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BPS 471: Why Most Creators Never Finish Their Film (Hard Truth) with James Altucher · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four seventy one.
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  Speaker 2: Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
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  Speaker 1: It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
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  Speaker 1: business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
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  Speaker 1: screenplay bulletproof.
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  Speaker 2: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
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  Speaker 2: episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
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  Speaker 2: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
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  Speaker 3: My next guest is a multi number one Amazon bestseller
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  Speaker 3: and hosts one of the top podcasts in the world.
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  Speaker 3: With guests James Altacher. Hey James, thanks all for coming
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  Speaker 3: on the show.
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  Speaker 4: Dave, thank you so much for asking me to come
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  Speaker 4: on the show. I'm really grateful.
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  Speaker 3: You know, James, you've been a mentor of mine for
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  Speaker 3: you years now, ever since I've heard of you, like
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: in around twenty ten. I think I heard of you
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: around then for your article about how much of a
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  Speaker 3: scam college is. And by the way, when I read it,
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  Speaker 3: I was like, this guy's one hundred percent right, and
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: you know from there, everything that you published, everything that
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: you know, I have all of your books everything, so
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  Speaker 3: and also basically you've been an interrect mentor for me
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  Speaker 3: this whole time.
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  Speaker 4: Well, thanks very much, David. Yeah, that that college article.
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  Speaker 4: I got a lot of backlash on and even lost
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  Speaker 4: friends over it, but but I still believe it, like
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  Speaker 4: you know, and now we're seeing the outcomes, which is that,
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  Speaker 4: you know, most people are graduating and taking jobs that
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: don't even require a college degree. And you have people
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  Speaker 4: even like Google saying they're no longer looking at whether
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: or not someone has a college degree. So I think
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  Speaker 4: gradually what used to be controversial is not being a
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  Speaker 4: legitimate discussion. So so I'm glad that's happening.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, because I actually knew a guy who was a
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  Speaker 3: headhunter for Google, and he said what they were doing
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  Speaker 3: now was they were looking kids in high school because
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  Speaker 3: with the you know, we're in the information age, so
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: we said, by the time they're in high school, they're
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  Speaker 3: most likely nine times out of ten, or maybe even
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: ten times out of ten, they're already online learning this stuff,
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  Speaker 3: and they already know what they're going to do. And
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  Speaker 3: some of these kids are geniuses at artificial intelligence. The
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  Speaker 3: other these other kids are geniuses are coding, and they
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  Speaker 3: don't need college because they already know at that age
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  Speaker 3: they already know more than most teachers do.
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  Speaker 4: Well. The thing is, too college is teaching, and this
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  Speaker 4: is not always the case. So I'm not going like
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  Speaker 4: a thousand colleges into one basket, but college is teaching
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  Speaker 4: kind of slightly older knowledge, like something that's already been
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  Speaker 4: put into a textbook. Now, normally that might be a
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  Speaker 4: good thing because it's knowledge that's been studied and curated
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  Speaker 4: and thought about, an experimented on, and so on. But
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  Speaker 4: technology is changing so fast right now, and opportunities and
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  Speaker 4: innovation is happening so fast. Like I just saw a
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  Speaker 4: help wanted ad the other day for a self driving
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  Speaker 4: car engineer, in other words, an engineer who specialized in
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: self driving cars. Well, there's no degree in college that
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  Speaker 4: teaches that because self driving cars on the road didn't
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  Speaker 4: even exist a year ago. So so things are just
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  Speaker 4: happening too fast. And and what what what you need
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  Speaker 4: now is to develop skills and not necessarily a paper certificate.
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  Speaker 4: And there are many many ways to develop skills, college
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  Speaker 4: being one and maybe not even the best of them.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, which is another reason why I started this podcast
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  Speaker 3: was one I was inspired by by you, and two
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  Speaker 3: because this is basically like a film school. You know,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: each week, you know, the way I always tell people
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  Speaker 3: to think of this podcast is each week it's like
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: having a different instructor come in, and you know, I'm
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: always the same, but you know, I'm always talking to
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  Speaker 3: a new person who's actually out there doing stuff, who's
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  Speaker 3: you know, like yourself, who's worked at HBO, like other
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  Speaker 3: people who've cosed come in and they've they've done their
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: own indie films or other people who've cosed come in
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  Speaker 3: and they I had Alex Dnelaris on here, who wrote Bergman,
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  Speaker 3: who won an Academy Award.
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  Speaker 4: So it's like, yeah, so we had time. That's great.
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  Speaker 3: Get I actually reached out to him through Facebook and
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  Speaker 3: we had a couple of mutual friends, and I said,
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  Speaker 3: trust me, I'm not I'm not crazy or anything, and
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  Speaker 3: he he you know, we got to talking and he said, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: And I've had you know, I've had the writer of
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: John Wick on here. I've had I've had so many
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: great guests on here, James, I've been so very fortunate.
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  Speaker 3: But that that that I want this to be like
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  Speaker 3: a offshoot, free film school for people, that is so great.
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  Speaker 4: Are you I don't even know, are you heavily involved
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  Speaker 4: in film, Like, is that a passion of yours? Oh?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I am. I I love writing and so I'm
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  Speaker 3: real big into screenwriting and then I also like doing
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  Speaker 3: filmmaking as well.
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  Speaker 4: Have you worked in any screenplays? Oh? Yes, I have
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  Speaker 4: actually like screenplays that like that were produced. Or are
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  Speaker 4: you working on one and trying to get it bought
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  Speaker 4: or what's your what's your goal?
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  Speaker 3: Well I've actually done both, so so as first screenplay
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  Speaker 3: is getting produced, I've produced everything that anything that I
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  Speaker 3: wanted to do I sort of produced. For instance, in
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  Speaker 3: twenty ten, actually I actually wrote and directed and produced
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  Speaker 3: my own TV pilot. I got to I was the
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  Speaker 3: first person to shoot at this brand new sound stage
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  Speaker 3: here in Philly. Right after me. The production that came
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  Speaker 3: in was After Earth with Will Smith and m Knight Shyamalan.
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  Speaker 3: So I took this TV pilot. We got that, I
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: pitched it to NBC, and then I pitched it to
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  Speaker 3: G four right before they closed, and the guys at
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: G four were like, this is amazing, this is exactly
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  Speaker 3: what we would have bought and had on this had
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: on this network. But we're where we're going out of business,
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  Speaker 3: so unfortunately we can't buy anything.
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  Speaker 4: But still, you know, that's great because you keep doing
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  Speaker 4: stuff like that, and persistence wins. Persistence plus love equals
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  Speaker 4: accomplishment is what I always feel.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and against I always read your blogs and you know,
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  Speaker 3: especially about writing and creativity. But you know, actually, James,
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  Speaker 3: I wanted to ask a lot about your background, and
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  Speaker 3: you know, again I touched on up briefly about HBO.
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  Speaker 3: But you know, how did you find you know, as
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  Speaker 3: you were you got out of college. I think you
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: went to Yale, I.
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  Speaker 4: Think, and I went to a Cornell.
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  Speaker 3: Oh Cornell, I'm sorry. And so if you get to college,
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  Speaker 3: you landed a job at HBO in their IT department.
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  Speaker 3: So how did you land a job there?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I was thrown out of school. Actually I was
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  Speaker 4: studying artificial intelligence. And even back then, in the early nineties,
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  Speaker 4: I was studying virtual reality. And I pitched HBO on
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  Speaker 4: this idea that I wanted them to fund about kind
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  Speaker 4: of virtual reality and storytelling and virtual reality. And they said, no,
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  Speaker 4: it's a little not advanced enough for us, because back then,
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  Speaker 4: you know, VR was not like it is today. But
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  Speaker 4: they said, anytime you want come to come work for us,
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  Speaker 4: you know, leave the academic role and come work for us.
