728 - Beats to Scenes with Drew Goddard

Hello and welcome. My name is John August, and you're listening to episode 728 of ScriptNotes. It's a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. What is the basic unit of story? In the outline and treatment phase, it's probably the beat, whereas in the script, it is the scene. As film and TV writers, how do we move from beats to scenes? I'd argue it's perhaps the fundamental skill in our craft. Today on the show, we welcome back a guest to help us to discuss this transformational process. Drew Goddard is a writer whose credits include Cloverfield, Cabin in the woods, the Martian, Bad Times of the El Royale, Daredevil, High Potential, and a new film project, Hail Mary, which is absolutely fantastic. Drew and I got to say this last week, so good. This is coming out presumably in the period of time where the embargo is off, so we can say how good it is. Congratulations. Welcome back, Drew.

0:02

I'm so happy to be back. Thank you for having me, John.

0:52

Yeah. It will not be confusing at all that you are both named Drew, Drew Goddard and Drew Marquardt.

0:55

We're interchangeable.

1:00

Yeah.

1:01

All of the Drews. We're like the Borg.

1:01

Yeah.

1:03

You can just sort of move one Drew into another Drew.

1:03

Were you ever an Andy?

1:05

I never was an Andy.

1:06

All right, good.

1:07

That's right. And Andy, of course, wrote the Martian.

1:08

So Andy Weir. Yeah.

1:10

Are you an Andrew, or did you start Drew?

1:12

I started Drew. I'm full Andrew, but, yeah, always Drew.

1:13

Yeah.

1:17

Great.

1:17

So it's always confusing when, like, our business manager will say, like, well, Andrew does a thing like, who is Andrew? Who is this person? And there are other times where I'll be talking about to my husband about Drew, and he's like, is that Drew Barrymore? Is that Drew Marquard? Like, which Drew is that? There's lots of Drew.

1:18

Again, all interchangeable.

1:31

Yeah. All the same. So on this podcast, Drew Goddard. I want to talk about this movie, obviously, but writing your career in general. And we have some listener questions that I think are going to be perfect for you.

1:32

Let's do it.

1:43

And in our bonus saver for premium members, I'd love to talk about tv, because you grew up in tv. You still do tv. You have one of the recent sort of hit broadcast shows. So I want to talk about the future of television with you.

1:44

Let's do it.

1:56

We'll solve it. For listeners who have been longtime subscribers to the podcast, you were on the show in 2015, but it was a bonus episode. It Wasn't part of the main feed. I think we referenced it before. Did we ever rerun the whole episode?

1:56

I don't think we have.

2:08

Yeah, Maybe we should do that at some point when we need to.

2:09

No, now, please, let's go with this one.

2:11

Well, let's briefly recap. Because you grew up in Los Alamos, you had a transformational experience with Olympia Dukakis upon arriving in Los Angeles.

2:13

That was actually in Santa Fe. Santa Fe was a PA on a movie called Scattering dad with Andy Griffith in Olympia Dukakis. And I almost bled to death on her porch.

2:21

Yes.

2:30

We don't have to get into that. We can just sort of three months

2:31

past that, people should listen to the other episode where we go into further depth on that. But upon arriving in Los Angeles, I remember that you're working on Buffy in a period of creative crisis and were able to sort of contribute at a meaningful time, which is I experienced, which is true for myself and a lot of people. It's like, when things are going great, sometimes it's hard to sort of get your way in. But you were able to help out in a pinch.

2:33

I think that's the case. I think that. That in TV in particular, there's a lot of crises. There's a lot of crises constantly happening. And I think I dropped in at a time where it was like I was young. So you're like, oh, I'll stay and work 24 hours a day. Like, this doesn't seem strange to me. No, you know, this is what I want to be doing.

2:56

Yeah, absolutely.

3:15

And I think that that has sort of opened doors for me to learn. There's just no better experience than just doing it.

3:16

Yeah, you know, absolutely. Let's talk about the just doing it, because our main topic I want to get into is beats versus scenes. And so let's talk about. What do you think about with a beat? Cause there's the outline y kind of beat, like that sort of unit of story, but there's also beats within scenes. You're planning a story. You're planning an adaptation of the Martian or Project Hail Mary. What is it beat when you're talking about that level of granularity?

3:23

Yeah. And by the way, I'm so glad we're talking about this, because this is. I mean, not to just jump into Drew's speeches in the writers room, but you're going to hear kind of what I talk about a lot, because I do believe our job is to make scenes, like, at the end of the day, like, the thing that Differentiates us as screenwriters, right? Are scenes. I see it a lot with young writers is they will come into writers room and they'll have beautiful, grand ideas about what this needs to be, about what the themes are, all these wonderful things that you want from writers. And at some point it will get very quiet. And one of the upper level people go, yes, but what's the scene? What is the scene? That's what we're here to do, is figure out how do we shape this scene. And so jumping in, I mean, I think beats to me are just moments. I. My process is very much whether it's an adaptation or not. I tend to just start with moments that I respond to. And it could be big, it could be small, it could be just, oh, I like when he said that thing to her. It could be, oh, my God, this giant story turn. I'll put him on a board, you know, and I'll just start noting him. And then at a certain point I'll go, I have enough beats or just things that I like just to make it simple and go, okay, let's start trying to put scenes together. And then that takes a while. And then at a certain point, I'll go, I have enough scenes to start thinking about structure, you know, and it sort of builds that way. But that could take, like, in the case of something like bad times, years. We're describing years of my life as I would just put, oh, here's a moment, all right. I have no idea how these things will stitch together, but I like this. I find myself drawn to this moment over and over.

3:49

So when you're talking about these moments, they could actually be pretty big. They could be set pieces, they could be sequences rather than scenes. They're pretty big ideas. These are the big note cards on the board. But to achieve the goals of that big note card, it's a bunch of smaller moments that actually get there.

5:23

Yes.

5:38

So something that Sorkin talks about is that when there's an obstacle that forces a new tactic, that's a beat. Basically, when you see a character make a choice, make a change, do a thing, the story has changed because of this incident. That is a beat. That's sort of the granular, smaller version of that. And so starting from this big picture of, like, these are the giant tentpole moments, you're getting the smaller moments that are building up to those bigger things.

5:39

I love that Evanston. He sounds smart.

6:07

He does sound smart, person.

6:08

Let me jot that down.

6:12

Two A's.

6:13

Okay. Oh, got it. Okay, great.

6:13

Seems smart. So let's go back to the writer's room, though, because this is where you'll often find beats being discussed. We talk about beat sheets also, which is basically the very rough bullet point outline of, like, what's going to happen in the course of an act or a movie or a script. What are you looking for in a beat? And so what is going up on the board? How much are you breaking? How granular are you trying to get?

