713 - Your First Produced Film

24:21so we went to a diner and wrote a feature in a week and it we mean it when we say a week because it was bad um it was a long pilot and there was no descriptions like the action lines were so so basic but um her boss read it and liked it and so he's like i would love for you guys to come in and so we went to sony and me and hannah were like wow we are selling this thing we're doing it and then he was like yeah so this script is not going to happen uh however i have this rewrite assignment that i think you guys would be good for and we're like okay totally so we pretty much pitched on this rewrite for i want to say like two weeks we were just going back and forth because he really needed to trust that we could do it so we were doing way more than i think a normal rewrite would require before being hired i think he just really liked us and liked how we wrote but also knew that we were so young and so inexperienced that if he was to convince his boss to hire us, he would need basically the entire script written before we got hired.

25:31And so he really put his neck on the line for us, which is incredible. We owe so much to him because if he had never given us that first writing credit, I don't think we would have been validated to get anything else after. It also gave us a lot of confidence, I feel like, because it was a studio job yeah or like going to sony i don't know yeah so that was but that was yeah that wasn't our agents at all it was just our connections from college and hearsay and i also think what we did in the beginning that helped so much is if we truly heard anything that anyone was looking for we went and we wrote it in like a week because that's how crazy we were and I think that that's something that you really have to be willing to do is to actually like not sleep for a week and write something even if it's bad just because I think that not everyone does that and they don't have the material when it comes time to give it to someone it's also a lot easier to do with a writing partner because you're kind of both being anti-social losers together especially when we were really young and all of our friends were going out partying and stuff and And we were just like, here we go to WeWork on a Friday, on a Saturday.

26:46Yeah. The Friday nights at home writing in my early 20s were very productive, but also very antisocial. And it's a real reality. And you guys are 22, 23 as you're starting to do this. And that is the era, which is like, you don't need sleep. You just crank. And that's great. So this project at Sony, it's a rewrite at Sony. You get this job to do a rewrite, probably at scale or something. It's a small amount of money. But enough money and it's an actual real job job. What was it like going from, okay, we can write a script to like, okay, now we have to deal with notes from a person who's actually telling us what they want and what to do.

27:25Did you end up feeling good about this script that was finally delivered? No. Yeah. It was as good as I think we could have made it with the concept itself. Okay. It was not something that we would normally write ourselves. It was more of like a melodrama. and I mean the first draft that we wrote was horrific we sent it to our manager and he was so panicked we have the chillest manager like such a sorry drew frat star um and he called us at like I want to say like 11 p.m and he's like okay we're gonna go through this whole thing and figure this out because it was so so bad and I think the night before we had to send it in we rewrote the entire thing yeah it was definitely the most stressful experience of our life having to go from writing for fun to writing for paid work.

28:13And yeah, because we hadn't really written features before and we were hired for a feature, it was the first draft was 135 something pages. That's long. And it was, yeah, it was just so meandering. We had no idea what a structure for a feature was supposed to be because the only other one we'd written was that diner script that we wrote in a week to get this project. And so, yeah, our poor manager was like, this is due next week? Yeah. And we were like, yeah. And he's like, oh, my God. And we didn't know that you could push, like, he gave us four weeks, which is— That's the craziest short amount of time.

28:52It's a crazy amount of time. And we didn't know that we could be like, hey, actually, I think we need more time. So we were like, fuck, okay, it's due tomorrow. Like a hard deadline. We're going to get a bad grade. I don't know why we were so pissed about it, but yeah. Yeah, we didn't know. We didn't know anything. No. You're now paid writers. And so you're getting some money, like not enough to get into Guild or get insurance or any of that stuff yet, but you're getting some money. And then were you just taking other meetings? Like, how are you going from that? I have to suspect that both your manager and your agent are very excited they can now market you as people like, they're coming off a job at Sony.

