Screenwriters Need To Hear This with Michael Jamin

On this week's episode, we have music manager Dave Rose (Lit, Marcy Playground, Stryper and many many more) and we discuss his journey starting out as a bassist and what it's like managing today vs. the pre-digital age. Tune in for so much more.Show NotesDave Rose Agency: https://www.deepsouthentertainment.com/Dave Rose on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daverosedeepsouthDave Rose on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daverosedeepsouth/ A Paper Orchestra on Website: https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptDave Rose:I'm so amazed that people pay me to do this. I was doing it long before I knew you could make money at it. And so the pinnacle for me is really that this continued joy of the business of musicMichael Jamin:You are listening to. What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase And to support me in this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. And today I got a special guest for you. Musicians out there. You don't deserve any of this. This is a wonderful treat for all of you. Don't say I never gave you anything. I'm here with Dave Rose from Deep South Entertainment and he is a career music manager. But Dave, first of all, welcome. I got a billion questions for you, but did you start off, are you a musician as well?Dave Rose:Thank you. Good to be here, Michael. Man, mutual admiration all the way around. This is exciting to be here. But yes, I started out as a musician. I was a, yes, I started out as a musician. I mean, yes and no, there's a story, but I became a musician out of necessity.Michael Jamin:How does that work? No one becomes, that's like the last thing you become out of necessity.Dave Rose:I know. Isn't that funny? So I was managing, and I very much put that in air quotes. Say I was a freshman in college and I had a local band decide they wanted me to be their manager. I was showing up at all their gigs and selling merchandise and unloading the van and doing all the things that I thought I could do to help. I just loved being around music. One day they said to me, would you be our manager? And I didn't know what the hell a manager was. I still don't. But they said, well, you could start by getting us some gigs. And that's not what a manager does, by the way. But that's when you're in college, that's what you do.Michael Jamin:That's not what a manager does then. Okay, you have to elaborate on that when weDave Rose:Can get into that for sure. So I got 'em 20 gigs and we had it all booked up and we're all ready to go. And we were two weeks out from the very first gig, big string of shows, playing skate ranches and pool parties and all the places that you play when you're just starting out anywhere and everywhere that'll give you room. And they came me and they said, our bass player quit and he's moving, so we need to cancel these gigs and we can no longer, we will audition new bass players later. I said, like, hell, you are, I've been watching this. It doesn't look like it's that hard to play bass, so here's what we're going to do. I'm going to cram myself in the basement with you, Mr. Guitar player, and you're going to teach me all the parts to these songs.We're going to go play these 20 shows with me as the bass player, and when we come back, you can audition bass players. That's how. And they were like, yeah, that's not how that works. I said, well, that's the way this is going to go. And so they did. I crammed myself in the basement and learned to play bass in two weeks, and it was rock and roll. It was three chord rock and roll. Wasn't real hard, but apparently I picked it up pretty easily and I played bass in a band for the next 10 years, but that should have been my first indication that I was not a musician. I learned how to play just to keep a band.Michael Jamin:But you must, if you played for 10 years, you're good enough.Dave Rose:Yeah, I mean I figured it out along the way.Michael Jamin:Wow. But then at some point you went to full-time management.Dave Rose:Yeah. Yeah. I ultimately segued into full-time management, and that was, I started this company putting out compilation CDs. That was a big thing. I started in 1995 and in the mid nineties, these sort of mix tape CDs were a big thing. And I would find local and regional bands from around the area and put 'em on this compilation CD and put it out and see what happens. But from the very first CD we put out, we had one of the biggest hits of the nineties, a song called Sex and Candy by Marcy Playground. And my intention was I would stick my band right in the middle of all these big regional bands or bands that I thought was going to be big and maybe my band would get some attention too. And I think nine bands on that first compilation got record deals accept my band. So that was kind of my moment of realizing, yeah, I'm definitely not, I'm way better on the business side of things.Michael Jamin:So then tell me then what a manager music manager does exactly if they don't get you work.Dave Rose:Sure. It's very different, I would guess, than in the film and TV business. And I would love to learn this from you, but I'm guessing in the film and TV business, the person that gets you work is the agent. Is thatMichael Jamin:Yes, the agent and not the manager and I have Right,Dave Rose:And that's what it is here. So a manager in music, I'm put it in the simplest terms, but it's like if the entire career is a wheel, the manager and the artist are in the center of that wheel. And all these spokes are things like booking agents and publicists and record labels and publishing companies and people that do film and TV music and all the accountants, the crew, all the thing, the attorneys that make the machine, the wheel turn. The manager is making sure all of those things are working. So it's sort of like being, I compare it to this, it's being the CEO of a band, but if you're,Michael Jamin:I'm sorry, go on.Dave Rose:That's all right. The band is owned by the band or the artist is owned by the, they own their company, but they retain an artist manager commission, an artist manager to manage their career.Michael Jamin:But if that band is going on tour, are you expected to go with them?Dave Rose:Only if you're in country music.Michael Jamin:Okay. Why is that?Dave Rose:It is different. Country music is one of the few genres that still very much lives and dies by the radio, and so the relationships with local radio is very important. So a manager should be there to kind of nurture those radio relationships from town to town to town. Now, if you're in rock and roll or hip hop or almost any other genre, Americana folk bluegrass, most managers do not travel with the band,Michael Jamin:But a touring manager would No,Dave Rose:A tour manager. Exactly. A tour manager does. And the tour manager is exactly, it sounds, it's the manager of the tour. So it deals with getting the bus from point A to point B and where do we park and what do I mean? It's way more than that, but it's the finance of the tour and they report to the artist manager.Michael Jamin:Now over the years, I've heard you mention this, you have a very, very big it's successful TikTok page, which is how I found you. You've managed a bunch of really big acts, right?Dave Rose:I've had some, yes. I've had a lot of, and I still do have a lot of big acts. It's been just amazing. I keep waiting for somebody to knock on my door and go, okay, gigs up. Time to get a real job.Michael Jamin:Can you share some of 'em with us?Dave Rose:Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So I got my start with Marcy Playground, and I'm still with them 26, 7 years later. But one of my first big clients was the piano player, Bruce Hornsby, who was in the Grateful Dead, and he had a bunch of hits in the eighties and nineties, but he's had a very, very unique career. He is done albums with Ricky Scaggs and Jazz Records, but Little Feat, the classic rock band of, they're just so iconic. The band Lit who had one of the biggest rock hits of the nineties, that song, my Own Worst Enemy, some of the country acts that I've worked with, Laney Wilson, who just won a Grammy, and yeah, I worked with the band six Pence, none The Richer who had the mega hit Kiss Me. And so yeah, it's been not to just, one of the bands I've been with the longest 23 years is an eighties rock band from LA called Striper. They kind of came up in the ranks with Moley Crewe and Bon Jovi and that kind world of big hair and Sunset Strip and all the things of Hollywood, but they're a Christian man. They sing about Jesus. So they're very, very different than that.Michael Jamin:At this point. Are new bands finding you or are you reaching out to them? How does that work?Dave Rose:Yeah, they usually find me at this point, I don't develop a lot of new acts anymore, mostly because I've just been doing it a long time and developing a new act from garage to Grammy is not only risky, but it's a long runway. And when you've been sort of doing it for as long as I have, and I don't mean any disrespect to anything on this, but you don't need to take that risk anymore.Michael Jamin:But it seems like on TikTok, it seems like you're talking to those people.Dave Rose:I am taking my audience on TikTok is very much the audience that is sort of just trying to figure out the next steps of a very complicated career path.Michael Jamin:But then why are you talking to them now if that's not, I assume it's because that's what you're looking for, but No,Dave Rose:Yeah, no, that's a great question. The reason I'm doing it is very pure, because it is hard to do this, and there's a lot of bad advice flying around out there. And to some extent, I wanted to get on there and level the playing field and just let people know the reality of how the business works. No, I'm not at all seeking to manage sort of startup band. I do some coaching that I'm more than willing to help them in. I'll do these 30 minute sessions where I can really, really fast track things for them, help them avoid years and years of mistakes in a very quick conversation. It's a lot like the stuff that you do in the sense that I'll meet an artist from Topeka, Kansas or wherever and how they're learning stuff that they would not learn anywhere else, only because nobody's ever told 'em.See Michael, something I think we ought to talk about at some point in here is part of why it's difficult to get a manager in the music business is because of how a manager gets paid. Okay, how did they get paid? I think that's an interesting dynamic that a lot of just, certainly a lot of people, but even a lot of artists don't know how that works. So how does that work then? Yeah, so a manager is paid by commission, so it's strictly a commission base. So if you are an artist and you go out and you play a show or you sell a T-shirt or make some sort of income, a percentage of that income is paid to your manager, includes the record deal, includes everything. It typically includes, and sort of depending on where you are in that artist's career, it includes most every aspect of their entertainment career, including what about royalties?It does include royalties, particularly if those royalties were ones that you helped them earn. If you get them a record deal and they continue to earn royalties either through radio play or whatever, you would earn a commission on that. So you're earning commissions on these revenue streams, and that's typically about 15%. So if you think about managing, like we talked about the wheel, all those different spokes in the wheel, maybe for each act that I manage, that's probably 150 decisions a day that we're making on behalf of that artist. So you can't manage a lot of acts as an individual. You can have a company like we do that manages, has managers that manage acts, but generally speaking, you can't manage a lot of acts. There's a lot that goes into a typical day of that. So the commission, if you just break it down to making a living, an artist has to be making significant money for it to be worth that manager's time to spend the bulk of their day managing their career.So when you've got an artist that's just starting out, and I want to get to why it's hard to get advice when you've got an artist that's just starting out and they're making no money and are making very little money, I don't know, 20, 30, 40, $50,000 a year, you think about that 15% of that is $5,000 a year maybe for the manager. So it's really not enough to say, I'm going to dedicate my life to you, which is really what it takes. So as a result, it's almost impossible for an artist to meet a manager. It's really hard to meet a manager. Our time is paid by commission. So that's why I get on TikTok and talk about the things I talk about because I was that bass player in a band not knowing what the hell I was doing, making every mistake under the sun. And I'm very, I don't know, very genuinely just trying to help people not make those mistakes.Michael Jamin:Now, you said something a while ago on one of your tiktoks, and I was surprised you don't come down. I thought everyone was supposed to hate Spotify and streaming because of the way, in my opinion, in my point of view, artists are being raped. I mean, that's how I see it. But you don't feel that way?Dave Rose:I don't. I mean, do I think it's a fair payment system? No, I think there's a lot of improvement that needs to happen. Part of what I think is the imbalance is the payments between an artist, a songwriter, and the record label. You see, when a song is on Spotify, those are the three main parties that sort of have to get paid a record label, an artist and a songwriter. And the songwriters are the ones that are really struggling in this time.Michael Jamin:From what I pay on what people pay on Spotify, I gladly pay double for what? I mean, I get every album I want to listen to at any time through the month, almost anything. And if I pay double, I still feel like the artists wouldn't be making not even close to what they used to make.Dave Rose:Well, yes. Again, we got to remember, there's three buckets. We're dealing with the artist, the record label, and the songwriter. And in some cases, that's the same person in all three of those buckets. If you go out and self-release a record, and you've written that record and you performed on that record, and you do millions and millions of streams on that record, you're making very respectable.Michael Jamin:I thought, again, I come at this completely ignorant. I know so little about it, but I think I saw a video by Snoop Dogg saying his album was streamed a billion times and he made 10 Sense or something.Dave Rose:That's a famous video. That video circulated a lot. And what is missed most often in that conversation is the difference in those three buckets. My gut tells me, and I don't know Snoop Dogg's complete history, but he probably does not own that recording. So a big chunk of that money that's being earned probably went to his record label, and I don't know, maybe he wrote the song, maybe he didn't, if he didn't write the song, he's missing that bucket of income, or maybe he did write this. So my gut tells me there's more to that story. SoMichael Jamin:Misunderstand this, which is fine.Dave Rose:I dunno, the full snoop do the inner workings of his business, but my gut tells me there's more to that story because I know no shortage of independent artists making a great, great living, really. But the thing that's different, and the thing that we got to think about that's different from say 2005, say 20 years ago, the biggest difference is the revenue streams now are very multiple. I mean, I met a band the other day that's doing insane six figures just on YouTube.Michael Jamin:On YouTube ad. So they put their music and they make ads on YouTube. Exactly, because they're not sellingDave Rose:It. That's right. The ad revenue is making four members a living, a very good living.Michael Jamin:See, it was my impression that, okay, so 20 years ago, a band would go on tour and after the show, they'd sell okay, merch, but they'd also sell the cd. If you want to listen to music, they sell. But now no one's going to buy that cd.Dave Rose:They do. They very much buy, well, more so they buy vinyl. The vinyl buy vinyl. And what's crazy, I was just on the phone with a head of a record label and he was talking about the rapid increase in the number of cassettes they're selling, which is crazy. It's just such a, I tell people this all the time, but you can't autograph a stream, so you're going to always need to have something that people can take home. I mean, I read the other day of all the vinyls sold only like 37% get listened to, but vinyl cells are through the roof, really. They buy the product, they get it autographed, they keep it as a collector's item, and then they stream it on Spotify.Michael Jamin:But why do you feel vinyl as opposed to a cd, which is just vinyl, but smaller and better quality? Why is that?Dave Rose:Yeah, I think CDs, I mean, also depending on the genre, certain genres are very cd, like country. People still buy CDs. If you go into a Walmart and rural America, you're going to see a lot of country in there. But yeah, I think vinyl partially because it's just big and cool to hold, andMichael Jamin:Yeah, you right, because not a lot of people have record. A lot of people don't even how to use a record like we do, butDave Rose:Yeah. Well, I mean you'd really be surprised, Michael. The vinyl industry is insanely huge.Michael Jamin:Interesting.Dave Rose:And really among kids, I mean, the kids are buying vinyl. If you go into an Urban Outfitters, which is obviously geared toward 20 somethings, they have a whole record section in there, whole vinyl section in their stores, and they sell record players at Urban Outfitters.Michael Jamin:Right, right. I always thought that was ironic. I didn't realize that they're making money that way. I know. I thought they were museum pieces.Dave Rose:Well, probably to some they are. Wow. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Now, do you specialize in any kind of genre of music or does that matter toDave Rose:You? I'm a rock and roll guy at heart, but I've done a lot of work in sort of songwriter rock. I've certainly had my share of country acts, although it's not my preferred genre, I've not done a lot in bluegrass, and I've not done a lot in hip hop, which is strange because if this is a visual thing, I'm staring at a Tupac Black behind me. So I say I don't really work in hip hop, but then I got to Tupac Black up here.Michael Jamin:I have a question for you. I don't think you're going to be able to answer this one. I don't know if there's an answer. ProbablyDave Rose:Not.Michael Jamin:So Daryl Hall has a show that I happen to catch sometimes. I think he shoots in his basement or something. You must've seen it, where he brings in friends, like eighties stars or whatever, Darryl'sDave Rose:House,Michael Jamin:Darryl's house, and he looks cool. He's got a blazer on, he's got dark glasses, and I'm like, okay, he looks cool. But then sometimes he brings in other men his age, which is whatever, 70, whatever it is, I don't know. And they're dressed and they're stars from the eighties, and they're dressed like they used to dress in the eighties. I wonder, how are aging rockstar supposed to dress? Do you have to answer this to your clients? YouDave Rose:Talk about this. Oh, yeah. We talk about, I mean, I tell artists this all the time, including my big artists. The biggest mistake you can make with a tire fashion, whatever you want to call it, is to not talk about it. You have to talk about it. A matter of fact, I recommend a band sometimes, particularly new bands, take a night and don't bring your instrument, get in a room together and talk about what you want This look to look like. It is so incredibly important and,Michael Jamin:But do you have an opinion on what it should be then? Should it stay what it was, or should it evolve?Dave Rose:I think it's interesting, like this eighties band striper that I talked about that I manage from the eighties, that it's the same guys 40 years later. Back in the day, there was a lot of hair and makeup and spandex pants and all the things that, and so no, they don't wear that anymore, and they don't wear the makeup and the teased hair, but they do an age appropriate version of that rock and roll gear and rock. ItMichael Jamin:Seems weird because the fans are coming to see their band. The fans don't want the band to age, but unfortunately the band aged.Dave Rose:Yeah.Michael Jamin:How do you give them what they want? It seems like, it seems like a really hard thing to struggle with.Dave Rose:It is. It's a tough thing. And the good ones, the ones that are really good at this, are good at sort of making fun of the, well, sort of making the audience one with them and sort of we're all aging together and this is welcome to us 40 years later. What I think we don't want is our aging rock stars to show up in sweatpants and a hoodie. We want 'em to show up at least caring and some resemblance of days gone by without being a carbon copy of that, because you shouldn't try to be,Michael Jamin:For the most part though, I imagine they're playing whatever their greatest hits, the songs that made them big, and the people, the fans, that's what they want to hear. And I imagine if I were a musician who's played the same song 30,000 times, I might get tired of this.Dave Rose:You would think, and here's what happens to a lot of them. Some do, yeah. They usually don't get tired of it. They get tired of being known only for that. There are some artists that have two or three mega hits so big you can't even compare. And as a result, there's no way for their catalog of deep catalog of hundreds of songs to sort of surface. It's why the band little feat that I worked with, they never really had a radio hit, and they always talked about the best thing that ever happened to us was never having a radio hit because we never had this super high. Instead, our fans consume our entire catalog. It's a little bit like the Grateful Dead in that sense. Grateful Dead never had this mega hit. They just had a lifestyle.Michael Jamin:Do they complain to you about this, though? Is this something they talk about?Dave Rose:Yeah, I mean, one thing that's interesting is when you're on stage and you're playing a 60, 75 minutes set or whatever, and you're playing songs from your catalog, one thing that you don't think about a lot, but when they hit that big hit, when they go into playing that big song that everybody knows of any song in that, it's almost like it's for them, it's a welcomed break in the set. Meaning when you're playing a new song, you're sort of working really hard to try to win this audience over on this new material or this unfamiliar material. So maybe if you're a rock band, you're probably moving around a little more. If you're whatever kind of band you are, you're just really giving it all to win over this crowd. But when you kick into a mega hit that they've heard a million times over, it's a moment you can just breathe.Michael Jamin:I see.Dave Rose:And go, okay, I'm good for three and a half minutes here. They're going to go nuts. No matter what we do.Michael Jamin:I would not have thought of. That's interesting you brought that up. I would not have thought it, but I would've thought it the other way around that like, oh, fuck, I got to play this again. ButDave Rose:No. Yeah, no. I do have a few artists that feel that way. One of my favorite moments in that regard was Sean Colvin. She's a kind of a folk songwriter artist, and she did end up having a big hit called Sonny Came Home, and that came out, I guess in the, I'm going to get the dates wrong, but that was a huge hit. Sonny came home and I went and saw Sean Colvin one night in concert, and she comes out on stage packed amphitheater, and she says, we're going to go ahead and play this song for those of you that just came to hear this, so you can go ahead and leave and the rest of us can have a good time.Michael Jamin:Is that what happened though?Dave Rose:That's why she opened the show when Sonny came home, and then what happened? I'm paraphrasing what she said there, but it was generally that for those of you that just came to hear the hit, let's play it. You can go about the way and sort of the implication was the rest of us who came to hear the entire catalog can now enjoy the show. DoMichael Jamin:You think people walked out? I mean,Dave Rose:Nobody left nobody. I was there. Nobody left. And that's a bold move. Yeah. I love that about her. And that's kind of the way a lot of artists feel about a big hit is like they don't dislike it. They love what it's brought to their career. They just dislike it being the only thing people may want to consume.Michael Jamin:I think about art, and you must have these conversations with your artists is like, how do you reinvent yourself on the next album when audience, your audience doesn't really want you to reinvent you. They want what they have, but if you give 'em the same, it's also like, yeah, we already have this. It seems so incredibly daunting to come up with another album that works,Dave Rose:Man. It is. And I got to say, in your world, I would think the same thing. How do you write the next episode given the audience what they want, but still keeping itMichael Jamin:Well, that's when they get mad at you. That's when they say the shows jumped the shark. Or they say, the show died four years ago. JumpDave Rose:The Shark. Is that aMichael Jamin:Term? Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. You haven't heard it. That refers to an episode of Happy Days when Henry Winkler, they put him on water skis and he had to jump a shark tank. I rememberDave Rose:That.Michael Jamin:And he was wearing a leather jacket when you saw Fonzi jumping a Shark tank in a leather jacket. You go, all right, the show is Jump a Shark.Dave Rose:Oh, I got to remember that. Oh, yeah.Michael Jamin:It's a famous term. Yeah, I worked with Henry years ago and we spoke about that.Dave Rose:Oh, really?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. It's funny.Dave Rose:What did you work on with him?Michael Jamin:It was a show called Out of Practice with Henry Winkler and Stocker Channing and Ty Burrell, and they were the three main leads, and Henry's like the sweetest man in Hollywood. But we spoke a little bit about thatDave Rose:Being a child of sort of growing up in the eighties. I'm going to be remiss if we don't at least, and I'm sorry, man, talk about asking somebody about their hit. Please tell me about Beavis and Butthead for a minute. I mean, I don't care what you tell me aboutMichael Jamin:There's, there's very little I can tell you. So I was friend, this is when they brought the show back. It's been on three times already. And the second iteration, our friends, John Altro and Dave Krinsky, they were the showrunners. They created Silicon Valley and now they're running the second beavers. But that was so they needed freelance writers. It was a really low budget thing, and they reach out to us and the money was terrible, but we just had a break in our, we were in between shows, so the timing was perfect. They said, do you want to write some Beavis? But so we pitched them maybe 10 ideas. They bought four, but that was it. I mean, that was kind of the involvement. Then we went to see Mike Judge, we went to the record session. So we'll go to the booth and we're all watching videos, and we we're literally standing over his shoulders watching music videos, just pitching jokes about what beef is, and Bud would say, and then he would go into the booth, do the voice, and come back out. That was my involvement. So it was only we because wanted, it was just a fun experience. It was not forDave Rose:Sure. Absolutely. What a, but again, I bet coming into it sort of midstream like that, what an even harder job. You've got hits. You want to give the audience what they expect, but you also want to give them what they don't expect. I mean, how you do that as an artist is hard.Michael Jamin:And do you have these conversations with your bands?Dave Rose:Absolutely. Yeah. Yes. Because the funny thing about music is none of us, if we sit down and listen to our Spotify list or whatever, and we have our catalog of music, none of us listen to one kind of music. We listen to all kinds of music, jazz and reggae and rock and whatever. We all have a mixture of taste, and depending on our mood, we want to explore that music. It's the same with artists. They don't think in one genre. They're artists. They're thinking all over the place. So it's really hard for them creatively to stay in this lane. It's why you see so many artists, I'm going to try to do a country record, or I'm going to try to do some other exploratory record, and that's okay. If you're Prince, you look like a genius. If you're Prince, if you're just starting out, you look confused. I don't know what I want to do, so I'm going to do a jazz song. So yeah, we do talk a lot about trying to stay, it's a terrible term for art, but trying to stay on brand with both your look and your sound and your music and the audience. When they go to buy a Bruce Springsteen record, they don't want to hear a jazz record. They want to hear good American rock and roll songs,Michael Jamin:But they also don't want to hear, I think you too may struggle with this. I think they got their sound, and it's like, all right, but I've already heard it.Dave Rose:They do struggle with that. Yeah, they've had a couple, and almost any act has their moment of when they look back on it, it's kind of like, what was I thinking?Michael Jamin:Right. I mean, to me, it sounds like I haven't listened to it in a while, but at one point I got an album there. I just thought it just sounded like every other, and they were amazing in the, I don't know, it seems like a very hard balancing act. How do you do this? How do you ItDave Rose:Is. It's why bands like Kiss, for example. I don't, I can't remember when. I think 20, I don't know. It was over 20 years since they recorded new music, just because they didn't want to attempt, they didn't top what they had done.Michael Jamin:I heard an interview by Cures for Fears, and they were talking about, and I didn't know this because really, I don't know the inside of music at all, but they were talking about how at one point, the album, I guess mid-career, that they were assigned a music producer and the producer kind of determined the sound. And I was, I surprised. I really thought that that's what they did. I thought they wrote all their songs and it said they were hearing songs written for them. I did not know that. I was really surprised. They are songwriters.Dave Rose:They are songwriters. And sometimes when a band or an artist hits that moment of how do we feed our fan base, but stay ahead of things, sometimes a good producer, outside writer can help move that along.Michael Jamin:On their last album, they shunned all that. They did it themselves, and I thought the album was terrific.Dave Rose:Yeah, I mean, I haven't heard it, but I've heard people say that,Michael Jamin:Oh, you haven't.Dave Rose:It's probably because they really went for the middle lane that they developed all along with their fan base. I mean, they're a brilliant act with an incredible catalog.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I mean, in the management world, at least in tv, in film, and for agents as well, it's not untypical for atypical for a writer or an actor to get to some point. Then they leave their manager or their agent, maybe they outgrow them or something happen. And how do you reconcile that?Dave Rose:Yeah, that happens all the time. In the music business, we call it the revolving door of managers and artists. I've had some come and go and come back and go,Michael Jamin:Really? Do you not take it personally then, orDave Rose:One of the things you have to do is truly not take it personally. And sometimes it's sort of like I look at it like this. If you were to own a restaurant and that restaurant grows and changes and involves a different manager, has different skill sets. We're not all graded everything. We're good at certain things. And if you happen to be at the place in your career to where you're with a manager that is good at the things you need, that's a perfect relationship. If you happen to go outside of that, then you might need someone with a different skillset. And oftentimes a manager is the first to say, I feel like I've taken you as far as I can.Let's find something new here. It's no different than a football coach or a restaurant manager or any sort of leader of a company. Sometimes for a lot of reasons, the stars align and sometimes they just don't. And if they don't, it's usually pretty recognizable to both parties. And there's very rarely, I mean, you certainly hear the stories both online and elsewhere of manager artists fallout, but by and large, I'm friends with every artist I've ever worked with, and I've never had a, I mean, I don't manage Bruce Hornsby anymore, but I just went backstage, went to his show and hung out with him after the show. And we talked about old times and had a good hang together. But there was a point in his career where I was and a point in my career where we just weren't at the same place, and I don't even mind sharing that. Yeah, please. He had been on RCA records for about 25 years, and the top brass at RCA was kind of changing, again, the revolving doors of executives at a record label, it was Tom. And so his life at RCA, his deal and relationship at RCA started to come to an end.And I was really, really, I had two other bands at RCA. I was sort of really inside the walls of RCA records at the time, and so I wasn't really best suited for the next step in his career, which was to find a new label, a New York based label. I was very much Nashville centric at that point, and it was just, we came to a place where I felt like for him to go where he needed to go, he needed somebody else, and he felt the same. AndMichael Jamin:It was, but that's another thing, because I see with my management, they have relationships at studios, and as you do have relationships and there, at the end of the day, you have your interests, and it is not like you're going to burn bridges with these studio that you have relationships with. You can only fight so much because of what you have with your other clients, right?Dave Rose:That's right. Yeah. It is probably like your business. It's a very small business at a certain level, a very small business. There's not a lot of, you're going to run into everybody again, and at some point you're going to want your act touring with their act, or you're going to want their act being featured on a record of your act. And if you burn bridges, it's just going to, I mean, I know people that do burn bridges, but it's rarely good.Michael Jamin:You are listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Today's episode is brought to you by my new book, A Paper Orchestra, a collection of True Stories. John Mayer says, it's fantastic. It's multi timbral. It runs all levels of the pyramid at the same time. His knockout punches are stinging, sincerity, and Kirker View says, those who appreciate the power of simple stories to tell us about human nature or who are bewitched by a storyteller who has mastered his craft, will find a delightful collection of vignettes, a lovely anthology that strikes a perfect balance between humor and poignancy. So my podcast is not advertiser supported. I'm not running ads here. So if you'd like to support me or the podcast, come check out my book, go get an ebook or a paperback, or if you really want to treat yourself, check out the audio book. Go to michael jamin.com/book. And now back to our show.What is then the pinnacle for, I mean, we know what the pinnacle for an artist's career would be, whatever, selling a ton of records playing the Super Bowl, whatever they aspire to do, but what's the pinnacle for your career?Dave Rose:Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, it's interesting. I was taking my son to school the other day and he said, daddy, work seems like it's really fun, is work really fun. And he's come to my office before, and I got thinking about that, and I've chosen a path that really is fun. Never, this sounds corny to say I've never felt like I've worked a day in my life, really. It just really has never felt like work. I am so amazed that people pay me to do this. I was doing it long before I knew you could make money at it. And so the pinnacle for me is really that this continued joy of the business of music.There's very few high level artists, celebrities I haven't met or come in contact with. And so none of that is really the moment for me. It's seeing an act like this band formerly that we're looking at. They're a country act. They've had four or five number one hits. They were playing in their garage in Greenville, North Carolina, small town where I grew up. I happened to just know them, and I took them to Nashville, one thing. So that's sort of what this business is for me. You see a band in a garage, and the next thing you know, they're accepting an award on stage, and it's just a beautiful feeling to know that you've helped an artist achieve those dreams.Michael Jamin:Interesting. It's interesting that that's where you take the joy in. I would think that part, you're not the one who wants that dream. You're not the one, the artist. You're not the one who wants that dream, your dream joy doing it for others.Dave Rose:I would think there's similar satisfaction in being a writer, I would think. I mean, maybe you were motivated to be on screen all the time or in front of the camera all the time, butMichael Jamin:No, not really. No, not really. But I think writers are worried about their career. I want to write this, I want to make a lot of money or whatever.Dave Rose:Yeah. Well, the money certainly an enjoyable part of it, but it's not the driving factor, and it can't be in music, so risky.Michael Jamin:But you also, I guess, arrange entertainment events,Dave Rose:Right? Oh, wow. Yeah, that's very, you did your homework. Yeah, so around the turn of the century, so I live in Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm in Nashville almost weekly, but I live in Raleigh, North Carolina, and in Raleigh, North Carolina, there are not a lot of artists management or record labels. It's a big, very creative music city, but there's not a lot of high level. So as Raleigh started to feel like they needed entertainment in their city and started thinking about amphitheaters and growth and expansion of their city, they kind of came to me saying, you've had artists play in these cities all over the country. Could you help us bring the good bad and the ugly of that to Raleigh and help us produce events? So yeah, over the past 20 years have become the kind of go-to, I produced the North Carolina State Fair and all the big festivals,Michael Jamin:But you keep it to this one region, though.Dave Rose:I do. I pretty much stay in the central, the Eastern North Carolina region. And it's funny because when bands go out on tour, I'm managing bands. I learned from Bruce Hornsby one time. I called him, I'd always check in after the show, and how did it go and whatever. And he went and played one show somewhere, and I said, how was the show? And he said, he kind of laughed while I said this, but he said, I was staring at a funnel cake sign the whole time. WhatMichael Jamin:Does that mean?Dave Rose:Funnel cakes? So you're playing this car almost like a carnival. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and there's plenty of respect in funnel cakes, but as an artist who played in the Grateful Dead Done Jazz records, not really his thing. So I kind of made a joke of always keep the funnel cake stand a little bit away from the stage, but I took all of this feedback from artists, what the backstage was like, what the stage was like, what the PA was like, what the lights were like. I took all the good, bad and the ugly from the artist, and I brought it back to my community to try to make the best concerts and events.Michael Jamin:I imagine there was a huge, not just a learning curve, but also financial risk in the beginning for you. No,Dave Rose:Yeah, I racked up a lot of credit cards.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? I mean,Dave Rose:Oh yeah.Michael Jamin:Wow.Dave Rose:Yeah. One of my, yeah, I sure did. We started this company on a credit card, and that's what got us going. We produced CDs on credit card. We racked up a lot of credit card debt hoping this would win.Michael Jamin:What do you, and it's paid off.Dave Rose:It's paid off,Michael Jamin:Right?Dave Rose:I paid it off last week.Michael Jamin:Just last week. You made a final payment, you got points for it. But what advice then, do you have for, I guess, new artists? I mean, maybe either musicians or, I dunno, artists.Dave Rose:Yeah. I think the hardest thing to do, particularly in this world of TikTok and YouTube and reels, is to really be authentically you, because it's so easy to want to try to be the person that just went viral,And that's never going to move the needle. That's never going to make a big splash. You might have a moment, I don't know if you remember, maybe three or four months ago, there was an artist on TikTok named Oliver Anthony that went massively viral. He is a bearded guy from the mountains and kind of just sang very, very pure songs, but went enormously huge. And within weeks, you've got every mountain guy with a beard trying to do the same thing. And it's really hard to not do that. When we're faced with that all the time, back in the day of Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and everything else, one didn't really know what the other was doing.Michael Jamin:SoDave Rose:You went into your bubble and you created art in a way that you felt led to do, and now you're so pressured to try to be the next viral thing, and that's the hardest thing. So my advice is don't do that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. You also, it's funny because I am a fan of your tiktoks. You give such interesting, great advice. You gave one post, this was maybe half a year or maybe a year ago, I don't know. And I was like, yes, I wanted to stitch it, but I guess I just didn't have the balls. And then I forgot about it. The post you did was, I guess a lot of people come to you for advice, and they just think they can just, Hey, you pick your brain or buy you a cup of coffee cup as if your time is worth $5 an hour, because that's what coffee costs. But you handled it very gracefully and graciously, but I'm not sure. Did you get any blowback for it?Dave Rose:Yeah. You're on TikTok, the blowback key. I mean, you definitely get, but by and large, by and large, what I ended up getting is it's been beautiful actually. Ever since then, I've got a lot of artists coming to me saying, look, I'm not going to offer to buy you a cup of coffee. I know how you feel about that, but I would like 30 minutes of your time, and how would I go about doing that? That's a beautiful way, I mean, I really picked this up from an attorney one time, and I was on the three-Way call with an artist, an attorney, and myself, and the artist said to the attorney, Hey, I got this contract and I don't really have a lot of money to spend, but I was hoping you could read it over and I could buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brainMichael Jamin:On it. Yeah. What did the attorney say?Dave Rose:And the attorney said, look, I understand you mean well, but I only have two things to sell. I've got my time and my knowledge, and you have just asked for both of those things for free.Michael Jamin:Yes. That's a good way of saying it.Dave Rose:And I just thought, wow. That's right. And as a manager, that's what you have. You got your time, your knowledge, and your connections. And if you're picking my brain, you are asking for those things for free. And I don't have anything else to feed my family with, butMichael Jamin:I wonder, is it because, because people ask me the same thing, and I guess it's because some people are actually giving it to them for free. Do you thinkDave Rose:It is? Yeah. I mean, they must be, or otherwise they wouldn't be doing it, I guess.Michael Jamin:But then I wonder if you're only paying $5 for advice, and that advice is only worth $5, I mean, why would you want to take $5 advice?Dave Rose:Right, exactly. Yeah. But yeah, that's been a tough part of the music business because yeah, so thanks for noticing that. But I do think we, as a sort of service society, whether you're a screenwriter or whether you're a manager or an agent or whatever, all people really have is what's in their head and their time. And so to take that so lightly is to think that buying you lunch is going to somehow make it worthwhile. It just doesn't, not only doesn't make sense in a strange way, it's rude.Michael Jamin:Well, I don't think it's strange. I mean, I do think it's rude. Yeah, yeah.Dave Rose:But as I said, I think in that TikTok, I said, I understand you're offering to buy me something. So I understand that you're trying to be in your own way, polite, but let me just educate you. That's not a compliment to say that your time is worth a cup of coffee.Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah. But I appreciated that video. I really did. I was like, doDave Rose:You get a lot of people asking to pick your brain?Michael Jamin:Yes. I guess less and less, butDave Rose:You do some consulting as well, right?Michael Jamin:Well, what I did was eventually I signed up for, there's this app where you can sign up to be an expert. And so people ask me a question, sometimes it's an autoresponder, and it says, if you want to book time with Michael, you can do it. So here, a half a dozen people have booked. Everyone's asking, but no one books time. So to me, interesting. And I didn't do it because that's to make money, but I was like, well, look, if you want it, you're going to have to pay. But they don't want it bad enough to pay. So,Dave Rose:Well, it's interesting. I'm on a platform called August managers.io, and that's where I do my 30 minute consultations. And I've partially used it as a filter. It's funny, I'll get artists that go out and spend $10,000 on recording and $10,000 on video and photo shoots, and then they'll come to me and say, can I pick your brain for a cup of coffee? And I'm thinking, you have just spent $20,000 making music, and now the most important part, getting it out to the public, that's worth a cup of coffee to you. So I sort of use this platform as a filter. It's like Chemistry 1 0 1 in college. If you're willing to just invest a tiny bit to spend a little bit of time with a professional, I at least know you're serious.Michael Jamin:Yeah. That's how I see it as well. So you're weeding people out. They don't really want, yeah, I guess that's how unserious they are. If they're getting caught up on booking a half hour with me, then they don't really want,Dave Rose:I would think in your world, people want you to read their script, isMichael Jamin:That, oh, there's a lot of that, but you got to pay me way more than, I mean, here's the thing. I don't even do it, but they all want it. They want me to spend an hour and a half reading their script, another hour assembling notes, and then another hour on a phone call them giving them my notes while they get angry and defensive telling me why I'm wrong and do it for free. I mean, oh, yeah, okay. That sounds like a ball to me. But it's not about the money. The answer is no, all around. But it also exposes me to liability side because I don't want to be sued for taking someone's idea. SoDave Rose:Totally. I mean, that's a big part of the music business a lot. You'd hear about unsolicited music, and a lot of people, myself included, will not even open an email with music attached if I don't know who it is. Is itMichael Jamin:Because for liability reasons?Dave Rose:Yeah. TheyMichael Jamin:Think you're going to steal their sound or their song.Dave Rose:I think Yes. I think they do think that. And I think in the history of the music business, that has happened maybe three times. I mean, it just doesn't happen. Interesting. So it's funny that that's a topic even, I don't know if it happens in the film and TV business, but in the music business that anytime you've heard of a lawsuit of one suing the other about a sound, it's very, very rarely actual theft. Most often, there's only eight chords, and you can arrange them in only so many ways. And if you're in a genre like hip hop or country where it's in some ways a little bit of a formula in the way your pop music is that way, you write very narrow melodies and chord progressions. It's bound to your, I mean, about the a hundred thousand songs released a day, you're bound to cross paths there in a close manner. It's very rarely malicious.Michael Jamin:So then how are you listening to new music, if at all? Is it because you see an act on stage or something?Dave Rose:Yeah, no, I will listen to it if it's coming to me from a vetted source or if it's coming to me in a way that I feel. But I get a lot of just very blind emails, never met, seen, heard of the person. And one of my favorite quotes was Gene Simmons said one time, look, if I'm hearing about you for the first time from you, you're not ready.Michael Jamin:You're not ready. Interesting.Dave Rose:Because we keep our ears to the ground. I mean, I'm hearing about artists all the time. I mean, I can't go to the dentist without hearing about five new artists. People know that we work in the music business. So no matter where I go, the coffee shop, the dentist, the pizza shop, whatever, they're going to tell me about their cousin that just released a song. That's the next Beatles. So I hear about stuff, and if I hear about it from 7, 8, 9 different places, I start to know there's something there.Michael Jamin:Right. I directed Gene Simmons, by the way, on an animated show. I had to yell. NoDave Rose:Way.Michael Jamin:Well, yeah. Well, he came into the studio like a rockstar, which is what he is, of course. And then he is holding court and, Hey, dude, we're paying for this thing. And I knew I was going to get yelled at by my boss, so I had to say, Hey, gene, we're recording now. I had to tell shot him, get onto the microphone.Dave Rose:Oh, that's awesome. He is a really interesting person. I've met him a couple of times. I really am amazed by his story.Michael Jamin:That's funny. Chrissy Hy came in. My partner had to direct Chrissy, and she came in also like a rockstar into the booth, and she's smoking a cigarette and you're not supposed to with the equipment. And he asked her to put it out, and she wouldn't. And he was like, that's fine with me. Whatcha going to do?Dave Rose:I love it. She'sMichael Jamin:Chrissy Hein. She gets to do what she wants. But that's so interesting. Yeah. I get that same sometimes when people ask me a question and I wonder if you feel the same way about breaking into the business or some kind of basic thing. They leave a comment and I'm like, all you got to do is just scroll down and all my videos are labeled. You're going to find it. I wonder how bad you want it. If you feel like you have to ask me without looking. This is literally the least you have to do to find an answer nowadays.Dave Rose:I did a video recently where one of the most common questions I get is, somebody will present their music to me and they'll say, do you think I have what it takes to make it? And that is without question, the hardest question to answer because I don't know your definition of make it. And to be honest, a lot of people don't know their definition of make it. I had a band come into my office one time, they finally, they've been wanting to line up a meeting. They came in and they said, I said, so what do you guys want to do? What are you hoping to do? And they said, well, we want to be successful. You know what I mean? And I said, well, no, I don't know what you mean. Tell me what success means to you. And they said, well, we want to make a living at music.I said, well, that's good. I can have you doing that within 30 days. And they kind of looked at me like, wow. We hit the jackpot coming to this meeting, and I said, here's what we're going to do. We're going to buy you a bunch of tuxedos. You're going to learn some top 40 songs. We're going to play the wedding and corporate cover circuit, make a great living. They kind of looked at you and they were like, no, that's not what we meant. Okay, let me change that answer. We want to make a living playing our music. I said, alright. Little bit harder to do, but we can still do it. There's sports bars around the country where you set up in the corner and they don't really care what you play, your background music, but you make a pretty decent living. You'll make good tips.We're like, no, no. Lemme think about this. They thought about it for a little bit more and they said, okay, we got it. We want to be on the radio. Then one other guy spoke up and he said, playing our music. I said, okay, I got you, my friend does the Sunday night local show on the radio station. He's a friend of mine. He'll play anything I send him. I'll send him your song, he'll play it on Sunday. You will have been successful. And they like, all right. And one guy spoke up at that point and he said, I see what you're trying to do. You're trying to confuse us. I said, no, no, no. You're quite confused on your own I'm trying to do is point out that I can't help you until you know what you want. And there's no wrong answer to that. Some artists come to me and say, I want world domination. I want to be the next big, huge thing. And others simply say, I just want to make great music and I don't really care if I make a living. I just want good quality music out there.Michael Jamin:Is that right?Dave Rose:Oh yeah. PeopleMichael Jamin:Really do. But I imagine, I mean, you got to pay your bills. That's not attractive to you. Right?Dave Rose:It's not attractive to me and that's okay, but there's still a place for that in this world. But yeah, and here's the other thing. A lot of people think they want that world domination and playing arenas, but the moment we start saying things like, well, let's say a country artist came to me and they said, I want to be the biggest country star in the world. First thing out of my mouth would be, you're going to need to move to Nashville. You don't need to do that in every genre, but in country, that's a must be present To Win town, you're going to have to be in Nashville. Well, I don't really want to do that. I got this and a job and whatever. So I tell people all the time, prioritize where music is in your life. It doesn't have to be number one, but just knowing where it is will help you make decisions on what's most important. When I give advice to artists, I often ask them, do you have kids and are you married? And tell me about your personal life. The truth is, the advice I give to someone with a two month old baby at home is different than a single 21-year-old that can go out and explore the world.Michael Jamin:What do you think it is that people like me, Hollywood, what do I get? What do we get wrong about the music industry when we portray it on TV and film?Dave Rose:Oh wow. Well, it's funny because in every music based show, I used to watch the show Nashville, which was produced very well, and it was done in Nashville, so it had a lot of authenticity to it. But I think what I don't think you get it wrong, I think you have to portray it this way because that's the way TV is made. But you can go from in one episode writing a song to going on tour with Bon Jovi all within a week or two's time, what seems like a week or two's time in a film or TV show. And it's a laborious, long as you know from any aspect of entertainment, it's years before you start to take off from that runway. It's a several year runway, but I think the public as a result of just all of our short attention spans shows and even movies have to be written. So that what seems like in a couple of months, couple of weeks, sometimes you go from writing this song to touring with Beyonce.Michael Jamin:Why do you think, and I say this selfishly, I want to know for myself, why do you think the runways is so long before you take off? Why does that mean, why does it take so long?Dave Rose:Well, I think a lot of it is because writing music, like writing anything takes a lot of hours to get good at it.Michael Jamin:Okay, but let's say you got your album out and it's a great album now it's going to take years beforeDave Rose:No, no, no, no, no. It's going to take years to get that greatMichael Jamin:Album. Right. Okay.Dave Rose:Right. Once that great album is assembled and together, it can be a relatively, I mean, it can be a relatively short runway to success once that great in Nashville, there's a saying when somebody comes into me with a publisher and a publisher is someone who oversees the copyrights of songs, but when someone comes to me with a publisher and they say, how many songs have you written? No matter what the answer is, they almost always say, come back when you've written your next a hundred. Really, there's kind of an unwritten seven year rule in Nashville. You should not expect success for at least seven years after you come to townMichael Jamin:With your first album,Dave Rose:With your first set of releases. It just takes that long to get really, really top level good at this in any genre. I think, I mean, if there was a comment section on this podcast, there would be tons of people giving me the exceptions to those rules right now, which is the beauty of the music business or any entertainment. There's exceptions to that rule. There's overnight sensations, but by and large, most of the big artists had a long runway.Michael Jamin:So you're listening, if you were listening to an album by a new artist, you're thinking, okay, maybe one or two songs has got something in the rest are just not there. You're sayingDave Rose:Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes. I mean, you take a band, it's funny, that first hit, I worked with Sex and Candy, the band, Marcy Playground, between the time they rode and recorded that and it became a number one hit was four years.Michael Jamin:Okay,Dave Rose:Four years.Michael Jamin:Right. Okay. So they had the goods, but it took four years before people discovered they had the goods.Dave Rose:That's right. That was a very interesting journey. They charted on college radio and then they tried to work to regular radio. It didn't happen, and they label problems and they tried again and it finally happened. Same thing with this band, sixpence On The Richer and the song Kiss Me. They had that song Kiss Me on a Record, and it did not become a hit for another two years.Michael Jamin:Wow. Okay. So then how do they do that? Is it just touring? Is it just getting it out there? Just having people listen,Dave Rose:In the nineties it was touring. It was just getting out there and touringMichael Jamin:Even. Not today. You're saying today's it's not like that today.Dave Rose:It's not. I mean, it's some touring is one aspect of it, but the beauty of Michael, you and I would not be here talking if it were not for TikTok. And as much as I love to hate on social media platforms for all the reasons they're easy to hate on there is I tell our assist all the time. There is someone in Topeka, Kansas right now that loves what you do. You just got to find them. And if you do, there'll be fans for life. But unless you plan on touring Topeka, Kansas this week, you're not going to find 'em. So get online and postMichael Jamin:How many, I've heard numbers and I if it's true, but how many crazy, what's the word, rabid fans, do you need think a band needs before they hit critical mass?Dave Rose:Well, critical mass is a subjective term, but I say this a lot. You only need a thousand fans. And I'm talking about real fans. Fans that would give the shirt off their back fans. I'm not talking about followers,Michael Jamin:I'm notDave Rose:Talking about likes or subscribes,Michael Jamin:Right? People who open their wallet,Dave Rose:A thousand fans that consume everything you put out. That's all you need to make a great living in music.Michael Jamin:But how is that possible? Okay, so if you've had a thousand fans, they're scattered all across the country and I don't understand, how does that make you a good living? You can put it on a new album to a thousand fans. How does that make you a living?Dave Rose:I'll tell you how that is because when I was 10 years old, I had a older cousin, cousin Rick and I went to his house and he had a wall of vinyl records, more vinyl records than you could ever imagine. And he reached and he had got a new stereo and he wanted to show me the stereo, and he pulled up a Boston record, the classic rock band Boston. They had just put out their first record and he put it on the turntable and he was telling me everything he needed to tell me about Boston, and I was just mostly fascinated by the fact that of a thousand records on his wall, he picked that one to tell me about it. And from there I went and bought the record. I consumed, I bought the T-shirts, I bought this. The thing about a thousand fans is they're your marketing arms. A thousand fans are not going to keep your music close to their chest and keep it over here in the corner. They're going to tell everybody that'll possibly listen. And if you've got a fan that it gets in the car with their friends and they got three minutes to the next drive and a billion songs to choose from, they're going to choose yours. And that's going to turn those fans, those friends into fans. So it starts with a thousand core fans and you can really take over the world.Michael Jamin:I wonder, and again, I say this selfishly, I put out a book, and so this is the first venture. I've done solo

On this week's episode, we have actor Cynthia Mann Jamin (Friends, Ahh! Real Monsters, Angry Beavers and many many more) and we discuss her journey as an actor and director. We also talk about how the two of us met as well as what it's like working together. Tune in for so much more.Show NotesCynthia Mann Jamin IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0542699/Cynthia Mann Jamin on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/prime-video/actor/Cynthia-Mann/amzn1.dv.gti.ca37e830-61b1-44db-8fe5-979422acb482Cynthia Mann Jamin Shop: https://www.twirlygirlshop.com/A Paper Orchestra on Website: https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptCynthia Mann Jamin:If it wasn't something that was organic for you, it would be torture trying to become this person that you think other people want to see, or you got to position yourself like this other person over here. But it really is about finding your unique voice because that's all we have.Michael Jamin:You are listening to What The Hell Is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase. And to support me in this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.Michael Jamin:Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode. I have a very special guest today, the very beautiful and talented, I'm going to call her Cynthia Mann, although she's now currently Cynthia Mann Jamin and she's my wife and Cynthia. I met years ago, I was a writer on a show called Just Shoot Me, and she was the guest star and she was a working actor and she worked on many shows including she was a recurring on Friends. She had, I dunno, five or so or six episodes on Friends Recurring on Veronica's Closet, Seinfeld, er Suddenly Susan Will and Grace, all those shows of the nineties, all those musty TV shows. She did almost all of them. And now she is the director and producer of my one man show as well as the audio book. So I thought a paper orchestra. So she did all of that. So I thought we would talk to her about that and about her experience working in Hollywood as well as directing and producing my audiobook for all of you people who aspire to do something similar. Hello, Cynthia.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Hi Michael.Michael Jamin:Hello. My beautiful wife. She's in the other room. We're pretending we live far apart, but actually we live very close to each other.Cynthia Mann Jamin:You could say we're roommates.Michael Jamin:This is my roommate, Cynthia. So thank you so much for doing this. Thank you, most of all for producing and directing my show. And I don't know, where do we begin? What should we start with?Cynthia Mann Jamin:Well, I think it's, the thing that's interesting is people might want to know how is it working together and why do we work together?Michael Jamin:I don't have an answer for that. You're cheap labor. That's why we work. I don't have to pay you. Why is that? Why we work together?Cynthia Mann Jamin:Well, it's funny because it goes all the way back to when we were first dating. I think if you want to talk about that because Go ahead. Well, we love doing projects together.Michael Jamin:Projects, we call them projects. How the Canadians say It. Project,Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah, projects. And when we first met it was kind of like, well, we had this common interest of he's a writer, I'm an actor, but it's like you can't sit around all day and just write and act. So we would find common things that we like to take walks, we like to do hiking. I taught you about Run Canyon, you were running in the flats. And I'm like, what the hell are you doing? Why are you running in the flats? Why don't you run up a hill?Michael Jamin:I didn't realize you could. It was so steep. And then you said you ran it. So I said, oh, alright. I guess I could try running it. ICynthia Mann Jamin:Totally ran it. I ran it all the time. I had, I had really muscular legs. YouMichael Jamin:Did. ICynthia Mann Jamin:Know you did. Yeah. And I still do. But yeah, so we would find little things to do and I would take you around LA and get you lafy and teach you what Celestial seasoningsMichael Jamin:AndCynthia Mann Jamin:Stuff. Yes, teaMichael Jamin:Is and also Whole Foods and Mrs. Gooch's. Mrs.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Gooch's. Yeah. This is way back. WeMichael Jamin:Would go to all this. She didn't approve of the supermarkets that I went to. So youCynthia Mann Jamin:Can go in there. I'm not going to get my food there you there though.Michael Jamin:And so many ways You helped me a lot with art because you are an artist. You were a starving artist when I met you.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Oh yes. Yeah. Well, barely getting by. I would say would barely getting by. I've had every survival job you can think of. I've done singing telegrams with the monkey that goes like this, and I've done sold shoes and I've waitressed and I've done a million survival jobs. So in my thirties I finally started to get acting jobs and I was a professional dancer for a while. And Grit didn't go to college right away, only finished two years of it. Later in my thirties when I met Michael, I was going to college and working and going on auditions and all of that. And when I met Michael, it was one of those crazy auditions where the casting director, Deb Burki, who I'm forever grateful for, she brought me in just to the callback. She didn't even read me first because we had had a relationship and she always appreciated my work and thought, oh, this is good for Cynthia.Let me just bring her in straight to the producers. And I remember Steve Levitan was there, probably Andy Gordon and Eileen because it was their episode and Eileen Khan and I got that job. She called me the next day and just said, yeah, you got it. And I was like, oh, yay. I'm so excited. And they only booked me for three days. So when I went on the set, it was at Universal because I didn't really know what Just Shoot Me was. It was a new show and I don't think it was airing yet. It was just the first six episodes. So nobody really knew what it was about or the tone or anything. And I just went in, did my scene, went home prepared to come back the next day for shoot day. Really? And you guys sent me a script at nine in the morning or something like that and said, we rewrote your scene because we found a better way to write this scene. I don't know, you can tell me the behind the scenes of that. I don't really know why you did that.Michael Jamin:I don't really remember why that was rewritten. It was a long time ago.Cynthia Mann Jamin:I think it was. Maybe it just wasn't exciting enough or something. And you wanted the dialogue to be between me and Laura more.Michael Jamin:I don'tCynthia Mann Jamin:Remember. Instead of the roommate. And so you guys had me into the writer's room before, which is very unusual. You never really go into a writer's room to work out a scene. But because we were shooting it that day and we had to go straight to the run through and I think the network was going to be there. You didn't want to mess around. And so you gave me notes and we rehearsed it and Laura was there and the other scene partner who, I'm so sorry, I forgot his name. Chris,Michael Jamin:I want to say.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah, Chris. And then we just went and shot it. And then I shoot the scene at night and I'm like, oh my God, this was so much fun. And it was great. And I'm like, all right, I'm going to go. And who's standing right next to me as I'm walking off the set and kind of hanging back and it was you.Michael Jamin:It was me,Cynthia Mann Jamin:It was you.Michael Jamin:And then you said you wanted to marry me. I said, I don't even know you.Cynthia Mann Jamin:I complimented your tie. That's right. And then you said, I did a really nice job. Yeah, you did. And I said thank you. And then we were talking about, I think you said, so what do you like to do for fun? Or something like that. Yeah. We went and I asked you that and you said you swing dance. And I had already been swing dancing at the Derby many times with my friend Brendan. And we would go and swing dance. SoMichael Jamin:MyCynthia Mann Jamin:Knees went weak when youMichael Jamin:That's right. I took, it was either you or Brendan I took you.Cynthia Mann Jamin:So then long story short, there was a couple of weeks that went by and you called me and said, hi, this is Michael. And I said, I don't remember that name, but you're making it up because he has that name. And then you said, no, it's me and I would like to take you out for coffee. And I said, I don't drink coffee. I drink tea.Michael Jamin:Yeah, we had tea instead.Cynthia Mann Jamin:He said, that's okay, huh?Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah. Right.Cynthia Mann Jamin:And then I remember this, Michael, on our first date, I hung back in my car because I think I saw you walk in. I'm like, I got to be a little late. I got to make him wait for me a little bit. So I made you wait just a little bit. And then I go in and the woman comes and says, so do you want a chocolate chip or oatmeal cookie, highland grounds? And it's not there anymore, I don't think. And you took the longest time figuring out what flavor you wanted. For me it was easy. It was chocolate chip or peanut butter. That was the other one. And then you go, I go, why did it take you so long to order the cookie? And you go, because I wasn't sure if there was anything to be gained by lying.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I was trying to impress you with the choice of cookies.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Weirdest thing anyone said to me that you cared enough about. The cookie choice is crazy.Michael Jamin:And then we've been together ever since.Cynthia Mann Jamin:We've been together ever since. And to go back to the projects, we started with tiling a table that now our daughter has at her college apartment. And that was our first project. And then we decided to have kids, and that was our second project.Michael Jamin:ThenCynthia Mann Jamin:I started my business Twirly Girl, which I ran for 15 years. Still going, but not as big. And you helped me with that. You wrote all my commercials and did all of that. And then you wrote a book and then I'm helping you with that. So I think we're better when we're working together, honestly.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Cynthia Mann Jamin:I do. I think it's, when I was doing Twirly Girl and you were working as a writer and all of that, we never really connected on any kind of common ground aside from the kids because you were always doing your thing. I was doing my thing. But then when you started to write the commercials, I think our relationship went to another level because it's like you're appreciating the other person for their gifts and what they bring to you. But it's also like you're helping me with something that really means a lot to me. And it was like this back and forth that just felt so great. And I trusted you more than anyone to put me in the best light. And I think that's the same with you trusting me with your words because I care about them and I want to present you in the best light and I'll work tirelessly to get it.Michael Jamin:And you have produce the audio book and you had to learn how to do all that. What do you have to tell people? What do you have to share? What wisdom can you share with people on starting something like this?Cynthia Mann Jamin:I would say, and I was talking to Lola about this last night, and what occurred to me was that when you have the pinch or you have the idea, just the idea to do something and it's filling you with a lot of joy and passion and it almost creates its own engine in you, and you just feel so motivated to attack it and see if you can accomplish it. It almost doesn't matter if anybody else likes it because it's something you need to do. And I felt that way with my business. I remember creating these dresses and going, I know they're special. I know they are so special. And I don't even, the icing on the cake is that other people love them, but that's not why I'm doing itm doing it because I need to do it. And it's bringing me so much joy and it's fulfilling something in me that was missing or that I didn't even know that I needed.And it brought me so much that I could have more than I could have ever thought, oh, I'm going to make dresses because it's going to give me a sense of self. It's going to fire that entrepreneurial spirit. It's going to make me feel connected to those around me. I'm going to share my story about it. I couldn't have thought that I just followed the desire to make something. And then all these things kind of cascaded. And that's what I'm telling you. That's how I feel about the audio book. When you said, all right, you're going to direct and you're also going to edit it and you're going to do all these things, I'm like, I don't know how to do Pretty much, I knew how to direct because of the acting background, but I didn't know how to do an audiobook. We didn't know how we wanted this to come into the world and what it would look like. But I felt that desire, that same joy to just achieve this. And we love it and we know we did an amazing job, and the fact that it's resonating with other people is icing on the cake because we couldn't not do it.Michael Jamin:But you still had to learn a lot of skills to do that.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Well, I think I love, I'm one of those people that loves learning by doing. You would tell me, watch the videos on how to do it. And I was like, this is not going to go anywhere for me because I'm not going to retain it unless I need it. If I need to know how to do something, then I'm going to learn it. So I learned by doing it. And that process is so exciting to me because I know that I'm also growing as a person if I can accomplish something really hard that I don't think I know how to do or I've never done before. So that challenge is also really gratifying for me.Michael Jamin:And now there's the next challenge, which is taking it on the road.Cynthia Mann Jamin:And we have no clue how to do that either. Yeah,Michael Jamin:We'll figure it out. I guess we'll just make it happen.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah,Michael Jamin:It's really just about putting your energy into something and then watching as things start falling into place.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Exactly. You don't know what you don't know, but you'll find it out. And then that thing will lead to another thing. And we have very different styles. You and I, what my sense of what you do, and you tell me what you think mine is, but my sense of what your approach is is you throw a hundred percent of your energy into thinking about it, and you're almost like tunnel vision. You have to be so hyperfocused on it until you get it to where you want it to be and nothing distracts you. What do you think my style is? I'm just, is that I have that right?Michael Jamin:I'm not really sure. I guess so I'm not really sure I, I guess I work on it until I'm done.Cynthia Mann Jamin:But it is like you have this hyper focus about it. And for me, I kind of feel guilty if I'm not like you just sitting at the computer and studying it and figuring it out, then to me, I have to walk away and I have to kind of let it settle. And then I have to really check in with my intuition in a way and go, okay, what's the next right move? Where do I need to spend my energy is just spinning my wheels, trying to figure it out, doesn't work for me. And I feel like you are good at that. You're good at like, okay, I'm going to figure this out. And you just keep working it and working it kneading the dough. And for me, I have to leave it and come back to it.Michael Jamin:All of it was every single part of it. None of it's easy. I don't know why people expect it to be easy. We all want it to be easy, but it never is. The creating of it is never easy. And then the marketing of it, putting it out there and getting people to, that's half the battle.Cynthia Mann Jamin:And I think the main thing that we discovered, and I think you working with Twirly Girl really helped you with this project because you saw how being authentic and really communicating with your audience in a very real way resonates. And there's no other way to do it because how could you post every single day if it wasn't something that was organic for you, it would be torture, trying to become this person that you think other people want to see, or you got to position yourself like this other person over here. But it really is about finding your unique voice because that's all we have. There's a million books out there. There's a million dresses. I created dresses. There's a million of them. We don't need another one. But what we don't have is the dress that I can make. What we don't have is the book that you can write. And I think leaning into that perspective is really, really empowering and crucial to the creative process.Michael Jamin:We would speak a lot. We would go on walks and speak a lot about, in the beginning we would talk about what the function of art is, what's the expectation and what the market is. I remember talking about, because David Sedaris is the one who inspired me to write this. I love his writing. And it's the same genre, personal essays, and I remember talking to you, but we know what he writes. People love, we know there's a market for it. So I be doing that.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah, I, but he's kind of paved the way, and that was inspiring. I think inspiration is so healthy, and that's what you were inspired by. But the whole thing that you talk about is finding your voice, and it took you a while to find the rhythm. And people, when they read it, they're never going to confuse David s and Michael Jamin. They're never going to, because your background in TV gave you this whole different way of going into a story and entertaining an audience. And that's just in your blood. It's in your makeup, it's just who you are and the details of everything that you write. It reads like a film or cinematically because there's no moment in there where it's not leading to something elseMichael Jamin:You are listening to. What the hell is MichaeliJamon talking about? Today's episode is brought to you by my new book, A Paper Orchestra, A collection of True Stories. John Mayer says, it's fantastic. It's multi timal. It runs all levels of the pyramid at the same time. His knockout punches are stinging, sincerity. And Kirks Review says, those who appreciate the power of simple stories to tell us about human nature or who are bewitched by a storyteller who has mastered his craft, we'll find a delightful collection of vignettes, a lovely anthology that strikes a perfect balance between humor and poignancy. So my podcast is not advertiser supported. I'm not running ads here. So if you'd like to support me or the podcast, come check out my book, go get an ebook or a paperback, or if you really want to treat yourself, check out the audio book. Go to michael jamin.com/book. And now back to our show.Michael Jamin:I wish it was a genre that was easier to explain to people, because when people say, what's your story? What's a book about? I have to try to explain, well, it's personal essays, but it's not an essay. Essay sounds like homework. It's not a memoir because I'm not important that it's my memoir. They're stories, but they're true. But what is that? It'd be just so much easier if I could say, well, it's YA fantasy or something. And people go, oh, okay. I know what young adult fantasy is, but it's not that. And so that's part of the uphill struggle that we have is explaining to people, getting people to understand enough just to take a chance and read it.Cynthia Mann Jamin:But I think letting people catch up to what is what's important, what it is, is important because you're assuming that you have to spell it out for people. And I'll equate it again to Tuley Girl, the dresses I made were so hard to explain. And we were like, but it's not this. It's not fantasy, but you can wear it every day. And I had about 5,000 different taglines because I couldn't communicate it. And then finally you came up with the most amazing explanation of what it was after probably about eight years of doing it, which was, whatMichael Jamin:Was it? You could say it. You could say it.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Well, we don't create dresses. We create your favorite childhood memory. Happy childhood. We're creating happy memories,Michael Jamin:Happy childhood memories.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Dress isn't just a,Michael Jamin:You got it wrong. We create happy childhood memories. That's whatCynthia Mann Jamin:It was. Right? Happy childhood. Well, I've had a year doing the audiobook, so 12 Girls in the Distance there.Michael Jamin:But that was another thing I remember. We saw a wonderful special by this guy named Derek DelGaudio called In and of itself, it's a wonderful, it was on Hulu. It was like a one-time special, basically like an hour long or something.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Well, it started as aMichael Jamin:Stage play. It started as a stage play. But when I tell people, when I try to describe what it's about, it's almost impossible to describe. And that's part of the problem. It's hard. It was such a uniquely wonderful experience, but it's impossible to tell people to describe it because it's its own thing.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah, I But you would say it's a one man show and a very unique experience,Michael Jamin:But there's magic and it's participation, but it's not magic. It's something else.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah, it's not a magic show.Michael Jamin:No, it's not a magic show. So it's really hard to, putting something in a box makes it easier to sell because people can understand what the box is. And I feel like that's part of the struggle I have with a paper orchestra, which is, and everyone who reads it, they love it, but they still don't understand what it is until they actually read it.Cynthia Mann Jamin:But see, I think what you have on the cover is perfect. It's true stories about the smallest moments that you sometimes forget. What if the smallest moments were the ones that meant the most? So that says everything to me. That's all I need to know.Michael Jamin:That's what the book is. It's just about, hey, here's a small moment in life where I point out, which easily you could have forgotten about because it's so small. And it turns out, if you look back at that moment, everything changed because of it.Cynthia Mann Jamin:And I love that you talk about the fact that it's really not about, you have to have these catastrophic or monumental things happen to you to be a changed person. Most of us don't have those huge, huge moments and so tender and intimate about it and relatable because you didn't come from an unusual background. You're pretty average with child of divorce. That's kind of average for our job, do.Michael Jamin:So those are the kind of stories that I tell, and I said before, I really don't think the stories are my stories. The details are mine, but I'm really trying to tell your story. But maybe you haven't figured out how to do that. But I do that because I'm a writer, so I know how to do that.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah, yeah. And I think we're just, it's nice that we're able to work well together in so many ways. And I think it really does stem from having that deep respect for each other's gifts, and we're able to really be very upfront with each other when we don't like something or when we question it. And I'm not married to my way doing it my way. I'm really looking at the bigger picture. I want a paper orchestra to be great. What's going to serve that? And I think we both have that in mind. And in terms of the tour and taking it on the road, I mean, I think you're more than ready to perform it. And I'm so excited for people to be able to experience it in that way as well.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's a different kind of, that's why, because the show, it is a theatrical show. And I do think there's something more intimate about, people say, can't you record it and play it? Yeah, I could, butCynthia Mann Jamin:Well, that's the audio book. But that audio book is going to be different.Michael Jamin:But in terms of even recording the stage show, you'll miss the intimacy of being right in front of me, being in the room and feeling the energy. You don't feel the energy. That's probably the thing with tv, it's great. It's a wonderful form, but you don't have the same energy as you do seeing live theater. And I wish there's a better way because many people don't want to see live theater, but it's different. It's a different experience. Good theater is great. Bad theater is terrible. That's why it runs the whole gamut. There's that expression. Nothing lasts forever except for bad theater, and that's because of the energy. So it goes both ways.Cynthia Mann Jamin:And when we were working together on the audiobook the first time, we were trying to convey that performance that we do live. And after listening to it again and showing, having our daughter, Lola, listen to it, and her listening to literally the first three minutes, and I had already edited the whole thing. She was like, oh no, this isn't, I can't, you got to bring it down. And we were like, yeah, I had a feeling because when I was editing it, I was like, I don't know. I dunno about this. We just got to see.Michael Jamin:Yeah, we had to do it again because we wanted the performance to be more intimate because you're listening to it on headphones or alone in the car, and it's a different, you're not listening it in a group of people, which is what the theater show is. So I'm literally in your head because you're wearing headphones. We had to bring everything down and make the performance much more intimate. It's a different, and we'll have to see how that affects my next performance with my live show.Cynthia Mann Jamin:You're totally different. I know, totally. But see, when you say we had to bring it down, I don't like saying it like that because it makes it sound like it's sleepy and it's not.Michael Jamin:You had to bring it moreCynthia Mann Jamin:Intimate. But it's like I really wanted, it's more like you contained the energy. They took this kind of energy that needs to project out, and we harnessed it and shoved it into a little two 12 by 12 area inches.Michael Jamin:But this is all acting stuff that I could not have done without you because you're an actor. I have couldn't have figured this out on my own, I don't think.Cynthia Mann Jamin:No, I think it would've been really hard because your tendency when you would just start to read it before I would kind of steer you in the right direction or go, oh, you're going down the wrong path. Let me take you over here. That's pretty much all I needed to do in those moments. But your natural tendency was to just start reading it. And I'm like, where are you? I don't hear your personality. I'm not engaged in the story because you are not connected to it. So it really required the same amount of energy, Michael, that does for you to do this on stage, but you had to have the same amount of energy but contain it.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I mean, it's a whole different art to it, not an actor. So I had to learn how to do, how perform it to keep people engrossed in it. So I dunno, it's a fun performance. We want to travel because this is what we want to do next. We want to travel together and put it up and continue. So if anyone wants to come see it, you can go to michael jamin.com/upcoming and enter your city, and then we'll let you know. When we get to your city, we're figuring out how to, this is the next thing we're figuring out how to actually make it happen so we can do this effectively. Bring it to people's, bring the theater because it's a whole, again, people will say to me, whoa, can you sell it as a tv? Maybe it could be a TV show, maybe it could be a movie. And I'm always thinking about, why can't it just be a book? Why can't it be an audio book? Why can't it be a theatrical show as if TV or movies is somehow better than the experience that we're creating now? I don't think it is. And I work in television and film, I don't think it's better.I think there's a betterness to what we have.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah, there's a pureness to it. There's something very simple and pure and the pacing of it. Everything is consumed so quickly right now, and it's almost too much. It's just too much. And what this does is it helps us to slow down. Yeah,Michael Jamin:There's a power in the pause. There's so much energy that you can portray. This is something that took me a while to have confidence to do, but you can act. You're talking, you're saying you're doing whatever, the whole dog and pony show, but in leaving that pause and saying nothing, there's this anticipation and the audience is just waiting for it. And it's like a loaded gun.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah. I don't like that analogy, but what is it? Well, it's like you're on the edge of your seat and you've got us in your hands, and we're just captive. We're a captive audience. Time stands still. Time stands still, and we're just with you. And it really is allowing our being to kind of just be in that moment. It crystallizes the moments. And those are the moments in theater that why it's so impactful is because we're in this communal experience together where we're experiencing time at the same time, and we're also being together at the same time. It's very profound. And I remember working with you on the audio book and you were really hesitant to take us with you. I remember that. I kept saying, take us with you, Michael. It was like, but I'm going too slow or I'm going too fast. Or it was like, it didn't matter. The pacing. I would arbitrarily tell you, take us with you. And you would say, but I am. I go, yeah, but even if you're slow, or even if you're fast, the intention is to connect with us and make sure that we're with you. And it's hard on an audiobook because there's no audience, but with an audience, you can feel.Michael Jamin:Yeah. But with the audience too, I'm in front of a bright light. I don't see them. I can sense them, but I can't see anybody. ButCynthia Mann Jamin:That's what's important is you sensing it. You can totally sense it. You can sense it because you can hear the Oh or that, or you can hear laugh, or you can hear the silence is different than a regular silence. It's like a pin drop.Michael Jamin:There's that moment at the end of the Marissa disclaimer where I confess to something and the audience is so disappointed. I remember the first time we performed it, they were just like, oh,Cynthia Mann Jamin:We all go. OhMichael Jamin:Yeah. Everyone was so disappointed in me. But that's so effective about it, is that they were along for the ride. And yeah, and that's another thing. You gave me a couple of things that helped me before each show. You printed out Ellie Zen's, what is it called?Cynthia Mann Jamin:Letter to the actor.Michael Jamin:Letter to the actor. And I read it before where I talk about, where he talks about what my responsibility is to the audience as a performer, what my responsibility is. And so it doesn't feel, it's not like, because it can come off as being self-absorbed acting. It could come off as being narcissistic. Look at me. But you can't look at it that way. You have to look at it as this is what I have to do in order to give you what you want,Cynthia Mann Jamin:A gift. You have to give the audience a gift, and you have that responsibility to leave it all on the stage. And when you're an actor, it's no longer about you, Michael. It's about the words on the page. And you need to fulfill those words on the page. And as an actor, we're taught that the words are sacred. We don't change the words. We don't try and outthink the words. They are everything. And our job is to bring that to life and bring ourselves to the piece.Michael Jamin:And it's exhausting, though, at the end of the show. It is exhausting. Don't people appreciate how much energy I have to be in every moment so as not to check out or phone in, or just at the end of the night, I'm exhausted from an hour show. It's like, God,Cynthia Mann Jamin:And you're not expected. It's impossible in a way. And the greatest actors will say this too, that it is a job. So what do you do if you're not feeling it? And in that moment, you're thinking about what you're going to have for dinner, or, oh my God, I can't wait to just go home and lie down because it requires so much energy. And what you do is you go with that truth inside. I don't even want to be here right now. You use the truth of what you're feeling in that moment, and that brings you back into the piece. You have to connect to something real. Whereas if you're denying it and you're going, oh my God, I suck right now. I need to force myself to have this energy, then you're going to overcompensate and you're going to force it. And it's not going to be truthful. But if you really go into the moment of like, ah, damn, I'm just, I got nothing. I feel nothing. How does that make you feel? Feels pretty shitty. All right. I'm just going to say the next line from this place, because this is where I'm at. And then it takes off. Then you're off again. I mean,Michael Jamin:But what if the line, you're not supposed to feel shitty onCynthia Mann Jamin:It. The audience buys it because the audience knows truth. As long as you're truthful, we're going to take however you read it and go, oh, that must be what that means. Oh, the character must feel this way. They're not going, oh, Michael.Michael Jamin:But the character is not supposed to feel the character's excited to be at a party,Cynthia Mann Jamin:But it could look like this. Oh my God, I am so excited to be here. It could look really intense and focused when I'm feeling like God damnit, I'm not feeling anything. Instead of the idea of, oh my God, and I'm so happy to be here. Why does it have to come out that way? Even if I came out and was like, I'm really excited to be here. What does that come out? It could come across. I'm a little nervous or I'm excited. I'm afraid to showMichael Jamin:It. But it feels truthful. You're saying?Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yes, as long as it's rooted in some kind of truth, the audience will interpret it however it needs to go with theMichael Jamin:Story. This is some high level directing shit for people,Cynthia Mann Jamin:Don't you think? Yeah. I mean, I appreciate that. I think a lot of it to me is very, how I was trained was always going with what is. And you hear a noise, somebody, it's not about everybody being quiet all the time and ohMichael Jamin:My God. So what happens if you hear a noise backstage during your show,Cynthia Mann Jamin:You incorporate it. Even if you don't want to draw attention to it, you as the actor, because the audience is all going to hear it. So if you hear that, I have to just kind of go, all right, I don't have to comment on it. I just have to take that moment and allow it to be there. Because again, if you deny it,Michael Jamin:But doesn't that break the fourth wall? If you hear a banging backstage and then you turn your head and you acknowledge it, it's backstage.Cynthia Mann Jamin:But it could be if you're the character and you hear something backstage, that's the world you're in. It could be in the next room.Michael Jamin:You have to, if you don't acknowledge it, if you don't acknowledge, it's like, well, why aren't they acknowledging?Cynthia Mann Jamin:And then there's a giant elephant in the room and stuff like props falling over. Oh my God. There'd be the worst thing an actor could do. One of the worst things is like their hat falls off and it's not supposed to fall off. And the whole time it's sitting in the middle of the stage, the audience is worried about the hat. Now we're going to be thinking about the hat. So the worst thing an actor can do is to deny that the hat fell off. You know what I mean? Use it. Use all of it. All it is for the moment to fuel you. And sometimes the best. When I was on friends, David Schwimmer and I were rehearsing our scene. You did a bad thing. Very bad. Very, very bad. Yes, I know that scene. And we were rehearsing it and we screwed up, but we didn't sit there and go, oh, wait a minute.We screwed up the line. Let's take it back. No, you just go with it. And Marta and David, the show creators were standing right off to the side, and they're like, wait a minute, guys, what happened there? It was like, yeah, we screwed up the lines. Well, that's going in. We're going to do it that way now. And so the best, the happy accidents are when you don't plan it and you're going with it. And Michael, you have some amazing moments in the audio book where you can't speak. You're so full of emotion that you can't speak. And I've listened to it a number of times in my car, and my heart goes into my throat because I can't see you. And a lot of times I don't remember. It always catches me by surprise that that moment is happening. And I think, oh my God, did the audio track drop out? Because there's such a stillness. And then all of a sudden you come back in and your next line is just, you can barely even talk. And that resonates through the frigging speaker. We're not even seeing you. That's how powerful our emotion is if we just allow it to take us and to trust it. And it's transformative. ItMichael Jamin:Really is a time machine for me, because when I'm retelling those stories, it's like I'm living it again. Again. And people, the funny thing is, people after that show, when I do this, some of those stories, people are worried about me.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah, yeah. Because that's what IA Kaza talks about, is you just leave it all on the stage. Yeah. Because why else are you there? Why are you there? If you're not going to go there, then why are you there?Michael Jamin:That's why I feel like one of the things that I like about personal essays, which is so hard to explain to people, but when they read it, they get it. Is that a novel? The characters are made up. They're fictitious. And the worst thing that can happen to your charact, they'll die. But again, they're just made up, so everything's fine. Your favorite made up character just had something horrible. Again, they're just made up. But with these personal essays, I feel the stakes are higher. I feel like it's a unique art form because the stakes, it's a real person telling real stories about themselves. The stakes are higher because they're not made up.Cynthia Mann Jamin:And that's the beauty of you performing your own work too, is that you can really shine in that way. You don't have to worry about becoming a character, putting something on, but I think it is hard for you because you have to psyche yourself up to really go there. It's like your energy has to be up. You have to be willing to investigate that. And if you're not feeling it, you got to go with the truth that you're not feeling it it. Then see where that leads you. It's scary.Michael Jamin:It's also, the funny thing is I don't really have any desire to do anybody else's to act in someone else's show. I don't have a desire to become an actor. It's just really more like I have a desire to pursue this art.Cynthia Mann Jamin:And why do you feel the pinch to want to perform it? And I've asked you this in the end of the audio book too, but it's not so much. What is it in you that needs to be seen and heard, orMichael Jamin:I'm not entirely clear on it. I just want to, I suppose it's because, and I'm very happy. I've had a long and successful career as a TV writer, but part of me also feels like there's just something missing from what I write.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's similar to when I was a dancer. I was like, I need more expression than this. I have to act now because dancing just is part of the expression, but it's not allowing me to fully express everything. So maybe performing is part of that for you. It's not enough to just have people read it or listen to it. You want to experience it with them. You need that connection, that expression.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I guess. And I also, I kind of want to just do something special. That's all. Because I wonder sometimes before when I go on, I go, why am I doing this? I just want to create something special that people will like. And I think people get it from the book and the audio book, so it's not necessary. I don't think it's necessary for me to perform, but maybe it's a plus. I don't know.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah. I think more will be revealed as they say. You'll see why. And that's another thing about following those creative impulses. I know because I have this hindsight with Twirly Girl, after doing it for 15 years, I can honestly look back and say that I would've never expected to have experienced what I experienced in the way that all the gifts that it brought me, there's no way I could have predicted that. And I think it's the same thing here. You just don't know where it's going to lead you, but you feel the need to do it. And I think that's enough. I think that's all you need, honestly. It takes on a life of its own too.Michael Jamin:Yeah. We'll see where it goes, but we'll just put energy into it and see where it goes.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yes. Onto the next project. But this project now,Michael Jamin:Well, maybe that, is that where we conclude this podcast? Is there anything else to cover?Cynthia Mann Jamin:I don't know. I don't know anything else for you.Michael Jamin:I don't know. I'm very grateful for all your help doing this. I couldn't do any of this without you. And for everyone listening, it really helps if you have someone helping you with whatever your project is, it does help a lot. And so you have to find the right person, whoever that is.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Well, I'm so grateful for you and everything that you've brought me, and this is just a joy and everything I want it to be. It is. And I'm so happy to be working with you.Michael Jamin:Yeah, you're sweet. Alright, everyone, there you go. A paper orchestra signed copies are available@michaeljamin.com. You can also find the link to the paperback, the ebook, the audiobook, the audiobooks on Audible, Spotify, and Apple. It's called The Paper Orchestra, produced and directed by Cynthia.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah, but here's the thing, guys. If you want to see him in person, we would love to meet you. So keep in touch with us.Michael Jamin:Yeah, sign up at michael jamin.com/upcoming. Okay, everyone, thank you again. Thank you, Cynthia.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Thank you, Michael. I love you.Michael Jamin:I love you.Michael Jamin:Wow. I did it again, another fantastic episode of What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? How do I do it week after week? Well, I don't do it with advertiser supported money. I tell you how I do it. I do it with my book. If you'd like to support the show, if you'd like to support me, go check out my new book, A Paper Orchestra. It asks the question, what if it's the smallest, almost forgotten moments that are the ones that shape us most? Laura Sanoma says, good storytelling also leads us to ourselves, our memories, our beliefs, personal and powerful. I love the Journey. And Max Munic, who was on my show says, as the father of daughters, I found Michael's understanding of parenting and the human condition to be spot on. This book is a fantastic read. Go check it out for yourself. Go to michael jamin.com/book. Thank you all and stay tuned. More. Great stuff coming next week.

On December 30th, I hosted a webinar called “How Professional Screenwriters Overcome Writer's Block” and I talked about why story structure is so important in getting past this block. This episode addresses questions you asked in our Q&A session that we didn't have time to answer. There's lots of great info here, make sure you watch.Show NotesA Paper Orchestra on Website: - https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: - https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: - https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:Everyone wants to be a showrunner, which is again, why it's so freakingMichael Jamin:Hard. I want to make all the decisions, but you don't know based on what youMichael Jamin:Don't know what you're doing. Why would you want that? Is it an ego thing you want to tell people you're a showrunner or don't you want to learn? Do you assume? When I was starting off, I didn't want to be a showrunner for 10 years. I didn't want to be a show runner. Like, this is a hard job. I don't know how to do it.Michael Jamin:You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase and to support me in this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.Michael Jamin:Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, we're doing another q and a from one of our webinars and my special guest host is Kevin Lewandowski, script coordinator extraordinaire. He helps out with a lot of my projects, social media projects here and he's subbing in for Phil and he's doing a great job. So welcome Kevin.Kevin Lewandowski:Thank you again for having me.Michael Jamin:You screwed it up. You already screwed. No, I'm only messing with you. You're doing great. Thanks.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, I'm not going to apologize for not being Phil anymore, so fair Phil. But no, I'm happy to be here and this how professional screenwriters overcome Writer's Block is one of my favorite topics to talk about. Oh good. So I think it's super, super interesting and there's been, when we dive into it, I'll say my favorite line that you always say that just unlocked the excuse sometimes we use for when we have writer's block.Michael Jamin:I'm curious to know what your favorite line is.Kevin Lewandowski:Alright, I have so many Michael Jainism that I think my all time favorite is Shit Happening is not a story.Michael Jamin:By the way, we have that on merch now, guys. Yeah, we do. We got merch and you can go get it@michaeljamin.com/merch where all the crazy things that I say, you can get it on a on mug or a notebook or whatever. We got merge. Go get it. I should have plugged it before, but I forgot. But anyway, these questions came from our last webinar that we did and if you're not on my webinar list, sign up for it's free. Go to michael jamin.com/webinar and you can sign up. You can be invited when we do our next one. And so yeah, Kevin, we had a lot of questions people asked. We didn't have time to get all the questions answered and so here they are nKevin Lewandowski:Here we go. These first couple of questions are going to be about kind of course related stuff. So this first one is from David Zilo. I feel like we see his name a lot. I feel like he comes to these webinars a lot and ask a lot of questions. The question is, how does the story structure change when say a character does not, cannot achieve a goal in the tragic story, for example,Michael Jamin:Doesn't change at all. It's the same old story structure that we use. Whether the character achieves their goal at the end or not, it's the same damn thing.Kevin Lewandowski:Yep.Michael Jamin:The guys you're just asking, he's just asking at the end, what if the last two minutes are different, so what? Nothing.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, I think it's always more interesting for me when that character doesn't achieve their goal. I think the breakup with, but yeah, Vince v and Jennifer Ston, they don't stay together in the end. No. It's one of the few rom-coms that I think they decide to go off the beaten path and not haveMichael Jamin:Them end often. We call this the joyful defeat in a movie or the character doesn't get what they want, but they get what they need. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Next question, Rob. Robert, when is the latest the stakes should be made clear?Michael Jamin:The sooner the better because the story does not start until the audience knows what's at stake. And so until then you're boring them and you're daring them to change the channel or read another script or do something else with their time. So the sooner the better, and that's a note you'll get from a network executive. They'll always say, can we start the story sooner? And so wherever you have it, they'll give you that note. If it's on page four, they'll say page two.Kevin Lewandowski:In your experience, is there a realistic, for instance, if they were like, oh, it's on page three, we need it on page two, have you ever run into We just can't. We need a little bit of room to be able toMichael Jamin:SetKevin Lewandowski:SomethingMichael Jamin:Up. Absolutely. And so you'll move it up a little bit, but sometimes there's only so much you can do.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. But yeah, like you said, they'll always say, oh, can we start this sooner? Yeah, we'll take a look at it. We'll take a look at that. Coley Marie, can the goal change or appear to change?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yes. And often it sometimes will. It's like because something happens and what the character thought they wanted is not what they want anymore. So yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:So how do you feel about, because sometimes it's, is there a fear of if you start writing it too much of a change, can it almost feel like, oh, okay, now we're following a different story to,Michael Jamin:It usually happens kind of like an act top of act three with the character discoveries. This thing that I wanted turns out I don't really want any. I got what I thought I wanted and it's not what I want. So that's usually late in the script.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. So you're saying in top of act two, if they wanted to,Michael Jamin:It wouldn't be top ofKevin Lewandowski:Act ride a pony at the end of act one. Top of Act two should be like, well, I want to win this prize at the CarnivalMichael Jamin:Now. Yeah, top of act two is one. Well, this is what we teach in the course. What tab of Act two would be, so yeah,Kevin Lewandowski:Arius Kennedy. So should we avoid high stakes conflicts?Michael Jamin:No. The higher stakes are good. High stakes are good. Higher the stakes are better. You want to avoid low stakes conflicts.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, low stakes conflicts are not that interesting. Heather Marie, vital, how do we find conflicts for TV shows with main characters without getting stale? That's kind of the job of a writer.Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's right. That's exactly, that's the job without getting stale, it's like, and again, this is not her concern. Concern. Your concern is to do it once and then let's a showrunner worried about it getting stale. Right now your job is to write one great scriptKevin Lewandowski:Are Barry, when it comes to an episodic show, there's the overall show conflict and then the mini conflicts of the episodes. So I'm assuming they're talking about, there's the A story, the B story, the C story,Michael Jamin:Or maybe they're talking about the overall arch of the show. I'm watching Show Gun right now and I'm only on episode one, so it seems like the overarching stories, how is this one? I dunno if he called the futile Lord going to maintain his position in the kingdom, but within each episode he has a challenge that he has to overcome, so to make that larger prop goal happen.Kevin Lewandowski:Meg Parker Wilson, when you are writing a TV show, do you plot out the entire story pilot to finale and then create all those moments episode by episode in terms of the arc and the structure?Michael Jamin:No, it's too much work. It's too difficult. What you really, and again, this is not something that she needs to worry about, but maybe she's just asking me out of curiosity, we'll come up with a pilot and we'll have that pilot broken. We know what that story is going to be and then we have a vague idea of what season one might be. But I'm talking vague, just enough to bullshit our way through this because it'll change when we're breaking the story. As we discover writing and digging into the character, we'll discover something that might be better. So what are we going to do? Not do it just because we said we were talking out of our ass that this other thing was going to be better,Kevin Lewandowski:Right? Yeah. I think Vince Gilian, creator of Breaking Bad, I think he says something very similar. Yeah, we kind of have an idea, but part of going through different story ideas is you discover stuff along the way. Jesse Pinkman was only supposed to be four or five episodes, and then now they realize how much chemistry those two characters had. And could you imagine, would that show have worked if they would've killed off Jesse Pinkman? Because they said, well, we said our pitch, we have to kill em off after five episodes. We have to stick with that.Michael Jamin:I'm always surprised that people don't know that and they're worried about breaking the entire series. It's like, but breaking one episode of television when I'm talking breaking, figuring out what the story is and writing the outline in the script is so much work. How could you possibly do all that in advance and you have a team of writers doing all that work.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Sometimes you'll see people that'll talk about, yeah, I have this TV series I wrote and I have the first eight episodes done, and I'm like, oh, that's a lot to do withMichael Jamin:No theyKevin Lewandowski:Don't. One person,Michael Jamin:They really don't. They might have enough for one episode and they broke it up into eight episodes. They don't know any better. That's very common. I thinkKevin Lewandowski:I remember there's another example on friends that one of the writers was talking about. It's probably one of the more iconic moments of the whole series is when Ross is getting married to Emily and Rachel shows up and he ends up, he accidentally says Rachel's name, I Ross take the Rachel. And the writer was saying that wasn't anything we would've ever thought of. It was one day we were rehearsing or something like that. And he accidentally said the wrong name. And as writers, we all laughed and we thought that's super funny. He was like, we had the aha moment of like, oh, we need to include this. And that little moment had so much of a change for the rest of the series. Now it turned into, well, Emily will make them now. Okay. It's clear that Ross is still in love with Rachel and Emily. She's only going to come to New York if Ross stops talking to Rachel. So it was just that little moment of discovery and what would that scene or storyline have been if Ross married EmilyMichael Jamin:And they discovered that by accident and rehearsal and what are you going to do not do with this and that, that moment everyone gasped in the audience and people at home gasped. So what you not going to do it?Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, and I don't think in their pitch they're like, okay, season five we're going to have Ross marry this British girl, but when he is actually up there, we're going to have him say Rachel's thing. It was just discovery.Michael Jamin:You don't think that far in advanced. You can't. It's too much work.Kevin Lewandowski:Let's see. So this next question from Sarah, there's a bit of terminology from your course, so I'm going to not use that terminology, but does the end of act two have to be in direct relation to the conflict with the introduced in the first act? Can it be attributed to a different relationship conflict?Michael Jamin:No, no, no. Pretty much no. If you're telling one story that's your A story or your act two break to be on the A story. If it's coming out of nowhere and it's like, what's this? It's not going to feel earned. It's going to be like, what's going on?Kevin Lewandowski:Rob, Robert again, how do we make funny? Because it can be so subjective.Michael Jamin:Yeah. One thing I say is in my course, I can't teach you how to be funny. I can maybe teach you how to be a little funnier. I could give you tips that will help you be a little funnier, but if you're not funny, I can't help you be funny. It's okay. You can write drama. There's plenty of work for drama writers and just write what you're really good at. But it is a little heartbreaking. I see sometimes when people, I want to be accommodator, but you're not funny, so you don't have that in you. That's okay. Write some other stuff. Drama's great too.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. One of my other favorite things you say, and this wasn't the one I was talking about earlier, is you have to find new ways to say old things in a funny way. Yeah. Every version of a joke has been told to a degree. So how do you make it relevant to today and your story and your characters and make it so it hasn't been heard that way before.Michael Jamin:You know what though? I just got an email from, I don't know how I'm on this list, whatever. I got an email from a writer and she's doing a public appearance and she said, come see me the headline, come see me. I don't bite. And I'm like, oh God, you're supposed to be a writer. Don't tell me you don't bite. That's so unoriginal. That's so clammy. That's not something a writer should ever say. Find a new way to say, I don't bite. I was so unimpressed. I was like, oh God, you just embarrass yourself. Don't do that. You're a writer. You have to find a new way to say old things.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Okay, so these are kind of more craft related questions, Nathan Shapiro, what are the rookie mistakes you see new writers making both in writing as well as from the business side. What is something you wish you had known when you were starting out? And then part two, which I think this is actually part three, do all supporting lead characters need an obstacle and goal? Or is it sufficient that they're simply there to facilitate the main hero's journey?Michael Jamin:This guy's gotKevin Lewandowski:Questions. We'll split this up. So the first part was what are the rookie mistakes you see new writers making both in writing as well as from the business side.Michael Jamin:I mean, a rookie mistake in the writer's room is what we call when they bitch instead of pitch. The expression is pitch, don't bitch. So it's very easy for a new writer to shoot down an idea in the room without having a better one because it's hard to come up with a better one. So that's a rookie thing. I don't care if the idea on the table is bad, if you don't have a better one, shut up because it's what are you there for? You're not a critic. Your job is to make it better, not to say this is bad. AndKevin Lewandowski:Also don't defend your joke if the showrunner doesn't think it's good. If you put something, they're like, ah, I don't really know. Okay, that's it.Michael Jamin:Don'tKevin Lewandowski:Fight for it. Don't just let it go. Think of a better one.Michael Jamin:What was the other question?Kevin Lewandowski:So the next one is, what is something you wish you had known when you were starting up?Michael Jamin:Well, to be honest, everything that I teach in the course, I didn't know any of it.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, I think it's just, yeah, I mean, again, Michael's course has unlocked a lot for me and someone that's not a very intelligent person, he really simplifies it.Michael Jamin:Yeah, make it easy.Kevin Lewandowski:It's easy to understand. I don't understand the terminology of progressive complications and sight incidents, all that stuff. IMichael Jamin:Don't understand it either.Kevin Lewandowski:Any sense to me? I won't tell you what the terms are that Michael uses. You'll have to take this course, but they're much easier toMichael Jamin:Understand. Yeah, I think writing should be simple. It's not easy, but it's simple.Kevin Lewandowski:And then the last part of this question, do all supporting lead characters need an obstacle and goal, or is it sufficient that they're simply there to facilitate the main hero's journey?Michael Jamin:Well, often they are an obstacle in the main hero's journey. Sometimes if you don't give 'em too much to play, they can be the Greek chorus, but generally every character in a scene has to have an attitude on something, and if they don't wire in the scene, if they don't have, they're not just there to stand around. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:So do you also think when in the context of the story structure that you teach in your class, those B stories that aren't necessarily as emotionally empowering as what the A story is, do you think it should still follow all those structure points or just enough or doesn't really matter?Michael Jamin:No, a b story doesn't carry the same emotional weight as the A story. So it doesn't actually have to carry, it doesn't have to be structured the way an A story is, but stuff does have to happen and it can't be random. It has to be on that story that we're following.Kevin Lewandowski:Okay. Next question. If it's an ensemble cast, like Orange is a new black or stranger things, does each character have to have a stake or only a main character? So very similar to thisMichael Jamin:Question. Yeah, usually you're following. I mean, I haven't watched Stranger Things in a long time. Maybe they have two or three running storylines in each episode. I don't know. They probably do.Kevin Lewandowski:Who is the hero in horror movies like Friday the 13th? Is it Jason or the person who survives at the end?Michael Jamin:Well, you're not rooting for Jason. You're not rooting for him to murder everybody. And again, I haven't seen those Friday the 13th movies, but you're rooting for the person in the summer camp.Kevin Lewandowski:Michael. Is there such thing as an anti-hero?Michael Jamin:Yeah, of course there is, and I talk about that, but the problem is I think it's unnecessarily complicated. What's interesting, an anti-hero and a hero. Why don't you just call it a hero and make it easier on yourself? Oh, because your anti-hero is a little bit unlikeable or a little bit dirty or villainous. Well, that's okay. There's still a hero.Kevin Lewandowski:I think there was an example you used of if you're writing something about the devil, him being what we all think the devil is, that's not interesting. You make him where he has compassion with some things and you give him layers like Sopranos. You talk about the example as well, and I think it's those villains are, they're the hero in their own story. We may not agree with it. They're the hero in their own story though. Yeah,Michael Jamin:I think Tony Swan, I don't think he's an anti-hero. I think he's a hero.Kevin Lewandowski:Okay, next question. Do you have to know the end when you start the story? Can it change?Michael Jamin:And often it does. You'll get often it does. Often it does, but usually when we're breaking a story on the board in the writer's room, no one sent off to outline or script until we know what the ending is. But it's not uncommon to get a draft back and you go, you know what? This ending isn't working. Let's figure out a new Act three.Kevin Lewandowski:And in your experience, do you think for something like the ending doesn't feel right, do you think that was potentially because it wasn't broken in the best way? Or do you think the writer didn't maybe necessarily deliver the dialogue the right way?Michael Jamin:Well, often problems in act three requires solutions in Act one. So in other words, it wasn't set up right. The ending wasn't set up early, and so it's unusual to say, okay, all we have to do is fix Act three. No, you got to fix all of it.Kevin Lewandowski:And that's when you have the really late nights and you do dinner in the writer's room, which everyone hates when that PA comes around is All right. What does everyone want for dinner?Michael Jamin:Yep.Michael Jamin:You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Today's episode is brought to you by my new book, A Paper Orchestra, A collection of True Stories. John Mayer says, it's fantastic. It's multi timal. It runs all levels of the pyramid at the same time. His knockout punches are stinging, sincerity, and carcass Review says Those who appreciate the power of simple stories to tell us about human nature or who are bewitched by a storyteller who has mastered his craft will find a delightful collection of vignettes, a lovely anthology that strikes a perfect balance between humor and poignancy. So my podcast is not advertiser supported. I'm not running ads here. So if you'd like to support me or the podcast, come check out my book, go get an ebook or a paperback, or if you really want to treat yourself, check out the audio book. Go to michael jamin.com/book, and now back to our showKevin Lewandowski:From Rachel. It helps to do homework before even writing. Yes. If you're new to fantasy, read some fantasy scripts or books first.Michael Jamin:Sure, a lot as much as you can, but I'd also ask you why you want to write fantasy then, if you've never read any or what's attracting to you, to you if you don't even know anything about it.Kevin Lewandowski:Next question. What's with the job titles that writers end up with? What do the different kinds of jobs actually cover?Michael Jamin:So there's different levels to writers. They're just ranks and in terms of how much it's big pay grades basically. So the lowest level writer is called a staff writer. Even though everyone, it's confusing because every writer on staff is a staff writer, but the lowest level writer has the title of staff writer. Then the next higher up is called story editor, then executive story editor, then co-producer, producer, supervising producer, co-executive producer, executive producer, the executive producer's the showrunner, and so they're the boss and everyone else. They're just different levels that determines how much you're going to get paid. Often it determines how much responsibility you have. If the showrunner leaves the room, often it's the co-executive producer who will run the room in their proxy or they'll do the set, they'll work on the set, they'll do whatever that's based on their experience. But in terms of job responsibilities, other than that, it's really up to the S to determine how much they want. Maybe they'll say if someone's a producer, they may let them go to the set on their own. I mean, it just depends on the showrunner, what they want them to do.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. One of the shows I worked on, I think we talked about this in the last podcast, Steve Rudnick, who wrote Space Jam and Santa Claus movies. He was a supervising producer on The Muppets, and he spent a lot of time on set and he really liked it. It's just fascinating to watch how those puppeteers canMichael Jamin:DoKevin Lewandowski:Their stuff. Next question from Steven. Can stream of consciousness work for screenwriting?Michael Jamin:Sounds terrible to me. I'm not a fan of stream of consciousness. I'm not really interested in reading your thoughts. If you're going to take me someplace, take me by the hand and lead me there. To be honest, just going to say it right now, I feel stream of consciousness is masturbatory. I feel like it's for yourself and no one else, but I could be. Someone else may enjoy it.Kevin Lewandowski:So when you say hold my hand, because I think there's also this, people sometimes assume, well, well, I don't want to put that on the page. It's just going to take a page. The audience will get, the audience will understand what I'm going for, and I think is there that fine line of figuring out, okay, what do I need to hold the hand of the audience through versus what do I think they're going to be able to pick up?Michael Jamin:Yeah. I like to write. When I'm writing, I like to check in with the audience, let 'em know. Yeah. When I say hold their hand, let them know. Remind them what's at stake here. This character wants, I'd like to just check. So it's not a mystery. Now, often that's the difference between sometimes you'll see a really smart writing, they won't kind of do that. They expect a little more of the audience. It just depends on what kind of show you're doing. If you're doing a broad silly show, you check in with the audience knowing that that's not what they're there for. They're there for something silly and fun. You got to keep checking in with them. But I just saw a zone of interest, which is really smart, and they didn't check in with the audience, and that might win. The Oscars a wonderful movie also. That's not a movie for the masses. I don't think it's going to be a movie that's a blockbuster. It was a great movie though.Kevin Lewandowski:What are the stakes of 2001 a Space Odyssey?Michael Jamin:God, I haven't seen it in forever. What were the stakes was the guy I am trying to remember. They went on a spaceship. They had a mission, but then the computer was sabotaging the mission and there was going to basically, I think the computer was going to kill them, basically take 'em on a mission that would kill them. Is that that I remember. So the stakes were life or death.Kevin Lewandowski:Those are pretty mistakes.Michael Jamin:And how do we defeat the computer? Who's the boss of the whole thing? How do we fool the computer? I believe that's what it was, right? It was a long time ago.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, it's been a while since I've seen that, and I guess if they don't, they die.Michael Jamin:I think so, yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Next question. How would you recommend doing a man versus a system conflict, like perhaps is seen in Cool Hand Luke?Michael Jamin:Well, I mean, yeah, that was the whole thing. He wanted to get out of prison. They were trying to, and again, I haven't seen that in 10, 12 years. I don't remember. He was in prison and the system was trying to break him down. Right? That's like anything you escape from Alcatraz to the same thing. How do we get out of this prison? So yeah, but I'm trying to remember in Cool Luke, there was probably a face to the system. It wasn't like a system. I'm guessing it there was a warden or something, or there were other inmates who was the face of the system trying to remember. They called me off guard.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. So I was thinking about when you said I was Shawshank Redemption, and I think it's, yeah, there's the system, but then kind of the warden represents the system. In that context,Michael Jamin:There was the warden and then the warden's proxy, the guard, and there were definitely, it wasn't so much the system. They were faces of the system. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Okay. Can the conflict be hidden from the hero? The hero thinks they want control money, but they really don't want to be alone because they were abandoned as a kid.Michael Jamin:Well, I mean, all of that is fine, but your hero is not going to want a hero. Wanting money is not a reputable goal. Who cares? So what your hero wants it sounds like, is companionship. If they're abandoned or or whatever. That's what they're really wanting. So yeah, I mean, all of that is fine, but I'm not sure why it's not hidden for the, yeah,Kevin Lewandowski:I think thinking about breaking bad, I think a lot of people would think, well, Walter White wanted money. No, that'sMichael Jamin:Not what he wanted. Walter White wanted to provide for his family. He was going to be dead soon, so it wasn't the money he wanted. What he wanted was very reputable. He wants to give his family something so they could live when he's dead to, because he can't provide for them. So it wasn't like he wanted a new Ferrari,Kevin Lewandowski:And I think that slightly eventually morphed into he just wants to maintain being powerful.Michael Jamin:Well, then it turned into something else. Then he went down this path of it was about power and control, and he went down that, but that was only seasons into it.Kevin Lewandowski:AI and equalizer for skill and creativity in this competitive era of artists?Michael Jamin:I don't think so. I think ai, I guess it's a cheat code if you want to be a writer, if you wanted to be a race car driver, you'd learn how to race, car drive, and you'd go to courses and classes and you'd be really good at shifting and all that stuff and understand the apex of a curve and how to attack a curve. Or I suppose you could get behind the wheel of a Tesla and put it on autopilot and you could just fall asleep. But why do you want to be a race car driver then if that's what you aspire to do? Do you just want to be a dummy in the wheel of the car?Kevin Lewandowski:I think one of the other things you always say too is AI may never be able to write true human emotion and never be able to really write what my personal stories have been my life. And I think until it can do that, I think we're fine.Michael Jamin:Yeah, we'll see. They're doing some, I guess, crazy amazing things, and I don't know. We'll see. But I'm not sure. I don't know why you or any other aspiring writer would want that. I would think you would want to root against that.Kevin Lewandowski:Oh yeah.Michael Jamin:I think, don't you want to write stories? Don't you want to be the author of the stories, don't you? Isn't that why you want to be a writer, to take what's inside of you and express it in a way that entertains people? Or do you want to be just the person who plugs the computer in the morning and say You're a writer?Kevin Lewandowski:And I think about the writer strike we all went through, and that was a huge topic of conversation, and writers took a sacrifice to stop this from happening to help protect writers that are going to be coming up. And I think it's probably going to be an ongoing battle for a while.Michael Jamin:Yeah, the world's changing fast. Yeah. Scary.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Too fast.Michael Jamin:Yeah, too fast.Kevin Lewandowski:Is it possible to have two showrunners attached to one project, the creator of the show, and one more experienced showrunner?Michael Jamin:No. I mean, they're not going to be equal. I mean, I suppose anything's possible, but it's very unlikely. I've been on shows where someone, a younger writer created it and then they assigned a showrunner. And the showrunner on that one show, the showrunner was very gracious, and he included this young writer and a lot of the decisions, and it wasn't like he made it a partnership as best as he could, but at the end of the day, he was still the boss. Someone has to be the boss, but he was very gracious about how he treated this young writer and he really wanted to mentor him. But again, when you're a mentor, that means more than the other person.Kevin Lewandowski:And you and Seaver have run shows together, right?Michael Jamin:Yeah. But we're a partnership, so that's a little different. But this person is talking about one person created another one. Everyone wants to be a showrunner, which is again, why it's so freaking hard. I want to make all the decisions, but you don't know based on what you don't know what you're doing. Why would you want that? Is it an ego thing you want to tell people you're a showrunner or don't you want to learn? Do you assume? When I was starting off, I didn't want to be a showrunner for 10 years. I didn't want to be a showrunner. This is a hard job. I don't know how to do it. And then you get to the point in your career where it's like, it's either that or unemployment. So I'm like, all right, sign me up for showrunner.Kevin Lewandowski:What, even with that, the rooms I've been in, you just see how many meetings that the showrunners have to be in that aren't necessarily directly related to the writing and the story. It's costume stuff, it's hair and makeup stuff. It's set pieces. It's all these different things that they have the final, final approval on andMichael Jamin:And that's the easy part, all that stuffKevin Lewandowski:Breaking in. Any advice for being hired in a writer's room without coming up with an original show idea? Or do you have to bring an original idea to an interview?Michael Jamin:No, you don't have to. You can write a script on an existing show. You can write a great Game of Thrones spec script, and as long as the showrunner wants to read it and thinks it's great, you're hired.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Do you think in today's world, from what I've heard, spec scripts sort of aren't really a thing anymore. Do you think a lot of that has to do with just because there's so much out there that if I'm like, here, Michael, here's a specs on whatever show, there's a real chance that I've never heard of the show.Michael Jamin:Yes, that's exactly, and that's why, that's why I think it's unfair. I mean, life is unfair, but that's why I think it's harder today than it was back when I was breaking in. Because you could write a spec sip on an existing show on er, and everyone knew what ER was. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:It's interesting too, because then I've heard you say this too before, if you're running whatever show and it's in season two or season three, and you're interviewing me and you read my original pilot, you're more like, well, this is great, but I want to know, can you write my show? That's what I want you for. Your original pilot is cool, has nothing to do with my show. I want to know. Can you write my show? Do you have the character's personalities down?Michael Jamin:And it's harder to create an original show, a pilot. It's much harder, I feel, than creating a spec script of an existing show. That's the days we live in. What are we going to do?Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, I think that might've been all of our questions for right now, but I did want to say, so the one thing I always take away when we talk about this is when writers overcome writer's block, something you always say is Writer's block isn't really a thing for professional writers. You don't get to say, I'm going to go to the beach for three days and clear my head. And if you're really struggling with the writer's block, chances are you don't necessarily have the structure down to a point. And that'll help unlock a lot of problems for you. And that's what Michael scor teaches is those structure points and what you need to know. And I think there's little instances of writer's block where if I'm just kind of like I'm a little frustrated, go for a walk for 15, 20 minutes, and I live by a mall here in Glendale, and it wasn't too long ago, I remember I was walking and I was just thinking about something.I saw these two people, and it looked like it was a boyfriend and a girlfriend, and she had her Starbucks, and she was taking a picture of it, and someone bumped into her and she dropped it everywhere. And I just happened to see this interaction. And the guy, his reaction was kind of like, well, and I thought that was so fascinating because I was like, okay, what's the relationship between these two people? Because this is definitely not a first date. Because if it was a first date, he'd be like, oh my gosh, let me go get you a new one. And so then I was like, okay, so have they been dating for a while? Okay, then it's like, okay, well, if that was his reaction, has this happened so many times? He's just sick of her shit, always posting it to Instagram. He's like, I told you this was going to happen.And then I start kind of building this story in my head of what if this is her moment where she's like, I'm going to break up with you. This is bullshit. You're laughing at something bad. That happened to me. And I remember coming back to my apartment that day, and I felt like more just relaxed and calm. I saw this live event unfold that I don't think anyone else was watching, but I just happened to see this unfold. And I don't think that was anything I could have really written. I think I would've wrote like, oh, she drops it. He picks it up. He wants to impress her because he wants to get laid later. But his reaction was like, yeah, I told him this shit happens all the time. Stop taking pictures. Just drink the damn coffee.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's good. You're observing. That's what you should be doing.Kevin Lewandowski:It's good. When I worked at a theme park,Get a lot of material there from people, a lot of different personalities, I used to jot down a lot of stuff I used to see and just how people would interact. And it's nice to, when you kind of feel those moments of writing and you're kind of stuck, go back to those notes you took in that can help unlock something. I know you always show on your webinars, you have your black notebook that you've been carrying around your entire career and things people have taught you along the way, and you write 'em down in there. And that's just, that's gold right there.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Write it down. Keep a list of your, like what you're saying. Those specific things are just interesting.Kevin Lewandowski:And because you always say too, when you're driving, you don't really listen to the radio or anything. You just kind of talk with notes on your phone just to get it out there and start thinking about it. AndMichael Jamin:Yeah, if I'm working on a story, I won't listen to the radio. I'll just obsess over this one moment I'm trying to fix in the story. And if I get it, great. Now, that was my writing for that morning was fixing that one problem. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Well, I think that is all we have question wise, Michael. WeMichael Jamin:DidKevin Lewandowski:It. We did it.Michael Jamin:We did it. Thank you everyone. What else do we got to talk about? If you want to come to our free screenwriting webinars, you could sign up at michael jamin.com/webinar if you'd like to. I got a newsletter. Get on that Michael jamin.com/newsletter. And of course, we're unplugging my book, which I worked on for four and a half years. It's called the Paper Orchestra, and it asks the question, what if it's the smallest, almost forgotten moments that are the ones that shape us most? And someone asked me on the live, if I could explain it a little better what it is. And I think what the book, one way to explain it is imagine they're very personal and intimate stories, and I'm sharing them as if, imagine me reading my diary, but performing it out loud knowing that you are going to be watching it. And so I'm going to say it in a way that's going to be entertain you, but it's still my diary. But it's structured in a way, so it's like, I know I have an audience here. And so that's kind of what it is. They're stories, they're true stories, but hopefully they're told in a way that is engaging and makes you laugh and hopefully makes you feel something. It's more importantly.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Yeah. So go to michael jamin.com, check out his book. There's a bunch of, just go to his website, michael jamin.com, click around. There's webinars, there's the podcast. Get uploaded there. There's a couple of free lessons you can download, scripts he's written. There's so much there. And like he said, that you can get his book there and you can get a signed copy from him on his website. And it's Amazon. It was when you originally launched it, it was number one in five different categories on Amazon, so it was pretty wild. So yeah, check out the book, join the class, join our webinars, follow Michael on social media. He's still giving out free tips and trying to help people. And yeah, that's all I got.Michael Jamin:Excellent. Alright. Thank you Kevin. Great job. And if they want to follow you, Kevin, where do they follow you on social media?Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, so it's Kevin Lewandowski. It's a long last name, I'm sure after you just type the first five letters, it'll pop up.Michael Jamin:Excellent. Alright everyone, until next week, keep writing.Michael Jamin:Wow. I did it again. Another fantastic episode of What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? How do I do it week after week? Well, I don't do it with advertiser supported money. I tell you how I do it. I do it with my book. If you'd like to support the show, if you'd like to support me, go check out my new book, A Paper Orchestra. It asked the question, what if it's the smallest, almost forgotten moments that are the ones that shape us most? Laura Sanoma says, good storytelling also leads us to ourselves, our memories, our beliefs, personal and powerful. I loved the Journey, and Max Munic, who was on my show says, as the father of daughters, I found Michael's understanding of parenting and the human condition to be spot on. This book is a fantastic read. Go check it out for yourself. Go to michael jamin.com/book. Thank you all and stay tuned. More. Great stuff coming next week.

On December 8th, I hosted a webinar called “What “Do Showrunners Look For In A Script,” where I talked about how to come up with interesting and unique characters, as well as how tapping into your everyday life interactions with people can help with this. This episode addresses questions you asked in our Q&A session that we didn't have time to answer. There's lots of great info here, make sure you watch.Show NotesA Paper Orchestra on Website: - https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: - https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: - https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:Well, no one cares that you took my course, so zero. No one's going to be. That's why we don't give a diploma out because the diploma is worthless. No one really cares if you went where you studied, who taught you all they care about? Is the script good or not? Does it make them want to turn the page or not? Do they want to find out what happens next or not?Michael Jamin:You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase And to support me in this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.Michael Jamin:Hey everyone, welcome to a very special episode of What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about. I'm here with my guest host Kevin Lewandowski, and he helps out a lot with the podcast, with all my social stuff, and he's actually by trade. He's a writer's assistant script coordinator, which is actually one step higher than writer's assistant, so he's worked on a bunch of shows. Kevin, welcome to the show.Kevin Lewandowski:Thank you for having me. Michael, for those of you, sorry I'm not Phil, I'm just kind of filling in for Phil for a couple days, but I'm excited to be here. And yeah, I hope to tell you all a little bit about script coordinating as well and what that all entails,Michael Jamin:Fill in and fulfill, fillKevin Lewandowski:In and fulfill.Michael Jamin:What shows were you script coordinator on?Kevin Lewandowski:So the big one was Why Women Kill.Michael Jamin:Did we ever figure out why?Kevin Lewandowski:I mean, depending on who you ask, a lot of women will say because of men,Michael Jamin:They kill for ratings.Kevin Lewandowski:Right? Okay, that's better. But yeah, that was, I forgot how long ago that was, but that was, unfortunately we got canceled four or five days before we were supposed to start filming. Our actors had just landed in Canada and then the next day they announced they were pulling the plug on the show.Michael Jamin:Why?Kevin Lewandowski:It could be many reasons. I think a lot of it had to do with we were a little bit behind on scripts and then budgeting and we were still kind of in the midst of covid precautions and things like that.Michael Jamin:Covid, people don't realize, especially new showrunners, you don't mess with the budget. You get things done on time, Ross, you're screwed. What other shows did you work on then?Kevin Lewandowski:So the first show I ever worked on was in 2015. It was the Muppets, and it was funny. I thought if anyone ever caught a break, this is my break. I was like, it's the Muppets, it's going to go on for five or six years and I'm just going to notch up every year. And after 16 episodes, that one got canceled.Michael Jamin:What's Ms. Piggy really like?Kevin Lewandowski:I mean, she is who she is. Difficult. Yeah, she's difficult. She's a bit of a diva. We have to had to cater to all of her needs.Michael Jamin:What about, I'm sorry, and what were the other shows? Screw Miss Piggy. Yeah,Kevin Lewandowski:Screw Miss Piggy. So after that, a bunch of pilots that never got picked up, and then I worked for a show on Netflix called The Ranch with AshleyMichael Jamin:ElementKevin Lewandowski:That was a live audience show and I was there for two seasons. I'm trying to think after that. It's all becoming a blur. I did two seasons of Why Women Kill. Actually the first year I was a line producer's assistant, and so that was interesting to kind of see the financial side of things and see where they decide to put the money in. And then for season three, they moved me to Script coordinator,Michael Jamin:But the Branch was a legit show. That was a big show.Kevin Lewandowski:That was a lot of fun because I'd always wanted to work in the Multicam world. There's just something about show night and it's just kind of a big party for everyone and you get to see the audience's instant gratification. It's just a lot of fun. A lot of fun to work on those shows.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well now the next thing for us to do is try to get you into one of these jobs so you don't have to co-host with me all the time on thisKevin Lewandowski:Podcast. I don't mind co-hosting with you.Michael Jamin:Oh, all right. Well, we'll see if you feel that way at the end. Okay, that's fair. So we are doing, this is a special q and a. We do these monthly webinars or whatever, every three weeks actually, and we have a lot of questions we can't answer. And so we save 'em for the podcast. And now Kevin's going to feed them to me. He's going to regurgitate them to me. He's going to baby bird them into my mouth, and then I'm going to try to answer them as best I can.Kevin Lewandowski:Early Bird gets the worm or something like that.Michael Jamin:Gross. Kevin Gross.Kevin Lewandowski:And I apologize in advance for anyone's name I might butcher.Michael Jamin:It's okay. They don't need to. I mean whatever if you get 'em wrong. Okay,Kevin Lewandowski:So these first few questions are going to be kind of course related questions. The first one is from Dat Boy, D-A-T-B-O-I. And that person's asking, what are the best tips for making my script shine more than the rest?Michael Jamin:Oh boy. Well, I wish he would. Well, he was already at my free webinar. I wish he would sign up for my course. I mean, that's what the course is. The best tips for making it shine is making sure your act breaks pop, making sure the dialogue feels fresh, your characters are original. I mean, there's no tips. It's not a tips thing. It's 14 hours of, let me tell you how to do it. That boy, I wish. What do you think, Kevin? What's your answer for him?Kevin Lewandowski:I think it's one of the things you always say on your webinars is after taking my course, you'll just hear me yelling in your head all the time about this is your end of act two moment, this is this, this is that. And I can vouch for that and say, anytime I'm looking through a script or even watching a TV show, because of your course and just understanding the story structure, you get those spider senses like, oh, the raising the stake should be coming very soon. Now we're about halfway through the episode, so something better be changing here. And I think it's just, again, everything you say in your course of just knowing those beats when they need to hit how they need to pop will help set your script ahead of amateur writers.Michael Jamin:You're a good student, Kevin.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Thanks.Michael Jamin:Alright, what's next?Kevin Lewandowski:So km phs, when I say I don't have experience, but I have a killer pilot and I took Michael Jamin's course. How much of a difference is the course going to make in terms of being a desirable hire?Michael Jamin:No one cares that you took my course. So zero no one's. That's why we don't give a diploma out because the diploma is worthless. No one really cares if you went where you studied, who taught you all they care about, is the script good or not? Does it make them want to turn the page or not? Do they want to find out what happens next or not? So I wish I could give you a better answer than that, but it's not the degree. The degree isn't worth anything. Hopefully the knowledge is worth something.Kevin Lewandowski:I think the analogy I have in my head of your courses, I look at scripts I wrote before taking your course, and it's like when you look back at high school photos and I had the Frosted tips, the pca, shell, necklace, hoop earring, and at the time it was cool. And now you look back and it's like it's pretty cringe-worthy. It's pretty cringe-worthy to see those photos. And now after taking your course, I feel like it's like now I'm wearing a suit and I don't have the poop hearing and I don't have the frosted tips, and I'm not as cringe-worthy when I look back at some of the scripts I wrote a year or so ago.Michael Jamin:Good, good. All right, good. Very good. Impressing me more and more, Kevin.Kevin Lewandowski:Right? Next question. Ous. I'm butchering that one. Nope,Michael Jamin:Perfectly. That's how he says his name.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. What are the most important things an inspiring writer should be aware of while reviewing one script before sending it to an established executive or writer?Michael Jamin:God, it's pretty much the same answer as all the other ones. It's like, do your act breaks, pop? Is it fresh? The dialogue, I'm sorry, but it's the same answer, so I don't really have anything to say. Yeah, yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Next question, mal. Yay.Michael Jamin:Exactly.Kevin Lewandowski:In a 26 page pilot is page 11 two, late for the first act break, second act break or second act being on page 20.Michael Jamin:On the 26 page script, the first back page is on 11, is that what they said?Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah.Michael Jamin:It's not terrible. I've seen worse things. I'm assuming it's a single space. It's not terrible. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Colin Miller, what is a good system to practice writing every day? I like this question.Michael Jamin:A good system, a good system. I don't know why you like it, because I'm stumped. I mean, I would just say write a good system is to, I'm most creative in the morning, so that's when I want to write and I try to do my busy work in the evening stuff that's easier, but you might be a night owl, but I would just carve out time every day and just sit down at the computer and write. And don't be so precious that no one's going to look at your first draft. That first draft can be terrible, so don't just get it on paper. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. I think a lot of maybe misconceptions people have is writing every day isn't necessarily open up final draft and typing something. Sometimes it's going on a walk for an hour and a half and thinking about the story you're trying to tell and laying out the beats in, I live in Glendale and there's a outdoor mall. It's fun to kind of just walk around there and people watch a little bit. And sometimesMichael Jamin:The Americana, that's where you go.Kevin Lewandowski:Yep. Right By the Americana.Michael Jamin:Are you in walking distance to thatKevin Lewandowski:Few blocks?Michael Jamin:Interesting. Okay. Alright. You'd like to go on the trolley.Kevin Lewandowski:I've never been on that trolley. I'm always afraidMichael Jamin:You like to ring the bell on trolley, Kevin. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:I'm always afraid it's going to hit someone.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I know. I know.Kevin Lewandowski:I think takes up a lot of the bottom of the path.Michael Jamin:Yeah. AllKevin Lewandowski:Right. Next question. So NRS creates, I guess this is a question, it's more of a comment. It said, agreed. The course is changing the way I see all of my stories. Good, great.Michael Jamin:Great.Kevin Lewandowski:Christina Sini, who's a current student, and Michael Jamin's course, we learned to break and structure story well before writing those bits and pieces of a script glued together that we won't have to cling to anyone to make them fit. We basically learned how to build in order. I think that goes back to your analogy of laying the foundation first and doing, starting with the characters in beat sheets and then outlining and eventually getting to the physical writing of the script.Michael Jamin:Yeah, she's doing great, Christina. She's having a good amount of success early on, so I'm impressed.Kevin Lewandowski:Another very active person in the course, Laurie. John Michael's course is amazing. When you take the class, you also become of the Jam and Facebook community. We do table reads and give each other notes twice a month. Writer sprints, Wednesday nights and mock writer's room. So anyone that's thinking about getting the course, we have this private Facebook group and it's a bunch of great people in there and we are all just trying to build each other up.Michael Jamin:It really is. It's impressive because when you look at some of the other Facebook groups, the screenwriting groups or on Reddit or groups, it's mostly people trying to tear each other down. But because this is private, I think they're not like that at all. It's a community, I think.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, I think that was a big thing for you because you said you were in some of those groups, and I think you even said you sometimes as a professional working writer, you would say something that people would attackMichael Jamin:You. Yeah. You don't, what are you talking about? Oh, alright. I happened once or twice. I was say, I'm done. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:All right. Next question. VV oral, is it worth it? And parentheses story structure is very detailed in your course, so I think maybe it's worth it, not is it worth it? Yeah. I think it's just more people praising about your course.Michael Jamin:Okay.Kevin Lewandowski:Let's see. Okay, now we have some craft questions. Good. From Mal mavey, they, again, is it okay to end a pilot on a cliffhanger?Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's okay, but better not. You're really counting on the fact that anyone's going to care, so you're better. I think what the danger is, you may be writing towards this cliffhanger thinking that everyone's going to be so, oh my God, what's going to happen if you don't write? If all those pages beforehand aren't so great, no one's going to care what happens. And so a lot of people write towards this cliffhanger thinking, oh, aren't you going to be enthralled? And the answer is no, we don't care.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Yeah. I think trying to work backwards from that I think can be a disservice. And I think it's just you definitely don't want that cliffhanger to be more exciting necessarily than your act one break, because that's what we know what we're following. Lex Macaluso, once I have a great script, what are the practical steps to do?Michael Jamin:Well, once you have a great script, write another one for sure. And then you want to make sure you actually do have a great script. And you do that by showing it to people. And it doesn't have to be somebody in the industry. It could be a friend or a mother or someone whose opinion you trust. What do you think? And if they love it and they say, this is amazing, show me something else. You're onto something. But if they say, well, I like this part, or I like when this happened, or This is a good storyline, then that's not a great script. So you have to be honest with yourself. It's really, look, it's really hard to write a great script. Everyone assumes they have it and I don't assume I have it. So when I do my job really well, I might have a good script. A great script is really, you got to really hit it out of the park.Kevin Lewandowski:And I think just that idea of what is a great script, so arbitrary, and I think it's sticking to the story structure of what you teach in your course can help set your script apart from others.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And honestly, it is those things that I'm looking for. All the things that I say that when I'm reading a script, what I'm looking for and what I'm really looking for is I want a really good script. It doesn't even have to be great because a really good script stands out great or amazing is very rare. I mean, how often do you see a movie that's been made or a TV show and you go, this is a great script. Most of the time you're like, oh, this is really good.Kevin Lewandowski:So if you were reading a script, and let's say maybe the structure wasn't where you think it should be, but the characters were very compelling and the characters were witty with what they were saying. Would you still be okay with that? Or vice versa if maybe the characters was a little bit too much speaking on the nose, but the structure and everything was spot on with that.Michael Jamin:Years ago we hired on a show, we were running a show and we were reading a ton of scripts, and we got to one where Act one was really good. Act two was really good, and Act three was not very good. And we hired him anyway because we were thought at that point, I was like, he did the first two parts really well, I could fix, or we could fix Act three, not a problem. And so I think that says a lot. You do act one, walk two. That's a big deal. He's a young writer.Kevin Lewandowski:Do you see a pattern with a lot of writers starting out is Act two where they struggle the most? Or is it act three or is it,Michael Jamin:Listen, I don't make it to act two. If Act one isn't good, I don't read further. I get another script. If I get a stack of scripts, who cares about Act two? Fact One sucks.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Ben Miller, what screenplays are the best to read, to learn from perhaps the West Wing pilot, which I read in a screenwriting class?Michael Jamin:Well, it depends what you want to write. If you want to write drama, then maybe West Wing pilot, I haven't read it, but you can also learn from reading band scripts. You can say to yourself, if long as you're honest, why am I not interested in this? And if you know what to look for, why is the script not compelling? Is the dialogue, is it the act breaks? Do they now you'll know what to look for? And then the trick is to be honest with yourself. There's been times even in my early career where I might pitch something to my partner and he'll say, if you read that in a script and someone else's script, you'd say, that sucks. And I go, really? I thought it was good. He goes, no, no, you would say it sucks. So then at that point, you got to go, okay, you got to back off. And you don't fight for it. You got to be honest with yourself.Kevin Lewandowski:I think another amazing thing in today's world that didn't really exist when you start out is pretty much any show that's out there right now, you can get access to some version of the script, whether it was a writer's draft or a production draft. IsMichael Jamin:That true? How do you find them?Kevin Lewandowski:I mean, if you just go to Google and you type in Breaking Bad Pilot script, there's going to be versions that you can download. It's always interesting to read those scripts and then watch the first episode and see how much did they change? Because I doubt you'll be able to find necessarily the final shooting draft online, but those first couple writer's drafts are available. And it's always interesting just to see you're reading it and you really, really like this part, but then you watch the episode and they took it out. You're like, oh, okay. That's interesting thatMichael Jamin:If you really wanted up your game, you could also watch the pilot of Breaking Bag and type out the script while you're watching it and then read it later and look for what are the act breaks, literally, what are the act breaks? How do they work? What's the dialogue on that? What's the last line of every scene? What's the dialogue? At the last line,Kevin Lewandowski:When I was doing writer's assistant script coordinate stuff, that's what I used to do to type faster just sit and watch TV and just type out the script as it was happening.Michael Jamin:Wow, good forKevin Lewandowski:You. Because in the room, they don't like it when you say, Hey, can you slow down a little bit? Can I hear that again? No, you got to go.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Okay. Part, what advice would you offer writers to adapt to the inevitable changes in developments expected in the screenwriting field and then years to come? I'm assuming that's in the context of chat, GPT, ai, that kind of stuff.Michael Jamin:Right now, that stuff is being regulated. I don't know of anybody who's using it in a writer's room. That's not to say I could easily be out of the loop, so I don't know. But right now, as far as I know, chat, GPT wasn't a tool. Any writer that I knew was clamoring for, because we all knew if it works, it's going to put us out of a job. So any changes? I don't know. I really don't know. I would just say maybe I'm naive, but stay the course. Figure out how to write without using a computer program or else, because if you're using the computer program, what do we need you for?Kevin Lewandowski:Right. Have you ever just to see what it would look like, just prompt, Chappie, just to write you a random scene just to see what it would look like, and then compare it to your knowledge you have of being a professional writer forMichael Jamin:Many years. Well, a couple of months ago, my partner decided to put some prompts into chat, GPT to come up with story ideas for Come FD for the show we were on. He just read 'em to me. We were both laughing at how terrible they were. It was like a paragraph of what's going to happen in this episode. And it was interesting how it was able to glean what the show was and what it was like, but it was just such an oversimplification of what the show, it lacked any nuance. It was kind of stupid. It was like, nah, that's not, I know. That's what it was almost like asking a 4-year-old what you think the show is and the four year olds. Yeah. Okay. You're right. It's about firemen. Okay, sure. But other than that, the ideas were terrible.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Another question from NRS creates, what are your thoughts on screenwriting competition websites like Cover Fly and the Blacklist? Is that a good way to get a script into people's hands? Thoughts on one act, scripts, one act plays? Do they have three acts?Michael Jamin:A lot of questions. I think you're the better person to answer the first part.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. So I've definitely submitted to some of those contests just to see A, if I would get any more B, what kind of feedback they would give. And a lot of times it's not very helpful feedback. And you've talked about, you have to question who these people are that are giving feedback, because chances are, they're not professional working writers right now. They would not have the time to go through 20, 30 scripts to give feedback. So chances are these could potentially be recent college graduates that are just doing what they think, what they learned in film school. And interestingly enough, I think Phil, he went through one competition. He sent me what the feedback was, and just reading it, I was like, this sounds very Chat, GPT ai. It was just very, because he sent me other ones he got, and I was like, okay, this feels like a person actually read this. This feels like it could have been put in chat, GPT, write a response based on what you think. And then when I said that to him, he was like, you might be right. He's like, you might be right. Interesting.Michael Jamin:Back when I was writing my book and I submitted to some publishers, whatever, a couple wrote back why they didn't like it, why they didn't want to option the book or whatever, and whatever. A couple of them, their feedback was like, no, it's clear to me you barely read it. Which I understand because these were low level publishing types editors. And on their weekend read, they probably had to read a couple dozen books, manuscripts, they're not going to give it full attention. And I was like, so some of the criticism, I was like, okay, that's a fair criticism. But no, but that is not, there's literally no truth in what you're saying there. You just phoned it in because you have to read so much over the weekend. So I don't know. Got to take, no one's going. I mean, it's the same thing for these websites. Are they really going to put their heart and soul into it? No. Why would TheyKevin Lewandowski:Don't care. They just want theMichael Jamin:Money. Yeah. Why would they? Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:You think about someone in your position giving feedback to a fellow writer that might take you two and a half hours, read the script, think about your notes, and then put 'em in a format to be able to explain them to the writer. And I don't think these people in those competitions are doing that. They probably just read it once and write down what they think. And it's funny how some of them, it's what would you rank the character dialogue on a one to 10, and they write six and a half. It's like,Michael Jamin:Where are you gettingKevin Lewandowski:That from? One is six and half. So then what would've gotten me an eight or an half or a nine?Michael Jamin:One of the things we just started doing on their website, if you have the course, our screenwriting course, I have a couple of friends who are high level writers who are willing to give notes. But here's the thing, you're going to pay. It's not cheap. You're going to pay these people to sit down and read your damn script for two or three hours and they're not getting $10 an hour. That's not what they're going to get. I don't know what you get paid for,Kevin Lewandowski:I guess. So is this a good way to get your script into people's hands? So I think, yeah, mean it's technically people's hands, but I don't know ifMichael Jamin:I don't think they're the right hands.Kevin Lewandowski:Feedback is going to be any valuable. And then thoughts on one X Scripts. One X plays, do they have three x inherently?Michael Jamin:That's an interesting question. Do they have three acts? I would say yes, in terms of the structure, in terms of what makes something compelling, but not necessarily, I guess I've written some stories in my book that don't fall into the traditional three Acts structure, but they come close. They definitely come close to it. And that's just because, well, it doesn't really matter why, but you can't go wrong. You really can't go wrong if you structure something like the way we teach.Kevin Lewandowski:So in your opinion, because heard, sometimes people use a five act structure, and I think for me, I think it's basically the same three act structure, but so act one will be act one, and then Act two isMichael Jamin:ActKevin Lewandowski:Two A and then Act two B. And so it's kind of broken up like that. So for me,Michael Jamin:Well, Shakespeare wrote that way. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:And he's all right. He did.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I mean, I just think it's easier not to write. I just think three is easier to get your head around. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. I think just the thought of hearing the words, so writing five acts, that just sounds like it can be a lot, but if you could be like, oh, three acts, okay, I can do that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Right. Anyone could do that. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Next topic, breaking in. DJ asked when starting out to obtain that experience, what sort of job should one be searching for, staff, writer, assistant, et cetera?Michael Jamin:You should be searching for the production assistant job anywhere, and eventually, after a season or two, see if you can move to a job that's closer to the writer's room. Physically, let's do what Kevin did. That's what he did.Kevin Lewandowski:And I think there's a staff writer that's obviously not entry level assistant. There's various assistant positions you could do production assistant, you can do showrunners, assistant executive assistant. I think one of the, or the terminologies people may get confused is writer's production assistant and then writer's assistant. And the writer's production assistant is the one that's responsible for getting the lunches, stocking the kitchen, making copies, things like that. And the writer's assistant is the one that sits in the room, types up the notes and the jokes that are being pitched. And they work closely with the script coordinator. And as you've said, many times, the writer's assistant is not an entry level job. It can be very intensive times.Michael Jamin:And for what's worth, I've worked with several assistants, either writer's, assistant production assistants, who've since gone on to become staff writers have had successful careers. So it's not like many. So Kevin, hopefully you'll be next.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, I'm hoping so too. Next question, Sammy. ak. So the best way to get a foot in the door to support and learn the biz write in assistant or pa, we kind of just answer that. Yeah. Production assistant is that entry level. You're kind of just the gopher and you're the whatever they kind of need you go do, and you prove yourself to those people above you. And they notice. Notice people notice when you're either calling it in or you're really going above and beyond to make whoever's ahead of you life a little bit easier. Yeah. All right. Now we got some miscellaneous. Oh, here's a fun question. Tulio, how close are you to officially publishing your book, Michael,Michael Jamin:It's already out tulio. You can go get it. You can find it. Sign copies are available@michaeljamin.com slash book. Or you could search for a paper orchestra on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, or the audio book on Audible or Spotify or Apple. How about that?Kevin Lewandowski:Get the book. Everyone get the book. The comment to address from Jonathan Loudon, real world dilemma. I like this. Can't get experience without getting hired. Can't get hired without experience. That's why, who is such a reality?Michael Jamin:Well, but if you're starting off in an entry level position, you don't need to know anybody. You just have to put yourself out there. And then in terms of knowing someone later in your job, well, now you already know people. Now you broke because entry levels, literally, you have a pulse in a car. So I find that it's a convenient excuse. Put yourself out there, and Kevin, you didn't have any contacts when you broke into Hollywood. None. So there you go.Kevin Lewandowski:You just got to knock on some doors. I think people that work in the industry, they know kind of how it works. Once you break in, you become a pa, and you make those network connections with production coordinators that you've worked with and people on the show, and you build those genuine relationships and you do good. Then when they go to the next show and they're like, Hey, we need someone, then they'll reach out to you andMichael Jamin:They're not reaching out for you because they're as a favor to you. They're reaching out to you because we need to hire someone. And I don't really want to spend days interviewing.Kevin Lewandowski:I already know you can do the job. It's so much easier just to bring you aboard.Michael Jamin:Yeah, right. It's not like a favor to you. It's a favor to them.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah.Michael Jamin:You are listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Today's episode is brought to you by my new book, A Paper Orchestra, A Collection of True Stories. John Mayer says, it's fantastic. It's multi timal. It runs all levels of the pyramid at the same time, his knockout punches are stinging, sincerity, and Kirker View says, those who appreciate the power of simple stories to tell us about human nature or who are bewitched by a storyteller who has mastered his craft, will find a delightful collection of vignettes, a lovely anthology that strikes a perfect balance between humor and poignancy. So my podcast is not advertiser supported. I'm not running ads here. So if you'd like to support me or the podcast, come check out my book, go get an ebook or a paperback, or if you really want to treat yourself, check out the audio book. Go to michael jamin.com/book, and now back to our show.Kevin Lewandowski:Next question, all nighters cinema, what makes your script stand out? If it's a book adaptation and the story isn't your original story,Michael Jamin:Well, do you have the rights to adapt? A book is one question. So if you don't, I probably wouldn't adapt it. And that's not to say that when people think you adapt a book, you still have to have these act break pops. These scenes have to unfold. It's not like books are a slam dunk to adapt. I mean, there's definitely some art and craft that has to be applied to turning into a script. So that's how you make it stand out.Kevin Lewandowski:And I think one of the other things you like to say is if you have a book, there might be a few different stories happening throughout that book. And in your paper orchestra, one of the examples you get, oh, I forget what it was called about the swing dance, and I forgot that chapterMichael Jamin:Was called Yes, swing and a Miss.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. As you said, there was other stuff happening at that point in your life, but it was just this story was the one you wanted to tell. Of course you were going to work and doing stuff like that, but this was the story you wanted to tell.Michael Jamin:Right. And also, how many times have you seen they've adapted a book, I don't know, a popular book into a TV show movie? And sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad. It's because it's not as simple as simply typing the book.Kevin Lewandowski:And a lot of times people say the book was even better or the book was better anyways. And I mean, it's hard to take 300 pages of a book and consented toMichael Jamin:An hour and a half movie. Right.Kevin Lewandowski:David Sallow, what if you a show idea that you have done the work on and think it uniquely speaks to the present moment? Are there any shortcuts possible there or noMichael Jamin:Shortcuts to what? You got to write a script. Yeah. There's no shortcuts to write in a good script, and there's no shortcuts to selling it. There's no shortcuts anywhere. Shortcuts. When does shortcuts ever work? I don't know. Where are the shortcuts? Yeah, little Ed riding Hood. Other than that, in real life, you got to put the work in. Right.Kevin Lewandowski:Do you ever watch the, there's a documentary about the South Park creators and how from they, from blank page to delivering the episode, how many days do you think,Michael Jamin:Well, I know they're super fast, so I would say five,Kevin Lewandowski:Six.Michael Jamin:Six.Kevin Lewandowski:Okay. Six days. That's very fast. They are delivering it like a half hour before it's supposed to. Yeah.Michael Jamin:And that's because the animation process is so crude that they can do it so quickly, but that's fast,Kevin Lewandowski:And we've just gotten used to it that way. So I think with them in an interesting way, that's why their shows seem like their current and present, because something could have happened in the news last week, and then that episode could air next week. Whereas other animation shows, and I know you've worked in animation, sometimes it's seven, eight months before that episode,Michael Jamin:Or it could be nine months, nine months animated show. So yeah, you don't do anything top of one within in an animated show, not the ones I've done.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Next question. What if I wrote lyrics to the theme song? Is that okay to include? I think this might be in the context of one of the things you say in your scripts, don't write music cues. Don't write, don't put song lyrics in there, or something like that.Michael Jamin:I mean, if you think you got fantastic lyrics and you're going to really impress the hell out of someone, but you still have to, when I'm reading the script, I have to imagine what the music is, and I'm not going to imagine the music. And I suppose you can write the lyrics and maybe some people will read it and some won't. So it's up to you. Do you really think it's fantastic or not?Kevin Lewandowski:I had a couple scripts that I put part of a song in there and then listening to, I'm like, no, it's coming out, taking it out.Michael Jamin:In my opinion, there's really no, I'm not crazy about reading that.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah,Michael Jamin:I mean, maybe others are, I don't know.Kevin Lewandowski:Well, I think, I think back to my script, it was I just kind of being lazy. Could I take that three eighths of a page and add something in there that's going to help move the storyline further, or was I just looking for a, what's a funny moment I could have right now?Michael Jamin:Right. Okay.Kevin Lewandowski:Let's see. From Aaron, in terms of recognizing good writing, writing, what is considered too much in terms of providing direction to actors, description of character, thoughts and emotions, et cetera?Michael Jamin:The less the better, in my opinion. You don't want let the actors do their job, and if you feel you can't convey the anger in a scene or the love in a scene with dialogue and you're yelling at the actors, do it this way, then you haven't done your job as the writer do your job. Not everyone else's. As far as action lines go, I am of the camp that the shorter the better because most writers or most people reading do not want to read your action line. I suppose one day, if get, I think when you get more successful, if you're Aaron Sorkin, you can write whatever the hell you want. You're, because he writes his actions line. I imagine poetry, it's probably his action lines are probably just as interesting as his dialogue because he's such a great writer, but don't count on it when you're starting off.Kevin Lewandowski:I was reading something, I forgot who the actor was, but they said, the actor always requested that their script have commas and apostrophes taken out of dialogue because they felt like they didn't want someone telling them how to say things. And I was like, I can respect as an actor, but I was like, that poor script coordinator, they have to go through that whole script again and take everything out.Michael Jamin:That's a little bit much to me. It seems like putting a comma there is like that's just grammar. And if they wanted to take it out, I think they should do it themselves, but whatever,Kevin Lewandowski:From Jonathan Loudon, again, how many feature films have you written, pitched, but never sold?Michael Jamin:Well, we wrote one completely as a spec, and that did not sell, but that got us a producer interested in our writing, and then we wrote two more that did sell as pitches. We pitched them first, then we got paid to write the script. And as far as I can remember, I don't think we wrote any other feature scripts. I think we maybe had some ideas that were batting around, but we never actually pitched or wrote, but we work mostly in tv.Kevin Lewandowski:So do you know, because from what I can recall, you've never sold a feature that actually went into production, correct. Right,Michael Jamin:Right. They they never do.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. And how do you think you would feel, because as you say, tv, the showrunner head writer has the final say, and on a feature, it's the director that has the final say. I worked with someone, his name's Steve Rudnick, and he wrote Space Jam and the Santa Clause movies with Tim Allen, and he told me this story how he was at a baseball game and he saw someone walking down the aisle and it had a Space jam cast and crew jacket. And he asked the guy and he was like, can I ask you where you got that jacket? That's a really cool jacket. And he's like, oh, I worked on production. This was all our rap gifts, and Steve never got one because writers usually aren't part of the production aspect onMichael Jamin:Feature, and he was accredited writer on it. Right. That's what an actor thought he was. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's probably common. I don't know why people want to become writers on movies. I mean, it would be cool, but maybe he was heavily rewritten. Maybe he was, I don't know.Kevin Lewandowski:He was so bummed. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Yeah. He wasn't invited to anything.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Right. Geo, could you elaborate on the things not to say to executives or some examples of what the producer said?Michael Jamin:What the producer said? I'm not sure I answered the question.Kevin Lewandowski:So can you elaborate on the things, so I guess as a writer, and maybe you gave your script to an executive and they were giving you feedback or said, Hey, maybe do this, do this. How would you respond to those notes?Michael Jamin:Yeah, you want to be positive. Great. We'll work on that. Thank you. Good idea. Interesting thought. We'll definitely do our best with that, and then later, hopefully you can take 90% of the notes and the ones you can't take, you say, I think we address the spirit of your note. Even if we couldn't address your notes or this one, we couldn't make it work occasionally, but you're doing 90% of the notes. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:I think the phrase I would always hear on notes calls is, okay, well, yeah, we'll take a look at it. We'll take a look at that. Yeah,Michael Jamin:We'll take a look at it. Yeah. We,Kevin Lewandowski:Next question from Cody, with short seasons, freelance opportunities have mostly gone away, but are there still opportunities for freelance, and if so, how are writers polled in for those?Michael Jamin:I don't know. That's a good question because that's a question. You'd have to look that up with the Writer's Guild. I don't remember on our last show there, I don't recall ever having those guys doing freelance, giving off freelance episodes to anyone. So it used to be a Writer's Guild mandate if the show was a certain length that they had to give out a certain number of freelancers. And now maybe they don't have to, but I wouldn't either way get it out of your head that you're ever going to sell a freelance episode because it's just so over my 28 years, I think I've sold maybe three freelance episodes and I would do more. It's not a problem. It's just that they're really hard to get.Kevin Lewandowski:And I think a lot of times what happens in writer's rooms is those writer's assistants and script coordinators that have proved their worth for a couple of seasons. If that opportunity comes for them to get a freelance episode, the showrunner helps 'em out with that, and that helps them get into the Writer's Guild and things likeMichael Jamin:That. That's usually a bone you throw those support staff after they've been there a couple of years.Kevin Lewandowski:That's a nice bonus. It's a nice check to get. Next question, David Campbell. Does the creator continue to have involvement or do you teach them on the job?Michael Jamin:If someone creates the show and they are not the showrunner, which just happened on a couple shows we've done. We were not the showrunner and the creator had involved. They were on the writing staff, but they didn't have any say. They didn't have the final say or anything. If we are the showrunner, whoever's the runner has final say. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Next question, nerds and friends, how many writers' rooms are virtual remote nowadays? What is the path to becoming a showrunner? Is it a writer pivoting into that role? I can imagine producing experience helps.Michael Jamin:No, so a showrunner is the head writer. The way you become a showrunner is by being a writer on many shows and being good at writing, and then the producing aspect of the job. You kind of learn on the job as you rise up the ranks. You don't have to take a course or there's no certification, and it's something you can fake.Kevin Lewandowski:For me, I never really understood what the word producer meant. No one in the context of television, because it's working in the industry, you learn, okay, writers can be producers, but then sometimes accountants, if they're high enough, they can also be producers. And not every producer is necessarily like the creative vision. Some of them deal with the money aspect of it.Michael Jamin:Yeah. They're non-writing producers or non-writing executive producers, they'reKevin Lewandowski:Called. Yeah. Next question, K with an asterisk next to it. Are series filmed for streaming services similar to TV regarding creative control for the show runner?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yes.Kevin Lewandowski:Easy question. Yeah, all-nighter cinema. How different is trying to greenlight a serial TV show versus a mini series?Michael Jamin:It just depends on what the network, usually they're buying series. They're not buying mini series there. Sometimes they're buying limited series. It just depends on the network. And I wouldn't even approach, again, your goal is to write one great script as a writing sample, and it's not to time the market and figure out who's buying what. Can you write a script? Answer that question first,Kevin Lewandowski:Right? If a studio buys your pilot but ends up passing and an exec at another studio is interested, how realistic is it that they'll buy it againMichael Jamin:If the first one will buy it?Kevin Lewandowski:I don't know. I'm wondering if they're asking just because one studio passes on your script, does that mean every studio is going to pass on it?Michael Jamin:No. No. Usually if you're lucky, you pitch to five studios and one buys it. That's how they don't all want to buy it. You're lucky if one wants to buy it. But again, what's frustrating about all these questions that we're hearing is everyone's saying, how do I make money selling a script? And no one's saying, how do I write a good script? Everyone is already assuming that. It's just so damn frustrating. It's like, guys, what do you think? How do you think this is going to work? It's not about the meeting. It's about writing a damn good script. First thing's first. So I don't know, what are you going to do? I yell into the wind. People don't listen to me on this.Kevin Lewandowski:I listen. They'll listen. They'll listen. Yeah. I mean, I think there's almost this weird delusion that people think they're going to move out here within a year. They're going to have their own show. And I was just talking to someone the other day that they're going to USC, and she was talking about kind of her timeline with things, and she said, I want to give myself five years from when I graduate in 2025 to try to get into a writer's room. And when she said that to me, I said, very realistic. That's not too quick that, because there's a lot of luck of, IMichael Jamin:Thought you were going to say have her own show on the air.Kevin Lewandowski:No, no. She was very much, if I can be in a writer's room in five years. So I thought, yeah, because tough, because if you can get on that show that season one, it's not a hit yet, then it becomes a hit that can definitely fast track you a little bit. And my struggle has been, none of the pilots I've worked on have gotten picked up and shows have gotten canceled. And I'd like to believe that's not my fault, but it's hard to look at the No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.Michael Jamin:But yeah. But it's a little frustrating when people ask these questions sound to me like when I hit a grand Slam, who do I high five first? They're like, dude, can you get on base? Do you know how to get a base hit? What are you talking about? Just get a base hit first. So that's what it sounds like to me. And I wish people would just have more realistic expectations and would take a little more, everyone's assuming they already knew how to do the hard part.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Next question, given that streaming has changed the face of sitcom series writing, how do you feel about the future of the industry? Are there days of having full writer's room and staff over?Michael Jamin:It certainly seems that way, but who knows right now, if you follow what's going on, it seems like, it seems like everything's becoming, we're slowly moving back to the old days. There's going to be fewer streamers. They're going to be consolidation. They're already talking about these big streamers merging. And when that happens, things will change, but we don't really know. Right now, the industry's at a crossroads. They're not picking up a lot of shows. Now. They will pick up start. That will happen. And imagine a couple of, it can't go on much longer. They got to have to start pulling the trigger and start making TV shows again. So we don't know. We're at the crossroads,Kevin Lewandowski:Because I think you said back when you were working on, just Shoot Me In, I think you said King of the Hill, there was more than 15 writers on King. KingMichael Jamin:Of the Hill. We had 20 writers in King of the Hill, and we were do 22 episodes in a season.Kevin Lewandowski:And how many were on Just Shoot Me?Michael Jamin:Well, let's see. In the beginning, I would say it's closer to maybe 10 or so, maybe 12 at some point.Kevin Lewandowski:And in your experience, do you think comedy rooms always have more writersMichael Jamin:Than drama? I don't know. I mean, it just really depends on the budget of the show and how many episodes you're going to be doing.Kevin Lewandowski:I think I was watching something about Breaking Bad, and I think they had six writers.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? That's it.Kevin Lewandowski:Wow. On why Women Kill. We had five.Michael Jamin:The thing about drama is that you don't have to, it is easier in the sense that when you're writing a comedy, you still need to have that structure. You still need to come up with a story that is engaging, but it also has to be funny. But when you're doing the drama, you just need to come up with an engaging story, and it doesn't have to be funny, and you don't have to punch up the lines. And in that sense, I do think it's a little easier, but that's not to say writing Breaking Bad is easy. I mean, what a great show that works.Kevin Lewandowski:Right, right. Next question from maybe, are there tutorials and Final Draft, a proper guide for making your script presentation acceptable?Michael Jamin:What do you think? I don't know. I haven't looked at the tutorials.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. I mean, I think the nice thing about Final Draft is they have pre-built templates that you can use. So if you're writing a Multicam, it'll prebuilt that template and everything will automatically be capitalized for you. And same thing with Single Cam. And I think one of the things you always say is when you hand your script to someone, they're not going to know you use Final Draft or one of these other programs to write the script. They're just going to get a printed out version. And I think there's minimal things you need to do, make sure the dialogue is in the middle of the page and certain things are capitalized, and there's a certain format formatting of that. But Final Draft can take care of all that too. So when you're done writing, you just hit file, export as PDF, and that's it. You're done. All the four is done.Michael Jamin:I mean, final Draft, like you said, has those templates, and it'll make your script look like a script, which is great. You got a script, you got something that looks like a script, but does it read like a script?Kevin Lewandowski:Right. Har Draft does not do that for you. Yeah, it won'tMichael Jamin:Do that.Kevin Lewandowski:Michael's course does.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I hope,Kevin Lewandowski:Lorenzo, given your friendship with the late David Bellini, have you got any insights on Italian films, TV industry, in your opinion? Is there any difference? Thank you.Michael Jamin:From what I knew from David. David when he was a lot, the difference is enormous. It's a whole different film structure over there. It's not so much of an industry as it is. I don't know. It sounded like really hard. And he was pretty successful. He worked on a bunch of shows, and he moved to LA to Hollywood because he was like, this is too crazy here. This is just not enough work. So I think it was a miracle that he was as successful as he was there, but it's a whole different ballgameKevin Lewandowski:If the script doesn't have scenes in it. How should it be written? Is it just dialogue and descriptions? Do you have any advice for someone who wants to be a script doctor?Michael Jamin:Okay. The script does have to have scenes in it. It can't be all one scene. That's not going to be acceptable. A script doctor is not really, that's some bullshit that people say on the internet. No one I've ever met ever called themselves a script doctor. We're all screenwriters. And sometimes you sell your own work, and sometimes you're brought in to rewrite somebody else's, and there's no script doctor. You don't get a degree and you don't wear a stethoscope. And that's not a job. It's just sometimes will get paid to rewrite someone else's script, but you'll only get that job if you're a really good writer and you've written some really good scripts on your own. And then when you do, usually you're like, hell, I'll just write. I want to write my own stuff. And you're brought in to change someone else's script because it's like, all right, someone's giving me money and here's a job, and I'm in between jobs, so I'll do it.Kevin Lewandowski:There's no shortcuts. A couple more questions, Aaron. How many followers, subscribers would someone need to have on social media for that to be interesting and asset to a studio or showrunner?Michael Jamin:Literally have no idea. And I'm not sure it would be interesting to a showrunner at all as far as the studio, in terms of being a writer. You're not expected to have a social media following at all. I just happen to have one, but it's not right. No one's, no one ever asked me, no one really cares. The benefit is I can promote my own stuff. I have a following, but for a writer, you don't need that.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. And then our last question, is it okay to make the size of the words on the title page a little bit bigger?Michael Jamin:I suppose it is. I don't try to do anything fancy, but I don't know why you want to. It's okay if you want to. It's not desperate, but I don't know. I try to make it, I want my script to look like just an ordinary script. I want the pages themselves, the dialogue to stand out. I'm not really trying to make the cover page stand out.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, I think it's like when writing any paper you did in college or whatever the title is, 18 font, and then the stuffy writing is 12 font or whatever.Michael Jamin:Yeah, you can do that.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. I think one of the things you said is the title page. No one necessarily cares about that. If you put a fancy image on there, that's not going to, people aren't going to be like, oh, we got to hire this person. We got to hire this person right now.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Don't even give any thought to the title. I mean, really. You're not going to fool anybody. So yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Well, that is all the questions we have from that webinar.Michael Jamin:Wow. Excellent. Kevin, you did really well. You're a natural here. Thanks. Yeah. Alright, everyone. Thank you. Please continue coming to our webinars. We do 'em every few weeks. To sign up, go to michael jamin.com/webinar. I got a book out. I hope you all get it. Sign copies are available @michaeljamin.com slash book. And if you want to come see me on tour, go to michael jamin.com/upcoming. Kevin, where can people find you?Kevin Lewandowski:I'm on social media, Kevin Lewandowski. Sorry it's a very long last name. It gets butchered a lot, but I'm there. And yeah, I occasionally make appearances with Michael on these webinars and things like that. So yeah. Thank you all for who's been coming to the webinars and checking out Michael's stuff. Just go to michael jamen.com and just start clicking around. There's a bunch of stuff you can get his free scripts, stuff he's written. There's free lessons up there. Every podcast we do gets uploaded there. You can spend hours on that websites. Just go there, click around, buy the book byMichael Jamin:The book. Thank you so much buddy. Alright. You're just going to stick around. Kevin's going to be back next week for another episode. I believe it's next week. We will see when it drops, but he's going to be back around for another one. Alright, everyone, until then, keep writing, keep being creative and all that stuff. Thanks so much.Michael Jamin:Wow. I did it again. Another fantastic episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? How do I do it week after week? Well, I don't do it with advertiser supported money. I tell you how I do it. I do it with my book. If you'd like to support the show, if you'd like to support me, go check out my new book, A Paper Orchestra. It asks the question, what if it's the smallest, almost forgotten moments that are the ones that shape us most. Laura Sanoma says, good storytelling also leads us to ourselves, our memories, our beliefs, personal and powerful. I loved the Journey, and Max Munic, who was on my show says, as the father of daughters, I found Michael's understanding of parenting and the human condition to be spot on. This book is a fantastic read. Go check it out for yourself. Go to michael jamin.com/book. Thank you all and stay tuned. More great stuff coming next week.

On this week's episode, we have actor Jamie Kaler (My Boys, Tacoma FD, Robot Chicken and many many more) and we talk about his career path as well as his experiences doing stand-up. There's so much more so make sure you tune in.Show NotesJamie KalerIMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0435695/Jamie Kaler on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_KalerJamie Kaler on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamiekaler/?hl=enJamie Kaler on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/jamiekalerA Paper Orchestra on Website: https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptJamie Kaler:He goes, Hey, just so you know, when you do watch it, we were running long for time. So we cut the tag. I go, you mean the reveal where I kissed the woman? He goes, yeah, we ran out of time and we cut it. I go, then everything I did up to that moment has no justification whatsoever because this is the craziest thing. He goes, I know. He goes, what are you going to do with tv? I go, all, whatever. And I moved on and I was like, couldn't care less. ButMichael Jamin:You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase And to support me in this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, today I'm talking about acting with my guest, Jamie Kaler. This guy, before I bring him on this guy's credits are crazy. He works a lot and so I'm going to blow, yeah, blow through. I'm going to do the abridge version. If not, we'll be here all day, but I'm going to go way back. I'm on IM db now. I'm only doing the ones that I decide are highlights. But Jag, he's been on Fringe Friends. Suddenly. Susan Carnival, third Rock in the Sun, king of Queens, grounded for Life, married to the Kelly's Arrested Development, Spanglish, seventies show. What else Will and Grace, the Family Stone? Who remembers that? Monk New Adventures of Old Christine Sons and Daughters. How I Met Your mother, my boys. We know 'em from that. And then did I say Parenthood? Did I say shake it up? Did I say Austin and Allie? Did I say Teachers of the Year? I don't remember. I'm skipping crazy Ex-girlfriend. Jesus, dude. It doesn't end the middle Dads in Parks. Oh, we'll talk about that. Heather's robot Chicken. American Housewife. Most recently Taco fd where my partner and I created the character of Polanski. Jamie, that was exhausting. Are we done with the interview now?Jamie Kaler:Honestly, it was so much fun being here, man. All right, everybody, take care. See you later.Michael Jamin:That was such good advice. Sorry, you guys all missed it. Dude, you've been around. How did you get into acting? How does someone get into acting? By the way,Jamie Kaler:People ask me nowadays, and I go, dude, it's nothing. I mean now it's like don't even move to la just start a YouTube channel in upstate Minnesota and try to blow up. And then once you have a following, then you're set.Michael Jamin:But we were talking about on your podcast, the parent lounge, but I know you think it's like a burden, but I think it actually works in your advantage to you, to your advantage because you're really good at it. You're good. You have a great social media presence. You're quick on your feet. It seems to me this, even though it requires more work for you, it actually works in your favor. No,Jamie Kaler:You mean social media doing it this way? Yeah, of course it is, but I already did it. So now I'm kind of the same way that I used to go buy wigs and glue on mustaches and actually lit myself on fire on stage at Acme Comedy Theater when I was doing crazy shows on Friday and Saturday nights in the nineties with that fervor of what are we doing today? We're going to Goodwill, we're going to get some costumes, here we go. And I remember renting equipment, trying to shoot shorts and trying to clerks, and Ed Burns had made the brothers McMullan or whatever, and it was like, come on, we're making film. It was super hard and it was painful and it was costly. And nowadays you can do it with your phone. But I'm older, I don't quite have the drive. I also am watching two little kids.So the time in the day is where I used to go, this is my day. I'm going to go do this now. I'm like, I dropped the kids at school. I had to go to the cleaners. I taking care of the two kids. I got to pick them up. I'm coaching soccer today. So yes, I will say though, especially watching you and you're a writer, but now you have to become a social media guru to get people to see what you've created and you're an artist. But nowadays, gosh, I was posting something this morning about the pregnant pause is gone pretty soon. Humans are going to evolve where the eyes instead of side by side are over the top of each other because horizontal's over everything's vertical. We need to flip our eyes. And years from now, no one will take a breath because we've dictated that. The breath makes people lose attention though. You can take a pause. People goMichael Jamin:Done. IJamie Kaler:Can't. He took a breath. I can't.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. So I just had this conversation yesterday. I dropped an audio audiobook, and so some woman said I was doing a live, she goes, oh, I bought your audiobook. I love it, but I listened to it on one and a quarter speed. But I'm like, but when I take a pause, it's because I want to put a pause there. I want to give you a moment to soak it in. It's not arbitrary.Jamie Kaler:I wanted to take a Richard Pryor act from his comedy special and cut all the air out of it. And so you would take a 50 minute, one hour special where there's a groove. He's in the moment. It would be like if you took Buddy Rich and you took all the space between the drum beats out. You're like, a lot of the art is in the space, and we have forgotten that. And now it's like it's a machine gun or people's brains shut off.Michael Jamin:This is something when we're shooting a sitcom, often, we'll tell the actor, make sure you hold for a laugh here. Hold for the laugh. You will get one. Yeah. What do we do about this?Jamie Kaler:Well, I don't know because I was watching, have you watched Show Gun?Michael Jamin:No. Am I supposed to watch that?Jamie Kaler:It's new. It's based on the book. Oh my gosh, it's glorious. I had never read the book. 16 hundreds. Futile Japan, A simple, brutal, vicious life of it's gorgeous. They had a full society. It's like the 16 hundreds. Wait,Michael Jamin:Where am I watching this? What can I get?Jamie Kaler:It's on FX and on Hulu and Portuguese and Portugal and England are the two powerhouses on the earth, and they are at war, and they're basically fighting for ownership of the east, even though the east are, they're like, wait, we're here. No one's going to own us. So it's all about that, but it's just this beautifully, I mean, it's like art. It's like going to the museum, seeing this story unfold, but people's brains nowadays, some do just riddling. 30 seconds of garbage on TikTok will get a gillion times more views than that. Because I talked to somebody who said, Hey, have you seen Shogun? Someone's like, oh, it just seems slow. And I was like, it's one of the greatest stories of all time. It's one of the bestselling books of all time. It's history and gorgeous and art, and it's beautifully shot. And they're like, ah, boring. I don't have time for that crap.Michael Jamin:We have, right? So what do we doJamie Kaler:If everything accelerates? There has to be a point where the human brain, it's like when they go, oh, this TV's 4K, and you're like, dude, I'm in my fifties. I can't even see 5K. I can't see any K anymore. It's like so resolution. It doesn't really matter. At some point your brain can't acceptMichael Jamin:It. Well, worse than that, so my TVs, I have a nice plasma plasma, but it's probably 15 years old at a cost a fortune when I got it. But the new ones, the resolution's so clear, it kind of looks like you're watching a bad TV show. You know what I'm saying? You watch a expensive movie and it looks like it's bad TV because I'm seeing too much.Jamie Kaler:The human face is not supposed to be seen with that much resolution. You see people and you're like, oh, that dude had a rough nightMichael Jamin:Where youJamie Kaler:Used to be able to hide it, and now you're like, no, no, no, no.Michael Jamin:Right? But then now have you had these conversations with your agent and your managers, or is this just when we were talking about building your social media following, are they telling you this or are you just like, your friends are doing it now? I got to do it too.Jamie Kaler:You mean why try to build this? Well, it's also, listen, it's funny because my wife will give me grief sometimes, and she goes, your stories are too slow. Which is crazy because I'm one of the fastest speakers who's ever lived. Sometimes when I'm working, people go, you need to bring it down a little bit. But on social media, if I don't want to sit and take a 92nd video and edit it down to a minute to take out the 30 seconds of pauses, because some guy, but that's the dilemma. Everything's the lowest common denominator. The jokes are I see something that blows up and I go, that was a great joke when George Carlin told that in 1972, and it was really well written and scripted, and now you've kind of bastardized it and you've put it into a ten second with no, your speaking voice is intolerable. But I get it, that's what people want. They're scrolling through and you're like, that's how it works. So I'm also a dinosaur man. It's like my daughters are 10 and they're already do flying through stuff. I mean, I don't know how to stop it.Michael Jamin:Do you know people, I mean, obviously back in the day when you'd go to auditions now everything's you submit. But back in the day, I'm sure you were going to audition and they're the same 10 actors that you would see trying out for the same part. Do you think they're doing the same thing that you're doing building of social media presence?Jamie Kaler:Well, I think you have to. Nowadays, honestly, I see that the social media presence, it is number one, you don't have to go learn how to act. You don't have to learn how to be a standup comic. You don't have to learn these skills and slowly build your way up the top. You do it because you're a personality. People are intrigued, not by people who are, they're intrigued by humans. It's a voyeuristic thing, I think, where people are like, you'll see somebody and they're just talking to camera. They're not even good speakers. There's something off. There's a crazy story. And maybe they've just been doing it for 15 straight years and built up a following and put some money behind it, put some ads, made sure they got some clicks. Maybe they bought a few followers, and you're like, but the craft, the art of what you do as a writer. I mean, is it slowly falling? But that's the problem nowadays with my kids, we just got the report cards and really good grades, but you can see on the standardized test, they're reading is starting to slip because kids don't read. It's too slow for them. Their brain is like, well, they just can't slow. People cannot slow down anymore. And it's Where does it goMichael Jamin:From here? I dunno, but I have to say that. So a lot of this is, I don't think this is coming from producers. I was on a show a few years ago, maybe let's say 10 years ago, and the studio or the network rather wanted us to cast a guy with a big social media following for this role. And I'm like, wait, really? Why? What about an act? Can we just get an actor? This Hollywood? Aren't there actors everywhere? And it's because networks are having a hard time marketing their show. And these people with followings, they can market their own show.Jamie Kaler:Kevin Hart. I mean, I remember something. They were like, well, you're going to post about the movie. And he's like, if you pay me, and they were like, why would we pay you? You're in the movie. He goes, yeah, you paid me for my acting services now you want me to be your publicist. If you want me to publicize this film, you will pay me for it because I accumulated these 50 million followers on my own. Why would I just give it to you?Michael Jamin:But here's where I'm curious about that though. I'm not sure if he doesn't post, I get his point, why should I do the marketing as well? But if he doesn't do the marketing, it'll hurt him for his next movie because it won't perform as well in the box office. You know what I'm saying?Jamie Kaler:Yes. It's a double-edged sword. But I also think he doesn't care.Michael Jamin:HeJamie Kaler:Doesn't care. He doesn't care because he has that following. He will, and they'll put it into the budget. I'm sure the agents and managers are like, all right, so this is his money that you're going to pay him. This is part of the marketing fee you're going to. And listen, I totally understand it. I'm sure I've lost parts because people have gone over to go, his following is not as big as this guy. At the end of the day, could a ton of other people played Polanski? Absolutely. Would they have huge followings? Yes, of course. So I feel lucky anytime I get a job to promote it, I feel like I'm qualified for that job. But I also know it's, you look back at the history of film and Philip Seymour Hoffman died, the five projects he had ready to go, they just replaced him.He's arguably one of the greatest actors of our generation. Nobody missed a beat. So are we all replaceable? Absolutely. Are we lucky to be in the business? Yeah. I mean, I would argue writers are more necessary because you're creating the project to start with. But as an actor, unless you're Daniel Day Lewis or somebody who's that crazy of a craft, then it's about chemistry, I think. Anyway. But you have to, those people are trying to get their films out, and so there's so much white noise on a daily basis that to cut through that, they're like, well, if this guy has 5 million followers and he puts up one post, what they don't see is that only 3% of those 5 million people even see. But thisMichael Jamin:Is where I think the studios and the networks have really screwed up royally, is that they haven't figured out a way to build their own brand. So my wife and I will watch a movie or a TV show, we'll get halfway through it and all the night, we'll say, let's watch the rest tomorrow. Almost all the time. I forget where I watched it, and now I have to search, was it on Netflix? Did I watch it on Amazon? Where did I watch this? Because there's no brand anymore without a brand. They can't market their shows. They have to rely on other me and you to market their shows. It puts us in the driver's seat, not them. This is like a major blunder on their parts, I feel.Jamie Kaler:It's not just them. I'd say standup clubs, back in the day, you did a bunch of shows. You finally put a tape together, you sent it to a club. The club had a following, the club had the following. And you knew if you went to that club, you were going to see Richard, Jenny, Brian Regan, Jerry Seinfeld, you knew these guys. Whatever show you went to, you were going to be surprised, but you'd be like, man, those guys are really funny. Nowadays, the club is literally a rental space that you bring the following to. That's why they book influencers who have millions of followers, and then they get on stage. And I guess some are good and some maybe don't have, it's a different skill levelMichael Jamin:When you go, do you still perform comedy standJamie Kaler:Up? I do. I used to tour a ton before the kids, and I was on the road all the time. And then once the kids were born, I didn't really want to do that as much. So now I stay home. So I kind of cherry pick gigs to go out for. And the road's a lot different, I feel like, than it used to be.Michael Jamin:So do you feel the quality of the standups, they're not quite as good anymore? Some people are, would you sound like old men? Which one is it?Jamie Kaler:Absolutely. And I say that all the time. I'm a dinosaur. But I will say that maybe the skill nowadays is not being a standup comic, but being a social media manipulator. And I mean that it's always been the skill. People used to hire publicists even back then, and I never did. And they'd be in People Magazine and I'd be like, what's the point of all that? And then as I got older, I was like, oh, fame allows you to do the jobs you want to do. That's really the trick. But I mean, to be Tom Cruise, I never wanted that because that dude can't leave his house. He can't just go to the supermarket, can't go to a park. I never wanted that. But that makes him and DiCaprio, those are the guys that are Johnny Greenlight. They get the first choice of scripts. And so they are allowed to do these amazing jobs that because how many people do you think nowadays can sell a picture?Michael Jamin:Oh, yeah. I mean, that's the whole thing. Or can open, I don't know. Do you think it's more or less, I guess I would imagine it's probably less now. I mean, because celebrities changed. What do you think?Jamie Kaler:I think the era of the movie Star is over. IMichael Jamin:Think Tom CruiseJamie Kaler:And Brad Pitt and DiCaprio, are they going to be the end of, and Damon are going to be the end of it? I mean, no. You see one of her on Netflix and it's like a TikTok, Charlie Delio. I haven't seen it. Maybe she's a wonderful actress. I don't know. But you go up through that ranks and all of a sudden you have 12 million followers or whatever, and then you could sell, I mean, it's Kardashian really was, we all gave her grief, but in retrospect, they were the smartest people in the room. They saw it coming to their credit and made a gillion dollars off of it, whether that's what you want to do with your life. But my kids kids want to start a YouTube page and a TikTok, and I'm like, she's 10. She's 10 years old. That'sMichael Jamin:Too soon.Jamie Kaler:Yeah. I mean, can everyone on earth just be, can we keep an economy running if everyone's just an influencer? I don't know.Michael Jamin:Well, there's the big question, right? If everyone's trying to, yeah, IJamie Kaler:Mean, look at what you're doing. You wrote a book, you sat down, probably took quite a while. It's a very good book. Thank you. I've read it and it's like, but the point is, almost everybody's wrote in a book now, and everybody's a standup comic and everyone's a performer. And back when I did it, it was like people were like, oh my God, you do standup. I'm would never do that. I'm terrified now. I'll be it like a supermarket. And some woman's like, some grandma's like, oh, I do stand up every Tuesday night at retirement home. And you're like, it'sMichael Jamin:Not. But I also feel like you're reinventing yourself, though. I mean, that's got to be exciting and interesting. No, orJamie Kaler:Of course it is. Of course it is. I do listen. I love doing it. And everyone else, it's a love hate relationship because I'll think of something immediately, I'll put together a little funny bit that I, it's like a standup bit or something, and then I'll be able to share it with all my fans and they will respond accordingly. And you're like, oh yeah, this actually is a pretty good, I just also think we're the learning curve. We're the first generation to go through all this.Michael Jamin:Wait, let me tell you how I hoard myself out this morning. So I wondered, because I'm posting a lot to promote my book. I'm doing a lot of lives, and I'm like, I see other people do lives, and I'm not sure what that magic is. They're cooking eggs or whatever. Are we watching this person cooking eggs? Is this right? So I'm like, all right. I told my wife, today's pushup day. So I'm like, all right, I guess maybe I'll just do pushups and people will that work. And I did pushups on live and I don't know, 20 people watched. And I was like, I felt kind of stupid about the whole thing, but people were watching, I don't know, is this what I got to do now,Jamie Kaler:Pushups, I fear it is. If that's what you want to do for a living, I think this is, if you want to be in this business, I think that's the necessity of it. To be honest, I'm not sure I would've ever signed up for this if I knew, although when I was younger, I probably would've like, Ugh, I would've been Truman shown the wholeMichael Jamin:Thing, right? But you wouldn't.Jamie Kaler:I do wonder, my kids, I think they were at their friend's house or something, and they Googled me. They told me, and they're getting to that age, and I'm like, uhoh, what did you watch? And they watched some crazy video I did where I said something stupid or whatever. And I don't know if every moment of our lives is supposed to be captured. I don't know what the answer is. I have such a love hate certain days. I wake up and I go, even this morning I was telling you I was writing a bit about something or other. And then another day I'll wake up and I go, I don't want to do any of it. I just want to go golf. And that was the beauty. I became an actor because it was the easiest thing. I worked hard to become a good actor. I took classes, worked on my craft, but I wasn't, I wasn't on 24 7 trying,Michael Jamin:Tell me if you feel this way, because if I don't, I try to post almost every day. And if I take one or two days off, that turns into three or four. You know what I'm saying? It gets easy not to do it.Jamie Kaler:Of course, of course. But do you feel guilty after those two or three days? Do you have any guilt or do you actually go, oh, what am I doing? This feels great.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it is mixed like you're saying, but a lot of it is like, this is my job. This is how you get a book out there. This is how you can, I work so hard not to work. You know what I'm saying?Jamie Kaler:I'm working harder now than I ever did when all those credits were being made. Yeah,I would bust my ass. I would get ready. And also acting is about physicality. I would make sure I was in shape. I'd work out, I'd do all this stuff, and then I would go either do an audition and then there'd be downtime, and you'd be like, all right. All right. And then you'd kind of ramp it up again. Now it's like just constant blinders on of, and then the problem also I see is the follow-up. When you performed on stage, you either got to laugh right then and there, and you moved on. But now my wife, we have long conversations on Instagram as well.Michael Jamin:What does she do? What does she do on Instagram? What does she, I don't even know what does, sheJamie Kaler:Works in the pharmaceutical industry.Michael Jamin:So why is she, oh, I think you told me. Why is she on Instagram? Oh, does she post on Instagram?Jamie Kaler:She posts, but she has her own page, and then so she's very specific about it. She'll edit and quiz me and I go, do you want to hear my, I don't care. Nobody cares. Just post it. But it's like, well, what do you think this picture or this? I go, nobody cares. What song do you think this song? Is this song saying too much about me? Or should I feel like maybe I should use it? Should it just be instrumental? I go, okay, I don't care. The trick is to post and walk away. And then people will, for the rest of the day, scroll, because it's the dopamine of like, oh, so-and-So ooh, did you know? So-and-So just like that post I put up this morning, I don't know where this ends, but I find that some days if I just do something physical where I'm digging in the garden in the backyard, it's the greatest three hours of my life where I'm like, I didn't think about anything. I don't know. I don't know where it ends, but yeah. But we're also too, get off my lawn old guys who are like, why? You might have kids,Michael Jamin:But how much time do you think you put on social media every day, either way that you're working on or thinking of working on it or whatever?Jamie Kaler:Well, so I wasn't really, I never cared. I never cared. It was just recently that I've started to make an effort during the pandemic kind of destroyed me. I stayed with two kids. I had a kindergartner and a second grader, and my wife was working 12 hours a day. We have an office in the house where she was gone. Oh, wow. We didn't see her for 12 hours a, and I think part of it, she was hiding because it was the pandemic. We also having construction done on the house, it was arguably the worst time in my life. So I was trying to maintain the kids. So I printed out schedules. I made them put their school uniforms on. I took two desks. I set them up on opposite ends of the house. They were doing it on Zoom, but one's in kindergarten and one's on second grade.So they weren't old enough to really go. I got it at nine 40. They'd be released for recess. I'd have to get them snacks at 1130. It was lunch at two 50. School ended, and then we were trying to maintain sanity. So I started this kind of parental mental health zoom at night. And obviously we were drinking extensively pandemic mental health, but drinking, it was mental health, and we were sipping hardcore and sharing horrible stories. And so it grew into this. I started this thing called the Dad Lands, and it just grew. It was just Zoom. It wasn't even a podcast or anything. And that kind of caught on. I mean, there were guys, I was like, dude, don't kill yourself. We're going to get through this thing guys. Were hanging on by a thread. And we made ourselves all feel better because we were seeing that everyone else was going through this nightmare.And that eventually grew into the Parents Lounge podcast with my other buddy who was in it. He was doing Dad Apocalypse. I was doing Dad Lands. We started a podcast. I'm not a promoter, so I really love doing the podcast. We were doing it live. You've come and done it. The parents lounge, it's super fun. It's a parental mental health night. I've kind of laid off the sauce since then, and all of a sudden it kind of grew into this thing, but we never marketed it. We would just throw it out there and then the other dude would put it up on iTunes, but we wouldn't even put a post of like, Hey, Dave Ners on this Monday. Nothing. Just threw it in the ocean, because I don't want to be a marketer. I didn't move to Hollywood to be a publicist. It's not what I do.So finally, we're at the crap or get off the pot phase of look, we have a pretty good following, considering we haven't put one ounce of work into the promotional part of it. And so finally, everyone's like, look, dude, you either have to become a promoter or you are wasting your time. You need to monetize. We could do some live gigs here and there, but all of a sudden ruffle came in, Justin ruffle was our partner in this thing. And all of a sudden everyone's like, all right, so I committed. I'm committing to trying like you with a book where I feel like we have a really great product. How do we get people to see it? And you're like, this is the way to do it. So we went out and I enjoy stuff like this where we have conversations and we get in depth on stuff. But as far as just constantly putting up a story with a link to the podcast to do this and stuff, well,Michael Jamin:That you can outsource, that's easy. We'reJamie Kaler:Outsourcing it. And so we finally started outsourcing it, and I hadn't outsourced it at all, but it's like I equate it to the Gold Rush. It's like the people who really got rich during the Gold Rush where Levi Strauss and Woolworth and the guys who sold the Pickaxes. So at some point, I should become the outsource guy or something. But yeah.Michael Jamin:Do you see, okay, what are your aspirations with the show? What would you like it to become, if anything?Jamie Kaler:So I love doing the show. I would love a strong following where we've kind of branched off to do other stuff. But honestly, live shows. We have done a few and we're starting to book more. And then to monetize it to a degree, once you start putting all the work into it, you're like, well, maybe we should at least see something. But theMichael Jamin:Live show, you have to produce, you got to bring in equipment mics, you've got to mix it. No, justJamie Kaler:Literally as comics, we show up. I can't tell you the last time I soundcheck, ohMichael Jamin:Wait, wait,Jamie Kaler:We're doing the podcast live. You're talking about, but we do it as here's the beauty of what we do. We're already standups. That was a headline in comic touring the country. I did Montreal Comedy Festival. I've been on late night tv. So for me, that's the easy part. When I used to do standup, it was never about the show. It was more I would peek out and go, is anybody here? And the smartest guys on earth were s, Agora Rogan, Cher Joe, coy, who not only were great comics, but they were also really good at marketing themselves. And so those guys were doing mailing lists for 30 years and building, and I wasn't. I would go sets went great, crush it, and then go have a couple cocktails at the bar. I didn't have kids either. I didn't really care about trying to blow it up. So it was never about the show. It was about getting eyes on it. And I feel like that's where we're at now. We have such a strong, every time we go do it, we crush live. And the question is, how do we get other parents and people to go? This would be a great show to come to. That's really the marketing part of it.Michael Jamin:The tour as Right? Is it all, so it's improv or is it scripted, or what is theJamie Kaler:Show? We have acts, I have two albums on iTunes.Michael Jamin:Oh, okay. So it's a comedy show show.Jamie Kaler:It's a standup comedy show that the Skis is a podcast, really. And we would bring our guests with us, maybe we talked about having Lemi and Heffernan come out and do the podcast live with those guys, but it would be billed as the parents lounge live with these special guests. But it's really a standup show for the audience with under the guise of a podcast. And we have bits and we would do improvisational stuff set up and questions with the audience, for the guests and for everybody else. But we just did, and we did it in Sara, Pennsylvania in the fall. And it was like two hours of just, I'm not even sure I touched that much of my material. We were, we were riffing hard, but we always had the material to step back on. It's like that's my favorite is you have these tracks, but you get off the tracks, you fool around. And if all of a sudden it starts to lag a little bit, you go, all right, here's some bits and then bring 'em back in.Michael Jamin:You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Today's episode is brought to you by my new book, A Paper Orchestra, A collection of True Stories. John Mayer says, it's fantastic. It's multi timal. It runs all levels of the pyramid at the same time. His knockout punches are stinging, sincerity. And Kirks Review says, those who appreciate the power of simple stories to tell us about human nature or who are bewitched by a storyteller who has mastered his craft, will find a delightful collection of vignettes, a lovely anthology that strikes a perfect balance between humor and poignancy. So my podcast is not advertiser supported. I'm not running ads here. So if you'd like to support me or the podcast, come check out my book, go get an ebook or a paperback, or if you really want to treat yourself, check out the audio book. Go to michael jamin.com/book. And now back to our show.I mean, I don't know. I see people doing it online. I'd be doing exactly what you're saying. They take their podcast on the road and somehow, how do you think they're selling tickets though?Jamie Kaler:Because their followings are so strong that people, a lot of times also, I see these shows, and to me, the shows, I go, there's no show here. It's just this guy showed up. It's basically a two hour meet and greet. But honestly, that's what some people love. They don't even care. They just want to be in the same room. The guy will tell a couple stories, they'll play some bits on, they'll play bits on a screen and make it a show and they'll record the podcast live. But people are so enthralled by people chatting, I really missed my window. It really was my strong suit back in the day of just riffing and going along with stuff and being in the moment and chatting. But podcasts wasn't happening. And at the time when podcasts started, I was like, are we going back to radio? Why would people listen to podcasts? I was shocked. And yet offMichael Jamin:They were. But your brand is, you're trying to aim it towards parents or men dads, is that right?Jamie Kaler:Well, it's all parents and no, we've toured with moms. We usually take out moms. We've had Tammy Pesca, Kira svi on the show, Betsy Stover. We just had Nicole Birch. I mean, I think you need a mom's point of view. So when we do live shows, we typically bring out a mom as well with us.Michael Jamin:But you're talking, but is the focus basically on kids and parenting?Jamie Kaler:It is to a degree. But I also, sometimes we'll watch some of those shows and it's like sometimes parents don't want to talk about kids, so we kind of go where we go, and it's about life. The whole thing was trying to get people to understand that you see Instagram and you think your life. You're like, why isn't my life like that? The point of our podcast is really to go, nobody's life like that, dude. I mean, when's the last time you met someone who just was not absolutely full of shit? Have you met anybody who's not just full of shit? Anyone? Well,Michael Jamin:The thing is, especially in Hollywood, a lot of people were trying to hype themselves up. And I discovered early on, this is 30 years ago, that was the people who were talking most about their career really had nothing going on. And the people who didn't talk about it, they didn't talk about specifically, they didn't want people to hit 'em up for a job.Jamie Kaler:Know what I'm saying? And I said that exact 0.2 days ago, I was talking to Lori Kmar and she was just saying the same when I got here, if you were the one who were like, look at me, look at me. People were like, that guy's a loser.It was almost, and then all of a sudden, humble, I blame it on humble brag, humble brag. Do you remember hashtag Humble brag? That was the first one where people, it's really just a brag. You see humble, but you're really just bragging. But back in the day, I remember doing Friends and Will and Grace, and it was big. It was big. And I really didn't tell anybody. People would come in and talk to me and go, dude, were you weren't friends last night. And I was like, I was. And they go, why wouldn't you tell us? And I go, it seems dirty. I felt dirty bragging about what I was doing. But nowadays, if you're not constantly brag, brag, brag, brag, brag. People are like, well, I guess he doesn't have anything to promote.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I remember even just people, I'm in the business, they'll say, so humble to accept this. I'm so humbled to accept this award, whatever, where they might've been in sales or whatever. It's like, but you're using the word humbled wrong. That's not what humbled humble means. You're literally bragging.Jamie Kaler:I feel that way every time when I'm acting and the director goes and cut, that was perfect. We're going to do it again. And I go, you're using the word perfect improperly. Perfect means there's nothing better. I think that's exactly the meaning of perfect. And you're not using it correctly. I knowMichael Jamin:One of the things that I always get, this is my pet peeve about being a writer. You'll turn in a draft of a pilot you've been working on for months, and you just turn it in and then they'll say, great. We're setting up a notes call for Wednesday. Isn't it possible you love it? You know, don't like it? You already know there's something you want change. It's likeJamie Kaler:You didn't even read the title and you're like, I have notes.Michael Jamin:I have notes. Of course you do.Jamie Kaler:Well, listen, if they didn't have notes, they wouldn't have a job. And so I think they're like, well, I mean, we have to find something wrong with this thing. They would get the screenplay for the sting and go, I mean, does the guy have to have a limp? I don't get the Robert Shaw limp. It's like, dude, can you just go, this is pretty great. And also you're not a writer. It's not what you do.Michael Jamin:It's hard to, now you're killing me.Jamie Kaler:I did a show one time, I won't say the name of the show, but I did a show. It didn't go anywhere, but my character is a car salesman. I see these two guys come into the showroom and I want to sell them a car, and I think they're gay, so I pretend to be gay. This is of course, back in the time when I guess you could do that without being canceled. So I act gay to them to get them to buy the car, and we're going to be friends and stuff. And at the end of the episode, my character then kisses a woman who's another salesperson as the reveal. He's not gay. He was doing it to do that, whatever. So all week, all week, the studio execs keep coming over and they go, dude, you got to gay it up. You got to amp it up. We are not getting the joke. You have to play this extremely gay. And then they would walk away and the showrunner would walk over and go, dude, I want you to play it dead straight. I don't want you to play gay whatsoever. So after every take two people kept coming over, giving me completely opposite notes, and I didn't know who.Michael Jamin:Wait, I a little, go ahead, finish your story because I want toJamie Kaler:Jump on it. So I'm in the middle. I'm doing it. I'm not pleasing either of them, right? I'm right in the middle of guess, maybe a little after. I don't know. And I have played gay characters numerous times in tv, and usually I don't do anything. It doesn't have to be that way. And so I would play it dead straight. And so the show goes, it's a train wreck of a week. I'm just getting eviscerated on both sides of like, I'm not pleasing anybody because I'm trying to ride the line in the middle of between these 2 180 degree notes, whatever. It's a train wreck. We finished the shoot, I'm miserable. I run into the showrunner maybe three months later and he tells me, oh, he goes, Hey, just so you know, when you do watch it, we were running long for time. So we cut the tag.I go, you mean the reveal where I kissed the woman? He goes, yeah, we ran out of time and we cut it. I go, then everything I did up to that moment has no justification whatsoever. I goes, this is the craziest thing. He goes, I know. He goes, what are you going to do? It's tv. I go, all right, whatever. And I moved on and I was like, couldn't care less. But you're like, again, art, you wrote something. Your brain had this beautiful story you wanted to unfold. And then commerce and everybody has to prove that they're part of the mix and they can't be hands on.Michael Jamin:I'm very surprised that you got notes directly from a studio executive. That's inappropriate. They're supposed to go through the director. IJamie Kaler:Thought the exact same thing. And people, it's not how it worked. They came right up to me. Oh, I've had that many times. I've had studio people talk to me all the time. Yeah, well, also, I wasn't a star. I was a guest.Michael Jamin:Yeah, but still you're not, first of all, the DGA can file a grievance over that if they were to complain the DGA, I think that's part of the thing. But here's how I would've, if I were you, this is what I would've done. I would've done one take over the top and one place straight. Okay, I'm going to do two different takes, two different. And you decide later which one you want to use.Jamie Kaler:I think I did do that to some degree. I don't think I said it out loud about you have fun and edit, and also you as a guest star. It's the greatest job, but it's also the worst job. It is. These people have been locked and loaded. I did friends the week I did it, they were on the cover of Rolling Stone. They'd been burned in the press when they spoke. They weren't outwardly mean to me, but they also weren't like, Hey, welcome to the, they spoke to each other in hushed tones away from, and I didn't blame them. They couldn't go to a supermarket. They were just famous beyond belief. But the set was tense, super tense because a lot riding, not a lot of money on this thing. The shoot was eight hours long after four, they got rid of the first audience, brought a whole nother audience in, and you start to watch the sausage get made and you're like, this is supposed to be fun and comedy, but sometimes these things are super tense.Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah. So interesting. Do you have any experiences that were great sets that you love working on?Jamie Kaler:So many and listen, even that set the cast was great and friends was great. It was here was the greatest thing about doing friends, or even honestly Will and Grace. I watched Will and Grace, I watched the four of them. Dude, they were a machine combined with the writing staff and Jim Burrows directing. It was like a masterclass, the four of them. And they would rewrite on the fly, they'd do one take and almost rewrite the entire scene. And then you would, they'd go, Jamie, here's your new lines. And I did six episodes over the years and each time I went back it was like, you better bring your A game. Because they would change the whole scene. And they go, so you enter here now you say this and then he's going to say this and you're going to go and you're playing spinning at the four of them. Man, they were honestly maybe the best cast I've ever seen. Really. It was like a Marks Brothers. They just were so perfect in their timing. It was pretty impressive.Michael Jamin:I had Max Nik on my podcast a few weeks ago talking the showrunner. The funny thing is I was touring colleges with my daughter years ago, not that long ago, whatever. We were touring Emerson. And the tour guy goes, oh, and this is the Max Munic building. He goes, anyone know who he is? I'm like, max gave you a building. Yeah. Does anyone know who he is?Jamie Kaler:They were both great. And again, I was overwhelmed because I was so new. And my very first one, gene Wilder, played the boss. I'm the dick in Will's law firm, and I had only done a sitcom or two. And then I got Will and Grace out of nowhere on a crazy afternoon. It was supposed to be another big name guy. And he fell out at the last second. And I got cast and was shooting in the morning and I was terrified. And then I show up in Gene Wilders playing my boss, and I had to do a scene with Willy Wonka. I was like,Michael Jamin:No kidding.Jamie Kaler:By the way, I didn't start acting until I was 30. I was a Navy lieutenant.Michael Jamin:Oh,Jamie Kaler:Really? I was the US Navy. Yeah. That's why I played cops a lot. I was a Navy lieutenant. I got out at like 28. I hung around San Diego. Bartended had fun.Michael Jamin:Why did you get it so early? I think you're supposed to stay in forever and get a great pension.Jamie Kaler:Oh my God. It's like I'm talking to my father. My father banged me. I still have the letters. He and I wrote back and forth where I told him I was getting out and he was so pissedMichael Jamin:BecauseJamie Kaler:He was a pilot. My dad flew in World War ii, my brother was an admiral, and I got out to become an actor, and my father was just furious.Michael Jamin:Whatcha doing? You can one time.Jamie Kaler:Then I booked Jag. One of my first TV shows was, well actually my first show was Renegade with Lorenzo Alamas and Bobby Six Killer though, whatever his name is.Michael Jamin:I know I'm jumping around, but did you know Kevin and Steve before you got booked on? Yes. Yes you did. From whatJamie Kaler:I had done, we bumped into each other once a couple times doing standup. I was doing Thema or something, and then I forget how it's all blurry. I did their podcast, chewing it, and then just kind of hit it off with them. And then they came and did mine. And you talk about sets My boys was my greatest four years of my life. It was just, I met my wife, I bought a house. I was on a billboard on Times Square. We traveled the world. We shot on Wrigley Field in Chicago. I mean, it was glorious. Because of that, I started a headline clubs. It was just this like, oh, here we go. And it wasn't until Tacoma FD where I was on a set where, oh, people came early, people stayed late. You were almost going. It was like it brought you back. A kid being going to theater camp, going, well, here, I'm making a show. But again, as you know, it goes by the eps and number one on the call sheet and that dictates the tenor of the show tone. And they wereMichael Jamin:Both the same. Yeah,Jamie Kaler:Yeah. And those guys, that sets a family, literally everybody. And that's why you also have to be really careful. You can't say anything because everybody's related to everybody and they're all friends. And then Soder came and played Wolf Boykins. And I will tell you, I was super, I love those guys. But there's also a little jealousy of, I've always been a team sport guy. I love Sketch probably more than I like standup because there was something about being on stage with other humans and this chemistry. And then you would get off stage and you're like, can you believe how great that just went? There was this, when you would do standup, it's just you. And when you walk off stage, if you bomb or you crush, you own it. But when you are with a group, I love the group dynamics. Interesting to those guys credit the whole broken lizard.I wish I had the state. I'm jealous of those guys a little bit. Kids in the hall, when I first got out, I had an improv group in San Diego and we ended up doing, we got on the front page. I had been out of the Navy like a year. It was in this crazy improv troop, had no idea what I was doing. And there was three other dudes in it. And the comedy club, the improv, started to hire us to be the feature act. And we would get up. We had no mic, so we'd kind of eat it and then the headliner would come out and go, what the blank was that jackasses? And then do his standup act. But I always wanted that group. You have a comedy partner, you write, you partner. I like that more than the solitary thing. And honestly, to go back to the podcast really quickly, the parents lounge, we didn't have a team.We had no team. And so it wasn't until I brought Phil Hudson and Kevin Lewandowski and then Justin Ruppel and his guy Taylor. And all of a sudden I had a group of people behind me who were like, Hey man, this is a really great product. Let's go. So I guess I'm just a team guy. And when I got to that set at Tacoma fd, I'm so sad it's gone because I just, that and my boys are probably the two highlights of my career, really, personally of joy, of going to work, not feeling pressure like Man Will and Grace. It was fun. It was invigorating, it was exciting, scary. It's a little scary, man. You're like a lot of money. There's a huge audience. There's superstars who are making a million dollars a week. I'd leave the table read and go, that dude just walked with 200 k Monday.Thank you. Monday, 200 K what it must be, same on basketball teams where it's like LeBron James and then that dude from Australia. There's a dynamic there where you're like, yeah, you're not flying home in a jet, my friend. I am. It was weird. So Tacoma fd, those guys never once ever made you feel bad about trying stuff, doing a take where you just explore and you could be funny and you let it rip. I equate it back to Seinfeld. I don't know what it was like on the set, but Seinfeld was one of the few shows where they let the guest stars actually get sometimes bigger laughs than the main cast, which I always find in shows to be the true genius of a show where everyone's there, it's a play. Let it rip. I've been on shows where they, I'll blow it up. I was on the seventies show and I had a couple scenes, and I played this goofy guy with a wig on or whatever, and crushed. I mean, I was a nerd. I was a comic book nerd. Huge laughs. And they took me aside and were like, Hey man, just so you know, you will never get a bigger laugh than the main cast,So you might want to tone it down or we're going to be here all day shooting. And I go, really? And they go, I thought they were joking. And they were like, nah. Yeah. Wow. I probably shouldn't say I'm the worst too. I'll burn myself to say stuff. Well, it's interesting. This business is crazy, man. And you sit there and you think we're just making comedy, but people are,Michael Jamin:Yeah, some people are like that.Jamie Kaler:Yeah. People get their feelings hurt. Those little memos where it's like, don't look so and so in the eye. And you think they're joking. They're not joking.Michael Jamin:You've gotten those memos.Jamie Kaler:I haven't personally. Well, I worked on some big movies where it was like, but I also am not the crazy person who walks up to Christian Bale on Vice and goes, Hey man, dark Knight. Huh? You crushedMichael Jamin:It.Jamie Kaler:I sat next to Christian Bale for a day shooting and he was Dick Cheney unrecognizable. By theMichael Jamin:Way, this guy might be theJamie Kaler:Greatest actor who's ever lived. And he leaned over and he was so nice. Everyone was super kind, but he was nice to meet you. And he talked like Dick Cheney. He goes, nice to meet you. I'm Christian. I go, it's nice to meet you too. But I'm kind of laid back and I try not to, but other people will walk up to Bruce Willis on a set some extra and be like, Hey man, can you read my screenplay? And you're like, dude, read the room. What are you doing?Michael Jamin:What are you doing? What are you doing? PeopleJamie Kaler:Are crazy. That's the problem. And crazy people are drawn to this business. So yeah, I mean, if I was Tom Cruise, I might be the guy who look, just keep everyone away from me. I'm trying to get my job done here.Michael Jamin:Well, you know what though? I mean, I was working in Paramount doing a show and they were shooting, I guess some scenes from Mission Impossible. And he had his trailer, Tom Cruise had his trailer, a giant trailer, and then he had a whole tunnel that he would walk through from his trailer to go to the sound stage because he didn't want people in on the lot looking at him when he walked to the set or bothering him, I don't know. Which I thought was very strange. I was like, but we're all even on Paramount in the business. I guess were bothering would harass him. I'm like, Jesus, this is supposed to be a set studioJamie Kaler:People. And it's even worse now. You go to a broad, remember when people dressed up to go to Vegas? I remember going to Vegas in the eighties and nineties and we brought a sport coat right now it's like cargo shorts, flip flops and beer hat or something. And you're like, there's just no decorum anymore. And people are so, and they're trained by their videos that they can yell and do whatever they want. People go to Broadway shows and just yell out and you're like, what are you doing, man? It's a plane. WhatchaMichael Jamin:Yeah? What are you doing? PeopleJamie Kaler:Are horrible. I know when people, I always laugh when people are like, no, I think deep down people are good. Some, I would argue a good hunk not no have no manners.Michael Jamin:That's probably a remnant from social media where they feel like they can just comment and be mean because they're anonymous, I guess.Jamie Kaler:Well, I think the good thing about social media is that everyone can have their opinion heard. But the worst thing about social media is that everyone can have their opinion heard. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Jamie Kaler:I love when people like they're uneducated. They've never left their small town America. And they're like, no, no, I am 100% certain this is a fact. And you're like,Michael Jamin:Yeah,Jamie Kaler:When's the last time anyone has said you've raised some really strong points. I'm going to rethink my position.Michael Jamin:When you do see that, it always stands out to me. It's like, wow, look at you and humble. It does stand out. We'll doJamie Kaler:That. Listen, we're all guilty of it. Even just recently, my wife said something to me, I can't remember exactly what it was, and I think your spouse is the one who can really cut you to the bone. And she said something and I was like, what do you know? And then later I thought about it and I was like, no, she's right. I have been, oh, here's what she said. Here's what she said, something about a post I had. And she said, you just come off angry. And I said, no, no. I'm a comic. I'm pretending to be angry. And I think I went back and I watched the Post and it reminded me back to early on at Acme Comedy Theater, I had this sketch where I was with woman and we were on a date, and it was very Jerry Lewis props humor where I kept getting hurt.I kept getting hurt. The window smashes in my hand, it ends by me lighting a candle and I actually lit my arm on fire and then would roll it out as the lights came down or whatever, and it crushed. It did so well. And one night it just absolutely bombed, just bombed. And I kept pushing harder and harder and it was bombing, and I got off stage and I talked to the director and I was like, dude, terrible audience. Tonight goes, no, no. He goes, your problem was you didn't play frustrated, you played and it didn't work. And I go, what a specific note. And I've always thought about that because me personally with my angular features, you have to go with what you look like as well. And if I play frustrated, I'm super funny, but if I play angry, I come off angry. And so she was right and I had to go. I think maybe in life everybody needs a director because you forget. It's really hard to self-direct yourself because you get lost in these megaphones of your own things that you're like, no, no, I'm on track. This is going great. Instead of going, I wonder how the outside world perceives me.Michael Jamin:That's exactly right. Yeah. When I recorded the audio book for my book, I needed to be directed. Even though I direct, I don't know how I'm coming off. Yeah, I mean that's actually probably the most profound thing I've heard today. Well, the day just started, but everyone needs to have a director.Jamie Kaler:Yeah, it is kind of crazy. Yeah, it's weird because we also get caught up in our own, listen, I will say the world is, and I know I'm an older cat and I look back at simpler time. I don't want to be that guy. I was like, it was easier, but it was easier. I equate it to even crosswalks lately when you were younger, if you were going to take that right turn and the dude was crossing the crosswalk, everyone would make eye contact and they'd hold their hand up and then they might even jog a couple steps to go like, no, no, we're in this together. We're a team. No. And nowadays I go, dude, are you trying to get hit by a car? You didn't even look up? Didn't even look up deliberately, and it feels like you're slowing your walk down. It's so odd what's happening. But I do think, listen, back in the day, people used to, if you were in front of somebody's house and you were waiting for them, you'd pull your car over and slide it up, maybe a few cars up. Now they just put it right in the middle of the street, hit their hazard lights and just wait. And you'll be behind them and they go, I don't care. I don't even know why they sell cars with rear view mirrors. They should just get rid of it. No one's looking behind them. Nobody cares about anybodyMichael Jamin:Else. That's so interesting. Yeah, I mean, you're right about that lot people crossing the, I always think that, boy, you really are trusting of me. You really trust me not to hit you with my car. Jesus. Isn't thatJamie Kaler:Crazy?Michael Jamin:Yeah, sure you get a payday, but I might kill you.Jamie Kaler:I think it was safer back then too because you knew, listen back in those days, you knew to be off the road between 10:00 PM and 2:00 AM when everyone was drunk. Right. You knew it and everyone was like, oh, drunk driving was terrible. Nowadays, 10:00 AM yesterday morning the dude next to me getting high on his phone, so now it's like twenty four seven. That's why I can't believe people, I never crossed the street without making eye contact and going, dude, are you on your phone or are you going to hit me?Michael Jamin:Yeah, you got to look for yourself.Jamie Kaler:Exactly. But again, I'm old, so what do I know? It is weird trying to teach my kids and I mean, we've talked because your kid's a little older, but trying to impart knowledge of the world to them to be aware of their surroundings. I always say they're probably years from now, they'll go, like my father always said, read the court. You got to have full court vision. I see it in cars. My wife will be behind one car and I'll go, you can't see that three cars up. That dude stopped. You are changing lanes. I'm looking five cars ahead.Michael Jamin:ButJamie Kaler:People nowadays, it's just this one little, they just keep their heads down and you're like, pick your head up, man. But people don't.Michael Jamin:Yeah, be careful. I need to know. So I want to know business right now I'm jumping around, but business is still slow for you in terms of acting gigs because from what I see, they're not shooting a lot. Is that what you were seeing?Jamie Kaler:That is true, and I've had a handful of amazing auditions lately. Oh, you have? Okay. So yeah, a ton. Not a ton, but here's the dilemma is they're all self-tapes, right? And I'm pretty good at self-tapes. You can see there's the lights behind me. There's a curtain right above me that comes down, and then I shoot it that way and they're pretty great. And I'm again about trying to be directed. I've asked my agents and my managers and been like, Hey, am I self taping these? Right? And they're like, dude, your self tapes are solid, but even there's no feedback. And I do think back in the day, I got a lot of jobs because I was great in the room. I was probably better in the room than I was as an actor. You could take it. I would get hired because a lot of acting is chemistry, and you want to see that the person you're working with is going to be cool and able to hang and alsoMichael Jamin:Take a note. Can you take a note?Jamie Kaler:It's so funny you say that, dude. So lately I was, for a while I was just putting the one take on where I was like, this is how I see this part. But this one I had the other day, it was so good, dude. It was handsome. Adjacent was the breakdown, which I was like, all right, because I've always been, I'm lumberjack good looks. I'm like, I know I've walked into rooms, I've seen Brad Pitt in a room, and I've been like, yeah, that's beautiful. I'm a little al dente. That guy is so gorgeous. I'm on the cover of a paper towel roll. I get it. I know. I'm Portland. I'm Portland. I'm a Portland 10. Portland. I'm a Portland nine maybe. So it's handsome adjacent, early fifties jerk cop. I go, dude, this should be offer only. Why am I reading for this?Michael Jamin:Right?Jamie Kaler:So I did the first take. I submitted one where I was like, more Tacoma fd, I was. I go, well, maybe that's why I got in here. They know me from that. And then I was going to just submit that one and I said, you know what? Because you can't go in a room, dude, the casting directors are so good that I've had the pleasure to work with Wendy O'Brien who did that one is one of my faves. She'll give you notes that will kind of give you a nuanced performance where you're going, oh, I see the change. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Because hard. And so I did a totally separate take. I had a friend over here and I did another take that was so the opposite extreme of he wasn't big at all. He was very underplayed in tone. And when I sent them in, my agent said, he goes really great that you did two separate takes.And I said to him, it's a new show. I've never seen it. I don't know what the tone is. There's no direction. You're literally reading this hoping that your take jives with the guys who are going to hopefully see this tape or not. I don't know. And I also submitted it. The audition came out on Monday. It was due Thursday. I memorized it submitted on Tuesday. The other thing they tell you, they go early, bird gets the worms. So the business has changed so much. You're working really hard to pump these things out, but you're like, is anyone seeing any of it? It would be nice if somebody once just called and was like, Hey man, you're not getting it, but I got to tell you, you did a really good job, man. You what you get in a room or if sometimes you don't, sometimes. Yeah.Michael Jamin:So interesting. The life of an actor. So what is left for you as you wrap up, what is left for you today? What does your day look like today, an average day for you?Jamie Kaler:So we are relaunching the podcast. We have an advertiser that's just come on board. We are currently on Buzzsprout, but we're going to jump to megaphone and we're actually, we're still doing the live ones on Tuesday nights 7:00 PM Pacific Time. It's on right now. It's everywhere. Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube, it goes out live. We're going to slowly bring that back in and we are jumping to Patreon. So come find us. The parents lounge on Patreon, and then we are, so we're doing all the marketing right now, and then I'm still working with the same guys you work with who have been eyeopening. It's like a master's class in this business of social media about getting people on. Because again, I feel like we have a really solid product that people not onl

