742 - Obsession with Curry Barker

9:36John August:So this is an online class where it's just like a simple lesson.

9:39Craig Mazin:This podcast is brought to you by the Aaron Sorkin masterclass. We're not getting paid any. This is outrageous. So tell us about that. This thing called masterclass came out, right? And it's like this app you can download. And there's a director masterclass. There's all these masterclass. And I think when I moved out here, someone suggested, maybe it was even my dad was like, you should do the Aaron Sarker masterclass or something. And so I just started taking, I learned so many rules about storytelling. And I kind of took it to heart in a way that probably really enhanced the way that I, the rules are so important.

10:12Like you can't introduce something in the first act and then like not pay it off in the third act. You can't like have something magically appear in the third act that you didn't introduce in the first or second act, you know? It's like, or like you can't have all the answers to the equation in the third act. And it does like all these things that like, are kind of pretty important to make sure that you're either paying everything off or like not, that I could really give credit to the Aaron Sorkin Masterclass.

10:35John August:Well, it's great because it feels like at some point you need, someone needs to sit you down and sort of tell you these kind of fundamental things or at least point them out in ways that maybe you could have discovered over the course of years. But like, it's nice to have someone do that.

10:47Craig Mazin:And the great mystery and magic of it all is that you can, well, a lot of people have taken the Aaron Sorkin Masterclass. Right. But I always feel like even with our podcast, We're really broadcasting to some group of people that will be able to convert.

11:03John August:Yeah.

11:03Craig Mazin:Which is not everyone. Right, right. But you found it one way or the other. You found what you needed, understood it almost immediately. It was like right into your bones. And then boom, out came something great. It's an instinct thing, really. It's like you understand that if something doesn't feel right, it's probably because it wasn't paid off correctly. Or if something doesn't feel satisfying. or like what is it that you want to feel fully satisfied at the end? But then also the art of like knowing what doesn't need to be paid, like what doesn't need to like, and that's like really hard. Sometimes I just want to like ask other people, you know, like if I'm writing something, I'm like, does this matter to you?

11:41John August:Do you? Right. Do you ask people? Is that part of your process? Yeah. I mean, like, but the thing I learned is that you'll never get an answer. There is no answer. Yeah. That's the problem. Here's another thing that's actually different about sort of how you learn versus how we learned is that you were making things constantly. And so talk to us about when you first posed, like you shot something that you put online for strangers to look at. I think like the first time I ever, so when I first moved out here, we were doing this show called Roommates. And it was just about... And who was the we?

12:13Me and Cooper, Tomlinson.

12:15John August:Who is one of the co-stars of the movie, yeah. Yeah, and he's like my writing partner in crime. And we do our sketch comedy show together and everything. He's great, but like, I'm talking like week one, we met in school and we were already doing this thing called Roommates because we were just like, let's make something. Like we just had the bug and that was interesting. Like that was like getting 200 views, like 500 views, small things. But then the first thing that really, really hit it off for me, like, oh my God, I'm a director, was The Chair. It was a short film I made for like$2 ,000, which is funny enough, even more expensive than my milk and cereal movie.

12:54But I made it for like$2 ,000. Most of that went to the DP. I remember writing it. And I had this like small friend group where like we would write short films or even some of our friends were writing features. I wasn't at that level yet, but some of our friends were. And we would all gather and do like these little table reads. So when I had this chair script, I was like, I'm going to order some food and I'm going to get everybody together and we're going to do a table read of this. And it just didn't feel, people didn't like it that much. And I was like, no, you don't understand. It's going to be weird.

13:30John August:And I honestly felt like a naive amount of confidence because I was like, no, I've got an idea for this. But people were like, I don't get it. It doesn't make sense.

13:39Craig Mazin:and like... Well, there is. This is the burden that we share as writers of things that are supposed to be filmed. It's different. Yeah. And it is, in and of itself, there is a bit of a craft in trying to take something on the page and add a little bit of extra that maybe sometimes is not even necessary to help get them where you want it to be. But sometimes there are things that just need to be made. They can't... You won't get it any other way.

14:08John August:And that's a real benefit I think your generation had is that you've got the chance to experiment a lot. I've seen a lot of the sketches you did with Cooper and many of them are great, but I also suspect there were ones that probably weren't great that you just didn't put up or you took down. And there's also a luxury because when you're making something in an afternoon, if it's great, fantastic, it's great. If it sucks, you don't have to show it to the world. I can't take any of my shit now. Whereas as opposed to a movie, the stakes are so much higher, you have to release that movie at some point.

14:35Right, totally. And that's so, so true. And the experimental phase for me is over. It's kind of a scary thing.

14:42Craig Mazin:It's like, even if I were to do a short film, the spotlight would be on it.

14:47John August:It would be like, what? And yet, the stakes are actually lower than you think.

14:52Craig Mazin:It will all be an experiment from here on out anyway. It's just that everyone's staring at you now in the lab.

14:57John August:Right, right. Craig and I both, I think, wish you the most successful failure.

15:02Craig Mazin:Fail out loud just as much as you've succeeded out loud. You have no option now anyway. Right, right. But take big swings.

15:08John August:I just want to sort of point out that we've had smart guests who come on the show who would strongly underline what you're saying. Like Courtney Kemp was on recently. She was talking about how if she were starting today, she would get together with a group of friends and just shoot a bunch of stuff and learn how to do it because that's how you do things now. Mike Brickley has been on the show and talking about like getting a pizza and getting all his friends around to read early drafts of things. That's smart. And what I think is crucial about this is it's finding a group of people you like and you trust who are trying to do the same things.

15:36John August:Right. And it sounds like that's moving from Alabama to Los Angeles was how you got that process started. Yeah, I got lucky too. I mean, I don't think it's always going to happen that way to find a group of people. I mean, going to film school here, hopefully we'll find people that have similar interests. And I think to me, that's the most important part of film school is like meeting people out. First of all, it gets you out here, right? Like I'm in a small town. It was an excuse to leave. It felt like... In which film school? It was the New York Film Academy. It was in Los Angeles. It got me out here.

16:09Like, it didn't feel like I was just on my own. It felt like I was, at least I had something. I was going to school. I had an immediate schedule. You had a structure. Right. But the thing I got from it the most was just the people that I met along the way. I only was there for like a year.

