Scriptnotes Transcript

The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2020/beyond-bars).

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

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

**John:** And this is Episode 440 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the podcast I’ll be talking with a panel of experts about the criminal justice system and incarceration, looking at what TV and movies get right and get wrong and how to do better. It’s a great discussion we held this week in cooperation with Hollywood Health and Society. If you’d like to watch this panel rather than listen to it there is a link in the show notes to the video.

Craig, it was good, it was fun. I missed you but there was so much to talk about that an extra person up there probably would have been a challenge.

**Craig:** Sometimes I feel like it’s important to have these moments where you get to do your thing, or I get to do my thing. It keeps it fresh. I’m not saying that we’re swingers or anything. I don’t think – that’s not our lifestyle.

**John:** It isn’t.

**Craig:** No. We don’t have an open relationship, but you know how married couples talk about a hall pass?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** I feel like we actually give each other hall passes every now and again. It’s like instead of the fake ones that you know will just get you in permanent trouble.

**John:** Absolutely. Like my husband for many years, he would go on one vacation by himself each year which I think is just great. So, it’s a chance to sort of like what is interesting in the world that is not just a shared couple thing.

**Craig:** Yeah. It lets you be yourself. I’m glad that I could let you be yourself.

**John:** Now Craig, what has been your experience with the criminal justice system or writing about the criminal justice system? Because I’m thinking back through your credits and I don’t perceive you writing a bunch about lawyers and jails and prisons. But have you done that?

**Craig:** Only in the most bizarre and non-realistic way for the third Hangover film.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** Which features Thai law enforcement as well as Mexican law enforcement and I don’t think any of it was accurate in the slightest. So mostly I watch law enforcement. I don’t think I’ll ever be one of those people that writes a big jury trial movie or anything like that.

**John:** Yeah. Like you, I mostly have my experience of criminal justice system watching it on TV. Yes, I’ve been on juries, but most of what I perceive is the things I see on television. And those things are not particularly accurate, so it was a great chance to talk with the folks who do this for a living about what is actual and accurate and real and sort of how to think about it more smartly. And how to really include characters and stories that aren’t being told on the screen. So, enjoy this panel discussion. Craig and I will be back at the end of this for our credits. And if you’re a Premium member stick around because Craig and I are going to talk about the coronavirus. And Dr. Craig–

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** He will have it all covered and handled for you.

**Craig:** I’ve got it all.

**John:** All right. Enjoy.

Hello and good evening. It is so nice to be here with you all in this nice little intimate room. Tonight we are going to be talking about the criminal justice system. We’re going to be talking about the myths and realities of what the criminal justice entails. And we’re really going to be talking about biases. And so I want to start by talking about my own biases. I’m coming at this as a screenwriter. And so I’m looking at some of these issues from the perspective of what a writer, a filmmaker, someone in the medium might want to learn about when it comes to criminal justice, and so how we tell the stories accurately, how we tell them better, how we avoid some of the tropes and how we just do a better job writing about the criminal justice system.

But I’m also coming at this as a citizen and as a person who votes and as a person who picks people who make policies that really impact how we think about criminal justice. So, I really have two hats on my head, on my very bald head, as I look at these issues. And so I’m so lucky to have an amazing panel here and I’m going to ask maybe some really naïve questions, but I think questions that so often are not asked as we think about what criminal justice entails.

So, I’m going to start with you Aly. So Aly Tamboura is a manager in the criminal justice reform program at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative where he brings firsthand experience after spending a decade of his life incarcerated. Tamboura partners with formerly incarcerated leaders who are accelerating reforms, giving those who are closest to the problems a voice in reimagining a better criminal justice system. Welcome Aly.

**Aly Tamboura:** Thank you.

**John:** So a couple months ago I did a panel here for Hollywood Health and Society where we were talking about addiction and mental health and one of the things I really wanted to start with is that there are a whole bunch of terms we use related to addiction and mental health that are just inherently negative. That start from a judgmental basis. Like alcoholic or addict. And so when you start using those words you’re automatically coming in at a deficit.

And there’s words like that in relation to criminal justice as well, so before we start talking about anything else can you talk us through some of the words and some of the terms that we may be using that are really not helpful at all. And so can we start using some better words as we start this conversation. What are some words that you hear or terms that you hear that maybe we could just take off the table from the start?

**Aly:** I was going to say all of them.

**John:** All of them. All right.

**Aly:** so, I mean, when you think of things like ex-convict, prisoner, felon, ex-felon, parolee, those are all pejorative words meant to marginalize people. Right? I remember having this big argument when I first came home with my parole officer. You know, he’s calling me a parole and this and that. I said I’m not. And he’s like, yeah you are. I’m like I am not the worst mistake I ever made in my life and I will never, ever, ever accept anybody telling me that I’m the worst mistake I ever made in my life. Right? And I challenge the audience out here. Imagine the worst thing you’ve ever done in your life. And imagine if someone called you that for the rest of your life, in employment, in housing, in access to healthcare, everything. You walk in the door and that’s what they call you. And that’s what it feels like when I hear this language.

**John:** So, you started to explain why it’s a negative, but also what are words that we can use that are neutral, at least neutral, that actually acknowledge that you are a person and not the worst thing you’ve ever done.

**Aly:** Right, so instead of calling people prisoners or inmates, call them incarcerated people. I think if you keep the word people–

**John:** People or individuals.

**Aly:** Or individuals.

**John:** Acknowledging that they are human beings.

**Aly:** In this context, right, it not only helps the individual who may have transgressed on one of our social norms, but it also helps society as a whole to be able to accept those people back in our society.

**John:** You spent a decade of your life in prison.

**Aly:** 12 years, four months, 21 days.

**John:** All right. And so can you talk us through the reality of going from your normal life into a life as a person who is incarcerated. Talk to me about the degree to which you lose your individuality. Are there aspects of that process? Because I’ve seen this in movies before. I’ve seen a person enter prison. What aspects of that are accurate that I’ve seen in movies and TV shows? What aspects of that are not accurate in your experience?

**Aly:** Almost every aspect is not accurate. And I have to tell you when I – I never thought for a minute in my life that I’d end up incarcerated. But I had – all of my knowledge was from media on what prison, jail, the court system was like. And I’m going to say it starts in court. The idea that you have any control. You hire an attorney or one is appointed for you. They take your name. They give you a case number. You become a case number. And you become a spectator. Right? Very rarely and most of the times most people don’t get up and testify in their defense. So you’re just a spectator in this process.

And then once you get to prison then you really start getting stripped of your identity. You get a prison number. And that becomes who you are for the time of your incarceration. They take your clothing from you and mark you as a prisoner. You no longer can do the normal things that you did in life, like cook for yourself, or wash your clothes, or decide when you want to take a shower. So, you really start losing – you lose your individuality but you also lose your purpose, right.

You know, most people in here have a purpose. Get up, go to work, take care of your kids, take care of your family, go to school, whatever it is. In prison your purpose soon, like actually not – the day you arrive becomes survival. How am I going to make it through this? How am I going to make it back to my family? Then you add on top of that this just crushing oppression and isolation. You’re just ripped completely away from your social network and very, very small channels of communication. It’s why I love my job because we’re content on changing the system.

**John:** So we can all talk about the same terms, can you explain the difference between jail and prison, or sort of what kinds of incarceration are out there?

**Aly:** Sure. So jail in most jurisdictions means that you are a ward of the county. You are – it’s usually lower level offenses, so misdemeanors and some felonies that they call wobblers. Usually couldn’t spend more than a year in jail. In some jurisdictions that’s changed now though. And then if you have a sentence that’s more than a year then you become a state prisoner and you’re a ward of the state. If you’re in jail you get probation after jail. If you go to prison you get parole.

**John:** Thank you. Next I want to talk to Lovisa Stannow. She’s the executive director at Just Detention International. She’s also a trained rape crisis counselor and has written extensively about prisoner rape, including a series of high profile articles in the New York Review of Books. Previously Lovisa served as the executive director of the Pacific Institute for Women’s Health and the West Coast director of Doctors Without Borders. Welcome Lovisa.

**Lovisa Stannow:** Thank you.

**John:** So your organization works with jails and prisons in the US but also internationally. So I would love to get some perspective on what do you see internationally that’s the same or different than US prison and can you broaden this out to a global perspective here.

**Lovisa:** Absolutely. Thank you. So you’re right. A lot of my work is in the United States, but I also am spending quite a bit of time inside South African prisons and also doing work in places like Mexico and the Philippines, but also Canada and Europe. And there are prisons in the world that are logistically speaking a lot worse than US prisons in the sense that I have been inside facilities where half of the people don’t have beds, where they sleep on the floor. I have been inside facilities where the government agency that incarcerates people doesn’t supply food. So you rely completely on your family on the outside.

There are also prisons in for example Canada or parts of Northern Europe that are relatively healthy institutions in the sense that there’s much more of a focus on helping people heal from whatever trauma brought them to the prison in the first place. And that are really committed to making sure people never come back. And the US ends up somewhere in the middle there, but what’s important is that we should not think that we’re doing well here. And I think a lot of Americans believe that relatively speaking our prisons are OK and that’s just not the case.

You know, we incarcerate more people than anybody else in the world, both in terms of relative numbers and relatively speaking. And we keep people in prison for such a long time. People spend decades inside. They lose touch with their families. They are dehumanized at every turn, like we just heard. And in addition US prisons are suffering from an epidemic of rape and sexual abuse. So every single year in US detention 200,000 people are sexually abused. So that’s not the number of incidents. Most of these people are assaulted more than once. And that’s not good enough.

So, I think there are reasons for us to be ashamed and alarmed about our prisons.

**John:** Now we see portrayals in media of prison violence and sexual violence. Is it realistic or is it reinforcing that we see these portrayals? To what degree are the expectations being set by the media that we’re seeing? What are you seeing in terms of sexual violence in prisons?

**Lovisa:** The narratives that we see in most movies and television shows that touch on sexual abuse in prison are really misguided and dangerous and frankly inaccurate. Both in the way prisoners themselves, incarcerated people, are described and portrayed, but also the way the institutions themselves are shown.

So prisoners tend to be portrayed as somehow one-dimensional, casually cruel, less than human beings. And that’s so far from the truth. And the actual institutions are often portrayed as these inherently violent places where there’s no way we can keep people safe. And that’s also not true. And these false narratives have real life consequences. Because it means that we start to believe that prisoners are disposable. That it’s OK to ignore people who are incarcerated. That it’s OK to hate people who are incarcerated.

**John:** Zach I’m going to ask you the next question because you actually are making a show that is about an incarcerated person. Zach Calig is a writer-producer for the new ABC legal drama For Life, loosely based on the true story of Isaac Wright, Jr., it tells the story of a man who was wrongfully imprisoned but while incarcerated became a licensed attorney and helped overturn the wrongful convictions of 20 of his fellow inmates. Zach, welcome.

**Zach Calig:** Thank you.

**John:** Zach, now, I was reading up about the show and I was struck by this quote from Isaac Wright, Jr. who sort of inspired the show. “I think one of the things happens in the criminal justice system is that the prosecutor is able to control the narrative from the very, very beginning. The moment an arrest is made they put out a press release to the media and the media follows that narrative. They control the destiny of the person they’re going to be prosecuting.”

So you as writing on this show, you got to sort of set your own narrative for what this story was going to be about and what it was going to be like. What were your challenges and what did you see as the opportunities for setting the narrative for this person’s life?

**Zach:** Well, one of the opportunities that we were able to exploit was giving every single person that was incarcerated a full backstory. We were able to talk about their relationships, their loves, their children, their hopes and dreams and really humanize every single person, whether they were – I don’t want to say the word villain, but whether they were an antagonist to our main character, actually both in prison and even the prosecutors. We tried not to have full heroes or antagonists.

But we don’t have any control over how a prosecutor will present the case and probably will continue to be the same on their end, but we can on our end start to peel back the curtain and understand that it’s not black and white. That at least in Aaron’s case there was an eye witness line up that he will prove to be tainted. And so one of the reasons he was able to do this, like for example you’re called into an eye witness lineup and there’s me and four other people. You don’t recognize anyone. Two weeks later they say John we want you to come back in and you see me and four new people. And now suddenly I look familiar. And in that case Aaron, our protagonist who was based on Isaac’s life, is able to attack that and kind of set a precedent for his own case and free him.

Also, able to look at other issues in terms of like paid criminal informants and in one case of someone who is giving information to a DA in order to get a get-out-of-jail free card for himself. So, with humanizing everyone who is incarcerated on our show, whether they deserved to be in their prison or not, and peeling back the curtain on the prosecutor, we’re trying to paint a picture that there’s more than what meets the eye.

**John:** Well it sounds like, and we’ve all seen police lineups in TV shows. As long as I can remember I’ve seen that scene. But I’ve never seen it from that perspective. So you’re actually just taking a look at the same moments we would have seen in other shows but from a different perspective, from really looking at sort of what’s going on behind the scenes. There was a second one and so therefore that’s why that character is familiar again. So you’re questioning sort of how it actually really works. And was that research or how did you get to that?

**Zach:** Research. Well, I want to say in dramatizing how loaded some of these portrayals can be. But, yeah, that was research. We had an incredible staff. We had a writer who was a former CO. We had two attorneys, one of whom was a public defender and opened up three non-profits in criminal justice. We had a lot of writers, myself included, who had friends and family incarcerated. So everyone was able to bring these perspectives to the table to really put a vivid portrayal on a side of prison that we hadn’t seen. I am personally guilty of watching Oz when I was a teenager and enjoying it at the time, but I also understand that that’s problematic because it’s one side of prison. But it I would say by and large dehumanizes most of the people who are on the show.

**John:** No one comes off well on Oz. There are no heroes in Oz. Let’s get to Dan Birman. So Dan Birman is an award-winning producer and director. He’s spent six years producing and directing the documentary Me Facing Life, Cyntoia’s story, which follows 16-year-old Cyntoia Brown who received a life sentence for murder in Tennessee. He’s currently producing the second installment of Cyntoia’s story exploring juvenile justice issues and her fight for freedom, slated for release this spring on Netflix. So Dan, while Zach was talking about taking a real life person’s story as a jumping off place, you are talking about a real person who you met early on in this process. Can you catch us up to speed on like how you first got to know Cyntoia Brown? How you first got involved with this story? And what the change has been over the course of these years you’ve seen? How both she has changed but really it feels like some of our assumptions about criminal justice have changed over the course of the time you’ve been making this documentary.

**Dan Birman:** So about 2004 I decided to take on the task of understanding how juveniles can become violent. And so it was my job as a documentarian to figure out how to tell that story. We don’t get to write out the narrative. We actually have to go find it and bring it in. So I did a lot of research and found myself in Davidson County, the seat where Nashville is located. Gained the access to the juvenile justice system, to the public defender’s office, and over the course of a year between 2003 and 2004 somewhere in there Cyntoia Brown was arrested and I got a call from the public defender’s office saying I think we have a story for you. That’s after gaining a lot of access and trust.

And I found myself on a plane within three hours with a little camera in my hand. The next morning I was in Nashville at 6:30 in the morning and by 7:30 I was staring in the face of a young girl, 16 years old, who looked like anybody’s little girl, only knowing that she had done something pretty horrible. And so what I started doing is recording interviews with Cyntoia Brown and we had an agreement back in 2004 that nobody on earth is going to allow me to do the story I wanted to do over time, so I was just going to have to follow this story on my own.

And I decided to do that, as long as she agreed not to lie to me or send me down, manipulate my storytelling process that I would stay with this story as long as I needed to that. And that has been 16 years.

**John:** So over those 16 years in the little trailer we just saw we talk about how she was initially described as being a prostitute and now she’s described as a victim of sexual abuse. That does feel like a change that’s happened over the course of this time.

**Dan:** That’s an insightful – you’re going down an insightful path. Because first of all there are a lot of assumptions that go on in this system. And I started out as a – I’m a filmmaker. I’m a documentary producer. So, what I know about justice systems you could put on the head of a pin and still have room for an entire bowling alley. But what I went in with were my own assumptions. I started this story, to be quite frank with you, a very close personal friend of mine lost his mother because her granddaughter murdered her for drug money. And so I thought well that’s messed up. So, what do we do about that?

So my assumptions when I got the call, I said tell me Cyntoia. 16-year-old girl in the middle of prostitution, on drugs. Got picked up by a 43-year-old man who picked her up for sex. Things went from bad to worse and she murdered him. And so I thought to myself, and as I was flying to Nashville I thought Birman what the hell are you doing? I mean, this is stuff we read in the newspaper every day. Why are you going down this path?

And all of a sudden I found myself asking what the hell kind of question is that. She’s a 16-year-old girl. So at that time Cyntoia Brown was eviscerated by media. She was painted as someone who committed murder, a really bad thing to an upstanding citizen of the community, and whatever. So my initial assessment centered on the crime. And centered on a whole lot of factors that are our prejudices.

But what I found over time is it ain’t that simple. What took me seven years to put out the first film was to really peel back the layers of humanity in a human story, because Cyntoia Brown is a human. And the world that grew up in had a lot to do to shape her. Yes, she made a really bad decision on August 6, 2004. Really bad decision. But if we are busy not couching what people do with at least trying to shoot for some level of understanding, some level of perspective, then we’re missing it.

And the reason I think our film has been so successful and now we’ve got this new film that’s coming out, it’s a redo, it’s not an update, it’s a redo, is because I think we bothered to take a hard, hard, hard look at the humanity.

**John:** So in the Cyntoia Brown story it’s a murder that gets her caught up into the system, but that’s probably not – that’s not the reason why most people end up in the criminal justice system. Can we talk about the start of the process, like what it is that gets people involved in the criminal justice system and gets them into a situation where they may be incarcerated? What are the common reasons for which a person is arrested and how do arrests then lead to sort of the incarcerations that we’re seeing? Aly, what are you seeing as what are the common factors that are getting people into our jails and our prisons?

**Aly:** I don’t think that there’s any like we can just say these are the five factors because every person is different. You know, in my case lack of emotional intelligence, lack of impulse control, being raised in a hyper masculine environment. But there are – I think a big chunk we can codify and that’s lack of opportunity. When people are thriving in the world they’re not going to go out and commit a crime. You know?

And so I think if we have opportunity for that segment of society then we would be able to deal with the people who really need the help.

**John:** And what are the specific things that people tend to be arrested for? Because we know about like there’s the issue of like nonviolent drug offenses that are getting people into the system. But what are the things that you see in your time in jail and in prison that you saw as being reasons why people are caught up in this net? What are the specific incidents that tend to get people–?

**Aly:** A vast majority of the people are for drug sales or violence surrounding drug sales, or drug use. Then there’s a segment of people who have mental health issues and as a society we don’t know what to do with those people anymore. So, we send them to prison and jail. And then you have the people, the category that I put myself in, who were in a bad situation, emotionally-charged situation, and made a poor choice in that situation.

And I want to challenge you a little bit. I don’t think Cyntoia murdered her victim. I think she killed him, definitely. But the definition of murder, that premeditation, right – this little girl was being trafficked and made a poor decision but I don’t think – and I’m speculating – but I just don’t believe in my heart that she got up that morning and said, “I’m going to go kill someone in a hotel.” Right?

**Dan:** That’s correct.

**Aly:** And to me that’s the definition of murder.

**Dan:** That’s correct. She didn’t get up that morning and decide to go murder somebody, to kill somebody. I use the word murder for a very dramatic reason. And the reason I use the word murder is because that is a label that is put on someone who does kill somebody. She was convicted of murder. She went to prison. She became incarcerated for having convicted first degree murder. So I use the word for a little bit of dramatic effect.

It’s not perhaps the best word because I think we showed that there’s a much deeper story and as in fact Cyntoia Brown is walking, is a free person, today. Today. Because somebody stopped and bothered to look at a young woman in 360 degrees. But I want to just add one more thing to your question. In the year that Cyntoia was arrested 2.2 million children – children – were arrested for violent crime that year. That year. A third of them were girls. 98% of the girls who were arrested that year according to the Department of Justice, the data that I found, were also victims of sexual and physical abuse.

I think you can maybe – there are ways to categorize what are the crimes of the day but I think what we’re really looking at are the situations of the day. And I think what we miss as writers, as filmmakers, I’m a documentarian so I have to go for facts anyway, but is be able to find perspective because it’s not as sexy to find perspective.

**John:** So you’re saying that the – we might notice the arrest but the actual incidents that were leading up to that arrest happened way before that. And we’re outside of the control of—

**Dan:** It’s big. It’s way the hell big. And I will tell you that there were no lawyers who were ready to put in six years of their time to go find the birth mother, the adoptive mother, the maternal grandmother, and to understand their stories that led to three generations of violence that resulted in Cyntoia Brown. I don’t think the system knows how to do that.

**John:** Let’s talk about the process from the moment that a person is arrested and sort of portrayals we see in the media we tend to see it from the prosecutor’s point of view. We tend to see like, well, we’re trying to figure out who committed this crime. We found a person. This is the person who committed the crime and we’re going to convict this person and then credits roll and the thing is over. What are we missing from the other side of the story? What side are we not seeing? And Zach maybe you can speak to that just a little bit. What side are we not seeing of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of criminal justice systems?

**Zach:** Well, for the people that matter, the jury, they’re not seeing the human element. They’re not seeing the circumstances in which some of these crimes were committed. And they’re not seeing what goes on in the police department. They’re basically only seeing what the prosecutor wants them, especially if someone can’t afford a good attorney.

And the quality of attorney that one has kind of determines the narrative that’s going to be put out there. And when you said we don’t see other narratives, they just maybe think of Harvey Weinstein. Well, we see his narrative because he can afford the best attorney money can buy, and most people cannot.

**John:** Aly, when you see people who are caught up at the start of the criminal justice system, you see people who are arrested, do you have any sense of like what the percentage of people who are arrested or go to trial are going to be convicted? I’m guessing it’s quite high.

**Aly:** Yes. So, in America, and this is just a shocking statistic, if a prosecutor charges you with a felony you have a 97% chance of being found guilty, whether you’re innocent of the crime or not. And I want to highlight something about the prosecutor narrative. Prosecutors have a very, very, very difficult job. And I argue that they’re also system-impacted. They see the worst of humanity every day. They work in an antiquated system, with very, very little to no technology. They read a police report and literally in a manner of minutes, most times less than an hour, make a charging decision that is going to affect the offender, affect the victim, affect the community, affect tax payers. And, yeah, I’m proud to say one of the things that we are doing at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is working with prosecutors, helping them use data and technology and get better at making more informed decisions that have better outcomes for everybody.

**John:** So when a person is arrested you would like the prosecutor to say not only how good of a case can I make but I really first ask is this person the actual person who committed the crime. Is this person the guilty person? And what is actually the appropriate response for what’s happened there. Those are two things or what else am I missing?

**Aly:** Well, I think, I mean, it’s more nuanced than that. But I think one of the things is we have this adversarial system, right? What a police officer writes in a police report is held as gospel. And once a person goes in you really, really have very, very little control of, like Zach said, unless you can hire an expensive attorney you are literally a spectator.

And it’s even worse if you can’t afford bail. Because you can’t even assist your attorney in your defense because you’re in jail.

**John:** Talk to us about bail. Because that’s a system that I don’t really understand. And how does bail come about? What is the decision about who gets bail, who does not get bail? And what is a person expected to be able to put up for bail, because I know bail bondsmen and all sorts of stuff. I’m sure it’s different state by state. But what are some useful things that writers and filmmakers can understand about how bail works if a person is arrested?

**Aly:** So, supposedly you’re innocent until proven guilty and bail is a way to get people to show up to court. So if you have some skin in the game, right, if you’re accused of a crime and there is a bail scheduled for offenses in every jurisdiction or every geography they say, OK, you stole a car, your bail is $50,000. Usually people don’t have $50,000 so what they do is they pay a bail bondsman 10%. The bail bondsman—

**John:** So they would have to pay $5,000 and the bail bondsman would basically do an insurance policy on them.

**Aly:** Exactly. And that’s funny because the insurance industry underwrites most of the bail bondsman and they take that 5% as a fee, or 10%. It really depends on the bail bondsman. But anywhere from 5% to 10%.

**John:** It’s basically a tax on that person for having been arrested.

**Aly:** Right. And so what happens is if you’re wealthy you can post the whole bail and after you get out of trial you get your money back, or you can leverage your real estate. But if you’re poor you’re stuck in jail. And you’re stuck in jail, this is pre-trial, you’re not proven guilty. So you’re already incarcerated and the issue with that is people that are poor you lose your job, you lose your house. It’s just a cascade that goes downhill.

And then it also forces you into a lot of times prosecutors if you’re sitting in jail four, five, six, seven, eight days they’ll come up and say, oh well, take a plea deal, I’ll let you out today. And people plea out sometimes think [they knew].

**John:** Now, Lovisa, if a person is sitting in jail during this time they’re unable to make bail, what are the range of things they could see in jail? Because I’m guessing that jail is not a place that anyone ever wants to be. But in your experience dealing with jails because I know you were consulting with like Aspen jail, but also there’s I’m sure worse jails than the Aspen jail. What does one encounter in jails?

**Lovisa:** Well, one of the biggest jails in the world is just minutes away from here which is the Men’s Central Jail, Downtown Los Angeles. And jails tend to be pretty terrible places. Partly because people are supposed to be there for only short periods of time, either waiting trial or as Aly already said spending maybe up to a year if they get a short sentence. And that means that there’s even less programming. There’s even less attention being paid to why people ended up there in the first place. There are so few services in a jail to actually help all these women who arrive because they have endured horrible trauma previously in life, or men who have endured trauma.

So, jails tend to be really chaotic places. And violent places. Both in terms of physical violence in general, but also sexual abuse.

**John:** So obviously we’re focused on the media narratives here, but let’s just a step at the process here. What are some things that could be done to fix this part of the early process? So from arrest to trial, what things would you here on the stage like to see done? So I hear things about cash bail reform or the end of cash bail. Can someone explain what that actually means because I don’t want to explain it wrong?

**Zach:** One of the writers on our show created a nonprofit, one of the attorneys, called the Bail Project. And the idea behind bail was that if someone who has gone through a trial has skin in the game than they will post a bond and be able to return to collect that money. And what this organization did is it paid bail for people who cannot afford it, predominately people in lower income communities, and they found that 96% of their clients came back. And it kind of blew away the notion that people need skin in the game to even consider coming back to their trial. And now they’re in 20 cities across America and that’s one of the things that they’re pushing for and collecting the data to kind of dispel this myth that we have.

**John:** Dan, Cyntoia was a teenager, so what did you see in terms of a teenager entering the jail system? What do we do with juveniles who are caught up in that system? What are the right choices? Putting you on the spot to fix juvenile detention.

**Dan:** I think the hard work of understanding of what a juvenile’s process should be centers on a lot of factors. One is where did they come from. What situations are they in? But you know the system is not designed, it’s not intended to understand the circumstances. It’s not intended at all.

Look, I think in television and film it’s easy to vilify everybody. It’s easy to vilify the prosecutor. It’s easy to vilify the cops. It’s easy to vilify everybody associated with the system. But everybody comes at this with pieces of information, pieces of destiny, what they’re supposed to do. And I think that for the – I’ll never forget that the sheriff of Davidson County asked to take a look at the fine cut of our first documentary before we released it. And he said, “Oh my god, we missed this one.” And I said, you know, I’m not sure you could have seen it.

I mean, these are people who are overworked, overwhelmed by a lot – a lot – a lot of people coming into their system. And Cyntoia Brown was just one of them, one of many that day. How do you stop and go take a look at what their environment was like?

**John:** But I would challenge that as storytellers we have the opportunity to put – to make a character out of one of those prosecutors and let that person realize that there’s actually more to the story. And actually let that person be a heroic person, to actually step beyond their job to actually realize what’s going on there and how to sort of best—

**Dan:** I got to tell you, these are great characters. I mean, Jeff Burks, who was the prosecutor in Cyntoia’s case, was a hardworking guy, a thinking guy. He’s also an animated guy. And he’s a guy who has got a great theatrical presence. For anybody who is writing a story, if you were to watch Jeff Burks in action you’d go, oh my god, I want to write about that guy. And if you look at each of the people involved, the police officers, the detectives involved, they all have that presence. Again, the hard work for us as the filmmakers, as the writers, as the producers, you know, for me the documentary guy, is to take a much harder look, a much closer look at what makes those characters tick.

That’s the fun stuff. Because you could take it from the surface, we’ll see a prosecutor who is doing his job. But if we dig a little deeper we’ll find something more.

**John:** This person we’re talking about is now incarcerated. This person is going into a prison situation. Can we talk about the depictions of entering prison versus what reality is? Because I feel like I’ve seen the scene where the character goes to prison a zillion times. And I don’t know how much of any of that is accurate. Aly, can you talk us through some of the things you see in media about entering prison and what myths you’d like to see dispelled?

**Aly:** You know, you always see the guy walking – or gal – walking with—

**John:** The folded clothes?

**Aly:** The folded clothes. You got your sheet. Your towel. And your socks and underwear. And then there’s a bunch of people catcalling. And I’m just like, oh no, oh god, this is just not how it works. In reality how it works, I mean, it’s a very, very spirt-breaking process. You’re taken from the county jail to what they call a reception center.

**John:** Which is not the prison itself or sort of outside?

**Aly:** So they are prisons. I think in California we have four reception centers. So depending on what geography—

**John:** It sounds so nice.

**Aly:** Well, no, they send you there and you’re put directly in isolation. So, there is no contact with family members. I spent 101 days in isolation in a prison called [Delano]. I had no paper, no pen, no pencil, no phone calls.

**John:** And is the stated purpose behind this for safety and protection?

**Aly:** No. It’s an assessment time. So, you get medically screened. You get screened for education. Then you go in and you go to an actual hearing and they decide your custody level. Then you get shipped to one of California’s 36 prisons, the main prisons. And then in California you have Death Row, which is the highest custody level. And then it goes level four down to level one. And the way – usually you can earn your way down, so the idea is by the time you’re getting ready to go home you’re in a minimum security facility.

Some people depending on their score never reach like a Corcoran Level IV or like Pelican Bay. And there’s a total different type of violence that happens there. It’s very extreme. But it’s not the whistling catcalls that you see in movies, on cinema.

**John:** Lovisa, this last week a big Hollywood person, Harvey Weinstein, got sentenced to prison. We were talking beforehand that you were expecting there to be a whole bunch of like Harvey Weinstein rape jokes and they did not come. Is that progress? Is that good news that it wasn’t the first thing Twitter jokesters went to?

**Lovisa:** I hope it’s progress. I hope we won’t find that there is a bunch of jokes happening tomorrow about Harvey Weinstein. But one of the things that really filled me with dread was once the conviction hit the news we learned that his lawyer had said he “took it like a man.” And I just thought, oh no, now we’re going to get all the jokes. All the don’t drop the soap jokes.

But to my great surprise it didn’t really happen. There were some sort of minor tweets that were just tasteless, but there was also some strong pushback from higher profile media folks. And I’d like to hope that that means we’ve turned some kind of corner, because I think that the sort of flippant treatment of rape in detention is really one of the – it’s a really dangerous trope. And it’s one of the biggest problems with Hollywood’s approach to criminal justice.

**John:** You talk about detention and detention, you know, in the US I think we think about criminal justice as keeping those people outside of society. And other countries may think about it more as rehabilitation and pushing people, you know, getting people the skills they need so they can function back in society. Can you talk us through some of the different approaches that other countries, or sort of more positive approaches other countries might take to this person who was convicted of a crime and is now incarcerated? What are some things that we might see that are different in other countries?

