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Play Episode Listen Later Mar 6, 2024 64:33

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

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Play Episode Listen Later Feb 16, 2024 1:18 Transcription Available

Today we'll talk about how a Gorilla draws Batman and it's the end of Tacoma FD. Get it in today's #MikeJonesMinuteCon.

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Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Firefighters Only

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Play Episode Listen Later Feb 13, 2024 57:06

Welcome to Talkoma FD a weekly behind the scenes show for season 4 of Tacoma FD with your hosts Kevin Heffernan & Steve Lemme. This is the season premier. New episodes every Monday & Thursday on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. #tacomafd #kevinheffernan #stevelemme #talkomafd ============================================ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS BLUE CHEW Promo Code: TALKOMA FREE SAMPLE ($5 Shipping) http://bluechew.com BABBEL 55% Off Your Order http://babbel.com/talkoma

Ep 119 - A Paper Orchestra

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Play Episode Listen Later Feb 8, 2024 74:14

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

Kevin Heffernan & Steve Lemme: Tacoma FD

Bourbon Showdown Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 7, 2024 33:58

This week we welcome Kevin Heffernan and Steve Lemme from Tacoma FD to the show! You may know them best as Farva and Mac from ‘Super Troopers' or Landfill and Fink from ‘Beerfest', they stop by to talk whiskey, comedy and Tacoma FD! Tacoma FD is a hilarious show that follows the hijinks of Kevin and Steve as Firefighters in Tacoma WA and just had all 4 seasons added to Netflix so you can go on and binge every episode now! It was a great conversation! We talk Tacoma FD, we talk Super Troopers, Super Troopers 3, Pappy Van Winkle, WhistlePig, we cover the gambit and it makes for a damn good conversation! So check out Kevin Heffernan and Steve Lemme on this weeks episode of The Bourbon Showdown Podcast!

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 9 - Gone Dutch

dutch shipping tacoma fd kevin heffernan steve lemme

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 5, 2024 69:57

Welcome to Talkoma FD a weekly behind the scenes show for season 4 of Tacoma FD with your hosts Kevin Heffernan & Steve Lemme. This is the season premier. New episodes every Monday & Thursday on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. #tacomafd #kevinheffernan #stevelemme #talkomafd #timmurphy ============================================ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS BLUE CHEW Promo Code: TALKOMA FREE SAMPLE ($5 Shipping) http://bluechew.com BETTER HELP Special Offer: 10% OFF https://betterhelp.com/talkoma

Ep. 157 - Mini Bubble: I'm Back for 2024!

My Streaming Bubble

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 4, 2024 35:52

I'm back, Bubblies! And starting this podcast's 2024 with a quick little mini bubble where I share what's been streaming since you last heard from me. I managed to get in a few new things like John Wick, Invincible season 2, and Tacoma FD season 4, and even a few rewatches which leads to a mom brag, (sorry, I couldn't help myself), and then a bit of what's to come for this year and that's it, I promise! Thanks for listening and Keep Streaming!

bubbles john wick invincible tacoma fd

Ep 118 - October 28th Webinar Q&A

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 31, 2024 69:07

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

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 8 - Chicken Fight

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 29, 2024 56:51

Welcome to Talkoma FD a weekly behind the scenes show for season 4 of Tacoma FD with your hosts Kevin Heffernan & Steve Lemme. This is the season premier. New episodes every Monday & Thursday on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. #tacomafd #kevinheffernan #stevelemme #talkomafd #timmurphy ============================================ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS BLUE CHEW Promo Code: TALKOMA FREE SAMPLE ($5 Shipping) http://bluechew.com BABBEL 55% Off Your Order http://babbel.com/talkoma BETTER HELP Special Offer: 10% OFF https://betterhelp.com/talkoma

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Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 7 - Big Trouble in Little Belgium

