Podcast appearances and mentions of Chris Lloyd

Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival - Episode 3 recorded at the Ceredigion Museum and Aberystwyth Library featuring interviews with authors and excerpts of live panels. Featuring: Interviews - Sarah Bax Horton, Mari Hannah & Sarah Todd Taylor and a brief panel excerpt featruing Jacky Collins with Mari Hannah & Clare Mackintosh. Interview Mari Hannah Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival Wales' only international crime writing festival, Aberystwyth 25th-27th April, 2025. Guests include Mark Billingham, Elly Griffiths, Mari Hannah, Chris Lloyd, Clare Mackintosh, Zoe Sharp, Graham Bartlett, Vaseem Khan, Abir Mukherjee, Alis Hawkins, Nicola Williams, Louise Mumford, Phil Rowlands. Ayo Onatade, Dr. Noir, Matt Johnson, Gwen Parrott and many more.Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival Sponsors: Arts Council of Wales, Ceridigeon Museum, Love Ceridigeon, Aberystwyth govt., Literature Wales, Waterstones, Welsh Govt., Lottery, Hugh James and National Library of Wales.Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2024. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in late 2025.Produced by Junkyard DogCrime TimeCrime Time FM is the official podcast ofGwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025CrimeFest 2023CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 20242024 Slaughterfest,

What does it take to future-proof communities in a rapidly shifting economic landscape? In this episode, host Ray Methvin welcomes Tim Gibbs and Chris Lloyd for a forward-thinking conversation on innovation, infrastructure, and investment trends shaping the next chapter of the #AmericanSouth. From megaproject readiness to regional strategy, they explore how economic developers can stay ahead of the curve and create lasting value.The SEDC Podcast is Sponsored by Insyteful

In this conversation, John Harcar and Chris Lloyd discuss the journey of becoming a successful real estate investor, focusing on strategies like house hacking, the importance of financial planning, and the challenges faced in the real estate market. Chris shares his personal experiences, insights on lead generation, and how to effectively target clients, all while emphasizing the need to set up investors for long-term success.   Professional Real Estate Investors - How we can help you: Investor Fuel Mastermind:  Learn more about the Investor Fuel Mastermind, including 100% deal financing, massive discounts from vendors and sponsors you're already using, our world class community of over 150 members, and SO much more here: http://www.investorfuel.com/apply   Investor Machine Marketing Partnership:  Are you looking for consistent, high quality lead generation? Investor Machine is America's #1 lead generation service professional investors. Investor Machine provides true ‘white glove' support to help you build the perfect marketing plan, then we'll execute it for you…talking and working together on an ongoing basis to help you hit YOUR goals! Learn more here: http://www.investormachine.com   Coaching with Mike Hambright:  Interested in 1 on 1 coaching with Mike Hambright? Mike coaches entrepreneurs looking to level up, build coaching or service based businesses (Mike runs multiple 7 and 8 figure a year businesses), building a coaching program and more. Learn more here: https://investorfuel.com/coachingwithmike   Attend a Vacation/Mastermind Retreat with Mike Hambright: Interested in joining a “mini-mastermind” with Mike and his private clients on an upcoming “Retreat”, either at locations like Cabo San Lucas, Napa, Park City ski trip, Yellowstone, or even at Mike's East Texas “Big H Ranch”? Learn more here: http://www.investorfuel.com/retreat   Property Insurance: Join the largest and most investor friendly property insurance provider in 2 minutes. Free to join, and insure all your flips and rentals within minutes! There is NO easier insurance provider on the planet (turn insurance on or off in 1 minute without talking to anyone!), and there's no 15-30% agent mark up through this platform!  Register here: https://myinvestorinsurance.com/   New Real Estate Investors - How we can work together: Investor Fuel Club (Coaching and Deal Partner Community): Looking to kickstart your real estate investing career? Join our one of a kind Coaching Community, Investor Fuel Club, where you'll get trained by some of the best real estate investors in America, and partner with them on deals! You don't need $ for deals…we'll partner with you and hold your hand along the way! Learn More here: http://www.investorfuel.com/club   —--------------------

Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival Special Episode 2 recorded at the Ceredigion Museum and Aberystwyth Library featuring interviews with authors and excerpts of live panels. Featuring: LJ Shepherd, Jacqueline Harrett, Diamond Crime panel, Heidi Amsinck, Foreign Fields panel, Gwenllian Williams, Vaseem Khan (sneak appearance by Abir Mukherjee), Arresting Fun panel, Philip Gwynne Jones.Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival Wales' only international crime writing festival, Aberystwyth 25th-27th April, 2025. Guests include Mark Billingham, Elly Griffiths, Mari Hannah, Chris Lloyd, Clare Mackintosh, Zoe Sharp, Graham Bartlett, Vaseem Khan, Abir Mukherjee, Alis Hawkins, Nicola Williams, Louise Mumford, Phil Rowlands. Ayo Onatade, Dr. Noir, Matt Johnson, Gwen Parrott and many more.Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival Sponsors: Arts Council of Wales, Ceridigeon Museum, Love Ceridigeon, Aberystwyth govt., Literature Wales, Waterstones, Welsh Govt., Lottery, Hugh James and National Library of Wales.Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2024. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in late 2025.Produced by Junkyard DogCrime TimeCrime Time FM is the official podcast ofGwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025CrimeFest 2023CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 20242024 Slaughterfest,

Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival Wales' only international crime writing festival returns to Aberystwyth 25th-27th April, 2025. Guests include Mark Billingham, Elly Griffiths, Mari Hannah, Chris Lloyd, Clare Mackintosh, Zoe Sharp, Graham Bartlett, Vaseem Khan, Abir Mukherjee, Alis Hawkins, Nicola Williams, Louise Mumford, Phil Rowlands. Ayo Onatade, Dr. Noir, Matt Johnson, Gwen Parrott and many more.Paul Burke chats to festival organiser Gail Williams, treasurer Sarah Ward and chair Philip Gwynne Jones about the event. Aberystwyth - lovely seaside location, friendly local reception, beautiful venues, and nearby tourist/countryside attractions.Tickets hereGwyl Crime Cymru Festival Sponsors: Arts Council of Wales, Ceridigeon Museum, Love Ceridigeon, Aberystwyth govt., Literature Wales, Waterstones, Welsh Govt., Lottery, Hugh James and National Library of Wales.Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2024. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in late 2025.Produced by Junkyard DogCrime TimeCrime Time FM is the official podcast ofGwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023 & 2025CrimeFest 2023CWA Daggers 2023 & 2024 & National Crime Reading Month& Newcastle Noir 2023 and 20242024 Slaughterfest,

Christopher Lloyd is the secretary general of the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture Alliance (RUMA) based in the United Kingdom. In this episode, he discusses the organization's role in promoting best practices across various livestock sectors, including salmon farming.

Not many artists have reached the heights that today's guest has in such a short period of time. Joining Daniel on today's episode of "Creatively Me", Chris Lloyd is an artist based in King's Cross in London whose live drawings at the concerts of some of the music industry's most successful stars has gained him huge attention.Using pencil and watercolour, Chris has captured beloved concert tours, including Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour" and Olivia Rodrigo's "Guts Tour". His work has been noticed and hung in the homes of stars like Elton John, Sam Smith & Dua Lipa.On today's episode, Chris will be discussing the nature of creating art in a live environment, what it's like to be recognised by his idols and having fun in exploring art, entertainment and pop culture.Plus he'll be sharing a very touching story about his experience at a Taylor Swift concert this summer.All of this & more on this episode of "Creatively Me".Chris Lloyd - https://www.chrislloydart.comDaniel's Book "Breanne 1975" - ⁠⁠https://www.amazon.co.uk/Breanne-1975-Daniel-Heaphy/dp/1804392030⁠⁠ Connect with Daniel on Instagram - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/d.heaphymedia/⁠⁠ Email - ⁠creativelymepodcast@gmail.com⁠

In this episode, Dennis is joined by Chris Lloyd from the McGuireWoods Consulting infrastructure and economic development team. Dennis and Chris discuss best practices for responding to RFPs and the intangibles that can prevent a community from being considered for a project.  Chris Lloyd leads the McGuireWoods Consulting infrastructure and economic development team, where he specializes in site selection and negotiations for economic development incentives. Since 1998, Chris has worked on dozens of high-profile corporate expansions and relocations across the country. Prior to joining McGuireWoods Consulting, Chris served for nearly five years in the Office of the Secretary of Commerce and Trade under Virginia Governors Allen and Wilder. Chris is also a past chair of the Site Selectors Guild. Chris has also worked closely with clients on numerous public-private partnership projects for transportation and other infrastructure, and played a leading role in the development and passage of Virginia's public-private partnership laws, which have since become model legislation for use in other states.  

Donate to our October 2024 OVERCOMING THE DARKNESS campaign at https://weirddarkness.com/overcoming. Weird Darkness is narrated by professional full-time voice actor Darren Marlar. No A.I. voices are ever used in the show.IN THIS EPISODE: What is it truly like in hell? Of course the only way to find out is to die – and that's a bit extreme if you are just simply curious about the subject. Especially if you find yourself on the wrong side of the faith issue and have to spend an eternity in the “bad place”. But there are some who have reached the edge of life, teetering on the precipice of death, and believe they have experienced the fires of hell, and they were somehow able to return to tell us of their experience. (To Hell and Back) *** Most people are already familiar with the story of the ghost of Abraham Lincoln in the White House, but he is not lonely, not by far. There are many who have claimed to have seen, heard, and even felt ghosts while in the White House… even in the Oval Office itself. (Ghosts of the Oval Office) *** Do you sometimes experience visions of future events? You have dreams and sometimes they come true later? What should you do if you are having realistic premonitions? (Handling Your Premonitions) *** Jane Cakebread loved her liquor… a lot. How deep was that love? Well, she was arrested hundreds of times and convicted an amazing 281 times for drunkenness. (The Drunkest Woman In The World) *** In olden times, pure and reliable water was the staff of life – so a well with fresh water was a godsend. But what if that well is haunted? (The Haunted Holy Well) *** Growing up together as next door neighbors, a boy has a crush on a beautiful young girl – but the crush turns into obsession, and that obsession lead to the end of two lives. (In Love With The Girl Next Door)CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Cold Open and Show Intro00:05:29.409 = To Hell and Back00:18:19.580 = Ghosts of the Oval Office00:23:59.643 = In Love With The Girl Next Door00:28:49.154 = Haunted Holy Well00:35:15.862 = Handling Your Premonitions00:42:10.279 = The Drunkest Woman In The World00:56:55.994 = Show OutroSOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM THE EPISODE…“MYTHS ABOUT HELL” (Weird Darkness Afterward): https://www.spreaker.com/episode/50219296ARTICLE: William Desmond Taylor: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/sup8p97mEPISODE: Including Virginia Rappe story: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/y8edycnhEPISODE: Including Jean Spangler story: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/az5xauep“Handling Your Premonitions” by Stephen Wagner for Live About: https://tinyurl.com/y9gd6axa“The Drunkest Woman in the World” by Geri Walton: https://tinyurl.com/ybtfgr9l“The Haunted Holy Well” by Chris Lloyd for The Northern Echo: https://tinyurl.com/y9w8yktt“In Love With The Girl Next Door” by Robert Wilhelm for Murder By Gaslight: https://tinyurl.com/y2snzy89“Ghosts of the Oval Office” by Paul Seaburn for Mysterious Universe: https://tinyurl.com/y8vjd6kv“To Hell and Back” by Katherine Ripley for Ranker: https://tinyurl.com/y8payubbWeird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library.= = = = =(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)= = = = ="I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46= = = = =WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2024, Weird Darkness.= = = = =Originally aired: June 15, 2020CUSTOM LANDING PAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/ToHellAndBack

Yousuf Bhaijee is a Growth Gdvisor and interim Head of Growth to companies like Brightwheel, HP, Evernow and Blackbird. Chris Lloyd is an engineer who most recently worked at AI company, Humane, and also Pinterest, Assembly and Opera. Yousuf is the father of three kids and Chris is the father of two. Chris and his family, Yousuf and his family and five other families live in a town-home complex that they all collectively bought several years ago. There are now a total of fifteen kids at the complex! In today's conversation we discussed:* How this whole modern day commune experiment got started* What it means to live in a modern day commune* The shared rituals, benefits and drawbacks of this lifestyle* The positive impacts on mental health* The benefits of sharing* How gender roles take on new meaning in communal living* The most surprising aspects of a communal lifestyle* Family privacy and parenting styles when you live in close proximity with othersWhere to find Yousuf Bhaijee* Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yousufbhaijee* X: https://twitter.com/ybhaijeeWhere to find Chris Lloyd* X: https://twitter.com/chrislloydWhere to find Adam Fishman* FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/—In this episode, we cover:[1:47] Yousuf & Chris Introduction/Welcome[4:46] Family Life and Hottakes [10:42] Commune Living - What it is[12:44] Commune Living - How it came to be[17:50] Logistics & Agreements[19:42] Gender Roles[21:30] External Judgements[23:36] Macro and Micro Rituals[26:15] Social Media[27:15] Functionality of Commune Living[30:00] Family Privacy & Parenting Styles[35:52] Changes in Mental Health[39:22] Modern Day Sharing Economy[42:37] Discoveries of Living in a Commune[45:00] Vulnerability & Parenting Advice[50:48] Technology and the Communal Impact[57:12] Parenting Mistakes as a Dad[1:00:25] Reaching Out[1:00:00] Rapid Fire—Show references:Amazon One Medical: https://health.amazon.com/primeBrightwheel: https://mybrightwheel.com/home-b/HP: https://www.hp.comEvernow: https://www.evernow.com/Blackbird: https://www.blackbird.xyz/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.comAssembly: https://www.joinassembly.com/Opera: https://www.opera.com/Eaze: https://www.eaze.com/Zynga: https://www.zynga.com/Humane: https://humane.com/WWDC: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc24/Disney: https://www.disney.com/Paw Patrol: https://www.pawpatrol.com/Blippi: https://blippi.com/Nickelodeon: https://www.nick.com/Lovevery: https://lovevery.com/SNOO: https://www.happiestbaby.com/products/snoo-smart-bassinetNoseFrida: https://frida.com/products/nosefrida—For sponsorship inquiries email: podcast@fishmana.com.For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com Production support for Startup Dad is provided by Tommy Harron at http://www.armaziproductions.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit startupdadpod.substack.com

Send us your thoughtsJoin Hannah Munro as she interviews Chris Lloyd-Mostyn, Senior Business Partner, on his extensive experience driving financial transformation at BT Group. In this episode of CFO 4.0, Chris shares detailed insights into the complexities and strategic decisions involved in managing one of Europe's largest finance transformation projects. Key topics covered include:Understanding the initial state of BT's finance systems and the decision to undergo transformation.How the project was scoped, planned, and the strategic pivot to cloud computing mid-way through.The intense focus required to manage data from decades-old systems during the transition.Building a robust business case, revising it in response to evolving circumstancesStrategies for reducing operational risks and ensuring continuous compliance during the transformation.Links mentioned:Chris' LinkedinWorld Finance Forum London 2024 Explore other CFO 4.0 Podcast episodes here. Subscribe to our Podcast!

Continuing our series of podcasts LIVE from the #AmericanSouth Site Selection Summit, our friend and podcast sponsor, Ray Methvin of Insyteful, interviews Chris Lloyd of McGuireWoods Consulting.

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.

PLEASE SHARE THIS LINK in your social media so others who loves strange and macabre stories can listen too: https://weirddarkness.com/archives/18415IN THIS EPISODE: What is it truly like in hell? Of course the only way to find out is to die – and that's a bit extreme if you are just simply curious about the subject. Especially if you find yourself on the wrong side of the faith issue and have to spend an eternity in the “bad place”. But there are some who have reached the edge of life, teetering on the precipice of death, and believe they have experienced the fires of hell, and they were somehow able to return to tell us of their experience. (To Hell and Back) *** Most people are already familiar with the story of the ghost of Abraham Lincoln in the White House, but he is not lonely, not by far. There are many who have claimed to have seen, heard, and even felt ghosts while in the White House… even in the Oval Office itself. (Ghosts of the Oval Office) *** Do you sometimes experience visions of future events? You have dreams and sometimes they come true later? What should you do if you are having realistic premonitions? (Handling Your Premonitions) *** Jane Cakebread loved her liquor… a lot. How deep was that love? Well, she was arrested hundreds of times and convicted an amazing 281 times for drunkenness. (The Drunkest Woman In The World) *** In olden times, pure and reliable water was the staff of life – so a well with fresh water was a godsend. But what if that well is haunted? (The Haunted Holy Well) *** Growing up together as next door neighbors, a boy has a crush on a beautiful young girl – but the crush turns into obsession, and that obsession lead to the end of two lives. (In Love With The Girl Next Door) *** (Originally aired June 15, 2020)SOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM THE EPISODE…“MYTHS ABOUT HELL” (Weird Darkness Afterward): https://www.spreaker.com/episode/50219296ARTICLE: William Desmond Taylor: https://weirddarkness.com/archives/4034EPISODE: Including Virginia Rappe story: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/y8edycnhEPISODE: Including Jean Spangler story: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/az5xauep“Handling Your Premonitions” by Stephen Wagner for Live About: https://tinyurl.com/y9gd6axa“The Drunkest Woman in the World” by Geri Walton: https://tinyurl.com/ybtfgr9l“The Haunted Holy Well” by Chris Lloyd for The Northern Echo: https://tinyurl.com/y9w8yktt“In Love With The Girl Next Door” by Robert Wilhelm for Murder By Gaslight: https://tinyurl.com/y2snzy89“Ghosts of the Oval Office” by Paul Seaburn for Mysterious Universe: https://tinyurl.com/y8vjd6kv“To Hell and Back” by Katherine Ripley for Ranker: https://tinyurl.com/y8payubbVisit our Sponsors & Friends: https://weirddarkness.com/sponsorsJoin the Weird Darkness Syndicate: https://weirddarkness.com/syndicateAdvertise in the Weird Darkness podcast or syndicated radio show: https://weirddarkness.com/advertise= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library. Background music provided by Alibi Music Library, EpidemicSound and/or StoryBlocks with paid license. Music from Shadows Symphony (https://tinyurl.com/yyrv987t), Midnight Syndicate (http://amzn.to/2BYCoXZ) Kevin MacLeod (https://tinyurl.com/y2v7fgbu), Tony Longworth (https://tinyurl.com/y2nhnbt7), and Nicolas Gasparini (https://tinyurl.com/lnqpfs8) is used with permission of the artists.= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =OTHER PODCASTS I HOST…Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/paranormalitymagMicro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/microterrorsRetro Radio – Old Time Radio In The Dark: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/retroradioChurch of the Undead: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/churchoftheundead= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ="I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2023, Weird Darkness.= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =TRANSCRIPT: https://weirddarkness.com/archives/18415This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3655291/advertisement

Flushed Away is a 2006 computer-animated adventure comedy film directed by Sam Fell and David Bowers, produced by Cecil Kramer, David Sproxton, and Peter Lord, and written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan and Will Davies. It was the third and final DreamWorks Animation film co-produced with Aardman Features following Chicken Run (2000) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), and was the first Aardman project mostly made in CGI animation as opposed to starting with their usual stop-motion. The film stars the voices of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, Shane Richie, Bill Nighy, Andy Serkis and Jean Reno. In the film, a pampered pet rat named Roddy St. James (Jackman) is flushed down the toilet in his Kensington apartment by a sewer rat named Sid (Richie), and befriends a scavenger named Rita Malone (Winslet) in order to get back home while evading a sinister toad (McKellen) and his hench-rats (Nighy and Serkis). -- Audiomorphs is an Animorphs podcast which is actually not so much a podcast as a bootleg Animorphs audiobook. Releases every Friday. Visit https://www.theapodcalypse.com/ Twitter: @audiomorphs

Over zijn onlangs verschenen thriller De ongewenste doden. Over de bezetting van Parijs in de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Over verraad en verzet en hoe die samen kunnen vallen. Over overleven. Over vaders en zonen.  Over misdaad bestrijden onder een misdadig regime.