**Lovisa:** In healthier prisons those who are incarcerated are allowed to live somewhat normal lives. They get to still have some control over their lives. Whether it’s just that they’re allowed to wash their own clothes or cook their own food, which doesn’t necessarily seem like a privilege to those of us on the outside, but that’s hugely important to actually – especially for people who arrive with profound trauma in their past, who may never have lived a mainstream life. They have a chance to learn basic skills that are essential upon release.

And so those are really important basic, basic programs that we are typically lacking in the US.

**John:** Zach on your show your central character gets his law degree while incarcerated?

**Zach:** In our show he gets his law degree while in custody. It made it simple for the audience to understand that he’s an attorney. In reality he got his law degree after, but he did everything that we’re portraying as a paralegal in prison.

**John:** I would say as a screenwriter that he was able to build a sense of purpose and autonomy for himself in doing the work for other people who were incarcerated. And the education that he’s getting, the education he’s able to get is what allows him to feel like not just a number, but actually a person with value. Was that a goal of the show?

**Zach:** It’s interesting you say that because he’s actually not this altruistic do-gooder at the top. He’s really taking cases at the beginning of the season specifically to knock down the pillars of his own case and get himself a new trial. Obviously because it’s Hollywood and it’s television we may see this character evolve and start to do something for someone else without personal benefit. But we also go in – I mean, he starts out an attorney in the pilot, but we do have a flashback episode so we can understand how he got to where he is and we see him arriving in prison. We skipped through a lot of the areas where he’s not interacting with other people. But we see him kind of acclimate to this culture and decide to find purpose in the law. And at first, yes, it’s a selfish-driven purpose, but it does give him purpose. And ultimately he’ll find value in helping other people.

**John:** And Dan I haven’t seen your movie yet, but I want to know to what degree—

**Dan:** April 30.

**John:** April 30. To what degree is Cyntoia able to grow into being a woman over the course of her time in prison?

**Dan:** Watching Cyntoia over the 15 years that I watched her I was amazed. Here is a young woman who walked in with a whole lot of issues going on for her. She’s staring at a life in prison that she might not walk out of. And yet she bothers to take advantage of everything that the prison has to offer in this case and she got an education, one course at a time. She graduated while in prison with an Associate’s Degree. Then she worked her way toward a Bachelor’s Degree. She worked on a whole mechanism for helping kids keep them from going down the same path that she went and helped them out of trouble. When they see themselves getting into trouble before they get into trouble.

So, you know, I’m watching her grow up through this entire time so the transition for her walking out of incarceration and back into a life means the continuation of a process that she’s been doing. It’s not an on/off switch. She’s not all of a sudden a new person. She’s a developing person.

And even, you know, stop and think about it, too, and I think something that we had to wrap our heads around is that even the Supreme Court recognizes that kids who are incarcerated are starting out with [squirrely] brain syndrome and at some point they grow up and mature and they become something different. They evolve.

**John:** Now, part of – ideally the end of an incarceration comes at parole or there’s some sort of hearing, there’s an assessment. I’ve seen, again, I’ve seen that scene in movies and I don’t know if anything I’ve seen in movies is accurate. Aly, can you talk us through what the end of incarceration looks like and what a parole hearing, or how that actually happens in real life?

**Aly:** It really depends on your sentence. So there’s two different types of sentences in California. And actually across, more than two. Because you can get the death penalty. But the basic two are determinate and indeterminate sentences. So in indeterminate, for instance, if you’re sentenced in California to 25 years to life, after the 25 years you go in front of a parole board and they assess your behavior in prison, your growth, your ability to articulate how you were able to commit a crime. And they make a decision and you’re either released or you go back to prison and they give you some recommendations and you come back later.

Then there’s determinate sentences. Determinate sentences you’re just sentenced to five years. And when you’re done you get out and you’re on parole for usually three years.

**John:** And so in a determinate sentence could you be released earlier on good behavior? Could there be other circumstances which get you out in less time than that?

**Aly:** So in California there’s three tiers of credits that you can earn. So most everybody can get out a little bit early. If you’re a violent offender you’re going to do 85% of your law under the truth and sentencing law. If you’re a drug offender you do about 50% of your time. If you’re a very, very low level offender you can actually get out in a third of your time and those are the men and women that you see that are out fighting fires in California. They earn a lot more credits.

**John:** How do we feel about that? I don’t know how to feel about that. That actually was a topic we brought up on Scriptnotes was about these people who are fighting fires on California’s behalf. And you can see that as an inspiring story of these people who are getting a chance to sort of do stuff, but you can also see it as they are kind of incarcerated labor and it’s very dangerous. So, I don’t know how to feel about that all.

**Aly:** Slavery is still legal in prison. The 13th amendment abolished slavery everywhere but in prison. I mean, I worked for $0.09 an hour when I was in prison. I think there’s a way to do it right. I just think we’re doing it wrong right now. I think – I actually went to Norway and Finland and one of the people in our delegation was an assemblyman here in California. And I talked to him about these men and women are going out there, risking their lives for I think they get a dollar a day and I think it’s $5 a day if they’re fighting a fire. And then to come home to have fines and fees, right? What do you mean? I just risked my life, saved millions, and maybe billions of dollars of property and I still owe $20,000 for my fines and fees. So I think that should be eliminated.

I think that they should be compensated decently. And third I think they should be eligible to work as firefighters post incarceration.

**Lovisa:** Can I add something there?

**John:** Please.

**Lovisa:** Is that there are other prison jobs that are quite invisible to the outside world. And that I think most Americans are completely unaware that for example there are major sweatshops inside prisons. There are – when you buy your next t-shirt that says Made in the USA, chances are it was actually made in a prison and then it was sent out to some other place that just applied the logo. There are government agencies that use prisoners to answer their phones. So next time you throw a fit because someone can’t help you, you might be talking to a prisoner who has no power and who is making I think now it’s probably $0.11 an hour. So it’s just important to have an awareness of that.

**John:** And what are ways people who are incarcerated at this moment could get some skills for work, for instance I really want to transition to what is life like after prison. And so how do you find a person who has been incarcerated who is then out in the world, what are the good outcomes? What are the success stories? What are paths that could sort of get somebody to not be caught back up in the system again?

**Aly:** You know, there’s 70 to 100 million people in the United States who have a criminal conviction. So there’s a lot of success stories out there. We just don’t highlight them. We always go to the parolee that did something wrong. But I think—

**John:** And terms like ex-convict doesn’t help.

**Aly:** It doesn’t help. Could you imagine if I went and applied for my job and I said, hey, I’m an ex-convict, want to hire me? Right? It just doesn’t work. But getting back to your question, I believe that our elected and our carceral system has a duty to make sure people leaving the system don’t go back and revictimize communities. And until—

**John:** So it’s a duty both to the person who is leaving the system so they’re actually ready to function, but also to society.

**Aly:** Right. I mean, and I believe in personal responsibility and taking advantage, like you were saying Cyntoia taking advantage of all the educational opportunities. But if you don’t have those educational opportunities and you’re locked up in a concrete steel box for decades and then they push you out – in California they give you $200 – with no skills, very low education, what are you going to do?

And so I think there’s a lot of programs. I learned to write computer code. And I can tell you I wouldn’t have the job today. I don’t write code anymore, but I learned how to write computer code. There was a program called The Last Mile. I get to fund them now which is awesome. Right? And it’s this sort of crazy turn of events. They’re in six states and 13 prisons. And so when I came home I had these skills, these marketable skills. Like software engineers are in high demand. And I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a floor of an engineering group, but people with red hair and tattoos on their faces. They don’t care. If you can write the code – if you can build it they’ll hire you.

And so I think really starting to think about what – and skills that pay a living wage. What the carceral – public/private partnerships in the carceral setting can do to offer opportunities to our folks when they’re coming home.

**John:** Dan, we’re going to lose you in a couple minutes because I know you have to catch a flight, but I want to talk about sort of Cyntoia Brown- and a little spoiler – like post-prison. We will watch your movie so we will see what happened. But did she feel like she was ready for life outside of this? Because she had spent half of her life—

**Dan:** Well, she spent 15 years incarcerated. And as I said she did take advantage of programs and people who were in contact with her to help her just kind of readjust her thinking and her approach and who she was. And to rethink who she was. I don’t know how somebody, I don’t know where that turn happens because I’m neither a psychologist nor have I lived with incarceration. But I can tell you what I observed. And what I observed was a young woman going through stages. Denial at first, I’m going to walk out of here. When I first interviewed her she was sure that within a few weeks this was all just going to be done and she was going to walk out of the jail and back into her life. She was sure of that. And then there was a point in which, oh my god, the likelihood is that I’m going to spend the rest of my life in prison. And that is my destiny.

And there was a bit of a resignation. But then when she actually went from jail to the Tennessee Prison for Women and she started working on things, by having at least a program. And I’m not going to sit here and say that Tennessee Prison for Women is the most progressive prison in the world. It is not for a whole lot of reasons. But they are also taking progressive steps to allow an education program. That’s big. So for her whether she was going to walk out or not, she at least had some hope. There was something called hope in there. So even if there’s a little flicker of that, she gets to develop as a person while she’s going through the maturation process. And through an education process. And it kind of works out so that when she walks out she has written a book. She started writing that before she got out. She’s giving talks. She’s helping legislators. Tennessee is taking some very progressive steps which is amazing to see. They’re learning from it, too.

**John:** Great. Well it sounds like what you’re describing is we think about the criminal justice system as sort of extinguishing hope and you’re stressing that we have to make sure that we are igniting hope in people who are incarcerated. That society wants them back and that there is going to be a place for them and that they are meaningful and valuable people.

**Dan:** I suspect there’s a place called balance where we might see situations treated differently so that hope becomes the goal as opposed to punishment as the goal. Look, people do bad things. There’s no question about it. I’m sure that for Johnny Allen, his family was certainly not very sympathetic to whatever Cyntoia Brown went through. She couldn’t turn that around. It was impossible for her to turn that situation around. However, do we throw away a person, do we throw away a human, without at least considering alternatives? And I have a flight to catch.

**John:** We’re going to open it up to questions. Dan, thank you very much.

**Dan:** Thanks.

**John:** All right. We have time for some questions now. So we have people with microphones. And so raise your hand and we will get somebody with a microphone to you so you can ask your question of the panel.

**Female Audience Member:** Hi, my name is Angelica. I’m from the south, so I’ve been deep, deep in the south and seen some of the horrendous conditions that have been in the prisons, like Parchman in Mississippi. If you haven’t heard of what’s happening there you should look it up. So I have kind of two questions for Aly and Lovisa. I wanted to know have you all explored any alternatives to justice like restorative justice or prison abolition. What do those concepts look like for you and how they work in the real world? And for Zach, mass incarceration has a lot of racial and socioeconomic disparities, and how have you approached those in writing, producing, research on the show?

**John:** Angelica, you have totally a job as a moderator. Those were great questions. So I want to start with alternatives to traditional criminal justice. Aly, do you want to start?

**Aly:** So, in my personal capacity, absolutely right. I try to bring those voices into our foundation. But our foundation, like we can only do so much. So right now we’re really focused on two areas. And that’s the funnel of people coming in to the criminal justice system. So really transforming the way we prosecute this country, so we’re putting people in prison for less time and having alternatives to prison. Because prosecutors really right now only have one lever and that’s like incarceration with fines and fees.

And then than the tail end is really expanding opportunities to formerly incarcerated people. Really making sure they have the opportunities in their life to thrive post-incarceration.

**John:** Lovisa, do you have any thoughts on alternatives to prisons or things you’ve seen that we should be considering?

**Lovisa:** I think it’s pretty clear that we are incarcerating people at a crazy level in this country. And that it’s not a fair system at all. One of the questions you asked early on John was what are some of things that make people end up in prison. And of course the answer to that is quite complicated, because it depends on what you look like and who you are. Because the kinds of things that if we all committed the same crime in this room we would be – some would be much more likely to be arrested than others and convicted and get very long sentences and be denied parole. There’s just incredible racism and classism in the system.

So, if we started addressing those really fundamental issues then I think our incarceration rates would become a little bit more normal as they relate to the world, because incarcerate six, seven times more people than Canada. Why?

**John:** And Zach, let’s talk about the racial component of disparities in criminal justice and sort of in the show how do you address and how do you look at that?

**Zach:** You absolutely have to address it doing any sort of show in prison now. The last I read the statistic being that African Americans make up 13% of the US population but nearly a third of inmates in prison. And Latinos under 15% but almost a quarter of inmates in prison. And so we’re very conscious of that. We don’t shy away from it. But we don’t try to lean in too hard to recreate that narrative, if you know what I mean. We also had a very diverse room of storytellers to make sure we did include everyone’s perspectives and that was very important to us.

And in terms of looking at mass incarceration I think one of the things that our show does very well is it looks at the collateral damage as well. And it’s not a show just about Aaron behind bars in [Bellmore], it’s a show about Aaron Wallace and his family and what it did to his daughter who was raised without a father at home. And what it did to his wife and their relationship. And what it does to the families of not just Aaron but all these secondary characters in our show, too. And that’s in my opinion the beauty of our show and the comment that that makes on mass incarceration.

**John:** Yes?

**Female Audience Member:** I’m currently doing work in bail reform in California, working in partnership with the LA Superior Court, and LA County Probation. And with the SB-10 and bail reform in California, you know that the process under SB-10 would require the use of risk assessment tools as an alternative to having cash as a way for a person to be released. And I just wanted to know what the thoughts are on the use of risk assessment tools in determining whether or not a person should be released.

**John:** And just, because I don’t know, SB-10 is a state law—

**Aly:** It’s a bail reform law that’s trying to essentially eliminate cash bail. There are some places that have done it way better than California. There’s a lot of issues with SB-10 and to answer your question we’re a tech-based philanthropy so we build tools for nonprofits. So that’s how I came into this work, as a software engineer. There are some really, really tough things that we have to consider when we start using technology to determine the destiny of people’s lives.

And so we don’t take that lightly. I think – there’s no like one answer for that. A lot of the risk assessment tools or the data that they put in them are already biased. So, you can create something that has the bias that’s in the data. So, it’s a tough thing that smarter people than me are working on.

**John:** Another question.

**Male Audience Member:** Hi, so another group that’s often treated in dramatizations of anything that has to do with prison reform and in a sort of caricature way are the guards. And I’m wondering if you could talk for a second about the psychology of and experience of and bureaucracy of the guards?

**John:** I can talk about sort of the stereotypes I see of guards. And then I would love to hear some reality checking on this. Is that I always see the burly, under-educated, hot-headed prison guard who is abusive and sort of a know-nothing. And I’ve rarely seen a positive portrayal of a guard in prison. What are some realities? I’m sure there’s a whole range of sort of what these people are like, what people who do that job are like. What are things that we’re missing? What are stories that we’re not seeing about people who are guards in prisons?

**Aly:** I think the portrayal of guards, you know, there are those type of people. But there’s also some very, very empathetic – I’m reluctant to tell this story, but you know I had the flu before I came home and I really thought I was going to die. You know, you go through the stages where you think you’re going to die, then you want to die, right, as an adult with the flu. And this prison guard bought medicine from Walgreens or something out there and risked his job and brought it in and gave it to me. And so, you know, I think they’re human beings just like anybody else. They get a bit jaded and get calloused from being in a job. But like I have a great relationship with the California Department of Corrections.

And I don’t have Stockholm Syndrome. I think if we’re going to improve the system we need to improve their lives also. And get some trauma-informed care for them also.

**John:** Lovisa, I’m guessing training is an important thing for prison guards?

**Lovisa:** Yeah, and I just want to agree with what you were saying which is that there’s a full spectrum of people in the corrections profession. And some are definitely drawn to prison jobs because they like hard power. And for example when you talk about sexual abuse in detention, half of all sexual abuse in detention – you wouldn’t know this through Hollywood – but is actually perpetrated by prison officials. And half is among incarcerated people. So there definitely are guards who are in the job for all the wrong reasons.

But also many who come to the profession because they care and they want to make things better. They don’t always succeed because these are really toxic environments. And some people also get destroyed in these jobs. And it’s something that we see very clearly that former corrections officials upon retirement, they tend to retire early, and they usually have very poor outcomes in retirement.

**John:** Zach, as you were looking at prison guards in your show what were some of the expectations and how did you try to push against them?

**Zach:** So it’s interesting. We originally characterized one prison guard and he was kind of like this tough, burly – I mean, if you watch the pilot you can tell he’s an emotionally abusive guard. And one of the things we were able to do in the season is dive into this person’s depression. And I won’t give anything away but we do look at his home life. And we do look at the trauma that he has suffered from spending so long here. And this is a person who actually went into the profession because his father was in the profession, and that’s very common as well.

And I will say, funny enough, we had a wall in the writers room of all of our guards, because we would just script like guard number two, guard number three, and then we started over the season to like ascribe character traits of these guards. And then we would find situations where certain guards could display moments of kindness and allow Aaron to hug his daughter while he showed up early to court and his daughter wanted to watch him. Or allow Aaron to touch his father when his father came to visit him for his character and fitness hearing. And they’re not supposed to do that, but sometimes we characterized them in really small moments that humanized them. And it would be nice to get into the guards more in future seasons.

**John:** So you’re recognizing them as individuals and not just one monolithic force that everyone who wears that uniform is the same.

**Zach:** Is not monolithic. And we’ll differentiate them and figure out who is going to do what and who has what characteristics.

**John:** Great. A question was right over here. Hi.

**Female Audience Member:** We’ve talked a lot about humanizing them when they’re in prison, but I’d like to know what your experiences are as far as humanizing them before they enter the prison system. And I know that that’s very, very complex what leads these people to prison, but there’s so many traumas, so many experiences like Cyntoia Brown was sexually assaulted. They never questioned her psychological state of mind. The fact that she herself was a victim before she committed the act that she committed. And I don’t know if you guys have exposure to organizations that are working on that, but sort of what the preventative measures are, if any at all, within the community, within societies to prevent them from even being convicted at all. That’s my question. I know it’s a little complicated.

**John:** Aly, you started talking about this and we sort of moved on early in the process, but you were saying it does start well before any interaction with law enforcement. That there’s something that has happened here.

**Aly:** I think as a society we really have to start looking at the history of racism and the use of the carceral system as a social control mechanism. But I really think like I said in the beginning that if we offer more opportunities to people they’re not going to end up in our prison jails. And then I’ll answer your question. There are some organizations like Debug who is doing participatory defense, where your family and everybody gets involved in your defense. There’s an organization called Root and Rebound who is growing into – I think they’re like in seven or eight states now. So there are organizations that are trying to help people on the front end to really, really have a robust defense that brings in some of these things, so the judges and the DAs can hear them.

But one of the problems is that our criminal legal system is not built to allow that information to come in. A lot of the times they’ll just say it’s irrelevant, it doesn’t have anything to do with what happened with the crime, therefore depending on the judge they’re not going to let that kind of data come in.

**Lovisa:** Can I add something? I think trauma is a bit of a blind spot in society generally. And especially inside prisons. That if you look at the pathways of women entering prison it’s not just juveniles, but adult women as well, or the vast majority, maybe 90% of women in prison are sexual abuse survivors from prior to their detention. So these are extreme numbers. And their trauma has tended to be ignored before they were detained and then it continues to be ignored inside because trauma doesn’t count as a mental illness. It’s not something that there are services for in detention. So people are then sitting in detention for years or decades with this untreated trauma. And then they’re released. And they may be getting some help to find a job, or find somewhere to live, but if they still get no support to deal with their trauma they won’t succeed.

**Male Audience Member:** One of the things I feel like in this conversation that we miss is the economic incentive to incarcerate. And so the economic incentive to incarcerate and the incarceration test system is literally designed to prioritize the incarceration of black and brown folks. And so like the residual spillover of that, you know, infects our systems. So, kind of going to the question earlier about guards, I used to be a prison guard for almost four or five years. With those who are incarcerated as well as those who are the jailers, most of those folks are coming from communities that are decimated by poverty. And so you have the incarcerated who more often than not, especially with the majority of people who are incarcerated being locked up for drug crimes, which has its own rich history on why that happens, are in there because they didn’t have the resources to be able to survive and thrive.

Then you have folks who are looking for employment in order to survive in their communities and they’re taking on jobs with little to no post high school education to go in and work in these systems. So, one of the things I’m really curious about your thoughts on is how do we talk about the intersection of race and how it functions with economic incentives to incarcerate black and brown folks in this country?

**Aly:** You know, there’s this wonderful woman, her name is Bianca [Tyler], she puts out this report every year about the prison industrial complex and who is profiteering off of it and how that keeps driving incarceration. We have private prisons who lobby for tough on crime laws. We have guard unions who lobby for tough on crime laws. So, there’s a lot of work to be done in this area. I’m fortunate that I work with a lot of really, really smart people. And there’s other foundations and lots of nonprofits that are chipping away on all of these little aspects.

But it’s going to take – it took us 400 years to get here. It’s going to take us some time to get back. But really recognizing the racial part of it is part of it. And coming to Jesus. Like, you know, we built this system that is biased and we need to deconstruct it.

**John:** A question, are you a writer?

**Zach:** Lee was a writer on our show, I just might say.

**John:** Because I was going to say like well it sounds like you should write about that. Because I think – here’s what I’m hearing and what you’re saying. You’re talking about the intersection of the people who are on either side of those bars have similar stories and that is fascinating and the degree to which this whole system – everyone is caught up in the same system. That is a really great, strong narrative cinematic element. So, I would just encourage you to write on that.

I want to make sure that as part of this panel, and this will also go out on Scriptnotes, is that we as storytellers are not complicit in sort of perpetuating these myths and that we do rise to the challenge of actually talking about these things honestly and making sure we’re exploring what’s really going on. So, thank you for sharing that.

In that spirit, I don’t think we have any time for more questions, but I did want one last little segment here which is a thing I did for the addiction and mental health panel which is called Please Stop. Which is the things people up here see on a repeated basis in film and television and media that is just wrong or not helpful when it comes to criminal justice. Lovisa, I know you had some recommendations for Please Stop. So what are some things you hope to never see again onscreen?

**Lovisa:** I would hope to never see a “don’t drop the soap” joke again, ever. And also to never see one of these flippant taunts in police shows where cops who are portrayed as the good guys are telling the bad guys essentially do what we want because otherwise you will go to prison and get raped, but they say it differently.

**John:** Yes. Zach, what would you like to stop?

**Zach:** Stop creating as a writer’s perspective one-note characters where people are entirely good or entirely evil. And Lee was mentioning the prosecutors, we talked about the prosecutors before, we go to great lengths to characterize the people who put Aaron away and they legitimately believe that he is guilty. They legitimately believe they’re doing the right thing. They may have cut some corners we’ll come to learn through the season. One of them may know, one of them may not. And they’ll have some in-fighting with each other. But both of these people are men who believe they were doing the right thing.

And I think if one were to characterize him as a Klansman it would not do justice to the system and it would not be accurate to the reason why he gets a report on his desk and says, you know what, this is a good case, I’m going to put this person away.

**John:** If that person were thoroughly evil and a villain then we wouldn’t see any of ourselves in him and we wouldn’t recognize our own complicity in those types of decisions.

**Zach:** And we wouldn’t know how we can improve the system and do it differently.

**John:** Aly? What things don’t you want to see out there?

**Aly:** You know, I was at LAX when I was coming here and I saw this kid throw himself on the floor and just do this tantrum. And his mother gave him what he wanted. And I said, damn, that’s a learning experience for me. So for me, even up on this stage, I heard like Zach saying [inmate], it just kills me to hear people categorized by these words that we use. And so if you as writers can start using people, like instead of calling someone a felon you can say a person convicted of a felony. Right? Because if we keep the word person in there, right, employers and people out in the community, when we come home we have a chance if they see us as humans.

**John:** And I’m actually going to break the rules and give sort of a One Cool Thing instead. Because it actually ties in very well to this. It’s a great charity called Manifest Works. It’s an organization that is right here in Los Angeles and it pairs formerly incarcerated people and gets them trained for jobs in the industry for film and television which is exactly sort of what we need to do. So Manifest Works and we’ll have a link to that in the show notes for this episode.

I want to thank our amazing panelist. I want to thank Hollywood Health and Society for putting this together. Thank you all very, very much.

And that’s our show. So as always Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is by Seth Podowitz. 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 am @johnaugust.

You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find the link to the video for this panel. You’ll find transcripts there. They go up about a week after the episode airs. You can sign up to become a Premium member at Scriptnotes.net where you can get all the back episodes and bonus segments like our upcoming discussion on coronavirus. Craig, thanks.

**Craig:** Thank you, John.

[Bonus segment]

**John:** Craig, so how freaked out should I be about coronavirus? Now, to stipulate we are recording this on Thursday morning, so who knows what the world is like on Tuesday as this episode drops.

**Craig:** Right. I mean, it could all be over by then. Look, I think everybody should be concerned about it. We are definitely experiencing a panic right now in no small part because the disease vector started in China. China is not an open nation. They are not known for freedom of speech or press. The government has done a very Chernobyl-esque job of saying things out loud that they prefer to be true instead of were true. No one quite knows. Even the statistics we’re getting now are confusing. Based on some reports it’s already starting to kind of Peter out slightly. But we also know that it is vectoring its way across the Middle East and Europe and the rest of Asia. And we do have our first case of what they would call community infection here in the United States in Northern California, meaning somebody that isn’t here on our soil because they traveled here with the virus or somebody with the virus traveled here and gave it to them. It’s just here.

So, how freaked out should we be? Hmm, we should be concerned.

**John:** Yeah. We should be concerned. So right from the debut of this disease it’s been interesting to see how movies and television have influenced our perception of it. Because you know when the outbreak first began we heard people going back to Contagion, the Steven Soderbergh movie about Gwyneth Paltrow just destroying the world. And Chernobyl in terms of the degree to which information was being controlled or the government sort of misleading us about what was actually really going on.

So, obviously as storytellers we can look at all these things from the perspective of the movies we’ve seen before, the TV shows we’ve seen before. But it’s also important to look back at history and so if this ends up being a very bad flu, well, a very bad flu is a big deal. And so I don’t want to sort of minimize what a bad flu would look like. But there’s also the range up to it’s probably not going to be Contagion. And I don’t think we as Americans particularly have a good sense of what the possibilities are for a disease coming across the states.

**Craig:** Well, one of the things that generally protects us from a fictionalized virus that wipes the planet out is that viruses exist for the same reason we exist, which is to make more of us. And viruses cannot make more of themselves if they kill their hosts too quickly. Or kill too many of their hosts. They actually need you to be alive. The problem of course is that they’re use of you is to spread more of themselves. So viruses are little bits of RNA, little single strand bits, and they get inside your cells and then take your cells over and have the cell become a little virus factory and then your cell pops open. And this is the part that’s the problem. Lots of cells are being popped open so essentially the virus is starting to kill you a little bit.

If it goes too fast and does too much or the area where it acts is so sensitive that even small damage can kill you, then the virus has a problem. We have seen worse viruses – and I’m not doing the [Vira] thing, I can’t – we’ve seen worse viruses in terms of fatality rates. Assuming that the fatality rates we’re hearing about are correct, SARS was a deadlier virus.

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** Than coronavirus. As is MERS. So is that good news? Not really. Because SARS and MERS kind of burnt themselves out. This one has the potential, well, let’s put it this way. We’re all going to get it. I do believe that. So, coronavirus, and people may think this is a new virus like it’s the Ebola virus, the common cold is a coronavirus. It’s just this is a twist on it. And it’s a really nasty cold. And right now it seems like, first of all, it doesn’t seem to be infecting children very much which is interesting.

**John:** Yeah. Some of the speculation is that because kids get coronaviruses all the time, they’re constantly dealing with that stuff. Their immune system is just better able to handle it and sort of shrug it off.

**Craig:** Yes. So here in the United States where we’re constantly wiping our children’s environment down with Purell we are doing them a disservice. It does appear that the 2% mortality rate is a factor of age. So, older people are dying. People who are immunocompromised are dying. People who have congestive heart disease or pulmonary issues definitely are at risk because ultimately coronavirus seems to be killing you by giving you a pretty advanced pneumonic state. And your lungs are filling with fluid and can’t get enough oxygen to your blood.

One thing that people have pointed out is that women are dying at a slightly lower rate than men, and this is from China, if the statistics are accurate. And one of the reasons they think that may be is because about 50% of men in at least Wuhan, in that area, smoke. So, smoking clearly once again not compatible with good health. But if you look at the numbers of people that are perhaps under the age of 80 and not smoking and generally healthy my guess is that they’re quite low.

But what it means is that it’s coming here. And people are going to die. And our system is going to be severely taxed and our global economic system has already been seriously impacted because we all decided in our lust for lower prices and cheaper goods that China should be the factory of the world. And the factory currently is sick.

**John:** Yeah. Now let’s talk about the practical effects in terms of daily life in our industry. So, I’ve already started to notice that there’s some hands that are not being shook. There are some more elbow bumps happening. I don’t know if it’s necessary or helpful, I’m not seeing masks come out. The general consensus seems to be that the masks should be saved for people who are actually in medical fields who are encountering a bunch of people. That normal people shouldn’t be wearing the masks.

But it is a change and I do – you and I for example, we’re thinking about doing a European Scriptnotes visit. And it’s great to make those plans, but I think I’m making all those plans with the back of my mind saying like, huh, I wonder if that’s actually a thing that’s going to be continuing, or going to be possible when that date comes. And so it is an interesting thing to be thinking about in terms of the projects that I’m handing in, movies that could go into production, knowing that everything could be effective.

Our friend Chris McQuarrie, his next Mission: Impossible movie they’re supposed to have a big Venice shoot. Well, Venice has coronavirus and they’ve decided to pull back from shooting in Venice because of those concerns. So it is going to impact production. It’s going to impact some of the daily functioning of Hollywood, even if it doesn’t become the Steven Soderbergh level of disease.

**Craig:** Yeah. I think it’s going to impact everybody. It’s hard to say if more people are going to die from the coronavirus or specifically COVID-19 which is the disease cause by this strand of coronavirus. It’s hard to tell if more people are going to die from COVID-19 or from the economic fallout of COVID-19. Because when economies start to topple people die. So, this is all connected. We forget sometimes. Sometimes we think the economy is just a ticker. Or a statistic about gross national blah-blah-blah. Really what it comes down to is food, medicine, money. The ability to work and pay for things.

So, it’s going to get bad. But we don’t know really at this point what we’re looking at. We can say this with surety. The individual that our federal government has put in charge of leading the effort against coronavirus is not qualified even in the remotest, slightest way.

**John:** No. No. There is almost no person I would feel less comforted is doing this thing. I guess there are probably some MAGA professional wrestlers who I feel would do less of a good job, in the sense of having no understanding of how bureaucracy works. But, no, you do want somebody there who actually believes in science. It feels like a bare minimum.

**Craig:** I mean, I could imagine if they put someone named Karen O’Virus in charge or something like that, but beyond that I can’t imagine anybody less qualified. The good news is those people who are put in charge of these things don’t do anything anyway. We do have the CDC, one of my favorite governmental programs. The CDC I suspect as endlessly not as fully funded as they should be is behind the eight-ball on this. They’ve been behind the eight-ball on a lot of these things because that’s how disease works. And they struggle at times to get the message out. But they’re trying.

I will say to people listening to this, don’t go and try and buy face masks. First of all you can’t. I guess there’s been a run on them which is ridiculous. But we do need those for health professionals. And it’s not going to save you from anything. It really isn’t. Just walking around with a face mask on is not going to save you because that’s not how you’re going to get it. You’re not going to get it walking around. Unless someone literally sneezes directly into your face. Wash your hands.