6:15

There's no right answer. There's no wrong answer. It's sort of like you just start shaping. Let me think. There was a Daredevil episode. Here's a good example of how this starts, right? The second episode of Daredevil, which is one of the scripts I'm most proud of, that I've done on the board. We were just brainstorming ideas, and I wrote Matt in Dumpster. And that's it. That was the beat. Matt in Dumpster. And we go, what is that? I'm like, I don't know. But I like the idea of starting an episode early with our main character nearly beaten to death in a dumpster. And let's just see. So that beat goes on the board. It's not a scene yet. Right. It's not even. We don't even know what we're doing here. It's just. This sounds interesting. And then you put it on the board and you kind of think about it, and it does start to beg the questions, right?

6:36

Yeah.

7:26

Like, well, how did he get there? What happens next? Who's going to find him? Now we're starting to shape it. Now we're starting to start asking questions that connect. Oh, if somebody finds him, that is going to suggest a scene. Like, on its core level, this is how we're building story. Because really, when I'm saying, yes, but what's the scene? What I'm really saying is, what are the actors gonna do? Yeah, right. Like, that's really what. Cause I know having done this a long time, that's really what this is about. We need to figure out what are the actors going to do? And you are going to be called to the carpet over and over and over about what are the actors going to do here? And so you start to just start to build and build things around that very question.

7:26

Well, it's. Are the actors going to do. And also, where is the camera? What are we looking at? Like, what is the sequence of events in it? So we're talking about adapting books, but I've written many books myself, and those books have beats in them, they don't have scenes per se. There's sections where you're in one continuous moment of time and there's beats that happen within them. But it's not the same as what a screenwriter does in the sense of there being an actual scene that has a beginning, a middle and an end. Which I guess we have to define what a scene is. A scene does have a start and an end. And while some of that could change in the editing, it has a point of view on. This is where we're coming into it. This is what happens during the middle of it. This is how it exits. It should exit with a different energy than it started. And that's the crucial, fundamental thing. Your writer's room could come up with a list of. These are the beats. But then you still have to transform those beats into actual scenes.

8:10

Yeah. And part of it. And then to make it even more difficult, you need to make the scenes have a relation to each other. Right. So each scene has to sort of inform the next scene. It doesn't have to, but it's helpful if it does.

8:59

Yeah, helpful. Yeah.

9:10

And I'm glad you brought up the visual part of it. Because one of the most important things that happened to me, this was at Buffy and Angel. I turned in an early script. I think my scripts early on were very, like, sparse description. I remember reading things like, no, no, leave that to the director. Leave that to the director. And I turn in the script. And they. Jeff Bell, who was a wonderful writer and very important to sort of my growth, said, okay, but where's the camera in this scene? And he made me talk about where the camera is. And it wasn't in a way of direct this. Cause we have directors. But it's like you as the writer, I want you to think about how this is actually happening.

9:11

Yes.

9:48

And is it important to you in this scene what we're focusing on? Because if it is, we gotta figure out a way to put that on the page. And if it's not, that's okay too. You don't want to force it. There are places where you want to let the directors play. But if you know. No, no. This is a living, breathing organism. We are making a document for 300 people to figure out how to make this show. And your job is to sort of direct their attention to what matters for you so that they can go be the best versions of themselves as artists. And it took me a while to understand that, but I think they all tie together with what you're talking about.

9:48

So going From Buffet to Angel and other early TV experiences to working on Daredevil, working on high Potential. How detailed do you like the beat planning to be? Is it a several page beat sheet? Is it a detailed outline? Like, what do you like before you start writing scripts?

10:19

Yeah. So part of this is just my own. What works for me. Part of this is it started on Buffy. Where we would spend, you know, if you have a pie chart, right, of how much time a script takes, you would spend 90% working on the story and getting it. Not even the outline, just getting the board to a place where you can defend every moment and you can tell production, here's what we're doing. What it did. Was it allowed you, when you started writing, to actually be more free, if that makes sense. I think there was this thought, and part of this is TV. Part of this is the grind of every eight days you need 60 pages. So in order to do that and do that in a way that you can keep that train moving, you have to be very clear about what you're shooting early. So that got deeply instilled. There's no better training than having to do that 22 times each year. 22 times each year. And then in Lost, after lost, it's 24 times each year. And that's an insane amount of pages and insane amount of beats that have to become scenes. And that really, I've internalized that almost to a depressing degree. Whereas I will work on beat sheets or outlines for years, I will do 50. Because the goal for me, I don't like to do lots of drafts. I think it's much easier to be ruthless when it's in beat sheet form.

10:35

When you don't have characters saying you

12:00

don't have characters saying you don't have things that you fall in love. You don't have these moments that have taken this become living and breathing. And I fall in love with these things. And it's harder for me. But in beat sheet form, it's like, we're great, we're done. Let's cut it. Let's try it. Let's try this other thing. I can be much more free creatively. And so I will do. And I kind of force there's amount of time, especially in the feature world where they're like, just do a draft, just do a draft, and let's just start this. And I'm like, absolutely not. Like, to me, the hardest part is we need to get to a place where we all agree what we're doing so that then I can Go be playful. If I try to be too playful too early, we're not going to, like, we're going to end up not making something.

12:02

Yeah. So I absolutely hear that and I want to protect that as an idea. I will say to give the other side of this argument is that sometimes you do. It's actually writing scenes that you discover what your story is and sort of who the characters are. You actually hear out all of it together. We had Katie Silverman on the podcast and she was talking about how before she starts writing something, she will write a bunch of scenes with these characters that don't have to actually fit into the movie so she knows what they are.

12:42

I do that too. I love doing that. Like, I used to. Part of that came from tv, where the job nobody wanted was, oh, you gotta write sides. Yeah, you gotta write sides for the actor.

13:06

Tell me what sides mean for that. For casting.

13:15

So, for casting. So if we know. And usually you have to start that process before you have a script in tv. So what happens is whoever's writing the script is not gonna do the sides. They'll say it usually gets dumped to a lower level writer. Like, will you go write a three page scene that will showcase this character in three pages?

13:17

Make sure that we're getting the tone that we want, what it feels like.

13:33

Exactly. Make it hard. Make it really difficult so that you can see it. In the case of almost everything I work on, make it funny and make it break your heart into three pages. Make it over and over. I got dumped out a lot as a lower level and I grumbled about it at first and then I started to really love it.

13:35

Of course, I would love that too.

13:51

Oh, my God.

13:52

The stakes are like kind of weirdly high and low at the same time.

13:53

And once you start having fun, you can throw crazy shit in there. Like, you're just like, oh, my God, a tentacle comes out of nowhere and eats the person because you're never gonna shoot it. And it's fun when you're in the room. I mean, all of the bad times in the casting process for that. All of those scenes are delightful because you're like, you are free in a way. You're never free because you're like, we're never gonna shoot this, so let's just make it fun for the room.

13:56

And then the actors are always weirdly disappointed when they get the actual script. Wait, that thing I did, I wasn't even there.