16:24Craig Mazin:When you decided to come out, you know, whether it's film school or not, I think you made a choice that a lot of people struggle with. And we do advise this all the time. And I feel bad sometimes. Yeah. Because people will ask, well, I live fill in the blank, Billings, Montana. Yeah. And I really want to make it, do I have to move to LA? Yeah. I mean, no. Right, right, right. It gets easier. Then I sometimes, I think we feel a little worried that we're luring a lot of people who have no chance. Right. But then I think, but wait, we also have to lure the people who do have a chance. Yeah. Right.

16:55And I think you don't have to worry because the people that don't have a chance. I hate to say it like that. Jesus.

17:01Craig Mazin:But there are people that don't have a chance. Right. Well, those people will weed themselves out anyway. Yes. Because the people that have a chance are the people that won't give up. And in that case, at least they got to see a cool city and be here for a little bit. And also, I mean, you're right in that you probably do have to move here because it just keeps you dreaming. You have to keep dreaming. And like, if I was at home, I would probably feel like this stuff was so far away. Right. that I wouldn't even, I would just be like, after two years, I would have given up.

17:33John August:Yeah. But being here and seeing Warner Brothers and wanting to be on the other side of that fence so bad. Yeah, because if you're a film of cameras, it's right by Warner Brothers, right? It's like across from Universal. It's right there.

17:42Craig Mazin:I'm like, there it is. That's where I want to. And your group of friends, they're doing stuff. Yeah. It's not like you can sit around and go, it's impossible. And then a week later, three of your friends are like, hey, come on over and watch the thing I just did. Now you feel like a lazy piece of shit. Right. Exactly. It keeps you like... The culture is one of making things.

18:01John August:It really is. Give us a sense of that first year or two sort of in Los Angeles. So you're going to this program. You're making a bunch of stuff. Are you also working? Like what was the hustle? What was the grind? First, I was in school, didn't do anything. Then I had like a job at a burger joint. And then I was like, I had a like very small time editing job, which to me felt like such a cool thing. Yeah. And I was like, oh my gosh. And but it was like editing these little commercials for like local things, like a local little kids soccer team. And like, just like, but I was like getting hired to like edit these things.

18:35And then I worked at Starbucks for like a year and a half. Got yourself some health insurance. Yeah, right, right. And then, well, at one point I was working on a show called This Is Us for like two years. As first I was a COVID monitor. All right. During COVID. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, and I was like, I was the person that everyone hated. Handing the masks.

18:56Craig Mazin:The COVID monitor. Yeah. Everyone hated. Yeah. The COVID monitor. That's the worst job. It was the worst. But no one likes you. I was. You're on sets. Everyone was so nice on This Is Us. And I was, I guess I was a very ballsy guy because I would just go up to Milo or Yatsu, who's a DP, and just talk and talk and ask them questions. And they were nice. Yeah. They were nice enough to like even like give me their, I was like sending them short films and like so crazy that they were nice enough to talk to the COVID monitor. You know, the thing is, if you're not crazy and you're not boring, it's wonderful to talk to anybody on a set.

19:39Craig Mazin:It's cool. Every now and then you do get somebody who's a little boring and or crazy. But yeah, people actually do want to encourage the next generation to come on up and come along, I think in general.

19:50John August:Yeah. What I'm hearing through all these anecdotes is that you just have a lot of agency. You take a lot of agency. You're sort of like, this is the thing I want. You're not sort of asking permission. You're sort of just sort of in a very kind of an appropriate way. You're saying like, you're not waiting for someone to invite you in. You're just saying like, hey, can I talk to you about this thing? Yeah, I guess so. It's just so funny because I never would have considered myself that type of person. I'm very like chill. But I just, I did have that attitude of just, I'm doing what you're doing.

20:21I want to.

20:21Craig Mazin:Well, maybe this is why the writing in your story rings so true because everybody who is one thing is also the other thing, I think. And here we have Bear is the most timid, diffident, don't take chances, terrified, so terrified of success or even trying. And I don't think you can occupy that as honestly as you did unless it's there. Yeah. And we are like reactions to ourselves sometimes, you know, it's like, don't be that guy, go be this guy and do that. Oh, that's an interesting observation. Yes. Like that you can't, I don't think you could write that character that well, if you're just effortlessly alpha.

21:06Craig Mazin:Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Totally. That there's this aspect of it. And I'm kind of curious in your writing process, you do something so beautifully in the movie and it's very, and to me it's very writerly. You are able to occupy two people in a scene with two people and those two people are so wildly different. They don't know what's going on in the other person's mind. They don't even understand really the truth of what the other person's saying. We watch them.

21:34John August:Yeah.

21:34Craig Mazin:And we want to be like, oh my God, can I do therapy for the two of you? Right, right. We're not hearing each other or seeing each other. I love it. How do you get to that when it, because it's just you. I love writing dialogue where two people misunderstand each other, which is exactly what you just described. And so when you start from a place of wanting that, which is, by the way, just already a captivating way to write any scene, honestly, is like one person wants one thing and the other person wants a different thing. But then, you know, I wanted every single character in this movie to have different perspectives.

22:05And it's so interesting to have like, you know, Sarah is saying, you know, Nikki is taking advantage of you. She's using her opportunity of her dad dying to like latch on to you and that's not healthy.

22:19John August:And then it was just so crazy from what's actually happened. Right. But like what a fun thing to write that like one person has this crazy perspective but you know as the audience. And also I really, really like to write from like one perspective. Aha. Like which is like Bear. Right. And so you can hear what Sarah and Ian are saying but you don't follow them home and see their story. You stay with Bear. Absolutely. So you're a limited point of view but we actually understand the other characters but we were sort of locked to point of view on him, which makes sense. It reminds me of Jon Favreau in Swingers.

22:51John August:So this character who we appreciate, we adore, he's making bad choices and we're with him while he's making bad choices. You've set up a character in Bear who feels like he is in a romantic comedy and yet the genre of the movie isn't letting him be in a romantic comedy.

23:05Craig Mazin:The voice message scene in Swingers is kind of like the comedy version of Obsession. Yeah, it's cringe

23:11John August:because we're so embarrassed on his behalf And yet it just keeps going worse and worse. And that is kind of what's happened with Bear up until he sort of cracks the willow. Yeah. Yeah. Again, a credit to the way you approach things, because I think you never villainized anyone, really.

