732 - Something Very Bad is Going to Happen

18:27John August:Right. Did you know that it was going to be a family wedding at an isolated house? Yes. Okay. That part, yes. Initially, it was Portia, the sister's wedding. Oh, interesting. Rachel was just going to meet this family for the first time. and then in the development process became sort of more streamlined for it to be Rachel's wedding. So, I mean, I think the visual sort of the snowy wedding was something that was there from the beginning, but I definitely figure things out in the writing. And so I'm one of these writers where I'm like, I'm being taken on the journey. I don't like outlining. It's really hard.

19:11in the professional world to be someone who's like, I don't do that. How do I pitch something when I don't know the character yet?

19:19John August:Yeah, and so you and I are a lot more like that. And so it can be tough. And so I really want to fast forward to talking with how you work with a room when you are a person who's intuitively sort of going your own way. So talking about you have this idea, this snowy wedding, we have this family. What is the first shape of it? Who are you telling it to? How does it become a thing you're starting to write a script for? So I came up with the idea in 2020. It was my 27th birthday. Nice. And that's when I came up with the idea. And I was in a writer's room that was pretty time-consuming. So I didn't have a lot of time to write and focus on this.

19:59So I would just write emails to myself. And I do a lot of thinking while I'm driving or taking a shower or walking. So I would just write these emails to myself. and they were themes or scenes or dialogue. It was anything really.

20:14John August:Would you gather them together intentionally? I mean, it was just like one email thread. And I would just shoot off these little things. Love it. Character names, title, like anything. Yeah. And then once I had time to really sit down and figure it out, it was like a year later. And so I had all these emails and I just sat and wrote. I knew at that point it was going to be a road trip. And I just went along for the ride. And I didn't really, I think at one point I'd been like, they find a baby in a car. So, okay, how do we get there? Yeah. And in the initial version of the pilot, you don't meet the family.

20:57Yeah. And then that was another thing that was kind of, the system came in and said, you can't have a pilot where you aren't meeting all the characters. So I started talking about the show as like, it's a horror show about marrying the wrong person. This always happens to me. I pitch ideas to, you know, producers and execs. And there's always a like, that's not going to work. And so I write the script and present it with that to back myself up. It's execution dependent. This is happening to me right now as I'm pitching my movie and going, I should just not pitch it and just write it.

21:36John August:Yeah, it is tough. And I will say that over the course of my career, there's definitely been times where it's like, why am I on my ninth pitch for this thing where it's like, I could have just written it by now and shown them what the thing is. Yeah, it's that tough balance. I mean, it's a risk, right? Because you could write it and no one could want it. I've done that too. Which I don't think is a waste. Because at least you have the thing. You have the perfect version of the thing that you have done. So you've written the script now. How does it end up at Netflix? What were the other conversations?

22:06I pitched the show to, I don't know, maybe 12 producers. And we ended up having enough interest to split territories, which I think is rare in TV. You know, I pitched to the Duffers. They had not read the script. And their response was like, this seems like a movie. I don't know. All your comps are movies. Like, I don't know.

22:27John August:You can get why they say that because, as I said, I didn't know that it was a series as I started watching. It's like, oh, I get where this movie is going. And I was like, oh, no, this is a series and I'm on the wrong. So I understand that instinct, but ultimately they came around. Yeah, well, then they read the script and it was like the next day they were like, we want to do this. Great. They, you know, had a deal at Netflix and so it was clear that I would go. And then they had a little success at Netflix too. Netflix does like them. Yes. and they had they had one other show that they were producing but neither had been made so it was a it was a good time and it feels like a good fit it's a very different show than Stranger Things but it's not you know completely different not out of the wheelhouse totally yeah so I was honored that they were interested and I was a big fan of Stranger Things from when it first dropped so I was nervous you know to meet them but they're lovely and then I pitched I had two other producers that were interested that we took to all the streamers.

23:30Right. Except for HBO, who didn't want to hear the pitch, which is fine. So we went around and pitched, and we had a couple offers, and it sort of came down to Netflix and Apple, and Netflix had a better deal. That's right.

