The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2022/dating-your-writing-partner).
**John August:** Hello and welcome. My name is John August.
**Craig Mazin:** My name’s Craig Mazin.
**John:** This is Episode 559 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.
Today on the show, we will ask the eternal and perhaps most important question, How Would This Be a Movie? We’ll look at stories in the news and from history and discuss how to move from facts to film.
We’ll also answer a bunch of listener questions, because that’s another thing we do on podcasts quite frequently.
**Craig:** Yeah, and for good reason. People are curious.
**John:** They are. For a Bonus Segment for Premium Members, Craig, we have to figure this out live because we did not discuss this ahead of time. Some possibilities here. We have one additional story we can talk about, which is about live action role-playing in Poland. We could talk about retirement. We can talk about fandom, perhaps that new Zack Snyder article. What do you want to talk about for the Bonus Segment?
**Craig:** How about we don’t talk about the Zack Snyder thing? How about we just live our best lives?
**John:** I was going to say we could put that in the Bonus Segment so it’s all behind a paywall.
**Craig:** Eh.
**John:** Nothing’s really ever safe, is it?
**Craig:** No. I’m okay not going near that. I’m cool.
**John:** You know what we could talk about, and this is a thing we talked about just before we started recording, is how do you keep track of all the people you meet?
**Craig:** That’s a great question.
**John:** I’m dealing with it now. You’re dealing with it now. Best practices we’ve learned so far for keeping track of people involved on a project.
**Craig:** I think that’s a great idea, because ideally, we are talking to a lot of people who not only want to sell some work or be hired to write things, but want to be in production. When you get into production, or even if you just get into a writers’ room, there’s a lot of people.
**John:** A preview of what I want to talk with you about is really showing up on a set that first day, and there’s like 50 people, and you’re like, “Oh my god, I’m never going to remember everybody’s names.” We’ll figure that out.
**Craig:** Exactly. You won’t. That’s the big secret. We’re going to get into tips and tricks on how to remember as many as possible.
**John:** We’re going to start off this episode on a down note. Eric Webb. If you’ve ever come to a Scriptnotes live show over the past 10 years, you probably saw Eric Webb, and hopefully got a chance to talk with him. He was a jolly guy, a bigger fella, always wore I guess you call it a pageboy hat.
**Craig:** It was a cabby hat or a newsboy hat kind of thing. That sort of thing.
**John:** Big round face, always smiling. A really great guy. We learned this last week that he passed away actually in June. He was great. I’m so sorry that I’ll never get to see him at one of our live shows again.
**Craig:** He was a lovely, sweet man. We’ve talked on the show before about… Megana introduced us to the concept of parasocial relationships. Back when we would have live shows, and I would imagine perhaps we will be there again soon, you would see some people over and over, and some for better, some for worse. Eric was such a sweetheart and just a lovely guy. It’s sad. I think he would’ve gotten a kick out of us talking about him this much on the show. I think he would’ve enjoyed that. Adieu and RIP to Eric Webb.
**John:** Absolutely. I want to send our sympathies along to his family and his fiance. To get on to the main meat of the show, I thought we might mix it up and actually start with listener questions before we get to the How Would This Be a Movies, because we got some good listener questions here. Megana, would you start us off?
**Megana Rao:** Dangerous wrote in and asked, “On a recent episode, you discuss breaking up with a writing partner, a friend one. My question is, should you date a writing partner? My writing partner and I have sold features and pilots together and have been a team in rooms. He’s a great friend. The problem is I’m married, but things with my husband are in a really rocky place and have been for months. Now my writing partner swoops in to tell me that he’s in love with me and thinks we should give it a shot. He listed coupled/married writing teams as an example of how we can make it work. We could be writing partners and romantic partners. WTF? We have a great thing going as this productive, work-focused team. I really don’t want to lose that. I’ve seen firsthand what can happen to a close relationship and how it can become petty and bickery and horrible. Hello, my marriage. But would it be amazing? Have you guys ever seen it work out? If you were staffing for a room, would you ever staff a couple, or would you run from the drama that could ensue?”
**Craig:** Oh, my.
**John:** This could be a whole episode by itself. I could think of several writing partners that became couples and are still in very happy marriages. Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa are friends of mine who’ve done that and have had a very successful career and marriage and family, which is terrific and fantastic. I also know writing teams that have broken up when romance entered, or they got married and they split apart. That also happens as well. I think no matter what Dangerous decides to do here, something is going to change, because she’s going to have to talk with this partner, talk with the husband about what it is she actually wants in life. Craig, what’s your first instinct here?
**Craig:** I agree with you on the factual basis. There are lots of married couples that write together.
**John:** The Wimberlys.
**Craig:** I myself am so thrilled that I don’t have that, that my life partner and wife partner does not write with me. I think that would be a disaster. It depends on the people. It depends on the couple. Would it be amazing? That’s the question that’s most concerning to me, because you’re in a rocky place with your husband. I don’t know if it’s going to make it. I don’t know if you guys are going to get divorced. When people are in rocky places, they are rocky inside. When people are rocky inside, that’s when stuff happens. You are vulnerable. You are probably feeling quite a lot of things all at once. Your writing partner clearly is feeling a lot. You are looking perhaps to go from a boat that’s sinking to a boat that looks fresh and shiny and new. That doesn’t mean you’re going to like that boat that much in a month or a year. It doesn’t mean the boat won’t sink. I think probably most people would caution you about getting into a new relationship while your current relationship is unraveling, especially if it might re-ravel, but even if it doesn’t.
You have a productive writing partnership. I got to be honest. I think this dude has thrown a rock into that pond. It is no longer the same pond. When you ask, “Would it be amazing?” you should know the answer to that. I’m worried that you’re grasping, Dangerous. It feels like you’re grasping. You’re grasping in hope, like hey, maybe this is the answer to the things that are making me sad or miserable. It might, but I wouldn’t make that change now. I think if there’s any way you could pause on that and punt it down the line a bit, that would be great, but probably your writing partner has made that impossible. I don’t know what’s going to happen here, but I am concerned that, much like a narrative, your writing partner has introduced an inciting incident, and now the narrative must proceed to a conclusion.
**John:** Inciting incident feels right because this does seem like a plot. It seems like a romantic comedy plot or some other kind of drama plot. You are now the protagonist who has to make a difficult choice within this. You have to have two conversations. You have to have a conversation with the husband where things are not going very well and figure out what’s not going very well. Is there counseling or something else that can get you to a better place? Because you did once love this person and things were once good. Is the problem related to the writing partner? Is it related to some other things? Does your husband sense that there’s another man encroaching there? Possibly. Figure out what that is. That is a conversation that needs to happen.
Obviously, you have to have a conversation with this writing partner to acknowledge his feelings. I would say don’t commit to any next step with him on that romantic pathway. Just say, “Listen, you’re going to figure out your own stuff.” You hear this, but you’re not willing to pursue anything with him at this moment, because I agree with you, it seems so tempting to just like, this isn’t working, so I’ll jump over to this safe place with a guy who I get along with, who we seem to have good chemistry. That’s not going to ultimately solve having this problem.
**Craig:** Any time someone says, “Maybe that’ll make me happy,” all of the hackles rise. Where are your hackles, by the way?
**John:** I think my hackles are down my back, but I’m not really sure. Where do you think your hackles are?
**Craig:** I thought maybe the back of the neck.
**John:** I was thinking neck down to mid-spine. That feels like where my hackles are. If you see some dogs when they get angry, it puffs up there. That feels like hackles.
