Drew Marquardt

The original post for this episode can be found here!

John August: Hey, this is John. Today’s episode was recorded late at night in front of a live studio audience, so unsurprisingly, it has some salty language. Listener be warned. Also, for Premium members, stick around after the end, because we have an audience Q and A that’s actually really good and makes Craig a little uncomfortable. Enjoy.

Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

Craig Mazin: My name is Craig Mazin.

John: This is Scriptnotes. It’s a podcast about what?

Audience: Screenwriting.

John: And?

Audience: Things that are interesting to screenwriters.

John: Wow, so good. So impressive. 581 episodes. They’re so well trained.

Craig: I’m so hurt by what just happened.

John: I want to thank Heidi Lauren Duke for singing our intro. Thank you, Heidi.

Craig: Thanks.

John: We are here at the Austin Film Festival, which we’ve been to many, many times. It’s been a minute since we’ve been at the Austin Film Festival.

Craig: It’s been three, four, five years.

John: Something happened, but now we’re back.

Craig: There was a little bit of trouble.

John: It’s exciting to be back here. Craig, this afternoon we were planning the show. One of the plans was we would get together for dinner. I did not join the dinner. I want to know, how was your dinner?

Craig: There was drinking. I have a vague sense of what will happen tonight, as I often do. It was a lovely dinner, actually. I’m not saying that it was lovely because you weren’t there. I’m simply saying it was lovely despite the fact that you were not there.

John: Also, live shows tend to be a bit loose and a little bit messy. The live show we did in Los Angeles, it was on a schedule there.

Craig: I know. I don’t like that. I like a nice, drunken, stupid, disorganized mess.

John: Originally, I had planned to be at this dinner, but then I had to do a pitch on a Friday evening for 90 minutes on Zoom.

Craig: That’s ridiculous.

John: Not the ideal time to pitch a movie, so I don’t know how it went. Either it’s going to be announced and deadline at some point or it will never happen. We’ll see what happens there.

Craig: Hollywood.

John: Hollywood.

Craig: Hollywood.

John: We’re not in Hollywood. We’re in Austin, Texas.

Craig: I’m so glad to be back, honestly. Thank you guys for showing up, honestly. It does mean a lot. Thank you. I don’t know if you’ve ever done a live show in this room.

John: I don’t think so. We’re usually at the other-

Craig: At the other place (mumbles under breath).

John: For some reason, we’re not at the other place this time.

Craig: I don’t know what happened there.

John: There’s lots of speculation about things that happened.

Craig: There was speculation.

John: I don’t know.

Craig: Perhaps the ghosts.

John: The ghosts finally got-

Craig: The ghosts got the upper hand.

John: We’re here in a big venue full of people, which is really exciting.

Craig: Thank you.

John: It’s 10 p.m. on a Friday night, which feels like the ideal time to talk about really serious issues that are facing screenwriters, television writers, the industry. Over the next three hours, we’re going to dig really deep into some of the fundamental issues afflicting the film and television industry. I think we’re all ready for this. Did we all stretch? We’re good for this.

Craig: I don’t really know what’s going to happen. I know you said earlier we were preparing, but really he prepared, and I was there near him.

John: Classically, we are on the floor of the hotel, which is the best place to plan for these.

Craig: He was telling me what I’m going to do.

John: Thank God we’re in a venue where we can just grab people and say, “Oh hey, do you want to be on this show?” We’ve got amazing guests for you.

Craig: We do.

John: Why don’t we just start with our guests?

Craig: Should we start bringing some guests on?

John: I think we should bring two guests on.

Craig: I don’t know if there’s any reason to delay other than to say… I will say that as the night goes on, at some point, and hopefully not too late in, we will have lots of Q and A. I love Q and A, and I’ll tell you why, guys. It’s not because I care about your questions. I don’t. It’s because I don’t have to prepare anything for it at all. I can just react. If I had my way, that shit would start right now, but because I don’t, I will do what he tells me to do. We have four guests tonight.

John: Four guests.

Craig: We’re going to start with two, Chuck Hayward and Brenda Hsueh. Chuck Hayward writes on or has written on Ted Lasso and WandaVision. Brenda Hsueh has written on a whole bunch of stuff, but the thing that I’m most excited about is the Ghostbuster movie, because I’m super excited about the animated Ghostbusters movie. Come on up, guys.

John: Obviously, we can talk about features, but I really want to talk about television with the two of you. I would love to get to know how you got started getting staffed for your first television show. Chuck, can you talk us through what were the scripts you wrote that got you staffed?

Chuck Hayward: I was an assistant for about nine years in Hollywood. I was doing a lot of coffee acquisitions and excrement consumption. After doing a whole lot of that for nine years, I was like, “All right.” I started sending my scripts around to people, agents’ assistants, managers’ assistants, and, “Hey, if you like this, kick it up to your boss.” Somebody did eventually. Then I got repped. Then the reps started sending me on meetings. I had no fucking clue what I was doing.

John: Chuck, before we get to that, talk to us about the scripts that you actually first approached people saying, “Hey, would you be willing to read this?” because that’s where I think a lot of people in this room are at is like, is this script right for people to actually read and think about you?

Chuck: I’ll tell you where I screwed up. I started writing scripts that were like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if X happened or Y happened or whatever?” My manager told me, “You should write something that’s very personal, write something that shows people, ‘Hey, here’s my view on the world. Here’s what my experiences have been, my perspective is, my humor is,'” because people originally, they were like, “Hey, we like you, but we don’t really know you from the script.” They say write what you know, but just really make sure you put a lot of yourself on the page. After I did that, that’s when I started actually getting hired for jobs.

John: Brenda, any similarities in your experience? What were the first things that you wrote that got attention?

Brenda Hsueh: I think for me, I was an Asian immigrant, and I was like, “Oh, that’s not a real job. Writing is not a real job.”

Craig: You’re right. It’s not.

Brenda: Like, “That’s not a thing.” I was sensible, and I was an English major. I wrote about Jane Austen and stuff. Then I was like, “I’ll be in television news producing or something like that.” My mom got sick, and then I had to take care of her. She was in LA. I was like, “Okay, I’m going to move out to LA to take care of my mom.” I was like, “Oh, I’m super derailed. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know why I would come out here. All my friends are in New York City. My job’s in New York City.”

Then in LA, when I was taking care of my mom, she’s a frugal Asian, and she was like, “Oh, you can’t just take care of me. You have to work and make money.” I was like, “Oh, okay.” I was tutoring overachieving Asian kids in SAT tutoring and anything I could bluff my way through. It was a lot of me going ahead in the book and being like, “What’s dew point?”

I met somebody at the alumni function that was a Seinfeld writer. Then I was like, “Oh, okay.” I was like, “Oh, this is a job. People can make money on this? This is interesting.” Then he was like, “Why don’t you try writing a spec?” Then honestly, I was so lazy, I was like, “Okay, writing. What’s the shortest one?” I was like, “Oh, half hour.” I was like, “Okay, I’ll do a half hour.” Because I was lazy, I’m like, “Oh yeah, that’s the one to do.” Then I was like, “Oh wait, actually that’s the hardest one to do,” because you have stakes and story and character but be funny and do it all efficiently in 22 minutes.

I got tricked into doing half hour. Then I was doing that in my bubble, taking care of my mom. Then I was like, “I don’t know how to get a PA job. I don’t know how to get a writer’s assistant job. I don’t know how to do any of that. I don’t know anybody.”

Craig: I am so amazed to see how this works out. It seems like you’re doomed for failure.

Brenda: For sure. I was like, “Don’t know anybody.” I was a sensible Asian, and I was like, “Okay, I’m going to give myself two to three years to break in.”

Craig: Tip: be a sensible Asian. Go on.

Brenda: I was like, “I’m giving myself two to three years like grad school.” I was like, “I don’t have to pay tuition.” I was like, “Okay, I just have to support myself, try to get better at this.” I basically just read every example of good writing of what I wanted to do, on the internet, guys. Then I was like, “Okay, I’m going to enter a contest,” because that’s what you did.

John: Oh, Craig, you love contests.

Craig: We’re about to hear about the contest that matters. Go on.

Brenda: I was like, “Okay, so since I have no connections, I’m going to enter a meritocracy,” which is a contest.

John: Oh, you think contests are meritocracies?

Brenda: Kind of, because they don’t know anything about-

John: Wow, let’s have a good, long-

Brenda: They don’t know anything about you!

John: Sorry. Tell us.

Brenda: I also am an Asian. I wanted to get paid. There was many contests, but there was only one that paid.

Craig: You know the rest of us want to get paid too? You know that, right?

John: [inaudible 00:09:56] that is. Tell us, tell us, tell us.

Craig: All the people want to get paid.

Brenda: There was an ABC Disney writing fellowship that was the only one that paid. I was like, “I’m going to apply to that one.” I was like, “Okay, if I get it, I get it. If I don’t, I don’t. I’ll do something else.” I was like, “All right, we’ll see.” I literally was like, “We’ll see.” Then I got it. Then I got a job on that. Then I got an agent off of that. I circumvented the whole-

Chuck: How dare you?

Brenda: I know.

Craig: Both of you, regardless of your arc-

Brenda: Very different.

Craig: Everybody has a different path in, but both of you arrive on your first day. I want to hear what that was like, when you’re no longer doing excrement consumption, you’re no longer just taking care of your mom. You’re not taking care of your mom and doing a job, because your mom is apparently a tyrant.

Brenda: She’s just an Asian mom.

Craig: I have a Jewish mom. It’s-

Brenda: Similar.

Craig: It’s bad, so I know. What was that first day like, when you’re like, “Okay, I made it.” Did you feel like you made it? How did that go?

Brenda: It’s hilarious. When I got the fellowship, there was one show that was like, “We will take a writer.” There was three of us that were interviewing for this show. I didn’t realize in comedy when you go on an interview, you are basically going on a high-stakes date. You just be charming and lovely and funny and a raconteur but not seem nervous. I was such a nerd that I was like, “Oh, how do I prepare for this?” I literally wrote up potential questions and answers for this interview, which would’ve been fine.

Craig: Sounds awesome.

Brenda: I did that. I typed them out, and I printed them out. I had it on a piece of paper. I was in the office, waiting to be called in. I was just reviewing it like a nerd. I was like, “Okay.” This would’ve been fine. Then I get called in. We go for the meeting. I forget to put the piece of paper away. I fold it up. I’m holding it in my hand.

It’s going great. The interview’s going great. For 10 minutes, I’m charming their socks off. Then the showrunner’s like, “What’s in your hand?” I could’ve lied and just been like, “My shopping list.” I’m so honest, and I can’t lie, so I was like, “Oh, it’s the potential questions I thought you would ask and the answers that I would give you.”

John: If I’m the showrunner, I’m delighted by that, by the way.

Brenda: He’s like, “What are they?”

Craig: Did you share?

Brenda: Yes, I had no choice. Literally, they said the question. They were like, “Why do you think you got into writing?” One of the answers is because I had no friends growing up and because I’m a nerd.

Craig: Oh my god. “I’m repellent.”

Chuck: Be a friendless, frugal, nerdy Asian, and that is how you get-

Brenda: You’re getting the picture.

Craig: It’s easy.

Brenda: My older sister and I were best friends, because we had no other friends. We had a world called Dolly Land, where we had stuffed animals, and we would just create a whole world with our stuffed animals.

Craig: That’s terrifying.

Brenda: It’s not terrifying. It’s delightful.

Craig: It’s terrifying.

John: It is a Pixar movie.

Brenda: It’s Toy Story. It’s Toy Story.

Craig: Or a Blumhouse movie.

Brenda: My sister and I would make up stories and narratives and characters with our stuffed animals. I remember she would be the mayor. She was older. She was like, “I’m the mayor.” She’s like, “You are the vice mayor.”

Craig: The vice mayor.

Brenda: Even at seven, I was like, “That’s a fucking made-up-”

Craig: You knew that was bullshit.

Brenda: I was like, “That is not a real office.” I was like, “That’s made up.”

Craig: That’s fucked up. Your sister’s awful.

Brenda: It was a lot of us playing stories and making up stories all the time with our stuffed animals. I was like, “Oh, that’s where I got this.” I was like, “Oh, we were just acting out stories with our stuff all the time.” I had to tell the story.

Craig: It worked.

John: It worked.

Brenda: It worked.

Craig: It worked.

John: You got the job.

Brenda: I got the job.

John: Chuck, what was your interview for your job that got you staffed?

Craig: Tell me please that it was the exact same thing.

John: Were there stuffed animals?

Chuck: My sister and I, we had dolls, but they were Transformers. It’s boring. My agent set me up with a bunch of showrunner meetings. The first seven or eight of them were like, “Go fuck yourself.” I was sending out this script that was basically about a non-stereotypical gay man who was a chronic masturbator who couldn’t get his life together, so semi-autobiographical. I’m like, “I’ll just go in there and I’ll be myself and we’ll toss it back and forth. We’ll go at it.”

Then I meet with Tad Quill, who I adore, who is one of the WASPiest men in the history of WASPing. Whatever I was saying, he would like, “That’s good. That’s funny. That’s funny.” About 30 minutes later, I was like, “Okay, I am not getting this job, so I’m going to get out of here.” Then I got the job.

John: Yay!

Chuck: Turns out, just be yourself and don’t worry about your audience. You might get a cold room, but they end up liking you sometimes.

Craig: I love both of these stories, because as you’re going through this, one no after another, it’s very tempting to just look at it as a part of a pattern that will continue on forever. Then one day you get the yes. You didn’t change. You didn’t change. They did.

Chuck: The nos are great, because then you build your revenge list. I know that at some point down the road, I will take all those people down, and it’ll be fun.

Craig: That’s the only thing that gets me up in the morning is anger, honestly, just anger.

Chuck: Listen, revenge, it’s a dish best served cold.

John: My question for the two of you is… You had studied this job a little bit. You wanted to be writing in TV rooms. What were the biggest things that you guessed wrong about what the job would be like? What were your misconceptions going into that room about what you should do or how it would be? What were the things that surprised you about it?

Brenda: I don’t know if it was a surprise, but I think it was hard for me as a writer, because when I was writing alone, I was like, “Oh, I hear the joke, and I can just write it on a piece of paper.” The thing that you have to do well in a room is pitch. I’m like, “Oh, you have to sell it.” It’s not the same skillset. It’s one thing to pitch an idea and not get a reaction. It’s another thing to pitch a joke and it not-

John: Give us an example.

Craig: Give us an example of your failure.

John: Your first show is How I Met Your Mother?

Brenda: Yes, that was my first show.

John: Great. What is a joke in that? Is it already within the scene, what the next punchline is going to be, or what are you trying to sell?

Brenda: It’s all very character-driven and premise-driven. What I would do is, I would sit near the showrunner and just pitch quietly, but they could hear it. It was the way that I would slowly gain confidence in my pitching. What did you do? Did you have any issues with that?

Chuck: No, I just pitched terrible jokes. I called myself the cricket-maker, because I’d say the-

Brenda: Just embrace it.

Chuck: … funniest fucking thing I could think of it. Then it was like, “All right, I’ll stop doing that.”

Craig: The cricket-maker. That’s funny.

Brenda: You’re like, “That’s a good name.”

Chuck: Unfortunately, that’s where my comedy lay was in my own failure.

Craig: Your lack of ability is hysterical.

Chuck: Exactly. I chose the wrong career. The biggest surprise was I thought you just go in there, and you come up with stuff off the top of your head. You come up with stuff that you feel like is topical or that works in your showrunner’s voice or whatever. A lot of it is sharing yourself. A lot of the times, the likelihood of your pitch getting taken is increased if you say, “Hey, this happened to me. Here’s a story that I went through.” By the way, it can be the darkest, most fucked up, most terrible story ever, and then you can be like, “I felt like our character might be able to do something like this.” I’ll give you an example if you don’t mind.

Craig: Please.

Chuck: On that show Bent, which was my first show, there was Amanda Peet and David Walton. They were dating. We needed a reason why Amanda Peet really wanted to have sex right away. Nobody could come up with a reason. I was like, “Hey, I don’t know if this helps, but I had sex a couple of months ago because if I had waited another month, it would’ve been a two-year dry spell since I had had sex the last time. Maybe that’s her thing. She needs to not hit that awful deadline.” My showrunner goes, “I like it. I like it.” Tad goes, “Let’s make it one year though so it doesn’t sound so pathetic.”

John: He plus-oned it, yeah.

Chuck: That’s what I always say the best part about being a writer is, is the worst thing that happens in your day, in your life, in your world, you get to make money off of it.

John: What I hear both of you saying, which is a truism that we’ve heard throughout 581 episodes of doing Scriptnotes, is that by being your authentic selves, you were cast in that role of the writer of that show, but also you could pitch things that you were the only person in that room who could pitch. You could be very specific that you’re not trying to write for somebody else or some mythical audience or some mythical showrunner. You were writing what you could do.

Brenda: It’s funny, because I’ve been in this business long enough where I think being Asian was a liability in the beginning, but it’s awesome now, which is great. I’m glad we’re on the other side. In the beginning, I wanted to write about my dad and how he’s a real stoic Asian dad that’s repressed and taught me to be a repressed Asian man. Basically, I was like, “That’s hilarious.” I was like, “I can’t really write about an Asian dad. That’s crazy.” I’m like, “What’s a white comp for that?” I was like, “Oh, a CIA dad, a crazy CIA repressed white guy.” I had to make a show about that. I was like, “That’s palatable. That I can cast. That is what a thing is.” That was early on. Now I’m like, “Oh, he could just be an Asian dad. That’s great. I can do that,” which is progress, which has been amazing.

Craig: It is progress.

John: That’s nice.

Craig: Now you can humiliate your father on television or in movies.

Brenda: Now I can just be blatantly about it.

Craig: That’s awesome.

Brenda: I don’t have to hide it.

John: Cool. Chuck and Brenda, stick around, because we’re going to keep you up on stage. You’re not going anywhere. We’re going to play an audience game, because we have a big audience. We want to play an audience game. I asked earlier today who would be willing to be a contestant on this game. I texted with Kelly McAllister. Kelly McAllister, are you here? Kelly McAllister!

Craig: Yay.

John: Can you go to that microphone? Craig, you remember our last time here in Austin.

Craig: Yes, I do.

John: It was really fun.

Craig: It was.

John: Then we got a call afterwards.

Craig: Little bit.

John: We had a little bit of a moment.

Craig: We got in a little bit of trouble, because the last time we were here, we did a live show.

John: In the other place where we can’t talk about anymore.

Craig: I happened to be somewhat friendly with Mr. Beto O’Rourke, and he appeared on screen and encouraged everybody to vote, because around this time, obviously, elections are coming up. He encouraged everybody to vote. It was a message about voting. I guess that was maybe too political, and their rules-

John: Their rules. Basically, the Austin Film Festival is a-

Craig: No politics.

John: … nonprofit organization. It shouldn’t have a political agenda. We get that.

Craig: We get it.

John: I had a long, uncomfortable phone call.

Craig: We don’t. I’m going to be honest.

John: I had a long, uncomfortable phone call, because I did this.

Craig: We don’t get it.

John: Tonight, no political content at all. We’re just going to have fun.

Craig: We’re only going to deal with facts.

John: Facts and fun. Facts and fun.

Craig: Facts.

John: That’s the Scriptnotes way.

Craig: Facts and fun.

John: We want to do some movie trivia. In the spirit of spooky season, we’re going to give you, Kelly, some log lines to some scary movies, and you need to tell us the film.

