727 - Free Work

10:54John August:So we've talked before about one of the, this was a link that I included in an earlier conversation about this, was that it feels like there's something about writing and creative writing that actually does involve having a physical body and actually having a sense of like what it feels like to be in a place, to actually encounter things, to experience things, to be in a moment that it's not synthesizable. It is actually the experience of being in a thing, feeling shame, like wondering whether you should interrupt somebody or not interrupt something, the inner talk, all of these experiences that humans recognize as being like, this is part of the human experience.

11:30John August:that inform every choice we're making, whether we know it or not. So will systems like LLMs get to something that is a proxism, makes it so closely that we can't tell the difference? I don't know, but I doubt it. I do think there's something fundamental about the human experience that these things aren't going to do in a way that will obviate the need for actual people doing this work. Another thing that came to mind,

11:56Craig Mazin:I was rehearsing a sequence the other day, with the actors and we were in full costume and we were going through things. And it struck me how, even if I hadn't written it, even if someone else had written it, everyone understands that they are working with, and to some extent, somewhat accountable to the creative work of someone. And therefore there is a certain level of respect, hopefully built in. And when you say to somebody, or if you were to say to somebody, here are the pages, these were generated by AI. No one has any respect for that inherently. We are quite free, in fact, to say, I don't care.

12:39Craig Mazin:Would a computer thought this was a good idea? I don't. And someone else will say, yeah, this doesn't, I don't like this. Everybody can tear it apart because writing can always be torn apart. And the veil that protects it sometimes is the fact that a human being wrote it and we have connection with each other.

12:58John August:Yeah.

12:58Craig Mazin:And we can dig in and ask that person questions and debate and consider. I just don't think anybody would respect the writing.

13:06John August:Now, you're talking about intentionality and accountability and these ideas that are specific to the social experience of making a thing and then watching a thing and sort of the process is really part of it. And so these AI systems that are just, you know, So, boom, like generating these fight scenes on rooftops between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Like that's, well, I guess the intention was the prompt, but that's not actually how you would get to anything in the real world.

13:34Craig Mazin:No, nor would Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise want to do that if they got pages telling them to do that. And also, that is an incredibly derivative thing anyway. How do we get to Tom Cruise? We get to Tom Cruise through risky business.

13:50John August:Yeah.

13:50Craig Mazin:Good luck, AI. Good luck writing that.

13:53John August:Yeah, that's why whenever there's like the AI actresses like signing a deal, well, that's absurd. That's just a stunt.

14:02Craig Mazin:That's like, it's like, how many times can I see the robots from Boston Dynamics jumping on top of something and then jumping off? I get it. You guys can jump on tables. I still kind of love it. I love it. I get it, but it's like, it's enough already. The stunt is adorable. The stunt of the quote-unquote AI actress is just internet oorobarus is what it is.

14:25John August:Well, let's go from new technologies to older new technologies. In 7.25, we were talking about what should I do with my DVDs? We had a couple of suggestions. Drew, help us out.

14:36Craig Mazin:Trent in Seattle writes, I wanted to flag an option that might not be on your radar. Scarecrow Video in Seattle. They're a nonprofit that houses over 150 ,000 titles and they gladly accept DVD, Blu-ray, VHS, and even Laserdisc donations. It's the coolest video store on the planet, and it's one that's really changed how my family watches movies. Case in point, my four-year-old is obsessed with Godzilla. Nice. Most of the Godzilla catalog isn't available on any streaming service, but Scarecrow has all of it. And watching him tear up and down the aisles picking out movies gives me that same blockbuster on a Friday night feeling I had as a kid, and that's not something I expected to be able to share with him.

15:13Craig Mazin:And Scarecrow even rents nationwide by mail. Whoa, that's a cool idea for a business, renting DVDs by mail.

15:20John August:I know. I love it. I love it. Watch it. They circle and become like another internet thing.

15:26Craig Mazin:In like 20 years, Scarecrow owns Warner Brothers, Disney.

15:31John August:I mean, this sounds great. So this is actually like two-level follow-up because Drew, you said in 662, we actually mentioned them? Yeah, we mentioned that they were doing,

15:40Craig Mazin:Scarecrow Video had a fundraiser to save the store And I mean, it sounds like it worked. Oh. Right. Wow. Maybe it worked too well. Yeah. These guys are out there. They're crushing it.

15:50John August:Yes. If I can find a place to take these, I will gladly put them in someone else's hands because I think about these the same way I think about books in my library. It's like, as we're starting through stuff, it's like, is the best place for this book my shelf or somebody else's shelf? If I'm never going to read this book again, it should be on somebody else's shelf. It should be. So that's why I always donate books to a library because they have the library sales. Some stuff would go into the collection, but most stuff is just like generating money for the library. Good. If someone else wants to read this book, that's awesome.

