720 - Watch Your Tone

Hello and welcome. My name is John August and you're listening to episode 720 of ScriptNotes. It's a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters today on the show. How do you sell and produce an original series in this age of streamers and ip? To help us answer that question, we welcome back the co creators of the new spy series Persons of no Interest, Susannah Fogel and David Iverson. Great to have you back on scriptnotes.

0:02

Great to be back. I listened to the show enough that it is still freaky to see you do the thing that I hear you do.

0:24

Yeah. So last time you were here was episode 361, which is basically this is episode 720. So it was like halfway through and so like every 360 episodes, kind of like a year cycle, you come back on the show.

0:31

This is how hard it is to get a thing made that you. Yeah, it goes from script to production over the half life of Scriptnotes journey as a podcast.

0:43

And that was for the spy who daunted me. And now you're back with another spy show. So spies are in your blood.

0:53

Yeah, we're back with something that has some shared DNA in that we wrote it and that it is about spies. But this, it's a very different, very different tone, very different feel. I think we learned a lot of things from making that movie that we didn't bring into this show. So yeah, it's a different beast. But yeah, it is still things that we gravitate to. We shot them both in Budapest.

0:57

Budapest Friendship Stories and about two women.

1:20

That's true. That's hilarious. But the tone is specific and strange and I really want to get into it because I was struck by sort of ponies is like a tone I've not seen on a show in a while, which is fun to see. So I want to talk about that. I want to talk about the series, but I also want to answer listener questions on trusting your judgment, how to tell if you're talented and differentiating character voices. And in our bonus segment for premium members, I want to talk about taste. We did a little bit of this before we got on Mike. But what is taste? How do you cultivate it? And should you even worry about taste? So we'll get into taste. Let's remind listeners who weren't here for 360 episode 361.

1:24

What were you guys doing?

1:59

What were you guys doing? And sort of remind us who you are because Susannah Fogel and the time since we Saw you last, you went off and directed a whole bunch of things. So pilots with the Flight Attendant, the Wilds, Small Light, you directed the features winner and Cat Person, all in the times that we've seen. You're so busy and prolific. Congrats.

2:01

Thank you. I go for long stretches of time where I'm not working and I'm in my pajamas. So when things come out all at once and it looks like that's my regular density of work, I feel excited that that's how it looks.

2:19

And, David, when you talked before, we talked about you working on SNL way back in the day.

2:30

Yeah, that was my very first writing job. Yeah.

2:34

Yeah. Since then, United States of Terror, Up All Night, New girl, Mad Men, Mr. Robot, Mozart in the Jungle Run. And since the last time you're here, you also had young kids.

2:37

Yeah, I had identical twin girls who by the time this episode airs, will be two years old.

2:45

That's incredible. So, as Craig and I often describe on the podcast, kids are the death of a career. And so.

2:52

Sure. Yeah.

2:58

And when we started working on the show, they were negative 6 years old. This is how long we've been working on the show.

2:59

Yeah. Working on this. You know, I wasn't married. I didn't have kids, and I'm married with two kids. And I brought my kids and my wife overseas to make this show, so I couldn't get them on camera. But they are a part of the.

3:03

Show.

3:15

In that they were there.

3:17

Yeah, they grew up in it. My daughter grew up sort of in and around the Big Fish musical, like, the Long Journey of that. And so every incarnation, she was sort of a part of and saw so her DNA somehow in that show as well.

3:18

Did she run screaming from this industry as a result of screaming?

3:29

No, she loves it. And she loves tech rehearsal, which is where they're painstakingly rearranging lights and, like, actors will move two feet and they'll reset the lights, and it's the most tedious process. And she was maybe 6, 8 years old during it, and she would sit there at the table for hours watching it. I couldn't believe it. So now she loves all production stuff.

3:31

That's amazing.

3:52

That's so cool.

3:52

I remember when I started off in this industry and you'd hear people being like, ugh, the last thing I would ever want is for my kid to be in this industry. And I was talking to Vic Michaelis, who's a actor on our show yesterday, about how both of our. All of our toddlers love musicals and that how we would be just distraught if they just wanted to be, like, in tech or accountants or just something like. We just essentially just need them to be in show business. It's the only thing we understand.

3:53

At Sundance Labs, I was there with this married couple. She was a writer and he was a writer director. And for years we'd see them up there and they had young kids and like. Oh, like, wanted kids to do other things. Other kids are Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jake Gyllenhaal.

4:20

Sure.

4:33

So somehow it does just rub off. Let's talk about the genesis of this series. So where did this come from? Because it feels like it should be based on a book or something else. But it's not. It's just a thing.

4:33

It's not based on a book. I mean, you can, as I did, take a deep dive into many, many books about spies in the 70s, about the American Embassy and the British Embassy during the Cold War. There's a lot of, like, sources that give a window into what this world is. There was a idea that kept coming up when I became interested and just to predate even that, my interest in just the aesthetics of the seventies and the Cold War, like, I don't know, it came out of, like, a trip I took in my 20s to, like, Prague and Budapest and Berlin. And you just can see, like, there's a Communism museum in Prague and, like, the DDR museum in Berlin. Like, the aesthetic of this time is just so such a weird version of what pop culture looked like, like American pop culture through this weird prism. And I just was really captivated. And if you come to my house, you will see, like, I have a large mural on my wall about the second and third dogs in space from the ussr. I have, like, weird old watches. I love this look and this feel. So for me, I was just kind of would read these books. And the idea that kept coming up again and again is that although maybe film and television, like Cold War era film and television, made it seem like spy operations were happening with some success, the Americans and the British really couldn't run a spy operation in Moscow. They just couldn't. They tried to. They would be followed everywhere. And I think that idea of it was a desperate time where they'd be willing to try anything was something that Susanna and I started talking about. And from there, you know, it really just. The most sort of ethereal way I sometimes think of writing is that, like, sometimes it is just there it is like almost behind a wall. And you're just like. As you start Naming a character and just kind of finding details of it. It really took form. And for us, we just started talking through these characters, and then they. Everything became very clear very fast.

4:43

So the logline of the show, so it's set in 1977, and it's following two secretaries who are working at the American Embassy in Moscow, and they become spies after their husbands die in mysterious circumstances. So the engine of the show, at least at the start, is them trying to figure out what actually happened to their husbands. But that's the logline. What was the actual pitch like? What did you actually pitch to people? Did you write this first? Did you go in and pitch to Universal? How did this all come together?

6:50

This was a really interesting and very singular experience of having a bunch of general meetings after Spy who Dumped Me, where people were sort of looking for us to do the TV version of Spy who Dumped Me, which we didn't want to do exactly that. We didn't want to do something quite as comedic. We didn't want to do something broad. But I had a general meeting at a network that is not Peacock and.

7:14

That doesn't exist anymore.

7:36

It no longer exists. That shall not be named.

7:37

It was Quibi.

