710 - What Happened To Weird?

24:17And so drag, Drag, it was a very fringe thing that only a very specific subculture knew about. Yes. And the rise of drag race and much good was done, but it also made drag less weird. Less weird in ways that are always going to feel it. Yeah. So it's not that it's sanitized as much as it is popularized. Yeah. So it's not... You can't be weird and popular. You can't be weird and popular. That's the bottom line. If you get popular, you're out of weird zone. Now you're just interesting and trendy. Yeah. So drag culture is trendy. I mean, when my daughter is saying, boots the house down or whatever, I don't even know what that is.

24:58Yeah. Boots the gag me with your boots. I don't know. It's something from Drag Race. A lot of people that watch Drag Race are laughing at me now. I'm cool with that. I'm fine. I'm weird. But everyone knows it. Even within the culture of Drag Race, you have a performer like Jimbo, who's like throwing bologna slices on himself. And like, that's weird. But you have to really sort of go to a different thing. And it's bringing in like kind of a clowning culture into Drive, which was related, but not the same thing. Boots the house down. Boots the house down. Is a slang expression that means to perform exceptionally well with great style and energy or to look amazing.

25:32Now, just side note, I boots the house down all the time. Yeah. I do not. But that's exactly right. And there's also, let's talk a little bit about the popularization of kink. Yeah, for sure. So kink, the whole, the concept of kink is weird. Yeah. That's kinky. That's weird. And it's not just sex, which is taboo. Right. Or porn that is taboo, but it's a special, you know, that's not weird enough anymore. So you have to go. It's like among the people who are doing weird stuff, you're into the weirder stuff. And then it became like, don't kink shame. And then it was like, oh, that's your kink. Meaning like, oh, that's your, you like, oh, you like rock?

26:17Yeah. Well, I like BDSM. And everyone's like, yeah, great. That's your kink. That's cool. So no one's kinky. Yeah. There's a great episode of Dakota Rain. We'll put a link in the show notes too, which is about cucking and sort of the cuck chair. And the great degree to which - There's just something about seeing you say the word cucking that is so funny. But like the Democratic Party can send out a meme, which is just a chair in relation to another political figure that's clearly a cuck reference. It's like nothing is taboo. Wait, how is a chair a cuck reference? Like the cuck chair, the man who's watching his wife be.

26:53Does someone sell a cuck chair? That's not a bad idea. Like a branded, like this is actually a great chair for you if you're a cuck. It's comfortable. Yeah, because it's not a lazy boy. It has to be a chair that feels like it's appropriate in the bedroom. Right, but you don't want the arms of the chair to be too high because you can get in the way of your self-gratitude. I want to talk about... That's not a bad idea, right? Let's bring it back to the things that we are actually doing, the films and television that we're writing, because I think that sometimes we underestimate the degree to which weird does work.

27:25Yes. And so Everything Everywhere All at Once is a very weird movie that was a giant hit. So weird. Sinners is weird. Sinners is weird. It's weird. It's weird. It has this big musical number in the middle of it. Great. Love it. It's just Irish guys showing up and playing that weird song. And it's weird. It's weird. I love that. Weapons is weird. Yeah, it's weird. It uses its time really weird, strangely. And Gladys is just a fundamental weirdo. And we crave it. Yes. Yes, it is hard to... Look, it's not probably possible to make an equally weird Sinners 2, right? Because at that point, then it's being repeated.

28:00But it is absolutely true that what we used to call weird, people now call a little dangerous. Yeah. And risky. And my least favorite term is punk rock. Yeah. Because anyone who says, oh, yeah, that's more punk rock is never a punk rock person. Anyway, point is, yes, weird is risky and dangerous properly. but what we get a lot of now is what I would call like weird acceptance where this is like, this movie is about defending the weird and promoting the weird and accepting the weird. We're good with that. We've done it. Well, what I like about the examples we're giving, I'll throw poor things in there, lighthouse in there, one metal after another.