14:20

I mean, that was Cabin in the woods, by the way. Cabin in the Woods. If you can imagine how crazy we went in that movie. The sides were a hundred times crazier. So then they would come up, like, Hemsworth would be like, what about that? The scenes I was doing, I was so excited for that. We're like, I know we can't do

14:25

that part, but it was never going to be part of it. It was all. It was bait and switch.

14:38

That's part of it.

14:42

Yeah.

14:43

But it. No, I preface this by saying, there's no right answer here. I know friends who will do 30 drafts. Like, they will constantly be doing draft after draft. And they find it that way. And certainly I am.

14:43

And Scott Frank overwrites and then has to cut back down and overwrites.

14:56

And to be fair, when I'm doing the beat sheets and outlining, I'm doing a version of that. My outlines can get on lost. Our outlines ran longer than the scripts, which is really hard to do.

14:59

That's crazy. That's really hard to do.

15:09

It's really hard to do because we were still in screenplay format, but without dialogue.

15:11

Okay. So like, the scriptman kind of like, yeah, but they're.

15:16

But to go longer than the script without dialogue is insane.

15:18

That's wild.

15:22

Yeah, that's not something we're proud of.

15:22

No, but you would learn.

15:24

Be detailed is the point. And so when I say outline, they're kind of functioning as drafts.

15:25

Okay. But you have this incredibly detailed beat sheet or outline. But there's still a fundamental skill of going from that to, like, this is really what it's going to feel like. I guess you're capturing some of what it feels like in that outline, but it's the specifics of, like, what the characters are saying, how they're interacting with stuff, like which line comes first. Are your outlines that detailed that? It's just. It's essentially a script, but in a prosy form sometimes.

15:30

Or some scenes are like, if I know a scene's really hard or very technical, I don't want to be doing anything other than having fun when I'm writing. So I will do the hard parts. If I'm like, oh, boy, I don't understand. With Project Hail Mary, this scientific concept, I don't want to be sitting there trying to write the scene because I hand write everything. I don't want to be sitting there trying to figure out the science part. So I will. Knowing that I'm writing for. I'm making outlines for myself. I'm doing the work so that I don't have to worry about that part. Like, oh, I better detail out the beats of this part. And if I know the emotional point of the scene, that's enough. Then I'll get real simple, like, oh, this is what he's going through. This is what. Cause I know that will be fun to write and I don't have to worry about it. So it's really for me. And by the way, we should talk about. Part of this is an outline for me to write as the writer. But there's also the part that you need to do to convince everyone to let you do this. And those are two separate things. So I'm sort of looking at it both ways. So in that case, what I just described, I probably wouldn't put all the scientific stuff in there. Right. If I'm doing this to get people to sign off, whether it's our directors, whether it's the studio. Right. Whether it's our producers, in that case, I'm just sort of saying, here's what the story is. Let's just walk you through the basics of the story. Here's the point of the scene, if that makes sense.

15:56

Yeah, it does. So it's helping me understand something I've never really gotten about TV writing and TV writing with rooms for especially a network is you do all this work to create these incredibly detailed outlines and sheets, and then you get approvals on those, and then someone goes off to draft. And it seems like going off to draft is kind of just like a. It's a short process and it's surprisingly simple. And like I always say, like, oh, I got to go off and write a draft. I must take like three weeks. And it's like, no, actually, with a really detailed outline, it could be incredibly quick because you know exactly what's in there.

17:19

I wish that was true.

17:49

You wish that were true?

17:50

Okay.

17:51

Yeah.

17:51

And every writer that's had gone through this is mad at you for saying that right now, because you are invariably. You then get it off the board, you get the outline, and then you're sitting with that blank screen or page in front of you, and you're like, oh, God, none of this works. None of this works. What was I thinking?

17:52

So when none of it works, is it the stuff within the scenes that's not working? Or is it that the flow from scene to scene to scene? Or both.

18:09

Or both. Or just like, you start to question your own existential reason for making it, for writing this script. Like, wait, that happens a lot where you're like, why did we think this was a good idea as a group? And so sometimes you need Just the emotional support. That's the other reason writers rooms are helpful. Of like. No, no, no, no. We all know what it feels like to panic. Cause that's the other problem. I would give anything for weeks. I think the average Buffy was four days. Same with Lost. Four days. And again, not a good way to do this. I'm not suggesting this. One of the nice things about how we've moved the model from 24 episodes to 8 or 10 is you do have more time. It is the grind of being so far behind. But there's benefits of that part too, because you also go, oh, I can't second guess it. Let's just go, yeah. Cause the beats are not so much dialogue based. And as you know, dialogue's also really hard if you want to do it well. And so then if you get into that stuff, you're trying to shape it. No stage is easy. There's never an easy part of the process.

18:16

So you've now, as a showrunner, you've had situations where you've figured out a whole episode on the board. You've transferred that down into a written document, you've assigned it off to a writer, and then the writer is struggling or the writer's having a hard time doing it. What is the conversation with that writer who's having a hard time going from this works as an outline to this is working as a script? Like, what do you do?

19:20

I start from a place of compassion. Cause I've been in that writer's shoes. Like I just half the amount of times I was having a nervous breakdown. And I remember early some of my showrunners saying things like, it's okay, you might wipe out. It's okay. That's why we do it this way. We do it this way. So if you wipe out, we are all clear on the story too. And whoever's the showrunners, I'm clear on this too. So it takes the pressure off of. This doesn't have to be perfect. We don't. In fact, it's not going to be perfect. And in fact, there's things that we thought we wanted that you were going to write. And by you writing them, we're gonna realize, oh, that's wrong.

19:40

So it wasn't necessarily their bad execution, but it just wasn't an executable idea.

20:17

This is what it is. And so I think it's important for writers to hear that. I do think that the fear of failure is one of the great things that stops us in our tracks and can really paralyze us as writers, right?

20:22

Yeah.

20:34

And by the way, as artists, it's with actors too. With any of the artists, that is where when I'm directing, I want to take fear of failure off the board. In fact, say failure is actually a wonderful part of the process. If we're not screwing something up, it means we're not pushing the boundaries hard enough. We're not trying to. But I think especially when you're early and you haven't worked with people before, it's really important to let them know it's okay. Yeah, we're not. It's not going to be perfect. This is really hard, what we're doing. And we're going to. And we are going to get there. We're all safety nets for each other.

20:34

So advice to a staff writer who for the first time is taking this document and then turning into the script, how faithful should you try to be to what that was? How much is it your own discovery process? When do you need to check in with the showrunner? If it's something, maybe it's not working, or do you just try it and deliver it? What's the best way to do it?

21:05

I think the important thing is before you go to draft, start developing the skill of trying to figure out what's important to the showrunner. And every showrunner is different and it's not always clear because you also have passionate people in a writer's room who have their own points of view of what's important. But the showrunner is the person that's going to have to arbitrate all of this. Right. And so you really want to get a sense of, oh, this scene is really important to the showrunner. And the showrunner, she's pitched this exact line of dialogue every single time we've talked about this. That line I better put in.

