The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2022/entrances-and-exits).
**John August:** Hello and welcome. My name is John August.
**Craig Mazin:** Hey, Yankee fans. My name is Craig Mazin.
**John:** This is Episode 550 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show, how do you move characters in and out of a scene? Do you even need to? It’s a very technical, crafty, words on the page topic, the kind we haven’t done in a while, because we haven’t had Craig for a while. We’ll also have listener questions on bad behavior by producers, managers, and even good friends.
**Craig:** Oh, god.
**John:** In our Bonus Segment for Premium Members, do we want to live forever? We’ll discuss longevity and the possibility of never dying. First, Craig, we got two pieces of Craig-centric follow-up for you.
**Craig:** Oh, all right.
**John:** This one goes all the way back to your Q and A episode, which I’m sure you don’t remember. There was a guy who wanted you to convince him to drop out of film school. Megana, we got an update from him, don’t we?
**Megana Rao:** Yes, so Please Convince Me to Drop Out of Film School wrote back in, and he said, “Thank you so much for answering my question on Episode 544. The first thing I want to do is apologize to Craig. Everything you said made sense, and I couldn’t have agreed with your thoughts more, but unfortunately, I just can’t bring myself to drop out. Given my situation, dropping out would force me to step my part-time work up to full-time and find a new place to live. However, while this would be difficult to do, it would still probably result in a boatload of money saved and give me far more time to work on my writing. The real problem is I just can’t stand the idea of everyone in my life looking at me like I’m an idiot. Dropping out of college, especially when I’m this close to finishing, isn’t going to make sense to anyone around me. While I know Craig might be on my side, it won’t really sway the opinions of my family or friends. It’s not like I have some concrete thing I’m dropping out for to point people towards. Being in school makes it look like you’re working toward something. While in this business, that might not really be the case, people on the outside aren’t going to understand that. I wish I could be the kind of person that didn’t care about this and just did what I knew was right, but there’s something inside of me that just won’t let me.”
**John:** Craig, I listened to that episode, and I thought your advice was my advice. I would encourage him to drop out.
**Craig:** I’ll tell you what, Please Convince Me to Drop Out of Film School. I don’t want you to beat yourself up too much, but do me a favor. Don’t make this a final decision, because I’m not sure everyone in your life is going to look at you like an idiot. In fact, I’m pretty sure that everyone in your life is going to spend about seven seconds on this and then move on with the rest of themselves, because that’s who they’re thinking about all the time. I just don’t know why people will really get that worked up. Your friends are going to get that worked up over it? Really? Because honestly, I didn’t really care whether my friends graduated from college or not. That’s not what I valued about them. Yes, being in school makes it look like you’re working toward something. That’s how they get you. That’s what you’re paying for, an illusion, which you now realize, I think, is an illusion.
I also notice that you said, “Given my situation, dropping out would force me to step my part-time work up to full-time.” Yes. This is okay. Here’s the thing. I think you’re scared, and I get that you’re scared, but take a moment. Don’t necessarily think of this as a final decision. It’s okay if you stay in college. I won’t be angry.
**John:** One additional thing this makes me think of is this theory that you have 4,000 weeks in your life. Basically, if you live to 80 years old, you’re going to have essentially 4,000 weeks to spend. If Please Convince Me to Drop Out of Film School decides to drop out of film school, he’s really basically taking that chunk of time and deciding to do something different with it. I think it’s his time alone. It’s not his friends’ time. It’s not his family’s time. It’s really how does he want to spend that time. If it’s at school, great, but if it’s not in school, that’s also fine.
**Craig:** You get once, one trip. It’s okay if you finish. Go ahead. I’ll tell you, what’s waiting for you on the other side is a lot of other things that your family or friends may not get. This seems like maybe time to start worrying about that, or at least worrying about it but facing it anyway, because nobody really gets what we’re doing over here in this business. Most people in this business aren’t in this business. They try and be in the business, and they fail. Everybody’s going to be looking at you. You’re going to have to face it at some point.
**John:** Megana, we have more crucial Craig follow-up here.
**Megana:** Yes. Andy in New York asks, “I Googled Craig Mazin orthotics to find the name of the product that Craig mentioned as his One Cool Thing in Episode 492, and he said as he unboxed and deployed them that they felt like other insoles he’d used, but that over time he’d see how they worked and report back, which he did a week later but not since then. I’m wondering, what is the long-term verdict now that a year has passed? Are they still holding up and supportive? I’m a runner with high arches and developing a murderous heel problem that some store-bought Dr. Scholl’s type inserts are helping a little with, but I need something more substantial.”
**Craig:** I’m glad that you checked in on this, Andy. They held up. The sneakers that I generally wear right now are pretty supportive for my flat feet. I have the opposite problem that you have. I don’t use them with these, but I will slip them into boots. I will slip them into dress shoes and things. They absolutely work. They are, as far as I can tell, the exact same damn thing that we were paying way too much money for when we went to the orthotic foot podiatrist. I think actually that that’s what they were doing there. You would go to the podiatrist and you would step on something and they would take a thing of it and send it off to some factory. These guys were like, we’ll just give you the box of foam and you can do it yourself, go to the same factory.” The answer is, Andy, yes, I think they are worth giving a shot. They do seem to me like they are pretty much exactly what you would get if you went to a doctor.
**John:** Nice. All right, Craig, it has been way too long since we’ve had you here so we can do a craft episode. I really want to focus in on entrances and exits. I thought we might start with an iconic entrance into a scene. This is from an independent film called The Room. It finds one character coming onto this rooftop and meeting his friend Mark and initiating conversation. Let’s take a listen.
**Johnny:** I did not hit her. It’s not true. It’s bullshit. I did not hit her. I did not. Oh hi, Mark.
**Mark:** Oh hey, Johnny. What’s up?
**Johnny:** I have a problem with Lisa. She said that I hit her.
**Mark:** What? Did you?
**Johnny:** No, it’s not true. Don’t even ask. What’s new with you?
**Mark:** I’m just sitting up here thinking. I got a question for you.
**Johnny:** Yeah?
**Mark:** You think girls like to cheat like guys do?
**Johnny:** What makes you say that?
**Mark:** I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m just thinking.
**Johnny:** I don’t have to worry about that because Lisa is loyal to me.
**Mark:** Yeah, man, you never know. People are very strange these days.
**John:** Craig, there’s so much to unpack here.
**Craig:** There is not.
**John:** It really is a remarkable occasion. Even the most perfectly performed version of this scene has some real issues in terms of characters coming onto the scene. Let’s talk about entrances. Let’s talk about exits.
**Craig:** Oh hi, John.
**John:** Hi, John.
**Craig:** Oh hi, John.
**John:** I’m going to monologue to myself for a second. Then I’m going to notice that you’re there. Then I’m going to start the conversation.