Emily Cutler is a writer/producer known for Community, A.P. Bio, Fresh off the Boat, and The Michael J. Fox Show. Join Michael Jamin and Emily Cutler as they dive into her history as a stand-up comedian, improv actor, writer, and Co-Executive Producer.Show NotesEmily Cutler on IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0193915/Emily Cutler on Twitter - https://twitter.com/cutleremilyFree 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/watchlistAutomated TranscriptsEmily Cutler (00:00:00):You have to start from a place of, I'm really passionate about this. You know, a lot of times before a season when you go to sell something, you'll say, what are they looking for? Well, this network is looking for family, and this one wants workplace, and this one wants, you know, and so you try to go, okay, well, what do I ha? But you still have to come from some seed of something that makes you giggle or something that inspires you, or it's just gonna be flat, it's not gonna be good or original.Michael Jamin (00:00:25):You're listening to Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.Michael Jamin (00:00:33):Hello everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome to another episode of Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I got another fantastic guest today. I'm starting to think that my listeners don't deserve me because I have so many great people on this podcast. And my next guest is no exception. Emily Cutler, all Bribery. Welcome. So let me go through your,Emily Cutler (00:00:52):Hello,Michael Jamin (00:00:53):Let me go through you from your credit so people know who you are. Just to refresh their me my memory. Okay. As well as you know, the people listening. So Emily has written for, I'm gonna just blow through some of your credits. They're really pretty impressive. Zoe. we we're gonna start with the start with the beginning. Zoe Duncan, Jack and Jane. Rude Awakening. Good Girls. Don't, I don't know how you got that one. Less than Perfect. That's a pretty good, pretty good show. Love Inc. Blue Collar tv, far Poolers, community Free Agents, atory, how to Live with Your Parents. The Michael J. Fox Show growing up, Fisher The Odd Couple. This is the one with Jack Klugman. No, not that one.Emily Cutler (00:01:35):? No. Tony Randall. It was, yeah. Yes, it wasMichael Jamin (00:01:39):AP Bio Bio and Fresh Off the Boat. You have a lot of, do you take your jobs based on the location of, you have a lot of jobs at with locations in them?Emily Cutler (00:01:49):No. And Oh, I thought you meant the location of where you're actually doing the writing in thatMichael Jamin (00:01:54):Case. Oh, no, we all do that. Emily Cutler (00:01:56):Closer to my house. Yeah.Michael Jamin (00:01:58):Yeah. Close to your house. So, man, thank you so much, Emily. Let's just start at the beginning, because you started as actually as an actor and you were, you were a local celebrity in la That's when I first found out about you. You were the host of Nine LineEmily Cutler (00:02:12):.Michael Jamin (00:02:13):You were started as aEmily Cutler (00:02:14):Comic Nine Line, which was a, a tiny ridiculous little show, interstitial show that came on between the Mory PO Show and the Jerry Springer show. I popped in and did a little terrible comedy,Michael Jamin (00:02:25):But we all knew about you. And you, so you started as a standup, right?Emily Cutler (00:02:29):A little bit. I was a very, I dated a lot of standups, so I did a tiny bit of standup, but I spent a lot of time in the clubs watching standups. Yes.Michael Jamin (00:02:38):But then how would you,Emily Cutler (00:02:39):About myself,Michael Jamin (00:02:40):So that, what was your goal then? Like when you moved out to la what was your goal? Did be a writer, an actor, or what? Standup No,Emily Cutler (00:02:46):Acting. Acting. I was an actor. I was on a, you may have seen me as the driving instructor on Beverly Hills. 9 0 2 10, the firstMichael Jamin (00:02:54):One. Now I, now I know the first one of those. The first one, . And then what made you decide to transition to, to writing?Emily Cutler (00:03:02):Well, it was really one of those things where I've, I've written all my life, I've written little books and songs and movies, just constantly writing. And so I decided I'll just write in my downtime from acting mm-hmm. . And as you know, you have an enormous amount of downtime from acting. So it, it, the writing just sort of took off and the acting was kind of, you know, it was not as fun. So I kept with the writing. Oh,Michael Jamin (00:03:26):Because the, the acting wasn't as fun in terms of waiting to get a job, you mean, or no. Did you Yes. What was notEmily Cutler (00:03:32):Fun? Going years without a job? Yes.Michael Jamin (00:03:34):Or, or was it just like being, like, is, was the acting not fun or like, the process of getting jobs not fun?Emily Cutler (00:03:41):The process of getting jobs. Right. The acting is great. I mean, it's just the, the business of acting is, you know, not for the faint of heart. And I was writing and it seemed to be taking off, and I enjoyed it so much. I figured why not do that? And then I don't have to lose, you know, 30 pounds and go to auditions in horrible heat andMichael Jamin (00:04:03):All that kinda stuff. Yeah. Came the ass. And then how did you, so how did you transition to getting your first gig? Like how did that work?Emily Cutler (00:04:09):I was doing a show, an improv show called The Dysfunctional Show at a little theater in Hollywood. AndMichael Jamin (00:04:17):Producers with aEmily Cutler (00:04:17):Comedy show and asked me and one other person Yeah. Okay. In, in in Hollywood and, and produced a lot of people came to see it. It was a very funny show. And they, they said, would you and one other guy who was the friend of mine in the show, like to write a pilot Oh, wow. For Brandon Tartikoff. Years and years ago, it was a, a funny pilot spoofing spoofing. It, it's about a, a network news host that, like a, a Ted Bull who falls on hard times and winds up getting a job in a small town. It's the only job he can get. And so and, and the lead in that actually was Matthew Perry's father, John Bennett Perry.Michael Jamin (00:04:59):Wait, so a little bit, I'm sorry. So they actually produced thisEmily Cutler (00:05:01):Pilot? Yeah, they made the pilot. It was a lot of comedians. It was very it wasn't like a, like a, it was more, it was a comedy sketch sort of show. It wasn't a sitcom or anything like that. And then from there, I wrote a movie for Jason Alexander, who I had met in the Dysfunctional show, which didn't end up getting made, but I got an agent from that. So it was a lot of sort of acting moments. This is pretty impressive. That led me into,Michael Jamin (00:05:34):So even, how did you get these industry types to sh I think so to show up to your, to your, you know, show your little, what was like a, it was like a 99 se seaEmily Cutler (00:05:41):Theater. It was a, it was a really tiny show, but all the people in it, it was Improvd, it was basically on a huge show. But Improvd and we were making fun of talk shows. And so a lot of comedians who were in the clubs would just stop by because it's, you know, for an hour and play a character on a panel. And you know, let's see. It was Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, Warren Hutcherson, Brian Regan. I mean, there was a, just a ton of comics who showed up to do this. Wow. And I think Jason Alexander knew someone in the show, and he was, he was a guest in the show. It was different every week cuz it was like a talk show. So different subject every week. And then you'd kind of get a character and then it was just improvd from there.Michael Jamin (00:06:22):See, you just made a really good case.Emily Cutler (00:06:24):It was just good exposure.Michael Jamin (00:06:26):It's because people ask me all the time, all, and I mean this, I know it sounds like I'm saying this, but like, like, do I have to move to Hollywood to make it in Hollywood? And like, you just made a really good case for like Yeah. Because this is where it is. You know, you have to put yourself out there. Or do you disagree now?Emily Cutler (00:06:42):And I think that as a, as a writer, no, I completely agree. I think you have to be, it doesn't mean if you're a film writer and you wanna write a film in some other part of the country, eventually you will have to come here to have meetings or, I mean, now with Zoom, maybe it's not as difficult, but you just wanna be around people. You wanna meet people that can either help you or advise you or influence you in some positive way. And so I would say if you're really serious about writing for TV and film, you should think about coming to LA for a while. Maybe not forever, but for a while.Michael Jamin (00:07:15):Right. For sure. And yeah. And you, now you, so you've been here, you've been here, what, when you right after college, you moved, you moved here, right? Or did you do something before?Emily Cutler (00:07:22):Oh my God, I, no, I went to New York first. I went to New York cuz I was gonna be a serious theater actress. Really? And then I quickly gave that up and, and came toMichael Jamin (00:07:30):LA Yeah. But why, what was that like?Emily Cutler (00:07:32):Well, I came to act, I was kind of like theaters, tons of people in LA and I wound up getting an agent, a musical agent. I had to sting for them. And they said, come out to la we need funny women. Yeah. And so I came out and then just never left.Michael Jamin (00:07:50):And funny women are in demand. I'mEmily Cutler (00:07:51):Contemplating leaving there, there are funny women. I heard there weren't any Yes.Michael Jamin (00:07:57):No, but I'm saying they're, they're in demand. Sar I mean, like, if you're a funny woman, you'll work, you'll, you know, show yourself.Emily Cutler (00:08:03):There are a lot of fu funny women. There are a lot of funny women who don't work. They're funny women who do work, but they're an enormous amount of funny women. Yes.Michael Jamin (00:08:11):Yeah. And so, wait, did you, at some point, were you joking? Did you want to turn around and and leave LAEmily Cutler (00:08:16):No, I'm, I'm thinking about that now because A, we have a strike coming and b I wanna live in an enormous house with just a staff of people to wait on me hand in foot. So I figure I'll go to a small town and just buy a small town. AndMichael Jamin (00:08:31):Where would you go, how that goes? I know you're, I know you're, I know you're being facetious, but where, I don'tEmily Cutler (00:08:36):Know. That's why I never go anywhere. I, you don't, I do, I think, you know, after my kids to college, where could I settle down that wouldn't be as, you know, wouldn't be a big city. And I'd have my neighbors and I would be close friends and we'd all get together at barbecue and walk down to a beach and there'd be no crime and all of this. And then I realized there isn't that place. Or if there is, I don't know what it is.Michael Jamin (00:09:03):So that's lazy. You're not going any further than that. You're not really isEmily Cutler (00:09:06):Too lazy. Cause then I'd have to move. I'd have to call people.Michael Jamin (00:09:09):I'm, I'm trying to figure out. No,Emily Cutler (00:09:11):I, I I, I, I, I don't need, I don't think I'm leaving my house. Oh, okay. No, I'm not serious. I, I, I could leave Uhhuh , but it would require paperwork and phone calls and faxing and, you know, does your husband,Michael Jamin (00:09:25):Does your husband feel the sameEmily Cutler (00:09:26):Way talking to others? And I just can't do any of that.Michael Jamin (00:09:29):Does your husband feel the same way? MyEmily Cutler (00:09:30):Husband was born and Ray will never, never leave.Michael Jamin (00:09:35):He'll never leave forever. Right. So he loves it here. Okay. Okay. Now, but you're in Angelo now you're saying I,Emily Cutler (00:09:40):I'm seriously doubting itMichael Jamin (00:09:42):Now. I wanna know I guess of all your credits, maybe the, maybe the highest, you've had some high profile shows, but maybe the most beloved one is community. What do you think is that the one people wanna know about?Emily Cutler (00:09:52):Probably tell us. People are obsessed with that show and they're still obsessed much. I mean, I know it's airing now. It was on Netflix for a while. I wonder if it's still on Netflix. I and it's on the planes. It's on people are, are very we have great fans for community. Yeah. AndMichael Jamin (00:10:09):What was it like working on that show? Because it seems really hard. So it's a hard show to write for. It seems.Emily Cutler (00:10:14):It was a wonderful and nightmarish pool of madness and joy. It was Why the best of times and the worst of times. Well, the show creatively was absolutely wonderful. There was a lot of freedom. The characters were great, the actors were great. The writers were great. Dan Harmon, who was running the show was incredibly brilliant and interesting and strange. The hours were insane. And I had two young, young children at the time, and I was often there overnight. You know, I had my toothbrush and blankets in an office. So that wasn't ideal. if you're a parent or if you have a, a life outside of the show.Michael Jamin (00:10:58):But why was it, what, what was, was he taught? Who was someone tossing on scripts? Were they, what was, why was it so late?Emily Cutler (00:11:05):Have you been on, have you not been on a show where you've had hours like that?Michael Jamin (00:11:09):It's notEmily Cutler (00:11:10):YourMichael Jamin (00:11:11):Not real, like just shoot me. We would work. We had a couple nights where we worked till four in the morning. But that's only cuz like, there was something blew up. There was a script was, you know, thrown out. Right? OfEmily Cutler (00:11:19):Course. OfMichael Jamin (00:11:20):Course. But it wasn't a regular day and it'sEmily Cutler (00:11:21):Normal to stay late sometimes. This was, I think that not all artists are good at running a show are good at time management and managing. I think that's a different skillset. And Dan Harmon was really brilliant at writing and creating and everything except time management and not overthinking things and really understanding to respect other people's time. I think you would say that as well. Yes. SeeMichael Jamin (00:11:55):That's the thing.Emily Cutler (00:11:56):You're kinda in his mind. You're in the showrunner's mind when you're on a show. And if it's really messy in there and disorganized Yeah. The show will be too.Michael Jamin (00:12:05):People don't realize that is that no one becomes a, a commentator cuz they want go into management. They become comment commenters so they don't have to go into management. Yes. Then they get a job where they're running, they're managing people and it's a different skillset. AndEmily Cutler (00:12:18):Yes. And a lot of people, I have talked to writers when I say, do you want your own show? They say, I wanna write my own show and I wanna see it happen. But the thought of having to do that massive amount of work mm-hmm. in meetings and executives and storyboards. It's just, it's can be really overwhelming. It's not the writing part that you signed up for. It's a whole different thing.Michael Jamin (00:12:39):Even the writing part is a i people say I wanna be a show winner. You're saying that only cuz you don't know what a show winner does. Right. You know? Yeah. It's it's funny, I had Steven Kel on a while ago. He kind of said the same thing. He was like, you know, it's, you're, it's tankless comes the show. It's, and yeah. Yeah. I we were, same thing when we were running shows before we started running shows. It's like, I could do this and then you do it like, oh my god, what did I sign up for?Emily Cutler (00:13:04):And why do I want to do this? The fun part is being in the writer's room and creating things. And I don't wanna be, you knowMichael Jamin (00:13:10):Yeah. FiguringEmily Cutler (00:13:10):Out what type of ice cube you're gonna use in this scene. I mean, there's, you know, some people love that, but it is a different, I wouldn't say that writers necessarily naturally have that skillset.Michael Jamin (00:13:22):Yeah. And, and so, okay. So that's a good enough reason to be, that's bad for morale too. Yes. Especially when you got two kids. You wanna be home, you don't wanna live there.Emily Cutler (00:13:32):But also, if it's a show I created, I'm much more likely to wanna get into the minutiae of things and do that job. I, I never understand what a showrunner takes over a show that they didn't create. Mm-Hmm. , maybe they don't even love the show, but they take the job and just do such a massive amount of work for something that's not reallyMichael Jamin (00:13:50):Yeah.Emily Cutler (00:13:51):Giving them the joy or satisfaction of their own creation.Michael Jamin (00:13:55):And then what then was like maybe your favorite show that you just loved every second of being on and often it's not the most often, it's not the show, the people we even heard of.Emily Cutler (00:14:05):No, I I had a phenomenal time writing for Blue Collar tv, which was a sketch comedy show for Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Engal and Larry the cable guy. Right. all whose politics I do not agree with. However writing for it, it was just hilarious. I mean, it's wonderful if you, if you enjoy writing sketches, greatest group of people. We were all starting out and never done anything before. And we, we got to go down to Atlanta and produce it and see what people responded to and what they didn't. Different kinds of comedy. And it was just fun and silly. It was silly. We got to be silly, you know, all day.Michael Jamin (00:14:44):But then tell me about writing than sketches because you need a whole separate packet you didn't make. Yes. It's a whole different skillset. Like,Emily Cutler (00:14:51):It's completely different. But I came up doing that as an actor with friends. We did a lot of sketch comedy and we wrote for sketch comedy groups. So that was in my wheelhouse. And also, it's not as, it's not as daunting. It's not 30 pages, it's not 50 pages. It's like, Hey, I just have to write three funny pages that have a beginning, middle, and an end. I can do that. You know, but it's,Michael Jamin (00:15:13):When you're, it's all premise. You have to come up with a premise that's funny on its own. The, the one liner has to be, and, and then you have to establish these characters in 30, not even, whatever, 15 seconds and then go, you know. And alsoEmily Cutler (00:15:26):I'm kind of picky. Like, I don't like sketches that just ramble. Like when you have a funny character that has some kind of catchphrase mm-hmm. , it's not enough of a sketch for me to just have that funny character say that catchphrase over and over and everyone like, like I really do believe in building a little story and having it end in a satisfying way. So that, that is challenging. DoMichael Jamin (00:15:45):You do any sketch writing still?Emily Cutler (00:15:48):Oh God, I haven't done it in years.Michael Jamin (00:15:50):No, I haven't done it in years. So what is, is it your main Yeah. Narrative sitcoms. Are you, are you doing dramas as well? What are you doing?Emily Cutler (00:15:57):No, mostly sitcoms. A lot of single camera half hours. Mm-Hmm. .Michael Jamin (00:16:03):Do you prefer that for any reason?Emily Cutler (00:16:06):I always multi camera. I, I always prefer the one. I'm not doing . Yes. Whichever one I'm doing. I say, well, it's just cuz I'm doing this kind. I should go back to multi cams cuz I love them. And then I work on Multicam and go, why am I doing this? I should be writing a single cam.Michael Jamin (00:16:18):Yeah. Yeah. I think it's so funny. I mean, I feel the same exact way and I think we all do. I think it's like, eh, you know, when I, same thing with animation, I'd rather do live action. Whatever you're not doing is what you .Emily Cutler (00:16:29):I've never done animation though. I'm almost scared of it because it's so you can do so much. There's no, not as much structure. You can kind of just think outside the box, which I think is wonderful. But I'm also terrified.Michael Jamin (00:16:41):Take comfort knowing that it's not Writer's Guild. So , it's never covered by the Writer's Guild. So you'll make less money.Emily Cutler (00:16:48):So, so Simpsons and Family Guy, those shows must be, wellMichael Jamin (00:16:52):Simpsons and King of the Hill are, but the King of Hill didn't start as an writer's guild. But now whenever you sign, we've sold a bunch of animated shows and it's never writer. They, it's like it's a deal breaker. Nope. It's Aii. And so that'sEmily Cutler (00:17:07):So crazy because it's so much writing and so much work mm-hmm. Michael Jamin (00:17:10):Because,Emily Cutler (00:17:11):And so much thought goes into itMichael Jamin (00:17:12):Seems illegal to me because they can, the studios get to choose which guild, which you can be covered by Aii or Writers Guild. And you always choose writers guild, but they say II cuz you, they can pay you left. It's like, well how is that legal? I don't understand what,Emily Cutler (00:17:24):That doesn't seem fair. Yeah. You know what we should do Michael? We should go on strike.Michael Jamin (00:17:28):When, how about May 1st? What when you are you, I guess you're doing a lot of development now. Is that what you're, is that what your focus is on? What are you Yes. What are you up to? Yeah,Emily Cutler (00:17:37):I'm doing a some pilots. I have a pilot that I wrote with another person that's floating around. I have a pilot I just finished that's floating around. I have a pilot I'm supposed to do for that I haven't even pitched yet. And we're supposed to go on strike soon, soMichael Jamin (00:17:53):Sit backwards. Really. But when you say floating around, you mean you've written the script first and you're trying to sell it or what?Emily Cutler (00:17:58):Yes.Michael Jamin (00:17:59):Yes. And you like, you like doing that because usually we don'tEmily Cutler (00:18:01):Do that. Oh, the two that are floating around, then I have some that I'm supervising. No, I don't like doing that. It depends on if I have a, an idea that I feel I need to execute for someone to really get what it is, then I'll write it myself. But I'd much rather gee, I don't know, be paid to write it.Michael Jamin (00:18:20):So write to pitch it. Yes. And then you're supervis cuz even supervising. I'm not crazy about doing, but you're doing. ItEmily Cutler (00:18:25):Depends. I only supervise if it's a project that comes to me that I really, really love and can't say no to. Other than that I don't, I get offered a lot of jobs of, well you supervise this show about a young, you know, Chinese woman who has a dumpling factory and whatever crazy thing I get. Unless it's something that I go, that's hilarious, I wanna be a part of it. I just don't do it.Michael Jamin (00:18:51):And who, how are these coming to you through your agent?Emily Cutler (00:18:54):Random ways. Yeah. They kind of float to me through my agent or, or a writer will call me and say, I'm working on something. Would you be willing to supervise? You know, stuff like that.Michael Jamin (00:19:02):Oh, like a writer that you've, a young writer you've worked with in the past, you mean? Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. Interesting, interesting. Yeah, because yeah, that's the thing. Go taking an idea out rather take the idea out than than, yeah. It's hard. It's hard out there.Emily Cutler (00:19:17):It is hard. And the thing is, and I it's, it's hard for writers who are, you know, a a lot are very introverted, is you have to sell something in a room to people mm-hmm. , which means you have to kind of come out of your shell a little bit and do a performance, a stale. And again, that's another skillset that I imagine as a lot of writers have to learn, you know. ButMichael Jamin (00:19:43):I imagine as an actor, that part probably comes easy to you.Emily Cutler (00:19:45):That is easy to me. And it's fun. I I like doing it. I don't mind doing it. Even when you get a very bad audience of people just not laughing and staring at you as if you've offended them and they hate you. Uhhuh I don't mind doing that. But there are a lot of writers who just, it's terrifying and they don't like it. And it's a whole new skill they have to learn, you know? Yeah. And be be warned before you move out to LA that if you wanna sell ideas to people, you will become a, a bit of a salesman and have to do a sales pitch. Mm-Hmm. .Michael Jamin (00:20:16):Now I'm skipping around here a little bit cause I have a lot of questions when I ask you, but when you, when you did the odd couple, you were briefing, is that the right word? A a show that's been on, there's been multiple variations of that show. Yes. And so what was that like? You know, actually he worked with yeah. What was that? Gary Marshall with Gary Marshall. He was in the room a lot, a little,Emily Cutler (00:20:36):He came to every taping. He came to the room for a while and then, I mean, he would just show up whenever he felt like it. But I think he came to every taping. He was wonderful. It was fascinating to sit with him and, and hear about his experiences because he's, well, so he would sit Hollywood, he would sitMichael Jamin (00:20:53):In the writer'sEmily Cutler (00:20:53):Room. Yeah. Yeah. And every time I saw him I would give him a kiss on the cheek. But I gave him a kiss every time I felt it was something I had to do.Michael Jamin (00:21:01):I mean, we grew up with all those shows. I mean, yes. I mean, was that, I mean, that's just such an honor, but did he give notes or was he just like, ah, holding courtEmily Cutler (00:21:10):A little bit of giving? No, he took it seriously. He wasn't there just for the hell of it. He, he took it seriously and he listened to all the jokes and he commented on things. But he didn't he didn't get in the way of anything. He wasn't in the writer's room that much. But he would send in jokes sometimes for scripts that he'd read, he'd sendMichael Jamin (00:21:29):In his pictures. Oh, really? Yeah. What's, what kind of story do you remember? Like what kind of stories? What was it like when he was in the room?Emily Cutler (00:21:36):His stories were a little more broad. They were of a different time. Sometimes it would be like a monkey gets loose in the apartment and both guys have to go and find who's gonna take the monkey. And you're like, well, maybe not that.Michael Jamin (00:21:49):But how do you say no to him? How do you say no to Gary Marshall? When did he,Emily Cutler (00:21:52):I don't think you do. I think you just say That's interesting. Yeah. We were thinking about this and he was very collaborative. Uhhuh . I mean, he didn't, there was no ego there that I saw. He was just happy to be there and be around writers and have the odd couple coming alive yet again.Michael Jamin (00:22:07):But, but I actually, what I really meant was like, did he, he must have told stories from his past, like, you know, working with I dunno, the Fonz or whatever.Emily Cutler (00:22:15):. Yes. And he also gave, this was a lesson I took from him that I will never forget. He said, don't make your work your life. Have a life uhhuh and work. And don't just work. Don't just, did you read,Michael Jamin (00:22:29):Did you read his book? Wake Me When It's funny.Emily Cutler (00:22:32):I remember. No, I never did. I never did. Oh,Michael Jamin (00:22:34):I remember reading that just before I was breaking into the business and it was just so, it was like, ah, I wanna work in that business. Like, it makes you wanna work in Hollywood. So, so it's like lovely. Yeah. But he tells a story, I think it was on the, the odd couple. They couldn't make a scene funny. Like he was like, it is missing something. So like, they give, like, I think the solution I'm getting, I'm sure I'm getting this, the character wrong, but it was like they, they gave Felix a big spoon or something, . He was like, give him a big spoon. And then it was funny.Emily Cutler (00:23:01):And, and also well yes, I think he told that story in the room too. give someone a prop. And often I think we did maybe give Matthew Perry a prop here and there to Uhhuh give him something to do. , didMichael Jamin (00:23:13):You guys watch, I mean we all saw the odd couple, but did you go back through old episodes and go, you know what, we can,Emily Cutler (00:23:19):We can do this again. I'd seen a lot of them. I'd seen a lot of them. I mean the premise is really about the two guys. About two mis mismatched roommates and how they get along in the world. So yeah, you can do that a variety of different ways. I was surprised, you know, when Matthew Perry wanted to play Oscar because I had sort of seen him in ay way. Yeah. But he wanted to playMichael Jamin (00:23:40):Oscar. Maybe that's why. And so what was it like working with him off of friends when he was at this biggest star in the, in the world?Emily Cutler (00:23:46):No, he wasn't right off of friends. Many, many years had gone by.Michael Jamin (00:23:50):Oh, was it?Emily Cutler (00:23:51):It was a learning experience. Oh. you know I've also worked with Chevy Chase. Yes. And these wereMichael Jamin (00:24:03):Difficult to have actors, , what were the subjects?Emily Cutler (00:24:07):These are guys who have super, super talented, amazing comic timing. Mm-Hmm. But maybe have not taken the best care of themselves so they're not able to do what they once were able to do. So that is always sad when you see that happen. And it was just challenging to work with Matthew cuz he was not in the best at his best. He, I mean at hisMichael Jamin (00:24:30):Best he would probably, he's probably come out and said that a million times over since then. He saidEmily Cutler (00:24:34):That in his book. He apologized to the odd couple writers in his book.Michael Jamin (00:24:37):Oh, did he? HeEmily Cutler (00:24:38):Did interest. Wow. Because it was kind of, it was a little bit weekend at Bernie's.Michael Jamin (00:24:42):Yeah.Emily Cutler (00:24:43):So .Michael Jamin (00:24:44):Oh wow. JustEmily Cutler (00:24:45):Keeping him, him going.Michael Jamin (00:24:47):And he was an executive producer on the show.Emily Cutler (00:24:49):He was.Michael Jamin (00:24:50):Yes. A lot of people don't understand and that, and I, and I think you can count me as one of them. Like what more control, when an actor is an executive producer, they have more control, but to be honest, they have the same amount of control. Even when they're not, you can't force them to say something.Emily Cutler (00:25:05):Right.Michael Jamin (00:25:07):So you, you explain it to me.Emily Cutler (00:25:09):I also don't, when a, when an actor is an executive producer, it means they can see the cuts. Right. And they can say, cut, cut this joke or put this in and Right. Again, I don't know. That's that their strongest skillset. Right. Their, so I never think it's super helpful. There are some that are very smart and that mm-hmm. But I generally would leave that to the people who know more about that and leave the acting to the actors. Yeah. Generally would be my preference.Michael Jamin (00:25:35):Have you done, have you directed or have you, do you aspire to direct at all?Emily Cutler (00:25:39):Not at all. It's the strangest thing. Cuz I think I'm a bossy person. Uhhuh. . And I do, when I'm on set, know exactly what I want, but I'm not I don't think I'm visual enough to know exactly what a shot should look like. And then this, I just like the acting. I like working with the actors. That's what I like to do. So camera stuff is not myMichael Jamin (00:26:01):So you do that a lot. Are you often the writer on set?Emily Cutler (00:26:04):Yes. I enjoy being the writer on set. I feel like I can speak the language of an actor. So it's yes, and it's fun. And there's just a great sense of camaraderie and it's nice to get out of the writer's room and be on a set.Michael Jamin (00:26:18):But are you doing that for shows that that, are you doing that for shows that even that you don't write, you know, you're not the, the writer of that show? Or are you usually assigned? No,Emily Cutler (00:26:26):No, no. I have been assigned to set and I have mentored younger writers who've never been on a set before mm-hmm. . which is a really good thing to do because you don't wanna throw a younger writer on a set when they have no idea what they're doing. But you also wanna make sure that that younger writer is on a set so that they are learning and can move up the ladder really knowing what they'reMichael Jamin (00:26:44):Doing. And that brings us to the writer's strike, because that's not really happening. It's from where I'm sitting, it's not really happening anymore because these ri young writers for the mo well, I don't know, I haven't done a network show in so long, but on, on these cable, these low budget shows that I'm on, often you're just working on pre-production and then you, you're done. And so the writers aren't coming to set at all. There's, you know, no one's.Emily Cutler (00:27:06):And what's happening is writers are moving up. In my day you had to be a staff writer for a very long time. Mm-Hmm. before you got bumped up. I don't know if people know, but on a staff there are different levels. And each level has different job requirements. And what's happening is a staff writer will come in and write for a season and then move up so quickly. Mm-Hmm. maybe bump up a few levels to a producer, and then they're put on a set without having any idea what to do or what each person on the set does or what their role is. Yeah. and it's really important to teach people at the early stages every aspect of a television show. And no, that is not happening very often.Michael Jamin (00:27:50):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 gonna spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.Michael Jamin (00:28:14):I see that as being really bad. Maybe you'll feel, I wonder how you feel for, for like, I don't know if there'll be multi-camera shows in the future because you, there's so much learning that you have to do and like, who, who's gonna be, there's no, you know, who, how are they learning this? There are no multi-camera shows anymore. Where, where's the, the pool of talent, you know? Yeah.Emily Cutler (00:28:35):I, I don't, I mean, I do a lot of mentoring through the Guild. You might do that too, where you work with writers. It's a good thing to do. You should do it. Yeah. you mentor younger writers who are new in the Guild, maybe they've had their first job, but that's about it. And you, they can ask you questions. Like, when I started, I didn't have anybody really to ask, what does this mean? Should, what, what does this person do on set? Where am I supposed to be? What, you know, what is the blow to a scene? I didn't know any of that stuff. Yeah. So I, I I kind of help them and give them a safe place to ask these questions, which is a, a it's great. It reminds me of all this stuff. Yeah. And and I get to be around fresh young hopefuls. So it's, it's a great thing to do. You know,Michael Jamin (00:29:21):You know, I remember one of the first times on set, you know, they give you the big director chair to sit and your name's in it. And then I remember like dragging it to the next shot and I got such dirty looks. Yes. Like, you don't touch that chair. That's a union job. . Yes. Like, that's a, all you do isEmily Cutler (00:29:36):To think, you feel like I don't belong here. What am I doing? I don't understand anything. You just nod lot and hope that no one will ask anything of you. But yeah, it's much kinder to send people to set feeling prepared and feeling like they have something to contribute instead of them just being terrified the entire time.Michael Jamin (00:29:52):So you may have already answered this question then. Like, how do you see the, how has the industry changed from your point of view since you've been in it?Emily Cutler (00:30:02):Well, it's changed a lot in, I mean, we're striking for certain reasons. Rooms are getting much smaller mm-hmm. it seems like there's more product out there, but for some reason jobs are hard to get mm-hmm. and there are sort of mandates on shows and mm-hmm. and there are fewer writers and there's shorter production time. Writers move up faster. That is something that happens. You don't have to be a staff writer for a long time before you move up the ladder. And I think that's, butMichael Jamin (00:30:33):I don't think that's a good thing, to be honest.Emily Cutler (00:30:34):I don't think that's a good thing. Okay. I, I don't, I don't know that you ha I don't believe in staff writers not getting paid for a script. Right. I think that's silly because they are writing and creating a product. They should be paid for it. Mm-Hmm. . But I do think that before you're bumped up another level, you should really have a lot of experience and know what's gonna be required at that second level and be able to deliver that.Michael Jamin (00:30:56):I actually think that that writers, I believe that was the guild's idea to protect young writers. And I think it failed actually. Like, I think the intention was if you don't have to pay 'em that way, that way they get to write a script and they learn. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And soEmily Cutler (00:31:11):That was, but they are still writing and some staff writers are just fantastic and write a perfectly terrific script and don't get paid for it. And I always found that. Yeah.Michael Jamin (00:31:19):Odd. Yeah. I I think that was like one of those things that backfired well meaning I could be wrong about that, but anyway, but, so yeah. That's how it's, that's how it's changed. What about selling shows, do you think? How's that changed for you?Emily Cutler (00:31:31):Well now they have, and I've never used one pitch decks where you're doing a whole visual presentation with your pitch. And I don't, I, I don't feel that's necessary. But a lot of studios like that mm-hmm. , it gives them an image in, in their mind of what you're going for. That's not,Michael Jamin (00:31:51):I always felt that was more for drama than spend comedy.Emily Cutler (00:31:56):I I think nowadays people will do it. They'll do it for comedy, they'll do it for drama. They'll, you know, show pictures of actors that they think would be good in the roles. And I don't find it necessary. But,Michael Jamin (00:32:10):And certainly whatever works, working with pods is probably a bigger thing now. Do you than it was like, there was a time you as a writer, you could just sell a TV show. You didn't have to have all these people attached to it to sell a show.Emily Cutler (00:32:22):Yes. And a lot of times when you do that, you, you get a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Mm-Hmm. . So the work that you start out with just starts to morph into something completely different than when you started. And I like, you know, for better or worse, I like a clear vision to a show. Mm-Hmm. where, you know, and I'm sure you've been working a lot in streaming and stuff like that, where it's someone's voice like a Mark Marinn or something, and it actually comes through onto the screen. You don't have to like it. Maybe it's terrible, but it's a clear perspective. And what happens when you have so many cooks in the kitchen is the perspective starts to get watered down. That's one thing that Dan Harmon simply didn't allow on community. He was very ballsy and was just like, this is what we're going to do. And the studio would say, no, no, you can't do that. And he would be like, yeah, okay. This is what we're going to do. So like it or hate it, it made it onto the screen as a singular vision of what that show shouldMichael Jamin (00:33:13):Be. And it shows. But that's so ballsy because there's two things. I think you kind of have to be kind of like a genius level to pull that off,Emily Cutler (00:33:22):Which I think Yes. Which he, which he is,Michael Jamin (00:33:23):He was, but also you have to have this no fucks given. Like, I I, I don't know many writers who would do that. YouEmily Cutler (00:33:29):Have to be a little crazy. Yeah. And he's a lot crazy. So it worked out well for him. He must also kind of, you know, felt like he was smarter than everyone in the room and probably was. Right. Which there are, there are many who think that, who aren't. And he just would talk them in circles and finally they just couldn't take talking anymore. So they let him do his thing. Then they fired him . Right. And they brought him back, which was absolutely insane. I've rarely heard of that happening. Yeah. And, and he just really held firm because he knew what the show was and said, this is what we wanna do, and if you don't wanna do it, let's just not do it. But this is how it's gonna go. And he just doubled down and did it.Michael Jamin (00:34:12):Where did he, what would you, you must know, what was his first job in the business that he, where did he learn from?Emily Cutler (00:34:18):He did a streaming, I think he had a channel, I can't remember what it, what it's called. Oh, people will know. Like Channel 24 or channel something that did a lot of a lot of internet stuff. And then I think his first job was on the Sarah Silverman show back when she, I think it was Comedy Central. I could be more about allMichael Jamin (00:34:37):Of this. Yeah. Sam Sterling did that.Emily Cutler (00:34:39):And they had, they did not get along. I don't think they were the right fit.Michael Jamin (00:34:43):Oh my God.Emily Cutler (00:34:44):And then I, he, I don't know, I think he went, actually went to community college and that community was based on his experienceMichael Jamin (00:34:52):Because I, I think that showrunners kind of, they, they learn how they're gonna do this kind of, they, from the first job they take, their first showrunner is the kind of the person they emulate, you know, and mm-hmm. , that's kinda the school you come out of. And if your first boss was organized, you'll be organized. And, you know,Emily Cutler (00:35:09):Not for me, my first real boss on a sitcom was absolutely out of his mind. And an just, just a, a, a monster human who did everything. I, I just sat there going, this can't be right. This can't be Hollywood. All writers cannot be doing what we were doing, which is sitting on the floor and being screamed out about paint colors for his bathroom. And he was just insane. So I was like, this can't, if this is how everything is run Hollywood, it was on a show called Movie Stars, which was Harry Hamlin's comedic opus and,Michael Jamin (00:35:47):And Wait, do you wanna say who the, who the writer is?Emily Cutler (00:35:49):Yes, I do. His name was We, Wayne Lemon, which already sounds kind of like a serial killer name. It's like a great character name Wayne Lemon. And he, I think he was the son of a Baptist preacher and had no sense of humor and told us that on the first day. He's like, I'm not funny. That's not what I do. I'm not funny. I was like, well, it's great that you're running a comedy then. Oh my God. And we, there were only two writers. He, he didn't want a staff, he wanted two baby writers. We and another writer named Bick Scahill, we had never done it before. And so we sat on the floor and we listened to him fight with his wife. He was really abusive. It was, it was a hilariously weird experience. But I remember thinking, this can't be how every show in Hollywood is run. So I did not learn how to run a show from him. I learned very much what I don't wanna do, which you can also learn from your showrunner.Michael Jamin (00:36:38):But I would've, I'm not joking, I probably would've thought this must be Hollywood. Like, I, I, I, I probably would've felt differently from you. Like, that might've scared me from ever working in Hollywood continuing. Well,Emily Cutler (00:36:49):I was terrified to say anything or ask anyone because you're always afraid when you start out that you're gonna be either discovered as a phony and fired. Yeah. Or you're, you just don't make waves. You don't stand up for yourself at all. Cuz you're like, if I say anything, I'll never work again. So we just sucked it up. But it wasn't until later when I got on a normal staff where people were saying that, I went, oh, okay. . That was not a normal experience.Michael Jamin (00:37:18):At what point, and I really mean this, like at what point in your career did you finally feel like, all right, I know how to do this job because it's not on day one. It's not.Emily Cutler (00:37:28):I'm not, I'm not sure. I I'm not sure I feel that way now. It it, it depends. There are shows that I go in and I feel like I got this. I know exactly what I'm doing. I'm fantastic. And then on the very next show, I feel the complete opposite. Why am I doing this? There's no point. I have no talent I should give up. I think all creative people maybe ride that rollercoaster a little bit of feeling like I've got something to offer. I have nothing to offer really. I mean, I, I bounce back. It depends on the show and it depends on if I really think I can capture the voice of something and do it justice. Like if I went to write on succession tomorrow, I'd probably be a little nervous. I'd be excited to do it. But I might go, God, I hope I live up to this thing. Or I hope I can get into the voices of these characters. And then there are some that it's just natural toMichael Jamin (00:38:18):You, but even in terms of like knowing how to break a story or when you go off on script and you look at that blank page, like, or you're turning in your writing your outline. Like there, there must have been a moment where you're like, okay, I think I know how to do this. Right. I mean, cuz like in the, honestly, it took me, it took years and years for me to have, okay, I think I know how to do that.Emily Cutler (00:38:37): Yes. I, I think it took years and years and I think I knew certain things. Well, I can craft a joke, but I don't know, can I, am I really good at story? You know, in meetings people always ask and people ask your agents, are you good at story? Right. Or are you good at jokes and you seem to have to be in one camp or the other. Right. I think is absolutely stupid. But I go back and forth. I mean, I still look at a blank page and, and feel a sense of, you know, excitement and fear at the same time. And am I gonna do this? Am I gonna blow this? And I do a little of both. Right. I've written some scripts and I'm like, wow, this really, I crapped the bed on this one. And Right. Some that I'm like, all right, this is pretty good.Michael Jamin (00:39:21):Do you do any writing that is not for for sale? Like just for yourself or a book or something on the side or anything?Emily Cutler (00:39:28):I draw a lot. So I do that on the side. I used to write songs. I've written some poems. Uhhuh . I'm trying to think of what else I've written. You know, I have a friend who does game shows and I, I help him with game shows a lot cuz that's super fun. And I have no, it's not my job so I don't have to panic and interesting worry about it. Right. Because that's a whole other that's a whole other, you know, crazy world. But that's really fun to doMichael Jamin (00:39:58):Because the minute you put, the minute you're doing it, it's your profession. Things change, you know, likeEmily Cutler (00:40:04):Absolutely.Michael Jamin (00:40:05):Right. Well what's your take on that?Emily Cutler (00:40:06):Well, I mean that's why I write some pilots myself that I'm not gonna sell is cuz I come up with an idea that brings me some level of joy or that I feel I have a handle on. Mm-Hmm. and have that feeling like you're talking about I can do this. Well if I can really do this, I should sit down and do it. And you know, it, it turns out well or it doesn't. But I do that for myself. Yes. Do I hope I'll sell it. Sure. Why, why wouldn't I? But I just get it out of myself. Right. Because it's a, an idea in my head. Just get it on paper if youMichael Jamin (00:40:36):Can, just to remind yourself why you like writing.Emily Cutler (00:40:40):Yes.Michael Jamin (00:40:40):Right. Have you saw Adam? Don't, I'm trying to remember. We've, we've written a, a handful of pilots on spec. I don't think we've sold any. I think the ones we've sold are always saw on pitches. Are you able to sell specs or are they just writing samples?Emily Cutler (00:40:55):No, it's always, it's always been really pitches. I can't think of a script I've sold, I sold a movie but never never on spec. On spec. Yeah.Michael Jamin (00:41:06):Sold them. How'd that go? What was that?Emily Cutler (00:41:09):, it was called Suddenly Yours. It was a test to see if I could write a romantic, a cheesy romantic comedy back when they made them like those great kind of formulaic mm-hmm romantic comedies that you see, you know, two of a year. And it got bought and then just nothing happened to it. It died because then Jennifer Lopez had a movie called Maiden Manhattan that was basically the same thing. And so, so funny that got made.Michael Jamin (00:41:32):That's so, cuz we did, we sold a movie on spec though. It was called Only Child. And then that got killed because they had a movie in development called Middle Child . And I dunnoEmily Cutler (00:41:43):If they had anything, that's all it changed. OfMichael Jamin (00:41:44):Course not. Other than the word child.Emily Cutler (00:41:46):Yes. My god. It's a, another movie with child in the title. We must only have one.Michael Jamin (00:41:51):But you must have had to do some rewrites on, but after you sold it, they probably wanted rewrites from you now.Emily Cutler (00:41:56):Yes. And I got rewritten by another writer too, Uhhuh, who changed it into something totally different. It was, it was like a fascinating thing to see. It became this different creature, this completely different entity with like little bits of my script in it.Michael Jamin (00:42:10):But because sometimes I hear more often than that people are like, I wanna, I wanna write movies. I'm like, what you YouTube superhero movies? Yeah. What what? Yeah. TvEmily Cutler (00:42:19):TV is movies now. There are no more movies for the most part. It's, you know, big blockbuster superhero movies. There are few little ones and a few ones like, you know, maybe a Matt Damon movie that will squeeze in, but really television's where it, where it's at. Right. With streaming and everything.Michael Jamin (00:42:36):Did you, but did you even, did you even enjoy the process of writing movies?Emily Cutler (00:42:41):I did.Michael Jamin (00:42:42):You did? I did. I did.Emily Cutler (00:42:43):But I was, I was younger and didn't know anything. It's great when you don't know anything and when you don't know what, how the business is structured and you just come from a creative place and put something on paper that brings you joy. Right. That's great. And as soon as you start getting paid for it and other people get involved, you can still have joy but it's a different kind. It's, it's not pure, you know, it's,Michael Jamin (00:43:08):Well the reason why I see it, cuz like when you, when you get a note on a TV script, all right. Even if it's a giant rewrite, it's still, it's, it's 30 minutes of television or whatever. 22 minutes of television. Yeah. If you could do a note on a, on a movie and maybe it's a free rewrite that you have to do, talk about 90 minute movie. That's a, like that that's a lot ofEmily Cutler (00:43:25):Work. Yes. That's a lot. And a string will, a string will get pulled. That seems like nothing to the person giving the note. But that to you completely unravels theMichael Jamin (00:43:33):Entire thing. Everything right? Yes. I was like, I don't know why, I don't know. I dunno why people wanna write movies so badly. I think it like be just an ego thing.Emily Cutler (00:43:41):Yes. There are a lot of pages to a movie so it is daunting. But again, if you have an idea inside of you and you can see where it's going and it just sort of comes out of you, it doesn't feel like work. It just feels great.Michael Jamin (00:43:54):No, obviously you mentor people, writers and the writers, young writers in the guild. So that means they've already sold something. They've already steered a a hurdle. Yeah.Emily Cutler (00:44:02):Some of them are doing much better than I am. .Michael Jamin (00:44:04):Oh really? They'reEmily Cutler (00:44:06):Skyrocketing. I'm like, I hope you gimme a job.Michael Jamin (00:44:08):Wow. but so what advice do you have for people who haven't even done gotten into the guild yet?Emily Cutler (00:44:15):Just keep, keep writing and keep, have an original voice and put stuff on paper.Michael Jamin (00:44:20):And where are you getting, where are you looking for your ideas? Where are you getting your ideas from?Emily Cutler (00:44:24):I try and get my ideas from my life or you know, a great way to get ideas. If you have a funny group of friends or a group of friends you hang out with and you're just sitting and shooting the shit with them and making each other laugh. A lot of ideas, great ideas come out of that. A lot of ideas come outta my marriage. I get a lot of ideas from my marriage, from my kids. I never wrote family shows. I was never interested in that kind of stuff. And now that I have a family that sort of inspires me. So look to your life. Look to your extended family. Look to your friends. I have a friend, my current pilot is about an open marriage cuz I have friends who are having an open marriage and I think it's just so hilarious and, and mortifying and ridiculous. And so I'm, I wrote a pilot about it,Michael Jamin (00:45:08):But no, but selling it, they always want to hear like, how are you the only writer who can write this? And so I see that's why I understand you're stealing from your family, but from your friends with the open marriage, even though it'd be fi are you at the mean, are you, are you prepared to answer that question? How are youEmily Cutler (00:45:23):Gonna answer? Yes, I am. How? Well I think you do have to personalize it because I think them having the open marriage caused my husband and I to have a discussion about could we ever, what would it look like? Were this just, you know, middle-aged suburban couple, like what is that gonna look like? So that pilot became about this really unlikely like coupled to do this kind of thing and what transpires because they choose to do it. So it would kind of be like, my husband and I made this decision to do this thing. Here's what happened and how it went wrong.Michael Jamin (00:45:56):Where, so that's interesting because you're prepared. So that's, you're smart. Cuz you knew going into a meeting, that's the question they're gonna ans ask you. And so Yeah. Yes.Emily Cutler (00:46:04):They want something from your personal experience. And the truth is, you can make it from your personal experience however you like. You can, it doesn't have to be, this is exactly my experience. I lived it, it can be, this is how watching somebody else experience else's experience affected me and made me think of this. And I, you can kind of weave your own tail.Michael Jamin (00:46:30):But are you, are you going into, when you come up with your ideas to pitch, are you, is your target to sell it? Are you always thinking like, well what are they buying? What's, what's my version? Or are you just like, this is what I got in the tank.Emily Cutler (00:46:41):I used to be, that's why I wrote that romantic comedy. I wanted to see if I can just, you know, churn out a pile of crap for someone who says we want a pile of crap. Right. And I could, but nothing great comes out of that. And I, I do do that because I panic about money and go, I have to sell this. And they wanna show about a, a flying dog, so I'll stick a flying dog in there. You do sometimes compromise, but nothing great is ever gonna come out of that. You have to start from a place of, I'm really passionate about this. You know, a lot of times before a season when you go to sell something, you'll say, what are they looking for? Mm-Hmm. , well, this network is looking for family and this one wants workplace, and this one wants, you know, and so you try to go, okay, well, what do I ha? But you still have to come from some seed of something that makes you giggle or something that inspires you, or it's just gonna be flat. It's gonna be good or original, IMichael Jamin (00:47:31):Think. And, and how much, when you're not on staff of a show, how, what is your, what does your writing schedule look like?Emily Cutler (00:47:37):Oh, you said writing schedule? Yeah. that, that implies that I'm an organizedMichael Jamin (00:47:43):Or So you don't have one healthyEmily Cutler (00:47:44):Human? No, I'm the worst I'm supposed to be writing. You'll always know when I'm supposed to be writing. My house will be clean. Yeah. I'll be cook cooking something. Maybe I learned to bake bread, you know, I buy a new mascara and I put it like, I just procrastinate. Yeah. Forever. I'm the least organized writer. Again. That is another skillset. Like my friends who went to really tough colleges who are writers, learned how to study, and in learning how to study, they also know how to write and budget their time. I think you're one of them. Didn't you go to some didn't. I went to some fancy some. You went to a fancy school. Okay. Well, I assume if you go to a fancy school like that, or, or grow up learning those skills from your parents or something, you know, how to manage time. I'm the worst at it, so don't be me. Right. Learn how to give yourself a schedule. Be the kind of person who does that. You know, I guess it's like going to the gym. I'm also the person who's like, what's your schedule for working out? Well, sometimes I go for a walk. Sometimes I sit on my ass. I just don't, I'm not as disciplined as I should be.Michael Jamin (00:48:50):Well, it's, I mean, it's easier for me. I have a writing partner, so it's like, we agree, you know? All right. We're, we're agreeing to meet today at 10 o'clock, but, so, andEmily Cutler (00:48:57):You and one pushes the other and goes, come on, we gotta, yeah. No, that would be great. I need to get, I need to get me one of those.Michael Jamin (00:49:04):Well have you written, but you've written projects with people. You have one right now? IEmily Cutler (00:49:06):Have. I've written, yes. And the one that I wrote the right now, one, she was great. She was super disciplined and would let me kind of, you know, I could just be funny and amusing and she'd be the workhorse. Mm-Hmm. . But then I had a partner we wrote some movies together where he was more dysfunctional than I was. Uhhuh . So we just, I'd say, let's not work. Let's go to Starbucks and get lattes instead. And he'd go, great. , . Instead of saying, no, we need to work. We need to, yeah. We were, we were not a good influence.Michael Jamin (00:49:36):And do you have a, what, what's your spot? Do you have a spot that you like to work in? Or are you wherever you take your laptop, wherever.Emily Cutler (00:49:43):It's much better. It's great. When I'm staffed on a show, when I'm staffed on a show, when I'm in the mindset, I like to work in my office there. Even if it's on something else. Cuz it just gets me in the mindset. My house where I have two children who are now teenagers, is like a war zone. It's really hard. I have an open house. There's, it's almost lofty in a way. So there's nowhere to go to hide. Oh. Or, or to work. So I really try and go out or I wait till they're at school and, you know, sneak in a room somewhere. But it's, it's, again, it's not, it's not orderly. I'm not in one place. I'm moving around andMichael Jamin (00:50:20):Interesting.Emily Cutler (00:50:21):Yes. Discipline. Discipline. Disciplined. Get some discipline.Michael Jamin (00:50:26):Then let me ask you one final question. I don't know if, I don't know if you can have an answer to this, but like, what gets you outta bed then? What, what is makes you excited to, for your, I don't know, toEmily Cutler (00:50:35):Run career or in life? Well,Michael Jamin (00:50:37):Let's, let's do both. Let's do both.Emily Cutler (00:50:41):What gets me outta my bed is my children. Mm-Hmm. , because they need to be taken places andMichael Jamin (00:50:48):You're the Uber driver.Emily Cutler (00:50:50):What makes me excited to write again is, and I mean this might just be me because I know a lot of writers like to sit alone in a cabin and write a book. To me that's deathly. For comedy, it's to be around people. Like even just talking to you now, it will spark something and, or make me feel like, you know, it's why people go to the gym because you're surrounded by other people doing the thing that you're supposed to be doing. Mm-Hmm. . And it helps you. So when I'm not on a staff, which is a very collaborative thing where you're in a room with a lot of funny people and I'm on my own, it's not as much fun. It's much harder to get out of bed and motivate. So talking to you is helpful. My husband's really funny, so I'll run ideas around with him. I'll call friends. For me, it helps me to be around other people who are doing what I'm doing, who are funny people. That's what helps me.Michael Jamin (00:51:44):DidEmily Cutler (00:51:44):That get inspired?Michael Jamin (00:51:45):So now that you mentioned it, did, did you find that intimidating in the, in your beginning of your c