23:44John August:That's awesome. So you've written a pilot. My instinct is that Netflix is reading this, and they'll say, we love this and there's things we know about sort of how stuff needs to work. And so like, we gotta meet the family. We gotta do these things. I would say watching the show, I'm like, wow, this thing seems really expensive and there's no standing sets. And at the very end of the first episode, we get to like, oh, this is a standing set and it's gorgeous, but we're gonna be on that set for a long time, which is TV, which is great. Yeah. Yeah, which is terrific. But you had staffed on a show, but you never run a show.

24:15John August:You'd never done all these things. What were the things that looking back now, if you could, you know, magically email yourself to let you know, like, these are the things you need to keep in mind. Oh, man. Haley, what would they be? Running a show is so hard. Yeah. And I was told that. I was like, I'm ready. I'm ready to run a show. Put me in. And I was warned. You know, it's interesting because the Duffers protected me from having, like, someone come in with more experience and because that can be a tricky situation which was fantastic but also I I was thrown into the fire a bit and uh had to figure these things out on my own and I mean I think having a really strong north star for what you're making is so important because the whole process is just other people coming in and sharing their ideas, which is incredible, but you can lose sight of what the show is.

25:16And that's another reason why I like to write something first, because I need to give it a spine. I have a thing I say where it's like, if I'm telling you my ideas too early, it's like a baby. It's like a floppy baby.

25:31John August:Yeah. And someone's going to come in and put their sticks in my baby. Yeah. And so I got to make sure the baby can walk before anyone else comes in and tries to push it over. I've seen your show and I know that stick figure people are dangerous signs of trouble. So for sure, this resonates so strongly with what I was doing because my first show, I had done Go and then I sold a show DC for the WB Network. And my equivalent of the Duffer Brothers was Dick Wolf, who was not a caring, generous person and collaborator. And we were trying to shoot the show on stages in Toronto, locations in DC and Post and writing in Los Angeles.

26:09John August:Wow. You can guess how well that worked. Yeah. Not at all. And like you, I didn't know what I didn't know. Maybe you were more confident and could ask the questions and sort of get the answers you needed. But I had imposter syndrome and was afraid to sort of tell people what I actually needed. And it was tough. It's really hard. I had a great producer, Andrea Sperling, who comes from the indie film world, who was with me on the ground in Toronto. Good. Every single meeting I was doing was the first time for me. So go into a production meeting, things would happen. Afterwards, I'd be like, is this normal?

26:42Is that normal? Should I be worrying about this? And because I felt so confident in the story, that's really all I needed. And I knew I was well-supported. And that's advice the deafers gave me was like, you're going to get all these notes and you have to feel confident about every creative decision that you make because you're the one who has to stand behind it. That was what I did. And yeah, it's challenging to enter a space for the first time and be like, I'm the leader.

27:13John August:Yeah. And I was worried people wouldn't respect me. That was my biggest fear. I feel the same. But for the most part, they did. That's good. Yeah. Before you're starting shooting in Toronto, you were writing the whole season. Yeah. And so you're a person who likes to write things yourself and I'm sure you did a ton of writing, but you also had some other people working. Was it a challenge to get used to working with other writers on a thing to discuss? I have to imagine it was. Again, sending yourself that email back in time, what are things that you learned along the way? Yeah, I mean, I think having a strong group of writers with different skill sets was very helpful.

27:52I had a married couple in the writer's room that were both non-traditional TV writers in that they were chaotic and liked to blow things up and go, I know we just broke these two episodes, but like we should flip them. And I loved that because I think I put my writers through a bit of hell. There are a lot of things I would do differently next time. I was kind of chaotic in running the room and that I was just like, Like, it was so much harder than I expected because I am someone who figures things out on the page where I would, like, see the outline and just go, like, I don't think so. And then I would make it everyone else's problem and come back in and go, okay, we need to change this.

28:40So it was great to have a team of people who were down for that. I don't know how to do it differently and end up where we ended up because you kind of have to go through this process of going down like every path just to make sure that.

29:00John August:There's something interesting right there. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I, and I felt armed with that when I got to prep and, and on set and talking to actors because they would have ideas that were a path I went down and I get to say, well, I tried that and here's why it didn't work. So yeah, I mean, it was very helpful to have, I find it helpful to have a lot of other people bringing different ideas in, but again, it comes back to that like North Star and knowing that's a cool idea, but it's not this show. So you had your producer on set with you in Toronto. Did you have anybody from the writing room with you?

