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IFH 685: Learning Screenwriting Story Structure with John Bucher · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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  You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to IFAH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Indie
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  Film Houstle Podcast, Episode number six eighty five. Don't ever go with the
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  flow Be the Flow jay Z broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's
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  the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive and thrive
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  as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of the film biz. And here's your
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  host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film
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  Hustle Podcast. I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is
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  sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into a
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  profitable business. It's harder today than ever before for independent filmakers to make money
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  with their films from predatory film distributors ripping them off to huckster film aggregators who
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  prey upon them. The odds are stacked against indie filmmaker. The old distribution
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  entrepreneur. In Rise of the Film Entrepreneur, I break down how to actually
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  shows you the step by step method to turn your passion into a profitable career.
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  want to order it, just head over to www dot film bizbook dot com.
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  That's film bizbook dot com. Today on the show, we have mythologist
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  and storyteller John Booker, who is the author of multiple storytelling books like Storytelling
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  for Virtual Reality, Best Practice, Guides to Sex and Storytelling, Masters of
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  the Cinematic Universe, and Storytelling by the Numbers. John is fascinating man.
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  He really goes deep into the storytelling alchemy and what it really means to pull
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  out an amazing story. I absolutely had a ball talking to John, so
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  much so that we actually did a bonus episode that you can listen to on
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  Indie Film Hustles Podcast, episode number three thirty four about how to actually shoot
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  and write a sex scene, which is a fascinating story in it itself.
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  But in this episode we go deep into the alchemy of storytelling, which is
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  fascinating and John and I just go deep down that rabbit hole and have a
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  ball. Knowledge bombs were dropped by the ton So, without any further ado,
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  please joy my conversation with John Booker. I'd like to welcome to the
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  show, John Booker, brother. Thank you so much for being on the
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  show. Hey, it's my pleasure. I've been a fan of what you've
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  done here for a long time and it's real honor to be on the show.
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  Oh, thank you so much. Man, I appreciate it. So,
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  before we get into it, man, how did you get into this
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  ridiculous business we called the young industry. Well, it's sort of a funny
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  story. Actually, I was involved in music in high school and I thought
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  music is what I wanted to do with my life. And I went to
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  college and I decided, you know, if I'm going to go into music,
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  I should learn how to be an engineer, you know, somebody who
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  sits behind these big production boards, and so I looked at my college catalog
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  and it said they had something called the Recording Arts, and I said,
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  excellent, that sounds great. So I signed up for the first class,
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  and the first day of classes, they pushed a TV camera out onto the
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  floor and I realized I had actually signed up for this core where in film
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  and television recording arts meant visual recording, not music. And I was too
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  embarrassed to say anything, so I just went, you know, through the
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  first courses, and I found out that I loved this medium. So I
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  began making short films and writing screenplays in creating work, and I, you
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  know, begin to realize that this is actually something people do as a career.
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  And I knew I wanted to tell stories the rest of my life,
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  and so this, uh, this medium sort of came and found me,
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  basically. And I'm assuming you've you've gone through a couple of landmines and trenches
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  while working in the business. You've you've to get some shrapnel along the way.
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  Oh my god, man, I could tell you stories all day long.
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  The first time I arrived in Hollywood, the very first job I got
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  here was working on a reality show called Flavor of Love. Oh my god,
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  Okay, do you stop right there. I saw, I saw the
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  three seasons. Okay, I was. I was a fan of Flavor of
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  Love. I'm sorry, everyone listening, do not think any less of me.
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  Now, this was a darker time in my life where I was not
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  educating myself as much as I should have been, and I was vegging out,
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  and I was obsessed with Flavor of Love and New York and and what
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  it was that the Bret Michael's thing I saw right afterwards. Yeah, yes,
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  I worked on all those shows. Man, I love New York,
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  Rock of Love. I worked on all those shows that worked as a production
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  assistant, just at the lowest levels. And man, I could tell you
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  stories, just war stories from those shows. But I gotta tell you,
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  it also gave me a taste for what working in this business on a daily
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  grind is like. And you know, I sort of began to love this
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  idea of just being on sets every day and the way that you know,
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  the producers of the show were crafting something that was tremendously entertaining. Now,
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  like you, I'm a bit embarrassed about it. When I was working on
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  it, I wouldn't even tell my mother what show I was working on,
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  because I didn't want her to tune in and watch it and be so disappointed
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  in me. You mean to tell me that that show wasn't real. Oh
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  my gosh. Some of the finest writers in Hollywood crafted the storylines that you
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  saw on TV. That is. That is remarkable, you know, And
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  there's no I've done a little bit of reality work, but mostly in post
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  I know. I actually argued no. I actually was a PA on some
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  Nickelodeon reality shows back in the day when I first started out. But there's
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  nothing like being on a reality show to kind of it's you want to talk
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  about getting shrapnel right and you want to talk about heartening that that shell around
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  that skin, and man working in reality is like oosh, it's rough.
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  It's a rough scenario for any for every and everybody involved, from the PA
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  to all the way to the top. Because you know, a lot of
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  times you're not working with professional professional you know, talent right, and all
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  the egos get a little bit out of control sometimes. Hustle for everybody,
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  the talent, the crew, everybody is on a hustle and everybody is just
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  trying to make this something that will be successful, so everybody makes more money
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  and gets more work. It's sort of an environment completely crafted around fear in
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  many ways that you know, this is going to be a big embarrassment or
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  it's going to be a career killer for a lot of people rather than a
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  career maker. Yeah, it's you know, I mean, there are reality
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  shows that are fantastic. I mean, and there are Emmy Award winning and
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  things like that. But like I even it a my one of my short
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  runs in post I did, I did a color grading on a like bridal
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  dress show, like you know, you wear the dress or you sell the
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  dress, or you make the dress. I lasted three or four episodes before
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  I just like, I can't, I just can't. This is the most
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  unprofessional situation I've ever been in. And I mean and I and I work
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  in independent film, Like I mean, I would think fifteen fifteen different camera
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  setups, different color spaces, different every I'm like, dude, do you
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  guys even like have you even like taken a YouTube course on how to shoot
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  stuff? I could, I just could have said it's insane, insane.
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  So all right, so you definitely did you see that old documentary of American
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  movie about the fantastic, fantastic, and it probably is the closest thing you'll
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  ever see to how reality shows get made. It's it's you know, twenty
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  seven different camera setups with every color balance and f stop known to man on
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  people coming in and out of the project. It is a very very close
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  representation of what making a reality show is like. And what was it called
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  American American movie? American movie and American American Movie. Anyone who's listening,
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  go and rent American Movie. It is arguably one of the most stellar documentaries
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  on the independent filmmaking process ever, and it's just so entertaining to watch.
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  Bruto. It's also brutal to watch. It's like watching Edwood. Remember when
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  you saw Edwood for the first time, the Tim Burtons Edwood movie. You're
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  crying. You're just like, if you're a director, She's like, but
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  just give him to much, let him make his movie. And would you
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  also not say that, like, after watching that, there's no excuse for
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  me not to go make my film, after watching what this guy goes through
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  to make his We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
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  now back to the show. Like this guy's got it way worse offt than
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  any situation I've ever been in. If he can do it, anybody should
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  do it. I mean we could. We could go down this road of
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  conversations in regards to Edwood and how fantastic his films were in the way that
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  he made them. But that movie, the Tim Burton movie, you sit
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  there going, oh my, like, you know, getting a whole bunch
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  of dentists together and like literally putting together plastic plates to to make saucers.
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  And he had no understanding of any sort of aesthetic or quality. But man
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  did he He made up with it with passion. Yes, passion. Passion.
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  Another movie everyone should go watch Edward, starring Johnny Depp as the infamous
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  Edwarod. So let's get into it. So I don't we could because I
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  feel that we could have talk about this for a while. We're gonna have
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  a good chat in the episode. I have a feeling. So you are
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  a mythologist if I'm wing your website. Yeah, a mythologist. So what
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  is a mythologist? Well, you know, first of all, it's someone
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  who goes to graduate school to study mythology. Somebody who you know, devotes
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  their time effort education finances, you know, to the study of mythology,
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  and I later this year, I'm completing my PhD and mythology. And the
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  reason I became interested in that was I wanted to learn about the stories behind
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  the stories. What are these stories you know that keep appearing in different places
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  around the globe throughout history. Why, for example, do we keep telling
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  the story of Cinderella in a million different cultures throughout history, over and over
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  and over again. Why do we keep telling the story of Hercules? You
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  know, We've got basically every movie with the Rock or Vin Diesel is another
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  version of the Hercules story. So why do I keep telling these stories over
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  and over again? I wanted to learn about that. So I went and
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  spent several years of my life, you know, taking these classes and reading
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  these books and listening to the greatest mythologists in the world talk about why human
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  beings keep being drawn to these same narratives over and over again. And of
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  course we end up studying a lot of the what many would say was the
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  greatest mythologist, Joseph Campbell, who had such an influence on George Lucas in
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  the creation of the original Star Wars, which being a Star Wars fan.
