know, so in a rebuttal but a prebuttal he says, “All screenwriters think their babies are beautiful. I’m here to tell it like it is. Some babies are ugly.”

No shit. I mean, like do you really think that we’re all so stupid and narcissistic that we think that all of our scripts are beautiful? No. No!

Go ahead, ask how many screenwriters after their first draft, okay, you have a choice: you can get notes and we can work on this, or we will turn around and shoot this exactly the way it is and put you name on it and we can’t change a word. How many screenwriters are going to go, “Um, uh…”

**John:** Yeah. You want that chance.

**Craig:** Yeah, of course. Of course. So, no, we don’t think that all of our babies are beautiful. And, no, we don’t have a problem with notes and we don’t have a problem with anyone’s notes.

Compare this, by the way, to Lindsay Doran’s terrific talk about joy where she says, “Look, movies that end on joy really please audiences.” That’s a very dramatic statement. It is not specific. It doesn’t say, “You cannot summon demons.” You know why, because it is talking about an audience experience. It’s not talking about a story point.

She, unlike Mr. Bruzzese has made movies. She has actually sat and worked with writers. She understands how to talk to us. This guy understands how to talk to executives, who don’t make movies.

**John:** So, let’s talk about that specific example and Lindsay Doran’s perspective on it, and his perspective on it. He would come to saying like, “Well, the data says that moviegoers don’t like movies with summoned demons, they prefer the other kind of demon.” But he might have ten points of data. That’s not actually meaningful data.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** So he’s only looking at correlation. Lindsay Doran can come to it with that same note, but she could say, “Here is why I think that’s not going to work, because in this situation it’s going to track through this way, and we as the audience feel this way about the characters at the end because of the nature of what happened with that demon situation.”

That is a meaningful note that you can actually think about and use and implement throughout your script. His saying like, “Don’t summon the demon, don’t use a Ouija Board,” that’s not…

**Craig:** Because it’s a fact. And by the way, all we’re doing now is just waiting for the movies that contradict those facts because that’s the business we’re in. We’re in the business of surprises and subversions of expectations. It’s constantly changing. There are movies that come out that don’t do any business in the theater at all and then in home video become phenomenon.

Look at Austin Powers. I think made $40 million in theaters and then was just enormous at home. Office Space. Nothing. Enormous at home.

Who knows? I have a movie coming out where we decapitate a giraffe, how does that work out on a spreadsheet?

And I’ve watch this with comedy testing all the time. Inevitably the highest testing joke is also the worst testing joke. But, you know, this is the same old snake oil as always, and shame on anyone who is so bad at their job — it’s your job. And you have to hire somebody else to do it for you? That’s embarrassing.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Why don’t you just quit at that point. Why don’t the people who employ you just fire you and hire this guy instead? What do we need you for, to write a check to this guy? Oh my god. This guy is fine. I love this guy. Good for him. Way to go, Vinny.

**John:** Let’s answer some questions.

**Craig:** You got it.

**John:** So, Jill writes in to ask, “A friend of mine wrote a pilot for a web series and decided to get some of our smarter writer friends together to punch it up. That’s when I realized I have no idea how to run a punch-up session. Can you give us some tips and tricks?”

So, Jill is talking about an informal punch-up session. Sometimes on a big movie, you and I have both been in these situations where it’s a WGA movie, and so therefore there are kind of rules about how you do it. So, you are bringing in people for a day, you’re paying them for a day, and you’re sitting around a table. We all sign these contracts saying that we know what we’re doing. And eventually we have to sign another form saying we’re not going to try and get credit on it.

That’s not what we’re talking about here. She’s just doing a little web series. So, let’s give some suggestions on the smaller version of what she should do.

**Craig:** Well, I have done these before. And the basic rule of thumb is if you’re running the session you should try and participate very little. Your job really is to kind of move people through the script. So, you’re sort of saying, “Okay, let’s just start,” usually you’ll say, “Here are some general areas where we’d love to punch up. Here is our kind of thing we’re looking for, some specific questions, but really more than anything, let’s just go through the script page-by-page and pitch out some thoughts as you have them. So, let’s just start. Let’s just start with page one. Anybody have any thoughts on page one?”

So, you can do a little preliminary “let’s just talk about the big issues,” if anybody has any big story issues, if you want. But then just go, page one, and then people start pitching and you’re like, great, great. And just be encouraging and you’ll find that some people are really good at it. Some people are terrible at it.

As the person running the session you have to kind of rescue and be kind to the people who are floundering because you don’t want to be mean. You don’t want the room to turn on somebody because they may have one joke that works, and it may be the best joke ever. So, you just don’t want to kill them. And just keep things going and keep things light. And just keep moving through pages.

You will find, inevitably, that most of what people have to pitch are on the first 30 pages or so. The last 20 pages everybody gets really quiet because they either stopped reading or it’s action and climax and it’s not joke time.

**John:** Yeah. I would say if you have the opportunity to do a reading of it right beforehand, that’s helpful, so it’s fresh in everyone’s head. Just read through what’s actually on the page so everyone agrees that they read the same thing together, that’s really helpful before you start flipping pages. You won’t always have that chance, but it’s great if you can do that.

I’d say provide plenty of food, a lot of carbs, to keep people going.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Pizza is always good. Be genuinely thankful for everyone who is there.

Inevitably in any group situation someone will probably kind of dominate the conversation, and maybe that’s a really good smart person who is actually really funny and that’s great, but if it’s the wrong person then you have to sort of do some judo to sort of get the other people talking a little bit more.

If you can get Nick Kroll to come to your punch-up session, he’s really good.

**Craig:** Nick’s funny, yeah.

**John:** So, that’s a good, funny thing, too. But have fun with it. And always ask the questions, like the what-if questions, and try and never shut down an idea because like, “Oh, that’s going to be impossible based on what everything else is.”

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Don’t shut down now. Just sort of improve rules of like, “Yes, and?” And just keep rolling because even if it is not an idea that is implementable right then, right there, you may find a way the next day, like, “Oh, I know how to do that kind of thing,” or that sparks something that’s really good.

So, take notes for yourself about not even what they’re talking about right there but what it inspires for you.

**Craig:** Yeah. If you have a producing partner or somebody that’s there with you, don’t worry and think that they’re going to somehow think that you can do something you can’t do, and vice versa. For those of you who produce don’t think that this is the time to jump in and say that’s not possible.

The two of you, knowing the script and the situation better than anybody, will have the exact same reactions afterwards. “Okay, well, we can’t do that, we can’t do that, we can do this, we can do this. What about this? What about this?”

So, just keep it light. Keep it moving. Don’t freak out. And, also, just be aware that when there’s a ton of stuff that people are going to be like, “That is so funny,” and in your mind you’re like, “And will never be in this movie because it’s totally off-tone or it’s going to stop the movie dead.” That’s okay. Just keep that to yourself. That is, 95% of stuff that gets a room laugh in these things — unusable.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** I can think of one guy in particular who is awesome at these things and I never once have gotten anything usable from him. [laughs] But he’s fun to have. And he keeps the room laughing which in and of itself has great value.

**John:** Absolutely.

**Craig:** But, you will find some… — And you know, the fact is there will be all these little dramas that occur, usually little soap operas that happen at these things. People get jealous, they get weird, they get quiet, they get too talky. Sometimes they go after each other as part of like the comedy sport. Just, you know, you be mommy or daddy and just gently encourage everybody to stay on target.

**John:** Yeah. Next question. Matt in Orlando, Florida asks, “When you look at the pilot script for Modern Family you’ll notice the character introductions are done in list form directly under the title page before the actual script begins. It seems like a great way to save space, especially in a sitcom script where you have a lot of characters to introduce and a limited amount of time to do so. Is this common?”

The answer is, yes, it is common. That is a very standard sitcom format. And so I encourage all writers no matter what genres you’d like to work in to take a look at the different formats for how things are done. And in sitcoms, yes, it’s common to do that kind of character introduction, a page of these are the characters who are the regulars and these are characters who are unique to this show. And that’s a standard way of showing stuff in sitcom land.

Even a single camera comedy like Modern Family will often do this.

**Craig:** I take your word for it.

**John:** Yeah. But don’t do it in a screenplay.

**Craig:** No!

**John:** No one ever wants to see that in a screenplay. Don’t ever…don’t do that.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** So, it’s a sitcom thing. And that’s why it’s important that if you’re writing a spec episode of Modern Family, which is probably not the right one to do because that’s an older show, but if you’re writing a spec episode of whatever great new sitcom, find an episode that’s a common — actually just mimic their formatting exactly because that’s what people want to see, that you know what you’re doing.

**Craig:** I’m sorry, I just have to interrupt because I just remembered one thing also that makes me angry about Brooks Barnes. [laughs]

**John:** Please.

**Craig:** Can I say it? God, so, in the beginning of his article he makes this really weird analogy to what Vinny Bruzzese is doing to what Facebook and Netflix do by analyzing the way people use their websites. They’re so not analogous…

**John:** [laughs] Not even remotely.

**Craig:** …in any way, shape, or form. They have nothing to do with each other. It’s just a totally different business, purpose, and point. Brooks needs to stop writing about Hollywood. Okay, sorry. Back to the questions.

I get nuts. I get nuts!

**John:** I know. I mean, it could have been the whole episode but it came up very late and so I thought we’d…

**Craig:** I know. We have so much to today. It’s a very busy show.

**John:** Heather in Dahlonega, Georgia writes, “Can you tell me why so many movies starting big names are going straight to DVD? I recently watched one on Netflix streaming called Fire with Fire starring Bruce Willis, Rosario Dawson, Josh Duhamel, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Julian McMahon, and Red Lights with Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver, and Robert De Niro.

“In the past a cast like this would garner a theatrical release, or if the movie just wasn’t good enough the actors wouldn’t have signed onto it in the first place. What’s going on with these movies?”

**Craig:** Ah-ha! Typically when a movie ends up going direct to video like that, and Netflix, however you want to describe direct-to-video these days, it is because the movie just didn’t turn out very well. Actors sign up for movies because they think the movie will be good. Sometimes, though, that just doesn’t happen. You know? Sometimes the movie doesn’t come out well.

And basically if it’s an independent movie — and these are almost always the case — if there is independent financing the idea is “let’s find a distributor.” And nobody wants to distribute it because distribution comes with great costs. There’s typically the cost of marketing, the number one, plus also making the prints, putting it in theaters and so forth.

And if they can’t find enough theaters interested and they can’t justify the marketing budget based on what they perceive to be the interest in the film based on test screenings and so forth, they have no choice. They have to cut their losses while they can.

**John:** Absolutely. So, back in the day when Variety was a print publication I would get, I always loved once or twice a year AFM would come up, and AFM — American Film Market — and, I guess, maybe it was twice a year. I always got confused about it. But, there would be this thing out in Santa Monica where these foreign distributors and foreign filmmakers would come in and they’d show the packages of movies that they were going to get made.

And so in Variety they would have these mockup one sheets of all these movies. And it was like you’d never heard of these movies. And sometimes they were movies that were going to go into production, sometimes they were movies that were already done. You’re like, “Really? This movie exists in some way?”

And that’s sort of what some of these things are. Like I suspect Fire with Fire was that situation where someone raised the money to make this movie, foreign financing/other financing, they were able to make this movie with the hopes of selling it to a major distributor because it was going to be so good and everyone was going to love it. And often that just didn’t happen.

