In short
The Colin and Samir Show: A Hollywood Showrunner’s POV on YouTube
Episode Overview In this episode, hosts Colin and Samir interview Scott Gimple, a notable Hollywood showrunner, with a focus on his insights into the creator economy and the evolving landscape of entertainment, particularly in relation to YouTube.
Key Concepts Discussed
Introduction to Scott Gimple
- Role: Showrunner responsible for the creative and logistical aspects of shows, including hiring, budgeting, and production.
- Experience: Worked on "The Walking Dead," eventually becoming its chief content officer and overseeing various spin-offs.
- Perspective: Gimple brings a unique viewpoint on the intersections of traditional media and the burgeoning world of YouTube.
The Influence of YouTube on Entertainment
- Training Ground for Kids: YouTube is shaping the viewing habits of younger generations, impacting their expectations for entertainment formats.
- Comparison with Traditional TV: Gimple observes that YouTube has taken over the ritualistic, week-to-week viewing experience traditionally offered by TV. He argues that the platform cultivates a deeper relationship with audiences.
- Content Consumption: Discussed the shift from binge-watching to weekly releases, emphasizing how this affects storytelling and viewer engagement.
Insights on Viewer Relationships
- Binge vs. Week-to-Week:
- Week-to-week releases create anticipation and community discussion (e.g., "The Bear" vs. "The Walking Dead").
- Binge models may lessen community interaction, leading to quicker resolutions of plot points and reduced emotional impact.
- The Importance of Consistency: Gimple suggests that consistency in content delivery is vital for building an audience's loyalty, drawing parallels between YouTube creators and traditional showrunners.
The Changing Landscape of Content Creation
- Economic Challenges: Gimple notes the rising costs of production and the need for Hollywood to adapt, potentially leading to a resurgence in lower-cost, high-quality content.
- Diversity in Formats: Emphasis on the potential for scripted content on YouTube and the creation of hybrid models that blend traditional and independent filmmaking.
The Future of Streaming and Viewership
- Competition Between Platforms: Acknowledges the rivalry between YouTube and Netflix, highlighting YouTube's ability to foster ongoing relationships with viewers compared to Netflix's more episodic, less community-oriented approach.
- Opportunities for Creatives: Discussed the potential for young filmmakers to navigate from platforms like YouTube into Hollywood and the evolving pathways for storytelling across different mediums.
Key Takeaways
- Community and Ritual: Engagement with audiences through regular content delivery is essential for building strong viewer relationships.
- Evolution of Storytelling: The formats and methods of storytelling are rapidly changing, with YouTube providing new opportunities for creators to explore unique narratives.
- Economic Factors: The industry may move toward producing content that requires less financial investment while still appealing to audiences.
- Creative Hybridity: The blending of traditional scripted content with the spontaneity of independent creation may define future content landscapes.
Conclusion Scott Gimple’s insights bridge the gap between Hollywood and the creator economy, underscoring the importance of adaptation in a rapidly evolving entertainment landscape. His perspective highlights the potential avenues for future creators, particularly those navigating the intersection of YouTube and traditional media.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00The Colin and Samir Show is supported by Microsoft Copilot. This is something I thought I would never say, but can I share with you my favorite prompt? I mean, like when you say something like that, I have to say yes. Were you going to say no? No, but okay. Just let me hear it. So when I'm researching for a guest or I need to know a lot about a subject matter, I say, make me a podcast about. And when you do that, you're going to get a short blurb about that subject. And then in like two minutes, you're going to get a podcast. So check this out. Welcome to Co-Pilot Podcasts. Picture this, a guy working the front desk at a hotel, making lacrosse videos in his spare time, completely unaware that he's about to become one of the most influential voices in the creator economy.
0:38Today, we're diving into the remarkable story of Colin Rosenblum. Wow. Did you pay it to say that? That's crazy. That's very kind. It's crazy, but it's my favorite way to learn about a subject matter. I'm learning about so much more now that I can turn this research into like a seven minute podcast that I can listen to just when I'm walking. Did you tell it that I worked at the front desk of a hotel? Dude, the prompt is just make me a podcast about Colin from Colin and Samir. That's it. I may be biased, but I'm on the edge of my seat. I'm hooked. So if you guys haven't checked out Copilot, check it out.