16:18John August:And if nobody wants to read this book, at least they probably have a good way to recycle a bunch of books and chop them up to make new books. Chopping them up, new books. Yeah, unfortunately, you can't chop up DVDs very well to make new DVDs. No. No. All right, well, thanks for that, Trent. Teresa writes about why physical media is important. When stuff is on streaming or even if you buy a digital copy of something, it can be taken away from you

16:42Craig Mazin:at any time. And there's things that are not only taken off of streaming but now aren't even offered on DVD or Blu-ray anymore. Shows by marginalized creators that were made during the streaming boom like the Gordita Chronicles or Minx are just gone now. You could say that people weren't watching anyway so who cares? But a big part of why people weren't watching was because these shows were created in a glut of shows and they flew under the radar and they weren't supported properly. And many of those that did find the shows or films they loved them but they can't recommend them anymore because they're hard to find or purchase or buy or whatever.

17:15Craig Mazin:Remember, Ellie and the Last of Us didn't learn Take On Me from finding the song on Spotify. She learned it from a cassette tape or a CD that someone preserved. She actually did learn it on Spotify. So here's a... No, she didn't.

17:27John August:The whole world went away. But then somehow Spotify was formed early in your universe.

17:33Craig Mazin:Yeah, no, we do think about that all the time, that if the world ends in 2003, physical media is still king And people do watch movies in the apocalypse because they have cassette tapes. In fact, we're going to feature one of those movies in season three, in fact. And she did learn it from taking. I mean, you're right, Teresa. They have been sending stuff away and they can take it away. And even though technically you are only licensing something to watch when you purchase a DVD, there's really no effective way for them to revoke that license. So what it comes down to, actually, I think, is the viability of the playing devices.

18:18Craig Mazin:Those are the things that actually we got to think about because they don't make them. So if they stop making Blu-ray players and they stop making, just like they stop making Walkman and so forth, it can get tricky. But if we have ways to preserve some of the methods to play these things, I think Teresa's right. physical media is important, especially if you have something that you suspect would be the kind of thing they might stop providing.

18:43John August:Yeah, so the idea of you cannot see the thing that you created anymore is incredibly frustrating. And also, I remember that showrunners throughout time have made things that they couldn't show to people anymore also because in a pre-streaming era, anything that was not on the TV was just not available. It was gone. And if it didn't get syndicated,

19:06Craig Mazin:you could do four seasons of a show and it wasn't enough to get syndicated and no one would ever see that show again in any form whatsoever. The thing is, you and I are used to this, actually. In fact, when we were kids, if you missed a movie in theaters, you didn't see it because there was no video for a while. Like until what, we were like maybe nine or something?

19:30John August:Well, people will bring up H.R. Puffin stuff and like people of my generation And like, I have just no idea what it was because it just didn't broadcast in Colorado where I grew up. And so I'll talk to my like bolder friends. It's like, have you been haunted by H.R. Puff and stuff? It's like, yeah, like it's a thing that other people know that we just don't know because it just never aired in Denver.

19:47Craig Mazin:Yeah, well, in New York, we got H.R. Puff and stuff. Yeah, see? They were awesome. Witchy Poo. Man, they were high. Wow, those guys are. So for people who don't know what this was, it was a children's show and it was like kids in a special island with a bunch of big puppets. and the people who made it were just so clearly high. Yeah. In the best, most lovely way.

20:12John August:Yeah. Yeah. So all good points. And I think as I go through and sort of sort through these DVDs and things, maybe I will hold on to the movies I just genuinely love that I would actually be heartbroken if I could not watch them when I wanted to watch them. But that's gonna be a small subset of these movies and most of them should go to ScarePro Video or someplace like that so other people can use them. All right, let's get to our main topic this week, which is free work. And so, Craig, free work is a comparatively new name for something that we've encountered our entire life as feature writers because we just get it from every angle.

20:50John August:So as feature writers, we are constantly going in to pitch on projects and doing a lot of stuff to figure out how to win this movie, win this job before we got paid anything to write it. And then a bunch of free work for after we hand in a script, people are always asking for more and more stuff before they pay us again. And so as feature writers, we've always encountered this. But in conversations with TV folks, they're encountering a lot more of it now too. Not just in the development process, trying to get that pilot to happen, but sometimes writing scripts after the room has closed because the scripts are just not done.

21:30John August:Yeah. So let's just talk through the kinds of free work that writers are apt to encounter, what to do at different stages, and try to hopefully find some framework for thinking about, like, is this a thing I should consider doing or is this an absolute red line, don't cross this line?

21:50Craig Mazin:Well, let's start with what the law is. And the law, per the WGA, is you can't do it. Yeah. So the WGA has, I think it's working rule eight that says you cannot write without an employment agreement under the WGA contract for anyone. The end. And also that is an impossible standard to hit in a sense. Part of the problem is even defining what writing is. What if I'm just sitting with you and we're coming up with some ideas for something, but we don't write it down or just you write it down or we're just thinking about it? What if we're emailing each other? Again, technically writing everything that's written down is writing.

22:35But it is probably an untenable position to say it's never going to be the case

22:42Craig Mazin:that you're going to write something down without an agreement. Yeah.