7:39

It was it. Exactly. And the executive said, do you have anything that's similar to Spy youy dummy. And I said, well, not exactly, but David and I have been just spatting around the idea of what if there were these two women in this era and they became spies? But it's a friendship story, but it's a little bit more grounded in terms of the tone, but also more action. And she said, we'll buy that. She said, we know we're not the coolest place to sell a show.

7:40

We know Quibi is the coolest.

8:06

She said, we're not. I know. On the downside, we're not the coolest places to sell a show. On the upside, you don't have to pitch it to anyone else. Just sell it to us, and if we don't do it, we'll give it back to you and we won't be assholes about it. And after having pitch fatigue about trying to, like, sell everything else and just the amount of time you waste or spend, you know, with maybe, like, limited rewards, the idea of just getting a yes and being able to actually just go write the thing and not have to spend six months, it was like, such an appealing thing that we just said, yes, absolutely.

8:09

Why is that such an exception? Because I never hear that story and, like, it makes so much sense from both sides. From Your side?

8:38

Totally.

8:45

You don't wanna pitch to every place. You just wanna go to the one place that will actually maybe do it. That feels right.

8:45

Yeah.

8:49

And from their side, they don't wanna bidding war. It's the right idea. And if it did go out further, they might lose it.

8:50

I know. And I really admired just her autonomy in saying that she wasn't like the head of the network or anything. She sort of just said, yeah, we'll buy that. As opposed to needing a bidding war to tell her that it's worth buying.

8:58

Exactly.

9:09

So we just took the yes and we wrote it. And we had a great experience developing. And then that network folded into a different network and then that network, you know, so we wrote backup scripts. We were like many years spending sort of waiting to see if this would go at that network. And ultimately it didn't. And we reshopped it with multiple scripts and a Bible and multiple scripts that you'd written.

9:09

Cause you never had rooms together.

9:28

We just had one script.

9:29

Oh, one script.

9:29

One script. But we. Yeah, but then we had. We had. We had figured out what the rest of the show would be. This was like deep pandemic. Cause I remember I was like in my. Like I was house sitting for my in laws when we pitched this to Peacock. And I think we only pitched around three places. Other people had, like heard the premise and it wasn't for them. So we, like, we really. We could.

9:30

Mostly because it was like a original period piece and everyone says, don't try to sell that.

9:49

It was very scary because this is again, what people tell you never to do. Right now. Period and original ideas are both like, just not things that people tell you to try to sell. And we pitched a peacock.

9:53

Let's dig into that a little bit more. So you're pitching the show, but the script is already written. So at what point are they reading the script versus you? Pitching first and then reading afterward? Because I'm going through this with a project that's already written as well.

10:06

Right.

10:15

So were they reading the script first and then you could answer specific questions about the show or are you pitching broad strokes? Did you have.

10:16

These details are so fuzzy for me. Cause you still like.

10:22

Because I've done both versions of this. I've like pitched. I've pitched shows in the past and then handed them the script at the end of it. I am almost positive they read the script before and then we pitched. Yeah.

10:24

I think because they were like inheriting a bunch of ideas already. We shared those ideas, I think.

10:36

Yeah. And Then also, because, I mean, what we're gonna talk about is tone. I don't like pitching tone. I think tone is a really. It is such a vague thing to pitch.

10:41

It is trying to describe why a.

10:51

Joke is funny and then also just having to find a comp and then the comp might not be right. So I think that we gave them all the script and we pitched the show, you know, And I think at that point, because this is just what television is now, like, we had many seasons of ideas. Like, we pitched the first season in detail and then said, and here's where we would go with season two, and here's where we would go with season three. And yeah, and it was pretty elaborate.

10:52

So the show is visually very distinct and interesting. Were you bringing in visuals to the pitch to show them what it would look like and what it would feel like or just talking?

11:24

Oh, yeah, we did. I mean, part of the idea behind the aesthetic of the show is that, like David was saying, there was like an explosion of, like, color and pattern. And when you see Cold War content, mostly it's really dramatic and it's really dreary looking. And there isn't. There isn't summertime and there isn't. There aren't flowers and there aren't people with lively patterns on their clothes. But the reality is, like, looking at pictures of people in that time, there's so much vibrancy to it in sort of an imitation of American pop culture in a way. So we really wanted to do like a. A loudly colorful look.

11:33

Yeah. Soviet show.

12:06

Yeah. So it could still have like the muscularity of a spy thing, but also the fun of just people wanting to watch things that pop, you know, because it was actually how a lot of the world looked.

12:07

So.

12:18

Yeah, so that was what we wanted to show in the deck. We wanted to say, like, this isn't like a dreary, depressing thing. And not only do we not want the tone to be that on the page, but we also want you to know that this is gonna be a fun show to watch with lots of sort of like a feast for the senses when you're looking at the clothes and the design and all that.

12:18

I think for me and Susannah, sometimes you hear people use the word entertaining almost pejoratively. Like, entertaining is the kind of show that, like, those are the shows you fold your laundry to. They're not the serious, important shows.

12:33

They're lean back shows rather than lean in shows.

12:49

Yeah, but I don't feel like that is true in the media that we grew up with. The movies we love, the television we love. It just sort of is how film and television has become a little bit bifurcated now. So I think we are always trying to lead with being entertaining, and part of that is trying to be visually bold, but also to try to be as significant as we hope to be. Like, to not make it light, to, like, not be soft, to have the emotions real, to, like, try to, like, work to the top of our abilities, but also to not bore an audience. And I think so being visually bold comes hand in hand with that idea.

12:52

So you get the yes from Universal for Peacock.

13:36

For Peacock and then went to Universal.

13:39

It's always so complicated, like, are you going to the studio? Are you going to the network?

13:42

Yeah, we didn't have. We didn't have a studio on at our first. And so we came to Peacock, like, clean of that.

13:45

But we.

13:50

But we did bring on a producer in the interim between parting ways with this other network and shopping it around. I brought on Pacetter, who'd produced this Gillian Flynn show that I directed a couple of episodes of Utopia for Amazon. And I had a good experience working with her, so I sort of. I floated at her and said, can you. You know, she was sort of doing a lot of, like, commercial but elevated stuff, and I thought that she'd be a good match. And with her, she became our partner. And then we sort of had her on the journey. Since then, UTV came on.

13:51

Yeah. And so we went right to networks, and then, yeah, the networks laid off to the studios. But, yeah, when we pitched to Peacock, we pitched, among others, to Alex Sepiel, who is somebody who just knew forever. You, like, lived in a mall.

14:19

He was my neighbor in, like, a hipster, downtrodden version of Melrose Place when we were in our 20s, where we just had those gross, slummy apartments and a sketchy landlord who was running from the law. So he and I were on a trivia team together every Monday. So I knew him really from way back. And every time I've pitched to him since, it's like there's just a. There's a legitimate familiarity there of just. We know too many of each other's dirty secrets from that time. But anyway, having him as our executive has been really fun. It was fun to work with him because we just know him. He's a peer. He's a person who shares our sensibilities and tastes.