1:10Try it for your research. Try it for getting variations of your titles, your ideas. It's one of my favorite tools on the internet right now for our creativity. And now back to the show. And YouTube, in creating those rituals, those habits, that's the expectation to what those kids feel TV is to them or entertainment is to them. YouTube is training kids just by virtue of the fact that it has more to appeal to them to watch it the rest of their lives. Hey, podcast listeners, it's Samir. We're here with a exclusive episode for all of you. We want to publish the full audio from our conversation with The Walking Dead showrunner, Scott Gimple.
1:55Scott is a showrunner, which essentially in Hollywood means that he runs the show. Basically, everything that has to do with getting the show up and running, from the creative to the logistics to producing, he is doing that. We found out that Scott was a fan of The Colin and Samir Show and wanted to bring him in on this conversation. And he really brings a different and fresh perspective to a lot of the topics that we as creators think about every day. Scott went to USC film school and started working in Hollywood as a writer after graduating. He then started writing for The Walking Dead during season two, and in 2013 became the showrunner for seasons four through eight.
2:36In 2018, Scott became the chief content officer for the entire franchise of The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead is obviously a huge franchise. Its IP has been turned into several spinoff shows as well as a video game. So our goal was to sit and talk with Scott about his experience in Hollywood, his experience producing a franchise of this caliber, and understand his perspective on YouTube. Why did he start watching our YouTube channel? What interests him about YouTube? And is there something that we'll start to see of people like him and other people in Hollywood coming over to YouTube? So in this conversation, we talked to Scott about his perspective on Hollywood versus YouTube and the future of entertainment.
3:25What exactly is the role of a showrunner? The showrunner is first responsible for the creative vision of the entirety of the show. What this show is from the overarching story to the characters, to the tone, all of it. And then And beyond that, they're hiring the directors, they're hiring the cinematographers, they're hiring key crew. And then beyond that, they're looking at every aspect of production from budgeting to scheduling to what a prop looks like to locations. Sometimes they're there on set every day. A lot of times, at least back in the day when we were doing 16 episodes a year, they're not, because at some point you move from production or pre-production to production to post-production, and it's all layered over one another as the episodes are coming in.
4:20The showrunner is also, you know, if you're the creative vision of the show, it goes straight through to the very final aspects of the show, you know, not just editing, but visual effects, music, color timing. It's every aspect of the show. You're working with an amazing team and you're bringing people together, but you're the final word on what it should be. It might be like the most analogous role to what being a creator actually is. Like as you describe it, when I think about what Samir and I collectively handle on a daily basis, when I think about Ryan Trahan and a lot of our creator friends, it is that chief creative role of everything that has to do with tone and style and what the videos are like and the stories.
5:06but then it really is more on budgeting and staff and everything. What you really just described is every element. But you guys do one other piece, which is you're in front of the camera. I get to hang out at Video Village and not mess with that. But we both catch flack if the show's good or bad. Yes. yes i guess yes but um it's the fans still look to you like that's one of the challenges of being a creator is like the fans you know if the show's good or bad it's your face on the line if you scale your team really big and start releasing other stuff no matter what comes out it's you that that the fans are upset with right or happy with so i mean on a show where popular people die all the time.
6:03There's a lot. It's Scott's fault. Yeah. Just to be clear to everyone, it's Scott's fault. That would be me. You know, as a Hollywood showrunner, how did you come across our channel? Like what is your relationship with YouTube, with our show? How did you venture over and peek into the world of YouTube? You know, when you're doing, when you're working at that intensity, you don't get a lot of downtime. You don't even get time to watch shows. Some of the most TV illiterate people are people who work in TV because it's so intense. It's around the clock. But you hunger for those moments that you just have for yourself.
6:45So whether it's waking up in the morning, especially if you're out on a shoot for weeks and weeks or even months and months. And the way that I think YouTube really latched onto me was in the mornings before, you know, early in the morning before I'm going to set or at night when I'm winding down, it just seemed more accessible. And then there were things I was just interested in. I've always been interested in photography, but then as I was watching more YouTube and seeing the quality that people were getting from prosumer consumer cameras, that got me just like going down that line of like Harris Heller and Gerald Undone and Marquez, like all this sort of reviewing and then people teaching you how to get the most from your cameras.
7:36But then that expanded into, you know, I missed the beginning of Casey Neistat, which is, you know foundational in youtube but i went down that rabbit hole and that led to van nestat and maybe even van led me to you guys you know what i mean because you guys interviewed him i'm not sure if it was that yeah but and then you guys have led me to so many other people which i think are well-known people whether it's mark rober or ryan trahan um Um, and it's the thing, you know, I was, I was talking to Ali, your agent about all sorts of things, but you know, I come from week to week television, you know, week to week.
