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Television Writing

Vince Gilligan Scripts Collection: Screenplays Download

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What can be said about Breaking Bad creator and screenwriter Vince Gilligan? Below are all the screenplays and television scripts written by Vince Gilligan available online. Watch the video below to get a deeper insight into his writing process. If you find any of his missing screenplays please leave the link in the comment section.

When you are done reading take a listen to Apple’s #1 Screenwriting Podcast The Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, with guest like Oscar Winner Eric Roth, James V. Hart, David Chase, John August, Oliver Stone and more.

(NOTE: For educational and research purposes only).

BATTLE CREEK (2002)

Screenplay by Vince Gilligan – Read the screenplay!

AMPED (2007)

Screenplay by Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz – Read the screenplay!

HANCOCK AKA TONIGHT, HE COMES (2008)

Screenplay by Vince Gilligan – Read the screenplay!

BREAKING BAD (2008-2013)

1×00 “Pilot”

3×01: “No Mas”

3×03 “I.F.T.”

3×05 “Mas”

3×06 “Sunset”

3×07 “One Minute”

3×08 “I See You”

3×09 “Kafkaesque”

3×10 “The Fly”

3×11 “Abiquiu”

3×12 “Half Measures”

3×13 “Full Measure”

5×16 “Felina”

BPS 080: Writing for TV/Streaming Platforms in Today’s World with Michael Jamin

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Today on the show we have writer and showrunner Michael Jamin. Michael has been writing for television since 1996.  His many credits include Just Shoot Me, King of the Hill, Beavis & Butthead, Wilfred, Out of Practice, Rules of Engagement, Lopez and Tacoma FD.

He’s also served as Executive Producer/Showrunner on Glenn Martin DDS, Maron, and Rhett & Link’s Buddy System. Michael currently lives in Los Angeles where he’s working on a collection of personal essays to be released in 2020.

Michael also launched a new course to help writers interested in working in streaming/television.  It’s called The Showrunner’s Guide to TV Writing. Here’s the pitch by Michael.

I’ve watched a bunch of Masterclass videos. They feature amazingly talented writers talking about their craft. At $200, it’s a great way to get exposed to their genius. My course is not about getting you exposed.  And I want to do more than just inspire you.  I do a lot of hand-holding in these lessons. I show you how to take a kernel of an idea, break it into a story with act breaks, then develop that story from outline to script.

I lay out the exact process that I use every day to write stories that make people laugh and cry. It’s about creating an easily managed structure so that the creative process isn’t so daunting. You should continue to draw inspiration from the masters. I certainly do. But if you need more than just inspiration, I can be your guide.
Click here to take a look. 

Enjoy my conversation with Michael Jamin.

Right-click here to download the MP3

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Alex Ferrari 2:04
I'd like to welcome the show Michael Jamin man, how you doing?

Michael Jamin 3:27
Good. Thank you for having me.

Alex Ferrari 3:28
Oh, thank you, man. We're just trying to survive the the COVID onslaughts right now in our industry.

Michael Jamin 3:34
Yeah, here. Yeah, it's not easy out there.

Alex Ferrari 3:37
Yeah, it's not easy. And unfortunately, I don't foresee it getting any better anytime in the near future.

Michael Jamin 3:43
I don't even know how they thought it was gonna get better. Like how do you put people on a set together? Like I like they're all gonna be wearing masks on camera? How does that kind of work? So I don't know.

Alex Ferrari 3:51
We'll talk about we'll talk about like, specifically TV cuz at least features you might be able to get outside a lot. And maybe you can make some stuff work on location, but or you just shoot in New Zealand, which is obviously COVID free.

Michael Jamin 4:03
But they don't want us

Alex Ferrari 4:04
there. And no, nobody wants us anywhere. Else, right. Oh, that's another podcast for another time. So before we get started, how did you get into the business?

Michael Jamin 4:18
Well, right at you know, in high school, that's why I wanted to be comedy, right? I saw tears on TV. I was like, that's what I want to do with my life like that now. And then I went to college and two weeks after grad college, I got into my car, drove to LA and didn't know anyone. And I was like, Well, I'm not going to leave until I make it. So I struggled a couple years. I was a PA for a couple years. I wrote on some horrible projects. But then I finally broke in with my partner. And we got a job as a staff writer on a show called just shoot me. And then we've been working ever since.

Alex Ferrari 4:50
That's actually a I remember that show. That was a pretty popular show back in the day. It was a big show. Yeah. And that was your first gig in the writing room. Yeah,

Michael Jamin 4:59
yeah. staff writer you All staff, right?

Alex Ferrari 5:00
How did okay, so Okay, let's let's let's dissect that for a second. How did you get that first paid? Like, how did you get that gig because it's not easy to become a staff writer, even though even at that time, it was still fairly competitive, not as competitive as it is now. But now I'm still fairly competitive. So how did you get in? How, like, did you use the sample? How did it work?

Michael Jamin 5:19
To be honest, my first job before that I was I was at an assistant for executive producers, and they were running a TV show. So I was answering their phones. And then they gave us a screen my partner, a script, and they were running a show called Lois and Clark Superman, of course, right. So that was my first professional script they gave us they say, Okay, well, what you pitch and we pitch to a couple ideas, and they love one. And that wouldn't became like a big, I wonder, you know, for Lewis and Clark. So with that, we were kind of able to solicitations. And then we found an agent and my together my partner, we must have written probably eight or 10 spec scripts together. And the first one we wrote was a friend's but a spec script. And then we kept on writings, we didn't get any more work. But ironically, that script got into the hands of Steve Levitt hands assistant when he was staffing for just shoot me, the first script. That was the one that got us work, even though we had written eight others after that.

Alex Ferrari 6:14
So it was your very first script, which they always say is the garbage script. That's the one yes, no, we're told we're gonna look, it's just it's a sacrificial lamb in your example, exactly.

Michael Jamin 6:24
The agent was like, and not that good. You know, whatever. That's the kind of work. You know, she's no longer our agent anymore.

Alex Ferrari 6:31
Obviously, obviously, I'll talk about agents in a little bit, which I know I'm sure you have a lot to say. So, so you Right, so that was my big question. A lot of I always talk to screenwriters, and they always want to write like an original, if they want to get into television, or now television slash streaming, which is basically the same thing at this point, right? They always like I want to do I want to, like write an original or I want to write a pilot. And that's going to be my writing sample. Right? do you suggest writing sample scripts of existing popular shows? Just as a writing sample, or to go in with a fresh idea?

Michael Jamin 7:07
You know what? That's a really good question. Like back when I broken, it was easier because there's four networks, and everyone knew the big shows by Seinfeld friends, like everyone watched those shows. Now, what's the one show that everyone's watching? There really aren't that for sitcoms, just really,

Alex Ferrari 7:21
it's just Tiger Kane, obviously. But other than that,

Michael Jamin 7:24
like, last year, there was big bang theory. But that's no longer you know, on the air, so ever. Maybe Barry's the big hit. But that's still that's not like, it's a great show. Everyone's watching it. Not

Alex Ferrari 7:35
everyone was I mean, Big Bang was probably it was the big bang was kind of like the last run of that of those kind of models, friends or cheers or signs out there. That was the last one. Is there one going Modern Family just left? Exactly. So there really, there really isn't.

Michael Jamin 7:55
So that's why people are writing original stuff. But the problem was the originals. Like, that's a whole different skill set, creating characters in a world and a fresh, original pilot. Like, if when I'm hiring a show, I don't need to know if you can do that. I need to know if you can write for existing characters. I don't need to know if you can create your own. That's not the job requirement. And so I think it's a lot harder for people trying to break in now because they have to show original work. Just because no one's no one's watching those other shows. You can't really spec those other shows. So the bar is a little unfair. That's why Yeah, it's a it's a little unfair for people breaking in.

Alex Ferrari 8:30
So would you. So if I want to get a job on Stranger Things, or on or on a, you know, on any of the like, it's a Netflix streaming sitcom, one day at a time. Let's say you guys come to mind. Do you write a spec? script for that show? No,

Michael Jamin 8:49
no, because you'll never do it as well. And whoever reads it was like, that's not that's, that doesn't count. That's not how it works. They'll be like, that's not No, you didn't catch the voice. And you never will. The best way not to get hired on a show is to spec that show. Like I remember even when I was on just shoot me reading specs for just shoot me don't that's not No, no, no. And, you know, because everyone is writing like Nina, like a giant horn like Nina's not a horse. But I can see why you're watching that show why you think that but for us on the inside, there's a there's a very fine line that we play on how we create, you know, right for those characters. So you're never gonna get it as an outsider. If you want to get a job on one day at a time, don't submit a one day and time

Alex Ferrari 9:29
spec. So you always do something, another show popular in that same kind of genre.

Michael Jamin 9:35
Exactly the same tone right?

Alex Ferrari 9:37
Right now. Now, how do you when you're in a writers room because you've been a showrunner and you've been a staff writer? Yeah. You're when you're in the writers room, which we'll talk about the future of writers rooms is a general state. But when you're working, when you're working in a writers room, what is that dynamic of a sitcom you know, a fully functioning you No hitting on all cylinders, kind of writers room in a comedy world.

Michael Jamin 10:04
I've been I've been I've been in some great writing room and some ones that are not that great. It all kind of depends. The tone of the show is is dependent on the showrunner, what kind of are they? collaborative? Are they kind of jerks? You know, there, you got all sorts, obviously, job of a staff writer, I think, I think many people make this mistake, they think that your job is to make the best show possible, which is not what your job is your job as a staff writer, and then any level that can be the bottom staff writer to go all the way to coexist. Your job is to make the best version of the show that the CO showrunner wants to make. And there's a big difference. So you could there's no point arguing with the showrunner about what what's going to be good or bad? That's up for him or her to decide. It's your job to please them. You know how you don't shouldn't argue and say no, I think America like this, that's not for you to say nothing, you know, you just do what your boss give your boss what your boss wants.

Alex Ferrari 10:58
So it's a very much of a hierarchy, system and television, much more than amateurs? Oh, yeah. Yeah,

Michael Jamin 11:05
yeah. And also, you know, as the higher up you go, the more responsibility, the more you're expected to contribute. So staff writer doesn't isn't expected to do the same amount of work as a co executive producer. And so sometimes they think, well, that person is talking X amount of time, I need to talk x as much, but you don't, you have to talk their pay, they're getting paid a lot more than you. So you don't have to do as much. So you don't need to fight with them. You know?

Alex Ferrari 11:30
So when you do, that's the one thing I always see 1000s of CO executives and executives and producers and all these credits when I see my shows, can you explain what these are? Because I mean, yes, it's it just because it's, it gets stupid sometimes, like literally, I would watch a show, and there's 10 or 15. co executives and then executive producers, and then the Creator. And it's like, there's just so many can you explain why that is? Right.

Michael Jamin 11:57
So you have the showrunner. That's the boss, the head writer, that person's usually the executive producer. But from starting from the bottom, you have the staff, the writing staff, the lowest one writer is a staff writer. And then you get then you get to story editor, executive story editor, got to co producer, producer, supervising producer, co executive producer, these are the CO executives maybe like the number two, the second in command when the executive producers out of the room. And then you have other executive producers, who might be a manager, they might be talent might have a credit, you might have executive producer who created who sold the book that it's based on. So there's a lot of people who are non writing executive producers that might get a current credit, but they're not writers. Is that and also some network executives might be in that world. Some Yeah. studi Yeah, absolutely.

Alex Ferrari 12:47
How do you deal with hidden executives that come in and just

Michael Jamin 12:54
smile, and you smile

Alex Ferrari 12:55
a lot into a heart and just say, No, I'm not gonna go do that behind closed doors.

Michael Jamin 13:00
Sometimes you get great advice and great notes. And sometimes you don't. But that's part of the you know, when you work as a writer, and you're getting paid part of the job is to like, Listen up, you know, you got to take your ego out of the game, and you have to play ball, you have to be nice and polite. If you fight everybody, you know, you can you want to use them as allies. So you want to work with them. And if you can give them a note, you give them a note, and you give them take their No,

Alex Ferrari 13:24
no. Can you talk a little bit about the politics inside of television writing? world? It just what television show in general? There's politics involved. There's politics and everything. Yeah, I think it's something that's not really spoken about. So like, a lot of the stuff you've just said, are invaluable. little tips like, you don't tell the executive, the the showrunner or the CO executive like, No, I think the character would do this if you're a staff writer. But that's not kind of the hierarchy, I think you'll get you'll get, you'll get, you'll get axed fairly if you have no time. Really, yeah, it's ego, and you're not gonna win that battle? Well, it's I think it's because

Michael Jamin 14:02
staffers want to prove they, they want to prove their job, they want to prove that they can contribute. And the easiest way for them to prove that they contribute is by shitting, on your idea, that that's what they think. And so it's much harder to come up with a good idea, it's very hard to come up with an idea that we're going to that you're going to use, it's much easier to say why your idea is terrible, or why it's not going to work. And they think that part of the creative process, but it really isn't. In the rooms, there's an expression, it's pitch, don't pitch. So if you have a problem, don't come up with a problem, come up with a solution. And then everyone will love you, but don't point out problems unless you have a solution.

Alex Ferrari 14:38
So a lot of times, you'll hear writers do exactly that. They're like, Oh, there's this and this and this Well, well, how do you fix it? I don't know. Yes,

Michael Jamin 14:49
I didn't know what I was doing. So I was like, well, I might as well just tell you what, I think you're doing something wrong, as opposed to me being positive. So we're all guilty of that as I see it all the time with with staff writers. I always All the time.

Alex Ferrari 15:00
Now as far as the politics are involved, the hierarchy is that the showrunner is the absolute boss. Yeah, yeah. Other than the studio maybe above him. That's

Michael Jamin 15:12
right. The showrunner is never really the boss the shit, you know, cuz there's always someone telling you what you're doing wrong. It could be the studio could be the star network. So even when you're the boss you're never the boss.

Alex Ferrari 15:22
So it also depends on what where you are in the in the the lifespan of that show for season. Everyone's kind of hanging out. We're all trying to figure out we're gonna get picked up for the next season.

Michael Jamin 15:34
Yeah, everyone's operating out of fear. Especially.

Alex Ferrari 15:37
Exactly. So when you when a series is been around for four or five seasons, let's say then the power shift could be different. It could be the showrunner. It could be the star, that's now become a star. And now they start they start throwing their weight around a little bit more. And they're like, you know what, I have an idea. Yeah. And I think we should go I think we should make this character do this now and the entire the entire writers room goes. That's a horrible idea. And then the show runners like, if I don't appease the the star, this is going to be a problem. But if I do a pizza star, the whole show is gonna go downhill. So yeah, am I am I speaking?

Michael Jamin 16:16
At definitely happens. Definitely happens. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 16:20
What's your How do you? So as a showrunner, I have to ask you. How do you deal with that? Like, how do you deal with like, these kind of influences coming in from all over? And it's your job to keep the boat on on the path that you feel is the right path. I know this is this is just landmines everywhere.

Michael Jamin 16:38
Yeah. It's definitely hard. But you know, I've had my partner and I've had some easy experiences met. We ran a show called Marin starring Mark Marin. And he was in the writers from the whole time. So because he's one of the writers. And so we didn't have there was never a power struggle, because he was in there the whole time. And if he had a problem with something's Okay, here, let's figure it out together. I think it becomes trickier when the star is not in the writers room. When you put them in the writers room. You say, okay, we're going to work this out. We're going to figure this out. And then they go, Oh, I'm gonna be here all night. And then suddenly, suddenly, they play ball. But if you start is not in the writers room, and they go, okay, you're gonna be here all night. I'm going home. And that's when things get ugly.

Alex Ferrari 17:16
Yeah. fix it. And I'll see you in the morning.

Michael Jamin 17:18
Yeah, yeah. But we've had variances. So yeah.

Alex Ferrari 17:22
And it goes, I was sure. I'm assuming you have horror stories. And you have stories that are fantastic. And you're like, Oh, that's just a pleasure to work. Like Marin. I'm assuming he's, I've heard great things about him. And he's Yeah,

Michael Jamin 17:33
he's really he was always game like, you pitch something to him and be crazy going. Okay, I'll do that. And you like, really? Cuz he was just game. So he's very open. Yeah. So

Alex Ferrari 17:43
So let's talk a little bit about COVID. Right now, because we're, as we're recording this, we're in the middle of COVID. It's, we're arguably still in the first wave of this thing. I remember a month ago, or a month and a half ago, hollywood was reopening. It was going to be new guidelines. And as I was, and I was, as they were announcing all this in the unions were signing off on stuff and all of this, I'm just going to myself, this is you guys are insane. I know everybody wants to go back.

Michael Jamin 18:11
Right? The insurance would never saw you, they would never sign off on it. So it doesn't matter.

Alex Ferrari 18:17
Right. I was gonna say that, like if someone gets sick on your set, and then someone God forbid dies because of it. Yeah, you're liable as a production. So unless you've got some coverage, you are leaving yourself wide open. And then of course, there's the I think there were some productions that were wanting the actors and in this in the crew to sign off waivers going if you get COVID it's on you. Yeah, right, man. And I think I think sag said, No, no, no, no, we're not.

Michael Jamin 18:49
We're taking out a few animated projects, just because that seems to be the only thing that's safe right

Alex Ferrari 18:54
now. Right and so Okay, so with COVID How is I you know, writer room writers rooms are still going right now. But in the zoom style process, because a lot of the late night shows are still going from home. Yeah. And they have writers rooms, and I was watching an interview with Trevor Noah, and they're like, yeah, the first couple weeks we're just like, on top of each other who's muted who's not muted? Who's, who's talking who's not. But But then we just got into it. Have you had any experience with

Michael Jamin 19:24
Oh, I was on the last show. I was on DICOM AF D. And that's a live action show. But it hasn't come back for I'm sure it will but it hasn't come back yet for the third season. So I don't know what the plan if they are going to pick it up to the third seat. I think they are but I'm not sure when because when can they choose it? So I don't know what the what the network's plan is on that so we haven't I haven't been in a virtual writers room yet.

Alex Ferrari 19:47
How do you how do you feel it's gonna work in your from your

Michael Jamin 19:51
I think I think for it to work. It has to be a small room. I think you can't have the same number of writers as you used to because everyone's talking over each other. You know, it

Alex Ferrari 20:00
What is what is the standard register in the common?

Michael Jamin 20:03
It's getting smaller now, because especially if you go to cable and the budgets get smaller, maybe eight writers, but I'm married first season we there was just four, but four of us, there's four of us. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 20:15
And Mark was one of them. Now that's actually a pretty

Michael Jamin 20:18
tight that's me. That's true, because you have to do 13 episodes. And then that means everyone has to write a time, and you only have like, 10 weeks of pre production. It was really, it was a it was, you know, it was stressful. We had, you know, bang that thing out.

Alex Ferrari 20:32
So that's a great, that's a good segue to the next question. You You obviously started in the traditional television world, when there was only four major networks. Yeah. And now 1000 networks with 20,000 shows. But yes, have started to drop, drop, drop, drop drop dramatically, because that's the nature of the beast. And you've worked on both sides. And you've worked on cable shows, you've worked on streaming shows, how do you adjust? Because the budgets, the budgets keep going down and down? Right?

Michael Jamin 21:08
When we did Marin, that was the first show my part of my rant, and I remember the put the budget, and that was about a third of what a network show was. And so a network show you might shoot in five days. Marin, we had a shooting two and a half days, each episode two and a half days. And I remember getting a tour. They put us up in some kind of dumpy building in Glendale, some kind of low rent a production office, and the woman was giving me a tour of the Office of the room from the studios give me a tour of the office. And because I shouldn't tell you this, but we're all laughing at you in the office. And I'm like, yeah, you shouldn't. Why are you laughing? Because Because your budgets so low, we don't think you can make it. And I was like, This is not what I needed to hear on my first day as a showrunner. And I said, Well, do we get to have a whiteboard? I meant it. I like, do we have a whiteboard? And she goes, we have a supply room full of whiteboards. You can have as many whiteboards as you want. I was like, Oh, no, we'll figure it out. And that's no problem. You just write to what you can do. So that means when you have when you write a scene, you don't write a scene in an amusement park, you write a scene in someone's backyard, you know, you just make a small and you just change the way you write. It's and, and and when you watch the show, sometimes scenes were poorly lit. Sometimes the coverage was a little lacking. But no one the critics never said that. The critics never said the scene was dark. The critics never said, Oh, why is it Granville street? You know, they were like, Hey, this is great. The writing, they comment on the writing and the acting. And so no one said, you know, they were kind because no one watching a show for the lighting. You're not gonna watch a show on

Alex Ferrari 22:30
not specifically in the comedy comedy,

Michael Jamin 22:33
you're not gonna see what a wallet show you if it's no good, you're gonna turn it off. You

Alex Ferrari 22:37
know, right. That's the that's icing. It's not that it's not the foundation. It's not that the main meat of the cake, if you will. Now, there was another thing I wanted to ask you about the the world of the Seinfeld, the friends, the cheers, residuals of those shows, are are legendary. I mean that the friends cast still makes I'm sure the writing staff still makes obscene amounts, like you get one show. And it's a hit for eight or 10 seasons, you're good. You don't have to work anymore.

Michael Jamin 23:10
Well, not so much for writer for writer you used to get half every time it airs, you got half half of what you half and half and half and then it gets it's you know, it's a it's a you know, calculus, it's a limit you there's an excellent, you reach a cap. And you'll never make more than that because it gets half half in half. And then I have to go into like Netflix and they just give you a one time fee. Right? And they bought out and you don't really get residuals you got like a one time check.

Alex Ferrari 23:33
Right? So that that changes the whole conversation because the days of a modern family, the days of a friend, but even Modern Family that just finished this this year. Those were those residual packages that the studios are just trying to go away from that because they're like, Well, wait a minute, Netflix isn't doing so why do we have to do it now? Even Disney's like, yeah, we're gonna give you like two runs of residuals. And that's pretty much it, guys. And that's everybody's staff and everything. So that really changes the game for not only actors, but for show runners for creators, these these really fat packages that they would get the back end aren't going away. That's it? Yeah. Yeah. What's your feeling on that? How does that change the way you think about your career moving forward? And specifically, because you obviously started back in the day, when those packages were still around. And they are still around to a certain extent in the network world? Yeah, for some people, but how does that change the triadic trajectory of a writer's career? Because before you kind of like we're looking forward to those that mailbox money.

Michael Jamin 24:40
Yeah, it's it makes it a lot harder, to be honest, as a middle class writer, as he's kind of squeezes you out, because people were used to rely on those residuals and now they're just they're not there anymore. And the network, the orders are shorter and shorter. So in the past, I was on just shooting you do 24 episodes a year and you get paid per episode. Now you'll be on a cable show, you'll do maybe eight or 10 episodes a season. Then you got to find another job. You have to somehow you know, it's

Alex Ferrari 25:03
another job. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Jamin 25:05
So it's definitely, it's squeezing out. It's gonna squeeze out writers. It's gonna squeeze out people who just can't afford to do it. You know, it's not good.

Alex Ferrari 25:14
It's it, but it's the it's the nature of the business the way streaming has changed everything.

Michael Jamin 25:19
Yeah, yeah. So you can pitch about it, or you got to just, you know, accept it and adopt without making something out.

Alex Ferrari 25:25
I mean, it's people like Shonda Rhimes, and Ryan Murphy, those guys are getting such upfront massive.

Michael Jamin 25:30
You don't need to worry about them.

Alex Ferrari 25:31
They're doing okay. They're okay. They were they were fine before. Yeah, Alex gave Shonda Rhimes $100 million.

Michael Jamin 25:41
Everyone else,

Alex Ferrari 25:42
but I wanted to kind of bring that up because I want there to be a realistic idea of what an actual television writer is going to be doing in the in the from now moving forward. There is everyone's like, Oh, it's the Golden Age, there's so much opportunity. Absolutely, there is a lot of shows, there's more shows. But the money is much less,

Michael Jamin 26:03
I spend as much time either looking for work or developing work, creating my own shows with my partner than I do actually writing working on a show. I mean, you know, the balance has shifted.

Alex Ferrari 26:14
So you know, it's much more much but you're also in a position to have you have track records, you have a reputation that you can walk in with a brand new show and kind of end up being a showrunner and all that stuff. So if you're in a very unique scenario that that makes, that makes all the sense in the world, you shouldn't be going after staff writing jobs at this point. Yeah. All right. You should be doing other things and packaging it out. But moving for like, can you Is there a standard is that what's the writer guild guild minimum now for? Like a staff writer on a comedy show on streaming?

Michael Jamin 26:44
I don't know. I don't know. offhand. I might be a few 1000 a week. I don't know if it's different for moms.

Alex Ferrari 26:50
Yeah, no, it's not. It's anywhere between a few 1000 to low five figures or not. It's not going to get to

Michael Jamin 26:57
that writers get paid per week, whereas other writers hierarchy paid per episode.

Alex Ferrari 27:01
Oh, there's just the straight up staff writer, and they're just there for the duration of bottom level. And

Michael Jamin 27:06
that's a weekly minimum salary. And I don't know, because I don't really know what it is, like two or three.

Alex Ferrari 27:11
I don't know something. Random. Yeah. So it's, it's Monday, but in LA?

Michael Jamin 27:16
Yeah. Yeah. Always for sure. I mean, when I was an assistant in La 25 years ago, I was an assistant. I was making dirt money, but I had enough money to make it Have I get my own studio apartment. But now forget, it wasn't

Alex Ferrari 27:29
where was that studio apartment?

Michael Jamin 27:30
That was in, in the Fairfax district in West Hollywood. So I couldn't get that out? No, no, I had a one bedroom for 650 a month now. Now, it's probably like 2000 a month, that same building an army. So

Alex Ferrari 27:48
all right, so you're gonna write a pilot? Well, first of all, before you that, can you explain what a show Bible is?

Michael Jamin 27:55
Yeah, and I don't really, I guess it. We don't do that. I don't do that. On my level. It's basically you're telling people when you sell the show, here's the pilot. But also, here's the show. And here's the run of the show. Here's what we think a season two and season three is going to be and I understand they kind of want that now for free for a lot of streaming shows, they want them to be serialized because people are because people are binge watching. So as opposed to like Modern Family, you can watch any episode out of water, and it's just as enjoyable. But now I want it to be serialized. So this one, because next one, that way, you can't stop watching. And so in that sense, they really kind of want a Bible they want. They want to know what the three our three season arc is, which, especially for a young writer, a new writer, I don't know how they're expected to know how to do that. For me. It's not it's not as hard but for new writers like

Alex Ferrari 28:43
Jay Yeah, you know, but also, I

Michael Jamin 28:45
find that limiting because when you as you work on the show, you discover the relationships at work and the dynamics and whatever you think the plan is, you throw it all out, because you go, Oh, this is working. Let's go with that. So the whole idea of Bible Smith find a little strange, but that's kind of what people want. So if you if you are,

Alex Ferrari 29:05
if you're writing a pilot for a new show, and you really are behind this pile, and you think this is this is good, or you have two or three of these pilots, should you attach Bibles to that, at this point, US New York,

Michael Jamin 29:15
or a young writer,

Alex Ferrari 29:16
a young writer,

Michael Jamin 29:18
I feel like for a young writer, their job is to write a good pilot script, because if it's good, they're going to get teamed up. They need to get teamed up with a showrunner like me to sell it anyway.

Alex Ferrari 29:27
And that's something that most writers don't understand, especially young writers that like if you even if you've got the next Breaking Bad, they're not gonna let you run the show.

Michael Jamin 29:35
No, no, and you're not going to even sell it without some other piece of the top piece of the package. Whether it's a showrunner or a piece of talent director, something else has to be part of the equation or you're not going to sell it. So do you if you have an idea for a script? Do you need to read a whole Bible? I don't think so. Your first the first challenge is to write the it's read a good script and then team up with the short run and the short run will help guide you

Alex Ferrari 30:00
Will that writer as a creator of the show, will they still have it? Let's say, let's say I write a pilot and and I attach you to it and you're like, I love this. Let's do it. You're the Creator, Alex, we're gonna take this over to Netflix, I got my boy Bob over there, he's gonna get us in there and you get a deal. Will I as, as the creator of it still have? Not creative control? Because that's not I'm not that delusional. But what what what can we what can a writer in my position expect to as far as creatively, and financially work in that world?

Michael Jamin 30:35
He creatively you would be hopefully attached to the project.

Alex Ferrari 30:40
Hopefully,

Michael Jamin 30:41
yeah. You know, if you make too much of it, if you make too much of extinct kick out, I okay. So, I worked. Uh, this is the year or two ago, someone brought us a producer brought us a talent. There's a writer who had a show, she created something on YouTube that had some episodes in there, like short little episodes, like five or 10 minutes, and some of them are quite good. And some of them were in. And so the plan was to attach her, they wanted to catch us to be sure when his first show we'd like the basic premise and the characters. And then she got a little greedy. And, and she wanted more and more and more. And we were waiting for the and I kept, you know, I was like, I don't need to deal with this. I'm, I'm part charge of that negotiation, you producers Miss studios are, they can leave me out of this. And then suddenly, the deal just went away. It just went, she became too much of a pain in the ass, and it went away. So you know, you got to understand your first first opportunity, you're going to get screwed. I got screwed on my first opportunity ever, but everyone does. You have to accept that you don't have leverage. So play ball, accept the fact that you know, hey, hoping to go I'm here along for the ride. I'm here to help. And I'm not here to make waves. And then in your second project, that's when you start making some money.

Alex Ferrari 31:56
So Larry, David's not gonna get screwed on his next project?

Michael Jamin 31:59
No, no, Larry, Dave is he's again, he's okay. It's it's no, he's fine. If someone was no credit needs to just Hey, you know, just not going along for the ride. And just and yeah,

Alex Ferrari 32:13
it just go. Yes, yes. I just want to credit I want to get paid a little bit. And this let's move on. And if you if you can, can you? Can you please express this is the biggest piece of advice I give anybody who asked me about being a writer, being a filmmaker being getting into the business, the number one piece of advice I gave is like, Just don't be a dick. Oh, oh,

Michael Jamin 32:34
I see it all the time. And I see it I think you're exactly right. Because you know, people, okay, assistance when you're talking to an assistant on a, an agency or whatever, they're not going to be assistant for a long time, they're gonna rise up to agents in a year or two. And same thing with anybody in any position a PA, you don't abuse them, you just be nice to them, just because you want to be nice, but also because they are going to be in power at one point. So don't be a dick to anybody.

Alex Ferrari 32:59
That's crazy. You never underestimate the power of just being able to sit and wait specifically for TV writers to sit in a room for eight to 10 hours if not longer with somebody and enjoy their company that is honestly sometimes more valuable than a super talented writer who's just a pain in the ass to work with.

Michael Jamin 33:18
I saw I worked on one show, we had a pain in the ass writer and he never came back for season two.

Alex Ferrari 33:22
So and then have you and have you worked with, you know, arguably writers who you knew the other guy might have been a better writer, but he was just such a pain in the ass or like,

Michael Jamin 33:30
not worth it.

Alex Ferrari 33:32
It's it's just not it's not worth it right talent.

Michael Jamin 33:34
You can find somebody else who, who's just as good and not a pain in the ass. There's a lot of competition out there.

Alex Ferrari 33:39
Right? You know? Yeah. And a lot of times they think that the last coconut desert as they say,

Michael Jamin 33:43
Yes, yeah.

Alex Ferrari 33:45
Right. Now, what advice would you give a writer or a young writer or writer who's just starting out? How do they get attention from a manager or an agent? And when is it appropriate to even approach them, but I think that's a very specific thing. That's

Michael Jamin 34:01
when I'm staffing for a show, I got to read a ton of scripts. And these are from writers who are young writers, but they have representation. Like I also wouldn't have gotten a script. And I'm telling you 95% of the scripts are just no good. And these are people who have representation. And I think what you're asking is actually the wrong question. I think the right question to ask is, how can I make sure my script is good? Or great? because no one's looking for mediocre writers? You know, if you're mediocre, right, there's, I don't know, unless maybe they want a good writer or a great writer. And so the question is, how can I make my script good or great, as opposed to how can I find a manager or an agent? Because once you have managed read it, so what that doesn't mean anything? You get to tell your mom, look, I got a manager and your mom's like, oh, maybe it's gonna work out. But it doesn't mean your table, you know, the money doesn't go in your pocket with a manager, you need to have a job.

Alex Ferrari 34:49
Right. And that's, that's kind of why I asked the question because there's this myth out there that people especially people who are not been in the industry for a long time that they think that once they get the agent in the manager all their dreams will come true the agents gonna start getting them in all those rooms and the money's just gonna start flowing in because they're gonna hustle for

Michael Jamin 35:05
you know, they're not. They Their job is to feel the offers. They basically if they if an agent has 10 writers, and they submit all 10 writers for this one job opening, they don't care who gets it as long as one of them gets it, they're happy. Like, you know that they're why they don't care who and so they're not gonna fight for you. Maybe they'll submit you, but they're gonna fight for the one who is who he gets the job easier.

Alex Ferrari 35:29
Now, what is the biggest mistake you see screenwriters make? And with television pilots, or television writing in general,

Michael Jamin 35:38
the single bit? Well, one of them is just not starting the story soon enough. And and that's just basic understanding how how to write a screenplay. And so if I am reading a script, and I, the story hasn't started by page five, if I'm not engaged, forget it. Goodbye. I pick up another one. Now that seems unfair, but I got a stack of scripts up to the roof. Why would I? Like maybe it'll get good at the end. But who cares? Like I'm not I'll just read the next one. Next one will get read good earlier, hopefully be you know, start the story sooner. And I think that's it may seem cruel, but it's actually fair, you and I do the same thing. If we're watching a TV show, and it's no good. After five minutes, we don't say well, let's give it another 30 minutes,

Alex Ferrari 36:16
we change the channel. Right? So exactly like right now my wife and I are We're in COVID land. So we're going through shows yet like we should that show that you've always wanted to watch you've had on your list. We're now starting to get to them. And then when we get to them, like we'll give them an episode, maybe two. And then it's finds out not not it's no,

Michael Jamin 36:38
but it's gonna get good later. I don't care. I don't care. Like,

Alex Ferrari 36:42
I know a lot of people listening will probably freak out. But like, I have never watched Game of Thrones. So I watched one or two episodes. My wife both watched it. And we were just like, I'm sure it's gonna get really good. Interesting, but I I don't have the time. And if my wife's not into it, right? It's just hard, man. I can't I can't take on Game of Thrones without the support of my wife because we only have so much TV. We can watch. We generally don't watch it separately. We generally watch it together. So I just I couldn't get into it. I'm sure one day maybe I will. But you know I love okay. I know. I know. A lot of people do a lot of people love it. Like, I'm a huge Breaking Bad fan. Like the best fiver I mean, it's the best show ever been selling some genius. And, you know, I remember I remember walking dead when it first came out. I'm not my wife got into the zombie show. Like it was insane. But then I after season six, I just like

Michael Jamin 37:43
yeah,

Alex Ferrari 37:45
I can't. But um, but at a certain point, you either lose people or you gain people and a show like in the comedy world like, like friends, I still think is probably as brilliant as Seinfeld. To a certain you know, Seinfeld. In France, both of them Cheers. is where I was watching. I went to my mom's house last year to visit and I was watching Golden.

Michael Jamin 38:11
Golden was great, man. What's a great shot.

Alex Ferrari 38:13
What a great show. Yeah, and like I haven't seen gold. I remember watching Golden Girls forever. And I was watching it and I'm just sitting there going. Hiding is so good.

Michael Jamin 38:27
Who ran modern Emily crystal I ran Modern Family. And then he also you know, he ran Frasier before then we in between we worked for them on a show called out of practice that he created. And he's a just a brilliant writer. But I think his very first credit was was Golden Girls. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 38:41
that's it's it's amazing to go back and watch some of those some of those early shows.

Michael Jamin 38:47
By the way, who now they would never make it because who's gonna sit down and watch five or four, you know, senior citizens? Who cares? It's funny, it's great. The cat, but they don't make those. They will make that show now because that what's the entry point? You'd have to be 25 year olds or whatever.

Alex Ferrari 39:03
You know, the funny thing is to that Blanche. Who was the that character Blanche? She was like 53 in the show. Yeah, Jennifer Lopez is 50 like two. Is that right? Wow. I saw that online somewhere. I was like, This is 50. This is 53 in 1985. Yeah, and this is 52 in 2020. And you're just like Jennifer Aniston's in her. Yeah, in her late 40s, early 50s. Salma Hayek is in and you look at these women like amazing but JLo is a freak of nature. She She obviously drinks the blood of infants who can blame? I mean, Jesus. So those are the deaths. The biggest mistake any advice you would give screenwriters who are trying to break into television or into when I say television, I mean includes streaming that's that's a given. Yeah. So tell. I'm trying to get a job right now. Television. Honestly, I,

Michael Jamin 40:02
I really think it's more important to focus on your craft and get your craft to a place where it's the writing is really good. As opposed to, you know, that will you make Hollywood come to you as opposed to, you know me coming Hollywood, but also with YouTube. And in Facebook, it's so much easier to put your own content up and make something splashy that people come to you. There's a comedian out Sarah Cooper, she she just hit it a couple of weeks ago by doing these Donald Trump impersonation where she just mows, she takes a speech and she nails, you know, to lip syncs to his speech, but she adds her funny expressions, and she became a hit. And now Hollywood came here, she just got signed with by way, Morris never because of that, because she was putting up her own content. And people were discovering great content. So it sounds like she was banging on doors. I think she was earlier before that. And when they weren't opening, and now she did it herself. And now Hollywood comes to her. And that's the difference between now and when just shoot me started. Like you can create your own content, and you have an avenue and distribution outlet to put those things out there. And comedy specifically doesn't have to be so high. I mean, it just has to be funny. Yeah, it doesn't have to be well produced. No, you don't need to spend a ton of money, you have your phone, you can edit on your phone with an app for $5. And you know, it's a little harder now with COVID. But whatever do a puppet show? I don't know, put up your content. And that's good. You know,

Alex Ferrari 41:24
do you suggest that writers create it because there's a lot of these amazon prime series that are out there? Like they they're just self produced? And they have like eight episodes, and I've seen these running and they're funny and stuff. Do you recommend writers? Does that have more cachet with you? That they have something produced that they produce themselves that you can send you an episode of that they see their writing? Or is it better the old fashioned way, but

Michael Jamin 41:50
it's not so much they should send me an episode, I should discover an episode. It should be so big people say Hey, have you seen this? Have you heard of this? So again, it's not about knocking on doors. Hey, Michael, we watch my stupid episode. It's the pound, you know, make something great. And focus on the writing. And then you'll be you know, you'll be sought after.

Alex Ferrari 42:10
Now I'm going to ask you a few questions to ask all of my guests. What are three pilots that all TV writers should?

Michael Jamin 42:20
Oh, wow. That's, you know, I read so many. I'll go back and I'll go back and reread pilots just to see how they do when I'm working on something else. So the Frasier pilot was terrific. The taxi pilot was as an interesting pilot, because it doesn't really have the show. But but there's a way there's so many. And they're probably all online, the more you read, the better, honestly, but yeah, Frasier was friends. And it was very good. But like the Seinfeld pilot is not what Seinfeld became right? You know? Right, right. Yeah. So you can see some ones like that's not the show. So but it goes, but you should read as many as you can just for story structure. Look, where are the act breaks? How are the characters introduced, where the the accurate moments are? Probably the most important thing to look at what kind of accuracy we talked, and what's the world? What's the main? What's the main relationship, we're going to be following this pilot?

Alex Ferrari 43:13
Now what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life?

Michael Jamin 43:17
It took me while learning how to break a story properly, that took years and years. And I remember, the first couple years of my career, I was like, this is a magic trick. I don't know how these guys are doing it. You'd pitch something. And in one of the writers room, no, that's not that's not an act like that goes here admit acting, but I didn't know this. I mean, it really was. That took me a long time to learn. And eventually, when became a shorter myself, you have to learn fast. So that's invaluable knowing how to break a story.

Alex Ferrari 43:44
So can you explain what breaking the story is that kind of definition of it?

Michael Jamin 43:49
So when you have an idea, you have an idea for an episode? And then the first question is, well, is this is this enough weight to carry an episode? Or is this just a scene? Just a funny, this is a line? And I think a lot of people a lot of people struggle with that I got a million ideas. I'm like, wasn't them I know you have in mind is I have a million ideas to half of them are shit. So how do we identify what are the good ones from the bad ones? Then once you have a good one, you figure, okay, I know what this the main dynamic is. But how do I break it into three acts? So that I'm talking about what's my first act break my second act break? What happens in the middle of Act Two, what, what are they? And so that's called breaking a story. And then you're, you're just doing them out on a whiteboard, you're just putting the, the bare bones of what the story is. And then from there, you make an outline, and then you write a first draft. So it's all done in stages. Now what what did you learn from your biggest failure? I remember, it was my biggest failure, but I never My first job was I was shorting Marin. And we wrote all the scenes writer, write a scene in the scene. My partner wrote this episode. And then in the writers room, we rewrote it with everybody that's common. The route is all work together. Mark was there, and we rewrote the scene. And then Went to shoot it. And Mark, we did a we did a rehearsal. And then suddenly Mark kind of flew, like flew off the handlebars. And he got really mad at me because I don't know what the hell I'm just be playing in this scene. And I was like, oh, and and I look at the scene and I'm reading it real fast like I gotta fix it. I got two seconds to do a quick rewrite of the scene. While all the camera people are waiting, we have a we have to move, we have to get off this because we have to shoot real fast. We don't have a luxury. And I'm reading the scene. I'm like, Oh, my God, Mark is right. I don't know what his character wants. No wonder he's getting mad at me. And we had one line, we fixed it with one line. And with that one line was basically saying what Mark wanted in the scene. And with that he was able to dial into the scene. And that kind of saved the debt. He was Okay, I got it now. But that's so important is knowing what each character wants in every scene. At some point during the rewrite. That line got cut, and I wasn't paying attention and got cut. And that's what ruined that scene at one line.

Alex Ferrari 45:57
That's the job of a showrunner to catch that. Yeah,

Michael Jamin 45:59
yeah, well, I've Well, all the talent is yelling at you and all the grip staring by laughing. That's the job.

Alex Ferrari 46:07
Obviously, the writer is the most respected part of the entire filmmaking process. Is that

Michael Jamin 46:11
Absolutely not. Because you know, you'd never tell the DP You know what, I think you need to switch lens, I think you should put an ND filter, you would never tell a dp that, but you have no problem telling the writer but I think this one could be that I see I hear that all the time.

Alex Ferrari 46:26
You know, it's because because unlike the DP, there's a extreme amount of technical knowledge on the surface, as well as nuance in the background. With writing. We're like, well, I write I've been writing since I was in first grade. I

Michael Jamin 46:40
know the pencil I can tell you what to do.