23:30Craig Mazin:Even what he does in and of itself, it's not an act of crime. He's just going, I wish. If it's a crime, it's a crime of cowardice. Right. But it's not, there was no expectation. Absolutely not. which is so funny because I see people make these videos of like if Bear would have worded his wish differently like I wish that I'm like that's not what this is about that's not he didn't if only he were a lawyer this would have worked out great yeah or like I wish I had the confidence to which I get that like saying saying the correct thing but like he it was a toy he didn't know it was gonna work that's the whole point that's the whole point it was just this goofy set it was almost like when he does it it's like this is how much I suck right I'm doing this.

24:12Craig Mazin:But it was, what I appreciated was how I understood how he felt. I've felt that way. I think actually everyone in the world at some point or another has experienced obsession or what's the limerence? Is that the word that people use a lot? And of wanting another person and feeling helpless. It's not even that you think they would want you back. You're just scared to ask. You know, they don't. Yeah, right, right. And you're lost, but you can't seem to get out of it. Everyone's had this feeling. So it's incredibly relatable. But also, I think maybe not everybody, but almost everybody's had the feeling of understanding.

24:52Craig Mazin:I think that person wants me, it's not going to happen. How do I sort of deal with that? Yeah. So I was both of them. Right. The whole time.

25:04John August:One thing that's so important to note here is that Bear is making a choice and Bear is kicking off the action of the movie. He's protagonizing in the way you want him to sort of start the story. And yet you as the filmmaker are still doing the thing we always urge our writers to do is you are torturing your hero. You are making things awful for your hero. And you're building this sort of moral staircase where like he keeps making choices that are kind of reasonable in the moment but are actually worse overall for him and for everyone else around him. And to your credit, it works. And we can kind of feel your hands doing that.

25:36John August:We're delighted because that is also the genre. It's the nature of the kind of story we sat down to see, which is fun. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to like talk about it at such a high, like emotionally intelligent level at this point, because when I first was writing it, it was just raw. Yeah, okay. You know what I mean? It's like... Well, tell us about those early drafts. Tell us about like, you know, what you thought the movie was as you were sitting down to start writing it. I knew that I wanted to do some crazy things with Nikki and and that well in the chair short film that I did there was this girl character who kind of would like flip from different emotions and I was like I want to do a movie that where that's the whole gimmick yeah you know what I mean and so then this came to me I was like oh my god I can do that chair thing that I really liked with the girl and like this can be that movie and like something that's really cool about this movie is that it lends itself well to being in the horror genre, like in a way that other ideas I have don't, where I'm like, oh, where's like the scary angle?

26:39This idea, just the obsession of something, it's scary. Like it's scary to have someone feel so strongly about you in real life, it really is.

26:48Craig Mazin:And it was really, I thought, so smart, even though Bear's the protagonist, he's the character we're following and so much of it is through his perspective. We do feel through Nikki, like we can see, and you give her moments where she gets to come back, where we understand she's like those people that have locked in syndrome, which is the most terrifying thing. And now I'm with her. Now I'm kind of, I'm just imagining the terror of what this must feel like. And on both sides of it, the desire to love someone that doesn't love you, we all know the power of that feeling. The feeling of not being in control of yourself, we also know that feeling.

27:27Craig Mazin:If I were to write a think piece about why this movie works, It just comes down to it is a hyper presentation of stuff we have all felt. And we must feel it because it goes to what love and desire is, which are beneath our four brains. Right. And that is where the scary stuff is. Right. Wow, that's interesting.

27:50John August:As you were working on this in the writing, in the directing, and in the editing, where did you find a line between like we are in a horror space and this is a comedy? because so much of what you're setting up is essentially a comedy press where this girl is so obsessed with you. Like that's a comedy.

28:03Craig Mazin:There is a Jim Carrey version of this movie. Totally.

28:06John August:So where did you find moments where you had to sort of pivot between those two? Well, the funny thing is that it just kind of comes naturally for me because I'm not... Like when I was, I think like 17, I was still in high school and I saw J.J. Abrams say on a podcast or something, the most successful people in life don't take themselves too seriously. I don't know what it is about that statement that just stuck with me. And it was like, whoa, it just freed me up because I was like, so I don't have to like take this seriously. And I know that sounds like, you know, you don't take it seriously, whatever.

28:46But like, don't take the art too seriously because there's something freeing about, you know, you watch these horror movies that are so brute and like, this is serious and we need to figure this out. And it's like, but what if that was real? Then you would probably be, you know, you would talk different. You would say -

29:01Craig Mazin:What if that were real? Yeah. I cannot tell you how often I will say some version of the following thing. Okay, but what would really happen? Yes. If I, when I read somebody's script and I'm like, okay, this moment is a very interesting moment, but everything that happens after that, and we do this with our, how would an actual human being respond in this circumstance? Exactly, man. Yeah. And I do think it's a good thing that JJ said there, and I love that you come from a comedy background and there is something about comedy and horror that just they're like twin siblings

29:30John August:well they both revel in being uncomfortable and just sitting in a really uncomfortable place and

29:34Craig Mazin:like not letting it resolve and getting to squishy stuff underneath yeah without taking itself it shouldn't take itself so seriously here's an example people would think oh this is a comedy scene but like the morning the morning after when bear wakes up he's checking his hair in the mirror and he goes up to her and he's like, let's not do that anymore. Like that's funny. And people think it's funny, but it's also honest. Because in every horror movie, crazy things happen. And then the next day, the characters just ignore it. Like, dude, you just saw some crazy shit. Let's talk about it out loud because that's what you would do.

30:13Craig Mazin:What would you do in this circumstance? Exactly. And there are kinds of stories where everything just feels a bit elevated because of the nature of it. If it's a fantasy or something like this, We understand that like in Lord of the Rings, I always think it's funny like when people die in a movie like Lord of the Rings, everyone should just stop and vomit. You know what I mean? But like, but they don't because that's the world they live in and I get it. It's fine. And maybe you can't accept in a world where war is every day and then people die left and right. It's like fine. Yes, fine. But in a story like this where I, you know, I'm basically a kid and I work at a music shop.

30:46Craig Mazin:Yeah. I really like this girl. Even blood, anything. Literally. Yeah. is enough to shatter you. You will talk, if nothing else happened except that one night, he would be in therapy about it for a while anyway. Yeah, yeah. So I love that you like go right to that question. Like, what would really happen? And it's the same, it's almost like when you ask that one question, it opens up so many genres. You can, now, you can think about, ooh, but what's the version of this movie that we've seen a hundred times? What's the version of it where it happened in real life? In real life. And then you're like, it just kind of excites you.