22:46John August:Let's wind it back to, obviously writers have the luxury of we can just write anything at any time. We can write spec scripts. We can just write our own things. And that's how we all get started is writing our own things. And that is the great luxury of being a writer. A director has to have a piece of material to go off and direct. An actor has to have a piece of material to audition with, to stand in front of the camera and say, writers can just do these things. But what often happens is it can be a vague line between like, this is the thing I'm writing for myself or this is the thing I'm writing for somebody else.

23:16John August:Like I described this idea to a producer and the producer's like, man, I really love that. You should write that. And so are you writing it for that producer or are you writing that for you? and that producer may become involved at some point. Those are the blurry lines that feature writers have always been experiencing, but TV writers increasingly are experiencing too.

23:34Craig Mazin:You have some things that help balance it out. The biggest one is if you're writing something and it's quote unquote free, maybe a better, even though no one will ever call it this, a better term would be unhired writing. And if it's unhired, that means they can't use it. Exactly. Now, a lot of times you can't use it either because it's based on something existing. They may come to you and say, here's a book, The Chronicles of Narnia, even though Greta Gerwig's doing that. Let's just pretend that here's The Chronicles of Narnia. Can you give us a sense of how this might go? And then they just keep, can you be more, can you write it?

24:11Craig Mazin:Can you write us a summary? Can you write us this? Can you write us the first 10 pages? And none of that, by the way, they're not allowed to do any of that either. Nope. But they can't use it if they don't pay you. Yeah. If they don't hire you for it, it is not usable by them. And that is something that they're aware of sometimes. Sometimes I feel like they're not. But it seems to me like the biggest areas, the biggest areas where I would have red flags on so-called free work or unhired writing, whatever we want to call it, is when you are feeling coerced, when you are being told it is a quid pro quo.

24:50Craig Mazin:Do this in order to get that, which should not happen. Or when you feel like you actually have been paid, you have been hired, they're just trying to get more steps out of you without paying you for steps. Those are the three danger zones to me. And the problem just is the problem with all areas of human behavior is power dynamics.

25:13John August:Yeah. And am I being coerced?

25:18Craig Mazin:Hard to say sometimes. Yeah.

25:21John August:So, I mean, are you being coerced or are they meaningfully trying to get this thing to exist and to happen? So like, listen, I think your shrimp is good. I think if you were to do this, then we could take it out on the town to do a thing. And so if it's a producer saying that, like, ah, if it's a manager saying that, you're like, yeah, a little bit of your agent who is in theory, your fiduciary person who's like, who's there because they're going to make money only when you make money. That's a cleaner attachment. But it's still always tricky and challenging to figure out what this is like. And I do want to acknowledge that we're talking about writing here, but like, obviously any artist, any person who creates creative output, this resonates a bit with you too, because so often like, oh, could you design this brochure for me?

26:02John August:I can't really pay you, but it'd be an exposure or this could lead to something else.

26:06Craig Mazin:I mean, there's wonderful examples online of people posting, you know, they're graphic artists and people are saying, I want a logo. I'm not going to pay you, but I will give you exposure. and then they're like, yeah, sorry, no, I get paid to do work. And then people throw fits, which is hysterical. I think for us, we just always have to be aware that people are trying to take advantage of us. I mean, I don't even want to villainize the people that are trying to take advantage of us. I think they're taught to. I think that's part of their job. I think that the idea of getting something for nothing is extremely attractive to people who work in business.

26:42Craig Mazin:We don't work in business. we write inside of a business. So yeah, they're trying to take advantage of that and they will try and convince you. And sometimes, as you say, they're right. And sometimes you'll want to do it. Yeah. You will want to do more because you feel like it's in your best interest. But figuring out which is when.

27:08John August:Yeah, let's give a concrete example here. So there is a book that a company owns and they're talking to writers about adapting this book and they're meeting with writers about adapting this book. And so for me, that was How to Eat Fried Worms. The very first project I ever landed was one of these open writing assignments. And so they were meeting with me and several other writers about this. And so we were doing a lot of work and a lot of writing that we were not handing in, but a lot of writing on our side to convince the production entity that we are the people who should be adapting this book.

27:40John August:Weeks of my life, a lot of my writing time doing this to try to land this job. it was the right choice for me because I landed the job and it got me started. If a situation had been set up, if there were a rule that you had to be paid to pitch, basically like anybody going in on this project had to be paid for it, brought me, I wouldn't have had a chance to pitch on it. And that's - It's worse than that. Yeah.

28:02Craig Mazin:Paid to pitch is such a bad idea. Yeah. Because for some pittance, well, A, it'll weed out a lot of people that would have gotten a chance and now suddenly don't. and B, they just bought everything you said. Exactly. For five grand. You know what I mean? It's like, it's such a bad idea, but I did the exact same thing you did. And that was quite a common thing, I think, in the 90s and the way that the feature business ran was, it's funny, I think it's changed. But back then it seemed to me like what would happen is there's something out there like how to eat fried worms or I think Stretch Armstrong was one that came across my desk and many, many others.