28:47So weird. So weird. But they're not performatively weird. They're not, they don't feel like, look how weird I'm being. No, they're just honestly weird. They're like, and from a fundamental level. inside of themselves aren't weird. Like, if you watch those movies, when you get to the end of Poor Things, you go, that was weird, and yet, by the time I got to the end, it was actually quite a conventional narrative in its own way. And that's wonderful. It was just that it was doing something creative. And it wasn't afraid to wander off and do some stuff that is different and challenging and odd and kinky in a proper way, not in, you know, fake kinky way.

29:29But here's what I think these movies are succeeding on is that they are, the challenge I'm always putting to everybody when they're talking about what they should write, it's like they're writing the movie they most want to see. These filmmakers are making the movie they most want to see on a big screen. And they're being honest with themselves about what it is. And they're finding ways to make the movie that is exactly their movie and not someone else's movie. Yes. I completely agree. Still think that we have a side business, by the way, in this cuck chair. I just... Yeah. I mean, Craig, you're not generally the entrepreneur, so I'm curious to see you doing this.

30:01That's what I'm saying to you, really. I'm not going to do it, but I'm saying you have a company. Yeah. I mean, Highland? Yeah. Right? Furniture is a real venture. Sure, but... Yeah. I mean... Well, like an inflatable chair that you can inflate when you need it because it's sort of also humiliating to be an inflatable chair. God, I mean, that's like... You can almost charge extra for that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's the other thing about this plan is like these people like to be humiliated, which means you can take even more of them out. Absolutely. But I feel like if you could, I think an inflatable cuck chair is weird.

30:33I mean, it actually pushes it. That goes back around to like, now even in the cuck community, people are like, dude, you know, he bought the inflatable chair from quote unquote apps. Yes. Yeah. Other things I think we should acknowledge as being weird and wonderful. We've talked about too many cooks, which is just such a strange video. I showed it to my daughter and she's like, I don't know what that is. I don't know why you showed that to me. I'm angry that you showed it to me, but it's just so - And then she showed it to somebody else, I guarantee you. It's like a virus. Pee Wee's Playhouse.

31:04So weird. So weird. Pee Wee himself. Yes. That character is weird. Yeah. Tim Burton, of course, been weird the whole time. Tim Burton, like I think some people may have felt like, oh, you are now, at some point he crossed into, oh, you're doing an impression of Tim Burton being weird. except I think that was just Tim Burton being weird the whole time. That's just what he does. That's Tim Burton being himself. And because they were popular, people were like, oh, it's just not weird anymore. But it is. It's weird. Yeah. So what advice can we give to our listeners who are thinking about like, well, I want to embrace what this is.

31:36It goes back to really like, what do you actually want to watch and how do you make that thing that you want to watch that is specific to your experience? And if you have really mainstream taste and you want to make mainstream stuff, go for it. We're not steering away from that. But I'm also just saying like, Like, also look for what is it specific to your experience that helps there. And I would, coming back from Austin, there's a certain trend I've noticed. And I would caution people to maybe consider not going down a path of what I would call well-traveled weird. There are a lot of stories about people who are struggling with their sexuality or their gender.

32:15And then they get thrown on a road trip with somebody. and there are so many of them that you get the feeling that people are like, this is in and of itself the point. And I think about the movies that I've seen where there was the most interesting commentary on gender or sexuality. They were not movies about gender or sexuality. They were movies with people who had honest questions about these things. There's a commoditization of it. It's almost like, I think this is selling. Let me write a conventional version of a film about weirdos. It's also, we're all like, we've all changed. Society has changed.

32:57It's not so weird. If we're all talking about the same weird thing, it's not that weird. Okay, here's a movie that was weird. 1998, a movie called Happiness that was written and directed by Todd Solons. That's a weird movie. And that confronts some pretty weird stuff, including pedophilia. That movie was, it felt dangerous. It felt like it was going to a place that made you uncomfortable and scared because you knew it was real. And that is like legit weird and fascinating and upsetting. The other thing is like, what's actually upsetting? That like horror, a lot of horror to me is not weird. It's just pushing on the same old things.

33:43and then every now and then something comes along that is legitimately upsetting because it is weird. Yeah. May, December, a weird movie. It's weird. Oh, I love that movie. Yeah, I love it too. Weird. Weird. Half the Nicolas Cage movies are just weird. Nicolas Cage is a fundamentally weird person. There's a whole episode of Community, which is there's a class being taught to figure out whether Nicolas Cage is a good actor or a bad actor. And the answer is he does not fit on any spectrum. The answer is he's Nicolas Cage. Yeah. And his movies are weird because of him because he is fully weird. and some of them are weirder than others.

