736 - The Devil You Know

18:37John August:Who actually ultimately came from Fox Searchlight. So David Greenbaum came from Fox Searchlight, and I did not know him because I don't, I haven't made indies like that. And so I really didn't know him. David and I got on the call, and I had like a six-page outline, that I had pitched to Meryl, and I pitched it to everybody, Greenbaum and Steve, and Greenbaum just like, I just saw the light in his eye of like, this is going to be huge. I thought maybe this could be good and we could squeak out a little double with this, but it hadn't occurred to me that this could be huge. And I have to say that that, Meryl's belief in it always, from the first movie, Meryl thought it was going to be a hit.

19:14So that's always buoyed me. But seeing in Greenbaum's eyes, who had just gotten there and was sort of in charge of like bringing in new stuff. And he was like, this is going to be huge. And I would sometimes think like, well, his opinion is great. His story notes were great. His ability to get out of our way when needed and to pitch things in as needed. And Steve, I've known for a long time, so that was very comfortable. But here was like a brand new person who really like had a vision for what the movie could be in the marketplace. Because you can really only have the vision for what you wanted to be creatively as a writer.

19:50I mean, you can, but that's not really what we do. That's not really what we do. He had a vision for what it could be in the marketplace, which is... He realized the vision. I mean, again, I walked through JFK and just thought, That's right. Does the Devil Weir product to own JFK?

20:05John August:Yeah. Well, I think it's so crucial is that the executive in that position has to be able to communicate with their marketing and PR people like, is this a thing that we can sell into the world? And clearly it was. Like every part of that was mediagenic in just the right ways. His boss, which is Alan Bergman at the time, he came to set and he said something to me, which is essentially, we're going to knock your socks off when you see what we can do, which is true because I never experienced that. And then we had a young executive, this woman, Sarah Shepard, who was so in the tank for this, I can't even, I mean, we laugh about this, but as you guys know, I'm quite relentless.

20:41And there was a day when I needed to get her to approve something, and I called her 22 times because it was four in the morning here. And I've worked with people who really would have taken my head off if I'd done that. And she was like, oh, my God, thank God you called me. And I'm sorry I didn't pick up sooner. At 4 a.m.? At 4 a.m. So she was so – they were just very dedicated and had an idea of what it could be. And I think the rest of us were like, great.

21:07John August:Well, let's wind back to what it could be because you say you have a six-page outline for what you pitched to Meryl and then what you pitched to Fox slash Disney. How close is what you pitched to the movie you ended up writing? I went back and reread it this week. It's quite close because it was very thematic. It wasn't super story-driven. Is this a document you're willing to share with us? No. No, not a bit. No, no. I might be able to – maybe I'll ask them a page of it. Describe it. page of it. What's in it? It was like, these are the times we're in. This is what these characters would be experiencing.

21:40And because it's so dire, it's going to be funny. Yeah, okay. It's the direness that made me laugh. This is important for our friends listening, because a lot of people who listen to the podcast are going to be or have been in positions where they need to pitch things to people. And I think what the cottage screenwriting advice industry teaches is that what you pitch is plot. And I don't know how many times I have said to people, and I pitch contests aside where you have two minutes or whatever. What happens scene to scene is not relevant. What is the point of this effing movie? What is it really about?

22:19Why would it matter to anyone? Why would people get in their cars, drive, park, walk into a theater? Right. And that's what you do. You don't need to obsess over every little dinky detail of how one scene gets to another. No, and in fact, when people are pitching me, I have the attention span of a gnat. I always have, even before the internet. And I'm very easily confused and dumb. And so when someone's pitching me something and it's extremely detailed, I'm like, Yeah, of course. What? And I can't scan it for meaning. And especially because these are not plot-heavy movies. Like, you're scanning it for theme.

22:53And that's what I had was like, this is where it kind of boiled down to this idea that she is, Andy is going back into the lion's den because she's got reduced circumstances. She's going back to a workplace that she doesn't love. Again, everyone in Hollywood has been like, well, I guess I'll go work for this guy. It wasn't great the first time, but I guess I'll see how it goes. So I remember I was talking to David one day and I was, we were talking about theme and he said, and I actually screamed and dropped the phone when he said this. He said, well, it's the devil you know.

23:24John August:Come on. That could have been a good title. And that works for everybody in the movie because Miranda's already dealing with her boss's high anxiety and inability to promote her. Andy's going somewhere where she knows the stakes are bad. Nigel sees the writing on the wall that all these businesses are going into the toilet. Things you scroll past whilst you pee, as he says. And Emily is not in the workplace she wants to be. She doesn't want to work in retail. She wants to work. So everybody's in diminished circumstances, but given the giant economic squoes everyone is in, everyone's going, this is fine for now.

24:00This is the devil I know.

24:01John August:And there's a scarcity mindset where as opposed to the original movies, like all the money you can spend, like thousands of champagne. No, this is everyone's fighting for their little bit. Now, also what's comical is like, yes, and then when they go to Milan, they're wearing fantastic outfits and they're going to huge parties. So that's one of the things that's funny about this world in general. And I think we've all experienced this, which is like, well, especially writers are told we have no money for you. No money, no money, no money, no money for you. And then you see either things they programmed or events they have and you're like, or people they've hired or divisions they've opened.

24:36And you're like, uh, scritch, scritch. I don't know what, I don't know how they decide. Well, when they want something, um, they, they pay for it. They, they will say they don't have money for things just all the time. but the fashion industry is such a fascinating example of this because I can see how behind the scenes everything gets squeezed down to coach but you know I've been talking about the Met Gala and like was I talking about that on this show or was it because I was asking somebody because I literally didn't know I'm like okay I understand outside the Met Gala what happens inside nothing apparently it's like it's an art exhibit that you walk around it's an art exhibit it's to promote I mean, I would love to be inside with a bunch of like dressed up people looking around.

25:19But the amount of money, I guess my point is the money that is spent by people to go there. So it's a charity event and they pay money to attend. And that's the— Well, then they spend the same amount on themselves getting ready. Right. Well, it's a PR. It's a PR. They could just donate all that. But obviously that is part of the deal with fashion. In the attention economy, just getting anyone to care about your thing. And there's this thing now where they're doing like fake beefs in certain businesses, you know, fake beefs everywhere. Hip-hop is known about that forever. That's right. Yeah. To say, to get people's eyeballs on things.