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  Speaker 4: And so I didn't think I was qualified enough. I
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  Speaker 4: felt like, oh, I need to like write a novel
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  Speaker 4: or something before I'm cool enough to work at HBO.
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  Speaker 4: Like I loved HBO. I loved all the shows on
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  Speaker 4: HBO everything. And it took two years before I, so
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  Speaker 4: to speak, chose myself and said, you know what, I
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  Speaker 4: don't need to write a novel. I'm good enough to
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  Speaker 4: work at HBO. They already asked me two years ago.
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  Speaker 4: And so I started working there about two years later.
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  Speaker 3: And you, so, where did you actually pitch them the
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  Speaker 3: idea for your TV show? Which I think is brilliant
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  Speaker 3: by the way, Three Am the TV show is called
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  Speaker 3: three Am for those of you who don't know. And
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  Speaker 3: James basically would go round outside and talk to people
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  Speaker 3: at three am in the morning. So, James, how did
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  Speaker 3: you actually end up pitching that show to them?
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  Speaker 4: Well, what happened was I started. First off, they didn't
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  Speaker 4: realize they needed a website like this was back in
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  Speaker 4: nineteen ninety four nineteen ninety five. Nobody knew. No corporations
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  Speaker 4: realized at that time that they actually needed a website
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  Speaker 4: because the web was relatively young, and not that many
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  Speaker 4: people were on it, and I convinced them they needed
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  Speaker 4: a website. And that's a whole story because at first
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  Speaker 4: they really resisted, and then I was in charge of
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  Speaker 4: creating their website. So I went up to the CEO,
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  Speaker 4: who's now the CEO of Time Warner, and I said, look,
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  Speaker 4: HBO is really great at original TV programming. This is
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  Speaker 4: how HBO was making their brand. And you know, HBO
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: was the first to do this. Now everybody's doing this now,
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  Speaker 4: even you know, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, you know Hulu, they're
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: all doing original TV programming. But at the time, HBO
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: was the only company in the world doing original programming
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  Speaker 4: other than the kind of the broadcast stations like ABC,
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  Speaker 4: NBC and CBS. So I said, you're so good at
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: original TV programming, why don't we do original web programming
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: because the web might end up being a bigger medium
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: than television, which is, of course, is what ended up happening.
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: And so they said, sure, just do whatever you want.
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  Speaker 4: We don't even care.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: And now back to the show.
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  Speaker 4: And so I started doing this original web series called
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: three Am, which was I was always curious, what are
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: people up to it three in the morning in New
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: York City?
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  Speaker 3: What are you know?
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: And of course they're up to nothing good. Particularly I'm like,
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: not like on a Saturday night where everybody's sort of
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: out going to a party or whatever, but like on
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: a Wednesday night, if you're out at three in the morning,
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: you're up to something and it's probably not good. So
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: I would go out this like this for three years,
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: I would go out and just interview essentially prostitutes, drug dealers,
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: homeless people, criminals, anybody I could find it three in
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: the morning on a Wednesday night, and then I would
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: transcribe the interviews, design around them and put up four
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: interviews a week that I did from like nineteen ninety
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: six through nineteen ninety eight. And then eventually during this
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  Speaker 4: I pitched Sheila Evans, who was the head of Documentaries
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: and Family prog for HBO. I pitched her on the
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: idea of doing it as a TV show. She said, sure,
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: let's do it. She gave me money to shoot a pilot.
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: I shot a pilot, it was about forty five minutes,
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: and then ultimately she didn't She didn't air it. Even
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: though I was still doing the web series for HBO,
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: and I continue doing it. She didn't air the pilot
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: because she said, and you know, mind you, this is
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: the head of HBO's family programming department. She said, you know,
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: for a show like this, we either need to see
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: you catching footage of someone fucking their mother or we
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: need to see your neighbors fucking And so it didn't air,
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: but it was fun doing it, And you know, I
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: pitched other shows to HBO as well, And as you know,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: you have to pitch like lots of shows to get
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: one going, and everyone is all happy and loves you
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: for a long time, and then you realize they're just
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: saying that and you have to keep going and it's persistence.
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: But rather than continuing pitching TV shows, I ended up
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: starting a business creating websites for entertainment companies, which was
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: kind of more my skill set.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: See you know, James, It's it's funny because you know,
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: with TV the way it is right now, I think
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: a show like three AM would be a hit. I
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: really do, because you know, everybody, every network now, every
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: time I talk to an agent, a manager, et cetera,
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: they're all looking for TV pilots over everything else.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think there's so much opportunity out there in
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: TV right now that it's almost like it's crazy, Like
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: there's so much original programming and then there's so many
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: reality shows, and there's so many channels for reality shows.
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: It's I think we're in a whole new world now
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: for for quality TV.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely, you know. I mean, Game of Thrones is amazing.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Again another HBO show. Everyone tells me to watch West World.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: I haven't watched that yet.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: West World's a great example. A. It's an HBO show,
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: and not to go on about HBO, but B I
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: just noticed that. You know, Charles Hugh, who's a great
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: science fiction author, is a story editor on Westworld. And
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: Ed Brubaker, who has been one of my favorite comic
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: book writers for twenty years. He actually wrote an episode
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: of West World. So what kind of shows you that
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: all the talent, all the best talent in the world
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: from other media are moving towards TV. It's why you see, like,
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: you know, Kevin Spacey stars in Westworld, or Woody Allen
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: does an Amazon sorry starts in the House of Cards,
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: or Woody Allen does an Amazon show. Or Brian Koppleman,
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: who wrote Rounders in Oceans thirteen. He's doing the TV
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: show Billions. So all this great TV talent is also
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: moving into the movie space, like Stranger Things has win
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: on a writer and Matthew Modin two movie stars being
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: a star on a you know, ten episode TV show
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: on Netflix.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and Netflix also, I mean that's another opportunity, you know,
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: as we talk about opportunities, you know, you know, anytime
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: I talk about my TV pilot, people always say, well,
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: have you tried Netflix? Have you tried Hulu? Have you
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: tried Amazon? And I always say, I haven't tried those
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: those avenues yet because I want to have even more
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: stuff to pitch, because like you, like you just said, James,
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: you have to have a ton of ideas to pitch
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: and they'll probably take one at you know, at most.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And you know, Netflix is a company that's committed
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: six and a half billion dollars to buy original programming
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: that dwarfs every other company, like including HBO. One thing
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: I want to add, but one more last thing about
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: HBO that's very interesting is that if you look at
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: all these companies that are doing original programming starting from
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: the very first one after HBO Showtime, but then moving
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: to you know, Bravo and now Netflix, Amazon, and so
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: there's always someone from HBO who who originally worked at
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: HBO who is involved in the original program. They had
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: all these other networks and websites and channels and everything.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: I think, you know, you have these like hotbeds of people.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: Say you're the average of the people you spend your
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: most time with, and you have these hotbeds of talent,
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: and they they create, you know, essentially the people in
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: the talent that gets spread out to create entire industries.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: That's why you see things like the Homebrew Club of
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: the nineteen seventies, who came out of that. Bill Gates,
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, the founder of you know, Osborne
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: Computer Compact, like all these like founders of the original
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: computer companies came out of this one little kind of
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: nerdy club in San Francisco that spawned all this talent.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: So whatever it is that you're interested in and passionate about,
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: you kind of have to find, you know, where that
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: that Homebrew Club is and basically spend time with those
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: people and you'll rise up with them. I was talking
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: to a guy yesterday who is an astronaut. He flew
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: in the space Shuttle twice, and he was talking about
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: how twenty years earlier, you know, there were ten people
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: in his lab at MIT he was a student there.