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  I was familiar with Joseph Campbell. I knew that Star Wars was based on
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  this mythological idea of the hero's journey, and I wanted to know more about
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  that. And I think, you know, in the last few years,
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  there have been a people there have been a lot of people who've you know,
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  anytime somebody finds value in something, really like something, there's like a
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  whole group of people that rise up that want to tear that down and want
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  to to talk about why that's not, you know, a good thing or
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  a helpful thing. And you know what, I really have an issue with
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  people that make their whole careers or make their whole online presence about trying to
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  tear down someone else's work. I feel like the value to the hero's journey
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  is um it's tremendous, and it doesn't mean that every story that's ever you
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  know, hit the screen needs to be about the hero's journey. As a
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  matter of fact, Joseph Campbell was a guy who's he was not prescriptive in
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  what he was saying. He didn't say in order to tell a good story
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  you need to have these elements. He was being descriptive of the stories he
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  had saw throughout the centuries and throughout history, of what had worked well and
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  what had risen up in storytelling, you know, in all these different vultures
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  throughout history. So it wasn't even meant to be a prescriptive thing. You
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  know, it's not trying to make storytelling formulaic. What it really is is
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  getting to the base psychology of how human being solved problems in the way that
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  we put that in narrative form. Yeah, there's I mean, obviously I'm
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  wearing a lucasfilm T shirt, and I'm also you see a giant, life
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  sized Yoda in the background, so you know that I'm also a Star Wars
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  fan, and and you know, I'm also very familiar with Joseph Campbell's work.
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  Anybody, anyone who's a screenwriter should at least read The Hero's Journey or
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  at least a Writer's Journey by Chris Vogler. That is amazing as well.
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  It is it is remarkable how we continue to tell the same stories again and
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  again. And I think it was the first time I ever really understood that
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  we were telling the same stories again against when I read said Field's book.
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  Yeah, that was the first time it, I was like, I think
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  late as maybe first year at a knowledge or out of high school, excuse
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  me. And I read it. I was like, wait a minute,
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  you mean all movies are like And then you start going back in your head
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  and like this movie did it too, and this movie did it two,
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  and this movie did too. There is there is a structure that goes all
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  the way back to the Greeks and obviously farther back, but the Greeks really
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  took it and ran with it. There is a structure and well poetics,
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  basically Aristotle's poetics, and you know, he was the first one who said
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  that a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end,
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  and we get our three act structure from that. Now, what's what's interesting.
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  There is a lot of people say, well, that's just common sense
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  or whatever, but that was not how stories were being told before then.
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  Really, they were being told in two acts structures. And if you go
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  see a play today, most plays still have two acts. So the idea
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  of telling a story in three act structure was pretty revolutionary because it used to
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  be that a single actor would be on the stage with a comedy mask or
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  a tragedy mask, and you would basically have the actor you know, portraying
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  this story all themselves. And then we had a Greek tragedian who who writes
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  this idea of adding a second actor to the mix and having two actors,
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  one that wears the comedy mask and one that wears the tragedy mask. And
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  then we have another Greek tragedian that adds this idea of the Greek chorus who
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  stand up behind the actors and they sing what's happening sort of in the backstory.
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  All these developments allowed us to start being able to tell more and more
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  complex stories. We could have never gotten to something like The Avengers, you
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  know, which is this long, long epic story that without advancing incrementally into
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  how stories are told in more and more complex ways. You know, The
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  Avengers is tremendously complex, and sometimes we like to say, well, yeah,
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  that's the way a story should be told, But it took processes for
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  us to get there in order to have these multi hour stories that audiences can
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  follow. So I think Aristotle was really onto something. Let me just also
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  say, and I'd be interested to know, you know, how you feel
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  about this your someone lives in this world, I feel like, you know,
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  oftentimes it's become sort of in vogue to sort of trash any ideas about
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  structure in a modern storytelling. I would say this, though, you know,
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  it's not about formula, but it is about form writers are the only
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  group of artists that really trash the idea of structure. Sometimes. You never
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  have musicians that come in and say, you know, I'm going to write
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  a song and I'm going to create a new chord that no one's ever heard
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  before. I'm going to not use the chords in notes. You never have
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  an artist that comes in and tries to create new colors that no one's ever
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  seen before. You never have an architect that says, I'm going to design
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  a house with no floor and no ceiling and no windows and no walls.
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  You know, but it doesn't mean that every painting looks alike. It doesn't
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  mean that every song sounds alike, or that every house it looks alike.
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  I think we have to understand that structure is necessary for us to be able
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  to build something that resonates with an audience. But it doesn't mean it's the
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  only form of storytelling out there. There are stories that just explore a character,
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  who a character is, and trying to get down deep into that.
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  But I think sometimes we like to just throw paint up on the wall in
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  whatever sticks. We say, well, that's what I'm meant to do.
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  I'm just I'm not going to be bound by these things. And sometimes I
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  think it's laziness more so than anything else. But I'd be curious to know
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  what your take is that I have strong feelings about this because I because writers
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  in general are or screenwriters specifically, anybody. It's not like I listened to
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  John Williams score and I say, oh, I can go do that because
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  I listened to it, And it's the same thing for filmmakers and screenwriters like,
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  oh I watch movies or I read a screenplay, I guess I can
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  go do that. There's not It's like the level of entry or the barrier
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  to entry so low for screenwriters, meaning that you could just you need a
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  laptop, final draft and an idea and some basic understanding on to how to
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  structure or format a screenplay and you're automatically a screen writer. And it's not
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  that. And when I see when if you see filmmakers or screenwriters start saying,
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  oh well, oh structure or that saved the cat thing or all this
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  kind of stuff is not good. I look at it differently in the sense
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  that I feel that a lot of that's insecurity. We'll be right back after
• 20:02
  a word from our sponsor and now back to the show, because it's insecurity,
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  and it's ego in their own mind, because they're like, I can
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  do it better. I don't need structure. I'm like, you do need,
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  man. You need a blueprint to build a house, man, and
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  not every house looks the same. That's right, you know, it's the
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  bottom line. You just need a blueprint, and that blueprint can change dramatically.
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  You know, you could have five doors in the front of the house
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  if you want to, and and the bathroom could be on the roof.
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  It's fine if you want to do that, but you still need to have
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  the rules of the game in order to play, and I think structure allows
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  you to do that. I when I write, I love structure dramatically because
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  it's it's like, uh, it's like a mile markers for me on where
• 20:52
  I can like put things in struct and I can move those mile markers when
• 20:55
  I want to, but they're there, you know, and they just kind
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  of like, okay, here and hang my hat on this. I can
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  hang my hat onto that and so on. And I think it's so important
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  for screenwriters to understand the structure is not an enemy, it's a it's actually
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  a friend of yours. And when you look at these stories like Joseph Campbell's
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  you know, work and the Hero's Journey, like, look, we all
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  know anyone listening to this should know the hero's journey the basic It has been
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  beaten and beaten and beaten to death ever since Joseph Campbell came up, or
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  at least presented it to the world that had already been there. He just
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  packaged it and presented it to the world. We all know a variation of
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  the hero's journey. Yeah, is the hero's journey for every single story?
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  I don't think so, I don't. I mean, try to throw the
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  hero's journey on the detective story. It's gonna be really tough, that's right,
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  you know, it's a really tough scenario. So in what you're saying
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  there is so important. Because Joseph Campbell wrote this book The Hero with a
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  Thousand Faces in nineteen forty nine, right long time ago. It was meant
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  to describe these things that he saw. I am someone who believes right now
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  we could do well to take an interest in some of the other things that
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  Joseph Campbell wrote about. And one of the things he wrote about is alchemy.
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  And it's a really interesting part of the study of mythology to look at
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  alchemy. And I'm working on some theories right now around storytelling alchemy, because
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  alchemy was this practice basically of turning lead into gold. It was this process
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  you know that these magicians and chemists and religious people, wizards, wizards,
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  Yeah, they would they would try and take these elements and combine them in
• 22:41
  order to make gold. So I've sort of got this theory that I'm working
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  on that I'm calling storytelling alchemy, and what it is is basically taking narrative
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  elements and combining them in order to create something different. The best example that
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  I could make is if you took a glass vase and you've filled it full
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  of every thing we know about story, everything we know about developing characters,
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  and about three act structure and five act structure for television, and aspect of
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  symbolism, and everything we know about story. If you put it in a
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  glass vase and then dropped it on the ground and it shattered into a million
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  pieces. And let's say we took all those different pieces and we created a
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  mosaic on the wall of something beautiful, a new art form that I think
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  is what we're seeing right now with a lot of short form video, with
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  a lot of long form storytelling through these streaming services, we're seeing people take
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  value in all these elements from character, Like people have studied in depth how
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  characters should develop in Psychology of Characters, and people are taking elements of three
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  act structure, but they want to, you know, put a twist on
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  it and make it sort of episodic in nature. And we're taking all these
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  elements and we're creating a new mosaic of something that's beautiful that people enjoy,
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  but it still has all these elements that we know to be true about storytelling.