25:54But it is funny, the fact that they were having to be squoze, as we've all been. I love squoze, by the way. As we've all been. I have friends who work in finance, law, everything you can imagine. and everyone is saying, I have to special order my pencils. Like I have to ask them if I can take this car from the airport. And it's because I don't remember this. Now you brag about the money you save to your bosses. And you say, well, this guy wanted a couple more maroon polos. And I told him, you have a maroon polo. So you're set. No more for you. But I want another one. But there's a sense of pride.

26:35Is this maroon? I would say burgundy maybe. Well, thank you. I think there's a sense of pride now in depriving people of resources and bragging rights.

26:46John August:Yeah. And we were talking about scarcity and spending money. But one of the things I admired so much about the movie is like it looks really expensive. I just like there's something nice about going into a movie. It's like they spent real money here. You actually go to Italy and you can tell that you actually went to Italy. Every like stitch on every outfit you're seeing is gorgeous and spectacular. Well, I would say though that it's not as much as you think. And the reported numbers are actually kind of true. That is really a tribute to our DP, David, our AD, our line producer, everybody who kept things tight so that...

27:19John August:The money can be up on the screen. You money can be up on screen, but also you want to be the least of everyone's problems. You don't want to be constantly grabbing for more and more and more because it changes the stakes on a movie. So I think everybody felt like, yeah, this is more. And you can see definitely more. I mean, we went to Paris the first time for like a day and a half and Meryl didn't go. Maybe two days. And Meryl didn't go. And this time, everybody went. And it's so funny, though, guys, to know this. No matter where you travel for work, the minute you get on a set, I could be in Canada.

27:51You know, like, it's like you get up in the morning and Milani have the most fabulous cup of coffee. And at a craft service table, yeah. And then you work for 12 hours. And then you're in a dark room. And I'm like, I could be in Peoria. I could be in any set, in any soundstage. It's so funny. And you still are walking over and going, oh, they're out of my cab. All right, well, I guess I'll drink the full, I don't know. It's just funny how movie making is the same. Hey, you know what? We're just three old bags. No, I know. No, no, the oldest hookers at the saloon, trust me. Yeah, different country, same shit.

28:26I know. When I meet young people who are really like bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I'm always waiting for the lunch that I have where they're like, yeah so i told him yeah yeah and it's like it happens every time welcome aboard yeah now you know what do you use like ducks um you're just like us what is it google gobble google gobble one of us one of us yes from freaks yes from todd browning's freaks 1931 just disproving your your Methuselah reference. You gobble gobble, gobble gobble, one of us, one of us.

29:01John August:I do want to talk about script for a second because one of the things I've enjoyed so much, I haven't read the script before I've seen the movie, you have short scenes that accomplish their thing and it just keeps moving. So many scenes. It is a freight train and it never feels rushed, but like you are getting through things quickly. Entrances and exits are crucial and essential. This is also a movie about glass doors. A lot of glass. A lot of glass. A lot of see through. But you know, it's interesting. You should say that because David's cutting rhythm with Andy, who cut this movie, Andy Marcus, they really that's a feature of the first movie in this movie, which is I think David felt like there's a lot of sitting in chairs.

29:36There's a lot of typing. There's a lot of looking at clothes. And so he really works on pace and propulsion. And we have so many scenes of Annie running down the street. It's a lot of, you know, so anything that gave movement propulsion. but I did learn that from him of like they cut out of scenes like in a way that I think sometimes my tendency is to really like land on an emotion so that an audience sees it and I think there's like David has tremendous confidence the audience like we got it we're moving on it definitely has a lot of just strips tons of strips

30:11John August:you also said like this movie is not plotty but there's actually oh yeah there's a plot this time there's a plot and there's a lot of balls in the air and then so we actually there's a plot this time there's a plot this time last time. But the first movie is much more about like, you know, a young woman like coming to learn about a situation and like her moral choice to sort of leave. There's no global considerations and business stuff. You could probably, if you were a writer and you watched the first act of the first movie, you could probably cough through figuring out what happened after that.

30:37And then this one we really did, we have some twists and reversals and it's got a business plot. And as you guys know, my husband is a businessman. He sure is. And so that was really fun to sort of talk through some of the twists with him and some of the lingo that BJ's character has.

30:52John August:Yeah. BJ Novak has been on the show. Yes. And some of that lingo came from Will. Yeah. Yeah. And so... Will understands money. He sure does. Yeah, I don't. So I would also say, like, one of the things you can... I always do my sort of like, if you freeze frame, could you, like, look at all the characters and tell you what they want? And you can clearly do that in your movie. And each all have a thing they're going for and an arc within there. So, like, Nigel has his arc. Emily Blunt's character has her arc. And you can see sort of, like, what it is they're going for and what they're doing. And so no one is just there to service the main plot, which is so helpful.

31:25So they pull levers. And even though they were supporting in the first movie, they both pulled levers. Emily and Nigel both have important plot functions in the first movie, which is why they were able to be elevated to like a four-hander. In this movie, the young characters, only one of them pulls a plot lever, and that's Helen's character, Jin, who does like a plot thing.

31:46John August:And it's a little shallow thing, but it feels appropriate. That's a little, it's Simone's character and Caleb Heron's character. They don't really move plot as much as they are there for you to understand and inform the world. And they're also meant to echo what we saw before in the first movie. So that there's modern incarnations of roles we saw in the first thing. And recognizing what is the same and what has changed in that gap in between. And once again, the love interest does not pull plot levers. He is there to reflect values and themes. So in the first movie, he's the guy saying, and nobody likes him for this apparently, but he's the guy saying, this is Gordon Gekko, be careful.

32:26I see you changing it to someone I don't recognize. You're on training day. You're shooting innocent people. That's what he's supposed to be there for. And people really disliked him for it. Do you know why? Because he's playing the part that Skyler played on Breaking Bad, which is stop the movie. That's the part. It's like no more TV show. Stop dealing drugs. Stop the movie. Stay away from her. That's so smart. wants the thing to stop. That's so smart. He's saying, stop the conflict. Yes. Yeah, that's true. And it's funny because when we did Crazy Ex, people would often say, oh, we want this to all work out.

32:57And I was like, but then your show's over. Then the show's over. Yeah, that's funny. So he got vilified for that. But in this movie, Patrick Bramwell plays her love interest is really there because he buys an old building, renovates it, and makes it monetizable. And that's sort of in the world she's in. And so she has an innate distrust of that. And so even though he's a lovely guy. And I think we wanted to make the point or I thought it's not everybody who does that is bad. Listen, some of these things are, yeah, right. Like if you take a broken down building and you make it into residences in a neighborhood, which doesn't have enough residences, even if they're high priced or whatever, is that like bad or is that just where we are?