**Craig:** I’m looking at it now. Indeed, hackles are the erectile hairs along the back of a dog or other animal that rise when it is angry or alarmed, although you can also get hackles on the neck or saddle of a domestic rooster or other bird. I think probably the other one. We were right. It’s the back of your, if we were dogs, what would be our necks and backs.
**John:** Hackles feels like it’s a defensive, it’s a postural, it’s a sense of aggression. Hackles are not nervousness. It’s something like ah. I’m going to be itching to fight.
**Craig:** Dangerous was probably really into this until we started going off on some etymological discussion of animals, and then she was like, “Wow.”
**John:** “This is not helpful for me at all.” Let’s get back to her actually question. “If you were staffing a room, would you ever staff a couple, or would you run from the drama that could ensue?” I would absolutely staff a couple if I felt like they were the right people for the room, had a good vibe for it, they seem like good writers, they seem like they have something really cool to bring to it. I’m not going to discriminate against a married couple.
**Craig:** No, certainly not. When you hire a writing team, you’re hiring a couple. There’s drama that can ensue with any partnership, whether it’s a romantic and professional partnership or just a professional partnership. Also, I think there’s honestly drama that’s going to happen regardless between everyone, because drama people are dramatic. I’ve talked to enough people who run rooms and have heard enough stories. There is a certain aspect to it that is the proverbial herding of cats, dramatic cats that sometimes love each other, sometimes hate each other. They feel very strong feelings that come and go. There’s collisions of cultures and work styles. There’s always drama. Frankly, a nice, stable married couple, if they had been married for 15 years, that sounds like a dream, honestly. They won’t be dramatic. They’re just going to sit there and do their work.
**John:** The last thing I want to point out about this question, this thesis put out here by Dangerous is I don’t see anywhere where Dangerous says that she’s attracted to this writing partner, that she feels a spark there, other than that she feels like she can trust him. Is their chemistry really there? That’s a question worth asking, because if he’s a nice guy, but he’s not a person you would date otherwise, that’s not going to be a match.
**Craig:** I noticed this too. That’s why I really zeroed in. Her question, “Would it be amazing?” You should know that already. I love that the writing partner did make a case though. “He listed coupled and married writing teams as an example of how we can make it work.” This is a very debate style wooing.
**John:** 100%, like, “Let me list the three things.” If it was a PowerPoint presentation, then I’m completely sold on the writing partner. Megana, I’m honestly curious your perspective on this, because you are probably encountering some of these situations in your own life or friends who are going through this kind of thing where romance and writing partnerships are entangled. What is your instinct, if this were a friend who was coming to you?
**Megana:** I’m just trying to think, because my instinct is to not pursue at all, but I also really empathize, because I think finding someone that you have chemistry with is rare and special and wonderful, but it sounds so messy. As Craig said, dramatic people are dramatic, and this just feels like so many chaotic red flags to me that I just want to send this woman on a yoga retreat somewhere.
**John:** I respect that very much. I think we’re all in agreement that she needs to focus on what she wants first, rather than going to jumping into this new relationship. Work on herself.
**Megana:** It’s that thing you guys always talk about when people give you notes or stuff. If you are writing to the negative, that is a much less helpful note than writing toward something positive.
**Craig:** That’s a great point that works here as well. It sounds like she’s running from something, not necessarily toward something. I’ll tell you what, Dangerous. Obviously, we are therapists. We’re just not licensed or educated. Of course, we’re fake therapists. We’re also fake lawyers, people know that about us, and fake doctors. Let us know, let our fake selves know, how this all turned out. It doesn’t have to be next week. Take a few months. Take a year. Let us know how it worked out, because there’s a world where you and this writing partner end up having the most incredible life together. There’s also a world where you blow it all up, where you blow everything up and you’re left in the rubble. I’m excited. You have begun a movie, and we need to know how it ends.
**John:** Absolutely. The inciting incident happened, and now we need to know where the story goes.
**Megana:** It seems like there’s two options, but I do just want to remind her that there’s option three, which is none of the above.
**John:** 100%.
**Craig:** Girl. I love it. She ends up with a totally different person or solo permanently.
**John:** Also valid.
**Craig:** We’ll see what happens.
**John:** Let’s do something that’s actually a little bit more screenwriter-focused. Can we get another question, Megana?
**Megana:** Yes. Peter from Berlin asks, “I recently relistened to Episode 152 where you talk about the importance of tone in screenplays, and it made me wonder about something. We all know movies that have fallen apart in development because key people had competing creative visions that were at odds with each other. In that regard, how important do you think the voice or tone of a script is in aligning those different visions? Do you feel a script with a clear, strong voice is more resilient against directors, producers, actors, other writers, etc who try to introduce new elements that are tonally incongruent with the rest of the story?”
**John:** I have a strong answer. I’m curious what Craig’s answer is. I think tone and voice are incredibly important to attract people to a thing, but once the trains start moving, tone and voice will not be any defense against the whims of the people involved.
**Craig:** That’s right. There’s no bulwark, there’s no great wall you can build of tone. The whole point of other people coming in is usually to adjust the tone to some extent. What will happen is you may get a call and say, “Okay, I need you to come in and just make these scenes better.” In that case, you often stay within the tone. You’re just trying to give the scenes more structure and more interest. You’re trying to make them more clever. You’re just trying to make the writing better, literally the dialog, that it should be more poetic and more captivating. A lot of times when things are in trouble, what they’re saying is this is too cheesy, it’s too funny, it’s not funny enough, it’s too broad, it’s too subtle, we need it to appeal more to families, we need it to appeal more to women, we need it to appeal more to blank blank blank. Then your job is to adjust things that always go to tone. Development hell has many different kinds of fire, but the fire of destroyed tone is a hot one that burns bright.
**John:** In my experience as a screenwriter, never has a studio executive or producer said, “No, we can’t touch that, because the script is perfect.” No one has ever [inaudible 00:16:27] the A-list talent and said, “No no, you can’t change that. The script is perfect as it is. This has a strong voice. We cannot change that.” No, they will change the thing, because they’re trying to make the movie. They’re not trying to make the script. They’re doing whatever they need to do in order to make the movie happen. That could be changing fundamental things in the script or changing tonal things or adding a scene that maybe doesn’t really need to be there or making a character shift.
Also, the fact that you have to cast people in those roles changes those roles. Sometimes you’re adjusting things because what worked on the page for one theoretical actor doesn’t work with the actual actor who was cast in that role. It’s hard to both say… Tone and voice are so crucial. They absolutely are. At a certain point in production, they become much less important, much more about how we’re going to get this movie to actually happen.
**Craig:** It’s why there are a lot of questionable films.
**John:** Another question, Megana.
**Megana:** Learning to Treat Yourself writes, “How do you celebrate or reward yourself for finishing a first draft? I’ve recently finished writing the first draft of my first feature film. I enjoyed the process, but by the end, I didn’t make much of it. I took a week off before working on the second draft. I think it’d be nice to celebrate a project getting through a certain stage, and would love to hear what other writers do, if anything.”
