Podcasts about screencraft

Guy Morris has released three pulse-pounding thrillers inspired by true stories, actual technologies, global politics and history.#guymorris #ai #masonicgroup================All Episodes can be found at ⁠https://www.podpage.com/speaking-podcast/ All about Roy / Brain Gym & Virtual Assistants at ⁠https://roycoughlan.com/⁠ ------------------    About my Guest Guy Morris :After a traumatized childhood, Guy pushed on to earn multiple undergraduate degrees in economics, finance with a minor in computer science, before earning an MBA. Guy was awarded a full grad school scholarship and acceptance into the Harvard MBA program by building a macro-economic model that out-performed the US Federal Reserve. Starting with IBM, Guy went on to a 36-year leadership career with Fortune 100 software, high-tech and global energy such as Burroughs, Oxy Petroleum, Oracle, and Microsoft. Known as a thought-leader and innovator of leading edge technologies that span over three decades, including early stage AI, Guy now speaks to the dangers of AI. During his career, Guy was also a published song writer for Disney Records, recorded multiple CDs, produced an award-winning webisode series that brought the FBI to his door, earned a Coast Guard charter captain license, and an adventurer /diver who fed sharks. In 2019, Guy retired to pursue his third-act career as a self-published author of award-winning thrillers, most often compared to Dan Brown. From cartel death threats in Latin America to the shark diving in Moorea; from the Board Room to a recording studio; from child homelessness to corporate jets, Guy pulls from a rich life of diverse experience to write books that thrill, educate, and inspire thoughtful dialogue on genuine issues facing humanity.Since his 2021 debut, Guy has released three pulse-pounding thrillers inspired by true stories, actual technologies, global politics and history. His Kirkus recommended books won both a Reader's Favorite Gold and Silver Award, listed on BookTrib's Favorite 25 Books of 2021, finalist for IAN Book of the Year, and semi-finalist for Screencraft's Cinematic Book. His articles have been published in SD Voyager, and Mystery & Suspense magazines.What we Discussed:  00:40 Who is Guy Morris01:20 How he became Homeless at a young age05:15 The Hardship created his success mentality08:10 Never Judge any persons job Position10:30 The Patents he created13:30 The FBI Knocking on his door  20:20 His book was ahead of his time22:15 DARPA mentioned in the book26:10 The Bilderberg Group29:00 The Illuminati and Freemasons33:00 Who is the Bad Guy Behind the Bad Guy33:35 My expereince at a Masons Event and friends in it36:00 They believe in Karma so tell us what they will do38:00 The World Economic Forum and the Great Reset39:45 How he wrote about things before they happened44:30 DNA & Cloning47:15 It was not called Artifical Intelligence before50:10 Different Ai Types53:10 What is Good with Ai56:45 Ai does not need to be politically correct1:01:15 Ai can be Biased1:04:10 Technology that was available 100+ years ago1:08:00 His 3 Books and Awards1:10:05 Could the Book become a MovieHow to Contact Guy Morrishttps://www.guymorrisbooks.com/https://x.com/guymorrisbookshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/guybmorris/https://www.instagram.com/authorguymorris/https://www.facebook.com/OfficialGuyMorrisBookshttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGi3JinUp6w24dJmDVq3ZKg------------------All about Roy / Brain Gym & Virtual Assistants at ⁠https://roycoughlan.com/⁠ ___________________

Guy Morris has released three pulse-pounding thrillers inspired by true stories, actual technologies, global politics and history.#guymorris #ai #masonicgroup================All Episodes can be found at ⁠https://www.podpage.com/speaking-podcast/ All about Roy / Brain Gym & Virtual Assistants at ⁠https://roycoughlan.com/⁠ ------------------    About my Guest Guy Morris : After a traumatized childhood, Guy pushed on to earn multiple undergraduate degrees in economics, finance with a minor in computer science, before earning an MBA. Guy was awarded a full grad school scholarship and acceptance into the Harvard MBA program by building a macro-economic model that out-performed the US Federal Reserve. Starting with IBM, Guy went on to a 36-year leadership career with Fortune 100 software, high-tech and global energy such as Burroughs, Oxy Petroleum, Oracle, and Microsoft. Known as a thought-leader and innovator of leading edge technologies that span over three decades, including early stage AI, Guy now speaks to the dangers of AI. During his career, Guy was also a published song writer for Disney Records, recorded multiple CDs, produced an award-winning webisode series that brought the FBI to his door, earned a Coast Guard charter captain license, and an adventurer /diver who fed sharks. In 2019, Guy retired to pursue his third-act career as a self-published author of award-winning thrillers, most often compared to Dan Brown. From cartel death threats in Latin America to the shark diving in Moorea; from the Board Room to a recording studio; from child homelessness to corporate jets, Guy pulls from a rich life of diverse experience to write books that thrill, educate, and inspire thoughtful dialogue on genuine issues facing humanity.Since his 2021 debut, Guy has released three pulse-pounding thrillers inspired by true stories, actual technologies, global politics and history. His Kirkus recommended books won both a Reader's Favorite Gold and Silver Award, listed on BookTrib's Favorite 25 Books of 2021, finalist for IAN Book of the Year, and semi-finalist for Screencraft's Cinematic Book. His articles have been published in SD Voyager, and Mystery & Suspense magazines.What we Discussed:  00:40 Who is Guy Morris01:20 How he became Homeless at a young age05:15 The Hardship created his success mentality08:10 Never Judge any persons job Position10:30 The Patents he created13:30 The FBI Knocking on his door  20:20 His book was ahead of his time22:15 DARPA mentioned in the book26:10 The Bilderberg Group29:00 The Illuminati and Freemasons33:00 Who is the Bad Guy Behind the Bad Guy33:35 My expereince at a Masons Event and friends in it36:00 They believe in Karma so tell us what they will do38:00 The World Economic Forum and the Great Reset39:45 How he wrote about things before they happened44:30 DNA & Cloning47:15 It was not called Artifical Intelligence before50:10 Different Ai Types53:10 What is Good with Ai56:45 Ai does not need to be politically correct1:01:15 Ai can be Biased1:04:10 Technology that was available 100+ years ago1:08:00 His 3 Books and Awards1:10:05 Could the Book become a MovieHow to Contact Guy Morrishttps://www.guymorrisbooks.com/ https://x.com/guymorrisbookshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/guybmorris/https://www.instagram.com/authorguymorris/https://www.facebook.com/OfficialGuyMorrisBookshttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGi3JinUp6w24dJmDVq3ZKg------------------All about Roy / Brain Gym & Virtual Assistants at ⁠https://roycoughlan.com/⁠ ___________________

Weekly shoutout: coalitionworks issue 10 is now live! -- Hi there, Today I am delighted to be arts calling writer, actor, and producer Sandra Cruze! (sandracruze.com) About our guest: Sandra Cruze was steeled in the uprisings of the 60's and 70's, and underground art world of DTLA, where she sang in punk bands, reggae bands and performed in street theater. She believes the "PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD" and picked hers up. Having experienced the transformation of good story telling which has saved her on many occasion, her works traverse the mindfield that is America today. She writes about dangerous women and women in danger. Acting in Films, TV and Stage, Sandra also creates her own content. Her short film, "Physics of Killing", was selected for the Toronto International Women's Film Festival 2022, and an IMDB writers credit. Her play, "Little Sugar", was a quarter finalist with ScreenCraft in 2022 and 2023. "We're Not Dead Yet", a YouTube web series co-produced by Two Heads are Better Productions, has received multiple awards and selections for both the series and the scripts, winning semifinalist for pilot script. https://www.housetheater.net/ Further accomplishments for film and theater can be found on IMDB and https://linktr.ee/sandracruzeproductions ABBY NORMAL THE MUSICAL FUNDRAISER EVENT AT HYPERION ARTS, LOS ANGELES: CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS APRIL 25 AND 26! Thanks for this amazing conversation, Sandra! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE, AND THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO LISTEN. Much love, j artscalling.com

How do you follow a film like Longlegs, the chilling riff on serial killer thrillers that became one of the cult smashes of 2024? The answer, if you're acclaimed writer-director Osgood Perkins, is to first swap out the pressure-cooker dread of that breakout hit. Next, add a cursed toy monkey. Then, harvest the wildest, darkest parts of your imagination for some of the most gruesome demises ever seen on screen. And finally, package all of the above into an existentialist comedy about embracing death. The result is The Monkey – a Stephen King adaptation inspired by the literary icon's 1980 short story of the same name, but very much a work of Oz's own invention.From the moment a flamethrower-wielding Adam Scott opens the film with a maniacal cameo, screaming as he scorches everything in his path, it's clear the movie is operating on a different tonal plane to Longlegs. But make no mistake, The Monkey is just as personal to Oz as that film and others before it, like The Blackcoat's Daughter and 2016's I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. Perhaps, in fact, even more so. As Oz explains in this moving spoiler conversation, the film is a meditation on death because death is something he's experienced up close in the most unimaginably tragic circumstances; on September 12 1992, his father, Psycho actor Anthony Perkins, died of AIDS-related pneumonia at his home in Los Angeles. Almost exactly nine years later, his mother, the actress and photographer Berry Berenson, was aboard American Airlines Flight 11 when it was hijacked by terrorists and flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre, on September 11, 2001. The Monkey, he says, features Theo James playing two roles as twin brothers Hal and Bill, because “that's my life,” as he puts it. He and his own brother Elvis Perkins, an acclaimed musician, became “buried in the rubble of the tragedy” of their mother's death on 9/11 and emerged with “differences more apparent than ever.” In the conversation you're about to hear, Oz tells us the extent to which the movie helped reconcile some of the feelings towards his brother. Al asks him about the ending of the film, which involves a plane crash – a very emotionally-loaded image, given his tragic family history.  And he shares why accepting death is the only true way to find peace.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