On November 18th, I hosted a webinar called "How Professional Screenwriters Create Great Characters", where I talked about how to come up with interesting and unique characters, as well as how tapping into your everyday life interactions with people can help with this. This episode addresses questions you asked in our Q&A session that we didn't have time to answer. There's lots of great info here, make sure you watch.Show NotesA Paper Orchestra on Website: - https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: - https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: - https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:And why are we rooting for him? We're rooting for this meek man who's going to die soon to make some money for his family, but also to feel like he's alive for the first time in his life because he's just lived this very meek existence. And so that's why we're rooting for him. That's why we like him. And when he makes mistakes, he may go off track, but we hope he comes back. We're still rooting for him. You are listening to What The Hell Is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase and to support me on this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show. Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin and you're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, today we're doing another q and a from II's free writing webinars, and there's a lot of questions that people had. We couldn't answer 'em all on the end. We ran out of time, and so we're going to address 'em here. But this episode, Phil, I'm here with Phil Hudson.Phil Hudson:What up, Phil?Michael Jamin:Today's episode is brought to you by a paper orchestra, which is my collection of personal essays. It's David Saris meets Neil Simon on sale on my website, michael jamin.com, or you can find it anywhere. Books are sold, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, apple Books, all those places. Go get it. Go check it out. It's a fun read. Yeah. Okay.Phil Hudson:Worth checking out all the versions though too. I was just listening to the audio book and we talked about this in your episode about the book itself, but the music cues and the intros, very well done. Very well produced. You're also telling me about, thank you, Phil, how hellacious of a process it was to do itMichael Jamin:ToPhil Hudson:The quality you like.Michael Jamin:Yes. Because you only get to put it out once, but yeah. But thank you. So Phil got the audio book, but it's available ebook and print as well, however you consume your written materials. Love it. Alright, Phil, we got some questions. Enough about me. Let's ask me some questions.Phil Hudson:Yeah, let's talk to you some more about you. This is from the November 18th webinar. These are like you said, q and A stuff, and the topic of this webinar was how professional screenwriters create great characters. This was, I think, a first run on this topic. You hadn't done this topic before.Michael Jamin:It could be. Yeah, this was a good one. Yeah, this turned out to be a good one I thought.Phil Hudson:I think so too. We can tell, there's some metrics we can tell in terms of how long people stay, questions that are asked, how long it goes. And I was going to say too, we didn't get to these questions because typically when we first started doing this almost a year ago, February will be a year doing these. It was like 30 minutes of lesson and then it was a bunch of q and a and that has transitioned into about 45 minutes of lesson and then a little bit of q and a where we can get it. And then we even have VIPQ and A now where you can just pay a small fee to join for an hour after and you just talk to people on Zoom and they get to go live and ask you questions and some really, really good questions being asked in that. So if you're interested in attending these webinars, go to michael jamin.com/webinar where you can sign up for that. But then you can also sign up on that page to get into the VIP. If you want to ask Michael directly a question that you have if youMichael Jamin:Can't get to it. So to be clear, the webinars are always free, and if you want to spend extra time with me, that costs you something. But I should also say right now it seems like we have four that we're going to have a rotation, but we may keep adding different topics, but right now we have four good ones, so if you missed it, just sign up and maybe we'll do it again. CorrectPhil Hudson:Me if I'm wrong, but I think some of the topics you've come up with have come from the q and a that you do on these topics. How do I overcome? Writer's block are like, I'm really struggling with a character or development. So they kind of incept the idea of like, okay, here's a topic we should go down. So lots of great value there. Alright, well again, just for housekeeping, we do split these up into topics. So we have kind of general topics. We have craft breaking in questions related to your course or the webinar topic and then miscellaneous. So we're going to start with K Craft. I think again, people want to know how to do the job, which I think is helpful.Michael Jamin:Yes.Phil Hudson:So Chad, Chad Siime or cme, I don't know how to pronounce that. Sorry, Chad,Michael Jamin:He doesn't, doesn't know either.Phil Hudson:He probably's probably making it up. Was it like Ari, one of the writers in Taco, they pronounced their name. It was changed at one point.Michael Jamin:Yeah, he says his own name wrong. Poor guy.Phil Hudson:I know someone who was a Heinrich and then when World War II happened, they changed it to Heinrich, Henrik Henrich because they didn't want to be associated.Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah.Phil Hudson:There you go. Chad asked, do you have examples of writers who have successfully experimented with story structure? What principles did they stick to and where did they deviate?Michael Jamin:I don't really know. I mean, I don't really know if I have a good answer to that. Every time I watch something I go, oh, it falls into the good. I guess there's some really high level writing. Christopher Nolan. Okay. So I would say many of his movies do not fit what I would teach, like Memento, but Forget or Inception. I don't know how many times I've watched it and I still don't understand it. So it's a great movie though.Phil Hudson:Yeah. But I would say that I can see that clearly the writing structure in those.Michael Jamin:You can. Okay.Phil Hudson:Oh yeah, you're definitely an inception too. It's like how do we get on this journey and how are we making decisions and where this stakes, all that stuff. I think it's all,Michael Jamin:A lot of it playing at the timeline, memento when he's playing with it. I don't even know what year it's supposed toPhil Hudson:Be. You're right. But I wonder if that's, it's all there and it's just been split to change and mess with your head a bit, but it's all there, which is why it resonates with people.Michael Jamin:But I guess my advice is like, listen, if you want to operate at the high level, that's great, but let's just get to the professional level first before you become the masterPhil Hudson:Level. And Christopher Nolan's a great example of that because he had made a feature before he did Memento, so he had a full feature. He was making short films all the time in film school before he even started experimenting with timelines and things like that. Yeah, okay. Listen to me just arguing. Michael jamin on his own podcast.Michael Jamin:What do I know? You might bePhil Hudson:Right, maybe my head did get big. Kevin and Steve. Alright, Marianne wants to know, you have such a great understanding of human nature. Was there something you've always been good at or did you develop it as a writer?Michael Jamin:No, I didn't. I have a very low emotional iq. My parents are great people, well, great parents, but terrible, low emotional IQs themselves just because that's the household they grew up in. And so it's not a knock on them, it's just like this is the product of your parents. This is how they communicate. And so a lot of this I learned I gained from my wife just from being with her. And then the rest of it, of course, I learned as I became, I became a writer because that's your job as a writer is to really understand people and to get into their shoes. And one of the, it's so funny, I've spoken about this in the past, but my first writing teacher was a guy who really wanted everyone to be in psychoanalysis. That's what he called it because he was so old. They don't even call it like that anymore.It's psychotherapy. But he thought every writer has to be in psychoanalysis because if you don't understand yourself, how could you possibly understand someone else and you or a character? And I think he's absolutely right. I didn't want to believe he was right, but he is right. If you don't understand yourself, and most people do not, and we know this because they go through life unconscious of the people of the damage they're leaving, of the people they're hurting because they're just not even aware of it. And you see it all the time. You could see it on social media, people saying really mean things. It's like you might even be a good person, but why would you put that in print? What is wrong with you that you would say that? What part of yourself is so wounded that you think you need to say this in writing? And so I appreciate the compliment, but everyone else, I'm a work in progress and I think writing definitely has helped me.Phil Hudson:Yeah, that's great. Albert Klein wants to know, and this is again contextual here. These are people who are live chatting questions throughout this episode or this webinar. But I said relatability is key in full caps. I think where you're talking about with the characters. Do these characters need to be relatable? Do I need to understand who they'reMichael Jamin:Yeah, and it's the same thing with Tony Soprano. How do we relate to a mobster? I don't, and he's probably a sociopath as well, but what we can relate is the fact that we know what it's like to be a boss. Maybe you know what it's like to be a boss, to have people undermining you, your underlings. And he certainly had those problems. We know what it's like to be a father and to have children that are rebellious or whatever. That's the part we relate to with, so we don't relate to the part where he's going to wax somebody because he's late with the whatever. But we do relate to this other issues, which isPhil Hudson:Anxiety, the stress and family life. His psychotic mother.Michael Jamin:And that's what the show is about. It's not aboutPhil Hudson:Crazy. He deals with his in-laws too. Joey Pants, I think is his brother-in-Law or something, right?Michael Jamin:I don't remember whatPhil Hudson:He was. Yeah. Anyway, it's all relatable because it is just a heightened version of what go through. Yeah,Michael Jamin:His job is a little more interesting than our job, but it's all, that's not what it's about. It's not about the mafia, it's about the emotions that we all relate to.Phil Hudson:Great answer. Reik vid. So do you find the anti-hero more interesting than a traditional hero?Michael Jamin:Anti-hero is not even a term I use. I don't know. I think everyone, your hero has to be likable. I don't know. I can't even say I've lost interest. If your character is so unlikable, I don't really care what happens to him or her. I am out. So this notion of anti-hero, I don't even think of your writing that way. You have a hero. I think anti-heroes is one of these terms that, I dunno, expert writers will tell you it's an anti-hero. What?Phil Hudson:Yeah, people say that. People have said that the whole time since I've said I've wanted to study screenwriting or be a writer publicly said, oh, I'll describe what I like. Oh, you like an anti-hero? Batman's an anti-hero. And I was like, why? He's not goody hoo Superman. You've described him. He is a deeply wounded person who is using every resource he has, all of his willpower to stop other people from suffering.Michael Jamin:And how is he, I mean, we were on his side. He's complicated, but we're on his side. We're rooting for him. If we're not, we got a problem.Phil Hudson:Alright. What about Walter WhiteMichael Jamin:Breaking back? Yeah. What about Walter White? So that's a great, is he an anti-hero? I don't know. Who cares? To me, he's a guy who's dying in the pilot episode. He's dying, he's a teacher, so he doesn't have any money. What is he going to leave his family when he's gone? He's got to come up with money fast. And the only way he knows how to do that fast is by capitalizing on his skillset, which is he's a chemistry teacher so he can make meth in a lab. Does that make him an anti-hero? To me, he's just a hero.Phil Hudson:He's a person. And then you find out that he gave up tremendous wealth because that was like, he had that partnership at that company where he had the ability to adjust multimillions of dollars and he's a public school chemistry teacher. So it's those layers of decisions and regret. It's exploring the human condition. Definitely justMichael Jamin:And why are we rooting for him? We're rooting for this meek man who's going to die soon to make some money for his family, but also to feel like he's alive for the first time in his life because he's just this very meek existence. And so that's why we're rooting for him. That's why we like him. And when he makes mistakes, he may go off track, but we hope he comes back. We're still rooting for him.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Great. Chad, back again. Chad, how deep should someone go in developing a film or television character knowing that the director actor in the show's evolution will shape their personality?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, you should go deep enough to get their interest so that they want to buy your work or work with you. But just know that's the thing about film. The minute you sign up for a film or you sell your film, the director's in charge, they're the boss. It's their movie. They might fire you. They're going to probably hire five other writers to rewrite the hell out of you. You may not even get screen credit because that'll be arbitrated by the Writer's Guild. Which writer did the most work on it? And so you should do as much possible as work possible to entice people to get on board your project. But once they get on board, you're out. Except in tv, it's a little different tv. The writer is the boss, not the director.Phil Hudson:And the actor needs to play that role. Right? You've got to entice them with your writing. And then good for you, man, congratulations. You can cry about it and wipe your tears with a hundred dollars bills,Michael Jamin:Right? Or write something. Write a book. If you're so protective, then do it your way. Write a bookPhil Hudson:Like me.Michael Jamin:Listen, like me, a paper orchestra available @michaeljamin.com or Amazon or Barnes and Nobles or Apple Books or anywhere books are found. And now back to our show film. Excellent Commercial Break.Phil Hudson:KU Ghana. I'm so sorry. I did not get that right. How would you go about creating a character who is far removed from your life, for example, based on a myth or legend? And it seems like there's a two-parter here, so maybe addressMichael Jamin:That one. How would I go about, well, what's the second part maybe? Or is it so unrelatedPhil Hudson:And advice for generating side characters, how to get the balance right between, so,Michael Jamin:Oh, that part. I could teach in the course, the side characters, but how do I go about creating characters that are, what was the first that were mythical or something?Phil Hudson:If you have characters are so far removed from who you are, and I'm assuming this is the job or the thing they do not necessarily the difference in who they are saying myth or legendary heroes.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, I would say try to do some research if you're not modeling it after someone, if a psychopath get to know them and try to figure out steal from them or a family member or someone. And if you don't, then it's on you to do a lot of research. Then you're going to have to get books on people who you want to be authentic. You don't want to, that's part of your job is the research part.Phil Hudson:Yeah,Michael Jamin:I prefer to steal, I prefer to steal from people. I know.Phil Hudson:There you go. That's why all of his crazy characters are named Phil Hudson. I couldn't figure it out. But this ties back to David s goer's comment about the Man of Steel movie that he wrote and he asked, what's the theme? He's like, it's about fathers and it's like Superman has an Earth father, but he has this other father and it's literally dealing with your father relationships. And then the second one is about mothers, and it's Batman and Superman dealing with this. Both of their mothers are Martha and they're struggling. And so there's this balance even of, we all know what it's like. You can even jump to Iron Man and Civil War when they're fighting and he's fighting. He finds out this other character killed his mom and Captain America is trying to stop him. And he goes, he killed my mom. And he's like, you can't be mad at Iron Man for wanting to fight this guy who's been his ally because he killed his mom. Even if the guy doesn't remember doing it, he kills your mom. So that's all super heightened, super superhero things. But what I'm trying to get to is there's humanity in every character and your life experience mining your life for stories like Michael teaches. That's how you do that.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Okay. Kim wants to know what about inner conflict, like being raised strictly religiously and discovering the joys of secular humanism and the transition from the medieval mindset to Renaissance?Michael Jamin:Well, you're probably a better person to answer than me.Phil Hudson:So this feels very specific to a type of story that they're writing.But when we talk about internal conflict, this is something I struggle with because as someone who's religious and been raised religious, I'm not anti-religious. I'm still very active in my faith and there are a lot of people who are very interested in what it means to be a Mormon, to be a latter day saint. I've struggled with how to approach that type of story. You've been telling me to write that for a long time, and I've struggled because I don't want to be preachy and I don't want to tear down my faith. And then I did find a balance and that balance is, let me just take a step back and look at all of the characters that I grew up with in this secular religion and what is so intriguing about the mommy blogger, the multilevel marketer, the jock has been who's now a real estate or the guy who went on to sell summer sales and has so much money but zero personality and then puts some interesting character struggling with their faith in the middle of that so you can exploreMichael Jamin:Because these are all characters that you grew up with in your faith,Phil Hudson:TheMichael Jamin:Multilevel, all of these people. Do you think Mormonism has something? Do you think there's a trait in Mormonism that applies to m multilevel marketing or something?Phil Hudson:I do, yeah. There's no better networked religion I think than the LDS faith. You, everything's divided geographically. You have 10 congregations that are geographically divided in what we call a stake. Then you have wards, which is literally a term to define a geographical area. So your neighbors all go to church with you, you do this, you know everybody, you know their name, you're encouraged to know their families and look after them and take care of them. And this is like pioneer heritage. This is a religion that was chased out of city after city, A Mormon extermination order made it legal to kill us in Missouri. And it wasn't appealed until the 1960s or seventies. They circle the wagons mentality of pilgrims or pioneers and they still treat it that way. And so present yourself nicely taken to an extreme is have perfect teeth. Go to the gym for three hours a day, wear nice clothes, live above your means, keep up with the Joneses. Really. It's like I totally see that I didn't grow up in that type of familyMichael Jamin:In that room. That's interesting to me. See, but you feel like if you were to writePhil Hudson:That you'd be caring? No, now I'm saying I know how to do that and I do know how to explore it because I'm not making fun of the religion necessarily or my theology. I am doing something that has always been interesting. It's the hypocrisy,Michael Jamin:The hypocrisy,Phil Hudson:The hypocrisy of it. And there's a lot of that. It's befriend everybody, but don't play with those kids. They don't go to church. Oh, I see. Interesting. If Jesus said we should love our neighbor as ourselves, then why are we not playing with the kid who's just moved here from South Dakota? So there's all those things. So what I would say advice is you need to look at what is interesting and what's your personal feelings about those things. And I left Utah because I didn't like necessarily the culture. It wasn't about the religion that was prominent there. It was the culture of the people, and that is something I have a lot of opinion about. So why am I not writing about that?Michael Jamin:Yeah, right. Good,Phil Hudson:Good. You'll be getting a draft within the next month or so fromMichael Jamin:Michael. Good. Send it along. You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Today's episode is brought to you by my new book, A paper Orchestra, A collection of True Stories. John Mayer says, it's fantastic. It's multi timal. It runs all levels of the pyramid at the same time. His knockout punches are stinging, sincerity, and Kirker view says those who appreciate the power of simple stories to tell us about human nature or who are bewitched by a storyteller who has mastered his craft will find a delightful collection of vignettes, a lovely anthology that strikes a perfect balance between humor and poignancy. So my podcast is not advertiser supported. I'm not running ads here. So if you'd like to support me or the podcast, come check out my book, go get an ebook or a paperback or if you really want to treat yourself, check out the audio book. Go to michael jamin.com/book and now back to our show.Phil Hudson:John wants to know, so if you choose the worst person to go on a journey, does that mean you came up with a scenario or premise or actual journey first? This goes back to in this episode or this webinar, you said it's not about finding the perfect character, it's finding the Yeah. And then I want to let people watch that webinar so they can get this thing here.Michael Jamin:Yeah. The question basically is which comes first character or the story? And to me it's the story. If most people say, oh, well I'm writing a movie about a guy, whatever comes back from the war with post-traumatic stress syndrome and now have to integrate into the real world, okay, that's the story. So now you have to go, who's the character? What's the best character for that story? Was he a seal, a navy seal or was he one of these accountant pencil pushers? He might've been a grill cook or something and I didn't sign up for this, and now he's coming back to the railroad with PTSD because the bomb went off or something. So that might be more interesting than a seal. I don't know. But you came up with a story first.Phil Hudson:Oh, can you imagine? You have legitimate PTSD and there's stories from even World War ii. It's like things are bad when the chef is loading their pistol. When the cook is loading it, they advance so far across the line that the cooking staff are now preparing to defend themselves. That's a problem. So you imagine that guy comes back and he's in a support group and he's like, yeah, I'm just struggling. And people are talking about, well, we dropped in, we night roped fast, roped in at night to get this guy and an IED went off and this guy is like, well, yeah, our position was overrun. I was like, and what did you do? I was like, I was a cook, and it diminishes your PTSD, but it shouldn't. But it's like That's fascinating.Michael Jamin:Yeah, you may go into the army because you want to become a dentist and the army will pay you to become, learn how to become a dentist, but you're not signing up to carry a pistol. You're signing up to drill teeth and somehow if you got PTSD, like you're saying, your base was overrun or a bomb went up or whatever, this is not what I signed up for and that might be interesting.Phil Hudson:Very interesting. I want to see that story. Yeah. Four eyes concepts. Can a non-human character be relatable?Michael Jamin:Can a non-human character be relatable? Well, they should be relatable. We watch the movie cars, it's about cars, but they're not, not cars. They're people who drawn to look like cars. I mean,Phil Hudson:We talked about data, data from Star Trek, right?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Everything should be, no one wants to care about a car.Phil Hudson:Wally.Michael Jamin:Wally. Exactly. All those arePhil Hudson:Short circuitMichael Jamin:Smurfs. Yeah, they're people justPhil Hudson:Drunk. Johnny five is alive, man.Michael Jamin:Yeah, so they're not cars or toys. They're people.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Awesome. So it's a craft section. Let's talk questions related to the topic and course Jim Garcia wants to know, how would you approach a true story? Someone they just got the ip, so that sounds like they've optioned it for a CIA badass who did badass things. Would you focus on areas of his life where he isn't such a badass? His complicated backstory?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah, right. To me, it's much more interesting to write about someone's weaknesses than it is to write about their strengths. And so yeah, that's exactly right. What's his problems? What are his weaknesses? That's what I would write about.Phil Hudson:Yeah. What was that movie you told me to review with Bob Odenkirk where he was like, oh,Michael Jamin:What was it called again? I likedPhil Hudson:It. I can see the poster getting punched. Yeah, it'll come to me in a second. But that was an example of someone who just seems like a normal regular paper pusher and then you find out he's got this rich backstory, but it's him struggling to get back there. He's not good at it at first. He's like getting his butt kicked.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I like that movie.Phil Hudson:Yeah. The name will come to me in a second. TJ wants to know when does a scene end or when should you end a scene is probably a better question.Michael Jamin:I teach this in a course in bit greater detail, but the scene ends when the character's attitude is no longer the same as it was at the beginning of the scene. And that's when the scene is over. When the character, so for example, well, I got to think now, I won't put it on the spot. I can't think of a, but it is basically a character will get some piece of information and they go, oh, I got to go apologize to her. Or, oh, that does it. I got to rob a bank. It's like now their attitude has shifted. It's slightly different. It was in the beginning, and this is a mistake that most new writers make, is like the scenes continues long after the character. They're continuing to write, even though the scene ended 10 minutes ago. So when the character's attitude is different, has shifted, you're seen is over.Phil Hudson:Yeah. That's great. Refi wants to know, is story structure pretty much the same worldwide with the exception of cultural differences?Michael Jamin:I believe so. What differences difference does the language make? And to be honest, I am interested in stories from other cultures because look, we all have love. Love doesn't change from culture to culture. This culture, you may have a range marriage and this culture, you don't have a range marriage and this culture, a marriage ceremony might look different than this culture's marriage ceremony, but love is love and so you're just writing about the same thing. And I appreciate the window into your world because you have a different culture, but we're all humans. We all share the same human emotions, and so that's where people get hung up. It's like, no. Yeah, it's the same. We're all the same.Phil Hudson:Yeah. I met this kid here who's from Iran here in Los Angeles, and we were chatting and I had the opportunity in film school and at Sundance to catch several Iranian films by this Iranian filmmaker and a couple of his cohorts, and he was so impressed by that because I was able to talk about the story structure of these films. And what's interesting is how they have to navigate the politics of a government that funds everything, but also censors everything and how you have to use show, don't tell, and speaking indirectly to get across your message that kind of is political and anti-government, but have the government fund it and think you're doing good work for them. The other, but it's story is what connects and carries through. And the other great film everyone should check out from 2013 is called The Lunchbox, and it's this beautiful film I saw at Sundance and it ties in culture so beautifully to how we approach story. I would absolutely check that one out. David wants to know how can you add to the skeleton of a good character if you have the basis for a compelling character story, but you feel you need to add more to make your character real?Michael Jamin:Yeah. One of the things I have in the course is a whole worksheet. It's a chart that you need to GamePhil Hudson:Changer.Michael Jamin:Yeah. It's a chart so that you have to fill out a bunch of questions that you have to ask yourself about this character and filling out this chart will really help you flesh out your character in a way you couldn't even imagine. And then there's other characters in this chart, and then you have to say, okay, how does this characteristic, Matt? How do these characters interact? That's another question. And so all of that, if you're really interested, go sign up for my course@michaeljamin.com/course.Phil Hudson:Yeah. You quickly learn that you're painting all of your characters to be mirrors of each other because you want to talk about that thing, and then it highlights how you can make all of those interactions more beautiful and more interesting, more conflict to just really improve your story. You got that from somebody. Do you want to say who you got that from?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I learned that from Steve Levitan who I worked under. Just shoot me. So much of the knowledge that I teach in this course is just from sitting at the feet of writers who are more experienced than I was.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Do you have your notebook? I don't know if you want to show to peopleMichael Jamin:Every once in a while we take this down,Phil Hudson:So this is something we bring up in the webinars, often even give away a free PDF based on this notebook called the insider's guide to terminology, but that's your notes in your career writing, just writing stuff down from conversations, right?Michael Jamin:Yeah, exactly. I would work with other writers and they'd say something smart and I jot into my notebook, and then when I made the course a couple years ago, I just referred to my notebook. I go, this is what I want to teach.Phil Hudson:Yeah, it's awesome. This is Christina in our course, and this isn't really a question, but Kevin, who prepped this for me, left it in says in Michael's course, I learned how to figure out once and for all those act breaks that were a real headache for me before story structure is so well explained. It becomes much easier after. Yeah. She'sMichael Jamin:Had a good lot of success. Christina,Phil Hudson:She doing well. I was about to say she's taken her life mind for all these rich stories, and she's written, I think books and then now plays and those plays are being performed and touring. SoMichael Jamin:NotPhil Hudson:Bad. She credits you for helping her figure out how to break the story, but you didn't tell her what life to live and her experience or how to paint the story. You said this is how you tell your story, and she did that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Good for her.Phil Hudson:Awesome. We have one question on breaking in. This is from new legend pictures. I've been wondering about writing for a foreign audience. For example, I'd like to write something in the vein of Korean dramas. I know there's probably no way to break it into the US market.Michael Jamin:Writing a Korean drama.Phil Hudson:Yeah, just writing for other things, specifically a Korean drama.Michael Jamin:Well, are they Korean or are they American? IPhil Hudson:Sounds immediate. It's because this is a foreign audience. Sounds to me like this is someone who really enjoys Korean dramas and wants to take a stab at writing one.Michael Jamin:Oh, I see. I don't know anything about KoreanPhil Hudson:Drama. I think you were just saying, is that worth doing to try to break in? Is that a good sample?Michael Jamin:I would assume if that's your culture and you can write something, like I said, you can write a story that it could be, I could have a window into your culture. That's interesting to me to see what that's about, but at the end of the day, you still experience love the way I do. It's the same. Sure. If that's your culture, right, and you understand the Korean culture better than because you're Korean. Yeah. Lean into it.Phil Hudson:Lean into it. What if you're not Korean and you just like ca dramas,Michael Jamin:Then you're in dangerous territory. Someone might say, what do you know you're talking about? Or people might have a problem with you. I don't want to debate whether it's right or wrong, but you make run into trouble with that.Phil Hudson:Yeah. I would think that if you want to just write it to get it out of your system and it helps you improve your craft, great. But be tread lightly. Right. Next. Do most shows have, this is the same person, do most shows have each episode have their own full story arc? Or is it the whole season or the series or both?Michael Jamin:Well, every episode has to have a complete story, and then you may have a longer a story arc. This character is going back to college for the first time, but that one episode has to feel fulfilling. It has to feel like, yeah. Okay. And that there has to be a story in that episode. If it's not a complete story, people are going to be bored by it. And then the next episode, you're taking that journey a little further, but this is a question whether you want to serialize or your project or not. But again, you don't need to worry about any of this. You need to write one complete compelling episode of television. You don't need to worry about seasons, episodes two through 10. Just give me one damn good episode. Give me the pilot. That's all I need.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Ruth wants to know, say your agent is into a spec script, but you want to pursue it, can you try to pitch it yourself? How bound are you to what your agent wants?Michael Jamin:I wonder if they're talking about me or themselves.Phil Hudson:I think what they're saying is like, Hey, I have an agent and I've got the spec script. It's a film and my agent says he's not into it. Can I go pitch it myself or do I have to listen to my agent?Michael Jamin:No, you can do whatever you want. I, but I don't expect your agent to help you with that. If you want to go for it, they can't stop you go for it. I mean, the agent's trying to help you, and if they feel like they're helping you, they're going to give you their best advice. But if you don't want to take it, don't take it.Phil Hudson:Yeah. I was listening to an interview with Dead Mouse, and he said that there was a track that he wasn't really into, and his tour manager was like, dude, this is great. You got to drop it. And he didn't want to do it. And for months and months he didn't. And they kept tour manager kept saying, when are you going to drop it? And he ran out of stuff. He dropped it. It's his biggest hit. Sometimes you don't even know what is good for you, but Vice First is sometimes other people don't know what's good for you, and it's all risks, risk and reward. William, go for it. David Cook is Amadeus. Amadeus is I think something that came up in the webinar.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I love that movie.Phil Hudson:Yeah. My wife's favorite film. I think I told you she wants me to name one of our kids, Wolfgang. And I was like, no. And you're like, I might be on her side.Michael Jamin:Wolfie.Phil Hudson:That's what she wants to call him. She wants to name Wolfgang to call him Wolfie, which I think just whatever is Amadeus a story about an extraordinary person in an ordinary world or about Salie, an ordinary person in the extraordinary world of Amadeus.Michael Jamin:That's so interesting. It really is a story within a story, and you keep popping back out to Salieri in present time. Why did he go mad? Because, so yeah, it's a story within a story. There's really two stories. You're watching Solis descent into Madness because he killed this beautiful creature. Why did he do it? Yeah. So who's the hero of that?Phil Hudson:Well, it's called Amadeus.Michael Jamin:It is called Amadeus. Yeah,Phil Hudson:Right. So this is like Sicario. Did you ever see Sicario?Michael Jamin:I did,Phil Hudson:Yeah. So who is it about? Is it about Emily Blunt or is it about Benicio Del Toro and I think it wasn't until I got about three quarters of the way through, I was like, oh, we started on Emily Blunt, but that is not the protagonist.Michael Jamin:It's really just a framing device. The soli part of it. Who's got 90% of the screen time? Amadeus.Phil Hudson:Yep. Alright. Marla wants to know hat on a hat. New favorite saying, do you want to tell people what that is?Michael Jamin:We often say when you refer to a joke, sometimes you put a punchline on top of the punchline. And so we say it's a hat on a hat, ifPhil Hudson:You like that come to the webinar where we can give out that book based on the free ebook based on Michael's notebook, insider Guide to Writing terminology.Michael Jamin:Yeah. There's a bunch of terms that we give away. If you want to learn what they are, come to these webinars and we give 'em away.Phil Hudson:Yeah, everybody gets that for just coming. So I had an eye hat, new favorite. If you base a character on someone in your life or someone in your life recognizes themselves in your writing, can they sue you?Michael Jamin:I don't know. I don't give legal advice, but I'll say you're protected. If you change their name, I would assume you can change their name, you could change their occupation, you could hide who they are. And if they were to come out, they're essentially calling themselves out. Why would they be dumb enough to do that? But I'm not worried about it, but I don't give legal advice. So yeah,Phil Hudson:I think that the person that will need to worry about that is the studio that buys it, and it becomes so wildly successful. That person has a financial incentive to sue you. I don't think it's necessarily something you need to worry about on a spec.Michael Jamin:I would hope not. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Ruth, w what criteria do you consider when taking a job? Early in your career, you worked for both Steve Levitan and Greg Daniels, but then you didn't work on Modern Family or The Office. WhyMichael Jamin:Fired? Oh, fired. Fired. I wasn't offered jobs on Fired. Fired, offered fired. I wasn't offered jobs on those, but I mean, I also had a job. So when Modern Family came out that season, I remember actually meeting with Steve and my partner and I already had a job on, we were running a show called Glen Martin, so it wasn't even like we were trying to get that job. I don't remember what the office was doing, but I'm sure I also had, I've worked every year, I'm sure I also had a job at the time. So a lot of times, and by the way, I've missed out on opportunities, I've missed out on shows that were really big simply because I already had a job and when the show, it's not like this show was going to be a giant hit. You don't know this. Even a great show could be a flop.Phil Hudson:And Glen Martin, that was the first time show running right for you. And C, itMichael Jamin:Was the first time show running, and I was very happy to be running a show. I was like, oh, good. I've never done it before. So it was exciting and I'm glad I did it, but I would've made a lot more money had I been on Modern Family for sure.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Follow up question. When you get to a higher level of writer, say co-producer, do you still need to submit a script to the showrunner or is hiring based on your interview and past EV work you've done?Michael Jamin:Oh no. You almost always, you have to be read. You need a writing sample, and it has to be a current writing sample, and it has to be good. You're never done writing for free in Hollywood. You're always writing.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Derek Nyberg. What if the audience can't differentiate between fiction and reality and carries those powerful story themes into the voting booth? Does this explain why the worst of all possible characters are now elected officials walking around the Capitol building in Washington? Does this explain society's addiction to conflict?Michael Jamin:I don't think the two have anything to do with each other. Just to be clear, I think you're giving us way too much credit that the characters we create somehow become political figures. IPhil Hudson:Think that's like asking, was Shakespeare's success with Caesar, with Julius Caesar or with King Richard III or any of these other things he'd done, was that successful because he wrote them as story and then that led to other people being crazy? Or is it because he was writing about the reality of these people? Life imitates art imitates life, whereas it'sMichael Jamin:Chicken cat. Yeah, it goes in both directions. But basically you take a show like the one Julie Louis Red come on talking about the political, sorry, beep Veep. Yes. Yeah, sorry. That show would not have been made if there already weren't people in politics acting like jackasses because you wouldn't believe you couldn't sell the show. You'd be like, I don't buy that. Any elected official could be that fricking stupid, but because it was already out there, you see it now, you can sell a show on it. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Yeah. That's great. Alright, and this is a comment, not a question, but I thought this was a good way to end this. Braves wants to know, I'm an aspiring screenwriter from India, and the knowledge you share on your Instagram helped me get my first internship. Always look forward to developing my skillset further. Thank you.Michael Jamin:Oh, good for you. Congratulations.Phil Hudson:And that's someone who's not only in your social media, but the webinars, and that's a reminder to everybody to come to the webinars. They're free. We do them very regularly, and there's always something to learn in those.Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's it. This is a short one, but thank you everyone. Thanks for listening once again. This episode's brought to you by a paper orchestra, my debut collection of personal essays available. You can get on Amazon, you can get anywhere you want. Barnes and Nobles ApplePhil Hudson:Sign copies@michaeljamin.com.Michael Jamin:If you want, get it from me directly, I'll sign it for you. And that's it, Michael. Yeah, thank you so much everyone. Thank you. Thank you for your questions.Phil Hudson:Until next time,Michael Jamin:Keep reading,Phil Hudson:Keep reading. Keep readingMichael Jamin:My book. Read the book. Okay, everyone,Wow. I did it again. Another fantastic episode of What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? How do I do it week after week? Well, I don't do it with advertiser supported money. I tell you how I do it. I do it with my book. If you'd like to support the show, if you'd like to support me, go check out my new book, A Paper Orchestra. It asks the question, what if it's the smallest, almost forgotten moments that are the ones that shape us most? Laura Sanoma says, good storytelling also leads us to ourselves, our memories, our beliefs, personal and powerful. I love the Journey. And Max Munic, who was on my show says, as the father of daughters, I found Michael's understanding of parenting and the human condition to be spot on. This book is a fantastic read. Go check it out for yourself. Go to michael jamin.com/book. Thank you all and stay tuned. More. Great stuff coming next week.

On this week's episode, I have Writer/Executive Producer, Jonathan Collier (Bones, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Monk, and many many more) and we dive into the origins of his career. We also talk about his side hustle and how that came about! Tune in as we have so much more.Show NotesJonathan Collier on X: https://twitter.com/collierjonathan Jonathan Collier IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0171927/Jonathan Collier on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_CollierA Paper Orchestra on Website: - https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: - https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: - https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptJonathan Collier:It was after season eight, and I thought they were trying to get me to go to King of the Hill, and I had whatever, I had the chance to stay at Simpson's. And I thought, well, there's no way it goes past season 10.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Or any show goes past season 10.Jonathan Collier:It just doesn't happen. And so I left. I thought, I kind of felt badly leaving, but I thought, what's much better? Do you want to show with some like in itMichael Jamin:You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase. And to support me in this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.All right, everyone, welcome back to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? My next guest is an old colleague of mine, old friend from my days on King of the Hill before I let him talk his name's John Coly or welcome to the show, but let me tell you what he's done. The Sky's credits are pretty incredible. So you sit back and relax. Lemme tell you what he's done. So he wrote on The Simpsons. Okay, we've heard of that show and I'm only giving some of the highlights, some of the highlights, some Scooby dos, which I did not know. King of the Hill Monk, the Good Family Bones, the Good Cop Law and Order. I mean, this guy has done well. He's done a lot. But thank you so much, man, for doing the show.Jonathan Collier:Oh, it's a pleasure, Michael. Thank you for having me.Michael Jamin:Let me tell you about who you are because I remember very clearly walking to my, on my way to my office on King of the Hill. Yours was, I would always walk past you and I would often stop and say hello. Or sometimes I would just sit and you always had a big smile. You're always so happy to greet me and have me there. And I never felt like I was getting in the way you Yeah, come on in. Come on. You're always very kind.Jonathan Collier:I am endlessly in search of distractions.Michael Jamin:Well, I do remember walking past you on days when you're on script and just looking miserable. IJonathan Collier:Am. Thank you. Nope, that's exactly it. Well observed. I am never more miserable than I am alone in writing.Michael Jamin:But why is that? Do you feel?Jonathan Collier:Oh, it's a horrible thing to do. TV writing is one of the most fun, engaging, productive things you can do if you're with other people. And I love that part of it. And the small portion of the job that relies on you being alone entails, I should say, you being alone and actually writing something without people around is misery for me.Michael Jamin:But is it the comedy part? You also do drama now? Which one is harder?Jonathan Collier:Comedy is harder.Michael Jamin:Okay. But yeah, I would agree with that as well. But is it miserable to write drama as well?Jonathan Collier:I find the process of keeping stuff alive and interesting and propulsive is really, really hard.Michael Jamin:And how do know? You know when it's alive?Jonathan Collier:What, sorry?Michael Jamin:How do you know?Jonathan Collier:How do I know when it's right?Michael Jamin:Yeah. How do you know?Jonathan Collier:Part of what makes it so miserable is you can always second guess yourself. And even more so when there's jokes involved.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, for jokes for sure. And what was that transition like for you? I'm amazed that anyone can do it.Jonathan Collier:Oh, I got very lucky. What happened was that King of the Hill was, we got canceled. You remember? It was time. The show got canceled. It was canceled two times.Michael Jamin:We left after the first time.Jonathan Collier:Yeah, left. So it got canceled. And I really realized it was for real when they started moving our furniture out of the officeMichael Jamin:Because you were going to squat there.Jonathan Collier:I had every intention of squatting.Michael Jamin:You thought it was all Big bluff until they moved at the furniture.Jonathan Collier:And so that was happening. And I had done comedy for about 17 years at that point. And I didn't love doing for camera comedy. I liked doing animation and there were no real single camera comics, comedies on the air at the time, and I didn't quite know what to do, but I knew I stopped watching comedies. I kind of could feel the sweat on them and the work on them because I worked in so many comedy rooms. And I got really lucky, which is that Andy Breckman, who was running Monk at the time, who created the show, he used to have three guest writers come in every season. And he did that because he felt like he kept him on track. If you came in as a guest to the room in New York, it made him concentrate and work harder and make sure that in five days you would break a story.Michael Jamin:Why? Because people flew in, you mean?Jonathan Collier:Yeah, because the network would fly, the studio would fly you into New York and put you up and they would only keep you there for five days.Michael Jamin:Okay, that's interesting.Jonathan Collier:I got one of those. So I got one of those guest shots. And the other thing I got way I got lucky wasMichael Jamin:Wait, but how did you get that guest shot?Jonathan Collier:I got that guest shot because this is embarrassing. My agent at the time who I didn't think was doing enough for me, got me a meeting with Andy Breckman, and I thought it was just one meeting with Andy Breckman, who's a great guy, and I love the show, but who knows if it's going to turn into anything. I fired my agent, moved on to another agent, and then Andy called me up and said, oh, we want you to do this episode a month.Michael Jamin:Right.Jonathan Collier:But there was no,Michael Jamin:But I've already fired my agent.Jonathan Collier:That was done. What happened was that, anyway, Andy used to only hire comedy writers to do guest episodes.Michael Jamin:Why?Jonathan Collier:Because his theory was that he could teach a comedy writer how to write a procedural. He could not teach a procedural writer how to be fun. So anyway, they flew into New York, I was in the room, we broke a story and I wrote it and it went well. The whole thing went well, and I got very lucky again because no one had ever really left the show or been added to it. This was the fourth season and one writer was leaving and Andy offered me the job. So I came in and went on staff the next season.Michael Jamin:How many seasons did you do there?Jonathan Collier:I did two more seasons and then the writer's strike of 2007 happened. And when that happened, I didn't know how long that would go on. Mike and the Good Family was starting up and they got what was called a strike waiver, and there were certain production companies and one was MRC, media Rights Capital, and they made a deal with the WGA, with the Writers Guild that they could do shows that were during the strike and it would not be strike breaking to work on those shows if they agreed to abide by the Wgas terms, the writer's terms. The WGA was using that as a tactic to try to force the studios to,Michael Jamin:And it's funny, they didn't really do that this last strike.Jonathan Collier:No, I don't think it really helped.Michael Jamin:You don't think it helped?Jonathan Collier:I don't know if it did or actually, no, I can't say if it did or not. I thought all I can say is I think this last strike was better run than the first one. I think a lot was learned from the first one. Anyway, I left Monk because I got a job right away rather than being strike.Michael Jamin:Right. Let me ask you that. When you're on Monk and you are with procedural writers who are not comedy writers, when they would pitch something that you and I would call a clam, or if you would pitch it in the room at the Simpson, the King of the Hill, someone would say, right? Was there a lot of that going on? Were you the guy who said, yeah, that's not really a joke?Jonathan Collier:Well, no. At Mon though, you had, first of all, it was comedy writers. It was a small staff and it was four people whose background was comedy, including Andy Breckman, and then one High Conrad, who was just a terrific mystery writer. And he had written something like 200 mystery books. Oh,Michael Jamin:Wow.Jonathan Collier:And the way he got on was that Andy met with him and took him out for lunch and said, look, I love your mystery books, and you have two choices. One is you come on staff or two was I'm just going to steal all your plots anyway.Michael Jamin:Oh wow.Jonathan Collier:Hi was on whatever came on staff, and he was on UNK for the whole run. And then he was on The Good Cop with Me Too. It was on, that was another Andy Breckman show.Michael Jamin:Right. It's so interesting. And to what did you think of that world? I mean, compared to comedy?Jonathan Collier:Well, it was a really kind of easy, delicate transition because it was a mystery show once again, written by comedy writers.Michael Jamin:Writers. It was light. It was fun.Jonathan Collier:Yeah. A procedural written by non-com writers would've been a tougher adjustment for me.Michael Jamin:But even the procedural explain to me and everyone else, how do you write a procedural?Jonathan Collier:I think there's many different ways to write a procedural. The way I write a procedural is what really happened comes first.Michael Jamin:What really happens comes first. What does that mean?Jonathan Collier:Okay. What you have to think of is what was our crime? What's the procedure about? What are we investigating?Michael Jamin:Okay, so give me an example.Jonathan Collier:It's not a medical procedural. This is a criminal procedural. I'm talkingMichael Jamin:About, okay, so someone's dead,Jonathan Collier:Someone is dead. And then you have all sorts of questions you can ask that can form the basis for an episode. You can say, oh, is it an accident? Is it a suicide? Is it a murder? If it is a murder, or who did it? Why did they do it? Who could have done it? There any number of, is it an open book where the audience knows what happened? Is it a closed book where the audience doesn't know and learns along with our investigators?Michael Jamin:Did you basically do both?Jonathan Collier:Monk did both opened and closed book. And Monk also did a combination of who done, its who was the killer, why done, its, we know who the killer is, but why on earth would they kill someone? And that's how we can prove they did it. And how done its, it's an incredibly, it's a locked room mystery, for instance, where someone was killed inside the locked room, how did the killer get in there and doMichael Jamin:It? Interesting. HadJonathan Collier:To figure out how the crime was done.Michael Jamin:And so these words are so funny. So as you were breaking the story, you'd break 'em in the room with all the writers, I assume, right? And then throw out ideas, and then someone would say, okay, but let's do this, make it a wide, let's make it a wide done at this week. Is that what it is?Jonathan Collier:Well, I think we'd look at the killing and say, what's a really, really ingenious killing? We could do?Michael Jamin:Okay.Jonathan Collier:Say, okay, let's look at the motive. And then we'd say, last, you'd spend probably say you were breaking a story over the course. If it was just us, we probably spent seven to eight days breaking a story. We weren't having a guest writer in. And the first three or four days probably spent just figuring out how the crime was done and why really gettingMichael Jamin:It seems very hard to me. This seems very hard to me.Jonathan Collier:For me, it was somewhat natural way to do it because it was really fun. And for some, I feel like I was using my comedy muscles, even my plotting muscles to figure out why you did it. And then you work backwards once, and this is just us. Other shows do it different ways. There's probably a million different ways to do it.Michael Jamin:Okay. But you start work backwards. So first you decide if it's going to be a who, what or why is that what it's,Jonathan Collier:First of all, first of all, you can't figure out who kills who and why, who killed who, who kills who. How do they do it, why do they do it, where do they do it? All those things. Then you figure out how do we solve it? And for a show like Monk, he'd also say, well, I have someone who has OCD. I have someone who was painfully shy as someone who was any number of traumas in his life. Also a comic character who happens to be the saddest person on television, and he has a tragedy to his life. And what's the world I can put him in to make him the most uncomfortable?Michael Jamin:Right? And that's how you begin. That's where you start. That'sJonathan Collier:Often where, that's often where the fun of it comes from. The comedy is from seeing him in the world where he's uncomfortable, because comedy is all about discomfort. The emotional story would often come from how he will relate to the world and what it would bring up in his own life. And then the procedural story is how you solve the crime.Michael Jamin:YouJonathan Collier:Go ahead. Sorry.Michael Jamin:No, no, go ahead.Jonathan Collier:The way one could look at it is for us on that show, the procedural story was almost with the armature. It's what you would call the plot, I guess. And the real story was the emotional story that was threaded through the plot.Michael Jamin:Right, of course.Jonathan Collier:And the two of them dovetail and one comment on the other, like a musical comedy, for instance, where songs are the twists, they provide the transition points in the story. You could say the emotional twists or the procedural twists would provide a transition point for each other.Michael Jamin:It still sounds very hard to me. Does it get easier?Jonathan Collier:Well, I think it probably sounds hard because I'm probably overcomplicating it.Michael Jamin:Well, not really, because you're solving, because see, and I are thinking of writing a procedural, and so we're watching some, and I'm like, I don't know. I don't think I know how to do this.Jonathan Collier:Oh, I'll help you with it.Michael Jamin:Oh, good. You're hired.Jonathan Collier:It is not that hard because it's actually easier I found than writing an episode of King of a Hill where someone buys a new hat and it changes their life and life. You have to make a whole story out of that.Michael Jamin:Right. But you still have to figure out, it's a mystery. You're solving a crime and you have to make it so it's smart. I mean, I've watched other ones where they throw in a clue just when you need it, oh good, I dug a new clue so I can figure out another scene.Jonathan Collier:And there's shows that do that. And there's shows that I like, if you don't get a show like Merab Town,Michael Jamin:Right? I haven'tJonathan Collier:Seen it. Okay. That's real lies procedural. And what you realize is it is not about solving the crime. I mean, it's all the crime, but it is really about the emotional drama that's happening. And the crime is, once again, is almost the backdropMichael Jamin:For it. But to me, that's what makes it so that's why I want to get rid of the crime. Can we just focus on the relationship between the mother and the daughter that I get?Jonathan Collier:And the one I thought does comment on the other, and they're both of us family, and I felt like that show worked pretty well. It's very much not a show that I would know how to do.Michael Jamin:Well, and that takes me to law and your latest, but Okay, bones, and let's talk about what you're doing now. That's very different. Law and order.Jonathan Collier:Well, I'm not doing Law and Order now. I stopped after last season.Michael Jamin:Oh, you did? Okay. But that must be very procedural. I mean, procedural.Jonathan Collier:Procedural, very procedural, very different beast. I mean, it was a challenge to figure it out, but I think I'm much more comfortable in this space where there's more character involved.Michael Jamin:Yeah, right. I would thinkJonathan Collier:The part I like best is where I've been most comfortable and enjoyed the most is character driven procedurals.Michael Jamin:Right. Which is kind of like what USA does, right?Jonathan Collier:Well, back when they existed,Michael Jamin:Back when they were doing it.Jonathan Collier:So no, in other shows, there's been a lot of character-based procedurals on TV over the years, and that's what Bones was. Keone was a character-based procedural.Michael Jamin:And you were the showrunner that you were the executive producer?Jonathan Collier:I was the showrunner for a while, yes.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And that was the first time. Was that the first time you ran a show or no?Jonathan Collier:No. I've run another show on the CW called As IfMichael Jamin:Before. Oh. But this is the, I still would imagine now that you're the boss of a procedural, I don't know. I need help. So it seems so hard to me. Wellm hung up on that.Jonathan Collier:I took over a show that was already working veryMichael Jamin:Well.Jonathan Collier:Har Hansen, who created, it was a hundred yards away on the Fox lot in his office. I could always go running to him for help if I neededMichael Jamin:It. Right. And you had the same staff,Jonathan Collier:Sorry.Michael Jamin:And you had the staff, the previous same staff.Jonathan Collier:We had much of the same staff. And I had a co-Ho Runner, Michael Peterson, who was terrific. And I had Steven Nathan, who I took over the show from and only left because I was still a very close friend, and I could call him up whenever I needed to.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Jonathan Collier:I think starting from scratch is always much harder, or walking into a situation not immediately comfortable is always much harder too.Michael Jamin:But now that you've, I see this as opening a lot of doors for you. Has it? Because now you have two genres under your belt.Jonathan Collier:Yes and no. It's always hard. I mean, you have to always be out there in whatever writing. And there's a limited number of jobs that a lot of people want to do, and the people who want to do those jobs tend to be, when you think of it, just in terms of being practical, it's a great profession when you're doing it. But it's one of the stupidest professions to try to do because your competition is really smart, really talented, really talented, really inspired, really wants to do it and works really hard. There's a lot of businesses that aren't like thatMichael Jamin:You are listening to. What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Today's episode is brought to you by my new book, A Paper Orchestra, A collection of True Stories. John Mayer says, it's fantastic. It's multi timbral. It runs all levels of the pyramid at the same time. His knockout punches are stinging, sincerity, and Kirks Review says, those who appreciate the power of simple stories to tell us about human nature or who are bewitched by a storyteller who has mastered his craft, will find a delightful collection of vignettes, a lovely anthology that strikes a perfect balance between humor and poignancy. So my podcast is not advertiser supported. I'm not running ads here. So if you'd like to support me or the podcast, come check out my book. Go get an ebook or a paperback, or if you really want to treat yourself, check out the audio book. Go to michael jamin.com/book. And now back to our show.How do you know, were you in a lot of businesses?Jonathan Collier:I have a side business.Michael Jamin:What is your side business? Is it you rent folding shows for parties?Jonathan Collier:Well, no. I actually do multifamily housing.Michael Jamin:Wait. Oh, I knew about this. Right.Jonathan Collier:And believe me, my competition in multifamily housing will be damned if they want to spend 80 bucks to fix the toilet the right way.Michael Jamin:Now, do you build or you refurbish? What does that mean?Jonathan Collier:I do it with a partner who's also a writer, and we refurbish and build and rent.Michael Jamin:And Is it in LA or all over the country?Jonathan Collier:It's in Los Angeles.Michael Jamin:This is amazing. I remember, but I don't know. That's a whole different skillset. Who told you you were qualified to do that?Jonathan Collier:I think we always revert back to who we are,Michael Jamin:Which was, you were always a real estate mogul in the beginning.Jonathan Collier:Oh, I'm not a mogul by any means. We're mom and pop level of multifamily housing, but whatever. My family had small family businesses probably going back to the Middle Ages and they were butchers and bakers and ran a little in, did all those things. And that's where I immediately felt comfortable doing this.Michael Jamin:Really. Was it your idea to get into, how did that idea come up?Jonathan Collier:That came up during the 2007 strike also?Michael Jamin:Yeah, everything comes up during the strike when you're out of work.Jonathan Collier:So you're out of work, you're walking around with a picket sign. Yeah. I was thinking, wait a second. I'm walking around with a picket sign with a lot of angry, middle-aged guys. We're all mad at their fathers and taking it out in the studio.Michael Jamin:Okay,Jonathan Collier:We are at the mercy. We're putting yourself in a position where we're walking around with a sign waiting for a giant multinational corporation to pay us a lot of money to do something that we frankly love to do. And I'm not really in control of my faith here.Michael Jamin:No, we're not.Jonathan Collier:And so that's where my partner and I decided to do it. And then fortunately for us, I know what happened. I talked about it and I started talking about it with one of my daughter's, babysitters.Michael Jamin:How many babysitters does she have?Jonathan Collier:We had a hundred babysitters, a hundred best babysitters in all of LosMichael Jamin:Angeles. She required a lot of babysitters. Okay,Jonathan Collier:Whatever. When we go out, we'd have whatever, five people we call, whatever. And I've all come over at once. This woman was actually getting, I talked to her about it because while she was babysitting for us, she was getting her real estate license.Michael Jamin:Okay. Wow.Jonathan Collier:And so she called me up and said, I have a building for you, and it is a really good deal, and Washington Mutual Bank is trying to unload it really fast. This is now 2008 or so, and the whole real estate market's falling apart.Michael Jamin:And how many units is this building approximately?Jonathan Collier:This building has five units.Michael Jamin:Okay. So it's small. WeJonathan Collier:Did not know what we were doing, but we went and looked at it. We bought it.Michael Jamin:Okay. We had to make a company first. You had to do all the legal stuff.Jonathan Collier:Yeah. We formed what's called an LLC. We talked to a lawyer who was a cousin of someone, and they told us what to do.Michael Jamin:Real estate. As it turned out, a brilliant idea. It was probably the best idea you've ever had in la.Jonathan Collier:It was a very, very lucky time to do it. And so people, I found once again, like I was saying earlier, my competition in real estate was not as talented or hardworking or smart as my competition in television writing, but they were a lot luckier. And just by the strange confluence of events where interest rates went down and the economy started to pick up eventually, we all just by good fortune, by luck, it worked out well. It worked. Yeah.Michael Jamin:This is important because as you mentioned, nothing is guaranteed as a writer, nothing is guaranteed. And so to have something on the side is really helpful. Gives you some breathing. I highlyJonathan Collier:Recommend to people. I always tell whatever, when I talk to actors, I'm always thrilled when I hear that they're writing, even though they tend to be very good writers, and I don't like that. Or when they're doing something, when they're going to law school, when they're doing anything else, it's just nice to have a backup. It helps you sleep better at night.Michael Jamin:It does. Yeah, it really does. What's that?Jonathan Collier:You have your podcast.Michael Jamin:This is my empire, as you see. There youJonathan Collier:Go.Michael Jamin:Yeah. My media empire. Now, you wrote an episode of King of the Hill, because when I talk about King of the Hill, and this is 20 years ago, we were doing it. One episode people often bring up to me is Bobby is the Pygmalion episode, which you wrote.Jonathan Collier:Oh,Michael Jamin:People want to know about that. And we were just joining the show at that time. I'mJonathan Collier:Glad to hear that. I still think about that episode actually, when I said, I hate writing alone. I don't hate all of writing alone. I love the last two or three days of writing alone, punching up. I feel like face with a blank page. And once I've kind of taken a sledgehammer and beaten that script into shape, actually turning it from serviceable to good is actually fun. That part of it. And I remember the last three days or so on that script were really fun.Michael Jamin:But how did it, I mean, that was a departure. I mean, everyone there said, this is the departure. This is the episode, which ended in a really dark place.Jonathan Collier:It was a gothic thriller.Michael Jamin:How did you sell it to Greg? To the staff? I dunno if he was running the show then How did you sell? It was there. It was a departure.Jonathan Collier:Greg was there, so Greg was still there. I don't know if he was officially running the show, but he was there. Greg had to approve everything. He was basically, and Greg, God bless him. Not only did he embrace the gothic nature of it, but he pushed it even more. And some of the really strong gothic elements like killing.Michael Jamin:Yeah. The guy died at the endJonathan Collier:Who loved. I think that may have been Greg's idea.Michael Jamin:Was there a moment though, when you go, wait a minute. Are you sure that this doesn't seem like the tone of the show? I mean, it's mostly Hank watering his lawn.Jonathan Collier:Oh, no. Once we were going to do it, I was off full speed ahead. I wanted to embrace it also. Now, there were other people there at the time. It was a big staff and whatever. Everyone had valid opinions or people who did not embrace it the way that they were entitled to that. But I think we pretty much got the episode we wanted up on the screen forMichael Jamin:Sure, man. I mean, that got some big, I remember watching the Color in the animation. We watched the color in the Room. That's a big, it was like, whoa.Jonathan Collier:Yeah. There were very large twists and turns. Yeah. It is always really fun to push a genre.Michael Jamin:It isJonathan Collier:Carefully, closely observed family comedy and turned it into a large scale gothic drill.Michael Jamin:I had a conversation with Dave Krinsky. He ran the show at one point that, and the funny thing is, because people on social media, they're still watching King of the Hill. I haven't watched it since we were on it, because that's it. You leave it alone, you're onto the next show, and people really remember it. They remember it. They want to talk about it. And I'm like, I'm sorry. I don't really remember this episode. And Krinsky felt the same way, and he ran it. It's like, I don't really remember this. Do you remember everything? Oh, no. No. It's interesting that I think people have this expectation of the writers that we should still be living in it and we can't because we have to move on to whatever else we're writing.Jonathan Collier:Yeah. No, you only have so much room in yourMichael Jamin:Head. Yeah.Jonathan Collier:I mean, part of it is we're too busy hanging on every grudge and slight and moment of shame in our lives to use in our comedy.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, okay, so I know you don't have too much time, but what do you writing? What do you want to write next? Do you want to write procedural comedy? What do you want to do? IJonathan Collier:Really like the procedural space. I'm working on a procedural right now with a terrific writer who I was on bones withMichael Jamin:To sell as a pitch.Jonathan Collier:Yeah,Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. Well, that makes sense. I mean, and given your track record, I would assume it'd probably be easier for you to sell a procedural. I don't know. There, no,Jonathan Collier:I have no idea. We are in an odd market, so we'll see.Michael Jamin:What do you know about the market? I hear just from talking to other writers, I don't think anybody really know. What do you know about the market?Jonathan Collier:Oh, nothing. I know what I read in the trades. I know what I read in Deadline Hollywood.Michael Jamin:And by that you mean what's getting picked up?Jonathan Collier:Yeah, I know what everyone else knows. I have no information. I do know anecdotally, my friends at least have had trouble selling things.Michael Jamin:They're having trouble selling right now. That's what I'm telling them, because they don't know how much money they have. Yeah.Jonathan Collier:It is an inflection point in the business, and there's been periodic inflection points, whatever, where it's pointed in one direction or another, but no one really knows what they mean while you're in them.Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah. It's so, so smart about real estate. I'm still hung up on that, and I know this is not a podcast about that, but in a way it is. It's a podcast about having your fingers in many whatever it is, pots or something. Pies. What is it? I don't know what the expression is.Jonathan Collier:It is generally pies.Michael Jamin:Is it? What about a pot pie, like a chicken pot pie? It's generally pies, you said, man. So, okay. So that's kind of what you're taking out there is you're working on, and how often do you meet and do you work on it?Jonathan Collier:Oh, we meet every day really? More or less every day. I like to work for about three or four hoursMichael Jamin:In person. You meet?Jonathan Collier:No, we work on Zoom. And I don't like Zoom rooms, and I've been in some of those, but I like working with just one writer on Zoom, if you know them Well, it's fun. I mean, I found that in a regular room, and I'm sure people have told you this on your podcast and otherwise that, especially when you're No anything character based, any show, if it is not character based, the fun of it really is. And a lot of the creativity comes from what's not going on in the room. It comes from walking to lunch. It comes from Brow Cup coffee. It comes from killing time doing something else on the lot or your office. And that's when the ideas kind of come out of you. And you don't get that on Zoom.Michael Jamin:No, you don't. I wonder. Yeah. So was never Back. The rooms never got back. The last show I was on, it was still Zoom. Have you gone back in person?Jonathan Collier:No.Michael Jamin:No. Isn't that weird?Jonathan Collier:Really? I mean, I helped out, I did some punch up on a movie, and that was in person and on some punch up on an HBO series. Really? That didn't go, but that was whatever, a mini room. And those were both in person, but they were small and they were limited duration. So like a full functioning show in person. I have not done since theMichael Jamin:Pandemic. I wonder. Yeah, I wonder. They're just trying to save money. I don't think they're about saving lives. I think it's about saving money.Jonathan Collier:I think they're saving money. I think that sometimes one thing they found during Zoom is you get to writers in different cities. And so if you have writers in different cities to even the playing field, whatever, everyone's on Zoom rather than someone being in New York and someone being in Seattle and someone being in Los Angeles. But I certainly enjoy and benefit from the physical presence of other writers. It's hard enough to do it much easier and more fun when you're with other people.Michael Jamin:For me,Jonathan Collier:I have worked with writers who love being alone doing it. They have an entirely different experience and approach to it.Michael Jamin:Well, a lot of it's about the commute to work. You're probably central.Jonathan Collier:I'm fairly central, but I know people who actually, they don't want to be in a room. I've worked with wonderful writers who would much prefer to be alone and knock it out.Michael Jamin:Do you like going, working on set? Do you like being on set?Jonathan Collier:Yeah, I do. I mean, I think it depends. Every set has its own character politics, and it's not particularly fun being on set if you have a difficult lead or whatever, if there's something going on there or if there's tension between the stars or if there's, there's any number of ways you can have tension on the set. By and large, I've been very lucky. They've been good sets, and it's been fun. And also, it's the last step and whatever. One thing you realize on the set is when you spend significant time on the set, you realize how many people are really offering the show that you may have ridden,Michael Jamin:That you may have, I'm sorry, what?Jonathan Collier:Your name is on a script, but everyone on that set, hair and makeup, your whatever, your director, everyone has your camera operators. They're all helping create that show.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Jonathan Collier:Writers in their own way, and they're adding elements to it.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And I know I have to ask this because we have so many fans of The Simpsons, but what was that whole experience like for you? Because you were there in the early days?Jonathan Collier:Fairly early days. It was really, first of all, it was a huge break in my career that was good for me. I didn't have my first child until very late in my stay there. And that changed everything where suddenly, oh wait, sitting here with our comedy writers till 1130 at night might not be as energizing and fun when you have a baby to get homeMichael Jamin:ToJonathan Collier:That you want to see. So the hours were fairly brutal back then, but I still wouldn't trade it for anything.Michael Jamin:I can't imagine, though, that the hours were like that now, right?Jonathan Collier:No, they're fairly from what friends, were still there. And the hours are very sane now. And they're generally home for dinner.Michael Jamin:I mean, that's so interesting is that they've made a career that show's been on 30, what, 35 years or something?Jonathan Collier:Oh, yeah. And they can still turn out some terrific episodes,Michael Jamin:But it's a career. Your career, okay. You might as well be working at Exxon. That's your career. You get a gold watch and then that's you're done.Jonathan Collier:When I left, it was after season eight, and I thought they were trying to get me to go to King of the Hill, and I had whatever, I had the chance to stay at Simpson's. And I thought, well, there's no way it goes past season 10Michael Jamin:Or any show goes past season 10.Jonathan Collier:It just doesn't happen. And so I left. I thought I kind of felt badly leaving, but I thought, what much better do you want to show with some life in it?Michael Jamin:Yeah. But then again, it's also these people that's, they have job security, which is unheard of in Hollywood.Jonathan Collier:It is absolutely unheard of. And no, actually, that's one of the great gigs to have right now.Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah. For sure. For sure. I know you got to go. We talked about this earlier, but I want to thank you in person as we want to hang up and then briefly thank you, and then I'll let you leave.Jonathan Collier:Oh, thank you for having me. This was really fun.Michael Jamin:This is, honestly, it was so interesting catching up and just hearing your perspective on all this. And yeah, you're going to be our, if the show ever goes, you're our first hire to make a procedural. I don't know how to make, I don't know how to do any of this. Oh, thank you. Yeah.Jonathan Collier:Are we on air now or are we recordingMichael Jamin:Still? Not yet. I'll sign off and I'll stop recording. Okay. Okay, everyone, thank you so much. That was John Collier. Great guy. Okay,Jonathan Collier:Everyone. He promised me a job on air. You heard it.Michael Jamin:I did say that. Yeah, but there's always got to go. That's a bigger, so it's an empty promise. So, all right, everyone, thank you so much. Go. Yeah. A paper orchestra dropped this week, my new collection of True stories@michaeljamin.com. Go check it out. Alright, everyone, thanks so much. Until next week. Keep writing.Wow. I did it again. Another fantastic episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? How do I do it week after week? Well, I don't do it with advertiser supported money. I tell you how I do it. I do it with my book. If you'd like to support this show, if you'd like to support me, go check out my new book, A Paper Orchestra. It asks the question, what if it's the smallest, almost forgotten moments that are the ones that shape us most? Laura Sanoma says, good storytelling also leads us to ourselves, our memories, our beliefs, personal and powerful. I loved The Journey, and Max Munic, who was on my show says, as the father of daughters, I found Michael's understanding of parenting and the human condition to be spot on. This book is a fantastic read. Go check it out for yourself. Go to michael jamin.com/book. Thank you all and stay tuned. More. Great stuff coming next week.

On this week's episode, I have actress Paula Marshall (Euphoria, Walker, Gary Unmarried, and many many more) and we dive into the origins of his career. We also talk about how she dealt with being a new mom and working on a sitcom at the same time. There is so much more so make sure you tune in.Show NotesPaula Marshall on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepaulamarshall/?hl=enPaula Marshall IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005191/Paula Marshall on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_MarshallA Paper Orchestra on Website - https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible - https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptPaula Marshall:But a lot of parents, they go to jobs and then they come home or they don't work at all, and then it's just mom 100% and they're probably exhausted and happy. Some of my friends, I feel like they're like, I'm so glad. Finally I get to whatever. And either they're retiring and they get to go travel and like, no, I'm an actor. I'm looking for a gig, whatever. I don't think actors ever truly retire. I think we don't. I don't.Michael Jamin:You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations and writing, art and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase. And to support me on this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.Welcome everyone. My next guest is actress Paula Marshall. She has been, I worked with her years ago on a show called Out of Practice, I think it was like 2005. But Paul, before I let you get a word in edgewise, I got to tell everyone, your credits are crazy long, so your intro may take a long time. So I'm going to just give you some of the highlights to remind you of your incredible body of work here. Really these are just the highlights. She works a ton. So well, let's see. I guess we could start with One Life To Live. That might've been your first one. Grapevine Life goes on. Wonder Years Seinfeld. I heard of that one. Perry Mason diagnosis. Murder Wild Oats. I'm skipping here. Nash Bridges. You did a couple Chicago Suns Spin. City Cupid Snoops Sports Night, the Weber Show. It doesn't end.Just shoot Me, which I worked on. I didn't even know you were on that. Maybe I wasn't there. Hitting Hills and Out of Practice, which we did together. Veronica Mars, nip Tuck, shark ca Fornication. You did a bunch of Gary Unmarried House friends with Benefits, the exes CSI, the Mentalist, two and a Half Men Murder in the First Major Crimes. What else have we got here? Goer Gibbons, I dunno what that is. You have to tell me what that is. And then Modern Family Euphoria. You did a bunch of them. Walker. Paula, I'm exhausted and I'm going to steal your joke here. You can because I'm going to say you're Paula Marshall, but you may know me as Carla Gina. That's what used to tell me CarlaPaula Marshall:And I know Carla,Michael Jamin:But knowPaula Marshall:She's like the younger version of me. Slightly shorter,Michael Jamin:Bigger, bigger. Boop. But you have done so much. I'm going to jump, I'm going to jump into the hardest part. I'm wondering if this is the hardest part for you is being a guest star on a show because you have to jump in with the cast, you have to know the rules and everything. Is that harder?Paula Marshall:Yes, a hundred percent. It's harder when I guest star on any shows, if I haven't seen the show, I watch three or four on YouTube just so I know who's who and the vibe and the energy. When I guest star on Modern Family I their last season and some could say I canceled the show by being there. I've been called a show killerMichael Jamin:Before. I remember You don't let Right.Paula Marshall:I still have not let that go. I like to say I've just worked on so many different shows at its peak and then it died anyway. It's hard because they're all in a flow and depending on the other actors, how cool they are to kind of throw the ball at you.Michael Jamin:But do you have to identify who's the alpha dog on set? Is that what your plan is? It'sPaula Marshall:Pretty clear right away. Really? Yeah. I mean besides whoever's first on the call sheet, I remember one of the producers of Snoop's, David Kelly's first big bomb. That was me.Michael Jamin:It was a sure thing what happened?Paula Marshall:You know what? I'm not sure. Well, when it was supposed to be a comedy quickly turned into a drama, it was not great. But as one of the producers of Snoop said, you don't fuck with the first person on the call sheet. You don't fuck with him. And so you identify that person and depending, it's funny because I've worked with so many great people and so many assholes too. Like David Deney. Damn, is he cool? He's so nice. When I worked on fornication with him, he set a tone for just the set, the crew, the actors, this freedom just to try things. And I remember during my, it was like the first day naked throwing up,Michael Jamin:Wait, were you nervous? Why were you throwing up?Paula Marshall:Hello? Of course. But IMichael Jamin:Remember you're never nervous, Paul, let me tell you who you were. I'm totally nervous. No, you're the most self-assured person probably I've ever worked with. You're very confident.Paula Marshall:Thank you. I'm actingMichael Jamin:Acting.Paula Marshall:But California occasion, it was my first day onset naked, fake fucking. And I remember standing there, it was yesterday, and either tweaking you and touching you up. And I say to everyone, what's amazing, what I'll do for $2,900 when a strike is pending? It was the writer's strike way back in the day. And I remember getting this part on fornication and I'm like to all the girls in the audition room, when we used to have auditions in rooms with other people, I looked around, I'm like, we're not going to really have to be naked. We're not those type of actresses. And they're like, no, no, no. And I'm like standing there. Yeah, yeah. I was naked.Michael Jamin:Was that your first time in a show being naked? I meanPaula Marshall:ToplessMichael Jamin:ShowPaula Marshall:On a show?Michael Jamin:Yes. Because you were in a model, I'm sure as a model, you're doing wardrobe changes all the time.Paula Marshall:I used to model. I was naked a few things back in the day.Michael Jamin:So were you really nervous about it? I mean, I imagine you would be, butPaula Marshall:Standing there naked is one thing. You just kind of have to dive in the pool, in the cold, cold pool and let it go because you got to put on the confident jacket, I guess I obviously wore a lot around you, but I mean it's more uncomfortable, the fake sex scenes, it's more technical and awkward. It's just but nervous. I dunno. Yeah, you're excited. But I'm also excited when I walk on stage on a sitcom before, if I'm not already in the set, when they start rolling, I'm backstage. How's my hair? Shit, how am I doing? Okay? I get hyped up until you do it once and people laugh and you're like, oh,Michael Jamin:Okay. Are you worried about going up on your lines at all? Is that at all you're thinking about?Paula Marshall:Yes, especially now. Oh shit, my memory. It's just that prevagen, I'm going to look it up later, but yeah, you do. But if you in a sitcom situation, we run it, we rehearse it all week. StillMichael Jamin:The lines are changing all week. That's all IPaula Marshall:Know. But they're changing all week. But then you run it and you drill it on TV shows like euphoria or whatever. Yeah, you run it. But then again, they don't really change the lines at all. But yeah, you were a little bit, but then you got a great script supervisor that you're like, I'm up. And then they say it and then you go back and you do it. But yeah, always, I'm always really nervous until maybe the second takeMichael Jamin:Of any, the hardest thing it seems to me is just like, okay, you're naked and you have to forget that there's all these people there. You havePaula Marshall:ToMichael Jamin:Completely, it's almost like you're crazy to have to be able to forget that,Paula Marshall:Michael, when you paid $2,900.That's right. I was shocked. That's all you get for being naked. Yeah, you do. You are nervous. But I don't know. I was 40 then, so I looked pretty good naked, although I only had four days notice. Back then we didn't have ozempic, so I was like, okay, I can't, no salt, no bread. And I remember in that shot that the camera guy, they decided in the moment, Hey, can you walk over to David? And then bent over, he's on the bed and then kiss him. I'm like, well, that depends. What's your lens there? You got there? And I'm like, how wide is your lens? And he looked at me and I'm like, I'm a photographer. I like taking pictures. So I know. And I'm like, so I'm going to bend over with my white ass and I had four days notice on this and my ass is just going to be in the pretty much. And you're like, okay, I could do it. But you hope for body makeup. I don't know. Don't you think I had any, I should have demanded bodyMichael Jamin:Makeup. And this was probably even before there were, what do they call them now? IntimacyPaula Marshall:Coordinators?Michael Jamin:Yes. Right.Paula Marshall:I mean, here's the thing. I guess it helps when you're not a loud mouth person like me. And even then it's hard to go, Hey dude, keep your tongue in your mouth. You don't want it in your mouth. Sometimes you're like, damn. He's a great kisser. Jason Bateman, I enjoyed the tongue in my mouth. SoMichael Jamin:It kind of dependsPaula Marshall:On who's sticking in the tongue. But the intimacy coordinator, I think it's just so people know what's going to kind of happen and get it. But California case, no, we didn't have that. This movie I was naked on with Peter Weller called The New Age. No, I remember in the middle of the scene, I'm on the bed and he's looking down at me and during one take he decides to suck on my nipple. Shocking. I turned bright red, which is what I do when I get nervous. And I'm like, dude, what are you doing? He goes, I dunno, I just thought it'd be fun. I'm like, okay. And I don't think they used it, but if there was an intimacy coordinator back then, I probably would've known.Michael Jamin:Yeah. So it'sPaula Marshall:Good I guess. But it's corny and you feel silly.Michael Jamin:Oh my God, I'm glad you mentioned the photography thing. That was one of my memories from working together and out of practice. This was before people had camera phones and cell phones and you carried a camera everywhere. And I remember thinking, you're the star of a sitcom. You're the star. I mean, you're an artist doing her craft, and yet it's still not enough that you wanted to work on something. You wanted to do something else as well.Paula Marshall:Maybe it's my parents growing up, they always had these really cool black and white pictures of them. And I used to look at them and go, wow, that was your life then. And it was hard to even imagine when they were so young. And so it's like photos are life to me. And I guess I don't want to forget the moments of my life that are important. And so I always would bring a camera with me on set, on location more than sitcom stages aren't as conducive to really cool shots. But yeah, I like capturing life.Michael Jamin:And you're still doing it on 35Paula Marshall:Millimeter? I still do it, although I did give in and I have a digital now because it's easier. It's easier. Develop film.Michael Jamin:Many. You took my headshot from me and for many years I way too long. I used that as my headshot.Paula Marshall:Yeah, it was good. I rememberMichael Jamin:It was great. And I wore Danny's shirt, you go, yeah, put this on. You look terrible. Whatever I was wearing, stillPaula Marshall:Do that. People still come over my friends and I'm like, you need a headshot. Put Danny's shirt on. He has some nice shirts.Michael Jamin:It's so funny.Paula Marshall:Yeah, I do. I still like taking pictures.Michael Jamin:I got to share another memory I had from out of practice, which I cherish this one. So it was right before it was show night for some reason. I don't know why. I had to run up pages to the cast. And maybe you were in the green room or you were somewhere upstairs. I don't know what the hell dressing. I don't know what was going on. I knock on the door and all of you we're standing in a circle holding hands. And Henry goes, Michael, you're just in inside. Come on in. And then I go in time for what? And then he tapped. This blew my, I love this memory. And you guys were just like, I don't know what you would call it, but you were invoking a good show to be supportive of each other and to be brave and true. And I was like, I can't believe I felt so honored that I was included in, I was like, are you serious,Paula Marshall:Henry? I actually forgot that memory and thank you for reminding me of it. Henry's just, he's something special.Michael Jamin:He is.Paula Marshall:I know there's rumors. Oh, who's the nicest guy in Hollywood? Henry Winkler. It's because it is, is I could text him right now and he would literally text me. Within eight minutes he will text me back. Oh, Paula, it's been so, he's just a dear. And so he is, again, back to the, when you go on set and who creates that energy? Although Chris Gorham, I think was the first on the call sheet, not Henry Winkler, but Henry was our dad. I mean, he was such a pro and yeah, he just created this lovely energy there.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Oh wow. So that's not common then for other shows that you've worked on. People don't do that. That's not a theater thing. It seems like a theater thingPaula Marshall:You would think. I think, I don't know, maybe it was a happy days thing.Michael Jamin:Why don't you start it on your next show? Why don't you start doingPaula Marshall:It? I think I might. I'm going to make it now.Michael Jamin:I thought it was so interesting. I was like, wow. But it's getting back to that first point, even the first, the first person on the call sheet technically is the head cheese. But they might not be the most difficult by far at all. I mean, you don't know who's the boss. That's true, right?Paula Marshall:I mean sometimes the and character is an asshole. I mean, I think mostly people when they don't really want to be there, they kind of rebel. I've always wanted to be on a sitcom. IMichael Jamin:Remember. Did that change? Oh, go ahead, please.Paula Marshall:I just remember, I believe my first sitcom was Seinfeld. I may have done a guest spot on some other one that maybe never aired or I can't remember. Or maybe I just think it's cooler to say my first sitcom was Seinfeld. I'm not sure. But that show, I don't know. There's a magic. But they didn't do any of that either. But they kind of really invited me in and I dunno, I'm just thinking,Michael Jamin:Do you prefer to do sitcoms, multi-camera sitcoms? Yes. Yes. Because the audience.Paula Marshall:Because the audience, because it's a high, I've never gotten anywhere else in my life. Not that I need to be high, but damn. When you go out and you make people laugh with a look or a line or a physical movement, I mean it's magic. And working with the actor, knowing more like theater, which by the way, I've never doneMichael Jamin:Well, why don't you do theater then?Paula Marshall:I don't know. I don't know. I'll call my agent another thing I'll write down.Michael Jamin:Yeah, do that.Paula Marshall:But probably only if it's a comedy. But it's that magic that you don't have to go and do another take and then they turn around and then you got a close up again. I mean, it's boring. Like our television, there's no magic in itMichael Jamin:Ever.Paula Marshall:Except on euphoria. I have to say there's magic there.Michael Jamin:Why do you say that?Paula Marshall:Because the writing directing the story level of, I mean, when Marsha is my character, when Marsha actually had a couple things to say. I remember I called or I spoke with Sam Levinson and I was like, dude, it's me, right? You wrote an eight page monologue almost for Marsha to say. And he goes, yeah, I can't wait to see it. And I'm like, oh my God. I was so nervous. I studied for three weeks. There was no rewrites. And then it's me and Jacob all Lorde on set. And we get there and there's no rush, there's no limitation. There's just like, what do you want to do? And he's like, I kind of feel like you're doing this and then you're doing the cookies and a lot of movement. But we did it until it felt good, and then we knew it, and there was a magic there. No one's laughing at me. But there's something special about that show. I mean, I've heard rumors like, oh, and on set. And I'm like, ah, not for me. Not for me at all. Not for you. No, it's amazing.Michael Jamin:What do you do though? When you're on set and you have an idea how you want to play or speech, how you want to deliver speech, and your scene partner is just on doing something completely fucking different. How do you handle that?Paula Marshall:If you know, don't have a say, meaning you're a guest, darn. You do what they tell you to. How high do you want me to jump? That's what you do. But if you're working together and you're equal parties, you probably have run it before. But I would say if they're not doing something that I want, then I use it and I am frustrated in the scene, or I just use whatever they're giving me because that's all I got. And I try to put that into my character.Michael Jamin:How much training have you had though? That's very actor speak.Paula Marshall:It really did sound a little actory, and IMichael Jamin:Apologize for that. No, it's good. I like it.Paula Marshall:I mean, I don't know. I lived in New York City and I took acting class with this guy named Tony Aon and Jennifer Aniston was in my class and Oh wow.Just a bunch of young people, but not all that much. Not all that much. I think the comedy thing, I didn't even know I was funny with Seinfeld, the guest stars aren't usually funny in sitcoms. The lead, the main characters, the stars of the show are funny guest stars just kind of throw the ball and you know what I mean? But something happened after I was on Seinfeld and then I read for, I guess it was Wild Oats, which was with Paul Rudd and Jan Marie hpp. And Tim Conlin. It was a sitcom on Fox. It was the same year that another show called Friends was coming out. And I remember them. Someone was interviewing us saying, oh, there's another show that NBC is doing with a group of friends. It's kind of like yours. And we're all friends. What's that cut to?And ours was canceled after one season, but I think the first time I was like, oh shit, I can do this. I know how to deliver a joke. But I never learned that again. It just happened one year in pilot season just kind of happened. And my agents were like, oh, Paul is funny. Okay. And then one time I remember I read for a pilot, after you do so many comedies, then people go, well, she's a comedic actress, she can't do drama. And then you're like, the fuck. Of course I could do drama. I remember one time during this callback, no original, just the first audition. And I had heard the casting director doesn't think or only thinks you're funny, doesn't think you're as good. Dramatic. Wow.Michael Jamin:Obviously if you could do comedy, you could do drama.Paula Marshall:No, you would think it's the other way around. It never works. It is really hard to doMichael Jamin:Comedy.Paula Marshall:But literally, I was like, well, I'm so angry that she thinks I can't. Finally, they couldn't find this girl, the character for the pilot. And then they finally, okay, Paula, we'll see her. So I get in there, and it was Davis Guggenheim was the director. I love Davis. After I read, I think it was three scenes. And during the last scene, I broke down and I was in tears over something and I look up with, you couldn't have placed the tear better. And I look up and I ended the scene and Davis goes, my god, Paula Marshall, you are one fine actress. And I do this. I look at the casting drifter and I go, you see, I'm not just funny. And I grabbed my bag and I walked out and I go, well, I just fucked myself for any future director again. There was something that came over me and I was like, I need you to know that I am not just one thing or the other. And then Davis probably three weeks later, texts me, I've been fighting every day for you. And I'm like, what are you talking about when you get these weird texts from people? I'm like, did I get the part? I got the part and they didn't want to see me.Michael Jamin:It's so interesting. I mean, obviously you're a working actor, you work a lot. You're successful, and yet you still feel like you're placed in this box and you have to prove yourself and get out of it.Paula Marshall:But there's something I really love about, there's part of me that I want to read, and I want everyone to look at that tape and go, fuck, I wish we could hire her. I wish there weren't the limitations and we didn't have to pick Carla at you now or whatever. I wish we could pick Paula. I want them to go, fuck man. She was really good. I want to stick in their brain. I always would cancel auditions if I wasn't ready for it. If I really knew I wasn't going to kill it, I wouldn't go, or I won't put myself on tape. I don't have enough time to prepare for it because that's the last thing they see of you.Michael Jamin:IPaula Marshall:Want it to be the best thing they see of me. So I only want to leave them with that because they're not going to remember that other stuff.Michael Jamin:That's a good point though. Are you doing a lot of self tape now? Is there anything in person?Paula Marshall:I have not had any auditions in person yet. Wow. Her actress ever Carradine. I think she's had her third one, and she always posts about it. She's so cute. And I think she booked one. No, I have a room now in my house. It's the tape room. And I've got a nice beauty light and I've got the tripod again. It's kind of easy for me because I have photography stuff.Michael Jamin:But who are you acting again or does Danny help you out?Paula Marshall:Well, Danny will sometimes read with me. My daughter would read with me. And sometimes when I'm all by myself, I read with myself. I will have a tape of the other voice, which is, or sometimes I leave space and then I put the audio in later. I mean, it's crazy the stuff that happens during Covid. We've got very creative over here.Michael Jamin:But in some ways though, because this sometimes a casting director is like, yeah, yeah, there couldn't be more wooden. And so in some ways it's got to be easier for you, right?Paula Marshall:Yes and no. Yes, because I get to pick the take I want,Michael Jamin:Right?Paula Marshall:Two, because two, I didn't even say one a b, I don't get nervous, so there's no nerves to hold me back or Oh man, I should have done it. Or I mess up. I just do another take. But then there's also, there's something about going in and being vulnerable in front of all those people and showing them what you can do. And especially in a comedy, I, it was like a zoom callback for a comedy. And I live in the hills and maybe it was the wifi or that slight timing was off just enough or the reader wasn't funny and I'm trying to connect with this dot. It was hard. There was no magic in it and you couldn't feel the other person. And so I think in a way, it's good in a way. It's really not good. So I'm willing to do whatever to get anything because I pay for college.Michael Jamin:But also, there's also the fact the to drive across town, I mean, that's got to get old, right? Driving everywhere.Paula Marshall:But when you're an actor, everything stops. You get a script, everything stops. You're not making dinner, you're not going out, you're not watching that movie or the show. You drop everything and then you focus on it. And hopefully, thankfully, because of the strike and the new negotiations that they got for us, I think we don't have to do a self tape over the weekend. We need to have enough time to actually prepare for it, which is amazing. Most of the time. Gary unmarried, I think I got the audition at eight o'clock in the morning. It was to meet producers at 11 o'clock the next day. And you're like, ah, okay, here I go. It's really hard to put all that energy and to them something great. And I never understand why you're casting people or producers. Don't give us more time because we want to give you something great. We don't want to go in there and read. I don't. I want to perform for you. And it's hard to do when I don't have enough time to do it. I also have a life, so I have other things, but you kind of do. You really drop it. You drop everything for an audition.Michael Jamin:It's interesting though. I want to get touched on something you said. You said it's hard to be vulnerable on camera, but then you said comedy, and do you feel like it's harder to be vulnerable? Because when I think of vulnerable, I think drama, not comedy.Paula Marshall:Yes. But there's nothing funnier. I remember my husband in many situations will say, I'll be upset or crying and I'll say something really funny, but humor comes out of the reality, like your honest to goodness, open soul, like your heart. The funniest stuff I think comes out of me when I'm in a vulnerable position, if I'm angry, if I'm sad when I'm just feeling whatever. So I don't know. I think in many sitcoms I've cried. And how do youMichael Jamin:Get past that though? How do you get past that vulnerability thing? I mean, are you a hundred percent past it or is there any reservations?Paula Marshall:Ask that again. Sorry.Michael Jamin:Very clear saying, well, when you're vulnerable on camera or trying to be, can you go, I don't know. Is there a limit to your vulnerability, do you think on camera or are you willing to go there all the time? As much, as far as you want?Paula Marshall:I guess so most of the time it depends on how much tears you have. And I usually, if the writing is good, and that's the big if this thing that I ended up booking with Davis Guggenheim, it was with John Corbett, and I had to cry and it was maybe like a steady cam up the stairs and going, and I break down and I crumbled to my knees, and I swear to God, I did it. Maybe 17 takes. And then we come around and turn around on him and I end up crying again. And John, after we, they yelled cut, he goes, Paula, what are you doing? Why are you crying again? I go, I don't know. The words are making me cry. I'm just tapped in doing it. They wipe it away. But you got to be careful because I'm vain and you got to look like you're not crying, and I'm really crying.So I get red and my eyes get bloodshot. You look different and the snot and you got to fix the whatever, makeup. But no, but when it's great, when the writing is great, of course, usually you don't have to do it. 17 takes, it was just had a lot to do with the steady cam and whatever. But usually you do it in three takes and you nail it and it's good, and they're like, wow, that was great. Let's move on. So you don't really have to in a movie, if you nail it, you nail it and they move on.Michael Jamin:What do you do though when you're in it and you feel like you're slipping out of it?Paula Marshall:Okay, so that when I drink this, soI have at least one of those before every tape night, I've always drink a Coke. If I can't, the writing isn't talking to me. If I can't relate to it, I do that substitute thing. If I have to cry, and this is really not making me cry, the subject and the words I substitute for something else that makes me cry. I'm a freakishly emotional person. I cry a lot. I'm very sensitive. You wouldn't really think that because kind of like Danny calls me bottom line, Marshall, and I'm very tough and whatever and no nonsense. And I say it like it is, and I will always tell you if you look fat in that dress, I like to be honest, but I don't know.Michael Jamin:But is there a moment where you feel like you're okay? You're on, you're giving a speech, you're in a scene, and then you're like, oh, I'm acting now.Paula Marshall:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, every once in a while, I mean, I'll finish the scene. I don't want to stop myself. They might like it and for whatever reason, but I'll always say, can I have another one? Can I please have another one? Or Oh my gosh, I really like the second take. Just can you make a note of that, that the second take was much better. They know it's obvious when you see someone telling the truth, it's obvious which one is better, but you can't just tell the truth once and then move on because you don't know. Maybe there was a sound issue on that take. No. So it's tricky. Every once in a while you think you have it. The crappy thing is when they come around to you or they start on you and then you finally figure something out. I remember Bette Midler, we were doing the scene and they were on us first.It was a movie, I guess Danny and I did the scene together and it was bet opposite on a table. And they go to her, they turn the camera on her, and then she goes, oh, I just figured it out. We're like, no, the opposite. We did her first. Forgive me. We did her first and then they came on us. And then she goes, oh, I just figured out the scene. Can I do it again? And Carl Reiner's like, no, we got to move. No, we're out of here. So sometimes it takes a while to figure it all out, and she just thought she didn't nail it. It's Bette Midler. She nails every take all the timeMichael Jamin:You are listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Today's episode is brought to you by my new book, A Paper Orchestra, A collection of True Stories. John Mayer says, it's fantastic. It's multi timal. It runs all levels of the pyramid at the same time. His knockout punches are stinging, sincerity, and Kirks Review says, those who appreciate the power of simple stories to tell us about human nature or who are bewitched by a storyteller who has mastered his craft, will find a delightful collection of vignettes, a lovely anthology that strikes a perfect balance between humor and poignancy. So my podcast is not advertiser supported. I'm not running ads here. So if you'd like to support me or the podcast, check out my book, go get an ebook or a paperback, or if you really want to treat yourself, check out the audio book. Go to michael jamin.com/book. And now back to our show.Do you have these conversations with them? Do you have conversations with actors with more experience and I don't know, are you still trying to learn from them?Paula Marshall:I just pay attention to what they're doing. I don't think I pick their brains like that, but I just watch them and I watch and I seeMichael Jamin:What are you looking for?Paula Marshall:Well, sometimes technically how they do it. I remember my first movie, Hellraiser three, I learned a lot about continuity,Which is something they don't really teach in acting class. If I'm going to play my drink up and sip it, I have to do that every single time. If I'm going to eat in the scene, I got to do it every single time, and I have to figure that out. And you have to really, if you're really going to eat, you got to really eat. Not teeny little bites, make your choice. But I learned things from different people. I remember Robert Duvall, I played his daughter in a movie and he would act and he kept going until his body knew it was over. And I remember the director had yelled cut at one point and he got really mad. He goes, I wasn't done, but he had finished talking. And he goes, I'm still acting here. It's like, I'm still walking here. But it was like, I'm still acting.I'm still doing, there's still so much more there. I observe and I see how they deal with issues and problems in their focus. ISHKA Harte guest star on that show of hers, and we auditioned a lot in the beginning. We came up at the same time and just everything was so serious to her. She really so passionate about her show and she threw away nothing. It was really kind of impressive after a hundred seasons now that she cared so much because some people after four Seasons, they're like ready to go. They're like, I got a movie down, I'm ready to go. But there's certain people like Maka who from day one till again, I think it's 25 seasons or 24 or something crazy. I remember when I worked with her and I hadn't seen her in 15 years or something, I just am like, God, how rich is she? And so instead I was like, tacky. I'm not going to say that. So again, I walk up to her and it was emotional that we hadn't seen each other in so long. I hugged her and I said, how big is your house? She goes, I can't complain.Michael Jamin:I'm like,Paula Marshall:But she's very passionate and so many actors are, and then there's some who are not and who are ready to goMichael Jamin:And who are they? Not names, but why are they there? Are they just rock stars who became actors? You don't know. It just falls into a job like that.Paula Marshall:There was one person and he just seemed really angry all the time. I don't think he was just a happy person. If you don't like doing this, I'm not sure why you're doing it. I don't know. There's just something inside you. I mean, this is the greatest thing ever to be paid to do what you love. And again, when my daughter said she wanted to be an actress, an actor, sorry, I was so happy. I was like, that's where I found joy in my life. I grew up in Rockville, Maryland, and I didn't know anybody, and I just watched the Mary Tyler Moore show, and I went, yep, that's what I want.How do I do that? I had no idea, none. And to find joy there. So when a person is coming to set and they're angry, it could be, they don't like the words actors are very particular about. If your dialogue is not great, it's really hard. It's so much easier when you have great dialogue and the scene makes sense and the relationships you buy them. It's so easy to do it. It's effortless and it's so real and it's so honest. And then when you've got this other stuff and you have to say the name of the person to remember that it's very cookie cutter network television, which you would think at this point would look at streaming and go, yeah, there's always something right over there because the quality is just beyond Well,Michael Jamin:How did you figure it out then? Okay, you're in Maryland. How did you figure out you stopped in New York first. What was that about?Paula Marshall:Did I moved to New York? I modeled in Georgetown as a local model there, doing little ads for Montgomery reward. And I didn't really want to go to college. My parents didn't make me go to college. I think I had two grand in my pocket from doing things here and there. I started doing commercials locally. And this woman by the name of Jay Sumner, who was the booker at this modeling agency called Panache, she said, we were at Champions. It was a bar called Champions. And though how I was there drinking at the bar, I don't know, I think I was 18. She said, Paula, you're so much more interesting in person than you are in a piece of paper, meaning I'm pretty, I'm good enough on paper, but you're so much more interesting in real life. And she goes, I think you should be an actress.And I'm like, okay, really? And I'm like, well, I always used to watch Mary Taylor Moore and all of that, but I'm from Maryland, how am I going to do? And she goes, I know somebody. I know someone in New York named Dian Littlefield, who's a manager, and I can set you up with a meeting. I'm like, what? So I ended up moving to New York City. Modeling was my waitressing job. I got a lot of money. It didn't take a lot of time. It was really easy. I love photography. So there was that connection that I wasn't just sitting there like an idiot with bathing suits or lingerie or junior wardrobe or whatever. So that was kind of my waitressing job to allow me to pay for rent and acting classes. And then I was like, you know what? I think I really like it. It's true. Just a piece of paper. And it's funny, I love taking pictures. I love stopping life, but there was just, I guess more to me than just the piece of paper. So I guess that's kind of how it happened.Michael Jamin:How did LA happen then?Paula Marshall:So I would audition test for a lot of things. I would fly to LA for different pilot projects. I would read in New York, and then most of the things were shooting in la, not New York at all back then. So I would fly to LA and I think it was just one of my agents said, look, Paul, if you really want to do this, you got to live in la,Michael Jamin:Right?Paula Marshall:I was like, ah, okay. So I moved to LA and yeah, and I was young and 20, I think I was 25 when I moved here, kind of old to kind of start, but I looked really young. And when you read for enough things and enough people are interested, the head of my agency said to me after a pilot, I, or I tested for something and I didn't get it. And he told me back when we didn't have computers, we had to go pick up our scripts and there would be a box outside the script, their office, after hours, he would look through and go, these are my scripts. In the middle envelopes, it says Paula Marshall on it. Anyway, I was kind of sad and I'm like, I don't know. I'm not booking anything. And he goes, but you're testing a lot. You're very close. And I'm like, what does it take? What am I lacking? What am I missing that I'm not booking the thing? He goes, I believe in you and you need to keep doing this. And then I did. I slowly would start booking things.Michael Jamin:What were you lacking? Do you know?Paula Marshall:Maybe it was the confidence, maybe I was really nervous. I remember one time, I think it was during the Flash, it was a pilot called The Flash with John Wesley ship, and Amanda pays Amanda Paynes. Anyway, ended up booking it. But I remember in the audition room, I think it was at NBC or I don't know, one of the big three, the scene, I put my hand on my knee and I was shaking so much from being nervous that I was like, oh, stop doing that. I don't want them to know. I'm nervous because they want everyone to be fearless and confident.And I get that because it takes a lot to go stand in front of a bunch of people and say stuff over and over, or stand there and be naked and do it over and over. There's got to be part of you that's kind of cocky and confident, and not that you think that you could do that over and over with someone else's words. I mean, it's kind of crazy that I do this, but I don't know what tipped me over the scale. I never gave up. And I kept doing it and trying to figure it out and asking and asking the casting directors, and they always say nice things. They never say, well, you messed this thing. No, it's just there's a magic. If I don't book something now, I don't take it personally. Someone else just had a little bit more magic that day, and they tapped into the character and the writer saw that person that they wrote down and spent so many hours writing that Blonde Girl or Carla Gino just got it better than I did. Okay. IMichael Jamin:Know. To me, one of the hardest parts of acting, aside from the acting part is the fact that you really don't, don't have agency over your, you have to wait often. You have to wait. So what do you do in that time?Paula Marshall:Well, you find hobbies. I learned very early on to save money. You live under your means. So even if you get a gig and you're the lead in a show, you're making a lot of money per week. And like me, most of the shows, they did not go more than a season. So you have to take that and live under your means, and you can't spend money and buy fancy things. I invested my money in my house, I think maybe three or four houses now. I try to invest my money and I fill my days with other things.Michael Jamin:Do you stress about it at all or no?Paula Marshall:Yeah. Yeah. I think in the beginning, early on I was very busy all the time. There wasn't a lull. And when you do have a job on, if you're a series regular on a show, you love your weekends, you love your time off. If you're working crazy hours sitcom's, not crazy hours, you know that those areMichael Jamin:Great for writers.Paula Marshall:I mean, yes, that's true, but if you're a director, Jimmy Burroughs would be like, I got a tea time at three 30. We got to get out of here. It's a dream. And maybe that's why I love the sitcom so much, because you got to to act and have a real life. When I had my daughter, I remember going, how would I be a mom and work on a single camera show? I would never see the kid. So when I was pregnant or when I read for Out of practice, I had just had my daughter a week before I went in to test for the show over at CBS. There was a script on my doorstep when I brought her up on the baby thing. And I'm like, I'm a mom and oh, right, I'm an actress and I'm 20 pounds overweight. And oh, I thought I was going to push the, I'm not going to work for a year button.That was the plan. Then I saw the script and I read it and I'm like, oh man, it's a sitcom. I'm not going to work very many hours. I'm going to work three weeks on one week off. I'm like, maybe I'll just do it. Maybe I'll just read for it and we'll see. And I really liked it. I really liked the character. And then when I got it, I was like, oh shit, I don't even have a nanny. How do I do this? So Danny went with me tape night. He was my nanny. I remember them going home because the baby, they were cool. Once we got picked up, they allowed me to have a little trailer outside for my nanny, Mariella and Maya, and I was breastfeeding at the time. She was just born. And it allowed me to do that. And I remember Henry, Henry Winkler still was like, how's Maya? And it was just a great thing. I had my baby. You couldn't ask for a better job for a mom. I was living my dream and I was having a baby when I was 40 years old.Sitcom is the greatest thing in the world, and I'm still trying to get back on one. There's just not that many of them now. It's really sad. Multicam, I've written like three of them. Speaking of writing. Yeah, go on. The writer. So I remember, I think it was when the pilot that I did with John Corbett, when I cried 17 takes in a row, when that didn't get picked up, I remember I was dropping off my daughter at elementary school and Dave Grohl, yes, that Dave Grohl sees me. And I had just found out that the pilot wasn't picked up. It's called Murder in the First, no, sorry, different thing called something different. That was another show that I did. But anyway, so Dave Girl's like Paula Marshall, what's up? You look sad. And I'm like, oh, another pilot wasn't picked up. It just sucks.And he goes, Paula, when either his studio or something, they didn't like the music or whatever, and he goes, you know what? I did put his arm around me. We're walking down that hallway. And he goes, I just did it myself. I got this set up and I just did it myself. And he goes, you should do it yourself. Why don't you write something? And I'm like, yeah, why don't I? And I'm like, well, because one, I'm not a writer, but he goes, who cares? So because of Dave Grohl, that opened the door to getting ideas out, writing something for me. One thing actually, I mean it went kind of far an idea went very far that I ended up producing with Paul Riser and Betsy Thomas wrote it. This was a little bit before, but it's an outlet for me. I'm still not great at Final Draft. I'm still like, oh, how do I get the thing and the thing and the page? I can't even figure it out half the time. So I've written a few sitcoms, mostly from my point of view, because I want the job, because I wantMichael Jamin:To. So you wrote a single camera sitcom and then you showed it to Paul, and thenPaula Marshall:What happened? The Paul and Betsy one, I met Paul's, I believe his name was Alex, but I can't really remember. I met this guy at a wedding and he was like, oh, you're really funny and blah, blah, blah. I'm a big fan. I'm like, oh, that's nice. Thank you very much. And he goes, do you have any ideas? Do you write? And I go, no, I don't write. I go, I have this idea for a show. And he goes, really? Why don't you come pitch it to me? And my partner? I'm like, great. Okay. He goes, Hollywood. I'm like, who's your partner? He goes, who's your partner? And he goes, Paul Riser. I'm like, what? Okay. So I literally got his number and I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to go meet with Paul Riser. I go meet with Paul Riser. I give him my pitch.He really liked it. And he goes, I like it. I think let's do it. Let's work together. I was like, you couldn't have given me anything that would've made me happier than the fact that Paul Riser liked an idea of mine. It's almost like when I made Diane Keaton laugh in an audition. I literally called my agents and I was like, I'm good. I could die now. So the Paul Riser thing, it was just my idea. I had a lot of say. So I got to produce, I got to make a lot of decisions. It was probably one of theMichael Jamin:Greatest. So you shot it then.Paula Marshall:So we shot it and it wasn't picked up, butMichael Jamin:You sold it to a studio.Paula Marshall:All of them wanted it. This is great. Everyone but Fox, wow.Michael Jamin:Wanted it. That's amazing.Paula Marshall:It was crazy. But you have Paul Riser, I matter your stuff, but when you have someone like a Paul Riser or someone who is respected in Hollywood and has produced before, of course people are going to give them a shot,Michael Jamin:But not necessarily. I mean, they must've really liked it. So you wrote it and you started it?Paula Marshall:I started in it. It was my idea, but I did not write it. Later on, I ended up writing things and pitching, and a lot of people like my stuff, but I really mean should go out a little more aggressively than I do. But I have one right now that we're kind of sending around me and my buddy Jeff Melnick, that he really likes this story. And it was, I won't tell you what it is,Michael Jamin:But that's not nothing. I mean, that's a big achievement, honestly,Paula Marshall:For me. Yeah, I don't write. I still am a terrible speller. I have a reading disorder. I've got this thing where reading is hard for me because the font and the text is very contrasty, so I'm a terrible speller. Thank God for spell check, because otherwise,Michael Jamin:Well, so you're working on another piece for yourself as well then? Yes. I'm impressed.Paula Marshall:I have about three scripts that I've worked on here and there, and I remember I thought, oh, well, this is when I'm going to kill it. I'm going to knock these things out. I'm What happened with Covid? We were so scared. And my daughter was home going to now, whatever, ninth grade or 10th grade. And so it became, that whole time became about helping her find joy. I always said, every day, I'm going to help her get through this. And I really pushed all my stuff back. Any good mom does let everyone eat before you eat. Maybe the way I grew up. So I took care of her and all of that stuff before I focused on me. And then she went to college this year, and you would still think I'm like, Paula, I got to finish these things, which I did. I'm back. I'm back doing it, and I like it. I really like it. There's something about the story, but no one ever taught me to write. So I'm writing from my experience, the years of reading sitcom scripts, IMichael Jamin:HavePaula Marshall:'em in my closet. I have almost every single script, especially the ones that I loved, and I go back to it and I refer back. I'm like, how did they do this? Even setting it up, I'll go back and sneak a peek.Michael Jamin:That's really smart. Was it hard for you when she left the house?Paula Marshall:Jesus. Oh, here's the thing.Michael Jamin:Yeah, make up touching upPaula Marshall:Makeup breakMichael Jamin:Last looks.Paula Marshall:I mean, because she's not in Boston,She's down the road. It feels like if something bad happened, I could be there. I don't have to get on a plane and only one direct flight. There's one school in Connecticut that she got into, and it was a great school, and there's one direct flight at 6:00 AM I'm like, this is never going to happen. And she chose, I was like, whatever you want, wherever you want to go to college, it's your decision. I mean, I'll tell you what I, but it's all up to you. And she chose and it was something that's not too far away. And it's great. I get to see her and it's worked out. It's a win.Michael Jamin:What about the emptiness of the house? I'm going to make you cry now. That's what I feel like. The house is so empty. YouPaula Marshall:Know what? And I think though, Michael, I think if she was in anywhere else, I think if I couldn't get to her, and that's a weird thing as a mom, it's about protecting your child. But yeah, I could cry when I think about certain things. Thanks, Michael. It's about protecting them. And I think that the distance, because we are close, she's still in. She's still here. I don't like cooking dinner as much. I'm sorry, Danny, because I don't really have to. The big change is just her presence, her energy, the thought about, well, what's Maya doing? Or what does she got to do? Now it's not, and one of my scripts is, well, I'll tell you one of my scripts is about what happens when your kid goes away to college? What happens to a woman?Michael Jamin:And go ahead. Can you tell me a little bit?Paula Marshall:So it started a while ago, just like my fear of who am I? What do I do? I mean, yes, I'm an actress, but then I pulled from that and I'm like, well, if I'm not an actress and I don't have a job and everything has been bombed, there's so many places to go. Okay, you've just got to, it's like reinventing yourself, which almost every mom that I know who doesn't have a job, it's very true. I was so fortunate that I could have my cake, my baby, and also work. But a lot of parents, they go to jobs and then they come home and or they don't work at all. And then it's just mom, 100%. And they're probably exhausted and happy. Some of my friends, I feel like they're like, oh, I'm so glad. Finally I get to whatever. And either they're retiring and they get to go travel, and I'm like, no, I'm an actor. I'm looking for a gig, whatever. I don't think actors ever truly retire. I think we don't do.Michael Jamin:I guess it depends on how much you love it and how much it must come on. It's got a wear on you. The downs have to be, I don't know.Paula Marshall:Well, I think probably just like a writer,You have to be able to fill your day when you're not going to be working and making money again. It's why it's smart to save your money and invest it and not buy that fricking mansion. If you got that check. Remember one time I went to the bank and I was depositing, it was before they had the picture phone deposits, a really big check. And it was the biggest check I think I've ever gotten. The first time I got that kind of money on a show and the teller, and again, I looked very young, the teller who didn't look much older than me and took the check,And he looked at the check and he looked at me and he goes, what do you do? What do you do? And I laughed. I go, I'm an actor. I go, but trust me, this thing, this isn't forever. I know it's not forever. So I have to live my life. It's not forever. Because my goal is I never want to lose my house. I always want to be able to afford things. You hear these horror stories about these, you think you got it, and then it shows canceled, and then you can't do that. I've always been kind of smart when it comes to money, but it's hard. It's really hard. WeMichael Jamin:Spoke a little about this because your daughter's interested in acting and you were, this is before we started taping, and what's your advice for her?Paula Marshall:My advice is find a way to tap in and find the truth in anything. And if you can't, then again, you substitute. If it's not connecting, you got to figure out a way to connect to it. It's about being truthful In imaginary circumstances, it's really hard to walk into a room and pretend the thing and crying. You just really have to practice going there. I remember one time, and even in my life, life situations, I will take note of them. One time I was in San Francisco drunker than I've ever been before for whatever reason. And I remember the hotel I was, I think it was during Nash Bridges, and I was like, oh, I'm so wasted. I want to remember what I look like when I'm this wasted. So I, my, I guess I did have a cell phone then. So I took my cell phone or my camera, no cell phone, and I recorded myself being drunk.And it's like that one actor, he would always, Michael, he's an English guy, Michael, I forget his name. He would be like, you can't overdo the acting, but you're trying not to be drunk. Yes. To try to make sure that the words are coming out. And so that's what I did. I literally was like, this is me talking at my, it was the craziest thing. So in life, take advantage again, back to the advice to my daughter. Live these experiences and remember them. And if you cry, if you're sensitive and emotional, fucking use it. There's plenty of people who can't cry at the drop of a hat. I can cry. You give me something to people always know Paula can cry in a scene and even if I don't connect to it again, I substitute and I find a way. I'm an emotional person and the thing I think I have trouble doing is the angry part.I'm not great at being super angry. I don't think I play a lot of those roles like I was doing, I've worked with Steven Weber on his new Chicago Med. I was going to say new show, it is like year nine, but I play his ex-wife. I think it's airing tomorrow as a matter of fact. And there was a scene where I had to come in and I'm yelling at him and I'm like, God, this is so not me. I'm not a yeller. I don't yell even in the middle of a fight. If I'm fighting, I try to get it out and then I cry because I get frustrated because I can't say, I'm not one of those bitchy women wives who are like, I'm just not. Anyway, back to the advice from my daughter, you take life's experiences and you put a little marker on them and you remember them.So when you need them, and I didn't even think I was going to have any children because I started so late and as the actress in me, I just never thought, I dunno, mom and my mom material. I don't know. I was like, you know what? I could really learn a lot as an actress by tapping into that love. I remember you'd see my friends who had kids way, way early and I'm like, God, they love these things. What did that feel like? I never knew what that was and so I took that experience and without it, I don't think I would truly ever be able to play a mom as genuinely as I am. Love because man, I love my kid and I didn't think I'd be like a great mom. I am the best mom I am and I love her and I love being a mom and all of it. So I tell my daughter to practice. Practice, learn your lines very easy and don't go in if you're not prepared. That's kind of a big one. You're not really,Michael Jamin:Just because you said mom was there, that fear the first time you decided to play mom, they say once you play mom like, oh, now she's a mom.Paula Marshall:Well, it's just an age thing, so that was never a thing for me. I'm going to play whatever I look like for sure. So I don't care. I don't care about that at all.Michael Jamin:Interesting. Paula, this has been such a great conversation, so thank you so much. You'rePaula Marshall:Welcome. I had so much fun talking with you.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, I just love talking the craft with people like you. You're a pro and you're just, I don't know, so much wisdom to share, so thank you so much. You'rePaula Marshall:Welcome.Michael Jamin:Thank you.Paula Marshall:I'm enjoying your Instagram posts.Michael Jamin:Oh, we'll talk about that, but alright, well thank you. That's it. That's you're released, but don't go anywhere now we are going to talk some more here. Alright everyone, thank you so much. What a great conversation. Paul. Should they follow you somewhere? Did they do anything or just watch you on something? What do they want 'em to do?Paula Marshall:Depends on when you get this.Michael Jamin:Venmo you the most. What do you want? Venmo? MePaula Marshall:Cash is great. I mean, my Instagram is the Paula Marshall. I guess I'm not really great at all that stuff.Michael Jamin:Are you supposed to be though? Do your agents tell you?Paula Marshall:No, agents don't. But if you have so many followers, then it used to be this thing called a TV Q, which is your TV quotes, how many people know who you are? And that's just, social media has kind of taken that over, really. So people, I think people care how many followers you have. I do notMichael Jamin:Again, but Tbq is not a thing anymore, you're saying?Paula Marshall:I don't think it is. Wow. No. I mean maybe they call it something else, but I know an actress friend of mine was early on in the Instagram thing. She's like, yeah, I got to join Instagram. Yuck. I'm like, yeah, the thing. She's like, I was told I have to have it and you got to pitch. I'm not that self-promoting and I'll say things that are inappropriate and crude and get kicked off of Twitter for it, but whatever. That's who I'm,Michael Jamin:Thank you again. Really, it was such an honor to have you on. Alright everyone, more conversations coming. Thank you so much for tuning in. Until next week, keep creating. You're an actor. Tell your friends about this. You're other actor friends. Alright, everyone, thanks so much.Wow. I did it again. Another fantastic episode of What the Hell is Michael Jamon talking about? How do I do it week after week? Well, I don't do it with advertiser supported money. I tell you how I do it. I do it with my book. If you'd like to support the show, if you'd like to support me, go check out my new book, A Paper Orchestra. It asks the question, what if it's the smallest, almost forgotten moments that are the ones that shape us most. Laura Sanoma says, good storytelling also leads us to ourselves, our memories, our beliefs, personal and powerful. I loved the Journey and Max Munic, who was on my show says, as the father of daughters, I found Michael's understanding of parenting and the human condition to be spot on. This book is a fantastic read. Go check it out for yourself. Go to michael jamin.com/book. Thank you all and stay tuned. More. Great stuff coming next week.

I've been a television writer for the past 27 years. While I've written on some amazing shows, the work that I'm most proud of is my new book, A Paper Orchestra. It's the funniest, it's the deepest, and it's the one that will hit you hardest in the heart. These are the deeply personal, true stories of an awkward, sensitive man searching for the things that are most important: identity, love, forgiveness, and redemption. It's available now for your reading pleasure.Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/A Paper Orchestra on Audible - https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraA Paper Orchestra on Website - https://michaeljamin.com/bookFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:Yeah, but the problem is they don't help you. They design the book cover. You don't get a choice of what the book cover is. Maybe they give you three choices, but that's about it. They decide how they want and they decide what the title of the book is because you sold 'em the rights. So why am I giving away all this power to someone who hasn't earned it? Why am I making them rich? Why am I giving them any creative input at all when the whole point of this was for me to have a hundred percent creative input? You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase and to support me on this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book now on with the show. Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to What the Hell Is Michael Jamin talking about the podcast where we explore art, creativity, and writing. Oh, it's a big announcement today, Phil. Phil's back, big dayPhil Hudson:Back. Happy to be back. Thank you for having me.Michael Jamin:Big day. We're finally building up. This has been a long project. Phil book, my book, A Paper Orchestra Drops or dropped if you're hearing this. It's available, it's, it's alreadyPhil Hudson:Dropped. It's available yesterday, so go get it now.Michael Jamin:It's called a paper orchestra and it's a collection of personal essays. If you're a fan of David Sedaris, I think of it as David Sedaris meets Neil Simon. And this has been my passion project for years. I've been working on this and I'm very excited to put it out in the world. As you can get it on print, you can get it on audiobook, you can get it as ebook, however you consume your books, and you can get it everywhere. You can go get it on michael jamin.com. You can find it on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble or Audible for the audio audiobook. Anywhere, anywhere you get Apple. If you want to get the ebook, it's everywhere, Phil. It's everywhere.Phil Hudson:It's like you got a real publishing deal except you didn't.Michael Jamin:Well, I'm doing it myself,Phil Hudson:And we'll go into that. I want people to understand you chose to self-publish this at this point, but that's not how we started. And we've talked a bit about that when we changed the podcast title and we talked a bit about it. We're talking about your live shows, but I think this is like, let's celebrate Michael Jamin a little bit today because you're always talking to people to build the mountain, to climb. You are now at the top of that mountain, and I imagine you're looking over and saying, oh crap, look, that other peak there I've got to get to now.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I already am. Yeah, for sure. Lot of it. And I hope this inspires a lot of you. There's so many people who are like, I want to sell my screenplay, or I want to help me break in, help me, help me. But there's so much that you can do. So unempowering disempowering, you're basically hoping that someone else is going to make your career, buy my script, make my movie. But there's so much that you can do on your own, and you may think it's more work because you're doing it yourself, but it's actually less work because now you don't have to count on someone else to do it for you. You can stop begging, you can stop worrying about all the rejection because when you're selling your scripts or trying to, you're going to get rejected by 99 out of a hundred people. But if you just build it yourself, there's so much you can do. The year we live in, it's so empowering. Everyone has a phone and you can shoot on your phone, you can make a movie. Everyone has a miniature movie studio. There's so much we all can do and on our own. And so I'm just going to share a little bit about the journey that I've been on when I started writing this book.So basically this started well over four years ago, maybe five years ago. I told my wife that I was just at a point in my life where I felt a little disheartened by, a little bored by what I was writing in television because when I write for tv, and I'm very grateful to have a job and a career, but I'm always writing what someone is paying me to write. And I'm very rarely writing what I want to write. I'm paying what someone pays me to write or what I can sell, but that's not how I started writing when I was in college and in high school. I just wanted to write what I wanted to write. And so I went for a walk with my wife one day and I was like, I have a really bad idea. I'm thinking of writing a collection of personal essays, which is what David Seras writes. And I love his writing. I've read everything. He's written multiple times. You show him your card, you got a card back there, don't you? Oh yeah. Yeah. He actually, I sent him a piece of fan letter, a fan mail three years ago. But I've read him so much. I knew that he would respond. He talks about, I knew he would respond. It just took him three years to respond, but it was very kind of him.So yeah, so I started writing. I wanted to write this project. I wanted to write what I want to write. I wanted to tell stories the way I wanted to tell them without network notes, without a partner, without. I just wanted to see what I can do on my own without having someone telling me what to do or breathing down my back or saying, no, it should be this or that. What can I do? And so I told that to Cynthia and she said, that's a great idea. And I said, but you don't understand even if I sell it, I'm not going to make a lot of money from it and it's going to take me years and years to do. She goes, you got to do it anyway, because if you do, you will find yourself in the process. And I was like, okay.And at the time, I was really in a bad place. I was just very upset about stuff mentally. I was in a bad place. I was like, okay, I'll start writing. And that's what I did. I remember I had listened to a lot of David C's audio books, but I had never read him. So I was like, I better read him. And then I bought a bunch of books and I read the first one. I remember I was lying in bed. I was reading the first book and I'm about halfway through and I'm thinking, where's this guy going? What's he doing here? Where's he going with this? And then I got to the end of the piece and the ending was such a wonderful ending. I was like, oh my God. And I almost threw the book across the room. I was, I was so mad.I was like, this is going to be so much harder than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be easy or natural, not easy, but just considering I'm a writer, I didn't think it would be that difficult. So then I just started studying him and I got all his books and I read them multiple times over and over again, and the more I read, I was just trying to look for patterns and trying to learn from him. And that kind of just began, that was the beginning of this journey just to study, study what I wanted to do.Phil Hudson:You're constantly telling people to study their craft, and you talk about story and story structure. You have a course on that. Most of your content you put on social media is dedicated to helping people understand that your webinars are often about resetting people's expectations about what a writing career looks like and helping them focus on what really matters. And the undertone that I've witnessed over the last two, two and a half years of this process with you of at least starting the podcast and helping with social media and that stuff, it's all based under the reality or the realization that creativity is worth doing just to be creative and that there's value in that process beyond monetary pay or paychecks.Michael Jamin:Well, yeah, for sure. When I first started writing these stories, the first two, first several were not very good. I was writing in David Sari's voice because I didn't know how else to do it. The ironic thing, as a TV writer, I'm always writing in someone else's voice. I'm writing in the character's voice or the voice of the show, but this is my voice, and this is the first time I actually had to do that. And so because I'm a good mimic and because I had just read so much of him, I was kind of writing, I was kind of the writer like him, and I thought the first two stories were good. And then I set it down for a couple of weeks and I read it with fresh eyes and I thought, oh, this is terrible. It felt like a cheap knockoff. It felt like me pretending I was him and I hated it.I threw all those stories out and then I had to figure out, okay, what's my voice? And that was a long discovery. But the reason why, this is a long way of saying this, those first several stories I wrote, I don't know, maybe six or seven stories, and it just take months and months. At one point, I reach out to my agent. I'm at a very big prestigious Hollywood agency. They do. They represent me in film and tv, and I reached out to my agent. I told him what I was working on. I said, Hey, do we have a book agency, a book department? He said, of course we do. What do I know? I tell him what I was doing. I said, can you hook me up with one of your agents? He goes, sure. So I reach out to their agents. This guy's in New York now, he doesn't have to take, just so people know, I told 'em what I was doing. He doesn't have to take me on as a client, but he has to take the call.I'm banging them. They got to take the call. He doesn't have to bring me on to represent him in books though. And so I told him what I was doing. He goes, oh, that sounds interesting. Send me what you have. I go, well, I only have a handful of stories, but I'll send you what I have. So I emailed them to him. I never heard back. I didn't hear back for probably six months at this point. And I'm still writing more stories. It doesn't matter, whatever. I'm thinking maybe he read it, he didn't read it, he doesn't like it, whatever. I'm not going to stop writing them though. And I just kept on writing all these stories. Finally, six months later, he reaches out to me. He goes, I'm so sorry it took me so long to read these. I love them. Let's get on the phone and talk about them.I was like, sure. He goes, and he was like, when we spoke, he said, he said, do you have any more? Because he only read whatever. I sent him maybe six stories, and I go, as a matter of fact, yeah, I'm almost done with the collection. Give me another couple of weeks and I'll send you the entire collection. So at that point, but again, I'm writing it because I want to write it. I want to do this. I'm not thinking about how much money I'm going to make. I'm thinking about the process of writing and figuring out how to learn. I had to relearn how to write because I'm a TV writer who now is writing books. There's a little difference. There's some difference to it.Phil Hudson:Yeah. A couple things here. I love the narrative, and I don't want to interrupt the narrative, but I think there's some topics that are coming up here. Is it okay if we just dive into those for a second? Yeah, please. Okay. You talked about David Sedaris and you were reading this and you're like, where is this going? And then it ended in this way. That was almost upsetting because it was so beautiful and so well done. What I'm hearing you say is something you talk about regularly on the podcast and in your social media content, which is the way you unpack your story is the job of being a writer. And that's almost effectively what I'm hearing is that's your craft and your tone and your style. You still have to understand story structure and you understand these things. But the unpacking, would you say that that's an example of what you're talking about when you say how you unpack something matters?Michael Jamin:Yes, and the thing is, I've really tried to study him. I think he's the gold standard. I think he's a master, a beautiful writer. There's certain things I was able to learn and certain things I was not able to unpack. And so I learned a lot from him for sure. But some things still remain a mystery to me from how he writes. I can't see through it, and I'm good at seeing through some stuff. So take that for what it's worth. I do remember thinking, I had long conversations with my wife when we were about this. I didn't want people to think that the book was written by a sitcom writer. I wanted it to be funny and dramatic, but I didn't want people to say, oh, this guy's, I wanted it to be a little smarter than just a sitcom, I guess. And so I was very self-conscious about that.And we had long conversations of Is this art? How do I make art? What is art? How do I do this? So it feels like art and what I really came, it was a really eye-opening moment for me, and it came from much of what I learned about how to do this. I learned not from writers, David is probably the only writer who I really studied a lot for this book, but I learned a lot from watching interviews with musicians, ironically, about how they approached their art. And I found that to be more helpful than listening to other writers. And one of the really interesting things, I was like, well, we know there's a market for what David Sedera says. We know people like what he does, so why am I trying to reinvent things? Why not just kind of do what he's doing? And there's two reasons why not.One, I'm not him. I can't be him ever. And that's almost the tragedy of the whole thing is I want to write, this guy can write, but I never ever will. So you're going to have to let go of that, which is almost tragic. But the other thing is, it's my responsibility not to, as an artist, if you want to make art, then add, you have to bring new to the equation. You have to bring new, and that actually, I picked up, I believe I picked up from an interview with watching Pharrell talk about music.Phil Hudson:That's awesome.Michael Jamin:Which is basically he's saying, listen, your job is to bring something new to the conversation, is to put the youness into it. Whatever is you, that's what you have to put into it. And that was very reassuring to hear it from him. I was like, oh, okay, now I can lean into me.Phil Hudson:This resonates with me. And what I wrote down here is that you can look outside of your space for inspiration. And I think this again ties to the fact that creativity is self, it's for the self. Rick Rubin, the producer, you're familiar with him. I think most people are at this point. I was just watched a clip of him in an interview and he said, I have never made music for a fan. When you do, it's bad when I make it for myself or when I do it because it's something that I like that resonates with the listener. And would you say that's what you're doing here is you're writing this for you in your tone because it's the best pure expression of your art?Michael Jamin:Well, yes, yes and no. Some of it, it's very truthful. It's very painfully truthful. It's very intimate. I go there. I think that's what makes it interesting. I think that's my job as a writer. It's my obligation as a writer is to figure out what the truth is and figure out how to tell it. But I also keep the audience in mind, and maybe that's just because of my background as a team writer.Phil Hudson:Yeah, you're an entertainer to a degree because that's what you do, is you want people to tune in for 23, 25 minutes per week, have a good time, forget their worries, and then leave having gotten something from what you've done. Well,Michael Jamin:It's also,Phil Hudson:But I don't know, that negates what Rick Rubin's talking about because it's like when you read, when you're putting out here, do you feel like you are getting the same value out of it that you would hope a reader would, or are you hoping the reader gets more value out of it than what you're getting out of it?Michael Jamin:Well, I don't know. I mean, first I keep them in mind. I picture my reader with a remote control in their hand. That's just become from me, a TV writer. So how do I make sure this story is compelling so that they want to turn the page? But I do keep them in mind in terms of how do I make this story not about me, but about all of us. And I think that's important because this has the danger of becoming very self-indulgent. These are true stories from my life, but I tell them in a way with art, so that you really feel like you're reading a character in a book. I am a character. The character of Michael is in this story, so it's not like, and then this happened, then this happened. I'm not telling you how I broke into Hollywood, although there are stories about that. I'm really telling you about the stories. These are stories of rejection. These are stories of triumph. There are stories there meant to be, the details are mine, but the stories are all of ours. So that's how I feel I'm telling them is like, okay, so that you can totally relate to this so you can feel, okay, I had something very similar and me explaining it to you helps you understand it, hopefully.Phil Hudson:And not to jump ahead, I saw you last year for my birthday, do a performance. My wife and I came out and there's a story, was it, is that what it's called?Michael Jamin:The Goul? Yeah, thePhil Hudson:Goul. Still a year later, 13 months later, still thinking about that goul because as a new father and then hearing your perspective as a father with children leaving the home, yeah, there's a lot of beauty and regret in that story that is paralleling the decisions I'm making now with my children who are young and what I want my life and my relationship to be like with them. So yeah, I think you absolutely check that box. You said, I've heard you say before, you want people to leave and sit there and think about it, have been impacted by what's happening. And I can tell you that that's been very true for me.Michael Jamin:That's been my, because, so Phil came to, I performed this, and if you want to see me perform, you can go to In Your Town if I travel with it, michael jamin.com/upcoming. But that's one of the stories. That's actually one of the stories I gave out to reviewers to review the book and people, they like that story. But yeah, my goal when I write any story, and hopefully I achieve this, is people say, I couldn't put it down. That seems to be the nicest thing you could say about a book. I couldn't put it down. I want you to put the book down. I want you to get to a chapter and just be so moved at the end of it that you're not ready to move forward. You just want to sit in that emotion for however long it takes you, whatever it is, just sit in it.I don't want you to, it's not meant to be consumed that way. And one of the things that I tried to achieve, I made, we did an audio book and I hired whatever. I partnered with Anthony Rizzo, who's the composer I worked with on Marin. He's a really talented writer composer. And so for the audio book, I would send him each chapter. And then I said to him, he's like, what do you want? I go, no, no, no. I want you to read this piece, interpret it. Tell me what it sounds like to you in music. What's your version of, he's an artist. What does this sound like to you in music? And that's what he came back with. And so at the end in the audiobook, if you prefer to consume it that way, at the end of the story, we go right into the music and it forces you, or not forces you, but allows you to sit in it. It allows you to sit in whatever motion it is. The music carries you out for 30 seconds or however long it is, just so now you can experience it in music, which I love that I just love. I thought he brought so much to the audiobook. I'm so grateful he hopped on board.Phil Hudson:I normally listen to audiobooks at 1.5 to 1.75 speed, and then the music kind of throws that off. This is one I would absolutely listen to in real time. JustMichael Jamin:Slow it down. Yeah, down,Phil Hudson:Slow it down and just sit in it and give yourself the treat and the opportunity to sit in that. I think very often we are constantly looking for the next thing or to get ahead or checking off stuff on our list. And that's not what this book is. This book is a sit in it, allow yourself to feel it. Think about how you can apply it. There's just some beautiful life lessons in here as well.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I hope so. That was my goal.Phil Hudson:Yeah, I think it's achieved. And I've talked to several people in your advanced reader group who feel the same way.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:And you've got fans in there, but these are people who are very sincere with their compliments as well. And there's some great compliments coming your way from that advanced group.Michael Jamin:And so thank you. Honestly, I like to do more of this kind of writing, and this is, to me is very fulfilling at this stage of my career. To me, it's more exciting doing this than writing a TV show that might be seen by millions of people writing something that can make someone just make you laugh, but then feel something. It's funny, I have sort of a recipe and I'm wondering, people can see through it at some point, but I don't really care. My recipe is if I can get you to laugh in the beginning, I just want you to open up. Let's just start laughing about stuff and it start, most of my stories start out very fun and light, and then you kind of relax into, oh, this is going to be fun. And you let your guard down, and as soon as your guard comes down, then I hit you as really hard, as hard as I can with something emotional where I talk about, and because you're in my writing course, you'll know where this happens, where this happens structurally. And then at that point, once I hit him in the heart, there's no point in being funny anymore. The humor has already achieved its goal, which is to you to get your guard down. And soPhil Hudson:Engaged, paying attention, it's something, some advice, I know it's standard advice, but it advice used specifically gave me a long time ago, which is it's easy to kill people. It's hard to make them laugh, and so you're almost checking the box on the humor part, so they're completely engaged and engrossed in what's going on, which is why the emotional impact of the reality of this story hits so hard later. Yeah,Michael Jamin:There were times I thought maybe I'm being too funny here in the beginning, I'm not even sure, but because I didn't want any of this to feel silly, I just wanted it to be fun until, but yeah, tonally, there's, I guess some stories are a little lighter than others for sure.Phil Hudson:Yeah, it's good stuff. Going back to what you're telling though, in this narrative of how we got to where you are, you said that you reached out to your agent who got you in touch with the literary agent effectively for books and publishing, and a lot of people, myself included, might be tempted to submit to the agent and then wait and do nothing. And you made a point of saying you continued to write. And the question when he came back is, do you have more? So a lot of people, I think the mistake is that they're putting all their eggs in the basket. And we see this all the time with the questions on the webinars for the podcast, for your live q and as, when you do them on social media, whatever it is, how do I get an agent? How do I get a representative? How do I get a showrunner attached? How do I do this? And it's like you say you're putting all the power in the hands of somebody else and you're saying that's the wrong thing to do. And because you didn't, because you're writing for yourself to do the job, and you didn't wait for one person to make your career, you were even more successfulMichael Jamin:In getting, and he doesn't care. I mean, he's a good guy and everything, but he doesn't care if I achieve this. What does he care? All he wants is, is he going to make money from this? And that's fair enough. He has to make money, so my dream is my dream. I have to make my dream happen. And so yes, then turned it into him. We sent it out, and then the feedback I got was, Hey, this is really great, but platform drives acquisition. I said, well, what does that mean? It means you need to have a social media following. I said, really? It's not good enough that it's well written. No, not anymore. Maybe 30 years ago. But today the industry publishing has changed as much as Hollywood has changed, it's really can they sell it? And now it's sold on social media. You're expected to have that.And I was a little upset about that. I was like, why can't it just be good enough? Everyone loved it, but platform drives acquisition. I said, all right, well, how big of a social media following do I need? This is two and a half years ago. And I couldn't get a straight answer that no one really knew, but especially in the space of They had a good point, Phil. They really did. It's not like this is not a novel. These are personal essays. But like I said, they're told story-wise, not if you didn't know me. You'd be like, oh, this is a nice story. But it just so happens that it's true. But the point that they made was, or maybe I made it with myself. I think that's what it was. I was like, if you were to go to Barnes and Noble and my book was on the shelf, why would someone buy it if they don't know who I am?Because there's true stories. Who cares if you don't know who I am? And that's a fair thing to ask. Why would someone pick it off the shelf? Now, here's the thing, as I was arguing with myself, but here's the thing. No one goes to Barnes and Nobles anymore. That's not where people get books. I mean, they exist, but most people just get it online. Most of the books are sold online. So why do I need to be in Barnes and no, I don't. I need, I mean, I can be, but it's not necessary. And so I was like, okay. And then I was like, well, if I build the platform, if I get a big following and people want to support me and buy the book curious and they like what I have to say and they think I'm talented, great. But then why do I need a publisher?What do they bring to the equation, honestly? Oh, they can get your book in barge. Oh, well, great, but no one goes there anymore. So what exactly did they do? And by the way, they get most of the money. I'm like, okay, well, they help you design the book cover, but the problem is they don't help you. They design the book cover. You don't get a choice of what the book cover is. Maybe they give you three choices, but that's about it. They decide how they want and they decide what the title of the book is. You sold 'em the Rights. So why am I giving away all this power to someone who hasn't earned it? Why am I making them rich? Why am I giving any creative input at all? When the whole point of this was for me to have a hundred percent creative input? I remember at one point, because I had talked to other people in the publishing world and they thought your title could be better. It's called the Paper Orchestra. I was like, yeah, but I think I like the title, but no one really knows what it means. And I'm like, yeah, you got a good point. No one knows what it means untilPhil Hudson:I remember this conversation,Michael Jamin:And then it was ironically, I had a long talk with my daughter. It was on my birthday, and we went for a long walk, and she's so smart, and she says, well, why are she said to me, I thought the whole point of the book was for you to just write what you wanted to write without anyone giving you No. I said, yeah. She goes, well, why are you changing the title? I said, yeah, why am I changing the title? Why am I second guessing myself? So I did it my way. I did a hundred percent my way, and this is my book.This is my expression without having anyone telling me it's wrong, it's different. It should be this or that. Along the way. I got to say, Phil, it's so frustrating for, it's so frustrating to hear this kind of stuff, I think, but it's like I understand what people want. I want this. I want a complete creative expression. And to me, that's the satisfaction. Whether I sell a hundred copies or one copy or a million copies, it's the process that I got so much joy out of. And I think that's what people will enjoy. I mean, it's like I had so many agents, even afterwards, they find me on social media, they reach out to me, go, and I tell 'em what my book is, and they go, oh, that sounds nice, but if you write a young adult novel, I can sell that for you. Or if you write a how to book, we can sell that. I'm like, if I don't want to write those, this is what I want to write. This is exactly what I wanted to write. You got to do it yourself.Phil Hudson:That's right. And that's what you tell people. You got to basically make your mountain, create your mountain, and then climb your mountain.Michael Jamin:And all of it's doable. It's just going to take a long time, but it's going to take less time to build your mountain and climb it than it's for you to beg someone to make your life.Phil Hudson:And begging someone to make your life means you owe them and they have power over you.Michael Jamin:And it's also, but you're going to hear no so many times you're going to get so much rejection. Who needs it? Why not just put all that creative energy into what you want to achieve instead of why are you wasting your energy hitting people up on LinkedIn? What's the point of that?Phil Hudson:This is something in business I'm bad about because we've talked about it before. I own a digital marketing agency. That was my career path before I moved to LA, and I still operate that agency, and we do nothing on LinkedIn. And I was like, well, you got to be on LinkedIn. That's where the businesses are. And I was like, I get that Our business is almost purely word of mouth, and it's because I'm not out shaking my can, asking people to put money in it. We stand on the value of the work that we do, and then that's referral work that goes out to other people. And that's not the way to grow to a business that's going to end up on the New York Stock Exchange or end up something you can trade. But what it is, it's a lifestyle business that creates a way for me to do what you're doing, which is to make my art, to be creative, to live my life the way I want without having to be beholden to somebody else dictating what I do with my time and my hours. And what I'm hearing you say is it's effectively the same thing for your book is had you gone with an agent who sold your book to a big publisher, you would now be mandated to do things in a certain way and you would've lost all of the same creative control. And it almost sounds like it would spoil the whole experience for you.Michael Jamin:It's hard to say. I mean, in the beginning, that's how I thought I had to do it. And then I realized I didn't have to who it could have been a great experience. I don't know. I mean, we'll never know, but I also know it's not necessary even a little bit, not in today's world. And if I do another book, maybe I will use a publisher, maybe not. I don't know. But the point is, if I do, they're going to pay me for it. You know what I'm saying? This first one's on me. I have to prove myself. Sure. If they want in on Michael Jamin, they're going to have to pay me or else, because now the power has shifted.Phil Hudson:Yeah. I can't remember if we've ever talked about this, but this came up in conversation this week's Kevin Hart, where he worked, traveling, doing standup comedy, getting names, getting emails after shows, building a fan base. And then when he got his first big deal, they were like, all right, and then we'll need you to send this out to your email list. And he said, it's a million dollars. And they said, what? He says, you didn't work to build that list. You don't get my people and mine. I put in the blood, sweat and tears on this. You did not. You're going to pay me for that blood, sweat and tears.Michael Jamin:And what happened?Phil Hudson:They paid him everyMichael Jamin:Time they paid him. Yeah. Pay the man and a lot of this, and you've helped out as well with enormously, just in terms of the podcast and help me with marketing and all that stuff and the website. Yeah, but it's still one of these things. Build it first. This is the order in which you need to do things when you make it first and then people will join in. People will want a piece of that. They either want to help you or they'll want part of your success or whatever. It's not the other way around. It's not, Hey, help me make my dream. No one wants to help you make your dream. No one cares about your dream. You build it first and then they'll come out of the woodwork and decide whether they want a piece of you or not, because they can make some money off of it.But it's so much more empowering when you look at it that way. It's like, Hey, I have something to offer here. I have something great. I'm not even offering it. I have something great here. Do you want a piece of it or not? And the answer, they know, okay, that's fine. I will do it without you. But it's the other, you know what I'm saying? It's not like, Hey, help me make it out. Hey, help me. Then you're begging. It's the other way around. I have something great and I'm going there. I'm doing it with or without you. Up to you, you can decidePhil Hudson:It's field of dreams, right? If you build it, they will come. Yeah.Michael Jamin:You got to build it first though.Phil Hudson:You got to build it first. You have to do the crazy thing. You have the lofty idea. You got to go make the baseball field in the middle of your corn field in Nebraska orMichael Jamin:Wherever. And people say, though, I don't know how to do that. But if you are a creative person and you want to get into a creative field, writing or screenwriting, whatever, be creative, prove how creative you are, you'll figure it out.Phil Hudson:Figure it out. Yeah, go cut your teeth. I think it's this metaphor for life though, which is we have to do things that are difficult and hard and things that we don't enjoy because that's how we learn and grow and get better. And redefining failure I think was a big deal for me because failure was something I just tried to avoid at all costs, to the point that I would do nothing if I thought I wasn't going to be 100% successful. So imagine doing that, trying to be a writer when writing is rewriting, you're not going to be okay the first 10, 15 drafts or whatever. Oh, god. And so if you have this fear of failure and what is failure? So redefining what these things means is very important. And when you start looking at failure, a lot of very smart people have said that failure is just the fastest way to get to success. You just have to fail as fast as possible so that you can achieve your goal. And it's just learning what not to do. And so many quotes about that.Michael Jamin:That's one of the things. Another thing that I picked up from another musician, David Bowie, as I was trying to figure out what art is, and he said something very similar. He said, art is basically is taking something from within yourself and figuring out a way how to express it so that you can help understand yourself and the world around you. And he goes, but to make something really great, you have to swim in water. That's just a little too deep to stand in. And that's when something great can happen. When you're in a little over your head, that's when the art is made. And it's the same thing what you're saying. It's like you got to do things that are out of your comfort zone, and that's how you achieve things.Phil Hudson:Yeah. So social media, being a public persona, subjecting yourself to just some of the most crazy things you've told me people say to you and your comments and your dms and just horrible things. HorribleMichael Jamin:Internet is horrible. I don't get a ton of hate, but I do get hate. But that's a double-edged sword of doing this. But also then it was also, okay, I put myself on social media as a screenwriter, as a TV writer, and here I'm sharing my expertise working in the business for 27 years, but I also have show you that I have to show you that I'm actually good at what I do, so that I try to make my posts funny. Or sometimes I just do a post. It's all funny so that you feel like, okay, maybe this guy can write as opposed to just me saying, I can write, showing you that I can write. So there's that kind of bridge I have to cross.Phil Hudson:Yeah. The exercise of putting yourself out there though is just something you were hesitant to for years and years and years. I think since I met you, I've been telling you, you need to be on social media. You need to grow a social media following, and it was just not your thing. And what I appreciate about your story with this book is you care so much about this book and doing this thing for yourself that you're willing to do the uncomfortable, which is be public facing person who is willing to put yourself out there almost every single day for two and a half years despite what anybody says, because that is what is required for you to make sure that you are able to have the maximum impact as you can with this thing that's so important to you. And that is something most people aren't willing to do.Michael Jamin:You are listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamon talking about? Today's episode is brought to you by my new book, A Paper Orchestra, a Collection of True Stories. John Mayer says, it's fantastic. It's multi timbral. It runs all levels of the pyramid at the same time. His knockout punches are stinging, sincerity, and Kirker Review says, those who appreciate the power of simple stories to tell us about human nature or who are bewitched by a storyteller who has mastered his craft, will find a delightful collection of vignettes, a lovely anthology that strikes a perfect balance between humor and poignancy. So my podcast is not advertiser supported. I'm not running ads here. So if you'd like to support me or the podcast, come check out my book. Go get an ebook or a paperback, or if you really want to treat yourself, check out the audio book.Go to michael jamin.com/book, and now back to our show. I mean, I have people who go on social and things. I go on social media. There's a lot of influencers that I follow or whatever, usually experts in their field, but many of them, or most of them don't use their real name. They don't because they want that anonymity, and I don't blame them, but I can't do that. If I'm talking about my book, you got to know what my name is. And so I end everything is Michael Jamon writer. That's scary to put your real name out there. And so there's that as well.Phil Hudson:This is scary in a real way too. I'm aware of at least two police reports we've had to file for people who've been insane.Michael Jamin:Yeah, there's some insane people out there, but really insane and nothing too dangerous. I had to report,Phil Hudson:But its hateMichael Jamin:Speech. You still have to reportPhil Hudson:It. It speech, it's hate speech. It's threatening. It's angry language, and the things that you're talking about are wild. They're not invoking it. One of the compliments I think you get for people is how you respond to criticism. It's like you could destroy people because you have that capacity.Michael Jamin:I could do that with my words. You'rePhil Hudson:The definition of a good man, and the fact that you are dangerous with your words and you choose not to use it,Michael Jamin:I would believe me, I would tear them apart and make them look silly, but it doesn't help me any. It doesn't actually help me. So I just, I'm getting there rolling in the dirt with them, and then we both get dirty. So for the most part, I just ignore, but I also talk to other creators how they handle the same thing. It's this new internet fame. It's a strange territory.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Well, we were just talking earlier today about how you went. Did you go into a Kinko's or something to PrinceMichael Jamin:And stuff? Yeah, I went to a Kinko's. I got spotted in the wild.Phil Hudson:Yeah, somebody knew who you were and it was more common. Shout out Chris. Chris on the podcast, but it's like the first time, I remember the first time that really happened to you. I remember you told me You'll never believe what happened. I was out in this place and somebody shotted Michael Jamon Ry from their car. It's just a weird thing.Michael Jamin:It's just odd. Yeah.Phil Hudson:I've had a taste of that through association, and I've talked about it on the podcast as well, where we went to our wrap party for Tacoma FD season four, and one of the assistant editors comes up and he goes, dude, I got to tell you, my wife works in the industry and she's an accountant, and she brought over her accountant friend, and they were like, oh, what Jody do you work on? And he was like, I work on Tacoma Dean. And she's like, oh, I listen to Phil Hudson's podcast.Michael Jamin:Oh,Phil Hudson:Wow. And he's like, I didn't even know you had a podcast. I was like, ah. It's a strange feeling. And then later that night, one of our accountants, it must be accountants who listened to our podcast, they brought someone over to the party's like, yeah, listen to your podcast. I was like, it feels weird. And I'm not even Michael Jammin. I'm just a guy who's on there.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's strange to put yourself out there like that, but you're doing it,Phil Hudson:But you're doing it.Michael Jamin:I'm doing it, but I also, yeah. And also, listen, if you want to know more about me, then you'll definitely read the book. The book is very vulnerable, but it's still weird. I don't know. I felt like, well, David Sedaris can do it. I can do it. But I also, I think that's interesting about, I do think that's interesting about this kind of writing is that as opposed to writing a novel that you're making up and you are making up these characters, I feel like the stakes are higher when you're reading something like my book, because you, oh, this character's real, and he's really going through, it's not like when you're reading a fake a movie or watching a movie or reading a book, a novel and the character dies or whatever gets injured or something. Part of you can still say, okay, it's still made up. It's not real. That's just an actor going through something and the actor's pretending. But when you read this, you go, oh, this is real. This is a real person. This is not made up. And I do feel like it raises the stakes, and in some way, I feel like this is my answer to ai, to what if everyone's worried that AI is going to take writer's jobs? This is my answer to that, which is, AI cannot do this. AI is not capable of telling a story about me. That's real. I have to do that.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Someone just yesterday I saw someone posted that asking AI to write about, to write about something is having them listen to a thousand hours of people talking about pizza and then asking it to make a pizza is just like, it's not going to come out. It's just not going to come out.Michael Jamin:I get a lot of people in my comments and they'll say things when I talk about ai, you clearly don't understand ai, and I want to say, you clearly don't understand writing. That's what you don't understand. Yep.Phil Hudson:It's the human condition. I mean, we've been talking about this forever. That's what Star Trek is, right? It's data figuring out what it means to be human. The thing that comes to mind for me is this, for random clip, I saw probably when it was airing real time in the early nineties, and my dad was watching it and it's data talking about how, oh, boy, time flies. And he couldn't understand the expression, time flies. And so he sat and watched an egg boil over and over and over again. He's like, it takes exactly eight minutes and 32 seconds or egg to boil because he couldn't understand or comprehend it from the machine side. And so it's all about that. Even machines want to be more human. And rioting is exploring the human condition. Yeah,Michael Jamin:That's right. That's right. So if you want to understand yourself and you write, and then to me getting back to the book, that's what this process was figuring out who I am, figuring out who I, and it's so interesting because all these patterns kept on emerging. I got write a story and I'd get halfway through it, and I'm thinking, why would this character, and let's say this story is something that I did when I was 11 or whatever, why would this character do that? Why would I have done that? And a lot of times I just didn't know, why would I do that? It didn't make sense. Then I'd write something, I'd go, no, that doesn't feel true. That feels like the TV version. What's the real version? And then I'd have to think of another memory from that time. And I think, oh, I wonder if those two are related. And now I'm figuring out who I am. And I'm like, oh, that's why I would do that. That makes sense. Which is so interesting to finally be able to understand yourself at the end of this book. I'm like, oh, I know who I am.Phil Hudson:In some of my research for one of the pilots I wrote about special operators in the Seal team, six Delta fours, green Berets, army Rangers. I was listening to a bunch of podcasts, and one of 'em was talking about this principle that your level of trauma or your level of struggle is the same as mine. Even if something I've been through has been more horrific. From an objective perspective, our perception of my worst trauma and your worst trauma are equally impactful. And I'm wondering, we had very different childhoods, and we've talked a bit about mine and a little bit about yours, but does that process of exploring, why would you do things as a child? Is that healing for you?Michael Jamin:And it was healing and helpful. A lot of these stories, I feel, are apologies to various people I've heard over my life, and it's not written to be an apology, but when you're telling the truth, it's an apology. When you're acknowledging your end of it, it's an apology. And so I'm not writing it, Hey, please forgive me. It's just about the truth. And so, yeah, I really, it's so helpful, and hopefully this is what people will respond to. When you read the book, you go, oh, man, yeah, thank you for that. Thank you for putting to words what I couldn't do because I'm not a writer. Yeah,Phil Hudson:Yeah. That's the stuff that stays with us, right? It's a metaphor for things we're going through. And I think one of the most impactful lessons I learned in film school was the cool job effect.Michael Jamin:What is that?Phil Hudson:So it was this Russian director who showed the same shot of a man, and then he put it against a starving child or a child in a casket or food, or a beautiful woman. And at the end, everyone came up. And that actor was incredible. When he looked at the food, I could feel his desire for food. When he looked at that girl, I could see the pain of her death. And when he saw the woman, I could feel the lust. It's the exact same shot of the same man. And it's the subjective projection that one puts onto art that allows you, it's an unconscious way for you to make sense of your world and import what your experience is in on something, which is why art has always been a part of humanity. It's why it's something that we have always, I think, sought after. It's not entertainment from a sedation perspective where we're trying to avoid it. Sometimes it's that, but very often the things that impact us and mean something, they are things that we need to experience because they make sense. They allow us to make sense of our world.Michael Jamin:Right. That's a good point that you point that out. Yeah. It's like I feel like I've played a part of that in writing sitcoms sometimes, and there's a place for it. You'll come home after a long day, you just want to thrown out and laugh and really not be challenged and not go there, but for this piece. And there's nothing wrong with that. People want to be entertained. But for this,Phil Hudson:People still learn from that too, that people need that, and it serves a role too.Michael Jamin:They need that. But for this, I didn't want that. I wanted to go way deeper than that. I wanted to because I wanted to feel something. Because my contention as a comedy writer, and I know this is true, is that when you write that humor, write something funny. Or if you go, sometimes you'll go see a standup who's hilarious, but then you leave and you are hard pressed to remember one joke that you liked, or you're hard pressed to remember what you even liked about it. You go, I just spent an hour laughing, but I don't really remember any of it. I know I enjoyed myself, but I can't, it's not with me anymore. And what I really wanted to do was write something that would stay with you after this. So you were still feeling like we talked about, you're still feeling it. And you can't just do that with comedy. You have to mix drama into it. Because comedy, that's not what comedy does.Phil Hudson:Well, I mean, your course and what I've seen you do in your craft and sitcoms as well, this is really key point, is why do we care about this thing? The reason we don't care. That's the story. And that's the personal, and that's the people. And so, I mean, this has been your point, and what you've been teaching for years and years anyway is none of it matters unless it means something. And that is the drama part of the comedy. That comedy can break things and it can move us and give us that ebb and flow and that roller coaster effective emotions. And those are beautiful experiences to have in sitcoms or dramas or dramedies. But it's the, why are we watching this? It's the human thing. It's that human piece. That's what you're saying. That's what I'm hearing.Michael Jamin:Yeah. What's at stake here? What's really at stake? And again, I studied other writers. Some I thought did it great, and some I didn't think did it well at all. And so I was trying to hold myself to that higher standard of the ones who did it really well, because I knew what I, what I wanted out of this.Phil Hudson:And again, we've started by saying, you've climbed this mountain, and there's another mountain.Michael Jamin:There's another mountain. Sometimes people have said to me like, well, are you going to turn this into a TV show? It's so odd. It's so odd. Or a movie that somehow I was even watching, what was I watching, American Fiction, that movie. And there's a line in it where this author, she had a book that was a bestseller, and then she's giving an interview and someone said, oh, maybe they'll a hear. They're making a movie out of it. And she's like, well, I can't tell you anymore as if a movie is better than a book or a TV show is better than a book. A book could be a book, a book. What's wrong with a book? Just being a book.So I don't either have any plans to turn this in TV show. If anyone, could it be me? I am a TV writer. I could have very specific ideas on how I would want to do it, and whether a buyer would want to do that or not, I don't know. But I wouldn't compromise how I'd want to do it. But the best way to make it happen, if it did happen, I would have to sell a lot of books first. So if anyone wants to see it happen, then get a book. And then I would actually make content behind the scenes on TikTok, Hey, look at me now I'm meeting with this studio. And now if that's the ride you want to go on, then in order to go on that ride, I have to sell a lot of copies. But again, that's not my goal. Show support. You can if you're curious, but again, that's not my goal. The goal of this was only one thing. I want to write a book that moves people was never a TV show. I can write a TV show. I write TV shows. That's not what I wanted to do.Phil Hudson:And if you want to be moved, you have to buy a copy of the book because if you're listening to this and you want to experience what Michael has put together, you have to buy a copy of the book because that is, I know the number you've invested significantly into just making this happen for yourself. This is not some random cousin who's like, Hey, I wrote a book and I put it on Amazon publishing. This is the real deal. I mean, lift your book up if you don't mind, so people can see the cover. This has been out for a minute, but even just the story of this cover and how you got this cover and found this artist and license, it is a beautiful story in and of itself.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Okay. That's another thing. So I wanted to cover,Phil Hudson:Before we dive into this, I just wanted to point out too, when you were talking about, you looked at all these other writers and people and you said, that's who I want. That's the level I want to be at. You've done this one. Whatever you do next, you're still going to be saying the same thing. All right. What's the next level of professionalism or craft that I can get to? And that's because you are a pro, and that's what you tell people to be a professional, which is constantly striving to be better than the last time.Michael Jamin:Yeah. There are a lot of writers or authors, maybe indie authors, they're cranking out books. I'm like, Jesus, I cranked this out. This took four years. I didn't crank this out. This was worked on really, I really worked on it.Phil Hudson:But talk about your cover. I apologize for interjecting there. I just wanted to get that point across that you're still going to be pursuing that. Excellent. And that's what makes people stand out. Excellence stands out in a world, I hope so.Michael Jamin:Yeah, make something good and people will, okay, so for the cover, I wanted a good cover, but the book is funny and it's also very poignant. And so I looked at other books that I thought were really good, and so I found this one guy who had actually designed some of David Sari's early covers. I didn't know this guy, but obviously he gets comedy. So I read, his name is Steve Snyder. I just found him on Instagram. I don't know him from a hole in the wall. And I DMed him. I slid into his dms and I told him what I was working on, and I told him, I noticed how weird it's for me to reach out to him. And he goes, oh, well, send me your manuscript. So I did. And then a couple weeks went by, he wrote back. He goes, I love it. I'm in. And now this guy, he's like 80 or something, but he was retired. He goes, I'll come back out of retirement to make the cover for you. I go, great, but just so you know, I don't know what my budget is. He goes, oh, I'll do it for free. I want to be part of it. I love it. I want to be part of it.Phil Hudson:Wow, Michael, just let that sit. I know you've internalized that, but we talk about to everybody. You got to own the wins and you got to celebrate the victory. He's like, what does that mean to you that this accomplishedMichael Jamin:Desire? It was very validating. It was very, and then I was like, alright, well, I'll just figure out what I'm going to pay you later, but, but then as we were moving down the line, he's retired, so he was getting, I just made plans. I'm going to be traveling from, he goes, I want to do this, but I don't think I can get it done on time. He goes, I was like, okay, I don't want to, okay, maybe you can refer somebody. So he recommended one of these accolades, one of the people he trained under him. And so I reached out to her same deal. And so I want hiring her, Jenny Carro. She did a wonderful job with the cover, but getting the cover. And then when we finally got the cover and I reached out to Steve again, I go, here's the cover.You want to see it? And he goes, oh, damn. I love it. I wish I didn't drop out. That's awesome. But what happened with Jenny? So she came back with a bunch of covers that were good, but they didn't feel right. There was something about it didn't feel right. It was like almost, and then she had one cover, and I hate to keep going back and forth with her. I was like, I don't want to discourage her. So one was almost good, almost like right, but not quite right. And then I was intent. I was going to use it. And then for some reason I happened to see an ad on Facebook. It was an article about artists or whatever. So I click on this article and I'm reading the article, and then there's other, I see the cover that she was going to license for my, she was going to license some artwork for my cover, and I recognize it.I go, that's it. And I click on it to discover more about what this artist had done. And then, which took me to his website or his Instagram page, I don't remember. And then I discover all his other work and I go, that's the one. So this is a licensed piece of art from this Dutch artist named Tune Juin. And I reached out to him, I want to license this art for your book, for my book. And he goes, great. It was just a boy sitting on words. And the title is a paper orchestra. And so it's not, what does it mean? It's just a boy struggling with words. That's all it is. And that's what the book is. It's about a boy who grew up to be a man who struggled with words.Phil Hudson:Do you remember what I told you when you told me that story? You remember what I calledMichael Jamin:It? What did youPhil Hudson:I said, that's Providence.Michael Jamin:Providence, yeah. There was a lot of that. There was a lot of just, Hey, that's the universe telling me this is what your cover should be. And once I saw it, I go, that's it. We're done. We're done. We could stop looking.Phil Hudson:And then here's an artist who is putting art out that I would consider to not be standard, normal art that you would think about in a normal way. And then here he is featured in this article, and then here, now you're reaching out and his art is now supporting and improving your art. It's a beautiful thing.Michael Jamin:And then the same thing with Anthony Rizzo, who did the music. When I got him aboard, I go, listen, Anthony, I'm making this audiobook. I don't know how much I can pay you. He goes, I don't care. I want to be part of it. So I was like, okay. And then I had a small budget for him, but then I got this brand deal from Final Draft. I go, oh, good. I can give him whatever I was going to pay him. Now I can pay him additional money from this brand deal. It doesn't come really out of my pocket. Its money. It's kind of found money. So I just give it right to him. That's great. That'sPhil Hudson:Great. I love that, man. Your network will pay in spades if the work you do is quality and you're a good person. I've seen that for you. I've seen that for myself. I've seen it in lots of other people. People want to be a part of your project if what you're doing means something and you're kind. And if you were Dick, imagine you were the showrunner and you were throwing tantrums and going on Tirades on Marin. Do you think anybody, I would want to work with you on this.Michael Jamin:Yeah. But there's that. And like I said, there's also build it for, if I started this by saying, reaching out to these people on Instagram or whatever, Hey, I have this idea that I want to make. Will you be part? No, come back to me when you're done, basically. And so for everyone who has a movie they want to make or a scene, alright, shoot a scene on a park bench with your phones. They're like, you don't need to spend $10,000. You could do it for 50. Whatever you need.Phil Hudson:Jamie Kaler, who I think you're going to have on the podcast, he just Captain Polonsky on Taco D and a bunch of other stuff. I had a long running series as well. He's got a series that he did with another known actor called Dad's in a Park, I think is what it's called. It's him on a bench with another dad just talking about dad stuff.Michael Jamin:And where's that on YouTube?Phil Hudson:I'll find it. I think it's on YouTube and Instagram. But it's so real and funny. It's like, yeah, this makes sense. And it's two great actors who are just doing their thing. And it plays and it plays really well. It's very funny.Michael Jamin:And when you look at people doing interesting things, this is what I say, people who are just popping, who just broke onto the Hollywood scene somehow. Somehow they have a special on Netflix or somehow they're a star of a show or a movie, whatever. Look how they did it. They did it themselves. And then Hollywood discovered them because Hollywood was like, oh, we can make money off this person.Phil Hudson:It's the fable. It wasn'tMichael Jamin:The other way around.Phil Hudson:It's a fable of overnight success that is never overnight success. There was always something before that. EveryMichael Jamin:Time, these are people who are already building it, people like me, people like you who are already building it, and then people see go, oh, what's that fool over there building? I want in on it. And that fool's going to say, well, you can be in or you can either way. I'm doing it without you. So come along for the ride if you wantPhil Hudson:Going to happen. I had love to talk about some of the endorsements of your book, if that's okay. I don't want to embarrass you with some of this stuff. How do you feel about telling the John Mayer story?Michael Jamin:Oh my God. That's anotherPhil Hudson:Thing. I think it's a great story. And I'll just say this. Michael will always be very hesitant about bringing in friends or colleagues to talk about his stuff. And he's made it ver