8:24It was before binge. We were on Netflix from the beginning, but it was 15 years ago or so. And people were like, oh yeah, interesting. That Netflix thing. people were consuming the stuff that I made week to week. And so I'm a big advocate of week to week. That's stuff I grew up with. And what's fascinating to me is I feel YouTube has taken that space. Like that was the thing I was, I was consuming these videos and then I would have to wait a week or more depending on the creator, but that creates a relationship. That creates a ritual. That creates a way to frame your week. And it just feels that YouTube has taken over that space from TV a little bit, that weekly relationship.
9:17And that fascinates me. It also has me hooked. Wow. I've never heard it called that. And probably because we've spent the majority of our life exclusively creating for the internet, but week to week. I also think that the world of podcasting has occupied that space quite a bit, like that ritualistic viewing. But what do you think the overarching impact has been on the consumer and then thus on the platforms of the binge viewing experience versus the week to week experience? Because when a Netflix show drops, it's 100 % available to us, right? Like top to bottom, you can watch the entire show in one sitting if you want.
10:01What do you think that has done to the consumer relationship with content, with the platforms? And then how does that play out over the long term in the streaming platform wars? Yeah, I have some strong feelings on that. First of all, form dictates content, meaning five acts week to week absolutely impact the type of story that you tell. There's a certain rhythm to the storytelling that you create. If you don't have act breaks, you don't have those intervals, those regular intervals of intensity or mystery or revelation or emotional catharsis. And then if you're week to week, your form, your ending really needs to be something to bring them back, whether it's something incredibly satisfying, whether it's a question that you're asking that's only going to be answered next week.
10:54One way or another, you have to do those things. If it's a binge, it's sort of a different question. You know, they're there. You don't have to draw them through the commercials. And in some ways, there's less of an urgency to make sure that you make enough of an impact that they'll want to come back in a week. They'll remember you in a week. I know when I watched the bear season three, I'm a big fan of the bear, but I realized when they dropped season three in a binge model, you know, normally if it's week to week, I have so many questions left unanswered as a viewer that I can't wait. And those questions get bigger and bigger, the more that that week goes on.
11:35And I felt like with the bear season three, the questions, uh, they were left unanswered, but then they were so quickly answered and they weren't that impactful. It didn't keep me week to week. And it didn't generate the same fandom as some of the week to week experiences that I've had. I think because that gap in terms of questions left unanswered gets answered so quickly. And I get accustomed to that, right? Of just like, oh, here's an unclosed loop. Here's a question I can't wait for them to answer. There it is. It's answered. And it gets heavier over the week. it just gains a certain amount of weight.
12:10I love The Bear and I think it's brilliant. The third season in so many ways to me was, it was binge. Like that was the medium. There was no, it was not old TV. And I thought about what it would have been if it was eight years ago, which things would have been emphasized, which dials would have been turned. The basis of the bear is the basis of television in my mind, which in some ways is the basis of YouTube. It's characters. Granted, on YouTube, it's real people, but on TV, it's characters with which the audience wants to spend time with. They want them to be in their lives. And a lot of times they're people that they wish were at their school or their workplace or their places of worship.
12:58But to have them as a regular presence in their lives on those shows or on YouTube, that's important to them. Now, with the binge model, though, I think the other thing, and this isn't a secret to anybody, but the community goes out the window in some way. You know, when those revelations are shared at the exact same time and they're building and they're building in the building, a finale was such a big community event. I think we've lost that. And that to me is silly because that's a huge part of just marketing in television, the conversation around everything. When you watch Netflix or Hulu nowadays, the first thing that comes on is who's watching?
13:41And it's people in the household, but they're all alone. There's not like something you can tick where it's like, oh, we're all watching together. It's this weird thing where I'm like, you know, it's like just to begin, you're alone in an unfeeling universe. Now, what do you want to watch? It's just crazy to me because I think people love watching these things together. So this all becomes extremely relevant. In the past month, Netflix had their earnings call, and YouTube came up quite a bit on that call, largely because YouTube is occupying a lot of connected TV viewership right now. If you compare in June, we saw that streaming accounted for 40 % of TV usage, which is the highest ever.