28:40Craig Mazin:and you would sit and the expectation was that you would come in and you wouldn't pitch like a take or have a conversation about it. You would describe a movie beginning to end. You weren't handing them anything on paper. And they would often ask. They would ask. And I would say, no, the thing is I actually don't have it written on paper in a way that would make any sense to anybody. It's all scribbles, which is not true. But that was part of how you got the job. But the real important thing is you didn't give them writing. You spoke it. And technically, you're kind of skirting around the thing.

29:16John August:There was no literary material being exchanged. That's right.

29:19Craig Mazin:And so they don't have it. They can't hand it to anybody. And they will have to pay you for all the words that happen on paper. But you do that to me. Of course, that's writing. It's mind writing. It is mind writing.

29:31John August:And obviously, there could have been a person in that room writing down everything you said. Now, of course, with AI, they can just pull the transcript of exactly what you said. So it's a little bit moot whether you're handed in the thing, but it's also important you didn't hand it in the thing because there's no implied that you were giving them this thing, which they couldn't own anyway because it's still your work.

29:49Craig Mazin:It is still your work. You did not sell it. They can't own it. But that was a kind of free writing.

29:55John August:And so what we're describing here is pre-writing. So this is before you got the job. And this is actually, it's a challenge for the guild, or any guild to enforce rules about this because you're not an employee of this company yet. And so you're trying to land a job. So we can talk about like why no writing left behind, why you're not doing these things, but the guild can't and sort of shouldn't stop you from going in and pitching on things because that's how you get jobs. That is the thing. The other kind of free work is you are an actual employee. You've delivered something and they're still asking for free work after that.

30:28Craig Mazin:That's a rough one.

30:29John August:Which is bad, but really common. And that is a situation where it's about you recognizing your own self-worth and saying no, having reps to say no, and honestly having the guild to say no at a certain point, or even go after and get payment that you should have gotten for work that you really were doing that they weren't paying you.

30:48Craig Mazin:Yes. And I will say that for, we've been in the WJ for about like 30 years now, you and me.

30:55John August:Yeah.

30:56Craig Mazin:They've been talking about this for 30 years. They have not fixed it in 30 years. And there've been some great ideas. and so many different kinds of ideas. Ultimately, the problem is the guild is not in the room. And if the studio executive, or let's say more commonly the producer and the writer, agree to do a thing, they're doing it. And there's nothing we can do to stop it. And yes, writers will say, but I don't want to agree. But you did. And we'll say, well, okay, call the guild. Well, I don't want to do that because I don't want to get in trouble. My favorite proposed solution, there was a guy in the 2000s, his solution was every meeting that happens between every member of the WGA and any producer or studio executive has to be recorded and transcribed and all transcriptions sent to a clearinghouse that looked through to see if there, and I was like, that also wouldn't work, but it would cost a billion dollars.

31:53John August:It would cost a billion dollars. Less now with AI, but yes, still. But also people would just be like,

31:57Craig Mazin:hey, we need to meet. Absolutely. Not near the... Whisper, whisper. Yeah, I mean, like, of course you can get around everything. When there's a will, there's a way. And when people are twisting someone's arm and that person is new, as you and I once were, it is difficult. And of course, I was in situations early on in my career where I...

32:15John August:Well, and there's also going to be moments where the producer says, like, hey, listen, this is great. And these are two things, these are two red flags before we hand it into the studio because I know this is a situation. You can't fight back against it. Because that's actually good advice at times. Yes. No one's upset about that. So let's talk about some actual remedies here, things that have worked for us. And so giving it to the producer before the deadline. So if it's eight weeks and you give it to the producer at seven weeks and you can say like, hey, I'm turning this in next week and make it clear like this is going in, whether you like it or not, this is what's going on.

32:50John August:That has worked for me.

32:52Craig Mazin:It can be taken as a declaration of war by a number of producers. Yeah. Because you can say, hey, well, I mean, it says in my contract, you got to turn it in. Like a typical writing period, I think it's 12 weeks. It's been 12 weeks. I got to turn it in. They'll be like, no, you don't. They don't care. They just want it to be good. And they're right in that the studio is like, please keep writing. We paid them for 12 weeks. We're not paying them more. Keep writing. That is the silent conspiracy that's going on behind the scenes to get you to write more when there are perfectly described steps in your contract for writing more.

33:27John August:Yeah. In terms of perfectly described steps, on one project, the producer slash director came to me like, I said like, hey, I'm about to turn this in. They came to me with a whole ton of notes. And it's like, I said, this is too much for me to do. And we actually didn't negotiate that we took a step out of sequence. So I did my polished step before my rewrite. And that was a solution. Because they're well-defined. Yeah.

33:51Craig Mazin:And this has worked for me where I will give something to a producer and generally speaking, if I agree with their feedback or requests, it's probably not that hard to do them. And I want to do them because I think it's going to make it better. There's no value in me turning something in and saying, by the way, I know how to make this better. I just didn't yet. But when it's not great, which is honestly more often than not, then at some point you say, I want the benefit of everybody's point of view on this. Because I want to make sure, especially as you get later on in your career, I'm getting paid this much money.