But eventually you’re going to pick it up. Unless you’re one of those people who can actually say I’ve never had a cold, and I don’t believe you, this one is out there. And unless it does a much, much better job of killing than it seems to be doing, it’s – so there are lots and lots of coronaviruses. Most of them affect animals but not people. Every now and then one of them has a little change in it and kind of jumps the barrier.

**John:** Makes the jump.

**Craig:** And this one made the jump. And that’s going to keep happening. That will never stop happening. And I have no doubt that sooner or later, hopefully sooner, there will be some sort of retroviral drug to help reduce the impact of coronavirus or COVID-19, the way we have Tamiflu which does an excellent job with flu, I can say personally.

But we’re in for trouble. It’s not going to be fun. And people are going to get sick.

**John:** Yeah, so going into this, anticipating that this will get rough and bumpy is probably the best preparation you can do, more so than stockpiling food or trying to get a mask is to recognize that we’re going to be in for some bumpy territory and just be emotionally prepared for that. And also to be thinking about what your life would be like if you did need to stay home for a time, or your kid needed to stay home, or your elderly parent needed help. Just thinking through those scenarios, not panicking yourself, just being ready for them I think will be the guidance we can offer somebody.

**Craig:** And, you know, just don’t do anything that you think would be wildly risky. You know, like bringing in chunks of pangolin from China, which honestly if this really did start with pangolin I’m going to lose my goddamn mind. This is a perfectly innocent, beautiful little creature that for whatever many people in china – and anytime you say many people in China you’re talking about so many people – believe has some sort of medicinal qualities, which it doesn’t, and so they keep hunting them almost to extinction and then selling them in these open air markets and…. [sighs]

I swear.

**John:** Craig, should I get some crystals? Will crystals help?

**Craig:** Yes. If you do need to finally end it and you have a sharp crystal.

**John:** That would be the choice.

**Craig:** Yes. Beyond that, no. I’m so sorry.

**John:** I’m hoping we can revisit this segment a year from now and say like you know what our advice was reasonable but actually it did not turn out to be as bad. And there is that possibility. It’s also possible that it’s much worse than we’re saying. But again, it’s only Thursday.

**Craig:** Yes. And we haven’t had a big worldwide pandemic that really killed millions and millions and millions of people since HIV, which is still pandemic but under control. And prior to that I think it was polio.

**John:** Spanish flu. Oh, polio.

**Craig:** Oh, yeah, Spanish flu before that. But it’s been a while. We’re due. These things happen every 30 years or so, kind of like clockwork. And this is the one. So, but this is a different one.

By the way, most people apparently who get COVID-19, it’s very mild. Some people are infected by a coronavirus and experience no symptoms. So, this is a bit of an odd one. We’re not quite sure what’s going on.

**John:** Craig, thank you for making me feel much more nervous.

**Craig:** [laughs] I’ve done it again.

**John:** All right, bye.

**Craig:** Bye.

 

Links:

* [Beyond Bars: Changing the Narrative on Criminal Justice](https://hollywoodhealthandsociety.org/events/beyond-bars-changing-narrative-criminal-justice)
* [Watch the full panel here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twVS-IJRKR8)
* [Aly Tamboura](https://chanzuckerberg.com/story/alys-criminal-justice-reform-perspective/) from the [Chan Zuckerberg Initiative](https://chanzuckerberg.com/)
* [Lovisa Stannow](https://justdetention.org/people/lovisa-stannow/) executive director at [Just Detention International](https://justdetention.org/)
* [Zach Calig](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3016924/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0) writer on [For Life](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10327830/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)
* [Dan Birman](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2270576/) documentary producer, watch [Me Facing Life](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/netflix-acquires-criminal-justice-doc-cyntoia-brown-1221992) on [Netflix](https://media.netflix.com/en/press-releases/untitled-cyntoia-brown-documentary-from-director-daniel-h-birman-lands-at-netflix) April 30th!
* [What Happens After You’re Released from Prison?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TtZMhHCuBE)
* Scriptnotes, [Episode 324](https://johnaugust.com/2017/all-of-it-needs-to-stop) How Would This Be a Movie? [On the Line: The Female Inmates Who Battle California’s Deadly Wildfires by Matt Toder for NBC News.](https://www.nbcnews.com/video/california-on-fire-these-female-inmates-are-fighting-the-blazes-1068589123744)
* [Coronavirus Updates](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/world/coronavirus-news.html)
* Sign up for Scriptnotes Premium [here](https://scriptnotes.supportingcast.fm/).
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Seth Podowitz ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/440standard.mp3).

 

The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2020/how-to-grow-old-as-a-writer).

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

**Craig Mazin:** Yo, my name is Craig Mazin.

**John:** And this is Episode 439 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the podcast we’re going to talk about how to grow old as a writer. We’ll also discuss tips for general readings and answer listener questions about character quirks and improv. Then in our bonus segment for Premium members Craig is going to talk about his experience as an actor on the new show Mythic Quest.

**Craig:** Well this is the first time I’m hearing of that, but I’m all for it.

**John:** Oh, I thought you said last week you were going to do this.

**Craig:** Then it’s not the first I’m hearing of it. It’s just that I forgot. So, you know, when you forget something it’s like you get to hear it all over again for the first time.

**John:** It’s a little surprise. Memory loss can be a really great thing because then everything you find in a drawer is like a present.

**Craig:** My every day is Awakenings. [laughs] I’m so happy to be here.

**John:** It’s like, wait, I’m married? I have children? This is so exciting.

**Craig:** Right. I know how long time has been simply by the number you say of the podcast. So as far as I’m concerned this is the first one we’ve ever done.

**John:** Yes. Goldfish memory.

**Craig:** You claim it’s 439. Well, all right. Well, we’ll see.

**John:** Who is to argue? In news, I’m doing two live events this week. The first is today, Tuesday February 25. I’m doing a Q&A with showrunner Sam Esmail to talk about Mr. Robot, Homecoming, and other things. That got moved to the Guild Theater. So we have more space, we have more seats. So if you want to come there’s still probably seats available. You can find tickets at wgafoundation.org. There’s a link in the show notes. Then tomorrow, February 26, I’m leading a panel on portrayals of criminal justice on screen. That one is at the SAG building. So it’s the same kind of thing when I did the addiction and mental health panel. It is that kind of thing.

There will probably be a livestream but there’s also some seats in that place, so if you want to ask your question come out to that thing tomorrow.

So, two times to see me, ask questions of people this week in Los Angeles.

**Craig:** Brilliant. People should avail themselves of this.

**John:** Cool. A bit of follow up. Monica Beletsky wrote in. Do you want to talk about this, Craig?

**Craig:** Yeah, Monica Beletsky, a very, very talented television writer, who has worked on all sorts of your favorite shows, wrote in when we were talking about treatments and outlines and the difference. And she said that “in television an outline is a very common document and is probably more like what we call a treatment in features.” So, if you are a television writer or you’ve not yet become one, just be aware that our discussion of outlines and treatments the nomenclature was applying to the way it’s divided up in features. But in television it sounds like there’s not much of a treatment per se. It’s that there is an outline and it’s a very, very detailed thing.

**John:** Yes. So our biases really are kind of towards features. We try to be aware of our biases, but in that conversation we really weren’t. Even though Craig got an Emmy for his TV writing, we both kind of come at this from a feature background. So sometimes we will say things that mean a different thing in TV and features.

**Craig:** I got an Emmy? [laughs]

**John:** It’s so exciting when Craig doesn’t remember anything.

**Craig:** Every day is a new day.

**John:** Another great example of words that mean different things in TV and features is spec. And so in features a spec script is a script that you’re writing completely on your own that is entirely original. It’s an idea that is your own. And you’re writing it without being beholden to anybody else. No one else is involved in the project. So, a spec script is that thing that you write which can also be a writing sample.

In television a spec generally is a script you are writing for yourself of an existing TV show. I can write funny like in The Office. And so you’d say I have a spec Office episode. It’s frustrating that we use the same word for both things, but you’ve just got to get used to it.

**Craig:** Yeah. This is the problem with the way language evolves in general. And it’s an interesting indication that the television business and the feature business have been weirdly bifurcated for so long, which must be confusing for, I don’t know, someone who is graduating right now from college and coming to LA to be a writer. Because they’re like, wait, there’s a difference between TV and film? It’s all sort of mushed together.

I mean, we live in a time now where things that are made for Netflix are getting nominated for Oscars for feature film work. So, I think eventually that will all go away. I mean, actually weirdly business practices have probably started to retire the word spec for television because it’s not too common anymore that people write them.

**John:** Yeah. Some showrunners who are staffing up shows enjoy reading a spec of an existing show because they know that this writer can write the voices of an existing character and that can be useful. But more commonly showrunners want to read original stuff just to see what this person can do with no limitations on them.

**Craig:** Yeah. They’re just trying to kick the tires and see how good of a writer you are in general.

**John:** Yeah. Other bit of follow up. A couple episodes back we talked about the upcoming negotiations for the MBA, which is the general contract that regulates sort of how WGA members work with the studios. Where we’re at in that process, we talked there would be a survey. There was a survey. There was a vote on a pattern of demands, which is this very broad laundry list of the things you’re going after in this negotiation.

The next step in this process is membership meetings. So they’ve already started in the east. They are coming up in the west. So if you’re a WGA West member, check your email because there will be a list of upcoming meetings where you can talk with leadership about what your goals are in this negotiation. There will also be special meetings just for feature writers. Sometimes they have different things that are interesting to them. So, check your email. Come to these membership meetings. It is the best chance to hear from leadership but also to communicate what you would like to see happen in this upcoming negotiation.

**Craig:** Yeah. They should be real fun this time around. [laughs]

**John:** There’s a lot going on. People have noticed that it’s been a busy year at the WGA. It’s going to be a busy year coming up here. So, I will be at several of these meetings. I won’t be at all of them. But come say hi.

**Craig:** You will be there I assume in your role as a member of the negotiating committee dealing with both the agency thing and the upcoming MBA negotiation.

**John:** Absolutely. So, I’m on both of those committees. So I’ll be there to talk about those things.

**Craig:** Great. Hey, can you do me one favor?

**John:** Please.

**Craig:** Is there a way – I don’t think there is a way – but somehow if people could just, on their way in somebody could hand them a lovely pamphlet that says we know you’re angry, excited, thrilled, upset, emotional. Take deep breaths and be nice to your fellow union members, no matter what they say. Is there a way that people could just be nice?

**John:** Be respectful? Yeah.

**Craig:** Be respectful. Yeah. There is going to be somebody who is going to get up and say we have to strike. And other people are going to go crazy and say you’re an idiot. If we could just avoid that that would be lovely.

**John:** I think that would be a terrific goal. I would say that my function on a lot of these big membership meetings, which I don’t think you’ve been at, is I’m generally the person who is that person saying like just calm down. So I will probably just be that guy who says just calm down a bit.

**Craig:** Yeah. I don’t know if I’m going to go to any of them because I’ve gone limp and I’m allowing myself to be borne by the tides of the current.

**John:** Well, you’ve also–

**Craig:** Tides are currents. [laughs]

**John:** Tides are currents. You are a goldfish, Craig. But also I think one of the things your sort of stated goals for this year though was to acknowledge frustration but not always act on frustration.

**Craig:** Precisely.

**John:** So maybe–

**Craig:** I am frustrated. But I don’t have to act on it. Wait, I’m in the WGA?

**John:** Holy cow.

**Craig:** Whoa.

**John:** Craig, so we have two big topics this week. This one you proposed, so I’m going to let you take leadership on this topic of growing old as a writer.

**Craig:** Well I was just thinking about because we’ve been doing this for a while, you and I, and when we started there was actually quite a lot of concern about ageism in our business. The general idea was that somewhere after 50 the business started kicking people out. And, in fact, when you look at what the Writers Guild considers a protected class, writers over the age of 40 are considered a protected class. The world has changed drastically since the mid-90s. And I was talking to some people the other day who were pointing out that the writers who are being employed as showrunners and we’ll call them sort of major feature film writers generally are older than they’ve ever been before.

And I thought well this is interesting. There must be some sort of lessons that we can learn since you and I are among the people that are still here about how to keep yourself fresh and motivated and relevant as the years go on. Because we are not kids no more.

**John:** No. Craig, do we want to talk about how to have a long career, or how to be comfortable with aging in your career? Are we talking both? What are the edges of this conversation?

**Craig:** Well I feel like they’re intertwined. So, rather than talk in a very practical way about something that is applicable to about 80 people, I want to talk about something that’s applicable to everybody. Everybody who pursues any kind of creative concern, whether you are a visual artist, or an actor, or a writer, or a producer-director. Whatever it is that you do, as you get older your relationship to your own art and your own creative process does need to change or you’re going to suffer. A reflection of that may be in terms of the industry around you and people’s interest in you, or an audience’s response to you.

So, rather than view it through the lens of industry I just want to talk about how to keep ourselves in a kind of good place with our own creative minds.

**John:** Great. So the artistic side of growing older and how that relates to the craft and the thing that you’re trying to make on a daily basis.

**Craig:** And ideally that would be, you know, reflected back at you with some sort of industrial success if that’s what you’re looking for as the years go on. So, I mean, first let’s just consider it all in terms of strategies, because I do think like anything else there’s just practical things that you can apply to yourself as time goes on. And these are good thoughts and questions to just – even every birthday take a ten minute walk and think about it.

First, you have to think about what your task actually is. Because it changes over time. You may start as someone who for instance in the mid-90s you are “I want to write sitcoms. I’m going to be a sitcom guy that works on network sitcoms.” And there are hundreds of them. Over time that changes. The tasks that are available that match what you think you do can change. Also, formats can change. We think of television as a certain thing now. It’s all over the place. But when we started it was something else.

Chernobyl, for instance, couldn’t have been really done until a certain format change occurred. But that meant paying attention to what was going on with formats.

So there are two kinds of challenges that you can make to yourself. The first is is the thing that I’m doing the only thing I can be doing. Or could I be writing a different kind of thing, like a short story, or like you did a novel, or like we’ve both done some songs? Or, nonfiction work? Also are we working within a format that is maybe dying out or just getting boring to us? And what other formats might expand our own personal expression? If we don’t rotate the crops as it were then we will end up with a field that isn’t doing too well.

**John:** Well, let’s talk about rotating the crops, because I think that ties into a thing that happens with age which is this burnout. Which is that you’ve done one thing for so long that it’s boring to you. It’s just not interesting to you. And it’s hard to work up the enthusiasm to do it again.

I was talking with a writer recently. She was just starting on a new script. And she’s like, oh wow, wait, I’m back doing this again. I’m having to start a whole new script again. And she was ready to. She knew how to write a script. But also she didn’t have the same enthusiasm for it she would have had five years, ten years earlier in her career.

And I think that’s one of the reasons why I was attracted to write the Arlo Finch books or to write the Big Fish musical is it gave me a chance to be a beginner again. To be someone who is brand new to things and be curious and eager to explore and willing to make mistakes as I’m figuring out this new art form. And when you have mastery over something it’s nice, it’s helpful, things are easier for you, but they’re also less exciting. And so picking a new thing to try to do, just challenge yourself on a regular basis to try something that you haven’t done before as a writer so that you get that experience of being new at things.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, getting yourself in that rut is the function of a good thing, I think. We know that you need to focus and you need to practice and perfect. That’s part of how you get good at any creative pursuit. But there is a point where, and a little bit like when you get into a videogame you’ve maxed out your level, you’re now just walking around all the areas of Skyrim and beating everyone’s brains in with ease.

**John:** [laughs] Yeah. You’re just doing a little side quest.

**Craig:** And there’s no challenge because you are perfection. And it gets boring. You’re absolutely right. Being a beginner again is a wonderful thing. And it’s a little scary, so it’s also a function of fear. You know, trying new things is scary. But the thing that I’m scared of the most is actually at this point now in my life being bored. So, challenge yourself to reconsider the nature of the formats you do work in, that you’re willing to work in, that you’re willing to try. Take a look at some formats that you didn’t maybe know even existed before. Because there are new ones all the time. And challenge yourself to even break out of a genre and into another genre.

**John:** You’re really saying stay curious. And really look at the world around you and see, OK, what is out there. What is a thing I could make out there that is interesting to me. And it doesn’t mean you have to pursue everything. Like, you know, you don’t have to become a social media influencer. You don’t have to master TikTok. It’s OK to sort of leave some stuff by the side. But also recognize that if these things are coming online they’re serving some need. And so what is it you can bring to this need and what can you do that could fit into this bigger universe of new content that’s being made?

**Craig:** And you’ve mentioned the key to all of this which is stay curious and be connected with the world. The biggest complaint people will make about we’ll call them aging artists is that they’re out of touch. Well, how do we get out of touch? We get out of touch by essentially ignoring the world around us because we feel like we figured it out in a moment and then we stay there. The world will move past that moment. If you don’t, you will be out of touch.

Sometimes people engage with the world simply in opposition. Kids these days. Let me just boil it down to that, right? The world, you know, I don’t understand the world today. Everyone is on their phones. Anybody who ever says, “You know what the problem is with the world today? Look around you man. Everyone is staring at their phones. They’re not looking at each other.” You go ahead and tell that person they’re an idiot. Because the world changes. They are interacting in fact with more people faster than you could have ever done in your life.

Is it true that sometimes uninterrupted eye-to-eye contact is wonderful? Absolutely. Is it a cliché out of touch thing to say, “They’re all looking at their phones?” Absolutely out of touch.

So, rather than instinctively saying, “In my day everything was perfect and now it stinks,” listen. Just listen to the world. Even if you disagree with it, listen to it. Because perhaps in your experience of the world around you and your differences of opinions with it, you may find grist for the creative mill. Defensiveness isn’t going to get you anywhere.

**John:** Yeah. Being defensive is never a good look. You know, when you say no to something people stop engaging with you. I would say over this last 20 years one of the most helpful ways I’ve been able to stay caught up with how things are for screenwriters and just for general people making creative things, well I’ve always had an assistant. My assistants have always been younger than me. They’ve always been at the start of their careers and doing stuff that people at the start of their careers do. And it’s been fascinating to see how the starts of careers have changed over the last 20 years because just the industry has changed around them.

Also just engaging with the people who originally were writing into the website who are now Scriptnotes listeners. You see what they’re doing. And sort of what the challenges they’re facing, but also what is exciting to them. And I may not be excited about the same things, but what they’re into is valid. And listening to what it is that they are going after is great. I always try to remember that the people I’m interacting with are the people who are going to be running this town in 10, 20, 30 years. And so it’s worth hearing what’s sparking for them because those are the kinds of movies and TV shows that we will be making the next couple decades.

**Craig:** I mean, inherently you are not jealous of the young, nor am I. I think a lot of older people get quietly subconsciously jealous of young people. But my feeling is that when we judge them, well, remember what it was like when we were judged by older people because in my memory my feelings were not hurt at all. I just kind of rolled my eyes and made fun of them because soon they were going to be dead and I was not. And they were old and out of it and not vital. And so my feeling is judging people who are younger and thinking that they “all they do, they’re obsessed with their influencers and their TikTok,” and you’re like you’re not having any impact on them. They’re laughing at you.

So, maybe just listen to them and observe them. What’s wrong with that?

**John:** Well, you can also ask advice. Which I think a lot of times older people have a hard time asking advice of younger people because it sort of reveals something that they don’t know. Well, the fact is you just don’t know some things, so again, be curious. Ask the questions. And don’t ask the questions in a way that feels judgmental like, “Why are you doing it this crazy, stupid way?” It’s like what is it that’s interesting to you about this thing, or why did you decide to make that choice? Again, when you get to move into new fields that’s very natural because you just actually just don’t know. And so you’re in a much better position to ask kind of naïve questions because you don’t know what that thing is versus us as screenwriters we have a good sense of sort of like how all the stuff fits together.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** That said, when I talked with a writer – Liz Hannah who just did a movie for Netflix, I am genuinely curious about what the experience is like making a movie for Netflix. What are the deliverables like on that movie? Are they expecting the same things that we’d expect in a theatrical feature delivery system where they want – are they cutting negative? Are they doing all the stuff that we used to do for normal, traditional features? Or is it more like a TV delivery system?

So ask those questions and realize that like the different kinds of things people are making these days are more likely the future than sort of what we knew.

**Craig:** Well, the things around us that happen that we can lose touch with in a dangerous way are not just the kinds of things that I guess the different experiences that younger people are having, but also the general viewpoint of the world. Attitudes change. And it’s very hard for us to keep up with it. It really is. I understand that.

And I remember a friend once told me like – he was like I’m going to keep listening to whatever the pop music station is, like the current hits station, because I never want to be one of the old people that doesn’t know current music. But inevitably you will be. It’s not possible, right? There are some things that are going to leave you behind. But general attitudes and vibes and feelings are things you need to be in touch with. Because what was once funny may not be anymore. Things like funny and dramatic and scary and shocking are not absolute values. They are relative to the time in which you live. And if you’re not paying attention to the kinds of things that are shocking people or making them laugh you’re going to flop because you’re out of touch and out of time.

**John:** Let’s talk about authenticity, because one of the things I see which can be kind of embarrassing is when an older person is trying to seem younger than they are and is not acknowledging the fact that they are in a different generation than people they’re talking to.

**Craig:** Hello fellow kids.

**John:** So language is one where they’re trying to use slang and they’re using it improperly. That’s sort of a tell. And it’s not just that it’s embarrassing that they’re using it wrong. It’s that it’s clear that they’re not being authentic to who they are. I think one of the reasons why young people spark so clearly to Bernie Sanders is he feels very much himself. And that is true of any generation. When we were in our 20s we didn’t want the old person who was trying to be like us. We wanted the old person who felt like themselves. And so don’t reach too far in terms of your own voice trying to sound young.

In terms of your writing voice, though, you are going to be writing characters of all different ages, all different backgrounds. And you have to be listening for sort of how those things sound so that your character’s voices don’t drift away.

So our example in last week’s episode where we were listening to how people speak, that’s I think even more important as you age into your career because your assumptions, your memory of what twenty-somethings sounded like is not going to match how twenty-somethings sound right now.

**Craig:** Yeah. And then we kind of come to our last point which is just language. Just the realities of language. Because you’re right. There is something terribly inauthentic about someone who is chasing language. They will always be five steps behind anyway. They will always be your dad walking in saying, “Oh, chill out. Oh wow, this is fresh.” Shut up, dad. Right?

That’s so old and lame. And it’s faster now. So whatever is cool five seconds will not be cool five seconds from now because that’s what youth is. It’s a churn. So, don’t chase it, but do let yourself be carried along by it. Be aware of it. And let yourself be old authentically without either chasing something, which is inauthentic, or denying the reality of it, which is just as terrible.

Just be aware of the way that the world is changing and be aware of the way you’re changing. And if you are those things and you are willing and open to evolving then it doesn’t really matter how old you get. I mean, you’ll just be cool. Dr. Ruth Westheimer is 4,000 years old.

**John:** Good lord, yes.

**Craig:** And she’s cool.

**John:** Yeah, she’s a lich, but she’s really cool.

**Craig:** She is a lich.

**John:** There’s a [unintelligible] hidden away someplace.

**Craig:** Yeah, she’s a lawful good lich. Very rare. Very rare.

**John:** But special when you find them.

**Craig:** She’s a lich. [laughs]

**John:** Let’s talk about some advantages of age, because a thing I have found over time is we’ve talked about how with mastery some things that used to be really difficult for me are actually very simple for me. And I can sort of figure out narrative problems way in advance just from the experience. But a thing in terms of a career that I’ve been able to take with me and hopefully share is that you have a memory of what’s been done before and sort of where things used to be. And people who are new to the industry won’t have that. And so that’s not like everything should be the way it always was, but pointing out what’s been lost or what’s changed where people new to an industry might not know.

So to me an important thing to always point out is that residuals used to be kind of great and they used to actually be worth something. And someone who is starting in the business right now might not be aware of that. And so I think sometimes as an older person you need to make sure people know what has happened before, what you fought for, what you got. The way things used to be just so that people acknowledge that things could go back to a better place, or to a worse place if you’re trying to avoid bad things that happened before.

**Craig:** Yep. And similarly it’s really good to listen to those people when they tell you what actually – what the boots on the ground reality is for them. Because I remember when we were starting out in the union like the obsession was over DVD residuals. And I didn’t feel really that connected to that. Didn’t have many DVDs out there. And soon enough those went away. So, it’s a two-way street. But there is a beautiful thing that comes with time and that is the release of pressure to define who you are and become a thing.

**John:** True.

**Craig:** We are who we are. There is no confusion anymore about who either one of us is. And at least in our own minds we’ve accomplished enough where we don’t feel like everything is a test of our worth and every problem is an existential crisis. You do get to relax, which, you know, you have more work than ever in these days, but you can psychologically relax because not everything is a kind of a life and death moment where it can all be taken away.

**John:** Yeah. So some of that is economic security, but I would say even when I was in my 30s and doing really well there was still that sort of career insecurity, that artistic insecurity, like you know the imposter syndrome. And I think you and I have both moved past our imposter syndrome, which is lovely, but with that wisdom you want to make sure you don’t just become settled into a rut. Now that you know who you are you’re unwilling to change or unwilling to grow or unwilling to adapt into the next good thing.

**Craig:** Yeah. You know, David Zucker always used to say, “Beware the day that they give you the lifetime achievement award.”

**John:** Lifetime achievement. Yeah.

**Craig:** “It means you’re done.” They don’t give that to you if you’re still like rolling like kind of hard. I mean, they do. And every time I say rolling my daughter looks at me like, “Don’t say rolling, dad. It’s a whole other thing.” And I’m like, oh yeah, that’s right, that’s right, I’m sorry. But I guess the nice thing is that – I don’t know what I was saying, so you can just – Matthew, I apologize. I’m old. [laughs] My mind just wanders. In fact, don’t edit that out. I think that’s important for people to know.

**John:** All right. Well, we talked about sort of growing old as a writer, let’s move all the way back to the start of your career. Let’s talk about your first general meetings. So this is a suggestion from Aline Brosh McKenna.

**Craig:** Who?

**John:** Aline has been listening back to the early episodes of the show, which apparently exist Craig.

**Craig:** What?

**John:** Yes. Goldfish Craig.

**Craig:** There’s more of these?

**John:** There’s more of these. So she’s been back listening to the first season where we talk about stuff. And she says it’s still good, but we’re much less comfortable in our podcasting voices in those early episodes.

**Craig:** Well, that’s good. Amnesia Craig is startled by all of this.

**John:** So, I want to talk through the experience of your first general meeting. So a general meeting as we’ve talked about before on the show, we often describe the water bottle tour of Los Angeles where you go in, you meet with an executive, and you talk about stuff. And we’ve described them in a very general sense, but we haven’t given any real practical advice for sort of what you do on those general meetings, so this is going to be a little sort of step by step thinking about a general meeting.

So, Craig, I would like you to pretend that you are a screenwriter with no produced credits. You have a manager and they have scheduled a meeting with an executive on the Paramount lot. And now let’s walk through what you do to prepare for this general meeting with an executive on the Paramount lot.

Think back like a day or two before, what kind of stuff is on your mind as you’re preparing for this meeting?

**Craig:** So there’s two ways. There’s the modern way and then there’s the old school way. I would strongly recommend a combination of the two. The first thing is to just figure out, OK, who is this person. Ideally what do they look like? Very important, what have they done? So in the old way what would happen is you would talk to your manager and say describe the person to me. Paint me a visual picture because there is no Internet. And what have they worked on that I need to know about? The new way is to just Google. The problem with just Googling is you don’t get that insight from a person who says, “They are very intellectual. You might find them cold, but they’re not cold. That’s just the way they are.” Or, “this person is a militant vegan, so maybe don’t tell the story about how you won the rib-eating contest.” All of that is important.

The most important kind of research is to find out what it is they’ve done so that you don’t walk in there and say in the midst of a great conversation how much you hated this thing that it turns out they produced.

**John:** Absolutely. And that’s so much easier to research now. So just spend your 20 minutes Googling. Figure out what they’ve worked on and what they’re working on just so you have some guardrails around it. But I agree with Craig that you do need to talk to your manager, whoever set up the meeting, just so you know why are you meeting with them. What is the purpose of this meeting? What are the possibilities in this meeting? So you can go in there with some knowledge. It’s just not a complete blind date there.

**Craig:** Exactly.

**John:** Also, figure out where the meeting is because Los Angeles is giant, and sometimes you could get scheduled in meetings that are much further away than you think they are. So just knowing where the meeting is in relation to where you live is very important.

**Craig:** And this is something that is much easier to do now than you and I–

**John:** Yeah. Google Maps.

**Craig:** So you and I in our early days would have to figure out where a place was if you had never been there. We’d pull out our trusty old Thomas Guide. We’d look at it and then we’d freaking guess. How should I get there? And, man, sometimes you guess wrong.

**John:** I remember going to a general meeting. I showed up 40 minutes late.

**Craig:** Oh yeah.

**John:** It was horribly embarrassing. But that’s as fast as I could get there.

**Craig:** Went the wrong way. There were two ways to go, and the way I went a car smashed into a tree and that’s that. And also I didn’t have a phone, so there’s no way for me to tell you. That happened all the time. Now we have Waze. We have Google Maps. There’s all sorts of ways to arrive on time. Do try and get there early. Of course you don’t want to be sitting there for 20 minutes, but try and time it. Worst comes to worst, just hang out outside the lot parked on the side street or something and then go in when you need to go in.

**John:** Absolutely. So we got to the day of the meeting. So let’s talk about confirming meetings because this is a thing that I don’t know happens in other industries, but it’s pretty important in Hollywood. So, a meeting gets scheduled but a meeting is then confirmed, which is usually the night before or the day of if it’s like an afternoon meeting. Basically everyone gets kind of an out, especially executives, because they get pulled into other stuff. So, generally you don’t could on a meeting happening unless it’s confirmed the night before or the morning of.

If a manager set it up, generally the manager’s assistant will confirm the meeting. If you have an assistant they will confirm the meeting. Sometimes you will actually call and confirm with that assistant. But it’s a good idea to confirm, especially if the meeting has been made like two weeks in advance.

**Craig:** Right. That said, if you don’t hear from anyone, presume it’s confirmed.

**John:** Go.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Aline wants us to talk about clothes. And so let’s talk about it. I will say dress appropriately. And that is such generic advice, but I don’t want to be so specific that it precludes one way of dressing or not. So I would say I would never wear a tie to one of these things, and yet sometimes people dress really cool and that’s part of their look. And so I would say kind of dress your look is a useful way to think about it. Dress the way that a writer who they’re meeting with should dress, if that makes sense.

**Craig:** Well, the garb of the artist is wide ranging. Johan Renck would show up at all of these award shows in the strangest outfits. Sometimes I don’t even know if he was wearing a shirt. He always had some strange hat on. Many rings. He’s like a pirate director. And he’s awesome. And that’s cool, because that’s the way he is.

My feeling about clothing is this. If you in the meeting are an impressive human being, if you say and think things that they like, then your clothes, whatever they are, are going to be cool. And if you don’t, then they’re going to be awful. That’s the way it goes. If you are dressed gorgeously and you say dumb things, they’re going to be like, ugh, like I guess all this person does is shop, because they’re stupid. And if you dress like a slob and you’re brilliant they’re going to go, oh my god, the bohemian Mozart. That’s the way our minds – in the end as writers the value that we’re bringing ultimately is what we’re saying and thinking. And the rest kind of goes along with it.

The one thing you don’t want to ever be is unhygienic. That’s just a zero for everybody.