It was supposed to be “the cheerful Games.” That was the motto of the 1972 Munich Olympics, which was meant to usher in a peaceful new era on the world stage after the horrors in Germany just three decades earlier. Instead, on September 5th 1972, just after 4am. eight men in tracksuits jumped the fence at Munich's Olympic Village, armed with rifles and grenades. These men belonged to Black September — a group associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization – and their plan was to take the Israeli Olympic team hostage and hold them at gunpoint until 328 prisoners detained by Israel were released. The standoff ended in confusion and bloodshed. All eleven hostages died, as did a policeman and five members of the Black September group. This, despite media reports – broadcast to 900m people around the world – that the prisoners had been rescued. Today on Script Apart, we talk with the writer-director, Tim Fehlbaum, and co-writer, Moritz Binder, of a newly Oscar-nominated drama that contemplates what the Munich massacre might tell us about media complicity in acts of terrorism. The pair wrote this film with writer Alex David focused not on depicting the overall events of that terrible day – Steven Spielberg covered that with 2005's Munich, written by past Script Apart guests Eric Roth and Tony Kushner. Instead, Tim and Mortiz's angle on the story is through the American sports broadcasters who suddenly find themselves tasked with covering the situation live as it unfolds – a world first. Never before had an event like this played out on television as it happened. Today, we're very much used to consuming terrible atrocities as they happen on our digital devices. But in 1972, such a thing was unheard of. September 5 – which stars a great ensemble cast – puts the ethical questions involved with live-streaming terror under the microscope. It's a period piece that resonates with disturbing power today not least because, since the film was finished, a harrowing new chapter in the history of violence between Israel and Palestine has been written. Maybe, the film seems to wonder, when you have a form of media that rewards being first and being loudest instead of being accurate, any type of live coverage is doomed to inflame and exploit rather than inform. This episode, as ever, contains spoilers.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Our guest today is a Palme d'Or-winning writer-director whose films centre characters “chasing the American dream but who don't have easy access to that dream.” You might know Sean Baker from exhilaratingly raw dramas like Tangerine, Red Rocket and The Florida Project – each a compassionate and captivating dispatch from life on society's margins, and each lavished with critical acclaim. His latest movie, Anora, has seen new levels of recognition for the 53-year-old, though. Next month, the film – about this tale of a sex worker named Ani, played by Mikey Madison, who falls for the son of a Russian oligarch – will compete for four awards including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the 97th Academy Awards, with internet discussion about the movie, its characters and their motives refusing to dissipate.In the spoiler conversation you're about to hear, Sean tells Al about how his own experience of heroin addiction in his twenties has influenced his storytelling. We talk about why this film is not a Cinderella story but a tale about shattered dreams, discuss a hopeful epilogue to the movie that Sean wrote but has so far refused to share with the world about what happens to Ani next, and break down the film's devastating ending. A huge thanks to Sean for being a fantastic guest.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

How will romance adapt to the age of A.I that lies ahead? What bleak (and beautiful) impulses might the technology bring out in us? And have you ever seen a Black Mirror episode inside a Coens Brothers thriller, inside a Barbarian-esque horror? These are the questions posed by Companion, the new movie by writer-director Drew Hancock. Today on the show, we talk devotion, dating and androids with Drew, whose directorial debut kept its cards close when it came to its marketing – and understandably so, because there are some really fun twists and turns in this script that are best experienced fresh. (Stop reading if you haven't yet seen Companion and want to experience fresh, as recommended).Companion is about a young woman named Iris, played by Sophie Thatcher. Iris arrives at a weekend away with her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) to glares of suspicion from his friends, who she's meeting for the first time. As an audience, we experience her hurt at these friends' strange microaggressions – and at Josh's dismissive behaviour, callously, abruptly commanding her to “go to sleep” immediately after sex. Then – a murder. A murder and a reveal. Arguably the most humane character amongst this assortment of friends, is not human at all, but a machine. From there, a crime thriller unfolds with a large stash of cash at its blackly comic centre. It's bold, original and manages to find new things to say about the intersection between technology and relationships. I had a blast watching it – and Drew from the sounds of things, had a blast writing it. On this episode of Script Apart, you'll hear about the current real-world advances in technology like Iris that informed his vision of where we might be fifteen years or so into the future. We get into the hints at how A.I companions like Iris have altered the world beyond what we see in the film – and some early ideas for the movie that were completely different to what ended up on screen. And we break down every detail of the film's emotionally satisfying ending. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

The climate crisis is here and over the last few years, a question has loomed: how will Hollywood respond? Can blockbuster movies be a tool for mobilising audiences into action as global temperatures rise, fires rage and climate denialism continues to spread? Maybe in decades to come, The Wild Robot – a film by my guest today, Chris Sanders – will be looked back upon alongside Pixar's Wall-E as one of the first indicators of mainstream moviemaking's processing of and pushback against the weather emergencies coming our way. The film – a stunning, Miyazaki-inspired animation about a robot washed ashore on a nature-abundant island, in an America devastated by unspecified ecological disasters – acknowledges what awaits if carbon emissions aren't curbed head on, instead of alluding to it, like in other blockbusters. It's a deeply moving tale that features the voice talents of Lupita Nyong'o as Roz – an android who learns to love through foster care. After an accident, she becomes the guardian of an infant goose named Brightbill, voiced by Kit Connor. Brightbill has to learn how to fly in time to migrate to warmer climes, before the brutal winter turns the island into a scarcely survivable tundra of sorts. In the spoiler conversation you're about to hear, Chris reveals what the phrases “kindness is a survival skill” and “exceed your programming” – two mantras that informed the film's creation – mean to him. We get into the truth behind Universal Dynamics, the shadowy company that created Roz. And you'll also hear a deeply moving story about Chris's mother and the regret he's carried with him about their relationship, that influenced one of the key lines in the movie.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Jesse Eisenberg owes it all to an internet pop-up ad. A few years ago, while at an impasse with a screenplay about two friends on a trip to Mongolia, the writer-director and star of movies like The Social Network read an ad for “Auschwitz tours - with lunch.” And that jarring phrase unleashed an avalanche of ideas about, as he puts it, “the irony of wanting to connect to your ancestors' pain but at the same time not being willing to experience any pain yourself: stay at the Radisson, eat your continental breakfast, have your croissant in the morning and your coffee in the van going to a concentration camp.” Skip forward to 2025, and the film unlocked in his imagination by that ad – A Real Pain – is an awards season frontrunner, nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor at this year's Oscars. Its story of two cousins – David, played by Jesse, and Kieran Culkin as Benji – on a Holocaust “trauma trip” through Poland is a moving meditation on the shame it's easy to feel in today's world for feeling unsatisfied with life, when we think about the greater hardships our ancestors may have suffered. it's devastating and deliriously funny in equal measure, not to mention bold in how it refuses an Eat Pray Love narrative of having international travel solve these characters' problems back home. In A Real Pain, Culkin's erratic livewire Benji ends up exactly back where he started – but we as an audience are changed. In the spoiler conversation you're about to hear, Jesse tells me about how the film worsened rather than resolved his complicated feelings around what pain he's entitled to feel. We get into that devastating final shot at the end of the film and why it is we feel the urge to connect to our pasts, with services like Ancestry and 23andMe. Listen out also for the parts of Jesse's life he folded into the script – such as his use of medication and medication to tackle OCD and depression – and how Jesse reflects on the unanswerable question of, how much grief to allocate to the terrible situation in the world right now, before we cease functioning. It's a fascinating chat about a fascinating film.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Thirty years ago, a film hit multiplexes that helped redefine love onscreen for moviegoers. So much so, in fact, that the history of the modern romantic drama might arguably be best separated into two distinct eras: before Before Sunrise, Richard Linklater's enchanting cult smash stroll through moonlit Vienna, and after. Today on Script Apart, Richard's co-writer Kim Krazin reflects on three decades of hearing from strangers about how this simple tale – in which two strangers on a train make a spontaneous decision to get off and wander the streets till dawn together – touched them deeply. The film starred Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as Jesse and Celine – one an American tourist, recovering from a botched trip to Madrid to see his now-ex girlfriend, the other a French student, heading back to Paris to continue her studies after visiting her grandmother. Kim and Richard had worked together before prior to Before Sunrise. Kim appeared as an actor in 1990's Slacker and 1993's Dazed and Confused. This time, however, they were co-writers, sequestered together for an intense eleven-day writing sprint, hard at work on a boy-meets-girl story with a difference.Before Sunrise was to be naturalistic. There would be no melodrama – no conflict for the sake of it. Just conversation, as two people brought together by chance, who live a world apart, forge a connection against the ultimate ticking clock: at sunrise, Jesse has a plane to catch. As their attraction deepens, we're left to wonder: will they see each other again after their expires, when dawn arrives? As it happens, they would; two sequels, Before Sunset and Before Midnight, later followed, the first of which Kim has a “story by” credit on. But in 1995, as the credits rolled, audiences were famously left in the dark. The film's brilliant cliffhanger ending – in which the couple decide not to exchange any contact information and instead meet at the same Vienna train station in six months' time – was being written and rewritten right up until 3am on the last night of filming. You may have heard about how Linklater was inspired by a woman who he met in a Philadelphia toy shop and ended up wandering around the city with, talking deep into the night (this woman, tragically, died in a motorcycle accident before the film's release). What you might not be aware of is Kim's chance encounter at a Bob Dylan concert in London, one day on a train trip through England, that gave her some of the emotional kindling for Jesse and Celine's tale. In the spoiler conversation you're about to hear, you'll discover what parts of the movie wouldn't fly today because of the modern technology that connects us brilliantly, but also robs us of the “romance of chance,” pervading every frame in Before Sunrise. We get into early plans to set the film not in Vienna but in Texas, and everything unlocked by the decision to set the movie abroad. And finally we get into whether or not Jesse in the film invents the concept of social media a good decade or so ahead of time. Hear us out on that one. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Join Kim's The Magic Hour community by clicking here.Support the show