33:36And is that just different? And how much do you adjust to what exists? I mean, one of my friends said to me once, when you're talking to young people, imagine something that exists, dream about something that exists. You know, like, if you're aspiring to living in a world where your art is not commodified in any way, you're really in a very limited area. So everyone has to figure out... We've always needed patrons. Always back to medieval times.

34:02John August:Well, let's talk about the patrons here because the journey of the movie is it looks like Justin Theroux's character is going to be the evil patron who's coming in and taking over everything and the redemption is like, oh no, we can actually find a better patron in Lucy Liu. But it's still a patron and you're still like, the whole thing is being held up by Oh my God. Like someone's benevolence. Guys, we're really right now hostage to billionaire benevolence. Like we hope that they have the values that we would like for them to have. Which they do not. Large they don't. No, they do not. Sorry, this is a lean tangent, but why aren't people with massive amounts of money just pivoting to social good in the way that the last age that was like this was the Gilded Age and so many of our institutions.

34:44The party libraries, yeah.

34:45John August:The Guggenheim. Yes. So many of our institutions came from those folks. So why isn't there more altruism? These guys are not, they're tech. And they were never designed really to be very social people. When you look at them, they are, a lot of them are just not socially oriented. They were probably picked on and bullied. They don't feel like they are part of the beautiful world. They feel separate and apart. But it is interesting to me that the girl that I had the biggest crush on in college, Mackenzie Tuttle, who then went to marry Jeff Bezos and then divorced. Yes, the wives are, yes. And is, I think, the richest woman in the world, is giving the money away because she's, I just, I mean, listen, I haven't seen or spoken to her in 32 years, but she was so effortlessly, socially lovely.

35:34Right. And connected. Right. And I think a lot of these guys just aren't. So the wives have done that consistently, right? The women after the divorces have done that consistently.

35:42John August:Melinda Gates. Why do we have to go to the moon? Okay, keep going. Well, so my theory is that, you know, very rich people at a certain point realize like, I am going to die. Yeah. And so therefore I need to do something for my immortality. That's a great point. And so that's why I think you have Carnegie Library. It's why you have the Guggenheim. I think this generation, they're rich and they're young enough. They're like, no, I never want to die. They're obsessed with not dying. Like if you look at Jeff Bezos, he's so like, they're all kind of pretty swole. Like, they're clearly taking a cocktail of stuff to get bigger and stronger.

36:16And like, I don't know, testosterone or whatever it is. They are obsessed with, I mean, Silicon Valley, like our friend Alec Burr did this amazing thing with the blood boy. Oh, they're all doing stuff like that. Well, that's why, so in the movie, there is, it is his ex-wife who is the patron. And it is also, he has gotten a makeover, although.

36:34John August:I did not recognize him as Justin Perrault. I know a lot of people don't recognize him. Justin really committed. in my mind, Justin has the hairline yet because I spent most of my time with Justin with that hairline. So then when I saw him without it, I was surprised. But the vanity, which seems like not regular normal human vanity, it seems like something else. And then there's a nihilism to it. There's a sense of, you know, he has a line about saying it's all going to come like the, like the lava at Pompeii. Like there is a sense that you're constantly being told about the technology like, just relax, and it's coming anyway, and it has these, it's really the language of violation, and we're constantly being told, like, just relax into it.

37:18So there's a nihilistic kind of deadness there about the inevitability around all these technologies. Yeah. The great robber barons of old were building railways, or they were manufacturing steel. There is actually no inherent value to Facebook at all. If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, we'd all be fine. Arguably, we'd be much better. You take away railroads in the 1800s, no one can get anywhere. You take away steel manufacturing, no one can build anything. Those guys made stuff. These guys are just like... Well, when you then buy publications that are responsible for telling us the truth about the world we live in, but you're sort of treating it like, because the thing that scares me the most is rich people buying things they don't care about or need so that they just wake up and go, I don't feel like doing this anymore.

38:13I'm going to delete this publication or this network or this.

38:17John August:When Bezos bought the Washington Post, at the time, people were like, oh, this is a good thing because we'll protect it and insulate it. And it's like, well, that doesn't end up lasting. Not really. And so, I mean, my concern is that Lucy Liu buys, Runway Magazine and buys the whole media group and it's like she gets bored with it and what happens? What if she's the devil? But that's why we're all you know the line in the movie about we're just trying to find our piece of wood floating next to the Titanic. I think everybody who works in a creative field or really anybody who works in a field that has a lot of corporate control is like well I'm here now.

38:49I have this job now. I don't know what's going to happen. I certainly don't feel like I have a sinecure but I have this now and that's really how the movie in the first movie they're not very nice to each other because everyone's super ambitious and sort of putting their boot in everyone's face. But in this movie, there's a much sweeter, sadder thing, which it's a little bit, you know, World War I trenches where you got to give someone a drink from your canteen or they're not going to make it. And I think that makes the movie in a funny way warmer and sadder.

39:20John August:Yeah. It's also, at the end of the movie, it's not like we're going back to Runway is going to be a book, a magazine that comes out every month. We're going to be in the era of like, Like you are creating digital scrollable content. That's what runway is these days. And it's recognizing that's the reality. Okay. So the obvious question that you've been asked a million times, Devil Wears Prada 3. Well, you know, I think David and I were like so stunned that this happened. And I think I'm sure when I talked to you, it sounded like I was like, and then are we going to get everybody together to do it at the same time?

39:57and are we going to actually, yeah.

39:58John August:When we had that lunch, like there was a project, like an older project that was going to resurface at the same time. And both the same questions, like could we really gather all the things together again? And so you did. Well, here's what I'll tell you. I mean, in this time also, I had been working for the previous year on another project that I really thought was going to go. So I did something that I don't normally do. I have always, always worked on more than one thing at a time since 1991. I have always had more than one thing that I'm working on at a time just because I just have and that's how my brain works.

40:27You had a streaming series, right?

40:29John August:So I had a series I was working on and I was like, I had done a recce and I was buying the boots because that's how my brain works. Buying boots. Right, and a brain coat and everything. And I was prepared to do that and then it just didn't work out. And it didn't work out right around the end of the year. And then I had three months where, I mean, we have a production company and we have multiple projects so I can always busy myself with that and reading stuff and tending to those projects. but my own final draft had nothing open on it. Sorry, still using final draft. What the hell? Had nothing on it.