Craig: That’s easy.

John: That’s simple, right?

Craig: Right.

John: Easy, right?

Craig: Easy. Since horror films, as you know, are often commentaries on modern issues, we’re also going to ask you a second question. Please do not answer the first question until you hear the second question, because it’s important. The first question, we’ll give you a log line. You have to name the movie. The second question will be a related question about current events.

John: Current events.

Craig: Current events.

John: Facts. No political content, just facts.

Craig: Nothing political, just facts.

John: Kelly, it is possible for you to score two points-

Craig: Two points.

John: … if you get both of them right.

Craig: Two.

John: Again, it’s just a game.

Craig: Just a game.

Kelly McAllister: I answer both after you say both things?

Craig: Yes, wait until you have heard both questions. Then you may buzz in. We don’t have a buzzer.

John: No, there’s no buzzer. Kelly, are you ready to play Nothing is Scary When Everything is Terrifying?

Craig: Is Kelly playing through all these questions?

John: Yeah, it’s just you and Kelly.

Craig: He’s just doing all of them?

John: Yeah.

Craig: It’s just Kelly?

John: Yeah. Originally, we were going to have two contestants, but now it’s just Kelly. It’s all Kelly.

Craig: It’s just you.

John: Question number one. In this 1974 classic, five friends head to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way, they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover a psychopath armed with a chainsaw.

Craig: Wait. Second question. However, Texans are much more likely to be killed by assault weapons. Yet according to this Texas governor, raising the age to purchase these weapons would be considered unconstitutional. For two points, can you name the movie and the governor?

Kelly: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Greg Leatherface Abbott.

Craig: That’s two points. Two points.

John: Two points. Two points.

Craig: Hold on. Come on.

John: We got [crosstalk 00:23:58] questions here.

Craig: We got a long way to go. You don’t want to-

John: Matthew can’t cut it down this much.

Craig: Kelly at this point is just like… It was the best moment of his life. We have so much to do. Let’s build it for him, okay? Are you ready for question number two?

Kelly: I am.

Craig: In this 1994 sequel, an evil leprechaun selects the descendant of one of his slaves to become his bride, leaving it up to the girl’s boyfriend to save her.

John: However, if they lived in this state, that boyfriend could be sued under state law by any citizen he assisted in getting her health care, such as terminating the resulting pregnancy. Leprechauns are not real, but women’s health is. For two points, can you name the movie and the state we’re talking about?

Craig: Trickier.

Kelly: That is, because I don’t want to instate the fine state of Texas.

Craig: The state, that’s right.

Kelly: Leprechaun 2.

Craig: Yes!

John: Leprechaun 2.

Craig: You get another two points.

John: Kelly, perfect score. Let’s keep going. Hush, everyone. Shh.

Craig: Easy, guys.

John: In this 2019 hit, a family’s serene beach vacation turns to chaos when their doppelgangers appear and begin to terrorize them.

Craig: Meanwhile, in 2022, Texas families with trans and nonconforming kids have their lives upended when this governor, so it’s going to be the same answer, instructed the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate medical treatments of transgender adolescents, such as puberty blockers and hormone injections, as quote unquote, “child abuse.” The policy is currently blocked, by the way. For two points, can you name the movie and the same governor from before?

Kelly: That would be Us and Greg Abbott.

Craig: There we go. He’s on fire, guys. Right about now, the people that did mention to us that we should be less political are having serious regrets.

John: Craig, we’re only saying facts.

Craig: That’s true.

John: We’re not telling anyone to do anything.

Craig: He’s right. It’s facts.

John: There’s no endorsement of any-

Craig: We may agree with what he’s done.

John: A hundred percent. Ask another question.

Craig: In this 2007 sequel, three American college students studying abroad are lured to a Slovakian hostel and discover the grim reality behind it.

John: In September of this year, Venezuelan asylum seekers in Texas were lured by a mysterious woman named Perla and flown to Martha’s Vineyard, part of a plan hatched by this governor. For two points, can you name the movie and the governor?

Kelly: Hostel 2, Ron DeSantis.

John: That’s great. I thought we might get him. I thought that was a trick question.

Craig: I gotta be honest. Kelly’s freaking me out with how good he is with the sequels.

John: These are good. I wouldn’t get some of these things.

Craig: Hostel 2?

John: Megana researched these. I didn’t do any of this.

Craig: I didn’t even know there was a Hostel 2.

John: Let’s try question number five. This 2001 film finds a brother and sister driving home through an isolated countryside for spring break, where they encounter a flesh-eating creature in the midst of a ritualistic eating spree.

Craig: Wait. We all agree that consuming teenagers is bad, but that’s not the only questionable diet out there. This TV doctor turned candidate was grilled by the House subcommittee on consumer protection for hyping green coffee beans as a weight loss secret. He also suggested that maybe he drank pee in medical school. For two points, can you name the movie and the candidate?

Kelly: Jeepers Creepers, Mehmet Oz.

John: Wow.

Craig: That’s exactly correct.

John: I would not know.

Craig: That’s great.

John: I would not know either of those things.

Craig: I love it.

John: This is all news to me.

Craig: I love the fact that, if you notice, Kelly, who is on an all-time high-

Chuck: He’s the Ken Jennings of this game.

Craig: Kelly is the Ken Jennings of the only game instance this has ever happened.

John: Indeed.

Craig: I like that he said Mehmet Oz. He didn’t even give him the honorary doctor.

John: No, took away.

Craig: In this 2014 film, a single mother and her child when an eerie children’s book manifests in their home.

John: Just last night, this enigmatic billionaire manifested his dream of buying Twitter, a move we both thing is great-

Craig: Officially.

John: … and not problematic at all. He definitely knows what he’s doing.

Craig: He knows what he’s doing.

John: For two points, can you name the movie and the billionaire?

Kelly: Strangely enough, Babadook is actually Elon Musk’s middle name.

Craig: What I like is that Kelly’s now just going for flair.

John: He’s riffing. He’s taking over this thing.

Craig: Do you guys see what you’ve done? This was a perfectly decent man, and he’s on his way to being a monster.

John: Final question. You could win it all here.

Craig: All. Or lose it all.

John: Or lose it all. In this 2021 film, a vacationing family discovers that the secluded beach they’re relaxing on for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly, reducing their entire lives into a single day.

Craig: If you think time is moving quickly on that beach, what day this week did CAA drop Kanye as a client over his antisemitic remarks?

Kelly: The film was Old, and I think it was Tuesday.

Craig: Don’t listen to the audience.

Kelly: I think it’s Thursday. I thought Thursday.

John: Come on, give us the answer.

Kelly: Today. Today. Wednesday. Monday.

Craig: Yes!

Kelly: Monday.

Craig: Yes, you got it right!

John: Monday is the answer.

Craig: You got it right!

John: Kelly.

Craig: A perfect score!

John: Thank you so much.

Craig: Perfect score!

Audience: Kelly! Kelly! Kelly! Kelly! Kelly!

John: Kelly, thank you!

Audience: Kelly! Kelly! Kelly! Kelly! Kelly! Kelly!

Craig: Oh, man.

John: As a prize, you get all those applause. That’s your prize. Thank you for playing Nothing is Scary When Everything is Terrifying.

Craig: Well done, Kelly. Good job.

John: Craig, we need some more guests.

Craig: The next two idiots, big friends of ours. Both have been on the show before.

John: Repeats.

Craig: Both are both feature writers and television writers, which I think is particularly interesting, because we have lots to talk about tonight with television, etc. Do I do credits? No. Alec Berg and Phil Hay.

Alec Berg: I found myself carried away during that game. I almost shouted from the front row, “The one about the Babadook! It’s The Babadook! It’s a good one!”

Craig: Kelly didn’t need no help.

Alec: No, he didn’t.

Phil Hay: It is really going to be impossible to follow that man.

Alec: A good improviser would try to take the incredible energy-

Craig: That Kelly provided.

Alec: … and humor and power that has happened thus far and build it.

Brenda: “Yes, and” it.

Alec: A great improviser would turn it into quiet tears and introspection. We’re great improvisers.

Craig: Let’s go for that.

Phil: Or just boring.

Craig: Let’s go for that.

John: We’ll go for that. I’m curious. The two of you are working on shows that are in subsequent seasons. I would love to talk to you guys about-

Craig: Mysterious Benedict Society.

John: … Mysterious Benedict Society, Barry, Silicon Valley.

Craig: Barry.

John: I’m curious about the conversations that go into your thinking but also into your writers’ rooms as you approach the second season of a show, because it’s one thing to figure out everything from the start, like, “What the hell is this show?” Then you have a show, and you have to go back and figure out, “Okay, what do we do next?” Phil, you’re new to television. I’m curious, going into Mysterious Benedict Society Season 2, what are the first conversations that you’ve come into that room with?

Phil: I will answer that question, but first I have a question for you.

John: Oh God, he’s taking control of the show.

Craig: Just violating our format, but fine.

Phil: How am I supposed to be funny talking about that?

John: You have no requirement to be funny.

Craig: You can’t be Kelly.

Phil: Fine.

Craig: No one else can be Kelly.

Phil: I’m going to provide content.

Craig: Content.

Alec: Make them cry, Phil. Make them cry.

Craig: Make them cry, Phil. Here we go.

Phil: The second season I would say when you’re making a show… This is the first show we’ve done, so this is new to us. I guess what we thought about right away was how to honor the growth that happened in the first season and to not try to redo what seemed to work and not try to undo anything, but to just grow. We had the advantage of having a second book in the series that we’re adapting that was in kind very different than the first. The first book and the first season of the series is a spy, undercover mission. The second one is sort of like a Mad, Mad, Mad World kind of peripatetic journey. There was a lot of just physical stuff that was different.

I guess one thing to be specific about that we thought about was how to put… There’s a lot of characters in our show. There’s many main characters. I think the one thing we specifically talked about is how can we take characters who haven’t been together a lot and put them together and find ways to see what happens when you take people who don’t naturally tend to each other among the characters and put them together and see what happens.

John: Mysterious Benedict Society has a really huge cast. On Barry, you have a much smaller core group of people. As you’re going into the second season-

Craig: Or third.

John: … or third, subsequent things, how are you figuring out like, “Okay, these the things we want to follow through.” Are you figuring out Barry’s line first and then who tips into it, or are there themes? What are the discussions for figuring out a shape for a season?

Alec: Every discussion we ever have is just about what is the honest, true emotion of what would happen next, what would this character do, and what’s real, not what would be cool, not what would be fun or funny, just what’s the honest emotion of this moment and what would happen. We started from the pilot that way, and we’ve just followed that forward ever since. It’s the fourth season now.

John: That’s right, fourth season.

Craig: Dammit, John.

John: Embarrassing us at our own show. Matthew, cut that out.

Craig: Wait, hold on. Do the question. “As we all know, Barry’s entering its fourth season.”

John: Fourth season.

Craig: As you progress into a subsequent season or a fourth season, showoff, even if you say, “Look, I want to insulate myself from Twitter and the world and all the rest of it,” the world exists. There is a feedback loop. You put the show out there. People have reactions, whether it’s reviewers or people online or anything. It is obviously dangerous to think, “Okay, we’re going to consider all that as we’re preparing to tell this story again.” At the same time, you can’t possibly be completely blind or deaf to it. How do you manage that aspect of it? I ask as a guy that may have to have that problem.

Alec: Honestly, so much of it was so funny to me. I don’t know who has watched Barry. I’m not pandering, I swear.

Craig: No. No. No.

John: No. No. No.

Alec: A seasoned professional.

Craig: That was fishing.

Alec: Seasoned professional. Just because we’re in our fourth season-

Craig: Fishing.

Phil: Just a little show called Barry.

Alec: There’s no reason.

Craig: Shame on all of you for falling for that.

Alec: No, guys.

Craig: Goddammit. You didn’t see these two doing that.

Alec: Why does Kelly get to have all the fun? Some of us are really needy.

Craig: He fought for that.

Alec: He did, and he earned every bit of it, dammit.

Craig: Goddamn you, all of you.

Alec: That man is a legend.

John: He replied to a tweet, so he gets all of it.

Craig: What did you do? Nothing.

Alec: One of the funniest things about Barry is… Sarah Goldberg’s character, Sally, is a lot. There’s a lot of debate online about is she the right person for Barry. People say, “She’s very needy and she’s narcissistic and she’s petty. I don’t know if I want Barry to end up with a person like that.” We’re sitting in the room going, “Barry kills people. He is a murderer.”

Craig: Murderer.

Alec: There are people he kills just because he has to, so he doesn’t get arrested. It’s so funny to me that people are concerned about him ending up with a nice girl. Stuff like that, I just go, “They’re following it in a different way than we are.” It’s nice to have the feedback and the affirmation, whatever. Honestly, for us it’s just about what makes sense to us in the room. If people don’t like it, honestly…

When we started the show, Bill’s movie… Bill did this movie called Trainwreck that was huge. Every day we were working on Barry, I felt bad because he was turning down immense movie offers to keep working on this show. I assured him. I said, “Look, we’re going to write this thing as aggressively and as hard as we can, because if this show fails, it’s honestly going to be the best thing that ever happened to you, because you’re going to get to do all of those movies.” We just said, “Look, we’re not going to try and hold anything back. We’re not going to try and please people for the sake of pleasing people. We’re going to write what is true and real and honest.”

Craig: You like pleasing people.

Phil: I love it, Craig. It’s how I get what I need. I was going to say that we’ve had an incredible experience with the fans of the book, who are very passionate. It’s really a wonderful feeling around these books. Everything that we’ve changed and modified seems to have been received really well, except for one thing. It’s weird, because it’s come up a couple times, where people are like… A lot of invention has to happen when you’re doing a show of some books. These books are beautiful. They’re truly inspiring.

There’s a small contingent that is really hung up on one thing. I discovered this because someone sent it to me like, “Isn’t this funny?” Then it kept happening, which is, “I’m out, because Kate Wetherall has blond hair and a ponytail, and in the show, it’s pretty clear… She’s often wearing a hat, which I don’t like as well, no hat. Beneath the hat, there’s no blond hair, and there’s no ponytail. We’re done.” I was like, “We’re not going to get the blond hair, ponytail people, but hopefully everyone else.”

Craig: As a guy adapting a popular video game, I can assure you I never have to deal with that problem.

John: 100%.

Craig: No one’s ever like, “Pedro Pascal’s beard isn’t full enough. That’s it.”

Phil: No, he uses a seven-millimeter clip or a nine-millimeter clip.

Craig: “I’m out.” I love it when people are like, “I’m out.” No one cares.

John: Great. We’re fine.

Craig: It’s fine.

John: We’re fine. We’re good.

Phil: Of course I care. I want to please everyone.

Craig: Then you’re like, “There’s a guy that’s out.”

John: Alec, you came up working on Seinfeld, which is running 22 episodes a year.

Craig: Guys, no.

Alec: Oh, yes.

John: On a regular comedy-

Craig: Dammit.

John: … there’s just churn. You’re burning through stuff. You’re writing. You’re producing. You’re filming. It’s all happening. There’s a schedule to it, versus something like Barry I suspect is written all in advance of when you’re shooting those episodes. Mysterious Benedict Society is also, I presume, completely written before you get started shooting, so that feedback mechanism is also very different. If you want to make a change, you realize, oh, that thing isn’t working very well, there’s a lot more gears to shift. Can you talk about the planning process when you know you have to get the whole thing done before you start filming versus adjust on the fly? What’s that been like for you?

Alec: Obviously, what’s nice about it is you can plan the whole thing out. The shooting schedule gets more efficient that way. That buys you a little bit more time, which means you can spend a little more time and energy getting that stuff right. Honestly, the big thing is you feel this immense pressure that we had all this time to do all of this, and if it doesn’t work, then we’re that much bigger idiots than we would’ve been if we had the excuse of we just didn’t have time.

John: For Barry, were all the scripts written before you started shooting?

Alec: I don’t know if a script is ever… We were two weeks away from shooting Season 3 of 4 when COVID hit. We finished writing Season 3, and then we were sitting on our hands. We asked HBO if we could put a writers’ room together. We wrote Season 4 also during COVID. Then based on what we had written in Season 4, we went back and rewrote Season 3. Based on what we had rewritten in Season 3, we then rewrote Season 4 again.

John: Oh, God.

Alec: If COVID had lasted three more years, we would’ve just gone back and forth between Seasons 3 and 4. Thank God we finally got to a protocol that was safe enough that we could start shooting. It’s weird. You get to the set sometimes, and you’ve had months and months and months to write something, and as soon as you’re there on set in that moment with cameras and lights up, you run it with the actors and you go, “This shit doesn’t work.” There’s no way you could’ve foreseen it. You have two choices.

Phil: Huh. That’s interesting.

Craig: Not familiar?

Phil: I didn’t really consider that. Interesting.

John: Tell us about the Mysterious Benedict way.

Craig: I don’t know what that’s like either.

Alec: You have two choices, Phil.

Phil: I feel for you, man.

Alec: You can either ignore those feelings and simply shoot what you have, or you can make everyone very uncomfortable and you can risk looking like an idiot. Bill and I have done this, when we’re sitting there about to roll. We’re both sitting there scratching on the back of our scripts, writing a new scene. We have actors who are very nimble and happy to roll with that. We also have actors that have a real system. They really work the dialog, and they want to own it and really have it in their bones by the day you show up. When they see you writing on the back of pages 30 seconds before they’ve gotta shoot something, they do not like it.

You have the conversation of, “Look, we could shoot what we had, and it might be a B-minus, or we can strive for something better, and we can all be very uncomfortable, and you can feel very exposed and betrayed and like we put you in a bad spot. We’re only doing it because I’m not happy with a B-minus, and I would rather take a shot at having an A-plus if it means that it brings a C-minus into play.”

John: Alec, I want to ask you a truthful question in front of all these people here. Are there any of those situations where you went through and rewrote the B-minus scene and it didn’t make it better or you actually broke something that needed to work a certain way? That’s always my fear in those situations, in trying to fix this thing you don’t realize everything else it’s going to break.

Alec: Again, the virtue of having Bill and I there is that we have been through every inch of it. We are shooting it. We direct. Now we direct all of them. He’s directing the entire fourth season himself.

Craig: Fourth season you say?

Alec: Yeah.

Craig: Of Barry?

Alec: Yeah, and not the movie about Barack Obama either. The series Barry.

Craig: I thought you were talking about Barack Obama this entire time.

Alec: No.

Craig: You have a show called Barry?

Alec: Not for much longer.

Craig: You’re on Season 4?

Alec: Yeah, believe it or not.

Craig: Did you guys know this?

Phil: Could I add something?

Craig: Yeah, please.

Phil: I do think there’s something interesting about what we’re talking about, because I think there’s a danger sometimes that happens when everybody gets bored with the A-joke, because they’ve heard it so many times. It happens in pitching, for sure. I think it really happens less in a show than it does when you’re selling something or you’re writing.

John: It happens in features too. We’ve all had the experience where, oh shit, they got to the set, and they just didn’t shoot the scene you actually needed them to shoot.

Phil: Everyone’s doing the joke on the joke on the joke because they’ve all heard it, but nobody in the audience has heard it. The A-joke is the best joke. I think there’s something interesting about that. I also think there is a cultural bias toward making it up on the day that I don’t think is good for everybody. It’s good for some. It’s really interesting. It’s different, the process you’re talking about, where you have the thing, you refine the thing, you refine the thing, you refine the thing. I think many of you probably feel the same way.

