Scriptnotes Transcript

The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2023/scriptnotes-live-at-dynasty-typewriter-in-la).

**John August:** Hey, this is John. Heads up that today’s episode has just a little bit of swearing in it.

**Emcee:** All right, now without further ado, the hosts with the most, John August and Craig Mazin.

**Craig Mazin:** Wow. Wow.

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

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

**John:** You are here for Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are…

**Audience:** Interesting to screenwriters.

**John:** Wow. Incredible here.

**Craig:** Incredible.

**John:** First off, we need to thank the LA Philharmonic Orchestra. It is remarkable to be here at the Hollywood Bowl, a dream come true.

**Craig:** It’s gorgeous. Probably the mics that we’re talking into are pretty close to the stage, so we’re probably only picking up maybe the first couple of rows-

**John:** Absolutely.

**Craig:** … in the Garden Boxes.

**John:** I can the energy out here in this-

**Craig:** Wow.

**John:** … iconic location.

**Craig:** What a dream.

**John:** 15,000 people?

**Craig:** Thousand.

**John:** I’d never envision this in our-

**Craig:** And the weather.

**John:** Great. A few sprinkles, but just the best thing.

**Craig:** Lovely.

**John:** Needed a little rain here.

**Craig:** You know what? That felt so good, because everything’s been going so great lately, so it’s nice that we have this going on for ourselves.

**John:** It’s nice that we have a little bit of a moment here. Today I was out on the picket lines, and we were talking about-

(Audience cheers)

**John:** Oh, hey. Phew! I worried we were going to have some anti-writer people here in the crowd. I was out on the picket lines. I talked about, oh, we have a live show tonight. It’s like, oh, did you plan for it to be on the 100th day of the Strike? Today is the 100th day of the Strike. Did we plan this?

**Craig:** We did.

**John:** A hundred percent. Craig said, “John, whatever you do, make sure the Strike goes on for at least-“

**Craig:** Slow walk this thing.

**John:** Yeah, 100 days. Now, it’s smooth sailing from here on forward.

**Craig:** John, to be clear, you do have a little bit of a weird and creepy, and what I honestly think is somewhat a bit of an anti-union secret. I think it’s probably important for you to come clean about it.

**John:** I thought that was green room rules. I thought we didn’t-

**Craig:** No. Fuck that.

**John:** All right. I think people could agree that I’m generally a pro-union, pro-WGA person.

**Craig:** That’s what I thought.

**John:** I would never disparage anything about the WGA. But 100 days in, there’s something I want to get off my chest, is that I believe the iconic blue official WGA Strike T-shirts… I love them as an image. I love wearing it there. I love seeing a field of blue. Fantastic. They are not comfortable shirts.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** They are really uncomfortable shirts.

**Craig:** In fact, they may have been manufactured by the AMPTP.

**John:** The official blue shirts are union-made, and the union is not the probably here. They are 100 percent cotton. We learned from our own Scriptnotes producer, Stuart Friedel, his sense of softness, what do we need for a T-shirt to be comfortable?

**Craig:** You need a tri-blend, John.

**John:** You need a tri-blend.

**Craig:** You need a tri-blend.

**John:** You need a tri-blend.

**Craig:** Tri-blend.

**John:** They are not tri-blend shirts.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** They’re not comfortable to wear.

**Craig:** No. They are hair shirts. I don’t like them at all. They chafe your nipples. Do not wear.

**John:** Here’s what I think about it. I have shirts that I wear because I choose to wear them, and there are shirts where like, you’ve now joined the army, here’s your uniform. They don’t ask soldiers is your camouflage comfortable. That’s not their concern.

**Craig:** They actually might. I got to tell you, I think that we have the worst of it.

**John:** We have a show that’s chockablock full with amazing guests. Quinta Brunson is here.

**Craig:** Someone named Natasha Lyonne is here.

**John:** These are guests who are not only incredibly talented writers, they are also actors. As members of SAG-AFTRA, there are certain specific restrictions on what they should be talking about. They are not going to be talking about their specific shows and programs that you know them for, but instead, we can talk about the craft, the art.

**Craig:** Which we do anyway. We’re not really press junkety question people. As we go through the show, if you’re wondering, hey, why don’t they mention muh or meep, it’s because we just don’t want to get them in trouble with their union. Also, I’m in that union too.

**John:** You are, yeah.

**Craig:** I’m in SAG.

**John:** You’re in SAG.

**Craig:** I’m in SAG. I’m an actor.

**John:** You’re an actor.

**Craig:** I’m a real actor.

**John:** I almost said the word. I said half the word of a show that you were in.

**Craig:** You can say it. That didn’t break the rule. You’re not in SAG.

**John:** Duncan Crabtree-Ireland is sitting right out there. He’s got a sniper rifle, so if we say the wrong thing-

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** We are going to talk about how they got started, how they got to this place they are today, but we are also going to have some fun. We’re going to play some games. We’ll do some audience Q and A.

**Craig:** With slightly stricter rules, because you guys really can’t talk about those shows either. That’s fine. That’s no big deal. I wanted to introduce somebody really quickly who’s going to be with us today. You’re going to be seeing him floating around over there. That’s Elliot Aronson. Elliot is going to be our ASL interpreter tonight. Elliot also was the ASL interpreter… I can say a show that was on the air, right?

**John:** [Crosstalk 00:05:31].

**Craig:** I’m going to do it. He worked for The Last of Us. He was Kevionn Woodard’s ASL interpreter.

**John:** I think he’s a former One Cool Thing.

**Craig:** He is a One Cool Thing. He will always be One Cool Thing. I’m sort of annoyed that he’s not signing right now, because I would force him to have to sign about himself and talk about himself as an incredibly handsome person and a wonderful guy whose name is Elliot. This is me. I am Elliot, and I’m amazing. He’s never going to get a chance to do that again.

**John:** Let’s get started, Craig. Our very first guest is a writer, a producer, an actress, a comedian. Last year, she was listed as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year. We’ve wanted her on the show forever, Craig, and now we can finally have her. Welcome, Quinta Brunson.

**Quinta Brunson:** Hi, everybody. Hi. How’s it going?

**John:** Quinta.

**Quinta:** Yes?

**John:** Backstage you talked about that you are not a huge podcast listener.

**Quinta:** No.

**Craig:** Me either.

**Quinta:** Or doer.

**John:** Or doer. Thank you for making an exception for us here.

**Quinta:** Of course.

**John:** You actually have some history with Hollywood Heart.

**Quinta:** Yes. I used to do improv at Hollywood Heart. This was probably the summer of, what’s this called, 2023. Then that was probably maybe six, seven years ago. I did improv shows with my troupe, Summercon [ph]. It was four of us. We would just do improv and then have the kids come up and join us at the camp, which is on a really scary… You guys, it’s on this hill.

**John:** Oh, no.

**Craig:** We’re trying to raise money to get them off the hill.

**Quinta:** It is terrifying.

**Craig:** Describe the hill.

**Quinta:** The hill is something of your nightmares. You know when you go in those canyons around here, and you’re like, “Whoa, this is crazy,” but then you get used to them because you’ve been in LA for a while? This shit, it’s like going to Bowser’s castle. It is insane. It’s windy. You feel like you’re going to… Kids, because we just talked about mortality back there, they don’t know that they can die, so they’re not afraid.

**Craig:** You’ve told them.

**Quinta:** Yeah. I think that’s why Hollywood Heart didn’t invite me back, because I put it in my improv. I just was motivated to tell the truth.

**Craig:** I like that most of your bits were just about how shitty that camp was. That’s pretty awesome.

**Quinta:** The camp is beautiful. It’s just the road on the way up there.

**Craig:** I see. It’s getting there.

**Quinta:** It’s in heaven. It’s so high up. This is why I don’t love to talk. I’m not talking correctly, you guys, because I’m not-

**Craig:** You’re out of practice.

**Quinta:** I should be a writers’ room. I’m not doing well with sentences.

**Craig:** We’ll work you through it. It’s going to be all right.

**John:** Quinta, before you were traumatizing children in this improv group, what is your comedy background? How did you get started? What was the spark? How did you actually go from like, “I like comedy,” to, “I’m doing it.”

**Quinta:** It was the connection between my siblings and I. My siblings are all significantly older than me. My closest sibling is eight years older than me. He hated me, because he was the baby for so long, and then I came along. He really didn’t like me. I was like, “I gotta win this guy over,” truly. That was a big motivator for me. He really liked Ace Ventura. He hated me. We had a Jack and Jill door. Do you guys know what that is? Between our bedrooms.

**Craig:** I had one of those.

**John:** Like The Brady Brunch.

**Quinta:** Yeah. He just couldn’t stand that he was sharing his space with this freaking baby. Then I would see him watching Ace Ventura and laughing really loud with his friends. I was like, “I can make my butt talk too. I can do that.” I started mimicking what was happening in the movies, and he would laugh, and he would like me.

I just started liking comedy, because that was a connecting factor between all of my siblings and I. My oldest brother, he loved the Kings of Comedy, so I would do impressions of Steve Harvey on that. Then my sisters, they were great, because they had different tastes. My one sister loved In Living Color, but the other sister loved SNL. One sister loved Martin. The other loved Conan. She was into late-night shows. It just became a way for me to connect with everyone. Same thing with my parents, who are also really old. I watched The Brady Bunch with them. I just like this.

Then high school, when it became taste to me, because I loved it so much, and I knew so much more about comedy than everyone else that I would bring DVDs to school and be like, “This is what you need to be watching. This is the new shit in the streets.” They’re like, “What the fuck is Napoleon Dynamite?” I’m like, “You’ll learn. You’ll learn.” Remember that? Remember when you gave someone a DVD, and it meant something?

**Craig:** I don’t know how young they are. DVDs were these round things.

**Quinta:** You gave it to them. You were like, “Return it.” You trusted them to return your only copy.

**Craig:** Not scratched.

**Quinta:** Not scratched.

**Craig:** Not scratched.

**Quinta:** That meant something to me to bring that. Then college, I was really good. I was a good student all my life, but then I just started fucking around. I was like, I don’t care about what I’m doing. I was an advertising major. Then I was just watching SNL one night and was like, where did these people all go to do this? That’s when I learned about Second City. Then that’s when I actually learned that I could do it for a living, because that was the change, and like, okay, this can be my career.

**Craig:** You mentioned growing up in Philly.

**Audience member:** Woo!

**Craig:** All right.

**Quinta:** Yay!

**Craig:** Philly’s got its own… It’s got an interesting comedy tradition. One of the things I’ve noticed about people that come out of Philly, especially people in comedy, like Kevin Hart or Rob McElhenney, is that it’s not a chip on the shoulder as much as, “You underestimate me at your own peril,” which is a very Philadelphia kind of vibe.

**Quinta:** Yes, absolutely. Love it.

**Craig:** I just want to ask you how you bring a little bit of the place you came from to your voice and how you apply that to writing and what you do.

**Quinta:** That is an excellent question.

**Craig:** Thank you!

**Quinta:** I love this.

**Craig:** Show over.

**Quinta:** I feel like I live my whole life like an underdog. I think my comedic voice, the projects that I have done all deal with underdog, underestimated characters and stories. Philadelphia as a city is the little cousin to New York. No one thinks of us until we…

**Craig:** Until you get stuck there.

**Quinta:** Get stuck there, or when you make it to a Super Bowl, everyone’s like, “Oh.” It’s like, yeah, we have a good fucking team. What are you watching? I was so mad during the Super Bowl last year when people were like, “Oh, the Eagles.” Bitch, the whole fucking season-

**Craig:** They won just a few years earlier.

**Quinta:** … was incredible. What are you talking about?

**Craig:** That’s Philly.

**Quinta:** It’s really frustrating. It’s also a really foolish city. We have that statue of Rocky. That is so foolish. We believe in ourselves so hard that even when you come… Allen Iverson is an honorary Philadelphian. I don’t think of where he’s from. To me, he’s from Philly, because he became a part of the underdog story. I say all that to say it’s just a city that makes you believe in the underdog more than any other city I think in America, but I still want to be the underdog, so maybe not as much as any other city.

**Craig:** You have to be an underdog in the race to be the underdog.

**Quinta:** Yeah. I had a hard time during the last two years of my life, where I was losing my underdog status.

**John:** Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, yeah.

**Craig:** It’s a little rough.

**Quinta:** My friends started clowning me a little bit. They’re like, “Bitch,” because I’d be saying stuff like, “Oh, man, I don’t know if I can get in this club, but we going to try.”

**Craig:** They’re like, “Bitch.”

**Quinta:** Like, “Yeah, you’re going to get in the club.” Stuff like that. I’m dealing with that.

**Craig:** 100 Most Influential People of the Year.

**John:** This underdog thing of yours, the first thing that broke for you was Girl Who Had Never Been on a Good Date.

**Quinta:** On a Nice Date, yeah.

**John:** On a Nice Date, which Instagram video, not even reels, an early Instagram thing. Talk to us about decision to do those and what happened when those caught.

**Quinta:** Instagram wasn’t Instagram yet. It was 2013. The platform had just gotten video. I was just fucking around. I just wanted to make my friends who followed me… I might’ve had, I don’t know, maybe 1,000 followers, just friends from college and friends from high school and stuff. I just wanted to put up videos to make them laugh. I really was just testing out the platform, I guess. We didn’t even speak like this back then.

**John:** I know.

**Quinta:** We weren’t saying platform. We were just like, “Yeah, my Instagram account.” The first video that I posted had just gone viral, which that wasn’t even a thing besides describing YouTube, virality in that way. I saw an opportunity to capitalize off of it. I was like, “I’ll keep making them. People like it. This is the same as garnering an audience where people come to see you at shows. It’s word of mouth.”

I was a person who was really, really against the internet. I despised YouTubers. I despised just the internet. At the time, I was doing improv at ImprovOlympic, which no longer exists. I was like, “I’m a stage performer. I can’t be doing this.” But I came to accept it. It really helped kick off my career, so I’m very grateful for it.

**Craig:** We have spent a long time, over a decade now, teaching about writing and our business, to people, through this podcast. Your mother was a public schoolteacher?

**Quinta:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Both of my parents were public schoolteachers.

**Quinta:** Oh.

**Craig:** We have that shared experience. I’m curious if coming from a teacher the way you did, what you think about the way writing is taught, because we have an issue with the way writing is taught and the general education of writers, and I guess also the education of how to work in the entertainment business. I’m curious, as somebody who comes from that tradition, what you think about how we are doing things and who we’re bringing in and how we’re helping them or teaching them.

**Quinta:** I think there should be a little bit more focus for writers on, you said it, how to also do business and how to communicate with partners, whether it be other people in a room, a writers’ room or a studio or a network, because you can be really talented and not know how to communicate your idea, not know how to communicate it even on paper. You could have just such an incredible story in your head and write it down. Sure, amazing to you and your two friends. Do you know how to communicate it to other people who don’t come from the same background as you, who don’t speak the same language as you? When I’m writing-

**Craig:** A show. Let’s just stipulate.

**Quinta:** When I’m writing a show-

**Craig:** A show.

**Quinta:** … and I decide that I would like it to be for a broad audience, I think, will a person in Korea understand this? Yes, it’s in a different language, but will they understand it if it’s translated into their language?

I think that’s a huge thing that people miss out on. Even if you’re writing it in English and you’re writing it for Americans, why don’t you test and see if someone in France can understand this story, because I think that’s such a huge part of writing is just clearcut storytelling. It can be done on a wide, complicated scale. We’ve seen huge movies do it very, very well. It can be done on a small scale, like with a TV show. Does the story make sense to other people who aren’t you and aren’t your friends from school? Is that a good answer? I wish that was taught more.

**Craig:** I think it’s a great answer.

**John:** It’s a great answer. Before you started working on official Hollywood things, you were working at Buzzfeed for a time. It seemed like you had a chance to do a lot of stuff. Were you writing, performing, editing, all that, the whole cycle?

**Quinta:** Writing, performing, producing, editing. Producing was the biggest thing I got out of Buzzfeed, because we had a $300 budget to make videos. Man, that made me scrappy. My brain is just forever scrappy in that way. Even if I receive a big budget, it’s just still working on that $300 in a way. I have to be told, “Expand your mind. You have more money.” Those are the things I…

Editing too. I’m so grateful for learning how to edit there. That is another thing that I feel like anyone who is making something, if you can, spend time with an editor. Make sure you take yourself to an editor suite. Just get on the equipment yourself and start fucking around, just to see. It’s another part of it. Is your story communicating to the editor? It’s such a huge-

**Craig:** It’s how you finish. It’s the end of the writing. We think writing ends when we stop typing. If the point is to make, so there’s your production, and then the editing really is, it’s your final draft.

**Quinta:** Yeah, but if people never sit with an editor or-

**Craig:** They don’t know.

**Quinta:** … get on the programs themselves, they don’t know.

**Craig:** I remember the first time I saw the things that I was writing being edited, I wanted to barf, because I realized how far off I was, or also just how impotent my plan was. In my mind, I was like, “I have thought of it, and therefore it will be.”

**Quinta:** I think that I got a real appreciation for editors from Steven Spielberg. I was obsessed with Jurassic Park when I was little. I found everything he ever talked about, wrote, did, any video I could find. When YouTube came around, I just got on… Who’s that guy?

**Craig:** He is our ASL interpreter.

**Quinta:** Oh, hey.

**Craig:** You weren’t here for that part.

**Quinta:** I wasn’t.

**Craig:** Did you think he was-

**Quinta:** I was like, “Everybody’s cool with this?”

**Craig:** You think that we were about to get jumped?

**Quinta:** I did. I carry my purse because my shank’s in here. I was like, do we need to-

**Craig:** Like I said, Philadelphia.

**Quinta:** Seriously.

**Craig:** That’s how it used to be at the old Veterans Stadium.

**Quinta:** Oh my god.

**Craig:** Someone runs out there.

**Quinta:** Hello. Thank you. Where has he been the whole time?

**Craig:** He was down there, but I think the person that he’s interpreting for has arrived is my guess.

**Quinta:** Wow. That’s amazing.

**Craig:** He sprung into action. His name is Elliot. He’s wonderful.

**Quinta:** Hi, Elliot. That’s amazing that you have that. That’s great.

**Craig:** I’m glad that he’s up there, because now I once again-

**Quinta:** It’s really cool.

**Craig:** … have to say that Elliot is a wonderful, handsome person, and once again, he needs to sign it, which is spectacular.

**Quinta:** You should tell people that. I think Natasha’s going to lose her shit.

**Craig:** No, I’m going to going to. I want to see that.

**Quinta:** Wait. I watched Steven Spielberg talk about editing when I was younger. I was like, “Man, the editor’s the final part. He said he couldn’t do this without the editors.” There was a video of him sitting with the editors, working on Jurassic Park. The editor that really blew my mind when I was little, I was like, “Oh my god, he worked on Star Wars too. This is fucking crazy.” It just really painted the picture to me that they were a vital part of the process.

One of my favorite editors, Richie, he and I share a brain. I did one show that I sold to… It doesn’t exist anymore. It was Verizon’s platform. I had an editor who was Argentinian.

**Audience member:** Woo!

**Quinta:** Okay. Yeah. What a diverse audience.

**Craig:** One person from Philly, one person from Argentina.

**Quinta:** Super diverse.

**Craig:** Everyone else from Silver Lake, I presume.

**Quinta:** Some from Echo Park.

**Craig:** Yes, of course. It’s West Echo.

**Quinta:** I made this show. It was poorly written. I’ll say that. I think it’s great to get an opportunity to poorly write something for a digital platform that won’t exist anymore. The editor didn’t get it. I was like, “This rhythmically is missing something then. I’m going to take myself back to the drawing board of writing.”

That show was actually my first attempt at a mockumentary. That taught me another thing, like, okay, the rhythm of a mockumentary is different than the rhythm of another single-cam, which is different from a multi-cam. I have to write with that in mind. I have to make sure I can communicate it to someone who is an editor, who is not from where I’m from and may not pick up the same cues. It needs to be in the script properly, so that they know how to cut and know what they’re doing. That was such a big learning experience for me at Buzzfeed.

**Craig:** Do we have time for one more question?

**John:** One last question just for Craig.

**Craig:** One last question real fast. Speed round. You mentioned failing.

**Quinta:** Failing, yeah.

**Craig:** One of the things that’s interesting about people that work in a room, as you might, on a show, if you’re going to be failing, a lot of times you’re failing in front of a lot of people. I wonder, do you give yourself some space to go fail privately in quiet and then come back-

**Quinta:** Yes.

**Craig:** … into the room to be like-

**Quinta:** Oh, in the room?

**Craig:** I’m saying can you give yourself a place to go dance like no one’s watching and then come back and dance like other people are watching?

**Quinta:** Hm. That’s such a good question. I like to find safe spaces to fail. That used to be stand-up. I don’t feel comfortable failing at that anymore. I recently did a show with Brett Goldstein from (bleeps).

**Craig:** Other shows.

**Quinta:** In (bleeps).

**Craig:** From some shows. From some shows.

**Quinta:** From (bleeps).

**Craig:** She’ll get it. [Indiscernible 00:23:27].

**Quinta:** Oh, shit, I can’t talk. I’m sorry.

**Craig:** It’s okay.

**John:** Duncan, put down the rifle.

**Quinta:** Safe space to fail.

**Craig:** Safe space to fail.

**Quinta:** That helps make my point. This feels like a safe space to fail. The stage feels like a safe space to fail for me. Brett’s show, first I didn’t want to do it. I’m like, I’m not ready. I was like, you know what? I need to go on a stage and fail out loud and fail with an audience. It’s almost never a fail. It’s a good experience. We have a human experience together. I got to do improv for the first time in forever. That felt really good.

I like to play video games that I’m not good at, because that makes me feel like I’m failing. I like to lose, but I’m competitive, so I like to win, so that makes me better. I try to make food. I’m not good at that. Fail every single time in the kitchen, but I keep trying. I just find other spaces to fail in. In my room, I’m A1. I’m not a failure.

**Craig:** Nice.

**John:** Quinta Brunson, thank you for the most [crosstalk 00:24:28].

**Craig:** Thank you, Quinta. Thank you.

**Quinta:** That was really fun.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**John:** Come back at the end. We’ll do some questions.

**Quinta:** I’ll see you in a little bit.

**John:** That was the fun part of the show.

**Craig:** Now it’s going to get weird.

**John:** Craig, this is the 608th episode of Scriptnotes that we’ve done.

**Craig:** It’s a lot.

**John:** It’s a lot.

**Craig:** It’s a lot.

**John:** In addition to the main show, for the last year we’ve had the Scriptnotes Sidecasts that Drew and Megana have been helping out with. Huge props for them.

**Craig:** Let’s give them a hand. Amazing.

**John:** Drew and Megana! I think understandably, we’re always approaching things from the writer’s perspective.

**Craig:** Of course, yes.

**John:** Tonight I was hoping we could hear from the other side, which is why I reached out to the AMPTP to see if we could get their response to some of our concerns. To my surprise, they said yes. Everyone, if you could please welcome AMPTP spokesperson Nancy Sullivan.

**Craig:** Yay-ish. There she is.

**John:** Thank you for being here. Thank you.

**Craig:** Hi.

**John:** Hi.

**Nancy Sullivan:** Wow, this is a theater. I’ve only been to the theater one time. I saw Cats when I was seven. I love that show.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** Nancy, thank you so very much for agreeing to be on the show.

**Craig:** I should warn you, this may not be the friendliest audience for you.

**Nancy:** I have to say, it’s just such an honor to be here. I’m such a fan of your show.

**Craig:** Really?

**Nancy:** Oh, of course, a huge fan, especially those episodes where you sit down with filmmakers and showrunners and really get into the minutiae of the craft. Huge fan. Huge fan.

**Craig:** I have to say, that is legitimately a surprise. I would not have pegged an AMPTP person as a cinephile.

**Nancy:** Oh, no, no, you have me wrong. I’ve always been obsessed with film and TV. I remember, in fact, watching Amadeus with my father. I couldn’t have been more than eight or nine. I was just being blown away by what Miloš Forman accomplished with the cinematography and the mise-en-scène and his reversal of the classic protagonist-antagonist relationship not just in dialog, but in the blocking and the framing of these two candlelit warriors always in a battle that they didn’t know it was about.

**Craig:** You were eight?

**Nancy:** Or nine.

**John:** Nancy, honestly, I was probably watching The Love Boat when I was nine. That blows me away.

**Nancy:** I don’t know what that is.

**Craig:** Is it just me, or is her smile terrifying?

**John:** Yeah. You were watching Amadeus?

**Nancy:** I was watching this masterpiece, Amadeus. His name is Miloš Forman, so it’s actually pronounced Amadeus [ah-mah-DAY-oosh]. I said, “Daddy! I know what I want to do, Daddy! I want to do this. I want to work with the greatest writers and filmmakers in the world and find a way to crush them economically for the benefit of multinational corporations.”

**Craig:** There it is.

**Nancy:** Let me explain. If you look at great artists throughout history, what is the unifying theme? Hardship. Suffering. Emile Zola, I believe it was, wrote, “The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” If I can help make that work almost unsurvivable, if I can bring filmmakers to the edge of ruin, take away every bit of comfort and safety that they have, then true art is possible.

**Craig:** Wow.

**Nancy:** Thank you.

**John:** That is some Fountainhead shit there.

**Nancy:** Fun fact, my bat mitzvah was themed around the works of Ayn Rand.

**Craig:** Your name is Sullivan, and you had a bat mitzvah. Okay, anyway. Let me get this straight. You’re saying that you joined the AMPTP because you wanted to make great art by punishing the people who make it?

**Nancy:** Oh, no no no. No no no. Craig, Craig, I think you’re misunderstanding me. I’ve dedicated my career to the genius visionaries who make film and television. By that, of course, I’m referring to the studio bosses, because they write the checks. They’re the ones saying, “Let’s make a show based on a zombie video game.”

**Craig:** They’re not zombies.

**Nancy:** They’re not, right. That’s so sweet. You’re so sweet, because here’s the thing. If I’d shown a picture of one of those, whatever you call them, creatures to 100 people and said, “What do you think this is?” do you know what all 100 would say? They’d say they were zombies. They’re zombies.

**Craig:** They’re not zombies.

**Nancy:** They’re zombies with mushroom hats.

**Craig:** They’re not zombies. They’re not zombies.

**Nancy:** They’re zombies with-

**Craig:** They’re not zombies.

**Nancy:** They’re zombies-

**Craig:** They’re not zombies.

**Nancy:** … with mushroom fascinators.

**Craig:** They’re not zombies. They’re not zombies.

**Nancy:** They’re zombies.

**Craig:** They’re not zombies!

**Nancy:** They’re zombies!

**Craig:** They’re not zombies.

**John:** Back to the topic here. I think it sounds like what you’re saying, Nancy, is that you’re okay imposing unnecessary-

**Nancy:** Necessary suffering, go on.

**John:** … suffering on writers and actors, and not in the pursuit of profit, but instead, of some kind of warped vision of artistic integrity?

**Nancy:** I never said actors. As Alfred Hitchcock [hitch-KAAKH] I think once said-

**Craig:** Oh, come on.

**Nancy:** … actors are cattle. Of course they’re cattle. You don’t see them typing with their hooves. For actors, our approach is basically herd management. You want to make sure you have enough, but not too many. That’s why we’re so excited about AI, about scanning actors’ faces and bodies so we can recreate them digitally. It’s like having all the free beef you want.

**John:** That’s horrible, but not surprising. Last month, an anonymous studio source was quoted saying the endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.

**Nancy:** I know. Horrible. We would never say anything like that on the record. Off the record, we might float that out there, see what kind of reaction it gets, and then maybe walk it back. Back to Amadeus, Mozart was on the edge of ruin for most of his career. While Salieri is portrayed as complicit, in reality it was systemic under-evaluation of the arts and the misaligned incentives of the patronage system that put Mozart in that situation.

**Craig:** You’re saying that like it’s a good thing.

**Nancy:** I’m saying we have to change the system so that writers and filmmakers, and sure, even actors, are properly oppressed, so that great art can flourish. There was no WGA back when Orson Welles made Citizen Kane.

**John:** Let me guess, Charles Foster Kane-

**Nancy:** Hero.

**Craig:** Okay. Nancy. Jewish Nancy Sullivan, let’s cut to the chase. We’re now 100 days into the Writers Strike. The companies are facing growing pressure, because the pipeline is empty, and the projects that aren’t finished cannot be promoted. When is the AMPTP going to get serious about coming back to the table to resolve this?

**Nancy:** Sorry. No comment on that, guys. Wouldn’t want to leak it to the press. Wink.

**John:** AMPTP spokesperson Nancy Sullivan, everyone.

**Craig:** She does look a whole lot like Rachel Bloom.

**John:** Rachel Bloom, everyone.

**Craig:** That was hard. I almost didn’t like Rachel Bloom.

**John:** It’s tough. That’s tough.

**Craig:** You make it hard. You make it hard, kid.

**Rachel Bloom:** To like me?

**Craig:** To not like you.

**John:** Rachel Bloom, you are often at this theater, because you have been doing your one-woman show, which is here for a little bit longer, then you’ll go to New York. Tell us about your show. You can say this because it’s a stage thing.

**Rachel:** It’s a stage thing. It is not in the union. It’s such a weird time we’re in where theater is the most stable industry you could be in. For the past couple years, I’ve been working on this show that is now called Death, Let Me Do My Show, which is about various experiences, thank you, that I’ve had with death. I’ve been using this theater primarily to workshop it a lot. It is going off-Broadway in September. We will be at the Lucille Lortel Theatre September 6th through the 30th. It’s a very beautiful theater. We just decided to do one more show in LA before we go. That will be here on August 26th. All of the proceeds are going to go, I believe probably to the Entertainment Community Fund.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** Hooray.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**John:** Rachel Bloom, thank you so much.

**Rachel:** Thank you.

**John:** You’re going to come back for questions.

**Craig:** Now shit’s about to get real.

**John:** Oh my god.

**Craig:** Here we go.

**John:** This is the warmup.

**Craig:** Here we go.

**John:** Do you want to do this one?

**Craig:** Sure. Our next guest is an actor, writer, producer, and director. She was also listed as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year. What the fuck are we doing wrong, by the way?