34:31It seems like the person who runs the studio

34:33Craig Mazin:should get a vote too. And what the producer can't say is they already did. Because if they did, they broke the rules and it got submitted and now they got to pay me. So they can't say that, so it jams them up. That's worked a few times for me. But early on, unfortunately, what it comes down to is your agent has to say enough is enough to them because the agent has other clients that have more power than you do. Yeah.

34:58John August:But agents classically have so many other relationships with that producer that they don't want to rock the boat too much. It's just, it's tough.

35:06Craig Mazin:And the thing is, I feel like you get to a point as a representative where you can call somebody and say, we have a lot of business together. I'm just asking you, please, can you just, this one went too far. Yeah. And we will continue to have lots of business together, but we have to do our jobs and this is part of my job. And those conversations happen all the time. And at that point, that is sort of when the person who's been trained to get as much as possible for as little as possible says, okay, you got me.

35:33John August:Other things that have worked for me in the past is making sure you have a relationship with the studio executive independent from the producer. And so if I can talk to the studio executive and say like, yeah, hey, I finished and the producer wants all this stuff. do you want me to do all this stuff? No, they honestly generally probably just want the script in their hands. Of course.

35:54Craig Mazin:Of course. And we did help things along in our last negotiation because we won this thing that I'd been, you know, sort of crying about for so long, which is two steps for writers who are earning under a certain number. So it doesn't apply to... Because the studios make a point. Look, if I pay Scott Frank$3 million to write a script, I really don't want to get nickeled and dimed on drafts, right? But we're paying somebody$250 ,000 for a draft. You can get 12 drafts out of them if you're going to be jerk about it. But now because we built that second step in, that's guaranteed. Like the producer feels like we can get it in.

36:32Craig Mazin:It's not over. It's not like if everybody reads it and hates it, it's not over. We have another draft.

36:37John August:Yeah. Other things that can work. It's recognizing that the opportunity cost of pitching on things that don't go anyplace. And so that's why I always ask, how real does this feel? Or is this a fishing expedition? Are they just like, they kind of have an idea, they have a book, but it's not clear that they actually want to make this a movie. It's not clear that anyone up the food chain even knows this thing really exists. Asking, do they actually own the IP? So when you go in and pitch on a thing and then you realize like, wait, they don't even own it yet. They're just thinking about getting it.

37:11Craig Mazin:Well, they spring it on you real late. It's happened to me a few times.

37:16John August:They've been trying to make my deal and I was like, oh no, we need to get the underlying rights first. Come on.

37:21Craig Mazin:Are you guys, what? Like what, but that is Hollywood flim flam for you.

37:25John August:Yeah. My friend Michelle has a three meeting rule, which I really respect that she and her writing partner will take three meetings on a project. But if there's not a decision after three meetings, they're done. Oh God, yeah. Love it. Great. And they've done that from since the start of their career.

37:42Craig Mazin:And that's... It's a great rule. because, yeah, at some point, put up or shut up, it's pretty obvious. Like, are we dating or not? Yeah.

37:51John August:Yeah. We got a listener question that is on this topic too. Do you want to help us out with what Nick wrote?

37:57Craig Mazin:In Steven Soderbergh's recent interview in Variety about his canceled Star Wars movie, he says, that was two and a half years of free work for me and Adam and writer Rebecca Blunt. What is happening here? Has it become common practice for Guild members to write years' worth of drafts on spec for major IPs held by signatories? John and Craig have been tremendous advocates for writers getting paid. My understanding of the NBA is that unpaid writing like this shouldn't be happening. Is Lucasfilm leveraging creatives' desire to contribute to their franchise to eliminate development costs? Or did Soderbergh convince a writer to engage in fan fiction on the hope that it would lead to a future payday?

38:36Craig Mazin:I'm hoping you might be able to shed some light on what might be going on here

38:39John August:and what the WGA's role would be in such a situation. So I looked back at the original Variety article and I couldn't, Nick is inferring some stuff here that I don't think is actually in the Variety article. So I don't know whether anybody was paid for anything at any point, but the overall frustration that Soderbergh is expressing, that absolutely resonates for me. And I want to talk about it because directors also have a ton of unpaid work that they're going through. Because it's all this trying to land the movie, trying to get the movie greenlit. A lot of that stuff is not paid and they are doing months and months of work in some cases for things that don't happen at all.

39:16Craig Mazin:Yeah, I don't know the specific details, but I'm going to go off of Soderbergh's quote here. Is this kosher per the NBA? I mean, Nick says my understanding is that unpaid writing like this shouldn't be happening. Correct, unpaid writing like this shouldn't be happening. But as I said earlier, it is a nearly impossible standard to hit in the world. And sometimes it does hue to a writer's benefit to bend that a little bit. But in this case, what does sometimes happen is there's going to be a movie. So there's a big machine like Marvel or Star Wars or DC, who knows? And they say there's going to be a movie.