It’s crazy how desperately people want to believe that the actor just made it up on the day. You go to a film festival, and they’re like, “I have a question. How much was improv?” They’re really bummed when the actor’s like, “None of it. It’s written, and then I do it.” I wonder about that. There is a bias toward what just happened, the last thing you thought of. That can be dangerous actually, because it’s not always the best thing.

Craig: For sure.

Phil: It’s the last thing you thought of.

Craig: Sometimes you have to do a little bit of a rescue mission at times, because the plans aren’t working. I definitely had an experience with Pedro Pascal in particular, where sometimes I would think, “I wonder if we could maybe just do this or this,” because sometimes it’s not even that it’s not working. It’s that you’re running out of time on the day. “Maybe we can make this a little shorter,” or, “You know what? We needed it to be like this. It’s not like this. We needed a car to be there. The car never showed up. Let’s figure something else out.” Sometimes I would say, “Okay, why don’t we just do this instead?” He would say, “Okay.” Then he would come back to me about 10 minutes later and go, “Listen, I’m going to defend your writing,” which he wasn’t really doing. It’s not that nice. What he was doing is like, “I actually like the way it was, and here’s why.”

Then he would remind me about things that I had forgotten about, even though I was writing it, because when it’s narrowed down to just writing, you can actually think about all the specific things that are going to happen throughout the show. You’re laying these little breadcrumbs down and setting things up. Sometimes you just forget on the day. It’s why directors should not be in charge of feature films, because they didn’t write it. They just don’t know.

Audience Member: Yes.

Craig: Exactly, person, yes. Sorry, feature directors.

Alec: It is interesting sometimes when you’re shooting something. I’ve had this happen a few times where you do a take of something, and one of the actors is doing something, and you’re just like, “What the hell is that person… Why are they playing it that way?” You cut, and you go over, and you go, “Hey, just a reminder. Remember, the scene before this, you just found out that your dad died. Remember?” They go, “You mean you want me to play it correctly? Okay. Can you roll again, please?” They just forgot where they were in the-

Craig: Because you’re shooting everything wildly out of order.

Alec: Honestly, when I direct, one of the things I always do is I just talk to the cast and I go, “Remember, this happened, then this happened, and now we’re here, and tomorrow this is going to happen.” A lot of times, people go, “Oh my god, I was about to make a huge mistake about how I was doing it.”

Craig: It’s very human.

Alec: It’s just the simplicity of knowing where you are in the story.

John: Brenda and Chuck, I want to talk to you guys about this, because oftentimes as shows are being written, as many rooms are rooms way before production happens, writers are not getting the opportunity to go to set and learn how things are working or just to visit and see how the scripts are being shot. Chuck, did you have the opportunity on something like Wandavision or other shows you’ve worked on to visit an episode that you wrote six months ago?

Chuck: Yes. That was actually the first mini room I was on. All the rooms I was in before then, we were doing writing corresponding with the production, so we could just run across to the set and do whatever. I think that’s invaluable. I think with this mini room thing where there’s 10 weeks or 20 weeks or whatever of a writers’ room and then production happens, these writers are not getting the on-set experience that they need to become really good showrunners later in life. They’re not learning how to talk to actors. They’re not learning how to talk to directors. They’re not learning what everyone does on a set. I think it’s a problem that’s going to bite us in the ass in a couple of years. To your point, it is cool to have all the scripts ready by the time production starts. Then we can go back and adjust them.

Anybody under the rank of executive producer has no fucking clue how to make a television show. They know how to write one, but they don’t know how to make one. I think that’s something that really needs to… I know with talks within the Guild, people have been really voicing that concern, being like, “There’s gotta be a way that we can address this,” because mostly streamers, but I think cable companies are starting to follow suit, is doing this cost-plus model where they don’t want to have to pay all the writers through production, so they’re like, “Get the nerds to write the shit, and then tell them to go home so we can make the thing, and it can be fine.” I think it’s penny-wise and pound-foolish, and I hope that they find a better way.

Alec: I was just going to add that I think another thing that makes a huge difference is shorter orders. When I was working 22, 24 episodes a season, the showrunner could only be in so many places at once. As a very junior writer, the showrunner would say, “Hey, can you go into casting and read the people for waiter?” or whatever. Even if it was a smaller level of importance, just being in a casting session and getting to see what that was… Or they’d go, “I don’t have time to look at the new cut of your episode. Can you go down to the edit, watch it, and if anything is glaring, let me know.” I started directing movies at some point after Seinfeld, and there was not a single part of the entire process that I hadn’t been exposed to by working as a writer on Seinfeld, because I just had to cover…

Now that we do 6, 8, 10 episodes, the showrunner can… It’s still tight, but they can pretty much be in every room. You don’t need people to cover all that stuff. They’re not getting that experience.

Chuck: They’re not getting the experience. Also, if you’re showrunning and you’re directing a bunch of episodes, it would be nice to be able to have somebody to delegate to, so that you’re not putting an undue pressure on yourself or the two or three other co-EP-level people are bearing the brunt of work that used to be covered by 5 to 10 other people. I feel like everybody has to work a lot harder because they want to spend less money on fewer people.

Again, the long-term issue is that we’re not training our next generation of showrunners. Honestly, selfishly, it’s great for all of us, because they’re going to have to pair us up with younger people who don’t have that experience. I think that that’s an experience that they should have, because it strengthens your confidence as a writer. It makes you feel like showrunning is not this crazy thing that I maybe one day can sort of, kind of do. No, it’s the thing I’ve been doing for the last several weeks whenever the showrunner taps me in. That to me has made me feel way more involved, way more invested, and just way more like this is something I can actually do, and do well.

John: Brenda, I want to get back to one more point with you. Your first thing was a television writing workshop.

Brenda: A fellowship.

John: Fellowship. Talk to us about that, because Warner Bros is potentially closing down their television program or they’re changing their television program.

Craig: They opened it back up.

John: They brought it back.

Craig: They hit Command-Z on that shit.

Chuck: Command Zaslav.

John: Talk to us about those workshops-

Craig: Command Zaslav.

John: … because I think a lot of people in this audience look to those things and say, “Oh, is this an opportunity for me to actually learn my craft?” Was it constructive for you?

Brenda: I think it’s amazing. I was like, “This is my way in.” I didn’t have any way in. I didn’t know how to get connections and stuff. I thought it was a great opportunity. The one thing that was hard for me as a lady in comedy early on was just that I was always the one lady in the room. It was difficult. Then I realized I was doing this thing where I… I got this thing called vocal nodes. I had this hoarse throat for many, many months and no other symptoms. I’m like, “What is this?” I went to the doctor, and he’s like, “Oh, you should go to an ENT.” Then an ENT put a scope down my throat. He’s like, “Oh, you have vocal nodes.” I’m like, “Oh, that’s what Adele has. That’s what she does [inaudible 00:53:18] singing.” I’m like, “Am I talking too much?” They were like, “No, you’re not talking too much. You’re talking at the wrong pitch, at the wrong volume.”

Phil: Are you singing too beautifully?

Brenda: I was like, “What? What?” Then I was talking to my female writer friend. She’s like, “I think this is a female writer problem.” She’s like, “I had vocal nodes.” I’m like, “Really?” She’s like, “Oh, and Kristin Newman has vocal nodes too, and she’s also a female comedy writer.” She’s like, “I think this is a female comedy writer problem.” I’m like, “What do you mean?” She’s like, “Oh, we’re all talking at a pitch that is not our natural pitch, that is too loud.” I realized, I’m like, “Oh my god, I think I’m trying to sound like a guy.” I’m Elizabeth Holmes-ing.

Craig: Elizabeth Holmes-ing.

Brenda: I was like, “I’m fucking Elizabeth-”

Craig: You’re Holmes-ing.

Brenda: Subconsciously. I was like, “I’m inadvertently Elizabeth Holmes-ing. I’m trying to sound like a guy.”

Craig: I’m doing it right now.

Brenda: I also want to be heard, so I’m talking at a low voice that’s not my pitch, that’s too loud. Then I’m getting vocal nodes. I was like, “This is crazy.” The irony was, so then I go to a doctor, and he’s like, “Oh yeah, so take some steroids, just anti-inflammatory.” I’m like, “Okay.” I take these steroids, and they actually give me shingles, because they suppressed your immune system. Then I get shingles on my boob. I was like, “What?” I can’t wear a bra, because it hurts. I’m like, “Oh my god, now I can’t wear a bra to work!” I’m like, “Oh my god!” I’m like, “The whole point is to not be a lady! It’s hot!” I’m like, “I can’t wear a sweater! It’s 90 degrees outside!” I’m like, “What?”

Craig: You got boob shingles?

Brenda: I literally was like, “Oh my god! Oh my god! How do I hide these?” I was like, “This is crazy!” I’m always aggressively trying to be unattractive. I was like, “I have to wear glasses, never wear makeup, always have my hair up, and never show my body.” I was like, “I have to sound like a man.” Then I was like, “Oh my god.” This is the irony. Whatever, I couldn’t wear a bra. Finally, I went to a speech therapist. She was like, “You’re talking at the wrong pitch. I’m going to teach you how to speak correctly.”

Craig: And put a bra on.

Brenda: “You can wear a bra again.” Isn’t that fucking crazy?

Craig: That’s insane.

Brenda: I’m like, “Oh my god!”

Craig: Because I’m obsessed with the Elizabeth Holmes thing, can you give us just a sample, without giving yourself nodes?

Chuck: Don’t set her back on her journey. What are you doing?

Craig: Don’t give yourself nodes. I just want to hear it.

Chuck: Don’t do it, Brenda!

Craig: I want to hear what it sounded like.

Brenda: It was low. It was low. It sounded like a guy. Sounded like a guy, and then it was loud. It was not good for me.

Craig: It was not healthy.

Brenda: It was not good for me, guys.

Craig: No, clearly.

John: Don’t do that.

Craig: Clearly.

Brenda: Can you believe I did that for years, and I didn’t realize I was doing that?

Craig: Don’t do that.

John: Bring this all back.

Brenda: It’s fucked up.

John: You were hired for this writers’ room because of who you uniquely were. Then you felt you had to completely change yourself in order to be heard in this room.

Brenda: Yes. That’s not cool. I think that’s changed. Obviously, that’s different now.

John: Everything’s better now. We solved Hollywood.

Brenda: Better now.

John: We have to thank our producer, Megana Rao, who’s right here.

Craig: Megana.

John: Megana!

Craig: Still no Megana. Megana. She is beloved.

John: Scriptnotes is edited by Matthew Chilelli, who will cut out all the stuff we tell him to cut out.

Craig: Hooray!

John: Yay. We need to thank Colin Hyer and all Austin Film Festival for having us back.

Craig: Colin over there.

John: Colin, thank you very much.

Craig: Thank you. All the volunteers who have been working so hard this weekend.

John: I need to thank our incredible panelists.

Craig: Thank you guys.

John: Oh my god, Phil, Alec, Brenda, Chuck.

Craig: Chuck.

Chuck: Thanks for having us.

Craig: Brenda, Alex, Phil.

Phil: Thank all of you.

John: Thank you all so much!

Craig: Thank you guys for coming out.

John: Thank you! Have a good night!

Craig: We release you into the wild!

John: Austin!

[Bonus Segment]

John: We gotta do questions.

Craig: I know. I’m so excited for questions, finally.

John: Craig’s been looking forward to it for weeks. Questions!

Craig: I made it through the rain.

John: Hello and welcome. Tell us your name, and what is your question?

Jerry Jerome: Hi, my name’s Jerry Jerome.

John: Hi, Jerry Jerome.

Craig: Hi.

Jerry: I’ve been listening to Scriptnotes for a long, long time.

John: Thank you.

Jerry: I know you said it’s no statements. I’m going to have to break a rule.

Craig: We just said. We literally just said.

Jerry: I was writing. I was going to film school to make Craig happy. I got hurt at work, and I had to take care of my own health. It took a while for me to get back to writing. Listening to you guys really helped me out.

Craig: Thank you.

John: Thank you.

Craig: We accept that. That is allowable. I should’ve added non-questions that make me feel good about myself are completely allowable.

John: Also, praise makes Craig really uncomfortable, and I kind of like that too.

Craig: That is true.

Jerry: It made John feel better. Before I got hurt, I turned in to Austin. I didn’t make second round, anything. This time I made the semifinals.

John: Hooray. Congratulations.

Jerry: Now for my question.

Craig: Thank god.

Jerry: When I was listening to Scriptnotes all the time, my girls loved it. Sometimes I would try to go through different episodes. What they would always love and laugh at was every single time Craig would say his name differently. There’s one outro where I believe you guys had a mix where it was just Craig saying his name differently each and every time set to music.

Craig: That’s terrible.

Jerry: I cannot find it.

Craig: Let’s get you that.

John: We gotta find it.

Craig: Did he dream it, or was it real?

John: I think it’s real. Megana, we can find that.

Craig: Megana’s like, “Is it real?”

Jerry: That’s my only question, to make my girls happy.

Craig: I have to say I remember this. I also remember it.

John: We’ll find it.

Craig: It’s real.

John: Also, we’ll put it in the episode. Someone will do the research for us and find it.

Craig: We will get you this.

Jerry: Thank you very much.

Craig: We will get it for your girls. Absolutely. Gotta look out for the dads. Dads look out for dads. It’s what we do.

Audience: Aw.

Craig: Don’t you dare.

John: Hello. What’s your question?

Craig: Hi!

Teresa: Hello.

Craig: Hi!

Teresa: My name is Teresa. Thank you all. I love Mysterious Benedict Society. I’ve never read the books. It’s the sweetest nugget of television ever.

Phil: Right on. Thank you.

Teresa: My question is… It’s related to something that Chuck said regarding the future of television. Something that I’m hearing when I’ve been sent out on meetings and stuff is, “We love you. You’re great, but we’re only looking for upper-level writers,” or a lot of writers sometimes might even write all the episodes of their show and not even have a staff. I’m not thinking of anyone in particular. I’m just thinking out loud. My question is, why does this happen, and are there any efforts being made to try to re-incorporate staff writers and get those lower levels going?

John: Great. Do you guys want to talk about this?

Phil: Sure.

John: Talk about your plans on Mysterious Benedict Society, how you guys did it.

Phil: We do have lower-level writers on our show. That’s definitely one of the points, and who have frankly performed as well as anybody else on the show. Sometimes you have a certain amount of budget slots, basically how it works. Every show is different. There are shows where one person writes every episode. Writers’ rooms seem to be smaller now because the orders are shorter, but also because you want everyone to have a script. We only have eight scripts, and we are going to write two of them, and our partners are going to write two of them. We want to make sure that everybody has a script. We try to very carefully offer those opportunities.

I think in the case of our show, we’ve always had people at every level. It’s not a staff of 12 people or 15 people or more that might be in a traditional half hour or something like that. I guess what I’d say, it’s different for every show, but for our part, it’s not just because it seems right to us. That’s true, but also, I will say those writers have performed tremendously. You’re trying to find the right person regardless of level. Sometimes you have to have a certain number of every level. I think not every show is served by a writers’ room. If you have a writers’ room, I think you’re served by having all of those different, not just different perspectives, but actually people at different points in their career.

John: Teresa, this last year while Craig was gone, I had some showrunners who came on for just one episode and we talked through how they did things. One of the things that came up off mic pretty frequently, I would ask, “What was your process for putting together a room?” The thing I heard probably most consistently is like, “Man, I really need a mix of experienced people who knew how to do stuff and some brand new folks,” because some rooms were so top-heavy with just like, these are the power hitters, but then they disappear and they can’t do anything, or just brand new people who didn’t know how to do stuff.

Really, I think just communication in terms of making sure people are thinking about the whole range of experiences in rooms is going to be important. I don’t see the studios making a big change. I don’t see them pushing for that. The Guild’s not going to push for that. That’s not a thing. It’s going to be just changing the culture, hopefully. Chuck, thoughts?

Chuck: I think it’s also important because, I don’t want to speak for the rest of you guys, but I stopped being cool about 15 years ago. I think it is important to hire staff writers that are younger so that they actually talk the way that people talk for the last decade or so. I think you, A, have that, and then B, to your point a second ago, John, upper-level writers are all allowed to develop. Their attention is a little splintered in a way that a staff writer’s would not be. If you have these people that are there, that haven’t learned a bunch of bad habits from other showrunners that aren’t running the show the way you are, I think it’s very important to get them in there to add authenticity, to add a youthful vibe.

I find that younger writers inspire me. They make me want to work harder, because I’m like, “I had that excitement in me before they beat the shit out of me in this town for all those years.” I think it lifts all boats. It’s a [inaudible 01:04:24].

John: We were talking beforehand about Megan McDonald, who was a previous Scriptnotes producer, who went on to Wandavision, is now a superstar and is doing a bunch of stuff. She was hired on as just a staff writer.

Chuck: The Wandavision room was full of staff writers. I think I was the most senior at… I think I was 38 at the time or something like that. The younger people were really the ones… It was funny, because you could tell the demarcation, because they were like, “Oh, it’s like in Harry Potter when blah blah blah.” Me and Gretchen were like, “I’ve never seen any of those movies.”

Craig: What?

Chuck: They grew up with all this-

Craig: Really?

Chuck: Yeah, not a single one.

Craig: I’m older than you are. I saw all those movies.

Chuck: You have kids though, right?

Craig: Yeah, but I still like them alone.

Chuck: They came into it with such enthusiasm and with such lore from fantasy projects that we hadn’t had exposure to, Fantastic Beasts. I’m going to stop naming things, because I don’t know. That’s the whole point. They made that show as inventive as it was.

Craig: I will also say, if they say, “Hey, you know what? We’re looking for more seasoned or senior writers,” they still met with you. There will be a day when they want staff writers who are newer. You just give a great meeting. Give a great meeting. Trust me, no one else is.

Brenda: As a 43-year-old woman who watches Mysterious Benedict Society, new writers, because not all new writers are young.

John: Very good point. Hundred percent.

Craig: I like that. Good for you.

Chuck: Totally.

Craig: You showed him.

Phil: Can I just underline something quickly before we go to the next question, really quickly?

Craig: Yes.

Phil: Something Chuck said earlier which relates to this is, there is a cultural thing that is not good, which is the idea that we’re strip mining the culture right now and the idea of just development, developing people, developing talent, developing writers. Again, whenever you start in that journey and wherever you’re at, that is devastatingly shortsighted. We started in features with the idea of development just getting crushed. That’s the R and D of the business. Writing staffs are the training ground of people who are going to… Again, it’s not just like it’s great to give people jobs. That is. It’s people who are going to make the culture. I think it’s really dangerous that we’ve created a thing where somehow we don’t care about developing people, just right now, what can you do right now.

Chuck: It’s also shortsighted financially, because as an established executive producer, if you have a young show writer or an unseasoned show writer that you’ve given an opportunity to, you can utilize them. They’re part of your camp from now on. Whatever idea they have, you put your name on it as executive producer. You make money off of it for the lifetime of that show. You have a farm team that you’re creating that you can continue to make money on in perpetuity. I think it’s shortsighted, both for the career and for your wallet.

John: Our next question, sir.

Craig: Here comes a Dodger fan.

Marc Blitzstein: Oh yeah.

Craig: Sorry, man.

Marc: I think it was six to five Phillies last I checked. I don’t know what the score is now.

Craig: Oh wait, Phillies came back?

Marc: Phillies came back.

Craig: Good, because honestly, I’m sorry-

Marc: Oh hell yeah.