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  And so I think it's it's a form of alchemy where maybe all we're
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  doing is we're taking elements that we know about what makes a character work,
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  and we're combining that with audience agency and creating something like Bandersnatch, which was
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  the Black Mirror, you know, spin off movie that allowed the audience to
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  make decisions and have an agency, and I think you know something like that,
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  how do you tell a react story in something where the audience has agency,
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  which is, you know, an experimental thing that's going on with storytelling.
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  Well, we still can take these narrative shards that we pick up off
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  the broken glass and create a new mosaic and it's still got the elements.
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  They just may not be on the same order that we've experienced them before.
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  You know, I think that you bring up a very good point, because
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  I mean, you wrote a book obviously called The Masters of the Cinematic Universe,
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  which talks about transmedia, and I do think that there is a lot
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  of opportunity for writers because a lot of writers listening right now, a lot
• 25:17
  of screenwriters are all stuck in the same old school way of telling stories.
• 25:22
  And I don't say that in a derogatory more, but like just a standard
• 25:25
  you know, legacy meaning screenwriting, writing a novel, writing a book,
• 25:30
  you know, those kind of storytelling vehicles, television and so on. But
• 25:36
  now there is so many multiple ways that you can write and tell stories in
• 25:41
  all these other platforms. Before we get into that, though, can you
• 25:45
  tell me in your definition what is transmedia? Because it is a word that's
• 25:48
  thrown around. It was kind of like what was that back in the day
• 25:52
  multi? Oh god, what was that word? Like with CD ROMs and
• 26:00
  multimedia multimedia? Yes, that was like multimedia player and multimedia. Like it
• 26:06
  was one of these all like these token words that like, thank god it's
• 26:10
  gone, but it was like one of these things, like it's a multimedia
• 26:12
  thing, and like transmedia has turned it into something like that. So can
• 26:17
  you explain exactly what transmedia is? Absolutely? And transmedia, You're right,
• 26:21
  it's become a buzzword and it's sort of grown to a point where people just
• 26:25
  don't even really know what it is. The original idea behind transmedia is that
• 26:30
  you can create a story that can move between mediums and platforms. Now,
• 26:36
  a great example of this is what we've seen with the stories of say Spider
• 26:41
  Man or the Avengers or Batman. We started with these stories being and it
• 26:48
  told through the medium of comic books. Right then we saw these stories being
• 26:52
  told through video games and through movies and through television shows and basically these same
• 27:00
  stories are able to move between mediums and that's really what transmedia storytelling is is
• 27:07
  creating a story that's able to be expressed regardless of what medium it is.
• 27:15
  It's sort of something that came out of the explosion of technology that allowed us
• 27:22
  to start telling stories in a lot of different ways. And some people,
• 27:26
  somebody would come up with a really good idea for a story, they would
• 27:30
  go in and pitch it, and an executive might say, you know,
• 27:33
  that's a really good story. Our film slate is really full right now,
• 27:37
  but maybe we could we could you tell that through the medium of television,
• 27:41
  or maybe we should send that story over to our video game division. And
• 27:45
  so people began trying to create stories that would be powerful and be impactful,
• 27:52
  regardless of the medium that they were expressed in. Now, on one hand,
• 27:57
  this is great because we're more ways to tell and express a story.
• 28:02
  On the other hand, people begin to ignore the fact that every particular medium
• 28:07
  actually has rules and has form that helps that story work best. So it's
• 28:15
  not possible, really just to take a story that would be a feature film
• 28:19
  and just plug it in as a television show. You've got to recraft it.
• 28:25
  You've got to recraft it for the medium in a way that makes it
• 28:27
  work. Now, television even has really changed dramatically since we've had all these
• 28:33
  streaming services come into play. Now people binge watch shows, so it's not
• 28:37
  about trying to end a story every week in a place that brings the audience
• 28:41
  back to see it the next week, because people can binge the show and
• 28:45
  just watch the next episode right away. So, you know, we have
• 28:49
  to look at these various mediums and try and understand how we express any good
• 28:56
  story idea through the form of that medium. And that's really what the book
• 29:00
  Master of the Cinematic Universe is about, is trying to look at those forms
• 29:06
  and say, Okay, if you have a good story idea, how are
• 29:08
  you going to then pour it into the appropriate shape, the appropriately shaped glass
• 29:15
  in order for the audience to want to drink it. Yeah, it's kind
• 29:19
  of like it's kind of like video game movies and like they're I can't I'm
• 29:26
  sure there's one or two that are good, but the majority of them are
• 29:30
  horrendous because they're trying to take the medium from a video game and PLoP it
• 29:34
  into a narrative feature film and it's just very difficult because it's just different.
• 29:41
  You know, the storytelling in a video game is massive, and in scope,
• 29:44
  and you can go a thousand different directions and to try to jam that
• 29:48
  all into an hour and a half. We'll be right back after a word
• 29:52
  from our sponsor, and now back to the show. Is it's difficult,
• 30:00
  It's extremely difficult. I mean, can you recommend? Do you remember a
• 30:03
  video game movie that was good? You know, maybe maybe you know there
• 30:11
  was something I liked about the most recent tomb Raider. There were some things
• 30:15
  I liked about that. Yeah, a great movie. But I tell you
• 30:19
  I've had more bad experiences than good. I really, you know, saw
• 30:23
  the trailer a year or so ago for Assassin's Creed and I thought, oh
• 30:27
  man, it looks good. Good. No, I know, and the
• 30:30
  movie was one of the worst that And how do you get Michael Fasbender,
• 30:37
  you know, and he looked great, He'll know, I know, it
• 30:41
  looked fantastic. It was horrible. So now, so so this brings us
• 30:45
  into something else. And I know we're gonna we're walking on landmines on this
• 30:48
  next this next conversation. I think you know where I'm going with this.
• 30:52
  Um So you work for You've worked with Vertigo Comics, all right, which
• 30:59
  for everyone sing Vertical Comics is kind of. It's part of the DC universe,
• 31:03
  and I've always said the Vertico is a wonderful I mean, what they
• 31:07
  do with their storytelling is fantastic. They made movie movies were based on their
• 31:11
  books like Watchman and Vifa Vendetta and a handful of other ones as well that
• 31:17
  are really really good, and that side of the DC universe I have most
• 31:22
  respect for. But there's another side of the DC universe that is not the
• 31:27
  Chris Nolan Batman or the Tim Burton Batman or any standalone Batman movies. Let's
• 31:33
  just throw it out there generally, or the original Superman's. Other than those
• 31:41
  exemptions, the DC universe has been a colossal failure in my opinion. And
• 31:45
  I know people are gonna, look, I've did a whole YouTube video about
• 31:48
  this. I don't care if it made money. I don't. I'm not
• 31:52
  a fan. You know, there's elements of it that I do enjoy.
• 31:56
  I'm a comic book guy like in everybody else. But there's been a lot
• 32:00
  of failures there. And look, and I'm not the only one to say
• 32:02
  this. Everyone said it. Even Warner Brothers is like, Okay, we
• 32:07
  just can't wonder Woman actually was Actually, I enjoyed wonder Woman very much,
• 32:12
  and I thought I thought Aquaman was fun. Probably one of them were fun
• 32:15
  ones. I think they could let let Jason Mama loose a little bit more,
• 32:20
  but they kind of held them back. But that's just me. Um,
• 32:22
  we're geeking out, guys. But we are going to get to story
• 32:24
  in a second. I want in your opinion, what is the difference and
• 32:30
  why the DC universe's way of cinematic universe has failed so epically? Um,
• 32:38
  you know, because Suicide Squad just atrocious, Um, but arguably one of
• 32:43
  the greatest trailers I've seen in the last twenty years, without question, How
• 32:49
  they're how they've been able to fail so epically with arguably three at least of
• 32:55
  the most iconic superheroes ever created, wonder Woman, Batman and Superman, and
• 33:02
  yet Marvel who has lost most of their A level guys and girls through bad
• 33:10
  business dealings back in the day. They lost Spider Man and X Men and
• 33:14
  all these other properties. And they came in with and please everyone just stand
• 33:21
  just calm down before I say it, they came in with B level characters,
• 33:25
  you know, as far as Iron Man. THO. I mean,
• 33:29
  I've been a Marvel guy all my life. Those are not A level characters.
• 33:31
  They're not like they weren't selling off like Fantastic four. You know,
• 33:36
  we'll not Fantastic four, but but Thor, Iron Man, Captain America.