39:53Craig Mazin:And the movie is going to be based on this thing. And you come in as somebody like Soderbergh and you've got a producer and you've got a writer and you guys pitch it. And they're like, you guys are going to do the thing. But the higher ups aren't going to let us do the thing unless we know what the thing is and that it fits in with these other things. And so suddenly you become, and maybe they're even like, it's happening. We just got to work out the rights, something like that. And then one day someone gets fired or someone changes their mind and that thing's not a thing anymore. And it's gone.

40:22Craig Mazin:It's like you were trying to get this job really, really assiduously. And then they just eliminated that office and there is no job. And that can be incredibly frustrating. I don't know the specifics of what happens here. What I would say is, did Soderbergh convince a writer to engage in fan fiction on the hope will lead to a future payday? No, I don't think somebody like Steven Soderbergh just blithely engages in something like that. There must have been an understanding that then became undone. But I don't know the specifics. All I can say is that the person that I feel the most for is Rebecca Blunt because she's identified as the writer.

41:00Yeah, for sure.

41:01John August:All right, let's answer some listener questions. We have one from Nicholas. I'm writing on behalf of a French Screenwriters Association.

41:09Craig Mazin:Each year, we award a trophy to a person who has significantly contributed to supporting and fostering emerging screenwriters. The name of this trophy is a schmuck. A reference to the off-quoted anecdote that Harry Warner referred to screenwriters as schmucks with Underwoods. Recently, one of our American members, who is Jewish, raised a concern that the use of the term schmuck in this context may carry anti-Semitic implications. According to this concern, Warner may have used the term specifically toward Jewish writers and therefore the expression, and by extension our trophy's name, could be rooted in an anti-Semitic attitude.

41:44Craig Mazin:We've tried to research the historical background of the anecdote, but have not been able to find reliable sources clarifying whether the phrase was directed specifically at Jewish writers or was instead a more general, if dismissive, remark about screenwriters. Given both of your deep knowledge on Hollywood history and culture, we're hoping you might have insight into the historical accuracy and context of this expression. Our intention's always been affectionate and ironic, meant to highlight the often underappreciated position of writers in the industry. However, we want to ensure that we're not perpetuating something potentially harmful or insensitive.

42:17Craig Mazin:So any guidance or perspective you could share would be greatly appreciated. Well, as the Jew, not that, you know, it's always a weird thing when you're asked to make some sort of decision on behalf of your people because I'm not the king of what is or is not anti-Semitic. But schmuck, specifically as a Yiddish term, means penis. It's a slang for, it's like saying dick.

42:43John August:Yeah, and generally implies the sense of an idiot or a dummy. A jerk, a nobody.

42:50Craig Mazin:My dad called me a schmuck many, many times. Anybody on the road that he wasn't driving the way he wanted would be called a schmuck. Harry Warner was Jewish. I don't think Harry Warner was saying schmucks with Underwoods because he was being anti-Semitic. I think he was saying schmucks with Underwoods because that's what a guy like that would have said. And I personally don't agree that this term has anti-Semitic implications. Anyone can be a schmuck. More often than not, my parents would call not Jewish people schmucks. So it was, I personally don't see it. I think they're using it as it should be used.

43:31Craig Mazin:It's a tricky thing. Everybody is, it's very kind that people are concerned and doing their diligence. I cannot render a final decision. All I can say is I'm fine with it.

43:42John August:So related and put a little off to the side is it feels kind of appropriative. So I don't use the word schmuck. I sort of know the word schmuck, but I would never use the word schmuck because I associate it. but that is not a word of my culture for me to use. And so for a French screenwriter association to use it feels a little bit weird to me. And that's the only vibe I get off of this.

44:03Craig Mazin:If there weren't the expression schmucks with Underwoods, what I kind of feel is that in a very sweet sort of way, they just didn't really necessarily know how Jewish that term was, you know? And so they're like, this is a fun self-deprecating term that Harry Warner used to describe screenwriters. Why don't we? I think it's innocent and I think it's fine. If that phrase didn't exist, that might be a little odd to just suddenly say that. But if you called somebody a schmuck, I would be pretty amused, actually. I don't think, I mean, you know, you can, it's fine. I'll give you a pass.

44:41John August:I'll give you a pass. So I'm looking back, each year we award a trophy to a person who has significantly contributed to the supporting and fostering of emerging screenwriters. and that actually it's more of a mensch though yeah

44:52Craig Mazin:that's the thing the one real problem I have is that they're schmucks are assholes so why would you like it's not they're kind of misusing it

45:03John August:yeah I would be okay if like that's my bigger concern I think I just feel like they could find a better term for it honestly like a French term for it there's gotta be something that is specific to what they're doing

45:13Craig Mazin:if they wanna give it a little bit of an American Hollywood spin mensch would be

45:18John August:mensch is a better word for it It's a perfectly great word. It describes what they're trying. And it's also a Yiddish term.

45:23Craig Mazin:I mean, it's also, it's a German word as well. Yeah, a good guy. A schmuck is not really, you don't want to win a schmuck.