I’ll also say that, you look at Nicholas Cage as sort of the classic example of this, like who’s in a lot of movies, and you can’t believe he’s in so many movies. Some of those actors, they’re meaningful overseas in ways that they’re not meaningful here. And so even if it doesn’t have a theatrical release in the US, it may have a theatrical release overseas.

**Craig:** Exactly.

**John:** Or home video may be enough overseas that it is worth it to make the movie with them.

**Craig:** I think that’s what — I remember the same thing at the same time, flipping through Variety as a twenty-something and going, “What is this AFM and what are these movies?” I remember the one that made me laugh the most was, it was shortly after RoboCop, somebody made a movie called Cyborg Cop. This is obviously just RoboCop. But it was like a flea market of movies, and that’s exactly what was going on.

Basically they were selling them to foreign distributors and then here in the US they would either get no distribution or direct-to-video. So, that’s what’s going on there.

**John:** That’s fine. And, you could say like, “Well, why would anybody be in these movies?” Well, they got paid to be in the movie. It may be the kind of role that they really wanted to try to do. And sometimes those movies are giant, great, big hits.

And so things like the Jason Statham movies, like The Transporter, that was probably that kind of movie and it actually took off well enough that it sort of established him as a bit of a star. So, sometimes those movies that seem like they come from a major distributor, they really were pickups and they were bought by some distributor here and it always seemed like they were a Columbia movie but they weren’t.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Let’s look at some Three Page Challenges. So, while we open these up I will give you sort of the backstory on these. If you are new to the podcast, every couple weeks we invite listeners to send in the first three pages of their screenplay and Craig and I will read it, and take a look at it, and share it on the podcast so people can listen to our critiques but also read the pages themselves and see if they agree with what we said.

If you have a screenplay that you want us to take a look at the first three pages, and only the first three pages, you can send it to us at the website. The link for it is johnaugust.com/threepage, all spelled out, and we will maybe take a look at it.

Stuart reads through all of them, all the ones who come in with the proper boilerplate language on it. And Craig and I get a small sampling of them. And Stuart sent us three today. Which of the three should we start with?

**Craig:** You know, I’m just ready to do any of them. And if you want me to summarize one, let me know. You know, I’m back to being your apprentice. Dad’s back.

**John:** [laughs] Let’s start with Sue Morris’s script. We don’t have a title for this. I can do the summary on this one if you want to do the next one.

**Craig:** Fantastic.

**John:** So, we start, we fade in on the nib of a quill pen, it’s moving in small, neat strokes on the paper. And there’s a super with text over it. We are in England, Christmas, 1126. So, we see a young woman giving birth. She has given birth to a baby girl. Next, we see at the Palace of Westminster we see two, we see Sir Thomas and Sir John, both knights, talking about the fact that she’s just given birth to a daughter and that daughters can still be useful.

Next scene we meet King Henry in his late 50s. He says that, “It has been six years since the death of our beloved son and heir, William, in that great tragedy which took the lives of so many sons and daughters.” He says that the next heir will be his daughter, Matilda, will be his successor.

Actually, no, “My daughter Matilda, widow of the Holy Roman Emperor, will be my successor, to rule over the lands on both sides of the sea.”

Some raised eyebrows but no one questions it. So, there’s obviously some sort of court intrigue happening there. More discussion, as we wrap up page three, more discussion about sort of what this means, and then we jump forward at the end of page three to a hunting lodge near Normandy and the king has died. And that’s where we’re at at the bottom of page three.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Yeah. Craig Mazin, talk to me about these pages.

**Craig:** I feel like I’ve read this kind of thing many, many times. I’ve seen a lot of spec scripts that are medieval dramas. More than you would imagine, actually. There’s quite a few of them out there.

This scene where the child is born I feel literally like it just gets repeated over, and over, and over. There is always the woman on the straw mattress and there is always the screaming and the blood and there’s always the midwife. I guess that’s how children were born back then. And no one ever wants a daughter; everybody always wants a son.

I got a little confused by the fact that King Henry is the king, but there was a boy who was the Holy Roman Emperor. Maybe I just don’t know the difference between the two, but I thought that once Charlemagne became the Holy Roman Emperor he was the king? I don’t know. I guess it’s two different things.

I didn’t really love the fact that we cut away from this to show the drowning. It just seemed a little strange.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** To have a flashback there on page two of a character we’ve never met. It felt very TV. And maybe this is TV. I don’t know. It feels very TV to me.

And then there’s just like sort of generally generic court murmuring. “So the King’s nephew precedes the King’s bastard.”

“You should know our man by now. Always determined to be the first.” You know, like political intrigue and stuff. It’s all fine, I mean, it’s written fine. I have no problem with the writing. I just feel like hopefully something crazy happens after this because otherwise, you know, been there.

**John:** Yeah. I was lacking point of view on this. I didn’t see what was going to be special about this versus The Tudors or sort of every other kind of big medieval drama. And, so, let’s start from the very top.

We see this quill pen writing. Okay, that’s a little cliché, but fine; quill pens can write, that’s great. But then there is a super. It’s listed as a super, but I can’t believe anyone would read this much onscreen. Here’s the text of the super: ‘If on the death of a baron or other of my men a surviving daughter is the heir, I will give her [in marriage] with her land following the advice of my barons.’ Clause in the coronation charter of Henry I, King of England and Duke of Normandy, 1100 AD.

That’s a lot to throw at me to read. And it’s not especially clear writing. That’s a hard, hard sentence to pierce. So, that’s throwing up a bit of a wall to me at the start.

Then we get to the actual birth stuff, and while it’s a kind of cliché scene I thought it was actually nicely written. Those are nice short lines breaking the action down.

**Craig:** Yes. I agree.

**John:** Two paragraph little chunks. I get it. I love it.

When we get to the Palace of Westminster we meet Sir Thomas and Sir John. Sir Thomas I’m told is in his early 20s. Sir John I get no information about. And if you’re just going to call them Sir Thomas and Sir John I have no way of really keeping them apart or separate. So, why am I watching these two people and what’s really going on?

I also got confused because, here’s the description of Sir Thomas and sort of what he’s doing:

Bright, cold sunlight. Leather boots crunch on frosted grass as SIR THOMAS (early 20s) strides across to meet the newly arrived MESSENGER dismounting from his horse. They confer briefly, breath condensing in the chill air.

Sir Thomas spins on his heel and strides back, towards a fellow knight, SIR JOHN. Sir Thomas says, “Another daughter.”

What was weird to me is like I think we were supposed to be in a really wide shot so therefore we weren’t hearing what the messenger was saying, but if you’re going to have people confer and we don’t hear it, kind of say that we don’t hear it, because otherwise that dialogue we’re going to assume is somehow between the people who — I just confused where we were at in the scene and whether that messenger was still there.

**Craig:** Let me also mention: a knight doesn’t walk across the lawn to go talk to a messenger; the messenger walks across the lawn to him. Much more interesting. I mean, these things are all about power, and rank, and privilege, and all the rest of it, so much more interesting to follow some exhausted courier to walk over to a guy and whisper something in his ear.

**John:** Exactly. So, if you’re going to have a similar situation, if you keep Sir Thomas on his horse or whatever, the messenger comes over with him, and then they pull back to reveal that Sir John is watching this from a distance and not able to hear what’s going on. That may be more interesting. That, again, suggests some cinematography here that’s happening.

With King Henry on page two, “King Henry may not be the largest man there, but by God he owns this place, and the assembled BARONS, the great Anglo-Norman nobles, all feel it.” Wow. That’s a lot. That’s a lot of clauses to throw at me.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** And so, “He’s not the largest man there,” but he is the King. It was just a weird sentence to me. It didn’t help me understand the power dynamic of that moment as much as it probably could.

**Craig:** And it is, I mean, “But by God, he owns this place, and the assembled BARONS,” so he owns them too. “The great Anglo-Norman nobles all feel it.” Oh, I see what’s she’s saying. You know, that’s that kind of tortured writing, the tortured sentence structure.

Also, his first line, I don’t, “My lords, it is time.” Eh.

**John:** Eh. Yeah. It’s cliché.

So, here’s a problem with those clauses there. “But by God he owns this place, and the assembled BARONS, the great Anglo-Norman nobles all feel lit.” The “and the assembled barons,” does he own the barons? He owns this place and the barons? What? Huh?

So, it could read either way. It’s actually sort of interesting both ways. It’s actually probably more interesting if he believes he owns the barons.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And then I agree with you, there’s a flashback on page two which is like, oh my god, I don’t know who anybody is and we’re already getting a flashback to somebody who dies and therefore is not going to be part of our show. So, that’s…

**Craig:** We just don’t care.

**John:** These are all issues. And then we jump again at the end of page three and at that point we may be ready to actually start the story and so that jump may feel great if we hadn’t jumped around in time on page two.

**Craig:** And if the idea here is that these two guys, Stephen, late 20s, the golden boy of Henry’s court, and Robert, Earl of Gloucester, a decade older than Stephen, are going to be competing with each other for the favor of this newly minted widowed queen, I’m suspecting as much.

Then, that’s the perspective we want to play here. That’s what we want to do. And it certainly can’t be manifested by a weird shoulder scuffle fight. “A few moments of shoulder-barging and scuffling between the two men. They glare at each other.” That just seems comedic. And I don’t think that this is supposed to be comedic. I mean, that’s just funny to me in a bad way.

**John:** Yeah. I would say I hadn’t guessed that Stephen and Robert would be the focus of things. If they are the focus of things I want to see them on page one or page two, rather than page three. And, honestly, we could get them there just by cutting out some stuff that I didn’t think we needed in page one or page two.

**Craig:** Agreed.

**John:** Agreed.

**Craig:** Agreed. Not bad, Sue. Not bad.

**John:** Not bad at all. And, you know, everything on there was nicely written. I didn’t have any sort of issues with sort of how you were describing things on the page. It felt professional. It just felt like something I had seen before too much.

**Craig:** Agreed.

**John:** Next let’s do Robin Peters. The Gaffer. Do you want to do the summary here?

**Craig:** Sure. Okay, so we begin at a fancy restaurant, and we’re in England, where Simon page, in his 20s, is proposing to his girlfriend, Trudy, and he’s given her a small diamond ring. And she doesn’t feel that it’s big enough and basically says I can’t, “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with a market trader.” So, she’s unhappy with his status in life.

Next, we’re in Simon’s office, sort of, and someone is congratulating him and they don’t even know his name.

Now we’re in a park and she’s very happy because I guess she’s heard that he’s gotten a promotion but he tells her the catch is it’s in Texas. So, he’s been promoted but he has to go to Texas. And she basically says, “I’m leaving you because that’s not good enough.” She hands him his ring back. He begs for her to come back. She does not. And he chucks the ring away, hitting a duck.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** So, my first concern here is specificity. And that’s a word we use too much on the podcast, but I think it’s actually really important for here.

We start, “EXT. NORTHERN ENGLISH CITY — NIGHT.” Uh, just tell us the city.

**Craig:** Right. Manchester takes fewer letters than Northern English City.

**John:** “Lights flicker against the night sky.” Yeah, but maybe you could think of something more specific. Maybe you could just paint our world a little bit more specifically because I have a hard time clicking in because I just don’t feel like you know what these things are. And I lack confidence because you don’t seem confident in your choices here so far.

We’re “INT. FANCY RESTAURANT.” Okay. I mean, if you don’t want to give the name of the restaurant, that’s great, but just paint our world a little bit in that first line here.

Simon and Trudy, okay, proposals are an interesting thing, or diamond rings are a thing we’ve seen a lot at the start of things, but it’s a natural way to start something, but that scene never really quite clicked. I wasn’t sure at the end of that first scene how I was supposed to feel about things.