• 33:40
  These characters were not huge character. They were popular and stuff, but they
• 33:45
  were not best. So they were able to bring that and they've done this
• 33:50
  insane run of eleven I think eleven years now and created this insane Marvel universe
• 33:58
  that now, as we just recorded this endgame came out a couple of weeks
• 34:00
  ago and has now broken. They're the second highest rate of the second biggest
• 34:06
  movie of all time, and it will become the biggest movie of all time
• 34:07
  because it was. It got to that point in less than two weeks.
• 34:12
  There's a reason why people are so much hat and it's not just visual effects,
• 34:15
  it's not just spectacle. There's something so deep in story. Please in
• 34:21
  your opinion what made Marvel work as opposed to DC, and then I'll give
• 34:25
  you my my humble opinion as well. Okay, Well, as you mentioned,
• 34:30
  this is definitely riddled with landmine and so I'm going to do my best
• 34:35
  here to not step on one lot a lot of hate mail. Is gonna
• 34:37
  hate email. It's coming. I could, I could see it already,
• 34:40
  right. I think there's a couple of things. One. I do think
• 34:45
  the point that you make about Marvel really built their success, the recent success
• 34:51
  on characters that were not their A list characters. I think that has a
• 34:57
  great deal to do with it. Actually, because expectations for Batman, Superman,
• 35:02
  wonder Woman, the expectations for those characters, the backstory, the mythology
• 35:08
  behind those characters is so ingrained in the audience's mind. We have such a
• 35:17
  strong psychological idea of what those characters do and what types of stories they can
• 35:23
  be involved in. It makes it like walking a tightrope trying to tell,
• 35:29
  especially stories on the big screen about those characters. I think we've seen,
• 35:34
  you know, the Batman universe and the Superman universe work really well. Actually
• 35:38
  in the television market, Smallville I thought was a really good show, wonderful.
• 35:44
  Yeah. But with Marvel, you know, you have basically the people
• 35:49
  who went in to see these Marvel films, for the most part, didn't
• 35:52
  have a lot of expectations, didn't have a lot of backstory or knowledge about
• 35:57
  how iron Man became iron Man, and about, you know, anything more
• 36:01
  than the whole. Maybe used to be a scientist, maybe they knew that,
• 36:07
  maybe they didn't. But for the most part, Marvel was able to
• 36:12
  build their current mythology around these characters from the ground up in the mind of
• 36:15
  the audiences, and I think that was a lot easier task to pull off
• 36:20
  than what DC faced. Also, the nature of DC characters versus Marvel characters
• 36:27
  from a storytelling perspective is challenging because basically, with DC characters, and this
• 36:34
  is not all of them, but for the most part, DC characters are
• 36:37
  born with the gift, right, They're born with the supernatural power. Superman
• 36:43
  he's born with it. Wonder Woman she's born with it. Green Lantern born
• 36:46
  with it. Marvel characters, for the most part, receive the gift through
• 36:52
  some sort of mistake and technology. They usually, you know, are regular
• 36:59
  people that are endowed with this gift, and it usually involves some sort of
• 37:04
  diabolical thing that happens with technology. I think that idea of our technology being
• 37:12
  something that damages us that we have to then overcome is something that really resonates
• 37:19
  with people psychologically. In this day and age. We recognize that we're giving
• 37:23
  up something by giving away all our privacy and giving away all our time to
• 37:29
  our cell phones. These are things that we know we have great advantages for,
• 37:35
  but we also know we're giving up something, but we'd like to think
• 37:37
  we're still gonna win in the end. And so I think the Marvel mythology
• 37:42
  really speaks to that in place to that. That's just one guy's humble opinion.
• 37:45
  Please don't at me on Twitter about this, but that's one guy's opinion
• 37:51
  of why I think we may have seen a lot more success at least in
• 37:55
  the cinematic universe with Marvel. Now do you do you would you agree that?
• 38:01
  And this is what this has been my theory about about this, And
• 38:05
  we won't go on this for another hour, I promise. Um. But
• 38:07
  I've always felt that DC's characters are all essentially God's, you know, they're
• 38:14
  all godlike in their own way. So Green Lantern is essentially a God in
• 38:17
  his powers, So as Wonder Woman, so as Superman, so as Martian
• 38:21
  Man Hunter. Um, you know, other than Batman, who I've always
• 38:24
  argued to state that is a Marvel character in the DC universe because he he
• 38:30
  was in he was a normal guy that got endowed by the technology and had
• 38:34
  to deal with his stuff. Um, you know, you know, as
• 38:37
  Thor is a god, but a very non godlike god, like he has
• 38:43
  weaknesses. He these other ones, they're just so hard to write for.
• 38:46
  Like I remember watching a documentary on Superman and they were like, yeah,
• 38:51
  we get to a point with Superman blew out a star with his breath,
• 38:55
  Like where do you go from that? You know, like there's nothing like
• 39:00
  on a just narrative standpoint, where is the conflict. It's it's harder to
• 39:04
  write for those characters, which you agree, I would completely agree. It's
• 39:07
  it's tough when we're dealing with gods. This is why, by the way,
• 39:12
  in mythology, when the Greek gods, you know, we're created by
• 39:15
  the Greeks to tell you know, they told stories about them. They are
• 39:20
  all really imperfect gods. That that's the reason there's stories that have endured forever
• 39:25
  is actually their projections of human beings on different aspects of who we are.
• 39:31
  The Greek gods are more like human beings than the humans in the Greek mythological
• 39:37
  stories, and so I think that's one reason. I think also people have
• 39:43
  gravitated towards Marvel in this day and age with the with the films has been
• 39:50
  we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to
• 39:57
  the show Iron And seems more like a guy you'd like to go get a
• 40:01
  beer with than Superman or Batman. You know, we we they seem more
• 40:07
  like us, seem more relatable. They're not so much the projections of who
• 40:12
  we want to be on our best days, like Batman and Superman. So
• 40:17
  you know, I'm thinking, and that said, I love Batman, Superman.
• 40:21
  I actually prefer the DC characters more than the Marvel characters. But there's
• 40:27
  no denying the success that Marvel has had at the box office. And I
• 40:31
  would agree with you, like I would not want to have a beer with
• 40:34
  Batman, but I would definitely want to have a beer with Tony Stark.
• 40:37
  Like there's just no you know, Batman's going to be brooding about things.
• 40:40
  You know, He's just he's just an angry dude. But I'm a huge
• 40:44
  Batman fan, you know. That's so I love what Nolan did with Batman
• 40:46
  and Dark Knights arguably arguably the best superhero movie ever made in my opinion.
• 40:52
  You know, with Logan coming up, probably real close second in my opinion,
• 40:59
  I mean, they're just you know, they're just at a different playing
• 41:01
  field. I enjoy the Avengers, I enjoy all those, but there's just
• 41:04
  there's something really deep in those other movies. Yeah, it's it's it's it's
• 41:08
  a very interesting topic and I'm sure we could. We could have a whole
• 41:12
  episode on Marvel DC. And and one last thing before I finished on the
• 41:17
  Marvel DC that I have to I just have to in your opinion as well,
• 41:22
  do you believe that you know DC? I felt like DC was trying
• 41:28
  to mimic or copy or catch up with this kind of false like race that
• 41:34
  they were with with Marvel. Marvel had like a five year head start on
• 41:37
  them building this universe, and they're just trying to jam everything in where if
• 41:40
  they would have taken their time and done literally just you they could have done
• 41:45
  the blueprint. They could have literally stolen the blueprint for Marvel and just build
• 41:50
  it out little by little, then do the Justice League, then bring in
• 41:53
  maybe Suicide Squad then like it was laid out for them, but they were
• 41:59
  just playing such a run. Yeah do you agree? Yeah? I do,
• 42:02
  And I think this is actually to to loop it back into story.
• 42:07
  Um. I think this is something that writers and storytellers really can learn a
• 42:13
  valuable lesson from because many of us have a great idea for a story or
• 42:20
  a you know, a scene, and we're quick to sort of get that
• 42:23
  into our story and then we get into like the second act or the third
• 42:27
  act, and we really sort of have our characters just sort of wandering around
• 42:31
  because we've we've done this big thing we wanted to do. And so I
• 42:37
  think there's always a temptation to um to not appropriately pace our storytelling. And
• 42:46
  I think that's what we saw with the DC on a on a great level.
• 42:51
  And I think you and I would both also agree as storytellers, pacing
• 42:54
  is hard to master. It's really difficult, and a story pacing is one
• 42:59
  of the hard things to do. And I think we even see, you
• 43:02
  know, the big boys fail at this when yeah, they try sometimes because
• 43:08
  it's hard to do. Yeah, there's no question. And always I always
• 43:14
  tell people too, it's like just because you have two hundred million dollars doesn't
• 43:16
  mean you know what you're doing. It's it's it's it's it's like going up
• 43:20
  to the bat, like just because your babe Ruth doesn't mean you're gonna hit
• 43:24
  a harm run every time, That's right. You know, it's just an
• 43:28
  expensive swing at the bat. It's a very expensive swing at the bat.