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 22, 2024 65:33

Welcome to Talkoma FD a weekly behind the scenes show for season 4 of Tacoma FD with your hosts Kevin Heffernan & Steve Lemme. This is the season premier. New episodes every Monday & Thursday on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. #tacomafd #kevinheffernan #stevelemme #talkomafd ============================================ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS BLUE CHEW Promo Code: TALKOMA FREE SAMPLE ($5 Shipping) http://bluechew.com DISPLATE Get UP TO 33% OFF Your Order PROMO CODE: TALKOMA http://displate.com/talkomafd BABBEL 55% Off Your Order http://babbel.com/talkoma

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 6 - Valentine's Day

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 22, 2024 63:37

Welcome to Talkoma FD a weekly behind the scenes show for season 4 of Tacoma FD with your hosts Kevin Heffernan & Steve Lemme. This is the season premier. New episodes every Monday & Thursday on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. #tacomafd #kevinheffernan #stevelemme #talkomafd #season4 ============================================ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS BLUE CHEW Promo Code: TALKOMA FREE SAMPLE ($5 Shipping) http://bluechew.com BABBEL 55% Off Your Order http://babbel.com/talkoma

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 7 - Big Trouble in Little Belgium

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 22, 2024 65:33

Welcome to Talkoma FD a weekly behind the scenes show for season 4 of Tacoma FD with your hosts Kevin Heffernan & Steve Lemme. This is the season premier. New episodes every Monday & Thursday on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. #tacomafd #kevinheffernan #stevelemme #talkomafd ============================================ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS BLUE CHEW Promo Code: TALKOMA FREE SAMPLE ($5 Shipping) http://bluechew.com DISPLATE Get UP TO 33% OFF Your Order PROMO CODE: TALKOMA http://displate.com/talkomafd BABBEL 55% Off Your Order http://babbel.com/talkoma

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 6 - Valentine's Day

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 21, 2024 63:37

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 4 - Who gives a-shift?

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 20, 2024 68:18

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 3 - The Penisi Way

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 20, 2024 58:43

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 2 - The Probie Imbroglio

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 20, 2024 69:02

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 1 - Parrot World FD

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 20, 2024 68:36

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 5 - Death Photo

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 20, 2024 65:56

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 5 - Death Photo

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 15, 2024 60:56

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 4 - Who gives a-shift?

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 11, 2024 63:18

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 3 - The Penisi Way

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 8, 2024 53:43

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 2 - The Probie Imbroglio

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 4, 2024 64:02

Talkoma FD - Season 4 - Episode 1 - Parrot World FD

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 1, 2024 68:36

Kevin Heffernan and Steve Lemme - Parenting Mayhem and the Heritage of Humor

The Parent's Lounge

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 21, 2023 88:41 Transcription Available

This Week's Guests: Steve Lemme & Kevin HeffernanEver found yourself wondering why your teen's bedroom looks like a scene from a disaster movie, while you're out there, mowing the lawn alone? You're not alone in this parenting conundrum, and this episode brings a hefty dose of reality mixed with laughter. Join us as we navigate the intricate dance of household chores, the pressures of teen sports, and the pains and gains of raising kids with the comedic maestros Kevin Heffernan and Steve Lemme.Have you ever walked into a family gathering only to leave with an epic tale of mishap and mayhem? We've all been there, and today's episode is chock-full of those moments, plus a foray into the evolution of comedy that's shaped our cultural lingo. Alongside these stories, we dissect the concept of free time – or the lack thereof – in our jam-packed parental lives, and muse over the creative sparks that fly in the world of improvisational comedy and filmmaking.Capping off this rollercoaster of a conversation, we dive into the golden age of comedy films, reliving the quotes and scenes that unite us in laughter. As we chat with Kevin and Steve, we share tales from the trenches of parenting and the quirky world of Hollywood. From the accidental discovery of tomorrow's stars to the creative joys of low-stress film sets, we cover it all. So, pull up a chair, and let's kick back with stories and insights that'll have you laughing and nodding in agreement, all in the company of good friends and great humor.Grab yourself a drink, and join us!You can catch more of Steve Lemme on Instagram at:https://www.instagram.com/steve_lemme/You can catch more of Kevin Heffernan on Instagram at:https://www.instagram.com/heffernanrules/You can catch The Parent's Lounge live every Tuesday Night at 10pm EST/7pm PST at:https://www.facebook.com/theparentsloungeJamie Kaler's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jamiekaler/Jason Gowin's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jasongowin/Kate Mulligan's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/katestmomever/Justin Rupple's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/therupple/The Parent's Lounge TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theparentsloungeshowSupport the show

