Hello and welcome. My name is John August and you're listening to episodes 728 of Script Notes to 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 Phil and TB 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 who's credits include Cloverfield, Cabin in the Woods, The Martian, Bad Times of the L Royal, Daredevil, High Potential, and a new film, Project Hail Mary, which is absolutely fantastic. Drew and I got to say this last week. 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. I'm so happy to be back. Thank you for having me, John. It will not be a confusing at all that you are both named Drew's, Drew Goddard and Drew Markhart. We're interchangeable. All of the Drew's were like the Borg. You can just sort of move one Drew into another Drew. Were you ever in Andy? I never was in Andy. All right. Good. That's right. In Andy, of course, wrote the Martian. And we are. Are you in Andrew or did you start Drew? I started Drew. I have full Andrew, but yeah, always true. Yeah. Great. So it was always confusing when our business manager will say, "Well, Andrew does a thing like who is Andrew?" I knew it was his person. And by the other times, while I'd be talking to my husband about Drew, and he's like, "Is that Drew Barrymore? Is that Drew Markhart?" Which Drew is that? Is the most of the Drew's? Again, all interchangeable. 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 more questions that I think are going to be perfect for you. Let's do it. And in our bonus effort for Premium Members, I'd love to talk about TV because you grew up in TV. You've still do TV. You have one of the recent sort of hit broadcast shows. So we're going to talk about the future of television with you. Let's do it. We'll solve it. For listeners who have been long time 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. Do we ever rerun the whole episode? I don't think we have. Yeah. Maybe we should do that at some point when we need to. Now. Please, no, let's go with this one. Well, let's briefly recap because you grew up in Los Alamos. You had a transformational experience with Olympia de Cacas upon arriving in Los Angeles. That was in actually in Santa Fe. So I was at a movie called Scattering Dad with Andy Griffith in Olympia de Cacas and I almost bled to death on her porch. Yes. We don't have to get into that. We can just sort of bring them past that. People should listen to the other episode where we go and joke further to that plan out. But upon arriving in Los Angeles, I remember that you're working on Buffy in a period of creative crisis and we're able to sort of contribute a meaningful time, which is I experienced which is true for myself and a lot of other people. It's like when these are going great, sometimes it's a hard to sort of get your way in, but you're able to help out in a pinch. I think that's the case. So I think 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. Sure. Sure. Like that doesn't seem strange to me. No. You know, this is what I want to be doing. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that is sort of open doors for me to learn. There's just no better experience than just doing it. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, let's talk about that 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? Because there's the outlining 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 adaptation of the Martian or Project Hill Mary. What is it beat when you're talking about that level of granularity? Yeah. 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 they'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? It's our scenes. Yes. I see it a lot with young writers. This is they will come into writers room and they 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. 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 or 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, Drew, I'll put them on a board. You know, and I'll just start noting them. And then at a certain point, I'll go, I have enough beats or just, 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, when it's sort of builds out, 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 don't have no idea how these things will stitch together. But I like this. I find myself drawn to this moment over and over. So we're talking about these moments. They could be actually 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. Yes. So something that Thorken talks about is that when there's an obstacle that forces a new tactic, that's a beat. When 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 or smaller version of that. And so starting from this big picture of that, these are the giant tentpole moments. You're getting the smaller moments that are building up to those bigger things. I love that happens to you. He's down smart. He does a sense proper. So let me jot that down to A. He's okay. I'll get it. Okay. It seems smart. So let's go back to the writer's room though, because this is where we'll often find beats being discussed. We're talking about beat sheets also, which is basically the very rough 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's going up on the board? How much are you breaking? How granular are you trying to get? There's no right answer. There's no wrong answer. It's sort of like you just start shaping out. Let me think. There is 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. It was 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. 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 you put it on the board and you kind of think about it. And it does start to beg the questions, right? Like, well, how did he get there? What happens now? 