• 43:35
  Um. So this sort of actually, if if you allow me one more
• 43:40
  divergence here, right, I think it's something that actually is a helpful thing
• 43:49
  for writers to in storytellers to consider right now, is you know, it
• 43:54
  is a big swing at the bat every time we devote ourselves to you know,
• 43:58
  writing one hundred and twenty pages, you know for a story, or
• 44:01
  writing you know, a TV pilot. I think because every swing of the
• 44:07
  bat is so expensive, one of the things I'm finding right now, I
• 44:13
  think that writers really can be doing is a favorite to themselves, is becoming
• 44:19
  as diverse as possible in their storytelling ecosystem. So I'm working on a book
• 44:25
  right now called the Creative Ecosystem. And here's sort of my idea. My
• 44:32
  life got so much simpler a few years ago when I stopped trying to narrow
• 44:37
  myself down to one single job description. When I would get on an airplane
• 44:42
  and people would ask me what I would do, it was tough because I'd
• 44:45
  say, well, I'm a writer. I write books and I write screenplays,
• 44:50
  but I also am a teacher, and I'm also a speaker, and
• 44:52
  sometimes I go and I do story consulting for studios. And you know,
• 44:59
  it was tough to describe, and Alex, when I finally got to a
• 45:04
  point where I stop trying to narrow my job description down to a single title
• 45:08
  and embrace my work as this ecosystem built around story, my life got a
• 45:14
  lot simpler. So some days I get up and I'm in the mountains of
• 45:19
  screen riding and I have highs and lows and it's wonderful. Some days I'm
• 45:22
  in the deserts of speaking and I'm out in front of people and it's tough
• 45:30
  and it's dry and my throat needs water. And some days I'm in the
• 45:34
  swamps of story consulting and it's mushy and it's messy. And I've found out,
• 45:40
  just like a real ecosystem, I, as a creative person have to
• 45:45
  constantly have new rivers and streams coming into the ecosystem. I also have to
• 45:50
  have things going out of the ecosystem, waste going out. That story that
• 45:54
  I keep coming back to, that I just keep wanting to tell. Sometimes
• 46:00
  you kind of just let that script go and let that be waste that goes
• 46:02
  out of the ecosystem. And so I'm working on this book right now that
• 46:07
  it is meant to encourage writers living in the gig economy, you know,
• 46:13
  where a lot of us are driving Uber, are driving Lift, are doing
• 46:17
  door dash, and we have seven different things we're doing in order to make
• 46:22
  ends meet and make a living. And writing may just be one of those
• 46:24
  things. But managing your life and managing your creative work is an ecosystem,
• 46:30
  just like we have here on the planet, bringing new streams in, bringing
• 46:35
  things out, having for us that I go and I meditate in and I
• 46:40
  sort of just stay in my research place. Having a beach on your ecosystem
• 46:45
  that is just where you go for fun and you don't got to worry about
• 46:50
  you work at all. But having all those things as part of your creative
• 46:52
  ecosystem, I feel like it's one of the most significant ways that writers can
• 46:58
  approach their creative life right now. And again, I think it's a lesson
• 47:01
  we're learning from big companies like Marvel and DC. They've had to expand their
• 47:07
  ecosystems. If if DC, we're only trying to tell stories through movies right
• 47:12
  now. If they didn't have video games and comics, they'd be done well.
• 47:15
  We as writers need to take a lesson from that and need to say,
• 47:19
  Okay, how can I develop my ecosystem where if my scripts aren't paying
• 47:22
  the bills right now, what are other areas that I can be writing in
• 47:27
  that I can be doing in order to form a creative life that's meaningful.
• 47:32
  That is fantastic. That is a fantastic idea for a book. It is
• 47:37
  I've never heard it put that way before, So I am excited to read
• 47:42
  that book when it comes out, and I'm sure everyone listening is too,
• 47:45
  because it's it's so true, Like you, I have so many hyphinits,
• 47:50
  it's not even funny, Like I have so many hyphinites in my world.
• 47:52
  Like what do you do? I'm like, well, I'm a blogger,
• 47:54
  I'm a podcast, I'm a director, I'm a writer, I do post
• 47:59
  do this just keeps going on and on. So it's very difficult, but
• 48:01
  I love the concept of coming in and going out. The going out for
• 48:07
  creatives is probably the toughest problem problem because you will hold on to that script
• 48:10
  and you spent a year of your life on. But you really just need
• 48:15
  to take some exlax and just let it go. Just let it go,
• 48:21
  loosen the bowels and let that go, because it's not going there. It's
• 48:24
  just stopping you up. I'm sorry for me to be crashed, but it
• 48:28
  is. But it's a great analogy because as creatives, I've done it in
• 48:31
  my life. I'm sure you have too. You hold onto something you're like,
• 48:35
  but I've spent so long on this movie, or I've spent so long
• 48:37
  on this script, and I got to hold onto it because if not,
• 48:40
  that year I just went through is a waste, and I would I would
• 48:45
  argue that the year that you just went through is not a waste, even
• 48:47
  if the product might not make it. The education you got, the experience
• 48:52
  you got, it's invaluable. And you learn much more about yourself and about
• 48:55
  everything when you fail than when you win. You win, you learn nothing
• 49:00
  from the winds, That's right. Do you agree? I completely agree?
• 49:05
  And that's that's why if you look at your work as an ecosystem, in
• 49:09
  order for the ecosystem as a whole to stay healthy, you need those outputs.
• 49:15
  You need to be disposing of the waste, because that is what's going
• 49:19
  to keep the whole ecosystem healthy And to be able to say, you know
• 49:22
  what, that waste that I'm letting go of, it's there because there was
• 49:28
  work put in that strengthened some other part of the ecosystem. You know,
• 49:31
  So that when I'm in the forest just doing research and I'm just thinking through
• 49:37
  my story ideas and I'm working on outlines and working on you know, that
• 49:42
  is not wasted time. We tend to think that, you know, uh,
• 49:45
  it's only the time setting in front of the computer at the keyboard,
• 49:49
  you know, that is actual writing. Man. Most of my writing occurs
• 49:53
  when I'm in the car, driving through the streets of laccurs in We'll be
• 50:01
  right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show,
• 50:09
  a man. I mean, that's where my writing happens. When I get
• 50:14
  to a keyboard, it's just a matter of getting to put it on the
• 50:15
  page. But the writing actually occurs when I'm out on the four oh five,
• 50:21
  you know, driving to the next thing I have to do, and
• 50:24
  learning to value that, learning to say, you know what, this is
• 50:30
  valuable time, and even if I have to let this go later, there's
• 50:35
  nutrients I've taken from this process that have made me a more healthy writer.
• 50:40
  In my entire ecosystem has been strengthened because of the work I did on this
• 50:45
  project. It's a much better way to live, man, than feeling like
• 50:49
  you're just failing all the time. Yeah, and if you can, you
• 50:52
  know, Like I'll use my career as an example. I've always I started
• 50:58
  off as an editor, and then when work started to slow down, I
• 51:00
  jumped into color grading because I saw that there was less cut traffick there or
• 51:05
  less competition, so they started a color grading Like wa, wait a minute,
• 51:07
  Then I'll just also do post supervising because I essentially know how to do
• 51:08
  that anyway. And then I'm like, well, VFX supervising is just another
• 51:12
  step ahead of that, so I'll just do VFX supervising as well. And
• 51:15
  I'm also going to direct. Well, I'm directed, so you're always finding
• 51:19
  something. So if I'm not working in one thing, I'm working on another.
• 51:22
  It's diversification of your creative process where it is. So it's like putting
• 51:29
  all your eggs. Like when you're investing, you don't invest only on e
• 51:32
  toys, you know, you don't only invest in sears Stock. You know,
• 51:39
  because things are not going to go well, you need to diversify your
• 51:44
  creative portfolio and by doing multiple different things. I'm a screenwriter, I'm a
• 51:49
  writer, I'm a novelist. I'm a blogger, I write articles. I
• 51:52
  do this. You're constantly working and you're also constantly strengthening all of those muscles.
• 51:58
  Would you agree, Man, Alex, you nailed it. You nailed
• 52:00
  it. That's exactly what in my opinion, finding success in this business.