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: Three of them became astronauts. And so again if he
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: was just hanging out at some random bar, you could
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: never say three of these people at this bar became
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: you know, flew in outer space. But he found the
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: place where he wanted to be an astronaut, and he
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: found a place where these were the where all the
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: future astronauts were.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we talk about you're spending you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: your the average all the people you spend time with.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: You know, that's why I also about podcasting. You know,
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: you get to spend time with all these you know,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: different people because you know, again you spend a lot
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: of time with Brian Koppleman and every time, you know,
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: I was actually just listening to the interview you did
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: with him, and you know, you two together are amazing
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: because it's always about creativity and writing and it's always
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: you know, about you know, discovering new things, always pushing
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: boundaries with yourself, you know, and again I think that's
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: just amazing. That's another sort of avenue of the podcast
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: actually helps people with is just sort of discovering those
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: new ideas and finding out, you know, maybe I should
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: you know, spend time with people who like this instead
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: of the one I am right now.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it's it's so important, like all you know,
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: this is where like it's so important to say no.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: It's all the things that aren't good for you like
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: to to to. Really, you know, each person has to
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: blaze their own path, and that path is kind of
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: carved out with your yeses. But if you say too
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: many yes is, if you don't say the right yes uh,
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: then you won't find the people you need, You won't
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: find the places you need. You don't you won't find
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: the knowledge you need. And it's very unique to you
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: to choose to I hate to say the phrase choose
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: yourself over it over he so very unique to you
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: to basically choose the right things that are good for
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: you when so many other people need other things from you,
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: like Dave, do this, Dave, do that? Dave, why are
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: you wasting your time doing this? Everyone's got their opinion
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: on what Dave should do, but you've got a carve
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: out what Dave should do.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely right. And you know, I want
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: to talk about Choose Yourself too. I again, that is
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: a phenomenal name for a book. And on episode ninety
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: nine of this podcast, I had on Morgan Jay Freeman.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: Morgan has an amazing story, absolutely amazing and basically, to
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: give you a concise sort of version of it, James,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: he basically he won Sundance. He was an award winning
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Sundance director and he parted it all away and he
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: ends up now now he's working for MTV. He's been
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: very very you know, open about it. But he had
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: a phrase called green light yourself and he said, if
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: you have a film project that you want to do,
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: and he said, no matter what it is, he goes,
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: don't ask anybody for permission, green light yourself and just
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: go do the thing. And it reminds me a lot
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: of choose yourself, you know, give yourself permission to succeed,
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: give yourself permission to do these things.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: Well get I'll give you two examples. One time, a
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: friend of mine who was very familiar with YouTube. He
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: worked for a YouTube advertising network, so he literally was
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: behind the making of millions for many YouTubers. He was
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: telling me he wants to create his own YouTube channel,
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: and I said, well, and he had all these great
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: ideas and he said, well, what's stopping you? And he said, well,
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: I don't have the camera equipment yet. And he said,
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: I'm saving up for it. And I picked up his
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: iPhone and I said, what are you talking about this?
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: The video camera in his iPhone is much better than
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: cameras from fifteen twenty years ago the entire movies were
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: shot on, So you know, that's just an excuse, like,
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: just use this camera. Like you take Michellevon, who now
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: has a thirty million dollar, you know, cosmetics company. She
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: started making YouTube videos. Her first sixty four videos were horrible,
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: and then she did one video that went viral.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: And using the ads off that she finally bought some
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: decent camera equipment and has now built an empire. You
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: kind of just have to go out and do, like
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: our comfort zone is papered, but completely papered, layer six
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: layers beet by our excuses, and you kind of have
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: to just punch through that and just start doing, you know.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: The The other example I have is a well known one,
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: Robert Rodriguez with l Mariah Chi. I'm sure you know
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: the movie. He shot her with just eight an eight
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: thousand dollars budget. And what he did was he made
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: a list of and it's like famously called now the
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: Robert Rodriguez List. He made a list of just all
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: the things he had access to, like his brother, his
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: cousin's brother's trailer, his fire hose, whatever, and you know,
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: just with all he said, I'm gonna make a movie
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: using all of these things. And he made a movie
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: on a tiny budget, and then it became it made
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: him millions of dollars, and it became this huge hit
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: and one prizes at Sundance and everything, and now he's
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: like a well known director and writer.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when I was making my own student film, because
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: I didn't go to college for a film, I went
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: for business. And uh so, you know, while I was
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: making going to college for business, I was, you know,
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: making movies and stuff. And I made a movie. And
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: the one thing that I made I made it with
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: one a ninety nine dollars digital camcorder that at the
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: time was like amazing. And this was back in around
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: two thousand and eight. I believe or too, yeah to
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: his name, And I had the book Rebels out a
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: Crew by Robert Rodriguez cause he talks about making al
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Mariaschi and y oh yeah, it's absolutely phenomenal book, absolutely
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: phenomenal because you can't beat that empirical uh you know, discussion,
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: because you know, it's all nothing, no theory whatsoever. There's
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: no theory. It's all about this is exactly what I did.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: This is the nuts and bolts. And the other book
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: was Make your Own damn Movie by Lloyd Kaufman, and
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: it was just those two books together taught me more
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: than I I mean, I couldn't imagine a better film
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: school than those two books. But hopefully this podcast is
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: a good film school as well. But uh, but you know,
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: but yeah, I agree, man, agreed, James. It's just going
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: out there and making something for even like like the
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Duplas Brothers even say, you know, make a movie for
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: a hundred bucks this weekend, a short film for a
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: hundred bucks. You're not wasting a ton of money. And
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: it teaches you how to actually make a film before
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: you start getting those bigger budgets and so you don't
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: make all these expensive mistakes that.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: That's amazing. I didn't know that about the Duplas brothers.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: They're kind of intriguing me more and more because I mean,
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: I forget the name of which brother, but I see
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: him in TV shows all the time, and he's just
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: he's just really funny and brilliant. But but then I
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: realized they were they were actually making shows and movies.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: What what were some what's some stuff that they've made
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: recently that I have liked? I forget, Well, the one
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: I think you're referring to, I think was Jay. He's
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: been on the League, you know the League, and and
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: and Mindy. Yes, and uh, they actually have it. I
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: think they have a deal with Netflix.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: I might be mistaken, but there's actually two movies that
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: they've made for Netflix. One is kind of like a
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: time travel movie. Basically, they they sort of go to
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: this like cottage and then there's a guest house in
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: the back. They and whenever they go into this guest house,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: they they get the optimal idea of their of their spouse.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: So it's it's I think it's Jay or Mark is
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: the is the is the husband, and I forget who
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: his wife is. But whenever they go into this guest
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: house by themselves, they see the optimal version of their
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: of their spouse, so they're now it kind of plays
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: out with which one do you want more? And there
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: was another one I forget the name of it, but
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: but they play a version of a of a psychopath
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: who lures people, you know, off the internet and then
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: they sort of, you know, he sort of tells them,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: you know, make stuff up, and then you know, this
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: person is trying to sort of figure out, you know,
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: what's true and what's not. It's really good. But but yeah, yeah,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: they are absolutely phenomenal and if you could ever give
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: them from the podcast, James, I'm sure they would be
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: phenomenal guests.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and they did Togetherness on HBO, which I
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: really liked.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Togetherness. That's right. I forgot all about that show.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: I actually haven't seen that.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: That was a great show. I loved it.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I haven't seen that yet. It's again, it's all
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: my list of things to watch because I I when
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: I when it got canceled, everyone said how great it was,
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: and I was like, we know what, I'll add to
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: the list of things to watch.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: You know, But that's such an interesting thing. That, so, yeah,
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: I got canceled. And by the way it got it
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: had Amanda Pete, it had had some guy who was
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: a famous actor, I forget his name. It had the
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: duplus brothers who have been so successful, and yet it's
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: still still network executives cancel things. So it's almost like
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: it's it's like it's like a case study and how
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: you can't be disappointed. You have to do what you can.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: You have to keep pushing forward, can't give up. Louis A.