21:24

Yes.

21:59

This place, she's adrift. Yeah, let's try. Let's do. Let me play around here. That's what you're looking for. You're listening. And if you're unclear, talk to the showrunner. Say, I'm not sure about this. And hopefully your showrunner will be able to talk this through a little bit.

21:59

Yeah. So all this is sort of built around the classic broadcast model where the writers were employed in a room during this entire time and therefore had a lot more exposure to the showrunner. Now that we're getting on to shows that will have a 10 week development room and then maybe another 10 weeks to actually do the thing, there's less time around that writer to get that stuff. That must be a real challenge for getting a sense of what the showrunner wants and needs and how the whole thing is going to work.

22:16

It's not ideal. It's not. And it falls upon showrunners to carve it out and do what best they can to get as much time with the writers as possible. And it's a struggle we're all going through, you know, but it's crucial. It's crucial.

22:43

So how do you, as a showrunner, decide which of the writers in the room is the right person to do a given episode? Is it the one that you see that they spark most closely to, that they do it? Or is it just it's now we're rotating through and it's now this person's turn?

22:56

It's a little of all of the above, and every show's a little different. Part of the reason I got so much experience so quickly at Buffy is they kind of went in the order of seniority. And there's a reason for that, is that then the seniority leaves to do an episode so that they can come back when it's time for the younger writers in the room to be there. So it sort of cycles. But what happened at Buffy was suddenly everyone either had to go off on script or had babies. And so suddenly it was just me by myself. And so it was like, oh, come to set, work with the showrunners on set and just learn how to do this, because there's nobody else. Everyone's gone. I don't know that that was ideal. So part of it is, weirdly, the math of, well, if that person's off on script, who's in breaking the story, who's figuring that part out, which is kind of in the back of your head as a showrunner, because, you know, as a showrunner, you're going to get pulled 100 directions, and you need to know who's in the room. Because some people are really good, and it just comes with experience, frankly, at breaking story. And so you kind of don't want to abandon the younger writers in there, so you can sort of find what makes the most sense. And there's no right or wrong answer.

23:10

There are classically some shows that they have writers on staff and they are never in a room together, and they just work on everything separately. So there's different ways that different shows work, and you have to sort of understand what your show is. We've been talking a lot about tv, but I want to talk about features and beats, and features are just as crucial. And yet there's not a room. It's just you. Can we talk about the Martian? Because we actually have pages from the Martian. It's available for us here. So we're looking at pages 12 through 14 of the Martian. And what's happened in this section is the rocket has taken off without our hero, without Matt Damon, and he's announced that Mark Watney is dead. The. The Earth has announced that Mark Watney is dead. And then we're back on Mars and we find that Mark Watney is not dead. And he was just passed out and he needed to go back to the base and he realizes he's alone on Mars. Can you talk to me about your experience of reading this sequence in Andy Weir's book? And let's talk about what the beats were in the book. And then we can look at sort of specifically how you're implementing this, where the camera is in trying to tell this story. So in the book, I read Project Hail Mary, but I did not read the Martian. Is it a third person? Is it a neutral POV on the thing, or is it all from his point of view?

24:17

All from his point of view.

25:29

So this is very, very different. So even though it's a very close third person in the movie, it's a different experience. So tell me about reading it in the book and how we got here.

25:30

Or at least I should say this part is all from the first part, because then it does shift as we start cutting back to Earth.

25:38

Yeah.

25:43

And when I look at it, it's funny because this was the original opening to the movie.

25:44

Great.

25:48

So if you look at it, what I'm trying to do is start. And this is the way the book starts, which is a guy wakes up injured on Mars, which I always thought was delightful. I was like, oh, this is a wonderful way to begin a movie. Right. So if you look at this, what I'm trying to do here is find the moments, okay? He's going to wake up and slowly but surely, you're trying to look at the. The beats of the scene. He looks down, he sees a jagged length of antenna in his abdomen. Right. We're telling a story. We're building the mystery of what the hell happened to this guy. Right. At a certain point, I realized I need some context for this, which made the previous scene necessary. So I need. I was like, oh, it's too much. I'm throwing too much. What I need to know. The sentence that I need to know, which is the end of the first scene, is, but Mark Watney is dead. I need the audience to know that the man they're about to meet, the world thinks is dead. I think that's really important to this next part because then you're building this sort of mystery of what the hell happened. But also, I try to be, you know, emotion first and foremost, right? I want the audience to understand just how lonely this man's about to become. Because when you. It's one thing to survive on the planet, it's another thing that the world doesn't know you're alive yet. And I feel like that was a crucial part of this. Of this movie.

25:48

So you had to backfill and to get up to, like, well, how do you actually get to that press conference? And so they actually need to see the sequence. And so we need to spend tens of millions of dollars for this whole sequence of the escape from Mars and why he's left.

27:10

And what we did. That sequence was in the middle of the movie. Okay, like, that sequence was in the middle.

27:23

When you're saying that this sequence originally in the middle of the movie, in your early drafts or in early things you handed in to people.

27:29

No, all the way through shooting.

27:36

Oh, wow, Crazy.

27:38

All the way through shooting, including this sequence, was in the middle of the movie. The sequence that showed what happened to Mark before was in the middle of the movie. And it was delightful. There was a building of like, oh, I want to see what happened. Oh, we're finally going to show you what happened. And it worked. But then Ridley at some point calls me and he says, you're going to hate this because we had talked about this a lot. He's like, but can I just show you a cut of the movie where we moved that before? And he was really. Cause he wasn't sure himself. It wasn't like he was demanding. He was like, we just watch. Let's just watch and see. And I was grumbling thinking, this is not gonna work for all these reasons. It's gonna ruin all this beautiful tension I have created. And then we watched it. I was like, oh, it's better. It's just better. You just felt it. You're like, oh, I like this.

27:39

And by the way, the reveal of things later on, of course, the movies is what you end up doing in Project Hail Mary so successfully. And the whole movie is built around that. Which is not the mystery engine of this. The mystery engine of Hail Mary is, why is he there by himself in space? Getting to that point is built up throughout the whole course of the movie. This was a one off.

28:24

And you know, it's a good lesson of nothing ever really dies. Like, if I can't do something in one place, it'll work its way back in if I really want to try something like that. And we definitely found our places in Hail Mary. Yeah.

28:43

So the writing in the sequence is great. And the reason why I picked this is because there's essentially no dialogue. And it's a great way to sort of show, like, oh. Scenes are not just dialogue. Scenes are what characters are doing, the obstacles, the challenges and how they move past the choices that they make. So we are seeing him wake up on the surface of Mars, realize that this piece of antenna is piercing his spacesuit, getting back to the airlock into the base, trying to treat his wound and realizing, oh, crap, I am alone. And then we cut. Smash cut to the title of the Martian.

