708 - Ambition Meets Fabrication

25:04My only hope is that anybody, because he's still out there. He's still... I suspect we'll get an email from him. Cool. I hope it's written better than that last one. I hope that gets his attention.

25:20All right. So probably not a movie, but we'll sum up later. Maybe we'll have better luck with this next one. Absolutely. So next up, we have the sisters battling to become the Billboard Queen of Los Angeles. This was sent to me by my friend Chad. I think it's a great story. And again, it's in The Hollywood Reporter, but you don't think of it. It feels like a good Vanity Fair article. It does. So Mickey Rapkin wrote this for The Hollywood Reporter. And you know, by the way, that it's one company that owns all of these things. Oh, yeah. It's Penn's Comedia. Yeah, they're all in the same building.

25:48I don't understand this. Yeah, Deadline, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and I think The Wrap are all owned by one company. It's hysterical, but they actually do, like, try and scoop each other. I don't, in a way, they're like sisters battling to become the Billboard Queen. But Mickey Rapkin did a terrific job here. I really enjoyed reading this. And I love just how local it was, because people outside of this market, at like, what is this? But like, we see these billboards all the time. All the time. So Drew, can you give us a summary? Adriana Gallardo is the founder of Adriana's Insurance, which is recognized across Los Angeles for her iconic billboards featuring her and a red convertible.

26:28She's a formerly undocumented Mexican immigrant and a self-made millionaire. Adriana also has a younger sister, Veronica, who owns Veronica's Insurance and also has iconic billboards across LA featuring her next to a large German shepherd. And these two sisters are bitter rivals. The article chronicles the sisters' rise to prominence, catering to the large but underserved Hispanic community. Veronica initially worked for Adriana, building her insurance empire, but after feeling undervalued by her older sister, she strikes out on her own. And since then, the two have been fierce competitors and undermine each other however they can.

27:01They undermine each other, but they also sort of have territories and they don't encroach on these other territories to some degree. Yeah, it was interesting. Like, there was something that Adriana says in the interview that I thought was really wise. she said Hollywood always wants I think it was like sisters to women to fight and even though they do compete and it's clear that there is some resentment there Adriana sort of paints Veronica as the sort of the little princess you know the younger sister who just didn't want to work that hard and kind of get everything handed to her and complained anyway but obviously Veronica is a hard worker because her business is doing well but then it's like they go out of their way to make the point that they go to each other's children's weddings.

27:44They still talk. We're still sisters. So it's not like Falcon Crest. No, it's not the cat fight. It's not Joan Collins and... The blonde, what was his name? Linda Evans. Linda Evans, yes. You don't know what we're talking about. Okay, so that was Falcon Crest, right? Falcon Crest was like a primetime soap opera. It was Dynasty. Was that Dynasty? Yeah. It was Dynasty. Okay, Dynasty. Like a lot of people just started screaming out there. A lot of gay men just started screaming out there. I could hear them. I'm so, so sorry. So Dynasty was a primetime soap opera. And at the center of it, Joan Collins, this like grand dame English actor, and Linda Evans, who is this like very dignified American actor.

28:25I think she was American. Yeah, I think so. They hated each other. And they got into some massive like physical cat fights, wig pulling, throwing down stairs. They're always ending up in the pool. Yeah, it's very mommy dearest, like two mommy dearests, like attacking each other. It was insane. And people loved it. In any case, that's sort of like what it could be, like the telenovela version of that, but it's not. But it's not. They're rivals, but they're also, you know, they are fundamentally still sisters and they're civil about things, but it's clear that they're choosing their works carefully.

28:54I loved so much of this, and I think there's a movie version to make, there's a series version to make, but one of my fundamental questions is, where do you start? Because the origin story of it is actually really fascinating. So they're coming into the United States on a tourist visa and they're just staying, and so they're undocumented. I mean, she describes herself as illegal. Yes. That's how she categorizes herself. But it's their mother who sees how long the lines are at the insurance offices. Right. Because everyone has to get car insurance. Yes. That's a changeover. And a law change that basically said, if you get pulled over for a traffic violation, if you don't produce insurance, they'll take your license away.