41:02And that hasn't happened to me, I kind of think, ever. Yeah. And I had a really strange three months of feeling like I don't know who I am. I don't know what to do today. And, you know, again, I have a company. I have an office. I go in. But that is my identity is typing girl. You're always supposed to be guilty that you haven't written today. That's right. Term paper feeling. And so I was like, I lost my sense of who I was. It was very annoying around the house. And I was like, I started to get a little graspy about like, maybe I'll do this. But maybe I'll do that. And then, you know, I was sort of like looking at old projects and feeling like, yeah, trying, which is the worst.

41:42What's worse than anyone trying? And then I got an email from Wendy Fonderman saying, Meryl would be open to hearing your ideas if you want to go to New York. and I was like, wow, if I had been doing this other thing, I wouldn't have been. So I do try and use that. Somebody told me that when Bosom Buddies got canceled that it was like the worst thing that ever happened to Tom Hanks. And I feel that in this time that we're in where so many things that people are working on go tits up, just know that there might be something coming down the path for you. There probably is.

42:16John August:There probably is. All right, so this next bit was going to be my one cool thing, but actually I kind of wanted both of you to read it because it felt relevant to what you were just talking about in terms of media landscape changing and stuff. So it's an article by Kate Davies. It was really a blog post about knitting bullshit. And so she is a knitter. It's knitting bullshit, not knitting bullshit. That's a good point. It's kind of both. It is actually. Yeah, you're spinning bullshit, but also like literally knitting. It's bullshit about knitting. Because she is a woman who runs a knitting company and she was encountering these podcasts that were made about knitting, which are just completely empty and vacuous.

42:54John August:And so it's this whole world, it's ecosystem of AI-generated podcasts with fake voices, fake text, and there's a company called Inception Point AI. Good Lord. What a name. Which makes 3 ,000 weekly episodes. So 3 ,000, and they're all, and what I loved about this is that she took the time to listen to an episode and realized it's nothing. It's nothing. So Drew and I listened, And like skimmed through like the first episode. And it's just, it's this woman's voice talking. So the woman's character's name is Lily. She is Lily Crafty Walker, but she's a fake persona who is just narrating this thing about the history of knitting and how wonderful knitting is.

43:35John August:It's like, I'm going to talk you through like from the early days to this. And I was like, okay, you can imagine an actual podcast about that, but there's just nothing there. It's nonsense. It's like that it's the kid who didn't do the reading and is like up there doing a fake book report that's mostly introduction and conclusion. What's the relationship between this and pornography? Because there's an onanism to all of this. There's like a, for a very narrow purpose. But what is the purpose of this is what? Make money, ads. Well, make money, attention and just sort of like keep, it has to be interesting enough that you actually subscribe to it and I kind of listen to it.

44:13John August:So. But at 3 ,000. At 3 ,000. It's spam. Only one person needs to listen. And so this company that makes this, they have like eight employees, but like they can't listen to all the episodes. They don't listen to the episodes they make. They just put it out there. They just put it out there in the world. And so it's just flooding the zone with a bunch of bullshit. In the zone. And so it goes back to the bullshit in this term is from Harry Frankfurt, who has his book on bullshit. And what I like the blog post points out is there's sort of two kinds of bullshit. Because bullshit is distinguished from a lie.

44:44John August:Bullshit is when you sort of know there's like nothing really true under it. it's spinning a yarn so there's the kind of bullshit which is quote merely admitted or dumped just like sort of throwing it out there in the world and then there's carefully wrought bullshit which is kind of more what this is because it's like it is very specifically as the form of a thing yes like when Trump tells a sir story about how someone came up to me sir and then tears in his eyes it's this like very carefully formed bullshit yeah with a beginning middle so I'm tired yeah I'm because there's so many things that you see online.

45:17Now I got to go see if it's real. I see a cute video, got to see if it's real. I'm listening to a podcast. Is it real? Is this person real? Did this thing really happen?

45:26John August:So how are you checking whether real is real or not? What are you doing? What's your process? I mean, I still, for me... She has CHPT. Oh my God. CHPT, this happened the other day where like I said, it was insisting that Sunday was April 19th when it wasn't. And it just was so insistent on it. I'm obsessed with this guy. Sorry, there's a guy on TikTok. It's amazing. He asks it and he told me. Can you count up to like the answer? This one was, how many E's are in the word 17? Yes, it's incredible. There's one E. No, I think there's four. You're absolutely right. There's four. Let's count them through.

45:59Oh, no, wait, there's 100. Nope, there's six. You realize. Well, it's agreeing with you. It's the thing. I tried to make mine, because I really only use mine for search. So I tried to make it not agreeable because it was sending me to restaurants that were closed, ETC. So what is real? For me, it's still going to be like New York Times, AP. Yeah, brand names. Brand names. And the thing is, you still need a home base, and this is part of what's in Preda, you still need a home base that brands you as a something. Like you're not going to start a sub stack without being at the Times or being at Atlantic or being because people need, It needs to be funneled through things that we understand are real.

46:42You need credentials. But man, I'm just, I don't want to check and see if...

46:46John August:So things that I tend to do is I see things like, is that a real person? Is that a fake? So I click through and look at their whole grid and scroll back to see when the first one was. And if it's like January, then it's like, oh, this is all recent. And so this is only done in the time where C-Dance and these good video tools existed. And so if it only goes back to the start of this year, it's fake. It's going to be AI. and if everyone looks the same in all the things, then it's like a fake and I block. And so I literally block any of those things just so the algorithm is less likely to feed me those same things again.

47:19But it's giving you work to do. It's giving me work to do. I don't want this work.

47:21John August:And like sometimes there's a little AI label on it and a lot of times there's not an AI label on it. I sent you a link to someone who's someone. There's a book you can buy that is an analysis of the sheep detectives. Yeah, that's yes. Yeah, no, it's not. Nope. it's just some AI that they fed a bunch of, I don't know, reviews into or something, and it just barfed out some fake book that they're going to sell. Well, generally, people ask their peer group, right? So you're on your group text going, oh, honey, that's fake. Yeah. So somebody's getting very mad about something and you're going, oh, honey, that's fake.

47:53And it's, you know, obviously, people over a certain age really get fooled. I mean, the boomers are notorious for just RE, RE, RE emails with stuff that Snopes has already said no. Right, right. And so we need like a massive snopes. Like, that's what the only thing I think I would actually want an AI to do is to identify other AI and pronounce it as fake. Yeah. But literally they hallucinate. They do. So literally it will tell you things that are just patently false. And if you look up anything about yourself, it's so funny. The wronginess is incredible. And, you know, it's easiest to check because it's your own.