Today on Script Apart, a sneak peek at something new. We're going to be running exclusive episodes this year for our Patreon supporters, in which – breaking away from the usual Script Apart format – Al Horner and a guest focus in on the screenwriting tips and tricks to be learned from a film that both adore. Today, Lee Unkrich – director of Toy Story 3, Coco and other towering achievements in animation – returns to the show, to talk about what screenwriters might take and apply to their own work from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. You know how people are often like, “I wrote the book on X subject” as a way of claiming authority over a topic? Well, Lee literally wrote the book on The Shining. As you'll have heard on our Script Club episode of Script Apart in 2022, breaking down everything Lee knows about the first draft of that timeless movie, the last few years have seen Lee take a break from filmmaking to assemble the most exhaustive, definitive take on the iconic horror, full of never-before-seen photos discovered in Kubrick estate's vaults. Basically, on every page you're being hit with a flood of amazing information about the film, rushing at you like blood from red elevator doors. The book – called simply Stanley Kubrick's The Shining – is soon to be re-released at an affordable new price point after 2022's limited edition run, which was all the excuse we needed to catch up with Lee about the reaction to it, before getting into five screenwriting takeaways from the film. Lessons like: why it's important to be patient if you can't find your ending; the ending to your script will eventually find you. We talk about how physical space can be used as a storytelling tool; something Kubrick does brilliantly with the Overlook, which dimensionally makes zero sense, contributing to the viewer's sense of disorientation as they watch. And why sometimes the scariest thing to do in constructing a horror is to veer away from the hallmarks of the genre entirely (The Shining features barely any gore. And even less shadow and darkness). Listen to the full episode now, and subscribe to our Patreon for more Writing Tips episodes coming soon. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.Support the show

Life is full of sweet highs and terrible merlots on today's Script Apart as Alexander Payne – director of movies like Election, The Holdovers, Nebraska and About Schmidt – joins us to raise a glass to an indie drama that has aged like a fine wine. The brilliant Sideways was released in 2004 and soon earned four Academy Award nominations, taking home Best Adapted Screenplay. It won six Independent Spirit Awards, was picked up for Japanese remake and instigated a huge tourism boom in the California wine country that forms the film's backdrop. Co-written with frequent collaborator Jim Taylor, it told the tale of two friends on a wine tasting expedition,  each struggling to break out of a certain middle-aged, middle-class male malaise (one of Alexander's screenwriting specialties). The result? A dramedy widely regarded as one of the best of its decade.The film saw Paul Giamatti play Miles – an aspiring author whose dreams of literary stardom are misfiring, much like his love life. Recently divorced, he and his old college friend Jack, played by Thomas Haden Church, hop in the car to celebrate Jack's upcoming wedding. But Jack – a washed-up soap opera actor – is intent on hooking up with women as part of one last sexual hurrah before marriage. Caught up in the mix as the pair quarrel and cause trouble is Virginia Madsen's Maya, a barmaid that Miles strikes up feelings for. Professing those feelings in a serious way, though, is difficult for the wine aficionado and English teacher – a man so mired in regret about what was, he's unable to grasp the now and what could still be. Much is often made about the recurring quote-unquote “losers” that lead Alexander's films, and what they might have to say about modern American man. The filmmaker, though, has always been pretty resolute that his movies centre the downtrodden and dopey simply because, deep down, these films are comedies – a genre the historically sides with the little guy, going all the way back to Charlie Chaplin. But how does he define the mix of pathos and hilarity that fill his characters? Where does Alexander's affinity towards road trip stories come from?  What's so relatable and real about Miles' fear that his literary dreams might amount to nothing – and that a life of feeling like a loser awaits? And what was the inspiration behind the film's beautiful ending – a knock at the door that we as an audience never see answered? All is revealed across a fascinating thirty-minute sit down with the auteuer.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

It's early January, a new year is here – and so too is a new chapter in American politics. Later this month, Donald Trump will enter the White House for a second term and right at this moment, people across the US and western world are wondering what the next four years may look like. Today on Script Apart, the filmmaker behind one of Hollywood's first real attempts to grapple with the enormity of Trump and the implications of his political rise and fall and rise again, joins us to add his two cents and to discuss a film right up there in the mix this awards season. Ali Abassi is the Iranian-Danish director of The Apprentice, starring Sebastian Stan as the businessman turned President. Written by Gabe Sherman, who we hope to have on the show another time, it's an origin story of sorts, charting a relationship that the movie alleges equipped Trump with the ruthless mode of attack that would become his ticket first to real estate dominance, then to tabloid media ubiquity and finally, decades later, to the Oval Office. Jeremy Strong plays Roy Cohn in the film – a lawyer who takes Trump under his wing at the onset of his career and moulds him in his image. But as one soars, the other begins a brutal decline. It's a engrossing, humanistic watch that, as Ali explains, isn't a story exclusively about Trump himself – it's about a system that he is a product of. In the spoiler conversation you're about to hear, we ask Ali about the Mary Shelley literary classic that helped shape his and Gabe's take on Trump's tale. We ask about the film's most controversial moment – a scene based on divorce records, in which former wife Ivana Trump accused Donald of raping her and pulling out handfuls of her hair (Ivana later issued a statement insisting that the term "rape" was “not meant in a literal or criminal sense”). And we get into the scene from the film that had to be cut – a moment involving Trump kicking a dog, because of a lack of evidence that the real Donald Trump ever kicked a dog. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Pour yourself a tall glass of milk (or better yet, have an admirer send you one) and prepare for a conversation about an erotic thriller blowing up the internet right now. Halina Reijn is the Dutch writer-director responsible for 2022's Bodies Bodies Bodies, who's followed up that razor-sharp murder-mystery pastiche with another film that infuses an old genre with modern politics. In Babygirl, Nicole Kidman's tech CEO Romy begins an affair with an intern – Samuel, played by Harris Dickinson. The potential consequences of their relationship are catastrophic: Romy, married with kids, could lose her family and her rarified position as one of the few female leaders in a male-dominated tech world. But, as Halina explains in our spoiler conversation, Samuel is unlocking in Romy desires that she didn't know she had – longings till now, clouded in shame.Listen in to hear about the personal parts of Halina's own journey with her sexuality that informed Babygirl, why she chose a dog attack as the thematically-important “meet cute” for Romy and Samuel – and what she hopes is the knock-on effect of this morally complex tale on the discourse around the pleasures women permit themselves to seek.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft, Creative Command and WeScreenplay.Donate to the American Red Cross here.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Episode 114 - The Mission of 3 Days Studios and Guild In this episode of the Faith and Family Filmmakers Podcast, hosts Jaclyn and Geoff are joined by George Escobar and Dr. Joel Bunkowske from 3 Days Studios. They delve into the mission driving the studio, focusing on faith and family-centric storytelling. The conversation also covers the upcoming series 'Prairie Winds', aimed at filling the demand for wholesome, Christian family entertainment, inspired by shows like 'Little House on the Prairie'. They discuss the guild model for community involvement and education, the business strategy of vertical integration, and their innovative approach to crowdfunding and distribution. Highlights Include:The Heart Behind 3 Days StudiosJoel's Missionary BackgroundImpact of Christianity on Society3 Days Studio's MissionPrairie Winds ProjectCreating Compelling ScreenplaysVertical Integration and DistributionEmpowerment Guild and CommunityBios:George Escobar is an award-winning writer, director, and producer of seven faith-based feature films and over a dozen documentaries, including the Oscar-nominated “Alone Yet Not Alone.” His films: “Come What May” and “The World We Make” have been distributed by Sony, Amazon Prime, Netflix, PureFlix, and others. He has won screenwriting awards from: Kairos Pro Award, Content Media, ScreenCraft, and Coverfly's Red List. He has taught over 3,500 students in filmmaking from a Christian worldview. Escobar is now writing the “Prairie Winds” streaming series for 3 Days Studios, and producing the feature film, “Missileman" with Academy-nominee Terry Rossio as executive producer. Escobar served as Executive Producer for Focus on the Family, VP of Product Development at Discovery, and Executive Director at AOL/TimeWarner. He is a producing graduate at the American Film Institute.Dr. Joel W. Bunkowske, Esq. is one of the world's most educated, experienced, and successful corporate and entertainment lawyers. He is an award-winning attorney with over 30 years of experience in the music, television, and film industries. He is the recipient of Grammy, Dove, and Gold Record Awards for his legal work in the music and film industries. He has worked with Academy Award-nominated actors, Grammy and Dove award-winning recording artists, and legendary producers. His areas of practice include corporate law; film, television, and music Chief of Legal and Business Affairs; film production, finance, and distribution; contracts, dispute resolution, and University teaching.Dr. Bunkowske has worked extensively in the film, music, and television industries doing corporate law, finance, distribution, consulting, producing, executive producing, directing, and contracts for hundreds of projects worldwide with Warner Bros., Universal, Disney, Sony, Paramount Pictures, ABC, NBC, FOX, Capitol Records, EMI, Curb Records, Word Records and many more. Dr. Bunkowske has done extensive venture capital deal structuring for film companies, record companies, and a $180 million foundation.3 Days Studios and Guild: https://3daysstudios.com/FAFF Screenwriting Bootcamp: https://www.faffassociation.com/screenwriting-bootcampWriters Retreat - Mexico: https://www.faffassociation.com/writers-retreatJaclyn's Book - In the Beginning, Middle and End: A Screenwriter's Observations of LIfe, Character, and God:

Episode 113 - The Birth of a New Studio In this episode of the Faith and Family Filmmakers Podcast, Geoff and Jaclyn interview George Escobar, a filmmaker known for the Oscar-nominated 'Alone Yet Not Alone,' and Dr. Joel Bunkowske, a Grammy-winning attorney with extensive experience in entertainment law. George and Joel recount their personal and professional journeys, highlighting humbling moments and miraculous turns that led them to create 3 Days Studios. Joel shares his background as a missionary kid-turned attorney involved in successful music and film projects, while George discusses his transition from Hollywood to faith-based filmmaking. The episode emphasizes the importance of mentorship, collaboration, and divine guidance in the film industry, ultimately announcing their new venture, 3 Day Studios, and its accompanying filmmaker guild.Highlights Include:Welcome and IntroductionThe Beginning of a Great FriendshipJoel Bonkowske's Journey in Entertainment LawOvercoming Challenges and God's GuidanceGeorge Escobar's Path to FilmmakingThe Birth of 3 Day StudiosThe Role of Technology and CollaborationJoel's Involvement with Angel StudiosUpcoming Projects and WorkshopsBios:George Escobar is an award-winning writer, director, and producer of seven faith-based feature films and over a dozen documentaries, including the Oscar-nominated “Alone Yet Not Alone.” His films: “Come What May” and “The World We Make” have been distributed by Sony, Amazon Prime, Netflix, PureFlix, and others. He has won screenwriting awards from: Kairos Pro Award, Content Media, ScreenCraft, and Coverfly's Red List. He has taught over 3,500 students in filmmaking from a Christian worldview. Escobar is now writing the “Prairie Winds” streaming series for 3 Days Studios, and producing the feature film, “Missileman" with Academy-nominee Terry Rossio as executive producer. Escobar served as Executive Producer for Focus on the Family, VP of Product Development at Discovery, and Executive Director at AOL/TimeWarner. He is a producing graduate at the American Film Institute.Dr. Joel W. Bunkowske, Esq. is one of the world's most educated, experienced, and successful corporate and entertainment lawyers. He is an award-winning attorney with over 30 years of experience in the music, television, and film industries. He is the recipient of Grammy, Dove, and Gold Record Awards for his legal work in the music and film industries. He has worked with Academy Award-nominated actors, Grammy and Dove award-winning recording artists, and legendary producers. His areas of practice include corporate law; film, television, and music Chief of Legal and Business Affairs; film production, finance, and distribution; contracts, dispute resolution, and University teaching.Dr. Bunkowske has worked extensively in the film, music, and television industries doing corporate law, finance, distribution, consulting, producing, executive producing, directing, and contracts for hundreds of projects worldwide with Warner Bros., Universal, Disney, Sony, Paramount Pictures, ABC, NBC, FOX, Capitol Records, EMI, Curb Records, Word Records and many more. Dr. Bunkowske has done extensive venture capital deal structuring for film companies, record companies, and a $180 million foundation.3 Days Studios and Guild: https://3daysstudios.com/FAFF Screenwriting Bootcamp: https://www.faffassociation.com/screenwriting-bootcampWriters Retreat - Mexico:

Talk about setting a high bar. Nickel Boys – the new film from RaMell Ross – is a drama that may be one of the first releases of the 2025, but will almost certainly still be reverberating come the end of it. Adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by The Underground Railroad author Colson Whitehead, it tells the story of a reform school for primarily Black young offenders, where violence and cruelty are carried out and covered up in a rapidly changing America. The Nickel Academy as it's known in the film is fictional, but the Dozier School in Florida, on which Whitehead based his tale, was all too real. In 2010, an investigation into the site uncovered an 111-year history of beatings, rapes, torture and murder of students by staff. Fifty five unidentified bodies in unmarked graves were discovered. More than one hundred children in total were killed, often in the most unthinkably inhumane ways, with much of the worst abuse carried out in a building known only as the White House.In Nickel Boys, a beautiful friendship begins amid that horror and injustice. The film adopts a unique first-person perspective to show a deep bond bloom, between Ethan Herisse's Elwood and Brandon Wilson's Turner. Jumping between then and now, with Daveed Diggs playing a haunted older version of one of these characters, it's one of the boldest films in this year's Oscar conversation, narratively, aesthetically and otherwise. In the spoiler conversation you're about to hear, RaMell and Al discuss the film's approach to memory, the meaning of the crocodile that stalks the backdrop of scenes in this film – and why the film juxtaposes the terror of earth with the beauty of the cosmos, through shots of the atmosphere as America wins the space race. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft, Creative Command and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

We're starting 2025 way down in the hole, with a look back on one of the undisputed great TV series of our time. Our guest today is a storyteller responsible for shows like Treme, Generation Kill, The Deuce, The Plot Against America and We Own This City, but best known of course for The Wire – a show that began at a crime scene, with blood splattered across granite, police lights painting the pavement red, white and blue. It was here that audiences first met Detective McNulty, played by Dominic West, chatting with a murder witness. A kid had been killed for trying to rob a dice game – a stunt he tried to pull often. Usually, the kid in question, named Snot Boogie, got away with just a beating. This time, not so lucky. “I gotta ask you,” McNulty asks the witness. “If Snot always stole the money, why'd you always let him play?” The witness sighs, and the camera cuts to Snot's motionless body, gazing towards us from the floor. “Got to,” replies the witness. “This is America.”That line was the first clue that The Wire wasn't going to be like other television series. David wanted this police procedural, informed by his own experiences reporting on crime in the area as a journalist for the Baltimore Sun, to be more than another show about cops and criminals; it was to offer a microcosm of America itself. The Wire won no awards. Just 70,000 people tuned into the show's final episode, capping five critically and commercially overlooked seasons in 2008. Its creator didn't watch TV – David, in fact, pretty much hated the medium. And yet, The Wire has become recognised as one of the most important pieces of American pop culture of the millennium so far: a novelistic cross section of the Land of the Free, that bloomed from a tale about a phone-tapping team of lawmakers into an interrogation of media, education and everything in between.The spoiler conversation you're about to hear is a window into everything that is possible in the medium of television – and everything that's perhaps wrong with it right now, too. David was really candid about his struggles to get new work off the ground and onto screens in 2025 despite the enormous influence of The Wire. You'll hear how McNulty came to be, the real-life inspirations behind the show's most iconic character Omar, how far western society has come in addressing the systemic problems exposed in The Wire (spoiler alert: not very) and much, much more. And you'll also discover the lost season of The Wire that David devised, but that never made it to air.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft, Creative Command and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Bonus episode! Jodie Comer and her "The Bikeriders" writer-director Jeff Nichols join Backstage's In the Envelope: The Actor's Podcast for a conversation recorded as part of ScreenCraft's 2024 Winter Writers Summit. The duo discusses the "rules" of screenwriting and acting (and when to break them), as well as the ideal creative partnership between actor and writer/director.