28:56

It means a lot to hear you say that. It's fun looking at this because I do take scenes seriously when there's no dialogue in them. I really feel like that's one of the things that sort of separates good from great in screenplays. Because nobody wants to read blocks of texts. Right. There's something in your brain, especially in a screenplay form, that you're used to, the sort of how quickly it moves. And so I work even just looking at this now, which I haven't looked at in 10 years.

29:30

It's well done. There's a reason why you should have gotten an Oscar nomination for it, and you did.

29:55

Bless you, John. But if people are trying to learn without even reading the words, you can sit back and look at the page and see, oh, there's dense words in certain parts. We're taking space, and those words are, here's the character's name. Here's the thing the person's going through. I'm using italics sparsely.

29:59

We're using italics, though, just to show sort of what the internal mental state is like. The thing that we could see as an audience, we could register that on his face. But you need to stick it there on the page that as the reader, we get it.

30:18

I'm trying. If you look, what I'm trying to do is actually make the reader complicit in this. I'm trying to make the reader the main character. These are the main character's thoughts. When I'm going into italics that are, in some cases, that are kind of putting you in his place, which I find is very effective. Especially if you're trying to get people on board doing this. Something that, you know, long sequences without dialogue. It really Helps to have a point of view.

30:29

Yeah. Things like on page 13 in parentheses. This is not exactly going to be easy to watch. Yes. And that's true. And again, it's. You're complicit that you're saying, like, we're going to get through this together, and there's a point of view and a purpose. Drew Goddard, are you still a double spacer?

30:55

Oh, yes.

31:13

Oh, yeah. You haven't changed.

31:13

Oh, I will till the day I die.

31:15

Yeah.

31:16

How much do you want to hear

31:17

my rant, Help me rant? Because I was a double spacer. I switched back. But tell me your argument for maintaining double spaces in the light of all rationality.

31:18

Great, great. I will be happy to go down this well.

31:27

Please.

31:31

Let's start with the screenplay form. The screenplay form is ridiculous. Okay. Take a moment and realize that the screenplay form is something that was designed because of typewriters and how quickly that we could use typewriters and how quickly you could do revision pages. Right. One of the nice benefits of the form that came to be is that, in general, one page equals about a minute of screen time.

31:31

Yeah. The roughest approximation.

31:55

But it's kind of crazy how close it comes. Like, you're really. In most scripts, you're not that far off. Now, each page might be way off, but in the aggregate, most scripts are

31:56

about 120 pages or about two hours long.

32:08

Yeah. And I found that kind of shocking because I've written wildly different forms of scripts, whether it's straight comedy or hardcore action or whatever it is, kind of end up at the same place, which I find incredibly useful. Like, I find it incredibly useful to understand when you're getting into the budgeting phase, when you're getting into the directing phase, when you're getting into time management phase. It's really helpful to know how long this scene is going to be. Right. So for me, why are we changing this? Like, it's arbitrarily? Because people don't text that way. Like, yeah, people don't write in Courier. Also, I'm a believer that the negative space on a page is almost as important as the positive space on a page.

32:10

100%.

32:57

Right?

32:57

Yeah.

32:58

I believe that if the goal is to be helping your reader through an artistic experience, the negative space on a page is a wonderful weapon at your disposal. Why would you want to crush that weapon? Why would you, like, let it flow? So I understand we'll all knife fight. I also understand I'm probably the last person on the hill. Like, I really like. If you Want to see Drew lose his mind? Like, there was points that we could talk about Hail Mary. There was parts when Chris and Phil would write. Our directors would write scenes and single spacers, and you look at it, and they would clip the single spaces in the middle without changing. Which is the worst offense? Like, at the very least, Absolutely. If you're gonna force it, if you're

32:58

gonna rewrite me, you should at least

33:38

double space it or make it all single spaced. And I will be ashamed. But to jump back and forth is the most egregious in a script. Like, to read a script that you're doing both. We should all be shocked.

33:39

So there have been cases where I've come in to do cabinetry work in a script, or basically, I'm not changing. I'm just doing some certain scenes, and it will try to match the style of whatever was there, including double spacing or just, like, the difference between double dash and dot, dot, dot. I will do what the thing is just so it actually reads like the thing.

33:52

Yes.

34:09

But that said, if I'm doing a page one rewrite on thing, I'm searching for double spaces and making them down to one space. Because that's just where I'm at now.

34:10

Yeah, I respect that. And I do the same, by the way. You and I do a lot of script doctoring. I want to be respectful. But I will start by talking to the writer and saying, are you sure? Because if you don't feel strongly, let's try it this other way. But if you feel strongly, we will go with your version.

34:17

That's great. Let's talk about project Hail Mary, because it's just fantastic. Andy Weir has written a new novel. At what point does it cross your transom? When do you start having the conversation like, hey, maybe Drew Goddard should adapt this movie, since he did such a great job the last time.

34:31

Andy and I have stayed in contact, just in life since the Martian. But that's ten years ago now. Right. But I actually remember the date because it was so clear. It was April Fool's Day. So April 1, 2020. So two weeks after the pandemic shut everything down. World, sky is falling. We are in full.

34:46

It's not clear that civilization will survive.

35:05

Correct. Like, it really feels that way. Andy texts me and goes, I don't know how you're doing, but I did just finish a new novel. Do you want to read it? And I'm like, andy, I'm trying to find groceries right now. No. And he's like, come on, I'm like, of course I do want to read it. But I also was like, are you messing with me on April Fool's Day?

35:07

Because that's not cool.

35:25

But he was like, no, no, it's lovely and I'm really proud of it. And will you read it?

35:26

Had he told you anything about it before? No, no.

35:30

He probably would have if I had pressed. But I tend to not press writers when they're in the middle of writing unless they want to open up. Right. I'm happy to, I love to, But I also kind of know, like, give it space to be nurtured. So I didn't know anything. And I prefer that, especially if it's something that I may want to work on. Right. It's better so I can have a clean experience. So he knew, and then he said, ryan Gosling is already attached.

35:32

Oh, how'd that happen?

35:58

So Andy's at caa. I think CAA sort of put it together. So those are the two pieces.

35:59

I knew he's ideal casting, but it's also. It's a weird situation to come in with just that piece. Yeah.

36:04

But luckily, yes, if it's in the list of weird situations, that's a weird situation you want. Right. Like, look great. But I was also insanely busy with other things. And I thought, there's no way I'm gonna be able, just life wise, I'm not gonna be able to do this. Which I gently tried to tell him because I knew. I'm like, if you've got Ryan Gosling, you guys are gonna go, you're gonna be shooting soon. And I'm not the person to be shooting soon right now just cause of life. He said, we're gonna wait. If you do it, we'll wait. And he was very sweet about that. And I said, well, don't do that. I'm not gonna let you do that. She's like, well, will you just read it? And then I read it. And when I'm reading something that I might do, I don't know if you're this way, John. I'm constantly looking for ways out.