29:24It makes it much easier for them to sort of get you on the list for other things. Were you aiming for other feature stuff, for TV staffing, like anything? Like what was your mandate to them? We really wanted to staff on a show bad. Yeah. Because we're pretty social. And I think at the time, it was like Pen15 had just come out. Oh, my God. What an incredible show. Yeah. We're like, obviously, we're going to get on that. That was our mindset. Yeah. So we were like, please submit us places. Anything. We'll do anything. We did roundtables. We did punch-ups. So let's talk through for people who are listening.

29:59So roundtables, you're bringing in a bunch of writers to look at a script that is somewhere in development or maybe it's heading into production. And so you are talking through the stuff, you know, making suggestions for things that can improve. Sometimes you're even doing a little reading of the script there as you're starting to do the work versus punch-ups, which is you're just like just looking for joke, joke, joke, joke, joke. Both of those are like one-day situations. They're paying you a couple grand, like a grand, a couple grand, like not much. No, even less than that. But it was an opportunity for you to be in the room with other writers and executives who were noticing like, oh, they're funny or whatever.

30:32And hopefully they're going to use you for other products down the road. Yeah, exactly that. They can be a grind. They can be a trap. They can be a problem. But it's very reasonable for you guys to have taken those jobs when you took them. So you have the money from like this one Sony rewrite and you're stringing that along and trying to find the next paid gig. What ended up being your next paid gigs? We did one roundtable for American Pie Girls Rule. That was like a female youth pass because two men, older men had written it. And our friend actually ended up being in the movie, Natasha Benham, which was really cute.

31:08And then we did one like youth punch up for that animated movie. What's that called? Ron's Gone Wrong. Oh my God, I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah, we did. And so when you say that kind of punch up, like how many, how long were you working on that? I think they just sent us the script. That one was, yeah, that one we didn't have to go in person. They just sent us the script. we read it and we gave no we did go we gave notes in person remember that's where we met Andrew oh okay okay but we got the script ahead of time and got to read it and like come in prepared but yeah and then I think the next thing we got was the Disney Channel writer's room which that truly felt like the first real real job because it was you're going in every day nine to five it lasted honestly like almost a full year.

31:59There's a Disney Channel show, so lots of episodes, but then also the pandemic. Yeah. Extended that. Yeah. And we got our own episode, which was so cool to get at that age. And I think we were, were we 23 or 22 when we got hired for that? Yeah. So it really felt like, okay, this is finally like, we're set a little bit in the industry. Well, one challenge though, of course, is you're splitting a salary. So it's great that you're getting paid some, but it's going half and half. And money goes out to your manager and your agent. So it's challenging on those fronts to sort of make that all connect.

32:34But it's great that you have an ongoing, having things like this is your actual job that you're showing up for is so validating and so important. What are the steps between here and K-pop team and Hunters? And do you have any sense there was going to be a thing thing when you were first meeting on it? So while we were in the Disney Channel Writers Room, that, wow, you're going to be so happy with, Hannah's always dying to tell this full circle moment. Actually, you know what? You tell it since this is your moment to shine. It'll finally hit. Because everything's been set up. I know. It's already been set up.

33:05So you don't have to do it. Okay. Normally I have to set up the diner script. Yes. But we've already set it up. Okay. So that diner script that we wrote in a week for that one exec, we continued to edit that and work on it over the next year or so because we did really love it. And the first draft was awful, but, you know, Eventually, it got to a good place. And we submitted it to the Sundance Feature Lab. And we got into the Sundance Feature Lab with that script while we were in the Disney Channel writer's room. And so we went out there. Luckily, our showrunners let us take like a week off. And we went out there and one of our...

33:43Is this while it was still in Utah or had it moved to Colorado at that point? Utah? Yes, Park City. Yes. Yes, Park City. Park City. So you were... And this is the winter lab or the summer lab? Winter. Winter. and it was 2018 or 2019? 2019. Yeah, it was in January of 2019. Yes, right before the pandemic. This was when we were hearing that it was in Washington for the first time. That was that Sundance. But it was actually ground zero at that time. Yes. We knew a lot of people. We didn't realize that was ground zero. But anyways, one of our mentors at this program was Nicole Perlman. Yeah, who's fantastic.