14:30And of that, YouTube was 10 % of that viewership, and Netflix was 8.4 % of that viewership. Now, this matters because Netflix has added an ad tier, right? And so now Netflix is moving more in the direction of advertising. YouTube also has subscription offerings, right? They have YouTube TV, YouTube Music, YouTube Premium. And it's really interesting to suggest that they are competitors. And I think Netflix has very clearly suggested that they are competitors. And that to me is fascinating when we look broadly, primarily because of how the content is produced, right? Like one is independently produced content on a revenue share ad model.
15:16The other is like extremely high priced content on a subscription model. So when you think about the streaming war between these two playing out, do you consider Netflix and YouTube competitors? And how do you think that war plays out over the next coming years? I think they absolutely are competitors because when I bring up my homepage on Apple TV, there's a little tile for Netflix, there's a little tile for YouTube, there's a competing for which one I press. I think YouTube has an incredible advantage in two ways. What I previously mentioned is they've been able to foster ongoing cumulative relationships with an audience and made rituals with those audience that are important to that audience's life or lives.
16:08But the other thing is, of course, YouTube, I imagine, and this is my guess, skews younger. And YouTube, in creating those rituals, those habits, that's the expectation to what those kids feel TV is to them or entertainment is to them. YouTube is training kids just by virtue of the fact that it has more to appeal to them to watch it the rest of their lives. You know, YouTube also has very sophisticated content and it's getting more sophisticated all the time. The thing that is not taking hold, and you guys could speak to this much better than I can, but is, you know, scripted content is not quite there on YouTube as much as other content.
16:54I don't even know if that matters, if that picks up or not. And then on top of that, it's just the cost. It's just the amount of money to capture that attention or to capture that emotion within an audience. It's much less on YouTube. Yeah, the point about scripted content I found interesting, specifically in the earnings report, the co-CEO made a point saying that he doesn't think that shows like Stranger Things or Wednesday would work within the YouTube model, within the way that YouTube compensates creators. And I think he's right. It's interesting to think that that is what Netflix is sort of holding right now as its competitive edge.
17:34Obviously, that is why you go to Netflix for some of those more premium shows. But I think to your point, do younger audiences care or really know the difference? Or are there preferences being built? You know what I mean? Like a cynical friend of mine in television who has kids just talked about how their kids just want to watch YouTube whenever they put anything on, you know, that's conventional scripted television. They aren't interested. The kids aren't interested in it. And this friend of mine said, well, you know, kids just aren't interested in stories anymore, which I don't I think that was overstated.
18:11but they are getting less interested in conventional formats. They're much more agnostic as to what they watch. I will say with Netflix, which strikes me as strange, and I don't know a great deal about it, but I know that they've reduced their kids' programming quite a bit. And to me, that strikes me as strange, or that strikes me as strange in as much as that, again, you have to train your audience to come to you, to make you a part of your life. And if you're not getting kids watching Netflix early, they're going to be watching YouTube. Why wouldn't they? So I think that that's somewhere where I think Netflix could probably capture that audience and an audience they might have the rest of their lives.
18:57I think it's really interesting, this concept of like preferences being built, because obviously you mentioned that the week to week programming might be being occupied by, you know, YouTube. but it does feel like there's another version of it, which is like video to video programming, meaning just being able to jump in a pretty noncommittal way between videos. Whereas like, you know, diving into the bear, for me, I haven't done it because it feels like a big commitment. It's like a very intensive commitment. And I think we all as a society are in the mode of being less committal to our stories.
19:33Like, it's not that we don't like stories. It's just that stories that develop over 10 hours is a lot to commit to. And it's much easier to commit to a 12-minute YouTube video that if you don't like, you have every option at your fingertip to just move on and go to another story that will start and end in 12 to 20 minutes. You know, obviously YouTube videos are getting longer. We're starting to see, you know, like Mr. B start to put out 40-minute long videos, right? Ryan Trahan, 22-minute plus. The videos are getting longer or entrusted, established creators. But the level of commitment required to watch a video is just completely different than the level of commitment that I think the more traditional producers ask for.
20:18They ask for a lot more of our time for a story to develop. There's an interesting thing as well, because I was thinking about commitment. I have a nine-year-old, and he watches YouTube with me. It's us together. He really got into Jenny Nicholson. And that was a four hour Star Wars video. Yeah. And we watched the whole thing together. Now, and it made me think like, what made that a little easier? And this is where it gets technical. Does YouTube have a better user interface than Netflix? Because we didn't watch four hours in one shot, but it was so effortless to go to YouTube and it was right there.