14:32

Absolutely. So you have this deal to be making at Peacock Universal. You have a script written. You need to write backup. Scripts, Right. And then at a certain point with backup scripts, you get the order to finish writing everything and to go to a series. Like, how does it work? And did you ever have a room? Like, how did it all fit together.

15:05

If it were so simple? So this was. So we sold this in deep pandemic, and it just took time. So basically between selling it in whatever, 2020, 2021, where we got what they called a cast contingent pickup, which happened.

15:21

Right on the eve of the actor strike, and then took a while to eat.

15:38

So it all took a while. So this ultimately just became years. So we were paid at different points to do two more scripts, and then we also just were waiting around, and so we wrote two more after that, just betting on ourselves and assuming that the show would eventually get picked up.

15:41

Yeah, we got the cast contingent pickup. And as we were waiting for actor offer, like, actually, we were waiting for an actor deal to close. And we're like, if this deal doesn't close, it's not picked up, but it probably will. And then they're gonna be rushing us so fast to get these scripts ready, so we should just do it. So even though we were grumbling about it, we were like, we shouldn't just write these ourselves.

16:00

So I think at that point we had. Yeah, we had Amelia, and we were just making her deal, and so we just wrote two more scripts. So then.

16:18

So there's five scripts as you're coming into.

16:25

Yes, we did do a writer's room because we believe in writers rooms, but also because we had. This is a spy show with a lot of heavy plotting that we were just kind of doing ourselves, you know, piecemeal over the course of many years. And we just kind of wanted some smart, interesting people to vet the plot, but also vet the characters. And we wanted to build to a really satisfying ending and set up everything that we need to in hopes of a new season.

16:27

So we also felt like maybe if I was gonna be directing the first couple episodes, that we might get in a situation where they would send me over there to start working on prep, and I wouldn't. We'd be separated. So we just wanted to have as much of it buttoned up as we could before I left.

16:55

Fortunately, it didn't happen. We had everything written by the time we started.

17:08

Eight episodes, right?

17:12

Eight episodes.

17:13

So eight episodes. It's written. Before you go, are you block shooting it? Like, how are you figuring out the best ways to do that?

17:13

Well, I want to say one thing, which I think we can admit now, because it all worked out, which is that we definitely lied about having to episodes four and five written. When we tell them, we had to be like, we're thinking it could be something like. And we like go through the whole rigor, like the whole process. But I am glad we did it that way. It kind of made us really like interrogate those scripts. But we. Yeah, we had a lot sort of secretly done.

17:19

Yeah. So we shot blocks. Yeah, we shot two episodes at a time.

17:40

So I knew I wanted to do three or four. And we were trying to figure out normally I would just. If it wasn't a show that I also wrote, I would come in and do like the first. But as we were in the writers room and my thought was I knew I wanted to do the first couple and then there was a mid season episode that I just was personally really connected to. So I knew I wanted to do that. And we're like, how can we be creative? So I was gonna do a middle block so I could do that. And then as we started breaking the finale, it sounded like it was so much fun that I called Jessica during a lunch break and I was like, I'm gonna be really annoyed if someone else directs the finale. Cause now I love it and can I do it? And she's like, yeah, if you. So anyway, I ended up like basically being there the whole time, more or less. But yeah. So it was fun having the experience of like breaking the episodes and kind of deciding there which ones. I got attached to different episodes as a director too, which was nice.

17:44

Talk to me about your writer's room. How did you pick writers you wanted to be in the room with you? Because obviously the two of you have a clear vision, a clear voice. Were you looking for people who complimented you in ways things you weren't particularly good at? Like, what's the criteria? And how many writers did you end up ultimately bringing in?

18:32

It's funny cause we had this conversation a lot and I'd been in a lot of rooms. And so I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot of what to do and what not to do. Also, it was a thing that like, would keep me up at night before a room started. Because it's like, I've been in great rooms, I've been in not great rooms. And I'm just like, oh God, I have so much pressure on myself of making sure that my room is one of the good rooms.

18:48

Well, it's not just snl, but also like looking through your credits like you've been in Some challenging rooms.

19:09

I've been in some challenging rooms. In every room I've been in, I've learned a ton. But also, yeah, some were harder than others. But one thing that I do feel strongly about from just witnessing it in other rooms is that I am not a huge fan of bringing in specialists. I'm not somebody who's like, okay, we have comedy in the show. We have a mystery in the show. So let's bring in, like, a really good mystery person. Let's bring in a really good comedy person. Because eventually you just. You want people to be able to write the show, and you want people to write the show fully. And so selfishly, we just wanted to bring in writers who at least had a sensibility like us. We wanted to bring in people who had different experiences and different perspectives and, you know, a diversity of types of people. But at the end of the day, we wanted people to be able to execute a script that could both have the banter that is emblematic of our show, have the emotional grounding that is emblematic of our show, and be able to speak to the twists, you know? And so I read a ton of samples, and I met with great people, and I met with great people that I would have hired, and I couldn't afford. You know, there's just. There was a lot of shaping to find the puzzle pieces. But what was really exciting putting it together is that a lot of the writers just still came about being able to have a sensibility that was shared with different skill sets. Like, we had a writer who was just really good at, like, making a map of who knows what, when, and the board, and just. That's just not how my mind works. And it was just really helpful to see it and, you know, other writers who just really could hook into the emotions of, like, the friendship drama. And in a way that felt very personal that we were just able to use there. And we built a really nice family, a very. Just small group of writers in a very short amount of time, and all people that we care a lot about.

19:12

Did the two of you ever disagree in front of the writers?

21:06

Yes, of course.

21:09

Probably.

21:10

Yeah.

21:11

Susannah and I have a sibling.

21:11

We're very like, shut up. I don't wanna do that. Yeah.

21:13

All right, great.

21:16

Yeah. Things so we did. I mean, it's also helpful to have your ideas challenged. And I think the dynamic of the.

21:16

Room is, like, Dave has so much more room experience than I do, but at the same time, like, within a hierarchy of a room, it takes a while for people to know that they can challenge the showrunner's ideas sometimes. So, like, it's maybe like a learning curve with people knowing that, like, it's gonna go over well if they give an idea, if there's a meritocracy of ideas in the room, and, like, that's how David is wired. But until they learn that, there's a certain fear around pushing back on stuff, even if we want the ideas challenged. So weirdly, although I didn't have as much room experience as many of the writers that were under us for a while, it was like I was kind of the only person sometimes who would be like, no, no. Because other people are just not sure if they can do that in a writer's room just because of how those rooms work. But we really do share taste pretty specifically. Like, we're. It's very rare that we have a disagreement about how something is executed. I mean, it's pretty amazing, actually. I've worked with a lot of people, but there's always a sense of, like, if I have to miss a meeting or miss something, like, I know that. I know you're going to make the decisions I would make, you know, which is, like, a relief, I think, especially if I'm, like, off directing something and, I don't know, just. I know you'll catch the thing if I miss it.