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: Kay is a great example. He had Lucky Louis on HBO.
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: He had other sitcoms, you know, that was canceled. He
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: had other sitcoms canceled, and then finally he has this
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: little tiny TV show on FX which becomes this huge,
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: huge hit for him. No one would have guessed. They
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: didn't even they barely wanted him to do the show.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: They gave him the lowest budget possible. Came this huge
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: hit after so many cancelations, after so many disappointments. I mean,
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: he made a movie that was just the worst movie
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: in history according to the reviewers, and he never gave up.
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: And now, I mean I just watched them live in
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: Madison Square Garden he sold out Madison Square Garden five
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: times this year and just a phenomenal exhibition of what
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: persistence can do.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: And so you know, James, you know, we talk about persistence.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: There was an interview you did for your podcast, The
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: James Altagra Show, and you had on a guest and
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: I think it was I forget his name, but but
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: you were talking about tight feedback loops and you were
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: talking about, you know, this is how you get better.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: Was basically, you know, a mentor would help you out
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: with this, but because they're already doing that tight feedback
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: loop and you know exactly where you're going wrong, you
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: know exactly where you're going right, and you can sort of,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: you know, break this out sort of like a big puzzle,
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: like you know, Okay, I'm terrible at this, so I
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: should get better and I slowly build it up. There
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: was a there's a book I Forget the Guy by
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: John Waitson I think his name is, but yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: And he had a really great analogy because again, you're
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: a big chess guy, where he would start off with
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: just a king and then he had to you know,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: then then his his mentor would say, okay, now, you're
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: going to use a king and a bishop and then
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: a king and a rook and et cetera, et cetera,
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: so he could focus and not get lost in the chaos.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: So what I'm trying to say with all this is,
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: do you think that you know Louis C. K and
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: all these people like Brian Koppleman two, do you think
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: that they always had that tight feedback loop and they
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: always were just sort of not just trying to work harder,
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: but they were also trying to work smarter too, if
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, So let me go down two different angles with this.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: So one is and I write about this, and so
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: I write about all these people in my book Reinvent Yourself,
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: which is coming out January, about essentially how we're all
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: in a constant state of reinvention and you know, we
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: all need we're all trying to get to the next
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: level of creativity. We're all trying to kind of move
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: forwards and figure out what does it mean for our
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: lives to have meaning and so on. So but I
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: talk about this concept of a plus equal minus, So
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: you want to find a plus which is both a
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: real and virtual mentor so like in Josh Waitson's case,
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: he mentions how he had a mentor, he had a
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: chess professional teaching him. Then you want to find your equals,
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: so people you could play here are roughly your level,
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: or people who could challenge you, whether no matter what
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: your career is, who are roughly your level, who challenge
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: you back and forwards. And that's how you get feed
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: as you get you know, challenged by your equals, and
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: then your mentor can kind of analyze how you responded
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: to it, and then a minus so someone you can teach,
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: and because that solidifies learning, and also the people you're
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: teaching will challenge you too. The last few questions that
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: you don't necessarily know the right answer to, so plus
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: minus equal and uh, you know in in in chess
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: is a great example, or tennis or any sport like
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: let's just take tennis. You know you're playing against an equal,
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: and let's say you're served, it doesn't go well for
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: five service in a row. Well, your mentor can tell
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: you what you're doing wrong. And then of course when
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: you're teaching a serve, you you'll understand much better the
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: mechanics of what a serve is. As you're teaching, and
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: so that's a great example where plus nux eql will
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: make you a best a better tennis player.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's one of another thing that I found
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: out too, is, uh, there was a book I was
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: reading where they were talking about the discussion the point
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: of of the psychology of small wins. So you build
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: up moments to them and confidence because what you're doing
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: is even these tiny little victories, you sort of string
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: them together and now suddenly you feel you're feeling better
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: and your confidence and your skill is doing a lot
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: more than say, if you just try to tackle this
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: problem all at once, you know you so when you
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: break it down and you're winning those little mini battles,
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: it does a lot more for your confidence.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think the book you're referring to
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: is Little Bets by Peter Simms, and in there he
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: discusses Chris. The very first chapter is Chris Rock will
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: build up a new act. You know, he'll spend like
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: a year creating an act that he'll then you know,
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: eventually be an HBO special. But he doesn't just sort
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: of like write that act and then you know, risk
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: everything in one HBO special. He'll go to the laugh
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: Factory in New Brunswick and have just like notes on
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: a napkin. He'll reach straight off the napkin. He won't
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: even do his whole kind of Chris Rock thing.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: He'll just sort of read straight off the nap and
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: if it gets a few chuckles, if he'll note the
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: one the jokes that got some chuckles, and he'll start
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: working on them and crafting an act around them. He'll
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: really kind of test stuff out with uh, these little bets,
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: these little experiments.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that's what you know, again, we're
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: talking about reinventing ourselves and also with writing, because I
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: want to talk to you about you know, your writing,
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: and you know that's something that we we sort of
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: these little these little changes, you know what I mean,
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: like these little these little things that can make you
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: have more confidence and make you and sort of let
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: you also propel you forward with that momentum, because you know,
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: sometimes when people are outlining something or staring at that
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: blank page, they sort of freeze up or they or
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: they start writing. And I mean we've all been there, James.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: You start writing and you go, oh god, this is
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: this is just terrible, this sucks. Who the hell is
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: going to want to read this stuff? And then you
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: just sort of throw it away and you keep starting
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: this process over and over again. But I think if you,
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: you know, our perception of how we write is also
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: a big, a big factor in this, which is again
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: comes from changing our perceptions, so we're allowed to actually,
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: you know, have these small wins.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I agree, And look, writing, writing is a
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: very good way for me to find these small wins.
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: I write every single day. I've been writing every single
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: day for twenty five years, and much of that time
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: I've been publishing every single day. And look, when you
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: not every not every writer does that, by the way,
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: but I do. And when you publish every single day,
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: you have a chance to see, oh do people like this?
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: Do people not like that? And that doesn't necessarily make
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: you a better writer, Like it's not always like you're
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: catering to public opinion, but you know, you just use
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: it as one component among many on the feedback you're
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: getting to your writing.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: So as we talk about you know you're writing, James,
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: so what does you have the same routine every morning?
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Mean like you get up at a certain time, then you
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: sort of you know you're gonna have a cup of
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: coffee and start writing. Or is every days are different
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: for you?
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: I think. I think most days, or let's say more
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: than fifty percent of the days are I wake up,
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: I have coffee, I read, I write. I always read
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: before I write. But you know, some days are different.
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: And I don't like to have any one routine because
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: it's important to mix things up so that you know, basically,
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: a soup with just hot water and it is kind
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: of boring. You have to have lots of different ingredients.
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: So I like to have lots of different ingredients in
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: my day. And if you just eat the same ingredients
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: every day, you'll get bored so and you'll even forget
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: that you're eating. Your your taste buds won't congratulate you anymore. So,
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: so you want to have different ingredients make up every
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: each day so that you know your your creativity as
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: is at its heights now. Other people do the exact
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: same thing every single morning in order to keep doing things,
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: but I don't like to do that. It's sort of
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: like if you drive the same route every day, sometimes
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: you get to the destination and you can't even remember
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: how you got there. You can't even remember driving because
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: you were sort of daydreaming the whole way. If you
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: do something different, if you don't commoditize kind of your
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: your your habits that you do, your or your routine,
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: then you'll you'll be much more aware of everything that's
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: happening around you. And I think that's very important.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: So, James, what is your writing you know method? Look like,
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, do you do you sort of outline exactly
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: every article? I mean, I imagine you have to outline
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: every book, but I mean when you're writing sort of
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: you know, articles, do you outline what exactly it's going
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: to be and you just sort of try to get
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: it out as fast as you can.