Craig: Fuck you, Astros.

Marc: Fuck you, Houston.

Craig: I don’t give a shit.

Marc: Fuck you, Houston.

Craig: Fuck you, Houston.

John: Everybody go to the bar.

Marc: Cheating pricks.

John: Go to the bar right now. Let’s go.

Craig: Fucking Houston. We’re in Austin. It’s cool. Go ahead.

Marc: Hey, guys.

Craig: You don’t know what we’re talking about. It’s baseball.

Marc: John, it’s okay if you don’t know what we’re talking about.

Craig: It’s baseball.

Marc: Honestly, I’m huge fans of every single one of you on this stage. I’m honored even to be in the room. My question is on packaging right now. My writing partner and I, we go out with projects all the time. Ever since we all collectively fired our agents, there seemingly has been a power-

Craig: You’re going to hire them back now. You know that, right?

Marc: I know, but since that happened, since that inciting incident, the power seems to have shifted away from the writers, and it’s gone to the directors and to the actors. My question is, at this stage when we go out with a project to pitch, we’re seemingly introduced to more and more obstacles that are too high or moving, that you have to come with a showrunner, you have to come with a director, you have to come with a piece of talent. That burden is now on the writer to package that or for our management to assist in that. I know you’re at a different level where that’s not necessarily as important. For guys like us, how do you navigate something like that?

John: Great. I didn’t get your name. What’s your name?

Marc: Sorry, my name’s Marc Blitzstein.

John: You’re mostly working in television or [crosstalk 01:09:20]?

Marc: I am. I’m a television writer. I’m a Guild writer.

John: Great. He’s being asked to put more of the show together before he’s going into a studio or to a streamer or anywhere?

Marc: Anywhere.

Craig: Anywhere. I guess my question is, do you feel like based on what you’re hearing, what they are saying is you’re not going to really be the showrunner.

Marc: Of course.

Craig: That’s what they’re saying. Take that to heart and do what you need to do to be the showrunner, because if you’re not, there’s nothing anybody can help you with. What they’re saying is, “Hey, we don’t think people are going to put you in charge of this show. They’re not going to put you in charge of the show possibly for the reasons that Chuck was talking about, that you maybe don’t have the experience.”

Running a show, as everybody here that does it can tell you, is you still have to be a writer, you still have to be an artist, you still have to be creative. You also have to be the CEO and CFO and COO of a company. You are dealing with a business. It’s a whole other shitload of shit to do. What they’re saying is, you don’t have that yet. All the other stuff, what they’re really doing is backfilling in what they think they need based on what is lacking from your repertoire. Then the question is, how can we get that experience? My then asking back to you is, have you worked on shows? Have you and your partner worked on any shows together?

Marc: Yeah, we’ve been staffed.

Craig: Great. Then I’m going to turn to you guys, turn to all of you and say, okay, there is this military hierarchy within a television room. Here’s the executive producer. Here is whatever the staff writer is hired at. How do you start to make your way up the rungs of that ladder in an effective way, so that when you do have an idea, you are not being told you are not enough. We don’t have to add on a bunch of crap to sell this. You guys are now considered whatever you need to be to be a showrunner.

Phil: I figure that out, I will gladly let you know, because I’m stuck in [inaudible 01:11:29].

Alec: One thing I would say is that I actually think that you don’t graduate from that. Right now, we have a television company. Fortunately, our television company comes with a great director with it. Sometimes that’s the package. Sometimes we have to go get an actor too. I think that’s definitely been a much increased expectation recently. That is just yet another difficult obstacle to get to, depending on how much access you have or what the thing is. I guess it’s the same thing that you’d say anyway, which is it puts even more pressure on writing a spectacular character. Beyond the story, the idea, the concept, the other stuff that could sell your show, it seems like it’s putting more of an intensity on a lead character who is spectacular, because I think it’s true.

I’m interested to hear what you guys think. All of the stuff that we’ve gone out recently, we have attached an actor to. Sometimes that takes a really long time. That’s an expectation right now I think generally. Do you guys think the same?

Phil: Yeah, I think it varies project to project. I think one really interesting thing is that when I started as a TV writer, the specs that I wrote were scripts of existing shows. The idea of writing a pilot was so foreign to me. I didn’t write an original pilot probably for the first five or six or seven years I worked professionally. I think now that people write specs from the jump, I think it changes the way people think about when they’re ready to put a show on the air.

Brenda: Run a show, yeah.

Craig: Right, because original material is not the same thing as running a show based on original material.

Phil: It’s interesting. Literally, there was not a showrunner on earth when I started who hadn’t been on a staff for at least six or seven years before a network would even consider hearing a pitch from them.

John: One of the things that you’re pointing out is that it used to be very hard to even get in that room to pitch your thing if you didn’t have all these credits, but now because people don’t have those credits, because we haven’t built the farm team system, people can’t progress up the seasons. Now you suddenly have the ability to get into those rooms sometimes to pitch this idea, but they’re saying, “Who are you? What are you bringing?” You’re not bringing your experience, so they’re expecting you to bring in all these other people. That’s really fucking tough. It was always tough. It was always tough to get that actor to read that thing, to get that director to do that stuff, because they’re getting a lot of other requests for those things. What these people are saying is having that thing that feels like, “Oh shit, that person is going to really want to play that role,” that may be the way through. That’s something that’s really specific to them.

The other thing I’ll say is younger writers, newer writers who are having some success right now, that I see in my life, it’s not necessarily they’re getting a big director or a big star on, but they’re getting a producer who has some juice at that place to read it. That’s always been the class leading the way. They have some deals someplace. They have relationships someplace.

Craig: It’s true.

John: They’re getting you in. Maybe don’t focus all your energy on that director or that actor. Think of who has the deal in that place, who might want to be able to make [crosstalk 01:14:49].

Craig: That’s great advice. That’s true, because when I went to HBO to pitch Chernobyl, I did not have an actor and I did not have a director. I just had myself. I didn’t even have a script. What I did have was Carolyn Strauss, who was one of the executive producers of Game of Thrones. That made it a lot easier, I imagine. I still had to do my job. It certainly was enough to put that meaning in context. That’s great advice, because I do think that when we get into this mode of, “What do we have to throw on this to get them to say yes?” the problem is, oh shit, they said yes, and now I’m stuck with this fucking idiot and this fucking idiot-

John: That are never available.

Craig: … that I don’t want and I never wanted. That’s a huge problem. I guess at a minimum, if you need to go in with somebody, go in with somebody you actually like, because you’re going to get stuck with them.

Chuck: A hundred percent.

Marc: Thank you guys, all of you.

Craig: Thank you for that one.

John: We have time for one more question.

Craig: Aw, one more question.

John: One last question. You’ve got a great one. I can tell. I can see it.

Craig: This is it.

John: This is going to be the one.

Catherine: The pressure is crazy now.

John: It should be good. What is your name?

Catherine: My name is Catherine, and I represent all of the final questions.

John: Oh my gosh.

Catherine: That’s what everyone said.

John: You are the final question.

Craig: You’re doing great so far.

John: Amazing.

Catherine: Thank you.

Craig: You’re welcome.

Catherine: My question is for whichever ones of you, which I think is actually the majority… When you’re reading scripts, looking for your staff writers, obviously you’re reading hundreds potentially, what is happening in the moment before you stop reading?

John: What a great question, Catherine.

Craig: You mean what’s the thing that make you stop is what you’re asking?

Catherine: Yeah.

John: My god, Catherine maybe asked the best question, because-

Craig: That is a great question.

John: It’s answerable.

Craig: Yes, answerable.

John: I want to start with Phil Hay, because Phil, this is your first time reading for staffing probably.

Phil: Yeah.

John: As you’re reading through scripts, you probably had to read a lot of scripts, what were things that were just like, “Okay, I’m done. That’s enough. I get it. This is not my jam.”

Phil: I’m not really like that, John.

John: You read every script to the end, didn’t you?

Phil: No, I did not, but I relied on other people to curate the scripts before I read them. Generally, they would all be of a certain level of accomplishment. It’s hard for me to say what would make me stop if I felt something, if I felt anything, because a script can be amazing, it can be really technically good, it can be very accomplished, but I might not feel anything. A script can be a little rougher or a little more off or a little wandering. That doesn’t bother me if I’m feeling something.

I guess what I’d say is I love to be surprised somewhere in the first 10 pages of the script. Maybe that’s the way you say it, like that. That can be any kind of surprise. It can be like, “Oh shit, that was really funny,” or, “I’ve never really seen a character like this before.” That’s gold. It’s just something surprising, and not relentless surprise, just a nugget of little inspiration and weirdness to me. The weirder, the better I guess I would say.

Craig: Alec, what stops you in your tracks?

Alec: This is my own personal pet peeve, but typos drive me fucking nuts. It’s not because I don’t like typos, because I’m one of the worst typists on earth. It’s because if you’re sending a script out to get a job and you can’t be bothered to read your own script over two or three times, why would anybody else feel like they should read it too? It’s one of the easiest things to fix.

Craig: There’s a machine that does it for you.

Alec: They just drive me… That said, to Phil’s point, if I start reading, and I’m like, “Where is this going?” or, “Where is this coming from?” or, “That was hilarious,” I can see past typos. That’s just one of the things that personally drives me nuts. Again, it’s just because I start to get into this conspiracy theory of like, how much does this person not care that they didn’t bother?

Craig: Brenda, what stops you in your tracks when you’re reading a script?

Brenda: I think I am trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, but you’re right, I think it’s really hard to be surprising, especially given we all know the structure of things. Anything that’s going to throw me, I’m like, “Oh, let’s keep going.” If it’s humorless, I’m kind of over it, something that’s too self-serious, even drama. Life is never humorless. I think there’s something about if you’re trying to say something, you can’t be funny at all. I’m just like, “No, you need a foil.” That can stop me in my tracks.

Craig: Chuck, what stops you?

Chuck: I think I understand the question.

Craig: You left without even asking.

Chuck: Listen.

Craig: You just left. We have a whole system where you ask to leave.

Phil: Don’t make us call the hospitals, Chuck! Don’t make us call!

Chuck: What stops me in my tracks is my tiny bladder. That’s why I had to get the hell out of here and then return. I’m going to be petty with mine. What stops me in my tracks are character introductions. I feel like there’s two things. Number one, when you tell us stuff that you couldn’t possibly show on the screen in order to say, “Hey, this is Barbara. She’s a Princeton grad who bakes a hell of a fucking double baked potato,” or something. I’m not going to see that on screen, so just give me what her physical description is, maybe a little bit about her attitude, and move on. Second thing is assuming that all characters are white as a default, so not listing the ethnicity of a character as white-

Craig: Unless they’re not white.

Chuck: Unless they’re not white. That’s what I’m saying.

Craig: [crosstalk 01:20:35].

Chuck: I think in order to really help me understand what I’m seeing, I want to know who everybody is. A lot of times, I understand if it’s not pertinent to whatever the story is, it might not feel like it’s a big deal. For me, in order to paint the picture, which is what we’re supposed to be doing as writers, I want to know who that is. I don’t want to assume that everybody’s white unless stated otherwise.

John: Catherine, thank you for your question.

Craig: Well spoken. Well spoken. I have a very short answer for you. The thing that stops me in my tracks is when I read somebody saying something and I just go, “That’s fake. Fake.” Almost everything I read, at some point I’ll go, “Fake.” It’s tempting, because sometimes we, “Oh, I’ve got a great, clever… Oh my god, I’m so clever. I can’t wait to… This line of dialog is so clever.” Fake.

When I read things where I just feel like the writer is disconnected from the simple question, like Alec was saying, what would a human actually do in this situation? How would they respond? So much of what we talk about when we’re doing our Three Page Challenges, which is this endless “where did I stop reading” challenge, is when a writer writes something, and both of us say, “Who would say or do that in this circumstance? No human being.” As much as you can, try and be honest.

John: I’m going to just phrase it the other way around, what keeps me reading. To me, the things that keep me reading is envy, where I feel like, “Shit, I couldn’t have written that. Oh yeah, that was really good.” That’s a big one, “I don’t know if I could’ve done that.” That’s the thing that keeps me going. It’s like, “Oh yeah, I’m intrigued and impressed and a little intimidated. I love it. That’s the person I want, because you can see that talent. That’s great.

Phil: Can I add one more thing on that, that I think may be [crosstalk 01:22:30]?

Craig: Sure.

Phil: Is mystery, is the confidence-

Craig: You love a mystery.

Phil: … to ask a question and not answer it. That is so intriguing to me, because that shows so much confidence. Also, what you want to see is confidence, someone who is just boldly doing their thing.

Craig: That’s how I know you’re not a network executive. You enjoy mystery.

John: I love it! Like humans for thousands of years.

Craig: Exactly.

Brenda: Don’t have to know the answer.

Craig: You like not knowing things.

Phil: I was saying this in another panel. The best spec I ever read, I couldn’t stop, and I couldn’t stop, and entirely because I’m like, “What lunatic wrote this? This could never get made.” It was Being John Malkovich. The reason that got made is Spike Jonze read it and went, “This is unmakeable. I have to make this movie.” It just was the most insane thing I’ve ever read.

Craig: Just do that.

John: Do that. That’s all.

Craig: What have we learned?

Catherine: I’ll do that. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Craig: We learned be Asian, I believe was one of the things we learned, write Being John Malkovich. What other lessons did we cull out of this?

John: Authenticity.

Audience Member: Tiny bladders.

John: Tiny bladders.

Craig: Tiny bladder. Tiny bladder.

Brenda: Talk like a boy.

Alec: Doesn’t have to hold you back [crosstalk 01:23:49].

Brenda: Don’t be humorless.

Craig: Don’t be humorless.

John: I think most crucially, we managed to avoid any political content in this episode.

Craig: Correct!

• Thanks Heidi Lauren Duke for singing our intro!
• Brenda Hsueh on Instagram
• Chuck Hayward on Twitter
• Phil Hay on Twitter
• Alec Berg on IMDb
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by John Venable originally from 266 — this is the outro Jerry was looking for! (Send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@dev.johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The original post for this episode can be found here.

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

Hi.

Craig Mazin: Thank you. Thank you. That was so jaunty. Love it.

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

Craig: My name is Craig Mazin.

John: This is Scriptnotes. It’s a podcast about what?

Audience: Screenwriting.

John: And?

Audience: Things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Craig: Honestly, for a second there, I thought maybe none of them listened to the show.

John: Oh my god, that would be so amazing if no one knew what that was.

Craig: Literally no one.

John: Not a one. Jerome on the piano, thank you [crosstalk 00:00:52]!

Craig: Thank you, Jerome. Thank you.

John: What a lot of people may not know is that Jerome is with us every week on Scriptnotes. Matthew just doesn’t cut him in to the actual show. We have to have backing piano. Jerome, it’s so great to have you here with us tonight live to provide [crosstalk 00:01:08].

Craig: Finally mentioning your name after 590 episodes.

John: Matthew and Megana get mentioned all the time. I believe Megan McDonald’s also here in the audience, one of our previous-

Craig: Megan right there!

John: There she is!

Craig: Hey!

John: I didn’t see, is Stuart Friedel here?

Stuart’s Dad, Lee Friedel: Stuart’s sick.

John: Stuart’s sick, oh, no!

Craig: Seriously sick?

Unknown: [inaudible 00:01:26].

Craig: Oh, fuck him.

John: We’ll be fine. Craig.

Craig: Yes?

John: It’s our first live show in three years?

Craig: Three years, yes. Something happened along the way, and we weren’t able to do it. Lovely to have everyone back. I feel like it’s like riding a bike. We couldn’t have possibly gotten worse at it.

John: We possibly could have gotten worse at it.

Craig: We might’ve.

John: I remember early in the pandemic we did our live show with Ryan Reynolds and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It was exciting, but also, it was on YouTube.

Craig: This is nice.

John: Now we have one and a half glasses of wine in us, and we’re better prepared for a live show.

Craig: Might’ve gone up to one and three quarters.

John: Who do we have on our live show this week?

Craig: We do have an amazing show. For starters, we have the amazing Joel Kim Booster.

John: So excited, Joel Kim Booster. We have Megan Ganz?

Craig: We do. We have world-famous Ike Barinholtz.

John: We love Ike Barinholtz. It would not be a return to Scriptnotes without our own Aline Brosh McKenna. Plus, we have things we can only do with a live audience, including a raffle, a dumb little game show I made up about streaming, and we have to have Megana on the show, because she’s become a crucial part of the show.

Craig: I believe I heard a yeah and a yass, and I agree with both of those. Megana will be helping us out tonight with spooky audience questions, because she loves the spooky season.

John: The spooky season.

Craig: Which I will reiterate is horseshit.

John: What is not horseshit, Craig… Segue man.

Craig: Segue man.

John: We actually have breaking news to share. I texted you this afternoon about this news that is so fundamental to Scriptnotes.

Craig: Just so you guys know, you get breaking news about four hours after I get breaking news. This is great.

John: I do tell Craig first. If I told him onstage, it would be maybe more authentic to the experience. We’ve talked about doing a Scriptnotes book for a year or so. Some of you have signed up for updates about the Scriptnotes book and sample chapters. We put together a full proposal, which we will happily email to all of you, because we sent it out to publishers. We got offers. We’ve signed a deal today to do a Scriptnotes book.

Craig: That’s right.

John: It’s Crown Books. They’ve done small, little things like the Obama books.

Craig: That’s about right.

John: That’s about right.

Craig: We should be up there with them.

John: We should be up there with them. 2024 probably. It could be sooner. 2024 feels like a safe bet. If you want to see the sample chapters and the proposal that we put out, go to scriptnotes.net. We have a special little thing there where you can put in your email address, and we’ll send you what we’ve done so far. We’re so excited. I need to thank Dustin and Megana and Drew and Chris, who were doing the real yeoman’s work of putting together this proposal and getting this book ready to go. We’re so excited to share it with everyone.

Craig: It actually looks quite good, I have to say, as somebody that has nothing to do with it. It looks gorgeous. It will be an excellent stocking stuffer for those of you who care about screenwriting or things that are interesting to screenwriters.

John: It’s like 500 pages, so it’s a big stocking. Get bigger stockings for 2024 is what we’re saying. We’re so excited to have this in book form. We’re more excited at this moment to be back in live form, in person, to welcome a guest in front of you, who we can ask questions of. Our first guest is Joel Kim Booster.

Craig: Joel Kim Booster, let’s give him a hand.

John: Let’s welcome out Joel Kim Booster!

Craig: There he is. Thank you for coming.

Joel Kim Booster: Hey.

Craig: Thank you.

Joel: Hi, guys.

Craig: Hi.

John: Joel Kim Booster.

Craig: Welcome to the couch.

John: You are an actor, a stand-up comic. You’re a writer. You’ve worked with television. We’ve seen you on Shrill, Search Party. Your Netflix comedy special, Psychosexual, is terrific.

Joel: Thank you.

John: Thank you for that. Everyone in this audience probably saw you most recently in the Hulu film Fire Island, which you wrote and starred in. Congratulations, Joel Kim Booster.

Joel: Oh, man, thank you so much.

John: I want to ask you the first question here. We talk on this show a lot about screenwriting, TV writing. We don’t talk a lot about stand-up writing. I want to talk to you about putting together a stand-up set, because you did Psychosexual, you’re probably in development on a new thing. What is your process for figuring out how to do stand-up and how to put together a stand-up that makes sense as a special or at least as one performance? What’s your process for getting stand-up jokes put together?