34:18She's been on the podcast before. So Nicole is terrific. She's at Guardians of the Galaxy. She's worked a bunch on really beloved sci-fi fantasy shows, and she's an absolute dream. One of the things that I've sort of adopted from her is the idea of a writing sprint, which is basically you set a timer for 60 minutes, and the next 60 minutes you're going to write. But Nicole sort of pioneered, like, just on Twitter, she was like, I'm starting a writing sprint at the top of the hour. Who wants to join me? And so you just join in, and it's just good to have other people writing along with you. She's so cool.

34:50We owe her, honestly, everything. Yeah. We do. And we always keep forgetting to thank her. We're always like, we should thank her. This is our moment. Thank you. Hopefully she listens to this. But yeah, so she was our mentor and she read our script, which our script was raunchy rated R live action. And she was like, you know what? You guys would be perfect for this movie that I'm EPing called Untitled K-pop Demon Hunters, which the name has never changed. And that was five years ago. And we were like, that's so interesting. what is it? And she's like, it's a kids animated movie about K-pop. And we were like, we, that is not what we do.

35:31That's not really what we want to do, but we're also 23. And so we will do it. Always say yes. Yes. Always. And so she, yeah, she recommended us to Maggie, the director, and we came back from the program and we immediately pitched, went to Sony, pitched to Maggie and the producers. And our pitch was terrible. Like it really, really sucked. It was not an anime. Let's talk about why. So you read the script. You read Maggie's existing script. No, there was no script. There was a concept space. Okay, but not a script. All right. Yeah. It sucked because animated movies, you know, they need to be big.

36:09I guess that was kind of the main thing. Also, we had just written one feature at this point. That's important to no. And it was live action and it was for Sundance. And now we're being asked to go in and pitch on a Sony animated movie. Millions of dollars. Huge difference. I think what we pitched, if it were live action, it would be less than a million dollars. I think it took place in one home. The finale was a pool party. Also, I mean, the K-pop aspect of it was all wrong too, because we had watched maybe one video and we thought, okay, they're dancing in this one video. Obviously, in other videos, they have instruments.

36:46Duh. So we pitched all of them with guitars, drums, all this stuff. And Maggie was like, okay, so no to all of this, essentially. But I like your guys' voice. She was writing a movie about three girls in their 20s that were roommates and best friends and coworkers. At the time, we were also living together. so it was just a really easy match I would say and it was a personality hire it was a personality yeah and it worked out so well because yeah we like felt so connected to the girls and everything else she was kind of like you can learn about k-pop you can learn about what it means to write for animation but I like your voice I like your vibe that's what I've been looking for because I she'd been interviewing a lot of like older men with with the right credits and stuff but she I think she what she couldn't find was the voice and so we really lucked out because we didn't have the credits and we didn't have the structure or even a good pitch yeah but we had the vibe and then yeah everything else kind of came later we learned about k-pop later we learned about how to write her animation later all that stuff but yeah in the beginning it was just like she was like, I trust you.

38:05I'm going to take a chance on you. And it worked out. I will say it's also very important to mention that we did become K-pop stans. I don't want anyone to come for us. Yes. She told us to watch maybe like one, you know, K-pop video and maybe like a K-drama. And it's called a K-hole. Yeah. There's obviously the drug one and then there's a K-pop one and we entered K-holes, spent thousands of dollars on our boys' tickets, merch. Yeah. Just so that no when things were not K-pop scenes. Yeah, we are hardcore sans. And also, I watched so many K-dramas. They're still some of my favorite shows, K-dramas.

38:40Awesome. Yeah. One of the other challenges in K-pop Demon Hunters is that you have a trio of heroes and each of them have their own storylines and things they need to service. I did Charlie's Angels, and they share a lot of kinship between the two of them. It's a really challenging thing to do because every scene has to support multiple things. It has to support individual character stuff of one of the three, their group dynamic, and move the plot forward and you have to have surprises and reveals is a challenging structural movie. At the time that you were coming into it, it was just a Sony theatrical movie or had it already sold to Netflix?