Justin Kuritzkes is the very talented writer behind Challengers, the Luca Guadagnino love triangle topping all sorts of end-of-year lists right now. The film is a tennis drama that declared game-set-and-match with critics and audiences alike on release in April, becoming a pop culture sensation in ways usually reserved for franchise films. Steeped in the messy wants and desires of three complicated characters, it's the sort of film that doesn't often dominate discourse. But that didn't stop Challengers becoming a phenomenon whose influence altered fashion, music, memes and more in 2024.Which for most writers would be enough achievement for one year thank you very much. But Justin's 2024 didn't end there. Queer – also directed by Guadagnino – is a William Burroughs adaptation that hit cinemas this month. The film stars Daniel Craig as William Lee – an American expatriate living in 1950s Mexico City who becomes obsessed with a younger man and goes on a quest into the jungle in search of unlocking drug-induced telepathic communication. Both films bear the hallmarks of a storyteller insistent upon bringing deeply nuanced explorations of flawed people searching for connection into multiplexes. In the double-bill episode you're about to hear, breaking down in spoiler-filled detail both acclaimed films, we discuss the overlaps between Challengers' carnal chaos and Charli XCX's Brat Summer, and what both say about this moment in the culture. We get into the tragic real-life death of Burroughs' partner, killed by the famed author in an supposed accidental shooting, that lends uncomfortable context to the story of Queer (and that Justin threaded into the movie). And you'll also hear his thoughts on whether both of these films could be a bellwether moment for movies. In a year that saw franchise after franchise struggle for critical applause and box office might, does the success of a movie like Challengers suggest that an appetite might be growing again for original stories? Now there's an exciting thought to carry into 2025.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Today, we're heading in our proverbial Popemobile to Rome, with the BAFTA Award-winning writer of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Men Who Stare At Goats and more. Peter Straughan's latest film, Conclave, directed by Edward Berger, is essentially Succession at the Vatican – a masterful, muted thriller about the election of a new head of the Roman Catholic Church. It tells the story of Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, who's been tasked by the late Pope with overseeing the selection of his replacement. Surrounded by powerful religious leaders in the halls of the Vatican, he soon uncovers a trail of deep secrets that could shake the very foundation of the Roman Catholic Church. There are more twists and turns in this film than the ruthless Cardinal Tedesco could shake a vape pen at – and in the spoiler conversation, we get to the bottom of each and every one of them, including the shocking revelation at Conclave's conclusion – an ending that Peter says is both radical and at its core, deeply Christian.Get ready to discover how the writer's own background as a lapsed Catholic helped guide his writing process. Discover whether or not Donald Trump and Joe Biden served as inspirations for certain members of this warring clergy. And find out what's really happening as bombs explode outside the Vatican's walls – a plot thread that we as an audience, sequestered with these cardinals, never quite see the full truth of. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Richard Linklater is a hit man, but not in the assassin sense of the word. No, the hits he trades in are of the movie variety – stylish cult classics that vary in genre and form, but always manage to ignite something powerful in viewers. It's been that way for three and a half decades now: among his hits, dating back to 1990, are Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight, Boyhood, School of Rock, A Scanner Darkly, Slacker, Waking Life, Everybody Wants Some, Fast Food Nation… the list goes on. No wonder the Texan is one of the most respected names in modern American cinema – a force both prolific and patient, as his multiple movies shot across numerous decades prove. 2014 coming-of-age drama Boyhood was filmed across twelve years, with Merrily We Roll Along – a Paul Mescal-starring Sondheim adaptation, to be shot across twenty years – among his current projects.Earlier this year, he released Hit Man – a romantic comedy of sorts, with a hint of thriller thrown in for good measure, about a bashful college professor with a unique side hustle. Gary, played by the film's co-writer Glen Powell, has a recurring gig with the New Orleans police force, pretending to be an contract killer. He wears a wire to meet with people seeking to order a hit on their spouses, their work colleagues, their parents and so on. It's a gig that's going smoothly for Gary, until he meets Madison, played by Adria Arjona – a woman trying to escape an abusive husband, who Gary begins to fall for. What follows is Linklater in full-blown crowd-pleasing mode.In the conversation you're about to hear, we discuss what it was about this true-ish story, adapted from a newspaper article by journalist Skip Hollandsworth, that spoke to Richard. We talk about the baseball injury that put him on a path to filmmaking (and how it might have led to the unstoppable pace with which he makes movies). And we break down every detail of Hit Man, one of the movies of 2024, in spoiler-filled detail.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Matty Dalrymple talks with Rene Gutteridge about WHAT AUTHORS SHOULD NOT LEARN FROM MOVIES, including how crucial point of view and inner monologue are in novel writing compared to the visual storytelling required in movies; how writers can mistakenly adopt a “director's” approach, leading to overly descriptive and less engaging prose; and delve the science behind the different brain functions of hobbyist writers versus professional authors. We touch on how conciseness in movies contrasts with the depth needed in novels, using examples like Dennis Lehane's MYSTIC RIVER, and discuss practical strategies for maintaining engaging pacing in fiction without losing substance. Interview video at https://bit.ly/TIAPYTPlaylist Show notes at https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html   If you find the information in this video useful, please consider supporting The Indy Author! https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple Rene Gutteridge is the multi-genre author of 24 novels plus several non-fiction titles. Her indie film SKID won deadCenter's Best Oklahoma Feature in 2015, and her novel MY LIFE AS A DOORMAT was adapted into the Hallmark movie LOVE'S COMPLICATED. She is co-writer on the feature film FAMILY CAMP, a Movieguide award winner and a Dove Award nominee for 2023. She is also a Screencraft finalist in true crime. Rene is co-director of WriterCon in Oklahoma City, senior contributor at Writing Momentum, and the head writer at Skit Guys Studios. Matty Dalrymple is the author of the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers, beginning with ROCK PAPER SCISSORS; the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels, beginning with THE SENSE OF DEATH; and the Ann Kinnear Suspense Shorts. She is a member of International Thriller Writers and Sisters in Crime. Matty also writes, speaks, and consults on the writing craft and the publishing voyage, and shares what she's learned on THE INDY AUTHOR PODCAST. She has written books on the business of short fiction and podcasting for authors; her articles have appeared in "Writer's Digest" magazine. She serves as the Campaign

Season's greetings, Script Apart listeners. As you may have noticed, it's the last week before Christmas – the year's coming to an end, and so, we figured, let's end 2024 strong. So all this week, on this podcast about the first draft secrets of great movies and TV shows – interviews with the writers behind some of the best movies of the last twelve months that we didn't manage to cover upon release. And holy prince of House Atreides, what a way to begin today. Our guest today made one of the most pulse-racing crime thrillers of the century so far, in the form of 2015's Sicario. He's made one of the greatest movies about the power of language of all-time, in 2016's Arrival. And in 2017 and 2021, he took on the impossible twice – crafting first a sequel to one of the greatest blockbusters ever, in the shape of Blade Runner 2049, and then a movie adaptation of a novel previously thought unfilmable: Frank Herbert's Dune. Yes, the great Denis Villneueve is with us today, stopping by for a chat about how his gargantuan Dune: Part Two – starring Timothee Chalamet and Zendeya – helped define 2024. Not just in the way it dominated the box office, earning almost three quarters of a billion dollars (which by the way, is not bad for a hallucinatory epic full of spice-induced visual experimentation). No, it's reflective of the year just passed because notions of fascism, faith, false messiahs… these have all been uncomfortable parts of the backdrop of 2024.In the conversation you're about to hear, Al had thirty minutes to ask Denis his most probing questions about the script. Questions like: was there ever a moment in the making of Dune: Part Two when he contemplated keeping Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen – played by Austin Butler – alive to explore in further films? What does the ending of the film, which veers away from Frank Herbert's source material, mean for the future of the franchise? And if Dune: Part Two is a film that warns about colonialism and facism, does he believe that cinema has the power to actually dismantle those structures, or is just about expressing a kinda howl of resistance?Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft, FILMD and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Motherhood is a doggone nightmare in the new film from Marielle Heller. This week, the writer director of movies like The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Can You Ever Forgive Me? and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood returns to cinemas with one of the more surreal-sounding offerings of the year – Nightbitch, a drama in which Amy Adams plays a parent by day and a dog by night. If you weren't already familiar with the 2021 Rachel Yoder novel on which it's based, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this film is a frantic comedy, or possibly the mad fever dream of Charlie Kelly from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia – a character with his fair share of hound-based ideas for movies. But no, Nightbitch is something else – an affecting, magical realist tale of a woman pushed over a feral brink by the physical and societal demands placed on women, that needs to be seen to be believed.On today's episode, Marielle joins Al Horner to break down in spoiler-filled detail this remarkable film. We get into why the realities of birth – the body horror of it all – are so under-acknowledged in pop culture. We talk about why, after the gentleness of films like A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood, Marielle fled in the opposite direction, towards this anarchic scream of a story. And you'll also discover the truth behind some of the movie's more ambiguous, unresolved questions: such as, are the women that Adams character befriends also secretly dogs?Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Bonus episode! Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and her "Nickel Boys" writer-director RaMell Ross join Backstage's In the Envelope: The Actor's Podcast for a conversation recorded as part of ScreenCraft's 2024 Winter Writers Summit. The duo discusses the unorthodox creative process on "Nickel Boys" and their synergy as director and actor.

Never meet your heroes. At least, not these ones – the dysfunctional megalomaniacs that murder innocents and seed division in Prime Video's The Boys, a show as satirically sharp as it is gore-splattered and gross. Created by our guest today, Eric Kripke, the comic book adaptation debuted in 2019 and has since become one of the most captivatingly timely stories in our pop culture landscape, commenting not just on our current era of superhero saturation but on American society at large. Across four seasons, it's become a funhouse reflection of the way DC and Marvel movies are content machines with often jingoistic messages at their core. It's mirrored the nation's split into two furiously opposed political camps: Homelanders versus Starlighters in the case of the show; MAGA versus liberals in real-life. And along the way, it's done things never seen on TV before. Octopus beastiality. Super-powered sheep. A guy called "Herogasm" whose name kinda says it all. The list goes on.All of which begs the question: with The Boys' final season approaching and America currently reeling from another dramatic election, how will the tale of Billy Butcher, Hughie Campbell and co end? It's a question Eric, previously best known for creating the long-running series Supernatural, has been wrestling with himself. In the wide-ranging conversation you're about to hear, he's honest about the difficulty of “landing the plane” when it comes to beloved TV dramas. And as fans of The Boys know all too well, planes don't often land in this show, so much as they have a habit of exploding in the sky in a fury of laser vision. We talk about the psychology of superheroes – why they continue to appeal, what fantasy they offer audiences in a post-9/11 world. We talk about the story choices in season four, and how they came to be, such as Homelander's rise to near-presidential power. And you'll hear whether season five of this show that's dovetailed through the years with real-life events in American politics, will respond to the fact that Donald Trump has just entered the Oval Office again. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft, FILMD and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