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, right? Like on its core level, this is how we're building story. Because really what when I'm saying, yes, but what's the scene? What I'm really saying is what are the actors going to do? Yeah. Right. That's really what could 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. Well, it's what 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 like those books have beats in them. Like 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 a sense of that they're being an actual scene that has a beginning, a middle and end, which I guess we have to find what the scene is. A scene does have a start and an end. And while some 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's an exit with a different energy than it started. And that's the crucial fundamental thing. Your writers' room could come up with a list of these are the beats, but then you still have to transform those beats into actual scenes. 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. Yeah. Right. So each scene has to sort of inform the next scene. It doesn't have to, but it's helpful if it does. Yeah. Helpful. Yeah. And I'm glad you're out of the visual part of it because one of the most important things that happened to me. This was at Buffey. And Angel, I turned in an early script. I think my scripts early on were very like sparse description. I remember reading things like, don't know, leave that to the director, leave that to the director. And I turned 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? Yeah. And this scene, and he made me talk about where the camera is. And it wasn't in a way of direct this because we have directors, but it's like you as the writer, I want you to think about how this is actually happening. Yes. And is it important to you in this scene? What we're focusing on because if it is, we got a fair out of 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 tied together with what you're talking about. - So going from Buffett to Angel and other early TV experiences to work on Daredevil, work on Hypotential, how detailed do you like the beat planning to be? Is it several page beat sheet? Is it a detailed outline? Like what do you like before you start writing scripts? - Yeah, so part of this is just my own, what works for me, part of this is it started on Buffett 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 to the 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. - Yeah. - So that makes sense. I think there was this thought, and part of this is TV, you know, 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 lost, you have to lost 24 times each year. And that's an insane amount of pages and insane amount of beats that have to become scenes. - Yeah. - 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. - When you don't have sharp characters saying, you don't have to say, 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 like, I fall in love with these things that it's harder for me. But when 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. You can, I can be much more free creatively. And so I will do, and I kind of force, there's a amount of time, especially in the future world, where they're like, just do a draft, just do a draft. Well, 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 gonna, like, we're gonna end up not making something. - 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 so, who the characters are, you actually hear all the together. We had Katie Silverman on the podcast, and she was talking about how, before she starts writing some issues, we'll write a bunch of scenes with these characters that don't have to actually fit into the movies so she knows what they are. - I do that too. I love doing that. Like, I used to, I already came from TV, where the job nobody wanted was, "Oh, you got the right sides?" You got the right sides for the actor. Tell me about its sides for you and for casting. - 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, usually gets dumped to a lower level writer. Like, when you go write a three-page scene that will showcase this character, it's three pages. - I make sure that we're getting the tone that we want to go to feels like. - Exactly, make it hard. Make it really difficult so that you can see, in the case of almost everything I work on, make it funny and make it break your heart, it's three pages, make it over and over. - Yeah. - I got dumped that a lot as a lower level, and I grumbled about it at first, and then I started to really love it. - Of course, I would love that too. - Oh my God. - The stakes are kind of weirdly high and low at the same time. - 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, 'cause 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 free in a way you're never free. 'Cause you're like, I don't, we're never gonna shoot this. So let's just make it fun for the room. And then the actors are always like, weirdly disappointed when they get the actual story. - Yeah, I think I was, I did, I wasn't even there. - I mean, that was Kevin of the woods, by the way, Kevin in the woods, as you can imagine how crazy we went in that movie, the sides were a hundred times crazy. So then they would come up, like, hemmedworth would be like, what about that? What the scenes I was doing, I was so excited for that, we're like, I know, we can't do that part. - But it was never gonna be part of it. It was all, it was beaten switch. - That's part of it. But it, no, I previses 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. - It's got Frank overrides. And then has to come back down and overrides. - And to be fair, when I'm doing the beaches and outlining, I'm doing a version of that. - Yeah. - Like my outlines can get, on last, our outlines ran longer than the scripts, which is really hard to do. - That's crazy. That's really hard to do. - It's really hard to do, because we were still in screenplay format. - Okay. - So like the script kind of like, - Yeah, but they're, no. - But it go longer than the script, which is crazy. - And the script is insane. - That's wild. - Yeah, that's not something we're proud of. - No. - But you would learn be detailed. - Yeah. - Is the point. And so when I say outline, they're kind of functioning as drafts. - Okay, but you have this incredibly detailed beach sheet or outline, but there's still a fundamental skill of going from that to like this is really, what it's gonna 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? It's just, it's essentially a script, but in a prosy form. - Sometimes or some scenes are. Like if I know scenes really hard or very technical, I don't wanna be doing anything other than having fun when I'm writing. - Yeah. - So I will do the hard parts. If I'm like, oh boy, I don't understand, with Project Hill, I'm just scientific concept. I don't wanna be sitting there trying to write the scene. 