**Craig:** “I did not hit her. I did not.” On a roof?
**John:** On a roof.
**Craig:** On a roof.
**John:** I’m going to throw this football to nobody on a rooftop.
**Craig:** First, I’m going to throw my water bottle on the ground, and then, “Oh hi, Mark.” Entrances and exits are extraordinarily important, and to me, afford you a possibility to find the spine of your scene, the structural aspect. We’re not necessarily talking about all the lovely little bits and bobs that happen through relationship and dialog and thoughts and unspoken feelings, but rather the structure of it all, what does it look like, where are we, what’s the pace and the tempo. One of the things that I think about when I’m directing scenes is entrances and exits and how they occur, from whose perspective, why are people entering, what kind of energy do they have when they’re entering, where are they going, where are they leaving. Entrances and exits will take more time to shoot if you’re doing them properly. Bringing people in and out of spaces matters. Let’s dig in to how we can help shape those moments on the page so that when they get to the screen, they don’t look like what we just saw.
**John:** Let’s go into the history of entrances and exits, because obviously, originally, before there were motion pictures, there were staged plays. Characters need to enter into a scene. You look through Shakespeare’s plays, characters enter and they exit, and that’s great. It’s fine. People are coming in from the weekends or you are lifting the curtain to reveal people already in the scene. Through the wonder of film and television, we can just be in the middle of a scene. We can cut to the middle of a scene, and we don’t need to have characters enter and exit, except sometimes it’s incredibly helpful.
I want to talk about how we make those decisions as writers. I think Craig makes an important point, is as a director you are also making some decisions about shooting those entrances, shooting those exits, making sure you have choices and options. You can be thinking about does the camera find the character there, is the character already there. You’re going to be making those choices from the start. A lot of it is about POV within the scene and also from the audience’s perspective, who is important. A character that we follow coming into a scene, we are with them. We know that they are the person we are centered upon. If we’re just in a scene where a bunch of characters are there, we may not know who is the person who’s our point of view. It may only be when we follow one of those characters out of that scene we realize, oh, this person now is carrying our point of view.
**Craig:** You can obviously make a handoff of POV, where you start with one person’s POV and then it turns to another. The camera just now picks up a new person. Typically, that’s probably not going to happen in a very typical way. Somebody enters a space and ideally, they enter with purpose. This is the most important thing. Obviously, this clip from The Room is really funny because the dialog is ridiculous and the acting is terrible. Underneath the ridiculous dialog and the bad acting, there is a root cause. The root cause is purposelessness. There is no reason for this man to be entering and walking out onto that roof. None. He just does it, because the movie needed him to be on the roof.
While we may think of this as the domain of movies like The Room, I actually see this in writing all the time from people. People just enter. They walk into a space purposelessly, and then something happens. I refuse to do this. Everybody who’s going into a space has a purpose. It doesn’t need to be earth-shattering. Sometimes it’s I can’t find my keys. There needs to be a reason you walk into a room. If you walk into a room without a reason and then something happens, without ever understanding why they don’t like it, the audience will not like it the way you want them to.
**John:** 100%. I see this on the page a lot too. I see it in some of our Three Page Challenges. I see it in scripts written by newer writers, where they are constantly having people enter into spaces. Let’s talk about some of the reasons why you might want to have a character enter a space, which I think are sometimes more limited than you’d imagine. Obviously, you’re saying there’s a purpose to it. Obviously, the character has to have a purpose. You as a writer may also want to give them a purpose, because you need that entrance to show geography, to establish geography. It gives you a chance to move from one space into another space and give a layout of what this space is going to be like.
You might have a character enter the scene because you want to build tension, build tension with the other people who are in there, or because in this new space is going to be some danger, some peril, some immediate attention that’s going to be happening. Show that character entering, as I said before, because you want to establish that this next scene is happening from their POV and that you make it clear that this is the central character I want you to be following as this next scene happens. All that only happens if you need to have a character walking in, because you always have the choice to just start the scene with the characters already in it. You could start with just a line of dialog. Characters don’t need to physically walk in in most cases.
**Craig:** That’s really where you can expose that you’re missing something, because if you do imagine starting the scene with somebody already there, you probably start feeling a bit ill as you’re writing it. What are they doing? Because there’s supposed to be a whole scene that happens. There are these meta requirements. I need a scene where Mark listens to whatever the Room guy’s name was, where the Room guy tells Mark about his troubles with his girlfriend that he did not hit. Fine, okay, I need that. Great, that’s what I need as a writer. Now, the characters are not accountable to my needs. They have to present as human beings with their own needs and their own purposes. They don’t need to be there unless I can see them on screen going, oh my god, there’s only one person who could possibly understand the position I’m in. Then maybe I can see it. If you imagine them just starting on the roof together in their weird chairs, it would be a very awkward beginning, because there’s really no reason for them to be there.
One of the things that we have to think about when we are writing is drawing a line between the fact that we need people somewhere and that they don’t know that. You can come up with almost anything. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. It doesn’t have to be even impactful as a character. If I needed to get Room guy on the roof, he’s angry, he walks into a bathroom, he tries to splash some water on his face, and no water comes out. He slams his hand on the sink, “Dammit, nothing’s going right today. My girlfriend’s-”
**John:** “I did not hit her.”
**Craig:** “She’s falsely accused me of domestic violence, and also the plumbing is not working. I have to go to the roof and check the water tower,” blah. Then he goes to the roof and he’s like, “Bah!” Then he’s slamming on it. He’s like, “Mah, mah.” Then Mark is like, “Hey, Johnny.” He’s like, “What? Oh hi, Mark.” I understand why he’s there. Now, Mark is going to have to explain why he’s there. That’s the first question. The first thing that should be out of this dude’s mouth is not, “I did not hit her. I did not,” but they need reasons. It could be mundane. It could be anything. It just has to be compelling is the most important thing.
**John:** Let’s talk about if you wanted to remove the entrance of a character. You want to actually start the scene with the two characters talking. How do we do that? It comes from the scene before that. Basically, are you leaving the prior scene with enough of a slant, with enough forward energy that we can come into that next scene understanding what it is that they’re doing? This could be an intervening scene. Basically, when we see those two characters there, do we understand what each of them wants, what their motivation is, and what this conversation or this moment could be about? That’s really what we’re asking. That’s why you don’t have to have characters enter into every scene, as long as we understand what they’re doing there, which is why Mark is on the roof, why Room guy has come up onto the roof. Then it’s fine. We can do it. Otherwise, you’re going to probably need to show some connective tissue to get us up into that space, because otherwise it won’t make sense why we got there.
**Craig:** Roofs are challenging, because people generally aren’t on them. Now, if they were, say, at a restaurant, then you could start it in media res, meaning, for those of you who have saved money and not gone to film school, right in the middle of stuff. Right in the middle of the action, you just cut into the two of them are sitting there at a table, halfway through lunch. One of them is shoving salad into his mouth, and the other one’s like, “I don’t know, I didn’t hit her, and she’s saying that I hit her.” The other one’s like, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,” because we understand as human beings, I don’t need to see them enter the restaurant, be seated and all that. That’s okay if the place requires it.