The second in our series of ScreenCraft Summit throwback interviews, running on the Script Apart feed in anticipation of December's summit – it's Mike Schur! The lauded creator of The Good Place made his first appearance on Script Apart in 2022 and, a few weeks later, spoke with Al again in front of hundreds of emerging writers to break down his wider writing process on shows like The Office, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Saturday Night Live and Parks & Recreation. This was a wonderful conversation to be a part of – Mike is as hilarious in person as you'd expect of such a magnificent comic resume, and his insights are remarkable. Strap in for some brilliant observations on the elasticity of time in great sitcoms, the importance of punching up rather than down when writing jokes and what it is that keeps him turning up in front of a blank page time and time again – his relationship with the craft of writing itself. Enjoy, and don't forget to sign up for this December's ScreenCraft Summit by visiting ScreenCraft.org today.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

We've got a treat for our lovers of storytelling! Hersh sits down with Douglas A. Burton, a novelist and storyteller whose various works emphasize heroic women in fiction. Doug's debut historical novel, "Far Away Bird," brought Byzantine Empress Theodora to life through an intimate biographical account. The novel collected numerous awards including gold medals for the IBPA's Best New Voice in Fiction, Readers' Favorite Historical Personage, and eLit's Best Historical Fiction eBook. Far Away Bird was also a finalist for the Montaigne Medal (Eric Hoffer Book Award) and Screencraft's Cinematic Book competition. His articles and work on Theodora have appeared in Ms. Magazine and have been cited on Wikipedia. More recently, Doug's short story ‘The Vaccine' won the 2024 NextGen Short Story Awards for the Scary Story/Paranormal category.

Sofia Coppola. Is anymore introduction really necessary? As writer-directors go, her influence (and place in one of American cinema's greatest dynasties) can't be overstated. The filmmaker is one of the best-known and most-loved working today, renowned for the lilting feel and femininity of films like Lost In Translation, The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, On The Rocks and most recently, Priscilla.In 2022, Al spoke to Sofia about her writing process, for the ScreenCraft Summit – a weekend of interviews with great storytellers, designed to inspire emerging writers. With the latest Summit just weeks away, featuring a host of amazing guests, we thought it'd be a great time to post Al and Sofia's conversation from that event – a freewheeling chat about hotels, the intimacy with which we get to know her characters, her love of using photo books as mood boards for her movies – and why she still experiences self-doubt, even today.Sign up for this December's ScreenCraft Summit by clicking here.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Mark Sanderson is a screenwriter, author, script consultant, and lecturer. His career spans sketch comedy, writing for MTV, and over two dozen screenwriting assignments, including 17 produced films with worldwide distribution. Mark's films have premiered on networks like Lifetime, SyFy, Fox, and HBO Canada, and stream on platforms like Tubi, Amazon, and Apple+. With a long history of working with award-winning filmmakers, producers, and actors, Mark has built a distinguished career. Named one of Screencraft's "25 People Screenwriters Should Follow on Twitter," he shares insights through Film Courage, YouTube, and his book, A SCREENWRITER'S JOURNEY TO SUCCESS, which has earned 56 five-star reviews on Amazon. In this interview, we talk about initial expectations vs. reality post-film school, writing partnerships and solo ventures, his book A SCREENWRITER'S JOURNEY TO SUCCESS, and much more. Want more? Steal my first book, INK BY THE BARREL - SECRETS FROM PROLIFIC WRITERS right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we're giving away 100,000 copies this year. It's based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles. Enjoy! If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60 seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom of your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

Here's a question: is the “spirit of the Blitz” that's become one of the pillars of British self-identity actually a myth? The idea of ordinary people coming together in a moment of collective resilience during WWII is invoked regularly in UK politics and beyond. There might be more to that story than meets the eye, though, according to Blitz – the astonishing new historical drama from revered British artist Steve McQueen. The film forefronts the experiences of people of colour and other marginalised communities during the notorious London bombings – people who were excluded from that togetherness, often with violent force. Instead of the “stiff upper lip” that Britain has since proudly woven into its self image, Blitz teases a more feral reality, full of community, yes, but also opportunistic criminals robbing the dead and sex on the tube tracks of Stepney Green underground station. In this spoiler conversation, Steve breaks down what's fact and what's fiction when it comes to this mythologised part of British history – and how he turned it into a cinematic experience unlike any other in modern memory. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

ScreenCraft Works' co-founders Elizabeth McIntyre and Rebecca del Tufo provide an insight into the not-for-profit organisation, which supports the international career development of under-represented production and post-production people working in film and TV.

On today's episode – a crime thriller? A musical? A coming-out drama? Emilia Pérez, the new film from famed French auteur Jacques Audiard, is all of the above and somehow none of these things at all. It really is hard to understate the disorientating excess and madness of this somewhat opinion-splitting new Netflix awards contender, which is tipped for Oscar glory after picking up the jury prize at Cannes earlier this year. Jacques is, of course, the writer-director of works like A Prophet, Rust and Bone, See How They Fall, The Beat That My Heart Skipped and The Sisters Brothers, a masterful western from 2018. But Emilia Pérez is like none of those films. It's a film that sees Jacques – who, at seventy-two years young, could be making victory-lap movies at this stage in his career – swinging for the fences. The movie follows Rita, a criminal defence lawyer played by Zoe Saldaña, who is kidnapped and brought before someone terrifying – Manitas Del Monte, one of Mexico's most feared cartel bosses, played by Karla Sofía Gascón. Manitas has something to ask of Rita. This crime lord – responsible for such brutal bloodshed, in a country blighted by thousands of cartel-related missing persons – wishes to fake their death and transition gender. And to do so, they need Rita's help. Reborn as Emilia Perez, this character embarks on a new life that she finds, over the course of the movie, had to untangle from what came before.Al caught up with Jacques a few days after the film's release on Netflix to break down the script, with a little help from his translator, Nicholas Elliott. Get ready to learn about the version of Emilia Pérez in which the character of Rita was a man, and in which a romance blossomed between the lawyer and the eponymous former crime lord. You'll hear about why Jacques is so drawn to characters attempting to reinvent themselves in his work, and there's also a breakdown of the story's dramatic climax – an ending that asks complicated questions of the audience, questions with no easy answers. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

On Election Day in America, with the nation at the polls, Al spoke with a man uniquely placed to comment on the fractures underpinning the battle for the nation. Chuck Palahniuk, you see, is the author of 21 novels, but probably best known for his first - 1996's Fight Club, later adapted by David Fincher into one of the defining films of its era. Since then, the story has had this unexpected cultural half life, going on to become an unlikely part of the rhetoric of modern politics. The term "snowflake," popular with young men within the right-wing MAGA movement, is derived from Chuck's novel. But the connections don't end there between Chuck's work and an America ablaze with male rage, as cultural commentators frequently put it. Across his career since that culture-shifting story, the author's work has continued to contemplate the "real" America – not what the country wants to be, but the sometimes uncomfortable reality of what it could become. In books like his 2018 novel Adjustment Day – about a version of America splintered off into different enclaves sorted by political ideology – hints lie at perhaps how we got here. His latest novel, Shock Induction, released earlier this year, feels just as loaded with insights about our time.On this today's show – a conversation to mark the 20th anniversary of Fincher's Fight Club, with the man from whose imagination Tyler Durden first sprung. Chuck didn't write the movie adaptation of Fight Club – that honour fell to screenwriter Jim Uhls. Instead, Chuck was able to witness from afar the oddity of this story he'd written – about a white-collared insomniac who forms an underground bare knuckle fighting ring with an enigmatic soap salesman – becoming itself commodified and turned into merchandise, despite its warnings against consumerism. He got to witness the film intersect in a strange way with 9/11 and an immediate shift in the culture afterwards, away from subversion. And he was left with the question, what will Chuck Palahniuk do next? The answer was a bibliography full of more grime, dirt, depravity and yes, mayhem.This show is typically an interview series reserved for screenwriters, but when Al was reading Chuck's brilliant latest novel, Shock Induction, released earlier this year, he was overrun with questions for the Portland-based author. Questions like: what is it that's so necessary about the grotesquery of his stories, in an increasingly sanitised culture of storytelling? Where exactly did the anti-corporatism of his work come from? How did he devise that twist in Fight Club that continues to reverberate to this day? And of course, what's the latest on rumours of a Fight Club rock opera that he was once said to be devising with Fincher? Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft, FILMD and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