Alex Ferrari 46:42
That's, yeah, that's the difference. That's a huge difference. Um, and what do you up to now what's, what do you do during the COVID? world? I, about a year ago, I

Michael Jamin 46:51
decided I was going to write a collection of a personal essays, I was going to see what that would be like, like David Sedaris, I love these genius that I love. So I've been doing that on my website, Michael Jackson calm, and I kind of published one every month. And then that's been such a great journey, just discovering how to write a different form, different format, and I'll see you I'll seek out publisher, and in about six months or something like that. And then in the meantime, honestly, when this pandemic hit, I was like, I'm gonna be in my garage, I think, I don't see an end to this. You know, this is not three weeks, this is a year and a half. So I have a friend who kept hounding me, is he a PA and a show I work on? And he's like, you got to put together a course. And the guy who's got the time to do a screenwriting course, he goes, No, no, I'll be I'll build this site. I'm like, I don't have the time. Well, suddenly, I had the time. So I, I took me about five months to build this thing. But I was like, okay, so I built an online screenwriting course, and anyone who's listening in your audience, if you want to sign up, you'll get a it's still in beta. So you'll get a 10% discount, and you'll be in beta and you can get feedback. And so that link, is if you go to Michael Jackson comm slash hustle. So Michael jackson.com slash hustle, because it's your podcast. So we'll get it we'll get a discount at checkout, and get 10% discount, and then they'll also be in the beta. So it's lower pricing. So

Alex Ferrari 48:12
if they're interested, you can go to that. And that teaches you everything you need to know about being a TV writer,

Michael Jamin 48:17
that yeah, it's called the showrunners guide to TV writing. And it's basically everything that I wish I had known years ago. I mean, it's everything I've learned over the years from all the great writers I've worked on there. It's like, this is the class I wish I had so

Alex Ferrari 48:29
and where can people find you and your work? And

Michael Jamin 48:34
yeah, so if you go also at Michael jackson.com, you can see whatever I'm working on, and you can read my essay, you can see some of the videos, some of the guy make videos and stuff like that. Go check it out and sign up for my newsletter. I'll send you a new story every month. Are you being tied short whenever you want.

Alex Ferrari 48:51
Michael, man, thank you so much for being on the show. It's been an education to say yeah, he's so I really do appreciate it.

Michael Jamin 48:56
And also, Michael Jamin writer on Facebook, if they want to find follow me there, too. We'll put it.

Alex Ferrari 49:03
We'll put it on the show notes. Michael, thanks again and stay safe out there, man.

Michael Jamin 49:07
Hey, thank you so much. What a pleasure.

Alex Ferrari 49:09
I want to thank Michael for coming on the show and dropping those knowledge bombs on the bulletproof screenwriting tribe. Thank you so much, Michael. If you're interested in writing for television, definitely check out his course, the showrunners guide to television writing, I put a link in the show notes at bulletproofscreenwriting.tv/080. I hope that this has been a help to you on your screenwriting path. And don't forget to keep an eye out for your surprise to Morrow. Thanks again for listening guys. As always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon.

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Top 10 Most Wanted TV Pilot Scripts: Screenplays Download

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Below you’ll find a collection of the TOP 10 Most Wanted TV Pilot Scripts. Each script is accompanied by an interview with its creator/writer. I also add a few BONUS scripts. If you want to learn how to write a tv pilot, this is a great place to start. Read, educate yourself and then write something original yourself. The scripts below are the only ones that are available online. If you find any of his missing screenplays please leave the link in the comment section.

When you are done reading take a listen to Apple’s #1 Screenwriting Podcast The Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, with guest like Oscar Winner Eric Roth, James V. Hart, David Chase, John August, Oliver Stone and more.

(NOTE: For educational and research purposes only).

1)  Breaking Bad Pilot Script (Click to Read)

2) The Sopranos Pilot Script (Click to Read)

3) Game of Thrones Pilot Script (Click to Read)

4) Rick and Morty Pilot Script (Click Here to Read)

5)  Modern Family Pilot Script (Click to Read)

6)  New Girl Pilot Script (Click to Read)

7)  Community Pilot Script (Click to Read)

8)  Lost Pilot Script (Click to Read)

9) Mad Men Pilot Script (Click to Read)

10) 30 Rock Pilot Script (Click to Read)

BONUS TV Scripts

The Wire Pilot Script (Click Here to Read)

The Office TV Script – Season 2  (Click to Read)

Breaking Bad Pilot – How to Write the Perfect TV Pilot: Screenplays Download

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Breaking Bad Pilot

In my opinion, the Breaking Bad pilot is by far is as perfect as a television show as has ever been produced. The genius behind Walter White’s adventures into dealing meth is creator Vince Gillian. After watching the pilot episode of Breaking Bad I was hooked. Years later I wanted to really break down what Vince Gillian was able to tap into when crafting the series.

The good folks over at Lessons from the Screenplay created this AMAZING video breaking down the Breaking Bad pilot episode. If you want to become a screenwriter not only do you need to watch the video below but you NEED to turn on Netflix and binge the entire series of Breaking Bad.

Breaking Bad is celebrated as one of the best TV shows of all time—but every series has to start somewhere. This video looks at how the structure of the pilot episode sets up everything the audience needs to know about the series.

When you are done reading take a listen to Apple’s #1 Screenwriting Podcast The Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, with guest like Oscar Winner Eric Roth, James V. Hart, David Chase, John August, Oliver Stone and more.

Breaking Bad
Created by Vince Gilligan
Starring Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn, Aaron Paul, Betsy Brandt, RJ Mitte, Dean Norris
Support LFTS channel: http://patreon.com/LFTScreenplay

Read the entire Breaking Bad Pilot here: Breaking Bad Teleplay

BPS 054: Writing a Screenplay from the Inside Out with Brian Herskowitz

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Today’s guest is screenwriter Brian Herskowitz. He wrote the book called Process to Process to Product: From Concept to Script: A Practical Guide for the Screenwriter.

Like millions before him, Brian Herskowitz moved out to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.  He soon learned that there was a dearth of roles for shorter leading men and began searching for other outlets for his creative passions.  In 1980 he wrote his first screenplay, an action thriller about a young man who moves to Tokyo to train for the Olympics in Judo and gets caught up in an intrigue with the Yakuza.   

Through that script, based on his true-life experience as an international judo competitor, he uncovered a knack and passion for writing.  As a writer, Brian has completed well over a dozen feature films.  His first produced feature was a low budget slasher titled DARKROOM.  He currently has several projects in active development including, THE ABDUCTION, THE EMPRESS OF ELSEWHERE (co-written with Theresa Nelson based on her best selling novel), TAKE A RIDE, and FAIRIES (co-written with Pam Dawber and Andy Tobey).

His TV credits include a staff writing position on the NBC sit-com BLOSSOM, multiple episodes of the syndicated series HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS, and ACAPULCO HEAT, the HBO hit comedy DREAM ON, CBS’s RENEGADE, THE EXILE, MURDER, SHE WROTE, the FOX Network’s YOUNG HERCULES, and CBS’s critically acclaimed was series TOUR OF DUTY (associate producer). Brian co-wrote the FOX pilot MANTIC with Jason Alexander.   In addition, he worked as a punch-up writer on BOB PATTERSON, and LISTEN UP.

Brian currently holds the title of lead faculty in screenwriting for the prestigious  BOSTON UNIVERSITY IN LOS ANGELES – WRITER IN HOLLYWOOD PROGRAM.  Brian has taught online for UCLA EXTENSTIONS and has had students from every corner of the earth. 

Enjoy my conversation with Brian Herskowitz.

Right-click here to download the MP3

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Alex Ferrari 0:33
I like to welcome the show Brian Herskowitz. How you doing, brother?

Brian Herskowitz 2:39
so far? So good. Good,

Alex Ferrari 2:41
man. Thank you. Thank you for being on the show. I truly appreciate it. We are going to talk some shop today, some screenwriting and craft shop today. But before we get into it, how did you get into the business? Well,

Brian Herskowitz 2:53
I started off I was a, a quote unquote, child actor in Houston, Texas, and then dinner theater, and always had it my my mind that I was going to eventually come out to LA and become an actor. And I did part of that, and did come out to LA and started trying to work as an actor and found that Michael J. Fox had all the short parts rolled up. So I was like, Okay, now what do I do? And my father is a writer, not a screenwriter, but he's written over 60 books, and quite a few bestsellers with people like Jean tyranny, and Bette Davis. And I don't know George Bush, a lot, a lot of people that people would have heard of, and I guess, the apple Phil, sort of next to the tree, and I started looking at screenwriting, and I was actually in my youth, and I still am a martial artist, and I tore my anterior cruciate ligament in the Olympic trials in 1981. And I spent about nine months in a cast, and couldn't, couldn't go out on auditions, couldn't really do anything. And I sat down and I said, I have an idea for a screenplay. And I sat down, I wrote it in five days. And this is easy. And got an agent and was optioned a few times. And then I said, I'm going to do another screenplay. And then about 70 pages into that went, I have no clue what I'm doing, not even an inkling and started kind of studying the craft and then over the years developed my own blocks and process.

Alex Ferrari 4:24
Very cool. Yeah, it's easy, right? It's five days you should knock one out every it's on that you could knock out for a month easily. Yeah, with the in the weekends. I still do that. And the weekends off and the weekends off on top of that. Exactly. You know, many people I talked to think that that's the way it goes. You know,

Brian Herskowitz 4:42
you you're looking at what he did, I thought oh, this is you know, why haven't I been doing this? It's like going to Vegas The first time you go to Vegas, and you win. Oh, you think oh, why haven't I been gambling my entire life. I won't just box I could do this every day I'd be a millionaire You know? And then you find out that it doesn't quite go That way.

Alex Ferrari 5:00
Yeah, that's exactly what happened to me when I first gambled when I was like, in my teens in a cruise ship. I was like, Hey,

Brian Herskowitz 5:06
I plan it that way. I think I actually there was some sort of like, you know, algorithm. Yeah. Okay. You know, there's SMERSH or chaos is sitting there, right? Okay. I think if we get these guys set up so that they think they're gonna win, they'll come back and lose their entire life say,

Alex Ferrari 5:22
Is it because I put in a court I never forgot, I put in four quarters. And I was like, 16, I was working International. I was gambling international waters. And I got the 60 bucks off of a quarter slot machine. And I'm like, this is amazing.

Brian Herskowitz 5:37
I'll just similar experience.

Alex Ferrari 5:38
I'll just stay right here until I make is the $1,000. And then when I was back down to $5. I said, You know what, I think I should probably quit.

Brian Herskowitz 5:48
Five times my money. I'm good. Yeah. At least you learned one in one go. It took me a couple of guys go. Oh, oh, wait a minute. You mean you don't win every time? What What is that about?

Alex Ferrari 5:58
Exactly? Exactly. Now, you've been in the business for a while? Yes, you've been just here just just starting out. Yeah. And you worked on some really fun shows back in the day back in the 80s. Specifically, three that I remember very well as blossom. Which was was a great was was a hit a huge hit as a comedy is a huge hit for i don't know if i forgot what network it was on. It was NBC, CBS. And then two of my favorite to my favorite 80s action. Shows Hercules and Renegade. Like that's so abs, we have

definitely

Lorenzo Lamas godsakes. And it was great. So how was it working on those kind of hit shows like in the in the writers room? Like how was it that those times, you know,

Brian Herskowitz 6:53
they were all very different. Renegade was kind of a one off, so I was a guest, writer on that freelance writer came in. And that was a great experience, but it was really just that show, and then out with Hercules, banner, and and Renegade. Also, they were both the syndicated shows. So one of the things about the syndicated shows is they didn't have the kind of money that you have on the network. So a lot of them really relied upon the freelance writer. They have a very small staff or almost no staff, and they would do most of the shows would be people outside of the office. So on. On Hercules, I ended up doing four episodes for them, and then kind of spot off to do one of the young the Hercules with Ryan Gosling. People forget that he was young Hercules.

Alex Ferrari 7:42
Was he on Hercules? have to look? Oh, my God. I have to look that up. Yeah.

Brian Herskowitz 7:48
We don't keep in touch. I don't I never call. We're so close and then nothing. But the Hercules. I loved working on the Hercules series for a myriad of reasons. One. You could do virtually anything. If they were open to it just about you know, I mean, I wrote some I don't know if iconic is quite the word but I wrote some interesting episodes. I wrote one called the miserables, but no, it wasn't miserable. It was a les contemptible. That's what it was okay. And it was, they came to me and they said, Hey, we want to do a wraparound show. And I said, Great. And they said, let's set it. We want to set it in revolutionary France and I would. Hercules in revolutionary France. You got to give me a little more here what they said, yeah, we just want to do something where it's, you know, revolutionary, for instance. Okay. So I took, I took I can't remember what the dangerous les isms. I took the movie dangerous laser guns and I basically, I took that concept and married it to the Scarlet Pimpernel. I took that and I said, Okay, so they had ceremonious, which was one of the kind of recurring characters in the show plays this Scarlet Pimpernel like character, I think they called it I called him the chartreuse box. And he is with this beautiful woman, and he's talking to her about how he can turn anybody into a hero. And then, of course, he runs into iOS and Hercules, who are just these kind of bumbling thieves, and he kidnaps them and forces them to listen to the lessons from other shows of Hercules to become heroes. And that was kind of the concept of the pretty wacky, pretty out there. The other one that that was interesting, for a lot of reasons was, I did a show an episode called a start a guide, which was a retelling of the birth of Christ. Just in terms of history, doesn't really make a lot of sense since if you think about the Greek mythology and Gods probably not in the same time that that Christ was being born. But

Alex Ferrari 10:00
dinosaurs or humans were around the same time. So it doesn't matter.

Brian Herskowitz 10:02
You know, you have to you have to go with it a little bit. So that one was actually written by the executive producer. And then he left the show. And they called and asked me on a Thursday, when I come in and do a rewrite, I said, Sure. They I said, When do you need it? They said, Monday, spellers. Yeah, of course. So I took that show and rewrote it, and on Thursday, delivered on Monday, and that was an episode where I Oh, this is kind of, again, I'm married, Close Encounters of the Third guide with, with the birth of Christ, where he gets hit by a star and it suddenly, you know, he has to follow this path to this manger where Christ is being born.

Alex Ferrari 10:49
So you're basically kind of like the originator of Sharknado. Like, you threw two things together, and just like, well, sharks and tornadoes, obviously, why wouldn't you do? So? Of

Brian Herskowitz 10:57
course, Who wouldn't? Who wouldn't think of these exactly, mash up, I'm all about it.

Alex Ferrari 11:02
So but back, you know, when during the syndication days, because I remember watching a lot of the syndicated shows, it was kind of carte blanche on a lot of these shows, like you could do almost anything, as long as the rating stayed, you are kind of free to do whatever you want. And I feel that there's no reason, within reason, within reason, as long as you stayed within the rules of the world, and even then you can still break them a little

Brian Herskowitz 11:23
bit. And they didn't mind breaking the rules. And they're actually I worked on another show under a pseudonym, which called Acapulco heat,

Alex Ferrari 11:34
I remember Acapulco.

Brian Herskowitz 11:36
So he, I did two episodes on. And when they first pitched this is, this is apropos to what you're talking about in terms of they can do anything. Um, a couple he was pitched to me as an international spy thriller, with a professional diving competition team. Okay, we're gonna go all over the world have gadgets, and do international spy stuff.

Alex Ferrari 12:00
Cool. Diving James Bond. Got it?

Brian Herskowitz 12:02
Yeah, exactly. Well, the first episode I wrote had to do with an athletic event taking place in Israel and, and the Palestinians are trying to infiltrate and they think that one of the people in the shooting competition is actually going to end up being an assassin and all this stuff. Great. By the time we went into production, they said, okay, we couldn't find enough people that can dive. So they're there now swimsuit models. Okay, that's fine, great sense of them. And that was fine. And we did that episode. And then they came back and said, we're going to do another another episode, but there's some budgetary constraints. I said, Okay, what are those? They said, well, you can only have one guest star with two other speaking roles. And you can only have one other outside location besides our standing sets. So it went from this huge international spy ring to you can have one location and three actors. And I was like, okay, basically, I got people on a beach saying, I will kill you. You can kill me. I will, Gary. But that so a lot of it had to do with what what are the, you know, the monetary budgetary constraints. Hercules was fun that they never heard them say, Oh, we can't do that. We can't afford that. Other shows? Sometimes, particularly in Yeah, they gotta go. Well, we can't really have you know, a hoard. How about two guys?

Alex Ferrari 13:29
in a dream two guys in a dream? Yeah. Yeah. No, Hercules was fairly popular. And it's been off the Xena and spun off young Hercules is off to a lot of things. So there was a

Brian Herskowitz 13:40
there was a there was actually also there was a an animated series and yes, but yeah, in fact, the last time I went in to meet with them, they asked me to come in and pitch and almost everything I said they came back to me and said, Oh, we did that on Xena I can't do that. So okay, well what about this though? We did that on the on young Hercules get to that? What about this? We did that on the cartoon. We did that in the features of the cartoon we did that on the feet is like okay, I give up. So they had they had a universe they had a complete universe?

Alex Ferrari 14:09
Well, not. So now you you do a lot of teaching and you and you do a lot of instructing a young screenwriters. What are the biggest mistakes you see young screenwriters make?

Brian Herskowitz 14:18
You know, really coming right out of the box? The biggest thing that I see is that they want to do something that is not that is heartfelt, which is great, but not necessarily commercial. And I think one of the things a lot of young filmmakers forget is that films have to be producible. And that means several different things. It means one, there has to be a commercial angle. That doesn't mean it has to be you know, x men or the Marvel Universe. But what it does mean is it has to have a place in the industry. So for instance, if you're going to do something that's very interpersonal and very kind of, you know, small, you have to express That you're going to have a budget and contained enough that you can do it in a on a very low budget that allows it to be done on a on a small scale. And in you know, art houses are directed to video, if you can't do that, then you've got to be able to get to the stars and generally, the writer right out of the box, they're not going to have that access. So my my advice is, you know, look for something that is absolutely personal and touches you but find a way to couch it that is that attracts a wide audience. Because I think a lot of times, you know, you're and it's it's 100%, understandable, you write what you know. And when you're young, you know, you're, you're full of this kind of anticipate anticipatory anxiety and, you know, where's the world going to go? And, and it tends to a lot of young writers tend to do things that are very dramatic and very small. And they're not really, you know, that's not really the popular popular genre right now.

Alex Ferrari 16:02
Exactly. I mean, unless you can make it for a budget that you can afford to do it yourself. If you can make it you make a feature for 20 30,000, which is very, very doable in today's world. Yeah,

Brian Herskowitz 16:11
I mean, right now, there's, you know, unlike 2030 years ago, you know, you you can take your iPhone, you can take your Samsung, you can go out, you can shoot a movie with it, you really can't. And you know, there's all kinds of gimbals and gadgetry that you can use. And there's there's plenty of opportunity, if you have the will, and you have the courage to just jump into the deep end. Do it. But you know, I work with a company right now called horror Equity Fund, which is focused on the horror genre, and for a lot of different reasons. One is, it is a fairly low bar in terms of the entry into the industry, and it's the highest return on investment for narrative films. And, you know, there's, there's still, you know, we get a lot of stuff that's very, it's not commercial. And, you know, maybe it's horrific, but it's not commercial.

Alex Ferrari 17:02
That's actually quite surprising, because you would think almost anything in the horror genre would be commercial, but apparently, it's not. What's an example of a non commercial horror idea? Because I mean, generally horror is like a ghost story. You have a slasher film, you've got a serial killer. There's multiple different genre sub genres within that, but like,

Brian Herskowitz 17:21
Yeah, it really it really has to do with the quality of the writing. Talk about what what is and isn't commercially viable. And I mean, I'll give you an example. We had we had someone who came to us who, whose kind of mantra was I make really bad movies.

Alex Ferrari 17:38
Well, there is that sub genre that mean, Lloyd Lloyd Kaufman has kind of cornered the market on that without pushing trauma.

Brian Herskowitz 17:45
Yeah. So So those kind of things, but, but my feeling is, you know, yes, there's a place to aim for that. But the market has become so saturated and everything that you really have to do something that stands out. I watched a movie the other the other day part of a movie The other day, which was I think it was either killer, I think was killer doughnuts attack that.

Alex Ferrari 18:10
I had I had the producer on the show.

Brian Herskowitz 18:12
Okay, so I apologize. I

Alex Ferrari 18:17
don't know. It's okay. It's not supposed to be gone through.

Brian Herskowitz 18:21
Yeah, well, then it succeeded and exactly what it was, but I want I really marveled at the fact that one people got it done. You know, they got

Alex Ferrari 18:29
an actor in it. They got it, Thomas. Khalid it.

Brian Herskowitz 18:31
Yeah. And and they and they got it into the theaters.

It's what it was.

It I don't know if I went to theaters. Okay, well,

Alex Ferrari 18:39
I'm not sure if it went theatrically. But it did go international. And he did make money with it. A lot of it, actually. But the thing was that the don't the the poster was so brilliant. That's why I got him on the show. When I saw the poster like I have to, I have to, it's just like, you know, doughnuts with like teeth coming to bars. And it's all very ad style. And there is definitely an audience for that kind of movie. And when I saw that, when I saw the trailer was like, Oh,

Brian Herskowitz 19:04
so So I mean, the thing about that is and and we do look at this is that, you know, that film had a hook very much. You know, you look at it, and you're the poster. Oh, I got to see it. I got to see a movie where doughnuts are attacking and killing people. Because it's and then don't they don't they become giant donut students. And I've

Alex Ferrari 19:21
never personally seen the whole thing. So I think they do.

Brian Herskowitz 19:25
I think they become donut. It's a little bit you know, 3040 years ago, there was an attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Well,

Alex Ferrari 19:31
of course, that's

Brian Herskowitz 19:33
the same. Kind of it's in that same wheelhouse for sure.

Alex Ferrari 19:36
But the big difference was that back then there was no competition. And there wasn't as much saturation on media and like to have

Brian Herskowitz 19:44
people that said, I've got a stupid idea. I'm gonna go out and play. Although, yeah, you didn't have you didn't have to sharpen

Alex Ferrari 19:49
and it was and it was it was and it was also shot on film back then.

Brian Herskowitz 19:52
Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. And the expense of that has changed significantly.

Alex Ferrari 19:56
That would you do I mean, I always tell people this too, like, there are certain time periods and certain windows of opportunity where certain things will fly, certain careers will flourish, where in today's world, they wouldn't or in a different in a different time it wouldn't. So, Lloyd Kaufman and troma got was able to build their their foundation in the 80s and 90s, during the DVD revolution, during the VHS revolution, where you were renting stuff like the blockbusters, and that's your mom and pop that doesn't exist anymore. So if someone like trauma shows up today, it's a tough sell. Is

Brian Herskowitz 20:32
there the differences you know, where we're used to be direct to DVD? Now you've got the streaming service, and there's too much. Yeah, it is, but it's changing. And right now, you know, you have there are a lot of entities that are getting into the game that are going to have to have a ton of content and they're going to all be competing against each other. Apple is getting in the game. You've got you know, got got Netflix and Hulu Disney is now in the game. I

Alex Ferrari 21:00
mean, I'm already bought it. I mean, Disney's Did you hear what they're doing with frozen too? So

Brian Herskowitz 21:05
no, we're so

Alex Ferrari 21:06
frozen two will be the first Disney movie that will go theatrical, and then will only live on their on their

Unknown Speaker 21:14
platform,

Alex Ferrari 21:14
it will not be available for rental, it will not be available for purchase, it will only live on Disney plus, so how many subscribers will you think they're gonna get off of that? Sure.

Brian Herskowitz 21:25
And it's been that's been the formula, you know, when when Netflix came out with Arrested Development? Yeah, you know, and rebooted that when they when they had House of Cards, you know, they there are things that that the streaming services have doing. To em. Disney has an incredible library and at some point they can say, you know, you want to watch a Marvel movie you come to us you want to watch you know, I mean, they've got starting Pixar

Alex Ferrari 21:52
Star Wars, Pixar Star Wars Marvel, Fox, the entire Fox and

Brian Herskowitz 22:00
they bought Lionsgate today, we mean they bought Lionsgate. Today they bought Lionsgate. Disney bought Lionsgate. Today, I didn't even know that. That's right. I mean, I think no, double check me on that. Yeah. Double check. They

Unknown Speaker 22:10
bought Lionsgate?

Unknown Speaker 22:13
I think so.

Alex Ferrari 22:16
I really thought it was gonna be Apple, I thought it was Apple is gonna buy Lionsgate because someone was gonna buy them. We all do. We all knew. And

Brian Herskowitz 22:22
I think it was, well, it's not on here, but we'll look it up.

Alex Ferrari 22:26
It will be determined anyone listening, this will be in the future. So you'll easily know if it's true or not.

Brian Herskowitz 22:34
But yeah, you can fact check me It's okay. Sure. You know, with that all of those different, you know, studios, because they're going to have to have original and exclusive content, there's going to be a full while there's going to be a huge boom in an acquisition. I don't know if they're going to go out and produce the you know, thing about Netflix, Netflix is output is producing a ton. But they're acquiring just as much as they're, they're producing. And they're very, they have the pick of the litter right now. So they can go and they can get JJ Abrams, and they can get you know, Guillermo del Toro or they can get, you know, speed scrollbar or whatever they want. They can although Spielberg and he's he's not a fan, Apple might take that piece.

Unknown Speaker 23:16
He's over an app, he's at Apple.

Brian Herskowitz 23:18
So you know, there's, there's gonna be this fight for who's going to have the greater talent and, and the content that only can be seen there. HBO is another example where you know, if you want to see Game of Thrones, bam, you went to you went to HBO, and HBO has changed their model a little bit, you know, there used to be the network of really high quality, and they are seeing the landscape and going that's not going to be enough. We have to have we have to have quantity as well as quality so they're cheap. So yeah,

Alex Ferrari 23:50
it's it's funny because HBO could have you know, they had they had the potential to own that space as well. Let's not even talk about blockbuster. That's a whole other conversation. But but it's fascinating. At the end of the day, the 800 pound gorilla is actually apple. Yes. Yeah. Apple Apple could buy Disney cash.

Brian Herskowitz 24:11
Didn't like saying it out loud. It No, it's it's it's really awe inspiring to think about. The question is what are they going to do with it? You know, and they've, they've started off with,

Alex Ferrari 24:23
they're just like, like 2 billion. They think they spent like 2 billion I think this year, it's like they're slow, slow. It's a slow burn for them.

Brian Herskowitz 24:31
twice what I spent last year, so I

Alex Ferrari 24:32
obviously obviously Me too. But, but like someone like Netflix is spending eight to 10 billion a year, Disney. Disney came out. I don't know if Disney could definitely outspend Netflix, but they have the properties that everybody wants. And then they also have the libraries that everybody wants. Yeah, that's,

Brian Herskowitz 24:51
that's one of the things I'm wondering you know what's going to happen in terms of, you know, I presume that the deals at Netflix and Hulu and Disney owns Hulu Pandora, you know, Disney entrepreneur?

Alex Ferrari 25:02
No, no, they they're the majority when they bought Fox, they became the majority stuff and and Hulu.

Brian Herskowitz 25:07
So Hulu will probably have continued to have some Disney content. But you know, I think eventually Netflix

Alex Ferrari 25:14
deals gone. Yeah. And the whole Marvel all the Marvel shows on there got cancelled because they're like, well, we don't want to do anymore because Disney is opening up their rival studio. I mean, I'll be the first one online for Disney plus, because I have kids. And I love Marvel and I love and I would love to just go to one place and just like I don't have to go hunting for a movie, I know it's there. And they have Fox and now you're saying they have Lionsgate as well, which is insane. They're huge. And, you know,

Brian Herskowitz 25:41
so they're they're going to be they're going to be formidable. And Apple can absolutely be a player in that space. But it's going to be what happens with their content, what kind of content you know, I just not my digress. But you know, DirecTV and at&t, they're another huge entity. But they haven't seen the quality of the content company, but

Alex Ferrari 26:01
they're there, but their quality of work is not good. And they're also they're also in legacy technology, cable cables, legacy technology dish is cable is legacy technology, it is not the future of where things will go. So they're just struggling to keep a foothold on things.

Brian Herskowitz 26:19
But, but that's a whole nother space that you know, could have, should have and didn't. And if Apple doesn't, doesn't, you know, rise to the level of a Hulu of an HBO of a Disney, they're not going to have the audience.

Alex Ferrari 26:35
Netflix will just have been purchased by Netflix. Let's just buy Netflix straight up. I think I think that's probably the acquisition that everyone's counting on that Apple's just really Netflix. I've heard that from multiple industry insiders, they're like, you know, Apple could easily just go in and buy Well, they can or as well, they can go and buy. I mean, they literally they have 200 and what is it 250 or 270 billion cash, cash sitting in the bank cash? It's not I mean, it would double what's the interest on that's pretty good, right? double double what I have at least, about the interest I can live off the interest off of a percentage of that, sir. But, but with all that said with screenwriting, though, that there the potential and the opportunity for screenwriters now is just massive. So many writing so many shows so many good shows out there. You know, there's not a day goes by with a friend like, oh, did you watch that show on x network? I'm like, Nah, man, I haven't.

Brian Herskowitz 27:32
How many hours in the day?

Alex Ferrari 27:33
I mean, there's like, I was just saying this to another guest. The other day, I was like, Look, you know, I would need multiple lifetimes, to watch all the good shows on on TV right now. Where, when I was coming up, and growing up when I was working in my video store in the late 80s, early 90s. I literally watched everything that got released every week, which was five or six movies, right? And TV, cable there was like you'd have 30 shows like that. Was it total? You know, now there's how many shows is like that? 2000 shows a month a year? Yeah, I there's so many shows. So there's a lot of opportunity for for screenwriters. But there's also a lot of competition.

Brian Herskowitz 28:12
Yeah, it's easy to get lost. And just for the reason you're talking about and one of the things that, you know, when I talk to students, I talked to a console with writers it's, it's really about how do you find a voice that is going to attract attention? How do you find a voice that's unique to you, and, and has a quality to the work? That's undeniable, right? And those are the things that you have to really focus on when you're, when you're starting in the craft.

Alex Ferrari 28:40
Now is a creative, it's a creative process for you different when you're working in TV rather than film.

Brian Herskowitz 28:47
There are different pressures, when you're on TV, you know, you you have, you have a time crunch that you don't have as a feature writer, unless you're hired to write, you know, a film for a studio. And even then there's flexibility. With television, you know, particularly if you're writing sitcoms, it's, you know, you write, you got a script to write, it's got its do, it's like the one you know, on Hercules, Thursday, we get a Monday. And you it's not that fast, but but they you know, you have to be able to perform under pressure, and you have to be able to get the scripts out quickly. And television, that's important. But ultimately, you know, and even now, it's more about quality, how good is it? You know, how much how much do people want to see that episode? How much do people want to, you know, what did you bring to the table in terms of the character voices in terms of, you know, a kind of a new take on on what we've been doing, and particularly in television, you know, when I was coming up, you wrote a spec script of a show, right? And, and then you didn't give that to the show that you wrote, because they wouldn't look at it, you gave it to somebody else and they looked at it and all this is great, and you got to get it again. golfer that. Now, most shows are not really interested in looking at specs as much as pilots. And certainly the the representation out there, much more interested in seeing somebody with original work. The problem with that from a showrunners perspective is, if you write a, an original piece of material, and I'm looking at you, as a staff writer on my show is can you really capture the purview and the characters and the voices and, you know, get the essence of my show? You can do your thing, great, but can you do mine. And that's where the idea of having a spec, samples are also a great idea. And I always recommend that if you're going to do that, have a pilot and have a spec, you know, find a show that you love, do a spec episode.

Alex Ferrari 30:48
There's so much more I feel freedom in TV now. And I use the term TV very loosely because it's streaming its web, it's whatever. But episodic, if you will, there is so much more freedom, I feel there. Because that I feel is where all the a lot of the independent filmmakers and those kind of people that would have normally found a voice in the indie world have found a stable job in the streaming world. And it's also there's, it's kind of, I wouldn't say it's the wild wild west, but there is things that like breaking bad or Better Call Saul, for those from that, that universe, those shows are like you would have never in a million years have a show like that 20 years ago, it just wouldn't have never happened, it would have never happened. And there's shows like that all the time coming out now. And there's, and they're everywhere. And they're all good. And I feel like the quality of everything has to go up now because the audience is so much smarter. But now there's so much more competition that it's not about the flashy, it's not that's why the era of the movie star is kind of gone. Like you know, just because you have Tom Cruise in a movie does not guarantee opening, like it used to, like you mean, you put Wilson you put Will Smith in a movie, it was 20 million minimum opening, every time those days are gone. Like really who there are, there's a handful of there's a handful of guys or girls that if you put in helps, but by no stream guarantees. It's it's all now about the event.

Brian Herskowitz 32:17
Yeah, you know, in a way, you know, the similar thing happened on Broadway. And you know, thanks partly to Disney.

Unknown Speaker 32:25
Like, again,

Brian Herskowitz 32:27
you know, the shows went from, you know, small musicals to we have to do you know, Spider Man turn on the lights, we have to do King Kong we have to do you know, really and, and the film industry is is kind of a microcosm of the world as well. And so you have the Marvel Universe you have, you know, did our Star Wars. Yeah, the Pixar, Disney, but you have those universes, which people will still go to the theater because it's an event movie, if you're going to go it's going to be a spectacular, you know, big screen event. You want to see it with an audience. But their shows like I watch Handmaid's Tale.

Alex Ferrari 33:05
Yeah, so good. brutal,

Brian Herskowitz 33:07
really, really beautifully made, right? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, terrifically acted, very well written gorgeously shot. They have a lot of talented people Game of Thrones on HBO, you know, you have that was an epic, epic series, I could, you could make the argument that had they done that as a feature series, that it probably would have garnered an audience and it might have because it was epic, but not every episode was epic. So, you know, it had its own journey on television, the thing that's happening, and in terms of what, what's available for the industry in terms of what's available for the for the young writer, the new writer. It's democratize it in some ways, but you're right. It's also the level has been raised so much, that it makes it very difficult for a young writer to break in on a higher level. So part of what writers need to do in my opinion now is anything. You need to do short content, you need to do web content you need to do and also produce

Alex Ferrari 34:07
and produce your own stuff. If you can produce you can afford to do it, produce your team up with someone who can produce a series I always tell I always tell screenwriters, you know, like, write a web series or write a streaming series, write four or five episodes at 10 minutes each. And join a filmmaker who has the means they're looking for content, you're looking for production, and all of a sudden on your IMDb you have a credit that states that you have an Amazon series. Yeah, it's better than nothing.

Brian Herskowitz 34:34
It's not a bad idea. It's you know, there's, it's the where's that guy who said he would team up with me, you know, how do you find those people that were

Alex Ferrari 34:42
in LA where we're at so that it's easier? It's easier here? But no, but you're right. You're right. It depends on where you are in the world. But

Brian Herskowitz 34:48
it is I you know, I shot a film in Wisconsin, and Appleton, Wisconsin, and we ran out of duck we ran out of gaffers tape and I Eddie I I ran over to every hardware store in the city and couldn't find it. And people looked at me like I was at this huge box store, you know, they were looking at me like gaffers tape. And they had no clue. And I went, well, that looks kinda like gaffers tape. And I brought stuff on. But you know, you, a lot of it is what, what, what is available around you? That doesn't mean that you can't get stuff done. In an acquaintance of mine, who I've had come and speak to my classes a few times is Oren Paley who did paranormal activity. Yes, is a director, writer, producer, editor on that. And you know, it was really a fascinating study on someone just going, Well, I can do that. And then he took 15 k out of his own pocket. But what he did the others who do the same path, the head didn't do. He worked for a year and a half on just, you know, kind of conceptualizing. How are the shots going to work? You know, what am I going to do? How do I make this effect happen? What, how do I make the door closed on its own? Well,

Alex Ferrari 36:03
you mean, he did his homework,

Brian Herskowitz 36:05
you actually, he actually did his homework beautifully. And the other thing he did that I thought was really sharp, is he got terrific actors. And he worked with them improvised with them for a long time before they got before the cameras, and that is a five day shoot when they actually sat down to shoot it. And they basically slept at his house. And you know, he'd come in and scare the crap out of them in the middle of the night. And anyway, you know, probably don't have to do that. But halfway through it, yeah, I probably shouldn't, shouldn't wake them up at three in the morning with, you know, scary noises. So, the he kind of learned on the job,

Alex Ferrari 36:37
like method method directly.

Brian Herskowitz 36:40
Yeah, exactly. So that, you know, those kind of things, absolutely can be done. But, you know, what people kind of universally make the mistake of, particularly outside of the industry is they think, well, if you can make a movie for $15,000, you can make any movie for 15,000 It's so not true. You know, movies cost what they cost. And, and, you know, it's fine to do it as kind of like, I've got to get something done, and I want to make something and go out and just do it in you bite and scratch and claw. But as a business model, not a good idea to do everything for $15,000 from feature leveling, nobody gets paid. You know, the food's crap. Nobody sleeps not you know, and you end up nine times out of 10 you end up with crap. You know, one out of 1000 you get paranormal activity. The rest are like, No, no,

Alex Ferrari 37:30
no more than one one out of a million million.

Unknown Speaker 37:32
Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 37:33
How many? How many other films? Can you count in the last 30 years that were made for 15 grand and Bolden $300 million on? None, you even

Brian Herskowitz 37:43
Blair Witch didn't do that? Because I Russia's 60,000 I think

Alex Ferrari 37:48
No, no, it was like 2735 2000 something like that. Yeah. And then it made just a smaller 180 million figure and and inflation inflation you're looking at it doesn't. It's a lot of money. I had Eduardo on the show. And he the his story, the story of The Blair Witch, from their perspective is Yeah, it was fantastic. And I love to get up Haley on the on the show as well, because he's, his story's just different. It's just the next generation. Yeah, he's he's out. Oh, yeah. He's

Brian Herskowitz 38:16
He's one of the things he said, You know, I, his journey was he was a, he was a programmer with a video game company, and hated it. And saw Blair Witch, when I could do something like that came up with this idea. He says, you know, and he said, I hit the lottery, I hit the jackpot. He said, I don't have to do anything else ever, ever. And he wasn't really all that interested in being a filmmaker as much as it was, this was I think I can do this. And then, you know, he directed a few other things. He produced a few other things. He had that universe that went on, you know, and continues to go on. And he kind of went, yeah, I'm done.

Unknown Speaker 38:54
I'm good. I'm good. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 38:55
you did fine.

Brian Herskowitz 38:56
So when you're when you're going, when you're doing writing, when you're doing writing, listen to me, is what I'm doing right. When you're doing writing, when you write? How do you approach structure, because I think that's something that a lot of a lot of screenwriters and writers in general, have problems with structure is

the two things that are probably, for me, the most important in writing our structure and logic, store logic. Okay, the idea that I create a world in a universe that makes sense, that doesn't mean that it's a real universe, or real world, it can be as fanciful as you can imagine. But you want to be able to track the motivation of the characters and understand why they behave the way they behave. And that's one of the things that for me, structure and character are, are really intimately tied together. Because it is what the character does, the behavior that they have, that makes the choices for the story. In other words, you know, the example I use in my book, I think, is that you know, Have you one of the first films that Sylvester Stallone did? was a woody allen movie? Where? Yeah, and the other trademark, it was called bananas. Yeah, he's a margarita tree. And if you switch those parts, and you put Sylvester Stallone seated in on the bench, and you know, somebody like Woody Allen coming in and messing with people, how does it change that? Well, obviously, those characters make very different choices. So every individual person, their lives unfold a certain way. There's a movie with Diane Lane and oh, gosh, unfaithful gal. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you there was a character that was played by Richard Gere as this kind of devoted husband, who's been betrayed. And throughout the film, he's very sympathetic. And I am I'm gonna do a spoiler, I apologize to anybody who hasn't, please. It's too many years. Okay. Yeah, it's been long enough, I think I think the pain is gone. So at the end of the film, he confronts his wife's lover, and in a moment of passion, picks up a globe, you know, snow globe, and yeah, and smashes them in the head and kills him completely out of character, and you believe it and understand it 100% nobody walks out of there moving on, he would not do that. And so that's what I mean by, you know, understanding the motivation of the characters, that that that becomes a pivotal moment of the story, because then it becomes, here is this good, decent guy now, what's he going to do? And he ends up of course, going in, you see him outside the police station getting ready to turn himself in. So one of the things that I look at is that kind of clarity in who the people are. So I to understand structure, I really have to understand one the world of the character, where are they? What kind of universe they in? And then the other is that character, who are they, at their core? What are their values? You know, sometimes I get like these little flashes of you know, gameplay where, you know, you have to decide their stats, you know, how much intelligence and how much you know, how much power and how much you know, speed and all the different things that make up who they who they are, because that's going to determine the choices that they make.

Alex Ferrari 42:26
It is it's about it's kind of like Captain America turns into Tony Stark all of a sudden he starts being the croc doing the crime, the wisecracks and, and starts being that character like that, that doesn't make a lot of logical sense in that world. You have to stay within the rules that you've created for us universe. And you can I give you

Brian Herskowitz 42:45
Yes, slightly, slightly better example. Okay. If you saw Superman versus Batman,

Alex Ferrari 42:52
okay, don't get me started. So.

Brian Herskowitz 42:55
And we have a moment where these two, you know, superheroes are going at each other. And Batman is ready to kill Superman. And he's got him down with a kryptonite spear don't kill him. Mm hmm. And out of something, Superman says, Martha is stupid and says, Why did you say Martha? And he says, Well, that's my mother's name. Is

Unknown Speaker 43:25
that his name?

Brian Herskowitz 43:27
Let's go. It is the stupidest moment of character logic that that just completely destroyed that film for me. Not that not that I was really what was

Unknown Speaker 43:37
that? What was it was that the moment that it

Brian Herskowitz 43:39
got lost? That was, but that was the one that was most glaring for me because I went, here are these two guys that are killing each other. And the idea that that the guy who he who has in Batman's eyes murdered half of Metropolis, you know, shouldn't shouldn't be destroyed, because they have a mother and the next step. Here we have a universe where Superman is one of the most powerful beings Batman has almost killed him. He's lying on the floor and Batman system. And I'm paraphrasing here. Hey, I know you're probably the most powerful being in the world. But you know, you've been through a lot right now. Just rest. I know your mother's about to murder, but I'll go. I'll go gas up my bat jet. I'm sure it's already take off. I'll go save her. Yes, you know, shooting through the window. I might hit her but I'll try not to. I'm gonna rescue her and bring her back. You just hang out. Don't worry about the flying thing. Do your thing. You know, it's like what are you talking about? That's Superman. He jumps up he go gets his mother What? Why are you getting his mother in this plane where you're going to shoot machine gun? It's insane.

Alex Ferrari 44:50
I just I love that, that you're trying to create some logic of one of the worst films in research. I mean, I know I know. You don't want to You know, he's like, horses, no logic at it. And let's not even get it to justice. That's

Brian Herskowitz 45:04
a whole nother conversation. But that film suffered for that, you know, and you look at that DC versus the Marvel Universe, see, you know, Marvel tends to have within the world, very logical, very well thought out structure. And that structure has to do the you know, the other thing about structure people talk about, and it's changed over the years a little bit used to be that you can have a slow burn, you can have a story that kind of rolls out. And now you really need to hook the audience immediately, you've got to get into the story quickly, you've got to build the suspense or the comedy or the drama, or whatever you're building and get to the heart of the story. So what what becomes a little more difficult now is filling the story with, with what is compelling to an audience. And that becomes really the bottom line.

Alex Ferrari 45:50
I mean, you can argue as well that I mean, the second that they've made Superman brooding. Who's not what is not his character, his character is not a brooding pissed off angry character. He's a very uplifting, very much like Wonder Woman, I think what what made Wonder Woman so wonderful, is that was so full of hope, and so full of, you know, just goodness and power, and power. oment.

Brian Herskowitz 46:14
Yeah, and that goes back to earlier Superman movies in this universe, when there wasn't just here.

Alex Ferrari 46:20
Oh, this man is the Man of Steel City, like he killed to kill Zod. Like, Superman doesn't kill you. He just doesn't kill, you know, like, you don't do that in this. You know, then you go back to the Christopher Reeve, Superman. And you're like, that's the Superman that is in the books. That's the Superman. That's the source. And but that's the one thing that Marvel does have many things. One of the many things that Marvel has over is they're really true to the source material

Brian Herskowitz 46:46
that they know, they have writers that are, you know, just their their sharpest tax.