Joel: It’s really sloppy and bad. It’s completely different from my process writing scripts or anything else really. It’s very much a conversation I have with the audience. I’m not a comic who goes to a coffee shop and sits and writes down every setup and punchline word for word and then tries it out that night. I usually show up to a show when I’m working on stuff with premises and bits of jokes that are half-formed. Then I mostly do my writing on stage with the audience, doing a lot of crowd work.

Craig: That’s scary.

Joel: It was, and it is, but it’s freeing at the same time, because I can show up to a show and know like, okay, tonight I want to talk about the Electoral College and all of the fucked up things about the Electoral College that I can think of. Then I just talk to the audience about it and get a lot of feedback. In the special you saw the repeated crowd work with the guy. That started as just an early stage of writing that special and putting that special together, was in those early stages where I would just find that person to test it. That rolled into how I am writing this special as well.

John: It feels so unsafe, because as writers, we’re used to… We are just like, “I’m in my own little bubble.”

Joel: I’m raw dogging it.

John: You’re just out there. How do you balance that, like, “I want this to be funny for the people who are there with me, but I also want to experiment and find new material.”

Joel: I should say I’m constantly writing new material, even slipping it into my longer sets and things like that. When I go to a night, like a bar show or a set here at Dynasty Typewriter, which is one of my favorite places to work out new material, plug, I’m not doing 10 minutes of crowd work. It’s usually four, five minutes of crowd work that I’m doing with the new stuff, forming it, figuring out what hits and what doesn’t hit, and then mixing that in with the stuff that I’ve been workshopping a month ago, so that there are fully formed jokes. Most people paid at least a little bit of money to see me, so I don’t want to completely bite it, but I have.

Craig: I’m just fascinated, because you have this raw dog version. You go out there. You wing it. You see what happens. Then on the other side of things, you’re writing a screenplay for a feature film, which is the epitome of not raw dogging it. Not only that, but you’re writing a feature film that is based in part, or at least inspired in part, by Pride and Prejudice. You have this preexisting narrative. You’re obviously doing it in your own way with your own characters and your own vibe. I’m curious, going from the freedom of the stand-up stage to both the rigidity of the form of screenwriting and production, and honestly the rigidity of working inside of a preexisting narrative, was it awesome? Did you ever feel trapped? Talk us through the difference there.

Joel: The thing is, as loosey goosey as I am with stand-up writing, I am a very structured screenwriter when I write scripts. I started as a playwright. Even back then, I was outlining my ass off before I would even touch paper, because structure is what turns me on when I’m writing. It is something that I need to tackle and figure out before I actually go into script. That being said, by the time we were shooting Fire Island, the script supervisor hated me, because there were full monologues that I would show up to set and say, “I hate this as written.” I would tell Andrew, the director, I’d be like, “I’m just going to wing it.”

Craig: Oh, no.

Joel: The monologue that I give to James Scully at the end of the film, trying to convince him to go after Bowen Yang, that was completely made up that day and was fairly different every single take. Everyone from the script supervisor to Andrew to the editor all hated me, but it worked out.

Craig: It did work out, because it’s fantastic. I wonder, is the process of writing it and then showing up on the day and saying, “I hate this but let me find something new,” can that only happen if you do write it first?

Joel: Oh yeah, absolutely. It only happens when you’re also the executive producer and the star of the movie.

John: That does help, doesn’t it?

Joel: I wouldn’t recommend that if you’re not wearing all three of those hats at the same time.

Craig: You can’t fire yourself.

Joel: No one can really say boo. The structure has to be there. The technique has to be there. I went to theater school. I’m very staunchly in the camp of like, theater school, acting school, any of it doesn’t really make you better or can’t give you talent. Everybody who got there who was good got slightly better. Everybody who got there who was bad never got good.

Craig: They got poorer.

Joel: The reason the people who were good got better is because you learn all of these really annoying techniques that you’re like, “Okay, I’m never going to do this in practice.” When you get it all down into your body and into your brain and it’s running on autopilot in the back of your head, that’s when you can lift off and fool around with form and fool around with structure and make up a monologue on the spot, because you have all of the pieces in place running in the background to make sure that you have a safety net.

John: You’re talking about structure. You’ve written features. You’ve written television shows. You’ve written stand-up. We know structure in movies. We know structure in TV shows to some degree. Your stand-up shows also have structure. You have callbacks. You have a plan to go through things. As you’re developing your next special, how are you going from like, “Okay, I have these jokes about this thing and these jokes about this thing.” How do you make it feel cohesive? What is your practice?

Joel: That takes a lot longer than just writing the jokes. Right now, I would not say I have an excellent closer. For me, when the special or when the hour really comes together is when I land at the end. It’s very similar to how a lot of people write scripts, I think. I think most of us really start being able to write it when we find the ending. It gives us a good map to get there. Since I haven’t found that out yet, I don’t know what’s tying all of this together yet. I would say too that I don’t know that it’s absolutely vital that there is a cohesive structure.

My special on Netflix definitely had a point. It wasn’t full Nanette, but there was a point being made through the comedy of the special. That is actually a very British thing. They write new hours of stand-up every year and go through this festival system where they take that hour from festival to festival basically all year. They all come from this school of thought that stand-up is very much associated with theater almost. There is always a through line and a message or a point to the special that leads up to it. I spent a lot of time over there and in Australia where they also do that. That was another reason why the special came out the way it did, is because I was absorbing all of that process.

Craig: Are you workshopping that as well, the notion of what is this all about and what unites all these things together? As you’re doing your set in development for when you then shoot Psychosexual and it’s on Netflix, are you looking to see what’s landing and how?

Joel: Yeah, absolutely.

Craig: Not comedy-wise. I mean thematically.

Joel: Okay, because I was like, “Babe.”

John: Laughter.

Joel: Of course.

Craig: I definitely wanted you to call me babe. I’m happy about that.

Joel: I’m definitely doing that.

Craig: Stop it.

Joel: That’s harder, because with the jokes, it’s an immediate feedback system. You know if that’s working or not. I think for me, even in Psychosexual, I dip into moments of seriousness, but it’s a secondary goal for me. The primary purpose of stand-up is to make people laugh.

John: Make people laugh.

Joel: The rest of it is just set dressing. If that works for some people, then great. Overall, the set should work on its own without any of that as a piece of comedy. That’s more for me.

Craig: Interesting.

Joel: I care less about if that’s working.

Craig: Working for them.

Joel: As long as I’m closing strong and there’s a good joke-per-minute ratio throughout, I’m happy if that is all funny. I don’t care about the rest of it as much.

John: A common theme you see both in Psychosexual and in Fire Island is the specificity of being a gay Asian person making it through the world, and the special things that you’re encountering that other people may not be familiar with. Some of the job you have to do is deciding how much you’re going to tell the audience or explain to the audience about what things are versus just putting it out there and letting them figure it out. What is the balance there? How much do you feel like you have to educate people in like, “This is why this is funny,” or, “This is why this is important.”

Joel: You know what? I feel less and less beholden to that the longer I do all of these things, stand-up and writing. No matter what it is, I feel more and more free to let people fill in the blanks a little bit. I’m also coming with a good amount of privilege now, especially because the Netflix special is out. People who are coming to my shows, I’m not having to introduce myself completely to them every single time, which makes things a little easier. Then it also is a real shock to the system when I do get in front of an audience who has no fucking idea who I am, and I’m suddenly like, “Oh, this is good, because now I have to be a real comedian again. I can’t just rest on my laurels.” I really shot myself in the foot though in Fire Island in regards to that, because I added that fucking voiceover.

John: At what point did the voiceover happen? Was that always in the script?

Joel: It felt like a good idea at the time. It was always a part of the script. I always wanted it to be a part of the script. Actually, fun fact, when it was at Quibi, there was a moment when it was not going to be a personal first-person narrative. It was going to be a third-person narrative done by, we were hoping, Emma Thompson, because she was available to do a Quibi.

Craig: That’s right. You’re right. That would’ve been awesome.

John: Remember Quibi? Aw, Quibi.

Craig: Quibi.

John: Vertical video.

Joel: The problem with the voiceover for me became in post, because there are a lot of things that are unfixable in a normal movie, unless you want to spend the money on reshoots, which Searchlight was not spending money on reshoots for this movie.

Craig: Pour a little VO sauce on it.

Joel: All the notes were, “Can we explain this joke in the VO? Can we explain this moment in the VO? Can we fix this with the VO? Can we do this in the VO?” Is it a little bit more than I wanted in the film? Absolutely. Do I hate it? Absolutely no. That kind of stuff makes it a little harder when other people are asking you to explain it, because my thing was, I was always fighting back and saying the audience is smart, and the moments that go over audiences’ heads… I don’t know, when I’m watching movies that are about cultures that I’m not a part of, those are the moments. The moments that I don’t necessarily understand are the moments that make me feel almost the most engaged with the story.

John: Because you’re having to pay a lot of attention to figure out what’s happening there.

Craig: You’re learning.

Joel: You’re learning. There’s stuff that you look up afterwards and you figure it out, and it’s enriching. It makes the movie even better on a second watch and things like that. I think there are plenty of moments like that in Fire Island still. I was happy to leave even more of them in the movie than I think the studio would have liked. That’s the studio’s job, to make sure that it’s palatable to as many people as possible.

Craig: They do stand in as a little bit of a proxy of the average person that might buy a ticket. I’m interested in that. That oftentimes is focused on the other. They’ll say, “Okay, but what if you’re not gay and Asian? What will those people think?” I’m actually more interested in if you felt any pressure in the other direction, meaning when you’re telling a story from inside a group, there is a little bit of that syndrome of, “Okay, you’re going to tell our story. You better tell it fucking right.” Did you feel a squeeze that you were maybe going to be held accountable in ways that maybe other writers weren’t going to have to be?

Joel: Way more than the other thing. Way more than the other thing. Andrew’s constant refrain to me on set was, “We cannot write this movie for Twitter, Joel,” because it was in my head a lot. I was like, “What are people going to say about this moment? Gay Twitter’s going to drag me for this and that and the other thing.” I’m glad we were able in our press cycle to talk about the movie and how much we loved the movie and loved each other and loved the comedy of the movie, and we weren’t necessarily pressured to make it about our identities as much or anything like that, because I think that that can… I don’t know, people don’t like to go and see a movie that feels like homework.

Craig: Homework, that’s the best word for it.

Joel: We were really lucky that the studio didn’t pressure us to go in that direction. I think because we were able to present it as a hyper-specific movie… There were definitely people in my community who hate the movie. Trust me, no one is more willing to tell you that than a drunk gay guy, to your face.

Craig: Oh my god.

Joel: I think because it wasn’t couched in universal terms… It wasn’t like, “This movie is for all gay people. This movie is for all Asian.” It wasn’t couched in those terms.

Craig: It was just the characters that were in the story.

Joel: I think I was able to fly slightly more under the radar than I think other projects have been able to.

Craig: That makes sense, absolutely.

John: You’re saying so many words we try to say on the podcast all the time. You’re talking about specificity, about being a unique, original voice. Whether you’re starring in the movie or just the person writing the movie to put out there in the world, it’s about what is it that you specifically can say about this situation, what is the story that you can tell, that other people couldn’t tell. You’ve been able to do that both with your stand-up and with your film. What is the next thing we can look forward to seeing you in or seeing you writing?

Joel: Right now, I’m getting ready to shoot Loot Season Two, which is an Apple TV show that I’m on, that I’m very grateful to be a part of.

Craig: Maya Rudolph.

Joel: With Maya Rudolph. I’m furiously working on my next screenplay.

Craig: Good.

Joel: Writing it on spec.

Craig: That’s good. I’m glad.

Joel: Just trying to keep my hands busy doing that. Then there’s a bunch of other stuff that will come out.

Craig: Fire Island was fucking great. If you haven’t seen it-

John: See Fire Island, Hulu.

Craig: I don’t watch things.

John: Craig doesn’t.

Craig: I loved it. I thought it was terrific. I don’t know, it was delightful. That’s the word I think is the best word. It was a delight. You should absolutely check it out. It’s fantastic.

John: Joel Kim Booster, can you come back for some Q and A after the show?

Joel: Yeah, absolutely.

John: Joel Kim Booster, everyone!

Craig: Thank you, Joel.

John: Now, we have a raffle.

Craig: Oh, here we go.

John: This is all just figured out as we’re doing this.

Craig: Now it’s gambling time. Here we go.

John: Talk us through how we should do this. I see that there are different prizes here. These are the tickets. There’s a grand prize. Exciting. For listeners that are home, who don’t have the video here, there’s Item 1, Item 2. Item 1 is the Camp Scriptnotes shirt plus a guaranteed question during the show, correct? Is that right? No, I was wrong. I was wrong. I was looking at the wrong card. Matthew, edit.

Craig: Matthew, do not edit that.

John: Item 1, a Momofuku basket plus two tickets to The Huntington.

Craig: Now, the Huntington meaning the garden.

John: The garden. I remember bumping into you at The Huntington gardens.

Craig: I’m there all the time.

John: Before the Scriptnotes show started, I bumped into you and Melissa and your son at The Huntington gardens.

Craig: If you have a little baby, it’s a great way to-

John: There you go. Having a baby is mostly about how you kill a Saturday and a Sunday.

Craig: Just fill a Saturday. You’re certainly not killing it with sex or anything like that.

John: We identified Item 1.

Craig: Item 1, here we go. Item 1.

John: Item 1.

Craig: Item 1.

John: Craig, I’m going to open this up. You’re going to reach in there and pick one of these tickets.

Craig: I’ve got one. The number is 3559437!

Audience Member: Yep.

John: All right! I see someone back there. You can stay there, but remember, hold onto that ticket, because we’ll remember that.

Craig: Hold onto that ticket. I gotta say that “yep” was pretty much the right response.

John: “Yep” is the absolute right response. We’re going to put this on top of this.

Craig: Based on what we were giving you, yep. What else do we have?

John: Item number 2. Thank God for Jerome. You’re saving us here.

Craig: Jerome, thank you. Thank you for saving this sinking ship.

John: What is Item 2 here?

Craig: Item 2 is a pumpkin spice basket and four tickets to The Broad.

John: Now, Craig, we know you have issues with spooky season. What is your feeling about pumpkin spice?

Craig: Bullshit.

John: Oh, man.

Craig: Now, I will say that pumpkin spice in a pumpkin pie is amazing. Otherwise, get it the fuck out of there.

John: I like pumpkin bread. I like pumpkin bread. You like pumpkin bread?

Craig: Okay, that’s you. Here we go. Are you guys ready? This is for pumpkin spice.

John: Pumpkin spice.

Craig: Pumpkin spice, the worst of the Spice Girls. Here we go. 3559411.

John: Oh, fantastic! We see you there. You are the winner of the pumpkin spice.

Craig: That didn’t even get a yep. That got nothing.

John: It got nothing.

Craig: Silence.

John: We’ll sit this here. Now, we are up for Item number 3. This is bigger. This is bigger.

Craig: Here we go.

John: I recognize the studio. What do we got?

Craig: We have a DreamWorks basket. I don’t know what’s in there, but it’s exciting. Maybe the shark from that shark movie.

John: It could be Shrek.

Craig: And two tickets…

John: I’m excited about this, to the Hollywood Wax Museum.

Craig: I didn’t realize we hated them.

John: No, it’s exciting. It’s exciting.

Craig: Let’s see who the big loser is.

John: You could be a winner. There’s three tickets in here.

Craig: I know. Nobody wanted this. I’m so sorry, the owner of-

John: [crosstalk 00:23:47] now.

Craig: Ticket 3559389.

Audience Member: It’s me.

Craig: I’m so sorry.

John: Hooray!

Craig: Did you hear what she said?

John: “It’s me.” I’m sorry.

Craig: “It’s me.”

John: “It’s me.”

Craig: “It’s me.”

John: We’re excited for you. It’s so nice to win things.

Craig: Hey, listen, we can’t all be winners.

John: Oh my god, now-

Craig: Here we go.

John: These are the real ones here. This is serious.

Craig: Realer than that?

John: Realer than this. The winner of number 4 gets-

Craig: Number 4 gets a Camp Scriptnotes T-shirt and a guaranteed audience question. What does this mean?

John: That means they will absolutely get their chance to ask their question, no matter what.

Craig: What if they’re an idiot?

John: That’s the risk we’re taking.

Craig: I love it.

John: It’s really on you, because you’re going to draw this ticket. If it’s a terrible question, it’s all your fault.

Craig: Gulp. Here we go. Here we go. 355, I’m going to say it every fucking time, I don’t care, 9418.

Audience Member: It’s me.

John: Yay! Are you going to ask a great question?

Craig: “It’s me.”

Audience Member: Will you come back next year and do this for Hollywood Heart?

John: Sure, we’ll do it again.

Craig: Absolutely. Aw, you’re so sweet.

John: You can also ask a real question during the time.

Craig: She may not have one. Let’s not pressure her.

John: We’ll ask you in the moment. If you don’t have a real question, that’s fine too. Thank you very much for bidding on this. Oh my gosh, look how many… This is Item number… Wait, what’s the grand prize? Now I’m confused. What’s number 6?

Craig: Number 6 is the grand prize.

John: Number 6 is the guaranteed… Oh, that’s the Three Page Challenge. Oh my gosh, this is worth a lot. This is number 5.

Craig: Number 5, also a Camp Scriptnotes shirt.

John: We love the Camp Scriptnotes shirts. You might think there might even be too many Camp Scriptnotes shirts and we’re trying to get rid of them.

Craig: You’re right. And a lifetime Premium membership to Scriptnotes. That’s a lifetime of not spending $5 a month.

John: Let’s do the quick math here. Scriptnotes, the annual membership is-

Craig: I think we need an actuarial table to see how old they are and also do they smoke.

John: This could be worth thousands of dollars, honestly. Thousands of dollars. Look how many tickets there are. There are so many tickets in there.

Craig: There’s a lot. Oh god, people want this.

John: People want this.

Craig: People want this. Guess who’s gotten it? Number 3559487.

Audience Member: Yay.

Craig: Hey!

John: Hooray! Hooray.

Craig: I gotta tell you, I love the way you guys are taking victory in stride. “Yay.”

John: “Yay.”

Craig: This isn’t making us feel weird or anything.

John: Congratulations on this. We’re going to put this over here.

Craig: “Yay.”

John: Identify yourself later, and we’ll find you for your lifetime-

Craig: Here we go.

John: Wow, this is worth a lot.

Craig: This is the grand prize. The grand prize, a guaranteed Three Page Challenge. That’s right. Bid on the opportunity to have your script pages featured in our next Three Page Challenge segment to receive feedback from John and Craig and a call-out on Scriptnotes.

John: Megana will tell you that we will have 200 people write in [crosstalk 00:27:12].

Craig: That’s a lot.

John: She’s reading through a lot. You could jump the line. No matter what, good, bad, you’re there.

Craig: A little bit of a monkey’s paw, this one. I gotta be honest. Here we go.

John: Craig, draw it out.

Craig: Oh yeah, a lot of people wanted this one, but only one person can get it. Their ticket will begin with a 355. The winner is 3559453.

Audience Member: That’s me!

John: Hooray!

Craig: Finally, someone with some passion!

John: I’m excited about that.

Craig: Thank you!

John: 453, what is the script you’re going to send through? Do you have a title for the script you might want to send through?

Audience Member: Skullduggery.

John: Skullduggery.

Craig: That’s a good title.