Then we jump to the next “OPEN PLAN OFFICE,” again, really generic, before we start this next thing. Every place we go to is just the most basic description of what it could possibly be. And I just don’t feel — I never click in because I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for.

**Craig:** Yeah. Well, this is a comedy. And I don’t know if Robin is English or not, but it certainly reads English. The problem is that it’s not very funny. And it’s not very funny, I think, in part because the characters are so broadly and thinly drawn.

You’re absolutely right about all the specificity. And there’s also a kind of TV-ish quality to it, for instance, starting with the first line of dialogue on an establishing shot that’s rather boring, and then coming inside and moving through diners. You might as well have a waiter carrying a tray through. It’s all very kind of cliché and generic.

Bu the biggest issue is, if I can summarize, Simon is basically a schmo and Trudy is a gold-digger, mean lady. I don’t know why these two are together at all. I don’t believe, frankly, that they are together. I don’t believe that anybody talks like Simon. When she finally breaks up with him, because she doesn’t want to go to Texas, he keeps begging after her and I hate him for it. And she’s acting in a way that’s just sort of broadly sociopathic in a mean girl way which I kind of just don’t believe.

I’ll give Robin credit for getting the plot out on page two. Englishman is going to be a fish out of water in Texas, I presume. That’s fine, but I don’t know anything about his job. I don’t really know why market trader is better or worse than “junior” — “They could use a junior in Texas.” I’m not sure what that means.

His office was very odd. Talk about generic: INT. OPEN PLAN OFFICE — DAY. Simon exits a room into a gleaming corporate open plan office, reeking of wealth. A SUIT comes up to him.

Well, let’s count the genericisms here: Open plan office. Room. Reeking of Wealth — gold? A suit. I don’t understand what’s happening. Frankly, this would be a much more interesting scene if it were one scene and it started with a guy proposing to a woman and she was super happy because he was giving her everything she wanted and he’s telling her that he knows that she was waiting for this promotion because she knows, I mean, explain it in terms that women — so women watching this don’t feel like you hate women. She really wanted to make sure that she was supported and secure in her life because of how she grew up, whatever it is. And he says, “But the only thing is we’re…” And as part of the surprise, because he knows this is the big pitch. It’s not the ring is the big pitch. The big pitch is, “Texas.”

And off of her face the next shot you see is him at the airport alone. And, you know, the airport lady is like, “And you are traveling alone?” “Yup.”

Just there’s so much… — Be more interesting about this. This is just not interesting to me.

**John:** Well, also what you described in that take of a scene is you were giving a moment where he could actually be funny.

**Craig:** Yeah!

**John:** Because none of these scenes that he’s actually funny now does he have the capability of really being funny, because he’s just reacting to other people.

**Craig:** Yup.

**John:** And so in either his trying to sell this idea to her, what’s his motivation? What is he attempting to do? And you need to give him something to attempt to do. So, either he’s attempting to get her on board with this idea of moving to Texas, or, alternately, we can see that whatever that room he came out of, well what happened in that room? Was he like making a pitch for himself and trying to stand up for himself about why he should get a promotion, and then he gets Texas out of it, which is not what he wanted, but it’s something new — that’s a moment where you can see him actually driving something.

I would also back up one step, because when I talk about sort of Northern English City, you know, working on a musical for the last 10 weeks I’m very keenly aware of you kind of need the “This is our world” song before you get to the “I want” song. And I didn’t get either of those so far.

And it’s fine, if the first three pages were really just like a “This is our world” song, that’s great. And you can setup this is the nature of the universe that we’re in. That can be wonderful.

And then by letting us see that guy in his world, then we can see the decision of what is it he wants. What is it he’s trying to do? And I wasn’t — none of those gears were sort of clicking in on these first three pages for me.

**Craig:** Yeah. Agreed. If it is, in fact, going to turn into a fish out of water comedy, we do need to see the fish in water. And we need to know what that means. And it can’t just be simply one shot of him at a park, which we describe as “Park,” kicking a stone around like a football, and then mentioning a local fast food joint. It’s just not enough.

Yeah. I think that this needs a little bit more remedial work and study to make… — And you’ve got to be careful about these jokes like, she says, “I don’t mean to be heartless, but I can’t spend the rest of my life with a market trader, can I?”

“Yeah, of course. Sorry, which bit of that wasn’t heartless?”

Well, okay, if you know it’s heartless, why are you still there? She’s heartless. What is going on here? And the issue with this, yes, we know people in real life who are pathetic doormats, but we don’t root for them in movies. We need to see some spark of something with this guy.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** That’s why so typically people will find if the movie starts with a breakup they find their mate in bed with someone else because we understand that they were deceived. But this guy — she is such an open book, I really hate this guy for not getting it.

**John:** Yup.

**Craig:** All right.

**John:** All right, our final Three Page Challenge of the day comes from Kevin Pinkerton.

**Craig:** Pinkerton.

**John:** It’s called The Morning Briefing. And I will attempt to give a summary here.

So, we start on the Pentagon Basement Corridor.

**Craig:** Wait, did you say Pentag-AN.

**John:** Pentag-ON.

**Craig:** Pentagon. You said Pentigan.

**John:** I did say Pentagan. That doesn’t make any sense at all. I rhymed it with Alyson Hannigan and Bennigan’s.

**Craig:** [laughs] Bennigan’s. Exactly. Or it’s like Houlihan O’Reilly, or that guy, one of the biggest financiers in Hollywood? What was his name? Houlihan Lokey or something?

**John:** Yeah, something like that.

**Craig:** That’s great. Pentagan!

**John:** So, we’re at the Pentagon Basement Corridor, and the president is walking next to a Special Forces Sergeant. They’re appearing and disappearing into pools of light. The president wipes his forehead with a red, white, and blue handkerchief.

They come to an unmarked door. The president says, “Let’s get this over with.”

Inside is a chamber. It’s sort of dark and ominous inside. And, in fact, on a low circular dais is a creature, a giant creature — looks like it’s made of rotted meat in over-muscled humanoid form. There are also children on bleachers who are chained there watching, and terrified.

The president expects this creature to be there, and the president says, “Begin.” The creature gives the president advice about what’s happening in the future. And so tells him to, “Deploy the ships to Bosporus. Acquiescence is certain.”

The president asks about press reaction. So, basically this monstrous creature is an advisor who has some ability to see into the future. And so at the end the president thanks him to some degree, but also says, the creature is hungry, and the president agrees, okay, well, you can eat the children. And then the president leaves and we hear in the background the sounds of the children being eaten by this monstrous creature.

**Craig:** I love this.

**John:** I loved it, too.

**Craig:** I loved it.

**John:** And let’s talk about reasons why we love this.

**Craig:** Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, just from a craft point of view, it’s really well written. At first I was nervous because on the first page it seems like, oh no, this is just a bad version of a Roland Emmerich movie, because they’re doing that thing where they walk down the hall, “lit overhead by a row of dim bulbs.” And I’m like, dim bulbs?

He’s got a red, white, and blue handkerchief which feels like…

**John:** Yeah. I flagged that, too. I was like, oh, no, no, no, that’s cheesy, but then I was like, no, it’s deliberately cheesy.

**Craig:** Deliberate, exactly. It’s deliberate, which is great, because it’s a choice, and it’s a smart choice given what we’re about to see. And then we go into this room, and again, I’ve seen this room in the basement of the White House before, so everything just feels like, oh god, I’ve seen it…and then there’s like an alien there. Oh no, but then there’s these kids. And I’m like, well, what the hell is that about?

A dozen children, and I love how unapologetic Kevin is here — he doesn’t pull a punch at all. “a DOZEN CHILDREN, ages five to seven,” [laughs], the cutest age, “wide-eyed and weeping in horror at the thing before them, as they sit gagged and chained to their seats.” Brilliant. I love how audacious this guy is.

And then the president snaps his finger at the creature and one word, “Begin.” So, you know, here’s just so you guys playing at home, the home game, what I love about this line, it’s the first line of dialogue, or rather the second line, and it is, “Begin.” And what that line tells us is this has happened before. In fact, this is so frequent that the president is actually annoyed. It’s like, “I don’t have time, let’s go, begin.”

That is such a great tonal shift, because we’ve been set up to believe that this is like so horrifying, like the way in Independence Day they visit that alien that they’ve captured and it’s like so super serious. This guy is like, “Begin, let’s go.”

And the creature delivers these predictions. And the funny thing about the predictions, even though it’s not done funny funny, is that they’re so mundane. “Press reaction?”

“Acceptable.” [laughs] It made me laugh. “On the crux of the Senate standoff, the weak vote…” The creature is like a Beltway insider at this point, which is so great. He even gives a weather prediction.

**John:** Yeah, so the creature says, “Thunderstorms in the D.C. Metro area. Hail.”

**Craig:** Hail!

**John:** “But I’ve scheduled a speech.”

“I have seen the storm. It is already cut on the lathe of time. What more? Enough.”

**Craig:** On the lathe of time! I know. The creature is like, “Get out, I’ve given you…stop questioning me.” And the president is trying to figure out exactly, like his concern isn’t about the world, or any of that stuff, his issue is he’s got a speech and it’s supposed to hail. [laughs] It’s like, “Are you telling me? I just want to be clear.” And then he’s like, “Back to the Russians.”

Creature: Tired.

“I just want to be clue, the carriers, the Russians won’t be –”

Creature: Hungry.

And the president is like, “Eh.”

**John:** So, let’s talk, I do have a little bit of some criticisms here. On page one, “THE PRESIDENT walks beside a SPECIAL FORCES SERGEANT.” Well, how are we going to know he’s the president? We’re not necessarily going to know he’s the president. So, you’re telling us he’s the president. I’m not sure we’re going to necessarily get that originally. And it’s very important that we know that he’s the president.

So, you may want to throw in a, “Mr. President,” like he comes out of the elevator, “Mr. President,” just let us know. Because it’s much funnier if we know from the first frame that he’s the president.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** The overall more general concern: this was a tremendous little sketch, a little moment. There’s nothing there that leads me to believe that this is a good sustainable idea over the course of a full-length movie, but I kind of don’t care, because I’ve enjoyed reading these three pages so much that I want to read the next pages.

And that’s, there’s a lot to be said for that. Kevin had a perspective, and a voice, and it was enjoyable to read. And these are — it felt confident. And, god, just give me some confidence…

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** …and I will just keep reading.

**Craig:** Such a great point. I mean, he is totally in control of this. And he is unapologetic, and specific, and frankly, there’s just a lot of craft. I really like the way the dialogue flows. There’s a great rhythm to it. And we cannot teach that to anybody. There’s just a really smart rhythm to it. I can tell you that Kevin is a funny guy. He’s a very funny writer. I thought it was really good.

And I think, if I were to predict what this kind of movie is, it feels a little bit like those early — you ever see the early Peter Jackson.

**John:** Oh yeah, early Peter Jackson.

**Craig:** Just like over-the-top comedy/horror/grotesque/funny, obviously satirical. I think it’s really cool. And I think Kevin did a great job.

**John:** I think so, too. It reminds me of sort of mid-era Whedon or sort of like the Buffy and Angel sort of at their peak. This would be like the cold teaser opening to something and you’d meet, like the new villain of the season would be the president and he would have this monster. And that would be the villain for the season, or half the season.

It felt great and solid that way.

**Craig:** Yeah, very cool.

**John:** Nicely done, Kevin. And nicely done, Stuart, for picking that sample for us.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** It’s so nice to leave on a high note.