29:31And a lot of Latinos in LA were like, well, we don't have any. Yeah. Which I remember being a problem. Like when we first moved here, I don't know if you remember, people were like, by the way, No one has insurance. If you get into a car accident, you're screwed. No one has insurance. And it turns out a lot of people didn't. Yeah. And so now they had to. And so it's the mother who pushes Adriana to get a job at this insurance office and Adriana learns the trade and basically can do it better. And so she strikes out on her own. Veronica ends up following her sister's footsteps. But like that rags to riches story, Joe often sort of see here, you know, mythologized.

30:05Well, it seems really true. They were going from nothing to relatively good success. but then also the decision to put themselves on billboards and bus station, bus shelters, and stuff like that leads to a kind of fame that is unique and special. And so to agree with Final Destination, the most recent one had a tie-in with Adriana. And apparently was incredibly effective because in that horribly dry way, the over-index with the Latino population, over-index is a terrifying phrase. By the way, side note, when I first came to LA, I needed car insurance and I got insurance from Freeway Insurance.

30:44Do you remember when those guys are? I think they're still out there. And Freeway Insurance, they would advertise on the radio. And their slogan was, Freeway Insurance. It's that thing you're speeding on. Incredible. And I was like, you know me. I love this too. And it is, first of all, it's a very LA story. So Los Angeles has a strange tradition of women, mostly. But a few men, a few like accident lawyers as well. Accidentes. Sweet James, he's out there. Accidentes is out there. Who buy billboards. And because we're all driving all the time, the people who manufacture culture through television and movies get to know the people on the billboards, even if those people are not movie stars.

31:29So Angeline is the most famous. She was a woman who just got dressed up like a human Barbie. And put herself on billboards and no one even knew why. It just said Angelina and just showed her with her pink Cadillac corvette or whatever it was. And she became famous for being on a billboard. And then she would like, you know. Then you would see her. Then you would see her on like a talk show. And she wouldn't actually even be interviewed. Just like physically, just her visibility. Sometimes you would see her around town also. And you're like, oh yeah, you do not look like that billboard. You're dressed like the billboard.

32:03But you're like that billboard, but a thousand years older. Like when you saw Angeline, and I don't even know if she's still alive, but when you saw her in real life, it was a bit sad, actually, because you're like, this is an older woman who's, something's going on here. This doesn't seem well enough. Who's paying for these billboards? And I remember reading an article about that, too. But in this case, I think if I had to make money, right, off of this in the grand tradition of Adriana and Veronica, I'd want to do a reality show. And so apparently there has been a reality show before. And so there was a, I don't know if it was Bravo or who it was, but there was a behind the scenes.

32:42It feels. Yeah. And I get that, but I also just feel like we have amazing actresses who could play these parts. I think we haven't quite seen that. Yes, but what I don't see in the story is an arc per se. I see actually a fairly straight arrow. So Adriana is one of those, like, the fable of the ant in the grasshopper. She's the busy ant who just works, works, works. And her whole thing is, I work really hard. I just, I did any job. I knocked on any door. I did what needed to be done. And I made all this money. And I believe anybody can do this. Very much land of opportunity, only in America kind of story.

33:21And that's sort of it. There isn't a murder. No. No one stole anyone's husband. No one's died. it's kind of missing that. I get that. And so if you were to take characters who are like these and put them in like a Knives Out movie, you could sort of see them in the backdrop of that. Characters, yes. Characters in that rather than just their individual story. I do just think that a smart writer could find a way to succession this essentially and like use this as the same way that the Murdoch family is succession, but it's all fictionalized and turned around. There's ways to do that that we just haven't seen on screen before.

34:01It could work. Succession, the stakes are built in because they're running the media empire. They're literally figuring out who the next president should be. This isn't quite that. But Mad Men is another example. It's sort of like, it's a period, because you could move this back into period. It could be 90s, 2000s, and sort of like rising up with this, and these two sisters who are partners and their rivals. There's a way to do that, too. I don't want to give up on it. Yeah, I mean, I think series, for sure. Like a movie, I just don't see the movie here. Series, yes. In a world where there are, I mean, because Adriana and Veronica are both glamorous people.

34:44That's what they're selling. They're selling glamour through their looks, their hair, their car, even the dog is somewhat glamorous. So they're glamorous. They're doing a job that's not glamorous. So they're actually like glamorous and in heels, but walking around and answering phones and dealing with invoices. So it's very much like it's giving selling sunset, as the kids would say. Where it's like real estate is the most, but like I'm not going to watch a reality show about real estate. Yeah, you will. Yeah, you will if it's this. I'll watch a few episodes of that. And the fact that they're sisters, so each one of them seems to be developing a show.