21:24

And yeah, it was helpful in casting, too. It was just like being able to see clearly. We had the same vision in our head of who the characters were, because we would definitely be like, ah, of course. Of course it is this person.

22:32

I have almost no TV writing room experience, and so I have all these showrunners who come through and they tell me their stories. A thing that's always struck me as strange is that you hire writers based on how good they are writing. You're reading samples and you want really good writers. And David, you were saying, like, you know, you want writers who can write the whole show, and yet for the weeks and weeks of the show, they're not writing. There's very little writing. It's just. You're just using their brain. And isn't that weird? Isn't that weird that the people aren't writing more during the course of the writers room?

22:45

Especially in this room, because we had written so much, we were like, okay, there's two available episodes for all of y' all to do?

23:12

Yeah, I mean, it's true. It is very weird. And also, when I think about other rooms that I've been in and rooms that I had no hiring and firing power and rooms where I was just an observer in. I think that people who are incredibly skilled at the politics of a room or just how to have, like, a great disposition, have everybody like them, or have really good ideas, all really great. And if you can't deliver a script, like, you're kind of toast. Ultimately, that is what the hard part is. And I would say that what makes you good in a room is being in a room more. But what should get you in the room is being able to write the script. A lot of the process of running a show is kind of going back to my job's past and, like, where I didn't do a good job or where I would have done differently or where I, like, kind of can see my place in it. And I remember in a very, very early job, a very famous producer who I won't name, but he has a voice like this.

23:18

It was Alfred Hitchcock, wasn't it?

24:27

It was effortless, but he gave feedback, negative feedback about me that his certainty does not match with his experience.

24:28

Incredible.

24:38

I took it to heart and I really tried to internalize it. And I do know where it came from, because I didn't know any other way to be in a room, but feel that I had to feel strongly about my ideas. Now, running a show, it's like, you can't just be like, meh, it can be this. It can be this. Like, you have to be certain. But it is a process of just kind of knowing that, like, aha, I have the solution. But also, like, I am, like, the 17th person down on the hierarchy of this room. How do I do that? And it takes time. So I think now I absolutely love, like, helping other friends with their stuff, like, coming up with ideas, because I have no personal investment other than just, like, wanting to do it. And it's not like, if you don't listen to my idea that, like, I am going to, like, it's going to hurt my heart. I absolutely don't care. But, like, I've now done so many versions of what a room is and what breaking a story is and what fixing a story is that, like, I have all of that ammunition. I only have that because I've been in a lot of rooms, and I've only gotten those rooms because I was able to write the script.

24:39

Let's talk about what is so specific and unexpected for me and your show is the tone in that. First off, it's a period show that almost feels like it could have been shot in the time. And some of that is how Susannah chose To direct it, you're going for that pillar box format. So rather than widescreen, it's squarer screen. Obviously everything looks right in front of and feels right. And Budapest stands in really well for Moscow. But the camera movements and everything else just. It tells you that we're in a 70s kind of place. Without a show shot in that time wouldn't have looked like that. It would have looked crappy. And this looks great, right? But that is part of the tone, but also the comedic tone between the actors and sort of like how the world is presented and how the stakes are presented is just a little lighter than the equivalent other spy show would be. And how early did you know that and how did you anchor into that?

25:46

I mean, I think something that we've always been interested in is, you know, if most spy movies are sort of on plot, most of the time, if you sort of went home with those people, at the end of the day, they would still like call their moms and fight with their husbands. I mean, they would still have a life where they're not acting in character as. And so I think there is a truth to that. We sort of just wanted to shift where the lens is sometimes to that. So it naturally has like the other parts of a person's personality that come forward when they're not on the job in a high stakes situation are by nature lighter if their job is high stakes. And so we're interested in that. And if it feels true and grounded enough, then it doesn't feel like the tone is confused. And I think sometimes with a mixed tone and what scares people about it is people don't want it to feel like you're in two different shows. And hopefully if it all feels grounded.

26:36

You feel like you're one show. But it's a very specific idea, unusual show you should sort of be in. So the Americans is a great show where you have spies who are in their home lives. The difference is like they're incredibly competent. And so you see the tension even like they're the best at their game and they're still struggling with it. Here you have two women who are new to all this. They're fish out of water as they're sort of getting started in this. And that is essentially a comedic environment to be in. So they're in over their heads, which is relatable, but also fun. But just that's not a thing we see so often. We saw it in spite of it, I think.

27:26

I mean, I think this is what I mean. Both of us bring a lot to our work. Because I think this is just how we are as people in the world. Like, I consider myself a funny person. I consider most people I surround myself with as funny people. If I am in a really tense situation, if I'm going into surgery, if I am going into a funeral, if I am like. If I have, like some sort of crisis in my life, I don't know that that part of me is still. I'm putting it away. Like, people are still making jokes. And this is another lesson I learned from. Actually, when I was on, very briefly on Mad Men, was that the rule of writing comedy in a drama versus writing comedy in a comedy is that in comedy, like, other people in the scene are servicing your joke. And in a drama there could be a funny person. The other person's purpose in that scene is not to set up a joke, set up your joke, but people are funny because this is the world that they're in. And Twyla, in our show, Haley Blue Richardson's character is somebody who uses humor as armor in her life. And that is just such a true thing for so many people who have. Not for me, who have had really difficult lives as she has, that that is who she is going to be and that is how she's gonna deal with crisis. And Bea is very neurotic. Not like you, but. And not like you. And, you know, is gonna spin out.

27:59

She's an overthinker.

29:26

Yeah, she's gonna overthink when, you know, when she is in crisis. And these are just true things that these people are gonna do and, you know, and it is still going to be enjoyable. And the fact that these are also people who have jobs in an office. And also Moscow is a really weird place, particularly in the ussr. And that is funny. And so we are able to, like, try to live in a world that still feels like the world and that the stakes are high and that, like, when there is a life or death moment. It was very important to us that, like, the final sequence of our pilot, which I won't spoil, but like, that it should really, really feel extremely dangerous. But there are still jokes before them and there's still awkwardness within it. And also, like, you better be scared. Yeah, yeah.

29:26

I want to circle back to something you sort of raced through, but it's actually such a good point, I want to sort of underline it. You're talking about Mad Men and how in a comedy the characters are there to set up the joke for someone to spike. And in a drama that would feel really Weird. Like there's just an expectation about sort of how people can be funny in a drama. That's just so different than a comedy. And so just a really smart distinction there. Thank you for that.

30:15

You're very welcome.

30:38

A few last things. So looking through the script, it has act breaks and you feel them in the show also. Is that something that was always there? Did you ever consider taking them out? Because people are watching on a peacock. They might have ads, they might not have.

30:41

We didn't write them with ad breaks.

30:51

We were asked to put them in storytelling power. At what point did you know who could actually drive scenes by themselves? Because in the pilot you established that Andre can drive scenes by himself, which was a surprise when that happened. So talk to me about like when you decided who could hold scenes by.