**Craig:** On a high note. Left on a high note. Well, well done Kevin Pinkerton.

**John:** I have a Cool Thing this week. My Cool Thing is actually, this is going to sound really self-indulgent, but it’s a book that I’m featured in. It’s a book called The FilmCraft Book of Screenwriting. And, as we’ve talked about on the show, I don’t like most books on screenwriting. And what’s nice about this book is it’s just a bunch of interviews with a bunch of screenwriters. And so there’s me, there’s Billy Ray, there’s Whit Stillman, there’s Mark Baumbach, Guillermo Arriaga.

It’s a really nicely put together, really pretty, pretty book that this British publisher put together. It’s $20 and it’s actually kind of great. And so I have an interview in there where I’m talking about sort of different movies I’ve worked on and sort of process, but everyone else is really fascinating and great, too.

And so if you’re looking for a book on screenwriting, or want to give a gift of a book on screenwriting, I think it’s actually a really well put together book. So, edited and written together by Tim Grierson. And there will be a link to that in the show notes.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** Oh, I also have to say, it also has the most misleading cover in the history of any book you’ve ever seen. So, the cover is Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in Bed from Benjamin Button. And it’s this incredibly sexy shot. And it says Screenwriting over the top of it. [laughs] It’s like there is nothing sexy at all about screenwriting.

And so this was waiting for me when I got back from Chicago. I opened the envelope and I’m like, what the hell is this? And I had no idea that I was featured in it. Then I found it inside and it was good.

**Craig:** Nice. I’m cool-less this week. But it’s such a big podcast.

**John:** It was a big podcast.

**Craig:** Maybe my Cool Thing this week is Vinny Bruzzese.

**John:** It’s a great name.

**Craig:** Vinny. I love…Vinny is like, “You know what? I’m busy. I’m smoking. I love Diet Dr. Pepper, but sometimes I also like Diet Coke.”

**John:** Yeah. Mix them together it’s good.

**Craig:** Boom. “Open, hey, genie, I want both. Give me both. Open them both! And Camels.”

I don’t know why I imagine Vinny yelling at genie.

**John:** Because he probably does.

**Craig:** He might.

**John:** He might.

**Craig:** But he may be a very soft-spoken guy. The point is, I love him. I love this guy.

**John:** I love him, too.

**Craig:** He’s cool.

**John:** All right. Craig, thank you for another fun podcast. If you have questions about anything we’ve talked about, including how to submit Three Page Challenge samples, or this book I just hyped, or any of the Three Page entries that we talked about today, you can find them all at johnaugust.com/podcast.

This was Episode 88, but there’s 87 episodes before this if you want to go back through and look at them.

If you are not subscribing to us in iTunes you probably should, because that way we know that you’re subscribing in iTunes and other people can find us. So, look us up on iTunes at Scriptnotes.

And we will be back next week. And next week I think we’re going to have exciting news about our 100th episode live show.

**Craig:** Very excited.

**John:** Which could be very exciting, because we got a great email today. So, I think that could work out nicely.

**Craig:** It could. Could!

**John:** Craig, thank you so much.

**Craig:** Thank you, John. And welcome home.

**John:** Thank you.

**Craig:** Bye.

LINKS:

* [Turning the Page: Storytelling in the Digital Age](http://www.oscars.org/events-exhibitions/events/2013/05/turning-page.html) at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater
* [Solving Equation of a Hit Film Script, With Data](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/business/media/solving-equation-of-a-hit-film-script-with-data.html?hp&_r=0) by Brooks Barnes
* Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s [Black swan theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory) on Wikipedia
* Screenwriting.io on [multicamera script format](http://screenwriting.io/how-are-multicamera-tv-scripts-formatted/)
* Three Pages by [Sue Morris](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/SueMorris.pdf)
* Three Pages by [Robin Peters](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/RobinPeters.pdf)
* Three Pages by [Kevin Pinkerton](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/KevinPinkerton.pdf)
* [FilmCraft Screenwriting](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0240824865/?tag=johnaugustcom-20) by Tim Grierson on Amazon
* OUTRO: Thompson Twins’ [Doctor Doctor covered by Danny McEvoy](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpHAgyUKn-0)

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2013/moving-on-is-not-giving-up).

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

**Craig Mazin:** I’m Craig Mazin.

**John:** And this is Scriptnotes, Episode 87, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

**Craig:** Hmm, interesting.

**John:** I put it in there this time.

So, Craig, this is my last episode broadcasting from Chicago. I am flying home on Friday night. I just cannot tell you how excited I am to be back home in my own bed. I have not really been back in Los Angeles since February, so it’s been a very long time.

**Craig:** These stretches are difficult. And I know feeling all too well. There is just something about your own bed, your own house. In fact, I play this little game with myself where I think to myself even though it’s in the future, I’m going to be walking to my front door, and when I walk to my front door I want to remember what it was like when I thought it was in the future. [laughs] It’s a very strange thing I do. But, somehow it’s comforting and it gets me to the point in time I want to be.

**John:** So, it’s been a remarkable time and stretch here in Chicago. And we’ll talk about a bunch of things today, so let me talk about the topics on our agenda:

I want to talk about moving on, which is both how you move on from a project that you’ve been writing for a long time and recognize that, well, maybe you should just not keep rewriting that project.

In a more general sense, how do you recognize that maybe screenwriting is not a career that you should be focusing on.

I want to talk about reviews, because I remember like when you had Stolen Identity, that movie that you wrote, you got all those reviews and you had a bad reaction to the reviews from that. And I had an interesting situation with the reviews here for Big Fish.

**Craig:** Okay.

**John:** And, finally, we should talk about the Zach Braff Kickstarter thing because that’s a thing that happened this week.

**Craig:** Yeah. I’m not going to veto any of that.

**John:** Great. So, let’s go in reverse order. Let’s talk about the Zach Braff Kickstarter thing.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** We had an episode a few weeks ago where we talked about Kickstarter in a general sense, and Veronica Mars in particular, and you were not high on the idea of Kickstarter-funding projects, like making movies based on funds raised on Kickstarter. Is that a fair assessment?

**Craig:** It was. It wasn’t so much an issue with the Veronica Mars people. I think in the end I probably had a larger issue with just the concept of Kickstarter and what it does. But, the specific circumstance of Veronica Mars made it hard to criticize them. They had somebody who owned their copyright saying, “Unless you come up with a whole bunch of money that you don’t personally have, we’re not going to let you make this.” So, okay, I got that.

**John:** This week Zach Braff announced that he had the ambition to make a follow up to Garden State and that he was using Kickstarter to raise the money, or some of the money, to make that movie possible. And it was funded — as we’re recording this it got up to about $2 million, and maybe higher than that right now. And it looks like there’s going to be enough money to make the movie.

There was a lot of criticism and blow back about Zach Braff doing this and sort of he’s here, you have like a rich actor, or perceived to be a rich actor coming off the TV show Scrubs, and sort of why should we be paying for him to make a movie.

**Craig:** Well, there was a bunch of criticism. One was, yeah, okay, here’s a guy who at one point was reported to be making a third of a million dollars per episode of television and he’s asking for $2 million from people without granting them, of course, any kind of stake in the profit. That seems a little odd.

The other criticism was that he wasn’t saying, “I can’t get this money elsewhere.” What he was saying was, “I could get this money elsewhere, but then I wouldn’t necessarily get my way.” And that’s a very different situation than the Veronica Mars thing. He can make this movie without Kickstarter. He just doesn’t want to.

So, there was some, certainly some push back there as well.

**John:** Now, I’ve met Zach Braff on a couple occasions, always like social things, so not on any particular projects, and he was actually always lovely. So, I don’t have anything against Zach Braff in general. I would say that some of the criticism I read about his scenario was that he didn’t come off well in how he was presenting himself and the project.

And I think it would be a good primer for anybody who’s considering using Kickstarter to raise money to be really careful about your messaging because I feel like that push back against him, in a way that was not favorable.

**Craig:** Well, he still got his money, so in that end, you know, from just a pure ends orientation he won. I think that, I don’t know. Look, I’m friendly with Michael Shamberg and Stacy Sher, the producers on this. I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. And I told Michael as much, you know.

Nothing against Zach Braff. I don’t understand this. He wants final cut on a movie, you know, I don’t know. Earn it? Or, you know, plenty of people go out there and get financing for small movies like this and do get final cut because it’s a small movie and they’re not getting paid that much.

Or, put your own money to it. You know, someone sent me a link just today. A year ago there was a big article in, I think the New York Times, about Zach Braff’s awesome loft in Manhattan and how he had just redecorated it. [laughs] I’m just reading this going, “Ugh, man, why do you need $2 million from people out there?” I don’t understand it.

At one point he referenced a guy who, you know, he said most people don’t know that Garden State happened because one guy funded most of it. Well, where’s that guy? Garden State made a good amount of money based as far as I can tell. It should have had a good return on investment. Where is that guy? I don’t understand this. I just don’t get it.

And here’s the thing: In the end, I can say, well, I find it tacky on some level, but I can’t blame Zach Braff because it worked. I can’t blame, again, you know, when we talked about Kickstarter last time, my whole point was every business if they could just get capital for which they had to offer no equity would do it and should do it. So, let’s just call it the Sucker Born Every Minute theory.

Who are these people giving him…I don’t understand it. There are so many other things to give money to in this world. Why this? I don’t get it.

**John:** Well, I think as we talked about in Veronica Mars, one of the reasons they want to do it is because they want a thing to exist. And Garden State, I liked that movie. And I think a lot of people liked that movie and they would love to see a follow up to that movie. If this is a way to make that happen and sort of bend the universe in that direction, that’s fantastic.

From the Zach Braff or the existence of the movie’s perspective, yes, I think he could have gotten the money someplace else because, yeah, you kind of want to make a sequel to Garden State. I can see the logic behind doing the Kickstarter model, though, because it generates publicity and interest in a movie that does not even exist yet. And it will be the movie that raises money on Kickstarter, so people will already know about it a year before it comes out. And that can be useful.

And I think that some of what people use Kickstarter for isn’t even so much to raise money as to raise awareness that something exists. And that’s potentially useful. It has a publicity scope.

**Craig:** It’s even worse now to me. I get your “let’s just cause it to be created” argument. And in the case of Veronica Mars, that’s true. It literally was the only way that it was going to happen because barring those people… — And I don’t believe that, for instance, it’s as easy for Kristen Bell who starred on a show that didn’t make it into like big syndication dollars and all the rest of it to just say, “Okay, we’ll here’s the $4 million we need to make this show, or this movie rather.”

But this could exist — he said as much. He said, “Yeah, I could make this movie. I wouldn’t be able to cast this guy.” And then he pulls the guy in from Big Bang Theory who I’m pretty sure he could cast. It’s a $2 million movie. Or, it’s a $3 million, whatever it is, why not? That guy is on the biggest sitcom in America.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just out to lunch here. But then your point is like, well, so now these people are not giving money to something for which they receive no profit in success, they’re also funding the publicity campaign for the thing for which they receive no profit in success. And I just don’t get it at all. And if people are asking me to apportion some kind of blame here, I’m going to say 98% of the blame goes to people giving money to this on Kickstarter. [laughs] I just don’t get.

I don’t get it at all. And, you know what? There are people out there who really don’t have access to what Zach Braff has access to who really need Kickstarter. They’re not just going to Kickstarter because they don’t want some — because they want final cut. They don’t have anything or any way of knowing anything, or any way of anyone giving them anything except Kickstarter. But, $2 million goes to this.