Alex Ferrari 46:52
I mean, they made Ant Man, the movie, and man, the movie, and it was fun. And it was fun. It was a heist movie, it was fun. They made Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm a comic book guy, I barely knew who they were, right. They could do whatever they want, basically, whatever. I think at this point, they're drunk on their power. And watch the downfall of Marvel Universe moving forward.

Brian Herskowitz 47:15
Next is going to be can, you know, this is a heart Honest to God, you know, keeping that kind of level of quality up is not easy, but they did it over a large number of films for a long time and finding the talent that can continue to bring out that kind of level of quality. It's hard. And you know, it doesn't take a whole lot for a rabid fan base to turn on you. You know, it does. You know, if you look at look at Star Wars, and look at you know, jello Jar Binks, you know, and and Oh, yes.

Unknown Speaker 47:48
Oh,

Alex Ferrari 47:50
yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They'll

tell they'll turn quick, but kind of, but the difference between that is Marvel, the Marvel Universe is full of comic book geeks. And Marvel has been dealing with comic book fans for decades. So they're very comfortable with with the audience. Exactly. Now, can you give us some, I want to ask you, is there a film that you can recommend that has impeccable structure? Like when you see it you just like wow,

Brian Herskowitz 48:19
you know, that? I can think of a quite a few examples. And it really kind of, kind of has to do with what kind of story do you want to tell? You know, I'm a big believer in kind of, like your, your real estate developer, you look at the comps, you look at what's out there you looking at, you know, what kind of movies do you love that you want to write? You know, I do. And I've always thought it was one of the really, truly brilliantly structured movies was Trek.

Unknown Speaker 48:48
Oh, it is it's, it's, it's a breakdown, like

Brian Herskowitz 48:51
I break it down in my book, you know, kind of beat by beat. And, you know, it has everything that you want in terms of a story in terms of the structure. It starts with this hook that gets you in immediately into the story and tells you exactly what universe we're in what what is the world we're about to experience? You know, it starts out with him in a cracker, you know, with this fairy tale very lilting story, and then he says, Yeah, right wipes his ass with the book and we go, Okay, I get it, it's going to be irreverent, it's going to be funny, it's going to be, you know, unusual, then it goes into this kind of montage of him and the people who are getting ready to try and throw him out of the swamp, and, you know, he's taking racks out of his ears. And that, you know, that kind of completely described in a nutshell the universe that we're in. And it just goes from there and every beat is meticulous in terms of what happens structurally where it goes from there. So that was what I loved, I thought on kind of a comedy drama sign. I thought Silver Linings Playbook was very well structured, beautiful movie. And, and again, you know, really well structured. We, you know, we meet are kind of reluctant hero who, you know, is pining for the girl in his past that he wants to get back and has to put together this plan to try and win her and meets Jennifer Lawrence. I mean, it's all again, all there and we get, you know, it's it's a very, you know, way different story from from track in terms of you know how it's structured, where it goes, flows out because of different genres. I was mentioned, I went to China in January, to be a part of the first national, Chinese screenwriting competitions, one of the mentors, and one of the things that I did is they, they wanted to publish my book there. And they asked if I would look at some of the Chinese films, and one of the films I looked at was a film called The mermaid. Yeah, remember those? Yeah. So mermaid was the highest grossing film in China history at the time, made over $500 million worldwide. And they barely made a splash here. And I started to look at it in terms of not just structure Why, why didn't it work, it's from Steven Chow, who I love challenges, great kind of fu hustle, and, and soccer, very wonderful, and, and imaginative and fun and inventive. And I thought, you know, in terms of structure, I thought, kung fu hustle was wonderful. Not it's not typical to the American sensibility, in terms of structure. And in this film, again, he went into fantasy comedy. But there were two things that I thought stopped it from being successful here. One was, there, there was a tone shift in the film, where it's an extremely wacky comedy, you know, with this Mermaid, walking on our fins, you know, and seducing this guy. And, but then there are moments where we see dolphins and tigey being slaughtered. And, you know, the mermaids being killed by sound waves and slaughtered by people shooting them. And it's, it is, you know, that the, there was a mismatch in terms of the tone. And the other thing was logic. The story and character logic where it was a little bit about, we have to set up this this big, you know, overriding entity enemy for them to be for our heroine, heroine to be fighting against. And therefore it doesn't really matter, it's more a MacGuffin than anything else. But the macguffins in the world still have to come out of something, they still have to be able to come out because otherwise, what happens is an audience member, and I always try to put myself in, you know, in the seat of the audience. I think as an audience member, when we see something that we just even if we don't clock it, consciously or unconsciously, we sit there go, that doesn't quite reveal true to me, that doesn't work. And it just takes us out of the film a little bit. So we distance ourselves from the emotional impact of the movie. And that's, I think, what happened with this film though, even though ultimately, it's a fun ride. It's a it's a wonderful ride. But there just are these moments where you just go, Wow, what, what what happened to the world I was in. So the consistency of the character that consisted of the story logic, the world logic, and that tonal shift is what I think kept it from being a hit here. Doesn't mean that and I don't know enough about Europe and the rest of the world to say, Well, you know, they accept that that's fine. And you know, I do you know, the movie The lobster.

Unknown Speaker 53:35
Yeah. Okay. There's

Brian Herskowitz 53:37
a lot of people a lot of people love the last. parceling Not a fan, okay. And for the same reason about this idea of story logic. European films often will take a story and they'll go, they'll do two things. One is they'll say, it's not really important, why? We're just going to show you what. And the other thing is that you get to a point where in that movie for me, where where I kind of, you know, clinched on it. Besides it just being an odd film, and I like odd films. I love being john malkovich. You know, the what was odd about it was kind of fun, but it was also very dark. And what ultimately, kind of, you know, made me go, it didn't work for me was, we have a moment I'm going to spoil it again. We have a moment where in this world every everybody has to have a mate. And every mate has to have something in common. And at the end, this young girl that he's in love with a color feral, she's been blinded. And he's asking her What's your favorite color? And she says blue and he says, Oh darn, red. Do you speak German? No, I don't speak German. And they have this moment where they're going back for about what you know, what are you? What do we have in common, and the last shot of the film is him with needles, poised to poke his eyes out and I wanted to say to The film writer, have you ever laughed at a joke? Do you have two legs? About hair? Do you do you breathe? There are other things that they could have in common, right? And I just for me was logic, blind himself over this, and then they ended there. So we don't know if he finds himself or not, which is very European.

Alex Ferrari 55:21
Very, very open.

Brian Herskowitz 55:22
There's the movie the skin on him. Do you know?

Alex Ferrari 55:25
No, no,

Brian Herskowitz 55:26
I don't know. That's Antonio van Dennison. It's a Spanish guy, the surgeon who takes the guy who rips his daughter, or attacks under National River, tax his daughter and, and forces them to have a sex change operation and then falls in love with her.

Alex Ferrari 55:42
Oh, yeah, that's, that's very mainstream. It's very much that kind of intervention that

Brian Herskowitz 55:47
that film. really well done, but had an ending where you weren't? Really, this is where you okay? All right.

Alex Ferrari 55:57
Yeah. That was like the, you know, I'm a huge fan of Tarantino's work. And one of his films that he wrote has this tonal shift. That is one of the one of the reasons why the movie I felt, I enjoy because it was fun, but full from dusk till dawn, which half the movie is a wonderful kind of caper, not caper film, but like a heist, you know, on the run kind of film with a psychotic, you know, sex driven, you know, pedophile, which is played by Tarantino and George Clooney, who's awesome, then all of a sudden, it turns into this bloody vampire movie, like, out of nowhere, like there's there's just not even a mention of a vampire anywhere before. Yeah. And I mean, it has gone on to spawn TV shows and a huge cult following. But everybody says it and never even to Tina Rodriguez, who directed it is they both said to like, Well, everyone says to movies, like it is.

Brian Herskowitz 56:56
Yeah, and here's the thing, you know, it's interesting, because, you know, you have to master filmmakers. And, you know, nothing wrong with what they did. But what happens, in my opinion is, you know, because people always, always talk to me about well, you know, don't you want to just break free from the structure, and don't you want to do something different, don't get the ABS 100%. But the difference is that you have a wide kind of, you know, V shaped audience, when you're in the structure zone. And as you change structure, and you change character logic, you can still have an audience, but it starts to shrink when you have masters like Tarantino and Rodriguez, you know, even though they they brought that in, they still had an audience, you know, you look at their death proof. Same kind of idea where, you know, no tonal shift, but it was, it was made to be kind of an homage to, oh, it's a very, it was very, it's a very, it's a very kind of targeted, this is who we're going to go after this is. And you know, you can hit a homerun with that. But, you know, they didn't say, Jim, Jim Hill, but you can who is it here? Jim Jarmusch, I think is Yeah, he, you know, he makes films, they're, they're arthouse films, he gets his friends to do it. You know, small budgets, though.

Unknown Speaker 58:18
Yes, got small budgets. And he's got a lot of,

Brian Herskowitz 58:20
but he's got a formula. You know, he knows how to do that. And he knows how to get it to where people want to see that

Alex Ferrari 58:26
was like Woody Allen films back before when he was, you know, did what he did, but but woody films, I mean, to that point, he was making a film a year for what, 30 years. And he had a formula, he had a wonderful formula. And I was a fan of his you know, as a director, I'm a fan of his work, you know, from Annie Hall and Crimes and Misdemeanors balloon over bro. I mean, there's so many did you know that must have been fun. But, but it was, but the point was that he was able to do small budgets, huge movie stars that would come on board for scale. It was a filmmakers dream, basically. And he had complete control.

Brian Herskowitz 59:08
And, you know, often his films didn't make money. And studios would do do a woody allen film because there was prestige to having a woody allen film. And now you go back, you know, to take the money and run or, you know, go back to what's up tigerlily or, you know, some of his earlier movies. That was not the formula at that time. You know, he wasn't getting the big stars. He was just he was just making his films. And, you know, I think in start it was it sort of memories Yeah, that he did the, the kind of the aliens come down and talk to him about you know, why don't you do more like your early films, the funny funny sounds like he has this kind of existential conversation with these aliens about, you know, artistic growth. He's, you know, he's got a mind that just doesn't stop and he's great on that level,

Alex Ferrari 59:56
on that level. Absolutely. So I'm going to ask you questions I asked all of my guests. So what advice would you give a screenwriter wanting to break into the business today?

Brian Herskowitz 1:00:07
Don't say no. Keep writing. Write as much and as varied and as often as you can, and create things for yourself, if you can go out and shoot stuff, shoot stuff. Also, don't stop learning. You know, don't stop, start taking classes, don't stop getting into network groups don't stop, you know, trying to learn what's out there now. And be aware that this is, you know, as much as we all want to be artists, and I do believe we are, you also have a business to take care of if you want to have that as a career.

Alex Ferrari 1:00:48
Can you tell me what book had the biggest impact in your life or career?

Unknown Speaker 1:00:52
Um,

Brian Herskowitz 1:00:55
you know, I'm Mike, as a writer, I might actually have to go back to Syd field screenplay. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 1:01:03
that was my first book.

Brian Herskowitz 1:01:04
Yeah, I mean, the thing about that, that was the first book that really kind of laid out structure for me. And, and one of the things that, that, you know, I started, it took me a while to come to the understanding of is that simple, kind of reverse engineered film. So you'd look at a film and sell about a third of the way through, there's this happens, and then, you know, this happens. And then and that, that's formula, and formula can be dangerous. So you have to you have to take all of that with a little bit of a grain of salt. You know, every 10 or 15 years, there's some kind of seismic shift in the way that the people the other the other was permitted was, he wrote the 1000 faces. Sure, Joseph Campbell. And, you know, when I first started out, and I would go to meetings, people would say, Hey, you know, so what's a three act structure? You know, what happens on page 29? What happens on page three? And then people were saying, What's the hero's journey? And you know, and who's your wizened old man and what Boone is bringing back? And then, you know, eventually, more recently, it was, like, Snyder, safer guy. Yeah. And, honestly, I have I had negative reaction to save the cat for the reason that I felt like it might micromanage. You know, so there are five, page five, page seven, page nine. And but there were some nice things about it. The one thing about save the cat that, you know, they talk about, in terms of pitching is the idea of what's the same as but different from and for me, that there's a real risk and danger of being derivative. And I look at films like The the feature version of Hannah, with social rownum

Unknown Speaker 1:02:51
I love the movie.

Brian Herskowitz 1:02:52
Yeah, but but what that movie was, was the Bourne Identity with a little girl, you know, and I could just see the pitch. You know, it was like, here's so there. And, you know, Tony, Bill is the listing director is a director, producer, bodyguard

Alex Ferrari 1:03:13
untamed heart. He did untamed heart, I think was another one with Christian with Christian Slater and Marissa Tomi, maybe,

Unknown Speaker 1:03:20
yeah.

Brian Herskowitz 1:03:22
He came and spoke to my class. And it was interesting, because he was the polar opposite. He said, I don't want to see anything that anybody's ever done before. And as much as I admired that, and a producer, I also thought, Well, good luck. There's only so much in the world in the universe that people haven't seen. And, you know, you you just like, there is a an audience that has a certain girth. You know, when you start to say, I'm going to show you something that no one's ever seen, you may hit that home run, because you're aiming, you know, for those those corners, you may be foul. So, use a baseball analogy, obviously. So that, you know, to me that that was one of the risks in doing the Blake Snyder idea of you know, same as but different from but but for a while, when you ended a pitch that's birthing Well, how is it? How is what is it the same as in different? How is it different? You know, that's a limited, so you want to know what the trends are? You want to know what how to be current. For me, like I said, hero, 1000, also, Bird by Bird, I enjoy very much and and I also really, really admire and liked Stephen King's book on writing.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:33
Yeah, it's great book, great, great, great book.

Brian Herskowitz 1:04:35
And one of my favorite quotes of all, which was, you know, as a writer, I create an image here, and I projected into the future, and in the future, someone receives it, as I wrote it, and I went, Wow, that's right. Because, you know, the clearer the image is to that person down the road is going to get it as you intended it, then it's well written.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:56
Very cool. Now what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life

Brian Herskowitz 1:05:00
Wow, we're probably still learning it. First of all, you know, the one of the probably the hardest lesson is to, to listen to criticism. And, you know, I think that sometimes, you know, hearing from people that they don't just adore and love your work and that there are things that can be improved is difficult. And I think what the other thing about that is that you have to, you have to eventually learn to have a certain kind of core piece and center to say that that note is correct, and I need to change it or that note isn't right. And I'm not going to change it. And and know when you know, it's kind of God grant me the serenity, you know, to know what the difference is. And that's a hard lesson to learn.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:53
What is the what did you learn from your biggest failure?

Brian Herskowitz 1:05:57
Or my biggest failure? Well, first of all, let me think, what was my biggest failure? You know, what actually goes back to this idea of notes. And one of the I was a writer, for a TV movie, for universal. And it was for Angela Lansbury. And I was, at the time kind of sitting on top of the world, I was represented by William Morris, they had picked my script out of about 2000 submissions to be the one that they wanted to write the script. And I wrote the script. And I really was thrilled. And we missed her hiatus from Murder She Wrote, and they had a little extra time to think about it. And they asked me rewrite it. I ended up doing about 3030 drafts of the script, without being paid for it. And part of what happened was, and this is going a little bit to what's going on with the agents right now, the agency represented Korean War, the production company, and they were packaging for Korean War. And I was a writer so that I was very young and very stupid. And nobody said to me, Hey, you know, every time you write you're supposed to be paid for. And one of the one of the things that happened is, I got notes from Universal from the producer, universal from the executives and universal from CBS, from Korea, or from Judith Kristof, The New Yorker, everybody, and their cousin was giving me notes. And I was trying to do them all. You can do that. That was the lesson that that I that I really had to take in and go, okay. That failure taught me that I can't listen to everybody. I have to, I have to, I have to hear everybody. But I have to then follow what I think is the best course of action for the project. What makes it a better story? What makes it better character? What makes it more entertaining? Those are the things that are important. People don't always have the answer. They may have a question you have to look at why did you ask me that? What is it I can do to address that without blowing up? My concept of my idea, and giving away my heart and soul on project?

Alex Ferrari 1:08:06
What is the biggest fear you had to overcome to write your first screenplay?

Brian Herskowitz 1:08:11
Ah, my biggest fear. Um, you know, on my first screenplay was pretty fearless. So

Alex Ferrari 1:08:18
so your second screenplay that

Brian Herskowitz 1:08:20
Okay, let's go with this. Like, it's a lack of knowledge.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:24
Okay,

Brian Herskowitz 1:08:24
the idea that I didn't know what I was doing. And it was really, the, the real, it was more a realization that a fear and that I wasn't afraid that I didn't know what I was doing. I discovered that I didn't know what I was doing. And I went, ah, okay, do I want and then and then the question is, you know, I had intended to be an actor. That's what I wanted. I didn't want to be a writer, I want to be an active. So I was like, do I want to give up that and pursue this? And if I do, how do I do that? That was a big step, in that I did.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:58
Three of your favorite films of all time.

Brian Herskowitz 1:09:02
Well, gosh, let me think about that. I gotta tell you, I'm a big fan of Deadpool. I thought it was a terrific movie. I really love this wonderful film. It was it was again, very well structured, very inventive. You know, took risks broke the rules, but within that universe consistent as it could be. I love that film. You know, I love I think fields of dreams.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:31
No, so good. It's

Brian Herskowitz 1:09:32
a wonderful phone. Um, you know, going way back I think Lawrence of Arabia was probably, you know, one of my all time favorites, just superb Li directed, beautifully shot. Excellent. Written everything. It's an and as far as you know, kind of a an epic that we don't see a lot of today anymore. You know, young every young filmmaker should study that film, you know, forward and backward. sideways, the I'd say those are three and

Alex Ferrari 1:10:03
there's many more of course but

Brian Herskowitz 1:10:05
tons I mean, you know in comedy Something About Mary I think was brilliant. I thought bridesmaids and then I love the woody allen so so

Alex Ferrari 1:10:13
now can you tell me a little bit about your book process to product?

Brian Herskowitz 1:10:16
Unfortunately no. Okay loud that I started that because I partly out of out of the concept of you know Syd field I felt was a fantastic book. But I thought that a lot I saw a lot of writers getting kind of straight jacket straitjacketed by the concept of you have this structure and you have to fit into it. And then with here with 1000 faces, I thought almost the opposite. It's a great concept in terms of how do you evolve character and a journey, but there's no real kind of, you know, pinpoints to say how do I get there. So I wanted to give writers two things, I wanted to give writers the freedom to explore within a structure without being straitjacketed and yet allow them a structure that if they got lost, they could come back to me. So that was the impetus. And it came out for 10 years, I taught at UCLA extensions. And all of my classes were online. And I'd written all of my my coursework. So it was taking that all of that information and kind of, you know, molding it over the course of a decade or two, to come up with, with the book. And, you know, I wanted it to be easy to read, clear to understand and specific and I think I succeeded.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:41
And where can people find you in your work?

Brian Herskowitz 1:11:43
They can find me on my website at Brian Herskowitz calm or at her equity fund.com and then the book, you can get an Amazon. It's readily available there. And there's also a link from my my website if you want to go there. Okay, and

Alex Ferrari 1:12:01
I'll put it in the show notes as well, Brian, thank you. It's been an enlightening conversation.

Brian Herskowitz 1:12:05
Yes. A lot of fun. So thanks for that anytime.

Alex Ferrari 1:12:09
Thanks for coming on. Thank you, Brian, so much for coming on the show and sharing your knowledge with the tribe. If you want to get links to his book or anything we spoke about in this episode, please head over to the show notes at indie film, hustle comm forward slash bps 054. And if you haven't already, please head over to screenwriting podcast.com Subscribe to the show and leave us a good review. It really helps the show get seen by more and more people really want to get this information out there guys. Thank you guys so much for listening. I hope I was a value to you today on your screenwriting journey. Thanks again. And as always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon.

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BPS 038: How to Create a Viable & Profitable Story Idea with Erik Bork

by

Today on the show we have screenwriter and producer Erik Bork. Erik Bork is a screenwriter best known for his work on the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, From the Earth to the Moon, for which he wrote multiple episodes, and won two Emmy and two Golden Globe Awards as part of the producing team.

Erik has also sold series pitches (and written pilots) at NBC and FOX, worked on the writing staff for two primetime dramas, and written feature screenplays on assignment for companies like Universal, HBO, TNT, and Playtone. He teaches screenwriting for UCLA Extension, National University, and The Writers Store, and offers one-on-one consulting to writers.

Why don’t most scripts have the kind of success their writers’ dream of? Because of problems with the basic idea for their story. Which the writer is usually unaware of. While story structure and scene writing choices do need to be top-notch, writers tend to rush into those parts of the writing process too quickly, without vetting their basic concept.

This is a mistake professional rarely make because their agents and managers insist that ideas be run past them first. And this usually leads to serious notes and development before the outlining process even starts.

The Idea: The Seven Elements of a Viable Story for Screen, Stage or Fiction form an acronym for the word PROBLEM, since every story is really about one, at its core. Each chapter focuses on one of these seven deceptively simple-looking aspects of a strong story, which are anything but easy to master. Mr. Bork highlights his own struggles as a writer and his arrival at an understanding of how each of these elements works — and how to know if one’s idea really succeeds at each of them. A special section devoted to television writing (and its unique attributes) ends each chapter.

Whatever your education and background in writing or story, this book and its unique focus contribute foundationally useful information not covered elsewhere — which may be the missing piece that leads to greater results, both on the page and in the marketplace.

Enjoy my conversation with Erik Bork.

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Alex Ferrari 0:06
Today on the show, we have Erik Bork, screenwriter, producer and author of the new book The idea the seven elements of a viable story for screen stage or fiction. Now Erik, it has a very unique story in how he got into Hollywood, working his way as runners on studio sets and, and in the back lots as well, but, but his real break came when he was assigned to Tom Hanks, his production company as a runner. And from that point on, he became an assistant then moved on from there and was able to work with Tom Hanks on some amazing miniseries like HBOs Band of Brothers, as well as from Earth to the Moon. We talk all about the craft, how to hone that idea that actually creates a good story and screenplay, and many, many other things. So please enjoy my conversation with Eric Bork. I'd like to welcome the show Eric Bork. Man, thank you so much for being on the show, brother. I appreciate it.

Erik Bork 2:49
Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Alex Ferrari 2:52
Thank you, man. So you you've you've lived a very interesting career in Hollyweird. And your story is quite interesting from what I've been able to pick up online. So first off, how did you get into the business?

Erik Bork 3:07
Well, I moved to LA from Ohio, where I grown up and gone to film school got a bachelor's degree and motion picture production BFA right State University in Dayton, Ohio, moved out to LA started working as an assistant versus a temp worked around the fox lot for a couple of years, including a writer's assistant job on the show picket fences. Yeah, Kelly drama which won the Emmy for Best Drama that year, and the next year. And eventually I kind of had paid my dues in the temp pool at Fox, the in house temple where I'd be assigned to different sort of offices every day or every week or every month, whatever. And they assigned me to Tom Hanks, his production company. Tom had just moved on to the fox lot his deal a bit at Disney. He only had his his his like main assistant, and then me as the tamp helping get the office set up. I thought I'd be there a month at most, and then turn into a full time assistant position and eventually led to my you know, big break.

Alex Ferrari 4:03
Nice and that that must have been a fun, boss.

Erik Bork 4:08
It was amazing. Yeah, I mean, I you know, I idolized him, you know, big was one of my favorite movies. And when I started working for him the week I started temping for him was the week that Sleepless in Seattle premiered. Oh, wow. Philadelphia was already in the can and he was about to go shoot Forrest Gump. So during the during the two years that I worked as his like second assistant, he won the back to back Oscars. And it was like my job the day after the Oscars to take the statuette to the academy building and have his nameplate put on because they don't do that the night. At least they didn't then so I'm driving my beat up Toyota Celica to the academy building with Tom Hanks Oscar in the passenger seat because stuff I got to do. So it was cool being on the you know, on the in the Inner Inner sort of circle as a as an employee to him when he was at, you know, reached this incredible height. Oh, yeah, he's already Probably never, you know, never gone down from that height, because then it led to producing and all these other things which I got to be involved in.

Alex Ferrari 5:06
Yeah, I mean, that must have been a you were you were there at like a really fun part of his career. I mean, he was like, pow, pow, pow, pow, like, everything he touched was gold. And is it true that he is as nice as they say he is.

Erik Bork 5:19
Yeah, he's very nice. He's very funny. Can be cutting in his in his humor, but in a way that's entertaining. Like, he would always make me laugh. And he's extremely generous. The the opportunity he gives people is amazing, including me. And he sticks with people. And he's, he's just like a fun, easygoing guy for a big star like that, you know, you would think there'd be you know, tons of ego and insecurity and need to prove oneself or whatever kind of stuff we might think that big actors might have. He doesn't seem to have any of that. He's just like a happy go lucky guy that loves making things loves acting and, and producing and, you know, just just into it.

Alex Ferrari 6:06
That's awesome. Now, how did you get involved with Ben and brothers?

Erik Bork 6:10
Well, first there was from the Earth to the Moon, which was the miniseries that that Tom executive produced for HBO, in the late 90s. That's where my big break came in, which is that he gave me this promotion that enabled me to help him kind of ultimately write and produce that miniseries. There were steps along the way to that, but at the end of the day, I had a co producer credit, I'd been involved in every aspect of it, I had multiple writing credits on the scripts. So Banda brothers was kind of like a reteaming of a lot of the same people, plus adding Steven Spielberg as an executive producer. So so I was kind of already had done that sort of two to three year project with him before and so Band of Brothers was like, here's another one kind of, well, let's like

Alex Ferrari 6:55
so then let's go back to four from Earth to the Moon, which is one of my favorite miniseries. It was kind of like, I guess it was the beginning of miniseries. But it was kind of this kind of beginning, if I remember correctly, kind of the beginning of this, like HBO, high production value, kind of mini series. Is that Is that fair to say? Yeah,

Erik Bork 7:13
I think it was the first one. Yeah. And they spent like 70 million and it was way over the top amount of money for them to spend at that time right.

Alex Ferrari 7:21
Now. Now, that's an episode of Game of Thrones. I mean, I'm sure they weren't nervous, but that that turned out to be a huge monster hit for HBO.

Erik Bork 7:32
Well, you know, HBO it's not so much about ratings of course, it's about subscribers and how do you get subscribers if you win awards? And you have critics love it and have people think you got to have HBO in order to get this kind of programming and so we won the all the Emmys and the big awards for many series which I think was the most important thing at the end and enabled them to go okay, let's do more of these and advanta brothers was like the next one,

Alex Ferrari 7:55
and and then on from Earth to the Moon, you were a writer, and a producer just read it.

Erik Bork 8:01
My ultimate credit was co producer on all of it and writer on multiple episodes, some I didn't get credit on some I've shared credits when I have sole credit. So yeah, I was there at the beginning, you know, when it was just an idea and a book that we had the rights to that Tom had sold a pitch to HBO and I in the meantime, while working as his second assistant, I was writing all the time, and eventually turned from feature film writing to sitcom writing, believe it or not, and had written three spec episodes of sitcoms of that of that day. Three NBC shows actually, Frasier Mad About You and Friends. And eventually Tom ended up reading one or two of those because his first assistant kind of, I guess, knew I got an agent and was you know, I kind of became part of the inner circle by then and she suggested that he read one or that I give him one which I was never going to be my idea to do that had to be somebody else right? So he did and pronounced me talented and and and then a few months later said how would you like to stop being an assistant and like, have your own assistant and, you know, like this life changing thing, and helped me figure out this mini series. So that led to us. This is from the Earth to the Moon that led to us like kind of meeting for breakfasts over the course of weeks and going over ideas for each episode and me kind of helping draft this like 50 Page Bible for what the miniseries was going to be, which HBO approved, and then we use that to go get writers and, and it was also my job to help find writers like established writers to write episodes of this. And along the way of doing that, one of the other producers that I was working with suggested maybe I should write one of the episodes again, not gonna be me asking for it, but if someone else does, yes, please. So that was assigned or I chose one of the episodes that had not been signed anybody and wrote up a zillion drafts of that which were terrible for a long time because I was really in over my head and never tried to write historical drama. You know, I mean, trying to do justice To the real events and have everything be accurate, I was overly obsessed with the research and all that stuff, a lot of lessons I learned along the way. And, but eventually under the tutelage of Tony tau, who was our CO exec producer was like the day to day producer who kind of ran everything and oversaw the writers, the directors, everything hasn't like non writing producer, I found my way and my script became considered a decent one. And then I was asked to rewrite some of the other ones, which is how I have shared credit on some of the other ones. And also, I started working under Tony I became his kind of like apprentice producer like his, you know, Shadow everywhere he went. So I got to be in all the big meetings and I'll be on set in the editing room, be involved in every aspect and because I was also Tom's point person, or the first kind of like employee one in a way, not really, but close to that on the miniseries, I sort of had access and had to be dealt with to some extent. So I can be on on the set. whispering and Lily zanic or John turtle tab, or Sally Fields ear, saying, I don't know if Tom would like this really annoying, you know, inexperienced young jerk.

Alex Ferrari 11:10
I can imagine the ego might run away with you at that at that young young age, especially when given that sort of power or access. Now, then you went into BANA brothers after that. Right. Right. And now

Erik Bork 11:25
To your words, right, some other things. But then yeah,

Alex Ferrari 11:28
So Band of Brothers, which is another monster hit for HBO. That thing is a legendary miniseries on a band of brothers during World War Two. This is before Private Ryan or after Private Ryan. It was

Erik Bork 11:40
after you know, Tom, it kind of became a tradition for him. He made Apollo 13. And they decided to a miniseries about space program and he made Saving Private Ryan and he and Steven Steven Spielberg, I call them Steven, but

Alex Ferrari 11:51
to us. Yes, yes, Mr. Spielberg

Erik Bork 11:54
decided to make Band of Brothers. First they were going to do something with citizen soldiers, which is another Steven Ambrose book about World War Two. That was really just citizens who became soldiers from all over America. And then they widely decided, you know, Band of Brothers is a more one group. We're gonna stay with this one group and follow their whole story. So it's a more contained subject.

Alex Ferrari 12:14
And when working with Mr. Spielberg, how did you did you work with him? How was that process? And I imagine that that must have been overwhelming just meeting him or if you if you did meet with him and work with him on this it must have been it Steven Spielberg, you know, I mean it but you're the more you work with Tom Hanks, which is great. But now you're just like, this is a whole nother level of in different vit flavor of crazy.

Erik Bork 12:42
Yeah, and I don't think I ever fully got over the That's Tom Hanks right there. And we're in the same meeting. Like there's a certain like, thing that never fully goes away. So yeah, so Steven was, was like, there with Tom to kind of oversee, like, all the big decisions he was he didn't direct any episodes, he wasn't like on set every day or anything like that. He would strategically come and visit or be involved in certain meetings, you know, looking at all the cuts and giving notes on the cuts. So I was, you know, I had quite a few experiences where I was like a group of us in a meeting, including Steven. And, you know, he was just like this infectious kid with this love for filmmaking who couldn't wait to tell you how they got that shot inside Saving Private Ryan from like, the steeple or whatever, you know, like, here's what we did, you know, like it was he's just like, kind of similar Tom in a way kind of boyish. Just infectious enthusiasm. And love for love for the craft. But yeah, it's, it's, it's certainly certainly a little overwhelming to be, you know, to be in his presence as well.

Alex Ferrari 13:47
And you and you were many of those meetings, I'm assuming?

Erik Bork 13:50
Yeah. Yeah, there were quite a few. And I got to ride on a private jet once where it was just me and Tom and Steven, from London to LA, because we shot it all in in England. And, and that was pretty cool. Just the three of us the three bros.

Alex Ferrari 14:06
Just chillin, just hanging out. You know, talking about stuff. I would love to have been a fly in the wall on that. Now, so can you give a one tip that you would get what is the one tip that you would give a writer that wants to break into TV? And once it can't try to get a TV kick?

Erik Bork 14:25
Wow, that's a quite a big segue. The one tip well, you know, keep at it. I mean, it's a persistence thing that was a tip somebody gave me when I was first starting out some established greenware just like don't give up and keep doing it and keep learning as you go getting feedback, learning and growing and understanding it's a marathon. And it's, you know, it's rare to achieve something and to write something that would allow you to break in and, and there's usually a long learning curve So you got to see it as an education and ongoing. I mean, I still feel like every script I'm writing, I'm learning and I'm, I'm like a small child grappling in the dark with something that's beyond me. You know, it's always that way and have this sort of open mind of I'm learning and I'm and I'm, and I recognize that I am a kind of a neophyte, maybe always, every new project, I'm a neophyte again, and embrace that and just be about I'm going to learn and grow and improve.

Alex Ferrari 15:29
Now, let's, now let's talk about your book, the idea the seven elements of a viable story screens for screen stage and or fiction. That's a mouthful. Can you talk about the idea? And what made you write the book?

Erik Bork 15:43
Yeah. So I've been teaching screenwriting coaching and mentoring writers for the last 10 years, as well as writing my own stuff and doing my own projects. And, and what that's taught me is something I kind of already knew, but became even more clear, which is that it all lives or dies with the basic idea that so much of what makes a project viable is contained within the basic premise, you could pitch somebody in a paragraph or you know, 30 seconds or whatever. And that most of the time, we writers want to jump into the actual writing of the script, without really vetting the idea without spending enough time trying to arrive at an idea worth writing. And so when I give notes to a writer who sends me their scripts, like 90%, plus of the most important notes I have on their script, the modes that most determine whether it's going to succeed or not, are notes that would have had on that 32nd Pit, if only the idea before they wrote any of the scenes or even outlined it, or even did a sort of structure, you know, document. So and also, in my own career, like, there was a period where I was pitching ideas for series to the network's like drama series, and my agents would send me out to all these producers and studios and networks and, and, and I would have to get, you know, get an idea for a series pass them. First, I'd get past my agents, which was the hardest part almost, because they were very tough on, you know, we're not gonna send you out with some idea that we don't really believe in it. So I kind of had to learn for my own sort of making a living at that, what makes it viable ideas become this, like ongoing obsession. And so I kind of figured out based on as a writer, as, as a producer, and as a coach and teacher, what makes an idea worth writing, what are really the elements. So and I've been blogging about the craft for close to a decade now. And so some of this originated my blog was like, Well, I really figured I really kind of worked it out that there's this acronym of seven elements using the word problem as the acronym because every story is really about a problem that takes the whole story to solve, essentially. So the problem needs to have these seven characteristics. And each one gets a chapter where I go into great depth on the pitfalls and how to make that element really come out in your work, whether it's film TV, or you know, I think it applies to fiction and other kinds of stories as well.

Alex Ferrari 18:08
So what are this? Do you mind telling us the seven key elements?

Erik Bork 18:11
Yeah, so it's punishing, punishing the problem, says a punishing problem. Right, so PRL BLM, so punishing, relatable, and these things describe not just the story, but the problem at the heart of the story, because that's really what you're pitching. When you're pitching a story, you're pitching a problem that takes the whole story to solve. So what does that problem have to look like? It has to be punishing to the main character, which means just defies being solved. And even though they're actively trying to solve it throughout the story, mostly, they're failing, and they're losing. And it's just getting more complicated and difficult and important all the way through. I liken it to watching your favorite sports team and a championship game where they're the underdog, and they're behind. It's exciting to watch that. And hopefully, they'll come from behind at the end and win the game at the final moment. But prior to that, there's a lot of things going wrong and you're on the edge of your seat. So punishing. The second one is relatable, which has to do with caring about the main character or characters and whatever the outcome of the story is. That's that's in play. You want the audience to invest emotionally in that it's not as easy to earn that investment as it might seem investment and both the main character which most movies have a single main character. Most TV episodes have multiple characters that get stories, investing in them, and also investing in whatever it is they're trying to achieve or solve. The third is original. Before fourth is believable. I should say just original. It's like fresh twist on a familiar genre due to the way to go in my view, as opposed to I've got to do something totally different from how anyone's ever done anything before, which usually means you're not observing these other six elements, because you're all focused on being different. So it's really about building on the shoulders of things that have worked but with some intriguing fresh element your brain to it. believable, that's obvious, but so many scripts and even premise For scripts fail, when the audience is just like, I don't know that I buy this, right? I don't believe these people would do this or this situation, it's very complicated and arbitrary that you've set up and I'm not sure I'm with you. So believability is a bigger one than it seems that L is for life altering, which means the stakes of what's going on have to really matter. He is entertaining, which means don't forget your job, really bring your audience to some emotional state they've paid to be in because they want this kind of genre to do something for them, whether it's Action, Comedy, Romance, whatever. What is the entertainment? How do you achieve entertainment? How do you make sure that's part of what you're doing. And then the last one is meaningful, which has to do with theme, and making sure that what you're writing has some resonance beyond the surface events of your story. So people feel like, you know, you've kind of it sticks to their ribs in terms of what it's really about, and and the human condition and life issues and challenges that we can all identify with.

Alex Ferrari 21:03
So it says you've been teaching so long, and mentoring and you've obviously read a bunch of scripts over your course of your career. What is the biggest mistake you see first time screenwriters make?

Erik Bork 21:18
Well, when you're first time screenwriter, you know you're learning the craft. So there's a lot of things that you don't know how to do well yet. But if we just talk on the concept level, I mean, the biggest mistake really is the one I already said, which is trying to jump too quickly into writing without getting the concept. But if we put that one aside, one of the really most common ones is issues with point of view, and that's covered in the relatable chapter, which means not understanding that you have to tell the story subjectively, from the point of view of a character that the audience is meant to kind of become one with almost like it's happening to them. And that's not easy to achieve. And there are specific practices and things to avoid in the achievement of that. And writers tend to either not realize that or not do that effectively. And so the first goal I think, is you know, you want to suck the reader into caring. And you usually do it through a specific individual character by by not telling it objectively but telling it subjectively and it's not just first time screenwriters though, I mean, we all struggle with that making the audience care and, and, and making them feel like they're inside the story is, you know, always important and often difficult.

Alex Ferrari 22:27
Now, can you name a given example of a protagonist, an interesting protagonist, and why we connect with those that protagonist anywhere in cinema?

Erik Bork 22:39
Well, for some reason, Forrest Gump just you know, Michael Hague, in his book, writing screenplays itself is a great section on empathy and the different techniques for gaining empathy. And a lot of it when you really look at it is a manipulation on the part of the writer, a very conscious manipulation of giving a character certain elements that make you care about them save the cat talked about, they have to save a cat in the first pages, which is kind of a joke, but it's actually true. They have to do something that makes us sympathize, and feel like that's a good person. I like that person. You know, there's this real vote, invoke thing of unlikable main characters and anti heroes and people point to shows like Breaking Bad and say, Look what a dark figure he was. And I always say look at the pilot of Breaking Bad, and he was the most lovable, relatable average every man you could ever possibly meet, who had all of these undeserved misfortunes, which is a phrase Michael Haig uses when you give a character undeserved misfortune, like Forrest Gump didn't ask to be mentally handicapped and have those things on his legs and have people make fun of them. It's not fair. You immediately side with the poor, lovable nice kid who's got these unfair things about his life. He didn't ask to not have a father. You know, he didn't ask to be picked on and chased all these things that are just totally not fair. And in his simplicity, there's a goodness and a love ability that just makes you feel like he's your kid. Like you just want to protect them. So you know, the the Africa is gonna say about the undeserved misfortune, but another thing is when you put a character in jeopardy, so that so that we're worried about the character, which they do that with Forrest Gump, as well. And Michael has this whole list of things that are really genius that he's observed in movies over the years, but so much of the time you'll be reading a script and it's like, yeah, I don't have a strong pull to this person.

Alex Ferrari 24:35
I don't care.

Erik Bork 24:36
Oh, I was gonna say Breaking Bad there all these elements of undeserved misfortune. It's like he's a chemistry teacher who's passionate and good and his students couldn't care less. He doesn't make enough money siesta moonlight at a car wash where his students see him and make fun of them. Yep, he finds out he's dying. He doesn't have enough money to leave his family after his death. This poor schmuck, right so You need to do all that for the audience to then accept when you start cooking math that okay, this is only option and we get why he's doing it and we still love him and he's still in way over his head once he starts cooking math way over his head, you know, there's dangerous people everywhere and he's gonna get arrested and it's like are killed yeah are killed. It takes a very long time for him to become the kind of like, you know, heavy the kind of like, top of his Eisenberg scary guy of Heisenberg. Yeah. So I just think it's a mistake to just say, Oh, you can make your character really unlikable. And it's fine. I don't even worry about it. It's not you can't get away with that as easily as it might seem. So I've always explained to people well, here, this character that you think is unlikable. In this thing that really work. Let's look at all the things that actually make them likable. And usually, there's quite a few of them that people didn't even notice.

Alex Ferrari 25:51
So if you look at someone like Wolverine, or Logan, you know, who is an anti hero, quote, unquote, there's things in his backstory that, you know, it's unfortunate he didn't want he didn't end up he didn't want to become over and it was forced upon him. He lives in a constant cycle of always healing, not really aging, so he could live for hundreds of years and see people die. Like there's a lot of things that from luck, if you go back to like even the Vampire Lestat, you know, who's a very unlikable, he's a villain, he's a villain, but you kind of go with him a little bit. And you see his from his point of view what he has to go with. So even the most unlikable characters in history, and literature, they all have this kind of thing you're talking about, like Breaking Bad, I still say is one of the best series ever written, ever shot and ever created it. It's just it's perfection in my edit, from the beginning, from the best pilot I've ever seen to the one of the best endings I've ever seen. And how they took that one beautiful, lovable guy and turned him into Heisenberg, who was you know, was spoiler alert, a murder? Ego maniacal maniac he turned him into essentially, but there was always those little clips of, of the of the teacher of the chemistry teacher always sparkle in his eye every once in a while. Would you agree?

Erik Bork 27:11
Yeah, for sure. And I would say the other key with like, if somebody is unlikable, if you really pile the problems on top of them, big problems that makes a big difference, because the audience can't help but relate to the character with the big problems like Scarface, pretty unlikable character, but he's got he's facing death around every corner, essentially, right? And if the character gets really beaten up by the events of the story that helps you forgive unlikable qualities, but don't forget Life and Death type stuff.

Alex Ferrari 27:38
Right? And also, don't forget where you came from, though. He was you know, right. Refugee, your dog.

Erik Bork 27:43
Yeah, completely thought his body killed with a chainsaw in front of them, you know? And that one scene? I mean, it's like,

Alex Ferrari 27:50
yeah, it's insane. Now, on the other side of that, what is an amazing antagonist? And why do people like Because? Because a lot of people, right? I've read so many scripts, horrible villains, and in movies, horrible antagonists. And I always use my favorite antagonist, one of my favorite cinematic antagonists of all time is the Joker and Dark Knight, who's just as perfect of an antagonist, because he mirrored Batman in every way. He was the opposite. You know, and I love that what is your What, in your opinion, what makes a great antagonist and if you have an example of that,

Erik Bork 28:27
well, the three dimensionality, you know that they're the human being that we can understand why they are the way they are, and they're not. People. They're not the same as every bad guy we've ever seen. They're not a one dimensional mustache twirling villain read my mind. Yeah, but they're also not just the standard version of their villain who talks in a nice and cultured way like they're your friend, but they're really, you know, not one that comes to mind is you know, Christoph Waltz and Inglorious Basterds, right? I mean, he that opening sequence, oh, he's just, I mean, he is kind of he is on one level, he is that version of pure evil, pretending to be super friendly, and have a sense of humor and be cultured, and I'm working with you. And we're friends, which we've seen a million times, but this but this that's where the Oh, and the originality comes in the specific way he's written. And the way he performs it somehow transcends even that kind of that cliche

Alex Ferrari 29:26
terrifying. It was terrifying that that seven minutes scene is one of the Oscar I believe that's first seven minutes, just like well, that's just give it to him. Yeah. There's no There's no, look, no question. And someone like Hannibal Lecter, who is an amazing anti hero, like you are literally rooting for a serial killer who eats people?