45:30John August:Yeah, and it's a weird thing. It's like, I have no problem using the word mensch and I will actually use the word mensch because I know what it means, but it's also a positive thing. And so it's like appropriating a positive word for a thing feels different than appropriating a negative word for a person.

45:44Craig Mazin:Yeah, no, I think so. And Yiddish as a language is dying anyway. So I'm all in favor of people. From my point of view, I wouldn't even call it appropriation. Just keep it alive, you know? Like, let's keep the spirit of the... It's such an expressive language. My parents spoke it and with my grandparents. And so I was raised listening to it and I don't have it. It's gone from me and it's going bye-bye pretty fast. So to that extent, let's keep the words going. But it's just not, yeah, I don't think it's anti-Semitic personally. I just think that it's...

46:19John August:It's a little off target. It's just off target in this case.

46:23Craig Mazin:Save it for, okay, the person that failed the screenwriting community this year should get the schmuck aboard. Exactly.

46:30John August:Yeah. All right. Jane wrote in.

46:33Craig Mazin:I am currently a development intern at a production company headed by a very successful A-list actor, and I hope to be a working screenwriter in the future. I'm happy to report I love my internship. I get paid, it's in person, so I'm connecting with members of the company, and I even get to pitch IP and ideas to the company's president on a regular basis, and will be pitching to the actor at the end of the internship. I have an idea I think would really work for this company. I floated the basic premise and was met with a good amount of interest. However, some people have told me I shouldn't just give this idea away, and I should write it myself.

47:06Craig Mazin:I love this idea. I'm invested in it, and I want to be as involved as humanly possible in it, I'm conflicted. If I go forward with this myself, I feel like most likely it becomes a sample for me. If I pitch it to the company, and let's pretend best case scenario, it moves into development, would I likely get cut off there or would I?

47:25John August:What should I do? Should I write it, pitch it, both? Yeah, Jane's in a real dilemma there. I can feel what she's at. So the fact that she does want to be a screenwriter is important because she could theoretically write this herself. but she's working as an intern at a company. It's good experience to sort of learn how to pitch to the movie star. That feels good as well. I was talking to a colleague who works for an A-list actress and had an idea and he got it. He convinced, he said, should we do this? Like, yes. And they paired her up with another movie star and they sold the idea and it was great and he's now working.

48:02John August:It can work and that would be a good experience for you to see like how stuff happens. I doubt they're going to just like steal your idea, but it's a question of like, what would your actual involvement be with the project if it were to move forward? Craig, what's your instinct for Jane?

48:16Craig Mazin:Well, I'm always wondering who these people are. Some people have told me that I shouldn't just give this idea away. No one's giving anything away. There's not giving away. I would say to Jane, it sounds like you're so invested in this that you should write it. if you write it as a original screenplay the next thing you can do is give it to this company to say are you interested in this original screenplay i've written now if the deal that you're under as an intern you got to check the fine print here is that they own the contents of your brain from wake up to go to sleep then you got an issue but if you have it carved out so you know the things you work on during the day belong to them, the things you work on at night belong to you, then I think you would say, hey, company president, I wrote a script, read it.

49:10Craig Mazin:And if they like it, then they have a real decision to make. And if they don't, you have a script that you can go sell to somebody else. Either way, no one's giving anything away. I do worry a little bit about a pitch in the sense that they could, if it's a pitch and nothing else, then they need a writer and they may then say, we're not going to hire you to write this.

49:28John August:Yeah. So I don't think she should expect that she's going to pitch it to the company. They're going to say, oh, you should write it. They're going to say, great, come up with a list of writers to do this idea. And that is a reality there. Yeah. The only other thing I would remind Jane is you have this good idea, which probably came into being because you were working with this actor, but you also have a lot of other really good ideas too. And so this isn't the only good idea. And this idea is percolating in the top because you have an opportunity there with this actor. my instinct would probably be to pitch it and just sort of see how hype it goes and see what happens with it and just like maybe kind of let this one go a little bit and just sort of see what happens with it because you'll write many other things.

50:08Craig Mazin:I feel so bad. She's like, should I write it? Pitch it? And I'm like, write it. And you're like, pitch it. Yeah, I think they're both good choices, honestly. They are. I think the most important thing, Jane, is to not worry about this notion of giving it away. Yeah. And I don't know, people get real tight about this stuff early on. They get like, you know, everyone thinks they know stuff. Nobody knows.

50:28John August:Yeah.

50:29Craig Mazin:Somebody once said. Somebody once said. Nobody knows anything.

50:32John August:Yeah. Whoever that person was. That was a gold man. That was a gold man who said that. It's time for one cool thing. Mine is a physical thing. It is a running belt. So I'm about to run another half marathon. And usually when I run, I keep my phone in my pocket and it's fine. It sort of swings around a little bit, but it's fine. I'm sort of used to it. but on longer races, I also have to have like gel packs for like, you know, calories along the way and there's other stuff to hold on to. And so I got this running belt, which is like a four inch wide piece of fabric that has slots in it that you can like slide your phone in and slide the gel packs in.