I don’t get it.

**John:** I wouldn’t apportion any blame to anybody. I think I share a general frustration about this situation in the sense of you have a person who you know to be wealthy who you know, however much money he has, you know that he has the ability to make this movie in some other way and has chosen to go this route to do it for reasons that you’re not entirely sure you agree with. And you don’t want all movies to happen… — I worry about a scenario in which all small movies feel like they have to go through Kickstarter. If they didn’t they’re not real.

That’s the only concern I have is that, you know, working with a lot of the Sundance movies, like they’re always scraping to get funds. But if the expectation is that not only do you have to sort of impress investor people but you have to do this Kickstarter thing, it just becomes this weird beast of figuring out your t-shirt campaign before you’re figuring out your movie.

**Craig:** Well, it doesn’t appear to be working for Melissa Joan Hart who tried the same thing. And, ironically, her movie is called Walk of Shame, which is the expression they use for Kickstarters that don’t reach their goals. It was made mostly that it was on purpose.

I just wonder if we haven’t seen the last of these. In other words, the Veronica Mars thing was met with just pure exhilaration. This one, not so much. Frankly, it took a bit. I mean, Veronica Mars had made more than this thing did in like 24 hours practically. This one kind of like dribbed and drabbed its way to $2 million.

I mean, granted, it took, whatever, four days. I mean, that’s fast. Don’t get me wrong. But there’s been a lot of criticism. And, you know the internet, John. You know it the way I know it. It just feels like, I wonder if the worm has turned here and the next person who tries this isn’t going to just get absolutely slammed in the face.

**John:** We’ll see.

All right, next topic. Let’s talk about reviews, because last week we talking about getting notes. And getting notes and getting reviews are kind of related topics, but also very different topics.

Usually when we’re talking with screenwriters, reviews come a long time after you’ve finished your work. So, you have written a script. Like, Frankenweenie is a good example. That was the first movie that I just did not read any reviews.

And it was actually very easy for me to not read any reviews for Frankenweenie because I had been done with that movie for like a year and a half before the movie came out. So, it wasn’t very close and personal to me. I loved the story, but I didn’t have a lot of emotional stake in it immediately. So, I knew that the reviews were basically good. I knew that my life wouldn’t be greatly improved by reading them, so I just didn’t read any of them. And it was actually lovely not to have read the reviews.

You chose to read the reviews for Stolen Identity.

**Craig:** Yeah, it was mistake. [laughs]

**John:** [laughs] It was a mistake. So, here with Big Fish, we just opened. And so last weekend was our opening and so the reviews came out. And Andrew Lippa, the composer and I, decided deliberately that we were not going to read any reviews. We were not going to read the good reviews, we were not going to read the bad reviews. We were going to read no reviews.

And it was actually the right choice I think because it was a weird thing with a musical because a movie, you’re done. A movie, you’re done and you’re finished. Whereas we’re in this preview process so we’re still making changes all the time and we’ll make more changes before we go to New York.

And even reading the good reviews in a weird way would have been toxic because it would have made us, you know, I don’t know, when you put words to something and you read something in print, it gives it a sense of authority that may not really be warranted. And so even if you read something, like a glowing review, saying this is the best song or the best scene in the whole show, in a weird way you’re nervous then to change it. You’re nervous to do the actual work you need to do.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** So, what we chose to do is we said — the producers, obviously, we’re going to read all the reviews — and so we said, “Read the reviews. And just tell us the generalities of what things are common. What things everyone agrees we need to work on. Not everyone, but what is the consensus of the stuff we need to work on.” And, thankfully, there was consensus. And the consensus was exactly what all of our friends and colleagues who had seen the show said we needed to work on as well. So, that was good.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** And then there were also raves. And so like the Variety thing was a rave. And so they can say it was a rave. And I could know that there was a rave that I didn’t have to read which was a wonderful thing.

But, I want to talk about, you know, last week we talked about notes and sort of how you approach notes. And what’s different is when you’re getting notes from somebody you can actually engage them in a conversation. A review is like a monologue about what you did. And there’s not a way to ask questions about back about it. There’s no way to sort of engage with them. And if there were they’d be, I don’t know, more useful.

**Craig:** It’s funny that as we talk about reviews, the areas in which they can be useful keep getting pared down, and down, and down. So, they’re not useful to you early on. They’re not useful to you later. [laughs] They’re not useful to the artist at all. They’re not.

**John:** Well, in a weird way these reviews are sort of like on any cool news where they used to have like test screening reviews, and I’ve always criticized those because like someone is trying to review an in-progress product. It’s like, it’s not the final product.

With theater, you necessarily kind of have to have those reviews because we are selling tickets. I think it’s fair to review what we’re doing and sort of where we’re at in the process.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** And the best, you know, a lot of the reviews said these are the things that worked and these are the things that need to be improved before it gets to New York. And like that’s a lovely way to phrase it. But it’s still sort of judging a thing as it stood that night when the next night it was different. It’s like trying to give a moral assessment of a seven-year-old kid. They’re still growing. They’re still changing.

**Craig:** Yeah. And I would imagine that talking to audience members could give you a very similar snapshot. The truth is, it’s audience members that you want to attract. Famously, Les Misérables when it opened in London got terrible reviews. Same show. Same show that has been running forever, all over the world, and then the movie, and the multiple cast albums. Terrible reviews. The critics just didn’t matter. They weren’t right.

Or, let’s not say that. They weren’t applicable to what people on stage are going for which is to fill a theater with people. So, talking to people I would imagine would give you, like you said, all they did was say the same things that your friends and your other preview goers were saying.

**John:** Absolutely. One of the most fascinating things that happened this last week was we had groups sales meetings which is they fly in a bunch of the people who sell whole big blocks of tickets to tourists who are visiting New York City. And so it could be church groups, educational groups. It could be conventions, whatever.

And these people are fascinating because they see a zillion shows, because they see all the shows that are coming to Broadway. So, afterwards we did this Q&A and they could ask questions. And one woman was like really, really direct about the things she liked and the things she didn’t like, and who she was going to recommend the show for and who she wasn’t going to recommend the show for. And that was actually really useful because I could engage her in a conversation. And a lot of what she was saying was consistent with the other notes we were getting, and with like honestly apparently what’s in the reviews which is great, because that means that’s a thing you can address.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** The process is like as if we’re editing a movie but the Avid, we’re putting a new cut off the Avid every day and have to show it to an audience. It’s like you’re having 35 test screenings back, to back, to back. And it’s wonderful to have that opportunity, but also exhausting to have that opportunity.

**Craig:** Yeah, I can see that.

Well, I think it’s very smart that you guys were not plugged into the reviews and in the end they simply — they are, I guess, just associated with the experience, but they are not causal to it in any way.

**John:** They’re a snapshot of sort of what the show was like at a certain time and what the reaction to the show was at that time.

**Craig:** Through one person’s camera.

**John:** Through one person’s camera. And, honestly, like what happened that night, because some nights are really, really good, and the audience is fantastic, and just everything kind of clicks. And some nights a line gets dropped or some cue doesn’t work quite right, and it is like the sustained magic trick. Even with a movie, you’ve seen scenes where like literally cutting one reaction shot changes the whole scene.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** That’s the kind of situation we’re at now where like some stuff has to be polished exactly one way or it doesn’t really work right.

**Craig:** Yeah, you know, and I totally believe you because you’ll see that with movies, and movies never change. But the audience changes, or a theater changes, or a venue, and it’s just weird sometimes. It’s just one thing that they respond to in one room, they don’t in another. So…

**John:** You and I have both been to experiences where they’ll have a premiere, but like there will be too many people for one screen. And so there will be theater A and theater B. And it’s the exact same movie playing in both places and people have different experiences which is so…

**Craig:** So weird.

**John:** It’s crazy.

Now, partly why I didn’t read the reviews was sort of a psychological self-defense. It’s like knowing what was going to send me off in little spirals and make me unproductive. But, psychological self-defense is really sort of our third and biggest topic today which is how do you recognize when it’s time to move on from either a project or from this thing of writing.

And let’s talk through that, because I have 12 produced movie credits, maybe. I think 10 or 12. And a lot other movies I sort of worked on along the way, but there’s a whole bunch of scripts I wrote that never shot. And I’ve had to sort of move on from them. And you have a big shelf of stuff, too, I assume?

**Craig:** Yeah, for sure.

**John:** So, let’s talk about when you decide to just be done with a project, or do you decide — does it just fall off or have you officially sort of said goodbye to any projects?

**Craig:** I have said goodbye. There’s one project that I was hired to do by a studio and I really loved it and my producer really loved it, but there were circumstances that made it sort of impossible to green light it. It just wasn’t a good fit for the studio and it was very expensive. And I think it has just been there. I don’t know if anyone has ever really worked on it again. I think it’s just dead.

And, you know, in a weird way, it doesn’t bother me. I guess that’s okay, you know. I’m okay to rest on those things. There’s a spec script that I wrote that has some really cool stuff in it, but then just stuff that’s not quite right, and I kind of realize, “Uh, I don’t really want to write this anymore.”

And, so I quit on it. And I have no problem with that at all. Do you feel great sadness when… — Do you feel like quitting on something is a bad thing, or ending like that is a bad thing?

**John:** I can offer two perspectives. I think every movie that I write is real to me in the sense that I’ve entered into that world and I’ve written everything from the inside, and so those characters are as real to me as the characters are in the movies that get made. And so there’s a certain sadness when like something doesn’t proceed because I know those characters are never going to see their full life. They’re only ideas of the final movie. And so they’re real to me, but they’re not real to anybody else. And so that’s a sad thing.

One of the themes in The Nines was that sense of these characters are sort of trapped forever in 12-point Courier. And what is the creator’s responsibility to their creations. Am I responsible for, having created these characters, am I responsible for making sure they exist in the world for real? At what point are you allowed to sort of walk away from the things you’ve made, be it a story, a script, a universe? At what point is a creator allowed to walk away from the things he’s made?

So, some of those things, it is different when it is my own original baby, when it was like a spec script I came up with. It was entirely mine. I own every little bit of it. That’s a tougher thing for me then sometimes there’s a bundle of rights that I was hired on to write this thing. It’s not my thing. I did everything I could. I took care of this thing as well as I could, but it’s not ultimately mine.

That’s a situation like Preacher. I would love the Preacher movie to exist. I just can’t actually get it to happen. And I don’t own those rights and so I can’t push it any further. And I can get people on the phone, but I can’t get the next thing to happen, and that’s the reality of it.

**Craig:** I mean, it’s not the end of the world. I mean, I guess, you have an experience writing something and I always feel like we learn every time we write. We push ourselves or challenge ourselves in some way. And there’s an upside, frankly, to the things that are unmade. And that is you get to enjoy them perfectly in your mind. And no one can mess with those.

**John:** So, I think there’s sometimes an opportunity cost to holding on to things. And that opportunity cost is like that is time when you’re not writing something new.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** That is time where you’re not pursuing something new. And that’s an important thing to remember, because honestly the easiest thing to do is often to work on another draft of that project. And so sometimes you promised it to somebody, so you’re going to fire up the word processor, and like Final Draft, and go through and just do a new pass for somebody. And a lot of screenwriters in Los Angeles have written one and half scripts.

**Craig:** [laughs]

**John:** They’ve written that first spec script. They started on another script. They didn’t really finish the second script. And they’d go back and they’d keep writing that first one, which might have had a pretty good idea on it, but all they sort of know how to do is how to rewrite that first script.