Now, there are places where you must enter. New places. You must enter a new place. When I say new place, I don’t mean a new place like a new restaurant. I mean a new place of significance in your story. You don’t want to just start with people in the middle of, for instance, a basement in a house, where they went looking for a murder victim, and they find bones. They should enter the house. They should look for the basement. They should walk down. It should feel creepy.
**John:** Let’s talk about why you want someone to enter into that basement. You probably want to establish some geography so we know, how do I get from where I am to where I get out, because that could become very important, and also just to establish what is this place. If you just show us this dark room, we don’t know where we are. That’s why it’s so helpful to have a character lead us from a place we do know into this place we don’t know.
**Craig:** Yes. Here’s a little fun technique I use sometimes. I guess I’ll call it the reverse entrance. You do start in a space someone has not entered. They’re already there. We don’t know what it is. We are confused. They have a moment. Then when they exit, we go, oh, that was a basement, or oh, that was a fake thing or whatever. I guess the best example of the reverse exit are all the simulation scenes where something’s happening and then the lights come on. It’s like, you weren’t really in an airplane. It was a simulation. That’s a reverse exit. You can try these things. You just have to give people signposts as you do it.
**John:** Now let’s talk about exits, because so often the standard of screenplay advice is basically get out of the scene quicker. Getting out of the scene quicker often means leaving before the characters are leaving the scene. If you think about how movies generally work, if you and I were having a conversation, we wouldn’t get to the crucial point and then just one of us just leave and physically walk out of the room. Craig and I sometimes, that would happen. Instead, we would keep talking. We don’t want to keep talking. We want to get to the next thing, and so we just cut to the next thing.
There are times though where you may want to show that exit. We talked about that at the start. You may want to hand off POV from one character to another character. You might want to really just make it clear that the scene has ended, that there’s not going to be an ongoing continuation of the dialog, of the conflict that we saw, that it really has ended and one character has left and headed in the direction that’s taking us to the next part of the story. I would suspect that, Craig, even in the scenes you’re working on right now, the scenes you’re shooting, you probably anticipate characters exiting, that you’ll make choices ultimately though in post about whether you’re going to show the exit or not show the exit.
**Craig:** I try and write that in. I try and plan that on the page. If there are two people in a scene or more, the reason to show somebody exiting at the end is to then put the camera on the face of the person who is remaining, so that I understand how they feel about what this person just said. Walking away from somebody indicates finality. It’s a pretty good way of saying you have a choice to make, figure it out, I’m going to walk away from you now, or perhaps it’s I’m leaving you. If somebody is breaking up with you, they should definitely exit the room. That would be a weird… Sometimes on soap operas they’ll do that, where someone’s like, “We’re through,” and then they just cut to the other person’s face, but the other person never leaves, just to save time. If the point is I’m leaving you, leave.
If I want to see how somebody feels by what that other person has said, and they’ve essentially left them in a space where they could go different ways, sometimes, sure, it’s interesting to watch them leave, because their leaving is meaningful to the people who are left behind. If it’s not, then it’s not necessary. Then you absolutely can just end on someone’s face, considering what’s happening. If you are alone in a scene and you leave, the only real reason that I would ever need to see someone leave alone is if something then changed after they left. They’re playing with their puppy, and then they’re like, “Oh my god, I wish you could talk.” Then they leave, and then the puppy’s like, “If you only knew.” Yeah, sure, but otherwise-
**John:** That’s going to be a really unusual situation.
**Craig:** Very, very rare.
**John:** Let’s take a look through some of our own scripts about some moments where we’ve had characters enter and why we scripted them in to have characters enter into scenes, because I think it would be sometimes better to actually look at things on the page. I’ll start with a little snippet from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I’ll just read this aloud. “The front door swings open, revealing Charlie’s father, a lanky, hardworking man in his late 30s, who manages to be grateful for his blessings, however slight they are. ‘Evening, Bucket.’ ‘Hi, Dad.’ Mother says, ‘The soup’s almost ready. I don’t suppose there’s anything extra to put?’ Off her husband’s look, there’s clearly no more food coming. Ever chipper, Mother says, ‘Well, nothing goes better with cabbage than cabbage.'”
This is an example of a scene that’s been happening, and a new character enters into the scene. Father Buckets could’ve already been in the scene, but it’d be very hard to shift our focus to Father Bucket’s if he was already in the scene. Having him come in the door changes what this moment is about and lets him drive the next little bit of conversation. Bringing a new character into an existing scene is a classic example of why you’d have to show the entrance of the character.
**Craig:** Also, sometimes somebody needs to share information with the audience. In this case, there’s information that you are putting out there through some nicely done exposition. The information you’re putting out there is that they’re extremely poor and short on food to the point where there’s no protein to put in their cabbage soup. I say protein because somewhere along the line restaurants started saying protein. They used to just say meat. Then they switched over to protein.
**John:** It can be tofu.
**Craig:** I guess I’m going to go with that, as if Father Bucket was ever going to say, “Oh no, no, I’ve brought tofu.” That’d be kind of amazing actually, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, if he just brought home tofu. You need people to know that. The problem is, if Dad is already there, why would she just suddenly say, “Hey, by the way, now, even though you’ve been here this whole time, I have a question for you.” Because he enters, it allows Mom to ask a question that’s been on her mind. It gives us a chance to have some natural exposition, as opposed to some weird, forced exposition.
**John:** Indeed. Let’s take a look at a little snippet from Chernobyl. Do you want to read this aloud for us?
**Craig:** Sure. “Brazhnik, 20s, enters the control room in a panic. ‘There’s a fire in the turbine hall. Something blew up.’ Dyatlov pauses, lost in thought. His face is unreadable. Agonizing seconds tick by. Then he turns coldly to Akimov.”
**John:** You made the choice to have Brazhnik enter into the scene. Again, it’s an ongoing scene, and a new character enters with new information. That’s crucial. I can imagine a version of the scene where Brazhnik looks at some sort of terminal thing or he gets a call and he says this, but it makes much more sense to have a new character enter into the scene to let us know this.
**Craig:** This was about keeping a sense of panic. People running in and saying things, and that person looks confused, tells us a lot, more so than if someone looked at a monitor and goes like, “Uh-oh, there’s a fire in the turbine hall.” People can go, okay, I guess that’s a fact, but I get to see somebody’s face. I get to see how someone reacts to somebody running into the room, which is interesting. I also get a sense that there’s a world beyond this room that is very different than what’s happening in the room. There’s a lot of information that can happen, but only happens if somebody new can enter and disrupt the conversation that exists.
**John:** Also giving us a sense of geography. We know how do I get into and out of this room, which becomes important. You’re establishing a new character, Brazhnik. This is the first time we’re seeing him.