**John:** I don’t know.

**Craig:** Let us welcome out the great, one and only Natasha Lyonne.

**Natasha Lyonne:** Hello, everyone. I brought a lot of supplies.

**Craig:** You can share my table with me if you want.

**Natasha:** You know what? You’re a real sweetie, cutie, honey-baby.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**Natasha:** So are you, John. So are you.

**John:** Thank you. Natasha kept apologizing to me backstage in the green room like I was offended. I’m not. I’m delighted by you.

**Natasha:** It’s just that Craig and I, we get very riled up when we’re together.

**Craig:** It’s a situation.

**Natasha:** Then I felt apologetic that maybe we’d gone too hard, too fast. We were doing bits about shekels. There was a lot of bits.

**Craig:** There was a lot of stuff going.

**Natasha:** If you don’t know what a shekel is, you don’t need to.

**Craig:** She brings the State Island out of me. I don’t know what to do. It’s just what happens. I get very Staten. Then I start talking like I used to talk. Then it’s a whole fucking thing.

**Natasha:** Then we get into a whole thing. The next thing we know-

**Craig:** Let’s code switch back. We’re code switching.

**Natasha:** We’re code switching.

**Craig:** Here’s my neutral podcast voice.

**Natasha:** The thing is, I don’t know, as the second Time 100 guest, I like to keep it very neutral.

**Craig:** That’s actually creeping me out.

**Natasha:** This is how I talk. I’ve always been this way.

**John:** NPR host voice. I love it.

**Natasha:** I architected a thing, a building. I’m an architect.

**Craig:** We’ve failed to mention that in your intro.

**Natasha:** I do think it was weird that you didn’t bring it up, because I dropped out of architect stuff in order to get into the biz.

**Craig:** Yes, just like most architecture students who refer to it as stuff.

**Natasha:** I was like, “Blueprints, blueprints, a script,” I said. You’re welcome. I was 4, and now I’m 44. That means I’m getting younger every day. This is what it’s like. You just don’t care anymore. It’s day 100 of the Strike, folks. I have not worked since December.

**Craig:** Everyone’s going a little nuts.

**Natasha:** We are heading towards September.

**Craig:** You’re doing great.

**Natasha:** I thought I was going to get a lot done this year. I’ll be honest.

**Craig:** No, nothing’s happening.

**Natasha:** All those years, but really. Anyway. Quit smoking. Endure this. I’m going to be like John Houston with a cigar in an interview, or Sean Penn anywhere I guess.

**Craig:** Keep going.

**Natasha:** I’m just saying people that smoke publicly in interviews.

**Craig:** You can hear it, I think. You can literally hear the vape on the microphone.

**John:** We know this because Craig used to vape in the early episodes.

**Craig:** I still do.

**Natasha:** You know what? It’s the ride of life. Take the ride. Buy the ticket. Take the ride. Anyway.

**Craig:** We’re not going to ask any questions, are we?

**John:** I’m going to try to ask a question.

**Craig:** What’s the point? Why bother?

**Natasha:** What it’s about is community.

**Craig:** Thank god.

**Natasha:** If you look at Bergman’s birthday, Stanley Kubrick writes him a letter and he says, “Great work.” Now we’re seeing it freaking dying. Everybody’s coming out. Coppola’s writing notes. You know what I mean? It’s about community.

**Craig:** I don’t.

**Natasha:** That’s my point. That was the answer to your question. I thought this was a Jeopardy format.

**Craig:** Hang on.

**John:** It is a Jeopardy format.

**Craig:** Just hang on, John. Just hang on, baby. You’re doing great. Amazing. I legitimately have a question.

**Natasha:** I’m from New York.

**Craig:** What?

**Natasha:** Yes, please.

**Craig:** This is a legit question. I looked on IMDb.

**John:** He did research.

**Craig:** I did research for this. They list your writing credits, your directing credits, acting credits. I have 26 credits. Natasha, do you know how many you have?

**Natasha:** 27. It’s like that game where you go one … The Price is right.

**Craig:** Just say one, $1.

**Natasha:** $1. $1.

**Craig:** You have 152 credits.

**Natasha:** Thus the attitude problem. There’s been many, many, many years.

**Craig:** I haven’t gotten to the question yet.

**Natasha:** It’s an endurance test. If you just stick around long enough, it’s like being an old, old turtle. What’s the question, please?

**Craig:** Thank god.

**Natasha:** Yes, Craigy.

**Craig:** It strikes me that after all these years, almost 30 years, I’ve got these 26 credits, I’ve worked on these things. There’s so much that I can learn from experience. Actors, especially somebody that started as a kid, you will, as an actor like yourself, get so much more experience on set and in production, acting. I’m curious, what wisdom have you learned from all of that time, that writers who have maybe only been on a set once or twice might not know? What can you share with us that you’ve learned every?

**Natasha:** I’m not going to look at you I think for the rest of it.

**Craig:** I think that’s a great idea.

**Natasha:** I’m also look out at the distant … Just so you know, I’m nearsighted. Genuinely, it is a Fossie-esque experience. I would say something I learned when I transitioned into the writers’ room, for example, on… I guess I won’t mention any shows. Let’s say on certain shows or certain movies, I would see an ellipses, and I would think, oh my god, I’ve gotta nail this.

I’m somebody who, despite my personality, is actually quite obsessive and a workaholic and perfectionist, obsessive about the work, and in all areas, too much so. I would think that there was something in there that I was missing. I would go to the writer, or I would go to the monitor area.

**Craig:** Video village.

**Natasha:** Video village. I would try to go searching or something. I think then later, as a writer, the great discovery was there was no there, that oftentimes, it was a cheat for any number of reasons, especially when in showrunning or in directing, once you’re doing that, you’re like…

The great gift about acting while you’re doing that is you know why scenes got cut, or why entire storylines or a C-storyline, so that actually, the connection between this moment to this moment, we had to cut that entire deli sequence for budget reasons, that’s why it’s not there.

Weirdly, it was like once I started writing for myself, or even if… First of all, I’m usually collaborating, so I wouldn’t want to take that credit for myself. I would say that as I was working with writers’ rooms and working with other creators and things like this, that was when I really became a good actor, in a way, because I understood the space in between, of the motivation, or even the backstory of how we got there, because I was the guy in the room on the whiteboard or something.

**Craig:** Actually, it’s the other way for you, in a sense, that the writing helped you be a better actor.

**Natasha:** It’s funny, because I’m only so old relative to how young I was-

**Craig:** Great insight.

**Natasha:** … on some level.

**John:** [Crosstalk 00:41:13].

**Natasha:** Which is to say, it would’ve been great if show biz was like, hey, we’re going to give this to you at 24 or 34, but they wanted to really hold out. I think in many ways it’s because of that fallback energy that we respond to so much as actors that are so seasoned, of a Gene Hackman in Night Movies or Jeff Bridges in Lebowski, or Bill Murray has that sort of energy, or Harry Dean Stanton, a sense of like, “I don’t even really want to be here.” Like Peter Falk. Like, “Please, film anything but me.” I think that comes from also that, if you truly understand the motivation.

Then I would say as a writer, additionally what I learned, and as a director, just from loving actors… Sam Rockwell made me start working with his acting coach against my will, because I’d never taken a lesson. I was at film school at Tisch at 15, but I never did anything with it. I dropped out. I was very offended that they wanted me to pay tuition, because the teenagers, they were watching Apocalypse Now. I was like, “If you’re watching Apocalypse Now, why are you in film school? You should’ve already seen this movie. That’s what would make one go to film school, theoretically.”

**Craig:** It’s a little weird.

**Natasha:** I was supposed to be a double major with philosophy, and they were out of classes. Their classes were full up. I just didn’t understand why they wanted my money at that point. I was like, “This is not what I came here for.” I was like, “Are you going to pay?”

**Craig:** They weren’t going to pay you. Elliot, do you need any Gatorade? How are you doing over there?

**Natasha:** Sam introduced me to this guy, Terry Knickerbocker, who’s a great acting coach. What I would do with him is I would actually sit there with the laptop open and go over every other character’s motivation as well and type in real time, to make sure that I wouldn’t be this jag-off on set who was only taking care, let’s say, of… So that way, I had answers for other people. I don’t know that I always succeeded, but I would try to really build out and make sure that everybody was protected in terms of their motives, basically.

**Craig:** Exactly, that you understand that both sides of-

**Natasha:** Yeah.

**John:** What I hear you saying though is, as an actor you’re approaching character from one perspective. You’re approaching what is it that I’m going to do. As a writer, you’re approaching character from a much more macro, whole perspective, because you have to think about-

**Natasha:** I gotta tell you, first of all, what’s most challenging about the Strike I think for all of us is the atrophying of the brain that you’re experiencing here in real time. It kills me to not be at a whiteboard and in a room. I love the excitement of ideas. I love all of it. I love storyboarding. I love this big, holistic thinking about things and making sure that it’s okay. I love the math of it, whenever I’m doing music budgets and trying to calculate it all. I love it so much more in 3D.

Also, weirdly, I think as just an actor, this weird thing happens where you need other people’s approval, and also you need to get hired. It’s incredible to have that autonomy suddenly. It’s such a gift.

Also, I would go to video village, seeking the feedback. Really, what you find out is that if you’re doing a good enough job, nobody talks to you. Once you’re at video village and you’re actually a producer, being a writer, producer, whatever, director, you discover that usually what’s happening in video village is a panic attack about something the next day, like so-and-so did not make their flight, we’ve gotta rearrange the day. What’s happening there is everybody’s talking about tomorrow with the first AD and trying to figure out how to fucking save this fiasco. They’re not talking about your scene. Otherwise, you would know, because you’d fucked up your scene, and they would be talking to you.

It was also a big revelation that I think made it much more fun for when I was just acting in something, because it was no longer a head trip of a curiosity of, did I do okay?

**Craig:** There wasn’t this constant loop of, the director comes over and gives you a thumb up or thumb down.

**Natasha:** Exactly.

**Craig:** You’re absolutely right. If you’re doing a good job on the day, directing, it’s a little bit like being a parent that’s driving a car, and everybody in the car trusts that the parent is a good driver, and so they can fall asleep.

**Natasha:** I would say also other things made me a better actor to work with, for hire. I’m looking for work, obviously. I’m hoping somebody has a job.

**Craig:** Can’t work right now.

**Natasha:** Oh, right, SAG Strike. Anyway, so the other thing I would notice is, it’s so funny now, when I’m directing, and I’m sure it’s the same for you, that when you try to convince somebody of whatever, especially if you have a heavyweight or like an Ellen Burstyn or a Nolte or something, and you’re like, “I was sort of thinking, what if you were here. It’s just an idea. Maybe then we went there,” but really it’s because there’s a fucking window there, and the light’s going to change, and if you sit here, I’m fucked or whatever.

**Craig:** Have you ever tried to just say that?

**Natasha:** Sometimes I do. I think the reason I bring up people that are such giants is because it’s very intimidating to-

**Craig:** Yes, it is.

**Natasha:** … try to explain to somebody that’s a giant. Usually, the way I came up, there was time. I think it was probably because it was film, not digital. There wasn’t a sense of like, let’s just go.

**Craig:** That’s a good point.

**Natasha:** If you think about Raging Bull or something, this final monologue, they probably really had to rehearse, I don’t know, so that they didn’t-

**Craig:** Run out the mag.

**Natasha:** … run out of film, run out of the mag, and make sure that everything, the lighting was perfect and all that stuff. Usually, it was about a private rehearsal, and then everybody else comes in and that kind of thing. I’m sorry, now we’re not getting to the game. I see you’re stressing about time.

**John:** No, no, no, no.

**Natasha:** It’s okay. I’m just trying to tell the kids the truth.

Once upon a time, it used to be that it was this private thing, where the actors would work with the director on figuring out the blocking. As it’s evolved, especially in television, I think, it’s more about things are pre-shot-listed in order to make these impossible fucking days, because Prestige TV especially has become so dense that it’s unmakeable.

You’re doing everything you can to be like, “Hey, I really need you to sit here, because the sun is going to set.” It’s easier, I would say, to do, and it’s easier to understand then. I’m like, “Oh, so you want… Got it. Let me help you. Okay. I’ll just sit right here, and then you have your shot.”

**Craig:** I do love a pro.

**Natasha:** It’s interesting in so many ways, the evolution of that. Sorry for the long answer.

**Craig:** No, it was a great answer.

**John:** A fantastic answer.

**Craig:** That’s why you’re here, my friend.

**Natasha:** I’m here to party, baby.

**Craig:** We did not bring you on for the short little bursts.

**Natasha:** I am sorry.

**Craig:** I like that you assumed this, “I have finished. Now you will entertain me.”

**Natasha:** I just felt like I talked a while.

**Craig:** You did a great job, kid.

**Natasha:** I just felt like the answer needed to be complete.

**Craig:** It was.

**Natasha:** I didn’t want to give you a fake answer.

**John:** Let us welcome back out Rachel Bloom and Quinta Brunson. Hi. You can ask from there. Ask from there, and we’ll say it out loud.

**Audience Member:** This is a question about adapting a book. My question is, how often do you run into problems as far as what characters to pick in the screenplay itself? How much push back do you get from the authors as far as what percentage of essentially characters you’re using from the book itself and what percentage of characters you’re coming up with whatever is best for the story? How does that work?

**Natasha:** Actually, I don’t know if I can say the name of this person, but she’s wonderful. She’s like the lady Thomas Pynchon or something. She’s brilliant. It was so intimidating to write her this letter to ask for this book that I wanted to do since I was a child. I wrote it with two lovely ladies. I’m not even sure if I can say who they are. I’m not sure the rules of the game.

**Craig:** I think you can say people’s names.

**Natasha:** Oh, great. I wrote it with Liz and Carly, who created GLOW, and who I love. I love those ladies. It’s a bunch of short stories. We really had to make those questions. We ultimately went a certain way. I think it’s excellent.

The funny feedback I want to give you is… It is a very high-concept thing, almost magical realism, let’s say, without being too specific. In the first seven pages of the book, she’s a loser lawyer, this character. Then we were told by the studio that really what they responded to, even though they had greenlit and paid for it, that really what they responded to was the lawyer part.

I just want to say that what was weird was it took so much nerve to write this lady Thomas Pynchon this letter to beg her for this book I’ve loved my whole life, and then to have Liz and Carly be down to, all of us write this thing together, and the amount of work we put in to create this lady Cohen brothers meets Guillermo del Toro world, and then be told that really it was …

The oddity of this business is that the thing that you think is going to be the trouble spot, it’s usually some fucking eighth thing over there, inevitably, that’s like, literally, “Oh, we really liked the part that she was a lawyer and that she was dating this guy.” I said, “Do you mean you want The Practice or Abby McBeal or something?” They were like, “That would be great.” It was so weird. The three of us were texting each other like, “What is happening in this moment?”

**Craig:** It sounds like what she’s saying is you’ll never see the person that kills you. That’s comforting advice.

**Natasha:** Do you find that?

**Craig:** Yeah. For sure. There are circumstances where the network or the studio may have strong feelings like there, but there are also circumstances where sometimes everybody’s aligned except the author. That’s not uncommon. Authors can be precious about things, just like we all can. I have been lucky to adapt something with someone that was great and understood the point of the adaptation.

I think our job is probably not to worry too much about the author. If you actually love it, you love that material, you would … I think grown-up, responsible artists will understand that a different medium has different needs, hopefully.

**Natasha:** It is really challenging. I’m thinking actually about another book that I really wanted to adapt, that at first seemed like it was going to be a go, and we were so in sync, and then really it did fall apart.

**John:** I had one of those too, where I went in, I got the book set up at a studio, and then I was in conversation with the author about, okay, as we introduce this character, we have to think about cinematically how we’re going to first encounter this character. She’s like, “Oh, no, no, you can’t change a thing. It has to be exactly the way it was in the book.”

**Natasha:** That’s what was so weird was I thought that we were having the same conversation for so long, and then suddenly, we weren’t. The other thing I think that’s interesting, which is not exactly an answer to your question, but that’s obviously not my bag, is that so much of what I was so in love with in this book was the dialog and how dense it was and just how brilliant of a writer she is, and realized that in script, that dialog felt insane. It just didn’t feel necessarily like people talking, so that we had to actually change so much of … Do you know what I mean?

**Craig:** Oh yeah, for sure.

**Quinta:** Absolutely.

**Craig:** You have to adapt. Smart authors understand.

**Natasha:** I’m like, there’s so much material here, and then you get in there and-

**Craig:** Not as much as you thought.

**Quinta:** I feel like that reminds me of what I was saying earlier about communicating to the audience. Sometimes with a adaptation, you just can’t have that same monologue from the book. Maybe you can. God bless if you can. That’s incredible, or the same amount of dialog. It has to be able to translate on screen in a certain way.

I haven’t adapted yet, but I have been in material that’s been adapted. I’ve had the feeling of wanting to express, this feels like too much for anyone to want to listen to on camera, in a comedy especially. Nobody feels like fucking sitting there and hearing you say something that was written for that long. I have nothing else to add to that, by the way. I haven’t adapted anything, but as an actor, I [00:54:04]-

**Natasha:** The other one is … Sorry. The other one that I think is interesting is when you try to adapt inner monologue. That’s so tricky, that you realize that the book that you fell in love with, it’s like you can see it in your mind. You have the vision of it, so you can see the world you’re going to build. Then you realize that it’s essentially internal.

**Quinta:** That’s exactly what I mean.

**Craig:** There are some great novels that have made some bad movies. Then there have some … The Godfather was pulp. It was just a pulpy novel that made a great movie. It was just awesome plot, big, awesome characters.

**Natasha:** Arguably, Raymond Chandler, why he’s-

**Craig:** Absolutely.

**Natasha:** … so good at … That genre translates well.

**Craig:** It just goes right-

**Quinta:** Have you read the Jurassic Park book?

**Natasha:** No.

**John:** No.

**Rachel:** It’s pretty good.

**Quinta:** Rachel.

**Craig:** That doesn’t seem like what she was going to say.

**Quinta:** Rachel. That is the most boring-

**Rachel:** Yeah, it’s plodding, but it’s not terrible.

**Quinta:** Lord.

**Rachel:** It’s Jurassic Park.

**Quinta:** That’s a book I’m like, they say pterodactyl one more time, I’m going to throw this fucking book out the window.

**Craig:** You had to know they were going to say pterodactyl a few times.

**Quinta:** Too sciencey. I don’t want to see all that science on screen, something that they understood. We don’t want to see that. It’s good.

**Craig:** It was a good adaptation.

**Rachel:** I think also, when this struck, I was in the middle, for the first time of my career, of working on some adaptations. I’m actually working on something right now that’s a podcast/musical, so not in WGA, that I can talk about a little bit.

What I think is interesting about adaptation is … I learned this when I took my first musical theater class. I’m going to relate everything back to musical theater. I apologize. When you’re writing a musical, the first question you’re supposed to ask is, what about making this a musical improves upon the subject matter, or am I just making it a music because IP sells?

I think that that should be the question for any piece of adaptation is, what can I add to this material, what’s my point of view on this that can add to this canon of material, as opposed to being redundant or worse?

**Craig:** Good answer.

**John:** Good answer.

**Craig:** Good answer.

**John:** This is normally the part of the podcast where we’d do One Cool Things.

**Rachel:** Wait. Didn’t someone win the right to ask a question?

**John:** Oh, shit. We completely forgot that. Who won it? Back there. I see the hand waving. Rachel Bloom saving the podcast yet again.

**Quinta:** The right.

**John:** You.

**Craig:** Nice.

**Quinta:** Didn’t someone win the right to ask a question?

**John:** Do you have a question for us?

**Audience Member:** I do.

**John:** Ask your question. Thank you so much, Rachel.

**Audience Member:** Oh, I’ve got a microphone too. I actually have a question about directing. Natasha, you talked about how the schedules are crazy, and there’s this constant push to go, go, go, go. One of the things that I struggle with on set a lot is when producers or first ADs tell me to shoot a rehearsal. I don’t know how to respond to them politely with, no, I absolutely do not want to shoot the rehearsal. I wonder if the people on stage had recommendations for how I can politely say fuck no?

**Natasha:** Is that directed at me? I’m happy to answer.

**Audience Member:** Everybody.

**Natasha:** I would just say, in the first place, there is nothing really to fear in the arts. I guess just an illusion of fear. I think it’s always very useful to remember that we’re all going to die. I think that the stakes-

**Quinta:** True. So true.

**Natasha:** There is a sense of false stakes that get created around-

**Craig:** The stakes couldn’t be lower.

**Natasha:** The truth is that you’re just trying to make art and do the best you can. That’s all you can do. In a weird way, it also becomes a question of path of least resistance is sometimes in your favor of being like, “Great, why don’t we shoot this useless rehearsal so we can see why we shouldn’t shoot the rehearsal,” or alternatively, you can say, “Simply because we’re not ready.” I think that both things are valid in a way.

**Craig:** Is this for television?

**Audience Member:** Yeah. I work in both.

**Craig:** For television, we do have the luxury of doing the thing that you were talking about, that a lot of times you can’t. We do get to have a private rehearsal, and then we bring in the crew for crew show, and then we talk about the shots. By the time we start shooting, we’ve already gone through it, which is nice.

If you say to the showrunner, “Look, I don’t ask for much. The one thing I just want that I like is to have a couple of rehearsals. It just makes me feel better and better,” and say, “If I can do that, the actors know there’s nothing running, so they’re not burning all their rocket fuel.” Hopefully, they would recognize that that just makes you more comfortable.

**Natasha:** Or also, the truth is that sometimes you can tell them, “It’ll actually go quicker if we do this.” Sometimes I get very excited, and I’m like, “Oh, let’s shoot this. Let’s shoot that.” If you’re with the right camera operator, sometimes they’ll have fun doing it. Other times, actually, rehearsal really does save time in a way, because it’s not just for the actors and the director. It’s actually so that everybody has focus marks.

**Craig:** Exactly.

**Natasha:** It’s going to be a mess. You can tell them also, “Hey, it’ll actually save time.” It’s true that the camera department really does not love that game.

**Craig:** Nobody does.

**Natasha:** Even if actors like to be like, “Hey, let’s just fucking try one.”

**Craig:** You gotta do a walkthrough. They gotta put the tape on the floor. They gotta do all this.

**John:** Quinta, on a show like yours, you might have different directors coming through, doing different episodes. Will they have different working styles?

**Quinta:** You.

**John:** You as an actor in that situation, but also a producer, have to adjust. What is that like?

**Quinta:** The main director that I work with, his name is Randall Einhorn, and he’s fantastic. He’s really great at establishing tone and also relationship with every director who comes in. I think that’s a big part of it too. The other directors coming to set the week before get a hold of how we work. The show that I work on currently is weekly. It’s fast. We’re filming while we’re airing. We don’t really have a lot of time. Our first priority is saving time.

I was thinking about that question. Randall is so good at being like, “I don’t want to do that.” That’s it. He’s like, “I don’t want to do that.” It’ll be like, “Yeah. Okay. Guess what? You’re the director. You’re running the show.” Now, in my state though, it’s a different situation. That’s very family. I would never even ask for that.

For another person coming in, if they want to shoot it, they would say, “I think this would make me feel good, just to get it, just to have.” Especially on a mockumentary, it can be beneficial sometimes. It’s like, “All right, cool, we’ll give it … ” I think it’s just about clear communication, like you said. The stakes are very low. We are not saving lives. Clear communication will help us, just, “What do you need? What do I need? What do you need?”

**Natasha:** That is the weirdest part I think about what we do, and in a weird way, life in general, but certainly making movies and making TV and all this shit that we do and writers’ rooms and studios and networks. It feels like the stakes are just so high. Part of me, as an adrenaline junkie, loves that. Really, they’re just not. That’s where you start losing humanity and all these other things. Everybody is a human being that deserves to get what they need. It’s just making art, so it should feel good, but it feels so scary, the time. It’s always time is the enemy. I would say time is a bigger enemy than money.

**Craig:** Which the director is the person worrying about the most, usually, because as the day drips away, when I’m directing, that’s the thing that I’m aware of is that my options are dwindling. Time is scary. Sometimes, also keep in mind that when you are visiting a show, the producers know things about the actors that you don’t.

**Rachel:** That’s a great point.

**Quinta:** Huge.

**Craig:** Some of them really do not like that rehearsal stuff at all.

**Quinta:** Yeah, they don’t.

**Craig:** They’re just like, “I know what I’m doing. Let’s go. Let’s shoot.” Part of it’s cultural too.

**Quinta:** Some people really want it.

**Craig:** Exactly.

**Quinta:** For sure.

**Natasha:** It is also though that thing of knowing, whatever, kill your darlings or whatever. In your shot list, the things that felt like such a dream and being okay, you gotta go through that day, and you’re like, “That’s done, that’s done, and that one’s out, and we’re going to really focus on this.”

It’s so crazy that, also, that’s why preparedness, I just believe in it so much, of being overly prepared so you can be loose, because the more time … Even if I’m a visiting director on a show or something, I always try so hard to spend time with the first AD and the DP, really walking through every single shot we’re going to do, in an effort to be prepared for if the producer, who is really the boss at that point, not the director, if it’s not an auteur special, then really feeling like we’re prepared for the situation.

**Rachel:** On the show I did that I will not name, but it was the show that I did, I have a very small bladder, and I like to drink. I have a steady drip of tea, and I pee a lot. The AD, I found out in Season 4, let every director … My pee breaks were built into the schedule, because they know I needed that, otherwise I’d piss my pants. I thought that was very communicative of him.

**Quinta:** Nice.

**John:** Nice. Don’t know actors would piss themselves.

**Craig:** I think that’s why SAG is on a strike, to get that enshrined in the agreement.

**John:** Build that back in the contract.

**Craig:** Pee breaks.

**John:** Are we doing One Cool Things or not, Craig?

**Craig:** Let’s just roll right to the finish line.

**John:** Let’s roll to the finish line and do some thank yous.

**Natasha:** Not One Cool Thing?

**Craig:** You know what? We’ll catch up on those.

**John:** We’ll catch up on-

**Craig:** We do it literally 608 times.

**John:** I’ll save mine for next week.

**Craig:** We’re good. It’s all good.

**John:** You can email Craig and tell him what you want to recommend if you have a thing.

**Natasha:** All right, I’ll send him some bucks.

**John:** We have some thank yous to get out to people.

**Craig:** We do.

**John:** Scriptnotes is produced, of course, by Drew Marquardt.

**Craig:** Yay.

**John:** Drew!

**Rachel:** Woo!

**Quinta:** Drew!

**Craig:** Woo woo!

**John:** Who did a phenomenal job putting together tonight’s show.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**John:** Thank you very much, Drew. It’s edited by Matthew Chilelli, who is here.

**Craig:** Yay. There you are. Hi.

**John:** Who also did our music this week. Thank you so much, Matthew. Thank you to Hollywood Heart and Dynasty Typewriter for hosting us. For folks listening at home, the thing about being at the Hollywood Bowl, that was a joke. We really weren’t.

**Craig:** We really are not at the-

**John:** The Hollywood Bowl.

**Craig:** I know, shock. Of course, thank you to our ASL interpreter, Elliot Aronson.

**Quinta:** Oh, yay.

**John:** Elliot.

**Craig:** Who remains incredibly handsome and really good at his job.

**John:** We of course have to thank our incredible guests, Natasha Lyonne.

**Craig:** Natasha Lyonne.

**John:** Quinta Brunson.

**Craig:** Quinta Brunson.

**John:** Rachel Bloom.

**Craig:** Rachel Bloom.

**John:** Make sure you get tickets to see Rachel Bloom’s show either here or in New York. It’s at rachelbloomshow.com.

**Craig:** Thank you to everybody in the audience here in the room and listening at home and in your car. It is so much fun getting to do this live.

**John:** Thank you all, and have a great night.

**Craig:** Thanks, guys.

**Rachel:** Thanks, everybody.

[Bonus Segment]

**John:** All right, Natasha and Craig, our experience has been that the film and television industry is full of people who will tell you what you want to hear, whether it’s true or whether it’s not true. To make sure that we’re keeping our skills sharp during this work stoppage, I thought we might play a little game with our audience members. We have three audience members who volunteered to help out in a segment we’re calling That Sounds Familiar. Jax, if we could bring up the house lights a little bit. Our three guests, I see a Number 1. Number 1, if you could make your way around to this microphone stand over here.

**Natasha:** Wow, three boys. All right. I see it’s a Mae West production.

**Craig:** What the fuck?

**Natasha:** I don’t know.

**Craig:** I don’t know. What happened?

**Natasha:** I’m not here. I don’t exist. I’m a melting clock. Just leave me alone. I don’t know why you invited me here.

**Craig:** Melting clock.

**Natasha:** I could’ve gotten here at 9:00.

**Craig:** For charity.

**Natasha:** I was on the 101.

**Craig:** You did a great job. Let’s play a game.

**Natasha:** I was bumping into cars like it was The Matrix.

**Craig:** Let’s play a game.

**Natasha:** Yes, gentlemen. I’m ready for the game.

**John:** Contestant Number 1, could you introduce yourself and tell us something fascinating about you?

**Contestant 1:** My name is Eric Wandry, and I’m the oldest of 13 kids.

**John:** What? Oh my god. Contestant Number 2, tell us something interesting about you.

**Contestant 2:** My name is Eric Wandry, and I’m the oldest of 13 kids.

**John:** Oh, shit.

**Natasha:** Oh, I see. This is a little tricky. I’m sorry, sir.

**John:** Contestant Number 3-

**Natasha:** Where is your sticker?

**John:** Could you introduce yourself and tell us something interesting about yourself?

**Natasha:** Where is your sticker, sir, the other gentleman? Thank you. A little respect for the game. Thank you.

**John:** It’s a sticker. Get going. Could you tell us about yourself?

****Contestant 3:**** I’m Eric Wandry and I’m eldest of 15 kids, 13 kids.

**Natasha:** Wow. You know what?

**Craig:** We’ve narrowed it down to two.

**John:** Wow.

**Craig:** It’s a 50/50.

**Natasha:** You didn’t even want to be here. Is it against their well?

**Craig:** You rattled him.

**Natasha:** I’m assuming they’re volunteers.

**Craig:** You rattled him.

**Natasha:** I didn’t rattle.

**Craig:** You rattled him.

**Natasha:** They were trying to be the same person. He was missing the sticker.

**John:** He was missing a sticker. You rattled him. [Indiscernible 01:08:11]. I’m not intimidated, but I could see [crosstalk 01:08:13].