Erik Bork 29:47
Well, and I would point out, he's not the antagonist in that movie, right? He's the helper of the protagonist. Right? And he's, yeah, he's super interesting. You understand what he wants and what gets in the way of that. So it kind of has his own story but both a Buffalo Bill shaped by Ted Levine, who was the star of the first thing I ever wrote professionally, which was an episode of from the Earth to the Moon. He played Alan Shepard. He's such

Alex Ferrari 30:11
a he's an amazing actor. He, to me

Erik Bork 30:15
Buffalo Bill is what makes that movies people never talk about him. But those few scenes of him being creepy alone are so real and feel so just like not like other serial killer things in movies where the because even Hannibal Lecter is kind of glamorized look at what a genius he is, or whatever she was find. I mean, Anthony Hopkins obviously transcended this, but I always find that I don't love it. When serial killers are portrayed as these like incredible geniuses, they're outsmarting everybody. Somehow Buffalo Bill. Yeah, he's outsmarting on one level, he knows how to like kidnap women and keep them hidden and all that stuff and not be found. But he's just this twisted, sick two days just to see that felt very real.

Alex Ferrari 31:01
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Erik Bork 31:12
And as a major threat feel very real. So whenever you cut to him, to me that you don't get to know him that well, but talk about an antagonist that just powers the whole movie, you just want to see that girl saved and, and you really believe in the reality of Buffalo Bill,

Alex Ferrari 31:28
she puts the lotion on the skin. Yeah, she gets the hose again. I mean, that was a brutal. I mean, it's such a brutal performance, wonderful performance. But then later on, as the series continued, then the hero is Hannibal Lecter, and Hannibal and oh, right, Red Dragon and these kind of films, which is kind of like what, like you're rooting for syrup, like you're rooting for Scarface, or you're rooting for Heisenberg. And you're like, does that say something about me as a viewer? Or does it say something about the writer who wrote that's

Erik Bork 32:03
the manipulation that the writer is doing to make you see things through the perspective of somebody that you otherwise would recoil from? And to give them problems that you want to see them solve, despite not liking certain things about what who they are?

Alex Ferrari 32:19
What is your feeling on the Joker? Like, if we could just dive in a little bit on that character? Because I know, I don't know what your feeling of that movie is. Or if him but I've always found them very interesting. And I think he's a great case study of what an antagonist should do for the protagonist.

Erik Bork 32:37
Yeah, I mean, Heath Ledger was amazing. I'm not a huge dark night person myself, which might be sacrilege to you and all

Alex Ferrari 32:45
viewers, it was a great interview. It's a fantastic interview, it's actually

Erik Bork 32:48
not my genre, I'm actually more of a like, romantic comedy type of guy to believe it or not, I mean, people see Band of Brothers, and they think, oh, high testosterone, guys with guns. He also writes about astronauts. So I was very much you know, after those two people were always trying to put me on cop shows and stuff like that, which was the antithesis of who I am as a writer what I aspire to be so. So a lot of my favorite stuff doesn't have a villain doesn't have that antagonist, because not every genre or every kind of movie has to have sure that's straight up evil person with life and death stakes. Most of my favorite movies don't have life and death stakes. They have important life stakes, but it's not someone's gonna kill me kind of stakes. Right? So I'm probably not the best person to analyze the Joker or the Dark Knight too deeply. So I'm trying to say it

Alex Ferrari 33:35
Fair enough. Fair enough. So okay, so then that's, that's a good segue, though. So then, let's pick one of your favorite romantic comedies, and see what is the the conflict? And how do we get to those? Those Eric, can we break that down? A little bit? Sure.

Erik Bork 33:51
Well, 40 Year Old Virgin is a great one. Yeah, it is. That, you know, I think people think is great writing and was, you know, successful on every level. So we could talk about that if you wanted. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, so um, doesn't have a villain, you know, just has a guy who you fall in love with, because he's got this really big problem.

Alex Ferrari 34:13
He's a 40 year old virgin.

Erik Bork 34:15
Well, the problem and now everybody knows, right, like the catalyst of that movie is that they find out the poker game that he's a virgin. And now, he already had a problem. But now he has a pressing crisis problem, which I think all the great main characters have that, you know, in the beginning of that movie, he hasn't necessarily experienced life as problematic prior to that moment, right. He's just going along living his compromised life without necessarily seeing it as compromised. You know, save the cat talks about the main character should have six things that need fixing that we need that we learn about the setup or the first 10 pages. So he's got all these things like you're sort of like looking at his life. going, Wow, this is like, huh, but he doesn't know it, right? No, he's happy. He's happy. Dealing with crisis happens. And then the whole rest of the movie is going to push him and force him and pressure him in the most uncomfortable under siege kind of way to fix those things that needed fixing that he didn't acknowledge. Which means overcome your virginity and figure out love and relationships and and move forward as an adult man who doesn't have life size Yoda is sitting behind him. And that's

Alex Ferrari 35:27
for everyone listening. I do have a life sized Yoda have small Yodas

Erik Bork 35:31
other action figures, they

Alex Ferrari 35:32
seem to be a Wolverine and some hawks in the background. I'm fine. I'm very, I'm very comfortable in my adulthood. And in my own manhood, sir. Thank you. I appreciate that. You know what, 3040 years ago, this would have been an issue but now I'm just one of the guys.

Erik Bork 35:50
Well, you see a Bill Maher's new rule thing about Stanley No, as you know, he got his big trouble because recently Yeah, so he taught us so he talked about on his show last week in his like, new rule that he does at the end. And he really went after it about how people are, you know, people that are obsessed with like, you know, fanboy culture need to grow up and all that kind of stuff. In his view. He was like, he's like, he said, I'm not I'm not happy, Stanley's dead. I'm upset that you're alive. Everybody who reveres comic books as as like high art and culture, whatever. That's his point of view. I'm not saying I agree with it. It was funny. It's

Alex Ferrari 36:30
Yoda up, I'm gonna have to defend Yoda for a second. I bought Yoda in 1999. The conversation would not be as clean today with my wife. I said, Hey, babe, I need to buy a $500 life size Yoda. Oh, I know the girls. I know my kids need, you know, summer school, or you know, or summer camp or after schools. But conversations that have been had today. Same thing goes for all the statues? Or different times of their artifacts of my earlier life. I can't get rid of just yet.

Erik Bork 37:04
To do that while you could because never again.

Alex Ferrari 37:07
No, no. Just note for everyone listening. If you're going to buy a life size Yoda or a giant I have a giant alien egg to if you're going to do things like that. Do it when you're single. Or do it before the kids come? Yeah, that the conversation changes. Yeah. Anyway, back to what you were talking about as to Virgin, but he finally did finally leave he did become a man and had sex and, you know, had a relationship and sold his toys and built up a you know, he said he just changed his life. But that's very interesting that so many writers and understand that is the that the protagonist should not know that he or she needs to change. And they are there.

Erik Bork 37:50
Yeah. Yeah. Michael Haig is great on this too. I sound like I'm promoting Michael,

Alex Ferrari 37:53
who's my friend Michael. I'm great friends with Michael too. And he's Michael actually wrote

Erik Bork 37:57
a blurb on the back of my book that said something like don't read any other screenwriting book, including mine, until you've read Eric Bork the idea so this guy is a match,

Alex Ferrari 38:06
you need to you need you owe him at least a royalty or two.

Erik Bork 38:09
And We team teach a class once in a while for this screenwriting program in Sweden that we're both kind of adjunct professors where we do it all in line from here. But anyway, he talks about his one of his big specialties is the whole character arc stuff. And he talks about how the main character most of the time in most movies is living in what he calls their his identity instead of his essence. And his identity is this compromised version of himself that is the result of like childhood experiences, and pain and issues that that caused the character to become something that's a sort of limited, protected version of themselves that they project to the world, not their full, best self and they don't believe that full best self as possible. They don't even try to access it. They just are comfortable, somewhat in that identity. He uses like the example of LA Confidential, Russell Crowe's character who saw his like, Mother beaten to death by his father while I was tied to radiate or something like that. He says in this like bedroom scene with Kim Basinger. And, you know, he always thought of himself as dumb, and just as muscle and that's how he's been treated. He's just a muscle guy. But he wants to be something more than that. And in the movie, thanks to the relationship with her, he starts to see the possibility of that because she believes in the essence, which is what a great love interest should do. They should see the essence. This is like just quoting Michael Haig, right and you might want him sitting here.

Alex Ferrari 39:33
He's been on the show too many times. I can't keep bringing them back.

Erik Bork 39:36
So they see beyond the he's probably said this already then he they see beyond the identity and they see the essence and they help you become the person that you want to be or you know, the as Jerry Maguire that line I love the man he wants to be in the man he almost is

Alex Ferrari 39:51
Oh, great. Oh, yeah. No, that's an amazing romantic comedy, but it's not. It's kind of a romantic comedy, but it has its own

Erik Bork 40:00
Well, lever. It's got two stories and one and one is the story of Jerry and his sports agent in problem his career. And the second is the love story. Right? So, I mean, those are my favorite kind of movies usually aren't just about, well, these two people be together, but there's something else one or both of them is trying to do that isn't going to affect their future life. And that's really important and entertaining to watch as well. So yeah, that's a great example of that. And the love story is kind of told more from her point of view, which is interesting, usually the main character, you know that they have an a story problem, which is I lost my career and I'm trying to get it back, then they have a BS story. Often it's a relationship conflict or challenge, which is I've met this person, but there's a problem and is it going to work out or not. And while he has some scenes, about his point of view of the relationship, there's more scenes of her point of view on the relationship and you see that she has more to lose and more to gain. She's the one who we're seeing really is in love with him and wants him whereas he's more like on the fence can't really commit while his careers in upheaval, like men often are. And so I just think that's an interesting lesson when you start looking at a story and B story and point of view that it flips how it's usually done, where it gives the B story love interest, kind of like a story from their point of view. So we're really telling two stories in one which is often the case in romantic movies where you're kind of following both people in the couple and their life problems and point of view and what this relationship means to them as opposed to movies that aren't about a romantic relationship primarily are usually we fall in one person and they might have a love interest as the B story but we're always just with them. You know, Chris Pratt and Guardians of the Galaxy he has this like minor B story love interest with you know, Zoe cell, Donna. But it's all from his point of view. It's never from her point of view,

Alex Ferrari 41:52
right? You never hear her how she feels about any of that. And on a Jerry Maguire note, did you know about Jerry Maguire? Did you ever visit the Jerry Maguire video store?

Erik Bork 42:05
In LA? What is that? No,

Alex Ferrari 42:07
there was a there was an installation done. This is these guys are insane. They're VHS heads like they just all they do is collect old VHS. And they collected they have the world record for collecting every Jerry Maguire VHS they could get their hands on and they built a video store out of Jerry Maguire VHS is and the only thing you could rent or buy is Jerry Maguire VHS. And then after the installation, they're like, Well, what are we going to do with all these Jerry Maguire? VHS? They're building a pyramid in the desert somewhere out of I'm not joking. I've seen this if they're trying to get like, the right like it's all being crowdfunded. So they're like getting the money and they're like having an actual architect how they're going to do it, how they're going to seal it. And they're going to build like this pyramid where you could walk into the, to the temple require all made out of Jerry Maguire. VHS is it's

Erik Bork 43:05
baffling. Now is this an irony thing? Are they true fans?

Alex Ferrari 43:09
No. I think it's an I think it's I think it's a well they're obviously they're fans that movie. I mean, who isn't if if you don't like Jerry Maguire you're dead inside. But I mean seriously. I agree. There's like Shawshank Redemption, you know, like Shawshank Redemption, you're dead inside. I'm sorry. I can't talk to you. But do you electronic redemption? Yeah. Okay, good. We could continue this conversation. No, but I think it's a little bit of both to try to do like an artistic irony to like, a commit message or statement. But they are like they've said very much we love Jerry Maguire. Not it's not like we live Jerry Maguire but we just thought wouldn't it be amazing to have a video store that was just built out of Jerry Maguire? VHS is our

Erik Bork 43:51
I got to look that up. I think I have it Jerry Maguire VHS. I also have

Alex Ferrari 43:55
people who send them. People when they put the word out and people would send them from everywhere around the world, they would just send boxes of German because there's only so many thrift shops in LA that you can get them from so he got them they come from internationally. It's it's an insane process project. But anyway, I just thought that would be a nice antidote.

Erik Bork 44:16
Yeah, I'm gonna look that up when we're done here. You see you learn something pictures, you learn something

Alex Ferrari 44:21
new every day. Now, what is one thing? And I know you probably get this question a lot. And since you are a screenwriter in Hollywood and and have had, you know success as a screenwriter, what does screenwriters do to stand out of the crowd? Because there's so much more competition even when you were doing from Earth to the Moon. It's a massive different business than it was then.

Erik Bork 44:46
Well, I mean, I'll say something that buyers will often say like producers, when you're pitching something or like executives at Studio or network or whatever, which is that they love it when a writer comes in with something that only They could have written, right? That's really their voice their personal obsession in some way. Now, not every script can be 100%, your personal obsession, how many personal questions do we all have, but your particular point of view on the world and on the story, and the characters that is different from how anyone else would have done it? I mean, it takes time to cultivate a voice. And that's really like at a mastery level when you have that kind of voice that people go wow, that's, you know, that's, that's Joey Lachman. That's Charlie Kaufman or, you know, Tarantino, parents, you know, Woody Allen, you know, I mean, sort of, yeah. Sorkin for sure. Yeah. It's so it's like cultivating who you uniquely are. So that what you're doing isn't trying to stand out. It's just being organically you as a unique individual that's unlike anyone else than any other writer. And you're applying that to whatever you're writing

Alex Ferrari 45:55
there. And that is a that is a rarity. If you start thinking about how many writers can we name off the top of our head that their writing style is so distinctive, just by like, you read a few lines, you're like, Oh, that's a Toronto script. Or that's a Sorkin script, or that's Shane Black script, or that's a cop Kaufman script, or Woody Allen script. Like, they're just so specific.

Erik Bork 46:17
I don't know that it needs to be so distinctive that anyone could tell right away. But it's just like, I mean, Vince Gilligan same. Yeah, you got a very particular voice he had on The X Files he had, he had on Breaking Bad. And, and so it doesn't have to be so crazy specific that you're like no other writer on Earth, it just has to be you, fully you. And if you're fully you, you're going to be unique. And if you fully can somehow follow what interests you, and what you think is good. I believe that's the path just standing out. Rather than trying to sort of like game the system and make yourself standing. Certainly, there's marketing tricks and people like, you know, get scripts to people in weird ways or whatever. But in terms of the work actually holding up and staying on its own. That's what I would say,

Alex Ferrari 47:03
Yeah, I always tell people that if you if you are yourself, there is no competition. Yeah, because you can't compete against you just can't, it's just this. I'll never be Kaufmann. I'll never write like Sorkin that that's that. And as much as you try to be them, you're never going to outsource and spark never

Erik Bork 47:24
to have them anyway. Exactly. One view.

Alex Ferrari 47:27
Exactly. No, real quick, what any advice on pitching? Because you've been in a couple pitches, I'm assuming in life?

Erik Bork 47:34
Quite a few. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 47:36
Any advice?

Erik Bork 47:37
Um, well, one of the things that are that you're always told when you're pitching this similar, what I just said is that you want to start with why you why this? What is your personal experience, and the more you have an anecdote, that's its own story from your own life that is engaging to people and gets them starting to be on your side, almost like you want them on your main character side, as the writer who came to this and want to do this for certain reasons, that's a great way to begin. And that's part of how you establish that only you could have written this the the way you're writing this and you have reasons for doing so that come from somewhere really genuine within you. So that's one thing. That's certainly one thing. But another thing I would say is like, what's really hard for writers often is to learn to look at their story and their basic idea for their story from kind of 30,000 feet zoomed way out just the concept level or like the logline level when you're pitching, unless you're really in a formal pitch setting where someone's going to sit there in an office and let you have 15 minutes. Any other situation, you're going to bore people to death and irritate them. If you try to explain your whole movie and go into great detail about everything that happens. And writers often make that mistake. Nobody wants to hear that. At most. They might want just the basic concept like a logline. And then if from the logline, they go, Oh, well, that's interesting, tell me more about whatever, then you're free to go further. But writers tend to bore and alienate people a lot. On the business side, it's like you're at a panel and you're talking to some producer manager. If you go up and say, Hi, I have this script, and it's about this and this happens. And this happens. There's evidence of that. And then this happened. And the reason they do this is because the person is just like someone shoot me in the head while they're listening to that they you know, it's uninvited sort of like pitch rape, you know, like

Alex Ferrari 49:26
I'm so gonna steal that my friend. I apologize. I'm telling you right now. Ah,

Erik Bork 49:31
I don't think it's very appropriate thing to say, but it is sort of like that. You're just Why are you hitting pitch violation, pitch violation and act interested in this thing that I have you you know, but I understand because writers are desperate and they want to like they just think if they talk about their story to the right person, they hear all the cool details, that person's gonna love it, but it doesn't really tend to work that way.

Alex Ferrari 49:53
Now, I'm gonna ask you a few questions. Ask all my guests. What advice would you give a screenwriter wanting to break into the business today?

Erik Bork 50:03
Good things that I haven't said already. You can review. We talked about TV a little bit, we talked about film I guess you know, don't expect a white knight who's going to make it all happen for you. And this probably fits your ethos,

Alex Ferrari 50:26
Calvary, the Calvary is not coming.

Erik Bork 50:30
Yeah. And just be be about, you know, be about. It's kind of counterintuitive in a way. But it's like writers who focus all on the marketing and the trying to get their stuff to the right people. It's, it's a frustrating truth that you're probably not going to ever find them, but they will find you when the work is ready. But when the work is ready, you're not desperate for them anymore. Because somehow, you've just gotten to a place where the whole gestalt of you and your writing has elevated to a level that it's the next logical step. Like everything that happened in my career was the next logical step from where I was just prior to that it wasn't like some, even though like Tom Hanks gave me that big promotion, which was a huge thing. But a lot of things happen on the way to that. And a lot of that was in my own kind of consciousness and my own building up of self belief, which came from doing a lot of work, getting a lot of feedback, doing all the things that you do as a writer, to you know, learn and grow and get your stuff out there. But mostly failing, you know, so understand that it's a failure process. Like you're mostly going to have rejection and failure and people that have no interest in you. And try not to get bitter, and blame those people, and have more of an attitude of I'm just going to be always learning and growing. And it's about the work. And what it's really about is the audience. The work I'm doing is supposed to delight an audience. So how do I serve them? As opposed to how do I get served by an industry that seems to not care about me? The more you focus on what you're giving, the more you're going to create stuff that actually people will then want like any business

Alex Ferrari 52:08
That's amazing and also in life the more you give the more you receive. Yeah, very very cool. Can you tell me what book had the biggest impact on your life or career

Erik Bork 52:22
probably The Catcher in the Rye

Alex Ferrari 52:23
it's been on the show many times what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life? Oh,

Erik Bork 52:33
good one well, probably the one that I just said because I feel like I'm still having tried to learn every day the whole idea of Don't Be about what you can get be about what you can give and be kind of sort of selfless in that way. It's like a daily challenge

Alex Ferrari 52:47
fair and especially in this business.

Erik Bork 52:51
And the War of Art is a great book all the way up before to hear about you know how to get the right mindset about you know, what you're doing and how to fight through resistance then the part of you that doesn't want to do the work and doesn't believe in it. I did

Alex Ferrari 53:05
an entire episode on The War of Art because it was such an amazing it's really an amazing book and Steven I couldn't get Stephen on the show but he sent me I think boxes of books to give away to my audience like insane amounts of books that he gave all of his books all of his books and he's that that one and then do the work which is another great one the sequel I think to war of art

Erik Bork 53:27
which was a turning pro turning pro and then do the work and then do the work okay, I haven't read do the work but I read turning

Alex Ferrari 53:33
pro Yeah, turning pro isn't a great one. And then the toughest question of all three of your favorite films of all

Erik Bork 53:38
time. The World According to Garp great movie um I think the one that I haven't said already well, the godfather and Austin Powers International Man of Mystery. It's great movie the top 20 For sure.

Alex Ferrari 54:00
It's awesome and and to go back to finish it off the book and the interview with with Tom again. I remember watching Tom Tom Hanks, talk about godfather and how all problems in life can be solved by watching the Godfather all the answers to life are in The Godfather. If you have a deep problem watch The Godfather The answer will appear.

Erik Bork 54:27
I don't know if I ever heard him say that. That's funny though. I thought he would say

Alex Ferrari 54:31
I saw it in the like one of the behind the scenes documentaries on the Godfather like the 13th and 14th anniversary, whatever it was. And then where can people find you and your book? The idea?

Erik Bork 54:41
Yeah, so the book is on Amazon. I have a website that has info about the book and all my coaching and consulting and a million blog posts that are that are helpful for writers. It's called Flying wrestler and why. So flying rescue dragon ball back to World According to Garp when I was looking for sort of like I don't know why I just wanted like so a catchy name for my blog that rather than just Eric Bork blog, or some kind of like screenwriting advice.com, or whatever. And that movie was a real inspiration to me as a teenager I saw in the theater and it kind of changed my trajectory in life in a way as far as wanting to be a writer and even a screenwriter. And it's about a wrestler who's, who's obsessed with flying. But I also thought that that was a kind of metaphor for writing, that you're, there's a transcendent quality that there can be where you're like flying, but there's also a wrestling with the material like a day to day sort of struggle and wrestle. So I like this sort of opposite pneus of that, and how they're both contained in one thing.

Alex Ferrari 55:44
It's a very, it's very deep, sir. It's very deep. Thank you. Eric, thank you so much for taking the time out to talk to the tribe today. I truly appreciate it, man. Thanks again.

Erik Bork 55:54
Thank you for having me. Totally. My pleasure.

Alex Ferrari 55:58
I want to thank Erik for coming on and sharing his time his experience and his knowledge with the tribe today. If you want links to his any of his books, or things that he's talking about, please head over to indiefilmhustle.com/bps038. And if you haven't already, please head over to indiefilmhustle.com/mob and buy my new book, shooting for the mob the story of how I was a 26 year old film director hired to direct a $20 million feature film for a mobster. And it was crazy and the story is nuts. And I go to Hollywood, I mean big producers to actors, as well as dealing with a bipolar, ego maniacal gangster as a producer slash subject of the movie, so is really crazy. So if you want to take a read of it, please head over to indiefilmhustle.com/mob. And that's it for another episode of The Bulletproof screenplay podcast. As always keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon.

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BPS 031: How to Break into Television Writing with Steven Vitolo

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Have you ever wondered what it takes to break into a network television writer’s room? Then this episode is for you. Today’s guest is Steven Vitolo and he did just that. His latest written episode is on the hit ABC show Black-ish. Steven has over 10 years of experience working in writer’s rooms, most recently as a script coordinator on the TV series Black-ish, where he co-wrote the episode “Dream Home”.

Steven Vitolo also is the CEO and founder of Scriptation, the script reading and annotating app for film, television, and video production. Steven developed Scriptation after seeing first-hand the staggering amount of paper that gets consumed onset and is dedicated to promoting sustainable practices that inspire productions to go paperless.

Enjoy my conversation with Steven Vitolo.

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Alex Ferrari 0:35
I'd like to welcome to the show Steve Vitolo. How are you doing, brother?

Steve Vitolo 3:23
I'm good. Thanks for having me.

Alex Ferrari 3:24
Thank you, man for coming on board. I've I don't know much about the television world and television writing overall

Steve Vitolo 3:31
happy to fill you in.

Alex Ferrari 3:32
So that's why you are on the show. I know. Exactly. So I'm, I'm dying to hear about all the inner workings of network shows in writers rooms and all that kind of good stuff. But first of all, how did you get into the film business?

Steve Vitolo 3:47
Well, I went to Boston University and graduated college human communication that a film and TV degree so did that whole thing. And as far as the actual degree? How useful is it? Not at all? Has anyone ever asked you in this industry to show you that? Oh, no one's no one's like, Oh, you got you know, here's where it does help. There. It helps in the connections that you make while you're there. So for example, I before I moved out to Los Angeles, I stayed at home for a year just to save money. So I could move out to Los Angeles to eventually blow that all in like three to six months, obviously. But, but where it where it really helped is that there was a contingency of people that moved out right after college. And they all got the crappy jobs that no one wanted to get. So there were all PDAs and interns and things like that. So there was such a big network at BU of current people and also alumni. So that's where it really helps you but no one's looking at your GPA for a film job and seeing what school You want to, although maybe maybe if you're a Harvard graduate that, you know, you kind of have a leg up anywhere in any industry.

Alex Ferrari 5:08
Really? Do you think Harvard film school really gonna open the doors too much?

Steve Vitolo 5:12
Well, it doesn't certain writers rooms for sure.

Alex Ferrari 5:16
Oh, no. And writers room is I actually saw that documentary about the Harvard Lampoon. And and those guys, it's almost like a club, a fraternity. If you're in the Lampoon, you automatically cut the line in a lot of ways.

Steve Vitolo 5:31
Yeah, that is true. I'm not all the time. But they have a big leg up, and they'll get meetings and they'll get signed and things like that. So if you're going to go to Harvard, yeah, you should put that on your resume.

Alex Ferrari 5:48
No, I mean, I went to Full Sail Film School in Orlando, and not once. Has anyone ever asked me in the entire time I've been doing this? Can I see your degree?

Steve Vitolo 5:57
Right? Yeah. I mean, you hope you get good training, and you're able to do what you want to do. I mean, I think if you're going to film school, you probably have an A, I don't think anyone go to film school is like, I don't know what I'm going to do. But usually when you go there, it's like, okay, I want to direct I want to write on produce, or maybe when do all those things. And hopefully, you get the training at the school to do that. And then you know, when you move out, some of your friends or schoolmates will be there helping you and then it's a connections game. Mm hmm. It really is. It really is. And Italian game, hopefully,

Alex Ferrari 6:31
it will, the talent is its has unfortunately, sometimes it's still like the lower, lower, lower on the totem pole sometimes. But a lot of times, it's like those connections do get you in the door, but you have to stay in the door. Exactly. And that's where the talent and experience and things come in. And

Steve Vitolo 6:49
you're you also have to get your foot in the right door. When I saw when I moved out here, I was, you know, I take any job. So I started in reality television, and award shows. My very first pa job was on Jamie Kennedy's show. What it was called blowing up. Yeah, it wasn't.

Alex Ferrari 7:14
I love what you said that, like it's called Love went up.

Steve Vitolo 7:18
I know, sell it, sell it. I think it was on MTV. I've really bad memory. But I think it was an MTV show. And I remember the first day I was there. My job was to hold an umbrella because we're outside. So my job was to hold an umbrella over Jamie Kennedy. So he wouldn't get sunburned.

Alex Ferrari 7:37
Nice as opposed to the star. So that's not bad.

Steve Vitolo 7:41
I know. And that so that was the glamorous I it was, you know, it's funny, I had that I got that job. It was like my second day there. And you know, my friend at college was like, Hey, you want to be a PA for this thing? And it's like, Great glamour is everything. And then yeah, that's my job.

Alex Ferrari 7:59
So from there, how do you parlay that into the next stages of your career?

Steve Vitolo 8:03
Um, yeah, so I kind of was a PA for a while, and I was working in reality and live event shows. I eventually, because I did a couple of, you know, Pa jobs like hearing there just for a couple days, because I didn't really have like a full time pa job. It's like, take a gig here, take a commercial there, that sort of thing. I eventually got on the Academy Awards as a PA,

Alex Ferrari 8:32
see, I wouldn't, I would have killed for a job like that coming up, I would have killed for that.

Steve Vitolo 8:35
It's a it's a it was a great experience. I mean, it's not like they prep three to four months before. It's crazy how long they've prepped for this show, I had no idea. So I was just and when you're when you're a PA on that show, for the production office, and there are so many different departments that don't have their own PDAs you're doing everything for everyone. So you're really you know, an errand person. And so that was my my first, you know, quote unquote, steady pa job, which was like three or four months. And then I actually kind of went back to that the next year and the year after, just because it worked out that I wasn't working at the time because that's, that's the life Right, of course. So, but eventually because I had that experience and because it it was you know, you're involved in so many different departments and it's it's kind of a harder pa job than most I would think I mean, I haven't had that many but it seemed like it. I was able to get a PA job on the pilot for the middle, which I wanted to get. I wanted to be a TV writer. So I wanted to get in scripted TV and a friend of mine who had moved on from pa found a job opening and referred me and I was able to get that job and it was actually not the not the middle show that was on for nine years or wherever it was on with Patricia Heaton. It originally started Ricki Lake. Yes. Wow. Yes, I was on that one. I think that was 2007. It started Ricki Lake, and a bunch of other actors and didn't get picked up. It went through a redevelopment they got Patricia Heaton, I think in 2009. And then it got picked up. And it went, but yeah, not many people know that, that it was not. It was not in its current form. And yeah, the script was actually pretty much the same. But yeah, I mean, actors, man, you got Patricia Heaton. And, and you're probably gonna go a little while Off, off off and running. Yeah, you're off and running. And what

Alex Ferrari 10:51
were you doing? What were you doing, and you just BPA still?

Steve Vitolo 10:55
Yeah, it was an office PA. And I was able to parlay that, you know, very luckily, into a writers pa job, which was, you know, people are dying to get into the writers office. And I was very lucky to get in there. Actually, my production coordinator was letting the PA go by picking names out of a hat, because she couldn't decide where to let go. And my name, of course, was the first name to get picked out of a hat. So like I was, because I'm on a pilot, you know, you're only working a certain period of time. And then, you know, pickups and all that stuff. So, so I was like, oh, first, my production coordinator said, I feel so bad. Because I was also like, brought on last. So I like the shortest amount of time. And she's like, but I'll find something for you. And I'm like, Okay, sure. And then, you know, to a day later, she got me an interview as a writers, PA on Hannah Montana. Nice. And the next day I was hired. And that was really a crazy whirlwind. And I was finally after a few years in the writers office, which you just want to get your foot in the door there. See what those people and it was a great show.

Alex Ferrari 12:14
So tell me, what is it like being in the writers room in the writers department of a network show?

Steve Vitolo 12:22
Um, well, you mean, as opposed to something that's a i You saying, as opposed to cable or just like,

Alex Ferrari 12:30
No, just didn't? Know, you've been specific about network TV? But like, no, Hannah Montana was cable, but I worked on network shows as well. I'm assuming they're not very different. Yeah,

Steve Vitolo 12:41
they're the same, especially now streaming services.

Alex Ferrari 12:44
Just there. How many scripted shows? Are there now? 250 300?

Steve Vitolo 12:48
A double that?

Alex Ferrari 12:50
Oh, is it? Is it? Is it really that much now? Like five or 600?

Steve Vitolo 12:53
It's, I believe it's over 600. Now. I think that, and that's just us. I mean, Netflix, I mean, you you turn on Netflix. And every week, there's something new that they've spent $25 million on Amazon, and Amazon. And you've had you had no idea you've never heard of it. Right? And like it has this star in it. Like why has a star in it? And and like it must have you must have skipped the trade that day. And it's like, oh, so they just made the show for like $25 million.

Alex Ferrari 13:23
I literally was just watching. I was on YouTube the other day, and I saw this trailer for like the outlaw King, starring Chris Pine. And it's like this Braveheart style. Epic on Netflix. Like I've never even heard of this. It's about Bruce. Oh, the something the Bruce was a Scottish guy. And it's basically Braveheart again, but different. And I'm like 10 episodes? No, no, no, no. This is not this not show. This is a movie. But there's shows like that that come up all the time. Like, who's this? How did this happen? Where did this come from? It's constant all the time. So it doesn't it doesn't surprise me that 600 episodes or six shows are being scripted right now. So it's a good time to be trying to get into the writers room.

Steve Vitolo 14:07
It's a good time to be working in the industry, for sure. There's definitely more opportunities. When I first started working, there was a certain cycle where you had pilot season, then you didn't work and then shows picked up and if it was canceled, which after Hannah Montana, I went to a show called Do Not Disturb. You probably haven't heard of it. It was the first show canceled that season. Of course. It was. We filmed six episodes, we aired three. And it was like it was at I live in Culver City. And it was at Fox and it was like a dream for me. I don't have to travel into Hollywood to work and like this is gonna be great. I'm gonna bike to work. And then two months later

Alex Ferrari 14:56
is there is there still a pilot season? I mean, there's some sort of pilot season now Like in January starts in January, right?

Steve Vitolo 15:02
Yeah. For network networks, they'll doing the pilot season. It starts around January, sometimes early pilots can go like November, December. But basically like, January, February, March, you shoot the pilots and then pick up so yeah, there's still that in a network. But with Netflix, they're not doing pilots. So they go straight to series. And with cable, because when I first started cable wasn't what it was either. Right now, there are so many shows on cable that SOS are all I mean, there's no set, seasonal thing for that their shows popping up all the time. So there's definitely more opportunity now than there was, you know, 10 years ago.

Alex Ferrari 15:41
So what is it like to be in a writers room and any kind of show?

Steve Vitolo 15:45
Yeah. Fantastic. It's fantastic. If you have nice writers and funny writers, and your boss is great. And I've had, I've been very lucky in that I've had great bosses. So my, I worked on blackish most recently, and Kenya Barris created the show. And he's just so brilliant. He'll just come in the room and just, you know, sort of Jedi mind everything into what the story needs to be. And, you know, a writer that has a clear voice is refreshing because you you know, you know exactly what he wants. And also Corey Nickerson ran the room. And she, you know, she's able to address notes and and just the way she can craft a scene and get us through the script, make it great and funny and get us out of there. So we're not working till two and three in the morning is a real talent. And everybody loves her for that. So if you're working in a writers room like that, it's great. You know, I've worked on some shows, when you work on a show, that's a first season multi camera show, for example. There's a lot. First of all, the multi camera schedule is not great for writers. It's fantastic for actors, but for writers, actors are often rehearsing at two, three, sometimes four. And then after that rehearsal in the writers room, you go back and you rewrite the entire script. So you're starting the rewrite at four or five. And it's not just your notes, but it's network and studio notes that you have to address. If something's really not working, it could be a problem. If it's a first season show, there's going to be a lot of scrutiny so that you can start working till you know one or two in the morning. But luckily, I haven't had that experience too much. And I've worked for great people like Kenyon Cory, Susanne Martin, I worked with, she created Hot in Cleveland, and a show called crowded Victor fresco, who I worked on for man up and Shawn saves the world. And now he's got Santa Clarita Diet on netflix. He's just a great guy, fantastic person, nicest boss you can have. So yeah, being a being in the room is great if people in the room are great.

Alex Ferrari 18:12
So what are like the politics of the room? Like you say, the show, the showrunner, the executive producer, pretty much is in charge. Right? Right. And then there is someone who is in charge of the room underneath them kind of like sometimes sometimes, or sometimes not.

Steve Vitolo 18:32
It depends on the show, usually on a multi cam show because of the way it's structured. The showrunner is running the room, because as writers on a multi camera show you do everything together. So you go down to the set together, you watch rehearsals together, you come back together. So the person who created the show, usually, the showrunner is running every aspect of it, if work on a single camera show, because it shot like a movie. Sometimes that person will be on set Sometimes. It depends how it's structured. And then there's a number two, so kind of the I don't know there's no like real title. But sure, the weekend later, basically kind of idea. And then yeah, and that person will be will be running the room. And then what happens is then the showrunner will come back to the room if they've been on set. And then we'll review everything that we've done in the room, kind of how it works.

Alex Ferrari 19:28
Now, how are ideas incorporated in an episode in the writers room? Like? Are people throwing out ideas to people go away, write an episode, come back and then get beat up? How does it work?

Steve Vitolo 19:40
Yeah, it's different. There's no one way to do it. But in general, everyone breaks a story together. That's how it's done. I would say for 90 something percent of writers rooms is that either someone comes in with a story or we just start pitching around funny. Live our comedy so we just start pitching around funny ideas or something that happened and if we could build a story around it, but but everybody, for the most part is sitting around a table breaking the story together. And it's done in stages. First, it's, you know, a rough outline or some notes. And then you make a more complete outline. And then on blackish, for example, we would all come up with the story together, we would have on whiteboards, we would write the scene, what happens in the scene and the jokes that we like. And it would be, you know, two boards full of the story, or sometimes three. And then we would give that to the writer. And the writer would turn that into an outline, the outline would be reviewed by the showrunner or some of the writers and the studio on the network, they would get notes, they would write a draft. And that draft then comes in to before it goes anywhere, the writers draft comes into the writers room. So it gets distributed to all the writers, the writers read it, make notes, and then we talk about the draft, and then we make changes in the room. So that's generally how it's done. It's not like a hard and fast rule. I've worked on shows, for example, crowded and Hot in Cleveland, we did it a little differently, where we broke the story together. And then we each took scenes. So all the writers would go home and they would write a scene, and then send it to the script coordinator, which was me. And I would put all the scenes together in a script, send it back out to everybody, everybody would read it, and then we'd discuss in the room. So that's how it's done sometimes, too. And on Hannah Montana. Stop me if I'm being boring.

Alex Ferrari 21:52
And I think everyone listening everybody, everybody listening wants to hear this stuff. So please continue.

Steve Vitolo 21:57
And on Hannah Montana, it was all room written. So I think that's the way it works on Chuck Lorre shows I've never been on one. But where everybody writes in the room, and then it's assigned to a writer afterwards.

Alex Ferrari 22:14
Okay, so everyone beats it beats the story down or breaks the story outlines and then they give it to one writer to like, go write the script.

Steve Vitolo 22:20
No, not for that one for for Hannah Montana and the Chuck Lorre shows, once you break the story, then the writer's assistant opens up a blank document in the room, and people are literally dictating the script. So it all gets written to get with everyone together in the writers room.

Alex Ferrari 22:38
That must be insane, though,

Steve Vitolo 22:40
kind of I mean, it, it works. I've seen it work on certain shows, it doesn't work on other shows. Like I don't think that would work on Blackish. Because it really like that show needs a point of view, yes to that. And it needs a writer to to sit with the material and really think through the story and scenes. But on a multi camera show, for example, when you're going beat by beat by beat. That's something that maybe is unnecessary. So it works much better, at least in a multi camera to have to be room written.

Alex Ferrari 23:17
Got it. Now you mentioned to you were script coordinator. Can you tell the audience what a script coordinator on a television network show does?

Steve Vitolo 23:26
Yes. And I'm so glad you said script coordinator and not script supervisor because pletely different fancy use nine out of

Alex Ferrari 23:33
10 so good to tell the difference between the script supervisor script coordinator.

Steve Vitolo 23:37
Sure, so script supervisor and script supervisors forgive me if I'm messing this up. But they are their onset. They they deal with continuity. They work with the director, they deal with timing and they get they make notes and give it to the editor. So they're on set. They're really important there with the director and the writer and making sure all they got all the shots and things like that. So that's what the script supervisor does. A script coordinator is not on the set a script coordinator is and it's it's kind of different comedy and drama. But the main job of the script coordinator is to be the liaison between the writers office and the production. So your job is to get the script in production shape. So scene numbers, scene headings, you deal with legal and clearance issues. So once a script gets gets distributed, it goes to the clarinets department and legal and they'll say what you can and what you can't say. And also your so I also want to say the liaison you are also dealing with the departments and helping them with clearances as well. So art departments will say, hey, we need to sign for this thing. Can you clear these five names? So that's a job as a script coordinator on a drama, that's mostly what they do their script coordinators are in an office, they get so many revisions on a drama, that that's kind of their whole job is to is to work, you know, in the script in that way, on a comedy a lot of times, and has been my experience, always, script coordinators also act as a writer's assistant. So there they are in the room working in the script, or taking notes when people are outlining or things like that.

Alex Ferrari 25:32
So what is it a writer? What does a writer's assistant do, then?

Steve Vitolo 25:36
writer's assistant, is responsible for taking notes. Doing some research may be working in the script for rewrites. So once a writer brings in a script, and we all talk about it, the writers assistant will take the notes that we've just talked about. And then once we go back into the script and room, write it together to do the, to do a pass, the writer's assistant will work in the script, changing the text. So you need you need typing skills for that. And you need knowledge of script writing software to be able to hop around in the script. And yeah, I mean, it's, it's not so easy. It's, it's something that you definitely get the hang of, and it's a skill, knowing who to listen to, because you get a lot of voices coming at you. So being able to get all the pitches down, and know which ones the show run or wants and kind of who to listen to in the writers room and who to definitely get. That's a that's a writer's assistant skill.

Alex Ferrari 26:41
Now, you, you've been going through all of this, you've been a script coordinator, you're a writer's assistant, and done all this kind of really heavy lifting throughout your career. And then all of a sudden, they point to you and say, you're going to get to write an episode. What was that, like?

Steve Vitolo 27:00
Amazing.

Alex Ferrari 27:02
And that's the end of the show. Thank you know, it's

Steve Vitolo 27:04
worked out different on different shows that happened on on blackish, where I was there for, like a year and a half. I didn't expect to get a script my first season. But the second season, I you know, it was one of those shows where you don't have to ask for it. Because that's been the culture of the show where they'll give scripts to the writers assistants, if they think the writers assistant or script coordinator is good. And yeah, on blackish, I had heard rumors around it, and then they made an announcement in the room. And when you're an assistant, the writers applaud for you. That happened. That also happened on Hot in Cleveland, where they made an announcement in the room, which was super great. And then on crowded. I had worked with Suzanne Martin on HUD and Cleveland. So when I was hired as a script coordinator on the new show, she was kind enough to let me write a script for the show as part of being a script coordinator. But yeah, it's it's a, it's a great feeling. And the great thing about blackish and sort of the humbling thing is that I was writing it with the other writers assistant on the show, and it was the finale of the season. And it was good episodes.

Alex Ferrari 28:25
That's a good episode.

Steve Vitolo 28:27
And it was a tough one. In the last episode of a four episode arc. We're getting separated and we're coming back together.

Alex Ferrari 28:35
Yes, it was a brutal, brutal Ark was brutal was a

Steve Vitolo 28:39
watch show is a perfect word. It was brutal. And it was necessary. And people didn't really like it.

Alex Ferrari 28:48
Nope, nope. Nope. did not like it. Thumbs up. I'm gonna be honest with you. i My wife and I are going, they're going too far. They need to stop this. I have enough troubles in my world. I don't need this.

Steve Vitolo 29:01
I know what that was a lot of the feedback on the Twittersphere Yeah, people was bawling. So it was bold. It was bold. And Kenya really wanted to show that because they never showed that thing. You know that that kind of thing on The Cosby Show. And he felt it was kind of, you know, that that's life. You know, you kind of go through these ups and downs. Yep. And but yeah, we were we were tasked in the in the writers assistant task with writing the finale. And it was one of those things to where it was obviously an important episode. They're getting back together, which is great. But also it was at the end of the season. So like we've done 24 episodes and like everyone's burnt out. So when we got the outline if you know we had in the writers system, we had some room to play with, because we knew like we knew the story wanted to tell and we had the outline and then like we noticed like okay, Like act three isn't as broken. And there's no tag, it's kind of up to us. So we can play a little bit.

Alex Ferrari 30:08
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Steve Vitolo 30:20
And, like, a lot of times when you get outlines, in writers rooms, it's like paint by numbers. And this we actually had some room to do some things. And luckily, we succeeded on most of them. And it wasn't a major rewrite coming in. And our tag, I'm happy to say, went all the way through. Shockingly, it was I don't know if you remember that the tag but it was pops in and Ruby in the, in the shared home that Trey was no longer there anymore. And they, they thought they should get it on? Yes, I do remember that? Yes. Yeah. So we're so happy that that sell through. Because a lot of times when you bring a script in, it looks stuff gets changed. That's the nature of the beast. And it's it's 99% going to get changed for the better. It's better when you have you know, 1015 writers that are smarter than you think here's how we can improve. So yeah, when something when something sticks past the goalie, and they're like, Yeah, okay, we'll go with this. That was pretty cool.