**John:** Agreed. All right. So now you are arriving at the studio. So, first we’re going to say this is Paramount. Let’s talk about the process of actually getting on the lot, because I remember the first time I did this I was a little unnerved. And so you’re driving up to the gate, so generally they’ll tell you which gate you’re going onto for the studio. It’s usually the same, but sometimes they will send you in different ways, so do look at the email about which gate they want you to go in.

There you’ll stop at the guard gate. You will show them photo ID. This happened 9-11 that they asked for photo ID of everyone going onto a lot. Now, Craig, do you remember like before 9-11 often you’d have to stop to leave a lot, and basically they might search your car, but they wouldn’t stop you on the way in? Do you remember back in those days?

**Craig:** I don’t remember ever not being stopped on the way in.

**John:** I guess that’s not true. I guess I was stopped on the way in, but I was always stopped on the way out. And now they just seem to be happy to let you just leave.

**Craig:** Fox will still ask you to show the pass. So, save your pass, because it changes from studio to studio. And it’s pretty rare that a studio will require you to show the pass that they gave you to get in to get out. But don’t chuck it. I’ve made that mistake. And then in Fox in particular on your way out there’s nobody manning it, you just have to scan it, so that it knows that you’ve left. And if you’ve chucked it then, you know, basically people behind you are going to get annoyed.

**John:** Let’s talk about the pass. So generally on a studio lot there actually are two passes. So there’s one pass which is for you as a person, and there’s one for your car. So the one for your car stays on your dashboard, or sometimes they’ll tape it in your window. Sometimes that will have a parking space assigned to it. But there will be one that you carry around. At Disney they want you to clip this little thing on your belt, on your shirt. It’s a hassle. Other places won’t make you do that. But you will have some piece of paper that indicates that you are supposed to be on that lot and also that your car is supposed to be on that lot. So, both are important.

**Craig:** I don’t clip the thing at Disney. I hold it. And then I put it in my pocket.

**John:** I hold it, too.

**Craig:** You just need to get past the guy at Team Disney and then you’re like here’s my thing and he goes, “Go there,” and then I just shove it in my pocket. I’m done.

**John:** Craig just said Team Disney. So Team Disney is the big dwarf building on the Disney lot.

**Craig:** Oxymoron.

**John:** Yeah. The big dwarf building. It’s the building with the dwarfs holding up the roof. It is designed by I think Venturi. He’s a famous architect. It is really a kind of dumb building.

**Craig:** It’s a shame. It is beautiful.

**John:** It is beautiful. But it has this useless interior courtyard.

**Craig:** Massively useless.

**John:** It’s dark and weird.

**Craig:** Yeah. And the office layout, I mean, no one who has ever worked in it has said, “Awesome.” It is definitely a challenging building to work in. As opposed to the old animation building which is where they put all the producers and all their suites which is really cool because it’s like this old art deco – ‘30s?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Something like that. ‘40s?

**John:** It’s cool.

**Craig:** It’s just a cool building. I like an old building. Anyway, each studio will have its own kind of thing. Figuring out where you’re going is sometimes difficult. It depends on the lot. Some lots are pretty easy. For instance Disney, you’re usually going to one of two places – Team Disney, or the old animation building. That’s where the people are that you meet. Paramount, usually you’re going to that one building where all the executives are.

**John:** The executives building.

**Craig:** But god help you if you’re going to Universal or Fox or Sony where stuff is scattered around across 400 different buildings. And they give you a map with tiny little numbers on them. The numbers are not in sequence. I remember the first lot I was ever on was Fox. And I was like why are these numbers like this. First of all, where is number three? And why is 88 next to 120 next to 46? Who did this?

**John:** A mad man did this.

**Craig:** A mad man did it. So, take a little moment to see if there’s a studio map online. See which building you’re going to and actually figure out your walking route from where you’re going to be parking if at all possible.

**John:** So, back in the day when you drove up to the guard gate they’d say, “Who are you meeting with?” And then they would call that person and there’d be a whole system for that. That happens less often now because they just scan your license and they see, OK, this person is in the system. They have a meeting. So they’re not asking you those questions anymore. But they will still ask like do you know where you’re going. And the best response is generally, “No, I don’t.” And so they will take a moment and actually pull out the little map and highlight where it is that you’re supposed to be going. Because that’s really helpful on a big lot.

Now, we should also say that you’re just as likely to have a meeting at Netflix, and Craig have you met at Netflix yet?

**Craig:** No. I’m not allowed to. [laughs]

**John:** I get it. The HBO deal.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** So Netflix the process is very, very different. There is still a guard gate you go through. But then you pull into this garage, you give the keys to the valet. Some places have valet. We should talk about valets in a second. But then you go into this giant sort of open area courtyard thing, interior courtyard, and sign in at the front desk, or check in at the front desk. And then it’s just – it’s like the school cafeteria in a way. There literally is food that you can help yourself to. But you see everybody you kind of know. Other actors and writers and directors. And everyone waits down in the main area until your executive comes and gets you and takes you up to your place. So it’s a very different experience.

Generally on most studio lots you go directly to the executive’s office, or at least to the lobby of that executive building. Here at Netflix you wait downstairs until they come get you. And generally they won’t take you to their office, because their offices are tiny. They will take you to some meeting room where you have your small meeting.

**Craig:** And this is probably the way of the future because these companies don’t require large real estate and sound stages. These things are just rented as needed. I mean, HBO for instance is pretty similar in that regard to Netflix. I mean, you pull into a garage. There’s a valet. You go up to HBO. You check in. You wait in the waiting room. It’s like the nicest doctor’s office waiting room. And then someone comes and gets you. And you walk through the rabbit warren of HBO offices. I mean, let me explain for anyone who has not been. Have you ever been to HBO?

**John:** I’ve never been inside HBO, no.

**Craig:** So they’re going to be moving I’m pretty sure. That’s at least what I thought. But the existing offices at HBO, if you bring me to an office there and then walk away, close my eyes and turn me around three times, I will die there. I will never get out. It’s really a maze.

**John:** Netflix has the kind of elevators where if you’re calling an elevator you tell what floor you’re going to, rather than up or down. And so then you have to wait and see which elevator – they’ll show you which elevator you’re supposed to get into.

**Craig:** Fancy.

**John:** Fancy.

**Craig:** So fancy. So there are places that have valet and places that don’t have valet. Places that have valet, let me run it down real quick. Paramount. Not Fox. Sony.

**John:** Sony has it.

**Craig:** Definitely. Not Universal. Not Disney. Warner Bros.

**John:** Warners does it.

**Craig:** I think that’s it, right?

**John:** Yeah. Warners sometimes it depends on where you’re going to at Warners. But, yes, they have a valet. So let’s talk about sort of protocol with valet, which is a little bit different on studio lots than sort of at a restaurant. You go up, you tell them – I often say how long I’m going to be because that will influence where they want me to park, or where they’re going to park my car. If it is a short meeting I may just ask is it OK if I park myself, because sometimes it is OK if you park yourself. Or they’ll steer you to a space.

The issue of whether to tip or not to tip is complicated and based on the lot. Sometimes there will be a sign which will make it really clear that you’re not supposed to tip. When there’s not a sign I do tip. I tip a couple bucks. Craig, what do you do?

**Craig:** Yeah. I do tip but it’s always – I never quite know. It’s a weird thing. Because the thing about tipping is if you don’t tip you might feel like you’ve done something wrong and insulted this person. Then in that situation sometimes I think if I do tip am I insulting them? Like they need a tip because they’re not being paid by the studio? Because at a restaurant you know they don’t pay those guys anything. It’s all tips, right? But I don’t know how it works at a studio. I can’t imagine that a studio is treating them like that. Although come to think of it, they probably are.

**John:** [laughs] Talk about assistant pay, so just imagine what the valet pay is.

**Craig:** That’s a great point actually. So, in any case I’ll usually do five bucks. These days by the way I’ve had one of those moments where I’m like I’m adjusting all tips upward. There’s a general sense of what tips are. So, probably I would go to ten at this point.

**John:** Wow.

**Craig:** Because, you know, honestly, it relates back to our “we’re getting older” thing. Like as there’s less and less life, you know, it’s like spend more. And I like spending money on human beings. I do. It makes me feel good more than other stuff. And at some point I’m not going to get to the end of my life and go thank god I didn’t tip more. I just – I’m not gonna.

**John:** Quickly let’s say that sometimes you’re having a meeting at a place that is not at a studio and where it is just an office someplace. That’s fine and great, too. Figure out where you can park. If you’re going to be at a meter pay for much more time than you think you’re going to need because you don’t know if the meeting is going to run long. You don’t want to be antsy to get out of your meeting because your meter is about to expire.

**Craig:** Oh yeah.

**John:** That’s not a good look at all.

**Craig:** Frankly, if your meter is going to expire just shut up and take the ticket. Just take the ticket, because whatever. So it’s going to be $50. Unless you are really, really scraping for dough – honestly – and by the way call your manager and tell them, listen, I would have thought you would have wanted me to stay in there. I can’t afford this. I need $50. I mean, literally. It’s just a weird thing. Because the problem is once you get up at that point to say, “Oh, you know what? I’m just going to run outside and feed the meter.” They’ll be like, “No, no, no, you know what…”

**John:** Oh, the meeting is over.

**Craig:** “Yeah, no, we’ve been here long enough.” And then you’ll get a ticket anyway. [laughs] And it will be over.

**John:** So you’ve arrived at this executive’s office. Generally there will be an assistant or somebody in the lobby who says, “Can I get you something?” And by get you something they mean a drink. That’s all they mean is a drink. The appropriate choices are water, coffee, Diet Coke, or I’m all good. Craig, would you add anything to that list?

**Craig:** Prime rib.

**John:** Prime rib. I want some prime rib.

**Craig:** I would love a plate – by the way, prime rib horrifies me. I don’t know, like people get so excited by it. And I look at it and I just want to barf. It doesn’t look like anyone has cooked anything with prime rib. I don’t know what the prime means. Prime barf material.

**John:** I’ve not had beef in 30 years, so I wouldn’t know.

**Craig:** Oh my god. Well, you’re missing nothing on the prime rib. Yeah, it’s water, coffee, tea, or Diet Coke. And generally speaking over time I’ve defaulted to, “Nope, I’m good,” because if I drink stuff in the meeting I’m just going to have to pee. And I don’t want to pee.

**John:** I generally bring my Arlo Finch water bottle with me to everything. So, I just have my water bottle and therefore I’m all good.

**Craig:** Advertising.

**John:** Advertising. While you’re waiting for the meeting to start, it’s worth studying the outer office. It’ll give you some sense of the vibe. The posters they have on the wall for the movies they’ve made could be useful. Obviously you’ve done your research beforehand, but just get a sense of the vibe. Also, if the assistant is talking with you, talk with the assistant. That assistant is probably very much in the same spot that you are. Try to learn that assistant’s name. That may be a person that you’re emailing back and forth with in the future. That person will probably end up running the studio at some point, so it’s good to be friendly with those assistants.

**Craig:** For sure. Treat them well. Especially if you’re starting out and you’re young, they’re looking at you thinking why am I not there? Why are you not in my seat and why am I not in your seat? So, treat them well because sooner or later they will be where you’re standing and it’s good to just – you know, talk to them like they’re humans. Notice that they’re alive. It will make a huge difference to them. And it is human decency. I mean, we don’t really deserve points for doing what we’re supposed to do. But do what you’re supposed to do.

**John:** Agreed. So, you finally made it through the door. You are in the meeting. Craig, talk us through the protocol of that first minute or two the meeting.

**Craig:** Usually it’s going to be about the person that you’re meeting with saying, “So, yeah, I came across,” they’re going to basically give you a quick log line of why you’re there at all. They’ve seen something of yours, read something of yours. They talked to your manager. You have a mutual friend. Whatever it is, there is some reason they agreed to this. And so that’s kind of the intro. Very quickly it will turn into where’d you grow up, where’d you go to school, how long have been doing this, how did you get started here. “Let me tell you a little bit about what we do here” is a very common thing. They will explain.

And I always laugh. It’s a little bit like when you go to a restaurant and the waiter says, “Have you eaten with us before?” Ugh, no, but go ahead.

**John:** It’s tapas, which are small plates.

**Craig:** Oh god. Because literally if they don’t say – right. So, here what we do is we load the food into a cannon and we fire it into your face. If they don’t say that, I’m like, guys, I mean, yeah. OK. Just say we’re small plates, family style, small to large on the menu, whatever it is. But it’s that thing of like well let me explain a little bit of what we do here. And then they’re going to start talking. A lot of times this will be boring to you. Because what they’re not doing is telling you how specifically money is going to end up in your pocket, which is probably what you’re imagining or hoping for when you’re starting out at the very least. So you just have to kind of nod and be engaged and feign interest as best you can in how their production company came to be. And ask questions. You know, everybody likes to be shown interest in.

**John:** Agreed. So in that first minute you are really trying to establish some pattern of mutual interest. I really liked that thing you made that just came out. I have that same – you’re trying to find areas of commonality just to sort of ground you a little bit. But it’s important to remember it’s not an audition. It’s not a job interview. It’s not a first date. It is really more imagine you have a mutual friend who said like you two should get together and talk. It’s sort of that vibe.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And so there’s a transactional quality to it. You’re both looking for how you can help each other. And in that listening that Craig describes, I actually find that really useful because people will stake out a very general area of kind of the things they’re looking at, and more importantly the things they’re not looking for. So when I moved over to Verve I went out on a bunch of general meetings for places that I just had never met before. And so I met at Working Title. And so I thought I had an idea of what a Working Title movie was, and I was basically right, but even within the Working Title framework I got a much better sense of like, OK, they’re very much looking for this kind of thing.

I met at Tristar and Tristar was a different mandate than what it was when I was a reader at Tristar, definitely. So, I got to hear what they’re looking for. I had a meeting at Monkey Paw and it’s a really specific mandate of the kinds of things they’re trying to do.

I had a meeting a studio and they said, “We’re looking for non-IP IP.” Which is like, OK, that’s weird.

**Craig:** Public domain stuff.

**John:** Public domain stuff. They want unicorns or Greek mythology. I’m like, oh, OK. So if I have things–

**Craig:** Why are they looking for it? It’s there. [laughs] It’s all there.

**John:** They want people to come in with non-IP IP basically.

**Craig:** I see.

**John:** Or they’re trying to develop things based on that stuff. So if you had a Medusa story that would be a place to do a Medusa story.

**Craig:** I do not.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** But that is good. You’re getting a sense of what they want and you’re listening to them. Because it is kind of a two-way evaluation process, right? I mean, you may walk out of there, you don’t want to say it in the moment, but you may walk out of there thinking well I have no interest in doing non-IP IP. That’s not what I’m interested in right now. And then you know, OK, so I guess not them for now.

**John:** Yeah. So you’re also getting a vibe on like would I want to work with this person. And I would say trust your instincts there. If they give you a bad vibe, maybe you’re not going to really enjoy working there. So maybe that’s not the right place to take that pitch down the road or to–

**Craig:** Oh yeah, you won’t.

**John:** Or to go after that open writing assignment, because if you’re not going to be up for it that’s cool.

Now, let’s talk about open writing assignments because at some point in a meeting they may pull out a buck slip which is a narrow card that lists these are the things we’re looking to hire writers for. These are projects that are open for discussion. Listen to those. That’s great. But this is also an opportunity to talk, sort of pitch broad areas of things that you’re interested in. This is not your elevator pitch. This is not your sort of concise pitch. This is just I’ll often describe general areas. So if I wanted to say like I can be doing a lot of research on Outward Bound programs and I think there’s a real opportunity to do a horror movie centered around the Outward Bound experience.

That’s not a pitch, but it’s describing an area. And if what they told me was that they’re looking for horror movies and I pitched that back, I can see in the room are we on the same wavelength there. And if we are on the same wavelength then I could come back later in later on with an actual prepared pitch for it. But I’m just getting a sense of like is this the kind of thing that we should be talking about.

**Craig:** That’s exactly right. It’s good to also listen in that list, if they pull out the buck slip and they give you their – be aware of two things. One, what you’re hearing are slightly distressed properties. So, first question is with whom am I meeting? If I am meeting the president of something, and they pull out that list, that’s a real list.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** That’s real. If I’m meeting with anybody under that that list is their list. That is a list of stuff that they are in charge of. That they want to get going because it will move them up internally. It doesn’t mean that any of those things will ever actually get made at that company. That said, sometimes they do.

When you hear that list, if you do spark to something engage on it. Just start talking about it. What will happen is they will hear in you maybe the ability to be smart. It’s really what they’re – oh, this person said a lot of smart things. They’re smart. My boss will literally never let me make this movie, but now I have a writer who I know is smart, who if I vouch for for something else will not embarrass me.

To that extent, when you are in there with these people if there is some way – if you’re vibing, right. If they’re NG, then beat it, it’s never going to happen. But if you’re vibing with them try and have some way to express that you were excited to be there in the first place. That you didn’t drag yourself there because your manager said go here, go here, go here, meet a person, go home. You wanted to meet them. You were interested in them because of A, B, or C.

It will make them feel like this isn’t just one of those things you have to slog through, yet another reminder that they are not in charge and have to take general meetings with the likes of you.

**John:** Craig, what is your opinion of giving them your email address or getting their email address? Do you do that after a good general meeting?

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, I just assume that if they want my email address then they can get it from my lawyer. If you have a manager, they’ll get it from your manager. If you are at one of the code of conduct agencies they can get it from your agent. So, yeah, no, of course. My feeling is that the privacy of contact information, talking about how you grow old in this business, that’s gone. There is no privacy of contact information. Everyone is contactable at every moment. The thought of withholding that would be I think the most offensive possible thing ever. No, you may not have my email address. Good day, sir.

**John:** Good day, sir. I would say that in this last year I’ve been much more forthright about just giving them my email address and say you can email me that directly. So I’m not trying to cut my reps out of it, but basically saying you don’t have to go through the reps for every little thing anymore. And that we have a relationship that is independent of my relationship through Verve or through my attorney. Just because if it’s somebody I actually do spark with and think like, oh you know what, actually I could see myself working with her on projects, just emailing directly is nice. And also if I have the email I can do the etiquette thing of following up and saying like, “Hey, I really enjoyed meeting with you about this thing, or, “we talked about this thing, I’d love to come in and talk with you more about that.”

I traditionally did not do those follow up kind of emails because I didn’t have those emails. And now I tend to do them.

**Craig:** For whatever reason I have always been someone that everyone thought they should just talk to directly. I have actually bemoaned this. Like I would say sometimes why – is this really – people just call me directly, even about stuff that isn’t great. They’ll just call directly and I’m like shouldn’t you be talking to someone? [sighs] Never mind. Never mind.

**John:** Never mind.

**Craig:** Never mind.

**John:** Craig, I have this new invention. So, let me pitch this for you. So it’s a bell that you have in your house and it has a nine-digit number, I’m thinking maybe a 10-digit number. And anybody with that 10-digit number can make that bell ring at any time. Would that be good?

**Craig:** Yeah, I would be OK with that.

**John:** I mean, the idea that we have phones is crazy. The idea that any stranger can call me on the phone at any point. So that’s why I kind of don’t answer my phone anymore. Like I’ll answer it if you were to call.

**Craig:** Well, we don’t answer when somebody we don’t – so, every phone call was a roll of the dice. And now none are. The worst comes to worst is you get a number, it’s unknown number, or from some town you don’t know because somebody moved out here and didn’t change their number. And then they leave a voicemail and you go, oh, that was that person. Let me add them to my contacts. That won’t happen again. That’s it basically. But, yeah, we always know who is calling.

**John:** Wrapping up the general meeting discussion, I want to say that my first 10 to 15 general meetings were kind of terrible. I was not good at general meetings. It took a while to get used to them.

**Craig:** Define terrible.

**John:** Take our advice–

**Craig:** Like what would happen?

**John:** They weren’t productive. I wasn’t getting to the next stage after them. I was awkward in them.

**Craig:** Aw.

**John:** I didn’t feel comfortable about it. I wasn’t comfortable sort of in my writer-self skin. But I did get a lot better with practice. And so I would say take our advice, but also don’t be hard on yourself if you find it weird and sort of uncomfortable being in those meetings, especially at the start, because it is a weird thing to be doing.

**Craig:** And as it happens this is one of the few jobs where you can actually be weird and awkward. It’s just that you have to be that much better at your job. But you are allowed to be weird and awkward. You know, some of the greatest screenwriters out there are weird and awkward. And what happens is the executives will go, “Yeah, I’m working with so and so.” “Oh my god, he’s a genius.” “I know. He’s weird. God, he’s weird.”

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** “But he’s a genius so it’s OK.” Or like, “Oh yeah, she is kind of a shut in. Like she’s a recluse. She doesn’t actually leave her house. But the pages have been amazing.” So it’s actually kind of like the legend grows of this weirdo lady that’s pumping out these great scripts. They’ll do that all the time because this business loves a narrative. They love to characterize everybody. The danger zone is when you’re fine, and you’re also super boring, or awkward or weird in a room. That can be an issue.

**John:** In a future episode we’ll talk about the process of going in and meeting with a showrunner, like if you’re trying to get hired on a show. Some things will apply, but some things won’t apply. So we’ll try to get a really good showrunner on to talk about those meetings as well.

**Craig:** Sounds like a good idea.

**John:** Let’s answer some questions. Craig, do you want to take Zack’s question?

**Craig:** Yeah, Zack asks, “I was wondering if you guys had any suggestions on character mannerisms, specifically on the best way to go about formatting them. For example, if a character has a nervous tick of laughing to relieve inner anxiety,” huh, I think I’ve seen a movie with that, “should you write, ha-ha, or parenthesis chuckles in the dialogue, or parenthesis every time it comes up? Another example would be a physical tick like an eye twitch, more than just a normal occurrence, something that is psychological or neurological. I’ve recently seen this done in a script when the character is introduced as, ‘Note, Eric nervously chuckles throughout the script when nervous or feels out of place in social situations.’ But I feel like readers will forget something like this with everything else they’re supposed to be paying attention to, especially closer to the end of the script when the introduction was back on page one. Any thoughts?”

John, what do you think?

**John:** I think it’s a really good question and honestly a difficult thing to make a blanket statement for. But what Zack is pointing towards is that the experience of watching the movie, we’re going to see all this nervous behavior, we’re going to see these ticks, we’re going to see these mannerisms. But on the page it’s so easy to miss them and to forget them, especially if he said it on page one and he didn’t say it again. So, I think you’re going to have to remind us over the course of the script that you’re doing it. But I wouldn’t do it a parenthesis kind of thing every time it happens. And I wouldn’t try to call it out in action every time. I would find reasons why what he’s doing is either noticeable to other characters or if he’s alone in the scene that his nervous behavior or whatever that mannerism is is worth calling out in the action because it is the main thing that we’re seeing at this moment.

Craig, what would you do?

**Craig:** I agree with you. I think the first time you experience this it’s important to describe it in action and to describe it in a way that is connected to character. So it’s not simply he chuckles when nervous. I can’t think of a more boring way to describe a very complicated thing. In the moment let us experience it as it happens for the first time. Let us feel like the other people in the room who are confused. Is he laughing at us? Is he laughing at that character? Is this just covering something up? We can tell something from his eyes that he has no control over this.

And then throughout that scene he laughs, he laughs again. Show other people reacting. Make a meal of it the first time it happens. Later in subsequent scenes you can say it’s happening again. Right? Like the laughing thing happens again, so that we understand how it’s happening. I would not do parenthesis. That would get very annoying. And I would certainly not just dump it in the beginning like some random boring note. That’s not how we paint human beings.

**John:** Yeah. So if a character had a larger physical thing that was important to call out at the start, certainly call this out. If a character uses a wheelchair we’ve got to know that. But we’re also going to hopefully see reasons why that is a factor in other story points along the way. And so it’s going to be a thing that is going to affect the story as it goes along.

Something that is more subtle like this or that has an influence on dialogue, yeah, look at your dialogue and see how it’s going to possibly impact that. But what Craig said about how other characters react to it is equally important to what the actual character itself is feeling about the mannerism.

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s there for a reason. You can’t just dust it on an actor. It will be the first person to tell you how much am I doing this? Am I doing it every line? Am I loud? Am I quiet? What do other people hear and notice? So you cannot bullet point it. You have to bake it in.

**John:** All right. One more question. Rebecca asks, “I want to write a screenplay using improv through a Second City style approach. I come in with a detailed written outline of what each scene is. The actors improvise it in a rehearsal space. As the writer-director I offer feedback, then they improvise it again. The process repeats until each scene is set. If I go home and turn the exact dialogue they came up with into a shooting script are they still actors who improvised their lines, or have I basically turned the rehearsal room into a writing room and now everyone would need to be credited and paid as a writer?”

**Craig:** Oh, that’s a really good question. I got to be honest. I don’t know. I know that for instance the Larry David shows do work in this kind of script-provisational style. But there isn’t this thing where the outlines are written and then actors gather together. They perform like a stage play. Someone transcribes it. And then three days later they act it out. And repeat the things that they said. It’s rather on the day they improvise. Improvising on the day in front of cameras is not – so there is no transcript being made. There is a kind of freedom to just act on camera.

The writers of Curb Your Enthusiasm are the writers who wrote those outlines. And they usually have specific lines of dialogue that they need to get out. In this case I am concerned that if you’re just writing down all the things they said that it is a little – it’s like a roundtable kind of thing. I’m not quite sure.

**John:** Yeah. We can talk about sort of the actual WGA sort of legally kind of definitions of who is a writer and who is not a writer. I would say, Rebecca, you are the writer because you are making ultimately the editorial decisions about what is being written on that page. And you’re actually creating a script that reflects this thing. So if your rehearsal process is getting you to that point, OK. What I would stress is that all of your actors need to come into this with a clear understanding and maybe even sort of write down in the contract saying this is how we are doing this. And you won’t be credited as a writer but we will acknowledge that you contributed to the storytelling.

I mean, an option might be to sort of give story credit, to share story credit with all these people who are doing the thing.

**Craig:** I don’t know. It’s really messy. Because if you go through these rehearsals and one person is just awful, except for this one brilliant line, so you replace them as an actor but you keep their line? It’s weird. I’m not quite sure how – I’m sure this has been done many different ways. The part that’s a little nerve-wracking for me is that there is no script to begin with. There’s just an outline. So if there were a script to begin with and then you go into rehearsals with actors, I mean, we all do this. We listen. We watch. Things come out. You then go back and put those in the script because they work and they feel good. But that’s different. These people are creating all of the dialogue. So, I’m not sure. The answer Rebecca is I don’t know.

**John:** I don’t know. But going back to our growing old discussion, this is a way of working. And so there are other filmmakers in the past who have done this. There are many filmmakers in the future who will do this. So you are going into some ground that has been tilled but there’s not a set pattern for how this is supposed to work. So, just try to be respectful of the patterns you’re trying to set here.

**Craig:** That makes absolute sense to me.

**John:** All right. It is time for our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing is a book by Mark Miodownik called Stuff Matters. He is a material scientist. He is a person who studies how we make things, things of metal, things of plastic. I thought it was actually just a great exploration of sort of how the modern world sort of makes our stuff. Craig, for example, if you are eating with a fork why are you not tasting the metal of that fork? Because you know what iron tastes like. Why are you not tasting it when you eat with a fork?

**Craig:** Uh, I don’t know. [laughs]

**John:** So stainless steel is this remarkable substance that they’ve been able to make which shoves extra atoms of other things in there. And when you scratch stainless steel it reacts with oxygen to form a coating around it. So you are never actually touching the metal of the fork. You are touching the outside coating of it. And it’s a self-healing kind of coating.

So, if you enjoy any of the physical sciences or sort of like it ties into recycling and how we make things that we make today, I thought it was y really great. It even gets into chocolate and how we’re able to take this weird being which is not useful at all and turn it into chocolate which is delicious.

**Craig:** Chocolate is delicious. That sounds terrific. My One Cool Thing this week I have not yet had a chance to use but I picked this up, I think this was written about in Wired. It’s a website called DoNotPay. And there’s a bunch of things that it does, but the thing that I’m kind of most curious about is what they call Robo Revenge. The idea is you get a phone call and maybe you’ve been getting a lot of robo calls, spam calls from a particular number or service and you’re tired of it. And presumably you have registered for the National Do Not Call Registry, which no one seems to pay attention to.

So, the idea here is that you see that call and you’re like, oh, here we go. And you’re like in the movies when you’re going to trace someone’s call. You answer the call and you also at the same time click on the DoNotPay website. And there’s a very easy way, literally one click button that creates a credit card. And you say, great, I’m totally into that. Let me give you my credit card information. And you give them the credit card number, expiration date, and security code and zip code that have been generated by this website. It will go through on their end. It will not ever send them funds, of course. But it will go through as an actual card.

What then DoNotPay does is they get the number of the vendor, because it comes through to their information, and they go, ah-ha, and then they call them and go, surprise, Mother-F-er. You just violated the Do Not Call Registry. We are sending you a demand letter for compensation. Also you can never call that person again.

I mean, it sounds pretty great. Will I ever be in the right place and time to make it work? God, I would love to.

**John:** Cool.

**Craig:** DoNotPay.

**John:** DoNotPay.

**Craig:** DoNotPay.

**John:** All right. Stick around after the credits because we will be talking about Craig’s turn as an actor on the show Mythic Quest. But for now that’s our show. Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro is also by Matthew. If you have an outro you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place you can send longer questions like the ones we answered today. But for short questions on Twitter, Craig is @clmazin. I am @johnaugust.

You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. You’ll see the transcripts there. We get them up about four days after the episode airs.

You can sign up to become a Premium member of Scriptnotes at Scriptnotes.net where you can get all the back episodes and bonus segments like the one we’re just about to do. Craig, thanks for a fun show.

**Craig:** Thank you, John.

[Bonus segment]

**John:** Craig, I have not watched all of Mythic Quest, but I have watched your debut on the TV show Mythic Quest. So, for folks who don’t know this is a new show created by Rob McElhenney and Megan Ganz and Charlie Day.

**Craig:** That is correct.

**John:** And it is set at a game development company. If you like Silicon Valley you will like it. If you like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia you will probably like it as well. I really enjoyed the episodes I’ve seen, but I did watch your debut which happens in episode five I believe.

**Craig:** Maybe? [laughs] I can’t remember. It was one of those.

**John:** Let’s take a listen to Craig’s debut on this television program.

[Clip plays]

**Craig:** Close the door. I can’t see with the glare on the screen.

Female Voice: Sorry, who are you?

**Craig:** I’m Lou. They brought me up from the third floor tester pool to replace some chick who quit or died or something.

Female Voice: Her name is Dana and you can’t replace her.

**Craig:** I’m sure she was a saint, god rest her soul. Anyway, I’m up her from now on.

Female Voice: OK. You know what? Let’s maybe not talk for the rest of the day. I’m kind of chomping at the bit to test out these new maps.

**Craig:** It’s actually champing.

Female Voice: Sorry, what?

**Craig:** You said chomping at the bit. It’s actually champing at the bit. Don’t worry about it. It’s a common mistake.

Female Voice: Great. Excellent.

[Clip ends]

**John:** Craig Mazin, tell us how you came to be an actor on this program.

**Craig:** This was a show that Rob and I had been talking about before I think he – not creatively – he expressed that he wanted to do this show. So I knew that it was kind of on his radar. And he and I had worked together briefly on another project just for a couple of weeks, but we were fast friends. He’s an awesome guy and he’s a very, very smart guy along with being talented and working in the hardest genre there is which is serialized situational comedy. And I believe It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the longest-running live action sitcom in history, in television history.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Which is incredible. I mean, they should be in the Television – do we have a Television Hall of Fame?