**Craig:** Also, John’s rattled.

**John:** I’m not. I’m not.

**Natasha:** When people say that, I feel like it’s because I’m a woman, and then I regret my entire life.

**Craig:** No, no, no, it’s not because you’re a woman.

**Natasha:** How can I help?

**Craig:** What are we going to do?

**John:** One of these people-

**Craig:** How can I help.

**John:** … is lying. One of them is telling exactly the truth.

**Craig:** We can eliminate Number 3.

**John:** One of them is telling the truth, and one of them is lying. We can ask up to five questions of these people. What questions do we want to ask? Craig, how do you help narrow this down?

**Natasha:** I want to ask about religion right away.

**John:** Go for it.

**Craig:** Go. Do it. Go.

**Natasha:** Number 1.

**Craig:** This is to Number 1.

**Natasha:** Excuse me, so what religion are you?

**Contestant 1:** I come from a Catholic background.

**Natasha:** Interesting. Another question. Are your parents still together?

**Contestant 1:** No.

**Natasha:** Interesting that you hesitated. Is that because of trauma? The body keeps the score. Or just because of lying?

**Contestant 1:** One of them passed away.

**Natasha:** Wow.

**Craig:** Welcome to the Natasha Lyonne show.

**Natasha:** Touche, Number 1.

**John:** Oh my god.

**Natasha:** Touche.

**John:** Touche.

**Natasha:** All right, Number 2. Are you guys also asking questions?

**John:** We can ask questions too.

**Craig:** At this point it’s all you.

**Natasha:** Please do it as you … I’ll take a little nap.

**Craig:** I’m thrilled with how this is going right now.

**Natasha:** No, no, no, no, no. I’ll be here. Go off on Number 2.

**John:** I’m curious about geography. Eric Number 2, where did you grow up?

**Contestant 2:** Indiana. Small-town Indiana.

**John:** Contestant Number 3, where did you grow up?

****Contestant 3:**** Waterbury, Connecticut.

**John:** Waterbury, Connecticut.

**Craig:** Can I ask a question of Number 2?

**John:** Sure.

**Craig:** Number 2, you said that you were the oldest of 13, is that right? What is the name of the youngest?

**Contestant 2:** Melissa.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**Natasha:** Melissa Rivers?

**Craig:** Yes, Melissa Rivers.

**Natasha:** I’m just here to help. I’m just here to help. I’m taking a backseat. What?

**Craig:** I want to ask a question of Number 1.

**Natasha:** Mustache, why? No, I like it, but is it a family thing? Do all your siblings have mustaches?

**Contestant 1:** I’m the only one.

**Natasha:** That was not your question.

**Craig:** How many boys and how many girls?

**Contestant 1:** Seven boys, six girls.

**Natasha:** Again, the hesitation is …

**John:** I have a question. I’ll ask for Number 2. You’re the oldest of 13. Is everyone biologically related, from the same parents, or is it a Brady Bunch situation? Talk to us about the relationship to these people.

**Natasha:** Are your parents in an open relationship?

**Contestant 2:** No, everybody’s together. Everyone’s a big happy family. It’s all biological, everyone.

**Natasha:** What religion are you?

**Contestant 2:** Christian.

**Natasha:** A lot of Christians here. You guys [indiscernible 01:11:07] Craig around.

**Craig:** You and I are the Jewish population of this.

**Natasha:** Don’t tell them.

**Craig:** They know. They know. They’ve looked at our faces.

**John:** Eric Number 2, I’m curious, talk to us about a family vacation and the most that your family’s ever been on vacation and how that went.

**Contestant 2:** It was kind of tricky, obviously, because of how big the family was. We would generally go to areas that were adjacent to where I grew up. We would go to the lakes. We would go in the mountains, if we could get that far. It was generally-

**Natasha:** What do you mean if you could get that far?

**Contestant 2:** Because Indiana’s geographically not that close to mountains, but we could-

**Craig:** There was nowhere to go is what he’s saying.

**Contestant 2:** Yeah. We could get there.

**Natasha:** What kind of a car were you guys in?

**Contestant 2:** We had several because of the size of the family.

**Craig:** This guy’s the guy.

**Natasha:** Hold on. I can’t tell.

**Craig:** This guy is the guy. What are we doing? He’s the guy.

**Natasha:** I’m sorry, what kind of cars?

**Contestant 2:** We had two trucks and a station wagon.

**Natasha:** Only two parents?

**Contestant 2:** Only two parents.

**Natasha:** Until the eldest was driving the third car?

**Contestant 2:** Yeah. I was pretty much the babysitter for most of my childhood.

**Craig:** What are we doing? This is the guy.

**John:** I’m not convinced.

**Natasha:** I’m with you, honey.

**Craig:** I’m sold. I’m sold.

**Natasha:** I’m not sure about-

**John:** Should we vote now?

**Craig:** I’m ready to vote.

**John:** I think I’m ready to vote.

**Craig:** I’m ready to vote.

**Natasha:** I’ll do whatever you guys want.

**Craig:** I don’t care. I don’t care if I lose.

**Natasha:** How much money is in it?

**Craig:** [Indiscernible 01:12:27].

**John:** The stakes could not be higher. It is bragging rights for this segment of Scriptnotes. A lot.

**Craig:** I got 200 Canadian in that wallet [crosstalk 01:12:38].

**Natasha:** You brought your wallet onstage.

**Craig:** Always.

**Natasha:** That makes me very concerned about leaving my passport back there.

**John:** Quinta did bring her purse out.

**Natasha:** By the way, always bring your passport, because you never know when you might need to leave the country.

**Craig:** You never know.

**Natasha:** That’s another piece of advice.

**Craig:** Let’s vote.

**John:** Let’s vote.

**Craig:** Let’s vote.

**John:** Who on stage believes it’s Contestant Number 3? Who believes it’s Contestant Number 2?

**Craig:** Yes.

**Natasha:** Yeah.

**John:** The audience too, applause? Who thinks it’s Contestant Number 1? That’s me.

**Natasha:** A little.

**Craig:** A little? You and I think it’s 2. He thinks it’s 1.

**John:** No, I think we voted for … Who’d you vote for, 1?

**Craig:** No, 2.

**Natasha:** I went 50/50 because I wasn’t following.

**Craig:** I thought you said [crosstalk 01:13:22].

**Natasha:** When you involved the audience, I didn’t realize it was only up to us. I thought it was a-

**Craig:** The stakes could not be higher.

**Natasha:** Sure, I’ll go with 2, honey.

**Craig:** Thank you.

**Natasha:** We’re going with two.

**Craig:** Aw. Thank you.

**John:** Contestant Number 2, are you the oldest of 13 kids?

**Contestant 2:** I’m an only child.

**John:** Whoa.

**Craig:** Nicely done. Nicely done! You sick fuck!

**John:** Contestant Number 3, are you the oldest of 13 kids?

**Contestant 1:** When he said that the whole family was in a van, you should’ve known that when you’re the eldest of 13, that the groups of kids don’t all know each other. The younger group-

**Craig:** Is this a yes?

**Contestant 1:** … they were out of the house before I even-

**Natasha:** Is Number 3 the guy?

**Craig:** I think it’s Number 3. You said 15.

****Contestant 3:**** Yeah, I was nervous.

**Craig:** Oh, wow.

**John:** Contestant 3-

**Craig:** You rattled him. You rattled him.

**John:** Are you genuinely the Eric who’s the oldest-

**Craig:** You rattled him.

**John:** … of 13 kids?

**Craig:** You’re the one.

****Contestant 3:**** I’m the oldest.

**Craig:** You’re the one.

**John:** Holy shit!

**Natasha:** Oh my god.

**Craig:** Wow.

**John:** Contestant Number 1-

**Natasha:** Pathological liar.

**John:** How big is your family?

**Contestant 1:** I’m the oldest of 13 kids.

**John:** Oh, you are genuinely the oldest of 13 kids.

**Contestant 1:** Yes.

**Craig:** What the fuck is happening?

**John:** I thought the game was over.

**Natasha:** Now I’m confused.

**Craig:** What the fuck is going on?

**John:** It was Number 1. It was Number 1. Number 3 was still playing. We’re good. We’re good. The game is over.

**Craig:** Oh, Number 3 was still playing. Number 3 was like that soldier who doesn’t know the war is over.

**John:** The war is over.

**Craig:** You can go home now.

**John:** I was so confused there.

**Craig:** That’s outstanding.

**Natasha:** Wow.

**Craig:** I gotta be honest, Number 2 should be in prison. That’s a dangerous man.

**Natasha:** He’s an only child.

**Craig:** That’s a real dangerous man.

**John:** Craig.

**Craig:** The way he said only child, he’s like, “After I killed my siblings, I was an only child.”

**John:** Here’s how we got these people. I emailed out to our Scriptnotes listeners who were going to be in the audience, and I said, “Hey, do you have a really interesting story about your life that we could use on this, or are you really good at playing Mafia/Werewolf?” That’s what you are.

**Natasha:** Have you played the new game, Werewolf?

**John:** Thank the three of you very much for doing this. Let’s give them a [indiscernible 01:15:21].

**Natasha:** I’m just kidding.

**Craig:** Thank you guys. That was outstanding.

**Natasha:** Number 3, I’m sorry.

Links:

* [HollywoodHEART](https://www.hollywoodheart.org/)
* Quinta Brunson on [IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6708435/) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/quintab)
* Rachel Bloom on [IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3417385/) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/racheldoesstuff/)
* Natasha Lyonne on [IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005169/) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/nlyonne/)
* Quinta Brunson’s [The Girl Who’s Never Been on a Nice Date](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op2pK_w8_oY)
* Quinta Brunson on [BuzzFeed](https://www.buzzfeed.com/quintab)
* [Rachel Bloom: Death, Let Me Do My Show](https://www.rachelbloomshow.com/) at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, New York City
* [Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!](https://cottonbureau.com/people/scriptnotes-podcast)
* [Check out the Inneresting Newsletter](https://inneresting.substack.com/)
* [Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription](https://scriptnotes.supportingcast.fm/gifts) or [treat yourself to a premium subscription!](https://scriptnotes.supportingcast.fm/)
* Craig Mazin on [Threads](https://www.threads.net/@clmazin) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/clmazin/)
* John August on [Threads](https://www.threads.net/@johnaugust), [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/johnaugust)
* [John on Mastodon](https://mastodon.art/@johnaugust)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Matthew Chilelli ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Our ASL interpreter was Elliott Aronson
* Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by [Matthew Chilelli](https://twitter.com/machelli).

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/608standardv2.mp3).

The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2023/in-the-beginning-was-the-word).

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

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

**John:** This is Episode 607 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show, what are words, even?

**Craig:** What words are even is?

**John:** What words are even?

**Craig:** Is?

**John:** I promise I’m not high, Craig. What I really want to talk about is these fundamental units of writing and how weird words are, both for us humans and for computers. You’re a person who uses words a lot and who loves to play with them.

**Craig:** I love them.

**John:** Also, Drew has stocked up a lot of listener questions that we can go through. In our Bonus Segment for Premium members, Craig, let’s talk about Sinead O’Connor if we could.

**Craig:** We can. That will tie directly into my One Cool Thing this week, which is not just Sinead O’Connor in general, but a specific bit of Sinead O’Connor.

**John:** Fantastic. This episode you’re listening to was pre-recorded, but on Wednesday, tomorrow, you could be joining us live at the Dynasty Typewriter. We’re doing our first live show of this year, first live show in quite a long time. Tickets are all sold out, but you can still get livestream tickets. If you’re listening to this podcast right now, it’s like, “You know what? I really want to listen to John and Craig tomorrow and watch them with their special guests,” you still have the opportunity. We got a link in the show notes for that.

**Craig:** We’ve got some excellent guests. By this point, people know who they are.

**John:** By this point, people should. Tell us who our special guests are, Craig.

**Craig:** We have two currently nominated geniuses for two programs in the same category. Happily, I can report their friends. The great Natasha Lyonne and the great Quinta Brunson.

**John:** We’re so excited to see both of them and talk to them about writing in general and other fun stuff. They’re both great and geniuses and great performers. They’re going to be amazing guests. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.

**Craig:** They are.

**John:** Before we started taping, we talked about extra special bits we’ll do. It’s going to be a fun show.

**Craig:** Now, John, what are the odds that the Writers Guild and SAG are going to picketing our live show? I don’t want to cross a line. Are we going to have to cross a line?

**John:** There will be no lines crossed. The only crossed will be lines of taste and discretion.

**Craig:** Oh, good.

**John:** No labor actions will have occurred. This would not be a covered project. I think we’re all good here.

**Craig:** The only reason I mention this is because I actually became a member of the AMPTP yesterday.

**John:** Wow, that’s really good. You’re now a signatory company. That’s great.

**Craig:** I’m a signatory company, yeah.

**John:** Craig, can you fill out the whole thing through? Did they hotbox you? I feel it’s like joining a fraternity, right?

**Craig:** You have to sign a document that says, “I hereby forswear my soul.” I am not a member of the AMPTP. It’s a fun idea to think about how you get jumped into that gang though.

**John:** It’s got to be fun.

**Craig:** Just men in suits punching feebly at you before you all get on your private jet to another billionaire’s event.

**John:** Absolutely. Tim Cook had to be jumped into it. I bet it was a wild thing, because Apple wasn’t a part of this, with the negotiations before this, and now they’re in. Netflix is in. It’s gotta be a lot. Where do they take you? What do they do? Are you doing shots? Is there a goat involved in something? I don’t know.

**Craig:** No, it’s not that cool.

**John:** It’s not that cool?

**Craig:** It’s not that cool, no. I gotta imagine it’s a fairly gray affair.

**John:** It really is. All the autonomy you thought you had, no longer. You thought you could control your own industry? No, no, you have to join this cabal. We will now make our deals together.

**Craig:** You worked your whole life to become the most important person at this massive multinational corporation, and now you have to join a group where your competitors have a say in who you get to hire and how much you pay them. What a great deal for them.

**John:** Good stuff.

**Craig:** While this is airing, theoretically the Writers Guild is back at work negotiating with the AMPTP. Good luck, John. I know you’re on that committee.

**John:** Thank you. Other bit of news, Weekend Read, which is the app we make for reading scripts on your iPhone. This week, we put out a version of it that runs on your Mac. If you have the iPhone version and you have a Macintosh, or one of the most recent Macintoshes, anything with a Silicon chip in there, it just now runs on your Mac too, which is handy, because you can just drag scripts from your desktop or whatever into Weekend Read there. It’s free. If you’re using it on your iPhone, you also have a Mac, just go to the app store, and you can install it on your Macintosh. It’s handy. All those scripts sync in the background. You can read stuff on both.

**Craig:** Fantastic.

**John:** We have some follow-up, I see here in the Workflowy. Can you talk us through, Drew, what we have?

**Drew Marquardt:** Sure. In Episode 605, we were talking about how racist characters are ultimately a little bit boring and aren’t a redeemable racist.

**John:** We talked about it’s very hard to find good examples of redeemable racists. It looks like we were wrong. One of our listeners, tell us.

**Drew:** We had a few people write in. Jafat wrote, “Although it is not his primary characteristic, Jack Nicholson’s character in As Good As It Gets is not only a racist, but an overall bigot throughout Act 1 and into Act 2, and yet he’s still a delightful protagonist to follow. The script builds so much empathy with his OCD condition, and we understood his bigoted tendencies to be a manifestation of his insecurities. So I guess great acting and great writing can make a racist appealing sometimes.”

**Craig:** I’m going to go ahead and reject that. I’m going to reject it.

**John:** Why are you rejecting it?

**Craig:** Love the movie. Jack Nicholson’s character is defined by his pure misanthropy. He hates everyone, everyone except a dog, who is not a person. He hates people who are a different color. He hates people who are a different gender. He hates people who are the same color and gender. He hates people are a different sexuality. He hates children. He hates everyone. The problem there is, if we’re looking for a redeemable racist, his racism is basically one wedge of a massive wheel of I hate everyone. He especially hates himself. I’m going to reject that.

**John:** Luckily, we have other examples here that you can choose to accept or reject.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** What else do we got there?

**Drew:** We also have one from Laura P., who says, “You guys missed the most obvious example of a racist character who becomes redeemed: Green Book. Viggo Mortensen plays Tony Vallelonga, who grows and abandons his racist beliefs over the course of the movie. I know there’s a lot of hate out there for this movie, but I liked it. I saw it at TIFF before any of the hype, where it won the Audience Choice Award too.”

**Craig:** I’ve never seen it.

**John:** I think I saw half of Green Book.

**Craig:** You saw Green, or did you see Book?

**John:** I saw the Green part of Green Book. I remember the part that I did see. Viggo Mortensen’s character is driving a Black character through the South.

**Craig:** Mahershala.

**John:** Mahershala Ali. I don’t know it well enough. Yeah, there’s an arc there, but I don’t know. I’m not going to fight over a movie I don’t remember well.

**Craig:** Exactly. If you saw only half of it, you wouldn’t have gotten to the redemption part.

**John:** That’s true.

**Craig:** The movie you saw was a racist drives a Black man around, and then the movie ends.

**John:** The movie I remember seeing, the first thing that jumped in my head was not that Viggo Mortensen’s character was racist. I didn’t think of that as being his defining characteristic. Maybe that was because the whole movie was set in a place where racism was going to be so pervasive and dangerous that I saw him as being on the side of the Black character, even though they would grow and change over the course of the movie. I don’t remember it well.

**Craig:** We can’t push back on that, Laura P.

**John:** Last example I see here is for Scrooge. There’s David G writing in, “I gleaned it could be almost untenable to build a movie about a racist’s path to eventual repudiation of the racism. I’d be curious to your thoughts on why the tale of Scrooge works so well.” Scrooge hates everybody.

**Craig:** Scrooge has disconnected from people. His disconnection from people is, we ultimately learn, an extension of events that occurred in his youth. Everybody can identify with that. Everybody’s had moments where they felt alienated from the people around them, disconnected from the people around them. Everybody’s had moments where they were viewing other people through the prism of pessimism. People will oftentimes lose their naïve, childlike, wondrous spirit. It’s universal. It’s so universal that we simply cannot stop telling Dickens’s story to each other in 4,000 different ways.

**John:** Scrooge is not really that different than Jack Nicholson’s character in As Good As It Gets. Scrooge hates all people. He’s a wealthy version of Jack Nicholson’s character from As Good As It Gets.

**Craig:** Basically, yeah. They add a little mental illness flavor to Jack Nicholson, although I will say, were you to make As Good As It Gets today, I certainly would not be putting so much weight on his obsessive-compulsive disorder, because it just doesn’t work like that. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is not connected to misanthropy. I don’t even think the movie made a good argument for it to be connected. It just was also there.

**John:** More follow-up from the same episode. This is about Lonesome Dove.

**Drew:** Matthew writes, “I just wanted to follow up about the mention of Lonesome Dove first being a script which Larry McMurtry then turned into a novel, which then got turned into a mini-series. Craig said the idea that such a massive novel had started out as a 120-page script terrified him. I thought the same, so I checked, and it didn’t. It started out as a 288-page script. It originated in a film called The Streets of Laredo, which was intended as a vehicle for John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and James Stewart. The 288-page script was written by McMurtry with Peter Bogdanovich in 1972. The project failed to materialize, and McMurtry eventually chose to expand the idea into a sprawling 843-page novel. The length might have had something to do with the film not getting made in 1972, despite McMurtry already being well-established at the time, having written the movies Hud and The Last Picture Show. I imagine the success of his 1983 film, Terms of Endearment, was instrumental in getting the Lonesome Dove mini-series made.”

**Craig:** Wow. I’m not saying that they were coked up when they wrote a 288-page script in 1972. However, it wouldn’t be surprising if they were.

**John:** Let’s think that through that, because at some point, they had to realize, how long is this thing? This is 288 pages. That’s more than two full movies.

**Craig:** You’re the voice of anti-cocaine.

**John:** I know. I’m sorry. If any folks on the podcast-

**Craig:** By the way, I’ve never used cocaine.

**John:** I’ve never used cocaine in my life.

**Craig:** From what I understand, and I’m not being facetious, I really haven’t ever used it, but from what I understand, when you are on cocaine, you don’t stop and say, “Uh-oh, this might end up being 288 pages.” It’s more like, “Yeah! Yes, more. We’re actually reinventing cinema, man. Go.” On the other hand, 288 pages is a drop in the bucket compared to where it ended up, which was 800-and-some-odd pages. It may have been that this was trying to be a novel the whole time. The idea of sitting with somebody and hitting…

Even Scott Frank at his most lengthy first-draftness I don’t think is ever going to approach 288 pages. Scott is infamous for… It’s not even infamous. It’s just his process. His first drafts are always really, really long. I don’t think he’s ever hit 288.

**John:** That’s a lot. It also could’ve been a problem of just the time. It was an era before mini-series, probably. I’m trying to think. First mini-series I remember is Roots. That may not be the actual first real mini-series.

**Craig:** That was the first modern mini-series, or proper one, and that was ’76, ’77, ’78, something like that.

**John:** This is ’72, so it’s predating that. It does feel like a mini-series is the right way to tell a story sprawling, or a book. It found its way.

**Craig:** I’m glad it did. It’s a hell of a book.

**John:** Well done, everybody. Let’s talk about words. Craig, we’ll start with your loan out company I now know, because I see the end credits of your shows, is Word Games, correct?

**Craig:** Let’s be specific. It’s not my loan out company.

**John:** Sorry. It’s your production company?

**Craig:** It’s my production company, exactly, because I have a different thing. Loan out companies, I think we’ve talked about this on the podcast a number of times, are really just doing business as type things for the purposes of income and taxation and so forth. Word Games, yes, it’s my production company. I don’t mean to dress it up like I’m running Bad Robot or something. I’m aware I’m not. So far, Word Games has made two things, Chernobyl and The Last of Us. I’m a big fan of words and word games.

**John:** Obviously, what we do for a living is moving words around. On this podcast, we talk all the time about scripts and sequences and scenes and paragraphs and sentences, which are all built out of words. I don’t think we’ve done a segment just digging into what even are words, as an atomic unit that everything else is built out of. In Three Page Challenges, we may note that somebody’s using a word incorrectly, or just that there’s an odd choice of a word. We haven’t really dug into the words themselves. Obviously, probably half your recommendations are something related to puzzles, crossword puzzles, or other things you enjoy doing. Those are all built out of words as well.

**Craig:** There’s usage and vocabulary and definitions and things like that. Those are easy. Where the fun of words, the love of words comes, in terms of what we do, is very much connected to the intangible joy of the thought organization they imply and demand. Our thoughts are amorphous. Words solidify them. In fact, there’s quite a few theories of consciousness that argue that consciousness is a, I don’t want to say side effect, but words are a prerequisite for consciousness, that consciousness is formed by the mental manipulation of words.

**John:** Without language and words to organize thoughts, you don’t really have consciousness in the same way. We might talk about animals who we notice seem to be able to do certain things, they also have language abilities. There’s a reason for that.

**Craig:** Language is obviously separate from words, because there’s words themselves, but then there’s also grammar and the notion of inherent grammar, which is what Chomsky became famous for. The words themselves are yummily wonderful. I know I just said yummily.

**John:** Yummily. I understood what you meant, even though it was a word you-

**Craig:** Bingo.

**John:** It’s not the first time that word was ever mentioned or used in the world.

**Craig:** No question.

**John:** We can put the pieces together, in order to form a word like yummily and we get what it is. I see here in the Workflowy, meta crossword mechanism. Talk me through what that is and why it’s fascinating to you.

**Craig:** In thinking about this topic, because one of the things we’re going to discuss here is the evolution of computer language and these large language models and how computers are beginning to put words together in advanced ways, there are ways of putting words together that form the basis of games. A lot of word games really come down to playing word association. Have you ever played Decrypto, John? I can’t remember.

**John:** I love Decrypto.

**Craig:** Decrypto’s amazing. Without getting into a long description of the rules, what you’re trying to do is give your team a clue word that will help them identify which of four team words you’re pointing at. The other team can hear the clue word. You’re trying to basically not give away to the other team what your target word is with your clue word. It really is a game of sideways synonyms.

I was playing once with my friend Dave Shukan, who’s a word genius. One of our target words was tower. For one of the clues, I remember he said to us, and again, the other team can hear this, I want to say it was something like “flatbed.” We understood, after a little bit of thought, that flatbed pointed to tower, because what he was doing with that clue was saying that tower’s not tower, tower [TOU-uhr] is tower [TOH-uhr].

**John:** Oh, wow.

**Craig:** Same word, different pronunciation. That kind of strange association is delightful. When it occurs, there is a moment of joy. The example that I wanted to cite from, we’re recording this on Friday, August 4th, so the prior Friday was the fourth Friday of the month, which meant a difficult meta crossword from the great meta crossword master, Matt Gaffney. Of course, we all know Matt Gaffney.

**John:** Legendary.

**Craig:** He really is. He’s legendary. He’s a legendary constructor of meta crosswords. Those are crossword puzzles where after you fill in the grid, there is a hidden puzzle, and you have to figure out what the hidden puzzle is and what the answer is.

In this particular one, the gimmick that you eventually figured out was what he was doing was in certain clues, the beginning of the first word or the first couple of words in a phrase was either a single-letter or two-letter abbreviation you’d find on the periodic table. The trick of what he was doing was, if you expanded that out to the name, the full element name of what that symbol was, but then kept the rest of the word, it would become something new. For instance, the words “cut one,” if you take that Cu, which is the chemical symbol for copper, and you spell it out, “cut one” becomes “copper tone.”

**John:** Great.

**Craig:** I liked that one, but it didn’t necessarily delight me as much as this one. Let’s see if you guys can get this one. Now that you know the gimmick, it shouldn’t be too hard. “Fame singer Irene.”

**John:** Irene Cara is-

**Craig:** Okay, so the answer is Cara, now what do you with that, following this method?

**John:** Ca is calcium.

**Craig:** Good way to start. Calcium unfortunately isn’t a word. What else could you do? How about you try a single letter?

**John:** Oh, so carbon. Carbonara.

**Craig:** Carbonara.

**John:** Great.

**Craig:** Now, that-

**John:** That is delightful.

**Craig:** Damn. This is the sort of thing I occupy myself with all the time, which I love. I appreciate people like Matt, who can think of these things and then execute them so beautifully. Relevant to our discussion today, there is something gorgeous about the creation aspect of that, that words are something that we use to fill our minds and our speech and communicate. Also, there is a creative aspect to the manipulation of them that requires pleasure.

What we do as writers is smashing words together to create context and information and communication, but specifically also pleasure, enjoyment, even if the pleasure and enjoyment is the pleasure and enjoyment of crying. That goal requires another dimension beyond just the pure computational understanding of how to put words together.

**John:** It requires attention. It requires the ability to have a desire for what you’re going to try to do and the ability to anticipate how it will manifest in the brain or the mouth of the person who’s going to be experiencing it. That requires attention. You don’t get there accidentally. You have to be thinking about what series of words is going to create the effects that I want to get and why am I trying to create that effect. There’s a deliberateness to it. That’s what writing is. It’s the deliberate effect you’re trying to create by putting the words together in this order.

**Craig:** Precisely. I don’t want to be the “AI’s not going to take over,” guy, because everybody’s very invested in the thought that AI’s going to eliminate us all. However, if there is one thing that is insulating us from being eliminated by AI and the increasingly complicated versions of ChatGPT and other large languages, it’s this. It’s that large language models require prompts. We do not. We create our own prompts. Our prompts are prompted in turn by our wants and needs. Wants and need are prompted in turn by the pleasure principle. This is an interesting area.

We know, for instance, that calculators are infinitely better at operations than humans. Any mathematical operation you can come up with. The simple ones are addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, but there are more advanced ones. Whatever they are, it doesn’t matter what they are, a simple $5 calculator is infinitely better at it than humans. It can calculate those things faster than you can blink. Much faster.

However, humans appear to be infinitely better at proving conjectures than computers. Proofs for complicated theorems, theorems that have been sitting out there for centuries, and then eventually get proven. They don’t get proven by computers. So far, I don’t believe any computer has ever proven anything complicated. They can prove things that we teach them to prove, but that means we proved them first.

**John:** I will look up and try to put the link in the show notes to… I can think of, there was one mathematical thing that was scrawled in a margin, which they actually brute forced it with computers and basically eliminated all the other possibilities, therefore were able to prove it. Then again, that required human intention and intervention to figure out what are the things we needed to knock out in order to get to this proof.

**Craig:** Certainly, we can use it as a tool, but what we can’t do is say, “Here’s Fermat’s Last Theorem. Computer, prove it.” No. No. It took a human to do that. One method follows a process, and the other method invents a process. I do think what we do is about inventing new uses for words and concepts, and the collision and transformation of those words and concepts. That said…

**John:** That said…

**Craig:** Wow, have they gotten, they meaning the computers, gotten good at following processes.

**John:** The article we’re going to link to is by Tim Lee and Sean Trott. It came out this last week. It’s a really good detailed, but not actually too super geeky look at how large language models actually work. I think one of the important takeaways is that we understand the process of building them.

We cannot, in any given example, tell you how they got to the answer they got to. That black box is not by design. It’s just the nature of process, of how it’s stringing those words together. We can’t tell you how it got from A to B to C to D. It’s very, very difficult to show how that happened.

Let’s wind back and actually talk through some of the workings of these large language models, because it’s much more subtle and complex than I thought. We have these arguments like, these are all plagiarism machines. Plagiarism is passing off other people’s work as your own. While it’s true that all these models are trained off of the internet, so they are hoovering in all the stuff that’s been out there, the ways they’re stitching these words together is so different than even where I thought. I always knew it was all based on probability of what the next word would be, but how it gets to those probabilities is actually really fascinating.