Alex Ferrari 31:23
Now, what does it what does it do for your career working on a show like blackish in such a pivotal episode as well? I mean, has it opened doors that weren't open before?

Steve Vitolo 31:33
No, not really. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, you know, maybe in the future, I mean, it's a good credit, for sure. Sure. And as far as, you know, Writers Guild residual goes, it's gonna be fantastic. Because it's a syndicated show, and it reruns and so, but yeah, as far as like, agents, managers knocking on my door, not so much doesn't really happen. I would think you would,

Alex Ferrari 32:03
you would think well, that I wanted to kind of bring that up, because I want to make sure everyone listening knows the truth. Oh, they know the truth. Like all of a sudden, like most people like, Oh, you just wrote the season finale for blackish a huge show on ABC. You know, they must be just rolling up to your door with cash. Waiting for you for your like, what show would you like to run,

Steve Vitolo 32:26
sir? Yeah, exactly. No, it doesn't really work like that. Unfortunately, I was I was the most naive person coming out to Los Angeles. So I would have totally like, like, I, my idea was, hey, I'm gonna write a script for Two and a Half Men and show it to the showrunner and he's gonna hire me. Yeah, now, which is the exact wrong thing. Anyone listening out there? Don't Don't do that. Don't ever do that. Don't ever do that. What you want to do just for aspiring writers? Write a pilot. Some? Well, it's okay to write a spec for a show that everybody knows. And now that was kind of okay to do. Back then when I was writing specs. And there were only 20 shows? Like, I look, I wasn't, you know, I didn't I didn't start in the 50s. Right. And 10 years ago, there weren't that many shows. And people would watch it. So you know, so writers would write a spec for like, so I wrote a spec for two and a half men. And anyone who read it had seen Two and a Half Men and understood the characters and understood, like the voice of the show. Sure. But now, like, you'll write for a show no one's ever heard of, or no one's ever seen. So that's probably not the best idea to write a spec for a show, unless maybe you're doing monitor family, because what everybody's seen that show. But nowadays, write a pilot, and, and make it good. And get some good feedback and rewrite it and rewrite and rewrite it and try and do something with it.

Alex Ferrari 33:57
I mean, my experience in television from the directing standpoint is that it is a very much of a club. Because the it is a good job. If you get on a show and you get on a good show. Even if you do you know, as a director, at least, even if you do five, six episodes a year. You're good, like financially financially, you're doing very well.

Steve Vitolo 34:20
And a residual. So you're doing good. You're doing

Alex Ferrari 34:24
good, right? So it's so difficult to break in. I'm assuming that's similar to the writers because I do all the writers get residuals off everything or how does that work?

Steve Vitolo 34:34
writers get residuals on the on the shows that they write. And I don't know, I know the creator gets residuals on every offer on everything. But I don't know what other levels or how that works. I think only if you have points in the show. sure that you get you get that but yeah, for writers it's it's the episode you write and if it airs again in primetime You get half your script fee, which is fantastic, which is fantastic. And then you could get I mean, if you're a syndicated show, you could get a big check just because they made a big syndication deal. So so like

Alex Ferrari 35:12
the guys from friends and Seinfeld says friends and Seinfeld are doing okay. Yeah. All those writers in that writers room they did all

Steve Vitolo 35:20
right. Yeah, I mean, even like the I knew a writer that worked on The Cleveland Show and he was like, he said to me here, I want to show you something. This was he's like, I know you guys are, you know this. He's like, I know you're, you know, getting your first scripts and but I want to show you what it could be. And he kind of showed his Writers Guild residuals, and they were

Alex Ferrari 35:39
fantastic from from the Cleveland Show, the canceled on The Cleveland Show,

Steve Vitolo 35:43
and like some other shows, but yeah, I mean, like a show goes into syndication. Not even like a super successful show. Yeah, it could be pretty good. It's a nice career. And the Writers Guild benefits when you retire great, too. So

Alex Ferrari 36:00
can I ask you a question and I'm gonna be that guy. What is the range of like money that you get off of residual so people I'm in life standing?

Steve Vitolo 36:09
I'm not the right person to ask. Okay. Just because I've, you know, I've written three

Alex Ferrari 36:15
checks. I mean, yet?

Steve Vitolo 36:17
Yeah, it's hard to tell. I mean, one was, one was a syndicated show Hot in Cleveland was a syndicated show. Yeah, that has not been as good as you want it to be. Right. But finger you know, I'll just throw out numbers. Sharon is these are these could be totally wrong right out of the air. So let's say on a half hour network show, your you get paid if you write it if it's you know, story by written by you. You you've written the script, it's your name only. That for half our network that's $26,000. Bad. If it gets rerun in primetime, you get half that fee. You get $13,000. Okay. Okay, so there,

Alex Ferrari 36:59
that's good. Right there. That's good. Right there. You're doing really good. You're doing

Steve Vitolo 37:03
good. If it airs again, in primetime, it's probably half that. So maybe it's like 6500 or something. Okay. And then your guess is as good as mine. On syndication? On syndication? Yeah. I mean, you could get I mean, no one, like I've gotten a syndication check for on Cleveland. And I wrote, it was a cable show, and I wrote half the episode. And the syndication check was, like, not not even half of what the original fee was. So it wasn't it, I felt like that check should have been more, right.

Alex Ferrari 37:42
I mean, I always feel checks should be more, but that's just me. Anytime I get a check, like this check should be for more. I mean, well, I don't want to be the crass guy asking about money. But it was just, it's a lot of people out there who just don't even understand what people make. And there's all this information. A lot of this information could just find the Writers Guild Writers Guild.

Steve Vitolo 38:03
Yeah, if you if you go online, and do WG a schedule of minimums, it's right there, you can find out everything that you'll make for TV and for features too. But I don't even think the real. I mean, that's not even the real money is in the script. I mean, it's great. It's like bonus money. If you're, if your producer level or CO EP, I'll forgive your then forget. But even if your story editor, so again, you can look at this schedule and minimums. But if you're a TV writer, or a network show, if you're a, if you're a staff writer, it's something like three plus 1000 a week, if you're a story editor, it could be five 6000. So it's, that's the real money. If you can get on some of these shows, writers make a good living. I have not been a staff writer, or a story editor or anything on a show. So I don't have that experience. Sure. But it's that's the money.

Alex Ferrari 39:00
That's that's where that's But as always, you get paid to be there. And then you also get paid per episode that you write.

Steve Vitolo 39:06
Yes, that's just it's however, if you're a staff writer, and they're, they're just never gonna change this. You don't get a script fee, which is insane. I think just know, buddy. The people that are fighting just don't seem to care, because they're so upper level. But yeah, so for example, if, as a script coordinator, let's say you write a you got to freelance episode you get paid $26,000 is for the script. If you're a staff writer on the show, that's making 3000 plus a week and you get a script. You don't get that script fee. You get residuals, but not script fee. And it's for I don't know why, but it's still around. And no one seems to ever want to pay for that. It's, it's crazy. That's insane.

Alex Ferrari 39:48
Yeah, that's insane. Yep. So with all of this now, you've told us all this kind of work that you've done over the over the course of your career, you've then decided to jump into the technology game and come and invented an app called script notation to to fulfill a need that is desperately needed in the in the world of film and television. Can you talk a little bit about script station?

Steve Vitolo 40:15
Yeah, so being a script coordinator, I was the one responsible for sending out scripts and script revisions. And I come from the TV world. So I was working on this, it was a pilot, we had a, we it was a weird production schedule, we had 10 days from the table read to when we started shooting. And every single night, we're putting out a full 50 page script to 100 plus people. So I get the script together, give it to the PA, they make copies handed out to people, people make notes on them. The next day, same process all over again, people are rewriting their notes on the new drafts. And they're dumping the old draft in the trash, or hopefully the recycle bin. And that's a crazy process that we've been doing for years. And at that time, everyone on this show, at least in the writers office was feeling this is an incredible waste of paper. And I was I was thinking that too. And not only is it a waste of paper, but productivity, where you get one draft, you make all your notes, whether whatever department you're in, if you're a writer, if you're a set decorator, if you're in sound, if you're a director, you make a lot of notes, if you're a director, same thing with a DP. And you're making all of these notes on a script that is going to be obsolete in 24 hours. So I knew that we could annotate on an on a tablet. So people had iPads at the time and iPhones. And you could you could use Adobe write to you know, annotate PDF document. But the real problem was once you annotate the draft, so let's say you have a table draft of a script, and then you get your production draft, how can you move all of your notes and annotations from the table draft into the production draft? And that was the problem that we're trying to solve? And I hired a developer, I said, Can you do this? And he said, I think so. And that's what kind of launched discrimination we, we figured out this problem. You know, after two or three years, it took us a while to figure out how to transfer notes from a draft to a new draft and do so intelligently where we could tell you what change and if you handwrite, a note that's on the top of page three, and now is on the bottom of page two, we can move that handwritten note in that same spot. So yeah, that's, that's how we kind of came up with it. And, you know, we put it in the app store. And it's been pretty successful. And we've had directors that that tell us, it saves them four to five hours a week. That's a lot. And that's four to five hours in BS work. That they don't, is when you're directing what you want to spend your time recopy notes and figuring out what changed, or you want to see how it's going to look and get the right performances and set up the shot. Right. So that's the time that that we're saving. And it's it's been really great that not only have people on the crew been able to use it, but also agents and managers and studio executives are using it to because they've got a ton of scripts and that are carrying around a giant binder, they've got a tablet,

Alex Ferrari 43:38
in brain, of course, it's it's insane. When I'm directing myself, I have to carry around this huge binder full of you know, and I tried to put my notes in and it's, it's such a pain in the butt. And I was like, this is such an old fashioned way of doing things in today's world. But now your script scripts, as has alleviated that pain?

Steve Vitolo 43:58
Well, on your next production, you're going to need to use it

Alex Ferrari 44:01
obviously I know somebody's in the in the company. So hopefully there'll be no no. So so how much does it cost? Where can people get it?

Steve Vitolo 44:11
Well, I kind of have an announcement to share about that. So we script station for the past almost two years has been in the iOS App Store that you can get an iPad iPhone for 999. And what you get with that is you get annotation you also get no transferring, you got another feature called actor highlighting, which is useful for actors that table reads because instead of manually highlighting all their lines, they tap a button and boom, all their lines are highlighted genius. Also useful for sound mixers, which we found out I didn't know I built it for actors and then sound mixer say hey, we highlight lines too. And you do X, Y and Z. So yeah, so script has been in the store for 999. You get all those features and a couple other things. We're gonna make that free one. Yeah. So the core script tation, core of sortation, you're actually going to be able to get for free and use as much as you want with as many scripts as you want and transfer notes as many times as you like, no limit on,

Alex Ferrari 45:20
okay? And then what's the, what's the rub? They know you have to be a business. So what

Steve Vitolo 45:29
good to be free,

Alex Ferrari 45:31
it sounds too good to be true, is this should I just buy real estate with no money down.

Steve Vitolo 45:39
So what we will be offering is we're going to be offering script tation Pro, which is going to include cloud storage, and will be able to actually sync all of your script tation, metadata, actor highlights, no transferring deletions, etc. In the cloud, you can access it device to device, we also have our document editor, which lets you add facing pages to write notes. And actually, in the note transfer, this is really cool. So if you're a director, and you're at a table read, and you make all of your notes, and you insert shots and diagrams, and then you get a shooting draft, you can actually transfer all of those inserted pages into the new draft as well. The way the algorithm works is actually find the like page and then moves that page there. So you really don't have to do any work when translating notes. That's amazing. And we're also offering a reader mode for the iPhone, where sometimes it's hard to read scripts on your iPhone as a PDF, and we're going to make that easier for you. That's actually being included in the free version. But that's that's going to be launched with Scriptcase. Pro. And then we've got a couple of other features that we're launching with pro there. And yeah, that's

Alex Ferrari 46:57
that is that is the rub in a good rub it is sir. And then what and where can people find the app on just on the App Store?

Steve Vitolo 47:05
Sure, yeah, you can search, go to the App Store, search for script tation. It'll be there. You can also go to the Windows store and get some rotation. It's available on any sort of Windows device that you have.

Alex Ferrari 47:16
Fantastic, man. And I'm going to ask you a few questions that I asked all of my guests. What advice would you give a screenwriter wanting to break into the business today?

Steve Vitolo 47:26
Right.

Alex Ferrari 47:27
Fair enough. You're next. I'm joking.

Steve Vitolo 47:31
Yeah, I'll elaborate a little but it's really simple. If if you want to be a writer, right. And if you have no outside responsibilities, like you're a single guy living in a city, right, because maybe you'll get a girlfriend, maybe you'll get married, maybe we'll start a family, maybe all bills you'll have to pay, and then you won't be able to do that anymore. So if you can do it, write write as much as you can write, rewrite. Find a group of friends who don't send your script to everyone to get notes, and then try and appease everybody. Find a group of people that you trust, you trust their opinion, you trust their taste. Three people for Max, send that to them, get their thoughts become a better writer with that.

Alex Ferrari 48:16
Now, can you tell me what book had the biggest impact on your life or career?

Steve Vitolo 48:21
You asked that to everybody, everyone and oh my god. Dr. Stephen. Let's see the New York Times crossword. I think it doing crosswords makes you a smarter person. Fair enough. And yeah, I'd recommend everybody to you can. You don't have to get the New York Times to do it. You can actually they have a crossword app in the App Store. So get New York Times crossword start with Monday. Be really upset that you can't get the easy ones, but eventually you will.

Alex Ferrari 48:54
Fantastic. All right now What lesson took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life?

Steve Vitolo 49:01
Oh, man. There are so many things I have learned. I've been so naive in this industry.

Alex Ferrari 49:10
What took you the longest to

Steve Vitolo 49:12
learn? Patience? Probably.

Alex Ferrari 49:15
So that's a very popular answer. On my that's my answer to No, it's

Steve Vitolo 49:19
It's true, though. You know, you can't do everything at once. Plans are gonna I mean, you know, I've learned this a lot with rotation too. But you got to be able to pivot, whether in a company or in life. If things like, like patients, but at the same time, be willing to change what you're doing. And I don't know all about you know, be mindful of things and have a good attitude. These are like, what am I saying right now? But all of these things are Yeah, I mean, all go to yoga,

Alex Ferrari 49:56
meditate.

Steve Vitolo 49:58
Do all of those things. You can't do everything for everybody. You can't do everything at once. Sure. Do what you want to do, do what you know, is right. And hope that you succeed and have faith that you will.

Alex Ferrari 50:11
And what are three of your favorite films of all time?

Steve Vitolo 50:16
This is gonna sound so cliche go for it. It's okay. Because it's so of my time. I know. I was in college, so that's why it's gonna sound cliche. Sure. Um, office space.

Alex Ferrari 50:28
Now I love that movie. I really Yeah, really. It's a it's a brilliant piece of cinema. It really is.

Steve Vitolo 50:34
It really is. It is so perfect. In almost every way. It's so ahead of its time. It's so ahead of its time. It's just so Mike Judge is just so brilliant. That movie I could watch over and over again

Alex Ferrari 50:49
and hit that other one. He did a video Krasny or, Oh, Idiocracy, Idiocracy. Oh

Steve Vitolo 50:54
my god. Oh, you mean what's happening right now?

Alex Ferrari 50:56
Exactly like where we are in the world right now. It was the writer I saw the writer or read the writer like he was when I wrote this. I never thought that this would actually happen. Yeah, it is scary. Scary. That's that's a frightening movie to watch now while we're

Steve Vitolo 51:11
watching it right now we're all watching rolled watches this movie. Another movie just because I can't think of my favorite that I can just put on and watch is Midnight in Paris. I I love them. I love wish fulfillment movies. I wish more movies were like that because that's what I want to go to the cinema for. And so I there's just something you know, it's just comfort food for me to watch that movie. And when I was a kid growing up, Superman.

Alex Ferrari 51:41
The original Superman is so good. It's good. It created Donner created without donner. There is no Avengers. Agreed. I mean 100% There is no Batman. There's no Batman. There's nothing without Donner setting up the entire genre. He's the first one to do the genre and in theatrical environment. Oh, and

Steve Vitolo 52:02
making it feel real everything I mean, no way. I mean, that's sort of what Chris Nolan did with the Batman movies is make it feel like this could happen right and and just make it feel grounded. You know, Chris Nolan took it to the next level Batman Begins that's up there one of my favorite movies. Yeah, but yeah, Superman man that as a kid and and today Superman one and two, I should say. Yeah, those

Alex Ferrari 52:25
two together are I look at about three are holy God for I mean, let's not go there, though. I actually was a kid when three came on. I love three when I was like, you know, 10 voted on

Steve Vitolo 52:35
Yeah, to like Richard Pryor when I was. I don't want to look for oh, maybe I didn't even love for and I was 10 I was like that

Alex Ferrari 52:42
I was already a teenager by that time. And I even I could go this is not right. There's

Steve Vitolo 52:49
there's something there's some weird there's some don't like that guy's fingernails. Why

Alex Ferrari 52:53
is why? Why can you cut Superman's hair? This makes no sense. It makes no sense. I don't understand what you're doing. Did you ever see the Donner cut of Superman to

Steve Vitolo 53:06
it? Yeah, it's the best thing I it's the best thing i i have that DVD or maybe illegally downloaded it.

Alex Ferrari 53:12
Wow. It's amazing, though. But it's amazing. This was

Steve Vitolo 53:16
like it came out like 10 years ago. Something like that. Right? It not that oh, it probably

Alex Ferrari 53:19
within the last 10 years it came out. But the Donner right was so much better. They got rid of all that funky, throwing the Superman signal that turned into some saran wrap.

Steve Vitolo 53:30
Oh, that was That was crazy. Like, where

Alex Ferrari 53:32
did that come from? Like, Superman can't do that.

Steve Vitolo 53:36
Yeah. How did you even think of that? That is that.

Alex Ferrari 53:40
That's when they lost? They ran off the rails with that one. But when you go back to the Donner cut, you're like, Oh, this is what it was supposed to be. We could have had more of this. Right? Yeah, it wasn't for those damn producers, which should be a t shirt in Hollywood. But anyway. Now, um, let's see, where can people find you, man?

Steve Vitolo 54:01
Well, I'm on. I mean, I'm not really on the social networks. I'm only on it through my scripts can handle that. So but you can contact me through there. So at script tation app, on all the on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And yeah, if you want to contact me then send a message through any of those social media services.

Alex Ferrari 54:24
Steve, man, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you, man. Thank you so much for dropping some knowledge bombs on the tribe today, man appreciate Yeah, man.

Steve Vitolo 54:30
This was fun. I hope it's useful.

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BPS 030: RAW TRUTH Revealed: Showrunning, Writing & Producing For HBO & SONY with Daniel Knauf

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Today’s guest is writer and showrunner, Daniel Knauf. Daniel Knauf had a couple of small credits to his name—a TV movie here, a stint on Wolf Lake there—when he managed to sell the intricate Great Depression-era genre show Carnivale to HBO.

The series, an intricate blend of meticulously researched period detail and secret-history fantasy, purported to tell the tale of what happened when the last two “Avatars”—superpowered beings of light and darkness—met in the United States on the eve of World War II. The series attracted a cult audience that remains devoted to this day, but a mass audience wasn’t sure what to make of the program, and HBO canceled it after two seasons, saying the show’s story was finished, in spite of Knauf’s plan for a six-season run.

We go deep inside the writer’s room, what it takes to be a showrunner and many of his misadventures in Hollyweird!

Enjoy my conversation with Daniel Knauf.

Right-click here to download the MP3

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Alex Ferrari 1:20
I like to welcome to the show Daniel Knauf. Thank you so much for being on the show my friend.

Daniel Knauf 3:53
Oh, I'm happy to be here.

Alex Ferrari 3:55
So first, first off, you have well you have a very impressive career and resume. So we're going to get into a bunch of the stuff you've done. But first and foremost, how did you get started in the film industry?

Daniel Knauf 4:06
Crazy story that? Yeah, whenever I whenever I do seminars, and inevitably, it'd be like, how do I break into film? Which is funny anyway, because it's like what, you know, because there's larceny is kind of hard baked into the entertainment business. And so the language reflects it. So it's like, you don't hear people say, Well, how do I break into accountancy? Or how do I break into plumbing or destruction? You know, it's like, we got to do A, B and E to get into this business. So that question will come up and in in, it's like, I'm singularly unhelpful in a way. I mean, I was insurance broker until my mid 40s. I did that for like 20 to 23 years I ran a business and And while I was doing it, I was, I'd always want to be a screenwriter. And I'd studied, I'd studied creative writing in college and grown up in Los Angeles. And so I kind of had, then I love movies. I mean, it just, it was my favorite thing in it, but I have three kids, I had to raise them and I had to make money. And there was a certain, you know, lifestyle, I wanted to have a house and you know, be able to pay my bills and that kind of thing. So I kind of set it aside. Um, around the time I was 22 and got married, it was like, oh, yeah, this isn't grownups do. And then, around the time I was, by the time I was 27, I was actually going insane. I mean, I was, like, like, literally, like, I was not a happy kid. And, and, and sighs going through this crushing depression, and I started writing. And it brought me out. And I realized, yeah, um, this isn't something that I want to do. This is something I kind of have to do. I'm just, my brains wired this way. And I need to be doing something creative in order to, in order to, it's like a shark has to swim, you know, I have to do this thing. And I mean, so when people come to me seek I've always wanted, right, I think, Well, I've always wanted to be a bird. It's like, I don't have any choice. So it's a so I started doing that. And I focused on really developing my craft and writing screenplays and reading books about screenplays, you know, Synbio, Syd fields, books, screenplay. And other books that were some of them were useful. So when we're completely useless, taking some seminars, going to UCLA, UCLA Extension here in LA has some great classes. And in just basically focusing on learning the craft, and, and I, getting some mentors, I had a, I had two very good mentors. My first mentor was Chad Fisher, who wrote the last voice we met when I was in a workshop at UCLA, and ended up writing some scripts together. And, and she kind of took me under her wing and really, really taught me a lot. And then and then I reached, I hit. Like, I hit my 40s. And I said to myself, and I put it off. You know what? I told myself, this isn't happening. By the time I'm like, 40 I'm just gonna do something else. I'm start reading how write novels because it's sort of a young man's game. And you know, breaking in is, is any 4040 Something year all you know, slightly overweight. Be an EEG, I'll tell you is probably a lot easier when you're in your 20s. And I, I come from a long line of like, really sore losers, like, we're the guys who flipped the Monopoly board, he throw tennis practice at people, right? Yeah, my brother, my brother always says, His fate, one of his favorite things is, show me a good loser. And I'll show you a loser. So I just said, yeah, it's gonna take one more real run at this, it created a website called movies.com posted the first acts of all my scripts that I'd written up to that point. And, you know, by then I'd had some success I had, I did sell a script in the in 1993. That ended up being a movie for HBO called the blind Cestus as a Western, but then, nothing after that. It was like, yeah, it was like, Dead was nothing. It was, yeah, it was kind of like, you know, check EEG or, you know, bouncing this x 15 off of the stratosphere, you know, it's like, wow, it's coming in too hot. And, and so, I was really, you know, the customer slump. So I, I just created this website and put the stuff on and I got a call from a guy, router kale BOD, who worked for a guy named Scott wine and in Scott was an Emmy winning director. And he had told Robert, you know, I'm tired of reading doctors, lawyers, and cops show me something different. And Robert found the first act of Carnival. And he contacted me say, I'd like to read the rest of your pilot, and I'm thinking what pilot and I remember Oh, yeah, you know, I I've taken this crazy 200 Page screenplay that didn't work and thought maybe this isn't a feature and I I collapsed, the first act of a pilot. And so I showed it to him and I met with them and they were very, they were very helpful and they told me I needed to do a Bible I didn't know the Bible was in a, I did this Bible for Carnivale. And then we took it to HBO and all sudden it was like, they bought it. And, and, and I was executive producing, and in writing an HBO series, so I started my career at the very top of the heap I came in. And, you know, it was weird because it was like, nobody worked with me, I'd never done another television show, I had no reputation in the business, I just came out of like, left field, and I'm running an HBO series, and they're, you know, they only would have like, you know, four or five shows on at a time, it was pretty, you know, kind of a high up kind of position in it for somebody who was really a nobody to be in. And I mean, I actually got to a point I remember reading on on IMDb, there was like a rumor going around that I didn't exist, and that I was under a pseudonym for David Lynch, which was like really flattering, but not good for the brand. And so I did the show for two years, and I really kind of hung on by my fingernails. So it was a it was it was, it was a kind of a terrifying experience. Because it's shark tank in there. And, and just to answer your question, it's like to, for me to give advice to someone on how to get in, I can't really say, I come in, you know, I was a baby writer for a while, and I got a story editor job on another show. And then I, you know, built that up and I went, I didn't do the same trajectory, as most TV writers do. I mean, I know what that trajectory is he graduated from film school, you pull every every favorite you can get, and you try to get into the into a writers room. Whether you're in there as a office, Pa and you're bringing coffee, or whether you're writer's assistant, you're just taking notes. And that's really the way into TV writer, it's in no TV writing, it's really very much. It's, it's very much like the old, you know, like, getting into plumbing issue making back. Joining the guild, it's, it's, you know, the mine, I just I broke right through it. It's sort of the top now that we're way down ever since.

Alex Ferrari 12:26
So you said it was it was a shark tank? Can you explain a little bit about what was about that experience? That was the Shark Tank? Because I mean, you have a very unique story. You're right. Most people don't start off running an HBO series.

Daniel Knauf 12:41
Well, I wasn't running it.

Alex Ferrari 12:42
I mean, I mean, but you know what I mean? Like, exactly producing it,

Daniel Knauf 12:45
The first year run was running. But well, really, the main reason what it boils down to is, is there's a lot of money on the line. And they were putting a bet on an untested talent. And that's kind of terrifying for a major corporation,

Alex Ferrari 13:07
it was, it was like 4 million an episode or something like that, right,

Daniel Knauf 13:10
is 3.75. And first season, as far as I know. And that was, at that time, the most expensive show on TV. And we had a huge cast, and we had extras and elements and a lot of outside days, and some special effects. And so it was it was a it was a hugely expensive undertaking. And they would have loved to had a season hand at the top. And that's what they kind of wanted to do. That it was like if we could find a guy who can take this this other guy's crazy idea and make it work. I'm sure they would have scraped me off at some point. But they found to their kind of their horror. And I'm not saying this, you know, Pat, myself on the back right here. This is what I've been told by other people who were involved at the time, they said, What they found was, nobody else knew how to write that show. So they were stuck with me.

Alex Ferrari 14:06
So you see you wrote yourself a niche.

Daniel Knauf 14:08
Yeah, I mean, really, what else? I mean, basically what I did was created it's like it's like sitting out creating a board game where everything you do well is something that wins that board game and it's custom designed for every single thing you do well and and they realized so I probably guessing to their abject horror that you know that they needed me and they couldn't get rid of me and it would have been easier to get rid of me because I was so green and from my standpoint, I didn't know the rules and we're getting into Hollywood and dealing with Hollywood people in the entertainment business is a lot like suddenly getting into Time Machine finding yourself in the court of King Louie the 14 and year there's a whole battery of sort of Kabuki like rituals and certain things that have to be said and how they're said and pecking orders. I remember my first I sent a memo out one time and the insurance business, you send a memo out and you just it's here it is here. Everybody hears what's going on. But you know, I got called by one of the executive producers who said, What do you think you're doing? It's like, what I mean, what am I doing? I'm setting up this memo, about, you know, some nothing. Oh, he climbed up my ass about, oh, you have to put this person's name first and this person's name Second, and this person's name third. And so it was really a lot about just learning these weird customs and rituals and expectations. I also didn't know, what was a reasonable ask, like, you know, was it a reasonable ask, you know, if I said, No, let's not do this. Yeah, it's pretty easy if you don't have a really strong knowledge of physical production. And I didn't back then, to step on the ant hill. And I did that pretty regularly. I learned very quick study, and I learned and I make, I generally don't make the same mistake twice. I just make every possible mistake, one. Fair enough. And so it was it was it was kind of a jarring, terrifying kind of experience in which I was kind of hanging on by my fingernails, you know, at all times. And feeling like a stranger in a strange land. But I, I did the full two years and in in those two years, I pretty much learned the lay of the land. And no, so after that, I knew, you know, exactly, how, how the sausage is made, and in how to I really had a love for physical production, and ask a lot of people who are very knowledgeable questions and learning about that. And, and so it was since then, that was Carnivale was kind of like film school. You know, it was like hell of a film school. Yeah, I mean, there's just there was a there was no, there was an immense amount of there was there was there was money and stature and everything riding on that. I mean, our The sad thing really is the expectations HBO had for the series were wholly unrealistic. And that's one of the things that killed us. If we went on the air on HBO now, you know, they'd be good. Consider. It's like an unmitigated success. But they were saying, Oh, we expect to score higher numbers with this show than the Sopranos. And when I, the day, I heard that I was going, Oh, God, we are so dead. Because the sopranos is mainstream drama. And whenever you get into genre stuff, even more so back then than now, where genre has kind of, you know, oozed into mainstream. Back then there were people where as soon as Ben heals a little girl at the beginning of the show, they're going to turn it off, and they're not going to turn it back on. Because that's not real, you know. And it's, there's some people no matter how well, it doesn't matter whether it listened to a super good jazz or really crappy jazz, they just don't, they can't differentiate because there's still like jazz or rap or country western. And for, you know, shows involve magic, or supernatural or whatever. If people aren't into that, no matter how good you you do, you're going to lose that audience.

Alex Ferrari 18:34
Do you think that carnival would have had a better chance in today's environment, like on a streaming service, like to have a longer run,

Daniel Knauf 18:41
I suspect we would have done our full run. If it came out. If it came out, I would say even if it came out, like, two or three years after we did come out, we were really on the bleeding edge of everything. And people just weren't really ready for that show. And it would have been easier to because allowed to a lot of what we were doing in the first season in the first season drags quite a lot. But a lot of it was about just teaching people the vocabulary of the show. So that they would understand and people is there never been anything online. It was just it was it was just a really weird thing. You know, I mean, it had kind of a cryptic aspects of Twin Peaks, but it was a period drama, and there was some historical aspects that were based on true, you know, situations and true events and other things that were that were made up and and so we really felt like we kind of had to handle the audience along for the, you know, the first first at least six episodes so they know what the rules were.

Alex Ferrari 19:49
No, can you you said, you said a term show Bible. For a lot of people who are listening. They might not know what a show Bible is. Can you explain what your process was being a newbie

Daniel Knauf 20:01
This so they don't feel you know it's there you know? So they're dumb or anything when when when Scott said yeah firstly you know we need to get a Bible and I'm thinking you're gonna kneel down and pray they buy it King James or the new American way what name your poison a show Bible is basically a document that goes into the, the mill you have, you know the world. First you start basically the logline, okay. You know, power is there is like a war between good and evil as far as in the man blasted landscape of the 30s, Dustbowl, or whatever. So you can't be your, your sort of three liner, or two liner log line. And then you start to elaborate on that you get into the world, the rules of the world, you know, the you might, like I like to put you images just to set tone and give you an idea of what things are going to look like. And you you, you talk about the history of all the backstory, you get into the description of the, you know, to full blown articulation of the bottom three quarters of the iceberg, and talk about the characters, character's history. You know, they'll descriptions of who everybody is and where they come from. And then, and then you go into, you know, first season, this is your first season arc that will be quite detailed by episode one, you do this, to this. And then, you know, later episodes, you're kind of, you know, increasingly shorthand and giving people an idea of where the, the thrust of the show is, what its destination is where, when the show kind of ends, if it fails, I mean, a lot of shows, and when nobody's watching them anymore, I mean, the most episodic dramas, and when people are just tired Watchmen, you know, but a serial, this is a serial. And is that's that's kind of what I put together for that matter. What I did was very complex thing to where people were looking at and going, Wow, is this based on like real people? Because I had, like, I got bored with it. I said, once I heard that description, okay, here's what you have to do. I got Sue, I started writing it now it's going cat. This is like watching paint dry. And if I'm bored, whoever's reading it, whoever's got the misfortune of reading this thing, it's gonna give you more I was, hey, can do so you know. And so I started going, let's have a little fun with it. And what I did is I created the whole thing, sort of, from the point of view of intrepid University professor who had heard about this carnival, and had done a bunch of research and gathered files about the actual carnival. And in it were fake police reports and fake newspaper articles and fake religious tracks and all kinds of stuff that he kind of gathered and put together, there was even an interview with Samson when he's like, 75 years old and old folks home, you know, and he says, this sort of, you know, angry karma Jim, you know, and, and, you know, just just like, you know, can be gone really suppose, you know, and so I just had a blast writing it in. So they saw Nick never seen anything like that. And I've done that since on almost every show that I've developed, because I always figure Hey, you know, why screw is success, but after a while you're doing it. I mean, it's like I'm getting I keep hearing different things. Some people say you need to come in with every dot, every i dotted every T crossed in man, you know, and in, you know, trailers, you know, you know, promos, you know, the shot, you know, whatever, you know, this whole thing, and then I hear other people saying the best best just to go in with a strong pitch. I don't know what the rules are anymore, you know?

Alex Ferrari 24:22
Well, yeah, that Netflix and Hulu, and those guys can throw everything off the wind as far as rules are concerned.

Daniel Knauf 24:30
Very much so. And he really you know, yeah, it's like it's they set up shop so far, you know, kind of upstream, that they wield immense thing in the world. And this isn't just in Hollywood. There's the golden rule, which is he who has the gold rolls in and in Hollywood that's very, very, very much operative. In you know, people I've met Netflix are sitting on billions. and billions of dollars. And they say, Okay, you get some and you get some, and you get some. And I don't know what they're, you know, which projects what, what makes them pick out what project or, you know, whatever. It's kind of, I mean, really, I mean, sometimes I feel it's like that there was this old show that was on, I think, in the 50s, before my time, but it was called the millionaire and it was about a guy who would just go out to random million million dollars you know, into buying island for a million.

Alex Ferrari 25:37
Now you can't even buy it. And then I came to buy a house in Burbank,

Daniel Knauf 25:42
me a four bedroom house and receiver. But the the, with a swimming pool. The sometimes I feel like that's what Netflix is now, you know, is kind of like, all of a sudden, boom, you know, you're gifted with it. So well, it's a very, it's a very chaotic market right now.

Alex Ferrari 26:03
It is pretty insane. And, you know, I've talked to, you know, I talked to a lot of people like yourselves who are in the business who were in the business before Netflix. And I've seen them just disrupt this entire industry. And now players like Disney are showing up with their streaming service. And Apple just talked, just said, Hey, we're gonna put ours in and Comcast or at&t, excuse me, they have one coming out. Like there's so many of these services coming out. And it's really just changing the way everything is done. Yeah. What's

Daniel Knauf 26:33
what's interesting, too, is the impact it's had on just the way people comport themselves. Like I think I don't know who it was, if it was Betty Davis, or one of those old actresses was quoted as saying Hollywood's the place in the one place on earth where you can get encouraged to death, you know.

Alex Ferrari 26:50
Very true. It's extremely

Daniel Knauf 26:52
true. Or, as I like to say, and when people say, hey, you know, it's good for exposure, and people die from exposure.

Alex Ferrari 27:02
I'm gonna, I'm gonna steal that line, I wouldn't steal

Daniel Knauf 27:05
a line on it. posit that he was exposed. exposure. So So you know, but it used to be that everybody was really super, super, super, I was talking to my wife about this this morning, I was just making this observation used to be the people were very, very sort of, sort of, sort of, sort of polite and genteel with each other. Mainly because you really didn't know whether this guy who was you just had every reason to believe it's a completely talentless hack, okay? Or just a straight up Bozo. For all you know, from your experience in six years, could be running a studio. He just didn't know or could be the guy that everybody wants to do business with. So people were generally very careful with talent relations. He didn't want to, he wanted to, you know, it will always be God will really love this, but it's just not right for us right now. We were developing something similar to it, or it's be always that kind of, there always be We love you. We think you're great. But my agent one time called me up. It's like the sixth thing that it's like, not sold. And he says, Yeah, well, they really love you. And I go, No, they don't love because if they love me, they would buy shit from me. I could wipe my ass on a piece of toilet paper and submit that they base it show on it. They'll tell me they love. But there was still that was sort of out of kind of out of out of not respect. I wouldn't say it's out of respect. I wouldn't say it was them being unkind. It's not kindness, it was out of fear. It was fear that the person who's sitting in this chair right now with us, maybe somebody we absolutely need to be doing business with later. So we don't want to burn any bridges. What I've found lately, in talking to other writers and stuff is Netflix. And maybe it's because I read a little bit about their, their internal culture of transparency, you'd say what's on your mind to be totally frank with people and that's the way we do things. Is there is a tendency for them to say, Huh, fuck off, we're not interested go away. I mean, it'll be just like, Fuck off, go away. What and you'll go What didn't you like? What? Fuck you we, you know, we didn't like it. You know? Some didn't work for us. So go stop out, you know, and, and they don't give you feedback. They don't say what they're looking for. They don't want a follow up meeting in and it's Curt and it's harsh. You know,

Alex Ferrari 29:39
I heard that too.

Daniel Knauf 29:41
And, and so it's like, it's like, it's like, Well, does that bode well for them? If they come sniffing around later, and you know, and they're not somebody I want to do business with. They're probably gonna Never throw more money at me to get me

Alex Ferrari 30:02
and they'll and they'll have it. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Daniel Knauf 30:16
Because they've got the money, but I just think, you know, guys, there's a reason why there's so much as kissing going on in Hollywood before you got here. And that's because you don't understand. Somebody who's at the very bottom of the game living out of their car this week, in six months can be picking up an Oscar, you know, I mean, that's the story of the guy who wrote Dances with Wolves. He was literally living out of his car. And a year later, he got an Oscar, he's got a basically treat people well, because people who maybe you don't need this week, you may need desperately in six months or a year and, and you know, but again, I mean, it's like, like I said, some sort of part of the chaos right now. I don't really care, it doesn't affect me, doesn't really affect my game. My game is I just do the best work I can and move forward. And I'm not a peripheral visionary. I just don't look at what everybody else is doing can't kind of do my own thing. And hopefully somebody responds to it.

Alex Ferrari 31:25
I've always wanted to ask you and also just someone like you will have that experience that kind of lottery ticket when with carnival. What was it like when you got the call? Or were you in the room? What was that experience? Were like, we're your greenlit, we're going to make this show.

Daniel Knauf 31:44
Oh, I can remember exactly what it was like when I sold the thing. You know, because I was set up I was my I was at my literally I was like, at my daughter's softball game. I remember where I was standing. I remember that. Looking at my my looking at her mother and going, Oh my God.

Alex Ferrari 32:04
Our life just changed. Well, it

Daniel Knauf 32:06
was like they're doing it. The The problem was, I just I've never tried to get into TV before them. And so I couldn't fully appreciate how amazing it was, you know, it was kind of like, of course they bought it. It's good. I guess that's my money. I was like, when I was like 17 He took me to Santa Anita racetrack. Right. And I just beginner's luck. I picked seven out of nine horses on the note. And I remember sitting there and I was thinking these $2 bets, but it's give me two bucks and then go make a bet. Go home with a couple 100 bucks. And I'm thinking maybe this college thing is overrated.

Alex Ferrari 32:51
The track the track just seems much more easy way back

Daniel Knauf 32:54
the girlfriend, you know, expecting to impress her and I didn't you know, it's like, yeah, they were like, you know, my horses is like they were shooting them out there. It was like, Oh, yeah. Yeah, I totally humiliated realize, Oh, my God. And there were a lot of aspects of Carnival that were like that I, I wasn't, I wasn't, I hadn't gotten beaten up enough to really fully appreciate it. In the market, I hadn't spent a lot of time and trying to network or sell things. What I've done is I've spent 20 years really honing my craft, you know, and that was good. And if I was going to do it another I'd rather do it that way than the other way. I don't think Hollywood's a good place to learn how to write in.

Alex Ferrari 33:40
So you see, you're basically training for a fight that you never knew was gonna come or not come. But when it finally came, you read Oh,

Daniel Knauf 33:48
yeah, I've been doing like Brazilian jujitsu for 20 years with

Alex Ferrari 33:54
in a basement somewhere. You know, no one knew who you were

Daniel Knauf 33:57
on. Yeah, it's like, you know, bring Yeah, just bringing guys in and breaking their necks, there'd be no fucking witnesses. So by the time I was fully evolved, I mean, I, I really was I had, I had honed it to a fine point. And in utter total obscurity is a lot of people you know, you get into it. The problem. I see what like getting into, you know, graduated for college getting that first job. You reached a point where you're pulling out a six figure paycheck. And you kind of go well, I guess I know everything I need to know about writing and your development as an artist just stops. The other thing is, I had 20 I had 25 Well, but my dad has had for decades plus of living I'd done and I I had a lot of experiences. And then, you know, I had a lot to draw on versus some guy who's 20 years old and he has I had a really bad breakup in high school, you know, it was at time I got kicked in the nards in seventh grade. Seventh grade. I mean, there's just, you know, there's not a lot of complexity to what you can look back on it. 22 years old, whereas it 45 I had three kids feeling. There had been the health, there'd been health problems. We've been, you know, a million, a million things. And so it's like I can draw.

Alex Ferrari 35:30
Now you, you also acted as a showrunner and a few shows. Can you tell us which shows you worked on specifically as a showrunner?

Daniel Knauf 35:37
I was never really the showrunner on Carnival. But I was kind of the showrunner by default on Carnival because the second season Ron went away to do Battlestar Galactica. And I was basically the head writer, I was doing everything a show runner does. But you know, but but at the end of the day, there was another executive producer was was handling most of the post production and calling certain shots. So I wasn't really appear showrunner. But I was making a lot of creative decisions. And a lot of the crew were making end runs around the other guy to say, hey, you know, we're trying to get a decision has, you know, and he's putting this one to committee. And we really need to know now and I'd say, just do this, you know. So, I mean, I know what a shoulders job was. And so I know that in the second season, I was the de facto showrunner.

Alex Ferrari 36:30
Now, what does the showrunner do exactly for the audience. So they understand. The showrunner

Daniel Knauf 36:35
is basically responsible for First of all, pretty much all the scripts and the trajectory of what's going on in the writing room and the story of what's being submitted to the network, feeling low notes to come back from the network, dealing with the production issues that come up, looking at, you know, drawings of sets that are going to be built and signing off on those, you're signing off on everything, you're generally, you're generally, you know, working directly with your key crew, in your, your line producers, to just make sure that everything's running and all the trains are running on time. And in doing what you can do to, to make their job, I would say, I would say easier, but sometimes I think just to make their job possible. It's, it's really, it's really it, this is this is pyramid building, you know, and you're building a new pyramid every week, and you're building each pyramid from the factory floor up and, and so there's a lot of details needed attending to, you're also you're delegating a lot. You can't be you can't have your hand in everything. You just have to make sure that the right people who reflect and understand your vision for things are in the slots,

Alex Ferrari 37:56
you know, now can you talk a little bit about the writers room and what it's like to be in that writers room for people who have never been in a writers room?