**John:** We do.

**Craig:** Well they should be in it. And then when he actually did set up the show he said do you want to just come and consult, just be a consulting producer and hang in the room and just talk about the shape of the season and stuff for the first week or so. And I said, yeah, of course. And I did. And it’s a terrific room and I got to meet some awesome writers, including Megan Ganz and David Hornsby who are both outstanding at what they do and they’re kind of like the brain trust over there with Rob and Charlie. And also Ashly Burch who is the person acting in that scene with me.

**John:** OK. Great.

**Craig:** Who plays Rachel, one of the game testers. And I’m not exactly sure how this came about. It’s not like I was calling him up saying, “Can I please?” I wasn’t like Lucy going, “Desi, please let me be in the show.” But they did create a character who was a total dick. [laughs] And I don’t know why I came to mind. But I did. Rob had asked me to initially audition for the part of Brad, who is one of the major characters, which I was fairly certain I was never going to be. But it was fun to even audition. I had never done it before. I’ve been on the other side of the audition a billion times. I’d never actually done an audition. It was cool.

So, anyway, yeah. So I became Lou. And initially it was supposed to be I think just one episode. And I ended up in I think four maybe. Four of them. Usually with two lines. I’m like one of those two-line guys, which is fine by me. But that first day I had a lot. There’s a lot more than that because there was a part of Lou’s character that ultimately got cut for I think smart reasons, but it was like two pages of dialogue. It was brutal.

**John:** So, tell us about preparing for filming your role. And sort of how much did you know about Lou? How much were you just basing it on like, OK, this is me and I’m just doing a slightly – because it feels like a slightly more asshole-ish version of you.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** And so tell us about how you prepared for it.

**Craig:** Well, it was clearly a slightly more asshole-ish version of me and that was the whole point. So that part I wasn’t concerned about. Had that down. Preparing was, I mean, there are certain practical things. You have to go to a costume fitting and have wardrobe and hair take a look at you and pick out some things to wear. So there’s a little bit of a well what do you think, and here’s what we think. And then you end up with what it is, which is fine. And obviously I’m not a particularly picky guy being number 16 on the call sheet.

**John:** Nice.

**Craig:** So, yeah, so that was fine. And then you get the pages. You get them very late in the game and then, of course, they change them. So like I do have an appreciation for what it’s like to be an actor and learn your lines and then have them change them at the last minute and go, D’oh, but I already learned these. And so you memorize the day before. You memorize your lines. You work on them and you have to both memorize your lines and then also memorize the beginnings and ends of the other person’s lines at a minimum. I mean, ideally, you know, everything, so you can be reacting and responding in real time. And then knowing when to come in without feeling like you’re waiting.

You also have to be, I mean, the nice thing is because I’ve been around production a long time I also know the difference between when you’re both on camera as opposed to being individually on camera. And then really honestly the big part was not freaking thinking about it too much. Because I wanted to. I wanted to just, you know, run it a billion times and come up with the funniest way of doing things. And then you realize what am I doing? I’m doing the thing that I hate when actors do. Just shut up brain. Show up on the day. And just freaking do it. And less is more. And that’s that. You know?

**John:** Talk to me about your prop handling. So in the scene that we’re listening to you have popcorn. You’re matching is not perfect but also editorially it was probably the right choice to do sort of what they did. Were you thinking about like, oh shit, I have to eat all this popcorn as I’m doing this?

**Craig:** There was a bunch of things going on. There was actually a dog in the scene that you don’t see.

**John:** That’s a good choice.

**Craig:** Yes. So I was working with a dog. I was working with a bag of popcorn. Yeah, the dog in many ways was wild. That stuff just isn’t there. But you get pretty good, I mean, you get pretty good at repeating. No matter how good you are at consistency, if they want to make an editorial choice that is discontinuous because they don’t want to include the bit with the dog or something, there’s going to be a matching problem.

In the moment they’ll let you know if you picked it up with the wrong hand or something. There were a couple of times where I was like, wait, did I – especially after the first time you do something. Did I reach over this way with this hand or like that? And they let you know.

**John:** Let’s talk about it. So, it’s the script supervisor who lets you know. Correct?

**Craig:** Yes. Sometimes because in that particular space, it’s a very small space that we were in there in that little testing room, and so very few people can fit in there. It’s basically me and Ashly and then the camera folks and they’re shooting three cameras, so that’s a lot of camera people in there and cameras.

**John:** Is it a four wall set? Or is that just walls will fly out?

**Craig:** Those are walls that fly. But not too much. I believe the back wall flies. Well, you know what? I’m not sure now. I think it does. I think the back wall flies and that’s about it.

It’s tight. So that means that the script supervisor is not in there with you. So sometimes, especially if it we were already deep into and I was just curious about something I would ask the camera op because they’re watching the whole thing the whole time. And he’s like, oh yeah, you totally did it with that. But if he’s like, uh, then I would go, hey, can someone tell me. And so as an actor you’re actually talking more with the camera operator and the script supervisor than with the director. Unless the director is really unhappy with what you’re doing. But mostly I mean–

**John:** You’re checking in with the folks who are sort of helping you get your stuff. Did hair and makeup come in and pat you down and touch you at times when it was uncomfortable?

**Craig:** Not much. I mean, my hair and makeup is very simple. I get a little bit of a trim and then a little bit – they pat the makeup on so that as always the light isn’t beaming off my bald head. If you act they’re going to come in there with some sort of spray gun.

**John:** Oh yeah. 100%. Just put a matte finish on me.

**Craig:** It’s just shine is the problem. But, yeah, every now and then somebody would pop in there and be like blot-blot-blot. But that was about it. It’s not super fancy in that regard. And this is classic kind of television shooting where they’re doing seven, eight pages a day. So things are moving quickly.

**John:** So the scene we listened to, did that take a half an hour to shoot?

**Craig:** No, much longer. Because again there was a dog. [laughs] There was a dog.

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** And they have to shoot – even with three cameras they’re doing multiple setups and a character is entering. Entrances and exits take time. So there were a couple of scenes later on where I’m entering. Those take time. There’s a scene where I’m catching up and going to an elevator. A scene where I stop into somebody else’s office. And for those things then it’s very much about the physicality of hitting your mark.

**John:** Let’s talk about marks because people might not know them. But on a set if a character needs to arrive at a place or is standing at a place there will be tape marks on the floor or some other way to indicate where that character is supposed to end up so that lighting and camera and everything is properly set up.

**Craig:** Yeah. The most important thing is focus. Because there isn’t some sort of auto focus for regular film and television cameras. You have to pull focus so that the focus is instantaneous. Auto focus takes time to adjust. You need instant focus all the time when you’re shooting. So the focus puller is adjusting the focus on the fly depending on the distance between you and the camera. So what they do is they say, OK, he is going to enter that door there, so that’s that focal distance. And he’s going to walk to this spot and stop. That’s your arrival. So, you start at that number and then as I move from A to B they move their thing and land on a number. And it generally works great, as long as I hit that number, that mark.

I had no problem with this. I don’t know why actors do. Because the thing is in your blocking rehearsal which is what you do at the very beginning that’s when you’re figuring out where you stop and stand. So the director will come in say I think you should enter this way and move to here. And I’m like, great, do you want me to go around this thing or this way. And she goes, oh great point, why don’t you come around this way and stop here. So then I do it a few times and I just have to remember where I stop.

**John:** Yeah. Do you remember how many steps it took you to get from one place to the other?

**Craig:** No, I just use a visual cue. I just go, OK, I’m going to roughly stop here. So how hard is that? [laughs] It’s not hard. That’s the one thing where – so much of acting did increase my regard and respect for what actual actors, I know I’m not a real actor, what real actors do. That was one thing where I lost respect. [laughs] I was just like if any actor on one of my sets misses their mark I’m going to be like, “Come on, it’s not hard.”

But one of the things I learned that very first day was how important it is to think of the person you’re acting with and to know whose scene it is, and in that case it was her scene. It’s clearly her perspective. So as a writer know whose perspective – don’t fall into the trap of thinking that I’m acting so it’s about me. And do whatever is needed for her so that she can get where she’s going and needs to go because she is an important character, she’s a main character. I am a little bit of garlic salt for the French fries.

**John:** Sounds good. Finally, last question, when did you shoot this? Because people know sort of your history with Chernobyl. So, were you already shooting Chernobyl when you shot this, because I have no sense of like when these episodes were actually filmed?

**Craig:** I believe that I was shooting this I think it was after Chernobyl, pretty sure it was Chernobyl was wrapped. Yeah, it had to be after Chernobyl wrapped. I was in Lithuania. But it was before we were done editing. So I think it was in, I think, I want to say it was in the fall of 2018. I think. Yeah. It’s been out there for a while. But it was fun. It was a lot of fun. And I am in season two. I know that, yeah, I do something bad. [laughs] But that’s all my character ever does is stuff that’s bad. So, anyway, yeah.

**John:** Cool. Craig, congrats.

**Craig:** Thanks man.

**John:** Bye.

Links:

* Tuesday Feb 25th, John hosts Q&A with showrunner Sam Esmail to talk about Mr. Robot, Homecoming and other things. Click here for [tickets](https://www.wgfoundation.org/events/all/2020/2/25/showrunner-sessions-with-sam-esmail).
* Wednesday Feb 26th, Join John at Beyond Bars, a panel on potrayals of criminal justice on screen. Get your [ticket here](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beyond-bars-changing-the-narrative-on-criminal-justice-tickets-91710373195)
* [Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik](https://amzn.to/2SRKOGw)
* [DoNotPay](https://donotpay.com/web/robo-revenge)
* Watch Craig on [Mythic Quest](https://tv.apple.com/us/show/mythic-quest-ravens-banquet/umc.cmc.1nfdfd5zlk05fo1bwwetzldy3)!
* Sign up for Scriptnotes Premium [here](https://scriptnotes.supportingcast.fm/).
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Matthew Chilelli ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/439standard.mp3).

The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2020/other-things-screenwriters-write).

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

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

**John:** And this is Episode 437 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the podcast, sure, we’ll talk about screenplays, but we’ll also focus on other things that screenwriters write, including outlines and treatments, because Craig you and I, we’ve been doing a lot of that recently.

**Craig:** Good lord have we.

**John:** Then we’ll be answering questions from listeners just like you. And in our bonus segment Craig and I are going to discuss the Myers-Briggs personality test. And we will reveal which four letters tell everything you need to know about us.

**Craig:** Uh, I don’t know why anybody listening to this show hasn’t kicked in the whatever it costs to get these bonus segments. They’re better than the show. They’re the best. [laughs] They’re really better.

**John:** Sometimes they are really quite delightful. So, if you want to sign up for these it’s obviously at Scriptnotes.net and you can get in on all the bonus action.

All right, a little bit of news. I’m doing a criminal justice panel called Beyond Bars: Changing the Narrative on Criminal Justice. That’s February 26. This is one of those special little panels that will hopefully livestream, but if you want to be there live in the audience you should come to it. So, I’ll put a link in the show notes to that. It’s going to be me and some TV showrunners and some criminal justice experts talking about our portrayals of the whole system on screen and what the realities are and how we can do a better job making those things match up.

So, it’s sort of a companion piece to the mental health and addiction panel that I did last year.

**Craig:** And where is this panel taking place?

**John:** It’ll be at the SAG building, so on Wilshire.

**Craig:** Got it. Got it.

**John:** Pretty small space. So a lot smaller space than what we do for our live Scriptnotes shows. But if you want to come see that that is available to you on February 26.

**Craig:** You know what I wish in terms of follow up and news and all the rest, I will there was something you could tell us about Highland 2.

**John:** Oh, thank you. I was even going to omit that for this week, but now I’ll say it.

**Craig:** No, I refuse. Say it.

**John:** A couple shows ago I talked about student licenses. So if you are a student who needs to use Highland 2 we do have the capability of adding your whole school so that if you have a .edu address for that we can sign you up for that. You need to give us the contact information for your program or professor. I didn’t really explain very well this first time. I’ll try to explain better now.

But you can send us an email at brand@johnaugust.com. That’s brand@johnaugust.com. Say what program you’re in, but most importantly who the instructor is who teaches your writing program so that we can contact them and they can actually send out the form for signing everybody up. So it’s not just like a “hey I’m a student, give me the license.” We actually need to get your program signed up so we can see that you genuinely are part of that writing program.

**Craig:** On behalf of the public school district in my town of La Canada, I’m curious do you also offer this to public school districts, for high school maybe?

**John:** At this moment we don’t because we need to have somebody who has a .edu address. And high school kids generally don’t. College kids generally do. So, if we can expand at any point down the road we will, but it’s kind of a manpower problem. We need to actually verify who these people are.

**Craig:** I was thinking more of like the schoolwide thing, you know. If a district called you and said we want to purchase a school license.

**John:** Oh yeah. That’s very doable. And that’s already doable sort of in existing plans.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** Perfect.

**John:** Totally possible.

**Craig:** All right. Great.

**John:** Let’s segue to the main topic today which is the stuff that we write that is not screenplays. So we’ve talked a lot about screenplays obviously over the course of 400-and-a-zillion episodes. All the words on the page. The format. How to best convey things. But this last couple months I’ve found myself having to write treatments for things. And I’ve sometimes written a treatment for myself which is basically a set of notes, a plan for how I’m going to attack a movie. But this was the first time in a decade that I’ve had to write a treatment that is being turned in. It is like the plan before the plan for the movie. And I found it difficult to write. I found it difficult to convey some of the stuff I would normally be able to do in a scene in just paragraph form, especially when it comes to conveying the inner thoughts of characters. Why they’re doing what they’re doing. A sense of tone. The comedy. The decision about when to move into italics for suggestion of dialogue.

I found it kind of a frustrating form. And you’ve done a little bit more of this than I have, so I wanted to talk through why we write outlines and treatments and sort of best ways to use that document form to convey the movie you hope to write.

**Craig:** Let’s do it. Because I’ve written a lot of treatments and my treatments are very scriptment like. The last one I wrote I think was about 70 pages. And so I believe in them, but I also find them painful for so many reasons. But ultimately a good pain.

So, I’ve done it all for all sorts of things. And it’s not something that is necessary unless you’re being commanded to do it as a condition of employment, which is rare.

**John:** Is rare but actually the thing I’m doing right now, one of the steps was a treatment.

**Craig:** Well there you go. Then you’ve got to do it.

**John:** And so to have a document that is going to be judged based on how well they can understand the movie in this was new for me.

**Craig:** Well, then this is a good opportunity for us to kind of talk about some best practices and some techniques that make things a little bit easier. And also some tips and tricks, because there are some pitfalls. You can get trapped inside of a treatment pretty easily trying to achieve an effect that ultimately is not really achievable inside that format.

So, I guess maybe the first thing to sort of ask is how do you even define one of these documents.

**John:** I think that’s a great place to start, because I would say you scale up from sort of a beat sheet, to an outline, to a treatment, to a scriptment. And the first time I ever heard the term scriptment was in relation to James Cameron who writes these very long, sort of 70-page scriptments that actually do have some dialogue in there and are almost – if you squint you can sort of see the screenplay in them.

But let’s start with that smallest form. Do you have any different levels of document that you would describe?

**Craig:** No. And the truth is I’ve never done a beat sheet because once I start thinking that specifically then I’m already kind of writing an outline.

**John:** I would define a beat sheet, and these are much more common in procedural television, but I would define a beat sheet as not necessarily single sentences but really kind of bullet points that sort of talk through these are the moments in the story, especially in television leading up to act breaks to sort of show you – it’s almost like just the index cards of how you would get through the story. And so they’re very minimal and you’re just sort of looking at the big actions that happen there, or the big reversals, the big moments.

An outline is a much more flexible term, and you’ll see things that I would describe as really kind of a treatment but they call it an outline. An outline is, to me, a much more – a better fleshed out version of the beat sheet that actually shows – tends to show scene by scene, definitely sequence by sequence how you’re getting from point A to point B, what is introduced where, the callbacks to things. It’s a longer document. So to me an outline is probably a 10-page document. What are you thinking?

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, outline is basically a very thorough beat sheet, where you’re not just saying things like “police station, they interrogate the suspect.” And outline would say “Police station. This person and this person interrogate the suspect. They want to know this. She says this. They’re not sure. They decide to go talk to somebody else. Next bit.” That’s kind of like how you would scale up I would imagine from beat sheet to outline.

**John:** I find outlines very difficult to read if I’m not actually familiar with the story itself. I’m thinking back to an arbitration I did a year or two years ago and where one of the documents in it was an outline. And I would say it was 15 pages. And it was almost incomprehensible. It was very hard to follow bullet point to bullet point, paragraph to paragraph sort of what was happening. It was in this weird middle ground where it wasn’t kind of telling the story. It was just sort of saying – it was just giving the scene without enough of the transitions and segues between moments to really help me understand what movie I was watching.

**Craig:** I agree with you. I find outlines to be in a kind of useless no man’s land. I mean, I understand the value of a beat sheet. It’s this minimal organizational tool. It’s sort of the equivalent of continuity. So when you’re making a movie or a television show and you’re in editorial at some point someone will generate a continuity which is just literally a list of scenes in order with their numbers and the briefest description of what happens in them.

But as a plan, an outline kind of falls in between. It’s almost like so if a beat sheet is the plan for tonight is chicken with rice and string beans, an outline is chicken, butter, parsley, string beans, this thing. But there’s no instructions of like how long do you cook, how do you cook it, are there any other ingredients. When? It’s just not enough. It’s not enough to be anything.

Once I decide – this is personal – but once I decide to flesh something out it’s going to be a treatment or a scriptment. Those are really where I find myself living.

**John:** So this project I was writing this treatment for was going to be one of those longer form things. And so I wasn’t stuck in this sort of no man’s land. I really was sort of writing up the whole thing. I really looked at it as this is a prose document that is describing the movie that you’re going to be watching. And so it’s not trying to be an approximation of the screenplay. It’s really describing sort of sequence by sequence this is what’s happening in this sequence but told in really prose form. And when I needed to use dialogue I would move into italics, which is sort of a common choice. Then it always becomes awkward when you have two characters who need to talk to each other. Generally one person is in italics, one person is not in italics. It’s not perfect. But it works.

The other thing I will say about this treatment that I turned in, it had a lot of preamble that was not filmable material but was really talking you through this is the world, these are the characters, these are the challenges, this is what you expect, this is what you don’t expect. So there was quite a bit before we actually got to the story part of the treatment which is a luxury you generally don’t have when you’re turning in the screenplay. You don’t have five pages to talk through the plan for the thing. You’re actually delivering the actual object itself.

**Craig:** And how many pages did that – you’re describing this as a treatment.

**John:** This whole treatment was 26 pages altogether.

**Craig:** Perfect. So this about makes sense to me. To me, the only difference between a treatment and a scriptment is that in a treatment you are prose-ifying the plan for the movie, but you’re not saying everything. You don’t have to explain every transition or every tiny little thing. You can compress a couple scenes into one descriptive paragraph about the sort of thing that happens. For instance, if there’s a battle you can kind of summarize the battle and explain what matters. And as scriptment you’re doing it like a script, where you just now will say everything. Every moment, every little detail, every little transition. It’s all being spelled out in prose.

Prose is more efficient than screenplay to an extent. Although what I suspect is that I probably have written more words in the 70-page scriptment than I am in the 110-page script because in a script it’s just the description is, I don’t know, it’s just a little bit more efficient. And dialogue is a little punchier.

So, do you have to do – there’s no reason to do a scriptment, by the way. I’m one of the few people that does them. I guess James Cameron is one of the other ones. They’re a bear. It’s just that what happens with me is if you said to me, “Hey, I need you to write the classic 25-page treatment,” I’d start and I’d end up with a 70-page scriptment. Because that’s just kind of how my process goes.

**John:** Yeah. It was everything I could do to stop myself from doing that and to actually not keep expanding, keep expanding, keep expanding from the inside-out, but actually sort of limit myself to, OK, in this section, about ten minutes of screen time, it’s going to be about this much page count in my treatment and I’m not going to keep expanding and keep expanding. It was a real danger at certain points.

**Craig:** I mean, the benefit of the scriptment is, well, there are two main benefits. One I think is pretty much a wash with the treatment. The other one isn’t. Both a treatment and a scriptment will provide your collaborators with a very clear picture of your intentions. It’s very hard for them to say afterward, “Why did you do this? Or why did you do that?” You told them you would. It was incredibly clear, in fact. They can disagree. Meaning they can read your script later and go, “OK, we know you said you would do that, and you did it, and we now realize we don’t like it.” That’s fine.

But they can’t be surprised. The benefit, the special benefit of a scriptment, is that you are that much more prepared to write the script. The script becomes that much easier because you’ve kind of written it. You haven’t written all of it. There’s all those wonderful nuances and bits and bobs that come out in scene-crafting. But you’re never wondering, well, OK, now how am I going to get from this to this? Every question has essentially been answered. And so the writing becomes a little bit more of an extension of the scriptment as opposed to just starting up a new process.

**John:** Yeah. So let’s talk some pros and cons here. I would say a con for the treatment is that as a screenwriter you don’t have all of your tools. Like you don’t have your ability to easily do dialogue, to do transitions, to do a lot of – the film craft of this is not available when you’re just doing sort of prose form. And so you don’t get all the magic you get in writing a screenplay.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** An advantage I would say though is as I head in now to get notes on this I’m probably a little less protective of what I’ve written because it’s not sort of the finished versions of things. And so it will hopefully be a conversation about this is what I’m trying to go for in this scene, this thing that is not fully written yet. So, while it’s frustrating that I cannot give them the full version of what that scene would be or what that sequence would be like, it’s going to be very easy to change my plan for it based on their feedback and their reactions and get the director’s input into these moments before we’ve even written the scene.

**Craig:** No question. There is a rigidity that is implied in a scriptment. That said, what I have discovered is that producers have no problem blasting through that rigidity.

**John:** Of course.

**Craig:** But the nice thing is even then revising a scriptment as I just did last week is also relatively academic. Because so much of what is there is there. And even when they are saying, well, OK, it seems like a better version of this would be this, or we would prefer if this would happen, that it’s all still within the context of the scriptment. That they’re sort of subconsciously working within the framework that you’ve created. They are aware that there are certain things that if you knock down are a much bigger deal. That is an added benefit of the scriptment. It is a little harder for them to fall into the trap of “we’re making a small thing, a tiny suggestion,” that in fact would unravel the rug. They kind of can see that it would unravel the rug, and so they’re a little more crafty about how they’re going to approach things, presuming that they want the script done within some reasonable amount of time.

**John:** Also, you can talk about the story as a story rather than the execution. So you can talk about this is why we think this is not going to work. Or this is why we’re not happy with how the story is tracking here. As opposed to we are not happy with the dialogue you wrote in this scene. And so it is a chance to sort of focus on story without the question of is the problem what happens in the scene or is the problem the words that I used to describe the scene.

**Craig:** For people who might be hearing a strange noise it’s in my office. The heat system sometimes does this little rattle-y thing. It’s a very old building. This building is like from 1908.

**John:** Yeah. I’ve not been to your new offices yet, but based on everything I’ve heard on my side of the microphone I think it’s like a steampunk kind of collective place.

**Craig:** It is.

**John:** And that there’s artists and people living together in this big giant space. And they sometimes have a drum circle going.

**Craig:** [laughs] Yeah. We all wear top hats with goggles on them. And–

**John:** A lot of unicycles. A surprising number of unicycles.

**Craig:** Unicycles powered by little flamethrowers. Yeah, that’s how it is over here. It’s very steampunk. Steampunk is the nerdiest of nerd stuff.

**John:** I love how nerdy it is.

**Craig:** It’s so nerdy.

**John:** I mean, I don’t enjoy it for myself, but I really enjoy that people enjoy it so much.

**Craig:** Like do you like science fiction? And Victorian England? It’s such a weird combo. Anyway, you were talking earlier and you said something interesting that I kind of filed away that I wanted to circle back around to. And that was the issue of comedy. It is very difficult to be funny in a treatment or an outline or certainly a beat sheet. To the extent that I don’t really try too much. The only kind of comedy I will ever try and include in a scriptment is if it’s the kind of comedy that could be neatly encapsulated in a three-sentence exchange between two people.

But beyond that you can just sort of vaguely say an insane thing ensues, or something like this, and describe it. But if you’re trying to get laughs with this thing you’re going to be sorely disappointed. And you probably will risk seeming a bit sweaty.

**John:** Yeah. I would agree. Both of the things I’ve been writing in treatment form recently have been comedies. And there’s moments in which like I’ll put in the right line that sort of indicates what the tone of the dialogue is. But more I think I’m indicating like these are funny elements that will be together. Like you can see why these characters in this situation will be funny and what the specific moments are that can happen. But I’m not trying to get you down to the granular joke level, because it’s just not the right medium for it.

**Craig:** Yes. And, so balancing out the fact that comedy is really difficult, one thing that’s actually very easy to do in a treatment or scriptment, which is very helpful I think for us as writers to both prepare for ourselves and also share with our collaborators, is subtext. Because there are things that characters can be thinking. And as you know from writing a novel prose is brilliant at letting us know what someone is thinking. Whereas in movies and television, the entire point of the process is for us in the audience to discern what someone is thinking through their behavior, their choices, their performance, and so we write toward that. We write to create subtext.

A treatment or an outline or a scriptment allows you to make that subtext clear. So nobody has to wonder what someone is thinking. They know because you’ve told them. Now, whether or not you execute that correctly in the script, who knows. And rewriting is always necessary. But there can be a discussion about intention. Because what happens is a lot of times is without this step, without the treatment or the outline, you turn in a script, it comes back, and they go, “Well we don’t like this scene.” Well why? “Because she’s being mean.” And you go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, she’s actually being gray. See, here’s what’s going on. And I thought that was clear. It wasn’t clear to you. But this is what’s going on. This is how it should be done on the day. And they go, “OK, OK, OK, we see that, we see that, we see that. Got it. Got it. Got it. Maybe you could just throw another word in or something just so we…” Because people get confused and draw the wrong conclusion all the time. I do it as a reader, too.

Scriptment kind of helps pave the way for that.

**John:** Yeah. Because you essentially can cheat in that the scriptment form doesn’t have the same rules in that you can only write what can be seen or heard. You can sort of veer into character’s thoughts to make it clear why they’re doing what they’re doing. It comes with the territory there. It’s nice.

**Craig:** Absolutely. So, it is an exhausting process. I find it very exhausting. And I had to do two of them recently for complicated reasons. I mean, not one and then the same one again, but rather two different ones, but somewhat related. And it’s exhausting. It is as exhausting as writing a screenplay.

But it is really helpful. It is the kind of I think most useful homework you can do. It will always save you from fundamental problems of not knowing where you’re writing to. I think some people get concerned that it may limit them somehow. That it will limit their imagination. But my response to that is always twofold. One, once you’re writing the script if you want to deviate from your scriptment or your outline, do it. And, two, you are perfectly free when you’re writing the scriptment. In other words, you can’t argue that it’s restraining or anti-imagination. You’re using your imagination when you’re writing that. It’s just a question of when do you start making decisions. Do you start then or now? I personally like to do it before I start writing the script because writing a script is really hard and I get very anxious when I have no clue what’s coming next.

**John:** Yeah. See, I’m generally not a planner ahead. I generally start writing the script without any sort of detailed outline or treatment going into it. So this will be the first time I’ll be doing that based on my treatment. And I will say I am looking forward to the fact that some complicated decisions will have already been made about like how I’m going to get all these things together. That’s great.

But thinking back to Arlo Finch, you know, with Arlo Finch I started the first book with a pretty detailed plan. The second book I didn’t go into it with a specific plan for how I was going to achieve all the things I wanted to achieve. And I really loved that process of discovery. And I discovered the villain who I thought was going to be the series villain was not the series villain and there’s a whole different character. And so I respect that like my not having a very good plan going into the second book probably freed me up in some ways.

But then in the third book I did end up writing an outline and it was helpful. So I’m saying I guess it really does depend on your situation, how much time you have, and sort of which way you work best.

**Craig:** I’m not surprised that that’s how it went for you. Because if you think about it, you planned chapter one, you planned act one. And you planned act three. And then act two you let yourself roam around a little bit. And that makes sense to me actually. The areas where you get the most screwed when you kind of don’t know what you’re doing is in the beginning and in the end. And it’s only because, look, the inherent risk to full-on freedom, the kind of freedom that comes with the fog of war, of not knowing necessarily right off the bat what comes next, the cost is that you may suddenly realize, oh god, I’ve literally written myself into this terrible corner.

If you’ve planned your beginning and you’ve planned your end, then I think makes total sense – give yourself some license to roam around in the middle.

**John:** I agree. At some point we will have Michael Arndt on the show. Michael Arndt I think is still in the process of this movie that he’s written that I think he’s directed several versions of along the way. He is the ne plus ultra of what Craig is describing where by making a plan and then sort of building on a plan and building on a plan and building on the plan you can make something hopefully terrific. So, we’ll get Michael on the show at some point because I’m curious to see – he’s probably the most extreme version of this process.

**Craig:** Yeah. He’s a big planner, isn’t he?

**John:** He is. All right. Let’s get to some questions. And the first question is actually about that planning. So Michael writes in, “I’m wondering how long the Chernobyl bible that Craig delivered with his pilot was for his development deal. I’m about to start pitching an historical series with a similar scope. And I’m curious to know what kind of deal my reps should be asking for and what kind of document was sufficient for the pickup.”

**Craig:** OK. Good questions. So I’m looking at it right now. And it was 65 pages. The 64 pages included, let me just give you a sense of it so you have a basic sense of the range, an overview, which was basically a mission statement. This is why I’m writing this. And this is ultimately what it’s about. Then were a number of pages that were about the characters. So the main characters would each get their own page and a description. And then the sort of sub-characters, secondary and tertiary characters would maybe get bundled onto a page together. And then each episode would get its own outline. And those outlines were not scriptments.

So, I’m going to pick a random episode. Episode two is about 12 pages.

**John:** And these are paragraph pages. And your paragraphs are five to nine sentences maybe?

**Craig:** Well, you know me, I’m a big white space guy. So typically the average would be three I would say. So I like lots of white space. I also would include photos to kind of help people have references as I was talking through things. And so that was it. I kind of did it that way. And laid it all out in that regard.

Now in terms of the deal, the deal that I made which I think was fairly standard was that I would provide them with a show bible, and then I would provide them with a pilot script. That’s kind of what they do. I think that’s pretty standard. I mean, Michael I’m not sure if you’re going to places like HBO or streamers, or if this is a network thing. I don’t know. Probably not network because you’re saying it’s a six-hour miniseries, so I assume it’s like an HBO kind of thing. That’s basically what you’re going to get. I mean, that’s how they do it.

Now, I had never written a show bible before. I asked Carolyn Strauss to get me an example. She sent me one. And lo and behold I did mine much longer. It’s just what I do. So I’ve written the longest show bible ever and probably ruined it for people after me who are going to be like, “Well, you know, Craig’s show bible was…” Sorry. Sorry other writers.

**John:** I do hear other folks who are doing shows for streamers find that they are being asked to write a bunch of additional stuff that was sort of not in their original contract between delivery of the pilot script and the decision to actually pick up the series. And that can be incredibly frustrating. And that is a situation which you do want to stand up for yourself and say like, “OK, I’m doing this because it’s helpful for me, but at a certain point you need to start paying me for the things I’m writing.”

It sounds like your show bible was already part of your contract which is great, which is how it should be.