35:20One show, it's about the two of them where you go back and forth and then they can build up the rivalry and it's, that would be successful. So, like, to me, that's a slam dunk. All right, our final story is from Josh Levin writing for Slate. This is about a congratulations, you've got accepted to Oxford. Oh, wait, there's something you should know. Yeah, it's hysterical. So, in 1995, a group of high-performing American students believed they'd been accepted into Oxford University through a college called Warnborough. The brochures and acceptance letters all tied the school's identity to Oxford University's reputation, convincing the students to pay thousands of dollars and cross the Atlantic.

36:00But when they arrived, they discovered that Warrenboro was not an Oxford college at all, but an independent and unaccredited institution set up in a countryside estate way outside of the city. So after hunting down answers, half of the Americans left and demanded refunds. The other half stayed and tried to make the best of the situation. But still, Warrenboro was unaccredited, so they could not grant valid degrees, and the credits were untransferable. Media coverage soon turned the episode into an international scandal. Warren Burroughs was sued for its materials being misleading. The fallout took a significant financial toll on the students.

36:34But its president, Brendan Tempest-Mogg, still denies any wrongdoing. Warren Burroughs collapsed soon after the suits, but later reemerged as an online university. Brendan Tempest-Mogg. That's a great name. I mean, that's insane. So this is 1995. That's important context because I feel it was easier to pull this kind of scam, at least get people to show up at a place in 1995 before the internet made it easier to search things. Yes. It's also kind of a uniquely weird thing that Oxford and these universities have so many different colleges that are all part of the same thing, but are not part of the same thing.

37:09They're in the system. I can understand why these students were duped to some degree, but as you read through the article, some of the students had some heebie-jeebies even as they were headed there. But I love them showing up and like, oh no, oh no. It's a great moment where they're driven through Oxford campus and they're like, we're here. It's amazing. But then the car just keeps going. Yes. And then suddenly it's like out in farmland. And they're like, wait, what? That's an amazing movie. I feel like this is a comedy. I think it needs to be American fish out of water comedy. And you're sort of struggling to figure out what it is that we're going to do next.

37:44Like, do you, there's shame involved. You don't want to report home to your parents what's happened. It feels like it's potentially a basis for a high concept college comedy. We haven't had a good college comedy in forever. It's a missing genre. Yeah, mostly because no one's funny anymore. College campus is very serious business. But the problem with this as a comedy concept is it's unique, meaning, which sounds weird, like, well, wouldn't that be what you want? But the problem with its unique nature is I don't see this ever happening anywhere else ever. It could happen once. And therefore, it's almost like you've rigged your plot to create comedy instead of not rigging it.

38:30And do you know what I mean? Like there's something so, and it's not like science fiction or anything. You can do that. You can do a liar liar where somebody blows out a candle, science fiction occurs, and now you can't stop telling the truth. but that's not what this is. No. So to me, this feels like kind of a British indie comedy that happens to have a bunch of Americans centered in it, but it's a fish out of water. These Americans who are trying to figure out what to do. The characters have to be funny and distinct and have clear leadership roles and sort of like what all brings them together.

39:02It's a breakfast club kind of situation and sort of see what happens and how do you make college out of this weird situation. The TV show community is actually almost kind of the same premise in a weird way. It's like this is a terrible, quote unquote, learning institution that we're all just sort of surviving inside of. But community had that, hey, we know we're not a four-year college material. There is this unearned, unfair stink that's on community colleges that should not be there. So it's a little bit like, okay, we know we're in the loser club. We're losers and we're here at Loser Club.

39:41Yeah. Now let's deal with that. In this, you get there, you're shot. These are all, these kids got to like Harvard and Winston and stuff. And now they're here. And of course, half of them immediately are like, bye. Get on a plane and go home. A few of them try and stick it out and eventually go, bye. One poor kid, his grandmother dies. He flies back. Doesn't have the money to fly back again. They all lose their money to Brendan Tempest Mog. or at least that is what he's been accused of. He's still out there, by the way. Yeah, it's not clear from the article whether he was the person who was administering all this during the time or if he's the new person brought in for the online university.