On October 28th, I hosted a webinar called "How To Write A Great Story," where I talked about how to come up with interesting and unique story ideas, as well as how tapping into your everyday life interactions with people can help with this. This episode addresses questions you asked in our Q&A session that we didn't have time to answer. There's lots of great info here, make sure you watch.Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:Yeah, you better figure that out because your story needs to be about one thing everyone wants to throw in the kitchen sink. And it's about this, but it's also about this, but it also has elements of this. It's like, no, no, you don't know what your story is. You got a hot mess. You can't kitchen sink it. Your story's about one thing. And if you think it's about two things, congratulations. Now you have a sequel or you have another episode, but your story's about one thing. And if you think I'm making it up, read stories that you've enjoyed and ask yourself the same question. What is this about you're listening to? What the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts. Hey everyone, welcome back to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? And today I am answering your questions and I'm back here with Phil. Welcome back, Phil,Phil Hudson:Good to be here. Thank you forMichael Jamin:Having me. We had a delay because I borrowed some of Phil's mic equipment for a few weeks and then I gave it back to him with the wrong card. And then Phil, you learned a lesson. The lesson is no good deed goes unpunished.Phil Hudson:Oh man, I feel like's. I'mMichael Jamin:Happy to have taught you that lesson. ThankPhil Hudson:You for teaching me that lesson. I feel like the theme of every story I've ever written is that you get screwed either way. Just so everyone knows. Sometimes high tech is low tech and we have these awesome zoom recorders and they only allow you to have a 32 megabyte SD card. And then the American way of gluttony. We bought massive SD cards for the podcast, missed an SD card somewhere. SoMichael Jamin:Here we're won't run, but we're back and we made it work. We had a little delay. And so today I have these webinars every three weeks or so where I talk to people about writing. And anyone's welcome to join. It's free, go to michaeljamn.com/webinar for the next one. And we have a rotating list of topics that I cover and they're all writing related. And so these are some of the questions I didn't have time to answer during these webinars.Phil Hudson:And you are often testing new subjects too, so if you've attended them in the past, make sure you come sign up so you can get into those.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Alright, well, we've got several topics and as we do, I tend to group these together based on subject matter, and these are raw questions just ask during the podcast. So I apologize in advance for ruining people's names and mispronouncing everything, but let's start with craft. I think that's the thing people care a lot about is how do they get better at writing? And s sl junk indie author asks, how does the story structure fluctuate depending on genre, I should say too, this is from your podcast, how to Write a Great Story, which is one of your MyMichael Jamin:Webinar. My webinar. YourPhil Hudson:Webinar, yeah, yeah. Excuse me. Your webinar, how to Write a Great Story, which is one of your most popular webinars that we have. So if you haven't signed up for that, go do that the next time it's up. So how does the story structure fluctuate? Depending on genre, if I'm writing a horror, but I'm used to fantasy, what are some things I need to consider when structuring my story?Michael Jamin:I really don't think there's that much of a difference, to be honest. I think if you're writing a mystery that's different, and I think writing mysteries, people do it wrong all the time. Rich are a little harder to do, but you're just telling the story structure is very similar. You're telling a scary story. A horror story is just a scary story. A fantasy is just, it is a fantastical story, but they're just stories. I mean, everyone gets hung up on these genres. You get to decide the tone and the tone of your story is scary or fantastical, but it's still a story.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Something that you told me privately that I think is interesting for everybody listening, you were approached by a publisher who said, we want to make you the next Save the Cat. We want you to publish this book series, and you've never read any of those things. But for those of us who have, this is commonly taught, what are the tropes of your genre? What are the things in your genre? What is the story structure of your genre? And it's like you read between the lines and it's like what you've said many times. You're taking something apart and reassembling that and it's not the right way. You need to start with structure and then move forward. It's the same reason you do a foundation and then a frame, and then you do the rest of the house.Michael Jamin:You can paint the house any color you want, and that's whether it's scary or funny or dramatic or whatever. That's just color of paint. But the house still looks the same for the framing, still looks the same regardless of what paint you want to put on it.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Just Mason May. How does someone overcome the concern that our work won't live up to its potential?Michael Jamin:Oh, it never does. To get over it, you'll never be happy. You'll never be, oh, I should have done it. This. When you're done, you're always going to look at it and go, I wonder if this could have been better. I think any artist is going to feel that way, but if the question is how do I make sure it's good enough to even share, well, then you can just give it to your friend or your mother or whoever and have them look at it and read it. Take your name off the cover and ask them, did you enjoy reading this? When you got to the bottom of the page, did you want to turn the page or not? And if you wanted to turn the page, you did a good job. And if you didn't, something's wrong.Phil Hudson:Right. Aside from that, what would you recommend people do to overcome the fear of rejection or the fear of someone hating their work?Michael Jamin:I get over it. I mean, that's the job you're signing up for this. Hopefully no one's going to be too mean to you, but just know that when I was starting off, I was no good. No one's good when they start off. I mean, no one starts every single artist you admire, musician, actor, writer, whatever, performer, they were not good when they started. Listen to them in interviews. They'll say as much, so you get better. The more you do, the better you get.Phil Hudson:Yeah. We watch these kids shows now that I've got small children, and one of our favorite shows is Bluey, which I've talked about before. And they just dropped a bunch of new episodes yesterday, and one of the episodes is about drawing. And the daughter bluey is not good at drawing, but the dad's not good at drawing, but the mom's really good at drawing, and then the little sister doesn't care at all. She's just a kid and she's just drawing whatever she wants. And so the dad's super conscientious, self-conscious of what he's drawing. And so bluey the protagonist becomes a little self-conscious of her drawing, and they tell the story that the dad made fun of when he was a kid. So he stopped and the mom, just, her mom incentivized her, encouraged her, you're doing great for a 7-year-old. And she was like, oh, and that was enough. And then she became a wonderful artist. So at the end, bluey and the dad are both freed up to draw the things that they got made fun of or were worried about. And it's this beautiful allegory of just, Hey, just let it go. Who cares? That person's just being a jerk and it's because they envy what you do. That'sMichael Jamin:A good lesson. That's a good lesson from that show.Phil Hudson:Yeah, it's a great show. I bet we should watch it with your kids, Michael.Michael Jamin:My kids are too old to watch TV with me now.Phil Hudson:Yeah, that's scary. It's so sad to hear that. Rachel Zoo, I would like to get my motivation for riding back and for everybody. You have this other webinar you just put out, which is about how professional writers overcome writer's block. And I think that kind of addresses this, but this was before that. But what general thoughts do you have about getting motivation back to write?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, I can't motivate anyone. I mean, if you don't have the motivation in you, then it's not going to get done. So you have to be self-driven. But probably what you're experiencing is the fact that you just don't know how to do it. And so when you don't know how to do something or you think you're bad at it, it's not fun. Why would you want to do anything when you feel like you're horrible at it? But once you learn how to do it and story structure can be taught and it doesn't make writing easier, it makes it easier. It doesn't make it easy, but it makes it easier. So I think the problem that you're facing is you just dunno how to do it yet. So come to some of my webinars and that'll help you a lot just to learn. You're flailing. I don't blame you. It's no fun. When you're flailingPhil Hudson:For everybody who is unaware, you also give away the first lesson of your online course for free @michaeljamin.com/free. And you teach this beautiful lesson about what is story. That alone is worth its weight in gold because it's just something we all miss or forget. And you've even said you forget sometimes.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I mean, I was watching a movie that I got a screener the other, and I'm getting halfway through, I go, there's no story here. I'm bored. And now my wife was bored by it too, but she didn't know why. I knew why because I'm a writer. I'm like, what's the story you're telling? No one knew. And yet the movie got made. I dunno, I got to tell you.Phil Hudson:Yeah. The other thing that comes to mind is many people have heard this guy, and you've heard me talk about him before, this guy, Jocko Willink, former Navy Seal leadership consultant, multiple New York Times bestsellers, a huge podcast, and he has this motto that says, discipline equals freedom. And he's like, it's a little bit counterintuitive because you think if you're disciplined, then you don't have choice and you can't do things. And his point is, if you are disciplined, you don't have to rely on motivation. And that's what I hear from you and I've heard from other professional writers is being a professional is doing it When you don't feel like it, motivation doesn't matter.Michael Jamin:You know what? I'll tell you as well, I post every day on TikTok or at least five or six days a week. I find, and I've talked to other creators who feel the same way. If I take too many days off, it gets harder to get back on. So two is the max, and you got to, because I know people think it's easy to, it's not easy posting on social media. It's like I got to think about what I'm going to say. I got to rehearse it, I got to shoot it, then I got to tag it, upload it, make all the meta tags. I don't do it in two seconds. And yeah, it's like brushing your teeth. You have to do it,Phil Hudson:And that's like any habit they say you can mess up once, don't mess up twice. It's like dieting, don't make two bad choices. If you made one, that's okay. Now continue to get back on track, but it's discipline, discipline, discipline. You just need to sit down and do the work because that is what is required. And if you're not willing to do that, this is not the career for you. It might be fun for you to do on your own, but even then I imagine that's going to be pretty brutal if you don't have the discipline and the habit of just sitting down and doingMichael Jamin:It. Oh, even if it's a hobby, it'll still be more fun if you know how to do it. I mean, golf is a hobby for most people. The better you get, the more fun it is to play.Phil Hudson:Yeah, I don't like being bad at things. That's very true. Great. Stephanie Anthony, what are daily writing exercise exercises that are invaluable to helping to build stronger storytelling muscles?Michael Jamin:Well, I don't do exercises, but would certainly have. Keeping a journal or a diary and writing it, knowing that no one will read it is very freeing. When I was in high school, I wrote, I had a creative writing class and our assignment was to write daily entries in this journal and we gave it to him at the end of every class and then he would read it and he was always so kind. He always said such nice things about what I wrote. He was looking forward to reading it. I thought that was really nice of him to do. I'm sure it wasn't very good, but I was trying to entertain him and he appreciated it. Yeah, just write and read how those are your exercises. Write and read.Phil Hudson:I've talked before about some of my experiences translating for the Sundance Labs and some of the things I got to do with the scholarship I had through Robert Redford and this woman Joan, who runs these workshops at the labs for whether you're a writer, a director, whether you're doing editing, whatever it is, everyone goes through this basic storytelling lab with her, these workshops almost every day. And it's about taking, basically it's what you talk about in your course, mining your life for stories. And I remember that one time I went and she saw me and she recognized me from doing this Redford scholarship stuff, and she was like, it's so good to see you here. And I told her what I was doing and she was introducing everybody in the room and I introduced myself and she was kind enough to say, and Phil is a very talented writer, and I made the mistake of saying, well, that's why I'm here translating. And I've been thinking about that literally today as doing the work and practicing and getting better and then getting acknowledgement from other people is important. The practice of doing it every single day is the exercise. And then I think the other exercise is accepting people's praise when it's earned and deserved.Michael Jamin:Take the compliment because you know why it's insulting not to. It insults the person, not if you shit on it, then they gave you a giftPhil Hudson:And I did.Michael Jamin:I see people do it all the time. You're not the only one. It's normal. You also feel like, well, I'm not good enough.Phil Hudson:My thought was like, well, I'm not in the labs, so I'm here translating, but I did it in front of people and I did apologize to her after, and she was very kind and we had a good chat about it, but that was ringing in my head today.Michael Jamin:It's hard to take a compliment for a lot, a lot of time I feel the same way. I feel the same way,Phil Hudson:But if you say no or you shoot it down, then it's all going to be harder because you're reinforcing unconsciously that you are not good or it isn't good enoughMichael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:You got to take the wins. Take the wins.Michael Jamin:Yeah, right.Phil Hudson:Awesome. A couple of questions related to the topic, and you're online screenwriting course, so they're kind of bundled together, Joel Riedel regarding execution of an idea in a script. How do you know when you've taken a script far enough? In other words, how do you know if it's ready?Michael Jamin:Well, kind of the same. I kind of touched on this earlier, but basically give it to someone and take the title sheet off. If so, they don't know you wrote it and then give 'em a week or so to read it. And if they get to page 20 and they ask, they're going to say, what do I know? I'm not a Hollywood director. How do I know if your script is any good? You say, well, no. When you get to 20, do you want to read more? Does it feel like I gave you a gift or a homework assignment? That's it. You don't even, because your reader is your audience, they don't have to be a Hollywood insider to know whether they like something or not. Do they want to turn the page or not? And if they do, it's good. If it's not, if they don't, that's a problem.Phil Hudson:Yeah, there's levels of that too, because I've written things that I've given to friends and they said this was great and then given 'em to you and you've given me good praise, but solid feedback and things that I could improve, and it's the quality of the feedback is also important, but what I'm hearing you say is regardless of that, if you have a show on tv, whoever's going to sit down and invest their time to watch your story, they need to all understand there's a story here and it's worth the hour of my time, the 27 minutes of my time, whatever it is that they're doing.Michael Jamin:Yeah, because no one's obligated to watch your show. They'll turn the channel now. So that's how you judge things.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Are you ever at a point when you write things where you feel you've done enough, I'm happy with that one, that one's good to go, or is it always like, I can make that better. I just got to turn it in?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I always feel that way. Even with my book coming out, I always feel like I could have done that a little differently, but it's like, no, you got to let it go. You got to let, but I saw an interview with Frank Geary and he was looking at, I think it was 60 minutes, and he was staring at the Disney Concert Hall, which he designed, and he's a fantastic architect. I think he was with Leslie Stall, and they're admiring his work and she goes, when you see this building and it is one of the most beautiful buildings in la, yeah, it'sPhil Hudson:Great. It's gorgeous. If you guys have seen Iron Man, I want to say Iron Man one, they go to it,Michael Jamin:They do. It's very sculptural. It looks like a piece of sculpture, and she said, when you look at this building, what do you see? He goes, I see all the things I would do differently now, and he's a master, so you just never get past that stage,Phil Hudson:But that's not the job of a pro, which is what you teach. The job of a professional is you do the work, you turn it in, you move on.Michael Jamin:Yeah, you move on to something else and make the next one better if you can.Phil Hudson:Well, you always do the best you can with the time you have. Is that accurate to say?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's definitely what with tv, we got to turn on an episode of TV and at the end of the week, so we do the best we can.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Awesome. Camika Hartford in creating a story with structure in mind first, is it ever useful to organically write or figure it out, then go back and pick out the pieces you want to create a solid narrative, or is that just wasted time? This is in regards to Greta Gerwig process. That's a little bit different than most people. That'sMichael Jamin:A great question, and if you were writing a movie on your own time, sure, you can write it. You don't have time to schedule. You could take four years to write your movie, and if you want to discover it organically and if you understand how to do that, if you understand what that means, it means you have to write and write and then you figure out what the story is. Then once you finally find the story, you can go back and rewrite all the other stuff that's not the story and then fix it. But you still have to understand what story structure is to know what you're fixing. If you were to on a TV show though, you don't have that luxury. You're on staff with a bunch of other writers in a room, and before one word is written, you break the story on the whiteboard and then you outline it. Just don't discovering the story. Everyone agrees on what the story is in the writer's room, so it's a very different process. One is more organic, the other is definitely more efficient.Phil Hudson:You said everyone agrees, and I've been in the room, or I've seen people not agree with the showrunner.Michael Jamin:When I say everyone agrees, I mean the showrunner agrees. Yeah,Phil Hudson:So just for a point of clarification for people, it is not your job to approve every decision in a writer's room, but like you said, when you're writing something for yourself, you have the luxury of doing that. So yeah, fascinating question and answer. Thank you, cam. Gleb, Lin, how can I bring my vision to life through a screenplay?Michael Jamin:How can I bring my vision to life? I'm not really sure. Are they asking how do I sell it orPhil Hudson:How do I think? What I'm hearing from this question based on the topic is, alright, so I've got this vision for what I want my story to be, and I've chosen screenplay as my medium. How do I get what's in my head on the pageMichael Jamin:And justice?Phil Hudson:You knowMichael Jamin:What? I saw this short by Wes Anderson last night, God, I can't remember what it was called, damnit, I don't remember what it was called. It was with Ray Fines and Ben Kingsley. It was a half hour long and it was typical Wes Anderson only, it wasn't shot like a movie, it was shot like a stage play, and so the character would talk and behind the character, the sets would move and would fly in this different set. Then he'd pretend to walk and then he'd be in a different set, and it was wonderful to watch. It was so creative, but on paper, it's the most boring thing in the world. There's no magic on paper. You have to see it. So if that's what you want to do, you're going to have to just build that yourself. You're going to have to got a phone, you got a camera, you got friends, make it yourself and don't spend a lot of money. Whatever you think it's going to cost, I guarantee you I can shoot it for much less because it's not about the money. It's always about the words and the more creative you are. I did a bunch of commercials that I wrote for,Phil Hudson:It's just about to talk about, wereMichael Jamin:You going to say that?Phil Hudson:I was, yeah.Michael Jamin:For Twirly Girl, my wife had a company called Twirly Girl, and we shot all these commercials and I wrote and produced them and I hired a bunch of high school kids to shoot it as my crew and the sets, I built the sets out of cardboard, literally I got cardboard boxes and I built everything. And the fact that it was made out of a cardboard made it funnier. It made it silly,Phil Hudson:But tonally on point too because it's a children's clothing line, right? Yeah.Michael Jamin:But it was magical, but it had the same, Wes Anderson has that same kind of magical thing about him. It doesn't exist so cool about it.Phil Hudson:For those of you who haven't seen them, are those published anywhere? Are they on Twirly Girl YouTube? I know we have in your Vimeo account. I've seen them.Michael Jamin:I know there, I mean, I think you could see some of them. If you go to twirly girl shop.com,Phil Hudson:Would you ever want those published on your site just as examples?Michael Jamin:We can do that. Do you think someone is interested? We should put some there.Phil Hudson:Why don't you guys, if you guys are listening to this, just go comment on Instagram and just put hashtag twirly girl in the comments, and so we know if you guys want to see 'em, we can load 'em up on your side. Yeah,Michael Jamin:We can make a page for that, but it's probably a good idea, Phil. I think it should be inspiring. Each of those commercials, they're about three to five minutes long, whatever. Maybe they're five minutes, but I cut 'em down to three and each one costs, the first one I think was 1200 bucks. You can do it cheap. You can do it cheap.Phil Hudson:My business partner Rich, he was one of my professors in film school, actually he's teaching at Grand Canyon University in Arizona. He's teaching film right now. And so for the final project last semester, he had them shoot a video, basically that kind of commercial for pickleball brand. And the thing looks incredible. There's amazing camera, there's crane movement, there's drones, it looks good, and $128.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Oh, that's great. That's great.Phil Hudson:Yeah, it looks like it was 10 grand. Now there's, it got to perform as an ad. I dunno, but the quality was definitely there and what I'm getting to is when you talk about getting your vision to life, it is the job of the writer. It is the job of the writer to get the vision on the page so that anyone who reads it can see that vision. But it is the director's job to take that and work with the art department and everyone else to expand it. Or in tv, the writer is typically the showrunner. That showrunner has that same capacity to get the vision made beyond doing it yourself. I think the other piece of advice that I might give would be you need to understand your craft. You need to understand what a screenplay looks like, and your formatting and your own style and tone are going to influence your ability to do that on the page. If you're not going to produce your own stuff, and I don't mean that to counter what or contrast with what you're saying, it's just the person who's not going to go shoot those things. If you're just talking about it from a writer's perspective, you got to have your story there. The structure has to be sound, and then you need to be able to use the words and the style and format of screenwriting to get the job done to convey that vision.Michael Jamin:And as you were talking, I forgot to tell you this morning on TikTok, someone tagged me and they said they're in law school and that they're taking an entertainment law class and their professor assigned them to watch my channel.Phil Hudson:That's awesome. Why?Michael Jamin:I don't know why. What a weird homework assignment.Phil Hudson:Love it. Love it. Maybe he's going to just call out all the things that you could be sued for. Yeah, maybe. That's wild, man. The world's shifted in the Michael Jamin sphere over here. You got Michael's got his own Wikipedia page too. Yeah,Michael Jamin:I'm on Kpia. Yeah,Phil Hudson:A couple of years ago you would've never wanted any of this attention, right?Michael Jamin:No, I still struggle with it a little bit. I still strugglePhil Hudson:Just highlighting that for everybody here who's struggling to put their stuff out there, what a lot of these questions are about, you wanted to do something, just publish this book and you said, what do I need to make that happen? It's been over two years in that process. And your book will be coming out pretty soon.Michael Jamin:Yeah, we'll do a special episode on that. But yeah, when I'm yelling at you guys to build the damn mountain to build it yourself, I just want you to know everything I recommend, either I have done or I'm currently doing, so I'm not talking out of my ass. SoPhil Hudson:Zero hypocrisy here with the recommendations and I will defend you on that because I see it happening. Yeah. Alright. Sucks to suck has a question. Great. Great. Username story build finding, planning the path of the characters. This is a statement, it's not a question, but when you're story building, how do you find or plan the path for your characters? What are their arcs?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, that's something I teach in my course, my screenwriting course. Come sign up michael jammin.com/course, but that's not a 32nd answer. That's a 14 hour course. So yeah, come to my webinars. I did a webinar a couple weeks ago where I literally gave away part of the course. Not a lot of it, just a small part of it.Phil Hudson:I was surprised. It's a lot though. It's a lot of nuggets in there of,Michael Jamin:Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff in that. I was like, I kind of felt like, guys, if you don't hit the whole thing, you're missing out because this is pretty good stuff.Phil Hudson:What was that? How professional writers create great characters? Is thatMichael Jamin:What it meant? No, it was, I don't know. It was not. It might've been getting past writer's block or what was the onePhil Hudson:After that? Both of those are pretty good, and I think you've given a lot of new context and a lot of context in there for that. I think it was a great characters was one specifically on this subject, and you talk about this, I don't want to spoil it for people who are going to miss it, but you talk about the principle of how to put the right character in a story and it is worth watching. I don't want to steal the opportunity for you to learn that lesson by listening to Michael.Michael Jamin:Come to my talk on characters that it'll help you a lot and it's free.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Sammy Cisneros, how strict should we follow conventional story structure?Michael Jamin:I would say don't break the rules until you understand them. So I would say very strict, and just so you know, I don't break the rules and I've been doing it for a long time. If it ain't broke, why fix it? Honestly, once you're in that story structure, there's still so much creative freedom that you can have once you understand, it's not like I don't feel handcuffed when I'm writing a story that way. I feel liberated. I understand how to do it. There's the roadmap that'll help.Phil Hudson:You discussed this principle of Picasso in your free lesson, which I think everyone should go pick up or rewatch if you've signed up for it in the past, but you talk about what it means to become a master and it's visually apparent when you look at the way you display that in that lesson.Michael Jamin:Yeah, go watch. Yeah, that was in the free lesson,Phil Hudson:Michael jamon.com/free.Michael Jamin:Yeah, go watch that. That'll help.Phil Hudson:Great. Leoni Bennett, when breaking a story, do you keep track of both plot and story?Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's all yes, all yes. And if you don't know what that means, there's a difference between plot and story, and I talk about this in I think the free lesson, but yeah, you have to keep both in mind. You don't do one without the other. It's the same time. You can have a plot if you have a good plot, but no story. You got nothing. If you've got a good story but no plot, you also have nothing. So you need both.Phil Hudson:Yeah, I think lesson two in the course is heavily dedicated to this, and you do touch on it on the free one, but second year in the course and you get to lesson two, it's like, oh, okay, this makes a lot more sense. And I've always said this since we started the podcast and doing this stuff together. You're the only writer I know online who talks about story and not plot everyone else's. What are your plot points? What is this plot? What is this beat? How does this beat build to this? What is your inciting incident to this thing? To crossing the threshold to the Boone? And they're mixing all this jargon from all of it's youngian, it's Joseph Campbell. It's like all this stuff. It's very hard to even wrap your head around. And I'm egotistically. I consider myself to be a pretty intelligent person who's capable of learning. And very often when I started studying screenwriting, I was just beating my head against the wall because it's like I don't even understand what subtext is, and you're telling me to use it, but no one's teaching how to use subtext, which you talk about, but it's that. Yeah, it's the story. It's story, story, story. And then the plot is, to me, it is the painting of the story. It's what makes the story matter.Michael Jamin:Well, I watched a movie the other day and there was plenty of plot. Things were moving along, things were clipping, things were happening, but the whole time I'm like, so what? Who cares? Why do I, this is so who cares? And so the story is really the who cares part. Why shouldPhil Hudson:Write that down? WriteMichael Jamin:That down. Yeah, write that down. It's the who cares. It's what to me as the viewer or the listener or the reader, it's all the same. Why do I care what happens to the main character? And if you don't, I won't say it on camera, I won't say which one it was, but it was a big movie, big budget, big director who's done some great stuff. You shouldPhil Hudson:Just text me so I know what itMichael Jamin:Is. I'll tell you later, but I was like, who cares? Why do I care about any of this?Phil Hudson:Yeah. Dave Crossman, who is pretty active in the course we've talked about before. He has said that I have a coined phrase now when I read someone's script. It's a lot of things happen, a lot of people doing things and nothing's happening.Michael Jamin:Okay, yeah,Phil Hudson:That's good. Lots of stuff. JustMichael Jamin:Plot is so boring.Phil Hudson:Cool. Yeah. Alright. David Campbell, how do we determine which contestants, which content to reveal in what order?Michael Jamin:Oh yeah. I have a whole analogy that I go through in one of my free webinars about the order in which you unpack the details of your story is really important, and that's what I teach in the course. But for sure, yeah, a lot of times you'll read new writers and they just do a dump. They just dump everything out. But that's not how you tell a story. The story is like you as the author, you get to decide when your reader learns this, and that's how you keep people turning the page.Phil Hudson:Yeah. I have bought a lot of self-published books from friends and people I went to film school with and some are good and some are like, wow, what you just put in a chapter could have been a whole book and you ended this chapter in a place that makes zero sense. And it's because of the way they're laying out the story. They have so much they want to say they're just rushing through it or they have so little they want to say it's dragging on. And to me, I think that's what we're talking about, story structure. If you understand structure, then the artistic way you unfold that sort of unravel that story is your craft and your voice and that the person who comes to mind for me is Guy Richie. I think Guy Richie does that masterfully in his stories.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I'm working on a story right now, which I'm writing, and there's one of two ways I want to write it. And so I'm not sure which way I'm supposed to do it, but I'll choose one and I'll go down that path and if I find it halfway through, it doesn't work, I'll go back and do the other way.Phil Hudson:So you're saying you're not married to the words you wrote. They're not precious written in stone and can never be changed.Michael Jamin:No. It's all about, yeah, exactly. I've tossed out so many stories that weren't working, but I am always thinking about what's the best way to compel the reader to turn the page.Phil Hudson:High level note there, guys, write that one down too. WriteMichael Jamin:It down.Phil Hudson:Paul Gomez, seven 90 Should a story center around subject or a character, is there a different approach for each? What I'm hearing with this question is should I focus on theme or character when I write my story?Michael Jamin:Honestly, I think you focus on a character and then theme comes a little bit later, but I've seen some movies, the very interesting setting, very interesting subject matter, very interesting. But because I don't care about what the character wants and I'm not invested in the character, I was very unsatisfied with the movie, even though the subject matter was really interesting.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Previous podcast episode we've done, we talked about basically picking a word. There's a word that's going to color my story then to me is theme. What is the theme of this that might help shape the character that I'm telling to convey that theme, but the character has to matter or it doesn't matter what the theme is.Michael Jamin:Yeah. When my partner and I are writing, often we pretend there's a drinking game. That theme will keep on appearing, and often you'll see a word recurring over and over in a script, and we always will drink, drink, and then when we're done, we go back and change those words. So it's not so obvious we disguise it. But if you're doing it right, that theme will reappear many times and throughout your script, but you just have to hide it a little better.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. Guys. I know some of you are advanced enough to know how much gold Michael's just dumping his pockets right now. Just gold nuggets. For those of you who are newer, this is worth re-listening to so that you can pick up that gold. This is stuff that will shape you, and I would come back and listen to this one six months from now because you're going to be a different place as a writer at different things. I've definitely seen that even just listening to our podcast with questions I've asked you. The answer is that I got two years ago apply very differently to me. Now. I'm a father of two kids now I am dealing with all these other different life issues than I was two years ago, and that affects the way I tell my stories and what things I want to talk about.Michael Jamin:And I'm still learning, guys, just, I mean, you're never done learning when you're writing, so I don't know everything. I just pretend toPhil Hudson:More than he gives himself credit for, but he's going to take credit like we talked about, right?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Right. Yeah. Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michael jamon.com/and now back to what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?Phil Hudson:Alright, is that my voice asks the beats? Is that what we are referencing here when we talk about story structure are the beats?Michael Jamin:The question is what? What'sPhil Hudson:The question? Yeah, so the context of this is from the webinar, how to write a great story. And when you're asking the question, what is a story or what is story structure? They're asking, are you referencing beats? Is that what you mean when you say story structure? They'reMichael Jamin:Beats, so they're about seven or eight beats in every story, and it doesn't matter whether you're writing a half hour, an hour and a half feature, whatever that you must hit, in my opinion, in order for a story to feel fulfilling. And so those are the beats I talk about. And one is at the bottom of act one, bottom of act two, these are all important beats and I teach that. But yeah, and there's still some creativity you can have. Well, a lot of creativity you can have once those beats.Phil Hudson:I want to highlight something because I know you don't read any of the other advice that people are giving. And again, a lot of these people are not riders. In my intro to storytelling class, which is writing 1 0 1 in college, my professor asked this question, how many beats, beats are in this thing? And he'd have us watch a movie and count the number of beats. And then he put up this image on the board and it was 40 beats. And he says that every feature should have about 40 beats. Now, that's the difference between sequences and beats, and you already can tell this is again very confusing, right? But this is the formulaic approach that is very confusing and shackling to people who are starting out and what you're saying, I don't want people to misconstrue what you're saying by saying there should only be eight moments in a script or eight scenes, but he was describing scenes as beats and how you progress through things. And that comes from a book, and I can't remember which book, but it lays that out.Michael Jamin:That's just too many. How are you going to keep all that in your head? I feel like eight is manageable. Eight not eight scenes, but eight moments that you have to hit. And then it just like when you go from A to B2C to D, you can take a little side trip from A to B, but you still got to get to B.Phil Hudson:Yeah. And I think that USC and UCLA, I think they use what they call eight beat story structure, which mirrors pretty close to what you teach, but you'd expect that because they're proper film schools taught by professional writers, directors, producers, editors who are just doing that now because they've moved out of their first career. So yeah, I just want to make sure people are not misconstruing the two or conflating 'em. NRS creates How can a series pilot with more than eight main characters work without story overload?Michael Jamin:You wouldn't want to have that many go back and watch some of these old pilots or any pilot even towards whatever season five or eight. They may introduce a lot of new characters, but in the pilot, how many characters were in the pilot? And if it's a sitcom, you're talking probably five or six. It's if an hour long, you're going to have a few more. You might be eight, but you should be able to service eight characters in an hour long story. So it shouldn't be a problem. It's when you start growing the cast, it gets more complicated.Phil Hudson:Yeah, I think lost is a great example of this. Tons of people, plane crash, there's mayhem happening all around you, and we're looking at four or five people. And then as the series goes along, they introduce more people and the stories become more complex and there's side things happening. But in the pilot, which is two hours, I think JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof did that masterfully.Michael Jamin:Yeah, great pilot.Phil Hudson:Richard Monroy, life, death Rebirth. These themes are found in art. How can this be applied to screenwriting?Michael Jamin:Well, I mean, what else are you going to write about when you're going to write about all events that happen to you in life? Jealousy, anger, love, betrayal, vengeance, whatever. That's what you're going to write about. So you're going to you life mirrors art and art mirrors life.Phil Hudson:Yeah. I think that ties back to our theme as well, right? You pick your theme and then that's the thing you're deciding to talk about, and then your characters and the story and the plot all play to paint that picture. Yeah. David Campbell, another question here. Do you have to write a log line for every episode or story?Michael Jamin:Yes. One of the things, when my partner and I run a TV show, what we make all the writers do, including ourselves, is we write after the story is broken on the whiteboard and one writer is chosen or a team is chosen to write that script, the first thing they got to do is write what we call a book report, which is a one page summary of what we just discussed in the writer's room for past week. And this is not as easy as it looks. We need to make sure everyone's on the, were you paying attention? Did you understand what we finally agreed to? And at the top of that book report, we make them write a log line. What is it about? What is this episode about? And it's amazing how that one simple thing can really, really be beneficial. I never assume anyone understands what it's about.And sometimes I tell a story that a couple of years ago, I think it was on Tacoma, my partner and I were writing an episode, we're writing the outline and we're figuring out these scenes. We start arguing over what the scene should be. And I was like, I'm right. And he's like, he's right. And I'm like, wait a minute, what do you think the story's about? And we didn't agree on what the story was about. We literally didn't agree. So we stopped and went back to the whiteboard to figure out what the story was about. Even though we had spent a week working on it, we couldn't agree.Phil Hudson:Yeah, that's how much it matters. I don't know that there's anything to add to that. That's great. Henry Wind, as an audience member, I'm really trying to catch the details and the dialogue so I can understand what is happening in this scene between two actors. How do you deepen subtext?Michael Jamin:Well, characters often don't say what they're actually thinking. And so that's the difference between writing directly and writing indirectly. And again, I talk about this in the course to greater detail, but writing directly is, I'm really mad at you. You hurt my feelings. The other day when you said this about that's writing directly, writing indirectly might be just me ignoring you or me telling you that your hat is stupid. So you know what I'm saying? Who cares about your hat? I'm really mad about you for what you did. And so that's the difference. And the more indirect you can write your writing, the better the smarter it seems.Phil Hudson:Yeah, it's amazing how this is human nature though. Just last night, my daughter, she just turned three, and so she's throwing a little bit of the terrible three tantrums. I've heard terrible twos, but it's really the threes is what every parent says. And she wanted to do something and we said, no, it's time for bed. And so her lovey, her stuffy Is Cob the Cow? And she's like, I don't want cob in my bed. And my wife who's wonderful, says, just because you're mad at us doesn't mean you should take it out on other people. And she said, okay. And then she cuddled her little stuffed animal, but it's human nature to do this. She didn't say, I'm mad at you. She's like, I don't want COB in here. I don't want to sing songs. I don't want to read a book. She's mad atMichael Jamin:Me. She's writing indirectly. She's a writer.Phil Hudson:Yep. She's human nature. The beautiful things you learn from kids, man. All right. Moving on to breaking in the Broken Breaking Seas. That's an apt name. Can you talk about working with a writing partner a bit? I'm very curious what that process is like.Michael Jamin:Well, it's sort of a marriage and you get to decide who you want to marry. I've been working with my partner Seaver for close to 30 years. And at this point there's a lot of trust and there's a lot of, we try to argue as little as possible. The truth is I don't really care if it's his idea or my idea. I really don't. If it's his idea, great. That's one less idea I have to come up with. It's not about my ego and it's really about what's best for the work. And then great. I mean, it helps to have one, it helps have one bounce idea. We can bounce ideas off each other and often he'll shoot down my idea, say whatever. I don't really care. It's really about getting the work done.Phil Hudson:We did a whole episode about writing with partners on the podcast, so go check that out as well.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Alright, moving on to miscellaneous questions. We got about 10 left, Michael, does that sound good? Sure. We hit those in the next 17 minutes and wrap this up in an hour. Sounds great. Lisa J. Robinson, for a beginning writer, what program do you recommend to write a script that is very user-friendly? Imagine thatMichael Jamin:RightPhil Hudson:In my mouth. Didn't even know, didn't even know Michael. This question in October would serving today. SoMichael Jamin:Every single television show, movie, everything I've sold, every single one of them have been written in a program called Final Draft. And that is considered to be the industry standard now. So it's the best as far as I'm concerned. Now. They offered me a brand deal a couple months ago, and so I've since done some spots for them and I had no problem doing it because it's not like it's a product that I have. I use the product, so Sure.Phil Hudson:And you've turned down so many deals from people with different writing software. Even when we first started doing this, people were reaching out. It's like, Hey, we'd love to pay you to talk about our screenwriting software, and you turn them all down.Michael Jamin:No. So thisPhil Hudson:Is a bigMichael Jamin:Deal, but if you want to use Final Draft, we do have, they gave me a brand deal, so if get on my newsletter, we said, well, there'll be a link on my newsletter and you can click on that link and you can get a discount 25% off on finalPhil Hudson:Draft. Do you want to give them the code? Do you want toMichael Jamin:Give the I think so we could do the code. Yeah.Phil Hudson:It's M jamming 25 I think, right?Michael Jamin:24 I think.Phil Hudson:Correct. For it's 24 M jamming 24, but it gives you 25% off your purchase. And I used it and it worked on my upgrade from vinyl draft 12. So you saved me 25 bucks on something I was going to buy anyway.Michael Jamin:Yeah, you can upgrade. You can upgrade at some point you have to continue, you got to upgrade your, so it doesn't fall out of surface andPhil Hudson:And there's new stuff that come in. There's all kinds of stuff that comesMichael Jamin:That, yeah, there's bells and whistles, but honestly I've been using Final draft since final draft five. They don't update it every day, every couple of years they improve it.Phil Hudson:We used a final draft for the collaboration mode in the writer's room.Michael Jamin:The collaboration is a good feature.Phil Hudson:And while I was doing this yesterday, this is totally unprompted, I was looking for this. You sent me a bunch of stuff and in 2016, just as I was going to move out here, you were asking me for my resume, like, Hey, there's somebody out here who was interested in getting your resume. And I sent it over and you told me in here, and I'm trying to find the exact words, but it was basically study final draft and know it like the back of your hand. And that was 2016, so that you've been preaching this for a long time.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it helps to know that program. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Great. Alright, Mimi, how to find the main idea from a lot of ideas you have in your book. So I'm assuming she's writing a book and she wants to know what the main idea. Yeah,Michael Jamin:You better figure that out because your story needs to be about one thing everyone wants to throw in the kitchen sink. And it's about this, but it's also about this, but it also has elements of this. It's like, no, no, no, you don't know what your story is. You got a hot mess. You can't kitchen sink it. Your story's about one thing. And if you think it's about two things, congratulations. Now you have a sequel or you have another episode, but your story's about one thing. And if you think I'm making it up, read stories that you've enjoyed and ask yourself the same question. What is this about?Phil Hudson:What's the difference between an A plot B plot C plot though, if it's only about one thing,Michael Jamin:Right? So an APL will occupy two or three characters, and that's a story that has the most emotional weight, and that's the one that has the most time on screen. YouPhil Hudson:Have, it's usually the leads too though, right? It's your main character.Michael Jamin:But if you have five leads on your show, then two of them will be in the A story. And then you have to occupy your other characters. So you give them a B story and maybe a C story if you still have to occupy some of them. But they don't carry as much emotional weight often they're just lighter.Phil Hudson:You don't want 'em sitting in their trailers cashing a check, right?Michael Jamin:Yeah, you got to pay these people. The audience wants to see them too. So you want to give the audience what they want.Phil Hudson:Great mental pictures. Love to know an example of a log line on a whiteboard in the writer's room.Michael Jamin:So a log line might be, okay, we wrote an episode called Fire Choir, and I think the log line was Eddie joins a malePhil Hudson:Choir acapella group. It was like firefighters, acapella choirMichael Jamin:To basically recapture the lost fame of his youth. It was something like that. So you knew what the plot was and you also knew what the story was. Oh, he's there to recapture his law. He was famous, whatever. He was in a garage band when he was a kid, and here's the chance to feel like a star again. So that's what it's really about. It's about the fame partPhil Hudson:And a great episode with one of our favorite characters. Wolf BoykinsMichael Jamin:Wolf. Yes. So played by Paul Soder.Phil Hudson:Paul Soder says, hi, by the way. Oh, you should have him on the podcast.Michael Jamin:I should. I'll get him on. That's a good question. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Richard Monroy, can you describe this Greta Gerwig style in more detail? It seems more unstructured and organic.Michael Jamin:It's not unstructured, it's just the fact that it's definitely not unstructured. It's just that how she comes about finding the structure. So I believe she still hits the same eight points that I'm talking about, but whereas in TV or even in movies, for the most part, you'll think about this before you're ever writing a word. You're figuring out what those story points are. And you might spend weeks or months if it's a movie before you're actually writing. But she doesn't do it that way. But she's Greta Gerwig until you become her, you may want to rethink how you do this, but what she does is she starts writing, oh, I think this is what it's about. And she starts typing the script and she'll say the same thing. I've heard her talk about it. Alright, now I have an 800 page script. Well, we can't shoot an 800 page script. Now she has to go back and throw out 700 pages and figure out what the story is. So it's very inefficient, but it's organic. But again, she can do it. She knows what story is. And by the way, that movie made a billion dollars. It's not for me to say that she's doing it wrong, she's doing it right. It's just that it's just inefficient. And unless you really have a good grasp upon what story structure is like she does, you're probably going to screw it up.Phil Hudson:This just popped into my mind, one of the best tiktoks I've ever seen was this story. And you've seen 'em before. And it's like everyone told me that I was a loser and I would never make it as an artist. And over the years I've practiced and honed my craft and it shows all these different art. You see their art evolving year over year, and now here I am and look what I've done. And then they show the worst drawing of a horse you've ever seen. And it brought me to tears because mocking this thing, which is the reality, is you can't be a one year in rider or a four year in rider and think that you can write the way someone's been running for 20 years will, you also can't do it, but think you're going to paint or draw the way in one year or two years. The way that Picasso or Van Gogh or anybody else has done who's devoted their life to that craft. It's effectively, I'm hearing you say, is she's earned the right to do things her way and it shows in the box office, and that is not an excuse for you to do it that way, and that's not to say you won't do it that way, but you have to learn structure and process and all of those things form light balance. You have to learn those things before you can make artMichael Jamin:And it's not easy for her. I saw an interview where she was saying, look, every time I sit down, I'm like, I don't know how to do this it, you're starting from scratch. I feel the same way. It's like, ah, I don't really know how to do this. I do, but I still feel like I don't, it's hard.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Yep. I saw that interview too. And that's going back to what we talked about earlier. That's the discipline. It's hard, but she sits down and does it and then she's able to get billion box officeMichael Jamin:And sometimes I'm writing, I'm like, am I saying too much or am I saying too little? Am I taking my audience? Am I insulting their intelligence by saying too much or am I taking their intelligence for granted? That's a hard question.Phil Hudson:Yeah. EG wants to know what if the notes you receive from the higher ups make the story worse?Michael Jamin:Often it does. Your goal is to try to give them what they want without making the story too much worse. And what can I tell you? Sometimes they're not writers so often that's the give and take. Often you'll argue with them, you're almost never going to win the argument, and so you have to give them what they want. They're the buyer. And so sometimes people say, sometimes it makes it better too, but people often say, why does TV suck? Well, there's a lot of people involved and a lot of people have opinions and they all want to be heard. I've worked with actors who've had notes who make the story worse. What are you going to do? That's the job. It's it's life.Phil Hudson:I've talked about this documentary before, but showrunners, which you can find it in a bunch of places, they talk about an interview, a pretty well known actor. I'm blanking on his name, but he talks about how at a certain point, the first year, the showrunner, it's the showrunner story. The second year, it's the showrunner story, the third year, it's kind of a balance between the actors and the showrunner, and then the fourth, it's kind of the actors because they are the characters. And his whole opinion here was, I think famously he got an argument and a heated battle with the showrunner who created the show, and the showrunner got fired because he was the star of the show. And he said, it's my job to protect my character because that's me and who I'm playing. And I was like, yeah, that's just the reality of this. It's none of it's yours.Michael Jamin:You can't, the funny thing is, yeah, the showrunner hires all the actors. It's their show. They sold it, they created it, but at some point, if there's an argument between the actor, the star and the showrunner, you can always get a new showrunner. The star is on camera, and so the star is going to win that fight nine times out of 10.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Pretty interesting. Go check that out guys. Yeah. Richard Roy asks, if you're an independent writer, do you ever reveal what you're working on in early stages?Michael Jamin:Some people tell you no. I mean, some people will say, don't reveal your dreams to anybody because people will tell you how stupid it is for you to dream. So why keep it to yourself? That's a personal choice whether you want to share it or not.Phil Hudson:Yeah. My opinion is screw the haters.Michael Jamin:Screw the haters. But also, I mean, you can also put it out there and maybe they hold you accountable. Well, now that I went on record saying I'm going to do this, I better do itPhil Hudson:For a lot of people, a lot of people, that's some strong accountability saying, I'm going to do something. Eagle Boy, 7 1 0 9 0. How strict should we expect prospective studios to be about the page length of a historical drama limited series? I've seen some episode ones that are nearly 80 pages for an hour long show.Michael Jamin:Listen, the question is who do you think you are? I mean, when you write your script, your script is a writing sample and that's it. Stop thinking about what I'm going to sell it for, how much money I'm going to make. Some people ask me, how much money can you make as a first? Now you're spending the money. Your job first is to write a great script. That's it. One episode. Don't worry about episode 12, writing that one first. Great script is damn hard enough. And it's a calling card. And it's a writing sample. So some of these questions are for people like me, this is a question I might ask a fellow showrunner. I might ask them that question because we are doing, this is stuff that we have to worry about, but you don't have to worry about this.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Big note there too, that this is the big takeaway I've gotten from doing this work with you over the podcast is everything is a writing sample. If it sells, great. If it's good enough to sell, great. But right now, I need to be good enough to give me a job.Michael Jamin:Yeah, get me a job.Phil Hudson:Yep. Matt Sharpe, with the changes to TV writing rooms during the pandemic, do you see Zoom rooms still being a thing post the WGA strike? More to the point, do you still have to live in LA to write in tv?Michael Jamin:A lot of these rooms are still on Zoom. That's probably going to go the way at some point. I don't know. Maybe it's going to get back in person probably sooner than later, but someone made that point. I was going to do a TikTok on social media. What are you talking about? Everything's on Zoom. Okay. But how do you get the job? How do you get the job so that you can be on a show that's on Zoom. Tell me how you do that. Unless you live in la, there's no answer for that because you have to live in la. Sorry. There's a handful of screenwriters who work mostly in features who get to live other places. Maybe they have to fly to LA or maybe they live in New York. I follow Julia York from New York. She lives in York or Yorks, but she's in New York and she's able to make a living out of it somehow, but it's definitely harder. You made a hard career. You're making a hard career. Harder.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Tacoma FD is now streaming on Netflix, so everybody go watchMichael Jamin:That. Go watch thatPhil Hudson:Talk. Tacoma fd, which is the companion podcast that Kevin and Steve the showrunners do that dropped. And in episode four, I actually was in the cold open and I got put in the cold open. They talk about it on Sarco fna. It was very kind of them to mock me a little bit and poke fun. But what they said is basically what you have said to me all along is if you want to make it in Hollywood, you have to be in LA because they need you Now. It's not two a week from now. And evidence of this is I got cast in the cold open because the actor tested positive for Covid that day. And they said, well, this is a guy protesting pornography, and Phil is a religious dude. Let's get him out here. And then they were like, he came out and he gave this tirade of just Christian anti pornographic stuff. It's like he'd rehearsed it, you could tell. And it was like I'd done acting classes with Jill and with Cynthia. I've done prep work. I've been on set. I've seen how it's done, and I was just able to go and perform in this moment because of all of that prep work. And I only got it because I was on set standing next to the showrunner when he heard that this guy got covid.Michael Jamin:So two things, half of life is about showing up and two, but also being prepared for yourPhil Hudson:Could imagine, because you could have choked shot the bed. Imagine you could choked shot the bed

On this week's episode, I have TikTok Star Mackenzie Barmen. We talk about what she has already accomplished in her very short time in LA, as well as some of the projects she has planned for the future. There is so much more so make sure you tune in.Show NotesMackenzie Barmen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mackenziebarmen/Mackenzie Barmen on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mackenziebarmen?lang=enMackenzie Barmen on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAP_cFPc2fqGTe50YhOlkDg/videosMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMackenzie Barman:There's a part of me that worries on some level all the time, but then there's a stronger part of me. I think that's pretty delusional in a good way, that I'm like, no, I am certain that I'm supposed to do this, and I just can't falter. I just, I'm doing,Michael Jamin:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, I'll tell you what I've been talking about. If you've been listening to any number of my podcasts or by social media, I've been saying the same thing a lot. I've been saying, if you are an aspiring whatever, if you're an actor or a writer or performer, put your work out there. Just start doing it, and the more you do it, the better you get. And then my next guest is someone who did just that and is doing that, and I discovered her maybe a year or two ago, and we're going to talk, and she's big. We're going to talk to her about her journey here. Mackenzie Barman, thank you so much for coming here. Lemme tell you when I first found you, and then you'll Yes, please. Then we'll tell you were doing a bit, it was a piece on you were reciting nursery rhymes, and you playing two characters.You generally will talk about this, but you generally do two characters have, and you're both, and usually it's kind of a sweet and naive version of you. And then there's kind of a meaner more, not sinister, but cynical. And I guess she puts you in your place. She's a little, and she wants up making you cry a lot. And so the sweet one was talking about nursery rhyme, and the other one was telling you, you're so naive, you have no idea what these nursery rhymes are about. And so that blew up and that's how I found you, and it was really funny. I loveMackenzie Barman:It. Thank you.Michael Jamin:Well, tell me, what is this? So you're huge on TikTok, you have almost 3 million followers, which isMackenzie Barman:AlmostMichael Jamin:Huge. I've written for shows that haven't been seen by anywhere near 3 million people. So you have a giant following, but tell me, so why did you start doing this?Mackenzie Barman:Well, I was an actor in the pandemic, and I didn't really know what to do with myself. And so everyone was on TikTok for fun. That was when TikTok was really blowing up, and I kind of just decided to start making videos and then not taking it seriously at all. But then I was like, well, it gives me a kind of a platform. And no one was really using it like that yet. But I started to see some sketches pop up and I was like, huh, or viral videos, whatever. And then I ended up just at random seeing somebody write about a nursery rhyme in a Facebook status. And I was still using Facebook, which I don't, and I was like, oh. And I learned in that moment what that nursery rhyme meant. So I just on a whim made that firstMichael Jamin:Video. So that was one of your first videos?Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, it was one. I did a whole series of those ones. So I did it and I just kind of improvised it. And the next morning I woke up and it had gone kind of viral, and so I made another one, and then I made another one and they kind of just blew up. And so, yeah, it was kind of random.Michael Jamin:But your intention, it was boredom or was it, you said you wanted to have a platform. What was your goal?Mackenzie Barman:Well, it was a little bit out of boredom, but it was more so like, well, let me put myself out there. And I used to go to a lot of casting director workshops and when I lived in New York City, and they would always say the same thing when YouTube was really big, make your own web series, put yourself out there, all that stuff. And so that's always been in the back of my mind, and I've always kind of considered myself a multihyphenate. I also shoot and direct and all that stuff, so I was like, I need to do that. So that's why I've always kind of focused on acting, being the primary thing in my videos. Let's get to that.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I was going to say, it's really smart. You show a range. I mean, you have, like I said, the sweet side, and then the other side is, and sometimes you play well, you're always playing characters, but to me it's smart. You're showing your range as an actor.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah.Michael Jamin:What do your reps have to say about all this?Mackenzie Barman:They love it. I actually got my managers through TikTok, they found me and oh myMichael Jamin:God, really?Mackenzie Barman:I had already had voiceover representation through my agency, but I didn't have a manager or anything. And I met my manager, Rachel. I loved her right away. And they love it, and they love the content and that it's acting first and the series and all that.Michael Jamin:So they give you any feedback or No, they just like, we love it.Mackenzie Barman:No, not really. They just let me roll with it. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Interesting. And then what other opportunities have come from all this?Mackenzie Barman:Gosh, well, one of the coolest things is the relationships that I've built with other creators, especially actor creators. And you just kind of know when you vibe with some people or when I watch certain people, I'm like, I know our brains work the same way. So I seek those people out to become, I love getting to know the people that I admire. It's cool to meet people talent first, and then it's doing a play with somebody. IMichael Jamin:Know you collaborate with people sometimes. I've seen some of those videos you've done.Mackenzie Barman:I've done a couple. I'm going to be doing more now that I'm in LA and with a lot more people. But that's been a really cool thing that's come from this. DidMichael Jamin:You start this in New York your first three years? Yeah. Oh, really?Mackenzie Barman:Okay. Yeah, I just moved to LA a few weeks ago. I was in New YorkMichael Jamin:City. Oh, when you said you changed your apartments, I assumed you were moved, okay. From in la, but you're Oh, you're, well, welcome to la. Okay. Thank you. Wow, this is a big adjustment for you. So what prompted you to move to LA then?Mackenzie Barman:Well, my managers are out here, and since TikTok, I've really, it's funny. I was always kind of like, I wanted to really be such a chameleon and not hone in on any one thing. I didn't want to just do comedy. I didn't want to just do drama. But now with TikTok, it's really pushed me more into comedy, and I've found that I really do love it. So out here, there's so many comedy opportunities, and I'm going to be doing part of a live show on December 10th, and just being, I just needed to be out here.Michael Jamin:Okay. So how did you get, you've only been here for three minutes, so how did you get this live show already?Mackenzie Barman:Through a friend of mine, actually, through social media. Someone you, ohMichael Jamin:My God, so smart. I'm always yelling at people. They're like, do I have to be in la? I'm like, well, this is where everyone is. I mean, why would you know? What were you doing? Were you doing a lot of theater in New York?Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, so I did a lot of regional theater. I did an off-Broadway musical, and then when the pandemic happened, I was really trying to shift into more TV and film work. I really wanted to be on tv. I still do. That's really my big focus is to be on tv, be in movies. But I was kind of transitioning and doing the casting director workshops and doing all those things, and then the pandemic hit. But yeah, mostly theater. I'm a theater girlMichael Jamin:Now. Did you study, where have you studied? Did you study in college? Where did, yeah,Mackenzie Barman:I went to a SUNY school and I loved it. I went to SUNY Potsdam in upstate New York, and I studied theater and theater education. I didn't really start doing plays until high school and in high school. SoMichael Jamin:You're from New York?Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, I'm from New York. FromMichael Jamin:New York, okay.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, born and raised, upstate New York, near Albany. And then, yeah, I moved down to the city to be an actor and do all that. Right.Michael Jamin:Wow. You've only been here three weeks and so much has already happened for you already.Mackenzie Barman:What do you think? Yeah, I'm trying.Michael Jamin:What do you think It's a culture shock. What do you think?Mackenzie Barman:Right now, I'm in my lust for life extrovert phase where I'm like, because a homebody pretty much, I'm an extroverted homebody, so I like to be home a lot. But right now I'm just trying to be out a lot, meet people that I've, and just kind of be really social,Michael Jamin:Been amazing. How did you get into play? Okay, you moved here. Did you stay with a friend when you found your, how did, because I'm telling people come out. How did you do it? How didMackenzie Barman:It was a pain? So I visited last August, and I stayed with one of my managers. Actually, I crashed at her place. I went a couple different places, but she's the best. I love her. And they're in the West Hollywood area, so it's really the only place I know. So that's where I am now. I'm in West Hollywood. And then I looked at a couple apartments when I was here, but I really didn't know where I was. I kind of did, but I don't really know. And then, so I just, Zillow and Trulia, and I ended up finding this apartment on Trulia, and I had a couple of friends come look at it and FaceTime me,Michael Jamin:And it was good enough.Mackenzie Barman:I was like,Michael Jamin:And then Did you drive here? YouMackenzie Barman:Flew here? I drove,Michael Jamin:Yeah. That's how you do it. Did your car. Wow. Now tell me, when you start posting, these are thought out, these videos you make, how much time do you spend a day making, and how many times do you post a day?Mackenzie Barman:It's really funny. I usually post once a day at most. I really should try to post once a day at least. It's usually every two or three days. Oh, really? Yeah. But I've been kind of busy, but it was once a day when I was doing the nursery rhymes, but I kind of got a little burned out, I think.Michael Jamin:Yeah, you do get burned out. It'sMackenzie Barman:A lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. But I don't write anything beforehand. I improvise everything, but I kind of write it in my head as I go, and I have a loose idea going into it of if it was a nursery rhyme or something, I would have to research and have the facts ready. I would do that research beforehand and then kind of reference it as I improvised it. But for the character stuff, it's all kind of, they kind of just take over. I take a backseat,Michael Jamin:But you must edit some stuff out, or no, is everything what you say goes in?Mackenzie Barman:Sometimes if I say something and then I'm like, even if it's improvised, I'm like, huh, you know what? I think I want to tweak that and put the intonation somewhere else, or put a micro look or an eyebrow raise kind of somewhere else. I'll redo it. But most of the time it's my first take, honestly.Michael Jamin:So, okay. I was going to ask you where you're editing it because you're like this, you're holding it, and you do your one line, and then you turn around and do the other line, and thenMackenzie Barman:I swap. Yeah.Michael Jamin:So you're not even editing it?Mackenzie Barman:No, because I shoot in the app, unless it's Snapchat filters, which a couple of my characters are Snapchat filters, in which case I'll film them. It used to be that if I was doing the Snapchat filters, I would just shoot one character as a monologue and then post that. But then with my Danny and Bab series, this new, these characters, I haveMichael Jamin:The ugly babies that you post.Mackenzie Barman:They're adults. Okay. I just, I'll pull up his filter, shoot his line, save the video, switch the filter, do her response.Michael Jamin:I'm surprised you can't even remember what you just said. You know what I'm saying? With the last character just said,Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, I don't know. It's just kind of alive in that moment. ButMichael Jamin:Are you thinking in advance, okay, this is going to do well, or this is just what I want to do today? Do you care?Mackenzie Barman:I do care only because I kind of have to care. I feel like it influences so much. Now your numbers and all that stuff, but I also care because I want people to like it. I want people to genuinely have a response to it that's a little deeper maybe than normal. On TikTok scrolling, which I do get a lot. I'll get people being like, wait, this is actually, so peopleMichael Jamin:Are, well, your fans really loved you. I've read some of these comments, and what surprises me is that you interact with pretty much everyone.Mackenzie Barman:I try. I try and they're smart. Okay.Michael Jamin:Why do you try?Mackenzie Barman:Because it, it's weird. It's like this weird, I don't really ever go to anyone's profile or whatever, but I can almost hear the comment in my head, and it almost in that brief moment feels like a conversation's actively happening. So I'm bantering with this person, or I don't know. It's just, it's fun to be engaging. And I've had people respond when I do engage and they're like, oh my God, I can't believe you applied. And that to me is just so lovely.Michael Jamin:It is lovely, but it's so much work on your part.Mackenzie Barman:I know, but I sit and scroll a lot. So it's like part of the package. It's like part of producing the video almost is then the engagement after. And I don't do it as much as I used to, but I do. It depends on what mood I'm in.Michael Jamin:I wonder though. I wonder what you're supposed to do when I started, are you supposed to, I'm not even sure when I get, my page is very different from yours. They have questions for me. They want, as opposed to you. I think they're like your fans, they just want to, and so they'reMackenzie Barman:Just making a commentary on itMichael Jamin:Or something. Well, they really like your show. They like what? You're the fans. And so I just don't know what the rules are. I don't know if you're supposed toMackenzie Barman:Interact yourself. I dunno. And it depends. If somebody does leave a nasty comment or say something mean, which is oddly really rare, don't come from me guys. Don't start. But it's rare. They're pretty good, my, because some people get it bad for some reason, and I don't really get that.Michael Jamin:Yeah, go on. What do you do?Mackenzie Barman:Wait, I've lost my train of thought. WhatMichael Jamin:Was it? You said? Some people come after you and they're mean,Mackenzie Barman:And either I'll completely ignore them or I'll delete it. If it's a needle in a haystack and it's just something mean, I'll delete it. But sometimes I'll respond with sarcasm or I'll make a sarcastic response video, and then it makes it funny. So then it's like, oh, this is actually a joyful experience. But most of the time I'll just ignore them if I do get them.Michael Jamin:And you don't block 'em, you just ignore them?Mackenzie Barman:Yeah. I don't really block anybody unless they're trying to impersonate me, butMichael Jamin:Even, yeah. Wow. You don't even block the haters.Mackenzie Barman:Not usually. There's been maybe two or three.Michael Jamin:Oh, wow. I get more than you do I get more than haters than you?Mackenzie Barman:They don't really come for me. It's weird. I don't know.Michael Jamin:Wow. But now you're putting yourself out there. It's pretty vulnerable. I mean, it may hit, it may not. It may be funny. It may not be. I mean, was that hard at the beginning for you to do that?Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, I think the nursery rhyme videos did so well. Those were just one of those weird viral things where every video was getting a million plus and it was every day. It was just crazy. And now it ebbs and flows so much with TikTok. And now I have more normal numbers, I think. But I definitely do get a little anxious about that. Sometimes I'm like, oh gosh, I thought this video would do better. Or I'll post something out of my norm and then I wake up and it's done really well, and I'm like, oh, and then I'll try to do that again, and then it doesn't do as well. So it's like a flash in the pan thing.Michael Jamin:Do you share it as well on Instagram? I mean, what do youMackenzie Barman:I do, yeah. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Immediately. Same content. You just put it up there.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Do you put it anywhere else?Mackenzie Barman:Not really. I've put a couple on YouTube. I really need to start utilizing the YouTube shorts because I think where it's at and Snapchat, I need to start utilizing more. I think they're up and coming. They're coming back. You thinkMichael Jamin:So?Mackenzie Barman:They're coming back? I think so.Michael Jamin:How many hours a day or minutes a day do you spend on this?Mackenzie Barman:I would say on average, I probably spend an hour on a video.Michael Jamin:Really? Okay. It's not nothing. It's not nothing.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah. It's not nothing. But it's not like I know some people put in and you can tell some of these videos are gorgeous and the editing is, but since it's just me, it's also a lot harder for me to film outside of my hand, setting up the tripod moving and just a lot more to do. So it's just easier for me toMichael Jamin:Do. Do you have a list of ideas that you keep? And are you running out of ideas?Mackenzie Barman:I always feel like I'm running out of ideas. I always think if a video, especially if a video does really well, I'm like, I'm never going to do this well ever again. But I don't usually keep a list of ideas. Sometimes I'll jot down, I have a bunch of notes, like separate note app ideas. But a lot of the times it's just, if I have the thought, I'll just record it. That's why a lot of the times I look kind of like shit in my videos a little bit, because I film them. Usually my ideas come right in the morning, and so I'll just wake up and film an idea, and then it's, before I've even brushed my teeth or anything, I'm just gross. But it's when, and I just do it.Michael Jamin:And you put it up. It's so interesting. I don't know. Is there a fear? Is there any fear associated? It seems like you don't have any fear at all about this.Mackenzie Barman:I feel like I do. I feel there's a constant anxiety of one. I have imposter syndrome pretty intensely.Michael Jamin:Okay. And who do you think you are? Do you, you're not, is thatMackenzie Barman:I don't come from an industry family or any kind of connections like that. So I'm always like, who am I?Michael Jamin:But they have imposter syndrome too, because their mother and father was, they're famous. So I think they have bigger imposter syndrome than you do. You'reMackenzie Barman:Self made. I'm learning that. I'm learning everyone deals. There was a great Viola Davis interview where she talked about imposter syndrome, and it was great to hear that.Michael Jamin:What did she say?Mackenzie Barman:Just that it never goes away and that she was doing, oh gosh, what was the movie she did with Denzel Washington?Michael Jamin:Oh, was it Fences?Mackenzie Barman:Fences? Yeah. I think it was about fences. And she was talking about she was playing that part and was like, who am I to do this? It may have been that, but she was just talking about that, and I was like, that's really refreshing, because I think I look through rose colored glasses at these celebs sometimes, and I'm like, oh my God. They're so confident. But we're always seeing the best take, and we're always getting, especially as you get more involved in the industry, you start to see that it's all kind of smoke and mirrors. You just have to fake it.Michael Jamin:I read an article yesterday about Brian May from Queen. He said he still has some imposter syndrome, and he's Sir Brian May, and he's like, why isn't they call me, sir?Mackenzie Barman:It's wild. Yeah, it's wild. But that there is fear there. There is that fear of the imposter syndrome of like, oh my gosh, who am I? And it's silly. It's silly. And I know that, butMichael Jamin:Are you monetizing TikTok or no? Yeah. You are? Yeah. In the creator fund?Mackenzie Barman:Yeah. So they have the creator beta program or program beta, whatever it's called. Great. IsMichael Jamin:That effective use?Mackenzie Barman:I dunno, maybe, but I don't dunno. Interesting. It's nice because you can only monetize on content over a minute, and most of my content is over a minute, so it really was a good thing for me. Yeah,Michael Jamin:You'd have to change anything.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah.Michael Jamin:But you have to have a personal account, not a business account. Right? Isn'tMackenzie Barman:That what you maybe? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.Michael Jamin:Now, in your reps, as I was checking out some of your videos, you are, it's funny that they said this, but they like that you're in character. They like that you're acting. And I was curious, why don't you, or have you thought of, this is me today. I'm not going to act today. This is me. This is, I'm want to table my life. You're not doing that though.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, no. I've done a couple of videos like that. I've probably done 10 or 12, maybe 20. I don't even know how many I have on my page, but where it's me doing something. But I feel like sometimes it feels like I'm always in a bit, and I don't know if that's being an actor or if it's my own neuroses, but if I am in front of a camera, it's kind of hard for me to be just me, unless I'm doing a podcast and talking to somebody. But if it's me looking at myself on video, I'm always going to be like, ha.Michael Jamin:It'sMackenzie Barman:Difficult for me sometimes. But I do think about that because there is a part of me that really wants to be more like, wait, okay, so here I am as a person. Get ready with me. As I tell you this story, I thought about doing more of those just because it is fun to do that.Michael Jamin:Right? But theMackenzie Barman:Math is always on. I don't know.Michael Jamin:That's more of a you thing. It's so interesting. I wonder, I was going to ask if you feel almost trapped in this persona that you are now?Mackenzie Barman:Yeah. Yes and no. No, probably not. I don't think so. I think I play such a variety of characters on my TikTok.Michael Jamin:Except for yourself. You play characters exceptMackenzie Barman:For you. It's never really me. Definitely the closest one to me. And I think I'm pretty split right down the middle between the dark me and the innocent me in the nursery rhyme videos. And that dynamic is, in a lot of the videos, there's always me and me and whoever else, Chelsea or whoever. But I'm definitely split right in the middle. But if I had to lean, I would definitely lean toward the happy, bubbly me. That's probably the closest to me in any of my videos.Michael Jamin:But not that you should, I'm just pointing out you're not sharing anything really personal or intimate about yourself orMackenzie Barman:No, no. In a weird way, I think that it's like, I don't know. There's a part of me that likes, there admires those celebs that you really don't know too much about Florence Pugh or Jennifer Lawrence. They give you glimpses into their life, their personal life. But there always is this level of mystique to them. And not that I'm trying to be mysterious, but I do think that it in the long run might serve me better as an actor to be more private than to be so human. I don't know. Well,Michael Jamin:It's interesting because it's also like you must know Elise Meyers, because I mean, she's big, but you're up there. I mean, you're not far behind her, and she's more, and it seems like she's doing what she wants to do, but she's more actor and she's more, I guess, personality.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah. Yeah. I love Elise, and I don't know her, but I love her because she's so just herself. She might have self-doubt, whatever. I have no idea. Imposter syndrome and stuff, but she appears and she does speak on things, her iss, and she's just so honest about it. And I do love that. I don't know. I just can't do it.Michael Jamin:Right. Well, you're being authentic or IMackenzie Barman:Can, but yeah, I don't know. It's just tricky. There is that kind of want to keep this, but who is Mackenzie thingMichael Jamin:And what surprising opportunities have come from this or partnerships or relationships or whatever.Mackenzie Barman:I'm trying to think. Besides auditions and stuff.Michael Jamin:So you've gotten direct auditions from this? IMackenzie Barman:Have.Michael Jamin:How did that work?Mackenzie Barman:Well, a lot of the times I'll go through my reps and then my reps will reach out to me, say, oh, you've been actually personally requested for this.Michael Jamin:That's a big deal.Mackenzie Barman:It really is. And I've gotten some callback. I've gotten, most of the time, if I audition for projects like that, I'll get a call back and then go whatever, and then it doesn't happen or whatever for whatever reason. But it's happened, yeah, a few times. But a lot of the time too, I don't know. I really don't know how much, because I get auditions through my agents, a normal actor would. So I don't really know on the back end of it how much they're like, oh, here's her video. I don't really know.Michael Jamin:But do your reps try to sell you like, Hey, she's got 3 million followers on, because that would be good to help sell the show when you book it or whatever.Mackenzie Barman:Oh, I think so. Yeah. I think that's definitely a leverage point. Working on treatments and stuff. There is work that I want to put out and produce and whatever, and I do think that helps and is a big aspect ofMichael Jamin:It. So is that on your resume, like your follower account on your acting resume or no?Mackenzie Barman:I don't dunno. Actually. It mightMichael Jamin:Be it. Should it be right? Shouldn't it be?Mackenzie Barman:I think in today's world, yeah, I think it probably should. It probably is. And it probably needs to be updated, actually, now that I'm thinking about it. But yeah, I think it is on there.Michael Jamin:One thing you don't do, I don't think you do, is sell merch.Mackenzie Barman:No, I did one drop and I had a bad experience.Michael Jamin:What happenedMackenzie Barman:With doing it? I think my problem is I am not a salesy person. And when I was trying to sell or advertise my merch, those videos did not do well and not a of lot of eyes saw them because the people who would typically see my content, it was so out of the realm of what their algorithm would be that it didn't pop up for 'em and it just didn't do well. And I was like, you know what? And I didn't like working with, so if I think if I did, I would just do it myself.Michael Jamin:Wait, weren't you doing print on demand? How is it?Mackenzie Barman:I had worked with a merch company. I don't even remember the name of the company actually, but I had worked with a merch company and it was just a quick drop. I think typically if it's a first time, they'll do a limited drop to see how it does and then moveMichael Jamin:On. You work with the merch company. Why don't you just go to some place that print on demand? I have five T-shirts if you want to make 'em one at a time.Mackenzie Barman:Well, it was kind of near when I was kind first starting out, and it's one of those things where you kind learn as you go approached. They had reached out and they said, Hey, we think McKenzie would be great. And they'd worked with other people. I think that's how it went down, or no, no, that's not true. I think it was my idea to make merch. And then I had, they were recommended because they had worked with some other great people and were really successful. So I think it was just my particular launch didn't do.Michael Jamin:Didn't do well.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael. If you like my content and I know you do listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michae jamin.com. And now back to what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about.What about brand deals? Are you working with people with companies? Yeah.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah. I've done some brand deals, which are so fun. I want to do more of them because they're just fun. It kind of gives me a, because a lot of the times there's no guiding light in my videos. It's just what's ever in my head. So when I have a brand to work with, it's fun. I can work around that.Michael Jamin:Did you hook up onto the backend of TikTok, or, I don't even know they hook you up, or no.Mackenzie Barman:Well, I think a little bit. I'm so bad. I don't really know all the business backend things of TikTok. I've seen some ads and stuff you can apply to be a part of this ad or something, but the pay is really low sometimes, or it's like a share a revenue share system, and I just don't want to be bothered with that. So these ones, they'll come through my management or my agents and be like, really? Hey, they want to work with me. Yeah,Michael Jamin:But do you have special agents, social media agents, or No, just your acting agents?Mackenzie Barman:Yeah. At my agency, they have a department for everything. So I'm working with an agent there. Yeah. Oh,Michael Jamin:Wow. So interesting.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, I'm still learning too. It really is a business. And you'd kind of go to theater school and you're like, okay, yeah, sure, it's a business, but then you're in the world and you're like, oh, this is a business.Michael Jamin:Alright, so is this your primary income or no?Mackenzie Barman:No, kind of. So I do a lot of things. So I also run a video production company. You do? It's very small, but it's called Real You, and it's a demo reel production company for actors. So basically, yes, I work with actors. I was an actor who had a MISHMOSHED demo reel of all these different student films, or you just wouldn't get the footage. So it was always a hassle if you didn't have stuff to put a reel together. And so I basically sit with actors, figure out their branding, their type, whatever, and then write them scenes and then film them. But professionally, I have a real camera and all that good stuff.Michael Jamin:And how do they find you? These peopleMackenzie Barman:Through my website or there's a business website and stuff. And it's funny because all of the SEO is for New York, and so I need to figure out a way to make everyone know that we're in LA now. So I do that and I do voiceover, so I do commercial and animation. Well, nothing animation yet. I audition a lot, but I'm hoping to book something soon. But a lot of commercial work and radio stuff, so I just have a lot of,Michael Jamin:But it seems very smart what you're doing. You're also working with, you're meeting actors, you're working with actors, you're making contacts, and you're getting paid for it out here. It'sMackenzie Barman:Making me a better writer, a better director, a better actor, because I also edit the scenes. Each scene is about a couple minutes long, and so I know when I'm directing them and shooting it, oh, this was helpful in the editing process, or, oh, this was actually difficult.Michael Jamin:So it's interesting though that you write stuff for them, but you don't write for yourself. You just impro yourself.Mackenzie Barman:I do write some stuff. My tiktoks, I don't write for some reason. I really should maybe try to sit and write something. I think I just write backwards when I'm doing that. But when I'm writing treatments, we're working on TV stuff, then I'll sit and write if it's because a lot of the stuff that I write is for me, but it's also for other people.Michael Jamin:Right. Yeah. It's so interesting. Like I said, I thought what you're doing was so smart because you're really showcasing your writing, you're showcasing your acting, and you're, your range, your acting range by playing all these different characters. It just seems like that's exactly what you should be doing. Yeah.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah. I'm really trying to build a brand there. And it's nice because it kind of acts like a resume or a reel. I'm like, just go watch my tiktoks and you can see, you can see what I'm all about.Michael Jamin:Wow. And what about the partnerships, the other actors that you're working with? Tell me a little bit about what that had led toMackenzie Barman:The actors that I shoot forMichael Jamin:Or that you shoot with or that you collaborate with.Mackenzie Barman:Oh, man. Well, I've only collaborated with a couple people. My friend's Taylor and James, who are content creators, and they're both actors. They're amazing. They live in la. I did a video with them, and I actually shot this morning with Laura Clary. Do you know Laura Clary? She's great. She's so funny. She's like an internet queen. And so when I'm shooting with them, I love working with other people, a theater person. So it's in my soul to have tangible people with me. But most of the time I'm alone. So when I'm working with another actor, it's just the best, especially when I'm just bantering freely with them or, because Laura, for instance, she wrote a script for us, and when I clagged with Taylor and James, we kind of improvised it, had an idea of what it was going to be. It was like a curb situation. We had the bones, but Laura wrote it, and then we kind of improvised on the fly. It was great. I loved it.Michael Jamin:And they're pretty much want what you want. They want to get more traditional acting on TV and film.Mackenzie Barman:I think so, yeah. Well, I know that some of them do. Laura's already established and stuff, but my client actors, they're all either working actors who want to update their reel or want to add a very specific, they need a detective scene, or they need this specific type of scene. They'll come to me. Some of them I've become really good friends with just because I'm like, oh, I love you.Michael Jamin:I mean, you've only been in LA three weeks. Are you going to get involved in the theater scene or the improv scene, or what are you going to do?Mackenzie Barman:So I really want to get into the comedy scene of the character shows and a little bit of standup. I'm going to kind of play on the 10th. I'm going to have a five minute set and this show. So I think I'm just going to totally improvise it and just see what happens. This is my first show. So who caressMichael Jamin:And where is that going to be?Mackenzie Barman:That is going to be, oh, I don't know where it's going to be. Actually, I don't,Michael Jamin:By the time this airs, it'll be too late. But I'm just curious as to,Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, I don't know. It's called One Star Review. It's like a comedy showcase.Michael Jamin:It's amazing how quickly you jumped into it, honestly, you jumped into it. I don't,Mackenzie Barman:I always feel like I'm not doing enough. I always feel like I need to be doing, but I probably am fine.Michael Jamin:It's only been three weeks. Yeah, I, but it seems like, I don't know. I admire you because you're not worried about figuring out. You're just doing it. It'll fall into place. And I think a lot of people are afraid to try and to, yeah,Mackenzie Barman:I think that I'm definitely always a little bit afraid. There's always a part of me that is like, oh my gosh, what if I run out of money? What if I don't? I don't really have anyone really to fall back on in that way, any connection. I just don't have, there's no alternative for me.Michael Jamin:But you didn't in New York either. I mean your family, but there are upstate New York,Mackenzie Barman:And it's just really tricky. And I think that there's a part of me that worries on some level all the time, but then there's a stronger part of me. I think that's pretty delusional in a good way, that I'm like, no, I'm certain that I'm supposed to do this, and I just can't falter. This is what I'm doing.Michael Jamin:When you mean do this, what do you mean? Do what?Mackenzie Barman:Just be an actor and be in this industry. I've always felt that way about myself, and it's weird. It's a weird just knowing, and I don't want to come off pretentious at all about it. I'm not saying, oh my God, I'm so good. It's more of just like a, no, I know this is what I have to do. It's weird.Michael Jamin:But I'm wondering if you, because you got a giant following. I mean, and it's weird. On TikTok, you have 3 million fans, but on any given day a hundred makes, it doesn't mean 3 million going to see your work. The algorithm is so weird. But I wonder if you have any bigger plans from this or from, what are they then, other than getting cast and having someone else? What else?Mackenzie Barman:No, so really, I really, truly, I think that I need to create the vehicle for myself. And I think a lot of people do that and need to do that. I don't think people just, it's rare that you're just discovered or someone's like you. I'm going to cast you. It's just so rare. And so I am definitely being proactive with writing and stuff, and I've written a pilot. I have a treatment for that pilot, and that's the clearest idea I have. I'm also writing a one woman show at the moment, like a stage show. Great. I'm in the early planning stages, early as is. I just had this idea two days ago of a monthly kind of mackenzie and Friends comedy show.Michael Jamin:WhatMackenzie Barman:Kind of show? I think I want it just to be a variety show of whatever the comedians want to do.Michael Jamin:And it'll be a stage show.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, stage show. And I would just host it. But also, I have treatments that I'm working on for TV series and movies, and so I'm flushing those out, getting everything in order. I really, really want to pitch in 2024 and be ready for that. And I also want to write,It's something, excuse me, that I kind of recently, I think I always have liked that part of the process, but I think in my mind, I always thought to be a writer, you have to sit down and write, there's only one way to do it, and this is how you have to do it. But I'm learning that it's just not that way. I think David Mamet, he paces and he talks out loud before he ever sits down to write. And so I did. I host a podcast that I'm bringing back in January that I had Cola Cola on, and I love them. And I was talking to them and I was saying that, oh, I'm not a writer. And they were like, no, you just do it backwards. And they write on TV shows and all that. And it really changed. They had an effect on me when they said that because it really changed.Michael Jamin:So what is your intention with the podcast then? You're busy. Well, theMackenzie Barman:Podcast. I know, I'm trying, I'm so the podcast, it's called Bullshittery. It had one season, but I did it on TikTok Live, and I did not like that format at all. I thought it would be fun and experimental, and it just felt like a TikTok Live and not an actual podcast. So I'm doing it now in person in January, now that I'm here, and it's like an interview-based podcast, but it's very loose structure and just chatting with different people that are kind of in the industry, our comedians, and just a loy sheet of shit.Michael Jamin:You're going to rent a studio for that?Mackenzie Barman:I'm going to do it in my apartment. InMichael Jamin:Your apartment? Yeah. Very good. So you got to get another microphone. Is that what you're going to do? I got toMackenzie Barman:Get another mic.Michael Jamin:And you got to edit it though.Mackenzie Barman:And I got to edit it. Yeah,Michael Jamin:That's work too.Mackenzie Barman:I know, I know. And TikTok live was easy because the sound and the video were just there. I really didn't have to edit that. But this I will, because I'm going to up the quality a little bit. I'm going to use a proper camera and do it. Do it right.Michael Jamin:You can need a couple cameras. You probably, you want two cameras and maybe a master. Right.Mackenzie Barman:I was thinking that of either doing one and just keeping it in a two shot the whole time, which some people do. But also doing the single cam on each side. I don't know yet. I don't know yet. I'm open to suggestions if you have any. Oh,Michael Jamin:I don't know. There are studios that you can go and rent it out and they'll do the whole thing, but you pay by the hour.Mackenzie Barman:I know. I, I did that once in la. It was actually a great experience. I love doing it, but I'd rather, because I don't have any sponsors yet. Once I get sponsors, then I can kind of up my,Michael Jamin:I think you need around 10,000 downloads to get meaningful sponsors. I think IMackenzie Barman:So, I think so. Yeah.Michael Jamin:You're probably not there yet, but you will be. Don'tMackenzie Barman:Think. But I'm also a terrible marketer, so when I was doing the podcast before, I posted a couple of videos and I was like, this just is not me. And I need to get past that. I need to just sell my stuff, but I feel guilty.Michael Jamin:But I bet you people don't even know. I mean, people don't, you've got a giant following. They may not be aware of it. You don't have to market it. You say, oh, by the way, new episode tomorrow. I haveMackenzie Barman:Some, no, I know. I really just need to do the clips, the podcast clips.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. You'll figure it out.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, I'll figure it out. Yeah,Michael Jamin:You will. I mean, you absolutely will. And maybe you'll do characters talking about your podcast.Mackenzie Barman:I know. I do want to do that. I want to do bits. If I have someone to banter with and go into character with, I'll definitely do that. Yeah.Michael Jamin:It's amazing how when I moved to la, I was young. I didn't have any of this shit that you got going on. I didn't even occur. I don't know. I wasn't as extroverted and as, I don't think, as confident as you are. So yeah, you're going places.Mackenzie Barman:I'm trying. I really am trying. Well, I know where I have to end up, so I know that I need to get in there.Michael Jamin:And when you say, and okay, you want to be on tv, you want to be, the problem is not many sitcoms anymore.Mackenzie Barman:I know. Well, I really, I am more of a streaming series girl. My ideal dream seriously would be to be a series regular on an hour long drama, drama d kind of a show that would be like,Michael Jamin:Tell me what show that you absolutely love that you wish you could be part ofMackenzie Barman:Something,Michael Jamin:And it doesn't have to be on the air anymore. SoMackenzie Barman:Yeah, there's a couple there, obviously. Huh? Well, I loved Big Little Lies. I love an ensemble like that. The White Lotus. If I could be on the White Lotus, that would be the, honestly, above all, that would be the show I would want to be on right now.Michael Jamin:Wow. Okay.Mackenzie Barman:Succession would've been one that I would've wanted to be on. It has that snarky, realistic element to it that I love. But I also love shows like Search Party or The Comeback. I want to do a mockumentary. I want to play a version of myself. Right. Yeah.Michael Jamin:I don't, well, you can do a series on TikTok. Just bang something out.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah. Yeah.Michael Jamin:I don't know. You already are. You kind of already are.Mackenzie Barman:I kind of already am. And I do try to sprinkle in dramatic elements too sometimes. And I don't know, it's funny. I like to evoke weird reactions from people. I'm laughing, but I'm also upset. I making people feel like that.Michael Jamin:I wonder, I think you're going to get to the point, I don't know, maybe you already are, where your reps, your agent manager, whatever, introduce new clients to you as to spring help springboard them. You really have a big platform. Has that coming? Has that happened yet?Mackenzie Barman:No, not yet. I don't know. It's so hard now because it's so forward facing too. I feel like there are some people that just do so well with the pop culture element of being present and being up to date with pop culture, I think is so huge. And I don't really touch upon that too, too much. So there's that small aspect I think that's keeping me from going even bigger. You know what I mean?Michael Jamin:Well, you did a piece where you kind of made fun of Congress when they were doing the TikTok here. Yes.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah. I'll mess around with it sometimes if I see a good opportunity and I'll do it.Michael Jamin:But you think you need to be more topical?Mackenzie Barman:I think from what I see, and this might just be because we all have different worlds now too, which is another thing from my world, it seems like the people that do really well and that become kind of more forward facing are people who lean into pop culture and things that are really trending in that moment. And I feel like I maybe just don't do that enough. Not that it's a bad thing. It's almost intentional maybe. ButMichael Jamin:Are you studying people wondering, are you trying to emulate other creators? Is that what you mean?Mackenzie Barman:No, I don't think I'm trying to emulate any other creators. I honestly think my biggest influences come from people outside of TikTok.Michael Jamin:Who are they then? Who are your influences?Mackenzie Barman:Like Lisa Kudrow, Tony Collette, actors,Michael Jamin:Amy Think, Amy Poller,Mackenzie Barman:Amy Poer, the classics. They're like,Michael Jamin:And do you think of them to get inspiration, or what do you mean when you mention them?Mackenzie Barman:I think that's just what comes together in my brain. It is all in there, and then it just all goes away, and then something comes out from it. I don't think I'm actively thinking like, oh, I need to channel Amy Po here, or be, I think the person that I'm closest to unintentionally, but I'll notice it sometimes, is Lisa Kudrow. I think I just love her so much and her isms that I feel like I might imitate her more than I even realized. Watch videos sometimes I'll be like, that was very Lisa cre. I'm like, that moment. But I think I'm developing my unique voice that's a blend of all these people.Michael Jamin:That's the step. And then I was going to say, how do you use art to influence what you do if you do? Yeah.Mackenzie Barman:How do I use art to influence?Michael Jamin:Yeah. I don't know. I guess what I'm asking is where are you drawing inspiration from? Who would you love to be? And maybe it's Lisa Kra. I know your version of them, but whatever.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, I don't really know. I feel like I always have the thought in my brain that I, I'm very conscious about what I'm putting out. Is this too silly that it's dumb? Or is it too serious that I feel like, oh my gosh, I don't even know what really influences myMichael Jamin:Well, are there videos then that you don't put out? I mean, you shoot and you're like, eh, I'm not putting this up.Mackenzie Barman:Rarely. Most of those are the silly tiktoks of if I see a viral sound or something and I'll just do it, but I won't post it, I'll just do it. I dunno. It feels weird. It feels like I'm breaking some rule with myself to go outside of, and it might be this snobbish thing that I'm doing. It might be like, oh, I need to be this character actor person. And then if I break out of that and I'm just like a real girly girl, I don't know, maybe. I don't know.Michael Jamin:Well, but that's interesting. I feel there are certain trends and there's certain challenges you could do, and I don't partake in any of that shit. I feel like I'm too old for it, but I also feel like that's just not my brand. I'm not going to do any of that. And I wonder if you feel the same way.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, I'll watch them and I'll enjoy them. Even sometimes I'll do them and I'll record them, and then I've posted a couple some, but most of the time it just feels weird to do it. I feel like I'm like, again, maybe that's that imposter syndrome creeping. I'm like, nobody wants to see me do this. Nobody wants to hear me talk about this or,Michael Jamin:Yeah, but then, and you might be right, the thing is, you might be right. You might try that. And if you get almost, I dunno, whatever, a low view count, then you're like, I guess they didn't want to hear it then. And it may just be random.Mackenzie Barman:And then you're in your head like, oh my gosh, if I'm my real self and they don't like it, right? Oh my God, they don't like me, do I? And I think maybe that's part of it too. It's like I am confident when I'm acting because it's not me anymore. It's like it's somebody else. Their fear is gone really of like, well, if you don't like it, it's not me. You don't like, it's them you don't like. But when it's just me being myself, I'm questioning my humor. I'm questioning my relatability. I'm questioning my, am I girly enough? Am I quirky? It's too many thoughts.Michael Jamin:No, I get that. I mean, on the occasions that I'm funny in my video, I'm like, this better be funny. This guy says he's a comedy writer. What's going to throw shade at me? And they'll be, right.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah. But I admire that. And it seems silly when I'm talking about it, it seems like just be yourself. I know people love me, but I don't know. It just feels weird. But I admire so much, and I watch all the videos of people who are just like, story time. I'm going to tell you this time. And I love that. I don't know. I just feel like if I do it, I'll record it and watch it. I'll be like, the story is dumb. Or I don't know, a lot of self-doubt, but it's weird. It's like I can have self-doubt here, but then I'm like, no, this is amazing. Somewhere else.Michael Jamin:Right. Okay. And is there any thought, I guess there isn't because you kind of improv this, but I'm always thinking, I better get too, because people got that thumb on and they can scroll so fast. Do you give any thought to that? How fast you're going to get this thing moving? How fast you're going to get to the good part?Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Because I think sometimes the music helps if people, that's why I always will use sinister music, because people immediately are like, oh, what's going on here? And I think that will compensate for me taking my beats and taking my sweet time with it. Because at the end of the day too, I love storytelling and I love of keeping people engaged with something. So I kind of let the music do that part. But I do think about that, oh, I should really get to it quickly within the first 10, 15 seconds at least. But even then, it's too late.Michael Jamin:It's so interesting. I don't know how we're supposed to handle any of this, but again, I guess I want to get back to you before I get to let you go, before you respond. The relationships that you've formed, I guess they are your fans and you correspond with them, whatever.Mackenzie Barman:And a couple have become friends, a couple of Really, yeah. There's a couple people that I've just messaged and just vibed with you just kind of, most of the time it's like nothing. But doMichael Jamin:They reach out to you first? Or how does that work?Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, there have been a couple people that I noticed will comment a lot, and then I'll kind of randomly respond to dms on Instagram. I respond to a lot of dms, honestly. But then sometimes if there's just, you just know energetically. If they're kind of odd or they're kind of pushy or they say something weird, then I'm like, okay, bye. But sometimes they'll be kind of funny and kind of like bantering. I'm like, huh, okay. There's a girl, Faye, I love her. Shout out Faye. She's from Ireland. And I love people that are not from the United States, too. If you're from England or Ireland or somewhere, I'm going to love you automatically. But she's from Ireland, and we were kind of joking about her teaching me an Irish accent, whatever. So we were like voice memoing back and forth. And then she's the one who now Photoshops my Danny and Babs photos. She's just amazing at it. And she's like, I'll just do it. Don't worry about it. I'm like,Michael Jamin:Oh, wow.Mackenzie Barman:Okay.Michael Jamin:Isn't that nice? IMackenzie Barman:Love her. I love her. Wow.Michael Jamin:It's such an interesting, I don't know, community, and I wonder how big this thing is. I wonder how many creators. There's a small circle that I seem to be in, and I'm like, is this everybody? Or am I missing about 10 billion of us?Mackenzie Barman:I think it's both because I feel like it's a small world. Most of the time, the people I know, the other people that I know and influencers are comedic content creators. But then there will be somebody with 12 million followers who I've never seen or heard of before, and I'm like, I did not know you even existed, but you're so famous on the internet. And I'm like, I've never seen you. So it's weird.Michael Jamin:And you reach out to them, or No, you just follow them orMackenzie Barman:Something. Oh, no, I'll just hear about it. Or I'll see a random person pop up on TikTok and go to their profile and they have 12 million. And I'm like, I have never seen you before. It's just odd. It's suchMichael Jamin:An odd thing. There's this woman that I follow, and maybe you've heard of her. She's digging a ton under her house, butMackenzie Barman:I want to be on that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I don't know where she lives, but she has a house and she's literally digging. She has a lab coat, and she's pouring concrete and she's digging, and it's just her passion. But I don't know if she's a, I don't thinkMackenzie Barman:She is that legal. Can you do that?Michael Jamin:Right. And she's not really, I don't think she's a certified structural engineer, but she has all these books and she's reading them. She's like, and this is how I learned how to do the electricity. It's like, oh my God, I just had to read this book. And so she's like a mad scientist. And then she was picked up on Yahoo. Yahoo did an article about her, and then I DMed her. Look at, you're on Yahoo now.Mackenzie Barman:Oh my gosh.Michael Jamin:There's just so many interesting people doing interesting things. I'm like, wow.Mackenzie Barman:No, I know. I'm deep on some tiktoks. I love conspiracy talk. I love it. I don't buy into it, but I love it.Michael Jamin:But see, I don't want to, don't think you want to get too far. You don't want to.Mackenzie Barman:I know.Michael Jamin:I know. You can keep them from a distance, but you don't want to,Mackenzie Barman:You start to tread a line where you're like, wait a minute, this is suddenly not where I want to be. That happens.Michael Jamin:Right? Wow. Mackenzie, thank you so much for joining me. What an interesting, again, I have such admiration for what you do and I'm a fan, and there it is. Yeah,Mackenzie Barman:I mean, you too. I mean, we got to talk shop too at someMichael Jamin:Point. Well, when we finish this, we will do that, but I want to make sure everyone knows where to find you. So tell everyone what all your handles are.Mackenzie Barman:Yeah, follow me guys. I'm at Mackenzie Barman everywhere. So I'mMichael Jamin:EverywhereMackenzie Barman:At Mackenzie Barman. I'm mostly on TikTok and Instagram. But follow me on YouTube too, because I'll be there and SnapchatMichael Jamin:Can find me. I dunno anything about Snap, but alright. Thank you again and don't go anywhere. I'll sign off. I won't. Alright, everyone, another great talk. Be like her. Go follow her. Just put yourself out there and then work on it and you'll get better and better. Okay, everyone, until next week, keep creating.So now we all know what the hell Michael Jamin is talking about. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for my free monthly webinars @michaeljamin.com/webinar. And if you found this podcast helpful or entertaining, please share it with a friend and consider leaving us a five star review on iTunes that really, really helps. For more of this, whatever the hell this is, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. And you can follow Phil Hudson on social media @PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane and music was composed by Anthony Rizzo. And remember, you can have excuses or you can have a creative life, but you can't have both. See you next week.

On this week's episode, I have choreographer Phil Wright. We talk about the huge risk he took moving out to Los Angeles from a successful career in Miami. He dives into some of the famous people he has worked with as well as what his most viral video is. There is so much more so make sure you tune in.Show NotesPhil Wright on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phil_wright_/Phil Wright on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philwright_Phil Wright on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PhilWrightMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptPhil Wright:And it's hard because we're working when we're not working, there's no punching and punch out clock withMichael Jamin:Us.Phil Wright:So it's tough. So getting the brain to relax and just actually sit down and watch a movie and not worry about camera angles, or how did he save his line to make him funny?Michael Jamin:Really?Phil Wright:I've lost, and which I'm trying to get back to. I've lost the concept of just being a consumer.Michael Jamin:You're listening to. What the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin, another episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about, guys. So as you know, I'm really into talking to creative people who've just done interesting things and have invented themselves in ways. And so ordinarily I talk to screenwriters and authors and actors and directors, people like that, but I just discovered this guy I want to introduce you to. His name is Phil Wright, and he's the first dancer choreographer I'm talking to, which I think is so, I don't know. I got a lot of questions for you. Phil. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for doing this,Phil Wright:Dude. Thank you for having me. I'm such a fan, man. You don't realize I'm such a good fan. I watch your page all the time. I'm always interested in what you're getting into. Ah,Michael Jamin:That's very kind. I'm a fan of you. I have to know doing something, which is really interesting. Not a lot of people can make a living as a dancer and even a choreographer that's even fewer people. And yet this is, so where did this all begin then?Phil Wright:Okay, so originally from Miami, Florida. I moved to LA about 10 years ago. I had stepped into the dance world accidentally, I guess because I wasn't really technically trained per se. I didn't start at a young age. I started dancing on the streets. That's when we had crews, and if you weren't part of a crew, then you were a nerd. And I wasn't a nerd by any means. I wasn't book smart, so you had to be a part of a crew, and that's what it was. So it sort of kept me off of the street, out of trouble and fast forward, moved to LA about 10 years ago and just rebranded myself in what I was trying to do with my career. I actually started teaching children to start things off. Kind of got like, you know what? I think I could do better. I think I could, when youMichael Jamin:Say teaching children, you were teaching at schools at where? Yeah,Phil Wright:Teaching at local dance studios around the neighborhood. And honestly, it just started off like, Hey, I need some extra money, man. So I'm serving tables at Applebee's, serving two for twenties and three o'clock rolls around. I go teach a class and do my double shift, go right back to Applebee's and do the same thing all over again. And we won't talk about poker nights. But anyway.Michael Jamin:So you were starting at the bottom, but when you moved to la, did you hope to get in music videos? What was your aspiration?Phil Wright:Well, I mean, first off, I had sort of established myself in Miami. I started teaching for the Miami Heat Dance Team. Oh, really? Miami Billboard Awards, the Latin Billboard awards. And I had sort of caught fire in Miami, and I had an apartment in BIS Camp Boulevard. So I was fine. I didn't really need to move.Michael Jamin:So that must have been hard. You're going to leave all that behind.Phil Wright:Yeah. Yeah.Michael Jamin:You wanted a bigger pool or what? It wasPhil Wright:Huge. It was a huge sacrifice. And then at that time, my girlfriend, well, now wife, I just came home and I just sort of got motivated by my friends who had moved from Miami to la.Michael Jamin:And how old were you at this point when you decided to leave it behind?Phil Wright:Dude, I told my kids this all the time. It's never too late. I moved to Los Angeles when I was 26 years old.Michael Jamin:Right. Okay. Well, you're still young, but, but yeah,Phil Wright:But in artistry world, especially if you're in front of the camera, not behind the camera writing orMichael Jamin:Directly,Phil Wright:If you're in front of the camera and you have eyes on the camera, you have to be, I don't know, fresh, I guess. I don't know.Michael Jamin:Well, especially dancing, because it takes a wear and tear on your body. I mean, it really does. Definitely.Phil Wright:So during that time, you would consider that, woo, that's kind of late in the game. So I moved to LA and started all over, man. I had gave up everything and I had dreams, and I gave it all up and moved to LA to sleep on the floor in my friend's apartment, one bedroom apartment with roaches crawling on me, just,Michael Jamin:And then where did you start from? I should mention, because I haven't said this before. You're huge on YouTube. You've got well over a million followers. That's a big deal, man. That's a very big deal. Thank you. So I mean a household name, but you are making quite a name for yourself. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.Phil Wright:I like to say this broke, gets creative really quick.Michael Jamin:Yes. Tell me howPhil Wright:The motivation to, it's not money per se, it's sort of just being productive. You know what I mean? If I can stay productive, the money will follow. But when you don't necessarily have opportunities knocking at the door every single day, you have to sort of create those opportunities.Michael Jamin:So how were you doing that? What were you doing?Phil Wright:This was the time when Instagram was around and we had our 15 second videos. These were 15 second videos. And I would go out on the street, gorilla style, no permits. I hope they won't catch me now, but no permits, no nothing. And I would get the most popular song that would drop at midnight, photograph something, get two or three friends, and record a dance routine in the middle of the street.Michael Jamin:And this, was it Vine or Instagram?Phil Wright:This was Instagram during the time. This is after Vine.Michael Jamin:Okay.Phil Wright:Now, strategically, what I would do is get the teachers that were already teaching in the classrooms, but I wasn't teaching during that time. No one knew who I was. I knew who those people were because I took those people's classes. So they knew I was a great dancer. They knew I was good people. So they would say, sure, yeah, Phil, we'll dance with you. And no one really, at that time, videos were not big. They weren't a big deal. So I would get them and they would just, Hey, look. And my pitch was like, I only need 15 seconds your time. That's it. 15 seconds, we'll do two eight counts. That's it. And you'll make a new appearance and then you bounce out. ButMichael Jamin:What was your expectation when you were putting these videos up?Phil Wright:My expectations were to get into classrooms, to teach classes.Michael Jamin:Oh, okay. Why? Because you need a following to get to teach in a classroom.Phil Wright:Absolutely.Michael Jamin:Really?Phil Wright:Absolutely. SeeMichael Jamin:That I did not know, even in a small little private studio, you need a following.Phil Wright:You need a following. If people don't know who you are, they're not coming to take class.Michael Jamin:But I would think that my daughters went to take dance class and there was a studio in the neighborhood, and we went there.Phil Wright:Yeah, I mean, well, I'm thinking, I'm talking more of entertainment, not your residential.Michael Jamin:So these classes are more,Phil Wright:These are professionalMichael Jamin:Dance classes, classes,Phil Wright:Debbie Reynolds Dance Complex. These are where the pros go toMichael Jamin:Try. Okay.Phil Wright:And my hope was is to grab these teachers and let them be a part of my video, and I produce it. Well, I cut it. I get on my little editing app, cut it up really quick. And my hope was is if they were ever absent, the studios would see that and say, oh, wow, who's this guy dance with? JR Taylor. Oh, Jr. R Taylor's out next week. Let's just get this guy, because JR Taylor must know this guy.Michael Jamin:So funny, because I did a post a while ago where I said, get in the neighborhood, get as close as you can physically possible to the person whose job you want, pick up their scraps. And that's exactly what you did. You just pick up their scraps. And now you're that guy now.Phil Wright:Yeah. And you know what? I actually had a friend of mine, we guess, I don't know, associates, and he came to me, and during that time, I had asked him to be a part of my video. At that time, no one knew me or this and that, and he declined. He was just like, no, I don't have time and everything like that. And now, fast forward six, seven years later, I invited him to my house, to my birthday party. Actually, dude, I've never told you this, but I have to apologize. I didn't know you. I was like, dude, that's water on the bridge. Doesn't matter. You didn't know me. You know what I mean? But I had to put myself out there for people to even say my name, whether if it was good or bad, at least I'm buzzing in some type of way. ButMichael Jamin:You see, people didn't know how serious you were. I'm sure you must've known people who did what you did and gave up after about a week and a half.Phil Wright:Yeah. But bro, I was on a tyrant. I would shoot, say five to seven videos a day, and remember, it's only 15 seconds. So I would shoot that and then release 'em every day throughout.Michael Jamin:It's difficult. It becomes, you're never done. You're never done. It's like, I imagine it's sorting the mail. The mail doesn't stop coming, man. And that's what posting is like. Do you still keep that same schedule?Phil Wright:Well, it's tough. Now. I got two kids. I got a wife, you know what I mean? Now my home base is traveling. I travel a lot. I'm always on the plane. And I've already built up this sort of following online to where now I can, Hey, I'm in Arizona. I can put a post out and say, Hey, I'm in Arizona. And then I'll just get a wild spread of emails. Hey, could you come to my studio? Hey, could you come here?Michael Jamin:Is that right? So that's okay. So I want to know how that works. You decide what city you're going to go to, and you'll spend a week there. You decide, this is all your decision, right? I'm going to go to Phoenix. And then somehow, because all these people follow you on social media, these studio owners, they book you, and they know that the people, your fans are going to come see you at the studio. So it's easy for them. It's almost like a no brainer.Phil Wright:Well, that's the hope. You know what I mean? That you post that and they hope that people come to the studio. But in reality, I do so much with posting and promoting their own studio. They're going to go to Michael Jamin, writers Dance Studio five o'clock, see you there. Whether or not people come or not, the fact that I'm showing up there gives you such a boost to say, Hey, Phil Wright was at my studio. This is the footage. This is the class footage. You might want to check out Michael Jamin Writer's Studio next time that you're in town,Michael Jamin:But are you getting paid a percentage of the people who come, or are they just booking you? And regardless,Phil Wright:We're past that,Michael Jamin:Steve. We can't talk about that. I want to know how it works to be No, no,Phil Wright:No. We can definitely, no, that's sort of like the beginning stages of things. People handle their own the way they want to, but I work off of a flat rate, soMichael Jamin:So they book, you get paid either way,Phil Wright:Right? They book the hotel, the flight, they booked me myMichael Jamin:Time's. So interesting. So you're almost like a comedian, except you're doing dance.Phil Wright:Own my own boss, my own company. I created my own company for, right, Inc. And was able to go move off of that. SoMichael Jamin:Do you have employees working for you? Is that what Well,Phil Wright:I did have an assistant that helped me all the logistics, like getting the flights and the hotels and stuff like that. But she's moved on to bigger and better things. But now I'm just solely working for myself right now, just I don't have How many,Michael Jamin:So you travel every week. Are you in a different city everyPhil Wright:Week? Yeah. So I also do work for another company, a dance convention called Break the Floor. So they hire me seasonal throughout the fall up until the summer, and then I have that. So that's where you see all, I'm in the ballroom full of kids in the classes. They have numbers on their chest andMichael Jamin:Stuff. And those kids, what do they aspire? What do those kids, when you say, what do you think they want?Phil Wright:Most of them want to be professional dancers. Some of them just want to be in the room, some of them. Or you get the families that were past pro dancers that are trying to get the other kids into their kids, into dancing. So the motivation is like, yes, this is a professional. We're hiring Phil Wright, he's coming to Nebraska. Get your tickets now.Michael Jamin:See? And you have to have the right temperament for that, because you have to have the right energy to deal with kids. I mean, I wonder if there's a lot of people like you who do that.Phil Wright:Well, I would say there's not too many kid teachers out there.Michael Jamin:It's interesting. You've got this niche for yourself,Phil Wright:Enormous amount of patience. SoMichael Jamin:Yes.Phil Wright:So I think that helps me out in my age. I'm very one of the very few that teaches kids. There are other few teachers out there, but I think that's where most of my clock comes from.Michael Jamin:Do you have a community of other dancers like yourself who do what you do?Phil Wright:Yeah. I mean, some of them are more on the pro side, like, Hey, they work with artists per se only. Right?Michael Jamin:Interesting.Phil Wright:Luckily for me, I'm in a space where I get to do a little bit of everything,Michael Jamin:Really.Phil Wright:I choreographed commercials. I just finished a commercial with Kevin Hart and DraftKings. That's going to come out later.Michael Jamin:You got to teach him how to dance.Phil Wright:Well, that was pretty funny. That was pretty funny. He came up to me and he was missing his cue, and I was like, because he was supposed to do a pump, and the pyro was supposed to go off in the back. And I go up to Kevin, I was like, Kevin, dude, you're making me look bad, man. You're not pumping on time. He goes, Phil, when you get to a status of mine, you're going to do whatever the hell you want to do.Michael Jamin:Really? Oh, alright. As long as the director'sPhil Wright:Okay. I go, okay, okay. And I said, well, after we did the take, I go, well, I guess I'm out of a job then. Thanks cv. And he started laugh. So that was sort of a moment for me.Michael Jamin:I said this to my wife a couple of weeks ago because I was just, I don't know what got me started. I was the thing about choreography, which to me is so, because I'm not a dancer, I don't know how you guys do anything. It's so interesting. I don't know how you guys do it. It's like you're telling a story with movement and really good choreography is from my unknown. My opinion is, I guess just an outsider. To me, it's so specific to that song. It's almost like you can't even use that move in another song. An extreme example would be Michael Jackson's thriller. Okay, you're dancing like a zombie. You can't use those zombie moves in another video. It just won't work. And it's like, I don't know how you guys do that. I don't know how you even begin. Where do you begin when you choreograph a piece?Phil Wright:The creative process can be interesting for each individual choreographer. Everyone else has their own process. It's like writing. You may burn incense and then get in, go into a dark or something like that. Whatever happens to me. But the creative process is quite different from a lot for a lot of different people. For me, per se, I go to sleep with the music on. I wake up to the music, I listen to the lyrics as much as possible, and I get into a very creative mode where it's not manufactured. What I mean by that is it's not like, okay, I'm going to go here and think I'm going to go here, rather than just kind of letting my body settle in and let it happen. It's almost like, I don't know, cold reading, if you will, just off the whim, let's just go off of the cuff. And then that's where my creative juices start to flow. Now I get into a mode where I do it very subconsciously. I try not to block out hours to choreograph. I sort of just go out throughout my day and create movement and live life as easy asMichael Jamin:Possible. But then how do you remember if you're choreographing it on the fly, then how do you remember? What do you do? You film yourself?Phil Wright:Film myself. Yeah. Film myself real quick. It's like an idea. Writing. Oh, an idea. Lemme write that down.Michael Jamin:And when you're dancing, is it in your head or is it in your body? Where are you remembering thesePhil Wright:Moves? Some of it is, is initiated with through feeling and emotion, man and heart. Some things just touch you all so much on an emotional level. That's why I say manufactured is going through your head and trying to say, okay, let me form these shapes on the dance floor. AndMichael Jamin:He shapes,Phil Wright:Yeah, shapes and movement and how you would love to see your class move.Michael Jamin:Well, that's another thing. Now I'm thinking about you're choreographing just yourself, but you might have everyone, I might be doing something different. It has to mesh together. AndPhil Wright:I'm thinking about the masses, man. I'm thinking about what I would want to choreograph and how would this put me in a mood? Let's just say like Beyonce's new Renaissance tour album I put on her album. I'm thinking about arenas, I'm thinking about. So I think of that, and that puts me in a mode of larger movement to please a larger crowd. Whereas you take that compared to TikTok dancing, you have to say it in this littleMichael Jamin:Box. Yeah, right.Phil Wright:Please. You're more of a commercial. You're trying to sell or promote something.Michael Jamin:It'sPhil Wright:Different. Yeah. It's much, much, much different.Michael Jamin:Are you watching other dancers and saying, oh my God, how do I do that? Or that move?Phil Wright:I get inspired all the time. I know some choreographers don't like to watch, but I love to watch. And you know what? To their point, you don't want to watch so much because subconsciously when you get into your creative process, you end up doing what they do. You know what I mean? It's like,Michael Jamin:Ah. Well, that's the thing. Do you feel like you have a defined feel right style that you don't want? Do you not want be inspired, too much inspiration from somebody else? Because you don't want it to bleed into your work. You don't want to dilute your voice.Phil Wright:My inspiration comes from hard work and ethic, or how they're working and how they're releasing their content rather than the actual material.Michael Jamin:Oh, I see.Phil Wright:Or how are they promoting it or how are they editing it? You know what I mean? Oh, what's the new camera that they're using? Are they doing depth? You know what I mean? So those are the things that I look for. That's where my motivation,Michael Jamin:Because I was going to ask you, because if you saw someone with some move that you've never seen before, would you try it? Or would you feel like, no, that's just not mine can't.Phil Wright:There's nothing new under this sun. It's been done already. It's definitely been done already. I don't see anything. Oh, wow. You know what I mean? It's more, for me, it's about the work ethic more thanMichael Jamin:Anything else. Interesting. So howPhil Wright:Are you changing the game from yesterday into tomorrow?Michael Jamin:Okay, so what's your thought on that? How are you doing that?Phil Wright:It's hard because, well, for me, I think there should be a, well, for me, I'm in a transition phase. In 2022, no, 2020, I sold my TV show to Disney Channel.Michael Jamin:Yes, I wanted to talk about that. But go, yeah, let's talk about it now then.Phil Wright:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the big worry, and let's just put this footnote, the big worry of every dancer is that, okay, my time is running out.Michael Jamin:WhatPhil Wright:I do, what am I, I'm not dancing anymore. You know what I mean? So I was approached by Irene Drayer, who saw an article that was written on me teachers about parents and students dancing. She said, Hey, I think this is a TV show. I said, lady, you're wasting my time. I got to go teach class. She goes, no, I'm serious. Nine months later, we're in Disney's office. This is when Gary Marsh was head of television and programming at Disney Show. And he actually came to one of my classes and saw my class and was inspired. And nine months later, I was able to sell a TV show, a dance competition show to Disney Channel.So let's just put that to the side really quick. My hope was, okay, yes, I'm out. I got something, I sold a show. I don't have to dance anymore, really. You know what I mean? I can be a personality now. I can promote myself in a different fashion. This is another mountain that I can climb and be successful at. Fast forward TV shows goes on. We do not so well, because it was during covid no's watching TV there. Everyone was watching CNN. So our timing was off. And I went back to the drawing board. I went back to teaching. ButMichael Jamin:You see, it's a couple of interesting things. First of all, I don't think you would've sold that show had you not already built yourself up. I mean, you have a big following. So it's not like you were just the guy with an idea, Hey, here's a show. You are a guy who had built something already who went in and pitched a show, right? I mean, it's a big difference. But I don't think people realize that. A lot of people are like, I got an idea on your first date in la. If you said, I want to sell a Dan show. Okay, well, sorry, it's not going to happen. So you had to build it first. And then the other thing is interesting is that people think that you're never done with it. The journey never ends. Wherever you are in career is more that you have to do, and you're always thinking about the next thing. So yeah. So you aspire. Well, I was going to ask you. Yeah, because knowing that youth, you lose your youth in every creative industry, you have to be always thinking about the next thing. And so you're just to be more of this personality, which you already are. I mean, maybe you don't realize it. I realize it. When you're booked to go to Arizona, it's you. They're booking. It's not even your dance moves, it's you. You know what I'm saying?Phil Wright:I tell my students all the time, like dancers per se, we spent a great amount of deal of creating and ultimately making these artists lookMichael Jamin:Great on stage,Phil Wright:Either on stage or we're promoting a commercial to sell something or whatnot. And a lot of times, and I've seen a lot of dancers go through this, they go through this real down phase because we spend so much energy making everyone else stars.Michael Jamin:Oh, really?Phil Wright:As opposed to us being the actual star, we're stars, per se, among the dance community. But when it comes to the actual product of Target, target, target doesn't give to pennies and a crap about us. We can be replaced under their watch. But in our dance community, we're like, oh my God, Sarah's killing it. You know what I mean? But we're not, per se, really making our presence known and being our own bosses and being our own stars. And I think that was something that resonated with me. And I recognized very, very early in the game. So I wanted to put myself in the forefront to say, look, I know I'm helping you build your legacy, but at the same time, I need to build my own.Michael Jamin:SoPhil Wright:That was a big, big, big thing for me.Michael Jamin:And so what do you do other than trying to sell TV shows? What do you do to doPhil Wright:That? I mean, ultimately that's the big goal right there. I just want to sell ips,Be able to, and right now, I'm currently in acting classes. I take acting classes here as well. But I tell my students all the time, man, I have to open up so many doors. Open up all the doors that you can. I'm in acting class. I actually have two pictures next week with Disney and Nicole Nickelodeon. I'm on social media all the time. And I believe that there's three ways that you can do this. You can do this in person on social media, and you can do this on linear, on television. And if you can have those three lanes open, constantly rolling. When one door closed, God forbid we get hit with covid again. At least my online and television is rolling. Or if I don't have a TV show going right now, at least I'm in person traveling from here to there.Michael Jamin:Is that exhausting though? Traveling?Phil Wright:Oh, soMichael Jamin:Exhausting. So I mean, it's not like you want to do more of it. You're kind of okay with,Phil Wright:I mean, look, the reason why I'm okay with, it's because I'm so blessed to be able to createMichael Jamin:My own, to do itPhil Wright:And take downtime when I want to. I don't have a boss. I am. I'm the guy. So that's why there's a certain level of gratitude there. And there was a time where no one wanted me in their city. No one cared. So for some people to be like, oh my God, we will love to. We will pay X amount of dollars for you to come here.Michael Jamin:You camp out at one city for a week. Or will you go from Phoenix to Houston in one week?Phil Wright:I used to be able to go there and just chill out for the entire weekend or whatnot. No, I'll fly to New York, get off the plane, teach two or three classes, go back to the airport, go back home. The same. I want to be as efficient as possible. I want to be quick, fast. And for me, if I can make X amount of dollars in six hours with me just sleeping on a plane, then that's fine. You know what I mean? Whereas I used to travel in my red Mitsubishi to San Francisco for 200 bucks. You know what I mean? So it's a process. So it's a level of gratitude that goes with it. But I'm fast, man. I get in and I get out, and if whatever it takes to get it done, I get it done.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content, and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com. And now back to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?I guess you're a YouTuber, right? Are you in that community, that YouTubePhil Wright:Circle? I guess I made videos for a long time. I'm not as avid as I was before, but I was dropping videos every day. But now, here's the problem with what I was doing, is that I was using music that was licensed to these big artists. And I would get notices on my YouTube all the time and say, Hey, there's copyright infringement you can't monetize. So I never made money from my YouTube per se. You know what I mean?Michael Jamin:But I see people on Instagram or TikTok dancing to popular songs. I seePhil Wright:That. I do that all the time. But you have to understand that that influences third party companies to come after you and say,Michael Jamin:Sure it does. Oh my God,Phil Wright:We see how many views do you have on YouTube? Can you shoot this Friz commercial? Or can you do thisMichael Jamin:Target? Oh, okay. So they're not monetizing, those people are not monetizing their Instagram that way. They're monetizing by getting brand deals or whatever.Phil Wright:But now, don't quote me on that because they may be monetizing. They may be. But I'm just talking about, for me, I never had the luxury of monetizing YouTube because of the copyright infringement clause. AndMichael Jamin:On YouTube, did you teach yourself all this, or did you figure this out as you went? Or was someone helped youPhil Wright:Broke, gets creative really quick. I think we all established that, man, when you have nothing, man, when you're against the wall, you find ways to succeed. And fortunately, I was able to find a lane and make it work. A lot of my friends tell me today, they're like, I don't know how you did it,Michael Jamin:Man. Really? Yeah. Really.Phil Wright:And I knock on wood, man, because I'm so lucky.Michael Jamin:What did your family think of all this when you're starting out?Phil Wright:My wife is very supportive. I have a 3-year-old and a 2-year-old. So they're very young.Michael Jamin:No, I mean your family, your parents, myPhil Wright:Family at home. Well, my mom passed it 2015. And you know what? I think that had a lot to do with it as well, because a part of the notion of moving out to la I'm the baby of the family, so I was the last one to leave. So my whole motivation was to make her proud, come back home, buy her a bigger house, et cetera, et cetera. Consequently taking her life in 2015. And for some reason, and no matter what you believe in or whatever, I felt like as an artist, for me, the universe kind of gives you an exchange for some reason. And for some reason, my career, justMichael Jamin:Right after that, you felt there was an exchange.Phil Wright:I swear to you. I promise you. I promise you. It was an exchange. And I had not booked a single job in LA for two years. I get that news, and it was actually on the same day that I had booked my job, and my sister called me, she told me the news, and at that point, I went from on cloud nine to zero. None of it at all at that point. None of it. None of it matters. You know what I mean? You give these jobs and you give these companies and you give all of these achievements, so much power over you. You sort of block out the real necessity in life is life itself. So shortly after that, Mike, my career just, I went crazy and YouTube started popping off. Instagram started popping off. I started to make a name for myself. People started inquiring for me and everything. So it was a pretty wild period for me. It was emotionally kind of weird because I was appreciative, but not as appreciative as I would be if my mom were stillMichael Jamin:Right. Yeah, it puts it all in perspective. So you must've been dealt. I mean, people don't realize the sacrifice. I don't know. I think a lot of people, you took a giant sacrifice. You left your family, and a lot of people don't want to do that. They talk about it, but they don't do it. And so everything you gained, you paid for, you paid it.Phil Wright:Like I said, I swear to you, I just always see it as an exchange. I always see it as an exchange. And I tell my students all the time, you work hard at it, it'll come. Talent is great. That's awesome to have. But two main things are the main reason why I'm always booked is because people like me,Michael Jamin:Man,Phil Wright:I love people. I love to talk to people. Hell, I invited you to my birthday party. I don't even know whoMichael Jamin:You're, you did. I said, let's get you on my show.Phil Wright:But I love people and I love interacting and things like that. So I tell my students all the time, talent is great. It's good to have. It's a good weapon to have, but you have to be likable. You have to walk into a room and people light up because of you always have to stop if you can do that.Michael Jamin:And that's very interesting because what you're describing is people have to like you. What you're describing is that, that you're giving these people something you're actually, and it's not entitled. It's not like, Hey, look at me. I'm the star. What can I give you? How can I be nice to you? How can I be kind to you so that you'll like me as opposed to me, me, me, me. It's really putting the energy outPhil Wright:There would be at ease. People will never book me on their two year tour if I'm going to be a paint. Right? People are not going to write with you for nine months straight. AndMichael Jamin:People talk. People talk. Yeah. I'm always just shocked when I'm on a set and some young actor or actress will behave. When don't you realize that when you leave, we all talk. We talk to our friends On other shows, you don't understand that. So be nice to people.Phil Wright:Right? Right. Absolutely. And then no matter how much you trust somebody, everyone has secrets that they're going to tell. So someone's going to secret to somebody else. And for whatever you think you trust, it's going to leak. But that's funny about our industry is because networking is a huge about our industry in the entertainment world, not just dancing, not just acting, not just writing, not just producing just in general. You have to network. I got hired to do an NBA commercial because one of the producer is friends with one of the parents students that I teach.Michael Jamin:Interesting.Phil Wright:Literally, he was in the room and said, man, I need a choreographer. She goes, oh my God, this cool guy teaches my daughter. He goes, okay, cool. Send him the number.Michael Jamin:Well, you see, that's how it works. It's like you put the energy out there. It wouldn't have worked the other way around. If you had solicited the NBA or whoever, it wouldn't have worked. I'm a go away. But when you put yourself out there, you get discovered. It's the energy thing. Absolutely. And so it's the opposite of what so many people think. It's like people always begging, hire me, hire me. And it's not what you have to do. It's the other way around.Phil Wright:The moment I started to pour more into myself. That's when I started bookingMichael Jamin:More. What do you mean pour more into yourself?Phil Wright:When I started to make my, when I prioritized me, the times wire knocking on the door, hello, hello. Hang on. Hey, look at me. Please, please, please. No one will give me a time. Yes,Michael Jamin:Nobody,Phil Wright:Nobody. But when I started getting my own stuff, creating my own videos that's on the street for no dime, no nothing, just pure investment in art, all of a sudden everyone started to gravitate towards me and say, oh, okay. Well, we'll hire you to come and teach at the studio. And look, when I was knocking at the door, I was only trying to make a buck. I was just trying to make a pig check. So it just,Michael Jamin:But think how empowering that is because you're telling people you don't have to ask for permission. Just do it. It's empowering. You get to do it. You don't have to ask, just do it already.Phil Wright:Yeah, just do it. And we're so free to do that. And that's why I always encourage dancers and any other artist to just give yourself that power. Believe in yourself that way, because that's when you attract other giants to be a part of it.Michael Jamin:But that takes me to the next thing, which is you're putting yourself out there. You're exposing yourself to judgment, to ridicule. You're going to get haters. You hate. Everyone does. Yes. So what is your response to that? How do you deal with that?Phil Wright:I mean, for every one hater, I have 10 people who loveMichael Jamin:Me, right? But you see the hater first. I seePhil Wright:Hater. It's like the hat that drops down on the stage. Everyone's doing amazing, and the hat dropsMichael Jamin:Down. IPhil Wright:Wonder who's going to pick up that hat,Michael Jamin:Right?Phil Wright:But always, I don't know. Obviously there's a part of me that is a little disturbed by the hater. I'm like, you always ask yourself why? What possessed you to get your two thumbs? I just go to chitchatting like that. And I watch a lot of Gary V. I watch a lot of motivational speakers, and there's always things that they say to kind of get me uplifted, but I'm not going to sit up here and pretend like, oh, they don't bother me. And everything like that. Or the cliche, they make me work harder. I'm bothered by it. Absolutely. Because my fault is I want to please everybody.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Wright:The truth is, you're not going to be able to doMichael Jamin:It. But how do you deal with, do you block them? Do you talk with them? What do you do?Phil Wright:There was a point in time where I just unfollow. I was following people unnecessarily just because I want it to be in the face, and I want it to be. But now I've sort of shaved down that if I look, I'll give you an example. If I was go on my Instagram page, I should be able to look at posts without even putting on the value and liking it. Everyone I follow is someone who I stand by and trust with my eyes closed. It's like you're watching a video and you don't even have to turn on the Valium and they're just talking. You like it because you just like it. Right? That's whoever I follow is that's the motivation that comes behindMichael Jamin:That. But when someone comes on your page though, and they call you, whatever they say about you, do you block them? What do you do at all? Do you just ignore them? What do you do? IPhil Wright:Don't get too many, to be quite honest. If there's, they come in sporadic moments, but if there's an unnecessary comment, I delete it immediately.Michael Jamin:Okay. You delete it, but you don't block 'em. Yeah,Phil Wright:Because I don't even block 'em, because I've blocked some people before. It's very rare,Michael Jamin:BecausePhil Wright:Really got to understand, I work with children, I work with kids. I work with a lot of kids. So that's not much negativity around the world to say anything bad about a child. Every now and then, I do other pieces of content where I'm not with children all the time, and then I get wacky comments or whatever. But I would immediately delete it because, just because I think negativity attracts more negativity. Positivity attracts more positivity. So I just immediately deleteMichael Jamin:It. Yeah. I don't want to see it. I don't want to seePhil Wright:It. I don't even really read it all the way through. It's just see something. There was sometimes I put somebody in check. I kind of have checked somebodyMichael Jamin:And did that work?Phil Wright:Yeah. Oh, because then all of my fans and all of my people are like,Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, I ask you, because I'm relatively new to this. And I always ask people, how do you deal with this? Because it's putting yourself out there. And I think this keeps a lot of people from actually putting themselves out there. The negativity.Phil Wright:Yeah. No, but you know what? Sometimes it's a blessing in disguise.Michael Jamin:How's that?Phil Wright:It allows the people who love you to come to bat for you.Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's true.Phil Wright:They come to bat. And sometimes it's okay. So the next time you get a hater, a writer writing, just fall back. Don't even say anything.Michael Jamin:I do that sometimes. I'm not as good as you are. I'm not as involved.Phil Wright:Just fall back. Just fall back and just let, becauseMichael Jamin:Sometimes you don't get that reaction. Sometimes you get other people saying, yeah, they jump on. That's what I'm worried about.Phil Wright:But then that's when you swipe and delete real.Michael Jamin:That's when you just never know. I get some of that. I think someone's going to defend me, and instead I get someone else piling on. I like, oh, man.Phil Wright:But you know what? It is good to know that you have people that support you in a way that they will. I think that's important to do every now and then. But for the most part, I erase it, take it off. Because I don't want more people to be attracted to that idea of negativity. I just can't. I don't.Michael Jamin:Do you still collaborate with other dancers and choreographers or No, not so much anymore.Phil Wright:Not too much. I used to, not so much, because my thought process is for the next 10 years, I want to get into a world where sitting behind a desk and I'm able to create, there are handful, few,Michael Jamin:But create what?Phil Wright:Ideas, ideas, television shows, also selling recreational programs. Like there's this program I was just on, America's Got Talent, and we went on as the Parent Jam, so where kids and parents can dance with one another, which was after that. So I'm trying to see if we can license that in recreational centers and dance studios, and maybe I can sort of get that abroad. But that's a work in progress.Michael Jamin:I mean, it seems real smart, this little niche you got yourself, because parents will spend anything on their kidsPhil Wright:And they will do anything for their kids,Michael Jamin:Right? SoPhil Wright:They would get on the dance line. That's what sort of kind of propelled the idea, because they were able to get on, oh, I'm a lawyer, dude, but I love my daughter, so I'll do it.Michael Jamin:Right. They're at that age until they get older.Phil Wright:Just thinking about trying to expand that idea, trying to be in that world, trying to land up a couple gigs as an actor, hopefully, fingers crossed. Trying to pitch another idea for a television show. Just trying to fill the void of being an entertainer fully.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I'm inspired by what you've done. I really am. Because who are you? You're guy. You're just a guy who built it. That's all. You're a guy who built it.Phil Wright:You know what? It gets hard. Obviously. There are times where I work a little too much.Michael Jamin:Oh, really?Phil Wright:Yeah, man, that's the tough part. BalancingMichael Jamin:You mean? Being on the road?Phil Wright:Being on the road and just not working. And it's hard because we're working when we're not working.Michael Jamin:Yes.Phil Wright:There's no punching and punch out clock with us.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah.Phil Wright:So it's tough. So getting the brain to relax and just actually sit down and watch a movie and not worry about camera angles or how did he say this line to make him funny?Michael Jamin:Really?Phil Wright:I've lost, and which is I'm trying to get back to. I've lost the concept of just being a consumer.Michael Jamin:Well, what's interesting though, because when you go to acting, the first thing they try to get, you do this, be in your body, but you are a dance, are in your, I mean, that's something you probably know better than other actors. How to be comfortable in your body and how not to be afraid of movement. That might look weird. You know what I'm saying? It's like you have this comfort in you, and also you're just naturally comfortable. You using a naturally comfortable person.Phil Wright:I'm fine with who I am, and I had to work on that to be okay with, because I'm from very the deep down south of Miami, Florida, so I didn't speak as well as I do now. I still that now my appearance, I come from a city where they put goatee, thinner mouths, pants. It was a very rough part of the city. And I'm still working on that, just continuously molding myself. So it takes time and it's a process.Michael Jamin:What do you think of this? So now that you're getting into acting or in the acting classes, what do you think of it? I mean, what's your,Phil Wright:It's so hard, bro.Michael Jamin:People don't realize it. You know what? I made a post the other day about how hard and people got on me for that, because laying bricks is hard. Well, yes, laying bricks is hard, but being on camera and being an actor, being good at it is hard.Phil Wright:It's incredibly hard. Now, I will say, I have the comfortable state of performing. I'm cool with you. Get me standing up. I got my script. Okay, good. All right, good. Let's go. I love that. I love that adrenaline rush. But the words on the page are, we're fighting. And then my identity does this. And I have a big problem with sometimes ad adlibbingMichael Jamin:Goes,Phil Wright:The writers, they're hired for a reason. Okay. Yeah. You're going to make it better.Michael Jamin:Well, there's truth to that. I mean, if you were a dancing in a big number with a bunch of dancers, you don't get to ad-lib. If everyone's doing, you got to do your piece.Phil Wright:Yeah. He would always say, if it's on the page, it was well thought out. And that's the way I want you to say it. Unless you're Leonard DiCaprio or Denzel can't do what you want, whatMichael Jamin:Was your reason for going for ad-Libbing is you couldn't remember it. Or becausePhil Wright:Memorizing lines are hard.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's hard.Phil Wright:Yeah, very hard. And not only that, memorizing and then attaching feeling and emotion to it. It's incredibly hard. And then doing that in different ways and facets of it. You know what I mean? And then taking direction, okay, I did it this way. Okay, Phil, can we do that on the up now? ButMichael Jamin:Maybe being an on-air personality is more, as opposed to an actor, maybe that's more your thing.Phil Wright:Definitely. That's where I live, my personality,Michael Jamin:Right?Phil Wright:The acting world. The reason why I keep challenging myself in that way is because I never know what if another TV show does pop off for me, I have to be ready. I can't drop that ball. You know what I mean? And it also keeps me constantly reading. ItMichael Jamin:KeepsPhil Wright:Me, and that's how I kind of see it. I go to acting class once a week. I have that. And I block out that time specifically for that, just because it's not only just for my goals and aspirations, but it's more for training and reading and understanding scriptsMichael Jamin:And enriching yourself. Yeah. Yeah.Phil Wright:Myself. And I love comedy. That's why I was attracted to your page. You're naturally funny. So dude,Michael Jamin:None of it's easy. I know. I hope I make it look easy. I made a post the other day. It's like I got a lot of stuff I don't post, because when I watch it the next day go, this sucks. I'm not posting it. And then people are like, put it up anyway. No, I'm not going to put it up. No, I'mPhil Wright:Okay. So, so I have an opinion about that. So fuck. Okay, and this is quick story. I know we're moving, but I post everything,Michael Jamin:Everything.Phil Wright:Every single thing that is in my camera roll. I try to post in some way. IMichael Jamin:Try to. Why?Phil Wright:Because look, I feel like we're in a service business, and you hear this whole slogan of quality, of a quantity, this and that. And my whole notion is this, man, look, one man's trash is another man's treasure. And just hear me out.Michael Jamin:I'm going to listen to youPhil Wright:Out. One man's trash is another man's treasure. I'll give an example. My biggest YouTube video is baby shark.Michael Jamin:Okay?Phil Wright:Me in the middle of the classroom, baby shark. Guess how many views thatMichael Jamin:Have? I don't. 10 million. I dunno.Phil Wright:Now, mind you, igraph for mc hammer, right? I've been on the road. I've choreographed commercials, national commercials, I've danced with card B. All of this, my top grossing video, Michael, on YouTube has a quarter of a billionMichael Jamin:Views. Oh my God. Wow.Phil Wright:And it's me standing in the middle of a play saying, baby shark,Michael Jamin:Isn't that weird?Phil Wright:Now let's go back.Michael Jamin:Oh my God.Phil Wright:As a choreographer, as a professional choreographer, I look at that and say, hell no. I'm not posting that. I would get crapped on easily. I posted that, and I say that. I tell you that story just because that put me on a different map.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I'm sure it didPhil Wright:Put me on a different map. And had I been so particular about that moment, had I been so judgmental and critical on myself, and try hard and try to pick the bits out of it. Yeah, I know you're going to have a hard No,Michael Jamin:You make a good case. No, you make a very compelling case.Phil Wright:Yeah. And it is a battle. It's a battle. Because we go through it all the time. We want our best material to be viewed at all times. But I'm telling you, you are in the service business. It does not matter if one person doesn't like it. I'm telling you, there are going to be people out in the middle of America in Idaho who thinks that joke is funny.Michael Jamin:I knowPhil Wright:Not everyone's going to laugh, but I get it. And guess what? That might be the kid that might make a difference in yourMichael Jamin:Career, right? Well, the thing is, because I totally see where you're coming from, but today, for things to really go viral, it has to be almost controversial. It has to be so extreme. It almost has to be. That's why hate does really well on the internet, because it gets people riled up. And I often say to myself, yes, but is that what I want to be? What I'm saying is that what I, and I know we're not really talking about that. We're talking about jokes that maybe aren't that funny. But I also have to worry about people, my colleagues, my comedy writer, friends, and I have many that follow me, some bigger than I am. Many bigger than I'm, and I don't want them to think I'm terrible at my job.Phil Wright:And that's the problem, though. That is the problem. Because ultimately, not all the time, but the people you least expected are the people who are going to put money in your pocket. People that you're worried about aren't the people usually put money in your pocket or give you an opportunity. So you have to take that into consideration. And yes, there's a streamline there. Don't just put up trash,Michael Jamin:Obviously.Phil Wright:But you should be a little bit more lenient with yourself and your art when it comes to posting and marketing yourselfMichael Jamin:In the way. But Phil, you have given, I tell you've given this a lot of thought. You've given all of this a lot of thought.Phil Wright:It's because of the experience, though. That's only because of what I've been through. The top jobs that I've booked in my entire life sometimes aren't the most enjoyable. They're not. And guess what? Those top jobs don't even pay top dollar.Michael Jamin:Really. Really?Phil Wright:No. Obviously, okay, my TV show, yes. Yeah. But I'm talking about working for a national commercial because you also have to understand that choreographers don't have a union. Dancers have a union, but choreographers, I choreographed a commercial last month, and the dancers made more than I did.Michael Jamin:Really?Phil Wright:It's because I'm my own boss and I don't have a union to protect me.Michael Jamin:Tions. Do you have an agent or manager, though?Phil Wright:I do have an agent. I do. I work with a manager who's on a theatrical side.Michael Jamin:Yes. Okay, so they don't handle this part. No.Phil Wright:No. But you know what? Honestly, and it took me a long time to get to there, because I just hate, I don't like the middleman.Michael Jamin:IPhil Wright:Don't like people negotiating for me and telling me what I'm worth. I hate that I grind my teeth every day about it, because I just feel like there's a slew of roster of people that they're trying to satisfy.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Wright:Bottom of the baro, I just got added onto their team. They have to come in. I don't like kissing ass. I don't want to bring you cookies because you,Michael Jamin:Well, that's another thing. A lot of people think that an agent or manager is going to make your career, and I'm kneeling. No, guys, you got to make your own career, even if you have one of them, you got to make your own career.Phil Wright:Right? And even in that motion, I do believe in entertainment lawyers. You do have to have,Michael Jamin:Yes,Phil Wright:Get you a good lawyer, keep the contracts and get you in good standings. But yes, I currently do have an agent, and we're happy. We're good. Everything's working. Everything'sMichael Jamin:So interesting. So we work in different parts of the field, entertainment. And I say the same thing, agent, the manager, sorry, the lawyers worth every penny. The lawyer. I just got an email from my lawyer for a contract worth every pennyPhil Wright:Worth, every penny. But sometimes, I don't know, man, once again, this is a challenge for me. I've been trying to get around to just trusting and letting them handle that section. Whereas I was always in control email fill Wright in seven, and I was the one who's, Hey, this is Max, not Max, thisMichael Jamin:IsPhil Wright:Max. Phil is busy at the moment. What would you like to book? You know whatMichael Jamin:I mean? Yeah, right. That way you're not the bad guy. It's smart to do that as well. Exactly. That way you're not the bad guy. BadPhil Wright:Guy.Michael Jamin:Wow. You got to figure, I don't know, man. You're very impressive. You got it all. You're younger than me, and you've got it more figured out than me. So I feel like you're impressive.Phil Wright:I'm climbing up the ladder, man. I don't know.Michael Jamin:You're doing great. You're doing, I'm absolutely very impressed by everything you've built. And let me tell everyone where they can find you as we wrap up our, so you have a website, dance with phil.com, check, and also follow everyone. Follow him on social media. Is it the same? What is your handle? I didn't look that up.Phil Wright:Social media. Instagram is at Phil write, that's PHIL, Wright, W-R-I-G-H-T.Michael Jamin:And just go check out what he's doing. It's just very positive. You carved out a small little niche for yourself, and by giving, now you get, it's just like you're saying it's a trade. Everything's a trade. Yeah.Phil Wright:And I think even, I'm going to take a nice insert of this, and I'm posting up my Instagram. Oh,Michael Jamin:You'llPhil Wright:Absolutely.Michael Jamin:You know what though? It's funny when you mentioned mc Hammer, I actually directed him on the phone right here where I'm sitting, but it wasn't on Zoom, so I took a picture of my phone, but that's it. I go, hammer, I'm taking a picture of the phone.Phil Wright:He's awesome.Michael Jamin:He's awesome. Yeah, he was very sweet. This wasPhil Wright:10, 15 years ago. So legendary, man. So legendary.Michael Jamin:Yeah. No kidding. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Phil, thank you so much. Phil Wright, everyone, go check him out. It was a real pleasure talking with you. Wonderful conversation. Alright everyone, we got more great stuff next week. Until then, just keep creating. Be like Phil,Phil Wright:Love it.Michael Jamin:So now we all know what the hell Michael Jamin is talking about. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for my free monthly webinars @michaeljamin.com/webinar. And if you found this podcast helpful or entertaining, please share it with a friend and consider leaving us a five star review on iTunes that really, really helps. For more of this, whatever the hell this is, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. And you can follow Phil Hudson on social media @PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane and music was composed by Anthony Rizzo. And remember, you can have excuses or you can have a creative life, but you can't have both. See you next week.

On this week's episode, I have author Shelia Heti, book writer of Pure Color, Motherhood, Alphabetical Diaries, and many many more. We talk about how I discovered her writing and why Pure Color meant so much to me. She also explains her writing process and how she approaches a story. There is so much more.Show NotesSheila Heti Website: https://www.sheilaheti.com/Sheila Heti on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_HetiMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptSheila Heti:That's what I was thinking.Michael Jamin:It was work harder.Sheila Heti:I was like, I got to work harder than any other writer alive.Michael Jamin:And what did that work look like to you?Sheila Heti:Just always writing and always not being satisfied and being a real critic of my work and trying to make it better and trying to be more, try to get it to sound and more interesting and figure out what my sentences were and letting myself be bad and repeat myself until I got better. And I don't think that I ever let that go. I'm not sitting here today saying, I work harder than any other writer alive. I do remember having that feeling when I was young. That's what I need to do. That's the only wayMichael Jamin:You're listening to What the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Michael Jamin:What the hell is Michael Jamin talking about today? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm talking about, honestly, one of the greatest, I feel, one of the greatest writers of my generation. Yep, yep. Her name is Sheila Hedy. She's the author of I guess 11 books, including Pure Color, although it's spelled with a U, the Canadian Way, a Garden of Creatures, motherhood, how Should a Person Be? And her forthcoming book, alphabetical Diaries. And she's just an amazing talent. So she's an author, but I don't describe her this way. And by the way, I'm going to talk about Sheila for about 59 minutes, and then at the end I'll let her get a word and then I'll probably cut her off. But I have to give her a good proper introduction. She's really, really that amazing of a writer. So author isn't really the right word. She really is, in my opinion, an artist who paints with words.And if you imagine going up to a Van Gogh painting, standing right up next to it, and then you see all these brushstrokes, and then you take a step back and you're like, okay, now I see the patterns of the brushstrokes. And you take a little step back, oh, the patterns form an image. Then another step back, you say, oh, that's a landscape. It really is like that with her writing. She has these images that she paints with words, and then they form bigger thoughts and you pull back and it's really amazing what she does and how she kind of reinvents herself with each piece. And so I'm so excited and honored she for you to join me here so I can really talk more about this with you. Thank you for coming.Sheila Heti:Yeah, thanks. That introduction made me so happy. Thank you for saying all that.Michael Jamin:Lemme tell you by the way, how I first discovered you. So I have a daughter, Lola, she's 20, she's a writer, and we trade. I write something we trade. It's really lovely that we get to talk about. And so she's off at school, but she left a book behind and I'm like, all right, what's this book she left behind? Because that way I can read it and we can talk about that, have our book club. And she left Pure Color. And I was like, oh, I like the cover, so I'll take a look at it. And what I didn't realize, it was the perfect book to discover you by because it's book about among other things, about a father's relationship with his daughter. So I text her, I say, I'm reading pure color. She goes, Sheila Hedy's, one of my favorite authors. If I could write anybody, it would be her. I'm like, all right, well, I got to continue reading this. And then a couple of days later, I get to the part and I send her a text. I say, you and me would make a great leaf. And she goes, that's my favorite part. The tree. That's my favorite part.You're also an interviewer. You've interviewed some amazing writers. Joan Didion, Margaret Atwood, big shots. And so I'm sure as an interviewer, you give a lot of thought to your first question. So I was trying to, I better give a lot of thought to my first question, and I kept coming back to the same one, which is pure color. It's such a big swing. If you were to pitch me this idea, you'd say, I'm going to write a book. It's about a father's relationship with his daughter, but it's also about a woman's unrequited love with her friend, but it's also about the soul and what it means to have a life. I'd say, I don't know, Sheila, that's kind of a big swing. I don't know about this, but you hit it out of the park, you did it. It was beautifully done. And so my first question is, you come up with an idea like this, where do you get the nerve to think that you can actually pull this off? This is really where do you get the nerve to think that, okay, I'm going to do this.Sheila Heti:The nerve.Michael Jamin:Well, it's such a big swing. It's like, how do you know you can do this? Do you know what I'm saying?Sheila Heti:Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't know that I could do it. So it's nice to hear. I mean, I don't think that you ever think you're going to be able to finish the book that you start, and then when you finish a book, you never think you're ever going to start a new one. That's sort of where I am right now. In that confused place. There's a part of it that always feels like, I dunno how to explain it. I mean, I don't know how to answer that question. It's a weird process. There's no process. There's no system to doing it, and then you hope you did it. You feel good and it feels done, but you dunno how you ever got there.Michael Jamin:And how do you know you arrived? How do you know when it's time to quit on something? And do you ever quit on something?Sheila Heti:Yeah. Yeah, A lot. A lot. But usually not like three or four years in, usually 60 pages in or something like that.Michael Jamin:60Sheila Heti:Pages is when you start thinking this is not working.Michael Jamin:Is it a gut feeling? How do you knowSheila Heti:Your curiosity runs out?Michael Jamin:Your curiosity runs out. Okay, so you get bored by it yourself?Sheila Heti:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Is that what you're saying?Sheila Heti:Yeah, it's just like, that was fun. That was nice. That was a good couple of weeks. I was really excited. I really thought this was going somewhere. And then it just ends. It's like a relationship. You think, oh, this is so great, I'm going to be with this person. And then after six months you're like,Michael Jamin:I was kidding myself. But you're writing. I have so much I want to say, it seems like you reinvent yourself with each piece. You know what I'm saying? It's like pure color is very, very different from how should a person be, which I was like, okay, I want to read this. I'm not sure how should a person be, which is extremely different from alphabetical diaries, which is almost like an experiment. And I wonder, do you get pushback from your agent or your publisher? Do they want you to do the same thing? We know it works.Sheila Heti:No, I think that at this point there's no expectation of that. When I wrote my second book, there was a feeling like that's not the first one. And there was some disappointment and the publisher said, this book doesn't count as your next book. In part, I think it was so different, but I think at this point that's, I mean, I've been publishing for 20 years. That's not really what people say to me anymore.Michael Jamin:Really? What do they say? They say, oh good, this is fresh. And it's more from you.Sheila Heti:No, I mean, I guess I changed publishers a lot more than other people do. So my publisher of motherhood didn't like pure color, so they rejected it. So I found a different publisher and the publisher of Tickner, my second book didn't like how should a person be? So I found a different publisher. So I think I move around a lot for that reason.Michael Jamin:Is that common with authors? You have to tell me all about this author thing? No, it's not really common.Sheila Heti:No. Usually you have one publisher and one editor and you just stick with them for a long time. SoMichael Jamin:It seems though you came up through the art. Alright, I have this idea of who you are from reading your books. You have, it's all very personal what you write and which makes it brave. It's brave for a couple of reasons. It's brave because you're being so vulnerable, you're putting yourself out there, but it's also brave. I feel like you're trying something new each time and that could fail. And so that to me is part of what makes your writing so exciting. But do you have any expectation when you're writing something which is so different, do you have an expectation of your reader how you want them to react?Sheila Heti:I mean, I want them to get to the end of the book. That's what I want. I want to draw them through, but I don't think I have a feeling like, oh, I want them to be sad on this page and I want them to be curious of this page and feel this way on this page. I just want them to be interested enough to get to the end. So how do I keep that momentum up and how some people conversation, they have long monologues, they're like a monologue, but I'm not because I'm always afraid people are going to lose interest. So I kind of feel like the same with my book. I'm always afraid that somebody's going to lose interest. So I'm always trying to keep it moving,Michael Jamin:But it's not an emotional reaction. I mean, your writing is very philosophical to me. When I'm reading your work, I feel like maybe this is my theory about what you have, and I'm sure it's not right, but it's that there are passages which I feel are so rich and so smart, and I have so much thought that I have to go back and read it again. So I'm wondering if that's what you're thinking. I want to write something that makes people have to read it again.Sheila Heti:No, I never think that because a very fast reader, and I don't reread passages and I don't read slowly. So for me, I'm always thinking that people are reading. I'm always imagining the person reading kind of fast,Michael Jamin:But thought. I mean some of them are really, some of your thoughts are very deep and very profound, and I'm like, I'm not sure if I understood all this. I got to read it again. I mean, don't you think? No.Sheila Heti:Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. I don't really think about that. I don't really think about the person, the reader in that way of like, are they going to have to read this again? Is this going to be hard for them to understand? I think my language is very straightforward. Yeah. I don't know how I think about the reader. I think of myself as the reader. So I'm really writing it so that I like every sentence. I like the way it turns. I like the pictures it makes.Michael Jamin:But when you say I want them to get to the end, what are you hoping they'll do at the end? Is there any hope or expectation?Sheila Heti:Well, I think especially in pure color, the end is really important. It kind of makes the whole book makes sense. And motherhood too, and maybe less how should a person be and less alphabetical diaries. But I think in some cases, a book, I'm somebody who doesn't always read books to the end. I like getting taste of different author's minds and so on. But I think in the case of some books, you have to read it to the end to really understand the whole, so that's in the case of pure color, why I wanted people to get to the endMichael Jamin:BecauseSheila Heti:It makes the beginning mean something different. If you've read.Michael Jamin:It does. I mean it is, and it's about processing grief. So do you outline when you come up with an idea, where do you begin?Sheila Heti:Well, with pure color, I thought I want to write a book about the history of art criticism. So I always start off really far away from where I end up. I always think that I want to write a book of nonfiction and I'm not a good nonfiction writer, so it always ends up being a novel. But I think I usually start off with an, well, in the case of this book, I also started off with this title that I had in my dream. The title was Critics Bayer, BARE. So I was thinking about art criticism and so on, but then I don't know, the books kind of take on their own direction. I never really understood when people said that they had characters that sort of did things that they didn't expect. But I feel like that is true sometimes of the book as a whole. It moves in a direction I didn't expect, so I couldn't outline.Michael Jamin:You don't outline all. And so does it require you to discover what the story is then once you find it, toss out the stuff that's not the story orSheila Heti:Yeah, I basically write way too much and then just cut and try to find the story and move things in different orders and try to find the plot after. I've written a ton of stuff already,Michael Jamin:Because I know from reading, you come from the art world, you're an artist and I think you hang out with artists, people, so you talk about what art is, is that right or no, do not shatter what I think of now. That's not itSheila Heti:Mean and relationships and all that kind ofMichael Jamin:Stuff and relationships. Because I mean, I don't know, it seems like that's why I say you're an artist. You have these conversations even about what art is. And do you draw inspiration from paintings when you approach?Sheila Heti:Yeah, I'm interested in the book as art. I think more than storytelling. I'm interested in the book as sort of an experience that you're undergoing in different way from just the experience of being told a story. I don't think that I'm so interested probably in the things that a lot of other novelists are interested in, character and plot and conflict and all those things.Michael Jamin:Well, it's really, I've heard you say this, it's really, you're writing various forms of you and it's very personal and very intimate. But you also made the distinction in something I read where there's Sheila, the author, then there's Sheila, the character. Is that right?Sheila Heti:Yeah. I mean, in two of the books there's kind of a character that sort of stands in a way for me, but it never really, it doesn't feel like a direct transcription of myself or my life or my thoughts. There's always this feeling of maybe it's like how actors are, there's a part of yourself that goes into the character and there's other parts of yourself that are left out.Michael Jamin:And so I was going to say, is there stuff about you that you leave out, for example? I mean, how should a person be? Or alphabetical diaries, it feels like we're talking about you, right?Sheila Heti:Yeah. Well, how should a person be felt? A lot like a character pretty, I was thinking about Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. This was like 2005, and Britney Spears and these kind of women in culture that were bad girls and doing things sort of the subject of so much attention and so narcissistic or considered Narcissistic and the Hills, which was a show that I really loved. And sort of thinking about this character in the book being a voice that was somewhere between me and those girls. So there was this, this layering on of personalities, which I'm not thinking about. What does it mean to try to be a celebrity? What does it mean to be one? To be looked at, to idolize oneself? Those are my diaries. So there wasn't a sense of a character in the same way, but because the sentences are separated from one another, I guess it's like I don't feel like I'm telling anybody anything about my life. There's no anecdote in there.Michael Jamin:But I see that's the thing. And we'll just talk about alphabetical diaries because you're telling with such an, let me tell people what it's, so it's basically an ordinary diary is chronological. This is what I did today and this is tomorrow, whatever. But you grouped your diary by the first letter of each sentence, which organized, and this is again, another high degree of difficulty. This could have easily been gimmicky, but it was a rethinking of what a diary is. And when I say patterns emerge, so for example, when you get to D, these was do not whatever or do this or that. So you hear, okay, so here's a person creating rules for themselves. And then an E was even though, so now they're creating rules, but creating exceptions for these rules, making allowances. And so what you have is, and was so interesting about it, many of these thoughts were contradictory.So you're painting a picture of this person, but in one sentence, okay, maybe she's dating this guy. And the next sentence, this other guy, I'm like, well, what's going on here? Then I realize, oh, this is not chronological. And so I'm getting a complete picture of this person, which is so interesting, but, so I know who I guess know who you are, but I don't know who you are today. I know who you are as this arching thing in your life, which is so fricking interesting. And that was where the thought process going into this,Sheila Heti:Yeah, mean. So it's like 10 years of diaries and I put it into Excel and the a z function. So it's completely alphabetical first letter of the sentence and then the second letter and the third letter. And it was just, I mean, I guess I wanted to see exactly that. What happens if you look at yourself in that way? Do you see patterns? Do you understand yourself in a different way? Not narratively, but as a collection of themes or Yeah, exactly. That a scientific or sort of a cross section of yourself.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Sheila Heti:And it worked that way. I think with the diaries, what you do see is, oh, there are sort of these recurring thoughts and these recurring themes and these recurring ways of perceiving the world and perceiving yourself that persists over 10 years. That actually the one self, you think of yourself as this thing that's constantly changing through time and especially a diary gives you that feeling, but then when you do it alphabetical, the self looks like a really static kind of thing in way, no, I'm actually just these few little bubbles of concerns that don't change,Michael Jamin:That keep recurring when, by the way, when people say everything's been done before everything's been written, it's like, well, you haven't read Sheila Heady. Start reading hers. This is different. This why's so interesting about, that's why I think you're such an amazing writer, and it totally worked. Totally. You get a picture of this person and the recurring themes and recurring worries and, and even one of them, some things that struck me, there was one passage where it's like you go into a bookstore and you're like, isn't this also novels? Isn't it also unimportant? And I'm like, no, if it was, you wouldn't be doing this. So this was just a thought that you had at one point. It's not how you feel. It's how you felt at this one moment, right?Sheila Heti:Yeah, yeah. Literary fiction. Yeah. Like what a little tiny thing that is.Michael Jamin:But when people, okay, so now we have this picture of you and when you go do, let's say book signings or whatever, and people come up to you, they must have a parasocial relationship with you where they feel they know you. Your writing is so intimate. And what's your response to that?Sheila Heti:I think that's nice. I mean, I think that that's kind of the feeling you want people to have is it is your soul or your mind or whatever that you're trying to give people. And so if somebody feels that they know you well, in a certain sense they do. I mean, obviously not that well, they knowMichael Jamin:What you share, but there's, okay, I don't know what kind of music you like. I've read to all this stuff, but I know your insecurities and fears, but I don't know what you think is funny. I don't know what music you like. There's stuff you held back.Sheila Heti:Yeah, absolutely. But I think that's like, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. People aren't really very weird with me. Ed books or things, people are just pretty nice. And I never get this. I, I've rarely had interactions that feel creepy or weird or presumptuous or any of those things.Michael Jamin:Well, I'm not even going even that far, but they feel like they must feel like they know you certainly, but they know what you share. They know as much as you share. Right?Sheila Heti:TheseMichael Jamin:Kind of brave, bold decisions you make to create all this stuff. Is there a writer whose work you emulated in the beginning? Where do you begin to come up with this stuff? Was there someone who you wanted to write? Just like,Sheila Heti:I mean, I really loved Dostoevsky and Kafka and the heavy hitters. Yeah, I mean, I just loved all the greatest writers,Michael Jamin:But did you want to write like them?Sheila Heti:No, I mean, I think the closest I ever felt like I wanted to write a writer was, do you know Jane Bowles? BOW Elliot? She was married to Paul Bulls.Michael Jamin:No, to me, much of your work felt a little bit like it. Tall Cals, some of it works. Some of it was very ethereal and meditative.Sheila Heti:Yeah, I mean, I think Jane Bowles was the only one that I really felt myself imitating her sentences. She wrote a book called Two Serious Ladies, which I still really love. That was the only time when I felt like I was falling into somebody else's cadences and rhythms and so on. AndMichael Jamin:What happened whenSheila Heti:That was with my first book, the Middle Stories, and then the second book was written was so different. The second book I wrote was in such a different style that left me, but maybe there's still a way in which I still do. I think she's probably the writer that I write the most, if anyone. But I mean, she only wrote one book. So it's a very different kind of life than the one that I've had. No, I'm just always just trying to keep myself interested. So I think that I don't ever want to, I a very, I just want it to be fun for me. And so if I was to write the same book again, it wouldn't be fun. And books take five years to Write, or this diary book took more than 10 years to edit. So by the time I'm done a book, no, I'm such a different person than I was in some way when I started, even though I just said that you don't really change, but there's a way in which you get tired of thinking about the same things over,Michael Jamin:But then you think it would be hard to not constantly tinker with it. Isn't that part of the problem?Sheila Heti:I like constantly tinkering with it. That's fun.Michael Jamin:But then you have to let go. But how do you let go of it though?Sheila Heti:Well, at a certain point you start making it worse. You're like, oh, I think I'm starting to make it worse. You start to become self-conscious, and then you start to want to correct it, and then you start to want it to sort of be the person that you are today rather than the person you were five years ago. But you've got to honor the person that was five years ago that started the book. So you can't carry it on so far that you become, you've changed so much that now you're a critic of the book that's going to destroy the book.Michael Jamin:Yeah. See, that's so interesting. That's something I think about quite a bit. Yeah. How do I just let it go? And that someone else, it's funny when you talk about the language, because that's one thing that struck me about pure color. Your sentences are written in very, they're very, it's kind of brief, very, I dunno what the best way to describe it, but it's almost terse. And to be honest, if you had told, as I'm reading this, I could have thought this was said 150 years ago, and then occasionally you say you make a reference to something modern Google, and I'm like, oh, wait a minute, this takes space today. So that was a conscious, obviously decision that you made to kind of give it a timelessness.Sheila Heti:Yeah, I always kind of want that because I think that's my hope for a book is that it could be understood in a hundred years or 500 years, or you need Plato today, you want to write something that people could understand in a thousand years.Michael Jamin:But you know what I'm saying, the language, it almost felt, but your language is different though, in an alphabetical diary. Well, obviously since it's a diary, but man, so to me it's like you're not doing, like I said, you're not doing the same thing. I don't know, it could have been two different authors. That's what I'm saying. I guess it felt like two very different pieces and it was just wonderful. But when you say, so what then? Because like I said, you have these art friends, I have this whole life for you, you have these because you went to art, you studied art, and you hang out with a bunch of artists and you talk about art, and I want to know what these conversations are because we don't talk about art and TV writing. No one, we don't think we're doing art, but I feel like that's what you guys are doing. So do you talk about what the whole point of art is?Sheila Heti:I think I did when I was younger,Michael Jamin:Right? Then you grewSheila Heti:Out of it when I was in my twenties. And then you kind of figure that out for yourself in some way. Well, then you have your crises and whatever, and then you got to think about it and talk about it again. But no, I think these days what I talk about with my friends is just whatever the specific project is, whatever problems you're having with a specific thing, mostly complaining, the difficulty of not being able to pull it off or feeling like you are stuck or you're never going to be able to write it. I have these three other writers that I share my work with we're meeting tomorrow. So before I got on the call with you, I just sent something off to them, and tomorrow we're just going to have read each other's things and talk about how we feel about it. But for me, I'm just like, I think what I need at this point from them is reassurance, honestly.Michael Jamin:Reassurance,Sheila Heti:Yeah. Because you're so lost in the middle and you don't know what you're communicating and if you're communicating anything, and is it worth continuing? Should it just all be thrown out? There's so much doubtMichael Jamin:Because it's so very humble of you. You're a master writer, and yet you make it sound like you're still a student. You know what I'm saying?Sheila Heti:I mean, you think, I don't know if it's the same for you, but don't you think you're always kind of a student? BecauseMichael Jamin:Whenever you start, yeah, yeah. Look, yes. When every time you're looking at that blank page, I dunno how to do any of this.Sheila Heti:Yeah, exactly. You always feel like you're back at square one somehow.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Sheila Heti:Although now, not exactly square one. I've been starting this new book this week, and again, it may get to 60 pages and fall away from me, but now I have a different feeling that I had when I was in my early twenties. The feeling I have now is like, oh, I did that. Oh, I've had that thought before. Oh, I've written senses in that way before. What I'm trying to do now is none of the things that I've already done. They just, and so, yeah, where is this part of myself that I haven't written from yet? So that's kind where I'm now. So it's not really starting from square one, but it's still just as hard,Michael Jamin:Right? Because you feel like you've said everything you had to say or done everything you wanted. Is that what it is? Or,Sheila Heti:I know what my sentences sound like, so I feel like, oh, I'm not surprised by that sentence. That sounds like a sentence that my, I feel like I'm, you get this rhythm that is very pleasurable to write if the sentences have a rhythm, but now I'm just like, I'm tired of that rhythm. That rhythm can only give me one kind of sentence or one kind of thought. So I'm trying to figure out what else is there inside.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I imagine that's hard for someone. Basically, you're a physician who's made a hit and another hit, and what if I don't do it again? How do I do it differently? Or how do I reinvent myself now?Sheila Heti:And even just what's the meaning in this for me now? With every book, there's a different phase of life you're at. And I'm 46 now, so I dunno how old you are.Michael Jamin:How dare you? I'm 53.Sheila Heti:Yeah, I figured you were just a few years older than me. So it's a very different age to write from because you are not hungry in the same way you were when you were 23 and you were both in houses. You have accomplished certain things. And so what's the deepest part of yourself that still needs to do this when you're 23? Every part of yourself needs to do it in this extreme way. You've got to make a life for yourself. You've got to prove to yourself, you can do it. You've got to make money, you've got to all this kind of stuff. So what's the place at 46 or 53 that you're writing from that is just as vital and urgent as that place at 23?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I think actually that's why I started changing mediums. I've kind of done this headcount thing. What else can I do?Sheila Heti:So the essay, the podcast? Yeah.Michael Jamin:Well, most of the essays, the essay started the whole thing. It was like, it's funny, in your book or a couple of times, you mentioned, should I go to LA? And I'm thinking, why does she want to go to la? What was that about? What'sSheila Heti:That about? I've got family there. When I was a little kid, my parents used to put me on a plane. I was five years old and I'd be sent to LA and I had relatives and I would stay with them. And it was just, to me, it's such happy childhood memories and I just love Los Angeles. Whenever I go back, I think this is a place in the world besides Toronto that I'd most like to live.Michael Jamin:Really? So different.Sheila Heti:Yeah. I just love it. Yeah, so I love everything. I love it.Michael Jamin:Oh my God, I don't what, I've been to Toronto. I had, well, then ISheila Heti:Remember that LA's in America, and then I like, no, maybe not.Michael Jamin:Yeah, good point. Good point. So there's something else. I remember what I wanted, what I want to say. You had in one book, it was like, you're lamenting. I hope I never have to teach. And now you're teaching, right?Sheila Heti:Yeah, just for this one year.Michael Jamin:Okay. What was that about that decision?Sheila Heti:Well, I love teaching and I wanted the money because I didn't want to have to feel like I had to rush to start a new book. So I just wanted a year where I didn't have to have that anxiety of what's my next book going to be like, I've got to start. I've got to get a certain ways in and then sell it. And I like teaching a lot, and I just felt excited about the idea, but it was supposed to be a two year position, and now I've just changed it to a one year position. It becomes too much, even one day. And teaching a week is like, there's no point to writeMichael Jamin:Because you have to read all the whatever they write on the side. You're saying, well,Sheila Heti:I've got to commute two hours to get there, and then two hours home, and then, I don't know. And then your brain just sort of stays in that university space with your students for three or four days, and then you have two days where you're not with them and then you go back to school.Michael Jamin:So what does your life really look like? Your writing life? What is it like to be an author on a dayday basis?Sheila Heti:What your life is all day long? You're either writing emails or you're writing writing. Probably spend more time writing emails and doing correspondence and businessy stuff than writing. Writing, and then all the life stuff, walking the dog, doing household chores. I don't have a very regimented existence, but I just sitting in bed and being on my computer, that's sort of myMichael Jamin:Favorite. That's where you write on laptop. Oh my God, my back would kill me. But something else you said, because I really was turning to you for answers as I was reading it. I'm like, she's got the answers. And you said, and you're like, I don't have the answers, but no, I'm like, no, she's got the answers. And you said, art must have at one point, art must have humor. I think you said that in How should a person be? And I was like, really? That's what you guys think. There has to be humor in art.Sheila Heti:Oh yeah. You got to know where the funny is. Yeah, I think,Michael Jamin:Sure. I don'tSheila Heti:Understand. It's the two. I read your essay. It was very funny.Michael Jamin:Yeah. But thank you. But I have an intention. I have an intention when I write, but I don't understand why you think there has to be humor. Alright. Why do you think there has to be humor it in art?Sheila Heti:Humor's such a part of life. I mean, if you don't have humor in life or art, you're missing a huge part of the picture. I mean, it's all, it's just the absurdity of being a human. It's,Michael Jamin:Well, see the thing as a sitcom writer, look, I'm grateful to have made a living as a sitcom writer. It's what I wanted to do, but it's not like anyone looks at what we do. It's like, oh, that's high art. They go, it's kind of mostly, people think it's kind of base. And I think, and when you think about even at the Oscars, when they're fitting the best picture, it's never a comedy. It's that the comedies are not important enough. And so that's why I had this feeling like, well, can humor be an art? Can it be, ISheila Heti:Mean, I think great art always has humor in it, but it's the same thing in literature. The funny writers are not as respected as the serious ones, but I think that they're wrong. I mean, Kurt Vonnegut, I love Kurt Vonnegut. He's extremely funny, but he's never had the same status as somebody like, I dunno, Don DeLillo or whatever, because he's not serious enough. But I think it's a very, who are the people that are making that judgment? That the solemn writers that have no humor are the best writers. They're just idiots. I mean, it's not the case.Michael Jamin:I gave my manuscript to one publisher. I was rejected from him, and he wrote, he was very kind. He goes, oh, this book really works. I like it, but it's not high literature. And we do high literature here. And I was like, how dare you? I was like, well, I totally agree. It's not high literature. Not that I could write high literature, but I didn't set out to do. But there was still that sting of what you're doing is not important because it's funny.Sheila Heti:Yeah. That's a stupid editor.Michael Jamin:Well, he got the last laugh. Wait a minute, wait a minute. But yeah, I don't know. Okay. But is humor in painting and humor in all art? I mean,Sheila Heti:Yeah, levity. Well, just that scent, that aspect of life. That is the laugh that is that bubbling up laughing. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's joy. Joy and humor are very closely connected. And a work of art without humor is a work of art without joyMichael Jamin:AndSheila Heti:Wants to take that in.Michael Jamin:Then what is art? I'm honest here. You learned this when you're 20 and I haven't learned it yet. So what is art to you and what's the difference between good art and bad art?Sheila Heti:It's a reflection of the human experience. It's like an expression of what it feels like to be a human, that a human is making for another human.Michael Jamin:Okay, so it's this interpretation of what you feel, what it means to be human, is that right?Sheila Heti:It's an expression of what you feel like it means to be human.Michael Jamin:Right. Okay. And then how do youSheila Heti:That in an object?Michael Jamin:And then how do you know if it's good art or bad art?Sheila Heti:I mean, there's no consensus, right? You liked pure color, but a lot of people don't. There's just no consensus because it touched you, but somebody else thinks it's the worst book they've ever read, and that's okay. I mean, I think that that's right. We can't all speak to each other. We're not all here for all of each other.Michael Jamin:Oh, just because you mentioned that it was so touching this one moment, it really hit me where you explain how you felt the father, how his love for his daughter was so much that it put pressure on her not to have her life because her life was so important to him. And I thought, oh crap, I hope I'm not doing that because my feeling is no, it's just pure love. It's an expression of pure love. But from the other side, I can see that.Sheila Heti:Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's what I was thinking about in that book. That's the sort of tragedy ofMichael Jamin:Yes,Sheila Heti:Families and friendships and so on, that we want to love each other, but we can't in the way that we want to.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content, and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com. And now back to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?Michael Jamin:It was just so beautiful to express that as two souls stuck in a leaf, where is this coming from? It felt completely appropriate, but also almost out of the blue. And that's what was so amazing about that whole section. Thanks.Sheila Heti:Yeah. I don't even remember where that idea came to me. I don't know if you feel like this with your writing, but sometimes you remember exactly where an idea came from. You can even picture yourself being right there having it, and sometimes you almost have anesia around it,Michael Jamin:Really? And what about the part? There was so many lovely moments of this woman working in a lamp store, and she has to turn the lamps on every single lamp on, and it's almost like, I got to do this, but there's her counterpart who has to turn the lamps off at the end of the day, something equally horrible. It was really funny, and it was just, I don't know. Did you ever work in a lamp store?Sheila Heti:No. No. But there was this lamp store that I used to pass on the way to one of my first jobs, and I would look in the window, and I did eventually buy a lamp from that store with all the money I had in the world. But I never worked in a lamp store, but I was obsessed with this lamp. I really thought it was going to change my life.Michael Jamin:And do you still have it?Sheila Heti:No. It got broken in aMichael Jamin:Fit ofSheila Heti:Rage situation. Yeah, it got broken rage.Michael Jamin:I was stuck on a paragraph I wrote against this important list. ItSheila Heti:Was in the box on the floor, and somebody stepped on it. And anyway, it's sad, but whatever.Michael Jamin:Okay. But alright. So much of it felt like, yeah. Okay. So it was a version of you that wasn't exactly, but where was this coming from? You said you had a point you were making. I don't rememberSheila Heti:Where, because at some parts you remember where they came from and some parts you justMichael Jamin:Kind of pull out of, pullSheila Heti:Out of. You don't remember how they came about?Michael Jamin:Yeah. I don't know. I always feel like when I'm writing, if there's an idea that has a strong emotional reaction, like, okay, maybe there's something there.Sheila Heti:A strong emotional reaction in you.Michael Jamin:Yeah. In me. I have a terrible memory, but if I remember something, why do I remember it? There must be a reason.Sheila Heti:You have a terrible memory too,Michael Jamin:And you wouldn't know it, but I guess you document everything in your diary.Sheila Heti:I mean, the diary is usually not about things that happened. It's more about the feelings that I'm having in the moment that I'm writing it. I wish that my diary was more about things that happenedMichael Jamin:Really Well, you get to decide what you put in your diary.Sheila Heti:I know usually when one writes a diary, it's because you're in a moment of high emotion that you need to get your feelings out.Michael Jamin:Do you write every day in your diary?Sheila Heti:No. No, no. Just when I need to. And I don't even really do it anymore now.Michael Jamin:Interesting. Yeah, there is. There's something else you said about it. Yeah. There's so many moments that were so interesting. Like you said at one point that the men you date don't understand you. I'm like, well, don't they read your book? I mean, why don't you just give 'em your book and didn't understand you?Sheila Heti:No, I mean, I don't know.Michael Jamin:You don't know. We'll get back to, I don'tSheila Heti:Even think that it's really all Yeah, like you were saying earlier, it's not really you. It's just an expression of a corner of you.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I don't know. But do you really feel that? I mean, I'm going back and forth. You'll see I contradict myself, but what you write is so to me, it feels so personal. I don't know how it cannot be you.Sheila Heti:I mean, I don't know. When I'm working on it, it doesn't feel like me. It just feels like writing on a page. It feels very plastic. I don't feel like it's me.Michael Jamin:So there's no, wow, because there's no inhibition there because it's very intimate. There's no inhibition. You don't feel to be judged. This is just a character named Sheila, by the way.Sheila Heti:I mean, I just don't think about it. Just I have this, that part of my brain is not awake when I'm editing or writing that people that are going to think it's meMichael Jamin:Or whatever. Well, that's bold. That really is bold because the notion that you're not worried about being judged, you're not worrying about expressingSheila Heti:Yourself. I worry about being judged for an email that I send. That's a stupid email much more than I ever worry about a book.Michael Jamin:Really? Really? Yeah. Your book is permanent and it's your art.Sheila Heti:But I have so much control over it. I have so much. I take so much time with it. It's not spontaneous. It's really thought through. So I'm not, and it's art. It's not me. An email is me. A book is not, it's its own thing.Michael Jamin:Okay. How should a person be? I mean, this to me felt like this is your struggle. It was really interesting when it was a narrative struggle about a woman trying to find herself in a brief period of time. And I felt like, no, this is you. Right?Sheila Heti:I mean, it doesn't really feel like that. No.Michael Jamin:Alright. This interview's over. That's why I think when I said, you're brave, I think that's what makes you brave, is that this fearlessness of I can put it out there and I'm not really worried about it.Sheila Heti:Yeah. I just don't care. I care about being judged as a human in the world, as a person, but not through my books, not through your I care about it and Oh, she's wearing a really stupid outfit. I care about it in all those ways that everybody does, but not via the books. Not as the books as a portal to judgment about me.Michael Jamin:Wow. Wow. I I don't know if you know how profound that is. To me. It really is. Yeah, because it gives you so much freedom to write then.Sheila Heti:Yeah. I mean, but fiction is different from essays. I think with essays you do feel like it's you, but with novels you don't. Or I don't,Michael Jamin:Yeah. But I guess, and I didn't really know this term, it's auto nonfiction, which I guess is this term. I was not familiar withSheila Heti:Auto fiction. They call itMichael Jamin:Auto fiction. That's what I meant. Auto fiction. Yeah. And soSheila Heti:I like auto nonfiction though. I think that's how it should start to be called.Michael Jamin:Really? Yeah. Just by my dumbest. Yeah. But when you call it auto itself, so I don't know.Sheila Heti:Yeah, I didn't give it that term. The critics give it that term, auto fiction, but all writing is auto fiction. All writing comes from yourself. It's a really silly term, but I mean, they guess they use it for people that write characters that have their name. Which again, that's only, and how should a person be? Does the character have my name? None of the other books.Michael Jamin:Well, okay, but Well, theSheila Heti:Diaries, obviouslyMichael Jamin:The diaries, but also I also know that pure color was taken from your life. I mean, we know that inSheila Heti:A lot ofMichael Jamin:Ways. So I also want to know about this, and I know I'm concentrating on how should person, well, on both of 'em I guess. But this play that you were commissioned to write, how does that work that you were tortured by throughout the whole book? You felt like you couldn't come up with anything good. How does that come about? So a local theater said, will you write us a play?Sheila Heti:Yeah, yeah.Michael Jamin:And it was their idea.Sheila Heti:Yeah. Yeah. They commissioned a play for me,Michael Jamin:But they said, I mean, this is what we want it to be about. Or they said right aboutSheila Heti:It was a feminist theater company, and they said it could be about anything as long as it was about women in it. And I really had the hardest time. I mean, I wrote a play, I'm sure you experienced this in Hollywood, and then there was a lot of notes. And in theater we call it dramaturgy. And I got so confused and I just couldn't make the play better from the notes. And it was just this torture, because when you're writing a book, or at least in my case, editors aren't like that. They're not giving you their notes to make the book something other than what you want it to be. But in theater, what's this character's motivation? Why does this happen here? There was just so much feedback and I just lost my sense of what I liked about it and what it was.Michael Jamin:And then how did you find it ultimately? You were happy with it, weren't you?Sheila Heti:Ultimately, I just, when it got put on a couple years after, how should a person be was published, it was just my original draft. So I never ended up editing it according to any of the notes in the end.Michael Jamin:Wow. So you won that battle?Sheila Heti:I guess so you did. It wasn't them who put it on. It was some other, some kid.Michael Jamin:Oh,Sheila Heti:I mean, he's not a kid anymore, but he seemed like a kid at the time.Michael Jamin:But you also do something called trampoline hall, which struck me as really fun. It seems like you're just part of this artwork. You make art. Well, I don't care what it is. Let's just do something weird and interesting until trampoline hall, which I love the premise of it's you say people deliver lectures on subjects they don't know anything about.Sheila Heti:Is that what it's, it's not their area of professional expertise. So they can do, oh,Michael Jamin:So they are experts.Sheila Heti:They can do research for their talk. It's just that it can't be their professional expertise.Michael Jamin:So they're not talking out of the rests. They're talking to about if they know No. Oh, okay.Sheila Heti:They do the research. Yeah. And then there's, so the talk lasts about 15 minutes, and then there's a q and a, and then So there's three of those and night, and yeah, it's been running once a month in Toronto since December, 2000 or 2001. Them. I haven't been involved in it. You them? Oh, no, no. I mean, I started it, and my friend Misha Goberman is and was the host, but after about three or four years, I left around 2005 or so. But he still keeps it going. So now I used to pick the three people every month, and I just used to, when I was in my twenties, I had crushes on people all the time. And it was fascinated by people in such a way that it was a way of having these friendships where I would go out with them and talk about what their talk was going to be about, and then I'd see them on stage.And it was just a way of being with people. My life is not really like that anymore, where I'm coming into contact with so many people that I just have to have a show and put them on stage. I find 'em so fascinating. And the culture's changed because again, in the early two thousands, there weren't, the internet wasn't what it is. And I just felt like there's all these smart people with all these interesting things to say, and nobody's paying any attention to them. And here's a venue for them. You obviously don't need that, a barroom lecture series for people to have a voice in this culture anymore. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Right. That's right. Now you deal with students, young people. And so what's your take then, as an artist, as you deal with people of this younger generation? What do you see?Sheila Heti:I don't know. I mean, I only see them through a very narrow lens. You don't show your teacher that much of your life. I see them sitting in a classroom for two and a half hours once a week. I've only done it for seven weeks.Michael Jamin:But you read their work or you pretend to?Sheila Heti:I read it. There's not that much. I mean, I don't know. You can't really generalize about a generation. Every person's different.Michael Jamin:One of the stories in my book is about that. It was about me trying to, being in a creative writing class, trying to impress my teacher, and just having no idea how to write, just none. And feeling complete. You're smiling. You can relate or you see it.Sheila Heti:Well, because I'm smiling, because yeah, that's how people feel. And it's sort of a failure of the way that creative writing is taught that makes a person feel like they can't writeMichael Jamin:Well. Okay. So what's the first thing you tell? What's the most important thing you tell your students then maybe?Sheila Heti:Well, I try to show them all these examples of, so-called bad writing and stuff that's intentionally boring and that's badly put together because I just think it's a better route. You're more likely to become a good writer if you are trying to do something bad than if you're trying to do something good. If you're reading the greatest writers and you're trying to emulate them, and you're all intimidated and blocked and nervous, and you're trying to write in a style that has nothing to do with yourself.Michael Jamin:So then how does showing them something bad help? Do you say, go ahead and write or write. What's the point of showing them somethingSheila Heti:Bad? I don't want 'em to try to write. WellMichael Jamin:Write Well, you don't, but you don't want 'em to write schlocky or poorly written stuff either.Sheila Heti:I'd rather have them write basic. I don't know. I just think when you're trying to impress, when you're writing to try to impress somebody, it's just you're starting off on completely the wrong foot. I want them their writing. So for example, in this class, one of the first experiments we did was I told them to go into their messages, their text messages, threads, and to copy out every single text message that they'd sent and put that in a document and make it a long sort of monologue, because that is actually what they write. That is what they're writing. You got to start from what you're actually saying and what you're actually writing, not this imaginary idea of what writing is.Michael Jamin:Right, right, right. That's exactly right. So there's this thought of what writing should be and what writing, how get, I guess, how did you get over that, especially when you were writing your favorite authors were the greats. How did you find the confidence to have your own voice, I guess?Sheila Heti:Well, when I was young, when I was a teenager, I read all the Paris Review interviews, and I just got the sense like, oh, there's no way to do it no one way. Everyone has their own way. Faulkner has his way, and Dorothy Parker has her way, and John au has his way, and there's just no consensus. And so you just have to figure out your own way. That's what they all did. I just sort of saw that's what each one of them had done.Michael Jamin:See, that's where I struggled with, and you're getting my therapist now and my creative writing teacher when I was starting to write this book. Because as a TV writer, my job is not to have a voice. My job is to emulate the voice of the show or the characters. And I'm a copy. I'm a mimic. That's what I do. And that's what I've been doing for 27 years. And then to write, this was an experiment to me. What would it be like to write just whatever I want to write with no notes, no one telling me what to do. And it was very scary in the beginning. And it was very, I loved David Sari. How can I do him? And so I wrote a couple of pieces. I studied him, I read all, I've studied books over and over again. He was so entertaining. He writes so beautifully. And I read it over and over again, and I wrote my first pieces, almost like I was doing him. And I felt, oh, this is good. And then I let it sit for a couple of weeks, and then I read it with fresh eyes. And this is terrible. It sounds like someone pretending to be him is terrible.Sheila Heti:Yeah, yeah. But that's a stage that you still probably learned a bunch by doing that, maybe about structure or about something.Michael Jamin:No, not that I learned that I felt like I was a pretender, but my thought was, well, he's doing it. He's successful. I write and now I perform my pieces as well, which is what, and I tore a little bit, and I thought, well, if it works for him, why reinvent the wheels? He's obviously got a market. And then I realized I had to come to the conclusion that it was almost heartbreaking. I can never write like him. I can't, no matter much. I want to, it'll never happen. And then I had to let go of that, and then had to come to the more, even a larger, heartbreaking realization was like, oh, I have to write me. And who the hell is that?Sheila Heti:And how did you find it?Michael Jamin:It was a lot of just drafts after draft. And then the problem, and this is something else, but I find some of the earlier pieces are very different from the later pieces. And I've tempted to go back and change the earlier ones. But like you're saying, I'm also tempted. I feel like I can't, can't, it's time to let 'em go.Sheila Heti:Right. That was that person.Michael Jamin:But it's all in the same book, and it felt like, well, should there be any kind of, is that okay? Is it okay to feel like each one's a little different from the other? I don't know.Sheila Heti:Yeah. I don't know. I mean, are the early ones still good, even if they're different?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I think they're good. I'm not sure if anyone else would notice except for me, but I noticedSheila Heti:Maybe not. Yeah, probably. Yeah. And I think it's okay if they're a little different from each other.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I don't, well, we'll find out. But that was very difficult for me to figure out how to, and I turned a lot to, and I wonder if you do this, you kind of answered a little bit. I didn't want to turn to other writers. I turned to musicians to music. Do you do that asSheila Heti:Well? Which musicians?Michael Jamin:It was turning to musicians to find out what is art? What am I supposed to be doing here? Yeah.Sheila Heti:I always look to painters for that.Michael Jamin:So painter, is it contemporary painters orSheila Heti:Contemporary or not contemporary?Michael Jamin:And how do you pull, what are you looking for them? Yeah. When you look at a painting, how does that help you?Sheila Heti:Well, how does it help you to look at musicians?Michael Jamin:Well, there's two things with music, and I feel like music is too, they're telling us, they get to tell a story with lyrics and with music. So if you didn't hear the lyrics, maybe you'd still get the sentiment of it. And so I feel like they have two tools where we only have one because they can set a mood just for the tune. And so I looked to them for the intimacy in their bravery. You'd look, okay, Stevie Nicks, she's singing about herself. That's all she's doing. And okay, you can do that. It just felt so vulnerable to be doing this.Sheila Heti:Yeah.Michael Jamin:And that's why I'm shocked that you're so brave about it.Sheila Heti:I mean, it's the only job is to not care about yourself in relation to it, that the book matters. And you don't matter.Michael Jamin:Right. That's your job is to put the art first. Right.Sheila Heti:To not do things because worried about what people will think of you. That's the first. And I guess when I was younger, I was reading so many avant-garde writers that did that in such flamboyant ways. It just seemed to me the only Henry Miller, it just seemed to me maybe the first lesson, not even a conscious lesson, just like, oh, clearly he's not worried about what people are going to think of him or his reputation among decent people.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Right. And so you don't have that, obviously, you don't have that worry.Sheila Heti:No, but I don't know. A lot of decent people.Michael Jamin:Yes, you do. But yeah, I don't know. Again, it's what makes you, I don't know, such a fantastic writer. I mean, I want everyone to read your work because it's really fantastic. I have some questions here that I have to ask from. So my daughter, Lola, I tell her she's a way better writer than I was at her age. But the truth is, she may be a better writer than I'm now, but I don't tell her that part. But she has these questions. She put down some questions like, damn, you've got some good questions. So I can't take credit. I can't take credit for this question. GiveSheila Heti:Me Lowes questions.Michael Jamin:Okay. First of all, she says, what are your dreams for your writing, and how do you let them go while also keeping them alive? Oops. I dropped a rock.Sheila Heti:My dreams. You dropped a rock.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I dropped. I have magic crystals by my computer that are supposed to make my work better.Sheila Heti:Oh, what kind of rock is that?Michael Jamin:It came out of my head. You want some? Yeah. I don't know. They're magic, but they're on my computer. So what are your dreams for your writing, and how do you let them go while also keeping them alive? And I guess what she means is, I guess, ambitions at the age You were talking about that young age.Sheila Heti:Young. Yeah. How old is she? 20.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Sheila Heti:When I was 20, my dream was to be the best living writer, just to be the best novelist, just to work harder than any other writer alive. That's what I was thinking. ItMichael Jamin:Was work harder.Sheila Heti:I was like, I got to work harder than any other writer alive.Michael Jamin:That's what I was. And what did that work look like to you?Sheila Heti:Just always writing and always not being satisfied, and being a real critic of my work and trying to make it better, and trying to try to get it to sound more interesting and figure out what my sentences were, and letting myself be bad and repeat myself until I got better. And I don't think that I ever let that go. I am not sitting here today saying, I work harder than any other writer alive. But I do remember having that feeling when I was young. That's what I need to do. That's the only way it's going to work.Michael Jamin:Yeah. That importance. Yeah, becauseSheila Heti:It's just so hard. It's just so hard to write. Well, to write anything good for people.Michael Jamin:I think you give the perfect answer on that. I'll give her another theSheila Heti:Parental answer. In any case, work hard.Michael Jamin:Work hard. Well, but it was really,Sheila Heti:It's true. I think it's true that, and I remember being her age and interviewing this older Canadian writer, Barbara Gowdy, who I really loved, and she told me, and she's terrific. She told me, I was writing for the student newspaper, and she said, it's funny, I've got my students who have talent, clear talent, and then I've got these other students who don't seem to have so much talent, but the ones who don't so much talent work really hard, and they end up doing better than the ones that have talent. And I thought, oh, I never even would've known that. I would've thought that. I didn't know that hard work meant could mean more than talent. So hopefully you have talent, and then you can also make the choice to talentMichael Jamin:Work. And you learned this at a young age, you're saying thisSheila Heti:Part? I mean, my mother was also just very strict about working hardMichael Jamin:Right.Sheila Heti:Studies and stuff.Michael Jamin:Interesting. Yeah. She's a delian mom. Hungarian.Sheila Heti:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Do you speak any Hungarian?Sheila Heti:No. Do you? No.Michael Jamin:No, I don't. But I do know there's a Hungarian expression that really helped me. I'll tell you what it is. So do you speak any other languages?Sheila Heti:No,Michael Jamin:No, no. That's your next task. I wrote about this in one of my stories as well. There's a Hungarian expression where it says, okay, so let me take it back. So I learned to speak Spanish as a teenager and then Italian as an adult. So each time when you learn a new language that you're not born into, there's that moment where it's like it's really hard to talk. It takes months and months, and then finally one day you open your mouth and the words just come out without thinking just like that magic. And it's turning on a light bulb. And I've had a hard time explaining to people what that feels like. But then I discovered a Hungarian expression, which said it perfectly. It says, when you learn a little language, you gain a new soul. And I thought, that's exactly what it feels like, because you're talking, you're like, who is this? I don't speak this language. Who am I? That's incredible. And you talk about soul so much in your work. I thought maybe that's something you had experienced.Sheila Heti:I never got that far. I mean, I studied French and I never got close to a new soul. I didn't have always translation.Michael Jamin:You're always translating in your head,Sheila Heti:Right? Yeah.Michael Jamin:It's just that moment, like, I don't know who I am. And then you find yourself reacting differently. And also using, if I find myself, I can't say, I don't know how to say this, so I'll say it this way, which is not how I