20:59We just click it and we're watching. Pick it back up. Is that a part of it? to for the longer videos, it made a difference for us. Have you started to think in your head at all about what type of creative you could put on YouTube? Or is that a conversation amongst your cohort, your peers at all? Because one of the points was that in the Netflix earnings call was that it's hard to imagine such a large creative bet being placed on YouTube. But is there a certain conversation amongst showrunners or creatives in Hollywood that's like, hey, maybe we could put a pretty big creative bet over there? I mean, on the strike lines, it was a constant conversation.
21:46And I think about it all the time because there's fewer and fewer companies. There's less and less distribution. Really, where I went was just trying to study as much YouTube as I can to see how they make what they make, not only technically, but emotionally and how that at the very least could be thought of in making less expensive television. And if you're making less expensive television, which I think is where television is going anyways, maybe you can somehow find a distribution channel like YouTube or within YouTube. I'm not sure. I think of just what the indie game market has done in the last 10 years, how independent games on every platform, Switch, Xbox, Steam, of course, how could that translate into scripted television?
22:42Could there be a Steam-like marketplace for independent television? It seems a little tricky, especially if you want that week to week relationship. But it seems within YouTube, the aesthetic of YouTube or just the expectations of YouTube, it'd be difficult. But then, you know, Wesley Wang and what he did, you know, what if you were doing that week to week? I don't know. I mean, I think about it a great deal, but I start with how can I be as nimble and how can I make things as economically as YouTube while still affecting people. I wonder if a middle ground will emerge. The way we're looking at it is there's Netflix, it's premium, it's bought, it's planned, it's not necessarily week to week.
23:28And then there's YouTube, which is totally democratic. Anyone can upload. And I'm curious, as I think about, as Netflix wants to continue to compete with YouTube, their live events are already a little more like lowbrow. They're looking, obviously, to compete from an advertising perspective. does Netflix open up a creator plus program or something, which is a bit of an in-between where they're licensing work from YouTube creators that is licensable. They are almost like YouTube originals did. They are funding some projects. And then they're tapping into the indie market as well and sort of bringing people to this middle ground that's a part of Netflix's offering.
24:11I don't know if it really worked for YouTube because YouTube operates so differently where you can't really just drop a premium series of 10 episodes and see what happens. You have to have distribution built over time. But Netflix kind of has that and they have the money to spend. That's sort of my prediction and my thought is that it goes that way. I mean, the weird case study that we have, and it has everything to do with expectation and the platform itself, is Cobra Kai. I mean, it started on YouTube Red and it just didn't take hold. And then it went over to Netflix and it's a huge hit. It was the context.
24:43I mean, I'd love to see the age range, you know, like maybe it was just older people were finding it on Netflix, which makes sense because it's based on a very old movie. But the play, I mean, one of the other things, and this is a side rant, is, you know, when a new show comes out right now and you see maybe a billboard or maybe you see a banner ad or something like that, and you remember the show, like, oh, man, I want to watch that show. You sit down to watch it. You have no idea whether it's on Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, whatever. These platforms have not created brands for themselves, voices for themselves.
25:25When I was a kid, and I know I sound like an old man shaking my fist at the sky, but when I was a kid, ABC, you would expect certain things of NBC. you would expect certain things of CBS. And, you know, they had these fall previews where all the actors were in all these like different sketches or presentations or whatever. They were like these teams. And I don't think these platforms have really built into those brands, which I also find very strange because I think it would help them. I think, whereas YouTube, I think, does have a brand, which is of course democratic and anything can happen there but you can expect a certain i don't know a certain vibe from youtube it's kind of what we all expected of of the hbo brand for so long it felt like it stood for a certain type of programming a certain type of experimentation and we were on the 10 the other day and we passed a billboard for an hbo original hard knocks on max and i was talking to samir about how even like changing the name to max and having the messaging of you have an HBO original that is now on Max, for me, it completely muddles the brand message.
26:41And that is because they have to take so many more bets and add so much more content to this streaming platform. And I agree with you that it would be in their best interest probably to go for a certain type of brand of programming, but that also feels very risky. YouTube does have the advantage of the brand can be absolutely everything. And we'll see what rises to the top per every person. With your experience in week-to-week television and with shows like ours starting to occupy that space, what advice would you give to us and creators like us who are producing week-to-week on how to be successful at it?