34:16Bad Lieutenant, what the hell? That's another disturbing movie. Yeah, so weird. And by the way, weird doesn't mean good. No, it doesn't mean good. Sometimes weird movies are bad. In fact, a lot of times they're so weird, you're like, I don't know what to do with this. Ken Russell used to make some weird-ass movies. I'm a fan of his weird. Lair of the White Worm, one of the weirdest movies you'll ever seen. Tommy based on this massively successful rock opera weird movie super weird and one of my my favorite Ken Russell films Gothic which is the story of the night Mary Shelley conceived and wrote Frankenstein yeah so weird yeah love that movie Emerald Farrell with Salt Burn like that's weird weird but I love that she's getting to keep making weird movies because they succeed.

35:10And sometimes they break out because they're strange. Megan broke out because it was just, it was weird. So weird. Also, we forget because he's become so, I don't know, integrated into our understanding of modern cinema, but Quentin Tarantino was weird. Wes Anderson, weird. So weird. Wes Anderson, we think of him now as just mostly twee. Yeah. But he was and continues to be weird and honestly weird. Yes. Yeah. And so I think that's what we're sort of, you know, that's the cry we're having. Because you don't have to love all the movies. I don't love all those movies by all these filmmakers. But I love that we're continuing to make these movies.

35:47Yes. And to the extent that you can either make something that is truly and honestly weird that comes from you, that feels authentic to you, that is interesting to people, or make something that is not weird, that's really good. Pixar makes not weird, really good movies. Just try and avoid fake weird. Yeah. that's where I think there's a lot of fake weird and people can smell from Holloway. A little weird dust sprinkled on Holloway. The weird dust, exactly. You don't need to do that. No. Yeah. Let's transition to talking about going from, you have an idea, like there's this, I'm going to write this thing.

36:20This is the thing I want to do to actually doing it. Because I suspect we have a lot of listeners out there right now who's like, oh, I want to write a movie about this thing. I want to do this pilot. And maybe you've written something before. Maybe it's the first time you're doing it. But I want to talk about that transition from, okay, this is the thing I want to write to actually doing the thing and what the steps are in between. Because in previous conversations, we've talked about when do you know that you're ready to start writing, not doing too much, not doing too little. Unlike a song or a poem, you've got to have some plan going into it or else it's going to probably be chaos.

36:56But that transition point from, today I'm going to sit down and start doing it because I feel like so often it's that worry that if I actually start doing it, I'll hate it and I'll fail. Yeah. So, you know, you get married and you wake up and go, what did I do? Yeah. It is scary. I think the truth is we don't really know. You don't. You don't. I mean, ideally, you have an ending. If you see the beginning and the ending, then it's worth doing and you'll make it. Yeah. Because you know where you start, you know where you finish. But you will be afraid. And you will regret. Everybody regrets it. I regret when I get my food in a restaurant.

37:39I'm like, I regret. Oh my God. I could have ordered something else. I always want my mic ordered. Yeah, exactly. I always want my mic ordered and I'm not even there. Yeah, you just have, you have decision sickness and it happens. But also you must learn the value of commitment because commitment is not, oh, I made a great decision at the beginning of the process. Commitment is, it doesn't matter if I made a good decision. I committed. And through time, energy, and effort, it will be rewarding, hopefully. At worst, you finish, you have a finished script, you wish you hadn't spent time on that one, you got better.

38:20Yeah. You learned something, put it aside, start something else. Yeah. But you kind of just have to pick and hope. So, Nora Guerra was on the podcast a few weeks ago, and she was talking about her first script, which ended up getting produced as After the Hunt. She went through a writer's boot camp basically to do it. And so I think the value of write your screenplay in 21 days or NaNoWriMo is that it provides some excuse for why you're starting. This is why I'm starting to do this thing. And it's signing up for Jim on January 1st. It's like some reason to get there and actually start doing the thing because once you're in the middle of doing the thing, you're more likely to keep doing the thing.