John: Everyone listen for Skullduggery.

Craig: I’m into it. It’s going to start with like, “Skullduggery started so well, but then hm.”

John: Thank you, everyone, for the raffle. Yay!

Craig: Thank you! Way to go, rafflers. Wow.

John: Wow.

Craig: Now things are going to get a little weird, unfortunately.

John: Oh my god.

Craig: I gotta sit down for this, because this is going to get bad.

John: This is going to be a challenging moment here.

Craig: Not every segment we do on these live shows are what we would call easy or fun.

John: They’re not all giggles.

Craig: Some of them are tough.

John: Some of them are tough. Over the years of doing Scriptnotes, we’ve been able to highlight some real success stories, like people who are doing good in the world, like Pay Up Hollywood. That’s people who are doing some great stuff.

Craig: Hollywood Heart.

John: Hollywood Heart! I think we’ve also taken the time to call out some bad actors, people we felt like who were not helping screenwriters, especially aspiring screenwriters.

Craig: No question.

John: What were the words you might use for those people?

Craig: The people that we don’t like?

John: Yeah.

Craig: Dickheads.

John: Dickheads, yeah, dickheads. Sometimes it’s gotten contentious. I’m thinking back to Episode 129, the one with the guys from Final Draft.

Craig: They were great, weren’t they? That was fun. I wish you guys could’ve been there to see John like…

John: I have serious PTSD from that episode.

Craig: Because I’m like, “No, John, hold on.”

John: The thing I’ve taken from this is that conflict is not necessarily bad, because sometimes in conflict you illuminate and elucidate some real issues there.

Craig: Make things better.

John: Yeah, which is why tonight, we want to take a risk and invite on somebody who we’ve talked about a lot on the show. You probably have the strongest opinions about the person.

Craig: I am very hesitant about this, but in the spirit of hoping that it goes well, I have agreed to do this.

John: You’ve never been shy about telling your listeners what you think about this. Now he’s here to give his side of the story. Please welcome The Manager We Told You to Fire.

Craig: Here he is, The Manager We Told You to Fire. Oh, god.

The Manager We Told You to Fire: In town. Let me grab my water.

John: Oh my god.

Craig: Here we go.

Manager: Can’t really see past the first few rows, but I can tell it’s a bunch of average-looking people, because it’s writers! Because it’s writers, right? Come on, we’re all on the same team. We’re all in the same game.

Craig: We told you to fire him.

Manager: God.

John: Chad, thank you for coming.

Manager: That’s what she said.

John: God.

Craig: Chad. Chad.

Manager: Come on. Come on. It’s back.

Craig: No, Chad.

Manager: Woo! I’m happy to be here at this New Balance convention. Holy shit. Listen, man, I love the show. I listen to the show. I love it. It’s great.

Craig: Do you?

Manager: Yeah, I listen to the show when I can get to it. A lot of podcasts out there. I got you guys. I got Rogan. I got Logan Paul, my new client. He’s starting to write now. He wrote a feature, and it’s pretty good.

Craig: Basically, everybody that rhymes with “ogan,” you have.

Manager: Yeah, but also you guys, Pod Save America, Dax, another client, Dax Shepard.

Craig: That’s real.

Manager: You fucking heard of him?

John: I guess it’s good that you listen sometimes, because you know we talk about managers on the show sometimes, and people write in with questions and concerns.

Manager: I know. I know. I heard the show. I told you. You don’t believe me? I can do Sexy Craig. You ready? Hey, it’s Sexy Craig. Sexy Craig wants to touch your hair.

Craig: No.

John: You sound like that.

Craig: I don’t sound like that.

John: That’s what it sounds like in my head every time.

Manager: That’s what it is. That’s what it is.

Craig: No.

Manager: Hey, can I do a One Cool Thing?

John: No, you don’t-

Craig: You can’t. I’m going to go with no, you can’t.

Manager: Can I just say, the problem with you two is-

Craig: Oh, please.

Manager: You guys have never had a manager. I’m going to get real with you, no cap. You don’t even know what a manager does.

Craig: Great. Why don’t you tell us what the fuck it is you do?

Manager: It’s in the name. It’s manager, manage from the Latin manage.

Craig: What do you manage though?

Manager: I manage writers or writer/directors if they have rich parents, that type of thing or, oh, the golden goose is a writer/director/actor, multi-hyphenate. You get that shit, those people are desperate, like a groundling. Oh, give me a groundling. I want a groundling! Yeah, baby. They’ll do whatever.

Craig: You’re terrible. You’re a terrible person.

Manager: You know what I say?

Craig: No.

Manager: Hate the player. Don’t hate the game.

Craig: I should’ve known that he was going to say that.

John: Let’s get back to what you actually do as a manager. For example, do you read your clients’ scripts and give them notes?

Manager: John, yes, I read their scripts. Of course I do.

John: That’s good.

Craig: What’s the process?

John: Talk us through the process there.

Manager: Okay, the process. I’m on the Peloton, and I get an email. I’m trying to listen to Logan Paul’s podcast. I get an email from whatever. Let’s just call him, I don’t know, fucking Groundling Gus. He’s like, “Hey, I have a script. It’s about two turtles that are in love.” I just write back, “Boring!”

John: That’s it? That’s one word. Do you give them anything they can work on?

Craig: That’s your management, “Boring.”

Manager: I think it’s implied. I’m going to give you guys some free advice. Don’t write boring shit, especially this one about turtles. It was so bad. No one wants to see turtles, guys.

Craig: I gotta ask you a question. Did you actually read the turtle script?

Manager: I read the email. I read the subject of the email.

Craig: Fuck, I hate him.

Manager: Listen, man.

John: We told you to fire him.

Manager: What good is it going to do for me to actually read the script when I promise you no one’s going to buy a fucking script about turtles in love, about turtles in general, unless they’re Teenage Mutant variety, in which case, let’s talk.

Craig: To be clear, your entire process is you just read the log lines? You don’t read the material?

Manager: Yes.

Craig: Great.

Manager: Look at the movies that came out this year. I would’ve told my clients, if I represented any of them, not to write them. Bros, little too gay.

Craig: Can’t say that.

Manager: Fire Island, too gay and too Asian.

Craig: Can’t say that.

Manager: Double whammy. Double whammy.

Craig: Can’t say that.

Manager: Double whammy. Death on the Nile, not gay enough.

Craig: Yes.

John: I will say there was actually a lot of-

Craig: No, I agree with him.

John: There was a surprising amount of gay coding there.

Craig: There’s coding.

John: If you look at Poirot’s relationship with Bouc, it felt like there was a thing that was happening there.

Manager: I didn’t see it. I didn’t see it. Also, I don’t fucking care about subtext. If it’s there, just write it. Who cares?

Craig: Great. Let’s get back to the real question. What service are you actually providing to your client?

Manager: It’s the service of being their manager.

Craig: You don’t do anything!

Manager: No, I do, okay. I make it feel like something is happening in your career. You didn’t have a manager, and now you do. Nobody wanted to read your fucking script, and now maybe somebody will. Your mom can tell her friends, “Oh, my son Shmuli, he’s got a Hollywood manager.”

Craig: Shmuli?

Manager: Hello? Antisemitic much, Craig? The way you said that was fucking weird.

John: Let’s move on. A lot of times on the show, we’ve talked about open writing assignments. What is your policy or philosophy about OWAs and your clients?

Manager: I love them. They’re my bread and butter. I send all my clients out on open writing assignments, doesn’t matter.

Craig: All of them?

Manager: I will send literally every client on every writing assignment. As Gandhi said, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

John: That wasn’t Gandhi.

Craig: He didn’t say that. He did not say that.

Manager: He did. I think he did.

Craig: Just to be clear, he didn’t. He’s a great man. How dare you? Your clients are all competing against each other for every single open writing assignment?

Manager: Yes, it’s survival of the fittest. We pit them against each other. It’s like the movie with the Japanese teenagers where they all fucking kill each other.

John: Great. Even if one of your clients does book the job, the rest of them have all wasted days or weeks of their life going after that one job?

Manager: They learn how to pitch. That is a very valuable skill. Whatever they wrote up, they can leave behind to the executive.

John: Oh, gosh, no.

Manager: Just walk out and just drop it on the ground.

Craig: No.

John: That’s not how that works. That’s a terrible idea.

Manager: Whatever. Whatever. I’m not a real person, I guess. I’m a straw man that you created to stand in for all the terrible managers your listeners are always writing in about. What you’re forgetting is that a lot of your audience, they hear these tales about terrible managers, and secretly, deep in their hearts, they still want one, even a shitty one like me, because it’s scary never knowing if you’re going to make it-

Craig: That’s fair.

Manager: … if you’re good enough, if anyone will even care. Getting the tap on the shoulder from one person vaguely connected to the industry is a game changer. Why do you think people do your Three Page Challenge? Because they need that hit of validation. We’re not so different, you and I.

Craig: He did the line.

John: He did the [inaudible 00:37:44].

Craig: He did the line.

Manager: These mildly unattractive writers know there is a wall surrounding this industry. You don’t want the truth, because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.

John: You’re Sorkining. Congratulations.

Craig: Sorkining.

Manager: I would rather that you just said thank you-

Craig: He’s still Sorkining.

Manager: … and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand the post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to!

Craig: Just out of curiosity, did you order the Code Red?

Manager: I did the job. You’re goddamn right I ordered the Code Red!

Craig: I have no further questions.

John: Let’s give it up for The Manager We Told You to Fire.

Craig: The Manager We Told You to Fire. Thank you.

Manager: Thank you.

Craig: Ike Barinholtz, everyone!

John: He’ll be back for questions.

Craig: He will be back at the end of the show! Well done, Manager We Told-

John: Nicely done, Ike Barinholtz.

Craig: I gotta say-

John: Hate you, hate you, hate you.

Craig: We were right to tell them to fire him. He’s dreadful.

John: Good choices we made. Good choices.

Craig: Absolutely fucking dreadful.

John: Oh my gosh.

Craig: God.

John: Craig, that’s stressful. It’s stressful having him around.

Craig: Can we have nice people [crosstalk 00:39:08]?

John: We should welcome some nice-

Craig: Nice people.

John: … warm, caring people who make things.

Craig: Nice, warm, happy, smart people.

John: People who make things.

Craig: Make things, yeah, not people who exploit us and treat us like shit, in a hilarious way.

John: Let’s brainstorm on who these ideal next guests could be, if we were to pick our next guests.

Craig: You’d want somebody with the skill of an Aline Brosh McKenna, but also somebody with the stick-to-itiveness and insight of a Megan Ganz.

John: These are really good choices, because they’re both TV showrunners. They both created shows. They know how it all works together. Maybe we could even read their credits a little bit before we bring them out, to set up the audience for who these people are.

Craig: It’s not that I don’t know what they’ve done, but I’d like to refer to this card.

John: I will talk about Megan Ganz, who’s a comedy writer and producer whose credits include The Onion, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Community, Modern Family. She co-created the Apple TV comedy series Mythic Quest, along with-

Craig: Starring myself.

John: … Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day.

Craig: And myself. Aline Brosh McKenna, I’m going to tell you who she is, even though you all know. She is a writer, producer, and director known for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses. Her feature directorial debut-

John: Her feature debut.

Craig: … Your Place or Mine will come out next year on a small channel called Netflix.

John: Megan, Aline, please come out.

Craig: Megan, Aline, please come on out.

John: Welcome to the couch.

Craig: Welcome to the couch. Have a seat. Please feel free to discard all of the cards that The Manager We Told You to Fire has left behind.

Megan Ganz: What’s great about having two women is we only get paid 60 cents on the dollar, so two of us-

Craig: Sorry, you guys are getting paid? John.

John: Sorry.

Megan: With two of us, you’re getting a buck 20 worth of value.

Craig: [inaudible 00:40:46] nothing.

John: It is so amazing to have both of you here. That last segment was very stressful to me. Hopefully, you can talk us all down. You are both people who create TV shows. You run TV shows. This last week, we saw a huge change that’s happening with our streaming services. Our streaming services that have never had commercials before are suddenly going to have commercials. Disney Plus is going to start having commercials. Netflix is going to start having ads in the middle of it. I want to talk to you about that, because that’s a different thing than we’ve encountered before. Megan, on your show on Apple TV, so far there are no ads, but are you-

Megan: Bringing back the act break? Is that what you’re asking?

John: Yeah, is that act break going to happen?

Megan: Bringing back the act break?

Craig: Because you have a lot of experience with ad-supported television.

Megan: I do. I started out in network television, so I started out thinking about act breaks a lot. In fact, on Modern Family, they always called the first act break the Hey May. Have you ever heard this phrase?

John: No, tell us Hey May.

Craig: No.

Megan: Hey May was that something really exciting had to happen before the commercial break, so that the guy that was watching it would say to his wife, “Hey May, you gotta see what’s happening on this show that’s coming up.” That was the phrase that they-

Craig: [crosstalk 00:41:48] name is May. What year are they from?

Megan: Cheers. They were watching Oklahoma. I grew up on knowing act breaks and very strict time limits for shows, and now that all went out the window, but apparently it’s coming back. That’ll be interesting. What do I think about it? When I was in network, and everybody was going to streaming and everybody thought streaming would fix all the issues, it was like, it’s just going to become the new dinosaur, right? Then whatever’s next, TikTok, will take over. Then in a few years, we’ll all be desperate to write TikTok shows.

Craig: The TikToks.

John: We first knew you of course as a feature writer. Then you were [inaudible 00:42:37] Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, when that was going to be a thing. Originally, it was a Showtime show, and then it transitioned to a CW show, so you had to figure out how to do act breaks.

Craig: The act breaks.

John: Are act breaks natural to you now? Are they part of your blood?

Megan: No, they’re not, they weren’t, and they never were. I’ve really only worked on one TV show for any sustained amount of time.

John: It was a good show.

Megan: We had six acts, which was too many.

Craig: CW’s pumping those ads out.

John: The network required you to have six acts?

Megan: Six acts. There are episodes where it’s 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 2 minutes.

Craig: That’s how they did it?

Megan: No, you could put them wherever you wanted.

Craig: Oh, I see.

Megan: They had to be at least two minutes long. We would sometimes get to the end of the episode and just have just extra shit happen because we didn’t have… It would be a page and an eighth. I would have to be in editing, trying to pump the last act. The first act had been 22… It was a haphazard process. I was saying I enjoy watching things where I feel like, end scene, and then you’re moving. I think it’s a good discipline. Especially it works for comedy.

We’ve been through an interesting shift. For the old people on the stage, we wandered off to a thing where they were like, “This is a comedy,” and you’re like, “This is not funny, has no jokes in it, and is 48 minutes long. I don’t know what’s happening.” It feels like there’s a nice move towards more traditional. The cycles are accelerating at such a rate. People will write more towards those act breaks. Hulu’s always had ads, so they’ve always done that.

Then the other thing is I think formats are getting more… Everything is getting more juiced, because as we were talking backstage, for a streamer, you have to nab people really quickly. Also, you’re competing with things like TikTok now, and so people are… They want to know what they’re looking at, really, so the pace of things. You go back and watch a movie from 1978. You’ll be dead on the ground. It’s all like, “I need to go somewhere.” Then it’s the person opening the door and walking to their car, opening the car door, getting inside the car, backing out of the driveway.

Aline Brosh McKenna: That’s so funny you say that, because something I would say a lot when I’m directing is, “I know how cars work. I know how walking works. I know how drinking works. We know how eating works. We know how buttering works.” There is a certain genre of thing where we’re going to watch this man unbutton every button. I feel like now it’s to the point where it has to be one or the other. It has to be the most eye-grabbing, attention-stealing thing ever or it has to be so bland that you could leave the room for minutes at a time and come back and miss nothing.

Megan: It’s so true. It’s like we’re in TikTok or we’re in profoundly Swedish, slow, slow… You come back and the tumbleweed has just turned over once.

Craig: That’s the best kind of Swedish is profoundly Swedish.

John: With shows you’re developing now, because Aline, you’ve set up some new shows, congratulations, and Megan, you’re working on new stuff as well, are you thinking about where the commercials will go if they ultimately stick commercials in? Craig, Chernobyl has commercials. We got the email in from France. Chernobyl in France has commercials in it.

Craig: That’s fucking France.

John: That could very well happen to HBO Max as well when people are watching Chernobyl here.

Craig: I must admit that I put blinders on in terms of what happens once it leaves the confines of the United States. I go, “I’m not there.” I’m not there when the tree falls. I don’t know.

Aline: Also now, we’re just aware that you’re spending all this time making something beautiful, and people are going to watch it in their bathtub with their grubby fingers.

John: Megan, would you…

Aline: Are you bothered? You say, “Who cares Chernobyl’s got commercials in France?” If you knew that they were interrupting in the middle of a line of dialog to go to commercial and come back-

Craig: It would be kind of amazing if they were just like, “That is how an RBMK reactor… “ Boom, and go-

Aline: Then commercials, and then it comes back.

Craig: Then it comes back and it’s already exploded.

Aline: Can we talk just a minute about the captioning? Now, somebody was telling me today it’s like 70% of people watch their TV captioned. They’re riddled with errors, riddled with misspellings. As you mentioned, I have the movie coming out next year. I desperately want to see the captions, because if the grammar is incorrect or spelled incorrectly, it’s going to make me nuts.

Craig: Why are you putting this in my-

Aline: I’m trying really hard to get it so that I can see it.

John: [crosstalk 00:47:16].

Craig: You know what just happened is that her Jewishness went into my Jewishness and just created this awful mega Jewishness of my anxiety now that they’re going to fuck the… Oh, goddammit.

Aline: It’s nerve-wracking with a W, come on!

Craig: Ah!

John: Practical guidance though for, let’s say we have our folks out here who are writing their pilots. If you were writing a pilot today and you wanted to be staffed on one of your shows, do you think these people should be putting act breaks into a one-hour, into a half-hour?

Megan: I don’t know for one-hours. I’ve never written a drama. For comedies, I did the act break thing for a long time, and then I ended up on Sunny, and they never talked about act breaks. All they talked about was that in every scene, every character should have a specific motivation and a want and that something should happen in that scene that changes the story and that moves them into a different place. Once I got into that mode where I was thinking more scene by scene, now I never think about act breaks anymore, because if the story is moving, it’s moving. I don’t think that your general uneducated TV viewer is like, “Oh, interesting first act. I wonder what’s going to happen once we get into that road of trials. Where’s our atonement coming from?”

Some of it is almost instinctual too. Story breaking has always felt like something to me that’s a little bit like I can almost explain why I think that the story should go this way or that way. It’s almost innate. I wouldn’t push act breaks on, because again, you’re never going to know. Maybe you write them all in, and then somebody yanks them all out again.

Aline: If you’re writing a spec for a particular show and you know the format, for that, I would [crosstalk 00:49:03] writing a pilot.

John: You just set up a new show with [inaudible 00:49:06]. For that, will there be act breaks?

Aline: It’s ABC network, so it’s a network format. Whatever network you’re selling it to generally has a format of some kind, or they have none. They generally have length guides. Actually, there were a lot of restrictions in working on the CW. I got to perversely enjoy them. We only had a certain amount of runtime. Then I got really into something I never thought I would be interested in, which is those previously-ons. You think they’re computer generated or something. We worked really hard on them. Really hard. I loved working on those.

Craig: Those are great.