27:21The next crop of creatives and storytellers are turning to YouTube first. They are producing content that, although feels completely new and like different, it has its roots in week-to-week television. Like we see a lot of old MTV formats showing up on YouTube now. And we're starting to see stuff that used to work when I was a kid watching TV that's now working on YouTube. So I'm curious if like if you stepped into the shoes of being the showrunner for the Colin and Samir show or another YouTube channel that's week-to-week, how do you build that level of like fan community? How do you build appointment viewing?
27:58Because we are in the ads business, just like any other TV show. The difference is we are also the network. So we have to operate like a network. That's a tough one because I tell fake stories with fake people and horrible things happen and good things happen or whatever. So yeah, I wouldn't want to put either of your lives at risk. I mean, I think the number one thing that you're doing, and I also know the mental and physical costs it takes. So I say this with a grain of salt, but the week to week consistency is everything. I mean, it's just everything create those rituals for the audience. I mean, I, you know, when I reached the end of sort of my deep dive, I was back to week to week, and I was waiting for it, you know, and I would get excited for it.
28:54What Ryan Trahan did with that, like one video a day for like 30 days. Right. I mean, he got me hooked. We're like, at the end of it, I was so bummed that I wasn't starting my morning with that. It's the consistency that creates the relationship with the audience that makes it, I don't know, makes it something that they want in their lives perpetually.
29:21I mean, I don't know where this fits in with you guys, because I think you guys share wisdom, intelligence, trends, all this sort of thing. But I think every TV show, the job is to make people feel and feel deeply in a number of different ways. that forms a kind of connection you know if you do that enough it can't be broken
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29:57but you know I don't know if the job of your show is to make people feel basically what you're saying is one of us should experience like a life threatening thing that you can follow is Colin coming back for next season yeah I mean there you go uh yeah we got it great understood we read between the lines there perfect uh we'll build a trailer and put it out on the channel oh my god i mean it would get me i'm already thinking do you think that our worlds are on a collision course or is it like one-off experiences like a wesley wang or like um chris stuckman recently or cane pixels where like Like, you know, these independent creators are getting picked up to produce stuff under Hollywood studios or for streaming platforms.
30:47Like, is a young filmmaker's path to producing something for Netflix, is that path through YouTube or are these completely separate paths? I mean, well, the question I have is, like, you know, could the means be the end? Meaning, like, you know, Wesley made that short, and now he's in a very, very conventional situation with Sony. is there a world where the kind of creativity that was applied to both the content and making that short was also applied into the next step meaning you know what we were talking about is there some sort of hybrid between netflix and youtube is is that coming or is somebody going to figure out a way to tell stories on youtube that is viable from an economic standpoint that also captures the audience's attention within the YouTube marketplace, which is endless?
32:01Like, is there another way? That's the thing that I'm fascinated in seeing. I think there will always be people crossing over from YouTube into, again, I say conventional filmmaking or television. I think that'll always happen. I mean, South Park was a videotape that was, it was the Spirit of Christmas card that they made for an executive. And then everybody was like copying the videotape and just all around town. It was everywhere. That's where South Park came from. Of course, that would have been on YouTube if YouTube existed. did. I think that's always going to happen. But I think the big question I'm thinking about is, you know, is there another way for scripted that is somehow connected, inspired, or facilitated by YouTube?
33:02I think the challenge there is that scripted, in my opinion, scripted and the ads business, like the direct ads business of being like underwritten by a sponsor feels a bit strange to me. Our traditional form of monetization between AdSense would be really great. The ads that play before, in the middle, and after, great. But that's really hard to predict and project. A guaranteed amount of cash through an advertiser is really interesting, but that might not actually be the best creative solution to that. So I think it gets really hard based on like how much money it costs to do that. Well, and that is the thing though.
33:46The programming itself would have to come down a great deal. Which again, I think is looking at YouTube as to the way that they make things. You know, how can you make television with prosumer cameras or consumer cameras and sound packs? you know and maybe you can't build a giant standing set maybe it's other ways i wonder what that means for uh the entire industry of hollywood the people that work in hollywood because the trend continues to go towards uh making with less money with less people that's kind of what youtube is is like we make more things with less money with less people and what What does that mean for the young person who does actually want to get into what is, as you call, conventional, that does want to learn how to become a showrunner and a writer?