36:08

100%.

36:50

Right?

36:51

Yeah.

36:51

Like, I'm looking like all the reasons to not do this, because I know, especially if it's people I've worked with that I don't want to let down. I'm like, I want to do a good job for you. And so I'm looking for all the ways I'm about to do a bad job for them. Right. And so I'm kind of reading it and talking myself out of it, like, trying to be like. Because quite honestly, this. This book is a screenwriter's nightmare. It's a screenwriter's nightmare. We're going to get to that in a second.

36:51

Well, so I read the book well before I saw your movie. And so I was reading, like, oh, Drew easily has this. I mean, yes, it's challenging, but it's not impossible. And the reason why I want to talk about beats versus scenes is because, like, the beats of the book are the beats of the movie. It's just like, it's. The challenge is how do you actually implement them and the fundamental decisions you're making in terms of how close you're sticking to his POV and how to get out of his head. I'm sure as you're reading that you were thinking, like, this is all inside his mind.

37:17

It's all inside his mind. And then when you finally. And all right, let me tell you, I disagree with you passionately. I think it's going to be easy.

37:45

This is going to be a fight.

37:51

Because I also knew everyone else had said this to me all the time. It's going to be so easy for you. It's like the Martian. I'm like, it's not like the Martian.

37:52

It's not like the Martian.

37:57

It's surfacely like the Martian.

37:58

Yes.

37:59

But where it becomes wildly different. You have a disaster movie where the threat. The disaster is microbial. So I have to get into microbiology to audience.

38:00

You have a lot of good text from the book that can be incorporated into his drylands. Figuring out what's going on.

38:09

Yes. But you try to make it visually interesting.

38:16

Challenge. Yes. Okay.

38:19

I'm sorry.

38:20

I'm not.

38:20

Try to do that part. Yeah. Try to shape it. Okay. That's step one.

38:21

Step two.

38:24

Most of it takes place in a narrator's head who does not know what's going on.

38:25

Exactly.

38:30

Right. So not only do you not have someone to talk to, he actually doesn't know what's going on, which is challenging.

38:30

But fundamentally, there's a second character.

38:37

Great. I'm glad you brought up that second character. That second character is a rock who speaks in whale songs.

38:39

Yes.

38:44

Right. He speaks only in whale songs, but he's a rock crep and he's delightful. Don't get me wrong. But you realize these are challenges once when going back to scenes, you're like, I have an actor.

38:44

Every crisis is an opportunity. I'm sorry. I'm gonna sell you on adapting this book.

38:56

And no. And I said yes for the reasons that you're saying. But I also knew this is gonna be way harder than everyone realizes, because it reads. When you read it, it moves. But once you sit and go, wait, what's the scene?

39:01

What is the scene? What is the scene?

39:13

That is the challenge. That's where you go, oh, my God, I'm screwed.

39:14

Yeah. And so you had to make fundamental decisions. Reading the book and then watching the movie. A lot of the choices you made were the choices that I sort of saw in my head. But the actual nature of the ship itself is much different because you needed to create physical spaces that would enable you to have individual scenes and moments in development and to get out of just his head so he can have physical challenges to get through, to demonstrate what the emotional, intellectual puzzle he's trying to face is.

39:17

Yeah, exactly. And part of this is also your job is not just, I gotta make a scene that Ryan Gosling wants to act in. I need to make a scene that my directors are going to want to direct. I need to make a scene that the production designer is going to want to design. And so that's in a good way that sort of forces you to go, okay, let's think about the room. Let's think about the space that we're in. Let's actually be in this.

39:44

Yeah, the spaces are bigger than I would have expected them to be, which is completely appropriate, to be fair.

40:06

That's the director also. That's Chris and Phil. Because what you're describing is expensive. And I'm like, I'm not handing you something that's gonna drive the budget through the roof. And they're like, we got that covered. We're gonna drive the budget through.

40:11

They can nail it all by themselves.

40:25

And to their credit, I mean, I watched the movie, and I'm like this. I have no idea how human beings made this. It is a stunning feat of production design. It is unbelievable, but it was scary. And what we're really describing is my own fear of myself failing. Going back to fear of failure. I didn't want to fail for Andy. I didn't want to fail for Andy.

40:27

Above all else, you know, so you read the book. You have all your excuses for why you're not going to do it. And then how did the ask come?

40:47

No. Two thirds of the way through the book, all right, Something happens that I went. That made me sit up. And I don't want to spoil it for people, but you will know it. You will know because it will be the thing that you have not seen done yet. At least the we can compare notes later. I don't remember it happening. And I sat up and went, oh, my God. And there's four or five of those things in the movie, but there's one in particular that made me go, oh, I'm. All of the hardships that we are describing actually is set up for the thing that happens. Right. All of the reasons that I'm complaining is as I'm reading this book, I go, oh, my God, this is what's gonna make this movie transcend from my point of view. And so a couple of things I do when I finish the book like that, that I'm actually thinking of doing. I quickly write down the five or ten beats that I think that I love more than anything that are the things. Cause I know. And I write them down and I put them in giant font on my wall before I speak to anyone. Because I know at some point all of these things are gonna come under siege. All of them, by not just also, not just the outside world, not just people working on the film, not just executives, not just also by me. Because you do start to second guess everything in the course of making a movie. And I kept looking at that, and one of those things that I described is on that wall, which, you know, we don't have to get into that part, but there's a lot of fights about that. There's a lot of fights. Anything that's bold and different, I promise you, somebody wanted to cut along the way. And so you sort of have to remember. Oh, but when I first read it, that's why I wanted to do it.

40:55

Yeah. Watching the movie. So it's. You can say it's long, but it's really this full length. It does the whole. It does the whole thing, and it's an entire experience. And luckily, I think we've become more appreciative of, like, long movies that just. That work really well. They don't feel long because, like, it's always exciting and always invigorating. And the Marvel movies, to some degree, are probably part of the reason why we've been trained to sort of take longer movies, which is great. You kind of get all the book in there. And so as I was watching through, it's like, oh, like, what did they actually cut? And the cuts are so smart and so surgical. And they're generally things that a reader of a book who has all the time in the world and all the pages in the world can sort of like, oh, that's an interesting thing about how we paved the deserts of the Sahara. It doesn't affect the stakes of the movie that we're watching. And that was good and it was crucial. And there's reasons to go back to earth and there's reasons not to go back to earth. You basically chose not to go back to earth when we didn't need to anymore.

