Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 765: The Writer's Room Survival Guide with Niceole R. Levy

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IFH 765: The Writer's Room Survival Guide with Niceole R. Levy · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
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  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, Episode number seven
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: sixty five. If you're too rigid in your thinking, you
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: may miss some wonderful opportunities for storytelling. Vince Gilligan.
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  Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Back Alley and Hollywood. It's the Indie
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  Speaker 1: Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
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  Speaker 1: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
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  Speaker 1: the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Muscle podcast.
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  Speaker 2: I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Today's show is
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  Speaker 2: sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur. How to turn
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  Speaker 2: book dot com. That's film Bizbook dot com. Well, guys,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: today we are going to go deep into the writer's
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: room with our special guest, Levy and Nicole has a
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: brand new book called The Writer's Room Survival Guide, and
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Nicole and I get deep, deep, deep into the weeds
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: on what it's like to be in a writer's room,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: How you get into a writer's room, how do you
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: get a job, maintain a job, work your way up
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: in the writer's room to different levels, to eventually becoming
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: hopefully the EP or executive producer showrunner of a show,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: and so much more so, if you've ever been interested
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: in what it's like being inside a network or streaming
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: writer's room, this is the episode for you. So, without
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: any further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Nicole Levy.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: I'd like to welcome to the show, Nicole Leevy.
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: How you doing, Nicole, I'm great. How are you doing.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: I'm doing great. Thank you so much for coming on
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: the show.
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: I'm excited to talk to you about your new book here,
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: The Writer's Room Survival Guide. I've had many showrunners on
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: the show, many TV writers on the show. I'm fascinated
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: by the writer's room because I've only worked in the
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: background of a writer's room, meaning in the office seeing
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: what the writers do when I was starting out as
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: an office PA and seeing, you know, talking to some
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: of the writers and supervising writers and what was it
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: what's it called when the clean up guy the guy
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: comes in and kind of cleans up dialogue, and.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: He was in the room, like he was not even
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: in the room. He was like outside doing more technical like.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: A consult more like a consulting producer.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think something like that.
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: We're going to talk about the hierarchy as well, because
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: there's way too many producers. I'm just going to throw
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: that out there, way way too many producers.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: And I know there's a mystery behind that as well.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: But before we get started, how did you and why
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: God's screen Earth did you want to get into this insanity,
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: insanity that is the film industry?
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: Well, the why of it is really I grew up
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: in the middle of nowhere, in this little town in
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: the Mohave Desert called Ridget and it's like one hundred
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: and ten hundred fifteen degrees every day in the summer,
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: and so literally I spent summer vacation in front of
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: the television because nobody was going outside till the sun
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: was going down, and just was in love with it.
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: Was in love with movies and TV shows and all
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: the things. And my parents were older parents, so I
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: got to watch stuff that none of my friends got
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: to watch because my parents were exhausted by the time
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: I came along. So it was sort of like, yeah, yeah, whatever,
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: we don't care that shows to grown up for her,
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: and so I just loved it. And I originally thought
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: my love of all of that meant I was going
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: to be an actress, which now seems like an even
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: crazier career choice, but at the time felt very reasonable, obviously,
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: and my parents were horrified, of course, but I was
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: very independent spirit. And so I moved to LA and
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: I went to the American Academy and Dramatic Arts. And
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: it was really while I was there, and while I
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: was performing all the time, that I realized I was
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: in love with storytelling, not necessarily with for for me.
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: And so that's when I made the transition into writing,
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: and uh managed to get some some decent day jobs
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: and put myself through USC and here I am.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: So what was so?
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: What was the when you went when you got your
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: first writing gig, like someone was paying you to type.
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: I'm assuming not to put pen to paper, because you're
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: not that old, but but to actually type. What was
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: it like that first day walking into the room or
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: did you start off as you know, a writer's assistant
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: or something else, but just the first time you were
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: ever in that room, when you walked in for the
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: first time, what was that like?
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Because I love I love letting other writers know.
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: The feeling of what what the normal feelings are, and
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: they're they're not crazy to.
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: Feel them absolutely. Now, by the way, I do have
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: writer friends who still write pen to paper and then
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: type it up, so it's necessarily listen.
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: Eric Roth still uses DAWs, so he has a machinist
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: doss and then he has it.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: He has a floppy disks over to his assistant to
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: translate it over to final draft. I'm not kidding you,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: So he did doom. Doom was written in that.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: So so I got my first writing job, really after
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: about ten years of actual effort, overnight overnight, overnight overnight success. Yeah,
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: I because I had hefty student loans from USC I
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: could not afford to work as an assistant. It just
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: was not realistic. I could not keep a roof over
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: my head and somehow maintain those loans so that nobody
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: came after me to pay them back. And so I
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: did a whole bunch of day jobs, some of them
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: industry connected, some of them not, and you know, wrote
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, and finally,
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: after ten years and two network writing programs, I got
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: an opportunity. I did this CBS Writer's mentoring program and
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: I did NBC's writers on the Verge.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: And.
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: You know, got a showrunner meeting and it was with
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: Ken Sanzel, who was running Ironside that year, and I
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: got a phone call at lunch saying, congratulations, you just
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: got an offer to join a writer's room. And of
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: course it's literally just you can't even believe it, like
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: you've worked so hard for it, and the fact that
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: someone's actually said yes, I would like you to come
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: to my writer's room, it's a little like is that real?
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: Is it real?
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: Oh? Is this? Oh? Is this.
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: Well?
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: And the funny thing was, because I was at lunch,
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: my phone was in my purse because Ken had said
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: it would take a couple of dates for him to decide,
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: and so when I went to take my purse my
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: phone out after lunch, there were like seventeen miss calls
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: and I was like, well, this is either really good
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: or real bad. And it was really good. And so
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: you know that first day. Basically what happens when you
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: finally get a job as a staff writer. You will
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: get a start email from the showrunner's assistant or the
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: writer's assistant and it's like, hey, welcome to X show.
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: This is where our office is going to be this
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: is what time we start the first day. If you
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: have any requests for special things, let me know, and
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: like special things you just you know, special things like,
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: you know, do you need an ergonomic keyboard?
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: Do you need whatever? I can't eat? Green? Eminem's start
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: becoming a diva right off the bat.
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: That probably not a great ask when you're a staff writer,
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: Like I was afraid to actually put my cliff bars
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: on the food menu in the writer's room and one
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: of my.
• 8:51
  Speaker 6: EPs came in.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: And wrote them on. It was like, will you stop
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: buying your own cliffbars? Put them on the big So yeah,
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: it's a.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: Little but let me ask you a question.
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  Speaker 5: So you said, ten years of the hustle of struggling
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: to try to get noticed. There's so many people listening
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: right now. Who are writers who are in that boat
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: right now, who are just writing and writing and knocking
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: on doors and nothing is happening for them.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: How did you get through a decade?
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: Because generally I always tell people how to ten year
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: plan and if it doesn't, if it hasn't panned out
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: after ten years, you might want to rethink situations unless
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: it's something that's still burning inside you.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: Because I forgot who it was, oh with Taylor Sheridan.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: Teryl Sheridan was saying.
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: He goes, I've never seen anyone, anyone.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: Pop after ten or fifteen years of butting their heads
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: against the wall.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: Because it doesn't happen.
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: He goes after maybe seven or eight years, but after
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: like fifteen years, if it's not, if it hasn't happened by.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Then, the business will tell you. He said.
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: The business will tell you in his opinion, because he
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: by the way, he busted his asses an actor for
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: so long before he finally started to write and he's
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: doing okay.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: Now he's doing it right now.
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: But he goes, after fifteen years, you really need to
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: really reevaluate what you're doing. It might be another aspect
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: of the business, but it might not be what you
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: want to do. So I have to ask that question
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: to you, like, how did you keep going after all
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: of this time?
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's a really valid question. And one of
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: the things I tell the writers that I mentor now
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: is you have to know what you're willing to sacrifice
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: and where your line's in the stand and Only you
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: know that, right, Only you know what's the final struggle
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: for you when it comes to doing this. You know, well,
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: I have lots of friends who have succeeded in this
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: business while being married and having families. I did not
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: feel that I had the space for that. So it
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: is only now that I am established that I am
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: taking time to try to like go on dates and
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: do all those things. Because I was so this was
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: everything in my life and I just didn't have time
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: for anything other than keeping a roof over my head,
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: my friends, and that's like, that was it. That was
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: my life. You know. I got to about year nine,
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: and I guess you're eight. It was year eight, and
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: I did get worried. I did start to think, like,
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: what if this is never going to happen? Because I
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: kept getting almost right, like I got a play produced
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: and then nothing came of it. I got I was
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: in the finals of the Disney Fellowship, but I didn't
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: make the last cut. So it was like that almost
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: thing right where you just it's so painful, and I
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: the only other thing I'm great at in the world
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: is making desserts, and so I started a baking business
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: and that was my father and I was working it
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: diligently in what little free time I had while also
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: writing and doing all those things. And I thought, you know,
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: I could do this. I could make I could make
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: a life from this. But what I knew to be
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: true was I was going to write the rest of
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: my life, whether I ever got paid for it or not.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: There are thousands of pages of material on my old
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: hard drives that no one's ever gonna pay me for
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: that I had to write. I mean I used to.
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: When I couldn't think of a new specscript to write.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: I wrote fanfic like age Age is like thousands of
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: pages of fanfic right all in those hard drives. I
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: did it because I had to write, so I wasn't
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: going to stop writing. And so I was like, Okay,
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: you can hang in and keep trying to get someone
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: to pay you for it, but you have this other
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: thing that you know you could do if you had to.
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: And literally, what I always say is the universe was like, oh,
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: she means that we got to get her off this
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: baking thing because it's taking up too much of her time.