29:34John August:No. In Toronto? Yeah. Would that have been helpful? Yes. Yeah. I can imagine. There's got to be times. Yes. Were you block shooting? Were you doing an episode at a time? How did it work? Oh, God, it was insane. We shot 72 days. Oh, that's not very much for eight episodes. Eight episodes, no. 72 days, we were almost always shooting two units at once. Yeah, that's where it gets rough. So it was like, you know, we were prepping episode five while shooting two and three at the same time with three different directors. And I was just running back and forth between everything. It was chaotic, but we got everything somehow.

30:10I don't know how. Good planning, I guess. And I was just writing the whole time. That was another thing. I was told that that's what would happen and I didn't believe it. I was like, no, the scripts are in good shape. We had 20 weeks to write the show, I left the writer's room with, and casting started during the writer's room, I've left the room with six first drafts. The pilot had already been written and rewritten many times. Six first drafts and no finale. And I was like alone in Toronto rewriting every episode just to do the network notes, like let alone production needs and actors' opinions and directors.

30:54And so that was insane. And I'm writing the finale while we're shooting.

30:59John August:I would say that based on my conversations with showrunners, that's really common and yet not a great way to make the best thing you want to make. Yeah. And it ends with a lot of exhaustion that sort of comes with that. Yeah. Let's answer some questions, but I think some of those questions may sort of tie us back into things we were just talking about. Do you want to start with Kerry? Yeah. I'm currently in my first ever development process with a spec I wrote. I attached producers and did essentially a page one rewrite of the script per their notes. Now they have pages and pages of more notes on the rewrite.

31:31John August:Sometimes I feel like since I'm a younger writer, I'm getting more notes than someone older or more established might. Have you found this to be true in your early days? And how do you not lose confidence in your work during this process? It's not that I remember it. Like, it still happens. It's just like it's being able to recognize that, okay, this is a note that it's really important to them that it actually needs to be addressed. and this is just a thing they're saying, or they're diagnosing something that is not working for them, but they're trying to provide a solution that's not the right solution.

32:00Right.

32:01John August:How are you feeling? Yeah, I definitely understand that. I got notes on the show that mostly in the edit where I would get notes that were like, you can't do this, or a note about an editing thing that I was like, oh, I'm subverting that. Like, that's intentional, but because you see me as someone who doesn't have experience, you think you're explaining something to me. So I get that. It's frustrating. I think I have had to learn how to handle the politics of seeing the bigger notes, trying to address the ones that feel true to me, and you don't have to take their ideas. You have to diagnose the note behind the note and then defend why you made the choice you made.

32:49And I think that people become more confident in you if you have a strong opinion about, you know, I hear you. This is how I'm understanding your note. This is how I addressed it. Yeah. And they'll relax and understand that you know what you're doing.

33:05John August:Yeah, what you just said, the I hear you. Sometimes they just want to know that they actually, the message got through and they actually understand what they're communicating. And also, this is how, this is what I'm doing and this is why I'm doing what I'm doing. and finding the right ways to do that and if that makes sense is tough. And it's, there's a gender component, there's an age component, there's all that stuff is true. And so you and I can both be hit by the same note and it's going to come, we could say the same thing, it's going to read differently based on who we are. Totally. And I think having a relationship with your producers or studio exec where you're calling them.

33:38When we were getting notes on cuts, Netflix would just send emails and I was like, let's talk on the phone. and you can kind of get through a bit of the understanding of where the note's coming from easier if you have a real conversation about it.

33:53John August:I was just on a kickoff call on a project today and they asked like, do you like to see written notes or have a phone call? And I said, written first, but then a phone call. It's really whatever works for you. And it was good that they asked. That's smart. I had a question about casting because this is your first time casting. I love casting. Did you love casting? Yes. Yeah. It's so fun. It's so much fun because it's all possibilities and nothing's permanent and it's just, you get to play, which is great. You have these talented actors come in and you see like, oh, it's especially gratifying when sort of no one gets it right and then suddenly you get a person gets it right.

34:25John August:It's like, oh, it's not crazy. That line actually does make sense. It's just that the right person has to embody it. I thought Camilla Momoroni is fantastic and everyone must note that she does, the Rachel seems very much your energy and it was just a really good fit. I hope it was a great experience doing that. Yeah, it's so fun. funny. I have told her that I'm going to blame her for this, but I met her and she was like, oh, I'm going to copy your look for the character. And I was like, okay, it's not based on me, but go ahead. I was a fan of her since never going back. I thought she was so great.