**Craig:** And the last, as it turned out.
**John:** It gives a moment to put a spotlight on this character, which would’ve been hard if they were all already in the room milling about. A very classic thing.
**Craig:** There was an interesting thing where he runs through and says this. Dyatlov makes a decision. Brazhnik is like, “What do we do about the fire?” Dyatlov says, “Call the fire brigade.” Then Dyatlov walks out, leaving him. This guy came in figuring something would happen, and then somebody walks out and makes an exit, sort of like your entrance changed nothing, my friend, goodbye. Entrance and exit there doing almost all of the work.
**John:** Lastly, lets take a look at a clip from The Nines. This is Melissa McCarthy’s character, Margaret. It’s the first time we’re seeing her. She’s in a police station. It’s again one of those, I guess we could call it a reverse entrance, where we’re not really quite sure why we’re here or who these people are until the second character comes in, which is Gary, played by Ryan Reynolds. “Margaret says, ‘He’s coming. I’ll call you back later.’ She hangs up, wrapping the earpiece around her phone. We reveal Gary being escorted through the glass doors by a polo-shirted parole officer. Margaret moves to intercept them, offering a hand. She says, ‘Hi, Margaret, I work for Lola.’ Gary, ‘I know.’ She says to the parole officer, ‘We need to go out the back.'” We’ve established a new character and that she is going to be interfacing with him and actually has some authority over the situation here. She could tell a parole officer what they’re going to be doing. Again, I’m using the entrance here to allow me to establish this character without getting a full proper introduction and then changed POVs when we finally see this character we’ve already established in the film come out.
**Craig:** In the How to Write a Movie episode, we talk about these different axes of action. One of them is internal, and one of them is interpersonal. Exits and entrances give you a chance to blend both, which is a nice thing. If you think about how we go throughout our day, much of our day is spent with ourselves thinking. We’re in our own heads. Then there’s parts of our day where we get out of our own heads. We have an interaction. The entrance and exit forces somebody out of their internal state.
When Margaret’s on the phone, technically she’s interacting with somebody, but in fact it feels internal, because we’re just looking at her. We’re in her head. We’re thinking about things. She hangs up. In the space between her hanging up and Gary suddenly appearing, there’s this brief moment where she’s in her head, and then boop, you got to get out. That helps actors. It gives them things to do. It gives them changes, which they love. It allows Margaret to move. It says, “Margaret moves to intercept them.” She’s got purpose. She’s driven by the fact that he has entered, as opposed to him just being there and her saying, “Hi, my name’s Margaret. I work for Lola. We need to go out the back.” She wouldn’t feel like much of a person. She has life and existence because she exists prior to his appearance.
**John:** All through these examples the actors who play these characters can know what their motivations are. They know what they’re trying to do in the scene, which I think is so crucial. I think the entrances and exits are helping them there figure out what it is they’re trying to accomplish next, because when you’re on the set as the writer or the director, and they’re coming up to you, it’s like what am I trying to do, here it’s on the page. You can see what it is they’re trying to accomplish in these small moments. Great. Craig, it’s a pleasure to get to do another craft little segment with you here, but we have a ton of listener questions stacked up, so maybe we’ll try to get through some of these listener questions.
**Craig:** Yeah, let’s go.
**John:** Megana Rao, can you help us out?
**Megana:** Can I ask a question about the thing you guys just talked about?
**Craig:** Wait.
**John:** Please, please.
**Craig:** Wait, hold on, so you’re just going to jump the queue, Megana, and put your question first? Fine.
**Megana:** You’re right, you’re right. Fine, we can go-
**Craig:** No, put yours first. I need to know.
**John:** Please do this.
**Craig:** Do it.
**Megana:** This topic came out of a discussion where John was saying that one of the things he’s learned as he’s grown as a writer is to avoid writing characters into scenes where they don’t have anything to do. In a project that I’m working on, I have a few scenes where it’s about a girls cross-country team, and so they’re traveling. They’re on a bus. They’re in locker rooms together. The dialog is mostly between one or two teammates. Occasionally someone will jump into the action of a scene by interjecting. That feels true to just flitting in and out of conversations and jumping in. I guess I’m reluctant to block or stage it too much, because I don’t want to over-describe and make it difficult for the reader to follow. That feels like a more directorial thing for me. I’m curious if you think it’s easier for the audience and the medium if I show these characters physically moving in and out of a space more. Does that make sense?
**John:** It does. The scene you’re describing is on a bus, you said?
**Megana:** Or let’s just say it’s in a locker room.
**John:** Obviously, we talked before on this show about how in a bigger space you’re going to still have smaller spaces, and you’re going to have groups of people together. People can move between those groups if that’s helpful. I think finding a way to describe this place versus that place, this larger space is going to be your friend. If you need to have one of the characters move from one group to another group, that’s great. You try not to make it too complicated on the page, and really just focus on probably just the dialog, the conversation between those people, and not have it be a big thing. If it was on a bus or in a locker room, up with Cheryl and Sandy, then back with Robin and Kennedy, as they’re talking, their things. You can move back and forth between them. It can be pretty natural. Craig, any more thoughts for Megana there?
**Craig:** Yeah, I don’t worry too much about this sort of thing. If you have a couple of people talking and then you just needed one chime-in line from somebody, just say so-and-so passes through frame, tosses this line out, and then they’re gone. You actually use the frame as your exclusive aspect. In this way, we’re not staring. We don’t have to look at the people not doing something. They can go not do something outside of the frame of what we’re looking at. Then what I try and think about is geography and where two people might be and why other people aren’t right next to them, listening to them. If other people are right next to them, listening to them, then they are doing something. They’re listening and they’re reacting and they’re feeling. If you want one of them to vaguely overhear, drop a little thing, you can also just hear them start the line from across the room, and then the camera cuts and shows them across the way. They have been listening, ha ha. Lots of ways to do it. Is it a comedy?
**Megana:** It has comedic moments, but I wouldn’t say it’s a comedy.
**Craig:** Little more leeway in comedies, but honestly if there’s a vaguely comic moment, that gives you more leeway. Even if there isn’t, just think of the frame of what you’re showing the audience as the space. And any character that’s not in the frame, you’re not accountable for in that moment. If you want to bring them in, you can. You can always bring them in just by having them enter.
**John:** Craig, I have a question for you. Because you’ve been doing this show and directing things or working with other directors, if you have a character exiting the scene and probably exiting frame, if they’re exiting on the right, what is your expectation about where in the frame that character will enter the next time we see them? Is that a thing that’s top of your mind or just whatever works works?
**Craig:** No, unless we’re continuing with them. If they exit right, and then immediately the next cut is them entering, then I would want them, if they exit right… Actually, it really doesn’t matter.