31:23You know what I mean? That's why a simple idea doesn't scare me off. It excites me because I can think about,

31:29Craig Mazin:oh, but what if it's raw and real and the reactions are? You almost want the more real you're going to be, the simpler you want the idea to be. Yeah, totally. The more complicated and large the concept, I think then almost the characters start to have to drift away from grounded. Because there's no way to push the plot forward without them doing so. You would go to the hospital. okay well that's boring now the rest of the movie takes place at the hospital like there's so many things you have that do kind of drag like you know even this ghost movie that me and cooper just wrote so many times we were like we want to do the absolute most bonkers crazy thing and it's like what if we killed off this character right here it'd be crazy it's like yeah but there's con artists they would just give up and go home yeah be sad like they wouldn't like carry out the rest of the right you know so you so we're constantly thinking about that um and also like not wanting to answer anything is such a challenging way to write because you know when you're saying to me we we understand that she's popping into her body at this point in the movie i never had a scene where bears going to ian and saying i think she's like popping back And I think, right, you just understand it.

32:41But like when you write that way, you have to talk to people and be like, did you understand like this?

32:47Craig Mazin:Did you, for this particular movie, was there a process where you, after you make the movie and you cut it together, did you, for lack of a better phrase, test screen? Yeah, yeah. We did a test screening with, I'd just gotten with UTA and they let us use their screening room. And we, Haley, the producer, put on Instagram, free movie. Because we wanted to get, we didn't want to get friends and family. We wanted to get random people. With you on that one. But it was just us doing it. It wasn't like some like super. NRG or any of those research companies. Yeah, it wasn't. It was just us. And so we got as random as we could of people.

33:28and we all gave him papers and made them write down things. And the number one thing that people said is they were frustrated with Bear and that they didn't understand why he wasn't making more effort to like fix it. And by the way, you've seen the movie as it is. You haven't seen the movie before the reshoot. Well, there you go. So you learned something. I did learn something. Right. And what's really interesting is that I kind of did the thing that you hear about in stories where I didn't take the note. I took the note behind the note, which is everybody wanted me to fix Bear and make him go to that crystal shop sooner to like find the one which will it and try to fix it sooner.

34:10And I was like, okay, I get it now. The problem is that I haven't done a good enough job of telling people that Bear wants this to work. He wants - He's not ready to undo it yet. Yeah. And so that scene that I was just talking about with the haircut and he comes and he explains that to her. That was a reshoot. Before we had this other scene where he's like, where were you? And she's like, I was in the room. And like the twist is that she was like on the ceiling and it was cool, but it was just, but then I was able to come up with an idea of a scene where he's trying to say, please don't do that anymore because it freaks me out.

34:46And then she says, I promise you I won't. And he goes, good.

34:50Craig Mazin:She gives him permission to keep going. Yeah, exactly. So here we have one of our favorite and most horrifying things in writing, which is logic. And it is remarkable how people need it. They need logic. Even if they don't know. That's right. And we will trade on this concept of what would people really do? And we will get very far with it until we forget that maybe also people would really do this or this. Yeah, right. And we forgot to do that. And boy, they go right to it, don't they? It's amazing. Right.

35:25John August:So two examples I can think of on terms of like, what would people really do? I just rewatched Get Out, which we should do a deep dive on Get Out. It's so spectacular. But you are right there with your hero in terms of like, something is really messed up here and I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave. We're going to go right now. And he tries to leave at the right appropriate moments. And there's the social pressures in his name to stay, but he doesn't. Also Blair Witch Project in terms of just like, these are characters who are encountering these weird things and they're responding the ways, they're freaking out in the ways that they should freak out.

35:55John August:And so a lesson we kind of tend to forget in genre is that people don't know they're in a genre. They're just experiencing life.

36:04Craig Mazin:And therefore, it does become corny when they don't appear to be behaving the way we do. And then you get the classic movie theater moment of, why are you going in there? Yeah, right.

36:18John August:Why are you going in there? Get out.

36:20Craig Mazin:I think it's great that you had that experience. It speaks to why I think anybody who is going to do this for a long time, right off the bat, you've said like two things that are very important. One is, okay, I don't take myself so seriously. I take the work seriously. I don't take myself seriously. Right. Which means I leave room to be wrong. Right. And I don't, I'm not wrong because they say they don't like something. I'm wrong if I say, oh, wait, I know why they don't like something. I did something wrong. I see what it is. Let me fix it. Yeah. That's a big deal. Thank you. I appreciate it.

36:53And it comes from that J.J. Abrams quote from a long time. And I'm just like, dang. It is that. I see people that do take themselves too seriously. And it paralyzes themselves. Like, I went to a film school where, you know, friends would have these short films. And they would spend years on this, like, one short film because they just wanted to get it right.

37:15Craig Mazin:And it's like, bro, release it. There is no right. Yeah. Work on the next one. Work on the next one. But it is, there's a kind of paralysis, I think, that happens. Somebody did a study, like a statistical study once, of Oscar award-winning directors. And the time in between movies after someone wins an Oscar is like twice as long as the normal time between movies because they become paralyzed and start to think, okay, well, now I'm an Oscar award-winning director. My next film must be Oscar-worthy of my greatness. Right. And they just stop. I mean honestly like I know I didn't win an Oscar but I'm feeling that pressure now and like it's not like I won all these awards are breaking like

38:00John August:better than E.T. came out and like beat Blair Witch and I'm just like I'm almost like stop stop I'm like slow down slow down I didn't ask for this you know it's just a crazy amount of success that that movie is having one of the advantages you have here is that you already shot this next movie so it's not like if you were prepping another movie right now Or you didn't know what you were going to do. Or like, you know, here's this$100 billion thing that you're going to do. We would turn off the cameras and we would caution you not to stop you from doing this. Right. But I do think the fact that you have another movie that you already know is going to happen is you're actually already editing is a good step.

38:36Craig Mazin:Yeah. But it's in your mind now, right? So partly you just have to kind of now go through the miserable exercise of forcing yourself to stop thinking about it. Right. And to not put what you do now in the perspective of what just happened. Yeah. Because it can be terrifying. And by the way, it's okay if the best thing you ever did is, something has to be the best thing you ever did. Right. It may be that this is not. I'm fully rooting for you. Yeah. That there's something bigger and better. But you kind of just have to forget about it.

