Scriptnotes Podcast

John welcomes Marc Velez, SVP, Head of Development at UCP, on for an in-person round of the Three Page Challenge. As always, we look at listener-submitted pages and offer honest feedback, at the Austin Film Festival. We’re joined live by each of the...

John and Craig investigate why some scenes are so much harder to write than others, with strategies for tackling (or surrendering) to the difficulty. We also follow up on virtual rooms, act breaks, and diversity workshops. Listener questions this week...

John welcomes writer/performer Matt Rogers (Fire Island, Las Culturistas) for a new installment of How Would This Be A Movie. From crypto crashes to lotto longshots, this week they look at money-themed stories in the news and why they’re worth...

John and Craig get crafty! They examine how sentence structure and word choice translate to camera direction, allowing writers to direct the reader’s eye. They offer advice on how to think about the visual and aural idea behind each noun and verb,...

John and Craig welcome Daniels, writing-directing duo Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man, Everything Everywhere All at Once) to discuss making big, ambitious movies. The filmmakers share their process of chasing challenging ideas and the...

John welcomes writer/producers Al Gough and Miles Millar (Smallville, Shanghai Noon, Into the Badlands) to discuss their process of discovering new stories within familiar worlds, like in their Addams Family hit series Wednesday. We discuss casting...

John and Craig welcome back writer/director Rian Johnson (Glass Onion, Knives Out, Star Wars: The Last Jedi) to discuss the difference between developing a mystery vs. designing a story. Rian shares how his writing process begins with structure and...

In this How Would This Be a Movie case study, John interviews screenwriter William Nicholson (Les Misérables, Gladiator) on the challenges he faced with his script for Thirteen Lives, a film that follows the attempted rescue of a Thai soccer team...

John and Craig (and Aline!) discuss the elements of quality writing in this collection of craft conversations. As we work on the Scriptnotes book, producer Megana Rao has been collecting wisdom from the archives to write an introductory chapter to...

John and Craig dissect expertise and “why you should think twice or thrice before taking someone’s advice.” They look at how survivorship bias, pride, and luck should factor into how we judge sources of authority. We answer listener questions on...