**John:** You could make both things work.
**Craig:** Yeah, a new space affords you a new line of action. Certainly, if there are things in between, then nobody cares who entered right or left. If you’re doing a scene in an airplane, for instance, and somebody exits, heading towards the back of the plane, and the next time you see them they enter the front of the plane, if it’s really close, if it’s only one short scene in between, people might go, wait, she went towards the back of the plane. If you’re walking out of a restaurant and you head out left, and the next shot is you enter your house, you can enter it from any direction you want.
**John:** I was thinking about this, because I just went back and re-watched the pilot to Lost, which holds up incredibly well. In Lost they’re constantly trekking across the island. In my head, I think about them heading one direction when they’re going to the island, one direction when they’re headed back from the island. I don’t think it really matters that much. There are a lot of sequences on the plane where they’re heading up towards the cockpit or back to the back. In those cases, I think even within inter-cutting scenes, you need to keep them moving in the same direction across the frame. We establish a mental geography of where… If a character’s heading this direction, they’re going to the front, if they’re going this direction, to the back. It’s really a situational, based on the kind of thing you’re shooting.
**Craig:** I feel like if it vaguely makes sense, then it’s pretty good. I’m way more concerned about the continuity in the moment.
**John:** Great. Let’s get to some listener questions. We have a whole bunch of them backed up here. Megana, can you help us out?
**Megana:** Yes. Wynn wrote in and asked, “Podcasts are large profit centers. Your decision to remain unsponsored is admirable and appreciated. Could you please enlighten us on the details of this decision? Thank you for this wonderful resource you’ve created. I for one would not stop listening if Casper Mattresses began paying you six figures.”
**Craig:** Do the mattress people pay six figures?
**John:** I don’t think they necessarily do. A lot of podcasts have ads. Podcasts make money off ads. There’s nothing wrong with having ads in your podcast. Craig and I just didn’t want to do it, because even reading stuff on the air, that would be fine, Craig would have a fun time with it, but getting the ads, getting all the stuff together, even when you have a service that’s giving the stuff for you, it’s a hassle. Life is too short, and we just didn’t want to have the hassle. Plus, our members are paying us the five bucks a month for the Premium stuff, and that is paying for Megana and for Matthew, so we’re good. This is not a profit-making endeavor for us.
**Craig:** Yeah, that’s what it comes down to for me. I just like the fact that I’m not accountable to anybody. We spend so much time in Hollywood being accountable to the people that are spending the money, paying us, paying for the production. You hope that you can find people who are responsible and nice and humane and have taste. For this podcast, we can do or say anything we want. We are beholden to no one other than each other and Megana. That’s the way I like it. I don’t want somebody from a mattress company calling me and saying that they don’t think I should be telling people to stop going to college. Not that the mattress people would care, but still.
**John:** I think the mattress-college connection is really under-explored.
**Craig:** Also, honestly, I think every podcast has ads except for us. At this point now it’s just become a matter of principle. We’re the only ones left. We’re PBS. I like it that way. John and I are fortunate enough to have careers that work. We don’t need the money, and so the hell with the mattresses.
**John:** I love it. Megana, what else do you have for us?
**Megana:** Typing While Mortified writes, “I just discovered that my manager has been sending his scripts, unsolicited, to companies I’m either currently working with or with whom I recently met to discuss other projects. When I say that he’s sending his scripts, I don’t mean his other clients’ scripts. I mean his scripts that he’s written himself and is hoping these companies will produce. To be clear, these are not connections my manager previously had. They came about through me. I had no idea he was doing this or that he even had aspirations of being a writer. I only found out because one of the companies reached out personally to let me know and asked me to get him to stop.
“The burning embarrassment I feel for myself, and to be honest, even more so for him, is probably a strong indicator that it’s time to cut this guy loose. However, being that he’s had a successful decades-long career as a manager and represents several legitimate writers, whereas I’m in the early stages of my career, I thought I’d turn to the pros for confirmation. This is absurd, right? Or at least a major conflict of interest? It doesn’t feel like there’s a way to salvage this. We’re also right in the middle of negotiating a sale. In the past he’s worked closely with my lawyer to hammer out deals. If I fire this guy, should I wait until this deal’s wrapped up, or is this a situation where no representation is better than his representation?”
**John:** Oh my god, I’m mortified for you. I think you need to get rid of this manager. I think you should let your lawyer finish this up. I also think you should talk with this manager’s other clients who are more established and just make sure that they know that this is happening, that he’s doing this, because this is just not acceptable, what he’s doing. It’s just gross and icky and wrong. Unethical, yeah, I guess, but also just icky. It just makes me feel really uncomfortable, as it makes you feel uncomfortable.
**Craig:** Managers, I swear to God. This is the kind of crap that doesn’t happen with agents, because agents don’t want to be writers. They want to be agents. It’s nice and clean. Agent represents you to try and get work, negotiates deals. Deal negotiated. Doesn’t produce your work. Doesn’t send in his or her own script like a pathetic, sweaty idiot. Your manager stinks. I don’t care who these other clients are. Their manager stinks. It’s pathetic. It’s not absurd. It’s pathetic. It would be a conflict of interest if anybody had any interest in what he’s doing, but it doesn’t sound like they do. It’s just lame. I would fire him now.
**John:** It’s lame.
**Craig:** Just get rid of him now. It’s lame. Get rid of him, because you don’t need him to hammer out the deal. Trust me, he’s not hammering out anything. The lawyer will do the details of the deal, and you don’t need to wait until the deal’s wrapped up. Furthermore, managers are not like agents where they get paid their money on commission for sale. They’re being paid money on commission to manage. There’s this concept of on the wheel, off the wheel. They are on the wheel when they are managing you. They are off the wheel when they are not. If they are not going to be managing you through the process of writing this, I don’t see why they should get 10% of it at all. I think you should fire them now. Save yourself 10%. Get an agent. Get an agent or an actual agency, and get out of this manager crap. I swear to God, more of these ding-dongs are out there just…
**John:** I agree. Get yourself an agent. I think you should have high hopes of getting an agent, because you just made a sale. Agents want people who are working, who are selling things. I think you’ll be able to get an actual proper agent. You don’t need this manager. Questionable whether you need a manager at all. You need somebody better than this person representing you, so get rid of them. Craig, I don’t think you and I have ever talked about The Player, the great Michael Tolkin movie The Player. I’m remembering a moment in The Player where Tim Robbins’s character opens a door, and you see he actually has a screenplay of his own that he’s wrote, that he’s never actually taken out any place. It got me thinking about, we haven’t discussed executives who write, because there are some of them. Some of them are okay, but it’s just a weird thing.
**Craig:** It’s rare. There are certainly executives that thought about being writers and ended up being executives. There was one executive at the erstwhile, the old version of Fox, who was infamous for inserting his own dialog into things. Pretty rare though. I’ve actually never worked with an executive that wrote. Toby Emmerich, who runs Warner Brothers, was a screenwriter, then became an executive, so he went in the other direction. I think in The Player, that’s a nice indication. I love that movie. It’s the most writer revenge movie of all time. Of course, the evil studio executive secretly wants to be a writer but can’t. That’s pretty classic.