In most cases, people would be better off say acknowledging like that was a lovely script, I learned a lot from there, and move onto the next one.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** The first thing I wrote which got me an agent will never get made. And it should never get made. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a perfectly valid piece of writing. It just wasn’t a movie that the universe wanted to exist.

**Craig:** I also think that for a lot of these writers they are belaboring under a misconception that their script must be as perfected as possible, or I guess the proper way to say that is their script must be perfected in order for someone to truly appreciate it. And it turns out this is not at all the case.

A, there is no “perfected.” There is only perfected for you. B, nobody ever reads a script and says, “It’s perfect. Shoot it!”

**John:** No one.

**Craig:** And, C, most importantly, and most encouragingly, the stuff in your screenplay that is basic, and intentional, and specific to your screenplay will shine through flaws every day of the week. Everybody, frankly, is looking for something, even if it’s one great scene, or just the basic idea. They’re going to get it or not. They never pick up these scripts — no one, forget the cartoon producers and studio executives that you might imagine are out there, anyone, no one is going to pick up a script and say, “It is flawed, therefore no good,” or “It is perfect therefore good.” That’s not how it works.

So, when we redo, and redo, and redo, and redo and just sit there sanding and polishing we are unfortunately misusing our natural obsessive compulsive disorder for bad. We let that get out of control. We need OCD to be able to fill 150 pages, and we need OCD to redo it and fix it in large, gross ways.

But, when you start to indulge the OCD, that is when you are entering the line of diminishing returns and it is time to consider maybe moving on.

**John:** Yeah. Here’s a sign: If you go through a draft and you’ve mostly change punctuation…

**Craig:** Yeah!

**John:** …that was not a productive draft. Because you start to recognize that all you’re doing is polishing the script but you’re not actually changing the movie. Like, the movie that you actually make from that script would be almost exactly the same script. You’re just kind of improving the words.

And it’s not to say that the words are unimportant. The words are incredibly important and you should — every word in your script should be deliberate. But that doesn’t mean you should have spent three years on those words and every word in that script, because that’s not good and productive use of your time.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** In many ways I feel people who get a chance to work in television benefit from recognizing that perfection is a trap. And the time pressures that they’re under in TV is like, “How do I write what needs to be written in this scene so that…” You know, good enough is sort of a trap too… “but that it does its job, and that therefore the scene will work and I can move onto the next scene.” It’s how to write the best scene for what it needs to be the first time through.

**Craig:** Right. That’s exactly right. And just keeping checking into yourself. If you feel like you’re still eating meat, keep writing. If you start feeling bones crunching, stop. You’ve gone too far, you know? And you’ll know. I think we all know.

Because we care so much about these things, sometimes when we finish a script and we feel really good about it we just read it, and read it over, and read it over, and we’re just congratulating ourselves by reading what we’ve done. And that’s a perfectly fine way to indulge yourself if you’d like. But that’s also a pretty good sign that you should probably now start to ease off the pedal and send it out into the world.

**John:** Yup. A friend of mine who’s very smart and sort of much more psychologically self-aware than I think I will ever feel comfortable being…

**Craig:** Is it me? Is it me?

**John:** [laughs] No, certainly not you. When she’s moving on, she will write a letter to the script saying, “These are the reasons why I’m moving on.” And it’s a weird sort of closure exercise for her, but like, “This is why I’m done. You’re fantastic. But I’m not going to be continuing to pursue you anymore,” which I know sounds a little bit crazy, but the actual process of writing that saying gives her permission to stop thinking about it and obsessing about it.

**Craig:** That doesn’t sound a little crazy. That sounds a lot crazy. But, if it’s working…

**John:** If it’s working. Because what I do find is that sometimes there’s just the open loops that you just sort of keep thinking about. Like, oh, I need to go back and do that. Oh, I need to go back and do that. And it becomes a sort of stacking kind of guilt.

And if you give yourself permission to just be done with something, that can be useful. And if it takes writing a letter, or just a little note to that thing saying, “This is why I’m not going to worry about you anymore,” that could be useful.

**Craig:** Whatever it takes. You know, you just want to try and find the sweet spot between the ding-a-ling who starts 12 scripts but never finishes and the other ding-a-ling who’s on his 20th draft of something where he’s now fixing tiny things no one would have noticed in the first place anyway because he’s on the 12th level of revisions.

And, by the way, for the way, for those poor people, god help them when other people finally read it. They don’t recognize that you’ve already gone through this process and that you’re 12 levels in. They’re just like, “I got bored here.”

**John:** Yeah. A lot of times people keep writing that thing because they’re scared of, who am I if I’m not writing this thing. So, maybe you should set a limit. So, like I will not rewrite this script until I’ve written an entirely new script, because that way at least you’re moving forward. And probably in the process of writing that new script you will recognize, “Oh, you know what? I’m a writer. I’m not just one script.”

**Craig:** And there you go.

**John:** And you’ll keep moving on. But, let’s push a little bit further. What if you’re not a screenwriter? And how do you know whether you are a person who is just maybe not cut out for screenwriting?

**Craig:** Well, I was thinking about this the other day because someone on Done Deal Pro sort of did some back-of-the-envelope math about what the odds were of becoming a professional screenwriter. And while the back-of-the-envelope was pretty loosey-goosey in terms of all the assumptions and things, obviously it’s low, right? The odds are low. I don’t know what they actually came up with, but let’s just say the odds of — you know, when you look at all the people who want to be a screenwriter, all the people trying to be a screenwriter, let’s say that the odds are 0.05% of them become professional screenwriters in however we define that term.

And my argument back to all of them was, no. Those are the odds, maybe, let’s stipulate, but they’re not your odds. Your odd are 0% or 100%. That’s it. The general odds don’t apply to you. So, with that in mind, really what it comes down to is: Are you wasting your time?

And, this whole concept of “follow your dream” is so important and so vital for the people whose odds are 100%. And so destructive and limiting to the people whose odds are 0%. And I think it’s important for us to speak to all of those people out there who are doing this to say: Listen, there may come a day where you start to believe that perhaps it’s not supposed to happen. You’re not what is wanted in the world for a screenwriter. And you’re not loving it. And I think it’s okay to say, “I’m going to stop now.”

We shouldn’t associate shame with that. I know too many people who have wasted a lot of time and there’s other stuff to do. And, also, frankly, I mean, I’m sure you’re the same way — screenwriting is a huge part of my life. It’s my profession, it is my vocation. It has been so for nearly two decades now and hopefully for another decade still. It’s not the most important thing in my life by far. By far!

You know, my wife, my kids, it’s not the be all, end all.

**John:** Two points to sort of reiterate is that moving on is not failing. Moving on is recognizing what’s working and what’s not working and making a choice to pursue what is the best path for you to be pursuing next.

Second off is the difference between what you do and who you are. And your identity cannot, should not be in most cases your profession. Your identity should be the things you stand for, the things you love, the people who are in your life. It shouldn’t be what you do on a nine to five basis.

**Craig:** Yeah. For sure. If that is your identity something has gone terribly wrong.

And, frankly, if that’s what you’re chasing, too, there are kids who really want to make that baseball team. They really want to make the tournament team because they love baseball. Then there are kids who really want to make that tournament team because they really want that uniform that says, “I’m on a tournament team.”

A lot of people out there I think want the uniform.

**John:** Yeah they do.

**Craig:** [laughs] And, I got to tell you, it ain’t that great. When I was…I’m going to tell you a little story. Let me tell you a little story about little Craig Mazin.

Little Craig Mazin went to public school on Staten Island for kindergarten through fifth grade. And his public school was as New York City’s Board of Education love to do, because they were super creative, our school was, Public School 69, PS69. — No jokes please. — So, I went to PS69.

And in PS69 if you were in fifth grade you could become a safety monitor. And a safety monitor basically got to stand in the hall and do safety stuff, I guess. But really what it was was this: you got this white cloth band thing. It would sort of go around your waist like a belt. But then it had this other thing that went diagonally from the right side of the belt, up over your shoulder, and then back around. And then there was a badge on it.

**John:** So, it was a sash-belt-badge combo.

**Craig:** Sash-belt-badge combo. And you could do things like check for bathroom passes and stuff like that. You were essentially a little Gestapo. And did I mention badge?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Oh my god did I want this! I wanted it so bad. And I don’t know what the criteria were for selecting hall monitors. I was, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I was a star pupil. Star pupil. Now later in life it occurs to me that that’s probably not — the high performing students weren’t necessarily what they wanted for their goon squad. [laughs]

But oh my god I wanted that thing so bad. I had no interest whatsoever in what it actually meant. And I remember feeling so frustrated by the casual “who cares” attitude of the kids who were awarded the sash-belt-badge combo and who didn’t even seem to care about it. Or, god forbid, forgot their sash-badge combo at school. You know?

**John:** So, Craig, you were never given that sash-badge?

**Craig:** No, I was not. I never got the sash-belt-badge combo.

**John:** This is explains so much, Craig. It also explain why you fundamentally reject anybody who sort of wants that kind of thing because now — not having gotten it yourself — anybody who would want such a thing, or who’d want to…or who would want to kick-start a campaign to make sash-belt-badge combos is suspect in your world.

**Craig:** [laughs] I would love, by the way, if one of our listeners actually found an image of this somewhere on file. It has to be a sash-belt-badge combo thing from a New York City public education school from K-5, which is what we had, and it has to be circa ’70s. I’ll go as high as ’81.

Anyway, no, the truth is it was a very, very 10-year-old thing of me, but yet those 10-year-old things never go away. They’re always inside of us.

I’ll give you another one. When I was in college I really, really wanted to be in one of the a cappella singing groups. And I was good enough to get a call back, I just wasn’t good enough to actually make it. And I was — I felt, it’s not jealousy, it’s the frustration of denied aspiration. It’s really hard to deal with. But, you know, the thing is, you do have to look in your life at the things that you do get, and then remember everything that you get at some point becomes a job, becomes work, becomes a task.

And if all you see is what’s romantic about it, and there are some romantic things about screenwriters. You and I get to hang out with famous people and be on movie sets and go to premieres. That is romantic. And we get to talk to people, you know, and be interviewed. On this side of the line, of course, it’s like, blech, right?

So, for those of you who are fueled primarily by romantic aspirations, think about that means.

**John:** I would also say when you have this idea about what your life is going to be like when you’re having that job, when you’re in that position, you’re really doing the same kind of thing which I had some problems with the reviews, is that you’re putting your self-esteem in someone else’s hands. Your sense of self-worth is based on whether someone else thinks you are good enough in this situation or in this world.

And so, be it reviews, be it getting your hall monitor sash, you have decided that how good you are is based on how someone else judges you. And that’s not a productive, happy way to go through your life. Ideally your self esteem should be based on the things that you do and can control and things that you want that you can achieve that are meaningful to you, not meaningful to other people.

I definitely get that. My daughter has a similar situation to your hall monitor/hall pass thing. She’s seven years old and one of her good friends does ballet. And so she’s like, “Well, I want to do ballet.” It’s like, well, why do you want to do ballet? “Because she does ballet. They get to do the Nutcracker and stuff.” It’s like, well do you want to do that? “Oh, I really, really want to do that.”

But we actually really drilled down. She kind of just wants the trappings.

**Craig:** Right. She wants the shoes.

**John:** She wants the shoes. But she doesn’t want the work. She doesn’t want one more thing on her schedule which is already sort of over-packed. In a weird way she doesn’t want someone else to have something that she doesn’t have.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** And that’s a natural instinct, but you have to sort of push beyond that natural instinct.