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Am I On The Air? #108 - The Freelance Plan

The Pop Culture Pros Podcast Network

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 18, 2023 55:35

Season 27 Episode 17 "The Freelance Plan" - On this Episode we breakdown all the news in TV and Movies from 12/13/23-12/19/23, We have Non-Spoiler Movie Reviews on "The Family Plan" and "Freelance" along with TV Notes on Reacher S2, The Bear, Legends, Tacoma FD so much more... #TheFamilyMan #Freelance #Reacher #TheBear #Legends #AIOTA #PopCulturePros --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/popculturepros/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/popculturepros/support

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Bonus - September Webinar Q & A

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2023 52:37

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

The Parent's Lounge Presents - The Dadlands: Mike Culbert & Mike Pelletieri

The Parent's Lounge

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 16, 2023 56:51 Transcription Available

Flashback Episode of The Dadlands Podcast with Jamie KalerThis Week's Guests: Mike Culbert & Mike PelletieriEver wondered how the creative minds behind the modern version of Mr. Mom, Mike Culbert and Mike Pelletieri, navigated the process of updating this classic film? Tune in as we share an engaging discussion with these creators, where they reveal the thought process behind the remake, the struggles of parenting today, and the hilarious tales that led to the creation of this hit show. Listen to their fascinating stories about retaining iconic moments from the original film and adjusting them to resonate with today's viewers.Venture with us as we open a humorous discussion about superstitions and rituals related to sports, while also sharing our own parenting mishaps. Our guests Mike Culbert and Mike Pelletieri talk about the lengths they've gone to ensure their kids sleep - from midnight hunts for beloved stuffed animals to debates on 'zone versus man-to-man' parenting styles - it's all part of the fun. Listen in as we unravel the funny and relatable stories behind the struggles and triumphs of being a parent.As we move deeper into the conversation, we approach the more serious aspects of parenting. We delve into discussions about teaching kids about money and the challenges of having open conversations about sexuality. Hear firsthand from Mike Culbert and Mike Pelletieri about their experiences of parenting multiple kids, navigating technology, and the importance of setting up boundaries. Join us for this insightful and entertaining chat as we traverse the tricky terrains of parenting and share a laugh at the hilarity that often ensues.Grab yourself a drink, and join us!You can catch more of Mike Culbert at:https://www.instagram.com/_mculbert_/You can catch The Parent's Lounge live every Tuesday Night at 10pm EST/7pm PST at:https://www.facebook.com/theparentsloungeJamie Kaler's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jamiekaler/Jason Gowin's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jasongowin/Kate Mulligan's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/katestmomever/Justin Rupple's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/therupple/The Parent's Lounge TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theparentsloungeshowTags: The Parent's LoungeThe DadlandsJamie KalerJason Gowin

mom parent venture tuesday night parenting advice parenting podcasts tacoma fd culbert jamie kaler flashback episode kate mulligan justin rupple parenting humor mr. mom

104 - 2 Year Podcast Anniversary

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 25, 2023 59:04

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

103 - What The Hell Is A Producer?

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 18, 2023 52:42

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

101 - Should You Go To Film School?

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 4, 2023 46:35

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

100 - Writer/Actor/Executive Producer Steve Lemme