• 52:07
  That is the key, you know, it is about trying to diversify,
• 52:13
  to have a healthy ecosystem of work that is going on. That's really the
• 52:19
  key to success for me. And does that mean you're going to you know,
• 52:23
  be hired to direct the next Marvel movie or whatever. Maybe that will
• 52:27
  become part of your ecosystem and maybe it won't. But the thing is,
• 52:30
  if that's your only goal that you're trying to hit, is I just want
• 52:35
  to be able to direct a Marvel movie. That's such a thin line and
• 52:38
  a thin goal line. Um, you know, you're you're not setting yourself
• 52:43
  up for success, you know, So to me, that's sort of the
• 52:46
  beauty in Um. You know, people like yourself who are able to be
• 52:53
  these human Swiss army knives right that it's like, hey, whatever you need
• 52:59
  done, and I can step in and I can do it. I'm somebody
• 53:02
  who gets things done in some ways. To me Alex, that builds the
• 53:07
  sort of psychology that's necessary for successful The success in the entertainment industry is being
• 53:15
  somebody who embodies the Swiss army knife and says, you know what, whatever
• 53:19
  they need done, I can do it, and I can do it.
• 53:21
  Well, I'm going to step in and I'm going to learn that craft in
• 53:24
  order to bring some success to that. That's the psychology that that's going to
• 53:30
  get you places in this industry. Would you agree that the old or not
• 53:35
  the old and the legacy way of doing things in this industry have been like
• 53:38
  the movie industry did not change for eighty to one hundred years. It was
• 53:44
  pretty much that was it. It did not It did not move. I
• 53:49
  mean from the technology of how movies were made. Sure, a little things
• 53:52
  here and there, but it was filmed and it went through the process and
• 53:54
  writing. You were a screenwriter and that's it. So that focus of all
• 53:58
  I can only be a screenwriter as a writer in the business that was it.
• 54:01
  In today's world, things are changing so dramatically that you know, and
• 54:07
  jobs are being just gone, like you know, it's like, you know,
• 54:09
  for lack of a better word, like I'm a coal miner, and
• 54:13
  all of a sudden, that's all I've done all my life and all I
• 54:15
  know is coal mining. And I guess what. The mind's closed now because
• 54:20
  whatever reasons, it's done. And now they're like, well, I don't
• 54:22
  have any I don't know anyone how to do anything else. That is the
• 54:25
  old way of thinking. Where in the new economy, in the new entertainment
• 54:30
  industry, you need to be of jack of all trades. Specialization is you're
• 54:37
  you're risking when you do specialization because you know, in the world that we're
• 54:42
  living and things are changing so rapidly that all of a sudden, like oh,
• 54:45
  you know what, we don't need to direct us anymore. AI is
• 54:46
  taking care of that for us. But we also do need this. I
• 54:50
  don't think that's going to happen, but unless James Camera creates it. But
• 54:54
  but it happens all the time. And I saw it in I came up,
• 54:59
  Like I said an editor, when I came up, there weren't a
• 55:01
  lot of editors and editing systems used to cost you know, one hundred thousand,
• 55:06
  hundred fifty thousand dollars to edit on nonlinear editing systems. Before that it
• 55:09
  was a million dollars. I've an editing suite. And then all of a
• 55:13
  sudden, final cut came out and now everyone's an editor. So now the
• 55:16
  competition came in. So then us when I jumped into color grading, because
• 55:19
  color grading was still a little bit higher up and not everybody could do that.
• 55:22
  And then but you kind of kind of always jump all over the place.
• 55:27
  If you don't do that, you're done. That's it. That's it.
• 55:30
  And I I mean, that's we would love to romanticize this idea,
• 55:35
  you know that we can just stay committed to this one thing. And I
• 55:42
  do think it's good to have something that is really your focus and a goal
• 55:45
  that you're trying to get to. I'm all for that, not saying don't
• 55:49
  do that, but what I am saying is if you want long term success
• 55:54
  in this business, you've got to adapt that sort of adaptability. Um,
• 56:00
  it's just like, you know, the industry is changed. Um, we
• 56:05
  don't think about the way that the industry has changed throughout history. For example,
• 56:08
  it used to be when you went to the movie theater, there was
• 56:13
  a man that was a woman that was paid to set up at an organ
• 56:16
  at the front and play music that accompanied what you were seeing on the screen.
• 56:22
  Right, And you know what, overnight that job disappeared on it was
• 56:25
  gone. And if that's all you've done, if that's all you've done for
• 56:29
  thirty years, you're you're done. That's right, that's you're done. And
• 56:32
  and so often entire careers are gone overnight because that that was, you know,
• 56:39
  no longer needed. And that's the age we live in. I mean,
• 56:43
  think about you know, when you and I were young, if we
• 56:46
  wanted to go sir, Sir, sir, I'm still young, sir,
• 56:49
  I don't know. I'm sorry. Yes, I'm speaking for myself for sure.
• 56:53
  For sure, I am twenty five. I am twenty five. My
• 56:55
  daughters have done this to me. Oh, I totally, I totally get
• 57:00
  it. I myself have been twenty nine for a number of years now exactly
• 57:07
  you were saying, sir, Yes, but it used to be if you
• 57:09
  or I wanted to go to Florida, we would call a travel agent and
• 57:14
  get them to book us a ticket to go to Florida. Right that overnight,
• 57:20
  that entire industry disappeared, right because we didn't need it anymore. So
• 57:24
  if you want to be someone that you know is putting all your eggs in
• 57:28
  one basket, you do risk this idea that, you know what, my
• 57:35
  career may be completely irrelevant overnight someday. But I think that's why those of
• 57:42
  us I love that you know your your brand, your podcast cast, you
• 57:45
  know indie film hustle, because I think most of us recognize that one of
• 57:51
  the big keys to success here is to have a hustle, to have to
• 57:53
  be hustlers. That's why I have a lot of friends that are right all
• 57:58
  day and then in the afternoon they go out and they drive Uber for four
• 58:02
  hours, and then they go do door to ask for four hours. And
• 58:06
  the gig economy necessary makes it a necessity that we have to be willing to
• 58:13
  be diverse and how we approach getting our art out into the world without question.
• 58:19
  And every single time I walk into an uber, I sit down an
• 58:21
  Uber, the first words out of my mouth is how's the script? And
• 58:27
  because I live in La so it's about seven out of ten times they go
• 58:30
  how did you know. I don't. I'm not making fun. I'm you
• 58:37
  know what, I'm just riven. But but but it's the thing. And
• 58:39
  if it's not an if it's not a screenwriter, it's an actor. And
• 58:43
  if it's not an actor, it's a director. If not a singer.
• 58:45
  I was in an uber the other day. They played me their demo.
• 58:50
  Their demo was being played for me in there. In there, I'm like,
• 58:52
  and they're like, can you give me options? I'm like, opinions.
• 58:54
  I'm like, do you want to truth? Yea um, And because
• 58:58
  I'm never going to see you again, so if you want the truth,
• 59:00
  I'll tell you the truth. And I did, and you could see that.
• 59:02
  They're just like, I'm like, I'm like, you need more production,
• 59:06
  you need more of this. This is like, all of a sudden,
• 59:07
  I'm an American Idol judge, but this is but this is the world
• 59:10
  that we live in right now, and it is, it is. It's
• 59:15
  tough, But I think that Swiss army knife analogy is exactly what we all
• 59:19
  need to be, especially just on the writing standpoint. There is hundreds of
• 59:22
  different things you can do as writers. I know professional screenwriters who who have
• 59:27
  jumped into novel writing because they keep one percent control of their story and they
• 59:31
  don't have to deal with all the crap that goes along with trying to produce
• 59:35
  a feature film. And I want to touch on real quick virtual reality because
• 59:39
  that is something that you wrote a big book on that was very popular.
• 59:43
  Can you talk a little bit about the possibilities for writers in virtual reality and
• 59:46
  where that that whole industry is going to go. Yeah, we'll be right
• 59:52
  back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 1:00:00
  Well, I'm glad you bring it up, because it really is. I've
• 1:00:05
  been part of my ecosystem right now. It's a new stream that's come in
• 1:00:08
  and I've always sort of been interested in technology. I haven't been in as
• 1:00:14
  arrested in cameras in post production. At various times when virtual reality first started
• 1:00:20
  to rise into prominence, this most recent time, I recognized that the language
• 1:00:29
  that we could tell stories with with this medium was really going to be different
• 1:00:32
  than anything we had had experienced before. Part of that is because for the
• 1:00:37
  last one hundred hundred and twenty years we've been using the edges of a frame
• 1:00:44
  to tell an audience. Here's what's important here's what is not important. If
• 1:00:47
  it's outside the edges of the frame, don't worry about it. I will
• 1:00:52
  tell you, as the storyteller, what to pay attention to. By centering
• 1:00:54
  it up somewhere near the center of the frame, I will show you what
• 1:00:58
  it is that I want you to see. With virtual reality, we've removed
• 1:01:02
  the edges of the frame, and we have put the audience in the role
• 1:01:08
  of the protagonist. But I would suggest you that no technology has really taken
• 1:01:15
  off and succeeded on a mass level until we figured out how to tell a
• 1:01:20
  story with it. Film camera is Thomas Edison. When he first developed the
• 1:01:23
  film camera only used him for scientific purposes. He predicted the failure of using
• 1:01:30
  a film camera to tell stories with Now he was greatly wrong about that.