39:02Yes. You have to have some rationale for why it is now. Aline also has a metaphor of sort of the easing yourself into the water, where you sort of like stand on the beach and let the water roll over your toes. And before you know, you're actually kind of writing. You kind of ease in, yeah. I'm also remembering Kitty Silverman coming on the podcast talking about how before writing the actual script or even writing treatments for things, she'll just have those characters have conversations and just have a long conversation. That's what I do. Yeah. I just, in the shower, I start, you know, doing weird.

39:36I'm weird. Yeah. I'm weird in the shower, you guys. Because I'm talking to myself. Yeah. And you're starting to hear those characters and what it sounds like when those characters are talking to each other. Those are all ways to sort of kind of get started. And then you got to at some point just like bite the bullet. Like I'm writing a scene. And whether it's on paper or you're firing up Highland or however you're doing it, you write a scene, tweak it a bit, and then write the next one, write the next one. And you got to sort of keep moving. Because I feel like there's so many

40:09unwritten things out there because people are just afraid to start because they will recognize all the problems with it once you start it. But that's part of the process. Also, starting implies you have to do work. Yeah. And we are afraid and we're also lazy. And sometimes we accentuate our fear because it is in service of our laziness. when in fact, really, it's not that you're scared. You just don't want to do it. Yeah. Almost anything else is easier than writing. Absolutely. A video game, cleaning your kitchen is easier. And so some of those are the excuses for why you're not doing your daily writing or you're not doing the stuff that you're doing today.

40:47But it can back into the excuse for why you're never starting on the actual project itself. I would argue that if you are a writer, meaning you are a professional writer, or it's not your job yet, but you would like it to be. And so you work when you're not working. You should be writing. If you are trying to figure out which thing to be writing, pick one now and keep thinking about the other ones. Yeah. But what you don't have an option of doing is hamleting around. Yeah. Going, what, this one? Or this one? Or this? No, you can't. And if you get into that mindset, then at least you know, if you find yourself terrified at the thought of writing something, it's because you're actually terrified by it, not because you just don't want to write.

41:32To wrap this up, we talked about pick the project that has the best ending, which is my general advice for which one of the projects you should do. If you don't know what the ending is, that's the right place to start. And so think about, you probably have a good sense of how it starts, how your project begins. Really spend the time to just work through the ending and try writing that out. And if you can find it, great. And that's going to make you really excited to do it. If you can't find it, probably don't start because that's going to be bad and you won't know where to go and you may get to a place where you finally have to pay the debt.

42:03And the debt is what the ending is that I don't know. And the other thing I would recommend is when you have the beginning and you have the ending, ask yourself, yeah, but like, what is this about? Why would anyone care? Because it's never about what it's about, as we know. So having that can be some nice rocket fuel for you because it gives you some mental guidance for what parts of the story would be important to tell and what parts you maybe don't need to do. Yeah. All right, let's answer some listener questions. We have one here from Grace in London. Hi, John and Craig. I've been screenwriting as a passion project for the last 10 years, averaging a screenplay a year, and I'm writing my first animated feature.

42:42I think the story and movie would work best as a musical akin to a Disney animation or even though these aren't animated Barbie or The Greatest Showman. Do you have any advice for writing a screenplay that will integrate with an original soundtrack? Sure. first off, great. She's written 10 things. She writes a screenplay a year. That's awesome. And so she's a person who has an idea and she's like, okay, this is the thing I'm writing this year. Love it. Good on you, Grace. I've written a lot of animated musicals. And so what I'll tell you is that you plan for where those songs are and plan for what the function of those songs are.

43:16I always put the song in there, the original song in there. Will it get replaced? Yes. But the song is in there for a purpose because it's serving a story purpose. My temporary song does that purpose. And you really have to think about that. If it's not a story plus songs, the songs are crucial story elements. Yes. Worked on somewhat popular musical film. And one bit of advice I would give you is to write stuff to happen during the song. Exactly. I think a lot of people will write up to a point and then someone starts to sing and then they just put the lyrics in. and then the movie recontinues.