**Craig:** That’s a really interesting question. I have a terrible answer. You probably have a great answer.
**John:** I have a terrible answer.
**Craig:** Oh, no.
**John:** You go with yours first, because mine’s not going to be better. I promise.
**Craig:** I don’t do anything.
**Megana:** Aw.
**Craig:** I do nothing. I do nothing. You know what I do? I worry that maybe it’s not good enough. Also, finishing, what a lie. I think actually I tend to get slightly down when I finish things. There’s a postpartum period there where I don’t feel very good. I’ve always envied people who go on Twitter and they’re like, “First draft done, the end,” going out with friends, getting drunk, doing this, having fun, “Treating myself to a day at the spa,” blah blah blah. I’m just like, “I deserve nothing. I deserve nothing.” You can’t have a worse answer than that. There’s no way.
**John:** Panda Express.
**Craig:** Oh, shit.
**John:** That was my treat for finishing a draft as a young guy with a studio apartment and no bed. When I would finish a draft, I would treat myself to Panda Express, the two items plus egg rolls if I had actually finished a draft. It’s generally a Friday treat. This is me driving out to Century City shopping mall, going to Panda Express there and getting that. That was like $11 to spend on a lunch, which was a lot. That was treating myself for having done the work.
**Craig:** When you went to Panda Express, what did you get? Two items is not clear enough. I need more information.
**John:** I’m sorry. I would get half white rice, half chow mein. That’s the base. I would get Buddha’s Delight, which is the tofu thing, and then mixed vegetables, because at that point I was a vegetarian.
**Craig:** Wow. Wow. I am disgusted. Look, here’s the thing. In my mind, that is more self-abusive than what I did, because you went to Panda Express, which the whole point of it is orange chicken, and then you got the two healthiest things there were there. You just didn’t do it. You went there. You were like, “I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to go to a sex club. I’m going to go to an orgy, but I’m just going to stay in the vestibule where you just check in. I’ll check in. I’ll read the rules. I’ll give them my credit card.”
**John:** “I’m going to make sure everyone’s coats are well taken care of.”
**Craig:** “I’m going to think about going in there, and then I’m going to leave.” I’m outraged.
**John:** Sometimes I would also like to see an afternoon movie, which also feels like cheating, to see a movie in the afternoon.
**Craig:** Megana, save us, please, for the love of god. Please tell me you do something that’s good.
**Megana:** I just ran into this this last week. I like to get an ice cream cone.
**Craig:** There you go.
**Megana:** I realize that I go before I finish the draft.
**Craig:** That’s just called eating ice cream.
**John:** It’s a pre-warning.
**Craig:** That’s just called depression.
**Megana:** I had two scenes left to write. I was like, “How am I going to do this if I don’t have energy? I need the ice cream now.”
**Craig:** You’re not using it as a reward, but really more of a motivation.
**Megana:** Yeah, but then after I finished, I felt so proud. I was like, “I need to celebrate.” I was like, “Do I go back to Salt and Straw?” Then I was like, “No, you’ve don’t his wrong, Megana.”
**Craig:** I see. You didn’t go for the second ice cream.
**Megana:** I didn’t.
**Craig:** I’d like to point out that what you didn’t go is go to Salt and Straw and ask for a cup and a spoon and no ice cream, which would be the John August method.
**Megana:** If I asked for some sort of sorbet, that feels like the equivalent of Buddha’s Delight.
**Craig:** “I got the nondairy whipped air.”
**John:** It’s delicious. Delicious whipped air.
**Craig:** “With natural orange essence in it.”
**John:** This actually came up a few weeks ago. I set up a project that’s not been announced yet. Megana did point out, “Wait, are you going to do nothing to celebrate?” I was like, “I don’t know. I guess I’m not.” It really was that the deal finally closed. That’s one of the things too about our business. It’s not like you win the lottery, and so they’re like, “Oh, you won the lottery.” It’s like, “Oh, they’re going to buy this thing.” It’s like, “Okay.” Then take nine weeks to make the actual deal. The deal finally closed. I was like, “I could go out and celebrate that the deal closed.” I was just like, “I got other stuff to do.”
**Craig:** You’ve had too many deals that closed. That’s the problem.
**John:** That’s what it is. It’s all the success. Success [inaudible 00:22:01].
**Craig:** It’s actually quite a bummer. We’re now going to wander into annoying successful guy chat, so everybody just-
**John:** Please.
**Craig:** … close your ears for a second. When I was young, back in the day, John, you remember that Variety was a physical publication.
**John:** Love it.
**Craig:** There was a website called variety.com. When you would have something happen, there would be a usually very tiny blurb in Variety that said so. I would buy the Variety, which cost like a hundred dollars a copy then, so stupid, and then cut it out and frame it, because I didn’t know if it would last. Now my goal in life is to not be mentioned in Deadline, ever. That’s my goal. There is a joy in the early celebration. Now John, congratulations on whatever this is. I assume you’re going to… You did announce it. You just announced it.
**John:** Yeah, but I’m not going to announce what it actually is. I announced a thing that is potentially happening, but the actual announcement is being saved for some future time, for reasons outside of my control, which is great, I’m delighted about.
**Craig:** We will wait patiently.
**John:** Anticipation.
**Craig:** Anticipation.
**John:** Let’s do one more question before we get to our How Would This Be a Movies.
**Megana:** Max from LA asks, “My question relates to character chemistry and connection. A note I often receive is that the chemistry between two characters who are love interests is, quote, ‘not on the page.’ The characters have banter, incidental physical interactions. Maybe they tease each other. Once actors are involved, I think their connection will come through. How do you put this more on the page? Are there certain types of interactions that show a connection between characters, that set up the will they, won’t they dynamic? Other ideas I lean into are things like remembering details about the other person, going out of the way to do something the other person would appreciate, or causing that person to laugh. What other tools do you use to show the reader that people are falling for each other?”
**John:** That was a nice question. My instinct here is that folks who are reading Max’s screenplay, they’re not seeing the whole movie, because if they actually saw the scenes as filmed, we’d see those little interactions between people, like the glance that they don’t really notice the other person is there. These are little, small moments. I think Max may not be putting those literally on the page. He may not be scripting those of those moments in, so they could be bantery dialog. We’re not seeing the small, little moments in the scene description that are really showing there’s a growing connection and chemistry here, even if the characters themselves are not aware of it.
**Craig:** There are things you can do that are simple. For instance, in action description, you can describe things that you want there to be, them getting closer, then someone touches an arm. Also, part of writing is writing scenarios and situations where we go, “Oh my god, they’re into each other.” That’s not really anything to teach. I will say, Max, that the things that you’re listing are romantic, but they’re not hot. Do you know what I mean? Remembering details about the other person, it’s all a bit sappy, but it’s not hot. It’s called chemistry for a reason, because we can’t see it. It feels hormonal and pheromonal and in the air. The two people that have it are living in their own weird bubble. You have to create situations where we can be part of that bubble like a little fly on the bubble wall.
**John:** Here’s a good exercise for Max to try is to take a look at some scenes or movies where characters have real chemistry, like body heat or some other-
**Craig:** Out of Sight.
**John:** Out of Sight, fantastic. Looking through those scenes, and don’t look at the script, just look at the scenes, and then figure out how would you script those scenes that you just watched. How would you call out the things that are happening in there that let us know on the page this is what’s happening between those characters? That may be a good exercise for you and just give you some hints for what’s going to actually be helpful to be thinking about script-wise for showing that chemistry.
**Craig:** Sounds good to me.
**John:** Cool. Let’s get to our marquee topic here, this How Would This Be a Movie, where we take a look at stories that are in the news, stories from history that our listeners have suggested to us, saying these could be filmed entertainment, either a mini series or a live-action feature or an animated feature. We got a bunch of suggestions that came in. Thank you to everybody who sent those in. So many people suggested the backstage drama at Funny Girl.