30:54

Themselves perspective wise behind the curtain. Like we, we added that scene of Andre late. That was the last scene of the entire series that we shot because we were looking at the already cut pilot and you know, we knew how scary Andre was because we knew because we wrote in the script like, this is the scariest person you've ever seen.

31:10

And we knew what would happen in episode two.

31:31

We knew what would happen in episode two. But we needed to have the audience feel that when we see him at the end of the episode that we are scared to death of his presence. And I mean, we cast a fantastic but unknown actor, our Tim Gills. And if we had cast a famous movie star who was famous for being a villain, then we would already know if Kristoff Altz walked in then we wouldn't have had to do that. So we gave him perspective. And I think we just learned more and more about our characters and what they brought and who gets their own scenes. So Dane Adrian Lester plays him and he's be Entwyla's boss. He is somebody who is elusive in a lot of the shows and part of what he brings is mystery. Like we don't know what his life is really like. We don't know what his secrets are. We have a sense that he has secrets. So we really wanted to build several episodes before we really kind of could see him be vulnerable and display some of his secrets. And, you know, we get a sense of who that man behind the curtain is because for the first chunk of the season we want to see him as this all knowing, unknowable person that he projects to be in Twila. And we, the audience know that that couldn't be true because no one is.

31:33

Well, also the rules of the world You've established, like, no one is especially competent. And it's not like they're bumblingly competent, but they have very limited power. And to do things like literally, they can't turn on the power to their own building, which is established. Let's wrap up by talking about Budapest, because I think you probably knew that this was going to be shooting in Budapest or someplace like it from the start. It's not a show where, like, you were forced to go to Budapest. Like, that's the place where you go to shoot, right?

32:56

It wasn't Budapest for Boston.

33:21

Yeah, yeah. That's the place you go to do Moscow. It's like, it's a reasonable place. Talk to us about shooting there. Pros and cons, things you loved, things you learned shooting there in 2025.

33:22

I mean, just to get out of the way, they have a bad government and. And they passed some really bad laws while we were there. And that did make shooting there complicated. Our studio's lawyers were really great and helpful and supportive and just trying to, like, make sure that everybody felt safe because they passed some anti gay laws while we were there. And it was very. Actually moving at the very end of our production, the Pride Parade, which was a thing that they banned, the people of the city did it anyway. And it was.

33:34

And came in from other European cities. Was the biggest. Yeah. On the COVID of the New York Times.

34:07

Yeah, yeah. Multiple times larger than it had ever been. So it is a blue city in a red country. Our crew, for the most part, was very progressive and lovely and. But, you know, it's complicated.

34:11

Are crews in Budapest drawn from around Europe or is it really. It's a Budapest crew.

34:23

They're Hungarian.

34:28

They're mostly Hungarian. Yeah. I mean, typically they have American. They have like a homegrown film industry of their own. That is a different thing. But then they really are like home to many. This huge economic part of the country is like the film and TV that shoots there. Mostly American and UK productions. They have an incredible brain trust and really skilled, top of their game people. And actually some expats, like our sound guy on our show, who also did Spy, who Dumped Me, did the Martian and did all that. But he's an American guy who went to, like, UT Austin and was living out in LA and someone said, come do a movie in Budapest in the 90s. And then he just stayed in Budapest and married a Hungarian and had a family there. So there's a lot of people there that are like, there's expats living there and Then it's a city that's very used to hosting people who want to be insulated in a sort of bubble of a film. So it's not aggressively thrusting you into the culture. If you want to be, like, staying at the Four Seasons and whatever, I mean, not on our budget, but on a budget you can. It has those amenities. So I think it's sort of, like, user friendly, but at the same time, if you stay there more than a couple weeks, you do. You just can feel the undercurrent of what's going on in that, like, politically and otherwise, you know, in the city.

34:29

And it's also beautiful. And there is so much aesthetic that we needed from our show that we had sets, and our sets were beautifully built and we were on a stage, but I would say we were probably 60, 70% location. And a lot of those locations felt like we were in time capsules where we were in these beautiful old buildings that just looked incredible that we just simply would not be able to accomplish in another place.

35:43

We looked into, like, I had shot Small Light in Prague, and so we looked into a couple places like Prague and Berlin. Yeah. Just sort of as things developed. And, you know, I think it would have been more expensive and we would have had a lot less production value, and we would have probably had to send a satellite crew to Budapest anyway or a place like it. So we just decided not to do that. But it's complicated. I mean, it's the same argument or the same debate, I guess, about, like, shooting in a state that passes Dragonian laws here. And you're like, well, I want to make my thing. But also. And I want to employ the people. I don't want to punish the crews that are living there for living there. But also do I want to make a statement which seems important to do, but also, I don't know, it's really challenging to figure that out. You know, we can't shoot everything in. I don't even know what country to name that isn't problematic now. So never mind. Greenland. No, just kidding. Venezuela.

36:14

It's a challenging time. Overall, congratulations on the show. I really just dug it. So, as this episode's coming out, it's just about to debut on Peacock, Right.

37:05

I think it's two days later.

37:15

Two days later. Okay. And although I'm sad Craig isn't here, I like that on this episode, as far as television shows created by people who went to high school in Freed, New Jersey, about the ussr, we're the top one on this episode.

37:16

This episode, yeah. Very Nice. Very nice. Let's answer some listener questions. We have one here from Richard.

37:30

I find I can look at a scene on a particular day and think, it's the worst thing I've ever written. And then two days later, I pick it back up and think, oh, that's actually not that bad. Do you guys get this, too? And if so, how can we ever truly trust our own judgment?

37:37

I rarely do. I read something that's like, oh, this is absolutely awful. But honestly, the reverse happens. More like, well, I absolutely love something when I wrote it. And then I go back, it's like, oh, it's actually necessary, bloated and done. Yeah, absolutely.

37:51

Yeah.

38:03

I mean, I think what I can relate to is I finish something, and I think I'm happy with it. It did what I needed to do. But I do want a set of eyes on it. I think for that, you just need to have a very small brain trust of people that you really respect and trust. If you have a partner, if you have a friend, somebody who won't lie to you if it's bad, will also be meaningful if they tell you, you know, this is really good. You did a really good job. I think sometimes that is helpful. I also think that it is a trap to keep going back and reading the scene that you wrote a few days ago. Because if you are somebody whose head does that, who looks at it and then hates everything, you're really gonna have a hard time writing that next scene. So just try to finish a version of it.

38:04

Yeah, I would say try to finish it, and then at whatever point you feel comfortable hearing it read out loud. That's really useful, too. We've had readings of scripts that we've written just for ourselves, like in Dave's garage, and it's really incredibly informative every time.

38:53

Yeah.

39:05

Yeah.