48:33John August:So I think another recommendation for you is like, if you're asking for information, say like include links so you can actually click on the link and see like, is that a real thing? Or is that a genuine thing behind it? I hate it so much. To its credit, Wikipedia has a very strong, like, you know, no AI can touch this stuff. Wikipedia is the most incredible organization. I read this fascinating article about, there's one woman who was like, really, she dug into stuff and she got pretty specific about some things that she thought were just wrong and biased. And she dug in and had to go to war a few.

49:06There are like these wars between very established Wikipedia editors. And it's not easy to be a Wikipedia editor. You have to like, it's a very rigorous institution. You just don't want to ask AI if something is AI. Well, I agree with you. That's the value of a brand name. And we tend to think of brand names as just horseshit. But the truth is certain brands still mean something. And that's why it's so terrifying when somebody messes with a brand name, then you say, well, okay, Now that's where the Trojan horse comes in. That's the danger. You know, so many local papers now are being bought by cookie billionaires who have an agenda which could be veganism and it could be, you know, we're all aliens and you're reading the paper through this scrim and it's just still showing up.

49:46John August:Yeah, the local TV stations that are being bought by. Yes, local TV stations. They just get fed through a big pipe of bullshit. So when I sent through this link to you guys to look at, Craig, you texted back, like, this is the only good use of AI, which was specifically a... Amazing. So describe what the video was. It was a video that somebody used AI to, he inserted himself into scenes from Game of Thrones. And all he did was smack the people who did horrible things and save the people who died. So he smacks Joffrey and saves, you know, Ned Stark. And then smacks the knife out of the guy's hand who's going to do the Red Wedding.

50:23And he just continues to just get rid of bad things and make Game of Thrones a conflictless, happy resolution. And I loved it so much. Because also, it was A, clearly AI. There's no confusion there. And B, it was made with thought and care. A human had an idea and just used the tool to help himself achieve something. So let me ask you guys a question. So let's say you, for some reason, you had to make your show on a very reduced budget, like an extremely reduced budget. Oh, no. And let's say you were a young person who didn't have access to levers of power. If you were, like, there are certain genres that are so notoriously expensive that you can't make them like a Western, right?

51:06Because there's so much period stuff. So if AI was able to be like enhanced CG, enhanced animation, sort of programmable tech, basically for generating backgrounds, especially like buildings, mountains, settings, scenes. And it would allow people to make things for a budget that were not, in other words, not generative. So not story, not... Sure. But if like you had like an apocalypse filter that could just make a city look like it's an apocalypse, it would save me a lot of money. And it would be like CG where you would be dialing in this. I don't like this. I don't like this. I don't like that.

51:45The problem, I would then just run to something else because the problem is the zone is about to get flooded. And then if anyone can just press a button and do a thing, there will be a million of those things for free. There will be nothing special about your version of that thing. But your storytelling and your character work and you're still using live act. I mean, this is what I don't quite understand about. So when you're sort of blanketly saying AI bad, and we have all been using AI as long as we've had iPhones. and I love a Waymo myself. And I think we'll all be driven by AI. Yeah, but that's AI.

52:22And so I think we're... Oh, yeah.

52:24John August:Well, so it is AI, but I think what we're talking about is we need, as a culture and especially as an industry, we need to figure out like, what are the standards? What are the definitions and what are the standards? And what does it mean to do a thing? Because I feel like if we're putting mountains in the background of a shot that would be CG and instead these visual press artists is using an AI tool to create those mountains, Sure. As long as the person whose responsibility is to do that is using that thing to do it. Where our concerns are is when there's basically, there's no lens. There's no person in front of the lens.

52:54John August:It's just, it's just basically animation. There's a thing I sent through to you guys to look at, which was a vertical, which was all, it was a Game of Thrones-y feeling. That was rough. That was rough. And so when like the dragons are attacking, I'm like, okay, that feels like a cut scene. But whenever you have like two people like talking to each other, like, oh my God. Again, to me, it's the intersection of like, that was the intersection of Van art and porn. Yeah. But it's that feeling of onanism of like, it doesn't exist for any reason except to like touch itself and show you what it can do.

53:25And I think that's where AI is right now. But it is going to facilitate and be involved in our search and our transportation and our airplanes, you know, including airplanes. And all these things are going to be, you know, crunching code, crunching data sets. So we are going to be in a world of AI. And what you said, which is like when someone says I work for an AI company and everyone or I'm starting an AI company and everyone gets enraged, we have to distinguish between like I want my AI to write every novel and every movie versus I want AI to help me cure cancer. Well, of course. And we are not making those distinctions now.

54:03And we got to stop yelling at people who are trying to explore this field as a business. But what I think a lot of people are yelling at are the companies that are actively, clearly peddling nonsense. Oh, for sure. I'm talking about individuals. I'm talking about individuals who say, because there are numerous instances in Hollywood of people who have started businesses or are using AI. and we're in a real scattershot thing of like, we're mad at a couple actors have said, oh, I'm interested in that or I'm exploring that or it's something. And we're real big mad about that. But then we get in a Waymo and we use our iPhone and any diagnostic thing medically is going to be AI like this.

54:50And so, and any big crunching of any big data, health insurance is all going to be done by that. So what you were saying, which is like, we're really good at putting limits on things. Nuclear technology, driving, shooting, eating, you know, we're good at doing that. Why are we not implementing a, it should not create things, write things. It should not be able to generate a likeness of anybody doing anything without their consent.

55:20John August:Well, even in journalism. So there's, New York Times has a really good guidelines for freelancers. So let me just read. Okay. This came out. All writing and visuals that freelancers submit to the Times must be the product of human creativity and craft, and all submissions must consist solely of their original reporting, writing, and other work. Freelance contributors must not submit any material for publication that contains content generated, modified, or enhanced by generative AI tools, or that has been input into these tools. Yeah. Anything that's quote-unquote content, I'm with you. Zero. Yeah, that's basically where I'm at.

55:53John August:Art. Art. If I had a writer's room, that would be... Yeah, if you give me something and I look at it, and I'll know. Yeah. Because the thing about the art that's being generated by AI, and I have a suspicion that this is a terminal issue for AI, is that it is approaching asymptotically mediocrity. It will eventually, when it is perfected, it will arrive at I am a mid-level, fairly mediocre writer, artist, filmmaker. And that's where I live. Well, okay, so if you are mediocre, maybe you are going to be out of a job. But you are probably going to be out of a job anyway because that's how mediocrity works.