40:18No, he was there. And he blamed it on the guy that they had hired for U.S. student recruitment. That guy was like, no, no, no, no. That guy runs this place. So what happened to them was they got basically sanctioned from the article. it seems like they got sanctioned by the government in the UK for being unaccredited, for representing themselves as an institution of higher learning to British people, and they got slapped. And as a result of that, even if it had just, maybe it was just that it was an article, perhaps it was just really bad publicity, the upshot of it was their enrollment plummeted in a desperate attempt to save this place.

41:01And this could be a con. This is like Fawlty Towers now, Where John Cleese has an idea. Well, like someone goes, you don't understand. We can't run this college anymore because there's no one in Britain who doesn't know about how bad this is. And he goes, moink. No one in Britain, you say. What America? And then they just go on this campaign to get dumb Americans to believe it's Oxford. I could see that. I'm like, I want to now be actually. You're on the other side. It's funnier. It's funnier to be this like sweaty con artist who's like constantly trying to keep the Americans from leaving and convincing them that this really is Oxford, even though there's like goats moving through the classroom.

41:46That's funny. I would watch that. Yeah. Yeah. They're two very different comedies out there, but I think there's something fun to do there. Both of these are small. Both of these are gold circle movies at the highest end of it. Yes, which is a perfectly good movie to be. And if it's a movie, I would probably rather watch the sitcom version. The good old six-episode British sitcom version, my gut is I want to be with Basil Fawlty on this. I want to be with Brendan Dent the Smogus. Is he desperately... Or like Father Ted, who's another like... It's such a great standard of sitcom work. The guy in the middle of it is a con artist who's constantly getting hoisted by his own petard.

42:29That's such a evergreen comic engine. Yeah, I do love that. All right, let's recap our movies and our predictions here. Sir Marco Robinson, I don't think we think there's a movie made specifically about him. No. As a general class of like this kind of person as a character, evergreen. Yeah. The fabulist. Adriana and Veronica, we think there's multiple ways into telling this as a series. Probably not a movie. It's also really a question of where do you start. And what is the nature of their relationship when they're, as they're battling and sort of finding what's fascinating about that. And we think there's a couple movies to be made about fake Oxford.

43:09It doesn't have to be about this one specific place or is it inspired by that general idea? Great, but there's comedy to be found there. A comedy. Cool. Let's answer some listener questions, starting with a Rage B81. Ooh. Josh wrote in. Do you guys see this article in the Ankler called Run It Through GPT-5, the phrase changing Hollywood overnight. Feels vastly overstated regarding the adoption of AI in writer's rooms and studios, but worth discussing and guaranteed to incur some final draft level umbrage from Craig. Yeah, so, and a little for me as well. I had a reaction to this, so a couple friends sent me this article, right?

43:45It's published because it mentions AI and WGA, and so they're always sending me stuff. And I had one really visceral reaction, and then I had to modulate it a bit based on like, well, what is the ankler? And so we've been talking about the trades. And so there's Deadline and there's Hollywood Reporter and these things. What is the Ankler? And so the Ankler is a substack. It's on substack, but it's not like a one-person thing. It's a bunch of different writers writing under it. And so it feels like a publication. It feels like journalism. But I'm not sure it really is journalism in the classic sense.

44:15And so I looked up the guy who wrote this, Eric Barmak. And he's really a producer, not a journalist. And other things he's written for this, it's been about like, how I'm using Chai Chibiti to do these things. And so when I look at it from this perspective, it's more kind of like, it's not like fan fiction, but it's more just like, just talking off the top of his head. This is an advertisement. That's what this is. Because when you look at it, it's got a headline. Yep. It's Rage Beatty. And then it suggests that something is true without citing anyone. And then it transitions very quickly to, here's what I'll tell paid subscribers.

44:54And then a nine point or eight point bullet point list of all the kind of pro tip hack benefits that you'd get from reading this. Like the implication being, this is how you're going to beat the robots. Yeah. And so what's frustrating is there's a lead to it. It's basically you get like a paragraph for free and a bunch of bullet points and then you click through the full thing to see it. So fortunately, a friend had a subscription and sent through the whole thing. So we have a PDF to look at. And so like one of the bullet points is like, why the WGA's quote-unquote AI protections from the 2023 strike are already outflanked and what the guild can't actually stop this time.

45:31Nothing in the article gets to that point at all. Well, no, because here's what, oh, you mean you read the paid subscriber? I read the paid subscriber. Oh, did you pay him? No, no, people sent me the PDF of the whole thing. We stole it. No, we didn't steal it. An actual subscriber who was concerned about stuff sent it through to me for my feedback. We should ask ChatGPT to summarize it for us. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So he doesn't, of course, because this is just like all the things that you see at the bottom of like a local newspaper. There's all these suggested articles that are clearly from, you know, an ad mill.