'Cause I handwrite everything. I don't wanna be sitting there trying to figure out the science part. So I will knowing that I'm writing, 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 like the emotional point of the scene, that's enough. Like 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. It's really for me. And by the way, we should talk. Part of this is a doubt line for me to write as the writer. - Yeah. - And then 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, 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. - That does. So this is helping me understand that I've never really gotten about TV writing and TV writing with rooms, especially 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 after draft is kind of just like a, it's a short process and surprisingly simple. And like I always say like, I got to often write a draft, I must take like three weeks. I'm like, no, actually, it would have really detailed outline. It could be incredibly quick because you know exactly what's in there. - I wish that was true. - You wish that were true. Yeah. - And every writer that's, I've gone through this, is mad at you for saying that right now. - Yes, well, okay. - 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? So when none of it works, is it the stuff within the scenes that's not working or is it the flow from seeing to seeing to seeing? Or both? - Or both or just like you start to question your own existential reason for making it, for writing this script. Like, that happens a lot where you're like, why did we think this was a good idea as a group? So sometimes you need just the emotional support. That's the other reason writers are helpful. Like, no, no, no, no, we all know what it feels like to panic. Like because that's the other problem. I would get anything for reads. I think the average buffie 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 eight 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 say I can guess it. Let's just go. Because the beats are not so much dialogue-based. And as you know, like dialogues also really hard. And we do 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. So you've now as a short runner, you've had situations where you've figured out a whole episode on the board. You transfer that down into a written document. You've assigned it off to a writer. And then the writer is struggling. The writer's having a hard time doing that. What is the conversation with that writer who's having a hard time going from this work doesn't outline to this is working on subscribe. Like what do you do? I start from a place of compassion because I've been in that writer's shoes. Yeah. Like I just have 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're not going to do it,
you wipe out, we are all clear on the story too. And you know, wherever there's your writers, 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 are going to write. And by you writing them, we're going to realize, oh, that's wrong. So it wasn't necessarily their bad execution, but they just wasn't at the next. It's the one. I know. 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? Yeah. 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, you haven't worked with people before. It's really important to let them know. So it's okay. Yeah. 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. 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 is it your own discovery process? When do you need to check in with the showrunner if it's something that I would be it's not working or do you just try it and deliver it? What's the best way to do it? 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 she we've talked about this. That line I better put in. Yes. This place, she's a drift. Let's try, let's do, let me play around here. Like that's what you're looking for. You're listening and if you're unclear, talk to the showrunner. Like say, I'm not sure about this. And hopefully your showrunner will be able to talk through this through a little bit. So all of this is sort of built around the classic broadcast model where the writers were employed in a room during this whole entire time and therefore had a lot of 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 week structure to do the thing. There's less time around that writer to get that stuff. That must be a real challenge for giving a sense of what the showrunner wants and needs and how the whole thing is going to get together and work. 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 where I'll going through. Yeah, no, but it's crucial. It's crucial. So how do you the 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? It's a little of all of the above and every show is a little different. One 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 it episode so that they can come back when it's time for the younger, you know, writers in the room to to be there. So it's sort of cycles, but what happened at Buffy was suddenly everyone either had to go off on script or had babies. Yeah. 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 out 100 directions and you need to know who's in the room because some people are really good and it just comes with experience. So it's really a 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. There are a class of some shows that they have writers on staff and they're never in a room together. Yeah. And they just they work on everything separately. So there's different ways the 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. And we talk about the Martian because we actually pages from the Martian report. Eleports 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 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 realized he's alone on Mars. Can you talk to me about your experience of reading this sequence in Andy Wierz book and let's talk about what the beats were in the book and then we can look at sort of how you're implementing this where the camera is in trying to tell the story. So in the book I read Partition How 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? All from his point of view. 