On this week's episode, I have actress Mary Lynn Rajskub (24, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, The Dropout, Brooklyn 99 and many many more) and we dive into the origins of his career. We also talk about her new stand-up comedy tour she is doing and how that came about. We talk about so much more, so make sure you tune in.Show NotesMary Lynn Rajskub on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marylynnrajskub/Mary Lynn Rajskub IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0707476/Mary Lynn Rajskub on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lynn_RajskubMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMary Lynn Rajskub:I don't know what else to do because I am an artist. So it's always been tied to my personal life and my personal expression, and there's a therapeutic aspect to it. And I don't really, I feel like if I could have taken the route of, I don't know. I never had the ability to be like, I'm going to write scripts, so I just kind of amped up the thing that I am good at.Michael Jamin:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone. Welcome back for another episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'm going to tell you what I'm talking about today. I'm talking with a wonderful actress named Mary Lynn Reup, who I worked with many years ago. I was introduced to her. She's doing her hair right now. How'sMary Lynn Rajskub:Your side part going? Okay, go on.Michael Jamin:Many years we were teamed up to take a pilot out based on her life and many pilots that didn't go anywhere. But Mary Lynn is, you are one of my favorite Hollywood stories, and I'm going to tell it to you and I hope it embarrasses you because it was so funny. So we were working together on telling this pilot, and then it was a few years later, we were doing Marin, mark Marin, his show. We were running his show, and then we needed someone at the last minute to play themselves in an interview. So I text Mary Lynn, I got her number on my cell phone. I text her and IMary Lynn Rajskub:Say, oh, what did I do?Michael Jamin:I say, I say, Hey, Mary Lynn, I know this is last minute, but do you want to be in our TV show? And then you wrote back, yes, who is this?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Nope,Michael Jamin:Don't need to read a part. And we script's areMary Lynn Rajskub:Important.Michael Jamin:I'll be there tomorrow. I just assumed I was in your phone. So I was like, whatever. And then we later had you on LX Buddy system, but for the people who are not entirely sure who you are, I mean, you've done a ton of stuff. Most, I guess your biggest role was Chloe on 24, which was a giant hit. So you're Chloe, but then I was also looking through your credits and you also played Chloe on Veronica's closet. And I wonder if that was just a trial run for the nameMary Lynn Rajskub:Trial. Yeah, it's in the ether that the quirky awkward girl, oh, let's call her Chloe in Veronica's closet. She was androgynous and it was Wally Langham who played her assistant on that show, if I'm remembering correctly. Both of us. His character turned out to be gay. It was actually kind of a sweet story. And so we both were ambiguous sexually, and we both had crushes on Scott Bayo, which is not adorable, butMichael Jamin:Not anymore. Do you remember all the parts you've done like this? Do you have a good memory for everything you've done?Mary Lynn Rajskub:You've doneMichael Jamin:A lot of parts.Mary Lynn Rajskub:What's funny is you're pulling the switcheroo on me because normally people will say stuff to me and I'm like, I don't remember that at all. But things like this, if you ask me what the part is and what the story is, I most likely will remember that stuff.Michael Jamin:But when you Go ahead,Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah, but there are some things where either, I don't know, it depends. Sometimes I'm in stuff, I'm like, I don't remember being there. I don't remember youMichael Jamin:Really. You sometimes turn on the TV and see an episode of something you've done done a ton. And they go, oh, look at there. There I am. Do you not remember?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah. And it's funny, the way that you're saying it through the prism of the actual part, I'll remember that. But there's a certain, I don't know, there's certain events or one-off things or sometimes there's stuff on 24. There's a ton ton of guest stars because there's so much plot on that show, and there's so many people that get killed per episode, most likely. In that case, it's a person that I just wasn't on set with, and so I didn't have memorized the episodes of who all the characters are type of thing.Michael Jamin:Now you do a lot of, I see you posting, you're always on the road, you're always doing standup, but did you start as a standup?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I started in standup ish, yes. I was going to school for painting, and then it turned to performance art, and then I started making fun of performance art.And then I was in San Francisco and I was going to bars and doing open mic shows. I was really attracted to solo performers, but at the time it was more performance arty. And then once I started just organically making fun of it, I started to encounter comedians who would come to these. There was a crossover between artists and comedians who would go to the same open mics. And I remember seeing the comedians and going, oh, that's, oh, that's somebody that knows their voice, their natural at storytelling, because I was seeing a lot of just poetry from their journal and stuff like that. And it wasn't until I started meeting comedians that I was like, oh, those are my people. But I still didn't understand necessarily how I was being funny.Michael Jamin:And then how did you find your voice then? That takes a long time.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Oh, I think I just found it last week.Michael Jamin:Well, tell me why, how you found it. What does that mean for you to find your, I know what it means for a writer. What does it mean for you?Mary Lynn Rajskub:What I'm realizing, honestly, lately within the past few years, especially within the past decade that I've gone on the road doing comedy in earnest, is that I do have a story to tell. It's just taken me a long time to hone in on what that is. And a lot of it is just come from my life experience and putting together, oh, that's what I thought about that, reflecting on stuff, because I think when I first started, I grew up sort of in a bubble and pretty naive, and so I just was putting a vulnerability out there, but I didn't know what I was saying or what I was doing. I got a lot of acting because of thatMichael Jamin:Really. So you were vulnerable back when you were starting off?Mary Lynn Rajskub:A lot of times, and that's pretty much what I did on stages. I would improvise and I wouldn't know what I was going to say. And I can remember looking back, other people would be like, did you write a sketch packet for that? Again, there was a crossover between actors and comedy writers, and I used to just really beat myself up, and it's because I was so bogged down by whatever social anxiety and whatever my brain, the mechanism was geared towards performing, and I still can't quite articulate it, but I just know that I didn't have the presence of mind or the ability to, my brain just didn't work that way. I wasn't about to sit down and write a sketch packet. I had to go through it experientially year after year to be like, oh, I'm this type of person. That's why sometimes people will be like, they'll ask the generic question of who are your comedic influences? It's like, I never related to a guy on a stage in a suit with a tie going, here's what I think about this. It's only lately that I'm going, oh, I have an opinion on that, and it's a strong opinion, but it took me a long time to not be really reactive and really passive.Michael Jamin:But you still write out your material before as if any other comedian would, right? OrMary Lynn Rajskub:No? I do. I do. And now that I've been doing it so long, things will come to me and it's always a joy. You, and I'm sure when you're writing, sometimes you'll get those one-liners really quick that you're like, oh, that's fully formed. I'd have one line that's been in my act forever, but I just love it. It's like, did you know you could do a bunch of yoga and still be an asshole? And that's just a real quickie. I didn't sit down trying to write that. And then I have a whole another scenario that follows that, where it's like the kernel of it is truths, but the way it comes out is pretty fabricated.Michael Jamin:Do you have a preference as to, do you prefer acting or standup, or does it not make a difference to you?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I mean, at this point, I prefer standup just because there's, well, there's meat on the bone for that in terms of I get to be in control and I get to be on stage for an hour, and it's hard and it's challenging, it's exhilarating. I love acting. It's just lately it's been a bit of diminishing returns in terms of parts that I can actually be challenged by. I would absolutely love to have something that I can dig into and that would have a lot of layers to it, something that I could come back and continue to be that character. But I'm going on 10 to 15 years of the life of a lot of guest stars, which is great. I'm very thankful, and I will do that again. But that's got its own. You're coming onto a set where everybody knows each other and you're just like, I got to now in two days, fit into the tone of the show, and then I do my one thing and then I leave.Michael Jamin:And you prefer, because you do a lot of comedy, I mean, do you prefer drama then to do, is that more satisfying to you?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I mean, 24 was pretty satisfying just because it was such a big show and it was so different for me.Michael Jamin:But also, you were kind of the relief character. You were the awkward weirdo, right? Totally. Yeah.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah.Michael Jamin:But is there a plan then with your, I mean, I don't know why I'm asking this. Is there more to it? Is there a bigger plan for you doing all this standard? No,Mary Lynn Rajskub:I need your help because my helpMichael Jamin:Want your helpMary Lynn Rajskub:Would, my dream would be to be able to get another acting role that I could be a regular character on something. It's a big dream. My other dream would be to sell out the tickets in the small clubs that I do, so that I could sustain what I'm already doing. And so when you say, is there a plan, that would be the plan. I don't necessarily know if I get to do that or not. I've got a few more pushes in me, and if one of those things doesn't start to pay off, I will be trying to pay for my lavish lifestyle in some other way. Maybe OnlyFans, maybe some feet videos. I heard on OnlyFans, there's big breasted women making smoothies. I could do the small breasted women making smoothies on OnlyFans.Michael Jamin:Wait, so they're not naked, but they're just making smoothies. They're naked. Oh,Mary Lynn Rajskub:Let me talk to you about something. I've spent zero time on there, but I was podcast. I have a new podcast called that. Woo. You do. Please promote it because I thatMichael Jamin:Woo. You do for sureMary Lynn Rajskub:At that. Woo. You do. I have a partner. We talk about what's a woo that you do that, A magical thinking thing that you do in your life that you think, anyway, we were digressing and our producer went on to OnlyFans. The thing about it is there's whole universe of stuff. I think it started out as soft core porn, and now it's like everything. And I can't say much more. I only spent about 40 seconds on there. But you go on there, you get an onslaught of all different kinds of things that, I mean, people are doing comedy on there. People are doing,Michael Jamin:Oh, really? On there? Yeah. So you're saying not just porn, it's justMary Lynn Rajskub:It's not just porn anymore. Whitney Cummings is doing, she did the Burt Er roast on OnlyFans. Anyway, I'm here to promote my podcast at that. Woo. You do. They don't need,Michael Jamin:But let's talk about your, okay, so what's the premise of your show, your podcast?Mary Lynn Rajskub:So my friend Jeffrey and I, he comes on the road with me. He's a very funny comedian. He features for me, and we enjoy each other's company. And he may or may not, I may, he maybe carries crystals in his pockets sometimes.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I have some crystals right here. I keep 'em on my computer in case That's what I'm talking about for creativity. It's California.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah. Fuels. So the podcast is what is the woo that maybe you're embarrassed about that you do that you think, have you written yourself a check for a million dollars? Do you keep crystals on your desk to harness the energy from the universe? We had a guy talk that he started praying. I had a story about going to visit a crystal skull. One lady talked, of course psychics came up. But there's all different types of little things that you think is going to give you or things that make you happy. And they're sort of like a magical thinking.Michael Jamin:But that's a great idea actually, because it's very small, but it's very optimistic and helpfulMary Lynn Rajskub:For a podcast. And I had one woman who was like, she wasn't on the pod, but she's like, I don't have a woo. I don't have a woo. And the more we talked, she said, I'm very organized though. And I said, well, what does that bring you? And then I love organizing as a woo, because that gives her a sense of peace and calmness. And it's like, what's that thing you do that makes you feel good?Michael Jamin:When I was struggling a few years back, I was all depressed about something. And then I read this book and it was very new agey. There's a lot of the book that was, I thought this is very helpful, but this is really helpful. But then it went a little too far, and I was like, ah, you're fucking ruined it. I was on board. And then you just took it one step so far. But one of the things that he said that I thought was so helpful, it was about kind of visualizing your life or whatever. And one of the things that was so helpful, he said, it's already happened. It just hasn't happened yet. Whatever you want. It's already happened. It just hasn't happened yet. And so I was like, that was so profound to me. It was like, oh. So now I just have to figure out how to make it happen. Already done. I don't know why. I find that really helpful. Maybe it doesn't help you at all.Mary Lynn Rajskub:I love that. Well, it sort of eases the pain of, I think the idea is like we're supposed to go through these challenges and take little steps, but it's like watering a plant. You're not just like, why aren't you grown? Why aren't you a tree yet? But you're like, oh, you will be a tree. And I just know you're growing and it doesn't help to go like, why aren't you this yet?Michael Jamin:And that's what you're doing now, because you're just putting this energy out there. You're putting it with going on the road, which is not easy. And you're putting the energy out there hoping that something will come from it and something will, you just don't know what it will be.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Right. And I'm really hoping to, looking back on my life, that was a long time ago that we pitched that. I had a very good run of good fortune with having the parts shine on me for a little while there. And then of course, with the massive show of 24, and people know me from always Sunny in Philadelphia now, even though that's only a couple episodes. But I've been very lucky, but I still want to do it. So we'll see.Michael Jamin:When you're on the road, because you are on the road a lot, how many days were you on the road?Mary Lynn Rajskub:It's just aMichael Jamin:Lot. Okay. So when you're on the road, will you go from one city to the next, or do you always come back to la?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I try to come back, and the best case scenario for me would be to do two weekends a month. But it doesn't work out like that. Now, this month of November, I'm going to be out for almost the entire month because I have a lot of one nighters. Some won't give you a weekend booking some clubs. So it's just one nighters that I can get booked, and then I'm going.Michael Jamin:And then do you drive from city to city then, or what? Or you fly?Mary Lynn Rajskub:No, at the time, I'm just doing a lot of one-way flights,Michael Jamin:One-way, flights back and forth.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah,Michael Jamin:It's exhausting. ItMary Lynn Rajskub:Is exhausting.Michael Jamin:It'sMary Lynn Rajskub:Very bizarre.Michael Jamin:Tell me what it is. Okay, so you go to some city. Let's say you're going to Boston, right? You're flying the night before. What is it really like?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah, you're asking me at a weird time because I just booked a bunch of flights. And some of 'em, if I have a one night or somewhere, I'm not getting paid for four or five shows. What's nice, what's the best is if you can fly in the night before you wake up, you chill out, and you do a whole weekend of shows.Michael Jamin:And then after the last show, you fly back, or do you wait another day?Mary Lynn Rajskub:No, after the last show, you fly back. Well, you have to spend the night, but usually it's like 6:00 AM I'm out the next morning I be home and take the kid to school and pick up the kid from school.Michael Jamin:And what would happen if your flight got caught somewhere or a connecting flight? What would happen if you missed your connecting flight to this show? What happens?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Hey, it's just another day that he stays with his dad and they got to take a coupleMichael Jamin:Of men for you. But you missed the show. I'm saying.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Oh, you're saying if I don't make it to the show?Michael Jamin:Yeah.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Well, that hasn't happened yet.Michael Jamin:Okay.Mary Lynn Rajskub:But yeah. And this time in November, I've got a lot of, there's Portland, there's Alameda, California, there's Sacramento, there's Utah, and they're all within a few days. So I'm doing these little flights, and some of them are the same day of the show. There's one where I get in at 4:00 PM and the show's at seven or eight. And that's just the way it's going toMichael Jamin:Be way it is. But I also think, alright, so exhausting from the travel. I dunno why I'm so stuck on the practicality of this whole thing. But then you have to psych yourself up to go up on stage at whatever, nine o'clock or whatever. Isn't your energy sap by that time? Yeah. What do you do?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I napped before and then I make sure that I have enough time to wake myself up from the nap. And then also, if I'm feeling really dark and low energy, I just let myself go there. If you try to push it away, it just makes it worse.Michael Jamin:So you're about to go on stage and you're fucking exhausted. And then when you go there,Mary Lynn Rajskub:What happens is I've experimented with different versions. I was saying I was real reactive in the past. Sometimes I would get really in my head and I get really quiet, and I've learned techniques. If I'm feeling low, feeling exhausted, I carry that with me on the stage. I'm honest with it. Then I use it. And then it's like little stepladders, you get out of it because you're standing on stage in front of an audience, but it's using the honesty of where you're at. And then that exhaustion oftentimes will turn into annoyance, will turn into anger, will turn into humor. I mean, there's one example where I got booked at, I thought was a club. It was a bar show. It was in a weird part of town. It was honestly very white trashy, for lack of a better word. And I was like, I never drink before shows. And I started drinking. And then by the time I got on stage, I was like, I don't know why I got booked here. I don't know what this is.Michael Jamin:Did you say that as part of your act? Yes, you did.Mary Lynn Rajskub:And they loved it because I was being honest and I took my reality. I was like, what is this? I walked around the building, it's like a dirt parking lot. I don't even know what's happening. Why are you guys here? Why? AndMichael Jamin:That must've depressed when you showed up. You don't deserve me. That's hilarious.Mary Lynn Rajskub:One of the funnest shows ever. And I started categorizing the audience, you guys are, what? Is this over? Okay, you guys are, this is what you're going to do. And I started naming them and oh myMichael Jamin:God,Mary Lynn Rajskub:The guy who went on before me. But again, this is also after many, many shows under my belt. I wouldn't recommend just doing that. But we're talking about addressing this darkness in my soul because I already know a lot of things about myself. Honestly. I know the caliber that I can work at, and I know that I'm not necessarily a super joke Smith wordsmith. You know what I mean? I know my lane and I know my strengths and I know my experience, and I know that I am not just going on stage to be pissed off to shit on them. I know that I'm going to transform it into something. And I have enough experience to know that I can do that.Michael Jamin:That's so funny because you had this awful experience. The worst you show up, this is going to be terrible, and it turns out to be great because you acknowledge it. And were they there to see, I mean, it just seems like you're okay, I'm Chloe. How would I get out of this fucking mess?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Oh, I mean, you're really getting me going. I feel like I'm talking a lot because you're going right into the minutiae. That's very real. Things that become pump the show. When I first started going on the broad proper, 24 was actually still on the air. And I still had this, what was funny to me at least a decade ago was like, I'm uncomfortable. I don't like myself. I had this thought, very self-deprecating, which will never completely go away, but very self-deprecating point humor, which to me was hilarious to expose that. But when I took the stage and they were expecting to see Chloe, it was completely confusing to them going, you're a TV star, you're Chloe. What is this person, this weirdo,Michael Jamin:ThisMary Lynn Rajskub:Interior? I don't remember what the jokes were back then, but I developed, had to, it was like do or die. I had to survive. I had to sink or swim, and next thing you know, I've got a whole 15 minute chunk that's like, oh, you're my Jack Bauer. Oh, you. And I'm like, I'm not really good at computers guys. And I'm just playing because I can feel the energy and they need to be like that guy. He loves Jack Bauer. Oh, you're the Jack Bauer of the show. And I developed jokes within that and ER's not some of it dumb, but because they were so jacked up and only seeing that way that,Michael Jamin:But that's interesting. They have this expectation. It's natural. I guess they're coming to the show. Are they coming to see you now because of Chloe or because of your, what do you think? Why are they coming out? Do you think?Mary Lynn Rajskub:It's a mixture now, and it really is a true mixture. It's people that don't know why they're there that don't know me from anything. It's people that know me from Always Sunny. It's people that know me, Chloe, those two camps want to fight with each other. And it's people who are comedy fans. It's a real mixture.Michael Jamin:Do you feel, this is odd, because this is also, I guess this speaks also to your celebrity, but when you meet someone when they want to meet you, they want to shake your hand, they want to take a picture of you, is there a sense that you're like, did I give you what you wanted?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Oh, yeah.Michael Jamin:What is that like for you?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I just let them say their thingMichael Jamin:And then what? That's all they want. You just let them give 'em a chance to voice what they're, and that's it.Mary Lynn Rajskub:You have to do. And I try to hear back to them their energy, and I try to listen and sort of validate their entry point. Because it depends. Some people are like, oh, my parents showed me 24. Some people are still in 24. There are certain people that watch it over and over again. And then there's other people that are like Gail, the snail,Whatever thing they want to experience. I try to, sometimes people will reference other things and always Sunny, they'll go, oh, I can't even think of it. I don't watch the show. I love them. I think they are top notch. I love all those guys. I love Caitlyn. Known her for a long time. I don't watch, I watch some, but people that watch that show have it memorized and they watch it over and over again and they make references to other things. And then I can see them a little bit. They're a little disappointed where I'm like,Michael Jamin:Isn't that weird?Mary Lynn Rajskub:That thing.Michael Jamin:I get that even from, because we were on King of the Hill for five seasons, and sometimes people fans know the show better than I do, and I worked on it on shows that I worked on. I don't remember them as well. And they do. And I always feel like, I don't know, it's awkward. It's awkward for me. I don't know how I'm supposed to be in speech.Mary Lynn Rajskub:And it's a huge compliment because you know that energy, you're like, yes, that's such a great, the fact that they identify with it and they know it so well is a wonderful thing. But as the person who creates it, you go like, yeah, I did it and then I moved on.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Mary Lynn Rajskub:I'm not living in it, but it's such a beautiful thing when people are fans of stuff. It's just, I can't be there. I got to get a job. You haveMichael Jamin:To be in the president. Exactly. I think that you see this a lot. I mean, he hear about this a lot about stars, who I find, I talked about this a while ago. I saw an old clip of Eve Plum who played Marsha Brady, and she was the Jerry's, I don't know what show. She was on something, maybe Jerry Sprinkler, I don't know. This is whatever, 20 years ago. And then someone from the audience said, they raised their hand. Can you just do it? IMary Lynn Rajskub:Remember that. I think I've seen that clip.Michael Jamin:And she was like, no. She like, she knew what she wanted and she wasn't going to do it. And then she kind of, so the woman was, can you just say, and she wanted her to say, Marsha, Marsha Marcia. And she wouldn't do it. And I felt I didn't blame her at all. I mean, you could see why she didn't want to do it. I didn't blameMary Lynn Rajskub:Her. That's probably for her. She's like, that was,Michael Jamin:Yeah, I was 10. Yeah. I can't pretend like I'm still a 10-year-old. I live in the present, and I don't think people recognize that. And it was a little heartbreaking because she was disappointing them. But you couldn't blame her today. What do you expect?Mary Lynn Rajskub:It is heartbreaking. It goes from being an amazing thing to not cool after for a certain amount of time.Michael Jamin:Does it even for you the same way you mean?Mary Lynn Rajskub:No, I mean, I really don't mind it. And I've learned, for the most part, most people are just really nice. So I'm very lucky. Most people are just like, they love it, and then they say that and then they move on. The only thing that's a little bit frustrating for me is running into a casting director who's thinks I'm still, I mean, this was a few years ago, but she's like, you're on a 24, right? I'm like, no, dude, that's been done for 13 years.Michael Jamin:No one's on 24.Mary Lynn Rajskub:No, speaking of the strike. And I make no residuals. And I made a low amount of money. And people think, because such a high profile show that, oh, you're good, right? You're done. I need to change the image of myself. But whatever.Michael Jamin:You have to constantly, it doesn't end. I think people don't realize that, especially for actors, you have to constantly get work and nothing's a given. I am sure it's a little easier for you because people know that when they hire you, they're going to get a good performance. But it's not like you still got to audition. You still got to go out for stuff. So it's hard. Is it even hard? I mean, it must have much harder in the beginning, getting nos a lot as an actor hearing No. When you auditioned, getting rejected in the beginning, or was that not your case?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I mean, it's not, yeah, the nose is one thing, but I think it's what you were saying earlier, even though you were equating it to standup, for me, it's getting it up again. And some people are better at this, but it's making it a numbers game. But to put it out there per audition over and over again is harder than the nose. And I know theMichael Jamin:Oh, really?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah. It's like, I don't know.Michael Jamin:Do you have that same thing with standup as well, or no?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Here in my control. And more frequently you do it, but it also is a beast because if you take a few days off, it's like, oh, I got to get back in.Michael Jamin:Why do you say that? It's because the business sideMary Lynn Rajskub:And the timing and the rhythmMichael Jamin:AndMary Lynn Rajskub:Being present, it's just a constant. You've got to constantly work out that muscle.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And so you do crowd work as well then It sounds like you interact with them. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have a preference?Mary Lynn Rajskub:No. I mean, I remember there was this one club where the guy, it was, what's that word? Not vanity, but he was retired, but was like, I'm going to start a comedy club, but didn't put all this money into the drywall and the design and the sound, but the audience didn't know why they were there. There was no sense of when you go into an older comedy club, like the Comedy Store or some of these places that have been there forever, the punchline in San Francisco, everyone knows why they're there. The seats are close together, they're facing the stage. They're very simple things, but it's hard to create that like, oh, we go here to see comedy. And that gets lost a lot lately. And there was a new club, and I remember it was like Whack-a-Mole where I'm teaching them how to focus. We're at a show and these women, they're drinking like they're at a bar and they're talking to each other. And I'm like, oh. And I got off the stage, walked into the audience and was like, oh yeah, you guys. And they're like, we're divorced too, and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, yeah, we're the same, but you know what I wouldn't do. Go to your show and then act like I was at a bar. And they were like, oh. And they shut up. But IMichael Jamin:Butt that. So strange. That's the problem with standup. It's different when you're doing standup in front of a whatever. You sell a theater and you sell a lot of tickets. And when you're in a club, people might be there just to socialize with their fucking friends. And so it's a whole different thing, man. It's a whole different level of, they could be hostile. I don't know. That kind of stuff worries me a little bit. And I didn't stand up when I was much younger, but I wasn't thinking it through enough.Mary Lynn Rajskub:What happened? Tell me about it.Michael Jamin:Oh, I don't know. I just did it. Maybe you've heard there's a club. I was from New York, so there's a couple of clubs nearby. I would do it on the weekends and stuff, and I didn't, colleges shows and stuff like that. But at some point I was like, you know what? I'd rather, what's the end goal? I have to be on the road. Or if I become a comedy writer, then I can just stay in one place and I can go to sleep at a decent hour. So that's what my thinking was, how toMary Lynn Rajskub:Be a comedy writer at the beginning. How did you learn how to edit down on the page?Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's really hard because it's a different thing. I had took some classes and then I teamed up with Seabert, and then we started writing more scripts together. And then you have to learn story structure. That's the hardest thing there is. But even I remember driving out here from New York after I graduated thinking, okay, think of something funny. What the fuck? No, it doesn't work that way, man. I didn't have a voice. That's why I was talking. I didn't know.Mary Lynn Rajskub:So how did you find your voice?Michael Jamin:The voice thing? Well, when you're writing on a TV show, you don't, you find the voice of you, the actor you're writing for, or you find the voice for the characters that are already there, not supposed to have your voice. You're supposed to have their voice. And so when I was writing my book, maybe you can see it. So I wrote this book and I've been performing on it. So this is why I'm so curious to talk to performers. And the whole process of finding my voice was really scary. In the beginning. It was like, well, what can I write on my own without an executive giving me notes without, and then finding your voice meant just being honest. And that was really hard.Mary Lynn Rajskub:It was like, it feels like the wrong answer. Just be honest. Boom.Michael Jamin:Well be honest with who you are. You have to speak the truth. You have to be vulnerable. But there are times, as I've been performing two theaters, so it's not standup because that's different. You're selling tickets and people are friendly. But there have been times before I go up every show, I kind of say to myself, why am I doing this again? I'm getting 'em nervous. Why am I doing this?Mary Lynn Rajskub:You're back in it. You're performing.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. We'll just see where it takes me.Mary Lynn Rajskub:And have you done a lot of, are you on the road?Michael Jamin:Well, I've done, we did, I don't know, maybe I think eight shows in LA in a couple in Boston, and then I'm waiting for the book to drop. Then I'll go back on the road again and we'll see where I can sell tickets. That's the hard We'll see. We'll see. People say they want to see me. Well, we'll see. Because you're literally selling one ticket at a time. You're like, you're talking about, Hey, come see me Boston. And you look at the ticket sales, oh, there's a sale. Then you do another post and then another ticket sale. So it's hard. Everything's hard now. Is that your experience at all? Is any of this your experience?Mary Lynn Rajskub:No, my shit is just, I'm just really selling out everywhere.Michael Jamin:Do you promote a lot? Is that what the podcast is for? AtMary Lynn Rajskub:Woo. You do on all platforms at that. Okay. Sorry, what'd you say?Michael Jamin:No. Is that what the podcast is for? To help let people know you're coming to their city or something?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah. And because Jeffrey does feature for me, I mean, that would be really, again, pretty dreamy. If it's kind of all is starts part of the same package that people could listen to it, hear us, come see us live.Michael Jamin:Right. You could even do your podcast live. Is that something you want to do?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah. I mean, no, at this point, it depends.Michael Jamin:How many episodes are you dropping? You do one a week or something. And do you shoot it? Where do you record it?Mary Lynn Rajskub:We record it in Sun Valley.Michael Jamin:In Sun Valley?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Is that good or bad? What's wrong with that?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Our producers are there and they putMichael Jamin:It out. They have a studio. Yeah,Mary Lynn Rajskub:They have a studio.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I know Sun Valley. Yeah.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Awesome.Michael Jamin:I like Sun Valley. They got that. Nice. There's a Latuna Canyon. It's my favorite road to tripod.Mary Lynn Rajskub:OhMichael Jamin:Yeah, I know the area Well.Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content, and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com. And now back to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?Is there other projects? I don't know what you want to work on other than I'm so curious. I really am curious to see where else this will take you, all this energy you're putting into.Mary Lynn Rajskub:I know, right?Michael Jamin:Yeah. I mean, other than I guess acting, I don't know anything else.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Well, the thing is, I don't know what else to do because I am an artist, so it's always been tied to my personal life and my personal expression, and there's a therapeutic aspect to it. And I don't really, I feel like if I could have taken the route of, I don't know. I never had the ability to be like, I'm going to write scripts, so I just amped up the thing that I am good at, and I'm hoping that it, I don't know.Michael Jamin:What about theater do you think about? Or is that just not,Mary Lynn Rajskub:That's a money maker right there.Michael Jamin:Well, but you could say, is it less of a money maker than standup? Is that what it is?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I think so. I think it's less of a moneymaker and more of a commitment.Michael Jamin:Well, I saw a show yesterday at the Geffen. It was a small little show. The theater was probably 99 CSS or something. I don't know. It was a nice little show. Yeah, okay. But when you go on the road though, you're effectively saying, you're effectively saying, I can't audition. I can't be booked for anything. Well,Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah, but if there's no shows that are booking you, then you're like, that's what I've been on the road. Because it's been sort of a diminishing return of, I mean, there's no auditions to have really,Michael Jamin:I don't know. I don't know. And so are your agents help with that, or do you have a separate booking agent for the road? WeMary Lynn Rajskub:Don't want to go down the road of what is really, of how this is working for me.Michael Jamin:Oh, I'm so indelicate because I see all the time.Mary Lynn Rajskub:No, not at all. It's justMichael Jamin:I see you on Instagram performing and I'm like, you're doing, you're funny. You're great. It seems like you're doing fantastic in my eyes. So that's why I'm like, yeah,Mary Lynn Rajskub:I'm doing fantastic.Michael Jamin:And then you get booked on all these shows and I don't know. I don't know. I think you've done a pretty amazing career, mean, especially when you look at all that you have done.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah, look at it that way.Michael Jamin:It'sMary Lynn Rajskub:Been really amazing. What do I get to do from here? I don't know. And honestly, looking back on it, I've never known it'd be a nice idea for me to be able to go, I'm going to have this. I'm going to have that, and that's going to pay off.Michael Jamin:Okay. So for me, I would be very, you're an artist, so an artist. So artists know that there's nothing, the freedom is, that's the trade-off making that trade off. So how are you making sure that you're good with that? How do you not worry about it? How do you not stress? How do you like, okay, I'm making art.Mary Lynn Rajskub:It's really scary.Michael Jamin:You lean into it.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah, I just lean into it and I've been lucky enough to get a certain amount of work, and I look back on the year and I go, I don't know how I did it.Michael Jamin:Really. Right. I have the same fear as myself. I'm like, okay, I've done it every year up till now, but I don't know how I'm going to do it this year. SameMary Lynn Rajskub:Thing. I've had enough success that I, hopefully I have the building blocks you're saying to be enough of a name to get in the door and make enough money to keep it going. It's just like a big gamble. And I think I'm saying we're going down a dark road. It's not that I'm negative about it because I really love my career and I love what I do, but it does get to the point where you're like, how much energy do I have? It's a life of sacrifice. I don't live the traditional life, especially now that I'm divorced. And it's like, what's going on? If you would've told me I would be driving to West Hollywood to do sets, I'm going, well, this feeds me. This helps me feel alive. It helps me feel creative. It must lead to something. And if it doesn't,Michael Jamin:But do you have friends from back where you grew up who have vastly different non Hollywood lives who've just taken these jobs where, and can you relate to them now?Mary Lynn Rajskub:No.Michael Jamin:When was the last time you tried? Because I was recently at an event where I saw some people I grew up with and I was like, they all seem so grown up.Mary Lynn Rajskub:They really know what's going on.Michael Jamin:They,Mary Lynn Rajskub:They really have these foundational beliefs, and they'll explain their insurance policies to you and they'll tell you about the drains in their yard. They have intimate knowledge of the duct work, and they're remodeling the kitchen and they'reMichael Jamin:Right. It is always about the remodeling of the kitchen. That's the big one. And whenever I hear it, I always get a little insecure. I always feel like, am I doing something wrong?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Oh yeah, I get really, because they'll have the parties where it's the same people come into the same place. And so-and-so's bringing that same casserole again.Michael Jamin:AndMary Lynn Rajskub:I don't have that.Michael Jamin:Yeah, you don't have that?Mary Lynn Rajskub:No. My friends that I have in the twenties, everyone went off and had their lives. And also I've moved a lot of, and I get to socialize doing standup. But then you're like, hi, bye. And then you kind of go back to your life andMichael Jamin:Yeah, because I wonder, I don't know why I'm thinking of this, so I wonder if they have the same thoughts about your life. Are they like, man, Mary Lynn's got it, she did it. Or Mary Lynn doesn't have a, can't talk about drains.Mary Lynn Rajskub:I think it's both my best that it's probably like, oh gosh, that poor thing. She has no stability. On the other hand, it'll be the people that are like, can I go with you? Can I come on the road with you? And I'm like, really?Michael Jamin:I wonder, are they serious, do you think? Or what?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I don't know. There's different versions of it. There's the woman that I ran into that I went to high school with who had a son, I think at the time, this was years ago, she had a 12-year-old son. She's like, can I be your assistant and come on the road with you? And it's like, I don't know what she was worked at some company that sold fans or something like ceiling fans. I don't know what you think this is, but oh, you're going to take, first of all, I'm not going to pay you anything. If I'm able to pay anything, it's going to be a drastic pay cut and then what the same bed as me, and you're going to be away from your son. How does that work? And you're going to do exactly what.Michael Jamin:And do you ask them that? Or is it just like you just kind of change the subject?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I just change the subject.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. I think because obviously this,Mary Lynn Rajskub:It's kind of messed up. It's sort of a compliment of like, oh, you think this is some fantastical thing? Yeah, let's just change the subject and let that live in your mind as some other than what it actually is.Michael Jamin:They don't see the reality of it. They really don't, which is so interesting.Mary Lynn Rajskub:No, it's part of the magic of going on stage and doing a show. I'm sure any person could stop and go, oh, she probably napped until 4:00 PM and didn't talk to anybody except for two words to the lady at the front desk. But you get to be there and have this show and have the magic of being in that moment and being in that space.Michael Jamin:Is it hard for you to come down after you perform?Mary Lynn Rajskub:I've gotten used to it.Michael Jamin:I mean, so what do you do? Do you hang out at the comedy club for a little bit or you just head back and go a little bit? You do a little bit, a little bit. Interesting. And then you can go back to sleep. I dunno, it's hard to come down from when you're on stage. You are in 100%. You're giving everything. You're not letting a moment. Your mind is racing. You're not letting anything. It's not like a day at the office where you get your feet up and you're really not paying attention. You are a hundred percent in it, and it's exhausting. AMary Lynn Rajskub:High and a low. Yeah, for sure.Michael Jamin:It's exhausting, right? I mean, it really is. Yeah, it's great. But it's exhaustingMary Lynn Rajskub:Typically. I mean, I'm not saying everyone's like this, but typically it's like sometimes you'll have friends in the city and they're like, oh, come with us to dinner. It's like, I'm not sitting for dinner before a show.Michael Jamin:Yeah, you got to focus, right? Do you run through your set before every show or you at the point you don't need to do that?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Well, right now I'm running through my set because I'm taping in Chicago, but I'm only doing one show. So I'm trying to trick myself because usually you do a whole weekend and I will get an idea of the set list. And then sometimes, a lot of times I will have an incident or some fact about the city. So I'll try to have that at the beginning as a greeting of something that happened that day or facts about their city. And depending on sometimes that'll be more fruitful than others, and that'll get me going. I'll think of something funny that I can just try off the cuff at the beginning of that.Michael Jamin:Well, that's interesting. So are you trying to give these shows a shape or is it just like, I want to give as many laughs as I can in however long I'm on stage, or is there a shape to it?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Usually as many laughs and I've gotten to the point where, and this is because I've done a ton of shows lately, it's gotten to the point where point, this last time I was out, I just went, I'm going to do my closer first once I get to the end of that to see where the energy is and to see what I say next.Michael Jamin:So you tried doing your closer first, which is going to be strong, and then what happened when you got to the end of your set? You're like, I don't have a closer now.Mary Lynn Rajskub:I mean, it was really fun. It was really exciting. It got it to this level and the energy carried through to the other pieces, and it kind of caused me to deliver the other things better, honestly.Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's interest. That really is interesting.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Ending on something else, but I have enough to play around with where Yeah, you're kind of in your head. I'm going, oh, I guess I'm going to say that now I'm present, but I'm also moving things around a little bit.Michael Jamin:And it's that, you're right, it is about that. The excitement is when you don't get the laugh where you thought you were going to get a laugh, you go things, they're about to go off the rails, right?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah. The way you're thinking about this, I'm like, you're going to be on the road doing standup soon.Michael Jamin:I don't know. It's such a different thing. It really is such a different thing. Like I said, sometimes the audiences, well, sometimes they're not really there to see you. They're there to go out with their friends and have a drink and you're just in their way. You're talking through their night out in the town. I've seen it enough guys. It can be rude. Staff can be, they can be rude.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Go to a bar. What are you doing?Michael Jamin:Yeah, what are you doing? Yeah, but I feel like when I, at least when I perform, it's a little different. They're there to ing. I feel like someone asked me before, what are you going to do if they heckle? I'm like, oh, no one's going to heckle. That's not that kind of show. I would assume that's not going to happen. Not that kind of show. It's like,Mary Lynn Rajskub:I'm sad I missed your LA show. So are you reading from your book and talking in between orMichael Jamin:Yeah, it's more performative. It's like a reading is here, but it is really up and out. It's up and out. It's kind of like, well, have you ever seen any David Seras? You ever seen it perform? Yeah, it's a little like that, but it's a little more performative, a little more, but that's what it is. So I'll let you know when the next time is, but yeah, it was a little terrifying the first time, and I had to take acting lessons. I had to learn how to act.Mary Lynn Rajskub:You didMichael Jamin:Well. Yeah. I, I've directed actors, but it's one thing when you do it yourself. Here's the problem. My wife directed, and I met her when she was an actor, so she knows how to act because I met her on set, and so she directs it, and she's like, the first time we're rehearsing, she goes, you're taking the stage all wrong. I'm like, what do you mean? Because I'm walking on stage and it's like that. She's like, no, no, no, no, no. You're a rock star when you take the stage. I'm like, but I'm not a rock star. You are. When you take the stage and it's a whole different energy.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Imagine people going, it's Chloe from 24, and I'm like, hi guys. I just learned by throwing myself into that fire, like, oh, I have to match at least what their images of me and then more I've got to bring myself,Michael Jamin:Because they're coming to see someone famous. They're coming to see their favorite character on a TV show, whatever it is, and that's what they want. That's what theyMary Lynn Rajskub:Want. Got to represent your work. Otherwise it's like, why is this guy,Michael Jamin:Why is this guy here?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Or it's like, what is that?Michael Jamin:They don't want that. That's exactly right. They don't want that.Mary Lynn Rajskub:That is the equivalent of a strong choice out of the gate, a clear intention, butMichael Jamin:It felt like imposter syndrome, it felt like, but I'm not, it's too bad. That's what they want to see. That's what they paid to see. Yeah.Mary Lynn Rajskub:No, that's great.Michael Jamin:Yeah, so there's a bunch of stuff like that and also about Jesus, it's about giving, allowing, allowing there to be a silent moment for a second, which is terrifying. OhMary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah. I love the silences.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Mary Lynn Rajskub:I mean, it's different when you're reading from your book, but through the acting point of view is because you're listening.Michael Jamin:You're listening.Mary Lynn Rajskub:It's not meant to be like, here's what I'm saying. The words are an after effect of your intention and what you're reacting to.Michael Jamin:But in my case, there's an audience and it's dark. I can't see them. I know they're there. And so when you say I'm listening, I'm not hearing anything. I'm just sensing it, right?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Well, no, you're listening to, you are becoming a listener within your own material that you're presenting.Michael Jamin:You think I'm listening to myself,Mary Lynn Rajskub:So you're like, standup is similar in that. I'm not explaining it so clearly, but it's like I had to learn in standup because I am an actor, that I'm the narrator, so I hold the space and I create the context, but I'm also the character within it. So it's the character that's listening. So you are presenting it. You're not the rockstar, but the character guy that's going to come. I'm telling you this story, and once I start telling you the story, I enter into that story and I become the character of the story.Michael Jamin:It's so interesting. You have given this thing, this performing thing, a lot of thought, right? Am I right? You think about this a lot. I mean, most actors or I don't think people appreciate that as much talking like an artist would talk. I really think so, because you're saying you've given a lot of thought. You're explaining the thought. You don't just go up there and talk. That's not what you're doing. You've given it a lot of thought about what your obligation is to being on stage and how you have to, I guess, the obligation to the art that you create.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Another point of that listening thing goes back to the point of view, which you do when you're writing scripts in order to write through that person's voice. Voice, listen, that character listens in a certain way, so it's their perspective,Michael Jamin:But call on a little bit more about, okay, so what is it you think I have to do or B, when I'm on stage, give me some acting. Give me some lessons here.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Well, it depends on what you're saying, but I think I was going off of you saying the silences imagining you take a moment because you've just said something and you're wanting to sink in, or what you've said had a certain tone, certain or intention that you don't want to rush through because you've either just made a point or you expressed something in a certain way that needs space.Michael Jamin:It requires a lot of trust though, because when you take that space, you want the audience, I want to let you feel it. Just take a second to feel it. But the trust it requires is that they are actually feeling it.Mary Lynn Rajskub:That's right.Michael Jamin:And maybe they're not. That's the problem.Mary Lynn Rajskub:That's right. Space in between is the dangerous, and when you talk about on, when I see you on ig, talking about AI is like, this is the back and forth that we want. This is the we come together. I'm going to say something. I'm going to see if it affects you. I'm going to say it with an intention. Did you hear it the way that I intended or did something else happen? Making me think of those articles. When you press listen and it comes out in an AI voice,Michael Jamin:What people, that's what they don't get. Yeah, that's what they don't get. When I talk about can AI do what artists do? And they go, yes, they can. I've already seen it, and they're like, I don't think you understand the thought that we put into this. I think you're missing what we try to do here.Mary Lynn Rajskub:And you do that all the time, because I've watched a lot of your clips lately where you'll be explaining something and then you'll digress and go into a joke, and you're immediately without thinking about it because you thought of the joke, and then you're acting it out, and then you're going back to what you're saying. Yeah,Michael Jamin:But sometimes even when I watch myself, I go, eh, I did it better in my head.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Exactly.Michael Jamin:That's exactly right. Yeah. But to me, so I'm glad you said this. I think that it actually helps me. That's the part that I was getting stuck on, the trusting that the audience is feeling what I want to feel in that silence and that they're not doing this or whatever.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Right now, you're in the position to deliver it, usually giving your script to someone else and going, you be in the Deliver it walk. I'll tell you, if you're delivering it, now you're in the driver's seat of that,Michael Jamin:And it really gives me a new appreciation for really how hard it is. And by the way, do it 10 times while the cameras are over here and while people are walking and, oh, this is going on. We need you to be in that moment 10 times and oh, off walk and go and now, yeah, it's a hard job being in that moment. Yeah,Mary Lynn Rajskub:That's the weirdest part.Michael Jamin:What do it now.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah, because you're making yourself vulnerable again and again, and you're coming to that point over of jumping off. I remember I was at school, it was like a game of throne sketch and there was another mom, and it was just that we were out on the lawn of the school and it was something for the fundraiser and one of the other moms were joking around, I'm doing my bit, and the camera turns to her and she's got whatever it was, whatever spoof of somebody wrote, it turns to her and she went and she got it, fucked her up. And I started laughing and I was like, yeah, it's humiliating. And she had to say, it was like one line as my dragons, and she just went, ah. And I watched her just crumble. And I go, yeah, yeah, yeah. That moment every time you hit that point of humiliation because you've got to open up and commit and put yourself out there to make an ass of yourself or put the most tender parts of yourself, you're getting ready for the moment and then when the moment happens, I don't know. It's a weird thing you're showing up. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Exactly. You said it perfectly. I totally understand that. And so she just thought this was going to be easy and it made you laugh because it's like, see, this is every day I got to do thisMary Lynn Rajskub:Weird thing. Well, I don't know why someone is holding a camera. They just turned it on you and they said, say a certain thing in a certain way. How do you do that?Michael Jamin:Yeah. It makes you self-conscious of your existence now you Right. And then what do you do then when you're on, when you become aware of your existence and your acting, what do you do?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Yeah,Michael Jamin:What do you do? You're heads and the cameras are on you and you're like, oh fuck, I'm in a show. There's lights and everything.Mary Lynn Rajskub:That's the question. Hopefully you get paid for it is what you do.Michael Jamin:Hopefully youMary Lynn Rajskub:Get paid to figure out,Michael Jamin:You get paid, right. But so do you talk to other actors a lot about this? Is this a conversation actress? Why not?Mary Lynn Rajskub:No, but when I do, because I should more, it's actually is really, honestly, it's pretty invigorating. But I'll run into people and we'll sort of organically stumble upon it. Maybe there are people that talk about it. I don't, it's very nice when I get to have comradery likeMichael Jamin:That. But when you've been on set and you surely you've worked with some, let's say, older, bigger stars, you don't ask 'em, Hey, how about some tips? What do you do?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Not really. I mean, there was one thing I wrote about it in my book called Ish, also my podcast at that. Woo. You do. But thereMichael Jamin:Was one, and that's a great title by the way.Mary Lynn Rajskub:Thank you so much. It's on the 24 where I had to act to a blank computer screen, but someone I knew or cared about was being tortured. But in the moment it was like go and I was just by myself in front of a blank computer screen and I did ask Kiefer's advice and it was super helpful. And he really actually stood off screen and talked me through it. So he became my partner and he was telling me what I was seeing. So he helped me with some.Michael Jamin:What was the advice he gave specifically, do you remember?Mary Lynn Rajskub:It wasn't really advice, he just helped me. It was like, okay, he's on the bike, the guys are coming up to him. They grabbed his head, he fell on the ground. So I was reacting. He was acting out the scene for meMichael Jamin:And heMary Lynn Rajskub:Letting me know that I wasn't crazy for going, how do you do this? I'm sitting in front of the blank screen. And so in that moment, from that point on, if he wasn't there, I knew how to, I'm just creating that in my head.Michael Jamin:A lot of people think that's the job of the director on a TV show, but often there's really no time for them to even do any of that, right?Mary Lynn Rajskub:Correct. They're thinking of a bunch of different things and they might course correct you, but they're not giving you, this is the actor's work is to know all that. They'll make adjustments along the way, but they're looking at all these other aspects at the same time.Michael Jamin:Yeah. It's not what maybe you think it is. It's not like a rehearsal time. It's like, no, you show up to work. Go and go. Did you study? Did you train a lot for, where did you train for?Mary Lynn Rajskub:No, I was lucky enough to get very much on the job trainingMichael Jamin:Because the way you talk about it, it makes it sound like you did study.Mary Lynn Rajskub:I mean, I've taken a couple classes here or there, but nothing. It was sort of on the fly. I did acting in high school, so I knew I sort of knew what blocking was, but I really got schooled. I got schooled by Gary Shambling. I was already on the Larry Show, and I put this in my book too, and he's like, cut. And he looks at me and he goes, what are you thinking? I was like, oh, because he called me out because I wasn't anything. And I was like, and he goes, you need to know what your character is thinking. I was reacting and I was interesting, but at the moment he knew there was a backstory that I was supposed to have in my mind and I didn't. And he called me out on it. And from that point forward, I was like, oh, subtext. I was just like a part. I just happened to be whatever, lucky enough to be interesting or have certain qualities. I got hired and I sort of instinctually did it. But from that moment on, I was like, subtext, subtext, subtext.Michael Jamin:So this discussion we just had, these are just basically questions you've been asking yourself over the course of your career and thinking about Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is so interesting. Like other actors, you're talking about stuff that's been taught and you came to it yourself, and it's only the way you came to it is because you have to ask these questions. If you're an actor, it doesn't matter if it's your teacher teaches you or you figure it out yourself, it all leads to the truth, which is what you have to do. OrMary Lynn Rajskub:A lot of times it's like how to make something work like you're hired or even you're asked to do a comedy sketch and it's like, how do I sell this joke, but be true to the intention, but move the scene forward. Also, it could be anything. It could be like, oh, I'm at a table so that I am not seeing that thing that would've caused me to react. It's just, yeah, you're always being aske

On this week's episode, I have actor Chris Gorham, (Out of Practice, The Lincoln Lawyer, NCIS: Los Angeles and many many more) and we dive into the origins of his career. We also discuss the work-life balance he has with his family and some of the things he wishes more actors were aware of while filming. There is so much more, so tune in.Show NotesChris Gorham on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisgorham/Chris Gorham IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0330913/Chris Gorham on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_GorhamMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptChris Gorham:But in getting to know them and talking to them, Almost all of them had day jobs, like worked for the city, Worked, worked for construction crews. They had full-on-day Jobs. Some of them were Entrepreneurs, some of them worked in government. And that was a New idea to me because that hadn't been my experience here. But as the income and equality has increased so dramatically, It feels like that's where our business has been going, where everybody has to have another,Michael Jamin:You are listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Chris Gorham:Like my backdrop, this is my, oh, I love it. Official SAG after LA delegate backdrop that we used him during the convention.Michael Jamin:I know you're a big show. We're starting already. I'm here with Chris Gorham, and he is an actor I worked with many years ago on a show called Out of Practice. He's one of the stars that was a show with starting Henry Winkler, stocker Channing, Ty Burrell, Chris Gorham, and Paul Marshall. It was a great show on CBS and only lasted a season. But Chris, Chris is about as successful working actors as you can, short of being like someone like Brad Pitt, who's known across the world. You've done a ton of TV shows, and I'm going to blow through them real fast here.Chris Gorham:Okay. You can, I can't talk about them still, but your strike is over so you can,Michael Jamin:Yeah, right, because Chris is, I guess he's in sag and actually you're one of the members, you're one of the, what do you call yourself, the king? SoChris Gorham:I'm the king of SAG aftra. No, I was elected to be on the LA local board and also elected as a delegate. So that's what this background was. Our official LA delegate background forMichael Jamin:The research delegate for for the model. What does that meanChris Gorham:For the convention? Yeah. It's kind of reminiscent of Model un. So it's the convention that happens every two years where all the delegates get together and we elect the executive vice president, and there's certain offices that get elected by the delegate membership.Michael Jamin:I don't think we have that in the Writer's Guild. I think we have a direct democracy. You, I guess have a representative democracy.Chris Gorham:Yeah. Yeah. It's a much bigger union. How bigMichael Jamin:Is it? How big do you know? AboutChris Gorham:160,000 members.Michael Jamin:Wow. Okay. Members, but that's active members. And what do you have to be to be an active member?Chris Gorham:What do you have to be? DoMichael Jamin:You have to sell? You have to work a certain amount or something?Chris Gorham:No, once you're in, you can stay in as long as you pay your duesMichael Jamin:Every year. Oh, okay. But then that doesn't mean you get health. You have to qualify for health insurance and stuff like that. Correct.Chris Gorham:Well, it's a big part of the strike. It's one of our big talking points really is only about 13% and just under 13% earn enough to qualify for our healthcare plan. And I mean, that's only about $26,700 a year to qualify for healthcare.Michael Jamin:That's a big deal. I mean, healthcare, healthcare. So most people don't realize this, and it seems so naive to say this, but I get so many comments when on social media, all these actors are millionaires. Dude, what are you talking about? You can be a working actor and book two gig. You're lucky if you do two gigs a year. AndChris Gorham:Well listen, it goes to the heart of what this strike is about is that it's worse than people even think because just to what's the best way to talk about it? So a big part of our asked during this negotiation is a big increase in the contributions to our health and pension plan by the producers. And the reason is that they haven't increased it in a long, long, long, long time. So for instance, one person could work, let's say you got hired to do an episode and got paid very well, right? For one episode. Let's say you're getting it, it's an anthology show. They're paying the top two people like series regulars, and you're getting a hundred grand for one episode. So you would think a hundred thousand dollars. That is a lot of money for one episode. If I'm doing that, I am clear. Definitely qualify. You do not qualify for healthcare because you've only done one episode and the producers only have to contribute up to a certain amount. So even though you've made a hundred grand in one episode, you still have to book another job, at least one moreMichael Jamin:And clear,Chris Gorham:Not going to qualify for healthcare.Michael Jamin:I've produced a lot of shows. I don't recall ever paying a guest star anywhere close to a hundred thousand an episode. No, not even close.Chris Gorham:No, no. And the minimums have, right now, I think for a drama, the minimum's around $9,000, maybe a little more than that for an episode for top of Show guest start like the top paid guest shows on those shows. Yeah, you can't. And it's become almost impossible to negotiate a rate higher than the minimums.Michael Jamin:You can have a quote and they go, well, that's too bad. This is what we're paying you.Chris Gorham:Correct. This is what we're paying you.Michael Jamin:Let me just run through some of yours so people know who we're talking about because some people are listening to it. So Chris is, I'm going to blow some of his bigger parts, but he works so much. So let's start with Party of Five where you did four episodes, which I love that show. I just had to mention that, but of course, popular. You did a ton of those. Felicity, remember that? Odyssey five, Jake 2.0, which you started in medical investigation out of practice, which I mentioned Harper's Island Ugly Betty, Betty Laa, which I loved, of course, covert Affairs and what else? I'm going through your list here. Full Circle two Broke Girls. You worked with two of the broke girls and insatiable the Lincoln lawyer, and that doesn't include any of your guest chart. So you are incredibly successful actor and you've strung, actually, I want to hit on something. Sure. So this is a little embarrassing on my part. We had a technical, this is our second interview because I had technical errors on my point. I'm not that good with technology, even though I've done well over a hundred episodes of this, and Chris graciously allowed me to do this over. But one of the things that you said, the thing that struck me the most during our last talk, which I found incredibly interesting and humble, I said to you, Chris, how do you choose your roles? And do you remember what you said to me?Chris Gorham:Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. I said, I should be so lucky. Yeah. The reality is, it's like actors like me. I've had a lot of conversations with actors like me who star on television shows, multiple television shows, and we all joke about how many times we've been asked in interviews. The questionMichael Jamin:Really,Chris Gorham:Why did you choose this to be your next project?Michael Jamin:Right. Well, I wanted to eat. That's why.Chris Gorham:Yeah, yeah. Because I think journalists sometimes forget, and they think that we're all to use your example, Brad Pitt, and that we're being sent scripts and we get to choose what our next project is, but in reality, that is not at all. What happens, what happens for the vast majority of us is we are sent auditions. Sometimes we get the scripts, sometimes we don't. And we put ourselves now what used to be going to the casting office. Now we put ourselves on tape and we send it off into the void, and we hope that we get hired.Michael Jamin:And you'll work on a part. When you do get the script, how long will you spend preparing for that before you submit your tape?Chris Gorham:Oh, it depends mostly on two things. One, how many pages it is, and then it depends on how well written it's, to be honest. You've heard this before.Michael Jamin:Go ahead. Tell me.Chris Gorham:The better the writing, the easier it is to memorize.Michael Jamin:Right. And explain why that is.Chris Gorham:Well, the reason is is because it makes sense. If it's written like a human being talks, then the next sentence follows from the sentence before. If you understand the emotion of what's going on, then it just makes sense and the dialogue flows and it's just so much easier to memorize. The stuff that's always the hardest is when you're the character that's laying pipe and you're just spewing out exposition and it's not really coming. Listen, the good writers are always trying to tie it down to that emotional reality, but sometimes you got to lay pipe, and that's stuff's always the hardest, particularly if it's a bunch of medical jargon or legal jargon. That kind of stuff is crazy.Michael Jamin:And what people don't also realize, I think, is when you're starting out an actor, oh, I could play everything. I could play a villain. I could play a teacher, I could play a biker, I could play a doctor. That's fine when you're in your high school play, but in Hollywood, you're going to be cast the part that you are closest to because if not, we will cast someone who looks like a biker or who was a biker, and we'll cast someone who looks like a doctor. Right? Yeah. So you have to figure out who you are, basically.Chris Gorham:Yeah. Well, it's one of the, I went to theater school at UCLA and I was very lucky because during my freshman year, they decided to start a conservatory program within the theater program there. So we all auditioned and I got into this conservatory program. So for my last three years, it was conservatory training, and I still got my bachelor of arts degree from UCLA. It was the best of both worlds. One of the things that I felt like a few years out after having it is I wished they had spent a little bit more time helping us learn how to act like ourselves. You spend so much time in theater school, learning how to stretch your creativity, working on your voice, working on your body movement, body awareness, vocal awareness, and then learning how to play all these different kinds of parts and all the plays you're doing. All the parts are filled from college students. So sometimes you're playing an old man, sometimes you're playing a young woman who knows. But the second you start auditioning for roles professionally, you're only going to be seen for roles that you physically look like. And so it's really important to quickly learn if you haven't already, how to be you. Right. How do you do that version of you?Michael Jamin:Where do you begin with that?Chris Gorham:Well, it takes practice. We used to do an exercise. It was in one of the very beginning acting classes. In fact, I didn't even take this acting class. I was observing, I think my senior year, one of the grad students was teaching it. And it was just as simple as everybody got in circle and instead of being crazy and dancing like a tree or whatever, it was literally, it was just walk across. Just walk from point A to point B. Just you just don't do anything. Just walk from what, and you would be surprised how difficult that can be becauseMichael Jamin:You become self-conscious of what you'reChris Gorham:Exactly right. You become and you feel like you should do something mean. And especially for a bunch of theater kids who've kind of grown up in their theater school, all high schools and stuff all over, it's all about being big, and it's all about the jokes and getting attention and to let all of that go and just be in the market is a very difficult thing for a lot of people. But it's super, super important. And that carries through forever. Just being just be there. You don't have to do anything, particularly when you have a camera on you, and particularly when it's time for your closeup, you don't have to do a lot. You just have to be there and be present and alive in the scene.Michael Jamin:But so much, I think some people, they greatly underestimate how difficult acting is because it looks like make-believe and whatever. We're just, you're having fun on the camera, but to be in the moment, especially when the cameras are on you and everyone's watching in, go hurry up and go, because we've set up the scene for half hour and we want you to shoot it now. And it's so hard to stay in the moment, I think. So how do you stay in the moment when you become conscious that you're actingChris Gorham:Now? If I become conscious that I'm acting now, I'll just stop.Michael Jamin:You willChris Gorham:Often I'll just stop and say, can we start over? Can we just go back to the top because for whatever reason, and then go again. Because if I'm conscious, then I'm not in a scene, then it's not going to work and they're not going to be able to use it. So I would just stop and go back. I mean, it's the great advantage of film, right?Michael Jamin:But you do much theater anymore, because that's different when you're on stage.Chris Gorham:I only feel like benefits and things for years. We're rehearsing for one this weekend, we're doing the Girls Benefit to raise money for breast cancer research.Michael Jamin:So it's one show.Chris Gorham:It's one show. I mean, for me, I've been a single income family of five for almost 23 years. So with that, I haven't able to afford to go and do theater, but I miss it. I love it. I did two weeks, 14 years ago, I did two weeks in Spalding Gray Stories left to Tell in New York off Broadway.Michael Jamin:Really? So you were Spalding Gray, I mean, it's a one man show,Chris Gorham:Right? Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a one man show split into five different personalities. So it's different parts of him. And so the business part, they would swap out celebrities every two weeks. And so I came in and did that for two weeks, and it was the best.Michael Jamin:And this was in New York?Chris Gorham:Yeah.Michael Jamin:That's amazing. How did something like that come up? How do you get that?Chris Gorham:I don't know. I don't remember. I don't mean it must've come through my agents or my manager. I don't remember. I don't remember.Michael Jamin:Wow. How interesting.Chris Gorham:Because now, I was just going to say now, it's been so long since I've done, I've become, I'm so out of the loop of LA theater in particular, which is kind of more feasible for me at this point, just because it's close and easy. I don't even really know how to get back in. In fact, one of my youngest was doing a summer theater camp at Annoys Within, and it's close to where we are. So I was trying to figure out, I reached out to my manager, I was like, Hey, is really close. Is there, are they doing anything that would make sense for me to do something with them over there? They were like, yeah, that's a great idea. And they never heard anything. So I just emailed them my photo and resume with a letter, and I never heard anything back. So I literally, I don't even know how to approach getting cast in theater anymore,Michael Jamin:Because your agent, there's not enough money for your agent to work on it.Chris Gorham:They couldn't be less interested.Michael Jamin:I'm always curious how that works. We just saw a show at the Pasadena Playhouse and I was like, well, how do these actors, how do they, yeah, ifChris Gorham:You find out, let me know the Playhouse also write down the street. It'd be amazing.Michael Jamin:Yeah, there's always some, but then again, you would have to commit to something. And during that time period, let's say it was two months, you can't take other work you've committed and something big could come along, who knows? IChris Gorham:Mean, maybe. But also that is, you live with that fear all the time, no matter whatMichael Jamin:Do you mean even if you're on a show, you mean?Chris Gorham:Well, not if you're on a show, then you're working well, then you worry about the show being canceled and then that you're never going to work again. But when you're not working, well, this brings up two thoughts. One is there's a fear of taking something that's not the big thing, because you are afraid that if you do this smaller thing that it's going to conflict with the big thing that might be just around the court. And the other thought that it brings up is I talked with so many actors over the years who are not working and are really struggling and feel paralyzed about going to try and do anything else because there's this intense peer pressure that, well, you can't quit. You can't quit now that your moment, it might be just around the corner, it might be the next audition.Michael Jamin:You mean quit Hollywood and do something for a different career, youChris Gorham:Mean? Yeah, go do something else. You got to hang in. You got to hang in. And I feel like it's a really difficult balancing act because the truth is that this business is really, really hard to go back to the strike. It's gotten increasingly difficult to the point where it's almost impossible with an actor to make a living, to be able to raise a family, to be able to put your kids through college and those kind of life things that are important to so many of us.Michael Jamin:And I know, and that's why you fight and that's why you fight. And that's why it's so people think, well, so what for actors? But the problem is like you're saying, if actors can't make a living in between or you're starring in a show, that's great, but the show will probably get canceled up to one season. But you still need to keep a healthy talent pool of actors who can continue to keep a living, because if they can't, they're going to leave. And then how are you going to cast as writers and producers? How do you cast this part if there's not a healthy talent pool? That'sChris Gorham:It. That's it. We can't continue paying the stars these massive, massive, massive amounts of money and having everybody else working on these tiny minimums because it's unsustainable. The best and the brightest of us that haven't won the lottery are going to go do other things because there's more to life and life. You can be an actor without pursuing it as a career.Michael Jamin:But I haven't heard those notions come up at all. Maybe I'm not just tuned in, but the idea of, well, maybe we're paying the stars too much, or has that been a discussion at all?Chris Gorham:I mean, I have that discussion. Yeah. Oh, really? Well, yeah, because it's not that, well, certainly for me, and not so much from my personal experience, but just from my kind of bleeding heart observations of this business, when you see movies, it's why, like I've said for a long time, the only way now to make a living in this business is if you're a star or a series regular on a TV show.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yes, I agree with that. It's theChris Gorham:Only way because all of the supporting cast, none of the supporting cast makes enough money to make a consistent living in this business because your stars get massive amounts of money. Everyone else is working scale, and the minimums have not risen nearly enough to make it enough. And the stars, well, this is the excuse the studios use, is that they're paying the stars so much. There's no money left to pay anybody else over scale, so no one else can negotiate over scale. And in tv it's a similar thing. So it just makes it very difficult.Michael Jamin:And not only that, LA has always been an expensive city to live, but now it's crazy. It's like crazy. I can't afford, if I hadn't bought my house when I did it, I couldn't even come close to affording this house and have a middle class house. It's something special about it. So these are the issues that actors are fighting over. Yeah, it's an important, it's so interesting when you hear your friends or colleagues thinking about leaving, do they tell you what they're going to do or what they want to do? It's such a hard thing when you're middle aged, what are you going to do?Chris Gorham:Right. No, it's true. It's true. No, I have some friends that have gone into teaching.Michael Jamin:Okay.Chris Gorham:Yeah. Most of my actor friends are still around. Have one friend who started the business ages ago and still runs that business while she's worked periodically as an actor throughout all of these years. And she still works frequently, but her main income is from this business that she created. Right.Michael Jamin:She's very, so you got to be entrepreneurial, basically. Yeah.Chris Gorham:Yeah. It's funny. I did a movie early in my career where we shot in Tonga and New Zealand, and we had a lot of New Zealand actors were working on this film and in talk, and some of them were quite famous in New Zealand. They were working on this famous New Zealand TV show, like legitimate celebrities. But in getting to know them and talking to them, almost all of them had day jobs, worked for the city, worked, worked in construction crews. They have full on day jobs. Some of them were entrepreneurs, some of them worked in government. And that was a new idea to me because that hadn't been my experience here. But as the income inequality has increased so dramatically, it feels like that's where our business has been going, where everybody has to have another gig.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Chris Gorham:It didn't used to be that way. And I don't think that it has to be that way.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely, yeah, it seems very unfair. It doesn't seem, well, I mean, I guess all things is fair about being an actor. Being an actor has always been a pursuit of like, well, is there anything else you could do? Then choose that? But true, it seems like now it's like, I don't know. What do you do? What recommend then for people, young kids or kids, whatever, 20 year olds who considering getting into the business?Chris Gorham:Yeah, I mean, that advice I think is evergreen. That if you can go do something else as a career, absolutely do something else as a career. Oftentimes the advice I give is when you're young, spend a lot less time thinking about what you want to be when you grow up and spend a lot more time thinking about what kind of life you want to live when you grow up, what kind of things do you want to do? And then you can find career paths that will allow you to live the kind of life you want to live. And it becomes less obsessed with having a certain job.Michael Jamin:Well, that's something to consider. So for you as a working actor, sometimes you'll be on location, you might be in a different city. Is that something you away from your family, which is hard as you were raised in a family, is that something you considered? Is that something you would reconsider now?Chris Gorham:I had no idea. I grew up in Fresno, California. My mom was a school nurse. My dad was an accountant. They didn't know what to do with me, and I didn't know anything about the business. I wanted to be. Yeah, I didn't know. Yeah. I had no idea. And so my first, and I was very fortunate. I got out of school, I started, I got my union card in 1996, the year I got out of school was booking occasional guest stars on things. My first job was one scene in a movie with two big movie stars, big famous director. It was awesome. And then I booked my first series just three years after school. Cool. And it was shot at Disney. It was like 10 minutes away from our little place we were renting. And then it was canceled and it came out of nowhere. And then I was very fortunate again. I booked another series two weeks later, but that one shot until longMichael Jamin:AndChris Gorham:I had no idea what that meant. And I left to do that pilot six weeks after our first born son, our firstborn was born. So my wife, anal had no idea what no idea we were doing. Suddenly we had a newborn baby, six weeks old, and then I'm gone for five weeks. It was extraordinarily difficult.Michael Jamin:I apologize. Something must be open and I have to shut it down because someone's, I'm sorry.Chris Gorham:Oh, no worries. Okay.Michael Jamin:I thought everything shut. But yeah, so to continue, so that's heartbreaking. You have a brand new baby and you're out of town. You left here.Chris Gorham:Yeah. It was hard. And we didn't, because we didn't grow up here, so we had no experience. I don't know how to do this. And no one was really kind explaining to us, okay, this is how you get through this. These are the different ways you can do it. These are the options. You know what I mean? I didn't have anybody, I didn't have a mentor or somebody guiding me in how to do this thing.Michael Jamin:But at any point in your career, you must, because worked for so many actors, you must have at some point found someone a little older and wiser. Right?Chris Gorham:Well, the closest thing we had was Anelle had Stacey Winkler. It was really sweet. Anelle used to sit next to Stacey Winkler at every taping, and they would just talk and Stacey would give her advice, and it was great. One week, Anelle come to the taping, and the next week Stacey scolded her and was like, you have to be here every week and let everyone know that that is your husband.Michael Jamin:Interesting. I remember she came to, I think every out of practice,Chris Gorham:Everyone.Michael Jamin:So why is it about staking your territory? What was that? Or is this being supportive?Chris Gorham:What was it? No, I think it was both, but I think partly staking your territory. I was the young guy, the young handsome guy on this show, and it's a CVS show, and so she was like, you need to be here. But then it was also she said, but then he's the star here at work. You have to make sure that when you get home, the kids are the star, not him. You have to make it veryMichael Jamin:Clear. Was there a difficulty for you? Is it hard to go home and not be the star? What was that like?Chris Gorham:I had gotten pretty good at it, certainly by then. But I would imagine looking back in the beginning, it's kind of that power corrupt and absolute power. Corrupt absolutely. Of course can go to your head when you are getting a little famous and you're making some money. And when you're at work, you are catered to, you're one of the stars of the show. You're catered to a handed foot. Everything's taken care of. I've described it as series regulars are treated like fancyMichael Jamin:Babies on set.Chris Gorham:Don't upset the babies. You need to keep them safe at all times. You need to keep them comfortable at all times. You don't want them crying. You don't want them cranky. You need to keep them fully regulated because when everything's ready to roll, we need the fancy babies to be able to perform. And as soon as they're done, we want them to go back to their cribs slash trailers so that then the grownups can finish getting everything ready for the next shot.Michael Jamin:And imagine giving this kind of pressure to a child actor. I mean, have you worked with many child actors?Chris Gorham:Yeah, many over the years, and I can say almost all of it. Almost all of it's been a good experience. I haven't had any total nightmares with child doctors. That being said, every parent that's asked us about getting their kid into the business, we have always advised against it. And we didn't encourage any of our kids to get into it.Michael Jamin:It's rough. I haven't worked with many child, I just haven't been on shows with a lot of kids. And I am glad because I have a feeling I would when a kid is messing around on set in between takes or just not being professional because they're acting like children the way they are supposed to act. In my mind I would be thinking, stop fucking around. This is work. I know that's what I would be thinking, which is an awful thing to put on a child. But that's what you're paying them a lot of money to do. It's a hard position. I don't know. I just feel for those kids, I just feel like, yeah, I know. That's where Ill be thinking. Hopefully I wouldn't be saying it. Yeah,Chris Gorham:It's difficult. It's very, I mean, sets are, they're not for kids. They're an adult work environments, which by the way, some adult working actors need to be reminded occasionally that these are adult working environments. This is not your personal playground. But yeah, it's a difficult environment for kids. So I mean, you need them. So I'm grateful that they're there.Michael Jamin:I think that too sometimes. Sometimes I'll see an actor goofing around too much, and we're all, I'm like, dude, let's get out of here. All the crew wants to go home. They've been working 12 hour days for the past week and a half. They want to go home too.Chris Gorham:Well, let me tell you, this is one of the things where with every showrunner that I've become friendly with, I highly encourage them, if at all possible, to bring their series regulars behind the curtain and bring them to at least one production meeting that show them how the sausage really gets made, expose them to all of the other incredibly creative, intelligent, wonderful people who make up this team that makes the TV show or the film. Because then they get to see, because as cast, especially as the stars of the show or the film, you really are treated as if you are the most important cog in this machine. And it's really helpful, I think, and just the team morale, if actors understand that they are a very important cog in that machine, but just one of the cogs in the machine. YouMichael Jamin:Said you learned this, I think when you first were directing, you started directing episodes of the shows, you weren't, right?Chris Gorham:Yeah. I had think a basic actor's understanding of how things work on set. And I'm not to blow my own horn. I'm generally a nice person. So I'm kind to people. I'm nice to everybody on set. I learned people's names. I generally understood what people did, but only when I started directing did I really understand just how incredible the whole ensemble is and how much the rest of the team has to offer and is contributing to the show or the film. It was just a level of respect that I don't think I could really have until I was allowed behind the curtain to see how it was happening. So whatMichael Jamin:Would you recommend? Would you recommend that every week one actor attends a production meeting? Is that what you're saying?Chris Gorham:Listen, that's one way to do it. Right. However it works for that showrunner, for that production, I would just encourage them because I just feel like so often, and I think, I don't know if it's true now, but I've talked to showrunners in the past that have talked about the show and the training program and about the message they got was to keep the cast at arm's length. Really? Yeah. And there certainly can be good reasons for doing that. I can understand why that sometimes makes the job easier, certainly, and sometimes maybe makes it possible. But I just think there's more to gain by bringing them in to letting them see, really meet the whole team and get to know the whole team. And because there's just, I mean, truly, you see what the set designers do, and you see what the customers do, and you see, we get to understand how lighting works. You know what I mean? It's just how hard the ads work on putting together with the schedule and learn why the schedule gets put way put together the way it gets put together. And once you understand it, then maybe you're a little less mad about having to be last in on Friday, two weeks in a row.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Chris Gorham:You see, it's like they're not out to get you. They are trying to accommodate you, and you are not the only factor that is being accommodated.Michael Jamin:You're talking about the writers now?Chris Gorham:No, I was talking about the cast look, in regards to schedule casting,Michael Jamin:Very, very frustratedChris Gorham:About scheduling.Michael Jamin:Oh, I see. Yeah, that's always right. I can see why that would be frustrating. So what happens? You get a call sheet and you're told to come in whatever, 8:00 AM and they don't get to shoot your part until 1:00 PM and you're like, why did they call me in so early? And sometimes it just happens. It works out that wayChris Gorham:Sometimes. Yeah. They're trying. They're trying. And sometimes it just doesn't work out. And with the scripts, with writers, it's a similar kinds of thing. It's like once you understand how many chefs are in the kitchen of getting these scripts, these stories broken, and then these scripts written how many notes the writer has gotten about their script from the studio and then from the network before it ever gets to the cast.Michael Jamin:You're making me anxious just talking about it. No joke.Chris Gorham:Sorry. And then that's why as a cast member, when you then go to the writer and say, Hey, can I ask you about this? Your writer looks like they're dying a little inside.Michael Jamin:Yeah. No, no, I can't do that.Chris Gorham:And it's like, so the best writers that I've worked with have always been very organized about how actors give notes. They're like, if we're doing table reads on a show, they'll be like, look, we're going to do the table read. Everybody's got 24 hours to give whatever notes or feedback you've got about the script. And then after that, we're considering it locked. Please respect that once you're on. The idea being that you don't want to spend a lot of time on the day when you're there waiting to shoot, talking about suddenly having questions about the scene and asking it to be rewritten. That's not the term.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's not. And because we have to get next week's script and next week's script is a disaster. I'm telling you, it's in terrible shape. That's how it always is.So you want to worry about this. What about the crashing plane out there? That's going to be, I remember, I have to show, I can't remember if I mentioned this last time we spoke, but one of my favorite experiences of working in Hollywood was when I was an out of practice, and I can't remember what I was doing. I think the showrunner, Chris, I think he had me deliver pages up to the actress. It was show night right before the show, and I don't know why it was made, but for some reason, I remember carrying a couple of scripts to the dressing room maybe an hour before the showtime, and you guys were all there, the whole cast, and you're holding hands. And Henry's like, come on, Michael, come on in, come on. And I'm like, what's going on right here? And you're all just holding hands. And he goes, and he invited me in. I'm like, but I'm a writer. What do you mean? No, grab some hands. So I remember taking who, who's hands? I don't know, but I'm in the middle. I'm with a circle. I'm holding hands. I'm like, what is going on here? And then you guys did, I don't know what you would call it, but it was some kind of, it'sChris Gorham:Like a little vocal warmup or something. No,Michael Jamin:It was almost like a blessing. It was like a blessing. It was almost like, what's it, we are here to, I am curious if you've done this since then. It was like, we are here to support each other. We're going to have a wonderful show. We're all together. We're a family. And it was almost spiritual. It was very, I guess you haven't done that. You don't remember this.Chris Gorham:I remember doing that. I don't remember that specific moment. But that was all Henry.Michael Jamin:But it wasn't every week that you guys didChris Gorham:That. Every week we did that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Okay.Chris Gorham:Yeah. Every week it was our ritual, but Henry started as the ritual before we went down to start the show. We would have this time just with a cast or occasionally with a writer who'd come in.Michael Jamin:I thought it was a beautiful moment. I really did.Chris Gorham:It was really great on dramas. You don't do that because you don't have that moment where you're all together about to go start the show. That's already happened to me on sitcoms.Michael Jamin:So maybe it's a theater thing then. Do you thinkChris Gorham:For sure it's a theater thing. Yes. Yes.Michael Jamin:Yes. So tell me, this happens on other employees always before every show or before every night. Opening night every night. Yeah.Chris Gorham:I mean, of course it depends on the show, right? It depends on who's there and who's, but yeah, thinking back, even when I was a kid in Fresno doing local theater, they would always feed circle up right before Showtime.Michael Jamin:Is that what they call, is there a name for this circle up? What is it?Chris Gorham:No, no. That's just what I'mMichael Jamin:Using. So there's no nameChris Gorham:For you get in the huddle. You get in the huddle.Michael Jamin:But I really thought, I still remember it. I was touched by it that this is something that you guys did to support each other so that you could hold space and feel safe in front of a crowd and know it was a very team thing. And I was like, wow. I felt almost like I was invading it. I felt like I don't belong here because I'm not on stage with you guys. But that's what I remember. It struck me. Something else that always struck me was how well guest stars were greeted by the regular cast. That's a very, very position. You've been on both sides of that,Chris Gorham:Right? Yeah, for sure.Michael Jamin:For sure. What's that on both sides for you?Chris Gorham:I've worked on shows where I have, where series regulators never spoke to me. We were in a scene together, but outside of the scene never spoke to me.Michael Jamin:So action. And this is the first time you're talking to them.Chris Gorham:Correct.Michael Jamin:I suppose that could be good if your characters were just meeting for the first time, but is thereChris Gorham:Sure. I guess. I guessMichael Jamin:I guess.Chris Gorham:But we could, we're professionals. We could pretend. But that was pretty early in my career. Now I don't really have that experience anymore. But also, I took it with me and I made it a point, having had that happen once or twice early in my career, that once I was the series regular, I've always made it a point to never ever do that,Michael Jamin:To always welcome the guest star and just absolutely greet them. It's a hard thing to stay. I mean, think about it's the first day of school for them. Yeah. You're walking into, you don't know anybody. I,Chris Gorham:No, it's difficult enough. Like you said, this is a difficult job. And why make it harder on somebody who is coming in on the bottom of the rung of power at this show? Why would you use the very real power that you wieldMichael Jamin:Show it's It is real.Chris Gorham:Yeah. Why would you wield that to make someone who's on your team, right? Uncomfortable. Why you?Michael Jamin:But we know these actors. I'm the star. I want you. I want to remind you. It's like, dude, we know. We know.Chris Gorham:Yeah. There are people like that. I feel like that's the exception. It happens. Oh, really? But I feel like it's the exception.Michael Jamin:Interesting.Chris Gorham:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content, and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist. And now back to what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?One thing we also spoke about, which was very interesting to me, was I don't know what they call now, I guess, what do they call? They call it sex coordinators. What is the role for those peopleChris Gorham:Who, oh, intimacyMichael Jamin:Coordinators. Intimacy coordinators. But you mentioned that they have other functions. It is not just when two people are lying in bed, half naked. It's also for,Chris Gorham:So the way that I describe it to people who've never heard of intimacy coordinators is everyone's familiar with stunt coordinators. So stunt coordinators are brought onto a set to keep actors physically safe. Intimacy coordinators are brought onto a set to keep actors emotionally safe.Michael Jamin:And this is relatively new thing. Maybe what, five or 10 years or something? Maybe less,Chris Gorham:Right? Yes. New. And we are pushing to make them required. But one of the hurdles before we can make them a requirement like a stunt coordinator is required. One of the hurdles is actually getting enough intimacy coordinators qualified, trained and qualified to do thisMichael Jamin:Job. Are most of them, are they therapists, counselors? What's their training, do you think? No,Chris Gorham:I think a lot of them come from the acting court. Really? Really? Yeah. Yeah. BecauseMichael Jamin:You mentioned it's not just that. It's also like if you have two characters yelling at each other in a scene, no sex, they're just yelling at each other that an intimacy record will talk to you afterwards, right?Chris Gorham:Yeah. So here's a couple things that we did. I'd worked on a show where we had a scene, it was a sexual assault scene, but there were no clothes, there was no nudity and things stopped before things progressed to the point where we were physically exposed. But that kind of scene, you're very emotionally exposed, right? And this was my first time interviewing with an intimacy coordinator. I didn't really know what to expect. So there was a part of the conversation was, okay, for instance, it's written in the script that the other character is going to reach down and grab your groin. And I talked to the in music coordinator saying, I talked to the director and the director wants to see that. He said, are you comfortable with that? Here's what we have to protect you. We have a piece that's going to go between your pants and your underwear to protect your groin.And so when she grabs you, that's all she's grabbing. It was like, okay, great. That's super helpful actually. Great. I've never had that before. And it seemed like that. And it's nice. It makes me feel more comfortable. Certainly makes her feel more comfortable. Who wants to do that? Nobody. But then after the physical parts of discussion, then the conversation shifted. And she said, another thing that I've done with a lot of actors who've done scenes this, I would recommend that you put together a self-care routine for the end of the day. I was like, well, what do you mean? Like it could be anything. Whatever is going to be comforting to you. Some people, you might make a put things together. So you can draw a bubble bath when you get home. You might put together a playlist of music that makes you feel good.It might be pictures of your kids, could be whatever it is that is going to give comfort if you need it at the end of the day, because you never know what scenes like that might trigger. And that's the thing is you write scenes like this and it's necessary for the story, and you works as appropriate for the characters, but you never know what the actors as people, what their life experience has been. And they may have in their real life, been through an experience like that. And so then reenacting it can be very triggering. And it's the thing about acting when you're doing these emotional scenes, be it anger or big crying emotion, your body doesn't know you're pretending.Michael Jamin:Exactly.Chris Gorham:Exactly. So you mentally, well, this is pretend none of this is real. We're on a set crew numbers and friends, but your body doesn't know the difference. Once you're experiencing those emotions, you are experiencing those emotions and you never know what it's going to bring up. So that kind of care, emotional care, I thought is really great.Michael Jamin:And it's like, you'll do this just so people are aware. If you have a scene where you're screaming and yelling or sexually assaulting someone or whatever, and your adrenaline's pumping and whatever, your, not hormones, but cortisol. Cortisol is racing, whatever. All this stuff is going through your head and your body doesn't know, and you're doing the scene a dozen times and it's very hard. I feel it's must be hard to wash that out of your system.Chris Gorham:Can be. It can be. I mean, that's the thing. And it's different for everybody. I ended up, I was okay at the end of the day. I was exhausted, but I felt okay. But I was glad that I'd put some thought into, if I'm not feeling okay, here's what I'm going to do, it's going to help me feel better. And just having thought about it, I think just helped.Michael Jamin:No, I don't think I've ever worked with an intimacy coordinator because in comedy we don't really do a lot of that. But is it always a sexually charged? Is that what the line is? It's not just drama. There always has to be some kind of sexual element when they're brought in. Is that what itChris Gorham:Is? That's certainly how it started. And I think now it's one of the things, it's still new. We're figuring out when it, certainly on the sexual stuff, I'm trying to think. It was interesting. There was a resolution. I think there was a resolution that's going to be coming up the convention. There's lots of conversation about intimacy coordinators. But there was some conversation that had never crossed my mind. But once I was talking to someone about it, I thought, yeah, you know what that makes a lot of sense is bringing in intimacy coordinators when you're physically with children. Physically with children. So for instance, you are playing a dad and you're working with kids and you're getting in bed and cuddling with the kids at bedtime, or you're putting your daughter on your lap to have, because they had a rough day and you're cuddling and you know what I mean? And you're having physical contact with kids to have an intimacy coordinator there just to make, because again, you don't know what people's experiences been to protect the kids so that there's a conversation and there's somebody there watching. And I thought, you know what? Smart, that's a great idea.Michael Jamin:That is a really smart idea. Because we don't know what these kids have been through. We don't know.Chris Gorham:And again, most actors, most people in the world are caring, kind, certainly empathetic. That's their wholeMichael Jamin:Job. That's the job.Chris Gorham:But just like any other profession, some people need help. Some people don't always have the best intentions, and some people don't always behave well. And so it's important. So yeah, I thought that was just such a good idea.Michael Jamin:I totally agree. We also spoke about how you handle it when you are working with an actor who maybe isn't as professional or prepared as you are in the scene and what you do. I thought it was interesting what you had to say.Chris Gorham:Okay, so huge pet peeve. For me. It's like, no, it really bugs me when you're working with someone who hasn't bothered to learn their dialogue. So that's a huge No-no. But then sometimes you are working with an actor who just isn't great, who just for whatever reason isn't great. So my strategy for dealing with that is I just basically start acting to an X. I just don't, whatever they're giving me is just bad. What I know is that the editor is going to cut around the bad performance and they're going to use me. So it's even more important for me to stay completely engaged in the scene. And it's an extra level of acting challenge because then you're acting. It's like, I don't know. It's working on one of the superhero movies or something where you just start treating them like a tennis ball and you do the scene regardless because you can't let them affect your performance. Your performanceMichael Jamin:PerformanceChris Gorham:Has to be there.Michael Jamin:But let's say you were working with a casting director. I've worked with many, obviously many, and some cast directors, they'll read with you, and some of them are not great actors. NoChris Gorham:Read bad.Michael Jamin:And then you have, as an actor, you were trained to react and to what they give you, but how do you deal with it when they're not giving youChris Gorham:Enough? It is. It's really hard. It's one of the nice things about this whole self take resolution is that's kind of taken out of it because you've got, hopefully you have someone working with you that's going to give you something. And if not, you can do multiple takes and send the best one. It was always one of the most difficult things about auditioning in the room is when you are, and I've heard so many horror stories, I've experienced just a couple, but when you're doing your audition and the person you're reading with is garbage, and so much of it becomes, it's not like how convincing their reading is. For me, it was always a rhythm thing. It was like they just aren't listening. And so the rhythm gets completely screwed up. And it's like,Michael Jamin:I always feel for actors when they have to do this, you have a crappy sketching director. It's like, well, what so hard.Chris Gorham:Or you look up and the casting director's like on the phone,Michael Jamin:That's even worse. EatingChris Gorham:Lunch and not this.Michael Jamin:If you prepared a scene and in this moment you're going to be hot, you're going to be yelling, and the casting director is not giving you enough for you to get angry at. So you're saying you just go ahead and do it the way you prepared, even though if the scene, but then it looks like you're almost looks like you're crazy. You're getting angry and the cast director's at the lunch. It's just something you got to deal withChris Gorham:Because that's the scene. And they're probably, even when you were in the office, usually they were recording it. Right. So all they're going to see is your side.Michael Jamin:Okay.Chris Gorham:So you have to doMichael Jamin:That's good advice.Chris Gorham:Yeah.Michael Jamin:I remember, this is years ago, we did a scene. We had this very famous actress. Actress. She was older, and we booked her and she came for the role and it was exciting to have her on set. She was very famous, but she should not be working. Her agent should not have booked her because I'veChris Gorham:Had an experienceMichael Jamin:Like that too. Really? So maybe she had dementia. I felt terrible because she clearly had dementia or early signs of dementia, so she literally couldn't remember one line. So you'd feed her the line, and even still, she couldn't remember it half a second later. And I just felt she, I didn't know what to do. I was like, she's struggling here. She's probably feels very embarrassed, very lost. Very, why did her agent send her out for this book? Maybe because she needed the insurance. I don't know. But it was a horrible situation. I felt bad all around.Chris Gorham:I've worked with an actress who a very similar situation, and they went to cue cards and they just did it line by line.Michael Jamin:Even with QI wanted to bring in cue cards. The director said, I don't want to bring q. I was like, what are you doing, dude? This is awful. I lost that fight. I thought we needed cue cards. They justChris Gorham:Shot her side line by line, and then I just did my side to an X.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting. That's one of the realities of being on a TV show.Chris Gorham:Totally. And it's one of the, but also why it's so important to not to get, just to do, at the end of the day, be responsible for your performance and make sure that you're giving the best performance that you can give and you can't control the other stuff that's happening. And then as an actor, then trust your director and your camera operators and your review that they're going to take care of you as best that they can and your editor. But it doesn't behoove anyone to make you look like an idiot unless you're supposed to look like an idiot. Right,Michael Jamin:Right.Chris Gorham:Everyone wants to make the show. Great.Michael Jamin:Are your kids getting into acting or have they expressed any No. You said with relief. No, not in the arts at all.Chris Gorham:No, no, no, not at all.Michael Jamin:Your wife was an actor. I mean, I'm, yeah, I'm surprised that there's not that pull.Chris Gorham:Well, my oldest son is autistic. He finished high school and now he's got a part-time job like pharmacy down the street. He's doing well, and his younger brother is studying business, wants to go into real estate. Oh, good. It's like, okay.Michael Jamin:Yeah, thank God.Chris Gorham:Yeah. And then our youngest loves to sing, has a beautiful singing voice. But yeah, no, he isn't really interestedMichael Jamin:GoingChris Gorham:Into the business, which is fine. We've never put any pressure onMichael Jamin:Them. Well, sure.Chris Gorham:And had they had a passion for it, we would be supportive, but it's just not, their heartsMichael Jamin:Taken them. It's funny. I'm sure they've come to set with you seen you do it. Yeah.Chris Gorham:Yeah. They think it's boring. They're like, this is so boring.Michael Jamin:It is boring. There's a lot of boring on a set. I don't know if,Chris Gorham:Yeah, it's super boring. They've never watching things with me in it because it's weird to see your dad not being your dad. Also, another thing, thinking about it, having just talked about Stacy Linker a little bit ago, I think part of the reason they don't like going to set is because it set. I am the star and not them. SoMichael Jamin:Oh, interesting.Chris Gorham:That doesn't feel great either. It's way better at home.Michael Jamin:What is it like for you though, when you're out in public? And fame to me is, so how do you experience fame when someone comes up to you and they think they know you and they want a piece of you? What does that do to you?Chris Gorham:Well, I've been really lucky, I feel like, because kind of been able to walk the line where I've experienced being famous enough to have the paparazzi jump out and want to take my picture and talk to me.Michael Jamin:That's a lot. That's a level of fame I don't think anybody would want to have,Chris Gorham:But never to the point where it really got in the way. It was just a few. There were some moments in my career where I was famous enough that the paparazzi knew who I was and would take my picture, but never famous enough that it reallyMichael Jamin:BotheredChris Gorham:You, caused problems. Never famous enough where I needed security. Never famous enough where it got really inconvenient.Michael Jamin:But let's just say you're at a restaurant and someone wants to come up, they want to talk to you, they autographed, they want to meet you.Chris Gorham:Most of the time people get it. I'm usually out with my kids and my wife, so they understand if they're coming up and I'm with my wife and kids, that it's a little awkward for them to ask me to stop dinner with my family to talk pictures or take. So that doesn't really happenMichael Jamin:Now. Oh, that's good. I mean, Brad, I could see your family being like, oh God, we're trying to have a night. We're trying to be together.Chris Gorham:There's been moments like that, especially for the kids. Anelle it, it's always been fun. Early in my career, it was weird because we were on a show and we couldn't go to malls because kids would chase us around malls in the very beginning. But then as you get older, that happens less and less. And then it's just been, sometimes it's surprising. My kids forget for a while. We'll go a while without getting recognized at all. And then weirdly, in Chicago, weirdly, I think the last show that I was on must have lots of people watched it in Chicago. And so suddenly, anytime I'm in Chicago, I'm recognized all the time. And so It's like my kids remember. Oh, right. Dad's on tv.Michael Jamin:That's soChris Gorham:Funny. Funny. When Ethan was starting high school was when a very popular show with the high school kids had just premiered. And that was actually really difficult for him. We've talked about it since. He didn't really reveal how hard it was for him, but last year we were talking about it and he was kind of opening up and said, yeah, no, it sucked. It wasn't great.Michael Jamin:Really?Chris Gorham:You were doing that show while I was starting high school and so everyone knew who I was and everyoneMichael Jamin:Knew who all his friends and all the kids. Yeah. It's hard for a kid and itChris Gorham:Was embarrassing.Michael Jamin:Yes, it was. They were embarrassed that you were their dad.Chris Gorham:Yeah. Really? It was super embarrassing. Yeah. Well, because of what that show, because of my character on the show for high school kids, just, it was a lot. I was physically quite exposed on that show and so yeah, it was a lot. It a lot.Michael Jamin:Oh wow. We did a show with these two guys link and these were big YouTubers and they were huge. And I hadn't heard of them. I didn't know them. And then remember we'd go for the meeting and one of them said to me, you wouldn't believe this, but I can't go to Disneyland without being swarmed. That was his crowd. He's like, I know you've never seen me before, but I can't go there without being swarmed.Chris Gorham:Yeah.Michael Jamin:It's so funny. Yeah,Chris Gorham:It's wild. Yeah. That was,Michael Jamin:It's interesting that this, go ahead, please.Chris Gorham:No, no, no, no. It was just a dumb Disneyland story. Go ahead.Michael Jamin:No.Chris Gorham:Well, the dumb Disneyland story was, there was a period in my career where working on a certain show where we could not only go to Disneyland for free, but also were given the guide and the behind we were taking care of at Disneyland, like a celebrity, which was funny because it was so, we did it a couple times, but I think even just the second time we went to Disney Disneyland, that way, it's too much. Honestly. It sounds great, and it's great the first time to be able to skip all the lines, you know what I mean? But after that, it's like, oh, there's actually way less to do at Disneyland than you think when you don't have to wait in line for anything.Michael Jamin:That's so funny. You kindChris Gorham:Of finish it all in four hours and then you're like, oh,Michael Jamin:Now what? Now what?Chris Gorham:Again?Michael Jamin:That's so funny. Yeah.Chris Gorham:Yeah.Michael Jamin:I'm always curious, I am always curious about how people experience I'm around you guys and how you guys experience fame and what is it like that parasocial relationship where people think they know you and they don't. They just know this part of you.Chris Gorham:It's different for everybody.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I always feel like it must be like, am I giving you what? When someone comes up to you, is there that thought in your head? Where am I giving you what you wanted? You just met me. Am I giving you what you wanted? Because I don't know what you wanted and am I who you wanted me to be for five minutes? Oh, that's funny.Chris Gorham:I don't think about it that way. I've just tried to be kind to people just, I just try to be kind. Just be kind. That's all. That's really all I'm thinking about is just because, listen, it could be worse. It's not terrible for people to be happy to see you generally.Michael Jamin:Right.Chris Gorham:That's not terrible. That's kind of nice. Can it be inconvenient? Sorry.Michael Jamin:Well, I saw a clip of Eve who played Jan Brady, right. And she was on the talk show. This clip was probably 30 years old or whatever, and someone in the audience said, can you just do it? Can you just say it? Can you say it right? And she's like, we knew what you wanted. We knew everyone knew. She wanted her to say, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. And she was like, I'm not going to say it. I won't say it, and why not? And everyone was so disappointed, and I felt for her. I was like, because she doesn't want to be your performing monkey now. And that was when she was 10.Chris Gorham:Well, that's the thing too. It's like is a one you can be kind and say no.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Chris Gorham:Right. Just being kind doesn't mean you're going to say yes to every request,Michael Jamin:But that sounds like something you've maybe had a long conversation with a therapist to come to that conversation. Really? Yeah. That's something I would struggle with. Someone would say, you know, could be kind still say, no, am I allowed to? But you're saying you came to this realization on your own.Chris Gorham:I dunno. I don't know. Listen, I do see a therapist, and so maybe I don't remember having a breakthrough about that specifically, but certainly walking things through with a therapist can only help. Also, I think being a dad helps with that because in parenting, so much of the job is saying no. And that can be really hard sometimes, certainly for some people, but it's an important part of the job.Michael Jamin:Talk about how important do you think it is, and for you to either, okay. As a writer, I think it's very important to spend at least some amount of time in therapy because if you don't know yourself, how could you possibly know another character? And I wonder if you feel the same way. Same thing about acting.Chris Gorham:Oh, I've never thought about it that way.Michael Jamin:Really?Chris Gorham:Yeah. Yeah. No, I never thought about that way. But it certainly can be helpful. I mean, for the same reason. It just, it's spending that time thinking about, and sometimes it's taking that hour just thinking about the whys of things. You spend so much of your days reacting to everything and taking the time to go, okay, why did this lead to this? Why did I do that when this happened to me? And as a person, it's going to help you stay more regulated and be just healthier in life. But also, yeah, for sure. There's going to be moments when you're going to be able to understand a character brother, because you've maybe put some thought into why people doMichael Jamin:These things, why people do. Yeah.Chris Gorham:I been, one of the things I've

On this week's episode, I have from the Youtube channel "Tasting History", Max Miller. Tune in as we about the origins of what made him start this channel as well as his New York Times best-selling cookbook "Tasting History: Explore the Past through 4,000 Years of Recipes (A Cookbook)." We also dive into the complications of trying to be successful on all forms of social media.Show NotesMax Miller on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tastinghistorywithmaxmiller/Max Miller on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tastinghistoryMax Miller on YouTube:  @TastingHistory Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMax Miller:A lot of people are like, this feels like an old PBS show. Yeah,Michael Jamin:It's classier. Yeah,Max Miller:It is classier. And so I'm like, I don't think the thumbnail where I'm on there going, would, you're not going to, because the video is not going to deliver on that. That's not what the video is. And so then it is clickbait, and I hate thatMichael Jamin:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to another episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, today I'm talking about as always, people who are doing creative things who have invented themselves creatively. And so my next guest has done just that. He's tasting history with Max Miller. He is the host, and tasting history is a really interesting channel. Well, actually I'll get to it, but he's got 2 million subscribers, which is gigantic on YouTube. So Max, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me.Max Miller:Thank you for having me. Excited.Michael Jamin:I am so inspired by what you're doing. So basically your show, for those who don't know, it's a cooking show, but it's also, he talks about it's historical cooking, so what they made in ancient Greece or whatever, or what prisoners ate, whatever. And so it's also, it's cooking, but it's also educational, which I find it's such an interesting little niche you have, and yet it's blown up.Max Miller:Yeah, it's crazy. I actually always say I have a history show where I cook because it's really to focus more on the history than anything else. Well, tell me, howMichael Jamin:Did this all start?Max Miller:It started, well, it kind of started with a great British bakeoff. When that show first came out, actually before it even came out here in the us, I got obsessed with it and started baking everything that they had on it, and that's really how I learned how to bake. But they would always talk about the history of the dishes that they were baking. They don't do that anymore. And so I would bring my baked goods into work. I was working at Disney, the movie studio at the time, and I would bring in the baked goods and tell all of my coworkers a little bit about the history. And then one of my coworkers was like, you know what? Go tell someone else. These little anecdotes, put it up on YouTube, find an audience. And so that's what I did. Wait, were youMichael Jamin:Trying to pitch it to Disney? Is that why?Max Miller:No, no. It was more that I just needed something creative to do my job at Disney. I loved it, but it wasn't super creative, at least not my creative thing. I was creating stuff for other people.Michael Jamin:What were you doing then at Disney?Max Miller:I had been working in marketing, so I had worked on the trailers and stuff like that. And then in the months before the pandemic, really, I was working in sales, selling our movies to the theaters, which was actually a lot of fun and challenging, but not super creative in the way that I like to be.Michael Jamin:But tell me, so you're not familiar, you moved to LA for what reason thenMax Miller:To do voiceoverMichael Jamin:To be a voiceover actor?Max Miller:Yeah, I had been in New York doing musical theater for eight years, and New York is exhausting. And I decided, you know what? I need a slower pace of life. So I moved out here and I had a few friends out here and I wanted to do voiceover. I was always much more comfortable behind a mic than I was on stage or in front of a camera. And so I was like, okay, animation, that's the way to go. And so I did that for a little while. Did youMichael Jamin:Have much success at it?Max Miller:It's funny you ask. So in animation, no. I did a few little things and in commercial, couple little things, but where I ended up getting a lot of work was in audio books because I have the voice of, especially then of a 16-year-old boy. And so I was doing a lot of YA audio books. Interesting.Michael Jamin:See, this is so interesting. Okay, so you were an actor trying to get even more acting gigs and you must have become alright. It's good that you made some money doing voiceover for books, but it doesn't sound like you were as accomplished as you wanted to be. Is that right?Max Miller:Yeah, no, I mean, I always had to be working at a restaurant or I started temping at Disney, and then that just turned into a full-time job. But yeah, I never made a full living for more than six months at a time. I always had to call back.Michael Jamin:So you were, as I talk about this a lot, actors and writers the same thing. Help me get in the door, help me do the, everyone's always begging for an opportunity. Get me in, please let me, and then I guess at some point you just decided, I'm tired of asking. I'm just going to do something that I want to do. And this is what happens when you put energy into something, you created your own little thing and you blew up.Max Miller:Yeah, no, I mean that's the amazing thing about YouTube and TikTok and Instagram. You couldn't do this 15, 20 years ago, or at least you could do it. It was just nobody would have a place to watch you do it. Now, it's not easy, but it's available. It's an option.Michael Jamin:From what I see your show, everyone should again check it out. Tasting history with Max Miller, it seems like it's really well produced and it seems like this is a TV show, but it's free on the internet. That's what I see when I look at it.Max Miller:Well, thank you. All I notice is, oh, my lighting this week was terrible or, oh God, there's a typo on the screen. I only notice all the mistakes that I make. ButMichael Jamin:Do you shoot this? It's in chat in the kitchen. Is the kitchen in your house?Max Miller:Yep.Michael Jamin:It's your kitchen and it's lit. Do you have a team helping you or you doing this all your own on your own?Max Miller:It's all me. YouMichael Jamin:Have no one helping you.Max Miller:I don't want to say no one helps me because my husband does the subtitles and he reads all the scripts beforehand to make sure that it's coherent, because once in a while I'll say something and he's like, what is this? And I'm like, everyone knows what that is. And he's like, no, everyone doesn't. So then I fix up. What aboutMichael Jamin:Editing and stuff?Max Miller:So I just in the last couple months brought on someone to help me with some of the editing. I still end up doing all the images and a lot of that, but she's fantastic and has cut down the major part of the editing for me because that was, I mean, I would spend 15 hours, 12 to 15 hours each episode just editing. And now it's maybe four. AMichael Jamin:Lot of that. Now you use a lot of time, I imagine, to research and to prep and to practice these recipes you're doing. Is that right?Max Miller:Yeah, research is definitely the most intensive part. It's also my favorite part though. It's probably depending on the episode, anywhere from 12 to 20 hours of research and then kind of crafting the script.Michael Jamin:So this is your full-time job now? This is how you make your living?Max Miller:Yes.Michael Jamin:Fantastic. It'sMax Miller:More hours than I've ever worked in my life,Michael Jamin:But I mean, you're great at it. You're great on camera. The content is very interesting, very engaging. Sometimes you take it in the field, which is a great write off. It's an excuse to get out of the house and shoot something on the field, which is great. Exactly. Have other opportunities come from this unexpected opportunities maybe?Max Miller:Yes, absolutely. One I'm not actually allowed to talk about, but it'll be something on the standard actual television, so that's exciting. And then the other is I wrote a cookbook, and that has done immensely well. It was on the New York Times bestseller list, which was something I never really expected that I would be on.Michael Jamin:Did they reach out to you? Did a publisher reach out to you or did youMax Miller:Yeah, they reached out to me shortly after I started the channel. Actually, I think it was about six months in. It was somebody who had watched my Garam episode and said, we would love to do this as a book. And it ended up being kind of rough because she was super excited about the project and she knew the channel, and then she got laid off. So I got transferred to another editor who has been absolutely great, but he didn't really know what to do with me. He did cookbooks. And I was like, well, this is a history book with recipes in it. And he's like, okay. So it took a little time to kind of figure out exactly what we were doing, but it ended up working out. ButMichael Jamin:This is interesting because most people will approach a publisher, please, I got a book by my, but when you build it yourself, it's the other way around, and it's just so much make them come to you, and it's because you put the work in first. And how big was your channel when they first reached out to you?Max Miller:Not huge. Maybe in the 200 to 250,000 subscriber, which is actually really big, but not where I am now.Michael Jamin:What was the first video that you blew up on? What was that?Max Miller:Rum? So I started the channel the last week of February, and this was, I think the third week of June. That's fast. It wasn't that long after starting. It was because it was covid and nobody had anything to do, but watch YouTube videos. I had been getting a few thousand views on my videos, which I thought was stellar. This really wasn't supposed to be a thing. And then within a week it was at almost a million views, and I had jumped from 10,000 subscribers to 150,000 in a week.Michael Jamin:Wow. Wow. Now, I guess you can't talk about, obviously you can't this project, this network project, but what about acting opportunities and I mean, you're a face now, you're this guy, people know.Max Miller:Yeah, I mean, when it comes to acting opportunities, everything right now is acting myself. And I'm sure that if I went out and auditioned, maybe I could get something, but I don't have time.Michael Jamin:Time.Max Miller:This is what it is. And really at this point, if I did something acting wise, I'd probably want to go back to musical theater, which was my first love and do some shows. But wow,Michael Jamin:I wouldn't roll that out. I mean, you keep on building your audience and I certainly would not roll that out. I mean, what is fame? Are you getting recognized now or what's it like for you?Max Miller:I am. I actually just got recognized at Costco today. Really? Yeah. It's funny. I get recognized very seldom here in Los Angeles because I think everyone sees people out all the time. But whenever I go anywhere else, I always get, which is pretty awesome. Even in Greece, really? In Greece, I recognized every day in Greece by people who watched this one video when I did this Spartan blood broth video. Everyone in Greece, I swear, has seen that video. So that's how they all knew me. I wonder if it's awesome.Michael Jamin:I wonder if fame for people like you is different than movie actors or TV actors in the sense that you're this friend that they watch on the Or what do you thinkMax Miller:It is more of that? I mean, I don't know what it's like for Beyonce, but I know for me, I do get a lot of people who it is, we already have a relationship and that we're good friends because we hang out for 20 minutes every Tuesday.Michael Jamin:But not only that, they're probably looking you on their phone, which is this, it's not even the TV mean to me that famous is such an interesting thing. I worked with obviously a lot of actors, but they create, when you're an actor, it's the character that they know. And sometimes they have a hard time differentiating between you and the villain that you play. It's like, that's not me. But with you, it's different. I think it must be very different. You're a friend, I think, right?Max Miller:And I mean, in the show, that's me. I'm not playing character at all. It's just this is how I am. And so it does create a bond. I guess you do get to know. It is so much more about the creator. There are other people who have maybe started to kind of do what I do or that were already kind of doing what I do slightly differently. I'm not the first person to cook historical food by any means, but I'm me doing it and they are them doing it. And so it will always be different. People are like, oh, they're coming for you. No, there's so much room for everyone because everyone is an individual. And b, Dylan Hollis approaches historic food in a very different way. I don't know if you know him, but he's on TikTok. He's huge. He's fantastic. He has a great cookbook out, but his personality is his personality, and mine is mine. And even if we covered the exact same topic, it would be done in such a different way.Michael Jamin:Was there ever any imposter syndrome on your end? I didn't go to culinary school. I'm not a this or thatMax Miller:Every day. I mean, the fact that I have a cookbook out is insane. Yeah, no, there is both on the cooking end of things and the history end of things, because I'm not a trained historian either, really. The show is just me reading things that I thought were interesting and me fumbling my way through the kitchen until I come up with something that I think was what the recipe was trying to get at.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, a lot of times these recipes as I look at 'em, they just say what the ingredients are. They don't say the proportions. They certainly don't say the temperature was cooked at if it was cooked in middle Ages. And so you're just going by what you think it should be.Max Miller:Yeah. They're all vague sometimes to the degree of, you can't even tell if this is a bread or a soup, kind of vague. But with context clues, you can't just read the recipe. You have to read other things usually in the cookbooks or other cookbooks from the time. And then leaning on other historians and scholars who have done work for years and years, you're kind of able to make an educated guess on a lot of things. But that's all it's ever going to be.Michael Jamin:But can you tell me how food dishes have changed over the centuries? Are we using way more sugar now or something?Max Miller:Oh yeah. Yeah. And I mean, partly because our pallets have just changed in a way, at least here in the United States, but also because it's so much cheaper. In the Middle Ages, they loved sugar, but it was being grown in Indonesia or India, and so it had to come a long way. And then it had to be refined to become white sugar, which was an incredibly lengthy process and incredibly expensive and really only done in one or two places in the world. So a little bit of sugar was like it was buying a Lamborghini and showing off your wealth. So most people didn't get it. Whereas then you get to the 18th century and all the poor people are putting sugar in their tea. Oh, really? And so the rich people were like, we don't want that in our food anymore. We're going to go with fresh ingredients instead.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? Really? Yeah. How interesting. And then that's another thing, processed food is so relatively new and obviously, was there any kind of version of processed food historically before modern age?Max Miller:I guess it depends on what you mean by processed.Michael Jamin:I don't know. Something that was, I don't know. What does it mean to be processed?Max Miller:If you take corn and make it into cornmeal and mix Alize it, which is a laborious process that needs lie, and you're boiling it and then grinding it in a certain way, the Aztecs did that. So it's been done and far before them thousands of years. So that's a process. Making sugar into white sugar is a lengthy process, but that's been done for hundreds of years. Well, no, thousands of years. So is it a Stouffer's microwave meal? No, but we have had processed food for forever. It's just a different process.Michael Jamin:What do you think when you cook it? I imagine the biggest problem, this is why a cooking show will never work. This is why I'm an executive. No, this is why it'll never work, is because people can't taste it. And yet obviously it does work. And so how do you get over that hurdle when you're done with a dish?Max Miller:I mean, I think honestly, visually, people aren't able to kind of feel like they know what something tastes like just by knowing all the ingredients that are in it and then seeing it visually, whether that is correct or not to say, but that doesn't mean that the enjoyment isn't still there. And then I taste it at the end of the episode, and I try my best to describe it, but my descriptions skills are not the best, especially on the fly, because usually when I'm tasting something on camera, it is the first time that I've ever tasted it. I only make the recipes once. So unless something goes horribly wrong, it's the first time that I've tasted it. And so right then coming up with words of how to describe it, I'm not the best. It's something I'm working on, but it doesn't seem to harm things.Michael Jamin:But I'm a little surprised when you say it's you alone in the kitchen. You have a couple of cameras, you turn 'em on, you hope they're in focus, and you run in front of the camera. I'm surprised you don't have a director, I don't know, giving you, helping you more joy on your face or something.Max Miller:So it's funny you say that. Every Jose, my husband focuses the camera right before I shoot to make sure I'm in focus, because so many times I've filmed an entire thing and I'm not, so he focuses the camera hits record and then says high energy, and then leaves the room. And so that's the direction that I get at the beginning, high energy. And often in my script, I will write in more energy, more energy, just because you do need a lot of energy on camera to come through. YouMichael Jamin:Do. People don't realize thatMax Miller:When you're really just being yourself on camera, it comes across as super flat.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's a heightened version ofMax Miller:Yourself, have to remind myself.Michael Jamin:Right. And so actually, I had a lot of thoughts about that, but I wonder if this is an opportunity for you to do even, I don't know, like a live show, I don't know, cooking. I don't know. Is there something like that that you're thinking about exploring orMax Miller:So yeah, I actually have thought about doing live shows simply because one of my favorite things to do is meet people who watch the show. It's a very insular kind of life. I work alone. I do everything pretty much all at home alone. So meeting people who watch the show has been really exciting. And on book tour, I got to do that really for the first time. And so I think doing a live thing where I cook and talk about the history would be great. The only thing is I am a really messy and slow cook. I'm not Julia Child who used to do it all live every week. I couldn't do that. SoMichael Jamin:You have two versions. You got the messy version. And oh, by the way, I did this earlier. Here's the real version. I mean, I think people would know that would be kind. You know what I'm saying? They don't understand.Max Miller:Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.Michael Jamin:You don't know. Is it hard for you when you watch your video, I guess when you're editing, you watch everything, but now that you're not editing it, what's it like for you even watching yourselfMax Miller:Really once it's out,I never watch 'em again. And it's not necessarily that I find it hard to watch myself. What I find hard is when I do go back and watch older videos, it pains me to see, I'm proud of how far I've come, but it pains me that I was ever not where I am now. And that comes with the technical aspects, the lighting, the sound, all of that. But really more than anything, it's my script. Writing has just become so much tighter. How I go in depth on the history has really changed. So eventually I want to go back to some of the earlier topics that I talked about and redo them because I'm like, I talked about the history for three minutes. I've got 20 minutes of content to do. So peopleMichael Jamin:Don't realize that sometimes they think they're afraid of putting themselves out there because they're going to suck and you are going to suck. That's why you keep doing going to, yeah. Oh, it came in my head and just lost it. Oh, I know what I was going to say. Do you feel this pressure, I mean, you do one a week, right?Max Miller:Usually once in a while I'll do two, but usually once a week.Michael Jamin:Do you feel this incredible? It never ends. It never ends. Is that a burden? Is that something you struggle with or no?Max Miller:Yeah. Yeah, it is. Because it is. Every weekend people are like, well, you could take a week off, but one YouTube does not. They say they don't mind that, but they do. The algorithm does. And two, for me, I feel like it's going to be like the gym. If I take one day off of the gym, I'm probably going to take two days off, and that'll be a week. And I think if I miss one episode, I'll be like, oh, well, I'll do that again next month. So every Tuesday, I can't think too, too far ahead because it does get kind of daunting. It's like, oh my gosh, when will I run out of ideas? And when I go on vacation or take a trip somewhere, getting those videos ready ahead of time, my friends, and they don't see me for weeks at a time because I'm working from 7:00 AM until 9:00 PM seven days a week for the two weeks before I go on vacation.Michael Jamin:It's that much work. Really. Yeah,Max Miller:It is. I work probably 10 hours a day with breaks of petting the cats and going to get lunch. But it's all day and it's pretty much seven days a week in some respect. Even if I'm not working on an episode per se, I'm coming up with ideas for other things. I'm going through my emails. It takes me months to respond to an email or going on Instagram and cleaning up that and Facebook. There's just so many different aspects to it that there is no time that I'm not somewhat in tasting history mode.Michael Jamin:When you say cleaning up Instagram, what does that mean?Max Miller:Going through comments, going through messages.Michael Jamin:Now I'm going to get to the real stuff. So when you say going through comments, is any of it haters? Are you dealing with any haters?Max Miller:Very rarely. I have a really positive audience, but they come along and there's a fair share of well actually going on. And I think anytime that you share facts of any kind, you're going to get that because especially with history, there's so much up for debate. There's so much vagueness in history that you can't ever please everyone. Do youMichael Jamin:Respond to them? How do you treat it?Max Miller:Once in a while, I will. If they're polite, then I will. If they're not, then I don't, because usually it's like, well, they're having a bad day. You know what? I've watched your channelMichael Jamin:That's asking, that's why I want to know how you do it. Because it's hard.Max Miller:It is really hard. And when I first started, a mean comment would ruin my week. I would dwell on it. I get a thousand good comments and get one bad one, and it just all week. And I'm like, should I change how I do my entire show based on this one person's opinion? Maybe now it ruins my hour, and then I usually forget about it.Michael Jamin:Do you leave it there? Or, oh, go ahead, please.Max Miller:So sometimes I do, but a lot of times I don't, especially it, it's really just mean. Or if there's any kind of racism, homophobia or anything like that, which does happen, I get rid of it. But if it's more of just a critique of any kind, I'll usually leave it.Michael Jamin:Do you block these people or No,Max Miller:I only block people if they are being truly vile. I don't need them in my audience. I also have a secret weapon, and that is my husband who actually does go through all of the comments and gets rid of most of the mean ones before I can ever see them.Michael Jamin:But he doesn't respond. He doesn't engage, or does heMax Miller:Not with the mean one. No. He just gets rid of 'em. He engages with the positive.Michael Jamin:Right. People don't realize it. I mean, it really is. It's one of these weird things where you have a voice, you now have a platform, you have a voice, but in many ways, you can't use it. You can't respond it. It's just that you just can't, can't.Max Miller:It's never going to do any benefit. Really though there have been times where I have responded, and especially if somebody tries to correct me, and I'm not always right. I've made mistakes. That's just the nature of putting stuff out there. But if I know I'm correct and they try to correct me, I'll respond and say, Hey, actually they did have sugar in the middle ages. And very often, even if it's a nasty worded comment, they will follow up being uber apologetic and like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I don't know why I came across that way because most people, and myself included, when you're on your phone or whatever, whatever crap comes to your brain goes onto the phone and it's gone. And then you don't think about it anymore. But when I get it, it's all I think about.Michael Jamin:But I disagree with you. I'm guessing the fact that you've been doing this so long with your channel, I bet you don't leave any kind of comments that are even remotely negative now.Max Miller:No. No. I do not. What comes, but sometimes when I'm responding to comments, I don't necessarily even think about the response. And it's not that I'm responding in a negative way or mean, it's just I will respond to 10 comments and realize I was on autopilot. I wasn't even really reading necessarily what, and so I got to take a second and be like, they took time to comment. I'm going to take time to read it and respond. Granted, I only respond to maybe 1% of the comments, but those comments,Michael Jamin:Isn'tMax Miller:That interesting? I try to actually respond.Michael Jamin:I'm curious to how you think this whole thing, and it hasn't been that long. It's only been, what, two or three years your channel has been up?Max Miller:It'll be four in February.Michael Jamin:Four. Okay. Wow. Okay. So how do you think it's changed you as a person?Max Miller:I've always had a good work ethic, but now it is a little just, I have a very good work ethic. I don't want to call myself a workaholic. I do take breaks to play with Lego and stuff, but I really hold my, because nobody else is going to hold me accountable. So I just have to really hold myself accountable. This is not the first creative endeavor I've tried. I worked on a book for a while. I worked in animation, making my own cartoons for a while. I was doing all this other stuff, and once it didn't work out or whatever, I'd get frustrated and I'd stop doing it. This is the only one that I've stuck with no matter what. It's just like you got to put out the work. Even if I get to sit down in my computer one day, and this happens every week and I have no ideas, and I'm looking at a blank page, and I'm like, I don't know what next week's episode is going to be. I just sit there until it comes to me. And that is not how I was when I worked on some of my other projects. It was like, if it doesn't come easily, I quit.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Are the animations the yours then, in your show? Do you do all that then?Max Miller:Yeah. I mean by animations. Well, I don't know the words coming up on screen. Well,Michael Jamin:I thought I saw other stuff, but no. Why are you not adding animation then?Max Miller:So there are two things that I didn't animate. So when the show first started, I animated the opening segment and the time for history, little interstitial. But a couple of years ago, I hired someone to do a better job, and so they did those. I don't do the animations because animation takes, it takes forever. And really, my most valuable commodity now is my time. And so if there's any way to make stuff go faster and keep it quality, I'll do it.Michael Jamin:Now, that's an interesting question because there are ways that you could do this with less quality, but you're not tempted to do it.Max Miller:I don't want to say I'm not tempted, but I haven't, and I don't think I will. I'm often tempted, I think that I could find editors to find images for me, I have tried. It's been far less quality. I've hired people to help with scripts, and it just hasn't worked out. And I don't want to say I'm the best. I'm the only one that can do this. I know that's not the case. I'm sure that other people could do it. It's I'm not great at, I'm not great at giving up control because it's my thing and I know exactly how I want it to be. And could I get out more episodes if I gave up that control? Yeah, probably. But it's doing so well, I guess I don't need it to, I'm fine having one channel and having it do as it's doing. People are like, well, you should be doing this project and this, and you would have time to do this. And I'm like, yeah, I would. But I like what I'm doing. I'm really enjoying my life right now. SoMichael Jamin:Was it hard for you to quit your job and to do this full time?Max Miller:So I didn't have much of a choice, so I can't say that it was hard because I started the channel in the last week of February, 2020, and I was selling movies to movie theaters.Michael Jamin:Okay.Max Miller:So by the second week of March, I no longer had a job. I was technically still employed by Disney, and they continued to pay for my insurance and everything. By the time they said, Hey, do you want to come back? It was April of 2021, and the channel had taken off. And so I was like, Nope, I'm going to do this. It's not a sure thing, but my husband was still working for Disney, and so it's not like we would starve if I failed. So I mean, it was a hard decision in as much as I loved my job at Disney and I really missed the people that I worked with. I still miss people. I miss having coworkers. But when it came to, I knew that this was going to work. You did? I just did. Well, itMichael Jamin:Kind of already was though. I mean, that's the thing.Max Miller:Yeah, no, it kind of already was. And I think I knew that I had a list of hundreds of ideas ready to go, and I knew that I was getting better. And so I thought, well, if I've gotten this much better in a year, I'm going to get a lot better in another year, in two years. So,Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content, and I know you do because listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com/. And now back to what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?What about collaborations with people? Is that something you do? I didn't notice any.Max Miller:I've done a, I have a couple actually coming up that I'm doing. I don't do that many, partly because like,Michael Jamin:Hey, look, who's in my kitchen this week?Max Miller:Yeah, I think I watched one of your episodes in the last couple of weeks was with someone, young guy on TikTok who said, collaborations are the way to grow. That's not the case with my kind of channel. To a degree, it can, but that's just not, with YouTube. It's not as important anymore. It used to be, but not as much anymore. But also it's a lot more work.Michael Jamin:Oh, is it? Why?Max Miller:Well, from a technical aspect, I have trouble setting up one microphone alone, two microphones. I have trouble. I film in my kitchen. I know where everything is going to be. So if ever I have to film in any other location, it's a nightmare. And you have to, when I'm writing a script, I'm writing it for me. So when I bring in a second voice and I don't know what they're going to say and everything, it's so much harder. Nothing in my show is off the cuff. I have scripted it down almost to the word. Are you on a teleprompter then? No. So when I'm speaking, it is somewhat off the cuff. It's not word for word what's on the script, but I write out the script word for word. I'll read a paragraph, I'll remember it, and then I'll regurgitate it to the camera. But changing the words ever so slightly, so it comes across as if it's the first time I'm saying it. But no, I'm not on a teleprompter. I don't think I could be. I don't know that it would come across as realMichael Jamin:For me. Are you doing multiple takes then, or what, or no? MultipleMax Miller:Takes many. Many takes many. Yeah. Especially because I do trip over my words and everything. There are often times a lot of foreign words and complicated names and dates and everything. So I'm always kind of having to look down at the script to remember what I'm saying. And that is what my new editor is editing out. I'll give her an hour and 20 minutes that needs to be cut down into 18 minutes because of all of the mistakes that I've made. And thenMichael Jamin:You'll give her notes on that cut and use a different take, or No.Max Miller:So usually whatever the last take I took is the take that I want. Once I've got it right, I'll move on. And she has my down really, really well. So there are very few comments that I have to give her, and she's super fast, so she turns it around literally three times faster than I ever could. It's pretty astonishing. So it's so far, it's been a great help.Michael Jamin:It's so interesting because like I said, it really looks like, I'm surprised that you said you're the only one. It looks like a TV show. It looks like there's a bunch of people helping you out. And so are you monetizing mostly through ads on YouTube or it's selling your cookbook? Do you do that?Max Miller:Yeah, I mean, ads is definitely the number one spot for me. And then I have cookbook, I do sponsorships. I have a Patreon. Oh, IMichael Jamin:Saw that. That's right. The Patreon, which is so, it's so interesting. Now. That's the problem with Patreon. You have to think of additional bonus content that you charge people for that you're not putting in your show, and yet you're putting so much in your show. What's bonus?Max Miller:So there isn't a lot of bonus content on my patron because everything does go, luckily, my patrons, they know how much is going into each episode, so they know that I don't really have time. What's the advantage there? I have other things. The main thing is we do a monthly happy hour, we make a cocktail and we do a Zoom happy hour,Michael Jamin:InterestingMax Miller:People that actually take advantage of it, which is, and I send out little gifts every few months, magnets and stuff that are associated with the show, stickers, things like that. But one thing I do do is with the first cookbook and with, I'm working on a second, they help me with the recipes. So I give them the recipes and they help with the testing. And so we have just a lot of back and forth, and they're just so helpful andMichael Jamin:Oh, wow. So it's moreMax Miller:Of a relationship that grows with the patrons.Michael Jamin:And so you get a handful of people on Zoom and you just chat for an hour or so. And these are basically huge fans. They're just huge fans. That's what they are.Max Miller:And it's cool because when I was on book tour, I would actually get to meet some of them in person. They would live in the towns. When I was in Dallas, we actually did a real happy hour and had 20 patrons get together, and we just all went to a bar and had drinks and hung out. Isn't thisMichael Jamin:Crazy? I mean, isn't this crazy?Max Miller:It's surreal. Surreal. Yeah.Michael Jamin:It's so interesting. And when you put up your page, it's such a creative way to make a living. You didn't know any of this when you started your, you been like, I don't know what I'm doing on page. And then you just figured out what my Paton account was going to be.Max Miller:Yeah, no, I mean, I actually had to have a viewer tell me about Patreon. I didn't know about it. And they were like, you should be doing this. And I was like, oh, okay. And there's been a lot of that. I've actually learned a lot from my viewers. It's interesting. Patrons and non patrons. I say that when people give me critiques, I don't often take 'em, but sometimes I do. Especially early on. There was one person who wrote me an email, and it was really critical. And it was really long it, it was absolutely in the spirit of, I know how you can do this better. ButMichael Jamin:It was also unsolicited.Max Miller:It was unsolicited. I had only been doing it for two months. It broke my heart. It was horrible. And yet, I thank that person so much because everything that person said was spot on, and I put those into practice and it made the show all the better. So even when it's unsolicited, even when it's mean-spirited, he was not at all. But even when it is mean spirited, that doesn't mean that they're wrong. And so sometimes you've got to listen and say, Hey, maybe I can improve in this way. And then sometimes you got to say, screw you. And it's knowing what to take and what not to take. That is honestly the hard part becauseMichael Jamin:How did he know? What was the basis for his expertise when he gave you his opinion?Max Miller:I have no idea. Right. I honestly have no idea. Was he just someone who watched a lot of videos or was he someone who made videos? I kind of feel like he was someone who made videos or was maybe someone who had been in directing or editing, because his advice was very technical. It was stuff that if you had never been involved in being on camera or watching people on camera, you wouldn't know. And then some of it was storytelling. I mean, it was lengthy. I think if I had printed out, it would've been seven or eight pages.Michael Jamin:Interesting.Max Miller:And he was spot on. And I've had plenty of other people be spot on about things. And then sometimes, most of the times they're not, most of the times they don't know what they're talking about. Like I said, they have no expertise or whatever. And then there are times where it's like, yes, you're right. But doing that would either be too expensive or too laborious or all sorts of things. I mean, you get things, people being like, you should redo your kitchen.Michael Jamin:Oh, yeah.Max Miller:Oh, okay.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Thanks.Max Miller:I'm going to be, but not because you told me. Right.Michael Jamin:But if you do, that's going to shut down your chae for a couple months.Max Miller:Yeah, I'm trying to figure that out. I might end up going and filming at all my friends' kitchens. So for two months you'll get an episode in different kitchens.Michael Jamin:That's a good idea. If your friends, they're up for it, butMax Miller:They've allMichael Jamin:Agreed. And would you put them in it too, or no? Too hard?Max Miller:No, probably not. Yeah, it's too hard.Michael Jamin:Okay. It's so interesting when you talk about Patreon, because people have asked me, are you going to do that as well? It just seems like another thing I have to think about and almost another burden I have to worry about. Once a month, I got to worry about once. What else am I going to give people? What am I going to mail people? What magnet it is something to think about. And then I felt like, is this going to be a burden on me? I'm worried about burdens.Max Miller:Yeah, no, I get it. And I think if I was where I'm at today, I probably wouldn't start at Patreon, really, because are you doing it for, you need the income or are you doing it for other reasons? And so that's the question.Michael Jamin:Well, the question is really, and I'm sure you think about this, it's like you're building a fan base. You're building your tribe of people who will support whatever project you do next, whatever. You don't know what your next thing is going to be five years from now. But it's great to have a super fan base and Exactly. And that's kind of, I mean, is that the reason why you have a Patreon? I mean,Max Miller:That's why I have one. And honestly, so when I do get those mean comments, or when I get down on myself and a video doesn't perform well or any reason, I have my Patreon patrons who are there to boost me up and give me, because like, oh, this video didn't do well or whatever. But it's like, but these people support me so much that they are willing to part with their dollars to support me. And it is not just about the money. It is about their fervor. But areMichael Jamin:You checking in with them once? I mean, other than the monthly call, are you checking in with them on a daily basis or what areMax Miller:You No, not daily. I post on there and everything, and I'm trying to get better and nurture that a little bit more. One thing I'm trying to do, especially in the new year, is have more ways to connect without my making more actual content. And that is going to be with the cookbook. And so we're figuring out ways where I can show them a bit more of the behind the scenes ofMichael Jamin:People like that. Do you have a newsletter as well?Max Miller:No, I don't. I'm actually, I'm almost ready to finally hit publish on my website that I've been working on forever and ever. And there'll be a newsletter, a way to sign up, even though there is no newsletter at the moment, because it just comes down to I have no minutes in the day, so I'm always having to choose. It's like, do I want to start a podcast or do I want to work on more videos? Or do I want to do more shorts for YouTube and TikTok and Instagram? I can't do it all. Do I want to write another cookbook? I can't do it all. So I'm having to pick and choose, though. A podcast is something I would like to do in the new year as well.Michael Jamin:And a cooking podcast or no? Or just a new No, what would it be?Max Miller:It would be more history focused. All the history that I can't talk about on the show, because I can't figure out a way to tie it into food. It would be more of that and more conversational, not quite as produced, not as scripted. More telling a story, interviews, talking to other historians, to people who are in it. Episodes where me and my brother who can just talk forever. We each read some history book and then just kevech about it for an hour. So that's what I want to do. And that again, is more about building community, giving people more of that stuff without, it's less about the money and more just about building that audienceMichael Jamin:And hopefully, yeah, so you're doing it the right way, obviously. Who would've thought, I mean, when I look at your two millions subscribers, that's nuts, man. I mean, you understand that. A lot of TV shows that don't get a fraction of that. They don't get a fraction.Max Miller:I was talking to someone recently who has straddled the world of YouTube and television, and YouTube is still, social media rather, is still very much kind of the redheaded stepchild and it's traditional publishing. And traditional TV gets so much more clout, but this is actually where the dollars are, and this is where the community and the fan base is. This is still important, but he was like, do I put in two years of working on a TV show or do I put in two months of working on more YouTube videos? And the end result ends up being pretty much the same. And I own this. Netflix owns this.Michael Jamin:Interesting, because I was talking to a very big YouTuber who I know well a couple of weeks ago, who was pursuing, he's huge on YouTube and was pursuing some TV opportunities. Why am I doing this? It's just for validation. It's not for money, it's not for creativity, it's not for control. It's just for some stupid validation that I'll never get. Anyway. So how am I doing it?Max Miller:It's absolutely true. I mean, it's funny with the cookbook, you don't make a ton of money in cookbook sales unless you're Martha Stewart. But lemme tell you, my parents were far more impressed that I had published a cookbook, really, than my YouTube channel, because there's still a place for it. It is still important, and there is still that kind of legacy media thing about it. And I'm glad I did it because now I have a book that will get to always sit physically on a shelf, even if all digital stuff dies away from Solar Flare, that book will still be on the show.Michael Jamin:Do you have any worry though, because algorithms change every second, people's accounts get shut down. I mean, everything changes in a dime. Is that any concern of yours?Max Miller:I'm always stressing about it because I stress less about the algorithm changing, even though it could absolutely happen and views drop by 90% happens to other channels all the time. Personally, I'm more worried about me burning out and that happening. But I do worry about channel being taken over or faulty copyright claims, and there are ways to combat against that, but even some of the biggest creators have fallen pre to it. And so it's kind of like, I don't know. But yeah, stress about it all the time.Michael Jamin:You do. I mean, obviously the answer is get on your own platform or not be agnostic to platform, but obviously you have ones that do better than others. So what are you going to do about that?Max Miller:Yeah, I mean, obviously YouTube is really where I'm entrenched, but I am trying to make, that's one reason why I'm trying to work on the short form content, get a bigger following on Instagram and TikTok. So if something happens, I can put out a blast and say, Hey, I'm still here. There's just, I don't know.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's not as easy as people think it is, and that's why people give up. And I think that's the good news, because it leaves more space for people like you who don't give up. Yeah,Max Miller:I mean, and the cool thing is everybody, I remember when I started the channel, I watched a lot of videos on how to start a YouTube channel,Michael Jamin:Really.Max Miller:And I remember so many people then were saying, YouTube is saturated. There is no more room. Who's on YouTube is on YouTube, and nobody more can get in. And obviously that's not true. And something, it's like it always grows. It's like the goldfish. It just will grow to fill whatever.Michael Jamin:It's interesting because I've been on YouTube for a long time. I get very little traction on it. On TikTok, I'm pretty big. But YouTube, no one seems to care.Max Miller:Well, and that's the thing on TikTok, I can't usually get people to watch most of my videos. It works on YouTube. I'll have one thing that works really well on Instagram, but not on TikTok and vice versa. So when I say there's no space on YouTube, I think there absolutely is, because there are new channels hitting a million subscribers every day. But there are so many more venues. There is TikTok. There wasn't five years ago, TikTok really was very, very small. And now it's huge. And so there are just always new things coming. So if you put out good content, people I think will watch it is just they got to find it. And that usually is what takes time.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I was talking to Taylor Lorenz who wrote a book on the history of influencers and stuff. There's many people who they prank videos on TikTok or YouTube or whatever, and those poor people burn out real fast because they have to constantly one up themselves, whatever this prank was today, the next one's got to be bigger. And then it's like they're destroying their lives because they have to. But you don't have to do that. You just have to come up with another recipe.Max Miller:I'm lucky in that because, yeah, I was just watching a video where it's like, why is every YouTube video the most we did every blah, blah, blah? It's because it's always, it's the Mr. Beast ification. It's like got to get bigger and bigger and bigger. But as long as there's history that I haven't covered, and there always will be, and food that I haven't covered, and there pretty much always will be. I've got stuff. So I think that before I run out of ideas, I will run out of me. I will burn out before that happens. Or not burn out, but get bored and just not enjoy it anymore. And the moment I don't enjoy it anymore,Michael Jamin:People may not realize that even the thumbnails on YouTube, there's a lot of thought that people put on thumbnails, and usually they're crazy and you don't do that. Your thumbnails are classy looking. But at some point, you must've experimented with crazy thumbnails at some point.Max Miller:I haven't gone super crazy, and this is going to sound really ridiculous. The problem with the channel growing as fast as it did meant that I didn't get a lot of time to experiment, really. By the time my videos between the second video and now they haven't changed in format at all, really. Well,Michael Jamin:It works.Max Miller:It works, which is great. But there are things that I would've probably changed to make it more, to make it better or whatever, but I can't change some things now because the audience just loves it so much. And now it's just kind of, but do you really feel that?Michael Jamin:What would happen if you experimented? You're worried about losing them?Max Miller:Not so much worried about losing them. It's more I'm a collector, and so if I change too much, then it's like, well, this one doesn't belong in the collection. I have a few live streams on my channel, and I don't even count them as videos because Well, it's not in the format. SoMichael Jamin:That's more than your thing though.Max Miller:Yeah, it's my thing. But also if I were to start over again, I wouldn't have an eight second opening title scenes. That is YouTube death.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is, but it's not. That's part of what makes it look like a TV show, by the way.Max Miller:Yeah, no, it works. I mean, it does work, but it is kind of like, gosh, what would've happened if I hadn't had that eight seconds? But it's not enough to, since it is working, it's like, well, why changeMichael Jamin:It?Max Miller:And whenever I've really experimented with thumbnails and tried to change it, I haven't noticed that they've done better, a lot better or worse, partly because my channel is a little bit more, A lot of people are like, this feels like an old PBS show. Yeah,Michael Jamin:It's classier. Yeah,Max Miller:It's classier. And so I'm like, I don't think the thumbnail where I'm on there going would really, you're not going to, because the video is not going to deliver on that. That's not what the video is. And so then it is clickbait, and I hate that. So are they the best? No. But do they work? Yes. And I'm fine.Michael Jamin:Do you talk to other or a lot of other creators, and do you think a lot about this or you are a little silo and you stick to what you do?Max Miller:I'm very much in my little silo. I mean, I think about it all the time, but I don't talk to many other creators about it. I do have a handful, especially in the last year since I've been traveling that I've gotten to meet. But part of the thing has been that they do have big teams. I've made friends with Josh on Mythical Kitchen, who's amazing, and he puts out so much fun stuff. But that's a big group because part of the good mythicalMichael Jamin:MorningMax Miller:Production world. So when I've gone to film stuff, there's a dozen people behind the camera. They've got seven cameras and lighting in a studio, and writers and editors and everything. So it's hard to talk inside baseball with him about all aspects because he's not involved in all aspects and other people who aren't involved in all aspects. So it's kind of like, all right, who does their own thumbnails? I can talk to them. Who does their editing? Oh, I can talk to them. So that's kind of the problem with being a solo creator. There are plenty of us out there. I haven't met all that many. ButMichael Jamin:Even in terms of navigating your career or navigating trolls or anything, I'm surprised you don't have. Yeah,Max Miller:No, I mean, I'm not as social as I probably should be. So there aren't many people that I talk to on a regular basis. And not creators, I mean just people in general. A handful of friends, none of whom are in this field who I talk to. I talk more about board games than I do anything else. What we do, we play board games, or most of my friends who are close do more what you do. They're professional TV writers. And so I can talk to them about writing and storytelling, which has been a huge help. But thumbnails not so much.Michael Jamin:It's so interesting. Well, max Miller, thank you so much for joining me. I think you're a huge inspiration. I think what you've done is so, I know you're rolling your eyes, but I think it's so admirable. Thank you. Like I said, in my pocket, I just like to talk to people who invent themselves, which is what you've done. You have invented yourself, and you have not asked for permission. You just did it. And all these, you put the energy out and great things have come from it. I'm not a cooking guy, and I like your videos. I just think it's wonderful what you do. So I couldn't cook any, I can't make a sandwich, but thank you so much. But yeah, so everyone should go. Is your handle the same everywhere on all your channels? Pretty muchMax Miller:Tasting history with Max Miller, except on Twitter, where I think it's tasting history one.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it has to be short. Yeah, Twitter is short. Everyone go follow him. Go check out his channel. It's such an interesting, I imagine you're going to have some great Christmas content coming up because to, yes. Sure. Great. Max, thank you so much. Don't go anywhere. Thank you for joining me and everyone be inspired by this guy. Keep creating for more. Keep following me next week and keep creating. Alright,So now we all know what the hell Michael Jamin is talking about. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for my free monthly webinars @michaeljamin.com/webinar. And if you found this podcast helpful or entertaining, please share it with a friend and consider leaving us a five star review on iTunes that really, really helps. For more of this, whatever the hell this is, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. And you can follow Phil Hudson on social media @PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane and music was composed by Anthony Rizzo. And remember, you can have excuses or you can have a creative life, but you can't have both. See you next week.

On this week's episode, I have influencer/creator expert Taylor Lorenz. Tune in as we talk about her book, “Extremely Online: The Untold Story Of Fame, Influence, And Power On The Internet” as well as her experiences working as a journalist for “The Washington Post” and “The New York Times”. We also dive into some tidbits she has about social media.Show NotesTaylor Lorenz on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz/?hl=enTaylor Lorenz on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz?lang=enTaylor Lorenz on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp38w5n099xkvoqciOaeFagMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptTaylor Lorenz:These old school entertainment people come on and they don't really understand the app and they clearly are not doing it themselves. They have some content assistant and then they're like, Hey kids, I guess I have to be here now. And it's like, what are you doing here? I will say the musicians do a better job. Megan Trainor has Chris Olsson, but TikTok buddy that, and music is such a part of TikTok, I feel like they get a warmer reception.Michael Jamin:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone, what the hell? It's Michael Jamin talking about today. I'm going to tell you what I'm talking about. So for those of you who have been listening for a long time, I'm always telling you, just put your work out there. Get on social media, start making a name for yourself, because whether you want to be an actor or a writer or director, you got to bring more to the table than just your desire to get a big paycheck and become rich and famous. If you can bring a market, if you can bring your audience you're going to bring, that brings a lot to the table. And so my next guest is an expert on this, and she's the author of Extremely Online, the Untold Story of Fame, influence and Power on the Internet. I'm holding up her book. If you're watching this podcast, if you're driving in the car, you can imagine that there's a book and has a cover. So please welcome, pull over your car and give a round of applause to Taylor Lorenz. Thank you Taylor for coming and joining me for talking about this. It's an honor meeting you finally.Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, likewise. Excited to be here.Michael Jamin:So you wrote this great book, which I read, and there's so much, I guess there's so much. You actually document the history starting from the beginning of mommy bloggers and all these people who kind of were at the forefront and then built a name for themselves on social media. And so I'm just hoping to talk to you about how we can take some of this information and apply it to the people who listen to my podcast and follow me on social media so that they can help do the same. So I guess starting from the beginning, what was interesting that you pointed out is that women were kind of at the forefront at this whole thing. You want to talk about that a little bit?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, definitely. I mean, I talk about this in the book, but in the turn of the millennium, the early aughts, this blogging was taking off and there were tons of blogs, and I talk about some of the big political and tech blogs at the time, but it wasn't really until the mommy bloggers entered onto the internet in the early aughts who were these moms, these stay at home moms that really had nothing else to do. A lot of them were shut out of the labor market, and they turned to blogging and ended up really building their own kind of feminist media empires by building audiences. And they were the first to really cultivate strong personal brands online and then leverage those personal brands to monetize.Michael Jamin:And you're right about, I remember this may have been 10 years ago or maybe longer, one of my friends, our screenwriter, she developed a TV show on these mommy bloggers. And I'm like, wait a minute. And there was a couple of people who did that. Max Nik, who was a guest on my podcast a while, a couple weeks ago, same thing. He wrote a show based on shit my dad says, but it's on a Twitter feed and there's all these people. It's so interesting. I was a little late to the game in terms of Hollywood exploiting all these markets, these people who are making names for themselves. Lemme back up for a second though. Why did you decide to even write this book?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, so I started covering this. I started as a blogger myself a little bit later.Michael Jamin:What were you blogging?Taylor Lorenz:I was blogging about my life, a lot, about my life and a lot of about online culture stuff. I thought that the mainstream media was really bad at covering the internet, and so I thought, I'm going to write about the internet. This was when I was young millennial, right out of college.Michael Jamin:You were writing about your personal life?Taylor Lorenz:Yes.Michael Jamin:Okay. So that's a whole different thing. You're opening yourself up to everything. And was there any, I know I'm jumping around here, I guess I have so many questions, but I don't know, was there backlash from that? Were there repercussions? Because we're talking about people do this. What's the backlash?Taylor Lorenz:Well, this was like 2009, so it was such a different internet, and I'm so grateful, honestly, that I was blogging in that era and not this era because I think I didn't get a lot of backlash. I had a great community. I met some of my best friends, were other bloggers from that era. I became very popular on Tumblr for my single serving like meme, like blogs. So yeah, I think when you're young, you're just kind of trying a lot of different things out. I didn't know what I wanted to do out of college. I'd never studied journalism. I didn't know I was working at a call center and just became popular on the internet and then was like, I guess I'm pretty good at thisMichael Jamin:Stuff. Really? I didn't know that about it. You have a pretty big following on TikTok and Instagram as well, which is so weird because you're writing about something that you are also participating in. I mean, it's almost meta how you are, what you're talking about. No,Taylor Lorenz:Yeah. I mean, I started, had I been able to monetize my blog nowadays, content creators on TikTok, they can monetize in 2009, 2010, couldn't, the best that you could hope for was one of those book deals that Urban Outfitters. Right?Michael Jamin:ButTaylor Lorenz:You couldn't really leverage it into much. I ended up just leveraging it into a career in media, which has been fun. ButMichael Jamin:See, this is what's interesting to me because right now you see so many people on social media, how do I monetize this? Meaning ads or even sponsorships, but there's other ways to monetize outside of brand deals or views on YouTube getting used. So yeah, there's a whole, I don't know. Do you think that's a large percentage of people on the internet? It seems like to me most are doing it to monetize for the brand deals. What's your take on it?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, I think now that you can monetize in that way, a lot of people, that's their end goal. I'm kind of glad. I mean, it's a double-edged sword. Who knows what I could have done if I was able to monetize, but I'm really glad actually that you couldn't, because I think myself and a lot of other bloggers, we ended up going in a lot of different ways and entering into a lot of media type of jobs that, yeah, I mean would've never gotten otherwise. And I've learned how to be a journalist and I've gotten all these opportunities and my whole career from just experimenting and having fun online. So yeah, I think I always tell people, it's great if you can monetize, get the bag. If somebody comes to you offering you thousands of dollars, why not? But I think it's really good to take that virality and leverage it into, I like what Kayla Scanlan does, or Kyla, she's the economics YouTuber, and she gives all these talks about econ now, and she has a newsletter, and she's able to just do a lot more. It's not just doing a bunch of brand deals online. It's like using it to launch a career and whatever you want to have a career in.Michael Jamin:Yeah, see, I see. That's the funny, I think it's so smart what you're saying. I see some people, I'm like wondering, what's your end game out of this? Is it just to, but what you're saying is the end game, it's interesting. The end game is to do something else. And I wonder if that's what's going on with Hollywood people when I'm encouraging people to, I don't know, put theirselves out there with their art, their writing their music or whatever in my mind, to build an audience following to basically, so you can do the next thing. But I'm wondering how often that if you see that happening for people,Taylor Lorenz:I think the smart ones do recognize it. I feel like the internet, you're just hopping from lily pad to lily pad a lot of the time, which I know that's how a lot of creative people feel. It's just like, I think internet fame in itself can be a goal. I mean, look, someone like Mr. Beast, you've done it. You crack the code. Most people are not going to reach that level. And so it makes a lot of sense. If you're really into food, you're making food content, use that to open your own restaurant or food line or whatever, but use it to go into something that you're interested in because then you still, you always have that online audience. I still have my online audience. I have people that have followed me for a decade and maybe they know me from my blog or I had a Snapchat show in 2016 or things that I've done over the years, but it's always in service of my broader career.Michael Jamin:And so Well, maybe tell me what that is. Do you have a broader goal ahead of all this? Other than getting a book, which is pretty impressive.Taylor Lorenz:I know. I never thought I would write a book. And then just, there was a lot of revisionist history once the pandemic hit in 2021 and all these venture capitalists were pouring money into the content creator world, and TikTok was taking off. People were just kind of like, they were rewriting history. And I was like, I'm going to write the definitive history. I've been around for this. And I always thought it would be interesting to write a book. I didn't know anything about the publishing industry, except I have a couple friends that did those Urban Outfitters typeMichael Jamin:Books. That's so funny.Taylor Lorenz:See,Michael Jamin:Oh, go ahead. I don't cut you off. So your broader goals. Oh, yeah.Taylor Lorenz:I love media. I love media. I want to keep working in media. I love creative sort of endeavors. I like writing. I make videos as I am very obsessed with news media, so I wantMichael Jamin:To, right. So maybe more of that. There's a couple of things in that book, in your book that kind of took me a little bit by surprise. One is there are, well, first of all, I think there are people who make content. This is just my opinion, their content's a little disposable. And so you spoke about people who, I don't know, it's like pranksters who they got to keep upping the prank until it comes to a point where this one woman you're talking about, she was sick to her stomach with the pressure of having to come up with something all the time. And to me, it felt like that's because you're making, I guess I have a rule. I have a rule. I was like, I don't want to spend more than 10 minutes a day on this. But there are people who spend on posting, but there are people who put way a lot of time and pressure on this, and it winds up destroying themselves, don't you think?Taylor Lorenz:Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, there's a whole bunch of that in my book of just the burnout. And I think, like you said, it comes from just making content for content's sake and feeling like it's an extra burden and giving it, it's also when it's your whole livelihood, the stakes become higher. That's why I say you should diversify a little bit.Michael Jamin:Yeah. There was another, the thing that really surprised me that I learned from your book, because I'm a little older, so I don't really know all this stuff, but there's a whole culture of content creators who their job is just to talk shit about other content creators.Taylor Lorenz:And I'm like,Michael Jamin:Oh my God. And I've witnessed some of this stuff, but I didn't realize it's really a thing, like a gossip. They're just gossipers, right?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah. They basically have replaced tabloid news for the internet, and yeah, it's a huge drama channel industrial complex online that you're lucky if you've not encountered.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And do they go anywhere with, what do you think is the end game for them?Taylor Lorenz:Well, I mean, the woman that runs DUIs, which is more of a blind item, celebrity news page, she has a podcast. She also, she wrote a novel kind of based around the content. Others like Diet Prada have really successful newsletters. A lot of the other commentators like Keemstar and stuff, their goal is just to basically run these media empires of gossip, kind of like a TMZ for the internet.Michael Jamin:And then how are they further monetizing though?Taylor Lorenz:They monetize through partnerships and brand deals and a lot through YouTube ads. They get a lot of views. A lot of them get a lot of views on YouTube.Michael Jamin:See, I just turned, maybe I'm crazy, but I turned down a brand deal today because I thought, I don't know, it doesn't align with anything that I stand for. And I was like, am I crazy for turning this down? Or I don't know. But have you get approached by things that, are you turning stuff down?Taylor Lorenz:Well, yeah, I have to turn down so much stuff. I'll never forget a tech company, which I will not name, offered me $60,000 to do three video, three audio chat rooms for them.Michael Jamin:What is an audio chat room?Taylor Lorenz:Like? A live chat type thing? It was going to be like three hours of work. And obviously I couldn't do it because I can't take on sponsored content. I'm a journalist. You can't do that, especially not with a tech company. But I have to say that one really made me question my career choices. Normally people are like, can you promote X, Y, Z? And I explained that I don't do.Michael Jamin:So there's nothing that you can promote a journalist. There's nothing.Taylor Lorenz:I mean, I could theoretically probably promote companies that I don't cover, but I don't really want to, I don't need to make $500 promoting a mop.Michael Jamin:Right, right. Yeah, it's so interesting. You have to protect what you, it's so odd because I don't see a lot of people making brand when I'm scrolling through my pages for you a page on TikTok, I don't see a lot of people making brand deals, but I guess they are, right? Am I not seeing it?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, the branded content doesn't always live on TikTok. A lot of times they'll create whitelisted content that the brand then promotes in a TikTok ad.Michael Jamin:Wait, when you say white, okay, explain this to me. So whitelisted means the creator. Go ahead.Taylor Lorenz:The creator creates branded content, but it doesn't necessarily live on their feed. They create it for the brand, and then the brand will use that video they made to the creator, like, wow, I love my air stick selfie thing. They'll run ads. So it's using that creator's likeness in the ad. It's the video that they made, but you're not going to see it on their page. You're going to see it in the,Michael Jamin:But do they not put it on their page or you're not going to see it? No one's going to watch it.Taylor Lorenz:Sometimes they do put it on their page, sometimes they don't. I mean, all of these are negotiated in the terms of the ad deals, which are structured increasingly in complicated ways. But I mean, there's a lot of spun con on TikTok. Also, sometimes there's product placement on TikTok. You'll see people doing videos with certain products. Sometimes the products have paid to be in their,Michael Jamin:And they have to mention this, right? They have to, I wasn't aware of this, but theoretically, yes, theoretically. But you're saying they don't always mention it. They don't always say, this isTaylor Lorenz:The sponsor. So the FTC says Yes, and I write about that decision in 2017 when they had to do that. The thing is that a lot of times they can get away with not saying it because it's not directly sponsored. For instance, you could have a long-term, year long partnership with the brand. They could be giving you tons of free product, but they didn't directly pay you for that post. So you feel like, oh, I don't have to disclose it,Michael Jamin:But they paid you for something. I mean, that doesn't make sense. They paid you. It's totally great. Okay. Yeah. ButTaylor Lorenz:People get around it by kind of fudging things.Michael Jamin:Who would get in trouble then if they got caught? The brand, not the TikTok or whatever.Taylor Lorenz:Not really. I mean, they went after Kim Kardashian. If you're that level, they'll go after you. But normally they're going after the brands. The brands are usually doing this. And also it's ultimately the brand or the agency that's running the marketing campaign that's up. It's up to them to enforce it and be like, Hey, put this in your caption.Michael Jamin:You said something else that surprised me in your book is that at one point, maybe it's still this way that the agencies are making the money and many of the creators are not getting that money. Explain to me what happens. I read it twice. It's like, wait, I'm missing something. SoTaylor Lorenz:There's been this explosion in sort of middlemen agencies, management companies that have come in. And what they do is they find these up and coming creators, they sign them into contracts like, Hey, I'll handle all your spun con, or I'll come in and do this deal. And then they take a huge portion, the brand pays maybe a hundred thousand dollars for a campaign. The agency will come in and take 50% of that or something, and then the rest goes to the creators. They allocate it, soMichael Jamin:They're getting something. You couldTaylor Lorenz:Argue that they are providing a service, and that's true, but the less ethical agencies are less upfront about the amount that they're taking.Michael Jamin:Interesting. Oh, they don't tell you how much it is? Probably,Taylor Lorenz:Yeah. They won't tell you what the brand originally paid. They'll just say, oh, it's $10,000 for this campaign. Nevermind that we got a hundred thousand dollars from the actualMichael Jamin:Brand. Oh, wow. Yeah. There's so much to be careful. There really is. And so I asked you a little bit earlier if you knew of many. Okay, so I'll let give you an example from my experience. So I did a show, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago, maybe not maybe 10. And the studio, we had a cast a role, and the studio wanted to get an influencer to play the part because this influencer had a bigger audience than the network had. And he turned it down several times because the money, he was going to paid a lot of money, but the money wasn't worth it to him. He was making more on a daily, which I was shocked about. And so do you know more? Can you speak more to that?Taylor Lorenz:That happens all the time. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Really?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah.Michael Jamin:I thought this guy was crazy, but okay, go on.Taylor Lorenz:Well, I mean, for a lot of content creators, their goal, it depends on the content creators. Some content creators, their goal is to get into Hollywood, and that would be an amazing opportunity for them. But especially the ones at the upper echelon, they're already the a-list of the internet. They're making millions of dollars. They really don't need to engage. And maybe it's a fun thing if they want to do it, and they have time and it's like a novelty type thing, or it adds some sort of legitimacy to them. But a lot of times, if they're spending, for instance, hours on a set, that's money out of their pocket that they could be making a lot. So it kind of doesn't make sense. And people have struggled. Not every content creator succeeds as well. So I think some of them do have that feeling of like, look, I'm really good at this. I know I'm really good at this. I'm making money. Do I want to gamble? Take time away from that. Try my hand at this thing that maybe I have and succeeded at before. It's not always there.Michael Jamin:Maybe I shouldn't even ask this on as we're being recorded. Do you know this guy, nurse Blake? Have you heard of him?Taylor Lorenz:I don't think so. Wait,Michael Jamin:Okay. Because I can't tell if he's a comedian or a nurse, but whatever he is, he's selling out arenas.Taylor Lorenz:Oh, I know this guy. I've seen him before. Yes. He's a comedian, right?Michael Jamin:Well, he doesn't act, but I also see him also posting in the hospital. It seems like he could be selling out arenas, but also he likes doing the rounds or something. I don't know. Yeah.Taylor Lorenz:So it's so funny. I don't know when you joined TikTok, but the earliest content creators on TikTok back in 2018, when it flipped from musically to TikTok, the earliest groups of content creators that emerged were police officers, nurses and service workers. And they were all gaining huge audiences. And I think it's because those jobs have an enormous amount of downtime, and they kind of almost have interesting stages themselves. They're always in the hospital or at Walmart working or whatever. And so there's a lot of people like that on social media that have kind of pivoted their career in that way to,Michael Jamin:Okay. I've been on a TikTok for maybe two and a half years, and at first I was very self-conscious. I was like, isn't this the app where teenage girls shuffle dance? Am I going to be the creepy guy on this app? And you're saying, it's so hard to tell. I mean, the first time, my first week and a half of posts were like this, this is cringey.Taylor Lorenz:They always say, you know what? My favorite quote is that I think all the time Xavier from Party Shirt said this, that everything is cringe until it gets views. And I think that'sMichael Jamin:True. Until it getsTaylor Lorenz:It's popular. It's not cringe anymore,Michael Jamin:I guess. So when you first started posting, did you look to anyone for, I don't know, to emulate?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah. I mean, there's this woman, Katie nais, who's still hilarious internet person, and she's a blogger too. She ended up working at Buzzfeed for a decade. I always just wanted to be like her. She was so creative and funny. She had this website called, I think it was called Party something. She would aggregate really funny party photos, and she just was really good at finding funny things on the internet.Michael Jamin:And do you know, have you reached out to her?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, now I'm friends with her because I've been obsessed with her for my whole career. So sheMichael Jamin:Very really, so now you have a friendship with her. That's nice. Do you get recognized a lot when you're out and about?Taylor Lorenz:Not in la. No one gives a shit about me in la.Michael Jamin:But when you're out somewhere else, if I'm notTaylor Lorenz:VidCon or something, yeah, usually. I mean, I got recognized in DC on my book tour when I was eating. That was cool. But yeah, sometimes, I mean, when I was doing my Snapchat show, I got recognized a lot more, I think, because a lot of kids were seeing me on the Snapchat Discover Channel thing.Michael Jamin:I was on your link tree, you're everywhere, but are you active on every, I'm like, damn. She's on every platform.Taylor Lorenz:I'm an equal opportunity poster. Well, I mean, I cover this world, so I kind of feel obligated to be on everything. I definitely think Instagram and TikTok are my main ones. And then I have threads also now,Michael Jamin:Which I, are you making different content you posting? Are you reposting or posting brand new stuff? Everywhere.Taylor Lorenz:I repost. If I make a short video for TikTok, I repost it on reels and YouTube shorts. YouTube's always the one that I like. I'm so lazy about, honestly,Michael Jamin:It's hard to grow on YouTube. It's soTaylor Lorenz:Hard to grow, and I don't know, it's just like there's something demoralizing about YouTube.Michael Jamin:Interesting.Taylor Lorenz:But yeah, I think it's because it's like, you know how it is, it's like you post something, you get a hundred thousand views on TikTok, it's doing really well on Instagram. And then you go on YouTube and it's like me, 2000 views, and you're like, oh, I'm aMichael Jamin:Failure. What's the point of that? And you were blocked. Are you still blocked from Twitter or whatever? Twitter is?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah. Elon banned me for a while. I did get back on. I don't really, Twitter is dead to me, honestly.Michael Jamin:What did you do to get banned?Taylor Lorenz:I was, well, he banned me under this rule that he made that said you couldn't promote your links to other social media profiles. And I was promoting my Instagram account, so that's what he technically banned me under. But what he really banned me for is that I reached out to him for comment. I wrote a story about how he completely lied about a bunch of stuff, and I reached out to him for comment. And the minute I reached out to him for comment, I got banned. And then he tried to say, oh, it was actually because she was promoting her Instagram. No,Michael Jamin:That was Oh, interesting. So do you think he was guy, do you, you made it he enemy. He responds. He knows who you are and hates you.Taylor Lorenz:Yeah. Oh, he definitely, yes. I mean, I've interacted with him somewhat frequent basis, but that week I was not the only journalist that was banned for reporting on him. So the same week, drew Harwell, my colleague was banned, and then a bunch of people from the New York Times, we all got banned within a week, soMichael Jamin:Wow. BackTaylor Lorenz:On.Michael Jamin:And then they let you back on. Interesting. And then you're, screw this.Taylor Lorenz:But yeah, Twitter is also just very toxic and political, and I think culture is happening more on TikTok.Michael Jamin:Don't you think they're all toxic?Taylor Lorenz:Oh, totally. But I think Twitter's uniquely toxic. TikTok is toxic in a different way.Michael Jamin:Okay. I want to know what you think the differences are in each platform, because I have opinions, but Okay. Yeah. What are your differences? I mean,Taylor Lorenz:Twitter is just very political, and it's political in a way that there's a lot of, especially as a member of the media, it's like there's a lot of journalists on there. I think it's a giant group chat for a lot of media people. It's stressful. Editors, bosses are on there. I don't really use it. I use it to keep up with, I'm super immunocompromised, and so I keep up with Covid News on there. It's really the only thing I use it for. It's really hard to get news and information because Elon has sort of made so many changes to make it hard to get news on there. So I don't mess with Twitter. TikTok I love. But yeah, I mean, TikTok is just mob mentality. So I mean, I'll never forget. I defended, do you remember West Elm Caleb?Michael Jamin:No. And it's so funny when you say these names. I'm like, these ridiculous names. I'm like, no, I don't know that comic book character.Taylor Lorenz:Okay, well, west Elm Caleb a year and a half ago was getting canceled on TikTok. He was a guy that ghosted a bunch of people. He ghosted a bunch of women, and a bunch of women went on TikTok, like, this guy's a ghoster. And it got so crazy that he got fully doxxed and fired from his job. And anyway, I defended him and I was like, Hey guys, can we calm down a little bit? We haven't even heard this guy's side of the story. I believe he shouldn't be an asshole to women, but I've been doxxed. It sucks. Don't do that. And TikTok, they came for me hard on that one. They were like, no,Michael Jamin:No,Taylor Lorenz:Somebody from West Tom, Caleb.Michael Jamin:And then, yeah. How worried are you about, I worry about that. How worried about you getting haters and stuff?Taylor Lorenz:I've gotten haters. I write about YouTubers for a living. So if I was worried about haters, it doesn't matter. My friend is a pop music writer, and he was saying, he told me a couple years ago, because if anytime you are covering something with a fandom, you're going to deal with haters. And they're vicious, but a lot of them are 11 years old, or they're just online and they're mad andMichael Jamin:Okay. Do you respond to your posts comments on your post? You do.Taylor Lorenz:I do. I try to mean, don't try not to respond to haters. Sometimes I'm weak and I do respond to the haters, but noMichael Jamin:Good comes of it. Right? When you do, no,Taylor Lorenz:No good comes of it. But sometimes you just, I don't know. You just got to, butMichael Jamin:Even if you respond with kindness, which I did today to somebody, he just doubled down on his stupidity. They don't care. Why am I trying to,Taylor Lorenz:They don't care at all. They're like, fuck you.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Taylor Lorenz:Yeah. No, it doesn't help. I mean, sometimes if I'm bored, I've replied something, but I mostly just ignore those people, or I limit my comments and I try to keep it to that only my community's engaging and not a bunch of randos. Or if they have a good faith question, I get a lot of story ideas from people commenting. Or sometimes smart people will comment, you click on their profile, you're like, oh, cool. Person's interesting. Right.Michael Jamin:Okay. Okay. So you sound emotionally mature about this whole thing? Maybe more than I am because I get upset sometimes.Taylor Lorenz:No, trust me, I've had my moments. It's hard. But I think I've just been through it so long. I've been through the cycle so many times that I'm immune.Michael Jamin:And do you talk to your colleagues who, I guess, are they as active as you are on, let say on TikTok? No. Other reporters?Taylor Lorenz:Journalists are not. It's weird with journalists on TikTok. They're not really, journalists are so addicted to Twitter. Twitter is where everyone in the media is. And there's some journalists on TikTok, but not that many. So the ones that are, I think we all try to support each other,Michael Jamin:Or it's just not competitive. Yeah, it's supportive. You think?Taylor Lorenz:I try to be supportive. I don't, like somebody said this really early on of Don't compete collab or something. It was like early thing. And I really like that. I felt that with blogging too. I had made friends with a lot of bloggers. We were all in the same group. And it's just like the internet is really vast and everyone is unique. AndMichael Jamin:There's not tooTaylor Lorenz:Many internet culture reporters either. So,Michael Jamin:Well, that's a question I can't tell how big TikTok is. Sometimes I'll see, oh my God, this creator knows that creator, and they talk whether they stick to each other. I'm like, wow, this is a small place. But then I'm wondering, well, maybe I'm only seeing this wedge of the pie, and it's actually much larger. I can't get a sense of how big this thing is.Taylor Lorenz:It is really big. I mean, it's like billions of users, so it's really big. But I do think that inMichael Jamin:Terms of the creators though, theTaylor Lorenz:Creator community is smaller than you think. And I think the people that are really active, they form a network. And you're always going to get people that are a couple degrees away from people that you follow usually.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Where do you think, I'm certainly not the first person to say this, but during the early days of Instagram, it was always about people. This is the glamorous life. It was all made up. It was like they got sponsored posts to be on a yacht or whatever. They're pretending to be rich and famous or whatever. And because we're all idiots, we're like, wow, they're rich and famous, and they're living that life. And then that somehow evolved to now influences turn to creators, and creators are more authentic. This is my life. Take it or leave it. What do you think there's next? What comes next after that? Do you have any idea? Yeah,Taylor Lorenz:I mean, I think we always flip back and forth between aspirational versus authenticity. And people want a little bit of both. People still want the aspirational content. It's just not everything. And I do think that the authenticity is part of the appeal, and I don't think it's going away anytime soon. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, different content formats perform well depending on what the platform is promoting. So right now, they really want long form video. So I think we're going to see people that succeed in long form grow faster.Michael Jamin:But do you think when you're posting, maybe you don't even want to answer this on the air. I wouldn't blame you. Are you thinking about, oh, this post will do Well, I should talk about this. I know it'll do well. Or is it like, this is what I'm talking about, take it or leave it?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah. It depends on the day. Some days so many times where I'm like, oh, I know this would do well, but I just don't feel like posting today.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? EspeciallyTaylor Lorenz:Lately, oh my God. There's been so many things where I'm like, oh, that's going to go viral. And then I see somebody else posted and I'm like, good. They got the traffic. You have to be early on something. And then sometimes just most stuff I just post because I think it's interesting, and it's just my taste and news and information and just something I found interesting. But howMichael Jamin:Long will you spend on a post? Do you do it again and again until you get it right? No. One take and you're done?Taylor Lorenz:Usually, maybe I'll do two or three if I might rerecord something, but I don't take it that seriously. It's just one of many things I'm doing during the day, so not, and especially since I've been on book tour, I've just been too busy to make. I go through periods and it depends on how busy I am, how many videos I'm making.Michael Jamin:And how much of your personal life, because I know you're talking about technology and you're interviewing people and you're covering events like a journalist, but how much of yourself do you share?Taylor Lorenz:I share my opinions. I mean, I'm very opinionated, and I think I always tell people that you can be very authentic. And I think a lot of people would find me to be very authentic person online. I'm not a shy person or something, but I don't talk about my personal information. Also, it's not that interesting, I think. Oh, butMichael Jamin:People would love to know. People would love to know. I know Date youTaylor Lorenz:Nosy. They're nosy. But I think about all the cool stuff that I did in my twenties, and I'm like, I wish I had TikTok, I think back then, and I was talking about my life more. I was doing more and going out more. And now I'm like, I have a little bit more of a chill life. So sometimes I talk about walking around the Silver Lake reservoir or something, but I'm not like, if I go to a really interesting event, maybe I'll share it. I mean, I just went to Dubai and I actually haven't posted yet, but I'm making a video about that.Michael Jamin:I can't believe you went. That flight is just too long. I would think it wasTaylor Lorenz:So long. It was so long. But I got invited to this book festival, and I thought, when else am I going to go?Michael Jamin:Okay, what is a book festival?Taylor Lorenz:So there's this really big book festival called the Sharjah International Book Festival, and it's huge. And there's thousands of authors and books, and yeah, I got invited to speak, and I thought,Michael Jamin:Oh, you're speaking. So what if you're not speaking, what happens to Is everyone, okay? If you weren't invited to speak, would you be at a booth? What is it? Yeah,Taylor Lorenz:You just attend. I mean, there's thousands of people that attend and they just come from all over to, there's a lot of book buyers, and then there's a lot of publishing industry people in the Middle East and in Europe and that side of the world. And then there's just a lot of people that are interested in meeting the authors, going to panels. There's a lot of celebrity author type people there.Michael Jamin:Who's setting that up? Your publisher or who?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, the publisher. Actually, I think maybe my book agent forwarded it to me. They were forwarded it to me, look at this random thing, and I was like, no, that's so cool. I want to do it.Michael Jamin:Oh, wow, really? And so did they fly you out?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, they flew me out. They didn't pay me or anything. They just flew me out and covered my travel, which honestly was enough for me. It was pretty cool. HowMichael Jamin:Many days were you there?Taylor Lorenz:I was only there for three, four days. Four days,Michael Jamin:Including the flight, which was theTaylor Lorenz:Travel was a day on each side because the travel wasMichael Jamin:Long. And then you were there for the rest of the time, and you spoke on the panel? I was on the panel. That's an hour,Taylor Lorenz:Michael. I just did tourist stuff. I didn't have to do anything aside from that, so I was like, let me just go.Michael Jamin:Oh, okay. So it was a chance for you to be a tourist.Taylor Lorenz:Yeah. My friend is an editor over there for Bloomberg, and so we hung out and just did all the cool Dubai stuff together.Michael Jamin:But I'm curious because it's interesting, since you were a journalist, are we supposed to know anything about you? I mean, are there rules? Yeah,Taylor Lorenz:It's so funny. So the old school sort of notions of journalism is like, I'm serious, and I don't talk about my life, and I never share an opinion. I think that's a very outdated and dumb model of journalism that nobody will trust. That's why we have a crisis in media, I think, of trust is because people don't know about, there's so much mistrust in the media, and I'd much rather be upfront with my beliefs and tell people, Hey, look, this is what I'm thinking about the issue. Do you think I'm wrong? Do you think I'm right? Ultimately, the goal of writing any article is to be fair and accurate.Michael Jamin:WeTaylor Lorenz:AllMichael Jamin:Have. I thought you weren't supposed to be biased. I thought you were supposed to. Why do I know? I thought you supposed to. This is theTaylor Lorenz:Fact everyone. Everyone has opinions, right? There's no such thing on earth. The point is, is that you're not allowed. You shouldn't let that kind of shape the story to the point that it alters the truth. But to act like, oh, I don't have opinions as a journalist, that's stupid. We're all human beings. We all have opinions. Baseball writers that write about sports teams, they still are fans of a specific team. That doesn't mean that it's going to shape their coverage. That's the most important thing. It's like, I might love or hate certain things on the internet, but I'm not going to let it affect some story to the point that it would be truthful. You know what I mean?Michael Jamin:This gets into something else. Whereas you're kind of maybe, I don't know if this isn't the right word, but a celebrity journalist, because you recently had a photo spread in this magazine, and they're dressing you up and couture, right? I mean, so what's that about? You're celebrity journalist.Taylor Lorenz:I know. I've been in a couple things like that. Yeah, I mean, look, journalists have always been, it's always been a public facing job. It's always been a public. I mean, Woodward and Bernstein, obviously. Bob Woodward also works at The Post. He's incredibly famous. Anderson Cooper, Barbara Walters, the original female journalist, Katie Couric. All these journalists are, well-known household names because of their journalism, but of course, they're also people. And I think with the internet now, that's all come to a smaller scale. I'm definitely not at those people's levels at all. But with the internet, I think we all follow journalists and content creators. And again, it goes back to transparency. That's what I think is a big problem with that old model of media, where it's like, don't ever speak your opinion or something on anything. Because I think actually when you don't and you try to sort of act like, oh, I don't have an opinion, that's a lie.Everyone has an opinion on everything. Or maybe, but you should just be honest about it because that helps people trust you. I can be like, look, I don't love, this is a total example. I do love Emma Chamberlain, but I could be like, I don't love Emma Chamberlain, but I had the opportunity to interview her editing style was pioneering. It transformed YouTube. I wrote about it in my book, X, Y, Z. I'm not going to let my personal feelings about her color, but I would answer questions about it. If somebody asked me, I'd be like, well, here's my thoughts.Michael Jamin:Okay, so what is your daily life then? Do you freelance all these? How does it work? What is your life?Taylor Lorenz:No, I work for the Washington Post. So I am on our morning meeting every day at 8:00 AM on Zoom.Michael Jamin:Okay. Is no one, well, that's a good question. Is everyone online now? If you work for the Washington Post, does no one go to the office?Taylor Lorenz:They have a big office in Washington, but I moved out here with the New York Times, so I was at the New York Times for several years, and New York Times does have an office in la. So they moved me out here, and then the Post recruited me, and I was like, well, I'm not leaving la. And they have a lot of people from the post in LA obviously as well. Are youMichael Jamin:From, I thought you were from la. No,Taylor Lorenz:No. I live in la, but I'm from New York originally.Michael Jamin:Oh, where are you in New York? Are you from?Taylor Lorenz:Well, I lived on the Upper East Side when I was little, and I lived all over New York. I've lived, I think 11 different neighborhoods,Michael Jamin:But all, not all in Manhattan?Taylor Lorenz:No, no, no, no. Mostly in Brooklyn. I was in Fort Green before I moved.Michael Jamin:Okay. I didn't know that. So you're a New Yorker. Okay. Yeah. And then not anymore. So are you pitching them ideas or are they telling you, this is what we want you to cover today?Taylor Lorenz:It's a mix. I would say it's probably like 80 to 90% coming up with your own ideas. The rest of it. Sometimes there's an editor assigned story. Most of the time it's breaking news. So for instance, the war breaks out. I cover TikTok. I cover the content. So they're like, well, is there an angle on it?Michael Jamin:Why is news? My God. So what is most of your day then? Is it surfing the internet, or is it making calls to experts or whatever?Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, it's a mix. I wish it was surfing the internet all day, but it's a lot of meetings, a lot of, we have editorial meetings where we discuss coverage and we all give feedback on our stories. And I have meetings with my editor to talk about stories. I write features, so I generally write longer pieces. Sometimes I'm working on investigations for months.Michael Jamin:And then how did you have, go ahead. GoTaylor Lorenz:Ahead. Oh, yeah, it's a mix of, I do a lot of interviews and I do a lot of informational interviews, and I do a lot of consuming content andMichael Jamin:Keeping Well, then where did you get the time to write this book? It sounds very busy.Taylor Lorenz:I know. And I didn't take book leave like an idiot. I was like, I'll just do it nights and weekends.Michael Jamin:People go on book leave.Taylor Lorenz:Leave, yeah. But it's unpaid, so that's how they get you. And I didn't want to do that, so I thought I'll just try to do it all on top of my job. And I did, but it took me two years.Michael Jamin:Are you working on your next book? What's that?Taylor Lorenz:No, I'm not doing another book.Michael Jamin:You're done for now, but you will at some pointTaylor Lorenz:Maybe. Sure. Like yours. I don't want to do that right now.Michael Jamin:It was really hard. Why? I know. It was a lot of work, a lot of research, andTaylor Lorenz:Just the fact-checking. I interviewed about 600 people for the book, and it was just a lot. And throughout it all, I make videos, I do. I speak at things. I go to events. I have a lot going on in between.Michael Jamin:And how are you getting these speaking engagements? You're a celebrity now?Taylor Lorenz:No. No, but I talk at industry conferences type stuff a lot. Just like VidCon or things likeMichael Jamin:That. What is VidCon? Stop talking. I know what I'm talking about. I don't even know what that is.Taylor Lorenz:Wait, Michael, you need to come to VidCon next year.Michael Jamin:I don't even know what it is.Taylor Lorenz:Oh my God. VidCon is the largest, soMichael Jamin:Ignorant.Taylor Lorenz:No, no, no. You know what? You would have no reason to know it. It's the biggest conference for, it's a convention for online content creators. It's in Anaheim every year. They also have VidCon Baltimore this year. But it's a big convention where all the big content creator type people get together and the industry sort of.Michael Jamin:So are you going as a guest or are you going as a speaker?Taylor Lorenz:I've mostly, in recent years, gone as a speaker, but I used to go as a guest.Michael Jamin:And so what do you do as a guest?Taylor Lorenz:As a guest, you get to meet your biggest, you meet the big content creators that are there, talkers meet and greets. You go to panels, you can go to events. There's parties. It's kind of like a fun thing if you're up and coming or you care about the internet. It used to be a really big thing. I mean, I talk about this a little bit in the book, but it started in 2010, and it started as this small thing of just the biggest creators on the internet getting together just because there was no event, physical event. And then it got bought by Viacom, and now it's this huge.Michael Jamin:So now they reach out to you to say, we want you to be on a panel or something.Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, I'm always talking about, sometimes I do interviews with big content creators on the main stage. They need somebody to interview Charlie Delio or something. And so I'll do that. Sometimes. I'm talking about, I mean, I did one, I think it was last year or the year before, on news content creators. That's something that people always want me to talkMichael Jamin:About all. So we don't live far for each other. So we'll ride fair. If you like riding in a Jeep, you're not afraid of writing into Jeep.Taylor Lorenz:I think you might be recognized. Maybe you'll be a speaker soon. They love the entertainment people. There was some women they had there one year. They always get some weird entertainment celebrity that has a YouTube channel to come, and they're always really out of place. It's very funny.Michael Jamin:They wait, why would they be out of place if they're famous? If they're a celebrity? They'reTaylor Lorenz:Not internet people. They don't even run their own channel usually.Michael Jamin:Oh, I see. So that's a whole different thing when celebrities put themselves. That's the thing. I read somewhere, well, I guess there was pushback when a celebrity gets on YouTube, it's like, Hey, or TikTok, get off TikTok celebrity. It's like, why is everyone so mad? But I guess maybe talk a little about that. What happens when they try to do that?Taylor Lorenz:I think it's just these old school entertainment. People come on and they don't really understand the app and they clearly are not doing it themselves. They have some content assistant and then they're like, Hey kids, I guess I have to be here now. And it's like, what are you doing here? I will say, the musicians do a better job. Megan Trainor has Chris Olsson, her TikTok buddy that, and music is such a part of TikTok. I feel like they get a warmer reception. But people, I mean, when Reese Smith first joined, people were like, they were in the comments being mean toMichael Jamin:Her. Aren't you rich enough? Reese? But there is some woman I follow, and I was shocked. I'm like, there's so many ways that people are making on this. And she talks about politics, so she's like a punt. That's her passion. So I'm like, okay, let's get her take on it. But she also does these, they're called TRO trips. Have you heard of this TRO Trotro trip? And so basically it's this website. So she'll run a trip in Europe, we're going to Italy for a week, come onto this and you can pay her basically to be your tour guide.Taylor Lorenz:Oh, this, I see. It's like a host. They're hosting you for the tour. Interesting. Oh my gosh,Michael Jamin:Yes. I'm like, how smart. So she basically gets a free trip, but she has to be with people for a week. She's the host. Well,Taylor Lorenz:They were doing that with our New York Times when I was at the New York Times. I think they stopped doing it because one of the reporters was being controversial on the trip, and I think they kind of scaled back the program, but I think they were like, actually, we don't want our reporters talking to the public. But they used to have people travel with New York Times reporters, and that was a way that the New York Times made money off journalists.Michael Jamin:Oh, wow. And for the same kind of thing where let's go tour the Vatican or something.Taylor Lorenz:It would be like tour the Vatican with the TimesMichael Jamin:Reallys recording or whatever. It's so weird. But there's just so many ways for people to, I don't know, make a name for themselves. I was good for her.Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, totally. I mean, there's just endless ways to monetize online.Michael Jamin:I haven't discovered any of them yet, but I'm waiting for it. I got my eyes peeled, but okay, so yeah, so you go to this VidCon thing, you do a panel, and then people want your opinion. And I imagine it's people a lot smaller than you who aspire to be you.Taylor Lorenz:Yeah. Or it's just people in different industries that are there to learn more about the industry or It's a lot of brand people too. The head of marketing for Walmart or something.Michael Jamin:Oh, really?Taylor Lorenz:Want to understand the ecosystem.Michael Jamin:Oh, so they're not talking, I don't know, conferences. I don't know what this is about. It depends.Taylor Lorenz:I mean, sometimes those people, if they're really good, I mean, I actually know the woman who runs the Walmart, influencer marketing was also at this event I was at recently. So that's a bad example. But a lot of times it's like marketers, maybe they're not totally in it yet, or they're a brand that wants to understand the content creator world, but they don't. Maybe they're not doing that yet, or they want to do more of it. So they go to these events to build connections. AndMichael Jamin:So you're saying, I should go to this thing.Taylor Lorenz:I think you should go to VidCon. It's interesting. It's fun to just go to once. And there's a lot of fans there too. So there's the industry side, then there's the fan side, and then there's just all these sort of adjacent events.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content, and I know you do because listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com. And now back to what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?Alright, so what about other people who have, I guess, transition from, I guess I'm saying, what I'm thinking is how can we help my listeners into, I don't know, everyone turns to me for like, Hey, what should I put on? It's like, I don't know, just build a following. Do you have advice for them?Taylor Lorenz:Everyone asked me the same thing, and I'm like, I wish it was easy. If I could give you a three step thing, we would all have millions of followers. I mean, a huge part is consistency, which is very hard. And I have to say, you post forever. You can't get obsessed with the views because people just quit and they feel like, oh, if you have an audience of 500 people, that really matters. It is very much about creating more of a community of people, and it is scale. So I think it's just, that's so valuable, and it also matters who's following you, rather than just getting random views. You want influential or interesting or whatever type of market you're trying to go for. You want the right people to follow you.Michael Jamin:Well, this is something that I was always perplexed at the beginning of TikTok, so I guess both of them, but on TikTok, you have followers that are, I get all these followers. I'm like, but if I have all these followers and only a 10th of them are seeing an average post or less, what's the point? Why? Why do I keep track of this metric? Why do they have the metric of followers if they don't show it to your followers?Taylor Lorenz:The way that I explain TikTok is following is just one signal to the algorithm. It's one signal out of probably thousands. And so it's useful. It's like, I have an affinity to this person. Obviously, you follow people too. Then you're mutuals, and then you can DMM with each other more, or comment. Sometimes you can put videos to Mutuals only. So there is a value, I think, in following, but most of people's experience is of consuming content on TikTok is obviously through the for you page. So I wouldn't even, followers doesn't matter that much, right?Michael Jamin:It doesn't.Taylor Lorenz:And also it's like, again, it goes back to who is following you. There's so many creators that people always wonder this with press, because people are like, why? How do I get written about? And it's really not about how big you are. It's like, do you have something new and interesting, or have you cultivated some sort of unique audience that maybe hasn't been served before? Things like that. So you don't have to be the biggest,Michael Jamin:Well, I say this, there's this one guy, I'm trying to remember his name, but he has a show, he's sold a show somewhere. I should know his name, but it was a Twitter feed, and he was just writing, he had a thriller. So every day he posts a little different line from this thriller he was writing. Oh, cool. And then it just blew up because it's mystery and suspense, and people wanted to find out what was in the basement or whatever. Then he was able to, I was like, oh, that's a good idea. So he did it. And so I don't know. Are you following any other people who do anything like that?Taylor Lorenz:Twitter. Twitter. There was this period on Twitter where there were a lot of TV writers and comedians were trying things out there, and you could really get traction, and people were looking at Twitter. Now, no one's looking at that anymore. I would say it's much more TikTok and Instagram for comedy, and that's just where it is. But I mean, things people make, I mean, I was interested, this guy, Ari Kagan, who is kind of like a young director, content creator. He doesn't like to be called a content creator, but he just sold a show with Adam McKay, where they're making it for TikTok.Michael Jamin:They're making it for TikTok. Wait a minute, what does that mean?Taylor Lorenz:They're going to make it on TikTok. It's going to live on TikTok, I guess,Michael Jamin:But not as, what we do is some kind of different TikTok channel or something where it's long form.Taylor Lorenz:Yeah, yeah, it's, hold on, let me find it. I want to actually get it right. Oh, yeah. Here. It's a series that they're making on TikTok. Hold on. It happened when I was, okay. I just put it in the chat. Okay. Yeah, I think it's scripted. Yeah, it's a scripted series to run on TikTok.Michael Jamin:So you may or may not. That means you may or may not see it like we were just talkingTaylor Lorenz:About. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so I guess they're hoping that it'll perform well. I'm sure they're going to put paid media behind it, butMichael Jamin:Oh, okay. Oh, okay. How interesting. Yeah, this whole thing is so you got to be honest, people are always saying, how do I break into Hollywood? And I'm thinking, well, you don't need to. You can do this on your own.Taylor Lorenz:I mean, Ari did a lot on his own initially. I think that's how a lot of people get in there, is they sort of start making their own little projects. I mean, one person that I think has done this really well, he is an actor. His name is Brian Jordan Alvarez. Do you know him?Michael Jamin:No.Taylor Lorenz:Oh my God.Michael Jamin:So I got to know who.Taylor Lorenz:Alright,Michael Jamin:Put him in the chat.Taylor Lorenz:I'm going to put him in the chat. He was an actor on Will and Grace and he was in Megan, and he is very funny. I'll put, oh, he has a Wikipedia now. He's big time. He's an actor, but it makes this really amazing content. And he started making music online and these series online and I think it's like helped him a lot. I mean, everyone knows who he is now. He's been in Time Magazine and stuff, and it's mostly from his, he made this YouTube series a while ago that was popular, and then his tiktoks took off and he started making music. But it's like,Michael Jamin:All right, I got to follow this guy. You're sayingTaylor Lorenz:He's very funny, but it's just raised his profile a lot. I think what he does on the internet, and he does it in a really fun way. And I listened to him on a podcast recently, and he was just saying how it's led to more people kind of knowing his work, and obviously people see his work and then they want to work with you.Michael Jamin:Right. Do you have a podcast yet?Taylor Lorenz:Careful.Michael Jamin:Maybe I might tune.Taylor Lorenz:We'll see, I had one and then the New York Times made me quit it. The Times is crazy about outside projects, so I quitMichael Jamin:It. Oh, really? Hope that the post is not as, maybe they don't.Taylor Lorenz:They're better. That's why I work there now.Michael Jamin:Wow. You got your hand in so many different things. Yeah. I don't know. I just thought you're absolutely fascinated because you are an expert, but you're also in it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Is it overwhelming for you?Taylor Lorenz:I think I have good boundaries because I mean, I'm grateful to be a millennial where I think it's harder for the 22 year olds today where everything, their whole social life is so enmeshed in the internet. I think I have a healthy distance from it, and I have friends that are just my friends that aren't internet.Michael Jamin:So your boundaries are basically how much time you're willing to invest every day on being online. And also justTaylor Lorenz:Like I have a very strong sense of self, and I think when you get on the internet, everybody tries to push you into doing things or making content or being like, oh, you should do this, or, oh, you should do this. And I have always had a mind of, actually, I know what I want and I'm going to do this, and I'm just going to do only what I want. I know who I am if people, because it's hard on the internet and sometimes things perform well. So if I had continued to talk about my life, I think that probably would've performed well back when I was blogging, but I made the decision to just stop doingMichael Jamin:That. But you're right, if something's controversial, I try to steer away from controversy. I feel like I'm just here to talk about art and entertainment and writing and Hollywood, but I also know if I took a bigger stand on things and pissed people off, it would go viral. But then what's the point of this? I don't know.Taylor Lorenz:Then you get all these haters. I've written a lot of political stories that have to do with the content creator world and the political ecosystem, and so those are some of my most viral stories. But I have to say, it just gets you a lot of people that then follow you. They feel like, oh yeah, she's on our side on this, or whatever, or, oh, I hate her. She wrote about this content creator that. So I think it's just better to just be true to yourself. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Though I did a post couple, maybe when I first started off and it went, somehow Yahoo picked up on it and I was on Yahoo Entertainment News. My first reaction was, oh no. You know what I'm saying? Oh no. People know about me. It felt wrong. I don't know. I was like, I don't want people knowing about me.Taylor Lorenz:I know. It feels really, I mean, I've struggled with that a lot, and I actually really like being in LA for this reason. I was thinking just the past few years, more and more people start to know who you are and start writing about you, and that is such a mind fuck. I used to really believe, oh, every journalist is so great and they only have the best interests at heart of, and that is just not true. Unfortunately, there's a lot of places that just aggregate things for clicks and whatever, or they're very partisan in certain ways, and yeah, it's very hard. I used to run around trying to correct people. I tried to correct my own Wikipedia page, and then now I'm like, I gave up on all of that. I don't care.Michael Jamin:See, that's something I still frightens me a little bit is when people will stitch me or they'll make me the face of whatever argument they want. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Keep me out of it. I never said any of this. I didn't sign up for that. This is your thing. I know that frightens me a little bit,Taylor Lorenz:I think, because everybody uses each other as characters online, and so it's like you're the main character. Then you just use all these other people around you as supporting characters and whatever you're trying to do on the internet,Michael Jamin:I thinkTaylor Lorenz:Really, butMichael Jamin:Well, that's what scared me about what you wrote in your book, but those people who just, they're whatever, they gossip about other tiktoks like, whoa, whoa, whoa. This just feels so wrong to me. Just do your own thing.Taylor Lorenz:I know.Michael Jamin:Don't try to cancel me. What are you doing?Taylor Lorenz:I know my first job in media was at the Daily Mail, and it was such a great training ground for media because tabloid news is just so relentless, and