**Craig:** Yeah. And honestly it’s all about get the show or don’t get the show. And I’m going to do that anyway. I mean, it’s just part of my process regardless. So the thing about the term show bible is it’s incredibly flexible. It can be, I suppose, whatever you want it to be. I saw one sample that was like five pages long. And I’m like I don’t know how this is a bible per se. So it’s really what you make of it. Just like same in features. Same deal.

All right. Next question. Anonymous writes, “I have a short film that I’ve birthed.” Oh, I like that. “I hired a writer.” Wait, so did you birth it or, OK?

“I hired a writer to write a 14-page script and now after a year of revisions a team of people are helping produce the film on a very small scale. A producer came onboard to help, non-paid, and they are insisting that you can’t have the word ‘I’ in the title. Apparently they are OK with the letter ‘I’ but not the word “I.” They say you are asking the audience to be in the position of a character before knowing anything about them. They have taught screenwriting in college and won screenplay competitions and apparently this is a big sticking point for them. Am I missing something? Is there filmmaking gospel that I missed about the word ‘I’ in titles? I am Legend. And I, Tonya seemed to do just fine. I acknowledge the word ‘I’ sounds weird in a title but I think the uniqueness helps it stand out. And there is some logic to using I am blank based on our story.”

John, this is a puzzling question.

**John:** It is a puzzling question. So, Anonymous, you are not crazy. It is absolutely fine to use “I” in the title. The reason why I picked this question and put it here is because it comes down to the issue of what is rules and what is taste. And the producer has certain taste, and the producer does not like the word “I” in a title. That’s fine. That producer can have that opinion. That does not make it gospel. It does not make it right. You can freely debate that person on whether “I” can be there. But there certainly is no rule.

And people have tastes. People have opinions. And I remember on Charlie’s Angels one of the producers was really obsesses with – she wanted to see the Angels eat to make sure that it was clear that for all the physical activity that they’re doing they do actually eat food. But didn’t want them to eat food in a messy way. And she had a problem with any sort of like Carl’s Jr kind of messiness. And I get that. That’s taste. That’s not actually a story point. It is just her taste and her opinion. And when you are bringing somebody in on your project you do want their taste and their opinion. But it does not mean that you always have to follow it or treat that as being gospel.

**Craig:** Yeah. First of all, Anonymous, if you hire a writer to write a 14-page script I just want to caution you to not write into a screenwriting podcast and say that you have a short film that you birthed. My problem with “I” is that. It’s when you say I’ve birthed. How about you and the writer birthed it, since the writer wrote the 14-page script.

But that said, you say a producer came onboard to help, nonpaid. So I’m not really sure what that means. But what you’re describing that they’re doing is this – it’s called appeal to authority. Rather than expressing their opinion as an opinion, they say it’s not an opinion because, A, I have taught screenwriting in college, and B, I have won screenplay competitions. Well, that in fact represents zero authority I’m sorry to say to that particular individual. Also, this is art. It has nothing to do with authority whatsoever. Either it’s good or it’s not, depending on who you are and where you’re standing and how you see it.

No, there’s no rule. And anybody that starts to do stuff like that needs to go away. Especially when they’re tossing out rules that you know are wrong. I mean, you just know that’s wrong. How is this person walking around in a world where this is plenty of stuff that has the word “I” in it and thinking that somehow you’re going to be fooled? That’s the part about this that I find vaguely sociopathic.

**John:** Yeah. That they’re holding onto their opinions so strongly even despite evidence to the contrary.

**Craig:** Right. Like clear evidence. And they presume that somehow you won’t unearth it? You will.

**John:** Oh no! They have IMDb.

**Craig:** Wait a second. Before I say what I’m about to say, do you have or have you ever heard of the Internet? You haven’t, great. So you can never say “I” in a title. Yeah, no, that’s just silly.

**John:** Not true. Salvatore from Australia writes, “Listening to Episode 436 with Liz Hannah you mentioned that the writer should always focus on what their own unique perspective is when writing a project. But what exactly does that mean in this context? I’ve heard that a lot but I’ve never actually heard it defined. For example, what did Craig recognize as his own unique perspective in the Chernobyl disaster? Was it the theme that lies always incur a debt of truth? In other words, how do I answer the question of why should I be the one to tell this story?”

**Craig:** Those are two different questions.

**John:** OK. Different questions. But let’s try to answer both.

**Craig:** Yes. So, you have one question, Salvatore, which is what does it mean to have a unique perspective on something. And then the other question is why should I be the one to tell this story. There is no answer to the second question. Nobody should be somebody to tell any story. You want to, you are compelled to, you feel a need to. It would give you artistic pleasure to do so. That’s why. I don’t believe in this kind of notion that one person or another is specifically anointed by fate or the universe to tell a particular story.

What is your unique perspective? The way your mind works. That’s it. Meaning when we say that to people what we’re really saying is do this the way that feels instinctively beautiful to you. Don’t do it the way you think other people do it or would want you to do it. So, when I sit down and I think I’m going to write something like Chernobyl, what I don’t do is go and watch a bunch of other limited series based on historical events and go, OK, oh, that’s good, I should do it like that. Or obviously I wanted to do it like this, but they do it like that. I should really do it like that.

No. I just follow my gut. So that’s what we really mean. Every writer has some sort of instinctive understanding of what they want to do. And that’s the part that you provide that nobody else can. So, let that be your loadstone.

**John:** Yeah. Salvatore is asking about unique perspective. I think what we tend to look for is unique vision and unique voice. And those are things you can find in writing, both writing on the page and sort of what the ultimate thing is that gets made. But it’s sometimes easier to think about that in terms of other media. So like with a composer, like composers have very distinct styles. You could imagine sort of a Danny Elfman score on this movie versus a – I cannot pronounce Craig’s Chernobyl composer, but–

**Craig:** Hildur Guðnadóttir.

**John:** They would be very different approaches. And they have different ears, different visions, different voices when it comes to how they are going to do their work and do their art. And so it’s a question of like what are you brining about your art and your perspective, your vision to this material. And that’s why Aaron Sorkin writing about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook is going to be very different than Craig writing about that or me writing about that. There’s different things that interest us and there’s different things we’re going to highlight. It’s just going to be a different thing.

And so you are inevitably going to be coming into a project with all of your priors. All your history. Your tastes. Your fears. That is going to make it unique. I think what Craig is arguing is don’t try to minimize what makes you unique in order to write the version of the movie that someone else could write, because that’s pointless.

**Craig:** Exactly. That’s exactly right.

**John:** Cool. Do you want to take Breton Zinger?

**Craig:** All right. Our next question is from Breton Zinger, which is awesome.

**John:** It’s a great name.

**Craig:** I want to be Breton Zinger. Breton Zinger writes – this is not a question. This is an order. “You should do a segment on how to be productive writing wise while traveling. I always have grand plans to get X, Y, and Z done, and then I only get X started.” Yeah, what do you think? You’ve done a lot of traveling. I’ve done a lot of traveling. How do you manage this?

**John:** A recent thing I’ve started doing while traveling, and I went to Korea and Japan, and I had very long flights ahead of me. And so a thing I’ve started doing which I really recommend for everybody is you know you’re going to have two, five, 13 hours on a plane. That’s great time where no one is going to interrupt you. While we’re in the plane before we’ve taken off I make a list of here’s all the things I want to do on this flight. And that’s stuff I want to actually accomplish, but also I want to watch that movie I’ve been meaning to watch. I’ll go through and figure out what movies are on the seat back that I’ve not seen yet that I do want to see.

I have books and it’s like I want to read two chapters in this book. So not just the stuff that I have to get done, but the stuff I’ve always kind of wanted to get done. Because to me there’s nothing more dispiriting than having spent 13 hours on a plane and realize like, oh, I got kind of nothing done in that 13 hours. Or I played games on my phone that I could have done anywhere.

So, I try to make that time really productive. And so whether it’s travel, whether it’s jury service, whether it’s some other thing where you have a block of time that is uncommitted, use that time.

The other thing that I’ve been much better about in the last few years, especially with writing the books, is that I need to have at least an hour of uninterrupted writing time every day. And so I claim that with my family saying I’m going to need this time. And so I can go downstairs to the lobby. I can go somewhere else. But I need to be uninterrupted for one hour to do my work. And that’s been great. And I’ve actually been pretty productive during breaks because I’ve sort of blocked off that time.

**Craig:** Those are all very strong notions. Yeah, long flights are nice because you actually get so bored that the notion of doing work becomes attractive.

The one thing to keep in mind, Breton, is that when you are traveling you’re going to be more tired than you normally are. So I think possibly just lower the expectations. There’s possibly going to be some jetlag. Also, you’re traveling, so that means you’re probably there for some purpose. To see things, or do things. So you’re going to have less time and your mind is going to be a little more distracted. And also the writing is something that is contextualized within your normal life at home and you’re not in your normal life at home.

So, I would say also give yourself a little bit of a break and maybe don’t make grand plans to get X, Y, and Z done. Since you only get X started, how about next time just make a plan, a non-grand plan to get X done. And see if you can do a little bit more on X, and then you don’t have Y and Z staring down at you going, “You suck.” And see if that works. If that works then maybe next time you could do, OK, do X and start Y. Just manage your expectations. It’s hard.

**John:** Yeah. Agreed. Patrick Tebow writes, “During the Three Page Challenge section of Episode 434 you two briefly touched on the use of pictures in a scene, such as when a character looks at a photo on a desk. Is this prop and avoid at all cost kind of situation? Or is it mostly a problem when a picture is used as a cheap way to start a conversation between two characters?” Craig, what do you think? Is it always a bad idea to be referencing a photo or a picture in movies?

**Craig:** It’s mostly always a bad idea.

**John:** I agree with you.

**Craig:** I never want to say anything is always wrong, but somebody using a photo to start a conversation between two characters, that’s easily avoidable. The bigger issue is when a character is alone and looking at a photograph. Because that’s a cheap way for the people making something to externalize a thought. I need to know that they miss mom. Or, you know, the classic one is some guy picks up a photo and it’s him and this woman and he’s sad. And we realize that she’s either dead or left him. And it’s just pretty tropey. It’s pretty clunky. And it’s kind of incumbent upon us to come up with interesting new ways to do that. I think at this point in 2020 pulling the old staring at a photo thing is going to feel a little soap opera. A little The Young and the Restless.

**John:** I agree with you. Because I’ve never actually had the experience of wanting to pull out a photo and stare at it. It’s just not a thing I’ve ever done. And I don’t believe it. The movie 1917 which I enjoyed very much does have that as an element. I think it gets away with it to a larger degree than you’d expect because it’s set up in the plot and also because we have an expectation that these soldiers actually would have been carrying those photos with them and it’s a prop that is actually handed off and sort of useful story wise in the course of the movie.

So I believed the characters more when they are referencing photos because that’s a thing that soldiers do.

**Craig:** Yeah. Exactly. So if it’s appropriate to the time then it makes total sense. I mean, but if you’re telling a story now you’re right. I mean, I don’t look at photos ever by the way. That’s a whole other side conversation. What’s happened to our culture with photos, I just don’t understand it. I mean, do you ever just sit there and start looking through old photos?

**John:** No, I look through Instagram to look at other people’s photos.

**Craig:** Yeah. [laughs]

**John:** Photos are about what’s happening right now, not about history.

**Craig:** Right. So that’s also insane, by the way. So it’s all crazy. But when people are like we have to get a photo of ourselves I’m like, OK. Why? Are we going to – I mean, I’m becoming that guy who is like, fine, I’ll do it, but will this ever be looked at again? Why are we doing it? It’s so weird. Anyway.

**John:** Let’s do one last letter. This is from Mark who is actually Mike. So this is the guy who wrote in saying that he is moving to Los Angeles and wanted advice and people wrote in with advice. His real name is actually Mike. We changed it to Mark because we’ve sort of gotten in the habit of changing everyone’s names unless there’s a real reason to keep their real name because of all the assistant stuff we’ve been doing. We just don’t want to accidentally put people’s real names in things. But his name is actually Mike even though we called him Mark early on.

Craig, would you read this for us?

**Craig:** Yeah. This is his update. He says, “Thank you so much for airing my question about moving to LA. I’d also like to thank the listeners for their fantastic advice. I especially appreciate how widely the advice has ranged from esoteric to practical. Passion, enthusiasm, patience, and consistency will still with me for years. But don’t write at home and get a California driver’s license are going to be equally useful.

“Here’s my update. I landed yesterday after a hectic month of packing my Brooklyn apartment, quitting my job, and using up every last drop of healthcare I could squeeze out of my employer-sponsored plan.” Oh America. “It’s a huge relief to finally be here. All I’ve seen of the city so far has been the freeway from LAX and the two-block radius surrounding my North Hollywood apartment.” Ah, that’s where I was.

“And I can’t wait to get a car so I can continue to explore. I’m heading to a D&D game tonight.” What? This guy is amazing. “And I’m hoping to meet a bunch of fellow nerds and writers. Would it be possible for you to put me in contact with Eric from Episode 432? If he’s comfortable sharing his contact info with me I’d like to reach out regarding writer’s groups. Thanks again for your time and everything you do. I’m hoping to make it out to a live event soon. Best, Mike.”

Well that’s, I mean–

**John:** That’s lovely.

**Craig:** He sounds like us.

**John:** He does. So I did put him in contact with Eric. Eric wrote back and said, “Sure,” and so they are going to be talking about a writer’s group.

**Craig:** Three months later we’re going to be doing a How Would This Be a Movie. Eric has murdered Mike.

**John:** [laughs] Wouldn’t that be fantastic? So it’s really two outcomes. Either like the same way that Megan McDonnell was hired to write Captain Marvel 2, it could be that Mike was hired to write another Marvel movie, or he killed Eric.

**Craig:** Or Mike and Eric met and fell in love. And then just started doing crimes like–

**John:** Perfect.

**Craig:** Just like Bonnie & Clyde. Listen, there’s a lot that we can do with this.

**John:** It’s a ripe story area.

**Craig:** We really got to see how this turns out. This is exciting.

**John:** All right. It’s time for our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing is a Reddit thread called r/imsorryjon. It is told from the perspective of Garfield, sort of. Basically it’s a re-imagination of Garfield in which Garfield is a Lovecraftian monster who kills and possessed Jon Arbuckle and does horrible, horrible things. It is a dark, disturbing thread to go down. And I just greatly enjoyed it. I just love appropriation of cultural elements and twisting them into wild shapes.

I particularly like this idea that Garfield is sort of one of those lantern fish that sort of like lures people in. So I would just say if you want to see some disturbing Garfield imagery I would point you to this Reddit thread.

**Craig:** I mean, yeah, I do want to see that. How could I not want to see that? My One Cool Thing this week is a person. And I don’t know if you know him, John, but I certainly do very well. His name is Scott Silver. Scott is a screenwriter like you and I and Scott is nominated for the second time for an Academy Award. This time around it’s for co-writing Joker with Todd Phillips. He was also nominated for 8 Mile.

And I just want to call him out because I think a lot of times what ends up happening, especially when you’re writing with a director is that suddenly the other writer kind of starts to disappear a little bit for whatever reason.

**John:** Yep.

**Craig:** And weirdly the reverse happens in television where I notice that suddenly – like Johan just started disappearing from things. And even sometimes people would say “Chernobyl director Craig Mazin” and I would have to be like, no, for the love of – let me right it and tell you why that’s not true.

But Scott has been doing fantastic work forever. He wrote and directed Johns. That was his first movie, which is a really cool movie. He wrote 8 Mile. And he also wrote The Fighter which is awesome. And now Joker. And so he’s had a very long, very productive career. And he’s a terrific guy and an excellent writer. And so I just thought, yeah, I’m going to give this guy a little extra love because, you know, a lot of times when this stuff is going on you can get easily overshadowed by the actors, and the directors, especially in features. And so my One Cool Thing this week is Scott Silver.

**John:** And also Scott is an east coast based writer as well I believe. Right? He’s not living in Los Angeles.

**Craig:** Yes. He lives in Manhattan.

**John:** Fantastic. So, again, you can run your career from wherever you choose to live. Easier in Los Angeles, but definitely doable in New York.

Stick around if you’re a Premium member because we will be discussing the Myers-Briggs personality index. But otherwise that’s the end of our show.

Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao, with production assistance this week by Stuart Friedel and Dustin [Box]. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is by James Launch and Jim Bond. 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 like the ones we answered today.

For short questions on Twitter, Craig is @clmazin. I am @johnaugust. You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find transcripts. And a reminder, of course, sign up for Premium membership at Scriptnotes.net to get all the back episodes and our bonus segments. Craig, thank you for a fun show.

**Craig:** Thank you, John.

[Bonus segment]

**John:** OK, Craig. When did you first hear about the Myers-Briggs type indicator?

**Craig:** Many, many years ago. It was I think literally when I met Melissa. Because–

**John:** So college?

**Craig:** College. Because her parents were super into it.

**John:** So for people who don’t understand what we’re talking about, it is an assessment, it’s a test, it’s a short three to five minute test you take where you answer a bunch of questions and then it scores you. This is back in the days of pencil and paper when I was doing this in college. It scores you and you get a four letter code that sort of indicates your personality type.

So there’s four criteria. There’s four sort of characteristics. And it comes out to be a grid of 16 personality types.

**Craig:** Yeah. So this is all based roughly on Jungian stuff. Jung, how will I say this as charitably as possible, was wrong about a billion things.

**John:** As was Freud.

**Craig:** Correct. But that’s the point. They were early. They were wrong the way that a lot of people thought the world was flat and yet they were brilliant. So, Aristotle did not know that the world was round, but he’s a pretty brilliant guy. So they were, you know, at the forefront of things. Did Aristotle not know that the world was round?

**John:** I don’t think he–

**Craig:** I don’t think he did.

**John:** No.

**Craig:** Well we’ll put that in the hopper for a later discussion. But so, you know, he had these theories, this kind of collective unconscious and these archetypes and these things that meant something to all of us. Regardless, out of that comes this fascinating way of analyzing personality. And unlike a lot of other ways of analyzing personality which basically come down to asking you are you a this kind of person or a that kind of person, Myers-Briggs uses like a quad-axis formula where there are four different scales. They are binary scales. You go this way or you go that way. So for instance you are extroverted or introverted. The words don’t always mean what they mean colloquially.

What’s fascinating about this is that they take the results of those four things and then analyze each combination. There are 16 in all. And out of the combinations of these things they make inferences which aren’t necessarily intuitive to what the individual parts of the collective four letter descriptor is. But for whatever reason when they look at it and combine those four things and assign this, OK, if you’re this, this, this, and this, you’re going to be this. It’s kind of right. It kind of works.

**John:** It’s kind of right but it’s also kind of right in the way that horoscopes are kind of right sometimes.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** Or your astrological sign or a lot of other things that feel like this does apply to me as opposed to the other criteria. So, we’ll put a link to one of these tests so if people want to test for themselves to see what the score would be for their personality type. You told me that you came out as an ENTJ?

**Craig:** That’s right. Yeah.

**John:** And so when I took this test in college I also came out as either an ENTJ or an INTJ. Anyone who knows me that I’ve become much more extroverted over time. So, that I became an E over time. When I took the test last night I came out as ENFP, which was different. But honestly I think I messaged you the actual scorecard I got. I was very close to the median on all of these things, and so it really was not a strong thing. Like answering one question slightly differently would have changed my score. So I think I probably am very similar to you on a lot of these things.

Judgment versus perception. I would perceive you to be strongly judgmental. That sounds negative and loaded, but you do tend to have very strong opinions on things.

**Craig:** Yeah. So it’s not in the Myers-Briggs model, judgment is not necessarily like I’m judge-y.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** It’s rather – and neither is perception more like, oh, I notice lots of things. In the Myers-Briggs model judgment is basically about, well, frankly it’s related to what we were talking about in the main episode about scriptments. Judgment is really about planning, and being decisive, and you’re preference if you are more towards judgment is liking things to be a bit more clear-cut and decided. You don’t do well with a general sense of not knowing what’s going to happen. Uncertainty is not your friend.

Whereas people who are more towards the perception side of things, it’s a little easier for them to adapt to changing circumstances. They’re OK with a kind of I’m not really sure what I’m going to do next. I mean, really what it comes down to is are you the kind of writer that likes to know the next scene or are you not. And that’s kind of cool actually.

**John:** That does describe the difference between you and me. It’s that I am a little bit more on the seat of my pants. We should I think say that mental health professionals don’t use this test.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** So it really is a thing that is interesting for lay people to do and explore. Have you ever tried to use anything like this for the characters that you’re writing?

**Craig:** No.

**John:** Nor have I. But I do feel like it’s the kind of thing where aspiring screenwriters might that that, oh, this will be a great insight. I suspect there are tools out there that will help you figure out the personality types for your characters. And I just do not think it would be a useful way to spend your time on thinking about your characters.

**Craig:** Not even remotely. Because ultimately what it is is there’s 16 of them. So what are we saying? There’s only 16 kinds of humans in the world? Not at all. It really is just a general sense of how you – the only useful aspect to this as far as I’m concerned, other than just vague curiosity, is that it might help you feel a little bit seen and a little bit normal. Because there’s a description of who you are and it’s kind of cast in the most positive light.

For instance, I think in our society we tend to view extroversion as a very positive thing. You’re a people person. Whereas introverts are a bit suspicious. They’re shy. And maybe they’re afraid. And what Myers-Briggs says is neither of those are two. Extroversion/introversion are simply defined as what energizes you more, being around people or not? And that’s a very positive way of thinking about who you are.

So that part is really helpful. And in that sense it’s fun to do.

Should you use this for writing? No. Should you go to those sites that are like if you’re this type you want to marry that type? No. [laughs] That’s nonsense. That’s all just nonsense.

That said, if you are with someone, as you and I are, not just by the way with our spouses but with each other, and you’re involved with people, and you’re–

**John:** You have relationships in work relationships, in friendships, everything.

**Craig:** Exactly. And you’re kind of curious why when you relate to a certain person there are some times where there are conflicts or confusions, doing this could actually give you a little bit of insight. And by insight really what I mean is understanding and empathy. You go, OK, they actually do see the things a bit differently.

So it’s easy to say, ugh, the problem with that person is they’re so rigid. They’re always just trying to quickly decide what we’re doing next. They’re not open-minded. And the other person could say, oh my god, that person literally doesn’t plan ahead or think of anything, they’re just improvising constantly and it’s just this mush. Well, those are negative ways of thinking about those things but there are positive ways of thinking about those things. And I think this helps you do that.

**John:** Yeah. And the degree to which those could be complementary traits for the other person.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** In terms of thinking about this with your characters, as I was going through the questions yesterday I would say that some of the questions are worth asking of the characters in your story. So, I would say I don’t think it’s a good idea to come out with what is the four-letter score for this character. But asking question about like does this person seek out parties and social interactions, or does this person want to sort of retreat and build up energy for themselves? Is this person quick to make a decision or want to gather everything in before making a decision? Those are useful metrics that could apply to some characters in your script. And especially if you’re looking at the protagonist in your script and how he or she works then you might decide, OK, you know what’s going to be great and frustrating for this character in this comedy that I’m writing is a person who is going to do the opposite. And that is probably a useful way of thinking about some of these traits in terms of the characters we’re writing.

**Craig:** Yes. It is a really good way to interrogate your own personality bias that may be getting imposed on your characters. Especially if people say all your characters sound the same. Well my guess is then they all sound like you. And so you have a way of thinking about things and suddenly all of your characters are. So taking a look at the ways other people think about things, not as deficits or failures but rather simply as differences might help you expand some things.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** For instance, one of the axes of the Myers-Briggs test is sensing versus intuition. By the way, their words are terrible.

**John:** I think they’re bad choices. Because it’s not like sensitive is more sensitive. It’s actually relating to does it have to have data or you’re going on gut feeling.

**Craig:** Yeah. They didn’t pick great words. But regardless, the sensing side of things are people that are rather detail-oriented. They’re somewhat literal and practical. They like to deal with concrete stuff. And the other side, the opposite on that axis is intuition. These are people who are more conceptual. They’re more abstract. They like to know what the overall theory or big picture is. They like to know what’s the point of this as opposed to how does it function. There’s an interesting dichotomy there.

**John:** I’m not sure it quite is a dichotomy though. That’s [unintelligible].

**Craig:** Right. It’s kind of an arbitrary thing that they’ve done. All of it is arbitrary, honestly. But it is a nice way to challenge yourself when you’re writing your characters to say, wait, if they’re all sounding the same is it because they’re all kind of super detail-oriented people? Where’s the person that gets frustrated with that and just wants to know why and how? Just big picture this for me, I’m a dreamer, I’m a conceiver, I’m an imaginer. Whatever it is. Just nice ways to get out of your own head. Weirdly I suppose the tool is designed to get into your own head. But I like to think of it as getting out of your head.

**John:** So, as I was doing research last night another sort of test that’s done in a similar way is called the Big Five personality traits. So OCEAN is the model they have on call. And those five characteristics are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

**Craig:** [laughs] I’m neuroticism. All of it.

**John:** Yes. 100%. And I bring it up just because in the traits that the Myers-Briggs is looking at, those aren’t the only meaningful traits that help define how we react in the world.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And so I would say just if it’s helpful for you to look at it that way, great. But that’s not going to give you a complete picture of why someone does the things that they do.

**Craig:** No question. This is just I think more than anything it’s food for thought and a fun party trick to do when you’re – I mean, when I would sit and do this with Melissa’s family, half of the discussion was, “Wait, you say you’re a blah-blah-blah? No you’re not.” The other problem with this is that usually these tests are, well, they’re asking you a question and you’re answering it. But we don’t always know what we are.

**John:** 100%. And you’re imagining one scenario in which you remember, oh that’s right, I left that party early. But that other time where I stayed out till 4am. Wait, so how do I answer this?

**Craig:** Correct. Sometimes people also – they think that one way is better than another and so they answer that way.

**John:** Totally. My personality type is that I want to ace the test.

**Craig:** Well there you go. So then you’re starting to min-max this thing.

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Craig:** I think you do, min-maxing the Myers-Briggs. We’re nerds.

**John:** Craig, thanks.

**Craig:** Thank you John.

**John:** Bye.

* John will be part of the [Beyond Bars: Changing the Narrative on Criminal Justice](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beyond-bars-changing-the-narrative-on-criminal-justice-tickets-91710373195) panel on February 26th
* Contact [brand@johnaugust.com](mailto:brand@johnaugust.com) for information on [Highland 2](https://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland-2/) for students and educators
* [Outlines](https://screenwriting.io/what-does-an-outline-look-like/) and [treatments](https://screenwriting.io/what-is-a-treatment/) on screenwriting.io, and some examples in the [johnaugust.com library](https://johnaugust.com/library)
* Scriptnotes, episodes [436](https://johnaugust.com/2020/political-movies), [434](https://johnaugust.com/2020/ambition-and-anxiety), and [432](https://johnaugust.com/2020/learning-from-movies)
* Reddit’s [r/imsorryjon](https://www.reddit.com/r/imsorryjon/top/?t=all)
* Scott Silver on [IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0798788/?ref_=tt_ov_wr) and [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Silver)
* The [Myers–Briggs Type Indicator on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator) and an [online test](https://www.16personalities.com/)
* The [Big Five personality traits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by James Llonch ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/437standard.mp3).

The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2020/how-to-listen).

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

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

**John:** And this is Episode 438 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the podcast we’re going to be talking about dialogue and specifically about listening. Then we’ll be answering listener questions about submission agreements, strikes, and character POV. And in our bonus segment for Premium subscribers Craig and I are going to talk about the state of the Democratic primary.

**Craig:** [laughs]

**John:** Because Craig I was realizing that there are not enough podcasts that talk about politics. It’s really a gap that’s out there in the media landscape. And so I thought maybe we’d do that and we’ll do it just for Premium subscribers so that the rest of the Internet can’t hear it.

**Craig:** Yeah and they won’t. I’m sure it will never get out. RIP our mentions. It’s my new favorite phrase. [laughs]

**John:** Oy. Oy.

**Craig:** Yeah, oy.

**John:** Oh, something to look forward to at the end of the show, but first some follow up. Some follow up from Episode 436. That was the one where Liz Hannah was on. We were talking about How Would This Be a Movie.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** The last of those was how would this be a rom-com and Craig tell us about the happy endings.

**Craig:** So, you know, you had this married couple, both of them quite beautiful. This was a very good-looking Irish couple. And they were both running for the same office. They were running kind of against each other, so that was the, as the article said, “It sounds like a bad rom-com.” The slight anti-dramatic circumstance of this was that actually there were two seats available and three people were running, so you and I and Liz, I think all three of us thought, you know, of course the movie ends with the two of them winning. And sure enough the two of them won. They were both elected. So they get to go to work together and represent the people of Ireland together. And then they get to go home together. Boy, if they have children those kids are going to look great. God.

**John:** Yeah. Yeah.

**Craig:** Pretty people.

**John:** Good for them. Apparently it was a squeaker of an outcome. And so it was only on a recount or sort of like the subsequent counting of things that she got her seat here. But congratulations to them. Yeah, some version of this kind of story will happen I predict within the next five years. It won’t be based on them specifically but you will see a couple running against each other for political office within five years. I guarantee it.

**Craig:** Ooh, I like where you’re going with this. Well, we kind of have a slight preview of it with the weird relationship between married couple Kellyanne Conway and George Conway.

**John:** True.

**Craig:** Kellyanne Conway the – I don’t know what her job is, Trump Flack I’ll call her – and George Conway, erstwhile conservative, Never Trumper. But they’re married. So, he attacks Trump on Twitter daily. She defends Trump on Twitter daily. And then they go home and just do it like weasels.

**John:** Apparently so. Things we don’t understand but leave them to their relationship.

**Craig:** Whatever it takes, man. You know, I mean, marriage is tough. [laughs] When you’ve been married for a while you’ve got to spice it up.

**John:** Another bit of follow up, Yurian from the Netherlands is a Premium subscriber and he was just listening to Episode 241 in the back catalog. In this episode you and I were discussing a How Would This Be a Movie idea. And I said the following, so let’s play a clip.

“I think the idea of somebody living in your basement is a good starting place for either a thriller or a horror movie, where like somebody in the family thinks there’s something happening in the basement, or the kid sort of sees the person living in the basement and no one else believes him. And like the secret door that he’s hiding behind is so good that you can go down there and you’d swear there’s nobody in your basement. And so you think you’re paranoid. And, of course, there actually is somebody in your basement. And it’s kind of like Panic Room but in reverse.”

**Craig:** Wow.

**John:** Yeah. So, Craig, I predicted Parasite apparently.

**Craig:** You didn’t just predict it. Prediction doesn’t give that justice. You did it. [laughs]

**John:** I did it.

**Craig:** That’s it. I mean, of course Parasite is more than the function of its main plot twist, but you even got down to like the secret door that is so good no one knows it’s there. You got it.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** You got it.

**John:** Yeah, this is crazy. And so Episode 241, this is like three, or five years ago? This is a long time back.

**Craig:** Is there any chance that director Bong listens to Scriptnotes and was like, “Hmm…” No.

**John:** No. Of course there’s not. And honestly of course we were talking about a How Would This Be a Movie which was based on a story in the news which actually turned out to be fake about this scientist who was living in the basement. So, absolutely did not come from me. March 16, 2016 was when the episode aired. So, it did not come from that. But it is a good movie idea twist and I was right then and I was right because that movie won Best Picture.

**Craig:** It’s almost like you yourself are some kind of professional writer.

**John:** Maybe so. Maybe like after all of these years of doing Scriptnotes I’ve come to appreciate what makes a good movie idea.