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 in the book and then how we got here. Well, at least I should say this part is all from first, because it does shift as we start cutting back to earth. And when I look at it, it's funny because this was the original opening to the movie. Great. So if you look at it, what I'm trying to do is start in this is the way the book starts which is a guy wakes up. Yeah. 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 beats of the scene. He looks down. He sees a jagged length of end hitter 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. Yeah. What I need to know, the sentence that I need to do, which is the end of the first scene, 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 is about to become because when you, it's one thing to survive on the point. It's another thing that the world doesn't know you're alive. And I feel like that was a crucial part of this, of this movie. So you didn't have to backfill and to get up to like, well, how do you actually get to that press conference? Yes. And so they actually need to see the sequence. So we need to spend tens of millions of dollars for this whole sequence of the escape from Mars and why he's left. And what we did, that sequence was in the middle of the movie. Like that sequence was in the middle when you're saying that this sequence originally in the middle of the movie in your early drafts or in early things you handed into people. No, all the way through shooting. Oh, wow. Crazy. All the way through shooting including the first couple of cuts. This sequence was in the middle of the movie. The sequence that showed what happened to Mark before. Crazy. Was in the middle of the movie and it was delightful. Like 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 really 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, can I just show you a cut of the movie where we moved that before? And he was really nicer because he wasn't sure himself. It wasn't like he was demanding. He's like, we just watched. Let's just watch and see. And I was grumbling thinking this is not going to work for all these reasons. Going to ruin all this beautiful tension. I have created and then we watched it. I was like, Oh, it's better. You just felt it. You're like, Oh, I like this. And by the way, the reveal of things later on, of course, movies is what you end up doing in Project Hill Mary. So successfully. Yes. And the whole movie is built around that, which is not the mystery engine of this. The mystery engine of Hill Mary is why is he there by himself in space? Get into that point. It's built up throughout the whole horse of the movie. This was a one off. 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 Hill Mary. Yeah. 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 search. You're like, Oh, scenes are not just dialogue. The 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 he is this piece of antenna is piercing his face suit, getting back to the air lock into the base, try and dream move and realizing, Oh crap, I am alone. And then we cut smash cut to the title of the Martian. It means a lot to hear you say that it's fun looking at this because I do, I do take scenes seriously when there's no dialogue in the night. I really feel like that's one of the things that sort of separates good from great in screen plays because nobody wants to read blocks of text, right? There's something in your brain, especially in a screenplay form that you're used to this 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. It's well done. There's a reason why you should have gotten an Oscar nomination for it and then you did. Bless you.
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." - We're using italics though to show sort of what the internemental 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 as the reader we get at. I'm trying, if you look, and what I'm trying to do is actually make the reader complicit in this. - Yeah. - 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. - Yeah. - It's like on page 13, impermanencies, this is not exactly going to be easy to watch. Yes, and that's true. And again, it's 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, God, are you still a double spacer? - Oh, yes. - Oh, yeah, you have a chance. - Oh, I will. 'Til the day I die. - Yeah. How much do you want to hear my rap? - How many rap? 'Cause I was a double spacer. I switched back, but tell me your argument for maintaining double spaces in the light of all rationality. - Great. Great. I will be happy to go down as well. - Please. 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. - Yes. - And how quickly that we could use typewriters and how quickly you 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 screenplay. - The roughest approximation, but it's kind of crazy how close it comes. Like you're really in most scripts. You're not that far off. Like now each page might be way off. But in the aggregate, most scripts are about 120 pages. They're about two hours long. - Yeah, and I found that kind of shocking. 