**Craig:** You know what? I’m so proud of our listenership for being into that story, a very Broadway story.
**John:** It’s a very Broadway story. Are there any heroes in this story? I’m not sure there are.
**Craig:** No.
**John:** It’s Broadway.
**Craig:** It’s Broadway.
**John:** It’s Broadway.
**Craig:** It’s Broadway.
**John:** Broadway. It’s a warm hug and long knives. That’s Broadway.
**Craig:** That’s Broadway.
**John:** People are also talking about the January 6th hearings. No, that’s not a movie. That’s not a movie.
**Craig:** That’s not a movie. Just refer back to All the President’s Men. That’s the movie version of something like that. The hearings are a part of the plot, but they are not the plot. The plot is investigation and intrigue and risk and exposure.
**John:** First story suggestion was by Kay McCue sent this in. This was Phil Hoad writing for The Guardian about the mystery of the buried owl. I liked this one. I Googled and Googled, but I could not find it. I think we talked about a similar kind of thing before where a person had buried a thing and hidden it, and there was a huge treasure hunt trying to figure out this thing. This is the French version of it, I guess.
**Craig:** There’s been a few of these. There’s one I know that was in the US that got solved. There was one that’s referenced in here, that involved I think it was a hare, H-A-R-E, that inspired this one. This one is the story of a French puzzle creator who buried a small bronze owl somewhere in France in April of 1993, and then he and another author put a book together that included I believe it’s 11 riddles. If you could solve the 11 riddles, which they list as, “A combination of fiendish linguistic games,” which I love, “cartographical ciphers,” interesting, “historical illusions and mathematical brain teasers,” then you would be able to find the small bronze owl sculpture. At that point you would win an identical sculpture made of actual stuff that’s worth, in today’s money, 150,000 US dollars. I know that because it says 150,000 Euros, and as of today…
**John:** Parity.
**Craig:** Parity.
**John:** There’s lots of angles into this. Obviously, you could imagine a bunch of different characters, a big ensemble movie with people trying to find this thing. It could be wacky and fun. You can imagine something about what’s really behind the secret of the owl, whether the whole thing was some sort of scam. The guy who created this whole thing and buried the owl has now died, and so there’s a whole controversy over the other author and should the person reveal the secret, is there actually an owl to be found. What’s your instinct, Craig, for a movie? Is it a movie or is it a multi-episode piece of entertainment?
**Craig:** I’m struggling for it to be either, and I’m the puzzle guy. I love puzzles. That’s the problem. The problem is puzzles are fun to solve. They’re not so much fun to watch other people solve, because inevitably what happens is you’re just waiting, and then someone goes, “Wait a second. Hold on.” You can do a few of those. The National Treasure movies were a string of those things. You could do a few of them in that regard. Note that with National Treasure, so much of it was about character, relationship, redemption, reclaiming your good name, plus villains and all that, and looking for something that was inherently important to our nation’s history. This is not. It’s arbitrary. A guy buried a thing and then said, “Try and find it.”
The other issue is this is not a good puzzle, because it hasn’t been solved. That’s my honest opinion. There was a very famous sculpture in front of the CIA that included a cipher that took many, many years to crack. I get that. That’s like, hey, you’re the CIA. This isn’t for entertainment. Let’s see which one of you is the best. This is for entertainment, and no one solved it in 30 years, which means it’s too damn hard. When somebody finally does, it’ll be like, okay, got it. Either when you’re watching the movie, you’re going to say, “I don’t know what any of these things mean,” and then someone will be like, “Wait, I know what it means,” and you’re like, “Okay, I guess the script told you that,” or it’ll be too easy. Then you’ll be like, “Why are they having a hard time figuring that out?” You’re just watching people walk around and digging. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a fun movie. You would have to invent so much that I don’t think you would need any of the details of this.
**John:** That’s what it really comes down to for me, because right now in the story, there are no stakes. There’s money, but that’s not really stakes. You’re going to have to create stakes for the characters. Why do they need to win this thing? What is it about them that either winning that money or the achievement of having solved this unsolvable riddle will change their life in a meaningful way? That really comes back to focusing on who are the characters we’re following. The article that we can read has some people in there who could be interesting characters, like a pregnant woman who was obsessed with it and couldn’t stop focusing on it, even though she was about to have a child. There could be some interesting characters that do that or someone who’s just ruining their life to do this thing could be meaningful.
Just last night we watched The Dawn Wall, which is this amazing rock climbing movie about this ascent on one of the most difficult El Capitan faces. It was a years-long quest of this guy to do this one thing. It was meaningful to him because of stakes that were clearly set up in the course of the film. Yes, you could maybe do this with this, but I don’t see why using the real story is going to be more helpful than creating your own quest here.
**Craig:** Put your finger on the possibility of a good documentary. That could be terrific, because then it is about the quirky, weird people who are trying to do this. It’s about their obsession and not at all about where the damn thing is. I could see that. Documentaries are really good at that sort of thing. I don’t see a fictionalized version of this being particularly captivating. I can certainly see a fictionalized story about a treasure hunt being interesting, but easier said than done.
**John:** Our next story is about Rodney Stotts. This is sent in by Jeff Myers. This story actually ran in The Washingtonian. It’s an excerpt from Rodney Stotts’s book. Basically, Rodney Stotts grew up in DC in the ’90s. He started selling drugs, needed a legitimate job to get a lease, and so he ended up working at this Earth Conservation Corps cleaning up this river and became really involved in preservation and conservation. He ultimately was sent to jail for a drug-related charge. When he got out, he wanted to become a falconer. The article goes into what falconry is and how you train to become a falconer. The details I thought were really cool, because you have to be an apprentice to an experienced falconer, and you have to catch your own bird. He seemed like a really fascinating character. Craig, is there a story here that could be a movie, a series? What did you think of the Rodney Stotts story?
**Craig:** It could be a movie. I think a robot could write that movie, because that movie is required to follow a very well-trodden path of inspirational story. He’s written his own story. The thing about individual inspirational stories is that they are inspirational. Once you get into movie-ville, you start to get into inspirational movie as opposed to inspirational person, which is different. You can just see how this movie goes. It would be not particularly satisfying. I would much rather again see a documentary about this. Also, falconry is not…
There was one thing that really made me lean forward, that I didn’t know, that I thought would be a great scene. That was to become one of these falconers, you need to trap a falcon or a hawk or something. Good luck. You drove around. On his days off, he drove around rural Virginia and Maryland, trying to trap a falcon. Then there was the day it happened. That was an exciting scene. I was really into that scene. Then he just did falcon stuff. He’s a great guy. He works in this really great program. He turned his life around. I think that’s lovely, but we’ve seen that movie. I just don’t know how to make it different.
**John:** We haven’t seen the exact details of this movie, but we know the shape of the movie-
**Craig:** We know the shape.
**John:** … and the classic thing of it. Thematically, there are some really nice things. You have a person who feels trapped, who was literally incarcerated, who then has to trap a bird. The bird adds a symbol of freedom and being able to fly free, but also rules and restrictions and navigating within the system. We have issues of racism and prejudice. Basically one of the only Black falconers out there. All those things are cool elements to a movie. I do worry that it can be too predictable. I’ve never seen falconry this way. I’ve never seen the relationship. I’ve seen so many men and dogs. I’ve never seen a man and the falcon. That could be cool.