**Craig:** Apparently you had it halfway through all these years of doing Scriptnotes. This is really good. 241. That’s like 30 years ago. Yeah, we were 12 when you did that.

**John:** We were so young. God, I remember – god, do you remember as we were riding our Penny-farthings down the cobblestone streets?

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** And we kept talking about if only there were a way that we could have these conversations but people who weren’t here with us in the room could hear these conversations. And you said, “Listen, Hitler is rising in Germany. That’s really what we’ve got to focus on.”

**Craig:** I was concerned about that. But mostly I just remember that I was delighted by my stick and hoop. Ah, the stick and hoop.

**John:** Nothing really beats a good stick and a hoop.

**Craig:** No. That was the best-selling toy of that year. Stick and Hoop. That’s what kids had. They had a stick and a hoop.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Oh god.

**John:** And you know what? I bet it was actually really fun.

**Craig:** It probably was. Probably was pretty good.

**John:** And we’ve not given enough thought to stick and hoop technology.

**Craig:** Yeah. Stick and hoop tech.

**John:** Last week we were talking about treatments. And this week I actually had follow up on sort of the treatment that I had to write that sort of motivated the whole segment. I had the meeting at the studio to talk through stuff. And I will say that like it was actually a little bit easier getting the notes and processing some of the notes because I wasn’t defensive at all about sort of the script I’d written, because I hadn’t written the script yet. We were just talking about the treatment.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** So, in some defense of the stage of writing a treatment and discussing it that way, it was easier for me to think through stuff because I could just say like, OK, so what we need before I actually implement this note and I wasn’t destroying everything I’d actually already done. I was just not doing work I had not done yet. And so that was helpful and constructive on that front.

**Craig:** It is. And I find, too, that when they give notes on these detailed treatments they themselves are less likely to give you the kind of note that would unravel a ton of things because they can see it themselves how it would unravel a ton of things. As opposed to when you’re sort of in a verbal pitch situation and they might not see those ramifications. So I think it helps everybody. I really do.

I was in a situation where I found myself revising the treatment, which I did not love doing, mostly because I just think like, OK, I agree on points A through C. I don’t agree with D. And then E through H sound great. So, I’m going to do those in the script. And then it was sort of like, “Then can you also just do it in the treatment?” OK.

**John:** I actually have a step in this deal where do I have to turn in a revised treatment. So I’m going to do that and it’s going to be great.

**Craig:** It’s going to be great.

**John:** So it’ll be an even more detailed plan for writing the screenplay hopefully that I’ll get to write.

**Craig:** But this is good. This is a good thing. I like this. I welcome you to the treatment family.

**John:** But I do want to point out a downside, because this is something I’ve heard from several former Scriptnotes producers who are now writers, people tell tale of getting trapped in treatment for forever.

**Craig:** Mm-hmm.

**John:** Where you’re constantly revising this document which is not the actual thing you’re trying to make in order please different audiences. And so while I was happy about today’s meeting I definitely can see situations in which it could come into like you never actually get to write a script because you’re always trying to rewrite this treatment.

**Craig:** This is an area where your representative, whether they’re a lawyer or a manager, or a legal agent, should be picking up a phone and saying, “Right, so my client is the most lovely person in the world. They begged me to let them to continue to revise this treatment for you and the 15 other stakeholders in this project. And I said I’m so sorry but no. I’m not going to let them do that. So they’ve gotten all the notes, they get it, it’s time to commence them on the script per the contract.”

I wish that more representatives would do their job.

**John:** That would be fantastic.

**Craig:** Mm-hmm.

**John:** So unfortunately sometimes it does fall to you as the actual writer to say enough and I’m done. It’s time to move onto the next step. Advocating for yourself is a tricky thing. It’s a hard thing to learn but it’s also a thing you end up doing at every stage in your career.

**Craig:** Yeah. Pretty much. And part of the job unfortunately of being a screenwriter in Hollywood, it’s not anything that should be part of our job, it certainly has nothing to do with writing, is the ability to determine exactly where you stand and then apply an amount of leverage and self-advocacy that is concomitant with your standing at that moment. Because a lot of writers push too hard when people actually want to get rid of them. And a lot of writers don’t push hard enough when people are desperate to keep them.

**John:** Yep. It’s absolutely true. And I do have to single out your use of concomitant, because again a word I’ve read and never tried to use in conversation. Well done, Craig Mazin.

**Craig:** Thank you. And I give it as a gift to you.

**John:** Aw. Thank you. We have talked a lot about assistants and assistant pay this last year on Scriptnotes. A thing we’re going to put out this week, Megana before she left on vacation she reached out to a bunch of people who had written into the show and other assistants she knew asking for their advice to showrunners who are staffing up rooms for the new television season. And so this is advice that assistants, so writer’s assistants, script coordinators, what their advice is for these showrunners and for these rooms as they’re being put together.

We put it together as a little PDF and so people can download it. I’ll also have it up on the website to take a look. But Craig I thought you and I might take a quick look through here and just highlight some of the things that assistants have said.

**Craig:** This is great. First of all, no surprise, it looks beautiful. So well done on the fonts.

**John:** Thank you. That was me.

**Craig:** Yeah, you did a great job there. And I like the fact that you’ve got the headers are Sans-serif and then the actual body text is – I like it when things break up like that. So this looks like the kind of thing that should go on the wall, sort of like the Heimlich poster that goes on the wall in restaurants. So this is great.

The first category is Respect Boundaries. Basically don’t treat your employees like they don’t have a life beyond the job they’re doing.

**John:** Yeah. One piece of advice here I like is don’t procrastinate and stay late and make your staff stay late too. Yeah, you know what? That’s true. As a writer I do procrastinate, but I shouldn’t procrastinate in a way that makes everybody else suffer.

**Craig:** Yeah. And I also like this: don’t use your assistants as emotional support and therapy. Don’t overshare about your life and feelings. So, there’s a show that I’m a consulting producer on called Mythic Quest, which is on the air right now on Apple–

**John:** Congratulations, Craig. I meant to single you out on that. Nicely done.

**Craig:** Is it called Apple Plus? Apple TV? Apple TV Plus? I should probably know this.

**John:** Apple TV Plus.

**Craig:** Apple TV Plus. It’s a really funny show. Rob McElhenney and his team have done a great job. Megan Ganz, among others. And there’s a character Carol who is the head of HR at this videogame company. And everybody treats her as their therapist. She’s like, “I’m not – I’m in HR.” People come to her and they’re like, “I’m in love with one of my coworkers. I don’t know how to tell them.” And she’s like, “My god.” “I’m worried that someone is going to report me.” And she’s like, “If they did, I would be the person they would be reporting to. I am not your therapist.”

This is one of those boundary lines that people blithely cross all the time. This is excellent advice.

**John:** I want to say if we keep watching future episodes of the show will we see more of your influence and presence in the show?

**Craig:** You will see my character, Lou, I think he’s in almost every episode in the second half of the season, and I have been told and have no reason to disbelieve that he’s going to be back for quite a few episodes in season two which is currently underway. And, yes, and there’s some other stuff that, yeah, I’ve been helping with with those guys there. They’re great. So, there may be more influence.

My character will never have more than one or two lines. [laughs] I like those characters that just pop in, have one or two lines.

**John:** Yeah. You’re like a Creed.

**Craig:** Yeah. Like Glenn the Demon on The Good Place. Ah, The Good Place. That was such a nice ending. I really loved it.

**John:** That was so lovely. Yeah.

So, to wrap up with our assistant pay stuff, because we got a little sidetracked there, just really simple advice and we tried to keep it as just short quotes from the actual people. There are 20 assistants who wrote in with their opinions. We sort of chopped it all up and put it into categories. But hopefully this will be useful for assistants to be thinking about, but more importantly for shows to be thinking about as they’re ramping up for this next – shouldn’t even really call it a season. Like, TV just never stops now.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** But more rooms are being put together in this period than last month.

**Craig:** This is a great document. Just sample headline, “Set Expectations. Tell Us Who is in Charge. Delegate Thoughtfully. Solicit Diverse Perspectives. Give Appropriate Credit. Know How Much We Make. Keep People Healthy. Invite Assistants Inside.” These are all really good things.

And this is an eminently reasonable document. This is not some kind of revolutionary screed. This is something that any decent showrunner would want to do I should think. So, it is well-written and it is followable which is the most important thing. I can’t imagine anybody looking at this and going, “No.”

**John:** “No, none of this.”

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s just like wake up. Get yourself – be a woke showrunner when it comes to your assistants.

**John:** Great. All right, let’s transition to a discussion of dialogue. So this is going to be a craft episode. This is where we’re going to talk about the things that characters say in movies, which is what people outside of the industry think all screenwriters do is just to write the dialogue. That’s all we do, right Craig? We just write the words the pretty people say.

**Craig:** I thought the actors wrote that. I thought they came up with what they say. [laughs]

**John:** Oh, that’s right.

**Craig:** I don’t know what we do.

**John:** We write down what they’ve said.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Just so that there’s a record of it. Yeah.

**Craig:** Of course. We write down what the director wants to do. You know, in the old movies the director would walk up to the actors and say, “OK, in this scene you’re coming in and you want her to do this. And she’s going to say no to that.” So there’s no script at all and in fact on any given day what you’re shooting is whatever the director imagined. And then the actors make up their dialogue and the director goes, “Cut. Print. Moving on.” Mm-hmm.

**John:** Mm-hmm. So when Greta Gerwig was on the show a couple episodes back we were talking about mumblecore which was the movement that she was an important part of. And classically in mumblecore it’s very under-scripted. There’s a plan for sort of what the movie is about. There might be a plan for what the scenes are. But they’re not detailed plans for who is saying what and what’s happening. And so she came out of that movement and I was surprised that as someone who emerged from that movement that she’s so fastidious and meticulous about what the words are on the page and exactly when overlapping dialogue is going to overlap.

And she said that really did come out of the experience of like being an actor who was not given lines to say. She kind of felt boxed in by not knowing what was going to come next. There was not a plan for how to get through stuff. And that she really loves having written dialogue that she can work from so that she can actually find everything else in the scene and not to be worried about, ah, what am I going to say.

**Craig:** I am not surprised by that at all because when you think about the way conversations work in the real world a lot of times one person is just dominating the other. And if you put two characters in a room without a script that has not been balanced and thought through carefully by a screenwriter, one actor may very well dominate the other. And that’s – how is that good for anybody?

**John:** It’s probably not good for anybody. So in this discussion of dialogue I want to start by looking at realistic dialogue. Really how people would speak in the real world. And the way you find out how people speak in the real world is to listen to them. And, you know, you can eavesdrop on people. You can just be paying attention to conversations happening around you. But to really notice people don’t talk in real life the way they do in movies. And when you see movie dialogue that feels artificial, it’s because it’s as if they’re talking in a movie rather than actually how people could speak in real life.

And movie dialogue tends to be an optimization. A synthesized version of real speech. But it has to be based on some real speech. So I thought we’d take a listen to some real life speakers and how they’re doing things. Listen to them and then after each clip talk through what we’re hearing and sort of how we could do that on the page and sort of what lessons we could take from the clip we’ve heard and apply it to the actual dialogue we’re writing.

**Craig:** I love this so much.

**John:** Great. It was actually harder to find some of the stuff than I would have guessed. So, online you can find a lot of examples of recordings of people about their accent and where they’re reading the same text so you can hear specifically how they’re doing diphthongs and upspeak and stuff. But I wanted to hear people talk in sort of more natural conversation. This first one is from a clip about Appalachian English or mountain talk. And so let’s take a listen to this.

**Male Voice:** Everybody hears about Graham County, don’t they? And how good the people is, how they’re happy. I run into people I don’t know, ever seen them in my life. And I help them in any way I can. Somebody the other day said you’ll get knocked in the head. And I said, well, if I do I’m just knocked. It’s just good-hearted. Everybody you meet, just 99% of them. If I didn’t live here I’d move, wouldn’t you?

**Male Voice:** Where you going to go on vacation? If I was going to go on a vacation I’d just stay right on here.

**Male Voice:** Oh yes.

**Male Voice:** On my days off I’m in here.

**John:** All right. So there’s so much to unpack there. And so obviously we should spend a long time on his accent, which is fascinating. But I really want to look at his choice of words and sort of how he’s putting his thoughts together.

That question at the end, like “don’t they” at the end of something. It’s an emphasis. It’s a softener. You know, he’s not speaking in straightforward sentences that end in periods. There’s question marks at the end of things that’s not kind of classically uptalk. You know, his use of the verb to be, he’s using is where we would traditionally use a different form. There’s a lot there that you could write down and it would give you a very good sense of his voice as a character.

**Craig:** Yeah. His sentences, let’s just call them phrases, because sentences is really a function of prose. When we talk we talk in phrases. And his phrases are usually built around a word. So they’re not balanced phrases. They’re leading up to a thing. Like wood. Like carrying wood. Like I’m going to say something about a garbage bag. I’m going to say something about blah-blah. Mountain talk. I love talk by the way. Talk.

**John:** Talk.

**Craig:** Talk. So there’s a certain staccato element to it. And they’re built around a single thing. They’re not complicated in terms of structure. There’s no internal clauses. The sentences are very direct. Very clipped. Love that.

**John:** Yeah. So, if you were to write this kind of character into your script, my instinct would be if he’s using alternate words for places, use those alternate words to reflect what he’s actually doing, but don’t go crazy trying to indicate the dialect and to try to spell things the way he’s saying them. Because that’s only going to be frustrating for the reader. And it’s not actually going to be helpful for the actor or anyone else down the road. Craig, what do you think?

**Craig:** I completely agree. So, what you don’t want to do is get into that weird, because it almost looks like you’re just making fun of it or something. Use the words. I’m a big believer of the flexibility of language when it comes to these things. Obviously I wrote a show where people in Soviet Ukraine were speaking English with English accents. I just think what is the most natural thing to convey – intent. But with a character like this I think it’s fair to use vocabulary, like you say, that we might not know. And then I think about the reader as somebody that just like you when you’re listening to somebody like this instead of stopping them every single time they say a word you’re not quite sure of, you wait. And you try and figure it out yourself using context. And generally speaking we kind of can. So, the point is you got the basic idea, right?

And if you were totally confused then that’s an interesting thing to happen. So you just think how would I actually receive this. Would I be able to piece it together and get the basic idea? Or would I be utterly lost? That’s a good decision that you should make as a writer.

**John:** Another thing to listen for is how a speaker will incorporate other people’s speech into what they’re saying. And so people don’t say like “and then he says blah-blah-blah.” They will actually just shift their voice a little bit to indicate that it’s a different person speaking within their own speech. And so listen for how characters do that in movies, but also how folks do that in the real world. And that a person will be speaking as two different people without necessarily making it crystal clear on the page what they’re doing.

And so what you might end up doing in a block of dialogue is putting some of that stuff into italics to indicate that you’re speaking as the other person. Or sometimes you need to break that out as a parenthetical. But people can convey a surprisingly dense amount of information in what’s actually a very short bit of dialogue there.

**Craig:** My grandparents did this very Brooklyn thing. When they would tell a story about something that happened to them in the past, even like a day earlier, “Oh, I ran into Rose at the market and she says…and I says…and she says…” It was always she says, I says. So says, sez, became this all-purpose describer of her turn to talk, my turn to talk. But it was always there. It was never we’re just going to shift with voices. And it was never I said and she said. It’s the weirdest thing. I remember as a kid just thinking that is bizarre. But they all did it.

**John:** They’re staying in the present tense as they’re narrating a past event. And that’s really common.

**Craig:** But also violating the conjugation of the verb to say.

**John:** Oh, of course.

**Craig:** Because it’s not “I says.” It was like says became a new way of saying said.

**John:** Exactly.

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s very interesting.

**John:** Vernacular is great. Let’s take a listen to this is a woman who has moved to Austin, Texas. I’m not clear where actually she moved from. She’s being interviewed by a person, so it is a little bit more – it’s not a natural conversation, but it reminded me sort of if you were being deposed as a witness. Or often in movie scenes someone has to sort of tell a history of something. And it feels more like that. So, let’s take a listen to this lady from Austin.

**Female Voice:** About eight years ago we picked Austin. We didn’t know anything about Austin. None of us had ever been to Texas. We didn’t even honestly know it was the capitol of Texas. I mean, I’m embarrassed to say, but I didn’t know anything. I thought it was a small town actually. And so we flew to Austin, my husband and I flew to Austin, and we really liked it. And we came here for about a week on our own for our little vacation and then we flew our boys in. They both lived in different places. And we flew our boys in. And so we had a family vacation for a week with just my husband and myself and then a week with our boys.

**Male Voice:** Great.

**Female Voice:** And we all really liked Austin, but yeah, we just thought oh well, Austin. It was just another place we’d, you know, gone. And we went to a lot of the different sites. You know, Lady Bird Lake. And the wildflowers. And we took a tour of the capitol. And we did all kinds of things like that.

**Craig:** So this is not actually a lady from Austin.

**John:** No. It’s a lady who has moved to Austin.

**Craig:** She has moved to Austin. Interesting. So she doesn’t have that classic Texan accent. Even the Austin accent which is quite a bit more muted than like a Houston accent or a Dallas accent. Very singsong-y. Very kind of rambly tale-telling. I like it. Not an efficient talker.

**John:** Well, there is an efficiency, but there’s no periods in that whole clip. She basically–

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** It’s as if she never wants to actually finish a thought so somebody else could interject. I also think it’s really interesting how she is continuously clarifying what she just said.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** So when we moved to Austin, we moved to Austin, my husband and my boys and I, blah-blah-blah. It’s commas, and commas, and commas. She sort of clarified the thing she just said. Not to soften it but just to paint out the whole picture of stuff.

**Craig:** Yeah. There’s a kind of indecisiveness going on in there, even the details of the story are somewhat indecisive. We got to Austin and it was just another place. It was just Austin. But as she’s telling it you can kind of feel like she’s building it as she goes and revising it as she goes. And when she makes a list it’s like a this, and then a this, and then a this, and then a this.

Because efficient is not a term of judgment. Efficient would be I visited Austin with my husband. I loved it. I thought perhaps I could live here. I invited my sons. We looked around. And we decided, yes, we want to live her. That is efficient. This is more of a kind of exploration, you know, kind of verbal discovery. Some people discover as they go. And I do think you’ve pointed out something really smart. Some people do speak with a kind of grammatical integrity. I’m aware that I’m one of those people that speaks with a certain grammatical integrity. Most people do not. Most people will stick sentences inside of sentences and then abruptly cut it off and begin something new. And that’s an important part of understanding the music of dialogue.

**John:** A thing that frustrates me often as I read interviews that I’ve done for people is they will try to transcribe literally what I said, which has a lot of ands. Basically one continuous thought that never really stops. And so I will tell people, no, no, it’s OK. You can put in periods in places. Because otherwise it will feel sort of like what this lady was talking about where it just keeps going, and keeps going, and keeps going. You do sometimes want to provide some structure here.

The other thing I think is important to understand about the context of this, she seems a little bit nervous.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** During this interview. I think that’s part of her rambling is her being nervous. But it’s also a weirdly artificial thing for it to not be a true conversation. If she was doing that and she was in a conversation with somebody, they would talk over the other person, or give “uh-huhs” or affirmatives to keep the flow going. And so she’s trying to keep the flow going by herself and it’s a little bit like dancing by yourself. It’s a little bit awkward what she’s doing.

**Craig:** Yes. There are people that are not comfortable leading a conversation. Just like we were saying some actors could easily dominate another actor if they were all left to their own devices. I suspect that this woman is not comfortable leading a conversation solo like that. This is not somebody practiced in the art of soliloquy.

So, there are moments where I suspect she’s waiting for somebody to jump in and they don’t. And she’s filling space to kind of be able to get to the next thing because she was not necessarily prepared to immediately go to the next thing or explain herself. It can be eerie when somebody asks you a question and then never interrupts you. You start to feel like perhaps you’re slowly hanging yourself because you just keep talking. Because you’re waiting for an interruption that never comes.

**John:** That’s a very classic technique, especially in documentary interviews, where they’ll just let you be silent for a moment. You’ll answer a question and they just won’t put another question back. And so therefore you’re just like I’ve got to keep talking. I’ve got to get stuff out there. It’s a very natural instinct. I remember I had to do a deposition for this legal case and at first I was trying to explain everything. And then in a break the lawyers on my side said you’re trying to explain this as if you’re on a DVD commentary. Don’t do that. Just answer the question in an efficient way as you can and move on.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And it’s all about context. I’m sure in other situations she could be much more what we’re saying efficient and direct and not try to keep the conversation going.

**Craig:** But there is a beauty to it. Again, the poetry of somebody stringing it all together in one long melody is really useful. This is very useful. People really should be listening carefully to this. Just so we’re clear about what happens when we read things, and when people in Hollywood receive scripts, the very first thing that will stick out is bad dialogue.

It is not the worst sin that you can commit. Dialogue can be repaired. The worst sin you can commit is a boring story about nothing that matters. But, no one will realize it’s a boring story about nothing that matters on page one. What they will recognize maybe even halfway down the page is that no one sounds like a human being. So this is really important for people to hopefully absorb.

**John:** One thing I should point out here is if you were to put what she said into your script it would be terrible. It would be terrible because it’s not interesting at all. Because I don’t care about anything that she’s saying right there.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** But if she were talking about something interesting and she was talking about it in the way that she’s talking about it there, that could be great. If she had to describe the events of a night, like a horrible thing had happened and she had to describe it and she was using some of that stuff. That would be fantastic. Or if she was trying to conceal something. Love it. That could be great.

**Craig:** Yes. There’s a tendency writers have to convert every human being into a grand orator when it is time to talk about something that is important or hurtful or emotional. Suddenly they become these beautiful speechmakers. That is not how people tell these stories. I’ve listened to people tell heartbreaking stories. And that is when they’re at their most inefficient. And stilting. And self-interruptive. And self-denying and contradicting and fixing and repairing.

It’s what makes us human in those moments. Emotion does not make us more eloquent. It makes us less eloquent.

**John:** Yeah. A great example is the scene in Marriage Story where Scarlett Johansson’s character, she has an incredibly long speech where she’s in the office with Laura Dern. Laura Dern, everything she’s saying is practiced because she’s given that exact same talk a hundred times. Scarlett Johansson’s character is discovering these things for the first time and it’s going to be inefficient, but it’s also going to be emotional and have this ability to cycle back on itself. So both kinds of speech can happen in the same scene.

**Craig:** Yeah. There are characters, like I think of the character that Jared Harris plays in Chernobyl. He is a scientist and he is someone whose emotions are very bottled up. He’s an emotionally constipated man. And he’s very intellectual. And when it comes time for him to say something important at long last when he does it does have a sort of speech integrity to it because he’s that kind of person. I believe it from him. I don’t think I would believe it from say Stellan Skarsgård’s character. When Stellan Skarsgård’s character, Boris Shcherbina, has a moment where he is emotional and needs to declare something, it comes out as a series of outrageous cursing and then just violence towards a phone. Because he is not an intellectual man. And he does not speak in that way.

It’s just important. It’s one of the ways that we help defeat the most dreaded of notes. “All of your characters sound the same.”

**John:** The worst. So, these were two examples of people speaking by themselves. I was looking for better examples of dialogue and interaction between characters which was surprisingly hard to find until I remembered, oh that’s right, there are podcasts. So this first clip I want to play is from the Las Culturistas podcast is by Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers. It’s a weekly podcast or semi-weekly podcast. They had Ben Platt on. And so this is the three of them talking. So just notice how they talk over each other. How they acknowledge what the other person is saying. How thoughts don’t get completed and sort of get clarified before the full thing was done. How they know you’re a little bit ahead of where they’re going so they don’t feel like they have to finish thoughts. I thought it was just an interesting clip. So let’s take a listen to this clip with Ben Platt.

**Matt Rogers:** You’re telling me like when you’re like doing a show on a Friday night, are you giving it a little bit more than you are on a Sunday? On a matinee? Tell me.

**Ben Platt:** Uh, it depends. It’s like very specific to the actual night. It depends who I know is in the audience. It depends how many shows are left in the week. Because sometimes, obviously because it’s a Friday night it’s exciting, it is like easier to give more than on Sunday. But also Sunday you have 36 hours ahead of you that are free, so you can kind of give abandon. So it depends. I would say like a Wednesday Matt is not ideal.

**Matt:** Not the best.

**Ben:** To come to, unless you’re like 65 and up.

**Matt:** Yeah. Yeah. And you get that little discount ticket.

**Ben:** There’s definitely like an A, B, C version of the show that you have to have.

**Bowen Yang:** Yes.

**Ben:** This is what I’m doing if I feel completely healthy and I have all of the faculties. And then B is like I’m trying to save a little for something exciting at the end of the week. And C is like I can barely be bothered to be here.

**Bowen:** Oh wow. You’ve like very clearly delineated all of these scenarios though.

**Ben:** Oh yeah. I’ve spent a lot of time in that wonderful show.

**Matt:** In that show. So basically, wait, hold on. So do you usually know when someone notable is coming? And do you prefer to know?

**Ben:** I ask to know. So I would receive like literally like an itemized list before like a half hour every night of everyone that was there. Because at the beginning it was–

**Matt:** You don’t want to go out on stage and then see Beyoncé.

**Bowen:** Right.

**Ben:** One million percent. Like I don’t want to clock Meryl like mid-number. And also like in that show in particular like I spend so much time out at the fourth wall or whatever.

**Matt:** Yeah.

**Ben:** So like I’m going to see. And it’s a small house, so I’m going to see whoever it is. And they’re always in the same like nice house seats. So I love to have all the information. That’s like a theme in my life in general is I like to have all the information.

**Matt:** Please. Beforehand.

**Ben:** Because anything unknown is far more anxiety-provoking to me than just like dealing with what the actual reality is going to be.

**John:** All right. So this feels like three people around a table. You can imagine they’re in a diner and they’re having this conversation. So, it’s a little bit heightened because it’s a podcast and there’s microphones in front of them, but it feels pretty genuine to what they would actually be, how they would actually be talking as a group. And you notice there at the very end Ben Platt starts a word and stops it and just keeps going on. He knows you know what he’s going to say and he can just sort of keep moving on to the next thought.

I also really want to point out how much along the way the other two guys are acknowledging and sort of affirming what he’s saying. They’re checking in that they’re actually hearing and they’re listening to him.

**Craig:** That’s the thing that I picked up on the most. So, first of all, these three guys are young. I mean, they’re not young like children, but they’re younger than we are. So there’s a certain youth to their discussion and it is indicated by energy. They are all three of them very energetic. They are listening intently to each other and their conversation is a little bit, I’m not going to say combat, it’s not competition, but it’s a group sport. They understand, each one of them, that they’re supposed to be talking. Right? No one is just going to be quiet for a while.

**John:** It feels like they’re all learning forward.

**Craig:** Yes. They’re all leaning forward. So, what that means is, and you can tell Ben Platt understands they’re leaning forward and he’s used to it. He’s fine with it. But that means he has to speak really quickly. Listen how fast he’s talking. Because he knows they’re fast. They’re on everything he says. There’s no chance for him to slow down, because immediately one or two of them, Bowen or Matt, or both at the same time will go “Yes.” Which as you point out is affirming. They themselves are playing a role of supportive interviewer who wants to play.

So, they don’t just say yes and then ask a question. They also notice the kinds of things he’s saying and then they kind of kick it back and make a little observation, a slightly humorous observation. This is very naturalistic. Count how many times all of them say the word like. A billion. But it’s not dreadful. It’s not caricature. It’s just a natural sort of use of the vernacular like. And they have no problem interrupting each other. Interruption is almost essential to that kind of discussion.

**John:** Yeah. So I think when we’re talking about natural dialogue I think too often we’re assuming it means slow. That it means it’s paced down and it’s very sort of stuff just comes out when it sort of comes out. This is natural dialogue. People are doing kind of what they would naturally do. But it is pretty fast. It’s like it’s Sorkin-level speed. And the conversation they’re having isn’t exactly sort of what you’d expect in an Aaron Sorkin movie. You can imagine having this kind of discussion in an Aaron Sorkin script.

Now, think about what this would actually look like on the page. You wouldn’t have all of those affirmations being put in as dual dialogue or interruptions there along the way. It would be far too much. But you would need to have some indication that people are freely able to speak over each other and that we’re able to process both conversations happening at the same time. This would be a great example of Greta Gerwig’s script where she does the little slashes in the dialogue to indicate where overlaps are supposed to happen.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** This would be great for that.

**Craig:** Yeah. And it implies a certain kind of direction as well. Because when you are shooting a scene like this, if I’m making a movie and in the movie there’s a scene where Ben Platt, Bowen Yang, and Matt Rogers are discussing how Ben Platt either does or doesn’t go full out on a given performance based on the day, and how he reacts or wants to react when famous people are in the audience, their conversation is so simultaneous and fast and Bowen and Matt are so interactive with Ben. And we understand that the ground rules of their discussion are such that anyone at any point can jump in and talk and not stop the train. You need to shoot it where all three of them are visible.

**John:** Yep.

**Craig:** Because what happens when you’re shooting and there’s only one person on camera you can’t have anyone overlap with them because it won’t cut together with the master shot where they all are. So, it implies, in my mind at least, it implies you want a master shot and you almost – there’s a version of this where you just move the camera slowly around the table. And the camera doesn’t necessarily respond to what anyone is doing. You’re just absorbing the speed and the rhythm of it.

**John:** Yeah. The other option of course here is that you’re shooting multiple cameras at once. You could be on singles on people as long as you were actually doing the same shot.

**Craig:** 100%.

**John:** That’s the other option to sort of get into that situation. But it does feel very – it’s very live, very present. This is rat-a-tat-tat stuff happening here. And the whole show is pitched up at that speed.

**Craig:** Yes. I love the speed of it.

**John:** So here’s a different example. And this one feels a little bit more sitting back rather than leaning forward into the conversation. This is from a podcast called F-Work, But I’m Going to Go. This one is just two women. They have this podcast every week. They’re friends. They’re having a conversation. But let’s take a listen to their clip.

**Female Voice:** I would love to travel and work.

**Female Voice:** I would say I would – I would trade anything to have that life again. Letting the company pay for everything.

**Female Voice:** Everything.

**Female Voice:** On my travel. True. Oh my gosh, like and you just go a couple of seminars, you know. You work with a couple of teams. That’s it. And then after that you’re good. You got a day, a day and a half, or two days to chill.

**Female Voice:** Especially when I used to travel back and forth to Houston like it was just great. Because I’m like [unintelligible], tour the Budweiser facility, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that. And get to hang out with my friends down there. You can really make places a second home at that point when your job is paying them for—

**Female Voice:** Hey I’m going to be in the city on so-and-so, so-and-so date.

**Female Voice:** Right.

**Female Voice:** And then especially if you know somebody there, you can take that. I could use this little hotel money for some more food and drink. Give me that American Express card.

**Female Voice:** Right.

**Female Voice:** So, yeah.

**Female Voice:** Cash me out.

**Female Voice:** But the people that don’t have that work-life balance, I couldn’t imagine like just the money sacrifice for your mental health. Like does that money, does your pay rate, does your salary sacrifice for you not having a life?

**Female Voice:** But see I’m just trying to think about what millennials that I know that I don’t know have a work-life balance.

**Female Voice:** I don’t know none, but you know it’s some out there.

**Female Voice:** Of course. Of course.

**John:** So, as opposed to the other conversation which felt very leaned forward, this one felt leaned back to me. This feels like people who are comfortable in their chairs having this conversation. So they’re very actively listening, but there’s not that frenzied pitch of sort of like got to get on the next thing, got to get on the next thing. And there’s no hunger to be funny, or to score a point.