56:37And writing and acting, I mean, actors are like, I mean, talking about having just made a movie with these four iconic actors. Like, it's not just their performance in this film. It's what we know about Meryl, what we know about Stanley, what we know about Annie. We've been watching Annie since she was 16 years old.

56:53John August:They are brands, which is also... Exactly. They have a whole human web of connections. That's why they're famous. We have to make distinctions between things that are, especially in the medical field, which is accelerating exponentially and will be able to cure things because it can crunch huge things of data, huge data sets. We have to make a distinguish between that and having it write your college essay and your novel. I think we do. Which, by the way, it stinks. And it's funny. Somebody sent me an AI thing. They had asked it to write a scene in my voice. Hilariously terrible. The most mediocre version of it.

57:29But it's also, like, it's insulting because what it has scraped about you, it's wild. But it is a hoover. You know, it's going to scoop up a lot of lint and bugs and garbage.

57:43John August:So I will say in terms of lint and bugs, in my other job, I have a software company. And where these tools have gotten much better in the last six months is like, there are bugs within some of the apps, which like it's able to figure out and find and solve that like Nima could spend two weeks trying to do. And like, they just fall very low on the list of priorities because he's got to do other things. But like these tools can find some of those things. The difference is Nima genuinely knows all the code. He's actually the person who's responsible for everything. And so we can figure out like if it finds a fix, he can know whether that actually generally fixes a fix.

58:15John August:He's using it as a tool. The person whose job it is to do it is using the thing. I don't know how to prevent volition. That's what I don't know. I don't know how to prevent my toaster from killing me. And that's way above my pay grade. And someone else is going to figure that out. But definitely. Or not. Then we have Terminator. Yeah, Terminator. Let's try to answer some of our questions. Mickey has a question about story engines. God, I hope this isn't an audio question. It's not. Hey. I'm working on pitching a couple shows, and I've heard people asking, what is the show's engine? So far, I haven't really been able to get a good answer on what that means, so I'd love to hear more about what they are and how I can craft them.

58:51John August:Aline, you have done, obviously, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but other shows. Talk to us about the engine of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend or other things. Well, I'll go back to shtick. I'm going to go back to Yiddish. I think that all TV shows, good TV shows to me, you know how in a movie you want to feel like any scene is indicative of the whole movie. Like you can watch a scene and it kind of contains all the themes of the whole movie. TV shows have like bits and not meaning pieces, but meaning shtick. So like Everybody Loves Raymond has one joke and it's an inexhaustible joke. You could do 500. They did 100 and some, but they could have done...

59:27John August:It's Ray Romano's exhaustion with his family. With his mother living across the street. But I would say even like, you know, Sopranos, it has a DNA to it where everything feels like of a piece. Even if it's just Tony and Meadow going to look for colleges, tonally, thematically, it's of a piece. And that's what's driving it. So that somebody could come in and write a prototypical episode of a show and have it make sense and have the same drives, aesthetics, themes, character work. That's really what I I think of as an engine is like somebody could break down for you. This is what typically happens.

1:00:08And this is how it's moves forward. I think about it a little differently, but maybe because I don't write episodic.

1:00:14John August:The first season of your show, I would say engine is the father daughter relationship between those two characters, but that changes. Yeah. I mean, the engine is the thing that lets you write more than one episode. So Mickey, when you're pitching your show, the fear that you are dealing with on the other side of the table is, well, what if this is just one episode? A lot of people pitch something that really should just be a movie or a two episode show, but it feels like it just by its own nature will burn out. It will dissolve itself. There's not much more to do. If the idea of the show is I'm on the first floor and I've got to get to the roof, that's not a television show.

1:00:53You're going to run out of floors to climb. So the engine is the part of the story that tells people I can iterate. If it's, okay, The engine is I've got to get from Boston to Colorado or whatever it is. Right, but that's not the shtick. Right. So there's this thing that you know allows you to write more than one episode. I mean, in Last of Us, I think of that as like human resilience in the face of disaster and tragedy. But there's always a goal. Yeah. You know, so like the season, and there are many goals inside of a season, but there's always one large goal. Right. Like season one, goal is take girl from here to here.

1:01:32Season two, his goal is go find the lady that killed my dad. Yeah. That's it. So there's logistical shtick, and then there's thematic shtick, and then there's character shtick. Right. But like Crazy Ex, I think we did not pitch it as a woman moves back to town to get back together with her old boyfriend. The shtick was a girl who is addicted to limerence and makes terrible decisions moves to a new town and lays waste to it and everyone in it with her horrible decisions. There's an engine. because you know you can write another episode because you meet a new guy. That's right. Because you end up in a new job.

1:02:08Right. Because you have another, a new circumstance in which you will make horrible decisions. It's not about, and it goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning, which is people really do get mired in plot. And I feel you because in the beginning of my career, you really do try and swing on the little, you're just swinging on the little possible things on your... The monkey bars. Monkey bars. Thank you. You're welcome. And you're just... swinging on the little thing. And the way you'll know it's not, right, is it's boring. It's boring. When you tell it to people. So boring. It's boring.

1:02:40And it's so funny now, guys. It's like telling somebody your dream. You can see them just passing out. And then this happened. Oh, and then there was a bird. And then there was another thing. And it's funny because now that people pitch a lot on Zoom, this is what you're looking for. Blanton down to the phone. Because people. Or the sound of typing. People can't, they can't not do it. And when you're like, and then this, and I watch writers because, you know, as a company, we're working with a lot of other writers, especially when people read, I can see, you know, even the nicest executive, I can just sort of see their eyes, go to their device.

1:03:14And then some people are pretty good about like, you know, crypto. But a lot of people, especially, I'm sorry. The older ones? Older ones and the men, sorry. They just go. No problem. And you're pitching to... We're very focused. You're pitching to the top of someone's head. That's actually valuable information. It's important. It's boring. Because that's, we are in show business. If they're bored, we messed up. So when you tell someone a story, you go, oh my God, I ran into Craig and it was the funniest. I ran into John and it was the funniest thing because he was saying this. You're not saying, and then he ordered a sandwich and he did not get the fries.

1:03:54He got the salad.

1:03:56John August:If you're my mom, that's that. Melissa's told me a few stories like that where I'm like, go to the parts that are relevant. I start giving her notes. I think it's really interesting that storytelling is so basic to humans and most, you have to learn it. It's not innate. You have to learn how to present a story to other people. That's the thing. We can tell ourselves stories that are so, that's why we tell people our dreams. I mean, I don't, because I know it's offensive, but we've experienced it. It's vivid to us. It's just, how do we then make it palatable to others? That's the hard part. Somebody once said to me, children and the elderly, that's it.