**John:** James Schamus is probably one of the best, most acclaimed executives who also is a writer on his own.
**Craig:** Yeah, he’s the one guy that does that.
**John:** Megana, who else do we have here?
**Megana:** AJ from LA writes, “Frequently when I tell someone about what I’m writing, I’ll get the response, ‘Oh, that sounds like blank.’ My issue isn’t that I am worried about being original, but that it stops a conversation dead if I’ve not seen the show or movie they’re referencing. The conversation then shifts to this thing they just saw, and I get defensive trying to identify how my script is different from a show I haven’t even seen yet. To defend against this, I’ll just default to saying the genre of the thing I’m working on. This feels like a wasted opportunity to potentially get someone interested in what I’m writing. I do live in LA with industry friends. Do you have any tips for how to talk enthusiastically about what I’m writing without making it an invitation for people to tell me what it reminds them of? Do you still have to grapple with the originality police, or is this something that is a non-issue with professional writers?”
**Craig:** That’s a really good question. I like that question.
**John:** It is.
**Craig:** AJ, here’s what I would recommend. It’s okay when they say, “What are you writing?” to say, “It’s a such-and-such story, but ultimately what it’s really about is this woman and her relationship with this guy. Here’s what the story’s really about. It’s about da da da da da.” Get into character, relationship, theme, the purpose, the function, because the truth is everything sounds like something. If all you do is tell them, “It’s a story about a bank heist that takes place on the moon,” they’re going to be like, “Oh yeah, there’s 14 of those.”
“It takes place in space, and it’s set against a bank heist, but here’s what it’s really about. It’s about a man who got divorced and he’s trying to get back with his daughter,” and da da da da da and blah blah. That’s where all of your passion’s going to be anyway. If your passion’s only about the bank heist and the moon, then I think people are going to get a bit sleepy anyway. Talk about the characters. Talk about the relationship. Talk about the theme. Talk about the heart of it. Talk about the stuff that makes you excited. Don’t worry if they say it sounds like something else. You be like, “Yeah, plot-wise, probably a lot of overlap, but here’s what is original about what I’m doing.”
**John:** I completely agree. I’ll say things like, “I’m writing a thriller about trust and these two characters who can’t trust each other but are forced to deal with each other in order to solve the situation,” which sounds vague and hand-wavy, but if they’re curious then I can get into more specific details. What I try not to do is the heist on the moon or something that just feels like such an obvious type previous that they’re going to compare it to other things or it’s really clear it’s the next version of this thing. It’s Speed on a dirigible.
**Craig:** I’d watch it.
**John:** It’s called Slow. I also get, AJ, you’re working in this town, and you do have those conversations. It’s important to be able to have those conversations and bounce things off. People can sometimes be helpful. You want to be able to talk about what you’re writing, but I think Craig’s instinct is right. Talk about what it is that’s exciting to you about the thing that you’re writing, not just the trailer of it.
**Craig:** Yeah. AJ, it’s okay to agree with them. You say, for instance, you start getting defensive trying to identify your script as different. Don’t be defensive. Embrace it. Just be like, “It’s similar, except it’s completely different. Here’s how it’s completely different.” Just talk about the stuff that makes you excited. There’s no difference, by the way, between the position that you’re in and the position that John or I are in. If someone asked me what I’m working on right now, I’ll say, “Post-apocalyptic pandemic. Hang on.” I’m okay with them going, “Oh for God’s sakes, another one?” I’m like, “Hang on. That part is not what it’s about. This is what it’s about.” Then I talk to them about what it’s about to me. Then they start to lean forward. Embrace that your project is both original and not original at all. That’s the nature of what we do.
**John:** You’re making a piece of filmed entertainment that’s going to be about 100 minutes long. There’s nothing original about that at all.
**Craig:** Bingo.
**John:** People have been making those things for 100 years.
**Craig:** Exactly. It’s got scenes in it? What? That other thing that I saw had scenes.
**John:** Is there a horse? I said no horse movies. Megana, what else do you have for us?
**Megana:** Em asks, “I’m working on a script that centers around sexual assault. Due to the subject matter, I have a problem I need to resolve. I need a trigger warning. I never show the assault, but I do include other scenes that are traumatic in its aftermath. I need to warn readers in advance. Have you ever included a trigger warning in anything you’ve written? What did it look like? Currently, I’m planning to use a statistic on the first page. Do you think that that would suffice? The statistic is below, and it’s upsetting but tonally consistent with the story I’m telling. I’m not comfortable handing the script to readers without a warning, and this is currently my best idea.”
**John:** The statistic they have listed here is that, “In a study of college age men, 84.9% said they had no intention to rape a woman. Of those same men, 17.8% said they would force a woman into sexual intercourse.” That was the statistic they’re thinking about putting. Craig, I think we’ve talked about trigger warnings before, but not in terms of on a screenplay. What’s your instinct for Em here?
**Craig:** I think it’s fair for you to just put a little page between the title page and the beginning of the script that says this script is about sexual assault and contains scenes of sexual assault. That’s it. I wouldn’t use the phrase trigger warning. I would just simply consider it a disclosure. Just disclose it. That’s all. Then leave it be. I don’t think the statistic is going to help. I think the statistic might feel more like when somebody puts a quote from Oscar Wilde on the front page to steal some drama from something. I would just be very plain and very simple, like you said. You want people to know that there are scenes that are about sexual assault. Actually, it looks like it says you don’t actually show the assault in the script. Just say the script centers around sexual assault and those themes are discussed. Anyone who doesn’t want to read a script that involves sexual assault will go, “Oh, okay,” and then move on to the next script. Other people will say, “Got it, I will now continue.” Just real simple. That’s what I would do.
**John:** We’ve talked about it on the show before. There’s been some scientific studies of are warnings helpful or are warnings triggering in and of themselves? There’s genuine debate about that. I think what Craig is proposing is probably the best answer, because it’s similar to what people are now used to in terms of if you’re watching a show that has flashing lights that could trigger epilepsy, that’s there. There’ll be an M warning for this episode contains episodes of sexual violence. I think those are reasonable steps to take and let people make smart choices about what things they’re going to consume or not consume. Putting it there after the title page, before the script starts, in a very plain way, is probably the right choice for you right now in 2022.
**Craig:** Look, we could get into a whole debate where we ask questions like, do I not mention the fact that my script has murders in it? If it’s a script where there’s a scene that takes place in war, should I put a mention there about war in case a veteran is reading it and they have PTSD. Everybody has something. Drama is constantly circling around violence and destruction, because it’s drama. It’s about our mortal selves and about pain. To the extent that drama is therapeutic, it requires difficult subjects. I guess I would just say follow your instinct. Seems like your instinct is to say something, so say it as plainly as you can say it. That’s my advice.