43:56No, no. What's happening? Yes. Where are they? Do they move around? Who are they singing to? Do they go outside? And are there other people in the scene? How are they reacting to this? Write it in. Super important. Basically, songs are the action scenes of musicals. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. Next question comes from Nyasha. I wrote and directed an audio podcast for Audible. I'm very proud of it, but I'm now in the process of trying to adapt the podcast into a movie. I'm really interested to get your thoughts on the process of adaptation. What are the pitfalls to look out for in adapting a podcast script to a screenplay?

44:30And what do you think are the advantages? All right, so Niasho, we don't know whether yours was like a documentary podcast or a fictionalized version. I think they're two very different things. If it's a documentary podcast, it really calls back to Adriana versus Veronica, which is you probably told the story in a way that really made sense in a podcast medium. but now you really need to think about what is it going to look like with visuals taking place in time and that kind of thing. If it is a fictional podcast, who are the characters that worked in the audio version and how do they work just as the voices and how is it going to feel different when you actually are seeing places and time is more continuous the way that it is on video?

45:11Yeah, I mean, I'll presume that this was a fictional podcast just for the sake of the question. you want to make sure as you adapt something like that, which is an audio only medium, to not only think as visually as possible, but also think about how much freedom you have to go places and to see things. So show me where you are, go outside and don't be afraid to spend a little time in silence as long as something interesting is happening. Some of the more interesting sequences on film are ones where people aren't talking. When you're doing a podcast story, I assume people are constantly talking.

45:55Otherwise, it's just hammering noises. You're allowed to not talk as long as you're showing me something fascinating. Yeah, absolutely. I think like when you look at how Christopher Nolan opens the Dark Knight movie, that big robbery sequence, it's just, there's almost no talking. Every, I don't know, 80 seconds, somebody says, hey. Things that would not work there. So we often talk about like how screenplays are limited because you only talk about what you can see and what you can hear. In your audio podcast, it's just what people can hear. It's just like that. You got one vector there. Yes. And so you'll have a lot more, which is fantastic.

46:31And you have to break some things too because there are things that just simply won't work well because they were designed for audio only. So a good example I'd point you to, I thought the adaptation of Homecoming, which is a podcast, Michael Bloomberg and Eli Horowitz did it, and Sam Esmail did the adaptation for series. I thought it was really well done, and it took the best elements of what made that work as an audio fiction podcast and turning it into something that feels like a series, and it had its still strange energies to it. So again, look for examples, but there's not going to be a lot.

47:05You're just sort of flying blind here. Let's answer one more from Owen. Owen writes, I wrote a short film based on a personal experience. A director loved it and will be shooting it next month. The collaborative process has been great, but I haven't been involved in a lot of the creative production decisions, including casting. I've loved the director's attitude and I've tried to stay out of the way in certain areas, telling myself it's my story but the director's execution. But I'd love to hear about how you navigate your feelings of ownership over an idea, a story, or even a draft. And if that's something you've had to practice, what that journey was like.

47:43Well, this is an argument for producing your own work. If you're going to, you're making a short film, right? So nobody involved is some big shot in Hollywood. Everybody involved is trying to make a good calling card. They're practicing, they're sharpening their tools. If it's your story, that is literally your story. But even if it's not, even if it takes place on Mars with aliens, and you control it, and it's original, you have to, I think, have to insist that you are producing this as well. I mean, unless some financier is coming in to back this big short film, you have to produce it, which means you have to have some kind of approval over the process of casting and some kind of general approval over the process of the schedule and the budget and all the rest.

48:33First of all, you need to learn that stuff. Second of all, I don't care who it is. This whole, you got to get out of the way of the director unless the director's wrong. And then you need to be in the way. They're wrong, just like, there's this presumption that you'll get notes because you're wrong, but their director, their authority can be unchecked because they're not wrong. Incorrect and also insane. So my strong suggestion to all of you out there who are in this position that Owen is in is to be a producer on your own work so that you do maintain at a minimum participation in this process.

49:13Yeah, so I want to say that the experience has been really great. Yeah, he's writing to us because he's also feeling like he should be more involved. Stockholm syndrome seems to have set in. Yeah, I think so. And listen, it sounds like the director is doing a good job and you're mostly happy with stuff. You just feel like you're on the sidelines. Get yourself a little closer in there. And it doesn't mean that you have to weigh in on every decision at all. Just be there as a resource and learn from it because the process of making a short film is to end up with a great short film, but also so you learn about the process of making a short film.