1:04:31John August:Yeah. Well, it's essentially, it's why stand-up comics have to present the material. They have to be at the mic a bunch to see how the story goes. And so we have to workshop our... I'm going to just drop it. Do you guys know Jared Freed, the stand-up Jared Freed? I recognize the name, but I can't picture him. He's very funny. He's on TikTok. He's stand-up is incredible. He also watches The Bachelorette and Love is Blind and does commentary on it. And he's so delightfully crabby. And I'd only seen him online and I just watched him do stand-up. In addition to being a great storyteller, he does that thing that a great stand-up does, which was we were in a weird space with fold-out chairs and the air conditioning was gusting at random and there was a bar in the back.

1:05:12But when Jared's on stage, he's like, he's pulling you all together and he's telling you a story and it's really purposeful and there's a tone consistency. That makes it all sort of shrink wrap everyone together. And that's really what you want to work on as a storyteller is being in a zone where everything feels purposeful and zipped together. And you're not wandering off. So when I wander, I wander off a lot because I'm a, no, seriously, because I am a, I just wandered off. Because I am mostly a thematic storyteller and a lot of my stuff is anecdotal, which is why I'm always, I'm very anecdotal.

1:05:52and as you guys have pointed out, very analogy-based. But when I'm pitching, there's no, it's... Locked in. Oh, yeah. Well, it's crafted. You have to make it. Yeah, otherwise you get the top of the head. Yeah, the top. It's like getting the top, the tap in Seinfeld when he goes down on women and he gets the tap on the head. He gets the tap on the head. It's not working. Now it's this. Yeah.

1:06:19John August:Let's do our wonderful things. Okay. Yeah. My one cool thing is the experience of submarining into a script. And so we so often like complain about writing because writing kind of can suck. But I don't think we talk enough about the podcast. Like sometimes when like, it's just delightful to be writing. It does happen. The last two weeks, I've been on a rewrite and it has been just so delightful. I've been blocking out 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. every morning. And I look forward to actually being down. I have a question for you. Please. because I know the circumstance that I require to experience that is confidence that what I'm about to write is correct.

1:06:57John August:I absolutely have that with this, which is great. And so even though there are difficult things I need to do in this, and let me describe sort of some of the issues is like in this rewrite, I know I need to move some things around. And so in moving stuff around, I was like, oh shit, I'm creating a day night problem where like, oh, because I'm moving the scene earlier, it's going to go today, tonight, today, tonight. Like, oh, but you know what? I could handle this. I can figure a way through this that it's going to be elegant and smooth and wonderful. And then you look forward to writing. I look forward to writing.

1:07:24John August:It's just so nice when you are writing a thing, you just are excited to write. This is a conclave of know-it-alls. Yeah. And when you're doing a rewrite, it's the most like galvanized. You're like, not this. Come on, guy. Come on. Guy, delete, delete, delete. If it activates your, oh, I know, I'm a know-it-all. I know exactly what to do here, whether it's your own stuff or you're rewriting or you're rewriting yourself. Yeah. That's a great space. Do you guys ever find yourself getting in a physically uncomfortable position when you're writing? Have I ever found myself in a not uncomfortable position?

1:07:57Well, you're so into it. You surface and you're like, how did I get over here? This thing that's been happening to me, actually it started with The Sheep Detectives. It never happened to me until I wrote that movie. And that was, again, 10 years ago. When I'm really into it and I'm writing something that's sad, which I frequently do. I cry. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. And that is such a beautiful feeling of just like, okay, now I may need to adjust this. Tomorrow I may look at this and repave it a little bit, but I know there is emotion there. I know that this is honest. It's not, I wasn't trying.

1:08:33It's not bullshit. You can't fake crying. Yeah. Why would I fake crying at my own? But also your neck is cracked and you haven't peed in eight hours. I mean, constantly drinking up water. That's why I had a kidney stone. Yeah. You know, it's a real issue. Yeah. But anyway, I love that.

1:08:48John August:Yeah. So I feel like so often on the podcast, we are talking about it, and our guests are talking about like, oh, it's tough, it's rough. And it is often, but sometimes it's also just delightful. And so I just wanted to celebrate, like sometimes it feels just great. And one of the great things, the luxuries we have as writers is that we can just like, you can just go off and write a new thing. And so when you're like, I don't know what I'm writing. It's like, that can also, it can be weird and scary, but also it's delightful. Like nothing is pressing that I have to do, which is just so great. Aline, tell us about your one cool thing.

1:09:17Well, I was going to do an article, but I actually think I'll just give you the link because we kind of covered some of it about, it's this article about fake.

1:09:25John August:It's called The Feed is Fake. The Feed is Fake. The Feed is Fake. And it's really interesting, but it connects to what I'm sorry. I'm going to throw out a controversial favorite thing, which was about two. Genocide. Yes. About. Genocide is good. It's controversial. I know a lot of people disagree. A puppy should only be purchased at an expensive pet store. I'm kidding. Genocide, we were like, ha, ha, ha. Dogs. Hey, hold on. Yeah, of course, my dogs are the most rescue, off-brain rescue dogs. Here's what I'm going to say in the controversy, but it's been a huge, huge boon to my life and my husband's life and our life, which is we don't drink alcohol anymore.

1:10:07Yeah. We don't drink alcohol anymore. Yeah. And when I go to a party and I say I don't drink and people want to, you know, people think, oh, you're recovered. And then because I'm so much fun, I will say to people, well, you know, it's a class one carcinogen. Oh, here we go. It's the same. It's in the same class of carcinogens. Let's delete Aline from our invite list. Has smoking and asbestos. It's a poison. And it 100 % causes cancer. Of course it does. So as John and I were discussing, you can pick your poisons. This is obviously not great for you. A can of Coke Zero. But alcohol being deleted, I'm not going to debate it for others.

1:10:42But I'm going to say that for us, it has been great in terms of like general health, sleeping, exercising, feeling good, being present. And I drink non-alcoholic beer, which has gotten awesome.

1:10:57John August:It has gotten great. Especially when working, like when you're shooting and your physical resources are so stretched. I just have found that non-drinking has been awesome and it's a cool thing. I don't non-drink, but I rarely drink. I've always rarely drank it's not something that I've ever like I can't ever have a cigarette again but alcohol you know maybe I'm like a one drink a week guy but what I have noticed as I've gotten older is if it goes to two drinks in that evening my sleep is screwed up but I've never been able to process alcohol very easily I guess I'm going to be in the I can have a drink every now and again because I actually can I'm not, I don't.