46:04And they're all full of things like this. Like, how many times have you seen this stupid doctor that's warning you not to eat blueberries for breakfast? Do you see this? All the time. I don't get that one. Okay, because you're not old. Like, we must have let them know that we're in our 50s. because there's something about this doctor. They know. They know. This doctor is like, I have a warning for Americans over 50. Do not eat this for breakfast. And it always shows a bowl of blueberries. I'm like, A, okay. Sure. B, what? No. But it's this. That's all this is. It's crap. Yeah. So what I don't understand about the whole process is did Barmak write like the meat of the article and then someone else writes the leads for things?

46:45Because like they don't seem to match very well together. It's almost like maybe. maybe a person didn't write all of it at all. Yeah, so I don't want to, you know, go into that level of, yeah, absolutely. I said maybe. Speculation. So rather than focus on the article itself, which I don't think, it's all kind of filler. What I do want to say is that there's a class of article that is just designed to be like a grenade you throw into a room and rage bait. And we just have to recognize this and not overreact to it. Yes, this was, this is so poorly done. as rage bait, I don't even, I feel nothing.

47:22Yeah. Like this didn't even get like the tiniest bit of red mist in me. So, but here's where I think it's dangerous is that a person reads this and says like, well, God, if all the writer's rooms are just using Chachupeteve to do everything and if like, oh, do a GPT-5 pass on things because it's like a standard thing. Like, no, it's not. No, it's not. No one is saying that at all. Nobody says that. And as we have conversations with the actual people who are creating film and television every day, this is just not a thing that is actually happening. It's not. And I think it's distracting from the real concerns we should have about AI and how it's going to impact writing in every other part of the industry to just hand wave and assume that this stuff is already happening, that's not actually happening.

48:05That's my great frustration. I love this bullet point. The quiet gold rush in studio marketing and post teams. By the way, I'm going to get back to, this is rage beating to me is how bad it is actually. The quiet gold rush in studio marketing and post teams where GPT-5 can cut 20 trailers before lunch and nobody's sure whose job that is anymore. Okay, the second part of that sentence undermines the first part. So if GPT-5 can do that, how is there a gold rush? And second of all, everyone's sure whose job that is. It's the guys who edit the trailers. It's still their job. I mean, this is so poorly done.

48:44In any case, I'm not falling for it. But more importantly to me to answer, I guess, Josh, who wrote this in, I mean, he was saying, did you guys see this? He said, feels vastly overstated, but well worth discussing. And Josh, I think you're exactly correct. This is vastly overstated. Nobody talks like this. I mean, are there writer's assistants who use ChatGPT to summarize? Perhaps. But that's not what I'm looking for in a writer's assistant. Yeah, as an industry, and there are a lot of conversations happening about sort of like how as an industry are we going to address what these technologies do and how it's going to change things?

49:28Because it's going to change things. And it's important for the industry to be smart and proactive about making the choices now about what we use these things for and what we not use them for. This just stirs up anger. Yeah, but it's also, there are not that many people reading this. That's the other thing. Yeah. My concern is that it's because people who are like tangentially in the industry, they see this kind of thing and they assume that this must be true because it's in print. 98 % of what is written about our business is nonsense. So this fits right in with everything going all the way back to the 20s.

50:03It's just baloney. I love saying baloney. It's baloney. Let's get to a happier letter from one of our listeners. This is Panicky, who writes in about some producers. All right. I've been out here about 10 years. I've worked my way from assistant to writer during that time, but I've never really had something hit or get hot. That changed this past week. My new script went out and got an immediate response. I was bombarded with meetings, all of which my reps handled beautifully while trying to build a competitive situation for me. I feel incredibly blessed. However, one of my most enthusiastic meetings has now really turned up the pressure.

50:38It was a company I'd met previously and to whom I'd sent the script directly. And it's a place I think really loves and understands my intentions. But I've met with other folks who have similar enthusiasm. Now, this company's executives have started to contact me directly, reaching out to tell me how much they want to work with me and how they'd be heartbroken if they don't. While I'd be lucky to work with them, I also feel awkward since I do want to continue with my rep's plan to keep everything competitive and keep momentum going and give this thing its best shot at being made. At the same time, I also want to remain cognizant and grateful that I have smart people passionate about a project so dear to me.