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: So I was at the kitchen all day baking to
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: go to a food show because I was going to
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: start trying to get business to do, like wedding favors,
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: and there I came home from the kitchen and there
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: was an email from the CBS Writer's Mentoring program that
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: I had applied to for what was going to be
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: the last time, saying, congratulations, you're a semi finalist. Please
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: call us to schedule your personal interiew.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: And I gotta believe after being because I look very
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: similar to you. I man.
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: I to so many close calls over the course of
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: when I was starting out. I mean from the earliest
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: part of my career, when I was meeting some of
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: the biggest movie stars in the WARLD. I wrote a
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: book about I almost made a twenty million dollar movie
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: for the Maffia, and I was flowing out to la
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: and I met the biggest movie stars in the world.
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: I'm at the Chateau Marmano at the IV having dinner
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: with like billion dollar producers.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: I had all of that happen to me early in
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: my life.
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: Was twenty five twenty six at that time, so that
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: was the beginning of many close calls. I was always
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: I was almost on Project green Light, I was almost
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: on the on the show on the lot the Spielberg Show,
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: I was I was almost on the So there was
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: so many close calls. Oh, the money's about to drop
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: for this movie.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: It's almost gonna drop. The money is there. So there's
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: so many close calls.
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: And at a certain point you just have to go
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: like when is this going to happen for me? And
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: then you have to figure out what are you willing
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: to keep doing? And I found my happiness and I
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: was lucky. I was in post, so post was my fallback.
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: So I was always in the business.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Oh that I was always It's always always had food
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: on the the pull on the table. And I was
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: at a roof over my head.
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: And my student loans were extremely low, thank god, only
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: like eighteen grand or twenty grand or something.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: Can you imagine that?
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: No, that was barely a semester of loans for me.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: I went to Full Sale, not USC.
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: I still feel that my time at Full Sale was
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: fun but fairly worthless. And I'd love to hear if
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: you thought your time at USC was worth the money.
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: I'm sure it was a fantastic education. Was it worth
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: the money? Was it worth the ROI the return on investment?
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: I have to ask you that question before we continue.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: Okay, I would say this, I did not go to
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: film school, contrary to what most people assume. I was
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: an English major as an undergrad, and I did the
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: creative writing program in the English department, and then I
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: did what used to be at USC and they gave
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: the program to another university. It was called the Master
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: of Professional Writing program. So you did everything right. You
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: did technical writing, you did I would tree, you did playwriting,
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: you did the whole game. And why I say it
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: was worth it is that I actually paid my bills
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: with my degrees until I became a TV writer. All
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: the jobs I got after that were jobs I got
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: because of my degree. I wasn't like, Ooh, I have
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: this fancy film and TV degree, but I'm working in
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: an office typing. It was like I was an assistant
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: editor in a magazine I did.
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: So you were writing, so you were you were being
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: paid as a writer, but just not the kind of
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: writing that you wanted.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: All that.
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: So that's that's that I feel, in many ways is
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: almost more frustrating than if you were working as a
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: barista a Starbucks and wanted to write.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: Because this is my personal.
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: Because I from my experience being an editor, working with directors.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Helping other filmmakers fulfill.
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: Their dreams and fixing mistakes that they made in post production.
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: Being so close to it was almost like it was
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: so angry about that. So many times I became very bitter.
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: It was very angry and bitter filmmaker for many, many years.
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: So I can imagine like I'm working, I'm writing, but
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: just not doing the kind of work.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: That I want to do. So was that frustrating for
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: you or did you look at it completely differently?
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: I looked at it differently, I think mostly because I
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: felt really lucky to be with the people I was
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: with and they were all really supportive, Like I have
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: been very fortunate to not have a bunch of people
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: in my life who were like, yeah, sure you're going
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: to make it as a TV writer, Like I was
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: working at the magazine when I became a finalist in
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: the Disney Fellowship, and everybody was like rooting for me
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: and in it, And so I think I just felt
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: like I had it brought good people into my life,
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: so it felt worthwhile to do. Certainly, there were day
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: jobs that I wish I couldn't quit five minutes after
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: I started. Oh, yeah, but those were mostly the non
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: writing jobs, honestly, like it was, and it was jobs
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: where I mean, I tell this story famously that like
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: the last day job, I had my boss yelled at
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: me for caring too much about how I did my job,
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: which is what made me go home and apply to
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: the CBS program for the last time, because I was like,
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: I mean, I can't do this job, so I hate
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: this job, so I got to do something, so I applied. Meg.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: That's that's fascinating. Now.
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: Is there something that you wish someone would have told
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: you at the beginning of of your career that you
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: that you wish if you could go back and just say, listen,
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: you really need to figure it, know this. What is
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: that one thing that you wish someone would have told
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: you at the beginning.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: I wish someone would have told me at the beginning
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: that that I could spend more time on my life
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: than I did. I feel like I just I felt
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: so like because I didn't have contacts and I didn't
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: have anyone supporting me, and it was sort of like
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: it's all me and I just was so all in
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: that there's so many things I missed out on that
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: I think would have been fun experiences and would have
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: been great. Now would I go back now and change them? No,
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: because it might change something about my life now, Thank
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: you the butterfly.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: But had I had someone said to me then and
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: been able to get through to me and said, I
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: know how important this is to you. But you can
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: go to the concert with your friends. You don't have
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: to stay home and write every single day like go
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: have with your.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: A little bit of it, a little bit of it,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: but littld it about.
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: But for us in this business, we have to be obsessive.
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: This is not just a job. It's an obsession. It
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: is appalling. It is that thing that drives as when
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: you wake up in the morning, is the first thing
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: you think about when you go to bed at night,
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: is the first thing the last thing you think about.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: And I tell people all the time that there's there's
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: an insanity to what we do. And it's an insanity.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: There is no logical conversation to be said that I'm
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: going to go right for television. That's generally not a
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: conversation you have with your parents or with your friends.
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: I remember when I told my friends in high school,
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: IM like, yeah, IM gonna go be a filmmaker. They're
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: like what, Like it's not And that was in the
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: nineties when it really wasn't a thing.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Now everybody's a PROUTCT creator and we all.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: Got cameras and I was an absolute looming It is
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: not there.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: You have to have a sense.
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: Of insanity to believe that you can even achieve this
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: kind of dream.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: But that is do you agree, yes, absolutely? Because I mean, look,
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: I had, you know, black Southern parents. They were like,
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: don't you want to just get a teaching credential?
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: Though I didn't talk.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: To I was like, well at school, like just go
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: to school, Like you don't have to become a lawyer,
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: but just go to school in case you need to
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: become a lawyer. Like they were classic in that regard.
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: And I remember when I got my job on Ironside,
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: the first thing I did was call my mom and
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: tell her, and she just broke down crying on the phone.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: She was like, I'm so proud of you. I'm so
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: proud of you. And I called my big brother and
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: he was like wow. He was like, I guess you
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: were right. I guess it worked out because it took
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: that for everybody to find like exhale, because you know,
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: they were always having conversations behind my back about like
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: She'm gonna be able to take care of herself, like
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: tell she I forgot to buy a house, like all
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: those things.
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: My parents still my parents didn't know what I did.
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: My father had like little to no understanding of what
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: I did as a director twenty years in twenty years
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: and he's just like, I know that you make money.
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: I know someone pays you. I know you have a
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: roof over the edge, you have a family, so you're
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: obviously doing something. So I took him to the set
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: one day and he saw me on a commercial set.
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: He's like, he went back and told the whole family.
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: Everyone just listens to him. He just tells everybody what
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: to do, and they go around and they do what
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: he says. He goes, that's what his job is because
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: he could. They just couldn't grasp it. And then I
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: told him, oh, I'm going to podcast. He's like why
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: he goes I interview people what Like it's like I
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: barely grasp what you're doing as a filmmaker now, you're
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: a podcaster. And the only time I made sense to
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: him is when I interviewed Billy Crystal, and I only time,
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: the only time I called him up and I said, hey,
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: I just talked to Billy Crystal because did you what?
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: He goes, Yeah, and I had Billy Crystal send you
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: a little message and here it is, and Billy was
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: so sweet and he actually gave him like a shout
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: out to my dad, and my dad was just like
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: the craziest. It's like he goes, Alex talks to famous people.
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: So now now I'm a bad guy. I'm a filmmaker.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you talked to film this, Yes, you know. When
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: I got Iron Side, so Blair Underwood was our lead,
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: and my mother just adored and is, by the way,
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: one of the loveliest human beings in this business. And
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: he was so sweet, like every time I'd go to
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: set to observe, he'd be like, how long till one
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: O nine? And I'd like we had a countdown in
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: my first day. He's like, what, oh nine, It's finally
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: so lovely, and so we took a picture and my
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: mom printed it out and put it in a frame
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: on a table in our house.
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: Like if it was like it was Obama, it was
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: like Obama or the president and.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: It was next to the.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: It was hilarious. I was just like, wow, Mom, I
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: was like, you realize people are going to think that's
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: my boyfriend or something. She was like, that's fine, they
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: can think that. I was like, I don't think missus
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: Underwood will like that. Okay, But to your you know,
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: to your point, there is that level of like you,
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: it takes so much. The cost is so high, right
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: because you are constantly creating things that you believe in
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: that you pour your soul into that someone else is
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: going to be like eh, like it's it's it's debilitating
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: in a way emotionally, so you have to be a
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: little bit crazy to want to do it. But then
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: right when you get that call of like you get
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: to come work in this room and you get to
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: go for that first day, which to get back to
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: one of your first questions, it's like you walk in
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: and you're a little bit like waiting for someone to
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: be like just kidding, just.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: Kiddy, security security getting a call out of here.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: But like you could show up and they take you
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: to an office and your name's on it and you're
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: just like, oh my god, this is real. This is real. Also,
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: you're terrified because everybody's like, how do I prove I
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: deserve to be here? I mean, I feel like that's
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: the right attitude to have. I've certainly encountered people who
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: are like, now they're all going to see how brilliant
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: I am, and you're not going to do well.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: That's let's see how this works out for you. I see, Yeah.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: It's really go in and proved that they made the
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: right choice.