39:04John August:Yeah. So one thing, you do tend to look to other people and say like, oh, what did they do? And this may be a good moment to look at other folks who are in similar kind of circumstances and sort of learn from them in terms of like, what filmmakers you loved who like followed up a big hit with another thing that was really great and interesting, that's the track to follow and not look at sort of the negative examples of the people who just like then spun around for years and years because we know them. It's hard. It's hard. You're in it now.

39:32Craig Mazin:It's impossible to see when you're inside of it and you look back 20 years later, you may say, this is crazy because there are filmmakers like this who their first six movies out of the gate are massive and awesome and then there's like 10 more movies that nobody wants or likes. There are filmmakers who go on, off, on, off, on, off. There are ones who come in clumps. There are ones who just ride along on a B minus the whole time. But you don't know. All you can do is what you do in the moment as best you can do it and not repeat yourself. Just trying to not repeat yourself. Yeah, yeah. And that's scary.

40:06It is, it's scary. Harder to say. Because I want to repeat whatever happened with it. Well, of course. And you're kind of comparing. You're like, oh my gosh, like what worked with this? Why was it resonating with people? Is my next idea, is it deep enough to, am I known as the deep guy now? Like all these things that I'm just trying, trust me, and I am, I'm trying to push them out.

40:23Craig Mazin:You can't completely, I mean, listen, I went on many long walks talking to myself, trying to figure out which disaster would be the best disaster for me to make a television show about after I made a show about a disaster. Like, okay, well, that's what I do now. I'm a disaster guy now.

40:42John August:There was no Chernobyl today.

40:43Craig Mazin:I would be insane to not keep doing the disasters now, right? And then I would just have to repeatedly hit myself in the face and say, do not. Wow, yeah. But you have to almost forgive yourself for all of the instincts to be afraid. And by the way, if you do repeat yourself, you repeat yourself. So that's okay too because, I mean, God knows how many sequels I did in my life. I mean, I was being paid, you know? Right, right, right. It's all in service of something. All of it.

41:09John August:I love this is the most niche advice we can give to a person. Like after your giant hit, here's how to follow up the giant hit. We've had them.

41:16Craig Mazin:We might as well talk about it.

41:18John August:But something that would be very practical for a lot of our listeners is how do you make that first movie? Because you've made a ton of shorts. You've made sketches. You know how to shoot stuff. But now you have a script and you actually have to go try to film a thing. What was your process? You mentioned a producer. Ultimately, you mentioned UTA. But how did that all come together? Yeah, I mean, so I'd already made Milk and Cereal. but nobody had seen it. No material is the found footage. The found footage, like 60 minute movie. It's so, it's almost considered a short film but it's just long enough to be considered a feature.

41:51Craig Mazin:It's a long short. Yeah, it's a very long short which the first cut was an hour 20 which is, there's no doubt that it's a feature. So I'd done that and I'd done The Chair and I did like one more horror film but like this producer, James Harris, reached out and said, hey listen, I have this like program where I find a filmmaker and I give them X amount of money and give them basically a shot. And if you have an idea, I liked your chair. Are you doing a feature of the chair? Is that something? And at the time, I had actually written a feature for the chair. I was like, oh my gosh. Like, yeah, I have the chair.

42:25And my manager was like, well, the chair could be like a cool IP, which by the way, we're doing nothing with now. But at the time, it was like, you'd already written the chair. Like, why don't you see if there's something else for it? Maybe we could have a bigger budget it for the chair and we could save that and maybe there's a different idea and i was like well i have this obsession idea i'd written the short film of it i'd had the idea this was after this the simpsons episode it was after like i already i was excited about this yeah and so i told him i was like okay i'll do obsession i pitched obsession to james and his response was basically i like this idea but why don't you write the script for sure and so what you pitched him was

43:06John August:a lot of like what we saw in the movie. The four characters that set up. I pitched him that it was a movie about a guy that makes a wish that this girl becomes obsessed with him and she becomes, and I pitched it as a possession movie. Yeah. But it was a love story, possession movie gone wrong thing. Possession. Yeah. And it felt, he dug it. Yeah. But he was also like, yeah, it's been done before, but I dig it and why don't you write it? And so I started, oh my God, this is a huge opportunity for me. Which, you know what? Like looking back, that gives me some sort of hope or makes me feel better that like I was still under pressure then.

43:44It's just a different type of pressure.

43:46John August:As a matter of fact, maybe it was even more pressure because it was like, I have to do, this has to be good. Oh, yeah. I never thought about that. Like I never thought like, this has to be good. I always just was like, do-do-do-do-do, like just stream of consciousness.

43:58Craig Mazin:Well, when you haven't, when nothing's happened yet, you are about as free as you'll ever be. Yeah, right, right. And in a way, trying to shut everything out to be that free again is part of the challenge. Yeah.

44:10John August:When I wrote Go, there was no expectation that it had to be a thing. I was writing the movie I wanted to write. Yes.

44:15Craig Mazin:And so sometimes you just have to turn on. You do. You have to turn all of it off. Everybody out there will drown you. Even their love will drown you. Their hatred will drown you. The love will drown you. The think pieces, the criticism, the awards, all that, which is designed to celebrate what you've done, in a way is kind of corrosive because what you've done you did. And we're always like dreaming. It's so crazy humans. I think about this. I'm like, I'm having the biggest hit ever right now. And I'm thinking about what's my next movie. Like, I can't even, I can't even for one second enjoy this.

44:53Craig Mazin:I'm already thinking about what's my next one, next one, and even next one. Okay. So good news, bad news. Bad news is you will never enjoy it. Wow, that sucks. Good news. This is the best, most striking sign that you will continue to succeed. That is the thing that keeps people going. Because the people who were motivated by success when they get it, they don't realize it, but they just got fed. They're not hungry anymore. But if that's not what you're hungry for, if what you're hungry for is the next dream thing. It's crazy how it means nothing to me. It drives me nuts, actually. I'm just really sorry and I get it.

45:30Right? It's like, this should mean so much to me. This is so crazy. And I'm seeing, but I'm like, you know, but now I'm like, it almost just makes me angry. Like it doesn't make me excited. It makes me, I'm like, I'm like jealous of myself.

