John and Craig sit down with Marielle Heller, the writer and director of the acclaimed feature The Diary of a Teenage Girl, to talk about the journey of getting her movie made, from optioning the novel to the Sundance Labs through production.

We discuss sex scenes and ’70s wallpaper, anamorphic lenses and leaving subplots on the cutting room floor. Plus there’s a lot of MacGruber.

This episode originally aired August 25, 2015.

Links:

* Scriptnotes and a live Three Page Challenge will be at the 2017 Austin Film Festival
* Submit for the Three Page Challenge
* Marielle Heller on IMDb
* The Diary of a Teenage Girl official site and the trailer
* The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Revised Edition by Phoebe Gloeckner
* Scriptnotes, 121: My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend’s Screenwriter, with Mike Birbiglia
* Sundance Institute Feature Film Program
* Director of Photography Brandon Trost on Wikipedia
* Rotoscoping on Wikipedia
* Mari Heller on NPR’s Fresh Air
* VHS Camcorder
* I’m Sorry I Didn’t Respond to Your Email, My Husband Coughed to Death Two Years Ago by Rachel Ward
* The Wonder Weeks App
* The Scriptnotes Listeners’ Guide!
* The USB drives will be available again in a few days!
* John August on Twitter
* Craig Mazin on Twitter
* John on Instagram
* Find past episodes
* Outro by Jack Mazin (send us yours!)

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You can download the episode here.