• 1:01:34
  But once we figured out how to tell stories with cameras, that technology takes
• 1:01:38
  off. Television takes off once we really figure out how to tell stories with
• 1:01:42
  it. Radio takes off when we figure out how to tell stories with it.
• 1:01:45
  Even I would dare say the Internet really took off once we figured out
• 1:01:52
  how to share our stories with it. My mother has become a Facebook expert,
• 1:01:59
  and it's only because she wants to be able to share her stories and
• 1:02:02
  experience the stories of her grandchildren. Right, So, I am convinced that
• 1:02:09
  we haven't yet figured out how to tell good stories with virtual reality. It's
• 1:02:15
  sort of what the book that I wrote is about. But I'm convinced that
• 1:02:20
  the ability to give the audience agency within a story is something that's not going
• 1:02:25
  to go away. This is a whole different medium outside of video games,
• 1:02:30
  outside of film, and just like with those mediums, it took us time
• 1:02:34
  to develop a cinematic language, it's going to take some time with virtual reality
• 1:02:38
  to develop a cinematic language. This gives an opportunity for writers, however,
• 1:02:44
  to help craft this new storytelling medium in a way that's never been done before.
• 1:02:50
  There is a lot of money in tech that is being invested into trying
• 1:02:54
  to tell successful stories in virtual reality. So I would highly recommend that any
• 1:03:00
  writer who's looking to sort of expand their ecosystem start looking into VR as a
• 1:03:05
  medium to write for, because a lot of what you know about story will
• 1:03:08
  apply in this new medium. Even as you figure out how to expand your
• 1:03:13
  storytelling abilities in a new cinematic language. Would you would you agree with the
• 1:03:19
  statement that that box that you were talking about, that we've been trained and
• 1:03:23
  most humans have been trained to look at, even back in the Greek stage
• 1:03:28
  like it was whatever was on the stage. Basically, yes, when you
• 1:03:31
  when that box is now gone, is it a little overwhelming? Because I
• 1:03:37
  feel it's extremely overwhelming when I sit down with VR and I'm just like,
• 1:03:42
  o'hm, Like it's just so much input, and I'm like, where do
• 1:03:45
  I go. It's like I'm not trained for it. And even you know,
• 1:03:47
  I mean maybe the generation coming up because they played video games in a
• 1:03:51
  kind of VR world where everything is all over the place, but at least
• 1:03:54
  for our generation and generations before, but even then, that's a video game
• 1:03:59
  playing. That's not storytelling. Storytelling. It's still I gotta have it.
• 1:04:03
  Storytelling needs a storytell lure, and that storytell lerer is the one who's going
• 1:04:09
  to tell you the story. When it's so wide open, there is no
• 1:04:14
  back to the very beginning of this conversation, there is no structure. It
• 1:04:18
  doesn't seem like it. Do you agree it? Tell me? What do
• 1:04:20
  you think? Well? I think it's more nuanced than that. And here's
• 1:04:25
  why. If you look back to the history of film when film first began
• 1:04:30
  to be displayed in these big motion picture houses. There's a very famous old
• 1:04:35
  film clip of a cowboy pointing a gun directly at the screen and pulling the
• 1:04:41
  trigger, and it's a very famous story. Audience is jumping up and running
• 1:04:45
  out of the theaters because they felt exactly the way that you feel about virtual
• 1:04:51
  reality. They felt like it's too overwhelming, it's too much information, it's
• 1:04:57
  too real. It's like when the train was coming in for the first time,
• 1:04:59
  people think the train was going to run them over exactly. So in
• 1:05:02
  some sense, it is because we're an audience. You and I have grown
• 1:05:06
  up with this two D medium that we're not allowed much agency in, and
• 1:05:13
  so for us it does feel overwhelming. However, I think as younger audiences
• 1:05:20
  that have been immersed in the sort of video game storytelling that a lot of
• 1:05:27
  older people find very overwhelming, I think it's something that younger audiences are going
• 1:05:31
  to grow into. However, let me say this as well. I think
• 1:05:36
  this is back where my narrative Shard's idea comes into play that you don't necessarily
• 1:05:43
  have to have a three act structure in a VR experience. You may use
• 1:05:47
  elements that we know about character, or elements that we know about symbolism,
• 1:05:54
  or elements that we know about environmental storytelling in order to communicate a story where
• 1:06:00
  the audience is the protagonist. So again, I do I think we've got
• 1:06:05
  it all figured out. No, But I think it also took us some
• 1:06:10
  time to figure out how to do it. With cinema, we didn't get
• 1:06:14
  that right for a number of years. And think about how long it took
• 1:06:17
  the earliest you know, moy Bridges, Horse of Running before we got to
• 1:06:24
  the point where we have, you know, Marvel End Game. I mean,
• 1:06:28
  that is a long long way to go with storytelling. So I think
• 1:06:32
  we've got a long way to go. But I'm confident once we get rid
• 1:06:36
  of those big blockheadsets that people have to put on their heads, we probably
• 1:06:42
  won't even call it virtual reality anymore. But I think people are interested in
• 1:06:46
  being immersed in a story in ways that they never have been before. So
• 1:06:53
  I think it's clunky. I think we're not quite there with it. But
• 1:06:56
  the writers who figure out how to tell an immersive story now, in the
• 1:07:00
  same ways that immersive theater, theme parks, escape rooms have been succeeding with
• 1:07:04
  for a number of years. I think those storytellers will be at the forefront
• 1:07:10
  of this future of storytelling that we were just figuring out how to We're babies,
• 1:07:16
  we're just figuring out how to stand right now. But one day we'll
• 1:07:19
  grow into it. We'll be able to walk, we'll be able to run,
• 1:07:21
  and we'll be able to really experience something like we've never experienced before.
• 1:07:26
  I believe. So. So it's going to get better than lawnmore Man,
• 1:07:30
  is what you're telling me. It's gonna get a little bit better than that.
• 1:07:32
  Nothing gets better than lawnmore Man. That movie is a classic. Man,
• 1:07:36
  it's a classic. I love it was. I was in the video
• 1:07:41
  store working when that came out, and when that came out, your mind
• 1:07:44
  was like, what is this visual effects? Oh my god? Like it
• 1:07:48
  just so good, Like Jeff Ay he pierced broads. Then what's going on?
• 1:07:55
  Sorry? So, so I want to ask you a few question asked
• 1:08:00
  all of my guests, what advice would you give a screenwriter or storyteller trying
• 1:08:05
  to break into the business today. I would would say that it's important you
• 1:08:13
  recognize that this game is a marathon and not a sprint. You've really got
• 1:08:19
  to be in for the long haul and when you finally get your opportunity,
• 1:08:26
  and I feel like Hollywood in the entertainment business is this super long line of
• 1:08:30
  people and you wait your turn to get up to the front of the line.
• 1:08:34
  And if you've done all your work to perfect your craft by the time
• 1:08:39
  you get up to the front of the line and get your shot, I
• 1:08:42
  really believe you'll make it. However, if you've wasted that time, you
• 1:08:47
  know, and you didn't perfect your craft by the time you get up to
• 1:08:50
  the front of the line and get your shot, then yeah, you probably
• 1:08:53
  won't make it. So I think approaching everything you do is being preparation for
• 1:09:02
  when you get your big shot, I think is very important. And the
• 1:09:06
  final thing I'll say on that is this Alex every other art form artists are
• 1:09:14
  very comfortable with practicing their art form. So people that are learning to draw
• 1:09:18
  our paint, they practice. They sketch, musicians, they practice. Right.
• 1:09:24
  For whatever reason, filmmakers and storytellers feel like every little thing we ever
• 1:09:29
  do needs to be put up on YouTube for public consumption. It needs to
• 1:09:33
  have a grand premiere. We need to have a big party around it.
• 1:09:38
  And we're sort of immature in that way. I look at the vast majority
• 1:09:43
  of the writing and the films that I've done as being practice for something that
• 1:09:48
  I do want to share with the public. Will be right back after a
• 1:09:54
  word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. So I would
• 1:10:01
  say, mature, prepare to mature yourself to a place where you don't need
• 1:10:06
  to take every single piece of work you do and put it up for public
• 1:10:12
  consumption. Is a celebration of your art, but practice and use your art
• 1:10:18
  form to practice in a way that when you really do have something you want
• 1:10:23
  to share, it is strategically put in front of an audience instead of just
• 1:10:28
  taking every little thing you crap out and put it on YouTube or Vimeo for
• 1:10:32
  everybody to see. So that's the biggest advice I could give storytellers right now,
• 1:10:38
  and some of the best screenwriters I know, I always ask the question
• 1:10:42
  like how many scripts did you write before you sold one? And a lot
• 1:10:44
  of times it's eight, ten, fifteen, twenty, because they just that's
• 1:10:48
  a professionals. A professional will do that. And then the professional will not
• 1:10:54
  write and spend five years on one screenplay. That's just a professional will do.