On October 7th, I hosted a webinar called "How Professional Screenwriters Create Great Characters", where I talked about how to come up with interesting and unique characters, as well as how tapping into your everyday life interactions with people can help with this. This episode addresses questions you asked in our Q&A session that we didn't have time to answer. There's lots of great info here, make sure you watch.Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:I feel like we're overthinking this a little bit. I feel like maybe we're giving labels that don't need to be labeled. We have a hero. We're going to put this hero on a journey. And who are the people? Or if it's a like a buddy comedy or whatever we're talking about, or if it's a husband and wife or whatever, what's the story? What's the journey we're putting them on and who are the characters we're going to get in their way? You're listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin, and today we're going to answer the question, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, today I'm talking about questions from my previous webinar. As many of you know, I do a webinar every three weeks or so where I talk about screenwriting and it's about an hour long and you're all invited and it's free. And I don't always have time to answer all these questions, but Phil is here with us visiting again. Hello, Phil. Hello and happy to be here. He's going to hit me with some of these questions we're going to answer.Phil Hudson:Lemme hit you baby one more time. Let's do it. All right. So again, kind of group questions, context for everyone. This was from a webinar talking about how professional screenwriters create great characters. You've got another really good webinar that a lot of people really like, which is how to write a great story. And so contextually, these are really more character based. There's some miscellaneous stuff, there's some break in questions. We've kind of grouped them together. So as I go through these, we'll just try to keep 'em on theme and let's get into it. Let's talk craft. Think Craft is always a good place to start. Anna Renee Chavez wants to know what big differences are there between writing for animation versus live action?Michael Jamin:Great question. Oh, and I just want to clarify everybody by webinars, you are free. Go to michaeljamin.com/webinar to sign up. I changed the topics, but whatever. So this woman wants to know what's the difference between writing for animation and live action? Not that much in terms of, and I teach 'em both in my course. The differences really are not that different. The only thing you want to think about is well ask yourself why is this show animated? What's the advantages to making this show animated? So in BoJack Horseman, it's a very real and grounded show, but you have horses talking and fish talking, or Whitney, you couldn't do that in live action. So you're taking advantage of the medium. If you have it animated, take advantage of it. When my partner and I did Glen Martin DDS, which is the show there a stop motion animation, we would ask ourselves, what's Clay tastic about this? We'd call it, because it wasn't claymation, but we pretended it was claymation. So what's Clay tastic about this scene? Is someone's head going to come off? So for example, we did an episode where the character, the boy got his head stuck in an elephant's ass. You can't do that in live action. So you can do that in animation, but the story itself, it's very similar. The stories are very similar. It's just that you just take advantage of the medium.Phil Hudson:Yeah, awesome. And I think another good example of this, where a choice was made to do live action RET link's buddy system, you had mentioned to me that one point that it's basically just a cartoon. It's like a live action cartoon with silly It is, but they can't be as silly as they could if it was animated and they could do whatever they wanted. So it still kind of grounds it in this reality, but it's still a bit silly.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it could have been a cartoon, but we would've gone even we did one episode where we turned Lincoln into a robot because the character was like, my life would be easier if I was a robot. So that probably would've been even better if it was animated. But in real life we just started putting 'em in crappy robot costumes.Phil Hudson:Yeah,Michael Jamin:But it was funny. We turned him into a robot, so it was kind of broad.Phil Hudson:Love it. Julia Wells considering extraordinary and ordinary pairing. What would you say about friends, how I Met Your Mother, or shows that are more grounded? I think this is in reference in your webinar when you're talking about your characters and putting your characters together or how you write your characters for a specific story, and there's a difference between extraordinary and ordinary if you want something extraordinary when you're pairing your characters together.Michael Jamin:Well, yeah, most shows are like that. Most sitcoms, the characters are just normal people. And yeah, it was kind of like ordinary characters, kind of an extraordinary situations where it would've been unusual. I'm trying to think of an example from friends, but alright, so they did an episode where Joey and Joey and what's his name, not Kramer Chandler, the guy Chandler are going to sit in their chairs all episode, all ordinary guys doing something extraordinary. They're not going to move from their chairs and they're going to see if they get everything delivered and they're going to eat and drink and they're not going to get up, stuff like that. So I don't think it's any different from any other sitcom I've worked on other than the characters.Phil Hudson:I just started re-watching How I Met Your Mother, which I've seen who knows how many times. But it's a good background show while I'm working on stuff that's not necessarily logical, analytical stuff. And there's an episode where it's the Halloween party and he's the hanging Chad because he met the sexy pumpkin in 2001 during the election or 1999 or whatever. And so Barney's got tickets to the Victoria's Secret model, Christmas Halloween costume party, and he's trying to get his friend to this extraordinary thing and his friend won't leave. He wants to be at this party to potentially meet this girl on this rooftop again. And it's the push and pull of Come be amazing, stop looking for love, you're losing. So it plays really well in that situation. Alright, cool. AIA Saunders or AIA Sanders, I apologize for ruining that. How do you feel about basing a character on them knowing themselves or basing a character on yourself and your own doubts?Michael Jamin:Yeah, do it all. I mean, you should do it. You should totally mind your own life For stories, and I have a whole module on this in the course, and you can disguise it too, so people don't have to know it's you, but you're just stealing parts of yourself or parts of people as other characters, but you change it enough and change the name, but also change professions and change. You're just stealing attributes from people so they wouldn't know it. But that's what your life is for your life is to steal things fromPhil Hudson:Perfect. Charles Shin, do you have any tips or advice with coming up with great names for your characters?Michael Jamin:I spoke a little bit about this in the old days. We used to have a baby naming book, my partner and I, and then now it's kind of easy to go on the internet or just in life. You'll come across a street name and you go, oh, that's a good last name for a character. I just kind of keep a list. What was one? I had one the other day I added to my list, I can't remember, but it was like a street sign I go that I passed. I go, that's a good character's name.Phil Hudson:Yeah. I've also seen our showrunners on Tacoma fd. There's a random character as Chief Phil Dylan. Well, I'm Phil. It was the writer's pa and I replaced Dylan, the writer's pa.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's funny. I know they took that for you. I mean, they tend to do that a lot where at least Steve Lemi does. He'll just name characters after people he knows.Phil Hudson:Yeah. There's one line from Ike in an episode that I think you guys wrote. It's like Benjamin Duff or Benjamin CrumpMichael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Ben Crump was our DIT set. Right. So just throw people's names and give 'em fun stuff. Awesome. You also talked, I think you talked about funny names that go together too. At one point that was something you do.Michael Jamin:I talked about, I had a character named, what was his name? SomethingPhil Hudson:The third? It was something the fourth. The fourth, yeah. What was hisMichael Jamin:Name? God, I can't remember.Phil Hudson:It was like, but it was a bunch of things together that rhymed almost or had similar names.Michael Jamin:I'd have to look it up. I can't. Oh, Dan Danforth iv. That's what it was. Dan Dan. I had a character named Dan Danforth iv, and I just thought that was a good name because Dan Danforth is weird enough. But why did his parents have to saddle in with the fourth? Because, well, they felt like they had to because the father's the third is a generational thing. They can't, so they stuck this guy with his shitty name and what's that going to, having a name like that, you're going to be teased as a child. And I thought the character is kind of a feckless type and he became a sheriff of a small town as a way of demanding respect because he'd been teased all his life to be named Dan Danforth iv. And so now he has a badge, but people still think he's a dipshit. And so I just thought it was kind of a good name for a character like that, who's kind of feckless.Phil Hudson:Alright, jumping into the course and character related topics, these are a bit intermingled because a lot of what you talked about, and we even brought this up with Mike Repp and Kevin Lewandowski about how valuable that course, that character worksheet is. But because this webinar is about character, there are a lot of questions about character. So number one, pat Nava. How do you make characters that the audience wants to know more about?Michael Jamin:Well, it's not so much the characters, it's just the story you give them. So that's not so much the character. That's the story.Phil Hudson:There we go. Cookies and sugar. How do we make characters diverse and not self projectMichael Jamin:Diverse and not self project? They seem very different questions toPhil Hudson:Me. So this is, I think a really good question and from context for this, this person is a minor and they want to be a writer and they've been told by their well meaning adults in their life and mentors not to do that because it's a waste of time because you'll never make it as a writer. And that was a question she'd asked another point. So this question really speaks to me of something I heard really early on when I was studying, which is you are not your characters. Don't write yourself into your characters, which is kind of contradictory to the advice you give, which is writing your life for stories.Michael Jamin:Why not? I dunno why they would give you that advice. Why not? Yeah, it might've been because people were just writing self-indulgent material that could have been,Phil Hudson:I know on writing by Stephen King, he says that you are not your characters and it is a mistake to think that your characters will behave the way you would. So if you find your character doing something you wouldn't do, it is your job to allow them to do that. And I find that a lot with my writing. There are many things I write where I would never do as someone from a more conservative background who is religiously inclined, like my characters say and do things all the time. I'm like, oh, where did that come from? Not who I am, but that's what it felt like needed to happen as that character was coming through me. And I feel it's my responsibility to just let that happen. But the difference is to me is don't make your characters do and make the actions you would do. And if you're a more passive person, that's not a good thing for your character to be because your character needs to make choices. And that's the conflict of it all.Michael Jamin:But Larry David on Kirby Enthusiasm, he's playing himself, but Larry David is not that person in real life. These are just, it's a heightened version of himself. Larry David knows when to hold his tongue. His character doesn't, his character can't let it go. Larry David just playing. It's a heightened version of himself. It's the worst version of himself, which is why it's so funny he wouldn't do that in real life. I mean, Larry, he wouldn't do that,Phil Hudson:Right? But if you look at yourself, or even friends you have or people that you know and you say, I've got this buddy who is super quiet, but then when he talks it is just cuts with a thousand lashes because he is so sharp, it'll just take the wind out of your sails in a second. So if you have someone and you take that element and you say, I wonder how I can make that funnier. How could I take this tick that I have or that my wife has and just make it, turn it up to 11. That's where the comedy comes from and that's where the conflict comes from. So that's what you're saying by mind your life for stories and put your characters in situations you've been in, but don't do what you did necessarily.Michael Jamin:You could turn it up. Yeah, turn it up a notch. That's it. It makes it fun and interesting.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Cool. Matthew? I think he likes lasagna. Many people begin with an idea for a character. I've always been led by the concept and the plot, then I tailored the characters to fit within it. What are your thoughts on that method?Michael Jamin:Sure. I mean that works fine. I mean, if you can create someone who still feels real, like I said, even though Larry David is a heightened version of himself, it still feels real. It feels like he almost, it's not crazy. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that he would do that. So as your characters don't, as long as it doesn't feel like you're contorting the character to do something that your story requires, which would not be human behavior, at the end of the day, these characters have to be humanPhil Hudson:Like jumping the sharkMichael Jamin:Or jumping the shark. But also often my partner and I will write a scene and Seaver will say something like a character that's not human behavior. We're just making the character do this because two writers in Hollywood need him to say that, which is, I mean, sometimes we'll laugh, we'll say, why would a character say that? And then I'll say that we have four cameras on him and we have to shoot something tonight. But that's not the right answer. The right answer is it has to be human behavior.Phil Hudson:So tangentially related would be DSX, Mina, right? Which is circumstance or coincidence, getting your character out of trouble or solving your problem. So it's not the same, but very similar as it's aMichael Jamin:Lazy writing dem and I believe is Latin for God,Phil Hudson:God in the machine,Michael Jamin:A God or God can get you into trouble or a coincidence can get you into trouble but can't get you out of trouble. So if God comes to the rescue and saves the day, that's considered bad writing. So an example for this that people like to harp on is somehow Palpatine returned. Isn't that his name? Palpatine?Phil Hudson:Yeah, Palpatine.Michael Jamin:Palpatine. I didn't even watch it. I didn't watch it, so I'm not going to badmouth that movie, but that's what people say somehow God came in and everyone seems to roll their eyes at it. And again, I haven't seen it so I really shouldn't say, but that's what I've heard. That would be an example of maybe something that people don't, they went too far.Phil Hudson:Yeah, yeah. How do you introduce characters? I normally have their name, age in a short sentence, which sums up their personality. I then allow them to show their character through their actions.Michael Jamin:Yeah, those are stage direction and no one wants reading stage direct wants to read stage direction. So I usually say what the character's name is exactly a few, maybe a physical attribute or two their age and something about their personality that gets it real fast. Here's a bad description. You see this a lot, Lucy, cute, but doesn't know a girl next door. Cute, but doesn't realize it or sexy, but doesn't know it. How many times have I got to see that and you just roll your eyes. So it's got to be better than that.Phil Hudson:Yeah,Michael Jamin:That's cliche.Phil Hudson:Do you ever put anything related? I've heard other writers recommend putting in cues for clothing to help wardrobe understand how this person dresses or informed character. Is that something you ever consider?Michael Jamin:Only if it's absolutely necessary. If the character wears loose fitting clothing to hide their body, that makes sense. But unless it's absolutely necessary, we can have these discussions at the production meeting. We don't need to know it now in the script unless it absolutely necessary.Phil Hudson:Great. Tom Merrim, when you write characters, do you focus more on the personalities you want added to the mix or focus more on the role each plays or what they need to do in the story?Michael Jamin:And that's what I teach in the course. Every character has to be there for a reason and they have to help elucidate the story or else it's just, you don't want to just mash these. Even if you have 10 great characters, like oh, they're all interesting, but maybe they don't fit together. They have to fit together to tell a story. The story is the look. We all work for the story, the writers, the directors, the actors, we all serve the story and that includes the characters. The story comes first. That's why it's so important to learn what story is.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Great. Justin Kaiser, to develop your characters, do you focus on relationships more than the characters themselves?Michael Jamin:Well, more, I mean, I always think what's the relationship between this character and the other character? I mean, you may need to know that if you have a father and a son and you want to know how they interact and maybe the kid's under the father's thumb and at the end of the show or movie, he's going to stand on his own two feet and defy his father. That's important that you might need to know that. But I don't need, if that's what the story is about, then yeah, I need to know the relationship, but I don't need to have all the answers, just the ones that are pertinent for the story.Phil Hudson:And when you get into the course, you'll learn that there's this awesome sheet that you have that you were provided that was given to you. Was it Steve Levitan gave it to you. And it's basically defining all of these nuances of your character so that you can build them out to be someone unique. And you clearly see a pattern. And this kind of relates back, I think to cookies and sugars question. I'm assuming this is universal, not just to me thing, but definitely a Phil Hudson thing. When I create my characters and I start using that spreadsheet, I start noticing like, oh, they're all very similar. We got to mix that up, so let's fix this, let's fix this. And so those are like, I have specific things I go to or lean towards and it's like I need to fix that. And that allows me to create conflict creates differences in the way people see things. It also empowers me when I'm writing these characters to know how they would talk about this specific thing or react in this situation in a way that empowers the story to be better and serve their role that they've been given.Michael Jamin:Here's an extreme example of that. Let's say you're writing Oceans 11 and you have, I dunno, I guess, or have loving characters or whatever. You got the brainiac, you got the suave guy, you got the bomb cutter, who's a loose cannon, you got the thug, you got the nerd or whatever. Every character in that group has their own distinct, not only personality, but almost archetype of personality. There shouldn't be overlap. And then that's an extreme example, but even if you're writing something more grounded and real or intimate, rather, you'll ask, you'll have the same conversations with yourself. So why do I have two heart throb characters? I only need one. You want to have different viewpoints. In the episode, we talked a little bit about love. Actually in the last podcast we talked about, we did a q and a and I mentioned love actually is about looking at love on Christmas time from whatever, 15, how many storylines, whatever, eight storylines. And each character has a very specific kind of role. And there's no, and there shouldn't be. If there is, we don't need two characters for that same point of view. This is a work of art. You don't need two, just one.Phil Hudson:Yeah. And going back to how I met your mother, there's really three kind of four different characters there in this group. There's a couple, Marshall and Lily, there's Ted, our protagonist, and there's Barney, and then there's Robin. And they all reflect this different opinion about relationships and dating in New York City. You've got the couple that have been together since college and they're together and they just love each other all the time. The ones seeking true love, the player who just wants to hook up with as many women as he can. Ironically played by Neil Patrick Harris, who's gay, and he does a great job of playing that person. And then you have Robin who is afraid of love and kind of withdraws from love and that creates that ecosystem where they're all playing off of eachMichael Jamin:Other. They all have different viewpoints. Yeah.Phil Hudson:I'll also say I'm working on this feature that I haven't written a feature in a long time and I got the story that I really like and it centers around a family situation. And I'm thinking about my family and my brothers and my relationship with my siblings. And it's like we were all raised the same. We are all very different people. We have fights because there are things we absolutely disagree on, but then there's always this layer of relationship. And we had understanding that even when we get really mad at each other to a certain degree, we know we're always going to come back together. Except there's always that thing dangling out there that maybe we won't. And I have one sibling who's like that. I don't know that I could have a same conversation with her that I could with my older brother the same way I would. She may never want to talk to me again because he's just a bit more sensitive. So it's like, okay, how do I look at all of these relationships here? And just because we all come from the same place and we had almost the same experiences. We are all very different.So Cameron Barnes, he said, Michael said, a cast of characters should be in constant conflict, but does that actually just mean constant conflict throughout the story?Michael Jamin:What else would it mean? I mean,Phil Hudson:Yeah, I dunno.Michael Jamin:I don't know. I mean, yeah, conflictPhil Hudson:Doesn't, lemme talk about the constant conflict. Maybe just address that.Michael Jamin:Well, conflict doesn't have to be people fighting. It could be passive aggressive. It could be people caring very much for each other, the mother, and you've seen this trope before, the mother, the overbearing mother, trying to get the daughter to be happy and settle down and find a man, whatever. She's just in her life that's conflict. A mother who's constantly meddling and she means well and the daughter knows she means well, but she keeps stepping on her toes. You've seen that story a million times. We've seen it because it works. So that's conflict. But if it was, what about a show where everyone was always getting along? Well, that's boring, unfortunately that's just boring. That's the scene right? Before everything goes south, that's what that is. You have one scene like that and then it goesPhil Hudson:South. And it's not that it's all okay that people are just kind of egg shelling, walking on eggshells around each other to maintain the peace in this moment, right? Yeah, because it's going to go nuts at any moment. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Drama is conflict, guys. So that's it. Drama is conflict,Phil Hudson:But that's also just life. And I think that's why we watch it. Life is not perfect harmony at all times with everybody. There's things,Michael Jamin:But even if you had a scene where young couple's in love and everything's great. Okay, great. What's one scene they met boy meets girl, they fall in love. Great. How many,Phil Hudson:Why do you leave the towels on the floor? He leaves theMichael Jamin:Towel. Yeah, something's going to have to happen wherePhil Hudson:When you take your toothbrush out of your mouth, it flicks toothpaste on the mirror and you never clean it. Right? That's the stuff that eats at couples.Michael Jamin:Yeah. So you need stuff like that. Everyone loves Raymond. They were a happy couple, they had a happy marriage, but you still have to fight Rose, what are we watching?Phil Hudson:But that's also fighting in a relationship is what makes your relationship better. If you can get through those things. And fighting doesn't mean screaming and yelling and throwing stuff at each other. It could just be disagreements or heated conversations is like you got to get through the conflict, come to a resolution,Michael Jamin:Right?Phil Hudson:This thing bothers me. This thing bothers you. How are we going to fix this? We live together and we're going to be together forever. So let's figure this out. It's going to bother me every day forever.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Matthew Lavania back. What's the difference between a villain and an antagonist?Michael Jamin:I don't know. I mean a villain I guess is an arch formative, a villain sounds like it's something that's a heightened antagonist. That's what it sounds like. An antagonist doesn't have to be a villain. It could just, if you have, like I said, a daughter and a mother and the mother's overbearing, then the mother's an antagonist. Doesn't mean she's a villain. The stepmother's the villain in Cinderella. So it's just a heightened antagonist I suppose. But we're splitting hair. I don't think we have to worry about that really. I mean it's like an academic question. I could thinkPhil Hudson:You might say Thanos in the Marvel universe is the villain because he's got this big existential threat. But I think one of the things you highlight definitely in my writing is your antagonist still needs to be likable. Not likable in the sense, but we need to understand that they think they're the hero. And in this case, Thanos wants to prevent genocide because his world went through this. And so his way of doing, it's by killing half the people in existence to prevent this thing from happening.Michael Jamin:Think about land from Quentin Tarantino's,Phil Hudson:GloriousMichael Jamin:Bastards and glorious bastards. What a great villain. I mean, he was a great villain. He was the Jew hunter, the Nazi man that was a badass guy. But he was complex and there was something so about him, even though what he was doing was so incredibly vile and offensive. And so that's when you humanize your villain, you make it. It makes your writing so much richer. I mean the fact that he spoke so many languages and he was educated. He'sPhil Hudson:Charismatic. Yeah,Michael Jamin:He was charismatic and yet stillPhil Hudson:And very polite. Thank you so much for inviting. Yeah,Michael Jamin:VeryPhil Hudson:Inviting, inviting. May I ask you for some milk?Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:The Jews are underneath me right now, aren't they? Yeah.Michael Jamin:And you just didn't know where you stood with the guy. So he was just a very nice guy doing awful, awful things. So that's great writingPhil Hudson:That scene when he's sitting down with Ana, I'd like to go over the theater and he's vetting her and he's putting cream down for her and he's like, he knows who she is. It is unspoken subtext. He is aware that this is the girl that got away. You see it in her reaction when she leaves and she's hyperventilating and she just kept it togetherMichael Jamin:And he was like a mercenary.Phil Hudson:Then you find out later that that's all part of his plan. This is how he's going to get out.Michael Jamin:Great writing. That's all that is. That's all that movie is great writing,Phil Hudson:Which is followed up byMichael Jamin:Great actingPhil Hudson:And great production and great editing and great everything. That'sMichael Jamin:All that was though.Phil Hudson:Alright. Luke felt. How do you ensure that the story around the character matches the lesson that they need to learn?Michael Jamin:Can you say that again? How do I ensure?Phil Hudson:So this is a presupposition that your character needs to learn something by the end of your script. So how do you ensure that the story around that character gets them to the point that they learn something?Michael Jamin:Well, okay, I don't believe characters have to learn anything. I do think they have to grow or else why did you put 'em on a journey? If not to them it has to be you're changed in some way. If you take a character and you take 'em to the top of Mount Everest, they have to be changed in some way or else why did you take 'em there? So it doesn't mean they have to learn a lesson, they could be worse off. But if your why stories is a journey and why go on the journey if we're not going to get a view and the view better be something interesting, why did you take me on this long trip? And if the character didn't in some way change or grow, it doesn't mean learn a lesson, just change in some small way. Why didn't we take 'em on that trip? Why did we go there? Why did you waste our time? And by the way, there are bad movies where this doesn't happen and I always feel like, well, why did you just waste my time? And so just because there's bad writing out there doesn't mean we have to participate in it. It doesn't mean we have to add to it.Phil Hudson:I think there's an inclination, and I've seen this in myself and many other writers in film school and definitely here in Los Angeles, that you want to buck the trend and buck the system and you don't want to follow story structure and you want to do your own thing. It's almost like you want to reinvent the world of writing and you also want to play into tragedy and disappoint, defeat audience expectations and all these things. And that's artful writing. And I think what I've learned from you in the course and being in the writer's room is that those things serve a purpose and you can still do those things, but you do it in a surprising way and it works because there's a structure to it.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I mean, everyone wants to reinvent writing, reinvent the story. Look, the story works. It's been working for thousands of years. You can make a good living writing compelling story. And when I watch a story that's compelling and that works, I don't think, wow, they just reinvented the story. I don't think that, I just think they told a really good story. I feel like they're doing what I'm doing, but maybe better or on a higher level. I don't think they just completely change with some small exceptions sometimes. I'll watch, for example, inception, Christopher Nolan, I, I've watched it four times. I still don't know what it's about. I still can't follow it. It's obviously a great movie, but I don't think we have to all write like that in order to tell a great story.Phil Hudson:And I think he just announced what is happening. He just revealed that during the Oppenheimer interviews. You can go look that up on the Google if anybody's in. But yeah, I mean that's his style and it's very much his cscope, I think is what it is. Or Cscope, his logo is a maze. It's elaborate. He's kind of telling you this is his way of tellingMichael Jamin:Stories. That's how he does it and that's how he thinks.Phil Hudson:It started with Memento and it started with even other stuff he directed but didn't write, which I'm blanking on it, but it's like one in Alaska and it's psychological thriller. But yeah, all of his stuff is that, and that's his motif and his style.Michael Jamin:I'd go so far as to say that the guy's kind of a genius. And so unless you think you're a genius too, maybe don't try to reinvent. I don't think I'm a genius. But that said, I couldn't write anything like Memento. It hurts my head to think about it. And I enjoyed a memento and Inception really loved it. I couldn't come close to it. I write, what I do is I write comedy and I'm very good at that. My one little thing, and that's okay. We all have our one little thing that we're good at and you have to just lean into it. Christopher Nolan doesn't write comedy, which is good. He has a sing that he does and we love what he does. We don't all have to be experts at everything.Phil Hudson:Right? Yeah. Justin Kaiser, how do you decide that another character is needed to advance the story or if that attribute moral personality can be added to another existing character?Michael Jamin:IPhil Hudson:Guess kind of the question is how do you know when you have enough characters in your story?Michael Jamin:Well, it's a little different. If you're writing a TV show, if a TV show you need to write, you have to have a cast and it has to be conflict. You want to have, let's say five or six characters that always are going to always be in conflict with each other week in and week out as you tell different stories. If you're writing a movie, you really want to think about who's the star of this movie, or if it's a two hander, who are the stars, if it's a buddy cop movie or whatever, you have two cops or it's a buddy movie or a road trip movie. You have these two characters and you only have the other characters as needed to help tell the story, the journey you're putting those two characters on. So if you take a good example, because we're mentioning Buddy comedies, midnight Run, so Charles Groden and Robert De Niro. It's a buddy comedy you're putting and a road trip, comedy, whatever, not so much a comedy but drama and you're putting them on an adventure, so you just need obstacles to throw in their ways. So you have Dennis Farinas character who's the mobster, but we're not following Dennis Farinas story. We're following Robert De Niro's relationship with Charles. That's it. Everyone else is there to help. Tell Robert De Niro's story and Charles Groton's story.Phil Hudson:Yeah, easy Rider, very similar, right? You've got these two bikers and you've got their lawyer Jack, Jack nickles, and then it, it's about them. And that's experience of going across America right in the seventies. It's not about the hippies they meet at the Waterhole in Santa Fe. It's about those and what happens to them as they go through America, Julia Wells, and how do you prevent the worst characters from being so far outside their wheelhouse that they can't possibly succeed or it becomes unbelievable. And this is in reference to this kind of golden nugget you've been talking about recently in your Yeah,Michael Jamin:Everyone please come to my webinars about this one's about character. She's talking about character, but I do another one on story and they're free. You go to michael tamer.comPhil Hudson:And you're going to get a lot of these questions for people. A lot of this is coming out of, it's in context in the webinar. So you're hearing this lesson and these very important principles for writers, and these are questions coming out of that. And this is one of those questions referring to a tip you give in the webinar about how to write characters that a professional writer would use.Michael Jamin:So she wants to know how do you make sure that your character is not so off the map that people don't like it or something?Phil Hudson:Yeah, because the point you're making here is you don't want a perfect character. You want the worst character for a situation. Yeah. So how do you not make the situation so bad that per character can't navigate it?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, I think what you do is you have your character and get better, so improve on it. So like I talked about, one of the examples I gave in the webinar was Aria Stark from Game of Thrones, and we gave her one of the hardest storylines, which was she was a little girl, her family was murdered, and now she decides she's going to avenge the death of her family. And I talk more about this in the webinar, so I'm not going to go too much detail, but Aria Stark is the worst character to give this journey to avenge the death. She's like an 8-year-old and she's tiny. And so we give her skills. So we slowly take her down this path where she learns skills and becomes a great fighter. Little by little, she learns from this, the dance.Phil Hudson:You learn those attributes, but it's there, the seeds are there. She's interested in sword play. She's a bit of a tomboy. She wants to know these things that her sisters the opposite, wants to be the queen, wants to marry the king, that wholeMichael Jamin:Thing. So we put her, she's the worst person to put on this journey, but we slowly give her the skills on these little storylines that we give her to become the one who kills the night King. No one can kill this guy. He's made of ice and somehow she, but had we not put her on this journey, she would've been the first one to die. Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com. And now back to what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?Phil Hudson:Yeah, it's all great. It's such a good show.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Darlene Smith, can you ever overc create a character?Michael Jamin:I dunno what that means. OvercPhil Hudson:Create overriding is a thing. I don't think this is, can you think too much about your character? And I know a lot of people spend times writing full biographies about theirMichael Jamin:CharactersPhil Hudson:And all that kind of stuff.Michael Jamin:Yeah. As you write, you learn more about the character. It's so weird when people say, I wrote, they say, I have the pilot, the Bible, and the first three seasons of my show mapped out really? In other words, you're saying you're not willing to discover any of this as you go because they just haven't mapped out on a piece of paper. It's like in a real writer's room. We got a team of writers working on this, and over the course of eight seasons, we were learning more and more about the characters as we go. It's not Breaking Bad wasn't fleshed out in the pitch. Jesse Pinkman wasn't even going to be a main character in it. You learn about your characters as you're writing. You see what works and what doesn't work. I think there's a temptation to spend all this time overthinking your characters without even putting a word on the page.Phil Hudson:Look, it looks like writing and I think that might be, this is procrastination.Michael Jamin:Yes,Phil Hudson:It's world creating. I think I told you maybe eight months ago, nine months ago, there was a kid who was in film school, he messaged me and he's like, Hey, I'm really interested in this and writing, and I just love creating worlds. I love world building. I love doing all this stuff. And that's my favorite part of this. And it's like, cool. None of that matters if you don't have a character we want to watch because that is all that matters is what is this character? What is the journey they're going on? It's procrastination. It feels like it. And look, this might be a bit of a gross word to use to describe this, but it is masturbation. It is just you are doing this for self-indulgent reasons to make you feel like you're writing and it's literally not moving the chain, which is pages, words on the page, words on the page, words on theMichael Jamin:Page. My partner and I, we've gotten called out on this more than once, where the executives will look at an outline or a beat sheet and they go, I don't understand this character. And we're like, well, we don't really understand the character yet either. We plan on finding it as we write, but they get mad. We need to know now. All right, well, we are just kind of pulling the wool of your eyes. We'll figure it out. We're going to find it when we write it. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to tell you. We thought about it. We're not there yet. We have to discover it as we write. Sorry, but this is how it goes.Phil Hudson:I want to highlight here, Michael, too, that this is for a lot of people who might hear what you say about story structure matters and there's a structure that you need to stick to and you talk very in your free lesson, michaeljamin.com/free. There's a whole bunch of free resources on that page. One of those is this free lesson about story, and you talk in there about Picasso. And Picasso was a master at 14, and then he learned and created his own version of art that's worth millions and hundreds of millions of dollars. Now, by the time he was 80, so he had like 65 years if I'm asked of figuring out how to make his own thing and reinventing this. But it's grounded in the rules of art and painting, and you talk about structure and how it matters, but in the same breath you're saying like find it as you go. Find it as you go. And there's a balance there. And I think very often, definitely myself, very black and white, and there's a lot of this, you need to understand the principles so that you can break the rules, but you also need to understand when to focus your time and when to shift. And that I would venture to say just comes with time. You got to get in and do itMichael Jamin:A lot and over and over and over again and you'll learn. And then that's how a lot of times we will have the perfect character, all the perfect characters, and we'll start writing and we go, none of this is working. So what we thought was perfect is not working. How do I know it's not working? Because the words are not coming out on the page. It's just not working.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Don't be so damn precious about your story and your characters and your idea. Just get it out and move on. It's reps. You got to get your reps in. All right, cookies and sugar. How do you keep a romance novel? Interesting. How do you create conflict between the two characters while still having them come together in the end to date? How do you write villains in? And part of me is, I think we just answered this with the toothpaste and all that stuff we're talking about. You can get there, but Hitch comes to mind for me, right? It's the right characters. Remember? Yeah. Will Smith is the dating expert, and he helps guys who kind of suck at dating, get girls that they like. And Eon Goya's character is like a gossip writer, and she finds out about this guy and she's going to go find him and hunt him down. But at the same time, she falls in love with Hitch the Guy. And then it kind of comes out later that she feels like he played her and it's because her friend got some douche bag who he wouldn't help made some reference. And so it all kind of boils over at the end. And it's about helping a guy fall in love who's in love with this airs getting her to fall in love with him. He's a klutz and he can't do it himself. And all the things she fell in love with were him. His mistakes, not the stuff Hitch taught him how to do, right? It's all the sincere him stuff. But that is a great example of this is a romcom, this is a romance story. This isMichael Jamin:Go watch when Harry Met Sally, which is the best romcom ever. And so when you keep your, it is boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl. That's the middle, right? Then boy gets girl in the end again. Or not. Or not, but getting together at the end, you need to get your characters, they usually get together earlier and then something goes south. And that would be probably be your second act break when they break up for whatever reason. So go watch Harry. I met Sally. That's a brilliant, brilliant romcom.Phil Hudson:Awesome. EG wants to know how do you overcome difficulties with writing dialogue? Acts broken down, but having a hard time with dialogue?Michael Jamin:Well, yeah. I mean, there's a couple of things going on. One, you can record your dialogue into a tape recorder or whatever, digital recorder and play it back. And it should sound natural. It should sound the way people talk. You can go to a coffee shop and listen to people how they talk to me. That's the fun part. If you're having problem writing it, it could easily be because you don't know what your characters should say. And if you don't know what your characters are saying, you don't have a dialogue problem. You have a story structure problem if you don't know what your characters should say. So I suspect that's what's going on. I suspect this person doesn't have a dialogue problem. They have a story structured problem.Phil Hudson:That was my thought too, because it's pretty easy to know what you need to get. You shouldn't have a scene where people are just showing up to talk that does nothing for us. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:It's that critique I have. And I've noticed even in my own writing early on, which is there's a lot of people doing things and nothing's happening.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Phil Hudson:That's a bad note to get by the way, guys, you don't want that. Doc B, is there a method by which to place arc points, the character will learn something or experience that helps them grow? Or do you let the story find the right moment for a character evolution?Michael Jamin:Can you repeat it?Phil Hudson:It kind of was tough to get through. So is there a process or method that you use to put in plot points or story points that require your character to grow or evolve?Michael Jamin:Well, again, we're talking story structure. That's what they need to, that's what I teach in the course. There is a process. Yeah. Yeah.Phil Hudson:I recently, go ahead.Michael Jamin:Characters don't have to grow. They have to change, but they don't have to learn a lesson, but go on.Phil Hudson:Yeah. And again, that's that advice. It just hangs out. There is your character needs to learn something, your character needs to learn something. And just kind of hanging myself out here. Again, the first question you asked me when you're giving me screenwriting advice is you asked me the question, what is the definition of a story? Hint. Hint. That's go get the free lesson on michaeljamin.com/free because it's the same question and you teach this principle, and I said, it's a hero who goes through trials and ends up better in the end. And your response was, what about King Lear?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Here's another example that go watch a movie called Manchester by the Sea with Casey Affleck. And in it he plays a guy who's responsible for the death. There's an accident. He's responsible for the death of his wife and his child, and he's living with his horrible guilt. HePhil Hudson:Won an Oscar for that, right? That's the one got the Oscar for,Michael Jamin:I don't know. But it was a great performance. And so he feels responsible for the death of his family, and I think he may have been an alcoholic or not, I don't remember. And then he forges a relationship with his nephew, and you think maybe this relationship's going to save him. And you get to the end and you think we've taken Casey Affleck's character on this journey where maybe he's not going to be depressed anymore. Maybe he's going to allow himself to change and grow and he can't. And so that character goes on a whole journey, but really doesn't change and is a beautiful, beautiful movie. But again, the emotional journey is there. But he decides at the end, I can't grow. I can't ChangePhil Hudson:Without A Trace is another great film with Ben Foster and he's living in, he's a vet with PTSD and he's living kind in the wilderness outside of Portland with his daughter. And then Child Protective Services kind of gets involved and he kind goes on the run with her and they escape. And then at the end they end up in this town and there are these kind people who want to take her in and they're offering to give them a place to stay and take care of him. And then one night he is packing his stuff and he has to kind of leave his daughter behind because he can't deal and she can't deal with living in the woods. And she shouldn't because a teenage girl and should have a life. And they have this beautiful, I don't want to spoil it for anyone else, watch, but there's this beautiful moment where at the end you just know they're both okay and they've both got what they need, but it's not what you want for them. You want these two to figure it out. You want him to get better and he just can't cope with civilization Society. Yeah, good stuff. Matthew Lavania, what are your thoughts on withholding information from the audience to allow them to work things out for themselves rather than spoonfeed them everything?Michael Jamin:Good question, Matthew. That is something I struggle with, that it's not an easy task. That's kind of the difference between writing, in my opinion, writing smart writing, and maybe not so smart writing. So if I were to tell a children's a show, like a family show, middle of the Road, family Show, kind of a hokey, I would break that story the same exact way I would break an episode, let's say, of Marin, which was a very sophisticated dark comedy for adults. I would break it the same exact way. The differences for the family show, which kids are supposed to watch with their parents, I would spell it out a little more. I'd do a little more spoonfeeding. And for the adult show for Marin, I would make the, I just wouldn't say it as much, and the audience would have to figure it out on their own. And people would think, oh, Marin is smart because I'm making them do the work. Whereas it's literally the same steps, the same beat board, it's all the same except I'm making, I'm spoonfeeding the family show, but I'm making on Marin. I'm letting the audience do little work. And when you make the audience do more work, they feel it's a smarter show because they have to be smarter. They have to pay attention more. And so that in my opinion, is the difference between a smart show and let's say a not smart show.Phil Hudson:For the newer writers, there are two terms that come to mind. One is subtext, which I could not wrap my head around when I was first figuring learning writing, but it's absolutely critical to writing professionally. You need to understand it's like what's not being said, it's being said, but not said that subtext. And then the other is this principle of audience inferior and audience superior, meaning your audience doesn't know what's going on versus your audience knows more than your characters know what's going on. And there are tools you use. So in a horror film, you might use Audience Superior to say, oh no, don't go in there. Don't go in there that the killer's in there. But then you might use audience inferior and a horror film for the jump scare where leather face pops out in the woods and gets your kids. So they're just tools of the craft and you use 'em. Applicably.On this note, I've talked about the show when Bluey is very popular right now on Disney Plus. It's a kid's show about their dogs and even at shows from Australia. And they're fascinating. And I love watching them probably more than my kids love watching them because they are very smart, very, this was something I just saw on TikTok yesterday. It's a new term I learned called a Rainbow Baby. Have you ever heard that term Rainbow Baby? Is the baby born immediately after a miscarriage or a stillbirth or something like that? And it's a very emotional thing for parents. And there's an episode where Blue's kind of acting out how her mom and her dad fell in love and kind of how Bluey got there and her sister Bingo's helping her act it out. And Bingo's got this balloon underneath her belly to pretend like she's pregnant and she's playing the mom.And they don't tell you this. And I've watched this episode probably five times, and until someone pointed this out, there's this moment where the balloon pops and you see Blue's Dad grab his wife's hand and they hold hands. And I get emotional as a husband with kids. It's like, oh, they went through a miscarriage. And they don't tell you. Kids will never know. But as an adult it's like, wow, there's a level to this that is just beautiful. So that's subtext and it's audience inferior. It's all those things that we're talking about. So I'm going to wipe my tears now into my microphone. A couple of questions left, and I know we're going to be a little bit long here guys. So apologize. You're getting a bunch of questions answered. The Lovely Bone 0 5 2. How do you make character's voice different than your own? Which I think is kind of the projecting question we talked about earlier, but do you have any about voice?Michael Jamin:That's the fun part. If you're writing for Frazier Crane, you speak like Frazier Crane, you look up words in the thesaurus. So he uses smart language instead of good and bad, it'll say delicious and magnificent. How do you do that? That's the fun. That's the imitation part where we get to imitate people. So you listen, you use your ears and you mock peoplePhil Hudson:And you have experiences you've talked about before.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Joshua and Ashley Earls Bennett want to know, this is about miscellaneous questions, by the way. Is there a character sheet for stories that have taken place in the past? And I think this is a reference to a story Bible and not the one you do for pitching, but the one in the writer's room.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I mean, I don't look at it. I mean, most shows keep a Bible for whatever purposes. I don't even know why. But they keep a record of all these characters and stories that have been told. So if someone needs to know for at some point in the future, it's there, but I don't reference them.Phil Hudson:Here's an Easter egg on why you might have this, because we didn't have this on Tacoma fd. And then there was a point where in this season of Tacoma fd, they're going to rename the street pan easy way. And so we need to know what is the street of the firehouse. And so I had to go dig through every last episode of the script, every script from season one through, and you find out, well, we've had two addresses because someone wrote it down, or I know we ran into a plot point where it's like we need to pick a specific game that was missed as a plot point for this episode, and why Terry's mad at his daughter because that's the night she was born. But in the timeline, we might say she was this age, and then now you're stuck trying to find an important event in this specific year because you have to maintain the continuity of the story.Michael Jamin:And that's a good example. So if we have an episode and we want to like, okay, we want to bring back Eddie'sPhil Hudson:Spatchcock.Michael Jamin:Yeah, whatever. A girlfriend that he had in the first season one, what was her name again? I can't remember. We want to bring this character back. We'd asked the writer's assistant, the writer would check the Bible that they kept a record of because we as the writers might not remember because it's like a trivia. It's trivia from four seasons ago.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Jenny Harper. Are there any character sheets that list how each character changes by beat? Beat byMichael Jamin:Beat? No, we wouldn't keep a record of that. That'd be crazy. That'd be too much work.Phil Hudson:Is there a reason for a character or a writer to keep that?Michael Jamin:I mean, I often would wonder when I watched Lost or even Game of Thrones, I'm like, wait, who knows what here? It's hard to remember. That's the challenge. One of the challenges of shows like that, wait, who knows what's going on here? I'm terrible at that. I don't like that aspect of writing, but certainly What is that?Phil Hudson:So this is a book by Javier gr Marks watch, which we've talked about before. He was a writer on Lost and he's got a blog where he talks about that first season of Lost, which he was on, and this is his book, shoot This one again, which is kind of stories, essays on being a writer and a showrunner. And this book is really good and he talks a lot about Bibles and what it was like to come up with stories and things like that. And they've got a really great podcast too on TV writing that's not very active, but it was really good resource called Children of Tendu. So if you're interested in more of that stuff, I think they're a very good resource for that. And that book's great. Check it out. But shout out to Javi. You know Javi, right? You've met him. Is that right?Michael Jamin:No, I never met him. I know who he isPhil Hudson:Though. You know of him.Michael Jamin:I think maybe we tweeted each other once or twice or something.Phil Hudson:Yeah, they're cool guys. I've reached out to them as well to help them with their podcast back in the day. They did not take me up on it, Michael, but you did.Michael Jamin:Oh well, I did. Yeah.Phil Hudson:They missed out. Yeah. Chris, who wants to know, what are some examples of compelling character development in television characters who really stand out from a professional writer's perspective?Michael Jamin:Well, I mean, Walter White fantastic, but anybody on Breaking Bed? Is it fantastic? YouPhil Hudson:Talked about Aria Stark already. That's another great one. JohnMichael Jamin:Star. There's so many great characters. I mean, when people think there's nothing good on, it's like, well change a channel, man. There's plenty of good TV on. I dunno what you're talking about. Stop watching your terrible shows. It's your fault. I'm loving severance. I'm loving severance,Phil Hudson:Severance.Michael Jamin:It's so interesting to me. Yeah, lovePhil Hudson:It. Alex r how in depth do rooms of writers deconstruct characters?Michael Jamin:Well, we have an idea when we start writing and then the characters, it's not like we deconstruct. They actually become, it's almost like they're real people to us. And so are you deconstructing your mother or do you just know your mother? You know who mother is and so they're real people. It's not like we're not taking 'em apart and laying 'em on a table.Phil Hudson:Do you want to talk about the doctor? No. In the writer's room that came up recently this week in a conversation with somebody. But it's also like this might be that someone, it's almost like you're nitpicking your character a bit.Michael Jamin:Yeah, but I don't watch Dr. No, so I don't really keep,Phil Hudson:No Dr. Noah as in the doctor Noah in the room. Maybe that's not you. That's them. Dr. Noah is the naysayer, the guy who says tears things down and doesn't like.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean that's not a helpful, you can find a reason to say no to every pitch in a writer's room. It is just not helpful. So find a reason to build it up to be positive and to say something helpful.Phil Hudson:How do you make sticky or awesome characters that get stuck in people's heads and hearts and how can you have a character that you expand over more than one season? How do you develop a character?Michael Jamin:This is the journey we all put ourselves on, but again, I don't even think it's so much the character as it is the journey we put them on. You could take anyone, make them interesting. I feel you could make anyone interesting as long as you put 'em on the right journey.Phil Hudson:Dave Campbell, how do we get away with using characters based on real life when there's always that stupid boilerplate saying exactly the opposite. The characters and events are not based on real events orMichael Jamin:How do we, I guess what's the question? DoPhil Hudson:Do we get away with using a character that's based on somebody in real life when there's always that stupid boilerplate? The disclaimer about this is not based on real people.Michael Jamin:Well, I mean change 'em a little. You're basing it on them and you're changing their name and their identity. And so if you're going to make a character against model it against your best friend, change it enough so that your best friend doesn't find out, it won't know. So that's how you do it.Phil Hudson:I wrote a script once and gave it to my friend who's an actor that was on the bridge and he was a little on the nose, but I appreciate it. He felt like I wrote him, which I did. I wrote him. He was just such a character and it was not interesting to him as an actor who has been on a major show, he's just like, this is just me.Michael Jamin:Right, right.Phil Hudson:Mishu Pizza. Can character foils also be considered a side character or a supporting character or the main character's best friend? I feel like foils don't always have to be the antagonist. Is that true?Michael Jamin:I feel like we're overthinking this a little bit. I feel like maybe we're giving labels that don't need to be labeled. We have a hero. We're going to put this hero on a journey and who are the people? Or if it's a like a buddy comedy or whatever we're talking about, or if it's a husband and wife or whatever the story, what's the journey we're putting them on and who are the characters who are going to get in their way? And often if it's a husband and wife, they're going to be fighting each other, so Okay, good. And who are the characters that we need to create to help foment this argument that they&#

On this week's episode, I have content creation expert "Coco Mocoe”. Tune in as we talk about her unique eye on how to spot trends for the future, as well as what different social media platforms due for creators. We also discuss her thoughts on brand deals and what she looks for and her hopes and goals for the future. Show NotesCoco Mocoe on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cocomocoe/Coco Mocoe on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cocomocoe?lang=enCoco Mocoe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UC7MC6lTh3ui3_id2n-vnlPQMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptsCoco Mocoe:Again, also with TikTok, it's always about reinventing, even though I always talk about marketing, but I feel like every three months I have to find a new way to present the same information that I've been talking about. So truly the best creators are the ones that are able to reinvent themselves, even though they're still providing the same information, but finding new ways to bring it to the feedMichael Jamin:You're listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back. I have a very interesting guest for everyone today. So anyone who's listening to my podcast for any amount of time, I've always said, if you want to break into Hollywood, just start doing it. Stop asking permission, start. Just make it count on social media and just start posting whatever it is you want to be good at. Make a dedicated account to proving how good you are at this one thing, whether it's writing, performing music, whatever it is, and let's just see where it goes from there. Because if you can't do that, well then Hollywood's not going to pay you to do it. You got to do it for yourself. And so my next guest is an expert in this field because not only does she make a living out of predicting trends about people who've done this before, but she's doing it herself in building her own presence online. And content absolutely is essential. I turn to it when I have questions. So please welcome Coco Moko. Thank you so much. Coco Moko, which I love your name by the way.Coco Mocoe:Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's so funny when I made my username, my real name's Colleen, but I go by Coco Moko, and when I made the name, I didn't know my account would blow up, and so my managers were like, let's keep it though. It has a good ring to it. It does.Michael Jamin:But tell me, okay, so I know you've made a living at it doing this, but before you started doing it for yourself, who were you working for?Coco Mocoe:Yes. It's such a great story too. It was kind of divine timing, I guess. So I studied marketing in college, and then after college, my family's from the LA area, so I was super lucky to just live in LA. And I started a job that I got off Craigslist, and it ended up being this website called Famous Birthdays. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's very Gen Z Young. It's kind of like Wikipedia, but at the time, famous Birthdays was the only website really documenting YouTubers and at the time, musically kids. And so we had a really big audience of 12 year olds. And so I got hired there and my job was to run the musically, which had then turned to TikTok. So I was on the app early, and then the founder of Famous Birthdays, his name's Evan, he's like, if you ever see someone on your free page that you think is going to be famous, just invite them in and we'll interview them.And shortly after that was when I saw Charlie Delio when she was really early. We invited her in and we were her first ever interview, and that went super viral. And then there was a few others from that kind of era of kids and because of the videos that I was working on at Famous birthdays that were getting, I think one of the videos with Charlie Delios at 40 million Views on YouTube. And because we got an early, so, but then from there, I then got hired at buzzfeed, and I was at Buzzfeed for three and a half years where I was working on the backend with strategy, coming up with videos, and it was really just my job to go into meetings with different brands and creators and stuff and just tell them what I think the upcoming trends will be, how I think platforms are shifting, mainly TikTok and how I think that they can best create ideas that will go viral or work with people that aren't famous enough yet that they're going to decline but are eager to come in. And so that was really where I got the start with predicting and stuff, and where I learned that I had a good eye for pattern recognition, and then I just started making my own tos. That kind of blew up. And then I quit my full-time job in June of this year and have been just doing full-time stuff since.Michael Jamin:And so now you have close to a million followers, which is huge. Thank you.Coco Mocoe:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Then so, okay, so when you work for yourself, what does that mean?Coco Mocoe:Yeah, so I never really thought that I would go the consultant route. It was something that kind of just happened as a result of the videos that I was making. I never posted my trend prediction videos or algorithm decoding kind of videos with the intention of getting hired, but I was getting so many inquiries from really big brands that wanted to just pick my brain for an hour or so when I was at buzzfeed. And then I just felt, I mean, it was the different legal non-compete clauses and stuff. And so I just eventually realized that financially it made more sense to just take an hour meeting with a brand and make what I would've made in a month. And I'm so lucky you never know how long it's going to last. I'm very, very lucky. So that's kind of what the full-time thing is. Consulting sometimes brand deals. I don't always like to do a ton of brand deals. I don't want my account to just feel like one big commercial. And then I've been lucky enough to have a lot of music people actually reach out to me and I consult on the music side as well, so super lucky. ButMichael Jamin:Yeah. Okay. So big brands want your opinions, but are you saying also that the creators as well want your opinions?Coco Mocoe:Yeah, a lot of creators, and I actually, that's why I made the podcast that I have ahead of the curve, which hopefully you'll be able to come on one day when your book comes out. Yeah, I love that. And I do my podcast because I can't meet with everyone, and so I started doing that for a way to reach more of the creators. But yeah, I do have a lot of creators reach out. I feel like bandwidth wise, it's hard. So I try to find ways to reach out to people in my community that isn't always just a money exchange or a meeting and stuff. So I'm still figuring it out, but I've been very lucky since I went full-time with this.Michael Jamin:You must know this, or I'm hoping. So when a musician, an actor or whatever comedian, when they're reaching out to you or they're following you, what is it do you think they want, do you think they just want to blow up on social media or do they want to move to what I do traditional Hollywood?Coco Mocoe:Yeah. No, it's such a good question, and I think a lot of it when I do get more of the bigger celebrities that have followed me every now and then, I'm always like, I don't know. At first I'd be like, I don't know why. I don't know what value I'm even providing them. I remember one time Paris Hilton followed me and I was like, she is the biggest influencer in the world. And I'm like, what could I potentially provide to someone like that through my videos? But I think a lot of it too is just when I've talked to people who have followed me, whether it's an actor or a musician or just a person who's watching tos and has never made one before. A lot of the times they say that they like that my videos are able to take something happening on the algorithm or on marketing and media, but I kind of give a bigger lens to it as well.I'm able to connect the dots to everyone, whether you're watching it, whether you are the one making the content and really simplifying it and not just making, I think a lot of when I would watch marketing videos and stuff, it would be a lot of broy ad talk, which that's important talk too, but I never really related to the AB and that kind of stuff. I liked being like, this is why this person watched it. So anyways, I think that if it is an actor or musician following me, I think some of it is just curiosity. I don't think they always have the intention of using my videos as strategy, but when they do, I think it's because as working in entertainment, it really is an attention economy, and the way that people give their attention is constantly shifting. You could make the best piece of work and you just never know if the attention's going to be there or not. I think them watching my helps maybe dissect why certain things go viral, but again, you never know. You never really know. It's just always up in the air. But I try to bring sense to it.Michael Jamin:It changes. Everything changes so fast. Whatever the algorithm, whatever the new trend, whatever's going on, changes fast. And I feel like you always seem to be on top of it. How are you on top? Are you just watching videos all day and making lists and stuff? What are you doing?Coco Mocoe:Yes. It's so funny. I get that question all the time. I do spend a good amount of time on TikTok. I try not to because I think sometimes I believe in there's this saying, and it's the universe whispers, and it's essentially this idea that once you finally turn off your phone and the TV and the for you page scrolling and you just sit in silence for a little bit, that's when the ideas will come to you. So I do try to take moments away from my phone, but I would say for me, I do spend a lot of time on my phone and watching the algorithm, but I try to be strategic about it, and I do have notes on my phone. I'm constantly writing down ideas, and this sounds really woo woo, but sometimes my most viral ideas actually come to me in if I'm sleeping or something. I think it's this weird moment where it's all the information I've received throughout the day finally comes into me and I absorb it in a way, and then I wake up and I'll film a video. That's why I always film right first thing in the morning. And those are sometimes my most viral videos. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Well, a couple questions for you. So now when I first got on TikTok, okay, I got a lot of followers. I'm like, well, why do I have all these? What's the point of followers? When your reach is so low, why do they give you that metric? If you have half a million followers and on any given day, 10, 20,000 will see your content,Coco Mocoe:That happens to me and I have an algorithm answer for that. And then I also have something that helps me when I'm making videos that happens to even the biggest creators. But one way that I still feel inspired to make content and don't get down on myself when that happens is I think the creator, Chris Olson said it. He's a pretty big talker. And one time he said, yeah, 300 views feels really low for the first hour of a video being up. But imagine if you were in a lecture hall and 300 people walked in, that would be a really exciting feeling. You'd be nervous to speak to that many people. And even if I get three or five comments the first few hours, I think, well, I just gave a lecture, and that essentially is three people came up to me after and wanted to ask me more questions about it.So that's one way I try to still think that I'm adding value. And I feel like the biggest thing I hear from whether it's creators, celebrities, or brands, is, and it happens to everyone. So it's a universal experience, especially on TikTok. They always say, I feel like the algorithm hates me now. I feel like I'm shadow banned. And I agree. I think that things like that happen on the algorithm. What I think happens sometimes, I wonder if TikTok will inflate numbers every now and then where I'm like, I don't know if I actually got that many views, or it's almost like a lottery. I think that they gamified creating content in a way that almost feels like gambling, where you're rewarded for doing it more and more. But then it also can be exhausting and disorienting. And I think one thing that I've noticed sometimes happens is that one, people consume videos on their for you page and not always their following.I don't really know a lot of people that use the following tab to watch videos. So TikTok is so weird. I could follow a creator and never see one of their videos again. Yeah, it's just, it rewards people for finding new creators every day. But one more logistical piece of advice that I've heard and that I theorize, I don't know. I say it's like a Tin hat theory about the algorithm, but I think that TikTok, there's a human element to it, and they specifically push out certain trends or certain things happening in the news, and then when they're ready to shift to a new trend, whether it's because they have brands that want to promote something on their app or whatever it is, they will not necessarily shadow ban certain creators, but they shadow ban certain hashtags. That's just a theory I have. What often happens when I talk to people when they're experiencing it is I'll tell them to pull back on all of their hashtags, don't use any hashtags, and sometimes that will subvert any, it takes a while.But yeah, so basically what I'm saying is when it does feel like the algorithm hates you, it's usually not just you, it's just that the topic that you're talking about, they feel like it no longer is relevant for whatever reason, and they're shifting to something new. And again, also at TikTok, it's always about reinventing, even though I always talk about marketing, but I feel like every three months I have to find a new way to present the same information that I've been talking about. So truly, the best creators are the ones that are able to reinvent themselves, even though they're still providing the same information, but finding new ways to bring it to the feed. If TikTok is enjoying videos that are longer than a minute, making videos that are longer than a minute, if TikTok is preferring green screen videos going into green screen. So it really is kind of this tango that you play, butMichael Jamin:Ultimately it seems like, I'm sorry, like a vanity metric that they give you, which doesn't do any, okay, so why are you telling me this number?Coco Mocoe:Exactly. I 100% agree, and it's why I think it's great. You have your podcast, and I've heard you on other podcasts when I was looking up things about the strike, I remember listening to you as a guest on podcasts, and that's why I always encourage people, do not let TikTok be your number one. That can be your Trojan horse. It can get you exposure, and it can get you into the room that you want to be in, but it is not sustainable. TikTok is so finicky one day it'll love you. The next three months, it'll hate you. So really having things outside of TikTok that your audience, I always say have a home base outside of TikTok, so a podcast or whatever it is. So yeah, I totally rambled. I'm sorry, but I get that question a lot. Yeah, it's a good question.Michael Jamin:The whole thing. I also have a feeling after being on the app for so long that the number of serious content creators who post every day, for some reason, I feel like it's a much smaller, they won't tell you how many is, but it feels like it's a much smaller number than you might think it is. Do you feel that way?Coco Mocoe:Yeah. Are you saying you feel like there's less people posting than you would think or,Michael Jamin:Yeah, but seriously, every day who were like, okay, I'm committing to do it. Some people are just, alright, here's a silly video of me eating ice cream, and then they won't post again for another 10 months or whatever. But for the people who really trying to build a platform, I feel like that number is actually maybe lower than you'd think.Coco Mocoe:Yeah. So yeah, I think what it is is a lot of people, it's very, I think TikTok is really great in that it's one of the first ever apps I've seen where so many people have gone viral and reached audiences that we would've never thought of. I have found so many new creators on TikTok, whereas on YouTube, I'd find a new creators I was excited about maybe once every three months. But I think what it is is like, yeah, sustaining that is so hard. I think that what happens is people often, most origin stories on TikTok are, some people will go into it strategically, but the video that really blows up and puts them on the map, they never would've guessed it would've been that video or why it was that video. They never really know. And so I think that some people just don't have, they get excited, but they can't necessarily sustain it.And that's why I always think that the creators that have a slow burn are the ones who end up being the most successful in the long run. I'm sure that's even something that kind of in some ways applies to the entertainment industry, but I always think of the biggest creator in the world right now is Mr. Beast. And it took him five years to hit his first 100,000 followers, but I think that that length of time is why when he did finally get lucky, he had the daily habits and the muscle and the mental stamina to withstand that attention. Whereas some creators will have this stroke of luck, and then the moment the algorithm is no longer rewarding them in a month or two, they kind of freak out and just abandon it. Or they'll only post once every few weeks because they're ashamed that they aren't getting the numbers that they were. But it's just so normal. It's just the biggest creators.Michael Jamin:But to what end is all this, why is everyone doing this? Is it, I mean, I can see why you do it. You have a business now, but why is everyone else doing this?Coco Mocoe:I think it's two things. I think one, TikTok made it really easy to post. The barrier to entry is very low. And on YouTube, if you really wanted to go viral on YouTube five years ago, it would've taken understanding, editing to some degree, understanding how to upload certain files to your computer. I mean, those things are so hard. It would've taken the knowledge of figuring out how to make thumbnails. And the barrier to entry was just so high for platforms like YouTube, TikTok made it really easy that anyone could go viral. And I think the why, what's to what end? I think the people that have a kind of north star outside of TikTok are the ones that are successful, the ones that have something they're striving. For me, I feel like my best videos don't come from me saying, I want to go viral today.They come from me saying something like, oh, I have this hour long interview that I did, and I want to feed people to that. Let me just make a video, giving them the best moment. And so I think that the why version, what's the bigger thing? We're striving for every creator. It's different, but if you are only striving for TikTok fame, it's so fleeting. And that's never, again, I say TikTok, it's like the Trojan horse. It's just going to get you in the room, but it's not going to do the talking for you. It's not going to make the business deals. It just gets you in a room that you might not have been in otherwise.Michael Jamin:And so what are the rooms, do you think it's people are trying to become actors, so they're trying to blow up, whatever, I'm goofy here now, put in your TV show. Is that what it is?Coco Mocoe:Yeah, I mean, it could be. I guess everyone's different. I know. I think there's this one guy, I don't know if you saw it, I think a year or two ago, and he made videos. He made comedic videos, and he made one video about wanting to be on SNL, and the internet was really hard on him, and I didn't feel like I see that it was fair. Yeah. I was like, okay, this is someone shooting their shot. Good for him. He didn't put anyone down in the process. He didn't step on anyone. It was a video that took obviously planning and thought. And I think also maybe he reposted it recently and that's why it's at top of mind and it's going viral again, but now there's a positive sentiment around it. So I do think that, and to answer your question, I do think that specifically for actors, there's a Pandora's box with TikTok because it does get you in a room.And I could be wrong. I feel like you probably know more about this than me, but I feel like with actors, they have to be very strategically pulled back. They don't want to reveal too much about themselves personally because it could hurt them in terms of being typecast or getting into character, I think could be harmed. If people are like, oh, I remember them making a TikTok where they failed at making iced coffee one day and it spilled all over their dog. No one will ever take them seriously. So I think actors, it's a little tricky. It's like a Pandora's box. They go viral, but it's really hard for that to be taken seriously, I think, by audiences sometimes, but I do think some will be able to do it.Michael Jamin:Is that your theory, or are you hearing this from actors from creators who tried to break it and are getting that feedback?Coco Mocoe:I mean, no, I guess for me, it really is more of a theory and just me watching one of the really big comedic talkers who was on TikTok for years, and she doesn't do it as much anymore, but her name's Brittany Broski. I don't know if you've heard of her. No. She was pretty big. She had a few memes that went viral, and she has millions of followers, but I think she would make a really great SNL cast member. I think that she's really funny and smart, and I could see that in the cards for her one day. But right now she's just doing a podcast as herself and not just doing, I mean, that's huge. But I think that she's one of the bigger creators that I think of in terms of being an actor on TikTok. And I don't know that we've seen someone be able to translate that to a big role yet. I think we will. We just haven't seen it yet, because there is this weird dynamic between the audience and the actor that other influencers don't really have to worry about.Michael Jamin:Well, I wish I knew the name. There's someone named Nurse Blake. You heard of him? No. Okay. Because a comedian, but a nurse, he sells out venues doing I guess comedy, but he's also a nurse. I'm like, I don't understand if you're selling out these giant venue news, what's with this other gig you got? So I just don't get it. I don't get any of it.Coco Mocoe:Well, and what's funny, the thing about what you just explained is really fascinating to me, and it's something I talked about last year where I coined it the rise of the anti influencer, but essentially him having something like another job, whether that's still happening or not, I think audiences are drawn to that because they feel like there's less pressure on them if the influencer doesn't succeed. It's like, well, they have another job, and so they actually are more likely to be open to the person. So oddly, I think having that kind of double life in a way lends to an audience feeling less pressure. And that did make me remember that in terms of the comedic route and acting and stuff, there was one standup comedian, his name's Matt Rife.Michael Jamin:Yes. And I just learned about him. So go on. I had never heard of him until go on.Coco Mocoe:And I think he's one of those people where it's like Mr. Beast, where he had been trying to do the standup comedy route for five or seven years, and he started just posting clips from his shows on TikTok, and he went on a tour last year, and he filmed a Netflix special that hasn't aired yet, but Forbes, he was on the Forbes top creator list, and they estimated that he had made 25 million last year.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I saw that article. I'm floored.Coco Mocoe:Yes. I don't know how they calculate. I don't know. But if it's even just 2.5 million, that's a crazy number for someone who was struggling as a standup comedian, began posting clips of it to TikTok and is now selling out venues, and it's crazy. It'sMichael Jamin:Mind blowing. And yeah, it's just a platform. And I give him a lot of credit. I mean, made himself, he willed it to be, but I mean, I guess, I don't know. I know you guys were talking, you and your podcasting party we're talking about, and what's the name of your pocket, by the way, so everyone canCoco Mocoe:Talk? Oh, yeah. So I have my main one, it's ahead of the curve with Coco Mocoe. That one's my solo one where I just talk to experts like yourself and stuff. And then I have a show with my friend, his name's Nikki Rearden, called Share Your Screen, where each week we dive into whatever's happening in the news or in marketing and talk about why we think certain things are going viral. So a lot of people that see the clips from my profile, it's usually the clips of me and Nikki. So I'm guessing that's whatMichael Jamin:It might've been. But you guys were talking about the newest trend, which is basically, I guess people like me sharing expertise in some kind of attempt to what,Coco Mocoe:Yeah, I mean, I think experts are what make TikTok my favorite app because it takes people who maybe didn't have time or the career background to study, again, film theory and cameras and microphones and how to sync up audio and all these things, but they're able to make really good videos because of the TikTok editing software within the app. And yeah, I mean, I used this saying on TikTok where it's called the niche, here you go, the Quicker You Grow. It's a saying that I came up with when I was at buzzfeed, and I would say in every meeting. And what I meant by that is people have this misconception that in order to go viral, you have to hit the masses. You have to make a cool football moment and also tap dance and also paraglide and tell a funny joke all in 30 seconds in the same video. And I am like, that's not really how it works. The best videos are very niche, and that's kind of why experts grow on the app. You are known as the Hollywood writer, and I think I was telling one of my friends that I was going on your pod, and when I said that they knew exactly who you were. And it's just that thing where it's like you would rather be known for, or another way I say it is you want to be great at one thing on social media, then be average at everything. But ifMichael Jamin:You're 20 years old, what are you great at?Coco Mocoe:Yeah, and I think that's a great question. That's why, and I don't think 20 year olds are people that are still, even people in their midlife or older don't always have to start their account and just stick to one thing. I think part of social media is exploring different parts of your identity and seeing what people to respond to. So I think that's why we do see a lot of the younger kids online are more lifestyle influencers. Their day is, I mean, I'm 27 now. When I was between the ages of 19 and 23, I felt like my life something different changed every single day. And it was interesting. But if I did lifestyle content, now my life is very normal and stable that I always say, I'm like, I'm not interesting. The things I talk about are interesting. So that's why I think there's a lot of lifestyle creators that are younger. Their life is constantly changing as it does when you're in your early twenties. But TikTok is really where I feel like we've seen older people in midlife. And on the other apps on Instagram, I felt like you had to be an 18 year old model traveling the world to be interesting to the algorithm. And it's not like that on TikTok. And I would say YouTube's similar to TikTok in that way too. ButMichael Jamin:Yeah, I don't know. I can't grow on YouTube. I could do well, this platform on TikTok, but Oh, I had a question. No, I lost it. Can you believe I lost it? No, you're good. Yeah. Well, now we'll have to take a pause as I try to remember what I was going to say, but Oh, yeah, no, I know what I was going to say. So you are in an interesting position in that you share your expertise on this, on becoming, I don't know, a creator or an influencer and all that, but you also do that. So talk a little bit about that. When you post, okay, you know what you're going to say to help, this is the trend you're spotting, or this is who's blowing up. You want to talk, but you also have to make a video where you are performing where you are. You're not just sharing your knowledge, you are a creator as well.Coco Mocoe:I know it's kind of meta. It's meta. Now we've entered the age of social media where creators are making platforms, talking about being a creator. I mean, yeah, I guess for me, I am really lucky that my audience likes when I talk about those things, and I don't have to necessarily divulge a bunch of information about my personal life and stuff. I think some creators do get into a predicament where their whole brand is built on their relationship, and then maybe their relationship ends, unfortunately, and they have to rebrand. And so I'm very lucky that my audience just likes when I talk about what's happening. And it's funny because when I started talking about these things, I didn't actually think that people really cared. Crazy story is when I first started my TikTok and some of my followers found me through, this is, it sounds so woo, but I actually, I did tarot.Me and my friends do tarot for fun, and I would make a few tarot videos, and they went viral. And then I realized that there's 15 year olds making way better tarot videos than I ever could. I'm like, the world's going to be okay if these 15 year olds, they're doing their messages and it's great, and if that's what you believe in and you like that content, they've got it covered. And so I told my audience, I was like, okay, you guys. And I could tell the algorithm was shifting away from that, and it just wasn't exciting anymore. And I was a professional and it was just a hobby that I did, and I told my audience, I was like, I'm going to take a break from my TikTok and I think I'm going to come back to the internet. I think you guys are going to find me, but it's going to look different, and I don't know what that's going to be yet.And at the time, again, I was working at buzzfeed. I talked about these things in my nine to five, and I always thought it was, I loved it, but I thought it would be boring to other people, like the whole marketing, the trends, the algorithm. I thought that that was having an accountant talk about math. Then I took a break from my account for a little bit. I would make every videos every now then, but then one day before a meeting, I had five minutes and I made a video that was a trend prediction, and it got I think 4 million views in two days. And within a week, I was getting booked to go speak at Adweek in New York and all of these crazy doors opened. And so it was funny that for me, I always was doing marketing, and I just never thought until I made that video randomly that anyone actually cared about that. But I guess a lot of people did. And I'm very lucky that a lot of people did. And I have been riding the wave ever since. And I feel like as long as there's new trends and new people getting viral and new things happening online, I'll always have something new to talk about, and I'll never get bored.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com. And now back to what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?I have rules that I played by how many days, how many times a day will you post and how many days a week? Because it can get out of hand. It can get so much where you are working for the app now.Coco Mocoe:Yes, there are days where I'll post a lot and there's days where I just won't do anything. I mean, it really depends on my schedule. Each day when I was first starting and just doing green screen videos with my trend predictions and algorithm things, I would probably film two or three a day. But now also that TikTok rewards longer content. I don't know if you do that minute or longer type videos. Oh,Michael Jamin:I do. It's always at least three minutes. Yeah.Coco Mocoe:Yes. And are you in the creativity beta program?Michael Jamin:No. No. I want to talk about that.Coco Mocoe:Okay.Michael Jamin:Well, good. Hang on to that.Coco Mocoe:Okay, good, good, good. Now, TikTok has the beta program, which I'm in, and when I know that's not going to last forever, but when I got my first check from that, I was like, oh, that's a good chunk of money. Now, when I do film videos, it really is my job. I see. Every time I film a video that's a minute or longer, I'm like, okay, that is a certain amount of money that I could make. But I will say probably on average I'll post three to five videos depending on my mood, and then I'll usually take a day or two off and I'll film in studio or something. So it really just depends. But I think that now that I've grown a little bit, I do think I do more quality over quantity, whereas the first few months where I really blew up doing this kind of thing, I was posting a lot. I was riding the wave. And now that I think I have credibility and a few really good videos under my belt, I can do a little bit less and people will pay attention and seek out my content. Now, are youMichael Jamin:Worried though, that being the creator studio will limit? This is for those who don't know, this is when TikTok will pay you. You post a video and they pay you depending on how views you have. Are you worried that it'll limit your views, your reach?Coco Mocoe:So that's a great question because, and again, tin Hat theory, I don't know, but for those of you guys who were on the app a couple of years ago, they had this thing called the Creator Fund. And I ran experiments on accounts at my, and through creators I worked with at my old job where we would enroll into the creator fund. And let's say they were getting on average 5 million views a month, and we would enroll into the creator fund and their views would drop to a hundred thousand a month, and they couldn't get a video with over 2000 views. And I personally think it was TikTok was capping the money because they were pulling the money out of thin air. They didn't have ads on the platform didn't, it's not like YouTube where it's ad sent, so it's not out of YouTube's pocket. It's like Google paid Red Bull paid to put an ad on a Mr. Beast video for 30 seconds, and YouTube's not paying that money. But TikTok, I think, capped people's views, in my opinion. I don't know, because they were realizing they had to pull this money out of thin air.The beta program that is happening now, I don't know. I know some creators have had problems. I feel like my videos actually perform better now that I'm in it. I don't know the math behind it. I don't know if it's because TikTok is running more ads on the platform that they can afford it. I will say that I think that TikTok is gearing up to lean into longer, longer content. I know on their website, they've been testing podcast beta features like I'm nosy, and I go on the TikTok website and I'll just look at little buttons and stuff, what I had to do for my old job, and I can see them rolling out this podcast button, and then they took it down, and then they'll put it back up. And I think they're getting ready to roll that out. So I don't know, but I do think that at least my own experience, the beta program has been great for me financially. I don't think it's going to last.Michael Jamin:Why do you say that? Why won't it last forever?Coco Mocoe:I don't know. I think that I never put any of my eggs in any financial basket as a full-time creator. Now, you never know. And also, one day I could wake up and people could just find my videos not interesting anymore. That's always something that's in the back of my mind, and I have to be okay with that. So,Michael Jamin:Because I wasn't sure if they call it a beta account because it is beta, they're going to change it.Coco Mocoe:Oh, yeah. Because called the creativity beta program, and I think it's maybe only certain creators can be a part of it or something. You have to have 10,000 followers. So yeah, I don't know. At least for me, the last, I think I enrolled in June, and I think we're not allowed to share the exact amounts in the terms of service. But I'll just say it was more than my monthly salary at my full-time job. And I was like, okay, cool.Michael Jamin:But you really have to have videos that go viralCoco Mocoe:Pretty good.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I mean, I have a big following. You never know. Yeah, it might be 20,000 due on a video, and that might be that way for two weeks. So I don't think, it doesn't sound like a get rich quick scheme for me. I don't know.Coco Mocoe:Yeah, no, I always say it's just you never want to put all your eggs in one basket with social media. A platform could be gone tomorrow. You never know, really. I always say you just always want to have that kind of North star. You just want to use social media again as that Trojan horse, but always have other things in the back of your mind, which I was honestly curious about you. I know there's the strike and stuff, but do you feel like having your TikTok, do you think it's helped open doors for you in your career year?Michael Jamin:Well, I mean, originally I started it, and I want to get your advice on this. I started it because I wrote a book and my agent said, platform drives acquisition. I said, well, what does that mean? He says, you need to have a social media following to sell it. And in the field in personal essays, which is because if you like David Sera, it's like that. So my goal, and which I've already done, is I written the book, it'll go on sale probably in a couple months, and then I've been performing with it. I've been touring with a little bit with it to sell tickets, my poster of me. So I didn't want to, so that was the whole goal was just to write a book and then tour with it and a show that I do. And so the reason I didn't want to get into the beta program, I was like, well, let's not lose sight of what the goal is. I don't want to do anything that's going to jeopardize that. It's really about selling a book and then touring with it. But what advice do you have for me regarding that?Coco Mocoe:Yeah, no, I mean, one, I would say for books specifically, two, I feel like oddly, I mean, I'm not even really on Meadow or Facebook like that, but there's certain communities. I had someone, a relative that wrote a book once, and it was in their specific profession, and I was like, you should join Facebook pages about that profession. But of course, there's certain things where you can't promote. But no, I guess in terms of promoting your book specifically, one, I think that if you are going on tour, of course the posting clips from being on stage for whatever reason, people just love those. I feel like that's low hanging fruit advice, though. I would say just, I can send you a guy's profile after this if I follow him out to find it. But he is an author and he will just read quotes from his book, and some of the clips go viral.He literally just will read a part of it. And maybe even, I don't know if you live stream a lot like TikTok live sometimes just the type of audience that watches a live, it's a lot of work. So I don't think it's for everyone, and it's not for all the time, but the type of person who seeks out a TikTok live, they're very loyal. They sometimes have not in a bad way, they just have a lot of time on their hands. They're more likely to be early adopters of whatever the creator's doing. So I know that's kind of all surface level advice, but I guess, so you have a new book coming out? Is that what it is? Or,Michael Jamin:Well, my first book, yeah, because a TV writer, first book. This is my first book.Coco Mocoe:Okay. You've been on TikTok for, I think I found you aMichael Jamin:Year. It's probably been two years now.Coco Mocoe:Okay. Yeah. I feel like I found you a year ago, so it's, I'm guessing you've just been building it up. I mean, yeah, I wish I had better advice. I think I'd have to know more too. That's why I'm excited. I'd love to read your book and then have you on my pod. I just did that with, yeah, I love reading. I've had two guests on now where I've read their book, and I feel like it really helps me with questions. And again, my thing is you just never know what's going to go viral. You never know what's going to work. I feel like it's just throwing things at the wall.Michael Jamin:I was curious if you've known anybody who's done what I'm doing, and I don't know if there is anyone, which is fine. I know. I'm glad to be the first one.Coco Mocoe:Yeah, I mean, I can't think of anyone. I do know that when I was talking to Taylor Lauren, she's a journalist that just put out a book, and she was saying that pre-sales weirdly count for so much money. So definitely, of course, ramping up. And also, I will say, oddly, I feel like because a writer, you would have a cool idea around this eventually if you slept on it. But whether it's marketing for music or shows, one of the best strategies that I've seen across the board is people love feeling like they're in on a secret or something they're not supposed to know yet. Saying something like, there's this book that hasn't come out yet, but I got my hands on it and tell me what you guys think of this quote. Or people love the idea of, this hasn't come out yet, but I'm giving you a little tidbit, or making it kind of mysterious. And then being like, there is a link to, if you are curious about the pre-sale, things like that, people love feeling like, oh, I wasn't supposed to know this, or I wasn't, like, this isn't out to the public yet. So anytime something can feel mysterious or you're doing them a favor by revealing something that isn't out there yet, oddly, that always works across the board.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, I discovered a couple of days ago, because the book hasn't even dropped yet, that I was on Amazon. I typed Michael Jamin into Amazon, and Michael Jamin book came up as a search term. So people are looking for it, and I haven't even announced it yet. So that's cool.Coco Mocoe:Wow. Yeah. And I know that makes me think of SEO, how you could lean into that SEO kind of thing. And sorry, do you have the name for rubric or are you allowed toMichael Jamin:Reveal it? Yeah, it's a paper orchestra and I don't have, well, here's this that has too much of a glare on it, but this is not the cover of the book. This is the cover ofCoco Mocoe:My show.Michael Jamin:This is the cover of my show, and it's just like it's a typewriter, whatever it's me coming out of. But yeah, so it's very, yeah, I don't know. I feel like I'm doing this all, let's just try it. I don't really know what I'm doing reallyCoco Mocoe:Well. And if it makes you feel better, even the biggest people in the world that have entire teams around them, they don't really know what they're doing either. Again, the internet changes constantly. No one really knows. And I think that the people that really do succeed, one, it's a stroke of luck, and two, it's just showing up until the algorithm decides to what you're doing, knowing what your message is, but still always being able to tweak it or be flexible if you feel like a certain delivery isn't working, if talking straight to camera hasn't been hitting, being willing to do a green screen or walking while holding your phone because Gen Z for some reason, loves when people are moving while talking and just,Michael Jamin:Yeah, there are some people, there's two creators. I follow celebrity book club, and these two, you know them. Okay,Coco Mocoe:Love them.Michael Jamin:So they just read memoirs that people put out and they talk about it, and that's it. And they're able to travel and sell tickets in various cities, which are good for you. ICoco Mocoe:Mean, I know. Yeah. And if you think about it with them, part of why it's so cool is they're providing so much value to the audience because not everyone is a reader. Or sometimes people will buy memoirs, but they won't read them for whatever reason, they'll save it, and they're kind of doing this SparkNotes thing. But I just love their pod. I saw they just had Julia Fox on, and I made a video on my profile where I'm like, Julia Fox, if you're ever in la, I'd love to have you. But yeah, and I've listened to a few episodes. I think they for years, did a couple different podcasts. And finally, this is just the one that stuck. So it really is just consistency. You just never know what format's going to be the one to really put you on the map.Michael Jamin:It's odd because I will start traveling with it, but I'm big in maybe four or five cities according to my analytics. Wow. But I'm not sure if I can sell tickets in any other city other than the ones that I'm big in. So I don't know.Coco Mocoe:And when you do start going to shows, just for whatever reason, TikTok just loves when people post clips from their shows. I think part of Matt Rife's whole thing and why he made, according to Forbes 25 million through ticket sales. But he would post a lot. And I mean, I think the gimmick is sometimes overdone a little bit, but his audience interactions, again, not for everyone, but I think that people started buying tickets to his shows in the hopes of being a part of his next viral TikTok. Yes. It kind of broke the fourth wall, and it incentivized people to go to his shows because they wanted to be the one that was a part of his next viral video because he had an interaction with them in the audience. So I think he kind of cracked a code, or sorry. Yeah, he cracked this viral code where there was now an incentive for people to actually physically show up and watch him. That'sMichael Jamin:So interesting. But was he doing crowd work? Was he talking to the audience or was it something else? Was it comedy that he was doing?Coco Mocoe:No, I think it was. I think he does also just post his comedy clips, but for whatever reason, his crowd work goes so viral. And I mean, again, I do think sometimes it does get old. You can tell so many. And I mean, I'm not hating shtick. I think it's cool, but maybe because what I do for a living and I just study these things, I feel like I can tell when comedians come up on my feed now and they're kind of trying to recreate that. It's like a trend. They're trying to be trendy and recreate that success. And some it works, some it doesn't. But yeah, he kind of incentivized people to come to the show, then they'd be a part of his videos.Michael Jamin:Interesting. And that's hitting on something else, which is it doesn't seem like actors, people, actors who are already famous, they don't seem to do well, or am I wrong about thatCoco Mocoe:On TikTok? No, I think you're right. I actually talked with Molly about this today and why specifically a-list? Celebrities seem to kind of struggle, I think, on TikTok. And one, I also think, even though my whole thing is I give advice on how to grow on apps like TikTok, I'm like, not everyone needs to be on TikTok. It's okay. It's not for everyone. I think some bigger celebrities benefit from being mysterious and not really being on social media, but the ones that do try, I think sometimes there is this feeling of detachment where when you're so big and you have a big team around you, by the time you come up with an idea, you get it approved, you go through whatever they, the label, the this, the that. And then you post the video. The trend is already two weeks old. So the people that are really quick on their feet that are a little bit more scrappy are the ones who I think thrive on apps like TikTok, because TikTok just moves so quick. I don't think, butMichael Jamin:That's the thing, I, I've never once done a trend and I don't think I ever will.Coco Mocoe:And what's so funny, I'm the same exact way. And it's funny that I talk about trends you'll never see. I did one it at the YouTube studio, the two girl, but you'll never see me doing trending audios. And it's so funny that I talk about trends, but my belief is that really the people that thrive don't pay attention to trends at all. I always say the opposite of trendy is timeless. And if you tie yourself to a trend and that becomes your identity, when that audio or that trend isn't big in two or three weeks from now, you're done. But I love creator. I think that's why experts really thrive on TikTok because they're providing so much value that they don't really have to rely on gimmicks and trends to be relevant. Or even if they're not relevant, they're providing value that people are going to seek out and eventually find them.Yeah. So yeah, I am the same way. I don't really believe in, my biggest pet peeve is when I would go into consulting meetings with huge brands and they're like, what trending audio should we lip sync to? I'm like, you shouldn't think like that. Also, FTC guidelines, technically you can't because of legal problems. But I just think that, I always say going viral is that's a low goal. I think it aiming low as a goal. You should think of being bigger than virality. You should think of providing so much value that it doesn't matter whether you're focused on trends or not. You live longer than that online.Michael Jamin:I'm skipping around here, but years ago, not even that many years ago, I was on a TV show, I dunno, less than 10, maybe eight years ago. And we needed to cast a role. We went for an actor, and the studio wanted us to go out to someone who had a big social media following. That's who they wanted to cast. So we found this guy, this kid with a big following. We were going to pay him a lot of money per episode, and he kept on turning it down because he was making more money posting Instagram than he was whenever that was. It was like 20,000 in an episode or something. It wasn't worth his time.Coco Mocoe:Yeah. I mean, yes. That's interesting. That does make me think. I talked recently to this really big agent. He manages the Emilios, his name is Greg Goodfried, and something he said to me was the reason that the Emilio signed to him when they were looking for every agent in the game was cutthroat going for the Emilios. I remember this, I was filming videos with them at the time when they were coming into the office, and they were behind the scenes, I think, figuring out who they were going to sign with. And what Greg said to them was, it's not about what you do, it's about what you don't do, and you're going to get so many offers. But in terms of the show that you were saying, one, I'm also guessing that if he felt like he didn't have the acting chops, I don't know if that's what it was, the money would not be worth how it could potentially affect his career. I don't know if he was going into acting, he might've felt that yes, it was money, but if he felt like he wasn't prepared yet, again, if you're not a classically, acting is hard.Michael Jamin:He was actually a pretty good actor. Maybe he thought that the show was going to put a stink on him. Maybe being associated with the show would've hurt his Instagram maybe, orCoco Mocoe:I mean, yeah. And there's just so many factors. He also maybe could have just been making so much money that it was just not social media. And the money on social media happens in such short spurts. You never know when a well is going to dry up. On YouTube, years ago, there was this apocalypse where people were making $300,000 a month, and then it dropped to $5,000 a month, and all these craters were scrambling. So you never know. And so I think some people, when they hit a stride, they don't want to get detracted from that. But I also think sometimes it's good to not always worry about money and think about the bigger picture. I mean, I just turned down a pretty big deal because I was like, it just didn't make sense for me, and I really had to trust that I know the bigger picture here. And even if I'm making less money in the next six months, that I know that down the line, the vision will be bigger than what I would've ever made.Michael Jamin:Well, that's a good segue. So two things. Are you represented by an agent?Coco Mocoe:I guess it's like a talent manager. I know agents are a little different, but Alright.Michael Jamin:So managers to, what is your larger picture, as you mentioned?Coco Mocoe:Yeah, I am flexible. I don't always know. I always say I don't really want to be in the public eye for long. I think a couple of years. And then I mean you, I'd love to write a book. I would love if I could write a book. And then I think long-term, I'll probably be what I'm doing now. And part of why I signed with the specific agent that I have now is when I was blowing up and I was getting a few offers, what he said to me was, you don't even really have to do a ton of brand deals. I think that you don't even have to gain another follower, but you could have a great career being a speaker and going to events. And that's really panned out. So I think maybe doing something like that, speaking engagements. I love my podcast. I could see that going for another five to 10 years if I'm lucky. You never know. But ultimately I would love to just write a book and then write off into the sunset. But I know it's not that easy. So I don't know. I will say though, I don't really like being a public figure. Again. I say I don't really think I'm that interesting. I think what I talk about is interesting. So I'd love to eventually pull back one day.Michael Jamin:So is this agent or manager, is that what they do for you to get you public speaking gigs? Is that what they, their goal?Coco Mocoe:Yeah. Yeah, all of it. So they do speaking engagements. I went to Adweek in New York. I went to Cannes Lion in France this summer. It was so great. And then brand deals, they're my day-to-day manager. So I meet with them and his team and constantly texting and emailing. And they also help me facilitate my consulting and stuff. I hate dealing with the conversations around money and contracts, and they're ones that step in and do all of that for me. And then I just show up for the meetings and give them my advice, and then that's all I have to deal with.Michael Jamin:And so what is it about, this will wrap it up, because this is a big question though. Being in the public eye, especially on TikTok, especially putting yourself vulnerable out there. They're haters, they're lunatics. Is this part of the problem?Coco Mocoe:I mean, sometimes, yeah. I've even recently just started replying to a few comments just because I want people to know that there's a real human, when you tell someone to go off themselves, there's an actual, I think people, it's crazy. I think that people see a video and it's hard for them to think that this isn't a one dimensional cardboard cutout. This is a real person. So yeah, I mean, sometimes it is the comments, the negativity. I think that ultimately though, if you know who you are that will shine through, you'll have mistakes and you'll have missteps and you'll have moments. But if you know kind of who you are and where you're headed, you'll always be okay. But I think more so for me, it's that I am really a big believer that going viral online can be a type of trauma. It can open up a lot of doors, but I think that it's really something that not a lot of people are prepared for.I think we see it with bigger celebrities that get famous young, the notion that sometimes fame is a type of trauma, yet everyone wants it. And so I think that being visible, no one, our human brains haven't evolved to processing, being seen by 20,000 people a day. We were used to having the 10 people in our little community in the middle of nowhere, and it's different. So I think there's just no understanding or process yet for really knowing what's happening. And it's traumatic and it can be scary. I mean, I love it. I think I'm good at tuning it out. I think it's so much better when you get famous or you get a viral moment when you're older. I think that I'm sure for us it's a little bit easier. I couldn't imagine being 16 and your frontal cortex is still developing. Well,Michael Jamin:What happened when you responded to that person said, Hey, I'm a real person. Did you get the response that you were hoping to get?Coco Mocoe:I mean, yeah. The best is when they delete the comment, just like I think they realized, but it's not even for the person who even left the comment. I more so do it too every, and not all the time I don't read. I got really good advice from a creator once. They said, once your video's been up for an hour or two, don't read the comments because it's not really going to be the people. You're on the for you page when you get your first hate comment. But I guess it's also just me kind of sending the message to other people that are leaving me comments, that I'm reading them and I see them. It's just always an effort to humanize myself. But I mean, it's hard. I feel like there's no right or wrong way. I think that the most successful people are the ones that just don't really care. And I envy that about some people. They just don't. I'm like, wow, that's so cool.Michael Jamin:Even for me, it affects me. So that's why I don't even the problems, I won't respond. Someone left a comment once a year ago or whatever, they left a question and then someone else commented, oh, don't bother asking this guy a question. He only responds to haters. And I thought, that's what I'm doing. I go, that's what I'm doing. And the person was right. I was only responding. I was rewarding the idiots. And so after that, I go, well, now I'm done. I'm not responding to anybody unless it's in a post. I'm not responding to anyone.Coco Mocoe:Oh, yeah. I mean, I really try the first hour to respond to a lot of the positive comments or if people are making, if they have good questions. And also if someone has a valid critique of my video, sometimes I'm not always going to get it right. And that's okay. And I'll reply. Thank you. You're right. I get that point too. So for me, I do try to, again, I think of it as that lecture hall where the first few people that are really reaching out and leaving thoughtful comments, it's someone who is like, you're in the lecture and they raise their hand, or they're a student who came up and they were so excited about what you were saying that they wanted to have that moment with you. And I mean, I think I'm really lucky though, in that I think my following is really, really intelligent. I think that the people that follow me are really thoughtful, and I'm very lucky that there's usually very thoughtful discussions in my comments as well.Michael Jamin:But see, I struggle with that. I was like, am I supposed to be accessible or not accessible? Who am I supposed to be on this?Coco Mocoe:And there's no, there's no yes or no answer. Some days you'll be more accessible and some days, some months, whatever you'll pull back. I think just really taking it based on your mood or where you're at. I think the biggest misconception I see with public figures and also creators is they feel like they have to make a decision, and then that's who they are. I get that a lot with authenticity and what do I reveal about myself and am I revealing too much? Am I not revealing enough? And I'm like, you don't have to make that decision in a boardroom one day. One day you're going to be more vulnerable. One day you're going to be, no one can find you. You're off the grid.Michael Jamin:But I don't know, the common knowledge is you're supposed to respond for the algorithm. But then I was like, if I'm working for the algorithm doing this, I'm out. The minute I start working the algorithm, I don't want to do it anymore.Coco Mocoe:And that's a very fair game. I totally get that sentiment. I know you'd said it earlier too, which is at what point are we just free employees to TikTok? And I agree, and that's why I think that the only way it really is beneficial is if you're always, again, there's just something bigger that you're striving for than TikTok, like feeding people to a podcast. And again, you don't want to always ask people to go and do something. There's a rule in marketing, it's called the 80 20 rule where 80% of your content should just be adding value, and then 20% is asking people to go buy a book or go to your pod. But yeah, I guess there's no right or wrong answer.Michael Jamin:I think there's something as we wrap it up, I think there's something smart that I learned. I think you said it, I'm trying to remember. I'm pretty sure you said it, and we'll talk a little bit about this. It was about, I think you, I'm sorry if it wasn't you. It was like you read some study that said part of what's the appeal of social media today is that people see you and it's this frequency with which they see you and then they fall in love with there are programmed like who we see all the time.Coco Mocoe:Yes. So there's a book called Fan Chasm, and it was Yes. And they basically studied the science behind parasocial relationships, which again, that's a buzzword that I feel like people throw around, but we don't even really understand it completely yet. And yeah, that's essentially what they said. And I guess we'll end on that note, so fascinating, but that the humans, and again, I'm not a psychologist, not claiming to be just my interpretation of this book, they essentially theorized that humans were programmed to bond with the faces that we see most often because that depended on our survival. So back when we were in small communities hunting bears, you had to make sure that you bonded with the person who caught the bear or else you weren't going to eat that week. And so we do it even subconsciously, but what's happening now with the internet and media, and we saw it in the early rise of celebrities as well, but that there's a disconnect happening where we see Taylor Swift's face more than we see our own boss's face or

On this week's episode, I have Writer/Showrunner Max Mutchnick from Will & Grace, The Wonder Years, and many many more. Tune in as we talk about his journey as a writer and what some of his creative goals and hopes are for the future.Show NotesMax Mutchnick on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0616083/Max Mutchnick on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maxmutchnick/?hl=enMax Mutchnick on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxMutchnickMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMax Mutchnick:By the way, I think Miley Cyrus is the only sitcom actor who is able to move the needle. They push you during sweeps. Can you get a Shatner? If we could get Shatner on Big Bang. I know we'll write, that's probably not a good example because it probably worked. But for the most part, shows just get what they get. They always get what they get. It doesn't matter. These co-stars and these, none of that mattered,Michael Jamin:Right?Max Mutchnick:Is it funny? And do you like the people? Do you like the people? Do you like what? They like the world of it?Michael Jamin:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode. Today, I have a wonderful guest that no one deserves to hear. And yet, as a gift, if you're driving your car, pull over, you're going to want to hear this guy, this man and his writing partner, they are responsible for literally one of the biggest hits in the modern era. I'm talking about Will and Grace. This is the co-creator of Will and Grace Max. Much Nick, but lemme tell you what else he's done. All right. It's not just that. I'm going to run through his profile for a second and then I promise I'll let him get a word in edgewise. One word's Dennis Miller show. He was right around the Dennis Miller Show, the Wonder Years Good advice, the single Guy Dream on co-creator of Boston Common Co-creator of Good Morning, Miami Co-creator of Twins, co-creator of Four Kings. This guy's got a lot of work done. Shit, my dad says. Co-creator, partners co-Creator clipped, co-creator, and of course Will and Grace Max, welcome to the show. And let me tell you why this is so meaningful to me to have you hereMax Mutchnick:And me too, just to get an award in.Michael Jamin:Okay? I wonder if,Max Mutchnick:And by the way, those credits were in no particular order.Michael Jamin:Well, it is the IMDB order.Max Mutchnick:It's a weird order, but I'm still thrilled to be here. So I'm going to let you keep going because I like all this.Michael Jamin:Everyone loves having smoked Blunt.Max Mutchnick:It's fantastic.Michael Jamin:Let me tell you why it's so meaningful, because one of the very first jobs I had in Hollywood, I was a PA on a show called Hearts of Fire a max, and his partner writing partner David, were, I don't know if you guys were staff writers or story editors,Max Mutchnick:I think on Hearts of Fire, we were staff writers. I think we were staff writers. Yeah.Michael Jamin:So I'd get you lunch. That's basically it. But you guys were, you guys were so kind. You always let me in. I come into your office, you'd invite me into your office, which to me felt like a big deal. And you guys were both, to me, you were the epitome of what a comedy writer is supposed to be like larger than life, charismatic, funny, ball busting, but also just, I don't know, just energetic and enthusiastic and bursting with creativity and to be around you guys threeMax Mutchnick:Seconds away from tears at all times.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Oh yeah, thatMax Mutchnick:Too. But I mean, we maybe didn't show that to you, but again, I hate to interrupt you when you're saying all this nice stuff.Michael Jamin:Well, I do remember one time, David, I was sitting with you and he's like, what have you heard? I'm like, what have I heard? What do you hear? I'm like, dude, you guys are the only people who talk to me. What have I heard? Nothing.Max Mutchnick:That's so good. What have I heard? And I was listening to you, and by the way, it gives me nothing but joy to be here, and I have to do full disclosure. So I start watching you and listening to you, and this is what happens when you get to be 40 57. I said, I'm like, I know him. I have a feeling of love for him. I do not know how we know each other. It's so funny. I couldn't remember the show that we worked on. I couldn't remember the show we worked on. And then I heard you talking about Mike and Maddie. Yes. The other day. And it was, which isn't on my IMDB page.Michael Jamin:It is. I skipped over it. I didn't want to embarrassMax Mutchnick:You. Yeah, no, I'm glad that we can talk about that too. But it all started at Hearts of Fire.I mean, it's just unbelievable. And that was such an incredibly formative time, and it's so interesting to me that you had this experience of us is mean, and by and large, that's what we are. I mean, I always look back on life and I reflect on it, and I'm always happy when I look back on the things that I've done and where I've been and where I'm going and all that stuff. But today, not so much. What do you mean? Well, it's like I'm saying, when I'm in the moment of today, a lot of times I really can get wrapped up in being depressed about the business and where things are. And I am starting to say things that like old people say, and I don't want to, because I always thought I would never do that. I would never say the business isn't like it used to be. But I'mMichael Jamin:Surprised you even feel that way. You've already accomplished so much. I don't think I would ever get to your level of success. I would've stopped long before.Max Mutchnick:I mean, that's nice. And I know that there are people who are in my position who feel like they've done it. And definitely the collision of a career and social justice, which kind of took place with Will and Grace, the idea that we did this thing and that it had a reverberation on another level should be enough. But I am still a guy with ambition and drive, and I still feel like I have more to say, and I'm not spoiled in that sense. I really don't want to be done at this age. And if anything, my ego is in a better place because I can even fantasize about the idea of being in a room that I wasn't running, which is crazy because that's in the middle of my career when it's at that really hot space. It's like, oh no, I could never be in a room that I wasn't in charge of. But that's not how I feel so much. But theMichael Jamin:Hours are so long and exhausting and you're like, sure, I'll work till two in the morning every night. Well,Max Mutchnick:I couldn't. That's the one thing I would don't feel like that is something that ever needs to be the case. I'm way into having dinner with my family, and I feel like it's after 10:00 PM it's diminishing returns. I actually think after 8:00 PM it's diminishing returns because emotionally you get so your skin starts to break out. You're eating out of styrofoam, and it's just not, it's so bad for where you are. You have to just love the fucking show you're on. Can I say bad word? YouMichael Jamin:Can say, sure. You can say show.Max Mutchnick:You have to love where you are so much to be working late or own. ButMichael Jamin:How did you keep, were the hours good on Will and Grace?Max Mutchnick:Yes. Because we've run a meritocracy and we always have, and that is the best idea will out. So I don't care if it comes from a LB like Michael Jamin or if it comes from John Acquaintance, wherever the best idea and wherever the most honest idea that's organic to the characters comes, and that's the one we're going with. And I'm very, I think one of the things you master or you have to master to be a showrunner that works well and runs a tight ship is the ability to say no quickly and without a lot of ting. So I'm going to say no, and I'm going to say it quickly, and it's going to feel like it hits you hard, and maybe it does. But in order for us to run a tight ship, that's just the way that it has to go. Famously, one of the best showrunners of all time, David Crane, I guess really, it was very democratic and everybody got to talk and pitch, and he didn't cut things off fast. I mean, sometimes there's a German there and you've got to find it and tease it out and stuff like that. But for the most part, immediately, no, that's not the way that we're going. And no, that's not the way the character.Michael Jamin:And they had long hours in that show,Max Mutchnick:Very, very long hours. They famously worked really late. And I was also listening to you the other day talk about those schools of,Michael Jamin:And that's what I was going to get to.Max Mutchnick:Yeah. And you could say that you talked about, there's the Friends school. I think there's also the Diane English strain. Did you mention that one?Michael Jamin:No, I did. I only really mentioned the one that I thought I came from, I think I came from, which was Frazier. Cheers Taxi. Right.Max Mutchnick:And I call that that's the David Lloyd's, I mean,Michael Jamin:And Chris Lloyd, yeah. Okay. What would you say your lineage would be then? And do you agree with that?Max Mutchnick:Yes, I did. I agreed with everything you said. I mean, my lineage is actually, it's a must see TV sound. It's an NBC, it comes down, but that's really the friend sound. And I come from that because my first real job was on Dream on which Martin David created. And then I came in late. David and I came in late on that show, but I also come from the Diane English School because Michael Patrick King was such a giant influence in my sound,Michael Jamin:And that was good advice or whatMax Mutchnick:Good advice. But he had come from Murphy Brown. Right, of course. So if you worked at Murphy Brown, you prayed at the altar and English. I mean, but those friends people, they just spawned so much, soMichael Jamin:Much. But you don't run the show the way they did, though.Max Mutchnick:Not at all. No, not at all. Yeah. We learned as much on shows from what not to do than from what to do. The benefit of being on shows where there, it's just, and I'm not using David Crane as an example because I've never been in a room with him, but we have been in rooms where either we weren't used or there was just endless talk that went absolutely nowhere and the decisions weren't made to just, that's good. That's it. Put it up on the board. You can get there very fast and not like there is a famous school that I don't want to talk about that it's good enough. It's good enough. It's good. Enough's not what I'm talking about. I don't do, it's good enough. But there is a world of shows that's run with that ethos.Michael Jamin:See, I thought one of the first, the advice that we got when we started running shows was I think it was Steve Levitan who said, just pick away, even if it's wrong, pick away. Yes. Or you lose the room.Max Mutchnick:Yes. I mean, it's like you can fu around forever about, oh, what you want to do with your life. I don't necessarily know that this was what I was going to do, but it happened and I went for it, and I got rewarded at a certain point. I feel like if you get rewarded in something that you're doing within six months to 12 months, stay there.Michael Jamin:Were you running a show that wasn't your own, it was your first job at, or No,Max Mutchnick:I'm I'm rare. I'm rare in that regard that I was at Emerson in college, and my dear friend was a comic named Anthony Clark. And Anthony called me and said, they're making shows now in la and there's a company that's very focused on writers who have strong relationships with standup comics. And the company was Castle Rock. And Larry David was just making Seinfeld at that time. And the guy that ran the company with Rob Reiner was a wonderful man named Glenn Paddick. And he gave us our first break, but we had to go into Warren Littlefields office as these young guys and argue for why would I ever give a show on this golden network to two guys that have never done the job before? You've never run a show.Excuse me. I was on single guy. So I mean, I had worked, but I had never run a show. The first time I ran a show and I wasn't even close to running a show. I was a co-producer. And I went in there and I said to him after I got David Cohan a white shirt with a collar like, you have no idea. The Prince of a collar and a what? The difference that it makes put on a goddamn buttoned up shirt. And we go and we sit in there and I say to Mr. Littlefield, who I owe a great deal to, if you give me the keys to the car, I promise not to scratch the car. And if I scratch the car, you can take the keys away. You can bring in whoever you want. They can oversee me, but just give me, literally give me a week, give me a show, and I already know what to do and not to do, and I'll run this thing the right way.Michael Jamin:Wait, this was before you wrote the pilot? This was just to get the chance to,Max Mutchnick:We had written the pilot and they wanted to make it. Oh, okay. And then they said to our agents, or they said to Glenn Pad, Nick, these guys have no experience. You've got to go get showrunners. And I was just so anti the idea that someone was going to creatively be open, and I asked for the meeting and I begged him, and I kind of tell that story. And the whole truth of that story is a day or two before he went to our agent and said, I want someone at that table read who runs a show. I want an experienced showrunner in case at the pilot table read, they fall apart. And God bless the writing team of Roberto, Roberto Bebe and Carl Fink, even Fink, I think. And I could be getting that wrong, and I hope someone calls us out on it. But anyway, those guys were so cool. And they sat at the table read, and we got our notes, and then they walked up to us on the stage where we were shooting the show on Radford, and they were like, you got this boys, we'll see you later. And we never saw again. Really. And then we were show running.Michael Jamin:Did you bring top heavy writers to the firstMax Mutchnick:David's sister who wasn't the superstar,Michael Jamin:Right. That she's nowMax Mutchnick:WasMichael Jamin:I'm talking about your first staff I'm talking about.Max Mutchnick:Yes, I know. Yes. Really. And I don't know who the third one was. I remember there being, it was a mini room before. It was self-imposed before it was imposed on us. And it was just this very tiny group because David and I didn't know how to ate and do all that. And we figured we would do all of the heavy lifting, which was not possible. And we eventually brought in Carrie Lizer, but we started with a very, very tiny group of writers and just crawled our way through.Michael Jamin:Wow. Yes. It's cool. Should we spend the next 59 minutes talking about the single guy, or should we continue talking aboutMax Mutchnick:Your No, no. Can't talk about that show. But it was really cool to work with Ernest Borgne, and I'll just put it to you. Yes. What is the, I'm going to ask you a trivia question.Michael Jamin:JohnnyMax Mutchnick:What?Michael Jamin:Johnny was his name?Max Mutchnick:Yes. Wasn't it? Yes. I went to high school with him, so that's not, and his dad was Johnny Silverman's father was David Cohen's rabbi in real life. Oh, wow. But I mean, we lived in an industry town. That's what it was. But no, Ernest Borg nine, in addition to having a wife that was a cosmetics had of cosmetics Dynasty, Tova nine was the name of all the lotions and potions. Earnest Hemmingway, little known Borg. What?Michael Jamin:Borgnine, not Hemmingway. Not Hemmingway.Max Mutchnick:Shit, that would be so bad. Ernest Borgne had the best collection of what? Does anybody knowMichael Jamin:Doug?Max Mutchnick:No, no, no. He had a good one though.But moving on, he had the best collection of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia because on the weekends, he used to go to Beacons moving and he would sell off the dregs of whatever was left in a truck that people didn't pick up. And one time he went and he bought a painting, and it was of Abraham Lincoln, and he takes it to wherever, Sotheby's or Heritage, whatever he did. And it turns out to be one of only two portraits ever painted of Abraham Lincoln while he was in office. Wow. That started this epic collection. We've digressed into such boring stuff. And I blame you. IMichael Jamin:Blame you. I brought up,Max Mutchnick:You're running this room. You could cut me off at any point.Michael Jamin:No, I could not. But let me ask you this, though. You've created so many shows, and obviously the writers are the same. So what is it, why was Will Grace, why that one not the other ones? Why was that one that blew up?Max Mutchnick:Well, I think I have a glitch in my casting programming. I didn't know to second guess myself in the way that I did after Will and Grace. I mean, it's a great question because it is the thing that, if anything, it could be a regret in my life. It's that I haven't made great decisions at crunch time andMichael Jamin:Wait, so you think it was casting decisions, you think, but you don't get to catch.Max Mutchnick:You put it on the page, and then it's these brilliant actors that have to operate in a medium that's not respected, but possibly the hardest form of acting. And there are very, very few people that can do it as well as the ones that we know. And Jim Burrows always says it's lightning in a bottle.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it is.Max Mutchnick:So it's that, and it's less Moonves also being not great to me.Michael Jamin:Well, I mean, I was going to say, every casting decision has been approved by a million other people. It's not like you could, right?Max Mutchnick:I know. And you want to believe it at the time, and you get in there and you sell, and you do your thing. And then sometimes you don't believe in a person that's going into a cast, but Les has got a thing for that person, so they go in there. But by the way, that man gave me a lot of breaks, and he was good to me for a period in my life, but I also think he did some super fucked up things to our shows too. Partners should have stayed on the air, and he took partners off the air too quickly, and no one had done anything like that. And they should have explored a gay guy and a straight guy being best friends. That's an interesting area.Michael Jamin:What is it? But you guys mostly work in sitcom. I know you did some movie work, but is that just the form you wanted to be in? Is there any other itch you have?Max Mutchnick:No, not really. It just kept, I mean, we kept every few years when they say it's back, we want them, let's go to people that know how to make on that list. And I mean, I'm doing it again, by the way, since this strike is over, and I hope that they work.Michael Jamin:What you're taking outMax Mutchnick:Multicam Ideas couple. Yeah. Yeah. We're working on a couple of Multicam right now that I'm really excited about, but I would love to not do it anymore. I would love to not do it anymore.Michael Jamin:What do you mean you'd love to not do it? I don't understand. IMax Mutchnick:Would love to write what I think single camera comedies are, which is a beautiful, when it's done exquisitely. I think it's, if you write Fleabag, that's like the masterpiece.Michael Jamin:It was a masterpiece, but it was a play. I remember watching you go, this is a play.Max Mutchnick:Yeah, but you can't, I don't know. You can't knock it like that. It doesn't, oh,Michael Jamin:It's not a knock. I mean, it's a compliment. I mean, these long monologues, and it's just not done. ButMax Mutchnick:She still was so brilliant that she figured out, she figured something out about how to make great fuckingMichael Jamin:Episodes. Oh, listen, we're on the same page. I was a masterpiece fricking masterpiece. And what I like about it is that it does feel like a play to me. It's really, it's conversational and it's intimate and brave. It's courageous, man. Man.Max Mutchnick:I think it's the final 20 minutes of the second season. I think that it, it'd be hard pressed to find a better single camera comedy ever written. Yeah, I agree. From the moment the priest shows up at her apartment to sleep with her. And I think that goes straight to the end. I don't know. Beat for beat where I've ever seen it, where I've ever watched a better script.Michael Jamin:How do you feel when you watch something like that? What does that do to you? Because you're a professional writer with a huge, great track record. How does that make you feel?Max Mutchnick:I only have that attitude of the more, the merrier. It's only good to me if you're asking me in a coded way, am I ever jealous of somethingMichael Jamin:A little? Yeah.Max Mutchnick:I mean, yeah. Would I like to have created the bear? Sure. Yes. But I'm more proud of Chris store and impressed that I know him, and I love, and I love that that happens. I mean, I get more offended by the bad stuff. I just can't stand the bad stuff, the good stuff. I'm like, God damn, that's exciting. That got made, and somebody left that writer alone and their vision was carried through to the end.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael. If you like my content, and I know you do because listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michael jamin.com and now back to What the hell is Michael Jamin talking aboutWill and Grace, you could tune in an episode, and you knew you were in for some big, big laughs every episode. And I don't know, you were inviting these friends into your home every week. That's what it felt like. You were inviting your friends over. And there's an art to that.Max Mutchnick:Yes. And there's an art to picking the best writers that money can buy, which is what Will and Grace always had. I mean, the star power in the writing room at Will and Grace was spectacular. And I mean, to a person, it had the best run of writers, but the only time it went off the rails is if the heart got taken out of a story. And if the heart wasn't there, then the thing didn't hold up. That's right. And so you have to lay a foundation in the first act and make sure that all that stuff is true and real at the beginning. And then you can go kind of wherever you want in the second act. Then you can get nuts and then resolve in a very real way. But if you don't actually start from a true place of, oh my God, I cannot believe you are sleeping with my brother, that hurts me so much. Why? Because you're mine. Whatever that story is, you want to just hit those notes that everybody understands.Michael Jamin:Now, when you rebooted Will and Grace, did you bring back the entire writing stuff?Max Mutchnick:We didn't bring back everybody, but brought back most everybody.Michael Jamin:And what's shocking about that you had this amazing writing staff and that they were available.Max Mutchnick:We had to be patient. We had to work a little bit of magic. And I also think, I mean, it's embarrassing for NBC, but David and I had out of pocket some fees.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? You wanted them that bad?Max Mutchnick:But it's worth it. It's worth it. It's like, oh, you, you're going to stop at 25 k an episode for this wildly talented person and for their integrity, and they need it to be 27 5. It's like, take it out of mine.Michael Jamin:Right.Max Mutchnick:And we had to give you the full truth on that. It was more with crew. With Crew that we did that.Michael Jamin:Did you want your old crew?Max Mutchnick:Yeah. I mean, there are people that you want, you want the show to sound the same and you want,Michael Jamin:What was it like bringing it back though, for you as a creator? ItMax Mutchnick:Was incredible, honestly. It was such an incredible thing. I mean, we brought it back thinking that Hillary Clinton was going to be president. And the twisted irony is that the game show host won the office, but it ended up really giving us stuff to write to, because if you're just preaching to the third that you have, it's like, what's fun about that? ButMichael Jamin:To me, I guess I'm interested in your characters are now much older. And now I wouldn't have thought when Will Grace ended? I'm not really thinking about where they're going to be years from now. I'm just done thinking about them.Max Mutchnick:I know, and it kind of did have a finality to it, but I mean, I've told the story, but the set was at Emerson. How was it? And it was done, and they were done with the installation, and it was getting moved back on a flatbed to la. And my husband and I were in London, and I was bereft about the way the election was going and sitting in the back of a cab, I said to him, if I had the show, I would have Karen training Rosario on a rock climbing wall. I would do a story about, you're going to go back to Mexico, but then you're going to climb back in after you go back. Right. And I just wanted that to see that visual of Shelly Morrison on a rock climbing wall and caring training her, and in response to him, those horrible policies. And Eric said to me, well, honey, why don't you just go do something about it and make it the set's where it is? All the actors are where they are, and they were amenable. Thank God, God bless them for doing that, because it didn't have to go that way. It wasMichael Jamin:Easy.Max Mutchnick:It was much easier than you would think to bring it all back together.Michael Jamin:Right. That's with the rebuilding. That's so interesting. When you guys are coming up with show ideas, I mean, are they just coming to you? Are you always coming up with ideas or is it like, okay, we got to come up with an idea?Max Mutchnick:No, I mean, I'm coming up with ideas all the time until someone pays me and then all of a suddenMichael Jamin:Nothing. Can't thinkMax Mutchnick:Of anything. Yeah. It's like, I don't know. I can't sleep. I mean, do you sleep? I don't turn. My brain doesn't shut off. And so I'm always kind of thinking about stuff. And by the way, we've written some of the things that I love the most that we've ever done. They've never seen the light of day. And I think that one of the little twisted crimes of our industry is the fact that agents and studios, if they have any sense that you've written something ago, that you wrote it back when they don't want to, it's like a loaf of bread or something like that, as opposed to a piece of art that it is still relevant. It still makes sense. These characters are vibrant and exist, but it feels like used goods even if it's never anywhere.Michael Jamin:And so you guys, your partner, you meet every day and you're coming up with ideas, or even when you're not,Max Mutchnick:I'm very good that way. I don't feel like I can stop and I don't want to stop. Dave is arguably a happier person, and he doesn't feel the same desire to beat himself to death. That's what it's, yeah. But we've had a dynamic for mean our daughters are very, very close, which Oh, really? A gift of life for both of us. But always, I mean, I say this in front of him and behind his back, our relationship has that lovely Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, sort of one of us is in love with the other one, and one of us doesn't care. And Dave's just like, but he's my brother. So he's not like he's going anywhere. But it's just like, stop trying so fucking hard. I get a little sweaty when I don't need to.Michael Jamin:Well, yeah, you've had so much success. It occurred to me. I just remember one time I was over at your place once, I don't remember where you were living, but I remember you had Enya on.Max Mutchnick:It's so crazy. So wait, I'm going to make my relationship to Enya. I'm going to bring it back to writing sitcoms because Okay. My anxiety has always been a present part of who I am and what you referred to as the fun of coming into my office. Yeah, you're right. But it's driven by a kind of anxiety and on, I guess it would've been good advice for Michael Patrick King. I was having such heavy, crazy anxiety. Anxiety to the point of passing out anxiety that I had to go every time we had a break down to my car and listen to Anya on AC cd.Michael Jamin:Is it because you're worried you're going to be fired? Is that whyMax Mutchnick:I just didn't have that? There's a, that very scary moment of existing in a writing room of what your output is. Like Jeff Astrof, by the way, such an incredible writer in a room, such a good room person. But he lives by the thing. If I don't put a joke into that script today, I can't go to bed tonight. And that drives a person. And I just was in these, so you have to get, but Michael Petra king got me a little bit more comfortable with, I listen to you sometimes and I watch you construct comedy on the fly, and I am impressed with it. And I think, what the fuck? Can't I still do that? But I tap into something different. I tap into a different thing because I think life just across the board, other than rape and cancer and Israel is pretty much, everything is funny. And I feel really good about exploring the most uncomfortable truths of my life, and that's where I get the stuff from. But I wasn't there. I wasn't there, and certainly not at the beginning. And Dave Cohan comes from such a pedigree family that it was second nature to him to just construct really clever wordplay and stuff like that. And I was really panicked about that at the beginning.Michael Jamin:Interesting. Because you know that in the room of writers, if I'm going to choose a team of writers and I have eight picks, the first eight are story people, not joke people.Max Mutchnick:And that's that generic question you ask a writer when you interview them. So what do you think you're best at story or, well, really good at story, right? They're really good at story.Michael Jamin:You're good at stories.Max Mutchnick:You can tell a fucking story.Michael Jamin:None of you'reMax Mutchnick:Good. It's crazy. It's crazy how many people can't tell a story or the joke thing of you want to say to people and you don't. It's like, okay, close your eyes. Go to the table, put that joke in the actor's mouth and tell me the response that you hear. Do you actually hear people laughing at those words? Because that's how I always do it. I'm like, and then it becomes second nature. Yeah, that sounds right. They will make ew. She'll make ew funny. That will get a laugh. That will get a laugh. But it's always shocking to me like the clunkiness sometimes that's pitched and it's like, that's not going toMichael Jamin:Work. Yeah. Yeah. How funny. How funny.Max Mutchnick:And if I'm calm and you got time, it's like you can try to get it, but you want a Michael Jamin in your room to just give it to you. Done.Michael Jamin:Oh, give it to me. Done. It's so interesting. Go starting out. I was just a joke guy. And then you won't keep your job long if that's all you understand, right?Max Mutchnick:No, you have to be able to, because you go to that run through and the entire back half of that story falls apart. So you have to be a technician to say, if you do this and you do that, the back half will, as we say, it's an F 12, it will write itself. It never does that, unfortunately. But I will tell you this, speaking of that, during all of this AI and the strike, and my writer's assistant that's been with me for a very long time, and I won't say his name because he hates that he's a writer's assistant, but he's incredible. A friend gave him a Will and Grace, an AI written Will and Grace.Michael Jamin:Oh, andMax Mutchnick:I mean, this is the upsetting part.Michael Jamin:No, don't go there. Don't say any of this. What isMax Mutchnick:It? I know. I mean, but the truth is, it's like, well, if this is what came to me, if I sent a team off, if I sent a group off and I said, Karen and Jack are going to have a garage sale, bring me back that story. I want two, I mean, I'd break the scenes with them, but two scenes of the first act, two scenes in the second act, it's AB story. Bring that back to me. It wasn't like it was so far off.Michael Jamin:Wasn't so far off. So better than staff writer.Max Mutchnick:This isMichael Jamin:Scary.Max Mutchnick:Yeah, no, I know. I mean, I don't know. It's like if it was in front of me, we could even read it, but I don't have it. I don't want to give any credit to that, but I'm going to name drop. But I told that story to Norman Lear at dinner not too long ago, and he told me that someone had done it for him too on, I think it was on all of the Family. And I believe that we agreed that it wasn't an abomination.Michael Jamin:This makes me sick a little bit.Max Mutchnick:Oh, it's sickening. Yeah, completely sickening. Because it calls 246 episodes of Will and Grace. It figures out what those people sound like. I mean, look, if I delivered, I wouldn't deliver it at a table read. It would still, it would be that thing that I was talking about. There wouldn't be laughs. It didn't have, it didn't have heart construction. Yeah, but good enough. Yeah, but it could go right. That's a callback number 56 onMichael Jamin:Callback. Good enough. I posted about James Burrows yesterday about what he said. I dunno if you saw,Max Mutchnick:Oh, I did. And we should talk about that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. What's, because he basically said, and I think it was misinterpreted a little, that there are, there's only about 30 great writers to do sitcoms. And what I think he meant was 30 great showrunners or potential showrunners, not writers. ButMax Mutchnick:Yeah, I absolutely didn't agree with him. And you started to talk about it, and then always, I kind of turn you off about five minutes, but I will say this, it's like you hit on exactly what it is. The reason why we like it is because Multicam are the comfort Food of America. I mean, that is the show. You want your kid, when they come home from school, turn on an episode of friends and watch that thing, and then dinner will be ready and it goes down easy and you love it. You even can know where it's going, and it's still satisfying. But I didn't agree with Jim, and I hope that he was misquoted because I am not sure that it's over because of how much it's actually liked by Go ahead and create. Everybody loves Raymond and I dare America to not want to watch it.Michael Jamin:Well, okay, growing up, there was a show called Small Wonder. It was one of these syndicated whatever. And I would watch that. And I said to my partner recently, I was like, how come we can't get on small wonder? Where are those shows put on Small wonder? I'd rather be happy working on Small Wonder. But they don't exist.Max Mutchnick:Well, no one programs that way anymore. I still believe if someone made the commitment, I mean, they must have papered this out somewhere, but I always think, shit, if I ran a network, I would ask the higher ups. Can I please develop sitcoms from eight to 10, put them on the air, and will you give me a guarantee that I get to put them on the air for two years straight, all four of them? Because it doesn't happen like a movie. It doesn't happen. I mean, you try really hard, but it's a fluke to get anybody to get a pilot off the ground in that a scene. They don't know anybody. Right. It's the hardest thing in the world. But I believe that if Multicam, I believe that they weren't driven by star casting because star casting always fucks up a multicam. Of course, there are examples of big stars that have made shows work like Charlie and Julia even. But I mean, there's that list of names that if we weren't being recorded, I would just say it's all these fucking famous people that aren't funny. AndMichael Jamin:Wait, is it because you think they get executive producer and they give notes and they change it? They make the show what they want it to be, you mean?Max Mutchnick:Yeah. I mean, I don't give a shit about that, but that's all bad. Jim Burrows, though, won't allow that, which is a gift, though. The world is so changed that if Miley Cyrus wants to do a sitcom, by the way, I think Miley Cyrus is the only sitcom actor who is able to move the needle. They push you during sweeps. Can you get a Shatner? If we could get Shatner on Big Bang, I know we'll write, that's probably not a good example because it probably worked. But for the most part, shows just get what they get. They always get what they get. It doesn't matter. These co-stars and these, none of that matters,Michael Jamin:Right? No.Max Mutchnick:Is it funny? And do you like the people? Do you like the people? And do you like the world that they're in?Michael Jamin:That's what actually, and that is a good segue to what I wanted to talk about as well. Shit, my dad says, you guys were on the forefront. That was a Twitter popular What? ItMax Mutchnick:Was the first one.Michael Jamin:Right? The first ones. So I'm saying you were on the forefront. You were the first ones who did that. And I remembering because it was based on the Twitter feed, I remember thinking, is this what's going on now? And yes. Yes, it is.Max Mutchnick:I know. I mean, it's funny. I remember when I was a kid and all of a sudden in the music scene, there was punk rock. And I remember being a worried Jewish boy saying to my mother, ma, I think punk rock's going to ruin the world. I think punk rock's going to ruin the world. And it was like all of a sudden, Twitter, a Twitter account, a tweet for Justin Alper. Brilliant. I mean, creator Elementary with Pat Schumacher, and this was Justin's, it was his account, but at a beginning, middle to an end, when you heard it, it was just like, shit, my dad says, it's just like, well, inside that line, speaking of Hemmingway, the best story, the shortest story ever written.Michael Jamin:Yeah. What is it?Max Mutchnick:Baby Shoes for Sale, never Worn.Michael Jamin:Right? Right.Max Mutchnick:They might be out of order, but those are the words I think, and shit my dad says was like, oh my God. You know exactly what that is. That's a son with being embarrassed by a father that he loves. So it was all there. It was there. Yeah.Michael Jamin:But if, I don't know, was there ever a moment like now, sure. Oh, this guy, this person has a big Twitter feed. Yes, bring him in. Let's talk with them. Right. But was there a moment when you were doing this? Are we really basing a show on a Twitter feed? I mean, I know you saw more, but I would've been worried.Max Mutchnick:Yeah, yeah. But it was literary. I mean, I don't know. Justin was just so sharp and smart, and there were ideas immediately, so it didn't feel hacky at all. But by the way, I will say this, it was one of the handful of terrible, deadly fatal casting mistakes that I made in giving the job of the Sun to the actor that we did when the actor of the hundreds of people that we read for that part, there was only one guy who came in and he was a slam dunk, and he was the one, and he was the only one of all the 500 men that read for the part that Bill Shatner said, that's the guy. And that guy was David Rum, HoltzMichael Jamin:Rum,Max Mutchnick:David m, it was so there in the room. Yeah. I forgot it was him. He understood everything. And I brought some of my own bullshit to it, and so did everybody else. David didn't, he didn't look like we wanted it. Look, we wanted a cuter person and all kind of stuff.Michael Jamin:Pretty, it's so funny. We did a show with him years later. Crummy Sweet kid, sweet guy. Interesting.Max Mutchnick:Wow. Forgot about that. Yeah. Such a talented guy. Such talentedMichael Jamin:Guy. Yeah. Interesting.Max Mutchnick:And a brother in neurosis.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me talk about that, because you tend to put yourself into the characters you write. And how hard is that is difficult for you? Does everyone know that it's you, IMax Mutchnick:Guess? I think so. I mean, well, I only tell the stories in first person. I mean, I don't say, I have a friend who had sex with a Chauffeur for Music Express. I tell the story about what I did and how embarrassing it was and what I did and what I did to recover from it. And I got very comfortable with that. And it's made it possible to tell a lot of stories because that's what I have.Michael Jamin:But on the flip side, are you sometimes protective of the character when someone else pitches an idea and Well, I wouldn't do that. Well, it's not you. It's,Max Mutchnick:Oh my God. No. If it feels true, and it sounds true, I completely, I mean, I'm not going to go back on what I said. If your story is fantastic and it's not nuts, I mean, I want to tell that I want tell that story. Right? I mean, those are the ones that I, the ones that really like are like, oh, Jesus Christ, that's so uncomfortable. That's so uncomfortable and so awkward. And we have to do that. We have to tell that story.Michael Jamin:Did you start on your shows that you run, do you start every morning with like, Hey, what's everybody up to? Are you trying to pull stories out of people, personal storiesMax Mutchnick:We call a host chat?Michael Jamin:Is that what you called it? Yeah,Max Mutchnick:We call a host chat, because when I first started out, I knew I had a rundown of, I think Regis. Regis and who is Frank ER's wife?Michael Jamin:Kathy Lee.Max Mutchnick:Kathy Lee. Kathy Lee. And it's called Host Chat, by the way. It might've been on,Michael Jamin:Mike Madia was called that as well. Yeah. Yeah.Max Mutchnick:I mean, that's where it comes from. It doesn't come from Regis, it comes from that. And David, and I mean, it's arguably sometimes the best part of the day.Michael Jamin:Well, yeah, it's funny. You guys set up Mike and Maddie, and then you bounced off that show probably in a matter of months. And then I took, I took the job that you vacated and I was thrilled. And with you was, I dunno. For me, it was like, oh my God, this is this giant opportunity. And you guys, this is your temporary gig.Max Mutchnick:Oh, well, it wasn't a temporary gig. It was a fall from Grace. I mean, I think we had already been working, something was going on in our career, either we were in between agents or something, but that was an absolute blight. I mean, it was terrible. That experience.Michael Jamin:And why, what was it For me,Max Mutchnick:We were WGA primetime,Michael Jamin:And that was not all ofMax Mutchnick:Sudden we're writing a strip bullshit show with two hosts that hate each other. And I mean, a great thing came out of it though, the first week of the run of those shows, David Cohan is in all of the sketches.Michael Jamin:Oh, I didn't know that.Max Mutchnick:Yeah, David, we wrote him into the sketches. He played kind of this dumb PA character, and we would do these cold opens that they could never make them work. They could never make work because Maddie couldn't act. And Mike was always frustrated. But Dave's in them, they're online, I believe, and they're pretty funny.Michael Jamin:Oh my God. HowMax Mutchnick:Funny. Yeah, it's incredible.Michael Jamin:And so I guess going forward, as I take up a lot of your time here, what do you see going forward with the industry? I don't know. What does it lookMax Mutchnick:Like to you? That's one thing I won't do. It's the more I realize how little I know kind of thing. I believe this. I believe that good shows always will out. They will always happen. And even in spite of the system. So I think that that can happen. But I don't know. I'll tell you, in six months, I can come back and we'll talk about whether the multicam that I have in the hopper right now, if they work and if they get on the schedule, because things just, it just doesn't happen anymore.Michael Jamin:People think, yeah, people, when you're in it, you're made well, your next job is never guaranteed.Max Mutchnick:I don't like that 50 something year old guy that doesn't work anymore. I don't want to be that. I don't that person and I can be okay. I guess reflecting, looking back on, I tried really hard and I kind of want to, this might be embarrassing, but I really would like to show myself that I have not disconnected from the popular culture that I can tap into the way people feel still. And I'm not just a guy making dad jokes. I mean, I'm not that guy anyway. My daughters, that's not their experience. So it is just a matter of can I get the system to work on my behalf?Michael Jamin:What do you tell young writers trying to break in then giveMax Mutchnick:Advice that there's always room for one more. I mean, I still feel that way, but I feel like you've got to be, if you get on a show, I think the goal is to parrot the showrunner.Yes. Make the sound that he's making. Don't make some other weird Crispin Glover sound. Make the sound that he's making, and then improve upon that act. It's like actors that you hire to do a guest spot on a show, and they kill it, and you hire them, and then they get on the floor and they give you something else. It's like, no, no, no. Do exactly the thing that we hired you for. So a writer, it's like, I read your spec script. I love it. I love your tone. I loved talking to you. And by the way, in that meeting, I'm thinking as much about what's it going to be like to do post chat with this person and do anything else? Because I don't know that I should say this, but I will because I don't stop myself. A lot of times when we meet writers, we read them after we met them,Michael Jamin:You read 'em afterMax Mutchnick:They have a thing. If they're in the system to the point that the studio and the network are saying, oh yeah, we love this person. We think this person is great. This person's just come out of NYU. We think you'll help this person. Right? You've got to meet this guy, or you've got to meet this woman, this human. I sit down with them and then it's like, okay, you are,Michael Jamin:I wouldn't trust anything they say, though. That's the thing. Why? What do you mean? Well, because you got to meet this writer, and they're like, but I don't think they know what I'm looking for in a writer. That's the thing.Max Mutchnick:But it's like both have equal power in the hiring. So it's like you meet them, do I like them? You can read a script and then all of a sudden you imbue all the stuff that, and they're just like, Ugh. They're a drip. And they're not cool. And they're not easy to talk to. I mean, by the way, mean if the script's brilliant, you're going to hire them. But well,Michael Jamin:Also, I imagine we're also intimidated by your success too. It's not easy to sit opposite you guys,Max Mutchnick:But we try really hard to pull that out of the room as fast as we can because it gets in the way. And like I said, it's like I won't really comment on our position in the world and that kind of stuff. I just can't even think about that. If someone's coming in to talk to us, I feel as much want them to. I'm still the same as my husband says, everybody has diarrhea. It's like, I want them to like me.Michael Jamin:You still sob to Enya?Max Mutchnick:Yes. That I don't do anymore. I do. I'm a little bit my spine's illustrator. I don't have one way of doing anything is really the moral of the whole.Michael Jamin:Wow, max, I'm so appreciative that you took the time. I don't know, just to talk because oh my God, you have so much wisdom to share. It's just so interesting to hear your journey, and I don't know.Max Mutchnick:It is a joy to talk to you, and I don't usually enjoy these things as much as I have that says everything about you, andMichael Jamin:It's atMax Mutchnick:Ease. Yeah. I mean, you're just easy and good and smart and everything. A lot. I mean, your commentary throughout the strike was just fantastic and on point. And you were putting yourself out there in a way. AndMichael Jamin:Ballsy is what IMax Mutchnick:Ballsy. Ballsy. Yes, that's right. I mean, one gets scared making things when you have, I guess you don't have that much to lose.Michael Jamin:That's pretty much it. That's pretty much it. Yeah.Max Mutchnick:So can you just tell me before we say goodbye? Yeah. What are you working on?Michael Jamin:Well, we're going to talk more. We're done talking. Okay.Max Mutchnick:Okay. So do you want to wrap it up? Do we sing or what do we do?Michael Jamin:Yeah. We hug virtually and we tell everyone to be their best creative versions of themselves.Max Mutchnick:That's exactly right.Michael Jamin:Encourage people. There's roomMax Mutchnick:For one more.Michael Jamin:I love that. There's room for one more. So if you're listening always. Yeah.Max Mutchnick:No matter what it is. And God damn, I wish I could sing the theme for, I mean, if you have your sound engineer, why don't you just have your sound engineer fade in the theme from the Mike and Maddie show written by Charles Luman.Michael Jamin:MicMax Mutchnick:Shine. It's a beautiful day in America.Michael Jamin:I'm not paying for that needle drop. I got my own music. HeMax Mutchnick:Doesn't need the money.Michael Jamin:I'll talk to him. Okay. All right. Thank you again, max. I really appreciate it, Janet. Yeah. Okay. And don't go anywhere. Alright everyone, we got another more great episodes. Wasn't that interesting talk? He's a great guy. Go watch him. Go watch Will and Grace again. It's ageless. Alright, thanks so much everyone, until next week.So now we all know what the hell Michael Jamin is talking about. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for my free monthly webinars @michaeljamin.com /webinar. And if you found this podcast helpful or entertaining, please share it with a friend and consider leaving us a five star review on iTunes that really, really helps. For more of this, whatever the hell this is, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. And you can follow Phil Hudson on social media @PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane and music was composed by Anthony Rizzo. And remember, you can have excuses or you can have a creative life, but you can't have both. See you next week.

On this week's episode, I have author, Joshua Fields Millburn of “The Minimalists”. Tune in as we talk about how he left corporate America and why he chose to live “The Minimalists” lifestyle.Show NotesJoshua Fields Millburn Website: https://joshuafieldsmillburn.com/Joshua Fields Millburn on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshuafieldsmillburn/Joshua Fields Millburn on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6576362/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptJoshua Fields Millburn:What happens is, oh, I'm going to leave and I'm just going to be a writer. And I had one boss that I had at the time said, look, if anyone could just quit their job and become a writer, then everyone would do it. And I looked at him and I said, well, I don't think everyone wants to do that first off, but second off, you're acting like I'm the first person in the history of the world who's decided to becomeMichael Jamin:A writer. You're listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Michael Jamin:Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. I got a very special guest today. So today, this guy, I've been a fan of his work for a long time, and I discovered him a couple of years ago. It's Joshua Fields, Millburn, he's half of the minimalist. And these guys did a documentary, I'm going to give 'em a nice proper introduction. They did a documentary that I discovered which, and the message was so important. It's on minimalism and it's basically how you can live with more by having less, how you were richer by having less. And I just found that not only did I find the message so important, but I found their journey that these two guys put them on, put themselves on to be so inspiring. Just to give you a little bit of backstory before I finally let this guy get a word in edgewise, is that, so Joshua grew up, poor parents suffer, struggled with alcoholism. He decided, I'm speaking for him now, but this is what I picked up from the documentary, that he didn't want to be poor when he was an adult. I'm not going through that. So he managed to get jobs in management where he is actually making a good living, he's making money. And then at some point he realized, wait, this is not making me happy. And then he did a complete about face and reinvented himself. So Joshua, thank you so much for joining me. Let's, let's hear you talk now.Joshua Fields Millburn:Oh, Michael, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, it's funny, I did grow up really poor and I thought the reason we were so unhappy when I was growing up is we didn't have money and not knowing that all these other things that were actually chaotic in my life, some of the things you mentioned, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, physical abuse and violence in the home, and extreme poverty was a part of it, right? It was a part of that milieu of discontent. And I just hyper-focused on that one component. So when I turned 18, I went out and I got that entry level corporate job, and I spent the next dozen years sort of climbing the corporate ladder. And by age 30, I had achieved everything I ever wanted, the six figure salary, luxury cars, big house in the suburbs with more toilets than people.I really had all the stuff right? And all the stuff that you would consider to be the American dream, more closets full of designer clothes and all the nicest furniture and the status and the job title. And yet, as you mentioned, it wasn't making me happy. In fact, the closer I got to the pinnacle of success, it seemed to further away from happiness I got, which didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And then two things happened to me. My mother died, my marriage ended both in the same month. And we talked about those in the last documentary on Netflix. And really those two events forced me to look around and start to question everything in my life, not just the stuff, but the career and the relationships and all of these other types of clutter that I began to uncover.Michael Jamin:But it seems to me though, when you reinvented yourself, and we'll get to that part, you were kind of at bottom. You had, like you said, you lost your marriage, you lost your mom. Is it easier to reinvent? Where do you get the balls to do this? Is it easier to do that when you're at the bottom than as opposed if you were, I don't know, happy enough in life?Joshua Fields Millburn:In a weird way, I think it's simultaneously easier and more difficult. And I'll try to explain that. I think it's easier in the sense that if you've lost a lot of the comfort and the certainty that you have in life, now all of a sudden you are willing to make a change because you're experiencing enough pain that leads to a change. The outverse of that was my successful corporate life. It was never 10 out of 10, awesome. It was constantly between a four and a five on a one to 10 scale. It was just comfortable enough to not make a change, but not comfortable enough or not uncomfortable enough maybe to have any sort of meaningful experiences. And so there was a weird level of perpetual anxiety and discomfort that undergirded all of it, but at the same time, it wasn't enough pain to make a significant change. So why was it easier? Well, because once you have enough pain, you start questioning everything. Why have I been so discontented? Why have I given so much material meaning to all these material possessions? Who's the person I want to become because I don't like the person I have become so far? And how am I going to redefine success? Because this level of success, the so-called success that I've achieved, if I'm miserable, is it really success? Well, success with misery, that seems like failure to me.Michael Jamin:But what was the final moment that you said, screw it, I'm quitting my job and I'm trying something else. Now,Joshua Fields Millburn:When I got closer and closer to the executives I wanted to be like, I had this whole career mapped out that by age 32, I'm going to be a vice president by age 35, I'm going to be a senior VP by age 40, I'm going to be a C-level executive, ideally ACOO of this corporation that I'd worked for since I was 18. And I'd climbed the corporate ladder. I was the youngest director in my company's 140 year history. I was responsible for 150 retail stores, which I know with the whole minimalism thing is really ironic. But I climbed the ladder and I got closer to these guys who I really aspired to be like. And I realized, well, wait a minute. As I got closer to them, the illusion, the mirage began to sort of dissipate. And I saw them for what they were. They weren't evil or bad guys.But I had one boss who was on his third divorce and second heart attack, and he was 50 years old. I'm 42 now. And I realized like, well, wait a minute. If I work really hard for the next 20 years, I can be just as miserable as these guys that I aspire to be like. But of course, what do we tell ourselves? We say, I'm going to be different. How am I going to be different if I follow the same exact recipe that all of these other guys are? And by the way, I've been following their recipe. If I continue to follow that recipe, I'm going to bake the same cake. And it became easy when I realized the fear of staying was actually more crippling than the fear of walking away. ButMichael Jamin:Did you bounce this off at anybody? Hey, listen, I'm going to quit my job and to do, what was your plan?Joshua Fields Millburn:Right? I was just going to write. I mean, my honest plan at the time was we had started the minimalist.com. I was making no money from it whatsoever. I was going to work. I paired down my bills to literally next to nothing. I mean, when I walked away from the corporate world, eventually in 2011, I made $23,000 that first year. So I took a 90% pay cut. Strangely, I was more financially free that year than I had been the last decade. It was the least amount of money I made in my entire adult life, but I was more free that year because I got rid of all of those expenses. I used to tell myself I need these things, or the truth is there were things I wanted. But you know what? I wanted more than that. I wanted freedom. So you asked, did I talk to other people about it?Heck yeah. I did it first. I learned what a mistake that was. Really? Yeah, because what happens is, oh, I'm going to leave and I'm just going to be a writer. And I had one boss that I had at the time said, well, if anyone could just quit their job, become a writer, then everyone would do it. And I looked at him and I said, well, I don't think everyone wants to do that first off, but second off, you're acting like I'm the first person in the history of the world who's decided to become a writer. And my plan was, I'm going to work in this coffee shop in my local neighborhood, make enough just to pay my rent. I was living in Dayton, Ohio. My expenses were really, really low. I spent two years paying off all of my debt because I knew as long as I was tethered to debt, I was going to be tethered to this job, which means I was tethered to this lifestyle. And in a weird way, I was financing a car that would take me to work so I could pay the car payment for the car that would take me to work. I needed to get rid of all of those things that I wanted but weren't serving my freedom. I had to let go of those things so I could embrace the life I actually wanted to live.Michael Jamin:But was there any moment where you're even saying to yourself, I don't know, I think I'm kidding myself. You had to have been checking yourself with doubt even while you were convinced, I'm going for it, right?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah. Now maybe I have an irrational confidence in a way. I never thought all the things that happened would happen, and we took a rather circuitous route. I didn't know have a 10 year plan or anything like that. My confidence was like, man, I think I can make enough money to pay my rent working at a coffee shop, and then I can just write in my other hours. And that's all I wanted. I found out what enough was for me because all those other things, they weren't doing it for me anymore. I thought, if I just get the Lexus, then I'll be happy I got the Lexus. Well, maybe the second Lexus will make me happy. That didn't do it. Well, maybe the Range Rover will make me happy. That didn't do it either. Okay. And by the way, I didn't own any of those things.I didn't own the big house. I had these things were all finance. I made really good money, but I spent even more money. So I had tremendous amounts of debt, about half a million dollars worth of debt, and I had to get rid of all of it in order to untether from that. And I realized those things never got me to enough. Enough is not about getting more and our society, it's actually about subtracting. And I knew I needed to subtract the things to get me down to enough. I already had enough peace, enough happiness, enough joy. Those things were simply covered up by all these external pursuits.Michael Jamin:I can understand Alexis not making you happy, but a Range Rover that surprises me Now, what kind of writing were you trying to do or were you doing that?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, it was just fiction. I was really into fiction at the time. I thought that's all I was going to do. The minimalist was this side project. My best friend Ryan, he and I, we grew up together. We grew up really poor. We've known each other since we were fat little fifth graders. And we climbed the corporate ladder together as well. And he actually came to me about eight months into my letting go, my simplifying. We were still both working in the corporate world together. And he came to me one day and he said, why the hell are you so happy? And I didn't even go around saying, look at me. I'm a minimalist now. I got rid of my stuff. I didn't say anything to anyone. I just started letting go of extra clothes that were in my closet or things that were getting in the way that weren't serving me junk, that was non-essential and clutter basically.And I noticed that those material possessions were, and I didn't know this at the time, but they were at this physical manifestation of what was going on inside of me. And as I started letting go of this external clutter, I started clearing out some of this internal clutter, the relationship clutter, the mental clutter, the psychological clutter, the emotional clutter, the calendar clutter in my life. There was all these other types of clutter that I was not prepared for, didn't even know that I was clinging onto. And then when Ryan comes to me and says, why the hell are you so happy? It opened up this door for me to talk about this simplifying I had been doing. And so he started simplifying as well, and he's way more type A than I. And he's like, that's great. You've spent almost a year doing this. I need to do this right now.And so we came up with this crazy idea called a packing party, which we made a film version of for our last film, less Is Now. And ultimately, that was the beginning of the minimalist.com. We were just going to write about that 21 day journey, and it was going to be a place for me to publish a few essays that I wanted to write about, but I just wanted to write fiction. And then what I realized is like, oh, wait a minute. A lot of people were finding value in these words. I remember the very first month we started the minimalist.com, 52 people, they visited the website, which sounds really unremarkable now, but at the time, I was so impressed by it. You got to think, throughout my twenties, I wrote fiction, and the only people who were reading my stuff were agents and publishers who were sending me rejection letters.I had an inch thick stack of rejection letters of people telling me, no. Now, unbeknownst to me, a lot of the stuff was actually kind of garbage at the time. That's any writer that realizes that the stuff that seems so precious and gold, everything that comes off of my quill must be perfect. No, it was nonsense. But it made me the writer that I am today. And so I started writing@theminimalist.com, and I realized once 52 people turned into 500 people, and then it turned into four or 5 million people over the years, what I realized was that, oh, when someone gets value from something, they tend to share it with their friends and their family and their loved ones. Adding value, sharing value is a basic human instinct. And this was before the TikTok and Instagram and all these great ways to share these different things. People were actually forwarding our blog to their sister or their aunt or their uncle, or whomever it might be in their family, just sending off to 'em an email or a text message. And it just really began to spread word of mouth. I said, oh, maybe we actually have something here. Let's keep trying this out.Michael Jamin:Right? It's so interesting because people often complain today, it's so hard to go viral. You went viral before there was viral. It's like, well, because you had interesting things to say, and that gets shared. It's like, stop. People say it's so hard. Well, yeah, it's even harder when there's no such thing as viral.Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah. And in fact, I don't even know that we ever had anything until our Netflix film came out, which the first one is now on YouTube, and that thing has even taken off. It's gotten a third life now. We did a theatrical release around it, and I could give you some really impressive stats around that. We had the number one documentary in 2016 in theaters, which sounds really impressive to you realize when in the hell have I seen a documentary in a theater. No one goes to theaters to see documentaries. So maybe 50,000 people saw it in a theater, but now 50,000 people see it in an hour or whatever. But before that, we never really had anything. And even now, we rarely have things that go viral. I think about when someone's playing baseball, the much more impressive players on a long enough trajectory aren't the people that are hitting grand slams and home runs occasionally.Those are the viral moments. But we constantly had these singles or doubles. We were getting on base all the time. We were resonating with this core group of people, and there weren't things that many, many tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people were seeing. But it was like, oh, wow, a hundred thousand people read that article. Oh, wow. 23,000 people shared this one thing, whatever it might be. And it built from there. We didn't have anything that was just like, here's this huge viral moment. It was just these repeated things over and over. Oh, this resonated. Let me send this to my sister because I think it'll resonate with her too. ButMichael Jamin:How did you go from the moment? How did you literally go from a very popular blog to getting a documentary on Netflix? What was that step?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah. Over the years, I became what I call vehicle agnostic. I remember when we first started the blog, Ryan came to me with the idea, we didn't even have the name for it. He was like, Hey, do want to, we didn't even know it was called a blog at the time. Do you want to start a website so we can share some of this story with other people? And I said, sure, we'll write a few things and we'll get that out there. It'd be great. It'd be a nice way for me to try my writing chops online. I've never done that before because all I really wanted to do was write books, specifically novels. I just wanted to write fiction, and I was rather married to that formula, that genre, that format, that vehicle to communicate my writing. And then I started realizing like, oh, that's one way to do it.But some people find value in the blog, and then other people find value in a tweet and other people find value in. Well, eventually we started the podcast, which has now been our main vehicle for communicating things. It's even eclipsed what we've done with the blog in terms of listenership and then other people, they might get value from a YouTube video, and some people will get value from a long form documentary or a book. And so I've become vehicle agnostic. It's meeting people where they are as opposed to dragging them toward, Nope, if you want to read about this, you have to read a 300 page book between bound covers. No, it's meeting them where they are. We actually do a lot more audio books than we do print books now, because that is one way that people prefer to consume those materials. I prefer reading a physical book personally, but I'm not going to prescribe that to anyone else.Michael Jamin:Okay. So how did you wind up selling it to Netflix, though?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, great question. So we were in 2014, our second book came out in January 1st, 2014. It was called Everything That Remains. Ryan and I moved to this cabin in the middle of nowhere. Literally in middle of nowhere, there was one traffic light in 3,400 square miles. And it's sort of that romantic vision. You think we're in Montana, right? It's like, oh, wow. I say romantic, not like sexual romance, but romance in the sense like, oh, this little writer moves to the cabin. And man, when you're in Montana in winter and it's negative 26 degrees and it's in October, you realize all you really have to do is quite literally chop wood for the fireplace. That kept us warm and and we wrote the second book called Everything That Remains. It was the story of these two suit and tie corporate guys who walk away from the corporate world become minimalist. It was our journey. We went on book tour that year with it. Now again, that sounds like a really romantic vision. Book tour for us was like, we set up the book tour ourselves, and we did a hundred cities in eight countries, 119 events, 10 months of our lives.Michael Jamin:I have to interrupt. So much good stuff here. Yeah. You said this was, your book was traditionally published, or was it indie published?Joshua Fields Millburn:It was independently published, but we started, it's a long story. We started our own publishing company. We had a handful of employees there as well, and then it was traditionally published overseas. So we did a sort of hybrid model of it. Not self-published, but independently published and then picked up by other publishers.Michael Jamin:Right. Okay. So then you set up this book tour. You were side all this work. I have to point this out. Some people think, oh, you see the publisher made it happen. No, no, no. No one made any of this happen except you two guys, because you wanted it to happen. So tell me, so then, how did this book tour come about?Joshua Fields Millburn:Well, thankfully, we had some experience in the business world. We knew how to run a business. We started our own business with a third person named Colin Wright, who's a prolific author by age 30, I think. He had written 32 books and independently published quite a few of them and gone the traditional route with some other things and had some things optioned by Hollywood. And we realized we had come up with this formula, oh, what is possible to do independent publishing, which is different from a big traditional publisher, and it's also different from Vanity Publishing or self-publishing. I kind of liken it to indie music. You have big acts who are huge mega stars, the Taylor Swifts and the Miley Cyrus of the world, and they thrive in that giant recording industry system. And then you have people who just are garage bands and they have fun jamming in their garage.That's sort of self-publishing. But there's, in music, there's this whole other world of independent publishing or independent music, independent artists, especially now with the things we've gotten so easy. But even since the eighties and nineties, you've had independent artists who don't fall into the big label system, but aren't just garage bands aren't just jamming. They actually make a living. And we said, what if we model ourselves after independent musicians, people who are able to fill a 200 cap room, they can't fill up an arena or whatever. What if we did that? But we did it with book publishing, and eventually with that publishing company, we ended up signing nine different authors and showed them how to fail with us and took some of them out on tours. We did our own version of independent publishing for those authors, poets and fiction writers, all of that.And we learned a lot along the way. So when we booked our own tour, it was literally us and a few employees and interns that we had there in Montana. We eventually moved our operations to the big city of Missoula, Montana, 70,000 people there. It was a writing school there at the University of Montana. In fact, our office was at the university. They had a startup incubator there. And so we decided, Hey, we're going to go on this book tour. We had been on a few before, smaller ones, but we want to do it right. We really believed in this book. We believed in this message. So what we did is we set up a hundred different cities, 119 events, and the message really began spreading. We did 400 media interviews that year, traditional media and non-traditional media, but everything from, we'd be on the morning news at 5:20 AM in Albuquerque now, I don't know, maybe 14 people are watching that.But it allowed us really to develop our interviewing chops, and it allowed us to see what resonates with different people while we go out on these tour stops. Now, it wasn't sexy. Our business plan that year was, if we sell enough books tonight, we can stay in a hotel. If we don't, we're going to sleep in Ryan's Toyota Corolla. And then occasionally, sometimes listeners or they weren't listeners at the time, they were audience members, viewers, readers. They would let us stay at their spare bedroom or in their guest house, or sometimes we'd just sleep on the floor, we'd sleep at rest stops, whatever made sense. And it was quite literally living in the moment. We're going tonight, we're going to be in Des Moines, and then we have a tour stop tomorrow in Omaha, and eventually we'll work our way around to Halifax, Canada. And we're just driving around in Ryan's Toyota Corolla making that happen. And what I realized is that, yeah, early on, eight people would show up at a tour stop, but as the message began to continue, it really, it increased exponentially. By the end of that tour, thousands of people were showing up at tour stops, and we would have,Michael Jamin:Tell me about these tour stops though. Are you at indie bookstores or are you booking venues for yourself?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, initially we booked indie bookstores. In fact, all hundred cities. We did indie book shops except for two or three cities that just don't have an indie bookstore at all anymore, which is really sad. Las Vegas was a good example of that. I think Dallas didn't have an indie bookshop at the time. That's actually been fixed recently. But what we did is we'd book these with indie bookstores, and then when the crowds became too large for those bookstores, then they would find a local theater or a local public yoga studio or some open space that we could have these tour stops. We partner with these indie bookstores, and then they would help us with the space and these tour stops. SoMichael Jamin:Who's paying for the space though? Or you guysJoshua Fields Millburn:Usually the bookstore would, they'd have some sort of arrangement with a local, they'd have a theater across the street. I remember we showed up in Indianapolis and 80 people R RSVP'd for that event, which you never know, because they're free events. Sometimes 80 people, r rss, VP and maybe 40 people actually show up because it's free. We had 80 people, RSVP, and we knew the bookstore only held about 60 people. You could maybe cram an extra 20 in there, but we had 400 people show up at the Indianapolis Book tour stop. And that's when I kind of knew like, oh, this is bigger than I thought it was ever going to be. And they had to find, they had a local theater across the street that was abandoned, but had recently been acquired by a friend of theirs, and they just let us use it. I mean, we had no plan. We were just kind of showing up and figuring out what would happen, holding court in the theater with no microphones, no electricity. We just found a way to make it happen. And it wasn't always pretty, but man, I think if we were trying to wait for everything to be perfect, we'd still be waiting.Michael Jamin:That's exactly right, because this is what I'm always yelling at people, stop asking for permission, put the energy in and then see you make it happen. That's what I find so inspiring. By what I mean, Jesus. I mean, you've literally reinvented yourself and none of it was easy, but you did it anyway. And now, do you still go back on tour?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, we've done 10 tours in the last 12 years, and they're appreciably different. The reason I brought that up is because while we were on the road, we didn't have any extra money to film a documentary, but we had our friend, Matt Vela, who is huge now, has a huge YouTube channel, huge following. But at the time, he was just a young filmmaker who was looking to do something meaningful, and he had reached out to us and we started talking, and he was doing commercials at the time. In fact, he filmed the book trailer for that book I talked about. I was like, well, we don't have a ton of money, but I can pay you. We're going to be doing a media event in New York. Why don't you come out film that and do a book trailer for everything that remains? And so we paid him to do that, and we said, Hey, do you want to come on the road with us for a few weeks during this long tour that we're doing, and we'll set up some interviews along the way, and that way we don't have to fly to all these different cities.And so part of that tour, about six to eight weeks of that tour was just Matt in the back of the Corolla with all his gear and lighting set up. And while we go to a city, we say, oh, there are these great people we want to interview in San Francisco, or there's someone in Los Angeles you want to interview, or, oh, we're going to be doing a tour stop in Salt Lake City. I know we want to talk to these two people while we're in Salt Lake City, or we're going to be in Austin, Texas. Make sure we interview these people while we're there. We're going to be in Philadelphia. I know there's someone we want to talk to there. And so we just went around while we were in the city, we'd make time with any downtime. We had to film some interviews.And at the end of it, Michael, I got to tell you, we had a thousand hours of footage. We didn't know what the hell we were doing. We had a thousand hours of footage. Now the first documentary is 79 minutes long. And I remember at the end of that tour, we just looked at Matt and said, okay, good luck with all the footage. Now, a lot of the interviews we didn't use, a lot of it was road footage and other things, and he pieced together something really special. We went through nine different iterations of that film, and eventually we pitched it to Netflix and they were like, not for us. And they were really the only streaming game at town at the time. This is back in 2015 when we were finishing up the film. There were a few other smaller services then that don't even exist anymore.But Netflix was pretty much the only game in town, but I've always been the, all right, that's fine. You don't want it. We'll put it out on our own. Let's do a theatrical release, which I would never, ever do again. It's crazy. And we submitted the film festivals. We did a theatrical release, 400 theaters, us, Canada, Australia, and didn't get anyone's permission. We just figured out a way to do it. We found a distributor who was willing to work with us to get it into select theaters around the country. And so it was wildly successful in theaters for a documentary. And so we went back to Netflix and we were like, Hey, look how great it did. And they're like, yeah, still not for us. Sorry. Okay, no problem. Let's go ahead and put this online on our own transactional video, on demand, get it up on iTunes and Amazon and Vimeo. And we did that. And because we had already cultivated this audience through our blog and eventually through the podcast, which we had just started to help promote the film, ironically, the film ended up promoting the podcast way more than we anticipated, but we had built this audience. They sent it to number one on iTunes, and now Netflix came back to us and they were like, Hey, you know that film that you came to us with?Michael Jamin:See, I just had a long talk about this a couple days ago when people are begging to get into Hollywood, I go, if you want Hollywood to want, you got to smell like money, which is what you guys did. You stunk of money, which is because you had created this thing which people wanted. Now, Netflix, that's how you sell something. Netflix comes to you.Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, and they did. And what they did is, ironically, they paid us less than we made from any other platform, so we made less money from Netflix. But they did something really great for us. They got us into so many more homes. They got us into, in fact, they only did the US rights initially or the English rights, but then it did so well for them on the platform. They licensed the worldwide rights for a three year period, and they re-upped those rights for another three years. So we spent about seven years on Netflix with that first film, and eventually just this year, we got the rights back and we put it up on YouTube on our own, and millions of other people that have seen it on YouTube now. But Netflix got us in front of about 80 million people. And so that changed everything.It brought a lot of people into the podcast, and it also made them want to work with us on a second film. So they worked with us on our second film, less Is Now, and it became a Netflix, which ended up getting nominated for an Emmy, which I thought was a joke. When I got the email, I had to check the, I was like, oh, this must be some sort of spam nonsense. And what I realized is I wasn't pursuing any of these things specifically. It was just like these things were a great byproduct. Let's just sit down and create something that we really want to create, and hopefully everything else works out.Michael Jamin:Tell me about, so your friend, Matt, because I have so many questions here. When he came along on the ride with you, was he getting paid or was he doing this just to hustle himself to make his own projects happen?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, more of the latter. We just said, Hey, man, we want to make sure we give you a disproportionately generous portion of this film because I don't have money to pay you for this right now. And so you are also an owner of the film as the director. He was also the editor. That's actually his true talent. I mean, he's a phenomenal director, but he is a savant of an editor. So he just came on the road with us and owns a major chunk of the film as a result. Had we just paid him, I mean, sure he would own less, but what I like about this is making sure that we always take money off the table with any of these things. Anyone who works with the minimalists now, it's like, okay, I'm probably not going to make you a millionaire, but what I'm going to do is provide a atmosphere for creative work that you'll enjoy and find meaning in.And also make sure you're compensated well enough for it, that you're not worried about money. And so, hey, this is a project we're going to work on together. We didn't know if anything was going to happen. Honestly, I didn't even know if it was going to be turned when you have a thousand hours worth of footage. I don't even know if you can turn that into a documentary, but if so, great. I mean, there's so many other projects we've started. That's the problem with the iceberg. You see only what's above the water. But we've worked on other films, we've worked on other books, we've worked on blog posts, podcast episodes, whatever, that never see the light of day. But that's just the way things, a lot of things hit the cutting room floor that aren't meant to be shown to the public.Michael Jamin:Are you worried about running out of things to say, because your message is simple, it's the less you have, the less fewer problems you have, but are you worried about, okay, what do I say now?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, what a thoughtful question. I think that's an important question too, because it's not about just continuing to regurgitate the 16 rules for living with less or whatever. Those things are helpful for people, but they're out there already. What I've learned is as I've uncovered that external clutter, I really found all of these other forms of clutter. So recently we've been talking a lot more about these other types of clutter that are creating dread or anxiety in our lives. Calendar clutter is a big one that comes up a lot. I didn't even realize how much calendar clutter I had because I was saying yes to all of these things. It sounded good opportunities on their own. But when I say yes to this, and I say yes to this, I say yes to this inadvertently after saying a thousand yeses, now I'm saying no to the things that are actually most important to me.Everyone else's emergency is now becoming urgent for me. But just because something is urgent for you doesn't mean I have to take it on or I have to say yes to it. And what I realized is that calendar clutter is a type of consumerism. It's thinking that if I just say yes to all the right things, then my life will be complete. But it ends up stressing us out, and it's become culturally acceptable. In fact, it's become praised, right? Oh, what are you up to lately? I'm just so busy. Look how important I am. I'm so busy. Right, right.Michael Jamin:Please, I didn't interrupt you. Well,Joshua Fields Millburn:Busy is just a four letter word. It just means my life's out of control whenever I go around saying I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. It means I don't have control of my own life.Michael Jamin:So what's interesting is you made this step, which is to forsake all these trappings to become minimalist. And as you became more successful, the trappings somehow find a way to encroach back in. Absolutely. And you have to keep checking thatJoshua Fields Millburn:Consumerism takes many forms, and for me, it was the material because I thought that was going to make me happy or whole or complete, but then you replace that with other things. I remember when we first became unquote famous, people started recognizing us in public. It wasn't about like, is this enough? It's like, how do I get more of this? Right? But then you realize really quickly, it took me about six months, so maybe it wasn't that quick. It took me about six months to realize like, oh, this isn't why you're doing this, man. If you're chasing happiness, you're never going to find it. You were chasing it over here with the Range Rover or the big house or whatever. You didn't get it there. You're not going to get it from applause or veneration either. And what I realized over time is what enough for me is zero.I don't need the applause. I don't need the praise. Those things are nice, and I'm not allergic to them, and I'm not shunning them either. Anthony Dello talks about as soon as you denounce a thing, you're forever tethered it to it. And I find that to be true. I'm not denouncing material possessions. I own stuff. I'm talking to you in a microphone. I'm wearing a shirt. I'm wearing pants. I'm wearing shoes, whatever it is, I own some stuff. I don't denounce things, but I also don't need things to be hold or complete. I am complete in an empty room, and I don't need material possessions. I don't need your praise. I don't need a specific relationship in order to make me happy. I can have those things. I can enjoy those things, but as soon as I need them, that's the type of prism.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's just so interesting because you've created the success for yourself, and yet it still has a way of sneaking back in, and you have to constantly check it. So it's a journey now. You're never there.Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah. Yeah. I would say success doesn't exist because it's almost like it's a mirage, right? You see the successful person. I do this at some of our tour stops or live events sometimes, and I was asked the crowd, shout out one thing that you associate with a successful person. If I show you a picture of a successful person, what does that person look like? And it's almost always like an ad from a magazine almost. It's like it's a guy wearing a suit, so it's an expensive suit. There's some sort of expensive jewelry or watch if it's a woman, she has a nice dress and a nice handbag, and it's always the accoutrements of success, but it's never about the person's interstate. It's never like, oh, yeah, they're really at peace, or they don't really need for much. Now you can redefine what success is, but culturally, when we talk about success, there's a portrait of success that we're identifying. And now it's so absurd. It's like it's not just the nice suit. It has to be the Louis Vuitton shoes, or it has to be the Gucci wallet, or it has to be the Balenciaga, whatever. And these become the markers of success, but they're just trinkets. And even those things I'm not against necessarily, but they're not going to make you happy.Michael Jamin:Do you find yourself slipping into judgment though of people who have it?Joshua Fields Millburn:I used to, yeah, because I would pathologize needing those things, but now I don't judge. I identify because that's just me, man. Yes, I want to be accepted, or at least I wanted to be accepted. And I thought that those things were a shortcut. And so if anything, I have empathy for my former self who thought that was going to make people. And here's the perverse thing about it. Let's say that buying the right car or the right wallet or the right belt or the right shoes or whatever, does get you acceptance from a particular peer group. Well, man, you're being accepted for things that aren't even you. So are they accepting you or are they accepting the status symbols? ButMichael Jamin:Let me get your help on something. I wrote a story about this in my book where it's like when I walk by, my wife and I go by, we take walks in these very expensive neighborhoods. It's pleasant to walk around in, and you look at a big house and a big, and you go, man, and my instinct is, yeah, but they're miserable. And she goes, you don't know that. I hope what they have to be do they have to be? Can't they be happy and have a big house and all that stuff?Joshua Fields Millburn:Tell me. Yeah, absolutely. It's unlikely. It'sMichael Jamin:Unlikely. Go on.Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, it's unlikely because the constant need for more does not stop when you get the big house. What do you want? I mean, I live up in Ojai, California, and a lot of people live there in their third home. Their third home is in, I used to live in Missoula, Montana, and man, a lot of people have their second or third home in Missoula, and I'm not against that even, right? But when is it enough? What amount of square footage is enough? Here's a question. We never were stopped to ask how much money is enough?Because more always sounds like it's better, which fine if someone comes in here and hands me bags of money, I'm not going to object to that, but that's not how capitalism works. What happens with capitalism? I'm not against capitalism either, but the ugly side of capitalism is now you're tethered to something. Someone shows up with a bag full of a million dollars. It's not no strings attached. There are definitely strings attached, and those strings are attached. It's taken away from my freedom. There's this essay that was in the New York Times a few years ago called Power. No, thanks, I'm good. And in that essay, they posit that the least free person in America is the president in the United States, the most powerful person in America as the least free person. Well, why is that? It's because to have dominion over everyone comes with a whole lot of strings. You're tethered to obligations, and by untethering from obligations, you may not be able to have the big house, but you might have something that you want a whole lot more, some tranquility, some peace, some equanimity,Michael Jamin:Right? I just wonder, does that take convincing of your stick? Do you have to convince yourself of that, or you just go, no, I'm in. I'm in.Joshua Fields Millburn:No, I think you just have to see it. You have to see it. Yeah, because I don't think any level of convincing ever works. I think it was Dale Carnegie who said, A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion. Still.I love that because yeah, you can convince me that Michael Jordan's the greatest basketball player of all time, but if I don't actually believe that, I'm going to go back to my defaults. Kapil Gupta says, everyone defaults to their defaults. And so, yeah, you can convince me for a period of time, but unless I actually see it, and that's what happened when I walked away from the corporate world, I actually saw it. It wasn't just this hypothetical or cerebral exercise. It was feeling it viscerally. And then you don't need any convincing, no level of convincing is required. That's what love is, by the way. To love someone is to see them for who they are without trying to convince them of your love, without trying to manipulate them or coerce them, actually seeing them. And I think that's true with our material possessions, with our calendar, with that big house that you see in Beverly Hills or wherever. You know what, yes, you see it for what it is. You see the tethers that are attached to it, and if you want those tethers fine, but if you don't want what is attached to those tethers, realize that you don't actually want the house either.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content, and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com. And now back to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?Michael Jamin:See, to me, what you're saying is you literally, I don't know, you took a leap. You took a leap of faith. I believe that this is not going to make me happy, and I believe this will make me happy. And you're someone who continues to make leaps. This is a little bit of a segue here, but you took a leap from being management into a writer, into a performer. Now you're on stage. Where do you get the balls to say that I'm a performer now? You know what I'm saying? It's a leap.Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah. I don't ever think of it that way. I guess I just started doing these events because was happy that I remember once we did a tour stop in Knoxville in 2011. It was our first book, which is called Minimalism, and no one showed up, and we were at this little bookstore slash cafe. So Ryan and I are just there. It's a random Thursday night and we're drinking coffee, waiting on it. Is anyone going to show up? Oh man, no one showed up. And it's like, we'll give it 10 more minutes. We start walking out, it's half hour into the event, and we're walking out, and as we're walking out, there's this guy who and his girlfriend who are walking in, they say, Hey, you're the minimalists. And I'm like, yes, yes, we are. And they're like, we don'tMichael Jamin:Even have an audience. That's how minimal you're yes.Joshua Fields Millburn:And they're like, we're here to see you. I'm like, that's great. You're the only people who showed up and well, so let's sit down, pull up a chair. Let's have a conversation. So we had a tour stop with two people, show up, and to me, that was one of the most meaningful experiences we've had. I didn't look at it as a performer. I've kind of been like, water. We just fit the vessel that we're in, and if two people show up, we'll have a great two person conversation,Michael Jamin:But surelyJoshua Fields Millburn:Thousand people show up. We'll have a different conversation.Michael Jamin:But you must have some kind of pressure to feel like I have to entertain here. Not just educate, but entertain. No,Joshua Fields Millburn:I enjoy entertaining. I don't know that I have to. That would also feel like a prison, but I enjoy entertainment. I like shows that are actually shows, right? Conversations are cool, but I really like when people put the effort and get really obsessed about something, whether it's set design or it is audio, or it is the way the words look on a page in the type setting, whatever it is. I really appreciate the obsession. And yeah, I do like entertainment. I don't know. That's the point of doing what I do, but I don't think that it hurts. I mean, it's to be entertaining in a way is to be courteous to an audience. No one goes to the beach with a calculus textbook and says like, oh, I'm really looking forward to diving because there's no entertainment there at all. It's not delightful. And so I do enjoy delighting an audience, and I think it makes it what we're talking about a lot more compelling.Michael Jamin:But was there a moment there had to be of imposter syndrome. Who am I to be standing here? Who am I to be writing this book? Who am I to be? Was there ever that,Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, yeah. I guess that I never felt like an imposter. I just always felt like I was exploring. You're exploring. Yeah, because I'm not prescribing anything to anyone. Anytime I do, then I'll start to feel like an imposter isn't. Here are the three things that you should do to be happy. In fact, happiness doesn't even work like that. There's nothing you can do to be happy. Happiness can't be acquired. It can't be attained. It is already there. It's preexisting. We never go to a baby and say, well, here are three things you should do to be happy. You just see 'em smile and coup and laugh, and it's like, oh, well, why can't I do that? Well, I've covered it up with all the damn prescriptions, right? So I'm not prescribing anything. Anytime I do, then yeah, I start to feel like an imposter because who knows what. But people often call into our podcast and they'll say, do you have any advice about this? And the first thing I always say is, I don't have any advice, but I have some observations because I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you what I see.Michael Jamin:So it's really just about you maintaining your authenticity and speaking what your truth is and take it or leave it. It's whatever someone else's truth is, that's for them to decide.Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, if I see a truth, I can observe it. I can put it out there on the table, and whether or not someone else picks it up, that's up to them. By the way, my beliefs don't really matter at all anyway. My beliefs don't matter. The listener's beliefs don't matter. The truth is the only thing that does matter. I was just talking to someone earlier today about this. If I told you I believe the earth is flat, does that matter? Does it change anything? No, but I think the adverse of that also doesn't change it. What do I tell you? I believe the earth is round. Well, so what? Congratulations. Right? The earth is round regardless of whether or not I believe it, and no amount of belief or clinging to a belief or changing a belief or convincing someone else that my belief is right is going to change what the truth isMichael Jamin:Right now. I'm jumping a little bit, but I feel like part of what your journey was, I wonder was it made a lot easier because you went on it with your best friend. It seems to me like I'm not sure if I could do this alone.Joshua Fields Millburn:In some ways it was easier, but a lot of times it was way harder. I are so different people. I mean, we're exact opposites in many ways. I'm super introverted. He's super extrovert. He's the most extroverted person I know. I'm the most introverted person I know. So if you look at us on a Myers-Briggs personality test, I am an ISTJ, he's an ENFP. We're literally exact opposite person. Excuse me, exact opposite personalities. But when we interact with each other, we're both mentors and mentees to each other. And I found that was really helpful to have someone there to help maybe keep me accountable. But other times it was, oh, man, it's hard to not want to change this person to pick up my beliefs. And then what happens is we start battering each other with our own beliefs or our own opinions, and we've moralized everything, right? Oh, you like cappuccinos more than lattes? Clearly you're wrong. I have a preference. And so it was harder, but it also allowed me to let go of a lot of that belief clutter that I was holding ontoMichael Jamin:Belief clutter. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, that's what I picked up from your last special. It's not just about letting go of stuff. It's about letting go of preconceived notions. It's about letting go of. Yeah. I mean, that's what I found so inspiring by what you guys are doing, but I don't know, it seems to me, because you still have a business here, you have a creative business, you've reinvented themselves as creative people, and you're going on, I don't know, at the end of the day, you still got to pay the bills. You're taking a big risk. So to me, it feels like, does having that partner there put you at ease a little bit?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah. I mean, the weird thing is I still make less money than I did in the corporate world, and in fact, they even took a pay cut this year to make sure that everyone is being paid well, and I'm totally fine with that. There are a lot of things I could do that I don't want to do.Michael Jamin:You mean opportunities don'tJoshua Fields Millburn:Do ads? On our podcast, for example,Michael Jamin:You don't do ads on your podcast?Joshua Fields Millburn:No, I don't like 'em. I like going to museums, and I can only imagine if I went to the LACMA and I went to the Picasso room and all of a sudden they were painting McDonald's arches onto his paintings. I wouldn't feel as good about the art.Michael Jamin:It's funny. I don't monetize either, but to me it's about something. What's the end goal then? What's the monetization process? Promote your other projects.Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, I mean, that's part of it. I just enjoy doing it. We didn't monetize the podcast at all for years, and now we just supported on Patreon. So we do a private version of the podcast for patrons who want to support us, but frankly, that's a very small sliver of the audience. Everything else we do for free, completely ad free. We don't monetize our YouTube channel. I just don't like advertisers, and that's not a moral stance, and it's not a judgment on anyone else. It's just a personal preference to me. There's some people who just really don't like cilantro, and I'm not going to convince them that they should like cilantro or that, oh, you're morally wrong because you dislike cilantro. It's kind of gross to them. And advertisements on my podcast are just kind of gross to me. IMichael Jamin:Understand that. But it seems to me it almost like you're bi minimalism and then someone puts an ad to buy sneakers that you don't eat or whatever. I could see the disconnect, but also, you're entitled to have a business and you're entitled to make a living. And what you offer has value. I mean,Joshua Fields Millburn:I don't think I'm entitled to anything, but I can do any of those. There are no shoulds. There are endless possibilities. Endless coulds so I could do ads. There are a bunch of things I could do, but I just choose not to because rather not. And to me, I would rather just go work at a coffee shop than put ads on. I'll do the podcast for free and just go work at a coffee shop than put ads on. We have enough listeners that I could make seven figures a year from putting ads on the thing. So put my preferences where my mouth is, and again, it is not a moral stance and it's not me standing on a pedestal. I just simply dislike ads and I'm not willing to say yes to something that grosses me out.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, good for you. Who can't respect that, but what is it then that gives you joy? What is it that you're working towards? What are your other ambitions with the minimalist? What do you want to do?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, I don't look at success if I do look at success at all. I don't look at it as the big accomplishments. Those things can be fun as a byproduct, whether it's being a bestselling author or being nominated for an Emmy or whatever it might be. I don't shoot for those things. I try to map out my life to see what I want to do on a random Wednesday. What do you want your average Wednesday to look like?Michael Jamin:Okay. What do you want your average Wednesday to look like?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, yeah. Usually I want to get up, I want to exercise, I want to read. I want to write those three things I do first thing in the morning. I really enjoy those things. I'll get some sun. I'll go for a hike. I'll do some grounding. I might have a conversation like this or two, I limit the conversations that I have just because I don't want to keep saying yes to a bunch of things, because if I'm saying yes to this, I want to be present with you. This is a hell yes for me. We're having this conversation right now. Why distract myself with something else I have going on this afternoon or tomorrow or whatever? My point is that if you solve for Wednesday, there's nothing grandiose. I don't want, what do you want your average Wednesday to look like? Oh, well, I want to win an Oscar and I want to become a number one New York Times bestselling author, whatever it is. Those things can happen, but that's not going to happen. Your average Wednesday, what if I'm taking my daughter to, she doesn't go to, we homeschool her, but we take her to this, and so what if I spend an hour reading to my daughter? What do I want my average Wednesday to look like? Is appreciably different from the giant peaks that we often see on the success roadmap?Michael Jamin:I mean, you're so grounded. You use the word yourself, grounding exercise, and yeah, I just have so much. First of all, I'm honored that I get this conversation because I don't know. I just think it's so interesting to hear you're a very successful, I think you can be measured as a successful person in many different ways, but obviously the most important one is your happiness quotient and what gives you peace and joy.Joshua Fields Millburn:And if I find myself chasing it, then I know that I'm, I've been misled or I've misled myself. Really, the happiness is out there. The joy is not out there. Everything else that we seek is alreadyMichael Jamin:Here. It's almost like a spiritual journey you put yourself on.Joshua Fields Millburn:Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's really just identifying what enough is and letting go of anything that gets in the way of enough.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. That's so interesting. Now, do you also though, now that you have a child, I don't know, do you also worry about that? Do you worry for her?Joshua Fields Millburn:No. No. I mean, because I know that she's going to go, just last week, this is timely, but her boyfriend, I mean, the boy she holds hands with occasionally, she's 10 years old, okay. And he called to break up with her, and he asked her, can we just be friends? This is her first boyfriend. I mean, I didn't want to correct her and be like, Hey, Ella, you know what? You were just friends. YouMichael Jamin:Were just friends.Joshua Fields Millburn:I have a big problem if you weren't just friends at age 10. But anyway, and so she's going through all this heartache and instead of pathologizing it and saying, don't cry, yeah, I felt the heartache for her as well, but real joy, real peace makes room for that. I could still be at peace at it and experience those. So-called negative emotions. I can feel the sadness for her. And she looks up at me and she says, I'm so sad, and I don't even know why I'm sad. Why am I sad? And oh, my heart was just broken. And then instead of me preaching to her, she asked a question, and that opened up the door for conversation. And I was able to explain to her, well, we get sad or we get upset. We get angry, we get frustrated whenever our expectations of the world, our worldview doesn't map onto reality. And right now you want things to be one way and they are another way, and being sad isn't wrong or bad, you're going to experience this. And by the way, by her experiencing it, that's how she moves on from it. And she moved on so much quicker than I would have. And that's what the beautiful thing about kids. When you have a kid, you learn so much about letting go. She has far less to learn from me than I had to learn from her.Michael Jamin:But I sound very obviously very zen and very at balance. But when you were starting this minimalism journey to get the word out there to do these shows and book tours and all, there must've been disappointments along the way and would frustrated the hell out of you, or no,Joshua Fields Millburn:All the disappointments happened later way after the success. What Really? Absolutely, man, it was all just a beautiful accident early on. I remember the first time we had an amazing tour stop where it was 2012, December, 2012. This was our second tour. Yeah, we call it the Holiday Happiness Tour. We did 10 cities over the course of maybe three weeks, and us and Canada, just 10 major markets. And we had people actually show up to these. I remember we had 70 people show up in San Francisco, and we had maybe 25 people show up in Washington, DC and 40 people in Boston. And all of a sudden we had people who were actually showing up to these things. And then we had this event in Toronto. It was at this co-working space that we had. Someone found it for us. They let us use it for free, and we show up.And it was the first time I absolutely knew that, oh, our lives are going to be different after this. We showed up and there was another event going on. It totally blocked off our event. And this other event that was going on, there was all these people waiting to get in. I'm like, oh, they're totally going to screw up the small event that we have planned. And so I look at the organizer, her name was Melissa. I said, Melissa, what event are they here for? And she looked at me and she said, they're for you, dummy. And it was like a thousand people who showed up at this event.Michael Jamin:And this space was big enough to accommodateJoshua Fields Millburn:It? No, not at all. And they actually let us use the basement. And even then there were people, it was like sardines at a rock concert or something, and it was all gravy, man, I would've been just as thrilled if 15 people showed up that night, and it's easy to say as a Monday morning quarterback, but what happened is that started to build up these expectations in the future. Oh yeah, yeah. Now we need 2000 people to show up, whatever it is. And it's like, well, no. In fact, recently we just started doing these smaller events here in Los Angeles. We did five of them over the course of, I dunno, six months or so. We called them Sunday symposiums, and we made them intentionally small where only 200 people could show up. It was 200 seat theater downtown, and that was it. If you showed up for that, great. And every single one of 'em sold out. Let's do something intentionally small, and I'd love to do some events with 12 people, because to me, having the expectation totally ruins the thing. Whoever shows up shows up. If I need them to start showing up,Michael Jamin:Oh man,Joshua Fields Millburn:What's going to happen?Michael Jamin:So it was, once you hit that success, like you're saying, that's when you have disappointment, more expectations. So were there others? Man, this is just so interesting to me. So what do you do then, other than keep yourself in check? Because your natural inclination is to get more success, more followers, more fans and all that?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, it was about identifying what enough is. But yeah, there'll be some disappointments along the way. There was this film series that were working on. Netflix actually encouraged it. And so I go to pitch them on it. I do all my own pitching. I don't have an agent do it. I just show up and I'll have them book the appointment, and it's just me in a room with whatever executives, and that's how it's worked. And then I show up and best pitch of my life. It went amazing. It was this

In September, I hosted a webinar called "How To Write A Great Story" where I talked about what a "story" really is, as well as how to use personal stories to help your writing. This episode addresses questions you asked in our Q&A session that we didn't have time to answer. There's lots of great info here, make sure you watch.Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:It's not that The stakes of rocky areas are not about will Rocky win the fight? Who caress? Will Rocky win the competition? The contest who caress? No one cares if he wins. The stakes are, will Rocky finally feel like he's not a loser? Will he finally feel like he's not a bum? And that's something something all of us can relate to. You're listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, today I'm talking about, I'm answering questions. Phil, I'm back here with Phil Hudson. Hey Phil. What up? So why do these webinars every three weeks? And I try to answer questions during them and we don't have time to get to all of them. So I'm going to be answering them right now and Phil's going to feed 'em to me.Phil Hudson:That's right. He'sMichael Jamin:Going to baby bird them to me. He's going to chew them up and dip 'em into my mouth.Phil Hudson:I'm going to spit 'em into your mouth. Regurgitate 'em. Love it. Yeah. You guys know the thing. We've been doing this for two years now, so we've got plenty of these episodes in the Can questions came up. We're going to dive into 'em Again, some of these things that were asked, we're not going to go over Michael because we've talked about 'em a thousand times,Michael Jamin:ButPhil Hudson:There are always some of those things that are still being asked that worth talking about a bit. So we'll go through 'em. I've broken 'em up into kind of categories just to make sure that it's easy to get through. Just be more, there are a couple of questions about your course in this I thought were worth bringing up because that was a lot of the questions that came up in September.Michael Jamin:Let's do it.Phil Hudson:Alright, let's dive into craftMichael Jamin:Michael.Phil Hudson:Dr. Adam wants to know, and these are YouTube. YouTube usernames forMichael Jamin:Anybody interested? Yes. Doctor IPhil Hudson:Help you with Dr. Adam wants to know how important is it for someone else to edit your writing,Michael Jamin:Edit? Well, when we work in television, it's very collaborative, so your work will be rewritten often heavily by the showrunners or the writing staff. But it's a very collaborative process from the beginning. We all work together to break the story, meaning figuring out what the story is, and I teach this in the course, how to break a story, and then you get notes in the outline, the first draft, the second draft, and the table draft, blah, blah, blah. So it's very collaborative. But if you're talking about, I dunno if the doctor's talking about some other kind of work other than television writingPhil Hudson:The Good Doctor.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I don't know, doctor, I'm not really sure what you mean other than I hope I answered your questionPhil Hudson:To me. Either way.Michael Jamin:You're getting my bill.Phil Hudson:Yeah, if you're billing the doctor, I love it. For me, this is a question more about, it's a common question I've seen with people starting out, which is getting feedback or peer review, if you will on things. I had a couple of friends over Mike Rap who's a writer on Tacoma d and Kevin who will feature the podcast soon and is in the screenwriting course. There were football and we talked a lot about this kind of stuff in writer's room stuff. They both work in writer writer's rooms and getting notes from peers even outside of the writer's room at our level, Kevin and I have probably spent 40 or 50 hours on Zoom now giving each other notes onMichael Jamin:Writing.Phil Hudson:That's incredibly helpful, but it's not so much that they're editing my writing, it's more of them talking about This didn't work for me, or Hey, I got confused here. And that's the feedback that you always talk about, which is the valid feedback is someone gets lost, they don't understand. It's not compelling. It's not really on page three. You have this ticky tack note where you overcapitalize a word or something like that.Michael Jamin:Yeah, editing could be not so much getting answers from someone, but just getting questions. And the questions could be, if someone's reading your work, they could say, I, what were you going for here? I didn't get what you were going for. And then you get to decide whether you want to clarify or keep it muddy. And probably keeping it muddy is probably not the greatest choice. So you just want to make sure that your audience is along for the ride. And I was going to do a post about this soon where I think part of your responsibility as a writer is to make sure you're holding your audience's hand and taking them along for the ride and not letting go because you don't want them to get lost. If they get lost, they're going to find something else to do.Phil Hudson:Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, it's an interesting too, when you work with people who know story structure and they've been in writer rooms and they're giving you these notes. There are times where this thing didn't make sense to me, but I understand what you're going for there. Or I would consider this doing a different way. But then you get a note from the other guy and they're like, I loved this part. And so that conflicting thing is like, okay, I can keep this one. That's a choice. But when they're both like, Hey, I got really bogged down in this piece, that's a clear sign. You've got to fix something.Michael Jamin:Yeah, right. Thank you DoctorPhil Hudson:Alex Kier, any tips on writing a story with multiple characters and stories like love? Actually?Michael Jamin:Oh, well, first of all, stories have multiple characters, but you're talking about multiple storylines. And so love actually is not that uncommon. It's a fun movie, but it's not that uncommon. You're basically just having multiple storylines and all the storylines are united by this one thread, which is love during Christmas. That's it. And there's different types of love. There's Brotherly Love. The way the Rock Star character had for his manager, what was that guy's name? But there's brand new love the way the two characters who met on the porn set. That's like an awkward way of meeting. And there's other romantic love between a couple that's been married for a long time, and that was Emmett Thompson's character with Alan Rickman's character. Then there's Love, new Love Upstairs, downstairs, love, which was, what's his name? Hugh? Hugh Grant, come on. Hugh Grant, thank Hugh Grant's character.I don't remember her name, but he was the prime minister and she was the lowly chambermaid or whatever she was supposed to be. And then you have another Love one character was a love where they can't communicate. So it was Colin Firth's character and I don't remember her name, but she didn't speak. She was the Portuguese maid and she didn't speak English. So you're just examining love over Christmas between different types of love and that's how they're all united. So that was the theme. And every story has to tell a version of that. Oh, then there's one of the love there was brand new love, like puppy love, right? There was a storyline between the kid and what's his name? He was like the young kid and his stepfather, Liam Neeson. And he's trying to coach him into, wasn't that in love actually, or is that somethingPhil Hudson:Else? I have never seen love actually.Michael Jamin:Oh, you got to watch it. So yeah. So those are my tips. So that's it. And you're just kind of integrating these very stories so each one can stand on its own. Each story can stand on its own. And you're probably, if I had to time it, I would imagine that most stories, so there was one other, there was unrequited love where the guy had a crush on his best friend's, new wife, Kira Knightly, and so all different kinds of love. And I imagine if you took a stopwatch and you timed out each storyline you'd get to, they, they're all approximately the same amount of weight in terms of screen time and that's it. And if they weren't, I imagine it's because some of the stories got cut down because we weren't quite as compelling on camera as they were in the script. But I talk about this a lot. Maybe I should do a breakdown in the course of love. Actually, I talk aboutPhil Hudson:This. People love that. And you brought love actually up in stuff in the courseMichael Jamin:I did. Okay. We already talked about it.Phil Hudson:Well, I don't think you've done a case study. And for those who are unfamiliar, Michael has these awesome case studies in where you'll talk about movies you love Amle, and you'll talk about, I think, did you do Rocky Ferris Bueller's Day Off Castaway, just looking at films and TV shows and kind of breaking 'em down for story structure and talking about what works, what doesn't. And then you also hypothesized this, I imagine got cut in editing becauseMichael Jamin:AsPhil Hudson:A writer, there's a thing here that could be here or was missing, that kindMichael Jamin:Of thing. Yeah, there was a scene that I think that was missing from love actually, that I imagine they shot, but they just cut it for the sake of time.Phil Hudson:But I think it would be worth doing that. I think the members in the course would be pumped to get another case study,Michael Jamin:But there you go. Take the course if you want to learn more. But that, it's a good question.Phil Hudson:You hit on something that you talk about in one of your webinars that we're going to be putting back into the cycle because people really liked it, which is how do professional writers create great characters? And there's this nuance you talked about in the September webinar thatMichael Jamin:BecamePhil Hudson:A full webinar, and it's about how you pick your characters. So I'll leave that a bit nebulous. So anybody's interested in that, come attend the nextMichael Jamin:Webinar. Yeah, please do. Because free in the next one, I'm talking about either character or story structure.Phil Hudson:So when this podcast drops, it'll be like tomorrow, literally tomorrow, that's going to be the podcast that we're talking, the webinar we're talking about. And you can sign up at michaeljamin.com/webinar to get notified.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Cool. Leanne Allen, how important is it for the goal to be broadly relatable?Michael Jamin:Well, it's very important. I mean, the goals should be hugely important to the character, and it should be something that we could all hopefully relate to. I mean, if the goal is redeeming yourself in your mother's eyes, that's very relatable. If the goal is, I know if the goal is winning first prize, first place in a contest, who caress, it has to be more than that. It has to be more relatable than that. To be honest, I don't really care about winning contests, so I don't really care if your character wins a contest, but if winning the contest is a way for this person to finally feel good about themselves and their lives because it's validation, because they're a loner and because no one's ever looked at them twice and win this contest as a way of them being able to hang their head up high publicly, that's a relatable goal. Understand. But winning a contest in itself, who cares?Phil Hudson:And that's the value of what you teach in these webinars and in the course is the difference between plot and story. Plot point would be they have to win this contest. The story is like, why does this matter? ToMichael Jamin:Why?Phil Hudson:How is this going to affect them? It's the internal need versus the external need. Winning the contest is the external, but the internal is the reason we watch it. And that's the relatable piece.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Desmond Bailey, how do you not front load the pipe?Michael Jamin:Oh, well, boy, I talked about this a lot. I wonder why they're askingPhil Hudson:This. And just to clarify for people, this will be helpful. These are questions directly coming from the chat in the webinar when people are asking questions and they're questions we didn't get to in the q and a portion of the webinar, so this is something you had related to, or they're setting something you set in the webinar, which was don't front load your pipe or don't be pipe. And so maybe explain pipe and expedition to people.Michael Jamin:So pipe is what we call in the business, we call it exposition. So it's all the stuff that you need to know. It's the background story. It's the story before the story begins. And generally it's boring. Pipe is just like something you need to hear, not you don't want to hear it. You need to know to the characters. And so generally, the faster you can get to the pipe, the better, or you have to be artful about the pipe. So here's a bad version. You'll watch a show and you'll say, Susie, you're my sister. Why would I ever do that with you? My sister? A character would never tell another character, you're my sister. That's pipe. Because that character, she knows her sisters, Frankie, we've been best friends for 18 years, Frankie knows this. And so there are ways to get through the pipe artfully so that your audience doesn't feel like, Ugh, why people don't talk like that. Often a way to do this is by introducing a third character. So when a third character comes on the screen, the person who are you just talking to? Ugh, I was just talking to my sister. Now we know who that person is. Right? Sis, anytime you hear someone, a character calling the character sis, you roll your eyes. I've never met anyone who called her sister Sis.Yeah, and I talk more about that in the course, but I just happened to watch, I was sent a short to potentially work with someone and they shot a miniature TV show. I guess it was sent to my agent or somebody. There was a lot of pipe in it. It was a lot of clunky pipe because they just didn't know how to do it Every time it just stops the story cold.Phil Hudson:So the question is, how do you not front load the pipe? Do you have any tips for how to do that? I mean,Michael Jamin:ObviouslyPhil Hudson:The character, but if I've got to get this stuff out, and maybe you don't need to get it out at the front, because I saw someone do this masterfully where a character was introduced very late in the film, and it added this beautiful plot point that tied back to something at the beginning and explained something. But it was intriguing enough that I got through two thirds of the film before this part mattered. But it's rare to see that. It seems like people are just, act one is laying down the pipe and getting you set in your wall.Michael Jamin:YouPhil Hudson:Understand? And I don'tMichael Jamin:ThinkPhil Hudson:What you teach us is that that's the wrong way to do that.Michael Jamin:Yeah, because pipe is so boring. All that exposition is boring and you think it's important. You think you need it, and I'm telling you, you better figure another way around it. No one wants to hear it. So you could drip it out slowly as the audience needs it, or you could burn through it fast or you could, there's just a number of ways of doing it, but giving me entire scenes of pipe is not the way to do it. That's going to bore the hell out of everybody. No one wants to watch pipe.Phil Hudson:Yeah, makes sense.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Awesome. So those are our craft questions for this episode or for this, but we've got breaking in one question on this, Kelli Art, what's the best way to get paid to learn writer's assistant? How do you get such a competitive job?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, so writer's assistant is a fantastic way, but it's not an entry level job because you have to know how to do it. I've talked about this before. I'm not qualified to be a writer's assistant. I don't really know the ins and outs of the job, even though I've been a showrunner several times. So the way you learn how to be a writer's assistant is you start off often as a production assistant and you hang out with the writer's assistant. You ingratiate yourself and you ask, Hey, can I watch you work? And then you learn how they do it. Then hopefully that writer's assistant falls deathly ill, and you take their job away from them, and that's how you do it. Then once you're in the writer's room, that's the best way to get paid to learn. You will learn so much that you'll get lost. And so it's a long process. But yeah, that's a wonderful way to do it.Phil Hudson:And if you're a writer's pa, we've talked about it on the podcast many times, you still get to learn. You're sitting outside of the room within ear, so if they need something, they call you. So you're sitting outside the room listening to them, break the story and tell jokes. And I had this moment where Kevin Heffernan walked in one time and he's just like, and I still really knew it was maybe a month into me being a writer's assistant. This is the showrunner for people who don't know. And he's like, how's it going? You watching a lot of shows? And I was like, Nope. He's like, man, why not? You're sitting here all day. And I was like, I'm just riding. He's good for you. And he just walked away because that's what most people do is they get in that room and they sit there and they just watch Netflix or they do something. But I treated it, and this is probably because of advice you gave me from what you did, is that is craft time. You're sittingMichael Jamin:Down,Phil Hudson:You are riding. So when they're breaking stories, I'm listening to how they're breaking stories. I'm listening to pitch things when they're not in or somebody's out, then I'm working on my stuff. It's just taking advantage of every moment.Michael Jamin:I learned this from my first roommate when I moved out here. I had one of these PA jobs and I was not happy with it. And he's said, just think of it like you're getting paid a lot of downtime. Think of it. You're getting paid to learn how to write. And I was like, okay, you're right. You're right about that. So in that downtime, I just started. And then of course you could read scripts, you could talk to writers, you could ask them, why did you make this change? You get to talk to people and they'll give you little tips hopefully.Phil Hudson:And by the way, Michael, this is advice. You kind of gave me the preamble to this advice really before I even got to la. But then there was a moment where you kind saw, it was two years in three years into doing this stuff, and you gave me that same advice. Just look at it as you're getting paid to learn. I dunno if you could see it in my face or something, but it was like,Michael Jamin:Well, it's hard. I know what it was. It's a souls. It can be so frustrating. You're so close to the job you want. Literally, you are three feet away from the job you want and you're there for years. And it's like, when do I get to move up to that other seat that I want to sit in? So it's very, how is it not frustrating? But it's just how it is.Phil Hudson:But it's not individual either. Like I said, I was just here with Mike Rapp and Kevin, and they're both worst. One has been a script coordinator. The other was a script coordinator who bumped and broken as a staff writer,Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:They were talking, they'd never met each other, so they're just kind of giving each other the resume. And it's like, yeah, I moved here and I was at Disney working in the parks for four years, and then I met someone whose husband was an executive and AB, C, and he brought me in for the pilot season. And then I got hired as a writer's PA on the Muppets. And I was like, this is it. I'm in, because it's the Muppets, it'll never get canceled. And then it got canceled, and then it was hopping between show to show from different job to different job for seven years until he finally got the bump. And Mike rep was not really any different. He moved here and he was in a production company and always dangling the carrot of, we ever get a show, we'll get you into, be in the writer's room. And six years finally got a show and got the job.Michael Jamin:But you know what though? I've been on shows where PA has worked on the show and the PAs have gone to some of the PAs who worked for me. One is big in Chuck Laurie's world, so he's like a exec or, and he's directed several episodes of Sheldon or Big Bang, one or the other. And the other one has done a lot of, it's always Sunny in Philadelphia. And another one is co-executive producer of Bob's Burgers. And these are all people who started off as PAs underneath me. And so that's where they are. So it's like it'sPhil Hudson:Just a process.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's a process. You got to hang in there.Phil Hudson:I was thinking on my drive today, I went out and had to get some stuff and I drove around and I was like, yeah, I think people just think that this stuff is beneath them, and you can't have that attitude. I came at it thinking, look, this is just the path. This is the apprenticeship model. I want to learn from these people. And you talk about this, people always want to jump further ahead in their careers and become a showrunner and sell their first thing and do that. And we all want that because the dream, but you're kind like, you kind of don't want that. What you want is to learn how to do the jobMichael Jamin:Because you'll get fired so fast if you don't have to do the job. I was going to answer a post like that on social media soon, but someone had a showrunner question. So I'll do a post about that soon.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Cool. Couple of questions about the course here. Tank a Soar. Do you have a lesson on how to write a French farce? And this is a topic that came up in theMichael Jamin:Webinar? Yes, goodPhil Hudson:Question. So maybe define what that is for people. I don't think that's a term many people know.Michael Jamin:A farce is three's company did a lot of Farces, Frazier did a lot of farces. So it's a lot of slamming doors, people overhearing things, misinterpreting things, and only hearing the conversation and assuming that this person wants this thing. And it's a lot of doors slamming and just people crossing and misinformation. It's a lot of fun. And I said in the webinar that I wrote for Joe Keenan, who was one of the Frazier writers, and he created with Chris Lloyd, a show called Out of Practice that I wrote on for a year. And Joe is brilliant, brilliant at writing FARs. I don't know anybody better. I watched a show, a famous episode of Frazier, just to study for this. What could I talk about FARs? I watched an episode, I think it was, I dunno what it's called, the Ski Cabin episode or something. It was very funny. In my opinion, FARs is a really, they're hard to do well and they're hard to sustain. The stakes are always, to me, they're hard to sustain because the stakes are always, it's always about a misunderstanding. And so it's always silly. And so very, very hard in my opinion, to really write a really good farce. And I wouldn't necessarily start there if that was what your goal is, I'd start writing something a little easier. I don't know.It is hard. And they're a little tortured, and that's okay. But yeah, I don't know. You're asking me how do I hit a grand slam? Well, let's talk about how they get on base first.Phil Hudson:Yeah. And the question was, do you have a lesson on how to write a French forest in the course?Michael Jamin:Yeah, there is no, and I thought about after I watched that episode of Frazier, I go, maybe I should do a lesson on that. And then I watched, I go, nah,Phil Hudson:I don't think I should. I think it personally, I just think it would be a mistake. You're going to send all the hundreds of people in your course down a rabbit hole of riding French farces, and they're going to get lost in that, I think.Michael Jamin:And there's no demand for it. Like I said, I think it's just don't start there. Don't start there.Phil Hudson:Shiny object syndrome. We find something new and that's what we want to do. And then the reality is you got to focus on the fundamentals. That'sMichael Jamin:All thatPhil Hudson:Matters.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Keith Shaw wants to know is the beat board, the unpacking of the crate? And for context, everybody, Michael has this story he's talked about on the podcast and brings up in the webinar occasionally about how to unpack a story. And there's this crate of parts, and then it's how you unpack that, and that's what a story is. I don't want to give too much away, but whatever you want to give away, Michael.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, so every writer room I've ever been in has a big whiteboard, and the s showrunner will send the whiteboard and we'll start pitching the idea and then we'll figure out how to break it on the board, figuring out what the act break is. First act break is second, act break middle to two top, you lay it out all the parts, and you look at it as a whole and does it hold together? And then that could take a week, and then you start writing an outline off of the board. So when they say the analogy, I talked about unpacking a crate. Yeah. It's similar to what a board is. The whiteboard is. It's like what's the order in which we're going to unfold all the, unpack the elements of the crate to tell an engaging story.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. James Moore, what's the difference between a log line and an outline?Michael Jamin:Oh, well, a log line is one or two sentences. And outline could be 10 pages if you're talking about a half hour TV show. So that's the difference.Phil Hudson:And line is you've alluded to, everyone needs a log line. If you don't understand it, you don't know what you're writing. And an outline is a step in the writing process. And it typically, it's a couple steps after you break a story.Michael Jamin:And the log line, a lot of people don't know if I ask you, what's your story about? And they go, well, it's about this and also about this, and also about this. It's like, okay, if you can't explain what your story is in one or two clear, succinct sentences, if you can't explain your story, then you don't understand your own story. And if you don't understand it, the audience isn't going to understand it. So it's really important to have a clear log line about what your story is about one or two sentences. That's it. Simple. Einstein said it. If you can't explain something simply, chances are you don't understand it.Phil Hudson:Yep. David Campbell asked a very similar question about the order. I think we answered that. So David, that should answer that question for you. JY Tau, does the course teach you how to get your work produced?Michael Jamin:Oh, no. And a matter of fact, that shouldn't be the goal. The goal, that course teaches you how to write a great script. And that's the only thing you have control over here. Most people want to skip that step. This guy's asking me, will the course teach me how to become a millionaire? No, the course doesn't teach you that. Does the course teach you how to give an acceptance speech at the Oscars? No. It won't teach you that. The course, all that is look, that comes later. Hopefully the course will teach you how to write a good script or hopefully a grade script. And everyone skips that step. They assume they already have it. And I'm here to tell you, you don't. And maybe you're the 1% that does great, but 99% of the people think they're in that 1%. And most people who go through the course say, oh, thank God, I wish I know. Now I have to go back and rewrite that script because I thought it was great. And now I'd realize it's not so.Phil Hudson:Amen. I'm one of those people. And this is a bit of the Dunning Kruger effect, which is this moment where you learn a little bit of something and you think you're an expert in it.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Then the more you learn, you realize there's a lot to learn. And then there's a certain point where you know more than you think. And Michael, even at your level, I hear you say this, sometimes I'm not as good as that guy, or I'm not that. And that may be factually true in terms of talent, but it's also, that's the humility of being an expert is knowing how little in this space,Michael Jamin:That's another thing is if you were to ask almost any showrunner I've worked with or worked for, they'll all tell you, oh, writing is so hard. It's the people who are just starting out who will tell you, Hey, I'm good at this. And you don't know what you don't know yet. And the more you do it, and now I'm at the point where I'll look at something, I'm like, oh God, I'm starting to unravel and I have to trust myself because it's like, is this the best way to tell the story? Maybe there's a better way.Phil Hudson:That's no different than my career in digital marketing though. I'm at the point where I can say I'm an expert. I've been doing it for how many years? Over a decade. But there's plenty of time still where I'm like, oh man, I don't know. Is this going to work? And then you have toMichael Jamin:JustPhil Hudson:Go back and say, there is a pattern and a history here of results that back up what I think I need to do. And I just have to go with that because million different caveats and details you got to pay attention to in all of this. And Michael, by the way, this is a big thing you helped me with was just focusing on the detail. Stop being so, I don't want to call it lazy writing, so much time and energy that goes into it, but it's the passing over the detail and the detail is the devil. It's in theMichael Jamin:Detail. Yeah, the little things stand out.Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content And I know you do because You're listening to me, I will Email it to you for Free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, Actors, Creative types, people like you can Unsubscribe Whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com/and now back to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about Mishu Pizza.Phil Hudson:So if we take the course, do we get certified?Michael Jamin:Phil has tried to convince me to offer certification.Phil Hudson:I think there's a good certification. I want to be clear.Michael Jamin:Its thePhil Hudson:Type of certification we'll explain after yours. SoMichael Jamin:Here's the thing, if I were, I have said over and over again that if you got a degree in screenwriting and MFA in screenwriting or certificate, whatever, the degree itself is worthless. You're not going to go into a meeting, you flash your degree. When I go into a meeting, I don't even talk about my college education. No one caress. No one caress where I went to college. It doesn't come up. All they care is, can I put words on the page that compel people to turn the pagePhil Hudson:And the fight you got into with your wife the previous day? That's the story.Michael Jamin:Oh, we'll talk about that. Yeah, the degree, if I offered a degree, I think I'd be hypocritical. Hey, I have a degree from Michael Jamin University, or whatever the hell it is. I know some people want that, but I feel like, again, it's that's not going to open doors. Your script's going to open doors. And if I can teach you how to write a great script, that's more important than a gold star for me,Phil Hudson:My pitch for everybody was that Michael put out a certificate. So when you complete the course, you get that says, congrats, here's your fancy certificate, it's worthless. Go write something good. You goMichael Jamin:Write something. Yeah, we could do something like thatPhil Hudson:That I thought would be kind of just chef'sMichael Jamin:OnPhil Hudson:The whole thing. Desmond Bailey question, do you build this story? I wonder if his name's Desmond Bailey question or if this is just Desmond Bailey has aMichael Jamin:Question.Phil Hudson:Do you build the story world first and then inject the characters or focus on characters and let the world procedurally generate as they navigate it?Michael Jamin:So I spoke about this though in the webinar, so I feel like he probably was jumping the gun. IPhil Hudson:Think it's a good question. I think it'sMichael Jamin:Worth, yeah. Well, I answered it and I basically say you do it at the same time. And I think about what the world is first and who are the best characters to put in this world, or as I've said in the webinar, who's the worst character to put in this situation? And if you want to know what I mean by that, you're going to have to come to the next webinar where I talk about character. But that's the way I look at it. Who's the worst person to put in this situation?Phil Hudson:Yeah, there you go. Alec Cuddle back. My stuff is usually story driven and people criticize preferring character driven. Why is that?Michael Jamin:Oh, because plot is boring. Okay, what's this person's name?Phil Hudson:Alec Cuttle.Michael Jamin:Alec, alright, Alec. Okay. So I dunno if you're young or old, but there's a movie called Rocky, starring Sylvester Stallone. The first Rocky was fantastic. It won the Oscar put Sylvester Stallone on the map after they did Rocky, they did eight more Rocky, eight more. I don't know how many Rockies they did, including Creed and Creed One and Creed two or whatever. They've made countless sequels to Rocky. Every single rocky has the same exact plot. You put someone in a boxing ring and they get the shit kicked out of them, and then maybe at the end they're alive. So the plot itself for Rocky and most of the Rockies are not considered great. Only one won the Oscar, and that was the first one, even though the plot is virtually identical. So the difference between Rocky won and Rocky a hundred is the story. One had a just amazingly compelling small story, and the other ones lacked that. And so what this guy's Alec is talking about is it sounds like he's just got, I got a lot of plot. Well, who caress the plot is not the good stuff. You got to have a good plot. But it's, the story is what makes people cry. And if you want to know the difference between plot and story, you have to come to my next free webinar because I talk. It's an hour long discussion.Phil Hudson:Excellent. Cameron Billingsley, how do you know you have drawn out the anticipation enough when you're building anticipation in yourMichael Jamin:Storytelling? Yeah. Well, I wonder if the person's talking about any kind of reveal or I guess we don't really know.Phil Hudson:I think this was specifically tying back to the crate, unpacking the crate.Michael Jamin:Oh, okay. Well, how do you know? It's like these moments have to be built to anytime you have a big reveal or a moment in Act three, whatever it is, the big fight scene, the fight scene in Rocky or whatever, you have to build to it. And it's literally putting the steps on a pyramid and then you get to the top. And then if you skip a step or if each step doesn't build, you're not going to get to the top of that pyramid. And the top is the view, the top is everything. And so how do you know? Well, that's the process of writing is taking your, how do you know when you've built the anticipation? That's all of it. So if I were to write Rocky, I'm thinking in my mind, I'm building to the moment when Rocky, at the end, when Rocky's getting the shit kicked out of him, boom, time after time again by Apollo.And he keeps getting up and he keeps getting up. And I want to build that last moment where they're both down on the mat, or I don't even remember which Rocky it was. But when Rocky, the fight's almost over and Rocky's on the mat and he stands up again, just this guy won't go down. And that is even thinking about it, I get chills, but you have to build to that. That's what you're building to, which is a guy who will not quit. And why is it so important? When we talked about earlier in this podcast, it's not that the stakes of Rocky are not about will Rocky win the fight? Who cares? Will Rocky win the competition? The contest? Who cares? No one caress. If he wins, the stakes are, will Rocky finally feel like he's not a loser? Will he finally feel like he's not a bum? And that's something all of us can relate to, is that feeling, that self-worth. And so you have to build to that. How do you know? Well, that's everything. That's what you focus on. And if does help, if you're seen does not add one step on that pyramid, then to build to that final moment, then why are you have it in there? Why is it in the script?Phil Hudson:The next question from Willow is how do you know the difference between true story that should be included versus minutia and unnecessary information? I think you just answered that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Because if you don't need it, why is it in it? Why is it in there?Phil Hudson:So tying all this together for people who are newer, and good recap for me, because again, you got to remind yourself of the fundamentals every day. You even talk about how you have to remind yourself, oh yeah, this is hero, obstacle, goal, kind of that stuff. So we have a log line, and the log line helps me understand what I'm trying to accomplish with this story. But that's typically based off of a theme and that theme, my opinion generally included inside of that log line, so that I understand this is what I'm trying to accomplish with this. So the log line for Rocky is, can a bum from Philly go the distance with the champ? It's not even, can he beat the champ? It's can he go the distance? And so everyone tells him he can't think he can, and then at the end, there's that moment when he gets up, you're talking about, and Apollo creed's like, soul is taken. Are you kidding me? He'sMichael Jamin:StillPhil Hudson:Getting up. This guyMichael Jamin:Won't get down.Phil Hudson:And that's the moment where it's like, that's him getting up. And then he, Apollo wins and he's like, I did it. And it's like a victory for him because this guy won't stop and everyone's celebrating Rocky. And Rocky goes, Adrian, I did it. Right? Yeah.Michael Jamin:And I think the last line, Apollo says, there ain't going to be no rematch. And Rocky goes, don't want one. He doesn't want, he got what he wanted, and of course they made 10 more. But yeah, a beautifulPhil Hudson:Story. But they all stack and build all of these details build, like you said, you're building them to this and all of them play off the theme and the log line. And that's why all of these details, breaking the story, outlining the story, they all have to be there. Because if you're just, and we talk about how all these writers have different styles, and for some people it's making it up as you go. But professional writers, there's a process. You break the story and you do your thing, and then you do your outline, you do all these things, and then you do your rewrites and many rewrites because you're still figuring out those tiny details. But it's not like I'm going to make it up as I go because you need plant and payoff. You need these things and these symbols almost that allude to the theme and the theme plays throughout the whole thing. And if you're not structuring that like an architect, it's going to feel very hodgepodge Frankenstein. And that's a note you gave me Frankenstein together.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah.Phil Hudson:So there you go. People are going to be pissed. I talked to you not long on your podcast, Michael,Michael Jamin:I'll tell you. No, no, no,Phil Hudson:No, no,Michael Jamin:No.Phil Hudson:Couple more questions here.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Justin had another question for short comedy films on YouTube. Max lengths is one minute. That's shorts.Michael Jamin:That's for shorts. Clarify.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Does short structure still apply to any length film? Curious how you would approach writing a story for a one minute film? This is a format question for people who are not in the know. YouTube stories are the equivalent of Instagram reels or Facebook reels,Michael Jamin:YouTube shorts.Phil Hudson:YouTube shorts,Michael Jamin:Right?Phil Hudson:And they are, excuse me. Yeah, so they're 60 seconds, and then IMichael Jamin:Think there's 90. You're saying there's 60,Phil Hudson:That's Instagram. Instagram is expanded to 90, but YouTube is 60. And that's what this is referring to, which is a medium on YouTube, not necessarily a cap on what you can put on YouTube.Michael Jamin:Yeah. So I would say it's really hard to tell a complete story in 60 seconds, but you could tell one part of a story in 60 seconds and then another part, another 60 seconds. You could stretch it out. You might be able to tell a compelling scene in 60 seconds and a scene should have a shape to it, but don't think, can it be done? Yeah. I don't think it could be done that well. I don't think anyone's going to be that satisfied. I think you need more time to get that plane up in the air and land it. But think a bit of it like this, if a story is a journey, how far can you go in 60 seconds on a journey? Not very far at all. You can go to the end of the block. The view at the end of the block is pretty much the same, the view from my house. So I think you need more time. That's just my opinion now.Phil Hudson:Yeah. To see good shorts that you've recommended to me was go back and watch the Broad City original shorts that were put on YouTube.Michael Jamin:Okay. How long are they?Phil Hudson:They can be 90 seconds to three minutes, but they're not full stories necessarily. They're more kind of skits and you introduce your characters and we learn more about them and more interactions in different episodes of,Michael Jamin:That's just really, I never saw those. I saw the TV show Broad, which I love, but I didn't watch the shorts. Got it.Phil Hudson:Someone had a question. Again, these are miscellaneous. Someone wanted to know when they could see your CNN interview. So the day we did this webinar, you had just gotten off with CNN and joined the thing. But yeah, you've been on CNNA couple times now, right?Michael Jamin:Yeah. I think you can go to my website, Phil, right? Isn't it upPhil Hudson:There? Yep. It'll be live is MichaelJamin.com And then you can just go to the About tab and you'll see it.Michael Jamin:Is it on the bound? I thought it was going to be on the pressPhil Hudson:Or something. It's press tab. Yeah, but we don't have the URL final right now, but by the time this comes out, it'll be out because we're doing some cleanup. We redesign on michaeljamin.com.Michael Jamin:Oh, it's Jill's doing a great job. It's going to be exciting. Appreciate that.Phil Hudson:AppreciateMichael Jamin:That.Phil Hudson:Jill Hargrave, she inMichael Jamin:The, oh, wait, hold on. If anybody wants their website redesigned, go check out Rook Digital, which is Phil's company. This is what he does.Phil Hudson:Yeah, Shannon was plugged. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate that. Jill Hargrave, she's in the course, right? Jill?Michael Jamin:I don't know.Phil Hudson:I believe she is. Yeah. If you're writing a biopic, does the story definition apply as the story is at least one event in the person's life and sometimes many more events than just one?Michael Jamin:So ifPhil Hudson:You're writing a biopic, does the story definition apply? I'm guessing is a biopic, is it the whole person's life, or is it a moment in this person's life?Michael Jamin:I don't know. It's kind of what you decide to write it about, I would assume. Yeah, it is what you want to decide. I've seen it both ways. You might write about JFK the early years, and maybe you're following his life in college in Harvard, I think, and that could be a whole thing. Or you could tell JFK's entire life story up until the moment he died. I mean, you could do that as well. But either way, you have to know how, and I talked about this as well. I spoke about, I really hope people come to this next webinar. I use an example of Amadeus, which is, in my opinion, the best biopic ever made. It's a beautiful movie. It's probably three hours long. There's an intermission. There's an intermission fucking movie. That's how long it is. It's myPhil Hudson:Amazing, my wife's favorite movie, by the way,Michael Jamin:Is it, isPhil Hudson:She wants me to name one of our children, Wolfgang. And I was like, come on, man. Wolfgang Hudson.Michael Jamin:I don't know Wolf. I don't know. I don't know. I'm Amm on her side.Phil Hudson:I'll let her know. She'll be pumped.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. So I spoke about that, about come listen to, I hope they come to the webinar. Well, she did. She heard it where I spoke about You're still just telling one aspect of his life of Wolfgang Mozart's life. You're not, there's a lot. They left out, the guy lived, I dunno how long he lived, but the movie's three hours and the guy lived longer than three hours. So there's a lot they left out. They only just filed this one thread of his life. And that's how you tell the story. So don't tell. In other words, don't tell. I feel like you don't want to tell the story. Someone's life story. You want to tell one story from their life.Phil Hudson:And Oppenheimer, I think is the very current version of that that did a great job. It is building up to help us understand why this person was uniquely put in this position, why it was taken from him, and then how ultimately he got justice with having to, because of his character.Michael Jamin:And there's a lot they left out, and I'm sure, I think it got some criticism for that, but what are you going to do? You can't tell everything. You have to pick a story.Phil Hudson:Yep. Yeah, adaptation. Right? It's a whole different segment of screenwriting. That is brutal. Absolutely brutal. Because you're just cutting things and combining things, and it's just a different part of the world. Helga G. How do you deal with the other characters in your life that might not be comfortable being in your story?Michael Jamin:You don't put 'em in. You don't put 'em in it. It's not your story to tell. I'm actually reading, I'm just about to finish a wonderful book by this Canadian author, Sheila Hetty, and it's called How Should a Person Be? And in this book, which is an auto fiction, so it's a true story. She uses some of her friends as characters in the story, and she talks about the blowback she got from that, which is so interesting. And I'm going to have her on my podcast soon, but I don't do it for that reason. I don't do it exactly for that reason, but I'll talk to her about it.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Awesome. Last question, Rob Kao, CAO might be C Chao, I don't know. Is that Italian? CAO? It's like CI. AoMichael Jamin:Would C-C-I-A-O.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Sorry, Rob, ruin in your name. Within the last year, I've had an idea of writing a script with two specific actresses in mind. What do you recommend that I do?Michael Jamin:Well, they're not going to do it. Just know that, right? I mean, I write for actors all the time. It's just for them having someone in my mind as a placeholder. But I don't think if they're famous, unless they're the people actors in your apartment complex, then that's fine. And they're going to be in your movie, that's fine. But if you think if it's a star, they're not going to do it. So use them as a placeholder, as a template to give you as a muse. I do that as well, but I don't think I've ever written a role for someone. And they actually wound up taking itPhil Hudson:In the Tacoma FD spec that I wrote. I alluded to a famous actor who plays this type of person. I was like, just think this person. And the comment I got back, I was, oh, that was so helpful. And I know you have to be a bit careful with that because you don't want to, it can derail your script a bit.Michael Jamin:Actually, I want to take that back. We wrote an episode of Marin that we wrote it with Chet Hanks in mind, who's Tom Hanks' son. And we reached out to him and he took it. I got to say the guy killed it. He killed it. He was perfect and a really good actor.Phil Hudson:That's awesome. If you guys haven't seen Marin, go watch Marin. That show's incredible.Michael Jamin:That show's fun. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Is there anywhere to go see The Hidden? Because they were two pilots, right? There was the first pilot and thenMichael Jamin:It was a presentation, so it was only a few scenes. Got it. I don't know if I have it.Phil Hudson:Yeah, I thought it was on Prime. I think I got it on Prime originally.Michael Jamin:Wow. Was part of what theyPhil Hudson:Were doing. I'll go check. I'll see if I still have it. But yeah, it was, it's just a great show. Just massive show. And I was at an influential time when I was just really learning this stuff at a deeper level. So just seeing it play out in really tight scenes with limited characters and justMichael Jamin:Amazing, amazing. That's what was so fun about that. And I tried, we wrote some one episode where there wasn't enough of a stakes, and it was the one on dead possum where he finds a dead possum.Phil Hudson:I love that episode. That's the one I think of every time.Michael Jamin:That was a good one. But the original draft didn't have the storyline of him apologizing to his dying stepfather, not stepfather, his dying. It was missing from that. And we turned that draft into the network, and they thought, she was like, there's nothing here. There's nothing. The story's not about anything. And I'm like, don't you get it? That's the whole thing. I was trying to pull a fast one on her. I was like, but it's like waiting for Gau. She's like, no, I'm not buying it. The studio exec. And she was right. And so we wound up talking, Seaver and I, pardon? We ended up talking about it. We came up with this storyline where when Mark was afraid to go under the house to get a dead possum, that's just enough. There's not enough there. There's not enough debate for a story. And so instead, we had a concurrent storyline where he was afraid to confront his dying Father-in-Law because Mark broke up with his daughter. And in so doing, he kind of destroyed, he, mark was a coward. He didn't want to apologize to his father-in-Law for that. And so it was really a symbol. So when Mark was afraid to go under the house to get the dead possum, but he was really afraid of, was apologizing to his father-in-Law, those stakes are much higher.And so those stories kind of work really nicely together, but that was not in the original draft. Yeah,Phil Hudson:That's a great episode. There's one of the biggest laughs I've ever had. I think it was like your, might've been your end of act two, your act two, bottom of Act two with the kid fromMichael Jamin:When he says,Phil Hudson:Yeah, I was molested himMichael Jamin:Some. I think that was Seavers line.Phil Hudson:It's just like,Michael Jamin:What?Phil Hudson:Not making light of that degree. It's just theMichael Jamin:Context ofPhil Hudson:It, the setting.Michael Jamin:Yeah. It was like, you shouldn't have said that. That'sPhil Hudson:Funny. Alright, Michael, there you go. There's a bonus episode for everybody.Michael Jamin:Yeah, we're not making light of it. It was just that the guy confessed to having been molested as good, but it was like, no, we weren't talking about any of this.Phil Hudson:And then they have to talk and he's having this breakdown where this realization of he's a coward, and then now he has to be a surrogate father and listen to this kid. He's talking about his assistant and it's just like, the timing is just excellent. You guys handled it well. It's not disparaging or mean-spirited at all. It's just great. That was aMichael Jamin:Funny one. Alright, everyone. Yeah. Come to my webinar. Go watch that episode of Marin Dead Possum.Phil Hudson:Awesome.Michael Jamin:If you can find it somewhere,Phil Hudson:Michael, anything you want these guys to do other than come to the webinar,Michael Jamin:There's that. I'll be dropping my book soon. A paper orchestra, if you want to know more about that, that'sPhil Hudson:Michaeljamin.com/book.Michael Jamin:Oh, is that what it is? It'll be book. Book. Okay. TherePhil Hudson:Are a couple pages. You got AP Orchestra touring, you've got an events page, you got this. So I figured that was the easiest way to get people to the page is michaelJamin.com/book.Michael Jamin:And so the book is a collection of personal essays. If you want to learn more about what it's like to actually be a writer in Hollywood, but that's not what it's about. It's really about the premise is what if the smallest, almost forgotten moments were the ones that shaped us most. And so in the end, I have a little bonus section of the book where I talk about, so I perform the book as well. And if you want to come see that seem, be on the road, go to michael jamin.com/upcoming. And at the end of every performance, I do a talk back where I talk to the audience and they ask questions. And so I decided at the end of the book, there should be something like that where I talk about, it's basically a virtual talk back, right? I'm preemptively answering questions that people have asked me that I think people found interesting about the writing process. So that'll be in the book as well. So a little bonus for those of you who are interested in learning about writing, that'll be the last chapter. Yeah,Phil Hudson:Great. And the live performance still great. It almost a year. I can't believe it was almost a year ago. And it still sits with me as a father. It still sits with me.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Thank you. I want to start performing again. That'll hopefully start in February or March or whatever. Once that book is out, we'll start performing again.Phil Hudson:Great. Cool. All right, Michael, anything else? Thank you.Michael Jamin:I think that's it. Get on the newsletter. We're rev revamping the newsletter. We've revamped the podcast so there's more stuff, but better,Phil Hudson:More better, better streamlined, a little bit easy to get around. It kind of outgrew itself. So we talked about that on episode 1 0 4. But yeah,Michael Jamin:We didn't know what this was going to turn into, so we had to evolve it.Phil Hudson:Yeah, it's a good spot. Great to be back on the podcast, Michael. Thanks for having me.Michael Jamin:Yeah, thank you Phil. Alright, until next time, keep writing everyone.So now we all know what The hell Michael Jamin's talking about. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for my free monthly webinars@michaeljamin.com/webinar. And if you found this podcast Helpful or entertaining, please share it with a friend and consider leaving Us a five star Review on iTunes that really, really helps. For more of This, whatever the hell this is for Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. And You can follow Phil Hudson on Social media @PhilAHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It Was Edited by Dallas Crane and music Was composed By Anthony Rizzo. And remember, you can have Excuses or you can have a Creative life, But you Can't have both. See you next Week.