45:45Craig Mazin:How is that even possible? You know? Jealous, jealous of yourself, disappointed in yourself for not being enlightened enough to enjoy it. Jealous of the guy who did that thing. Cause you don't know how he did that really. Yeah. Sometimes you're like, did I even do it? And it's terrifying and then you do it again. This is your personal heaven hell. But that's, I think the people who do what we do and who do it at length and who have, it's not everything's not always a success, but repeated success. This is part of it. Right. Is this feeling. I'm suspicious of people who are, you know what? For the next four months, I'm just going to enjoy this moment.

46:26Yeah. Right. What? What? How are you not thinking, oh my God, I got to do that again. Right.

46:32Craig Mazin:If I get to not terrified, that's a huge day for me. Right. You know, so I love hearing this. This means we're going to get a lot more movies out of you. Yeah. This is great. Well, I'm not, and that's kind of a thing. I'm trying to figure out, like I'm trying to figure out what my pace is. Because some of my heroes, like Ari Aster, even Zach Kregor, even Jordan Peele, they don't come out with movies every year. I think Zach Kregor is working pretty hard.

46:54John August:Yeah, he is. Yeah. George Jordan Peele is taking a slower pace.

46:58Craig Mazin:Your heroes are not you. Your pace is your pace. Is your pace. Yeah. And if I'm not doing something, I would go crazy. Then your pace is your pace. And there are people who put out a movie a year, some of them famously, and no one who puts out a movie a year makes all good movies.

47:16John August:They make a lot of movies.

47:18Craig Mazin:And Luca Guadagnino is out there making a movie every 60 days. Soderbergh, who retired 20 years ago. At night. makes a movie every month. Right? They just keep coming. Right? That's the pace. Your pace is your pace.

47:32John August:Yeah.

47:32Craig Mazin:You don't have to worry about that.

47:34John August:Quick questions before we sort of move into one cool things. You wrote the script. You gave it to the producer. The producer said, thumbs up. You'd shot a ton of shorts. You shot a bunch of sketches. What from your YouTube experience applied and what didn't apply? What things did you have to sort of figure out is different?

47:49Craig Mazin:That's a good question.

47:50John August:Because you're working with a professional set. You're working with probably a much bigger team than you're used to. Oh, yeah, definitely. And I think like I've said this a lot on other platforms, but like the YouTube comments have taught me a lot about that people are really smart. Yeah. Which is like not always the thing you learn online. You don't hear that about YouTube comments. But like it's just people are picking up on things. You know that thing we talked about that was like when you don't give any answers, you almost have to ask people, are you getting this? Do you understand? And the answer is yes.

48:23like as long as you're telling it through subtext enough people are getting it and learning that through YouTube comments has given me the confidence to like treat my audience like they're smart

48:32John August:in a way that maybe I wouldn't have learned so I like to give credit to that but also now I've actually learned that that comments are very bad for me like someone said recently and I was like oh my god I love that that like comments are like food that you put it in your body and you're choosing to digest that. And if you just don't eat it, then you don't have to, you know, you can eat an entire thing of chocolate cake or you can just not eat that chocolate cake. And like, whether you, right, it's like, what's the difference between YouTube comments and reviews? Like, are you reading reviews? Reviews are the new modern YouTube comments.

49:11John August:Those are just long form YouTube comments. It's so funny because people were like, what's it like going into a medium where there were comments and now there's not?

49:18Craig Mazin:I was like, there are, there's comments. Yes, it's, yeah. So I've struggled with this my whole life and or at least my whole professional life. And where I kind of landed was, I think that it's me as my most kind of childlike trying to get what I should have gotten and didn't, which is some sort of perfect, beautiful, unconditional love and acceptance. and you look for that and you will get it from some of that stuff. It will mean nothing. And then the punches come and you will feel those so much more. I know. Like one, 200 I love you's in one punch and all you think about all day is the punch because it was not a healthy exercise in the first place because you're looking for something that ultimately you don't actually need or even want.

50:12Craig Mazin:Right. You just have to sit with your own awareness that you didn't make something perfect. You are trying to get better. There is a corrosive aspect to it and there is almost an indulgence. It's almost like a suicidal indulgence. It is. It is. You feel like you're doing... You literally are like, I hope the next one's not negative, but you're still strong. You're waiting for it. It's like people who don't stop gambling until they've lost everything.

50:38John August:It is the emotional slot machine.

50:40Craig Mazin:It's the emotional slot machine. It's bad for you.

50:41John August:So let me try to distinguish between... There's the comments you get on the thing that's still in process. And like, you know, someone who you want to read an early draft of your script to see like, are they getting it? Or like people who are seeing this at UTA, the test screening to see like, oh, is this working? But at a certain point, when the thing is finished, you just have to be finished with it and stop reading. Right, because there's nothing to be, you can't do anything. There's no such thing about constructive criticism because there's no construction. There's no construction anymore.

51:08Craig Mazin:Construction complete. Yes. You just don't like it. And it is me. You don't like me. Yeah. You rejected me, which, and you can see how intense that feeling is in your movie. Yeah. The feeling of being rejected and unwanted is baked into the movie. Exactly. So, I mean, I would strongly urge you. It's hard. Yeah. It requires an enormous amount of ego strength. I'm going to deny myself the cheap thrill of fake love. Yeah. Right. To protect myself from. It's so true. Yeah. It's hard though. Yeah. It's hard. But the difference is like videos and stuff. Because I know you asked, what's the difference between like YouTube stuff versus like the more traditional stuff?

51:52And like nobody makes video essays about, I mean, people did about milk and cereal and stuff. But I mean, arguably that was a feature film. And so, but like, it's really cool to like see the videos of people talking about it. And like that just feels so much different, more different than, because you can read the comments of that and that's a bad thing. Yeah, don't read that.

52:13John August:But the videos. Or someone's actually taking the time to look at, pull apart, to contextualize things. Sure, I could see that being helpful. I mean, I'm just also really lucky that it's been mostly positive for obsession as far as like people like having opinions about it. You may still need to stop watching those. I know, I will and I should.

52:31Craig Mazin:You can have somebody in your life who curates a little bit for you. Yeah. And you can say, listen, if you see something that you know, it's not just somebody going, best thing ever or sucked. but somebody who say goes, okay, I'm going to make a 10 minute video about the use of perspective in obsession.

52:51John August:Yeah.