51:14How do I navigate this? And if the project does land elsewhere, how do I salvage that relationship with people I really do respect? This one's easy. Yeah. Because this happened to me. I'm sure it happened to you. And I remember talking about this with my agents way back when. And I said, I don't know what to do because they're not calling me and I feel bad and I don't want to. And they were like, oh, we're going to call them and yell at them. and we're going to call them and say, hey, our client is incredibly nice. He loves you. And he's so worried about upsetting you and because you're contacting him directly, he feels he owes you.

51:51And our job is to tell you, you can't do that. We're his agents. And that's our job. Our job is to do this. You have to go through us. If you don't go through us, we have a problem. It's just as simple as that. The agents become the heavies. And by the way, everybody knows. What they're doing is they're just trying to get what they want. So they're just end running the system. And the agents who are the system are like, stop end running the system because they can all speak to each other in the fully cynical language of people who know what we're doing. As opposed to us who are like, oh my God, they care so much.

52:24No, they don't. But hard for us to be cynical. Probably shouldn't be. Let the agents do it. Yeah. What can happen here is that you have this, the people you sent this thing to directly, it may make sense to give it to them to take to one place or places where they have relationships, but other producers will take it other places too. I agree with Craig. It's like your reps need to call them and say, hey, our client loves you, but also you need to back off because there's lots of people he needs to be talking with. And also just, you can't. It's as simple as that. You can't do it anymore. And it's not because he's asking you or she's asking you to stop.

52:58We're telling you, we don't want you doing it. You have to go through us. It will hurt you to go around us because guess what? We're this kid's agents, not you. We have our thumb on the scale. And so here's the balance is that as a writer working, you're going to have personal relationships and direct relationships with some producers and some stuff that is only moderated through your reps. But the ones who you do have specific personal relationships with, they need to also be in contact with your reps so that it's not all on you. And so it doesn't mean you have to blow off these producers. It's great that they love you and it seems like they're good legitimate producers, but you need to communicate with your reps and then communicate after the reps have communicated through them, make sure that you have a positive relationship going forward, but it's not all just directed straight to you.

53:52Perfectly fine to reply back and say, this means so much to me. I think the world to you guys. We're so excited to see what happens with this and I cannot wait to work with you on things. Yeah, I've let my agents know how passionate you guys are. I'm sure they'll be reaching out. And then your agents, and when they read that, they're like, oh, we're about to get the call. And then they're going to get the call. They're like, I know. That's how they're going to answer the phone. I know. And the agents will be like, can you stop? Yes. I'm just, look, I love this script. I just don't want to lose this script.

54:19Exactly. But no one's going to be like, wow, your client really hurt my feelings. They don't have feelings. All right, let's get to our one cool things. I am just back from two weeks in Australia. My one cool thing is, the whole continent is fantastic, but my one cool thing for this week is Sydney. The city of Sydney is terrific. And it's always reductionist to compare one city to another city and do this. But Sydney was great in a lot of ways that I find Vancouver to be great and that it's like kind of just the right size city. Yep, not too big, not too small. Yeah, and Sydney has fantastic public transportation.

54:54If you need to take an Uber someplace, they show up really quick. So many restaurants, I have no idea how. So are many. Soar many. Soar many. I have no idea how the city can support as many restaurants as it does, but fantastic, great, love it. Australians love eating, you know? Yeah. I was lucky they'd be there for great weather. You can hike anywhere. There's a zillion beach walks. What about the spiders? I saw no spiders. I saw no... You saw no spiders? Well, there were no poisonous snakes. They were there. No animals came after me. Stalking you. A lot of cockatoos. Oh, well, those are nice.

55:26They're nice. Yeah, they're gorgeous. They're not poisonous. No. It's the only non-poisonous animal in Australia. There are bats. The Sydney Opera House, we saw Rint at the Sydney Opera House. Rint. Rint. You saw Rint. Rint. And Sydney Opera House is great. We did the bridge climb again. We did all the touristy things. I loved it. But I loved it. I was so bummed out to, I was supposed to go on the promotional tour for our second season, but I had to finish the show because our post-preserve people were like, you can't leave. You can't leave. And so I couldn't go. So you've never been to me. No, that was my chance.