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: No, I don't necessarily outline. I mean sometimes there's a
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: rough outline like let's say I interview Barack Obama or whoever,
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: and I'll say ten things Barack Obama told me, so
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: that's kind of makes up a rough sketch of things.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: But then storytelling, I don't really outline so much, like
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: I just let that kind of come out, Like I'll
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: kind of just start with a line, like you know,
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: and and then this was the time I stole money
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: from my mother and and I'll just let the start
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: story kind of unravel itself from there. Yeah.
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: You know, one thing I've learned is that if you
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: do think too much, and you do you know, outline
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: too much, it's a way of you think you're doing something,
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: but it's just a way of it, but it really
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: just keeping you busy and you're not actually getting anywhere,
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, And you just sort of
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: keep you know, outlining, going back, revising the outline, and
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: then you're on a third version of the outline, but
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: you're never actually doing anything. It's so important. I realized
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: just even this year, how important to actually just just
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: thrusting yourself into the work, you know, if it's a screenplay,
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: open up final draft or fade in and just start
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: writing it and sort of letting it fall as it may,
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: if you know what I mean, James.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you have to just keep doing That's the important thing.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you know, I was reading Ryan Holliday's book
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: about the Obstacle is the Way, and you know, one
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: of some of the things that he was saying in
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: there were just really amazing about how the obstacle is
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: really the way your perception of the obstacle is very
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: key because if you view it as a way to
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: gain a further advantage, it doesn't look like an obstacle anymore,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: and the impediment to action leads to more action itself.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: Like Marcus Reli has said, and again, just changing that
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: small perception has such a huge advantage as you're trying
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: to sort of do your work, whether it be writing
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: or solving them an IT problem or you know, building
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: a website or what have you. I mean, you need
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: to see how that sort of ties in through everyday life.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, look, I had all of us
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: have obstacles all the time and what we want to do.
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: So so you know, one that I spoke about earlier was,
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: you know, HBO rejected a couple of TV show ideas
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: I had, even when they had expressed interests. Okay, no problem.
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: That's when I sort of said, you know, you always
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: have to say, well, in what way will this work
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: out the best for me? And what I ended up
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: doing was starting a company rather than doing a TV show.
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: You know another thing, you know, sometimes you have arguments
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: with partners and you could you can like if a
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: partner turns out to be not so good for you,
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: there's no point in like explaining to him how he
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: or she is wrong or no good for you anymore.
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: What you do is you end up finding another partner
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: to buy out the old partner, or you end up
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: starting a new business like the What I tend to
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: do is I tend to lean into the problem and say, Okay,
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: this is a problem or an obstacle. How can this work?
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: Rather than trying to fight the obstacle? How can this
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: work out the best for me in some other alternative way?
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: And you know this sort of ties in also because
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: you know, uh in Choose Yourself as we sort of
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: go back to that book which I'm gonna link to
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: in the show notes everybody, because that book is absolutely phenomenal.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: You know, you talk about making an idealist and that
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: really pushes the boundaries of your creativity. So whatever you know,
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: your your idealist, the subject is going to be. You know,
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: making these ten ideas makes you sort of broaden your horizon,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: broaden your perspective. So you know, in fact, Jeames, do
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: you want to you know, maybe just talk about idealists
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: just for those of you, for those out there who
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: who've never maybe that red shoes yourself. You know, I
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: think it's you know, I don't want to I don't
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: want to say it because but I mean, you're you're
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: the man who created this, and I just wanted to
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: ask you, do you want to talk about idealists for
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: a little bit?
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it kind of came out of a
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: time when I was just had no ideas and no creativity,
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: and I was dead broke, and I needed to I
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: had two kids, and I needed to make something of
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: my life or at least make sure I didn't go
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: broke and die. Like I was kind of suicidal, Like
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: I was spending tons of money and I had already
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: had sold a company, but then like blew all the
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: money and gone broke, and I just needed to try things.
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: But but everything I was trying was just failing. And
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: it's because I wasn't having any good ideas. And I realize,
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: you know what, my creativity right now is pretty weak,
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: Like I'm not doing anything to improve my creativity. And
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: the creativity muscle or the idea muscle is just like
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: any other muscle, really, like if you don't walk for
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: two or three weeks, like Let's say you were in
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: a coma for some reason and you were in bed
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: for two weeks. You actually need physical therapy to walk
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: again because your leg muscles atrophy so quickly. So it's
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: the same thing with the idea muscle, and so what
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: I do to exercise the idea muscle is all right
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: down ten ideas a day and doesn't have to be
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: good ideas. In fact, you can't. They can't be good ideas.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: Most of your ideas are really bad. You can't come
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: up with three thousand, six or fifty good ideas a year.
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: And so I'll come up with all sorts of ideas,
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: like I don't know, ideas of where I'm going to
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: take my kids over a Christmas vacation that they've never
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: been before, or ideas for businesses I could start, or
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: ideas for virtual realities i'd create, or ideas for Airbnb
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: to be a better company, or ideas for Uber to
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: be a better company. And I'll just come up with
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: ideas for other people, ideas for Dave Bull's well, guess
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: I could introduce him to for his podcast. You know,
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: I'll just come up with ideas for anything, and then
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: gradually what happens is, and I noticed this very quickly.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: Between three and six months, you'll start to really feel
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: like an idea machine and it just keeps getting better
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: and better, until your creativity is at an enormous height
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: compared to where you were before and maybe even compared
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: to other people, and it just really works. It works
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: for anything like like if I want to meet somebody,
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: I'll come up with ten ideas for them, and invariably
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: there might be if I do enough research and work,
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: there'll be at least one good idea for that person,
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: and eventually I'll be able to arrange a meeting or
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: or you know, I run a business, so if I'm
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: coming up with ten ideas for my business.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: Invariably there's a good idea in there that will make
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: my business more money. And so, you know, this is
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: a very important topic to improve creativity, improve your idea ability,
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: and improve your ability to make money, improve your ability
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: to network and help other people make money, and so on.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: You know, one thing I did with the idealist James
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: was I would share it on my Instagram particularly and
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: what I started doing was for a whole week. I
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: was coming up with ten different movie concepts and well,
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: thank you, James, and I tagged you a couple of times,
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: and some of them I stopped because I was like, James,
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: gonna get pissed off and You're like, thank you bull
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: tagging me again.
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: So what I did was I t fissed off about that.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: I so like put people responding to it. They were like, hey,
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: where are you you know, why are you doing this?
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: Where did you get this from? And I would always say,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: you know, buy choose yourself. It's ninety nine cents on Amazon, uh,
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: you know, and I would say, you know, for the
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: kindle version, and I would just say, you know, the
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: you know, these are concepts that I would any the
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: best ones I would actually turn into a log line,
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: and then from the log lines, the best log lines,
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: see what I would do in terms of actually making
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: a screenplay, where there was one I came up with
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: that I actually really really liked, and I ended up
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: turning that into a screenplay and I'm going to go
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: back and it definitely needs a couple more drafts. But
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: I was blown away that it just came out of
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: almost almost nowhere, because I was just writing, writing, writing,
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: trying to be you know, keep my brain out of
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: it as much as possible and just focus on the
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: subconscious and let that flow, you know, that flow state
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: that the writers always talk about, and just getting there
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: and making it seem that, you know where where you
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: could actually just keep writing without actually thinking. It's kind
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: of like what Ray Bradbury says, don't think why you're writing,
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: feel while you're writing.
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: So, so, what's the screenplay about?