This week we are joined by Katie Novotny! Katie Novotny is a standup comedian who has been an official artist at Limestone Comedy Festival, Vail Comedy Festival, Amsterdam's Boom Chicago Comedy Festival, HBO's Women in Comedy Festival, and many more. She's currently a co-host of Good Follow, a women's sports show on the DraftKings network where she gets to bring her love of sports and comedy to one place. She trained at Second City and iO in improv and sketch comedy, produced two award-winning web series (Guilty and Wellness Check), and her pilot scripts have landed her as a semi-finalist in Slamdance and Screencraft. She's performed at Hollywood Fringe Festival and is commercially repped by BBR. She dreams of using her arthritic knees to become an influencer for Bengay.In this conversation, Katie shares her journey through freelancing and comedy, physical injuries while performing comedy, her first paid feature, and the dynamics of adjusting her comedy set for different audiences. The conversation also touches on themes of anxiety regarding the future and reflections on relationships, both personal and professional, as well as growing up in Naperville, Chicago. In this engaging conversation, the speakers explore the nuances of creativity in comedy, the journey of finding acceptance within the comedy community, and the personal experience of dining alone. The discussion highlights the importance of self-acceptance and the joy of enjoying one's own company while navigating the complexities of life and comedy.Recommendations From This Episode: Waiting For GuffmanLittle GiantsFollow Katie: @kathnovotnyFollow Carly: @carlyjmontagFollow Emily: @thefunnywalshFollow the podcast: @aloneatlunchpodPlease rate and review the podcast! Spread the word! Tell your friends! Email us: aloneatlunch@gmail.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1978, a Texan-born man went on national TV, competing in and ultimately winning an episode of the popular American game show The Dating Game. This man was, according to host Jim Lange, a "successful photographer" who you might find "skydiving or motorcycling." Left out of that description – unknown to Lange, the show's producers and millions watching at home – was a terrifying secret: that Rodney Alcala was a rapist and murderer, who would eventually be sentenced to life in prison. He died in 2021, leaving behind a terrible legacy of unthinkable violence – conclusively linked to eight murders, with the true number of his victims thought to be closer to 130.This week on Script Apart, Al is joined by Ian McDonald – the screenwriter behind Woman Of The Hour, an Anna Kendrick-directed thriller telling the tale of Alcala's Dating Game appearance. Other storytellers might have approached this real-life story determined to answer one question: what possessed a man meant to be lying low, evading the law, to parade himself in front of the nation, for all to see? Ian, though, had a different question that he wanted to get to the bottom of. Never mind the motivations of this cowardly abuser. How was his killing spree enabled by a broader culture of misogyny, prevalent in the media? To answer that question, the film centres not on Alcala, but on Cheryl Bradshaw, a real-life contestant on that episode of The Dating Game, played by Kendrick. In the spoiler conversation you're about to hear, you'll discover why that is, what the meaning of the film's evocative title is, and what it is about society that seems to reward misogynists – then and now, more than ever.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Today on Script Apart – religion, Radiohead and ratcheting terror, in the basement of a man who has spent way too long on the "Monopoly" Wikipedia. Four years after their first appearance on Script Apart, breaking down their franchise-launching script for A Quiet Place, writer-director duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods are with us once again, to unpick their theology-themed new horror movie, Heretic.The film tells the tale of two Mormon missionaries, Sister Paxton and Sister Barnes, played by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, who find themselves trapped in the home of a man supposedly curious about joining their church. Quickly, they realise that this eccentric Englishman's true curiosities lie in death, resurrection and the etymology of religion itself. If pulse-quickening tension is your religion when it comes to horror, your prayers have been answered – Heretic is masterful in the way it mounts its shocks en route to a terrifying conclusion.In this spoiler conversation, Bryan and Scott had plenty to say about their personal journeys with religion – the good that it contributes to the world, as well as the worrying ways that it's often leveraged by malicious opportunists in our political spheres, as a means of grabbing power. You'll hear about the evolution of Mr. Read, Hugh Grant's absurdly unsettling antagonist – and there's also mention of a “spiritual sequel” to Heretic that they're working on right now. Apologies to Taco Bell. We don't talk about Taco Bell. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Five years ago, I launched a new venture: The Jake's Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast. The podcast welcomed guests from across the entertainment and lifestyle industries.  The guests have ranged from Emmy-winning journalists such as Anne Trujillo, Elex Michaelson, and Michael Mackie and best-selling authors Barbara Jo Jenkins and fit2fat2fit's Drew Manning to reality TV legends such as Beth Stolarczyk, Derrick Kosinski, Ethan Zohn, Jon Brennan, Rachel Reilly, Rob Cesternino. and Syrus Yarbrough and social media influencers including Ana Saia, Brandon Farris, Deni Sunderly, Drew the Disney Dude, Hyphonix, Jay Starrett, Jennifer West, Joss Mooney, and Sloan Hooks. I am incredibly grateful to all the publicists and talent management teams who trusted me with their clients.   I am also profoundly thankful for the friendships that I built along the way with my podcasting colleagues. They include AGT Time Pod's Cody, Stephen, and Ryan, Brent Wolgamott (who was the very first guest), Blake Thomas Morgan, Challenge Mania's Scott and Derrick, Drew Angelman, Dylan Deckard, Jacob of Challenge Historian, Josh Skinner, Matt Cohen, Mike Lewis, Paige of Most Likely & TikTok, Tony Berardo, and Wes of Thinking Critical, I am looking forward to continuing to build our friendships.  I want to thank my dear friends and family who supported my podcasting journey, especially my mom Gloria, dad Matthew, brother Aaron, sister-in-law Whitney, nephew Nash, niece Emory, and doggy nephew Maxwell.   Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank you—the listeners from over 80 countries—for taking time out of your schedule to watch and listen to my content! I am grateful for your continuous support.   I am thrilled to welcome my long-time friend—Australia-based creative, entrepreneur, musician, and storyteller James Sismanes—as the guest for the Jake's Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast's fifth anniversary episode. James, who previously went by the SIMMY moniker, was among the first guests I welcomed onto my platform.  James Sismanes is an award-winning audio and visual storyteller from Melbourne, Australia. A small business owner by day (ImagiWorks Agency, Vision One Technologies) and a full-time creative by night, James is a multi-dimensional make-believer and dreamer of the (almost!) impossible.With over 500+ sales on the acclaimed AudioJungle marketplace, a debut children's book (The Marvellous Mullabaloos Only Wear Blue), and a diverse and unique business/branding portfolio, James is always on the hunt for the next “big idea.”   James' screenplays (“Dr. Claus,” “The Ballad of Bam Barlow,” “Bliss Inc.,” and “Tilt”) have consistently ranked on Coverfly‘s “The Red List,” and he has placed as a finalist or semi-finalist in various screenwriting competitions (including the Emerging Screenwriters, Screencraft, So Cal Screenplay, and New York International Screenplay Awards).Behind a MIDI controller, James has collaborated on records with award-winning and globally recognized artists like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Josh Levi, B2K, Pretty Ricky (Emanuel Deanda), Gabe Lustman, Minus Gravity, K Major, and Giulietta.  When he's not writing, producing, designing, sales pitching, and daydreaming like a world-saving superhero, James Sismanes enjoys eating cheeseburgers and chicken parmigiana, conquering Xbox tournaments, watching Friends re-runs, catching Pokémon, and dealing with the heartache of being a Barça and Cleveland sports fan.  On this milestone episode of The Jake's Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast, James Sismanes spoke about his debut children's book, The Marvellous Mullabaloos Only Wear Blue, award-winning screenplays, and his latest collaboration with Emnauel Deanda's “Body.”Let's connect on social media! Visit my channels on:A) Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JacobElyachar/B) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jacobelyachar/C) Threads: https://www.threads.net/@jacobelyacharD) TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@therealjacobelyacE) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JacobElyacharBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jake-s-take-with-jacob-elyachar--4112003/support.

Love hurts in the dizzyingly unpredictable Strange Darling – a thriller that upends expectations at every turn, courtesy of our guest this week, Las Vegan-born writer-director JT Mollner. JT grew up surrounded by immersive storytelling – his father ran a haunted house in Vegas that he helped conceptualise every Halloween as a child. That adolescence came in handy when crafting this tale of a serial killer on the final days of a bloody rampage through rural America: Strange Darling, though not a horror, feels decidedly like a sprint through a madhouse in all its gruesome shocks and Tarantino-esque play with chronology. On this spoiler-filled episode of Script Apart, the filmmaker breaks down the film and its corkscrewing structure. We get into how the film uses chronology as a storytelling weapon, what JT is willing (and unwilling) to reveal about the visions inspiring the killer's rampage, and the idea of the movie as a romantic drama – one that just so happens to be full of murder.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

This week on the show – Azazel Jacobs is here! Azazel is writer-director of the new Netflix drama His Three Daughters, one of the most deeply moving films of the year so far, and a stunning addition to a filmography already brimming with intriguing tonal blurs and beautiful realised characters. You might know Azazel for acclaimed works like The GoodTimesKid, Momma's Man, Terri, The Lovers and French Exit. This film, though, cuts closer to the bone for the filmmaker (and audiences) than ever before, telling the tale of a tense, tender family reunion – one taking place within a heavy cloud of preemptive grief. Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne play estranged siblings Christina, Katie and Rachel in the film, summoned to their childhood home as their father enters his final days. In the quiet wait, ghosts from their childhoods reemerge and threaten to pull them further apart. In the emotional spoiler conversation you're about to hear, Azazel and Al break down why it is the painful wait for a loved one to pass away is rarely acknowledged in media – and delve into who these characters were for the filmmaker, who describes emerging from the making of this film a changed man.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Great Scott, it's been 35 years since the second instalment in one of the most beloved trilogies of all time – Back To The Future Part II, directed by the great Robert Zemeckis and co-written by our guest today, Bob Gale! Bob first guested on Script Apart in 2021, breaking down his first draft of 1985's iconic debut outing for Marty McFly and eccentric scientist Doc Brown. You may remember that episode detailing how Bob's original vision for that film was quite wildly different – Doc Brown had a pet chimp and the movie featured a huge nuclear explosion. Part II similarly went through multiple iterations, with the film initially expected to include a third act set in the 1960s. Instead, Bob landed on a story full of darkness that broke from the optimism of the first film to depict a dark future – one that in many ways, we've actually come to inherit. In the conversation you're about to hear, you'll discover what drew Bob to that darkness, the secret to Back To The Future's longevity and which of Part II's predictions he's surprised have come to pass in real life. Thanks to Bob for being a brilliant guest once again. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