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: It's it's interesting because you feel like at any moment
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: security is going to come in. It's like security police
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: escort Nicole and her cliff bars out of the building,
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: out of the building, just get.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: Her out of the building.
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: And by the way, that imposter syndrome is rampant throughout
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: our industry, from the biggest to the smallest person in
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: the business. Uh. And I've had the pleasure of talking
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: to some really you know, legendary people and they still like,
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: oh yeah, I still get a nerm one. But you're
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: you're this person, You've created this show, are you? Why
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: would you be nervous like you've I felt like saying,
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: I'm like, you made like twenty million dollars a week.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: What's wrong with you? Like, you've made.
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: It, you have a ride already, but in their mind
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: it's a completely different perspective. So it's really always interesting.
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: It's all about perspective a lot of times. Yeah, with
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: these with creative but at the end of the day,
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: a writer, no matter if you want an oscar an
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: Emmy made the best show of the world. When you
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: sit down in front of a blank screen with a
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: blinking cursor, we all go through the same process.
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. I posted on Twitter about the fact that you know,
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: I just wrapped another room. So I wrote my nineteenth
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: episode of television and literally had the same thought every
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: time of like, oh what if I can't do it
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: this time? And it's like, there's eighteen eighteen pieces of
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: evidence that you can do it, but that one time.
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: But I just have you seen me Paul Newman Joyne
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: Woodward documentary.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's on my list.
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: It's amazing. And the big takeaway from it is Paul
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: Newman literally suffered from imposter syndrome his entire career, and
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: I was like, if Paul frigged Newman could never get
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: past imposter syndrome. There's no, hope, we all just to
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: render it is a permanent condition because wow, Paul Newman,
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: Paul Newman, all new women so imposter syndrome. Just as
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: it's real, we all have it. It's not going to go.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's crazy, that's I mean. I mean to a
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: certain extent, I think.
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: I mean, even Denzel will like walk on set, or
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: Meryl Street will walk on set, and they might have
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: a little bit of it, but at the certain point,
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: you just like, I've been down this road a few times.
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: I think I'm good. I think I'll figure it out.
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: Maybe there'll be a challenge about what the circumstances are, but.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: They have to have some sort of confidence in the
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: ability to.
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: Like like you, like I can write an episode of television,
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: like I've done it enough when I was not getting
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: paid and when I was getting paid, that I have
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: the skill sets to do so, Like I can walk
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: on a set and go I could probably direct this
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: scene without a shot list and just roll with it,
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: as I've been on set a lot enough to feel
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: comfortable in my skill set that I've built. Does it
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: mean that if Meryl Streep walks into the scene that
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: I'm directing, I'm not going to my pants. Probably probably
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: probably because I have had the opportunity to work with
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: like Oscar Windard sometimes and you just sit there like
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: you work with Tarantino.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: Like who am I? Who am I?
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's just the mental the mental games we
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: are just play with ourselves.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: Oh, I know my first episode of television, which was
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: on Iron Side, Robert Forrest or guest star for us.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: I've worked with Robert, That's what I was talking about.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: And I literally I walked up and I was talking
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: to him and I was like, oh, it's so great
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: to have you here, mister Forrester. And he was like,
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: you can call me Robert, and I was like, I
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: don't think I can't. I'm gonna call you mister Forrest.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: I'm telling you.
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: I directed Robert in a film that I was doing,
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: And my god, it was just the level of professionalism,
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: the gravitas of his his weight of just walking in
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: the room was remarkable.
• 28:54
  Speaker 7: And he was so humble, so so so humble, but absolutely,
• 28:59
  Speaker 7: as they say, a mensch. He was wonderful, just wonderful
• 29:03
  Speaker 7: to work And when you when you work with that
• 29:05
  Speaker 7: level of professionalism, you go, oh.
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: This is what it's supposed to be like, not what
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: I've been doing, Oh this is this is.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: At that level okay.
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: And I'm assuming as a writer too. When you work
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: with certain writers or if you're in a room with
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: a certain showrunner, you go, oh, this is what it's
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: like to work at this level. Because there's many different rooms,
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: many different shows, many for different skill sets within those
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: bease showrunners and how they run a room and so on.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: But when you get to work with high caliber, even
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: if you're another person in the room with you, another writer,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: another staff writer, go oh that's what Okay, I gotta
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: get my game up.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it is absolutely that. Look I I and
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: I talk about this in the book that like every
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: room you're in is an opportunity to learn how to
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: do your job better and to learn what you never
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: want to do when you're the boss.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Right, will be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: Because every room has some foibles, Like I've never been
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: in a perfect room, but I've been in really good
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: rooms and I've been like, oh, this is how you
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: get a story, break to move faster. Oh, this is
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: how you get clarity for everybody. Oh this is how
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: you help a writer who needs help without humiliating them.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, this is right.
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: So you learn all those things right watching now when
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: you're in the not so good rooms, that's where you
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: learn how. Oh I never want to treat people like this.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: Oh I never want to read ten pages of a
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: script and throw it out because it's dehumanizing to the
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: entire staff. Like it's you see those things and you're like, nope, nope,
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: not going to operate that way, I hope, because there
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: are plenty of people who absorb those things and then
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: take them with them and then they run toxic rooms.
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: So the goal is to watch the good people do
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: it well.
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: And let me ask you this session, since you brought
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: it up that you've been in I'm assuming a toxic
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: rum or two in your day, how do you, as
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: a writer survive that kind of room?
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: Because it is.
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: You know I've been with. I mean there's I've been
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: a few toksic people in this business. I know it's surprising.
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: But oh, by the way, some egos too. But so
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: I know what it's like to work with toxic people
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: when you don't have power, Yes, when you have power,
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: if you're the director or the showrunner or a staff
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: writer who has some gravitas to them.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: It's different and you're still dealing with toxic people.
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: You have a little bit more armor, you have a
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: little bit more skill set on how to deal with it.
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: But when you're starting out and you have no power
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: and you have to deal with toxic people above you,
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: what suggestions do you have for young writers to survive
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: a toxic room, not just for one episode but for
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: a season.
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: Right, absolutely, So one of the first things I'm like,
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: just be honest with yourself that like, oh, this is
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: not a great situation. I think sometimes we especially I
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: will say writers who come from underrepresented communities historically tend
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: to like I can make it better. If you're a
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: staff writer, You're not going to make it better. It's
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: it is the environment that it is, right, So just
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: accept that this is a situation out of your control.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: And then you know, one of the big tricks it
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: depends on if the toxicity is at a to a point,
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: and then the rest of the people in the room
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: are good people just trying to survive too, that's going
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: to be your lifeline, right because usually hopefully there's someone
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: in that room whose job is to look out for
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: the lower level writers anyway, or who just is that
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: kind of person, and so they're going to like check
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: in on you, make sure you're okay, make it find
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: a way to say to you, oh, I know, this
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: is bad shit crazy. If you need to talk about something,
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: you can come to me. It's okay, even if they
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: don't use those exact words. Right. If you are in
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: a place where and thankfully I have never experienced this,
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: but I've heard about these rooms from friends of mine
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: where it's just a constant one upsmanship, everybody out for
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: themselves because the showrunner is sort of pitting everything. It's
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: a little hunger Games room. Right. The best advice I
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: have is look to the community that you have built
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: as a writer, right, look to the people who've mentored
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: you or two other writers you know at your level,
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: and just go to them. And you don't have to
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: name name. You can just be like, my god, this
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: thing happened in the room today. I don't know how
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: to deal with it and get advice. You can do
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: it real time. I once was in a situation where
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: somebody was in my office saying a lot of things
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: that made me very uncomfortable because of I was a
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: staff writer and they were complaining about people above me,
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: and I have no power in this situation, right, And
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: so I literally, because I was already at my computer anyway,
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: typed one of my friends who was an upper level
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: writer and was like, this is happening right now. What
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: do I do? And she was like, you go, uh
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: huh uh huh really wow, don't agree to anything and
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: find a way to get out of that office when
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: you can. And so I was like, oh, I got
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: to go to the bathroom and like got up and
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: left the office. And it's like I wouldn't have thought
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: of that because I was panicking, right right. But I
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: went to a writer who had been in a situation
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: or knew people who had been in it. And that's
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: how we help each other. We we, you know, sort
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: of brainstorm solutions to terrible situations because sometimes you don't know.
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: Sometimes you literally walk in the door and all you've
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: heard are good things about somebody, and then you get
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: there and you're like, this is not this is not good.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: This is not what was advertised. This was definitely not.
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: It's almost kind of like prison yardish, whereas in that
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: you were like out in the yard and you got
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: to I gotta find a friend. I got I gotta
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: find a friend or a group of people that I
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: can connect with to protect ourselves from this onslaught, even
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: if it's quiet, and nobody needs to know that we're
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: a team or helping each other, because if that comes out,
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: then that becomes a whole thing. So these are politics
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: that no one talks about. These are things that generally,
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: other than your book, people generally don't talk about the
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: politics of a room how to handle toxic environments. And
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure how much different these toxic environments are
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: now versus five to eight years ago, where you know,
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: people were getting away with murder, literally saying whatever they
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: wanted to say, do whatever they wanted, and because they
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: were the powerhouses, they could get away with it. Where nowadays,
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure, and you're in the rooms now, is it.