Daniel Knauf 38:03
Well, there's I've been in both I've been two kinds. There's really only two kinds of writers rooms. Well, there's there's lots of different kinds of writers rooms. There's writers rooms of work and writers rooms don't work. Where, you know, the shows that I've run, the shows that I've been in charge of the writers room, I take great pride in when when I'm running a room, it's running on all cylinders. And you have five or six writers in a room. And usually writers assistant taking notes. You have you using cards or whiteboards in your breaking story. Your job is to sit as a group and break story. And to me the key is first of all, everybody has to feel safe. You know, they have to feel like they're not going to be ridicule that they come up with something silly. One thing that I really like Ron Moore have brought this to our room and carnival. And in according to him, it's it's an old Gene Roddenberry a tech trick is thing called a stupid stick. And you designate something it can be anything, it could just be an object. And if you pick this thing up, and you hold it and pitch something, nobody can make fun of you. It's got supernatural powers. That's awesome. So and often it's the stupid stick pitch that really picks kids breaks the dam, like usually the reaction is that vacation picked up the stupid stick that's actually really smart. Or it'll be Yeah, that's stupid. But you know, if we did that which flot gets every it just breaks a logjam? And I mean, really the the key to me of successfully running a room and I think the best I love analogies that the best analogy I've found for a writers room is you know, you're drawing you're drawing juice, you're drawing story out of the ether as a writer. It's bubbling up through your story. Well, it's being informed by your own experiences. It's being filtered by your own experiences and interpreted by your own experiences. But that story comes from somewhere else. I truly believe the more I do this, that writers and artists, artists of all stripes are the only people on earth that are actually in daily, who in daily communication was with supernatural. I mean, I just, there's something else. I can't tell you how many times I've written something about where the fuck did that come from? Oh, yeah. Holy shit. Like that's, that didn't come out of me, you know. And it's nothing I've ever seen. And it's nothing I've ever experienced, for God's sake. And it's coming from somewhere else. And so you're, you're basically likable, and there's a power station down, down, down the street, I look at it is, you know, to keep the power station thing going is like you're driving through the desert here in California, and there's your route towards Nevada, and there's these solar collectors, that's, you know, hundreds of mirrors on the desert for all of those mirrors focused on a heat element at the top of a tower. That is, you know, moving turbines down below. And I look at it as good writers room is all the people are taking that, that Mojo that story Mojo that juice and sort of focusing it on, you know, on on the person who's running the room. And, and it's like, it's amplifying everybody there, you can't, if you have a good well, we're on writers room. Nobody can really remember who came up with what it becomes, it becomes it becomes a pure hive mind in I'm not just saying it because I like Star Trek, but it becomes it becomes a hive mind. And there's only one writer in the room. There really is only one writer in the room, but he's, he's the combination of you know, the, the four or six or 1212 writers that are all sitting in the room, focusing their mirrors at that center point, which is just, you know, forging the story. And it all kind of melts together, you know? And so it's not, you know, the 12 equals 112 creates one writer, you know, and that that takes him that immense trust. And, and in the process in and in. Measure generosity in more than that. Just making sure it's fun. And because because creation is play creation is play at a very high level. Yes. But it's nevertheless it's no different than, you know, like six kids in a sandbox. Try playing with trucks, your army man or something. It's, you're in a state of play, and you need to make people feel like, good.

Alex Ferrari 43:14
If not that place. Yeah, cuz if you if you if you're making kids not feel fun, they're not gonna play in that sandbox.

Daniel Knauf 43:21
What they're gonna do is they're gonna retreat to their corners and pound it. I've seen that happen in writers rooms. I mean, there's writers rooms where it's like, it's just everybody's just staring a hole in the whiteboard. And it's like, what if we, what? It's like, just show constipated? Right? This Oh, my God, I've been in rooms like that. And it's just like, and usually it's a function of people at the top. a trickle down effect of and of the way that ideas are received. Shows like that are not fun.

Alex Ferrari 44:05
Now, let me ask you a question. How do you deal with studio notes or notes in general from people who have not sat and bled on the paper like you are on your laptop to build that story? Well,

Daniel Knauf 44:17
first of all, you know, I keep in mind that everybody, everybody involved wants to make material good. Now, you'd argue there's probably a few people out there that just want to get their fingerprints on it. There's a good argument. You know, it's like they want to be able to turn to their wife and see, hey, see that sweater? I picked that sweater out because that actress or something? I don't I don't I think it's more the exception to the rule. Everybody is just dying to make something great. And, and and sometimes if it's coming from people who don't understand the process, like executives, it may not be as well articulated as it would be if you're getting it from another writer. You know, and thank God for that because if they weren't capable of articulating it as well as a writer they wouldn't lead. So that said, you know, I, I'd say, you know, I read every, every year I see some article and some basically on the internet or whatever, some bloggers, screenwriting magazine and be like those snippets, will you ever go as much or read about the delicious food or whoever got it to this day, I've never seen anybody write when saying, the smartest note I ever got. Because I can tell you for every really stupid note I've gotten, I've gotten one where I'm kicking myself in the ass on the way home going, Why the hell did I think that? Sometimes people come up with with things where it's like, oh, wow, you're absolutely right. I think the biggest problem is a lot of them notes. They have a lot of executives, they want to pitch a solution, they perceive a problem. And they, they tend to frame their notes as solutions to problems they proceed. So it'll be Hey, you know, do this and you're kind of going, huh? Like, it feel. And it's like, it's, if there's any executives listening or any future executives, the best thing to do is just frame the problem first, you know, what I mean? Oh, the second hack, or, you know, and be as specific as you can I'm, this really bumps for me, you know, this particular moment, or this, the second scene kind of drags where it seems like this one character disappears. And, you know, in the second act, and, you know, frame the problem, don't try to just pitch a solution. Because the solution, it's sort of like, you know, you got a doctor, there's only one doctor in the room, and then you got a bunch of people are standing around the room. And they bring a patient in, and he's bleeding from the ears. And everybody sits, for God's sake, put cotton in his ears and put some band aids on his ears is usually when you're going. Now, actually, that's indication of like, you know, that's intracranial bleeding. And we really have to get them into an MRI see what's going on with his brain, you know, and it's not a bandaid on the ears situation. So, you know, sometimes it's better just to point out, Hey, he's bleeding on the ears. Not, hey, put some band aids on his ears. Right? It's just better to frame the problem or point out the problem and then propose a solution.

Alex Ferrari 47:40
You aren't good at analogies. By the way, you are very good at analogies.

Daniel Knauf 47:47
I should open up a little store,

Alex Ferrari 47:48
you should just sell analogies. Now, what is the biggest mistake you see, first time screenwriters make

Daniel Knauf 48:00
the biggest mistake screenwriters make, I would say the biggest mistake all writers new writers make and even a few they're like, along the way, is not recognizing a lot of people go, you know, if I can get really good the first time it'll save me time on editing, you know, I can edit and write at the same time I can multitask. I can work with my iPad and watch TV at the same time. So I can edit and write at the same time. And then they sit down which is really editing is using a completely different part of your brain than writing it's a completely it's as different as the difference between Oh, I'm stuck to an analogy. But it's it's different is the difference between skiing and eating a banana. Nothing to do with each other. Now I suppose you could ski while you're eating a banana? Well, the thing is, the thing is, is like it's really they're they're they're mutually exclusive activities in and what I find is the effect is like, when people do that, and they go that way. That's where you get into the it was a dark and stormy night. Oh, no, no, no, that sucks. It was a shadowy and rainy night. Oh, that's worse. This is the recipe for complete writer's block and paralysis, where you're trying to make qualitative decisions about things that are just jumping out of your head, okay, you cannot do it. You cannot do that. You can't do it. It is like, like pegging the accelerator and the brake on your car at the same time. You're gonna make shitloads of noise and last smoke, but the car ain't going anywhere. Okay, and so it's like, it's like under stand that, you know, when you sit down to write, you write like you're being pursued through the jungle by a bunch of guys with machetes, you don't think about it, you go, you can be thinking, Oh, this is shit, I know it shit, but I've got to get through the scene, okay, I know what the next scene is gonna be. And just get through it, get through it, get through it, get through it right forward, don't wait. For Christ's sake, when you sit down to write, don't sit down and read everything you've written before you write it because now you're editing again, stuff that you just sit down to read the last few words and you go, Oh, yeah, that's where I left off, and you just pick it up. And you you have to write like, you're just in now. And then so okay, if you're, if you go off of your outline, that's all right. If something happens, and the character takes you in the direction, you didn't expect to go, Great, okay, you know, and sometimes those are great moments. And so go ahead, but as long as you get back onto your, you know, onto the path again, and arrive at your trajectory and arrive at your ending, but just get that first draft out and get it out as quickly as humanly possible. And, and I can guarantee you that the parts that you thought while you were writing them, which is shit on ice, actually, you'll reread I mean, go, well, this isn't bad. And the stuff you thought where you were, oh my god, I must be channeling you know, ug to you. It's just garbage, you know. And so it's like, it's like, you have no way of knowing how well you're doing while you're creating you can't be here. So that's another reason. So So my advice to writers is understand that process and understand editing in, in, in writing and editing, the creative process, and the editing process are two completely different things. And, you know, in don't try to don't try to multitask that it never goes well.

Alex Ferrari 51:54
I actually heard I actually heard a great analogy from a songwriter, and which I think is amazing analogy for writing. Which is like when you go into an old house and you turn on the pipes, and all you see is that mud come out. You just got to let it go and let that mud keep flowing out of the pipes out of this faucet. And then sooner or later, it's gonna start while it starts getting lighter and lighter and lighter to the point where then you're getting clear water that you can actually drink but you have to get through all that other stuff first, or else they won't you won't get to the good stuff.

Daniel Knauf 52:27
Oh, you just have it you it's like it's like it's it's it's an ugly, messy, smelly process.

Alex Ferrari 52:34
There's nothing There's nothing. There's nothing glamorous about being an artist a lot of times it really is it not that when you're real creative.

Daniel Knauf 52:44
You know when I'm, I'm I'm one of those I'm one of those rare birds. A lot of people are like, you know, a hate writing. Torture. They're sitting in front of their I've seen guys sitting there, sitting there frowning at their screens. And in this. I'm happy and giddy and stupid when I'm writing. I'm just like laughing I'm like, great. I'm just sitting here making basically no, go. Here this is so great.

Alex Ferrari 53:12
Well, you actually just said that. Right? When we got on the on the on the line. You're like I'm writing a ghost story. Like you were so happy about it. Well, you said

Daniel Knauf 53:20
that's because I love this process. I there's tons of love on the page. I just adore writing. I'm not one of those guys. It's like there's all I like having written Yeah, it's like, I like the process. I like I like doing it. It's one. You know, it's funny, there's that I forget what it is that some recent in one of those self help business type books. They made this prop proposal legal. If you do any endeavor for activity for 10,000 hours, yes. And yes, I okay. So if you want to be if you want to be a concert pianist, you just have to play for 10,000 hours. What he doesn't say is that if you didn't like playing the piano, right, you'd have to be the world's dumbest asshole to waste 10,000 hours of your life doing something you don't like doing. People who spend 10,000 of their happy hours of their life mastering some art or craft or science or whatever they master. They have to love it. You have to love doing that.

Alex Ferrari 54:33
But there's a lot of people that don't a lot of people who go to school,

Daniel Knauf 54:38
you have to love some aspect should you know. But you know, I mean, a lot of people fall in love with the idea of being a writer, you know, but I meet writers every day. They've never written a word. They're just natural. retcon terrorists are really good at telling stories. They're just and it's like, where I go for God's sake, or we should sit down write a book or something because you're really good, you know, and then I mean People who are writers, and they're making very good money. You know, I've worked with people who are writers, and it's like, they're not writers. They've worked out the craft, they understand what follows what but they're not really writers. They're just, they're just regurgitating things they've seen in putting a spin on everything to make, you know, to make it a little fresh enough to where everybody doesn't, you know, get scared. Oh, yeah.

Alex Ferrari 55:24
That's an interesting, that's an it's very interesting, because you sometimes you see these movies, or you watch these shows, and you're like, wow, it's just the same, the same stuff. And I've met writers, too. I've met writers and filmmakers, for that matter, who do exactly what you know, they understand the craft their technicians. But, but kidding, like, you know, I could put the paint on canvas, and I know how to do it. And I know the technique. But I'm not Vinci. I'm not, I'm not Van Gogh, I'm not, I'm not being brave. I'm not being you know, I'm not going out there without a net.

Daniel Knauf 55:58
Well, yeah. But that's, you know, maybe that's the cards that are dealt yet, you know, not everybody is, you know, I mean, there's probably guys painting pictures from, you know, photographs down at the mall, that, you know, from a craft, and from a from craft standpoint, as far as mixing colors and laying down pain are probably, you know, highly evolved, you know, but the, there's directors like that I won't name any names, but there's directors that are absolutely masterful, but it's just not quite substantial. There's a there's an, it's hard to put your finger on it, but it's like, there's a sense of a missing depth to my mind. The somebody like Kubrick brings to the party in our or Scorsese or, you know, where there's, there's something really to it. And

Alex Ferrari 56:53
there's something underneath that there's like 50 layers underneath. And you will only see it in 20 or 30 years of watching. That you'll Yeah, Kubrick Kubrick's my favorite.

Daniel Knauf 57:05
You, you know, he was aware of what he was doing and everything, but he was aware of everything he was doing. And no artists really is a lot of it, you're just doing your best and it's coming in that way. But you really have no idea. You know, how, how, why it works that way. You know, you're just focusing on trying to articulate your vision as well as you can. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I take you go to college lit class, and he gets some clown, you know, up in front. He's your college lit teacher, and he's trying to tell you what was going through Herman Melville's head, right? You know, Moby Dick Or Steven cranes head when he's writing Red Badge of Courage. And yeah, he was thinking about this. He's working with symbolism over here. And I tell people I go, I can tell you what's going through Herman Melville's head when he wrote Moby Dick. It was like, I don't feed my family. And this is due in a couple of months. That's what was going through Herman Melville. Right. You know, right. doing the best you can, you're running through the jungle with the guys with the machetes feeling you that's what's happening.

Alex Ferrari 58:12
You know, it's funny, because Cooper Kubrick's one of my favorite artists of all time, and there's so much I mean, there's volumes libraries written about what people think he was doing in 2001. And in the shining, and, and, and all of those, and I just just see the documentary film worker. I know it's, it's his assistant. Oh, I didn't see that. Yeah, it wasn't a wonderful, wasn't it wonderful. But you hear him and he was the guy that was literally next to him for 30 years. And he's like, you know, the twins in shining? Well, that was me. I brought twins in and Kubrick said, Sure. I guess they're twins now, where everybody's like, in their twins, because back in the day, he shot some photos of twins, and they're putting up like, No, it just

Daniel Knauf 58:57
was. It was the first episode of the first episode of Carnival. It's called millbay. Right? Then I decided you know, when I first created the show, I wanted to name each episode every city they were in. We didn't do that the first year. We did it the second year, you know, but I titled the episode No, no. And the way I found it is I got a period period map of the decimal and sort of looked at dots on the map and found a little tiny dot name no Fe and I went along like that. And so that's what I titled it. So then we make it like two years later, it's on TV and people are talking about it on the internet and going back and forth with interpretations and stuff. And some guy says we you know, and mil Fe is an anagram for family and I'm going homogeneous. I couldn't have been thinking about that, you know, I couldn't have done I couldn't, I'm not going to be thinking about stuff like that. And when I'm making creative, because I'm making 10 10,000 creative decisions in the course of a screenplay, you know, 10,000 decisions to make, you can't be thinking on that level about everything money never finished, she'd still be writing the pilot today.

Alex Ferrari 1:00:21
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. No, so good. So when carnival came out, the Internet was definitely off and running is already around for a little bit. And but then the message boards and all that stuff was going on back then heavily. And I remember people just, you know, because it wasn't, there wasn't as much content flying around as there is today. Yeah. And they really delved into the deep, the deepness of Carnival, how is it as a creator, I've always wanted to hear this as a creator to go on. And just like, you guys have no idea what you're talking about, like what he was like, you

Daniel Knauf 1:01:06
know, because, like I said, people have different interpretations for different shots. That's just nobody does that when they're talking about CSI. Right? Are those like house, you know, they're, they're not even really doing stuff, like down on the soprano so much. But the minute they start to interpret stuff, symbolism, and so forth, but things really mean connections between different elements. As soon as people start doing that, you're taught now, that's what people do about art. Okay. And that means, exceeded, you've made art. It's not just a TV show, you've made art. And so that was the biggest thing. I mean, I'm not gonna say, Oh, you're wrong, because they couldn't be right. I mean, to me, it's, it's, it's there's a collaboration happening between the artists in the audience, if the audience draws something out of it that the artist didn't intend. Does that mean it's not there? Absolutely not. You know,

Alex Ferrari 1:02:03
that's a great perspective.

Daniel Knauf 1:02:05
Well, yeah, why wouldn't it it should be if it's open to multiple interpretations, that's a good thing. It'd be that that's because you're reaching people, different people in different ways. It's almost like the story in the Bible of the apostles speaking tongues or something, everybody's different language. That's fine. That's good.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:28
Yeah, like go to go back to Kubrick, every one of his movies has been interpreted 1000 different ways, and will continue to be interpreted for them for decades and decades to come in different ways.

Daniel Knauf 1:02:37
That's because his work is hard. Which is, which brings me to my poetry, I should pitch my

Alex Ferrari 1:02:41
quote, please, please pitch your poetry. Well, I was gonna ask you what's next on your plate?

Daniel Knauf 1:02:46
Well, I'm doing a bunch of stuff. I'm, I mean, it's like I've been, I've been creating shows that don't go on. You can check them all out. I mean, it's a cool book will push you over. Anything since carnival, I was like, no one created like a bunch to show. And for I don't know why I read a bunch of webinars saying this is good. This could go tomorrow. I don't know what the deal is. But I've got a site called off TV. And you can see it's unusual, because you can see the actual pilots in their entirety on some of the projects. There's another thing called the Bible, which we talked about earlier in the show, and you very rarely get to see show Bibles on the internet. This will give you an idea of what a Bible looks like, like what a show by Oh, looks like. So it's a nice resource for new writers. And then, and then, and then there's these things we call decks, which are sort of like anywhere between an 11 and 15 Page version of a Bible like mostly sizzle, very little steak. Just kidding. It's kind of thing they call it leave behind, you might take it to a pitch meeting with you and leave something behind for the executives bass up the chain of command. So some of those two, so they're helpful selling things. And that's all on NOF KNAU f.pb.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:04
And I'll put it in the show notes.

Daniel Knauf 1:04:07
The other thing, the other thing is, I recently I got I started writing poetry, I wrote it, I wrote poetry and first started writing. As you know, when I was an art major, and then I flipped over to creative writing and, and I was drawn to that I did a lot of poetry and worked with a lot of really great, had a lot of great poets and teachers. That was where I sort of cut my teeth in. I started writing again, about six, seven years ago, and for like, five years, I was writing these these poems and just post them on Facebook. I would just post them on Facebook. And because it's like, who gets paid for writing plays What am I get submitted to?

Alex Ferrari 1:04:49
Poetry Poetry Magazine?

Daniel Knauf 1:04:51
Yeah, yeah, poetry. Yeah. jogs

Alex Ferrari 1:04:54
poet she the jugs of Poetry Magazine.

Daniel Knauf 1:04:58
So we we He may still even exist. I don't know it's so. So I just post them in is this this woman was actually collecting, and she contact me. So I've got, you've got like 35 balls in. And I thought, Wow, maybe we should do a book so called another person I knew is a publisher and she said I would love to publish poems by you. And so, we did this thing. It's called Noho glomming. If you go on the if you're on my Facebook page or Twitter, you'll find it. If you go on the net, you want to find it, just put it in Clash books is the publisher. CLA see UCLA sh books. And the book is no Whoa, in Oh, H O. glomming. GL o am ing. And there's links all over my, my web, my social networks, and so forth. And it's a, it's about as pure, I mean, it's like, when you do TV guy, like, we're not meant to know process is this your your vision is mitigated by a lot of people, you know, it's very rare, where you get really the raw stuff up, because it takes so many people just to make these damn things, you know. And, you know, everybody's, you know, it's gonna waver from the way you might have imagined, you know, down to props and camera angles. It's all in the myriad of details. And it was so nice to return to a form where I'm creating the end result right there on a page. And so it's very approachable. It's not, it's not poor, if you don't like, like, if you think of poetry the way I think of mine. And you're allergic to poetry. It's not this precious stuff. It's very relatable. I believe that if somebody I believe people read it, and they'll connect very deeply with it. There's one poem at the end. It's an epic poll. That's just crazy and kind of funny. And it's, it's the story of a guy in the witness protection program. It's not I mean, I'm not writing about ravens, and angels and, you know, dead king trees, right? Yeah. Writing about stuff like Citgo gas stations, right? My influences were Charles Bukowski, and this whole Los Angeles, brown broke school. And it's very down to earth and sort of grounded straight up stuff, and sometimes abusing and sometimes moving. So I urge you to check out my poetry if you like my TV, don't really like that.

Alex Ferrari 1:07:51
Awesome. Now, I'm gonna ask a few questions. I asked all of my guests. What advice would you give?

Daniel Knauf 1:07:58
The actor saying?

Alex Ferrari 1:07:59
Yes, yes, yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Just like we actually do

Daniel Knauf 1:08:02
odd types. Don't do that.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:06
If you were a tree, now I'm joking. What advice would you give a screenwriter wanting to break into the business today?

Daniel Knauf 1:08:14
I would say the best thing you can do is skip film school and just start shooting film. Because you can do that. I couldn't do that when I was starting out

Alex Ferrari 1:08:24
as a filmmaker as a filmmaker. Yeah, I would

Daniel Knauf 1:08:27
film school you will learn everything you learned in four years of film school in five days on a on a set, pretty much no, it's a film schools the world's biggest waste of money unless you go to UCLA or NYU or USC. And otherwise, if you're going to some other college to get a communications degree or film degree or that you're totally wasting your time. If you want to be a filmmaker, take take shit take 25 Tell your parents say okay, I want to take 25% of what you would spend on a college and I want to make a movie with it. Just make movies write them get your friends together. Sony has a good I make him the director now just make go out and start making movies in and you know, you might not mind that but you'll get from here to there much faster than you will if you go to film school.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:22
And how about screenwriting

Daniel Knauf 1:09:24
for screenwriting? You know, I think the most important thing I would tell a writer who wants to be a dramatist, which is a very specific kind of writing. People think novelists think I could not I can adapt this to a script. They usually can. It's very specific. Shakespeare was an actor before he was a writer and I really I didn't really learn how to be dramatist until I studied acting and I studied acting by accident. I thought I want to be a director. And so one of my second mentor who is really important in my development was a guy named cliff. Ozma was acting as an acting coach. He was Armand De Santis, kind of, you know, acting consultant. And I, I met him on a set. And we got to be good friends. And I said, I want to take some of your classes because I'm going to learn about the process so I can interact with actors as a director. And what I did was I ended up learning how to write, I really learned I was really good at pack in the trunk, and I knew how to, to break a story and in and figure out what follows this and what follows that when it came to my character work, I was faking it until I studied acting, and you'll learn. One thing you learned in acting is, is to act in the moment. Now if you still get stage fright, I have terrible stage fright. When I'm playing somebody other than myself, I can get up in front of a zillion people being Dinafem Yeah, but if I'm playing a character, it's scary. And, you know, I just can't build that fourth wall. But when I'm alone in a room I can in I'm writing in the moment, I'm mostly my scene work feels like, I'm just taking transcription. I know my characters, so Well, I know what they're saying. All I'm doing is just trying to keep up with them while they're while they're talking. Going through a scene. I never am going, hmm, what would he say there? Hmm, what would she then say? Another thing? I'd say the young actors or younger young writers is that sort of? So attached to that, is if you're going to a place like that, and you're going, what would I say? If I was in that situation? What would I say? If somebody said that to me? Is nobody really gives a fuck what you would say, Okay? Because you're really not interesting. Actors, aren't doers, actors, or watchers, if you're borings, just boring, boring people, and so nobody cares, what you'll see. You have to understand your character, and what the character would say. They all have to have different voices, they have to be real, you know. So, again, I would really strongly suggest studying spending at least a couple of years, you know, in any way you can, and whatever resources your town or city has. Getting up and studying, acting and doing scenes and seeing how hard it is. And it also helps you develop a really strong respect for your for the actor, and how hard they're, and that's something that's sorely lacking. With many writers in Hollywood, we're all here on guru Aegis sucks, and it's like, has it occurred to you that, you know, you're writing shitty stuff to say? No, there's no way to make work well,

Alex Ferrari 1:12:48
if Meryl, if Meryl Streep was saying, and it wouldn't have worked.

Daniel Knauf 1:12:51
Yeah. I mean, if you can get to where you write it, when you're there, you're doing you're working with actors, you know, actors, you get to understand the kind of stuff the actors want to say that the kinds of moments actors want to play. And if you know that, can you get them on your side? I mean, that's good. That's something that's gonna make you stand out.

Alex Ferrari 1:13:13
Now, can you tell me what book had the biggest impact on your life or career?

Daniel Knauf 1:13:18
The biggest? The biggest impact on my life? Or my career or mean?

Alex Ferrari 1:13:24
Or on or? Or either? Or?

Daniel Knauf 1:13:27
I would say at this point, you know, I was late comer to because I think there's also so many

Alex Ferrari 1:13:35
whichever one comes to your mind. The Alchemist of course, I love the alchemist. It's one of my favorite books.

Daniel Knauf 1:13:43
It's an astonishing piece of work. It's like everybody should everybody should read it. It should be required.

Alex Ferrari 1:13:50
It should be required for everybody in the world, but especially those who are artists.

Daniel Knauf 1:13:56
I think yeah, but I think for everybody, I think I think it's a good it's about as close a thing to like, if Homo sapiens came with an owner's manual, it would be the alchemist

Alex Ferrari 1:14:13
Good answer, good answer. Not what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film industry or in life?

Daniel Knauf 1:14:21
Hmm. They are not always right. You know, that sometimes. I've been in situations where I'm absolutely sure something's not going to work in and in that person has a higher rank than I do. So once you get to call a shot, and I'm thinking he is gonna work, it's gonna work as well as the way I would have done it. And then often I watch it and it works beautifully. You know, and I go, You know what, I was wrong. You know, it's like, this is the way you're just because it's the way you Do it doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. In, in, in, in when it comes to a collaborative art, Passion Rules today, and you know what it boils down to is the person who's most passionate is probably going to win that fight. Don't get hung up on little stuff. If people want this change, the worst place you can go, the least productive, most toxic place you can go is to this place that almost every shitty writer goes, which is Detroit or read my work, you know? And it's like, yeah, they're dumping shitloads of money into this, and they just want to rack it. Because they don't like you. I mean, people should also come on forgot to say, you know, I mean, sometimes, sometimes another way does work. And sometimes it works even a little better than the way you had in mind. Just don't, don't think that you're ever going to watch something that is exactly the movie you had in your mind when you can see it and wrote it, it's always going to be a little different. Some parts are going to be better, some parts you might win sad. Hopefully, the you know, the former is more numerous than the ladder. You know,

Alex Ferrari 1:16:18
they're good. And then the toughest question of all three of your favorite films of all time.

Daniel Knauf 1:16:22
How that is North by Northwest I love I love. I think I'm the see, there's a lot of I'm just gonna see what pops into my head of Catholic course. And I think it's probably it's probably it is it's really kind of a dead heat between China Town. And, and, and, and the shining.

Alex Ferrari 1:16:55
I really love this shot.

Daniel Knauf 1:16:57
I mean, it doesn't work. Of course. Those four

Alex Ferrari 1:17:01
Right, exactly. That just came into mind right now. I agree with you, 100% and

Daniel Knauf 1:17:06
everything but David Lynch can Does that count?

Alex Ferrari 1:17:09
Everything by Kubrick everything by

Daniel Knauf 1:17:12
every other movie by the Coen Brothers. It's like that.

Alex Ferrari 1:17:18
You're right, it is almost every other movie because but when they hit it, they hit it out of the park. I know. But when they strike out, it's but you know what, though? No, strike out. It's

Daniel Knauf 1:17:32
an interesting strike.

Alex Ferrari 1:17:33
I was about to say I was about to say even when they strike out at least they're going to places that is pushing them creatively in places that we might have never even been to. So for every other No Country for Old Men, there might be a lady killer.

Daniel Knauf 1:17:46
And you do do editing on this thing after you're done.

Alex Ferrari 1:17:49
I do not. You don't

Daniel Knauf 1:17:51
go straight through. I'm gonna say hi. I'm on the radio.

Alex Ferrari 1:18:00
Know, my audience is used to this. It's all good. Don't worry. And then where can people find you

Daniel Knauf 1:18:04
Just dropped personson the table probably sounded like the like a bomb.

Alex Ferrari 1:18:10
It's all good. It's all good. Now where can people find you in your work?

Daniel Knauf 1:18:14
People can find all of these things I've done at North TV. And then you can find my stuff. I mean, you know, I mean, it's, I'm pretty active in in on Twitter and the social networks. There's interviews, you know, just Google my ass. And you'll pop up. Daniel Ross, don't google my. There you can find me all over the place. And as far as what I'm doing right now. Right now I'm kind of I finished up a good three years in the blacklist. And I'm kind of been doing a lot of development. So I'm right now I'm kind of I'm, I'm I'm kind of up between jobs. Okay. As Henry and Eraserhead would say I'm on vacation.

Alex Ferrari 1:19:06
Your sabbatical. Sorry, you're on sabbatical.

Daniel Knauf 1:19:08
Yo psychics about

Alex Ferrari 1:19:11
Daniel. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for being so kind and generous with your time thank you.

Daniel Knauf 1:19:19
I enjoyed it.

Alex Ferrari 1:19:22
I want to thank Daniel for dropping some major knowledge bombs on the tribe today, and sharing his experiences his unique experiences as a showrunner and a writer. And guys if you want to get notes to anything we discussed in this episode, just head over to the show notes at indiefilmhustlecom.bps029. There I'll have links and contact information, all that kind of good stuff on Daniel and his work. And if you guys haven't checked it out already, please head over to indie film hustle.tv and check out the screen writing section of the streaming service, it is amazing. We've got new lectures, new courses going up every month, we now just added season three of the dialogue, which has some of the biggest screenwriters in Hollywood working today, sharing about an hour and a half interview about how they do their process, the insides and the ins and outs of the business and so on. It's a great, great series, and I've seen all of the episodes and we'll be putting out another three or four seasons coming up in the months to come. But it's really, really great among other interviews and other lectures and things like that, that we have on the surface. So definitely check that out, guys. And that's it for another episode of The Bulletproof screenplay podcast. If you haven't gone go to screenwriting podcast.com And leave us a good review on iTunes. It really, really, really helps the show out a lot and gets it out there to more and more people. So thank you again for all the support guys and as always, keep on writing no matter what, I'll talk to you soon.

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BPS 028: The Art and Craft of Writing a Comedy with Peter Desberg & Jeffrey Davis

by

If you ever wanted to know some of the secrets of how to write a comedy then today’s guest might be able to help. Peter Desberg and Jeffrey Davis are the authors of Now That’s Funny!: The Art and Craft of Writing Comedy, a new book that provides an intimate look into the minds of twenty-nine of Hollywood’s funniest comedy writers from movies and TV shows like:

  • Saturday Night Live
  • Frasier
  • The Simpsons
  • Everybody Loves Raymond
  • Monk
  • Modern Family
  • The Honeymooners
  • There’s Something About Mary
  • Dumb and Dumber
  • Cheers
  • Home Improvement

The writers were asked to develop a generic comedy premise created by the authors, giving readers a window into their writing process. There were no rules, no boundaries, and no limits. What emerges is an entertaining look—illuminating and hilarious—at the creative process behind hit comedy TV shows and movies.

Enjoy my conversation with Peter Desberg and Jeffrey Davis.

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Alex Ferrari 0:04
I'd like to welcome to the show Peter Doesburg. And Jeffrey Davis. Thank you guys for doing the show.

Peter Desberg 3:49
Thank you. Our pleasure.

Alex Ferrari 3:51
So let's get started. How did you guys first meet and well first, how did each of you get into the business? And then how did you meet?

Jeffrey Davis 3:59
How did we How did I get into the business either? Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 4:02
both of you guys.

Jeffrey Davis 4:03
Well, Geoffrey got into the business. I love it. When I talked to myself. Third person. I was born into it. I'm three generations. My uncle was a composer. My dad started at MGM in 1947. A lot of the stuff of cm Turner's stuff he wrote, he went into TV in the early 50s, and ended up producing things like The Odd Couple of that girl and, and forward and my stepfather was a producer of television felt movies back in the 70s 80s and 90s when they were going through that golden age of TV movies. And I had a stepmother who was a MGM player and who was one woman named Marilyn Maxwell best movie is champion with Kirk Douglas, which is an independent film you've ever seen it? So I kind of grew up around it. And I've been around it my whole life did go back. I was bi coastal before Peter Allen invented the term so

Alex Ferrari 5:07
Okay, fantastic. How about you, Peter?

Peter Desberg 5:10
Well, for openers since since this is a podcast and you have the power to edit, I'm going to answer the first part of your question about how Jeffrey and I met, okay. Um, I'm sitting up here in my house one day, and Jeffrey is down in his car. Our kids are having a play date. They're eighth graders. And he's waiting for a son to come down, honking the horn, the kid is not coming down. And he's dreading walking in and having another Oh, hi, what do you do? My name is here's what I do. organization. So he comes in, we start talking. And one of the things he tells me he's writer, but now he's working as an academic. Jeffrey is too much to tell you is the current chair of the screenwriting department at Loyola Marymount University. Very cool. So he says, but now they're asking me to do academic writing. Do you do any Well, being that I was a college professor as well. I started laughing, saying that's all I've done forever. And as we continue talking, I told him about a project that I did years and decades ago, that I got started with where I was working with a I'm telling you the long version of the story. If you want, I can edit it. Now. It's fine. Go ahead. So I was working with a some woman calls me up one night and said, I heard you do research on the psychology of humor. I'm doing my master's degree in that area, would you be on my committee? So I said, Well, what are you doing? So I get on, I'm doing a chapter on the psychology of humor, sociology of humor, Anthropology of humor, and I'm interviewing a famous Hollywood comedy writer. I said, Who was it? And she gives me a name of the fellow whose name is on the cornerstone of the Writers Guild building. Its first president. Okay. This fellow wrote a couple of the biggest Bob Hope movies Lemon Drop, kid. I mean, lemondrop kid,

Jeffrey Davis 7:12
obviously, oh, he wrote for Abbott and Costello,

Peter Desberg 7:14
Costello. And so I said, How do you know this guy said he's my dad. So um, his name was Edmund Hartman, for people like to know. And, and so I said, Well, I'll tell you what, I'd be glad to work with you. Let's throw out your three chapters. Could your dad get us some of his friends to interview and say, Oh, no problem. And so we did. For hers, as we started asking these people instead of just, you know, we wanted to avoid interviews, like, well, you know, what got you into comedy? Well, when you're a fat Jewish kid, on the Lower East Side, you got to learn how to fight or be funny. We didn't want that kind of project. So we constructed a bunch of situations and had them solve problems that comedy writers have to solve. So I'm telling Geoffrey the story. And all of a sudden, he said, who were the writers you interviewed. And as I'm telling them, each name, his eyes are lighting up bigger and bigger. Everybody you mentioned, used to play poker around my crib with my dad every week. And he'd literally jumped off the couch and said, Let's do it. So within 20 minutes, I met

Jeffrey Davis 8:23
at Tom Cruise style.

Peter Desberg 8:27
Being a psychology professor, he yelled at me for that. And, and so from, from 20 minutes of just having met, we agreed to write a book together.

And we changed the face of it. Notice we're suddenly shifting into now that's funny, the the book together, where what we did was we wrote a generic comedy premise, gave it to each of the writers we're working with, and we said develop it. And surprisingly, they did. What we were worried about is when you ask somebody, tell us about your creative process, you have no idea if they're telling you anything that's remotely accurate. One of our one of our favorite phrases is the highest form of fiction as the autobiography.

Alex Ferrari 9:16
It's very true. So

Peter Desberg 9:19
we were really lucky. We got these quick. We had show creators show runners, I mean, amazing people. And they did it. We got to give them this premise. And right on the spot, they just started making stuff up in the room while we're sitting there.

Alex Ferrari 9:35
Thomas have an amazing,

Peter Desberg 9:37
unbelievable,

Alex Ferrari 9:38
so you guys wrote this book. So you got that wrote this book, show me the funny and you basically interviewed some of the top and legendary comedy writers in Hollywood. Sorry,

Peter Desberg 9:48
but it's called. Now that's funny. Oh, now

Alex Ferrari 9:50
that's funny. Okay. Oh, that's funny. Okay. And, and you interviewed these amazing creatives. So what was the what was the biggest revelation? you guys found from interviewing so many amazing and talented people. If there's one or two that you can

Jeffrey Davis 10:09
well, there is one common denominator and that is we asked them, was it a story or character that they started? That's a great way to watch them do it. See, that's the great thing about the interviews, is they're really in a way not interviews, because we mostly we asked some questions, but we mostly stepped aside. And they develop the same premise 24 ways. And they all neither, they didn't say character or story, they said conflict. That, for me, that was the biggest revelation. And then also the, the diversity of stories, the how different each story is, and how many lessons there are in that it's kind of, that's kind of cool. I think, you know,

Peter Desberg 10:54
there are so many books on how to write comedy, or just how to write scripts. And yeah, each one makes it sound like, well, here are the steps you have to do. This is the way you write. And it was so nice to see that exploded in real life, where each person is taking a really idiosyncratic view. And we were just fortunate to be in the same room.

Alex Ferrari 11:15
I must have been insane. So which, let me ask you, can you discuss a little bit of a few of the Comedy genres or sub sub genres? Like, you know, fish out of water? Or, you know, is there are there a few of those that you can even discuss for the listeners?

Jeffrey Davis 11:31
I'm sure. In the book, you mean that when they ended up selecting? Yeah. Like that? One? I think that's the best one.

Peter Desberg 11:41
Um, yeah, what? One, what we told him at the beginning was, here's our premise, feel free to change it in any way. You know, our view was, Hey, your comedy writers, you're not going to, you're not going to follow rules anyway. It's not like they're accountants, they're going to do what they want. So we said, we'll just start out by stepping out of your way. And the premise that we we did was basically a 50 ish woman, husband passes. And they've always lived very well. So she assumes that they're going to continue living well. And she didn't know that they spent everything they made. Okay, so the sudden is an early 50s woman with no skills and no work experience. She's left out Nicole with nothing. So she has to move in with her, her young corporate daughter in New York. And one of the one of our favorites was this fellow threw out the daughter, and had the mother get into a work relationship with a man who ends up being a Bernie made off character. And so all of a sudden, she has to expose this horrible thing that he's doing. So I mean, they went all over the place. And, you know, in a number of cases, several male writers said, you know, I've actually never been a mother or a daughter. But I sure know a lot about fathers and sons. So that's what I'm going to do. We said, please go for it. And one of the things that we enjoyed the most, was that a lot of them thought out loud for us. And they actually narrated while they they work. The premise on one of our favorites was Walt Bennett. It's a little tough to use the C word now in any public forum, but he wrote for The Cosby Show, yes. And fair enough. And Walt was so incredible, he said, Okay. So let me see, typically, if somebody says they're coming to visit you, you know when they're coming, so I'm going to have the mother come unannounced, because that's going to create more conflict. So then he says, Okay, so if she's going to come announce, what's the worst time she could possibly select, to make her entrance? Well, it's late afternoon. The boyfriend's over at the apartment. They're in their little bedroom. There's a knock on the door. So it says how can I make this even worse? Well, she lived in a big house in the Midwest. And now she's coming to this little efficiency apartment in New York. And normally a person comes to visit with a couple of suitcases. She's got the moving band downstairs. And as she's walking up the stairs, the cousin is lugging up this huge sofa which will barely fit in the door, and certainly not in the apartment. So at each point, he's constantly saying it was Jeffrey was saying conflict using How can I create the conflict and how can I escalate it? How can I make it worse?

Alex Ferrari 14:46
That's a great that's a great tip for me cuz a lot of people will write comedy in that ad any conflict

Jeffrey Davis 14:52
you can have. I mean, that that's the problem with with comedy even more than drama, which I think We pretty much all know that comedy is harder to write because everybody has an opinion. I mean, there are more agreed upon standards of what makes a Drama Comedy is very much personal taste and what you'd like. I mean, like, I'm sure we would like same things.

Peter Desberg 15:16
Obviously, Jeffrey and I have proven that point. Many times.

Jeffrey Davis 15:19
The other one that I particularly like, is Lou Schneider, who was in the room on everybody writers room on Everybody Loves Raymond. There's grandparents in the premise, but they're kind of off to the side. And it really just says it, he took the grandpa and just says that they don't really understand. They relate more to their granddaughter than their daughter. And he made the whole story between the mother who's kind of a fish out of water with her parents there. And he had a whole wonderful bid, I think, like some of my students have said, I've taught them has taught them a lot about how you can construct character, where he has the 80 year old father teaching the 50 year old mother how to drive. You know what I mean? And how you, you

Peter Desberg 16:11
know, he took he took the standard joke of dad teaches his teenage daughter to drive and he switched it to 80 and 51.

Jeffrey Davis 16:19
One of the things that one of the things that I learned is that, and I've been, as I said, I've been around it, most of my life, but you know, you can help someone get better at comedy, you can give them a lot of techniques. But I think one of the things we learn from these people is comedy writers are different. They think differently. They think, as one of them said, I think Peter Casey said it's not in the book. But he said, he said to us before the interview, it's a matter of thinking to the left. And and drama writers don't have to do that. And I'm not putting down drama, right? It's just a gift. But to

Peter Desberg 17:02
give you an example, we interviewed Eliot Schulman who was the was the show runner for home improvement. And he told us a great story at the beginning. We said my, my father committed suicide. So I went back East. A few years later, got my sister, and we recreated the drive from his office to the bridge where he jumped on this cab and you can't imagine a heavier emotional moment. And I thought my father was a German Jew, and kind of cheap. I wonder how much he tipped the cab driver on the way to his own suicide.

Alex Ferrari 17:45
That is a that's a one. I mean, that's a wonderful line. That's such

Peter Desberg 17:49
and once again, it just shows you as Jeffrey was saying. They see things that a lot of people miss. Um, we had a comedy team, cinco Pauling, Ken Dario, they wrote My Dinner for Schmucks, there are a whole bunch of things. One of the movies they wrote was bubble boy. Oh, I remember bubble boy. So it told us a story that they went to producer with the script, said I really liked the script a lot. But do you think maybe by the first act, we can lose the bubble?

Alex Ferrari 18:20
The movie is called Bubble Boy.

Peter Desberg 18:22
So can turn to the whispered Yeah, we can call it boy.

Alex Ferrari 18:31
That's G. Know You Were talking to you, guys.

Peter Desberg 18:37
I'm just following along with what Jeff was saying about conflict. One of our favorite interviews, we interviewed Bob Meyer, who among other things, was the showrunner for Roseanne for a number of years. And tell him who he mentored. Oh, he

Jeffrey Davis 18:51
went to Chuck Lorre.