1:11:42I'm not even, it's not even the addicting aspect of it. It's because I don't. It's just the health aspect. Yeah, it's just I sleep better. I look, if I drink, I look terrible. How much were you drinking, if I may ask? Probably like two drinks a week. And then on the weekends, you know, like if I went out to dinner. Yeah. Again, I can't process it very well. Will processes it great. Well, of course. Will can have two drinks. Yeah, he's, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Our people are not great at it. His people, yeah. So he can go right to sleep and it doesn't, but it does for him. I think it's like being super present.

1:12:17And then the other good thing about it, if you are, this is more for me than for him, but like you, it saves you from where you're going, do you wake up the next morning and you go, did I say the word labia three times? What was I talking about? Because when you drink your, and so you'll very much notice it when you don't drink, that you're in social spaces with people. Oh yeah. And they're saying stuff and you're going, you're going to wake up in the morning and wonder why you were talking about that. Well, I support anyone's decision about these things as long as they are not in a disease. You know, I think the one thing that no one should ever do is judge somebody because they're not drinking.

1:12:59I thought you were going to say I'm not lecturing them about not drinking. I am not lecturing them about not drinking.

1:13:04John August:That's also true. I would also add a long-held opinion is that if someone says they're not drinking, no follow-up question is appropriate. Oh, God. Just fine. Great. Great. Okay. No problem. It's like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm allergic to peanuts. Well, let's talk about that. Yeah. Why? When? People really do want to talk to you about that. And it's funny. I've really moved into the no clarification zone. Like one time I was giving an interview about Crazy Ex and I said, well, you know, I wasn't going to do TV, but I met this brilliant young woman and we ran off to the circus together. And then somebody went up to a friend of mine and said, oh, my God, this is just incredible.

1:13:40Aline's fallen in love with a young woman. And they're together now. And I just had no idea. And I just, I don't need to clear that up. I don't need to qualify anything.

1:13:51John August:You do not. Yes. Craig, one cool thing for you? My one cool thing is two cool things in one. My two cool things in one is, are the Indigo Girls. And it's the Indigo Girls because, in a slightly selfish way, they invited my daughter to open for them on the West Coast leg of their tour. And so she did two shows in San Francisco. She did a show in Los Angeles. She's in Tucson, Arizona. Oh, my God. So at this point in Tuesday, she may be in Denver. and the reason I want to give the Indigo Girls so much love is they just saw her, liked her, emailed her, invited her, and you can tell how much they are excited about helping the next generation come through.

1:14:43They are mentoring her. They're telling her about the business and what to look out for, and they are so encouraging and so warm with her on stage. They bring her out for the encore to do it with them. And look, the Indigo Girls are going through, you know, we grew up with them. Oh my God. And the fact that I'm not singing Closer to Fine right now is a miracle. It's, that's the song they bring her out for. And, and Emily is, you know, she's had health problems. She has essential tremor and she did the, wrote this beautiful thing about it and it has affected her voice. And I went to the show and nobody cares.

1:15:16Like everybody heard it, processed And clearly the point of going to an Indigo Girls show is not, I can't wait to hear that song sang live as it was in 1991. The point is community. You can see that clearly. And very specifically, obviously, the queer community of which my daughter is a part. And she just, the way they reached out. That's right. I cannot thank them enough, like as her dad. and I'm just like blown away by their, I don't know, just so magnanimous because there's no like, it's not like, oh, this hot thing that's happening, we're going to chase a trend. Not at all.

1:15:57John August:Yeah, just means it's not the next Sabrina Carpenter. No, and it's never going to, that's not her lane. Her lane is like, she wants to be the next Phoebe Bridgers. Yeah. Or the next Indigo Girls. Yeah. And they were so great to just reach a handout. I thought that was wonderful. So they're sort of the anti-Miranda Priestley. They are a little bit of the anti-Miranda Priestley. That is our show for this week. Scribner's is produced by Drew Marquardt, edited by Matthew Cilelli. Our outro this week is by Eric Pearson. We would love some more outros. If people want to send in their outros, we always love to have those.

1:16:27John August:Reminder that these need to include the bum, bum, bum, bum, bum in them, and they should not be AI generated. Okay, how are people missing that it has to be the basic thing it has to be? Drew will tell you that. And if they send in anything AI, you smack their shit. I politely expect there. Thank you. All right. So if you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask at johnoggs.com. Politely. That's also the place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today. You'll find transcripts at johnoggs.com along with sign up for a weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing.

1:16:58John August:You know that Interesting is named after you making fun of how I say the word interesting. Me? Make fun? Never. He flipped the script on you. The Script Notes book is available wherever you buy books. You'll find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube. Just search for Script Notes and give us a follow. You'll find us on Instagram at Scrimp Notes Podcast. Our recent episode with Katie Dippold got gazillions of views on Instagram. I forgot. Okay, a little bit of follow-up. Please. Part of what Katie was talking to us about was how she does not put the warm towels on her face because she's afraid of getting infections.

1:17:28Whereas I, on the plane, immediately take that hot rag and stick it on my eyes. And she's like, ew. Two days later, she sent me a photo of herself. She had somehow gotten an eye infection and she's like, I'm the worst person to give eye advice on script notes because she immediately somehow got an eye infection. Wait, and there's two iconic, Katie, the Babadook thing is iconic, but she once said to Craig, I think, or maybe both of us, she once said that there should be a button before you post anything on the internet that says, wait, but why? Wait, but why? Wait, but why? Yes. And I think about that all the time when I'm posting something, I'm going, wait.

1:18:07John August:Are you watching your show? I just started. It's so good. Episode four, incredible. I mean, I'm obsessed with the cast. So good. So good. And just like Katie. Yep. The best. Freehold. You will find t-shirts and hoodies and drink wear at Cotton Bureau. You can find show notes with the links to things we talked about today and the email you get each week as a premium subscriber. Thank you again to all our premium subscribers. You are the absolute best. You can sign up to become one at scriptnotes.net where you get all those backup episodes and bonus segments like the one we are about to record on the Script Notes book club, Script Club, whatever we're calling that.

1:18:41John August:Aline Brush McKenna, congratulations again. It is so lovely to have you back on the show. On video for the first time. Yes, that's right. It's my first appearance. Nicely done. Aline, Craig, Drew, thank you so much. Thank you, John.

1:19:09Thank you.