'Cause I've written wildly different forms of scripts. You know, 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 that 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 career. Also, I'm a believer that the negative space on a page is almost as important as the positive space on a conversation. Right? - Yeah. - 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 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 Hill Mary, there was parts where Chris and Phil would write, our directors would write scenes and single space, and you would look at it and they would put the single spaces in the middle, which is the worst defense. Like at the very least, if you're gonna force it, if you get me right, if you at least double space it, or make it all single space, then I will be ashamed. But to jump back and forth is the most egregious in a script, like to read like a script that you're like doing both, we should all be shot. - So the having cases where I've come in to do cabinetry work in a script, or basically I'm not changing, but I'm just doing some certain scenes and it will try to match the style of whatever it was there, including double spacing, or just like the difference between double dash and dot, dot, dot. I will do one thing, it's just so it actually reads like the thing. - Yes. - 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. - Yeah, I respect that. And I do the same by the way you and I do a lot of script doctrine, 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. And if you feel strongly, we will go with your version. - That's great. Let's talk about project helmet area, because it's just fantastic. Anywhere is written a new novel. What point is it across your transome, when do you start having the conversation like, hey, maybe Drew got her, should adopt this movie since he did such a great job the last time? - I need I've stayed in contact, just in life, since the Martian, but that's 10 years ago now, right? But I actually remember the date, because it was so clear it was April, Thursday, so April, 1st, 2020, so two weeks after the pandemic shut everything down, world sky is falling, but we are in full. - It's not clear that civilization will survive. - 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, Andy's like, come on, I'm like, of course I do want to read it. But I always was like, are you messing with me on April, Wednesday, 'cause that's not-- - That's not cool. - But he was like, no, no, it's lovely, and I'm really proud of it, and would you read it? - Hey, tell you anything about it before, right? - No. - He probably would have if I'd 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 I love to, but I also kind of don't 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 has already attached. - Oh, how that happened to us. - So Andy's at CAA, I think CAA sort of put it together. So those are the two pieces I knew. - He's ideal casting, right? - Also there's a weird situation to come in with, just that piece. - But luckily, yes, if it's in the list of weird situations, that's a weird situation you want, right? Look great, but I was also insanely busy with other things, and I thought, there's no way I'm gonna be able to just life wise, I'm not gonna be able to do this, which I genuinely 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 because 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. He said, well, we 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. - 100%, right? - Yeah, I'm like, I'm looking like, all of the reasons to not do this, because I know, especially if it's people I've worked with, that I don't wanna let down, I'm like, I wanna 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, 'cause quite honestly, this book is a screenwriter's nightmare. It's a screenwriter's nightmare, and we're gonna get to that in a second. - Well, so I read the book well before I saw your movie. And so I was reading anything like, which is easily has this. I mean, yes, it's challenging, but it's not impossible. And the reason why I wanna talk about beats versus scenes, because the beats of the book are the beats of the movie. It's just like 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 out, you're thinking like, this is all inside his mind. - It's all inside his mind, and then when you finally, and all right, let me tell you, I disagree with you passionately. - All right, great. - It's gonna be easy. 'Cause I also knew everyone else had said this to me all the time. It's gonna be so easy for you. It's like the Martian, I'm like, it's not like the Martian. - It's not like the Martian. - It's surfacedly like the Martian. 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 analyze. - Of course, yeah. We have a lot of good text from the book that can be incorporated into his Jorailan's figuring out what's going on. - Yes, but you try to make it visually interesting. - Challenge, yes, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to do that part. Yeah, try to shape it. Okay, that's the point. Step two, most of it takes place in a narrator's head who does not know what's going on. - Exactly. - Right? So not only do you not have some of the talk to, he actually doesn't know what's going on, which is challenging. - Yes, but fundamentally there's a second character. - I'm glad you brought up that second character. That second character is a rock who speaks in whale songs. - Yes. - He speaks only in whale songs. - But it is a rock crep and he's delightful. Don't get your rock. - But you realize, like these are challenges once, when going back to scenes, you're like, I have an actor. - Every crisis and opportunity, I'm sorry. I'm just gonna sell you on a doubt in this book. - And I know and I say yes for the reasons that you're saying, but I also knew this is gonna be way harder than everyone realizes. - Yeah. - Because when you read it, it moves. But once you sit and go, what's the scene? What is the scene? - Yeah, that's where you go, oh my god, I'm screwed. - Yeah, and so you had to make fun of all decisions, like 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 and development and to get out of just his head. So we can have physical challenges to get through to demonstrate what the emotional, intellectual puzzle he's trying to face is. - Yeah, exactly. And part of this is also your job is not just, I gotta make a scene that Ryan Gauzon wants to act in. I need to make a scene that my directors are gonna want to direct. I need to make a scene that the production designer is gonna want to design. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - And so that's in a good way.