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: I'm assuming that that toxicity is kind of lessened. It's
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: not accepted as much as it used to be. The
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: crazy showrunner yelling and screaming and throwing things and being
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: abusive to the writers like they show in movies is
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: not as accept as they used to be, just like
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: it is and accepted to be a yeller on set anymore. Like,
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: you know, James Cameron's legendary for what he's how he
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: You know, everybody everyone has a James Camra story. Everyone's
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: I got. I got twenty of them myself. They're fantastic stories.
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: I've heard that he's less, he's he's calmed himself with age,
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: but he's still James Cameron, right, and he will the
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: teeth will come out if you rub them the wrong way.
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: But it's not like it used to be where there
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: was just like you know, I had friends of my
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: who worked on Titanic. He would he would literally just
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: have fire departments, departments because he said, you know what,
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: you screwed up on the plate, all twenty of you
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: gone get me twenty And you like, that's not as
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: accepted anymore. So what's your advice for that?
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: I you know, I would say I definitely think it
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: is not as accepted anymore. There are still people working
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: in this business who don't treat people who work for
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: them great. And I think it's you know I talk
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: about in the book again, it's one of those things, right.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: I grew up in a military family. I used to
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: work in law enforcement. It takes a lot to shock
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: me in terms of commentary those kinds of things. So
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: my skin for that kind of stuff might be very
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: thick compared to somebody else. So the way I look
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: at it is my job is not to constantly beyond
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: people and be like, I can't say that, I can't
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: say that, you can't say that. But if I'm in
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: the room and I see someone say something that doesn't
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: bother me but clearly make someone else sort of ringe,
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: my job is to intercede there and just be like, guys, guys,
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: we're gonna end up in an HR meeting. Let's move on,
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: like try to steer the conversation away, or to say like, later,
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: if I'm worried about putting that writer on the spot,
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: go in later and be like, guys, let's not joke
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: about that kind of stuff. Okay, I saw a couple
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: of people feel a little uncomfortable, like, let's not do that.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: And so as you, as you become a more upper level,
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: that's how you can help in those situations in a
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: way that you can't when you're a lower level. Right,
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: because you don't have you're always afraid you're going to
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: get fired. People are afraid to report because studio HR
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: still works for the studio and people are not sure
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: how much they trust it. But you can be the
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: person who can tell that it's causing a problem and
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: try to do it because you have a lower risk.
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: If I, as a cop piss off the showrunner and
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: get fired, I'm still getting paid, right, they got to
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: pay my contract out. The staff writer can't do that,
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: and so you have to be willing to take the
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: hit to help protect those people as you rise up
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: the ladder. When you're a lower level writer. Though, what
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: I say is if you're in an environment it's a
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: little tough, or you're just in a great environment, but
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: you have a tough day, right, Sometimes even really good rooms,
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: like an episode falls apart and the show runner's pissed
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: that you got to rebreak it and all of that.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: If you're the kind I'm the room all I always
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: have it. I'm a natural boarding room mom. And because
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: I bake right, I bring pickies into the I do
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: all kinds of stuff, like do what is in your
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: nature to try to make that room a better place.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: If you're the person who loves to organize things, be like, hey,
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: once we survive the shitty rebreak. Should we all go
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: have happy hour at blahdah blah and plan it. Be
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: the person like, do what you can to keep the
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: morale up. And that's fine to do at a lower level.
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: Nobody's going to be like, you know, who the hell
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: do you think you are? And you're not trying to
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: boss around people who are above you. You're just being
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: a nice person. And if your room is having a
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: really difficult day, especially if it's a good room that's
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: having a bad day, don't be afraid to be the
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: person who says something ridiculous. Like I've been in a
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: room where the break was just completely stalled. Everybody was
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: starting to snap at each other, and I was like,
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: what if we just drove a truck through the building.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: And everybody was like what I was like, I mean,
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: I'm just saying, you gotta get in the building. Let's
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: start trucking it. And it got everybody talking. It lets
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: some of the air out of the room and like
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: people could breathe again, you know. So you can find
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: little ways like that to help. But if look, if
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: it's a full toxic situation. And I do hope we
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: have fewer of those rooms now, but it does still happen.
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: You just got to get through it. You do not
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: know job is forever. No job is forever, right, So
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: if you don't want to report, if it doesn't feel
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: like the kind of thing that you want to go
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: to studio HR about, then just tell your reps. I'm
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: going to tough it out. I'm going to get through
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: the season and then I need to go. I don't
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: want to do this job right.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: And it's it's a thing that you just have to look.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: We all, especially at the beginning, we have to go
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: through crap.
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: This business is, you know, call paying your dues, and
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: it's a little bit different than it used to be.
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: You know, I had my first boss that was bipolar
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: and didn't take his meds and he would.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: Yell at me.
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: I was working at a commercial house and I was
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: the vault guy and I would get yelled at and
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: then the next morning he would walk in and it's
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: the sweetest human being in the world. So it's like
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: a complete literally a bipolar like did he take his
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: meds or not today kind of scenario and.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: The verbal abuse that I got was what.
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: Was that to I was making twenty some thousand dollars
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: a year, I was in the vault room, and I
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: was in Florida where there was not a whole lot
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: of stuff going on in production. So I was like,
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: I gotta just tough it out. And that's exactly what
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: you do, Like I got, I gotta, I'm gonna learn
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: this add and I'm going to get out of here, right,
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: And that's what I did. So the second that there's
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: toxicity or things that come at you, which this business
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: is going to throw at you, you've got to kind
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: of sit down, take the hits as long as it's
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: nothing you know too and out there like you were saying,
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: but take the hits and keep moving forward, because take
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: this opportunity for what it is and learn from it.
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: And like you said, learn what to do, what not
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: to do, how to handle people like this, what.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: You should do. It's all learning lessons, all learning everything.
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: All the negative stuff that's happened to me in my
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: career has built me to who I am today. And
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: I would not and I wouldn't turn it and I
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: wouldn't I would not not have those experiences.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: Now, look, you learn from those experiences, absolutely, And I
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: just tell people, you know, it's if you are working
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: with someone and I don't care if they're a producer
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: or a you know, showrunner or whatever, who is creating
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: a work environment in which you don't feel safe, you
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: need to tell someone about that situation. Yes, being being
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: angry and not liking the person is different than that
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: sense of I am not safe here. Correct, even if
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: it's just emotionally safe because they pick on you in
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: front of the room, like, that's not okay, And it's
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: especially not okay if you're a woman or a historically
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: under a represented writer, Like, it's not okay for anybody,
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: but it's especially not okay then. And so if you
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: don't feel like you can go to someone on your show,
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: talk to a friend about it, talk to another upper
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: level writer, talk to the guild, do something to protect
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: yourself in the situation. But yeah, there are Look, there's
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: just I worked for somebody who it's not what you
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: would consider a tyrannical showrunner in this business, but who
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: literally treated us all like we worked for them twenty
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: four hours a day, seven days a week, had no
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: respect for our private time, our family time, any of
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: that just when whenever, that is debilitating to expect people
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: to work seven days a week. Yes, we get paid
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: really well. We're also all human beings who have doctors appointments,
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: and you know, nieces and nephews to spoil, and kids
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: to take care of and all those things. And you
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: have to be the kind of person who respects other
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: people's time to be good at at this business and
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: to be good as a showrunner. And when you run
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: into someone who doesn't, it'll make you want to punch balls.
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: Was that a job I was gonna quit now? But
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: I was certainly angry the whole time I worked it.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: And these are the things. Look, the things that you
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: put up with when you're in your twenties or thirties
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: are not the things you put up with in your
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: forties and fifties. I mean, it's just I look back
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: at some of the stuff.
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: I did, I'll be like, I just no way I
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: would put up with something like that now.
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: But I'm in a different place.
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: I've been around a little bit longer, and I'm also
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: I'm in a much stronger position to be able to
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: And I also see it coming now.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: Before you didn't see them coming. Yeah, you go into
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: that interview with that showrunner. Now you're like, yeah, this
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: is not gonna be a good match for me. I
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: smell something, there's something in the air. I don't know.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: But when you're young, you're just like, I just need
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: an opportunity.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: I just I'll take it absolutely, absolutely. Look I have
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: I have had, you know, writers who are about to
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: get their first job come to me and say, hey,
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: I've got an offer from this show. I've heard this
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: person might be a little problematic. What do you think?
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, oh, I will tell you everything I know.
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: But at the end of the day, you need your
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: first credit, you need your first job, and if your
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: first job has to be with one of these toxic
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: human beings, just go in knowing it's not you. They
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: treat everybody like that's what that word of mouth thing
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: that we do, right, that's how we look out for
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: each other is to be like, oh, you're probably gonna
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: get fired, but they fire everyone. Don't worry about it,
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: like everyone in town knows it. Just go in there,
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: you have your first job, you get your first credit,
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: you get out, and it's a terrible thing to have
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: to say to somebody, but it's real, because our business
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: still functions like that. You need credits to get more credits, right,
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: But I just say, like, let us let's send people
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: in with their eyes wide open, let them choose what
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: they're walking into, as opposed to being like, oh no,
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: it's going to be great when we know it's a
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: night Like, let's tell them what it's really going to
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: be like and let them make a choice, because then
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: they can already be strategizing how they're going to deal
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: with it when the bad stuff comes up.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: And this is why I do what I do. I
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: want to be I want to let people know.
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: That there's a punch coming and and most.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Most people don't even know that they're in a ring.
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: Let alone that there's a punch coming, you know, by
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: a professional by a professional fighter, right like it's coming,
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: and prepare yourselves either learn how to dump and leave,
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: learn how to take it and keep moving forward. But
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: this is what this is the reality of the business.
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: And that's why I do what I do because not
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: many people tell the truth about them. Everyone loves the sizzle,
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: but no one is really good at that stake.