**Craig:** There’s the great character on Saturday Night Live, the Falconer.
**John:** There’s the Falconer, yeah. Will Forte played him.
**Craig:** So good. The trick here is how to do this without… Honestly, it’s a movie. Yes, it’s a movie. You could write the movie. You could write it. I could write it. Anyone could write it, because you would just follow the paint by numbers method of how these movies go. Here’s the issue. I’m not really sure how to do it not paint by numbers. I don’t know what the other way is, because ultimately, there’s not a lot here beyond the inspirational story of a guy who used to sell drugs and went to prison and then came out and got into this other thing. You can write the scene where the racist falconers, which seems like it’s a redundant comment, because who else gets involved in falconry? Now I’m tarring all the falconers as racist. You can see a bunch of white men like, “What? You, falconry? Don’t be ridiculous.” I’m already tired of this movie, because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen that scene a billion times.
**John:** It’s a weird situation where the movie’s both obvious and incredibly execution-dependent, because to not be the obvious version of it, you need to have a really great execution. The one thing I think we’re missing here is, because this is told from his point of view, because he’s actually writing the article that we’re reading here, we don’t have an outside perspective on what’s interesting about him as a character. I don’t get a sense of what his voice is, how he carries himself. There could be other details that are really specific and interesting. I think back to King Richard. If you’d just told me the story of Venus and Serena Williams’s father and what he did, I’m like, “Great, that’s impressive that he did that,” but his actual background and his weird voice and his strange approach to things is what made the movie scene by scene interesting to me, rather than just being the paint by numbers story.
**Craig:** That’s a great point. We don’t necessarily know what Mr. Stotts sounds like. We know what he looks like. He’s very thin.
**John:** He’s got a great, great face.
**Craig:** He’s got a great face. He’s very thin. He’s got a falcon on his arm, which is cool. I love the way that he had his little falcon children and how one of them was his favorite. The details feel stock. That’s a weird thing to say about somebody’s life, because he’s lived it. Of course that’s why he has a book deal, because the details are… They fit into a certain kind of story that people do appreciate. I do think it can be a movie. The trick is can you make it better than what we think it’s going to be. You can. There are movies in this genre of inspirational stories, particularly when it comes to race in America, where they’re better than you think they’re going to be. Hidden Figures was better than I thought it was going to be, because it transcended its genre and was just really, really interesting and good. That’s what would need to happen here.
**John:** Agreed. In this case we are saying you do buy the book. This book is Bird Brother. It’s written by Rodney Stotts and Kate Pipkin. If you’re going to make this movie, you obviously buy this book, because that’s how you get entrée into his life, 100%.
**Craig:** For sure. You need all the notes. You need the life rights, so you can get more information and etc.
**John:** 100%. Our next story comes from Erin Brokovich. We know Erin Brokovich. She was the lawyer. She wasn’t at the start a lawyer, but she became a lawyer, who did all the things with the water pollution, that became the movie Erin Brokovich, written by Susannah Grant. This is a story that she wrote called “This lawyer should be world-famous for his battle with Chevron, but he’s in jail.” This was sent in by David McPherson. It ran in The Guardian. It tells the story of Steven Donziger. He’s an attorney who specializes in going after oil companies, most notably Chevron. He was able to win this giant $9.5 billion settlement against Chevron in Ecuador. Chevron turned around and sued him and basically got him disbarred and all sorts of bad things and put under house arrest. All sorts of bad things are happening to Steven Donziger over the course of this. I thought there was some really interesting stuff here. Craig, is this a movie? Is this a series? Where do you think this lives?
**Craig:** This was interesting. I think this could be a series. It could also be a movie a la The Insider. It was less this article that Erin Brokovich wrote that interested me as much as then just going, “Something’s not quite adding up.” Even if you postulate what I think is a fair postulate, that American oil companies are dreadful, Chevron seemed to be going completely ham on this guy. You’re like, “It can’t just be pure evil. There’s got to be something else going on.” Then you read a little further, and you’re like, “Steven Donziger may have actually done all those terrible things.” It doesn’t look good. It’s not clear, but it’s not good. Even his friends are like, “Eh… Steven, why?”
The thing is, it sounds like it could a really interesting limited series, where you start by going, what Erin Brokovich is saying, which I think is the blunt end of the tool, evil corporation goes after crusading humanitarian attorney. Then halfway in, you’re like, wait, humanitarian hero attorney may be a very bad guy or is doing very bad things, and maybe the oil company isn’t so evil. Then you come back around to everyone’s bad, and nobody really effectively represented the poor people who were suffering. That’s intrigue.
**John:** Absolutely. You and I don’t have enough background to really say the other side of this. We can only look at… I’ve read the Erin Brokovich thing and the Wikipedia article. Wikipedia should be kind of neutral on this. I agree with you, there’s something really fascinating, because it looks on the surface like, oh my god, this is Erin Brokovich, but what if they put Erin Brokovich in jail. Then clearly, there’s more stuff that’s happening behind the scenes here.
I think the real interesting thematic question I would want to dig into as the writer on this is to what degree is Donziger… If he does some of these things which are criminal, is he doing them for the greater good of the Ecuadorian people or to win the suit or for some other reason? To what degree is the ambition to win this potentially corrupting? Those are fascinating questions, which I think you could do as a movie, you could do as a limited series. Both could work. You could do it as Liz Meriwether did for The Dropout or you could do it for a two-hour movie. We’ve seen some really good versions of that story.
**Craig:** Of note, Erin Brokovich was not endlessly pursued by the corporation she was going up against and then thrown in prison, for good reason. She didn’t do any of the things that would normally have that happen. Look, she’s written a very one-sided point of view here. I hope no one takes this as me going, “Chevron’s nice.” They’re not. They’re terrible. They’re horrendous.
**John:** To stipulate, they clearly did bad things.
**Craig:** Of course. They’re Chevron.
**John:** They are Chevron. That’s right.
**Craig:** They’re doing bad things today. By literally existing, they’re bad. They did bad things, no question. The fervor with which they pursued this was not a mistake. I guess it was not random that there was something going on here which with the way this guy handled this what was… In reading more about Steven Donziger, it started to get shadier and shadier. That said, perhaps I’m just a victim of Chevron’s incredible PR machine. I don’t know.
**John:** Let’s talk about Chevron’s incredible PR machine and legal machine and why some outlets would think twice before publishing this story, because you don’t want to anger this company that obviously is incredibly litigious. Either as an independent producer or going to a streamer, you might have concerns going into this. Those concerns might be ameliorated by just doing very careful research and being able to document everything you’ve done. Obviously, you were able to do it for The Dropout and for other projects. I think it’s worth noting that some places are going to be very skittish about doing this just because of the size of the company involved.
**Craig:** Sure, but movies and television have gone after large corporations before. The Insider had no problem going after Philip Morris. I could certainly see a case where the studio might say, “Let’s not call them Chevron. Let’s call them OilCo.”
**John:** GasCo.
**Craig:** “Let’s change Steven Donziger’s name to something else.” I think the spiciness is the real people and the real company.
**John:** Agreed.
**Craig:** I think that movie companies and television networks have loads of attorneys who do nothing but deal with this sort of thing all the time. Part of it is making sure that when somebody writes the script or the limited series that everything is annotated and all the research and the claims and things are based on stuff that’s out there, at which point they really have no case. They can waste their time, and then the studios can waste theirs. They all own lawyers that can do this. I think if people really wanted to make it, I think actually they would get excited by the thought of the free publicity.