Aline: We tried to craft them in editing, so it helped you understand what the episode was you were going to watch. Now I know that most people fast-forward through them. We put a lot of thought into them so that they would frame the episode correctly. I’ve grown to love them as an art form. It was Mad Men that famously had the string of just non sequiturs that you could not… They’re pretty fabulous. I think they can really help a show. Again, I like some of the more traditional format things I enjoy. I think that we might regret throwing out some of the baby with the bathwater.

Megan: Structure is good. I like structure.

Craig: Having some sort of thing to follow. You just mentioned what’s coming and what just happened. You’ve both worked on shows that have been ongoing shows. There’s the world of cable television or premium cable, whatever they call it, where here’s a limited series, or it’s a series but it’s only going to run for two seasons. You guys are working on shows that are designed to run for a long time. I’m curious, just from a craft point of view, how you guys balance the need to keep the flywheel going year after year without leaning too hard on things that you know are grade Hamburger Helper, like will they, won’t they, or we made it, we lost it all. What do you do to keep it going and fresh when there is this interesting meta problem that you need to reset it every time no matter what?

Megan: It’s got to be the same but different-

Craig: Same but different.

Megan: … every single time you have it. For me, it’s been different on the two different shows that I’m currently working on. On Sunny, they get around that by making them cartoon characters that know-

Craig: Learn nothing.

Megan: … nothing they do influences the next episode whatsoever.

John: [crosstalk 00:51:24].

Megan: They never learn their lessons. There’s no third act in Sunny. It’s great. You just get them in a really bad situation, and then you roll credits. Then the next week, they’re out of jail somehow. That’s great. That’s the way they do it on that show. That’s why they’ve been going for 16… I’m about to start on Season 16-

Craig: Oh my god. Amazing.

Megan: … of Sunny in a couple weeks.

Craig: Mythic Quest is a workspace.

Megan: Mythic Quest is a workspace, real people that have things that carry over. It has been difficult. We don’t have a romantic relationship between our two leads, so we can’t rely on that. We didn’t want to get into the place, because it’s all about a video game. We didn’t want to rely too much on is the video game going to be successful or not, because I don’t think most people care about that. We really try to pin it on the emotional relationships.

From the very beginning, we tried to make the thing that makes you coming back is there’s this odd couple, these two people, they love each other, they hate each other, they’re making this thing together. It’s like two people raising a kid, where it drives them insane, but they also can’t leave each other, so they’ve got to figure it out for the sake of the kid. We’re hoping that that tension is bringing people back over and over. What helps that is that it’s 10 episodes a season and not 24, which is what I used to do. In 24, you need a love interest.

Craig: You’re not going to make it otherwise.

Megan: You’re not going to make it.

Aline: Also, don’t we love a filler episode?

Megan: Oh, I love filler.

Aline: I love a filler episode. I love something where they just go to Costco for the whole episode. Honestly, they’re some of the most fun. The great thing about those episodes, they’re often later in the run. You’ve established so much about your characters that you can trap them all in a room together, and then you can really pay off these character-based emotional things. That’s why I love a good bottle episode. I think once you earn that thing where you’re like, “Guess what? We’ve set up so many things that we can put these people in one space and just let them talk to each other, and you’re going to be entertained for a half-hour.”

Craig: They can hash it out together.

Megan: Great.

Aline: Our last season was extended from 13 to 18. We managed to make one of them a live special, but then we still had four. We ended up doing things we never… She had a brother she didn’t know about. We just had a lot of fun.

Megan: Find a dog.

Aline: She knew that he existed. She’d not really spent any time with him. You can just chase wild herrings. She went to a waterpark. That was some of the funnest stuff we did. It’s not my podcast, but somebody said to me-

John: Really?

Craig: It basically is.

Aline: Never stopped me before.

Megan: It could be, by the way.

Craig: It is.

Aline: I wanted to ask you guys a question, because somebody said to me the other day… I was talking to an executive, and they said my… Their theory is that feature writers can write TV more easily than TV writers can write features.

Craig: I agree with that.

Aline: They said that if you’re a feature writer, you’ve learned how to wander in the woods by yourself big chunks of time, so then when you go to write TV, you have that sense of the whole scope, but you can write these tinier chunks faster, and it doesn’t have to be the complete thing. I don’t know about that. I’m curious about that.

Craig: I agree.

John: Here’s the other version of that. It’s that sometimes you see these streaming shows just feel like, “Oh, I see it as a 10-hour movie.” I’m like, “Oh god, I don’t want a 10-hour movie.”

Craig: That would be bad.

John: I want a sense of [crosstalk 00:54:34].

Craig: Episodes.

John: Episodes. I want a sense that things [crosstalk 00:54:36].

Craig: I’m a big fan of episodes. I do think that feature writers know how to finish something, and a lot of television writers have never actually been in a spot where they had to finish something. It was always designed to keep the machine running. We know a lot of television shows really stumble at the finish line.

Aline: In TV you finish-ish.

Craig: Ish.

John: Yeah.

Craig: Finish-ish.

Aline: Finish-ish. You give them enough of a thing that they can go to bed that night, but then they gotta come back.

Craig: They gotta come back, exactly.

Aline: Literally, Act 1 is the pilot, then you have 70 episodes of Act 2, and then Act 3 is the last 15 minutes of the entire series.

Megan: Oh god, that’s great.

Aline: I could do it now.

Craig: You’re showrunners. I have been a showrunner, and I’ve learned a lot along the way. One of the things that’s blown my mind, and I’ve gotten used to it, but it’s been a little hard, when you’re not a showrunner, whether you’re a feature writer or you’re working on staff at a show, your job ultimately is a creative job. You’re supposed to be playing, and you’re supposed to be just being creative and writing and all the rest. When you are a showrunner, you have to do these things. You also are the CEO of a fairly large corporation. You are kind of a mom or a dad to a lot of people. How do you guys reconcile those two sides of yourselves when you’re doing the work?

Aline: I have a thing that I think may be different from how other people think of it, which is a lot of showrunners and movie directors have this thing where they’re like, “This is my process. Now welcome to my movie. Welcome to my TV show. I’m the boss, and this is my process.” I don’t do that, because I don’t think… I am assembling a group of creative people. Particularly with actors, they’re all very different. They all have a different process. They all approach things differently.

I’ll just tell you guys, we had Reese and Ashton on this movie. We also have Tig Notaro, Steve Zahn, Zoë Chao, Jesse Williams. They’re all really different actors. They approach things really differently. On Crazy Ex, we had people from Broadway, we had stand-ups, we had all different… I like to very much meet the actors where they live and explore what their process is and then even what they need on a particular day.

With the writers, you can only really have one process, but what I like to try and do is figure out how to make every writer there feel comfortable so that they can contribute the most. All writers are different that way. Some writers come in, and they just are very comfortable speaking to authority. They’re very comfortable speaking out. Some need more encouragement and more direction. That’s true with department heads too. I will be collaborating very, very closely with costumes. When I hire a costume person, I’m saying, “You’ll be sick of me. I’m going to go down to the socks with you.”

My process is a little bit different based on who I’m working with, as opposed to like, “This is how Aline does stuff.” There’s a few things that are baseline things with me. I’m not great with lateness. If there’s more than two people in the room, and someone’s late, the disrespect of that is really hard for me. There’s just a few things that I do a certain way.

Basically, instead of coming in and saying, “Gosh, I want this done a certain way. I gotta get everyone to do it,” I try and go more with like, “I have a goal. Our goal is to take the mountain, and we can all have a different approach to that,” because what you want to do is bring out the best creative work that you can from everyone. Everyone’s different.

For example, in the writers’ room, sometimes I will say to someone, “If you don’t feel comfortable speaking up in the room about something, come find me later or send me an email or put a note on my desk. If there’s something where you want to say, ‘I really think we should do X, Y, and Z,’ and for whatever reason, the room wasn’t the place where you felt like you wanted to say that, just let me know some other way,” or for an actor, if someone wants to send me a six-page email, but someone else doesn’t need that, I like to adjust my… I think if you’re trying to get everyone to be you and to approach things the way you would and to think that… You’re going to rob yourself of good ideas. It’s not going to work.

Craig: Megan, you’re toxically rigid, so what do you think?

Megan: I was going to say, have you-

Aline: I’m contrasting myself to Megan, obviously.

Megan: I was going to say, so your first room was Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Aline: See, this is why I’m not a really good sample. I had been in other rooms, little, tiny things here and there. Basically, I didn’t come up being a staff writer.

John: Megan, give us the real dirt. How does it really work?

Megan: That sounds amazing. That is what I am, now that I am a showrunner, trying to do. What that process feels like to me, in an adjustment from the way that I saw showrunners being when I was coming up and the way they acted towards me, the way that I’m trying to be a showrunner is like… I bought mushrooms recently.

Craig: Go on.

Megan: This woman that I bought mushrooms from gave me this chart of different dosages.

Aline: I didn’t know what kind of mushrooms we were talking about.

Megan: Sorry.

Craig: You thought she was talking about [crosstalk 00:59:58].

Aline: I was like, “Are we porcini? What are we-”

Craig: Oh, Aline.

Megan: She gave me the scale of all the different things you experience, different levels. At six grams of mushrooms was ego death. That is what I feel like I’m experiencing as being a showrunner, because I think in order to do it right, it is exactly what you’re saying.

Craig: Ego death.

Megan: In order to do it right, what you have to do is go, “I am your captain, but only in the senses that I am here to make everyone aboard this ship feel safe and a part of this team and feel like we’re all rowing towards the same place.” That’s not my experience when I started. When I started, it was like, “I’m in charge. You do what I say. If I tell you to come in at 10 a.m. and sit in a room until 7 p.m. without me entering that room, you’re going to sit there.” I didn’t have that experience coming up. When I was trained, it was very much like you shove a million ideas to your showrunner, and then they take the best ones, and then those somehow became their ideas. Then they go on with that.

Aline: Megan, my training ground as a feature writer, which these guys will know, is working for sometimes wonderful, occasionally-

John: Often monstrous.

Aline: … not wonderful people who are not trained in story often-

Craig: Who have authority over you.

Aline: … who couldn’t express their ideas with words, to whom I would have to say, “Oh my god, that’s so amazing. That’s so interesting. I love that. I was wondering if we could do something that made sense or advanced the story or had to do with the characters. We don’t have to.” As a screenwriter, it is a certain way similar to being on a staff and being semi listened to.

Craig: You’re working for writers.

John: Writers [crosstalk 01:01:45].

Craig: In features, you are often working for people that just don’t understand [crosstalk 01:01:51]. They haven’t done it themselves.

Aline: Most of my really bad experiences, by the way, were with things that never got made. I worked with a gentleman whose entire way of communicating to me was to send me screen caps.

Craig: Efficient.

Aline: “I was thinking this scene could be like this.” It would literally be a screen cap of a cartoon from the ’40s.

Megan: I’m not trying to say that I’ve had it worse than anybody else. Let me just say that. I will say that that is what I’m trying to do as well, which is to say… Really, it’s come out of my experience, because I realize that if you’re not properly incentivized to believe that your contributions matter to your showrunner, you are not showing up every day to do your best work. You are showing up every day to be there until they let you go. Then you go home and you do things that matter to you. What I am trying to do as a showrunner is say, “I hear you. Your voice is important. The things that you say are important. Your thoughts are important. If you need to tell me something, send me an email,” those sorts of things.

Aline: You’re saying no 85% of the time.

Megan: Yes, all the time. I’m resisting my inner nature to not be like, “You should be so lucky that I’m even listening to you, because I never got that.”

Craig: I wish that you would express that more. I want you to release the Kraken. I’m just curious, do you ever miss just being the… Jerry Seinfeld once got an award, and he said, “I don’t want to be up here accepting this award. I want to be back there making fun of the guy accepting this award.” Do you ever miss being the person who, after the showrunner finally lets you go, you can go out in the parking lot and go, “What a dick.”

Aline: “What an asshole.”

Craig: Now you’re the dick.

Megan: I do. I do, because the place that I’m in right now is between the two better places, which is you can either be one of the guys rowing, that’s like, “God, the captain’s an asshole,” or you can be the captain. Being the guy that’s below the captain, that passes along the captain’s wishes to the rowers, and then the rowers complain to you, and then you try to go tell the captain. He’s like, “I don’t give a shit.” Then you’re like, “Okay, I guess I have to go back and tell the… ” That position, that’s where I’m at right now, which is in between those two things.

Craig: Which honestly is the dream of most of these people.

John: Indeed. It’s honestly the dream of these people to have a show on television. There are so many shows on television. Back when we started our careers, it was pretty easy to keep up with what was on television. You could go into a general meeting, and you haven’t seen the show, you fake it, because you know what the shows were.

Craig: There were 12 shows on TV.

John: There were 12 shows on TV. Did I ever watch Gossip Girl? No. Could I fake my way through a meeting about it? Absolutely. In 2022, it’s actually much harder. You guys have staff people, so you know it’s hard. We’re guessing that even two fancy TV showrunners like you couldn’t tell us-

Craig: Here we go.

John: … where these streaming shows are airing, or if they’re even real.

Megan: Oh, no.

Craig: Here we go.

John: We’ll give you the title of the show-

Craig: And a little description.

John: … and a little description.

Aline: Can we confer?

John: You can confer, yeah.

Craig: And the platform.

Aline: Two women’s minds are better than one.

John: We’re going to tell you the title of the show.

Craig: We’re not going to say the platform.

John: You’ve gotta tell us what platform it’s on. If you don’t recognize the show, we can give you a log line and the star.

Craig: That’s it.

John: It’s hard, because we tried this. Are you ready to play I’ve Been Meaning to Watch That?

Craig: Here we go.

John: I’ll do this first. Mythic Quest, where would we find that show?

Craig: Is it real?

Megan: It’s on Apple TV.

Aline: It’s an extra special show starring Craig Mazin-

Craig: That’s right.

Aline: … on Apple TV, which I have watched.

Megan: Yes, it’s starring Craig Mazin on Apple TV.

Aline: I have watched.

Craig: They nailed it.

John: They nailed it.

Craig: That is correct.

John: One for you.

Craig: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Megan: [inaudible 01:05:36].

John: It’s streaming.

Megan: The CW?

Craig: That is not a streamer.

Megan: What is The CW? Is that Disney? That’s Disney, because-

Craig: Did you just arrive in this country?

Megan: I don’t know, Hulu?

Craig: Tell them.

Aline: It’s on Netflix.

Craig: It is on Netflix.

John: Netflix.

Aline: Some people think it’s a Netflix show.

Megan: I watched it when it was on legit CW TV.

Craig: There we go. Now the game gets-

John: Now it gets hard.

Craig: Basically, the difficulty level goes like… Here we go.

Megan: We know Chernobyl is on Disney Plus. Keep going.

John: [inaudible 01:06:08].

Craig: It’s very Elden Ring-like, as you guys know.

Aline: It would help that I don’t watch TV, right?

John: As you keep showing us.

Craig: It won’t hurt.

John: Our next program is Salvage Marines. Where is it streaming, or did we just make it up?

Aline: If it is streaming, it’s on Discovery.

Megan: It’s gotta be on Discovery, right?

Craig: We can give you a little information if you want.

John: We have a log line.

Craig: “In a green future of corporate tyranny and deep space combat, Samuel Hyst dares to dream of a life beyond the polluted industrial planet of Baen 6.”

Aline: Is it on the Syfy network?

Craig: No.

Megan: It’s not real.

Craig: Do you want to know who it stars?

Aline: Not real, I’m going to guess.

Craig: You’re incorrect.

John: Incorrect. A real show on Crackle. You can watch it now. Starring Casper Van Dien.

Craig: It is on Crackle. Here we go. The Old Man.

Aline: That’s on FX.

Megan: That’s real. That’s on FX.

Aline: That’s Jeff Bridges.

Megan: On Hulu.

Craig: Hulu, you’re right.

Aline: No, it’s FX for Hulu.

Megan: FX for Hulu.

Craig: What the fuck is the difference?

Megan: It’s FX for Hulu. It’s FX for Hulu.

Craig: You got it.

John: You got it.

Craig: You nailed it.

John: You got it!

Craig: It’s correct.

Aline: I watched it. I love it.

Craig: Nice work.

John: Irma Vep.

Aline: That’s on HBO. It was a French production. It’s Olivier Assayas. It stars-

Craig: Good Lord.

John: Jesus.

Aline: It stars the beautiful-

John: She’s getting the extra credit here. She’s like, “Teacher, teacher, I know more.”

Aline: Alicia Vikander. Alicia Vikander.

Craig: Correct.

Megan: Wow.

Craig: Mostly Fine.

Aline: I don’t…

Craig: You want a little description?

Aline: Sure.

Craig: “Two strange sisters deal with divorce, motherhood, and their father’s legendary china shop.”

Megan: Is it F-E-I-N?

Craig: It is not. It is F-I-N-E. Would you like stars?

Megan: Sure.

Craig: Lauren Graham and Zooey Deschanel.

Megan: No, that’s not real.

Aline: No, that can’t be.

Craig: It is not a real show.

John: [inaudible 01:08:07]. Rutherford Falls.

Megan: That’s real.

Aline: Rutherford Falls, yeah.

John: Where?

Aline: God, I did watch that too. I watched it too.

Megan: [crosstalk 01:08:16].

Aline: It’s Ed Helms. It’s Ed Helms.

John: Yes, that’s great.

Aline: The showrunner’s name is-

Megan: Sierra Ornelas.

Aline: … Sierra Ornelas.

John: Where is it?

Aline: It’s on…

Craig: I’ll give you a hint. Meh!

Aline: Oh, Peacock. Peacock. It’s an NBC show.

Craig: People don’t know that’s what they sound like, but they do. Roar.

Aline: That’s real, and it’s an anthology series. Alison Brie was in it.

Craig: Where do you find it?

Aline: It’s on Apple?

Craig: Yes.

John: [crosstalk 01:08:52].

Aline: I was at an Apple event literally last night talking to another person that came up and said, “Oh, I’ve got a new show.” I said, “Where’s it at?” He’s like, “Apple.” I’m like, “I never heard of it.”

Craig: Gulp.

Aline: I’m so bad! It’s so bad. We’re on the same things now, and we don’t even hear of each other’s shows.

Craig: There’s too much. Surely you’ll know about this one.

John: Woke.

Aline: That’s a semi-animated show starring Lamorne Morris.

Craig: Wow.

Aline: It was on Hulu.

Craig: We picked the wrong person to play this game.

John: Yeah, dear God.

Craig: Let’s see if you know about this one. Heartbreak High. Would you like a summary?

Aline: Yes.

Craig: “Emory becomes a social pariah when the mural she made of everyone’s past hookups goes public.” Heartbreak High.

Aline: This is a blind spot for me, because I don’t really watch high school shows.

Megan: I know, yeah. I don’t either.

Aline: I’m going to guess that is real and that it’s on… What are those high school shows on?

Megan: Freeform?

Craig: No, but it is real.

John: Real. Netflix.

Craig: It’s on Netflix.

Aline: Netflix.

Megan: There you go.

Craig: Heartbreak High.

John: Chapelwaite.

Aline: Isn’t that a British crime show?

John: I don’t know. You tell me.

Megan: Can we get [crosstalk 01:10:13]?

Aline: Is it a British crime show?

John: [crosstalk 01:10:14].

Megan: Use it in a sentence.

Craig: I have not heard of Chapelwaite.

John: “Set in the 1850s, this series follows Captain Charles Boone, who relocates his family to his ancestral Maine home. Charles has to soon confront his family’s sordid history to fight the end of darkness that has plagued them for generations.” Starring Adrien Brody.