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's and look and it's always right, even
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: once you become a showrunner, you might have talent that's toxic,
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: and sometimes that piece of talent is the only reason
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: your show is going to get on the air. So
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: you got to manage that toxicity so it doesn't affect everybody, right,
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: And it's your job as the showrunner to manage it.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: Don't expect everybody else to deal with the fallout of it.
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: You're the person who agreed to it, So manage it.
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: And I've been in situations where I feel like that
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: isn't managed, and it just makes you want to screen
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: bloody murder because you're just like, well, I can't do
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: anything about it. If the boss won't say anything about it,
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: they're not going to listen to me, right, And so
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: you know, it's it's it's all. So much of this
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: business is about personalities and understanding who people are and
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: understanding how you need to be around them, right and
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: not to you shouldn't be your authentic self, but like
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: recognizing like, oh, this is not a person I should
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: trust with my secrets so that you're safe, right, Yeah, there,
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: I tell people all the time. You know, part of
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: being in the writer's room is so much of being
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: willing to share your experiences or being willing to tell
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: hell very personal stories to help build a better show.
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: None of the showrunners who were screamers and yellers and
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: abusive get that out of people. Nobody tells their best
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: stories because they don't feel safe.
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: You know what there was.
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: I had the privilege of having Martha Kaufman on the
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: show and we were talking about friends and she's like,
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: do you remember that scene.
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: Where Joey is getting measured by the or Chandler's being
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: measured for a pant by the Italian tailor and it
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: went too far? He went too far up and he
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: was doing things he shouldn't be doing. He goes, that
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: was real. That was one of the writers in the
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: room told us that story.
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: So they felt comfortable enough in that room to say
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: that story, and it became a classic sitcom scene.
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly, And that's the thing right some like, especially
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: because sometimes we get hired in for our experience. I
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: worked in law enforcement, so my first several jobs, I
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: was there because of my law enforcement experience. If I'm
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: worried about being ridiculed when I share a story about
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: something awful that happened at work, I'm not sharing that
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: story right, just not, And so you need to create
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: a space where people feel safe enough to say really hard,
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: honest things for the sake of making your show better.
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: They're doing it for you, so make them feel safe.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: And there's lots of different ways to do that, lots
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: of different showrunners have different methodologies, but at the end
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: of the day, it does fall completely on the showrunner's
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: shoulders to make a room where people feel safe.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: Now I agree with you teen percent. Now there's I
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: talked about this earlier on the show.
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: There's too many producers on the television and there's a
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: thousand versions of them, and television is not movies, so
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: it's a completely different vibe.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: Different different things mean different things. Can you please explain
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: the hierarchy of the writers and the producers, because I
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: know some Look, I'm in the business, I talk to
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: people like you all the time, and I still people
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: ask me.
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: I'm like, I think a COEP is a writer who's
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: been promoted. The EP is not the showruner, but it
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: could be a co show order. There's so many rules
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: in regards to this. Can you just explain it a
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: little bit.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: Please, sure.
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: So, in its most basic form, when you get your
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: first writing job, you're a staff writer. At present, staff
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: writers get a guilt negotiated minimum salary. They do not
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: get script It's sort of considered like an apprenticeship, be
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: sort of position. There's conversations about changing that. That's how
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: it is right now. So in a perfect world, you
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: do your staff writer year, let's say, on a traditional
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: twenty two episode show, because it's hard, it's harder to
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: get promoted right away on the shorter order shows. So
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: to your twenty two episodes, you become a story editor.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: The next year after that you become an executive story editor.
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: So those all three of those positions are considered lower
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: level writers. And basically what that means is you come
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: in your first year, you're learning what the job is.
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: You're learning what it's like to be in the room
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: every day. You're getting a feel for how you're how
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: to pitch stories in the room. It's your your staff
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: writer years, you're learning, right story editor year, you come in,
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: you've written it. You've probably written at least one script
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: or half a script. You've been in the room for
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: a whole season now. So now your confidence is a
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: little bigger. You can pitch faster, you follow the aboord easier,
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: and hopefully you're looking out for the new staff writer
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: who came in behind you, right, be that person, pay
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: pay it back. And then and then you know, you
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: get to executive story editor executive story editors, where the
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: money starts to change in terms of instead of getting
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: paid X amount of dollars per week, you now get
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: paid per episode, and so it changes how long you
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: can be stuck working on a show and it's all
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: a lot of complications that I sort of talk about
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: in the book. After that, you go to co producer level.
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: Co producer is basically mid level writing, so co producer
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: and producer. And typically what the difference is now, I
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: know back in the seventies there were bigger demarcations of
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: all these jobs. But what it means now is your
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: showrunners just rely on you more. Right, if you're a
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: co producer, you've probably hopefully been to set to produce
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: an episode. You've done prep meetings for episodes, so they
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: might be like, even on an episode they're writing and producing,
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: be like, hey, Nicole, can you sit in on those
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: prep meetings for me today because I got X, Y,
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: and Z, and you just get thrown into mix to
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: do that kind of stuff. If they need really quick
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: rewrites on things, they might look to you because the
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: upper level writers are busy on something else and they
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: need two scenes rewritten, and they'll go to the mid
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: level writers and be like, hey, can you guys take
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: a pass on this? Set it back? So you just
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: start to get a little bit more responsibility, a little
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: more assumption that you know what you're doing is really
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: right from the top. And then after that you move
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: into the upper level writers. So supervising producer, co executive
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: producer and executive producer. What that really means is at
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: supervising producer there's a real good chance you might run
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: the room sometimes because the COEP year number two is
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: on an important call with the showrunner, and so the
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: supervising takes over and keeps the train running in the room.
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: You might stay on, especially on a streaming show, you
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: may stay on for production when everybody else gets released.
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: Don't you get to that level. That's what I did
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: on Fate the Wink Saga. I stayed on for three
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: months and helped with the first block of production, and
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: at COEP it's really you're probably running the room most
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: of the time or some of the time, depending on
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: if there's another COEP someone in that rank in that
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: COEP supervising producer in a really well run room is
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: looking out for the lower level writers, making sure that
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: they know what they're doing, that they have questions, they
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: know who to come to, all of that stuff, and
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: you know, you probably are staying on for production for
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: the whole run unless somebody else has already agreed to
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: do it and you're popping out after twenty weeks, which
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: just happened to me on the show. And at EP level.
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: EP level gets tricky because, right you can get executive
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: producer status without being the showrunner because you just have
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: the career right to have earned that title. If you've been,
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: you know, a cop for ten years and you're gonna
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: basically be running the room and overseeing post and doing
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: all that stuff, they give you the executive producer title.
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: You can also be an executive producer because you're in
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: the show run. And then we have non writing MEPs
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: who are executive producers who do not write, but came
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: in as producers when the show was actually being birthed
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: when it was going through the development process, and you
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: get all level of involvement from non writing MEPs. Some
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: are right there in the mix. Some of them you
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: literally never see. Their name just appears on the screen
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: and they get a check. So it's all level of involvement.
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: I had a friend of mine who I'm not going
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: to say the show, but it's a very famous show
• 55:56
  Speaker 5: from a very famous showrunner and a writer, and I
• 56:01
  Speaker 5: knew the EPs in question, and they told a different story.
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: But then when I actually talked to some of the
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: staff writers and some staff producers on that show years later,
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: they're like, we never saw them once.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: I think we saw them on the first day and
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: they never showed.
• 56:17
  Speaker 5: Nuns faces again, and they just collect checks and they
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: owned the IP and that's why and that's why they
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: owned the IP.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: So that's why the show was. That's why they own it.
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: So I was like, okay, so I didn't know that
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: was a thing.
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, But they that one business decision basically set
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: them up for life.
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: They never have to work at day.
• 56:36
  Speaker 8: They're going to keep getting residuals, they're going to keep
• 56:38
  Speaker 8: making movies, they're going to keep doing things off the
• 56:41
  Speaker 8: IP comic books and they amazing remark well, yes, they
• 56:47
  Speaker 8: never showed their face ever.
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And the one other thing I'd say, when you're
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: in that upper level territory, that's where you get called on,
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: right for a staff writers. Script came in and it's
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: not very strong and the shore runner doesn't have time
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: to give it back to the to the staff writer
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: for notes, So you might get called on to do
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: a page one and then give it to the show.
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: That kind of stuff. So you get called on more
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: for you know, someone was supposed to cover set and
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: something happened and they can't go. Your name's going to
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: come up to go cover set because you're one of
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: those top you know, two or three writers on the show.
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: So you definitely get more responsibility, more French time everybody.
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: You know, these are the people I need to help
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: me get through this emergency from the show.
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: So you as you go up on the on the
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: in the ladder, if you will, you're not just a
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: writer anymore. You are actually a producer. You are actually
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: producing the show, helping produce the show, getting in prep meetings,
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: things like that. So it's not only a title per se.
• 57:48
  Speaker 5: You're actually producing and actually handling things that writers generally
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: don't handle.
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it is. It is definitely more work, and you know,
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: the trick to it now is one of the things
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: that we're finding right with all of these streaming six
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: to ten episode shows, is people are getting promoted title
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: wise because they have the clout to do it and
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: they've done a decent amount of work to get the
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: title bump. But because they're not going to set, you're
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: having people get all the way to cop and they've
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: never produced an episode of television, right, So that's when
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: it gets a little bit tricky, and you better be
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: able to bring all that other stuff to it in
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: terms of being able to do a fast re right,
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: being able to run the room, all those things. Make
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: sure you're honing those skills, because now you're going to
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: have to learn a new skill, which is going to
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: set and producing an episode of television when everyone's going
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: to assume you know how to do it, and you
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: so right.