39:14Did you know where it was headed? No, all we knew was, yeah, Sony theatrical. That's what our contract said. And was your contract for a number of weeks, a number of drafts? Like, what did your contract look like? Everyone else on the project was paid weekly. Ours was for a treatment, a script, a rewrite, a polish, like a standard live action movie. Very different how you do animated movies and live action, which we didn't know at the time. Well, I'll say that it's actually, I haven't done a lot of animated movies. Like I'm generally am contracted on drafts and revisions, but it's absolutely true that most of these people are on there weekly because it's just like this long ongoing process.

39:54And so the challenge of you guys being on a draft basis is that those drafts can extend out for a very long time and they can sort of like not pay you as much as frequently as they should pay you. How long were you working on K-Pop Demon Hunters? How many months, years was it? We were on it for the first two years. And then we were off it the third year when it sold to Netflix. I think Netflix wanted new writers to come in and take a look. So then we were off it for a year and then they brought us back the the fourth year. And then we were off it again the last year, the fifth year. Yeah. So I guess it was like a total of two and a half, three years.

40:37Isn't it so strange when you come, like you leave a movie, I have done this a lot, you leave a movie, come back and you're like, oh my God, it's like it's grown a lot, but it's also grown in weird ways, like things you don't expect and like decisions are made like, okay, well this is what we're doing now. And so it must be exciting to actually see illustrations and probably temporals and you got to see pencils and probably tests for a lot of things. And yet it's almost a movie, but it's not quite a movie. It's a weird state when you come into movies that way. Yeah. It was, yeah. But it was, we loved seeing like the animatics, the character designs, the set designs, because you just don't get to see that in live action.

41:13I'm working with a storyboard artist and seeing what they bring to each scene. You're like, God, you're so funny and smart. That's exactly what it should be. Yeah. So during the two years, you're originally on K-Pop Demon Hunters, then you're off and so like that. What other work were you doing? I assume you're going out for a bunch of meetings. What was that life like? Because it doesn't stop while you're employed. Tell me about that. We were working on, it was the pandemic. So we had a lot of time. Didn't have to do anything social. So we were working on the K-pop movie. We were still in our Disney channel room.

41:44And then we were also working on the diner script because Amazon and Macro optioned it. So we were doing that with them. So three projects at once for the first two years. Yeah, which was really challenging. But because it was the pandemic, we were able to juggle it all. Eventually, the show ended and the Amazon project ended. So then we were just K-pop. And that was extremely time consuming. So, you know, that took up all of our time towards the end. Then we just, we got on another TV show. We did a Ren and Stimpy reboot, Writer's Room. We did a Paramount Plus script that never went anywhere, but they did pay us.

42:27We did a Lord Farquaad origin story for DreamWorks. Just a treatment, though. Yeah. Never made it to script. Oh, we did a Cheech and Chong biopic. That also did not go anywhere. So many things die. Everything dies. Everything dies. And through all this other work, because K-pop Demon Hunters was not a Writer's Guild covered movie. Are you guys WGA yet? Are you still there? So what got you into the Guild? The Disney Channel room got us into the Guild originally. But we have been in and out of the guild so many times because we did not make the requirements. Yeah, because we kept going to animation.

42:58That's really one of the giant challenges. Yeah. If you're dividing your work between two different places, you don't earn enough in either a space to give them health insurance or, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, but then eventually we, well, the most recent show we did, luckily, has us in the WGA for a while. It's the Matthew Woody show that we were co-producers on. so many random things in between that like paid the bills, but never actually went anywhere. And that's a screenwriter's life. And that's, that's the reality is like, I know most of the things you do are not going to get produced, but if they're putting money in the bank account and sort of keeping you a roof over your head, those are the jobs you take.

43:37And hopefully they're building towards other things down the road. And, you know, if that project doesn't get made, at least you got something out of the experience or the connections or something else that'll help you out for the next thing past that. Drew, we have some follow-up from previous episodes. And let's start with, back in 7-Eleven, we were talking about breaking in. And so we have two guests here who have more recently broken in. Let's see what the incident is here. An aspiring adult woman writes, Sam's question about how to break into the industry at 34 really hit home for me. I appreciated the brutal honesty of Alina and John's response, but damn, it also sucks.