In this episode, I'm joined by Florin Rotar, the Chief Technology Officer at Avanade, and Chris Lloyd-Jones, the Head of Open Technologies at Avanade. We'll be talking about how AI is evolving from being a tool to being a partner as well as the announcements we heard at Microsoft BUILD in Seattle!

Hugely popular author of gritty young adult fiction, Vikki Wakefield, has turned her hand to a psychological thriller in ‘After You Were Gone' …with resounding success. and Associate Professor Dr Kylie Cardell gives a fascinating synopsis of Blake Gopnik's mammoth biography of Andy Warhol…all 900 pages of it!. so Curl up on the couch, go for a walk or even clean out the pantry whilst you listen to Cath and Annie's talented and most congenial guests. Guests Vikki Wakefield, on ‘This is How We Change the Ending' and ‘After You Were Gone'   Associate Professor Dr Kylie Cardell, on “Warhol” by Blake Gopnik   Other books that get a mention: Annie has just returned from Spain where she read ‘The Whispering City' by Sara Molinar, a mystery set in Barcelona. Cath's latest book was also set in Spain. She's been enjoying 4 books from ‘The Catalan Crime Thrillers' series by Chris LLoyd. INSTA @simonschusterau @text_publising @vikkiwakefield      See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week I Interview Julia Bartz about “The Writing Retreat” and interview Chris Lloyd about “Paris Requiem”. We have a call from Johann and I also review “Mad Honey” by Jodi Picoult & Jennifer Finney Boylan, “The Red Notebook” by Antoine Lauren and “Her Sweet Revenge” by Sarah Bonner.You can call into the podcast by leaving a message here: https://www.speakpipe.com/QBR Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nobody talks about the period of time after you come out. It can be a scary and lonely place for many! Rosie grabs some sharpies and joins Chris Lloyd, a Gay Illustrator, creative and party kween based in London around how to make friends, look after yourself and push out of that comfort zone (as well as learning how to draw her crushes!) From both the Gay and Lesbian perspective: here's your guide to making that next step!

CHRIS LLOYD chats to Paul Burke about his new historical thriller Paris Requiem, Eddie Giral, wartime Paris, living in Catalonia, the little people of history. PARIS REQUIEM: Paris, September 1940. After three months under Nazi Occupation, not much can shock Detective Eddie Giral. That is, until he finds a murder victim who was supposed to be in prison. Eddie knows, because he put him there. The dead man is not the first or the last criminal being let loose onto the streets. But who is pulling the strings, and why?This question will take Eddie from jazz clubs to opera halls, from old flames to new friends, from the lights of Paris to the darkest countryside - pursued by a most troubling truth: sometimes to do the right thing, you have to join the wrong side...CHRIS LLOYD is the author of The Unwanted Dead (Orion), winner of the Historical Writer's Association Gold Crown Award. Paris Requiem is his first novel to also be published in America. He lived in Catalonia for over twenty years, falling in love with the people, the country, the language and Barcelona Football Club. Chris now lives in Wales, where he is at work on his next novel.Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival 21st-23rd April, Aberystwyth.Recommendations Ian Serraillier The Silver SwordJosephine Tey The Daughter of Timehttps://crime.cymru/Produced by Junkyard DogMusic courtesy of Southgate and LeighCrime TimePaul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2022 .Produced by Junkyard DogMusic courtesy of Southgate and LeighCrime TimeCrime Time FM is the official podcast ofGwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023CrimeFest 2023&CWA Daggers 2023