I think it’s partly because our understanding of words is very different than the computer’s understanding of words. I wonder if maybe our own understanding of our own consciousness will eventually be revealed to be something a little bit more like what these large language models are doing, because it’s fascinating. They don’t treat words the same way that we would expect. They’re not thinking about definitions or spelling or its origin. It’s just these mathematical vectors, these points in this thousands-of-dimensions word space that is hard for us to even imagine.

**Craig:** I think that probably this is how we do it, neurologically. Even though the complexity, even though it seems like it’s pretty good, it’s nowhere near what we can do, because our neurons number in the billions, I believe, and they’re not quite there yet, but I guess eventually they will be.

It’s very relational. Words are defined as items that relate to each other, so a little bit like the way I think of characters. Character is meaningless without relationship. It’s just nothing. Similarly, words are meaningless without relationship.

The way the LLMs seem to work is by defining relationships and relationship strength in multiple ways, between a word and every other word. Some of those relationships are defined by similarity of definition. Some of them are defined by being opposite. Some of them are defined as, if this word is next to this one, then this one is likely to have this meaning, as opposed to this other alternate meaning. Everything gets ranked.

Look. Ultimately, neurons are on/off switches. It’s a little more complicated than that. There’s levels of ons and levels of offs, but you’re really dealing ultimately with a lot of circuitry there. I can see a world, and maybe it’s soon, where we can create an LLM that has the same capacity that we do, purely for language.

However, that’s not all we have. What we’re building with these things is, we are approaching the neocortex. That’s what we’re working on here. There’s a couple areas in the brain, like Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area, that do a lot of this work. We’re approaching replicating that somehow.

What we don’t have, I don’t think we do, and I hope we never do, is what we have in our brain. I don’t want to ever give this to computers. That is a combination, a feedback system between a neocortex and a paleocortex, between the old brain, between the limbic system and the neocortex. This is where all of our danger is, but it’s also where all of our wonder is.

This is the most hacked, tropey thing that aliens will say after observing us for a while. “Strange, you know. Humans, you know. The source of your greatest flaw is also the source of your greatest value.” Yeah, basically. Which is that we are still animals, but we are enlightened animals, and we therefore can create works of art. The only reason to create a work of art is to hack the neocortex, to appeal to the limbic system. I don’t know why a computer would even bother to do it. It doesn’t have a limbic system.

**John:** It again doesn’t have pleasure.

**Craig:** Correct. It doesn’t have pleasure. It doesn’t have fear. Although it was interesting, I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Hollywood Bowl last night, LA Philharmonic doing a gorgeous job, the percussionist living his best life, dong, dong, dong, dong.

**John:** Oh, of course.

**Craig:** When the HAL 9000 is being turned off, slowly, memory bank by memory bank is how they did it, he repeated the phrase, “I am afraid,” which was really interesting. You could say to a computer right now, “Okay, ChatGPT, write about having to go on a first date, but make sure that you explain how afraid you are and why.” It can do that, but it won’t be afraid. That I think is maybe what’s going to insulate what we do from what that does.

**John:** Let’s circle back to the words of it all, because as humans, as we deal with words, if we want to organize words, we would put them in a dictionary and alphabetize them, figure out their definitions. It’s not how these large language models are working.

Instead, what they’re doing is… You can think about it like a globe or a map. Just in the same way that two cities might have longitude and latitude, every word is going to have a longitude and latitude for where it fits in this space.

Google did this in 2013, this thing called word2vec. What they did is they scanned zillions of documents to figure out what are all the words and what are those words near, based on what those words are near, how can you find some meaning, the probability that these two words will occur together.

When you do this, you can do some kinds of math that are really interesting. If I say Berlin minus Germany plus France, you can get to Paris. Take this one thing away from Berlin, and then add France, oh, the relationship must be that Paris is related to France in that way. We get that. It’s like the analogies we had to do in the old SAT. It could learn… Learn sounds a little too intensive, but patterns will emerge. A cat is very near a dog, and so therefore, if something is true about a dog, like a dog goes to a vet, then a cat will probably go to a vet. That makes sense.

So much of what’s fun about the word games that Craig likes to play are double meanings of words or homonyms and other things. Tower was an example, tower [TOH-uhr] versus tower [TOU-uhr]. Subtle things, like this article points out, like Mary works for a magazine, Bob reads a magazine. They both have the word magazine, but those are really not quite the same word. The first one is a company that she works for. The second one is a physical object. Those two separate words would be close to each other, but they’re not the same thing. It’s a part of speech. They really are different. They’re different things and may be represented as different vectors, so a huge grid of numbers that indicate where in this word space you put those two different words.

**Craig:** Polysemy.

**John:** Polysemy. I didn’t know how to pronounce this. Thank you for saying that.

**Craig:** My pleasure.

**John:** When there’s many possible meanings for a certain word of phrase or combination of letters. What would surprise you about this article is how it figures out context. A sentence like, “The customer asked the mechanic to fix his car,” how do we know that the his is the customer rather than the mechanic? That’s fascinating, because it has to figure out what are the probabilities that that his, it knows that it’s a male pronoun, but how likely is it that it relates to the customer versus the mechanic? It’s just math and probability that gets us there.

**Craig:** Even if the connections weren’t formed the same way that these connections were formed, this, I suspect, is not far off from the way the connections exist in our minds, where things both inhibit and reinforce certain possibilities.

What we know, because we may laugh at ChatGPT for some funny mistakes, but we make mistakes all the time. People are constantly getting confused. People have entire conversations where somebody’s like, “Wait a second. Sorry. Are you talking about him or him? Because I thought you were saying him, he, but I think you might’ve meant him, he.” “Oh, yes, I was… “ There you go.

This happens all the time when we’re writing the… I was just talking to somebody the other day about this problem. Just within sentences, when you have conversations between two people who use she and hers pronouns, it can be a nightmare. This is where I’m not sure how you teach a computer this, because I think it’s the pleasure principle. For some pleasurable reason, we do not like when names are repeated over and over and pronouns are not used. Actually, it makes no sense.

**John:** It would be much more efficient if I referred to Craig all the time.

**Craig:** Correct. There’s really no reason to use a variable for a specific if you’re a computer, just none, unless in cases where a variable isn’t required. Why? Why don’t we like hearing our name over and over and over and over? We don’t know. We don’t know, but it just doesn’t feel good.

All that stuff is really fascinating to me. I do think that it’s not fair to say that these things are plagiarism machines any more than it’s fair to say that human beings are plagiarism machines, because that’s how we learn, by scraping all the language that’s pouring into our ears as our brains form in youth.

**John:** It’s true. That’s why when you grow up with a native language, and that is the language that you’re most comfortable using, and then when you use another language, sometimes you can use it natively, but it’s challenging to. Even the best translators, they will translate into their own language, but they won’t generally translate out to their second or their third language. There’s a reason why your native language is your native language.

I was recently in Africa. We were being driven from one place to another. There was this negotiation that happened between our driver and this checkpoint person. As we drove away, I was like, “Oh, can I ask you, what language were you using?” It was like, “Oh, I had to use three different things, because we were trying to figure out which one we both spoke.” That kind of code switching we see in Los Angeles all the time with Spanish. It was fascinating to see it in another country, where there weren’t just two languages, but 11 things that could be sorted through.

**Craig:** That’s why I think we aren’t too far off from, there’s already been demos of this, the Babel fish style earbud that hears a language, automatically translates it in real time, and then pipes it into your ear in your language. The fact that you can understand any language doesn’t mean you can speak it. That again, it’s just fascinating to me. It’d also be really interesting to see how those models handle subtleties.

There’s going to be a lot of misunderstandings and miscommunications in the early days of the Babel fish earpiece. There are going to be some people that stand up from a table and throw a drink in someone’s face, only later to find out, “Oh, sorry, my thing just mistranslated.” I’m there for that. I’m there for that.

**John:** It’s going to be exciting when it happens. Just to bring a D and D reference, in the D and D universe, there’s Common, which is the language that most people will speak, just for easy use. They also speak Elvish or Dwarvish or whatever else, but Common is the language.

I would say that on this last trip, you recognize, oh yeah, English is sort of Common in most places. When people can’t find another language to speak, they’ll go to English, because that’s the second language of so much of the world that they can get by. Even two people who grew up in South Africa might end up just defaulting to English because that’s the language that they know they can both get by in.

**Craig:** That’s right. That was not always the case. The lingua franca was called lingua franca because it was French. French was considered common back in the day. In fact, to reference 2001 again, there was a conversation happening between some people on board the space station that were from different countries, and they were speaking French, because that was the thing they can all agree on.

Over time, that has been absolutely replaced by English, not even by a little, but by a lot. There are all sorts of reasons for that, of course, economic and political. One of the things that English has going for it is that it is relatively easy, compared to other languages. There aren’t gendered nouns. Verb conjugation is very simple.

**John:** We got rid of almost all of it.

**Craig:** Pronunciation can be absolutely confounding, befuddling, but then again, there are a lot of people that are native English speakers who mispronounce words all the time. Look, polysemy, a lot of different ways of approaching that one.

**John:** Absolutely.

**Craig:** That’s a Greek word. Pronunciation can befuddle people. Have you seen that really funny thing they did, every ‘90s pop song ever?

**John:** It was great. Every European pop song?

**Craig:** Yes, every European pop song. One of the things that they’re really smart about is they’re implying that these singers were given lyrics in English, but because they don’t speak English and they don’t know how to pronounce things, they failed to see how certain things were intended to rhyme. He goes, “Boom, hear the bass go zoom.” That’s really funny. Boom and zoom, they do rhyme. That’s okay. People really have just settled on English. Let us count ourselves lucky in that regard.

**John:** Oh yeah, it’s imperialism. It’s all the things that happened. It’s the accidents of history that English became the [indiscernible 00:37:09] language, but there were worse choices out there. It’s a relatively easy language to speak. It’s messy to spell. There’s lots of things you could’ve improved. If you could get another crack at it, you could do a better job. If you could do it Esperanto, if everyone could speak Esperanto, it would be easier for everybody, but it’s not what’s going to happen.

**Craig:** What a silly dream of the ‘70s.

**John:** I love Esperanto.

**Craig:** Or ‘60s, I guess.

**John:** Craig, my other thing, as we wrap up this segment on words, one of the things I love about listening to podcasts is you have a lot of really smart people who are talking, and you realize that they are saying words out loud that they mostly would otherwise write. I just typed a word here. I’m curious how you pronounce this word that I just added to the Workflowy.

**Craig:** Let’s see.

**John:** Underneath the list of official languages of Africa.

**Craig:** Say this word. Subsequent [SUHB-suh-kwuhnt].

**John:** I would always say subsequent [SUHB-suh-kwuhnt], and then I heard someone on a podcast say subsequent [suhb-SEE-kwint]. I’m like, what? I took a note of it, and I looked it up, and that is an accepted pronunciation.

**Craig:** It’s accepted. It wouldn’t be the first listed pronunciation, but it’s not incorrect. If you said suhb-sih-KYEW-int, that would be wrong.

**John:** That would be wrong.

**Craig:** That would just be wrong. Or if you said SOOB-see-kwint. SOOB-see-kwint is terrible. Don’t say that.

**John:** Don’t say that. Any further takeaways from our word segment, Craig?

**Craig:** No, other than I suspect we are going to get quite a bit of listener mail from people that work in AI or with LLMs correcting us and scolding us for all sorts of things, to which I say, bah.

**John:** Bah. I say direct your criticisms to the people who wrote this really good article, Tim Lee and Sean Trott, because we were sort of summarizing what we read there. If we summarized it wrong, meh, sorry.

**Craig:** Bah.

**John:** We will put a link in the show notes to this article, which was really well done and did talk me through a lot of stuff.

**Craig:** It was a good one.

**John:** Did talk through a lot of stuff I’d never seen before.

**Craig:** It was really smart.

**John:** Listener questions. What do you got for us, Drew?

**Drew:** Ken in Norway writes, “Longtime listener here who finally transitioned to TV writing a couple years, helped and inspired by your guidance, so thank you for that. Now that I have to write stuff people actually are planning on producing, I keep thinking about Craig’s tip to not move until you see it. The way I interpret it is to not write the story or the scene until you believe it. My question is, how do you balance this with deadlines? You can’t really plan on having an epiphany Wednesday morning or finding the missing piece of the puzzle by the end of the week, so the only reliable way forward is to muscle through. On the other hand, you don’t want to churn out something that you feel in your gut isn’t really working. That won’t help anybody. Do you have any thoughts of how to better your odds of seeing it in time, or is the seeing it relative to the amount of pressure you’re under?”

**Craig:** This is one of the reasons it’s important to start working right away, because I think writers sometimes presume they have more time than they do, because they are not pricing in the moments where they can’t see it. If you get eight weeks to write something, start writing it on day one. Start doing the work on day one at least, if you’re outlining or whatever it is. Get to work.

When you know what you’re doing, well make hay while the sun is shining, because you’re going to run into some trouble at some point. You’re going to need the extra time to think things through. Hopefully, taking advantage of the time you have and pushing through and being smart and banking some time is going to help you with that.

The other thing is, there are times where you may need a little bit of extra time. Now, certain circumstances, you will not be afforded the extra time. In other circumstances, people will afford you some extra time. What they’re not telling you is that there are terrible costs to making changes. It’s going to take them a lot more time to find a new writer than it will for you to just finish, generally speaking.

What I would suggest is, from a practical point of view, if you’re going to call and ask for more time, when you do, explain that you had a problem, it took you some time, but you have solved it. You’re very pleased, and now you’re full speed ahead once again. However, this has put you a little bit behind. If you call and say, “I am having a problem. I cannot see it. I need extra time,” that’s just going to send everybody into a tizzy.

**John:** All that advice is fair and good and true. I will say there have been times in my life where I’ve had to just muscle things, where these pieces don’t quite fit the way I know they possibly could fit, I can envision a world in which these things worked better and I got from this moment to this moment a little bit more smoothly. The needs of getting this draft in outweighed the artistic pinnacle optimization of this one moment. Therefore, I muscled it and knew that we’re going to go back there and work through that again. That’s just the reality.

Then sometimes, the train is leaving the station, and you have to make that scene work the best it can work, so that you can actually keep going. Don’t beat yourself up about that.

Craig’s basic advice, basically, is to make sure that you’re using all of your time all the way up through it, is true. You have to do that. The only thing that makes me nervous about don’t move until you see it is people can, if there’s not a deadline, just be paralyzed forever. They can be trying to solve a problem that essentially has no answer, or they’re imagining a solution that doesn’t actually even exist, and we actually have to reevaluate what is causing the problem, rather than trying to find a solution to that problem.

**Craig:** I would say that’s part of not moving until you see it, because if it’s been a week and you haven’t seen it, you may not have the problem you think you have. You may have a very different problem. At that point, you need to step back even a little bit further.

You’re trying ultimately to follow the “a stitch in time saves nine” plan. By the way, when I was a kid, I did not understand what that meant, because there were no commas in it. A stitch in time saves nine. I’m like, what is a stitch in time?

**John:** A stitch, comma, in time, saves nine.

**Craig:** Where was the appositive phrase markers for me? They were nowhere. “A stitch in times saves nine” makes no damn sense. “A stitch, in time, saves nine,” makes… Commas. Commas, folks.

**John:** They’re so useful.

**Craig:** Damn.

**John:** So useful.

**Craig:** Hopefully we helped there, Tim.

**John:** Let’s try one more.

**Drew:** State Your Name and Outlet writes, “I was listening to the episode That’s a Good Question, and it made me want to ask you something I’ve been wondering for a while. Over the last few years, I’ve taken on more and more work as an interviewer for a film and TV publication, which has led me to participating in something I’ve heard Craig and many others talk about with contempt. That is, of course, the press junket.”

**Craig:** Dun dun duh.

**Drew:** “I’ve been a writer for most of my life, and have much more sympathy for people like you two, who are stuck in a room doing four-minute interview after four-minute interview, than I do for people trying to get a snappy quote for a headline. I try to ask interesting and crafty questions, but also don’t want to presume whoever is on the other end wants anything more than to get out of there. I guess my question is, what is your ideal junket interaction?”

**John:** That is a good question. Maybe you’re a good junketeer yourself, because you’re asking a good question here. I would say my experience at press junkets, the person who gets the assignment basically understands, “I understand what this show is, what this movie is,” and is genuinely curious and fascinated by some element of it, some specific thing. That is what’s going to lead to a good answer from me, because I’ve just been saying the exact same thing again and again and again, but if you can come at a specific and ask me those specifics, it will go well.

I think back to when Greta Gerwig came on the show to talk about Little Women. It was the first time we actually had script pages in front of us. I could ask her, “Talk to me about this scene and why you did it this way. Was there any push back on that?” No one asked her specifics about a scene or literally the words on a page.

If you can come to one of these things and ask a specific question about a specific moment, you’re going to get an answer that is going to be so much more useful to you and will actually delight me or Craig or whoever you’re sitting across from.

**Craig:** Listen. I don’t want to imply that I’m contemptuous of the people that do these things. I’m not. They’re doing a job. It’s the overall experience that’s exhausting. Each individual person is doing their job.

The first person of the day is the best person, because you’re fresh. You started. They’re asking you a question. No one’s asked you that today. You give your answer. Sometimes the best person of the day is the last one, because you know you’re about to be done, and also, by that point, you’ve answered that one same question so many times, you’ve found the perfect mix of words to answer it.

The process can be exhausting and dispiriting for me, because you are being often asked three questions over and over and over. My advice for State Your Name and Outlet is to really think carefully if you need the answer to that obvious question, because after all, while everyone else is asking it, it means everyone else is going to have that content in their article. What if you just refuse to ask those questions, because no one needs the answers to those questions.

Honestly, nobody interviewing me today needs me to answer the following question: What was the hardest challenge to adapt a video game into a television show? I’ve answered this question 4 million times. If you are curious, you can merely Google, and you’ll have the answer in many, many slightly varying versions.

A new question is a delight. You will see the person on the other side of the microphone light up if you are asking them a novel question, and particularly, if you are asking them a novel question and studiously avoiding asking them the one that they’re asked over and over and over. That’s my advice. Just don’t ask those questions. You know what they are. Everybody knows what they are. If someone above you is saying, “You gotta get them to answer this question,” push back a little bit and say, “Do we?”

**John:** You don’t have to ask that question, because honestly, you’re probably not going to print the question. You’re going to print what Craig says. If you get Craig to say something interesting, that’s what you’re going to print. Then you can frame it however you want to frame the story, however you want to frame it. Ask something interesting, and you’ll get an interesting answer.

**Craig:** That’d be an interesting exercise, to show up at a press junket with your prediction of those questions written down on cards, and just put them out in front of you, but face down. If someone asks that question, you just reach over, because they’re numbered, and you know which one they are, and you just turn it over, and that’s how they know, “Uh-oh, I should probably move on to another question.” Boy, would you be a jerk.

**John:** Oh my god.

**Craig:** Oh my god.

**John:** That asshole.

**Craig:** Literally every interview, every article would be about how you’re just a dick, because you know what? You would be a dick. Listen.

**John:** It’s the game. You’re not playing the game.

**Craig:** When somebody said, “What was the trickiest challenge to adapting a video game to a television show,” never once was I like, “Oh god, really? I already answered that question.” No, I answer it like it’s the first time I’ve heard it, because that’s the polite and nice thing to do.

The whole purpose of doing that stuff is to give these folks something to run in their publication which theoretically will appeal to people at home to turn the show on and watch it. It’s a commensalist relationship. You can’t be a jerk.

By the way, I have no problem with people who get up and walk out of interviews where the interviewer is being a jerk. That’s different. I’ve seen some of those. Happily, I’ve never had that experience. There’s no need to be a jerk about any of this. That said, since State Your Name and Outlet asked for the advice, the advice, don’t ask that question.

**John:** It’s come time for our One Cool Things.

**Craig:** Yay.

**John:** My One Cool Thing is a book that I read over this last couple weeks. This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amar El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. I love a book that’s written by two people, which is unusual. It is this sci-fi romance between these two agents battling on opposite sides across these multiple timelines. It’s structured as an epistolary, so these letters being exchanged back and forth between these two strangers, who then get to know each other over the course of this.

It is sprawling. The world-building is amazing. The word usage, it’s good for this episode. Just the word craft is incredibly good. The voice and the difference between the voices of these two agents is great. I just really dug it. It’s one of those high-concept things that you think couldn’t work, and worked brilliantly.

The backstory on it is also fascinating, because this came out in 2019 and got some acclaim, but I only heard about it because this last May, this guy named Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood tweeted about this, basically said, “Stop what you’re doing and pick up this book. It’s amazing.”

**Craig:** What a world we live in.

**John:** That went viral. That’s how I got aware of it. I picked it up, and I’m really glad I did. This Is How You Lose The Time War.

**Craig:** My One Cool Thing will flow right into our Bonus episode, as promised. In memory of Sinead O’Connor, who passed away, unfortunately, far too young, just a little over a week ago, I believe, I want to recommend one song to watch, because I think the performance is just as important as the song. Visually, to see it is just as important.

It’s a performance of her song Troy. I don’t know if I would call it a deep cut, but it wasn’t a hit. One of my favorite songs. It’s a live recording from a concert in 1988. It’s a long song. It’s worth the time, because what you see on display there is not only beautiful songwriting and excellent grasp of words and lyrics, but honesty and emotion and performance.

When we talk about, “Oh, I don’t believe that,” or what is quality, the genuine expression of emotion, and the emotion that is expressed changing over the course of the song, from begging to praise to condemnation to confusion to self-doubt and recrimination and finally to accusation is remarkable. It is kind of like what we do when we’re doing our work at our best. It is astonishing. When you get to the end of the song, I challenge anybody to neatly summarize her relationship with the person she’s singing the song to. You cannot. That is why it’s great.

**John:** It is great. A thing that I really admire about that song is it doesn’t have a chorus verse structure at all. It keeps building and building and building. You don’t know where you’re at in the song. Then it gets up to this big finale. It’s fantastic.

**Craig:** It’s stunning to watch. There’s a couple moments where the song will take a break, and then it begins, like a pause, a pregnant pause, and then it starts up. In the first one, as is often the case in concerts, you hit this big note and a pause, and the pause is filled by people in the audience going, “Woo!” The second time through, the other ones, no one says a goddamn thing, because they’re transfixed, as well they should be.

**John:** As they should be. That is our show for this week. Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt.

**Craig:** What what.

**John:** It’s edited by Matthew Chilelli.

**Craig:** Whoop whoop.

**John:** Our outro this week is by Jacob Weisblat. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send questions and follow-up. You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find the transcripts and sign up for our weeklyish newsletter called Inneresting, which has lots of links to things about writing.

We have T-shirts and hoodies, and they’re great. You’ll find them at Cotton Bureau. Looks like we have a new T-shirt that’s going to be coming up soon. Craig, you’ll love it. I’ll talk to you about it off mic.

You can sign up to become a Premium member at scriptnotes.net, where you can get all the back-episodes and Bonus Segments. If you are listening to this on Tuesday, you can still join us for the live show on Wednesday. You can get a streaming ticket for that. You can see us and our special guests at The Dynasty Typewriter. Craig, Drew, thanks for a fun show.

**Craig:** Thank you, John.

[Bonus Segment]

**John:** Sinead O’Connor. I feel like maybe we should do a little bit of table-setting here, because I recognize that we are both men in our 50s, and she broke on the scene when we were transitioning from high school to college. We were just exactly the sweet spot for Sinead O’Connor to be a thing. My daughter has no idea who Sinead O’Connor is or was. Craig, what can you set up for us about her?

**Craig:** Sinead O’Connor released her debut album, The Lion and the Cobra, it was 1987, so I was a junior in high school. I suspect you were-

**John:** As was I.

**Craig:** Oh, you were a junior as well. Then followed that up with I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got in 1990. I’ll readily admit that I obsessively listened to those albums and dropped off after that. Those were the albums that I listened to.

**John:** Those were the albums for me too.

**Craig:** I listened to them all. My friend Gene and I had rooms side by side in our dorm. We would play Gin Rummy, because that was more fun than doing work. We would just either have The Lion and the Cobra or I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. What’s interesting is you’re like, oh, here’s a couple of bros in college listening to a woman who was unlike anyone else at the time.

Maybe you could argue that Boy George had kind of set a little bit of a stage, as well as Annie Lennox, for somewhat androgynous pop stars. Sinead O’Connor, it didn’t feel like a gimmick necessarily. It wasn’t structured. She was an Irish woman who did come out of nowhere and exploded out there. She was notable for shaving her head. She had no hair. She was also stunningly beautiful. It was this really weird, confusing combination of elements. She had no problem both using and denying her own physical beauty to center and put forward her songwriting ability, her music, and her voice.

Her voice, this is where, hey kids, go ahead and listen to Troy live and see what people used to sound like when there wasn’t auto-tune or backing tracks. Her voice was astonishing. She could do things with it, and not in a Freddie Mercury virtuosic way, but in an emotional, expressive way, that I haven’t actually heard anybody else do.

**John:** She had a dynamic range that was incredible too. Her ability to whisper a lyric and then just belt it to the far realms was incredible. She did feel unearthly, and partly because of the shaved head and all that stuff. It did feel like she was some elfin creature who’d come out of some other dimension. That also carried through into her voice.

There’s a tradition of incredibly talented female singer-songwriters, Joni Mitchell and going way back. That’s not new. I think about her as a template for other people down the road. You can think of Lorde or Billie Eilish. You don’t want to diminish what makes each of them unique and special.

When I think of her in addition to those, I worry for women who would build up to these paragons now, that the same kinds of things could happen to them that happened to her, because her arc is not great. She had this success, and then she had struggles with mental health. She had lots of things that later in her life became real challenges.

Obviously, the story everyone knows about is that when she tore up the photo of the Pope on Saturday Night Live, which I remember live and not really understanding what even happened. I didn’t even see it was the Pope. I didn’t understand what that was in the moment. That became a source of huge controversy.

**Craig:** It is undeniable that Sinead O’Connor struggled with mental health. That said, so many people do. That wasn’t why she got knocked off her perch so hard. It was that moment.

Sinead O’Connor was placed with, I believe it was a convent-run laundry, in Ireland. These were notorious Catholic institutions that were abusive. The Catholic church has a dreadful track record, as we all know, when it comes to care-taking of children and doing damage. She had a tremendous resentment against it.

If today, someone who had been raised in a Catholic orphanage went on television and ripped up a picture of the Pope, I think there would be a healthy and earnest debate about it. What there wouldn’t be is a consensus that she was a nutter, because that’s what happened. The very next week, as I recall, on Saturday Night Live, they made fun of her, which was easy to do. Put a bald wig on a lady and everyone immediately starts laughing, like, oh, Sinead O’Connor, she’s ripping up a picture of the Pope.

The thing about Sinead O’Connor in retrospect was, A, she was right, and B, she didn’t seem to give a shit. Even though it was within the framework of having the number one album in the United States, her second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, went number one, and with this massive hit song written by Prince, Nothing Compares 2U, she was also still the woman who was shaving her head. She didn’t care. She took a big shot there.

I don’t think ultimately that that incident is why she suffered mental health problems. I do think that incident impacted her career. To the extent that that hurt her and upset her, that is deeply unfortunate, because it shouldn’t have. Catholic church is a mess. I don’t care. People can go on Saturday Night Live and make fun of me. I don’t care. I also don’t care, because I’m so brave and also bald. Easy for me to say now. Not easy for anyone to say back then, but certainly not a young woman on TV, who was already turning away from convention.

**John:** You already mentioned Troy as a song people should seek out. I’m going to put Success Has Made A Failure of Our Home, so Loretta Lynn’s song that she covered on her third album.

**Craig:** Am I Not Your Girl.

**John:** Am I Not Your Girl. It’s fantastic. It’s a song I was not aware of until I heard her sing it. It’s gorgeous. One of the things I loved about, there was a moment in time where there would be, Red Hot and Blue, there were a bunch of special albums, where they would bring in pop stars to do one charity album. You’d hear these great bands do a cover of something that was completely not in their wheelhouse. Those were fantastic. There’s a Cole Porter one. It was Red Hot and Blue. I just remember that CD being just a delight, top to bottom. This was again this case where to hear her cover this song was fantastic to me.

**Craig:** I’m not sure there would be any song that if someone said, “Do you think Sinead O’Connor could successfully cover this?” I think the answer is always yes, again because of the elasticity of her voice and the rawness of the emotion and the honesty. Just to refer once more to that performance of Troy, it’s about commitment. One of the things that we look for when we are guiding actors as directors is commitment and an abandonment of self into the moment. It would’ve been really interesting to see Sinead O’Connor trying that form of art, because her commitment while singing is 100%. It is pure. It is not manipulative. It’s just true. It’s just true. Really interesting.

Also, the other thing that happened with her later in life, which led to I guess some more snickering or something, is that she converted to Islam and stuck with it too. It didn’t seem like it was a whimsical, “I’m nuts, let me try this thing now.” She stood with it. We’re using her name, Sinead O’Connor. That’s the name she was given, but that is not the name that she ultimately chose to live as. She was born Sinead Marie Bernadette O’Connor. Side note, nobody until Sinead O’Connor understood how to pronounce any Gaelic word at all.

**John:** It’s true.

**Craig:** When it first came out, everyone was like, “Who’s sin-EE-ad?” You’re like, “No, man, it’s shuh-NAYD.” “What?” That’s how we learned how that worked.

**John:** Like the classic spelling of Sivan, no one was able to do that before.

**Craig:** Nobody was able to do that before. She did convert to Islam and changed her name to Shuhada’ Sadaqat, important to acknowledge that.

**John:** Absolutely. The other thing I want to throw, I fell down a YouTube hole with Sinead O’Connor, just looking at different performances, a more recent one is All Apologies, the Nirvana song. She does, of course, an amazing cover of that.

**Craig:** That’s the thing. I feel like, oh-

**John:** There’s a kinship between Kurt Cobain and Sinead O’Connor that makes sense.

**Craig:** I think there’s a kinship between every artist that maybe suffers from an overcommitment. We in the audience are the beneficiaries of those who commit so fully that they burn themselves up in the flame of their own feelings and art. It’s painful to watch how many people have done that. In our own ways, as writers, because what we do is much slower and not performative, we are insulated from that, but not completely. I’m sure you’ve felt it. I feel it all the time, the price. There’s a price.