52:51Craig Mazin:That is some sort of thoughtful analytical thing that isn't about praise or condemnation, just an exploration of something that we do out of respect. Maybe somebody in your life can say, hey, this one's safe for you. Check it out. Check this one out. Right.

53:03John August:We have curation on the Script Notes book reviews. Oh, we do? Yeah. So like on the Goodreads reviews. I looked at them. So I think I sent the one thing through. I sent one thing through to you, which was like this essay that was like, I couldn't believe how long it was, but it was actually like really smartly done. And like the fact that this person had spent all his time really looking at sort of what we did on the scripted book was actually meaningful. It's like, oh, that connected.

53:24Craig Mazin:Well, they spent time on it.

53:25John August:They spent time on you.

53:26Craig Mazin:So that it mattered to them. It wasn't just some barf. Yeah. You know, so much of it out there is just somebody going, blah, blah, blah, blah, next. And they don't even think about how it could affect somebody at all. They don't think about what they just wrote within a millisecond after they hit send. It's gone. And they may even change their mind the next day.

53:46John August:Yeah, but they're not going to go back and change their idea. But you're just stuck with the comment. Forever. Right. Forever. All right, let's do our one cool thing. My one cool thing. So this was a study that was done and I want to pose it to you and so you can tell us what you think the results were. So if you have a bunch of people, school children even, just in an empty space and just tell them to wander around for 10 minutes, which direction are they going to turn? Are they going to turn individually, turn clockwise or counterclockwise?

54:16Craig Mazin:They have to turn.

54:17John August:Straight ahead is not an answer. They can move straight ahead, but an empty field. And so eventually, they're going to start turning around. They're not going to just wander off forever.

54:25Craig Mazin:I mean, my gut is that most people are right-handed. They're going to go towards their dominant hand and I'm going to say to the right.

54:30John August:I also thought it was like this way. Yeah, clockwise. Clockwise. It's counterclockwise. What is wrong with us? Universally around the world and they can't figure out why. And so they've done -

54:39Craig Mazin:Even in upside down places like Australia?

54:40John August:Yeah. So I'll put a link to the New York Times article about this. It's written by Rachel Neuer. And if you look at the comments on that, everyone says like, oh, but they should do it in the Southern Hemisphere because of Coriolanus effect. That's not true. That's not real. Can I tell you something weird?

54:57Craig Mazin:Yeah. And I don't know if you've had this experience. In fact, I know you haven't. No one else has except for me. I'm the only one. And this is far beyond random probability at this point. when I write something, I try and be very visual about the space and I imagine the moments happening. I'm going to say 90 % of the time when the production designer comes and shows me or somebody does a previs or an illustration or storyboard, they've put everybody in the other direction.

55:25John August:It drives me crazy. Oh, yeah, yeah.

55:27Craig Mazin:I go, okay, well, I imagine them the other way. But everyone's like, oh, that's weird. We all imagined it like this. and I can't explain it.

55:37John August:Yeah.

55:38Craig Mazin:I'm backwards in my head from everybody and I don't know why it's actually terrifying. I mean, I kind of know what you're saying because anytime, like if I didn't explain exactly where the couch was supposed to go or then it's always in the wrong spot. Okay, so what's going on? Yeah, but in my head, it's so clear that the couch is right here. Yeah, so. Is it like how our retinas have an upside down image that gets like flipped back into our brain? What is happening?

56:04John August:As far as this study goes, they have a bunch of different theories and none of them pan out. And so they really have no idea. So scientists are, it's an active area of exploration. It could just be like, we are biologically inclined to turn to the left and they're not sure why. But if you blindfold people, it doesn't work the same. And so if you blindfold people and tell them to move straight, I think that bias isn't there. But it's just a natural tendency.

56:30Craig Mazin:Well, this is all a simulation, obviously.

56:32John August:Handedness doesn't have anything to do with it. So weird. But we both said right.

56:37Craig Mazin:We both said right. Because I was like, I'm going to do that. Because I imagined in my mind, and I think maybe this is the problem, is that whatever my brain does spatially, I can see it clearly. And then when I put it, however it comes out on the other end, people are getting the flipped image. It's so weird. Yeah. It's so weird.

56:54John August:I would say in probably 80 % of scenes where I'm picturing a character entering into a space, I picture them entering in through the left. I'm moving left to right across the screen. I'm sure statistically, if you actually look at the movies I've made and things, that's not the case. But I'm almost always picturing them moving, entering into the frame from the left side of the frame. Well, you read from left to right. That's part of it, yeah.

57:18Craig Mazin:But then do people who read Arabic or Hebrew go the other way? Right. It's wild. I just learned that books, I don't know if it's in Japan or China or just Asia in general, but books are flipped.

57:33John August:I didn't know that. Yeah, there's a lot of different cultures where what we consider the back of the book is actually the front of the book and you're going the other way through. I don't know. Manga comics, I think, are back to front. So you're reading left to right but you're flipping progressively this way?

57:47Craig Mazin:There's different ways it can work in different languages.

57:49John August:Yeah, manga comics is exactly what I'm talking about because I just got one and I was like, this looks like the back of the book. It was. I had to flip it.

57:57Craig Mazin:I'm like, wait, this feels so weird.

57:59John August:It does feel so weird.

58:00Craig Mazin:now that I think about it when I went to Hebrew school where I learned zero Hebrew except the Hebrew phrase for shut up which every kid who goes to Hebrew school wears over, sheka b 'v 'akashat that's all I remember is the teacher telling me to shut up this is great education but the books were, the cover was like this except you would read right to left as you were turning the pages this way which is very weird it's all backwards you make a movie about that how often do you get that now this would be weird you should make a movie about that this is weird something happened that's vaguely and boringly weird to me Craig do one cool thing?

58:38Craig Mazin:I do it's a little bit of a throwback to an old one I'm pretty sure it's a game but it's newly released on or fairly newly released on iOS so I think a long time ago I did a one cool thing for a game called Curse of the Golden Idol which was available on Steam and it's this very strange game It's very surreal. The artwork is, sometimes there's art styles that are aggressively, purposefully ugly. This is that. Grotesque somewhat.

59:09John August:Yeah.

59:09Craig Mazin:It's sort of a logic deduction game. You get a scene, you find these clues, and you have to piece together what's actually going on. And the scenes become progressively more and more difficult to figure out. But it's all logic. It's all, you become a little bit of a Sherlock Holmes as you go through it. And I liked it. but it was kind of interface-wise, it was a little difficult.