**John:** Absolutely. That’s why I added the in 2022. I just feel like in this moment we’re in right now, I see these kinds of things being done for this. That’s why I’m not going to put something like, “Just so everyone knows, there’s a scene of murder in this.” That just doesn’t feel natural. I would do it for something like this, just because that’s pretty common, and I think it’s considered helpful. Cool. Great. Let’s get on to our One Cool Things. It’s been a minute, and I was expecting this would be your One Cool Thing, so I did not poach it from you.
**Craig:** You sensed it that it was on the way.
**John:** It feels like a very Craig Mazin…
**Craig:** Oh my god, so Craig Mazin. I appreciate that you know me so well. My One Cool Thing this week is a game for iOS, maybe for Android, I don’t care, called Knotwords, that’s K-N-O-T, Knotwords, by I think at least one of the same guys that does Flip Flop Solitaire, Zach Gage, I believe.
**John:** Yeah, Zach Gage.
**Craig:** It’s a brilliant little concept, very easy to do at first, and then becomes extraordinarily difficult as you proceed, but very rewarding. I guess the way I can say it is that you have a little crisscross crossword, not a standard crossword where it’s one solid square, but one of those crisscrossy ones where there’s lots of gaps. What they’ve done is they’ve basically highlighted a region. That region isn’t always… In fact, it rarely is covering the entire word. It’s usually covering half of one word, a little bit of another. They’ll tell you, these are the letters that have to be in that region. You’re applying logic and word skills and solving.
I’ve gotten into the tricky ones now. They start to give you limitations, like okay, in this row there can be no more than two vowels. It starts getting really, really crunchy. I’m in the tricky version now. I’ve run into one where I’ve been working on it for a day. It’s great. I really love it. I can always go back over to the cas ones to just proceed if I’m feeling like spending some time. Strongly recommend. It is free, although I suspect that occasionally there will be more packs and things that you can buy. It’s available at the app store and Google Play and Steam, Knotwords.
**John:** Knotwords. Craig, I think you missed… One of my One Cool Things in the past was Redactle. Do you play Redactle?
**Craig:** You know what? I’ve looked at people’s Redactle reports. It just seems like a whole lot.
**John:** It can be a whole lot. It can be really fun. It can be half an hour’s worth of work, which is a little too much for a daily puzzle, but always fun to do. My One Cool Thing this week is the Arts District here in Los Angeles. I was just out last night with friends to see two galleries shows and a dinner downtown. It was great. The Arts District, for people who don’t know Los Angeles, or people who live in Los Angeles who’ve never been down there, it’s Downtown, south of Dodger Stadium, east of what you think of as the main part of Downtown. You’re east of the skyscrapers. Lots of galleries, lots of cool spaces, restaurants. I guess my closest thing I would compare it to would be Tribeca, Tribeca when it was becoming Tribeca. Really encourage people to go down there and see stuff.
I saw exhibits at Night Gallery, Hauser and Wirth. We had cocktails at Death and Company, dinner at Manueal. Just really great stuff down in that area. Los Angeles is so huge you can forget that there are just pockets of the neighborhood that you’ve never seen before. I would encourage people to get out and see more of Los Angeles, but also check out the Arts District next time they’re in that part of Los Angeles.
**Craig:** I like the LA Factory Kitchen down there. It’s a good restaurant. I don’t know if you’ve ever eaten there.
**John:** I have not. I would say now that almost all the restaurants are back open and a ton of new restaurants have opened up, it’s a really exciting time just to be going out to dinner in Los Angeles.
**Craig:** What a time to be alive.
**John:** Fantastic. That was our show for this week. Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao, edited by Matthew Chilleli. Our outro this week is by Owen Danoff. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send longer questions. For short questions on Twitter, Craig is @clmazin, I’m @johnaugust. You can find the show notes from this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you can find transcripts and sign up for our weeklyish newsletter called Inneresting, which has lots of links with things about writing. We just hit Episode 100 of Inneresting and switched over to Substack, so there’s some good new stuff there you can check out. We have T-shirts, they’re great, and hoodies too. 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 Craig is going to live forever. Craig, so good to have you back.
**Craig:** It’s great to be back.
**John:** Hooray.
[Bonus Segment]
**John:** Megana, help us out here, because I think this all comes from a listener question that was sent in to us.
**Megana:** Yes. Neil wrote in and asked, “With the longevity movement gaining speed with each new breakthrough, no doubt consequentially in our lifetime, what do you and Craig think about living forever? Is extending life ad infinitum a good thing or is the planet more of a timeshare, and we should eventually move on and make room for the next generations?”
**John:** Craig, how long do you want to live?
**Craig:** I would like to live forever. I feel like the way to live forever is not in this meat suit. I think about this all the time. If you could copy a brain, which theoretically is possible, not with the technology we have now, but let’s say eventually they’re like, “Oh my god, we’ve figured it out. We can totally copy your brain.” If they copied my brain, do I have a split consciousness? Probably not. It would just be two of me with their own consciousness, so in that case I die, so it doesn’t really work, because I’m only this one. Then I have to go to the Futurama, put my brain in a floating jar, which I would be totally fine with.
**John:** I’d be fine with that too. People are down on floating brains in jars.
**Craig:** I love it.
**John:** I think it’s great, love it. Ethical questions, no. What you’re describing in terms of just digitizing your brain, it’s basically the San Junipero episode of Black Mirror. Great, I’m all for it. I’m happy to live forever in a digital version of myself. It would hopefully be a pretty good version of what I can do. I’m great with that. I’m not so scared of the implications of immortality. I come from a family that tends to live a long time. My great-grandma lived to 100 and was coherent all the way through there. I’d like to live to 100 and be fully functional. I want to live long enough to hit that singularity moment where I can just be transferred into just software. That’s good.
**Craig:** It would be nice. Floating brain software, whatever it is, the thing is I just don’t want to live forever as some shriveled old… Inevitably, everybody ends up looking like a prune or a walnut. Then they get confused and then they die. I don’t want to do any of that. I’m going to. Let’s be honest. It’s going to happen. I would totally live forever. I got lots to do. I’m learning all the time. I just think life is interesting. I like what I do. I make things. It’s fun.
**John:** A related conversation though is about retirement. People are always like, “Oh, when are you going to retire?” I’m like, “I don’t intend to retire.” Craig, do you intend to retire?
**Craig:** What’s going to happen is we’re going to get retired.
**John:** That’s really what happens.
**Craig:** At some point people are like, “You’re bad, because you’re out of touch.” Everybody gets out of touch sooner or later. If you don’t get out of touch, now you’re just that creepy old guy that refuses to be out of touch and talks about liking music that he doesn’t be listening to. Everyone’s rolling their eyes and like, “Beat it, old man.” I think what’ll happen is I’ll just eventually beat it, old man. I can see myself drifting into a nice emeritus sort of thing where everybody’s like, “He’s old. We’ll just talk to him about stuff. He can give us advice. Then we’ll go and do stuff.”