39:06

The challenge, Richard, is you're always. You're both the creator and the critic. And so at the time you were writing it, you were the creator, and, like, you have this feeling about it, and then you're also the critic. And that critic is sort of a separate part of your brain. And maybe your critic's an asshole. Maybe your critic is, like, just not. Not good. And like, David, you were saying earlier about how you love helping out a person, helping out a writer, just, like, contributing and sort of like, maybe your inner critic is just not actually recognizing what's good and how to improve it. It's just like seeing all the flaws and maybe just cultivate that critic a little bit more. Maybe talking to some other people. About their work and being gracious with them will get you be a little bit nicer to yourself. Question from Daniel.

39:06

I am a sophomore screenwriting student at an LA film school. I can tell my writing does get better with every script, but I'm not sure if I have that innate talent or ability you guys always speak about. Mainly because with every script where I say I think I got it, I, in fact, do not have it. How do you guys realize that you have this innate talent? And how long did it take?

39:44

Hmm.

40:05

Well, just to speak to the first part, I just want to offer some wisdom from a book that I didn't write called the Work of Art that came out recently. And I think it's Michael Cunningham who talks about the fact that he doesn't believe that there is such a thing as innate talent. It's just having a personality that is so obsessively committed to something being good that it will just keep drilling down into something over and over and over until it becomes good. That, to him, is what makes a person skillful, not anything that they're innately born with. I don't know that I agree with that completely, but it did resonate with me that there's an obsessiveness that people have who I admire that I think they share.

40:06

Yeah, I think this question is very married to the previous question. I mean, first of all, definitely the stuff I wrote when I was in college, I wouldn't share it now as a reflection of my best work, but there were moments throughout my adolescence or into college or into, like, my early 20s where I would write a scene or a line or have an idea, and I would just. It would excite me. It would be like, oh, like, that's it. Like, I. This is. This is what I'm trying to do. And I couldn't imagine not having any version of that and still being excited about writing. So I've got to assume, I've got to give the question, give her the benefit of the doubt, that you must have had some sort of moment that excited you enough to start doing it. And, you know, and from there, like, yeah, you just have to keep getting better, but you may have it. And also a lot of very talented people worry that they don't have that talent. That is also a very real thing that people.

40:46

Yeah.

41:46

Feeling imposter syndrome at this point in your. Your early career is totally natural and reasonable and makes sense. Like, you don't know sort of what you're doing. And that's true. I hope that in entering in Film school you're in a sophomore now. People must have told you, like, oh, you're a good writer. And you've had some external validation that, like, oh, you really know how to do this. This is good. But there have been some moments where you felt like yourself, like, oh, this was a good thing I wrote. Like, I'm actually proud of this thing I did. And that's foundational. That's sort of going to get you going to the next one. There's this sort of meme I saw this week about thinking of yourself as a verb rather than a noun. And so think of you as the person who writes rather than the end product. And so, I don't know, just maybe spend this next year really focusing on writing as the verb versus, like, generating this thing and that thing and that thing and see if you're. If you like the actual process of doing it. We talk on the show so much about how writing kind of sucks. Like, it's not a fun thing to do, but you sort of make peace with it. You come to accept that it's part of this process of getting to work that you're really proud of. And so maybe just focus a little bit more on that rather than the quality and see if you're digging it.

41:46

Yeah. I also think there's a lot of noise outside the world of just you and your laptop or your notebook or however you write. And when the noise gets really loud, it can be really hard to just focus on the actual, like, nugget of excitement that you have. And I talk to friends a lot now as people talk about how hard the industry is. And there's a ton of just, like, negativity in the air. Whatever you have to do to trick your brain into just being excited about a thing and sitting down and doing the work. Like John was saying, that's kind of the most important thing you can do, is just to stay optimistic and excited about whatever it is you're working on and not let the outside voices or your own internal critic, like, stop you from actually just producing things. If so, find the spark, whatever that is. I know that sounds like a cliche, but it's really important.

42:54

But find that spark. I think it's also reasonable to say, like, if you decide this is not actually a thing you like, a thing you would enjoy, it's okay to say no. It's okay to find something else you really do love. You only have the one life, so do the thing that actually really excites you and you enjoy. So more than talking about an innate aptitude or something. Like, you're born with a certain talent. Maybe you have a set of interests and things that you actually want to be spending your time doing. And if this isn't it, that's fine. That's good. Go searching for what the thing is that you actually do really love.

43:35

I mean, this is probably a bigger conversation for a whole other episode of this show, but I have really. I've spent a lot of time lately wrestling with what is the point of this? Not that I think it is without a point, but, like, as I am in a position to, like, I'm releasing something out into the world, which is very scary.

44:03

Yeah.

44:24

And I think about when I first moved to Los Angeles, when I first wanted to work in film and television. And, you know, and I had this idea in my head that I wanted to, like, manifest of, like, sitting in a movie theater and seeing my name up there. And that does not feel like what the goal is now, though, I can't necessarily pinpoint what it is. I do like writing. I do like making things. It is also a thing that terrifies me. So I think it is a really tricky thing for me, for all of us, people who've been doing this for decades, to make sense of why we're doing it. So if you are kind of on the fence and you're like first years, that is also. Might be a good sign that it may, you know, but. But also just know that we are also wrestling with what the point is because it's complicated.

44:24

A question here from Carlos.

45:11

A few weeks back, I partook in a pitching workshop with a former executive from a big production company. One thing this former executive said really rubbed me the wrong way. He told us to stop writing pilots. He said that today a lot of executives will turn down series pitches if they have a pilot attached because they want to be involved in the development stage from the beginning. So we should stop writing pilots and focus on just the story development. Which kind of broke me, since writing pilots is what I enjoy most from series development. Is this something that's actually happening? I know the situation is probably different over here in Mexico than on the other side of the border, but I still wanted to get your take on.

45:13

This really makes sense why this is. A former executive.

45:48

Yeah.

45:52

You know, David and I both, we produce a lot of other writers or we try to really support a lot of pitches that are not just our own pitches. And as a director, I take a lot of pitches out that I'm not the writer on and really Every project is different. We've sold things that have a pilot. We've sold things that have a pitch. We've been dissuaded from having a pilot for one specific type of project. That I just think it's dangerous to get mired in any one dogmatic idea about how to do anything. If you're enjoying writing pilots and you're writing things that you feel really representing your passions and that you're good at, the worst thing that can happen is you get some producer that wants to take your show out, and they say, okay, let's send the pilot later. Let's develop the story. They're not mutually exclusive. And it just feels like it's such a tactical decision. That shouldn't be your problem. It should be the problem of the person who's doing the selling, and that should be your partner and not a person who's trying to tell you that you're doing it wrong. That's my opinion.

45:54

Yeah. I also think, how can you tell someone you, as a beginner writer, you are a good writer, and you are worth backing and gambling on if no one is able to read what you are executing? I think that, yeah, perhaps for a very experienced writer who has a long track record, sure, you can pitch. I mean, I also think pitching is a scam, but it's a scam that we all participate in. Because you were sitting in a room saying, like, this is what this is gonna be, but you don't. I mean, I think I talked about this many, many episodes ago when we were last on scriptnotes, is that, like, I have taken out pitches that I just also needed to write the script first. Just so I knew what the characters sounded like and I knew what the jokes were. Cause I don't really know any other other way to do it. Other. You're just saying, trust me, this is what it's gonna be.