Greg Thompson is a writer-producer known for Bob's Burgers, Glenn Martin D.D.S., and King of The Hill.Greg Thompson on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0860188/Greg Thompson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregthompMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptionsGreg Thompson:Try to pay attention to the voices of the show. Know the show. Watch, watch every episode. Um, you know, when we were hired on King of the Hill, I, I'd watched King of the Hill, but I hadn't seen everything. But, you know, I methodically started plowing through hundreds of episodes at that point. I think maybe 200 episodes had happened by the time we, we joined it. So, and that's just kind of an education and you internalize the voices of the characters and, and it, it helps you. It helps you know what to pitch. You'reMichael Jamin:Listening to Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jen.Hey everyone. Welcome to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I'm Michael Jamin and I got another special guest today. This is my old friend. I'm gonna, this is my friend Greg Thompson, and I'm gonna give you a proper introduction, Greg. So sit down, just relax. Let me just talk to the people for a second. Um, so Greg is a very successful TV writer and he started on bunk, a show called Bunk Bread Brothers. We're gonna run through some of, through some of the credits. I'm heard of Bunk Bread Brothers, then fired up, which was interesting. This was the heyday of nbc. This was when, uh, the character she lived instead of a clock. She was, she was a church mouse, wasn't she? GregGreg Thompson:. Yeah, she was a church MassMichael Jamin:WhoGreg Thompson:Is second, second season. She moved into a shoe, uh,Michael Jamin:.Greg Thompson:It was Sharon Lawrence with, uh, Leah Remedy.Michael Jamin:Ah, Sharon Lawrence with Leah Remedy. This was back in the heyday of NBC shows like, uh, musty tv. And then a show called, I'm gonna run through some of your credits. Maggie, big Wolf on campus, then one of your bigger credits. 30, uh, third Rock from the Sun. Great show, then Grounded for Life. Another great show. Everyone hates Chris. Everybody hates Chris. Everybody hates Chris. Another great show. I'm in Hell. We're gonna talk about that. King of the Hill. You were there for many years. Glen Martin, dds. I never heard of that one, but I was involved in it. then Now, most recently you were writer, what are you executive, co-executive producer on Bob's Bergs.Greg Thompson:So I, I'm, I'm down to consulting producer. Technically I was we'll talk, I was co exec. I was actually executive, I was actually executive producer to be, to be most technical. Well, yeah, we all got promoted up to executive producer after aMichael Jamin:Certain And what happened? Why did you get bounced down to co exec? I mean, a consulting producer.Greg Thompson:I decided to rank fewer, fewer days a week. So I, I've, I've, am I, do you still want me on the show?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I'm, now I'm jealous of you. How many days a week are you working?Greg Thompson:I only work two days.Michael Jamin:Oh. And of those two days, how many days are you really working? ?Greg Thompson:I don't know. Probably four. Cuz it filters into other days andMichael Jamin:Yeah,Greg Thompson:It does over it also. Yeah.Michael Jamin:We're gonna talk about that. But I wanna get into the beginning, Greg. Cause I, I, I, so we met in the Warner Brothers Writers Program, writers workshop, or whatever it was called. Yeah, we did. And you were, were supposed to be you and your partner. Our Abrams were supposed to be the competition that me and Seavert were facing. And, but very quickly we realized we weren't, we weren't gonna, we weren't gonna make good enemies, friends and love.But, but I gotta say, Greg, you've always been, and I know I've never, probably never said this to you personally, but you were, it may seem odd since we don't talk that often, but you were definitely one of my closer friends, closest friends in the industry, because I always feel like I, I feel like we're not in competition. I can always be, I can confide in you to tell you what's going on with my career. I never feel like I'm gonna get stabbed in the back. You always got my back. I got your back. So you, you've always been a great friend. And that's why as I thank, thank you for doing the show and helping everyone Oh, tell your story.Greg Thompson:You're, you're very welcome. You, of course, it's of course it's mutual. Um, and I'll just say at the Radcliffe or at the, uh, pardon me, the Writer's Warner Brothers Writer's Workshop, um, I was, uh, so intimidated by you and Seavert. I, uh, you like you, we were kind of sited. We were seated in kind of a big o and you were, you guys were like across the room and you already, you already had credit. You had a credit on Lois and Clark, which was like, you know, incredibly impressive. We didn't have credits.Michael Jamin:That's what you were, that's what you're, because there was no other reason to be intimidated by us. So we never said anything like, IGreg Thompson:Think, I don't know, you just, you looked, you looked the right part. Sea had this kind of scowl on his face all the time, which, which was very untrue to his personality. But he just looked, uh, super serious. Like, like heMichael Jamin:WasGreg Thompson:Interesting figuring it all out.Michael Jamin:Turns out neither of us. It was a prestigious program. And, and it didn't help either of us. It didn't help. It definitely didn't help. But it didn't help you did itGreg Thompson:Other than Well, it, it did get us, it did lead us to an agent, which then, which then led us to our first job. So it actually did help us, even though the Warner Brothers, the studio was not interested in hiring us,Michael Jamin:Right? So after,Greg Thompson:After watching us work,Michael Jamin:As I tell our audience to catch 'em up, um, so yeah, we worked together. So we never worked together. We were just, we became friends on that. And then later, then later we shared a bungalow. We both had overall deals at CBS Radford. And so we shared a bungalow. We'd have lunch together. Remember we'd hang out in your office and just talk about ideas. Bounce Yeah. Each other that think an overall deal's great. That was fun. And then later was, no, king Hill was before that.Greg Thompson:King Hill was beforeMichael Jamin:That. Right? And then later Radford, our overall deal. Then later we hired you guys on, on Glen Martin. And you guys saved our butts. You and your partner Aaron, saved our butts. And then how did I Thank you. I almost, I almost thanked you by destroying your career. . I only remember you guys, you guys came in, was it, it was season two, right? Of Glen Martin.Greg Thompson:Yeah. Season two. Yeah.Michael Jamin:We, we brought you in. We had the money. We wanted very, we wanted season writers. And you guys came in, you always delivered great drafts, which is, is, I always say, this is all you want from a writer. Can you turn in a good draft? And you guys always did. And then there was talk of spinning off Glen Martin to a spinoff. And I remember we were like, Hey, we'll do this show. And then you could run the other show or which one, one or the other you guys could run. And you're like, eh, we got this other offer to go to this cartoon called Bob's Burgers. You don't wanna go to Bob's Burgers,Greg Thompson:,Michael Jamin:You wanna stay here? . And then, and thank God you took that offer, cuz I would've felt terrible like ruining your career. Cause that they spinoff never happened. . And then Glen Martin was canceled and it jumped off just in time to go to,Greg Thompson:There was an idea that Glen Martin was gonna jump to Fox or something, andMichael Jamin:There was a lot of lies floating .Greg Thompson:Yeah. It was probably Michael Eisner was planning these thoughts.Michael Jamin:Um, right. I forgot Fox. Fox didn't, Fox had no, had no knowledge of that. They weren't on Greg Thompson:. But, uh, yeah. But yeah, I think we all thought the puppet animation genre was gonna explode. And, and I have to say, it's really funny. It's still, when I look at, I've dug up some old Glen Martin's. It is really funny. I mean, it is, it was an underrated show under watched certainly, but also underrated.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. It was, we did some good stuff. You guys wrote some great episodes. But then, so you got the offer because Bob's Burgers co-create by Jim Dore. We both work with on King of the Hill. So he reached out to you guys. How did you have this Bob about, and why didn't he reach out to us? ?Greg Thompson:I didn't probably You were working. You, you're busy. Um, weMichael Jamin:Were busyGreg Thompson:Developed by Jim DotR. I should make sure I say that properly. Created by Lauren Bouchard, developed by Jim DotR. Um, yeah, he was just staffing up. And actually he, he had hired two other guys, uh, before us. And then there, um, and gosh, I'm blanking blanket on their names. Sorry. Um, but they had a pilot going, and their pilot got picked up to production. So they had to drop out of Bob's burger's mm-hmm. . And, and then that opened up a slot and Jim, Jim called us to, to come interview for it. And we saw the That's been, and, and you guys, you guys let us out of our Glen Martin deal early by the way. You, you did us a favor that not everybody would've done.Michael Jamin:That's that is true. Now some people wouldn't. But, but I think most,Greg Thompson:I most, I think most would good, good people would,Michael Jamin:Good people let you out. Our contract. Um, and so, and how many that was 2008, you've been on that? Oh, no,Greg Thompson:That was 2000, 2010. We went over there, 10, I think we, we went over to Glen Martin. We were there for actually second half of the first season through most of the second season.Michael Jamin:Oh, that's what it wasGreg Thompson:Like Glen Martin. Yeah. So I think we wrote It'sMichael Jamin:A amazing song. You've been on Bob's Burgers. It's crazy. Like that's, that's job security.Greg Thompson:Yeah, I was thinking, yeah, it's, it's 12 over 12 years now. And I, I'm wearing, um, I'm wearing the first piece of swag we ever got on Bob's. I don't know if it's visible on camera or not. This, this, uh, old hoodie, which is now just in taters. It's 12 years old. AndMichael Jamin:Do you, is it hard coming up with stories that at the, for 12 years?Greg Thompson:Yes. Yes. Very hard. Um, also because unlike The Simpsons, which is kind of branched off into the peripheral characters, they'll do a episode about APU or whatever they used to. Anyway. Um, Bob's stays with the, the family. Right. And, and doMichael Jamin:You, how, how does the musical numbers work? How do you guys produce, you know, how do you write and produce that?Greg Thompson:Uh, well, I, Lauren is extremely musical. Lauren Bouchard very musical. So he always had, you know, a big interest in that. And he can, he can write and play. And then there are, you know, there are, uh, musical people, you know, uh, uh, on the show.Michael Jamin:Who writing the lyrics for that? Do you write some script or what?Greg Thompson:Well, we do, yeah. Yeah. Most of the writers will write some lyrics. I've written. Yeah, I've written some lyrics. And that's, you know, don't write the music occasionally. You might like take a stab at a tune for something silly, but yeah. And that's, that's like, and that's, that's like funMichael Jamin:For the music as wellGreg Thompson:Then. Yeah. Yeah. You do like the, um, yeah, we're like members of ASCAP or BMI or something. Yeah. And, um, yeah, there's actually been, um, two Bobs Burgers record albums that have come out. Didn't that sub pop?Michael Jamin:Were you with the movie as well,Greg Thompson:Though? Yeah, I mean, to a limited degree. It was, the movie was, was really written by, by Lauren and Nora Smith, who's also the, you know, his number two, she's also Show Runner. Um, and then, but all the other writers pitched in on Story and, and jokes and, you know, we looked at lots of cuts. And so we, we were, we were part of it. Uh, we're, we have credit, but, um, but they did the, uh, heavy lifting for sure.Michael Jamin:And, you know, you're kind of like the last writer, Guild of America. Cartoon , one of the last, right. I mean, you're covered by the writer Guild, right? It's not ascap. I mean, notGreg Thompson:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's a, yeah, it's a, it's a writer's guilded show. Yeah. And I guess, like, I don't know, not to tell Tales Outta School. I think Disney is still trying to, you know, put shows on the air on, you know, Disney now owns 20th Century Fox Television. Um, still try to get, you know, II covered shows, which that's a, a guild with fewer, bene fewer benefits for your, your viewers.Michael Jamin:It's nonstarter now. It's like, it's, I, it's, it's the animation.Greg Thompson:Oh, is it really? Yeah. Okay. Things are tough. Okay. I didn't realize that.Michael Jamin:How did you, now you didn't start you, what was your career for the, for people who are listening, what was your career before you got into writing? I'll start from theGreg Thompson:Beginning. Um,Michael Jamin:Year was 1948.Greg Thompson:. I was, I was 12. The, uh, that wasThe, I I would just say in brief that like, I always loved television growing up. I loved movies and television. Uh, and I, I became a writing major in college, uh, creative writing major, which wasn't, wasn't a good idea. Uh, but at all that time, it never occurred to me that there were people that wrote television . I never looked at the credits. And so it never occurred to me that there would be a career doing screenwriting. Um, and so after I got outta college, I went into, I moved to New York and I got into, uh, book publishing and was a, worked in marketing for a few different publishers. Uh, book and magazine publishing. And that was go, that was my career. That was what I was doing. I was gonna be kind of a business person. And, you know, in, I wore a suit, uh, took the subway.Um, and then I went to business school to get an MBA thinking, well, that's the next step of my, my, uh, tremendous business career. And that brought me out to LA afterwards to work at the LA Times. Um, and, uh, uh, Aaron Abrams. So you bet you, before my friend, uh, had split up with his wife, he'd moved out to LA to be a screenwriter, and then his marriage had blown up. Um, so he had an empty bedroom. And I moved in with him to begin my job at the LA Times. And Aaron was trying to be a screenwriter. And so for the,Michael Jamin:From college,Greg Thompson:Uh, yeah, we kind of, we did an equivalent of the, uh, we, we did a little, uh, summer school publishing bootcamp kind of thing. Um, interesting. One summer after college, like a six week program, a little like the, the sitcom writing workshop in a way, but for people interested in publishing. Um, and so just like a summer school thing. So I met him doing that. We, we hit it off. We had, you know, kind of this instant, instant rapport. Um, and, uh, I thought he was hilarious and everything. And so I wasn't surprised when he eventually decided that he was gonna try to be a screenwriter. So then I move into the, I move into his, uh, terrible, messy apartment. Um, and, and I see like he is got a bunch of scripts. I'd never seen a script before. Uh, you know, it's kind of, it was pre-internet.You couldn't like, download scripts. It's like, oh, wow, this is weird. So that led me to reading scripts, talking to Aaron about what he was doing. Uh, you know, he very generously would ask me to read things he was working on and ask if I had any ideas or thoughts. Uh, and, and then, and then, and then Aaron suggested we were, we were having some conversation about the, uh, actually the NFL player's strike, uh, of the eighties. And he said, I always thought that would be an interesting movie. Um, so, uh, then he said, do you wanna try to write a movie about that with me? So together, we basically hammered out this, um, comedy that did not become the, was it a Keanu Reeves movie, but was The Replacements. Ours was called Substitute Heroes. And it was much like The Replacements. And, and that was the first thing we wrote together. And that ended up, um, we ended up selling that for a guild minimum to some place.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 gonna spam you, and it's absolutely free. Just go to michael jamin.com/watchlist.Greg Thompson:The substitution Heroes, where did you sell it? Football comedy. Yeah.Michael Jamin:AndGreg Thompson:Where did you want? And it ended up selling to like, uh, some producers for Guild minimum, um, low budget minimum, which was I think like $26,000 or something like that. Or maybe, maybe more. Uh, but that was, I, you know, obviously that would be thrilling even now to sell a movie for, you know, a little bit of money. So it was very thrilling to, to me and, um, and Aaron. And so, and then at the same time, like I'm working my LA Times job, and I wasn't enjoying that a ton. You know, I was in like this, I don't know, weird little group called Market Planning. And we'd do these like analyses of like Orange County advertising market and stuff that no one would ever look at. Um, and, uh, and the LA Times was a place, I always remember this. They would do casual Friday, one day a month.So you had to, you had to remember what Friday remember? Casual. Casual. That was before we were casual all the time. Yeah. Right. So you had to remember what Friday of the month was, casual Friday. So you could not wear your suit. Um, and then for our, uh, Christmas party, we had a, like an annual Christmas party. You'd have to come in an hour early that morning. And the, the Christmas party would be like, between the hours of 7:00 AM and 8:00 AM , or 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM I, I forget when work started , at least in my department, that's,Michael Jamin:You have to get up to your party. Some party.Greg Thompson:It wasn't . Yeah, no, it wasn't, it wasn't festiveMichael Jamin:.Greg Thompson:So it was that there was that kind of, it was that kind of play. So meanwhile, you know, then I'm like, you know, thinking, oh, well this, this screenwriting thing's working out great. I'll do that instead. Um, you know, and I think, you know, like, you know, we are getting a lot of meetings and I think, you know, in Hollywood, like a meeting sounds exciting. Yeah. It'll almost inevitably lead to nothing. But still for a moment you feel like, you know, you're driving on a lot, you have a pass, they're waiting for you, you sit down, someone brings you out water, you feel important. And, and it's, the people you're meeting with are almost always just filling their schedule to feel important. Yes. So you go in there and together, all of you feel important, and then you leave. ItMichael Jamin:Sounds like you're, you've listened to my podcast. Cause I've said these words many times.Greg Thompson:OhMichael Jamin:Yes, go important, but go on. Right. Then go. What happened?Greg Thompson:Uh, so then, um, I, I remember Aaron was like, he had this, um, he played like beach volleyball, uh, in this like league or something like that, even though he was terrible. ButMichael Jamin:I don't, I don't believe that part of his story,Greg Thompson:But, well, I'll say he was on a beach volleyball team. Whether you could describe it as playing, I don't know. But I think he was trying to beat girls. And so, but he, but there were a couple like TV writers in his, in the beach volleyball group, and he said, these guys are all doing great. They all have like, big houses. Uh, they're so successful. We should like, let's forget movies. Let's try to write television. So we started working on, uh, some spec scripts, as you know, I'm sure you've probably talked about that at different times. And, uh, you know, we wrote an Ellen, you know, and a spec is your sample to get hired onto a show. We wrote an Ellen that I thought was great, uh, that I still remember what it was about. It was about Ellen dates her assertiveness instructor and then can't break up with him because she's not assertive enough. Which,Michael Jamin:Funny.Greg Thompson:Well, well, for one thing, I, I don't know if there is such a thing as an assertive assertiveness instructor , I think it felt, it felt right to us in 1994 or so. Um, but, you know, but we thought, okay, we've nailed it. We've written one spec, now we're gonna, now our career will begin in television. And everybody hated it. And I mean, you've probably experienced this, or people experienced people who've felt this way. They fall in love with their spec. They think their spec is great. It's really the, the first spec they've written. And they become very, very attached to it. Not attached to every part of it. Every, every element. They're not receptive to notes. And I, I think I was certainly that way about this, this one, but the, uh, the feedback was so uniformly negative. It was like, okay, well let's , I think we have to write another one. So we wrote a Larry Sanders uhhuh, uh, a Larry Sanders spec, which went much better. It was just a much better show for us. It was more in our sensibility. It was. So, uh, that's the one that, uh, we ended up using to get into the, uh, Warner Brothers sitcom writing workshop.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And that, the rest, now Aaron, Aaron Abras was this, you know, we were both friends. One of the sweetest guys you ever met. And then he tragically died halfway through your career. And then I remember, I mean, it was just awful, but I remember either calling you or writing to you, and I was like, listen, cuz you had to reinvent your career at that point. You were, you had a writing partner that you relied on and you bounced things off. And then you had to become a solo writer. And I remember reaching out to you saying, listen, if, like, if you wanna, if you might need to write new samples, if you want help breaking a story or anything, like just call me receiver. Well, happy. But, but you never did. What wasGreg Thompson:That like? I re I re I I, I, I do remember that, and I still grateful for that. Uh, but you and Stever both reached out and were were terrific during that time. Um, it was, it was fortunate for me that I was on Bob's burgers. We had done, Aaron and I had done a season on Bob's, so, uh, it hadn't even aired yet. Um, but it was, I'm trying to think when it got it. Season two order, I guess it didn't get that until it had aired for a few, a few weeks. Um, once Bob's began airing and the show got picked up for another season, which was a little nip and tuck, cuz the ratings were a little, um, or touch and go rather, uh, uh, the Lauren and Jim offered me, you know, the opportunity to come back as a solo writer. Uh, so I, I did not have to produce those other specs. I did have to write a pilot that Aaron and I had been contracted to write. So I had to, I did have to finish the pilot. We'd outlined it, but we hadn't written it yet. And, um, I had to, I had to write it. But when you, that was, so that was the first thing I wrote.Michael Jamin:And was it like, even now, do you hear his voice? Like, do you think, what would Aaron do here? Or, or are you like, you know, now this is, are you, you know, areGreg Thompson:You Yeah, no, I I I, I still totally do. Uh, I mean, he was, he's such a funny guy and, you know, it was, you know, he used to say like, you know, the, unfortunately the funny person of the writing team died. So the, the, the guy who's like, does little, I don't even know what my specialty was, kind of doing things Aaron did, but a little less well founded. Uh, and, um, but yeah, no, I'll, I'll sometimes if I'm, if I'm writing and if a, a joke will occur to me, and I'll think that is an Aaron kind of joke, right. You know, that that's, that's his sensibility. So as much as I can cha uh, channel, uh, Aaron's voice, I, I I try to, um, he was, you know, just a unique voice.Michael Jamin:I imagine it would be honestly be a little paralyzing that first, at least the first couple of scripts you're like, I'm, I'm, I'm flying solo here.Greg Thompson:Yeah. Uh, and I, you know, I don't know how it is with you and Seaver, I think, you know, you, you do work separately at times. I know. Um, but, uh, every, everything Aaron and I had written, we'd written together in the same room. You know, we might go off and work on a scene by ourselves for a while and then share it, but mostly it was like kind of taking turns at a keyboard while the other guy was there in the room. Yeah. Uh, looking, you know, looking over the shoulder. So it was, uh, it was, you know, a pretty, um, uh, uh, close writing situation. So yeah, I just, um, I, I, I would do a couple tricks of, I would, I remember the, when I was writing the pilot, uh, it was like, okay, I'm gonna write the scenes that I think are easier to write first.Mm-hmm. . And so I wrote scenes out of order just to make progress. Right. Uh, and so then when you make a little progress, you begin to feel better, you begin to feel more confident. Um, right. And, and I also, and I still do this, I'll, I'll write a scene maybe with some, some of the dialogue at all caps, which is my way of saying this is not the dialogue. This is an approximation of what has to be said here in this moment. Uh, just to get through it, just to get through it so I don't get stuck. Um, yeah. Uh, because yeah, I mean, Erin and I would, we'd, we would try to do as little rewriting as possible, just maybe outta laziness. So we would kind of get a lot of consensus on everything before we wrote, uh, or as, you know, as we worked our way down the page. But as a, as a solo writer, I just couldn't do that. It was like, Nope, I'm, I'm gonna have to do more revisions, I'll have to do more passes. Um mm-hmm. . So that's what, that's what I started doing.Michael Jamin:And now does it just feel comfortable on your own or, you know, I, it's interesting,Greg Thompson:You know, I know it, it, it does and it doesn't, it always feels a little in like, you know, right now I'm, you know, trying to come up with story ideas to write one and looking at the calendar and looking at how much time I have, and I think, oh God, am I gonna have enough time to break it? And, uh, you know, holidays are coming up that's gonna cut into time. Uh, so I, I always have a little bit of panic, and I think I'm known for this on the show of being fairly neurotic about scripts, worried I won't put it together. Uh, cuz you know, there's so many, so many, Michael, you know, there's so many jokes in the script, it's like several hundred by the time you're done. And it's like, oh, how will I think of all those jokes?Michael Jamin:It's that, that's the part that's intimidating to me. It's the getting the story out. Well,Greg Thompson:Yeah, no, I mean, the story, you know, obviously the most important part. Um, but, you know, every element is hard. And so it's whatMichael Jamin:Now how mu like how is it run, how is it differently working on Bob's workers than it was either at Glen Martin or Kim King of the Hill for you? You know, the process.Greg Thompson:Uh, I'd say Bob's Berger's, it's much more, uh, you kind of become your own little executive producer of your episode all the way through production, you know, and basically, most of the times you will be coming up with the idea of your episode. You will be pitching it, you will be running the room, uh mm-hmm. as you, you know, put, uh, break the story. Uh, you know, then you're updating, you know, Lauren, the, and Laura, the showrunners. But you're, it's, it's kind of on you. It's, it's not, it's not like, and there will be people breaking stories simultaneously, which I guess was what we had at King of the Hill too. Yeah. Uh, a a few small rooms, um, but it isn't like probably most of television today still where it's everybody around a table, the whole staff breaking one story at a time. Right. With, you know, walking through the beats on a, on a board, kind of assembling it all, everybody, the staff, everybody together. It's, it's more individual. Uh, you, you, we kind of have more rope to, you know, make magic or get in trouble.Michael Jamin:And now you're doing, you're consulting, which is so interesting, just a couple days a week. Um, yeah. What, how's that for you working out? Everyone talks about what?Greg Thompson:It's,Michael Jamin:It'sGreg Thompson:Perfect. It's simultaneous with, it's simultaneous with C so it's, it's, it's hard to separate the two in a way. So it's, so far it's been people are beginning to come back to the office, but for the last two and a half years, it's been all Zoom.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Uh,Greg Thompson:And uh, I would say like, if I didn't have to like write scripts occasionally, it would be fent it would be so easy. I mean, not easy, but, but it's always like, you know, if you could sit back and give people pitches on their episode all day, and it's like, well, here's my idea. If it works, terrific. If it doesn't work, well , you know, it's not my problem. It it is. ButMichael Jamin:Do you think you'll stay there for, for a, for a while longer? What do you, what are your plans? Do you have any?Greg Thompson:I I, I, you know, I've just kind of taken it year by year. Uh, the, um, we'll see, um, I don't know. It's, it's still been a fun thing and, and most of the staff is the same staff as when we first grouped up 12 years ago.Michael Jamin:No one's, no one's leaving back, back when we started, um, uh, you know, we, you could jump shows, you might work on a show for a couple years, then jumped to another show. But now with the market, you'd be crazy to leave any show if you're on a show, you stay there and you hang on for dear life.Greg Thompson:I think so. I think so. I think that's been true of Bob's and, you know, uh, Wendy and Lizzie Molino, two of to have really, you know, very funny writers on, on Bob's. They did, they left only because they developed their own show, uh, the Great North. So, but despite that, they still have a hand in Bob's and write an episode a year. So nobody really wants to let go of Bob's.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And then, uh, yeah. Do you, are you developing at all? Have you tried to develop in recent years or,Greg Thompson:You know, I, past the first year, no, I haven't, I haven't tried to develop, and that's, you know, I have to say that's a little bit of laziness on my part. Like, you know, why do I wanna develop myself out of a job, this great job on Bob's? Uh, yeah. And, and also it was like, you know, we, Aaron and I, Aaron and I think did like eight or nine pilots, only one produced, but it was always really hard and, uh, a distressing experience. You'd, you'd, you know, we'd go in full of, full of ambition and hopes and dreams of how this next pilot was gonna be great. And then, and then you'd get so ground down by the process, we'd be miserable and hate, and hate our pilot by the end of it. Michael Jamin:People don't under no understanding, uh, of how the industry actually works. That's what I'm trying to educate them. But like we say the same things, like if we didn't have, if we were on full time staff, we, we wouldn't have to develop, we wouldn't run out to develop. It's only because staffs, the orders are so much shorter that you kind of have to, if you wanna make a living, you gotta sell what you gotta,Greg Thompson:Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, tell provision's changed, changed it that way. So so, you know, I'm a little embarrassed. I haven't, you know, tried to develop in the last decade, but I don't know, I'm just,Michael Jamin:So what, what advice do you have? Do you, I mean, are you bringing on any young writers or what advice do you have when you see a young writer join the show?Greg Thompson:Uh, well, boy, I don't know. I guess it would be the advice. Uh, I'd give any young writer, you know, just try to, try to pay attention to the voices of the show. Know the show, watch, watch every episode. You know, when we were hired on King of the Hill, I, I'd watched King of the Hill, but I hadn't seen everything. But, you know, I methodically started plowing through hundreds of episodes at that point. I think maybe 200 episodes had happened by the time we, we joined it. So, and that's just kind of an education and you internalize the voices of the characters and, and it, it helps you, it helps you know what to pitch. So, you know, we'll, we'll have, obviously, like a new writer will often like, pitch an episode idea that we've kind of already done. And, you know, it's hard to catch up with everything, but you have to try.Michael Jamin:Right.Greg Thompson:And just, I guess trust that you're, trust that you're there for a reason and that your ideas are good and, you know, do your best.Michael Jamin:Right. Right. But it's a pretty supportive environment there, it sounds like.Greg Thompson:Oh, it's great. Yeah. No, it's, it's really a nice group of people. Um, you know, you've been on many staffs and I was on many staffs, and I think my experience was almost always good. Uh, I hope yours was too. But you know, the, I think we probably all have both had the experience of being in a room where you're sitting in the same, you're around a table, same table every day. You're not only that, but you're seated in the same seat every day. Mm-hmm. , uh, same person to the left, same person to the right. And, and sometimes there will be people who will make a point of only laughing at, uh, somebody's, somebody several people's pitches, but never several other people's pitches.Interesting. Trying to, right. Yeah. I mean, uh, and, uh, it, it is a little bit of a, and this is, you know, it was rare to have this experience, but, you know, maybe did once or twice, um, pe writers are trying to get their jokes in. Uh, they would rather have their joke in than a funnier joke from somebody else. So there is that, there is that bit of competition. And I'm not saying I would have the funnier joke that no one would want in or anything like that, but, uh, uh, it's, it's this natural, um, selfishness, self-preservation, I guess. Yeah. Of like, right. I must, I must have a certain number of jokes in the, in the episode, or I'm not, I'm not earning my, my morsel of meat Yeah. Today. Yeah. So, um, so there, you know, there is a competitiveness. And I think, I think some shows, I think very could be bad miserable places. Um, Bob's was a fantastic place. Everybody was great. Right. Everybody was supportive. Uh, everybody was funny. Uh, everybody is funny. So many great writers. So it's been a, a fantastic situation.Michael Jamin:And how, and you say you were, you're involved heavily in the production. So you'll watch the animatics, you'll give notes on the air, or do you watch all the automatics or just the ones you, you produce?Greg Thompson:Uh, we watch all thematics and colors. Uh, but the animat, you know, for your own episode, you, you will be, you know, more involved in notes and revisionismMichael Jamin:Just forGreg Thompson:People. And the,Michael Jamin:The a animat are the rough, uh, before like crude sketches of the, uh, cartoon, the animation. And then you give notes on that. And then, then it's more like for blocking, which before the character should do and what kind of shot you have. And then later they color it in and, you know, that's, then you, you give notes on that as well. But you, are you also at the record? Are you, um, recording the actors?Greg Thompson:Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, we've done that a few different ways. In the beginning of the show, it was the, uh, Bob's was unique in this, in that they, you'd have multiple actors in, you know, on, on Mike, uh, at the same time. And it would be a simultaneous recording, so you'd have overlap mm-hmm. , uh, and improv. And that was kind of a hallmark of Bob's. And then in, uh, as c happened, we had to kind of break that apart and actors were recording in their homes, and so we were getting them one at a time. Right. Um, and so now it's, it's kind of a little combination of,Michael Jamin:But are you direct in a way, the actress yourselves or someone else? One of the store runners directingGreg Thompson:Lauren, Lauren was the director for like the first 10 years mm-hmm. every episode. And then during Covid we began to direct our own episodes. Right. Uh, but now we're actually in the process of having one writer direct all the episodes, uh, uh, with the, uh, a writer producer will direct all of them. And just so there's kind of a, a unified voice coming from the directing booth. Right. Um, and then Theri, the writer is also there to give notes and suggestions.Michael Jamin:Roll their eyes. You're doing it wrong.Greg Thompson:Yeah. I'd say, no, that's not, that's not, it's goes. So, yeah. And uh, I'd say Lauren is kind of constantly tinkering with the process, trying to improve it, even after like 12 years you think it would, things would be, okay, this is how we do it, this is how we'll always do it. But no, it's still being, aspects of production are being reinvented and tinkered with all the time.Michael Jamin:It's a great show. Cause it has such a sweetness to it, such an earnestness to, uh, who knew, who knew it was gonna be sort of giant.Greg Thompson:It does. It does. Uh, and I know early on, like, um, you know, Aaron and I would pitch, uh, coming from a, well, I guess working on every other show, we pitched a lot of, like, stories that involved conflict between the family, you know, uh, that was a little maybe sharper than Lauren wanted to do. Yeah. He didn't want, you know, his thing is he doesn't ever want the characters being mean to each other. Right. Anything perceived as mean. And so, like, you know, like, oh, if you're watching most sitcoms, it's like, oh, I don't know, everybody's, everybody does this all the time. You know what, so, but he wanted something sweetie.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And it's a good instinct. When we, we, when we worked for, uh, Chris Lloyd who, you know, he ran Frazier for many years, and then later we worked for Man Practice. He used to say the same things. He, he would say Velvet Gloves. So when the characters slapped each other, they had to be wearing velvet gloves. So you never wanna hit too hard. Everyone saw too hard, you know, I was like, oh, that's, that's smart. I'll start using that wordGreg Thompson:. I won't do it, but I'll use the word. Yeah. Um, yeah. And, and, and certainly like, you know, one thing with the internet, now, you can see what everybody thinks of every episode and on Reddit. And do you guysMichael Jamin:Do that?Greg Thompson:Uh, Twitter? Do you go? Yeah. Yeah. DoesMichael Jamin:That change the way you write future episodes?Greg Thompson:I think a little, um, like we did an episode once where the family was on a game show, which is kind of an unusual episode for us. It was pretty early. And they end up kind of getting cheated out of their prize at the end of the game show. It's kind of a, they're kind of ripped off. Mm-hmm. and the ending, we thought, no, it's a great ending. It's, you know, it's, it's perfect. It's funny, it's, uh, it's television viewers hated the bels that that had happened to the Belchers that they'd been, it, it felt like an unsatisfying ending to many, many, many viewers. And they would keep bringing it up. In fact, they still bring it up, uh, online as, as a, an episode ending. They don't like, uh, and you know, I think maybe because it was an unearned, they hadn't really done anything wrong and they ended up being, you know, kind of robbed. So I think we, we avoid, we try to avoid lessons where they, or episodes where they just have complete egg on their face by the end. Right. There has to be some kind of little, little victory or something learned, something positive that comes outMichael Jamin:It. Yeah. That's interesting. It's interesting you take that few, cuz I never sire kind of does. I, I'm really kind, I stay away from, I don't want to hear about the reviews. I don't want to hear about what the viewers think, just wanna, you know, do my thing and cross my fingers. But it's, you know, different.Greg Thompson:I mean, that's probably healthier. But if it's an episode that I wrote that's airing, um, I just devour Twitter.Michael Jamin:Do you really?Greg Thompson:Trying to, trying to, uh, oh, yeah. No, I, I I definitely try to cherry pick , you know, any positive comments.Michael Jamin:We went on, geez, this is about a year ago, Sierra and I went on, I don't know when we went on YouTube to like, see what people were saying about Glen Martin. We hadn't watched the show in years. And, and then there's some guy from his basement, some young guy talking about the show and he nailed it. He, he was as if he was in the writer's room. Like he understood the show better, better than we did. And it was just hilarious to hear him take it apart. I was like, man, this guy,Greg Thompson:I think, did you send that around? Did you send that around to the writers? I kind of remember reading something that I thought, yeah, this guy's, this guy's good, thisMichael Jamin:Guy's, he was like a spy me. So much Funny .Greg Thompson:Yeah. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Wow.Greg Thompson:That, oh, it was a funny, it was a funny show. Does that air, I mean, does that, how does that, as a quick aside, is Glen Martin accessible on anyMichael Jamin:Platform? I think, yeah, I think it's on YouTube where you can watch it all for free. So we don't get any, I mean, we have some points and we don't get any of it. I don't think you make money by showing,Greg Thompson:But it'sMichael Jamin:For free.Greg Thompson:Did some, I mean, did some kid upload it or is it, is it like they're all this, whoever owns it, put it, putMichael Jamin:It on Michael Eisner there as a whole, like maybe we get enough used, like he can even sell it again somewhere. I'm like, you know, yeah. Sell it somewhere. Let's, let's bring it back. But I don't think we've pushed band to bring it back. I can't, we reboot Glen Martin. I don't think there's anything there. Oh, that's funny.Greg Thompson:Oh. Oh,Michael Jamin:Well,Greg Thompson:Uh,Michael Jamin:Greg, is there any place, is there anything you wanna plug? Do you wanna talk about your next season? Should people follow you anywhere? Is there anything you wanna get off your chest before eight?Greg Thompson:Oh, well, God, I'm not really on Twitter. No. I mean, I can't, it's, I'm unfollowable on social media cuz um, I don't know. Just, uh, I guess keep watching. Uh, uh, I kind of forget where we are production-wise. I never know what episodes about to air. Yeah. Cause as you know, the, the production schedule in in animation is very long. It's almost don'tMichael Jamin:Without nine months with you guys in almost a year.Greg Thompson:Well, it can be, you know, if, especially if you know, the order changes. Right. And, andMichael Jamin:How manyGreg Thompson:Episodes do you get, you know, after production. But it's a longMichael Jamin:Time. What, what is your order this year? Like 22?Greg Thompson:Uh, I think it's 22. I think it's, yeah, Bob's is one of the last, you know, shows that still gets a 22 order. Uh, and it does less so now, but it did, you know, repeat a lot too. So there was residuals involved. Um, so, but fortunateMichael Jamin:It worked out.Greg Thompson:Um,Michael Jamin:,Greg Thompson:No. Let's see what I, I, I, uh, I would merely plug, uh, your,Michael Jamin:My Plus this in my Pod . All right. Everyone that well,Greg Thompson:Are you still doing the videos as uh, what? Oh, I was just asking if you're doing the video, the video, uh, podcast things as well. Yeah.Michael Jamin:These will air, yeah, they air they'll be on YouTube as well, and we run clips across media. Okay. People can, you know, they can get it everywhere. They can. Yeah. Continue following.Greg Thompson:Okay. It'sMichael Jamin:All part of that. Yeah. It's all, but that's, yeah. I, I, I, this has been fascinating hearing your story as far as I'm concerned, but ,Greg Thompson:But Greg,Michael Jamin:Thank you forGreg Thompson:I, I, uh, well, thank you. I hopeMichael Jamin:You're a good dude.Greg Thompson:Uh, thank, thank you for having me, Michael. I, you know, I'm a, I'm a huge fan of yours, uh, and, uh, yeah, honored.Michael Jamin:Oh God, this is my honor. But alright, everybody, thank you so much to great comic comedian, writer Greg Thompson. And, uh, yeah. So what, let me tell you what else is going on over here. So keep, if you guys wanna sign up for my watch list, that's my free newsletter where I send out daily tips for screenwriters and creative types at Michael jam.com/watchlist and keep following us here. And, uh, yeah, we have different content on YouTube. Our YouTubes at Michael Jam, writer and, uh, Instagram. Keep follow My Instagram, the TikTok Act. Michael Jam writer. All right, everyone. Thank you so much, Greg. Thank you. Until next week for more people. All right. Be good.Phil Hudson:This has been an episode of Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin and Phil Hudson. If you'd like to support this podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving your review and sharing this podcast with someone who needs to hear today's subject. For free daily screenwriting tips, follow Michael on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @MichaelJaminWriter. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @PhilAHudson. This episode was produced by Phil Hudson and edited by Dallas Crane. Until next time, keep writing.