Alex Ferrari 18:55
Who's this? Who's this? Chuck? i You speak of? Yes, exactly. So anyway,

Peter Desberg 18:59
he he is such a consummate Pro, that it took him like, you know, some people sort of fumbled around to get started. He said to us, first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to take these characters, and I'm going to cast them so I can see the actors I'm writing for. Okay. And it took him maybe five or six minutes, and he wrote a perfect little sitcom, like a network sitcom version was unbelievable to see how quickly and fluidly he wrote. So Jeffrey looks at him and says, Could you darken it a little? And I'm, I wish that I could transmit the look, he got on his face that sort of impish grin. picture somebody with their hand on a dial saying, how dark Do you want it? Mm hmm. And so within a couple of minutes, he says, Okay, I'm going to kind of lose the mother. And I'm going to take this, this young corporate girl and I'm gonna change her occupation. She's Gonna be a private detective, because that constantly puts her in danger, which will keep a lot of conflict going. And she's very pretty an audience is like pretty people. But I got to give her a problem. So I'm going to give her a pretty serious drug habit, because that makes her an underdog and we like underdog or still, we're still comedy, right? Still comedy got it. And so she's got the big case that she's solving. And she finally has the opportunity to break the case, she's got a secret witness, who is going to reveal everything. So she's got this meeting set up, and she's on pins and needles waiting to go to this meeting. And to calm herself down, says I'm going to stop home and change, which means do some drugs. The minute she opens the door, there's everybody she knows, ready to do an intervention Jesus. And, and literally, and I mean, he was making this up in the room as we were talking to him. And as soon as he finished, he said, You know what, I'm going to pitch this story. You know,

Alex Ferrari 21:01
I was about to say, Why aren't these guys pitching these stories? These brilliant,

Peter Desberg 21:05
several people told us they pitch the ideas that they came up with. We told them everything they come up with is theirs. We just have the right to reprint it. Yes.

Alex Ferrari 21:15
That's awesome. Now you talk a lot about, you know, we're talking a little bit about structure and comedy. Is there. Is there such a thing as like, a comedic hero's journey, if we're gonna cause some sort of structure in regards to just writing either television, or feature films.

Jeffrey Davis 21:35
I'm not aware of one. I'm sure there is I'm sure there are people who try to sell that hero's journey. I'm not a big fan. I'm sorry, I'm not a big fan of the hero's journey. I understand there's valuable things in it. My, my problem is what's happened. And I think we're kind of leaving this period, there was a period in the early 2000s, late 90s, where there were all the gurus, you know, mentioned any other names, we all were they are where it became almost SDN, you know, where you had to follow, you know, I went to one, I remember, a producer sent me to one, I was working on something, I'm not gonna mention the person's name, who I went to, and I think the producer wants to pay $1,000 for my then partner, and I go and, and he got to, he got to a point in it, where he said, Well, now he had it. He had like, a bunch of steps. And he said, you know, he said, When you go to the studio, don't mention my steps. Because I remember calling up my father, who I went to, you know, for advice, because he was a great comedy writer, and he said, call the producer right now and get your money back get his money. Yes, comedy? No, I mean, I think, pretty much, particularly with this generation. I think, you know, they have seen so many movies have read so much television. I think they're starting to read again, hopefully, you know, they have, they have an innate sense of structure. The problem I have is when teachers put structure ahead of character and conflict, character and conflict is where structured comes from, not the other way around. And so often it's easy to teach strut, well, you know, it is easy to teach structure.

Alex Ferrari 23:34
Yeah, it's ABCs. Right?

Jeffrey Davis 23:36
What difference does it make? What happens on page 15? If you don't know who the characters are?

Peter Desberg 23:41
Now, I don't want to be divisive here. But I think we have to divide your question into two parts. Okay. So I'm hoping you'll tell me what they are.

Alex Ferrari 23:52
Okay. The two parts of my question.

Peter Desberg 23:56
Sorry, sorry. I was just messing with you. When you talk about comedy writing comedy, you have to distinguish a bit between writing for TV and movies. And your question really pertained to writing film comedy, where you have a story with an arc. And with it's the opposite in writing, like sitcoms, because although you have arc blitz for every episode, the characters have to kind of remain the same, because you're counting on those characters being there next week, with their same characteristics. And so the arcs of the stories are very different. And they're much smaller because everything has to kind of remain the same.

Alex Ferrari 24:41
Makes perfect sense. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, striding for films and writing for TV is two completely different worlds. And because you have a course of a season to kind of do arcs, but even writing comedies I don't, it's not like Breaking Bad, you know, which I could argue is a comedy, but But but dark. It's a dark, it's dark. Yes. But

Jeffrey Davis 25:04
yeah, I could I agree with that. But I would also point out that comedy off network comedy is more and more serialized. So so, you know, a lot of feature writers are writing for television now. And I remember as a kid, hearing my parents talk about, oh, gosh, we'll never get so and so because they only do movies, they don't want to do television. And that is all flipped now. Oh, it's complete. Everybody wants to do television now?

Alex Ferrari 25:33
Nobody. So what do you guys think of this whole new streaming revolution that we have going on with with the Netflix and the Hulu's? And, and I think

Peter Desberg 25:41
it's wonderful. I

Jeffrey Davis 25:42
think it's great. And I'll tell you why. I think it's great. More work, less money. When you're starting. I have two students who graduated two years ago, and are on the reboot of very successful the reboot of one day at a time, which is a Hispanic, we're gonna Moreno is in it. A lot of you know, an actress who was on six feet under for the whole run is the star of it, Rita Moreno is in it. And these two young writers are the junior writers on the show. And yes, they're making a lot less money than they would make this as us or other network shows. But they're getting the break, which would have been much harder to get before. They're learning their craft from the two showrunners. One is a graduate of LMU, many years ago worked on How I Met Your Mother and a billion other shows. And she and her co creator. It was on everybody loves right. And normally or comes in every day at 93 years old. And he is yeah, he's amazing. He is amazing. And so yeah, it's a wonderful. It's a really good reboot. I mean, I could say some not so great things about some other reboots. I think it's I think it's great. Because I think we have more. It's basically now who's not making pro product. Right?

Alex Ferrari 27:09
There's so much product going on, but it's insane. Yeah, I think last count was like 500 shows, wow, on on scripted shows on television right now are on. You can't even say television anymore. But on your

Peter Desberg 27:23
Jeffrey's comedy history was bad two really, really tightly controlled sitcoms, and six jokes per page.

Jeffrey Davis 27:34
But six to be like six,

Peter Desberg 27:37
you told me was six. Oh, I lied. And I quote.

Jeffrey Davis 27:41
Well, they used to make you put jokes in the head, nothing to do with the story. It

Peter Desberg 27:45
was a joke. Joke per page count.

Alex Ferrari 27:47
Really so so that structure it's

Jeffrey Davis 27:49
really an old school thing. You know, shows like taxi and cheers. And Frasier broke that, you know, and also the Mary Tyler Moore Show broke that because those were what you know, write writers say those were really beaut those were beautifully written shows did go broke fat

Peter Desberg 28:07
when, when we interviewed Peter Casey and he talked about Frasier said, we'd be in the writers room, and somebody will come up with a brilliant joke. And then somebody else would say, You know what, only 10% of our audience is going to understand that. And Peter Casey said, that's why we're keeping it in. We're keeping our 10 percenters the things that made that show so brilliant,

Alex Ferrari 28:29
you right, because there are a lot of jokes like over, you know, people's heads in that show. I remember that show, even when I was younger watching it. I would laugh, but like some things I just wouldn't get. And then as I watch it as an adult, I'm like, Oh, I get that now.

Peter Desberg 28:42
Once it went to cable and beyond, it's everything is unshackled now and you can do pretty much what you want. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 28:50
I was gonna ask you, do you feel like because of these new opportunities for writers, they're really, there are the shackles are off. I mean, the creative freedom on some of these shows, these Netflix shows and Hulu shows, Amazon shows there. There's nothing that would ever go on network television.

Peter Desberg 29:05
I mean, if you go back to the days where, you know if the hero was going to kiss the arrow and one foot had to be on the floor,

Alex Ferrari 29:12
right?

Jeffrey Davis 29:14
Yeah, I'm surprised. The Netflix model is very different. They, they don't interfere in the same way that the network's do. And, you know, they'll give you notes but from what I understand from the people, I know who we're working with Netflix that they just love it. I don't know anything about Hulu. I don't know. I don't I know they, they did a wonderful. They took them out. This is not comedy, but they took the Margaret Atwood book. And they're doing that and she was happy with it. She's letting them do a second season, which was not the novel. So So Handmaid's Tale. Yeah, I think you know, is there always going to be crap? Yes, yes. Always good.

Peter Desberg 30:00
But it's much clearer crap now. Yeah,

Jeffrey Davis 30:02
I think the one thing that, you know, everybody says, Oh, the network's will go away. I do not believe they first of all the networks on a big chunk of basic cable, so they want something. The big hit on the networks right now is the show called this as us which is created by a comedy writer. And it's sort of melodrama has comedy and drama in it out the definition of melodrama, but has that. And I know somebody who is running the Jennifer Lopez show, which is a detective show. And this is the network's what they do, as opposed to, to Netflix and Hulu is they gave this guy who's a very successful guy, they gave him the note, make it make the scenes more like this is us, which is a family show. And he's writing a cop show Jesus was so that still goes on at the network's I think networks did Spartan up a couple of years ago, they put they went back to summer replacement. They realized they had to when I was a kid, you know, I forget someone would go off on the Smothers Brothers would come on or you know, they would be summer shows. Now we're back to that on the network's they have to to keep the ratings up.

Peter Desberg 31:22
But it's interesting and almost every writer that that we interviewed, managed to say something bad about who they had to write for. A number of them said, You know what, I've made enough money as a writer now I'm becoming a playwright. Because nobody can touch a single word in my script unless I permitted, right. And they were just so sick of the idea that somebody is always taking this stuff and rewriting them or reinterpreting them.

Alex Ferrari 31:53
Yeah, do you? Have you guys seen that show Grace and Frankie, that Jane Fonda is great. It's amazing. It's amazing when I saw that show come up. And obviously, it's not aimed at my demographic. I'm a younger guy. But I've had I've had millennials. I know millennials, who are huge fans of that show. Well, they were very

Jeffrey Davis 32:13
smart. And the way they wrote it is that they had they had a younger demographic because of you know, they don't pay attention to demographics. Anyway. For who's watching Sharon, what are they watching? So I can see as a form of demographic, it's not the network. It's not

Alex Ferrari 32:34
the deals. No, no, it's changing the bunch are seeing

Jeffrey Davis 32:36
younger generation in the show. Hmm. All I can say is there are so many shows on television that owe a huge debt to Neil Simon and the odd couple. If Grace and Frankie is not the odd couple of God, you know who created that show? Is a Grayson. Frankie is Martin Kaufman, who created co created friends. sort of see it's a deep version of friends.

Alex Ferrari 33:05
Yeah. And but yeah, the point was greats and Frankie's like that show would never I don't think ever hit network television.

Jeffrey Davis 33:13
Oh, no. Well, it would have during the time of the Golden Girls, The Golden Girls and look at that. You know

Alex Ferrari 33:20
that? You heard how have you heard that there is a monster, like resurgence in the Golden Girls like the fan base is all these millennials. It doesn't surprise me at all. It's great. I was watching it when I was a teenager. Yeah, I was in love with that show. I was just such a wonderful show was so well written. The characters were so well developed.

Jeffrey Davis 33:39
Susan Harris isn't amazing, right?

Alex Ferrari 33:42
I mean, it was wonderful. And you and then you go back and you go Oh, my God. I was a teenager watching The Golden Girls like how is that? But it's amazing. But when

Jeffrey Davis 33:52
again they made sure that the stories were universal. Yep. And then that works didn't want to make a show about older women past 50 You don't want Estelle Getty was doing that. I don't know if you know this when Estelle Getty was playing be Arthur's mother. She was actually younger than Bea Arthur.

Alex Ferrari 34:10
Really? No idea why it was good makeup on her part that

Jeffrey Davis 34:16
you well, you know, the great thing is now that's funny has all of these stories in it to about show business and about the history of showbiz? Peter tell the

Peter Desberg 34:29
one of the interesting things is that everybody practically that we interviewed said, You know what we find that we're telling you stories that we don't normally tell in interviews, because of the difference in format that we've done. And all of these things came up in really interesting ways. One of my favorite stories. You mentioned before you were a fan of Frasier. We asked. We asked Peter Casey about about the chair Yeah. And he said, We treated that chair like a character. Frazier was a spinoff character from cheers. And he was getting a chance to build a new life. He was now gonna be a minor celebrity in a secondary market. He had a building and the the coolest part of Seattle, he hired one of the best decorators and every style and curve of furniture and color matched and was coordinated. And then all of a sudden, at the last minute his dad moves in. And that chair was the reminder that you're never going to have the life you planned. It actually showed you a concrete version of the conflict. He said, we brought in a set designer to find the ugliest fabric that he could find. Then he brought in a swatch book of the every color that you could have of that horrible pattern. It picked the most clashing color. And then they brought it in they they created the chair, and then they they took a utility knife and slashed it, and then put in duct tape all over it. Oh, cheese. And there it was in every show. You said, see.

Alex Ferrari 36:15
That's brilliant. Now, what are some of the common mistakes you find writers making when they're writing comedy?

Peter Desberg 36:24
Go ahead. You're wrong. Yeah. I think common mistakes. I can I mean, okay, I can give you. One usually is that you create a joke that's too esoteric. Because a joke is based on shattering an assumption. And people don't know enough to make that assumption. It's not going to be funny. If I make a joke about a postal delivery guy, well, we have a whole bunch of reactions we have to the post office. And that's going to work. If I give you a joke about a pastry chef, and how we use the wrong kind of shortening.

Alex Ferrari 37:12
No, not so much. Only the pastry chefs in the audience will get it

Peter Desberg 37:16
exactly. And so that's one thing you're always going to do. Another is there's a level of tension you have to get in order to get a laugh too little and you don't get it too much. And you gross out the audience. So it's it's another place where we're terrible things happen.

Alex Ferrari 37:35
Okay, so So movies like There's Something About Mary, which arguably is a classic.

Peter Desberg 37:42
Well, we have a director who wrote that no wrote it,

Alex Ferrari 37:45
right. And that movie at the time, I mean, for the audience, for members in the audience who weren't around or didn't understand that time when that movie hit. It was a gigantic hit.

Peter Desberg 37:56
And 11 years to get made. Did you know that

Alex Ferrari 38:00
that did not know that. But it doesn't surprise me at least because that movie is

Peter Desberg 38:04
it was a great story that Ed told us that he took it around, couldn't get it made, bumped into one of the Farrelly brothers, who said, how did that move your viewers to reset it never got made? He said, You're kidding. When I give talks to students, I used that script as an example. We got to make that

Alex Ferrari 38:21
movie. And they were hot, hotter than hot at that moment in time.

Jeffrey Davis 38:24
Exactly. And they got it made, I think within months.

Peter Desberg 38:30
Again, you could see, we just talked, for example about how much tension do you put in there? The fact that you're making jokes about a person who has an intellectual deficit is a touchy subject for a lot of dowel movie,

Alex Ferrari 38:45
it was a touchy subject.

Peter Desberg 38:46
That scene where all

Alex Ferrari 38:49
the hair the hair seen?

Peter Desberg 38:51
Yeah, you've got gonna borrow some of that moose, right.

Alex Ferrari 38:55
I mean, in normally they teach you not to kick the dog, but they do more than that.

Jeffrey Davis 39:02
But the trick was that, and John talked a little bit, John and John Strauss wrote that with a director, and they had the script out there forever. But what Ed talked about was the fact that you liked these people so much that you liked everybody in the movie, except maybe not even that Dylan was such a nerd.

Peter Desberg 39:32
No, but they use such a great device. When when we when we interviewed Charlie Peters. He told us that one of the things he loves to use as a device called a third object, he gave us an example of Beauty and the Beast. Were at one point they're having this this lavish dinner outside and they see a wolf and the beauties their heart is pounding and She's frightened and the Beast is salivating looking at dinner. And it showed you immediately, there's their separate reactions to the same object, and you immediately saw their character differentiation. And so, in, There's Something About Mary, the, the, the intellectual deficit boy acted as a third object, where one character was really empathic, and went out of his way to be nice to him. And the other character would kind of kick them and push them around when nobody was looking. So saw their personalities, by the same way they treated the third object in this case, that boy,

Alex Ferrari 40:35
was just as you were talking about that I just think Franken beans just came in Frank impedes fracking, such a great movie.

Jeffrey Davis 40:47
That's my favorite scene, of course, this because, and then the other thing that this is about the stories you learn is that is, is that one of the fair, I think Peter fairly said, we're gonna we're gonna do this, Ben, with you playing yourself at 17. And he said, no one will ever buy that. And of course, we look at the movie now. And we say, it wouldn't work without that. Say it's funny how these decisions get made in comedy. And there's a lot of stories like that in in in the book.

Alex Ferrari 41:21
Now, I've been around and been working with stand up comics, probably for a better part of a decade. And I've, I've been around the sad clowns. Alongside, some of them are my best, some are my best friends. And just from your point of view, because I'm sure a lot of the people you interviewed, or we've talked to do some sort of stand up comedy, in one way, shape, or form. Do comics, in your opinion, need therapy?

Jeffrey Davis 41:51
Like that, because I'm a I'm a, I'm a client, or a patient

Peter Desberg 41:58
as somebody who has done that very thing. Okay. First, going back one of the, we found two interesting things. One is that a number of the people that we wrote, had graduate degrees in math and science. And what's interesting is, in when you're in a writers room, they kind of break down into two groups. They're either story guys or joke guys, and all the ones with math and science backgrounds. We're story, guys. And, uh, I have probably a third to a half of the the writers we interviewed had standup experience. And obviously, they were the joke guys. And it's a very different approach that they took. And you, you may find this interesting that we, one of the questions we asked, after all this was done was, how do you know if your stuff is funny? And, you know, I remember back to a guy interview decades ago, who said, you know, that's a really tough thing for me as a writer, because I sit in my office by myself working on a movie, and I come up with what I think is a good joke. So I walk out to my secretary 14 years and say, Do you think this is funny? And she says, yeah, that's real funny. He says, with stand ups, it's a survival skill, you tell that you tell the bit, you've got a half second to find out if it worked or not. And you learn to survive by getting that instinct of is this gonna work? And interestingly, we had four or five teams of writers. And they said, we find out instantly if something's funny if we make our partner crack up.

Alex Ferrari 43:35
That makes Yeah, that makes perfect sense. They're, they're their own bouncing boards.

Peter Desberg 43:39
And they're always trying to make the other guy laugh, and in their

Alex Ferrari 43:43
heart, and they're probably harder to make laugh than anybody else, because they know each other's techniques.

Peter Desberg 43:47
That's right. It's it's interesting that I worked with a friend of mine named Greg Dean, I don't know if you've run across him, who is a stand up coach in Santa Monica. We wrote a piece of software teaching people how to write jokes. Okay. One of the things we talk about is that basically stand ups rant, that's what they do. They talk about stuff that frustrates them that gets them angry that and so again, you have to find material that other people are also going to find kind of annoying, and then find a take on what you do. And so again, we get this idea that that stand ups are either angry people or they're a lot of people like you know, Louie CK, one of our favorites. mm x about personally painful stories, but makes them funny. Yes, he does. These people are depressed. But I'm telling the Louis black story but

Jeffrey Davis 44:48
Oh, I love Lewis. I mean to. He was, you know, his, his, his persona is he's a very, very angry guy. And I hurt a couple years ago i Some idiot journalist was, you know, who obviously hadn't prepared was asking him a question. It was one of those events and they were, he was probably getting interviewed like 20 times in this one red carpet event and they said, so are you this angry offstage as you are on stage? And he said, I hope this has distorted pewters thinking, Yeah, I'll be in big trouble later. He said, No, obviously not. If I were I would have had a stroke by now. You know? He's gotta be angry that no, he said it's his persona. And he just talked about he actually talked in that same interview about Jack Benny, who I worship and who was actually in real life and incredibly generous person work to with Rubenstein I think to save Carnegie Hall was incredibly generous, he would be helped so many people, but that's not funny.

Alex Ferrari 46:01
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Jeffrey Davis 46:12
Cheap is funny. Generous is not in a so that's what Louis Louis Black was saying. And also, I don't know if you know, Louis black started as a playwright.

Alex Ferrari 46:22
That makes sense. He's he's he so sharp. He went, he went to

Peter Desberg 46:25
Yale Drama.

He has a master's degree in drama.

Alex Ferrari 46:28
Wow. Hey, what

Jeffrey Davis 46:30
the hell no know I lay right next to me school.

Alex Ferrari 46:35
After being around stand up comics for so long. You, you see their stage persona, and then the guys off stage are not generally that very rarely do I see one that's on all the time. And if they are on all the time, they're gonna burn out sooner rather than later. I was

Jeffrey Davis 46:51
thinking about one because he died the other day, Jerry Lewis, Yahoo. God, yeah. Who was on all the time and needed to be the center of attention. And I'm sure that it came from an enormous insecurity and his childhood or something. I mean, don't have to be a psychologist to figure that out. But yeah, I was much sadder about Don Rickles. Because Don, life was a great guy.

Alex Ferrari 47:20
I heard that from people that he was he's just a very sweet man was a great guy. He was a sweet man. He was not nearly as not what's the word I'm looking for?

Jeffrey Davis 47:31
Sona. But if you really look at my I took my son six months before he died, I took my son to see Rickles. And he was still in a wheelchair, but his mind was clear. And he was really funny. And, and the thing is, is that if you really look at it from our perspective of 2017, it wasn't a lot that mean, you know, and it wasn't right. You know, the one thing I wanted to just go back for a second, one of the things that we did in the book is we asked a lot about process. Okay. And one of the things that I've noticed is that what most people say, I don't know, this always got into it, because we did a lot of editing we, the book would have been the Bible, if we have you know, it is once you start writing, don't go back. Keep writing, you know, on the first draft, if there are places missing, keep going. A lot of people liked outliers, but just as many didn't know, in television, I don't know if you're aware of this, but this might be of interest is people don't outline first in comedy. You sit in a room and this is what I thought that the great thing about now that's funny is that is that you actually are going into a writers room. And the thing Peter talked about, that Bob Meyer did is exactly what goes on in writers room. You just keep pitching ideas and stories. And and then you come up with something and you'll be in there 1213 hours in in, in the real world. But one of the things they've all said is yes, you can outline. But in TV, you break a story in a room. I know they did that even on breaking that you sit with the other writers, and you break the story. Then someone goes out and writes the outline, and then I know should madman which had comedic elements. All of the scripts were written. The scripts were written in the room with all the writers together, which I've never heard of before, but it worked. And guess what? All the writers except one on Mad Men had been sitcom writers, including that leader or whiner at an actor announces it. Who was on Golden Girls. That was his big thing. Break. The guy that created madman was a sitcom writer. You know that Alan Ball started as the sitcom writer that I made that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, he was uncivil. Okay, the play right like Sorkin you know, and but the big advice I've gotten over the years and that's in the book is, once you start, Don't stop, keep going to get a crappy first draft. And, you know, because otherwise you'll be on it forever. I, I have a colleague who, who keeps talking to me about a screenplay he's been writing for 20 years. Well, maybe if you're writing a novel, you might take 10 years, a screenplay? No,

Alex Ferrari 50:45
no, I've talked to numerous screenwriters on this show. And, yeah, the professional they're all obviously professional screenwriters. So when when I tell them stories of you know, I've had this guy who's been on a screenplay for three years, they're like, that's, they're not professionals. They're, they're professionals. Don't do that. No, one's there's no, there's no honor. In the struggling writer who took five years to write the movie that there's this, there's that's ridiculous.

Jeffrey Davis 51:13
I think you're writing a novel that is unique. That's

Alex Ferrari 51:18
really different for that's a different form. But as far as screenwriting, or sitcom writing or anything like that, it'll take that long to do IT professionals knock it out. And the best advice?

Jeffrey Davis 51:30
Yeah, and I think the thing you're saying is, and I completely agree with it, is they have to learn to manage the, the feeling that it sucks. They have to deal with that and that professional does,

Peter Desberg 51:45
to give to give a little empirical support to what Jeffrey saying, what's

Jeffrey Davis 51:49
the word empirical mean? I don't think

Alex Ferrari 51:50
that is it. That's a 52 cent word,

Peter Desberg 51:53
sir. Well, I'd like to say I'm bucking the trend, but you'll say that's 100 cent word.

Alex Ferrari 52:01
It's a phrase, sir. That's a phrase. He said you were saying?

Peter Desberg 52:04
Yes. Before I was what? There was a huge study on creativity at Berkeley. And they found two traits that cut across every field. In terms of creativity, the creative people, a have the ability to tolerate ambiguity, and be the important one. They've learned not to judge. They avoid judging, they suspended. And what Jeffrey's always telling me is students will write a draft or two and they say, Oh, this is no good. And they don't want to go on because they haven't created a masterpiece in their first draft. We, we like, we like Hemingway's phrase of right drunk, edit sober.

Alex Ferrari 52:50
That's a that's a great way. It's a great, great saying. And it's so true, is it I know Mamet said it but I think he took it from Hemingway. What writing is easy. All you have to do is sit in front of the typewriter and bleed.

Peter Desberg 53:04
Yeah, watch the blood spots appear on your forehead.

Alex Ferrari 53:07
I'm not sure who said it. But I don't Mamet said it. But I think he took it from me.

Peter Desberg 53:10
Right? It was Hemingway. It was it was anyway. Yeah. No, the

Alex Ferrari 53:14
best advice I ever got for screenwriting, or writing in general, was from and I say this story all the time on the show, but I'm gonna say it again. Jim Uhls, the writer fightclub Sure. He said, If you're going to begin writing, sit down, write a screenplay. Do not stop. Go all the way through, do not edit, just write it out. When you're done, put it in a drawer. Sit down, start writing the second screenplay, and then do the same thing. And then start writing a third screenplay. When you're done with the third screenplay, pick up the first screenplay and then start rewriting that because by now you're a better writer than you were when you first started. That's great advice. Isn't that amazing?

Jeffrey Davis 53:51
It's amazing. We had Pedro Almodovar to the University last year, and I love his process. He's amazing. He will write three things at once. And he'll have different desks which I think Freud was the one who started that he only has two. So he'll he'll have different desks. So if he gets blocked on one project, he'll go to the other he doesn't stop and and I think that's kind of what you're what you're saying is is if if you get frozen on something, rather than suffering over it, go to another project and problem will probably be solved when you come back. I always recommend even though it's not a screenwriting book, I always think the Anne Lamott book Bird by Bird, any writer should read

Peter Desberg 54:42
that before free go past this point. An old comedy writer that I interviewed, and this was before the days of computers we was writing on a typewriter said whenever I find myself blocked, what I do is I go back and I take the last two pages I wrote and I tear them up Oh God, I don't care how clever it was it got me into this corner.

Alex Ferrari 55:05
Yeah, that's so you purposely delete what you just wrote in order to get you to start writing again.

Peter Desberg 55:12
And you may not realize that you box yourself in but you did.

Alex Ferrari 55:16
No, of course. Of course. That's Oh, that's, that's brutal, but yet very effective.

Jeffrey Davis 55:21
Yeah. That's a good Yep. Peter, I don't think you've ever shared that with me.

Peter Desberg 55:25
But I have, but you don't pay attention when we talk.

Alex Ferrari 55:28
I'm glad. I'm glad I could bring you two together a little way. And

Peter Desberg 55:32
it'll be gone for lunch.

Alex Ferrari 55:35
All right, so I have a few more questions to ask you. What advice would you give a writer wanting to break into writing for television and today's world?

Jeffrey Davis 55:44
Well, my advice is going to be coming from my now 14 years at Loyola. And nine years. Oh, good. God is coming up on nine years as chair of screenwriting. I'm not talking about the grad students. Now I'm talking about undergrads are very well come out at you know, anywhere between 22 and 24. You take any job you can get some of them come out, and they say, Well, I want to be a writer's assistant in the writers room, because I want to write well, you got to earn that. That doesn't, it would vary what the story I told you about my two students who are on who were on one day at a time now they had one of them was Jeff Carlin's assistant for a year and a half, almost two years, and then worked on the TV show he's on now. And the other one made independent films and shorts and did temp jobs. And then this producer, a Creator, who had been their teacher at school, brought them together as a team and brought them on the show. But you take any job you can get as long as it's in the business. All of my seniors from last year are working.

Alex Ferrari 57:04
Let me see.

Peter Desberg 57:05
Let me just add something to what Jeffrey said, by using the N word networking. The number of jobs you know the number of people that get into a room because a friend of ours, you know, friend of his said, Hey, there's a vacancy in the room, come on in numbers, the people that get in because they're so wonderful. And so you know, meet as many people as you can work with as many people as you can. And be pleasant while you're doing it.

Jeffrey Davis 57:32
Yeah, I think the days when you could be a spoiled entitle person, or over, I'll tell you, JJ Abrams, who some of you know this, but JJ is like we're best buddies. JJ Abrams, dad was a big producer. AJ is not first generation, his dad was a TV movie producer. And so he was raised inside the business. And he, he says that the minute someone who comes to work for he and his wife looks entitled, they're out. They don't give them a second chance. Because there's too many people who want that chance. I couldn't be spoiled and entitled and difficult. I'm very proud of the students at LMU. Because they don't come out with that entitle level, they are willing to start at the bottom and pay their dues. The odds of I mean, aside from what happened to the two students I mentioned, that's mostly going to happen to grad students. And even then it's going to take a couple of years, you have to be prepared. If you want to be a writer in television, I can't speak to movies, because movies are entirely different business now. And and the majors don't make that many movies, right. But television, you have to be prepared to give it a minimum of five years. So you're where you think you want to be.

Peter Desberg 58:58
I moonlight as a clinical psychologist, and I only work with people who have stage fright. And I remember one actor coming in to see me. And his first words are, I'm an actor. I don't do commercials and I don't do soaps for suck now. That lie and I said oh, when you forgot and I don't work.

Jeffrey Davis 59:20
Absolutely say that or, you know,

Alex Ferrari 59:22
I did it well. Yeah, no, no, it's that that that kind of mentality is the I don't want to do this or I don't want to do that is that the worry the business will beat them out of that. Eventually, you know, because you're someone who never

Jeffrey Davis 59:37
says that. That's why everybody loves her except Donald Trump.

Alex Ferrari 59:42
Mm hmm.

Jeffrey Davis 59:43
Meryl Streep does not even today. Have that attitude. And she certainly could if she wanted to. Her attitude is she doesn't want to do something is she's very gentle. And she's very loving and she sometimes will even wear commend someone she thinks is more right for something. But that's why she's Meryl Streep is not just because she's a brilliant actress. You know, there is never a reason to be unkind to other people that you were. And you will be remembered for that. Other than Peter being unkind to me on a daily basis, which I've gotten used to,

Peter Desberg 1:00:22
if you have three or four hours, I can give you a couple of really good stories.

Jeffrey Davis 1:00:27
But he's unkind to me. Exactly. Yeah.

Peter Desberg 1:00:31
We've barely scratched the surface, I

Jeffrey Davis 1:00:33
think I think it's a really important thing for young writers to remember is you got to earn it, you've got to earn it. And even when you get into the room, if you get the room to sit, oh, I'll give you an example. I'm trying to think how can I not make myself the hero of the story? No. I had a student listen, because this is the first the best undergraduate joke writer, um, character that I've ever had in the 14 years of being there. She was 21. I mean, this is how good she was, she could look at somebody else. Because I run my I run my classes, like a writers room, particularly the upper division class. And because that's how I was taught, and, and she could look at somebody else's script and come up with like, eight jokes that fit the characters. She had studied their script, so much knew their scripts so well. And that's what you want in a writers room. And she said to me, I'm going to go out, and I'm going to get in a writers room right after I graduate. And I said, Diona, I don't think that's going to happen. And if it did, I think it would be a really bad thing for you. 22, you'll be looked at as the baby writer and baby renters are usually between 25 and 30. And you'll be you will be out of the business by the time you're 25. What about grad school. And so she on her own, looked up some grad programs. And they had just started the Harold Ramis Second City master program. That's where she is now she's finishing out I told you, it didn't work. I'm still the hero of the story.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:25
But giving her that that given her that extra time

Jeffrey Davis 1:02:27
with her in April when she was in town, because it's in Chicago, the program. And they you know, they were trying to honor her ramus and by naming it after, and she's a different person. She's calm. She's loving school. She loved being an undergrad.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:46
Well look at the instructor, she I mean seriously. And of course, she

Peter Desberg 1:02:49
is an instructor. So

Alex Ferrari 1:02:52
by giving that little extra time for nurturing, and just time to kind of develop a little bit even as talented as she might have been. It's kind of like it's kind of like throwing Michael Jordan or LeBron James into playing basketball when they're 15. They're really talented, but just give it a couple years. You know,

Peter Desberg 1:03:09
I told you the story before about wall Bennett. He told us a story that when he was a new guy in a room, he you pitched a joke. And it was like the wind was blowing. Nobody heard anything. 20 minutes later, one of the more seasoned writers told the same joke just pitched the same joke and everybody cracked up. And Walt said, Wait a minute. I just pitched that joke. They looked at him said Come on. Don't be like that. Oh, wow. And you know, it's interesting that Jeffrey talked about Lou Schneider before who told a great story that they're in the room. And the writer next to him, grabs them and pulls them down below the table and says pitch this joke for me it yourself because you did stand up your pitcher better

Alex Ferrari 1:04:00
Wow.

Peter Desberg 1:04:00
The nice thing about Lowe is he gave her credit.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:03
That's nice ever that's that's rare in this this

Jeffrey Davis 1:04:07
aliens are not

Peter Desberg 1:04:08
and it only took him four months to get around to it.

Jeffrey Davis 1:04:10
We interviewed someone that we have not yet found the book for but a stand up named Carrie snow is an old friend of mine. And when they she was she got a one afternoon she got a letter with a check for $500 in it from Robin Williams and he said I was doing stand up. This is maybe like 1020 years ago, and I inadvertently use one of your jokes so I felt I had to pay for it.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:41
Wow. Yeah,

Peter Desberg 1:04:43
such a sweet guy. Uh, he

Alex Ferrari 1:04:44
was I had I had the pleasure of meeting him once and he's, I did the thing with Robin when I met him is that have never met another human being whose energy you could literally feel the vibration off of him. And he wasn't on. He was calm. He was with his wife. You know, as his comments gonna be, he was not cracking jokes. He was just a normal human being. But you can sense that energy off of him. And I've never met another human being like that.

Jeffrey Davis 1:05:14
You know, his mentor was like that, because I grew up around Jonathan Winters. I knew him pretty well.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:20
I heard about that with Jonathan. He

Jeffrey Davis 1:05:22
was close friends with his close friends with my stepfather and I, I and I hope you weren't planning to use that piece of paper. You should never put blank paper in front of me. I'm going to write, you're gonna have to do some editing here, my friend.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:38
It's fine. We just let it go.

Peter Desberg 1:05:43
So did you have some I guess

Alex Ferrari 1:05:45
I have to have two more questions. I wanted to ask you guys. What is the lesson that took you guys the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life?

Peter Desberg 1:05:55
Oh, that's an easy one. You can give yours first and then I'll steal it.

I give me an answer. And Jeffrey will say me too. As far as life lessons are concerned,

he hasn't learned and he

says I'm still a student, huh? That's, that's a really tough one. Um, well, I I'm good at answering narrower questions. Uh huh. But, you know, the other day I did a podcast and somebody said, this was a screenwriter and she said, What's your favorite sitcom, your favorite comedy movie of all time? And I looked at her and I said, tell me your favorite movie? And she laughed and said, I can't answer that one either.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:41
That was gonna be my next question. So is there any lessons life lessons that you can think of that kind of really, that took you really long time to figure out do you like, Oh, my God,

Jeffrey Davis 1:06:54
so learning, Peter will back me up in this, but if he has any class, he won't say anything?

Alex Ferrari 1:06:59
Well, apparently no class,

Peter Desberg 1:07:03
easy. It's easy to keep learning when you have so much to learn.

Yeah, exactly. You ruined it. Okay.

He never takes notes when I talked to him, which is

Jeffrey Davis 1:07:13
really, it's really hard to study for a test when you don't know what the answers are gonna be. My entire college and grad school career. I got a new people got me the answers. But no, I think it is the same lesson. I think that the lesson in writing that you never stopped learning is the same lesson in life is you have to constantly teach yourself to listen, it's hard. It doesn't come naturally. Man, anybody most people love to talk. And listening is hard. And if you're going to be a writer, you have to listen and observe and that's true of any kind of writing any kind of acting any kind of stand up

Peter Desberg 1:07:49
is a great phrase. The opposite of talking isn't listening. It's waiting.

I tell you what, I'm

telling you. I'll leave you with my answer to that one before those experiences a lousy teacher it gives the exams before the lessons.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:04
Yeah, that's great.

Peter Desberg 1:08:06
Is it regular walking Bartlett's home quotation is

Alex Ferrari 1:08:12
alright, so name if you can't. Both you guys, one of your favorite sitcoms and one of your favorite comedy movies, or movies in general.

Peter Desberg 1:08:22
Well, I can't give you my favorite sitcom, but I can give you my favorite current sitcom. Fair enough. I'm a sound like I echo alien when I say I'm a big Big Bang Theory fan. But there have been so many great sitcoms, you know again, cheers Frasier, taxi Seinfeld. They just they're too many. And they go all the way back to I Love Lucy and just it'd be easier to tell you the ones I haven't liked. With there been so many great movie comedies yours. Where do you start?

Alex Ferrari 1:08:58
One that comes into your mind? Or do you start

Peter Desberg 1:09:00
I can tell you Jeffrey's favorite comedy was Porky's. Yeah, right?

I actually never saw Porky's, believe it or that? He's lived it?

Alex Ferrari 1:09:12
How about you, Jeffrey, Eddie answers?

Jeffrey Davis 1:09:14
Well, I guess my favorite classic comedy would have been married John Moore Show. I just love that show. I can watch it over and over and over again. I think one of the more recent it's off the air now three years, but I just thought it was much better than friends. And I'm sure it owes something to friends and is doing very well in syndication and on Netflix now ran nine seasons, and was written by two theatre guys and then they went on to work for David Letterman before they created How I Met Your Mother. I just think it's a brilliant show. I think it's so beautifully written and imaginative and risky for a network show just the way they did it going in and out of satire, double points of view and then I guess Chuck Lori's show. The only one that I watch. I'm not saying because Peter loves the Big Bang, and I like it too, is it's just not my kind of humor, but I like it. I appreciate it. But I love mom, which and I level Grace and Frankie. I think Grace and Frankie is amazing. And there's also there's, they're going backward to the shows that I unfortunately wrote in the early 90s. There's a show called the ranch on Netflix. Yeah, a new one with Kathy Bates. Yes. And, and I don't find either them remotely funny. They're like, it's the old three jokes a page thing. They're going back to her premises a woman who owns opens up what? Six years? Six jokes three jokes. But I don't I don't remember that rule. I only remember 340

Peter Desberg 1:10:56
years of old talks when you said that.

Jeffrey Davis 1:10:58
I lied.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:00
You guys could discuss it afterward.

Peter Desberg 1:11:03
Oh, no. during,

Jeffrey Davis 1:11:04
during Of course. We're a lot more entertaining when we're arguing. I think I get

Alex Ferrari 1:11:09
but yeah, I've heard both those shows are not doing very well. And that's probably good reason why.

Jeffrey Davis 1:11:15
And yet one day at a time is doing really well. Because the ghosts are all from character.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:24
Where are the where's that show playing?

Jeffrey Davis 1:11:26
Netflix?

Alex Ferrari 1:11:27
Is that Netflix? Second season? Yeah. Okay, I gotta look that up. I haven't even I didn't even hear about it.

Jeffrey Davis 1:11:32
Hey, Gemma here, Rita Moreno isn't anything I'm there. She's

Alex Ferrari 1:11:36
wonderful. She's wonderful. Now where can where can people find you guys online?

Peter Desberg 1:11:41
If you go to let's see now. That's funny dot lol. You can find us.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:50
Okay, fantastic. And then the name of your books. Now that's funny, though, which is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and all the fine. All

Peter Desberg 1:11:58
this bad or bad taste. I will plug my most recent joke book, go for it, which is the bad sex manual. I wrote my friend Tom, who wrote and directed Friday the 13th part six as big as you want. It's like, okay, but before we finish, can I just quickly say you have made this so easy for us? Yeah. Right. You asked great questions you wrote up with a lot. You're really good listeners. Well,

Alex Ferrari 1:12:28
thank you so much. I appreciate that.

Peter Desberg 1:12:30
So you've made this enormously fun and easy for so we appreciate that. Oh,

thank you. Oh, so when you when you turn off,

he wants to tell you what he really thinks once you turn.

Alex Ferrari 1:12:42
So once I turn once I stopped the recording, then you can tell me what you really think. Well, I appreciate it. Guys, thank you so much for taking the time out to talk to me in the in the in the indie film hustle tribe, I truly appreciate it. Thank you,

Jeffrey Davis 1:12:55
thank you, you made this really fun.

Alex Ferrari 1:12:58
Peter and Jeffrey, were an absolute riot. And I hope you guys have a better understanding of what it takes to make people laugh. And what it's like to actually write a comedy. I know when I was working on this as mag, which is a drama, drama, comedy. There are a lot of comedic elements in this as mag. And, you know, I just sat back and watch some of these amazing actors that were in the cast. Just come up with this humor and sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't we figured it out in the editing room. But it was just such a wonderful thing to be on a set where you're laughing almost all the time. It was just an a very enjoyable process. And I hope you guys can bring some comedy into your into your work whether even if it's the if a drama, you know some sometimes a little joke here or there brings the audience in and just and keeps them going in your story and in your journey. So I hope this was a benefit in value to you guys. And if you want to link to Peter and Jeffrey's book now that's funny the art and craft of writing comedy. Just head over to the show notes at Indie film hustle.com forward slash BPS zero 28. And guys, we will be launching indie film hustle TV next week. And I'm so so so excited to share everything I've got in store for you. We've got interviews with some of the biggest screenwriters in Hollywood talking about billion dollar screenwriters. We have the dialogue which is a series that does in depth interviews with Jim Uhls are at our fight club, David Goyer, the CO writer of the dark night and just you know, Paul Haggis Academy Award winning Paul Haggis, there's so many just like literally so many screenwriters and that that show alone, let alone a list screenwriting lectures, as well as Writers Guild sponsored lectures that are only available through ifH TV or at another places are extremely expensive if you want to rent or buy But here, they're part of the service. And I've got so many more things coming up courses by Linda shear is going to be on there the legendary script doctor, her courses on here, as well as documentaries like dream on spec, which is a documentary, specifically about screenwriters trying to get their screen screenplays produced, while being a while interviewing some of the top screenwriters in Hollywood. I mean, there's just so much stuff, guys, I can't even go into it. We've got hundreds of hours of content for screenwriters, filmmakers, and content creators. So if you want to sign up early again, head over to ifH tv.com to get early access. I'm going to be releasing and send you guys a private email with a private link to get in early if you want to jump in and explore before anyone else. So that's ifH tv.com. And that does it for another episode of The Bulletproof screenplay podcast. As always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the bulletproof screenplay podcast at bulletproof screenplay.com That's B u ll e t e r o f s CR e n PLA y.com

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BPS 027: How to Story Map Your Screenplay with Daniel Calvisi

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Today’s guest is author Daniel Calvisi. Dan wrote the book Story Maps: How to Write a GREAT Screenplay. He breaks down stories and shows you how to map out your own by analyzing how the masters construct their screenplays. Here’s a bit more on today’s guest.

Daniel Calvisi is a story analyst, speaker, screenwriter and author of STORY MAPS: How to Write a GREAT Screenplay, STORY MAPS: TV Drama: The Structure of the One-Hour Television Pilot, and Story Maps: 12 Great Screenplays (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Up, Rocky, Sex and the City, X-Men, Black Swan, Juno, The Matrix)

He is a former Story Analyst for major studios like Twentieth Century Fox, Miramax Films,and New Line Cinema. He coaches writers, teaches webinars on writing for film and television with The Writers Store and speaks at writing conferences and book signings. He holds a degree in Film and Television from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. 

So stop reading this and listen to the podcast already. Enjoy my conversation with Daniel Calvisi.