46:48

Yeah.

47:36

I mean, if you're a writer, you should write.

47:37

Also if you are going out, if you're a newer writer and there isn't something produced that people can look at as a sample of how you write, and you're just like, I have all these ideas for the story, they're going to ask to see a writing sample. So it's such bad advice.

47:39

And so we don't know where Carlos is at in his career. But, like, the good thing about writing a pilot is that you wrote a script that can be a writing sample. So maybe, like, this series, it's not the best way to sell this series. But, like, it's Something someone else can read. And David and Susanna can staff you on their show. I mean, it's a thing people can read.

47:51

They're going to ask to read something before they pay you to write something based on an outline of ideas of a show that doesn't have a writing sample. So I think it's bad advice no matter where you are in your career. Carlos. That person should not have a career. And they don't.

48:05

Let's do one last question from Alex here.

48:18

A common note I receive from coverage services is that I need to differentiate my character voices because they often sound the same. Do you have any tips for how to subtly differentiate character voices without falling into caricature ish dialogue?

48:21

We talk about this a lot.

48:35

Yeah.

48:36

What conclusions do you reach as you talk about it?

48:36

Honestly, sometimes I think about my first writing class I took when I moved out to LA at 21 at Second City Sketch Comedy writing class. And we talked about, like, the game of. Like the game of a character. And it was for comedic writing. But I use it all the. We talk about it all the time. Like each character sort of has to have in your mind, like, what is sort of the laugh with and what is the laugh at about that person? Like, my opinion, my description of how I am is gonna be different from my friend's secret gossip about what's annoying about me. You kind of have to know what someone would say behind that person's back. I think, okay. And then write that person. There are ways in which we all lack self awareness. And if there's a certain game of that person, like that person says things a million different ways because they, you know, use too many words to talk. Or that person is really passive aggressive. Generally, you know, if you just sort of have an idea about a person's flaw, it can just make their writing specific. Like, we try to do that in our show a lot where we don't want anyone to show up in a scene, even a side character in the office, and not have a specific personality or a tic or a quirk. So I don't know.

48:38

That's. No, I think. I mean, first of all, it's also not the absolute worst thing in the world if you have a really strong, specific voice. Yeah, sure. That might be your style. It's okay. Particularly when you're starting out that. Because every character is kind of a version of you. I mean, I think the first time I really thought about this idea was Noah Baumbach's first movie Kicking and Screaming. Because a character in it tells the other characters, you all talk the same, but actually they don't. Like, all those characters are really specific. And I actually don't think you could interchange jokes from one character to another. But I think it was probably him being a little bit self aware and self conscious that these are all characters who are in a very similar life stage, who have a very similar.

49:41

The same education and stuff.

50:28

Yeah, like the Wits Stillman issue. Yeah, yeah.

50:29

But, yeah, I mean, you can also just look at how it looks on the page. Some people are more verbose, some people are, you know, speak more simply. But yeah, you'd never be able to move a joke from one character to another and have it work the same way. Every. Everyone should have their own sort of voice and meaning. And that was what I was sort of talking about earlier. That I have this sort of like ethereal belief of writing that like everything sort of exists behind a wall and you have to sort of find it. And I think that is truly characters that is like most vivid with characters. If you start writing their dialogue and then you start seeing them, you start hearing them, then you are really gonna get a sense of who they are and what their specificity is.

50:31

And yeah, the caricature thing is it's okay if the first draft, they feel a little pushed or a little broad. I mean, you're either dialing something up or down. But I think if this is such a basic thing to say, but if it seems like how people would actually talk, or you could imagine a person in your life who would talk or act the way a character is talking or acting. Sometimes we do things that are a little over the top as people in life, like just as a director reading scripts that other people write and thinking about directing them. There's a sort of a first script problem that David and I talk about sometimes where just the main character feels like the avatar for the writer. So it's usually a person who's sort of more passively observing the world's hypocrisies. And they're witty and funny and kind of everyone around them is an idiot and they're, you know, I mean, I'm like speaking in broad terms, but that character is. To me, it's like, it's not that interesting. I wouldn't know how to tell an actor what they're playing, really. And so, you know, I recently read a script where that was the problem and it was by like a young writer. And I just thought, I bet this writer is in their 20s. And I bet this is what amount of life experience they've had. And I can feel that in the way it's written. And in that case, it was like a really funny script. There was just a glibness to the writing, and it felt like the writer was punching up their own best joke.

51:09

I absolutely hear you there.

52:28

And to me, usually those are the characters that. If it's the main character leading you through the journey, and that character is sort of just a little bit of a cipher, except for their elevated wit, it feels like a first script to me.

52:29

So specific advice for Alex here. I feel like maybe you're having a hard time listening and hearing how people really are different. And so assuming this is a fair note that you're getting from multiple people that your characters are all sounding the same, I think you might try to do with your script is just like, cast it in your mind, Cast actual actors in all those places and imagine how those actors are actually saying those lines. And doing that may give you a sense of like, oh, there's actually so many more variables I could be dialing in here for what this. Like, if I cast this as Christopher Walken vs Woody Harrelson, or what different choices would make sense given who is actually going to be doing these lines that make a good sense there. Because you might think, like, oh, no, and I'm just impersonating someone else's voice. But, like, you're not really. Like, you can't. Words you're writing in a script are not gonna sound like that.

52:42

Whoever plays the part is gonna be.

53:27

They can bring their own specificity. But, like, if you write it for one specific actor, another actor can play that part and it will feel unique and different and it won't sound like all the other characters. So that may be a first good exercise for Alix to try real people too.

53:28

Like, if you have an uncle who is always drunk, I don't know, whatever. A drunk uncle, whatever you have, but you can just sort of like basing it on someone, whether it's your imagination of an actor or some person in your life, that if you were asked in a private booth to talk about that person, you would be able to describe them good and bad.

53:44

Yeah, I think the other way that I think a lot of newer writers get into the trap of just making characters feel similar, which is another way of saying generic, is that their supporting players, their one line parts are extremely generic. Like, I would try to avoid too many police officer number twos and just a bunch of people that you are trying to differentiate between the characters who are Important and the characters who aren't. If everyone feels like they have interiority and if everyone feels like they have some sort of vividness, then it does sort of come through everywhere in your script. And I think there's a lot of. Cameron Crowe does this really well. The Coen brothers do this really well. I would look at movies and just really focus on, like, the people who are in it for one scene and are really popping as a great way to just specify everybody in your script.

54:04

Oh, yeah.

54:54

It may also be helpful to, like, look at some movies that you really enjoy and love and watch them while you're reading the script and really get a sense of, like, oh, it's not just the actor's performance. Like, it really was the words on the page that sort of got to that performance. And that may also remind you, like. Oh, yeah, like, dialogue. It does start here. And characters are really found in these words. I'm choosing to have them say.