For a film built around a song titled Remember Me, Pixar's Coco sure has proven absolutely unforgettable in the seven years since its release. Directed by past Script Apart guest Lee Unkrich, the animation told the story of Miguel – a young boy voiced by Anthony Gonzalez who is accidentally transported to the Land of the Dead, where he seeks the help of his deceased musician great-great-grandfather to return him to his family and reverse their ban on music. It's quite simply one of the richest and boldest family movies of all time, confronting ideas around death, legacy and remembrance in a way that moved the needle culturally in this way that only Pixar can. Much like how Inside Out gave parents a framework for talking to their kids about emotions, Coco is renowned today as a text that helps facilitate conversations with children about what it means when someone passes away. In the conversation you're about to hear, co-writer Matthew Aldrich drops by to break down the film in detail. We discuss the musical version of the film that was in development before he joined the project. We get into how the film's villain, Ernesto Del La Cruz, represents the folly of chasing the wrong sort of remembrance: a remembrance of celebrity and fame, rather than family. And you'll hear about what makes Remember Me such a beautiful part of Coco – the genesis of that astounding piece of music, that lands like a gut punch when we hear it for the final time in act three.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley are the co-writers (and in Greg's case, director) of Sing Sing – a prison drama that tips on its head the entire prison drama genre. This is a film that forefronts humanity and tenderness instead of the violent and savagery that often powers movies set in jail. There are prison dramas we all adore but how many times have we seen a vision of prison that depicts those places as violent pits where society's most dangerous animals stew in their savagery?In Sing Sing – about a group of convicts who stage a play at the Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison near New York – our characters, many of whom are played by real-life graduates of the Rehabilitation Through The Arts programme seen in the movie, are depicted with a rare sensitivity. Whatever their pasts, as this group of would-be thespians build towards the staging of a comedy titled Breakin' The Mummy's Code they're human to viewers in a way cinema rarely affords. It's besides the point to say that the film is already being tipped for Oscar glory – this film and the performances of Colman Domingo and newcomer Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin in particular, is a phenomenal achievement in itself without awards validation. Don't miss this in-depth conversation about how it came together on the page.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the Show.

Matty Dalrymple talks with Rene Gutteridge about NAVIGATING THE WORLDS OF FICTION AND FILM, including the nuances and intricacies involved in transitioning from writing novels to screenplays, the technical constraints in screenwriting, the necessity of collaboration in film, and the importance of adhering to a rigid structure. Rene also covers how understanding screenplay techniques can benefit novelists, particularly in terms of pacing and scene structure. She offers insights for novelists considering a venture into screenwriting, emphasizing the innate differences in storytelling approaches.   Interview video at https://www.youtube.com/c/TheIndyAuthorPodcast    Show notes at https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html    If you find the information in this video useful, please consider supporting The Indy Author! https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple   Rene Gutteridge has been writing professionally for over twenty years in fiction, non-fiction, comedy sketches, novelizations, and screenwriting. She is the multi-genre author of 24 novels plus several non-fiction titles. Her indie film SKID won deadCenter's Best Oklahoma Feature in 2015, and her novel My Life as a Doormat was adapted into the Hallmark movie “Love's Complicated.” She is co-writer on the feature film Family Camp, a Movieguide award winner and a Dove Award nominee for 2023. She is also a Screencraft finalist in true crime. Rene is co-director of WriterCon in Oklahoma City, senior contributor at Writing Momentum and is the head writer at Skit Guys Studios.   Matty Dalrymple is the author of the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers, beginning with ROCK PAPER SCISSORS; the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels, beginning with THE SENSE OF DEATH; and the Ann Kinnear Suspense Shorts. She is a member of International Thriller Writers and Sisters in Crime. Matty also writes, speaks, and consults on the writing craft and the publishing voyage, and shares what she's learned on THE INDY AUTHOR PODCAST. She has written books on the business of short fiction and podcasting for authors; her articles have appeared in "Writer's Digest" magazine. She serves as the Campaigns Manager for the Alliance of Independent Authors.  

"His stories were good because he imagined them intensely, so intensely that he came to believe them." So wrote Patricia Highsmith in her seminal literary thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley in 1955. You might also characterise the work of our guest today, the talented Mr. Steven Zaillian, this way. The worlds and characters of his films and TV shows are imagined in such rich detail and complexity that you can absolutely imagine him believing them to be real as he crafts them on the page. In fact, that level of detail and depth has been his calling card for over thirty decades in Hollywood now. From 1990's Awakenings and 1993's Schindler's List, which won Steven an Oscar, all the way to films like Gangs of New York, American Gangster, Moneyball, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Irishman, there's a thrillingly convincing quality about whatever story he's telling – oftentimes, his characters are people you can imagine pulling up a barstool next to you and telling you a tale you'll never forget.This month, he's up for an Emmy for his work with Ripley – a Netflix adaptation of Highsmith's novel, that Steven acted as showrunner for, writing and directing every episode. The series is a hypnotising ten hours in the company of a conman, Tom Ripley, who's hired by a wealthy businessman to convince his son to return home from a life of leisure abroad on the Italian coast. But the more Tom – played here by Andrew Scott – ensconces himself in the lives of Dickie Greenleaf, played by Johnny Flynn, and Dakota Fanning as his partner, Marge Sherwood, the more his lies and his lust for what Dickie has mutates into something murderous. In the spoiler conversation you're about to hear, Steven tells us about the relevance of fraudster stories in a time of Trump and other public deceivers. We get into the writing tricks and tips that make you root for the morally thorny characters he often writes. And the rationale behind every change from both the novel and the Matt Damon-starring 1999 adaptation of Ripley is uncovered too, as we delve into the slightly different ending to this version of the tale and the meaning of Italian artist Caravaggio's presence throughout this story.  Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the Show.

Unless you've spent the last year locked in a radiation-proof vault deep below the surface of the Earth, you'll have no doubt heard about Fallout – a TV video game adaptation unlike any other. Created by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and our guest today, former Portlandia writer Graham Wagner, the show brought to life the blue suits, barbarism and bizarre humour of one of the biggest game franchises of the century so far, transporting viewers to a nuclear-scored Wasteland hundreds of years in the future. The surprises of this Prime Video series, produced by Westworld creators Jonathan “Jonah” Nolan and Lisa Joy, just kept coming across the eight episodes comprising its first season, with each revelation a powerful observation about the greedy workings of corporations to whom nothing's more important than their profits – not even human survival.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the Show.

Today on Script Apart – a film about a man trapped in an air-conditioned purgatory, full of fast food joints, luggage carousels and people in transit, while he himself remains frustratingly locked in place. 2004's The Terminal is the Steven Spielberg-directed tale of Viktor, played by Tom Hanks: a kind-hearted soul marooned at an American airport owing to a unique diplomatic situation that broke out his fictional home country, Krahkozia, while he was flying to the US. The film was written by our guest today, Sacha Gervasi, who you might also know from movies like the music documentary Anvil and the Peter Dinklage-starring My Dinner With Herve, as well as the 2012 Alfred Hitchcock biopic with Anthony Hopkins. In the conversation you're about to hear, Sacha and I get into what The Terminal taps into that gave it such universal appeal on release, twenty years later and also notably during the pandemic, when people were confined to their own purgatories in lockdown. You'll discover the darker tone of the original draft of the movie, written for Sam Mendes to direct before a reshuffle behind the scenes. And you'll discover what the film sought to express about the arbitrary nature of borders, as well as the truth behind the real-life inspiration for the film: Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who lived in Charles De Gaulle airport for eighteen difficult years.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the Show.

This week on Script Apart – a sit-down on a proverbial park bench to pick through the box of chocolates that is Forrest Gump, with the legendary screenwriter behind the classic drama, Eric Roth! Marking the film's 30th anniversary, Roth regales us with secrets from the Gump's creation, breaking down why he elected not to make Forrest a NASA astronaut (unlike in the book on which it's based) and what makes the character so enduringly endearing.You'll also discover how the relationship between Forrest and Jenny was informed by Eric's own love for his wife, what the feather at the beginning of the film represents, and what happened to the ill-fated sequel that Roth wrote – only to abandon in the days after 9/11.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the Show.

Two sisters on opposite sides of the Force; one terrible trauma that sent them on those divergent paths... Set one hundred years before the Skywalker Saga that would define a galaxy, The Acolyte – Disney's newest Star Wars TV show – explores uncharted territory for the franchise in more ways than one. Not only have fans  never seen this era in Star Wars lore explored on-screen before; it's also a departure in just explicitly it explores the idea that the Jedi as an institution might be corruptible and flawed. For 47 years, since George Lucas' game-changing A New Hope, the Jedi have been held up as a noble band of guardians. This new series, from Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland, asks the question: what if there's more to that nobility than we've come to understand?In a spoiler-filled interview, recorded days after the show's finale, Leslye breaks down its major surprises, key scenes and crucial characters – explaining how Fight Club, Frozen and Kill Bill played a significant part in its conception...Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Final Draft and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the Show.