David Litt is the Creator and Showrunner of the hit TV Series King of Queens. He's written on shows like Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, Out of Practice, Big Bang Theory, and more.Show NotesDavid Litt on IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0514439/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAuto-Generated TranscriptDavid Litt:The lesson I'd like to impart if there is one. It really is fun to be a wise ass and funny and make everybody laugh. But you gotta bring something to the table or you're just gonna get fired. Yeah. Yeah. You've great to be funny and crazy and do bits and hopefully bring up the level of people's spirits in the room because it can get Yeah. It get arduous. Yeah. Yeah. But if that's all you do and you're not contributing, you're gonna be extraction and you're gonna get, so that, that's something that gets earned over time.Michael Jamin:You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jam. Hey everybody, it's Michael Jam and welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I have a very, very special guest today. This is my old friend David Lit, who is the creator of perhaps one of the last giant hit multi-camera sitcoms. King of Queens. King of Queens. That's, there really haven't been too many multi-camera hits. There's been a couple, but not many. And so here he is, DavidDavid Litt:And not many that have run 25 years continuously.Michael Jamin:You mean still in syndication? You mean still running somewhere? StillDavid Litt:Never been off the air since 98.Michael Jamin:Wow. Well we're gonna get to all that. I want hear. Let me just give you a little bit of roll up. So, cuz I want people gonna wanna know what else you had done. So you actually wrote on Real Monsters, which is My wife was a voice on that show. I think we talked about that. She was DizzleDavid Litt:Dizzle, Yeah. Now that character may have left. I left to do a sketch show.Michael Jamin:What showDavid Litt:Was that? After? About six months. So I was there, but was I o uh and Crumb.Michael Jamin:Crumb. Interesting now. Okay.David Litt:Great place to work, by the way, for anybody who has the opportunity.Michael Jamin:What in KidsDavid Litt:Classy.Michael Jamin:What's that? Where you cut out?David Litt:I dunno, Classy Cupo. Oh yeah. A great place toMichael Jamin:Work. But they, Are they still making stuff though?David Litt:I don't know. They used to rug wraps. I don't know if they still do, but they're unbelievably opposite and really great to creatives. AndMichael Jamin:So, in other words, if we can build a timeDavid Litt:Machine, My first,Michael Jamin:So your advice,David Litt:My first job I got was on a Real Monsters and the earthquake hit the first day I started. Right. The North Northridge quite there. So to their credit, they paid everybody, even though they were closed for a couple of weeks. They paid everybody.Michael Jamin:Interesting. They were in the studio too. How well did you get that job? Cause okay, let's start from the beginning. You're from Queens. You live that life of King, right? And so we'll get there, but how did you get your first job On writing?David Litt:Yeah. I don't like to brag by telling people I'm from Queens, but Yep. You can't hide. I amMichael Jamin:.David Litt:. Not obvious.How did I get that job? Here's how I fast forwarding a little bit. I moved from New York to LA the first week or two I was there. I made a commitment. I was gonna go to every party I got invited to. Cause I'm not a party guy. I don't like going to these, but I felt like I had to make friends. I needed to meet people. So somebody, a friend of a friend said, Hey, come to this party out in the Palisades. I said, Okay. I meet this kind of diminutive little woman. Little girl. Very sweet. We chatted for an hour and I go home and I get a call the following day from her and my ego. I'm thinking, Oh ha, she's totally into me,Michael Jamin:.David Litt:But she wasn't, as it turned out, she wasn't into me at all. But she had a job for me and wanted to know if I was interested in it or not. And of course, little did she know I was living on my credit cards. I was literally, I had four credit cards maxed. And I was taking cash off the fifth to pay the four. DidMichael Jamin:You have anyDavid Litt:Kinda, And she was going, Are you interested? It was, by the way, I still remember it was 2000. It was 2000 a week. And I was like, Yeah, I'm interested,Michael Jamin:But you wait. She and she worked for Klasky Shpo.David Litt:Her name was Laverne McKinnon. A shout out to her. She made my career, She made my life. I mean, she took a chance. She didn't know me from shit. She just thought, Oh, this guy's buddy.Michael Jamin:And you had a script ready. She must have read your script.David Litt:No, not at that point. She subsequently read something. But at that point it was like she was going on instinct. Like, Oh, this guy made me laugh. Wow. We have a comedy coming up and she, let's bring him in and meet withMichael Jamin:Him. And so she worked with in development at, SheDavid Litt:Was right underneath Arlene and Klasky and gpo. That's the Klasky and the Tupo.Michael Jamin:And they're the producers of that, the show that, But how long had you been in LA at that point? And how were you making a living before that at all?David Litt:Let me think. Yeah, she was okay. I had literally just gotten out here. I was living in New York and I was working in advertising and I was writing sketches sat, I was writing sketches for Saturday Night Live. They didn't know I was writing sketches for them, but I was doing it right. Somebody I knew and a manager named Barry Secunda. Okay. He managed Franken and Davis and another guy I feel like I owe a lot to because he didn't hang up on me. He didn't like, He said, Come in, let me read your stuff. He read all my shitty sketches that were, at the time I thought, this is genius. Now, when I read them now, I'm like, no. Yeah. So he hooked me up with a manager here in LA that he knew. And he was very encouraging.This is Barry . He said, Look, your stuff is great. You have the potential, but you've gotta get out to California. You cannot be a full-time comedy writer from New York. It's very difficult. And that's one thing when people call me for advice, I always ask them, A lot of people, the main thing, they don't wanna move away from their family, their home, their friends. That's the scariest thing you could do , but you've got to be ready to do it because you're very, very likely not gonna get a job if you're not in Los Angeles. I say this all the time, once you get good in Los Angeles, once you get Michael Jamin level, you can live anywhere in the world. Yeah. Not you a different Michael Jam. Yeah. That I have to.So I, at that point, I made the choice, I'm gonna move. And luckily I had supportive parents. They were like, Here's five grand, go move and chase your dream. They didn't make fun of me or tell me not to do it. Or I bought ps. It's not like I had much choice. I had one semester of Queens College . I had no other real alternatives. So you think not like I'm dropping at med school. . So then I got here, and at that first, Let me think. Yeah, pretty much the first week I was here is when I met Laverne and got that job. Maybe it was two weeks.I don't know if I, Did I ever tell you the story of I moved from New York, I give up the most phenomenal studio rent. Anyone who knows New York, it's such incredible thing to get a rent controlled or rent stabilized apartment. I still remember $580 a month for a gorgeous studio. They had just redone it, knew everything. And I had to make a choice. Do I leave this and move? I mean, I would still be living in that apartment. So finally I got the guts to move. Okay. My agent, what happened is, I'll give a little secret, I don't even know if they do this anymore, but there's something they made back then called the Hollywood Created Directory. Right? It was a big green book and it had all the agents in it, their phone numbers, what agencies they were with. So what I would do every day after my day, my shitty day job, which made me wanna hang myself in advertising. I worked at CBS with a couple of very nice people. They were not the problem. I was the problem , just get that outta the way.So I went out to a couple of agents in la, about three or four of 'em said, We really love your material. I was shocked. I didn't think I was going to get any agent. And as it is, I wound up getting my pick of about three or four, Not a level, but d plus level. Some pretty good agents. What we now would probably call boutique agents. The somebody at Broer was interested. Broer Carlin. Yeah. Yeah. So, right. Yeah. I mean, you of what I speak, but listen to this. It gets so great. I decide to load. I've never been to Los Angeles in my life. I load everything up on a truck. My buddy, I know one person in la he goes, Stay on my couch until you find yourself an apartment. It's fine. I said, Okay, great. I appreciate it. I get out here, The agent that decided to take me on, I don't know if I should give her name or not, but she says, I want you to meet me. There was a place called Cafe Fro. Yes. I don't know if you remember it. It was on Melrose. It was a big in West Hollywood. In West Hollywood. And I was, like I said, doing the multiple credit card thing. And I needed a job. So I had just applied there to Cafe Fro and they were about to start me on Monday. . So here I am, meeting with my agent on a Wednesday, Thursday.So I'm right now, picture this, My stuff is still on a moving truck coming across the country with no destination because I haven't found an apartment yet. I'm going to look for an apartment and I'm gonna then call the moving company and say, Here's where you need to deliver to. So in the meantime, over lunch, as we're having lunch, this agent is acting kind of odd. And I'm like, Why is she acting so weird? So finally it comes out, she says, Listen, I need to let you know I'm leaving the agency. It was innovative artists. She goes, I'm leaving the agency. And I'm like, I'm not joking. I just got there. Hadn't been there 24 hours. Right? I'm like, Okay, well I'll go with you. Where are you going? She says, No, I'm leaving the business entirely and I'm suing them for sexual harassment. I, we'll have to get the name afterwards. Cause I think you may have had the same agent. .So she . I'm not joking. . Well, I have to say that we turned out to be good friends as time went on. I don't wanna give too many specifics, but we'll talk after. Yeah, yeah. We'll talk off the air. But the good stuff is off the air. I don't want the four people listening to know . But what happened is, and by the way, tapping this whole thing, when we get outside to get our cars, she goes, Do you have money? I don't have any money and I can't pay the valet part. , I pay for her valet. But here's where the story turns into a positive. So I called all the agents back that I had that had been willing to take me on and that I had passed on. And I told them what happened. I said, I came out da da blah blah. Luckily I had left it on good terms. And I did wind up connecting with a great agent at Premier Artists . Her name was Susan Sussman. Okay. A great one of those agents that knows how to start people on their way to their first job. This is back in the days when people had actual patience with your career and would nurture you along and you know, remember that baby.And she was great. And that was when I fortuitously met this woman from Klasky, Cheapo and I, within two days or something, I called Susan Sussman and I said, Look, I think I may have a job. Can you negotiate this for me? . And the rest was history. She took me on. And that was that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. But then why did you leave real monsters so quickly though?David Litt:I left Real monsters because I, It was a real Monsters was a Nickelodeon children show. And that wasn't, while it was writing and a great introductory job, it wasn't my dream. I mean, I didn't come out to write children's comedy and you who know me, that's not really my wheelhouse. Right. IMichael Jamin:Should go.David Litt:Yeah. I left because I had gotten through a friend a contact to do this show called The News. It was a takeoff of Saturday Night Live directed by the son of Don Wilson who direct Saturday Night Live. His name was Michael Wilson. He was the producer of the news. And it was sketch showsAnd we had so much fun. It was such a great gig. It was like everyone off in their offices writing sketches, . And then what would happen is every three weeks we all went down to Florida to Orlando for budget reasons and we shot on whatever that dolly would, or whatever it was. Some sound stages down there. Wow. It was such a great gig. So much fun. Now I would probably be a little snobby about it, but at the time it was just a great job. And we would write all the sketches in LA at Sunset Gour. Right. Some of the writers would write one or two sketches with each other, sell 'em alone. And the best sketches made it down to Florida and gotMichael Jamin:What became of some of those.David Litt:Got writing, got on the air.Michael Jamin:Cause a sketch writing is so specific. Did many of them go onto sitcom writing or are you in touch with any of them?David Litt:I'm in touch with a couple of them. Not many made the transition.Michael Jamin:Yeah.David Litt:I guess. What are they doing now? Trying to think. There's not a lot of sketch work for people. So if you can't do it, you're screwed. I mean, if you can't do something else, what are you gonna do? There's not a lot of work for, Yeah, I mean Sketch is a very, very specific art that you either get it or you don't. How to end the sketch. Right. Sometimes there is no end and you just chop it off in a very douchey, uncomfortable way. Right. I'm sure everyone is seeing those sketches where you're like, Wait, that's the ending . But that said, it was the kind of job where you went in. You did as well as you let yourself do. There was no one looking at theirDavid Litt:watch.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael. 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 gonna spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michael jam.com/watchlist.David Litt:Okay. So were, I'm sorry. So you were saying you were working as a property manager? It was reaching a point though, where I was, it was so tempting to have free rent, but I was getting pulled in two directions. It was like I'm getting my sketches on the air and I'm getting a call. My toilet is Blo . So I'm like running home from a table read to fix a toilet. So finally, again, much New York, I had to make a hard choice and get away from the comfortable, these look pretty good on me and get away from the comfortable. And I quit the job and I wound up getting, moving out, getting an apartment. And that was that. Then from there, let me think from there, Oh yeah, then I wrote an Ellen Spec, Remember Ellen? Of course with Ari Gross. And I love that show.And by the way here, this is a great lesson for anyone who cares enough to listen to what I'm saying. , a lot of times people say, I wrote a lot of specs. I probably wrote about 12 or 15 specs. I wrote a Herman's head. I wrote a lot of just shows I really liked. I didn't worry so much about will it get made, Will it, I just knew it was like sharpening my knife. And I wrote an Ellen, which everybody was like, Why are you writing an Ellen? No one's watching it. It's not, Back then the big ones were mad about you and mm-hmm Seinfeld. And I said, I just love it. I don't know. I mean, I love it so I wanna write it. And so I wrote it. And then Michael Whitehorn, who I co-created King of Queens with, he and I had already worked together on a show called, He had hired me on a show called Ned and Stacy with Tom Church.Michael Jamin:That was another great show.David Litt:Yeah. I loved it. It was a lot of fun. Michael was a great teacher and mentor. He would let me come to the mixes. I, I was still a staff writer at that point and he was bringing me to the mixes to,Michael Jamin:Or just you. Did he take, did he really just,David Litt:He was taking anybody who felt they wanted to go. A lot of people just wanted to go home after a long day. But if you were really dedicated and wanted to learn, he was 100% about including you and explaining how come you're doing that? Why can't you, can't we do it this way? And he would explain and it made some really just dumb questions. I would ask him. And he was great. And I think from Ned and Stacy it became obvious. We worked well together, . So that when King of Queens came along, he was very open to writing something together. Sony had a standup comic on stand or whatever, a holding deal,Which was Kevin James and Michael called me and he said, Look, I found this comic, I think he's pretty special. What do you think? And I watched it and I thought he was incredible too. Now, if I'm being honest, I needed the gig. I probably would've said he was incredible no matter what. But he was, you could just tell Kevin was special. So the next thing, Michael and I are writing this pilot together and that was another great experience. We wrote the whole thing in three weeks, . It took no time at all. It was, you know how it is, even with songwriters at least talk aboutMichael Jamin:David Litt:When they write a great song, it doesn't take it take a month, it takes 10 minutes. Right.Michael Jamin:But what'sDavid Litt:Interesting is, and that's howMichael Jamin:But you like, Sorry, go ahead. Well what's interesting is because was his cloud, he had a good idea, but he also, you needed him, right? Because he had a lot more clout. He wasDavid Litt:Way bigger. Oh yeah.Michael Jamin:Right.David Litt:Yeah, very much so.Michael Jamin:Some of those people think, Well how am I, do I sell my show? But they're like people off the street, you know, have to find someone who's in the position who can sell a show.David Litt:Yeah. I mean, without getting into too many specifics, I will say that after N and Stacy, I was sort of the golden child in the new writers that were out here. I was a little bit sought after and I got on a show that doesn't need to be named, but it was for me, it started out as one show and became another. And I just felt like, hey, this isn't what I signed on to do. . And that made them very angry. Coming from New York thought I'm going to use the honesty approach and I'm just gonna tell it. It is, Well it would've been better for me just to say my uncle died and I gotta leave instead of the truth. Because the truth hurt. The truth was rather they kept asking me, In fact, I remember, what show are you going to? What did you get an offer? I kept saying, I don't have any other offer. It's not about another show. I had the balls even at that point.Michael Jamin:Yeah. You ever do that now, Ever?David Litt:I don't think so.Michael Jamin:Yeah.David Litt:I don't think I would now. But at that time I just was filled with myself enough that I said, So what happened was, in that interim is when Kevin, as, when Michael came to me with KevinMichael Jamin:David Litt:And the studio was the same studio of the show, I just left and they were not having it. They were like, We want you never to work again. We intend on ruining you. We want to squash you like a bug. They were very upset at my hubris that I had said they were done. To Michael's credit, he fought for me. I mean, he didn't have to , but he went to the mat. He was like, Look, if you don't bring David in on this, I I'm not gonna write it.Michael Jamin:Wow. And that show made a ton of your show made a ton of money for the studio.David Litt:It did. It did well, yeah. Yes it did very well. Yeah. It changed my life. He changed my li Michael changed my lifeMichael Jamin:And then, Okay, go on. Do you wanna tell a little more more of that, Creating King Queens or getting it how the pilot shot and I'm sure people want to hear yourDavid Litt:Yeah, sure. Yeah, we wrote the pilot, like I said, it took two or three weeks. It just flowed. It was likeMichael Jamin:Then casting it. Okay, you had Kevin for sure and then you had aDavid Litt:Casting. Well we'd already had Kevin and we knew, well the second we met with Leah, we knew that's our couple.Michael Jamin:WeDavid Litt:Had tried to get Jerry Stiller, but he didn't wanna do it. Initially he was coming off ofMichael Jamin:Seinfeld,David Litt:Seinfeld and he just didn't really wanna do another series. But when he read the script, I guess it clicked. He got it. So once we had those three in place, it came together at that point. HowMichael Jamin:Were the ratings in the beginning when you finally got on the air?David Litt:The ratings in the beginning were solid but not stellar. We built pretty well. The thing that benefited us a lot was being Kevin, being friends with Ray Ram Romano,Michael Jamin:David Litt:Kevin doing guest spots on Ray's show. There was a lot of crossover and a lot of helping hands and it made it a lot easier to stick around a while and do crossovers cuz they were in each other's worlds.Michael Jamin:It's so sad cuz those days are over. Those days. Are those, It just seems like it's, Yeah,David Litt:It is kind of sad. I mean it's unfortunate because it's a great format if you do it right and not a hacky old fashioned wayMichael Jamin:Then okay, so you did that show 200 or so episodes cause that, Okay, I wanna say how I met you. I met you, we on, I was on out of practice, we were both on, and I guess we brought as a consultant, you were full time in out practice, right?David Litt:I had an overall deal at Paramount. Right. And they assigned me to out of practice, I think it was like two days or three days a week.Michael Jamin:And I remember being on that show, that was Chris Lloyd and joking and Chris Lloyd, he later co-created Modern Family. Chris Lloyd, he Rand Frazier. He has more Emmys on. He has a mantle full of Emmys like that.David Litt:Yeah. Chris is aMichael Jamin:Emmys. And so Chris is really one of the most highly regarded writers in Hollywood comedy writers in Hollywood. And I just remember, and I couldn't be remembering that wrong, but in my memory meeting you, this is how you would write a scene if you wanted to have a comedy writer join , a TV show, if you're writing a scene, a comedy writer enters a room. This is how you would've written it. Cause I remember we were working on a story and you were late and you came in your faces, you burst into the door, we're working. So suddenly the door flies open and then your face is kind of red because you're, you're probably running through the parking lot cause you're gonna be late and you're carry couple of boxes of gum gum and the room was false silent. Right. Cause you just in, you're like, Sorry I'm late. And then I think I was the first to break the silence. I was like, Oh, okay. You the gum. Right? And you Yeah. And you without missing. Yeah. Yeah. I got plenty of gum. Don't worry about the gum and you just it down.I, the rumor was that you were brought onto the show because, so some comedy writers are, they're not very funny in real life, but they can write a scene. They know how to be funny on paper. And then some commentaries just are just funny the minute you meet them . Right. And that was you. And you came in and it was really part of it was like this guy David, he's, we want him cuz he's gonna lighten the mood. He's just kind of, he's got . He's gonna lighten the mood in the room. And that's exactly what you did every day. It was always like . I mean, I can't remember. There's so many. WellDavid Litt:It's funny because I loved, I really surprised myself with how much I loved working with Joe Keenan and Chris Lloyd. Yeah. Their reputation was a little bit maybe serious. Yeah. But fra, they weren't like jokes.Michael Jamin:What'dDavid Litt:You say?Michael Jamin:They were the Frazier guys. So they had this reputation of being kind of these very smart and serious writers. And they certainly were both are amazing, amazingly talented writers. Oh yes. Had the seriousness about 'em. And you were brought on almost like the comic relief to the comedy verse .David Litt:Yeah. I think they enjoyed me. I was the fun monkey.Michael Jamin:Right. And it was because that was, you had already had your King of Queens money. , like none of us had that money in our back pocket. ButDavid Litt:Right. Everybody was nervous.Michael Jamin:We were worried about being fired. Right.David Litt:Yeah, you're right. I was a little more relaxed cuz I wasn't sweating it so much. But once I got to know them, I wanted to do a great job for them.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I remember one time, this is one of my favorite stories, is that we're stuck on a story beat. We're stuck on this thing for, I don't know, an hours or whatever, we're struggling this beat. And then you kind of broke the silence. You go, okay, here's the bad version. Let me tell you the bad version of the scene. And then you had spent five minutes laying out what you thought, what's the hackiest worst version of the scene? . And then Chris Lloyd just looks at you. He goes, What's the good version? And you just go, Oh, I don't have that . And you always fucking lost it. Oh my God. It was so funny. Oh my God. WasDavid Litt:That the room where I used to have some funny bits that I would literally take around different rooms in there? Yeah. I'm trying to remember, was that the one where I would do milk and cookies time where I would stop for a minute, just totally, No, I would say to Chris, I'd go, Chris, it's milk and cookies time. And he'd go, Okay, go ahead. And I would literally just shut off and have milk and cookies at my desk while everybody else continued to work. It was so funny.Michael Jamin:, I remember you coming in. I remember you. I mean, I remember you coming in, you were one of the first people to buy an iPhone. And I think you came in with, I think you upgraded to an iPhone too. And you came go like this iPhone too is gonna change my life. It's gonna change my life. And I said, I think I said no. But you said the same thing about the first time you got the first iPhone and the iPhone. You go, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I said that. But I mean it now. I mean , you really the two . I know I said it before, but the two, it's gonna change my life. theDavid Litt:Two is the oneMichael Jamin:. You're writing so much. Oh my God, you just made everyone laugh so much. I remember one time, , maybe I shouldn't even say it, but I'm gonna say it anyway unless you tell me to cut it out. We were on the stage floor watching rehearsal and you lean over to me real quietly and you go, Do you think Chris would mind if I flew to New York now , I think he would. Cause he's, he's paying you, He wants here for the rewrite. And you go, Yeah, yeah, you're probably right. And that was the last I heard of it. And then we go back to the room and you're nowhere to be found . And then you phone rings a couple hours later and I'm like, Hey man, where are you? You go, I'm at the airport. I'm getting on a plane. I can't talk. Tell Chris I'm not gonna make itDavid Litt:.Michael Jamin:It's just so funny. And we were just all just laughing about it. Everyone throws the funniest bossiest thing. Yeah, you're right. You'd get mad.David Litt:I did. I pulled a great one. I was on, according to Jim and the way they work there, each room would take a half of the script and go off. And I remember it was like we had our half and we were all working and one day after, I don't know, we were maybe 10 pages in. I got up and I to go to the ostensibly to go to the bathroom. But instead I couldn't fight the urge to just keep going to my car and go home.Michael Jamin:. I couldn't find it.David Litt:So I get home and there's the greatest messages from the producer of the show going, David, I It's Suzanne, you just left to go to the bathroom and you haven't come back yet. We're just getting concerned. So I guess we'll see in a couple minutes and then another 10 minutes. Another message. David, it's Suzanne, did you let us know what happened? You're not back here and we're getting worried. And then the third message was like, Did you go home? Oh Michael Jamin:Like, wait, did you get in trouble for doing that?David Litt:I did not.Michael Jamin:, I did not. See if you're funny enough you can get away with this stuff. I would. WellDavid Litt:That's what the lesson I'd like to impart. If there is one, it, it's really is fun to be a wise ass and funny and make everybody laugh. But you've gotta bring something to the table or you're just gonna get fired.Michael Jamin:Yeah,David Litt:Yeah. You've great to be funny and crazy and do bits and hopefully bring up the level of people's spirits in the room because it can get arduous.Michael Jamin:Yeah.David Litt:But if that's all you do and you're not contributing, you're gonna be abstracted and you're gonna get So that that's something that gets earned over time.Michael Jamin:Yeah, for sure. Then well what? And so, oh God, that just hurts. It hurts my stomach. Thinking how funny that was .David Litt:Tell 'em the story about the, what do you call it? The drone.Michael Jamin:The drone.David Litt:Was that with you? Where I brought a drone in on Oh no wait, that was Big bang.Michael Jamin:Yeah. You right. I should mention these are you also worked on Big Bang for a little bit. What'd you do? What was that story?David Litt:Yeah, who was that if it wasn't you, Chef? Well I bought a drone . Okay. And at the time they were very new. They go up a hundred feet and over. And so I bring it inAnd I'm like, Hey guys, how neat are these? And it was another writing group. Oh I know who it was. It was, Do you know Peter? Oh God. Shit. Anyway, it doesn't matter. You would know him. But we all went outside to use this brand new technology. So I'm like Guys, check it out. Next thing we know I let it goes up and continues to go up. I couldn't get it to go down and we lost it in the sun. We're looking and we never found it. It just got stuck in the treetop. It's probably still there.Michael Jamin:.David Litt:It was like $120 drone. I used it once to make it go hundred feet in the air. I never saw it again. That was the fun we hadMichael Jamin:. Oh my God. Oh yeah. I mean that's the people don't it really sitcom. Right. Really is a fun job if you're with funny people. But it's not so funny.David Litt:It's a great job. I don't know. People need to understand. I am a dinosaur. I mean the experiences I had you probably wouldn't have anymore.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I think so.David Litt:Which is a real shame because it's comedy and it should be fun.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Funny. Cause we, Jay Cogan did, Do you know Jay? Have you worked with Jay?David Litt:Yeah, of course. I've never, Okay. I worked with Jay on Den Stacy.Michael Jamin:Oh wow. He, because he did this podcast a couple a week or two ago and he kind of said the same thing. Rooms have tend to change that he would do a lot of room bits and you kind of really can't really do so many of those room bids anymore. But for what it's worth better or worse. But the world has changed. And I don't remember, I even remember after out of practice, you really wanted to do, you just wanted to consult. You wanted to come in a couple days a week and consult, which was something you could do a couple years before you could. There was some demand for that. And now there's just no room for that anymore.David Litt:Yeah. The real EM emeritus writers, the writers that were really looked up to, could get a job a day on doing punch up on one show a day on another . And those times right around then went away and there were no more jobs to be had of that Ill, Yeah, I mean that was my complete, my absolute dream was to be able to go to one show two days a week and maybe another show, another two days a week and have fun and have a great time. But the budgets at that time started shrinking. And the allowance for somebody to come in one day a week just wasn't there.Michael Jamin:Part of, I think about that part of the benefit, what we had when we were coming up is that we almost came through in a school. You get on a sitcom, you learn from the people who had a ton of experience before you and everyone kind of came from the school and you learn the craft from people before you.David Litt:Mm-hmmMichael Jamin:, that doesn't really exist anymore cuz those shows don't exist. So you know, you're winging it a little bit, but if you're a young writer, you're kind of winging it.David Litt:There's also a bit of a scary environment now. I think there's a lot of competition. and it, it's putting somebody under your wing and being patient with them is you don't see it as much because you could be costing yourself the job. You could be training somebody to take a job away from you.Michael Jamin:Well also, I don't know mean maybe, I don't know. My experience is that the orders are shorter. You're not gonna be on Aer if you're on a street show. You might be doing 10 weeks out of the year or whatever. You're not doing, you're working weeks or 40 weeks. You're working . So know you're what you got going on in there correctly. gonna nothing. What do you having a pastrami sandwich. . All right. So what do you do now? What? I know you were developing on the side, you're constantly working on stuff. What's going on there?David Litt:Write it down. I'm being a little lazy. I should be better at what I'm doing. But I'm working on a screenplay. I had a screenplay idea, and that was my next step was I wanted to become a script doctor. I really wanted to come in and do and fix screenplays, punch them up, et cetera.Michael Jamin:Right. I dunno how many there is for that either.David Litt:I don't either. Mean, my feeling is like, do what you love and do the best you can at it. And don't worry so much about the money. I have the luxury to be able to do that.Michael Jamin:Right.David Litt:But , I really love, my dream would be to get a call and come in and work a couple of days a week on punching this script up or making that script funny. But for now, I like working on an idea. I had an idea that kind of hit me. That's something I wanna finish. So that's what I'm doing right now. And it's great cuz your time's your own, you know, can work on it in the morning and do whatever you want later in the day. I'm also trying to do some dog rescue stuff.Michael Jamin:You're a dog rescue, so you walk around with a net into alleys.David Litt:. Yes. It's like in the cartoons with the big cargo net. No, I found out this horrifying thing that there are these wet markets in China that eat dogs. Alive. Alive.Michael Jamin:Alive. That's alive. That's too fresh.David Litt:That's too fresh. Yeah. . So I've wanted to start volunteering for dogs for a while. So I'm thinking about, I've been taking care of a cat for the past four months. She has since disappeared as of last week. I can't find her anymore.Michael Jamin:Taking care is not the right word then. . Yeah.David Litt:No taking bad care. But the writing is something I will never stop doing. I mean, I love it. Some days, even a week, I might go and get lazy and drop off, but it keeps me sane. It's a fun way to keep your imagination going and it's really a different thing when you're doing it for yourself as opposed to as a job or to make money or to pay your bills. That's a different set of stress and responsibilities. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Do you have any other advice for new aspiring writers?David Litt:Any advice for what?Michael Jamin:New and a new and upcoming writers.David Litt:It is a great way to make a living. There is nothing more satisfying than making a living as a writer, but just stick with it. Don't treat it like something you do when you feel like it. If you wanna write, give yourself hours. I don't know how you guys write, but I make sure I'm in front of that computer. At least three, four hours a day. 11 till two, 11 till three. And if nothing comes at all fine. But I was there trying to write. Sometimes you're gonna get something great and sometimes you're not, but you gotta put the time in to do it.Michael Jamin:Absolutely right. David led, creator of co-creative, King of Queens, a friend for many years. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with this podcast here with everyone. I really appreciate.David Litt:Thank you for having me. I like,Michael Jamin:Right. That's it everyone. So thank you for listening. If you, again, I'm gonna plug what else we got going on here. If you want to sign up for my free weekly newsletter, it's michaeljamin.com/watchlist to find out what's going on there. And yeah, that's it. Oh, and I dunno when this is gonna drop, but of course I got for my touring schedule to see me see my one man show A Paper Orchestra. You can go to MichaelJamin.com/Live upcoming sign up there. Right. Everyone, thank you so much and thank you again, David Litt.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael. One more thing. Come see me perform. I'm going to be in Boston area, actually Amesbury, Massachusetts on November 12th and 13th at the Actor studio performing my show, a paper orchestra. And then I'm gonna be back in Los Angeles on December 10th and 11th again at the Moving Arts Theater Company. So tickets are on sale. Go get 'em at michael jamin.com/live. It's a small, intimate venue. I'm gonna be performing for my collection of personal essays and each one's gonna be followed by like a 20 minute q and a. We get to talk about the work. It's a fun event. So I hope to see you there. Go get them tickets again are at michaeljamin.com/live and of course, sign up to my weekly newsletter. That's called the Watch List at michaeljamin.com/watchlist.Phil Hudson:This has been an episode of Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin and Phil Hudson. If you'd like to support this podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review and sharing this podcast with someone who needs to hear today's subject. For free daily screenwriting tips, follow Michael on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @MichaelJaminWriter. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @PhillAHudson. This episode was produced by Phil Hudson and edited by Dallas Crane. Until next time, keep writing.

Happy Halloween! In this episode, the guys review yet another Christopher Lloyd movie. Chris Lloyd stars as a man posing as Fester, Gomez's long lost brother, in an attempt to fool the family and steal the treasure from the Addams Family Vault! Will he? Does it hold up? Will there be Paydays? Also starring Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston, and Christina Ricci. facebook.com/throwbacktheaterpodcast throwbacktheaterpodcast@gmail.com