**John:** Craig, you’re going to be an amazing character actor when you’re 90. That’s going to be fun.
**Craig:** I’ll be the new Carl Reiner.
**John:** That’s what you’re going to be. Megana, do you want to live forever?
**Megana:** The brain in the jar thing sounds really appealing, because I feel like even currently as writers, our bodies probably get in the way of… As an art form, we’re not really using our bodies. They’re mostly just to get the stuff from our brain onto the page, whereas, I don’t know, a dancer, an actor might have a harder time with that. I already feel like I’m just a brain in this not optimized meat sack.
**John:** Let’s talk about the brain in the jar thing, because an article I read recently, if I can find a link I’ll put it in the show notes, was talking about we think about, oh, we can stick the brain in the jar and we forget that the brain is actually just there to regulate our bodies. A brain without a body is a weird thing. Without its normal inputs it’s going to be interesting to see what we’re like if we don’t have our bodies around us. Yet it’s not hard for us to think about ourselves as being fully digital, because so much of my day I just feel like I’m interacting with people on Twitter, I’m interacting with Megana on Slack. I’m not interacting with a physical person, so interacting with a digital person doesn’t seem that strange to me. The people who work for me who I have not really seen in person, and they’re just a reputation on Zoom, that could all be faked.
**Craig:** John, all the people you’re talking about have a lot of experience working with a digital presence: you. That’s the most robot thing I’ve ever heard you… Megana’s not… She’s an avatar on Slack. Boop.
**John:** Sometimes.
**Craig:** Boop.
**Megana:** I’m constantly wanting to be in the office more. Just so we’re clear on that, I like being in John’s physical presence.
**John:** That’s so nice, and Lambert’s physical presence, an amazing dog you get to hang out with.
**Craig:** Lambert.
**Megana:** That’s true.
**John:** Lambert.
**Craig:** Lambert’s great.
**John:** Lambert’s great. I think I would miss dogs if I were to be a brain in a jar or a digital version. I’d need to have some sort of digital dog to hang out with. What would a vacation be like if you’re a brain in a jar? It does change your nature, because would it just be work all the time?
**Craig:** You’re in VR spaces where you would have a regular body, and you would have a dog that you could play with and feel and touch, because the jar fluid can interact with your brain. Obviously it’s connected somehow to something. I think it sounds great, honestly, as long as it’s not Facebook. If I’m stuck in their stupid thing, then just break the jar and smash my brain. I just can’t.
**John:** That would be the equivalent of just being an old person in a wheelchair who has to watch Fox News all day. Basically, they wheel you up to the TV, and you’re just trapped there to watch Fox TV now. No, thank you.
**Craig:** I’m stuck in a world where there’s just constantly… My third cousin is screaming nonsense at me. I just can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I just won’t, so just kill me.
**John:** What we’re describing is a crucial difference between brain in a jar versus a person in a coma or someone who’s trapped in a body, has a consciousness, but can’t actually communicate. It’s ability to get input and actually do meaningful work and communicate it outward. That’s the thing that we’re making sure we get, as long as inputs and outputs work.
**Craig:** We don’t want locked-in syndrome. If everybody is connected and we’re all… By the way, that may be where we are right now, just to be clear.
**John:** A simulation, by the way.
**Megana:** Oh, gosh.
**Craig:** We are in a simulation, no question about that, but perhaps right now we are brains in jars. Part of the deal of the brain in the jar is you just don’t remember when you weren’t. All the memories are piped in to start with. Then we are in VR space.
**John:** Really that siren you just heard outside was some sort of signal from the simulation, like there’s some disruption and now they’re fixing the disruption?
**Craig:** Or it was just that routine. It just runs every 20 minutes. Send the ambulance.
**John:** For some reason your simulation does a lot of Grand Theft Auto outside your apartment.
**Craig:** I do love Grand Theft Auto.
**John:** So good. Craig, six weeks I’ve not been able to talk to you about Elden Ring. Are you still enjoying Elden Ring? Are you playing Elden Ring anymore?
**Craig:** I turned away. I was in the mid-70s level-wise.
**John:** That’s about where I am.
**Craig:** I was getting to some cool places. Then I just realized this is it, this is all it’s ever going to be. It’s beautiful, and I’ll probably find some more beautiful places, but I still have no idea what the hell I’m really doing any of this for.
**John:** There’s fingers at the Roundtable Hold.
**Craig:** What is that? What’s happening? Why are those ladies constantly looking at my fingers? What is that?
**John:** They just love fingers.
**Craig:** I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what those trees are about. I don’t know why there are a lot of animated teacups or jars. There are animated jars. I don’t know why.
**John:** They’re brains in jars is really what it is. It felt so good to finally kill that golden knight who’s at the very start, to finally be powerful enough to kill [crosstalk 01:02:34].
**Craig:** I killed that guy too. That was actually probably the moment where I was like, “I think I’m done.” I was like, “I killed that guy. What’s the point?” I’m basically done.
**John:** Living forever is just about playing Elden Ring until you actually solve it, until you actually discover what the meaning of Elden Ring is, and then you die.
**Craig:** What is going on there? It’s so weird. Then I got MLB: The Show and 2022 and I’ve just been playing baseball. That’s what I’ve been doing. There are some good games on the horizon. I’m excited for what’s coming. I enjoyed my time with Elden Ring. It was very satisfying. I got some good kills in there. I was killed in spectacular ways. I’ve seen enough. I’m good.
**John:** Good. Thanks, Craig.
**Craig:** Thank you guys.
**John:** Thanks, Megana.
**Megana:** Thanks, friends.
**Craig:** See ya.
**John:** Bye.
**Megana:** Bye.
Links:
Links:
* [The Room – “Oh hi Mark” clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aekfPU0SwNw&t=68s)
* [Scriptnotes, Episode 543: 20 Questions with John, Transcript](https://johnaugust.com/2022/scriptnotes-episode-543-20-questions-with-john-transcript)
* [Los Angeles Arts District](https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2019-12-28/four-hours-staying-present-in-the-arts-district): [Hauser + Wirth](https://www.hauserwirth.com/locations/10069-hauser-wirth-los-angeles/), [Night Gallery](https://www.nightgallery.ca/), [Death + Company](https://www.deathandcompany.com/dcdtla/), [Manuela](https://www.manuela-la.com/)
* [Knotwords Game](https://noodlecake.com/games/knotwords/)
* [Upstep Orthotics](https://www.upstep.com/)
* [Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!](https://cottonbureau.com/people/scriptnotes-podcast)
* [Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription](https://scriptnotes.supportingcast.fm/gifts) or [treat yourself to a premium subscription!](https://scriptnotes.supportingcast.fm/)
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [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/550standard.mp3).