**John:** Craig, one thing is we have to balance though. We can recognize that there are performers who do that and that that is a real thing that happens, and being careful to not over-glamorize it to the point where that’s the only way to make art is to destroy yourself to it.

**Craig:** It’s not. It’s not. That’s the thing. What happens is, I think it is exciting when you see people throwing themselves into things so fully. By all accounts, watching Jim Morrison with The Doors in the ‘60s was mind-blowing. I completely agree with you. It is not necessary to make great art whatsoever. Disciplined artists ultimately win out as superior, because they are able to create more for longer, but to the extent that Sinead did do something unique. I don’t believe there has been anyone else like her since she burst onto the scene.

Also, one of the things that her passing drove home for me is how time screws with you as you get older, because when we were in college, Sinead O’Connor was so much older than we were. She was five years older than we were.

**John:** That’s all it was.

**Craig:** Now it’s like, she died, she was 56. I’m 52, but basically I’m 56. What’s the difference? It is remarkable how close we were in age. It makes it more upsetting. It makes it more upsetting.

**John:** It does. Rest in peace to Sinead O’Connor. If you’ve not checked out her music, if you’re a younger person who just barely knows the name, worth spending some time digging through that, because you will find an amazing artist and really just a ground breaker.

**Craig:** No question. She was one of a kind and gone too soon and will be missed.

**John:** Great. Thanks so much.

**Craig:** Thank you.

Links:

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* [Weekend Read 2](https://quoteunquoteapps.com/weekendread/), now available on [MacOS](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/weekend-read-2/id1534798355).
* [Large language models, explained with a minimum of math and jargon](https://www.understandingai.org/p/large-language-models-explained-with) by Timothy B Lee and Sean Trott
* [Word Vectors](http://vectors.nlpl.eu/explore/embeddings/en/MOD_enwiki_upos_skipgram_300_2_2021/cat_NOUN/)
* [Decrypto](https://www.decrypto.info/)
* [Matt Gaffney’s Weekly Crossword Contest](https://xwordcontest.com/)
* [This Is How You Lose the Time War](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/This-Is-How-You-Lose-the-Time-War/Amal-El-Mohtar/9781534430990) by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
* [Sinéad O’Connor – Troy (Live At The Dominion Theatre, 1988)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lV21J75vFE)
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* Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by [Matthew Chilelli](https://twitter.com/machelli).

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/607standard.mp3).

The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2023/character-and-story-fit).

**John August:** Hey, this is John. Heads up that today’s episode has just a little bit of swearing in it.

Hello and welcome. My name is John August, and this is Episode 606 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

How do you know if you got the right characters for your story, and whether you got the right story for your characters? To help us solve this crucial piece of matchmaking, we welcome back Pamela Ribon, a screenwriter whose credits include Moana, Ralph Breaks the Internet, and the new Netflix feature, Nimona. Her short film, My Year of Dicks, was not only a previous One Cool Thing, it’s also an Oscar nominee. It made Craig giggle every time I said it. Welcome back, Pammy.

**Pamela Ribon:** Hi. Thank you for having me.

**John:** I’m so excited to have you on the podcast again. Full disclosure, you moderated a session very recently about screenwriting, and your questions were so brilliant so insightful, and you’re leading of the discussion. I actually suppressed my need to take over all those things. You know what I’m talking about.

**Pamela:** I do. This is the highest praise I’ve ever received. Thank you so much.

**John:** They were so, so good that I stopped myself in answering questions and didn’t try to redirect the question. I recognize you as a fellow podcast host. If at any point you feel you need to elevate yourself from just guest to podcast co-host, feel free.

**Pamela:** I will be your Craig as much as you need. I will take umbrage, but you will find that I’m a more empathetic umbrage person.

**John:** Yeah, but you have strong opinions though, and I like that too. You have strong opinions about craft. I really want to dig in and talk about craft. I also want to talk about recapping, because you were a recapper. I want to talk about that relationship between writing about film and television and writing film and television, what that is. I’ve got some listener questions. I’m excited to get to it.

Also, for a Bonus Segment for Premium members, I want to talk about your podcast, because you have a podcast called Listen to Sassy, which is all going through the back issues of Sassy Magazine and discussing the relevance then and the relevance now?

**Pamela:** Yes, and the official issues of Sassy Magazine, because there are some that we might say aren’t canon.

**John:** Wow. I did not even know that. I’m learning even as we start this podcast. Hey, let’s jump into this. Let’s talk about character and character fit, because this is a large part of the discussion we had a few weeks ago as we were talking. You started with a really smart question, which was, what is your favorite character that you did not create. I don’t remember what your answer for that question was yourself. What is a character that you wish you had created?

**Pamela:** What’s interesting is I wouldn’t have answered this in any other room, but the room we were in and the conversation we were having led me to answer Annie. What I’m going to say right now is Paddington in Paddington 2.

**John:** Let’s talk about Paddington in Paddington 2, because it’s a great movie. It’s a great character. Talk to us about, why is that a perfect movie for Paddington to be in, and vice versa.

**Pamela:** Part of why Paddington is perfect in Paddington 2… That movie is perfect. Perfect movie. This movie, imagine like double XL. This movie is perfect, because when you know what Paddington wants, from being a little bit in a book, which only this movie could do, from us knowing his backstory, which just happened, we’re just in. We’re just in. I remember saying out loud, “This is perfect.”

It’s not easy. I was so awed by how you can bring every single person in the whole wide world to understand, what if I could walk this person I love through the world, because of the book. I just need this book. I grew up with The NeverEnding Story and Annie. I think in the room, I answered Annie.

**John:** You did. I remember you answering Annie.

**Pamela:** Definitely. You love her.

**John:** Annie and Paddington are similar characters, in that they are not hugely flawed characters who have to learn a valuable lesson that transforms them. They start the movie with clean and simple wants. The movie wants to give it to them, but will make it difficult along the way.

**Pamela:** I think I am drawn to those characters, like in Whale Rider, or going all the way to the other end, secretary. I think I am drawn to characters who know who they are, but the world doesn’t understand them.

**John:** That’s so fascinating, because usually we think about, movies are journey of self-discovery, so over the course of the movie, the character has to learn about themselves and challenge their assumptions about what they’re able to do, in order to conquer the problem in front of them and to transform the world in front of them. They have to transform themselves in order to transform the world.

I think I brought this up in the room. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie Bucket is not a character who has to go through a big arc. The character in the book, he is a good kid from the start. I kept fighting these studio notes from like, “Oh, Charlie has to want it more. We have to see him struggle.” No, he’s actually a good, perfect kid. He does need to change the world around him, but he’s changing it in the way an antagonist changes the world, rather than protagonist. He doesn’t have to exit the movie profoundly changed from how he entered into it.

**Pamela:** I always think of characters are moving right, being right. I have a problem when they’re always moving right, always being right. I do think you have to find this balance of, you’re right, the world needs to know you’re right, and because the world is bending, you actually learn you can be wrong inside that right. That’s that end of second act feeling of, “Oh, shit. I didn’t have it all figured out, because no one let me grow.”

**John:** Let’s back up and talk about character and story fit, because I think so often, we are lectured that story comes from character, character want is what drives story. It’s true, but also, that’s generally not the starting place for an idea.

An idea is generally about like, “This is the world in which I want to tell the story. I want to tell a story about a character who does blank blank blank.” Then you’re backing into, who is the best, most appropriate character to put into that story.

It’s not so clean. It’s like, “I’m going to create a character in a vacuum and then set them in a world for a story.” That just never happens. It’s not a thing that a writer almost ever really experiences. Instead, they’re like, “This is the place in which the story needs to happen. Now we need to find who is the perfect character to tell that story.”

I’m wondering if we can talk about some animated movies, because they often are cleaner ways to get into this. For something like Moana, which you were writing on, was this like, “We want to tell a story about Pacific Islanders and this universe,” and then you had to find a character, or was there a clear like, “We want to tell a story of a chieftain’s daughter who goes on this quest.” What was the back and forth between the two of them?

**Pamela:** It’s a little of what you said on both sides, and also neither, let me say.

**John:** Perfect. That’s what it is. It’s complicated.

**Pamela:** It’s very complicated. I come in right after Taika Waititi had written a draft. My first day was a table read, which you’re just in the story trust, day one, like, “Welcome to this.”

I would say a lot of times, I am brought in when people are very comfortable with structure, they understand where they want it to go, but perhaps their female character could use some help owning the film.

**John:** Making sure they’re not a passenger in the film, but actually driving the film.

**Pamela:** Maui’s a very dominant character. In Taika’s hands, he was beyond charismatic, so what do you do? Moana at the time was only 13. She had a bunch of brothers. She wasn’t allowed to sail because she was a girl. That is where we started during my time there.

**John:** A lot had been done before you got there, so it wasn’t a completely clean slate. When you’re thinking about a movie from scratch, it’s that balance. Most of our listeners are probably thinking of their own thing they want to do. They will look through books that will tell them, oh, story comes from character. We’ve said it on the podcast. They may be beating themselves up, like, “I need to find this perfect character, and then the story will come out of that.”

That’s not necessarily a good solution, because I’ve had experiences where I absolutely love this character, I’ve been down a draft with a character, and I love this person, and they are just not the right person to base this movie around. I made the wrong choice. We often talk about how sidekicks steal movies, because they are characters who are just more interesting to watch in the world that we’ve created for ourselves.

**Pamela:** They’re there because your protagonist has to be on a straight line, and so they aren’t always allowed to be so chaotically funny. We enjoy our sidekicks, because they can just keep nudging at that protagonist, to say, “I think you need to change. I think you need to change. What’s wrong with you? Can’t you see what’s wrong with you? Isn’t it better to live like me?” That sidekick has some growing to learn. The protagonist is what’s actually going to help the world.

**John:** Exactly. I think back to Big Fish. For the adaptation of Big Fish, there’s a book that I could base it off of, but the book is really thin, and it only has sketches of these characters and situations. I went into the adaptation knowing who Edward was, knowing who Will, the son, was, which is basically a proxy for me. I knew that Will had a French wife, which I just created because I needed someone for him to talk to. Then I had to figure out everything else.

Those characters can feel very functional along the way. They’re getting me through a section of story. Then the trick is to make them feel like those were characters who were always there, who always had a reason and a purpose and own their life, you could make a story about them, even though they really were just functional for me in this story to tell this one bit of it. It’s that sleight of hand, where you feel like, oh, any one of these people could drive the story, but of course they couldn’t, because it has to be about this one time, event that this one character is going through.

**Pamela:** Going back to the question you asked me earlier, this is not true, but Taika likes to joke that all that’s left in the script from what he did is exterior ocean day. It’s not true. It’s not true, but it’s a very funny joke.

That was the part, going back to that question, that was interesting, because you had so many scenes that had no walls, they had no props. You’re two people maybe, or just Moana, on a boat. Ocean. Exterior ocean day. That is not a world that is populated.

When you think about moving on to something like Ralph Breaks the Internet, where the whole world is very important. In fact, you can’t make some of these characters exist until you understand what this internet world looks like in the, quote unquote, room they might be in. You’re like, “Oh, I understand a knowledge base, a data search engine was that character.” In terms of Moana, you have the endless sea.

**John:** Can I ask you a question? I remember looking at the initial posters. I went in and saw early art on Moana. I got a talking through of who the different characters were. Some of those characters did not make it through to the movie. I can say that specifically there was a poster that released that showed the pig on the boat.

I feel like my instinct was that some of those characters were brought along on the journey just so there would be stuff to do on those boat journeys, as we were off on sea, exterior ocean day. They ultimately were not crucial to the story. They probably got trimmed, maybe late in the process. That’s the kind of discovery that can happen in animation particularly, because you just got to keep iterating and iterating and iterating. Without spoiling, revealing any NDA stuff, am I kind of right?

**Pamela:** Listen. Look. How old is this? Are these NDAs still happening? I feel like I’m just going to tell you. First of all, like I said, she was younger when I was writing on the script.

I can talk to you about Pua, who was named Kuni [ph] when I was working on it, because kuni means pig. So does Pua. That pig originally went with her, because you also learned how she had rescued this pig as a little tiny runt that was going to be left to die. She brought that pig home and raised that pig. That was her pig.

There was something about having Pua along on the journey that made the stakes a little too high. I totally understand this was past my time, but you’re just like, “She can’t just leave the boat.” I knew this feeling. She left the boat to go somewhere else. You’re like, “I don’t care about Hei Hei, but you can’t leave Pua. He’s such a sweet piggy.”

**John:** No one cares about the chicken.

**Pamela:** Yeah. The sweet piggy can’t be… It became too high of stakes, actually, for her to continue her journey. I do understand Pua’s going to stay home, because otherwise, you’ve brought a puppy on your boat, and how are you supposed to leave that puppy in a lava realm? You just can’t. It’s too scary.

**John:** Let’s talk about the room and animation, because we had Jennifer Lee on the show, and she was talking about her experience on Frozen and coming in at a place where they had a lot of the pieces, and they couldn’t make all the pieces fit. A lot of it was figuring out, “Okay, what do we have here? How do we get back to this central relationship? How do we make this all work?”

As a feature writer, I’m mostly used to working alone, or I get notes from a person, or I work with a director. There’s TV writers who are used to working in a room of other writers. As an animation writer, you can find yourself in situations where you’re at these big tables, where it’s not just other writers, it’s a bunch of other people from other departments. You’re all having to talk through these things. You’re having to figure out how do we synthesize these ideas and get back to a place.

If you’re the writer who’s coming in on a project like Moana or Ralph Breaks the Internet, how do you take all that in and synthesize this and give them back something they need? At what point do you stop talking and start writing and show scenes? What is that like for you?

**Pamela:** Much like in TV, it’s different in every room. It’s led by that showrunner, who will be your director, or directors. They set the tone. Moana and Ralph and Smurfs, so whatever, each one is a very different room.

I would say what’s interesting, coming into animation when I did, was a real specific change, probably Pixar led, of, hey, a writer might have something to say in this room and might have some reason to be talking to you.

What I found really cool was, this might be because I moved around a lot, but part of it was looking at each room and going, “Oh, okay. Oh, so now I’m talking to mostly visual artists,” whose brains are already adding. They take a sequence and think of it as five minutes. They’re already adding and plussing, which is why we have the best stuff in animation, because each person is really filling it to the top of their own game.

How do you talk to that person without stifling them, while also explaining, like, “You don’t have to think about the other 88 minutes, but I do. This scene is great. Put everything you want in it, but just make sure this happens and this happens and at the end it’s this. If we can do that together, if you do that on your own… ”

I think I prefer working with storyboard artists, because they’re able to give me what exterior ocean day looks like, or interior Fale night. I don’t really know what that means. Interior Ebay day. Once I can see what they see, I can show them what I think they should say. Then together, we can make something that you can pitch back to a director, that is more fully formed than either of us can do on our own.

You don’t get that option often in a TV writing room, unless you’re off in a B-room or whatever, and you’re all like, “Let’s hope these jokes make it.” It’s the same skill.

**John:** In TV though, you don’t have the chance to iterate, where you see, “What was this? What did it look like? Great. Now let’s go back,” because in TV, ultimately you’re still delivering a script, which will then go off to another group of people who will make the show. You’ll have, hopefully, writers there to help oversee it. You don’t get that chance to like, “Oh, everyone’s looking at the same thing. What are we going to do for this next pass?”

**Pamela:** I started in more multi-cams. You did have a rehearsal. Everybody’s on their feet. Everybody’s giving input. You also have a lot of weird downtime, because you’re a staff writer, and learning what to do with all of that time and then learning what everyone else does. I would say for any room I’m in or any job I’m on, while doing the job, I also want to know, what can I learn from this?

**John:** Of course.

**Pamela:** I would say that, from working in IBM tech support before I moved out to LA, all the way to anime dub jobs or working in reality television and recapping, all of that leads into what I’m doing in a Disney room, where I’m talking to people who are seeing what I’m saying, before I’m even done saying what I’m saying, and just knowing how to pick up all these words, which you do as a writer once you’re in the edit bay or you’re in casting or whatever. These are just different words. It’s their language.

**John:** Now, I have made a lot of animated movies, but weirdly, the movies that I’ve worked on have been much more like traditional features, where I’ve delivered a script, here’s the script, or I will get reel back, but then I’ll change stuff in the reels. It’s not been that sort of collaborative thing, because it’s mostly been stop-motion.

In stop-motion, you get that one shot to shoot something, and there’s not the iteration there is in either traditional animation or computer animation. We don’t get to do the kinds of things you see in Disney features. I remember going in on some Disney features that I was shocked what a mess the project was, and like, “Is this coming out in a year? Are you serious?”

**Pamela:** That’s a good screening five is what I’m going to guess, when you’re running screening four, screening five of a-

**John:** I’m like, “Oh, god.” Then somehow, it does come together, which is just remarkable. It’s a strange thing for me to see. You have to trust the process that you’ll get there, to the right place. I guess you don’t always get to the right place, but you often get to the right place.

**Pamela:** It’s tough to trust the process, I think, depending on where you are in the situation. How do you trust the process when you’re not given access to the whole thing all the time?

**John:** That’s the thing. In many cases, I haven’t gotten full access, or it was so clear, the movie is shooting in London, and I just know they’re going to make it happen, or it’s Tim Burton, he’s going to shoot exactly what’s there, and so it’s going to work.

Giving up control for any writer on any project is part of it. It’s recognizing that it’s never going to be exactly what you saw in your head. With animation, sometimes the timelines are so long and the iterations are so many, that you could really lose a sense of what the intention was.

**Pamela:** Yeah. I think the trick is knowing that you’re usually not the first, and probably not going to be the last, unless you’re like, “This movie’s coming out in six months. I got it. I got it. I’m going to get credit. It’s going to be great.”

You just stay very invested, in the time that you’re there, to do the thing that you know the movie needs the most work in, which is either our main characters, our dynamic of our most important relationship is not zinging, or, “Man, this first act is too long. How can we care about them sooner?” and shoot the movie.

Animation in particular I think needs long first acts, that eventually we cut, once the movie is like, I feel this moment, the movie has begun. That takes a little while to find.

**John:** The gears click in.

**Pamela:** Yes, because the last thing animation looks for are characters.

**John:** Say more about that.

**Pamela:** They start from a world that’s impossible to do in live action, or you do it in live action. You have to start in this like, “What is the internet? What would the internet look like?” Just taking that one as an easy answer.

Once you try to figure out how a place can be both something you’ve never seen before and a place that feels like, “Of course I’ve been here, because I’m here all the time theoretically, but I’ve never seen it,” then you’re like, “Who should go through this journey and make us feel the most like us going through this crazy world we’ve never seen before?”

**John:** Yeah, but in this case of the internet, you have characters you’re bringing back for another movie. Yes, you’re going to create supporting characters who are going to be exactly right for that, but you cannot create your two central characters. You have to create a world that is going to challenge them and their relationship and still be rewarding for the world itself. That’s a big ask.

**Pamela:** That’s very astute, because you’re taking two characters who only know old-school video games and an arcade that’s not visited as often, because there’s this internet. What would they do in this infinite world?

There was a want at one point that kicked off the movie. It didn’t last, but it’s still one of my favorites, where Vanellope could see a little bit beyond the door every time the arcade was closed. The only thing she could see was Yoshinoya beef bowl. She just wanted to know what that… It just sounded so perfect.

**John:** Oh my god, what a great lyric to sing. (singing:) Yoshinoya. Yoshinoya.

**Pamela:** (singing:) Yoshinoya beef bowl. She was just like, “Doesn’t it sound perfect? I just want to know what it is. I want to eat it if I can, or swim in it if I must. I just want to know what that is.” That was that idea of eventually Slaughter Race, of, I want to know this thing that makes me feel like that’s where I’m supposed to be. Originally, they were just going to get online and try to find the Yoshinoya people. I think we moved into bitter yearnings.

That’s the idea of how do you get a character that you know and love, in a sequel, how do you get a character you know and love to want just the next step, so that you have the same wonderful feelings that you’re visiting your old friends, but you have a new adventure? That’s very hard in a sequel, because your protagonist is arced.

**John:** Yeah. They’ve gotten all the way through it. Toy Story, god bless them. Those characters arced and arced, and we’re going to make them arc more. It’s a challenge.

**Pamela:** We’re going to get hard in there. We’re going to cause forever scars on people who watch this.

**John:** Let’s go back to some of your forever scars. I want to talk about recapping, because for folks who don’t know, could you explain what recapping is or was? Because I feel like there’s a whole generation that may have just not experienced this as a thing, but it was so important to me as a person who was growing up on the internet.

**Pamela:** First, imagine the internet as a place where you read. You just read. You go there to read more about what you saw. It is something you’re doing to look like you’re working. That’s what’s great about the fact that it’s a lot of reading. You look very busy.

Television Without Pity started as Mighty Big TV, which was actually an offshoot of DawsonsWrap, which Tara Ariano and Sarah Bunting and Dave Cole had made, which was recapping Dawson’s Creek episodes. It’s the idea of, you’re sitting on a couch with a friend, and the two of you are talking the entire episode of your favorite guilty pleasure, because it’s way more fun to watch something like that with a friend.

When Television Without Pity came out as Mighty Big TV, I don’t even remember how many there were the first year, 10 shows maybe. I don’t know. It was a bunch of us that had been writing on their other sites, like Hissyfit and Fametracker.

**John:** What year would this have been? I looked it up on Wikipedia.

**Pamela:** Is it ’98 or ’99?

**John:** It’s ’98. ’98 is when the first one was.

**Pamela:** I know where I worked. I still have my first recap handwritten in a Mead notebook. It is 20-something pages, handwritten, of Get Real. Get Real.

**John:** Get Real.

**Pamela:** Do you know Get Real? You shouldn’t, but let’s see if you can remember one actor from Get Real. It was on Fox on Wednesday nights.

**John:** That helps. Greg Evigan?

**Pamela:** Nope, but I love where you’re starting.

**John:** Tell me who. Give me an actor.

**Pamela:** Anne Hathaway.

**John:** Wow, Anne Hathaway on a Fox show.

**Pamela:** I’m not done. Are you ready? Eric Christian Olsen.

**John:** Oh yeah, of course.

**Pamela:** Jesse Eisenberg.

**John:** Wow, nice.

**Pamela:** Taryn Manning. Jon Tenney, and others.

**John:** That was the same year as Go. It was when we were filming Go. It’s that caliber of those people.

**Pamela:** I was learning about you while I was writing for Get Real. The reason that most people didn’t see it and it didn’t last forever was, it was on opposite a new show called The West Wing.

**John:** Yeah, I’ve heard of that show. There’s a guy, Aaron Sorkin was the guy who wrote that.

**Pamela:** Yeah, he’s still around. I hear he’s still doing things. Good for him.

**John:** You were assigned to recap Get Real, or you volunteered to recap Get Real.

**Pamela:** I was assigned it.

**John:** What does a recap consist of? The show’s airing live on Fox. How quickly are you supposed to be putting up this recap? How long was a recap? Really, what is the purpose of a recap?

**Pamela:** It morphed over the years. I moved on to things like Gilmore Girls, which I did for five years. Over the years, and as it got popular, we had to deal with what those demands were.

I would say originally, you had to record that so that you could watch it again. Later, we used to have to do these recaplets, which were very fast, here’s what you missed, if you were just waiting the next morning to find out what happened, and you missed it, because you used to be able to miss television.

Essentially, you would then write these, I did call them dissertations, because they felt that way, where you took each scene or each episode and talked about where the characters were on their journey, what was happening, and often, how you felt as a viewer watching this. That led to jokes, and sometimes inside jokes.

I had these two patron saint of televisions, I don’t know if you remember this, from gift shops. There were these glow-in-the-dark Saint Clares. And they were the patron saint of television. And I had two under my TV. And I used to let them sometimes do some dialog when I was bored with an episode.

You would just try to make an entertaining recap, which was, “Here’s what happened scene by scene. Here’s where it’s working. Here’s where I don’t like it.” It’s weird to say now, because it does feel like it’s common now to see these versions everywhere. They would be 12 to 20 Word doc pages of deep diving into what’s going on.

The people who were reading it and writing back, that was also really early internet feedback, a forum that was super popular, that then became something that you know people in LA and writers’ rooms were reading and changing the writers… It makes so much sense to me now that a writers’ room is obsessed with the one thing writing about writers.

**John:** That’s what I want to get into, because that feedback loop has to be really strange. It would be impossible if somebody were recapping my show and actually deep diving into it, to not read that thing and think about that thing, because that person is a super fan, but also a super critic. It’s the person who wants the show to be better, the person who’s studying the show more obsessively than-

**Pamela:** Anyone.

**John:** … some of those writers in the room.

**Pamela:** It’s your actual audience in many ways, and accessible in a way that we had not had before. It’s not a Nielsen. There’s no dial I could hit. I was telling you, “Here’s where I felt my intelligence was insulted. Here’s where I cried and called my mom.” That’s feedback. How could that not affect a room?

I think often now about a story editor or a co-producer who read a recap and was like, “That’s fucking what I said. When we were pitching this out, I knew this was a problem. No one listened to me. Now here she is saying this is insulting and I wish it were this.” I wonder what it did to a writers’ room back then to have anybody validating someone whose job in the room is to not be validated, but to be a part of the room.

**John:** The tone of recapping was also very specific, because it was love, but it was also snark. We were coming out of Spy magazine, Entertainment Weekly. There was a tone there that was very specific. It was smart. It wasn’t mean, but it was poky.

Did you ever scale back your snark? How did you moderate the tone of these things? A Gilmore Girls, it feels like you’re going to approach that differently than you would approach maybe a reality competition show. Talk to us about that.

**Pamela:** That’s why I didn’t really do many of those. I have a lot of thoughts about snark, having grown up with it, into it, and out of it. I think for me, snark was important. I don’t know that we need snark right now. I think snark at the time was important to say, “Can’t we do better than this? Is this enough? Is this okay?” I think now when we say, “Is this okay? Is this enough?” we say it like we all know that this is wrong and someone isn’t addressing what’s already wrong. I think snark at the time was, we’re just supposed to be fine with this, but we all know that maybe this is not good enough.

I would see sometimes snark taken to a mean place. That was just never the idea. We’re not just here to call this person an asshole. Let’s back it up with some things.

**John:** It’s important to note that recaps are always talking about the characters and not the actors. Is that correct?

**Pamela:** Yeah. Yes. Sometimes that actor blurs. Sometimes you’re like, “This actor is acting in my scene with a character.” I couldn’t recap now. I definitely couldn’t.

When I started working in reality television, where I was a logger, which meant I watched unedited footage of The Bachelor, in the middle of the night, until 5:00 in the morning, and wrote everything I saw, and flagged anything that was maybe interesting to a writer. That’ll mess your brain up.

**John:** I’m sure. It just burns a hole. It’s like doing coverage on scripts, where just like, “Oh god, I’m reading all these scripts. None of this will ever get made. I have to write this detailed synopsis of the things that don’t actually make sense.”

In the case of logging, you’re just looking at all the raw footage and seeing is there any moment that’s worth pulling out here, so that the editors can snip that out, and some assistant editor could keep in a bin to put into the cut. Lord.

**Pamela:** I was a pretty good logger, but I shouldn’t have been a logger, which is probably true to anybody, if you read what I wrote. I had to watch two hours of Lorenzo Lamas on a motorcycle. Not a lot to pull from there.

**John:** No one should have to do that.

**Pamela:** I watched a guy make salmon. I also watched a girl sit alone in a room that they wouldn’t let her leave, waiting on a date that was running late because of time, just because of producers and the show. That wasn’t what they were going to show. I ended up making a fake monologue for her, because I couldn’t stare at this shot of a girl sitting alone at a table, not moving, for two hours of my own life.

**John:** You weren’t allowed to fast-forward through that?

**Pamela:** No. What if she does anything interesting?

**John:** I just feel like a little command-J there and speed through there and just see if she’s now… Wow.

**Pamela:** You’re also supposed to, a little bit, transcribe. Sometimes someone would open the door and be like, “Are you thirsty?” She’d be like, “I’m okay.” If she rubs her nose in a way where you could use that clip later-

**John:** That’s right.

**Pamela:** … that’s it. You’re watching the whole thing. I also got the flu during that. It made me have an idea for a book that I wrote, because I think that’s what my brain does is when my time is being wasted, I start thinking a way out.

**John:** What this could mean, how this could be worthwhile outside of this impossibly not worthwhile thing you’re doing.

**Pamela:** Where that helps in animation is you can get so stuck on a moment that needs to happen that nobody can back all the way up. Also, most of the people in the room shouldn’t back all the way up. A writer can go, “Okay, oh my gosh. I’m just going to take a hundred steps back and look. Why are we doing this? What needs to happen later? Why are we even here right now? We know what needs to happen later.”

I think that is the benefit of a writer in the room with everybody at the intensity and sophicity [sic] level that storyboard artists have to and should be owners of what they’re given, and the director or directors have to be owners of thousands of people asking them questions.

The benefit of your writer, if you know what to do with your writer, your writer just looks at you and goes, “That’ll work,” like in surgery. “That’ll work. This is great. That won’t work, and I’ll tell you why.” A director that can be a little bit flexible with the writer, and think through that without feeling like someone’s yanking your Jenga, that’s a great writer-director relationship, to go, “Thank you. You are my scaffolding. Will my characters be okay through this new shiny thing that I think is really funny?” You just figure out all the iterations so that you can keep all the parts you really loved and get rid of the parts that weren’t working.

I think by the time you get to screening seven or eight, I always think of them as seasons, you’re like, “We have the villain from Season 2 talking to the love interest from Season 4. Now it’s really going. It’s all the things we liked in Season 1. It’s all working.”

**John:** So often, as I come in to work on movies that are going in production or about to go in production or in crisis, it is those conversations where everyone has their opinions. They’re trying to make their movie, but they’re not all the same movie. As the writer, I have to come in and understand which movie each person’s trying to make and get them onto the same page and honor the choices that they’re trying to do and get them to all making the same movie. It’s a writing skill, but it’s very much a psychology skill.