55:59When you get there, it'll be great. And everyone will try to marry visiting Australia and New Zealand at the same time. I get it, but like just... That's a pretty... It's not a short little trip there. No, I was just saying... Like quite a bit of ocean. Enjoy Australia for itself. I honestly want to go see New Zealand because I want to be in Middle Earth. Yeah. Straight up. I'm not going to lie to the people of Christchurch. I'm not that interested in like the town center. I want to go to Hobbiton straight up. Yeah. And I will. one day I will one day maybe go visit my friends at Wita yeah well that's I'm glad you had a great trip yeah fantastic I mean the moment you left there were 5 ,000 emails sent to people so just be mindful I picked my time yeah just be mindful well I've been spending quite a bit of time on an island in the Pacific as well playing Ghost of Yote alright I know nothing about it which is the sequel to Ghost of Tsushima which I'm sure was my one cool thing back when Ghost of Tsushima came out now I will say Ghost of Yote which is a PlayStation exclusive.

57:00It has all the things that I really enjoyed about the first game and all the things that I kind of were annoyed by in the first game. The combat is wonderful. It's fluid combat, lots of fun options. In the first game, you had different stances you would use depending on the foes and the weapons. Is it set in medieval Japan? In medieval Japan, exactly. In feudal Japan. And this, you have different weapons, lots of stealth and parkour, minor parkour. It's the characters and the dialogue. It's just... It's wooden. I don't know. I mean, it was wooden the first time, and it's made of the same wood this time.

57:36It's just... You know, like when you wander around a world and you meet people, like we play D &D, we meet NPCs all the time. And one thing that's really important is that NPCs, some of them can be boring. Some of them can be earnest, serious, speak in platitudes and homilies and deep thoughts. but you want a bunch of them to be a little nuts or really funny or lusty or just really angry there's only a couple, I mean you meet so many people there's like one character I've met so far who's kind of funny slightly and nobody knows what to do with him, everyone's like ugh, this guy like, I can't believe they let somebody with a sense of humor into feudal Japan and I just it's just they're gonna make another one There's going to be a ghost of pick another area of Japan.

58:29And when they do, I would just urge them, give these characters a little more zip. Yeah. You know, a little more edge. Yeah. But boy, is it fun running around killing. I got to tell you, I got my Katana. I got my Kurosagama. Oh, so much fun. We talked before about it and how great Baldur's Gate was on Baldur's Gate 3 on so many levels. So many. But the writing was terrific. and every character you ran into was so specific. They were funny. They were pathetic. They were funny to laugh at. They weren't funny themselves, but you could laugh at them and how ridiculous they were. But a lot of them, like the character of Auntie Ethel.

59:09Yeah. The spoiler alert, for a while, she's a hag. Yeah. And when you meet her, she just is like this kindly old Irish lady trying to sell you potions. and then you find out she's a hag who's trying to basically devour a child to turn into a new hag. And she's hysterical. She's so funny. Well, even like you run into a bunch of goblins who are like guarding a bridge and each of the goblins is specific. They got their own thing. Yeah. They got their own thing. I mean, yes, they fell into the thing of like, all right, goblins are Cogni. It's like, oh, it's like bad monsters always have Cogni accents.

59:45Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What can we have a little meat? So Ghost of Yotai. Ghost of Yote. Yote. Ghost of Yote, lots of fun. If you do like, if you like Feudal Japan, and I will say like having played Assassin's Creed Shadows? See, I can't even remember the subtitles. The last Assassin's Creed, which was also set in Feudal Japan. I think this is better. Also visually, there are times where you're like, whoa, it's so beautiful. Yeah, so thumbs up for me. room for improvement Ghost Squad but the gameplay aspects are fantastic. A friend of mine a writer friend is working on a big AAA game that's not announced yet and so he's under so many NDAs but just hearing the description of like how hard the work is on that it's just incredible.

1:00:36It's so many people work so long and so hard and sometimes the games don't work but this one I assume it's selling well. Yeah. I hope so. That is our show for this week. Script Notes is produced by Drew Marquardt, edited by Matthew Cilelli. Outro this week comes from Jeff Ross. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask at johnaugust.com. I don't think it's that Jeff Ross. It's different than Jeff Ross. It's not a roast. It's not Roastmaster Jeff Ross? Could be. If you have an outro, you can send a link to ask at johnaugust.com. That's also a place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today.

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1:02:11Thank you.