• 58:47
  Speaker 9: And because you've you've actually played both, you've played in
• 58:50
  Speaker 9: both kind of rooms, you've played on streaming shows, and
• 58:54
  Speaker 9: you've also played in network television, and network television.
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: Still seems to be the old school. You know, you know,
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: you're going to learn a lot going through twenty two
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: episodes of standard television as opposed to being on a
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: Netflix show or a cable show that maybe only does
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: eight episodes. And so, like you said, it's a completely
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: different mindset. Even though the title might be the same,
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: the experience is not. So you got to prepare yourself.
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: It is absolutely and I encourage young writers, like, if
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: you get an opportunity for a broadcast show, even if
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: you'll do it for one season, do it because you
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: will never understand what it's like to be in that
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: process of like we got to break this episode, write
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: this episode, cut this episode, shoot this episode. It airs
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: a month later. Like it's so different than the streaming model,
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: and it's like it really teaches you how to move quickly,
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: how to make quick decisions, be very decisive, how to
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: handle emergencies, how to you know, I learned how to
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: read a one sheet because number one on the call
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: sheet had to drop out and we were like, okay,
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: what are we doing, Like we got to figure out
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: what the schedule looks like.
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: Right, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: So it just it teaches you skills that are very
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: hard to get outside of broadcasts right now, and I myself,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: I went back to broadcast so that I would get
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: experience and post because even though I had produced episodes
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: of television, post is like the place nobody lets you go.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: And so I was like, I need to I need
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: to go through post on episodes. So I went back
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: to broadcast so I could do posts and get a
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: feel for what it.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: Was, like, Oh, it's oh, it's time.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: I love post. I mean, I was a close captioner
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: for years, so I.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: Thought, wow, yeah.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: And so it was like, you know, and it's fascinating
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: to me, and so I was really happy to finally
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: get to be there and like, see, there's a reason
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: you have multiple people watch it, right, because not any
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: one person's going to catch everything. So you get, you know,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: people who are really all about the music, and people
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: who are like we need more dialog here, we need
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: more dialog here, and the people who are like short,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: short and shortened. It feels wrong, and that's what makes
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: it all work. You get all those people together and
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: it's not just one person having to catch every mistake
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: right exactly.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: And then there's always the like, is that a boom
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 5: in the shot?
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: That's the worst?
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 5: Go through the entire episode edit A thousand people have
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 5: seen it, and then QC kicks us back.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: You're like, yeah, there's there's a there's a boom in
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: the shot. Guys, can you can you remove the boom?
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: I know.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: I was on step one time and I swear the
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: boom drop below the safety and everybody was like, no,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: it didn't know it didn't And I was like, I mean,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: we're gonna do another take anyway. Can we just mark
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: that it might have Like calm down, Like I'm telling you,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't understand anything if I didn't feel confident I
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: saw it drop below of the safety.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: That's your imagination, Nicole. It's just your imagination. That's not real.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: It's a fanom. It's a fan boom.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: Mic Yeah, Like, that's why we do more than one take, y'all.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: The line.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: So let me ask you as a writer, and I've
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: gone through this as a writer, but I don't write
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: nearly as much as you do on a daily basis
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 5: when you're in a room and you're on a deadline.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 5: This is the thing that's fascinating to me about a room.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 5: It's different than a screenwriter. Screenwriter could take a year
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: is time.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: Even if there's a deadline, you got twelve weeks maybe.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 5: To turn something around. You know, something will get a
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: draft done or rewrite done. But when you're in a
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: room you have a deadline and it's a hard deadline,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: there's no there's no mickey mousing around with that deadline.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: I have to believe that there's a point in your
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 5: career that you just sat down and you're like, I
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: can't there's nothing, I'm dry, there's nothing there for me.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: I can't. My muse is on vacation. I can't get
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: through this.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: What do you do as a staff writer to power
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: through those moments when you.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: Just don't have the thing that you normally tap into
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: as a writer.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: So I'm one of those people who doesn't actually believe
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: in that.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 5: I think, well, there has to be times when the
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 5: flow is not as heavy as ye.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, there's times when like it's not coming out
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: in that natural state that I it's the best writing ever.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: But you know, and I think part of it is
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: starting in broadcast right where the deadlines are not fungible,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: like John Walls is hell you don't ever miss a
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: deadline on one of my shows, because it'll be like
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: you only do it once. And and so I think
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: the way to do it is again, I think the
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: saving grace is remember it's a job. So like, even
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: if all you can do when you're feeling like, oh,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I can do it, take the
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: outline or the beat sheet or whatever your show has created,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: put it in final draft and just start formatting. Just
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: start adding sluglines and being like, okay, this is all description.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: Oh I need some lines of dialog. I hear about
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: this and about this and about this, and it'll be
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: the world's worst first draft. But just doing that will
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: get you a file and it'll get you in your flow.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: And then I have literally had, you know where, the
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: episodes flowing great. But then I get to a scene room,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: I'm like, what is the scene anyway? I don't like, oh,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: stupid garble, garble, garbl you know, like all the the
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: crap that has to get spewed out in a procedure
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: or whatever. And I will literally just write like Nicole
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: has to say something funny about whatever, you know, Alex
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: has to do whatever, and just write that and then
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: keep moving and come back later and fill it in,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: because when you have a hard deadline, you just have
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: to keep moving forward and you can say when you
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: turn it in, hey, here's the draft. I'm really not
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: sure about that. That act outed act too, like I tried,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: but like, I'm just not sure it works. That's fine. Yes,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: No one's expecting a staff writer's first draft to be perfect.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: They just hope it's serviceable. They hope they do not
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: have to page one rerate. So as a staff writer,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: please give yourself a break. Nobody's expecting it to be like,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: oh my god, this is the greatest script I've ever read. No,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: And as you move up the ranks, you know, different
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: shows have different voices and some are easier to pick
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: up than others. And so have I been on a
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: show where I wondered if I could nail the voice. Sure,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: but I wrote the script first and then I went
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: back and worked on the voice well with the rest
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: of my time. So it's about budgeting your time, right.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: If you have five days to turn a script around,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: I highly recommend getting a really bad, you know, vomit
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: draft done in like two days, and then spend your
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: time just going back through it, going back through it,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: going back through it, working on it. It's it's a
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: process and you just have to make yourself do the work.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: And I think, you know, broadcast was a really great
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: change tool for that because in streaming, definitely the deadlines
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: become more fungible. Right, It's like, you have a schedule,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: We're going to try to stick to it. Oh wait,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: we just got three episodes blown up. Well we'll get
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: to your script. We get to.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: Right the whole of the world. It's okay, good, Yeah,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: it's it's streaming versus network. I mean, network has the time.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: You got eight o'clock on Tuesday, so just gotta show up.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: In streaming, you're like, you know, we'll wait another half
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: a year for stranger things to come out.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: Now, how do you deal with notes when you get it?
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 5: Because it's writers, you're going to get notes, and screenwriting
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 5: is a screenwriter for features is one way of its
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: studio notes. But as a you're getting you're getting feedback
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: like in the room sometimes, or studio notes or executive notes.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: How do you deal with these notes?
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: So until it's your show, what I would say is
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: just remember like it's all about what the what the
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: showrunner wants, right, So the studio might send you two
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: pages of it and it'll be very overwhelming, and then
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: the showrunner is going to look through that and going
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 4: to be like, Okay, try to address this one. Ignore this,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: ignore ignore this. Ah, this is a good note. Try that.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: Like they're going to help you sift through it, right.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: Very few showrunners are just going to be like, here's
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: the notes, go with God, like see what happens, because
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: they're trying to protect their vision from the studio or
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: the network as well, who are not trying to give
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: you bad notes, but sometimes give you bad notes. And
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: I think you know, I was brought up by showrunners
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: who were like, at least consider it right when you
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: read it, read it legitimately, like is there something here?
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: Sometimes you're just like, can you guys, read it literally?
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: Says it on the page the thing that you're asking for,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: and you want to screen bloody Marne. But sometimes they're
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: really confused about something and just looking at it and
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: changing three words gives them what they want, makes clarity
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: and they feel heard. So as you're coming up the ladder,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: you know on staff you'll have guidance on how to
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: handle those notes. When your showrunners giving you notes, just
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: remember it's their show. You're there to service them, and
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: you might hate the note. It doesn't matter. It's not
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: your show. Go do the note. And when you see
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: things like I had a showrunner who I love, by
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: the way, who rewrote every joke I ever put into
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: a script, and I was like annoyed by it, But
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: also what I would say was like, well, at least
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: I was right there was supposed to be a joke there,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: and like, just right, you were right that it needed
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: a joke. The showrunner just wanted to tell a joke
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: they thought was funny and you know, instead of yours.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: So you just have to roll with that kind of stuff,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: because almost everybody on staff gets rewritten.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, I've been on shows where coe keys get rewritten,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: Like it just happens. So you just gotta roll with it.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: When it's your project, when you're doing development and you
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: know you're trying to do your own stuff, it becomes
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: sort of a dance, right because your producers and the
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: studio and if you get there a network, well I'll
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: be giving you notes. And it's tempting to want to
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: say no to all of them, and you can't do that.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: And it's tempting to want to say yes to all
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: of them to just make your life easier, and you
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: can't do that. And it's really about now, it's your vision.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: What are you protecting here? And if the note doesn't
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: completely upend something that you really care about, try it.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: But sometimes you're going to get notes that are like, well,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: I think it should just be about one person instead
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: of all four of these characters, and that's a different show.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show, right.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: And you're not and I and I've gotten that note,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: and I had to say, I'm not doing that. I'm sorry.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: If that's the show you want, I am not the
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: right person to write that show. And you have to
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: be sure because they might say, okay, then we'll go
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: get someone else to write it. My experience was I
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: was so passionate about it, and I explained it so
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: clearly that they were like, Okay, try it and then
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: they were like, oh my god, it works amazing. But
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: like I had to get them to that.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: Point, right, right, right, So these are the things that
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 5: these you just told me unless you're in the room.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: Unless you're in unless you're as as they say in
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: the ship, you don't. You just don't have the experience
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: until you get it true.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: It's really true. And one thing I really stress to
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: writers coming up, especially because a mentor taught me this,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 4: if it's your story area or your outline, if it's
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: going to get you the guests to go write the
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: next thing, take the note it unless it's that catastrophic note.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: Right if it's just like we don't think you need
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: this in the pitch, and you absolutely think you need
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: it in the pitch, but cut it. And then later
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: someone's like going to ask you a question and you're
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 4: going to be like it was in that thing and
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: I cut that. Okay, you already know the answers. You
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: don't have to stress. But they're all sales documents. They're
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: all trying to get you to here's money to write
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: your script. So remember that. Like, someone might give you
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: a bad note in outline, and if you can finesse
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: it so that you take their note, but it doesn't
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: ruin anything for you when you write the script, you
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: can try to write them out of that note, because
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: now they're going to get the script. They're going to
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: get the story with the characters and all the dialogue
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: and stuff, and you might write the scene in a
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: way that they don't even remember they ever.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: Gave you that. Did you watch the offer yet?