And so I feel like a lot of people approach screenwriting because they really want to be in the movie business, but they recognize that they have no idea how to direct a movie. They feel like they don’t have the funds to make a movie. They don’t feel like they know people who can help them make movies. They know on some level that they’re not actors.

So, the only thing that seems like approachable in the world of making movies is writing a script, because anyone can write a script, so that is what they pursue. But, it’s not..I would say 80% of people who are aspiring screenwriters wouldn’t necessarily classify themselves as writers. It’s not like they wrote stuff before this. They just want to make movies, and so therefore they’re writing screenplays.

And that’s not likely to work out well for the 99.5% of them. Because they’re not getting into it for the right reasons.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Most of the people we know who are successful screenwriters, they were good writers before they ever approached screenwriting. And they were writing for other things and then they came to screenwriting. That’s a common trend amongst most screenwriters I’ve met. They were always good writers. Is that true for you, too?

**Craig:** Yeah. I’ve always been good with words and my — the vast majority of writing I did prior to screenwriting, frankly, was non-fiction writing. It was essay writing. It was persuasive writing. Investigative writing. I was a student journalist. But always trying to tell a story.

So, I was working with narrative inside of non-fictional topics. And you can see, you know, the non-fictional writers that we tend to appreciate the most in a sort of popular way are the ones who are able to place things within a narrative.

I’ve always been obsessed with narrative, and with mythology, and I’ve always loved movies. So, yeah, I was always a lexicographically-minded person.

**John:** I think there’s a reason why a lot of non-fiction writers tend to sort of drift over to screenwriting is, you know, writing for a magazine is very much creating a narrative but with very specific constraints in that you don’t have all the space and time that a novel has. You have a very specific kind of writing that you need to do. There’s certain restrictions placed upon you, the same way there are restrictions placed upon screenwriters. And screenwriters can only talk about things that you can see and hear. A journalist can only report facts. They’re limited to the truth.

You know, an investigative journalist only has the things that he or she can actually find and put into the story. So, there’s a reason why people who come from those field tend to come into screenwriters. Mark Boal is an example of that. Someone who comes from a journalism background. I was a journalism background as well.

So, I do feel that a lot of people come to screenwriting out of this desire to be part of the movie business. “I like movies a lot and so I want to write movies.” That’s not necessarily the best bridge between the two.

**Craig:** Right. Yeah, just be on the lookout for that. As you go through this, at some point you my start to feel like it’s a slog. That you’re doing all this but not for “it.” You’re doing all this for other reasons.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** Or, you’re doing it for the right reasons, it’s just not working. And all I can tell you is if you should come to that day where you just don’t like doing it, stop. Just stop. It’s okay.

**John:** It’s okay.

Last week on the podcast we talked about, someone wrote in the question saying like isn’t it really annoying when people do this kind of thing, and I proposed a hash tag called #CutItOut for stuff we needed to stop doing as screenwriters.

Se, a classic one is, you know, air ducts are just…we have to stop using air ducts because air ducts are cliché and they’re gross. But we proposed if anyone had other ideas for things that they need to — we need to stop seeing in movies and that screenwriters need to take responsibility for just not putting them in movies, to tweet them with a hash tag.

And some people wrote in with some good suggestions. So, here are a few.

Dan Slovin wrote, “This trope I’m bored of, ‘Oh god, he’s broadcasting on every TV on the planet.'”

**Craig:** Oh, yeah, like the guy who takes over the main switching station for all TV channels? [laughs].

**John:** Yeah, exactly.

**Craig:** Yeah, what is that?

**John:** Yeah, what is that? Because it’s not really practical. I don’t even know sort of what they would be?

**Craig:** It doesn’t really work that way because there are different satellites. What are you — you’ve got control of every satellite and what you’re going to do with that is broadcast something?

**John:** Exactly. And when was the last time I watched broadcast TV? I haven’t watched broadcast in months. [laughs]

**Craig:** Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, you know what? I never even considered that. It makes no sense. You’re right.

**John:** Aaron Bradley wrote in with three. One is, “Dropping one’s camera in the face of unspeakable horror.”

**Craig:** Oh, yeah, yeah.

**John:** Yeah, you see that a fair amount.

**Craig:** Yeah, with the slow backing away.

**John:** “There’s no such thing as…followed by whatever thing doesn’t exist.”

**Craig:** Yeah, that’s the Gilligan’s Island, “I’m not wearing that dress.”

**John:** “The girl telling the slacker man who’s the hero of the story if he can’t do it she’ll get someone else who can and then storming off.”

Yeah, I see it as a general idea. Like, “Well, if you can’t do it, I’ll get somebody who can.” Eh. That’s clammy.

**Craig:** Yeah, it’s more clammy then…I mean, it’s a clammy line, yeah.

**John:** “How about a sociopathic antagonist with an Old Testament Name.”

**Craig:** [laughs] That’s pretty good.

**John:** Yeah, that’s pretty good. Eli, Josiah.

**Craig:** Yeah, yeah, Hachaliah. I always loved Hachaliah. I think that’s in Inherit the Wind when William Jennings Bryan is losing his mind and having a stroke. He starts yelling names of biblical books and Hachaliah was maybe one.

**John:** This is actually a pet peeve of mine. This is from Devin O’Neil. “A character receives shocking news, so shocking in fact that after much dry heaving they vomit.”

I’ve never received news that made me throw. I think it does actually happen. I just don’t want to ever see it in movies again.

**Craig:** Has that happened in movies? [laughs]

**John:** Oh, it’s happened in movies.

**Craig:** Really, where somebody throws up because of a message?

**John:** Yeah. They get so overwhelmed that they throw up.

**Craig:** Oh, the big throw up, I see. Yeah, okay, now that I think about it, yes. Got it.

Throwing up is gross anyway. Although it’s funny, I watched The Sixth Sense with my son last night who’s 11. He loved it. And I really appreciated it, probably more than I did when I watched it the first time when it came out. And there is that terrible moment where the ghost of Mischa Barton throws up. It’s really scary.

**John:** Yeah, Mischa Barton.

**Craig:** Mischa Barton.

**John:** She is scary.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** “This ends now.” That’s a clam more than anything else. But, no, just stop that.

**Craig:** That is a message for itself.

**John:** Yes. David Bratton suggested that.

We’ve talked about this before, but like an opening scene where somebody hits an alarm clock, or hits an alarm clock and knocks it off the nightstand.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Stop that.

**Craig:** Yeah. Nobody does that.

**John:** Nobody does that in real life.

**Craig:** No one.

**John:** “Tight on an eye as it opens, pulling back to reveal the hero waking up in the desert not knowing how he got there.”

**Craig:** Um…

**John:** Uh, that’s awkward.

**Craig:** Does that happen?

**John:** It does happen. I mean, it’s not always the desert. But just that sense of like waking up someplace and having no idea how you go there.

**Craig:** Oh, okay. I guess. I mean, that’s not so bad.

**John:** Says the writer of The Hangover movies. [laughs]

**Craig:** Well, I didn’t invent that language in the first one. [laughs] So, I can’t take credit or blame for that. But, I don’t know, I mean, I guess. That’s like, what a close-up, a disorienting close-up? I think we have to keep that within our language.

**John:** Nick Rheinwald-Jones writes, “The criminal protagonist is bailed out of jail by a guy who wants him to do another crime.” Yeah, that needs to stop.

**Craig:** And, again, maybe my film vocabulary is weak, but is there a famous example of that?

**John:** Oh, I think it’s actually really common in heist movies where the guy gets out of jail and is immediately recruited in to do the same thing, or sometimes it’s the government who comes to get the guy. It’s like, “We need you to do this thing because you’re the only person who can do it because you did this crime before.”

**Craig:** Right. Okay, got it.

**John:** So, let’s stop that. August Benassi writes, “The character decides to quit drinking. Dramatically stares at bottle. Opens it, and pours it out.”

**Craig:** Yeah…

**John:** Yeah. I think that probably does actually happen in real life. I’ve just seen it a lot. And I saw it in John Gatins’ movie, Flight, and I thought was the last time I needed to see it.

**Craig:** Yeah, you know, that doesn’t offend me. Some of these don’t bother me. [laughs] They really don’t. Maybe I’m just more cliché-oriented than most people, but I don’t…that doesn’t bother me. Yeah, I’ve seen it before, but it’s something that every single person — one of those people has to do it, so…don’t they?

**John:** Yeah, I just…yeah. Giving up drinking in movies overall is a sort of source of frustration for me. It just feels like, you know. I mean, it’s a thing that happens, just it annoys me for some reason.

**Craig:** You know what annoys me, come to think of it? It just annoys me because of what we do. Any time there’s an author in a movie, he has, or she has, writer’s block. And then something happens. And then they just start writing and they can’t stop.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** It’s the most ridiculous portrayal of how writing works. It’s not some crazy coke binge where it’s like one crazy night because I finally got over my problem.

**John:** Yeah, they get like graphia or whatever where they just can’t stop writing.

**Craig:** Yeah. And they’re so happy. And it’s just that shot of their face while they’re typing. And then a shot of pages that turn into a stack of pages. It’s crazy!

**John:** Yeah, it’s the corollary to ripping the paper out of the typewriter and crumpling it up.

**Craig:** Exactly!

**John:** Tossing it into the overflowing trash can.

**Craig:** Yeah, I know! And that scene is always there, too.

**John:** John Meehan writes, “On the desk or shelf or on the wall we see a faded old photo of a younger, happier main character alongside a woman and a child.”

**Craig:** Uh…

**John:** Yeah. That’s sort of an establishing shot of who the character was in a younger, happier time. That’s…

**Craig:** Yeah, that is cliché. I mean, we actually did a little spoof version of that when we did Superhero Movie because it is so cliché, and that was a pretty funny scene, I liked that. Just the happier times and in each picture the things around his poor, dead dad, the things that his dad was doing were increasingly dangerous. [laughs] It’s just kind of funny. I liked it.

**John:** [laughs] Jason Markarian writes two different ones. “Our disheveled lead long pours a beer into his cereal.” Yeah, beer and cereal, no. Stop that.

**Craig:** Yeah, maybe I’m just not seeing enough movies. That just sounds stupid anyway.

**John:** “Our disheveled lead, straight from bed, chasing far too many aspirin with a huge swig from a vodka bottle.”

**Craig:** Well, yeah, this whole like “I’m going to drink in the morning, look how crazy my life is,” I also don’t believe that that happens.

By the way, I don’t know about you, but my other thing that…this isn’t even a trope. This just makes me nuts is when people wake up in the morning and start kissing each other. Like, brush your teeth. It’s gross!

**John:** “The female lead has a boozy one night stand with a guy who the next day turns out to be her new boss or coworker.”

**Craig:** Yeah, okay.

**John:** Yeah, I’ve seen that a lot. Don’t do that.

**Craig:** That sounds pretty familiar, yeah.

**John:** Joey H. wrote that, thank you for that.

“Showing open boxes of takeout in a single person’s fridge to show that he is single.”

**Craig:** Yeah!

**John:** Yeah, Wilson Kelley, good call there.

**Craig:** See, that’s a good example of something we should just cut out, because it’s not useful anymore. It’s actually dumb. It doesn’t even seem true.

**John:** Yeah. So, I would say, yeah, let’s not do that. Or, if you’re going to do it, again, make a joke out of it. There’s probably a good joke to be had there because it’s so expected that you can probably surprise us with something else that’s different there.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Oh, here’s a good one. Getting the bad guy…okay, “The bad guy gets captured because it’s part of his essential plan.”