44:10I'm also 34 living Sam's goal, working as an assistant at a production company and I feel stuck in a different way. I'm so close to everything yet still so far. I'm utilizing every connection I have and will continue to forever, but I'm frustrated by the people long past retirement age not passing the torch. Of course the industry is changing and there is uncertainty in the air, but I believe so much of the problem is that the 65 plus crowd is not stepping aside and letting a new generation be the adults in the room. We just have to keep writing, keep writing, Sam. All right, so much to unpack there.

44:44And I want to start with the last point about sort of people stepping aside. I'm not sure that it's like writers in their 60s who are the problem, but maybe decision makers in their 60s who are not hiring new people may be one of the factors that's, I think, really at play here. But it's great having two of you in front of me because you're both in your early 20s, and there's a writer who's 34 and is experiencing a different thing. You had the ability to just sort of get out of college and go right into it, which is kind of what I was able to do too. I know there's such an advantage being in your ramen days where life is cheap and you don't actually have big expectations of things.

45:21It's nice to just be sort of young and hungry and write the script in a weekend because you know you need to get that done. You must have classmates who are starting to be frustrated by the inability to sort of get headway here. What are those conversations like and what do you find people doing? Ooh, close to home question. I think our advice always to everyone is like, find a way to do this that's not paid. Because obviously you have to do other things to make money. And you have to, you know, work a restaurant job or work an assistant job or freelance stuff. And you need to be doing those things so that you can survive.

46:04but I also think if you only do that then some people can just completely like they're not even doing the thing that they love to do anymore because they don't have any time to do it or they have no energy to do it so I feel like it's so important to be like you just have to keep doing the thing that you love and the thing that you want to do even if it's like an improv show or a short film that you wrote and you funded yourself and you like shot on an iPhone like we know people that are doing that and are making their own content for really cheap and it's like that's incredible you have to keep doing that yeah and hopefully people that you know that you're friends with are I don't know farther along in their careers that can watch one of your short films and be like wait that was really good I want to send this to someone we're also constantly sending our friends to our managers and we use our manager as like our personal like you have to help our friends get repped.

47:03Like we threatened him. We're like, send these people out, find someone at your company. He's doing the work of multiple managers because we're like, now you need to go find other managers to rep our friends. I feel like we've said this to a few people, but having a writing partner, even if it's not permanent is so helpful because it's someone holding you accountable. Cause you will even, it's like when you sign up for a workout class, you're like, Oh, it's early. I'm cold. I don't really want to go. But if Hannah's at the workout class and I'm like, she's waiting for me. I got to show up. I have to go.

47:33It's just so much easier to do anything. So I don't know if it works for everyone, but it certainly helped us right even when we really don't want to. Go back to this question here. She's saying that she's working as an assistant at a production company and she feels stuck. And one of the challenges is that being an assistant there, you have some access, you have some, but you're also probably exhausted and your days are spent doing all this other stuff and you probably don't come back home with a lot left in the tank to be doing other writing. As your substitute teaching jobs, they weren't the ideal jobs, but you were saying you got done at 3.30 in the afternoon and you actually had some more time left and you didn't spend your whole day writing.

48:15You spent your day doing other things. My summer that I spent, between my two years at Stark working at Universal, I was just filing papers. It was completely mindless. And so when I came home, I had not used my brain at all and I could write those right at night and it was actually still possible. So I would encourage this writer to look at sort of what is the setup that she's in right now and is it allowing her to get writing done? Because so often I think underneath of this is that people start to resent writing because their career isn't happening. And really what they are sort of should be resenting is that circumstances of their life is not permitting them to spend all their time writing.

48:53and that's reality. We have another question here from Beth. Beth says, I love hearing you guys talk about ways to break the inertia and moving from the thinking about writing into writing. I find it helpful and sometimes it just gives me the confidence to put pen to paper. But the one layer to this problem, I don't really hear anyone anywhere talk about, is trying to overcome this obstacle when you also have ADHD. I wanted to write in and see if you've come across any writers who've had to change their process to overcome obstacles such as this, where conventional writing tips just don't work or maybe work 50 % of the time.