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 4: Not yet?
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: No? Oh god, yeah so good.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 5: I love the writing, the directing, the production, the acting
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 5: was all done well, but there's no There's a scene
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 5: there where Albert, the producer, is trying to negotiate with.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 10: The Mob to let them make The Godfather and one
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 10: of their notes is like it was actually from Frank
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 10: Sinatra apparently, who was a very against the movie, and
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 10: he said, I don't want to hear the word mafia
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 10: in the script.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: And he's like, can you make a movie about the
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: Mafia without the word mafia in the script? So Albert
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: very boily just went over to Francis and Mario Bhuso
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: and like on a location, said'm like, hey, guys, how
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: many times is the word mafia in the script? And
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: he's like once and he like recites to the line
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: and goes, can you can you get rid of that?
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: Just get rid of the word? Does the matter? He goes, no,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: I'm fine, and they just moved on.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 5: So what was considered a catastrophic like how could you
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 5: make a movie about the mafia?
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: And I'd say the Maia.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 5: They literally had no it was just it was all
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 5: the family, a family business. It was never referred to
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: generally speaking. So it's interesting. So everyone was happy.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: After that note.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 4: Yep. Yeah, it's exactly that kind of thing. Like sometimes
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: the notes, you're like, what in the world are you
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: talking about?
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: And they brought the door? What right?
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: And then you have a conversation and someone gave me
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: great advice that when you get a note that literally
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 4: you're just like, I would like to murder you for
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: giving me this note, go back to them and say,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: what is it you're trying to feel? What is it
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: you're trying to feel from this note? And usually it
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 4: will get them to talk about it, and you can
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: find out what they're what they're actually talking about, because
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: oftentimes those notes are poorly worded and not actually communicating
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: what the issue is. And sometimes what they're looking for
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: is a moment between two characters, but it sounds like
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: they're asking you for some huge drastic right, And then
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 4: you're like, so you want these two people to talk again,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 4: and they're like.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, as opposed to rewrite this entire scene from scratch.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And then you're like, great, I can do that.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: I can do that.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: You know what.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 5: That's so interesting too, because you're right because a lot
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 5: of times people who are giving notes are not writers,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 5: especially executives, financiers.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: Actors, they're not writers. So the notes that they give
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: you they're doing their best to interpret your language.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 5: Is like when I work with a composer, and god forbid,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 5: I try to talk music to them, like, no, I
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 5: remember my composer I was working on a movie, was
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 5: I was trying to talk. I was trying to get fancy.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 5: Were like, can we get this note here to do
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 5: this or that? And he's like, no, no, what emotion
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 5: do you want to hit there?
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: And then I will interpret the emotion that you and
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: the thing that you're trying to hit, and that is
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: how notes should be given.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 5: It's like, I feel like they need to talk again
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 5: because I don't feel that there's a connection with these
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 5: two characters as opposed to me writing. You know what,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 5: I think the structure of this scene is off because
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 5: of this, this and this, and I'm talking in a
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 5: language that I might not know, and we as as
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 5: writers have to take those notes and decipher them.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's a great, great way. What does the
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: mean emotional? That's what you said.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: What are you trying to feel? That's great way And
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 4: it was incredibly helpful. It literally saved me a huge fight.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 4: It was like I was ready to throw down. I
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: asked that question and the answer was so simple, and
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: I was like, well, I can totally do that, Like
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: that's fine, do that. And it's like, because you want
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: to be right. TV is a team sport. You want
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: to be a team player and be cooperative, just like,
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: what are you talking about?
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: What?
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: What? Like?
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 4: I don't even understand what that means. Sometimes you're just
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 4: like what And so you need you need to find
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 4: a way around it to figure out what's really happening.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 5: So I have to ask you this question because I'm
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 5: a fan of the movie.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: He wrote, The Banker.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 5: I love The Banker, And Jonathan is a friend of
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 5: the show and he's a wonderful, wonderful guy.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: I've known him for a while. Now, how did you
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: get that movie made? Because it is not an easy.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 5: Pitch here, This is not a this is not this
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 5: is not say blockbuster by any stress.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I'm going to say all of the credit
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 4: for that movie getting made falls to George and Olphie,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 4: our director, and Joel Vertel, who was our editor and
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 4: one of our producers. The backstory on that is that
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 4: Joel came across that property when he was an executive
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: years and years ago, and once he started working with George,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 4: brought it up to George and Anthony Mackie while they
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 4: were making the adjustment here, and Anthony and George were
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 4: both like, yes, we should definitely do this. This sounds amazing,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 4: and then it kind of sat there, and then George
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: decided to make a TV show and brilliantly hired me
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: to come work for him on his TV show, and
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 4: that's how we built our relationship, and towards the end
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 4: of Allegiance, which was the TV show, he was.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: Like, hey, do you have a feature sample?
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 4: And I was like, that's random, but yes, and I
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 4: sent him a feature sample and he called me the
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 4: next week and he told me a story about Bernard
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 4: and was like, you know you want to you want
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 4: to make this movie with me? And I was like, yes, please,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 4: I would love to do that. And so that's really
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: how I came into the the process, and they really
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: did all the hard work of drumming up, financing and
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 4: doing all those things, like they were amazing. And what
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 4: I will say is because you know, we always knew
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: Anthony was involved, and Anthony was going to play Bernard,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 4: and so we were you know, was there and the
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 4: you know, one day my phone rang and it's George
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: and he was like, guess who we got? And I
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 4: was like, did you get? He was like Damuel L. Jackson,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 4: who we always wanted but didn't know if we could get.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: And I was like, Nick Fury and the Falcon are
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 4: both going to be in this movie, and he was like,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 4: I mean not as Nick Fury and the Falcon, but yeah.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 5: But yeah, though that would have been a very interesting
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 5: person of the moment, it would.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: Have been a very different version, right, very different version.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: I feel like that there would have been a lot less,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 4: a lot less racism, but Falcon had been taking on.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 5: The first time someone says something and Nick Fire is
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 5: like that.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 4: But it was an amazing experience and I'm so proud
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 4: of it. And I actually, because of knowing Anthony from
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 4: that is how I'm writing. Uh well, I have already
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: written my next feature, which is another true life story
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 4: that Anthony is directing.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 3: Nice. Yeah, I was gonna ask you what next? So
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: what are you to next? So that's the next thing up?
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 4: That is next thing up. Well, we'll see, because you know,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: Anthony has seventeen jobs. So he's Captain America. He's Captain America.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 4: He's got all the jobs because he's got like three
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: TV projects and whatever.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 5: But I'm like, well, I just announced his movie, but
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 5: that's at least two years ahead. I think it's two
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 5: years down the line. They're going to do the Captain
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 5: American movie, the new one at least. But yeah, he's
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 5: gonna be in the Marvel universe for a few years.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: Let's just put a few years.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, so but very excited. It's a really it's
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 4: a it's called Spark and it's about this young woman
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: named Puddak Colvin who, as a fifteen year old, refused
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: to give up her seat on a bus at Montgomery
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: nine months before Rosa Parks and it's sort of why
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: you don't know her story?
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, we'll be right back after a word from
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: Nice.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And we got to work directly with miss Colburn,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 4: which was delightful. She's wonderful and sharpest attack and tells
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 4: a great story.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 3: So that is awesome. That is awesome. Ethony my favorite.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 5: Uh well, when I first saw Anthony was eight mile
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 5: like everybody else and what else can.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: Be said about that? I mean, he's a million dollar baby.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: Oh love to be such an ass in that movie
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: is great. I wanted to punch him in the face.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: I saw it. Guy.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 5: I was so happy when Clinton beat the hell out
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 5: of him. Yes, yes, he was still great in that part.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 5: He's a wonderful actor. He's such a wonderful actor.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 4: And he's lovely. He It was so funny because when
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 4: we were on set for The Banker, you know, I
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 4: was trying to fan girl too much and but and
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 4: so I was like super chill with Anthony, and then
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 4: Sam showed up and Sam was like, you're a Marvel fan,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: aren't you? And I was like yes, sir, and he
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 4: was like, let it out, girl, and so then my
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 4: fan girl just exploded and I was like, wait it again,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 4: right back?