Right-click here to download the MP3

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Alex Ferrari 0:00
I'd like to welcome to the show Dan Cal VC, man, thank you so much for being on the show.

Daniel Calvisi 3:15
Thanks for having me.

Alex Ferrari 3:15
I appreciate it, man. So I wanted to first get into how'd you get into this crazy business?

Daniel Calvisi 3:21
Well, I went to NYU film school and like everyone there I wanted to be a writer director. And but I really got into screenwriting there, I really found that the screenplay was was really where my heart was. And I took a script analysis class that I really liked. So that was kind of the first time I ever really took apart like professional scripts, their structure and everything we studied, you know, Sunset Boulevard, and the silence of the lambs and really a wide swath of scripts and movies. So that really turned me on and I heard about this job of being a reader. So when I got out of college, I found my way to becoming a reader for various companies like Miramax, and Fox 2000, and I worked for Jonathan Demi's company, clinic estetico, and new line and other things. So that was freelance reader work that I was doing. But I was working for enough companies where I was supporting myself and I learned on the job, you know, quickly, I had to because they give you a bunch of scripts, and you have to return them two days, or maybe the next day, you know, maybe do an overnight job. So I had to do written analysis of all of these scripts and a lot of books as well. And so I really learned under fire and I started course finding patterns and similarities and the bad scripts and the good scripts and seeing what worked and what didn't, especially structure. And that's how I started to develop my story maps structural method as well. So

Alex Ferrari 4:55
so how how does a young screenwriter break into Hollywood? As a script reader, like, What's that process like? Well,

Daniel Calvisi 5:03
I think these days probably hone your craft a little bit, get your feet wet with contests. With contests and film festivals. They probably won't pay you at first. So I would say do some free reader work, you know, reviewing the first round of submissions to, you know, the Austin screenwriting conference or something like that, or the final draft contest. So contact them directly. Say you want to volunteer to be a reader. Hopefully, they'll give you a test script to do test notes on and confirm that you do know what you're doing. Then from there, I would say it'll either be word of mouth, you'll hear about an opening or contact directly agencies, management companies, production companies and studios. And if you contact enough and you send them in sample coverages, hopefully eventually there will be an opening and they will hire you for that I got my one of my first jobs, the way I got into Miramax Films was through their genre unit Dimension Films.

Alex Ferrari 6:12
This is and then you got in at a time when Miramax was at the height of its powers.

Daniel Calvisi 6:16
Yeah, they were absolutely at their peak, they were winning Best Picture. And I this was Dimension Films, they had the Spy Kids franchise, the screen franchise, they were huge. Yeah, they were huge. And it was funny, because I was told by a friend that he had been a reader there, he knew a guy there. But he said don't call them because I know for a fact that they don't have any openings. And so I call them anyway, the guy dimension and the first thing he said was, we have an opening for a reader Do you want to test for it? So the lesson there is be persistent. You know, somebody tells you not to do something as long as you're not a jerk about it. Go ahead and try and get your foot in the door. It doesn't hurt to make a phone call. That's one thing I always tell people is, you know, people still make phone calls in this town. Mm hmm. So cold calling can work. You know, it's it's

Alex Ferrari 7:09
pretty remarkable. You know, doing this show for so long. I cold. I don't cold call cold tweets. Or I cold email like I did to you. And it's amazing. You know, you ask and people will like Yeah, sure. I'll come on. Yeah, for sure. I'd like to have a meeting. Sure. It's, it's fascinating when you ask what happens?

Daniel Calvisi 7:28
Yeah, yeah. So what I find one thing, it's hard to do. But if you can give them something like a piece of information they may not have had. Or if you can stroke their ego to maybe in a unique way, like let's say, you're contacting a company that makes a lot of big blockbuster movies. But you're talking to an executive who happened to have made this really small indie film 10 years ago. And you tell them, hey, oh, my gosh, I saw that film. I really loved it. You know, I'd love to learn more about it. Because you're, you know, you're kind of appealing to them to their passion, you know, not just their their latest superhero movie, which they may not have had anything to do with, you know,

Alex Ferrari 8:11
yeah, that's something and now with IMDb, you can literally do that research fairly quickly. Mm hmm. Yeah. And do you agree that when you are reaching out to to gatekeepers or or people that you're trying to work with in one way, shape, or form, providing value of some sort is or, like you said, stroking the ego is one way in, but also providing some sort of value in whatever that might be? Whether that be free work, whether that be anything? Do you think that's a good rule of thumb?

Daniel Calvisi 8:41
Yeah, yeah, totally, totally, if you can offer them something, because Because I mean, really, they get, if they're getting 20 scripts a day, they don't really need your script, you know, or your whatever you're trying to send to them, you know, they don't need to give you your break. So if you can somehow offer them something of value, you know, a piece of information or I don't know anything, maybe a bottle of their, their favorite barbecue sauce from Brooklyn. You know,

Alex Ferrari 9:10
if you do that kind of research, I guarantee you if you do that kind of research, and you hit up an executive, and that they you that you found the favorite barbecue sauce, and you're like, Hey, I heard this was your favorite. It could be a little creepy, but yet it opened the door. Yeah, totally,

Daniel Calvisi 9:23
totally. I also find if you if you see them talk on a panel. Mm hmm. It helps to say Hey, I saw you talk on this panel. And I really liked what you had to say, you know, space and then given a specific example, because you know, people go to talk on panels because they want to be listened to, you know, and they want to be adored, and they want to, you know, feel like they made a difference in somebody's life. So they may not have actually taught maybe they had to leave quickly. So they didn't talk to anyone in the audience or maybe they were only approached by annoying people after their Talk, you know, God. So you guys, we all know there's there's always that person in the front row who just has the most inane questions, right? Una

Alex Ferrari 10:09
Yeah, like, how do you get $100 million? To make my first feature? I'm like, Oh,

Daniel Calvisi 10:12
yes, yeah. So you can show, you know, say something really smart and say, you know, you got some value out of their thing, then that sounds really nice to them, you know, they're glad that they did it.

Alex Ferrari 10:22
So what's the big difference between a script reader and a story analyst in regard? Are they the same thing in the studio system?

Daniel Calvisi 10:30
They're the same thing in the studio system. outside the studio system, I would say, a story analyst is probably more of a consultant like me, a writing coach. And also someone who feels comfortable analyzing any kind of narrative, whether it's a book, a movie, a TV show, or a video game, you know, or a myth or something like that. So that's something I like that term story analysts because it's kind of a universal thing, saying, I have years of experience analyzing narratives and you know, taking apart the structural differences between let's say, a fairy tale and a studio feature film, you know, so I analyze story.

Alex Ferrari 11:13
What are some of the common traits? You see, since you've read so many? Since you've read so many stories in screenplays? What are some of the common traits you see of successful screenplays?

Daniel Calvisi 11:25
Wow, well, um, well, I always say you got to come right out of the gate and suck in the reader. So your opening has to be great. Open with something unique, ideally, something we haven't seen before, or something that really endears us to your main characters. They need to have really strong motivation that we identify with them, and they have a really strong need. That's one thing that you just don't see enough in scripts and in movies as well. You know, someone, an actor, being a movie star is not enough, anymore game by Yeah, and not just at the box office, just when you're watching a film to gain my interest in following them. If their character is a total jerk, and just an immoral person. They still need a code of ethics that we believe in, they still we still need to believe in their goal. And root for them, you know, and so that can be tough to generate that rooting interest in the reader or the audience.

Alex Ferrari 12:27
Can you give an example of a movie that did it right? Like that opening? I mean, I'm thinking off the top of my head like Shawshank or diehard or lethal weapon or these kind of characters. Do you Do you know of a can you come up with a movie that has that kind of opening? Like you really just fall in love with that character? And that character, that leading character has that need? Mm

Daniel Calvisi 12:48
hmm. Wow. I mean, I mean, there's so many. The classic example is Raiders of the Lost Ark. You know, we see this guy do this amazing thing where he rescues this, you know, golden idol from from this temple. And then it's, and then it's taken from him by by this evil guy, so we really, we really, you know, feel for him, and then he makes this dashing escape so So and I think that that was necessary in that opening to have a Balog, the villain, you know, so we don't just think okay, this is just a random archaeologist who's just trying to get this golden idol because it's worth a lot of money. You know, you needed the villain to come in there and say, hey, you know, I'm, I'm the evil guy who, who wants this for myself, you know, where's your your the pure one. But trying to think of a more a more modern film, I would say, Well, let's look at this summer there was the Spider Man homecoming, you know, we do feel for Peter Parker because he's a kid. And he doesn't really know what he's doing. And he's struggling with, you know, kids stuff like he likes the pretty girl. And she won't give him the time of day. Although she does kind of like him too much. That was one thing about it. I thought it was kind of too easy for him to get the girl kind of already liked him. But um, so and that's something with like superhero movies, you still have to endear us to the character, especially even more because they have these superpowers. Right so they could be just a superhero. Not a regular person. But so in Spider Man. He wasn't normal kid with normal problems. Yeah, I thought that was really intentional on their part.

Alex Ferrari 14:36
I think they did it. I mean, out of all the Spider Man movies, I think they nailed and I do like to Tobey Maguire first and second one but I felt that that in Spider Man homecoming they nailed the comic book spider man there. He was a kid with me. It literally almost turned into a John Hughes movie. When you're watching it, you just feel like this really emotional attachment to his kid problems. By the way, he's also fighting villains and dealing with his form of puberty, which is superpowers.

Daniel Calvisi 15:07
Yeah, and he's not, he's not that powerful yet, you know, he's still figuring out his superpowers and making mistakes. So right,

Alex Ferrari 15:13
which was endearing. So you know, he doesn't just come out and he's perfect right away, especially with the character we have such history with, I think they did a fantastic job. But that's a really good, a really good example. Now, what are some of the common mistakes you see screenwriters make? Again and again?

Daniel Calvisi 15:31
Well, speaking of openings, you have a slow opening. Mm hmm. That just doesn't suck in the reader, it starts with maybe too much exposition. That's one description that explains too much. And it's too wordy. Those, you know, canyons of description, that black ink on the page, those super big paragraphs, that's just death to a reader, you know, that's a reason why they're going to stop reading the description and start reading only the dialogue, which I always tried not to do. But it's your job as the screenwriter to make them want to read the description, you know, to come out of the gate, because they're going to read everything, let's say the first few pages, you know, there's that bleary eyed reader who's up at 4am. And they've already read three scripts that day, and they're cracking your script. And they don't, the last thing they want to do is read another script, right. So firstly, you don't want it to be 127 pages, because they don't want to read that much. They're getting paid the same amount of money to read the 127 page script as they are to read the 95 page script. So if you can keep it lean and mean, that's great. Keep it in that 95 to 110 page range. And then if you there, so no matter the length, they're hopefully going to read at least the first two to five pages, you know, description, and dialogue. So it's your job in those opening pages that have such great, lean, terse, descriptive description that really captures tone and mood, and really makes them want to enter this world and explore this world with your lead character. And then endear us to their character. I hate to say it, but that save the cat moment. Blake Snyder was brilliant and identifying that, you know, that moment where we really do connect with the main character. And we really do root for them that rooting interest. So if you can nail that in the opening pages, that's great. That overall length is huge, having a really strong midpoint halfway through that, really ups the the stakes and the conflict and launches and new, through line unforeseen through line that's going to push to the end of the script, you know, a disaster that we didn't see coming, right? And then of course, hitting all hitting all those those great signpost speeds, you know, along the way.

Alex Ferrari 17:58
Right. And those are that what leads me to my next question, what is the structure that professional screenwriters use as a general statement?

Daniel Calvisi 18:06
Well, I call it the story map. And it's my estimation is 95% of commercial movies use this structure. Because pretty much 100% of movies that I study, and I've studied a wide swath of, and read a lot of professional scripts use this structure. It's always in the same order. So I'm not, you know, mixing and matching and placing beats all over the place. But to just mention the titles, excuse me, the titles of my beachy, my story map specsheet, it would be the opening, inciting incident, strong movement forward, end of Act One turn and decision, first trial, first casualty midpoint, declaration of war slash assumption of power, end of Act Two, turn and decision. And it's important to end those acts on a turn and direction and a decision that propels us and the main character into the next act. And then now we're in Act Three. And we have the true point of no return the climax and the epilogue, and you want to end as soon after that climax as possible. So obviously, there's a lot of lot of characteristics that go with those beats. But those are just the rough titles just to you know, get you thinking in that direction.

Alex Ferrari 19:23
Now, and this and this is the structure that you found that most professional scripts about 95% of the scripts written in Hollywood use

Daniel Calvisi 19:30
good ones, yes, professional, good ones. And there, there are professional bad ones as well. So then,

Alex Ferrari 19:35
so and I always like using this when I have when I have a screenwriting expert or story analyst on the show, I always like to bring up the script of Pulp Fiction. And what a genius script that was. And a lot of people feel that that script was not in the conventional beats. But because the story was thrown all over the place out of order but from From my understanding, it did actually hit all those beats in a weird way. And that was the genius of that script. Do you agree with that? And what's your? What's your analysis of that script?

Daniel Calvisi 20:10
Well, I haven't seen in a long time, right? I don't know. I'm guessing that it does hit every one of the beats. But the the overriding point to make is that even if a story is told, nonlinear out of narrative order, it still should hit the beats, you know, so an example I know better would be momento. No, I broke down memento, in my book story maps the films of Christopher Nolan, because I'm obsessed with Christopher Nolan, as you should be, as I should be. Yes. And so in Memento, obviously, it's told in this crazy backward structure, it's not quite backward, it's uh, it you know, it has its own unique thing going on. It's kind of a horseshoe structures is what he called it. But even though it's told backwards, quote backwards, it still hits all of those beats, you know, the inciting incident and the strong movement forward in the end of Act One and all those things. It's just the order that it's told it hits those beats. That makes sense. It makes

Alex Ferrari 21:20
perfect sense. And that that movie is, I mean, if you're a young screenwriter, he I mean, to watch to try to break down or try to analyze that movie with Will will screw with your head. Yeah, I think you should break

Daniel Calvisi 21:31
it off. It almost killed us. When we when we were doing that.

Alex Ferrari 21:34
It's it's just such a well, he's such an amazing filmmaker, and screenwriter and storyteller that he's on a different level playing field than the rest of us. Well, he's,

Daniel Calvisi 21:46
you know, he's saying, How can I make this different? You know, like, he just he just had Dunkirk this summer. And instead of telling an absolutely straightforward, historical epic biopic war film, he said, How can I make this different so he did a triptych structure where he was telling the sea air and land story. And he decided for better or worse that he was not going to give any real context to the battle, he was going to throw us into it and give us that you know, ground level view of the grant the troop, the troops view of the situation. So if they didn't know much, we didn't know much either. And he told us out of order, there was that moment where you realize that came together where you realize that it was told, slightly nonlinear, you know, because you had the the boat, the boat sequence was one day, the sequence on the beach with the Mole was one week and then the aerial sequence with with Tom Hardy and the plains was one hour, but they all did converge at a certain point, I think probably

Alex Ferrari 22:56
done 75 minute mark, and no support. Yes.

Daniel Calvisi 22:59
Okay. No problem. But anyway, you did. Without any spoilers. It's you realize the true structure. Well into the film. You know what I mean?

Alex Ferrari 23:09
It since we're on since we're on Christopher Nolan, I'm such a huge fan of his as well. What do you feel is his best screenplay and film? Wow, you had to pick one.

Daniel Calvisi 23:22
That's really tough. It's tough, but it would be between Memento the prestige. And I would have to say inception over the dark night. That dark nights amazing, but he wrote and directed inception. Right. He wrote and directed momento.

Alex Ferrari 23:45
Wow, Inception is it's such a unique film. It Yeah. It's basically the biggest budget. Independent Film. Oh, you think so? Yeah. Because of the concept. I mean, look at that, look, what he's trying to do. It does take big, broad strokes, you need big, you need a big brush. With that movie. You can't do that on an independent level. But to tell that story inside of a studio system is pretty remarkable on the last person I could even think of ever doing something like that would be Kubrick, you know, and what he used to do constantly with every one of his movies inside the studio system. And I think Nolan is one of those guys right now. That is probably the closest thing to a Kubrick we have currently in cinema Do you Would you agree with that statement?

Daniel Calvisi 24:32
I would say well, I like to say he's our modern day Spielberg just because he works with big budgets. He makes popular films with universal themes, but with incredible directing and visuals, you know? But yeah, he's a little bit more I guess cerebral than Spielberg was in his in his period when he was you know, in his 40s as as Christopher and also basically

Alex Ferrari 24:56
Kubrick and Spielberg had a kid and it's it's Nolan.

Daniel Calvisi 24:59
Yeah. He's British. He always wears dashing clothing and he looks very dapper.

Alex Ferrari 25:05
Yes, he does. Actually, I actually met him once at the powwow, I met him in the back lot of Warner Brothers. And he is he's always got a suit on. He now has no phone does not care to have. He's not on any he doesn't have email. Yeah, that's crazy. He does everything through his wife, and who's his producing partner, and she is he she's like, Look, if something's important, it'll get to me. And that's, and he goes, that way, I have more time to work. And more time to tell stories. I was like, Wow, that's so amazing. But he's in a different he's in a different world than the rest of us. In many ways. Yeah. So I'm back back to our interview. What is the what's more important in your opinion, structure or character? Which is the ultimate question in screen Wow. Or are they both combined? The same? What do you think? Well,

Daniel Calvisi 25:58
it's funny? Well, the great structure doesn't really matter if we don't believe in and root for your character and want to follow them, you know, right. So I like to say character equals action, because characters are defined by action. And then of course, the structure is the form in which you put their actions into it's not formula, its form. It's the shape of the story. So I don't know, I guess I would say, if I had to say I would say structure. If you're talking about unforeseen actions taken by characters surprise, you know, surprising us within the traditional classic structure. We don't want to be able to predict the beats you know, we don't want to be able to protect predict the turns that has to still be surprising. And that's good writing. Guy, but you know, character? Well, I guess it means you can't you can't root for

Alex Ferrari 27:03
structure.

Daniel Calvisi 27:04
you root for character. Yeah, yeah. But I if I really was pressed, I would say structure because that would mean an intriguing, surprising story that's compelling. You know, God,

Alex Ferrari 27:16
probably feel that I would probably feel that they're both without the structure. You you. I mean, can you have a movie with great characters and very loose loosey goosey structure and still be successful?

Daniel Calvisi 27:28
Yeah, I think you could, you know, if if we want to turn the page if we if we just really want to follow these characters. I mean, Paul fiction's a good example, Pulp Fiction. If you really want it to get nitty gritty, you could probably cut 10 to 20 minutes from it, you know, and still have the same story. It's definitely an hour or two or film that was made by a director who loved his dialogue and loved his characters and was willing to, to spend time with them, you know, just sit and hang out with them. But the editor in me and the script analyst, and he would like to cut time from that and pretty much cut time from almost every Tarantino film.

Alex Ferrari 28:11
Yes, he does. He does talk a bit sometimes

Daniel Calvisi 28:13
he does enjoy, you know, his his dialogue and storytelling a little bit too much. It's sometimes you know,

Alex Ferrari 28:21
I would I would I would agree with you as a critique of Tarantino if there's anything sometimes he just goes a little too far. And I think he's gotten worse over the years, like Hateful Eight. I thought he really let that go a little too much. In my opinion, but but he's still I mean, he's a once in a generation kind of filmmaker.

Daniel Calvisi 28:38
Yeah, yeah, he's still absolutely unique and and you're not gonna see anyone who's like him. You know, I didn't see Hateful Eight I was to the point where I'm to the point where I almost feel like I don't want to be tricked by him anymore into watching, you know, ridiculously long dialogue scenes and overly violent scenes. You know, I just I think he he almost is gleeful and his violence and it goes past. Like what it really needs to be you know, but he's got millions of fans and they love them. So

Alex Ferrari 29:15
yeah, and I'm looking forward to seeing his his Chuck Manson film. That should be interesting.

Daniel Calvisi 29:20
Yeah. Wow. That's interesting. So I say I will say one thing about Tarantino, which is a good exam, which is a good lesson to screenwriters is he he usually makes movies about movies or straight genre films that don't necessarily give us a lot of insight into the human condition. And that's my main problem with his him is I don't really know what he cares about in the world. You know, I don't really know who Quentin Tarantino is. I don't really get universal themes from him, other than making you You know, like, let's say the Kill Bill movies for example, I really enjoy the Kill Bill movies and they're really cool kung fu operas, you know. But I'm not taking away much about the human condition. I'm not really that invested beyond watching a cool revenge story.

Alex Ferrari 30:19
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. But I think you know, I think that Tarantino in this is just my humble opinion, I think Aaron Tinos point of view is that he his movies are a complete reflection of who he is, which is that video store guy who loves movies and thinks he thinks of cinema as a religion. And he's not really interested in delving into the human condition. He's more interested in delving into cinema, and his his pure of a cinema, cinematic director as I've ever seen in the history of cinema. Because he you're right, he does all his films, you know, after you watch Django Unchained, there's really not a lot to discuss a little bit maybe about the human condition, but generally, you know, Kill Bill, Hateful Eight, these are all cinematic operas. Yeah, about cinema, or about the making of cinema. So I think that's Are

Daniel Calvisi 31:19
you say, I mean, are you saying, not in a bad way that he's a shallow person who only cares about movies? Because that's probably accurate, right?

Alex Ferrari 31:26
I mean, no, I think, look, I think his entire world revolves around cinema. I mean, everything in his life his cinema has been for since he was a child. And so ever since I've definitely since he was in Tibet, in that video store. Me being a video store clerk for four years, I feel him. I understand. I understand that completely. But I think that that is his religion, that honestly cinema is his religion, and whether it's shallow or not, it's his point of view. And it's such a unique point of view that there is literally no one else out there on the planet on planet Earth, that has Tarantino's perspective on anything. So whether it's shallow or not, that's that's opinion, but that he really lives for cinema completely. He will die with celluloid, wrapped around him. But that's but that's who he is. And that's what he wants to me. He owns the Beverly here, theater that only shows 35 millimeter here in LA he has an insane 35 millimeter print collection. Like who has. I mean, I know Scorsese does, but you know, but like, who has the collection, like his collection will be on archive? Because there's movies that he has, uh, nobody else has. I remember listen to a story that it was a or I forget who it was. I think it was from Wu Tang. When he was scoring Kill Bill told them. Oh, man, I got this kung fu movie. I just got it on VHS is super rare. He's like, Yeah, that's nice. I got the 35 print. And he's like, whoa, okay, so I'm on a different playing field. But that's who he is, I think that think about

Daniel Calvisi 33:11
and this is I know, this is we're getting off in it. No, no, no, no, it's

Alex Ferrari 33:14
Coco. Coco.

Daniel Calvisi 33:15
What if you had a painter who only painted referential works to other painters? At one point, wouldn't you want to say well, what's what's your what is it about you that you want to put into these paintings? Or what are you saying, really about the world? I agree with that not matter because there's already a million other painters that are doing that? Well,

Alex Ferrari 33:40
there's a difference between painting and cinema cinema has so many more elements involved with just painting. So if I had a painter that, I mean, if you had a painter that would just kept rehashing any Hall on any nanny Hall on Warhol and Basquiat and Van Gogh, and all these guys, and just kept putting his that wouldn't be as interesting. It might be for a little bit, it wouldn't be that interesting. But the wealth of cinema that there is and the the masters of different masters of art, that you need to be master of the different kinds of art forms that you have to be a master of to be a filmmaker is so so vast and deep that for someone like him, he could continue to make movies forever, and never get boring because of that, that debt and then he also has that knowledge. I mean, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of every movie he's ever seen it

Daniel Calvisi 34:33
Okay, well, here's okay. Then here's my conclusion. Yes. I want to see him do other genres. I want to see him do a character drama. I want to see a comedy. I'd love to see romantic comedy, you know,

Alex Ferrari 34:46
can you imagine?

Daniel Calvisi 34:48
If he truly is a student of all cinema, not just action films, thrillers, exploitation films, you know, I want to see him go on to try some really different things, you know, I would think that would be really fascinating.

Alex Ferrari 35:02
I would agree with you. And I think he has kind of, he has stuck to a little bit of of same genre films and but he has in recent years kind of moved on to me he did the Western, he loved the Western so much that he did Hateful Eight. And you can argue Django obviously is a form of Western but more blaxploitation. So he is going to different genres within the genre world within his likes and dislikes. I'm really curious to see what he does with the Manson murders like that is insane. I can't I mean, and he wants Brad Pitt to pay Manson. You know, so I'm really curious to see where he goes. But that's the thing that how many filmmakers, can you say I'm curious to see what he does next? There's very few filmmakers out there like that, in today's world, and he's one of those guys. So I'm glad that we've gone on a complete Tarantino tangent. But I think it's

Daniel Calvisi 35:59
I would say to bring it back to screenwriting. A good thing that he does is he does focus mostly on genre films, you know, yes. The thriller to action, Kung Fu westerns, exploitation, at least for exploitation, at least for his last like, you know, three or four films. And for a screenwriter, if you're looking to break in by selling spec screenplays, it's good to focus on genre, you know, you're the thriller guy, you're the horror guy, you're the romantic comedy, woman, you know, whoever, whatever your genre is, write five or six scripts in that genre. And maybe by the time you get to the fourth or fifth, you have something that's really, really ready for submission, and could really establish you and get your foot in the door, you know, so you

Alex Ferrari 36:46
do suggest that screenwriters stick within a genre at the beginning. So they could because if you got a and I know, that's, that's like, the common mistake a lot of screenwriters make is in there. They write five screenplays, but they're a comedy, a drama, horror thriller to show range. And that's wonderful, but that's very difficult for an agent to sell.

Daniel Calvisi 37:04
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. I would say, right, you know, be willing to write different genres to find yours that you're best at, you know, but if you're, if you come out of the box, and like you love horror, that's your passion. And that's pretty much all that you want to write. It's okay to stick to horror, you know,

Alex Ferrari 37:26
right, and MB. And then eventually, you either get locked into that horror, or you move into something else, but at least you're in the picture. You're in, you're in the business at this point, you're making a living. And then if you want to go off and make something else, you can go off and make something else later, but like, you know, Sorkin and, and all these big screenwriters that, you know, they were in one form, but then they started to branch out into, you know, like Charlie Kaufman, for God's sakes. Did you ever read? I mean, I'm sure you've studied Charlie's work, right?

Daniel Calvisi 37:56
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've definitely seen his films. And I'm trying to think if I read any of his scripts, the the beast casually I didn't read any on the job. But I did. You know, I have read them.

Alex Ferrari 38:07
He's, he's pretty amazing. He's a pretty, pretty amazing screenwriter. Now, what is the difference between protect a protagonist in a film a feature film versus a television pilot?

Daniel Calvisi 38:20
Hmm, well, a feature film, the big difference between a feature film and a TV show is that closed ending that a feature film has a closed ending. So it's that it's that beginning, middle and end, and it does end. And it's a satisfying story unto itself. Whereas a TV pilot has to have some kind of open ending, some kind of cliffhanger that makes you want to come back for more, you know, as far as the main character goes, I would say probably the, the TV main character has more emotional baggage, which may not be, we may not and probably shouldn't see all of it in the pilot. So there's still stuff left to come that you can explore in the rest of season one, and then season 234, etc. So there's going to be more complexity and emotional baggage that will come out over time. I would say a nice sense of mystery also about your main character really, really helps. You know, even if there's something that you know, like, let's say in scandal, we know that she had a lie. We know that she had a an affair with the President, the United States, he actually says that he's still in love with her. But we don't know the particulars. We don't know Well, how did they meet? You know? How far did their relationship go? Where are they at at this point? Did they break up at some point? Does the wife actually know? Does anyone else know? So we're just hinting at that. And that's a pretty fascinating thing to find out. Okay. Well, she had an affair with the president United States. He's still in love with her. Wow, I really want to tune in to episode two and see see what this is all about. And then in season one they do explore when she was an intern at the White House and, or a new new hire, and you know how they actually develop their relationship? So yeah, so there's kind of more of a sense of mystery more to explore about them. That makes us curious about them. But it doesn't give us everything.

Alex Ferrari 40:26
So then would you say, like, one of my favorite television shows of all time is Breaking Bad, which on paper is the worst pitch ever? For a television show?

Daniel Calvisi 40:37
It's the best long term pitch long term pitch by Mr. Chips to Scarface, which Okay, over time, yeah, this is going to be a massive character arc.

Alex Ferrari 40:46
Right. So So can you kind of break down Walter White and how that because that pilot, honestly, I was listening to Vince Gilligan, talk about it. And they said, if you just change a few things that's in release, that's at Sundance, it's probably one of the greatest independent films of all time coming out, because it's just so brilliantly done. It was so wonderfully done. Can you can you talk a little bit about that? Or do you have enough knowledge about breaking bad to discuss it a little bit?

Daniel Calvisi 41:17
Yeah, yeah, well, I break down the pile. And in my book, story, maps, TV drama, so I have a full beat sheet of that. And I mentioned it a lot. So I'm definitely well versed on Breaking Bad. So that the famous pitch was for the show was Mr. Chips to Scarface, so basic, boring guy ends up becoming this incredible drug lord, who will kill at a moment's notice, you know? And we begin with, he's a high school chemistry teacher. And one of the great things is that motivation that he has cancer, so and, and the decision to keep it from his family at first, right? And he needs money, because he has, I think he had $7,000 in the bank, and he used all of that to buy this RV, which they're going to use to cook the method. So we know he has no money. He has cancer, he needs money. He's a family man. He has a son who has, is it cerebral palsy or something? Yes, yes. So I'm sure that that costs a lot of money. So he has a credible amount of motivation. And to the outside world, he's the nicest guy in the world, and the biggest just kind of wimp nebbish Mm hmm. And you say, Wow, this guy's going to become Scarface. That's, that's a journey I want to go on. Now, it's a risk because the executive say, Well, wait, he doesn't get there for another three, four seasons. And he's not going to get fully into, you know, murder or mode until Season five or six? Well, that's a big investment, you know. So it took someone coming off of a couple of hits shows like then scale again, in order to sell that, you know, I don't know if a completely new writer who just has one pilot is going to be able to sell that pitch, but it's still a great pitch, you know?

Alex Ferrari 43:14
Right. Right. And it's, it took it took a brave company, it took a great studio to do it, it took a very and it took them a while to find the audience. It took them a little bit, it took them a couple seasons before it started to pick up. So I didn't pick I didn't grab on to it to probably runs season four. Season Four is when I first like I'd heard about him, like let me just sit down and start watching and I binged it. And I actually got all the way to like half of season five, the last season left. And so I watched the last five or six episodes like everybody else did, but I binged everything up until that it was such an amazing script. And it says something to study, because it's such a remarkable footnote in, in television history, I think.

Daniel Calvisi 43:58
Yeah, yeah. For me, it was just the show that came on. It was either before or after, I think was after madman. Excuse me, because I was such a huge madman fan. It was Oh, what's this show? And I just started watching it and got sucked into it, you know,

Alex Ferrari 44:15
and it doesn't work without Cranston. I mean, he just was amazing in that character. Now what I'm

Daniel Calvisi 44:23
right there, the casting, excuse me. One second. Excuse me. The casting was perfect because they cast it a guy who was previously known for playing a dorky dad. Yes. Yes. So we can't imagine him becoming this heartless murderer, you know, right. That was the genius of the casting.

Alex Ferrari 44:45
They actually fit they actually said that Malcolm in the Middle was the I think it was the prequel to Breaking Bad and then that Breaking Bad was a bad dream. That he wakes up and he's like, what? I thought it was amazing. pin or something like that, and they actually shot it, they actually shot that scene like that, that Bob Newhart. It was all through the whole, the whole, the whole series was a dream. And he wakes up in bed with his old life from Malcolm in the Middle. Like I had this dream, I was a drug kingpin, and I killed people. He's like, just go back to sleep. Now, can you tell me a little bit about story maps and what you're doing with story maps?

Daniel Calvisi 45:24
Well, story maps is my structural method that I've written a number of books about. And a story map itself is a really powerful outlining tool that breaks down your narrative into its most crucial basic dramatic elements. And then the, the four to six main story engines. And the 10 to 15 major story beats those signpost beats in your plot. And you can use the story map to construct a new story, a new screenplay, TV, pilot, or even even a novel or short story. And you can use it to deconstruct an existing narrative like, you know, your favorite movie or a bunch of movies from your genre of choice to see how they were done by those professionals, or a bunch of TV pilots to help you learn how to write a TV pilot. The great thing that I always suggest that people say, okay, so structure is so important form is so important. Again, it's formula form, not formula doesn't dictate your choices. It just gives you a shape and a form to put your choices into that's based on years and years of successful structure of films and TV. Excuse me. Wow, okay, sorry about that yours. And so you can not only deconstruct your favorite films and stuff, but you can use them as structural templates. So let's say you want to write a crime John crime drama pilot, and you want your main character is going to be a guy from quote, the normal world, you can use the Breaking Bad pilot as your structural template. So you start with breaking it down into a story map, or you get my book story maps, TV drama, the structure of the one hour television pilot, and you look at that beachy for Breaking Bad. And you use that as a template to write your own script, at least the first draft, and then you can deviate from that as your story demands that allows, you know, so such a starting point, it's a great starting point. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 47:37
I'm a big I'm a big, a big proponent of, of structure, because I feel it, it's like a roadmap for you to kind of like start tossing your characters into and start moving them around. Yeah, it just gives you, you know, posts along the way as your journey makes life a little easier.

Daniel Calvisi 47:53
Yeah, and being and having come from the world of being a reader on the job for for studios and production companies and, and, you know, professional companies, I was looking for those structural signposts, you know, I was looking for an act one that was around 30 pages now, a lot of act ones, and exactly on 30 pages. And that's great. And I would give them a standing ovation for that. And that would make me feel really great. Because that was familiar, but it could end on page 29, or 28, or 31, or 32. And that would be okay, you know, as long as it was working, and in every other way. So it doesn't have to exactly be, you know, a 30 page Act One, but you want to have those story beats in there that are the classic story beats that are in 95% of movies. And the thing is that the reader is looking for that. So if you have a 47 page, act one, then that reader is going to know their red flags is going to go up and they're going to say, okay, maybe this person doesn't understand structure. Maybe they are overriding because they're in love with their, with their words, you know.

Alex Ferrari 49:07
And that's when that's when story maps or structural guy kind of helps you along the way.

Daniel Calvisi 49:13
Yeah, cuz you can look at these other examples from so many other films and you can map out your own favorite films and say, Okay, well, they had a they had an exactly 30 minute Act One. Well, there's must be something there. You know, if Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg and and Darren Aronofsky had an exact 30 minute Act One, and every one of them was working in a different genre, there must be something about that 30 minute or 30 Page Act One, so maybe I should stick within that structure.

Alex Ferrari 49:45
And then once you get three or four or five or 10 or 20 screenplays and you want to start playing around with structure and making a little bit more artistic that's that's your prerogative but I think you need to learn the rules before you break them.

Daniel Calvisi 49:56
Yeah, yeah. And and even in in mapping popular films and scripts, you do find little anomalies and things that are interesting. Like I just mapped lala land I gave that out as a freebie to my newsletter subscribers. And if you want to sign up for that it's on its act for screenplays calm.

Alex Ferrari 50:17
I'll put it in the show notes. Okay, cool.

Daniel Calvisi 50:21
So, I mapped out lala land and I originally had the turn the end of that one turn coming right at 30 minutes, because that that 30 minute arc is when they're at the party. And she she's marked him because she sees him in the 80s, the 80s cover band, right. And he had previously always thought he was such a serious musician, and she sees him in this cheesy 80s cover band. And he confronts her, they argue, and he says, Alright, I'll see you in the movies. And he stalks off, and that's like, exactly 30 minutes. And so I thought, Okay, well, that's the end of Act One. But I ended up changing the end of Act One to 25 minutes. And I'm trying to remember what was the moment I don't quite remember what the moment was, but it was. It was an earlier moment, which I felt really capped off at one it was them. Oh, it was the moment when she we we seek we finally realize the fruition of what she was looking at when she heard that and chanting, jazz music, piano music and she comes into the club. And we originally had to see her eyes looking off camera, you know, really in trance, and then we cut away. So now we come back 10 minutes later, and we see what she was looking at. And it's him at the piano. So it's that big moment where they already had their quote, meet cute, which was her flipping them off, you know, in the traffic

Alex Ferrari 51:49
and lovely LA traffic. Yes, yeah,

Daniel Calvisi 51:51
yeah, but, but this was really the fruition of them, the first moment of them romantically coming together. So I said, You know what, this was a 25 minute hack one, which may not sound like that big of a deal. But when 90 95% of act one's around 30 minutes to change that by five minutes, it can actually kind of be a big deal sometimes,

Alex Ferrari 52:16
depending on the story, depending on the story. So now I'm going to talk ask you a couple questions. I asked all of my, all of my guests. So what advice would you give a screenwriter wanting to break into the business?

Daniel Calvisi 52:30
Okay? Does it have to be one piece of advice, you can get two or three, go for it. Okay? Well read as many scripts as possible that you can get your hands on, you can download a lot of them online, you probably have friends that can send you the PDFs, read as many scripts as possible professional scripts, and break down or StoryMap as many films as possible, to really see how the professionals do it. You know, use those as templates. Don't just watch movies and think about them do written analysis of the movies, even do your own coverage reports, you know, do do a page or two of actual notes, commentary critique of an actual film. And maybe you want to take that professionally and become a reader, you know, but do written analysis, whether it's a beat sheet, or your own little essay about film, because it forces you to really take it apart, you know, to really think about that. Okay, where is the end of Act One? Is it 25 minutes? Or is it 30 minutes. And if you force yourself to decide on that and map it out, then you're really going to see how how these things work and really take them apart and see how they run.

Alex Ferrari 53:51
Perfect. Now, can you tell me? Can you tell me what book had the biggest impact on your life or career besides story maps? Of course.

Daniel Calvisi 54:00
Yes. Um, you know, I have to go back to Syd field screenplay, because I got that. I can't remember I think it was my senior year of high school actually. I think my mom found it or something and and that just was my the first time I even learned about feature film screenplay structure, you know, so that just really blew the doors open for me.

Alex Ferrari 54:24
Same here. When I read that book in college, I was just my mind was blown. Like what? Every movie is the same what it just it kind of blew my mind as well. What is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life?

Daniel Calvisi 54:39
Wow. Well, it's funny, I will say something that I'm learning now is I'm pursuing more the independent route with my own scripts and pilots. I'm working with friends to ideally produce my own work, you know, we're just Still in the development stage, but because it is really hard to if you only have a script to convince that studio production company, network, agency, whatever to take a chance on you, because it's just a script, you know, you don't have actors attached, you don't have financing behind you, you don't have a director attached audience, an audience built up anything an audience built up a track record. So I think I'm coming to the point where I'm just like, you know, what, got to do it yourself. You know, and I've been getting that note for the past 10 years. Even more, you know, especially with the dawn of YouTube, and all these streaming streaming services. Everyone keeps saying, do it yourself, do it yourself, you know, you, you can get your hands on a camera, that's, that's cinema quality. If an iPhone can shoot a movie, Now, anybody can shoot a movie, you know. Now, the problem with that is anybody can shoot a bad movie that's unprofessional and never sells, you know, and maybe goes to 10 film festivals, and you have to pay to travel to 10 film festivals. And before you're done, you're $20,000 in debt. But you know, let's look on the bright side. And say you're going to make a good movie, you know, that is going to go somewhere, or is just going to become your, your sizzle reel or resume to get you a good manager and a good agent and really get you moving. But I would say it's the do it yourself thing, you know, a script. A single great, awesome script should be enough. But the reality is, it's so competitive, that isn't always enough.

Alex Ferrari 56:43
I mean, the block, the blacklist is a good example of that how many amazing scripts are on the blacklist? And it's still hard?

Daniel Calvisi 56:49
Yeah, it's still hard for them to get produced, you know. But the only thing that you have, the only thing you need, the requirement you need to start is a great script. Okay. So if you're going to produce it yourself, for $10,000 and shoot it with your iPhone, you still need a great script. If you're going to sell it to Warner Brothers for $100,000, you still need a great script. You know, if you're going to attach an indie producer who has a track record, who won Sundance, you still need a great script. And that means you're going to have to spend years developing your craft, you know,

Alex Ferrari 57:26
Hmm. Well said, sir, well said. Now, what are three of your favorite films of all time?

Daniel Calvisi 57:33
Well, that's interesting, because I have, I always say, my two favorites, I can't choose which is my, I can't choose which is my number one favorite film. So I actually have three favorite films. They are Raiders of the Lost star, Goodfellas, and the Wizard of Oz

Alex Ferrari 57:52
great combo.

Daniel Calvisi 57:53
They're incredibly different films. I mean, you can't get any more different. You think, but, but they're so different. You know, I mean, they're so amazing that those are kind of my top three spots. And depending on how I'm feeling at the moment, one of them may be number one, or they may all three be number one, but yeah, got it. They're amazing.

Alex Ferrari 58:15
Now where can people find you and your work?

Daniel Calvisi 58:18
Well, you can find me at act for screenplays.com That's my homepage and that is a CT fo you are screenplays.com and you can learn about my consulting and you can get my books and you can get a lot of free advice and downloads and things like that. You can also sign up for my newsletter there, and I give out exclusive articles sometimes leads from producers, and sometimes free story maps through my newsletter. So you can learn about that. You can also learn about my story maps masterclass, which is an eight week program that begins with an eight week program where you develop a TV pilot or feature from the ground up from concept and logline straight through to a finished draft. You probably won't finish the eight weeks with a finished draft, but you'll definitely be on your way you'll probably finish with a rock solid story map, a great scene list, you know, comprehensive scene list and the first 10 to 30 pages of your screenplay. So then from there, you're armed to, to you're well on your way to creating a great script. And what's unique about a masterclass is that I bring in channels to actually give advice on your loglines and to actually do q&a conference calls with my writers to give them career advice as well. That's awesome. So let's say you're workshopping to log lines. You're not sure which one you're going to write. I'm going to give you notes. If it's a group class, your peers will give you notes and then these two industry professionals like right now I have a Former studio executive who was at the studio level, he was involved with films like Groundhog Day, great movie, Lord of the Rings, you know, so he was really top like President of Marketing at big companies like newline and MGM. And then I have a very successful screenwriter Jeffrey Radek, who is responsible for the final destination franchise. He's big in thrillers and horror. So these guys are going to give notes on concepts from my writers for my next for my next class. Awesome. So you get this feedback from these people who are executives, managers, assistants to agents, screenwriters, they've been in the business for a long time and they say you know what, this first logline sounds interesting, but this is more of a passion piece. This is not something that in the current marketplace from a newbie is really gonna go anywhere. But this second logline feels more commercial to me, although you maybe don't have all the elements worked out yet. So then you have this information, and you're going to decide whether you want to go with the first concept or the second concept. Very cool.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:06
That really helps. Well, Dan, man, thank you so much for being on the show. You've dropped a bunch of knowledge bombs on the indie film hustle tribe, so I truly appreciate your time.

Daniel Calvisi 1:01:16
Well, thank you. Thanks for having me on. My goal was to drop knowledge bombs.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:19
And you did sir.

Daniel Calvisi 1:01:22
That was achieved.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:24
I want to thank Dan for coming on and dropping those knowledge bombs on us and I hope you guys got something out of it, you know, after he's been reading just 1000s of screenplays. Over the course of his career. I think he has a decent grasp on story. And if you guys want to check out his books, just head over to the show notes at Indie film hustle.com forward slash BPS zero 27 for all the links to all of his work, and that does it for another episode. So as always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the bulletproof screenplay podcast at bulletproof screenplay.com That's B u ll e t e r o f s CR e n PLA y.com

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