34:43What do those roles look like? I wonder what the middle ground is and what the opportunity is for the education to learn how to do some of the things that you know how to do, and that such a few group of people actually know how to do anymore. Yeah, and also, you know, I want crews to keep working. I want this city or this industry all across the country to keep working. I think it's just maybe, you know, fortifying their roster with a little bit, a little bit of more producible or less expensive content. And some of it's big and some of it's smaller. I would love to go back and forth between, you know, doing things that I can essentially do myself and do things like I do on Walking Dead with 200 people.
35:36And, you know, not only that, would that affect the stories I tell, but it would affect what I learned and what I could bring to either side of that. That's, that's really fascinating to me. But, you know, I watched, I was out with COVID, couldn't go to Comic-Con. So I watched Shogun this weekend. And that's a big show that probably took hundreds, if not thousands of people to make. And you see it in the work that was done. And I don't know, as an audience member, I'm like, wow, this is worth it. this is, this is a spectacle and this is amazing. Um, and then the next morning I'm watching YouTube again, you know, like, I mean, it's, I do think they compliment each other, but I think that is Hollywood a little bit, or could it use a little more balance in what they're putting out?
36:43And could there be more,
36:48could there's i mean again it's it's it's a puzzle but could a showrunner go from showrunning a big show like that to essentially being a creator where they're showrunning something much smaller something that they can essentially finance themselves and and put out something that's week to week for a while in that medium. I don't know. I don't know if anybody knows, but I think somebody is going to crack it. It feels like talk shows are the natural answer to that. Because that's like week to week programming. If you can solve how to make it interesting. And those also can be scripted. Like scripted podcasts or scripted talk shows are very popular or can be very popular.
37:36So it does feel like maybe there's that white space of talk shows, which is really competitive. But if you're good, that's like a very low cost way to get into the week to week creator world. You know? Yeah. And I mean, podcast in and of itself has been that for people. Yeah. Are there any conversations amongst like your cohort or groups of friends in the industry about trends and where the industry is moving post-strike. And what are some of those conversations like? Are people afraid of the future of Hollywood? Are they excited? And if so, what are they afraid of and what are they excited about?
38:20I think there's a lot of fear right now, which is just uncertainty. It's just the world post-strike is, well, uncertain. The audience is just getting more and more fractured every day. And it's just markedly different than it was. Now, I do think a big part of that is where the economic climate is in the country. For a number of years, money was free. There was no interest rate. And these companies would be silly not to make a lot that they knew they could get a return on from money that they borrowed that had no interest. And money is more expensive right now. I do think as the economy improves, I think the industry will improve.
39:12These platforms are at war. I don't think they're going to hold back if they have resources available to them. At the beginning of this summer, everyone was like, oh man, movies are dead. It's over. We're done. And then the last three weeks, we've just had hit after hit after hit. Deadpool just became the number one R-rated movie, R-rated opening of all time, blowing past the last record by$70 million. It was the number eight opening, I think, of all time. Movies aren't dead and TV isn't dead, but a lot of people are worried and it's been slow for the industry to recover, especially in television.
40:02But I do really believe that it's going to be coming back. I do think also that they're not going to be making as many huge, big, expensive television shows. But I think they're going to be making more middle range or low range television shows. The Walking Dead
40:30had more economically in common with Fantasy Island when I was a kid than Game of Thrones. They were just two entirely different economic models. And we were connected to old TV in a way that way. And I think it's going to go that way again. Also, I think we're going to see bigger series orders. That's a big thing that's affected people's lives. Six episode orders, eight episode orders. It's not a lot. But I think those long episode orders, again, create a relationship with an audience, create ritual, and then for these companies, create a library. If we look at some of the big hits on Netflix of the past few years, I mean, Suits, because there were like, you know, more than 100 episodes.
41:26If you look at the charts, Grey's Anatomy is always on there because there's more than 100 episodes. you know, The Office, obviously. People just eat it like popcorn because there were just so many episodes. I think they're going to catch on to that and make more of it. So I am hopeful about the future. I think things right now coming off of the strike and with the economic climate being what it is, it's very, very difficult and people are having really hard times. I think the two things you mentioned that I'm thinking about a lot is, A, like consistency is hard for YouTube creators. I think as like the bar continues to get higher and higher for the type of content we're making, it's very hard to go week to week because the stakes are high when you're putting out an episode.