On this week's episode, I have TikToker and EMT Jack Raia. Tune in as we talk about how he uses his content to help educate people in health care. We also talk about how he balances making sure his content doesn't take away from the potential severity of health situations. Show NotesJack Raia on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@whatsgood24.7.365Jack Raia on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WhatsGood24-7Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptJack Raia:
Cameras and healthcare tend to not really mix very well, especially when it comes to me just running around my cell phone camera. So that's definitely been a major roadblock in kind of the day of life kind of stuffMichael Jamin:
You're listening to. What the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Michael Jamin:
Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to another episode of my show, which I've rebranded as the Michael Jamon Show, because I want to make sure that there's more me in every mention of the show. And as you know, mostly I've spoken about, I've interviewed screenwriters, people, I've worked with directors, actors, and now after doing this for two years, I want to open it up to more people. We're just doing interesting things and there's a whole universe I don't know about, and so I'm learning about, and my next guest is going to teach us a little about that. His name is Jack Raya. He's the host of What's Good, 2, 4, 7. He's a big talker, so we're going to learn all about that. Jack, welcome. Thank you for joining me.Jack Raia:
Thanks for having me on, Michael. I really appreciate the opportunity.Michael Jamin:
Yeah. So let me tell everyone a little about you. So as far as I can tell, maybe I'm wrong, you're an EMT, you're in New York, right? Where in New York are you?Jack Raia:
I'm on Long Island in Nas County, long Island.Michael Jamin:
Interesting. My nephew's an E, he's a paramedic, actually. So I know a little about that word world, but you started, you have a very popular channel on TikTok where basically you act out, for the most part, you kind of act out scenes of what it's like to be an EMT. Am I right?Jack Raia:
Yeah. Yeah. I categorized it as EMS, sketch comedy, I guess is what I've labeled it.Michael Jamin:
And then what inspired you to start all this?Jack Raia:
So it was honestly a series of coincidences that got me into TikTok. The first instance was back in the summer of 2020, a friend of mine just posted a random video on TikTok, and it was this new app that I wasn't even on yet. It was kind of labeled the app that's just for middle school girls to do dances on. Right. No one really knew what it was yet.Michael Jamin:
That's exactly right. That's what I thought it was. Yeah, right.Jack Raia:
So my buddy posted a video, it was lighting off fireworks or something dumb, and the video blew up. The algorithm just picked it up, and it ended up getting a couple million, I think over 3 million views or something like that. And my buddy had zero followers on TikTok. So that was the first instance of like, wow, this whole algorithm base for you page is like, holy crap, I guess it works. So then that summer I was like, all right, well, I guess I'll give it a shot. So I was the captain lifeguard at the time, and because of Covid that summer, we had to figure out a way to test the rookie lifeguards, drill them on saves without making physical contact, which is a little bit strange, but it's the way it ended up working. So I came up with the idea of having them save traffic cones. I was throwing traffic cones into the deep end, and I posted a video of one of those drills, and it blew up just like my buddies did. So I went from zero followers and zero views to 6 million something views and 11,000 followers. So that was the first instance of like, wow, this level of attention is so easy and addicting that I think I'm going to give this app a little bit of a shot. ButMichael Jamin:
Do you have other aspirations? I mean, you got a real job, you have a career.Jack Raia:
Oh, yeah, of course. But given how I discovered the algorithm, I was like, you know what? Maybe I can do some other stuff on here. So I was experimenting with a bunch of different types of videos and characters. I used to do an Eminem character, like the rapper, Eminem Burns his finger on the stove, just a bunch of crap that I was just making in my free time. But then that following school year, a buddy of mine started doing these POV style skits, which was, I hadn't had any exposure to until I saw it on TikTok. So my buddy started doing APOV frat guy comes up to you at the bar, or POV, your Italian dad, or something like that. And at first we were like, dude, what are you doing? It's an app for just posting random crap and doing other stuff. Why are you putting yourself on there like that? But he just didn't care, and he just kept making his videos, trying to make each one better than the last. And I watched my friend one day, he had 10,000 followers and 50, a hundred, and now he's got over a million, and he moved out to la Oh, wow. And he really did it. So I watched him just not care what other people were thinking and just be consistent. And I was like, all right, well, maybe I could do this whole POB skip thing.Michael Jamin:
But your friend wants to be an actor, right?Jack Raia:
Yeah. Right.Michael Jamin:
Do you want to act as well?Jack Raia:
I mean, I would love the opportunity, definitely. My first love is definitely being an EMT and working in the S field. I have a private ambulance company job on Long Island nine one system, and I also work for an event staffing company that does everything from fashion shows to concerts to music festivals and stuff like that. So I really love doing that stuff, but I've realized through all these coincidences how lucrative social media especially TikTok can be. So I guess that's really all culminated to what I'm really doing here.Michael Jamin:
Well, tell me then, how do you monetize on TikTok?Jack Raia:
The main way is you build up enough of an audience to get brand deals. That's the way that pays the most, at least for most people.Michael Jamin:
Are you doing that?Jack Raia:
Yeah. Yeah. So the most recent, I guess notable one I had was for a video game company called Supercell that makes an iPhone game called Clash of Clans. So actually, they posted a contract through the app. So there's a creator marketplace on TikTok, and you can see different companies and scroll through and see they're offering different rates for different videos. And so I applied for this one through Supercell, and the objective was to use one of their sounds, which TikTok is pretty popular for. So when you open their app, clash of Clans, there's a pretty distinct sound that you're opening the game. So I just kind of figured I could work it humorously into an EMT skit, and it ended up doing really well.Michael Jamin:
Now are they giving you a lot of notes? Do you have to go back and forth and tell 'em what your ideas?Jack Raia:
It really depends. Every company has different wants and specifications when it comes to doing the brand deals. Some are super relaxed and they let the creator just like, Hey, do your thing, we trust you. But some others are like to nitpick and stuff like that.Michael Jamin:
But you must be worried you, you can't do that a lot because then suddenly you're the commercial channel. Right?Jack Raia:
Exactly. So you kind of got to pick and choose which ones you want to do and when there are other avenues though, the Creator fund is something I get questions about a lot. So based on the certain amount of views you get, it'll pay out a couple cents per thousand views or something like that.Michael Jamin:
Are you doing that as well?Jack Raia:
So they just changed it actually. They just released a beta program where now there's a much higher payout rate for videos that are over one minute long. So I'm kind of screwed because a lot of my videos are 30 to 50 seconds long, so I could try to stretch 'em out, but I feel like the quality of the video might take a hit at that point. But there's some people out there that they have a hundred thousand followers or something like that, and it's just them spewing their thoughts out into TikTok, and they post four or five times a day of them just talking or giving their opinion on stuff. And all these videos are minute, two minutes long, and there's people making 10, $15,000 a month off just this new beta creator program. Now,Michael Jamin:
Do you think it limits your reach, though, if you're on?Jack Raia:
So I think it has to honestly, and I'm confident in saying that TikTok is the least predictable social media platform out there. We're all at the mercy of the algorithm here, and it seems to be pretty random and definitely hard to predict. So some stuff happens to blow up, some stuff doesn't. I'll be super confident in a video that I make, and I'll be excited to post it, and it'll flop in comparison to other videos where sometimes I'll just post for the sake of consistency and just get in content out and, oh, crap, this one just blew up. All right.Michael Jamin:
What is your schedule? How often do you post?Jack Raia:
So when I started and I was really trying to give it a go, I was super adamant about sticking to one a day. No matter what, I don't care if I love the video, I just have to force people to see me every single day when I was really trying to grow. So the quantity over quality method works pretty well when you're trying to start out, but now I'm at the point where I try to be more selective and I try to make sure that video is up to standard, if you will. So I don't really stick to a hard schedule. It's more if I have a good idea and it comes to me and I'm able to flesh it out and I have an opportunity to film it, then great. But if I don't, it's like, ah, didn't get one today.Michael Jamin:
And then how long do you spend on each idea? Do you write it down? What's yourJack Raia:
Pre-production? Right. So my particular, I guess, strategy is 95% of what you hear me say on TikTok has been written down. At a certain point as I go through it, maybe stuff gets switched around or whatever, but the general premise, and I guess the pacing of the skid is totally all written down and stuff like that. A big part of my production is actually my little brother who's my cameraman, and
He's got a real knack behind the lens. I like to tell him he's, he's good at being able to keep me in frame the right way, which all of my videos have that banner title over the top. So sometimes we have to restart because my head clips into it too much and stuff like that. But other than that, it's just me and an iPhone camera. TikTok has given us the ability, or really social media in general to create content that can have a wide reach with not really a lot of equipment. So super grateful for that.Michael Jamin:
On a given day, how much time do you devote to a video?Jack Raia:
SometimesMichael Jamin:
Zero, writing it, producing it, and then posting it?Jack Raia:
Well, I've definitely gotten faster at it. So when I would start the whole process, start to finish from writing the script to getting that final take, putting a filter on it and posting it be up to two hours, sometimes in the beginning, an hour or two hours easily. But now, if I have a good seed to build a skid around, whether it's a good punchline or a premise that I like, that I can kind of mold the rest of the video around, once I get that down, the whole filming process, 15, 20 minutes for me now, sometimes 30 minutes, depending on where I am, I live next to the train tracks. So when a train goes by, it'll totally ruin my take. Or sometimes I got to wait for the neighbor to stop mowing his lawn and stuff like that. But when I'm able to just film at the pace, I'd like to film probably about 20, 30 minutes to do the filming now as opposed to an hour before.Michael Jamin:
Right. That's so interesting. And then how has this benefited you in ways that were unexpected? What has come from this?Jack Raia:
So by far, it's the amount of people that'll reach out to me through Instagram dms, or even in my comments section, telling me that my content has inspired them to take an EMT course. Oh, wow, okay. I've even had some pretty moving conversations with people where it's like, Hey, man, just got off the truck after 24 hours. Thanks for bringing me a smile. It's nice to be seen, is what people have told me. Nice to be seen shedding a little bit of light and humor on some of the grittier sides of the EMS world. So people have noticed that, and I'm like, wow, I didn't even really mean to have an impact on people like that, but I have been. So that's been really, really cool to do.Michael Jamin:
Well, I think people love e mt workers. I mean, you're there to save lives.Jack Raia:
It's kind of hard to hate on sometimes. Yeah.Michael Jamin:
But okay, but do you get haters? You must, oh yeah, ofJack Raia:
Course, of course.Michael Jamin:
And how does that affect you, and what do you do about it?Jack Raia:
So I'm thankfully at the point now where I have a large enough audience where if someone leaves me a hate comment, someone that likes my content or is following me will go to bat for me in the comment section. I definitely don't entertain trying to argue with people in the comments or dms or stuff like thatMichael Jamin:
That, do you block them or no,Jack Raia:
Not really, honestly, because not really. Sometimes getting a little bit of controversy in the comments and people arguing back and forth on each other can be good for engagement, unfortunately. But I've come to realize that no matter what kind of content you're creating, and no matter how good you are at it, there's people that are going to have negative things to say, people crap talk. Everyone from Tom Brady to the best comedians in the world, the best musicians, best artists, writers, it doesn't matter. You're going to get hate if you're putting yourself out there. People like to spread negativity for some reason. So it's just part of what comes with being, putting yourself out on the internet. So I don't really let it get to me too much.Michael Jamin:
That's it. But it's interesting that you don't block them. You might be more mature than I'm sometimes I just don't want to hear it. Just, oh, goodbye, goodbye. I don't want to look at the negativity.Jack Raia:
Thankfully, I don't get too much. I definitely got a little bit more in the beginning than I do now, and I know TikTok is pretty good at censoring a lot of stuff sometimes too good. Honestly, I've left comments that were meant to be positive on other people's pages, but it'll get flagged for being negative or insulting or something like that. So a certain percentage of negative comments won't even show up. I won't even know that they're there. But the ones that I do get, it's like, it's just part of it. It's like you got to take the good with the bad a little bit. Some of them are funny, honestly, some of them are pretty clever.Michael Jamin:
You respond to, it sounds like you respond to a lot of people. Do you respond, even kind comments, you respond to them, everyone?Jack Raia:
Yeah. Yeah. I'm definitely less responsive in my comment section than I am for my dms. If someone wants to reach out to me on Instagram and personally message me, I'm grateful for every time someone takes the time to reach out to me. I think it's crazy that people resonate with enough with what I'm creating to send me a message. I think that's crazy.Michael Jamin:
Yeah. Interesting.Jack Raia:
If you take the time to message me, I'll totally answer.Michael Jamin:
Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com. And now back toMichael Jamin:
What the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Here's a question I tend to ask people who are creators. Do you notice a difference between the kind of people commenting on TikTok versus let's say YouTube or Instagram?Jack Raia:
A hundred percent. There's almost like a generational gap between something like Instagram or TikTok. TikTok seems to be like the 25 and under Instagram seems to be the 18 to 35 or older. So the difference in humor and the difference in memes on each page is definitely different. And it's interesting that I'll post something on TikTok, it'll do well or comparatively will do well. And then once I load it into Instagram and I have that kind of Instagram mindset and that feel for that audience, I almost hesitate a little bit. I know that it's going to be perceived totally differently. There's a certain level of, I guess, being corny on TikTok that is being intentionally corny. They see the sarcasm in it, so it works on TikTok, but it doesn't come across that way on Instagram. So Instagram, it's just a different way that people view it. It's kind of strange, honestly.Michael Jamin:
And what about YouTube?Jack Raia:
So YouTube, I do put my stuff on there, but I don't really have enough of an audience on there to really get much engagement. I have two vlogs on there. I've made an attempt at the long form content, but it doesn't really compare to what I'm doing on TikTok and Instagram right now. I'd love to get my YouTube audience up in the numbers these days, but the only real comparisons I can make is TikTok, Instagram and Facebook are kind of the Holy Trinity of where I post my stuff and what I canMichael Jamin:
Describe as well. Now, was it difficult at first putting yourself out there? Was that hard for you? I know you were inspired by your friend, but still,Jack Raia:
It's crazy you say that because I look back at some of those older videos that I was making, and I have no idea how I had the balls to do that. I look at it now and I'm like, what was I thinking? How did I not care? I just kind of didn't, and I was kind of just enamored by seeing other people blow up on the app, especially my friend, and I was like, you know what? Screw it. Who caress?Michael Jamin:
And how long have you been doing this now?Jack Raia:
So the first time I ever posted on the app was summer of 2020. The first time I ever really tried to make POV skits and succeed that way was December, 2021, about a year and a half coming up on two years now. But it wasn't until last summer that I realized that this EMT character was what I was really going to try to stick with. So the wholeMichael Jamin:
Isn't that interesting that you naturally found your voice just by doing it over it? People struggle with that, and I kind of say the same. Just do something every day, and then you'll find your way, you'll find your voice. You'll just know what works and what doesn't work.Jack Raia:
I used to be super adamant about rotating my characters. I had success with a bartender character in the past and a bouncer. I've done a teacher, a lifeguard, a whole bunch of different stuff. And I used to be pretty adamant about, okay, I did my Gen Z cop today, so tomorrow I'm going to do the Gen Z professor, and then I'll do the lifeguard, and then I'll circle back around to the EMT character. But I got to a point where the only one that I really enjoyed doing and the one that I was the most motivated to create was the EMT character. Well,Michael Jamin:
Because that's the most authentic, that's who you are.Jack Raia:
Exactly. Right.Michael Jamin:
Yeah. You're playing a role,Jack Raia:
And I discovered how valuable it was to really focus in on a niche instead of doing this myriad of characters just being kind of labeled as that e mt guy on TikTok was pretty valuable toMichael Jamin:
How much of yourself, because you're doing sketches, and so this is a character that you've created. The character is based on yourself, but it's still a character, and you're still not showing all of us. You're not showing all of yourself. Right. And so what's the line and how did you decide on that line?Jack Raia:
I am someone that I found it much easier to play a character online than it was to naturally talk to the camera and stuff like that, which is definitely the opposite for other people. There's creators 2, 3, 10 times my size where they just hit record talk to the camera, and they have this big, beautiful, successful video. But I don't know, when it comes to my, I guess, authentic personality and putting it on TikTok, I kind of spin my tires in that regard.Michael Jamin:
Is it not comfortable for you or you don't want to?Jack Raia:
I dunno. When I go to try to do some authentic stuff like that, I don't even know what to talk about. I have no real inspiration on what the video should be about when it comes to these TikTok skits, I'll have that joke or that punchline. I'm like, oh, that's good. And then I can craft a video around it, and then I'm excited to film it. So I'm definitely not opposed to being authentic and showing my real personality on camera. I just don't really know what it would really do or be about. So maybe one day, butMichael Jamin:
Yeah, so interesting. And then, okay, so you mentioned that you're into, you would think about acting. You don't want to move to la. You're not that serious about it. You're open to it.Jack Raia:
Right. So the way I see it, I live in Long Island by train. I'm less than an hour outside of Manhattan. So any sort of opportunities in the entertainment industry, I feel like I could probably pursue in New York if they were to come about. But the idea of moving to LA and trying to jump with both feet into Hollywood, I guess, doesn't have as much as appeal to me as it does. Kind of just making my videos, working on the ambulance, working at a concert. I'm kind of liking what I'm doing instead of really trying to jump into one or the other.Michael Jamin:
I appreciate that. I mean, you're doing this to me. It seems like you have, it's the purest form, excuse me, purest form of expression. You're doing this, you want to be creative. This is your outlet.Jack Raia:
And the honest truth is I like being a content creator, but I love being an EMT. It's honestly, the unfortunate reality is that if I could make as much as a content creator as an EMT, I probably wouldn't be doing much of the content creator stuff. Obviously, like I said before, the attention super addicting and it's fun to get recognized and stuff like that. But if I could flip the payrolls, I would,Michael Jamin:
Well, let me ask you this. Why not do more actual day in the life where you got the camera, you're behind the wheel, the ambulance or whatever? Is it because you're not allowed toJack Raia:
Sort of? So I've done a little bit of that. I've able to, like I said, I have some vlogs on YouTube where I'm vlogging the work that I do as an EMT, but it's definitely much harder to do than if you were to do it with other jobs, with everything from HIPAA violations to if I were to deviate even one second or one minutia of my brain power to my phone or something like that while I'm in the ambulance at all, it's just not something you really want to get involvedMichael Jamin:
With. Yeah, I could see that. I mean, other than maybe cleaning the ambulance when it's parkedJack Raia:
Station, right? Yeah, no, no, no. I can see that. But cameras and healthcare tend to not really mix very well, especially when it comes to me just running around my cell phone camera. So that's definitely been a major roadblock in kind of the day of life kind of stuff.Michael Jamin:
Yeah, I can see that. I guess it's a naive question now that I ask that. Yeah,Jack Raia:
Yeah. But I've had some success, so it's not like it's impossible, but its definitely more difficult. So it's not really that much of a priority for me.Michael Jamin:
Creative. Are there creators or even famous people whose work you admire you were trying to emulate in your work?Jack Raia:
Yeah. I mean, there's other EMT creators or EMS creators or even just healthcare workers in general that create content on the app that I really like. One of 'em is the name's Fire department Chronicles. He's a bald dude that makes firefighter skits and he's the best in the business. He kills them.Michael Jamin:
Are you going to clap with him or no?Jack Raia:
I mean, maybe one day. I haven't reallyMichael Jamin:
Reached out to him that Okay, you don't know each other. Okay. It's great.Jack Raia:
He's got millions and millions ofMichael Jamin:
Followers. Well, you're getting up there. You're getting close to a million.Jack Raia:
Hopefully. I like to think I'm on my way. ItMichael Jamin:
Looks that way. Sure. And then you also sell merch. Are people buying? Are the people digging you?Jack Raia:
Yeah, a little bit. It's a work in progress. This is one of the shirts. It's just bankrupt the funeral home. So it's kind of a humorous situation where it's like, imagine if healthcare workers could do their job so impossibly well that no one was dying. So the funeral home is like, oh crap, we're out of customers here. We can't really afford to keep the lights on anymore. It's kind of, yeah,Michael Jamin:
It's a good message you got. It's positive. And I really admire you for putting yourself out there for just showing up. A lot of people are afraid to do that.Jack Raia:
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you saying that. My goal is to do something greater for the emergency services community down the road. I'm making a couple bucks off each T-shirt here now, but I have plans to really increase it. I'm collabing with a much larger Instagram page soon. So we want to sell everything from hats, patches, stickers, t-shirts, bags, everything under the sun, donate a portion of each sale, and really try to give back to the community that's given me this platform is definitely a goal of mine.Michael Jamin:
Well, I imagine you're becoming the face, you're becoming the face of EMT workers, at least in your area. I can only see good things coming from that in terms of raising your profile in the industry.Jack Raia:
Yeah. I'll have to agree with you there, for sure. Yeah.Michael Jamin:
Have others reached out to you? Other people in your line of work reached out to you and say, Hey, good for you for doing this? Or how do they react? Yeah,Jack Raia:
Yeah. I get a lot of really positive messages from other creators and just from other, Hey, I'm an EMT and wherever, wherever I really like your videos, man. One message that sticks out to me in particular was, it's probably last summer I got a message and it was, Hey, I'm an EMT instructor out of Iowa. My class loves your videos. We watch your videos as an icebreaker every morning before class. Holy crap. Really? The whole class.Michael Jamin:
That's really nice.Jack Raia:
That's when it really started to hit me that I'm really impacting other EMTs and paramedic stuff in here. I was like, wow, there's some real serious reach here.Michael Jamin:
Yeah. People don't realize that what you do actually makes a difference in some people's lives. It really does.Jack Raia:
And with that, there's definitely a little bit of responsibility. There's two aspects of my content that I'm kind of trying to clean up in the future a little bit. One of them being is the disheveled kind of inappropriate nature that my character exhibits a lot of the time, showing up with his boots untied, still tucking in his shirt, which kind of happens due to the nature of the job. Maybe you're on a 24 hour shift, you just woke up, you're drinking Red Bulls or doing whatever and would hate for that to influence a new or future EMT. I would hate for them to think that it's okay to do that because of the nature of the job.Michael Jamin:
When did you come to that realization now?Jack Raia:
Pretty recently. So I've started putting, or I've went back and put disclaimers on a lot of my videos. It does not represent correct practice. I'll have people nitpick what I'm doing in the comments and stuff and it hit me. It's like it is important to, obviously it's a comedy skip, but it is important to note like, Hey, this is not the way you're supposed to be doing things. I'm over here trying to make a couple people laugh. This is in no way, shape or form the way that you're supposed to conduct yourself.Michael Jamin:
That's an interesting realization that you're doing this for fun. And then you realized at some point you had a responsibilityJack Raia:
ExactlyMichael Jamin:
To the world really to not just to your coworkers, but in your profession, but to the world, which I don't think not everyone comes to that realization. Yeah, I wish more people did because what you put out there is important andJack Raia:
It will affect people, whether it's subconsciously or directly. It will start to influence the way people see this job. And that goes for whatever kind of content you're making. Another aspect that I'm going to try to clean up in the future is I don't want to deter people from calling 9 1 1 because they think they might get this EMT that comes in with attitude and doesn't want to be there and stuff like that. Some of the videos I make, I'll be coming through that front door and I'm just like, oh, this is a bull crap. Call my kind of rolling my eyes and I'm making jokes about the lack of severity of the situation and I would hate for someone to see one of my videos and think twice about calling 9 1 1. So it's definitely some stuff that I'm going to address in the future, but I feel like I'm ahead of the curve hopefully, so that it hasn't really gotten too far yet where there might be some crazy instance or something like that. But it's definitely something that's on my radar to kind of address.Michael Jamin:
Where do you think most of your followers are they being in the United States? I mean, I would assume,Jack Raia:
Honestly, I'm not sure. I can check my analytics and it can tell me where people are from. The most recent time I checked my most followed city was Chicago, coincidentally enough. So it was like Chicago, Phoenix, Austin, New York wasn't even really up there.Michael Jamin:
Isn't that interesting?Jack Raia:
Yeah. But there's definitely a lot of local people that have recognized me. When I started at my private ambulance company in February of this year and my first ride along, I showed up, I walked into the building and put my stuff down and immediately went on a call with of my field training officers. So obviously we're kind of in call mode, right? But once we transferred our patient care and everything like that, my FTO was like, you, that guy. I was like, probably. I'm probably the one you're thinking of.Michael Jamin:
Yeah. How funny. That must have been. Nice. So before we wrap up, I don't know, I'm very impressed by what you're putting out there, by what you're doing. You're simply a standup guy. What other advice do you give people who I don't know, who are interested in doing what you're doing? What else do you have to offer them?Jack Raia:
I think that consistency is probably the most important aspect of trying to be any type of a creator. Whether you're writing a blog, making POV skits or making music, anything like that. Kind of just forcing people to be exposed to your content through you just keep making it and posting it is probably the most important aspect. And if you can do that and just make an effort to make each one a little bit better than the last, it will start to compound.Michael Jamin:
And by consistency you mean once a day or what?Jack Raia:
It depends, honestly. So with me, it worked once a day. Back in the winter of 2021, I had a winter break from school, so I was like, you know what? I got nothing to do this break, but watch the Sopranos and make TikTok. So no matter what I'm doing, I'm going to make a TikTok every day. I don't care if I love it, I hate it, I'm going to post it. So that was that first little spike in followers that I got and I was like, this can probably work. I think I got it down here. ButMichael Jamin:
I think it's great that you're really, that you're sharing your profession, you're making it light, you're trying to entertain people and you're doing a little something, but you're raising your profile. I see just good things, good things coming from it.Jack Raia:
Yeah. I really appreciate it.Michael Jamin:
Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you for joining me again. I really appreciate it learning your story. My pleasure. Very interesting. Everyone go check out Jack, Jack Raya, his channel's called What's good, 2 4 7 24 7. That's me on TikTok. I imagine that's your same handle on Instagram and Facebook. Yeah, that's it. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Jack. Really good for you. Congratulations.Jack Raia:
Absolutely. We'll have to do this again sometimes. Thank you.Michael Jamin:
Yeah, good stuff. Alright everyone, that was an interesting talk with an EMT Jack. We'll check him out on TikTok. Alright everyone, until next week, I got to think of a better tagline. You used to say, keep writing, I'll think of something else. Keep bullshitting. Alright everyone, thanks soJack Raia:
Much.Michael Jamin:
So now we all know what the hell Michael Jamin is talking about. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for my free monthly webinars @michaeljamin.com/webinar. And if you found this podcast helpful or entertaining, please share it with a friend and consider leaving us a five star review on iTunes that really, really helps. For more of this, whatever the hell this is, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. And you can follow Phil Hudson on social media @PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane and music was composed by Anthony Rizzo. And remember, you can have excuses or you can have a creative life, but you can't have both. See you next week.

On this week's episode, I have TikTok star Merrick Hanna. Tune in as we talk about the variety of content he enjoys producing as well as his creative process. We also dive into a little bit about his overall inspirations and creative goals for the future.Show NotesMerrick Hanna on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@merrickhannaMerrick Hanna on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UC39he8ro-KtBHkq0NXOFyQw Merrick Hanna on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/merrickhanna/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMerrick Hanna:I'm looking for popular TikTok routines, popular trends, something I can turn into my own because that's how I come up with ideas. I find something like a popular dance, a popular song. It could be even a hashtag or just a popular meme online. And I think, how can I take this and then make it into something original? And that is on brand for me.Michael Jamin:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts. Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin and I'm back with another episode. I've been doing some rebranding, guys. So the first couple of, I'm over a hundred episodes. So I've been doing this podcast for over two years. It's been called Screenwriters, need to Hear This. And mostly I've been talking to TV writers and to actors and directors that I've worked with, but then I've been railing against it for everybody. Guys, put your creative work out there. Just be creative, see where the energy goes, because it'll lead you somewhere. And so I'm rebranding the podcast right now. I think I'm just going to call it the Michael Jamin Show, where we just talk about what Michael Jamin is thinking of today, but whatever.Who gives a crap what the name is called? The point is, I was at a movie premiere, I'm name dropping here. I was at a premiere a couple of, maybe a month or two ago, I don't know, maybe more than that. And this kid comes up to me, he says, Hey, I follow you on TikTok. I go, oh, do you? And I go, that's nice. What do you do? He's like, yeah, I'm on TikTok too. And I check him out. This kid, this kid's got like 32 million followers, 32 and a half, 32 and a half million followers. This guy gets more, his reach is bigger than all the networks combined, so his name is Merrick Hannah, maybe you know of him. If you don't know of him, you're going to learn about him now. Merrick, thank you so much for being on my show. I'm so honored that you're doing this. Welcome. Thank youMerrick Hanna:So much for having me. This is very exciting.Michael Jamin:It's exciting for me. And when I say kid guys, he's 18. He's 18. Merrick, I want to know, you're going to tell me all about this because I don't know what it's like to be you, to be like, I dunno, if you call yourself an influencer or a content creator, what do you call yourself?Merrick Hanna:Content creator mostly. I don't really influence people. I just make fun videos for the internet. So mostly content creator.Michael Jamin:And you're young. He's 18. Now I'm going to ask you, by the way, Merrick, don't use words that I don't know. Don't say bay. Don't say lit. You're going to have to talk to me like say fresh, say words from the eighties that I mightMerrick Hanna:Understand. Got it. No cap.Michael Jamin:Yeah, really fresh now. So tell me, okay, how long have you been making? So the videos in case people don't know. So mostly dance videos. He's a really good dancer, but sometimes just cute little sketches, stuff like that. So it's not limited to that, but they're short and they're fun. And Merrick, I think you just bring joy to people. Is that what you do?Merrick Hanna:That's my goal on social media is to just make fun videos that people enjoy, that I enjoy. It's a fun way to be creative.Michael Jamin:Okay, so how did this start? How many years have you been doing this?Merrick Hanna:Okay, so I've been doing social media specifically for, since the beginning of quarantine, however many years ago that was, I don't remember. AllMichael Jamin:Right. That's not that long. It's 2020. So it's three years.Merrick Hanna:Yeah, three years. Because before that I was a working actor and dancer. And then at the beginning of quarantine, when the whole industry slowed down and I didn't have as much work, I decided, Hey, why not make my own content? Because I wanted to perform.Michael Jamin:Where were you working as a dancer and actor?Merrick Hanna:I had just done guest stars on Netflix and Disney, one episode sort of things. And I think I was about to do a reoccurring role on a show, which was then canceled right when quarantine hit.Michael Jamin:So you decide, I'm going to go on TikTok and just start making videos. I imagine the production value of the first videos were really not that special, or wereMerrick Hanna:They? No, it was literally just my phone resting on my bed in my bedroom, doing some random TikTok dances that I found online that I thought were fun. And I got very lucky very quickly.Michael Jamin:You just blew up real fast.Merrick Hanna:Yeah, I had I think two videos that went super viral for no particular reason. And I thought, Hey, that's cool. I might as well keep doing this.Michael Jamin:But now I have a lot of questions for you. I would say a big, someone like you, maybe you collaborate with other dancers and people in your age group, someone whom has 6 million people. I would say that's really big. But dude, you have 32 and a half million people. That's not big. That's gigantic. At aMerrick Hanna:Certain point, your brain can't really understand that many people. At a million people, I can't imagine a million people. That's just way too many.Michael Jamin:AndMerrick Hanna:So afterMichael Jamin:It's like the population, what's the population of, I don't even know, you'll have to tell me, but are you able to walk out of your house and do you get recognized a lot or how does that work for you? You're famous.Merrick Hanna:It is sort of, I'm popular in a specific demographic of 12 to 15 year old people. I do get recognized, especially when I'm out performing. I like to perform in public on Hollywood Boulevard. And youMichael Jamin:Mean when you're shooting and performing though?Merrick Hanna:Yes, when I'm shooting and performing. But yeah, when I go to Universal Studios,Michael Jamin:I'llMerrick Hanna:Get recognized maybe once or twice. It's not too much.Michael Jamin:It's notMerrick Hanna:Too much. It's not like I'm famous, famous, famous. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Were you the first, I guess I already know the answer to this question, but when you first started doing these videos, you were already a professional. You already worked in the business as the dancer and a performer, but were you a little worried? Were you a little nervous about putting out your first videos, or were you just too young and dumb to even care? How do you feel?Merrick Hanna:I was not nervous when I started putting up my first tos because it really was just something I was doing for fun.Michael Jamin:IMerrick Hanna:Had no expectation of more than maybe a couple hundred people watching them, which is a lot, but it wasn't that much relatively. I do remember though, being very nervous when I posted my first ever YouTube video when I was nine years old.Michael Jamin:I was when you were nine. Okay. Well, when you were young, right? You were freaking out. Well, that's normal. I mean, you were nine, but you're probably bigger. I imagine you're bigger on TikTok than YouTube, or is that not the case?Merrick Hanna:Yes, I am bigger on TikTok right now. I have roughly three times the amount of followers on TikTok.Michael Jamin:And now I imagine you're monetizing both things that you probably make decent, make some decent money at this point now.Merrick Hanna:Yeah, I'm trying to, it is turned into a job for me, and so I'm definitely trying to monetize my social media without it taking away from the fun of it.Michael Jamin:The fun of it. Well, tell me what that means though. Are you doing brand deals or are you just monetizing through the app where they run ads on your content or something?Merrick Hanna:Yeah, it's a mix. I try and do a mix of brand deals and also monetizing on YouTube. Brand deals are tricky because they aren't very fun to do. It's like, oh, we want you to make a video talking about how great our cereal is. I'm like, well, let's not. How do you make that fun?Michael Jamin:How do you make that fun? So what do you do?Merrick Hanna:I'm very, very picky about what I do. I only really ever say yes to a brand deal if it's something that I think I have a fun way to make into an entertaining video. And so I don't, as a result of that, I do very few brand deals compared to other creators. ButMichael Jamin:Tell us how it works. So did come out, they reach out to you. This is all new for, I got an older audience, we don't know, and I say old, I mean me. So they reach out to you, Hey, you got a big following. We like what you're doing. Will you promote our whatever, let's say serial. And then you say, let's say you agree to it. Do you have to bounce off the concept of them? Do they give you notes? How does that work?Merrick Hanna:Right. Sorry, let me back up, because I've been doing this for a couple of years now, and it's very, I'm in this world. So they'll reach out to me, and it really does depend on the brand. Sometimes they'll say, we want you to do this specific video, and sometimes they just say, we want you to promote this video game. We know you're a creator. Please just pitch us some concepts. So right now, I'm in the middle of doing a brand deal with a video game company that I've worked with before. And they reached out to me, they said, Hey, Merrick, we like your videos. Let's collaborate. Here's our video game. We want you to come up with some fun ideas. And so I wrote up three unique video ideas. I sent it off and they came back to me and they said, we like this one. Now you want, we want to expand on it, create a script, and then I'll shoot it, send it back, probably a couple revisions, and then I post it.Michael Jamin:And do you do all the writing yourself or do you have any help?Merrick Hanna:I do get some help from my dad, but I am trying to get better at writing. Yeah.Michael Jamin:So your dad worked for you and you say Better? Better. Is that what you, are you awful to him?Merrick Hanna:Don'tMichael Jamin:Give me this garbage, dad, come back. IMerrick Hanna:Think that we work very well together. Work wellMichael Jamin:Together. Yes. No, because it's interesting. I did a TV show for some very big YouTubers, Brett and Link. You must've heard of them, right?Merrick Hanna:LoveMichael Jamin:Them. Okay, so they got very, obviously they're very big. And then YouTube said to them, we want to do a sitcom. So my partner and I were the showrunners of Link's buddy system for season two. Now what I was shocked to discover, this is all, remember I'm older than them. I show up and these guys have a big studio with, I don't know, 30 employees, 40 employees. They got a team of people. But you don't have that don't want, or do you want that or don't want that or what?Merrick Hanna:It's funny that you mentioned that, because I am actually sitting in my studio.Michael Jamin:You have a studio, so you haveMerrick Hanna:Right after that door is a very large shooting area with multiple sets and a green screen.Michael Jamin:Interesting. And this is, okay, so, alright, so you have a big space and it's all covered by, of course, the revenue that you bring in.Merrick Hanna:Yes. This is actually very relatively new. I started renting the studio maybe four weeks ago, and I'm trying to hire people because for the longest time, I really was just doing it by myself in my bedroom.Michael Jamin:And editing it yourself?Merrick Hanna:Yeah, editing it, writing it, shooting it myself. And then I met with other creators, like how we were talking about with Red and Link.Michael Jamin:IMerrick Hanna:Met with a couple creators where I just walked into their movie studio, like you were saying, they had 20 employees.Michael Jamin:AndMerrick Hanna:It kind of blew my mind because I realized, wow, I could actually have help doing this.Michael Jamin:And so do you have a small team right now of production, people setting up the green screen or editing or doing whatever you do?Merrick Hanna:Yes. I have a small team of my dad and two people. Wow, you'reMichael Jamin:18 years old. This is pretty amazing. This really is amazing. It's very impressive. Maybe it's normal for you, but I'm super impressed by this.Merrick Hanna:It's not normal to me. No, this is strange. It's very strange. I still don't understand it.Michael Jamin:Even the effects that you do, I mean, some of them are pretty tech as far as I'm concerned. Are you doing this on Adobe? Where are you at Premier, or where are you editing most of this?Merrick Hanna:Yeah. I'm doing all of my effects videos on my laptop with After Effects, which is Adobe and Blender, which is a free software.Michael Jamin:So tell me what this is like so you come up with an idea you might spend, because I know, okay, let's take this back for a second. How many videos do you post in a week?Merrick Hanna:I post, right now I'm posting 14 videos a week.Michael Jamin:That's a lot. SometimesMerrick Hanna:More, sometimes less. I try and get 14. Sometimes I am not as productive. I think this week it was more like seven 10, helpMichael Jamin:Me out here because the night before, I do one a day and I try sick five or six days a week. And the night before I go to bed, I go, what am I going to do tomorrow? But you don't seem to have that problem, or do you?Merrick Hanna:Oh, I do. It's very, very difficult to come up with ideas. And sometimes at night I'm just sitting in bed like, oh, I can't find any routines. What am I doing?Michael Jamin:Are you looking for inspiration from other creators or what are you going to say?Merrick Hanna:Yes, I'm looking for popular TikTok routines, popular trends, something I can turn into my own because that's how I come up with ideas. I find something like a popular dance, a popular song. It could be even a hashtag or just a popular meme online. And I think, how can I take this and then make it into something original and that is on brand for me.Michael Jamin:And do you have a list of ideas, backup ideas? I have a list of backup ideas I don't want to get to, I guess they don't seem that good to me.Merrick Hanna:Yes, I do have a very, very long Google document with ideas,Michael Jamin:But the problemMerrick Hanna:With doing that is that trends come and go within two days on TikTok.Michael Jamin:But do you have to do a trend?Merrick Hanna:Yeah,Michael Jamin:You do.Merrick Hanna:Kind of on TikTok, it's really, really important for me to do a trend, and this is just because I've had years of experience throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks,Michael Jamin:AndMerrick Hanna:It's always trends that do best. It's always when I take a trend, I say, how can I make this different, unique, put a fun spin on it, and then I make it my own? That'sMichael Jamin:Now for people who don't know, a trend can be a trending song, a clip, it could be a trending. What else could it be? What else could it beMerrick Hanna:A trend? In the past, it's been a trending meme. There was a meme about the McDonald's grish shake for a long time where people would drink the grish shake and then die. That was the trend, and I thought, how can I make this different? How can I turn this into my own?Michael Jamin:See, this is interesting though, because as I scroll through many of your videos, obviously, like I said, many of 'em are special effects, different, and it's many of 'em are dancing, a lot of 'em are collaborations, but none actually, as far as I can tell, you're not talking to, you're not really, you're in character basically. They all seem to be in character. Is that right?Merrick Hanna:Yes. Yeah, they're all very in character, because I will do 30 takes of each video after I've written a script. And so it's nothing spontaneous about my videos. I know that a lot of people like to just sit down a camera and see what happens, but I'm more comfortable really planning things out and having it be a very produced video.Michael Jamin:Produced video. But part of the appeal, I think, is you must have fans from across the world because you're not talking, you're mostly dancing, and so you don't have to speak the language. Right,Merrick Hanna:That's true. Well, yeah, there's definitely pros and cons to doing that. The pros are that I have a very large fan base in Korea and the Philippines, and I think Russia, it's all over. In fact, I think only 20% of my followers are from the us, which is crazy statistic. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Interesting. So maybe it's the culture they're interested in. You're American, you must be the average American. Maybe.Merrick Hanna:It's funny, a lot of people think that I'm not from America, they just assume that I'm from where they are. Oh,Michael Jamin:Really? How do you know the comments?Merrick Hanna:Yeah, the comments. Because in the couple of videos that I've talked and they go, they're American.Michael Jamin:Wow, IMerrick Hanna:Speak English. That's crazy.Michael Jamin:This is something I've learned is that people will project whatever they want onto you, as long as you give 'em enough blank canvas. You know what I'm saying? That'sMerrick Hanna:Interesting.Michael Jamin:Yeah, they don't know enough about you, so they figured it out. I'm looking at this image of you and you have a red coat on, and I can only see the top of your torso up. And then, I don't know, maybe you have wheels instead of legs. You know what I'm saying? That's what, because people don't know. I don't know if you're tall or short. I've decided you're tall. What do I know? And so I think what goes on in social media.Merrick Hanna:Interesting.Michael Jamin:Tell me something else though. So I know you did one video, it's just recent, and you're wearing, it's up against a blue screen and you're wearing a blue body suit, and your buddy, he's walking on a treadmill, and it's supposed to be how, I guess you're supposed to be showing like, see, this is the gimmick where this is how we're doing it, but you're not actually going to share it, the actual version of that with you, blue screened out, right? It's all just a joke. You're not actually going to do the other version.Merrick Hanna:So what you're talking about is a really weird phenomenon that I've discovered within the past couple monthsMichael Jamin:WhereMerrick Hanna:People really like seeing the behind the scenes and how videos are made, but they don't really care to see the actual video. In fact, in most of those videos, I'm not actually recording on the normal cameraMichael Jamin:BecauseMerrick Hanna:For the longest time, I would shoot videos and then I would have a camera running in the back, and I would post the behind the scenes. And I noticed that the behind the scenes kept doing really well, and the normal ones wouldn't.Michael Jamin:The actual video of the, so the making of it does better than the video.Merrick Hanna:Exactly. And so recently, I've just been posting absurd how I made this video videos,Michael Jamin:Even though you never made the video,Merrick Hanna:Even though I never actually make the video, which is so strange. It's really bizarre. But people love it. And the more absurd and ridiculous that I make it, the better the more people like it. And I try and make them absurd enough that I'm not misleading people as to how videos really make, because I'm always a little concerned about that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Okay. So what does concern you, you in making these?Merrick Hanna:I don't want people to think that's actually how I make my videos, because I want to teach people how to edit videos. Recently I've been doing live streams where I actually show the editing process, and I've been answering people's questionsMichael Jamin:BecauseMerrick Hanna:I do want to show people how to, because I love editing and I want to share with other people how amazing it is. And so I try and make my videos ridiculous enough that if somebody was actually interested in editing, they would realize that it was a parody.Michael Jamin:So is this part of your larger vision then is to either be an editor or teach people editing or No. Is there something on the side?Merrick Hanna:It's not part of my larger vision. I can actually get into my larger vision.Michael Jamin:Yes. What is it? What's the plan?Merrick Hanna:So my goal, as I mentioned a bit ago, since the beginning, has been to, I have not actually mentioned this. My goal is to become a professional actor. Well, I am a professional actor, but to get more acting work, that has been my goal since the beginning. Since I first started at the beginning of quarantine,Michael Jamin:TheMerrick Hanna:Industry slowed down and it didn't have as much work. I thought maybe this can be a way to continue working and bring in more attention to.Michael Jamin:And has that worked for you?Merrick Hanna:It has. In what way? Social media has brought me tons of opportunities, but it actually has gotten me booked on a TV show and a movie. SoMichael Jamin:Did they reach out to you or what?Merrick Hanna:Yes. TheMichael Jamin:Shows reached out to you. AMerrick Hanna:Couple examples. They actually have directly reached out to me.Michael Jamin:Can you share what they are or you don't feel comfortable?Merrick Hanna:I don't know. They've been, I don't know if I've actually announced that I'm on them yet, so I'm not going to.Michael Jamin:Okay. So a show, the casting director of a show find you and says, Hey, do they want you to read, or in other words, audition, or do they say, you got the role?Merrick Hanna:That's the crazy thing. They haven't even had me read. They literally just reach out to me and say, Hey, we want you on the show. And so then of course, my goal is to prove to them that I actually am an actor. I am an actor. Because when I do go onto these productions where I'm just hired as an influencer, the general idea is they have to teach me how to act. But my goal then is to prove that, hey, I actually do know how to perform. I can be a real actor here.Michael Jamin:Are these parts small or big?Merrick Hanna:They've been guest stars for one episode, but a lot of speaking, a lot of asking.Michael Jamin:Right.Merrick Hanna:So pretty big roles. Yeah.Michael Jamin:And did they expect you, I would think they expect you to talk about on your social media, right? Talk, Hey, watch me next week, or whatever, on whatever show, right? Yes.Merrick Hanna:Yes. They have strongly encouraged me to create behind the scenes tos. Oh, the past.Michael Jamin:I have not seen that. Have you done those?Merrick Hanna:Well, the show hasn't come out yet, so I haven't.Michael Jamin:Okay. Okay. So you shot 'em, but you're not going to air them yet. AndMerrick Hanna:Yes, I will start to release them once everything comes out.Michael Jamin:Now, do they want that in writing, or is it just like a wink, wink, hey, or is that part of the contract that you'll put X amount of content out there?Merrick Hanna:I believe it was just a expectation that I probably would, because of course I would. It's a great opportunity for me. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Right.Merrick Hanna:Wow. Interesting. Don't, it was never in the contract. Yeah.Michael Jamin:See, this is what I say. You discovered something on your own, even though I yell at adults to do this all the time, which is basically you created yourself in other, you made these opportunities happen for yourself because you put yourself out there. And let me tell you something, Merrick, in case you don't know this quiet, I'm talking to Merrick, posting 14 times a week is a lot of work. It may seem like it's not a, it is a lot of work. How many hours a day are you doing this?Merrick Hanna:It really depends, but maybe 10 hours a day. MaybeMichael Jamin:10 hours a day.Merrick Hanna:It used to be a lot more because it used to just be me doing it. But now that I have help, I'm slowly reducing it because it's not good for my mental health to be working thatMichael Jamin:Day. Yes. But why is it 10 hours a day? Exactly. How does it break downMerrick Hanna:A bunch of different things? So obviously the editing part of videos takes the absolute longest. People love visual effects, which is amazing. But because I have to post so much, it means that I really do have to grind it to get them out, because they take many, many, many hours to produce finding videos. I do have a lot of help with that, but it still takes a while. Scrolling through TikTok, just looking for new dance trends, new trends, and new ideas.Michael Jamin:ItMerrick Hanna:Takes forever. And then shooting takes multiple hours.Michael Jamin:You have to learn the steps, and then you have toMerrick Hanna:Learn it. You have to set everything up, get the lighting, and then I do 30 takes, 20 takes a lot of takes normally. And howMichael Jamin:Did you learn about lighting? How did you learn? As you can see here, I don't know anything about, I work in the business. My lighting is terrible, and I have lights on. I suck at it. How did you learn all this stuff? All a lot about sound, about lighting, about production.Merrick Hanna:So in terms of lighting, I actually learned about lighting from some of my influencer friends who just showed me how to get nice, even lighting on your face. I would like to learn how to properly light scenes to be more cinematic, but I don't know how to do that yet. I've just learned how to very evenly light my face and make everything very bright,Michael Jamin:BecauseMerrick Hanna:That's what my videos normally do. And then in terms of sound and editing, it was just me goofing around on my computer and then thinking, Hey, I can use this for my tos.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, it's pretty amazing. I mean, it's very impressive what you've done. Okay. So you've gotten a number of opportunities from this, and hopefully more, but let's say, all right, let's say they reached out to you and they gave you, I don't know, a gig on probably, let's say, 13 episodes on a show. Are you still going to make your TikTok videos? Whatcha going to do?Merrick Hanna:For the longest time, I was thinking about, oh, once I get a reoccurring rollout, I won't make tos anymore. But now that it's become such a big part of my life, I kind of like making them. I don't think that I'll stop. I mean, if I'm on a reoccurring TV show or rural, I'll definitely have to slow down my production, but I don't have a plan to stop.Michael Jamin:Are you worried about burnout or no, you're just too young to worry about it. You have all this energy?Merrick Hanna:Oh, burnout is a big issue, and I've definitely run into it before. I think the biggest reason that it hasn't been too much of an issue for me is because I produce so many different types of videos in such a variety of genres and editing styles and dancing styles, and every day I'm doing something completely different. One day I might be working on adding AUFO to the back of a video, and the next day I am with a K-pop group dancing. So all over the place that burnout has never been too much of an issue. So, okay,Michael Jamin:So at this point, I would understand that at this point, they must be, other content creators are reaching out to you to do a collaboration. You're not reaching out to them. You're bigger than they are, I imagine.Merrick Hanna:Oh, no. I still have to reach out to people.Michael Jamin:But are you reaching to big people or people bigger than you or small than you? How does that workMerrick Hanna:Normally? See, that's a weird thing because normally it's people who are smaller, have less followers than me. But it depends.Michael Jamin:I guess what I'm asking is when are we going to dance? Hey, listen, that's not what I'm asking. You know what I saying?Merrick Hanna:There's a strike.Michael Jamin:There's a strike.Merrick Hanna:What are we doing?Michael Jamin:I got some moves from the eighties kid, but let me ask you though. Okay, so they reach out to you sometimes you reach out to them?Merrick Hanna:Yeah,Michael Jamin:These are strangers. Basically.Merrick Hanna:I prefer to collab with my friends because it's more fun for me.Michael Jamin:But they weren't always your friends, right?Merrick Hanna:Friends? No, when I first moved to la, which was a couple of years ago, it was all strangers, and it was a very wild experience meeting so many people. But now that I'm bigger and I get to more so choose who I collab with, I like more just meeting with my friends because it's more fun.Michael Jamin:And so explain to me how this works. You'll do a video together, you'll post the same video, they'll post the same exact video or what?Merrick Hanna:TikTok doesn't like it when you post the same video twice, which makes sense. They want to,Michael Jamin:When two different creators post the same video or when?Merrick Hanna:Yes,Michael Jamin:Because I've posted videos. I've taken down old videos and put up old videos. They don't mind that, right? Oh,Merrick Hanna:That's fine. That's fine. In the past when I've experimented with posting the same video on two accounts, TikTok does not like that because they don't like it when you just take other people's content and repost it. And so they definitely detect it and shut it down. And so we will shoot four videos. Two of them go to them, two of them goMichael Jamin:Me.Merrick Hanna:We try and make it as even as possible.Michael Jamin:And you tag each other?Merrick Hanna:Yes, of course.Michael Jamin:CollabingMerrick Hanna:Is the best way to grow your social media account.Michael Jamin:Is it really? I mean, did you discover this along the way, or were you just following the rules that somebody else made up?Merrick Hanna:There were no rules. I wish there were. That would've been great if there were just rules, but no, there were no rules, unfortunately. It's just a lot of trial and error, seeing what works. SoMichael Jamin:On a given day or a given week, how many, you must have a calendar filled out with your collaborations andMerrick Hanna:Yes. Oh yes. Just an hour ago, I was collabing with my friend Matt Sina, which is why I'm wearing this jacket,Michael Jamin:Right?Merrick Hanna:Because I bought this jacket because he also owns it. So we can have matching clothes and roughly every day I do a collaboration of some sort. I try to,Michael Jamin:In your studio space here, you must have a wardrobe department. You must have a props department, right?Merrick Hanna:Department is a bit of a stretch. It's a wardrobe cubicle.Michael Jamin:Okay. But there's a lotMerrick Hanna:Of stuff. We do have a wardrobe. This is our editing room out there is our shooting space, and then we also have a kitchen area for food and snacks, so we try to have a professional.Michael Jamin:I know your father's helping you. What was he doing before all this happened?Merrick Hanna:The same thing that he's doing now. He works as a data statistician. He runs his own company and he helps brands figure out where to put new stores, and he's still doing it. He, ohMichael Jamin:My God. Okay, so he's not full-time for you, just he helps you out all this?Merrick Hanna:Yeah.Michael Jamin:And do you have any siblings?Merrick Hanna:I do. I have a younger brother. He doesn't really want to be in my videos very much because he does get teased about it at school, unfortunately. I was going toMichael Jamin:Say he, okay, so what is the negative side? What's the downside? Is that one of the downsides thatMerrick Hanna:Yes, that is definitely one of the downsides of social media is that it does bring negative attention. It brings jealousy at times, which is always sad when it happens. My brother is experiencing the worst of it, I think.Michael Jamin:Oh, is it really? He's really getting a lot of it.Merrick Hanna:I mean, there's a couple people in his school who are jealous and are like, oh, your brother, he's on TikTok, so I feel terrible for him.Michael Jamin:What about the haters on, I mean, you have a very wholesome account, but that's not going to stop people from just hating you for no reason. So how do you deal with that?Merrick Hanna:Dealing with hate is a very difficult issue because there is no one good way to do it. No matter what you do, you're always going to get some kind of hate comment from over time. My strategies have changed. Originally I just decided, oh, I can just ignore them, but it gets to you. The hate really does get to you even if you think you have thick skin. And so I've resorted to using the block button quite a lot and pressing it really hardMichael Jamin:Because it makes me feel better. So that means you do look at all your comments?Merrick Hanna:I try to and look at all my comments, butMichael Jamin:At 35 million, you're getting a lot of comments on every, I mean, you're getting a lot of comments.Merrick Hanna:Yes, I do, and I still try and go through most of them. Obviously, if there's 600 comments, I can't get through all of them, but a lot of times there's maybe 200, 100 and I can go through all of them pretty easily.Michael Jamin:Do you respond to any of them?Merrick Hanna:I try to respond becauseMichael Jamin:Do all of them or some of them?Merrick Hanna:No, not all of them. I could never do all of them. I try to reply to comments that I think I have fun responses for or people that I know, but I try to engage with every comment at the least by just liking it, because people can see when I do that and I wantMichael Jamin:Now, how important is that? And you're teaching me and you're teaching me. I'm not sure. I don't know if I always do that.Merrick Hanna:SometimesMichael Jamin:I do, and sometimes I feel bad if I like someone's coming, but I don't like another, I don't know.Merrick Hanna:See, we've hit a point where I actually don't know I'm clueless. I don't know if that helps my social media account at all. I don't know if statistically it makes me get more views. I just like doing it because I appreciate everyone who comments and I try and show that I'm seeing what people comment.Michael Jamin:It helps. I'm not even talking about helping the algorithm. I'm really talking about do you think your fans like it or not? This is a weird question. I'm not sure if your fans always want you to respond to them. You know what I'm saying? I have done this. Sometimes I don't have fans like you have fans, but sometimes they'll say something nice and then I'll say something. Oh, thanking them, and then I think it makes 'em feel uncomfortable. They don't know where the conversation's supposed to end, so I don't want to make 'em feel uncomfortable either. But maybe you don't thinkMerrick Hanna:About that. I've never thought about it that way. I'm thinking back to how I'm a fan of some creators. If I comment, I'm thrilled when they reply to me because I love their content, and so I can't really think of a situation where it would make someone uncomfortable, but I never thought, do you talk aboutMichael Jamin:This with your other creative friends when you're No,Merrick Hanna:Not specifically making people uncomfortable byMichael Jamin:Or anything. Do you say to them, Hey, do you respond to every copost or do you block every post? You talk about this?Merrick Hanna:Yes. Oh, yeah. I talk a lot to my creative friends about what they do because everyone does things differently, and I've never really figured out the right way to do thingsMichael Jamin:Online, butMerrick Hanna:I try to and talk to everybody and see what their strategies are.Michael Jamin:It's so interesting. And then the blocking, because that even a negative comment is good for the algorithm, so you don't need to block them, but you still block them.Merrick Hanna:It's interesting that you say that because this is a bit of a non-sequitur, but I have friends who actually intentionally makeMichael Jamin:VideosMerrick Hanna:Just for hate comments because they go viral with it. Yeah,Michael Jamin:I know,Merrick Hanna:But I don't do that. I have in the past made videos that are sort of a bait for that to getMichael Jamin:ToMerrick Hanna:The comment, but I don't try and make fun videos that I would want to watch, and that's not really what I want to make.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content, and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com. And now back to what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?Yeah, but it's interesting, but your friends sometimes do just to get that boost,Merrick Hanna:And they're okayMichael Jamin:With that.Merrick Hanna:I have some creator friends I know who definitely intentionally make videos that get hate comments.Michael Jamin:Can you give me an example of what that might, how do they know it's going to get hate comments?Merrick Hanna:I have a friend who at least used to make really, really fake and over the top pranks, and so he would have super over the top reactions and obviouslyMichael Jamin:Set upMerrick Hanna:The camera is right in the middle of the room specifically just to get comments saying, oh, it's fake. Because the more people that comment that, the more TikTok pushes it out and the more people see it,Michael Jamin:But the more people see it. But then I wonder if you pick up followers. That's another thing I've got, another thing I want to talk about.Merrick Hanna:There are so many intricacies and things to talk about. IMichael Jamin:Was surprised about TikTok is when I started picking up all these followers, I'm like, what's the point of having followers if only a 10th of them can actually see my content? Why is this a metric that they're keeping track of? Do you know why?Merrick Hanna:What do you mean? Only a 10th of them get see.Michael Jamin:Well, okay, so you have 32 million followers. I'm looking at one of your videos, one of your more recent ones, okay. Had 1.2 million followers, which is a lot, but that's only a fraction of your not followers views had 1.2 million views, which is a fraction of your total follower account. You got this. So sometimes they go super viral and sometimes 1.2 million, which is nothing, which is fantastic, but still nothing.Merrick Hanna:Okay. We're getting into a territory that I talk a lot about and also confuses meMichael Jamin:BecauseMerrick Hanna:TikTok themselves insists that it doesn't matter that there's no momentum to say if you get a ton of followers on one video, it won't matter in the next video. I really think that's not true because of the following page. I think that maybe if you get views on the following page, because that's where you only see people who you follow, that helps boost the video.Michael Jamin:ButMerrick Hanna:Again, we're getting into a territory because TikTok is very secretive about this,Michael Jamin:ButMerrick Hanna:I actually, I'm not so sure myselfMichael Jamin:Because there was a day, well, you were must have much younger, but when you had a following, let's say on Facebook, everyone would see your post because they were following you. But now it's not the way. It doesn't work that way anymore.Merrick Hanna:No, it doesn't. Yeah. This is one of the topics that really confuses me as well,Michael Jamin:BecauseMerrick Hanna:TikTok is very secretive about what they do, and it also seems like they change the way that their algorithm works from time to time.Michael Jamin:AndMerrick Hanna:So sometimes I think I have it figured out, oh, more followers means that it boosts you this way and it transfers over this way, and then the next day it'll be completely different.Michael Jamin:Are you worried about, here's the thing that, are you worried about hackers taking over your account or TikTok shutting down your account and losing everything, or them changing the algorithm completely and then, I don't know, suddenly everything's gone. Does that worry you at all?Merrick Hanna:It does, and that's why I have tried to post on other platforms too,Michael Jamin:BecauseMerrick Hanna:For a while, as you may know, there was a big fear that TikTok would go away in the us,Michael Jamin:Right? They came back. Now they're still worried about it again. But itMerrick Hanna:Seems like it's been a constant worry for a long time, and that's why I've tried to diversify. I post on YouTube, I've started posting on Snapchat out of all places, Instagram reels.Michael Jamin:Right?Merrick Hanna:Specifically because I am worried that years and years of work will just go away becauseMichael Jamin:Do you have a mailing list as well, or do you not keep thatMerrick Hanna:Mailing list? What do you mean?Michael Jamin:Yeah, well get on my newsletter and then I'll send you whatever I want to send you. And that way you can email them whenever you're on a show or whenever you have something to promote, but you don't do that.Merrick Hanna:That is a bit of an outdated concept. I'm not sure that people really do that anymore.Michael Jamin:I do it and I have a nice list, but maybe it's amazing. Outdated. Okay.Merrick Hanna:Yes,Michael Jamin:Fascinating things is outdated, but ifMerrick Hanna:There's anything, if there's, Hey, just to be clear, if there's anything that I want to post about, I just post it on my social media post everything else. Yeah. I've never had a need for that. I don'tMichael Jamin:Think I should check on your link here again. I looked earlier, but you don't sell merch or anything like that, or do you?Merrick Hanna:No, I don't. WhyMichael Jamin:Is that?Merrick Hanna:This is another weird thing that I thought a lot about. I've wanted to for some time, but I've always been afraid that what I'll sell won't be worth the money in a weird way, because a lot of my fan base are younger kids. I don't want to sell 'em a T-shirt that just has my face on it and that they'll buy and then never wear. I would feel terrible if I did that. And so I've always been, it's morally, it's weird for me because I don't want to do, you know what I mean? I see other creators pushing their merch. I'm like, why wouldMichael Jamin:AnyoneMerrick Hanna:Ever buy this in a year? Everyone's going to regret buying this thing. I want to make whatever I have as merch something that I would actually wear and that people actually get their monies out of.Michael Jamin:I totally hear you. People have said to me, Hey, when are you going to come up with merch? I go, what a line of pencils? Do you really want a pencil with my name on it? And they're like, yeah, why? But I admire the fact that you don't want to just put garbage out there, but there's still demand people. I mean, if they want it, they want it.Merrick Hanna:Yeah. It's a tricky thing. I've talked to a lot of people about doing merch a couple of times. I thought, oh, maybe I'll actually do it because I found designs that I like, but it's never quite came to be. And maybe one day, maybe one day I'll do it.Michael Jamin:Right. How are you able to monetize on tick? I'm not doing it. This is all, I don't monetize any of my intentionally. But how does it work to monetize TikTok? Tell us how thatMerrick Hanna:I don't.Michael Jamin:You don't? And why not?Merrick Hanna:For the longest time I was under 18 and I couldn't. But also, I don't think that TikTok really pays you well,Michael Jamin:They have a beta studio, which apparently people get paid a little more. No,Merrick Hanna:They do. But I think, again, I'm not part of this program. I think it's only for videos over 60 seconds,Michael Jamin:Which, and most of your are shorter. You won't make oneMerrick Hanna:List. All of them are shorter.Michael Jamin:Interesting. I know they're short, but why is that?Merrick Hanna:Oh, my videos are short because it's what I like making the most.Michael Jamin:MyMerrick Hanna:Fans like that. I've tried posting 10 minute videos. I've tried posting two minute long videos. And I think that my fan base, people who follow me, just watching the shorter videos more because it's all that I've ever posted. People are used to it.Michael Jamin:I know I'm jumping around, but do you give a lot of interviews like this where people are just asking you about you? No. No. But you must do a lot of podcasts and guests and lives or whatever.Merrick Hanna:The first podcast I have done and I think eight years.Michael Jamin:Interesting. Why is that? Have you been asked and you just said, no,Merrick Hanna:No. I don't really get asked to. You don'tMichael Jamin:Get asked to.Merrick Hanna:My dad just said that. That's not true. Maybe I get asked and I don't have the time to.Michael Jamin:He said it's not true.Merrick Hanna:He yelled from outside the room. He's outMichael Jamin:There. That's not true.Merrick Hanna:He said, that's not true.Michael Jamin:Type down dad. Well, he would know. He handles that part of you. Dad, do you wantMerrick Hanna:To help answer this? Also, I should give some context. My dad handles my business email and he helps me go through some unsolicited messages as well, becauseMichael Jamin:I don'tMerrick Hanna:Really want to go through those.Michael Jamin:Yeah, right. I'm sure. But I'm surprised you don't get asked. Okay. Your dad thinks you gets asked, but whatever. Either way, you haven't done a lot. We know that for a fact that you haven't done a lot. Now is it because there's part of you you just don't want to share? Or what is thatMerrick Hanna:Supposed to sneak in?Michael Jamin:Here he is.Merrick Hanna:Here's dad. What'sMichael Jamin:Up?Merrick Hanna:Invited to a lot of podcasts. You do get invited to a lot of 'em. Michael. Hi.Michael Jamin:Pleasure to meet you. But what'sMerrick Hanna:The lean towards me? I can eaop.Michael Jamin:So he gets asked a lot to do podcast. My question for Eric was, does he do a lot of interviews like this where he is just telling me or telling people what it's like to be a content creator, which I find fascinating, but he's saying he doesn't get asked a lot. And you're saying he does get asked.Merrick Hanna:Yes. And I know that you don't really like doing things like this, so your podcast is great. I'm very happy that I'm here.Michael Jamin:Oh, I'm happy to have you. Fascinating.Merrick Hanna:There are many people doing podcasts. There are very few that have much in the way of listeners. And soMichael Jamin:Yeah,Merrick Hanna:Given that I know that you prefer not to do that sort of thing, I tend to filter for you unless something particularly interesting comes along.Michael Jamin:Right. Well, I'm honored that I made that cut. What I'm interested in is really is as the interview, which is really the journey that he's on, the creative journey he's on at the forefront, what your kid is doing. It's pretty impressive. But Merrick, is it hard for you to, or it doesn't seem hard for you? Is it uncomfortable for you to share that with? Because like I said, your videos are basically, you're in character. You're this character, this happy, fun, jokey guy, but your fans don't really know that about you. They don't know the other side.Merrick Hanna:For a long time, I preferred to keep it very scripted and produced and act all my tos, but I've been getting more used to talking to people because for a long time I was extremely introverted and I, not people. I've gotten a lot better with it. And I'm doing a lot more just personality content. I am live streaming on TikTok. I'm just talking to people.Michael Jamin:Are you? And so how long will you do that for?Merrick Hanna:To be clear, we put him in acting lessons when he was seven and eight years old because he wouldn't talk to anybody.Michael Jamin:Oh, is that right?Merrick Hanna:So we were not motivated by anything other than the fact that we thought that putting him in a situation where he might be forced to use his voice in front of other people his age would be good.Michael Jamin:And you were right.Merrick Hanna:And we found that not only was he great on stage because he doesn't, his unique little skill was that he didn't have any real sense of the audience. So he wasn't fearful, but he liked doing it a lot and was immediately hired by the professional company that ran the theater camps to be in their professional productions.Michael Jamin:Plus this is all very therapeutic. It is a good journey for you to be on. It's very good for youMerrick Hanna:To be clear up until a very old age. Very old.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Merrick Hanna:Four. I only use sign language to talk to people.Michael Jamin:Really?Merrick Hanna:Because I didn't like talking to people that much. And so acting helped a lot with that. And doctors said not to panic because sign language is talking. So they said, don'tMichael Jamin:Worry.Merrick Hanna:He is a talker.Michael Jamin:Right. More. I know that one.Merrick Hanna:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Oh, is that one? See, now you're teaching me.Merrick Hanna:I'm going to leave you alone.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Thank you for chiming in.Merrick Hanna:Right. Well, and now we know anytime in the future somebody wants to do a podcast with America that has a bowling pin in the backMichael Jamin:And a parking meter.Merrick Hanna:Yeah. Yeah. Parking meter. We're on the fence with especially a writer's guild strike.Michael Jamin:There you go. There it is. Yep. So this is very interesting to me. So not only we learned that this helps you, helped you come out of your shell, but also, that's another thing I'm curious about. How much are we supposed to share of ourselves with the public?Merrick Hanna:You mean like personal lives?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah.Merrick Hanna:This is an interesting one. I share relatively little. I think compared to other public figures, I try and keep my personal life relatively private. But what's interesting is that from what I've seen in the influencer world, a lot of people who do share a lot about their lives often aren't really sharing their real life. In fact, multiple times I have been invited to have basically a fake girlfriend for YouTube and share my personal life, which is not actually my real personal life. It's a very real thing. And so IMichael Jamin:Know it's,Merrick Hanna:Even though I share relatively little, I'm not actually sure it's that much less than other people because they Do you thinkMichael Jamin:That Because I know they have these, and you're not part of these, I dunno if they're called YouTube houses or in influential houses where they put people like yourself in an apartment for a month or whatever, and mayhem ensues. You must've been invited to these.Merrick Hanna:Oh, yes. Another way that, another version of those are social media squads, which I am very, very familiar with because I know a lot of people who have done those. I have been invited. Not for me. Definitely not for me.Michael Jamin:I'm really glad you say that. But people that have gone and what is their take out of it? It seems awful to me.Merrick Hanna:Yeah, awful. It is much worse than awful. In fact, there's actually a very big lawsuit about one of those right now that a lot of my friends are a part that involve sexual abuse, many terrible thingsMichael Jamin:From other influencers or create content creators, or not fromMerrick Hanna:Content creators, and sometimes their parents too often. A lot of times it's the parents.Michael Jamin:So the parents are living there as well. IMerrick Hanna:Think like dance moms except influencers.Michael Jamin:Oh my God,Merrick Hanna:ThisMichael Jamin:Is horrific.Merrick Hanna:This is a very, very large rabbit hole.Michael Jamin:That's a whole different conversation. You're right. I'veMerrick Hanna:Always managed to stay on the periphery of this, but I definitely have a lot of friends who are very into the weeds there.Michael Jamin:But there's a lot of people, a lot of kids of your age would kill even to have a fraction of your followers. They're chasing the fame. It doesn't seem like that's what you're doing at all. What is your advice for them?Merrick Hanna:For people who just want to chase the fame?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, I mean that's why they do these houses where they all live together, and that's why, yeah, I would kill just to have people follow me. So listen to me, I guess to be heard. Maybe that's what is your advice for them?Merrick Hanna:Go for it.Michael Jamin:Go for it. Go forMerrick Hanna:It. For it. I mean, right now in my position, the pros definitely outweigh the cons.Michael Jamin:What are the cons then?Merrick Hanna:I mean, the cons are, I am not in touch with a lot of my friends that from when I was before, I was a professional influencer, content creator, actor. I've lost a lot of friends a lot. WayMichael Jamin:You have a job now?Merrick Hanna:Yeah, because have a job and because I moved, I no longer live in the small town that I used to.Michael Jamin:Where did you grow up?Merrick Hanna:I grew up in Encinitas in San Diego.Michael Jamin:Oh, it's not that far away. And so you moved to LA to be closer to the business though?Merrick Hanna:Yeah. Again, it's not that far away. It's only two hours away. But still a lot of my friends I am not in contact with anymore. Which sucks. That's a huge, it can be very stressful being a public figure because I have to be careful about what I say.Michael Jamin:PeopleMerrick Hanna:Are constantly trying to wrap me up in drama,Michael Jamin:AndMerrick Hanna:I have accidentally gotten caught up in that before. And it sucks when it happens becauseMichael Jamin:It drives out of in way without you reliving it. But what kind of happened?Merrick Hanna:It's nothing. I commented, it was a reply to a TikTok comment that was taken horribly out of context. And it's only happened I think once or twice. ButMichael Jamin:You got to be careful about what you say.Merrick Hanna:Yeah, super careful. I can't just post whatever I want. I have to be careful about that. But again, it's not too big of a deal.Michael Jamin:And what are some of the unforeseen pros that have come out of this that you would not have expected? Okay, you're hoping to get booked on a TV show, and that's happened, and hopefully that'll happen more. But what other that you would not have expected?Merrick Hanna:I've a lot better at my craft. I never thought that TikTok would help me get better at dancing, but it really, really hasMichael Jamin:Just because you're doing it over and over.Merrick Hanna:And it's also helped me get better at editing. I've been, in a way, forced to learn many new editing techniques, and I've also gotten a lot better at acting through TikTok, which is strange that it happened, but it did. It's been super beneficial. And for me, that was super unexpected.Michael Jamin:And you also have this whole community of other content creators you now call friends. I madeMerrick Hanna:A lot of friends through the way too. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Merrick Hanna:That's amazing.Michael Jamin:This is amazing. Is there anything else? First all, I want to thank you again. I know you're very kind to do this, but I'm fascinated. I give, first of all, a lot, like I said, a lot of credit to you. You invented this thing for yourself and all these opportunities came and you put yourself out there. You were not afraid. Or maybe you were afraid of being judged, but you got over it and you did it anyway. And you work hard for this. I know you do. I mean, I watch your videos. That's a lot of work. I could tell. It's a lot of work.Merrick Hanna:SoMichael Jamin:Good for you. ThankMerrick Hanna:You so much.Michael Jamin:Is there anything else we can plug for you? We can talk. Let's let 'em everywhere. They can follow you on all your social media. Do you have the same handle for everything?Merrick Hanna:Yeah, it's just my name Marna. Everywhere. Everywhere. I Pinterest X.Michael Jamin:You're on Pinterest. What are you?Merrick Hanna:I posted once.Michael Jamin:You posted once and now you have aMerrick Hanna:Following. It's Americana everywhere. You can probably find me on every social media platform.Michael Jamin:Okay. I had one last question, but now I can't even remember what it was. I was so shocked that you're on Pinterest. Yeah.Merrick Hanna:WellMichael Jamin:This is,Merrick Hanna:Thank you again. Well, okay. See, Pinterest is, that was just a random account I created. Right? I'm mostly on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram? Yes.Michael Jamin:Okay. Will you respond to the people on YouTube as well, the same way you do on TikTok or no?Merrick Hanna:I try to. Generally it's less. There is somebody behind me taking a photo. IMichael Jamin:See that. Yeah.Merrick Hanna:Instagram story. Instagram. Oh, here. Quickly close for Instagram story.Michael Jamin:Nice. Right. So great. Put it on Instagram. So wait, what was my question? I have lost my train of thought. Oh. Oh, you respond to everybody on YouTube? That's what I was asking.Merrick Hanna:Yes. I try to, but honestly, it's less just because less. I mainly use TikTok even though I'm trying to get better about it.Michael Jamin:Do you, one final thing, I all these questions, so S two parter, but do you find there's a difference between the kind of people who follow you on each platform? What is it?Merrick Hanna:Oh, yeah. Huge difference. Different platforms just have different user bases, and I think that's most reflected in the kind of content that does well on each platform. So I'll give you a brief summary on TikTok. People love trends. People who use TikTok, seeing people use songs in different ways. They like trends, popular memes on YouTube, people don't care about trends at all. They just like good videos in general and more like skits. So dancing isn't as popular on YouTube. It's more people who like skits. And on Instagram it is just dancing.Michael Jamin:It's just dancing. PeopleMerrick Hanna:Love, love dancing, and so yes.Michael Jamin:Does that mean you won't post a skit on Instagram or you do it?Merrick Hanna:I still do. Even if I know it probably won't do it very well because there's no real reason not to.Michael Jamin:And people don't also realize that the very act of uploading your videos to the fly, it actually takes time. Are you doing all of that yourself?Merrick Hanna:I used to. Now I have help.Michael Jamin:Now. You have help? Yeah.Merrick Hanna:I have two people helping me and my dadMichael Jamin:WhoMerrick Hanna:Help me upload. Because you're right, uploading is a surprisingly annoying process.Michael Jamin:Yeah, you got to tag. You got to put the hashtags in. It takes time.Merrick Hanna:It does.Michael Jamin:But do you find there's a difference between, okay, I'll tell you where I'm coming from. So I find that on TikTok, people tend to be meaner, but then let's say Instagram, do you feel that way?Merrick Hanna:Yes. I have noticed that. It's hard to say why, but I know exactly what you're talking about. It seems like there's almost the meaner comments get liked more, and so people are more incentivized to make fun of a person.Michael Jamin:I don't reallyMerrick Hanna:Know why. I'm just speculating, but you're not wrong. I have noticed that Instagram has a little bitMichael Jamin:Of thatMerrick Hanna:On Instagram. It's interesting. It's normally older people who are mean. Are older peopleMichael Jamin:Mean to you?Merrick Hanna:Yeah. On Instagram, they're like, back in my day, kids would dance better than this.Michael Jamin:Okay, that's okay. But are they actually getting I'm, I don't approve of that. But it's notMerrick Hanna:PersonallyMichael Jamin:Hurtful.Merrick Hanna:That was a very PG version of what they say.Michael Jamin:Right. It's pg. Right.Merrick Hanna:Okay. It's worse than that. And YouTube people are generally nicer from what I've seen. But you're not wrong about TikTok having a bit more of that.Michael Jamin:It's unfortunate. And what do you do to wash it off the negativity?Merrick Hanna:If it's a pretty mundane negative comment, oh, you're cringe cares. But if it's anything more than that block, yeah,Michael Jamin:Just block.Merrick Hanna:Simple as that. I also try and use comment filters. I try and block words that commonly appear in hate comments, which does help, but people get around it.Michael Jamin:Wow. Yeah, people don't realize that there's just no point in being mean. I sometimes lecture people with posts, if you ever see in my posts, I thought I was talking about why it's really bad for your soul to be mean to people on the internet, but can't do that. WasMerrick Hanna:That I love seeing those videos, but I have to say, responding to hate just draws more hate. At least that's what I've experienced.Michael Jamin:But am I responding to hate if I'm doing a general video or what do you think? Is that what you're saying? You're talking about me specifically or no?Merrick Hanna:Yeah, in general, but also in general in content. I have friends who have gotten really angry at hate comments and have made videos responding to them,Michael Jamin:And that draws more hate.Merrick Hanna:It just seems to draw more people who want to troll. But I do enjoy watching those videos because I always want to,Michael Jamin:You want to do well. My feeling behind it is, maybe I'm wrong, but because I'm way nearer to this than you are. But my feeling is even if I get seen by haters, the haters, it'll help me find the audience I want found to find me. So it's almost like I'm okay with the trade off because it broadens my reach and helps find the people who do like me, so I'm willing to suffer through them.Merrick Hanna:That might work. Yeah. I've never, that's interesting. Yeah, it might work. I don't really know, but it's a good theory. SoMichael Jamin:I wish people would realize that there are, there's so much people are hurting. So when people are hurt, they want to let you know that they're in pain by inflicting pain on you. So they're yelling, I'm in pain now. You should feel it too,Merrick Hanna:But you seemMichael Jamin:Like you got, what's that?Merrick Hanna:Also on social media, I've seen that a lot of hate comments get commented to you because people don't see you as a real person in a way, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but especially with public figures, people online kind of see public figures are talkers as almost characters. And so I can just comment, whatever.Michael Jamin:They're justMerrick Hanna:A character on my screen. But it is very real and I wish people knew that

On this week's episode we have Scott Reeder who is a Prop Master for film and TV. Some of the projects he has worked on have been "Pitch Perfect", "American Crime", "Walker" and many many more. Tune in as he talks about how he comes up with ideas for props that are needed for filming as well as going viral on Tiktok and how he deals with it.Show NotesScott Reeder on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottpropandroll/Scott Reeder on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1048397/Scott Reeder on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottpropandrollFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptScott Reeder:Well, part of it, I felt like a little bit of imposter syndrome. Like, well, what? I don't really deserve these accolades because I'm just doing, I'm just not doing anything that great. I didn't think, and I was like, well, how can I keep this up? I'm going to run out of stuff to talk about.Michael Jamin:Yes,Scott Reeder:But I've been able to just, I just keep going. I've always come up with, so you're listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Michael Jamin:Okay. Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome to the Michael Jamin Jam. Today I'm jamming with Mr. Scott Reeder, and who the hell is he? I'll tell you who he is. This guy is a prop master on a bunch of movies and TV shows, and I don't know him personally, but I've been following him for a very long time, and he's actually also a talker. So Scott, I'm so inspired by what you do, and I'm opening up my podcast. I'm spending the next couple of sessions talking to, I usually talk about screenwriters and I interview TV writers and people like that, but I also want to open up to people who are doing interesting creative things and social media, and you are for sure one of them. So thank you for coming on my show, dude.Scott Reeder:Oh, thanks for having me.Michael Jamin:I'm excited. I'm excited too, because I've worked obviously with a lot of prop masters and you post a lot on social media, and honestly, I don't know, 99% of what you do. I'm like, oh, that's how they do it. I have no idea you guys are magicians, because to be truthful, I'm not supposed to notice what you guys do. That's the whole point. When you bring a prop on set, I'm not supposed to see if it's a gag or a gimmick or anything. It's supposed to look real. So I just said, oh, that must be real, and you expose on your TikTok channel how all this is done. It is absolutely fascinating. Everything you put out,Scott Reeder:Well, it could be a scene in a burger joint with a guy taking one bite out of a burger, and I would've to have like 30 hamburgers. So it's those little things no one thinks about,Michael Jamin:But there's also a crossover a lot of people don't think about is what you do, what set decoration does. There's a whole, okay, for example, if you have a scene and the horse is on set and a horse takes a dump, that set deck, or is that propsScott Reeder:Nowadays? I believe the animal Wrangler would probably do it.Michael Jamin:There's arguing over set over who's going to do that, right?Scott Reeder:Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. There's always, well, I mean, not always arguing, but what I try to do is when I do my breakdown of a script is make contact with everyone involved with every gag or every scene and make sure, okay, am I doing this or you? And that's typically what I say it up to them and say, do you want me to do this? I'm totally cool with doing it, and that's the way I'm not coming off. I'm trying toMichael Jamin:ItScott Reeder:Off. Right,Michael Jamin:Not keep your head, but now, how did you get in? Because you've done, I should run through some of your credits. I'll just go through a you pitch. Perfect. Walker, Texas Ranger, machete, machete, machete. You've some great, the list goes on and on. How did you get into this and why?Scott Reeder:Well, I always wanted to work in media and communications of some sort. Oh, gosh. I'll try to keep it brief. I was going to the University of North Texas in 19 88, 89, and there happened to be a movie filming in town. It was called Daddy's Dying, who's got the will written by a playwright named Dale Shores,Starred Beau Bridges, Beverly DeAngelo, and I found out that there were filming at a hospital. I just showed up. But yeah, I just started picking up trash on set and working as the lowest rung non-paid production assistant. It was 1989, so it was a long time ago, and then I, it's all about networking. It's all about getting your foot in the door. Then I interned at a film at the North Texas Film Commission, which was great because we'd get scripts from producers they wanted, and I got to read 'em early on in the process. I was the guy that would go out and take pictures of, it could be a prison or restaurants, just locations to try to draw producers into our neck of the woods.Michael Jamin:Interesting.Scott Reeder:Yeah, so that's how I kind of got my start.Michael Jamin:So tell me, when you start doing props and you have to make whatever puke or you have come up with all sorts of inventive ways, especially with food, to make something look so it doesn't melt or it doesn't go bad, or you did something with a stick of butter yesterday, you had fake butter, so it doesn't melt onset. How do you come up with this? How do you're like a magician? How do you come up with these, basically you're an inventor. How do you invent all these things to make it look like butter or whatever?Scott Reeder:Well, we break down the script. We come up with, we get with every episode, we will have, as you know, you have directors meeting and typically the writers are involved on that and all the concept, and then I know what they're expecting of me, and I'll go from there and I'll just call around. I've got a lot of connections, a lot of friends that if I haven't jumped that particular hurdle, I have friends that have. So that's just kind of how,Michael Jamin:Really, okay, so it's word of mouth. How do you, that's it. ThenScott Reeder:If I were in LA I would be hiring a food stylist,Michael Jamin:ButScott Reeder:There's not enough. There may, there are some commercial food stylists in Dallas. I'm in Austin. There really aren't many people here for that. So we have to really up our food game as prop master, an assistant prop master and prop assistant.Michael Jamin:Then how do you, because we were talking earlier, you're based out of Austin, and I was like, I just assumed. So all your work is basically local and you get enough work locally?Scott Reeder:I work locally when I can.Michael Jamin:Is that most of the time though, isn'tScott Reeder:It? But occasionally I'll have to travelMichael Jamin:Occasionally, right?Scott Reeder:Yeah. I did Nosferatu for AMC in Rhode Island, and so when things get slow here in town, I'll travel on. I did a movie in Mississippi in 2019.Michael Jamin:And how do you get most of your work? You don't have an agent getting you work, do you?Scott Reeder:No. Word of mouth. It's just relationships I've built with producers and word of mouth.Michael Jamin:So how does that work basically when it's like, how do you know when it's time to, oh, there's nothing going on in Austin. Do you give it a couple of weeks, a couple of months? What do you doScott Reeder:Typically? Hopefully I have a job lined up and we try to play on a few months ahead. If not, it's just wait around. Now what I do, Michael, is I'll fill in as art director on commercials.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? Okay.Scott Reeder:So actually I'm lined up for one starting next week, and I haven't been that fortunate with commercials through the strike because when the actors went on strike, even though companies can still make commercials, they're holding back on their campaigns right now.Michael Jamin:Why is that, do you think?Scott Reeder:I don't know, but there's, there's definitely been a slowdown. Interesting. Now, part of that could be the Texas heat. I don't know, but it's definitely slower than normal. But yes, I would try to line jobs up at a time. I'll call around, let some people know that I'm available, but a lot of people know me will say, oh, Scott shows ending soon. I'll give him a call. That sort of thing. It's a very small community.Michael Jamin:I bet. Do you prefer to work in TV or film?Scott Reeder:My bread and has been television. I like both. If I go through a full season of television and I have enough time between seasons or it's a picture wrap of a show, I like filling in with features.Michael Jamin:What is the difference for you between the two?Scott Reeder:It's a big difference. It doesn't move nearly as fast.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Scott Reeder:BecauseMichael Jamin:You're not doing as many pages a day.Scott Reeder:Correct. You might do two or three pages a day.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Scott Reeder:It's just a whole different animal really. If I'm doing a television show, I'm not on set as much in Perpetual Prep. I'm always working on the next script, and if it's a feature, I will prepped it ahead of time and on set, and I'm more hands-on at camera and whatnot, how many, which I like that part of it.Michael Jamin:People don't realize that when a prop is required on set, you'll have backups and backups for the backups. That's the worst thing that has happened. If something goes wrong, the one gets yelled at.Scott Reeder:Oh, correct. Yes. We always try to have multiples. Now there are those items that are one of a kind, and you just got to cross your fingers, pray and let everyone know, Hey, this is the, oh, don't play with this. Between takes. It's the only one we got, but that's rare. We typically have multiples of everything.Michael Jamin:How many multiples is enough, do you think?Scott Reeder:Yeah, it just depends on the scene. I like to have at least bare minimum two. If it's an item that's involved in a stunt, you'll want to have four. Food scenes are crazy because it's hard to determine, because a lot of times the actor might improvise and eat a lot more than you think.Michael Jamin:SoScott Reeder:I always go overboard on food scenes.Michael Jamin:But they give you a budget. I mean, they also say they don't want you to waste. How do you know they don't want you to come up with too much? Because then they're paying for that.Scott Reeder:Yeah. Well, the first couple, if we're talking about television, the first couple episodes or when you kind of feel it out, you'll buy heavier.Michael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:Then my assistant will call and say, Hey, you got way too much last time. Dial it back, this particular director. And we get to where we know how the directors work. You'll have one director that'll do six takes another director two, and moving on. So you get to where you understand the personalities of everybody and how they work and how they operate. Well, this particular person, the last food scene they went through a lot. So we'll get a lot.Michael Jamin:Now, do you prefer low budget or high budget, or does that not make a difference to you?Scott Reeder:Well, I prefer a bigger budget,Michael Jamin:Really,Scott Reeder:To be honest. Yeah, it's a lot of times if you're working on a no budget feature or a really ultra basic cable show, I'm not going to name names, but they, they literally give you pennies and you're trying, it's just so much harder when you could just go buy something than have to scrounge it or limit your amount of takes because of the budget or limited amount of props you have for a take.Michael Jamin:Now here in LA there's tons of prop houses. I mean, what do you do when you're shooting in an area that doesn't have houses? Does Austin have any good prop houses?Scott Reeder:What you do is you open up a prop house. That's what I did 20 years ago. I opened up a little prop shop. It's not near the scale of the Los Angeles prop houses,Michael Jamin:ButScott Reeder:I have a little bit of everything. It's kind ofMichael Jamin:The newest art. That's amazing. So it's just a warehouse and you rent out to other prop masters, not just yourself, but to other productions?Scott Reeder:Correct.Michael Jamin:Wow. AndScott Reeder:I actually rent all over the country. I just had a bunch of stuff come back from the Kevin Costner movie that was shooting in Utah.Michael Jamin:There's one prop house that's going out of business in la. They're having a fire sale, and I'm like, go get rid of that. That stuff is important.Scott Reeder:Well, hopefully one of the other, either history for hire or independent studio services or hand prop room will go in and get some of that stuff.Michael Jamin:And so do you specialize your prop specialize in something? No,Scott Reeder:Not really. I have a little bit of everything. I've got occupational props, a little bit of old West, some period stuff. I've got police gear, lots of military. I try to keep things that you can't find at Walmart, basically.Michael Jamin:Right. OrScott Reeder:Else the sub decorator will just go to Walmart, typically. So I specialize in harder to find things.Michael Jamin:Is that something, do most prop or many prop masters have their own prop houses, or is that something just yourScott Reeder:Not really. No. I was just the first to open one here. I think a lot of people will have prop trucks that they'll keep their kit on, and they'll have a general assemblage of props that they'll stock props that they'll bring to every, and they'll leave a portion of their truck empty for the hero props that they'll bring on some. I'm sure some have storage rooms, storage facilities, somewhereMichael Jamin:WhereScott Reeder:They store things.Michael Jamin:Well, this explains to me, it seems like a very entrepreneurial in spirit, which explains to me, or maybe it doesn't, but how you started on this TikTok journey that you've been on, because this is very interesting what you do.Scott Reeder:Well, it's totally accidental. During the early days of the pandemic, my daughter was scrolling on TikTok. She was 17 at the time, and she's laughing at some videos. So I'm like, what you laughing at? That sort of thing. So I downloaded it and I saw some people attempting to tell dad jokes, and I'm thinking, well, I can do that,Michael Jamin:And you can, you're good at it.Scott Reeder:And with some that I'd written or taking really old jokes and adding punchlines to 'em, it was just fun. It was a fun hobby during that time where there was no, where the whole industry was shut down. And I got back on the Amazon show that I was on called Panic, and one of my assistants, I can't remember which one it was, but they said, Hey man, what we do is interesting. What if you work in some prop stuff?Michael Jamin:ItScott Reeder:Might be interesting. So I was very careful because you want to be careful not to interfere with any NDA you may have signed. So I just kept things up in the lockup. I didn't go out on set. I just started, here's a breakaway beer bottle, this is what it's made out of, and this is how we safely break it. Boom.Michael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:That's how it started, just breaking crap on my head, and it just went from there. Of course, the one that took off was silent props, which was pool balls. And I had, of course, I thought everybody did this, but apparently not.Michael Jamin:No,Scott Reeder:I wasn't aware of that. Prop masters.Michael Jamin:Go on. Yeah.Scott Reeder:Well, they were painted.Michael Jamin:Right. I'll explain just people listening. So when you have a scene on a pool table in the background, you don't want to hear the clinking of the balls, so you don't use pool balls. Instead, you useScott Reeder:Go ahead. Painted racket balls.Michael Jamin:Painted racket balls, and they're about the same size.Scott Reeder:Exactly. Yeah.Michael Jamin:And is this something that all prop Masters know, or did you just figure this out?Scott Reeder:Well, it was accidental back way back on necessary roughness. The original back early nineties football movie, we had a bar scene, and for stunts, we painted racket. We had a football player landing on a pool table. Right. So we had all these painted racket balls, but well, we realized, oh, they don't make noise, so that's helpful too. So that's kind of how it started. It was, yeah, because stump prop,Michael Jamin:People don't realize when you shoot a movie or a TV show, you don't want noise in the background. So you'll later impose put in that noise, the set is quiet, and then you wind up putting in the noise. For some reason, it seems so silly, but that's how it works.Scott Reeder:The sound mixer, Michael, I don't know if you probably know this, but if we're filming in a kitchen,Michael Jamin:OrScott Reeder:Especially in an industrial kitchen in a restaurant, I don't know how the people on the bear do it, because you got to go in and unplug everything. You got to unplug anything that has a compressor,Michael Jamin:Right. It mightScott Reeder:Make noiseMichael Jamin:Or,Scott Reeder:Which has boned me a few times because I have stuff stored in a refrigerator and the sound mixer is like, oh, we got to unplug that. And I'm like, yeah, yeah,Michael Jamin:Right. So now you've got to bring a backup fridge.Scott Reeder:But everything shoes, the sound mixer has what they call mold scan and they'll put it on the bottom of people's shoes. Yeah. What else? There's all kinds of stuff. I spoiled the crew of the show that I've been working on because once they saw my videos, they were like, well, well, do you have silent pinging pong balls? And I'm like, well, I can figure it out.Michael Jamin:Alright, so what's silent ping pong call made out of?Scott Reeder:I just found foam balls on Amazon and painted them,Michael Jamin:But itScott Reeder:Was that simple. I just measured them.Michael Jamin:But the paint has to, it has to have a sheen. It can't just look crappy. It really has to look real.Scott Reeder:Yeah. Well, pinging pong balls are kind of more satin. They're not glossy,Michael Jamin:SoScott Reeder:You just do just a satin gloss on 'em once you put your paint on. And yeah, they turned out pretty good.Michael Jamin:That's amazing.Scott Reeder:But yeah, the first video I did we're talking, it was 2020. I had garnered about a hundred thousand followers on TikTok, strictly on dad jokes.Michael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:Then I did this one video with the silent pool balls and the silent grocery bags, because grocery bags are a big deal. You know how noisy paper grocery bags are, and I came up with this joke as I was filming and I was like, should I do this joke? It was at the end of it, I took the pool balls and put 'em in the paper sack and said, and now the sound man is not annoyed with my ball sack.Michael Jamin:ThatScott Reeder:Was the joke. And I filmed it and I'm like, should I leave the joke in? I was really torn. I was like, yeah, I'll leave the joke. And I signed off my phone. I got in my car, I had about a 30 minute drive home, and I stopped at a convenience store and looked at my phone and it was already up to, I mean, we're talking in half an hour. It had like 20,000 likes,Michael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:It was insane. That one went up. That one got over 12 million views.Michael Jamin:That's really a lot. And did it make you nervous when it first happened?Scott Reeder:Oh yes.Michael Jamin:Okay. Let's talk about why.Scott Reeder:Well, the thing is I'm, I've never been social media savvy. I've never been that dialed into it. I did have an Instagram account, but I maybe had a hundred followersMichael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:Somebody at work said, Hey, hey, Scott, when are you going to post on Instagram? I was like, well, I don't know. My hands are full with TikTok. And they were like, well, dude, how did you get so many followers? And I looked at Instagram and it was at like 10,000.Michael Jamin:I wasScott Reeder:Like, oh, geez. So I've been kind of forced into branching out to other platforms when I've already kind of got my hands full because all this, I'd say 75% of my content has been done while I'm also pulling a 12 hour day on a TV show. So it's a lot.Michael Jamin:People don't realize it's a lot because, but there's a lot to talk about here. I'm very interested because first of all, you have something like 1.7, I think million followers on TikTok, which is huge. And this is only how many, two or three years you're doing this?Scott Reeder:May of 2000, may of 2020 is when I started, but I started slowMichael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:Then got into, then I guess it would be, I'd say July of 2020 is where I really started picking up. Yeah,Michael Jamin:But why did it make you nervous when you started going viral?Scott Reeder:Well, part of it, I felt like a little bit of imposter syndrome. Well, I don't really deserve these accolades because I'm just doing justm, not doing anything that great. I didn't think, and I was like, well, how can I keep this up? I'm going to run out of stuff to talk about, but I've been able to just, I just keep going. I always come up with something.Michael Jamin:Right. What's the agreement you made with yourself? How many times a week do you post?Scott Reeder:I try to post at least four times a week.Michael Jamin:Okay.Scott Reeder:I can't knock. I wish I'm one of those I can't get. Early on, I was doing two a day, but it was justMichael Jamin:BurningScott Reeder:Me out, and I'm also trying to do stuff for YouTube and whatnot. So it's justMichael Jamin:Separate different content for YouTube?Scott Reeder:No, it's the same, but I'm trying to get, I'm filtering. I'm trying to work on some long form as well. But yeah, then YouTube. But like I said, I always feel like I get forced into other platforms. I found out in early 2021, there was a YouTube page. They had 90,000 subscribers. It was called the Prop Master. It was my profile picture and 40 of my videos.Michael Jamin:Oh, you're kidding. What'd you do?Scott Reeder:I went and I did copyright claim on every, I stayed up all night, copyright claiming every video. How did youMichael Jamin:Prove it?Scott Reeder:I sent links to my account because for that, they were just taking them off of TikTok, so I sent links to my TikTok. I sent direct links so they could easily see the date it's dated.Michael Jamin:I cut you off. Were you about to say you hired a lawyer?Scott Reeder:I hired a lawyer just in case, but luckily the person ceased and desist. They immediately pulled all the videos down, changed the name of the channel, how Find though Away did, what's that?Michael Jamin:I'm sorry, I cut you off. They walked away with what?Scott Reeder:They walked away with all the subscribers. There's no way to get those subscribers back, which really pissed me off.Michael Jamin:What was the name of the page though? Were they using your name?Scott Reeder:No, they weren't. It was just called the Prop Master, but it was my profile pictureMichael Jamin:Off ofScott Reeder:TikTok and it was all my videos. AndMichael Jamin:How did you find them? Discover them.Scott Reeder:You know something? There's another creator named Garden Marcus. He's a gardener on TikTok, and his manager reached out to me and said, Hey, this person has been made a fake account on YouTube. So they reached out to me to warn me. They said, it looks like this guy's doing your content too.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com and now back to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?This happens to me all the time, not on YouTube, but you must have 'em too. You have fake accounts with your profile picture. They spell your name wrong with one letter, and they're just trying to scam people. I guess. I'm not sure what the point is.Scott Reeder:I don't know. But yeah, I bet there's six or eight on TikTok. It happened to me again just about, I found out about it three weeks ago on Facebook. I never have had I've, like I said, I've always had my hands full with Instagram and TikTok and YouTube, and I always keep saying, well, I'm going to eventually branch out. I had made a Facebook, a Scott Prop roll Facebook page and posted some videos back in 2022. I didn't, but I didn't get any views, so I gave up on it and then I found out I looked and this, I just happened upon it. I just did a search to see if there were any fake accounts on Facebook, and sure enough, this person made a Facebook page, said, Scott Prop and Roll spelled exactly the same. They've got 69 now, now 70,000 followers. So I always take that as a challenge. I'm like, okay, well boom, I'm going to start posting my videos. And of course then you get a little let down because they don't get any views then. But it's the same thing as with YouTube. Same exact thing with the algorithm. It's like you post about 20 videos and you got nothing, and a few weeks later, things start kicking in.Michael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:So I've played massive catch up. I haven't quite caught up with the fake me, but I'm close to the fake Me is at 70,000. I just hit 60,000. But areMichael Jamin:You going to try to take down the fake account on Facebook?Scott Reeder:I did. I reported it, and they came back with, we can't take down fan pages, so I've just got to keep at it.Michael Jamin:But it's not a fan page though.Scott Reeder:No, it's not. It's definitely not. People don't realize how frustrating this is Michael. My mom was following the fake.Michael Jamin:True. Now, people don't realize the amount of work that goes into this. The night before, I've had to post five times a week the night before. I'm like, oh, crap. What am I going to talk about tomorrow? Do you get the same thing? How much thought goes into the night before?Scott Reeder:Well, I just have a list anytime I get an idea, because I'm real bad about not writing stuff down, but I've gotten a lot better, especially with doing content, is I just keep a running list and the night before I'll look at that list and if I haven't already fleshed it out already, and then I'llMichael Jamin:Come up with, the thing is, your content is very family friendly. What you do is very interesting. Like I said, it's like watching a magician, and yet I can't imagine why someone would troll you, and yet I'm certain people troll you because people are jerks or do they not?Scott Reeder:I've been really lucky it hasn't been that bad. Yeah, there've been the occasional, and typically it's like if someone gets mad at me about something, which I really don't give people much reason to be mad atMichael Jamin:Me.Scott Reeder:The first thing that they said is they call me old man, and it's like whatever's like, okay, now what? I'm an old man on TikTok that probably has more followers than you, is what I'm thinking in my head, but I never sayMichael Jamin:It. Right. So you don't respond in any way to these people?Scott Reeder:I do not. I do not. I watched way too many people respond. There are some accounts out there that are more kind of vlog and they eat that up that gives them content.Michael Jamin:It'sScott Reeder:Like if someone says something snarky to 'em, they jump on it and they'll make six different videos about a guy that talked bad to him. That's just not my style.Michael Jamin:Engage with, you must have super fans too. Do you engage with them?Scott Reeder:Yeah, I try to.Michael Jamin:Okay. Yeah. You like a little, so every comment or some comments, because it can be overwhelming. You have a huge following.Scott Reeder:Well, I will keep my eyeballs on the comments on a video for a few days, but yeah, you can't keep up with it.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Scott Reeder:Once it's been posted over a week.Michael Jamin:Okay, but youScott Reeder:Do try toMichael Jamin:Respond. See, that's something I'm troubled with is then I'm spending way too much time on the app. The problem is, and I appreciate all the kind comments, but I'm like, how much time am I going to spend on this thing?Scott Reeder:Now?Michael Jamin:Are you monetizing any of this?Scott Reeder:I've recently been trying with the TikTok beta. Have you done creativity beta?Michael Jamin:So what is that?Scott Reeder:That's been the best thing. It's the most profitable because TikTok, I was on the, since 2020 on the creator was the standard creator plan,Michael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:It's more like if you do a 61 second or more video, the payoff is almost like a YouTube long form. It's really good.Michael Jamin:So you are actually okay, because I haven't done it yet, and I thought they may actually decrease my reach if they have to pay you. I thought my mind is they might punish you.Scott Reeder:To be honest, my reach went up on the longer videos.Michael Jamin:How long do you usually go?Scott Reeder:What's that?Michael Jamin:When you say longer? Longer than what, like three minutes or four minutes? What do youScott Reeder:No, I do 61 seconds.Michael Jamin:That's long to you is 61 seconds.Scott Reeder:Well, yeah. I mean that's long to them. As you do over 60 seconds,Michael Jamin:It'sScott Reeder:A whole different payment structure. It ranges anywhere from 70 cents per thousand to a dollar, 16 per thousand views. Just that adds up.Michael Jamin:It adds up. Right. So you're not doing this for the money, but it's nice to get the money.Scott Reeder:Correct,Michael Jamin:Yeah.Scott Reeder:Especially during a strike.Michael Jamin:Yeah, for sure. Okay, so it's significant, but now, was there a moment though when you just wanted to stop or quit or?Scott Reeder:Well, there are times where I feel burnout, that's for sure.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Scott Reeder:But I've always just kept grinding.Michael Jamin:What have been some surprising advantages that have come from this that you would not have guessedScott Reeder:Michael? Number one, I want to say you've had the best questions out of any podcasts I've been on.Michael Jamin:Really?Scott Reeder:You really do. You reallyMichael Jamin:EnjoyScott Reeder:This? So really the coolest thing to come out of it is, okay, I hate to do this. I got to go back a little bit. I was worried when I first started doing these videos that other masters in Los Angeles would think, who does this guy think he is telling them how we do our job?Michael Jamin:Yes.Scott Reeder:So I was worried. So I was kind of waiting to see if there was going to be any backlash. Well, I got a call from a prop master named Peter Clark, and he said, Hey man, I just want to let you know I've been watching your videos and I'm learning from your videos, and I really want to tell you I appreciate what you're doing. I kept, thisMichael Jamin:Is a word respected prop master that you looked up to.Scott Reeder:Yes.Michael Jamin:Wow. Go on. Yeah, go on. I cut you off. So I'm sorry.Scott Reeder:I had so many questions, and then I got other calls stating the same thing. Then next thing, I was invited to be a founding member of the Property Master's Guild, which it's similar to, it's not a labor union, it's similar to the Art Director's Guild or the Set Decorators Association, something like that. But there had never been one. And I came in before we opened the doors to the Guild. Here I am a guy in Texas on a founding group of prop masters. And it was,Michael Jamin:Isn't that amazing?Scott Reeder:It was truly a pinnacle of my career, really being just the biggest honor is having other prop masters that I've been idolizing for years. I just went to in July. So because of the rider's strike, all the prop trucks were parked at Independent Studio services, which is the biggest prop house in la. And so I flew out for the, we were going to have a tailgate party, and every prop master, if you were a prop master and you were in la, you were at this party. And we had prop masters coming in from Canada all over the place. And it was the funnest event. It was just absolutely amazing. But I've got to meet the guy that prop mastered Patton was there, all these retired prop masters were there. The guy that was Dennis Parrish, who was also the founder of one of the big prop houses, bill Petrada, who did Starship Troopers. Well, movie's going way back. But yeah,Michael Jamin:You must've been a little bit of a celebrity there must. Everyone recognized you.Scott Reeder:It was a little weird, but I felt I was gotten used.Michael Jamin:Got used to that. And so you were worried at first of being judged. And then of course that's not, I mean, that's just a lesson in and of itself. Everyone's worried about being judged about being an imposter, and now that's not what happened. But to be fair, you were staying in your lane. This is what you know, and you're talking about what you know. And so it is kind of like this unfounded fear. You didn't need to be worried, but tell me about what happens to you because it's a little bit the same thing when I'm walking on strike at the picket line at the writer's strike, I get recognized. Where else else would I get recognized? If not on a picket line on the rider's strike, that's where I would. So it is a little what happens to you when people, but you have a huge following. You must get recognized outside of these circles as well. Maybe at the supermarket, whereverScott Reeder:I have, I haven't gotten used to it. I mean, it doesn't happen all the time, but occasionally.Michael Jamin:And then what's your way of handling this?Scott Reeder:Well, typically they just say, Hey, can I get a selfie? And I'll take a picture with them, and that's it. Thanks for watching my videos right'sMichael Jamin:Funny. It's really crazy. Yeah, it's a trip. Because yeah, you're in their lives every day. They see you every day, and you're somebody special to them, and you are. You're making them laugh in 61 second increments so that you can get your payout. Now, I know when I watch your videos that I will never see one that's 59 seconds becauseScott Reeder:You're true. Not anymore.Michael Jamin:You'll stretch that to 61 to get your payday.Scott Reeder:I will. I went back and I posted an old video that I'd done that I thought, I bet there's probably a lot of my followers that haven't seen it. And it was 59, it was 59 seconds. I went back and I always do my head turn. Now I always do my head turn at the end. I'll say my stupid joke, and then I'll ponder it. So I just slow mode my head turn.Michael Jamin:How much time will you spend on a post? I have a rule that How much time will you spend on a post producing a post?Scott Reeder:I don't time it. And they're all different because some of them, I'm doing commentary because I've done well, kind of dueting videos that I find on Instagram, typically other filmmaking videos, because I branched out a little bit to where if I see that there's no one's doing videos, discussing a poor man's process show, they'll show it, but they won't tell the audience what's going on. So they're limiting their audience, right? Like, oh, well, this is strictly for filmmakers,Michael Jamin:ButScott Reeder:When I started, I'm like, well, what they're doing here is this and this. So the prop man is over here shaking the car, and then the gaffer is spinning a light. And I just say, what all is happening in this shot?Michael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:Those videos have done well.Michael Jamin:Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure.Scott Reeder:Same with stunt people. You know what I've had to worry with though, is the dangerous content violation. Because even if you're showing a clipMichael Jamin:OfScott Reeder:A stunt from a, it could be die hard. It actually happened to me on Die HardMichael Jamin:WhenScott Reeder:I was talking about rubber glass, that that's what they walk on. And it got a sensitive content page slapped on top of it, which totally, it just pulls you off the FYP. It's just like you might as well not have even posted it.Michael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:So I've got to be real careful about, because even in their community guidelines, they have added in there, even fictional violence. Interesting. So if it's a movie clip, yeah.Michael Jamin:See, the problem with what I have to do to go viral, I have to piss people off, which I'm not comfortable doing. You have see something controversial, but you don't really have to worry about, I think you just go viral when something's truly interesting that blows people away. The secrets that you reveal. Well,Scott Reeder:Like I said, I'm doing that because I did a joke, it was mainly a dad joke, but I incorporated, it was about a rubber cinder block where I show that the cinder block is rubber. And I said, we use these to keep the actors from getting hurt. And I threw it at my assistant and it hits him in the head,Michael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:Then the camera goes to me. I'm just doing it all like this with my hand. And then off camera, he just nails me with it. At the end, after I tell the horrible punchline to the joke, he nails me with it. And I put in this, I folded in, which I like. I love doing, I'm an amateur Foley guy. I love taking the props that I have and trying to make sounds to him. Just loony tune stuff over the top. ButMichael Jamin:In the app, it's actually hard to do that in the app. You're talking about editing sounds in the app? No.Scott Reeder:Yeah. I rarely edit in the app.Michael Jamin:Where do you edit? What do you use?Scott Reeder:I just use in shop. It's an app that I found that way. I'm not dealing with watermarks, and I'll just kind,Michael Jamin:It's called in shop.Scott Reeder:Yeah, I-N-S-H-O-T in shop.Michael Jamin:I'll write this down.Scott Reeder:And I think I pay maybe 99 bucks a year, but it's been worth it. Every penny and its tools are easier for me anyway. So to do, because when you do a vocal, well, it says voiceover, but you record your sound, you can move it around a lot easier.Michael Jamin:Yeah, because a real, and then you add, when you upload it to TikTok, then you add the big captions. Is that how you or you add Well,Scott Reeder:Sometimes off the, I'll put 'em in. The ones in InShot kind of match the ones TikTok has.Michael Jamin:Maybe not,Scott Reeder:But it's worth giving it a shot. How funny. But that's just what I've been comfortable with.Michael Jamin:Interesting. And you don't use because there's cap cup, you, you don't like that?Scott Reeder:I haven't.Michael Jamin:You haven't tried it?Scott Reeder:I haven't really tried it that much.Michael Jamin:See, I'm interested in whatever's the easiest. That's why I've been using shooting and TikTok and then uploading the Instagram only. It's just laziness. It's just like the less I can do, the better. But maybe your way might be better. Might be easier. I might have to look into this.Scott Reeder:It's worth trying. It's a pretty easy to navigate. That's why I did it was because it was easier. It was easier to navigate, I thought, than TikTok. But yeah, I just haven't gotten into cap cut.Michael Jamin:Right. Oh, interesting. So I'm learning something today. And so has this helped you professionally? I mean, it's nice to be recognized by your peers, but is it getting you work?Scott Reeder:Not really, because I've kind of been on the same gig. It's like when the strike's over, I've got a series. I've got a season four ofThe show that I was working on. And so yeah, I mean, it's been, the coolest thing is showing people, and it's really a lot of kids out there. My audience is 18 to 34, probably similar to your audience. I think we probably have a lot of the same age range. It's people learning, oh wow, I didn't know that profession existed. And ooh, this is a possibility for me. Showing them that it's out there and everyone wants to know, well, how do I get in the business? And I know you get that question probably 10 times more than I get it. And you just got to be tenacious and proactive. And if there are no films shooting where you live and you want to be on a film crew, you move to somewhere that makes movies and TV shows. And it doesn't have to be just LA anymore. It could be Atlanta, it could be la Atlanta, Vancouver, North Carolina, new Orleans or New Mexico has a pretty good, you could make a living.Michael Jamin:Now we talked about a little bit about imposter syndrome, but was there a moment, even when, for me, in the beginning it was like, who am I? Isn't this AP just for teenage girls who might evenScott Reeder:Be talking,Michael Jamin:Who cares about me? How did you feel that way? And are you over that?Scott Reeder:Yeah, I think I'm kind of over it. You get to where it really thickens your skin a bit. You get to where, because some people are, like you said, there are those trolls that it doesn't matter who you are, they're going to go after. I did have one scary situation where have you dealt with any kind of stalker situations?Michael Jamin:No. And I hope I never do. What was your story? WhatScott Reeder:Would you do? Well, I'm trying to be vague about it, but there was a guy got ahold of my cell phone number and was just blowing it up and then texting, leaving long messages, and I didn't call back because he didn't sound something wasn't right. And these text messages that I got worried me and I went so far as to go into, luckily with the show I was working on, I was friends with the HR lady and said, Hey, what do you, I was like, Hey, I know you've got to deal with that. Some of the actorsMichael Jamin:HaveScott Reeder:This happen. What do you do?Michael Jamin:What'd she tell you?Scott Reeder:And I just really, it was almost like dealing with a troll in the sense that it got to the point where there were profane messages left because of my not responding.Michael Jamin:Yes.Scott Reeder:But eventually it ended, eventually it ended. It went on for a year, a year and a half.Michael Jamin:Oh my. But you didn't take any, first of all, why didn't you block them?Scott Reeder:I did. And they called back from a different number every time. Every time they called, it was a different number.Michael Jamin:And eventually they just got bored. You're saying?Scott Reeder:I'm hoping.Michael Jamin:Yeah, just a nightmare.Scott Reeder:It really was. It was. I mean, we're talking calls at 11:00 AM 11:00 PM 2:00 AMMichael Jamin:What does your family think about all this?Scott Reeder:Well, that kind of stuff. I tried to not really worry them too much that it was happening. I mean, my wife, I told, but no, the family's great. They, they're loving it.Michael Jamin:They get kick it. Your kids are not embarrassed that dad's doing this. I think it's cool. They thinkScott Reeder:It's cool. No, my son eats it up. He is 12, almost 13. And this is kind of a funny, I accidentally made him a meme. I'll tell you what, three years ago, I didn't know what the word mean meant. So that's how backward I'm, so I did a video again with the rubber cinder block saying I was making a joke that when you're a prop master, you can't p prank your kids anymore because they're desensitized to any impending doom. And so I said, Hey, Watson, my son's going by on a scooter, and it was all staged.Michael Jamin:And IScott Reeder:Had him go by on the scooter. I say, Hey, Watson, cinder block. And I throw the cinder block and he doesn't even flinch. He just keeps moving. It bounces off of him. Right? Well, a year later, someone and the video did okay. It was pretty well received, but I wouldn't say super viral or anything, but someone took that three second snippet of me saying, Hey, Watson cinder block. And they froze it right before the cinder block hits it and it blew up. I mean, right now, if you were to type in, Hey, Watson, it'll probably finish your sentence and say Cinder block, and you'll see hundreds of videos. And then people did like fan videos. I bet there are 15 different animations of it. And there's a game in Roblox called Item Asylum. And one of the most deadly weapons in item asylum is the cinder block.Michael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:When you throw it, it's my voice saying, Hey, Watson, cinder block. Never got a penny for it. But I think it's funny. That's a trip. My son was very proud.Michael Jamin:Oh, that'sScott Reeder:A trick. Yeah. And then every YouTuber, I'm talking, the top YouTubers were like Wilbur Soot and Jimmy here. And a lot of these big gamer YouTubers were, there was the trend where they were doing the, you laugh, you lose videos. And that meme was in every, you laugh, you lose videoMichael Jamin:OutScott Reeder:There.Michael Jamin:Now you mentioned that you've done a lot of, I guess, podcast interviews. Who's reaching out to you to try to have you on their, and why? What's that about?Scott Reeder:Well, I've done, a lot of times it's other talkers starting podcasts. I did film festival. I did a film festival podcast last week. Prop, the Prop Masters Guild has a podcast. I did that one, but I did, Erin, what's her name? Erin McGough is her name. And she's a documentary filmmaker.Michael Jamin:IScott Reeder:Can't remember the name of her podcast, but she's got one. I don't know. I've done quite a few now. I'm trying to remember 'em all. There have been just general podcasters out there that are just kind of general all purpose. They just go on topical things. I will say this, you know what I avoided was when rust happened, I got a ton of costs.Michael Jamin:I betScott Reeder:I got a ton of costs. And I kind of talked it over with my friend who's a line producer and was like, man, I don't know if I feel comfortable taking these calls. A prop master, not an armor. However, we are the ones a lot of times that hire the armors. And I was like, so basically I turned down every interview because I didn't really want to get defined by that.Michael Jamin:You didn't want to wait, I would think. Okay, so you didn't want to wade into the controversy and you didn't want to, what else? I mean, obviously it was a tragedy.Scott Reeder:Yes. I just didn't want to capitalize on it.Michael Jamin:You didn't want to capitalize on it. Right. That's what it was.Scott Reeder:Plus tie yourself to that. So if you're on CN and every major network talking about it, then you got to get connected to that. And I really didn't want to be connected to it in any way. I did one, I did a TikTok, like a three minute one talking about a couple days after it, because so many of my followers were like, come on, Scott, you got to weigh in. So I weighed in on my TikTok and YouTube and just said, well, look, I waited until the sheriff's department had put out a statement to where we kind knew what they say the events were, because the first couple days they kind of kept it hush hush. And so I read the sheriff's statement and then based what I said on that was what the protocols were, these are what the protocols that we use, and they worked. They're good protocols. That's how we've kept people safe for many years. But they breached every protocol. They broke every ruleMichael Jamin:In the book, myScott Reeder:Personal opinion. And I just said, these are the protocols that we use and this is how they performed their duties. And this is, of course, resulting in,Michael Jamin:Never worked on a show, worked on a show. As far as I know, I've never worked on a show with weapons, with blanks. But we did do a show where we had a dummy gun. It was a rubber gun. And I remember having to talk with the ad saying, no, let's do a safety meeting. I want to make sure people know it's a fake gun and still treat it as if it's a real gun. But I don't want anybody being scared. Let's just talk about it Anyway, I don't know. I'm overly nervousScott Reeder:For sure. We always try to do safety meetings on that, even if we're using an airsoftMichael Jamin:OrScott Reeder:A rubber gun. But I've worked with, that's the whole thing, conventional blade fire. If you're working on a lot of action films, I've been around it for the last 30 years. I don't personally like to armor, to be an armor. I prefer prop master, and I'll always bring an armor on. So no, so I'm not losing focus,Michael Jamin:But it's certainly a different license. You have to have to be an armorerScott Reeder:In LA there,Michael Jamin:ButScott Reeder:There aren't a ton outside of la. It's just, it varies state to state.Michael Jamin:Right. And I canScott Reeder:See, so producers really have to do their due diligence and making sure that they really check the resume and do reference checks on the person they're going to hire. That's so important with that position.Michael Jamin:Well, for sure. But as with the stunt board, anybody like that, anyone where someone can get hurt for sure. And so I can see you actually not wanting to be, I guess, the face of that controversy. Is that what it was?Scott Reeder:Oh, yeah.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Scott Reeder:And I knew that there were other people that could weigh in a lot, be more informative than I could because I'm not a, not an armor room. And there are other people better suited for that. To me, there are several prop houses out of Los Angeles that have wonderful weapons departments. And if you think about it, I think I got it from New York Times. I think the number's this since 1990, I think it's 43 deaths have occurred on film sets in the us. And this isn't because there are a lot of other ones, but if you go worldwide, but the two of them were, well, Brandon Lee was one,Michael Jamin:Helina,Scott Reeder:Hutchins was other. Those are the only two firearms related, I mean, film sets are dangerous, especially if you're on an action show where there's a lot of vehicles. Most of those deaths were equipment related or from falls, people falling off of rigging motorcycle car, but not always stunt men. A lot of them were camera operatorsMichael Jamin:ThatScott Reeder:Got killed because they're mounted on those insert vehicles too. The camera department, they put themselves out there and put themselves in dangerous situations just as much as the stunt guys on occasion. So I have a lot of respect for all of 'em. But because it's firearms and it was a star that it's just, it really put us all prop and armor are folks under the magnifyingMichael Jamin:Lens. Yeah, right. That's interesting.Scott Reeder:So you just hope that it promotes positive change. If something's going to come out of it, that's what it'll be. It's just people more aware and because of that, hopefully it kept the worst accident from happening that would've happened. Right?Michael Jamin:Yeah. People also don't realize, because listen, I'm not on set a lot. I'm usually in the office writing, but when I'm on set, I'm like, oh my God, the crew, they work so hard. They work so hard for so long. And then at the end of the day, if you don't go over, let's say, sometimes you go over and then if you're out in the middle of the nowhere, you have to drive home or wherever you're driving to. And then you go home and you unwind, try to unwind for a second, fall asleep as fast as you can because you got to go back to work the next day. It's exhausting. It's a hard, it's not an easy life. The crew works hard.Scott Reeder:No, but that's where segue into Union standard policies before it was nine hour turnaround, which means from the time they call wrap or no, I think it's from the time that you shut your truck, when you actually physically leave, when you physically leave the base camp or theMichael Jamin:Set,Scott Reeder:And then you're supposed to get nine hours, nine hours isn't much nothing. Especially if you've got a 45 minute or anMichael Jamin:HourScott Reeder:Drive home.Michael Jamin:Right.Scott Reeder:So now I believe it's, I think it's pretty much a 10 hour turnaround across the board.Michael Jamin:But even that, it's like, but people don't understand. So you race home after your exhausted day and then whatever, brush your teeth or whatever, and you hope to fall asleep as fast as you can because you don't have enough. You can't waste time. And you don't know. It could be happening. Your day could end at three in the morning. You don't know what your day ends. You could have, it's true. It mean splits.Scott Reeder:What's rough is working on Robert Rodriguez stuff, troublemakers here in Austin, their studio, and I worked on a show called Planet Terror,Michael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:This was before Machete, but that movie was a hundred percent night shoot.Michael Jamin:I meanScott Reeder:Every bit of it to where I might've turned thatMichael Jamin:Down.Scott Reeder:Three months of working from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM and a lot of those locations being remote, an hour plus drive.Michael Jamin:And you knew that going in though, and you still wanted to do it.Scott Reeder:Yeah, I'm older and wiser now. Michael,Michael Jamin:You might not have done it now, right? I'm not sure I'd want to take on it. It's a hard job working, being, yeah, the graveyards too.Scott Reeder:And the horror movies. Horror movies are tough.Michael Jamin:That's a good pointScott Reeder:On prop people, because typically they're very proppy. There's going to be a lot of weapons,Michael Jamin:Lot of, and it's going to be dark,Scott Reeder:And it's going to be dark,Michael Jamin:WhichScott Reeder:Is a lot harder to move around and get. It's easier to hide from camera, but that's about it.Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's about it. Wow. Scott, this is such an interesting conversation. I want to thank you so much for joining me today. I learned a lot. I want to tell everybody where they can follow you. So all your social media handles the same. Scott prop andScott Reeder:Roll, Scott prop and roll. Yeah, that's TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.Michael Jamin:Facebook and YouTube. But you said YouTube. Did you say YouTube and YouTube.Scott Reeder:Oh yeah.Michael Jamin:Okay. Go follow. It's such an interesting behind the scenes peak at, I don't know about the magic that goes and all the practical, which is so interesting. The practical, not the in-camera special effects, but the practical props and stuff. Wonderful. You have such an engaging channel, and thank you so much for putting it all out there. You're a great watch on TikTok and Instagram, so thank you again, Scott. What a pleasureScott Reeder:Having you. Well, I enjoy following you. I enjoy everything you do as well.Michael Jamin:Thank you, man. What a pleasure. Nice talking to you. All right, buddy. Thanks so much.So now we all know what the hell Michael Jamin is talking about. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for my free monthly webinars @michaeljamin.com/webinar. And if you found this podcast helpful or entertaining, please share it with a friend and consider leaving us a five star review on iTunes that really, really helps. For more of this, whatever the hell this is, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. And you can follow Phil Hudson on social media @ PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane and music was composed by Anthony Rizzo. And remember, you can have excuses or you can have a creative life, but you can't have both. See you next week.

I'll tell you I'm talking about. When I first started sharing my professional journey, I focused on people who were interested in screenwriting. But over the years, my audience has expanded to include all sorts of creative types: actors, artists, novelists, playwrights, performers, and more. With that said, I'm rebranding my podcast. I'll still talk about screenwriting, but I'll interview a wider variety of people living their own creative lives. I hope they'll inspire you to do the same.Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:But also it's like when you put energy into something legit energy, not like thinking or dreaming, but when you actually do the work, thingsPhil Hudson:Have a way ofMichael Jamin:Manifesting like, oh, there's opportunities have a way of appearing becausePhil Hudson:You've put work into it.Michael Jamin:Like these variousPhil Hudson:Press opportunitiesMichael Jamin:That I've done and other things that have sprung out because of that. That's just from doing the energyPhil Hudson:Of posting on social mediaMichael Jamin:And just sharing as much knowledge as I can.Phil Hudson:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talkingMichael Jamin:About?Phil Hudson:I'll tell you what I'm talkingMichael Jamin:About. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking aboutPhil Hudson:Writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourselfMichael Jamin:Through the arts. Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin and I'm new. I'm all new right now because I've done a rebrand on the podcast. It was called, obviously Screenwriters Need to Hear this. And then Phil and I were talking and we kind of wanted to open up the conversations a little bit so it's not just about screenwriting and so it's more about, I was really getting to talking about people doing all sorts of creative things. I just think it's inspiring. We'll still talk about screenwriting of course, but I wanted to open up the conversation to more people who are doing things that hopefully inspire all of us to just live more creative lives. And Phil don't get upset. Phil is still here, still is not going away. He's very much involved in all this, but the title of course of the new show is What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? And will be answering that question. What the hell am I talking about? Go ahead.Phil Hudson:I think the focus in our conversations were really about creativity because you're a bit more than just a screener. When we started this, it was with a specific purpose. We should also point out this is episode 1 0 4, which is two years of doing podcast,Michael Jamin:So it wasPhil Hudson:A good time to take a step back. Reassess. Things have shifted a lot in the industry. Things have shifted a lot for you personally. What you've done over the last few years is pretty phenomenal in terms of growing a following, becoming a bit of a celebrity, becoming a bit of an expert in a lot of news, which we'll talk about. So yeah, it's just a shift to I think, speaking a little bit more to who Michael Jamin is beyond just being a writer and a showrunner, but being a true creative.Michael Jamin:And I should mention, so Phil speaks with authority because he runs a digital marketing agency called Rook, SS e o. So this is, he knows what he's talking, he knows the space Well, but without further ado, I guess this episode we were just going to talk a little bit more about how far the changes we've made, what we've seen in the past two years and hopefully maybe what we're moving towards.Phil Hudson:Yeah, I thought it would be fitting, Michael, just to kind of talk about some statistics around what the success of the podcast, the success of your work as doing your own personal marketing. And I want to remind everybody that the whole point of this was so that you could market your book. So you're taking and eating your own advice, and I think it's very important for people to know, if I think of Michael Jainism, what are some of the things, your catchphrases and the things you say? Some of those are don't wait, put it out there. Put yourself out there. Right.Michael Jamin:Stop asking for permission is what I say.Phil Hudson:Stop asking for permission.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Phil Hudson:There are a bunch of those that could be really good slogans for hats, whichMichael Jamin:YouPhil Hudson:ShouldMichael Jamin:Consider. A lot of this really, and I guess maybe it's fitting that just that I am the first interview of what the new brand is because a lot of this is about reinventing yourself. This whole journey that I've been is about reinventing myself. I was a sitcom writer. That's what I was until I started going online and making a podcast and posting every day and now I'm something else.Phil Hudson:Yeah, it's definitely morphed. So let's talk a bit about that. Right. So we're 104 episodes into the podcast. That's big. I think the statistic I saw a week ago is that the average podcast has six episodes, which meansMichael Jamin:Most people It's a lot of work. Yeah,Phil Hudson:It is. It's a lot of money too. I don't think people recognize that you're investing in editors, you'veMichael Jamin:GotPhil Hudson:People doing graphic design. There's a lot of it. There's the hosting of the site. I mean, every time you do a webinar, a site crashes and I have to freak outMichael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Run in and make sure we're back up. And yeah, it's a whole thing. So there's a lot that goes into this, but it's 104 episodes on lots of different topics, all centered around creativity, largely around Hollywood and screenwriting. But I personally, as I've gone through and produced and helped edit some of the episodes, it's very clear to me that you get a lot of joy from having these creative conversations.Michael Jamin:Yeah. That's what interests me the most. Yeah, andPhil Hudson:It's not so much about like, Hey, you're a screenwriter. It's like, hey, you are a creative personMichael Jamin:Who'sPhil Hudson:Putting themselves out there and trying to make something happen,Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Your audience speaks to this as well. So in the digital marketing space, when we think about this, we think about an avatar and an avatar or a persona. It's your ideal customer. It's the person you're going after. And anytime you're doing marketing, it's a mistake. Or if it's folly, to not do that, you want to understand who you're targeting. And it was very clear two years ago, well, I'm a writer, I'm a TV writer. Let's talk about what I know, which is screenwriting to people who are screenwriters. And I pointed out you should do that because there's a lot of BSS out there.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:What is your take on that two years into this? What is your take on BSS advice and advice in general? Maybe through the lens of the questions you get asked,Michael Jamin:What is my take on it? I feel like you're prompting me to say something. What are you getting at Fell? I don'tPhil Hudson:Know. I'm not trying to lead the witness. I just want to know what is your take on the marketplace for screenwriters having been immersed on the public, but then you're getting all these questions from people. You did a bunch of live q and as for a year, just talking to people and your following, and there's a series of 10 or 15 questions everybody's asking,Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:It's all pointed towards sell your stuff. You know what those are. So I'm just wondering for you as a showrunner who kind of stepped into the world of what's being taught by the gurus andMichael Jamin:By thePhil Hudson:Experts, what are you seeing in the marketplace for screenwriters?Michael Jamin:One thing I said during the last webinar we did, we do free webinar every three weeks, and I said something that I think a lot of people were astounded by. I said, screenwriting is simple. It's not easy, but it's simple. And I think a lot of people are trying to sell you the complicated version so that you buy more from I'm the only one who can explain it to you and therefore you need me. And I don't know in the writer's room, that's just not how we approach writing simple. I also think there's a lot of bad advice out there, I think. So just be careful. Be careful who you're taking advice from. I don't know, it's a little heartbreaking. Someone posted today, actually, I did a post and someone left a comment saying, everything this guy says me is true because he did coverage in a coverage service. HePhil Hudson:Goes, yeah,Michael Jamin:People use pay me for coverage. I didn't know anything and I'm telling people what to do. This is a gig this guy picked up. It didn't seem like a lot of people I know, not a lot of people, but I've heard stories of people who've done coverage for a temp job for a month or two and then left because they left feeling a little bit gross about themselves. Why are you paying me? I don't know what I'm talking about. And so they left.Phil Hudson:Okay, so this is the world that, so I guess I might've been leading the witness a little bit because my point is, this is the world I understood because prior to meeting you and having the stars align, and we met years ago, and without me knowing who you are, and everybody knows the story by now of how we know each other and became friends, I was very much in that world and I was looking around trying to find that type of feedback and information, and you really shined the light on this for me. That man, there's a lot of people out here pretending like they know what they're talking about.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:I think you've done a valuable service in these first 100 and 304 episodes of peeling back the curtain, explaining how the process works, educating people. So I just wanted to reiterate, there's a lot of value in what you've done, and that doesn't mean that you're not going to continue to provide value to your listeners who are screenwriters. I think you're just shifting into really none of it all, which is be a creative and do creative things because there's value in the act, not because you're trying to sell a pilot.Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. I said something else that people kind of resonated with. Maybe it's worth repeating, and I'll probably say again in my webinars, I say do more of them, but I interviewed, I directed Brian Cranston many years ago on a show called Glen Martin. He was a guest star. It was an animated show, and I directed, it was silly. He played a fun role and was then afterwards I thanked him. We paid him probably 800 bucks. He wasn't doing it for the money. And I thanked him that was scale. And he said, oh, no, no, thank you. And I'm like, thank me. Whatcha talking about you're Brian Cranson. At the time he was doing breaking bed, and he said, it's just nice to have a pallet cleanser. As great as Breaking Bad was in probably my favorite show of all time.It was so dark that he was living with these negative emotions, anger, fear, jealousy, rage, all that stuff to be in the character. And when you are in that, your mind doesn't know a difference When you're playing this character 12, 14 hours a day in film and you're acting angry and vengeful and all that, whatever those emotions he had to play, your brain doesn't know the difference that whole day. You've been angry and vengeful, and then when you go home, how do you get it out of you? I mean, how do you just experienced all that all day? And it just really made me think about what it's like to be an actor to actually live in that. So he was thanking me because the script that we did was so light and fun. He was like, oh, it's like a, it was fun. It was fun.Palette, cleanser, which he needed. And then it just got me thinking a lot about just creativity as a whole. And then when people write, when they write their scripts, novels, whatever it is, regardless of whether you sell it or not, you are enjoying that burst of creativity and you're playing out all the characters in your head and your mind doesn't know the difference between you pretending to jump out of a plane and you writing about jumping out of a plane. You're trying to get it all on paper. You're really trying to live it in your heart. And so that I feel Carries with you when you write, regardless of whether you sell it something is a bonus, great, you got money for it. But if you don't sell it, you still get that. You still get that rush, that bonus. And so there's no reason not to write, don't think of it as the pot of gold is in the journey. It's not at the end of the rainbow.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Let's talk about some of the statistics of the podcast, and I love that. I want to circle back on that topic of the journey, the joys in the journey, not the destination, which I'm sure I'm slaughtering that saying just some things, right? So 104 episodes of the podcast, over 200,000 downloads of the podcast, people from I don't know how many continents, but just basing it off of the last webinar we did this last Saturday. I counted probably 13 countries on about four continents, right? That's a trip. Italy, you've got Europe, you've got people in Asia, Australia, south America, you got Central America, you've got America, you'veMichael Jamin:GotPhil Hudson:Canada. I mean, you've got people, it's a global reach at this point, and you're kind of that figurehead to put that out.Michael Jamin:There's so strange.Phil Hudson:Yeah. So hundreds of thousands of downloads on the podcast, which is incredible and that may not seem like a lot, but for the industry and for your niche,Michael Jamin:ThisPhil Hudson:Is really good. These are great numbers for that. We've pulled some stats, and you might know this a little bit better. At one point you were in the top three podcasts on screenwriting, is that right?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I was bouncing around andPhil Hudson:We fluctuated between 5, 6, 7, 10. Anybody who wants to help support go leave a review, a written review on iTunes, that does help a ton. But yeah, so major reach, major opportunity. When you started this, I wanted to ask, do you remember how many Instagram followers you had when we sat down in your garage and I talked about here's what you need to do to be able to grow your following and do this. DoMichael Jamin:You remember how many? I don't remember.Phil Hudson:No, because it wasn't something you're paying attention to. I didn't know. But how many Instagram followers do you have now? It was less, would you say less than a thousand? Probably.Michael Jamin:Probably close to 160,000 now, I think. Yeah,Phil Hudson:Yeah, 160,000.Michael Jamin:HowPhil Hudson:Many days have you missed posting on socialMichael Jamin:Media? Since we started this two yearsPhil Hudson:Ago,Michael Jamin:I promised myself that I was going to post every day. So I post, I would say on average six days a week. So sometimes I take a day off.Phil Hudson:So for anybody looking to grow a following, again, Michael's telling you to do this. He's telling you to bring something to the table and you did this and it's brutal. It's not like a 32nd recording.Michael Jamin:IPhil Hudson:Mean, you communicated to me at one point you're spending 20, 30 minutes on this every single day to get one video out because you're doing multiple takesMichael Jamin:And you'rePhil Hudson:Trying to condense it. You're thinking about it outside of that 30 minutes. You're then doing the technical, and I don't post this for you, you do this, you post it, right? Because you want it to feel authentic. So there's work involved. But again, you're eating your own medicine,Michael Jamin:You'rePhil Hudson:Doing what you tell people to do. You're putting yourself out there in two years down the road, you basically nothing to 160,000 followers onMichael Jamin:Instagram. TikTok,Phil Hudson:Let's hear it.Michael Jamin:Well, TikTok is, I think it's something like 444,000. But that's the thing. It's like I made a promise for myself. It wasn't too ambitious. I didn't say I was going to post five times a day. I was like once a day,Phil Hudson:And I think I was advocating for two to four, which is what the experts would tell you to do. And you said, that's not sustainable for me.Michael Jamin:No way.Phil Hudson:Especially for someone who doesn't want to be in the limelight, which is you very much were like, I don't want to be this person. I'm happy being a writer, but you have this project you want, which is your bookMichael Jamin:You want. I also think it waters down a little bit the message if you're constantly, I'd rather do quality than quantity. But yeah, all of it. I want to say Phil, everything that I, all the advice that I give people about becoming a screenwriter or whatever, becoming whatever it is you want to be a creator is either advice that I have done or I am currently doing.Phil Hudson:So there's no hypocrisy here, which is a really key thing, really key takeaway that people can learn from you beyond the followers. Let's talk about that's led to definitely, and we saw this happening beforehand. You'd post a video about why aren't there cats and TV shows? And Yahoo would pick it up, and then all of the riders on Tacoma FD would just give you crap for it. You popped up on their Yahoo page. But beyond that, and with your status and the work you put in, all of a sudden you become a trustworthy expert in your field because you have a following and you're noticed. It's not that your knowledge are on the subject or your capacity as a writer has changed.Michael Jamin:You'rePhil Hudson:The same capable person and now all of a sudden there's a lot of interest in writing and Hollywood, and you're the guy to go to because you have a following and you're known, right? So this is this secondary effect of I want to get my work out there, so I need followers so that I can have an audience to engage with and potentially prove to people that there's a demand for what I have to put out. And that turned into being covered on Deadline. The Hollywood Reporter, the New York Times variety, and you're in deadline like 17 times, by the way.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Phil Hudson:Right.Michael Jamin:You'rePhil Hudson:In some local newspapers, Newburyport News, you were with the A R PMichael Jamin:CPhil Hudson:Tv. Yeah, the seasoned writers of the world, Portland TV had you on for three segments on one of their shows.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:I think that started a little bit before Good Day Sacramento, multiple times in Yahoo N, our c nl, which is New Zealand, is that right? Nls New Zealand, I think. Yeah. Or the Netherlands. Yeah, Scripps News, the Guardian Newsweek, the Washington Posts News Junkie, right. Newsweek a couple times. And this last weekend you were on C N N.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's nuts. They just reach out to me, I'm like, sure, I'll do it. Would not have predicted any of this was going to happen two years ago. No.Phil Hudson:So you're not doing this for the fame, you're not doing any of this because you feel like you're going to get something out of it from your writing career. You're doing it because your publisher says, Hey, we don't care how many emails you have on your wife's business list or anything like that, or how many people are interested in your writing?Michael Jamin:WhichPhil Hudson:By the way, prior to even four years ago, 10,000 emails was enough to get a book deal. And now, I mean, I've seen that number of times from people now, it's like, yeah, you need followers putting you on the spot here. So I apologize, but I recall you telling me that you had specific feedback from some of these agents, like, man, Michael Jamin can write, I want to be his friend. Do you remember some of that? Do you want to talk a little bit about what some of those rejection letters were? Oh,Michael Jamin:Yeah. I don't know if I have in front of me, but basically it was, oh, actually I do. ThisPhil Hudson:Is not planned, by the way. Michael didn't know I was going to bring any of this up. The whole premise here is I was going to interview Michael and talk about this stuff.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I got letters from when I was first putting my book out there from publishers. Oh, we love this book. The guy doesn't have a following. They wrote to my agent, do you have anybody who writes like this? Who does have a following? I mean, it was that crazy. They said, platform drives acquisition. I said, what does that mean? You need to have a following. I said, well, what about the strength of the writing? Everyone loved the writing. What about the strength of the writing? Oh, no, no, no. It's about what can we sell? I was like, damn. And that really was a stab in the heart,Phil Hudson:And I think for the average creative branching out with just writers, but the average creative one, rejection, litter, and it's like, well, I guess that's not in it. I guess mom was right. I guess dad was right. I guess Billy's dad was, right. It's hard to be a writer. I should give up. And you hear about these people who submit over and over and over again until they finally break through.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:You took that and said, I don't want to do this thing. I don't want to be a public figure, but I have this creative work that I know people need to read. And it's a personal work that you did on your own. No one paid you to do it. You wrote forMichael Jamin:Free.Phil Hudson:And then IMichael Jamin:Remember, which turn, go ahead. Go ahead.Phil Hudson:I was going to say, then I remember I get a text from you and you're like, Phil, any chance you can come over, I want to talk to you about some marketing stuff. I come over, come to your garage. I break your chair. Let's see thatMichael Jamin:It had already broken. It's already broken, but okay,Phil Hudson:Had to replace a chair. And he asked me, what do I need to do? And I just laid out everything I knew, and then we started putting the wheels into motion. That was roughly 25 months ago,Michael Jamin:CouplePhil Hudson:Months ago.Michael Jamin:And it's one of those things like, I didn't want to do it so tough. How badly do you want it? How badly do you want it? And there can be a downside to having whatever you want to call this level of fame. It's internet famous, not famous, but you are putting yourself out there for haters, for trolls, for wackos, all sorts of weirdos. I mean, you wouldn't believe how, I mean, do I have to tell you? There are people on the internet are crazy. So there was that, but I was like, well, this is what it takes now. So it actually made me matter. When the publishers told me this, I was furious. How dare you tell me what I can't do? You don't get to tell me what I can't do. Only I get to do that. And so that just lit a fire under my ass. And then when IPhil Hudson:Read this book,Michael Jamin:Oh my God, it actually changed me. It's kind of a weird,Phil Hudson:I don't really want to plug the bookMichael Jamin:Very, you can tellPhil Hudson:Me I'mMichael Jamin:InterestedPhil Hudson:In this, but you can tell me. I'llMichael Jamin:Tell you. It was a very new agey book. And so a lot of the advice was, some of the advice I thought was really good, and some of it was like, I don't know. I think you, you're going out on a limb with this one. But it was one of those things, you take what you want and you leave the rest. And what convinced me was this one passage where he said, you've already gotten what you wanted. It just hasn't happened yet. And I was like, that's it. That's it. I already have it. It just hasn't happened yet. And then I was like, alright, what do I need to do to make it happen?Phil Hudson:That's it. Yeah. You remember you reading me that exact quote several times throughout this whole process? Yeah. IMichael Jamin:Love that quote. I always tell people on my podcast, whatever here, or I say it on the webinar, I was like, this is what you need to do. If you're willing to do it, then you need a skill. We don't know your level of skill and then you need a little bit of luck, of course. But here's what you can do to increase your odds. Are you willing to do it? And most people aren't so fine.Phil Hudson:Well, that's my point about the podcast, right? The average podcast is six episodes,Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:It's because the consistency, the lack of immediate gratification, the, oh, I only got three people to listen to my sixth episode and I put a thousand dollars to get four episodesMichael Jamin:Made, orPhil Hudson:Whatever it is, that's enough to turn people off. But this is kind of your whole point is, okay, move on. And there's nothing wrong with learning that you're not fit for something. There's something wrong with, there's nothing wrong with saying, Hey, I understand that something I want to do. Maybe doing it the Hollywood way is not the right way for me.Michael Jamin:SoPhil Hudson:Instead, I'm going to go back to just doing it on my own and I'm going to make short films and I'm going to support my local film community. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with recognizing, Hey, I've got family obligations, so I'm not going to be able to move to New York and try to get my art in a gallery. So I'll just paint on the weekends and I'll just take that hour to myself every day to just put in the work on my craft. And you never know what can come from that. But the point is, it's about sticking with what it is. And that's, I think your message that I've heard. I don't know that I want to say that it's evolved. I don't know it's ever evolved. I think it's always been your message, which is if you want to make it happen, you got to make it happen. But the act of doing is enough, right?Michael Jamin:As youPhil Hudson:Said, the goal, the pot of gold, that the rainbow is not the pot of gold.Michael Jamin:It's thePhil Hudson:Experiences along the way, finding the pot of gold that are the pot of gold.Michael Jamin:But also, it's like when you put energy into something legit energy, not like thinking or dreaming, but when you actually do the work, things have a way of manifesting like, oh, this opportunities have a way of appearing because you've put work into it. Like these various press opportunities that I've done and other things that have sprung out because of that. It's like that's just from doing the energy of posting on social media and just sharing as much knowledge as I canPhil Hudson:With zero expectation of getting back. You're planting seeds that hopefully will produce fruit when your book is available and people can buy it on Audible and buy a paperback or a hardcover. And at this point too, so still, you've made the decision not to go with a traditional publisher, even though at this point you have hundreds of thousands of followers.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content, and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com and now back to what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?Phil Hudson:When you'd ask people, how many followers do I need? They couldn't tell you, tell you. They just knew you needed followers, but they didn't know what the number was.Michael Jamin:And then I got resentful, okay, now that I have these followers, why am I cutting you in? Tell me exactly why I'm cutting you in. What exactly do you do? Nothing. They get me in Barnes and Noble, that's it. But people don't buy books at Barnes and Noble. They buy it online. Why am I cutting you in? It made me mad. It made me legit in the beginning. I was like, I need you. And I was like, I don't need you. What do I need you for?Phil Hudson:How freeing is that feeling?Michael Jamin:It's wonderful. I just got my copy back from I, my copy editor, read the whole thing and whatever, looking for typos and stuff like that. And he loved it. This is a professional. He's like, how do I share? I want to give this to my friends. I was like, oh, thank you. But one of it's like, why am I cutting? It's just like this is the year, it's 2023. It's like, you don't need to ask for permission from these people. The publishing is, the side of the business is very similar to Hollywood in the sense that what do we need these people for? You don't need Hollywood if you want to do, you don't. You just don't. You can do it yourself.Phil Hudson:On that note, I went to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu today, and it was a smaller class, middle of the day. There were literally two other people besides me. They're both instructors. It was paying for a private, which was awesome. And in some downtime, I was talking to one of the guys, he's like, yeah, I quit doing Juujitsu for five years. And I was like, oh, why'd you stop? And he's like, well, a couple of years ago, I lost everything I was doing, worked in, I'm an actor and I worked in the industry. And then that started a conversation, and then he started telling me about all the stuff he's doing now. And he's like, we just decided to do it ourselves. We're making short films. We're putting it out there. We're winning tons of awards on this festival circuits. And he's been in Netflix shows, he's been in things. He has an I M D V page, so he's not just some guy. He has talent and skill, and he's even going out and put it in. And I was like, dude, good for you.Michael Jamin:Yeah. But when you look at the people who break, the people who are break in today, they're all doing what I'm doing. They're people, for the most part, they're not begging for work. They're making work for themselves, and they're making a name for themselves. And so they're building equity in their own name as opposed to knocking on doors and begging.Phil Hudson:Yeah, I, we've touched on this in a past podcast, but I've heard an agent refer to it as Plus writer plus. What is the plus you're bringing to the table? So maybe it's a following, maybe it's ip. Maybe you wrote a book that's a Amazon bestseller. Maybe it's you worked at the Onion and you're coming in with some clout because you had that experience, right? Maybe you were brought on the Harvard Lampoon, whatever it is, there's a plus and a following is a plus, but that's the value add. It's not enough. And you've told me this before, and I've quoted it often, and I think about it when I write, and this was, man, this was like 7, 6, 7 years ago.Michael Jamin:YouPhil Hudson:Read something I wrote in film school, and it was a speck of a Mr. Robot. And you said, Phil, it's obvious you're a competent writer, and this is really good. But that's the problem. It's not great. And so it's not enough to be good. You have to be great, but you also need something else. And you have to be willing to put that out there and get that work done. To me, I've been very hesitant to grow following because of the public nature of that and some of those things. And you tell me some of the things you have to deal with in your dms and people saying things, anti-Semitic things, all kinds. It's crazy, horrible things.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:You still stick it out and you do it. But yeah, the plus for me might be my skillset and technology. It might be my ability to run social media pro campaigns to the point where searchlights and this formerly Fox Searchlight, but searchlights people when they meet me are like, man, I need to fill in every project we have. And that's just the hustle and the grind. And you all have that. You listening to this have,Michael Jamin:That's exactly right. And Phil, this is what I was going to say as well, is everyone listening to this? Take inventory of what you have. For you, Phil, it's your vast knowledge of digital marketing, but for other people, they have other skills. So take advantage of what you have and then incorporate that towards building your brand or whoever youPhil Hudson:Are. Yeah, we might have talked, go ahead.Michael Jamin:Well, if you're a truck driver and you're like, what do I got? I drive a long distance truck, dude, you got a lot. Because you have, I dunno, whatever, 10 hours on the road where you're with nothing but your thoughts, turn off the radio. Not a lot of jobs like that where you can actually think and do your job at the same time. Think about something else. And so, yeah, you could write your screenplay, take notes into a recorder, and then when you stop the car later or the truck later, type it up a little bit and make notes. But that's a huge asset you have, which is you have time. You actually have time where you can think and concentrate on something while you do your job. That's a hugePhil Hudson:Asset. It's a blue sky time. Blue sky time is hard. It's the space and the stillness that is hard to generate in a chaotic life with family and obligations and work. So if you can find it, and reiterating one of the most powerful notes you've given me, which is, do you listen to audio books or podcasts in the car? And I said, yeah. And you said, don't,Michael Jamin:Don't, don't listen to me either. I turned it off your story. ThinkPhil Hudson:About your, yeah, write yourMichael Jamin:Story. WhatPhil Hudson:Is the problem? I'm trying to solve a huge breakthrough for me in my ability to spend time. I was so busy packing my day with so many obligations,Michael Jamin:But then I wasPhil Hudson:Spending hours in LA traffic doing runs for the show,Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:It's like, oh, here's the space.Michael Jamin:So it'sPhil Hudson:A great note, but everyone has that note. And going back to something you said earlier, luck is not, you talked about everyone needs a little bit of luck, but that definition, and I think I shared this in episode three, luck is where opportunity meets preparation.Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah'sPhil Hudson:The preparation. It's the time spent. It's the other adage, when's the best time to grow a tree 20 years ago,Michael Jamin:When'sPhil Hudson:The second best time? Right now,Michael Jamin:YouPhil Hudson:Don't have a tree, so get out and build a tree. Grow your tree, right?Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:So yeah, man, kudos to you for putting in the work and the effort. And I'm close enough as your friend, I've been able to see this and see your growth and your push to be able to do this. And I'll also say that even as someone that I considered to be competent, functional adults who's very successful, I've noticed your resilience increased quite a bit overMichael Jamin:My resilience.Phil Hudson:And that's not saying that you were some pushover or anything. I'm not suggesting that in the slightest, but I've just noticed that your ability to just take the bumps and the bruises of all of the BSS you're dealing with, it's just made you, I think, a little more focused and clear on what you want out of it. And that's why you have this reaction, this is my interpretation to me, why you're having this reaction to the publishers now. It's like, why am I giving you any of this? You didn't fight the fight. I fought the fight. I've been here. I've been in here day in and day out, so screw you. And that's a level of resiliency and confidence. I think that I'm not saying you didn't have that, justMichael Jamin:It took a lot for me to get there. It changes things. It took a lot for me to get there, but it was like maybe on the second book, maybe I'll do with them or not, I don't know. But I also know they haven't earned my book. And I've also heard too many stories from friends of mine who have had books traditionally published where the marketing department drops the ball and they promise one thing and then they're awol, and then that's it. Because at that point, you don't have the margin to do any more marketing on your own, so it's dead. And so it was never about the money for me, but I became a little angry as I was building this up. I was like, well, why am I cutting you in? It doesn't make sense to me. What do you bring to the table? Nothing other than Barnes and Noble, which I don't really care about. It's like, okay, sure. If it was 1982, I might worry about that. Yeah.Phil Hudson:This is, I think clicking for me. You're familiar with David Goggins, the former Navy Seal?Michael Jamin:I don't think so.Phil Hudson:He wrote a book called You Can't Hurt Me.Michael Jamin:And hePhil Hudson:Talks about how he was just abused as a kid by his father.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Then what that taught him to do was to be able to just separate his pain. And it created a lot of mental toughness to the point that he was in the us. He was in the Air Force, tried out for Air Force Special Operations. He became a Navy Seal. He went through three hell weeks because he kept getting rolled back for injuries. He had a point where he had fractured legs and he would duct tape them so that they weren't hurt when he was doing runs. I mean, he ran a hundred miler in one day with no preparation to the point that his kidneys were failing. And he just does ultra marathons nonstop. He's just kind of this figure. He's become a bit of a meme with the same younger people, but I've known about him for a few years, and he talks about his book and he's like, I got offered $300,000 from a publisher from my book,Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:I just thought, you haven't been through what I've been through. It is basically what you're saying. It's like, you haven't earned this the way I have. Is my life worth $300,000? And he said, no. So he took all of his savings, which was about 300,000, and he self-published his own book, New York Times bestseller. Did the hardbacks, did the whole thing.Michael Jamin:Why didn't it take him 300,000 to make a book? It shouldn't have taken fraction of that.Phil Hudson:He did all of the publishing himself. So he didn't publish through a self-publisher like Amazon. He didn't even want to partner with Amazon, so he became his own publisher.Michael Jamin:SoPhil Hudson:He literally printed up hundreds of thousands of copies, and then he leveraged all of his relationships with the Rogans and all these people with these platforms because of the life and the experience that he had, and multiple time bestsellers, millions of copies, sold books,Michael Jamin:TwoPhil Hudson:Books, and he's a millionaire because of that effort. So it's that same resilience mindset I think that I'm hearing from you. And that's probably why I made that connectionMichael Jamin:Just like, screw people. I'll do it myself. I don't need you. That's how I feel. Whatever, I'll do it myself. Yeah.Phil Hudson:That's awesome. Before we talk about the new podcast, I just wanted to see, are there any takeaways for you over the last year? Are there anything that really stood out moments or conversations we've had with you, with other people, us on the podcast or with other students in your course?Michael Jamin:If you listen to some of those other episodes where I'm interviewing people, you'll hear various versions of the same story that I tell their own, which is kind of like, screw it. I'll just do it my own. It is just people. The reason why people are, I interview, I guess, successful people, and the reason why they're successful is because they haven't quit yet. That's it. They just didn't get around to quitting. And so I think that's what it is. Until you quit, you're just a success. That hasn't happened yet. It just hasn't happened yet,Phil Hudson:Which is why you don't quit.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Anything else stand out to you?Michael Jamin:I don't know. Can you think of something?Phil Hudson:The one lingering thought that I have is I think that people, you set a really good example for people on your social media about how to handle naysayersMichael Jamin:BecausePhil Hudson:You get a lot of negativity, and you talked about this, you could go after them. You're a professional comedyMichael Jamin:Writer. Yeah.Phil Hudson:They don't stand a chance. And I have witnessed just the witty quickness, the decimation of a soul in a writer's room, all in love,Michael Jamin:ButPhil Hudson:The capability of a professional comedy writer to just tear someone down. And it's almost like with great power comes great responsibility. ThatMichael Jamin:ClichePhil Hudson:From Spider-Man, it's like you opt to take the high road, which is,Michael Jamin:And I'm always torn by that. Sometimes I'm like, I can easily take you down. And sometimes I do. If it's warranted, if they come out with me a certain amount of energy, then I can match the energy. But I'm torn. I also feel like, well, it's not enough that I, on one hand, I tell people I'm a comedy writer, but unless I show it every once in a while, people are, how are they going to believe me?Phil Hudson:And soMichael Jamin:It's a line that I dance. I dance, it is like I don't want to be mean, but I also,Phil Hudson:It's not negative energy. It's not done with maliciousness. It's done playfully. But I think it just, you stand up for yourself when it's appropriate.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Again, that speaks to some of that resiliency that again, you could decimate 'em,Michael Jamin:You retrain yourself. I'm totally pulling punches, believe me when I'm pulling, because sometimes I've got a bunch of clips I haven't posted yet. I write them. I'll spend a half hour on 'em, and then I'll sit on it. I don't feel, and then I look at the next day, I go, oh, I can't put that on. It's funny, but it's just too mean. That'sPhil Hudson:The adage of when you're at work and you want to send that email, don't sendMichael Jamin:It.Phil Hudson:Write it out. Don'tMichael Jamin:Send it. GetPhil Hudson:It out of your system. Move on.Michael Jamin:Right. I took a guy apart the other day, I just haven't shared it, so screw it. That guy,Phil Hudson:You don't even share those with me.Michael Jamin:Yeah. But also I also do, and I made a post about this. It was like, how do I want to show up every day? How do I want to be seen? And I don't want be the mean guy. I don't want to be a bully. So I'm allowed to think my negative thoughts. I don't always have to share them.Phil Hudson:Yeah, yeah. No, and that's a valuable lesson for people in a world where, as I've often said, you remove the opportunity to get punched in the face for anything you say or do, and all of a sudden people start speaking up a little bit more than they probably should. And I'm not advocating for violence,Michael Jamin:ButPhil Hudson:Even a verbal punch to the face can often be enough. AndMichael Jamin:It'sPhil Hudson:Pretty easy in our society to just sit behind your keyboardMichael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Zero consequences for what you say and do. I call this out? I call this out in our webinars while you're talking, Cynthia, your wife is doing a great job of just getting questions, and I'm just kind of checking the chat to see what people are talking about. And man, there's some trolls rolling into your webinar too.Michael Jamin:Thank you. I never see them. Do you block 'em? What do you do?Phil Hudson:No, no. People take care. They take care of it. And we can talk about another experience we had where someone went after me on a podcast too, nepotism, do you remember that? Called me out for nepotismMichael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:All that.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Yeah, your listeners had my back and they went after 'em. And it is just a very stark difference between the community you've cultivated of people who are just respectful, sincere creatives looking to break in and chase their dreams and all the people who say they want to do it and are not putting in theMichael Jamin:Work and the nepotism on your part, to be clear, I suppose that was when you were in and out of foster care as a child. Is that when you experienced all the nepotism?Phil Hudson:Yeah, it might've been that. It might've been when I was in the group homes. It could have been when I lived in my aunt and uncle's house and I couldn't do sports because I had to workMichael Jamin:EffectivelyPhil Hudson:Full-time in high school. Could have been any of those times. Could have beenMichael Jamin:Of those times. Yeah.Phil Hudson:But your point to that was you knew one person tangentially through some girl when you moved here, there wasn't even an nepotism for you. And I knew you, and yeah, I've been blessed to have that opportunity, but we've seen enough people come and go, you have to earn it. Right?Michael Jamin:It's so funny when I tell that story. When I moved to Hollywood, I knew no one in Hollywood, but a girl I was friendly with in high school, she was a year younger than me. I found out that her brother was living in Hollywood and was trying to do what I did, which is bright sitcom writer. And so I called himPhil Hudson:Up, and thenMichael Jamin:We wound up becoming roommates. But then when I tell that story, people go, oh, so you did know someone. It was like, I knew some guy.Phil Hudson:He wasMichael Jamin:Just as unsuccessfulPhil Hudson:AsMichael Jamin:Me, and wePhil Hudson:BecameMichael Jamin:Roommates. He was just a couple years older than me. So I guess that's how I knew someone.Phil Hudson:But that highlights this thing. I was going to say, and it's just a quote that stuck with me for years. I think it comes from Jim Rowan, which is there's two ways to have the tallest building. One is to build the tallest building,Michael Jamin:WhichPhil Hudson:You have done the other ways to tear everyone else's building down.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:So if you're afraid to pursue your craft, sometimes tearing everyone else down is a bit easier than facing the empty page or the blank canvas. It'sMichael Jamin:A lot easier. It's a lot easier.Phil Hudson:And the high road, whichMichael Jamin:You'vePhil Hudson:Been an example forMichael Jamin:AnPhil Hudson:Exemplar, is just put your head down, do the work, provide value,Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Then the benefits will come eventually.Michael Jamin:And I really hope this episode doesn't seem like we're just patting me on the back. I hope it serves be to get you guys to do what I'm doing in your own way for whatever you want to do.Phil Hudson:And Michael saying that, because Michael didn't know what I was going to talk about or bring up here, this is me bringing this up because these are the things that I've observed as your friend, as a co-host on the podcast, but also just as someone who's just trying to do the same thing that everybody who listens to your podcast is tryingMichael Jamin:To do,Phil Hudson:Which is break in and chase their dreams.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I'm exactly like you guys. Only, I'm doing it for writing. That's all for publishing,Phil Hudson:Which speaks to the transition to the podcast, which is the title of the podcast. What the hell is Michael? WhatMichael Jamin:The hell is Michael Jamin talking about?Phil Hudson:Yeah. What the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? At this point, you can see the cover has changed, so it's going to be the same feed. You don't need to go resubscribe. None of the old episodes are rebranding. They'll still be live and available the way they were. But it's just a shift into talking about creative things. And I think you got some cool stuff to kind of display. I guess people might've already heard the intro.Michael Jamin:Oh, we could do that. WePhil Hudson:Put on this episode. But you want to talk more about that, the podcast and impetus for the change and why we were here?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, there was that. The new music is by my friend Anthony Rizzo, who did all the music. He was the composer on Marin. It wasn't my friend. Then. I just met him on Marin. And then he also did the music for my book, a paper orchestra, which would be dropping hopefully this winter and keep pushing itPhil Hudson:Back. Yeah, we haven't talked about that. You've put in a ton of energy and effort into recording the audio book and making it your live events, which I wanted to point out part of this transition, and you've always talked about how when you're in a writer's room, you end up acting out the parts, like when you're doing Hank on King of the Hill, you do Hank's voice and you kind of mimic him. You're doing Bobby, you do it. So you've always been a performer, but I don't know if you've been a performer in the sense that you are with a paper orchestra whereMichael Jamin:It'sPhil Hudson:A stage show and you're there and you're being vulnerable and emotional, and you're making it a thing, and you're practicing and you're working with talented coaches like your wife, Cynthia, who is a very talentedMichael Jamin:Actress,Phil Hudson:And Jill Sch, who is a legendary actress, and you're investing in all this coaching to put on a presentation or performance for people. And I have not heard audio book, but what I understand is it's going to be very similar experience to come into a live show.Michael Jamin:I think so. And it'll be a little more intimate than a live show in your ear because it's an audio book. I'm much closer to your brain, and I want to talk to morePhil Hudson:CreatorsMichael Jamin:Like this. But what I'm personally inspired by right now, and that maybe it'll change in five years, but I'm inspired by people who tell and perform their own stories. To me, there's something, so you're an actor. You have to be a writer and a performer at the same time, as opposed to doing something like creating something. That's fine. But when you're telling your own story, it's like, man, you're really putting yourself out there. And I think when I see people do it, I'm like, all right, that's interesting. Maybe I'll change in five years. So I mean, standups do that, but they don't do it. They're going for the laugh usually. They're not usually going deeper than that, which is fine that when you go into a comedy club, that's what you expect. So that's kind of what I've been exploring and being motivated by.Phil Hudson:That's another Michael Jainism that stood out to me. I wrote it down when you were talking earlier, go there. You have to be willing to go there. And we talked about people who are not willing to go there. And we've heard people, other writers say, I'm not willing to go there. And you've called it out privately to me, did you hear that person? Did you hear what they said? And you have to be willing to go there. For a long time, I wasn't. And through your help, I've been able to do that. But yeah, you're talking to people who go there.Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's the job. If you don't want the job, find another job. It'sPhil Hudson:Emotional vulnerabilityMichael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Being willing to put yourself out there and not just on a social media perspective, but truly emotionally vulnerable in your stories and what you've called mining your life for stories and putting that out there.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. To me, that's the exciting stuff. And I didn't invent this, so it's just when I see others do it, I'm like, wow, why I should be doing that too.Phil Hudson:So obviously I'm not necessarily a co-host of this anymore. I'm still helping produce the thing. We're still making sure that that'sMichael Jamin:How hear a lot the technicalPhil Hudson:Side. I'll still be popping in on podcast episode.Michael Jamin:We'll still be talking about screenwriting, I'm sure.Phil Hudson:And I had this cool experience, and I don't think we've talked about this when I was on touring with the broken lizard guys doing their social media, just sitting there talking to them and seeing this rabid fan base of people who just love them from this thing that they created. When they did it, they put themselves out there.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:It really lit that our tour spirit I had back in 2000 8 0 9, when I was really dedicating myself to screenwriting. And I have actually been working on a feature that I would like to star in and direct and do that whole thing on the indie level. Just now you talking, just an exercise. What aboutMichael Jamin:As a short first, why not doing it as a shortPhil Hudson:Could definitely do that. Yeah. Why?Michael Jamin:ToPhil Hudson:Me, there's a feature in there for sure that I want to write and just get out of me, but definitely worth doing a short, yeah,Michael Jamin:Go watch as we talk about this. Go watch on Vimeo, I think Thunder Road, that scene we talk about, go watch the church, the Churching. That was a feature, but that scene stands on its own. If you just saw that scene, you would've thought, oh, it's a short, I thought it was a short, I thought it was a great short, I didn't realize it was part of a bigger, so do something like that. And then when people see that and they're blown away, you'll say, oh, well, there's more to come. Just I need you to donate $5,000. And then they pay for the rest.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Yeah. That's great advice. Great advice. So yeah. So anyway, this beautiful shift in the tide of creativity and your shift, and that rubs off. What can we expect from the podcast in terms of guests you're interviewing? What does that look like for you?Michael Jamin:I reach out, I got to continue to do more. I'm doing another one tomorrow. I'll be reaching out. These guys really inspired me. So there's a movie that I saw on Netflix many years ago, I dunno, maybe five years ago from these guys called The Minimalists. So I reached out to one of them. He's going to be on the Tomorrow, and they're fascinating. It is.Phil Hudson:Joshua Fields Millburn, andMichael Jamin:He's the one coming on, and he's gracious enough to come on, and I'm sure he's going to think we're going to talk about the message. And the message is very important. The message is how you can live, how you can have more in your life with less how you don't need to buy this, how you'll be happier if you get rid of that, and great message. But he's in for a surprise because we'll talk about that. But I really want to talk about how he created himself, how he, okay, then how did you sell a show on Netflix? Okay, now what is it like to be this person? Because he wasn't, he was just some guy who's middle management before he did this, and now he's the guy who has this message. Even though the message has already been said before by other people, he still put a different spin on it to me. And I find that inspiring, that somebody who invented himself, what does that feel like? What are the insecurities that come with that? What is this new fame ish thing that he has? How does that feel? How does he continue to push himself? I don't know. I'm looking forward to the interview. I'm curious to hear, and I bet you he hasn't spoken about that.Phil Hudson:That's awesome.Michael Jamin:I did an interview, I dunno if it, no, it hasn't aired yet. The guy I follow, a prop master that I follow on TikTok named Scott and Scott Reeder, and he's great.Phil Hudson:Great. I follow him too.Michael Jamin:He's great. He just talks about all the props and how he makes these props, and we spoke a little bit about that, but we were more talking about how he invented himself now. And halfway through the interview, he says to me, this is the best interview anyone's ever done, because I didn't really care about the boring stuff. I want to know how he invented himself. What all of us, I think are trying to do right now. That's part of Before we Die, we, that's, who else can we be before we die?Phil Hudson:Yeah, that's profound, man. I'm excited. I've loved listening to the interviews you've already done on Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I'm looking forward to those.Michael Jamin:It'sPhil Hudson:Good stuff, man. I'm just really pumped for this new stage. And again, I do think it just speaks a little bit more to who you've become because not that you've outgrown yourself as a writer, it's just you've evolved a bit as a person into being a bit more than that. And I hesitate to even say that too, because I know this is who you are. This is who you have been.Michael Jamin:But this is what writers too, I think it's like, all right, what else can we explore here? That's part of the fun. That's the fun part being, being a writer is that you get car, right? You get carte blanche to try new things because maybe I can write about this worst case scenario. I can make a story from it.Phil Hudson:I was about to say, that's advice you've given me multiple times, which is it's a write-off. You can go take aMichael Jamin:Basket weaving class,Phil Hudson:Right? Go take aMichael Jamin:Dance class. Why?Phil Hudson:It's an experience. Go take an acting class. And I remember you did a workshop in Acting for Life and it was a comedy workshop and you were kind enough to invite me to attend that. And I was already studying with Cynthia and Jill at the time there. And yeah, I remember you just putting out that same thing. It's great. You're studying acting, it's going to make you a better writer.Michael Jamin:And you'vePhil Hudson:Given that advice on the podcast too. So it's really fascinating to me. And I'm just kind of realizing this in this moment, man, I thought I was getting all this great free advice that was particular to Phil Hudson and now you're justMichael Jamin:Giving it toPhil Hudson:Everybody, man.Michael Jamin:Everyone. I hope so. I'd like to try to do, we'll see if I can make that happen where I go to, that's something I'm going to try to make happen where I can tour to different cities, put on a show, and then the next day maybe a writing seminar afterwards in that city so I can to help offset some of my costs. And then we could just talk about writing that day. We have a little writing workshop or something, so maybe I'll try to do that.Phil Hudson:God, that's awesome. It's the first I've heard of that. That sounds like a great,Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's just so many things that have to happen before that. I got so much on my plate right now. I can't even think about that. But we were talking about that. Wouldn't that be interesting?Phil Hudson:It's a great idea. Well, I imagine Cynthia will be with you.Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah,Phil Hudson:Yeah. And that's awesome. Now you're getting someone who's been on Seinfeld and the friends and just allMichael Jamin:ThesePhil Hudson:Great, I mean very talented, very, and I will say not only talented, but very perceptive,Michael Jamin:Right? Oh yeah.Phil Hudson:And I think I've shared this on here too, but there was this moment where I just couldn't get there. I just couldn't get there. And Jill's just saying, what are you feeling? And IMichael Jamin:Was like, I don't know.Phil Hudson:And she turns to the class and she's like, what is everyone? What's he feeling? Everyone's like, he's mad. And I didn't even realize I was mad. And then the next class, I'm struggling in this scene. And then Jill's like, what are you struggling with? What's going on? I was like, I don't know. And then Cynthia's like, is it the intimacy? Is he having trouble with the intimacy of the scene? And I was like, holy shit. Yeah. I think that's what it is. I am not willing to go here. And I had to work through all that stuff. So she's just so perceptive and so kind. You can't even be not mad. She's calling you out because it's done with so much love and compassion. It's a beautiful thing.Michael Jamin:We've had these moments, by the way, when she directs me from my audio book where the outtakes are not pretty, the outtakes are me yelling.Phil Hudson:ButMichael Jamin:It's funny, one of thePhil Hudson:Stories in my bookMichael Jamin:Is called The House on Witherspoon Street where I'm a kid in college. They're all true stories. And it builds to me giving an on-air interview to this woman who's this eccentric woman who had a talk show. She was lovely, but she's larger than life and it's in the book. And then my editor said yesterday, he goes,Phil Hudson:Do youMichael Jamin:Happen to have that interview? And I was like, well, actually, I think I do. And I found the cassette from 30 years ago. And so we'll put it in the bonus section of the book where now you can hear me, you can hear me as a 19 year old or whatever it was. Has that scene unfolded? That's likePhil Hudson:Steve LE's break dancingMichael Jamin:Commercial, but it's stranger than that because you'll know now what I was thinking in my headPhil Hudson:While That's awesome.Michael Jamin:While it was going on. That's aPhil Hudson:Great point.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's a fun little thing.Phil Hudson:It's cool stuff, man. I love it. I'm pumped. It's a good shift for you. I think it's a good shift for your audience. I think it opens it up a little bit. Hope it's a little bit more accessible to your audience. Your audience is far more than just writers. It'sMichael Jamin:Great. I don't want to just, when it called screenwriters, you hear this. Well, does that mean I don't want to be a screenwriter? Well, okay, but do you want to do anything creative? Yeah, sure I do. I want to write a poem. Okay, good. Now listen, you can, thePhil Hudson:Other thing is how does this apply to novel writing? How does this apply to playwriting? And we have a testimonial video from a guy who does financial writing, and he took your course and he's like, it made my financial writing better.Michael Jamin:He'sPhil Hudson:Able to tell a better story aboutMichael Jamin:Finances in a finance journal. And stories are what gets people hooked. Whatever you want to sell, sell it with a story. People are interested in hearing a story veryPhil Hudson:Often. That's you,Michael Jamin:Right?Phil Hudson:It's you in the room, it's you idea, it's yourMichael Jamin:Acting,Phil Hudson:It's yourMichael Jamin:Art.Phil Hudson:All of that is story.Michael Jamin:By the way, I hope to do some more public speaking. So if anyone has a,Phil Hudson:It works at a corporationMichael Jamin:And you want me to do public speaking, we have a number of talks,Phil Hudson:Keynotes. We can talk about that, Michael. I do a lot of that with some clients.Michael Jamin:Oh really? Oh good. We'll talk about that. KeynotePhil Hudson:Marketing. Yeah. Well, good stuff. Anything you want to add? I mean, we had talked, I think, a little bit about potentially putting the music on. I think everybody's already heard the music on. We've heard some of it. It'sMichael Jamin:Funky. Do youPhil Hudson:Want to play it? It's aMichael Jamin:Funky, let's play some of it. Okay,Phil Hu