35:01And she's a very naturalistic actor. She brought so much to the character and she's very smart and hardworking. I'm lucky that she did such a great job. And I was in the edit, like, just, oh, thank God, I don't have to.

35:15John August:Yeah, you're not cutting around a person. Yeah. Yeah, I've been there, cutting around a performance. And it's tough. Yeah. Yeah. How did you like being on set? And what was your experience being on set? Where was it? Great that you were there. And when did you say, okay, I know what I can walk away. Like, tell me about that. I think being on set for the, you know, setups and rehearsal and the early parts of figuring out a scene was really great. And I enjoyed being there and helping to answer questions. I am also a director and it was hard for me to not be able to do that on the show. So then there's a certain point where it's like, I don't think I'm helping by sitting here and like whispering things to the director.

35:59her like she I'm gonna let her do her thing and you got really good directors on that show too

36:03John August:but you're always gonna do things differently and so you know it sounds like you're there for blocking making sure like it's the right scene that it's the right thing and you probably had tone meetings before everything too so you know what the thing is but like you don't need to be there for all the coverage if if you know what the scene is totally there were some I think like Like the finale, I spent more time on set and scenes where I felt like there's a lot of layers here and I want to make sure that it's all being communicated. But yeah, I mean, I was also just doing so much writing during production.

36:38John August:You need to actually do that stuff. Yeah. I have a question here from Danielle about splitting scenes that feels right. I'm writing a script where the first half of the film, we see what we think is happening. And in the second half of the film, we see what's really happening. For some scenes, I have the beginnings in the first half and we don't get the true ending until the second half of the film. How can I make it clear in the script that this is a continuation of a previous scene? Can I just write that in the script or is there a specific terminology for that? Yeah, you split some stuff up.

37:06John August:You made it clear in what we just read that things are going to be divided. I think she should just say what she's doing. People try to be too clever or there's some sort of magic lingo. Say what you're doing and just trust that people are actually reading your script. I agree. I think always go for clarity in what—I'm big in audience understanding. I got made fun of in a writer's room for always being like, well, the audience thinks this, or the audience this. It's like, oh, Haley speaks for the audience. You kind of speak for the audience. Of course. So I'm really—when I'm writing, I am thinking about the reader, and I'm thinking about what the feeling is of the scene, and what you should feel watching the scene.

37:46So I write a lot of things that never going to translate to screen, but I think help the reader and the actor and the director, if it's not me, figure out the tone and what you should take away from the scene. So there's like a line in the script where I think Nikki says to Rachel, everything's going to be okay or nothing bad is going to happen. And there's a line that's like, well, that's the title of the show. I like to have fun with that. But yeah, I think just be completely clear what you're doing and people won't be confused. In your script, in the PDF we got, the word blood is in red every time we see it.

38:23John August:A very specific choice. Watching the show, it isn't going to show up, but that was a choice you made. Tell me about that. I just wanted to make it clear the blood is very significant in this show. And I wanted the reader to be aware of that. When I was talking about, you know, the look of the show, I wanted no red except for blood. Yeah. Which actually I, in part, hired my costume designer, Courtney Mitchell, who did a fantastic job. Because in her interview, she pitched a bunch of red. And I was like, that's really bold to go against what I said. And so Rachel does wear a bit of red. But yeah, I wanted to highlight that.

39:07So I didn't end up keeping that in the rest of the show while we were getting into production drafts and everything because my revisions were in red. Yeah, exactly.

39:17John August:It's very confusing. But I did do it in the finale. I don't know. You got to have fun with the writing. Make an enjoyable read and people will actually read it. That's a secret. Yeah. All right. Let's jump ahead to our one cool things. My one cool thing is I'll link to a blog post by Daniel Frank. He calls it the five babkas thing. basically it's where you have a tasting like a party where you just do like a tasting where the idea is like you're bringing like five examples of a thing and everyone's going to taste them and try them and discuss through things. And we've done similar things with like Austrian white wines or anything like it's just a good excuse to get people together and sometimes you just need like a point of focus.