54:55

Yeah. I think also with a TV show, you know, we were asked the other day, like, what? I go about, like, story engines for a show going forward. And one thing about this particular show, which just circles back to. About our show, which circles back to your original question about tone, John, was that we have a married couple in the show. And, you know, we sort of tried to make their marriage really specific, even though they're not the leads of the show. And it's not a show about a marriage. They're just people in the Office. But we ended up wanting more and more and more of them. So if every character sort of has something in a dynamic or in their voice that feels like, oh, I wanna watch that person in a million different situations, then it sort of tells a buyer or whoever if it's in a TV format, like, I wanna watch more episodes of those people. And it just, like, encourages them to see more of a long life for whatever it is you're pitching.

55:15

You look at the Office and just, like, how deep that room was. A very specific voices. They felt like, oh, you could follow any one of these people and it'd be incredibly entertaining.

56:03

The Office is. I think comedies are a good way to study it too. I was gonna recommend Jury Duty, which is, like, so largely improvised, but, like, each person is so specific. Yeah. You couldn't swap anyone's lines with anyone else's lines. That's on the broader side. I don't know what tone you're writing, but, yeah, it's useful to try to do that with everybody.

56:12

All right, it's time for our one Cool things. My one cool thing is an article by Adam Mastroianni. I've linked to him a zillion times. I feel like I should be paid a referral fee here. But this blog post he did was so useful for the start of a new year called so youo Want to Debug Yourself. And so debugging. Basically, like, you're kind of stuck in a rut. You're facing a problem, like a real life problem, not a story problem, a real life problem. And what I think Adam is so good at doing is shining a spotlight on certain aspects of a situation and like, giving it a name so you can actually sort of identify, like, oh, that's what I'm doing. And so two examples here. First off is stroking the problem, which is like, I've got a big problem, man. I have this big problem. I have this thing and this thing and this thing. And you're not actually trying to solve it, you're just sort of stroking it. You're basically just acknowledging there's a problem here and you're telling everybody about this problem, but you're not actually trying to solve it. So stroking the problem is a thing I'm going to probably start using a lot when people express their issues to me. The second thing he calls out is the try harder fallacy, which is basically like, oh man, that didn't really work at all. We really need to try harder next time. And like almost never do you actually need to try harder. You probably are trying as hard as you possibly could. You have no shortage of effort. You put into it like you gave it everything. There's no secret reserve of energy that you could have. Like, it just didn't work. And so you're going to need to try a different way to do it because trying harder is not going to get there. So it's two of many examples in this really good post about getting out of the muck that you find yourself stuck in and it's for real life. But I guess it's our characters too, because our characters are often sort of trapped in situations. And if we as writers are telling them to try harder or to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, that's probably not going to actually really work. So a good post and I'll put a link to that in the show notes. David, what do you have for us?

56:29

So I have a few connected cool things. So my first artistic passion was drawing and painting and cartooning and illustration and kind of my origin story as a writer at all is cause I Wanted to draw comic strips and political cartoons, but like anything artistic, if you don't use those muscles, they atrophy. And I've been like drawing with my children and I realized like I'm just not as good as I used to be. So I'm a really big New Year's resolution person. So my New Year's resolution is trying to draw or paint or something every day either with a pencil and paper, pen and ink or my iPad. And sort of the essential iPad drawing program is Procreate. And so there are a few companies that make brushes and color systems and fake paper to really emulate like some beautiful mid century comic book style or illustration styles. So Retro Supply and True Grit are two companies that do that. And Retro Supply also has a lot of great videos on like how to draw heads and color theory. And so that's really great. And then the other thing that is kind of keeping me honest with my New Year's resolution is the International Society of Character Artists, of which I am a paying member, does something called Caricature Resolution in January. And so caricature artists all over the world, like from beginners to masters, draw the same celebrity every day of the month, of the month of January. And you can find this by searching for the hashtag characterresolution2026 on Instagram or on Facebook. And they also have an Instagram page. And it's just a really fun way to just see what different character artists are doing. And also if it's something you want to try whenever this airs, you can you. I'm sure you can catch up.

58:13

What was today's celebrity?

1:00:09

So today was Bette Medler.

1:00:10

Oh, great. Yeah, she feels like a natural person. Yeah, she has a lot of exaggerated.

1:00:11

Yeah, a lot of big features.

1:00:16

That's really great. And the other things you recommended, those are sort of plugins or things you put into Procreate.

1:00:18

Yeah, yeah. So you. Yeah, you can like download the brush packs and the fake paper and the color systems.

1:00:23

Great. I love it. Susannah, what do you have for us?

1:00:29

I saw an incredible independent film that I wanted to say talk about. It's this movie called the Plague and it's about 12 year old boys at a water polo camp in the early aughts. And I watched it because I'm on the jury of the DGA first time feature committee. So this time of year I always get a packet of movies that I either are just coming out, haven't come out yet, or I just wouldn't have necessarily heard of because they don't necessarily have the marketing push and I so relate to that, that I feel really strongly about seeing all these movies and getting excited about them and plugging them. But this one was really just the writing and directing was, was really impressive and singular and specific. But also just having known kids that age at that time, just the zeitgeist is like so perfectly captured. The music is perfect, the performances which are almost all 12 year olds. Joel Edgerton plays the coach, but it's about like hazing and boys at that age and it's just, it's really exceptional. So I recommend that movie highly.

1:00:32

That's great. That is our show for this week. Script Notes is produced by Drew Marquardt, edited by Matthew Cieleli. Matthew did our outro this week. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to askjohnauglas.com we are low in the folder on listener outros in part because Drew, like people are sending through outros that don't have the boom boom, boom, boom, boom.

1:01:30

Yes, very important.

1:01:48

That's basically. That's one of our only rules.

1:01:49

This is it.

1:01:51

That is what you need to do. Can you just clip John just saying that and use that as an outro?

1:01:51

We definitely will. We definitely will. So send us through your outros. We'd love to have more of those. Askohnoffs.com is also the place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today. You'll find transcripts@johnrnautics.com along with a sign up for a weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing. The Scriptnotes book is out and available wherever you get books, so get your Scriptnotes book.

1:01:57

I've bought it for a bunch of young writers and they've all really enjoyed it.

1:02:16

Hooray. Fantastic. We just got the British copies here, which are slightly narrower than the US copies, which is lovely.

1:02:19

They write a little narrower.

1:02:25

So pretentious.

1:02:27

And so pretentious. You can find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube to search for Scriptnotes and give us a follow. You can find us on Instagram @scriptnotespodcast. We have t shirts and hoodies and drinkware. You'll find those at Cotton Bureau. You can find the show notes with the links to all the things we talked about today in the email you get each week as a premium subscriber. Thank you to all 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 and bonus segments like the one we're about to record on Taste. Susanna. David, it's so nice to have you back here.

1:02:27

Yay.

1:02:58

Thank you.

1:02:58

It was really fun. Thanks so much.

1:02:59

Sa.

1:03:19