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: Uh, it's a story about five kids who were trapped
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: in a treehouse. Uh, and with a monster down at
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: the base of the sort of this treehouse, so they
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: can't get out and they're basically stuck during the snowstorm
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: in this treehouse with this sort of unseen monster creature
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: force down there that's sort of stalking this treehouse.
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: That's neat And what are you gonna do with it?
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Well, once I polish up the drafts, I'm actually gonna
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: send it out to a few contests and if it
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: never goes anywhere, then I would probably end up shooting
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: it myself.
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: Cool. That sounds great, And you know, I actually.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: Want to ask you too, James. Always we talk about,
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: you know, you know, creativity and writing. Is there any
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: sort of you know, film ideas or TV ideas that
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: you have right now that you're that you wanted to,
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: you know, either talk about or even just that you
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: maybe are going to pitch at some point, or maybe
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: there's just ideas floating in your head for different movies
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: and shows.
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: You know. It's funny. There was a reason an article
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: about me in the New York Times and it kind
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: of went into what I about my minimalism philosophy. And
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: after it's a couple of television companies called me, some
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: really big, well known ones that you would know of
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: and asked me for ideas. But I'm not sure I
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: really want to put in the hard work for a
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: TV show. Like right now, my podcast has a very
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: big audience, and so I almost say it's like my
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: podcast audience is the same as like a bad cable
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: TV show audience in the sense that in terms of
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: the numbers and which is good, it's growing. You know,
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: I feel that podcast audience is growing, so it's only
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: going to continue to grow. And I've really decided I'm
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: gonna double down on the podcast and focus on making
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: that as good as it could possibly be. Although I
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: am working on fiction right now.
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: You know, what if you here's just an idea, what
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: if you actually started like a podcast sort of series,
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: almost like Seial was where they had sort of like
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: a pot it's almost like an old timy radio show.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: And basically, you know, it's a radio play, you know.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: And I've I thought this thought of this myself. You know,
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: if you ever have an idea that's more like an
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: like like that's more suited towards audio, you know, podcasting
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: is a great way to release it because again, no,
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: there's no more gatekeepers or virus to entry.
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah. No, I've been thinking of exactly that. Like, so
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: in addition to doing the interview show, which I always
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: do and I always and I won't stop, and I
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: love interviewing you know, people and everything, doing kind of
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: like mini series alongside of it within the same show,
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: within the context of the James Altascher Show.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and your podcast numbers, by the way, I mean,
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: you probably get you know, a hundred times what I get.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: But I mean your podcast is one of the best
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: podcasts out there because the questions you ask and the
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: guests that you get. I mean that that's important because
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: it's not just about the guests you get. It's also
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: the questions and what you're talking about. I've always learned
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: something every episode of your of your podcast.
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: Well you know, and as you know, it's really not
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: I mean, look, guests are having kind of guests that
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: people recognize is part of it because then you know
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: that that helps with downloads. But ultimately you have to
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: bring the job home with with the questions and the preparation,
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: as you know, and everything, and that's what really drives
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: the podcast.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, And James, I don't want to take up
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: too much your time. I know you're extremely busy. I
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: had some.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: Twitter enjoying this. Thank you so much David for having
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: me on.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: Oh you know, I appreciate you coming on. James, I
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: really do. And I you know, I had some Twitter
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: questions come in. Do you mind answer a few questions?
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: Sure?
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: So the first question comes from Martin Tiller, and Martin
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: wants to know how long have you been doing the
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: ten Ideas a day?
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: Since two thousand and two?
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: And this kind of ties on what we were just
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: talking about. It's Martin again. He wants the question is
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: how much time do you put into researching your guests
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: for the podcast?
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: Oh? My god, I put in so much time, like
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: you know, So last week was Stephen Pressfield was on
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: my podcast. I probably read I read ten or no,
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: maybe eleven books by him, eleven and took notes on
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: each one, came up with questions about each one. Watched
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: two interviews he did, one with Oprah and one with
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: the Marie Folio. I tried to find other interviews he did,
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: but he doesn't really do many interviews, not in the
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: past like five years. And you know, I watched the
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: movie The Legend of Macker Vance, which he wasn't as
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: involved in, but I still wanted to watch it. I've
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: done I've read more about the history of you know,
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: the three hundred, which he writes about in the novel
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: Gates of Fire. I mean I probably prepared maybe forty
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: or fifty or hours for that for you know, one
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: or two hour interview, and I flew to I live
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: in New York City, but I flew to LA and
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: drove to Malibu to interview him, and because I wanted
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: to do it in person, because I admire so much
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: as his books. And but that's like an example of
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: what of what I do. I'm preparing an interview right now,
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: with somebody who's an expert in nutrition that I really admire.
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: And you know, he lives in a Southwestern state and
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: I'm planning on flying to visit him. I'm doing a
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: ton of research, and I just I put my all
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: into into these things.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know what you mean about Stephen Pressfield not
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: wanting to do or doesn't do a lot of interviews.
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: I've actually tried to get him a lot to come
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: on this podcast, and each time he politely declines. But
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: like you know, The War of Art is an absolute
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: essential read if you're going to be an artist, no
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: matter if you're gonna write, paint, make movies, whatever, the
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: Art of War is required reading.
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah. No, War of Art and its companion piece, Turning
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: pro are just brilliant, Like they're they're very good. And
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: you know, his novel Legend of Backer Vans is very good,
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: Gates Spires very good. And then he has a new
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: novel which is kind of almost a fictional version of
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: the War of Art, which is called The Knowledge, which
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: is about what he was going through to battle his
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: own resistance in the nineteen seventies, and it's a great book. So,
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: you know, he's very interesting. He's very a big inspiration
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: for writers and creatives.
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely. I actually had his editor on, Sean Coin.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: And it's funny because I actually won. Do you know
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: who Robert McKee is.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, of course wrote dialogue and story story.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I actually won first place in his writing
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: competition that he had and I got to and one
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: of my my prize was to go to New York
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: to take his his or three day seminar story and
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: it's basically the whole book. And it's funny because Sean
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: Coin is also his editor. So when I went up
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: afterwards as the seminar ended, I said, you know, hi, Bob,
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: you know we have a mutual friend sewn and he goes, oh,
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: well how about that? You know, And but I wanted
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: to bring McKee up because I think he'd be a
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: great guest in your podcast, James.
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think he would be awesome, Like, uh, you know,
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: I I'm interested in him. He's he's a fascinating guy.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely fascinating. The story semino was actually really good.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: I actually when I learned, I learned about the principles
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: of story. And again, you know what I did was
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: I made a deal with myself. You know, I realized
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: you have to sort of make deals with yourself sometimes.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: And my whole thing was I bought a whole pack
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: of pens brand new, my favorite pen in the world,
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: the Pilot V sevens, and I just everything he said
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: I wrote. I would not stop writing for anything. So
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: even if I already knew it, it doesn't matter. You
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: just keep writing. And by the end I had so
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: many notes that I could now go back and dissect story,
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: and I could also I found sublemary notes.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Will be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: Even before I went to the did the seminar in
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: New York, James, I actually listened to every podcast, every
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: video interview he did, found any crib notes I could
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: of the actual seminar, and I put him all together
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: in this sort of like big binder slash file that way.
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: I was so prepared for this that, you know, I
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: was hoping to come out and just be you know,
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: an absolute genius the story by the end of.
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: It, and and were you.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually I would say that I definitely had
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: more confidence in myself going out.
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: What what would like help me out, like, what would
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: be like the main thing that you learn, like, what's
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: what makes a great story?
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: Telling the truth?
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: What does that mean? Be specific?