42:28

Having done this a lot, the thing that every time I'm working with a new novelist, I have to gently say, I have room for about 5% of your novel. Right. Like page count wise, I have room for about 5% of your novel. So we all have to make peace with that and figure out, like, where are we, what are we going to use? And so, you know, going in that you're going to have to do some brutal cuts that are going to hurt. Not just if you love the book. Like I love the book, it's going to hurt me more than anyone. You know, like there's things. One of the things on that list of 10 at one point we'll just talk about it because it's not in the movie was they make a decision to nuke the polar ice caps. And it's wonderful. Like I loved it and I thought it was, it was the one thing on the list that's not in the movie. Cause we all were like, let's try to. But when you went to what is the scene for that? Right. There's no version of seeing that quickly. If you want to do it correctly, you have to set up what is the problem? What are we trying to solve? Why is this the correct solution? You can't just say, and then we nuke the polar ice caps. Right.

43:21

In a ten episode series. It absolutely makes sense In a three hour movie. It does not make sense at all.

44:22

And so. But it was a late cut. And then when we, even after we had shot it, we were still trying to be like, can we try? Let's try. Let's mock it up.

44:26

Let's do the last steps.

44:34

Well, this is a credit to Chris and Phil, our directors. They are not afraid of anything. They were like, oh, we've already shot a full movie, great. We can still. And they've been right. Like, it's been wonderful working with them because they're sort of, they come from animation, so, you know, they're used to it. Yeah. They're like, if the idea's good, we're gonna figure it out. And there's something thrilling about that. But we tried. But part of it was it's the scene. Like you couldn't figure out what the scene was that could do efficiently.

44:36

Whose POV are you in? Ryland? Doesn't really make sense for it. Cedric Hiller's character could do it. Could do it. But what I like about what you do in the movie is that her character exists for how she interacts with Ryan Gosling's character, and that's the relationship.

45:00

So when you're setting out to adapt something that you're gonna make a ton of cuts, you need sort of a defining principle. Right. And I. Very quickly. Not that this is deep, but it's important to say it. You're like, this movie is about Grace and Rocky. That's what this movie is about. So every scene needs to be in service, even if neither of those characters are in it. It's on the B side, on the space side, and then it's about Strat and Grace on the A side. And. And that triangle is kind of telling the same story. Right. It comes together. Trust.

45:17

Yeah.

45:43

Yes. And sacrifice. And what this means and what the bigger purpose of life is. And so when you think about it like that, it's like, oh, yeah, every scene is on theme, you know, between that. So when you start to divert from theme, you get into a lot of. It ends up on the cutting room floor.

45:43

Yeah. So you've decided to say yes. What is your internal process for coming up with an outline, a BH sheet? Are you sharing that with anybody else? Anybody? Or is that just yours? What was that process for you?

45:58

Before I say yes, I like to sort of come up with a very simple beat sheet of like, okay, do I think there's a movie here that I can see? Even if I don't have the answers? Is there enough that I go, okay, I don't wanna disappoint anyone. I want people to know, like, okay, we're gonna figure this. It's gonna be hard, but we're gonna figure it out. So I'll do a very rough beat sheet only for myself before I even engage. Right. Just to sort of. And it's very. Like, in this 30 pages, this happens in this 30 pages, this happens in this 30. You know, it's sort of act breaks. It's not like, thought through. It's more what happens every 15 quite a bit.

46:10

Well, so if it was a road trip, like, what city are you gonna stop at on the way?

46:46

And what's great about Andy is he does have a wonderful sense of structure. He really does. And it's one of the things I respond to so strongly in his writing, that there is a inherent structure in what he does.

46:50

So some of the cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger, which is what pulls you through the book so quickly.

47:01

Exactly. And it makes all of the problems we were just talking about easier. Right. Because, you know, like, okay, we can build to these things. So I do that. But then at that point, Chris and Phil were on to direct. And Chris and Phil, we've sort of been friends for two decades now. We've had sort of parallel careers. We both sort of started in tv. They were kind of doing Jump street when I was doing Cavin in the Woods. We sort of have always been fans of each other and trying to find things to do. So that was thrilling. But I also knew our processes could not be more different. Like, they are very much when we're talking jazz. Yeah, they are. And it comes from animation, and it works really well for them. Right. Whereas it's not measured twice, cut once. It's measured 20 times, cut once. Why are we measuring? Like, let's just cut, cut, cut. We'll just keep hacking away and building something. And I knew. Okay. I was kind of excited because I. I was like. I knew it was important to try a different process. Right. It was important for me as an artist, when I respect the other artists, to say, oh, let's give this a try. Let's see how this works. And I think they probably felt the same that we were. And so I knew we need to talk about this now. Like, we need to talk about what this is, because we have very different process. And what I said to them was, I don't want my process to stop you from your process. And I think the way to do that is let me hyper focus on structure. If I hyper focus on structure so that we know this is when this needs to happen. This is the rough structure of the movie, and we can agree on it. You guys can go crazy. Like, you guys can have so much

47:05

fun and paint within the lines.

48:41

Yeah, like, have fun. I want that. But let's start with structure. And so those conversations were crucial because then as I'm doing outline after outline, the goal is to say, let's find a structure that we can be playful inside of, and that is what's on the screen. You know, we've moved scenes around here and there, but if you look at the big arcs of the things, it's like, we have not deviated that much from the initial outlines.

48:42

Yeah. The movie is funny and funny in ways that you wouldn't necessarily expect, given the stakes of everything that's happening. And that's because I think you have both a very strong backbone for everything and than a lot of moments for the natural comedy that comes up that I'm sure was. Some of it was scripted, but some of it was just sort of finding in the moments that can absolutely play without question.

49:07

And I've learned from doing comedy and

49:27

drama and sort of the intersections.

49:29

If the scene does not have a dramatic reason to exist, it's okay. Like, you can sometimes have diversions that are purely comedic, but it's really helpful if they have a reason to do both.

49:32

Well, going back to the beat and scene description, it's like that beat that. It just has a bunch of funny banter. It's not really a beat. It's not a thing that happens. Nothing changed over the course of it. So it's very unlikely it's going to sort of first survive the outline stage, but then actually survive the edit. Because it can go away. So therefore it will go away.

49:42

Especially on something like Hail Mary, where screen time is a premium. So you're constantly having to look at. Like, I need to do exposition in this scene. I need to do emotional growth in this scene. I need to drive the story forward. I need to explain what the hell's happening with the science. You kind of need to be doing all of the. You don't. You can't do each one of those scenes on their own. All of the scenes have to be doing a version of that for the most part. And so you realize, like, what starts to happen as we got into it is Drew became the internal clock of, do we have the page count? Like, do we have the page count? Which I try not to do, but at a certain point you're like, it's gonna really hurt us later in the editing room if we don't have a structure here.

50:00

Congratulations to get on the movie. It's just so, so good.

50:39

It's a joy to talk to you, John. It really is. Thank you for having me.

50:42

We have a listener question here I think might be really good from Carlos.

50:45

I'm currently working on a pilot. I've organized a schedule that requires me to write specific number of scenes per day, two to three, tops, in order to meet the deadline. However, I find it hard to give my brain a rest in between writing sit downs. Sometimes after an hour or two of writing, I find myself too mentally drained to start the next scene. And even though I know what happens in it, do you have any advice on activities that could help disconnect and recharge the brain?