49:45So you know what this is. And so by keeping yourself involved and seeing how casting works and what production is like and whose job is it to do that thing on set. All of it. These are all things you should be taking in. And I think it's important to come to the table with an open mind and a dedication to best idea wins, even, I would argue, giving the other person a little bit of an extra edge over your opinion because you're counteracting the fact that it's your opinion. And if you sit with someone and you really consider what they're saying and they make a good argument, you've learned. And they're right.

50:26It's not a contest and it's not a game of who's in charge of whom. but you have to be at the table of a short film that you wrote. The end. You cannot, this nonsense. This is where it begins, where directors literally who haven't directed things, but are like, but I am a director. Therefore, you need to get out of my way. Everybody's going to be worried about my feelings, my domain, etiquette, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Everyone's walking on eggshells around a director because the world of directors has created this culture. I'm a director and I'll tell you, I don't need any of that. I don't want any of it.

51:06I don't want people walking on eggshells around me. I don't want them overly concerned with etiquette. Yeah, okay. Can the guy with the boom mic give my actors direction? No, that's bad for the process. Can he come and tell me that he thinks that maybe they're saying something or doing something that might not make sense? Absolutely. And then I'll make a determination. But there's nothing. It's actually the worst job to put in bubble wrap. So get the bubble wrap off that guy. So a practical bit of advice here, Owen, it's like there are going to be conversations where the director's talking to the production designer, talking to other department heads by himself, and that's fine, that's great, and that's natural.

51:46But there are going to be some things which are production meetings. They're going to be like either in person or on Zooms. You should be in those meetings. Absolutely, and helping to answer questions. And if there is a disagreement, it is important that all the people working on something feel like there is a common marching order that the instructions are consistent if there's a disagreement then you can always and this happens in meetings all the time where but i mean i'm in charge of my show yeah if somebody has a thought that is different from mine and i'm not sure which one of us is right i'll say okay let's table that we'll talk about that like my dp we're going to talk about that.

52:27And we're going to come back to you guys with an answer. Not don't question me in front of people. Question me in front of people. What are we doing here? Come on. Like the sensitivity around directors is astonishing. It's like perfectly inverse to the sensitivity around writers, which is to say everyone gets to kick them as hard as they want. And no one can even like, oh my God, don't breathe on the director. They'll collapse. Please. My first experience in production was on go and I was involved in every bit of casting, every production meeting, all that stuff. And so did I know what I was doing in a lot of it?

53:01No, but I learned a lot of what I was doing and I definitely had the right answers to questions as things came up. And so because I was in all those pre-production meetings, when it came time when I needed to direct second unit, I knew who everybody was. I knew what the brief was. I knew what our schedule was. I knew how to do all those things. In most of the movies I've written for other people, have I been that involved? No, but the Tim Burton movies, I've been there through pre-production and I've sort of gotten stuff up on its feet and running. I could answer questions from department heads as things came up.

53:30Our director on Charlie and Chuck Factory could send me this is what, it's in the newspaper articles that are on the background of this wall. Does this all look right? Yes. And thank you for that. And so it's because I've made myself available and I tried to work with people who would include me in the process and basically wouldn't try to shut me out of the process. Exactly. I worked with Todd Phillips. Todd is a very strong director. This firm hand clarity. But we collaborated constantly on all aspects. Casting, everything. All of it. And the idea is for you to know how to do it in a way that is graceful.

54:10Yep. And that doesn't confuse people. Because there have been situations where people are like, who's actually directing this movie? That comes up sometimes because there's a weak director and somebody seems to be steamrolling them, typically a producer or a star. But there is a way to work with a director who is confident enough to let you in because it's help. If you make it better, you make it better. The directors that get really fussy about this stuff are the ones that are insecure because they're not quite sure what their actual value is. And so they need to invent it. all right it's time for one cool things uh mine harkens back to our celebration of weirdness it's a thing called channel view it is this channel view.biz we'll put a link in the show notes written by jove vi uh directed by brandon tausik uh it looks like an in late 80s early 90s um cable listing a cable tv like scrolling guide sure with a little video on top um that sort of It has ads and things, but things go very wrong.