On this week's episode, I talk about all of the different types of "producers" there are working in Hollywood as well as what some of their specific responsibilities might be. Tune in for much more!Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:I would prefer to do another show like that as opposed to a big budget show faster. Let's shoot it faster. I just like it better.Phil Hudson:Buddy. System was pretty quick too. I mean, we shot the In sixMichael Jamin:Weeks. Yeah, buddy System was equally fast. And even still, it feels when you're on set, it's like, oh, this is so boring. Even still, it takes a long time to get each side.You're listening to screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin, back with Phil Hudson for another episode of Screenwriters. Need to hear this. At least until we rename the podcast. We're toying with that idea to open it up. But I don't have an idea yet. I don't have a name yet. So for now, this is what we're going with everyone. That'sPhil Hudson:News to people. I don't think people know thatMichael Jamin:Yet. No, it's news. You're leaking. APhil Hudson:Little hint.Michael Jamin:I'm leaking a hint and it's because I want to open up the conversations a little to broaden out. So it's not just about screenwriting, but also about people who are interested in the arts and reinventing themselves and just putting it out there. So we're going to hang on to that, but for now, we're going to keep talking about this subject, but we will, I'll still talk about screenwriting, so don't want to panic. I'm still going to talk about screenwriting. I just want to open up to more inspirational art stuff. AndPhil Hudson:I think for you, two years into the podcast, it started as a thing during Covid to help people out with this specific space. But your social media has grown to include all creatives and a large percentage of the content that people are consuming on your social media. Forgive me for calling it content, but that is being consumed by people who are more in the creative fields. We have people who've signed up for your screenwriting course who are financial analysts, and they write about finance and they talk about the value of story and story structure. We got artists, novelists, all kinds of people. And so yeah, this makes sense to me, especially as you've kind of outgrown the persona of just being a TV writer and being more of a creative inspirational figure in the space.Michael Jamin:So that's what the plan is. But until then, we're sticking with this name. But okay, everyone, so today I thought we would talk about the title of today's episode is What the Hell Is a Producer? Because no one knows. It's like one of these terms in Hollywood that everyone, it can mean so many different things. It's unclear exactly what a producer does. And I think everyone, when I post on social media, everyone gets it wrong. So we know what a writer does. The writer writes, we know what an actor does. We think we know what a director does, but often people get that wrong. But that could be another episode. But as far as a producer, it means so many different things. So I'm going to break it down and you're going to help me with this. Phil. First we're going to take a step back. So right now the Writer's Guild is on strike against the producers, the Alliance of Motion picture and television producers or the A M P T P. So that's very misleading. It sounds like we are striking against producers, but we're not in this sense. The producers are the studios. So think about Warner Brothers, universal, Sony, Netflix,Phil Hudson:Amazon, yeah, apple.Michael Jamin:So they produce film intelligence shows. So we are striking against the producers of film and television shows, but we are not striking against film and television show producers, which would be, I know that's confusing P GPhil Hudson:A, right? Is that where you're going? Right.Michael Jamin:So that would be, when you think of the P G A, sometimes you watch a film and it says someone's name, the P G a, that's the Producer's Guild of America. So those are people who are producers. They work on the show or the movie that's being made. So anytime you have a film or a television show, you have a production staff and they are there every day and they are so on a TV show in particular, the writers will dream up a sequence or a scene or whatever it is, and then they'll sit down with the producers whose offices are right next door and say, can we make this happen? Your job? We thought of it, but now you have to actually make it happen. And sometimes they say, we can't. You have to. You're going to break the bank. And sometimes they say, okay, we can do this. And those people are producers. Okay, but that's in tv. I'm going to talk more about TV first.Phil Hudson:And there's a note too here too about the P G A, I don't know if you're going to touch on this, but they're not a union that is basically a group of people who have kind of unified or they've basically agreed to be an association, but because they are technically employers, they cannot unionize.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? And so are you in the P G A?Phil Hudson:I think I'm eligible, but I have not joined. I've not pursued it, but it's definitely open.Michael Jamin:But don't you get your don't they help provide health insurance,Phil Hudson:I believe is the D G A and P G A. They've pooled. So basically these producers have agreed to pay into these funds and do these things to provide pension and healthcare for their members. But the difference is they are not effectively a union. I think legally they cannot be a union. So the term guild can be a bit confusing, right, because there's the W G A, which is a union, notMichael Jamin:Really, I don't think WGA is considered a union. I think it's considered.Phil Hudson:I thought they were. I thought that's why they're able to strike because they are unionized. NoMichael Jamin:ThinksPhil Hudson:The collective bargaining is by Definit definition of union. I thought there's a great point.Michael Jamin:I thought there. There's some what add. I thought there's some differences, slight differences, but okay, so now we're going to talk about producersPhil Hudson:Of, it's two different unions. So it's the east and the west combined forces. So there're two different unions that are working togetherMichael Jamin:In what? OhPhil Hudson:Yes. So the writer's Guild East is a union and the Roger's Guild West is a union. And then they join and that's the guild. That's what they represented, two different unions.Michael Jamin:So when we talk about producers on a TV show, this is so unclear and I'm going to try to clear it up and it's going to be still confusing. So producers, like I said, on a TV show, their job is to, for the most part, make it happen. Make whatever we dream of, make it happen. So if we set a scene that takes place in the amusement park, the producer's like, okay, how are we going to shoot there? How are first we got to rent out of Ineson Park, we have to move the cameras there, we have to license, have to buy the space out. And that's producing it. If you want special effects, they're going to have to make sure all those people are there on the set that day. They coordinate the whole damn thing. And there's many different levels of producers, the line producers, the one who deals with mostly making sure we're on budget, making sure. Then there's also like you are, you're an associate producer. What's your job as an associate producer?Phil Hudson:So the saddle associate producer came up this season. It was recommended by an actual producer, savvy Kathy or Kathy, I always mess up her last name, but S'S awesome. She's a 24 and they were trying to figure out a title for my new role. And there are specific titles they can't use because they are managed by union. So facilities manager and things like that. And in basically live tv, anyone who manages the stages or the set or controls things on the ground, that's an associate producer title. So she's the one who encouraged everyone to give me that title. My role was very much, I was an assistant to the producers. I kind of handled anything that they wanted to delegate down. I had their authority to make things happen. My first day I fired somebody because that person was breaking rules and I had to do that. I handled plumber issues, I handled facility issues. I was in charge of making sure that everything got cleaned. If someone needed something, it was my responsibility to make sure that that got coordinated with the production office. So it was basically a liaison between the producers and the other people and the rest of the set. One thing that I found funny is there's this, I might've talked about it on the podcast and forgive me if it's redundant, but there, do you know who Jordan is on Conan Conan show? He's one of his associate producer?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I think so. Yeah.Phil Hudson:So his skit came out of, I believe this came out hearing it from Conan. It came out of the last writer strike where they didn't have anything and one of the other producers was like, Jordan, you have such interesting interactions with him, maybe you should just record those. They're just fascinating to watch. So he became a figure on the show and he had Jordan on a podcast and Conan's like, what is your title? He's like, well, I've had many titles. He's like, but what is your title currently? And he's like, it is associate producer. And Conan goes, if there has ever been a more meaningless title in all of television, it's associate producer. I was like, it feels accurate. It's an honorary title. You get respect on set, people respect what you say, but it doesn't really come with many perks.Michael Jamin:Sometimes it might just be a catchall for something that they don't know what to, I started my career as a joke writer on the Mike and Maddie show, which is a morning TV show. I was a writer, so I used to write jokes, but they didn't want to pay me. If they had called me a writer, they would've had to pay me Writer's Guild minimum. And so instead they didn't want to give me that title, they just called me a segment producer instead. And so they could pay me less. But my job, I suppose, was producing segments of it's morning TV show. And so the segment I was in charge of was the morning chat when the hosts are just talking from the camera and they're making jokes about stuff. And then also sometimes we would do remote segments. We did one thing where Dr. Ruth was giving them a tour of some sex store. And so I was there on site just pitching jokes for the sex toys. So I was a producer, but did I really know how to produce? Nah, it's really rare. No,Phil Hudson:But that's a very typical thing. Even from cable shows, morning shows on cable, those are producers. You have producer titles. So my friend's sister was dating a producer on the Late show and he was a producer, but what was he? He was effectively a joke writer. He wrote jokes for the show and he was responsible. But I know people in Utah and New Mexico who are producers and their segment producer, they go out and they like, we're interviewing the person who makes the largest cookie in America. They make sure it gets done. That's it rightMichael Jamin:Now, here's where it gets a little confusing in tv. If you watch a TV show, you'll often see many titles that have the word producer in it, producer, supervising producer, executive producer. Many of those people are just mid to high level writers who don't really have the same functions. They don't do the same jobs as the producers do who work next door who actually make it happen. So is no overlap in the job responsibilities, but the job responsibility of say, executive producer who is probably also the showrunner would be, and also maybe some lower producers like supervising producer. You might be in charge of casting, you might have some editing responsibilities. You also have to know how when you write the whole season, you often will say, is this producible? And that comes with experience. So for example, if I was on a show and we're breaking episodes one through 10 and I see too many locations, it's my job as let's say a co-executive producer to say, we don't need all these, we can combine scenes with locations here. We can be more efficient, even though I'm not actually producing it. I'm wearing my producer's hat that we say.So just so know that it's not all producers on a show or actually on the production side we're also, yeah,Phil Hudson:I had a friend who was an actor and she made a comment once, she's like, all those producers at the front of a show are just writers, don't you? And I was like, that sounds great. I would like that. But the term for co ep, which is what you and your writing partner are on Tacoma FD have been many times, my understanding of this is you're effectively qualified to run the show and often need to do that when the executive producer is off on set or dealing with the casting thing or managing calls with them. So you're running the room, you're making sure it happens. And I've heard that term referred to as the strong number two.Michael Jamin:Yeah, the number two. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Yeah. So you're the boss, you're there to make sure that the ship stays going. I mean, yeah, it's basically the showrunner's, the captain, you're the first mate you take over when they're need arrest or break and you have the same authority to get things doneMichael Jamin:Basically. So those are our producers. Now there's a common misconception that sometimes people think in TV that producers are the people who raise the money, they put together the money for the project. I want to assure you, we don't touch a nickel. It's like we don't spend our own money. The studios are the ones who are in charge of raising the money. It's their money. So we never open our wallets only in rare exceptions. So for example, I've been involved in projects where someone might be an executive producer and they may put together let's say 10 or $15,000 to shoot a presentation, which is like a down and dirty pilot, a cheap pilot just as a sales tool, but they won't spend a lot of money. It's like very little. They're not investing. A TV show might cost a million dollars to shoot, we're talking about 10 or 15 just to put it on its feet just to show people kind of what it looks like. And this doesn't even happen a lot for the most part in tv executive producers are not in charge of raising money. They don't touch it. We work for the studios. The studios, it's their money that we're playing with. So get that out of your head. It's not a money position in television.Phil Hudson:And I think this is another definition thing too, where it can also be confusing because there is often another executive producer who is that guy who is doing that at the studio. They get that title, right?Michael Jamin:Well, they don't usually get the title. They don't usually get the title at the studio. So that's the catch. They don't get a title. They work for the studio.Phil Hudson:I thought I've seen, I thinkMichael Jamin:They might have a production deal, which is a pod. So for example, often this is why it's so confusing. Often a producer will have what we call a shingle at a studio. So the studio Warner Brothers is paying their overhead. They give 'em a pod, which is a producer over overall deal, and they say for two or three years you have a pod at the studio where you will help develop TV shows. You'll find writers, you'll maybe put together talent, maybe directors, you'll package it, you'll kind of work on the package together and then pitch us the studio, the idea, and then if we like it, we'll shoot it. And if not, we won't. But the person who has the deal, sometimes they're just a highly paid actor on a hit show. They may have a shingle. Sometimes they're just really straight up producers who have a shingle and they will get an executive producer credit on the TV show. But the studio has their own people in charge who oversee the production on the creative side. Development executives or current executives do not get credit on it. It'd be a Warner Brothers show. So I don't recall ever seeing them ever get cut credit on a show unless they sometimes get fired or leave the studio or whatever, and then they get her own production shingle. So that's common.Phil Hudson:And that makes sense because the credit that I'm thinking about, that person who has that EP title, there are three of them and two of them are managers who sold the show. So they did that. They packaged things for Warner to come. So sometimes, and the other was the producer of this production studio making the show, and they were line producer, but also had a producer credit.Michael Jamin:Sometimes a manager of the talent of you, the writer or the actor may get a producer credit because they negotiate for it. It's not uncommon. Often those managers, it just depends on what they do. Often they don't show up. They might have a parking space right in front of the sound stage and they never show up a hundred percent.Phil Hudson:So that's true for Taco fd. And they do show up. They show up for one, maybe two times this season, typically once they pop in, spend about half a day, bring their kids and then they go.Michael Jamin:So it's not really, that's just not their focus. Their focus is on kind selling shows, not actually making them, but occasionally I know some of them. Dave Miner is actually pretty active. I know he helps out. He'sPhil Hudson:One of the ones I'm thinking about. Yep, that shows up.Michael Jamin:He's a manager at Three Arts who also has a executive producer credit on his show, and he's involved more in the day-to-day, but not, it's the degree that the runners want him to be helpful and he is helpful, but it just depends on really the relationship that the producer wants to have on the TV show and what they want to do and what the showrunner is asking of 'em. But I've been on other shows where they have done very little or I was on one show where the producer, the executive producer was a manager of the talent and it seemed like she did everything in her will to help get the show canceled because she was completely inept. And eventually the show was canceled. Then I was like, boy, are you dumb? But it happens. So okay. But again, they don't raise money, and this is on the TV side.They don't raise money with the exception of occasionally, maybe they want to help make a presentation or they put some money together, but they're not financing the show. In the rule in Hollywood, you don't want to put your money. Now if you are creating your own TV show, as I'm talking to my audience, how do you guys break into Hollywood? And I'll often say, Hey, put it on film, put it put up your YouTube channel. In that case, you are putting your own money. Yes, you'll be executive producer putting your own money up, but this is until you break in. And even then, I don't recommend you putting a lot of money. I'm talking about a couple of thousand, not a millionPhil Hudson:Listen episode. Was it 99 where we talked about that? I think we hit on that 99 or 1 0 1. But yeah, think about that. Your story is probably not going to be worth but's. Still a good learning experience, butMichael Jamin:Yeah, it's not a great return on investment. But on the film side, it's a different story. Well, I should say it can be a different story. So if you're making a film, a producer, or it might have a similar function as a producer overall, Dylan and tv, they help put together the project, they have a deal or a shingle at the studio. But again, they're not putting together the money the studio is putting together the money. On an indie film, it's a little different. Often people, the indie filmmakers have to fundraise and so they'll often say, Hey, if you give $5,000, I'll give you an executive producer title on the show. And so in that case, they are helping raise the money.Phil Hudson:Yep. They're finding financiers to do it. And they're typically the ones I know of from the indie films that I've been a part of or seen marketing campaigns. They're typically made their money on pharmaceuticals or their lawyers and big time lawyers or their business people, dentists. And they just, again, we did talk about this recently, but oftentimes those people did not pursue their craft in order to pursue the paycheck. And this is their way of participating. Some of 'em, it's a new venture they're trying to get into. But yeah, that thing oftentimes, yeah. And oftentimes they're looking at it as a tax. They have money they have to spend anyway. It's okay if it takes a loss, why not put on a producer hat and help make an indie film?Michael Jamin:So this idea of when people say, I want to be a Hollywood producer, why? What exactly. Often you don't even know what that means. At the end of the day, if you want to be a producer, you are a producer today I'm a producer. And it just means you are going to hustle to make it happen. And I've worked with many producers who were really just people who hustled. They didn't have some great know-how. They were like, okay, I have a script. How am I going to get this script into the hands of this actor who I don't know? Well, I'll hide it inside of a pizza box and I'll deliver a pizza with a script inside. I've known producers who've done that. They're just hustlers and they've managed to put people together. And so that's what a producer is. A producer just makes it happen.And so sometimes when people say, how do I become a producer? You do it. You just do it and worked. I had on my podcast, Jim Serpico, who's the producer of Marin, he, he's just like a normal guy who hustled, who was always figuring out ways just to make it happen, to get, if you wanted an actor, he's like, we didn't have an in with the actor. He goes, I'll figure out. I'll call someone who I know, someone who might know someone who might know this actor. I'll make some calls, give me a minute. And that's what he was, he was just a guy who was hustling put to just kind of make it happen. And that's how we learned that ultimately cervical learned a lot more about the business. He was very hands-on. He was helping scout and he knew how to shoot and he was really very helpful to have on set. But he really was just a guy who just wanted to do it. I'm here to get it done. That was his attitude.Phil Hudson:I'm thinking about Richard Perello, who is the producing partner of Broken Lizard, and I had the opportunity to be the producer's assistant on Quasi. And when I was doing that job, the line producer, he's U P M and line producer, and he was also a producer on Quasi, and he's also that on Taco. He's guy named Matt Melin. He sat down with him. He made it really clear the producers in film are very different than TV because you can have all of these producers in TV and you have to service them. But on film, there's really one producer, and that's the producer on set. They're the creative producer and that's very much what Perlo was. So his whole point was serve him. If the guys need something, get it done. But if you can hand it off to pa, do it. Just be there for Rich.And that's what I did. I was there. I was there before him. I had his coffee ready, I had his sides ready. I'd set up his chair. If he had something he needed done, I'd run it. I knew what time to go get his coffee after lunch, I'd go get his lunch order. I do all of those things. And at the end you think me, because he's like, I just needed to spend that much time. You think you for taking care of me. It allowed me to focus on the set. And when I was there observing, sitting behind him in the chair in video village, he's like, we need more greens here. We need this here. And he did the same thing. He worked with the guys through their indie films on all of their indie film projects and just learned with them negotiating, figuring out how to get things done. And like you said, they're just hustlers. They get things done.Michael Jamin:So if you want to be a producer and you keep, and you're asking, well, how do I break into Hollywood to be a producer, then you're not a producer because the producer is someone who just gets it done. I will. They figure it out. And so I would say if you want to be a producer, you spend some time on set, learn what all the various jobs are, observe, and then find some kid with a script fresh out of film school or not out of film school and say, Hey, I want to work with you. Let's produce your script.Phil Hudson:Now you're I on the same line of logic. I had another conversation recently with a 24 because they've told me they want to push me down this producer path and they're open to working with me outside of Tacoma depending on what happens if we get picked up. And I said, well, what would be, because the next step for me would be a production supervisor, which is part of this producer path. Then the next would be assistant U P M U P M, line producer, and then potentially producer. And I said, what would make me a good production supervisor? And they said, learn the production side. Learn budgeting. If you could be a line producer's assistant, if you sit in on those conversations about money and how much that rig cost or that lens costs and how much we can afford to do this or that, said, there's no way that's not going to be helpful as a producer. And then she said, I know you want to be a writer. So the other thing is the best collaborators also understand production and budget because they are more willing to give and take. They know what to fight for the creative, they know what to let go of. So it's only helpful as someone who wants to be a showrunner as well.Michael Jamin:Also 8 24, they make some really good stuff. I know it's not exactly what you want to do in terms of writing, but it's likePhil Hudson:It's not something that I turned down no had conversations to about not bad. Yeah, we had conversations about me going to Houston to be a production supervisor on a film, but it was all dependent on the rider's strike. And this was back in April, and I talked to her recently. Everything's been pushed into next year on most of their production slate. They do have waivers from the Writer's Guild, which I don't think people, a lot of people understand. And the waiver is really that they've agreed to every single term the Writer's Guild put out, and they're a small indie film. They're not one of the big studios. And because of that, the Writer's Guild like, sure, if you're going to meet our demands, go ahead and make whatever films you want to do. And they're just continuing to make 'em happen.Michael Jamin:Hustle,Phil Hudson:They're hustling. It's same thing.Michael Jamin:Hustlers. Yeah. So that's why anyone who wants to be a producer, you can be a producer and you don't have to ask permission. WouldPhil Hudson:You say it's street smarts more than book smarts here? Because I know the book smarts are important from a budgeting and a finance perspective, but I also seems to me someone who can just make things happen. That's the job, make it happen.Michael Jamin:For example, we're on set on Marin, we're shooting on book locations, the low budget show, we're shooting some neighborhood, and the minute they see the people see these trucks, the film trucks, because everything comes in these trucks, all the equipment, for some reason the leaf blowers show up that day.Phil Hudson:Lawnmowers are on, theyMichael Jamin:Call each other the minutes that the director yells action, suddenly the leaf blowers show up out of everywhere. You can't shoot with a, and so the producers say, just hand out a hundred dollars bills. That's what a producer do. Hand out a hundred dollars just to get 'em to go away. Yep.Phil Hudson:Because it's costing him $10,000 every minute or whatever, every hour. It'sMichael Jamin:Definitely a shakedown with these guys. DoPhil Hudson:I think it's 10 grand an hour on a low budget show? It's 10 grand an hour for the set. I talked to this, I was talking to someone about the cost of that. It's crazy. So it's worth a thousand dollars to keep the machine running,Michael Jamin:But that's what a good producer will do. Also, if it looks like rain, a producer will figure out, alright, we'll work with the associate producer, first assistant. Yeah, first ad to figure out what the shooting schedule will be. Okay, we will move this around. And sometimes the director will get into that conversation as well as the showrunner, but often you'll just turn to the producer. What do you want to do as a showrunner? I don't really give a crap. What do you want to do?Phil Hudson:Yeah, that's the other thing that's interesting that I don't think a lot of people understand is when you're making these projects, I always in my head assume they would be shot linearly and they're not. They're blocked shot because they have to be because the expense of moving the equipment and setting up shots, it's such a time suck, and you're paying all those people for those man hours. It's just easier to shoot. We're in the garage, shoot everything in the garage right now. So you have actors coming in and they're shooting the last scene of a movie, first thing, and they have spent maybe two or three rehearsals with their co-stars, and it's this incredibly emotional moment, and then they have to jump right into the levity of the first act. It's really fascinating that the complexity of a schedule, and that's again, something I would've assumed a producer would do. And no, the first ad does it and then the producer vets it to make sure it's going to meet the budget. Like the line producer.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And then before that, seen a shot. As the part of the showrunner's job, we'll run up to the actors and say, okay, just to refresh your memory, shooting so much out of order. Sometimes we're shooting not just scenes out of order, but we're shooting entire episodes. We're shooting episode two and episode three at the same time.Phil Hudson:Block shooting episodes. We would do that all the time on Tacoma.Michael Jamin:And so we would run up to the actress before we're doing, before each scene, just to refresh your memory, this is where we are in the storyline. This is what you're playing here. If you read it, you might think, okay, I should be happy. But now you're mad at this person from the earlier scene.Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.Phil Hudson:That's another thing I've seen too, which I think is incredibly valuable, is really good showrunners make the actors sit down and read the scripts out loud with them to make sure that they read everything. Because I've seen a propensity for actors to just read their lines and they don't understand how it fits into the full thing. That's not all actors, it's definitely not all actors, but I've seen a lot of actors do that.Michael Jamin:I have not worked on a show where that was a problem, but now that you mentioned, I have to probably keep my eye open it, but I'm sure in some shows actors can get lazy. But I haven't worked on, because Marin was a little different. Marin, he was the only regular because of the budget and everyone else was a guest star, meaning we would hire that actor for maybe five out of 13 episodes. They were not regular. So regular means you're on every single episode. So if you're a guest star and you're only doing five episodes, you you're going to come prepared. You're not going to sleepwalk your way through it. And so Mark was always prepared, and although often he was always prepared, but easily confused given how much he had to do in every single episode. So you had to go, just remind him where he was emotionally in each episode. But for the actors, the guest stars, they were always well, ohPhil Hudson:Yeah, you're on it.Michael Jamin:You're on it. Yeah, they're on it. They knew they were not goingPhil Hudson:To work. Hats off to circuit codes on that too. What is it? How many days? A two and a half days to shoot an episode.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And towards the end we got three. But that's crazy.Phil Hudson:That's wild. It's crazy wild. We had, I think is it eight days? We would block, shoot. So over two weeks we'd shoot two episodes. So I think it comes out to be like five days per episode, and it's still skinnier teeth getting by to get everything.Michael Jamin:So we were really running gun, and I used to say, as long as someone's finger was in the lens, we got it move on. There wasn't enough time. And so we would shoot everything in a, we would shoot, we block the scene, shoot the first thing in a first run in a master, which is kind like a rehearsal, but you're in a master, so you're everything, you're wide. So if the actor's not perfect, it's fine. You're only going to use the master to open the scene at the end, the scene, and then maybe a couple of times in the middle. And so we'd shoot the master and then go into coverage, which means going immediately to closeups. Wow.Phil Hudson:No mediums or anything like that.Michael Jamin:Very few. And then youPhil Hudson:Didn't have time.Michael Jamin:You don't have time. And occasionally in each episode we would give the director maybe one or two vanity shots like, all right, fine, you want to set up a crane or whatever. But you don't have many of those. But I worked on another show, God, it was so annoying. It was the director, we had more time. And he decided to put a camera, it was a car scene. He wanted to install a camera on the edge of the car so he can get a closeup of the wheel as the car was racing down the street. And we used that chauffer half a second, and it took hours to set the stupid shot up. And I'm like, why are we doing this? What's the point of this? Is anyone impressed by seeing a wheel of a car as it races down? Who cares? That's not what this show is. So sometimes I feel like you can more, you can waste time with shots that are completely unnecessary for the audience is not going to appreciate it more. I don't think anybody's going to appreciate it.Phil Hudson:Well, anyone listening to this who is interested in indie film, what you're describing, and the way you shot Marin is indie film. What is it like on average? And correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's three pages per day is a good shooting day for a TV show or a feature. And a feature might be half a page because they're doing bigger, broader.Michael Jamin:No, we were doing sometimes 11 pages aPhil Hudson:Day. Indies is 10. Yeah, I was going to say in is 10 you're doing,Michael Jamin:Sometimes we did 11. It was like, man, we got a lot to do. A lot to do. It's crazy. Oh yeah.Phil Hudson:I can't imagine that the crew just hustling nonstop.Michael Jamin:Yeah, they were hustling and there's just no time to waste. But when you watch that show, no one thought. No one thought it was like it was sloppy.Phil Hudson:Felt like every other high quality film. And I think what's cool about that too, and I think you learned this when you study indie film, is there's a style that comes out of that. The minimalism almost adds to the value. And then we've talked on the podcast previously about the value of an art director or an art supervisor and how they can come in and really change things. In our Marin, we talked about the photos and they're out of focus, and that's where the art is. The Nissan Cent and everything else that's happening in the scene, the music comes into play to pick things up. But yeah, it's fascinating.Michael Jamin:The thing is, I would prefer, as crazy as that sounds, I would prefer to do another show like that as opposed to a big budget show faster. Let's shoot it faster. I just like it better.Phil Hudson:Buddy system was pretty quick too. I mean, we shot the buddy sixMichael Jamin:Weeks buddy system was equally fast and even still feels when you're on set, it's like, oh, this is so boring. Even still, it takes a long time to get each shot, so I don't get it when, but also, there wasn't a lot of people being self-indulgent on Marin. A lot of actors was like, no, stop horsing around. Know your lines. We don't have time. So it forces people to focus. And you know what? The crew, they loved it. I think they got paid less than other shows. There was no overtime on Marin, but they loved it. They wanted to go home with their family. They didn't want to spend their lives on set. They were happy to work 12, 13 hours a day. Go home.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, I want to highlight one thing that you were talking about here. What you're describing as a showrunner is why the showrunner is the executive producer. You have to dictate what shots are important. You have to dictate the stone, the tone and style of the show. You have to make sure your actors are prepared. You have to make sure your actors understand what are going on. And I know there's specific union rules about who's allowed to talk to the actors and who isn't allowed to. The doctors who can talk to the background and who can't. But the fact that the showrunner is there to serve the entirety of the production rather than just the ego of an actor and understanding things at every detail, the nuances of which ash tray, what colors the car we're using, you're making all of those decisions to sculpt and build this that is a producer.Michael Jamin:And often you, let's say a black car and the producer says that car's going to cost a thousand dollars more than a silver car. He is, all right, let's get the silver one. I'll live with it. But also, there were times, plenty of times when we were running Marin where it's like the director would set up a shot and I'd yell off, we're not going to use this shot, so keep it going. I'm telling you, because the short winner has final say over cut, not the director in tv. So I'd say, I'm not going to use this shot. So don't waste time getting it. Spend your time somewhere else on a different shot that you'll like, but not this one. Because that comesPhil Hudson:From decade, a decade plus of doing the work of writing and being on sets. And I think that's another main thing that they're talking about with the strikes, the ability for writers to be on TV sets has gone away. Because unless your showrunner wants to invite you to the set, which praise to Kevin and Steve, they will always invite the writers when their episode is shooting and they can come sit in video village and hang the actors and watch their show get made. But a lot of productions, writers are not on staff and they have to work. So they go get another writing job and they're sitting in another room writing. You don'tMichael Jamin:Learn any of this stuff. Yeah, you're notPhil Hudson:Learning how to be a showrunner. That's a lot of what the writer's guild striking about right now too, is staffing minimums, but also standards of how many people you want to have on set so people can learn the job of running a show.Michael Jamin:Right? There were times where, let's take, I see you're shooting. It's an emotional scene and they're covering in a, well, let's say they shooting in a wide, and it's an emotional scene. I'm not going to play it in a wide, I'm playing in a closeup. It's emotional. I'm going to be in a closeup or let's say it's a two shot. And also I know to make the joke pop, I'm not going to play it in a two shot. I'm going to play, jokes often have to play in singles or overs. So someone says a joke and the other person reacts to it, and it's the reaction that's funny. And if you play it in a two shot, it's not funny. And so there are things like this that you learn on set as an experienced showrunner or whatever writer you'll learn on set that you are not going to learn if you're not there. And so yes, this is partly what the strike is over. Sometimes you're getting shot coverage and they've crossed the line, and so these shots don'tPhil Hudson:Match. Do you want to define that for your listen, soMichael Jamin:Hard to explain without drawing it out, but basically,Phil Hudson:Do you want me to explain it or you want,Michael Jamin:I can explain it, but it's hard to imagine whatPhil Hudson:It's, who will crossing the line? Because you'll see an image of it. But I think for the listeners, you want it in their car.Michael Jamin:So imagine you're shooting, okay, so imagine you are shooting a multi-camera that come on a stage or any play on a stage. So the line separates the actors and the audience. There's a line there, imaginary line. And so the audience never crosses the line to watch come across that line to be on the actor side. And the actors never cross the line to the audience's side. And so when you're shooting a scene, imagine that the cameras are on the audience side. They're always behind that line and they never cross the line. And the problem is once you cross that line with a camera, the images get flipped.Phil Hudson:So it's very disjoint when you cut in post because all of a sudden someone was on the left and now they're on the right. Right.Michael Jamin:So if I'm talking to you in this shot here, we're doing this video podcast. I'm looking right at Phil, and Phil is looking left at me. That's how it's always going to be. I'm always looking right at Phil. And wePhil Hudson:Intentionally talked about that when we were setting up the video podcast. Who's looking right? Who's looking left? So that there was this line, so it wasn't disjointed. I don't set my camera up on the right hand side, and I'm on vacation, so I have this other camera. But normally if you look at it, it looks like we're having a conversation looking at each other.Michael Jamin:For the most part. Maybe in a movie or TV show, the camera's not going to cross the line because it becomes disorienting unless the director wants to disorient you, which is okay, that's a creative choice. ThePhil Hudson:Other place would do it. And there's a book on directing. I read really early on in my studies that talked about this as principle, and it was really hard for me to understand. So that's why I'm saying Google it like Michael was telling you to do. But imagine there's a parade coming down the street and you're watching it from this angle, and if you jump to the other side, it's flipped. That's the flip. But if your camera moves on a dolly around the other side in your brain, you now understand, but you can't go back to the other side now. So you can flip it, but you can't hop scotch back and forth becauseMichael Jamin:That's the T. Yeah. Can reestablish a line. You can always establish a new line. But one of the most difficult things for a director to shoot, it's not a car chase. It's not an exclusion. It's four people sitting at a dining room table. It's wild. That's really hard to shoot.Phil Hudson:The blocking in that is wild. You see, they literally chart it out in a CAD software and it says, this person's looking here and this person's looking here. And you have where your camera goes so that you remember meticulous about that,Michael Jamin:Which is why you'll often see as a cheat, you'll see if it's a table one character sitting on one side and then two characters sitting on the other side, they're not sitting all around the table, they're just sitting on opposite ends of the table. And even that's kind of difficult to shoot. And I'm not a director, although I have director, but I still, when I have to work on scenes like that, I have a pencil and pad making notes to figure out if we're shooting on the right side of the line. It's so complicated.Phil Hudson:Yes, it's a three-dimensional chess. You're just, yeah,Michael Jamin:It's easy. A good DP can do it, no problem. They can see it andPhil Hudson:They'll tell you,Michael Jamin:They'll warn you. Yeah. And the script E, they'll be able to help you as well. But often the director is not so much of a help because that's just not what they're worried about. Or maybe they don't have the experience to worry about it. And so as a showrunner, I busied myself one season of Marin learning all about this, but it took a season to figure out how to do this because I dunno, I'm a slow learner. But anyway, so that has nothing to do with being a producer, but Well,Phil Hudson:It does because you have to pay attention to those things, and you have to know those things. So as an executive in your audience right now, that is not predominantly, we talked about the beginning, but largely screenwriters or people who are interested in film, I think that it's really important for them to understand that you're not just showing up smoking a cigar in a chair, barking orders. You're focused and paying attention. You have binders with notes. You have everyone coming to you with a thousand questions over and over again.Michael Jamin:And I'm lucky because I have a writing partner. Well, if I don't have the answer, I can punt it to him and he'll probably have the answer. But we often divide responsibilities that way. So I understand the camera's a little better. And he does. He does as much of the other. He's really good at figuring out where we are in the script and whose attitude, who knows what at which moment. Like, man, how do you remember all this stuff? But he also looks at me the same way. How do you know all this stuff about the camera? And that's why when people say, I want to be a showrunner, it's like, hold on. Do you know what a showrunner does? It's a hard job. Yeah.Phil Hudson:The Rider's Guild has training programs on this because it is difficult, and again, it's part of the strike because they're, is my opinion, just my opinion. But I think a lot of times, corporations, I get it. Their job is to maximize profits and their job is to satisfy the demands of their shareholders. And it's a quarterly game four times a year. They're just making moves to satisfy that. And the Writer's Guild looking at it as 20, 30 years down the road, they see this hole where there's going to be a gap where no one's going to know how to run a show when this group of showrunners retires or moves on. There's not going to be anyone with that skillset and that knowledge because they don't have the repetitions and the time on set and the observation, and we haven't even talked about post and the value of being in post to learn these things too. And we can't use that shot because this, or there's a better take. The notes that I have to manage and maintain for the showrunner in order to get, I give him the lemi so that he can sit and post and understand what shots were taken, all the scripting notes, everything. They're going through everything to make those decisions and posts. And it's largely that stuff. Then those decisions being made on the day when they're filming. Yeah.Michael Jamin:The thing is, you mentioned the showrunners program at the writer's club. I had a guest on here, Alex Berger, who I worked with many years ago, and he's at the level now where he's ready to get his own show. He just hasn't gotten his own show, but he took the showrunner's program at the writer's club. It's a free program you have to apply for though. And he says that he learned a lot. And I was like, oh, tell me what you learned. And I was interested to know what he learned, run three shows, but it doesn't mean I know. No, I'm doing it because I never went through the program. But I was like, oh, that makes sense.Phil Hudson:I found out about that show. And again, I've talked about this documentary many times, but it's a showrunner, the Art of TV writing. But that's great. And they go in and they talk about that program, and they interview the director of the program and what the job is. And the thing that really stood out to me was quality scripts on time. That's the main thing. That's your job. That is the linchpin. And my assistant, Kevin, I hired an assistant in my agency who's a script coordinator, and he worked on a bunch of shows, but he was telling that one of the shows he was working on got canceled because the showrunner was not turning in scripts on time. And a very well known showrunner too.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it definitely happens. And on most of the shows we do, we try to get all the scripts done in pre-production. And the crew, the production staff is so grateful because that way they can plan ahead. They can decide which episodes to shoot. It's a hard enough job as it is without getting the script the night before. Imagine getting the script the night before and then telling 'em, okay, now you have to find, I don't know, a roller rink to shoot in the day the next day. How are they going to do that? So you have to get, this is when things get dangerous, when people are overworked or working late and cutting corners. So it's the job of the showrunner. And I think what the problem is, is I've been lucky I've had studios because these low budget shows that the studios are very, for the most part, hands off and they let you do your job. But on a high budget show, the studio may throw out a script the night before. We don't like it. And it's like, well, damn, do you understand what kind of stress this is going to put? Not just on the showrunner, but the entire crew inPhil Hudson:The families of the crew and the showroom as well. I know there are people on our crew who are working on the reshoots of Thor Love and Thunder, and they were working 14 hour days, seven days a week for two weeks straight. Terrible. And it is just like, Hey, it's going to make a billion dollars. We'll pay all of the overages and it'll all come out in the wash. We just got to get it done. And they did it shooting on a studio in Burbank, and then they have to drive home at three or four in the morning and then have turnaround.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Oh, I mean, these crew members really hard, hard, it can be a hard job. It could be a hard life. And soPhil Hudson:Yeah, you're getting home at 4:00 AM and then going to bed, you miss your kids. You wake up. I mean, even just, and I'll just say this, when I had my first kid, we were shooting quasi, my kid was almost a year old, and there were days I didn't see my kid, weeks. I didn't see my kid leave in the morning before she got up. And I'd come home before she went to bed or after she went to bed. That's heartbreaking.Michael Jamin:Heartbreaking. I hate that. Right.Phil Hudson:So it's what it was, and it was 30 days of that, and then it was over, and I was just very gratefulMichael Jamin:At, you can see the end in sight. At least you can go, okay, it's 30 days. I could. But if this is your life and okay, it's 30 days now, but your next movie is also 30 days, and then 30 days after that, a different movie, that becomes really hard. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Well, I think that speaks to as well, what your priorities are and what you want out of life. We talk about how if you want to be a writer, you have to learn how to write and you have to write for free, and you have to get notes and get feedback. You have to learn all these skillset sets. But I don't think a lot of people think about the quality of life that they want to have. And there are a lot of people, I think when I told you I was having a kid, you were telling me that you had an assistant or someone that you knew was a really good writer, really talented, and they just moved out of LA because it just no longer fit their family lifestyle. I can't remember who you were telling me.Michael Jamin:I don't remember who that was.Phil Hudson:Yeah, I remember I had the conversation. It was like literally you were telling them that. And then I was like, well, by the way, I'm having a kid after that. Because things shift and things change. Priorities change when you have a family, priorities. If you don't want to have a family and you're happy and you just want to make a career awesome and good for you, it's a balance. And I have a very supportive wife who lets me chase my dreams and do my things, and she hopes,Michael Jamin:But it could also be feast or famine. It can also be, you don't want to turn down this job. You don't know when your next job's coming. SoPhil Hudson:Yeah, imagine if I didn't have an agency that I'd built for the last decade. I'd be in a real bad spot right now with two kids. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Exactly. Yeah, right. There are aPhil Hudson:Lot of people likeMichael Jamin:That. I said, you're smart to have this other income stream, multiple income streams in Hollywood. Yeah. Well, there we go, Phil.Phil Hudson:Good stuff. Any other thoughts on producing orMichael Jamin:I don't know. I think I hit it. Do you have anything you want to add to this?Phil Hudson:No, I think it was a very helpful conversation. I hope people, I found it very enjoyable personally. I mean, just hearing you talk about these things and the nuances, it's just kind of sets the stage for what the job really is. And I think the mistake or the folly we often run into as creatives is we have this delusion of grandeur that we're going to make it in Hollywood and we're going to win an Oscar, and we're going to do these things. And you have to have a little bit of that suspension of disbelief, which is what we ask our audience to have. We have to suspend our disbelief about the reality of what our world looks like to chase our dreams and our goals, but we also need to be grounded and understand what the stakes are. And I think that's one of the values that you bring in the podcast. And what we see from people talking about is just, we just read the reviews the other day, just going through a bunch of 'em, and you and I we're really appreciative for anybody who's leaving reviews. So if you enjoy,Michael Jamin:Yeah, please go and leave us a review on Apple, if you like ourPhil Hudson:Show on iTunes. Yeah. But yeah, it's like people are just like, there's gold. Every episode's full of gold and wisdom. I just really think that it's a credit to your realistic take on of this, Michael. I just think you're just preparing another generation of writers and producers and creatives to just understand. You may never make it in the way you think you will, but it's still worth pursuing if you want to just keep doing it.Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah, and that's a good point because I do know before I wrap it up, I have spoken with people who chase the money after college because for various reasons and all that may be completely legit, maybe they didn't grow up with money, and so having money in the pocket really felt good, some stability, but then they reach a certain age where the money does no longer fill the hole, and so then they start chasing, they want to do something a little more creative with their life.Phil Hudson:There's a Ben Fold song called The Ascent of Stan, and it's talking about this corporate guy who gets laid off after 30 years and he goes home and he puts his slide deck in and he projects it onto the wall and traces it because he's going to paint this thing and it's just all pointless. What has my, basically when it's like, what has my life been, I put 20, 30 years into this corporation and they just escorted me out one day and here I am just trying to find my art again. And it's like, what's the point? And that's reality. ButMichael Jamin:You don't need anyone's permission to start making your art today. Maybe we'll talk more about that in another podcast, but yeah, don't wait for, just start doing it. Start creating it. Love it. Alright everyone, thank you so much. We got a lot of good free stuff on my website. Go visit it and you can get all the things. You can get a free screenwriting lesson. You can get an invitation to my free screenwriting webinar, which we do every few weeks. Got another one coming up. Well, I dunno when this airs, who knows? There'sPhil Hudson:Always one coming up at this point, which is, there's always one, a lot of really good feedback.Michael Jamin:You can learn more about my book, a Paper Orchestra. When that drops, you can see me on tour. You can just get the book, the audio book working on. You can get a sample script that I wrote or a couple simple scripts you could get. What else can you get,Phil Hudson:Phil? The newsletter, weeklyMichael Jamin:Newsletter we give away. Phil's in charge all giving Phil's in charge of giving it all away. IPhil Hudson:Just take from Michael guys, it's allMichael Jamin:He gives it away.Phil Hudson:I'm Robin Hood and we're just handing it to the masses,Michael Jamin:But it's all go to michaeljamin.com.Phil Hudson:Asked me to give it away. To be clear, everyone, Michael's like, Hey, if I wanted to learn from someone, I don't want to read their script. Can we put my scripts up here? I'm like, yeah, I'll figure out how to make the form and the email auto drip campaign work and make sure the tags are functioning.Michael Jamin:Yep. He's the digital marketer. So you go check out ruck ss e o as well if you're all your digital marketing needs. Okay, everyone, thank you so much. Until next week, keep writing.Phil Hudson:Thanks guys.This has been an episode of Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin and Phil Hudson. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for Michael's monthly webinar@michaeljamin.com/webinar. If you found this podcast helpful, consider sharing it with a friend and leaving us a five star review on iTunes. For free screenwriting tips, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. You can follow Phil Hudson on social media @PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane Music by Ken Joseph. Until next time, keep writing.

On this week's episode, Writer Adam Pava (Boxtrolls, Lego Movie, Glenn Martin DDS and many many more) talks about his writing career, and why sometimes when he writes features, he doesn't always get credited. Tune in for much more!Show NotesAdam Pava on Twitter: https://twitter.com/adampava?lang=enAdam Pava on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1106082/Free Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptAdam Pava:I think that's the main thing is have samples that show exactly what your voice is and exactly what makes you different than everybody else, and what you can bring to the table that nobody else can. I think that's the first thing, but to get those open writing assignments, I think it's just a cool errand to even try because they're just so risk averse to hire anybody that hasn't done it before. I think the better shot that you have is to make smaller things and then they'll seen you've done it. You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jenman.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back for another episode. I may be retitling the name of my podcast. So I'm, I'm going to be vague for everyone, but I'm here with my next guest, Adam Pava, who's a very talented writer I worked with many years ago on show called Glen Martin, d d s, and he works. We'll talk. I'll let you speak in a second. Pava, you just relax. I'm going to bring you on with a proper introduction because you've worked a lot, lot of features, a lot of animation. So I'm going to run through some of your many credits. Some of them are credited and some of them just are not so credited. We're going to talk about that even though you've done the work. So I think you started early on on shows like Clone High, Johnny Bravo, I'm going to skip around.You worked with us on Glen Martin d d s, but then you've also done Monsters versus Aliens Dragons. I'm going to jump around, but wait, hold on. I'm skipping a lot of your credits, Pavo, a lot of the box trolls you've done, you work a lot with Lord and Miller on all their stuff, all the Lego movies, goblins. You have something in the works with Leica, which is one of the big animation studios which you're attached to direct as well, and then also some other shows. Let's mention My Little Pony dreamland. What else should we talk about? A bunch of the label, it's hard to talk about the credits because so many of 'em are things that are either in production or development that they're not supposed to talk about yet, or they're things that I was uncredited on. And so it's a weird thing.And why are you uncredited? How does that work? It's super different from TV and movies. So back when I worked in tv, I did tv. I mean, back when we worked together it was like what, 10, 15 years ago? Something like that. But I did TV for the first decade of my career and everything you work on, you're credited, even if you're just like the staff writer in the corner who says three words and doesn't make, get a joke into the script. You're one of the credited writers. Movies are a different situation. It's like one of these dirty secrets of Hollywood where they always want to credit one writer or a team of writers. Sometimes it'll be two writers that get the credit if both of 'em did a huge chunk of the work. But the thing that usually happens these days on big studio movies anyway is they will go through three or four writers over the course of the years and years of it being in development and all those writers who worked on it before the final writer or sometimes just the first writer and the last writer will get credit and all the ones in the middle won't get credit.Or it's like the W G A has these arbitration rules where it's like, unless you did a certain percentage of the final shooting script, you're not going to get credit at all. So even though the guy who brings catering gets credit and every person on, so will you arbitrate for credit or do you go into these projects knowing that you're not going to get credit? Usually I go in knowing that I'm not going to get credit or I will. Sometimes there'll be a situation. I did about a year's worth of work on the Lego movie, the first Lego movie, and Phil and Chris, Phil Lauren and Chris Miller who directed that and wrote the first draft of the script and the final draft of the script. They're buddies of mine and so I'm not going to arbitrate against 'em and I want them to hire me in the future and I love them and they really wanted, they're written and directed by title, and so of course I'm not going to arbitrate in that sort of situation.And also to be fair, I don't think I would win that arbitration because they wrote the first draft and it was already the idea and it was brilliant and it came out of their minds and it was awesome. And then they had me do four or five drafts in the middle of there where I was just addressing all the studio notes and all the notes from the Lego Corporation and all the notes from Lucasville and all that kind of stuff while they're off shooting 21 Jump Street and then they come back. So you were just doing it to move it closer and then they knew they were, yeah, exactly. They knew they were coming back onto it and they were going to direct it and they would do another pass. They would do multiple passes once it goes into storyboarding once it's green lit. So I was just trying to get it to the green lit stage, so they had written a draft and then I did a bunch of drafts addressing all these notes and then we got a green lit off of my drafts and then they came back on and they started the storyboard process and directing process.And the story changes so dramatically during that process anyway that the final product is so far removed from the drafts I did anyway, but it was a valuable, my work was needed to get it to that point to where they can jump back onto it. But very little of that final movie is anything that I can take credit for and I wouldn't want to take credit away from them on that. So I do a lot of that kind of work. Did they have other writers that worked on Legos movie as well, or just you? On the first one, it was them and me. There was these two brothers, the Hagerman brothers who had done a very early treatment, but that had set up the original idea for the movie of Allego man sort of becoming alive. So they got a story by credit, and then they definitely always have a stable of writers that they bring in to do punch up work and to just watch the animatic and give notes and stuff like that.So there's a whole bunch of people that are contributing along the way. Funny, they come from tv, so they really run it. They run it as if they're still on TV a hundred percent. They have their writers. And so I've gotten to work on a lot of their projects as one of their staff writer type people basically is the idea. So it's all uncredited work, but it's great work. They're such great guys and you're working on really cool things every time. And so now there's a new, in the last few years, the W G A started this new thing called additional literary Material credit. And so if Lego were to have come out now, I think I would've gotten that credit on it, but at the time, that didn't exist, so I got a special thanks. And how did you, oh, really? Okay. And how did you meet these guys?They gave me my first ever job before I knew you. I mean, I had written a movie script that was an animated movie. This is like 99 or 2000. I was just out of grad. I wrote it while I was in grad school. And Wait, hold on. I didn't even know you went to grad school. Did you study screenwriting in grad school? Yeah, I went to U S C screenwriting. Oh, I did not. I hide it from you. Why do you hide it? For me? I don't know. It's a weird thing where I feel like a, it's like I was in this weird secondary program that wasn't part of the film school. It was the master's of professional writing and screenwriting. And so people would get confused and I didn't want to lead them on, but also I just feel like it got me to a place and then I was like, I didn't want be part of a good old boys club where people are just hiring U S C people or whatever.That's the whole point of going to USC for Yeah, people ask me, should I go to film school, get an M F A, and my standard answer is, no one will ever ask for your degree. No one caress about your degree. The only thing they care about is can you put the words on the page that are good a hundred? But why did you, but what it did offer me, and I'll get back to how I met Phil and Chris in a little bit, but this is a good side conversation. It gave me an opportunity to do some internships on a couple of TV shows. And that was super, super valuable. So when I was at U SS C, it was 99 and 2000, and so I interned my first year on a little show called Friends, which was still on the air. I was on the air at the time.I was just the stage intern. So I was moving the chairs around during the rehearsals and fetching coffees and getting frozen yogurt for cast members or whatever, just shitting my pants, trying to be a normal human being around all these superstars and was not, I wouldn't say it was the best experience of my life. It was definitely one of those things where I was like, everybody was super intimidating and everybody was really busy and the cast were in the middle of a renegotiation, so they're all showing up late. It just felt like everyone was angry the whole time. And I was like, dunno if I want to work in tv. But there was one writer's assistant who was just like, yeah, because on the stage you're a writer, you need to be in a writer's room, you should be an intern in a writer's room.And I was like, oh. And then so I was able to get an internship on Malcolm In the Middle, which had just sold, it was in his first year, so it was a summer show. So I jumped onto that in the summer and was able to do that. And then in that writer's room, I was like, oh, these are my people. These are actual, wait, you were an intern. They let you sit in the writer's room one. It was like for doing all, getting the lunches and making the coffee and all that stuff. Linwood was nice enough to let me just observe in the room for one day a week just to, well, if I didn't have other stuff I needed to get done. So it was super nice as long as I didn't pitch or say anything and I was just, I never would.But it was cool to, that experience showed me that show was so well written and it was so tight and those writers were all geniuses or I thought they were all geniuses. And then I'd go in the room first, I would read the scripts and I would think, oh my God, I'd never be able to do this. And then I got in the room and I'm like, oh no, they're just working really, really hard and banging their head against the wall until they come up with a perfect joke. And then by the time it's done, it seems like it's genius. But it all was just really hard work, really long hours to get to that place. So that taught me like, oh, maybe I can be one of those people. If I'm just one cog in this room, I could do that. And so that gave sort of the confidence to do that.So I had done those. Getting back, I can loop back into the Phil and Chris thing now because this actually connects really well. I had done those internships. I graduated U Ss C and I had this script that I'd written as my final project or whatever, and it was an animated movie, and I thought you could just sell an animated movie, but I didn't know, they didn't teach me this in grad school that at the time they developed 'em all. It was like only Disney and Dreamworks were doing 'em at the time. This is 2000. And they just hire directors and sort of were an artist in-house to sort of create the stories or back then that's how they would do it. And so I sent it to some agents and the response was always like, Hey, you're a really funny writer. This is really good.I can't sell this. I don't know anybody that buys animated movies, but you should write a live action movie if you can write it as good as this. And so I wrote another movie that was Live Action, but it was silly. It seemed like it might as well have been an, I go back and read it now and I'm like, it's basically an animated movie, but it didn't say it was animated, it was live action human beings. And I submitted it to a small boutique agency at the time called Broder. I don't know if you remember them, Broder Crow, we were there. Yeah. And so Matt Rice was an agent there at the time, and he had on his desk, his assistant was Bill Zody. I dunno if you know him, he's a big name agent now, but he was an assistant at the time.He read that script that I wrote and was like, oh, you know who this reminds me of these other clients that Matt has, Phil and Chris. And so he passed it on to those guys and they were looking for a writer's assistant on Clone High because they had just sold their first TV show. They were a young hotshot writers that were just deal. And so I met with Phil and Chris, and they hired me as the writer's assistant on Clone High, which was like, they were the same age as me. They were just like, we don't know what we're doing. But they're like, you've been in a writer's room, you've been knock on the middle and I friends and you, I didn't know anything. I didn't know what I was doing at all, but it said on my resume that I had had these experiences.So they thought I would be a good writer's assistant for that reason. But they were the coolest dudes from the very beginning. They were just like, you're the writer's assistant, but also you should pitch in the room. You should act like you're another writer. We have a really small staff, we have seven writers, and you're going to get episode eight. I mean, it was crazy. They were just like, they gave me a lance and that never happens anymore. How did they get an overall deal when they came? Oh, it's the craziest day. So they went to Dartmouth, they made each other at Dartmouth and then they were doing cartoons while they were there studying animation. And one of Phil's, I think it was Phil, I think it was Phil won the Student Academy Award for a student film that he did. And it was written about in the Dartmouth Alumni magazine.And there was a development exec at Disney whose son went to Dartmouth and read that article and was like, Hey, called them in their dorm room. And we're like, if you guys ever go out to la lemme know. We'll set a meeting. And they literally, the day after they graduate just drove to LA and then called 'em up and we're like, we're ready to get hired. And it worked and they got hired, it worked. They got hired just to do Saturday morning stuff, and they did that for a little bit and everything they were doing was too crazy for Saturday morning, but it was like Disney. But then Disney was like, well, you can start developing stuff for adult Disney or for primetime stuff. And so they came up with the idea for Clone High, and it originally sold to Fox as a pilot to be after the Simpsons or whatever, but then it didn't get picked up and then M T V picked it up and then they had a show.So it's crazy what a trajectory their career has. Yeah, I know. And now they're running Hollywood. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah. They were good guys to meet right away mean honestly, it was like to become friends with them and just to ride their wake and get some of their sloppy seconds and some of the stuff that they don't want to deal with, it's honestly, it was great. Did they call you a lot with stuff like that? Hey, we don't want to do this. It's yours less now than they used to. I mean, there was a point where I was one of their stable guys that they would call. I think they have met a lot of people in the 20 years since then, but early on it was like, I mean, even their first movie was Claudio with a Chance of Meatballs, and they brought me on to help rewrite the third act at one point.And it was just from then on, they would always send me their scripts and just add jokes or to give feedback or whatever, and they've always been like that. And then I've noticed the last maybe six or seven years as they've gotten these huge deals and all their projects are now just these massive things, it's not quite the same relationship where they would just text me or email me and be like, Hey, read this. Now. It's like they have a whole team of people. They have a machine now, but we still are friends. And then things will come up where they'll hire me for things here and there. I wonder, honestly, I don't want to make this differe about them, but it's so interesting. I kind of think, I wonder what it's like to be that busy. It almost feels like, oh my God, I'm too busy.They're so busy. They're the hardest working people I know. It's like people always wonder how this stuff comes out so good. And it's not that, I mean honestly, it's just good because they stay up later than everybody. They never stop tinkering with things. They're never satisfied. They always think the next thing they do is going to ruin their career. And so they run on this fear that propels them that, I mean, they harness it. It's not like it's a secret. They know that this is what makes them great and utilizing all their friends utilizing, they're the kind of people that are the best idea in the room wins. If you could be the PA or the head of the studio and if you have a great idea, they're like, let's try it. And they also try a lot of stuff that doesn't work and they're given the leeway to go down a lot of dead ends and then realize that's not the answer, and then back up and then try it again and try it again and try it again.And that's how a lot of animated movies are done. And so it drives everybody crazy, but also creates amazing product. That's what, because I've interviewed a couple of guys who worked at dreamworks, which John Able who does a lot of the kung movies, and he describes it the same way. I was like, wow, it's so different from writing live. It's so different from writing live action. The whole experience sounds exhausting to me. Do you find it the same? Yeah, I mean when I first started in it, I was like, this is ridiculous. Why don't they just write a script and then shoot the script? And then over the years, I've learned to love the process. I mean, I was frustrated early on when I would realize how much gets thrown out and how much changes and how much. It's just, it's out of the hands of one writer.And I think a lot of it is also just ego thinking that you could do it better than everybody. And then once I embraced, oh no, you have a bunch of really brilliant storyboard artists and you have a bunch of really brilliant character designers and head of story and a director and all these different people who, and layout artists and even the animators themselves, they all add something so vital and valuable to it, and you learn stuff from each of their steps and then you're just given the leeway to be able to keep adjusting and adjusting until you get it right. And that's why animation comes out so much tighter often than live action is just because you've been able to see the movie so many times and keep tweaking and tweaking until you get it right. Now there is a point where sometimes I feel like you can take that too far and then it just becomes like, oh, we had a great version, four drafts to go and now we've lost our way, or we're just spinning our wheels or whatever.See, that's why I get lost sometimes. I've been in shows where you rewrite something to death and then someone says, we should go back to the way it was, and I'm like, what was the way it was? I don't even remember anymore a hundred percent, and I've stopped ever thinking You can do that. I used to think I would hold out hope though they'll realize that the earlier draft was better. They'd never do. It's like everybody forgets it, and then you just have to have the confidence to be like, well, we know we'll come up with something better together that it'll be from the collaborative mind of all of us. And then I think now I've seen actually the last few years, there's a little bit of a tightening of the belt budgetarily, and that leads to faster schedules. And so instead of having seven times that you can throw the story up from beginning to end on the storyboards, like the reels and watch this movie, you can only do it three times or so.That gives you a little bit more of a window of like, okay, we got to get it right in three drafts or whatever, in three storyboard drafts. And who's driving the ship then in animation? Is it not the director in this case, it's Lord Miller, but they're the writers. Well, Lord Miller are often the directors, and so when they're the directors, they're in charge when they're the producers, they're in charge When they're on the Spider Verse movies, for example, they're the writer or Phil writes them and then they hire directors. But Phil and Chris are the producers, but they're sort of like these super directors. They're very unusual. Yeah, it's not, yeah, that's an unusual situation. But other movies somebody do at dreamworks and there's somebody do at Leica Leica, it's like the director and the head of the studio, Travis Knight, who it's his sandbox and it's his money because he's a billionaire that funds the studio.He has the ultimate say, and so the directors are always working with him, but it's always collaborative. It's always like you get in a room. When I'm working at Leica, it's always like me, the director and Travis trying to figure it out, and he's trusted me to be, I feel like he doesn't trust a lot of people. He is kind of closed off in that way, but once you earn his trust, you will be in that room and you'll figure it out together or whatever. But every movie's different, and sometimes I'm on a movie just to help fix it for a little bit, and then I'm just a fix it person that comes in for a little bit. Sometimes I just add jokes. Sometimes I just, there's been movies where it was a mystery animated movie and they're like, can you just rewrite the mystery?I was like, what a weird assignment. But I had three weeks still. But in this case, they're calling you. How are you getting this work? Just reputation, they're calling you out of nowhere? Mostly now it's reputation. I mean, sometimes I'll be submitted to it. I mean, the first time it's always like you have to be submitted. And I mean, I can tell you how I got hired on box rolls. That was a big breakthrough to me. I mean, it was after I'd done, so Lego was obviously just having known and worked with Phil and Chris forever, and then they got hired on Jump Street, and they needed somebody that they trusted to dear the ship for a while while they're gone. And so I was able to do that, and that was a huge big break. It was like, you couldn't ask for that. I just, I'm the luckiest guy in the world.But after that, at Leica, they had a draft of a movie before it was called box Rolls, it was called Here Be Monsters, and it had been in development for years and years and years and gone through a bunch of writers and they hadn't quite figured it out. It was kind of a mess. It was a big sprawling story that had a lot of moving parts to it, and they had heard that on Lego, I was able to harness a lot of the crazy ideas that Phil and Chris had and put it into a structure that made sense. And so they asked me to come in and do the same thing, or before they even did that, I did a punch up. I got hired to do a punch up on that movie, and I knew that it was going to be a huge opportunity to impress them.I really, really wanted to work at Leica because at the time, they had only had Coralline come out and I loved that movie. And then I had seen maybe ParaNorman had come out or it hadn't come out yet, but it was about to, whatever it was, I knew it was a new animation studio doing really unique original stuff, and I got asked to be part of this round table, and it was all these heavy hitter Simpsons writers. It was like J Kogan and Gamo and Pross, all these people that you're like, these are all legends. They've done a million shows and they get hired to do punch up all the time. That's like their bread and butter, right? I'm not so sure anymore, but okay, no, no, but this is in 2011 or whatever.And I was like, I am going to take this script and analyze it and come up with character moments and come up with, I'm not going to be able to compete with those guys with the best joke in the room necessarily. I'll have good jokes to pitch, but I'm going to have like, oh, what if we adjust the character to be more like this? And where those guys were all, not those guys specifically, but the room in general, these were all guys who were maybe reading five pages ahead and then pitching off the top of their head. And I spent a couple of days writing jokes in the margin and ideas in the margin, and I killed in that room. I got a lot of stuff in and to the point where a few months later when they needed a big overhaul, they asked me to come in and do sort of what I had done on Lego, just take this big thing and hone it down into, so it was a rewrite job at the beginning, and then it turned into three years of working with the director in the studio to change that story.We threw everything out and started over basically a couple times over the course of those years end up, but how are you get paid? Are you getting paid on a weekly scale? Because I don't know how that would work. Do you get paid? It starts off with a draft and then it'll be a typical thing like a draft in two rewrites, but you quickly run through those and then they keep needing your work. At least they're not getting free work out of you. They're picking no, then it turns into either a day rate or a weekly rate, and that's where I bought my house.I made so much money on my day rate. They would literally just, Leica would call me and just be like, oh, we're going to record an actor in a few days. Can you just go through all their scenes and write three or four alts for every joke? Just have a bunch of stuff. And I would spend a few days doing that, and then a day rate, you get paid really, really well, that stuff adds up. Or they would be like, we just need one more pass on the third act, or we just need to go through the whole script and remove this character. And so all these little weekly assignments, and then you're just like, that was very lucrative doing it that way.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.Adam Pava:You usually, because done so much animation and it sounds like you always set out to do animation, is that I did set out to do it, and then I didn't set out to only do it. I thought I could do both, but you kind of get pigeonholed a little bit. It's hard. I've gotten hired to write a few live action movies, but there were always a live action movie that had an animation element to it. It could be a hybrid movie or be a family movie that they think, oh, because you've done family work, you can do this. But nobody would ever hire me to just do a horror movie or whatever. And I don't know if I'd be the right guy for that either. I think my sensibility tends to be more animation based, but also, I think movies are such a different thing than TV where there's like, they're so expensive.If you're spending $80 million or whatever, you want to hire somebody that's done it before. So it's really, really hard for the studio bosses or even the lower level executives to fight to hire you if you've never done that kind of thing before. And so you get, it's not pigeonholed. I love doing it and I love the work, but it's also, I get why I get hired for certain things and not for other things. But also I feel super lucky because animation is one of the only parts or the only genres of film that has not shrunk over the years. Movies in general, they've stopped making live action comedies almost completely, except for stuff on streamers. They don't make rom-coms anymore. They barely make action comedies. It's like they make superhero movies and Star Wars movies, but then animation movies are evergreen. And so I feel really lucky that I sort of fell into this area that there is still work to be had.So yeah, I mean, you really have put together a really pretty impressive career. And I know not all your credits, not all your work is credited, so what I mean? Yeah, well, it's either uncredited or there's so many projects that died Vine. So it's like you read my, I said you that list of credits and it's like I'm looking at it over earlier today. Oh, it's just a list of debt projects, but that's expected. When you go into it, you go, okay, they're not all going to go. That's expected. It's all right. I was looking at my, I was organizing my, it's a strike, so I have time to do these things, organizing my folders on my computer and putting everything in, and I had over 150 folders of each. One is its own project, and not all of those are work that I've done.Some of them are like, I got sent this thing to pitch on, and then I had one meeting and it went away. And some of 'em I did a few weeks on, or some of 'em I just did day work on, but 150 projects over the years. Some of 'em I'm on for a year or two or three years. So it's insane. And so the hit ratio is super low of, I got really lucky when I transitioned out of TV and went into movies. It was like the first two things. Well, I sold a thing to Dreamworks that didn't get made, but then right after that, it was Lego and box trolls. They both came out in 2014, and I worked on both of 'em, and I was like, oh, this is going to be easy. You work on a movie and then it comes out and then it's cut to 10 years later and it's like nothing else is my name on it has come out.I've worked steadily. I've worked really well. I've been very happy. But it's definitely, it's a different thing than TV where you're just working and getting credited all the time. Well, yeah, but it also sounds like, I don't know, it sounds like to me, maybe I'm wrong. It sounds like you don't need to hustle as much doing what you do. No, I feel like it's the opposite because on TV you can get on a show and you're running for years, but on a movie you always know what's going to add, but they're coming to you. People are coming to you with offers, in other words. Oh yeah, sometimes. I mean, yes, the ones that end up happening, that's true. But there's so many that I'm just on a list at the studio, but I'm in a bake off with six other writers and I don't get it.So you put a lot of work so people don't know what to bake off is. So this is when you have to pitch to get the job and you have to put in several weeks of work. That's the worst. That's just the worst. And that's the majority of my life. Oh, is it? That's like, yeah. Yeah. So there's definitely, I mean, between Phil and Chris and Laika, I have, and a little bit of Dreamworks now. I'm doing my third movie for them right now. So that's pretty good over 10 years, three movies. But other than those places, it's always like you're getting sent stuff, but that doesn't mean they want you. It just means they want to hear a bunch of takes, and so you have to try to fight for the job if you really want it. Or I used to spend months or maybe eight months coming up with the take and having every detail worked out.And then I realized over time, they don't actually want that. They want a big idea and some themes and some ideas of what the set pieces are, and they want to know that you, I mean, honestly, it's, I don't even recommend that young writers go out for them because you're not going to get it anyway, because they're always going to go with somebody that has done it before. Especially, I mean, not always, if you might be the rare exception, but so much. Well, then what do you recommend to young writers to do? Dude, I don't know. I mean, I think you have to write great samples. I mean, I think that's the main thing is have samples that show exactly what your voice is and exactly what makes you different than everybody else, and what you can bring to the table that nobody else can.I think that's the first thing. But to get those open writing assignments, I think it's just a fool's errand to even try, because they're just so risk averse to hire anybody that hasn't done it before. I think the better shot that you have is to make smaller things, and then they'll see you've done, it's not even try to get these big studio things, get a small indie thing if you can, or make your own thing if you can, or just try to work your way up in a smaller way. I mean, all the big name directors out there all started on small indie movies. And I think that's got to be the same for writers now too. So many fewer movies. Is there anything that you're doing on the side just for the love of it that you're creating for yourself? Or is it, I haven't, in the last few years, I haven't.I've just been busy with work, but during the pandemic, I had plenty of time. Nobody was buying movies, and I am wrapped up on something and I had an idea that I thought was going to be my next big sale, and that it was an idea about a virus that went, it was a comedy thing, but it was this idea where it was sort of based on the idea that Christmas is getting longer and longer every year, where people put up their lights in decorations sooner and sooner, and you start seeing the stuff for sale in October or whatever. And so I was like, oh, it felt like Christmas was a virus that was slowly taking over the world. And I was like, what if it's a zombie movie, but Christmas is the virus? And so it was sort of a Christmas apocalypse thing where Christmas takes over the world and one family didn't get infected and had to fight back.So I was like, this is going to be a big seller. And then I was like, and then Covid hit, and it was like nobody wanted to buy a thing about a virus taking over the world, so I literally spent the pandemic. To answer your question, I wrote it as a novel. Instead, I wrote it as a middle grade novel, a y, a novel. Did you publish it? Not yet. We're trying. So we're out to publishers, and it took a while to figure out literary agents, which are very different world and everything, but the idea is to hopefully sell it as a book and then be able to adapt it as a feature. But yeah, it was so fun to write, and it was so freeing to not be stuck in 110 pages and to, I mean, I already had the whole thing outlined from the pitch when I was going to pitch it, so I knew the structure of it, so I just kept it as the structure of a movie, but I expanded on it and got more into the character's heads and that kind of stuff.But I had such a fun time writing that, and I was just like, man, someday when the work dries up, I am going to look forward to writing novels instead. And oh, yeah. The funny thing is when you describe the literary word going out to publishers, it's not that different from Hollywood. You think It is. It's not. It's the same hell. Oh, absolutely. But you and I haven't had to deal with breaking into Hollywood in a long time. And then in the literary world, they're like, oh, you've written movies. We don't care. We don't care at all. So it's starting over. And U T A tried to help a little bit, but they're like, we don't really know what to do. And then, so it's, I've been, my manager has been introducing me to editors and stuff, literary editors, and they've been really receptive, and it's been good trying to find the right one and the person I jive with. But it's very much like, oh, you're starting from scratch all over again. And for less money, no money. I mean, literally, I don't know how you would make a living off of this. I mean, I think we're spoiled a little bit, but what was the money they were telling you? Can you say, I don't want to say you don't, but it was basically about, it was less than a 10th that I would get paid on a movie.It was about my weekly rate. So I was telling you, I do weekly jobs on movies, and it's like if I do a weekly on a studio movie or I could sell a novel, or you could work five years on a novel, and I'm like, oh, this is not a way to support a family, but it was really fun. Someday when I'm just doing it for fun, I would love to do it. Wow, how interesting. Wow. So your best advice, because you're not an animator, you're not even an artist, are you? No, I don't draw or anything. I just love animation. I just always loved animation. So I don't know. I think when I was in seventh grade when the Simpsons started, and that blew my mind, and I was like, I remember telling my dad, I think I want to write on this. It was the first time I recognized, oh, people are writing these jokes. It was very, I think, more self-aware than most comedy was. And I was in junior high and I was just like, I want to be a writer on a show like this. I never was a writer on that show, but a bunch of other stuff.Now, as far as directing, because I know you're attached to possibly direct this project, where does your confidence come from that to direct? I mean, I don't know if I have confidence in it. I mean, I would want to co-direct it. In animation, you often get paired with another, if you're a writer, you'd get paired with an experienced animation director who comes from the visual side. So either an animator or a store wear artist or visual development artist. And I just feel like some of the projects I've been doing, you sort of act as more than just a writer anyway. You're sort of meeting with the creative heads all the time, making these big decisions that affect the projects. And at a certain point, I'm like, well, if I write something, that project that I, that's at life that I was attached to, it probably won't even happen at this point.It's been a few years, and it's kind of sitting there waiting for Travis to decide if he wants to make it. But it was a personal project to me, and it was like this would be the one that I was like, I would really want to see this all the way through. And I'm sure at that studio at this point, he's, Travis himself who runs the studio, is kind of directing all the latest projects anyway, so I would be co-directing with him. And so he would really be in charge, and I would just be, they're up in Seattle, right? Portland? Yeah, Portland or in Portland, yeah. So do you go up there a lot for Yeah, when I'm on a project, so usually it's like if I'm just writing it before it's green lit, which is most of the time I'll just fly up there for meetings just to get launched or whatever, and then go back up after I turn it in to get notes. But if it's in production on box trolls, and then there's another upcoming one that I did a bunch of production work on, they'll fly me up there to work with the board artists and stuff. And that's a crazy, that place is so nice.It's like a wonderland. I mean, it's like this giant warehouse downstairs that they have all the stages and they're all covered with black velvet rope, I mean black velvet curtains. So to keep all the light out and everything. And that's where they're moving all the puppets and everything, the stop motion. And then upstairs it's like the offices, and it just feels like a corporate office building with cubicles and stuff. It's very weird. But you go downstairs and it's like there's people animating, there's this huge warehouse where they're building all the props and they're like armature section where they're adding all the skeletal armature to the You never went with us to, because Kapa was like that in a cup of coffee in Toronto when we did Glen Martin. Yeah, it was amazing though. Similar. But Kapa is doing it on a budget, and these guys are spending so much money, it's not a viable way to make money to make these animated stop motion animated movies.They don't do it to make money. He does it. He loves it. Oh, really? Oh my gosh. Yeah, because Travis Knight is the son of Phil Knight who've gone to Nike, so he's got sort of a lot of money, and it's his hobby shoe money. He's got shoe money, but he is a brilliant animator. He is a super smart, interesting dude who wants to make things that are different than anybody else. And so it's an amazing place to work because nowhere else do you ever have the conversation of like, oh, we could do this if we wanted to do it, where more people would see it, or we could do it this way, which is cool and we want to do this. It's fun and weird.Not that he doesn't care about an audience, he does care about an audience, but it's not most important to him is making something that's awesome to him for the art. And so it's a very different way of looking at things. But I've been in situations there where it's like we're doing upstairs, doing a rewrite with me and the director changing the whole third act or whatever, and then I go downstairs and just tour the stages and the workshops, and I'll meet a puppeteer who's like building this giant puppet who's telling me this is the biggest puppet that's ever been created in Stop motion, and here's the 17 different places where I can articulate it. And I'm just thinking like, dude, we cut that yesterday upstairs. Oh no. And he's been working on it for a month. Oh, no. But I can't say anything. I'm just sort of like, oh, yeah, that's awesome.It's so great. You're doing great work. Anyway, I'm going to get back upstairs. That's so heartbreaking. But they burn through so much money just doing it all by hand. It's so crazy. But it's so beautiful, so I love it. And so you were literally upstairs, they gave you a small office and you just start typing? Yeah, that's literally, I mean, usually when I'm there, it's like they just put me in some random cubicle that nobody else is using or it's not a cubicle, a little office that is or whatever, somebody office. And you'll stay there for a few days or a few weeks or what? Yeah, exactly. Depending on how much they need me. So it either be a few days or a few weeks. And then on box rolls, I was up there. I would be up there for a week, relining some stuff, and then I'd come back home for two weeks and write those pages up.And I mean, I'd be writing in the evenings after the meetings and stuff too, while I was up there. But when we are rewriting, it's a train that's moving and it's like the track is you're running on a track and you got to keep pressure. What did you think of staying there in Portland? Did you like it? I did it. It's hard because my family's here and life is here, but if that movie had gone that I was attached to Coder Act, we were planning on moving there for that for three or four years. That's how it would take. Interesting. Would you have sold your house here or just rented it out? I'd have rented it out, I think. Interesting. Yeah, you, it was like we were having all these conversations, and then it's the longer it goes, we're like, that's probably not going to happen.We don't have to think about this right now. How interesting. That's so key. It really takes that long, man. Oh yeah. They're so long. And then also, it's like there is this weird thing in animation where it's not uncommon for a movie to go through two or three directors over the course of its many years in production. So it's like, why? I know. Just because they're beasts. And sometimes in the same way that you're changing the story so many times over the years, sometimes you make such a drastic change that it's no longer the vision of that director, and it's just not a right fit anymore. And I've seen that happen on a lot of movies that I've been on. I mean, Boxtrolls didn't end up with the same two directors that it started with. One of the two stayed on it, but the other one didn't.Oh, no, this sounds very frustrating to me. It sounds It does. And then other movies up there have gone through different directors, and so I was like, even if I had gotten hired as the director, I was in the back of my head. I always knew this might not last even if I'll do my best and I'll try to make it work. But you haven't even started and you're finding I'm being fired. Yeah, totally. But I mean, it's a weird thing. It's not TV where you're on a show for a year and then hopefully you get the second year if you get one. It's like in movies, they fire and hire different writers all the time, and so directors less, but writers, it really is pretty common. I've been on both sides of it where it's like, I used to take it really harder, fired off a movie.You're like, oh my God, did they not like the draft? I did. And usually it's like, no, we liked it, but now there's a director on it and they want to take a different direction. Or Oh, the director has a friend that they want to work with that they work with as a writer. Or other times I've been that guy that a director has brought on to rewrite somebody else, and I always try to be super nice about it. Now that I've seen both sides of it, I always try to reach out to the previous writer and be like, Hey, I just want you to know it's in good hands. Or sometimes if I'm the one that's fired, I reach out, be like, Hey, if you want to know where the skeletons are buried, happy to get in lunch with you. Just to be like, here's the pitfalls to look out for.This is where people don't realize that people on the outside just don't realize what it's actually like when you're the writer. You're a successful working writer. And I think they have a very different vision of the reality of a hundred percent. I didn't know the job was, I thought the job was going to be writing the whole time. Most of the job is it's playing politics with the studio and the executives and the director and Well, what do you mean politics, getting navigating the notes? What do you mean? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like the notes, but also the personalities. It's like a lot of the job I feel like is to go in and to make everybody feel comfortable with where you're taking it. Because you walk into a room and sometimes you could feel like, oh, the director thinks they're making a very different movie than the head of development thinks.Then that's different than what the producer thinks. And that's different than what the head of the studio thinks. It's like I've been in a room where it's like Jeffrey Katzenberg is just like, guys, guys, guys, you're all thinking about this all wrong. And you just have to be like, okay, how can I find solutions that makes everybody happy, that make everybody happy? And that's a huge part of the job. I mean, honestly, when I did the Lego rewriting with Phil and Chris, that's what the whole job was, was just like, how do I make Warner Brothers who didn't know what they had? They thought it was a toy commercial. They were very skeptical of the whole thing, Phil and Chris, who wanted to make some beautiful art. And it was cool with cool ideas. And Lego Corporation who wanted to make a toy commercial and Lucasfilm who didn't want their characters to be in it, and DC who didn't know whether they should be or not.And you're just like, how do I get in a room? And and usually if you come up with a great gag or great joke that articulates the, that illuminates the tone of the thing. So they all go, oh, okay. That's the thing. So the round of notes, like you're saying, oh, it's incredible, but for everybody and everyone's got conflicting. I don't even know walking into that job, and all I care about is I don't want my friends, Phil and Chris to think I fucked up their movie because they're trusting me just so I keep it moving. But I would think even for them, it's like, how do I get this movie made when I have so many competing notes and to their credit account, great, but still that is a hundred percent to their credit, they have a genius ability to, not only are they great writers and great directors, I think more than that, they have this sense of how to make everybody in a room think that the ideas came from them.It's like, yeah, they're great at, they'll go into a room, I think sometimes having some ideas in their pocket, but it feels like the room came up with the ideas together, and then everybody's like, yes, we did it. Pat ourselves on the back. And everybody, the executives' seem happy. But sometimes it actually does come out that, I mean, those brainstorm sessions really do create a new idea, and sometimes it's them trusting the process that that's going to work out. And sometimes I think they literally are like, well, we can go this way or this way, but I know it'll be easier if they think they had the idea. So let's go this way for now. And then later they know it's going to change a thousand times anyway in the storyboards, and then they could figure it out for real later. Because all these see people like that.They're very well paid, but in my opinion, they're earning every penny of this a hundred percent. They're earning every, it's not that easy. This job, I feel like I've gotten better over the years where I've taken my ego out of it. I used to have a much bigger ego, you might remember, but I feel like I can be, now, I can just go in a room and be like, I'm just going to try to help. I'm just going to be like, how could I make everybody feel comfortable? How can I make everybody feel like we're on the right page together and create this thing? I know that it's like the process is going to take years and years, and the relationship is more important than the individual story note or whatever. It's like that's what's going to matter over the long term of this project.It's that we all trust each other and that we can make something great together. And that's more important than fighting for a joke or fighting for a story moment or a take, or even exactly, either. It's about fighting the relationship, and I've said this before, it's about the relationship is the most important thing, and sometimes you have to sacrifice what you think is the best story, the best moment for the greater good of the relationship. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Wow. I feel like this has been eyeopening even for me, and I feel like my eyes are fucking opened. You know what I'm saying?We've done some movie work, but obviously we work mostly in tv, but the movie side, the movie side was never really appealing. I remember because we shared the same agent for our futures, and I remember he gave us a conversation. I was like, I dunno if I want to work in movies again. It's weird. It sounds hard. It's different because in TV you're the boss, right? I mean, when you're the showrunner, you're the boss. Yeah. You've been there for a long time. And in movies, you're never the boss. I mean, I gave up on, I mean, before I worked with you, there was one TV show I ran and I co ran with my friend Tim, and we were the bosses, and I hated it. I did not enjoy it. It was like all the meetings and all the decisions and the budgets and the interpersonal relationships and all that stuff.I was like, I was not good at it back then, and I don't know if I'd be better now, and I just was like, you know what? I just want to be part of a team and I want to be a writer. And it's like in movies, that's what you are. You're just part of this big team in a different way. I mean, I guess when you're a staff writer or coming up through the ranks and tv, you're part of a team too, but you can be like, you're also a much more integral part of the team, the one writer on it at the time. Or in movies, you're like, when you're the writer, you're the writer and they all look to you for that one job. Or if you're on a staff when I'm on a show with you or whatever, you might look to me for one type of, it's very different. I'm a cog in this room.It's never, you never have to be a hundred percent on your A game every day for you can showing it in a little bit coast. Wow. Adam Paval, what an interesting conversation. This is enlightening for me. Very enlightening. Yeah, man. Are you having everybody on from the old days, Brian? Well, I had Alex Berger on a while ago. We talked a little bit about that script that you guys wrote together. Well, there's two things on Glen Martin. You were always pestering me to do a musical. Yeah, I think, I don't know how to write a musical. And you're like, this is why I've work in animated features. I've written three musicals since I, so lemme let you do the movie. I was like, dude, I don't know how to do so go ahead and knock yourself out. That was fun. And then you guys came back with that Christmas episode. I thought you guys both hit it out of the park. I was like, let's shoot it, let's shoot it.I think it took, because that was all second year stuff and it took a little bit of time to figure out tonally what we were doing and then just to get a little crazier. And then, I mean, those episodes were like, yeah, I could be a little bit more myself of writing the weird stuff that I wanted. I mean, the other one I remember fondly is that weird Funshine episode. Was that the musical one or was that, I don't remember. Dude, fun cine was, it was like the planned community in Florida that was basically celebration Florida and they all realized that everybody was on being drugged and were lactating out of their breast and all that. Oh, that's right. Now I remember the guy, there was a scene where there's a pregnant man or something. It was fucking nuts. And I was like, oh, now we're writing the show that I could write.The first year, I think it was a little bit more like I was a little square pa in a round hole where it was like I didn't have a family at the time and it was a family show. It was about a dad and a mom trying to navigate their crazy kids and I was like, I don't know what the fuck. Crazy in that show. It's a shame. We didn't do more seasons. We weren't nuts. It was fun. It was a fun time. For sure. I got some of the puppies right over there, so see, yeah, I got the one you gave me of me that one from the college episode. Oh right, the college episode. That's right. We put you in. You ran the gauntlet I think, didn't you? I think that, yeah, that's exactly right. Funny. Yeah, funny. Adam, Papa, where can people, is there anything want, we can plug people, find you.Are you on social media? Is there anything? I'm not super active. I'm on Twitter. You can find me on Twitter. Adam Papa or Adam or whatever it's called now. X X, I'm on X, but don't really, I'm not super active on it. I don't have anything to plug. Everything's going to come out in four years. Yeah, right. Yeah. Look for Adam Papa in four years when something drops to the movies. That's the process. Dude, thank you again so much for doing this. This was a really interesting conversation. I haven't talked yet, spoken to anybody about this kind of stuff. You are a wealth of information. Alright. Yeah, it's fine. Everyone, thank you so much. Until the next episode drops, which will be next week. Keep writing.Phil Hudson:This has been an episode of Screenwriters Need to Hear this with Michael Jamin and Phil Hudson. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for Michael's monthly webinar @michaeljamin.com/webinar. If you found this podcast helpful, consider sharing it with a friend and leaving us a five star review on iTunes. For free screenwriting tips, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. You can follow Phil Hudson on social media @PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane Music by Ken Joseph. Until next time, keep writing.

In August, I hosted a webinar called "How To Write A Great Story" where I talked about what a "story" really is, as well as well as how to use personal stories to help your writing. This episode addresses questions you asked in our Q&A session that we didn't have time to answer. There's lots of great info here, make sure you watch.Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:Art is about taking something inside of you and expressing it in a way that helps you understand yourself and helps you understand the world around you. And in that way, people can see it or watch it and enjoy it and help them understand themselves. I think there's that greater good. I don't think craft necessarily does that. I think craft can sometimes be, the studio will give me a note and I'll say, okay, I can do that. That's what you want. I can do that. I don't think it's necessarily playing for the greater good. It's what they want and they're paying me. You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode. We're doing something unusual today. So Phil is back with me. And as you may know, every three or four weeks I host a free webinar where I take one subject and kind of educate you on it. And at the end, if there's time, I answer questions because about an hour long. And so usually we answer a lot of questions, but we can't get to all of them. So we save the questions that we can answer and we didn't have time. And we're going to answer it here for you today on this podcast. And by the way, for people who don't know, the webinar is always free, but afterwards, I also do a V I P room for people who if they want to pay a small fee, then they get to be in a smaller chat with me and we talk. I try to answer their questions as best I can specifically. So if anyone's interested in that, you go to michael jamin.com and I dunno where they would sign up for that on michael jamin.com/course. Probably.Phil Hudson:Oh, for the vip it's /vip.Michael Jamin:Oh, /vip. Okay.Phil Hudson:We're fancy here, Michael. We use high tech stuff like links, short links.Michael Jamin:So there you go. But now I'll answer the other questions. Phil hit me.Phil Hudson:I was just going to say there are a lot of really good feedback and I found that there are people who don't sign up for your course who also sign up for that v i p, and they ask some really interesting questions. And then after that I think it kind of pushes 'em over the edge to feel like, okay, this is something I can do, and then they're a little bit more inclined to invest in themselves. Some really good questions out of this V i p, and this is based off of the August webinar, and that topic was the pep talk Every screenwriter needs to hear, which is slightly different than Michael Jamin's known tone of just smashing your hopes and dreams on the rocks of reality,Michael Jamin:Which he's a problem. Yeah, I don't want to just do that. I want to make sure that people get, I want them to be grounded in reality. That's what I'm, I'm not trying to smash it's dreams, but I want to be realistic. Once you find out if you know what the reality is, then now, okay, now we can figure out how to get in once there's a way around every problem. That's what I,Phil Hudson:And that comes from early on when we were talking about the marketing for this. How do we help you grow your audience? How do we do this? And you were like, I will not sell the dream. I will not be one of those guys who just promises the dream to make a buck. I can't do that. And I was like, okay, well, it's going to hurt your ability to make money. He's like, it's not about that. I just will not do it. And so you've leaned into this sincere, radical honesty, I guess you could say, and I think overwhelmingly almost immediately people were like, wow, this sucks to hear, but I'm so glad you're saying it. It just resets the expectations a little bit. And even for me, having learned from you and been to film school and worked in the industry now for almost seven years, I still think about this, Hey, this is a script. Whenever I write a new script, this is not, I'm not going to sell this. That's okay.Michael Jamin:It's a writing samplePhil Hudson:And it frees me up to just be whatever I want it to be, not hoping that my entire life is dedicated to this one story I'm writing.Michael Jamin:I see good things coming your way, Phil, by the way.Phil Hudson:I see good things coming my way asMichael Jamin:Well. Yeah, because you're putting the work in and obviously you've already, it may be hard for you to see because you're in it, but the distance that you've traveled at only a few short years in Hollywood is pretty unremarkable.Phil Hudson:I'm keenly aware of that. Honestly, I'm humbled to be where I am. I'm humbled to host the podcast with you. I think I even pitched somebody else to co-host the podcast with you, and you're like, why wouldn't you do it? Why can't I just have you?I don't need to, or I don't want to assume to be the guy. I do think I bring a skillset to this podcast of asking the questions the listener wants to ask, and I think that's really what I do. But yeah, I'm incredibly humbled. I think I've got some really interesting things on the horizon, and I've already had some great things this year as direct result of you and the stuff you're putting out in your course and the great feedback I'm getting from people in your course, by the way, super talented people in there just giving me feedback and making me better.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Thank you Michael. Alright,Michael Jamin:Let's do it.Phil Hudson:Okay. Structurally, we broke this up into a couple and we've kind of found a pattern here. There's kind of craft questions, there are breakin questions, there are course questions, and then there are miscellaneous questions. So I take all the questions, kind of broke 'em down, and then I'm really focusing on things that you haven't said before because there are a lot of questions we get that are repetitive questions. Should I move to la? Should I move to la? What about this? How do I get my script in the right hands? And you've addressed those tons and tons of times. So if you like this, go listen to all the other q and A's where we get questions from social media, we get questions from your course members, we get questions from the webinar starting with craft, because I think that's really what we're here to learn is how to be professional writers. I'm going to mess up a bunch of names today. You ready for this?Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's okay.Phil Hudson:Shi suey, shagan. No clueMichael Jamin:That you said it perfectly, however,Phil Hudson:Nailed it. How do you win the battle against that blank screen when trying to create?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, the problem is you don't know what you're doing. Listen, the blank page is always intimidating even when you do know what you're doing. But if you are this locked up, it's because you just don't know what a story is and you don't know. That's what the course teaches you. How to take an idea, identify if there's enough meat on that bone to turn it into an episode of television or a movie or whatever. Not every idea is worth turning into. It doesn't have enough there. So the course helps with that. I think all that the writer's block that you're experiencing is because you don't know what you're doing. Of course you're going to be blocked. Of course you don't know what your characters are going to be doing, so at least come to the free webinar, at least I can help you with that much if you don't want to buy the course. The webinar will help a lot at michaeljamin,com/webinarPhil Hudson:And all the other free resources you have, like the free story lesson on your website, michaeljamin.com/free. It's another great place to start. Absolutely true. If you don't know where you're going to go, you get stuck. And for many of us, it's that middle of act two, what's going on? What do I do now? How do I get my characters to this really bad thing that's going to happen? Whatever it is. And understanding the structure as you put it out, it's just so easy to grasp and understand. It's a no brainer. I clearly know where I need to go and what needs to happen here from a strategic perspective, and then tactically I can lay in things to get me where I want in a surprising way.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Perfect. Oh, if I may, when you're rewriting, print that thing out and use a red pen, man.Michael Jamin:Red pen.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Michael Michael's pro tip hand amboy. What is the best way to keep improving in screenwriting or storytelling?Michael Jamin:Just keep writing. I would write your episode or your feature, put it aside, write another one, put it aside, write another one, and you'll find that as opposed to just keep on working on the same piece, finish it and write a second one, then the third one, and you'll find that script number five is much better than script number one will ever be. You have to just let it go and continue doing something else. So that's my advice.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Chelsea. Steve, how in depth do you prepare a beat sheet or treatment to pass to a co-writer? Is it important to be specific or broad out of respect for them?Michael Jamin:Oh, well, I mean, you should be doing the beat sheets together. I mean, I would think that's how you get on the same page. My partner and I do everything together. We break the story together. We come up with a beat sheet together. We come up with the outline together. That's how you do it. I mean, you don't want to, if they're your partner, I dunno why you wouldn't bounce ideas of each other that's, or else why have a partner.Phil Hudson:Another really early podcast episode we had was writing with a partner where you talk about this process and there are several schools of thought about how to work with a writing partner. There are tons of resources and different writing have different things. One person sits at a keyboard, the other does, and I think you guys do that that way. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Vers been, I used to be the one at the keyboard, but for the last couple of years he's been the one at the keyboard. Although now we both have, we use collaborate so we both can type at the same time, which is really annoying.Phil Hudson:That's awesome. Yeah, so there's a bunch of that and there are other people who do it, but I think the real juice of what we're saying here, what you're saying, Michael, is you shouldn't be breaking your story separate. That's not Yeah,Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah. You got to be on the same page.Phil Hudson:Yep. AllMichael Jamin:I'll tell a quick anecdote. One time Steve and I were working on a script for, I think it was Taco fd, and we were writing the outline together and we got into a fight over what this one scene was supposed to be. And I wanted one thing, he wanted another thing. And then I said, what do you think this story is about? And he told me, and then he goes, what do you think the story is about? I said, I think it's about this. We weren't even clear on what the story was about, so we had to stop, agree on that and then move forward.Phil Hudson:Yeah, that cleared up everything, I'm guessing.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Great. Nina in your course, isn't she? Yeah. Yeah. Nina, I'm so worried about alienating my audience for too long. Is there a theory about thisMichael Jamin:Alienating? I wish I knew. In what way? I feel like you want to hold your audience's hand. That's how I feel. There are other filmmakers who may feel differently when I get lost. Sometimes when I watch watching, I'm like, I'm lost here. I dunno what's going on. And so that's not something that I like to do in my writing. I like to make sure that, especially if you're writing on television, because you're writing on tv, you go into a movie is one thing. You have their attention. There are hostage if they're sitting in the movie theater, but on TV show often people will be on their phone, they're reading a magazine, they're doing everything at the same time as watching a TV show. So I want to make sure they're with me the whole way or else they're not going to be engaged.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. I wondered about this one too. What does she mean by alienating, right? I don't think you ever want to really alienate your audience. I think there's suspense, there's audience superior versus audience inferior. Does your audience know more than the character? Does the audience know less than the character does? And there's different tactics and tools you can use as a writer to build suspense, and they each have their own purpose, but alienating would be, yeah,Michael Jamin:That's not on my list of things to do.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Sorry Nina, if we had the misunderstanding here, but let us know in the private Facebook group putting us in there with a clarification, and I'm sure Michael hopinMichael Jamin:Into that. Just to be clear, the private Facebook group is just for members of my course, so you have to be a paid member to get into that. But there's a lot of good stuff going on there. These people are very active, and I answer more questions there for them.Phil Hudson:We'll jump down because there's literally this question under the section Mark Brozinsky. Is there a Facebook group we can join to network?Michael Jamin:Yes, there is. And once you purchase, you get a link to that and you should definitely take advantage of it. There's a lot of really smart people trading scripts. They're doing table reads once a week. They're giving each other notes film festival. And it's unlike, they got a festival coming up, which I can't believe, and it's unlike, there are other Facebook screenwriting groups where people are pretty mean. It's almost like Reddit, screenwriting Reddit, which is the dirtiest place on the earth, but that's not what this is going on in this group. It's really very professional and supportive. I think we were smart to gate that group and say, you have to be purchased because it hasn't turned into a cesspool.Phil Hudson:I can tell you from the e-learning side of my digital marketing career, that when people ask, and we had this conversation with the client a year ago when they were relaunching their online membership course for a specific topic, but anyway, very well renowned company, lots of people. And I said, you need to have a community manager that's in there full-time, keeping out the R riffraff. There's spam, there's ugliness, there's all these things. And if you don't have someone doing that, it's just going to get bad. And most of these things are set up by one or two people who just wanted to start a group. And I've had nothing but bad experiences in those groups. Nothing but bad experiences unless there is some unifying factor, like an alumni group tends to perform a little bit better, be in easier place, you have a problem.Michael Jamin:But we don't have that problem with our group. Nope.Phil Hudson:In fact, you have people who self-police. I get messages from people who are like, Hey, I shared this thing. Did I break a policy of self-promotion? I was like, you shared something you produced that came out of the course. I don't think, I think that's celebrating your hard work. You're not offering to pay to read someone's script. You're donating your time every Tuesday night to run a tableMichael Jamin:Group. Yeah. Yeah. Right.Phil Hudson:You're good.Michael Jamin:Yeah, you're good.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Tomer K. I've noticed in the blacklist scripts that there's a trend of making meta commentary about the script itself. Referencing page numbers or the reader. What are your thoughts on this? And maybe define what the blacklist is for people?Michael Jamin:Well, yeah, I mean, the blacklist, there's really, the blacklist started as a site where unproduced professional scripts that were sold were just never produced. And it was an honor to get on the blacklist, but now there's something, now it's something else. There's two lists, right, Phil?Phil Hudson:Yeah, there's that list. But then there's also, you can sign up for the blacklist and pay a monthly fee to host your script so people can access it and read it and give you notes. And you can pay a hundred bucks a pop to get notes and reader feedback on your script and get rated. And that's a little bit, I think more of the commercial side of it.Michael Jamin:Isn't that what they're talking about?Phil Hudson:That's the blacklist. There's also fellowships and things. So by no means are either of us knocking the blacklist. It's just a difference in what this is. And I think what they're referencing is the original that you're talking about,Michael Jamin:The original list. They're thinking. There's a lot of meta jokes in it and meta references.Phil Hudson:I've not read them, but I believe that's what they're saying. That is the blacklist I placed on the blacklist top unproduced scripts.Michael Jamin:Oh, so I can't answer it then.Phil Hudson:But from a style perspective, do you think that's an appropriate style of writing?Michael Jamin:Well, if they got on the blacklist, on the legit blacklist by doing this, who am I to say? No, I just think it tends to be cheap. Breaking the fourth wall or meta. You got to really be careful. Ryan Reynolds says that well in the Deadpool, but it can become a crutch and it becomes, the problem was when you do it, you're telling the audience, this is a movie, and it takes them out of it. You've sucked them into it. This is how I feel. When I first started, I thought all this meta jokes were great. Isn't that funny? Where self-referential isn't that interesting? But now that I've matured as a writer, I feel like you're spending all this time and energy to suck people into world, to make them suspend disbelief. And now you're going to pop it with a joke, and now you got to put more energy, get 'em back into it. I don't like it. I think I don't like it. Others can feel differently though.Phil Hudson:And in the Deadpool comics, he would break the fourth wall. So that is not something that he's doing in film. He's living in the character. And I think it's something everyone expects from Deadpool, but he's going to have a commentary with you, and it's Ryan Reynolds. If there's anyone who can do that, it's Ryan Reynolds. Right? I could do that. I don't know many people who could fourth wall just for people. I just want to make sure everyone's clear on that. It comes from stage place specifically where there are three walls, and then there's a line, and that line is three walls or the set, and then the fourth wall is the audience. And so they're either facing the audience or they're communicating with each other, but they don't turn to speak to the audience unless it's a narrator or it's someone else having, there's a specific need for that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Fourth and wall is when you literally acknowledge that there's an audience watching your play, which is kind of odd, but it can be fun.Phil Hudson:Some of the first screenwriting courses I ever paid for talked about that. I was supposed to know what it was, and I got so lost. I had to go look it up. And man, that was very confusing. So I want to make sure we define that for people. Yeah, yeah. Projecting much, Phil. Cool. Pf, oh, I wanted to ask, I have a follow-up question on this. So there are screenwriting books that are kind of renowned, specifically story books by Robert McKee, more so than screenwriting books, where he says It is cheap for a writer to reference. We see, we hear, and I actually write in that style, and I get a lot of really good feedback on that. We see this happen. That's just a personal choice. I don have a problem with it. I've never had no bump on it. You read my scripts, you've never bumped on it. To be clear in the book, he clarifies that overused in the transition from, I want to say it was like it might've been silent films to specific moving into something else. So it was as a crutch, people leaned on at a certain point in the 1990, in 19 hundreds. So maybe we've got past that watch is why it doesn't bump. But I said, you answered the question, you don't care.So that's not breaking the fourth wall in that.Michael Jamin:No, no, no, no, no. You're just, yeah, that's a stage direction.Phil Hudson:Yep. Awesome. Yeah. To me, I'm inferring camera movement more than anything. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Okay,Phil Hudson:Cool. P F H, should I vet my idea before I write it so I have an idea to pitch? But once you know it is doable, then I can perfect it. Basically, I had to rewrite this question. It was a bit confusing. Does that make sense?Michael Jamin:Yeah. I think what they're asking is, this is what I would do. You have an idea of a movie for a movie or a TV show or whatever, put it in a sentence or two sentences and then pitch it to a friend. And if you can't explain it succinctly, then you've got a problem. So just saying it out loud, even if you don't have a friend saying it out loud, describing it is a good waste to the, oh, okay. I know what the story is. Sometimes you don't even know what it is and you can't clarify. So for sure, say it out loud and see if your friend is interested. If that sounds grabby, it might not be.Phil Hudson:Yeah. In that two sentences, would you say that separate from a log line, or would you call it a log?Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's basically a log line. But if you want to expand, if you want to make it a paragraph, if you find that a log line is like two sentences, but if you want to make it a paragraph, that's fine too. But don't make it a page. Just make it short and brief.Phil Hudson:Yeah. One script, early script, I wrote, the log line was about a small town. It's about a small town pastor who kills people. And it was interesting. See your face. That's an interesting enough logline. Yeah, I'd be interested in that. And then the questions are, well, what's it about? Why does he kill people?Michael Jamin:Yeah. I would go a little more detailed than that because if you pitched me out, I would say, maybe tell me more.Phil Hudson:Correct. And it's really more of an elevator pitch than anything. It's just a way to just slide it in. But the log line would be a full two sentences. Yeah. Cool. Course related question. Only one other. Today, melody, we answer a lot of these questions throughout the webinars. There's not a ton of these. Melody Jones, I have to do major research for my project. Should I take the course first or get my research done, then do the course?Michael Jamin:Oh, I would say take the course first. That way you know what kind of questions to ask and look for. Unfortunately, we couldn't answer this for her, probably live. But yeah, you may start asking yourself questions that you don't even need the answers to. SoPhil Hudson:Yeah, I would absolutely agree. In fact, the script I'm writing right now, I am doing a lot of research on, because it has a technical skillset that I am very familiar with, but I don't know the intricacies of. And so by doing my research, I'm looking into that. But I broke the script first from a story perspective, not a plot perspective. I said, what's the story? What do I want to tell? What's going to happen? How are my relationships going to play out? And now it's looking at it thematically to say, how can I utilize this experience they're going through from a technical perspective to elevate that story or to add stressors? How can I use this to get to this part where they get in an argument or whatever? SoMichael Jamin:Absolutely. What's also interesting, side note, but I'm rewatching Wolf of Wall Street, and I may be a quarter of the way through, but every fricking scene that I'm watching right now, everyone is interesting. The acting is brilliant, but every scene is written. There's something really interesting going on each scene. There's nothing lazy about that script. It's like, if you watch, you could show me one scene. I'd be like, Ooh, that's good. So think about that when you're writing your script. Is this scene amazing or not? Because that one, it was movie. Every scene is amazing.Phil Hudson:That's awesome. Yeah. You guys are freebie for you guys. I love that. All right. Breaking in. You ready to talk about breaking into Hollywood? Sure. Cool. There's a curse word in here. So to keep our non explicit label on the podcast F the Void, is there a chance for writers that are not from the US to find success in Hollywood? Like say, south American writers that want to make you big?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, there was that guy. Sure. I mean, the guy, the writer who did, ah, man, what was he? Australian? No, he was South African. It's the, ah, man. What was that movie called? District nine.Phil Hudson:And he did a bunch of stuff. They're all great.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And so for sure, you can make your stuff wherever you are. And to some degree, if you make a TV show in a foreign country other than the us, often it's easier to sell those shows to the US because it's IP that already exists. And for some reason, sometimes studios want that. So Wilfred, for example, I wrote on Wilfred, that was an Australian show. It did really well in Australia, and we adapted it for America here. It's not uncommon at all. So yeah, don't let that hold you back from creating great stuff.Phil Hudson:Yeah. From a purely cinema history perspective, a lot of the best cinematography came out of Mexico when Eisenstein moved there. So there's great stuff. You've got Rito, you've got all these amazing filmmakers coming out of Central South America. And North America. You've got Tero Titi out in New Zealand. YouMichael Jamin:Got right. I'm going to mention him. There's a movie, I'm just, I'm going to search it right now. Yeah. There's a movie I watched a couple of days ago, the Worst Person in the World. It's a Norwegian movie. Loved it, loved it. Thought it was so well done. The title was terrible. What's the title? But everything about the movie was great, except for the title. The Worst Person in the World. Yeah, go watch that. Yes.Phil Hudson:But there's some great films even just come out of Europe, the UK and Europe, which I think we're going to get. That's the next question is uk, maybe that one we answered in the thing. But anyway, but it's like once that musical is just fantastic and it's out of the uk. So yeah, I think oftentimes people group like UK and America is Hollywood, but they are different. You have BAFTA and you have the B, B C and the way they do their things, and then you have Hollywood. And the other thing to keep in mind too is with streaming, I mean, I get a lot of recommendations for Spanish films and TV on my Netflix, and they don't know that I speak Spanish.Michael Jamin:I think they DoPhil Hudson:You think they figured it out? I think theyMichael Jamin:Do, man. They might. You'd be surprised. ButPhil Hudson:I get some Korean stuff too. I getMichael Jamin:Ads in Spanish because I speak Spanish too. I'm like, why? How do they knowPhil Hudson:It's not zip code related? Maybe it's zip code related. Maybe it's just la, right? But yeah, anyway, I get a lot of that stuff. And so just because maybe you get something and you sell it to Netflix, Ecuador, and then all of a sudden it's being streamed all over the world. You've got all of the Spanish channels, and then you make it here. I have to, ah, here's a great example. Squid Games, squid Games, South Korea blew up huge. Right? Huge. Parasite. Parasite. South Korea.Michael Jamin:But there's a catch. It has to be good.Phil Hudson:Better than good has to be great,Michael Jamin:Right? Yeah. It has to be great.Phil Hudson:But that's the role for everyone in Hollywood too. And there's a lot of people here who are not willing to put in the effort to get to that. Right? Yeah. And I guess follow up question from F the void, do you know any writers that are not from the US or any first world country that have made it in Hollywood?Michael Jamin:Well, I've had Canadian writers on my show before on the podcast. You can ask them how they did it. Other, if you come from a non-English speaking country, you're going to have a more difficult time in the sense that even if your English is really good, it may not be perfect unless you've been here a long, long time. And so that's the catch. It's hard for you to write dialogue in a language that it's not your first language. It mayPhil Hudson:IMS idioms and all that other stuff too.Michael Jamin:So you do need to have really, not just a firm grasp of the language, but you really have to know it. You have to speak as well as a native speaker, but with just maybe just a slight accent. That's the only catch.Phil Hudson:Yeah. But there are also things like Selena, there's a girl I went to film school with, and she's a writer on Selena, and she's from Mexico, and she's a second. She just got naturalized just a bit ago, but she's right around Selena before she was a US citizen.Michael Jamin:Yeah, often. Interesting. Yeah. So if you get on a, there's demand for people with diverse backgrounds if the show is about that background. SoPhil Hudson:Yeah, it absolutely was. I think that whole writing staff were Latin American.Michael Jamin:Right? Right. Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.Phil Hudson:Cole, our film festival is a good route to take for a script you wrote to get looked at.Michael Jamin:Well, you're not looking at it. You're shooting it, right? I'm not sure what the question is.Phil Hudson:Film festivals often have screenwriting screenplay contests attached to them.Michael Jamin:Oh,Phil Hudson:Interesting. And I can tell you, having been on staff for many of those indie film festivals, that is what pays the screenwriting contest is what pays for the cocktail hours and for the other things.Michael Jamin:So you're saying it's not really a way to be discovered?Phil Hudson:It depends on the film festival.Michael Jamin:Right. Oh, okay.Phil Hudson:Alright. So there are film festivals that I think matter. I think they're also, I think what you really want to talk about. We actually do a webinar on a little bit deeper on this, which is available on your website to purchase for like 29 bucks worth watching. WhichMichael Jamin:One is that? Which episode was that?Phil Hudson:I think it's how to get past Industry Gatekeepers.Michael Jamin:Oh, okay.Phil Hudson:I want to say that's what it was. Yeah. Thanks for clarifying. But yeah, I think what you really want to look for are fellowships fellowship. So you have the Sundance Film Festival and their fellowships that they offer there. Blacklist has a fellowship. You have the academy, the Nichols Fellowship. Awesome Film Festival comes up in another question here. That's one. That's a film festival where they do give screenwriting contests awards, and there are industry people who attend that. So it's a different thing. Tribeca, some of those bigger ones, south by Southwest. If they have those options, maybe go for those. But if you're talking about the Westborough, whatever film festival, maybe skip it. Maybe Skip Save the 40 Bucks on Film Freeway.Michael Jamin:Okay. You heard of the film. He knows more about this than I do.Phil Hudson:Daniel Celiac, poor guy. If someone is still in high school or early in college, what can they do to get closer to the industry?Michael Jamin:Stay where you are and just write, write and make your own stuff. As a kid, I shot my own stuff on a super eight camera. Now you can shoot on your phone. I didn't have sound back then. Just keep working on your craft and read anything and get inspired by our art. Draw upon it. Don't look for a job right now. I mean, if you want to look for a job as an intern or PA or something, that's fine. But don't start thinking about starting your film, writing your screenwriting career. Just start working on Become a good writer. That's the first step.Phil Hudson:And I was going to suggest PA Intern Volunteer. I started volunteering at the Sunrise Film Festival because that's all I could do. And it was because I was in the recession of 2008, nine, and I just had to work and I had to work two jobs. And so I would volunteer at the Sunrise Film Festival, and I put in those hours for four years. And then that's how I got my first real break through Sundance to do some stuff aside from the work I was doing and how I met you. We've talked about previously, great bv. Michael mentions moving to Hollywood if you're serious. What about those in the uk, for example, who physically cannot get a Visa to move there?Michael Jamin:Right. Well, there is an industry in the uk. I mean, they do make great movies and great TV shows there. So I don't know what cities, if it's London, I don't know where the centers are, but stay where you are and become great in your country, and then we'll get you, we'll send a visa your wayPhil Hudson:When we want that. There's a specific visa that gets you over. It's like you're an expert in your field that America wants to profit off of you by taking taxes.Michael Jamin:Yeah. The minute America sees dollar signs on you instead of just pound signs,Phil Hudson:You get that special visa.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Great. Bv, I just got your pound sign joke, by the way. That was clever.Michael Jamin:Thank you,Phil Hudson:Bev. No, I did that one. Lauren Gold. Any specific tips for fiction novel writers who want to transition to screenwriting?Michael Jamin:Yeah, create, write a bestselling book, and it'll be so easy. They will, Hollywood will come after you with buying their rights, but if you have a book that's not selling, honestly, the book doesn't even have to be good. It just has to be a bestseller because then it comes with the built-in market, and so is 50 Shades of Gray High Literature. I'm not sure, but I know a lot of people read it and loved it, and so they turned out into a movie. So it's about marketing. So these bestsellers have a built-in marketplace and look at a lot of these movies that are being made. They're adapted from movies. They're just hit books or hit books.Phil Hudson:And it can also be other things like The Martian, right? It was originally a blog post, a series of blog posts that we, on hisMichael Jamin:Website. Right? I know it was a self-published book. I didn't know it started from blog posts.Phil Hudson:I believe it was a blog. He would post blog posts. He would publish basically a new chapter as a blog post was bought, and then he would spin on from there.Michael Jamin:So there's a guy who wasn't asking for permission, he wasn't waiting to be discovered. He did it anyway. He built the mountain himselfPhil Hudson:At Twilight. Those were stories that she would tell her sister. And she brought that book and blew up. Yeah. Cultural phenomenon.Michael Jamin:Twilight was self-published. Did not know that.Phil Hudson:My understanding is that, yeah, I believe it was. And someone else, correct me if we're wrong, they'll definitely scream at me because it's such a big hit. That being said, I believe 50 Shades of Gray is a fan fiction of Twilight. That's at least what I've heard.Michael Jamin:I didn't know that. Okay.Phil Hudson:Awesome. I'm going to just offend half your audience who love those two franchises.Michael Jamin:That's okay.Phil Hudson:You're welcome, everybody. Rob, as I produced my own plays, staged comedy shows and web series for a while, great. Now is a way to break in. Is this a valid way of doing it? Does the industry care about any of this?Michael Jamin:Yes, of course. But the problem is you're doing all these great things, but maybe you're putting the work in, which is great, but maybe it's not good enough yet. It's okay. Keep doing it until you get good. Or maybe it's great, but it hasn't found an audience yet. So it does need to have an audience. The minute you have your web series gets discovered by a couple million people, Hollywood will find you because you are bringing more to the table than just your desire to cash a check. You are bringing an audience. But if you don't have that yet, then one or two things are happening. One is maybe your writing isn't good enough yet, or your show is not good enough yet, yet means you can keep working on yourself. Or maybe they haven't found you yet in that's the case. You still have to keep putting it out there just until you're found, until your audience finds you. Either way, you have to keep doing it. That's it.Phil Hudson:Andrew Spitzer, would you agree that ultimately you're selling yourself and your skills rather than a product? You gotMichael Jamin:To bring more to the table, and like I said, than just a script. And so what am I doing on here? I'm selling myself. I suppose I have a following on social media. It helps me get more opportunities. And so I still have a body of work and people know that I'm a good writer. But yeah, I come with this other end, this other, I bring more to the table than just me,Phil Hudson:Just my work brother. Sorry. Yeah, and I took this too. No, no. It's your podcast, man. I'm sorry. I stuck on your toes, Mr. Jamin. I did it again right there.Michael Jamin:No,Phil Hudson:I was going to say I took this as an, I think it's a bit of both, and I think the order is a little bit different, but my perspective of this, you have a product. That product is so valuable to someone that they want to buy it because you were able to craft that product. And because of that, now your skill sets are valuable and you are now selling your ability to continue to craft products like that one. So you have to have a sample that you've already checked the box. You can make these people money. If you can't do that, there is no evidence of your ability and your skillset. So there's nothing to sell.Michael Jamin:Okay.Phil Hudson:But I think it goes for your script. I think it goes for getting an agent. I think it goes for getting a manager. I think it goes for opening doors to meet people. You have to have something that is valuable to them. And it might be audience like you were just talking about. That might be enough, right? It might be your IP from the story you wrote and self-published.Michael Jamin:Sometimes it'll be approached by an actor, a big actor who has a terrible idea for a show or whatever, because you're going to be in it. And so you're a good actor. So that's bringing a lot to the table, their presence.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Sidebar here. Is there truth in the statement that there are certain actors who are not able to open a movie, who are not able to, that they come and they might have a name you'd recognize, and they might have some idea of a following, but they're not necessarily someone a studio would bank on?Michael Jamin:For sure, but I can speak more to this from the TV side, but for sure, I know even John Travolta, Quentin Tarantino wanted to cast Travolta in Pulp Fiction. And I think there was some pushback from the studios. He was a, has been. He was a washout, even though super talented guy. And Tarantino saw him and thought, dude, this guy is still a huge star. He can't walk down the street without people yelling. Vinny Bobino, people love him. And so he pushed, he fought for him, even though the studio didn't believe he could open a movie, and he did open a movie.Phil Hudson:He did. Did he ever?Michael Jamin:And then think of all the other opportunities that came because of that. But sure, the studios, at the end of the day, they're not so concerned with, is this actor a good actor? They want to know, can this actor put asses in seats? Will they sell tickets? And that's why some actors were not particularly good actors or great actors, but they can put asses in seats. That's what counts.Phil Hudson:Yep. Awesome. That's what I thought. I just wanted to get some confirmation there. This is a Phil Hudson q and a. Are everybody I can ask my questions too. Awesome. Lappe two TV or Lippe tv, whatever. If a short film is being optioned to pitch as a series, is it better to keep the short hidden while it's being shopped around, or is it okay to post it online?Michael Jamin:Well, it'sPhil Hudson:A bit of a one percenter for you, right?Michael Jamin:This isPhil Hudson:A one off question.Michael Jamin:Yeah. If you put your short on YouTube or whatever, and it gets a million views, it's a lot easier to sell. It's a lot easier to sell.Phil Hudson:Yeah. What I got from this question is, I made a short, somebody has optioned that short. Is it a mistake to now put that on YouTube? Does that advice still apply there?Michael Jamin:You'd have to talk to the person who optioned it, because now it's theirs. They have the rights to go to talk to them.Phil Hudson:Cool. Len Lawson, should I ask a potential producer to sign an N D A before reading my script?Michael Jamin:I wouldn't. But it depends who, I've never done that. But also, don't show it to the producer who's got a handlebar mustache. Who are you showing it to? Make sure what have they done? Look 'em up on I mdb. Are they legit or are they just someone who's claiming to be a producer? In which case, you better build a rapport with them. You better know whether you can trust this person or not. But I wouldn't. I would never ask. And I've told my scripts to tons of people. I don't ask for an N D A.Phil Hudson:I wouldn't either. It's just friction. I think about this in terms of friction, and we talk about adopting habits or influencing people to take action. There's this whole nuance of digital marketing called conversion rate optimization, which is, how do I get more people to take the action I want them to on my website, whether it's the headline or it's the colors or it's pattern interrupts, or if it's offers or bullet points, all that stuff. And to me, you want to reduce friction. How do I remove obstacles? And in sales, the best way to overcome an objection is to kill the objection before it becomes one. And that's a massive objection.Michael Jamin:Were to, I'm not a producer. I'm not an agent. I don't want to read anybody's script. I'd say right up front, I'm not. But if someone were to ask me for the favor, say, Hey, will you read my script? And then for some reason I was feeling magnanimous that day as opposed to every other day of the year, then I would say, all right, I'll read your script. And then they asked to ask me to sign an nda, a I'd like, forget it. The deal's off.Phil Hudson:We're done.Michael Jamin:We're done.Phil Hudson:And that's what you're doing.Michael Jamin:ButPhil Hudson:I think it also speaks to the psychology of people who are breaking in, who are so concerned. Someone's going to steal their idea. And that's one of the most prominent questions we get. This is that question asked a different way.Michael Jamin:Everyone is so convinced that they have an idea that's worth stealing. That's the funny part. Everyone thinks their script is gold, and most of 'em are not.Phil Hudson:By most, we mean a lot of them. A 99.99. And that's a hard thing for me to admit too, guys. I thought I was going to win an Oscar with my first script. I thought I was that prodigy. I've talked about Prodigy syndrome before on the podcast. I thought that was me, and it's not. And letting go of that's been so freeing for my creativity and my enjoyment of the process. So just look at it this way, if you think this is all you got, that's a problem. And that's why you're freaking out. My opinion is steal my idea. Awesome. Go for it. Why? Because that validates the fact that I got something and I got a lot more of that. Right?Michael Jamin:Right.Phil Hudson:But also, please don't steal my stuff.Michael Jamin:Yeah, don't steal the stuff that's for me to do.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Everything Jamin writes, I actually write, I'm his ghost writer. I've been a ghost writer for 26 years.Michael Jamin:Yep.Phil Hudson:I submitted a pilot, Nolan. See, I submitted a pilot to the Awesome Film Festival. Is this a good move? Is it bad timing with the strike I submitted before I knew there was going to be a strike.Michael Jamin:There's no bad timing. I mean, you're not going to take, if you become a hit at, if you win some prize, great. When the strike is over, you can capitalize on it. I don't think there's bad timing.Phil Hudson:No. I think there's specific advice on this from the W G A that I've seen, and it basically says that if you win anything that was done before the strike, it's whatever. But it's what you do with that after. So let's say that you submitted to a strike that was funded by a studio in the A M T P, and then you win. And part of that prize is to have a meeting with a producer that is in breach, because that is happening after the fact selling. Even having a meeting with them is a breach. It's crossing a picket line.Michael Jamin:So just to first say, Hey, thank you. I'm so excited. I can't wait to have this meeting with you in a month or two. When this R is over,Phil Hudson:You don't want to take that meeting to ruin your potential for a career because you can't get in the W G A and when the strike's over, they can only hire people who are in the W G A and they will not hire you becauseMichael Jamin:They won't give a crap about you. I mean, if you think you're going to build a friendship with them, they're going to be gone.Phil Hudson:Nope. They're going to make their payday and move on. And then when the Writers Guild qualified writers can come back, they will get their high quality scripts back from the people who write 'em. And you'll be sitting there just wasted opportunity with the Austin Film Festival. However, I believe it is technically, and I could be wrong, but I believe it's in, and I did submit this year, by the way, to everybody. I'm in the same situation. I'm not concerned if I win, awesome. I'm not planning on winning. It's just a benchmark, a litmus task for me to say, did I qualify? Am I good enough? Where am I at in what I consider to be a respected film festival? And you take what you get out of it, you accept the accolades, and then you move on and just avoid anything that crosses the picket line. Don't take this as an opportunity to scab.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Cool. Four questions. Michael, you think we can do it?Michael Jamin:Let's blow through. Let's do it.Phil Hudson:Shauna Ibarra, miscellaneous. How do you find mentors or people who can give you feedback?Michael Jamin:You got to earn it. You got to earn it. You got to get a job or an internship or something at a studio, at a production company and work your butt off. And then after six months say, Hey, can I show you my script? But it's not like mentors are just lining up to help you. Or maybe they are. Maybe they're retired people, I don't know. But that's the connections part. That's the work you have to do. This is your job is to make connections, and it's to give first. And that's what I would do.Phil Hudson:I was given advice from a production supervisor and a producer that at a certain point you get an ask and you should take your askMichael Jamin:That time. You have to earn that ask first. Right?Phil Hudson:Yeah. And there are many people I've personally worked with in Hollywood where I probably have that ask, and I'm not taking that ask because I don't want to waste their time.Michael Jamin:You're saving itPhil Hudson:For when it's time. Yeah. Erica little since screenwriting is not audience facing, like acting. Is it an ageist industry? Since it is generally Hollywood based.Michael Jamin:Ageism is the last accepted in Hollywood that said, there are plenty of examples of people who are older who are still breaking in. So it's not like it's impossible, but they're still favoring the youth. But it's not impossible, especially if you do it yourself. I am always yelling at you, do it yourself so no one can stop you as you're older, you have wisdom, you have more life experiences to draw upon, and you might have a couple of bucks in your pocket so you can invest in yourself.Phil Hudson:Yeah, good point. Aaron Kami, what is your advice on how to make writing and screenwriting a less lonely pursuit? Especially when writing is a hobby. How do I meet and learn from others or get feedback, et cetera?Michael Jamin:Well, that's kind of one of the pluses of our course that Phil and I have is that there's a private Facebook group just for students. And it's a community. They trade scripts, they have table reads, they have a contest coming up. That's the community. That's their graduating class. That's their cohort. That's one way to do it.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Any other thoughts? Are youMichael Jamin:No, it's like I said, I think, I don't remember if we mentioned this or the last podcast, but it's a really good group of people where it's not, yeah,Phil Hudson:I was on top of this one.Michael Jamin:Oh, okay. So I've already mentioned it. So yeah, it's really high quality people in this group,Phil Hudson:Solid feedback. And even playing field, they're telling you things based off of what matters, not things that they've heard or read in a book. It's like, this is how a writer's room is going to give you notes. Here's a document, here's a workbook. Michael prepared with the types of notes that matter. That's the feedback he get.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Okay. Last question, Scott. Koski wants to know, Michael, would you consider your book art or Craft?Michael Jamin:Oh, good question. When I'm writing for tv, I consider that craft. I consider it. I know it is. I'm getting notes. I'm getting feedback. It's very collaborative. I don't think art at its core, and this is open for debate, but I think art, its core is not about compromising. And when you work with a bunch of people or when you're collaborating, you are going to compromise it. Compromises have to be made. And so it's everyone's work. And that's why I feel like it's craft. But I was thinking about this last night, and then I was like, well, what about Michelangelo? Sistine Chapel? He took notes on the Sistine Chapel. He was working for the Pope. He had to put some angels in there that he didn't want to put in. He had to compromise his vision. But you certainly wouldn't say the Sistine Chapel is not art.It certainly is. So I'm a little confused as to what my definition is. Even I'm other words, I, I'm contradicting myself. I do think art is about taking something inside of you and expressing it in a way that helps you understand yourself and helps you understand the world around you. And in that way, people can see it or watch it and enjoy it, and help them understand themselves. I think there's that greater good. I don't think craft necessarily does that. I think craft can sometimes be, the studio will give me a note and I'll say, okay, I can do that. That's what you want. I can do that. I don't think it's necessarily playing for the greater good. It's what they want and they're paying me. I also don't think design is necessarily art design. Sometimes a can be about selling something. So the design of the Apple boxes that they sell their phones and really beautiful, well done. But the design has an intention, and that is to sell this image of apple, of this blank slate, this pure white open for possibility, creative, blank slate. So is that art? No, I don't think so. I think it's design. I also, so there's art, craft, and design, but you can have your own opinion, feelings. And this debate has been raging for centuries.Phil Hudson:Yeah. I apologize. You might've answered this for you. Your book, is it art or is it craft? Oh,Michael Jamin:For me, the intention was only art. I was drawing upon my craft to make art. Whereas I don't usually draw upon my craft to make art. I usually do it to make a TV show. And so the book is called a Paper Orchestra. And when I wrote it, I was very, very, I was struggling with this. I've read similar books that were written by television writers. And to me, they felt like they had, I could tell they were written by sitcom writers. That's not to say that it was goofy. It just felt like it wasn't deep enough and it felt like they had taken the network note. Often we get notes from the network with the networks, can you round the edges off? And when you're writing on a network TV show, we'll often anticipate these notes and we'll do the notes in advance. But for this book, I was very insecure about it. I was kept on arguing with my wife, does this feel like it was written by Sid Car Rider? And sometimes she'd say, yeah, and sometimes she'd say, no, no, no. And so I was always pushing myself. I wanted to be seen as an author, not as a sitcom writer who wrote a book that feels like a sitcom. And so whether or not I achieved that, that's up for the individual to decide. But that was my intention. And I think intention's important. Think it counts for something.Phil Hudson:Absolutely. And it sounds to me like you took the craft that you've been working on for years and years and utilize it as a litmus test for your art.Michael Jamin:And if anyone wants to sign up when it drops or when I start touring, it's michael jamin.com/upcoming. But it's interesting because when people have enjoyed it and performed it as I performed, or when they've read,Phil Hudson:It's fantastic.Michael Jamin:Thank you. It's very visual. So I think when I write these scenes, I think, oh, what are we watching in our mind's eye as this scene goes? So there's that. I do write as if I'm a screenwriter. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get rid of that. And I do write, it's not high literature. I understand that. I don't know if I ever could write high literature, and I don't think, it was never my intention.Phil Hudson:I think it just speaks to the value of art. And you said it's to the greater good. And I think sometimes the greater good is what do I want to write? What is best for my soul?Michael Jamin:Yes.Phil Hudson:That's the intention. And that is the greater good. And that's the difference between canon fodder is the term that comes to mind. I don't know if that's appropriate, but it's just the BSS that can be mass produced, the AI generated content that can be mass produced versus the singular thing that only Michael Jamin could do because it spoke to his soul and came out of him based off of what he needed to express at this moment and what was going on in his life, reflecting on all of the experiences he's had.Michael Jamin:And that's interesting because how I protect myself from ai, because people say, what are you doing about ai? AI cannot write my stories because it hasn't lived my life. And these are very personal stories, so it just can't, AI might be able to do other things, but it can't do what I'm doing. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Yep. Beautiful stuff, man. I love when we end on these great little notes like that because I think it's incredibly valuable to people who are struggling with this. I know a lot of writers think they're artists and they want to be artists, and you are. You're doing something pure. And with the right intention, regardless of the quality that you can do now compared to everybody else, it's the best you can do with what you have right now. That isMichael Jamin:Art. And that's the advantage that an amateur or non-professional screenwriter or writer has over what we do. I'm a professional writer. It means I get paid. People are paying me to put out stuff that maybe I don't necessarily want to do, but I'm taking the money so I have to do it. But when you're writing for yourself as an amateur or you get to write whatever you want and you don't have to compromise and you don't have to worry about the money, you already have a job on the side, what you're doing, not you, but what those people are doing is more pure in that sense. You are writing because you just want to write, it's closer. It probably has a closer chance of being art than what I do when I take the paycheck.Phil Hudson:But it's probably also the thing that is going to get you into the machine to become the professional paid writer who does the craft?Michael Jamin:If you don't, right? If you stop thinking about, can I sell this and start thinking about how beautiful is this thing I'm making? And we were just talking to him a minute ago about Wolf of Wall Street, how I'm only a quarter way through, but every scene is so interesting. The writing is so great in every scene. Not lazy, nothing lazy about it, man. Yeah,Phil Hudson:Yeah. Well, it kind of leads to the end of the podcast. And so before we jump the gun, what do we say? Keep writing. That's Keep writing DoMichael Jamin:Phil. Great. Another great talk. Alright, everyone, keep watching. We have great stuff for you on the website. We like to always like to plug that. If you go to michaeljamin.com, what you can get is a free lesson on how to write. You can get on my newsletter, which I'll send you the three tips that I think you need to watch every week. Three lessons for you to pick up free. Also on my website, you can sign up for my book for when it drops a P Orchestra. You can sign up for my webinar, which we do every three weeks, and you could sign up for my screenwriting course. That's going to cost you. You can get a free writing sample that I've written all this stuff. Go get it. Yeah, it's all there@michaeljamon.comPhil Hudson:And there's other valuable things you have on there too. You can get the webinar rebroadcast. This was the pep talking screener writer and he's here. You can go get that. There's also the VIP Q and a, so these are the questions we couldn't answer in the main one. There's a VIP q and a. You can go sign up @michaeljamin.com/VIP for the next event and just have a chance on Zoom in a small group to ask questions directly to you. AndMichael Jamin:Let me clarify so the webinars, because I'm glad you brought that up. So the webinars are free if you attend live, they're free. If you miss it, we send you a free replay for 24 hours. But if you want to catch the old ones because you're like, Hey, those are really good, those are available on my website for a small fee,Phil Hudson:But they're lifetime access, so you buy it once. It doesn't have a take clock. It's like jurors, you have access. It's in there with the course. If you buy the course, you get access to all of them and the webinar, when you attend, you give away a free access to the course. So somebody will win that. And a pretty nice discount as well.Michael Jamin:Yes. Alright, Philly, we did it. Thank you everyone. Until next week, as Phil likes to say, keep writing.Phil Hudson:This has been an episode of Screenwriters Need to Hear this with Michael Jamin and Phil Hudson. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for Michael's monthly webinar @michaeljamin.com/webinar. If you found this podcast helpful, consider sharing it with a friend and leaving us a five star review on iTunes. For free screenwriting tips, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJamin,writer. You can follow Phil Hudson on social media @PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Green Music, by Ken Joseph. Until next time, keep writing.

On this week's episode, I talk about my thoughts on going to Film School. We also talk about what some industry insiders think about this and whether or not it helps your career. Tune in for much more!Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:Because I don't want to make it harder for my, when I'm working in a writer's room, I don't want to make it harder for myself. I want to make it simple for me to think about these problems. So I don't want to make it harder. The job is hard enough as it is. Why make it harder? Make it simpler. You're telling a story, it's not heart surgery. You're listening to screenwriters. Need to hear this with Michael Jamin. Hey everybody, welcome back. I'm Michael Jamin. I'm here with Phil Hudson and today we're answering the question, or at least we're asking it. Who knows if we'll have an answer? Should I go to film school? I get this one a lot. Let's talk about it. Well first of all, Phil, you might be better than me answering because you actually went to film school. Where'd you go?Phil Hudson:I went to Santa Fe University of Art and Design and I got a bachelor's, a fine arts in film story development from a film schoolMichael Jamin:There. How many years is that degree?Phil Hudson:It's a four year degree. Took me, oh myMichael Jamin:God,Phil Hudson:It's a bachelor's program. So it wasn't like master's an n, NYU U Master's in film. It was a bachelor's degree. And I remember when I was contemplating going, I had just really met you. I'd been working with your wife for a while and I asked you, should I go there or should I go to Hollywood? And you said, well, I don't know how valuable film school is outside of the network. You'll build there, but the work's here, so that's a personal choice. And then you said, well, at least you'll be able to teach college. And I said, well, I don't know if I will because it won't have a master's. And you're like, oh no.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well how much did that degree cost? Not necessarily you, but most people.Phil Hudson:Yeah, so the school was $30,000 a year, so it's $120,000 to get a four year degree. And I think at the time the average student would take about five years to get a bachelor's degree. So it actually, it would be $150,000 forMichael Jamin:That degree. I just Googled U S C film school and it's 53,000 a year. And I dunno if it's two or three years, but either way it's enough to give you heart palpitations.Phil Hudson:To put this into perspective, my brother, he's a lawyer, went to law school in Idaho and he's a lawyer in Montana where he passed the bar and I think his degree cost him $120,000 to be a lawyer.Michael Jamin:To be a lawyer. And you can immediately start earning that back the minute you passed thePhil Hudson:Bar. Oh, he's making more money per hour than I am now. He went, I mean he really took his time and now he was scraping by living on student loans, building up debt to get through film school with a family. I mean he's building five to six billable hours per day at $200 an hour. He is making more in a day than I make as a PAMichael Jamin:On. Yeah, right. But film school, so should people go to film school? Here's the thing, you're going to graduate with a lot of debt and we don't know when or if you'll ever pay that off. As far as I can tell.Phil Hudson:I can be transparent on that too. I had a Robert Redford scholarship and a talent scholarship, so my cost all in, aside from what I paid, I have $40,000 in student loans from school and my school closed down. It doesn't exist anymore.Michael Jamin:So do you have to pay back your loan then? IPhil Hudson:Do.Michael Jamin:You do. Even though, who's it going to? They don't have school.Phil Hudson:The federal government loaned me the money and then paid the school. And that is something I can never get rid of. It's you can't file bankruptcy on it. It lives with you till death. You will always owe that money unless you pay it back. The other side of this is there is a way that I could challenge that and say, well, my school's gone because the school actually never sent me my diploma. So I walked, I have the itinerary, the photos, the whole thing, but I never got my diploma from the school. And there's a process to go get it through the parent organization laureate to go get that, but it's a bit of a pain in the butt. And they messed up my transcripts because I did that four year program in two and a half years. So I really expedited things. I saw them writing on the wall that it was going to shut down so I could challenge it and I could get that waived and then I would lose my degree. So I've wasted two and a half years, so it's not really worth fighting to me. I'd rather have the degree. So I've just got to find the time to go fight that other battle for you.Michael Jamin:Well, just so people know, I've worked in TV for a long time, 27 years, and most of the writers that I work, if you want to be a screenwriter, very, very few actually went to film school. I was at a party a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine who told me he went to film school and I've worked with him for many years. He's like, you went to film school. It just doesn't come up. And when you get hired for, no one's going to ask you to see your degree. No one caress what your G p A was in film school. No one caress if you went or you didn't go. All they care is can you put the words in the page? That comp compelled people to turn to the next page. And you don't need just the fact that you have a degree or even an M F A in creative writing or whatever. The degree is worthless. The knowledge that you gain might be worth something might depending on who's teaching it to you. And I think that is more dependent on not necessarily the school or the program, but who's teaching that semester, who did they get? Often these are adjuncts and sometimes the adjuncts are working screenwriters who have a break in their schedule and want to teach. And you may find one that's great, but these adjuncts don't get paid a lot of money. So it's not what I mean a lot of money. I'm talking aboutPhil Hudson:A couple hundred bucks a month.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean the people I've talked to for a semester, maybe they make $4,000. It's not a lot of money, so they're not doing it for the money. And it's not a long-term career option when you're only making four grand for a semester. It's ridiculous. So it just depends on who they got that semester. You may get somebody great, you may not. So the knowledge you get may be fantastic, but again, it's a trade school you're getting, if you want to be a filmmaker, do you want to learn editing? Do you want to learn lighting or maybe, but as a screenwriter, no, you'll learn that in a million other things. There are way less expensive options, including our course that we offer that will teach you probably more in that area of specialty in the writing aspect. But I don't teach lightingPhil Hudson:And I decided to go because I was always a bit more interested in being an ourour, shooting, writing, directing, producing, editing, just kind of understanding the full gamut. I also have a bit of a control need. I need to be able to understand, and this comes from being in the tech space where I'd have engineers telling me something was going to take three weeks to get done, and then you learn how to code it and you realize they're just milking the clock. And so it comes from I'd like to understand the full process so I can better work within that process and hold people a little bit more accountable from a leadership perspective. But yeah, that's smart. Smart. And your note on film school is interesting too. On the writing side, no one cares on the production side. I've actually had conversations with people who roll their eyes when they hear you into film school.Michael Jamin:Yeah, really? People, producers, you meanPhil Hudson:Art directors?Michael Jamin:Why didPhil Hudson:They roll their every department?Michael Jamin:Why did they roll their eyes?Phil Hudson:I dealt with this when I was a missionary. When you're a missionary, you've been out doing this stuff for six months and then you're asked to train somebody new. That guy's coming from a place where they taught them how to be a missionary, but learning how to be a missionary versus being a missionary, just different things. Learning how to make a film and learning how to do a setup versus how a set actually runs. They're different things. The education may be correct, but the environment changes things. And so without fail, people who come in who said, I went to film school, think they know how to do it, think they know better than their superiors and it creates conflict because those people think they're better than the people teaching them.Michael Jamin:Phil, we didn't have this conversation off the air. So just so you know, I worked with a producer on one of my TV shows, the line producer, he was the producer and he said the same exact thing. He said that when he hires PAs for the show and most of the PAs come out of film school, whatever, a hundred thousand in debt, he goes, I have to untrain them. I have to unlearn them everything they learned because they think they know and it's just not how it works. And I was like, really? He goes, yep, that's how he goes. He doesn't prioritize hiring film students. He just as well hired someone who's not a film school student, have them learn on the job and learn instead of being winding up a hundred thousand in debt, they get paid. Although not a lot, but they get paid to learn.Phil Hudson:No, you get paid. I always described it, and I need this too, because when I moved to LA I was 31 and I'd already had a very successful corporate career and I could have pursued that career. When I was in college, I got prospected to go be a chief marketing officer at a bunch of startups in San Francisco paying way more money than I make now. And I turned 'em down because I was way more passionate about this thing I want to do in film. But I always described it to people like I knew, I knew I was going to get coffee for people. I knew it was a lot of yes sir, no, yes sir, no ma'am. However much you need, what can I do? Because it really feels to me like it's the apprenticeship model out here. This is a trade where you learn under someone else who has done it and you not only learn how to do it by the book, but you learn all the tips and tricks and hacks. They had to figure out that were passed down to them as a lineage from the people that taught them who learned it from the guy who was running around with the horses in 1908.Michael Jamin:So another thing that you might get from film school. So in other words, let's break it down. Okay, the diploma is not worth anything, but the knowledge you might get, especially in terms of screenwriting, might be valuable. Just totally depends, but you can spend a lot less on it. You might get context depending on where you go, depending on your graduating class. And if you are willing to stay in contact, if you stay in contact with your people, if you're friends with them, if you're not, those contacts are worth, your graduating class is worthless if you don't know the members of your graduating class. And like I said, it's an expensive venture and it didn't help you get, okay. So when you got your first PA job, did they ask if you went to film school?Phil Hudson:No, I think in fact when I interviewed it was probably one of those situations where I was disqualified because of it. Oh, really? Because in the interview it was for Brett and link's buddy system. You got me the interview, you told me I can get you the interview, I can't get you the job. You got her on the job. And I showed up and I disqualified myself by telling them I wanted to be a writer. That's really what disqualified me. And then, yeah, no one has asked me once, not a single person has ever asked me if I went to film school.Michael Jamin:And so I had toPhil Hudson:Bring it up once or twice out of defense because someone was trying to belittle. This is like I ran into a really toxic person in her season of Tacoma Tea recently, and that person was belittling me by trying to explain to me things and I had to say, yeah, I learned that in film school. And then she looked at me and was like, yeah, I went to film school too. I understand. I know how to calculate it. I get it.Michael Jamin:But there are things in terms of screenwriting that you did not learn in film school.Phil Hudson:Oh man. And this is no knock on anybody. You talk about good professors and bad professors. We had an adjunct professor named Ed Kamara, and he's a legend. He wrote Lady Hawk, which was a huge hit in the eighties. He wrote the Bruce Lee movie. He has actual credits under his belt, retired lives in Santa Fe, and he would come and teach one class per year. And it was intermediate storytelling and I got way more out of that class than I did any of my other writing classes because he was telling you, here's how you write a screenplay. And we had to write a screenplay to get credit in the class. But compare that to my first class and nothing against the professor, but we spent four weeks learning audio visual format for PSAs, and then we learned how to use Celtics because he wrote the book on Celtics and we had to buy the book on Celtics for his course.It was a lot of stuff. And then I had this really interesting moment we've talked about in the podcast, but this is a real thing that happened to me. He asked the room, we finally got into story and structure. He asked the room, what's the definition of a story? And I just perked up and I was like, I know this because it's literally the first thing you had taught me via an email. He asked me that question and I looked around the room and people raising their hands and people are getting it wrong. And I just said, it's a hero overcoming an obstacle to achieve a goal. And the teacher turned around and changed his slides because he didn't have that definition. So yeah, I've learned way more, I would say outside of film school, about screenwriting through you and the stuff you've taught me also from just sitting down and writing, the real benefit for me was that it forced me to write,Michael Jamin:But also you can build and if you want to talk about your graduating class since I brought it up, but you can build your community outside of, you don't need to go to film school to build a community of people, of like-minded people who want what you want, which is to become either filmmakers or screenwriter, whatever it is. But it's like you can build a community, especially online because you don't need to do that now. So much about the world has changed with the internet and social media so much. It's changed so rapidly that, but I think so many people are still stuck in the old model thinking, well no, this is how it has to be done, myself included as well. I sometimes feel that when it doesn't, the world is changing.Phil Hudson:We can talk about generative AI and all of those things because pretty steeped in those. I sent you a bunch of guides yesterday about how to do some content on chat G P T and stuff, but tool, like you said, technology has just changed things. MySpace was a thing when I was in high school and Facebook was brand new when I got off my mission in 2008, and I barely, I had to figure out how to use that, but YouTube wasn't a thing. I remember sitting in my first class in film school and one of the assignments was, I want you to write down on a piece of paper, who is the filmmaker that inspired you to be a filmmaker when you were like 12 years old? And then he said, if you were inspired by a YouTuber, come talk to me. I have a different assignment for you. And I was like, what? YouTube was invented in 2005. I graduated in oh four, right? It's just text change things. So I agree with you on that. But in terms of your network and growing a network, my network in my film school, I went to school with a bunch of really passionate people about film, are way more technically savvy than I am. Could make a picture out of a camera I can't even imagine because they just had access to better technology than I did. They were much younger than me,Michael Jamin:ButPhil Hudson:I've found most of 'em didn't understand story at all. And the ones who did, there's a small group of us who made it to la. Out of that group of people, there's like four of them still here. One is working at an agency, one is in the W G A and writes on Selena. She's amazing. You should go check out Selena Blank on her names Alexandra, but it'll come up to me. And then there's one guy who was an announcer, really put in a lot of effort making these happen. And now he's a head of creative development at a pretty well-known studio. That's it. That's really it. I've got a couple of friends who still live in la, but they're not doing anything in the industry writing related. They're doing the visual effects and things, but they all want to be writers, directors. That's what they did. But the group that I think I associate the most with is actually your group from the course.Michael Jamin:Yeah. You associate meaning making connections withPhil Hudson:Yeah. Yeah. I mean prior to that, obviously I know people on set. I need people on set. We trade scripts. We kind of have those things because working with people and then you learn, everybody wants to be a writer. Everybody wants to be a director. Not everybody. There are some people who are like, I love lighting and I love camera and that's what I want to do. But a lot of people want to be writers and directors. And so you can meet a lot of like-minded people that way. They're the events and things in LA that you can go to networking events. There's social media meetups now there's Zoom meetups with people. But your group, I want to highlight because the value of that group to me is these are people who've invested in themselves to learn from a professional who knows how to do it.And we are all sitting down in this group, and it's a group of people who are highly motivated. They're taking it very seriously. They understand the fundamentals the same way that we all do. And then now we're slowly lifting each other up to become better. And there's new people joining every month, and those people are jumping into this ecosystem, but very proactive. We trade notes with those people. The notes are way better. I mean, those are my peers. One comes into town and we meet up, we go pick it with him and Warner Brothers, he comes to my house, he eats food in my home. That's Dave Crossman we talk about all the time. But lots of people in the LA area that we meet up with and do those things. That's the networking that really matters.Michael Jamin:So just to be clear, I have a screenwriting course and that comes with a private Facebook group. That's what you're talking about. And what I see, it's interesting. I am a member of some public Facebook groups screenwriting, and I don't go there. I don't know why I'm in there, but I don't go there. They're dark, they're dark places. People are mean, they talk shit. They don't know what they're talking about. It is just toxic. But that's definitely not the sense in our group, which is very much more supportive, not, and not only that, we haven't even talked about this film, but someone, I think it was Crossman in the group, decided to, Hey, should we do a film, a screenwriting contest? FilmPhil Hudson:Festival. A filmMichael Jamin:Festival? And so I was like, that's fun. That's a good idea.Phil Hudson:You told them to do it on a podcast. You said, you were talking about on the podcast you said, and not crossword, but you said, you know what I think our group needs to do? They need to just do a thing where they can exhibit the stuff they're working on and then someone did it,Michael Jamin:Someone took the initiative to do it, and I'm all for it. I'm not involved in it, but I'm all for it. I'm like, that's a great idea. And it just helps. First of all, it raises everyone's profile in the group with other, amongst themselves, but also that'll spread. I mean, they do this and one of these things does well, if everyone agree on, Hey, this movie's really good, or the screenplays, I don't even know, is it a movie or is it a screenplay? It'sPhil Hudson:Short. It's produced stuff. So it's taking your content and then producing it as a short,Michael Jamin:Right?Phil Hudson:So Imagine Festival,Michael Jamin:Imagine the top three entrants. Everyone agrees, these are the three favorite that will have legs that people will talk about that they'll share that outside of the group. They'll say, I mean, I don't see a downside to this. All I see is upside. And I was, I was actually thinking about what stopped them from doing this two years ago. And the answer, and I came up with the answer and the answer was, one, someone felt like, well, this is a lot of work, which I get it. It's not a lot, but it's work to organize this. And then the second was probably, they're probably thinking, well, who am I to do this? Who am I to be the person? What am I? I'm just a person. Why should am I to say I'm capable? Well, why are you not capable? Who are you not to be the person you're just as good as anybody else? What's the problem? But it's overcoming that little mental barrier that you created for yourself thinking, who am I to make a film a contest? Well, you're you. That's who you are now. You're the guy, now you're the guy, the woman creating this contest and raising your profile in the process, which is only a good thing. So it's only good for the winners or the contestants. It's good for the people who are involved in doing this.Phil Hudson:And we've talked about it too, the proactiveness in that group of people, they have reading groups and that's booked out for six months where they know for every week who's reading these scripts. They're exchanging notes. They do pitch fest. They bring in people outside of the group, professionals that they know. They shared their network with you to hear you pitch things. Right? Wow. Yeah. It's nothing butMichael Jamin:Good for them. I mean, seriously, I'm not organizing this. They're being proactive, which is what I encourage you to do. Control put, this is your destiny. This is your fate. You got to make these opportunities for yourself. And it's only good, good things to be the person, even if you're just a connector, even if you're just the person that links two people together, now you are the connector. You're also valuable. SoHey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.Phil Hudson:No, this is the value of leadership. It's just leadershipMichael Jamin:Is what I was even asking too. Are you getting involved in that? Is that what youPhil Hudson:I'm going to, they don't know this. They'll listen to this. I don't know. But yeah, I've got this final that I did in film school. Every project I've ever done, the audio has just been trashed. It's just been correct. And the problem this time was my cinematographer didn't enable the on-camera audio. And so I did have a good audio person getting the audio, so I just was able to scrape it enough to get an A on my final and get out. But I never finished the project. So that's a project that's sitting there. My friend Ken Joseph, who does the music for your podcast, he's going to do the music on as well. And I'm just going to finally cut it and submit it. And then I'm probably going to put something together with a couple of people from the Tacoma crew who aren't working right now and try to just get something shot and submit it just for fun.Michael Jamin:See, and this gets you off your ass, just lets a fire under your ass to do. But I bet you the, IPhil Hudson:Can't not show up Michael. Not that I have any clout, but it's like I'm number two in the group just because of my tech admin status. And so if I don't show up, what message is that sending to people? And so I take that on myself as my responsibility for helping be involved and support the troubleshooting that goes on. Okay, I need to be an activeMichael Jamin:Participant. How many winners are they going to choose?Phil Hudson:I have no clue on that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, I look forward to watching the winners. I'm not going to judge, but I will be. I'll enjoy the victors. I'll enjoy their work. And I mean, again, that's just people taking initiative of their own careers. That's what you're supposed to do.Phil Hudson:Yeah. I mean, this is what you've been preaching for two years, man. You've been saying this. It's like no one's going to help you. You got to do it yourself. I think this is just a lost American skillset. That is a very important one.Michael Jamin:This is not film school. They don't have to go to film school to do all this. No, this is where the conversation started.Phil Hudson:And on that note, it's like, do you have to go to film school? Absolutely not. My answer is no. Am I glad I went to film school? I don't know that I would be in the same place today if I hadn't. I think that I had to go through a lot of that stuff. Are there benefits to going to school and getting a degree in general? I think so. I think as someone who grew up poor and I just had this chip on my shoulder all the time, that I was less than. So going and getting a classic education from a liberal arts school, having my eyes opened a little bit more by being encouraged to read stuff I would've never read on my own. I took classes on feminist literature because that was the course that fit into my schedule to check that box.And I took the look through it, history of science fiction. Wow, learned so much about this genre that I love and saw the influence of that. So there's a lot of those benefits I think from a personal development perspective. But I'm also an autodidact. I mean, I've got shells full of books that I can just read and learn on my own, and I believe anybody can do that. So it's each their own. And with kids, my wife is not a believer in college and secondary education doesn't really care because it's not something that ever called out to her. I definitely see the value. And so our decision is it's up to our kids to decide and we'll support whatever they want to do. But I also know I've built a very healthy marketing career on my own that did not go to school for,Michael Jamin:The thing is to graduate though with a hundred hundred or $150,000 in debt,Phil Hudson:It's insurmountable for a lot of people, especially, and I think this is what the strike highlights is, people in Hollywood have this opinion that riders are just driving Lamborghinis and they're loaded. And the answer is no. They're middle class people. They just live in a city that requires more money to live in, but they live a middle class lifestyle that would be the equivalent of a upper middle class lifestyle. In any other suburban area of America doing any other middle class job, there are outliers. It's a bell curve. There are people who make way less. There are a lot of people who make a lot more, but the average in the bell, they're just middle class people and they're in my neighborhood. I mean, I just moved into this new neighborhood a year ago, and in my neighborhood, I go to this church and there are four people in the industry in the church. One's an editor at Sony, one was the head gaffer for N C I S, and he's retired now. And the other one's a composer for film and tv, but they live in what I would call an upper middle class neighborhood. They're not in the Hollywood Hills. I'm further away from LA than I've ever been. This is where I could afford to put my family.Michael Jamin:Right. So it's just a little hard to think about having that amount of debt isPhil Hudson:When you can go to school for six, seven years and then start making 1200 bucks a day as an attorney.Michael Jamin:Yeah. So do you really want to add that for the same debt?Phil Hudson:The same debt? So it's crazy.Michael Jamin:So it's probably just a better way to spend your money and your time probably. I would think. And again, I didn't go to film school. One of the best writers I've ever worked with didn't go to college. She was just a high school graduate. So it's a question of can you put the words on the page? The degree will not open doors for you. No.Phil Hudson:Yeah. And that ties into limiting belief, people talking all the time is you have to go to Harvard to make it in Hollywood. Yeah. It's like, no, there are recruiting groups. There are kind of cliquey things that can happen for sure. And this is, I don't know, so I apologize if this is incorrect, but I've heard that the Simpsons largely hires people from Harvard,Michael Jamin:And that was really, that news is 30 years old, so I don't even know if they're hiring anymore. The Simpsons is not what it once was. And people aren't leaving that show. If you're a writer on that show, you're not leaving because why would you? So I don't know how many writers they hire, and I don't know if I know it once was a feeder. You go to the Lampoon. If you did the Harvard Lampoon, then maybe you get some contact.Phil Hudson:But that's a qualification, right? You to work at the Lampoon, you are qualified because you have to have a certain joke set, a style of jokes. So I mean, that just makes sense to me. I know there's a big U Ss C producing, I wouldn't call it click but network. If you went to the producing school at U S C, that has value to people in the producing side. They know the quality of the education that you had.But I mean, that's alumni networks and that's been around for forever. No different. The difference here is I know that if I need to find a job tomorrow, so let's say the strikes end tomorrow and Tacoma FD is canceled, which is not, but if it did, what's my next step? My step is to send out emails to everybody I know that I've worked with in the four years I've been on Tacoma fd, letting 'em know this is the kind of job I'm looking for. Lemme know if you hear anything. And I know that my work ethic will shine that if there's an opportunity, they'll ask me. They'll recommend me that,Michael Jamin:Right?Phil Hudson:That's the same network. I got that working.Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah, right. You built that yourself really. So, and another thing you can do if you decide to take a course or a class, and I've talked about this before, so apologize for repeating myself, but whoever your teacher is, it says if it's screenwriting, ask to read their work. It's okay. That's okay. And you could say, I'd love to, before you sign up, I'd love to read what your work is. And then they'll give you a script. If they're not willing to share their work, what's the problem? It's a red flag. If you read it and you're not sure whether you like where you think it's good or not, there's a simple test. When you turn to page one and you get to the bottom of page one, do you want to turn to page two? It's the bottom of every page. Do you want to turn the page and find out what happens next?If you're on the fence, it's not good enough. It really should be captivating. You should want to, it's entertainment. If it's not entertaining you, that's how you judge. There's no secret language to figure out whether, and I didn't know this when I first broke into Hollywood, I didn't know this. I would read a script and I go, it looks like a script. I don't know. Or I was doing coverage for a publisher. Would this book make a good movie? So I was reading a lot of books and they'd say, do you think it'll make a good movie? I'm like, I guess I remember reading, taking months to read or whatever weeks to read a book and thinking, this is dreadful. I guess this, it's a good movie. No, it is actually less simpler. It shouldn't feel like torture, turning the page.Phil Hudson:And that's a real thing. And we're having read so much stuff now pretty quick.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Phil Hudson:It's going to suck.Michael Jamin:So ask to read their work, and if you don't like it, then don't study from them. They're not going to. It's really as simple as that. And if you do like it, great. Maybe you'll study from still. Doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be a great teacher. Sometimes they can't crystallize it. They just might have some raw talent that they can't really, it doesn't mean they're good at sharing their knowledge means they have some kind of thing in them that, so there's that.Phil Hudson:Well, and let me pay you a compliment too, Michael, because we've had a lot of people go through your course and one of the common testimonials we get or reviews we get is just how easily digestible it is and how packed with value it is. And I remember we've had two people in particular. One Bruce Gordon left you this great review. He said that, and I'm paraphrasing, but he said that learning the whole course, the learning process is so easy to get through that it's impossible to not get value out of the backend. And we had someone who recently signed up within the last month who is literally, this is her job is learning systems, online learning management, and she wanted to know what platform we were using because she was so impressed with it. And I was like, it's the most popular platform. Everyone uses platform. It's not that. It's the fact that you're teaching valuable stuff, organized in a way that makes linear and logical sense that anybody can grasp.Michael Jamin:There's no secret from it is just like I try to explain it in very simple terms so an idiot can get it. I'm not interested in, oh,Phil Hudson:And I'm an idiot. You've said things that I've heard a thousand times over in books and courses. And it wasn't until you said it was like, oh no, duh.Michael Jamin:Yeah, because I don't want to make it harder for my, when I'm working in a writer's room, I don't want to make it harder for myself. I want to make it simple for me to think about these problems. So I don't want to make it harder. The job is hard enough as it is. Why make it harder? Make it simpler. You're telling a story. It's not heart surgery don't make so complicated.Phil Hudson:And you're structured in the course that you talk about your bottom of act one. The way you define that. Oh my gosh, that just made so much sense. The first half of Act two. Oh my gosh. Makes so much sense. And I remember I was lucky enough, I came out to Disneyland with my family and I swung by your garage to talk about marketing stuff for your wife's company. And we were just hanging out where you were recording. And I remember sitting there and you were like, well, what can I do for you? And I was like, oh, I don't know, man. I'd just love to know what you think about story. And you broke the whiteboard out for me the same way you do in the course. And I was in film school at the time, and the way you laid it out, just I wanted to cry. It was like, this is soMichael Jamin:Easy. Yeah, see, it's easy. We don't make things harder. My partner and I, we try not to make things harder than it has to be. And that's not to say it's formulaic or facile, it's just like, because you could tell a complicated, nuanced story, but you don't have to make the beats of it complicated. You don't have to. Geez, because we got to do this every week.Phil Hudson:I was watching Get Out on the plane, I'd never seen Get Out. I've bought it. I wanted to watch it. I just never made the time. And I watched it on the plane yesterday and this thing happens. I was like, I know where we're at. And I checked the time. Oh, we're there. Oh, beat by beat by beat.Michael Jamin:It fell rightPhil Hudson:Into it. Of the greatest films of the last five, six years. Beat by Beat by beat. It's the same story structure we use in Tacoma fd we use in King of the Hill, wherever it is. It's the same thing.Michael Jamin:Yeah, same thing. The wayPhil Hudson:Jordan Peele does it, I could never do cause surprised, fascinating, great, that's him. But it's the same structure,Michael Jamin:Right? The structure is the same, right? So that's where you put the structure is just like that's building a house. Okay. If you know how to frame a house, you should be able to frame the house and then the color of the paint and the tiles, all that stuff is that's the decorations. And that requires your taste and how you want to execute it. That's fine. But don't make the structure the hard part.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Structures are not hard. You have a foundation and you have stuff. That's it. Everything else, the way you put it in your electrical system, what type of water heater you use, the piping you use, how is it connected? The junction box, that's the complicated stuff. That's you, that's your craft. But the framing that, that's a process. So one thing I wanted to tell you is I was at dinner with Paul Soter when I was on the quasi tour, and we were talking about writing in the writer's room and TV and all of this stuff, and I told him this advice that you gave me, which was one, learn hotkeys. If you're going to be a writer's assistant and two, shut the F up. Your job is not to talk in the room. Your job is to sit there and take notes and listen and learn, and that's what you're going to do. And Paul Soder paid you and your writing partner or great credit, he said, yeah, I remember my first season in Tacoma. I just remember sitting there and wanting to shut up and say nothing and just learn from these guys. Oh, wow. Although they have great career in indie film and doing major studio films, they were still learning from you too because of us. I think it goes back to the simplicity with which you're doing itMichael Jamin:And those guys, they're movies. They made some really fun movies that people really love and they've made quite a few. They've made, I don't know how many, maybe probably less than 10 movies, but it's quite a few. But it's probably not more than 10, right? It's eightPhil Hudson:I want to say. But yeah.Michael Jamin:Okay. Let's say it's eight. And many of them have done really, really well. These low budget movies that have really made some money and they have a huge cult following, but they've only told whatever, eight or 10 stories. Whereas when you're in tv, when we started, we were doing 22 stories a season. And it's that repetition that you really is. That's where you really learn how to figure out what story structure is. And you do 22 episodes over my 27 year career, it's like, okay, it becomes a lot easier to know what a story is and how to break a story. Whereas in the beginning of my career, I was like sitting in a writer's room watching the other more senior writers break a story. It was like a magic trick. It's like, how do you know how to do any of this?Phil Hudson:Yeah, it's cool, man. So to answer the question, do you need to go to film school? My answer is no. And for most people, I would actually encourage you not to because you're going to get the debts, you're going to get the student loans, and none of it's going to help you progress in your career. Is there a chance it's going to help you with your craft and get better at your craft? Yeah, absolutely. I think a little bit of it's luck of the draw though. Like you said, it really depends on the teachers you get. Depends on how committed you are. Is it going to make you a better writer? No.Michael Jamin:Are there far less expensive ways to get the same amount of knowledge and connections? Yes, absolutely. It might require a little more work, but think about how much money you're saving.Phil Hudson:Yeah, there's a doctor, a pretty renowned doctor now, Peter Atia. Have you heard of him?Michael Jamin:No.Phil Hudson:Dr. Peter Atia. He's in the health and fitness and lung. He's a longevity doctor. So he literally how to live Chris, he's a Chris Hemsworth doctor, and heMichael Jamin:From Harvard, this guy,Phil Hudson:I don't think it was Harvard, he was John Hopkins. He was a Al intern at John Hopkins. But anyway, he's a book just came out just a couple months ago. Really, really good book about longevity. And he had talked about this thing called Arian Olympics, which is how do I live to be 100 and still be able to get down on the ground and play with my kids and put something in the overhead compartment? All of the things that kill people, old people, they don't have that. But he was talking on a podcast about vaping and nicotine and all that stuff, and he's like, I don't have a problem with nicotine. The problem is the device and it's the tobacco. And this is, for me, I always view things in two types. It's risk and reward. And there's levels. There's a scale of risk and a scale of reward. And I think this applies directly to film school for people the risk, is it like getting hit by a tricycle or is it getting hit by a bus? And the reward is, am I step bending over to pick up a dollar? We're picking up gold coinsAnd there's an offset. If the risk to reward or matched, it might be worth pursuing If the risk to reward or misaligned, it's not. And my opinion here is it's the financial equivalent of getting hit by a bus to pick up dollars. Because you're going to go to la, be a pa, and you're going to make minimum wage for 4, 5, 6 years and you may never get out of that. I know people when the A M T P, excuse me, not the mtp, but the biopsy strike was going on, they were talking about how they never made it past writer's assistant because they'd get on a show and it would get canceled, and then they would get on a show as a writer's assistant and it'd get canceled six years down the road. They have it become a staff writer, even though they're knocking at the door because luck of the draw.Michael Jamin:Yeah, there's luck there. Yeah, for sure. Alright, well there's your answer, Phil. How's that for? All right, well, before we wrap it up, let's tell people what more they can get. We have a lot of resources free. Forget about paying Phil the same. I got a film school here. It's free.Phil Hudson:Here's the big one, Michael, you talked about if you want to learn from somebody, read their stuff. Well, you give away your stuff. You had me put this on the site, so it's on your about page, there's a form. You fill it out, and then Michael will send you a bunch of actual written and produced episodes of TV show. It's like King of the Hill and a bunch of other stuff in there. But you can go read your produced writing and then go watch the show, which is, I think, a step beyond. It's like you can immerse, see what you did and see how it ended up end result, which is pretty cool. So michaeljamin.com. I want to say it's about, but you can just go to the main magazine, I think it'sMichael Jamin:About.Phil Hudson:Yeah, and you can go get it there. And that'll be sent directly to you. The free lesson, the same lesson you taught me, the one I talked about with my professor. You can get that lesson in a longer format with more detail, with more entertaining. And that's michaeljamin.com/free. It's how to Tell a story. You've got a paper orchestra stuff, webinar, which we going to talk about. Yeah, webinar. Webinar. Every three weeks. Now we're doing a webinar. It's about three absolutely freeMichael Jamin:Webinar.Phil Hudson:Come join Michael for an hour, get your questions answered. We've been doing this private v i p thing where you just do q and a with people for about an hour or so after. And the results coming out of that. People love that. They're big fansMichael Jamin:Of that one that is not free. There's a small fee for that to cover some of our expenses, but,Phil Hudson:But you don't have to do that. And you answer questions throughout the whole webinar as well. And we often put 'em on podcasts. So again, access to a professional writer I would've killed for 10 years ago that I never had, and then a paper orchestra book. I think that was something you were going to talk about. You were going to tell us a little bit about that process. You're doing the audiobook, right? Oh,Michael Jamin:One of the things. Yeah, I'm excited. That'll be dropping in a couple months because we're still producing the audiobook. And what I've always, when I was writing this, it's a collection of personal essays, but there's stories, it's not about, it's not an essay. It feels like a story. It feels like you could shoot it, it feels like an episode of television show. But I wanted people to, at the end when as I was writing it, I want people to feel something and feel something like laugh and then feel this maybe discomfort at the end or something to hit 'em in the heart. And I want them to sit in it, and I don't want them, as I was writing, I was like, how do I get people to just sit in this and not turn the chapter once the chapter's over, I want 'em to sit in it. I don't even want 'em to turn the page. I want 'em to really just feel it for a while. And in the audio book, how do you do that in a regular book? You can't. You can only hope that they do that. When I do my show, as I perform this, as I say afterwards, my goal is I want you to go to your car and just before you turn the ignition, just sit in it.I'm rocked. I'm too rocked to even turn the ignition for a couple half a minute or whatever. But for the audiobook, I'm actually able to do this. I'm actually can force you to do this because I do the story. And I gave each story the audiobook to this composer that I work with, Anthony Rizzo on Marin, who's working with me on the audiobook. And I said, if this story, if this piece, this chapter was a piece of music, what would it sound like to you? And so this is his chance to do his art. He came back with these beautiful scores. So at the end of every piece, every chapter, it goes into music that he wrote. And you just listen to it and it's like it carries you out. It carries the last note of the stories, the note, the first note of his score. And it really forces just, and some of they're up and some of them are down, and some of them are happy and some, but it is wonderful how he did this. And so the audio book, I think this makes it more of an experience. And I haven't heard an audio book done this way,Phil Hudson:So that's so cool. And this, having had the privilege of seeing you perform this live last year in la it did that. It did that for me. I still think I'm thinking about it now. I think it was your story, I think it was called Ghost, is that right? Goul.Michael Jamin:The Goul. The Goul, yeah.Phil Hudson:And yeah, man, just thinking about that, all that emotion comes right back. Yeah,Michael Jamin:The score he did for that, the score he did is fricking haunting. I was like, man, this is really good. So I'm so excited.Phil Hudson:So the cool thing is for people who can't see you live, they can get a taste of that performance of you live with it sounds like plussed up with some amazing music too.Michael Jamin:And I do hope to tour with it, but obviously not to every city. It has to be your, I guess, bigger cities. But, and so if you want to know more about that or be notified when it drops, it's michaeljamin.com/upcoming. And yeah, we're working on it. ButPhil Hudson:The only other thing was the newsletter. The watch. Oh, the newsletter to do weekly, your top three things. Also updates. We started adding updates like what podcast episodes coming out, what webinars coming up, that kind of stuff. Just a little bit more informational, but the value is still there. With those three free pieces of content delivered every Friday, right to your inbox. We proactively work to not do anything marketable or salesy to that newsletter. So if you want a lot of free content and you don't really care too much about some of the other stuff that we're doing with the course and that you're safe there, go sign up for the watch list because it's really meant just to be a value add of content that you're putting out already. Just digesting it and getting it to people directly in their inbox.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. So Phil's in charge of all of that. Phil, you do a great job just in keeping all of that up to date and keeping your website up to date.Phil Hudson:We just did a whole revamp on it because when we changed systems last year, there were a lot of people who wanted marketing that were not getting it because we tried to protect that watch list so much from any types of salesy stuff. And you're really big on that. You don't want to be a salesy guy at all. So we did clean that up a bit. So if you haven't been here from Michael and you start, it's because we clean that up, but we even just set it up so they can manage their own list. So if they want to be marketed to and they decide they don't, they can unsubscribe from that. But keep the watch list. We really did a lot of that stuff, trying to make it better.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And thank you for all that. Yeah. Alright, everyone, thank you. Another a great episode, Phil, and I'll be back very soon with more. Until then, keep writing.Phil Hudson:This has been an episode of Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin and Phil Hudson. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for Michael's monthly webinar@michaeljamin.com/webinar. If you found this podcast helpful, consider sharing it with a friend and leaving us a five star review on iTunes. For free screenwriting tips, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. You can follow Phil Hudson on social media @PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane Music, by Ken Joseph. Until next time, keep writing.

This week, for the 100th episode we have Writer/Actor/Executive Producer Steve Lemme (Super Troopers, Beer Fest, Tacoma FD and many many more) talk about his early career, his on-going collaboration with Kevin Heffernan and doing stand up.Show NotesSteve Lemme on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0501399/Steve Lemme on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SteveLemmeSteve Lemme on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steve_lemme/Free Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptSteve Lemme:Some guys were psyched that I had gotten it out there and the studio was psyched because fucking, it was massive. It was a massive announcement that got all those views. And so it was like, then the guys that were kind of mad about it were like, but don't feel like you did the right thing here. What you did was wrong. I was like, I know what I did was wrong. I'll never do it again. They're like, so don't feel justified. I'm like, I know, but then guys are looking at each other. But it is pretty fucking sweet and I definitely did the wrong thing and I would not advise that to anybody.Michael Jamin:You're listening to Screenwriters need to hear this with Michael lemin.Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Screenwriters. Need to Hear this. I'm Michael and this is episode 100 of this podcast. And as an honor, I thought I would bestow this great honor onto the man. Yes. Yeah, I'm giving you the honor. It's an honor for you Lemme onto the man who's kept me employed for the past four years or more. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're listening to the podcast in your car, please pull over and give a warm round of applause to Mr. Steven Lemme. Lemme.Lemme tell people who you are, just by the way, this is the in case they don't know. So Lemme, as we call him, is the star and exec creator and executive producer showrunner of the show. I'm currently running on Tacoma fd, but you may know him. He's got a long track record of indie movies. We're going to talk about how he got these old made, including Super Troopers, bottle Cruiser Club, dread Beer Fest, lamb and Salmon, a bunch of stuff, including the latest one is quasi. I know I'm skipping over your complete filmography, but I want to give you a chance to talk. Let me thank you for being on my show here.Steve Lemme:I feel like you could just go on forever talking about me.Michael Jamin:Yeah, that would be the ideal Pat podcast for you. Just tell me more about me.Steve Lemme:I would prefer that. I would prefer that.Michael Jamin:Why? Is that? Because you're tired of telling your story over and over?Steve Lemme:No, I don't really get tired speaking about myself, but what I get less tired of is like I've gone and done some publicity lately. For instance, I did watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. Do you know what that show is?Michael Jamin:No, I didn't know that. Where is that?Steve Lemme:It's on the Bravo Channel. All those shows.Michael Jamin:All the shows you don't watch. Yeah. Yeah.Steve Lemme:I watch them. I watch because,Michael Jamin:Because your wife watches them.Steve Lemme:Well, that's exactly how a lot of people get sucked into it. It's because somebody else is watching and you walk through the room and you're like, what stupid show are you watching? I started watching, it was Real Housewives of New Jersey, and I walked through, I was like, who are these fucking people? And my wife was like, it's Real Housewives of New Jersey. They're just, last week, this chick right here flipped up a table and called this other one a prostitution whore. And then they actually showed it on the tv. They replayed what happened last week in a flashback. I was like, wait a second, hold on. And I sat down and I was like, hold on a second. Hold on a second. What happened? Why would she flip up a table? What's wrong with her? And she's like, well, that's the thing she's on. And there was born another fan of these shows. And then you try to resist.Michael Jamin:But wait, I want to know, you got to answer the question though. Why is it you didn't want to talk about yourself in the beginning? I asked you, is it because you do so much publicity?Steve Lemme:I got off track, I got off track, but it's not that I don't want to talk about myself becauseMichael Jamin:I think it must get hard answering the same thing over andSteve Lemme:Over again again. Well, sometimes I fascinate myself, Michael, and so I find great comfort in hearing myself speak while I'm saying it. I'm like, oh, this is nice. What I'm saying right now is good. And I'm enjoying my own company. I'm a big believer in actually my way into the arts was my mom saying, because I didn't have a lot of money growing up. And actually that's actually, it's mostly true, but it's more that my mom was a teacher at a really wealthy private school. And so whatever is the reality or not, and I suspect it actually is real. I didn't have much money growing up. It felt less to maybe I was hanging out with people that had, it's like the kind where after Christmas, or you go to their house before Christmas and there's a million presents under the tree.Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's right. AndSteve Lemme:You're like, Jesus, I've got two. And even that's better than a lot of people. That's why I hesitate to complain about it and put myself in that place. But when I was a kid, I would complain about not having toys and my mom would hand me paper and crayons and pencil and pen and scissors and scotch tape and say, make something, entertain yourself. And she would say, if you can't have fun with yourself, you'll never be happy. And so, by the way, am I allowed to be dirty on this podcast?Michael Jamin:You can say whatever you want to say.Steve Lemme:I was about to make a masturbation joke, which I know youMichael Jamin:Would like. I was already there.Steve Lemme:But anyway, my point is, so now that's totally off the market.Michael Jamin:You're saying this. This is your introduction to the arts,Steve Lemme:Right? So anyway, oh, I was saying I enjoy spending time with myself, the arts, but the point is I went on Andy Cohen, watch What Happens Live. And this has happened so many times where the intro, the way they introduce you is dog shit. And he didn't mention the movies, he didn't mention Broken Lizard. He just said he's on a new TV series on Hulu called QuasiMichael Jamin:Thanks for getting everything wrong,Steve Lemme:Which was not true either. And then it's like, look, I'm aware that a lot of, there is a younger generation of people who aren't familiar with Broken Lizard or those movies or Super Troopers or Beer Fest or anything like that, or they haven't watched it, but there are fans there. And also a lot of times if I don't know my mustache, people won't recognize me, but if they say it, if you get a nice intro, at least it gives you some credibility. But in this case, I was some jackass at the bar, the celebrity bartender. And so anyway, I like a good intro. I like to get stroked.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Did I stroke you enough when I brought you on?Steve Lemme:You did. You did. But I could have listened to more. YouMichael Jamin:Could to the thing about you, and I've said this before and I'll say it publicly, there are one of the great joys of working with you is that you are an open book when you talk about stories from your past and you're brutally honest. And the best comedians that I've worked with are the same way. Mark Merrim is the same way. He'd say things in the room, you'd be like, whoa, I can't believe you're telling me this. And you're the same way. So it makes it so much easier to write for you because you're just being vulnerable and you're sharing yourself and there's no judgment there. It's just funny.Steve Lemme:Thank you for saying that. I know that about myself. Kevin will say, I have no filter. That's what he will say, but I'll tell him he's too filtered.Michael Jamin:Right?Steve Lemme:I'll say, Kevin, you need to open up a little bit and share of yourself. Interesting. But it also puts the other writers at ease and encourages them to tell stories. It's like if I'm willing to tell the story about, again, it's like a lot of these things tend to wind up being a little bit crass, but it's like if I'm willing to tell a disgusting story about myself or a story where I embarrass myself horribly,Michael Jamin:Or a sex dream you had, for example,Steve Lemme:I've had severalMichael Jamin:With one of your friends.Steve Lemme:Okay.Michael Jamin:I don't want to say who, that's a great example.Steve Lemme:No. So that's a great example. So can you hear the noise? We'reMichael Jamin:Doing an interview here.Steve Lemme:My wife has come in with the children, so she doesn't know, and I'm displaced. I don't have an office with doors anymore, so I'm,Michael Jamin:There's some damage to his house. So he's got to do an impromptuSteve Lemme:Yeah, the whole, but go ahead side of the house is flooded. Okay. So the story is, so Michael and I have, I'll even say the guy's name.Michael Jamin:Yeah, okay.Steve Lemme:It makes it better. We have a common friend named Eric Levy. You grew up with him in Fresh Chester?Michael Jamin:Yes, in high school. Yeah.Steve Lemme:He and I went to college together, and I don't even know if this is proper improper to say, but I'm not gay and neither is he. But I had a dream about him where he showed up at my house with 50 bags of McDonald's burgers and then it cuts to me fucking him in the ass. But he was on top of me.Michael Jamin:I still love this story and then go on.Steve Lemme:But I told the story because whatever we were riffing on, it was like, what about those? And then I told him about it.Michael Jamin:Yes. And how did he take videos? ISteve Lemme:Called him up laughing the next morning and was like, holy shit, this is so fucking funny. I had this dream about it. You're never going to believe it. And there's a lot of guys who would be like, I'm taking that one to the grave. But the additional joke for me is that when I have with Reba McIntyre, I had a sex dream about her. And to me, when you have a sex dream about somebody, what's the difference between actually having sex with them? Because in real life, if you have sex with somebody afterwards, it's just a memory and it lives longer in your memory. And so to me, it's like if you have a vivid sex dream about Reeb McIntyre, which I did, and then it lives on in your memory, it kind of counts.Michael Jamin:But no, because no consent. She didn't consent to that either. Did Levy,Steve Lemme:You're sayingMichael Jamin:I'm was a nonconsensual sex dream that you had with both of them?Steve Lemme:I don't know. I feel like there's a blurry line there.Michael Jamin:But this is just a good example. You told this story probably the first year to call him after you in the writer's room. And I just remember laughing my ass off thinking, oh my God, this guy's going to be game for pretty much everything we pitch. And this makes easier to write.Steve Lemme:Well, and that's why you and I wound up sitting next to each other because you would always mutter filthy little offerings under your breath to me.Michael Jamin:You would enjoy them. Yeah,Steve Lemme:I didn't. I enjoyed them quite a bit. I enjoyed,Michael Jamin:Lemme ask you that, because I don't know if I've ever asked you this or maybe I forgot. We met you. The show had just gotten picked up and we met through, we had the same management company, right? Yeah, of course weSteve Lemme:Did. I used to be with them. I'm not with them anymore, but Kevin is still with them.Michael Jamin:And that's how we had that meeting. And did you meet with other writers at our level or did you just laise out, say, fuck, we'll just hire these guys. I don't want to meet more people.Steve Lemme:Kevin and I get in trouble like that. We oftentimes do hire the first person we meet, which was you,Michael Jamin:Thank God.Steve Lemme:Yeah. But I think we did. God, they're really making a racket over there. I did. We did meet with one other set of showrunners, I believe. But then what happens anyway, if Kevin and I get past the first interview and make it to the second one by the second one, we're definitely bored and we realize we've made a mistake by prolonging this process. So with us with timing is key. If you get in with us early, if you ever hear about a Lemme Heffernan gig, get your resume to us immediately because youMichael Jamin:Hire the first person you seeSteve Lemme:You got the job. Yeah.Michael Jamin:That's so funny. I know you're good that way. What is it like, I haven't asked you this question, but you do most, you don't do all your projects with Kevin, you do a lot of your projects with him or ever it now, is it everything?Steve Lemme:No, I have some side projects.Michael Jamin:How do you decide what you're doing with him and what you're not doing?Steve Lemme:Well, I try to do most things with Kevin, and I think Kevin would agree to this. For whatever reason, I sometimes find that Kevin is a little tougher to drag into things. I believe he will corroborate this. So I had the idea, we've kicked around the notion of firefighters for a while, but I said to him, let's do it.And then he said, what's the hook going to be? And I came back with this rainiest city in the country hook because it was super troopers, the most asserted stretch of highway in the country. And even then I had to drag him and I want to be careful with this because we developed a show then together and really fleshed it out. So it's like, and he has also had many ideas in those TV sessions. He also had some ideas that he wanted to do, but the animation thing now is another one I felt. I feel like it took me a long time to just get him to really be into it.Michael Jamin:I know it did.Steve Lemme:And actually I'm going to tell you, I think he's only finally into it now. Today,Michael Jamin:Today, todaySteve Lemme:For the last few weeks I We'll tell the story. We'll tell the story. But now and again, to be fair, it's like I was bringing it up probably two years ago, maybe longer, and he would say, okay, sure. But then we'd be writing the series or then we went into pre-production on quasi, which he was directing, but I never just ever got the sense that he really wanted to do it.Michael Jamin:But do you get the sense that he ever wants to do anything?Steve Lemme:No, and that's my point. That's my point. And what I realized with Kevin, and it's fine again, it's like because we're busy, but sometimes you just have to move the ball forward and he'll tell me the same thing just in general about things, and I actually think this is true in Hollywood anyway, if you want to do something, you just have to move the ball forward on your own if you can't get interest. And eventually at some point there's like, okay, this is what I've got.Michael Jamin:Are you, you know what though? When I talk about you, I talk about you guys specifically when I talk about people who've done inspiring things, because when I describe what you broken lizard, I describe you as Hollywood outsiders. There are ways that you can call the traditional way and the way you guys came, you just did it. You didn't ask for permission, you did it and you created a career from yourself and became so valuable that Hollywood now wants you as opposed to you begging Hollywood. It's the other way around.Steve Lemme:I think we're still begging Hollywood. I think with Supert Troopers three and our relationship with Searchlight has evolved to the point where the studio has said, we want to work with you. And that's how we got quasi and that's how we got Supert Troopers two, but Supert Troopers two, they were reluctant, but that's the way the business works. Then that movie did well and there were new studio heads and it's like, okay, this is a new relationship that this's really healthy. I think that everything that Tevin has ever gotten and that I have ever gotten, we have gotten for ourselves. Even though we have agents and I have great agents and managers who bring me things NowMichael Jamin:Are they bringing you, what talent are they bringing you ideas? What are they bringing you?Steve Lemme:My management and my agency will bring me TV and movie ideas to potentiallyMichael Jamin:For who?Steve Lemme:My management company. They have a big lit department, a big book and division, and so does my agency. So my management is Gotham Group, and then my agency is c a a and that every Friday, c a a sends me books, the books that are out, the new books and it's like, yeah, I mean I've never gone down that road. There was only one book I wanted to buy and then the rights to, and then my old manager poo-pooed the idea. And then I found out that three months later, Showtime bought that book and I was like, you son of a bitch. ButMichael Jamin:Wait, when they're sending are these best, these are, how are they getting the books? I don't know anything about it. They're getting bestsellers. These are the bestseller lists, these books.Steve Lemme:So my management company represents authors and c a A. They have a literature, a book literature division in New York City that represents writers and or publishers. I'm not sure really how it works, but I'm just telling you, every Friday I get a list of these things and howMichael Jamin:Interesting it is. It's so funny because you're getting an email list. I don't get an email list of books from U T A, how hard is it to put me on an email list?Steve Lemme:And that's the thing. And the thing is it's been years now and I've never even responded to the email. Then I think that I'm on an automated list now, which is actually, it's nice. I should actually look at the thing. I should look at the list.Michael Jamin:Are there PDFs attached or you request a book?Steve Lemme:I'll forward it to you on the side.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Okay. I'm just curious how Hollywood worksSteve Lemme:Well, but I think it works. It's so funny. It works so differently in every way. In fact, the joke that Kevin and I have, and I'll finish speaking about Kevin and the animation thing, but because kind of a funny story, but Kevin and I have always marveled at how Hollywood never has a shortage of original ways to screw you over.Michael Jamin:Oh, yes.Steve Lemme:And right now we've got another one going, which is that we've got the strike going and Kevin and I have a TV show that we can't promote, and it's like we worked really hard on it. We worked for over a year on it. We actually got pushed, the release got pushed six months or five months because that network in shambles. And then three weeks before it's going to come out, they say it's going to come out in July and then the strike happens. And we had been recording podcasts that would be accompany pieces with the episodes, and my older son acted in last week's episode. I couldn't promote it. My younger son is acting in this week's episode, I can't talk about it. And it's like, that's actually one of the most heartbreaking parts is that I got to act with one son in a scene. And where he was playing, me as a young boy, my character was a young boy and I was playing his grandfather. And then my other son, I got to direct in a scene where he gets to say dirty words and I can't talk about it. And I'm like, Jesus, what a screw here.Michael Jamin:Yeah. That's so fun, by the way. I know I'm hopping around, but what's it like when your comedy soup, broken lizard, is it weird to be acting against these same people over and over again and pretending, okay, now today we're pretending to be one thing, and I'm yelling at you, but we're actually friends on the side. Is that weird? Is there a moment when you're acting like, wait a minute, we're best friends?Steve Lemme:No, because funny, because Kevin and I, first of all with Kevin, he and I have now done so many, so much together and so many emotional scenes together. But we'd like to say it's so emotion. We don't deal with emotion. We deal with foam motion, as you know. And so it's like if you watch quasi, he and I have a few big blowup scenes with voice cracking and Tacoma. We have plenty of scenes where we yell at each other and sometimes we get emotional with each other. And I always think it's funny for us, it's also like we've been friends so long and we're so on each other's nerves all the time that these things are therapy sessions. Because a lot of the time in the show we're discussing things that bother him about me and me about him. And soMichael Jamin:Is there a moment where you're in the scene, you're supposed to be in character, and then suddenly you check, you go, wait a minute, he's just doing his thing and I'm doing my thing. And we're both doing make believe.Steve Lemme:The only time I ever feel that way is if we start improvising. And he starts, we had one, I can't remember what the episode was, but he said, oh, I know it was the episode, the chili Cookoff where he's fucked up on dental drugs. He had his wisdom teeth removed and he improvised a line like, oh, you must be, he's like, are we on a rollercoaster? Are we on a rollercoaster? He's like, oh, hey. Hey Eddie, you have to be this tall to ride this roller coaster. And I was like, well, and there's a maximum weight limit as well. And I felt bad about that. I was like, it didn't matter that he had made a short joke at me. At first, I felt bad that I had made a fat joke, and that happens periodically. I throw one out probably once every three months. So once a quarter I'll make a heavy guy joke.Michael Jamin:Is it weird though hanging out with him outside of work though, when you see each other so much?Steve Lemme:I think I'm good for him. The other day, a couple of months ago, I was like, why don't we just go out and hang out? And he's like, I see you every day. And I was like, that's exactly why we should hang out. We see each other every day because we are working together, but let's go have some beers and some tacos and have some laughs and not work.Michael Jamin:And did you do that?Steve Lemme:Yeah. And it's funny because one of my favorite pastimes is being right over a Kevin. I don't mean in the collaborative sense, but when my point of view is correct and yours is incorrect, which it was in that case, he was like, okay,Okay, fine. Alright, so let's go back to the animation thing. I was saying, I don't even think so with the animations, it took a while for me to get him. He would agree in theory, but then it was like there was never any, whenever he would talk about upcoming projects, I'd always be like, and we should talk about animation one of these days. He'd be like, yeah, okay. And I couldn't get him to engage. And then even I said, finally, let's just sit down. Just give me five minutes. I'm going to go through a list of animation ideas and let's discuss them. He said, okay. And so I sent them to him in advance and literally it was one line. It was like the lumberjacks, it was whatever, and including the one that we're working on. And he said, okay, I like these and that's fine.That's all I needed. And so then I started to flesh those things out and I would show them to him. Now, see, Kevin is a machine. He's a computer, and so if you really want to get his attention, you have to show him a piece of paper with something on it, and he puts it in his pile and he makes a list. And so then a week later I'll be like, have you had a chance to read the thing? And so what Kevin respects is work, which a lot of people do, it's in a creative process. It's like, don't tell me you don't like a joke if you don't have a replacement idea or don't say like, Hey, let's work on something and bother me about it if it's not real, if you just want me to actually make the first step. And so it's like if you give him the first step and it's like, Hey, I've done this work.He respects that, and so he'll read it. So then it was funny then because he was doing, he was editing quasi and we were in the writer's room for season four. You guys are busy. And I said, I'll do all the work on the animation thing. And so it's like I started to flesh it out and then I'd sent him this, the pitch document, here are the characters. And we started to get it together and what we were going to do, and the plan was that during a hiatus, we were going to wind up pitching these two producers who had been the president and vice president of True tv, and they were the ones who bought Tacoma FD and put us on the air, and they'd done everything that Thursday night with us in Practical Jokers. We were winning cable and they were beating t b s, their sister company, and then at t took over and they just got punted.So they did everything and they got fired, but we always had a good relationship and we always said, Hey, we'll work together again. At some point they approached me and they said, Hey, do you want to do some animated? We've got something going. So the idea then I told Kevin was like, we're going to pitch this during the first hiatus. And the hiatus for people who don't know is that after we shoot in blocks, so we shot the first three episodes in one block and Kevin directed all of them, and we took a week off to scout locations for the second block and prep, and that was the block I was directed. And so that was two more episodes, but in that first week, then we were ready to pitch Chris and Marissa. And so even the night before the pitch, I kept saying to Kevin, I was, so tomorrow we are pitching Chris and Marissa.He's like, but it's not like a pitch though. It's a conversation. I was like, well, it actually is a pitch. He's like, but it's not like a formal pitch. We're just talking to 'em. I'm like, no, we're actually pitching them. I'm pitching them the show, but don't worry. I'll do all the talking. And he said, fine. And so the next day we got on the Zoom with them. I pitched them the show, they seemed to love it, and we went our separate ways and they brought it to their studio that they're involved with. And three days later, we found out that studio was going to make an offer, which they did. And then we negotiated that offer for several months, which a lot of people who are not in Hollywood don't realize that sometimes negotiations can take nine months, sometimes a year. In this case, I think it was a six month thing. And in that period of time, we approached you guys, brought you guys in, and then we went to our first meeting with them after the deal. All the deal had been signed and everything. And you remember we were outside?Michael Jamin:Yes.Steve Lemme:Kevin asked me, he was like, have we,Michael Jamin:I asked Kevin, it started, I asked Kevin. Kevin didn't have the answer, so he asked you.Steve Lemme:Yeah, and the question was,Michael Jamin:Have we sold this?Steve Lemme:Have we actually sold this then? And the reason you asked that for people who don't know is most commonly, certainly before the streamers and the network time, there was something called an if come offer. And this was, I think the norm for most people who hadn't done anything. I went to a studio and I said, I've got an idea for a TV show. They might say, Hey, we love it. We're going to make you an if come offer. And what that is is we'll pay you X amount of dollars if a network says they want to do the show. And if not, we're not paying you anything. But because we've made you this offer, you're with us. And that was the norm. And we took that and we would negotiate that. We would negotiate a deal that we're not getting paid on unless somebody else says yes. And it's called an if come offer. And so that was the nature of that question. Have we actually sold this thing? Are we getting paid? And Kevin asked me and I was like, yes, we've sold it. But he put so much doubt into me that it was like, I think we're pitching again.So then we went in and sat with our executive producers, the people who had bought it, the producers who had brought us to them and sold it for us. And I pitched it again, but now I was nervous. I didn't do a great job pitching.Michael Jamin:No, you did great. You did great. And they loved it.Steve Lemme:But then it turns out, yes, we had sold it. We were going to get paid and we were moving forward. So then Kevin was very surprised. He's like, oh, I gave shit about that. And even then, he wasn't totally on board until we saw the animation. We were writing the script and he was like, yes, fine. It's still abstract. But it wasn't until we got into when they sent us potential sketches and artwork for all the characters and the locations and the scenes and settings that he said to me for the first time, this is really cool.Michael Jamin:Oh, good.Steve Lemme:There's a whole other world in Hollywood that we've never been a part of that we're a part of now. I was like, yeah,Michael Jamin:Yeah.Steve Lemme:So anyway.Michael Jamin:That's hilarious. How would you decide what projects not to do with them then?Steve Lemme:Oh,Michael Jamin:I don't think, do you have many? You've done some, but why would you not do a project with them?Steve Lemme:It just depends. And it's funny. There are times where I actually think I've said to him, and I mean this, that even if I do something separately, we'll still produce it with our production company. He'll be involved. I have a TV script that I've been working on for a long time that I probably wrote it back in 2009, and it's very much about that period, my high school years when I was at this elite private school and I was feeling like an outsider, but I wasn't an outsider. I had a great group of friends, and I was actually, I hate to say it, but I was fairly popular, but I felt like I didn't belong at this place. I almost felt like an imposter. And we were there, not because we were wealthy, which it was the school full of wealthy people because my mom had been a teacher there, and now she was gone there. So I didn't, they had only given me a partial scholarship when I was three when I first went there. But that's aMichael Jamin:Good idea. I think that could sell. That's a good idea.Steve Lemme:Well, and there was more to it, which is that I also had this job, I worked as a back elevator manBecause one of my friends, his family was so wealthy, they owned all these buildings in New York City, and he got me a job. I made $10 an hour working as a back elevator man slash janitor, luxury high-rise building in New York City that some people from my high school lived at, which was really hard to have them see me. But more importantly, I worked with these guys down in the basement who were lifers. There was a murderer down there who had fled the Dominican Republic. He had decapitated a guy, and he is a great guy. He's a great guy. He had decapitated a guy after a cock fight, he had a fighting bird. And by the way, he's telling me this story with a thick Dominican accent. He keeps saying, and my cock defeated the other guy's cock. And I'm like, whoa, I'm only 15 years old at this point in time. And the guy picked up his dead cock and theMichael Jamin:CockSteve Lemme:His lifeless dead bloody cock. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Flacid cock.Steve Lemme:Yeah. And the claw and the beaker sharpened on these creatures and this guy,Michael Jamin:Did they sharpen them for the fights? Yeah. Wow, that sounds awful. You just made something bad, even worse.Steve Lemme:I know. Well, so then this guy, the loser, picked up his dead bloody flacid, lifeless cock and slapped my coworker across the cheek with it, and the beak cut his cheek. My coworker told me this over lunch break. He was like, I went home and I calmly sharpened my machete and I went to his house and I knocked on the door. He opened the door and I cut his head off and he said, and that is when I came to America.Michael Jamin:Wow.Steve Lemme:Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So I was working down there with these guys, and the irony was that they would get taxes taken out of their paychecks. And I, I was a student, and so I was actually making more than these guys, but they also thought I was a rich kid. I was friends with the owner of the building and they knew that. And to them, I was the richest guy in the world, and I was going to a prep school. I had my whole future ahead of me. So I didn't kind of belong in that world either.Michael Jamin:It's a little flamingo kid.Steve Lemme:There was some flamingo kid there. Yeah. I was also a break dancer and a professional dancer.Michael Jamin:I knowSteve Lemme:That. And I was not really welcome in that community. So anyway,Michael Jamin:Why are you sitting on this? You should get that. Well, there's a strike. I wouldn't wait much longer on it.Steve Lemme:I sent the script out back in 2009, and it was incredibly well received, but this is pre streamers, and I sent it to H B O in Showtime, and I had a meeting with the president of H B O who, she was like, I love your script. I love your script, but I can't do a show about a 14 year old protagonist. And she said, but bring me everything you've got, and this is pre everything interesting. It's pre this new golden age of television. And same at Showtime. I had the same conversation. She's like, the lady was like, I love it. Absolutely love it.Michael Jamin:It was the 14 year old protagonist. That's such an odd thing because everybody hates Chris and Wonder years. There's plenty of shows about,Steve Lemme:But it was R-rated, it was an honest look. It was also part of the pitch was I see all these, when you see high school shows about in New York City, for instance, about a wealthy school, the rich kids are so fucked upAnd so evil and so conniving, and that wasn't my experience. And it was also like, or it's incredibly, incredibly cliquey with the fucking bully rich kids or the scummy fucking drug using druggies. I was like, that wasn't my experience at all, or it's incredibly angst-ridden. And I was like, I feel like there were a lot of incredibly fun experimental times. Yes, there were painful times, but there were also a lot of incredible times, and I never saw a good mixture of those things. Anyway, so I have been, and also the funny thing, the honest part was I made masturbation a heavy part of the show, the Cold Open. My character is masturbating in the shower, and his dad's trying to get inMichael Jamin:AndSteve Lemme:It's like a freeze frame. He's looking at the doorknob and the whole thing is that irony and the hypocrisy of the fact that in high school, your hormones are going raging and you're all masturbating, or the boys certainly were, can't speak to the girls, but no one would talk about it. And so my friends and I would be like, one of my friends would be like, you whack off. I'd be like, fuck no, I don't whack off. I'm not gay. And he's like, no, I know. I've never even touched my dick. I've never even touched my dick. How about you? You whack off. I was like, no fucking way. Do I whack off? And then it's like, but I know you whack off. He's like, fuck you, I don't whack off. And you're like, yeah, you whack off. Everybody's dying to get home and fucking beat off. I was a part of theMichael Jamin:Script dying to get home.Steve Lemme:So I've toned that part down in the script. I literally am revising it right now. I found a great thing that I wanted to include in it, a couple of new things. So I'm writing it. I'm using the strike to write.Michael Jamin:Well, sure. Everyone should be, I guess. But what about you guys also do a lot of standup, which is very different. Do you have a preference to how you spend your days?Steve Lemme:It makes me sad that I haven't done standup in five years.Michael Jamin:Really? Well, what's stopping you?Steve Lemme:Well, now, nothing. And I was thinking about it today, I am like, I should write a new set. Kevin and I filmed our third special right before we sold Tacoma. And when we sold Tacoma, it was when Super Troopers two was coming out. And so we did a few more live shows to promote Tacoma, but then we never had time because then it was like we were writing the season, we got renewed for season two, and then it's like, it's so much work. And even after we write and then we go right into shooting, and then after shooting, the hardest part of the show process is the six months of editing. And then it's like, IMichael Jamin:Think that's the best part. Because you're not on set. It's not as exhausting.Steve Lemme:Well, it's not as physically exhausting. Correct. And I mean, look, now in the days of Zoom, I'm home. I actually, I love it, but there's no time to, that's a nine to 6:00 PM or 11:00 PM job depending on what day of the week it is and what time of the editing process. I'm here with my family. And so it's like we've been fortunate enough to have four seasons where we have a week or two off, and then we have to start getting the writer's room together again. I'm not complaining about at all. I'm not even grousing. The one thing I really enjoyed doing for 10 years before we got that show was standup comedy, which you've done,Michael Jamin:But I mean, I did in college, so I was never at your level where I was touring and booking rooms.Steve Lemme:Well, but you do tour with a one man show and you do.Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's a little different. Yeah, it's not standup. Yeah,Steve Lemme:It's a little different, but it's still performing and getting out there and trying out material. I know if you have a story, I mean, I haven't seen your show,Michael Jamin:You must come. But what I find about it is, and I was talking about this with Taylor Swift, she's got this three hour concert, and when I was performing,Steve Lemme:Wait, wait, wait. You talked about this with TaylorMichael Jamin:Swift? No, I said this with my daughter about Taylor Swift's show.Steve Lemme:That's aMichael Jamin:Different big difference. Yeah. I got to clarify. So Taylor Swift's performing in her show is three, three and a half hours long. And so when I was doing my show, it was an hour and a half long, but it's the end of the day. It's at eight o'clock or whatever. The whole day I'm exhausted because I'm nervous. I'm preparing myself. And then at eight o'clock I'm up, and for the next hour and a half I'm giving everything. And then you're fricking then afterwards, you're still on a high, but you're exhausted. And then you got to do it again the next day where you're like, you're wringing your hands all day and you're pacing and then it is exhausting. You don't thinkSteve Lemme:I do. I do. Especially when you do Thursday, Friday, Saturday and the Friday and Saturday you're doing two shows in the nightMichael Jamin:And you're travelingSteve Lemme:And you're traveling. And also what Kevin and I would do is we would do meet and greets after every show, free ones, not like the ones where you pay extra and you get to come backstage. We would go, we'd tell people we're going to do a meet and greet out here after the show, come by and say hi. And so you're meeting half of the people that were at the show. Oftentimes that meet and greet would take an hour or more. She found that to be even more exhausting.Michael Jamin:Do you have a time limit with each person you're meeting and greeting?Steve Lemme:No, not really. I mean, it depends on the club or the theater. Because the first show, there's a natural out. You've got a second show, come on folks, and then you bang people through. And the second show, that's the one where people come up and they want to chug.Michael Jamin:That's kind of your brand, which is like, Hey, yeah, chug. And we're all college bros. But I wonder what's your thinking? You could do the other way. You could put a little separation between your audience and not do a meet and greet.Steve Lemme:You could, and I'm trying to think if there was ever a time where we came up with a reason or we had a reason not to, but I don't think so. There's something like we've always had this philosophy of meeting the fans and Jim Gaffigan once said it. He said, I'll meet them until I can't, meaning, and now he can't. He's justMichael Jamin:Too big.Steve Lemme:He's too big. It's impossible.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael lemin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.But how long? Is it 30 seconds or are you talking to the guy who doesn't want to talk anymore? How do you know when it's time to move on to the next person? There's a line.Steve Lemme:There's all different kinds of people. There's some people who just want to come and take a picture. There's some people who appreciate that there's a line behind them and you got to keep things moving. There's some people who are going to stay and talk to you until you have them move on. You'll be like, Hey, okay, but I hate to do this. Or the club will have security guards and they'll be like, all right, let's move it along. Let's go, let's go. We got a lot of people there. But I think that's something I've never really, I don't know. I've always enjoyed meeting people, and a lot of times I know a lot of my friends are like, oh God, that person's crazy. Don't talk to them. And I'm like, no, that's the person I want toMichael Jamin:Talk to. Really. Did you really, you're not worried about them forming some kind of parasocial relationship with you and wanting to get really close to you?Steve Lemme:I've never had that happen. I mean, there's absolutely, look, I am a man from the planet earth, and I lived here for a long time before any sort of recognition, fan recognition or celebrity, what's happening for me. And so it's like I can tell when I'm having a real connection with a person as opposed to when they're connecting with me and I don't feel it. And I could certainly, I know when mostly now because I'm skeptical and paranoid and cynical that I just assume it's like if anybody tries too aggressively to be friends, it's over for them.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? I see with you, you're very gracious and you're very social way more than me. So you could spend hours with people. I feel like even people you don't like, and I've seen you do that. I've seen you do that actually.Steve Lemme:Well, it depends where we are, but it's not like if you're at a film festival and some producer is like laughing at everything you say, you're like,Michael Jamin:Yeah,Steve Lemme:Okay, we're not friends. It's people that you're just hanging out with. It's funny because have a friend named Champagne, Rob, who we met in Atlanta, and the reason he's called Champagne Rob is because he and his girlfriend came to our show and they were sitting in the front row drinking champagne, and we just ragged on them. We were like, what the fuck is going on here drinking champagne at our show? They're like, yeah, man, we're having a good time drinking some champagne. It was like we had a great interaction with them. And then on the meet and greet line, afterwards, they came to either the late Friday show or the late Saturday show, the late Friday. If you really want to be friends with us, the late Friday show is the one that you might have a crack at it. We don't go out Thursday night and we don't go out Saturday night.Friday night's the one, you don't have to wake up for anything in the morning. So Friday night's the night we'd go after the late show, we'd go out and usually with people that we were friends with in our town and so on This particular night though, after that show, probably Friday night, then they were on the line and I had a joke about, I was talking about male grooming manscaping, and there was a poll given out to the people in the audience. Do you like it groomed or do you like it hairy? I'm like, it's a standup comedy. It's a set routine where I know that some women are going to be like you. It totally shaved. And you're like, well, what's wrong with a hairy one? And they're like, you get hair in your throat. And then my thing would be like, how far down are you going on this thing?And then basically I'm calling 'em the cookie monster of it was the Dick Gobbler is What and how. They're like, mom, I'm just eating a shit out of this dick and getting all the way down there. And that was a routine I was doing. And so Champagne, Rob's girlfriend happened to be that girl. And so then they came up afterwards and they were like, Hey, I'm the Dick Gobbler. And he's like, I'm champagne rob. And we're like, oh. And we had a good laugh on the line and the guy's like, look. And I had some friends there and they were from Atlanta, and they're like, we don't really know where to go. And the guy was like, I know a speakeasy that's literally across the street, literally across the street. Come with me, well have a great time. He's like, I'm not creepy. Let's just go. It's going to be awesome. And we're like, all right, fine. Fuck it. And we went outside and there was his car, and the license plate was Muff diver. It was the fucking,Michael Jamin:But I'm not creepy, I swear.Steve Lemme:And then we went to this speakeasy and had an awesome time, and of course we're hanging out with the guy there because he's gotten us in this place and we're just having drinks. And it was a totally normal hang, and it was like there was no awkwardness and there was no, it was, a lot of times when you meet these people, sometimes they don't then know what to say and they'll just start to ask you about yourself and they'll ask you questions, how did this happen? And how did this happen? And you're like, well, if we can't get past this stage, we'll never be friends and it doesn't get past that stage. So it's like, but this guy's like, yeah, we're hanging out, we're having a great time. And then it's like, whatever. And then it turns out he was a Giants fan, like Kevin and I am, and he showed us a photo of his toilet that he has at home, and in the toilet down at the bottom where the poop hits the bottom of the toilet was a Dallas Cowboys star. And we're like, this guy's fucking hysterical. So anyway, and then it turned out he was a professional, what do you call it, jet skierSponsored by Hooters. And so the whole thing just made perfect sense. It was like,Michael Jamin:Be good friends in this guy. Let me ask though, if you decided you wanted to go on tour comedy wise, whatever, next week, how fast does that happen? Let's say you already have a set let's, you already have material. Do you call someone and it happens? Do you have a booker and it happens?Steve Lemme:Yeah, I would call at a a, I have my standup agent,Which is actually how I got into C A A. I used to be with c a A, and then I went to U T A and I left U T A, and it was because I had a meeting with their standup agent who, I mean, I left U T A first and then I went to c a A, and it was the standup agent was the one who brought me in because at that point in time in 2009, we hadn't done anything. And so he was the guy who was like, oh, I think I can make some money for our agency with this fellow. And so he brought me in there.Michael Jamin:He books, he pimps you out to the various clubs, basically. Is that how that works? I'm surprised. C A A does that. I thought there was a smaller thing that smaller agents did not. Well,Steve Lemme:No, I mean, but there are agents who are bigger than others, so it's like he represents a lot of big people.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Steve Lemme:Big standups.Michael Jamin:So you could just, alright, literally you made a call today in a week or two, you could start touring basically.Steve Lemme:Yes.Michael Jamin:Wow.Steve Lemme:Yeah. But it depends. It also depends on, now it's been five years and we have the show. So the question would be what kind of places can we book? We know we can book the smaller places, we can sell those places out. We always were able to because of the movies that we had made. And so we enjoyed a success there that a lot of standup comedians, a luxury that a lot of that most standup comedians don't have. Because most standup comedians certainly back then had to do the club circuit. And first they would be doing five minutes, and then they strangers to people. So they'd have to make people like them, which to me is like 90% of the battle. Once you've already got the fans, you actually it a little bit more like you're giving a wedding toast. Not that your fans will accept subpar standup comedy, but they're more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt. And if you fuck up, you can just look at them and they'll be like, yeah. And you're like, I know I suck. And they're like, yeah, fuck you. And you're like, fuck you.Michael Jamin:Interesting. That's what Jay is doing now. He's on the road doing standup, right? I mean,Steve Lemme:Yeah, he's in the UK right now. He's actually breaking new ground in that. He's going do a show, a couple shows in England, which is, it's sort of like the logical next step for American standups. You go and do the uk, England, Ireland, Scotland, Australia.Michael Jamin:But you're not really interested in doing that now. I mean, because first of all, it's hard family. How long do you want to be on the road for? Or is that your thinking or No,Steve Lemme:I mean, I love doing standup comedy. I don't love touring. I only liked it because I was with Kevin and I wasn't alone. I did a couple of solo dates, and I found it to be very lonelyMichael Jamin:Because the entire day, you're lonely,Steve Lemme:You're alone. And then at night after the show, it's like if Kevin and I were sort of wired, we could at least go back to the hotel bar and have a beer, or we could go to one of our rooms and smoke a joint or something like that. Whereas when you're alone, it's like you might hang out with the other comedians just fine. People want to make new friends. Or you go out with a staff or you meet a fan or something. Somebody's at the show, I don't know. Or you go out by yourself or you go back to the hotel room, but you're wired and it's a really weird thing to just get in bed and watch TV or something like that. Yeah,Michael Jamin:It's so interesting to be talking about. I don't know, all this is so new to me. The life of a performer for you. It's fascinating to me.Steve Lemme:Well, I think that is, it's funny. The worst standup experience I ever had was I was booked to do a solo weekend in Vermont in Burlington, Vermont. ThatMichael Jamin:Was lovely in the fall. It's perfect.Steve Lemme:It was perfect. And I'll tell you, it was probably, yeah, it was the fall. And what happened was to promote the show, I was interviewed by a Vermont free newspaper,And the journalist asked me all these questions. And so Super Troopers two had been finished, and the studio said, we're going to wait a year to release it, because next year, on April 20th, April 20th Falls on Friday, so we can release the movie on Friday, April 20th on four 20. And so we're waiting for that day, the time to do it. We're like, okay. But they didn't announce the day, and they kept being like, they didn't know when they were going to announce it. And they kept it off, kept putting it off. They kept saying, soon, soon, soon, soon, soon. And it was killing everybody. And so I was doing this interview with this free newspaper, and the guy said, do you know the release date of Super Troopers two? I said, I do, but I can't tell you. And he said, come on, what is it? I was like, I honestly can't tell you. And he's like, come on, please tell me. And I was like, I can't tell you. I'm not going to tell you. And he said, okay. And so then we kept doing the interview, and then the interview was over, and he said, okay, the interview is over. And he said, now, as a fan, can you just tell me? And I said, I can't, I'm not going to, but I'll give you a hint. OhMichael Jamin:No,Steve Lemme:There's a very popular stoner holiday that falls on a Friday next year. And he said, okay. And he was like, that's awesome. I was like, yeah. So then I was flying the next day to Vermont, and when I landed, there was messages, a text message from Heman like, you're in trouble.Michael Jamin:You guys are big mouth. What a puts, whatSteve Lemme:A puts. And then the guy had an even kind of made fun of me. He's like, he wouldn't tell me the release date, but I pushed him and pushed him, and finally he told me it's four 20. And so that Jay was pissed off and my producer was pissed off. The studio was fucking furious. They wanted to announce it make best, but they had all the materials. They just weren't doing it. And so they were like, it was still this little teeny newspaper, a free newspaper, and it was like less week's.Michael Jamin:And you gave them the scoop, this free fucking Vermont mapleSteve Lemme:Syrup. You get in a pizzeria, you just fucking,Michael Jamin:Yeah, I don't, you throw away, you wipe the table with,Steve Lemme:Yeah, get theMichael Jamin:Scoop.Steve Lemme:I was really fucking, this is Thursday. I did a show that night and I was fucking devastated. So I went out there and did a half-hearted show. My heart was heavy, and it was wait and see if anybody picks us up. And then Friday morning it got fucking picked up and was everywhere. And meanwhile, there were email threads with all the studio, the president of the studio and a hundred people from Searchlight, and then all the broken lizard, not me. And even my producer, I was like, dude, I'm suffering over here. You got to tell me what's going on. He just wrote back. He was fucking pissed off. OhMichael Jamin:Wow.Steve Lemme:Yeah, no, it hurt. And I was like, I went jogging that day. And then they released it that day. They did the official release of the trailer and the date, and it got 8 million views in the first fucking 24 hours alone. But nobody was talking to me that whole weekend. I didn't know any of that, but I knew it was out there. But I knew I had rushed the process, but like I said, they had it andMichael Jamin:They just wanted to punish you.Steve Lemme:But then the next week there was a meeting at Searchlight on Wednesday to now game plan, and it was like the big question was, so that weekend fucking sucked. I did press on Friday morning and I did two shows on Friday night and Saturday night, and I had friends coming to the shows and I was so sad. I was sad Steve and I was alone. And the one guy who was kind of forgiving, who was actually totally forgiving was Kevin. And I also say Paul Soder, who you worked on Tacoma. Those guys were not so secretly they were like, you know what? I'm fucking glad you did it. Now it's out there finally. And they were psyched because now we could finally fucking talk about it. We were getting ass about all the time. So those guys were cool about it. The other guys weren't as happy with me. And then the big question was, was I going to go to that studio meeting? And I fucking went. I was like, I'm going to take my poison.Michael Jamin:Let'sSteve Lemme:Go.Michael Jamin:Did they give you shit there?Steve Lemme:I went in and I made the saving Grace was that the trailer got 8 million views in the first 24 hours, and it was like, holy shit. It exceeded, it far exceeded and was now on pace at that moment in time. It was like that actually might have been the actual trailer. This was just a teaser and the announcement and it was huge. And so they were happy about that. That's the only thing that saved me because a couple of 'em, the head of marketing and the president were not that fucking psyched with me.Michael Jamin:It's so interesting because usually they'll try to keep, you're the star of this movie. Usually they try to keep that, they try to hide their disdain from actors. They don't say it in front of their face. It wasSteve Lemme:A big deal and it caused massive shock waves and a shit storm then people had to fucking deal with while I sat there telling jokes. In Vermont,Michael Jamin:That's always the worst when you're, yeah, you have to wait through something. I know that feeling terrible. I've been there before. ISteve Lemme:Was sick. I was sick aboutMichael Jamin:It. Yeah, sick. Yeah, exactly.Steve Lemme:And mad at myself. How could I be so stupid? The whole thing?Michael Jamin:Did you confront that guy and say, Hey, you're a dick.Steve Lemme:No, I wanted to fucking die. I wanted the whole thing to die.But the funny thing was is that then the next internal broken lizard conversation was that because some guys were psyched that I had gotten it out there and the studio was psyched because fucking, it was massive. It was a massive announcement that got all those views and so was then the guys that were kind of mad about it were like, well, don't feel like you did the right thing here. What you did was wrong was like, I know what I did was wrong. I'll never do it again. They're like, so don't feel justified. I'm like, I know, but then guys are looking at each other. But it is pretty fucking sweet. And I definitely did the wrong thing and I would not advise that to anybody.Michael Jamin:Funny. Well, that's so interesting.Steve Lemme:It was an accident. It was an accident.Michael Jamin:Happy accident.Steve Lemme:It was a stupid mistake.Michael Jamin:I have to, this whole thing is that's what I love about you. You're just this open book and you tell, I feel like I get an education at the Hollywood from what you guys do. But tell me this though, as I've taken an hour of your time and you've been very gracious, but as you're, now that you're a showrunner for four Seasons now, and you obviously do a lot of hiring, I got a lot of people who listening to this podcast, sparring writers, what do you look for in a script? What do you look for in a new writer? All that stuff.Steve Lemme:So it's an interesting question for right now, because over the last, when we started with Tacoma, it was really at the beginning. Maybe it wasn't the beginning, but for me as a show runner, when we were putting together the writer's room, diversity was the first and most important thing that we were being told that we had toMichael Jamin:From the studio,Steve Lemme:The network in the studio to incorporate into the writer's room. And it was women, people of color across the board, everythingYou need to do this, which was fine. What I found was that then it used to be that I could, when we had a production deal at Warner Brothers for many years, and it's like you receive these movie scripts that were R-rated comedies and you were looking at, because that's what we were doing and we were going to be producing for other people. So it was like you just get every R-rated comedy sent your way. And so now, because of the diversity thing, we were receiving all kinds of scripts from all kinds of writers, from all kinds of backgrounds. And so it's like I couldn't receive a script from a Korean American woman, girl, young lady, of either whatever her sexuality was, and that experience would be reflected in the script,Which is not something I could relate to. So what I began to look for was the jokes inside the script, where before I didn't really, I could tell jokes and stuff, but I was just looking at the whole thing. Do I like the whole idea and stuff in terms of the scripts I started being sent, they weren't ideas that I could particularly relate to unless it was like, okay, you're the son of an immigrant who's going to a private school where they are out of their element. Okay, that I can relate to. But it was in any script I started to look for what's the type of joke they're telling? Is it a more highbrow joke? Are there a bunch of some dumb jokes? Is it word play? What's the type of humor here? And so that's what I started to look for in terms of the writing material.And then I found when I focused on that actually, but the plot of the script didn't matter at all. It was like, can they tell a story and are the jokes that they're setting up and paying off the type of jokes that I think will work for our show type of jokes, I will. Because it or not, everybody's got a style of humor. And if you're not telling the kind of jokes that I like to tell, it's I'm just not going to funny. And I can't hire you because in the writer's room, everything you're saying, I'm going to be like, it's dead air between us. I don't know. We're not on the same page. So I started to realize I could just look for the type of sense of humor and then nothing else really mattered. So I look for the type of jokes. I like to know that they can tell a story from beginning, middle, and end.And then the other thing is bring the person in. You find those scripts that you like. And then now we're going to do the zoom meeting. And I'll tell you what, if you're the first person I meet, you got the job, got the job. No, but in this case, and as we proceeded through each season, you started to realize that you actually, you do want to meet everybody, but then it becomes a personality thing. Can we riff with each other? And again, it's like it's not so much where you're from or who you are, what you represent. Can you and I have a conversation and have a funny conversation? That's what we look for too. Because as you know, it's like we're 17 weeks in a writer's room together. And the first few seasons we were in the room, and then the last couple of seasons we've been on Zoom. But in collaboration, sometimes there are disagreements and it's like we have to each other. We have to live with each other for 17 weeks, and I have to read your material and you have to accept my criticisms and ideas. And you have to my ideas. Because the truth is, if we're having a disagreement on something, I know who's going to win the argument.Michael Jamin:Yeah. People don't realize that.Steve Lemme:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Young writers often don't realize that the winner of the argument has already been decided. And that person sitting at the end of the table,Steve Lemme:I want to hear you defend your idea, but what I don't want, number one, what I don't want is for you to interrupt me a lot. What I don't want is for you to get mad. If I'm not taking your idea. Also, it's my show. Forget that it's my show. I'm the one whose responsibility is, if my joke sucks, that's my fucking problem.Michael Jamin:Yours.Steve Lemme:Nobody's going to say, wait a second, that joke sucked. Lemme see who wrote this episode. Oh, it's that person. I'm not going to hire them. Doesn't work that way. So like the personality is important,Michael Jamin:Right? Sure.Steve Lemme:And that's it for us. It'