**Pamela:** Definitely.

**John:** It’s being comfortable in the room, making people feel heard, but also leading them to a decision. It’s like a hostage negotiator.

**Pamela:** I always think of it as the therapist. “How does this script feel for you today? Are you up here? Are you down here?” The difficulty is, some of the people in the room are empowered all the way to level 10, and some people know they’re actually level 11 or 12 or 13, but they haven’t told anyone. You can sense as the writer, where you’re like, “Oh, I can help this person’s vision, but it’s ultimately this group’s mandate. How can I make everyone feel good and still be myself? Why did you bring me in? You could hire a therapist, but you actually need someone who can make these characters sing in the way that you’re all hoping for, the feeling you’re looking for.”

**John:** It’s always so tough when you’re trying to deal with the actor and the director, and you realize the actor and director have tension with each other about a completely unrelated thing, that is sometimes a wardrobe thing, and that you’re not going to be able to get an agreement on the two of them on the story point because of this other thing. You just have to accept that and, again, do your best work and try to provide what the movie needs, even if it’s not necessarily solving this crisis moment right in front of you. It’s tough. Sometimes just remembering that it’s hard and it’s not your fault that it’s hard. It’s hard because it’s hard.

**Pamela:** It’s hard because it’s hard. I think what’s unique about animation is you do get a lot of shots on goal, and so you can hear what you heard in the room and what you recorded and all the different takes that you asked, because you couldn’t possibly guess. They’re not in a room together. You don’t often have these actors acting together. You’re putting together does this feel right. You’re like, “Oh, you know what it is, is we rushed this part.”

You can go in the edit bay and record something really fast and put it up in scratch, and see does that work, where you’re just like, “I’m so sorry, Ralph. I didn’t know.” You’re like, “Does that make everything better?” Before you’ve booked everybody and cost all this money, you can try it in these little places. There’s no other world where you get to do that.

**John:** In live action features and television, you can do some little things. You can put in some scratch. You can make some experiments. You’re never going to really get people back. If you’re ADR-ing lines, something’s gone wrong generally, so it’s tough.

**Pamela:** In animation, you have so many more chances to have them. What you don’t want is for them to come in and go, “What happened to this awesome arc I used to have?” They’re like, “We had to throw it out, because it turns out you’re not the main character.” These aren’t things you can say. One shouldn’t, if you want your actor. You want all the talent to be as excited as they should be about the part that they’re in, because they’re so great. How can you keep a lot of it from them, so that they don’t feel, “Oh, it’s my responsibility to get back to what it used to be,” because it isn’t. It just isn’t. Nobody’s working against their talents.

To be able to be in a room and have everybody scratch these characters a lot, which is what we did in Ralph, it was five or six of us doing all the voices, until we were like, “We’re ready to go.” Then an actor could really go forward with these scenes.

In the case of that film, there were some actors who wanted to be in the room together when they acted, and we could make that happen. Then a lot of times, it was just me reading with Gal Gadot, just being like, “Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. It’s going to be fine. I’ll just sit here in a room with Gal Gadot and hope she likes it.”

**John:** If you’re in there with Gal Gadot, are you playing Sarah Silverman’s character? Are you doing the voice opposite her?

**Pamela:** Yeah.

**John:** It feels kind of right?

**Pamela:** Yeah, so she has something to play with.

**John:** Fun.

**Pamela:** And vice versa. I also was Gal for Sarah. You want them to be able to look at… They have someone to look at. You’re in a room that has nothing. Exterior ocean day, interior recording studio afternoon. Nobody’s in hair and makeup. Nobody looks like the character they’re playing. I’m trying to be very quiet and not pick up on their mic. I want her to feel as there as she can be, so that we can have a real moment, because a lot of those scenes were, for Vanellope, heart-to-hearts with Gal’s character.

That room is silent. I’ve been in the room recording, where you can’t hear the other room. You’ll say a line three times, and then you just see them all talking, and maybe even fighting, but you can’t hear any of it. You’re just like, “Cool, cool.” They’ll come back and be like, “That was fine.” You’re like, “I know that wasn’t fine.”

**John:** That wasn’t. There was disagreement.

**Pamela:** Someone’s mad at someone. If you’re in that quiet, quiet room with an actor, the nice thing is you get to be together on stage and just make a scene happen. It’s something I could’ve never predicted would happen in my life, but I’ve been in a quiet, tiny room with some really incredible performers and gotten to see what they look like when they’re acting, without anything but themselves.

**John:** Exciting.

**Pamela:** It helps as a writer.

**John:** Absolutely. That experience of just, we’ve written dialog, but how do we actually make this line land, is tough.

**Pamela:** Because they don’t have their body, they don’t have their hair, they don’t have a smirk. They don’t have their fucking gorgeous eyes. They have what they can say.

To get someone still enough to also be screaming in pain sometimes, but still, but not stomping or clapping or anything that we are naturally, like the slapping of thighs that every actor wants to do. You can’t do any of it. It is so limiting, that at least the life vest, whatever I am over them, the buoy, whatever it is, someone else that you can look at and go, “Can I at least say these lines with you?” It’s very helpful.

I find it an honor to be able to be in those situations where they’re also saying the things that you wrote. If they just look at you and go, “Is that right?” As a writer, you very rarely get to be like, “What do you want to say? How can we make this happen?” That’s great.

**John:** It is great. Let’s answer some listener questions.

**Pamela:** Yay.

**John:** We have a couple of little crafty ones I thought might be good. Drew, can you start us off with Denise?

**Drew Marquardt:** Denise writes, “What criteria do you use to choose the sex of a character, mainly supporting characters, when it could go either way? Do you play against type, or do you go conservative?”

**John:** Sex and gender of characters and assumptions about who that doctor, that engineer should be, what the mix is. Pamela, what’s your instinct? If there’s no reason why a character needs to be male or female, what are you thinking?

**Pamela:** My instinct is something I haven’t seen before. That’s where I’ll start, if it can happen. I have also seen where I didn’t do that. I thought I was doing something I hadn’t seen before, and then someone would flag, that character is actually pretty stereotypical, that you’re using to have your new scene in with this other character.

That’s something I learned, where I’m trying so hard to make a protagonist unique that I will accidentally surround them in something you’ve seen before, to help show how unique they are. Let’s call it the first and last time that that was flagged, I really was like, wow, I would’ve never noticed that I had done that without someone going, “What if it’s not this other person in the room that you’ve seen before?”

**John:** We’ve talked on the podcast before about Black judge syndrome, Black lieutenant syndrome. I don’t know if I ever mentioned this on the podcast, but there was a project I was brought in to rewrite, and the main character had a sister who was gone a lot. The draft I received, she was a flight attendant. In the rewrite, I made her a pilot. The producer said, “No, there are no women pilots.” I’m like, “But… ” The female producer said, “There are no women pilots.” I’m like, “I don’t know, I think there might be more female pilots than there are female producers at your level.”

It was a really strange comment, because I thought the pilot thing actually made a lot of sense. It tracked more with this woman’s sense of responsibility and control of her life. I got shut down, so she’s a flight attendant in the final movie. I think it’s always worth pushing against those things.

What I would caution Denise though is look at the choices you’re making. If the choice is going to be distracting in a way that pulls from your story, think about why that is and how do you have it support the needs of that scene, rather than pushing against the needs of that scene.

**Pamela:** It’s also seeing where and when your movie is set, and so that character can be different than default, because theoretically you’re past now. I wrote on a space thing where I wanted an astronaut that was essentially Lizzo.

**John:** Great.

**Pamela:** It was pretty soon after the thousand tampons for Sally Ride and all that stuff of like, “Women in space, what do you need?” Even maybe you can make a suit that is not just one suit for a dude. Even that, in exciting that character, which I was like, “This is where that should be,” there were times when I noticed I was trying to over-explain why that was okay. That wasn’t my job in the script, to pitch why this character was okay. It should just be, and also this character, because we’re in the future, and maybe we’re evolved. We can make space suits in other sizes.

**John:** I was talking with a writer about his script, and there was a police lieutenant. There’s a police detective and a police lieutenant in it. They had a scene in the police lieutenant’s office about the police detective overstepping. I’m like, “I don’t think you can have that scene. I just don’t know that there’s a version of that scene that is not going to feel tropey tropey tropey trope. We’ve seen the TV version of that just too many times. You’re going to have to change. I would say just get it out of that office. See if that lieutenant’s actually the crucial person to be giving that information or if you even need to get that information, because it’s just such a stock moment. It’s not just a stock character. It’s a stock moment to have your cop protagonist be challenged by the authority figure on this thing. You need to find a different way into it.”

**Pamela:** Once you’ve seen puppets do that scene…

**John:** Absolutely.

**Pamela:** Once puppets have done it, you get to retire the scene. You get to say, “Here we are. The puppets have done it. We’re done here.”

**John:** Let’s go to Bradley’s question.

**Drew:** Bradley asks, “What do you do when you realize you’ve grossly underestimated your page count? How can I better construct my outlines so I’m landing closer to my goals? I’m working from a 37-page detailed outline, and the parts I expected to land around page 25 or 30 are actually landing around page 45. At this rate, this spec is going to wind up around 140 pages instead of the 100 pages I planned. In retrospect, I may have overstuffed the outline.

Generally, I find cutting huge swaths of the script to be much harder than cutting an outline, but I’m already midstream, and the story feels like it’s working. What would you do in this situation? Finish the story and then cut, or go back to the drawing board, re-outline, and start over? How can I change my outlines to more accurately gauge how long something will be in a script?”

**John:** Bradley, I think you’re fine. I think something that’s 45 pages, they thought was going to be 30, that’s a really common scenario for me. Pamela, I see you nodding here.

**Pamela:** Yeah, for sure. I was like, “You’ve gone past your outline pages?” I find myself with the opposite problem all the time.

**John:** Oh, really?

**Pamela:** Oh, yeah.

**John:** You’re a big outliner? You outline deep deep deep?

**Pamela:** No. My scripts end up being short short short. I don’t like to outline, which is probably my why scripts end up short. I think what Bradley’s got is a trilogy he doesn’t know about. Write the whole thing, and then figure out, when I’m reading this, when do I think the movie has begun. Probably page 28 if your script’s that long. You’ll find your midpoint is something different than you thought it was. Then a lot of that stuff was just for you to know your characters really well. You’ll figure out, oh, these first 15 pages are actually better as a one-page scene, or this thing happens in a gas station. We learn all of that stuff. I find that to be the fun part.

I don’t like first drafts, but that second draft of, “Oh, here’s what I’m working with. How do I make it look like a real script?” is fun to go, “This is too long. This is too short. This isn’t enough.” I find a lot what I think will be my end of second act is actually the midpoint, because I think that’s going to be huge, but when I make the whole thing, I’m like, “Oh, that wasn’t as big as where I ended up going.” That end of Act 2 is actually that midpoint moment of, “This is actually much bigger than we ever thought.”

If I end up in something that is let’s say 120 pages, I don’t know if that ever happens, but let’s say I get into 118 when I want 99. That’s usually what I find, is I’ve missed where the moment of everybody going, “This is bigger than we thought it was. I have more moments for bad guys closing in than I thought.”

**John:** Like you, I’m by my nature not a planner, and so I’m not a person who does detailed outlines, except on projects where I’ve been required to do it. Then it’s always like, “Oh my gosh, I have this outline. I know what it is, the next thing I need to do. That’s exciting. I know what my daily work is going to be, a little bit more clearly.”

Writing the Arlo Finch books, with those, I would have a sense of like, “Oh, this is what happens in this sequence.” I would think, “Oh, this will be a chapter,” and it’ll be three. I could never accurately predict it.

Now that I have 20 years of screenwriting experience, I have a much better sense of how many pages it’s going to take to do a thing, how many pages it’s going to take to do a moment and land that. You’re probably new, Bradley, and so this is all the first time you’re experiencing it. I would say don’t be so worried about the match of your outline to your script. You’re just trying to figure out how many pages it takes to deliver a moment. It’s not a function of your outline. It’s a function of how you write.

**Pamela:** That’s right, Bradley. You’ll learn as you do this more often, where you’re like, “Oh, that’s going to take me five days. That’s actually three pages. This outline is so long in the beginning, but it’s really only going to be four pages. For you to understand what I’m talking about, I’m going to take three or four pages of outline space to just explain this crazy world that you may not understand, because you haven’t seen it before. It’s not your fault. I have to walk you through how we got to why we’re making this film.”

That stuff probably won’t go in your script, because you have an establishing shot or an opening scene that says all of that, that your outline can’t. Your outline can’t. It’s not for your script. Your outline’s not for your script. Your outline is for other people to let you go write your script.

**John:** Or your outline is for yourself, to remind you what it is… It’s the plan for your plan. If it’s helpful for your process, that’s great. I just often feel like writers get forced into outlines that don’t ultimately serve them well. They get handcuffed to outlines that were never the right plan for making the movie.

**Pamela:** What I do for that, I think of a beat sheet, but I really am making a Claire Danes board of notes and lines and all kinds of things that will eventually all mostly go into the script. You can’t hand that to anyone. When I think of a beat sheet, that’s for me. That’s a cleaned up version of my chaos on the wall. It’s just for me. An outline, just a pitch. It’s a book report of what you’re about to write. I try not to do a lot of dialog in an outline. I will do it if you end up in these script-ment places where you’re doing a treatment script half thing. You can do it in an outline.

What I think is missing a lot, that helps you so much if you can put it in there, is your tone. If a outline reads dry, people are going to be worried about your script. The faster your outline sounds like what you’re writing and how the characters live, the more successful that outline’s going to be. You don’t have to worry about how many pages. It can actually be even shorter for what you show people. You can keep your 40-page outline, but you can give them 18 pages of a tight version of what it feels like to watch your film.

**John:** Exactly. While I have you here, when we were at the Austin Film Festival, I remember sitting in the restaurant, and Craig came down. He was incredibly sick, and then he went back up. You talked through this project that you were pitching. If I get this wrong, correct me.

How you were pitching this, it was all on Zoom, but you would start the Zoom meeting and talk to the executives you were pitching to. They’d say, “At this moment, we’re going to give you a link that you can click through, and you can all watch this prepared video that is the pitch, and then rejoin us on the Zoom.” Is that what you actually did?

**Pamela:** Yeah. This started because we had lockdown. Originally, we were all going to be in a room. I was working with animators in Austin. They were like, “Oh, our travel budget got cut. We’re not allowed to fly anywhere. What is it, two weeks?” I was like, “It’s going to be a little longer than two weeks.” I said, “Let’s duplicate the feeling of pitching in the room.”

I tell everybody this still. I still do it. What’s great about making your own 8 to 13-minute Vimeo pitch is you are controlling it. You only do it once. You get to give it to everyone and say, “Hey, here’s this. You’ve met us all. You think we’re great. Instead of staring at my eyes not looking at you, here’s something where I’ve given you visuals while I’m talking, and I’m showing you what the thing will feel like.

This was Slam, for my graphic novels. I ended in a sizzle reel that I got to make with a talented editor, and show them not just what the pilot would be or why I’m here, or here are other people doing roller derby, and where it was at in the state at the time of lockdown, because they were one of the first sports to come back, because they had COVID protocols and figured out how to do it.

**John:** Roller derby’s a great sport. The community around roller derby’s fantastic.

**Pamela:** It also for a long time was the fastest-growing female sport in the world. It was the first sport to include transgender people. If you identified female, you got to skate. It 100% is a forward-moving sport that is completely do-it-yourself. There’s no big business coming in and changing things. Even within that, there are factions of, “I want to go to the Olympics. I want to be Mamie Thigh-senhower because I’m a kindergarten teacher.” How does a sport move when you’ve lowered an age to 18? All of these things to be able to put into a video.

As I said, there’s no way you’re going to want to be amped enough to watch more roller derby without seeing some roller derby. Being able to put all of that in a pitch that I said, “Just go watch it, however you like to consume your media. We’ll all be here in 13 minutes, and we’ll talk some more.” It just let people come back excited to talk and really helped. I like it a lot.

I learned this from animation, of giving something for people to look at so they don’t have to stare at you and feel bad when they’re writing notes or feel bad if they’re thinking about dinner. They just do. Sometimes I stopped a pitch and been like, “Oh, it’s so late. It’s 5:00 on a Friday, and the sun’s going down behind me. I can already tell I said feminist and all of you shut down. We could just stop right here.” I don’t know, I’m always trying to find a way to humanize the experience.

Being able to like, “We’re talking about something you’re going to see, so go see a little of it. If you like it, we can talk more about what it might be like to make it together,” I love it. It’s a lot of control.

**John:** It’s a lot of control. It’s a lot of upfront work to make that thing. I’ve also been in the situation where I’ve done the exact same pitch to 13 different places, with a slide deck, that Megana was driving the slides as I was talking, so there was stuff to look at. It was a beast. The best version of it, I was just on rails. I felt so bad for the producers who had to sit through me giving the exact same presentation 13 times. A video does feel like it’s more choice.

**Pamela:** I also think what happens when you’re going to have to do it 13 times with producers who are in the room, listening to you do the show, they’re going to have opinions after the fifth, sixth, seventh, what’s next. You find yourself doing even more free work to hone it to what maybe we think the mandate is over here. Then you got to change it again for the next one. You end up rewriting your pitch a lot.

If you can be like, “You’re in or you’re out on this show.” Roller derby is a good example. You’re in or you’re out. You like this or you don’t. Please don’t make me figure out this version and that version, because you can talk to me about, “Can we do this, because that’s more what we’re into?” That’s a conversation, as opposed to me trying to guess whatever you were told that morning is the new thing you’re supposed to be looking for. It’s a lot easier to put something down that doesn’t sell if you know you really gave it your best.

**John:** True.

**Pamela:** I know it is a lot more work at the beginning, but you spend all that time really getting to know the show or the film or whatever. You spend a lot of time doing that to be able to make a presentation.

I have an acting degree. I really was horrible at pitching, until one of my friends was like, “This is the only time we’re asked on stage. You’ve got 20 minutes.” I was like, “I’m making a show. I’m making a show.” When I think of it as the one-person show about this, it is less annoying, because the pitch is not the script. It’s just this one little moment for this little thing. The script is not the film or the show. It’s one little moment to get hundreds or thousands of people on board to make the thing.

Breaking them into these milestones has been helpful, because they’re all hard, and we all want to procrastinate. If you can know that you’re actually thinking while you’re procrastinating, it feels like you’re not working. What you’re doing is giving yourself a minute to go, “Something’s not working, and that’s why I’m not working.”

**John:** The devil’s advocate, I do want to bring up, because we’ve talked about the rise of pitch decks on the show, is that this is an escalation even well beyond pitch decks. If a writer’s being asked to do this on spec, that’s a huge commitment of time and space. This goes beyond.

**Pamela:** No one’s asked me to do it. I’ve had to convince a couple of people, “Let me go show you what it is,” because it is hard to understand. You’re going to make a Vimeo. They do. You’re making a short.

**John:** Do it for something that you control, but not for someone else’s project, not someone else’s IP.

**Pamela:** I’m trying to think if I did it for someone else’s IP. Once. Once. You know what? In this case, I ended up… Whatever. We can talk about that some other day, all our heartbreaks. I’m glad I made that. If I hadn’t gone all the way to make that full-on, “Here is the pitch. This is what it looks like. This is the sizzle reel,” I mean this, it would’ve been harder to not get that gig.

**John:** Let’s do some One Cool Things. I see that you are a prepared cohost. I see two things in the Workflowy here. What’s your One Cool Thing or your two Cool Things?

**Pamela:** It’s One Cool Thing, but one’s an intro to explain why my One Cool Thing, because we’re talking about character. Judd Apatow has some great books about talking to funny people and writers about their process. One of the things that he has said… I’ve never met Judd. I don’t know him. One of the things that he has said he uses to get deeper into both himself and therefore his characters, is self-help books.

Esther Perel, I feel like when I’m telling someone something that’s a podcast on its fourth season, perhaps most of you have already heard of it. However, I will say that what Esther is very great at is getting into why these dynamics are happening between people. That’s the best part of characters. Why are these two or these three or this family or this ensemble of office workers going through this together? What is it where they’re going to step on each other’s insecurities, secrets, and, for lack of a better word, traumas? I think that what she does with such compassion and empathy is allow people the space to learn.

Anyway, she has a brand new season. She’s also doing some Premium subscriber stuff. That’s new, where there’s extra bonus things. If you haven’t listened to Where Do We Begin, usually they’re a one-time session with a client or a couple, and it’s an edited situation. She never meets them again.

**John:** I like that.

**Pamela:** It’s fascinating. You drop right into a crisis moment. She also has a How’s Work. I think it’s called How’s Work, where she does it with business partners, because it’s another relationship that can sometimes need-

**John:** Me and Craig are going to have to sign up for this.

**Pamela:** Oh my gosh, I would listen-

**John:** It would be the best.

**Pamela:** … to you guys. It would be so good. It would be so good. I barely know what Esther looks like, because I don’t want to see.

**John:** It’s always best when you don’t know what a podcast host looks like.

**Pamela:** Her voice is wonderful.

**John:** They’ll have different faces in my brain.

**Pamela:** She’s also, through the pandemic, ended up making a game of cards that no one will play with me, because no one wants to do these questions. I tried to bring this up with some group in some sort of pandemic moment, where I was like, “I have this deck of cards. It’s called Where Should We Begin. It’s just these questions.” My friends were like, “We were already having a conversation.” I was like, “No, I know.” They were like, “We were just talking, and now you’re-”

**John:** You’re making it a thing. You’re making it work.

**Pamela:** “You’re making it a thing. You’re making this work. You’re making me uncomfortable. Why are you asking me about a moment I wish I had shined in?” I was like, “I hear you. I hear you.” I was always that kid who was grabbing those books at the bookstore that were like, 100 questions to ask your best friends or 300 questions about sex and love. I just think that when you’re on a road trip and you’re asking someone next to you, “What did you wish you had won in high school that you didn’t get?” you find out so much about that person.

That’s also the stuff that we’re looking for in these scripts to be like, flashback. “I didn’t win this. This was my dream, my wish, and it didn’t come true, so I’m taking all these coins back.” That’s how we get that stuff of knowing this is a person who’s been many persons before this person.

I think that’s the longest version of a One Cool Thing to say here’s a podcast that’s many years old. If you haven’t heard Esther Perel yet, I highly recommend it.

**John:** I will listen to it. My One Cool Thing is an article from a couple weeks ago. Evan Osnos writing for the New Yorker. It’s about “How to Hire a Pop Star for your Private Party.” These are bar mitzvahs, private parties, by the ultra wealthy, who bring in a pop star to perform at them. We see Jennifer Lopez doing something for a million dollars or whatever.

The story centers around Flo-Rida, who is playing bar mitzvahs and other events. He has one big song he’s known for. He makes good money otherwise. What I really liked about this article and Flo-Rida in it is that he’s not resentful. It’s not a sad story. He’s not doing this because he feels like he has to. He’s doing this out of a sense of professionalism. He’s a really good entertainer. This is a way that he gets to entertain these crowds and give them exactly what they need.

For all of the potentially gross stuff about just the ultra wealthy doing these events, it made me happy and hopeful for a future for some of these artists who are not going to be in the mainstream but still have a venue for making money and making their art.

**Pamela:** Have you ever tried to figure out how much it would cost to make a dream come true musically, pop star-wise, for a party or an event?

**John:** I never have. I do remember back in college, I ran the student activities board, because of course I ran the student activities board. We could bring in events. We could bring in bands and stuff for that. At some point you could just get a list of like, this is how many thousands of dollars each of these groups cost. It was exciting to feel that power, like, “I have a $200,000 budget. I could do these things.”

**Pamela:** My husband once just, not just once, but enough that I knew it was a real thing, said he would love to hear Roxette with a full philharmonicy orchestra for one night. I was like, “I feel like this is an attainable goal.” I was wrong. I was wrong. It’s not an attainable goal. First of all, they were a lot of money. Then I was like, “What if it’s just a string quartet playing in a room? That’s fun. We eat a meal or something.” I learned from people who do this professionally, they’re like, “Why would we learn so many Roxette songs? We’ll never do it again. That’s so much time of ours.” I was like, “That’s fascinating.”

**John:** Wow.

**Pamela:** “I can’t pay for that kind of time for all of you.” I was like, “What about four of you?” They’re like, “Still, no one wants to do this. Where are we going to find a singer? Get a cover band.” That’s not what he wanted.

**John:** No, he wanted Roxette.

**Pamela:** So much money. So much money to make your dreams come true.

**John:** You pay for experiences, not things. That’s what we’ve learned, is that the experiences are what really matter, not material possessions.

**Pamela:** I didn’t have that kind of cash. It was a lot. Not now, but someone at the time could’ve made that happen, but it was not me. I was like, “Oh, I see. Oh, I see.” You get used to it when you’re working in film and television of like, “Here’s this. What do you need? Here, you’re in the Griffith Observatory. Look at all the stars. What star do you need?” You get a bit out of your reality and go, “I’m sure Roxette would love to work with the LA Phil.”

**John:** They’re chomping at the bit.

**Pamela:** No. It’s hard. Good for Flo-Rida. I understand that. It’s like a TED Talk as a musician. You’re like, “I get to come in, perform for people who are… “ That’s what Britney’s Vegas residency was theoretically. That’s what I thought I was doing.

**John:** Absolutely. It wasn’t a hostage situation, which apparently it was.

**Pamela:** Not what I thought at the time. You never know. I’m glad for Flo-Rida, but I do think a lot of people are in bar mitzvah hostage situations.

**John:** That may be the title of the episode.

**Pamela:** Great. Glad I could help.

**John:** That is our show. Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt. It’s edited by Matthew Chilelli.

**Pamela:** Yay.

**John:** Our outro this week is by Adam Pineless. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also where you can send questions, like the ones we answered today. You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. It’s also where you’ll find the transcripts and sign up for our weekly newsletter called Inneresting, which has lots of links to things about writing.

We have T-shirts and they’re great. You can find them at Cotton Bureau. This week on the picket line, I saw two vintage Scriptnotes T-shirts or related Scriptnotes T-shirts that I’d never seen out in the wild before, which was very exciting. It’s always fun to see those T-shirts out there.

You can sign up to become a Premium member at scriptnotes.net, where you get all the back-episodes and Bonus Segments, like the one we’re about to record on Listen to Sassy. Pamela Ribon, what an absolute pleasure it is to have you on the podcast and be talking with you.

**Pamela:** Thank you. I like to be the anti-Craig. Whenever you need me again, I will bring anti-umbrage to your podcast.

**John:** [Indiscernible 01:07:43] embrace.

**Pamela:** I love your role. You’re doing it. You’re doing it.

[Bonus Segment]

**John:** One of the main reasons I was so excited to have you on this podcast is you are also the host of another podcast, so therefore you’re a podcast professional and know how to do all the things. Talk to us about Listen to Sassy, in which you are going back through issues of Sassy magazine. Start us off, because I can picture Sassy magazine, but I never read it, because I was not the target audience, what was Sassy magazine, and why is it relevant today?

**Pamela:** You probably weren’t the target audience. Perhaps you saw its male spin-off, Dirt.

**John:** Oh, Dirt, okay, yeah.

**Pamela:** That was for you. They were like, “I know you’re reading Sassy.”

**John:** Dudes.

**Pamela:** “Dudes, what about skaters?” Dirt. And Spike Jonze, lots of Spike Jonze. The people I do this podcast with, Tara Ariano and David T. Cole, are professionals all the way back from Television Without Pity, as we were discussing earlier. They have their own podcast things.

During the lockdown, I was on a sad run. I got a text from Tara that said, “My pandemic thing was buying every issue of Sassy magazine ever. Do you want to do a podcast?” I just stopped. I stopped running, and I said, “Yes, yes, a million times yes,” not knowing what I was getting into time-wise, preparedness-wise. It’s a lot of work. I think you know this. Craig doesn’t, but you do.

We take every issue, which I also got my own Ebay-ed version of now. I now have every Sassy. We take every issue, and we break it into first teen life, then pop culture, and then the fashion and the magazine sections. Then our fourth one is, we call slumber party, which are calls and letters. We take the quiz, like a slumber party.

We started with the very first issue, which was 1988. We are at 1990 right now. We’ll be going until ’94 or ’95. I can’t remember when. That was when Sassy changed ownerships and just became a different then. Then Jane Pratt ended up making Jane magazine, which then became the website xoJane, which some of you are now like, “I remember this.”

Back, back, back in the day, Sassy magazine was an alternate to YM and Seventeen. Instead of talking about how to get asked to prom or six ways to wear your makeup, those things are in there, but what it began with really are, here are kids who got pregnant, here is death row, this is what suicide is like, this is what the skinhead movement is doing right now in the ‘90s, and then didn’t pull punches with celebrity interviews, and could be what one might say is the beginning of snark, of that, “Why do I have to love Tiffany or the New Kids, when REM and Keanu Reeves are right here?”

One of the things about going back to Sassy, which starting on Television Without Pity and Mighty Big TV and Hissyfit and Fametracker, one of the things that drew me to that site and writing for Tara and Dave and Sarah in particular was they did a thing where they would, as editors, come in and make little notes inside your recap, of jokes off your joke or inside jokes about all of us. That was what Sassy did.

Sassy made it feel like you’re in a room with all these young people in New York, and we’re all just excited about Michael Hutchence and a Meg Ryan movie we just saw, but Winona Ryder-y, in terms of an older sister who’s telling you, “Here’s some music you might like.” I had an older cousin who was like this for me.

I was in a small town outside Houston. Before then, I was in a small town of Jackson, Mississippi, and no internet. To have a magazine say, “Do you feel not like everyone else? Are you mad about fur? Are you mad about meat? Do you want to know how to be a vegan? Do you want to know how to protest the circus?” There was all that, early activism stuff, of you can be 13 and still change the world, and then also what about John Waters, or what are indie things?