49:26I saw you guys exchange a look. Is that, does that resonate with you at all? I have that on ADHD. I think I just, I love to word vomit on paper and then edit later. Because I think if you just put anything out there, even if it's so disorganized, so bad, it feels so much better to go back and edit that than like slowly write something that's perfect. I would not get anything done if I wrote that way. And Hannah's the opposite. Hannah has to write everything perfectly immediately. I also will do a plug. Not that this is my device, but Brick, if you are distracted by your phone, is really nice. So Brick is the little gizmo which you tap your phone on it and it basically locks down your phone so you can't be pulled away by it.

50:10Yes, exactly. That's been really helpful. I mean, not that anyone needs to be on medication, but I am medication and it is helpful. But mostly, yeah, just vomit draft. That's the first thing that I try to do. I will just you really have to psych yourself into it it's like jumping into a pool you just have to do it and once you start it's kind of easier to keep going and me and Hannah will do this and I know it's not healthy to do but we won't like pee it's like something that is like a reward to us because any distraction is actually huge if you have ADHD or we won't eat we'll be like we have to finish this and then we're allowed to eat which that one's really bad peeing is a middle ground I will say also So I think having a writing partner with OCD helps as well.

50:56Because if it's ever like two getting off in all these random places, my brain is very much one track tunnel vision. So I typically will pull back to the immediate task at hand. And also if you're stuck on one thing because of the OCD person, it's good to have someone be like, we got to move on or else I'm going to have a freak out. We keep just suggesting writing teams to people. Yeah, well, maybe a good solution for a lot of people is that both the coach, the accountability, like we're in this together, just having a buddy will help you there. And listen, ADHD is a real thing and there's medications for it.

51:32There's other ways to address it. But I want to make sure that people aren't using it as a wave away excuse for like, writing is also just really hard. It's like, it's uncomfortable to start writing. It is for everybody, no matter how your brain is set up. It's just not a pleasant thing to get started doing. And so I think, you know, Beth needs to take some time and try some different ways to see like what is actually productive for you, what tends to work. And so whether it's done is instinct to do a vomit draft, great. Or, you know, sort of more focused, like I'm going to get this right the first time.

52:05Whatever it is that it's actually getting words on the page for you is a solution that's good as long as overall healthy and it's not doing other dangerous things to yourself. So give yourself some grace to understand that it's going to be a process, a journey. Not every day is going to be fantastic, but you've got to, you know, writers write. And so you need to find some way to actually get those words done on the page. There's also one other thing that just reminded me. Sometimes what we'll do is we'll send voice notes to each other, and then you can just copy that and paste it. And even though it's so bad and not accurate, that's also so helpful to just have actual words on a page, and then you can edit it later.

52:41Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I will do the same thing for, I've hyped up, there's a dictation program I like called Aqua Voice. And it's really good for if I'm going into a pitch and there's things I need to sort of talk through, I will just hit the button and just like word vomit all the things I need to sort of say in it. And then like on the call, I actually have that to refer back to. It's just like, it gives me the practice for it. And I can see the text that's there. That's nothing I'm going to send to somebody, but it's just sort of for your own purposes. And it's getting it out of your head and onto.

53:12something that you can edit again or touch again if you need to. Yeah. Let's take a question from Hunter. He's asking about taking a semester in LA. I'm a writer and law student in Baltimore. I've written a few scripts and I've made a few connections in the business, but I recognize that I'm at the very beginning of my career and there's a long way to go. I have an opportunity to take some law school classes at UCLA as a visiting student, which would mean spending a semester in LA. I have family I can stay with there. I can work my current job remotely, attend classes, spend the rest of my time trying to write and network.