**John:** Absolutely. There’s a Streisand effect if they get sued over stuff.
**Craig:** If I were a lawyer at Chevron, I would say, “Let’s just not comment on this and hope that it just stinks and goes away,” because it sounds like a homework movie anyway.
**John:** In this case, you’re not buying Erin Brokovich’s article clearly here.
**Craig:** No.
**John:** I don’t think you’re buying anything.
**Craig:** No.
**John:** If there was an incredibly good book that had reporting about stuff that you just couldn’t find other places, that would be a compelling book to probably buy. Otherwise, I think you’re doing research and you’re making your movie.
**Craig:** Yeah, unless you really wanted to tell the story from Steven Donziger’s point of view, in which case you would go to him, get life rights, and deal with it from there. I think you would be opening yourself up to trouble.
**John:** I agree. This last one I think is just delightful, and I want to see this movie. I applaud the pluck of the people involved. This is a story suggested by Michael Weinreb. The article ran in the New York Times, written by Sameer Yasir. Here’s the lead. “There are floodlights, high-definition cameras, and umpires with walkie-talkies pinned to their shoulders. The cricket players wore colorful uniforms. The broadcast had the voices of recognized commentators and a logo of the globally recognized channel The BBC.”
This is a cricket match that is being televised, or people are watching it on YouTube. It’s in the Indian Cricket Premier League. Unfortunately, that league does not exist. They were trying to confuse people with the Indian Premier League, which is an incredibly successful league. Brought in $6.2 billion in broadcasting rights. Basically, these guys in India staged a series of fake cricket matches of Russian betters who thought they were betting on actual legit, big cricket matches, when they were not. They were betting on a bunch of farm boys playing in the field.
**Craig:** What a weird scam. I watched some of it on YouTube. It’s weird. I’m not sure how anyone got fooled. The crowd noise is absurdly fake, and they never show the crowd.
**John:** Let’s give a sample here of the crowd noise. Let’s play this here. I didn’t fade down the crowd noise. The crowd noise fades down every 30 seconds or so, because it’s just a sample of crowd noise. If you’re watching this thing, you should notice, hey, why did the crowd suddenly get quiet and then suddenly come back at full volume again?
**Craig:** Why is there one camera? Why is it so far away? Why do the cricket players seem so low-energy? It’s really remarkable that this fooled anyone. Then again, based on the money that there was, it wasn’t like it was a super successful scam either. They were I guess just really fooling the dumbest of Russian betters. It does imply you can absolutely be inspired by this to write what I think could be a very fun and again super paint by numbers comedy in the vein of Cool Runnings, where you have a group of guys in let’s call it rural or semi-rural India, who are down on their luck.
There’s a wonderful tradition of movies where a town loses a factory or tries to gain a factory, gung ho and so forth. The town is in trouble, and they need something. They come up with this scam. The scam doesn’t work very well at first. They find down on their luck former cricket players who were good or are good except they’re held back by something. Hello, Major League. Then they get together to do this, and suddenly it’s a big hit. They get good. They get challenged by somebody. Then the problem is if they rise to the challenge of actually playing for real, then the whole thing will be exposed and everybody will go down. What do you do? That movie again almost writes itself, and someone should make it.
**John:** I think Samuel Goldwyn or Gold Circle is the financier behind that. We see it. It’s delightful. It’s playing at the Sunset 5. It gets some buzz. I think there’s definitely a version you could make, with just an approximation of this story, shot in India or shot in a country that plays cricket, where you’re keeping the basic vibe there. I do wonder if there’s a version of this where you could move to the US or Mexico or someplace more domestic, where our heroes and some people we’re following are still trying to pull something over on the Russians, who I think are a great foil for this. They’re staging a sport to make it seem that it’s Major League Baseball or that it’s some sport that we are more familiar with than cricket, because one of the challenges of cricket is that you have to teach the audience everything about cricket. Maybe that’s part of the joy of the movie. I think using a sport that the US already knows could be helpful.
**Craig:** I can hear someone saying that, for sure. I’m sure somebody would. To me, the fun is the fact that I don’t know it. I didn’t know… What was it in Cool Runnings? Was it the toboggan? What the hell was it?
**John:** Yeah, bobsledding.
**Craig:** Bobsledding, luging. I didn’t know any of the rules, and so learning how it worked was part of the fun, that there was something exotic about the sport itself. Also, cricket is a massive and emerging sport, especially in Indian Pakistan. I don’t know. There’s a much larger audience for movies there than here.
**John:** It’s true.
**Craig:** This is something that I would think about wanting to do as a co-production with an Indian company probably, an Indian studio, and to release it as a film that’s largely international. I think it could catch on. It’s not expensive to make.
**John:** It’s not expensive to make.
**Craig:** I think it’s easy to make.
**John:** I think you make a very good point. All of the streamers have their own local language production kind of things too. Netflix India makes it, and it turns out great and it’s a big hit in Netflix India, but it also comes over to the rest of the world, just because Netflix is global. The right version of it can be a breakout hit.
**Craig:** I think everybody’s global at this point. Every streamer at this point has some ability to reach around the world. Maybe because it’s not inspirational, it’s just fun formula, I think this could be fun.
**John:** In this case, I don’t think there’s anything to buy. We don’t need this article. You just need a bunch of research on what happened there. You’re making up most of it anyway.
**Craig:** Exactly, you’re making most of it up. You would be inspired by this, but I don’t think you would need to buy anything.
**John:** Craig, in the history of How Would This Be a Movies, I think this was the most movies we’re actually going to probably get made out of here. At least we had the highest hit rate of things.
**Craig:** I think so too.
**John:** The buried owl I don’t think is happening.
**Craig:** No.
**John:** Absolutely valid to make a movie in this vein, but we don’t need to make this specific one.
**Craig:** Agreed.
**John:** Rodney Stotts, someone is going to buy the rights to that.
**Craig:** Someone’s going to buy the rights. I don’t know if it’ll ever turn into a movie.
**John:** The Steven Donziger Chevron movie or mini series.
**Craig:** If only because Erin Brokovich is the person that wrote it, it’s certainly going to get a lot of attention. Somebody will buy the story in one way or another for a limited series or a film.
**John:** Fake cricket, I think we both agree someone should do it.
**Craig:** Fake cricket, we’re just lobbing it out there to the world. Somebody should try that movie.
**John:** Here’s a free movie. Take it.
**Craig:** Here’s a free movie idea. Why don’t you go ahead and write it. Let’s see how much influence we have, John, because this is a little bit like when there was that massive blackout in New York in 1977, there was a baby boom that occurred about 10 months later. Let’s see if about 10 months from now, Hollywood is flooded with fake cricket scripts.
**John:** That’s what we want to see. It’s time for our One Cool Things. Listeners of the show know that Craig is an accomplished puzzler, solver. He is a screenwriter at times as well. He plays video games. What people probably don’t know is I think his true calling is to be the host master of ceremonies for games of Mafia. I’ve witnessed one of those. They are things of beauty. He’s really, really good.
If you don’t have Craig Mazin to do it, I would recommend you try out this game that we tried here in the office last week called Werewords. It’s the game Werewolf, which is of course a variation of Mafia, where you’re trying to figure out who is the werewolf among all the different players. It’s a social deception game. The clever thing they added to this game Werewords is that the mayor of the town is choosing one secret word shown on a phone. The mayor of the town and the werewolf and the seer all know what this word is, but the rest of the players have no idea what the word is. You’re trying to guess what the word is. It’s a 20 Questions-y kind of thing to guess this. The social deception aspect of it is really important, because you’re trying to not reveal how you got to what the secret word was. I thought it was just a very brilliantly designed game for a group of 5 to 10 people probably.