Dawn DeKeyser on IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0215245/Dawn's Website - https://www.dawndekeyser.comMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistTranscripts Are Auto-GeneratedMichael Jamin:I've made a number of posts about this that yeah, put yourself in a box. People are like, But I don't wanna be in a box. Put yourself in a box and you'll worry about getting outta the box later. But right now, you need to sell yourself as who? This is what you are. What do I do? That's right. That'sDawn DeKeyser:Right. And, and so many new writers are still struggling with that. And I said, People cannot help you if they don't know where to put you.Michael Jamin:You're listening to Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jam. Hey everybody, this is Michael Jamin and you're listening to Screenwriters. Need to Hear this. Mike cohost Phil Hudson. He's got the day off again. He's doing some more work behind the scenes, but I'm here interviewing the amazingly talented Dawn de Kaiser. And, uh, Dawn, let me tell, tell everybody who you are. Let me also you, I need to remind you who you are.Dawn DeKeyser:Okay? Please doMichael Jamin:So. You got a long history of writing some pretty great shows. So first you started, I guess, on All American Girl. That was the Margaret Cho show you did Ink Ted Danson. Remember that one? I remember that one. News Radio you wrote a news radio you wrote on All right, already, which I did not know. I guess you wrote with Steven Engel on that one. I didn't know that. Conrad Bloom, you know, I went to, uh, I went to uh, college with him. We were friends in college, Mark Fostein. Um, but I haven't talked to him since. And then the Gina Davis show starring who, who started that? Uh, the Becker Becker again. Ted Danson. Let's listen to these credits you got there was amazing. Uh, just for kicks. Ugly Betty. We know Betty Lafa, Samantha, who if I were on that show, I would've been insufferable because someone would've said, Yeah, I I have an idea. What if Samantha goes on a date? And I would've been like, Samantha, who? That would've been my joke all every day. Sign sealed. Oh, I skip on the client list. Sign sealed, delivered, hit Streak. The Gourmet Detective Summer. Love the Good Witch. Thank you, John. Thank you so much. Look at me. Are you impressed with how much work?Dawn DeKeyser:I am so impressed at. Who knew? I had no idea.Michael Jamin:You've done a lot of you. So anyway, I thank you so much for joining because, uh, is, we've never worked together. I always, even though I've known you for years, I always figured we would work together at some point. We just never did. And I blame you for that.Dawn DeKeyser:I, uh, I, blame me, we were on the same studio a lot. We were like, Yeah. Next to we had bungalows next to each other. Mm-hmm. . So that counts completely is, Yeah.Michael Jamin:Yeah. You were always a familiar face.Dawn DeKeyser:But before we start, can I curse?Michael Jamin:I don't Sure. Why, why would you, Is there something you wanna get off your chest? ?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. No, just that in the course of talking, it's gonna play a part of describing my path in life and Oh yeah. I don't think I could do it without some gods and fucks. SoMichael Jamin:Do it. Do it up.Dawn DeKeyser:Okay.Michael Jamin:Cause I we're getting to the truth again. So let's begin. How did you become? Where did you start? How did you get into sit? Everyone wants to know how people get into sitcom writing or TV writing. So how did you get in?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah, so, and we all come from different angles on different paths. And in order to get to my TV days, I'll just say a little bit about my background. I was raised in a military family and my dad was a fighter pilot. And I grew up in a very great Sani kind of house. Um, I, I say I was the best son my dad ever had because I was tough and competitive. And I weighed 92 pounds and I was pious.Michael Jamin:Wait, did, were you the only child?Dawn DeKeyser:No, I had two sisters. So my mom, who was lovely, she would dress my sisters and I all in matching dresses, hats, gloves and shoes. And we would march out onto the tarmac and salute the F four phantoms as they landed.Michael Jamin:Wow. And so, and so you moved around the country then? Probably?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah, I was born in Japan and I lived in England.Michael Jamin:Oh my. And so your Okay. Military brat. And then when you say Great Santa, cuz your dad was strict. Oh, is Now, do you wanna start cursing now? What did you want to curse?Dawn DeKeyser:Um, well, let's see. He, we did have a flow chart of our chores on our bedrooms. And when we were, I think starting at three and four and our beds had to be made with hospital corners really. And we would have to stand in a line, add attention and get, you know, understand what our chores were gonna be for the day and for the week.Michael Jamin:Because you are so not that you're so, you know, kind of almost soft spoken, very gentle. You're very warm energy. You're not , you're not a, you know, uh,Dawn DeKeyser:It's taken a long time to get this outta my system. So when I was in junior high, we moved from England to Texas and I went from riding English, um, horseback to competing in rodeos. And I then started racing sailboats. And by college I was on the varsity team. And, um, by the way, I paid my way through college, working two or three jobs each semester. And I started working when I was 15. That's a little Rob Cohen of me. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Wait, where did you go to school?Dawn DeKeyser:Um, which time? Uh, I went to, so in college I went to the University of Texas and I studied international business, Uhhuh. And then I dropped out of UT and moved to Belgium where I worked at a division of NATO for, for,Michael Jamin:I feel like you might speak a lot of languages. Do you speak how many languages you speak?Dawn DeKeyser:Um, I used to speak French when I worked in the warehouse with the Belgians. Right. Um, and then, you know, when my other girlfriends were cheerleaders and all that, I was treasurer of the Latin Club. I don't mean to brag.Michael Jamin:Wow. So you speak Latin. I knew you spoke. What?Dawn DeKeyser:And, and so then I, after dropping out, I went back and I finished up my degree in, uh, appropriately named a BS in advertising. And that's, that's really when I started my writing career. And, um, let's see, what did I do? So I started,Michael Jamin:You worked in advertising.Dawn DeKeyser:So I got to work on tv, radio, and print. And in fact, my first assignment was writing, uh, dozens of scripts for David Brener for TacoMichael Jamin:Bell. That was your work. Now I, now I know your work. .Dawn DeKeyser:That's what I'm known for. Um, so getting closer to the TV part, I was living in Dallas. My boyfriend was discovered by a talent manager, and he immediately moved out to LA and became a successful actor.Michael Jamin:Do we know his name?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. I went, I'll I'll say it. I mean, it was a long time ago. So Tom Hayden Church.Michael Jamin:Oh, I did not know that. Okay.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. And so he, his confidence and his uniqueness was just like he broken right away. Mm-hmm. . And I went on to New York and in advertising, which I loved. And you know, after a while, after about two years, I thought maybe I could write something longer than 30 seconds. Mm-hmm. . So I took writing classes at night. I did improv, which I was terrible at because of that. Let's revisit the military background. I am not spontaneous.Michael Jamin:You're not supposed to go off script when you're in the military.Dawn DeKeyser:Oh. Oh, no. And I'm very methodical and you know, by this time I was like mid to late twenties and I guess I was having a quarter life crisis and thinking, what, what am I, what do I wanna do and what do I love doing? I loved writing and I loved sitcoms more than anything. Um, I didn't know how to do that. I called Tom, who was at the time on Wings, that was his first series. And I said, Could you send by now my ex-boyfriend? And I said, Could you send me the writer's draft through a producing draft? I wanna see the transition mm-hmm. of how this writing is done. And so then I started taping my favorite shows and then doing the stop and pause on the VHS tape.Michael Jamin:Like really studying how long a scene would be, how what the act breaks are everything. Huh.Dawn DeKeyser:All that. The dialogue, the, and I would map out the beats on a notepad, which by the way, I still write on old fashioned paper notepads for everything. And then I transfer it to the computer. Wow.Michael Jamin:That's old school.Dawn DeKeyser:That is old school. And it is all about the ritual. And like, I think there's something about the the brain to the heart to the hand that gets on paper that I, I don't get when I write.Michael Jamin:But you could, you must be able to read your handwriting. Cause I can't read my handwriting. I couldn't even try.Dawn DeKeyser:I no, I can't. I can get the gist of it.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? Okay.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. Um, so Tom sent me a series of one of one script and, um, I was writing my own two spec scripts. And then I moved to LA with $3,000 in cash.Michael Jamin:And where, what I always, I I have to What part in LA did you live at first?Dawn DeKeyser:I lived Endless Field, which was being hailed as the New West Village of LA and it is not. And I was living right on Vermont Avenue and I slept on my bathrobe for the first two weeks until my stuff came from New York.Michael Jamin:But you had a place all by yourself or you have roommates?Dawn DeKeyser:Uh, no, I had a place to myself. I mean, it was $700 for one.Michael Jamin:Mm-hmm. . That sounds about right. That's a good deal actually. Uh, even then, that's a good deal. So, okay. And then, and then how did you find a, how did you finally get work?Dawn DeKeyser:So I was writing these spec scripts and I sent them them to Bill Diamond and Mike Sal. Mm-hmm. . And when I moved out to LA, they were my first meeting.Michael Jamin:But How did you know them?Dawn DeKeyser:Through Tom? Because they were baby writers on the show. Oh,Michael Jamin:Right. Yeah.Dawn DeKeyser:And they said, you know, we thought you were just gonna be some gal who want, who had this idea of writing for sick homes, but you know what you're doing. Right. And I was very happy about that. They didn't give me my first break,Michael Jamin:But they, but they weren't, they were just staff writers at the time.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah, yeah. Which is fine. You know, I thought the first thing I needed to do was build a community. So I took a UCLA extension class at night and on the last day of the class, everyone was filing out. Someone turned around and said, you know, the deadline for the Disney Writer's Fellowship is tomorrow. You have to have your work postmarked by then. Okay. And I ran home and got my stuff in the mail the next morning. And, um, I sort of like that intro that I just talked about my life, I sort of put some of that in the essay that you write for what's your unique background. And, um, and then sent in a, uh, a Murphy Brown, maybe. Mm-hmm. , I'mMichael Jamin:Not sure you had a bunch of specsDawn DeKeyser:Probably. No, I had, because I'm very methodical, I would spend six months writing each of them. Okay. And that's night and day work shopping, doing writers groups, doing punch up mm-hmm. , um, until I felt like every page that your eyeballs land on made sense and was good and had a joke and you knew where the characters were going.Michael Jamin:Before we skip ahead, you said something I thought was really smart, you said you wanted to build your community. Right. Because a lot of people don't even think about that.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah.Michael Jamin:So you knew you wanted by, you knew you wanted help or you wanted, like what, what were you looking for?Dawn DeKeyser:Well, I knew that I didn't know anyone here. Tom was off on his own, uh, fabulous life. I knew a girl from Dallas from years before, but, um, there was, there was no one that I could send my stuff to and I did cold calling to the agents and that didn't work. Doesn't do anything. Yeah. And so in the UCLA classes, I would usually, if you've got a group of 20 people, there's two that get it, let's say 10%, they'reMichael Jamin:Get what get you or what do you mean get it?Dawn DeKeyser:I mean, they get what the, they are really there to learn and to be in that field. Mm-hmm. some others, you know, just they, it's a fun class to take. Right. But you can tell the two or three people that are very, um, interested in moving their career forward. Right. So I ingratiated myself and said, Let's form a writer's group. And that was okay. You know, that was fine until you start meeting people through them, they bring in their set of information that you don't have access to mm-hmm. and then it just starts growing.Michael Jamin:Right? Yeah. You gotta be there. And you, you were there now, how were you making a living? You still working in advertising now?Dawn DeKeyser:So I was still in, I wasn't in doing advertising. I was temping and I had this job at, uh, Disney on the lot where I was answering phones for the head of marketing mm-hmm. . And I thought, I'm advertising and marketing. And because, um, at, on the second day, he came out of his office and he said, Who are you and why are you so bad at answering phones? Like you're dropping calls and you're, you're sending in the wrong people. And I was like, Yeah, cuz um, this is really what I do. I actually love the One Sheet movie posters that you guys are writing, so I'd like to write headlines for that. And I had secretly gone into the files to see what their freelancers were invoicing them.Michael Jamin:Interesting.Dawn DeKeyser:And he said, Yeah, I don't think you're right for that. So I brought in my portfolio the next day and he said, I think you're right for this. So I started picking up freelance for movie posters,Michael Jamin:But that was not, See some people think that that's how you break in, but I wouldn't think that that's how to break in. That's just how to make a book. Right.Dawn DeKeyser:What do you mean? Like,Michael Jamin:Well, like that wouldn't, working in that advertising side for Disney wouldn't get you, you know, you're on the Disney lot, but it wouldn't get you as a sick, you know, get you work as a sit home writer.Dawn DeKeyser:That's right. So that predated getting into, so I got in the Disney Writer's Fellowship, Right. Um, that was over the course of like a two, two month process of interviewing and meeting with their executives. And I went into that meeting thinking, this is what I moved out here for. And they said, So what is your plan if, if this doesn't work out? And I said, This is going to work out. I really can't imagine y y'all finding someone better or more dedicated to doing great work. I really wanna do this. I wanna work with my heroes. I wanna work with people that will make me a better writer.Michael Jamin:And who were your heroes then?Dawn DeKeyser:Well, weirdly enough, um, I had top a top five. One was Diane English, one was Chris Lloyd, the, the writer. HowMichael Jamin:Did you know Chris Lloyd? But yeah, I was so surprised you from, how would you know, how did you know Chris? Like how was he? He, Diane English? Yeah,Dawn DeKeyser:Diane English. Um, Chris was,Michael Jamin:Was he running, He wasn't running Fraser then?Dawn DeKeyser:He was like higher up on Fraser.Michael Jamin:Wow. Okay. Yeah. I'm surprised you even thought of him. But I mean Yeah, he's great. He's a he is a great writer forDawn DeKeyser:Sure. Yeah, he is. And I can't remember the other three, but within the first two years of breaking in, I worked with all five of them.Michael Jamin:Wow. Wow. Now, what was the fellowship like? Cuz we did the Warner Brothers Writer's Workshop.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah.Michael Jamin:I'd rather you talk about it. What was the Disney one like? What was your experience there?Dawn DeKeyser:It was so great. They picked five people. I think they had in that year, um, 3000 applicants. They picked five of us and Wow. That's it. Pardon?Michael Jamin:That's it. That's, I can't, I I didn't, I didn't know it was that small.Dawn DeKeyser:Well, it's, I think it's bigger these days. I think they take on 10 or 20, which is good. And they have a, they had another five fellows that did only film. And our five, you know, I'm still in contact with today. We would meet, um, twice a week at each other's houses. And then usually once a week or every two weeks we'd go to Disney and we would pitch where we are with our specs script. So it was a small, like a small stipend that paid the rent. OhMichael Jamin:Wow. And those five, all five went on to work?Dawn DeKeyser:Um, not consistently. Not really. Okay. But that again, was just, I think it has everything to do with focus. Mm-hmm. . Um, and I'll talk about that a little more of like, if you, if you are not, if you don't pick a lane, I am a sitcom half hour multi-camera mm-hmm. writer. That's what I wanna do.Michael Jamin:That Right. I, I so intriguing. Cause I say that I've made a number of posts about this that Yeah, put yourself in a box. People like, but I don't wanna be in a box, Put yourself in a box and you worry about getting outta the box later. But right now you need to sell yourself as who this is what you are. Why do I do? That's right.Dawn DeKeyser:That's right. And, and so many new writers are still struggling with that. And I said, People cannot help you if they don't know where to put you. Yeah. And so if you say, Oh, I write drama and comedy and romance, it's like, that's great for you, but I only know comedy writers. Right. So I don't think I'm gonna even help you because I don't know if you're really connected with that or with drama orMichael Jamin:How serious you are about it. Yeah, exactly. Market yourself. Make it easy for people. Yeah. You know? Yeah. What, See, it's, so sometimes I, sometimes I wonder, am I just bullshitting? Am I making this up? You know, am I the only one who feels this way? No, I don't, I don't think, I think I'm saying stuff everyone else thinks, you know, agrees withDawn DeKeyser:You are not alone. And you're getting such great information out there to so many people. It's really spectacular.Michael Jamin:You're very kind.Dawn DeKeyser:You're fan Michael Jam. ButMichael Jamin:That's me. So then, okay, so then okay, then what you have. All right.Dawn DeKeyser:So then I was in the fellowship and they put, they don't promise, but they say, we may place you on one of our Disney shows. And that's where I went onto All American Girl. Mm-hmm. . AndMichael Jamin:It, Were they paying you? Cuz I'm Warner of Brothers. If they staffed you in one of their shows, you get, at least back then you would get, you work for like a third of scale. A third. But was that the case on Disney?Dawn DeKeyser:We didn't get paid, but we got paid for the scripts that we wrote because they were already paying. Like, more brothers doesn't pay youMichael Jamin:To pay. Right. No one of those you pay to get in.Dawn DeKeyser:Oh yeah.Michael Jamin:We paid. Yeah. We, we paid like, I think it was like $400 each or something. But I think it's way more than now. I think it's a lot more now.Dawn DeKeyser:Hmm. No, they, they would place you as free labor on their shows. And it was my first experience in the writer's room. It was hard. I had trouble being heard. And I did end up, we had an order for 13 episodes. I ended up writing three of them.Michael Jamin:What was your three? That's that's a lot actually for a staff writer. I wonder why weren't you, you must have been scared.Dawn DeKeyser:They liked my writing. They liked, like, I spent again, it was like, I really sweated it. This is another thing that I, that I stress to writers is sweated, you can't make a lot of money if you're not putting that amount into your writing and your own career. SoMichael Jamin:Yeah. So 13, that's a lot. And but what was it like? I mean, were you okay? I always think that when we first kinda just shoot me, I was like, I'm in over my head. I am in over my head. Yeah. How did you felt? The same wayDawn DeKeyser:I am in over my head. Um, I, yeah, I, it was terrifying. And I realized that I wasn't a match for people who had been in writing rooms that were louder funnier, more obnoxious, mostly just louder. Mm-hmm. . So I sat next to this one writer and I, I'd whisper things to him to see if he could pitch them for me.Michael Jamin:And did he? Yeah. And, and they went over and then did he give you, did you say as dope? OhDawn DeKeyser:Yeah. Yeah. He would gimme credit. But you know, I said I don't even wanna push that. I just wanna see.Michael Jamin:Right. IfDawn DeKeyser:You're on the right game. Well, I wanna be part of this game, but I don't know how to play.Michael Jamin:Yeah, right. Exactly. Right. And it takes several, How long did it take you before you felt like you knew how to play? How many years?Dawn DeKeyser:Um, well that's the interesting thing because my next job was on news radio. Right. And I, I have all, I had felt like an all American girl that I was getting my, you know, sort of getting my feet under me. But that was, they were kicked out from under me on this, on the next actual staff job that I have. Right. That I had. And it took me, um, quite a long time to feel okay in the room. And it really wasn't until many years later when I was in the ugly Betty Writers' room because the, you had drama writers there who were so great about staying on focus with the story and not performing and the performance of the comedy when you do a comedy pitch. I was scared ofMichael Jamin:Oh, interesting. So cuz they don't have, obviously when you're doing the drama you don't have to be funny. So they're basically just talking about the story points. Cause I haven't really worked on it and they're not, Yeah. They're not hoping the joke will land cuz there is no joke.Dawn DeKeyser:It was so weird to, um, go out on, on an act with no joke. It was like, what? Wait, we can just cliff hanger like that. .Michael Jamin:Do you feel like these drama rooms are more civilized because of that?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah, definitely. They were also, they were just more writerly and, um, more mature. And I, you know, I say that sitcom riding was a full contact sport. Mm-hmm. . And I didn't realize that when I started I wanted to be around really funny people. And it was so much work for me. There was the whole other aspect of being a female writer and oftentimes the only woman in the room.Michael Jamin:Why? Talk about that experience a little. What's that like?Dawn DeKeyser:Well, it sucked .Michael Jamin:It, it sucked. It sucked.Dawn DeKeyser:It wasMichael Jamin:Sucked. But not all the time. Just sometimes or all the time?Dawn DeKeyser:Every timeMichael Jamin:On every show. Every show.Dawn DeKeyser:No. If there were other women in the writer's room, it was a little less terrible,Michael Jamin:But still terrible.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . It wasn't until I got into dramas and then dramas that I just felt like, okay, I can, I can do my work. I could be funny. I'm much funnier on the page and I would just think, Oh God, I gotta get out of the writer's room so I can be funny. Right. So that was not the best strategy.Michael Jamin:Right.Dawn DeKeyser:Um, and I was the only woman on news radio that year. Andy and Eileen were there and they left after a few episodes.Michael Jamin:Right. But Right. But you overlap with him. Right. Cause that's how I, that's how I met you through Eileen I think.Dawn DeKeyser:Oh, probably. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.Michael Jamin:And you know, they were both very, I remember I'd just shoot me, both of them. They'd pitch a line, like a story, uh, idea and then, you know, people Oh, that's good. And like, how do you know it's good? How do they, like how are they doing this? Like how do you know? You know, Anyway, but I thinkDawn DeKeyser:That's, I don't know. Would you say that it helps to have a partner? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.Michael Jamin:For sure. It helped a lot. I mean I, you know, the two of us were clinging to each other for, you know, for dear life. . Um, I think definitely it's that way more intimidating to do it all to it on yourself. But how do you, what do you like, what do you experience even now or like lately when you have a staff writer who feels the same way that you felt like what, you knowDawn DeKeyser:Yeah.Michael Jamin:What goes on there?Dawn DeKeyser:Well, um, working on pilots, there was one young girl who came in and just to sort of observe mm-hmm. and I just took to her because she was so, um, she had a script in a big binder with all of it color coded with all of her nose. I was like, Oh my God, you're after my heart. Um, becauseMichael Jamin:She's so prepared. People, young writers come in prepared sometimes. I'm alwaysDawn DeKeyser:Yeah, they do. And I just said, You are after my heart. I will help you in any way that I can. And she was working for, for quite some time. I think she lives on the East coast now. Right. It's that, um, it's that showing up prepared and really earnest. Like, I love that. I kind of love when people try a little too hard and sometimes it can be cringy. I'm like, Yes, I get it. That's me.Michael Jamin:But do you have you also, cause I've experienced young writers who kind of don't under, they don't know what they don't know as well, you know, as well and they kind ofDawn DeKeyser:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Argue or overstep and, you know, have you experienced that?Dawn DeKeyser:Oh yeah. And the, one of the first things I say is, do not litigate. Do just, just take it in. And it's also the, um, once you learn how to take notes on your script and realize that it's not personal, get out of your own fucking way. Get outta your way. Because after like being in writer's groups, we had rules about how we gave notes to each other. And the person getting the notes has to shut up. You cannot explain why you put something in a script. It's like, I don't care why you put it in there. Here's me as a reader is not getting this part of it. Right. And there's been plenty of times I'd be giving people notes and just like in classes or writer's room. Um, Yeah. Classes a writer resume. And I could tell that they didn't want the note.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Oh well no one wants a note. . Yeah. I mean,Dawn DeKeyser:I mean just like basic stuff, especially in writers' groups where if, if they are arguing their stance and their reason for why they wrote something, it's like, Oh, I get it. Okay. You're good. You're good to go. All all's good.Michael Jamin:Right. Right. And so this, see, it's so funny how we have the same, like we've never worked in the same show. We've had so many the same exact experiences.Dawn DeKeyser:Yes. Although I would, I would, Oh you said venture to mention that. Um, you know, and some writers' rooms, it's like, I was not safe. I was commented, my body was commented on when I would walk into a room and when I would leave a room and I was told to suck it up by my agents because it was a really good show. OrMichael Jamin:Do you think they were trying to be funny or were they're being sexual harassing? Like, you know, what were they trying, what was the Oh,Dawn DeKeyser:Sometimes it was just trying to be funny. But, um, it was funny at my expense I say I was humiliated for sport on a particular show. Right. And they were cruel. And they were also like, my agents came in after one of our show tapings and they looked around the office and went, Oh, I see what you're talking about. It smells like rancid cheese in here. The guys were walking around in boxer shorts. They had brought futons to their offices cuz they were just staying there.Michael Jamin:So like, cuz the hours is terrible. Yeah,Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. And they also had jars of their pee in the offices because I thought that was hilarious.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Dawn DeKeyser:So that's, that's not just being like, IMichael Jamin:Dunno. And it's interesting that you, you were able to speak up about this because this was before people were really speaking up about this. You know what I'mDawn DeKeyser:Saying? I didn't, I didn't, I mean, I didn't until more recently. That's a really,Michael Jamin:To your agent at least you did. You know?Dawn DeKeyser:Well, I just said it's so hard. I mean it's so Yeah. And that my agents were womenMichael Jamin:And they still, And you're, they still,Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah.Michael Jamin:I can't, I want, What do you think if that were today though? I can't imagineDawn DeKeyser:It wouldn't happen today.Michael Jamin:Yeah. You'd be taking a lot more seriously, you know. Yeah,Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. It, it, it, yeah. It wouldn't happen today. Um, that, that show ended up not hiring a woman writer for the rest of its run for like three or four more seasons.Michael Jamin:And, but from what I understand, well maybe, maybe I shouldn't say which show it was. Do we say which show it was? I know some,Dawn DeKeyser:It may have earlier, butMichael Jamin:I know some of the, like some of these shows that you were on the hours were absolutely terrible. Terrible. Like, what were those, what was that like?Dawn DeKeyser:That was like being held hostage by a crazy person. Right. And that sometimes the showrunner would be on medication and they would not be able to focus and they would just kind of keep us there. A lot of times you'd hear about showrunners who just didn't wanna go home to their wife and kids, which is terrible,Michael Jamin:Terrible, terrible. Right. Wow.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. Wow. So that was, that was hard. I mean, driving home at four in the morning and then getting up at around 10, um, and then getting back to the office by 10 30 or 11,Michael Jamin:Was there a lot of sitting around and waiting? Or was it all work?Dawn DeKeyser:No, it was a lot of sitting around and waiting and storytelling galing each other. Mm-hmm. , you know. Geez. But, but things are not, they don't work that way anymore. Which is,Michael Jamin:Yeah. I don't think so. You gotta, yeah. When you get, that's a bad situation. Uh, sometimes like we, you know, we did a couple bad hours like on just shoot me, but it was never, cuz we were dicking around, it was because like a story blew, blew up and we had to work till four in the morning. That was a couple of those. But it wasn't, cuz it wasn't ill behavior. It was just, that's just the, you know, sometimes that happens.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah, for sure. And you know, people like Steve Levitan and some of the other guys you've worked with, they are not there to make a point or single someone out just for fun. Yeah. And you guys, you and Sea were as showrunners, you would never do that. You would never write that.Michael Jamin:No. Our goal was always to go home early. That was, how could we go home early today, , what could we do to get the work done, Have a, have a good hour. Um, but what about developing when you, you know, come up with your own ideas? What's that? How does that work?Dawn DeKeyser:That was, um, that was usually, uh, someone that I'd be in the writer's room with. They would come to me and say, I've got an idea. Do you like this? Or we would pair up just for the pitch.Michael Jamin:So most of your develop, Okay. So people ask me about that. Can you, can you work independently or can you work with team up with people? Cuz we, we, you know, that's what you did mostly.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. And when I was, um, like I'd say mid-level writer mm-hmm. , it would behoove me to go in with a showrunner or a co p Right. And, um, just so that I could to have those meetings and kind of get the lay of the land until later when I would writeMichael Jamin:Around.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah.Michael Jamin:But in the beginning, were you, were you kind of working under them or were you literally together.Dawn DeKeyser:Together. Okay. Together.Michael Jamin:And, and then now, okay, now when you come up with an idea, how does that work alone? I mean,Dawn DeKeyser:Oh, it was, it was great. So we're, we've been talking mostly about the nineties and then after a few of the shows, like I, I went to work through the rest of the nineties, but I did definitely get the comedy knocked out of me. Um, I went on to do a series of shows and over that time there were less and less options because we had the game shows coming in and reality tv. And by 2000 I went to rehab and it was very helpful. I mean, you know, I got this shit kicked out of me and I was no match. I was not cravenly ambitious. I was just always grateful to be there, which doesn't give you any control. And with, with my, it was a short stint and I was able to piece things together. I also took jobs for shorter amounts of time. Like if they had a full year season, I'd say I'll work the first 13.Michael Jamin:What if they pick, what if they wanted you for the back nine or whatever.Dawn DeKeyser:Then I said, I'm not available. And I'd move to New York and just kind of in between each show I had to do a lot of repair. I just had to sleep.Michael Jamin:Interesting. I I, I didn't even know that was an option. Like that's kind of, I that's kind of unusual to kind of good for you. Like, you're calling the shots, you're saying this is what I'm willing to do. I don't know anybody who does that, who can do that, I guess.Dawn DeKeyser:Well I wasn't, um, I couldn't, I mean financially it was not the thing to do, but mentally I knew that I had to not put myself in harm's way. Right. And, um, I always, it also had advertising to go back to occasionally. Right. So, um, you know, by, I would say, so I continued to work. I'd pick up an episode here, um, less staff drops available, but I just kind of eked out a living. It wasn't the trajectory that I'd started on. Right. And I was okay with that.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 gonna spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michael jamin.com/watchlist.Michael Jamin:Basically this is the, the interesting part, which I don't really talk about a lot on anything is the economics of really being a writer. Because I don't know, we don't just talk about it, but cuz we were saying, you know, you kind of, you kind of, you were calling the shots. You're saying, this is what I'm willing to do. I don't want, I'll work this much, I don't wanna work that much because it's not , it's not good for me, my mental health. And I get that. Um, but so then to kind of to, you know, had to make, to make ends meet, you also have this other project that you've been working on and I wanna talk about that.Dawn DeKeyser:Yes. So I think we, uh, we were talking about 2000 rehab, excellent. Mm-hmm. very helpful. And so it was on the heels of that that I was starting to piece together what I wanted my life to look like, which was not working 18 hours a day with difficult people. Yeah. So I would, I would take my jobs for shorter amounts of time. Like if a, if a show had an order for 22, I said I'll work on the first 13. Right. And then I would generally go to Texas or New York and then just repair in between shows. And it, financially it was not a strong way to do it. But, um, I wanted to circle back a little bit on the, the rehab stuff. Um, you had asked at one point about did I, was I an AA and I wanna say that that never worked for me.Dawn DeKeyser:And there was this book a few years back called Quit Like A Woman. And it's about, it was by H Whitaker and it's about smart recovery. And one of the things that just made so much sense to me was that AA is a AAL system. And one of the first things that they ask you to do is give, give away your power. And the thing is, we women are rendered powerless in so many situations already. Why the fuck would I wanna go into a meeting and, and not have any agency over myself and my decisions? So that's a part of smart recovery and I love it. I think it's reallyMichael Jamin:Do do you meet as as often as, as somebody you know, in, in the group or, you know?Dawn DeKeyser:No, and the thing about it is, um, I'm sort of a social drinker. I don't have an issue with that anymore. And it's really about like, if you have a drink, you don't start at day one. You just, you figure out if you wanna manage your use of anything or, um, if you don't want to . Right. And, and it's just, um, it's just less, um, punishing Right. Say so. Um, and I know that, you know, we're writers, we're tender souls and we feel a lot. And I just wanted to get sort of, get that out there. That's something that's really helped and resonated withMichael Jamin:Viola Davis said something like that, you know, obviously not a writer but an actor, but she said, I guess I can't remember what it was about, but she's basically saying someone criticized her for having thin skin. And she goes, I'm supposed to have thin skin. That's, I'm an artist. Like I, you know, I'm not supposed to have thick skin . I'm supposed to feel things and express things. YouDawn DeKeyser:Know? That's right. That's right. I mean, that's what we do. We do. And um, we feel things and then we express them and we write them and we get it out there and people get it. They understand that. Um, you can't be general in really good writing. You gotta be specific.Michael Jamin:Right, Exactly. Specific. Yes. Yeah. Well tell but tell me about your summit.Dawn DeKeyser:Okay, so sumMichael Jamin:It up.Dawn DeKeyser:Sum it up. Um, one, sum it up. One of the things we don't talk about as writers is all that dead air, that space between gigs or the fact that the seasons are shorter now, and there's the writing staffs are smaller and the industry expands and contracts and the summit called writers making money. Lose the ego, tap into your talent and bring cash in during these weird ass apocalyptic times. I'm said that earlier. And, um, it's really about what are you doing for passive income investing? How are you keeping the lights on mm-hmm. and these, So I talk to money experts and mindset coaches and, um, we talk about things like cash machines, which is how do you bring in a little bit just in passive income? It's not hard. Um, if you have lazy assets, like my IRA's been sitting there doing nothing for a long time. And, um, we talked about what types of entities as a creative person you need to set up and forget it'll run on its own without you. But just getting all of that in place. And so, uh, in 2020 my life imploded mm-hmm. . And after that, and I'll just say a little bit like in 2020 my house flooded and I lost about 50 years worth of furniture, clothing, art, stuff like that. And then my husband, um, emailed me d divorce papers.Michael Jamin:Right. And then it gets worse,Dawn DeKeyser:And then it gets worse. And then covid hit. And then while the house was being torn apart with asbestos, tenting, my daughter and I moved into one corner of the house during, while she was in virtual school, I lost my dream job. I lost the house. And then we just decided to go and spend time in Woodstock, New York with friends, which was good. And then we came back in November and about that Thanksgiving, my husband passed away. Right. So that was very hard. And, um, I spent after, you know, we went through the grieving process and then after we , just after we got that done, after we were cured of that , I started into just figuring out again, what do I want my life to look like in my career? And I still wanna write. And so I started taking business classes, business coaching, leadership training, um, and talking to money experts and just like, what, how am I setting myself up for generational wealth? Which is something that I didn't look ahead, I didn't look to, excuse me. And then my daughter got into college, which was amazing, and she's in New York now. She's at the number one design school in the country, Parsons. And we said yes. And then I looked at the, how much it was gonna cost and out. Oh. And also in 2020, all my money kind of evaporated, unbeknownst to me. So I was really starting from scratch with no home address. Right. And, um,Michael Jamin:What do you mean your money evaporated? What hap what do you mean?Dawn DeKeyser:Well, um, my husband was, um, he was not, well, he was very troubled and very ill. And that kind of went with him. SoMichael Jamin:He, Okay. So he learned,Dawn DeKeyser:He found out that we were a few hundred thousand in debt. So again, all that doesn't matter, it's just money. So we find out that Ava's college is 80,000 Right. Thinking, you know what, we're gonna do this. We'll just figure out a way. So for the last 18 months, I have been figuring out ways to set our lives up and start bringing in money in a different way outside of tv, outside of just writing as a creative person. And it's working and I wanna, and I just want people to know that there's, IMichael Jamin:Share that that's important cuz you know, creative people, like, we don't go into this profession, at least I don't think, you know, we don't go into the special to become middle managers. We don't go to become to know about money because like, you know, I think that's part of, also, I'm not excusing any of the bad behavior in TV shows, but no one becomes a writer because they wanna manage people. They go because they just wanna goof off and be creative and do whatever and that. But the problem is that can, that can affect people, other people working underneath you, you know?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah, for sure. You know that as a showrunner. Yeah. And you work up through the ranks because of your writing talent and then you're suddenly in an administrative position, Right. As a showrunner, right? Yeah.Michael Jamin:Yeah. It's like, I don't, I didn't want, I don't wanna be the boss, I just wanna be a writer. But, but this is how it is now. Now you have to manage people. So anyway, so, but, but so that's why I think what you're talking about in your summit is important. So Yeah. Tell us more about it. Yeah.Dawn DeKeyser:So I think it's really important because we are, this is gonna talk about, um, using your left brain in a right brain industry mm-hmm. . And it's not that hard. It's not that scary. I talked to this one woman who's known for her millionaire maker series, and I started working with her this summers. Like, what am I, I'm doing everything wrong. I know that, and I've made money and I've spent it, and I would kind of like to not do that anymore. And her team is, you know, they're talking about how to get me set up and any of their other clients and it's been just a complete game changer. Right. Like, it just, um, and she's very intense and very complex in all of the knowledge that she has. She's not a Susie Orman or Dave Ramsey where they talk about saving mm-hmm. and don't have that latte in the morning.Dawn DeKeyser:And she says, Oh, you know, fuck all that live. You're like, make money and do the right thing with it because we just aren't ever aware of what to do. Like lazy assets. My IRA sitting there, and now I'm going to instead take some of that out and put it into a, an investing group that will, will put money into apartment buildings and real estate. And y'all who have houses out here are, you know, that is great, but it's not a financial strategy. Mm-hmm. . And anyway, so I was excited about learning all of this, especially on the heels of having to reconfigure my whole life. And I just wanna get it out there.Michael Jamin:Yeah. You had, you did a giant reset. A giant reset. Yeah. Very overwhelming. I I'm getting nervous just thinking about what you did .Dawn DeKeyser:It was, um, it was weird. It was, yeah. It was really hard. And, um, yeah, I am grateful. Like I'm grateful for my life. There's one of two ways you can go when tragedy happens. And that is, you can stay in it and think of the all the other bad things that are right around the corner mm-hmm. or, um, you can pick yourself up and get going in a completely different way. That's the, that was the, the real impetus for me is like, I wanna do things differently and Oh, and there was something you said about h hustling. Yes. Yes. Um, so I'm, I'm now putting questions out there and answering them and not even giving you any air time . Like, we all hustle, we all get that, get the work done. One thing that I wanted to do in this new reset was to not hustle as much what I do. I'm working a lot, but at home on my own schedule. And if it feels like it's getting stressful or sense of urgency, I take a nap. Right. I just slow down and I wanna do it in a more peaceful way.Michael Jamin:Right. That's so interesting. And so people can learn more about your, the summit@dawntokaiser.comDawn DeKeyser:Slash writers making moneyMichael Jamin:Back slash writers making money. And so then when is the next one?Dawn DeKeyser:It's going to be October 17th through the 19th. So for three days we have, Oh, sorry. For three days we have nine speakers. Right. And each day we'll talk like one, I talk to an actress who is now writing this really fabulous, um, children's book series. She loves that. She's like, I still act, but here's something that fills my heart. Right. Um, talking to Laura Lang Meyer, who's intense, she's still intense. Um, and she is all, she's, she talks about money in a way of let's get everything. Let's not have your bookkeeper talk to your cpa, talk to your business manager. She's like, We just do everything and, and all in one place, which is what I,Michael Jamin:And we should mention, this is all free for people who want to join the summit. Right. It'sDawn DeKeyser:All free. It's free, free, free. So you just sign up, give me your email and your name, and you'll get access to all of that.Michael Jamin:Right. Right. Yeah. And then, but then you and you also have a consulting business, a script consultingDawn DeKeyser:Business. I do. So all that's gonna launch to, I am all about putting everything off to the last minute. So that launches next week, and that'll be on my dawn de kaiser.com website. I'll do, I'll be doing script consulting, um, coaching for creatives and the writer's room. We're going be, we'll meet once a once a weekMichael Jamin:About,Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. We'll do guest speakers and q and a and then writing sprints.Michael Jamin:Once a writing sprintDawn DeKeyser:That is kind of a Pomodoro style I put on a timer and heads, pencils up, heads down.Michael Jamin:Oh, okay. And then you give a little short assignment. PeopleDawn DeKeyser:Not even, you know, I'll say, set your intention at the very beginning of what you wanna accomplish in the next 25 minute sprint. Okay. And, um, and we just do check in. It helps to get online or, you know, to check in with other people. Your Facebook group is really going strong and people are finding each other there. Mm-hmm. . And that's been really helpful for them.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. You got a lot going on.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. Um,Michael Jamin:Now I wanna talk about when you're, when you're on a a show, like what's, what's your experience like working with new young writers and and what do you see? Dos and don'ts?Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. I see the ones that really, that just grab my heart are the ones who try really hard. Mm-hmm. , they are like, to a cringy point, like I love that. I was working on a pilot and this one young writer came in, she was gi given a shot and she had her script in a big binder, three reading binder with all of her color coordinated post-it notes. Mm-hmm. that. And, and I just thought, she's after my own heart. Like I, that's She was prepared. She was prepared. That's right.Michael Jamin:Because sometimes new young writers, they'll look at the boss and because the boss very often isn't really prepared because, you know, they got a million things going on. Or even some of the upper level writers are kind of play it loose. But, uh, and so some of 'em think, well, if the boss has got his feet up on the, or her feet up on the desk, so could so can I, I'll just do what the boss is doing. . But you're not the boss. YouDawn DeKeyser:Know, you have not earned the right to put your feet up on the table yet.Michael Jamin:Right. So you, But when you see people come in prepared, uh, you know, I like that. I like, sometimes they'll, like, they'll say, I have a pitch. I'm like, Oh good. I, they'll say like, I have five ideas. Well let's hear 'em. I don't have any ideas.Dawn DeKeyser:That's right. . That's right. Yeah. It's just, it's just sort of, um, you know, not taking it personally mm-hmm. . And uh, I see a lot of writers who litigate their script. Mm-hmm. ,Michael Jamin:They overstep. Right.Dawn DeKeyser:They do. And they just argue for the, they don't need to argue. Mm-hmm. , they, their work is on the page. It either is working or it's not. And you are in a room with professionals who will tell you mm-hmm. and you don't need to explain to them what you put in the script and why, because they don't care. It's not working. Right. Right. So yeah. It is that losing the ego part of it.Michael Jamin:Yeah. It's, it's hard for people to, it's hard for young writers to accept that. Um, and they don't see it yet. And then as you get older, and then sometimes I feel like, ah, I, I'm like, crouchy the old guy. Um, but I, I don't, I don't think so. I think like you just, you have the experience. It's like, I don't wanna argue with you. I, you know, I know from experience that this is how, this is how it's gotta go. This is what this is. What you presented is not gonna work. I just know. I just know that, youDawn DeKeyser:Know. Yeah. You've, you've done your time.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Um, and do you feel, But how do you, and I think I I I, we talked about this a little bit. How, how do you think people are breaking in today?Dawn DeKeyser:Oh, that's right. I said I do not know. I have no idea. Yeah. I have no idea. Um, what you and Rob Cohen talked about was just coming in from all different angles. Like mine was a winding road getting here. And um, some of it worked, some of it didn't. But, um, that, yeah. It's like no one is going to give you a career. They will give you a shot. Right. And that's why your work has to be outstanding. And I say, not good, not great. Outstanding. And you'll get work. You know, I, I just, um, and there are so many,Michael Jamin:Cause some people think, well, it's good enough or it's better than what the garbage that I see on tv. And they think, well, you know, Okay, okay. Maybe it is, but it's, you know, that's not good enoughDawn DeKeyser:That, But people have been saying that since I started in tv. It's like, Oh, it's better than what's on the air. No, it's not .Michael Jamin:No,Dawn DeKeyser:No. You, you are competing with a room of 12 professional writers who have each other to bounce it off of. And there's a reason that they write all of that. It may not end up great. That may be for all these reasons that you have no access to, which is network notes or, um,Michael Jamin:Acting notes. The actor you can get it from. Yeah. Um, there's a lot of reasons even, you know, I haven't really talked about this a lot, but even writing a bad television show is hard. Even writing bad TV is hard, You know,Dawn DeKeyser:, it's so hard. I worked on this one show that was a drama but just inadvertently a comedy. It was so terrible. And I think we got written up in the Hollywood Reporter for it just being so campy. We weren't going for campy, we were just trying , We're just, just trying to get the scripts to the actors.Michael Jamin:Right. How funny. Do and, and do you find, I think we, we've talked, I don't remember we mentioned this, but do you find working cuz you kind of transitioned to from comedy sitcom to DRM or, and even drama, like, um, and I think you were talking about even more chill. Like what? Cause I hadn't worked in drama, really. So what are the differences in the writing room, the writers' room forDawn DeKeyser:That? Yeah. It's a, it's a's a huge difference. So, um, 2017 Me Too movement mm-hmm. , um, that was a game changer for people like me who had been dragged around a few rough corners. And, um, it did change the, it changed the personality of a lot of writers' rooms. As, as you know, for me, um, comedy was always kind of a full contact sport. Mm-hmm. , you'd be in the room with comedians, performers, writers, and there would be jumping up and down and just, it was a lot of performance. And so Right.Michael Jamin:Because you gotta sell that joke.Dawn DeKeyser:You gotta sell it. Right. You gotta sell it. No one else is gonna sell it. Um, so I, my first job in drama was Ugly Betty, but they had, half of the staff was comedy writers, which hadn't been done a lot or before. Right. So what I noticed was that the drama writers were so writerly and they were so not worried about selling the act break and getting the big joke out on a beat or a scene. And it was, it was so great. It was so great to talk about the story and not about not worry about how you're gonna sell the joke for me. Right. I, I liked that part of it. And then I went on to be in other drama rooms that were just very respectful.Michael Jamin:And how did you make that transition? You had basic, cuz it's not like you could just jump from comedy writer to drama. You ba you're kind of starting overDawn DeKeyser:Kinda, you know, I didn't look at it that way. I will say that drama writers don't tend to become comedy writers.Michael Jamin:Right. Right. It's, it's a one, right? You, if you can write comedy, you could probably write drama, but not necessarily the other way around. Right.Dawn DeKeyser:Right. I mean, it's just a whole different muscle. Um, I don't know. I think I got this shit kicked out of me in comedy, so I thought, I wanna be . I'm now more serious.Michael Jamin:But now you started writing sample, you had to write samples. You gotta start as if you'd never done ob cause you'd never done it before. You had start writing drama samples.Dawn DeKeyser:That's right. And I found that the agents did not want to marketing me that way. You know, I've already established myself and, and they would then have to hand me over to a different set of agents.Michael Jamin:That's interesting. Right? Cause I talk about this. Well, so many people think that soon as I get an agent, how do I get an agent? They say this all the time. How do I get an agent as if that's gonna help at all? You know, that's not gonna change your life. Once you've, you know, once even when you become at your level, you know you're in charge,Dawn DeKeyser:Right? Yeah, absolutely. And I didn't get an agent until I was, I'd won some script writing contests. I was in the Disney Writer's Fellowship. I was writing all those scripts on one of their shows, and I still couldn't get an agent. StillMichael Jamin:Couldn't get an agent. Yeah.Dawn DeKeyser:And so I called, I contacted CAA and uta and they're like, Yeah, no, we're very interested. And no one would pull the trigger. So I called CAA back and said, Yeah, I'm going into UTA this afternoon. And that's when I got the offer. And then I called uta. I said, Yeah, I'm gonna go on, go ahead and go to CAA this afternoon.Michael Jamin:And Wow. So you were just bluffing? Yeah. Wow. Interesting. Yeah, we, for a while when we, um, God, where were we? I think we were at, uh, Endeavor. Mm-hmm. . And we weren't getting much. Um, we, I guess we weren't getting to kind of help the support we needed then as soon as, but as soon as we threatened to, to go to uta mm-hmm. , like everyone was called suddenly, suddenly they wanted to talk to us. .Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. Yeah. That'll get them sitting up straight. Yeah.Michael Jamin: good for you. That's hard. That's, that's, uh, gutsy. But, okay. So then, um, but in terms of breaking stories, it, is it kind of the same on a, on a drama forDawn DeKeyser:Yeah. It's kind of the same. Instead of going out on a big blow, you go out on a big cliff hanger. Right. AndMichael Jamin:A pregnant moment.Dawn DeKeyser:What?Michael Jamin:That's, that's what I was told. It's called, It's, it's a pregnant, a pregnant moment. Like, OhDawn DeKeyser:Yes, that's right. Yes. What next? Yeah, and I, I just really liked it. I had this lovely experience working with Martha Williamson, who created Touch by an Angel. Mm-hmm. . And she's one of like the top Christian women in the country. And she was interviewed on 60 Minutes and she had quite a big career. And I had never been in a respectful writer's room before. And so I was like, Oh, we can't say fuck. And they, the two other guys, it was just like four of us. Mm-hmm. said, Oh, no, no, no. And so I thought, okay, no, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna give it a go , andMichael Jamin:I'm gonna hold my tongue when I don't have to say be crashed. Weird.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. I'm not gonna be disgusting. So, um, it was a really great experience. Right. That's interesting. And yeah. And the other, the dramas that I've done, and then, and then things sort of went, like I was able to write, um, episodes of Hallmark shows that's, I call that the women, the women writers ghetto. Um, cause we all, we all sort of end up there doing our cozy mysteries, which, um,Michael Jamin:It used to be, I guess children's shows, but I guess now you're saying for it's, it's home, It's, uh,Dawn DeKeyser:Hallmark has always been the family network. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Dawn DeKeyser:Family. Family.Michael Jamin:But when you develop, are you develop on your own? Are you, are you mostly doing comedy or drama?Dawn DeKeyser:Um, comedy, No, I would say both. And I'm not developing a lot. I have had this one idea that I love so much that I'm afraid to write it. I just, I just can't seem to do it.Michael Jamin:Why? Why?Dawn DeKeyser:Because I want it to be really good.Michael Jamin:Well, why don't you make, Write it as a book then?Dawn DeKeyser:No, it's a great series.Michael Jamin:Yeah. But if you sell it as a book, then, then you can turn it as a TV show. No.Dawn DeKeyser:Mm. Book writing. That's hard.Michael Jamin:Book writing. What would I know?Dawn DeKeyser:What writingMichael Jamin:? What do you mean book writing? ?Dawn DeKeyser:What is this book thing you talk about?Michael Jamin:Um, so interesting. But, okay, so I wanna make sure everyone knows more about, I guess I, when we talked about it, I wanna make sure before we sign off, but everyone knows more about how they can get in touch with you, how they can find you and learn more about your summit and your, your consulting services and all that.Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. So that's all coming out next week and maybe by the time this runs, Yeah, probably it's, yeah, Hope. Um, Instagram @dawndekeyserwrites TikTok @dawndekeyserwrites website DawnDeKeyser.com. And I will tell you, you know, you use your name and all of your stuff. I would, I just was so uncomfortable doing that. I was calling it everything else, but what I am doing. So now it's just my name.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I know. I was, I was a little in the beginning. I was, uh, you know, it was uncomfortable cuz writers don't, we're not actors. We're behind the scene. It's, it's weird for us to, uh, promote ourselves this way. That's not what we do. We're not act, That's what the actors we write for somebody else put them in front. So that was a hurdle for me to, I had to get over, you know?Dawn DeKeyser:How did you get over it?Michael Jamin:Um, you know, I I I'm always reminded of the Oscar Wild. There's a wonderful qu I think he said, but I'm not sure cause I can find it again. But he said you'd worry, I think he said you'd worry less about what other people thought. Think about you if you realized how little they did. Which works on two levels, which means they already think you're garbage. So what are you worried about? Or they're just, they're just thinking about themselves. And so, yeah, I just, at some point I was like, I screw it. If people wanna judge me, let, let them, they're, they're gonna forget about me anyway. I'm not on anyone's, you know, why does no one's staying up late to think about me .Dawn DeKeyser:Right, right. That's good to know. I mean, that's, that is liberating.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I, I, I do actually, I've thought about it a lot and especially as a writer, cuz I started, you know, writing more like personal essays, more stuff about my life. And, um, and then I kind of realized that there's like a paradox about judge being about judgment and that, cause I, you know, I, I did this show and then I didn't want people to think like, my biggest fear would be to perform my work and have people think, Oh, this guy's not a good writer. You know? And to be a good writer, you have to expose yourself. Yeah. And that's the paradox. So if I don't want people to judge me, I have to put my, allow people to judge me. I have to make myself vulnerable so that they might judge me ironically. And if you do that, they ironically won't judge you. You know,Dawn DeKeyser:On your website you talk about vulnerable, being vulnerable. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Yeah,Dawn DeKeyser:Yeah. It's hard. It's hard because that's exactly right. You put your yourself out there, your heart and it can hurt.Michael Jamin:But to me, the bigger pain is having someone say, Oh, you can't write . So like, that would hurt harder . So I'd rather just ex be vulnerable. And that people Wow. Cuz people walk away, they go, Wow, how'd you do that? That was pretty brave. I'm like, whew. No, it would've been brave if I gone up there with my less than adequate work then, you kno