On this week's episode, I discuss the differences between writing for TV versus film and the differences in the development phases. We also go into ways to create your own material and what to really focus on. Tune in for much more!Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:If you write something great, the actors will come out of the word work to be in it, and you don't even have to pay 'em because they're getting footage and they're also being involved in something that could be really great and could blow up and could make their careers. But if the script's no good, you're going to have to beg 'em to do it because what's in it for them other than bad footage that they can't use? It'sListening to Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to another episode of Screenwriters. Need to Hear this. I'm here with Phil Hudson again. Hello, Phil.Phil Hudson:Hey everybody. Good to be back.Michael Jamin:Hello, everybody. Today we're going to talk about something, well, something I think is very important. How about that? The question is, should you write for film or tv? I think a lot of people, at least from social media when they leave comments, I think a lot of people really aspire to be film writers because they have their story and maybe they think it's more prestigious. Maybe they like the idea of going to walking down a red carpet and seeing their work on a large screen. And so I just thought I talked to you about my feelings about film versus TV and why I greatly prefer working in television. And I think anybody who works in film is crazy. So it's not that they're crazy, but it's just like, wow. I see a lot of advantages for working in film. And to be clear, I am a TV writer, but I have sold a couple of movies and after selling those movies I was like, I don't want to do that again. I'd rather work in television, but I definitely see the appeal that people have. So I thought I may shed a little light on what my perspective is. That sounds good with you, Phil.Phil Hudson:I think this is an exciting topic and we were just talking before we started recording, the industry's changed even since I started studying this craft. Seriously, back then there was a viable feature market and it seems like it's gone the wayside, and I've seen the transition over the last decade with filmmakers and screenwriters coming into tv. I think because the money's better, there's more work, there's more creative freedom, and I'm sure you'll talk about it, but there's that saying of the director runs the film set and the writer runs the TV set.Michael Jamin:Yeah, if you want creative control, we have lots to talk about, but if it's creative control that you want, then you want to be in TV because the writer's in charge. If you want to be in charge in a film, then the director's in charge. Often the writer's not even invited to set. The writer has no say that will be rewritten. The director might hire multiple writers to rewrite. So if you think if it's about your vision, unless you are shooting yourself, forget it. You are really an afterthought. And like you said, they are making far fewer movies now than they were even 15, 20 years ago, probably a third as many. And when you look at the titles being released, you got a lot of remakes. You got a lot of sequels, you got a lot of reboots. Yeah, I mean, so they're makingPhil Hudson:Another, it's largely IP based material too. So it's other books that have blown up and they buy the rights to that. They then make that.Michael Jamin:So it is because they're easier to market, which is why you have Fast and The Furious 13, everyone knows that and it's why you have it, Indiana Jones five, because everyone knows it's just easier to market. And even Barbie, I don't know if it's Greta Go's Dream to make, when she was approached to write Barbie, she's probably Barbie, do I have to Barbie? What about my original idea? So obviously she wrote the Barbie movie and turned it into something very unique and special. But I can't imagine as a child, she grew up thinking, I want to write a movie about Barbie. They came to her with an offer and she turned into something unique and creative, but I don't think she came, maybe I shouldn't speak, but I can't imagine she brought the Barbie idea to them. I think they had to move the ip and yeah,Phil Hudson:I'm certain that's the case, but even then because of the success of Barbie, now Mattel is talking about creating their own cinematic universe,Michael Jamin:Right? Right. So get ready for more gi whatever it is. I don't know. Is that your dream? Now, indie filmmaking, by the way, is a completely different topic. Maybe we can brush on it a little. My area of expertise is definitely not independent filmmaking, but that's a whole different,Phil Hudson:But that's what I went to film school for and that's the Sundance world that I kind of been in. So I'm familiar with that. And there's a bit of a merge there. And we can talk about tko. Waititi is a really great example of that because he came out of the indie film world. He was a Sundance kid, and then he started doing more prolific stuff. And while I was touring for quasi handling social media for the broken lizard guys, that's one of the conversations we had with their, one of the Searchlight VPs of publicity. And she was like, yeah, Tika, he does one for us, we do one for him. You do Thor, you want to do Thor? Awesome. We'll make invisible Hitler. And it's a way for them to incentivize. But I would say Clin Eastwood, I would say even look at Christopher Nolan, that's the way it works. You get this deal at these big studios, I'll make your billion dollar film, and then they let you make the film you want to make, and one is going to make a ton of money, may win some awards, the other one's going to win some awards because they have the talent.Michael Jamin:So if it's your aspiration for me, just the thought of working film, you go, okay, I'll write a film and maybe I can sell it. But then, okay, then how many times are you going to sell a, it is hard to sustain that career. Whereas in television, oh, I know there's a TV show and maybe they have whatever, 10 or 13 episodes a season that sounds like you can make a living that sounds like you're working more steadily. And when I broke in, by the way, it's 22 episodes, so I was like, oh, okay, these people work all the time. And for 10 seasons, that sounds to me that was the lure of a steady paycheck was in television, maybe less so today, but certainly more so than being a filmmaker.Phil Hudson:Yeah, that's fascinating. One thing that's standing out to me from this conversation really just echoes what you've been saying throughout the history of the podcast, and we're approaching two years of this podcast, and that is you have to get out and do it yourself. Nobody's going to do it for you. You can't rely on anybody else. You have to get up and do it. And even the gre Gerwig, the Tiger Boy, tee Tees, they had a name for themselves as filmmakers before the big studio came with the big bag of money. They were the value, and that's where they came to take advantage of them, right? Yeah. Greta Gerwig has the way to make her film stand out in her way and her style, and that's why it's a big hit. I don't think it's largely because it's Barbie, it's because of what she did with Barbie that made it work. But that's something she has honed and developed over years and years and years of hard work before she hit it big.Michael Jamin:And also my friend Chrissy Stratton, who I'm going to have back on the podcast at some point, we had her run before. So I met her on King of the Hill. She's a writer on King of the Hill. But then she went on to a very long career, almost as long as mine, working in various TV shows. She might be just one or two years behind me, pretty much equal. And she works all the time in tv, but she had this film that she's been dreaming about for whatever, 10 or 15 years and then decided, you know what? I'm just going to make a short. And so on her own dime. And she raised the money. She's a successful TV writer, but in film, she's the no one. So she started from scratch and she called in a lot of favors and shot a movie on by raising her own money, real low budget.And we'll talk more about this journey and why she's doing it, but it's not like, even though she's big in tv, she's a no one in film. So it's kind of a level playing field. And one of the thing, well, I know I'm jumping around, but I just so you're aware, as I mentioned about creative control in film, well, lemme tell you about the experiences that I went through. So my writing partner and I, we wrote a writing sample, a feature sample. I was dreaming it was going to get sold, but he was like, it's not going to get sold, whatever. But I was like, maybe it will. We wrote a sample, our agent shopped it around, no one bought it as predicted, but there was a producer who was very interested in working. He's like, this is great. We can't it, but let's try coming up with some ideas together and sell those.And so we worked with this producer and we wound up selling two more ideas, but every step of the way, it was kind of exhausting. We're coming up with ideas, we're writing drafts, we're giving it to him. He's got notes we're not getting, and you're doing, it's called free revisions. You're doing notes after notes. We sold it to the studio, but the producer is basically the gate. So until the producer's happy with the draft, the studio will never see it. And so this is what free revisions is. So you're doing constant rewrites for the producer.Phil Hudson:This is a big deal for the W G A, by the way. It's a very big deal. It's part of the strike too.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I don't know what's going to obviously happen with it. And you're doing a lot of free work, which you're not getting paid obviously, and the studio's not seeing any of it. And then you get finally the producer's happy, you give it to the studio and then the studio has notes and then, okay, now you're again. So they say, do a revision. And again, you go back, you start doing the revision, you've turned into the producer and the producer's like, eh, I don't think it's good enough fellas. I need to do more work and more work. And then finally you turn that revision to the studio. I was at one point producer who I liked quite a bit, really good guy, but he also had development people working under him. So at one point his development person left, he brought in a new one, and now this new person has a new direction that we're going, oh my God.It was like, this is a never ending hell. That's how I felt. It's just a never ending hell because you have to please them. And I understand this is how the game is played, but I was like in tv, it doesn't work this way in tv, if I'm a writer on staff, I turn in my draft to the showrunner. If I'm not the showrunner, the showrunner has notes, great. Turn in another draft, we're done. Shoot, we're going to shoot it. And of course the network will have notes, but it's so much more streamlined because you have a timetable, we have to shoot this thing on Friday, so you can't keep this up in development hell for a year, which is what happens if you're doing film. You could be in hell forever on this. I was like, work done. And that'sPhil Hudson:The term too. It's development health, what you said. That's an industry term for what that is.Michael Jamin:And the money, in terms of the money, I got paid way more in TV than I do in film. SoPhil Hudson:That's what I was about to say. I just said, we talked about the podcast, that experience I had where that guy signed the script, signed the contract to write a script for that thing, and it kind of fizzled out, but the numbers on it were, it's like $160,000 to write a screenplay. Well, the average I understand is about six months to go through the whole process to write a script more than that. But then you have the notes and you have the feedback and you got all that stuff. So you're going to do one, maybe two of those a year. Well, you can go get an M B A and then go get a six figure paycheck that's going to pay you more than that. AndMichael Jamin:Just so you know, the movie's not getting made and it has nothing to do with you or it's just like it's a miracle movies. It's a miracle when a movie gets made. So if you want to see your work on the screen, even if it's been rewritten to death, forget it. Most movies just do not get made. So you're okay, but you used to make a good living writing movies that never got made. Maybe it's less so now because they're making because they're buying fewer. But back in the day, you could be a very successful screenwriter and never have a word of yours onscreen. But in TV it's different.Phil Hudson:One question that comes to mind for me, Michael, when you talk about free revisions and development, hell, you also advocate that writers write and they write for free. And if you don't want to write for free, don't do this because that's what this job looks like.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Right. What's the difference between the experience with the free revisions and the notes with the producer versus your definition of free writing?Michael Jamin:I mean, we're talking about two things. We're talking about improving your craft to write, to learn how to write. And so a lot of people just write one script and they think, well, I'm going to sell it and I'm done. Give me a paycheck. And my point is then you put it down and write another one and then write another one. And you'll notice that script number five is vastly better than script number one simply because you're getting better at writing. But the free revisions I'm talking about for these producers, when you become a professional at some point, I got to take home money. This is not a hobby for me. This is how I make my living. So I just didn't enjoy the process. I just thought like, ugh, it is no fun. It takes the joy out of it.Phil Hudson:Yeah, no kidding. So we have to write. We have to write. That's part of writing. Being a writer is writing. But what the WGA is fighting for is that writers should be paid for all of the professional rioting where other people are making money off of the sweat of their back. They're taking advantage of that situation because a bit of a power dynamic there where the producer has control and obviously they want to maintain their relationship and they want to make it as good as they can be. So I'm not saying it's a negative or a nefarious approach to it, but it's still a writers are sitting there not getting paid.Michael Jamin:I understand the producers are protecting their brand and they have a closer relationship with the studio. I get it. But they're not the ones doing all that work for free. So I just like, this is not appealing to me. I'd much rather work in television. Like I said, you have more creative control. You're onset. And again, in features, what would've happened had these two features of ours been made. It didn't come to this and I didn't expect it to, but we sold two features and at both times we're finally done. We give both final drafts to the studio. The studio is happy with it. The studio executive were working with happy. They'd given all our notes and revisions. They were very happy with the script. Now they give it to their boss who has the green light, they have the power to green light. And the boss reads it over the weekend, not interested.It was like, it's over. It's it. It was almost on a whim. Nah, what else you got? And it's like there's no argument. There's no more convincing them, it's dead because they just don't want to make that movie. And often they don't want to make that movie simply because the movie that did well that weekend was an action movie and your movie's a comedy and they want to make more action movies now, or it's as simple as that. Or someone put out a comedy movie that weekend that bombed and forget it. We're not doing comedies anymore. And so it could have nothing to do with the quality of what you wrote. This is what the marketplace suddenly changed and now it's dead. So this is how it is.Unless you are making your own movie. And if you make your own movie, that's great, but do it on a dime. On a dime. I say I had a nice conversation with someone, someone asked me to, it was a couple of days ago, they wanted to book some time with me for a consultation, which I occasionally do. And he really nice guy, but he had self-financed some projects and I was like, you spent too much money on that. Don't put so much money into your own projects in the beginning until you really get spend a couple thousand. That's what you can do it on. That's what I recommend.Phil Hudson:And in the indie film side of things, the goal is to not spend your money. It is actually to find investors. And the question is, why would people invest in an indie film maker who's made no money? A lot of people are looking for tax write-offs and they want to be involved in Hollywood. They want to feel like they are producing being part of that because they probably have that desire, that dream, and they chased the paycheck rather than their art. And so now that they've got the money, they would rather invest in another artist to be a part of that. And so my friend's dad is just this awesome guy, and he just texted me out of the blue two years ago and he had a bunch of stocks vest and he cashed out and he was like, Hey man, if you ever have something you want to make, let me know. I've got some cash lying around. I'd love to put towards that.Michael Jamin:Oh wow.Phil Hudson:But that comes out of a relationship of trust that I have with the guy. It alsoMichael Jamin:Is, and it might come with strings attached. It mayPhil Hudson:Be, and it probably will,Michael Jamin:It may be, and this is not how it works in TV and tv. So in film you might have a ton of executive producers because they help chip in for 5,000 bucks. You can become an executive producer of my movie. People do that and TV doesn't work that way. Tv, that's all financed by the studio. So it's not that kind of model. But in film, you write a check for 5,000, or if you write a bigger check for 50,000 and the person says, I'll give you 50,000 if you cast my daughter as the lead, or if you make these changes to the script, do you want to do it or not? That's up to you. How much do you want that money?Phil Hudson:I think that's really where the question of art versus craft comes into play, because in that situation it might be a little bit more art, it might be a little bit more of your decision. Well, that's going to ruin my vision for what I have or destroy the theme of this piece, and I'm doing it myself because it is an expression of myself, and that is art. And you might turn down the money out of integrity for the art there, but you might also take the paycheck because you've got kids who need diapers,Michael Jamin:Right? And so some people, sometimes people are very naive about the whole thing and they're like, you writers suck, or This is the garbage. Do you know how hard it's to get something made? And do you understand that I also need to make money?Phil Hudson:Oh man, we do the webinars every month and we do, we started to do this v i p q and A after, and we were testing it out, but we had a member of your group she joined and she was telling us about how she has made two or three indie films and she had put up this money and she was going to shoot it in the forest. And the film, the films that got shut down because of wildcat or a cougar, like a mountain lion or something, came in and ruined the whole thing. None of the actors want to come back. And she knew this was a thing that could happen. And so she was asking the question about hobbling together, her footage to make something producible. And it's just heartbreaking because a good story, you can't really do that. The story should mean something.And that's someone who's in there doing it. I think they're doing it on their own dime, and that's just heartbreaking to hear. But I've got other experience where my buddy Rich, he's produced a bunch of any stuff. He's done stuff with Michael Madson, done some stuff with major players, knows a bunch of people, and he was telling me about this film that he was working on for years and years and years. And they shot the whole film and then it got locked down in post because one of the executive producers who wrote the check wouldn't sign off on the final cut. And so it could getMichael Jamin:Final cutPhil Hudson:And it got stuck and they were arguments and they had to work through and it was like five years. And the end result they got out of it was a worst film because the producer had too much say and wanted edits. So understanding story structure, you look at it, it is a hobbled together piece of crap that has a couple big names in it,Michael Jamin:Right? Yeah. I don't even think you need, well, I don't want to talk about big names, but, and I felt bad for this woman in the v I b talk. But here's the thing, I also think you need to figure, be cautious on how producible is this movie you want to make. You didn't have to do a movie, write a movie that take place in the mountains. You could have written a movie that takes place in someone's apartment, and if you think I'm nuts, go watch the whale, which takes place in someone's crappy apartment and was amazing and beautiful because their writing was beautiful and the acting matched it, but the set was ugly. And anyone could have shot that in their own apartment. And that's on you as the writer is like, you don't have to write a movie. I would be cautious about writing anything with kids, because kids are really hard to have on set first of legally. You need to have tutors, you want to bend the rules. Kids can only work a certain amount of hours. And what you do on your independent film, that's your business, but to be up and up, that's the truth. And kids, they get tired, they lose focus, and they want to horse around. So I would be careful about having kids. I'd be careful about doing anything that requires characters getting wet because costume changes are bitch, when you're wet and at exterior locations, the same thing. Back noise, street noise, people being disruptive, a leaf blower.But you can write something very compelling in a controlled set where you don't have to worry about any of this stuff as long as the writing is good. It's all about the writing.Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.Phil Hudson:I'm having a flashback. So my thesis film that I did, I took a crew, we rented a van, we took our equipment, we drove to Utah, negotiated all these things because of relationships. I had to get it cheap, shooting in friends' houses, borrowing a friend's truck, doing all of these things. Flew in a couple of indie actors from LA to be in my project. And while we were going through, you just start getting hit with every single thing you have planned, start shifting based off of, there's cloud cover now because you're outside, it's starting to snow. Lots of beautiful things happen. Like we're shooting on a pump jack, which an oil deck, an oil derrick is, what you think about 'em is pump jacks that big swinging arm pump. It's a training school that agreed to let us shoot on theirs that was donated. And there's moving in the background, makes the production value go through the roof, what we had.But then at the same time, while we're driving, a deer jumps out and my friend's truck when my actor's driving hits the deer, and then we're driving the next day to go to the set to shoot the exteriors. And we need that truck. And then it blows part of the engine and we can't use the truck anymore. And I'm rewriting on the fly and my friend's daughter is casting this role using their house, and she's just this sweet little girl and she has two lines and she gets stage fright and she can't do it. And so we have to put her sister in who's too young. And so I have to scrap those lines and rethink how do I get this emotional moment across? And then at the end, when we're done filming, the little girl comes up and says, I'm ready now.Michael Jamin:Yeah, great.Phil Hudson:And they're heartbreaking. Heartbreaking because we're done.Michael Jamin:And that said, whatever, I would take inventory if you decide to do this Indio thing, because as a way of getting discovered, as a way of breaking in, which is great. I would just take inventory of what you have that's in your control. If you're a truck driver and you have a Mack truck, alright, maybe you're shooting the truck. I mean, that's an interesting set.Phil Hudson:Well, it's your life that ties in the right what you know, you can add reality veracity to that.Michael Jamin:If you have a storage locker, the same thing. If you're allowed to shoot there, you're probably not. But what little you have could be interesting. You don't think it's interesting because it's your life, but we think it's interesting. We don't live your life.Phil Hudson:While you were talking, I was just thinking of Robert Rodriguez, who's arguably one of the biggest directors on the planet. And he came from this in world where he did on mariachi. He documents all of this in a great book, the Rebel Without a Crew. And he donated his body to science to fund it. And he went to the small town in Mexico. He went in for clinical trials for a, to get the money, borrowed a camera that didn't have audio. Went to a town in Mexico where he would summer, borrowed friends and family and a best friend to play the roles, did the whole thing. And then stayed up at night in an editing bay at a local TV station to edit his film and did it and blew up because he thought, and all he wanted to do was to sell it to a Spanish language channel and ended up selling it to Sony or whoever, Sony Columbia or something.Michael Jamin:And now you can make it for a fraction. You could edit it all on your laptop, you canPhil Hudson:Edit it on your phone. You shoot the whole thing on yourMichael Jamin:Phone.Phil Hudson:But the story was good. Why did it sell? Why was it a big deal? It's because he knew how to tell a compelling story, and he just used what he had to do thatMichael Jamin:Job. So we're in agreement here. If you want to do an indie film, great. Just don't spend a lot of money. Also, you don't have, if you write something great, the actors will come out of the word work to be in it, and you don't even have to pay 'em because they're getting footage and they're also being involved in something that could be really great and could blow up and could make their careers. But if the script's no good, you're going to have to beg 'em to do it, because what's in it for them other than bad footage that they can't use?Phil Hudson:I dove headfirst into this stuff when I was first starting, and I would write a script, do one version of it, one draft, and then I would shoot it, do a casting call. People would show up, they'd want to be in it. We'd be on set. And they'd very quickly realized I had no idea what I was doing and I didn't, but I just had the gumption to make it happen. And I remember my lead calling me out one time or shooting this shot, and he's like, dude, what are you doing? We're here. You're not even using light to help add subtext and value. And he's talking about how when you're walking up the stairs, well, if you shot it this way through here, there's a cage and a shadow being cast on my face and emotionally, my character's going through this inner turmoil with his relationship and there's all this.And I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about, because I had no clue. And I wasted time and energy and money doing it, and I was a valuable learning experience for me, and I got that lesson out of it. So yeah, your point, do it as cheap as you can because learning, you're just learning. And that is the school of hard knocks, not the school of theory and philosophy. It's get it done. You're going to learn. You're going to make a lot of mistakes. You're not going to sell the first thing. It's probably not going to win any awards. And if you do, awesome, you did it now, but you're most likely not. And that's okay. It's reps, reps, reps, reps.Michael Jamin:Yes. And I have a lot of respect for people who do it. And even if they come up with something terrible and crappy, well, guess what? They did it. Guess what? They put a lot of energy and work into something and their next piece will hopefully be better. And most people just dream of it. And most people will just say, here's my script. Make my dream come true. But the other people say, here's my script. I'm going to make my dream come true. And it may take long, a long process, but it's putting the work in so good for them.Phil Hudson:Yeah. My first class I went in, I had some credit transfer credits from when I was first in college. So when I went to film school, I was up, maybe I was basically a year ahead when I got there, and I had to take a couple of freshmen film classes because they were requirements. And I remember intro to film, film 1 0 1, we're in this big IMAX theater on our campus, and Peter Grendel, our professor my age is teaching. And his big point from the first lesson was the percentage of people who say they want to be filmmakers versus the people who make films is very different. It's like 0.0001% make a film. He said, so even if you put in all the time, energy, and effort needed to make an indie film that does nothing goes nowhere, you have still done something most people will never do. But most people talk about doing, and that's something to take pride in.Michael Jamin:My daughter shot a little scene in college. She got a scene, a little film that someone wrote, and it was just two people. It was short. It was like three minutes of a young woman. She was the girl and a boy sitting on a staircase talking about something, and it was too short to go anywhere. But I was like, that's interesting. You could have done something. It's easy to shoot. You're just two angles and a master on a staircase. If they had spent a little more time with the script, I go, there's something there for sure. It's something compelling about a boy and a girl who are dating and whatever they were talking about. I was like, it's something small. And the writing, it's about the writing. It's not about anything else as far as, and the acting. But yeah, I mean, just as an experiment, can I write something compelling about two people on a staircase talking about something? And we've seen this stuff. Here's a good one. Mount is a good example, but in Pulp Fiction, when Samuel Jackson and Travolta in that car are talking aboutPhil Hudson:The crown royale with cheese,Michael Jamin:That's interesting. That's interesting. Fun dialogue. You still need a story on top of that. But it's rich, and we all remember it because, or the scene or that small little scene, if you had shot that small scene where Samuel Jackson's talking about, he's in that guy's, there's young guy's house. He breaks the first scene where there's five college kids or whatever that they're threatening. They owe them money. And Samuel Jackson's talking about he's clearly a killer, but he's reformed. He's found Jesus, and he's struggling though. He's struggling to do the right thing. If you shot that one scene and it's an apartment building, that's it. You have a couple guy on a couch and a guy and two guys holding fake guns, that one scene is very interesting and compelling. If that's your movie you made, I want to see more. And it doesn't cost a fortune to write that scene. There's no special effects, I guess in the end had some fake bullets or whatever. But that's it, that that's all you need, A thug, a street thug who's a murderer, but he found Jesus and he's trying to do the right thing. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Yeah. That's great. That whole scene is fascinating. And that's for anybody listening, wanting to learn how to write great dialogue or understand characters. The fact that what's so interesting about that cheeseburger conversation is they are killers, and they're not talking about when we get there, we're going to shoot 'em in the face, or here's how we're going to dispose the body. They've done this so many times that this just, we can talk about why they put cheese on a burger. It's stabs quo. And the story's there because they're talking about the wife and the foot massage and all that stuff as they're standing in the hallway and it just happens and they kick the door and they know let's beat thugs. Right? ButMichael Jamin:How easy are both those scenes? I mean, the first one's a little harder in a car, but they're both very easy in terms of shooting, that wouldn't cost neither one of those scenes cost a fortune. It's all about the writing and the acting will support the writing.Phil Hudson:Yeah. I mean, that's Tarantino like Reservoir Dogs. It's a warehouse. It's a warehouse with some flashbacks outside. The whole thing takes you in one room,Michael Jamin:But even let's say reservoir drugs, which obviously was the one that really made him. But the point I'm trying to make is just write, because you don't have to write a whole movie, just write one compelling scene that promises something really on its own. You're like, I'm hooked. And maybe there's more to it.Phil Hudson:That ties back to your fractals podcast too, which has really stuck with me. And I think about it every time I sit down to write, when I'm structuring scenes and acts and I'm structuring my story, if you can't do a scene, well, how could you do a short, well, if you can't do a short, well, how could you do a full blown act or a TV pilot if you can't do that? Well, how can you do a two hour feature?Michael Jamin:We shot that episode, that podcast episode a long time, probably over a year ago, but it was called something about fractals. I think it wasPhil Hudson:Just called fractals.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And the point I was making is anybody who knows anything about fractals, they're patterns that repeat nature. So if you see a tree, it has a trunk in branches, but if you look at the leaf on the tree, the leaf has a trunk in branches, and then if you look at the cells, so it's about these repeating patterns. And so my point is, for movie, you have to want to write a compelling movie, right? But break down the movie into acts, and each act has to be compelling. Then break down each act into scenes, and each scene is compelling. And then each line has to be compelling. And so you're really just repeating patterns over and over, but on a larger scale. And so if you point out, if you can't write a compelling act, if you can write a compelling scene, how are you going to write a compelling act? Just start with writing a scene. That'sPhil Hudson:It. Yeah. Write the scene, write the scene, write the scene over and over and over again. You can churn out scenes. Even if you just took a week and just focused on one scene, how much better is that going to be than taking a week and powering through 50 pages?And I'm not advocating by the way that you shift your writing style, and it's not necessarily what you teach as the process that we do in Hollywood, and we've seen in TV rooms. What I'm saying is as a writing exercise, getting in your reps to practice the craft of writing, you're going to get faster return. Drilling. This thing, and I talk about this all the time, it's Josh Watkin's making bigger, small circles bigger. So how do you pull back and zoom in on something and focus on the detail work inside of that thing? And in Jujitsu's transitions in this, it's how do I get into a scene fast? How to get out of a scene fast? How do I display things through subtext? How do I have people say things without saying things? What's the thematic thing? What's the energy coming in? And the energy come out? That's all the detail. That's just a film condense. So focus, just do that while you're doing the other stuff.Michael Jamin:That's a good point. And I was going to also say, I'm guilty of this too. When I'm writing my, well, I finished my book, but when I was writing it, I'd have a scene in my mind. I wanted to get to the next scene where also some great stuff was going to happen. And then I kind of just got a little lazy in my transitions. And then when I'd read it again, I'm like, what's going on in this transition? Can I make this transition interesting? Do I have to be lazy and sloppy? Is there a goal to be found in the transition? And then I'd realize, oh, that's kind of where there's some interesting stuff is, so I'm guilty of it too. But you have to be aware. It's not just about a race, and you're not just racing to get to the next scene you are whenPhil Hudson:We talk about enjoy the journey and enjoy the process. This is what we're talking about. You have to love doing this because it ends up getting you somewhere better than where you were before. And the other quote, I believe I've said on the podcast who really stood out to me was an interview with Kobe Bryant, and he just said that nothing he does on the court, he hasn't practiced a thousand times, right? So he's in there practicing, practicing, practicing. He shows up, and you hear this all the time in interviews with other players from the Lakers, they say that they would show up their first day and they'd want to show up early to put in the work. And Kobe Bryant was already there practicing free throws, practicing free throws.Michael Jamin:You're talking about the greatest player or one of the greatest players in the N B A hasty was already there, was acting as if he was a rookie who had never taken a shot in a basketball court.Phil Hudson:All the money, all the skills, all the fame, known name, 70 hour work weeks, just putting in the work.Michael Jamin:If the greatest player has to do it, why do you think you don't have to do it?Phil Hudson:LeBron James, he makes what? A hundred million a year off of all of his endorsement deals. I read, I think in Sports Illustrated, it's like 9 million a year goes into taking care of his body just in trainers massage therapy.Michael Jamin:Wow.Phil Hudson:Why? Because that's his tool. That's his instrument. Your tool is your keyboard or your typewriter, your pad and paper and pen, and you don't need, here's the cool thing. You can write a lot of things without needing a fancy computer or fancy software. You can just sit down and practice this with a pad of paper and a Panama napkin.Michael Jamin:What's your commitment to getting better at the craft? And I get why people just want to, they want fast results, but it's not a fast result kind of game. I don't know how we got here from, should you be a TV writer or a film writer?Phil Hudson:Well, I think we're talking about indie film, we're talking about the process of indie film versus features, but all of this relates it's skillset. And I know you talked about for you, you liked TV writing, and I think with the time we have left, I'd love to hear what are the benefits that you found in TV writing? And I think they tie directly into this, which is there's more work, there's more time to sit, and you do this more than writingMichael Jamin:A feature. But not only that, I feel like TV writing, being a TV writer has helped me improve my writing all around because every week, including writing novels. Including writing films, because every week you have to come up with a new story, and it's the repetitiveness, the repetition of, okay, let's break a story. This week we got to break a story. Next week, we got to break a north story next week. And constantly coming up with new stories, even though they're half hour as opposed to an hour and a half. It's that repetition that really makes you really good. And that's why I feel, and I'm not the only one who thinks this way, if you want to watch a really good comedy, you watch tv, you don't turn to film, although there are some really funny films, pound for pound, you go back to tv.It's that action. That's where the good writers really get good. I'll see a comedy. I don't even know how many come. I tried watching one of these streamers, I'm like, oh, comedy, I'll watch this. And it's terrible. This is terrible. From some unknown, have they spent some time in a TV writer's room? They would know, no, this is not acceptable dialogue. That's not an acceptable joke. You just learn so much by being in television, I feel. And then you could go to TV or a film if you have an opportunity. But the learning ground, I feel, is in tv.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Have you seen The Bear?Michael Jamin:I saw the Pilot. I haven't watched the Rest. DudePhil Hudson:Blew my mind, and it feels like one of the most dramatic films, TV shows I've ever seen. It's short form. It's a comedy, it's a sitcom. It's got all the enemies for these comedy, and it makes you laugh, it makes you cry. It's all those notes, and you just look at it, and I looked up the creator and it's like, man, this guy has produced some of the greatest standup comedians in history. Chris Rock, just tons of people. And it's like, yeah, you're learning this from being around and doing the work. And then that translate into what I think is one of the best comedies on tv,Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:It's great.Michael Jamin:I got to watch it. The problem is Cynthia's already seen it, and so I got to watch it alone, make time to watch it alone.Phil Hudson:I get it. I'm married. I understand.Michael Jamin:Yeah. But there it is. I hope that helps. Yeah.Phil Hudson:One thing I just wanted to add to this conversation was when I first got into this, the advice was really centered around, is this a TV IT idea or a film idea? Not necessarily are you a film writer or a TV writer? And I just wanted to get your thoughts on this. I hear this advice all over the place. The question was, is this something that could end or is this something that could continue? Is this the kind of idea that there's a clear defined ending to this, right?Michael Jamin:I feel likePhil Hudson:TV might've changed that now with our long form, eight to 10 minute, like a TV series ends up being a longer form film. But at the same time, I think there's some weight in that, which is something you tie back to in comedy. Your character doesn't really change at the end. They reset. I'd love your on that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. So if you're coming with a film, is this a TV idea or a film idea? If the character goes on a complete journey, Rocky and Rocky finally wins or goes the distance. It's not a TV show because he's not going to go. It's not a fight of the week. It's just like you take a street bum and you turn into, he went the distance, so it's done. That's it. They made sequels. Sure. Each sequel is basically a remake of the first one, and none of them are as good as the first one because you took a character. The only reason they did sequels is because they, Hey, we can squeeze some more money out of this. The story was over, I'm sorry, the story was over. It was a beautiful story, but it's not like a world of Rocky and Nikki and the gang hanging out that would be hanging out at the training facility at the boxing club. That would be sunny. It's always sunny in Philadelphia, which is fine. That's a TV series. They're just hanging out, people hanging out. So is it a world you're creating, or are you taking a character on a full emotional journey?Phil Hudson:Yeah, and that's an interesting, John Wick one is just great. It's great. It's a great film. John Wick two, I kind of like more than John Wick one because we get into the world, but I wouldn't want John Wick two if I hadn't seen John Wick one and felt like it was satisfying at the end, and you're kind of bummed. The other thing, this is just my thing as a writer, I really hate when characters suffer to the nth degree of suffering and just wrecking, this guy just got his life back and now you're going to ruin his life in the second film. It's a bit of a bummer.Michael Jamin:Yeah. But yeah, so that's what I ask, Yousef, are you creating a world, especially in sitcoms, this is your family. I think of it as, cheers. Do I want to hang out with these people week in and week out? Do I want to let them into my living room? Is that what it is? Because I certainly don't want to let some movies, no. Some movies, no, I don't want to The quiet place quiet. I don't don't want to let them into my living room week after week. That's unsettling to me. Great movie, not a TV show.Phil Hudson:Children are men. Children are men. One of the most impactful films I've ever seen. Haven't watched it again, so many,Michael Jamin:Right? It's enough. Right, right, right. GotPhil Hudson:The lesson. Move on.Michael Jamin:Right. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Great answer, Michael. Thank you. Bye. It was great.Michael Jamin:Alright, everyone, thank you so much. Phil and I have more to talk about. We have some exciting stuff to talk about coming up in future episodes, but thank you so much and for what are we going to talk about, Phil? We got to promote, we have a watch list, our newsletter,Phil Hudson:We got all about it. So you can go to michaeljamin.com/newsletter to join the watch list. You can also go to /watchlist. A lot of people know that one, but you've got that. It's a weekly newsletter. You've got the free lesson. It's the first full free lesson. You've broken into three parts. AMichael Jamin:Screenwriting lesson,Phil Hudson:Right? A screenwriting lesson. If you want to learn more about the very first lesson you ever taught me as a mentor about screenwriting, which I think you were taught, and I think you've taught lots of other people, is what is the definition of a story. So go get that michael jamin.com/free. I think we get three to 500 people a week sign up forMichael Jamin:That thing. Oh wow. That's crazy. We also have, we've been doing free webinars and now right now the schedule's up. We're doing it every three weeks instead of every four weeks. So you can come to that michaeljamin.com/webinar and it's free. Come sit in and thenPhil Hudson:Touring for a P orchestra. That's going to be coming up, I think, at some point, right?Michael Jamin:Yeah, hopefully. But we're hoping that our book, my book is going to drop. I'm really happy with the way it's coming up, but we're doing the audio book now, and so maybe we'll talk a little bit more about that. Maybe we will talk more about that in a different episode. Yeah, if you want to come see me on tour or be notified when my book drops as an audio audiobook as well, Michaeljamin.com/upcoming, and the audiobook is really nice. It's really because I got some music. I have a composer on it. We'll talk about it now. I guess. Anthony Rizzo, who is the composer on Maron, well, I'll talk about it in the next episode. We'll open up, talk about that. So go there, michaeljamin.com/upcoming if you want to see me on tour or be notified me the bookPhil Hudson:Drop. And for everybody watching this, this is going to be a bit out of order, so it'll be the next episode that I'm in. Right? Because the next one, I think you got Steve Lemi comingMichael Jamin:Up. Yeah, Lemi is coming up for episode 100 from Broken Lizard. Alright, everyone, thank you so much. Until next time, keep writing. Thank you, Phil.Phil Hudson:Thank you.This has been an episode of Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin and Phil Hudson. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for Michael's monthly webinar @michaeljamin.com/webinar. If you found this podcast helpful, consider sharing it with a friend and leaving us a five star review on iTunes. For free screenwriting tips, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJamin,writer. You can follow Phil Hudson on social media @PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane Music, by Ken Joseph. Until next time, keep writing.

In July, I hosted a webinar called "How To Get Past Hollywood Gatekeepers" where I shared my thoughts on creative things you can do now with the strikes happening, as well as what you shouldn't be doing. This episode addresses questions you asked in our Q&A session that we didn't have time to answer. There's lots of great info here, make sure you watch.Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:You shouldn't. You should not try to work. I mean, you don't go on any guild SAG projects or guild projects, but you could do, if it's a non SAG project, like a student film or something, you can do that. You're not violating anything. You're not getting paid, but you can build your network. Exactly. Or make your own stuff. If you write your own mini scene or movie or whatever and you shoot it on your phone, you're not breaking any strikes. You're not selling it, you're just shooting it. You're listening to screenwriters. Need to hear this with Michael. Hey everybody, welcome back. It's Michael Jamin. I'm here with Phil Hudson and we are going to answer some questions. So as you may or may not know, we host a webinar, a free webinar every three weeks usually, and I try to answer a different topic. And the last topic we did was called How to Get Past Industry Gatekeepers. And we did an exclusive v i P room afterwards where people could ask questions. This is where the questions are coming from, Phil, right?Phil Hudson:No, these are actually the ones from the webinar. We didn'tMichael Jamin:Oh, these are from the webinar. Okay.Phil Hudson:Yeah, because we shifted things up and for people who, dunno, you were spending a lot of time, we were staying on for an hour doing q and a with everybody, and so we just decided to give everyone an opportunity to hop in and get FaceTime with you. It's limited seats of V I P Q and A, and this is for the people who ask questions during the webinar who didn't get their questions answered rightMichael Jamin:Now I'm confused. Okay. Yeah, so to be clear, the webinar is free, but we also did a little bonus thing afterwards that people can buy in so I can answer more questions. So these are questions. I didn't get it. We didn't have time to answer and Phil's going to cue me. What is it? Yeah,Phil Hudson:No, I was going to say we're going to dive in and I think it's just two things. If you want to have a question answered by Michael, there's two ways to get that done and you're very, very open with your time. One is to join the webinar. We typically have one, sometimes two a month depending on the month, and it's a different topic typically every time. But we have a couple that people really like, so we might be focusing on those. But if you can't get your question answered there, the v i P is an opportunity for them to hop in with you and really just spend that time, time you turn your camera on. You ask myMichael Jamin:Question. Well, it's not one-on-one. A small group of people.Phil Hudson:So it's not one-on-one in the sense that you sit there and you get to talk to Michael. You don't have to. It's not, yeah. Thank you for clarifying. Yeah. So yeah, let's dive in. And we've done previous episodes. I've broken these into subjects. So there are a couple key categories. This is heavily weighted towards breaking into Hollywood because that was the topic,Michael Jamin:ButPhil Hudson:I think the craft questions are always good. So starting there, Norville, scs, if a character changes for the better over the course of a story, is there initial likability, something to focus on?Michael Jamin:Well, likability is a complicated thing. Sometimes people, you'll get a note from the studio saying these need to be likable. And that's not the same thing as the audience needs to the characters, which is a different, okay, so Tony Soprano is not a likable person. You don't want to spend 10 minutes with the guy, he might kill you, okay? But the audience likes to watch him because he's interesting. But often you'll get a note from the studio saying, these characters, they're too unlikable. I don't have an answer to that. It depends if you're doing a drama or a comedy, but generally the note you're going to get is these need to be likable characters, especially if you're doing a comedy. We're spending time with them, we're spending a lot of time with them. So even in Cheers, I'm sure one of the notes was Carla's too unlikable, so they probably softened her up so she wasn't, because you're spending time with him, this is your family, I guess. I dunno if that answers the question. It's the best I can do. Well,Phil Hudson:I think the question comes from Save the Cat, which you've admittedly never read and you've never read, but it definitely talks about how your character should do something to make us like them in the first three to five pages because we'll want to root for them and it's a redeeming factor and there's plenty of evidence as to why that's not necessarilyMichael Jamin:Accurate. I don't subscribe to that. I don't subscribe to that. So yeah,Phil Hudson:As good as it gets. You recommended, I read that for a script. I was writing one point. Is that it? Where is that? Not Jack Nicholson.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean I love that, but I don't rememberPhil Hudson:Telling you, but he throws the dog down the garbage shoot.Michael Jamin:Oh yeah, it was the first time we seen him. He throws the dog down the garbage shoot.Phil Hudson:It's the opposite of saving the cat.Michael Jamin:And it'sPhil Hudson:A classic, it's incredible film.Michael Jamin:And that's a film, right? So that's not a sitcom. So again, I don't subscribe to this thing. The character has to do something likable. What is that? I mean, I think they have to do something interesting. Engaging and throwing a dog on a shoot is kind of interesting for sure. SoPhil Hudson:Yeah, what kind of person would do that? Use his questions. Jackie Smite. What if you have a script for a very specific franchise? Is it simply foolish if you are an inexperienced or is it a bad idea in general?Michael Jamin:Bad idea in general. And it's foolish. You got 'em both write. You can't write for a franchise. You don't own the ip, it's not yours, let it go. You don't write a Marvel movie, don't write a Disney movie with the princesses. It's not yours, so let it go. Don't write anything with a franchise.Phil Hudson:This is a very common one. I mean, most people have an idea for a story and it's based off of existing ip. I remember talking to a friend in 2008, a couple months after I really started studying screenwriting. She's like, oh, I have this enemy franchise. I want to adapt for tv. And I was like, okay, I don't think you could do that. And yeah,Michael Jamin:Reach out to, if you get the rights from them, then do it, but you don't have the rights, so don't do it.Phil Hudson:And that is a process and we'll probably circle back on that because there's a question about attorneys, which we'll get to in a minute.Michael Jamin:Oh, okay.Phil Hudson:Cliff Johnson ii. I write drama features to half hour comedy and also differing genres. Is it limiting to spread myself thin or should I keep building a diverse portfolio?Michael Jamin:You don't need a diverse portfolio. I'd say specialize in whatever it is you enjoy the most. Focus on that, get really good at it, and then market yourself as the best damn thriller writer there is. Or the best broad comedy writer there is. You don't need a broad portfolio. You need to have a specific portfolio that really showcases your excellence in this one area.Phil Hudson:Yeah. You've given advice as well in the past that let's say you're a sitcom writer, well get really good at writing half hour single camera sitcoms that do multi, then do animated. So you stay in that genre, but you can build a portfolio within that genre to show your base. But it's different than writing violent westerns and Taylor Sheridan style.Michael Jamin:Yes. Right. I'm glad you pointed at that. So if you want to be a comedy writer, you might want a Yes. A broad you should have, should have a grounded single camera comedy, but it's all comedy. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Awesome. Andrew James jokes, do you see everything from a certain comedic viewpoint when thinking of content or writing a script,Michael Jamin:A certain comedic viewpoint? I don't remember. Not sure what that means. There's things that strike me as funny. I'm not sure if I have. I thinkPhil Hudson:For me, I think I understand this question, but I don't want to interrupt you if you have something.Michael Jamin:No, what do you think?Phil Hudson:I think what's being asked is when I was told once that I have a particular view of the world and it often is a comical view of the world. I look at the ridiculousness of bureaucracy or rules and rather than get upset, I just make fun of them or I find ways to poke holes at them. To me it's really that question. Do you have that point of view to say, this is my Mike. Judge has, I would say, has a really clear point of view and the way he does his things. Do you look at things through a certain lens?Michael Jamin:I don't know if I do. I mean, I'm sure I have a voice. I'm always interested, I guess how do I like finding things, thinking of things that are funny, but I'm not sure if I have a specific I tact that I take, sorry, I can't help them more. I got to think about that more. Do I have a point of view? I tend to think silly and stupid, but I think I'm smart. I mean, I went to college and everything, but I don't think I'm dumb, but I think my voice is sometimes of a dumb person.Phil Hudson:When I think of your voice, I think of a lot of the things you share about the way you kid with your daughters,Michael Jamin:The way I kid with my daughters.Phil Hudson:Yeah, just like you've done a couple of social media posts where you're like, it's like dad jokes, but at a different level. It's an elevated dad joke almost.Michael Jamin:Well, I'm their dad.Phil Hudson:I know, but it's like dad jokes very punny. And then yours is one step further and you've done several of these quick bites on social media that are related to your conversations with your daughters. To me, that's Michael Jamin and Comedy.Michael Jamin:Oh yeah. I love having fun with my kids. They're so funny. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Cool. And then Phyllis Hill, Phyllis was pretty active, so we got a bunch of questions from her, but they were very good. I sorted through a bunch of 'em. And this is a little bit tied to something I know we've talked about before and I just thought it was good to put on the podcast. Have streaming platforms changed story structure, the same story structure that might've been used back during the day of network TV shows?Michael Jamin:Great question. Not in a hugely significant way. The biggest thing is probably, well, there's no commercial breaks, but so what? We still break the story still the same. We just don't go to commercial. But when we break it on the whiteboard, same thing. It doesn't matter. The only difference is streamers sometimes want you to have serialized stories. So the end, they want to end on a pregnant moment where, so it's continued. So the next story picks up where the last one ended. That's sometimes what they want so that you binge, but that's kind of easy. Often you can, if you go back and watch Weeds, the show Weeds, they did that really well see, they tell a full story and then at the end the story's over. They just do a weird little thing at the end of that story. And then that story would be the beginning. That beat would be the beginning of the next story. So it's super easy in terms of breaking it. It actually makes it kind of easy. It doesn't make, it's the same kind of storytelling. You're just adding one more beat at the end.Phil Hudson:Yeah, that's awesome. I think that's a very concise answer, Michael.Michael Jamin:I get paid by Word.Phil Hudson:I love that. I was going to say Charles Duma is Alexander Duma. I don't know who Charlie Duma is, but he's probably Alexander Dumas's cousin twice divorced. Some questions about your course which come up because during the webinar you're often, one of the things, people have a chance to win your course, you get lifetime access to the course. One person wins every time, but also you give a discount to the course.Michael Jamin:Yeah, if you're listening to this, come to these free webinars that I div, we give a good discount to anyone who attendsPhil Hudson:And that opens registration for that block of enrollment. Leonard h wanted to know, will the course do anything for someone working on documentaries?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I don't know. I mean personally I think yes, but I'm not a documentary filmmaker, but I have watched documentary films where I thought this would've been better if they went through my course. They would've dove into the emotional moments that I feel. But having never made a documentary, what the hell do I know? But I have watched documentaries where I thought this was good, but it wasn't great. It didn't really move me emotionally or I should. I think that's when documentaries really work is when or anything works when you finish watching it and you're still thinking about it, you're still feeling it the next day. So I don't want to promise, but I would think it would help. ButPhil Hudson:I have taken a documentary film class as part of my film school stuff. It's honestly one of the better classes I took. It was taught by a guy named Hank who was a Sundance fellow in the documentary labs and he done multiple documentaries. That's literally, he teaches and then he and his wife shoot documentaries and manage those tons of stuff in South by Southwest, the film fest, Sundance Film Festival, all that stuff. And absolutely story structure is a very vital part of that. And you get into the cinema verte and how you're doing your documentary and the influence of structure and story, but the story structure had to be there, or no one wants to watch what you're doing,Michael Jamin:Nobody cares. So the hard part is you can't invent that. You have to hopefully capture that and then know, oh, I captured this moment. This would be a good first act break.Phil Hudson:But they're scripted there. They're scripted. You need to understand what things you need to get, what beats you want to get as you tell the story. And then it evolves out of that. You often are surprised by what you get, but then there's the paper edit you do when you go into editing where you have transcripts of all the footage and you're looking for things. And it was a little bit uncomfortable for me then and still is now. He even encouraged that it's your job to tell the best version of that story as you can. And there is no such thing as cinema verite, truth of the camera, right? Truth of the lens. You can't because the moment you're there observing it, it changes. And that's a law of physics. You observe an Adam behaves different. And so he says at the end of the day, let's say that you filmed something out of order and there's a clip that you shot two months from now, but it helps tell the story that you need to tell. He had no problem rearranging things or cutting people out of order to get the story that he needed at the end of it.Michael Jamin:So your point is the story, our course would help. That'sPhil Hudson:Your point. Absolutely. Yeah, I absolutely would help.Michael Jamin:Alright,Phil Hudson:There you go. There you go. A couple of questions from Phyllis. Please compare your class to screenwriting classes like the ones offered on Masterclass.Michael Jamin:Well, again, I haven't gone through all the ones in Masterclass. I've watched a few videos of some of the speakers. I don't know, I mean I didn't watch all of it. I don't know. I really can't say having not watched all of it. I think mine is, I would expect mine is a little more hands-on in the sense that I'm teaching you literally how we break a story in the room. I don't fill you with a lot of terms that we don't use, but Phil, have you gone through Masterclass? Yeah. Maybe you'll know better than I do.Phil Hudson:Active subscriber to Masterclass for a long time and most of them I can't get through on Masterclass including, and look, I think Aaron Sorkin's one of the most prolific author writers of our time and I love everything he puts out. ButMichael Jamin:Yeah, he's Shakespeare. He's the Shakespeare of our time.Phil Hudson:Couldn't get through it, couldn't get through his course,Michael Jamin:Couldn't get throughPhil Hudson:It. No, a lot of, and actually I can tell you this because in my agency we have a client who is getting their own masterclass right now. So I've got a little view through the window of what that platform is. And I'm not saying all platforms are like this and I don't want to be saying anything disparaging against Masterclass. I really enjoy masterclass, but the amount of content they shoot versus what you get, it's like 20% of what that person did and they're not editing it. So Masterclass does this stuff, they're in Sorkin and then what you get on the back end of that or Shonda Rogers or whoever, you get to the end of that and it's like 20% of what they talked about. It's good, but it's not the meat. It's not the meat of what you want.Michael Jamin:I've watched some, not theirs, but I felt, and I love masterclass too, I felt you got a taste of everything. You can really learn a lot about cars and cooking and it's a really great, but I felt like from what I watched, it didn't go deep enough. That's not what it is. It's a sampling. And I thought it was interesting but not helpful for some of the ones I saw. Interesting but not helpful.Phil Hudson:The most practical one was Aaron Franklin's barbecue cooking class. And I put that one to good use with my smoker because it is very much, here's how you do it, here's how you tip things, here's how you wrap meat. It's just actionable. SoMichael Jamin:If I ate meat, I'd come over and make me a nice smoked dinner, but I don't,Phil Hudson:You'd be very happy.Michael Jamin:I'd probably start sweating.Phil Hudson:I'll meat sweats. Yeah, I'll make you some nice broccolini. How about that?Michael Jamin:Yeah, that'd be nice.Phil Hudson:Alright, and then just another question from Phyllis, and I think this is more broad about you and what you're doing for people online in the webinars with the course, everything. What is your motivation to offer this assistance other than money?Michael Jamin:Oh, well, when I broke into the business, this is back in the nineties, this was before the internet and I was living in New York. I knew nothing about the industry. I knew nothing. I knew no one, how would I know anything? So I just got in my car and I drove to LA thinking well get close. But now because the internet, social media, you can talk to people like me and get so much information for free and what a gift. And so I know people say it's impossible to break into Hollywood. Yeah, yes, it's hard, but it's even harder if you don't even know where to begin if you don't have these resources. But now I started building my social media profile back a little over two years ago as a way of building my platform so that I have a book that's coming out so that I could platform my agents has platform drives acquisition. I need a following to sell my book to perform and do all these things that I wanted to do. And so the way to build this platform was by just talking about what I know and giving 90% of it away for free. The other 10% is in this course that we have and that'sPhil Hudson:It. I a call from Michael and I was doing runs for Tacoma FD like season two or something. And you called me and you're like, Hey man, can you come over? I want run some stuff by you. I know many people know this, but some people don't. I know you through working at a digital marketing agency where I assisted your wife's e-commerce website and just worked for her for a couple of years doing whatever I could to take care of her. She'd been ripped off by the sales guy who sold her some stuff that we couldn't do and I had no idea who you were or what you guys did. And then one day you were going to join and it kind of put it together and you guys were just very kind and have always been kind to share your knowledge with me, but well,Michael Jamin:You started it. You started it by being kind first. Let's be clear.Phil Hudson:It was the right thing to do, right? It's a principle thing, which is very important. And at the end of the day, you called me over because I have that experience, that skillset, and we just had a sit down in your garage and you broke your Adirondack chair and then you told me that it wasMichael Jamin:Already broken. Broken, it was already broken,Phil Hudson:Was a big guy. I was sweating that once. I had to buy you a director's chair to replaceMichael Jamin:It.Phil Hudson:But anyway, we talked about this, what do you need to do? And I was like, finally, because I've been begging you for years to do this course and to put your stuff out there just because the private email lessons and the conversations we had were so incredibly valuable to me. And I was in flu school at the time and getting more value out of an email you'd send me over a weekend than I was getting in a week of lectures at that school.This is how you do what you need to do to sell your book and here's how you give. And the mantra of any good digital marketing platform is give, give, give, right, give, give, give. And there's an ask. There's always a right for an ask in there as well, because you are giving, and we talked about the course and you were very clear, I don't want to, you feel sleazy selling things. You don't want to do that you're, you're a writer, you're not a guy who does this. You're not pretending to be the answer to all things. And I said, but people will value what you have and they have to pay for it to value it. So I'm the one who pushed it. I'm the one who pushed the price and you've reduced the price over and over again because you just want to make sure that it's getting as many people as it can.You do, A lot of people don't know this. You offer basically free financing through yourself. People can sign up for the course on a three month plan, a six month plan, or pay in full and you don't bill 'em any interest. And there are plenty of ways for us to get interest off of people or get people to pay interest and that's just from my perspective, it's 100% honestly. How can I serve as many people as possible so that I can get this passion project of my book speaking as you to as many people as I can.Michael Jamin:Yeah, there you go. You answered it. Well, Phil, I think you said it better than I did.Phil Hudson:I'm growing long-winded in my as I wax old.Michael Jamin:Wax old.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Alright, cool. Now to the meat of the episode for the webinar was about breaking in and so there's some really good stuff here and so I know we'll be quick on some of this, but if you want, this full webinar broadcast is available for purchase as well on your website. It's like 29 bucks and it's lifetime access and they can watch the whole episode of this webinar.Michael Jamin:Yeah, go get it.Phil Hudson:Yeah, but Valerie Taylor, so once the script is done, what does it mean to build the mountain? What does the work have to do? And that's reference to a podcast episode we did recently that a lot of people really liked, which is Build Your Mountain.Michael Jamin:There are people doing this. I didn't come up with this idea. There are people on social media, content creators who are just putting their out there and because it's really good they're building a following. I dunno if that was their intention in the beginning, but that's what they've done. One I always mention is Sarah Cooper, I wish she would do my podcast. So have you reachedPhil Hudson:Interesting?Michael Jamin:I tagged her on something, but she's busy. She's busy, but I'm a huge fan of hers. So she's this vicious woman, young actress who as far as I can tell she couldn't get arrested in New York City. She just started during the pandemic posting kind of funny lip syncs of Donald Trump, but she wasn't just lip-syncing, was plusing it. She was adding her own comedy to it and her own reactions and it was really, she was great and she's just doing this and she wants to be an actor and a writer, but she's doing this and she was so great at it. She built a giant following and because this following people discovered her and because of that she gets, I think she got a Netflix special. She got a pilot out of it and where the pilot, she can write her own stuff now. I think some of the projects never went to air, but she sold it. She made a name for herself and she will continue making a name for herself because she built it first. She wasn't begging people for opportunities. It's the other way around. She started doing it and then because she was so good at it, people came after her. People started begging her.And you don't have to, and I think maybe Phil, we might even do a whole, I may save some of this information from our next webinar. I want talk. Yeah, I'm going to save, but I have more thoughts to this I I'll put in our next free webinar. Write. Write. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Can't wait. Oh, by the way, Michael puts a month worth of effort into writing every webinar. I see the revisions and I'm always like, Michael, I need this so I can make the workbook. Michael, I need this. And he's still editing. So Hayden, Sears, earlier you said to bring more to the table of an agency than a script. What else should I bring to the table?Michael Jamin:You could do what I just said with Sarah Cooper. She brought a huge following. She brought, you could bring talent, you could bring a movie that you launched, finance that you did yourself at Sundance that got accolades and now you're this hot new director or writer or whatever. That's bringing more to the table than saying, Hey, pick me. You're doing it already. You are already doing it. You're proving that you know how to do it. And people don't do it because it's work or they think it's too expensive. But I have to say, it's not the money that's holding you back. The money. You can raise $10,000 or $15,000. I know it's not nothing but it. We're not talking about a million dollars, we're talking about 10,000. You can raise it on a Kickstarter, you can raise it on a bake sale and you can shoot the damn thing on your phone and you can edit it on your phone.You just need good sound. That's what I recommend. But you don't need great locations. You can shoot the thing one, I always mention this, Phil is the whale, the movie The Whale, which is based on a play that was shot in an apartment. So don't tell me you need to have great locations to make something amazing. It was shot in a dumpy apartment and one of the most, it was a beautiful story. Beautiful. It was all because the writing, the writing was excellent and because the writing was X, it was able to attract great actors and the acting rose to the writing. If the writing was no good, who cares what the acting is?Phil Hudson:Yep. Cynthia always said that in our classes with Jill, your interacting classes, the writers put it on the page. Everything in actor needs to know is on the page. That's where the performance comes from.Michael Jamin:If it's a good script, yeah.Phil Hudson:Awesome. The cinema magician with the strike going on from both the writers and the actors now it feels like it wouldn't be fair trying to come get work this moment. How can I try to try for work and support the union?Michael Jamin:You shouldn't. You should not try to work. I mean, you don't go on any guild sag projects or guild projects, but you could do, if it's a non sag project, like a student film or something, you can do that. You're not violating anything. You're not getting paid. SoPhil Hudson:Build your network.Michael Jamin:Build your network. Exactly. Or make your own stuff. If you write your own mini scene or movie or whatever and you shoot it on your phone, you're not breaking any strikes. You're not selling it. You're just shooting it.Phil Hudson:Yep. Awesome. Love Leanne. Who is a member of your course, how should we speak to writers and other filmmakers on the picket lines? I've seen others not doing it very well and I'm kind of afraid to speak.Michael Jamin:Oh, well that's hard. I mean, all you got to do is don't act like you want something from them. Just act like you want to learn from them. Hey, tell me about your story. Tell me how did you start? How did you break in? What kind of shows do you like to write? What inspires you? Pretend like they're a guest on your radio show or your podcast. Interview them. We don't want anything from them. You're just curious to get their story. People will talk.Phil Hudson:Yeah, they definitely will. And when I've gone out and done picketing, it's really interesting. I don't talk to people, I'm just, who are you? Tell me about you. What are you doing here? Why are you here? What are you doing out on the picket line? Cool. Are you in industry? Breaking in the industry? Oh great. Oh, cool. You worked on that show. I love that show. Awesome. And then they ask you questions too, because walking in circles for hoursMichael Jamin:And you're a human being and they're going to make conversation. The conversation will eventually turn around to you and then you can talk about yourself.Phil Hudson:Have you noticed the people who put up their YouTube channel and stuff on flyers on the poles and stuff in the corners?Michael Jamin:No. I have not seen that. I have promoting their own channel.Phil Hudson:It feels a little skeezy to me. Personal. I'mMichael Jamin:Not. The problem is no one's looking at him anyway, so Yeah.Phil Hudson:Yeah, you haven't noticed. And when I see 'em, I'm just like, ah, man's. I don't know. That's the way to do that. You're basically saying, look at me. Look at me. Instead of being there, walking on the picket lines, talking to people and putting in effort to fight for the same things they're fightingMichael Jamin:For. Yeah. You don't have to promote yourself.Phil Hudson:Alright, Norville, scss. Does the strike lead to an increasing demand for scripts?Michael Jamin:Well, when the strike is over, there will be, everyone will flood the market with their scripts and that's just the way it is. SoPhil Hudson:Yeah. Demand, but also supply because all of these writers have time to write.Michael Jamin:Yeah, right.Phil Hudson:Antonia, Roman. Hey, Michael, met you yesterday on the picket. I appreciate your insight. How many script feedback reads should someone actually pay for? Sometimes the feedbacks contradict each other.Michael Jamin:Thanks. Oh, Phil, IPhil Hudson:Know.Michael Jamin:Here we go.Phil Hudson:My purpose. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Many. If you're paying in one of these services and maybe it's like 150 bucks for one of these services, you're going to get who you get who's reading the script other than it's someone who works at the service, they don't know more than you do. They just work there and they're making whatever, 20 bucks an hour or maybe less to read script after script. What's their qualifications beats the hell out of me. Other than the fact that they're working there and they're not industry deciders. They're not like they don't have jobs in SC screenwriting. If they did, they would be doing that. So a service, I'd pay nothing, because that's why you're going to get contradictory feedback. What do they know? They don't know more than you. If you can find a writer with experience, and there are writers who will do this as a freelance thing, check out their credits, go on their I M D B, what have they written? Ask to see their work. What have they read their work? Do you like their work? And if you do, then yes, then your feedback could be valuable. But I would never go through a service.Phil Hudson:Yep. We did talk about this where I sent Michael, I paid for feedback from some of these services on your behalf, listener to the podcast. And then I shared the emails back and forth from them, the reviews as well as when I questioned the validity of the feedback I received from them. I sent Michael those. And I think the feedback from the service was way more infuriatingMichael Jamin:Than the Yeah, it just made you mad. It made you feel like you got ripped off. Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creativeTypes. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Ruth W should emerging rider approach breaking in differently than before, given the strike, are there any new approaches that should be considered? Thanks?Michael Jamin:I don't think, wait for the strike to end before you think about breaking in, but the landscape has changed so much with social media that you don't need anyone's permission. I just talked about this. You don't need anyone's permission to write and build up your brand. I'm not doing it. I'm not waiting for anyone's permission. I don't know why anybody else would. I have a good podcast guest this week? Well, I dunno when you're going to hear this Mike Sacks, go listen to him. See, he's an author and he talks about that himself. He has sold books to publishers and he's also indie published it himself and he makes a really strong case for just doing it yourself. And he's done both. And he's an editor at Vanity Fair. So the guy knows how to write.Phil Hudson:Yeah, yeah. Also, definitely don't try breaking him right now. They're very clear rules that the writer's guilds come out and said, if you even have meetings with producers, that is an act of crossing a picket line.Michael Jamin:No, I'm not talking to my agent, I'm not talking to producers. I'm not doing any of this. YouPhil Hudson:Mean they will literally forbid you from joining the guild. So any short term win now is basically a nail in the coffin of your career later and as it should be, Susan Mark, when you get the low paying non-union screenwriting gigs over and over, how do you move from that into network shows with four question marks?Michael Jamin:The fact that you're getting these jobs to begin with are great, even if they're non-union. So good for you. I mean, this is where if these movies are doing or shows are doing well and if they're well received and if they're written well, and this is what you show to an agent and you say, here's my body of work and here's a movie I did that it cost 10,000 to make, and the return on it was a hundred thousand. That's impressive. So that's how you can parlay that into bigger opportunities. But the problem is, if you're doing this work and the work isn't coming out good, it still has to be good. It has to be good. And people have, it has to have be one or the other critically well-received or makes a lot of money. It has to be a financial success. One or both. One or the other or both.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Roxanna Black Sea. How do you get over feeling guilty asking a friend or a mentor for a referral and how do you know you're ready and not wasting their time? This is a good one. I might as well wrote this, Michael.Michael Jamin:Well, if you have a friend who's in the industry, I dunno if they're in the industry or not, but you only have one chance to impress them. And if you give them something that's not great, it's a big ask. Hey, sit down and read this. It's going to take them an hour and a half or whatever. And if it's not great, they're not going to want to do it again. They'll do a favor once, but they won't do it again. So there's that. The get over the guilt. Well, if you've giving them a giant gift, you shouldn't feel guilty If it's giving 'em a piece of shit, well, you're going to feel guilty, but you just need to know what it is you're giving them.Phil Hudson:That takes a lot of introspection and a lot of self-analysis. I would also say it takes a lot of practice and study of existing high quality works to compare yourself.Michael Jamin:Yeah, high quality. That's the thing, Phil, if you're watching some crappy TV show and you go, well, I can write a crappy TV show that's not the barPhil Hudson:Crap. Plus one that's been around for since the a o l days crap plus one is I can do one better than that. It's not good enough. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Not good enough.Phil Hudson:Alright, Ruth w again, if you know an established riders working on a new project that you have happen to have particular rare knowledge on, is it appropriate to contact that rider even to work for free? And then there's a follow-up to this.Michael Jamin:Well, if they're on a show and you have particular knowledge, they're not going to let you work for free. You can't work for free. But you can share your knowledge and I don't know, it always, you can share your knowledge, but no one's, you're not allowed to work for free. So I don't know what if they're going to offer you a job or not,Phil Hudson:But is it okay to reach out to them?Michael Jamin:Why not? What's the harm? Yeah.Phil Hudson:I think the benefit of that is you are going in to say, Hey, I saw you're doing this. I happen to be a subject matter expert on that. Anything you want to ask me, I'm happy to go over with you and bring out any insights you want. You are now serving that person. You're not coming in and say, give me a job, give me a job. And you might hop on a zoom with them and have an intro. Now you've got a foot in the door to have an extended conversation as someone, and you've provided value to that person.Michael Jamin:Right. Then you're right. You're not asking for anything in return, but people tend to give things back when people give first.Phil Hudson:Yep. And the follow up question, is it okay to contact an agent to get the contact information for that rider that you would like to help for free?Michael Jamin:So you don't know this person. Yeah, you, the agent's not going to do anything with it. I would doubt they're going to do anything with it. You could reach out to them on LinkedIn, maybe you could tweet that.Phil Hudson:This might be a good time to slide into the dms. Right. And because you're not asking, you're providing valueMichael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Expect them not to reply.Michael Jamin:Right. Expect 'em not to reply. And it's because you, maybe they get too many solicitations or maybe it's just they find it weird. It's worth a shot.Phil Hudson:It also might just be that they don't have time to look at their social media, which is very real. Don't read into it. Just shoot your shot. Move on.Michael Jamin:Yeah, right. Don't wait. Don't hold your breath. Shoot your shot and keep shooting your shot. Keep working on yourself. Yep.Phil Hudson:Genova, is there anything we need to be wary of when approaching smaller agencies with our scripts so we don't get screwed?Michael Jamin:Well, the agencies, first of all, don't approach any agency that's going to charge you for to represent you. That's no legit agents work on commission. Now the big ones are not going to represent you. You have to reach out to smaller ones who are soliciting clients. I wouldn't expect an agent to, I wouldn't expect them to rip you off. That's not what they do. They're going to represent you and try to sell you. The agents are not producers, they're not screenwriters. So to me it's safe. But again, I don't give legal advice if you have to do what's comfortable for you personally, I don't worry about that. That's not something I worry about.Phil Hudson:And you started at a smaller agency that some could say screwed you, but I don't know that you see it that way, right? Because you got hip pocketed basically as a baby writer.Michael Jamin:They didn't screw me, they just didn't do anything.Phil Hudson:That's saying they didn't screw you. But some people might say they screwed you because they didn't do anything.Michael Jamin:Oh yeah. But they didn't steal anything from me. They just didn't help my career any.Phil Hudson:Yeah, and we talked about that in some of the early podcasts. If you want to go back and listen to those. I think it was the agents and manager episode is like episode five or something.Michael Jamin:SoPhil Hudson:95 something episodes ago. It'sMichael Jamin:Great. Yeah. You remember this stuff.Phil Hudson:Shem L. Do you think New York and LA are still the places to make it?Michael Jamin:No. I think LA is the place to make it. Take New York off the list. Where is Hollywood? This is a trivia question. Find it on the map. Hint, it's in Los Angeles. I understand that some television production or film production is done in New York. Some Where's the writing done? The writing's done in la. Same thing with Georgia or New Mexico. Sometimes they shoot things there for tax breaks, but the writing is almost always done in LA and even if some writing is done in these smaller cities, okay, fine, maybe you'll get incredibly lucky, but you're not going to be able to sustain a career there. The career's here, that's how I feel.Phil Hudson:All right. And Jill Hargrave. I'm a senior writer, 76 years old, transition from decades as a documentary producer to screenwriter. I have an agent and I'm in the news division with the W G A East. Any advice on how to get read by execs?Michael Jamin:I'm looking for, so she's a news writer.Phil Hudson:Sounds like she's a writer in the news division for the W G A East. She has decades of experience being a producer in documentary film. She has an agent advice on how to get executives to read your stuff.Michael Jamin:Sorry. Yeah, so you're in the same boat as everyone else. I don't think you got a leg up. You sound like you're very competent news producer, but you might as well be an orthodontist. It's a different kind of writing, but shePhil Hudson:Has an agent.Michael Jamin:Ask your agent. I suspect your agent's not going to give a crap. Your agent is able to get you news jobs. That's what you are and that's what you bring value to them. But they're not interested in you starting your career over from zero. My friend Rob Cohen talked about this in one of our podcasts. He was a very successful sitcom writer, wrote on a bunch of shows including The Simpsons, including Just Shoot Me where I was on maybe 20 or so years into his career as a TV writer, very successful TV writer. I ran into him and he's like, I want to be a director now. I want to direct TV and film. I thought, well, how are you going to do that? He goes, I don't know, but I'm going to make it happen. I said, well, is your agent helping you at all?No, the agent's not going to help me one bit, even though he's a successful TV writer because it's a different thing. It's directing. They don't want to sell 'em as that. They can sell 'em as a TV writer, but not as a director. So unfortunately, you're going to have to start over. You milk whatever context you have. Maybe your agent can set you up with a referral with another agent at their agency that they should be able to do. But at the end of the day, you unfortunately have to make your career. They're not going to make your career for youPhil Hudson:If they have an agent because they have some screenplay sample that they've submitted. My guess would be that that's when your agent would show those. When we're not on a strike, they'd take your samples and try to sell those things to people that get you staffed and they're going to do that job for you. But it sounds like through the question that you're right, Michael, that's not a writing agent in this space. It's documented or a new set,Michael Jamin:But talk to them, maybe get some tips. I mean, again, I've tried to do the same thing myself. My agents, I have big agents and manager. They don't give a crap unless I can make money for them today in my field. They don't really care.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Awesome. Ruth w this is miscellaneous. I've got three more questions here. Excuse me for, is there any value in getting an entertainment lawyer? Does this confer any legitimacy when trying to get people to read your script? Or is it just a waste of money and Yeah, there's some follow-up to this. We'll get to that.Michael Jamin:So no, an entertainment attorney is the best money I spend. My attorney takes 5% of all the deals that I make and they help negotiate these deals. Money well spent, but it's only when I'm negotiating a deal, that's when they get paid. They get a commission. I would never pay an entertainment attorney upfront. It doesn't help you make a deal. It doesn't help you look more important. You're just going to pay them a lot of money out of pocket for no reason. Attorneys are there to help you negotiate the deal and read the fine print so you don't get screwed. That's what they help you do, but you don't pay one upfront for any. As far as I know, I would never pay one upfront.Phil Hudson:I've had two in my career and the first one didn't do a lot. This one, and we worked with him on some stuff today, actually. You and I were going over some tree mark stuff with him. But anyway, he is great and he comes at it from the perspective of that, which is, my job is to protect you and I can be the bad guy. I can go fight the fight for you to get you what you want. And you can say, Hey man, that's just what my lawyer does. You're going to have to take that up with my attorney. And we talked in the podcast about this recent experience I had where he wrote this contract and the guy signed it and he ended up protecting my butt because he put a clause in that said nothing was executable until it was paid. Money was delivered.And so because this guy never exchanged money, he only talked about exchanging money. I'm not obligated to do anything for this guy. And had I walked into that, I probably would've just signed something and not had the foresight to have that. He also had it paid in steps. So above and beyond the WJ minimums, he structured it. So I'd get paid more money upfront like you want money in your pocket? And he deals with Sony and major country musicians. He's a real proper entertainment attorney. Incredibly valuable. And it looks like he answered honestly the question, what's the difference between an agent who's going to get 10%? What's a lawyer do? What's the difference? And the answer is the agent basically books the deal. The attorney gets you the most money they can out of that deal,Michael Jamin:And the agent's not going to read the contract. They don't read contract. They're not lawyers. They don't deal with that. So you need an attorney.Phil Hudson:Love it. Goddard Fin, any insight on getting a preliminary budget done by someone or a company like Mike Binder's, budget company? I'm assuming is this for an indie project?Michael Jamin:I never heard of that and I wouldn't know.Phil Hudson:Or it's a preliminary budget on a script.Michael Jamin:I thought he was an actor. Michael Binder. I thought he was an actor. I don't even know. I've never even heard of this, so I can't even answer.Phil Hudson:My feeling is, from what I understand from this question is there's zero value added to your script when you go to pitch your story by telling them, this is the budget I got for thisMichael Jamin:For somebody. No, they'll tell you the budget if that's what that is. It's interesting. Yeah. I thought maybe this is for indies. No, when you saw the MoVI, they'll tell you what the budget is. It is their money. You don't tell them what the budget is. They tell you.Phil Hudson:And the answer is in the indie film, if it is, that is you're going to scrounge with every dollar you can get, and then you're going to make what you can with the budget you got. And that's what a line producer does for you. And they basically manage the contracts and make sure your people get paid. And you don't go over budget and you can finish your project and they'll tell you, Hey, you can't do that. You don't have the money to do that.Michael Jamin:Right.Phil Hudson:Cool. Ruth w with another, one of the reasons I am reticent to fill my own stuff is because I don't have any money to pay actors. Is it okay to ask them to work for free?Michael Jamin:You can often, actors will do this just to have tape so that they can submit themselves. But the work has to be good. You're not going to, the better the script is, the easier it is to attract actors and better actors. And if it's a great script, they'll fall over themselves for to do this. So you ask them to do it for free. Definitely. You don't want to abuse them. You want to make sure, buy them pizza, buy them lunch, make sure there's water on set. Take care of them. That's the least you can do.Phil Hudson:Yeah. And people will absolutely do that. There's also, if you're a student, you can also look into sag, SAG after student agreements, which probably you might even still be able to do that during the strike. It's not really a paid project, but they have agreements that you can work with SAG qualified actors and you have to abide by those terms if they are a SAG actor. But you can get them in your projects I did in film school.Michael Jamin:Right. Okay.Phil Hudson:Last question. As a showrunner, do you direct episodes two or just focus on running the showMichael Jamin:As a showrunner? I have, but I'm not in animation. I direct the actors for sure to get the performances out of them. But in live action, I've only directed one. That's not my job. But my job is to be on set and to make sure I'm getting the shots that I want and to get the performances that I want. Ultimately in film, I'm sorry, tv, the director works for the showrunner. So on tv, the showrunner's in charge, in film the other way around, it's the director's in charge. The writer is nothing. So does that answer your question? I think it does. Yeah.Phil Hudson:I think it just for you specifically, what do you do? But I do know showrunners who do direct on Taco fd. Yeah, Kevin. Kevin and Steve. They split 'em up and they direct certain episodes. They also,Michael Jamin:Those guys are tireless.Phil Hudson:Tireless. Yeah. I dunno how they do. I toured with them for a press tour and I was exhausted and they were just still going and happy to go. And I get emails from 'em at two, three in the morning and they're just going, ohMichael Jamin:God.Phil Hudson:Oh God. But that's how they made their career. I mean, this just ties it all together for Michael. Make it happen. Put in the effort. Those guys made their own things happen. They have shows their names and you know 'em because they put in the work. Had they not done that, they wouldn't be anywhere.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Cool. Michael, anything else you want to add?Michael Jamin:That's it. We did it, Phil. Yeah, we did it.Phil Hudson:So things people need to know. Michael, you got tons of free stuff. You talked about free samples of work, of writing.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I do free work too. I do free work here. We got a lot of free stuff we give away anyway on my website. If you go to michaeljamin.com, you can get sample scripts that I've written. You can get a free lesson that I've planned about story. You can sign up for my free webinars, which are every three weeks, which Phil helps me out with. You can come see me tour on one of my book drops, a paper orchestra. You can sign up for all of that and much, much more. And also, of course we have a course but that you got to pay for. But you know what it's worth. Every penny.Phil Hudson:Yeah, that's right. And again, get a discount when you come to the webinar.Michael Jamin:Nice. Nice discount. Don't tell anyone.Phil Hudson:And you could win a free access.Michael Jamin:Oh, you can win it. Yeah, you can win it.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Michael, thank you so much. Oh,Michael Jamin:And my newsletter. Phil, you can get on my free newsletter. I got that. Always forgetPhil Hudson:That. We also forget that that list is 30,000 deep or something like that right now. That's a good lists of people. That and industry, double industry open rates. People really like that list, that content.Michael Jamin:Yeah. The people like that. So sign up for my list.Phil Hudson:Be like the masses, be sheep. People join us.Michael Jamin:Okay, everyone, thank you so much. Until next week. Keep writing, right, Phil, fill that up.Phil Hudson:That is Wright, w r i t e. Right.Michael Jamin:Okay. Alright. Thanks guys.Phil Hudson:This has been an episode of Screenwriters Need to Hear this with Michael Jamin and Phil Hudson. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for Michael's monthly webinar@michaeljamin.com/webinar. If you found this podcast helpful, consider sharing it with a friend and leaving us a five star review on iTunes. For free screenwriting tips, follow Michael Jamin on social media @Michael Jaminwriter. You can follow Phil Hudson on social media @PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane Music, by Ken Joseph. Until next time, keep writing.

On this week's episode, Writer/Executive Producer Alex Berger (Blindspot, Glen Martin D.D.S, Quantum Leap, and many many more) talks about his writing career, thoughts on breaking into the industry as well as his experiences taking a "Showrunners Course" through the studios.STORY NOTESAlex Berger on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1584238/Alex Berger on Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexbergerla?lang=enFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPTAlex Berger:They said, when you're interviewing a director, ask if you're the showrunner and you're interviewing somebody who's coming in to do an episode of your show, ask the director, do you cook? And if so, are you a person who uses a recipe or do you like to improvise? And there's no right answer to that, right? But if you cook and you're the person who is going to measure out the exact number of grams of flour and the exact number of grams of sugar, that's kind of how you're going to approach directing. If you're going to come in with a shot list, you're going to be going to stay on time. You're going to make sure that you move the set along. And if you're the person who likes to kind throw a little salt to throw a little sugar, you might be a little more improvisational on say you might be a little more, more. There's little things like that that you're going to how to dig in on this with those. NowMichael Jamin:You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.Hey everyone. Welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. Michael Jamin here. I have another wonderful guest today and this guest, we're going to talk about drama writing because he works primarily in drama and his story is fascinating how he broke in. And we're going to get to please welcome Mr. Alex Berger and he's worked on Alex. Let me introduce people to some of your amazing credits here and you can fill in in, I'm just going to go for some of the highlights. Well, I know you did Kil, you co-created Glen Martin d d s, which is the show. My partner ran Covert Affairs, the Assets Franklin and Bash the Mentalist Blind Spot. And currently you are a writer on Quantum Leap, so you got a lot of drama. Burger. Welcome, welcome to the podcast.Alex Berger:Thank you so much for having me. It's, it's good to be here. I've been enjoying listening to it.Michael Jamin:Oh man, I'm so happy you're doing this. Let's talk. Let's start from the beginning because I think it was so interesting about your background. So many people say, how do I get a showrunner attached to sell my show? And you kind of sold your show, your show, Glen Martin, d d s. You were pretty new to the scene and then you got a show on the air without much experience. So how did that happen?Alex Berger:Yeah, I'd been out here for probably five or six years and I'd had a couple of staff jobs. I'd had a job doing a sort of comedy variety show before that. That was a very sort of small potatoes thing. But that came about because Steve Cohen Cohen, who I know you've talked about before, was a friend of mine and had mentioned this idea that Michael Eisner had for a long time about a family who traveled the country in an rv and they had writers attached for a long time. Tim and Eric of Tim and Eric Show were attached to write the thing.Michael Jamin:I didn't know any of this.Alex Berger:They got a 60 episode order on their other show, and so they had to back out. And so Steve would come in and pitch a take. So I came in and I pitched a take, and Michael Eisner, who had just left basically running Hollywood, he was running, Disney had just started a company, and he had just had larynx surgery, so he couldn't talk. So every time I pitched something, he had to write his response on a computer, which was fun, but a little challenging.Michael Jamin:But what was the idea, how much, when you pitched your take, what did they give you?Alex Berger:He had said Family lives in an rv. Basically it travels the country and animation. And he had more than that. I mean, it is been almost 20 years, so I've forgotten. But he definitely had a real idea. He'd had this idea for 30 or 40 years that he'd wanted to do over the years at Disney and he wasn't able to do it. So he had a pretty formed idea of what he wanted the show to be. ButMichael Jamin:Was it dentist you came up with that throughAlex Berger:Development? I mean, that was sort of like Steve and I, Steve became sort of a, and it was almost like an incubator instead of a typical situation in which I would come in and pitch a show, he kind of brainstormed with me and created the ideas with me, and we kind of toyed with a couple of different versions of it and came up with the idea of him being, why is he on the road and what's he driving in? And came up with the idea of a dentist that was in his mobile dentistry unit and sort of built some of the characters around that. And it kind of kept getting added to,Michael Jamin:Because all that stuff became comedy gold throughout the seasons. We were like, what kind of idiot has a dental car? Who does he think, what kind of clients? How does that work? And it all became fodder for the show,Alex Berger:For the circus at one point. And it was doing dental work on animals, if I remember correctly. But it was definitely, I didn't think I'd seen that before. So that was kind of one of the things that was fun to explore.Michael Jamin:And so you came up with all the, well, at least the dynamics for the characters, because what I remember, we watched the, I dunno if it was a pilot or presentation that you saw, but yeah, the characters you invented were funny. You had the dumb kid, he had the daughter and she had an assistant, which we hadn't seen that before.Alex Berger:It was definitely even more than other experiences I've had in development, very much a team effort. And then we had sort of come up with a script, and then I think you had Eric Fogle on the show before, and Eric came on and was also sort of added his vision both in terms of look and feel and tone and story, and was digging in with us. And then Michael on his own, paid for an eight minute pilot presentation. So they made an eight minute stop motion, basically the first act of the show. And he took it downtown and took it everywhere. And we ended up setting it up at Nick at night with this 20 episode order. And I think that's when you guys sort of made the picture, right?Michael Jamin:So you started, I'm curious. It's funny how I never even asked you about this. So at that point you had to meet showrunners for a show you created, which we're going to talk about a second. Did you meet a lot of showrunners?Alex Berger:I met none of the showrunners. I met you guys after you'd been hired.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? I wonder how many they had. SoAlex Berger:The tote system was, they wanted to sort of make that decision. And so they met with showrunners and had decided they were very much immediately captivated by you guys and were really excited about, and I don't think it was a pretty quick decision. And then they had me come to meet you guys.Michael Jamin:Now the thing is, I imagine you were very easy to work with and to your great credit, I always felt like you just turned over the keys and it was like, okay, here you go. And it was never an ego thing if you, but was it difficult though for you?Alex Berger:I mean, I can give you the answer that I was thinking at the time, and I can give you the answer that I have in retrospect. I think at the time I felt like, I don't know. It's a good question. Let me give you the answer in retrospect first, which is in retrospect, I know that I was inexperienced to know, especially about comedy writing a lot and certainly about running a show. I think at the time I was very happy for you guys to come in and run it. And exactly as you said, take the keys. I think that I felt intimidated because it was a room full of really seasoned comedy writers. I knew I was one of the least experienced writers on the show, and yet my name was on the show. So it was a kind of a weird game. It's not like a typical situation in which a more experienced writer comes in, but they've never run a show.So they pair them with a show runner and then they're really a triumvirate or something. I definitely felt like experience wise and sort of comedy chops wise, I was with folks who'd broken 2, 3, 400 episodes of cool sitcoms that I really admired. So I felt like I wanted to contribute from a character and comedy perspective as much as I could, but I also felt like I was learning on the fly that I had my name on. So it was definitely tricky to sort of figure that out. But you guys were great about never feeling like you were stepping on toes, and you always would consult with me, especially at the beginning, but it was very clear that it was your show, but it was also that you wanted me to sort be on board with what we were doing.Michael Jamin:And I mean, it was a fun room. I mean, maybe I shouldn't speak for you. I thought it was a fun room. Yeah,Alex Berger:Yeah, it was great. I mean, it was like I'd never been in a sitcom room before. I mean, I've been in a couple of drama rooms as an assistant and a writer, and those rooms are more buttoned up and a little more like, let's come in at 10 and start talking about the story at 10 15. And there's definitely bits and sort of digressions, but a comedy room has a certain energy that you can't replicate. And it was really fun to be in that room. And I've been in rooms that are a little bit like that since, but never anything that was, I laughed quite so much, just had it.Michael Jamin:I was going to ask you about that, right? I haven't worked in any, we've done dark comedy, but never drama. And so I'm curious, you've done a lot of drama. So are the rooms, are they really what you're saying? Are they buttoned up? Are they sur because it's still a creative shop?Alex Berger:It's fun. I would say this is based on a very small sample size of my two years in Glen Martin. And then just listening to comedy writers talk, I think comedy writers find the genius through procrastination. I think that it takes the tangent sometimes to get you to the gold. And I know you guys, especially more than other comedy writers I've known, were very focused on story structure. I know from your time with Greg Daniels and Seaver had bought a book at the mall,And it was very important to you that the story felt like it had load-bearing walls, but it did feel like more free flowing and there were room bits and there was a whole sitcom inside that room of three characters, both people in the room and people we were looking out the window at. So that's definitely different than other shows I've been on, other shows I've been on, it's a little more like, all right, let's get to work. And especially these days with room hours have gotten shorter and so on less. And I've been in Zoom rooms for the last couple of years, so it's even less of a roomMichael Jamin:Basic. Oh, so gotten, haven't gotten, your last rooms haven't been in person either. YouAlex Berger:Haven't? Yeah, I've been in three Zoom rooms since the pandemic.Michael Jamin:It's funny you mentioned because comedy rooms have room bits and our offices were on Beverly Hills and Big glamorous street in Beverly Hills. We would look out the window, and you're right, we would create stories when we weren't making stories for the tv, we were making stories for the regular characters that we would see outside our windows.Alex Berger:Yeah, I mean truly. I know you had Brian and Steve and a couple of other people from the show on. I have not laughed that hard in a room.It was a blast. And I also think there's value to it creatively. It's not wasted time. I think it's just a different way of getting to the process. I remember hearing once of, I can't remember which one, it was a Simpsons writer who would be on draft. He had two weeks to write his draft, and he would past around the fox lot for 12 days and then write the draft in the last two days. And someone asked him, why don't you just write the draft for the first two days and then be done? And he said, because I need those 12 days of pacing to get me to the last two days. And I think copywriter are more prone to that kind of way of thinking. I think.Michael Jamin:See, see, I don't remember that way always. I always get nervous when that story's not broken. I always want to crack the whip seavers more. Like that's, but to me, I was always,Alex Berger:When you were in the room, it was more like, let's stay on story. And when see, it was a little more. And then when you guys were both out of the room, it was even more free flowing, which is not to say that all of the eps weren't trying to keep us on story, but its like it's was a silly show about silly characters and absurd, every premise of every episode had a massive degree of absurdity to it. And so you wouldn't be too serious in a room like that, or you wouldn't be ready to make that kind of show. I mean, at least that was my take on it.Michael Jamin:I would describe that as a writer's show. It was always about what made us laugh and not the 15 year old kids who shouldn't be watching or the 10 year old kids. I knowAlex Berger:It was either Brian or Steve who said it was a show with a demographic of nobody.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Alex Berger:The demographic of the 15 people in that room for sure. We all really enjoyed watch them. They're all really funny. They'reMichael Jamin:Funny.Alex Berger:It was on the wrong network.Michael Jamin:Oh, for sure. Steve and I were horsing around procrastinating on some work we were doing, and for some reason we stumbled on, maybe it was some guy's YouTube channel where he was talking about Glen Martin and this guy nailed it. It was like he was in the room. I don't know how he knew every, it seemed like he knew where we messed up. He knew where we got it. Right. I was justAlex Berger:Amazed. I saw that video and I was like, I can't believe somebody watched the show. I thought that literally, I could not imagine that this guy was that deep into the show.Michael Jamin:Oh no. I get a lot of comments on social media like, oh my God, you ruined my childhood. Really? Like you gave me nightmares.Alex Berger:My wife's cousin is like 25 or 26, and he's dating a girl. And on the second date, he asked her what your favorite shows are. And the second show she said was Glen Martin, d d s. And when he said, oh, my wife's cousin wrote that show, she was instantly smid with him. She gave him so much gr.Michael Jamin:Oh, that's so funny. I mean, it was a wild show, man. Too bad. That was a shame. We were going to spin it off too. We all, oh yeah,Alex Berger:Stone spin off right behind. OhMichael Jamin:Yeah, there you go.Alex Berger:The Drake Stone. Yeah,Michael Jamin:All my dolls. Yeah. As soon as they went under, they go here. Here take some. You must have some dolls, right? They give you some dolls. I haveAlex Berger:Alen Martin Puppet and an Alex Burger puppet, and my kids constantly want to play with them and I won't let them.Michael Jamin:Who were you in the show? I don't remember what kind.Alex Berger:I think I was a Greek God carrying somebody at some point in some fantasy sequence and they would reuse the puppets. That was what was so funny. So I think that was one thing, and then they reused me as another thing.Michael Jamin:And did you ever get out to Toronto to see theAlex Berger:No. Did you go upMichael Jamin:There? Oh yeah. We went once and Fogel and I had a very romantic dinner together on top of the Toronto Space Needle or whatever they call that. I sawAlex Berger:Them shooting the pilot presentation, which they shy in New York. It was incredibly cool, but just I've always found set to be tedious in general, but I can't imagine how tedious it must be to do stop motion.Michael Jamin:Do you go, oh, I think they wanted to poke their eyes out, but do you go on set a lot for dramas? Yeah. Is it just your episode or what?Alex Berger:Depends on the show. I did this show called Blind Spot for five years, and basically we would have a writer on set for every episode and we would try to make it your episode, but oftentimes it was the writer who wrote the episode had a baby and is on maternity leave or they can't go to New York at this time or if they went to New York and they wouldn't be back in LA for the breaking of their next episode. So we tried to shuffle it around a little bit and it's trickier when it's out of town. You've got to make people have life that they've got to plan around. But you're going for three and a half weeks to New York.Michael Jamin:Are most of your show shot out of town?Alex Berger:It's been mixed Quantum Leap, which is the show I'm on now is Shot Year on the Universe a lot. Blind Spot was New York Covert Affairs, which I went to a lot of episodes for, was in Toronto, which was a lot of fun. And then I've had a couple Franklin, imagine the Mentalists were LA and it's been sort of a mix.Michael Jamin:How many day shoots are most of your shows? Dramas?Alex Berger:It depends on the budget of the show. Blind Spots started as nine and then was eight and a half and some tandem days and by the end was eight. They keep pulling money budget every year. Quantum Leap I think is eight.Michael Jamin:Interesting. And then what do you, as a writer on set for comedy when on set, it's like, I want to make sure they're playing the comedy right, making jokes, but what are you looking for that the director isn't covering?Alex Berger:Well, first of all, it's a lot of times if you have a great director, it's a team effort. So the director is obviously in charge of the set, but if you have a director who's collaborative, they're asking you, do you feel like that works? Or which take do you feel like was better? It's blocking work for you and your main job is just to make sure that you're the protector of the script and a protector of the story. And it's not like, excuse me, you didn't say the word there. Although there a Sorkin set, they will keep you word perfect, but it's more like, actually, I know you want to change that line. It doesn't feel comfortable in your mouth, but it's really important that you say this. It's going to set something up that we're doing in three episodes, or Hey, just so you know, when you're saying this to this character, you're actually lying and you're going to be revealed to be.It's a lot of making sure that everybody knows the episode up to the episodes we're leading to. And then, yeah, there's still a lot of shows I've worked on have a fair amount of comedy. So you're still making sure jokes, land and actors, this doesn't feel comfortable in my mouth. Do you mind if I say it like this? Or if you work with an actor who wants to have a little bit and wants to assert a line, sometimes I need to be the one to say, okay, well then that means that this person needs to say this line after to keep a joke going.Michael Jamin:Right? Right. It's interesting, and especially when scenes are shot out of order, it is easy for actors to lose track of where they are in the story. So that is theAlex Berger:Part I really like is Prep, because I've worked on a lot of big shows, big action shows and into you fly to New York with your script in hand and you're so excited. And then the first thing that the line producer tells you every single time is, we're $400,000 over budget. Before you even say hello. The fun part to me is the puzzle of how do you protect the story with the constraints of we can't shoot this in nine days. I've walked into episodes that were supposed to be seven day shoots, and the board came out and it was 10 days. And so you've got to figure out, okay, we can move this back into the house so we can take this care, we can do this here. And actually the shootout that happens after the bank robbery, maybe that happens off screen, stuff like that.Michael Jamin:So are you doing a lot of rewriting on set then?Alex Berger:It's usually in prep.Michael Jamin:Okay. In prep,Alex Berger:By the time you're on set in a drama, you're pretty close to set to go unless something changes or an actor nowadays, if an actor gets covid, then all of a sudden you're taking that actor out of the scene and rewriting the scenes and why are they, that kind of thing.Michael Jamin:And then are your showrunners ever on any of these shows ever on set? Or are they always sending proxies? Yeah, itAlex Berger:Depends. It depends on the show. So typically on the shows that I've been on, the showrunner, the showrunner was there for the pilot. They're usually going to go for 1 0 2 just to, it's been four months and they want to reestablish a tone and kind of be a leader, and then they'll try to pop in and out a bunch during the year so that it's not like they're just coming when there's a problem. And then when the show's in la, the showrunner will usually try to pop by after set, especially if before the Zoom Room thing, the writer's room would wrap at seven, the production's still going, so they usually come for the last couple scenes, something like that.Michael Jamin:How many writers are there usually on these hour shows?Alex Berger:I mean, I'm curious to hear what your answer is for comedy too, because it's really shrinking in the beginning. I mean, Glen Martin was what, 10, 12, something like that, including if you're Partners is too, and then it's gotten down to 10 and then eight. And then I think Quantum Leap were about 10, which is a big staff, but the Netflix show I just worked on was six. The show, the Assets that I did, which was a limited series was five. And this is a lot of big issues of the strike is these rooms are getting too small. What are the root comedy rooms like now? Because I know there's been, it's like sometimes it's like 25 people in a roomMichael Jamin:Well, on animation, but I think those days are kind of overAlex Berger:Or big network sitcoms aren't there.Michael Jamin:I don't think they're that big. I don't think there aren't big network sitcoms anymore, but I don't think, I mean it was never,Alex Berger:What was the Tacoma room?Michael Jamin:Oh, it's probably eight or so. But that's a small cable show,Alex Berger:But they're all small. I think they're all like that now. Even the network comedies, unless you're Abbott, they're all 13 or eight orMichael Jamin:Yeah, I think even just shoot me back in. This was in the day, I want to say maybe 10 or 12 times. Oh really? That's it. Yeah. Yeah, Roseanne. Roseanne was famously Big. Fred had a big staff, but that was Roseanne. It was a giant show.Alex Berger:And The Simpsons, I know there's these shows that have the two, I mean the drama rooms, there's a bunch of writers who having a big staff and then they like to split the room in two and break two episodes at the same time. A lot of showrunners actually want a small staff and hate having too many voices. I like a big room. I like eight to 10 people because you're always in a drama room, especially you've always got one writer on set, two writers on draft sometimes set, so there's three or four people gone every single day. So your room thins out real fast, and I think you need at least five people to break a story.Michael Jamin:Oh yeah. Now the thing is, you're a funny guy. You have a good sense of humor. You started in comedy, but do you miss at all comedy or do you feel I'm a fish in water with drama?Alex Berger:Yeah, I was in over my head in comedy, I be the guy who can do a little bit of comedy on a drama staff than that guy in a comedy room who's mostly focused on story. I mean, I felt like, obviously I wrote Pilot and I felt like I had a voice on that show, but it was clear to me that this was not the type of show that I was going to be thriving at. I really enjoyed it, but it was like just comedy wasn't my thing. I love writing on a Funny One Hour, Franklin and Bash, which was a legal show, was essentially a comedy that had the stakes of a drama, but the tone of a comedy. And I love because I like being able to go to the serious scene to have the emotional he, to not have to have a joke at the end of every scene. And then I've written some pilots and stuff that have a fair amount of comedy, but I always want, and I've written half hour dramas. It's just I want the pressure of three jokes a page and beating a joke and beating a joke and beating a joke. It just wasn't my pace.Michael Jamin:Well, I got to say, I think it was probably the last script you wrote was you and Pava teamed up to write a Christmas episode. Oh yeah. And you guys crushed it. I remember coming back, you guys turned it in, whatever you guys did together, were like, you guys, you're going to do this together. Probably because PA wanted to write a musical. I was like, Papa, I'm not writing a musical. And he probably did, but you guys turned in a great draft. And I was like, if that show had gone, I'd be like, I remember thinking, well, these guys are going to be stuck in a room together for a long time. Because yeah,Alex Berger:That was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun. And it's funny, I want to show my kids the show. They're really young and there's not a lot of episodes that are appropriate for little, that one's pretty tame. That one's pretty tame. We did a rom-com parody sort, the Wedding planner parody, and then we did a, what was it? I forget the other ones. It was a lot of fun.Michael Jamin:Oh yeah. What is nutty stuff? So now the dramas, I'm sorry. When you go off to write your own pilots, when you're developing your own, is there a unifying theme tone that you like to pitch? Yeah,Alex Berger:I would say two things. One is fun. I don't want to write some things super dark. I don't want to write. I like watching shows like that. I watch Last Of Us and The Leftovers and a lot of shows that are real bleak and I really enjoy them. But when I'm living in the world for 12 hours a day, for eight years, I want it to be fun. I want to have a certain amount of lightness to it and sort of levity to it, which is not to say it has to be a comedy, it can still be a drama. There just needs to be something fun about it. And even when I'm writing on a show like Quantum Leap, we've had episodes that are really serious, but the ones that I do, I try to make them, I did an airplane hijacking episode, but I tried to make it fun and sort of like an eighties action movie. And then the other thing I would say is sort of optimism. I try to write something that makes you think that the world is going to be a better place. I've written a lot of political shows and politics is pretty dark these days. One, my take is sort of, but if we do this, we can all get through it. None of those have gotten on the air. So maybe that says something about what people feel about optimism these days.Michael Jamin:Well, it's also a numbers game, but how do you feel, let's say you were given the keys to run your show, got on the air somewhere, eight episodes on the air. How do you feel? Feel about that? Yeah, let's do it. I'm ready. Or like, oh my God, what did I get?Alex Berger:Both. I mean, I did the Writer's Guild showrunner training program a couple of years ago, which is phenomenal. WhatMichael Jamin:Was that? Tell me all aboutAlex Berger:That. It was great. But so essentially it's a six week every Saturday, all day, every Saturday college course on how to run a show. And it's run by Jeff Melvoin, who's a really seasoned showrunner, and Carol Kirschner, who's been working in the business forever. And then they bring in John Wells is usually a big part of the program and they bring in really heavy hitter showrunners all the way down to people who were in the program last year and then got a show on the year. And they're like, bill and Ted when they come back at the time Machine and Bill and Ted's, and they're like, you're in for a crazy journey. And so it's really cool to hear from all of those people and they focus one day is on writing, one day is on post one day on production. And what I learned from that was having been on staffs for something like 250 episodes of tv, I've learned basically all the things you can do in terms of book learning to run a show.But the last 20%, you can't learn until you're there. Sort of like if you read a hundred books about swimming, you kind of know how to swim, but if you dropped out of a helicopter ocean, you're going to have to figure it out and you're going to be drowning while you're doing it. And literally, I don't know if this was your experience when you guys had it, but every other show I've talked to says nothing fully prepares you for it. So I have a couple shows in development right now, and if you told me that they were to go, I think the first feeling would be utter terror and like, okay, let's do it. Let's go. This is the time to do it. And I've run a lot of writers' rooms and stuff like that, but I've never actually had the keys to the castle, soMichael Jamin:Interesting. Right. Okay, so you've run the room, you've been breaking stories, you're in charge of that. Now time in terms of tell me about the short run is problem You apply, how do you get in?Alex Berger:You have to be recommended by somebody and applied and they want someone, they're trying to find people who are the next shows up. And so people in the program have a pilot that's already been shot and that's already ordered a series, but they don't know how to run a show. You people who've worked in features or worked in writing novels who are transitioning into television. So all the production stuff to them is totally new. And then you have lot of people like me who sort came up as staff writer, story editor and just worked their way up the ranks who've been around for a while, who just haven't taken that next step, who want to know more about what it's like to run a show. I loved it. First of all, it was like being in college, man, it was just absorbing material and taking notes at a frantic pace and reading that they recommended. But it was just so interesting to hear. It's like this, your podcast is so great because you could hear people speak, but these are people who are specifically targeted at the demographic of you're a co eep and you're about to run a show. Here's what you need to know.Michael Jamin:And so you don't pay for this, right? Or youAlex Berger:Do, the guild pays for it and the studios pay for it. It's a phenomenal program.Michael Jamin:And then it's so interesting. And then, alright, so then how big of a cohort, how big of a group isAlex Berger:It? 30. And it's a bummer because these days it's been on Zoom and so you don't really get to the year. I did it in 2017 or 2018. And so I got to know those folks and they were sort of, yeah, again, my cohort and three quarters of them are running shows and everybody else's EPS or eps, running rooms. It's a very fun dynamic to have a group.Michael Jamin:What are they teaching you? I'm so curious as what they teach you. I bet there's stuff I don't know. And we've done three shows. What are they teaching you about post that you were surprised?Alex Berger:The overwhelming, the first thing they tell you when you walk in the door is quality scripts on time. The bug that they gave me, the showrunner program, quality scripts on time, and that was basically the theme of it was being efficient, being and knowing when to cut your losses and say move on. And knowing when to say this isn't good enough. And so for posts, it's like, are you the type of person who wants to be in post for 10 hours a day? That's fine, but then you need to have somebody who's going to be overrunning the room, or do you want the writer who produced the episode to do the first and the second cut? And then you do the last cut and they bring in editors and they talk, editors tell you about what they want to hear. A lot of things that I'd been in post a lot before I was in that room and then editors were telling me things that I was doing that annoyed the crap out of them. And I was like, oh, little thing like what? Snapping, when you say cut there,Michael Jamin:Oh,Alex Berger:That annoys.Michael Jamin:That annoys them. It's like a dogAlex Berger:Thing. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of editors, some editors want line notes. Some editors want you to say, this scene doesn't feel funny enough, I'm not getting the comedy. And then they'll say, okay, let me take another swing at it. And you need to feel like, is this the type of editor that wants to do it on their own or that type of showrunner that wants to do that. But broadly speaking, it's essentially a leadership training program. The nuts and bolts stuff with all stuff that I had seen up close being a lieutenant on a show, there are a lot of little tips that I picked up here and there and when I get a show, I will go back to my notebook and frantically look through it, but it's mostly about how do you lead, how do you manage, how do you fire people? How do you delegate? How do you tell people that they're not doing a good enough job but give 'em a second chance? Interesting. They bring a lot of directors in, stuff like that.Michael Jamin:What was the last thing youAlex Berger:Said? How to interview a director? How to interview director. A big director came in and talked to you. Here's some questions you should ask when you're interviewing. Here's a great one that they said. They said, when you're interviewing a director, ask if you're the showrunner and you're interviewing somebody who's coming in to do an episode of your show, ask the director, do you cook? And if so, are you a person who uses a recipe or do you like to improvise? And there's no right answers to that, right? But if you cook and you're the person who is going to measure out the exact number of grams of flour and the exact number of grams of sugar, that's kind of how you're going to approach directing. You're going to come in with a shot list, you're going to be going to stay on time, you're going to make sure that you move the set along. And if you're the person who likes to kind of throw a little salt to throw a little sugar, you might be a little more improvisational. I say you might be a little more, more. There's little things like that that are like how to dig in on this with those people.Michael Jamin:Now I'm learning. What else can you share with me thatAlex Berger:Might be helpful? I can get my notebook you,Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.I remember when we're running Glen Martin, which is the first show we ran a lot of this, and you probably weren't even aware of this, A lot of it was me. If I was at the board or whatever, it was me like, okay, I want to make sure I'm not losing the room. I want to make sure everyone, no one's losing focus. And I think part of that was make a decision even if it's a bad one because you can lose the room if you can't pull the trigger. You know what I'm saying? It's so frustrating. You guysAlex Berger:Did a good job with that. And then I think that decisiveness, I think is actually one of the most important qualities in the showrunner, but also willingness to admit you were wrong if you made a decision and moved on and then a day later you realize you were wrong. You have to and say, I made the wrong decision. And one of the things I've learned running that I've really tried to do when I'm running a room is if there's an idea floating around that I hate, but it's getting energy and it's getting excitement, I try not to step on it until it either burns out on its own or it's reached a critical mass and I'm like, look, I think this is not going to work, but let's talk it out because there's nothing worse as having come up on staffs. And this is one of the most valuable things when you've been a staff writer and a story editor as opposed to getting your own show as the first thing that happens to you is you know how demoralizing it is when everybody's super excited about something now it's not going to work. It's so demoralizing. Yes, A lot of times you think it's not going to work. You just sit there back and listen for 20 minutes and you're like, oh, actually, you know what? There is a version of this that'll work if I just add this one thing. It's an organism and you're leading an organism and it's very hard. You guys did a great, and you guys are a team, which is even harder because you've got to read each other's minds aboutThis works.Michael Jamin:You bring a good point. I remember one time, so when Glen Martin, I would go, I would direct the actors on Wednesdays or whatever and see would be running the room, and I remember coming back at the end of a long day directing, come back to the room and you guys had made a lot of progress on the script and everyone's excited. Everyone's excited about this idea and you guys pitched it to me. I wasn't getting it. I didn't get it. I was like, I didn't want to shit on it because I could tell everyone was so excited about it. And so I just kept on asking questions just to explain it to me so that I would get on board.Alex Berger:That's a really hard part is and because I've never been the actual showrunner, I've never been the one, I would be like, I'm sorry we're vetoing this. A lot of times what I would do, because I was a number two, was if I hated something, if I left the room and then I came back and I hated something, I'd be like, look, I'm not totally on board with this idea, but let's give it its day in short and let's pitch it to the showrunner. And I would try, when I would pitch it to the showrunner be to not give away which side I was on or to say, look, here's one side of the argument, here's the other side of the argument. But when it's ultimately up to you, it is hard because I always analogize it to in Family Feud when the first four people give their answer and then that last person has to give the final answer and they want to go against the rest of the family. It's a hard thing to do. You're wrong.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Alex Berger:I guess, I don't know. What was that experience like for you? Did you feel like it was like you had to balance? What was your favorite idea versus losing another 10 people's morale?Michael Jamin:It wasn't even about my favorite idea. It was more like I just want to make sure if sea's on board than I trust, I trust him. But it's also like I wish I can remember what the episode was. It just didn't make anyAlex Berger:Sense to me. No, I remember that a couple times. Every show I've ever been on has had that. Every show I've ever, the showrunners left the room, the room gets excited about, something comes back in and it's not what they want, it's just part of show running. The value of having a staff that's been together for a while is the longer the staff has been together, the more you can say, oh, secret and Michael are going to hate this. We shouldn't even this path. Versus early on, you're going down a million paths you don't know. But once you get to know the showrunner, you kind of get to know what they like and what they don't like.Michael Jamin:Yeah. There was another idea that we had in that, I don't remember what we were all on board, but Seaver wasn't on board. It was something crazy.Alex Berger:Oh, I think it was the radio episode and there was something about wires or no wires, and they weren't recording the music the whole time,Michael Jamin:Who wasn't recording music.Alex Berger:Glen went to, you got to cut this out of the podcast.Michael Jamin:No one's going to care. ButAlex Berger:It was like there were a lot of room bits that I think that's the problem with room bits is they take on a life of their own and then they're an inside joke. And if the runner comes in and there's a room bit in the script, it's an inside joke. It just doesn't work. You weren't there for the beginning of it, which is a good sign that it's not a good story because the audience wasn't there for it either. But I think it was Glen becomes a radio producer named Stacey Rappaport.Michael Jamin:Yes.Alex Berger:His wife was also named Stacey Rappaport. Yes. And I know he works for Stacey Rappaport. And anyway, the whole time it was the, you guys were doing the Brady Bunch, Johnny Bravo episode basically as aMichael Jamin:Yeah,Alex Berger:Remember the debate was like, were they actually recording by the way? I will say again, you can cut this out early, but it's not relevant at all. But I grew up watching the Brady Bunch for whatever reason, even though I'm 10 years younger than you guys. And that was number one reference that you guys talked about. So I did feel like at least I got those references.Michael Jamin:Oh, it's so funny. I remember that. I remember because I think I was the one who pitched the name Stacey Rappaport.Alex Berger:I remember because I had a friend named StaceyMichael Jamin:Rappaport. Oh really? That's so funny. It was just a man's name that the joke was that Glen was going to choose a new identity for himself and he chooses a woman's name.Alex Berger:What have you gone back and just watched full episodes of the show?Michael Jamin:No. And everyone, people want to know about. People ask me that a lot. I don't touch. I should. I love that show, but I don't touch anything that I've written. I just don't. It's over and I don't know why, but you doAlex Berger:Just not even about Glen Martin. That is an interesting thing about writers is whether they want to go back. I go back and watch stuff and I hate it because I'm like, but because Glen Martin was not really mine. It was such an organism of the room. I laugh when I go back and watch it except the one I wrote, which I don't like.Michael Jamin:Oh my God. We had some fun in that show. But okay, so when you take, I have so many questions for you. When you were young, when you were a kid, did you want to be a writer? I know TimeAlex Berger:Know was a profession. I loved television. I was a youngest kid. I was raised by the Cosby Show and the Brady Bunch and G I F. And my idea of a family was basically what those families were probably to go back, rethink the Cosby one. And then even in college, I interned at Saturday Night Live and late night with Conan O'Brien back when he was on, which were fantasy camp, especially the s and l one was truly a dream come true. And it still didn't occur to me that it was a profession that I could go do. I was go to law school and then a buddy of mine, we were in Jerry's Subs and Pizza, which is an East coast person you probably remember. And we were sitting there talking about what we're going to do and he's like, like I said, I'm going to go to LA and be a writer. And I said, how do you do that? And he said, someone writes this stuff, why couldn't it be us? And it just gave me this epiphany of like, oh yeah, everybody who's out there as a writer at some point wasn't a writer and just got out there and learned how to do it. And so we all went out together and we kind of got our start.Michael Jamin:Did your friend become a writer too?Alex Berger:Yeah, we all ended up creating a show together. So the earliest thing that we did was we were on the high school debate team together and we walked into National Lampoon, which at the time was doing low budget cable programming, and the head creative guy there just made fun of my resume the entire time and made fun of debate. And then by the end of it said, there's a show here. And so we came, pitched him a show called Master Debaters that was a debating society, and we ended up getting to make, it was like our film school. I knew nothing about how to make a TV show and that one, I was throwing the keys to the castle. I was casting it, writing it, producing it. I was in it, posting it with every crisis. But it was so low stakes because the budgets were tiny and they were in syndicated cable stations and college campuses. No one would watch me. So I got to learn by doing and I loved it. It was great.Michael Jamin:Interesting. And then, all right, so then you became a writer and then you just kept on writing. I guess mean it's not an easy path, but you've made a really pretty good name for yourself over the years.Alex Berger:Yeah, I mean, thank you. It was a winding path when I came out, I thought for a minute I might want to be a development executive. I read a book by this guy, Brandon Tartikoff, who used to run N B C called The Last Great. It was like basically made it out to be, you're sitting in your room and the smartest people in the world come and tell you what TV show ideas they have, and then you pick the eight of them and pick the order in America Shears. And so I worked in development for a minute and I was not what it was like at all, and I was miserable and I was jealous of all the writers who were coming in. So I said, that's the job I want. And so I quit. WhatMichael Jamin:Was it I didn't know you worked at VO for? I wasAlex Berger:Assistant. I was an assistant in development at N B C.Michael Jamin:What was it like then?Alex Berger:It's very busy and not as creative as I wanted to be. I actually really enjoyed the conversations I had with the executives when it wasn't time to do my job and it was just time to talk about tv. But the actual job I was doing, I was terrible at, I mean, it was a lot of keeping track of who was calling, and I'm an absentminded first, butMichael Jamin:That you're an assistant. I mean, surelyAlex Berger:You, but it's a long time before your branded Tartikoff, right? Almost everybody else under branded Tartikoff has a lot of business responsibilities to do. And it wasn't, that's not how my brain works. My brain needs more free time. I think if I worked at a place that was smaller that was incubating three or four shows, I probably would've enjoyed it more. But we had 50 comedies and 50 dramas in development, and I was trying to get of all of them and who was calling and the letterhead changing and all this stuff. And it was just like I was not good at it. I mean, my boss even said to me one day, he said, you're a very smart guy. Why are you not very good at this? And we had a nice conversation about that. But the main thing was the writers that came in that I was, can I get you a coffee?Can I get you a tea? Can I get you a Coke? I was so jealous of them. Door would close to the pitch, and I just wanted to be in there listening to. And so I realized I should follow that. And so I didn't last that long. I left like eight months and I quit. I at the time had been, I think had a couple of writing jobs, like smaller writing jobs lined up that show Master Debaters had been optioned of VH one. So we were writing a pilot for VH one and a couple of their small writing jobs. So I went to go do those and then got back in the beginning of the line as an assistant, I was a writer's assistant on a show, and then I was an assistant to a showrunner and then I stop.Michael Jamin:So it's a brave move for you to leave that behind in.Alex Berger:It was definitely, I mean, I had some stuff lined up, but it was definitely a risk, but I just knew it wasn't the right, I was in the wrong place. But it's interesting, it was an incredible learning experience. I knew how development work from the inside, and I still think I know more about what's actually going on at the network than a lot of my peers because I was on the other side. And then the folks I met who are the other assistants to the other executives are now all executive vice presidents of networks or presidents of networks or I met my agent because he was an assistant to an agent that used to call, and then he signed me while he was still a coordinator. One of the people on that hall now became the president of Fox, another one who I've dealt with a lot became the president of N B C. I met a ton of great folks through that who have become friends and allies over the years, and I sold Joe to,Michael Jamin:But okay, so it's probably changed lot since you were in assistant that was probably 20 somethingAlex Berger:Years ago, 19 yearsMichael Jamin:Ago. So what is it like then that we don't understand?Alex Berger:I think the main thing that I didn't understand, and this has for sure changed and certainly in cable and streaming is just a volume. They are not spending as much time thinking about your script as you are by definition. But in development, there are literally 40 to 50 scripts at least back then on both on comedy and trauma. And so my boss, who was in charge of both has a hundred scripts to keep track of. So he was very smart and could make a judgment very quickly about a script, but he would read it once, sometimes read it again, and then he was making a judgment about whether it was a show. So as a writer now I know they're reading fast, they're reading it at three 30 in the morning, or they're reading it on the plane, I've got to grab attention fast, I've got to hook you in. I cannot lean, oh, the great twist, wait till the Great Twist. It's on page 55. And when I'm pitching, it's the same thing my boss said to me, I hear 300 pitches a year. I typically hear about five ideas I haven't heard before. The other 95 I've heard before. It's about take, it's about the writer, it's about their passion. And so when I go and pitch an idea, the substance of the idea is the second most important thing. And my connection to it and why it has to be me is the first most important.Michael Jamin:And that's the hard part. I feel that's the hard part because usually you think of an idea, you can't really, I don't know, you're a hundred percent right. They always, they want to know why are you the only one in the world who can write this idea truthfully? It's like a lot of times you're not a lot of times like, well, this is the characters we created. It's a funny situation, but there's probably a lot of people who could write this idea.Alex Berger:I think that what I have seen, and I've never done this, but I know folks who have is, I knew a writer once who his sort of why me paragraph was, I just run a show for a bunch of years. I came off of running that show and I didn't know what I wanted to do next and I had an identity crisis. And so it got to the idea of identity crises and here's a spy show, an action spy show, but at the center of it as a character going through an identity crisis. So it's notMichael Jamin:GrewAlex Berger:Up and my dad was a spy, and therefore sometimes it's emotional or sometimes I had this interaction with a guy on the subway and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And it led me to this show. And sometimes by the way, you retrofitted sometimes you already come up to the show and then you've got to come up with that first paragraph that's retrofitted and sometimes often it feels organic even though it was come up with thatMichael Jamin:Word. That's so interesting because I'm glad you said that to me. It almost sounds, it gives me some soce knowing that, because a lot of times we'll say, okay, this is why we're the only ones, and this is from seabird's idea home life or my home life, and then it doesn't sell. And you're like, well, I don't know what to do now. But you're actually broadening it out into a thematically, it's more personal to you. It's not necessarily a dynamic. It's more like,Alex Berger:Here's how I think about it. I think that, and I could be wrong, and by the way, it's different in a comedy because you've got to make 'em laugh in a comedy, and I know certain comedy executives don't laugh, but for the most, if you're funny in the room, they're thinking, okay, I want to be in business with these pets, but in drama, are there twists and turns? Am I hooked on this? Is this going to fit with something that we have on the air? Do we have something similar? But I always think what they're going to remember when they've heard six, they hear six to eight a day, and then at the end of the week they go tell their bosses about the ones that they bought. So what they're going to remember is, oh my God, you'll never believe the story this guy told about the time that he was held hostage on the subway, or you'll never believe that, or a cool twist or a cool character. They're not ever going to remember the third beat of the pilot, or when pitch episode ideas, here's soMichael Jamin:Interesting.Alex Berger:I think you need that stuff to be in there, but what they're going to remember, it's like when you walk into a house, when you're looking for a house, you remember, oh, I was dazzled by the kitchen and the master bedroom had the fullest bathroom and yeah, yeah, it had five bedrooms and five baths, which is what we need. But it felt like this when I walked in. It's like, how do they feel? That's another, I'm sorry to ramble, butMichael Jamin:No,Alex Berger:For drama. I think in a pitch, if you can make the executives feel how the show is going to make them feel, that's a successful pitch to me. Comedy's a little different, I think. ButMichael Jamin:Interesting. I feel like I'm learning a lot from you actually, because I mean, honestly, we'll sell shows and we'll not sell shows.Alex Berger:We're learning all that time from you guys for 40 episodes on the murder.Michael Jamin:But a lot of this is, like I said, we will sell a show or we won't sell a show, and I won't know why. I don't know. I'm not sure why this one sold this one, the other one didn't sell. I can, but that'sAlex Berger:Why I really don't like Zoom pitches because you can't. I love, that's actually my favorite part. I think it comes from, like I said, I was on the debate team in high school and college, and I loved trying to persuade someone who was not necessarily on my side at the beginning that I'm right. And I viewed every pitch as a miniature debate. I'm debating against the person who says, don't buy this. And I love the feeling of like, oh, I've got them hooked, and they're now, they are going to buy the show as long as it continues to go on this pace. And I hate the feeling of, I think they've checked out. And actually when I've memorized a pitch, when I think they've checked out, I'm talking, but my internal monologue is, well, I guess we didn't sell it to Fox. All right, well, if we can sell it to Fox, we can go to a B, C. Because I'm sort of like, I've moved on.Michael Jamin:How much off book are you have notes or not?Alex Berger:I've developed this method that I got from this guy, Martin Garra, who I've worked for eight or nine years for some blind spot, and now on Quantum Leap, it's different, but I love it, which is, it's different on Zoom, but when we go back to in-person pitches, what he does is he brings in his laptop and he puts it on the table in front of him and it acts as a teleprompter. And so he's looking up at you making eye contact and occasionally looking down. And then he is got a remote that flips page to page and the script is there word for word. So if you're like, oh shit, I'm about to get to the part that I always mess up, then you just look down and read for a minute and they know you've written this. It's not like no one is under the illusion that you walked in and RIFed for 20 minutes off theMichael Jamin:Topic. Does he do this in person or on Zoom?Alex Berger:Both. On Zoom, it's so easy because you can have your screen, but in person, I thought, oh, they're going to think it's offputting. But because I was practiced, I got to the point where 70% of it was eye contact and the laptop was there as the security one did.Michael Jamin:And what program is he using? That's a teleprompterAlex Berger:Work.Michael Jamin:Oh, so you're just scrolling. Oh, you're just clicking.Alex Berger:There's this Bluetooth remote that he uses that I was now in my drawer, and it's just you click and it's to the nextMichael Jamin:Page. You have a Bluetooth remote that works on your lap. I didn't even know this such a thing. I'm learning so much from you Burger.Alex Berger:Oh, you know what? I've lost it. Oh, here. Yeah, so it's like a little U S B that plugs into the back of your computer, and then you're just like, you click, click, click and it's, you look like you're giving its head talk it 5% easy. And I actually think in a comedy pitch, it might come off as too dorky, but for a drama it's like, I'm going to tell you a story. I'm going to deliver a pitch. And I wrote it. And the reason I find it useful is a lot of times when you're developing with the pod and the studio and then also the non-writing show runner, so many Sunday night, you're getting notes for a Monday morning pitch and stuff's changed. So if I get to the section that just changed, I might look down a little bit moreMichael Jamin:Interest. So I was going to say, are you going in mostly with pods these days for people who don't know that they're producers on the overall deals at studios, but is that how it works in dramas as well?Alex Berger:I don't think I'm going to show on the air anymore without an entourage. So when I was on Blind Spot, it was produced by Greg Ante and I did a couple pieces of development with him and then also with Blind Spot. I just think there's the business side of it, which is that these networks want to be in business with their 800 pound gorillas and the not. So if you walk in with one of them, even if it's my vision a hundred percent, and it's my personal story, the fact that this brand is behind it really helps. And then I also, I actually enjoy the process of crafting the idea with smart people. I don't want to work with a pod who's annoying and gives dumb notes or a studio who does that. But every pod I've ever worked with, if I'm stuck on an idea, I'll say, Hey, can we hop on the phone for half an hour and work out this story problem? You guys have each other so you can get in a room and hash out a story problem. But I need to talk. I cannot think through anyMichael Jamin:Interesting,Alex Berger:And we'll work it out. Oh,Michael Jamin:So you'll really use them as a resource. It's so interesting.Alex Berger:I mean, this guy, Martin Garrow who runs Blind Spot Quantum Leap, I've developed him a bunch of times and he's a writer.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's differentAlex Berger:Stuff is acting as a pod. But I can call him and we have such a shorthand, we've broken 150 episodes a week, butMichael Jamin:That's different because he's a writer. He is not, I mean, he's a writer, is writer producer, but he's really aAlex Berger:Writer. So it's Greg Ante. I like working with folks who are on the creative things, and I've worked with producers who weren't writers, but could be because they're a creative, the worst part of that development is when someone gives you a note and they don't realize, oh, that's going to unravel. They think it's two lines, but it actually unravel all. Whereas when you work with people who've made a lot of tv, they're like, look, I know that this blows everything up to do this one little thing, but here's why I think it's better. Or Hey, they gave a huge note. Here's easy fix. It's only two lines.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, that's so interesting. You're absolutely right. There's a huge difference between, I think between working with a producer, producer and a writer producer, because the writers, they just know what's going to unravel everything. I don't know. Yeah, that's ProducersAlex Berger:Are good for like, oh, you know what? Who'd be great for this is this actress. And they make the call and they're good.I find that you find everybody's in this business, they're good at something. Nobody who's come to this business and is just dashing a check. Well, probably not true, but the people that I try to find work with are people who are in this business smart. And even if they're not totally up on exactly what I wanted to do, fix the script, they have something that they're really good at that I want to use. So even if it's, there's one person at this company who's mostly the production person have a really good idea about like, Hey, if we shot this in Buffalo, we could do this.Michael Jamin:Right. Interesting. Wow. I think I've learned a lot from you. Before we conclude, you want to write drama withAlex Berger:Me? Let's go that. Let's talk about drama.Michael Jamin:I think I'm going to get into the drama business with you. I think you're going to be my pod. What advice do you have for young writers? You must have something to Wise to say.Alex Berger:Yeah, I mean, I probably don't have anything wise to say, but I'm happyMichael Jamin:To. Or how are they breaking in the business?Alex Berger:It's funny. The answer was so different 10 years ago to four years ago. It changed rapidly, and it's very different now because of the writer's strike. So if you're talking about what should I be doing right now, if I want to break in? I was just talking to a writer today and my advice to her was, just use this time to write. It's not a good time to try to get a producer attached or a showrunner attached or an agent. It's a good time to just be writing and really writing diligently. And then this is over. And in general, my advice is get a job in the industry, even if it's as an assistant. If you can't get a job as an assistant in a room, get a job as an assistant in post or get a job as a PA on set, just get into the room. Then just keep building a network and talking to everybody. And when your cousin comes and says, you know what? I used my college roommate, I think as a writer, I don't know what he take them up on all of those opportunities because you never know what's going to result in something. The first three jobs I got were from general meetings that I didn't want to take because actually two of them were from people. My mom had metParties in Washington dc but they were another assistant who was leaving their job and happened to open up. And then the last thing I would say is, I think the thing that people don't do as much of it that they should do is engage in the continuing education piece of this. So your listeners to your podcast are obviously trying to learn how to write, and that's important. There's a lot of other good podcasts out there. There's Deadline Hollywood, which everybody should be reading every single day. There's business podcasts like The Town and the Business and Fresh Air that people should be listening to understand the macro pieces of their business. So often you get people who come out here and they have

On this week's episode, Writer/Showrunner Bill Martin (The Unicorn, The Neighborhood, 3rd Rock From The Sun, and many many more) talks about his showbiz career and starting out writing in sketch comedy then eventually transitioning over to scripted. Tune in as he also talks about his experiences working with a writing partner.SHOW NOTESBill Martin's IMDB Page - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0551979/Free Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPTBill Martin:When we got on board, we just got an overall deal with A, B, C. So we were assignable to this and we thought, this is insane. We'd love the commercials about anybody, but there's no way they're going to put on. So we thought it was just like, we'll help out a pilot, meet some new people, and then we'll do something else. It was shocking to us that they put it on tv.Michael Jamin:Oh, howBill Martin:Interesting. Because it just seems so unlikely, but with anything you do, you know how it is. Once you're given your assignment, you've got to find a way to take pride in it.Michael Jamin:You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.Hey everyone, welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I got another great guest today Actually. Ordinarily I would never have a sitcom writer who's more successful than me on my show. I out of Insecurity, but I'm doing it today to prove that I'm more magnanimous than he is. And so welcome to the show, bill Martin, whose credits are fricking crazy good and he had so many great credits. I'm going to list some of the great credits and I'm also, maybe I'll throw in some not so great credits to humble you, to keep you humble.Bill Martin:There are plenty of,Michael Jamin:But you started in Living Color and I wanted to talk about that. I love that show. But then she tv, third Rock from the Sun, grounded for Life, and I'm skipping many. Okay, cavemen, the singles table. Hank How to Rock Malibu Country Soul Man, which I believe, I think we met on that and I think you guys beat us out with good reason.Bill Martin:That's what I'm really here for. Revenge.Michael Jamin:Yes. Right, right, right. Living Biblically. We'll talk about that. And the, the unicorn, the neighborhood, the unicorn, which you and your partner created and the neighborhood. Are you guys running that as well, neighborhood or no? We are. You are. Damn. What's it like to be welcome to the show and what's it like to be a working sitcom writer? What's it like working on a network TV show nowadays?Bill Martin:Yeah. Well, I mean, I will point out that it's fantastic and I know that because I've also been a non-working sitcom writer. Plenty. I mean, that's the awful thing about this life we've chosen is that every spring is the panic of, oh my God, am I retired? I just don't know it yet.Michael Jamin:What do you know? Brian Bihar? Do you know who he is?Bill Martin:Yes.Michael Jamin:He said me and he said to me that people in the business are retired seven years before they know it.Bill Martin:Yes.Michael Jamin:I hadn't heard that. I was like, oh God, is the clockBill Martin:Running? I knew that makes perfect sense though. Yeah, yeah.Michael Jamin:But the thing is not even about staffing season anymore now you don't even know when you're not working. You justBill Martin:True. True.Michael Jamin:So what is it like, how is it, honestly, haven't written on a network television show in many years we've been on cable or whatever, streaming. And how has it changed? How has Network changed? More notes, last notes.Bill Martin:That's the weird thing is it has not changed. I mean, we are preserved in Amber. The neighborhood is just the good old days. It's a big writer's room. It's run throughs, it's show nights. It's really almost unreal. When we took the job, we expected it to, COVID obviously jumbled everything up, but once the covid restricted to Lifted, it was like, oh, this is exactly the classic sitcom situation.Michael Jamin:See, one of my fears is that multi cameras will go away because there's so few people still doing it. I mean, do you feel that way?Bill Martin:Yeah, we keep thinking that they're done, but at the same time, people are still watching friends in Seinfeld and there still aren't that many single camera comedies that are that sticky with people. So I'm not sure that they're being given up on yet. I mean, there's pros and cons to them, but I think that kind of warmth that you only have when you're watching an audience show is something that people still crave.Michael Jamin:But I mean in terms of there's so few multi-camera shows being made now, then let's say in 10 or 15 years if they want to make more, who's going to know how to do it?Bill Martin:The breeding pool is, yeah, the breeding pool has shrunk to the point where we'll all be just inbred ligers. Yeah, you're right. Frankly, that's why I'm working because there's not a minor league for it anymore. Yeah, I know N B C and a BBC are trying them. They are developing them, but really right now it's Monday night on c b s and that's about it. So we are fully prepared to just turn off the lights when we leave and that'll be the end. ButMichael Jamin:Now tell me how you broke in, because I think your first creative was living single, I mean not living single, but living color.Bill Martin:Living color andMichael Jamin:Living, which, so there was a sketch show, which huge for the young people. I mean it, Jim Carrey and all these huge stars came out of that, which you couldn't have been imagined back then. It's one of the first shows on Fox. But how did that come to be? How did you get on that?Bill Martin:That was purely a situation where Keenan burned through writers so fast that they were always hiringMichael Jamin:Really.Bill Martin:And we got our first agent and this says 92, and she said, there's openings that in living color. There's always opening today in living color because Kena was demanding and he was hard to work for, but it was a great job. And so we went in and pitched, and I think it was kind of a conveyor belt of new writers coming in there all the time. And we actually managed to stick for the final two years of the show and not get fired, which is a very small club for people who've worked for Keenan, I think.Michael Jamin:And so you put together a sketch packet. How did you even know what to do? I wouldn't know what to do to get hired in a sketch show.Bill Martin:It was write a couple of sketches for existing characters and write a couple of sketches that are new ideas or commercial parodies or something likeMichael Jamin:That. And did any of those ever make it to air?Bill Martin:No, but I think because of how anal my partner Mike Schiff is what we came in with were very thoroughly thought out ideas. I think that's what must have impressed Keenan, was that we didn't come in pulling stuff out of our ass. We were prepared.Michael Jamin:It was such an amazing show. And then you went to she tv, which is interesting. That show was produced. I don't know if it's any interesting for anyone other than me and you, but it was produced by Tamara Rawitz who gave me my first Yes, sheBill Martin:And Tamara was also the producer of In Living Color, where she wentMichael Jamin:There. Oh, I guess I did know that. And she, TV was another sketch show, but it didn't last very long.Bill Martin:Yep. No, I don't even know if they aired all the episodes. It was a summer replacement show when that was still a thing, and it was produced by George Slaughter of Laughin Fame and it felt Laughin vintage even in the mid nineties. It felt a little like a good old fashioned throwback variety show.Michael Jamin:Interesting. Because she went on to produce the Mike and Maddie show, and so she hired me on that and then she jumped ship. I thought she was going to be a big break in, but alright. And then Third Rock on the Sun. I should make it clear we've never even worked together, but you're one of these people. I always felt like one of these days we're going to work together and just never happened. ButBill Martin:Yes. And we also have the Alschuler Krinsky Bridge between us. That's right. Weirdly, they're some of my oldest friends and I've never worked with them either.Michael Jamin:Oh, I didn't know thatBill Martin:Either it's inevitable or we're like the opposite ends of a magnet that can never work together.Michael Jamin:Yeah, right, right.Bill Martin:We'll find out.Michael Jamin:But also, yeah, Abramson Thompson, we worked with him for many years and we great guy. But alright, so then Third Rock from the Sun, another great show. Tell me a little about your experience on that.Bill Martin:Well, those days there were sketch writers and there were sitcom writers and we were sketch guys and we'd written lots of spec sitcoms. We couldn't get a job. We kept working on sketch shows and we had, after she tv, we actually did a House of Buggin in New York, the John Zamo.Michael Jamin:Right. He's great.Bill Martin:That was a blast. It was fun to work in New York, although our producer had to take a brown bag full of cash to some guy in Brooklyn so that we were allowed to film there. So we're kind of in Sketch jail. But Bonnie and Terry Turner, who created she TV then created Third Rock in the Sun. And because they'd come from Saturday Night Live and they'd written movies, they'd kind of done a lot of different things. They didn't have those expectations that you hire, sketch people for sketches and sitcom people for sitcom. So we had a great experience with them on ctv. So we were some of the first people they thought of for Third Rock. So they helped us break out of the sketch jail.Michael Jamin:And did it feel like that? Why does it feel like a sketch jail? It seems fun to me. IBill Martin:Don't know. I think it's just that it took such a specific skillset to just crank out, joke, joke, joke, parody, parody, parody. I think it was just, it may not have been a bad thing. I think it was just because there weren't a lot of people who'd had a track record with it that they were desperate to find you. Yeah, I don't really know. It wasn't fair though.Michael Jamin:I'mBill Martin:Never going back to sketch jail.Michael Jamin:Right. So you don't want to do that ever again. You don't want to write sketches again.Bill Martin:Well, I guess there aren't really any sketch shows left. The sketch shows now I think you should leave is the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life, but it doesn't need me.Michael Jamin:But you don't have, in other words, that craving, we've never done it. I was like, well, I wonder what that been like. ButBill Martin:Yeah, sometimes the idea for a fun parody, it's still hits you every so often and there's just no place for parity other than that. So yeah, I do find myself saying, oh, that's a good idea. I hope Saturday Night Live does thatMichael Jamin:BecauseBill Martin:That's kind of the last game in town,Michael Jamin:But it's a whole new skillset that you had to learn. I mean, what was that jump like to go into scripted narrative to television?Bill Martin:Actually, it was pretty easy just because that's what we set out to do when I met Mike in film school in New York, and we were just cheers fanatics. And so we had written seven or eight sitcom specs before we got that job at a leaving color. So it was all we wanted to do it just that Keller was a job we could get.Michael Jamin:Right.Bill Martin:Interesting.Michael Jamin:We worked with the Stein Kelner who ran Cheers a couple of years. Oh yeah. To me that was so exciting to be, I don't know, because I love Cheers. Cheers was everything. That's why I wanted to be a sit car writer. It was so exciting to be able work. By the way,Bill Martin:Our cheer spec, the plot of it was was a John Henry man versus Machine Cliff Klavin racing a fax machine. That's how long ago it was. SoMichael Jamin:One of the wordsBill Martin:That was a legit idea.Michael Jamin:So he would deliver a letter faster than a fax machine could.Bill Martin:He claimed he could beat a faxMichael Jamin:Machine. That's funny.Bill Martin:The fax machine still took 18 seconds, but it was faster than Cliff.Michael Jamin:That's pretty funny. I like that idea. Oh, well. So then tell me your career. Honestly, you've so many shows way more than we have, so, so then you just jump after Third Rock. How many seasons were you there? You were four Seasons?Bill Martin:Five.Michael Jamin:Five until the end.Bill Martin:Yeah, halfway through our fifth season we left to create Grounded for Life, but it was all at the Car Seat Warner Company, so we didn't really say goodbye. We just moved one building over.Michael Jamin:Now it's so interesting because what was creating that life? Because back then, back then you might leave a hit show to create your own show. I'm not sure you'dBill Martin:Do that to Yeah, no, I think And we didn't know better. And because it was all part of Cari Warner, the risks were low. If it had failed, we could've gone back to Third Rock. I assumeMaybe It felt like we had a net, at least we weren't jumping ship completely. But because at that point, Cy Werner had five or six shows on networks. They owned network comedy, and we thought, and we pitched the show and it sold that, oh, this is easy. You just have an idea. And then Ly Warner puts it on tv. It's great. We were batting a thousand and in very short order, we were batting a hundred and then batting 50. And we realized we had a very skewed idea about how easy the business was at that point.Michael Jamin:And how did you come up with that idea? Walk me through the whole process of,Bill Martin:Well, Mike Schiff, my partner is a bit of a jerk. He's a curmudgeon, he's a grumpy guy, and he was itching to do something different. He didn't want to just do a multicam that hit all the same notes we'd already been hitting for a while. And we went out for lunch one day with our friend Chris Kelly, who ended up writing on the show, and Chris told us a story about taking his daughter to the CAMA dome and having to wait outside the ladies room down those stairs. And it turned into a really horrible, awkward situation. And the story was just hilarious. And we came back from lunch and Mike said, why can't we make a show? That's as much fun as hearing someone tell a great story. And that's kind of the genesis of Third Rock, which was, it was a hybrid back before, the word hybrid was kind of thrown around, but it was a show where you started in the middle, something had happened and someone would say, what's going on here? How did this happen? And you'd go back and tell the story in single Cam. And so it's just a way to make stories more fun to tell, and much, much harder to produce. It was a nightmare because we'd shoot three days of single cam and then two days for the audience. So everybody you worked on, it was gratified by it, but it was hell.Michael Jamin:But did you think about that when you came up with it? Because that would've been on my mind, do I really want to produce this show?Bill Martin:At the time, we thought it was going to be a breeze.Michael Jamin:WeBill Martin:Just didn't know any better. We were young and we'd never run a single cam show before. And the problem also was directors. It was interesting. A lot of Multicam directors had no problem doing the single cam stuff, but then we had single cam directors who were absolutely gobsmacked by the Multicam, the demands, the Multicam.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's veryBill Martin:Different. It almost killed some of them. DidMichael Jamin:You spend a lot of, how did you divide up time on set? Was it one of you guys on set at all times or what?Bill Martin:Yeah, we'd always thank God we were a partnership because someone would always be on the, we had 12 hour shooting days for the single cam, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And one of us would always be down there, and usually whatever writer had gotten their name on that episode. And then upstairs we were keeping the sausage factory.Michael Jamin:And while the other person's writing the scripts or rewriting whatever, let's say, let's say you're on the set and you come back, what's your involvement with those scripts? If you are not a hundred percent on board at that point, are you, how do you handle that?Bill Martin:Yeah, you're in a partnership that's kind of, if you don't have a lot of trust in the other person, I mean, it could be a disaster. I've heard stories about shows, I don't name them, where the creator would spend the whole day on the set and then come into the writer's room at nine o'clock at night and throw everything out, and you just can't do that. And we would have lots of disagreements, but we also, we still had table reads, so we still had a chance to try things out and fix them. At that point, a lot of single cams weren't even doing table reads. The production demands were so intense that you just had to kind of go with it. But we loved having table reads, nothing like hearing it once and getting that one day to take a whack at it. And we also had hiatus weeks, unlike a lot of single cans. So we do three, but then we'd have a week to decompress and reload, and that made it a lot more doable.Michael Jamin:And how many episodes were you doing in a season? Most of the timeBill Martin:It was crazy. We got a 13 order, but then they asked for six more and then we got a full order. But then Fox canceled us in the middle of the third season. But WB picked us up and added more episodes. So we kind of had this weird staggered thing where it could be as few as 18 as many as 21. And it was crazy.Michael Jamin:I remember back, I haven't done multi-camera in a while, but we were on these multi-camera shows. That's not really true. I did one kind of recently, but towards the end of that long season, if it was like you're up to 20 episodes, you're just exhausted, man, and you're like, oh, how am I going to do another one? But we never ran one. And I think the amount of stress on a showrunner for that, that must've been something else for you guys.Bill Martin:Yeah, it was a lot. But you know what I got to say? The stress of working on a show where the cast is difficult, even if the writing is easy, is much, much more stressful than a show where the cast is great, but the writing is hard. And that's the thing is that for me, I get stressed out, but if I go to stage and the people there are good and they appreciate what you're doing, the stress is always, you can always maintain. Right. It's when you get called to the stage and it's going to be a nightmare and someone's mad, then that's when the stress boils over.Michael Jamin:Right. Because then you've got to do a giant rewrite and there's no time for it. Yeah. Yeah.Bill Martin:We've been pretty lucky on that front. And this was Donor Logan, Kevin Corrigan and Megan Price. They were just great actors and pros and we're thrilled to be there. And if something was wrong, they trusted us. And if something wasn't working, we trusted them. So despite the fact that the workload was grim, it never destroyed us.Michael Jamin:Some people don't realize that. Sometimes you'll get an actor on a show who, who's not that happy to be there, even though you're paying them and they auditioned or whatever, got an offer, they're not happy to be there. So it's odd, but okay. And then Caveman, which is based, that was based on a giant hit commercial, right?Bill Martin:It was a hit commercial and it was a hit show. It was just one of those shows that just America embraced. They loved it. And I think it went five seasons.Michael Jamin:I got to check the numbers there.Bill Martin:I can see your face going, wait, does he?Michael Jamin:I got the wrong show. I'm turning Red.Bill Martin:Oh, yeah.Michael Jamin:But that must've been hard because you guys developed that as well, right?Bill Martin:We did not, actually, that was one where the original directors and the writer of the original commercials developed it, and the studio felt they needed some experienced hands to come in and help. So we were actually brought in during the pilot after it was already mostly cast and on the way to production. So it was kind of a runaway train at that point.Michael Jamin:See, I love hearing stories when other writers were being tortured.Bill Martin:Yes.Michael Jamin:That's what I'm getting at. Yes. So is that what Yeah,Bill Martin:It was torture. And the weird thing was it wasn't, first of all, it wasn't a bad idea, it just that because it was perceived as such a cynical idea, the knives were sharpened for it. So I don't think any of us realized how ready critics would be to hate something that was based on a commercial, because that said, the creative people behind it were all fun and interesting and good. We ended up being friends with all the guys. It wasn't a bad creative situation other than it was a fool's errand. We were being sent into the Lion Stand, and once it got into production, a single cam show with a certain, the visual stylists of the show, the guys who did the commercials really wanted to be sleek and clean and neat looking and modern, like the commercials. And that was a high bar to reach. But add to that, that every single cast member had to be in makeup for four hours before they could shoot. I mean, literally by the end of the second episode, their faces were chafed and red and they were in agony, and they were upset and met. And these were good professional actors. Like Nick Kroll, wonderful, but you can only torture a man's face so many days in a row before they go, oh my God, what's happening? So it was almost reproducible.Michael Jamin:But that's interesting. You said, I think you're exactly right. There's something, it was already labeled with a cynicism of like, oh, okay, it's based on a commercial and therefore it can't be any good. But did you know that when you signed up, could you even possibly have thought about that when you got on board?Bill Martin:Well, when we got on board, we just got an overall deal with A, B, C. So we were assignable to this, and we thought, this is insane. We love the commercials budget, anybody, but there's no way they're going to put this on. Okay. So we thought it was just like, we'll help out a pilot, meet some new people, and then we'll do something else. It was shocking to us that they put it on tv.Michael Jamin:Oh, how interesting.Bill Martin:Because it just seems so unlikely, but with anything you do, you know how it is. Once you're given your assignment, you've got to find a way to take pride in it. You can't blow it off. So we dug in and the pilot had some issues, and the first episode that we ran, we kind of got into shape. It wasn't quite there. And then suddenly the third episode, I said, okay, that's funny. We figured out, and in no small part, Nick Kroll was a secret weapon, but by the time we figured out on episode three how we could make a show that we could be somewhat proud of, after the first episode aired, we were already dead. We were summarily executed, but go to YouTube and watch some of the later episodes of Caveman, which are still illegally out there. And it's actually a pretty funny show, and it's got a great cast. I'm not sure Steve McPherson was in his right mind when he picked it up.Michael Jamin:It's so interesting. I mean, you're absolutely right. No matter what show you're working on, you're going to find something that you love about it. You'll take pride and you'll lean into that. But yeah, you're right, because we did an animated show and for some reason they decided to put a laugh track on the first episode. And I remember yelling, why wouldn't there be a laugh track on an animated who exactly is laughing? Are we going to see the other animated characters in the audience who's laughing and lost that fight? For sure. And we got raked over the coals justifiably. So once you had that stink on you,Bill Martin:Yeah, yeah.Michael Jamin:We fought it. You can't fight. You can't win every fight. What are you going to do?Bill Martin:I don't think you can win any fight, can you?Michael Jamin:I wouldn't know what that's like.We did a show, oh my God. We did a show that was very low budget, and we had a slow mall budget for food. And so I sent the PA to go to the Whole Foods and get me these yogurts that I like that has the fruit on the side. It was a hundred dollars, whatever, just get some yogurt. And we submitted it in, and then we got yelled at by the studio saying, why is this bill from Whole Foods? And I remember saying, well, whatever, it's a hundred dollars. Does it matter where we spend it? And they go, yeah.Bill Martin:Oh no,Michael Jamin:You're not. A Whole Foods kind of show.Bill Martin:This is a Ralph's show.Michael Jamin:This is the Vaughn's Show. Yeah, that was So, yeah, you don't even win that fight, but maybe you wouldn't morph. I don't know. You must be able to win some fights.Bill Martin:Well, it's also one of the things, I think because I'm not an aggressive person, I always start every show with, I'm so lucky to have this. How lucky I got a parking space and a computer. I get to make a TV show. And sometimes I don't realize until I'm doing something I hate, I'll go like, oh, shit, I should have this. Didn't have to be this way.Michael Jamin:SoBill Martin:I think as we've gotten older, we've gotten crunchier, and we'll be a little more blunt about things, but certainly early on it was just like, pinch me. I can't believe you guys are letting me drive the car here. It'sMichael Jamin:Great. Yeah. But that's a big jump because was the first show you ran, was it grounded for Life?Bill Martin:No, the first show we ran was actually House of Bugging because of some weird politics. The showrunners got fired and we got bumped upstairs out of nowhere, and we were in our twenties and didn't know what we were doing, but we were already in Queens and they needed someone to,Michael Jamin:You were in Queens?Bill Martin:Yeah, we were the only ones in QueensMichael Jamin:WhoBill Martin:Could possibly do this job. So when we came back to do Third Rock, we had artificially inflated titles because we'd run House of Buggin. But then during the second season of Third Rock, the Turners tapped us to take over for them. Oh,Michael Jamin:I didn't even know that. I'm sorry. I didn't know that. Was that scary for you running?Bill Martin:You know what? It wasn't because it was the happiest place on earth and curtained. I mean, I hate to be Mr. Aw Shucks show business so fun. But that cast made work such a joy that there was no way it go wrong. Had an amazing writing staff, and the actors were delightful. It felt weirdly easy to do. I mean, we were stressed because we knew that we were being handed a baby and the baby was successful and 20 million people watching the baby every week. So there was certainly some pressure on us, but at the same time, we knew we could do it. And we knew that everybody had our backs with a very nice familial situation.Michael Jamin:It really was. I mean, that show really was, it was a big show. It was one of the shows everyone talked about if you were trying to break into show business, you had a spec for that show. It was a big responsibility. It was an honor to get tapped.Bill Martin:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Everyone loved that. Yep. Then, okay, what shows should we talk about more? I don't know. What shows do you want to talk? They're all great. I dunno. Tell me some experiences that you've had. I don't want to go one by one, there's too many.Bill Martin:Yeah. Well, so far the ones you've skipped are good ones to skip. You steer running into caveman, but that's fine.Michael Jamin:I did.Bill Martin:I guess really for me, shows are divided up into the shows we ran and the shows you worked on. And typically, if you're not running a show, there are creative frustrations that you feel because you wish things were different. That said one of the most fantastic experiences of our career was working on trial and error because Jeff Astro of the showrunner and he'd worked for us. So we kind of had that, you got to listen to us a little bit, Jeff, and we helped get John Liko to agree to do it. And at that point, we'd been on a few Multicam that weren't great, and this was a real interesting single cam, fake doc with John, and he was super serialized, like a true crime series. And that was just a blast. And I'm still very proud of that season. We did not work on the second season. They sent it to Canada and shaved off half the staff and it killed Jeff Astro.Michael Jamin:Really? When you say,Bill Martin:Well, was Christian Chen, it was still a great season, but it was not as easy. It was kind of Warner Brothers was trying to cut every corner they could on it. SoMichael Jamin:When you say killed them, they overworked him and cut the staff. Yeah, yeah. People don't realize that I think be brutal. And then of course, the Unicorn, which went two seasons, and that's a big deal. That's really, when I think about it now, it's actually quite a big deal that you got your own show on a network these days when they pick up two shows a year, maybe it's nothing.Bill Martin:No, that was really threading a needle there because we had pitched it all over the place, and it's based on a true story, based on a friend of ours who went through this awful situation where he lost his wife when his kids were young. And we finally sold it c v s on the last day of selling anything. It was like October and Julie Per Worth calls the last second and said, we want to do it. We went, oh, no fucking way. So I mean, it was something that was both a passion project and just endless sadness for us. And so we started doing it and it went back and forth single multi, single, multi. We're trying to find the right guy to play the guy. And we knew, we'd always said, this is a single cam and it's going to be serialized and it should probably be on a streamer because that was when streamers seemed like the promised land, but c b s one, even though their forte was malteses. But then we met Walton Goggins who only came in because one of our producers is Peyton Reed, who's an old college friend of ours, and the guy who inspired the show and he'd worked with Walton on Antman. And so Walton trusted him and he came in for a meeting and Walton is just the greatest guy.Michael Jamin:SoBill Martin:He saw this, he found he had a personal identification with the guy, and once he jumped in, he said, I'll do it. I mean, it's going to be single, obviously, but I'm in. And David Nevins and everybody at CCBs were so thrilled that Walton Goggins wanted to do a sitcom that's like suddenly we were fast tracked and it was all the way onto television.Michael Jamin:Wow. Did you pitch it cool with the title The Unicorn? Because I was like, that's a smart title. I would think that, yeah,Bill Martin:It's funny. It did. And Mike Schiff never liked it.Michael Jamin:Oh really?Bill Martin:By the way, Mike's usually right, and I'm wrong about stuff, but I do like to Lord it over him. I assume he's going to listen to this. He didn't care for it. But it's one of those things, once it leaked out, people said, oh my God, oh my God, that's perfect. And the fact was it had to happened to coincide with a time when unicorns were everywhere. Unicorn kitty pools. And it was the unicorn moment anyway. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Yeah. I remember hearing about it. It was like, ah, damn, I'm surprised you said it took so long to sell. Like damn it, that one sells right away. That's an idea that sells. SoBill Martin:It's interesting.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Bill Martin:We didn't make up the title. It's whatMichael Jamin:I know.Bill Martin:Guys like Grady are known as on Tinder. They check all these magical boxes for what a perfect guy should be.Michael Jamin:Yeah, right. That's such a great, and then after that, the neighborhood which you jumped in, it had already been running for, no, tell me if I'm wrong.Bill Martin:Yes, it had, here's my vindictive tale of revenge. It's not vindictive at all by the way, but we had a pilot with Cedric. We had run his show, the Soul Man on TV Land for a couple of years.Great guy. We had a great time there. And when that ended, he said, let's do another show together. So we pitched out a show that it was his idea and his manager, Eric's idea, to do a show where he's a fire chief. So we pitched it and c b s bought it. We wrote it, it was a single cam, was kind of gritty because we wanted to do something that was hard to produce as usual. And at the end of the day, they didn't want to pick it up. But we were producing with Eric Kaplan, I should me, Aaron Kaplan. And Aaron quickly plucked Cedric out of our pilot and put him in the neighborhood, which was his other pilot. So we were basically just for him, a Cedric delivery system.So we weren't bitter because we knew Jim Reynolds. He's a great guy. And we were happy for everybody except that shit. And there goes our pilot. But it's funny, when we were producing the Unicorn, we were in the neighborhood's offices. It just happened to be that we were having the same line producer, pat Kinlin, who had done Third Rock with us. And Jim was in the midst of the first season of the neighborhood. And it was hard because first seasons are hard. And he was like, oh my God, this is killing me. And I jokingly said, don't worry when you get fired season three, we'll come in and take over. And it seemed hilarious at the time. And what do you know? It happens. And to Jim's credit, he did think it was funny that my smart ass remark had come full circle.Michael Jamin:And what was it like stepping into the show that wasn't yours? I mean, you've, not that you've done it before, but stillBill Martin:It's hard. Yeah, it's hard. And we came in with a whole new people. The feeling was clean slate, let's reboot this. And we had heard from Pat Kinlin the producer, you're going to love it here. It's the happiest set since Third Rock. And I was like going, yeah, yeah, yeah, nice try. But it kind of was, the cast had jelled and the crew was cool, and it was a very happy place. I mean, there had been issues, but we pretty quickly felt at home there. It was nice. And that's why we would love to stay there as long as possible.Michael Jamin:Maybe you will. I mean, well, we'll see what happens to the strike, but maybe you will. I mean, it seems like now they're giving shows a longer, tell me if I'm wrong, networks are giving shows a longer chance because it's too risky almost to not.Bill Martin:Yeah. Yeah. And I think for c b s shows built around someone that people love, said it's hard to recreate that when you have someone who's that warm and magnetic at the center of a show. You're halfway there already and the show is steadily. I mean, obviously all audiences are declining and atomizing all over the place, but it feels like the numbers have defied gravity a little.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.What's it like now? Because one of the biggest things, you've obviously staffed a million shows and you got to read specs from, you must stick through a pile of specs every season when you're doing this. What are you looking for in new writers?Bill Martin:Yeah, it's funny. For the last 10 years or so, you only read pilots because there aren't any spec shows to write anymore because there aren't any water cooler shows that everybody knows.So I mean, it used to be, and I kind of like it because someone could write a good per enthusiasm that sounded right and had the rhythms, but it might not mean they were capable of a lot of things. It just meant they had created a good version of this very specific thing. Pilots, the writer's whole personality comes out. And I think it's nice to you get a peek into how weird someone is, and we just want people who are different and weird, and you want that array of points of view to be very, you don't want eight Mike Schiffs lock, Lord, help us. And I think it's really just if someone catches you off guard with something you didn't expect to be funny. And people who just write characters, the one thing I hate more than anything, and if your spec starts with single people in an apartment talking about sex, I'm not going to read page two. It's like there's thousands of them, and it's very hard to get anything out of that.Michael Jamin:That's interesting. I've said the opposite. I've said to me, it's easier to read a speck of an existing show. I know the characters, I might know the characters, and it's easier for me to see do they get the voice. But if it's a pilot, it'sBill Martin:Easier. That's the key, Michael. It's too easy.Michael Jamin:But if it's a pilot,Bill Martin:Someone's,Michael Jamin:It's hard for me. Don't make me do more work. If I'm reading, that's the problem. If I'm reading an original pilot sometimes, okay, first I have to remember with the characters, okay, who's this character? What's their relationship? And then I'm like, okay, what's the tone here? It's hard for me to, are they trying to be big or is this just bad writing? You have to figure that out too. No, you're more of thatBill Martin:Mind. It's more work to read a pilot. It is, but I think when someone pops out of a pile, it's a bigger pop when they've created something entertaining whole cloth.Michael Jamin:Right. Well, that's true. That's true. AndBill Martin:Also for Multicam, s, jokes matter, but for single cams, you need a couple of people who write jokes. But also then it's a lot about story and character. And I think it's harder to get that from sitcom specs. It's easier to get that from something that's personal to somebody.Michael Jamin:Do you have a preference as to what you want a single or multi?Bill Martin:The artist in me wants to do single. The person who has to wake up and go to work and then get home and be happy, likes multi,Michael Jamin:But the Multicam, the hours are worse,Bill Martin:Is so great.Michael Jamin:Wait, multi. If you're doing a rewrite on a multi-camera after a network run through, you might be there at all midnight or whatever.Bill Martin:Never.Michael Jamin:Never. You always have good,Bill Martin:Well, no, by the way, yes, you're right. But on the neighborhood, I don't think we had dinner three or four times. There is, and that's not because we're so fantastic. It's because the show works. If a Multicam works, the hours are great. If a Multicam doesn't work, then you're right. If the run through is so bad that you're reworking the story. And we've been there too, and we had even Third Rock early on, we had some late nights. But in the ideal world, when a Multicam is working, it's the best job in the world, and Sedric knows what he wants. He's also approving the stories. He's approving the pitches early on. So we're not taking something to the table that he's not invested in. So I think, and if he were an ogre or had bad taste, it would be terrible. But the combination of him trusting us and us trusting him has made it a really sweet gig.Michael Jamin:So you'll pitch him, okay, I'm curious how it works. You'll start breaking a story. You won't get too far. Maybe you'll have some act breaks and then you'll bring it to Cedric. But you won't do more than that. You won't do more work than that. Right.Bill Martin:You never know when he'll say, and sometimes he does that thing too, where he'll go like, no, I don't know about that. How about that? Instead like, oh, okay, that fine. That's easy to do. He's great at having that natural story sense of what his character would do.Michael Jamin:Now, did you ever pitch him or anybody else? This is my fear. You pitch them, here's a great story idea for you. And they go, oh yeah, they love it. And then you go take it to the room and you go, I don't know how to break this.Bill Martin:Yes,Michael Jamin:I thought I know how to break it, but I don't how to break it.Bill Martin:That is what I would do if I didn't have a super anal partner. But Mike, and we know we still have those times, but once I have an idea, I'm good to go, Hey, look at this great idea. Let's go. But Mike's only like, I need to stare this for a day. So we say we give Cedric ideas early in the process, but the fact is we send them through the ship Aron 8,000 beforeMichael Jamin:TheBill Martin:Upgrade, they get out of the room.Michael Jamin:And so I'm just curious. So it's a couple of you may spend, let's say two or three days on a story idea and then bring it to him.Bill Martin:Yeah. I mean, some are easy, some are one day, some we will break five different times and still get it wrong. And the six time will do it. I mean, we work hard and Lord knows when we go back into production and we're going to have a three minute pre-production period, we're going to be fucked. But last season we had eight weeks. It was plenty of time to find our rhythm there,Michael Jamin:Right then. Okay. Then after that, you still got a picture to the studio and then the network, and they can still say no or to you saying, well, Cedric really likes this.Bill Martin:Yes, we do. And the thing is, it's not just Cedric, it's also Wendy Trilling who used to be the head of CCB ss. And she is cool, and she's smart, and she's not afraid to hurt our feelings, which I love about her Eted, her trust her. So in a weird way, by the time the network sees it, they know Wendy likes it. And if Wendy and Cedric like it, they tend to say, in fact, at a certain point, we said, can we stop doing outlines and go, we have a very detailed story document. Can we just go to script? And they'll say, okay. So that also helped us that they would trust that process.Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's actually, it's a big advantage that Wendy's producer in the show because yeah, she knows what the network wants. They trust her. And so it's almost like it almost removes an obstacle in the future. You get it out of the way. Now that's interesting.Bill Martin:And also, it's something that we want to do, and Wendy has signed off on it. It's like, we don't have to be dick's. We can say, I know, but let's see it on its feet because everybody over here likes it. It usually works for us.Michael Jamin:And are they bringing audiences back now? How does it work?Bill Martin:They started to, the problem we had last year was they did the whole season before we got there, block and shoot, because they had no choice. And it frankly made everybody a little relaxed because it was very easy lifestyle. And the fact is, when you have an audience that's basically crew and extras, it's easy to not go hard for the laughs on the other side when you have Tashina Arnold and Cedric, the Entertainer, and Max and Beth, these are people who swing for the fence every time. So I honestly don't think you can tell they weren't doing it for audience because they're selling it so hard in a great way. So last season we still did block blockage shoot, and we kept saying, the audience is going to be back any second. We're about to go back to audiences. But it was working. WhatMichael Jamin:Do you do? So now that you're on strike, what is it like for you now on strike when you don't have these creative muscles to flex? What, are you craving anything? Or are you doing anything on the side, a novel or something?Bill Martin:No, I mean, I think me and Mike are revisiting things that we had to put aside and doing brain work on them, because we don't want to waste this time completely. But early on, early on, it had been a long time since we had an off season where we knew we had a job to go back to. Third Rock was like that, and Grounded was like that. But it's been years since we had a non panicky off season. And this finally, we had a pickup. This was like, ah, I'm going to go on vacation, A real vacation. And that vacation turned into the strike, but I was like going, it's a strike, but still, we're going back. It's September. And it just gradually dawned on me like, oh, this is really hurting the show. So I've kind of been in denial that I needed to worry.I mean, all signs are that when the strike is over at whatever, we are going to go back to work. And people still want the show, and Cedric's still ready to go, but it takes some of the fun out of it, obviously. And I shouldn't be complaining because we're still in such an ideal position. The last strike, we had to walk off the set on cavemen and let other people edit the show and completely divorce ourselves from that. We've been killing ourselves on and getting force majeure out of a deal. I mean, it just destroyed our career completely. This is a much less terrifying strike, even though it's plenty terrifying.Michael Jamin:It's so interesting because howBill Martin:About you? I mean, are you able to function creatively? Are youMichael Jamin:Retaining yourBill Martin:Wife?Michael Jamin:No. Well, I have definitely both, but I have a book that I'm writing on the side, so that's my little passion project that keeps me entertained writing and performing it. But in terms of, it's interesting that you still panic about that next job. And for me, it feels like, wow, I guess I stopped panicking a long time ago. I don't know why, but you're so successful and you always get that next job and don't know.Bill Martin:That's how it looks. I'm looks,Michael Jamin:I'm looking at your I M D V page. It definitely looks that way,Bill Martin:Yes. But it's a lot of times where we were falling off the building and grabbed onto the ledge with our fingernails, and we took a lot of jobs that were under our quote just to keep working. We've had our feast and famine. Certainly I M D B looks chock full of stuff, butMichael Jamin:We've taken jobs who always, I mean, plenty of jobs under our quote. I mean, it's just like, while it's that unemployment, so you take the job, yeah.Bill Martin:After you take three jobs in a row under your quote, it's no longer a quote.Michael Jamin:Well, I remember on that first one, I was like, we have a quote. We have no anonymous quotes anymore, so why is it a quote? What's going on here? But yeah, it's so interesting that you still have that feeling looking at, for me, from where I stand, wow, the grass is really green where UI guys are. So it's interesting. Well,Bill Martin:I hope I'm relaxing now. I finally got my kids out of college, so this was my first year without tuition payments.Michael Jamin:Interesting.Bill Martin:In 25.Michael Jamin:What are they going to do now? Are they going to get in Hollywood in theBill Martin:Business? Nope. Nope. None of them are interested. I mean, one of them in particular certainly should be, he's hilarious. But the thought of putting himself out there creatively in a business that has no easy way in anymore, I think he just is very happy to be a barista, not put himself out there because it's nerve wracking. And I get it.Michael Jamin:How do you see most people, the new people that you're working with, the young kids, how are they breaking in then?Bill Martin:Yeah, I don't know. That's the scary thing about this tipping point we're at right now is when I hear stories about young writers who make a year out of four mini rooms on shows that they've even heard of. I mean, the fact is that the business has become so diffuse that those clear paths, pa, writer, assistant writer's room, job, those are so few and far between now. I can't figure it out. People aren't going through these main arteries. They're going through these weird tiny capillaries to weird things.Michael Jamin:Right?Bill Martin:Pretty good analogy.Michael Jamin:I love it. You should be a doctor. But don't ask, would they show up? I mean, you have a staff and you don't ask 'em where the script has somehow got on your desk to an agent or a manager, and you're like, okay, you're hired, basically.Bill Martin:But the thing is, on the neighborhood, it's quite a few standups,And it's a few people that we know and trust from years of working with them and a couple of young people who were writer assistants who are knocking on doors. But it's funny because we had so many people in place, it wasn't like we were out beating the bushes for new voices that were coming out of nowhere. But I'm sure that's true in a lot of places. It's just that when you're at a C B S studio show that's already running, it's kind of like that old fashioned machinery that's feeding you. These writers is already there.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting because I don't know, I'm not sure how people are doing it. We gave a talk at, I think at L M U, and there's a young woman, and she just made a hit podcast, and then that got her discovered. It was like a scripted podcast. I was like, oh, tell me about that. Interesting. So do you have advice then for people listening, words,Bill Martin:Encouragement? Last night, I was giving advice to this year's crop of interns from the U N C Chapel Hill, which is where I went to college. In fact, look, there it is. And I had to apologize because I said, look, here's the traditional way in. If you want to get in the writer's room, become a pa. And I also admit that that way of getting into the business may disappear. And if you have other creative outlet, if you can do a great podcast, if you put stuff up on YouTube or you have TikTok, there's a lot of ways to express your comic voice that aren't writing sitcom specs and waiting for your turn in the writer's room as a dinosaur. I'm not really the perfect person to ask,Michael Jamin:But I think you're right. It's about put the creative energy out there, stop begging for work, start making your own opportunities, and probably good things. Good things may come your way, I guess. Right?Bill Martin:Hopefully. And I also would like to think as the strike goes on, people will periodically say, why doesn't someone do what Charlie Chaplin did? Do United Artists start a creator, talent driven production? And I do feel like when I listen to a great podcast like Valley Heat, which we were talking about before we went on, you realize there are ways to create an entire world for a show for no money. And in my mind, valley Heat, everyone should listen to this thing.Michael Jamin:Yeah, listen to it. TheyBill Martin:Should just take that, put it on camera, it's ready to go. I mean, it's a show that is fully developed that no one owns a piece of. And I guess that would be what my hope is, that if we don't like working within the system with these jerks, if you're young and have that energy, make something. Yeah. And who knows? I mean,Michael Jamin:See, we agree on that. We didn't agree on spec versus original pilots, but we agree on this.Bill Martin:That turned into a pretty ugly fight.Michael Jamin:It was contentious.Bill Martin:But that's the kind of heat that I think gets these podcasts to catch on.Michael Jamin:I think so. But also as you're learning your craft, you're getting better at it. And I don't know. I see it happening. I see people making a name for themselves. I was on the picket line, I think it was at Disney, and I ran into this guy. He was on my podcast, and he recognized me, and he was a joke writer on Kimmo. I go, how did you get that job? He goes, well, I was just tweeting Day and Jokes. I like doing it. And after about a year or two, they found me and they hired me. Good for you. But he was putting the work out. He was doing the work and getting better, and that's how he got hired. SoBill Martin:GoodMichael Jamin:For him.Bill Martin:And it's been, I guess, shit, my dad says was the original tweet becomes a show, andMichael Jamin:We all rolled eyesBill Martin:That from the caveman syndrome of cynicism about how are you tuning it Twitter into a show? But if you're funny, people will find you.Michael Jamin:Yeah. But like I said, I remember that happening, really? Is this how it works now? But they were just at the forefront and yeah, that's how it works now.Bill Martin:Yeah. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Damn right. I'm always late to the trend. So Interesting. And I guess before I wrap up, what is it like for you working? People want to know, working with a writing partner, how does that dynamic work with you guys?Bill Martin:Well, there aren't a lot of writing partnerships that last this long. I mean, you guys and Al and Krinsky, there's a few. And I think for me, it's having that yin yang thing. I'm not a worrier, I'm not detail oriented. I don't tend to stress out, and Mike does, and I only really want to do half the job of running a show. Luckily, he can do the other half. So I mean, I think a lot of partnerships are based on people having the same sense of humor and just getting along, and that's great. But for me and Mike, we don't actually get along all that great, but we do agree on what's funny and we respect each other and it makes the job doable.Michael Jamin:Wait, you said you don't get along that great?Bill Martin:Well, we get along great, but I mean, one of us is a drunk pot smoking redneck from Florida who doesn't give a shit. And the other's an incredibly neurotic, buttoned up Jewish guy from the priest side. The only thing we have in common is Cheers and Albert Brooks.Michael Jamin:But you met in school, right? In film school,Bill Martin:Yes.Michael Jamin:Right.Bill Martin:Yeah. We just met because he was the only person in our writing class first year who I thought was funny. And so we just kind of found each other because we're the two guys writing comedy in that big screenwriting workshop.Michael Jamin:And you leapt into each other's arms. Yeah.Bill Martin:Yes.Michael Jamin:It's so interesting. But it is so funny when you said about it, you only want to do half the job of a showrunner. Yeah, it's a lot of work. It's a big job. That's something my partner and I say all the time, I don't really want to make this decision. Can you make it? It's a lot of work.Bill Martin:Yes.Michael Jamin:And a lot of times we'll punt it to even a hair and makeup. Well, what do you guys think? All right. You guys seem to got a good handle on what the wardrobe should be that you do it. Yeah. SoBill Martin:Interesting. I'm always very happy to let someone else do that.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Bill Martin:We do take turns firing people. That's the one awful, horrible thing. We haven't done it a lot. But the last guyMichael Jamin:Are talking about writers or other people.Bill Martin:Anything. Anybody. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Interesting. Because when we were on set on a single camera show, if one of us has to run onto the stage to give the actor a note or the director a note, it's always like, you do it. You do it. I don't want to, how many times am I going to go on set and tell them they're doing it wrong? Can't you tell them they're doing it wrong? I don't want to be that guy all the time. Yeah.Bill Martin:We had a great run for several years where whenever we would get a pickup, I'd be on stage and get to announce it, and every timeMichael Jamin:We Good news gotBill Martin:Our order cut, Mike would be on stage and it was hilarious. I was the hero with the, and it was killing him. It was happening over and over again, just by God smiling onMichael Jamin:Me. Oh, that's so funny. That's freaking great. We did an episode, I think it was Andrew shoot me, we're writing a script and I was adamant that this joke was going to work, and Seever it was like, I don't even get it right. And I'm like, no, this joke is great. You have no idea what you're talking about. And so we take the descrip, I guess it got to the table somehow, and at the table we hit this joke, nothing, and the room's just silent. And I just start busting out laughing. I was like, oh my God, I can't believe how wrong I was. And I'm laughing at her wrong. And then afterwards, everyone's looking at Seabert. They're like, assuming it's his joke because I'm laughing at him and now I'm laughing even more pushing him under the bus. But yeah, there's that. But yeah, there's always, I guess I feel like maybe you feel the same way. If he comes up with a line, great. That's one last line I got to come up with. You know what I'm saying? It's mine now. Anyway, so yeah,Bill Martin:For me, the great thing about writing teams is, well, you're a single writer. You turn on a draft. When a team turns in a draft, it's a third draft because you've already fought it and it just makes things better. I mean, everybody has their partners. It just may not be there, someone they write with, but when you take it to the table or you take it to the writer's room, everyone's going to get a whack at it anyway. But for me, I think it just makes that initial idea, everything has to kind of, you beat things back and forth and you find 'em out and you end up with better drafts.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I totally agree. I always see that with writing teams. Their scripts just tend to be a little tighter. Just somehow they're a little tighter. They've already fought it, fought over it. So yeah. That's interesting. Well, bill Martin, thank you so much for doing this. This is a real pleasure. Honestly, it is an honor to have you on this and talk about your experience as a showrunner and a creator of really great television and yeah, it really is an honor. Thank you.Bill Martin:This has been great for my self-esteem. I don't normally talk about myself a lot, but man, I come off great.Michael Jamin:You certainly do. I'll fix that in editing. I'll ask these questions then put a long dead pause before you answer. People are like, what's wrong with this guy? Why is he taking so long to answer? But thank you again so much. Anything you want to promote or plug other than your shows orBill Martin:Watch Season six of the Neighborhood when it comes on sometime in 2024? Yes.Michael Jamin:Hopefully that's sad. Yeah, that is sad. Well, thank you again so much. Alright, everyone, another great episode. I have to say of my podcast screenwriters, need to hear this. Keep following me and keep writing more. Good stuff coming. Thank you. Again,Phil Hudson:This has been an episode of Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin and Phil Hudson. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for Michael's monthly webinar @michaeljamin.com/webinar. If you found this podcast helpful, consider sharing it with a friend and leaving us a five-star review on iTunes. For free screenwriting tips, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. You can follow Phil Hudson on social media @PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane Music, by Ken Joseph. Until next time, keep writing. I.