**Craig:** I love this game mechanic that one player knows who the werewolf is, or the word, sorry. One player knows the word. That player you’d think can just say it or just obviously guide the other players toward it. The problem is if the werewolf knows who that person is, then they win the game just by identifying them as the seer. That seer has to be-
**John:** Very careful.
**Craig:** … very careful and not obvious. They have to seem like not the seer while guiding people towards the thing that the seer knows. That’s very clever. That’s a smart idea.
**John:** Smart idea.
**Craig:** Werewords.
**John:** A good game. Inexpensive. For your next game, I recommend Werewords.
**Craig:** My One Cool Thing is a recipe. I made tiramisu for the first time.
**John:** Tell me, how’d it turn out?
**Craig:** Great.
**John:** I’m not surprised. Did you make your ladyfingers from scratch or did you [00:56:22]?
**Craig:** No, I don’t think any sane person would do that. Yes, maybe some people do it. That really is unnecessary. The reason it’s unnecessary is because the ladyfingers are going to be very quickly subsumed in some espresso and a little bit of rum, at which point it becomes semi-mushy. In fact, you have to work very quickly so it doesn’t fall apart in your hands. It’s no longer a crispy little biscuit. It’s something else. The one thing you don’t need to do, I think, is make your own ladyfingers. They’re available in packages at most stores. The New York Times has a recipe that worked gorgeously. It seemed like tiramisu would be super damn hard. It’s really not.
**John:** Basically it’s like a trifle essentially. Ladyfingers are soaked in stuff. Then is it whipped cream, or what’s the cream base of that?
**Craig:** There’s a little bit of a debate. There are two ingredients that everybody agrees need to be in there. Three, sorry. Sugar, of course. Egg yolks and mascarpone cheese.
**John:** That’s right.
**Craig:** Those things must be in there. Then the question is… Some people are egg whites, a meringuey kind of thing. Other people are a whipped cream kind of thingy. The New York Times went with a whipped cream kind of thingy, which is maybe less of a purist, purist method, but it sure tasted like regular and excellent tiramasu to me. You just do your layers. Honestly, it’s really easy. Then just shake a little cocoa powder on the top. Suddenly, you feel like you’ve made something that you’ve seen in a restaurant. The one bit of advice I will give people, if they do make this recipe… In the recipe they have you mixing the mascarpone cheese into the whipped cream, which a lot of commenters mentioned was a disaster.
**John:** The textures are too different.
**Craig:** It basically broke the whipped cream. Commenters suggested strongly that you whip the mascarpone into the egg yolks and sugar, which worked great. That’s what I did. It did end fact work great, because then you end up combining it all together anyway. I will throw a link on there to the New York Times recipe for tiramasu. Way easier than they think. The one thing to keep in mind is that you do want to make this at least 24 hours ahead.
**John:** It’s one of those sit in your refrigerator, congeal kind of things.
**Craig:** Sit in the fridge and have the flavors combine. That’s the big deal.
**John:** I have to say, the New York Times recipe section and the recipe box and how they do stuff, they’re really good. They’re well-designed recipes. I’ve enjoyed most of the things I’ve tried making out of the New York Times.
**Craig:** They are good. They are nice enough to allow comments. You can read through the comments. Invariably, a few people will trial and error their way to something better.
**John:** I love the comments that are just like, “Can I make this with shortbread? Can I make this tiramasu with Oreos and cottage cheese?”
**Craig:** No.
**John:** “Will that work?”
**Craig:** There are always people who are like, “I tried it and it didn’t work. I followed the recipe. The only thing I did was instead of using egg yolks, I used ham.” You’re like, “Idiot. Of course it didn’t work.” The vast majority of people seemed to enjoy it when they made it. Like I said, to me, if you can find a recipe that is easy and awesome, go for it.
**John:** Go for it. Love it. That is our show, which was easy and delicious.
**Craig:** It was easy and delicious.
**John:** This was the tiramisu of episodes for us today. It was produced by Megana Rao, edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is by Owen Danoff. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That is also the place where you can send longer questions. For short questions on Twitter, Craig is @clmazin, I’m @johnaugust. You could find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find transcripts and sign up for our weeklyish newsletter called Inneresting, which has lots of links to things about writing. We have T-shirts. They’re great. You can 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 how not to forget the names of the people you’re working with. Craig, I’ll never forget your name.
**Craig:** Aw, thanks, Jim.
**John:** Megan, it absolutely is a pleasure.
**Craig:** Megan Arao.
**John:** Megan Arao. We’ll see you guys next week.
**Megana:** Thank you.
[Bonus Segment]
**John:** Bonus Segment. Let’s talk about the people you’re working with and who are showing up in your emails, who are calling, who are on Zooms. You have to remember who are these people. Craig, what is your strategy? What was your strategy on Last of Us for all the people you’re meeting, so the studio executives, the production folks? When you go on a set, how are you remembering names?
**Craig:** You can’t. There are too many people. When you’re making a production, any kind of production, there’s too many people. A large production, there’s absurdly too many people. You can’t try too hard. If you try too hard, suddenly all day long all you’re thinking about are people’s names. More to the point, no one expects you to know their name, certainly not early on. Then later down the line, if they don’t interact with you frequently… There are people that I probably never talk to. There are definitely people I never talked to on our set, because they were busy doing other things. I didn’t interface with them, so I don’t know their name. They’re professionals. They don’t walk around saying, “I can’t believe that the guy I never talk to, who never talks to me, doesn’t know my name.” It takes time. The God’s honest truth, what happens is it takes time, and you start to learn. It’s weird for me to think about how many people I know and how many names I know from the crew of the Last of Us and how I knew none of their names in the beginning. In that first week, if I need help with a prop, I don’t know who to talk to. Hey, how about this? Everyone’s wearing a mask. You just do the best you can. That’s it. I am considering that for my next production, whatever it is, that maybe for the first couple of weeks we do name tags.
**John:** I believe in name tags. I think it helps everybody. It ask the truth that you cannot remember everybody’s names. I like name tags. I like that as a thing. Would you have name tags that are stickers on people’s shoulders or on a badge kind of thing?
**Craig:** We had badges. The problem is the badges would flip around, inevitably. They would always show the wrong side. Also, you just didn’t want to, “Excuse me, hold on, I need to see your badge,” because it’s in a weird spot.
**John:** Then you’re looking down, so it’s clear you didn’t remember their name.
**Craig:** My point is we all don’t remember our names. I want to give everybody freedom to not know each other’s name. Wear the name tag and also what your job is, because I don’t know. I’m meeting a lot of people for the first time on day one. Oh my god, our dimmer board operator, Jameses. His name is James and then S and then something. It was a whole thing with the gaffer calling him Jameses. We love Jameses. I don’t know who Jameses is on day one. I don’t know his name, and I don’t know what he does yet, because I just see him walking around. Now if he gets behind the dimmer board, then yeah. Is that a special effects guy, or is that a props guy? Is that an electrician or is that a grip? You don’t know. Name and job. Do the best you can. You’re going to say “bro” and “buddy” and “pal” a lot.