Craig: Chapelwaite.

John: Chapelwaite.

Craig: Chapelwaite.

Megan: I have never heard of it.

Craig: Is it real?

Megan: It’s probably real, and it’s on a bus stop near my house I walk past.

Aline: Epix!

John: Epix is right. Aline [inaudible 01:10:49].

Craig: That’s inappropriate. Also, I thought it was Epix. Okay, next. Okay, smarty.

Aline: What?

Craig: Wendy.

Aline: Wendy.

Craig: Not Wendy Williams.

John: Yeah, Wendy.

Craig: Wendy. Would you like a summary?

Aline: Yes, please.

Craig: “Based on the classic Harvey comic, Wendy the Good Little Witch leaves the haunted forest but finds new terrors lurking in her high school hallways.”

Aline: No, that’s not a show.

Craig: That is not a show. You’re right.

Aline: It’s about a woman. It’s about a young woman. Why would you put that on the air?

Craig: It did say she was a witch.

Aline: If they did make it, it would be written, directed, and produced by a man.

Megan: That’s true.

John: I’m going to jump ahead to our last one here.

Craig: Let’s get Joel Kim Booster back up here.

John: The Last Kingdom.

Megan: That’s real.

Aline: That’s on Netflix. It’s a thing that my husband always wants to watch.

Craig: He sounds like a man.

John: My brother, who doesn’t watch anything, was like, “Oh yeah, we watched all four seasons and the movie.” I’m like, “This whole thing is just… ” You guys have won the-

Aline: There’s four seasons of it?

John: Four seasons. You have won the game-

Craig: You have won the game.

John: … I’ve Been Meaning to Watch That.

Craig: Well done.

Megan: Nice.

John: Let us welcome back to the stage Joel Kim Booster and Ike Barinholtz.

Aline: Oh, great.

John: Ike, I want to say, because in real life you’re not a douche bag manager. We just want to make that clear.

Ike Barinholtz: No, not anymore.

Craig: Not after tonight.

Aline: Not a manager at all.

John: I’m wondering if you could please answer this in the form of a question for us. This screenwriter, director, and actor is best known for The Mindy Project, The Afterparty, and Hulu’s upcoming History of the World, Part II. What is your question in the form of an answer, or answer in the form of-

Ike: Who is Ike Barinholtz?

John: Ike Barinholtz, everyone. Jeopardy champion, Ike Barinholtz.

Craig: This is my favorite part of the show, because we don’t have to prepare anything.

John: Nope.

Craig: We are deluged by questions.

John: Usually on our live shows, we have to give the warning of, if you’re going to ask a question, it actually has to be a question rather than a statement. We’re always nervous about questions.

Craig: Make your question a question.

John: This time, we did something different. We asked our audience to submit their questions in advance. They filled out little cards. They have been curated by our very own Megana Rao.

Craig: Yes, Megana Rao.

John: Please welcome to the stage, Megana Rao! Where are you, Megana? Megana, should we start with the audience question or your question? You get to choose.

Megana Rao: Let’s [inaudible 01:13:31].

John: Carefully step down the stage there and find [crosstalk 01:13:34].

Ike: Can I just say, this set is absolutely terrifying.

John: It is.

Megan: It’s very spooky.

Ike: That freaking skeleton up there, oh my god.

John: If you were the person who has a question for Megana, who won the raffle, do you want to ask your question, or are you passing?

Audience Member: I don’t have a question.

John: Aw.

Craig: That’s honestly the best gift you could’ve given us.

Aline: Aw.

John: Megana, I think she’s basically gifted you a question. Do you have a question you want to ask of any of these people up here?

Craig: That’s a big no. I can tell.

Megana: I spent enough time in the greenroom with them.

Ike: You have heard all the-

Joel: She’s so sick of us.

Ike: [crosstalk 01:14:06]. We’ve been talking for 30 minutes.

John: Megana, you’ve looked through these questions. What questions do you have for us here on the stage?

Megana: These are all questions from the audience, that came in before the show. Someone who did not sign it wrote, “Writers are upset about TikTok kids getting development deals, but is this different from a comedian getting a deal or optioning a bestselling book?”

Craig: Oh boy, here we go.

John: Oh, man.

Craig: How does that feel, gentlemen?

Aline: First, writers are just upset about young people being born every day, new people entering the world and trying to change things that we’ve set into place.

Joel: The bottom line is that they’re either going to make something cool or they’re not. It doesn’t really matter where you’re coming from. When you get these deals, they’re not meaningless, because you get a lot of money, but they don’t mean anything about the quality of the work. We’ve seen time and time again that a lot of social media stars do get these deals and then they don’t produce anything, because it’s a much different medium than what they’re good at. Some of them do end up making it and doing really awesome work that I enjoy. I don’t really pay too close attention to where they’re coming from. I’m mostly concerned about what are they making.

Aline: I love that answer. I love that.

Craig: That was the first good answer we’ve had on this entire podcast, ever.

Aline: I think that’s really smart. I think that’s really smart.

Megan: I met Bloom from YouTube. She just had uploaded her video. It didn’t have to go through a development program and a, I’m really bashing on men today, but another man and another man named Dave and another man named Brad and another man named Jeff to get to me. The thing that I love about TikTok is it’s people in their living rooms, it’s kids, and it’s not all people dancing. I’m going to talk more about that. I think if you create something great and then you’re put in a larger format and you can make it work for you and it’s something good, people will be judged on what they make, not how they broke in.

Ike: People are haters. It’s me and my friends living in a house, making our fucking TikToks. If they don’t like it, fuck off.

Joel: There you go.

Aline: I see you doing one of those where they come at the camera in a row and they’re dancing, and then one goes this way and the other one goes that way. What do you think?

Ike: We love it. We love all of our dances, don’t we, folks? Don’t we love our TikTok dances?

Aline: Didn’t Robert Evans just climb out of a swimming pool, and somebody saw him and was like, “Hey, you’re a star, baby.” What’s different about that from TikTok? It’s all the same.

Craig: I agree. You know what?. If you’re good at what you do, I don’t think you should be afraid of anybody. I don’t care what the new thing is. It doesn’t matter. If you’re a good writer, it’ll work.

Aline: I’m sure you experienced it, but when I worked in TV, developing pilots, they would give you a list of who the network was really into. It would be like, “We’re dying to do a show with this person.” It was always like, why?

Megan: Why?

Aline: Why? Didn’t it seem like the most random selection process?

Megan: Yes.

Aline: Then you would be walking around being like, “I’m doing a show for this person. The network really loves them.” Your friends and family would be like, “What?”

Megan: “Who?”

Ike: They’re talking about Mario Lopez, by the way, in case you’re wondering.

Aline: Be like, “He’s so funny in those interviews.”

John: Megana, do you have another question for us?

Megana: This one’s going to be a Megana question.

John: We love a Megana question.

Craig: Yay.

Megana: It’s a follow-up, because Joel and Ike were talking about social media. What is your take on writers having social media and the idea of building a brand as an emerging writer?

Craig: Brand.

John: Brand.

Craig: Brand.

Megana: I know, I set you up for that.

Craig: You’re not a person. You’re a thing.

Joel: Developing my brand on Twitter is just my fun, flirty way of saying I’m developing a mental illness.

Craig: Thank you.

Joel: Every day, deepening, deepening, deepening every day.

Aline: May I say I love you on Twitter though?

Megan: Your mental illness is so funny.

Aline: It’s a thing. I’ve found a lot of people. That’s how I knew who Joel was to begin with. There are a lot of great… I don’t know. I’m really shilling for the big corporations here.

Megan: I don’t think that it’s the thing that’s definitely going to get you a job, but I do know that when I’ve been recommended writers, I tend to Google them, and the first thing that comes up is their social media.

Ike: That’s what I was going to say. I would be careful what you tweet.

Craig: I think that your answer was perfect. It does feel like if you are aiming for a brand, then you are probably trying to monetize your personality disorder, and you should not do so. You should try and be as authentic as you can possibly be. There’s nothing wrong with that. You don’t have to go crazy. You don’t have to tell everybody everything, because people do that. Calculating a brand, it gives me the willies.

Aline: I can’t think of writers who I’m like, “Wow, social media’s killing it.”

Ike: Just don’t tweet about other writers, because you might be interviewing them.

Craig: Or don’t tweet at all.

Ike: That’s another option.

Megan: I read that, Ike, what you said about me, by the way.

Ike: So sorry. I thought I deleted it. I don’t know how to delete it. Someone needs to show me.

John: A question.

Megana: “What makes a great elevator pitch?”

Ike: It just has to have a pulley system strong enough to lift what’s inside.

Craig: I knew it was coming, but I was happy that it happened.

John: John Gatins [inaudible 01:19:10] on the stage. We have a microphone. You can share a microphone. You need to pitch something. You have 15 seconds to pitch something to somebody in an elevator situation. What are the crucial things you’re trying to get out there?

Aline: Couldn’t be a wronger guy to ask this to. Couldn’t be a wronger guy than John Gatins.

Megan: [crosstalk 01:19:25].

Aline: Here is one of the things that John has been saying to me for… John and I have known each other since 1997. He’s been retiring since then.

Craig: That’s true. That’s fact. That’s fact.

Aline: I would say 8 to 10 times a year he’s retiring. The other thing John says all the time is, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” He goes, “I went to the movies. I saw that. I don’t know. I [inaudible 01:19:48] TV. I don’t know. That guy just got made the head of a studio. I don’t know. I don’t know.” It’s actually really great. I’m going to tell you one… I have many, many, many, many, many pearls of wisdom from John Gatins.

Craig: “I don’t know.”

Aline: One of them is a gift that I have given to many people, which is that John says, “Hollywood remains undefeated.” It is incredible. I wrote that down and hung that up in our office, because it is incredible. So many people look like they’re winning in Hollywood. The car’s about to cross, and then something happens. Hollywood remains undefeated.

Then the other thing that’s actually a helpful tip that I got from John, which is, when you’re upset about something to do with work and something’s really gotten you in the gut, John has this 40-hour rule. We’ll talk about something, and then John goes, “You know what? Call me in 40 hours.” It’s a great amount of time. It’s like the glass and a half of wine. It’s not two days. It’s not two full days.

Ike: It’s a workweek.

Aline: It’s just enough time for you to… Every time we’ve ever done that and I’ve called him back, I’ve gotten over myself in 40 hour.

Craig: Nice.

Joel: I think a good elevator pitch elicits-

Aline: You wanted us to answer the question?

John: Joel, if you’ll answer the question.

Joel: I think it should elicit a question. Don’t give it all away in the pitch. It should make the person be like, “Oh, that’s interesting. Why are you talking to me in this elevator? I’m trying to go to my doctor’s office.”

John: That’s actually a very good point, because basically, you’re not saying, “Oh, I only have these 15 seconds.” You’re trying to get them to ask the next question that makes it go on longer than that little, short period of time you had. So smart. Megana.

Megana: Chad is a storyboard artist, and he says, “In boarding, we have exercises like retro-boarding or watching a movie and pausing and drawing what the storyboard might have looked like. This helps you learn the craft. Anything like this in screenwriting?”

John: I think I’ve told this on the podcast before. When I was first trying to figure out what the hell is screenwriting, I would tape an episode of a show, like Star Trek, and I would actually just write what I was seeing, so all the dialog, but also what would the scene look like around that. It’s a thing you can do. It’s free for everybody. It’s just figuring out what would the scene look like underneath that scene. The good thing about the internet now is we can probably look and find the actual scene pages behind that and see how does mine compare to what the actual real screenwriter wrote. You definitely can do that. It’s a thing we can experiment with.

Megan: I actually had to do this when I wrote my spec script that got me my first job in TV, because I didn’t go to… I was an English major, so I never took a screenwriting class. Then all of a sudden they told me I needed to write a spec script, and I didn’t know what that was. I watched an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Then I wrote out all the lines of dialog for every scene, and exactly what you’re talking about, and reverse engineered a script. Then I went, “Oh, it’s about 28 pages long. I guess that’s how long scripts are supposed to be.”

Ike: Then you use that as your sample.

Megan: Then I sew that back in.

John: [crosstalk 01:22:55].

Megan: They’ve done so many episodes.

Ike: It’s not cool.

Megan: They couldn’t tell the difference.

Ike: Those morons.

Megan: They just hired me and I worked.

Ike: “She really understands the tone. This script is awesome.”

Megan: It was sort of reverse engineering. Then what’s been useful to me after that is that sometimes I will write down more like an outline of what happened to describe what happens in the scene, because all the best TV shows that I love… If you can’t describe what actually happens in the scene, especially comedies… You sometimes get distracted by the jokes. What I try to do is I broom away all the jokes, don’t write down any of the funny stuff that’s happening, just write the nuts and bolts of what’s happening in the scene, because then when I go to sit down and outline my own episodes that I’m writing, it lets me be more honest about is there anything actually happening in the story or is it just funny.

Craig: Great.

Megana: “What is the smallest hill you’re willing to die on?”

Aline: One space after every period in the script.

John: Yeah, one space.

Craig: Yass.

Megan: No.

Joel: No.

Craig: Bones.

Megan: No.

Craig: Bones. Bones.

Ike: I’ve been broken. I was a two-space guy, and I’ve been broken to the one space.

Craig: You should be, because you only need to do one space.

John: I look at old scripts of mine that have two spaces, and I’m like, “Who was this person? I can’t recognize him anymore.”

Craig: What was this idiot who needed all this extra space to know that the sentence ended? Please.

John: The period did that job.

Craig: The period does it.

Megan: I think we’re all going to Hell because no one knows the difference between fewer and less.

Craig: Ever since Game of Thrones made a point of it, I think it’s been coming around. They did a pretty good job.

John: It was in there. It was a little [crosstalk 01:24:28].

Ike: The word “desperately,” spelling that one. There’s just certain words, I’m just like, my brain cannot spell it. I can’t even think of them right now, but there’s four or five words that I’m just like, “Man, fuck those words.” I can never spell them correctly.

Craig: Fuck those words.

Ike: How about you?

Joel: I would say that Season 10 of Ru Paul’s Drag Race is an underrated season.

John: Remind us who the queens were on Season 10.

Joel: Season 10, the winner of course was Aquaria, Eureka O’Hara’s second go at it, Asia O’Hara, the butterflies, tragic but iconic, and then of course Kameron Michaels. That’s the smallest hill I’m willing to die on.

John: That’s a small hill.

Craig: He stole my answer.

John: Megana, one more.

Megana: “With all the bleak news about mass buy-offs, show cancellations-”

Joel: Ending on a high note, cool.

Megana: “… decreased box office sales, etc-”

Ike: Global warming, hunger.

Craig: My cat dying.

Megana: “… what can you tell those of us who are working to become working writers that might give us hope about the future of the industry?”

Craig: Oh boy, you asked the wrong group of people.

John: Hope, hope, hope, hope.

Craig: Hope.

John: Oh my god.

Craig: Megan, they don’t know.

Megan: Sorry.

Ike: I think honestly, if you really focus on stories that you think are important and you throw everything into those stories, there’s a chance that you could end up working on Jeff Bezos’s sky raft. If you’re in the sky raft, you will live through the second atomic war. Once you’re up there, I don’t fucking know. I don’t know. Do whatever he says. To get there, really tell the stories that matter to you.

Aline: I’m going to give a more sincere answer. I have a production company. I have four wonderful people I work with. They read a lot of stuff. I read stuff after they curate it for me. If you write a great thing, it’s still really, really compelling, just because there’s more stuff, just because it’s harder, just because I think we have a huge problem with breaking people into the business now. It couldn’t be harder. It shouldn’t be so hard. It’s very hard to break in, very hard to earn a living. If you write a great thing, and that’s really what you want to do, a great thing does still really stand out and will get passed along and will be treated with reverence.

Craig: Here’s a little bit of hope. The things that you’re reading about are echoes of shit that’s already happened. It’s already old. Sometimes when we talk to people that work at these places, I’m startled by how they’re monomaniacally fixated on what they’re going to be doing in 2026.

The stuff that happens now, it may feel like you’re in the middle of it. You’re actually not. It’s already happened. You don’t actually know what’s going on, because they haven’t shown it to you yet, but it’s happening now. It may very well be that the evidence of things being wiped away and collapsed is already being undermined by things being created in even larger amounts. We just don’t know. We don’t know. Maybe the Netflix ad-supported thing, suddenly all these new shows get made. We just don’t know.

It’s probably best to not pay attention to that stuff, because you can’t control it anyway. It does go up and down. It’s a very cyclical business. If you concentrate on what you love and anything you feel very passionate about that’s unique to you, that’s all you can do. That’s literally all you can do.

Megana: Aw.

Craig: Thank you, Megana.

Joel: Or you can become huge on TikTok.

Craig: That’s the other myth.

Joel: That’s the other option.

Craig: [crosstalk 01:28:25].

John: The one other thing I’ll remind people about is that if productions shrink, if we’re not making as many shows, we probably won’t make for a while, if we’re making fewer movies, if you’re an actor, it’s tough, because as an actor, you’re waiting for somebody to cast you in a thing. As a writer, you always have the ability to create your own stuff and find a new way to make that thing. One of the huge advantages of the people on this stage is we can just go off and do a new thing. Do that new thing and figure out where the next place is that you can create some things for the world. That’s the luxury of being a writer. It’s what sucks about being a writer is we have to do all our own stuff. We have to be entrepreneurs, but we can just do our thing whenever we need to do our thing.

Joel: Entertainment is democratized in a way it’s never been before. Maybe there are less opportunities to make a shit ton of money doing writing. There’s also a million opportunities and ways to put out your work now. You can take that screenplay and make it a podcast. It’s so easy to do that now. It can get out to as many people as you can get it to. You just might not make as much money.

Craig: I don’t know, those guys just sold their podcast, what’d you say, for $75 million?

John: Yeah.

Craig: We gotta get that.

John: We made a book. We’re starting, Craig. [crosstalk 01:29:33]. That’s our show. [inaudible 01:29:37].

Craig: That was a great show. That was a great show.

John: We have some people we need to thank. We need to start off by thanking Hollywood Heart, Jessica Martins, Sarah Eagen, everyone at Hollywood Heart, our own John Gatins.

Craig: Of course.

John: Also apparently UTA for their support. Hollywood Heart, everybody.

Craig: Of course, we would like to say thank you to all the volunteers who helped make tonight possible, and of course everybody who showed up here in person and online. We appreciate you.

John: There’s people watching the livestream. Hi, livestream people.

Craig: Hello, folks.

John: I want to thank Dynasty Typewriter for hosting us. This is just an ideal venue. This was great. This is terrific. Thank you very much for making this all possible here at Dynasty Typewriter.

Aline: Air conditioning in here slaps.

John: I love it. It’s so good. Jerome Kurtenbach on piano!

Craig: Yay.

John: Thank you.

Craig: As always, Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao. Yay! We are the least popular things in our own show. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli.

John: Matthew! Thank you all. Have a great night!

Craig: Woo! Thank you guys. Thank you for coming. Woo!

John: Yay! Thank you so much!

Links:

• Learn more and donate to Hollywood Heart!
• Joel Kim Booster on Twitter and Instagram
• Ike Barinholtz on Twitter, Instagram, and Celebrity Jeopardy!
• Megan Ganz on Twitter and Instagram
• Aline Brosh McKenna on Twitter and Instagram
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• Craig Mazin on Twitter
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• John on Instagram
• Outro by Matthew Chilelli (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@dev.johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.