Bonjour! Welcome back to the Jolly Boys' Podcast! It feels great to be back! Join Bailey where he chats with Chris Lloyd Pack about what it was like growing up with his brother, Roger Lloyd Pack AKA Trigger from Only Fools Horses. We would like to give thanks to Chris for giving up his time to join us on the podcast. Ajax!

“TO HELL AND BACK” and More Terrifying True Tales! #WeirdDarknessIN THIS EPISODE: What is it truly like in hell? Of course the only way to find out is to die – and that's a bit extreme if you are just simply curious about the subject. Especially if you find yourself on the wrong side of the faith issue and have to spend an eternity in the “bad place”. But there are some who have reached the edge of life, teetering on the precipice of death, and believe they have experienced the fires of hell, and they were somehow able to return to tell us of their experience. (To Hell and Back) *** Most people are already familiar with the story of the ghost of Abraham Lincoln in the White House, but he is not lonely, not by far. There are many who have claimed to have seen, heard, and even felt ghosts while in the White House… even in the Oval Office itself. (Ghosts of the Oval Office) *** Do you sometimes experience visions of future events? You have dreams and sometimes they come true later? What should you do if you are having realistic premonitions? (Handling Your Premonitions) *** Jane Cakebread loved her liquor… a lot. How deep was that love? Well, she was arrested hundreds of times and convicted an amazing 281 times for drunkenness. (The Drunkest Woman In The World) *** In olden times, pure and reliable water was the staff of life – so a well with fresh water was a godsend. But what if that well is haunted? (The Haunted Holy Well) *** Growing up together as next door neighbors, a boy has a crush on a beautiful young girl – but the crush turns into obsession, and that obsession lead to the end of two lives. (In Love With The Girl Next Door)(Dark Archives episode from June 15, 2020)SOURCES AND ESSENTIAL WEB LINKS…“MYTHS ABOUT HELL” (Weird Darkness Afterward): https://www.spreaker.com/episode/50219296ARTICLE: William Desmond Taylor: https://weirddarkness.com/archives/4034EPISODE: Including Virginia Rappe story: https://weirddarkness.com/archives/996EPISODE: Including Jean Spangler story: https://weirddarkness.com/archives/3660“Handling Your Premonitions” by Stephen Wagner for Live About: https://tinyurl.com/y9gd6axa “The Drunkest Woman in the World” by Geri Walton: https://tinyurl.com/ybtfgr9l “The Haunted Holy Well” by Chris Lloyd for The Northern Echo: https://tinyurl.com/y9w8yktt “In Love With The Girl Next Door” by Robert Wilhelm for Murder By Gaslight: https://tinyurl.com/y2snzy89 “Ghosts of the Oval Office” by Paul Seaburn for Mysterious Universe: https://tinyurl.com/y8vjd6kv “To Hell and Back” by Katherine Ripley for Ranker: https://tinyurl.com/y8payubb Subscribe to the podcast by searching for Weird Darkness wherever you listen to podcasts – or use this RSS feed link: https://www.spreaker.com/show/3655291/episodes/feed.Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library. Background music provided by Alibi Music, EpidemicSound and/or AudioBlocks with paid license. Music from Shadows Symphony (https://tinyurl.com/yyrv987t), Midnight Syndicate (http://amzn.to/2BYCoXZ), Kevin MacLeod (https://tinyurl.com/y2v7fgbu), Tony Longworth (https://tinyurl.com/y2nhnbt7), and/or Nicolas Gasparini/Myuu (https://tinyurl.com/lnqpfs8) is used with permission. 

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ="I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46Visit the Church of the Undead: http://undead.church/ Find out how to escape eternal darkness at https://weirddarkness.com/eternaldarkness Trademark, Weird Darkness ®. Copyright, Weird Darkness ©.= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =00:15:59.757, 00:32:51.197,

ALIS HAWKINS (Not One of Us), GAIL 'GB' WILLIAMS (The Chair) & PHILIP GWYNNE JONES (Vengeance in Venice) chat to Victoria and Paul about all things Welsh crime fiction and the Gwyl Crime Cyrmu Festival - 27-29th April & 2-4th May. Featuring:The Daniel Morgan murder, Mark Billingham, Ann Cleave, Mark Ellis, Elly Griffiths, Cathy Ace, Vaseem Khan, Abir Mukherjee, Chris Lloyd, Matt Johnson and many more...For festival tickets:GWYL CRIME CYMRUhttps://gwylcrimecymrufestival.co.uk/For information on Welsh crime writers:CRIME CYMRUhttps://crime.cymru/Recommendations Wilderness - B.E. JonesThe Lake Vyrney Killings - Simon McCleave (DI Ruth Hunter series)Hard Return Rosie Claverton (Amy Lane mysteries)Fortuna's Deadly Shadow & Fatal Solution - Leslie ScaseVictoria Selman is the author of the Ziba McKenzie Serial killer novels and Truly, Darkly, Deeply coming in July.Produced by Junkyard DogMusic courtesy of Southgate and LeighCrime TimePaul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover, NB Magazine and the European Literature Network.

#StarWars #ObiWanKenobi #Ahsoka #RogueSquadron #LRMOnline #TheGenreVerse #TheCantina We've got a full plate today! A classic (Empire Strikes Back) bounty hunter is rumored for Obi-Wan Kenobi, but which one? Also, news about Christopher Lloyd being cast in Ahsoka, and the current stage of production. Lastly, Mike Stackpole's involvement with Rogue Squadron has been clarified. CHECK OUT OUR NEW YOUTUBE CHANNEL! SUBSCRIBE HERE: m.youtube.com/channel/UCnGVcI3Swk6XdnkgLLPEySg (00:00)- Intro & Obi-Wan Kenobi Bounty Hunter Rumors (06:13)- Is Obi-Wan Kenobi Too Full Of Characters? (12:17)- Young Luke Casting Confirmed (16:55)- Christopher Lloyd Cast In Ahsoka (23:44)- Ahsoka Production Update (29:53)- Mike Stackpole's Rogue Squadron Involvement Clarified (37:48)- May The Force Be With You WE HAVE A SPONSOR! Check them out here: www.GrowGeneration.com Thanks to the band My Day at the Races for the music (besides the intro/outro) and you can find more of them here: mydayattheraces.bandcamp.com/ Welcome to The Cantina Podcast! The GenreVerse's hole-in-the-wall for Star Wars news, rumors, and reviews. The wretched scum of Cam, the villainy of Kyle, and the occasional loose lips of Shockey make for a wild time in a galaxy far, far away. Drink up and pay attention... and your tab! YOU WILL SUBSCRIBE AND HIT THE NOTIFICATION/FOLLOW BUTTON! This is the way... May the Force be with you! Join our Discord: discord.gg/PyrzzmrceY Question(s) of the week: Are you excited for the rumored Bounty Hunter in Kenobi? Also, what role do you think Christopher Lloyd will play in Ahsoka? Lastly, how can we make the show better? Catch the last episode here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ewnMfiYTGGps5VTM3ezBI?si=lf3pM96sSkq9G__aG4j1eg Visit our websites: www.lrmonline.com www.genreverse.com Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/LRM_Exclusive twitter.com/TheGenreVerse Kyle Twitter: twitter.com/ThatKyleMalone Cam Twitter: twitter.com/LRM_Cam Shockey Twitter: twitter.com/LRM_Shockey

The Nightly Morning Show is streamed live every Monday at 11am on youtube.com/nerdynightly Use Code "Claroos" for 10% off at gamersupps.gg! Get your Javy Coffee order here! https://bit.ly/35Zskv0