53:45Do you guys think this is worth my time? Absolutely. Yeah, some enthusiastic nods on this side. Everything, that sounds like you have to. It would be weird if you didn't. Yeah, it would be weird if you didn't. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think being in LA is so important. I mean, a lot of things have become virtual now. And it's a lot easier to live other places and try to make it in the industry now. but it still feels like such a place where you'll go to a coffee shop or a bar and you'll run into someone that works in the industry and you'll become friends with them and it'll just be a very natural like type of networking that isn't so like official and business-like if you're living here and you're going out with the people and you're hanging out with the people that work here.

54:34Yeah. Also, the friends that you're going to make in that class are going to be so helpful to you, even if you don't think so in the moment. Like we have gone so many things just from friendships, whether that's from college or just like, yeah, the bars, coffee shops, people you're talking to. And also, I'll say this, generals. if you can go on generals while you're here in LA, going in person is so much better than virtual because, I mean, you're just creating a real relationship with someone versus something through a screen. It's just not the same at all. And it's fun to go in person. You're getting a sense of like the city, the entertainment industry.

55:12Yeah, we've been doing the podcast for 14 years now. And I would say like over the course of the 14 years, it's never been less important to live in Los Angeles, but it's still actually is really helpful. and just in terms of getting a sense of what this is like. And Hunter, you're also in the sense of like, would you even want to live in LA? I mean, you might have this fantasy of what LA is going to be like, but then you get here and it's like, oh, it's actually not what I was hoping for. It's not a thing that I want to do. So yeah, I think you owe it to yourself to come out here and try and a summer semester feels great.

55:38Yeah. Cool. All right, now it is time for our one cool things where we recommend stuff that we want our listeners to know about. I'm going to just do two quick ones here. First is Pluribus, the new series by Vince Gilligan. And it's just delightful. It's so weird and so specific and wonderful. I'm not surprised it comes from Vince Gilligan's brain. I'm three episodes in as we're recording this. It's really strange, but not, we just talked about like whatever happened to weird. And it's like, it's not weird for the sake of being weird. It's just really good and unusual and specific. So check out Pluribus, it's on Apple TV.

56:12Second thing is just a comfort food watching for me, which is Claire Saffitz. So Claire Saffitz is a chef baker who used to be on Bon Appetit, their video channel, but now she does her own stuff at her house. The video I'll put a link in the show notes too is she makes dirt bombs, which are basically like donut holes, but done in a muffin tin. She's just such a good baker and she has such a good quality, a joy to her cooking. Check it out. They're approachable recipes. The other thing she does is she does these things where she recreates like Kit Kat bars or something that she has to figure out how to make something that very closely approximates junk foods and they're remarkably difficult and she's I love that she's she will research carefully and it shows the hard work that goes into experimentation even in the kitchen oh I love watching this I love her yeah she's the best so two One Cool Things Pluribus and Claire Saffetz basically any video that she does what do you have for us for One Cool Things?

57:10I have two things as well the first one is gonna I'm gonna sound like such a kiss ass but it's real though it's real I recently watched Chernobyl. Oh, yeah. That's a good series. I have since become insanely obsessed with that whole situation. I've bought books on the meltdown. Like, I'm fully—it's a hyperfixation now because of that show. So, yeah, that's one. I'm sure everyone's already seen it. But on the off chance, you haven't seen it yet. Yeah, I'm two or three episodes in. If you're like Dania and you're wondering, I'm like, watch it. It's incredible. The second thing is— It's not that good.

57:54It's possible. It's whatever. It's like, I don't know. There's things to it. Of course. I am struck by the fact that you watched Chernobyl. I was like, I need to know more. I'm like, I watched Chernobyl like, I'm good. I'm full. I'm done. Thank you for saying that because I feel crazy. Hannah's like, how could you not want to buy 8 ,000 books and listen to podcasts and watch more? I'm like, yeah, I don't— There's something about radiation that... Really hits? It really hits for me. Yeah. I'm absolutely fixated on it. I haven't read the books yet, but I don't know how they'll live up to the show.