51:11John August:And actually is much better than sort of keeping my phone in my pocket. And I've really enjoyed running with it. So it just keeps stuff centered on your body and the stuff from moving around so much. I liked it. It's like a$30 little belt and it's made my running life better. So the Flip Belt Classic Running Belt, if you are a runner. All right. There's no adjustment to it, so you have to actually measure to see what's the right size is, but it's worked out really well for me.

51:34Craig Mazin:Awesome. My one cool thing is it's fairly localized. It's for those folks who are up here with me in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. You know, I love an escape room. Oh, yeah. But I also have a puzzle hunt and we don't get many of those around. and there's a group up here called Secret City and they run a number of events. And it's a little bit of like an improv theater. So in this one that I went to, it's called The Wedding Party. You go to a wedding and they serve you dinner at a restaurant and you meet characters and they interact with you, move around, and then there are puzzles. Right.

52:13Craig Mazin:And I had such a great time. They were really good and fun and engaging and the group, you know, that I was with, I don't think they were used to, you know, professional puzzle. They were like, the woman who ran and walked over at one point because she was like, I just want to be clear, there's like another hour left. And we're like, yeah. And she goes, but like an hour because we were basically done. And we were like, no, it's cool. It's totally cool. We're having a great time. We were like, you know, talk to the actors and have fun and interact. And it was just a fun evening. And they have a number of events.

52:51Craig Mazin:So I think the one that I went to, which was the wedding party has been extended now through into possibly May. And they have, I guess, another one that they run up here that I'm going to go to. But if you're up here in BC, check them out.

53:06John August:And Drew, was I remembering correctly that you're headed to a murder mystery tonight?

53:10Craig Mazin:Tonight, yeah. Oh, nice. We all get roles. So I forget my guy's name. Oh, you've already forgotten your guy's name.

53:18John August:Well, he's internalized this so much that it's actually just a part of him now. Or what if it was like a memento sort of like for your mystery party? You have no idea who you are or if you killed somebody.

53:28Craig Mazin:Why am I even here? Is there like a company that runs it or is it just your friends? My friends have gone through a company. It's in the party full, which is always just such a nightmare. Party full suddenly is part of my life now. There was no party full and now there's all party full. Where did party full come from? It costs money too, doesn't it?

53:47John August:Partyful to send out an invite on it? I think it doesn't. I think they're just mining your data. I think it's actually controversial because it's like the Palantir people.

53:57Craig Mazin:Oh, fair enough. Or is that the other service? Well, there's Evite, which I'm used to. Yeah, it's not, no, no, yeah. So then now there's Partyful. I'm like, where did this even come from? Why was Evite falling down on the job?

54:09John August:No. Apple has invites as well, but no one uses them. No one uses them. Well, now we live in the Partyful era. So tell us what you found, Drew.

54:17Craig Mazin:So it's Eclipse 54, and I am playing Reggie Rich, the mysterious businessman. Reggie's presence adds a touch of roughness to the venue.

54:26John August:All right. I'm not sure about this casting. I got to be honest. Drew is a coarse businessman. Yeah, it's well cast.

54:31Craig Mazin:I don't like this casting. It's the rough part.

54:37John August:You're going to have to work there. You don't think I can be rough? This man went to Scottish... What academy did you go to? Yeah, Royal Scottish Academy. Royal Scottish Academy.

54:45Craig Mazin:I've been jumped. Right, exactly. You can't stand in fights. I've been beaten up. I've been beaten up. No, no, no. No, you're a victim.

54:55John August:Yeah. That is our show for this week. Script News is produced by Drew Marquardt. Victim. And edited by Matthew Schlele. Hero. Our outro this week is by Eric Pearson. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask at johnaugust.com. That is also the place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today. You will find transcripts at johnaugust.com along with a sign-up for a weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing. This script notes book is out and available wherever you buy books. Thank you for keeping buying the books. Oh, how's that going?

55:25John August:Our numbers are still trucking along. Okay. It's really nice.

55:27Craig Mazin:So, you know, like I think we wrote something that will stand the test of time.

55:32John August:I certainly hope so.

55:33Craig Mazin:At least from a color point of view.

55:35John August:Yeah, it's bright. I hope it doesn't fade in the sunlight. We'll see a year from now. I think the sun fades in the light of the book. Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah. You'll find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube. Just search for Script Notes and give us a follow. You can find us on Instagram at Script Notes Podcast. We have t-shirts and hoodies and drinkware. You'll find all of those at Cotton Bureau. You'll find the show notes with links to all the things we talked about today in the email you get each week as a premium subscriber. Thank you again to our premium subscribers. You make it possible for us to do this each and every week.

56:06John August:You can sign up to become one at scriptnotes.net where you get all those backup episodes and bonus segments like the one we're about to record on law enforcement and depictions on screen. Craig and Drew, thank you for a great episode.

56:17Craig Mazin:Thank you, John.