For me, it was Sassy magazine and Rolling Stone magazine were how I figured out there was a world outside the world I was in. I really appreciated the way that they wrote to someone young, to say, “You might be young, but you have agency in your world.” We wouldn’t have Rookie Mag without it. We wouldn’t have a lot of the things that we have now. I think Teen Vogue right now shows a lot of-

**John:** Yeah, it does that.

**Pamela:** Is the newest better version.

**John:** Talk to me though about the advertising in it, because magazines were ad vehicles, and that’s how they made their money was ads, not by the actual cover price of the magazine. What are the ads in there? Are they all makeup? What kind of stuff do you see in there?

**Pamela:** There’s a lot of makeup and vision streetwear and Bongo. Bongo the whole time. My whole teenage years were some girls, but in some short jeans, and me being like, “How can I have this butt?” Instead of it being Guess, which I guess there was a little bit of, it was more counterculture clothing or maybe even… I’m trying to think. There’s still Debbie Gibson in the ads, even if in the articles it’s about not. It’s about B-52s or whatever.

They actually ended up having problems with their advertisers. They lost a lot of advertisers at a certain point, because people were writing in, parents and church people were writing in about, “They’re talking about birth control, and they’re talking about sex, and they’re talking about these things that are not, quote unquote, proper.” We’re currently in the lean years, where you could tell they were having to deal with, how do you get an advertiser, but also stay true to your audience that is very grateful for no bullshit.

**John:** The way that magazines and film and TV writing have overlap, or the way that we always want to portray magazines in film and TV is just so fascinating. They’re always the backdrop we go back to, because it’s a bunch of people in a room who can say smart things, we believe they’re saying smart things, so we make our female characters editors at magazines. We make them young teen journalists or young magazine writers, because it’s glamorous. We believe they can be wearing that fashion if they’re in New York City.

Jane Pratt as a character seems great too. Has there been a fictional version of her on anything, that sense of that magazine founder? I think back to our high fashion people we always make as characters, but has Jane Pratt ever been one of those?

**Pamela:** First of all, I would say that Sex and the City is doing some of that that you’re talking about. So does Girls and all of that stuff. These are aspiring New York friends who are chatting. That’s what Sassy felt like. Skate Kitchen being more the modern version of what I think feels like Sassy magazine. A show that tried to do it, The Bold Type. That was close. That was a modern version of… Even Ugly Betty, if we’re going to get into the weird versions of how glamorous is this world.

What was fun about Sassy wasn’t so much that they were all in New York, because they were like, “I’m in New York, and that’s why I just saw Sting on an elevator.” They sounded like they could’ve come from wherever we were.

They also had contests for the Sassiest girl in America. You just felt like you were part of the magazine. I don’t know there’s any other magazine that made me feel like this came in the mail once a month to say to me, “Hi. How are you? Here’s what you want to see and hear next. Here’s what you’re going to want to talk about when you really are talking to your friends about real things.”

It’s a little difficult to go back. I was doing My Year of Dicks the same time I was doing Listen to Sassy, so I was really reliving my high school years. What’s tough about Sassy is how much Johnny Depp love is in there, which I had 3000 percent at the time. Now, as a other side of Johnny Depp person, you’re having to think about who you were then and who you are now and how much this magazine actually gave me a guide for who I wanted to be and how I wanted to do it. I know I’m not the only one, because you can see it in all these other, particularly female writers of now, who are like, “Sassy made me think I could do this as myself.”

**John:** Big sister energy feels like a good thing to put out in the world.

**Pamela:** Knowledgeable big sister energy.

**John:** Exactly. The podcast is Listen to Sassy. It’s listentosassy.com. People can find all the back-episodes. Pamela Ribon, what an absolute delight to talk with you.

**Pamela:** Thank you so much. This has been fun.

**John:** Great.

Links:

* [Pamela Ribon](https://pamie.com/) on [IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0962596/)
* [Listen To Sassy](https://listentosassy.com/)
* [Television Without Pity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_Without_Pity)
* [Get Real (1999-2000)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212662/) on IMDb
* [How to Hire a Pop Star for Your Private Party](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/06/05/how-to-hire-a-pop-star-for-your-private-party) by Evan Osnos for The New Yorker
* [The Secret to Judd Apatow’s Comedy? A Huge Library of Self-Help Books](https://www.gq.com/story/judd-apatow-self-help-book-interview) by Clay Skipper
* [Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel](https://www.estherperel.com/podcast)
* [Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!](https://cottonbureau.com/people/scriptnotes-podcast)
* [Check out the Inneresting Newsletter](https://inneresting.substack.com/)
* [Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription](https://scriptnotes.supportingcast.fm/gifts) or [treat yourself to a premium subscription!](https://scriptnotes.supportingcast.fm/)
* [Craig Mazin](https://www.instagram.com/clmazin/) on Instagram
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [John on Mastodon](https://mastodon.art/@johnaugust)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Adam Pineless ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by [Matthew Chilelli](https://twitter.com/machelli).

The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2023/medicine-and-mayhem).

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

**Craig Mazin:** (singing:) My name is Craig Mazin.

**John:** This is Episode 605 of Scriptnotes. It’s a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show, four tales of science, medicine, and mayhem. That’s right. It’s another How Would This be a Movie, where we take stories our listeners have sent us and discuss how they might become filmed entertainment. Plus, we’re going to have follow-up going back years, and maybe even some listener questions.

**Craig:** Years.

**John:** Years.

**Craig:** Isn’t that the sort of thing that marriage therapists tell you to never do?

**John:** Yeah, digging up those old things. Drew and Halley have been going back through the archives as they’re putting together the Scriptnotes book.

**Craig:** Oh, boy.

**John:** They have questions about things we said.

**Craig:** I’m sure we were wrong.

**John:** We were probably wrong. We’re often wrong.

**Craig:** We were probably wrong.

**John:** In our Bonus Segment for Premium members, we will not be wrong, because it has been well established that Craig and I are first and foremost D and D players who occasionally write movies and television. Craig, I want to talk to you about the changes that are coming up in D and D, with the development of One D and D, which is the newest version coming out.

**Craig:** Yes. Nothing would make me happier. Nothing would make certain people less happy, and I don’t care about them.

**John:** It’s a Bonus Segment, so your choice whether to listen.

**Craig:** Are you cool or not?

**John:** If you are super cool, you might be joining us for the Scriptnotes Live show we’re doing here in Hollywood, here in Koreatown, in August 9th. It’s a Wednesday, 7 p.m., Dynasty Typewriter, the place we love to record our little shows. It’s all a benefit for Hollywood Heart, as always. Craig, are you excited about a live show?

**Craig:** I am. You and I are talking about some fantastic potential guests, which we’ll be able to announce soon enough. We haven’t done a live show in some time. We did have one somewhat. It was our first one back after the long break from COVID. It will be nice to gather everyone together for an evening of chitchat. Definitely looking forward to that, with you.

Just side note for those of you listening. I’m getting over a cold. There may be a little scratchiness. There may be a little bit of ahem stuff going on. I’m really sorry. I’ll occasionally cough, because you know what? I’m human.

**John:** He’s only human.

**Craig:** Only human.

**John:** If you’d like to come to our live show, you can find a link in the show notes that’ll take you to the tickets. They may be sold out by now, because they were selling out really, really quickly. Join us if you can. We have some more recent follow-up. This is not the deep dive follow-up. This is more recent. Back in Episode 604, there was a screenwriter who wanted to turn his script into a book and wondered whether that was at all a good idea. Drew, we had a bit of follow-up on that.

**Drew Marquardt:** Rick wrote in to say that Larry McMurtry wrote Lonesome Dove as a screenplay and then bought the rights back from the studio, wrote it as a novel, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

**Craig:** If you’re Larry McMurtry, you can get away with these sort of things.

**John:** You can do it.

**Craig:** What was our advice? Was it contrary?

**John:** Our advice was a little bit more like maybe focus on something else, because maybe you’re putting too much stock in this project, which has been your identity too much. We don’t know where Larry McMurtry was in his career, whether he’d done other things before this. I’m assuming it’s not the very first thing he ever wrote as a book.

**Craig:** The fascinating thing is, having read Lonesome Dove, and it’s a wonderful novel, it’s enormous. It’s one of those books where your elbows get tired. The thought that it started as a 120-page screenplay is terrifying to me. Even when they finally did adapt it, it was a very famous mini-series on television. It had to be. Wow. That’s a fascinating factoid.

**John:** We also have some follow-up about writing without rights. This is Episode 602. We advised the listener to just do it. We have a listener who wrote in with their experience just winging it.

**Drew:** Essie writes, “I was pleasantly surprised to hear Craig’s advice to just wing it. When faced with the same dilemma, I decided to write an adaptation without the rights, and it was the right choice for me. I found a kids’ book from the 1940s that I always loved, famous enough that you may have heard of it, but not famous enough that you definitely have. I inquired about the rights. I was told that the rights were available, but not for an uncredited writer like me. After some reflection, I decided to write the script anyway. I was pretty confident that the rights weren’t in high demand. Even in the worst-case scenario, I would have a sample that proves I’m capable of adapting these kinds of properties.

“When I submitted my script to the rights-holders, they loved it and connected me with some producers that had also been poking around the IP. Together, we got the option. Though we haven’t yet taken the project out to buyers, I’ve already gotten new representation, who has sent out the script as a sample for similar projects. To be fair, I was lucky. I’m sure most of the time this approach wouldn’t bear fruit. I only chose this path because I was genuinely passionate about the source material and at peace with the idea of spending a year adapting something that I may not ever have the right to sell. It’s definitely better to write something you control, but in this case, the risk was worth it.”

**Craig:** That’s a really good outcome. I’m glad. Listen. We’re all taking risks on anyway. Most stuff doesn’t get made. If you are allergic to the thought of writing something that will never see the light of day, this is probably not the job for you, because that happens to us literally all the time. Even if the rights-holders hadn’t loved your script, if it’s good and other people liked it, that’s still a great sample. It’s not a problem. I’m glad you winged it. I’m super happy it worked out. That’s not to say that it’ll always work out for people. Your circumstance sounds like a pretty good one in which to wing.

**John:** I’m going back and trying to imagine Essie’s workflow here. Essie found this book, like, “Man, I really want to adapt this thing, so I’m going to write to the rights-holders.” We’ve talked about this on the podcast many times before. If you’re trying to figure out who controls the rights to a book, for film and TV rights, you write to the publisher themselves and ask for sub-rights. Sub-rights are the rights which are then passed down to film and TV. The original author or someone in that estate is going to control those rights. They can put you in contact with the agent or the direct person you’re going to contact.

Essie needed to write them a letter, really pitch their case for why they were the perfect person to adapt this, what the book meant to them, and why they should take a leap on them and let Essie option the rights. They said no, but they were clearly impressed enough with Essie, they didn’t say, “Never contact us again,” and left a door open there.

**Craig:** That would’ve been really rude. Not only no, don’t contact us ever about anything, ever.

**John:** If we see your name, we’ll light it on fire. I bring this up because if that first approach had been poor, and then Essie tried to come back with the script, they may have not read the script. They may have not given it any notice there. It’s important to just be cordial and even take the no happily.

Essie wrote the script, great, and then showed it to these rights-holders, and worked with them to find producers who were the right producers, who could get the next step happening, and along the way found representation. This is a best-case scenario. I suspect Essie, in the writing of this response to us, was very smart about how they approached everything here and had a great spirit and clearly a great love for this book. That’s what carried them through.

**Craig:** Fantastic. That worked out great. I love that story.

**John:** Let’s talk about some stories we don’t control at all. These are stories that exist in media. One is even a Reddit thread, which nobody really controls. Let’s talk about how this would be a movie. I have four contenders here. People have sent through things to Drew all the time. I get sent them on Twitter and Threads. These are four I thought might be a good fit for us, purely because Dr. Craig is sometimes a good persona to bring out here. Craig, of course, loves medicine, loves the brain. He loves all these things.

**Craig:** I am a medical doctor. I’m just unlicensed.

**John:** Let’s start with an article by Richard Sima. This comes out of Stuff, out of New Zealand. About “A catatonic woman awakened after 20 years. Her story may change psychiatry.” Craig, do you want to so any setup here? Do you want to talk through the case this lays out?

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s actually quite startling and fascinating. This does happen. There are people who develop psychosis, schizophrenia, sometimes extreme forms of that, that lead to catatonia. In this case, there was this young woman, April Burrell, that experienced this. When it happened, essentially her life froze. She had to be institutionalized. She just kind of disappeared. She was catatonic and unable to take care of herself and locked in. Many, many, many years go by. They start to look at some of these symptoms.

The investigation of schizophrenia is going in this direction in general. We are finally getting over the idea that things like schizophrenia are because of, I don’t know, weird juju in the mind. There are complicated neurological issues, including, in this case, a potential underlying cause of lupus, which, despite the famous line on House, “It’s not lupus,” lupus does exist. It is rarer than people think, but it is a pretty brutal autoimmune disorders. Autoimmune disorders in general are seemingly on the rise, perhaps because we live in a cleaner world. It’s hard to say.

Her lupus in particular seemed centered almost entirely on the brain. They began to give her some pretty intensive treatment for lupus, immunosuppressive treatment, and it worked.

**John:** It did.

**Craig:** She came back.

**John:** There is a standard protocol for how you’re treating this kind of lupus. They said even though this didn’t seem to be the underlying cause necessarily, she’d had the markers for it, which they can now detect, and like, let’s give it a shot.

A detail we alighted here, which is I think really important, is the doctor who started this process on her is a guy named Sander Markx, precision psychiatry at Columbia University. He was a medical student when he first met April there. She was nonresponsive at that time. He remembered her as a case. Twenty years later, someone mentioned, “Oh, I saw this catatonic patient at Columbia.” He’s like, “Wait, was her name April?” She had been there that entire time and had not woken up out of this thing.

Craig, you said locked in. When I think of locked in, I think of the person who’s paralyzed in bed and fluttering their eyelids.

**Craig:** They’re like, “I’m here.” It’s not that.

**John:** It’s not that.

**Craig:** No, but it is locked in in the sense that wherever they are, they’re not here with us. Their personality has been shut off somewhere. She would not recognize anybody that would come to talk to her. She wouldn’t talk back with them. As it says here, she would just stare and stand. “She wouldn’t shower, she wouldn’t go outside, she wouldn’t smile, she wouldn’t laugh. The nursing staff had to physically maneuver her.” She wasn’t changed.

There are a lot of things that we can do for people that have psychosis. None of them worked on her. That in and of itself should have been an indication that perhaps this was not what they thought. Generally speaking, if there’s a course of treatment that doesn’t work at all, perhaps you’re not treating the right thing. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone with people with profound mental disorders are oftentimes misdiagnosed or just ignored. In this case, pretty remarkable.

The problem for the screenwriter that has to figure this out is that we already have this movie.

**John:** We have the movie called-

**Craig:** Awakenings.

**John:** Called Awakenings, yeah. Book by Oliver Sacks, screenplay by Steve Zaillian. I’ve heard of him. Directed by Penny Marshall.

**Craig:** Heard of her.

**John:** Starring Robin Williams.

**Craig:** Heard of him.

**John:** The article actually references that some people in this story were inspired by that movie to pursue medicine as a career. That existed as a background for all this. I think the first real challenge is, Awakenings exists. I’ve never seen the movie, but I am aware of the movie.

**Craig:** So good.

**John:** I’m sure it’s great. I’ve never seen it. It’s not fair to assume that most Americans or most moviegoers would have seen it, but they may be kind of familiar with it, and critics will be familiar with it. Therefore, anything you put out is going to be compared to Awakenings, naturally.

Let’s take a look and see what are the aspects of this that could be interesting or different from that tale, that might be provocative, and make the decision whether April’s story in particular is how we would want to pursue this, or if there’s something that we can jump off from here, to tell a different kind of story with this as a background.

**Craig:** As a fan of Awakenings, I am nervous that it’s doable. I take your point that plenty of people, like yourself, have not seen Awakenings. You’re right, it’s one of those things where it’s a little bit like saying, look, there are people who haven’t seen The Graduate, but if you’re going to tell a story about this young man who’s getting seduced by his future mother-in-law, you start to go, “That is already a pretty famous movie.” I think it was nominated for an Oscar or two, or five.

Even though it is a different illness. In Awakenings, you’re dealing with a fairly profound version of Parkinson’s, that was brought on by viral infection, but basically it’s the same thing. You have somebody that’s catatonic for 20 years, and then a doctor takes interest and tries a very different way of thinking about their problem and finds a medicine that they think will work, and it works. It’s going to be hard to get around.

**John:** The other person portrayed in this article is Devine Cruz. She is a woman who was going through a similar kind of situation. They recognized, “Oh, this thing worked on a different patient. Let’s try it on you.” I wonder if there’s a specificity of these two women, about their shared thing, about the families’ shared struggle to get people to take this seriously, that there still is this person you’ve written off, there’s still reason to keep for new things.

I’m thinking a Lorenzo’s Oil kind of situation, where it’s less about the doctor who creates the miracle, about more about the family who refuses to give up on this person who they know is still in there someplace. That may could’ve been Awakenings too.

**Craig:** No, not necessarily. There is this beautiful little side story in Awakenings where his mother comes to visit him. Robert De Niro plays the patient, just in case you were short on star power for Awakenings. The central relationship was between Robert De Niro and Robin Williams playing, essentially, Oliver Sacks.

This is why I think Awakenings is a better film than Lorenzo’s Oil. No offense to the folks who made Lorenzo’s Oil. It’s just that it’s a more interesting relationship, because it’s not a required kind of love. Families loving their own child is sort of perfunctory. We expect it. A doctor that commits to somebody they do not know, who’s never said a word to them or even acknowledged their existence, and then finding how that relationship develops once that person does come out of their catatonia is interesting.

Ultimately, that’s the challenge with this. However, to that the extent that there’s… If you wanted to do a new Awakenings. Unfortunately, it’s really just the specific, the fact that it’s lupus and an immunosuppressant, as opposed to Parkinson’s and L-DOPA, that’s the only difference as far as I can see.

**John:** I wonder if there’s a way to tell the story from her point of view, basically that the first-person narration is from her point of view and her sense of being stuck inside this thing and what her experience was like, and her trying to, I guess [indiscernible 00:16:22] The Butterfly, trying to reach out from beyond her place.

**Craig:** I’m not sure that they are in there in that way.

**John:** The Lovely Bones is the other way I’m thinking about it, told from beyond the grave.

**Craig:** In these states of catatonia, it doesn’t appear. These people can report on it after, when they come out. It wasn’t like they were in there. They were gone. They were gone.

**John:** Let’s move now to MDMA and the white supremacist. This is Rachel Nuwer writing for the BBC. Brendan was once a leader in the U.S. white nationalist movement. Then he took the drug MDMA in a scientific study that would radically change the extremist’s beliefs, to the surprise of everyone involved.

MDMA, also known as ecstasy, has been researched, and increasingly researched, for its role as a psychiatric aid for people who are going through PTSD and other things, I’ve seen in the past. This study was really not designed to be focusing on racists. It was just a study on how the drug itself works.

This guy signs up for it and feels he has this huge epiphany and this sense of connection to people he’s never experienced before. Basically, something fundamentally shifts about how he perceives this world around him and he renounces his white nationalist beliefs. That change largely appears to have stuck. Craig, what’s your first approach to this story, this article, and how you think it could be or if it could be useful.

**Craig:** Very challenging to do. For starters, it’s an individual. This isn’t something where we’re saying, okay, this is working. It’s an individual. Watching people take medicine and then changing their minds is a very un-cinematic thing to portray.

Of note, when you get to the end of the article, you start to feel things getting walked back a little bit. He says, “Yeah, I’m still a little bit like that.” Like, yeah, I still sometimes don’t like Jews, but I’m getting better. There’s a lot of things that could go wrong here.

**John:** Absolutely.

**Craig:** You know what? You go down the road of like, oh, you can just cure racism with an injection, you know who’s going to love that? The racists. They don’t get weird about that stuff.

**John:** There’s no Venn diagram crossover of anti-medical science and racism.

**Craig:** There’s not a lot of paranoia in the racist community.

**John:** We want to inject you so your beliefs will change.

**Craig:** They’re like, “Yeah, we know.” That’s a problem.

**John:** Let’s talk about movies about racists or racist central characters. It’s a challenge. I’m thinking of American History X, the Edward Norton film, which I didn’t love. It’s so tough to see and be close with a character who is just a racist asshole. Even if they’re redeemed at the end, it’s still really tough to sit down to watch that movie. It’s tough to get me excited to be in that space. I’m trying to think of counter-examples. What are movies that had racist protagonists who changed their beliefs, and we loved those movies?

**Craig:** Protagonists? No.

**John:** I think you could be an antagonist. A protagonist could be someone else who caused the change in this character. We see the change having happened, I guess.

**Craig:** We’ll watch movies about social justice. We will watch movies where racism is overcome by people who are brave. When it comes to the character study of racism, we don’t like watching it. Part of the reason, I think, is because it’s actually boring. We don’t mind, for instance, watching movies about serial killers. We’re fascinated. We want to know, maybe in part because we can point to a serial killer and say, “I don’t know what that thing is, so I’d love to know what’s going on in that head.” Racism is this baked-in extension of our most feeble instincts.

**John:** Our in-grouping or out-grouping-ness.

**Craig:** It’s kind of boring. It’s terrible. It causes all sorts of problems. From a dramatic point of view, what is it that we don’t know? I think we basically know. When you see somebody being a racist, you’re like, “That’s a racist.” You just don’t quite want to engage with them. There’s not that curiosity or sense of like, “I need to know how you tick.” I kind of don’t. I kind of don’t want to.

**John:** In a general sense, let’s talk about when you have a character who is in a group and then has an epiphany and realizes, “Oh, this group I’m in is wrong and bad. I need to leave this group and renounce my prior beliefs.” That can be an effective… That’s a protagonist journey. We totally get that, because you are leaving your safe home place, taking a risk, going to a new location.

It’s these details of this drug you accidentally took. Great. It’s like being bitten by the radioactive spider. This thing you didn’t anticipate caused the change. Our problem is that, we don’t want to hang out with you in your initial state. We don’t want to really talk about these things that you’ve been doing that are bad.

**Craig:** You can certainly see a situation where this kind of topic, the notion of a psychedelic experience opening someone’s mind to their own mistakes or failures, being a cool thing to happen on page 15, and then-

**John:** It’s the red pill, blue pill-

**Craig:** Kind of.

**John:** … game in The Matrix.

**Craig:** Then the rest of the movie is really about other stuff, like do I deserve redemption, how do I get out if I’m in trouble, if it’s dangerous to get out, can I get out, what if I love somebody that’s still in. There are ways to address that sort of thing. The reason I say page 15 is because now I’m on board with somebody who’s not a racist by page 15.

**John:** Exactly.

**Craig:** I get to go on a journey with a person that I can ride shotgun with. It’s just harder to do otherwise.

**John:** I think it’s also important the degree to which we as an audience see and believe the world from this character’s point of view. If he is not aware of, I don’t know, the racism, he’s not aware of how broken the group is that he’s a part of, and he’s not aware of the problem until this page 15 epiphany, then we’re there with him. If we can see from the start, oh no no no, this is bad, this is wrong, he’s a bad person, he’s with bad people, it’s going to be very tough for us to enjoy this movie.

**Craig:** Exactly. There is also the danger of a simplification. I’m not sure I believe this, is the problem. It may be that one person had this interesting thing. Let’s see. The article was written by Rachel Nuwer. I can see why Rachel Nuwer heard this story and went, “That’s a cool article.” I don’t know if it is medically relevant or psychologically relevant to humanity. It may just be this thing that happened to this guy.

**John:** Let’s talk about outside of the realm of How Would This be a Movie. Could drug treatment like this be useful for people who identify if they want to change their behaviors, that they are pursuing these racist beliefs because of this desperate need for community, and their recognition that they don’t need this for that sense of community, that they can actually find that sense of community outside this place? Sure, but that’s not a movie.

**Craig:** No, that’s not a movie, and it’s rife with all sorts of issues anyway.

**John:** This one is much more plotty. This is also drugs and people taking drugs that they are not even aware of.

**Craig:** Oh yeah, this one.

**John:** This is an article written by John Carreyrou for the New York Times. “Kyle Roche was a rising star in the field of cryptocurrency law until his career imploded. Who orchestrated his downfall?”

We’re not going to say the names of the people who orchestrated the downfall, because I don’t want to have to cut stuff out of this episode. We’ll talk about in a general sense. We’ve learned our lessons.

In a general sense, this is a guy who was writing about the cryptocurrency industry. At some point, he met up with these people who might’ve been investors. They were people who worked in this industry and didn’t remember much about that encounter. Sometime later, videos came out where he’s saying horrible things, and he does not remember saying them. He’s completely discredited and disowned, and his career is in tatters. I’m alighting a lot in that description. There are actually some interesting twists and turns along the way.

Craig, what do you think of this as a premise? Basically, here’s a guy who’s basically been doped and videoed into saying things that ruins him.

**Craig:** Kyle Roche was a cryptocurrency litigator, which just sounds like a scumbaggy thing to be. Am I allowed to say that?

**John:** He was the guy who went after the crypto companies. I don’t think he necessarily started the story as the bad guy. He was the person who worked in cryptocurrency litigation.

**Craig:** He worked for a thing called Ava Labs, which was connected with cryptocurrency. Look. It’s not like cryptocurrency isn’t criminal, always. It seems like a lot of times at this point. Regardless, here’s what I thought was interesting. There is a mechanism here. I don’t think in and of itself it’s a movie, but there’s a really interesting mechanism.

**John:** Agreed.

**Craig:** If we look back to The Firm, which is one of these great ’90s era thrillers, starring Tom Cruise, and is adapted from a Grisham novel, I believe.

**John:** It was.

**Craig:** It’s about basically a lawyer who gets blackmailed. He gets set up by a woman who seduces him. There is a videotape. Now he’s in too deep and he has to get out. I think this is a very interesting modern version of that. Nobody would probably go with the VHS tape of you having sex with a… More like, why don’t we just slip something in your drink and then just put you on our phone talking and saying dumb crap that’s going to get you canceled. That’ll do it. That did it.

**John:** It did it.

**Craig:** The other question, and this is where sometimes these paranoid thrillers are fun, what if nothing went in his drink? What if this is just what he’s saying, because he’s embarrassed. Hard to say. He has certainly no evidence, from what I can tell, that he was drugged. That said, one of the people that he was having dinner with has disappeared and doesn’t appear to have ever existed anyway in terms of their name. Something fishy was going on, clearly. I think, from a drama point of view, the mechanism of setting someone up here is pretty [crosstalk 00:27:28].

**John:** It’s pretty delicious. I agree, the crypto thing, it already feels dated and gross. I would lose that. Let’s say he’s a promising litigator. He’s a candidate for something, or he is the DA for someplace. This happens to him. How do you prove that this happened to you, or did it happen to you? I like your suggestion that maybe this didn’t really ever happen, that this is all an excuse for stuff. That’s juicy. I think there is a cool story to be told with this mechanism.

**Craig:** I think that’s really what we get out of this.

**John:** Our last one, Craig, somehow I feel like over the course of 10 years, we’ve never really gotten into UFOs and the truth behind the conspiracy to keep them from us. This was a very different post that someone sent to me. There’s no author. There’s no named author. It’s all anonymous. It’s a Reddit thread. The Reddit writer is saying that, “From the late 2000s to the mid-2010s, I worked as a molecular biologist for a national security contractor in a program to study Exo-Biospheric-Organisms,” the EBOs, what we would consider ETs.

You go through this thread, he talks about… I’m saying he. I’m just assuming it’s a he. I don’t know that he ever gave us any pronouns there. Was recruited and went through several interviews, after grad school, I guess, and basically signed a ton of NDAs, which he’s all now breaking. It was his job to review the literature. I’m not sure he was actually doing lab work, scientific lab work, but basically, figuring out what is the biology of this creature, this organism that we have here in this lab.

It describes something that looks like the classic gray alien that we’re used to, but then it goes into very detailed descriptions of specific biological processes. In the DNA coding of it all, it’s clearly some sort of chimera, in that this thing seems to have been using both very normal terrestrial DNA and some other stuff too. It was much more of an Earthy kind of creature than you would expect from something that came from Outer Space.

Craig, reading through this, I of course want to get your Craig bullshit detector test, but also where you think movie is in this space, if there is anything.

**Craig:** I don’t know what the movie would be here. Look. My guess is that this is somebody who is enjoying being incredibly creative with their knowledge of physiognomy and biology and anatomy and all sorts of things, and using lots of big words, which is fun. They seem to be doing it in a way that is willfully uninterested in educated people about certain things, which is bizarre.

There’s too much detail in certain areas and not enough in others. For instance, a lot of discussion of the fact, for instance, there’s a mouth and there’s an esophagus. However, there is no anus. I have a huge problem with that.

**John:** The explanation behind this is that it appears that waste products basically go through the skin essentially.

**Craig:** I have a huge problem with that. It’s not a great method-

**John:** No, not a great sign.

**Craig:** … to have a closed tube. Basically, it is a recipe for disaster. The fact that there are no genitals is a very strange thing, and only in the sense that so much of the rest of it, this person is arguing, is somewhat analogous. What they are describing is also something that sounds a whole lot like the little gray or green men that people started talking about in the ’50s. It doesn’t really matter.

Look. The other issue is, if this is true, and you’re a real person, and you’ve done all this real stuff, I don’t know why you’re putting it on Reddit. I really don’t. He says, look, and again, I’m going with your gender on this, “That every human being has the right to know the truth, and to progress, humanity needs to divest itself of certain institutions and organizations,” la da da da da. Okay, fine, but putting it on Reddit, you’re basically saying, “Please don’t believe this.” I just really struggle with that, all of that.

However, let’s say, even, it is all true. I don’t know what to do with it. It’s not functional.

**John:** Say every word is true. The obvious scenario is, we start the story with, okay, we’re recruiting you. It’s like Sydney Bristow being recruited in Alias. Basically, she’s going to work for, she thinks it’s the CIA, but it turns out to actually be this program to study the little gray men, and they have to decide what am I going to do, am I going to blow the whistle on this, or am I actually going to study this thing?