58:26Why bother reading a book when there's already a series made? You're not going to be able to do anything with it. You're right. You're right. That's one of my worst tendencies is if I'm reading a book and then I look up and someone already has the film rights, I'll stop reading the book. No. Sometimes. No. times yeah well see that's genuine curiosity on my end because I'm like I'm not gonna do anything with this I just want to know more yeah she's better than all of us all right the second thing is also everybody already knows about her Chapel Rhone but a song that I love of hers from one of her super early albums from like 2020 called Love Me Anyway it's an incredible song I think everyone that loves Chapel should listen to it because it was her, yeah, a song before she like hit it big and it still hits.

59:15That's great. Chapel Rowan is such a fascinating artist because she clearly a super mega talent and like wasn't quite recognized for sort of how good she was and sort of like the album tanked and then like she sort of redid her vibe and became the phenomenon that she is, but she's still like the same person and the difference between Chapel Rona as the icon artist and her trying to maintain a private identity that's separate from that. It's all fascinating and interesting. Yeah. It's just hard to be an artist these days. Yeah. Dania, what you got for us? Okay, I have two things. I changed one of them.

59:49Right. Yeah, being crazy. Okay, so I'll do this one first. While we were in Texas, our EPs, Brett Baer and Dave Finkel, got us really, and by us, I mean mostly me, really into Buster Keaton. And I got really obsessed with the teens of Hollywood as in like the 19th. Yeah. Very early days of film. Yeah. Exactly. And there's this book that I read that was recommended to me by them. It's called The Parades Gone By by Kevin Brownlow. It is such a great book. It's around 600 pages. It does take a minute to get through. But if you are at all interested in like the origins of Hollywood as the entertainment industry or just Hollywood and L.A.

1:00:29history, it is so interesting. and seeing who created what, like what jokes, what stunts, what even like Mary Pickford, we went to Musso and Frank last night and we tried her Alfredo pasta. I've been dying to try it. How was it? It was actually delicious. Because so often like the legendary things are actually not that good. Exactly. No, this is exactly what it should have been. So yeah, really recommend this book if you care about history. And Hunter, when Hunter comes to visit LA, and the semester should go to Musa and Franks because it's an iconic place. Yes, absolutely. The pasta is around$24, but yeah, split it with someone.

1:01:08Split it with someone. And then the other book that I'll recommend is called Manhunt and it's by Gretchen Felker Martin. It follows the aftermath of a plague that turns people with high testosterone into feral beasts. And the story follows two trans women as they hunt these creatures for their, I'm sorry to be crude, balls, their men's balls because that's where they can get estrogen to prevent them from turning into these creatures themselves because they're trans women. And there's also like TERFs that are trying to kill them. I don't know if anyone knows what TERFs are, but they don't believe in trans people.

1:01:41It's like so graphic, but so incredible. It like obviously explores transphobia and survival, community gender. It is so, so good. Like one of the best books I've read in a long time. That's great. Yeah. Cool. I like that you both had like two. Sometimes we're lacking for one cool thing. for people and like now we got six one cool things just in one episode which is nice alright and that is our show for this week Script Notes is produced by Drew Marquardt edited by Matthew Culelli our outro is by James Launch if you have an outro you can send us a link to ask at johnaugust.com that is also a 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 you'll find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube just search for Script Notes and give us a follow you'll also find us on Instagram at Script Notes Podcast we have t-shirts and hoodies and drinkware you'll find those at Cotton Bureau most importantly we have the Script Notes book which you can find at bookstores everywhere those are your copies those are galley copies so those are for you to take home they have typos galore but the real hardcovers don't have the typos in them you will find the show notes with the links to all the things we talked about today and the email you get each week as a premium subscriber thank you to all our premium subscribers you make it possible for us to do this each and every week you can sign up to become one at scriptnotes.net we get all the back episodes and bonus segments like the one we're about to record on what movies get wrong about Gen Z.

1:03:01Hannah, Dania, thank you so much for being on Script Notes. Congratulations on K-pop Demon Hunters and your career. Thank you so much.

1:03:14We're the East Coast Hip Hop. The Hip Hop. I'm bananas about Hip Hop.

1:03:27Bye.