I sort of forced 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. - The spaces are bigger than I would have expected them to be, which is a complete appropriate. - To be fair, that's the director's idea. - That's Chris and Phil because what you're describing is expensive and I'm like, I'm not handing you something. It's gonna drive the budget through the roof and they're like, we got that covered. We're gonna drive the budget through. (laughing) - They're gonna yell at all of them, that's it. - And then to their credit, I mean, I watched the movie and I have no idea how human beings made this. Like it is a stunning feat of production design. It is unbelievable. But it was scary. What we're really describing is my own fear of my self failing. It's not going back to fear failure. I didn't want to fail for Andy. I didn't want to fail for Andy above all else. - So you read the book, you have all your sucess for why you're not gonna do it. And then-- - How did the S come up? - No, two thirds of the way through the book. 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. But at least 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 10 beats that I think that I love more than anything. There are the things, 'cause I know, and I write them down, 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 your movie. And I kept looking at that. And one of those things that I described was 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. - Yeah, watching the movie, it's, you can say it's long, but it's really this full length. 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 it's always exciting, always invigorating. And the Marvel movies with 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 of 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, it's 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, and 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. And you basically chose not to go back to earth when we didn't need to anymore. - And having done this a lot. - Yeah. - The thing that every time I'm working with a new novelist, I have to gently say, I have a room for about 5% of your novel, right? Like page count wise, I have a 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 do? So you know going in that you're gonna have to do some brutal cuts that are gonna hurt, not just if you love the book, like I love the book. It's gonna hurt me more than anyone. Like there's things, one of the things on that list of 10, at one point of the book, is to talk about it 'cause it's not a movie, was they'd make a decision to nuke the polar ice caps to, 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 wanna 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? In a 10 episode series, it absolutely makes sense. In a three hour movie, it does not make sense at all. 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. Let's do that. 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've 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 going to 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. They could do efficiently. Who is POV? Are you in? That, Rion doesn't really make sense for it. Senator 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 Rioner's character. And that's the relationship. So, when you're setting out to adapt something, you're going to make a ton of cuts you need. So, we have 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 in Grace on the A side. And that triangle is kind of telling the same story. Right, it comes together. Do you trust? Trust, yeah. Yes, and sacrifice and what this means and what the bigger purpose of life is. Yeah. And so, when you think about it like that, it's like, oh yeah, every scene is on theme. Do you know between that? So, when you start to divert from theme, you get into a lot of, it ends up on the cut of the room floor. Yeah. So, you've, as I just say, yes. What is your internal process for coming up with an outline of B.H.E. Are you sharing that with anybody? Or is that just yours? What was that process for you? But before I say yes, I'd like to sort of come up with a very simple B.H.E. And 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 want to disappoint anyone. I want people to know like, okay, we're going to figure this, it's going to be hard, but we're going to figure it. So, I'll do a very rough B.H.E. 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. Yeah. It's not like thought through. It's more what happens every 15 quite a while. So, if it was a road trip, like what's the diger in a stop out on the way? 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 this writing that there is a inherent structure in what he does. So, some of the cliffhanger after cliffhanger after cliffhanger, which is what pulls you through the book so quickly. Exactly. And it's where it makes all of the problems I was, we were just talking about easier, right? 'Cause 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've sort of started in TV. They were kind of doing jump street when I was doing Kevin 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 about-- They're 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. There, why are we measuring? Like let's just cut, cut, cut, cut, we'll just keep hacking away and building something. And I knew, okay, I was kind of excited because I knew it was important to try a different process. 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 fun. - I think we didn't realize that. - 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. - 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 then 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 sort of finding in the moments that can absolutely play. - Without question. And I've learned from doing comedy and drama and sort of the intersections. - If the scene does not have a dramatic reason to exist, it's okay. Like you can sometimes have diversion that are purely comedic, but it's really helpful if they have a reason to do both. - Well, go back to the beat and scene descriptions. 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. And so it's very unlikely it's going to sort of first survive the outline stage, but then actually survive the edit because there's a can go away. So therefore it will be,