• 1:10:58
  That's right. You have to just you gotta work, you gotta I
• 1:11:01
  think it was um. I think it was the the the legend at Sheridan
• 1:11:08
  who said who said this? And I thought it was a wonderful analogy when
• 1:11:13
  he starts write because he asked him how do you write songs? He's an
• 1:11:15
  amazing songwriter, and he and they how do you when you write song?
• 1:11:17
  Because you know, it's kind of like turning on. You walk into an
• 1:11:20
  old house and you go into the bathroom and you turn on the tub and
• 1:11:25
  you open you open up the faucet and the tub at all you get a
• 1:11:27
  sludge and you just got all that sludge has to come out and come out
• 1:11:30
  and come out till eventually it starts clearing up, clearing up, and then
• 1:11:34
  you get crystal clear water. But you've got to go through the sludge.
• 1:11:38
  That's it. That's it, man. You've got to get all the bad
• 1:11:41
  writing out before any good writing is going to come through. Amen. Now,
• 1:11:45
  can you tell me the book that had the biggest impact on your life
• 1:11:47
  or career? Yeah, I would definitely say it's Joseph Campbell, The Hero
• 1:11:53
  with a Thousand Faces. But let me also recommend one other book that's a
• 1:11:57
  little more model, and it's a book of fiction for writers and storytellers.
• 1:12:03
  This, I think is just a really great example of really simple but powerful
• 1:12:09
  storytelling. It's a book by a guy named David Schickler, and it's called
• 1:12:14
  Kissing in Manhattan, and it's a collection of short stories and anthology that all
• 1:12:18
  the short stories end up weaving together. David Schickler probably most known he sold
• 1:12:24
  an idea to Cinemax for a series called Banshee. And I thought Banshee was
• 1:12:30
  a great series, But David Schickler created and wrote that. But he had
• 1:12:34
  a book of short stories called Kissing in Manhattan, and I always love to
• 1:12:39
  recommend that to writers and storytellers. Is just an example of really creative but
• 1:12:45
  simple characters in stories that really are powerful. Now, what is the lesson
• 1:12:50
  that took you the longest to learn, whether in the film business or in
• 1:12:53
  life. Wow, I feel like I could do a whole nother podcast just
• 1:12:59
  talking about the lessons that I've learned. But I think the biggest lesson that
• 1:13:03
  I've learned is this trying to chase what I you know, think as popular
• 1:13:11
  or what other people like as far as stories go. That is the dog
• 1:13:18
  chasing its tail. And I've really learned the weird little things that I nerd
• 1:13:25
  out about, in geek out about those passions are the things that I should
• 1:13:30
  be telling stories about, and those are the things that bring the juice of
• 1:13:33
  life to me. And I've learned to to really not be ashamed of the
• 1:13:40
  weird little things I'm interested in and that I spend a lot of time in.
• 1:13:45
  So I'll give you a brief example. I am really fascinated by this
• 1:13:53
  this place called Hubert's Dime Museum, and it was the last dime museum in
• 1:13:59
  the United States. It closed down in nineteen sixty nine. It was in
• 1:14:01
  Times Square in New York, and it was this really just weird place and
• 1:14:09
  I have read everything I could possibly read about it, and I have found
• 1:14:15
  every picture. I go on eBay all the time and buy things that were
• 1:14:17
  held there in the museum. And what does that have to do with my
• 1:14:24
  work? Nothing? But it's something that I can geek out about and that
• 1:14:28
  I can get deep into, and that nobody else in the world likes but
• 1:14:32
  me. But it brings so much joy to me to have that and to
• 1:14:36
  not be ashamed of that or not feel like you know that that's a waste
• 1:14:43
  of my time. So find those little things in life that bring you the
• 1:14:48
  most juice and that bring you the most meaning and the most joy, and
• 1:14:55
  make time for those things in your life because the rest of this stuff is
• 1:15:00
  great, but it comes and goes, and you need those little things that
• 1:15:03
  are just yours. Now, what fear did you have to break through to
• 1:15:11
  get to where you are today? You know? I think again, I
• 1:15:15
  could do a whole another podcast. Of all the fears that I've had,
• 1:15:18
  the two biggest fears that I've had are one imposter syndrome. I still to
• 1:15:25
  this day, and I've published five books on storytelling, and every time I
• 1:15:29
  get up on a podcast or get on a stage or submit a script,
• 1:15:33
  I still have this idea in the back of my head that it's like,
• 1:15:38
  today's the day they're gonna figure you out that you don't know what you're doing.
• 1:15:41
  Today's that day. Oh you mean both, brother, Yeah, I
• 1:15:45
  mean seriously, it's like that imposter syndrome. I don't care how much success
• 1:15:50
  you have. And I've sat down with some of the biggest names in the
• 1:15:54
  business and they've told me they still have that, So I don't think it
• 1:15:57
  ever goes away. But that and then the fear of what will other people
• 1:16:02
  think, Well, other people think I'm not good? Will other people think
• 1:16:06
  I'm stupid or that my ideas are dumb? That those are the two big
• 1:16:13
  fears for me. Is that imposter syndrome and then the fear of that everybody
• 1:16:17
  else knows what good is except for me. Yeah, that's that's definitely.
• 1:16:25
  That's definitely two big ones. You've got to come over come across. And
• 1:16:27
  you've done very well, You've been well, you don't show you don't show
• 1:16:30
  it, sir, you don't show it. I try, I try.
• 1:16:32
  I struggle with them all the time. But those are the fears I would
• 1:16:35
  say that I'm learning to battle and learning to overcome. Now, what are
• 1:16:42
  three of your favorite films of all time? Yeah? Man, that's a
• 1:16:45
  that's an easy one because I've thought long and hard about this on many occasions.
• 1:16:50
  Number number three for me is Raiders of the Lost Arc. I will
• 1:16:56
  forever be a result of that film. Um. It inspired much of my
• 1:17:03
  interest in mythology that I went to pursue a PhD around. Just last night,
• 1:17:09
  I watched Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade. I just love going into
• 1:17:13
  that world man, it is a big number three for me. Number two
• 1:17:17
  is The Empire Strikes Back. That film showed me that a dark story still
• 1:17:25
  could be full of hope and could be a story that stays, that stories
• 1:17:30
  can stay with you for life, that that story has just never left me.
• 1:17:33
  And then number one is probably a lesser known film that a lot of
• 1:17:38
  people may not have seen. It's an old Orson Welles film called The Third
• 1:17:43
  Man, and the Third Man is It's one of my favorite films. It's
• 1:17:48
  a dart and noir film, and it's it's about a man that fakes his
• 1:17:53
  own death and the person who discovers this and tracks him down. And there's
• 1:17:59
  just something about that film that I can't fully articulate or put into words that
• 1:18:03
  really speaks to me. And I love going back to watch The Third Man
• 1:18:09
  every chance I get awesome. Now, where can people find you and more
• 1:18:14
  about your work? Yeah? The two big places. One, please visit
• 1:18:17
  my website. It's Telling a Betterstory dot com. You can see a lot
• 1:18:23
  of my work there, read more about me, get to all my social
• 1:18:27
  media channels. The other place I'm really active is on Twitter and it's at
• 1:18:31
  John John K Bucchr. So it's my name with my middle initial, and
• 1:18:39
  I'm really active on Twitter and really enjoy connecting with people there, so I
• 1:18:44
  look forward to seeing people on Twitter or really any of the social media handles
• 1:18:48
  that you can find at my website Telling a Betterstory dot com. John Man,
• 1:18:53
  it has been an absolute pleasure. I know we can sit here and
• 1:18:56
  talk for at least another hour or two without question about just on the Avengers
• 1:19:01
  and DC alone, but it's been it's been an absolute honor having you and
• 1:19:06
  a pleasure speaking to you on the show, and you've dropped some amazing knowledge
• 1:19:11
  bombs on the Tribe today, so I do truly appreciate it. Brother,
• 1:19:14
  Thank you so much. Thank you John for coming on the show and dropping
• 1:19:17
  those knowledge bombs. I really really had a great time talking to John and
• 1:19:21
  getting into the alchemy of storytelling with him. And again, if you want
• 1:19:27
  to get links to anything we talked about in this episode, head over to
• 1:19:30
  the show notes at Indie film Hustle dot com Ford Slash six eighty five.
• 1:19:34
  If you have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com.
• 1:19:39
  Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It really helps us out
• 1:19:43
  a lot, guys. Thank you again so much for listening. Guys,
• 1:19:45
  as always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive, Stay safe
• 1:19:48
  out there, and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the
• 1:19:51
  Indie Film Hustle podcast at Indie Film Hustle dot com. That's I N D
• 1:19:57
  I E F I L M hus tli dot com