39:53John August:I went to a birthday party where they got all the hot sauces from Hot Ones and a bunch of chicken wings and everyone just did the Hot Ones challenge which was fun. So just as an idea for like an excuse to get people together Yeah. It's like you're going to try five different things within and everyone have a point of discussion. It doesn't have to be a wine tasting. It just can be anything. So I'll link to this post, but just any good excuse for getting people together, I think is a fun one. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I want to do that. Yeah, we'll do that. What kind of things would you want to sample or have people compare and contrast?

40:23Running the show gave me celiac.

40:25John August:Oh, no. I was told by a showrunner, you're going to get an autoimmune disease. Yeah, and you're right. So I think maybe like gluten-free pastries. Gluten-free pastries. Around LA, I'm like new to it. So I don't really know what the good ones are. But there's amazing ones in Los Angeles. And so in your gluten-free quest, there is La Provence Bakery on Olympic has a gluten-free chocolate chip cookie, which is the best chocolate chip cookie you've had in your entire life. That's amazing. And we actually did a tasting here on Scrape Notes once. We did cookies. We did a cookie tasting, a cookie challenge, and it was fun.

40:57John August:It's great. Yeah. And again, things that aren't alcohol-based is also a great idea too. I got some whiskey from a bunch of different companies who are trying to woo me right now. Yeah, sure. I did a blind taste test with some friends comparing which company gave me the best whiskey. Restaurants, too, will get the beer flight or the tequila flight, so you can actually taste some different things. It's like, I don't want a full drink of that thing. Just a sip to see what the difference is. Great, I love it. Yeah. Cool. Any one cool thing to share with our group? So I've been listening to the radio.

41:32The real radio. The real radio.

41:33John August:Okay, so tell me about the real radio. Well, I only listen to one thing. I mean, I listen to KCRW. I'm trying to become more worldly. So I put on the radio. Yeah. And I discovered there's a show on KCRW called Freaks Only, which is like every night, I think. Or maybe it's only Wednesdays. I don't know exactly. But I put it on and it's just like weird music for Freaks Only. I tried to put a song from it in the show. Yeah. And everyone hated it. It was like me and my editor were both like, yeah. Well, what's the song? Because I'm sure I'm going to love it. It's called Atomic Wave Dance. All right.

42:10It's just like a weird electronic jazz song. All right. I don't remember who it's by, but it's great. And so I put it in the show and then the producers were like, is that song like how attached are you? And Netflix was like, I don't know about that song, which made me like it more. Of course. But I lost the battle. But I love discovering music via specifically that show, but things like that. I listen to a lot of obscure music. My brother had a radio show called Abstractions that doesn't exist anymore, but it's something that my brother and I have nothing in common except for our music taste.

42:50So I will send him a song from that show and be like, this is a very you song.

42:56John August:Well, watching the show, I did Shazam at one point. It was a Paul Anka song. Yeah. And I loved it. Was that always scripted in there? No. How did you find that? My music supervisor, Tiffany, it plays a role in the show. And I don't remember what it was initially, but she found that song and I didn't know who Paul Anka was. But there's a song in episode four, You Are the Blood by the Castanets that was written into the end of the pilot. Nice. originally. I listen to music while I write and I make playlists for every project. And I love the part of the edit where you're placing music. It's so fun.

43:36John August:That is our show for this week. Scriptions is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Cilelli. Our outro this week is very appropriately by Gloom Canyon. If you have an outro, you can send a link to ask at johnawgles.com. That is 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 a weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing. I'm realizing, Haley, the posts you read on johnaugust.com are still there. Oh, wow. Everything you've ever read on johnaugust.com is still there and it's searchable and accessible.

44:06John August:Amazing. Yeah, that's just wild though. The Script Notes book is available wherever you buy books. You'll find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube, including probably clips from this. We're recording some video on this? We'll see. Yeah, why not? You'll find those on YouTube. Just search for Script Notes and give us a follow. You'll find us on Instagram at ScriptNotesPodcast. We have t-shirts and hoodies and drinkwear. You'll find those at Cotton Bureau. You can find the show notes with links to all the things we talked about in the email you get each week as a premium subscriber. Thank you to all our premium subscribers.

44:32John August:You make it possible for us to do this each and every week. You can sign up to become one at scriptnotes.net where you get all those back episodes and bonus segments like the one we're about to record on Red Herrings and Mr. X. Hey, Lizzie Boston, an absolute pleasure to talk with you. Congratulations again on your show. It's just a delight. something very bad is going to happen and it's something very delightful is going to happen if you've watched your show. Thanks.