**Craig:** Correct. So the difference here contextually is what happens when you’re dealing with a conversation where three people who don’t necessarily know each other are conducting an interview and being hyper engaged or two people who know each other really well. These two women know each other really well. It almost seems like what’s happening is they share a brain. And they’re having thoughts and they’re just alternating which one of them is going to say the shared brain’s thoughts. Because they’re in utter agreement and there’s no inquisition. It’s just a complete commiseration, celebration of agreement. The pace of it slows down because they’re in no rush to kind of impress or keep anyone’s interest, by the way.

They don’t seem to be aware that anybody would be listening. They are literally there for each other. It’s wonderful.

**John:** Yes. But I need to point out this is Episode 404, so this podcast has been going on for a very long time.

**Craig:** There you go.

**John:** Which I think is also great. So they have such a long history. You know, as long a history as you and I do basically. And they know each other so well, so they can sort of anticipate the brain.

Now let’s think about this kind of conversation in your script. And talk about first what they’re talking about. They’re talking about work-life balance. They’re talking about taking business trips. Their conversation is so terrific and specific to sort of what they’re looking for in a business trip and sort of what is important. And how they would describe it versus two other people would describe it versus two other people is what makes these characters’ voices seem distinct and different. So it’s not about, yes, these are two young black women and they have millennial voices. There’s vocal fry. There’s all these sort of like very specific things about the actual audio tone of the language which is so great and worth studying.

But just the words on the page and sort of how they are framing their thoughts about it is what makes their conversation unique and specific.

**Craig:** Yeah. For something like this if I were trying to build a scene with these two women having a conversation about this topic my concentration would be on the woman who is listening. Because the interesting parts in a weird way between these two, at least in terms of their dialogue, is when the moment of agreement and hand-off occurs. “Yes.” I love – I mean, there’s this drawn out thing that happens which is much different than when Bowen and Matt go, “Right,” together. “Right.” This is like, “Yes!” It’s like a relief. You just said something true.

And I love the person listening and it’s like they’re hearing this wonderful – it’s like eating delicious food and then going, “Yes, this is so good.” And now let me talk. And then I want to switch over to the other one. And I would be describing them. And even editorially I would constantly be on the person listening, because that’s where to me at least that’s the fun part of these two is how much they – it’s their agreement. It’s their joy of agreement.

**John:** It’s easy to imagine characters who are like these two women in your story and finding great things for them to talk about. And I sort of like keep wanting to give them stories to hear how they would talk through it and how they would wrestle with a problem. So I kind of want to see them solving mysteries. I want to see them doing stuff because I think they actually have a really cool relationship with each other and it’s exciting to think about how they would talk about the stuff they’re encountering.

**Craig:** There’s something also very comic about agreement. I don’t know why. It’s just funny. When you imagine a scene where someone is explaining something to another person. Maybe they’re in opposition. But they have an ally with them. So they’re delivering a speech. And their ally occasionally goes, “That’s right. Damn straight. Amen. Sure said something there.” And at some point the person is going to turn to them and go, “Would you shut up? Stop agreeing.” Agreeing is funny. I don’t know why. It’s just the notion of just full agreement is amusing to me.

So, when I’m listening to them I have a smile on my face just from how happy they are to agree. And it’s a different kind of, like I said, there is a purity and an intimacy to these two because they don’t have any motives here. They’re not trying to get somebody to open up and inform them or educate them about their process or anything. There’s no guest. It’s just the two of them. It’s lovely.

**John:** We often think about well scenes have to have conflict and if there’s no conflict then there’s no scene. That is still largely true. But the conflict doesn’t have to become between the two characters who are talking in the scene. The conflict can be about what is happening in this situation. A conflict could be an outside party. But like it doesn’t mean that the two characters in any scene have to be directly in conflict. That’s not at all a goal.

Something about their relationship also reminded me about Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn in Swingers. And like, yes, they have contrasting styles, but they’re also buds and they can hang out. And the ability to hang out with interesting people is something that dialogue should give us.

**Craig:** There’s also the potential for – if we know you have a conflict, right, there may be an instinct to just get to the conflict. Jane shows up and tells Sheila, “I’m angry at you. Here’s why.” But sometimes the best way to introduce conflict is to just have an agreement fest and then suddenly on point seven someone says this and the other woman goes…

There’s a great sketch if you want to talk about dialogue and how much you can do with one word, there’s a great Key and Peele sketch where they play two women and one of them, Key, is going on and on about how she’s done with her man. And Peele is playing her friend. And all she says is, “OK.” And she has a thousand different Okays for like exactly, completely, I totally agree, right, oh that’s so true. And then Key’s character starts to say some things that are a little off and the OK becomes O-kay. And she never says anything else except OK. But there’s I think 50 different Okays. They each mean a different thing. It’s brilliant.

**John:** That’s great. And again in your script that probably is a good example of like a parenthetical where you’re going to have to put what is the actual shading of that OK in the situation.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** Yes. Great. Well that was a fun exercise. So let’s maybe try to do this again on some future occasion.

**Craig:** I would love to.

**John:** Because that was lovely to do.

Let’s do some questions. Matt from Massachusetts asks, “As I write a feature screenplay I am periodically trapped up by a vestigial thought from my novel writing days about first person versus third person omniscient perspective. In a novel it’s pretty obvious. But do you ever think about this in terms of screenplays, particularly if they don’t have voiceover? If your main character is in a situation where they can’t possibly know something we have to decide whether or not to become omniscient and share that information with the viewer.”

Craig, what is your thinking about limited perspective and omniscience as you’re coming up with a story? And do you always have a plan from the start, or is it situational?

**Craig:** It’s situational. So you make choices about perspective all the time. And I think we’ve done, certainly we’ve done at least an episode about perspective as a specific tool in our tool belt. You want to know from whose perspective and there are choices. It’s either from a character’s perspective or it is from the omniscient camera’s perspective. And if it’s from the camera’s perspective the point is we’re going to see something that the people don’t. Or, that we are seeing something that is a shared perspective by a lot of people. A crowd scene for instance.

So, you want to choose those moments carefully. Typically the kind of omniscient we’re going to see something but nobody else will, it’s the bailiwick of mysteries, thrillers, twisty kind of things. They are associated with the dum-dum-dum kind of sound in your head. And it needs to be used carefully I think. A little goes a long way.

**John:** My daughter has started watching Criminal Intent. Not, Criminal Intent. She’s started watching one of the CBS procedurals that’s been on for like 20 years. And so she’s watching an episode from the first season and I was so surprised because it opens with this scene that’s from the point of view from none of the actual main characters of the show. And it basically shows the crime but hides who the killer was in the crime. And then the rest of the episode is trying to figure out who the killer was. And it’s just not a format that I’m used to at all. But it was a very common format for a long time in procedurals.

So, I agree with Craig that you’re going to be making choices based on the situation you’re going to find yourself in and sort of whether it’s going to be most effective for us as the audience to have information that the protagonist doesn’t have. You’re also going to make some fundamental choices about how your story is told. And so this thing I was writing the treatment on I had to very explicitly from the start say we are not cutting away to this villain’s point of view. This is not going to be a movie where we ever see what the villain is doing independent of the hero.

**Craig:** And you’re allowed to set those ground rules. Just know that if you are going to make a point of saying here’s a thing that someone doesn’t know but now I’m telling it to you, it will always threaten artifice. It disrupts our verisimilitude. Because life doesn’t work that way.

In life we have a perspective. It’s through our two eyes. That’s what we get. So, it’s a little artificial. It can be wonderful. It can also be slightly cheaty. It’s one of those things.

**John:** Yeah. 1917 which was a great movie from this past year had incredibly limited POV where you only follow those guys as they’re walking through the trenches and doing everything. That’s an extreme example. But Parasite also does limited POV. And it could have cutaway to any of those character’s perspective on what they thought was going on. And director and writers really figured out what would be the most effective way to tell their specific story.

**Craig:** Exactly. All right. MJ writes, “Last year I made it to the second round of Austin Film Festival.” I assume that’s the screenwriting contest portion of that. “And after receiving the feedback and making changes I felt that my script was ready to submit to my company as a prospective buyer.” Hmm, they have their own company? Maybe they mean another company. “After reading the submission agreement, which they make every submitter sign, I became wary of signing it. My fiancé’s dad is a lawyer. And he said he became unhinged after reading the agreement. There’s one section in particular that concerns us.” And I think what MJ is saying is this is the agreement with the Austin Film Festival? I don’t know. Or with the company?

**John:** So he’s submitting it to a company it looks like. And so the submission agreement had some clauses in it.

**Craig:** OK. So their submission agreement is the problem. “Section five in short states that any damages awarded through arbitration shall not exceed $10,000 for film or $40,000 for television series. I have two questions regarding this. One, is this sort of agreement common? Two, what’s the likelihood that I could be screwed over by signing something like this?”

John? You have a law degree. I mean—[laughs]

**John:** As a lawyer…so what I will say is from other folks that I’ve talked to, some places do have you sign submission agreements. They’re not absolutely all that uncommon. I’m not particularly freaked out by this. I think if you’re approaching everything from a defensive posture like oh my god they’re going to steal my stuff and take my work and it’s all going to be a disaster, you’re not going to have a very good, happy time in this industry.

So, submission agreements are there because the company is trying to protect themselves from claims that someone stole – that their movie was stolen. This blockbuster was actually based on this thing that I sent into the company. So that’s why companies have submission agreements. Studios have them. Other places have them. I’m not actually not worried about it.

But I would ask is the place you’re submitting to have they made movies? Have they actually done things that are out there in the world? If it’s just some person you’ve never heard of, then I don’t know that it’s worth signing any submission agreement because I’m not sure that they’re worth anything at all.

**Craig:** Yeah. And behind all this there is a legal concept called adhesion contract. And adhesion contract, it sort of describes a lot of the sort of boilerplate that we are confronted with all the time. For instance, terms of use. We’re constantly signing terms of use that we do not read. And adhesion contract is basically boilerplate language that has been defined by one party. It’s usually a party that is bigger and stronger. And is set up as a kind of hard and fast and unnegotiable gate through which a kind of lesser powerful party has to go through. You don’t have a choice. Sign this or piss off.

And when you do have an adhesion contract there is a possibility that a court – let’s say this company did somehow do something damaging to you then a court would say, yeah, the fact that this poor writer had to sign your dumb agreement does not mean that it’s actually enforceable to the extent that you wish it would be.

That’s something that a lawyer would have to go through. And it’s not anything I think that anybody could ever count on. But just be aware that that is a concept in law. So, we’re held I guess to the standards of these boilerplate definitions maybe not quite as strongly as we think we are.

**John:** Yeah. So I think I’m speaking for both of us saying I’m not especially worried about this thing, but just any place you’re sending this to just keep an eye out for are they really a reputable place.

**Craig:** Yeah. Exactly. And, I mean, just remember that some of these things are signs of who they are. You know? Are they worried that people are going to be suing – have other people sued them? Is that why this is in there? Because they’ve…

By and large, again, you know, our position is people aren’t really actively ripping other people off actively. But there are a lot of bad actors in the world who do fuzzy – that gray area stuff. That’s where it gets gross. And if they’re all wired up on avoiding lawsuits and going to arbitration and limiting damages it makes me wonder why. So, anyway, something – food for thought.

**John:** Food for thought. Justin in Pasadena writes, “If a writers strike does end up happening, what advice can you give to us non-WGA writers? Are there any unique opportunities we should know about? Or might there be some workarounds we should use to our advantage? And, of course, how can we not step on any toes in the process?”

So prefacing all of this by saying we can talk through hypotheticals about a writers strike, but there’s nothing saying that’s going to happen. But Craig you and I were both around in the 2008 strike and I remember we both interacted with some folks who were not WGA members who were coming out to the picket lines and stuff like that, too. So, let’s talk through at least what we remember from the 2007-2008 strike.

**Craig:** Sure. Well, just as a matter of law, if you’re not a member of the Writers Guild, and the Writers Guild is on strike, that means there’s no current contract between the companies and the union. And you can certainly legally work for them. There used to be a thing, and maybe it’s still there, when you apply for a membership to the Writers Guild it says, “Did you work during the strike?” And you’re supposed to say “yeah I did” if you did. And then they in theory could kind of imply that you can never be a member here, but they’re actually not allowed to do that at all. I remember that came up in a boardroom discussion.

But that’s the legal reality. The ethical reality is, you know, the world does not look kindly on replacement players. Because what you’re doing is making it harder for the union to end the strike and ideally to end the strike in favor of the union that you want to want to be part of. Because one thing is for sure, Justin. The strike will end. And when it ends then you’re going to want to be part of that union. And you’re going to want to be part of a union that has made the best possible deal for its members. So, the question is were you making that easier or harder to do by taking this replacement writer job?

And also what do you think the companies are going to be paying you? Do they think they’re going to be paying you union stuff? You’re not going to be getting pension. You’re not going to be getting health. You’re not going to be getting residuals. You’re not going to be getting credit protections. So, do you want to know how to not step on any toes in the process, don’t take those jobs.

**John:** Yeah. Don’t take those jobs. I would also say back in 2008 it was sort of hard to find screenwriters and actually talk with them. And so one of the nice things about picketing, maybe the only nice thing about picketing is you got to meet a lot of other people. And so I got to meet a lot of other writers who I’d only sort of seen their credits. But I also got to meet a lot of writers who were not yet WGA members who’d come out at Paramount at 6:30 in the morning when I was picketing there. And I would talk to them as we walked in small circles. And some of them have gone on to become brand name writers in this industry.

So, it was a chance to be out there and talk with folks. But that was 2008. This is not 2008. I mean, there’s so many more opportunities to meet writers in person.

**Craig:** Way more.

**John:** Now than there ever were before. So that’s not a good cause for a work stoppage. Hopefully the situation will not come up at all, but if it were to come up I agree with Craig. You’re doing yourself and no one any favors by looking at this as an opportunity for you to advance your career.

**Craig:** Yeah, it’s pretty shortsighted. I have a side question. I mean, what is the value of the actual act of picketing for us? I’ve always wondered this. Traditionally the point of a picket line would be to picket the institution you were striking against. A factory. A hospital. A hotel. And then if scabs were coming into work they would have to go through the picket line and the people picketing would go “boo” and shame them. But just make it hard for other unions – so a lot of unions, we’re respecting the picket line. We’re not going through. We don’t really have that ability. It’s not like the trucks stopped rolling into these lots, or anybody else stopped rolling into the lots. We wouldn’t even picket every single thing.

In our circumstance, isn’t the best tool we have to just not work? I’m just curious. What do we get from the picketing other than the kind of meeting other writers and getting exercise, which for us honestly as a group super important?

**John:** I would say, top of my head I would say visibility just to make it clear that this is an actual thing that’s happened. Something that news cameras can point out is kind of useful. A reminder that a thing is actually happening so that people who work inside a studio on a daily basis can see like, oh that’s right, this is actually a thing that’s happening, even if they’re not in a development role. If they’re an accountant they say like, ah, this is a thing that’s happening. So that the president of the studio has to drive past that picket line every day is not probably a great thing for them.

But I think there’s also an aspect of solidarity and just sort of – because what is different about a person who is working on a factory line is that they see their coworkers every day. Screenwriters don’t see each other every day. I mean, TV writers do see each other every day. And so there is probably a solidarity and we’re all in this together thing which is I’m guessing important about picketing classically. But I think it’s fair to ask. This is a different time now than 20 years ago. Things do change.

**Craig:** Yeah. I’m just kind of curious if there’s some other less industrial revolution way of doing this. Because I don’t perceive that in the 2007-2008 strike that the act of picketing itself had a dramatic impact on what we did. I could be wildly wrong on that. There’s a certain performative aspect to it that I’m just wondering. Like is there something better? I guess really I’m not saying don’t do something, but rather is there a better version or a more impactful modern version?

**John:** If you have thoughts about that as listeners you can write in and tell us what you think.

**Craig:** Neo-picketing. What would it look like?

**John:** All right. It is time for our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing is this website called Travel Time. And so often with Google Maps and other things you can figure out how long it will take you to get from point A to point B. So like from my house to Disney, how long will it take for me to get there as I’m getting my picketing sign ready to march there? This is the opposite of that. So this basically says given a certain amount of time from a certain location how far could you get. This is based on usual traffic or how transit lines work. And it’s really fascinating to look at different cities and say like, OK, from the center of London in one hour I can get through to basically anywhere in London. Center of Los Angeles, how far can I get to somewhere in the Los Angeles region? And it’s disappointingly small in number.

**Craig:** Well, I would love to see how far you can get in London in one hour, because I feel like there was one point where I think I went three blocks in an hour.

**John:** Oh, certainly not driving. But like through the Tube and other ways.

**Craig:** Through the Tube, yes. Or walking even, yeah.

**John:** Yeah. Walking. So it’s an interesting way of comparing cities and sort of the choices cities have made. Also just how geography sometimes constrains the ability of cities to function certain ways.

**Craig:** That sounds excellent. I love any tool that makes traveling easier. I have to travel a lot more than I ever thought I would. And so I’ve become like super fussy about making it easier for myself.

My One Cool Thing is another person. So I think two weeks in a row that my One Cool Thing is a person. And this is slightly political. Not even slightly. It’s completely political. My One Cool Thing this week is a man named Mark Kelly. Mark Kelly is running for the Senate in Arizona. He’s the Democratic Party candidate for the Senate in Arizona. This is going to be a special election because of the death of John McCain. So when John McCain died the Governor of Arizona appointed Republican Martha McSally who is not good.

And so Mark Kelly is running. Mark Kelly, I’ve met him, he is fascinating. He is a former astronaut. And he is a combat veteran as well with the navy. And he is also the husband of Gabby Giffords, who was the former congresswoman from Arizona until she was shot by a deranged gunman. And, you know, went through traumatic brain injury. And he’s had one hell of a life.

And he is just a remarkably decent guy and kind of a reminder that there are still these wonderfully principled people who have dedicated their lives to this country. And who have also suffered personally because of the way some of our laws work in this country and have not given up. If anything else they have tripled down and said I want to fix it. And sometimes there are days when I think I don’t want to be here anymore. [laughs] And then I look at – and I talk to a guy like Mark Kelly who says of course you do. And we fix it. That’s what we do.

So my One Cool Thing this week is Mark Kelly. And, of course, if you want to – he doesn’t do PACs or anything like that. He’s just taking personal donations. So if you want to donate to him just look up I think – what’s the website? Think Blue? Act Blue?

**John:** Act Blue.

**Craig:** Act Blue. Think Blue is the Dodgers slogan. Sorry. Act Blue is the header organization that collects individual donations for democratic candidates. And you can Google up Mark Kelly and find his Act Blue site and make a donation if you so desire.

**John:** Fantastic. We’ll have a link in the show notes to that as well. Stick around after the credits because we will be talking much more politics. But for now, Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao with production assistance this week by Stuart Friedel and Dustin Bocks. It was edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is again by James Launch and Jim Bond.

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 am @johnaugust.

You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. In those show notes you’ll have the links to all the clips that we used. Thank you to the people who put that stuff online. That’s great. It helps us figure out how people talk in real life.

You’ll find the transcript for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. We get them usually within the week the episode airs. And remember you can sign up to become a Premium member of Scriptnotes at Scriptnotes.net. That gets you all the back episodes and the bonus segments like the one we’re going to do right now. Craig, thanks for a fun show.

**Craig:** Thank you, John.

[Bonus segment]

**John:** Craig, more politics.

**Craig:** Oh goodie.

**John:** Oh goodie. Good stuff. So, here’s a thing that I’ve been doing recently, and I think this was a suggestion from Jon Lovett on Pod Save America. Is when someone says, “Oh, you know Trump is going to get reelected,” the response should be what are you doing today to stop that.

**Craig:** Love that.

**John:** Basically to throw that back at it. So, on my daily to do list I have this sort of quarter sheet that I use as my to-do list of what I’m going to do every day. And at breakfast I fill it out. I have a new entry in there and it’s Defeat Trump. And every day I have to do something that will actually advance that goal. And so generally it is donating to political candidates, but sometimes it’s actually reading up about things. It’s filling out my California ballot. It’s researching sort of who I want in certain offices. So, I’m trying to do something every day to make sure that I don’t wake up a year from now in an actual fascist nation.

**Craig:** Well I think that’s a great plan. Have you considered somehow destroying the orange makeup factory? How deep do you go?

Yes, I also do not want to – look, I think we are actually every day waking up in a country that is – I’m not going to be an alarmist and say that we are currently living in a fascist state. But we are living in something that is in between what we were and a fascist state.

**John:** Yeah. It’s trending in a bad direction.

**Craig:** Oh yeah. And particularly this latest thing. I mean, the wall between the Justice Department and the White House has always been a kind of necessary check and balance to power. It’s gone. That is terrifying. And the rule of law is breaking down. And one of the reasons why it’s just as important to me that if you have to put all your money on one bet, and it’s a proposition bet, yes or no, you’re always going to be incurring a lot of risk, even if the odds are in your favor you’re incurring risk. So, if the big bet is get rid of Trump that is incurring risk that you will fail.

What you do to hedge that is actively support people who are running for the Senate in particular. I don’t think the makeup of the House of Representatives is going to change dramatically. I think if anything it will even get better, I hope, in terms of people who are opposed to Trump. If the Senate can swing over and be opposed to Trump that is a big deal. Then it is a different situation. It is a wildly different situation.

So, I’m working on that as well. But I think that you’re right. People who sit there and go, “Well you know…” Look, no. Because, OK, fine, then what are we supposed to do? Just curl up and die? I mean, you fight. You rage, rage against the dying of the light.

**John:** Yes. I think back to the special episode we recorded right after Trump was elected called Everything is Going to be OK.

**Craig:** Is it? Were we right?

**John:** But here’s what I’ll say. The fear I was feeling at that moment was so intense. And I sort of thought we would get to this place that we’re at right now. I thought we would get there within a few weeks. And so I guess I was surprised that it’s actually taken this long to do it and the sort of level of incompetence with evil is sort of what’s taken so long to do that.

**Craig:** Correct.

**John:** That Stephen Miller didn’t know how to do all the terrible things he wanted to do so clearly.

**Craig:** Ted Cruz would have done way more damage by now.

**John:** Oh yeah. Absolutely. So I can take some comfort in that and also in the great successes that happened in the 2018 elections where you saw like, oh, people will actually show up and vote the smart people in. So that gives me a lot of hope.

What’s been frustrating I would say, especially the last three weeks, is looking at the Democratic primaries and the degree to which the people who should be most outraged about what’s happening, the Justice Department things, are directing all of their vitriol at Democratic candidates, which is ridiculous and pointless.

**Craig:** So stupid.

**John:** Let me stipulate, the Democratic nominee is very likely going to be Jewish, gay, or a woman.

**Craig:** Good lord.

**John:** Almost a guarantee. Unless Biden somehow magically pulls out, it’s going to be one of those three things.

**Craig:** That’s awesome.

**John:** But it’s true though, right?

**Craig:** Yeah, it does seem – well, the one thing I will say–

**John:** Oh, Bloomberg.

**Craig:** Yeah. And Biden, we are pretty early. So we’re going to run into these other states. We don’t know.

**John:** Or it’s going to either be–

**Craig:** Old.

**John:** It’s either going to be Jewish, gay, woman, or it’s going to be Joe Biden.

**Craig:** Yes. Correct.

**John:** So we have to be prepared for those scenarios. And in preparing for those scenarios let’s be more mindful about the things we are saying about those groups and Joe Biden, because that may be who we are running. So you and I recorded a segment we actually snipped out of the show because it was just goodbye mentions where I ranted about sort of the homophobia and sort of antigay stuff I was seeing being directed towards Pete Buttigieg which was really happening. And I was so frustrated that it was from these people who claim to be giant liberal supporters and that I wasn’t seeing it being called out.

You could say the same about the sexism. You could say the same about anti-Bidenism. Whatever you want to call that.

**Craig:** Antisemitism appears to be missing, which is I guess good? I mean, it is good. Of course it’s good. It’s just kind of curious.

**John:** If we end up with Sanders as the nominee–

**Craig:** Then it will come roaring back.

**John:** It’ll come roaring back and it’s going to be harder to claim the moral high ground when you went after the gay guy fine, you went after the woman fine. So, let’s just, I mean, let’s all be better.

**Craig:** I know. I’m bracing for that. I never forget like how – well, I do. Sometimes I forget. And then America reminds me how many people in America just hate Jewish people and believe that they’re some sort of weird devils in charge of everything. And so I’m bracing for that. If Bernie Sanders is the nominee I just feel like oh boy here we go. Which is a very – you know, it’s a pretty Jewish thing of me think. It’s the way we are.

But, I have been so just – I guess like a dum-dum, just simply focused on doing what needs to be done to get rid of Trump, and I’m happy to make positive arguments, and I could I think make positive arguments for all of those candidates. Maybe not Mike Bloomberg. But all the other ones. But the idea of tearing any of them down right now seems virtually insane.

**John:** Yeah. It does.

**Craig:** What? What? I mean, love who you love. It’s a little bit like my attitude towards movies and television. Like I talk about the things that I love because I think that’s where you actually get the most information. I mean, when they attack each other I feel sick right now, truly sick, in a way I never did before because I just think like, no, we can’t – we can’t. My god.

**John:** We can’t slice each other up over really what are minor differences in what we’re trying to do. The idea that this candidate who is not as progressive or this candidate who is more progressive is going to destroy everything if they become elected is a tremendous fallacy. And so dangerous and so feeds into exactly what the disinformation campaigns are hoping for, where you can’t even tell who are the bots and who are the people who just aren’t thinking this through very well.

**Craig:** Yeah. And, look, we know that social media is designed to amplify the extremes. It’s just what it does. Because the only way to rise above a kind of large averaged point of view is to be extreme. And then by getting amplified the extremes begin to pull more people to the extremes.

You want to know who I want to vote for? Whoever is running against Donald Trump.

**John:** 100%.

**Craig:** That’s who I want to vote for.

**John:** And I do like that the candidates will repeatedly say that. They’ll say after each primary they’ll say of course we’re going to support whoever. That’s great. But I think it’s also a good moment to call out like and don’t be assholes to everyone else online because we need everybody here and we need to all be rowing in the same direction.

**Craig:** All hands on deck. All hands on deck. And, look, do I have a preference right now? I mean, I have some. Because, look, California we don’t have to vote just yet. So, I’ve been thinking about it because I don’t feel a great need to decide in this moment right now and commit to a team and be Team Blank or Team Blank. I’m just thinking about it and reading. And that’s how that’s going to go. But I will say that the argument that we have to vote for A or you cannot vote for B because they can’t beat Trump is horseshit.

**John:** Yep.

**Craig:** Every single one of these candidates can beat Donald Trump. Every single one of them. I believe that at the bottom of my heart. Anybody that says Bernie Sanders can’t beat Donald Trump is nuts. And anybody that says that Pete Buttigieg can’t beat Donald Trump is nuts. And the same for Amy Klobuchar and the same for Joe Biden. And by the way, the same even for Mike Bloomberg. Honestly I do believe that in the end what’s going to happen is the great majority of people are going to be voting against Donald Trump.

**John:** Yep. It has to happen.

**Craig:** Let’s not cripple our candidate before they get in there. Let’s not hobble them, you know.

**John:** Yeah. So let’s look at these as competitors for that spot, but not as opponents. Not as villains. We are trying to pick who it is that we think can run this race the best. But that does not mean that we are going to cede any ground to the person who is already in that office.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, look, I think that because I believe that all of them are capable of beating Donald Trump, then I can also actually then I who would I like to be president of these people. Who would be my preferred candidate? And there are all sorts of reasons to say one or the other. But my god the thought of going out there and saying something cruel about another one of these candidates, I mean, at times I lose my patience with the supporters of a certain candidate because they just are, you know, a handful.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** But that’s not going to translate to me tearing that candidate down.

**John:** 100%. And I will knock on doors for whoever that person is who is running against Donald Trump.

**Craig:** Yeah. Absolutely. I will donate the maximum amount that I can as an individual. I presume that my wife will as well. And, yeah, I’ll knock on doors and I’ll do what I have to do. I think we’ll all just line up. I mean, that’s the thing. We have to line up and do what needs to be done. And accept that there is no perfect answer. There’s just a better answer. So can we please just choose our better answer with respect for each other and advocate as hard as we can? And I could be wrong, but again with the exception of Mayor Bloomberg who I’m a little concerned about, which is fair, I’m allowed to be concerned, I don’t think that any of the candidates pose an existential threat in the way that Donald Trump does to everyone. But particularly Donald Trump poses an existential threat to immigrants, to people of color, to trans people. Generally to LGBTQ people, I think. And to journalists. And to the law.

Now, what else do I need to say?

**John:** To the notion of democracy. Yes.

**Craig:** Correct. To our existence. It is an existential threat to us and our standing in the world and our place in the world and our future. And in the end – oh, I forgot the biggest one – to our ability to live on this planet.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Because he is not helping solve the coming climate crisis. He’s like how can we speed it up.

**John:** Yep.

**Craig:** So really we’re going to tear down any of these candidates while we’re – here comes a car. The car is about to hit you. Who would you like to stop that person in the car? Only this person, no one else.

**John:** No one else.

**Craig:** OK. So what if that person, you don’t get that person? Then I’m getting run over. O-kay. Cool. Cool man. Cool. Good for you.

**John:** Good plan. Craig, thanks.

**Craig:** Thanks John.

**John:** Bye.

* [Victory for both partnered Irish election opponents](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/10/irish-election-couple-who-ran-against-each-other-social-democrats-fianna-fail-both-get-elected) we discussed in [episode 436](https://johnaugust.com/2020/political-movies)
* [Scriptnotes, episode 241](https://johnaugust.com/2016/fan-fiction-and-ghost-taxis), in which John predicts Parasite
* [Assistants’ Advice to Showrunners](https://johnaugust.com/2020/assistants-advice-to-showrunners)
* [Mythic Quest](https://tv.apple.com/us/show/mythic-quest-ravens-banquet/umc.cmc.1nfdfd5zlk05fo1bwwetzldy3) on Apple TV+
* [California Penal Code 632](https://www.wklaw.com/practice-areas/eavesdropping-penal-code-section-632/) and the legality of eavesdropping
* [Scriptnotes, episode 433](https://johnaugust.com/2020/the-one-with-greta-gerwig) with Greta Gerwig
* [Appalachian English](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU&feature=youtu.be) from Mountain Talk
* The Austin History Center’s [accounts from visitors](https://soundcloud.com/austinhistorycenter/ahc-3303-klempner-cindy) and an [interview with architect Tom Hatch](https://soundcloud.com/austinhistorycenter/ahc-3341-hatch-tom-20180502a-clip2)
* Ben Platt on [Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/las-culturistas/e/65248782?autoplay=true)
* [Fck Work But Ima Go, episode 404](https://anchor.fm/fckworkpodcast/episodes/Ep–404—Is-You-Gone-Help-or-Micromanage-eao8pe/a-a1ebg8f)
* Key & Peele’s [OK (uncensored)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pufATqebv8)
* [Scriptnotes, episode 45](https://johnaugust.com/2012/setting-perspective-and-terrible-numbers), in which we discuss perspective
* [Adhesion contracts](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/adhesion_contract_(contract_of_adhesion))
* [Travel Time](https://app.traveltimeplatform.com/search/0_lat=34.05513&0_lng=-118.25703&0_title=Los%20Angeles%2C%20CA%2C%20USA&0_tt=90)
* [Mark Kelly](https://markkelly.com/) is running for Senate in Arizona
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by James Llonch ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/438standard.mp3).