**Craig:** Right. I’ve seen that a lot.

**John:** It’s happened a lot recently. So, that’s in Skyfall. It happens in Avengers. It doesn’t need to happen again.

**Craig:** It happens in, I mean, the Joker does it.

**John:** Oh, yeah, that’s right.

**Craig:** And I never understand it frankly. I honestly never understand that whole, “I want you to capture me thing.” It did, by the way, as much as I enjoyed all the movies we just mentioned, I didn’t understand why he had to do that in Avengers at all.

**John:** No. I don’t understand why he had to do it in Skyfall, either. If he had the capability of doing all of those things he was already doing, there was no reason why he needed to get captured in that, either.

**Craig:** Plus, it always backs the screenwriter into a weird place because they want it to be a twist. Well, if it’s a twist, that means the villain has to behave as if they don’t want to be captured. But, once we find out that they did want to captured, you have to reconcile their prior behavior which is really hard to do.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Like why were you kind of behaving like you didn’t want to be captured so that you would be captured? None of it makes sense.

**John:** It does not make sense.

Joe Dinicola writes in, “When the boss baddie turns away, then turns his back and shoots one of his own guys.” Yeah, when you shoot one of your own guys to show that you’re a badass, yeah, I’ve seen that a lot. It’s not the best use of your time.

**Craig:** When you say to prove that you’re a bad guy, you shoot one of your own guys?

**John:** Yeah. I think that’s what he’s implying. So, it’s one of those things where like the villain shoots one of his own people sort of cavalierly.

**Craig:** Oh, I see. Oh, you know, I’m guilty of a lot of these.

**John:** Yeah, but you’re a successful screenwriter so…

**Craig:** I mean, I feel like when I do it it’s really entertaining! [laughs]

**John:** [laughs] Maybe in your next script you’ll consider it.

**Craig:** Maybe I’m done with them now, now that I’ve gotten them out of my system.

**John:** Our final from Erica Horton, “The crazy/awkward priest or minister at the wedding.” Yeah, I think I’m done with that, too.

**Craig:** Example?

**John:** If you’re doing a wedding scene, like I don’t need the priest to be eccentric. I just…

**Craig:** Yeah, that’s normally…again, I’m drawing a blank. Where does that happen?

**John:** Oh, I think that happens a fair amount. So, I think Four Weddings and a Funeral, I think that’s a trope that’s in there. There is something where Robin Williams is a minister.

**Craig:** Well, that was License to Wed and that, while the movie doesn’t rise to the test of what you wanted that movie to be, but the whole point was that he was a nut. I mean, it wasn’t like there was a scene and in the scene the priest was goofy.

**John:** Yeah. I didn’t see that movie.

**Craig:** I did. I saw it. And, you know, it wasn’t for me.

**John:** You didn’t work on it?

**Craig:** No, no. Went to the theater. I’m not sure why.

**John:** I have not been to the movies in seven weeks. I’m so excited to see a movie, any movie. It will be great. I’m so excited to have a night where I’m not writing Big Fish. That will just be a delight.

**Craig:** It’s too much fish.

**John:** So, let’s get onto our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing is actually very much related to this topic of moving on. So, my friend Gabe Olds, who was an actor on DC, his mom is a famous poet, Sharon Olds, who just last week or the week before won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. And her book is called Stag’s Leap.

And the Pulitzer people say it’s fantastic, but I also think it’s just fantastic. I read it this last week. And it’s the first book of poetry I’ve probably read since college. It’s just free verse. Nothing rhymes.

What it chronicles is her divorce. And so it’s her divorce of her husband of 30 years. And it’s just breathtaking and amazing. And sad, but really just terrific. So, I highly recommend it. And especially if you haven’t read poetry in a while, it’s great to be able to read a bunch of poems that are about one thing. Because so often, like in The New Yorker you’ll read a poem, and like, oh, that’s a really good poem, but it’s one little appetizer of something.

And so this makes a meal out of this whole situation and there’s a whole arc to it which was terrific. And poetry, in a weird way, matches up to some degree to what we do in screenwriting because unlike normal prose which has full, complete sentences and has paragraphs and stuff, the stuff that we write is also kind of free verse-y. It’s just like it’s words scattered on the page to create an effect, and that’s what she does incredibly well in this book of poetry.

So, Stag’s Leap by Sharon Olds is my recommendation.

**Craig:** It’s a very difficult thing to marry a poet because on the one hand they can be super depressing and then you want to leave them. But then if you leave them you know that they’re going to destroy you in poetry.

**John:** Yeah. It’s like dating Alanis Morissette.

**Craig:** God, it’s just like dating Alanis Morissette. It’s true. You know she’s going to get you like Dave Coulier got gotten.

**John:** Yeah. I guess. I have friends with personal experience in that front. So, yeah.

**Craig:** But, you know, that album was good.

**John:** It was good. Or Fiona Apple. I remember my friend Rawson Thurber at one point said like, “I do just want to date Fiona Apple for a couple months in the hopes that she’ll write an album about me.”

**Craig:** Right. Exactly. Just an angry, hallowed out album of anger sadness.

**John:** What I will say that also really impressed me about Sharon Olds’s book is that in it you can recognize that the fact that she was a poet who was writing about their situation did have an effect upon their marriage. He was the knowing subject of some of her work. And who wants to be in that kind of spotlight?

**Craig:** Apparently not him. [laughs]

**John:** It was not him.

**Craig:** Yeah, he punched out. Hard to blame him. Hard to blame him.

Look, I don’t want to take sides in this difficult divorce, but I am saying to this guy, you know, you might potentially have a friend in me here.

**John:** Okay.

**Craig:** I mean, I get it. That’s all I’m saying.

Well, I have a One Cool Thing this week. So, let’s talk about energy for a second. If I were to say to you, John, that the international space station is the largest scientific — international scientific collaboration on the planet. That would be true. But do you know what the next largest scientific collaboration o the planet is, measured by how many nations are participating through labor and money?

**John:** Is it the Super Accelerator?

**Craig:** No.

**John:** Oh, what is it then?

**Craig:** It is a big huge fusion reactor.

**John:** I love it.

**Craig:** So, there’s this project called ITER, that is the Latin pronunciation of I-T-E-R, which means the way, which sort of sounds culty, but it’s not. And it is a massive project. It’s actually housed in France. And they are essentially trying to solve this problem that they’ve been chasing for a long, long time for fusion energy.

And the cool thing that happened is that this week basically they got approval for — the final approval for the design of the most technically challenging part of this thing. And by getting that final approval they’re actually on the path to making this thing work within 10 years. That’s the theory.

And I think it’s going to work. And so basically regular nuclear power is fission power where we smash apart uranium atoms, I believe. And the fission of those atoms releases a lot of energy. It also releases a ton of radioactive waste and there’s always the chance that it could have a runaway chain reaction. Those are the problems that we all know about.

Not the case with fusion reaction in which they are actually smashing atoms together and by smashing atoms together releasing a ton of energy. In fact, that’s how the sun works. The sun is basically a big fusion reactor using hydrogen, and helium, I think, and something. Well, hydrogen. [laughs]

In any case, here are the benefits of fusion reaction. You can’t have a meltdown, you can’t have a chain reaction. It does not give off radioactive waste of any significant amount. And the fuel is basically kind of water. But, to make it work you have to kind of heat it all up with plasma to hotter than the center of the sun. It is incredibly — basically you have to get temperatures of over 100 million centigrade.

But, they’re close. They’re actually getting close. And, if they can figure this out, we’ve solved the energy problem permanently. It’s done. You can sell your oil and gas stocks. It’s over.

And I think, John, despite our advancing age, you and I will live on a planet with fusion energy.

**John:** That will be fantastic if we do. Now, I’ve seen different fusion things along the way. One of them was like a laser-based thing. So, it’s a bunch of lasers that have to fire at exactly the right moments and exactly the right spot to create this. Do you know what the engine is that creates the heat?

**Craig:** They’re basically using a version of what’s been around all the way back to Soviet Russia called a Tokamak which is a big, huge donut. And then they use these big, big magnets that old the fuel, because the fuel can’t be held in anything…

**John:** Because it would melt through it.

**Craig:** Yeah, melt through anything, right? So, they’re using magnets to basically hold this stuff in place and they’re using plasma and then firing helium and tritium and something at each other. So, it doesn’t look like it’s lasers. It just looks like it’s just gases and magnetic coils and stuff.

**John:** And smashy smashy.

**Craig:** And smashy smashy. And so the theory is that they will be, now that they’re kind of on board to finish the construction, the big part of this construction. And we’re talking, like this is how precise it is –there’s these 18 magnetic coils that weigh hundreds of tons. And they have to be positioned with a precision of less than two millimeters. That’s how careful they have to build this thing.

But they think they might even be able to inject the plasma into it in 10 years. And another five years after that they put the tritium in and, zoom, supposedly then you’re off and running.

**John:** Hooray.

**Craig:** Yeah, so just hang on, people. Just hang on.

**John:** Just make it another 15 years. We’ll have power.

**Craig:** We’ll have clean, super clean, super safe power and then, of course, the ice age will follow. Because we were supposed to warm the planet. You know it’s coming. You know that’s going to happen. It’s inevitable. It’s just…we can’t win.

**John:** Yeah, well, what we can do is thank our listeners for listening to us. And if you have questions about anything we talked about you can find notes and links at our show page, johnaugust.com/podcast. We are on iTunes. You’re probably listening to us through iTunes, but if you’re not go to iTunes and search for Scriptnotes and subscribe. Leave a note if you’d like to leave us a note, a comment; it helps people find us.

And, if you have a question for me or for Craig, small questions are great on Twitter. I’m @johnaugust. Craig is @clmazin. If you have a longer question that we sometimes answer on the show, it is ask@johnaugust.com.

And thank you guys very much for listening. Craig, thank you for a fun podcast. I look forward to being back in Los Angeles so I can still not see you and still talk to you on Skype.

**Craig:** Very exciting.

**John:** But I’ll be closer.

**Craig:** You’ll be that much closer.

**John:** We’ll be in the same time zone at least.

**Craig:** That will make it easier. Welcome home. Congrats on a successful Chicago run. And I’ll see you next time.

**John:** Great. Thanks.

**Craig:** Bye.

**John:** Bye.

LINKS:

* Zach Braff’s [Wish I Was Here](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1869987317/wish-i-was-here-1) on Kickstarter
* ValleyWag’s [Braff-Kickstarter vitriol](http://valleywag.gawker.com/rich-person-zach-braff-wants-the-internet-to-pay-for-hi-479541247)
* Braff on [why Kickstarter is right for this project](http://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/zach-braff-on-why-kickstarter-is-the-next-best-thing-to-actu), and Psychology Today on [why independent filmmakers should celebrate his presence](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-luck/201304/why-is-zach-braffs-kickstarter-campaign-causing-envy)
* Scriptnotes 49: [Losing sleep over critics](http://johnaugust.com/2012/losing-sleep-over-critic)
* Scriptnotes 77: [We’d Like to Make an Offer](http://johnaugust.com/2013/wed-like-to-make-an-offer), in which Craig discusses Identity Thief reviews
* Done Deal Pro users [try to calculate the odds of “making it”](http://messageboard.donedealpro.com/boards/showthread.php?t=72040)
* [Stag’s Leap](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0375712259/?tag=johnaugustcom-20) by Sharon Olds on Amazon
* [ITER](http://www.iter.org/): The way to new energy
* OUTRO: [Last Day of Our Acquaintance](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG290pRgOQI) cover by AAAdriennne