55:16And it's really very, very smartly done. And it was clearly so much work and just the payoff is just great. And it's also just weird. It's deeply baked down in weird. It's weird in the same way that Too Many Cooks is weird, but it's its own special flavor. Its own weird. Well, that's fantastic. And I too have something on theme for weird. I love it. our Dutch friends who work at Rusty Lake one of my favorite game creators have a demo out for their upcoming game Servant of the Lake so Rusty Lake has made a lot of what I would call like shorter they call them cube escape games they're you know few hours and then they have a couple of big ones which are my favorite Rusty Lake Roots big one and this is going to be a big one and so they put like the first I don't know maybe like 20 minutes of puzzle solving little stage on there it's like you show up at this place you have a few interesting things you do unfortunately it's only available currently on Steam so it's not something you can play on an iPad but eventually of course it will come to iOS they always do and I played it it was fantastic Rusty Lake is one of the like they are so beautifully weird unto themselves they have this thing Do you play those games?

56:39I have played a few of them. At your recommendation, yeah. Yeah, there are a few things that always show up, no matter what. I mean, the storyline is impenetrably weird. Yeah. But then there are also these things that happen, like there's always a shrimp. Like when you find stuff, you find matches, and you find, oh, the code sheet and the thing. But then you often will find a shrimp. And that's how you know you're playing a Rusty Lake game. They put a shrimp in a drawer. Yeah. Why? Don't know. Yeah, but it's specific to their taste. Yeah. Yes. So check out the demo for Servant of the Lake. I am very excited to play that.

57:13Cool. Great. That is our show for this week. Descripts is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chaleli. I don't think so. Yeah. We have a bonus holdover candy spooky outro by Jim Bond. So it's out of spooky season, but it's... We are recording this on Halloween. We are recording it on Halloween. It's weird. Yeah, it's weird. That's weird. That's weird. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask at johnaugust.com. It's also the place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today. You'll find transcripts at johnaugust.com along with a sign up for our weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing.

57:45You can find clips, another 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. If you have t-shirts, hoodies, drinkware, you'll find those at Cotton Bureau. You'll find the show notes with links to all the things we talked about in the email. You'll get each week as a premium subscriber. Thank you again to our premium subscribers. Thank you so much. They showed up huge to pre-order the book, and thank you for that. Second best orange screenwriting book. You should pre-order your Script Notes book today. That way it's in your hands December 2nd, and it also gets us closer to being on lists and gets us in more libraries and bookstores.

58:17So thank you again for everyone who's pre-ordered the book. I like that you care about libraries. That's very nice. Yeah, libraries are great. Libraries are amazing. I'm going to post, like, oh, I'm not going to sell a book because it's in a library. No, libraries are good things. They're amazing things. My dad, if he were alive, would absolutely take this book out from the library. I'd be like, dad, you know, I can just send you one. Yeah. No, no, no, we'll put it on reserve. And he puts a request. Yeah, every week he would go there and fill out cards. He's like, I'm not buying a book. I'm borrowing it.

58:42Great. Yeah. That's my dad. I salute that. Yeah. That's good stuff. Yeah. So please pre-order your book. So more libraries will be there for Craig's dad. Leonard. Leonard. Well, he's not anymore. Yeah. The Leonard's of the world. The Leonard's of the world. Yes. He's left behind legions of Leonard's out there. Yeah. gray-haired men in polos tucked into khaki shorts at the library with their reading glasses, ready to go. And we're finishing up the bonus chapter, which we're going to send to all the people who pre-order the book. So remember, if you pre-order the book, send the receipt to Drew because it's on the list for this bonus chapter.

59:14Yeah. Ask at John August. Ask at John August. Dot com. Dot com. Circling back to you to thank all of our premium subscribers. You can sign up to become our premium subscriber at scriptnotes.net. You get all the back episodes and bonus segments like the one we're about to record on this sense of self-narrative and remembering who you are. Craig, you never forget who you are. I'm not sure who I am right now. Spooky season. Spooky season.

59:52Spooky season.

59:58You