42:12One of the other differences between us is that our performance is incredibly public and granular. So like the industry knows when we have a flop episode. And that is a very strange relationship with your economics. Our audience also knows within minutes sometimes because they compare it to past performance and then our comments become suggestions from our own audience about why the episode within minutes is not doing well and the mistakes we made and it's just immediate. That interactivity is something we didn't really cover as much. Netflix doesn't have comments. Imagine if you did and what that would be.
42:54The other thing I'm thinking of when you talked when I was talking about consistency, that is the thing where you look at 200 people working on a television show and maybe there's a reason why, because that's how you can do an episode a week. That's how you can have that consistency. It isn't on like four people to do that. And that's where you're like, oh, there's a reason for that because people would burn out and barely be able to make it even with the technology available at their fingertips. Like a team is a big thing. And I'll say when I did the ones who live, that was the last thing I show ran.
43:32I oversee all the shows. That was the Rick and Michonne show that came out this year. Um, you know, we, it was six episodes. So we did it in the way that, you know, sort of modern television does all the writers are on, you write it and then they're gone and I'm the last one left. So I have my show runner job. And I have rewriting to do. And I'm prepping. And I'm shooting. And back when I did 16 episodes, I had a whole staff of writers the entire time who were writer-producers, in fact. And they were on set handling the things while I was doing other things. For six episodes, it all fell to me.
44:11And it was a very, very different experience. I thought 80 episodes of The Walking Dead was easier than six episodes on my own. Wow. That's really interesting. That is a good point. That's a really good point. So I can say like, oh, be consistent. I do realize that's maybe an impractical suggestion. Yeah, I guess the other piece, just to talk about the parasocial part, like The Walking Dead is probably one of the few franchises today that does have such a rabid community that does engage on Reddit and in ways that they are very loud. And that is probably most similar to having a YouTube channel where your community is immediately responding.
44:51they're reacting to things. How do you think other shows on streamers build that? Because I don't feel like that level of community exists. Even for a show like Severance that everyone loved, there's so much time between seasons for Severance. And when it comes back, I don't know how else to discuss that show outside of with my friends who are also watching it. But if Netflix did have a comment section or communities or like, how can we engage with those shows? You know, Twitter was really getting its foothold as The Walking Dead started. So, and The Walking Dead was, you know, a show week to week where we showed it live.
45:33And Twitter was the comment section on the YouTube video that was The Walking Dead. These other, these other shows don't have that. they don't have that real time community, which I think is everything because when those big moments happen, you're sharing it with all these people and you're reacting in real time. Uh, I think it's, I think it's harder and people have to sort of, I don't know, throw out a lure of like, Oh man, this is how I felt about this thing. Uh, have you watched that episode yet? or when did you watch? Is this the right time to have that conversation? That's how I felt with The Bear.
46:17As much as I love that show and love spending time with those communities, it's not, you know, I remember getting together with my friends watching Game of Thrones every Sunday, right? And watching the content on YouTube that was made around the release of that show. Let me - Right, like there was this whole storm system that would come every Sunday night into Monday morning. Sunday night for years because it was Sopranos before that. You know, and like for years, it was when you would gather up. And here's a question I have. I feel it's like a naive question that I don't know. I don't know why I don't know the answer to it.
46:53And I've asked some people and I still don't understand. Why don't the streamers program weeks? Like meaning this, you know, stranger things will be out Wednesdays at eight. Like why don't they build those appointments for people? and then people can watch it whenever they want if they miss the appointment. To me, that seems like a way to potentially get that live community again. Maybe people at Netflix will watch this episode and start to program it that way. Send it to the show business committee, Scott. It's a compelling case. The show business committee is so, they're so rough, man. So hard.
47:35I always, when I was a kid, I grew up in LA. I always felt like I would get a call from the show business committee. I always like had this image in my head that even when I was working as an editor on this film, Ides of March, I was like a bottom of the barrel editor. I would walk really slowly to the editing room because I felt like someone from the committee would just pluck me out of obscurity. Oh, David Harbour just throws his arm over your shoulder. Yeah. You're in, kid. I also thought that was going to happen through YouTube too. I was like, oh, one day show business will call. You know, you never know.
48:09here. You never know. I guess you call it. It's a long road, but it could happen. Yeah. A lot of great things have happened so far. It wouldn't be crazy if that happened. That's true. One day. One day. It's just about what showbiz asks you to do. Yeah. Who knows? Yeah. That might be the troubling thing. Yeah.
From the publisher
This week, we interview Hollywood showrunner Scott Gimple in an audio-exclusive interview.
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