You could find ways to make stakes for that, basically just to do it from the start. This isn’t a movie about revealing it on Reddit. It’s about those first moments being brought into this big secret. There’s something very compelling about a character being introduced to a new world, a secret world, that has been hidden from everybody else, because it’s a super secret governmental program. There’s something compelling about that.

Then you have to develop characters. You have to develop stakes. You have to develop a whole structure around this and an endpoint for where this movie’s actually going to go. We don’t know what that would be.

Some of the things that are presented here I’m sure are actually part of the ET lore that I just don’t know about. This idea that the DNA is… These are engineered creatures. These are sort of like worker bees. They are not self-reproducing creatures. They’re actually manufactured in some way. That’s interesting. That’s different, for me. I’m sure there’s been hundreds of other examples of people speculating on that.

**Craig:** This is a cool thing, if you’re writing a movie, a fictional film, about people discovering that humans are the result of genetic engineering of extraterrestrial creatures or whatever it is that you’re thinking about. This is fun. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do with this.

**John:** I don’t know what we’re supposed to do with it either. As we’re talking, I’m thinking maybe this Reddit post we’re reading is actually just a form of fiction, just an interesting form of new fiction that exists as a Reddit post-

**Craig:** I think it is.

**John:** … that’s not meant to be anything else.

**Craig:** That’s what it feels like to me. Otherwise, what a weirdly bad way of going about this. Again, it’s written in such a way that it, at times, is really invested in explaining things to the layperson, and at other times, is enjoying not. You know when somebody uses a bunch of lingo or jargon around you, and should know you wouldn’t know it, and it’s annoying? That. It does a lot of that.

**John:** The writer actually acknowledges that, in terms of going way too deep on things, and also says, “I’m deliberately obfuscating some things and throwing you red herrings to protect myself to not reveal who I am.”

**Craig:** Okay, so what are we doing with this? I don’t know what to do with it. Did this take off on Reddit? Did it get super viral?

**John:** Yeah. It got popular enough that it showed up in my feed. More than one listener sent it to me about How Would This be a Movie. Of course, the original writer, it looks like, got banned off of Reddit. There’s all this speculation about if this writer’s been disappeared. Sure, or that could be that’s largely part of the game is that this information is being kept from you.

Craig, this is about this alien biology, but have we even discussed on the show, what is your perspective on unidentified aerial phenomenon? Increasingly now, we have our government acknowledging, yeah, there’s stuff that we see in the sky, that we can’t explain it. We’re not saying it’s extraterrestrial. Just yeah, there’s stuff, we don’t know what it is, and we’re going to acknowledge we don’t know what it is.

**Craig:** We don’t know what it is. The fact that we have a literary pretext for what it is doesn’t mean that that’s what it is. I’m still waiting for the reason why all these aliens keep visiting and sort of being seen but then not. They have no problem being seen for a while, but not clearly. They seem to have gone to the Bigfoot school of visibility. That is highly suspicious.

At this point now, we’ve been talking about UFOs since the ’40s, I believe, and I guess even earlier, to War of the Worlds and earlier, we’re still waiting for one of them, not even one of them, to just be seen. There was that story recently like, “Oh my god, the police found an alien in a backyard in Vegas.” No, it was a guy in a fricking forklift or something.

Anyway, the point is, we see things that we don’t understand all the time. No question. Do we know what they are? We do not. Are they the product of intelligent life, alien craft? No clue. Doesn’t seem consistent with anything that makes sense. Not sure what aliens are doing here. I know certainly if we travel to another planet, we won’t be traveling there to zip around weirdly and then leave. That’s just weird.

**John:** Not efficient use of resources.

**Craig:** No. Look. The best guess I have is that what’s happening is we are seeing some glitches in the simulation. That’s it. Just simulation glitches.

**John:** The other counter-argument for that we have a giant governmental conspiracy to hide this stuff is that Trump never said anything.

**Craig:** Honestly. Right?

**John:** The minute that anyone brought it up, he’s like, “Oh my god, I’m going to blab about it.”

**Craig:** He would say something like, “I can’t say. I’m not saying. Let me just say, some things, major things that would really… You would be amazed. You would be amazed.” He didn’t even do that. There’s nothing there. Although I got to be honest, if there are aliens, if we do have alien, they wouldn’t have told. They’re like, “Let’s not tell this one.”

**John:** They’re going to keep that from him. Craig, often on this part of these segments, we talk through and figure out which of these is going to be the one that’s optioned and made into a movie. I don’t think we have any of them this time. I don’t think any of these are directly going to be adapted into-

**Craig:** Correct.

**John:** … a feature film. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are not going to track these down, as they often do. That’s not going to happen. I agree with you. I think we found a really good mechanism in the drugged crypto lawyer. That’s going to come back. I liked our digging into the problems of the character who stops being so racist.

**Craig:** I don’t know what to do with any of these, other than to take the plot element of getting somebody to cancel themselves is a cool-

**John:** It is a great mechanism.

**Craig:** … method to screw somebody up. Other than that, I don’t know what to do with these, from a movie point of view.

**John:** Let us get to our next segment, which is Drew and Halley use our words against us.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** Drew Marquardt, our Scriptnotes producer, and Halley Lamberson, our Scriptnotes intern, they have been working through the whole back catalog as they’re putting together these chapters. They’ve found some, I don’t know, questions, some inconsistencies. Halley, Drew, let me turn it over to you. What would you like to ask us about? You’re in charge.

**Drew:** I will say we came at this, I think, looking for those inconsistencies, but you guys have been frustratingly consistent over the last 11 years. I thought I had one last week where I was like, “Oh, I got them dead to rights.” I went back, I checked the tape, and it all fit. We have a few questions, just to follow up on stuff.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** Great.

**Drew:** In Episode 74, back in 2013, you guys said that selling a drama spec script was very, very tough these days. I was wondering if that’s still true, or if you think that’s still true.

**John:** I think that is still true. I think the feature business has gotten even tougher with specs from 2013. There are still specs that sell. There’s still the blacklist. There’s still scripts that people find fascinating and eventually get into development. It’s really tough to do.

Now, as a corollary, I would say, is it easy to sell a comedy feature spec? No, not easy to sell those either. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be writing them. It just means that your expectation of like, this is going to be my lottery ticket that gets me started, should not be your expectation. You should think of, this is the really good script that will get me into rooms to start talking about a writing career. Craig?

**Craig:** I assume we were talking about feature films here. In 2013, we obviously were not aware of the impending stream apocalypse that was about to be imposed upon us all. The streamers have opened up other options. They make movies, if you want to call them that, features. There’s probably at least more opportunity there to sell a dramatic screenplay.

We were really talking in 2013, I suspect, in contrast with the way the business functioned when we began in the ’90s, where spec scripts were the mania. It was tulip mania. By the time you hit 2013, it was kind of gone. I don’t really think that kind of entrepreneurial feeding frenzy, send it out on a Friday, bidding war over the weekend, sell it by Sunday night, is going to come back.

**Drew:** Do you think drama is less likely to sell than a genre script, in like a thriller or horror category?

**Craig:** I actually think drama’s probably more likely than comedy right now.

**John:** As opposed to genre or horror? I think genre and horror are still selling. Even on the picket line, I talked to folks who are selling those scripts, because they can be made for a price. There’s a clear pattern for them.

**Craig:** Action movies, horror movies, definitely, but comedies are tough and drama’s tough. The other thing that I think we weren’t quite had our minds wrapped around completely in 2013 was just how dominant superhero films would become, and what a disruption they were to the flow of what we think of as genre film. Superhero movie was not a genre. They were making them. We knew what they were. It wasn’t like, oh, an entire studio is just going to pump out nothing but those.

That definitely changed things as well. The traditional kind of $45 million movie about politics or a marriage falling apart, there are still independent films, but the studios just got out of that business completely.

**John:** To the degree that they’re making those issue dramas, they’re based on a book, or they’re there for award season, and they’re going to be released in December and go through that whole process. It’s hard for you as a writer to be coming out of the gate with one of those.

**Craig:** I agree too that if it is not from a writer-director, it gets even harder, because at least with that, you can say, okay, there are people that make these kinds of Bombackian films, and they are director-writers, and that’s what they do. Makes sense. Trickier to the old-fashioned way of, I write a script, we throw it out to the town, and then a bunch of money comes back? I don’t think that’s changed.

**Drew:** Great. Halley, I will throw it to you.

**Halley Lamberson:** Back in December 2014, on Episode 176, advice to a first-time director, Craig, you said directing a movie, a feature film, is the hardest job in show business. We’d like to ask, what do you both think about this now, and what is the hardest job in show business?

**Craig:** Run a television show that was going to shoot for 200 days. Even though that is very hard, I’m going to double down here. Having directed again recently, there is a physical and mental demand to that job that is unique and really, really hard to do. When I say hard, I don’t mean hardest as in requiring the most talent or skill. It’s not necessarily the most difficult from that perspective. I mean just physically and emotionally, I think it is the hardest job. It can really break you down. There is no break. You get shot out of a cannon on Monday morning, and you land on the ground Friday night. You’re catatonic all weekend, and then you start again. That is brutal. I’m going to stick with that one.

**John:** I would say I recognize how difficult all the jobs are in this town, especially the jobs on set, going all the way to the PA, who has no agency, but has to get this thing to happen or do this thing. What is different about the director’s job is that they are responsible for all these different pieces, but they’re also responsible to their own creative vision for how they’re going to get this thing to work and how are they going to get in all the changes that are happening around them, what are they going to do to get the shot that they think they need for this next part of this process.

Craig, I really thought you might change over to showrunning, because obviously, when you were the showrunner on The Last of Us, you’re often on set and making some decisions, but you’re not the final responsible person. You’re also responsible for this entire universe and carrying it all in your head through this very long process, which is-

**Craig:** Hard.

**John:** More so than any one of your individual directors. It’s the, are you running 400 meters, or are you running a marathon? That’s the difference. There are different levels of exertion.

**Craig:** It is. Even when on set, ultimately, when you’re the showrunner, you’re the top of the mountain. Everybody understands that sooner or later, I’m the one that’s going to be editing it, I’m the one that’s making the final decisions, and if I don’t get the footage I need, I’ll be the one going back to get it somehow. You are always in charge. That is in and of itself, can be very taxing. There are times where you could say, “It’s 3:00 p.m. Things are going well. We’re into coverage. I like what I’m seeing. I’m going home. I’m going to go home.” Now, when I go home, I still have 12 meetings to do. I’m not going to go home and play Zelda.

That’s different than when I’m directing. When I’m directing, every minute of every day is on my shoulder, keeping the paces on my shoulder, making sure I get every shot I need, making sure I’m really happy. There’s the mental duress of deciding when I should move on and when I shouldn’t, that constant push and pull in your head of, I don’t want to start chasing, but I also don’t want to quit too soon. Also, just physically, up on your feet and moving around.

How about this? I’ll make a slight word adjustment. Directing is the most arduous job in show business. Perhaps the most difficult job in show business is being a showrunner, particularly on a very big show.

**John:** I would agree.

**Drew:** John, does it still drive you crazy when people camel case Scriptnotes?

**John:** Just to make sure everyone knows what we’re talking about with camel casing, camel casing is a… It’s not even punctuation. It’s a form of smashing words together, so that where the second word would start, you uppercase it. I will often see Scriptnotes written as capital S, C-R-I-P-T, capital N, O-T-E-S.

It still drives me frigging crazy. I hate it. I’ve stopped commenting on it now, because I know that it doesn’t actually change anything. People think that, I don’t know, maybe because I’m techy or something, that I enjoy the camel casing of it all, because it comes out of programming. I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s good.

Scriptnotes from the very start, from when Craig suggested the title Scriptnotes, I wrote it as one word, just capital at the front. It still does drive me crazy, and yet I see it in emails all the time. If you’re writing in with a question to Scriptnotes, just know that I enjoy that N being lowercase.

**Drew:** We throw out all the uppercase Ns.

**John:** That’s what it is. I’ve set a rule in our email programs to banish all the ones that uppercase it.

**Craig:** Could you set up a filter that just converts it automatically so you never have to see it?

**John:** Craig, that is actually a very smart idea. It’d be running a continuous process, but it’d be worth all the processor cycles to-

**Craig:** It would be worth it. You would need to-

**John:** Just to make it better for me.

**Craig:** … buy another 12 computers and an additional air conditioning unit just to take care of it. I will tell you, Drew, that this issue continues to not plague me.

**John:** Not a bit. I will say when I’m strapping in my Apple Vision headset, if I see that camel case N, it’s going to bug me.

**Craig:** Oh, man. What’s going to happen with that? We’ll find out.

**John:** We’ll find out.

**Craig:** We’ll find out.

**Drew:** Halley, I think you have the most important last question here.

**Halley:** This is something Drew and I are really looking for clarity on. We’ve learned of a few Craig personas on the show. There’s been Cool Craig, Sexy Craig.

**Craig:** Of course.

**Halley:** Today we’re bringing it back to Episode 238, the job of writer-producer, featuring Dana Fox. The question is, who is Whole Foods Craig, and is he still in there?

**Craig:** Who is Whole Foods Craig? I could guess what Whole Foods Craig is.

**John:** Let’s give it a guess.

**Craig:** Whole Foods Craig was super natural guy who’s all about eating clean and spirulina and all that. Is that Whole Foods-

**Drew:** You weren’t quite sure if he worked at Whole Foods or if he was just shopping at Whole Foods.

**Craig:** Hanging out there all day.

**Halley:** He sounded really chill.

**Craig:** Whole Foods Craig probably doesn’t work there, but should, because he is there all day. When he sees somebody looking to choose between which version of ginkgo biloba to buy, he’s like, “Hey man, just so you know, this one actually is triple filtered. This one may have additives.” Whole Foods Craig. Whole Foods Craig, by the way, is annoying.

**John:** Yeah, but I’ll take Whole Foods Craig any day over some of those other personas.

**Craig:** Oh, will you?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** I think you’ll take Sexy Craig. Sexy Craig gets taken.

**John:** Drew has control of the edits of Sexy Craig. I think it can disappear.

**Craig:** It’s on topic. I don’t know what to say. I didn’t bring up Sexy Craig.

**John:** Drew and Halley, thank you so much for all the hard work you’re doing on the Scriptnotes book and putting down these questions for us.

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

**Halley:** Of course. Thanks.

**John:** It’s time for our One Cool Things, Craig. I see you have one here. What is it?

**Craig:** It’s Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

**John:** Oh my god, it’s the game you’re playing.

**Craig:** Yeah, it is. You know what? I’m a little late. I’m not super late, but I’m a little late. I know that. The reason I wanted to call it out is because it is certainly a close successor to Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which was incredibly highly acclaimed game. It’s up there as one of the best video games of all time. I hated it. I just hated it. I just struggled with it so much.

Everyone was playing Tears of the Kingdom. I was like, “Okay, there’s maybe some things about it.” They really did improve so much of what bothered me about Breath of the Wild, and kept the things that I enjoyed. It’s wonderfully done. Hats off to Nintendo. There’s no blood. There’s no cursing. There’s no sex. It’s very bowdlerized. It’s very Disney. Yet it’s also quality. They invested so much thought and time and energy.

As you go through this game, you start with standard Zelda style, you start with three hearts. Those are your hit points. You got three hit points. You got to get more hearts, or you’re going to get killed all the time. The only way to get a heart is by solving puzzles in four different shrines. Each shrine has a puzzle.

**John:** I can’t imagine Craig wouldn’t enjoy those puzzles.

**Craig:** I do. Then you think, from a game design point of view, makes sense to make it hard. You gotta do four of them. You gotta find the shrine. Then you gotta solve the puzzle inside, which sometimes are very complicated. That gets you 25% of the way to a heart. You’re going to need to end up with 15, 20, 30 hearts to win this thing, I think. I’m currently at 16 hearts, and I can’t win yet. That means they have to come up with so many shrines and so many different puzzles. They did. That’s all layered on top of all the other stuff.

The other thing that Nintendo does so well is, no offense to everybody else out there, when they ship a game, it’s good to go. It’s solid. It works. There isn’t a lot of people running on YouTube and just going, “Can you believe they shipped this thing in this shape?” Hats off. Well done, Nintendo. Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a fantastic game. I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

**John:** That’s great. This is not my One Cool Thing, but I am playing Diablo 4. We talked about it, how we were both going to be starting our big RPGs. It is the opposite of Zelda. There’s nothing but blood. There’s so much blood in this game. Everything is drenched in blood at all times and misery core. I think it’s actually really, really well done. The game they shipped is flawless for me. I’ve been really impressed by-

**Craig:** That’s great.

**John:** … what they’ve learned from previous versions. It’s good. My actual One Cool Thing is Larry Turman. Larry Turman passed away recently. He had a remarkable 96-year life. He was a producer. He did The Graduate, got nominated for an Oscar, The Thing, American History X, which you mentioned today on the podcast.

**Craig:** And The Graduate. We mentioned both of those.

**John:** An absolute legend. I knew him because he was the head of the Stark Program. For 30 years he ran the Stark Program.

**Craig:** Wow.

**John:** I was part of the first class that he picked. He’s the reason I came out to Los Angeles, is because he picked me to join this class of 25. He ran that program so well and grew it and changed it. Our initial program, we had one television class over the two years. Now of course, Drew and other people get a lot of TV exposure in that class.

Scriptnotes would not make sense without Larry Turman, because not only did Larry pick me, he picked Stuart Friedel, Megan McDonald, Drew Marquardt, our Scriptnotes producers. They were all hand selected by Larry Turman. Our guests, like Dara Resnik, Chad Creasey, Al Gough, and Miles Millar, so many of the people you’ve encountered on Scriptnotes have come through this tiny little program at USC called the Peter Stark Program.

He was an absolute delight. I miss him. He was a gentleman through and through. After he left the Stark Program, he went, lived in the motion picture retirement community. I was going to go see him. I actually had an opportunity to present him with a Rolodex of all of the people who wanted him to remember what an impact he had, at this event. I thought that was actually probably the best last place for me to have a moment to thank him for all he did. I just wanted to acknowledge Larry Turman’s passing, because he was an absolute gem of a person.

**Craig:** Wow, that’s very sweet. You and I both know his son, John. Our sympathies to John. I should add, just because I guess we’re doing some obituaries here, Danny Goldberg, who produced the Hangover films, also passed away, yesterday in fact, as we’re recording this on Thursday, July 13th, somewhat unexpectedly, at a somewhat young age of 73. I know, Drew, that seems very old to you. I can only imagine that Halley probably didn’t even know people got that old, but we do. Danny was such a sweet and gentle guy, who went all the way back to the Harold Ramis, Ivan Reitman, Meatballs days. He was involved with so many big comedy films over the years. It’s just very sad to read about that yesterday. Also, rest in peace, Danny Goldberg.

**John:** That is our show for this week. Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt with help from Halley Lamberson. It’s edited by Matthew Chilelli.

**Craig:** You know it.

**John:** Our outro this week is by Jon Spurney. It’s back in the yacht rock tradition that you love so much, Craig.

**Drew:** He said challenge accepted.

**Craig:** Nice.

**John:** If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send questions, like the ones we answered today. You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find the transcripts and sign up for our weeklyish newsletter called Inneresting, which has lots of links to things about writing. We have T-shirts and hoodies. They’re great. You’ll find them at Cotton Bureau.

You can sign up to become a Premium member at scriptnotes.net, where you get all the back-episodes and Bonus Segments, like the one we’re about to record on One D and D. A last reminder, if you want to come to our live show, get your tickets now, because they will be gone very, very soon.

**Craig:** The Jon Bon Jovi of podcasts.

**John:** Thank you for a fun podcast.

**Craig:** Thank you, John.

[Bonus Segment]

**John:** Craig, you and I actually already had this conversation, but it was off mic. I want to have this conversation back on mic so we can thrill and/or bore our listeners who care or do not care about these details. The version of D and D that we’ve been playing as a group for the last six, eight years, longer than that? I don’t know how long we’ve been playing D and D with the group.

**Craig:** It’s been like 10 years now.

**John:** Ten years now. It’s called Fifth Edition. Fifth Edition is the version that Wizards of the Coast publishes of D and D, which is a very cleaned up version. It’s based around a die-20, and a lot of fundamental structural things went into Fifth Edition. People really like Fifth Edition. It’s become a very good standard. Yet over the course of these 10 years, things have been added and changed and moved around.

There’s a new version coming out, that doesn’t replace Fifth Edition, but clarifies, streamlines, simplifies some things. This new version is called One D and D. It’s in play-testing right now. I thought we might just walk through some of the changes there. I also want to discuss, how do you tinker with something people love in a way that makes them love it more and doesn’t make them resent you for tinkering with it.

**Craig:** Particularly when you’re dealing with the rule set for an RPG, because people that play tabletop games like this are not known for their flexibility, and they are opinionated. That said, you’re absolutely right. Wizards of the Coast just hit it out of the park with 5E. It transformed their business. It is the most popular version of Dungeons and Dragons ever. That’s for sure. What they seem to be doing, in a good way, is tweaking it based on a lot of input from players. That’s what it feels like to me.

I think a little bit of the change is being presented as maybe giving players a little more flexibility, but really is more about cleaning up some, as the kids say, problematic language, as the world has changed. In Dungeons and Dragons, there are races. The races have traits. I don’t know. People aren’t as into that concept.

**John:** We should say, by races we’re talking there’s humans, but there’s also gnomes and there’s halflings and there’s dragonborn. Within those races, it’s long been established that people can look like a lot of different things, but those are the basic categories.

**Craig:** There were attributes that were connected specifically to race. Certain races were stronger than other races, physically. Certain races were smarter than other races. Certain races come with bonuses for these things. There were also half-races.

In general, I think in a good way, there’s nothing about connecting qualities to race that is inherent. One of the things they’ve said, which I agree with, is that if you disconnect some of these things from race, and instead attach it more to just your choice, you can make more interesting characters. You could always make, for instance, a half-orc wizard. There’s no problem with it. Your character was always going to be lagging behind, because you had started them in a weird way.

**John:** Specifically they’d be disadvantaged, because an orc would not have the intelligence bonus that-

**Craig:** That’s right, an elf would.

**John:** … someone else would.

**Craig:** A high elf would.

**John:** Elf would.

**Craig:** What the half-orc would have would be a bonus in strength, which is useless for a wizard. What they’re saying now, in this new version, is these things are not at all connected to race. You can pick whatever race you want. The bonuses to ability scores are uniform. It’s this amount. You put them where you want. You can have an orcish wizard, without feeling like you’re starting three tiers below your friends. Similarly, you can have a gnomeish barbarian. It’s fun.

**John:** Along with the basic stats, like strength, intelligence, wisdom, constitution, there’s some things that also came along with the character’s chosen race. Those things have been moved into what’s called a background, so basically where you grew up or your origin story informs what sort of skills you might have. That also tracks and makes more sense.

I think an important thing to think about, which is also true for screenwriting, is that the characters in your stories are, by their nature, going to be exceptional. They’re not going to be ordinary folks. It makes sense that your orcish wizard is remarkable and different from other characters out there. The fact they can do these things at all is remarkable. It makes sense that they shouldn’t be confined to certain traits or aspects.

**Craig:** That’s right. They’re also doing a lot of interesting work to even out things that were a little wonky. In the 5E system, as your character levels up, generally speaking, every four levels, it’s different for fighters, you will have a chance to either increase some of your abilities, like strength or intelligence or charisma, or you can take a feat. A feat is a special property that gives you interesting options that you would’ve otherwise had. Some of those feats were great. Some of those feats stank.

**John:** Some of them no one ever used.

**Craig:** Correct. What they’re doing now is, A, balancing the feats out a bit better, but B, to give players, to get them into the feats, because the feats are cool. Currently, every first-level player, as you begin your journey, gets a feat, no matter who you are. It’s tied to background. I think that’s great. Also, the feats themselves will be changing as you level up, which is not the case currently, so that’s fine.

**John:** Craig, thinking back to your original players handbook, from Second Edition or whatever you consider your first, AD and D handbook.

**Craig:** AD and D.

**John:** AD and D. All the spells were printed in there multiple times, in the cleric spell list and the magic-user spell list. It was basically exactly the same spell, but they were in fact padding. They were filling out this book. A change I really respected, at some point they realized, you know what, it’s the same spell. We should just call it the same spell. The spells will be alphabetical now. They’re going further now, where they’re saying rather than have these different spell lists for all these different characters and who gets to cast what spell, we’re going to group them all by three basic categories, primal spells, divine spells, and arcane spells. Arcane is what we think about with wizards casting generally. Divine are things like priests and paladins. Primal would be-

**Craig:** Sorcerers, druids.

**John:** Druids. Rangers might have those primal spells. That tracks and makes sense. It just makes things also a lot simpler in terms of thinking who can cast what spell.

**Craig:** These kinds of simplifications are great. What happens is, over time you can just start to feel those friction points. We’ve solved a lot of those friction points just by the way everything’s become digitized. When we started playing again, we all had the physical book. You have to flip through the book. You had all your tabs to get to the pages. You were constantly going back to your textbook. Now you can just type it up and boop. That’s going to become even more the case as Wizards moves D and D towards their new virtual tabletop platform through D and D Beyond, but to continue to reduce those friction points, which makes total sense.

The other thing, what I appreciate is, as far as I can tell, they’re just asking the question, what would be more fun? Look. Wizards have a thousand different spells they can use. There’s so many choices you can make. If you’re playing a barbarian, you have one choice really. Should I rage or not rage? I guess there’s a sub-choice. Should I attack recklessly or not? Basically, that’s it.

**John:** That’s it.

**Craig:** That’s your thing.

**John:** Hit with sword. Hit with sword.

**Craig:** That’s what you do all day. If that’s what you do all day, currently when you rage, you rage for a minute. What it does is it gives you a couple things, and then it’s over. If you don’t attack somebody or get hit, it ends. They’re like, maybe rage should last for 10 minutes, and you don’t have to get hit or keep hitting. You just get to stay angry for 10 minutes. You get a few other benefits outside of combat as well, which is nice. Just recognizing once a barbarian’s burned through their rage, what the hell are they doing all day with their friends? Everyone else is doing all this cool stuff. They’re like, “Done.”

**John:** I’m excited to play it. I think the next campaign we start, we’ll probably try to use these rules and see what it is. We’re skipping over some smaller rule adjustments which just seem to make sense, conditions that track a little bit better and things like that. These were the big ones. I think it also may result in a little bit less min-maxing of like, “Oh, I’m going to choose a half-elf for this character, because it’ll give me this bonus here.” It’s like, no, just pick the most interesting things for you to play, rather than for the stats.

**Craig:** Yes. Now, let us always remind ourselves that the great body of D and D players are resourceful, smart, and particularly good At finding exploits. Part of what Wizards is doing is also, as they put these test rules out, they are looking for people to basically do the equivalent of white hat hacking, to find weaknesses, because any little slight mistake of wording, and suddenly a Level 1 character may have something that’s way too powerful. We’re not there yet. We’re not near, I don’t think, the final version of this. Maybe by the end of the year.

**John:** Maybe. 2024 is what I’ve seen. Sometime in that, it’ll come out. It’ll be nice. Even though so much of the play has moved online, the resources are online, I still want physical books for this. I really enjoy having my first experience with these things flipping through the pages and seeing that stuff. They may great books.

**Craig:** They do. By the way, have you watched the demo video of what they’re working on virtual tabletop-wise?

**John:** It really does look great.

**Craig:** It’s amazing.

**John:** For listeners at home, it’s a 3D kind of environment. What Craig and I have been playing is called Roll20. It’s a top-down view. It’s like you’re looking at a grid of paper. It’s good. This one that they’re doing for this new version is 3D. Your characters look like little miniature figurines that are moving around.

**Craig:** Which I love.

**John:** Yes, and which is a smart choice. They’re not realistic character things. They’re little figurines. Spells have effects and things, and you see it all.

**Craig:** It’s interesting three-quarter view. It just looks spectacularly good. If I were Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds or any of these other guys, I’d be very nervous right now.

**John:** The Roll20s though, they can also handle other games. They’ll be fine. People who want to play other non-D and D stuff will still be at Roll20.

**Craig:** D and D still accounts for I think about half of their play base. Exciting days ahead for D and D. I’m particularly pleased that based on what they’re saying here, they’re not evening saying hey, this is D and D 6.

**John:** No, it’s not.

**Craig:** Which I think is great. I think they’re just saying, we’re just buffing and polishing 5, because that’s all it needed really. I think that’s great.

**John:** I agree. Craig, thanks.

**Craig:** Thank you, John.

Links:

* [Scriptnotes LIVE! at Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/scriptnotes-live-tickets-674019238687) benefitting [HollywoodHEART](https://www.hollywoodheart.org/)
* [A catatonic woman awakened after 20 years. Her story may change psychiatry](https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/wellbeing/300895339/a-catatonic-woman-awakened-after-20-years-her-story-may-change-psychiatry) by Richard Sima for Stuff
* [How a dose of MDMA transformed a white supremacist](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230614-how-a-dose-of-mdma-transformed-a-white-supremacist) by Rachel Nuwer for BBC
* [He Went After Crypto Companies. Then Someone Came After Him.](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/18/business/kyle-roche-crypto-leaks-satoshi.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare) by John Carreyrou for the New York Times
* [Alien biology post](https://www.reddit.com/r/aliens/comments/14rp7w9/from_the_late_2000s_to_the_mid2010s_i_worked_as_a/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email) on Reddit
* [Awakenings](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099077/) and [Lorenzo’s Oil](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104756/)
* Scriptnotes episodes [74](https://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-ep-74-three-hole-punchdrunk-transcript), [176](https://johnaugust.com/2014/scriptnotes-ep-176-advice-to-a-first-time-director-transcript), [238](https://johnaugust.com/2016/scriptnotes-ep-238-the-job-of-writer-producer-transcript) and [251](https://johnaugust.com/2016/they-wont-even-read-you).
* [The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom](https://www.zelda.com/tears-of-the-kingdom/)
* Larry Turman on [IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0877274/) and [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Turman).
* Dan Goldberg on [IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0325175/) and [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Goldberg_(producer)).
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* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Jon Spurney ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt with help from Halley Lamberson, and edited by [Matthew Chilelli](https://twitter.com/machelli).