50:48

Battery.

51:12

Effectively, I do.

51:13

Please go.

51:15

This is a great question. When Twin Peaks, the Return came out. Right. There's an eighth episode that's all in black and white, and it's exquisite. Have you seen it?

51:15

I haven't seen anything.

51:23

It's explicit. Highly recommend. It's so bonkers that it made me go, whatever David lynch does, I want to see what he does. And I started doing meditation. Yeah, it's the thing that made me go. Let me try meditation. Let me see. Because I'm not super New Agey, but I was like, let me understand how this works. And what works for me is it calms the nervous system. It does exactly. The thing that you're describing, Carlos. Right. Which is how do you turn your brain off for a second? The other thing that works is walks. I'm a big fan of walks.

51:24

Yeah, I was gonna say walk would be the right choice.

51:56

Put the pen down, stop writing. Just take a walk and build that into your process. Because what will happen is those things will become the reward for the writing. And both of those things really help me.

51:58

Great. Yeah. Walks, showers. Anything that gets you out of your showers.

52:11

Yeah, I mean, showers, especially in the age of smartphones, they were always important. I know Sorkin. This Aaron Sorkin of which you speak, he also talks a lot about showers. And there's a reason. Because it's forcing you to be bored. That's the other thing you're looking for, is it's so hard to be bored right now in our world, and you have to force yourself to find ways to do it.

52:15

The other thing to remember is that Carlos says, after two hours of writing, I sort of can do the next thing. I was like, yeah, because you were working really, really hard. If you were digging a ditch for two hours, you would know that you had to take a break. Your muscles would tell you how to take a break. Your brain is telling you you have to take a break. So, yes, it's the right instinct, too. Go do something else.

52:35

It's a thing I don't think people who are not writers understand is that it is grueling. There is a fatigue that sets in. By the time I'm finished with any script, I do feel like I've run a marathon. Like I do. I always talk about those videos of runners whose legs stop working just as they're getting to the finish line. That is how I feel when I get to the end of every single script.

52:53

Yeah, for sure. Let's try this question from James.

53:13

My friend Simon and I had the same idea for a movie and decided to team up and write it because we have jobs. It took us two years to write the first draft. After Simon went through some personal issues as well as losing some interest in the project, we agreed that I take control of the rewrite. I was happy about that, as I thought we'd struggle to have a succinct tone and voice as a pair. Anyway. I'm aware that legally this script will always be written by James and Simon, and I've no intention of cutting him out of anything. But by the time I will have finished the rewrite, I'll probably rewritten 95% of the screenplay. When we start entering competitions or shopping it around, how can I position myself as the writer who has really made it what it is, even though the characters and story were a 5050 effort? It's not about money. I just want to be recognized as the person who's put the extra hours in to get the screenplay where it is.

53:16

Wow. It's a group project and someone who did most of the work in a group project. That's the reality of it. And that it's probably always going to be true. And there's never a partnership that is equal. 50. 50. This was not a good partnership. You probably should not write another thing with this person.

54:05

I think that's right. I think, to answer your question, if you really want that credit, you need to write something else.

54:19

Yeah.

54:25

On your own. You know, if that's what you're seeking, it's probably not going to. Even in the best of times, it's probably not going to happen. Nor should it.

54:25

All right, it is time for our one cool things. My one cool thing is Kalina. So K A L I N A, which is the last name of Noah Kalina, who is a photographer in upstate New York. He mostly does landscapes. He has this series called Kalina on YouTube, which is a bunch of video wallpapers of just video from upstate New York forests mostly, that are so amazing and meditative and just quiet and wonderful. So you should watch them on the biggest screen you can. So if you have the YouTube TV app for your Apple TV or for whatever, put them on a big screen and just watch them there. They're, I think, better than the Apple screensavers because they are. Sometimes you're in a forest and you're just watching him walking around taking photos. But it's just one still shot. You hear the forest. It is great. Sometimes it's snow, sometimes it's rain.

54:33

Wait, say it again. That sounds fantastic.

55:23

Kalina K A L I N A so Noah also has a newsletter. That's great. Also, you may have actually seen him once before because he was one of those first photographers who was taking a photo of himself every day.

55:24

Oh, yeah.

55:36

And stack up. And so you see like, you know, going from 20s to 50 or whatever and just what time does to a person. But his nature photography is incredible. And to have it as video is just an absolute gift. So just free on YouTube. Often, like, we'll be watching a show, and then when we're done watching a show, but we're still not quite ready to go to bed, you pop that up on the tv. Just delightful.

55:37

Sounds fantastic.

55:59

Great. Drew, what do you got for us?

56:00

Okay, so I think teachers have been on my mind because this movie is about teachers saving the world. My mom's a teacher. She's been teaching for 50 plus years. I love teachers. I would not be where I am without teachers. And since we're talking about screenwriting, the most important thing that happened to me in my career is that I arrived at the University of Colorado at the exact same time that Lucia Berlin, the author, showed up to start teaching. And we found each other. And she was the person who believed in me, and she was the person that said, I'm gonna spend the next three years, you know, like, with you. We're gonna do this together. She was doing it with lots of other students too, but we really had a connection. She changed me as an artist and as a person, I think, because this is on my mind. I've been rereading her short stories. I cannot recommend them more highly, I think, especially if you like the sort of stuff I do, which is big in genre. It's not that. And yet you will see the influence. So a good place to start. Her short stories got repackaged around 2015, and she finally sort of exploded. She's been dead for a while, but it was so she didn't get to see this. And it would delight her, but I would start. I mean, it's not with any of them, quite frankly, but a Manual for Cleaning Women.

56:02

I've heard of that.

57:15

Yes, yes. And it's exquisite. And I can't recommend it more highly.

57:16

Lucia Berlin.

57:22

Lucia Berlin.

57:23

Great. Fantastic.

57:23

Great.

57:24

That is our show for this week. Scriptos is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Cielelli. Our outro this week is by Nick Moore. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to AskJohnAugus.com that is also the place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today. You'll find the transcripts@johnaugus.com along with sign up for our weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing. The Scriptnotes book is available wherever you buy books. We'll give you a Scriptnotes book while you're here. You'll find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube. Just search for Scriptnotes and give us a follow. You'll find us on Instagram Scriptnotes Podcast. We have T shirts and hoodies and drinkware. You'll find those at Cotton Bureau. You'll find show notes with links to all the things we talked about today in the email you get each week. As a premium subscriber. Thank you to our premium subscribers. You make it possible for us to do this each and every week. You can sign up to become one@scriptnotes.net, where you get all those back episodes, including Drew Goddard's back episode and bonus segments like the one we're about to record on television. Drew Goddard, an absolute pleasure chatting with you about film and TV and your incredible movie. John.

57:25

It has been an absolute pleasure. I hope we get to do it again. Hooray.

58:25