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: So telling the truth, it doesn't mean the facts of
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: what happened. It's the why of why they happened. And
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: when you get down even deeper than that, there's two
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: things that you have to focus on. The philosophers of
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: the world either thought that you were being or becoming,
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: so basically they thought that everything is in constant flux,
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: or everything is not in flux. It's just always the same.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: It just appears that it's in flux. And he talked
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: about all the philosophers throughout time whether what side they
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: stood on either being or becoming, Being or becoming, and
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: he said, as you write your story, you have to
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: make a decision about which one you think it is,
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: and the principles of that will guide your story throughout.
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: So if you think that everything is in flux, well
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: then you know, nothing ever stays the same. You can't.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of like what Hara Kleitis said,
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: you can never step into the same river even once
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: because it doesn't exist at all. Or you're on the
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: other side where you think that it's always being, it's
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: always the same, and these principles are going to stay throughout.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: So it's kind of like you have to make that
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: decision and that guide your story throughout.
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: Okay, like that, that's interesting. I'm gonna I have to
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: read Story I I I know that it's like the
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: key book for uh, for screenwriting, so I want to
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: read it.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's always like, there's three books that everyone talks
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: about for screenwriting. Story by McKee, uh, Screenplay by by Sidfield,
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: and obviously say The Cap by Blake Snyder. Those are
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: like the if you could read even just one of
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: three of those books, most screenwriters and most you know,
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: Hollywood producers, they sort of go back to those three books.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: There's actually no, there's actually another.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: Sorry go ahead, no, no, keep recommending.
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: There's gonna be another screenwriting book that I recommend that
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: I think is the best one out there. It's called
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: The ninety Days Screenplay by Alt Want that is that
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: is the best book of screen screenwriting I've ever seen.
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: I never read.
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: So here here's here's an idea I had for like
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: a fun little sitcom type TV series. So it's called
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: Guru's Gun Wild, and it's uh instead of Girls gun
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: Wild Guru's gun Wild and it's basically, you know, I
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: know a lot of people in kind of the self
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: help and personal improvement industry, and of course all of
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: us have our own share of problems, but many of
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: these people kind of put forward this public space that's
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: like perfect in order to kind of attract their you
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: know whatever, their their people for their seminars or whatever.
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: And I was thinking it would just it would be
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: like almost like this Seinfeld type thing where you know,
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: the character based on me would me with like the
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: character based on whatever well known person, and then they
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: would just be complaining about relationships the whole time, and
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: stories would kind of like beer off from there. And
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: I just thought it would be like a funny idea
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: and kind of like the Larry Sanders show meets Seinfeld
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: type of thing, but with but with like the self
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: help industry.
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: And the self help self help industry is huge. And
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: by the way, I'm glad you mentioned the Larry Sanders show.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: I love that show, and you know he passed away
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: earlier this year, and I hope more people actually find
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: that show because I think it's a it's a gem.
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: James, Well, well, think about the hotbed of talent. You know,
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: we talked earlier about places you could go where a
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: very small group becomes this amazing, amazingly talented group of
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: people later on. So of course Gary Shamling already was
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: amazingly talented, but look who came from there. Bob Odenkirk
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: was on the show, and of course he's you know,
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: well known for Breaking Bad and Better Call Saw. Judd
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: Apatow was a writer for the show, and of course
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: he's made the funniest movies of all time ever since. Then.
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: Jeffrey Tamboor was on the show, and then of course
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: he did Arrested Development and now he does Transparent for Amazon. Gosh,
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: I was just reading about. Oh. John Stewart was on
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: the show and he went on to do The Daily Show.
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: So it's just a NonStop the talent. Jannine Garoffolo was
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: on the show. It's just NonStop. The talent that was
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: on that show almost almost every week, and the writers
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: of the show and everything.
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's absolutely phenomenal. And you know, when you can
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: get those sort of hotbed of talent, uh, you know,
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: then it becomes almost the opposite problem, which is how
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: do you keep all that talent? Because you know, at
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: some point, you know, when somebody comes so talented in
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: those those writer writings, writers rooms or or something else,
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: you know, they end up getting offers to leave. I
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: mean it happens a lot on late night. I have
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: a friend of mine he actually writes for Jimmy Kimmel
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: and he actually talked about the same thing. You know,
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: it's a lot of the times you get a lot
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: of offers. There a lot of really cool things because
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: when you're when you're doing good work, constantly people come
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: up to you to make you more opportunities. Well, you know,
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: John Stewart had a philosophy about this. I mean, The
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: Daily Show is a great, uh kind of management study
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: because he created all this, He created this.
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: Environment with all this amazing talent. Also like Steve Carrel,
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: Stephen Colbert at Helms and all of those guys left
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: and John Stewart encouraged them to leave. I mean John
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: Stewart even helped develop Stephen Colbert's show, The Colbert Show.
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: And why did he do that Well because he knew that,
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: you know, talent needs to be needs to flourish, it
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: needs to grow, it needs to go on to their
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: own thing. But because of the high standard set by
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: that talent, new good talent will come in and take over.
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: And that's what's happened. That's what happened. I mean, the
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: Dallas Show probably never had a year over year where
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: it was worse one year in the year before.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, again, you know, as we're talking
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: about a lot of talent, you know that that's always
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: that idea too, is having that farm system, always being
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: able to pull and recognize talent. It's kind of you
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: know what like a professional sports team does the same thing, right,
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: They always are on the lookout, having scouts, making sure
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: that they get the top guys over somebody else. And
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: but by the way, I do like that growl idea,
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: you know, you know, as I'm thinking about it as
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: I talk, that would actually be a funny show because again,
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: the self help industry, James, is so huge. I mean
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: I used to go into Borders back when they existed
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: and now Burns and Nobles and there'd be a just
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: a huge wall of self help books. You know. It's
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: kind of that family guy joke. Brian wrote a book
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: called like think It, do It, Want It, or something
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: like that, and it was you know, most of it
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: was blank pages so you could fill it out yourself.
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: H I'm sorry, James, that's great, but that's a funny idea.
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just because you know, he was on Bill
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: Maher Brian the Dog was and he was like, you know,
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: Brian isn't wanting it and wishing it the same thing,
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: and why are most of the pages blank? He's like,
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: this is that lazy as hell? But yeah, I think
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: that a grew idea. It would be awesome, James, especially now.
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: I think I think the self help industry, I think
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: it maybe started off in the right direction, but then,
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: you know, as other people sort of get into it,
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: it sort of loses a lot of I guess I
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: don't know. I guess maybe a lot of it sort
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: of comes watered down.
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: If you will, I mean, you can imagine like two
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: I mean, look, there's all these look getting real help
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: requires hard work. It's not like I'm going to read
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: an Instagram quote and suddenly be helped. But you could
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: imagine these two guys who have like you know, tons
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: of followers or whatever on Instagram or Facebook or wherever
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: they're meeting, and like one of them sad because his
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: latest quote or post didn't get as many likes. Another
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: person might be like upset about like a girlfriend and
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: you know just kind of you know, you kind of
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: kind of see the real thing. But meanwhile, the you know,
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: some side stories might be problems at seminar or you know,
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: the you know, how they overcome their problems with the
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: girlfriend or whatever. Like, you know, there could be many
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: different sub stories in there. I probably should write, like, well,
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: how you know, it's like a page a minute right
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: for at script. So if you're read a twenty two
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: minut show, it's twenty two pages and you need what
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: do you need? You need like three storylines intersecting and
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: kind of a beginning, middle, and end for each one.
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: I'm asking you, I'm learning from you.
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: So so TV shows, depending upon which like what kind
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: of show it's going to be, the way that the
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: format works changes a little bit. So if you're writing
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: something like Seinfeld, it's a lot different than something like,
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: let's say The Walking Dead, Because if you're worrying a
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: one hour show, you write it like a movie. If
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: you're writing a half hour sitcom, it's everything becomes like
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: double space and it looks almost more like a stage play.