Michael Jamin & Phil Hudson discuss the reason they started this podcast, how Michael got his start, and the biggest mistake most new screenwriters make when approaching Hollywood.Show NotesMichael's Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeWriting for Dough: Adventures of a T.V. Comedy Writer Paperback – May 1, 1989, by Bill Idelson - Non-Affiliate Link - https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Dough-Adventures-Comedy-Writer/dp/1556660367Michael Jamin on IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0417157/Michael: (00:00)I wasn't critiquing her story. I was saying, okay, if this is the story you want to tell, this is what you need to do. I wasn't telling her whether it was a good story or a bad story. I wasn't like that, that, you know, that's subjective. I said, if this is the one story you want to tell, this is what it needs. And at the end of our, we talked for about an hour. It was like she had witnessed a magic trick. You're listening to screenwriters need to hear this with Michael Jen. So today's episode, we're talking about breaking into the business, how I got into the business and how this whole podcast even started. So I've been a professional TV writer for 26 years and fell here. My podcasting partner, he's been bugging me for years to start an online screenwriting course, to tell everyone how, what I've learned, you know, as an opportunity.Phil: (00:50)Well, selfishly, I should add, like, this is something I wanted for myself. And so kind of like tickets to a step back here too. I have probably paid for every screenwriting program on the internet, and I've been doing that for the last decade. And then I went to film school and got a bachelor's degree specifically in screenwriting. And I still feel like I've learned more from private lessons from you, or just off-the-cuff emails you sent to me reviewing something or giving me notes. And so when I say I've been begging for this course, I remember sitting in my car, it was on a business trip to Utah. And back in 2015, maybe you need to, you need to do a course on screenwriting. And I wanted this. I, it,Michael: (01:30)I was surprised that you hadn't learned any of this in film school. That's what always shocked me. I was like, well, what are you, what are they teaching you there?Phil: (01:36)You know? And, and I think for most people, you know, I consider myself an autodidact, meaning I, I teach myself things. And when I went to film school, it was more of a networking thing through, you know, being a Robert Redford scholar and trying to get somewhere ends in the Sundance independent community. But a lot of the things that they teach in film school match up with things that I learned in these other paid courses and things that I take taken online or in screenwriting books. And so for a while, I was like, oh yeah, this must be what screenwriting is. And then I remember, you know, to kind of give some background on how we know each other. I worked at a digital marketing agency and I was actually the account manager for your wife's online business. And I never met you over the course of several years.Phil: (02:18)And there was at one point, your, your wife was like, oh, my husband, Michael is going to be getting on the call while he waits for his next show to start off, he's going to help me out with marketing. And she didn't know that I'd been wanting to be a screenwriter for this whole time and taking these courses. And I remember I said show, and she's like, oh yeah, he's a, he's going to be running mark Marin's new show. And I was like, okay. And I looked her up and I was like, oh, she's an Angry Beavers, which I grew up at real monsters. And she's an actress. I had no idea. And you, you know, it just goes to show, you never know anything about anybody. You can't just judge a book by its cover at all. And then you were, I guess at some point I had generated enough Goodwill with you through her that you were like, oh, I was like, we got our car.Phil: (03:01)I was like, I'm trying to break in. And you're like, I'm trying to break out like just a funny comment and say, you sent me some screenwriting books and got me a subscription to the writers Guild magazine, which was very helpful. And then I just remember the first email you sent and you're like, what's the definition of a story? And I gave it to you. And you were like, I think I said, uh, it's about someone who becomes a, someone who goes through trials and ends up better in the end. And you were like, what about king Lear? He goes nuts. Right? And I was like, oh, I know nothing. That was about the point when I was like, I have learned nothing over all of this time learning formatting and how to use the software. So it that's kind of about the time it clicked as well. But these people who are teaching things may not actually be teaching what the industry considers to be crafted. Yes.Michael: (03:45)That's it cause like, I, I didn't go to film school. I don't know many writers or any that did go to film school. So w like film school is a mystery to us. I don't know why people go, I don't know what they're teaching. And then I, I suspect that it's being taught by professional teachers and not by actual TV writers or screamers with a lot of experience,Phil: (04:05)You know, I had, I had maybe one or two really good screenwriting professors in my bachelor's program. And like, one of them wrote some major hits in the eighties. He's a worker, he was a working pro and he was legitimate. We were on a working campus. So like there were stages and they shot the show, Longmire. So we had the opportunity to have the showrunners of Longmeyer come in and speak to us. Those were probably some of the best things about going to film school. For me, I think a lot of people who want to learn camera work and want to learn how to, what it means to, you know, run a, run a set from a PA or a first director or to direct, I think there were a lot of benefits in that regard, but from a writing perspective, not a lot, man, my TV writing class, we wrote one spec script, the entire S like the entire semester, which seems like a lot, but it's not when you're a writer. Right. Right.Michael: (04:54)Well, and that was, that's what led you were like, Hey, put together a course and I just didn't have the time or desire, but then the pandemic hit and I had, you know, Hollywood shot. I was like, this is gonna, we're all gonna be hiding under beds for a year. And I just knew it was going to shut down the industry, like immediately. So, and it did for me, for sure, everyone, like, we just had nothing to do. So I had all this time and I was like, all right, I'll put together this course. And it took a couple of months. Uh, and so that we put together a course. And if anyone's interested, its at MichaelJamin.com/course. But from the people who signed up for it, they kind of became rabid and they just wanted more and more stuff. And then,Phil: (05:33)So lots of questions. We were doing webinars. We were breaking down case studies of stories and, you know, my technical background, I kind of step in and facilitate a lot of the technical side of this. So I saw a lot of those questions and, uh, met up with some of the members of the course that have been traveling. And yeah, it's just a lot of the same stuff. There's a lot of things people don't know. And I'm, I'm low man on the totem pole, right? I'm a, writer's PA and a PA in other regards, but I've had the ability to sit in that outside of the writer's room and in the writer's room on a few occasions, and it's just a different world. So you know that the ability to learn things in a course for me to see what you look for as a showrunner and craft what your perspective is on selling a pilot and you know, that probably not going to happen. It could, but it probably not. And so what should you focus on craft and what is craft and how you actually work on your story and what elements belong to us. Right. Those are things I didn't learn in a four year program. I had learned in other online programs. And so there's a lot of value that came from that, but there are also a lot more questions, Ryan. And I think that's kind of led to your social media stuff.Michael: (06:39)I started posting on social media and, you know, on Instagram and anyone listening to go follow me there @MichaelJaminWriter. But then, and then it became, okay, well, the next step was, people would just want her to be her more, um, like, uh, so that became, this became the podcast. And all this stuff is like, uh, the course is really the nuts and bolts of had, okay, how do we literally, right? How do we become, how do we break it down as if you were in the writer's room as if you are working for me, this, this is exactly the steps we take every day to turn an idea into an episode of television. And the podcast is more, um, kind of peripheral stuff about, you know, stuff, you know, how I got into the business, how you can get into the business and, uh, little things that are not quite so writing centric, but more,Phil: (07:22)There's going to be some of that, but it's really, there are a lot of questions, people asking. And what I've noticed from reading through your social media comments, cause you had some stuff on Tik TOK at like half a million masks known as a 400,300,000 on one, 200,000 on another. And a lot of the questions people ask are these same exact questions. Lots of people are asking these exists in resources. Like this podcast is not the only place where you can get to see a lot of this information. There's script notes, podcasts, a bunch of other really good places where you can have actual working writers teach you great, valuable stuff. But in general, there are a lot of very specific questions aren't that aren't being answered and things that I wish I would have known earlier. Right. Which, which gives us the opportunity to talk about it from those two perspectives, you 26 years in and me a decade plus into my writing attempts and still learning every single day and learning what I don't know now that I'm sitting adjacent to writers and writers.Michael: (08:17)Right. Right. So I guess we'll talk about, um, kinda how I got, how I got into the business. Like I said, I didn't go to film school was my childhood dream when I was first question cheers, uh, on, uh, you know, Thursday nights on NBC. I was like, I want to be the guy who writes the lines for norm. Like, I didn't realize like the one writer writes the entire script. I just felt like maybe there was a writer who norms limes and there's a different writer who does Diana. Like I had no idea, no clue. And so, um, that was my goal. And after college I graduated college, like two weeks later, I got my wisdom teeth pulled cause I had, um, I still had insurance. Then I got into my car and I drove from New York all the way to LA didn't really know where I was going to stay. Uh, and then I found a roommate and, and uh, that's kind of how I broke into the business. Um, just kind of like hustling and, and begging and sending out.Phil: (09:10)So let me ask you come from an economically wealthy background.Michael: (09:14)Yeah. Yeah. And, and you are impoverished, you grew up on the other side of the spectrum. Yeah.Phil: (09:19)Yeah. I grew up, um, you know, food stamps, social security welfare. Did the foster home thing as a kid for awhile. Yeah. I was definitely on the other side, but I it's interesting because since I was 18 years old, I've really focused on personal development, what people might've called self-help and there are a lot of excuses that people will come up with about what it takes to break in. And then I think this is one of those, which is you have to be wealthy to break in, but I know plenty of writers who did not come from a wealthy background. Yeah. Yeah.Michael: (09:51)I mean, it was like, I didn't have to worry, you know, I just didn't have to worry about certain things. But when I got out here, I got, I got a job. Like I, you know, it wasn't like I was getting checks every day from my parents. We were scooping ice cream. I was working at Humphrey yogurt and uh, yeah, there's a yogurt store. Um, and so I did that. And then, um, yeah, then I finally got Phi was my first PA job. I think I was making $300 a week. And,Phil: (10:15)And then I'll make it a little bit more than that in 2020. All right.Michael: (10:19)And we won and I mean, it's interesting. So it's like people say, well, you, it, you know, at least back then, and it's true in LA in Los Angeles, when I was making money, I moved up to PA where I was making maybe $400. We can $400 a week allowed me to get a studio apartment where I could live by myself for, you know, cause it wasn't that expensive. My rent was maybe 600 a month and now you can't in LA you can't get anything near that. So you have to get roommates. Right. So yeah,Phil: (10:46)I had five roommates at one point in the house. I still live in the same house. I'm married now with a kid. And you know, I had to build a bunch of businesses to establish myself. This was all part of a fricking ten-year plan to make it to LA and be able to do this. And so I get like, there are economical difficulties to hold you back, but there are ways to make it happen. Yeah. So I had an extra income that comes in from businesses that I own that, but I also have PA money that comes in to help me out and I can live in LA on peace at PA salary. I have proven that we had five roommates in a four bedroom, three bath house out in the middle of the valley. And my rent was like six 50. Right.Michael: (11:23)Split. So yeah. It's can be done. I mean, I get it. I get, it was easier for me back then. But on some ways it was difficult, more difficult because there was no, this is 1992. There was no internet. And I couldn't even the idea of becoming a television writer was like, well, I didn't know any TV writers. I didn't know anyone who was, I didn't like now you can go on the internet and you'd get all the, there were no, you know, there are no podcasts you, I had, all I knew was if I wanted to work in Hollywood, I better be in Hollywood and then I'll figure it out. But now it's like, you can live across the, and get all this content like this podcast for free and you can learn so much without ever leaving your bedroom, you know? Yeah.Phil: (12:00)Yeah. And one of the things you talk about in your course not to bring it up again, but I think is really valuable is you have to live in LA because that's where the writing happens, but you don't have to live in LA to practice your craft that's right. Right. And in some of the first advice you gave me is you need to be in LA because when they need someone, they need them today. And if you're not here today, they'll just call the next guy in line or the next girl in line. And there's 10,000 of those people. Right. Right. Right. But being here helps. And you know, the show I work on now that you work on as well, that's happened because I was available that day. Right.Michael: (12:33)And to get to your point about your craft, like, it doesn't really matter. Like if you, if you're not ready, if your, if your writing isn't at that level, it doesn't matter if you, if you have a, if Steven Spielberg owes you a favor, you know what I'm saying? Like, if you can get your script in Spielberg's hand, if the script is no good, it's not going to do what there is. Does it make, so it's not really about who, you know, it's about, are you writing at the right level before who, you know, and, and most people skip that, but everyone's like, why they say like, how do I get my script in the right hands?Phil: (13:03)Oh, I have a personal story for this. Oh, we, I don't think we've ever talked about, but I had a roommate. His dad was a college roommates with a pretty prominent, I mean, like very prominent, uh, show runner here in LA. I'm trying to anonymize this a little bit. Right. But when you think showrunners, you think of this guy and it was his brother. And so he got to sit in the writers room over a summer as an intern and literally sit in the writer's room every day with this person. And then he said, when you have a script ready for you to see send it. So he sent it to the show runner and he blew his shot because was the, a script he set wasn't. First of all, the script is that wasn't even related to the tone of what the showrunner writes. And number two, it was not ready. He didn't have enough peer review. You could even say, let alone have the craft skills. Right. And people that he lives in Colorado. Now he moved homeMichael: (13:54)Blue shot. Right. And that's a shame cause everyone thinks their script is ready. I guarantee you. And I thought when I was young, I thought my script was right.Speaker 3: (14:04)Hi guys, Michael Jamin here wanted to take a break from talking and talk just a little bit more. I think a lot of you guys are getting bad advice on the internet. I know this because I'm getting tagged. One guy tagged me with this. He said, I heard from a script reader in the industry. And I was like, wait, what? Hold on, stop. My head blew up. I blacked out. And when I finally came to, I was like, listen, dude, there are no script readers in the industry by definition. These are people on the outside of the industry. They work part-time. They give their right arm to be in the industry. And instead they're giving you advice on what to do and you're paying for this. I mean, it just made me nuts, man. These people are unqualified to give my dog advice. And by the way, her script is it's coming along quite nicely.Speaker 3: (14:43)And Owen, I'm not done. Another thing. When I work with TV writers for a new one, I'm writing stamps. A lot of these guys flame out after 13. So they get this big break. They find it to get in and then they flame out because they don't know what is expected of them on the job. And that's sad because you know, it's not going to happen again. So to fight all this, to flush all this bad stuff out of your head, I post daily tips on social media. You can find me on Instagram and Tik TOK and Facebook @MichaelJaminWriter. If you don't have time, two minutes a day to devote towards improving your craft guys, it's not going to happen. Let's just be honest. So go find you make it happen. All right. Now, back to my previous.Michael: (15:25)And so the people ask the question like, well, how do I get my script into the right hands? And I made a post about this few weeks ago and it kind of blew up and it was like, wow, that makes sense. My point is, you shouldn't ask your, you shouldn't ask, how do we get my script into the right hands? You should ask, how do I write a script so good that it doesn't matter whose hands it falls into. And that's honestly the truth because it's like you write a script and it's great. And then someone, you know, you give it to a friend of a friend or a friend who knows someone who's in the business. They'll read it. And they go, oh, this is really good. I'm going to pass it up the ladder because I knew because I, you know, if I I'm doing that person a favor, I'm giving them something.Michael: (16:00)That's amazing. They're going to thank me for this gem that I gave them. And then it's going to finally align someone's hand. Maybe that person is a producer. And that person is going to read and say, listen, I can't do anything for this script, but you are an immense talent. And I want to work with you. Not because I'm trying to help you, but because I'm going to make money off of you. I'm going to exploit you. I mean, you're going to be a great me. I'm going to explore you because I need what you have. And, and now it changes the whole power dynamic. Instead of you begging how do I get my script to the right end, begging people to read it. Now, people are begging you to work with you because you have something of value, but everyone skips that step. Everyone's like, but I already got, I know how to write.Michael: (16:41)I know how to hold the pen. Therefore I know how to write, or I know how to watch a movie. Therefore I know how to, uh, re you know, re uh, write a movie, which is, of course, it's just not like, it's a skill. It's like, I look at screenwriting as a craft and you have to learn your craft. It doesn't, I wasn't born with this. I believe in my first CRISPR, terrible. I had to learn all this. And so what I learned in this course is stuff that I learned from working from writers who were way more downloaded, one more successful than I own like Steve Levitan and Chris Lloyd and, and Greg Daniels, like all this stuff, they just passed down to me because I was on the writing staff. And, and then I eventually became a show writer. And I kind of have, I approached story a little bit differently than they do.Michael: (17:17)That's not, that's not to say better or worse. It's just, I approach it a little differently. And would you call that voice? Is that what, when people say the term voice, your voice is different. Every writer has a different voice, but it also, in terms of how they approach story, um, everyone kind of, I find different writers. Some writers are a little more intuitive and I don't like they just know in their gut, like, they're just born with that gift. And I wasn't born with that gift. So I have to, I have a process that I use and that I teach. It's like, it's the process that I use because I, I'm not a natural born storyteller. Some people are. And, but, but of like, um, like those people are very rare. I think.Phil: (17:53)So w what I'm hearing you say, as someone who, you know, has been told, I had writing talent, but felt very unfocused is that I can learn to focus the tone I have through that process. Yeah. Right. That's a learnable. It's not, uh, you know, a God given gift that you just have. You're not some innate thing that evolution gave you. You can learn something, you can learn how to do this. Yeah.Michael: (18:16)And it's funny. Cause I had, uh, uh, a friend of the family was here a week or two ago and, uh, she's working on, uh, on a play. And so she stuck, she's been working on this for months and she stuck and she wanted to bounce it off of me. And I go, okay, just tell me the story. And I kept on interrupting her. No, no, no, no. That doesn't mean that doesn't. And at the end, cause she was, she was blocked and the end, I go, okay, well here's your story. This is what you need here. Bottom back one. This is what you need. Here's what I, here's what I would do. And it wasn't like, I wasn't telling her, I wasn't critiquing her story. I was saying, okay, if this is the story you want to tell, this is what you need to do.Michael: (18:56)I wasn't telling her whether it was a good story or a bad story. I wasn't like that. That's, you know, that's a subjective. I said, if this is the one story you want to tell, this is what it needs. And at the end of our, we talked for about an hour. I, it was like, she had witnessed a magic trick when I, and it was very easy for me. It was like, oh, cause I do this every day. But she was like, wow, that helps that. Thank you so much. Now I know how to proceed. And I hadn't critiqued it. I didn't say whether it was good or bad. I just said, these are, this is what you need to do to tell this one story, you know?Phil: (19:24)Yeah. Yeah. I've experienced that with you as well. Um, I think you came over to my house to help me out, to break a feature on a whiteboard that I had in this office at one point. And it was like the same thing. It was just like literally watching like a master work. You know, I consider a craft to be like, I'm a carpenter. I can see like, look at me. Like I have a saw and I have a hammer and I have nails. Can I make a cabinet in theory? Yes. But is that a cabinet? Someone's going to want to pay $10,000 to do an accustom remodel in a home. Absolutely not. And so my skill set as a writer 10 years ago, versus my skillset now, compared to your skillset as a showrunner is 26 years experience vastly different scale. And I think pace changes and follows that skill set as well. Yeah. Right. So what I'm hearing you say is there's a craft, there's a skillset. You can learn these things. It doesn't change your unique perspective, your voice, your tone, um, the way you see the world, your life experience and all those beautiful things that you bring to the table that no one else can. Right. But it gives you a structure in which frees you up to, to express those things in your unique way. Yeah.Michael: (20:38)Yeah. And it's almost like, it's almost like connect the dots. It's like, okay, for the story, you need eight point a B, C, D E, or whatever. And I'm not going to, I'm not going to budge. We need that point a, we need point B how you want to get from a, to base your decision. But I am not gonna let you, you know, we need to have a and B. Right. And so there's plenty of room for creativity. Like, I'm not saying you, you know, you, you decide how you want to get from a, to B, you could take a plane, you could take a belt, you could take the car, whatever, but we need a and B. So, um, it was interesting that, cause she was so impressed. And I was like, I don't know why it wasn't that impressive. Um, from where I stand, I was like, oh, this is, this is like a day's worth of work. It's not really like, you know, this is what I do for a living. It's not because I hit it on the head with lightning or anything. It's just boom.Phil: (21:22)But it's impressive when you watch somebody who understands the skillset. So like, uh, I was a missionary on the border for two years and I remember this one time we were out with this member of our church and we were talking to some people and their car was broken down and this guy was literally a master mechanic. That was his title. And he walked over and he's like, ah, what's going on? And they're like this, he's like, try to try to turn it over. And they did. And he did pop the hood and he grabs a cable from one side and another cable twist them together. He goes, try it. And it just fired right up. Right. Because he understood from the sound, it made how to make that work. Right. But it just looks like magic the source.Michael: (21:59)Yeah. Right. And it's just a craft. So I always encourage them. Most people don't want to learn their craft. They want, they just want the big bag of money with a dollar sign on it or they want,Phil: (22:07)Yeah. So, so when you moved to LA, um, you sold your first pilot right away, right? Like the first thing you wrote something.Michael: (22:13)Yeah. Right. It was so super easy. I just walked up. I said, Hey, Hollywood, I'm here. And they just, they back up the Brinks truck. It was so easy. Um, that's the fictional version. The real version is, you know, I had to, uh, I, I, first of all, I sent out resumes to try and get a job as a PA. I just wanted to be on a stage somewhere on a soundstage. I want to be honest. I want to be a sitcom writer. I want to be somewhere at Jason's sitcoms. And um, I sent out tons of resumes, no one wanted to hire me. And finally, after, uh, and I was that's when I was working at the yogurt store, finally, my roommate said, you know, listen, you're, you're just sitting here. Y you know, you can do work at the overstory at night, during the day.Michael: (22:50)Why don't you just tell them you'll work for free. So fine. I, I called up, uh, at the time it was a show called evening shade with, uh, with Burt Reynolds. And I, I, I had already sent out resumes to the people there and I called him up again and he said, listen, what if I come in? And I worked for free, the producer was like, sure. Okay. We can work you for free. And I, so I went in and I was wearing a suit and tie, right? Like, you know, like no one ever Susan side, but for some reason I had to press him with a suit and tie. He goes, okay, you can start tomorrow. And I'll pay $300 a week. Cause they had, it was a hit show. They had a little discretionary money. And I was like, wow, $300. I was like, this is a blessing because I would've done it for free. Right. And so that, that was how I got in. And then six months later, all these other resumes that I had sent out earlier, they started coming and then people started responding to me because, you know, there were just no job openings then, but they eventually, if you send it out enough, they will come.Phil: (23:42)Well, that's an important point too, is this, this industry is very seasonal. Like there, there are seasons when they're shooting pilots and their seasons, when you're in the writer's room. Typically I think Cove, it's kind of changed a lot of that.Michael: (23:52)It's also cable, a cable and streaming has changed a lot. So, but at the time, right. It's likePhil: (23:57)We're in development season and now we're shooting pilots,Michael: (24:00)Shooting our show. That's what it was then. Yeah. Yeah. Like I arrived in PA in Hollywood, in June and I arrived literally like three weeks too late, you know? So yeah. Um, but yeah, so, but, and that was just hustle. And then of course then from there, it wasn't like I became a writer wetter right away. I managed to find, I wanted to learn how to be a screenwriter. And I was lucky enough to find an old crotchety, retired TV writer who taught lessons like Emma's standing room table. And I was like, that's why I want to learn from it. I didn't want to learn from a professional writer, a professional teacher. I didn't want to take the standard classes that everyone else has taken. I wanted to find from someone who had the job that I had, that I wanted. And so this guy he wrote on like so many amazing, he wrote on the, the original you run and get smart, uh, the original Twilight zone, the original Twilight zone.Michael: (24:47)Right. Um, all these were the Andy Griffith show. And so now he's retired. He cause he, you know, he just taught in his living in his, in his dining room. And um, I learned so much from that guy. And then from there, yeah, that was writing for DOE. That was his book. But Phil, I Olsen, that's a great book. Um, and then from there I, uh, I managed to, you know, write enough good spec script and I managed to get an agent. And then my agent teamed me up, uh, with another writer who, um, and I wrote a story about this actually. Uh, and he was, I, I was like the new hot baby writer. She actually hires, she she's assigned. She brings on you, don't hire an agent signs, a new baby writer every year. And she blew a lot of smoke up my.Michael: (25:29)You're the baby. I'm going to turn you into a show runner. You're going to be star in three years. You're gonna have your own show. And I'm like, oh my God, this is amazing. And then I kind of sobered up and I was like, oh, I wonder what happened to the baby writer from the year earlier. And I called her up, I was just curious. And then she gave me his name and uh, I called him up and I was like, Hey, so, um, I have your, we have the same agent. What ha what show are you running? You must be running a show now. And he was like, dude, I work at a record store. And, um, you know, so it had, it didn't happen for him. And then I, then my heart sank, I was like, oh my God, it's not going to happen for me either. And I, I read some of his work and he was actually a better writer than I, I was able to look at his work and the next to mine, I go, oh my God, this guy's better than me, but I was hotter than him. In other words, I, I, I was the, the flavor of the day, according to this agent. And so we teamed up rather than compete against each other. We teamed up and we started writing together and that was, you know, years ago. And we're still writing together today. So, yes.Phil: (26:27)Awesome. So it's not like, uh, I, what I've learned from all the writers, I know professional writers and all the, the majority of the writers that I've listened to on podcasts, there are overnight. Success is not anMichael: (26:41)Overnight success. Doesn't happen. Yeah.Phil: (26:43)No. So it's not something that one should expect. It's not typical. And that's why working on focusing on your craft is so important. Like you said, you have to be able to write something so good that the other person has an opportunity to exploit for lack of a better term. Like they see value. They're going to get value out of it, either clout with their boss or money. Right. Cause ultimately if a producer brings this stuff in and they're going to be signed on and they're going to generate revenue off of this, in addition to revenue, they make off of view. Right. ButMichael: (27:15)Also some people think, well, I have this amazing screenplay. How do I sell my screenplay? And I always it's, you're not, it's a calling card for you to get more work. Like no one, no one wants to make your screenplay. They want to make their screenplay. The producer wants to make their project. The studio wants to make their project, but they need a writer who knows how to do that. So if you have a great screenplay, that's a calling card and they say, okay, we're not going to do this, but let's work with you on something else. Are you going to say yes or no? So like, some people are like, well, I, you know, I just want to sell I'm I'm really a plumber. I'm a dentist. I just want to sell the screenplay. Like as if it works, like it doesn't work like that, dude.Michael: (27:50)They don't, no one wants to help that person. They want someone who is serious about the craft. Someone who's dedicated, you know, their career to this. That's the person they want to work with. They're not, they're not looking at the plumber. What you think there's a shortage of ideas in Hollywood. There's no shortage of scripts here. We don't need to go to New Jersey from some plumber to buy their script. Right. But if you want to become a screenwriter, you need to learn the craft. It's a calling card and then you'll, you'll get more work. So it's one thing, you know, it's one thing to, to sell, um, or to sell your script or even to get on writing step. But it's another thing to turn it into a career it's much, much harder to make a career out of it, which is something which I've been, I've done fortunately for 26 years. So, uh, I'm, I'm certainly not a famous screenwriter. There's are there aren't many, to be honest, there aren't many household names for TV writers. I mean, that's just not, no one knows who we are, but I'm, I'm the guy, um, you know, I've been kicking around. I mean, I've made a career out of it and I'm fortunate enough to be doing it for 26 years.Phil: (28:48)Oh, that's awesome. And you know, for me, I think there's a dearth of experience there, right? There's just so much experience that we can learn from. I've definitely learned a ton from you. Yeah. I think the people who've taken your course, I've learned a ton from you. So hopefully this podcast is a way to bridge that and help share some of that information with other people and share that. So that kind of backs me to a pretty important question, which I think I've always asked, which is what are the skillsets that I need to know in order to make it as a writer. And that might be a broad question, but I'd love to hear your answer. Well,Michael: (29:20)At first and foremost, it's, it's like I said, it's one thing you can get, like, you may get lucky and get on staff, but if you do not know how to write you a flame out and you will not write it, you will not get hired again. Like, so, okay, you got it. And you see this having a lie, like you'll see someone teaching at a film school and they had one run one credit, or you know, that that's kind of their calling card is out there shot.Phil: (29:43)Well, not to put it out, like put out like a, an ominous tone. And that was something you told me when I asked you, I said, Hey, you know, I want to move to LA because you gave me that advice. You have to be in LA, but at the same time I've been offered this scholarship opportunity to go to film school. And you said, well, you know, here's where the writing happens and film school, you'll probably get a network out of it that might help you. But the other benefit is you'll, you'll probably be able to teach a university someday if it doesn't work. Yeah. It's like, oh, oh, because you have to have a master's degree to teach at a university. That's right. That's the benefit is there's some job security that you can then go teach that same stuff you learned in school to other kids who are in school.Michael: (30:23)Right, right. That interests you. Right. But it's, um, you know, a lot of people that means you. My next point is people say like, um, you know, can I break into Hollywood without going to Hollywood? So you're basically saying how they would come to me. I'm unwilling to go to Hollywood. You have to come to me. So if you want Hollywood to get off its and come to you, you better really be offering something pretty special. And it can't be a mediocre script. And you were like, well, but how would we fill with mediocre scripts? Okay. Whatever we can argue for that, maybe it is, but they don't need your mediocre script. They're not going to come to you. So if you want Hollywood to come to you, you better well know what you're doing. And that means knowing your craft and, and other things if we're talking about another podcast, but, um, there's really no substitute to being an excellent writer and it's not good enough. It's not good enough.Speaker 4: (31:13)[inaudible]Phil: (31:25)This has been an episode of screenwriters. Need to hear this with Michael Jackson and Phil Hudson. If you'd like to support this podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, and sharing this podcast with someone who needs to hear today's subject feel can to support yourself. I encourage you to consider investing in Michael's screenwriting course and MichaelJamin.com/course I've known Michael for over a decade. And in the past seven years, I've begged him to put something together during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Michael had time. And I have to say, I wish I'd had this course 10 years ago. If someone who's personally invested in most online courses earned a bachelor's degree and actively studied screenwriting for over a decade, this course has been more valuable to me than most of the effort I put in because it focuses on something. No one else teaches stories. In his course, Michael pulls back the curtain and shows you exactly what the pros do in a writer's room. And that knowledge has made all the difference for me. And I know it will for you too. You can find more information at MichaelJamin.com/course for free daily screenwriting tips. Follow Michael on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @MichaelJaminWriter. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Tik TOK @PhilAHudson. This episode was produced by Phil Hudson and edited by Dallas crane until next time, keep writing.

IN THIS MONTHS BLAZING EPISODE OF VEX IN THE CITY......... 00:00 - Intro and Jones catch up...Including another rant of the day. 16:19 - A tribute to Chris LLoyd *CHRIS LLOYD FAMILY FUND* 21:11 - An Interview with CBC major contributor and mentor, Morgan Campbell 1:33:10 - An incredible Boom Bap mix by the one and only MISTERPHANTASTIC 2:06:51 - An Interview with Canadian sports journalism legend Cam Stewart 2:20:02 - Parting thoughts and Outro....

In Los Angeles, at the center of one of the most compelling and complicated rivalries in basketball, is Jerry West. Having spent the first forty years of his career with the Lakers, and his last three with the Clippers, West has become an icon for fans of both and a personification of the phantom thread that runs through the city and the sport it loves. Episode One chronicles the birth of basketball in Los Angeles, and how the city may not have invented the game, but created fertile soil in which the modern NBA would take root. Narrator: Keith David. Guests include: Jerry West, George Lopez, Chris Lloyd, D.J. Waldie, Brian Short, Harold Gifford. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

My buddy Jack and I catch up with writer, co creator and producer of Back to the Future Bob Gale! We chat about his new book DELOREAN TIME MACHINE - Doc Brown's Owners Workshop Manual from Haynes and Insight Editions. We also chat about the new Discovery+ online show with Chris Lloyd, Expedition Back to the Future and Bob gives us a little insight on what is happening next with Back to the Future The Musical. Huge thanks to Jack for editing and putting this together for me. There is a video version of this interview on my Facebook page here Geeky Retro Nerds Show | Facebook This show is sponsored by and part of the Scene Stealers Podcast Network. www.scenestealersglobal.com You can buy the new book via Amazon here https://amzn.to/38f9Yrq Discover the secrets of Doc Brown's time-traveling DeLorean with the first-ever under-the-hood user's manual featuring never-before-seen schematics and cutaways of cinema's most iconic car. One of the best-loved movie sagas of all time, the Back to the Future trilogy has left an indelible impact on popular culture. Back to the Future: DeLorean Time Machine: Owner's Workshop Manual delves into the secrets of the unique vehicle that transports Marty McFly and Doc Brown through time, including both the original version of the car and the updated flying model. From the DeLorean's unmistakable gull-wing doors to Doc's cutting-edge modifications, including the Flux Capacitor and Mr. Fusion, this manual offers unprecedented insight into the car's inner workings. Filled with exclusive illustrations and never-before-disclosed information, Back to the Future: DeLorean Time Machine: Owner's Workshop Manual is the perfect gift for the trilogy's legion of fans --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/geeky-retro-nerds-show/message

Tom Craze is joined by Chris Lloyd (Matchroom Boxing, DAZN) and boxing journalist Steve Lillis to look ahead to Fight Camp 4: Whyte vs. Povetkin.

What a way to end our Lockdown Tapes series! Pound for pound star Gennadiy Golovkin joins Chris Lloyd to discuss his future in the sport, what keeps him motivated, training in Big Bear, the link-up with Johnathon Banks, a potential fight in Kazakhstan plus a whole lot more!

An incredibly scary, sad and beautiful story of a bloke and his wife who didn't speak out about the horrific times they were going through when trying to make a family and deal with something far from a “normal” new mum & dad experience. Chris opens up and speaks about the need for therapy in whatever way to help your mental state in order to deal with life's biggest challenges.

We're back with the fourth edition in our From The Corner series... A wealth of experience, stories and strategies aplenty when Mark Tibbs, Dave Coldwell and Jamie Moore all sit down with Chris Lloyd to discuss trainer/fighter partnerships, various technical details, potential fights down the line, planning and preparation and a whole lot more!

Heavyweight contender Hughie Fury talks to Chris Lloyd in our penultimate episode of The Lockdown Tapes. Fury goes over his recent fights with Povetkin and Pulev, eyes a potential rematch with Joseph Parker and why he wants to fight Dave Allen. We also discuss cousin Tyson's third fight Deontay Wilder plus much more!

Belfast puncher James Tennyson speaks to Chris Lloyd in Lockdown. The former European & Commonwealth Super-Featherweight Champ now has eyes on the British Lightweight Title with a possible fight against Gavin Gwynne at Fight Camp. 'The Assassin' recalls his first World Title attempt vs Tevin Farmer and much more!

Three weight World Champion Ricky Burns takes a trip down memory lane with Chris Lloyd to relive some of his defining moments. Rickster reveals he wants another big night in Glasgow before calling it a day, talks the change of trainers at pivotal moments in his career, life after boxing and lockdown chat plus why he decided to run a marathon on his 37th birthday!

What a line up! Chris Lloyd picks the brains of coaches Andy Lee, Ben Davison and Angel Fernandez in episode 3 of our From The Corner series. There's deep tactical insight from all three, plus a chat on the red elephant in the room - Anthony Joshua vs Tyson Fury. Lee formed part of Fury's World Title win over Deontay Wilder, Davison helped The Gypsy King overcome adversity to return from his lowest moment and Fernandez was a recent additional behind Joshua's revenge mission over Andy Ruiz in Saudi Arabia

Two weight World Champion Jessie Vargas joins Chris Lloyd for episode 14. Speaking from Las Vegas, Vargas recalls his first boxing memories, his early fights on some huge Floyd Mayweather undercards, the big nights against Manny Pacquiao, reliving his World Title success, switching across multiple trainers and a whole lot more!

Cecilia Brækhus gives an extended interview with Chris Lloyd from Big Bear, California in Lockdown. 'The First Lady' recalls her Colombian roots and adoption to a Norwegian family plus early upbringing. Brækhus explains her entry into boxing and struggles with Norway's “Knockout Law” which banned the pro sport for decades. The Undisputed Welterweight Champ takes a trip down memory lane from turning professional and rise to capturing all the belts plus a potential future fight with Katie Taylor and much more!

Callum Johnson speaks to Chris Lloyd on a whole range of subjects from winning Gold at the Commonwealth Games to his regret in swerving the Olympics. 'The One' also opens up on his personal tragedy with losing his Father and coming through the other side. The Light-Heavyweight puncher goes over his World Title attempt against Artur Beterbiev and plots his route back to another crack plus much more!

What difference a year makes... John Ryder relives the highs from his huge win against Bilal Akkawy in Las Vegas last May to the lows of defeat to Callum Smith that followed. In this honest and open discussion with Chris Lloyd, Ryder now plots his route back to a World Title shot, being home for the birth of his second child, dealing with personal tragedy and remembering loved ones to life in lockdown and much more.

Two weight World Champ Demetrius Andrade joins Chris Lloyd for a rather energetic episode eight of The Lockdown Tapes! The WBO World Middleweight Champ lists his targets for when boxing resumes, discusses his stellar amateur career, outside business interests and much more!

Liam Smith talks to Chris Lloyd just days after becoming a Father for the first time. Now with added responsibilities, 'Beefy' has plotted his route back to a World Title shot. We also cover the Canelo and Munguia fights, will Liverpool be denied Premier League glory plus much more! Don't forget to subscribe, comment and leave us a rating.

So this episode is a little different. It's a recording from my sit down when Chris Lloyd. Chris had come by my office to interview me for his awesome blog Everything Austin. We hit record and it was hard to tell who was interviewing who. To say there are some amazing nuggets in this episode would be an understatement.   You can learn more about Chris, his blog and of course his cool business at  https://everythingaustinapartments.com/blog/