**John:** It’s going to happen.
**Craig:** You’re going to say “sir” and “madam.” Generally speaking, people forgive you. If you are saying to your A-camera operator after four months, “Sorry, I don’t know your name, but can you get tighter?” then you’re an idiot. Otherwise, yeah, just give yourself a little bit of a break. It’s not possible.
**John:** I’m not in production yet, but I am in a lot of Zooms with a lot of people. They’re the kind of Zooms that will happen every two or three weeks. I’m not seeing people all the time. I’m seeing people enough. I need to remember, oh crap, who is this person? What I’ve taken to doing is, for this project I just have a page in Notion which is basically who’s who. It basically lists the names. I’ll grab a photo off the internet so I remember what they look like, and a few things about them, what their job title is at this company, anything that’s interesting I know about their history or a thing, just so I’m not starting from absolute zero every time a Zoom starts up here, because sometimes I’ll have a follow-up call with my agent, say, “What did you think of this person?” I’m like, “I have no idea if that person was on the Zoom or not.” This way, at least going into it, I have a little bit better sense of like, okay, these are the people.
Other thing I’ve found really helpful is that with Zoom invitations, you see who is invited to the meeting. I can just take a look through that list. It’s like, do I know who these people are? If there’s a person who I don’t know who they are, I will Google them to see what is this person’s function on this project. Otherwise, I can forget, oh, that’s actually a high-ranking network exec, and I just didn’t know.
**Craig:** Certainly, you want to know who the quote unquote important people are.
**John:** If this were a physical meeting, whose office would I be in.
**Craig:** There are people that when you’re dealing with let’s say the studio or network, especially when you’re in larger meetings where it covers multiple departments, then there are going to be people on there that you don’t know personally. They also don’t expect that you know them personally. To me it’s okay to know the names of the people that you’ve been dealing directly with. If other people break through the name barrier, then I say well done, name barrier breaker-througher. I’m also perfectly happy to play these… We’re older now, John. We can just be slightly doddering about it.
**John:** Love it.
**Craig:** Megana, you can’t get away with that. You’re in your crisp 20s. You can’t not know people’s names.
**Megana:** I do know people’s names.
**Craig:** See? Look at that.
**John:** See? Absolutely, because she’s met so many fewer people than you and I have. Here’s a plead. Can I just ask all of Hollywood and all of the world? On your Zoom, put your actual name as your name. Don’t put some little short thing they can’t pronounce. Put your actual name there. Mine says John August, because my name is John August. It doesn’t say august75007. It says John August. People can remember, “Oh, that’s John August. He’s the writer guy.”
**Craig:** Carolyn Strauss, at some point someone changed her Zoom name to something. She was involved in some kind of charity that was benefiting Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Her Zoom name was something like HBCUFoundation4. Now, I know who she is, but every time I see her, I’m like, “What’s up, HBCUFoundation4?” Somebody needs to fix her Zoom, for the love of God. Also, I’ve been on Zoom with friends and changed my name to something horrendous and then forgot.
**John:** I love that.
**Craig:** You go on Zoom later, and it’s still your name. I think Zoom should have a thing where it just resets back to your regular name each time.
**John:** 100%. For D and D, we use our characters’ names for our Zooms, if we remember to use our characters’ names for Zooms. Thank God I’m using our iPad. It resets and it doesn’t remember that I changed it.
**Craig:** That might’ve been it. I was in a meeting, and someone’s like, “Why is your Zoom name God of Vengeance?” or something like that. I was like, “Oh, right, so I’m a Dungeon Master. Long story. I’m a dork.”
**John:** Megana, you’re meeting with everybody in town. You’re going off on tons of meetings. Are you doing anything to keep track of who you meet with?
**Megana:** I feel like this is revealing such big gaps. I have the email communication with my agents though.
**John:** That helps, because back in our day, when I was first taking those meetings, it was before emails. I would get phone calls. I’d go to this place, and there was just no record of what it was. Or I’d get faxes. I remember faxes.
**Craig:** Faxes.
**Megana:** I guess something I learned from you also is afterwards I’ll send a summary of what we talked about to my agents and then have that all searchable by email.
**John:** That is another big help. If I have a general meeting, if agents set up something, afterwards I’ll send an email saying, “We had a great meeting. We talked about these three things. I really liked this person,” just as a reminder. It’s helpful for them, but it’s mostly helpful for me when I want to search back.
**Craig:** My whole system was just writing words on small scraps of paper that piled up on my desk.
**John:** Then you eventually threw them away.
**Craig:** Then I eventually threw them away, and in throwing them away learned an important lesson. It’s fine.
**John:** It’s all fine.
**Craig:** You know what? If someone’s going to give me money, I learn their name real fast.
**John:** Funny how that works.
**Craig:** If they are relying on me, they’re going to learn my name real fast. Everybody else, whatever. By the way, I’ve met people before and then subsequently, some time later, I run into them at something, and they don’t remember meeting me. That’s fine. I never say, “No, you know me. What?” I just go, “Nice to meet you,” because why make them feel bad over something that’s incredibly human? It’s my fault. I didn’t break through.
**John:** I was at a party over the weekend. There was a guy who worked at a studio. I said, oh, blah blah. He’s like, “Oh no, we actually have met before. It was five years ago. I was the junior person in the room.” Thank you for taking the spin off that, like it was my fault for not remembering him, because he was the junior guy in the room. I only focused on the decision maker in the room.
**Craig:** That’s totally fine. If someone says to me, “Hey, I did meet you once with so-and-so,” I’ll just be honest. I’m like, “I don’t specifically remember that, but I hope that I was pleasant.”
**John:** There was a case where on a Zoom, they made a big point about like, “I used to work for,” insert name here, “and I learned everything from here.” I wanted to say, “I will never work with you, because if that’s who you hold up as your ideal and your model, that’s bad and dangerous, and you’re a terrible, terrible person.”
**Craig:** I would admire the absolute gall of somebody who said, “I used to work for Harvey Weinstein. I learned everything from him.”
**John:** “He’s a hero.”
**Craig:** “He’s my hero.”
**John:** Good stuff. Craig, thanks for the tips.
**Craig:** Thank you for your tips. Thank you, Megana.
**Megana:** Thanks, guys.
**John:** Bye.
**Craig:** Bye.
Links:
* [Eric Webb’s Twitter](https://twitter.com/salaciousscribe) and [Memorial Fundraiser](https://www.gofundme.com/f/lay-a-beloved-writer-friend-and-partner-to-rest)
* [Mystery of the Buried Owl](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/may/13/the-mystery-of-the-buried-owl-the-30-year-treasure-hunt-baffling-french-puzzlers) by Phil Hoad for the Guardian
* [Rodney Stotts Used to Hustle Drugs in Southeast DC. Now He’s One of the Few Black Master Falconers in America](https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/02/09/rodney-stotts-one-of-the-few-black-master-falconers-in-america/) by Rodney Stotts for the Washingtonian
* [This lawyer should be world-famous for his battle with Chevron – but he’s in jail](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/08/chevron-amazon-ecuador-steven-donziger-erin-brockovich) by Erin Brockovich for the Guardian
* [It Really Wasn’t Cricket: The Strange Case of the Fake Indian Premier League](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/world/asia/fake-indian-cricket-league-russia.html) by Sameer Yasir for the NY Times
* [Werewords](http://werewords.com) Game
* [Tiramisu](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018684-classic-tiramisu) Recipe in the New York Times
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* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Owen Danoff ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by [Megana Rao](https://twitter.com/MeganaRao) 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/559standard.mp3).