59:28John August:Yeah.

59:28Craig Mazin:As it turns out, it was always supposed to be on iOS or some sort of touch-based because it's so simple now. It's so easy. And they've released two additional DLC things for it. And underneath all of it is this very weird occult story that begins to unfold of a secret society doing some weird shit. So the story's kind of fun, but mostly it's just this really interesting exercise in being very logical and observant. And there's no time limit on it, which I got games that put a clock on me. I start to freak out. Curse of the Golden Idol? Case of the Golden Idol. I've been saying Curse of the Golden Idol the whole time.

1:00:11Craig Mazin:It's Case of the Golden Idol. I think the people who make it, they have like their company name, which we'll dig up here. It's like a Pantone or a hex code for a color. Fantastic. I think, which I thought you would enjoy. Ah, yes. Color Gray Games. And their logo for Color Gray Games is like the Hexcoat Antone.

1:00:33John August:Yeah, love it. Yeah. Anyway, the case of the Golden Idol. The case of the Golden Idol. Curry, do you have one cool thing to share with us? My dad, for Christmas last year, got me the Script Notes book.

1:00:45Craig Mazin:You weren't a little insulted? Like, Dad, I know how to do this. No, because I'm always like trying to learn and like, I still feel like I know nothing about writing. Like every day I'm like, oh, like how do I learn more? What's the answer? You're just, I'm like constantly chasing. I want the Aaron Sorkin masterclass again. Like what else can I learn? I'm like studying like Save the Cab, studying like Hero's Journey and like trying to figure out what works better for me and also like trying to throw it away at the same time. And like, you know what I mean? You'll find one day you will be teaching a masterclass where you have digested, synthesized all of it, mushed it with the things that are uniquely you, and you will then give something.

1:01:29Right, right. Yeah, I mean, three-act structure is important, and that's kind of what I've figured out, I think. So far, so good for you, I would have to say.

1:01:38Craig Mazin:Yeah, I wouldn't dig too. By the way, here's one cool thing. You're wearing a members-only jacket, and that is the actual member. Is that like a vintage members-only jacket? No, they still have them. So that's like a new version of the old Members Only. Yeah, but it's the same exact thing. It's the exact one. It's high school. Oh, that's cool. I had that in 1985, I think. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Wow. And when did the members, so Members Only in whatever the early 80s was like the coolest thing ever. And then like one day later, the least cool thing ever. Oh, really? And it wasn't like there wasn't a middle ground.

1:02:13Craig Mazin:It was like. Wow. Everyone had one. And then suddenly, oh my God. Are you wearing one, you're lame? Are you wearing a members-only jacket, you loser? And I'm like, it was cool yesterday? Wow, that's crazy. I didn't even know that.

1:02:25John August:It's all, I remember. Yeah, so I assumed it was ironically cool, but it's just genuinely cool. That's the generational split. I think now it's all the way just cool. Everything that my daughter wears is like found at vintage stores and thrifted.

1:02:37Craig Mazin:My daughter as well. They could go thrifting together. She loves it.

1:02:40John August:It's reminding me, your daughter is in a similar situation where like with Curry, she's just making stuff herself and she's making music herself rather than making films herself. But like, she just was able to do the thing that she wanted to do and didn't have to wait for the rest of the world to catch up.

1:02:54Craig Mazin:She didn't have to wait for the rest of the world to catch up. They just sort of met her there, which is really, it's cool. And it's exciting. But I can, you know, she goes through these same things too. There is, not everybody survives the withering gaze of the world. It is slightly monkey's paw. Yeah. To be ironic, you get what you wish for and then you're like, oh no.

1:03:18John August:Well, Currybroker, we wish you all the success and luck. We wish all these things for you. It's going to happen. You might, by the way, because I don't want this to come out like a year later and you're like, wait a second. You might see more members-only jackets from me. Oh, nice. In a weird way that I won't say, but you're going to see it in like less than a year and you're going to be like, what? We were there right then. We were there at the birth or the midlife. It's not as random as you think. Okay. A little teaser there at the end.

1:03:45Craig Mazin:A little Chekhov's members-only jacket. The Script Notes

1:03:48John August:is produced by Meredith Stedman. I don't know. Our intern is Lauren Loesberg. Our outro is by Matthew Cilelli. If you have an outro, we could use more outros. So please send links to those to ask at johnoggs.com. That's also the place where you can send questions like the ones we often answer on the show. We'll find transcripts at johnoggs.com along with a sign-up for our weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing. The Script Notes book is available wherever you buy books, just like Curry's dad did. Yeah, cool guy. Cool guy. You can find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube.

1:04:14John August:Just search for Script Notes and give us a follow. You'll find us on Instagram at Script Notes Podcast. We have t-shirts and hoodies and drinkware. You'll find those at Cotton Bureau.

1:04:23Craig Mazin:I'm going to get some drinkware, by the way.

1:04:24John August:Yeah, drinkware.

1:04:24Craig Mazin:I need some. Yeah. How do I not have the drinkware? I don't know. I'm going to get some. You'll get the drinkware. Drinkware. Yeah, drinkware.

1:04:29John August:You'll find show notes with the links to the things we talked about today and the email you get each week as a premium subscriber. Thank you again to our premium subscribers. Yeah.

1:04:36Craig Mazin:They're the best. They make this all possible.

1:04:38John August:You're going to be getting a notice soon premium subscribers. We also email you about special things and you're going to get a special email soon.

1:04:44Craig Mazin:Possibly a script notes themed members only jacket. That's what it is. Because my understanding is that stuff's about to go. Can you imagine

1:04:50John August:an orange members only jacket? We screw them over and we just like assault the earth and members are like, oh my God, it's so overdone. Absolutely. Dang. Yeah, I don't want the members only to be done before the thing. No, we won't do that too. We promise. I want them to come back when they're supposed to come back. When they're supposed to come back. It's coming soon. Yeah, so Curry Barker attempting to time culture, which I love.

1:05:11Craig Mazin:So far, so good. So far, so good.

1:05:14John August:You can sign up to become a premium member at scriptnotes.net where you get all those back episodes and bonus segments like the one we're about to record on Popcorn Buckets.

1:05:22Craig Mazin:Popcorn Buckets.

1:05:22John August:Curry Barker, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's a delight. Thanks for having me. This has been so fun. Oh, excellent. Yay.

1:05:39Thank you.