though, especially on something like Hilmer, where screen time is a premium. So you're constantly having to look at like, I need to do exposition in the scene. I need to do emotional growth in the scene. I need to drive the story forward. I need to explain what the hell is happening with the science. You kind of need to be doing all of it. 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 we have the page count, which I try not to do. But at a certain point, you're like, it's going to really hurt us later in the editing room. If we don't have a structure here, congratulations. It's just so so good. It's a joy to talk to you, John. It really is. Thank you for having me. We have a listener question here. I think might be really good from Carlos. 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 arrest in between writing sit downs. Sometimes after an hour or two of writing, I find myself too mentally drained to start the next scene, even though I know what happens in it. Do you have any advice on activities that could help disconnect and recharge the brain battery effectively? I do. This is a great question. Yeah. When Twin Peaks, the return came out right. There's an eight episode that's all in black and white and it's exquisite. Have you seen it? I was in the end of the game. It's exquisite, 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. It's the thing that made me go, let me try meditation. Let me see because I'm not super new AG. 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. Yeah, I was going to say walk of the right choice, put the pin down, stop writing. Just take a walk and build that into your process. Yeah. Because what will happen is those things will become the reward for the writing. And both of those things really helped me. Right. Yeah. Walk showers and you can chew out of your showers. Yeah. I mean, showers, especially in the age of smartphones, they were always important. I know talking to this Aaron's organ 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. Yeah. To remember is that Carlos says, like, after two hours of writing, I sort of can't 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 think you would know that you had to take a break. Your muscles would tell you have to take a break. Your brain is telling you how to take a break. So yes, it's the right instinct to go do something else. 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, those videos of runners whose legs stop working just getting to the finish line. Yeah. That is how I feel when I get to end of every single script. Yeah. For sure. Let's try this question from James. 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 struggled to have a succinct tone and voices appear 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 in story were a 50/50 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. Well, it's a group project and someone who did most of the work in the group project. I that's just that's the reality of it. And I think 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. I think that's right. I think to answer your question, if you really want the credit, you need to write something else 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. All right. It's time for 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. And most of this 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 lots of times, you're like in a forest and you're just watching him walk around taking photos. But it's just like just one still shot. You hear the forest. It is great. Sometimes it's snow, sometimes it's rain. Wait, say it again. This sounds fantastic. 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. Oh, yeah. It's tacked up. And so you see it 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 starting off probably ready to go to bed. You pop that up on the TV. It's delightful. Sounds fantastic. Great. The Jew would be off for us. Okay, so, um, thick teachers have been on my mind because this movie is about teachers, 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 going to spend the next three years, you know, like with you, we're going to 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 story's 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. I've heard of that, yes. Yes. And it's it's exquisite and I can't recommend it more highly. Lucia Berlin. Lucia Berlin. Great. Fantastic. That is our show for this week. Script notes are produced by Drew Markwart and edited by Matthew Schollelli. Our show is called by Nick Moore. Foevin Outro. You can send us a link to
[email protected]. That is also the place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today. You'll find the transcripts at johnautics.com, along with a sign up for a weekly newsletter called Interesting, which is lots of links to things about writing. The script notes book is available wherever you buy books. We'll give you a script notes book while you're here. You'll find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube. Just search for script notes and give us a follow. You'll find us on Instagram at script notes podcast. We have T-shirts and hoodies and drinkware. You'll find those at Cottonbeer. 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 and subscribers. You make it possible for us to do this each and every week. You can send us to become one at script notes dot net. We get all those backup episodes, including Drew Goddard's backup episode. And bonus segments like the one-hour battery record on television. Drew Goddard, an absolute pleasure chatting with you about filament TV and your incredible movie. John, it has been an absolute pleasure. I hope we get to do it again. Great.
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