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, oh my, So he kind of feels so he
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 5: has Sam Jackson understands like are you is he Tarantino
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 5: or you're a Marvel fan. Okay, so you're a Marvel Okay,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 5: just let's get it out of the way so.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: We can move on and work.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like literally talk to me about Marvel for forty
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 4: five minutes. It was base And.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 5: I gotta ask I gotta ask you because people ask me
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 5: all the time, like do you fanboy out? And you
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 5: know when you meet people or you know, I interview people,
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 5: but when I work with somebody or something like that,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 5: and my personal thing is I I generally don't fanboy
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 5: out often, even once in a bluemone off fan.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, look at Sam Jackson walked in. I probably
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 3: I probably keek out a bit. I'm coming. I'm not
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 3: gonna be ony. I'll probably keeek out a bit.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 5: But how do you have, like how do you handle
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 5: those situations when you're working with like Blair Underwood? You know, uh,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 5: you know, uh the first time you saw it, like, oh.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, do you know what I'll tell you. Honestly,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 4: the hardest one I ever had. When I was working
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 4: on the Mysteries of Laura Stocker. Channing guest starred on
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 4: the two part episode that I was covering sep and
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 4: like the amount of like self talk I had to
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 4: do of like, this is a professional human being. She's
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: here to do a job. You do not go in
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 4: there and start screaming rizzo at her, like no, like
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 4: you have to be a grown up. And she was
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 4: so wonderful and like I finally like we had a
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 4: break and it was getting towards the end of her
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 4: time shooting, and I was like, you know this chant
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 4: like you just you're wonderful and I've admired you your
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: whole career. Whenever she's like she the sweetest thing, and
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: like I kept it very like the date and I
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 4: waited till the end, but like I couldn't pass up
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: a chance to tell Stocker Channing how amazing she is,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 4: Like you.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: Got, I mean, And the worst, the worst is like
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: do you ask for the picture?
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 3: The picture?
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 4: I usually don't ask for the picture. I took pictures
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 4: with Anthony and Sam, but mostly for my nephews who
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 4: are like the biggest Marvel fans on after me, so
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 4: they needed that. But yeah, I usually don't ask for
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 4: the picture. I think them and Blair might be the
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 4: only times I've done it right.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 5: And again, if you're doing it, it's like you there
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 5: is there a vibe, Is there an energy with the person?
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, feel it out. But you're right, you want to
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: act professional.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 5: You don't want to just go, oh my god, your
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 5: Nick Fury and you know you're in pulp fiction and
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 5: your legend and you just like you know.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 4: But there's times I think, you know, as artists, we
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 4: all love to know that our work is appreciated, and
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: so I think, like, like I met John secret Young
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 4: at the Writers Guild. We were both mentoring for the
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 4: Veterans Writing Program, and like, China Beach was a pivotal
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 4: thing for my family because my father would lad to
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: talk about Vietnam until that show came out. It was
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 4: like such a thing. And so I'm so glad I
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 4: took the time to go over like on a break
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 4: and just be like, I just really wanted you to
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 4: know this, and he was like, thank you so much
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 4: for telling me that you know, and like you just
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 4: want people to know. And one of my greatest regrets
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 4: is that I always meant to try to get a
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 4: note to Stephen Botchko to tell him he was the
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 4: reason I was a TV writer, and like, you know,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 4: I just was like, well, I'll have time, I'll have time.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 4: I'll have time. And then of course he passed and
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 4: so I don't. I ran out of time. And so
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 4: I think if you have a moment to tell someone
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 4: how important they've been to you, it's fine. You just
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 4: keep it professional and loki and not.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 11: You know, I think when Quentin was talking to John
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 11: Travolta the first like the first time he was interviewing
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 11: him to do pulp fiction because he had just one reservoirs.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: So he wasn't quitting yet, right, you know, but he
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: was he was quit.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 5: Johnshvol years later is like, I think that first meeting
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 5: was much more about signing his welcome Back Codder lunchbox,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 5: and it was anything else.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: That's really what that meaning was all about.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 5: I might get the part, I might not get the part,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 5: but it was really about signing that welcome Back Cottle lunchbox.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, but you know, if you're in a fan thing,
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 4: like I met min Nah when at a fan event
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 4: and I was a total dork, you know that's but
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 4: then I went a friend took me to the agency
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 4: shield like rap party, and I was like, oh, I'm
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: gonna have to behave here, and they were all just like,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 4: who are you, what do you love about the show?
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 4: Like so wonderful and so just excited to talk to
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 4: someone who loved the show. And Henry Simmons was there
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 4: and he I'm a huge opt Blue fan and so
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh my god, like I've been following
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 4: you ever since Blue. And he was like, you watched
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 4: the mypt Blue and I was like, watch it, I
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 4: own it, I love it. And he was so impressed that,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 4: like I knew work from mip Again, it's like people
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 4: just like to know that like stuff they did mattered.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: To someone, you know, So that's awesome.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 4: You just got to find the right time.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 5: You got to feel the vibe. You gotta feel the vibe.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 5: Sometimes you're just like not the time, not the time.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 5: But uh, but these are all these are all good
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 5: problems to have. Let's just yeah, we're very lucky.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 4: In that sense, very lucky.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to ask you a couple of questions.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: Ask all my guests, what advice would you have for
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 3: a screenwriter trying to break into the business today.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 4: I would say, first of all, and it's gonna sound
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 4: really cliched and ridiculous, but just always be writing. Like
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 4: the amount of times that I've had to count counsel
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 4: young writers or new and emerging writers, I should say,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 4: because we're not all young when we break into this business,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 4: that they need to write more samples, you know, like
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 4: one great pilot is not enough, one solid spec is
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 4: not enough. Like you need to have material because even
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 4: if they someone reads your script and they love it,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 4: it doesn't mean they're going to make that. They're going
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 4: to be interested in you for something else, and they
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 4: might be like, oh my god, I think you're amazing.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 4: I want to put you up for the show.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 3: But it's more of a.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 4: Procedural than this character thing. Do you have something else?
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 4: So you want to have every arrow in your quiver
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 4: right that you can possibly have. And so think about
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 4: what's in your portfolio. Do you only write male leads?
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 4: Write some female leads? Do you only write sci fi?
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 4: Can you try one straight sort of drama in case
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 4: that's the job you can get first before you can
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 4: go make sci fi shows, because that's what I did, right,
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 4: Like you, just you really have to have the material
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 4: so that when someone answers your knock on the door,
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 4: you have everything ready to go.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 3: Fair enough, What did you learn from your biggest failure.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 4: I learned that I am not a person who likes
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: to duct responsibility, and therefore learned that the easiest way
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 4: for me to solve a problem is just to walk
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 4: into the boss's office or whatever and be like, hey,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 4: I fuck this up, Like I just I you know,
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 4: the worry about someone finding out I did something or whatever,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 4: like I don't have time for it. It's like it's ridiculous,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 4: Like I'd rather take the heat for making a mistake
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 4: and being honest about it then let something go and
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 4: it gets found out later and it's like, who let
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 4: this happen? Like I just I just learned that it's
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 4: easier for me to own.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 3: Up fair enough. What is the lesson that took you
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 3: the longest to learn, Whether in the film industry or
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: in life.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 4: The lesson that took me the longest to learn was
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 4: to live my life.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 3: And it's very true.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 4: It really did. And it took my mentors and the
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 4: writing business to just sort of be like, every time
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 4: I talk to you, you're writing, and every time I
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 4: talk to you, you're working, Like, go have fun, get
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 4: out of your house. And it's how I learned how
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 4: to have balance in my life that I had people
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 4: who loved me enough to be like, girl, you're taking
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 4: the next three days off, go do things, go like whatever.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 4: And you know, I am a workaholic by nature, It's
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 4: just how I'm wired, but learning to be like, it's
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 4: okay to go to happy Hour three nights in a
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 4: row because all the writers I know are on hiatus
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 4: and we have time, So I don't write for three nights. Fine, Like,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 4: you know, you're on deadline for a script. But your
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 4: friend's wedding is on Saturday. Go to the wedding, don't
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 4: drink as much as you normally would, and come home
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 4: in a decent hour so you can get some work done.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 4: But go to the wedding. Don't miss your friend's wedding.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 4: You know, it's really important to just live your life
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 4: because that's the stuff that's going to matter to you
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 4: in the long run.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 3: And three of three pilots that every writer should read.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 4: Hill Street Blues Nice just the greatest show in the
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 4: history of television as far as I'm concerned. Wise Guy, Oh.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember Whise Guy.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, this guy is a brilliant pilot. And hmmm, for.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 6: My third I'm gonna go probably unusual, but I remember
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 6: being so struck by this pilot Masters of Sex.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, the way that they that they set the
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 4: characters up in that is really really beautiful and I
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 4: think it's a good character piece for people to study.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 3: Nicole, it has been a pleasure talking to you. Where
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 3: can people find is your new book, The Ryan broops
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 3: Her Bible Guide.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 4: You can pre order it right now on Amazon if
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 4: you just plug the title in. And also I believe
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 4: that the order link is pinned to my Twitter thread,
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 4: which my handle on Twitter is at Nicole Cooking because
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 4: I started on Twitter for my baking business, obvious, and
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 4: just stayed for the fangirling and the TV.
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 5: So, Nicole, it has been a pleasure talking to you.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 5: Thank you so much for writing the book, and hopefully
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 5: this conversation will help a few writers along the way.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 5: So I appreciate you, my dear, Thank you again.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Nicole so much for coming on
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: the show and sharing her knowledge bombs with the tribe today.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Nicole. If you want to get
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: over to the show notes at Anyfilmunsole dot com. Forward
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: Slash seven sixty five. If you have it already, please
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com, subscribe and leave
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 2: a good review for the show. It really helps us
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much for listening. Guys,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 2: as always, keep that hustle going and keep that dream alive.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: Stay safe out there and I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast at
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: indiefilm hustle dot com. That's I N D I E
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: F I L M h U S T l E
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: dot com.