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: How that's laid out. So if you're gonna do like
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: something like you know Seinfeld, everyone loves Raymond, it would
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: actually be double what you think because each page is
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: at now thirty seconds instead of a minute, so it
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: would be for a twenty minute show, it becomes like
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: forty to fifty pages, and et cetera, et cetera. So
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: that so if you whatever software, like if you use
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: Final Draft fade in, writers do wet. There's so many
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: out there now you know, it does all the heavy
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: lifting for you, so you can focus on writing, and
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: that that's key.
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: What so other than just the spacing and stuff, what
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: are the what are the beats of a sitcom?
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: So again, you know there's uh so again, like if
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: we use Seine Fld as his example, Seinfeld was revolutionary
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: because all four main characters always had their own storyline.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: So Jerry had a Kramer, BB, George, c Elaine D
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: and you know, all of them would end up intersecting
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: at some point or another throughout the show. And what
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: I love about Seinfeld was everything is different. No, no
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: two episodes are ever the same, And I think that
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: was the genius of Larry David because you know, I
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: actually knew a guy who wrote a couple of screenplays
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: for Seinfeld, and it was Fred Stoller's's name.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: And I'm Facebook friends with Fred Stoller. He's a good guy.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've tried to get him on the podcast, but
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: we can't make our schedules sort of coincide. I'm gonna
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: keep trying though, And you know, he would say whenever
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: he would hand in the script Larry David had, we
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: always go through it and he would add the final
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: touches to it, and sometimes he would change a few
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 3: things up here and there. But basically, you know what
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: exactly you have a beginning, middle, and end, and you
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: know the beginning and he end or twenty five percent
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: each and that middle part is fifty percent, So that
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: would you know at the end of one hundred percent,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: and you know, you sort of have these storylines. They
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: can sort of intersect as they are, depending upon how
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: you're gonna write the story. So with Seinfeld, like I
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: was just saying, it's a lot. You know, each episode
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: was different and then sometimes at the end everything would
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: sort of all intersect with each other. All four storylines
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: would intersect, you know, and then sometimes there'll be only
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: two storylines somebody actually intersect, or sometimes it only be
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: two storylines period. So that was a brilliance of seine Feld.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: You never knew what how actually the story was going
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: to play out. And that's why I think Seinfeld's still
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: one of the best TV shows ever, if not the
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: best TV show ever.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's really interesting. It's probably a good model to follow.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: And I'm sure you're referring to he had or eero
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: an excellent book, My Seinfeld Year where he writes about
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: this stuff.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, I think you know. I actually bought
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: the Kinnel version, and that's actually where I started saying
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: that to Fred. I said, you should come on this
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: podcast and we can, you know, dig in a little
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: deeper talk about TV writing and how it's changed, if
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: it even has changed, and you know, all that good stuff.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: But but yeah, My si Felt Year is a fantastic ebook.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I am, I'm a fan of that one.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah I didn't. I just got Seinfeldia, which is kind
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: of a history of the Seinfeld Show, and it looks interesting.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: Really, I haven't heard of that. So basically, is it
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: like all about how it got developed and stuff.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah see that.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love stuff like that. It's very interesting. I
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: actually have a book about Lost, the TV show Lost,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: and it was the only one that Damon Linelov actually
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: signed off on, and I think he wrote the foreword
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: for it as well. But it's basically goes into the
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: whole mythology of Lost.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: Oh wow, what's the name of the book? You know?
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: I'm I don't have it right handy. It's actually buried
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: in amongst my library of books. I'm gonna I'll tell
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: you what I will. I will message the title to you.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, Because I just finished rewatching Loss for probably
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: the third time, I watched it with my fourteen year old.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: So did she like it?
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: Oh? She loved it. Yeah, it's a great show. I
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: mean a lot of people hate the ending, but I
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: love it mine. I have no problem with it. I
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: I thought it was a great show. Yeah.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: I think it was a phenomenal show. I spent season one.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: I literally was always like, what the hell is going on?
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: You know, it's it's been in a good way, not like,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: you know, in a bad way. And he would always
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: be guessing about, you know, what the hell would are
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: these things and how how this actually is and uh,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: you know, and then they actually started doing a podcast
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: about it. I mean this is you know, a couple
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: of years ago, when the show was still in the air,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: they would actually do podcasts about the episode and you know,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: answer some fan questions. It was actually really interesting way
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: they did that. I think it actually helped out you know,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: interaction and also helped out you know, the fan base, uh,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: to make them, you know, to make them much more inclusive.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah. No, I I loved every aspect of it. So
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: but you're right, the first season was great, but I
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: loved I loved the last season too. I liked the
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: whole story of you know, Jacob and the Man of
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: the Black and so on.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was phenomenal. And uh, you know, I know
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: a couple of people who wrote a couple episodes of Loss.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: I want to have them on the show too, because
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: they would explain to me how they actually wrote the episodes.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: And basically what they would do is, you said, you know,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: either JJ or Damon who would come in and they
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: would say, Okay, this is what has to happen in
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: this episode, and now okay, this is your episode. Now
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: episode two this is what has to happen, so this
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: is your episode. So that's why a lot of times
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: you would see things that would never actually explained because
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: writers were just encouraged to user creativity and come up
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: with this stuff, but they didn't necessarily have to tie
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: in with anything.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: Well, and I'm fine with them. Like everybody wanted like
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: very nice explanations for everything. By the end, I'm okay
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: if you know, not everything in the world needs to
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: be explained, like, it's okay that that you can still
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: use your imagination to understand what's happening.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, absolutely, I agree, James. And you know that's
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: why in the first episode there was all these you know,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: strange things going on, and I was again, I was
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: cool with them not explaining a lot of stuff.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: So you know, James, again, I don't want to take
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: up too much of your time. I know you're a busy.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: Guy, so I really appreciate this though.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah again, James. I one of the reasons I
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: saw the podcast was because of you. And it's amazing
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: that we're you know, you're gonna be episode like one
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: I think, But I just wanted to ask, you know, James,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: just you know, in closing, is there anything that we
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: didn't discuss and maybe you wanted to talk about or
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: anything you wanted to say is sort of put a
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: perio at the end this whole conversation.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: No, I mean, I'm really uh. It was a good
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: conversation for me. I learned more about screenwriting, which is
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: something I'm always interested in. I just want to mention
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: if I'm gonna be promotional at all, which I which
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: I don't like doing, but I'll do it anyway. I
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: do have this book that I'm really happy with called
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: Choose your called Reinvent Yourself, which is coming out January fifth,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: twenty seventeen, and I'm super excited about it. And you know,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: if people want to learn more about it and the
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: stories that kind of inspired it, then then I would.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: I would get it and everyone.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna link to that in the show notes as
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: well on Amazon, and James, you can count on me
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: buy a copy on day one. I'm gonna buy it
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: the minute it comes out. And you know, because again
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: I have every single one of your books and I
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: think they're all phenomenal.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: Oh well, thanks so much, so I appreciate that.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: And James, where can people find you out online.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: People can find me at Jamesaltatra dot com or at
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: They could find me on Amazon, or they can I
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: don't know. I mean Twitter at Jay Altacher, Instagram at Alta. Sure,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: this is all sorts of places. I'm everywhere.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: Again, I want to say thank you so much. This
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: has been an absolute pleasure, and again if you ever
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: want to come back on please the door is always
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: open and I wish you the best luck with everything.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: Excellent, Dave, thanks so much and good luck with everything.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much. James, thank you very much. Yeah,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: again again it was great talking to you and I
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: wish again let's talk soon. James. Okay, hey here, buddy,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: Bye bye.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: Forward slash for seventy one. Thank you so much for listening, guys,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: as always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: to you soon.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: Screenwriting dot tv.