Creative Principles

“I’m a bit of a film brat,” said K. Asher Levin, who grew up in Los Angeles and has always had family in the business. Currently, he’s best known for screenwriting and directing, with films such as Dig, Slayers, and Helen’s Dead.

In Dig, “A widowed father and his daughter whose house is up for demolition, are taken hostage by a dangerous couple, who won't stop until they retrieve what lies beneath the property.”

In Slayers, “A group of superstar influencers are drawn to a reclusive billionaire's mansion only to find themselves trapped in the lair of an evil vampire. The only way out is to be saved by a famous online gamer and an old school vampire hunter.”

In this interview, we talk about applying a voice to genre, the balance of levity and gravitas, the freedom of the Indie market, directing with a cynical eye, creating idealistic villains, and how to work with actors long-term.

Subscribe for video interviews on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/CreativePrinciples?sub_confirmation=1

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“I was obsessed with comedy writing as a kid,” said Nicholas Stoller. “I remember watching Saturday Night Live and not wanting to be the actors, but wanting to write the sketches. I don’t even know how I knew that was a job.”

As a screenwriter, Stoller has credits for Fun with Dick and Jane, Yes Man, Get Him to the Greek, The Muppets, Sex Tape, The Carmichael Show, Night School and Bros, many of which he also Directed, including Neighbors and Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

“I’m excited Bros is going to be theatrically released, but a weird thing happened a few years ago where [studios] were like, ‘Comedies don’t work in theaters.’ Which is not true. Judd [Apatow] always says, ‘If The Hangover came out this weekend, it would make a billion dollars.’”

For whatever reason, studios just stopped making as many theatrical comedies. They’ve instead gone to television, limited series, and leaned in to action comedies for a broader, global appeal. “I love going to see comedy in the movie theater. You get to have that experience with an audience, laughing and reacting.”

“People say it’s a business first, but it’s not run like a business. If anyone thought about it like a business, there’s a huge hole in the comedy department.”

Subscribe for video interviews on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/CreativePrinciples?sub_confirmation=1

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“I just love storytelling,” Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, in regards to how she got involved with screenwriting. “I loved writing as a kid. I wrote children’s books. I loved telling stories. I loved putting on shows in my living room. At more core, I love storytelling and the theater of it.”

As a writer, Jennifer’s credits include the TV series Sweet/Vicious, and the movies Someone Great, Unpregnant, Do Revenge, and Thor: Love and Thunder. “I like playing in different genres, but what I do lean towards are stories about women and stories about trauma, told in entertaining packages.”

“The sweet spot, in terms of the stories I tell, is finding these emotional stories and putting them in these heightened environments.” In her premiere series, for example, Sweet/Vicious was about two vigilantes in collect who wanted justices for campus abuse. The “guttural” idea was “what if Quentin Tarantino wrote Girls? What would that look like?”

This idea excited her and stayed with her. When she sold this script, she had about ten years of experience meeting people and “trying to figure out where there’s a crack in the door where I can open the door further to step through the door.”

Subscribe for video interviews on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/CreativePrinciples?sub_confirmation=1

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

Dennis Lehane grew up in a storytelling, bar culture. For him, storytelling was in his blood. Family would gather every week, telling stories of the Old Country. “I think I just grew up in the thrall of that,” he told me. “I wrote my first novel when I was 15.”

As an author, Dennis is known for Mystic River, Shutter Island, and The Drop, all novels that have been turned into films. In addition to novels, he’s written for The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, Mr. Mercedes, The Outsider, and most recently, Apple’s Black Bird.

In this interview, the author-screenwriter talks about being exposed to violence, what it means to be ceased by an idea, why he outlined Shutter Island but none of his other novels, his friendships with Stephen King and David Simon, and why good television can actually be trickier to write than novels.

Subscribe for video interviews on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/CreativePrinciples?sub_confirmation=1

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“I was a comedy nerd kid,” said screenwriter John Hamburg. “Then I got a video camera for my 15th birthday, and I started making short films. In college, I started writing plays and monologues. Then I got serious about writing.”

As a playwright, Hamburg said he learned the importance of writing and re-writing to the process. Eventually this led him to Film School and then a string of iconic comedies, like Meet the Parents, Zoolander, Along Came Polly, I Love You Man, Night School, and Me Time.

In the latest film for Netflix, Hamburg is both the writer and director. The plot follows a dad (Kevin Hart) who finds time for himself for the first time in years while his wife and kids are away, so he reconnects with an old friend (Mark Wahlberg) for a wild weekend.

Subscribe for video interviews on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/CreativePrinciples?sub_confirmation=1

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“I can’t recall what got me into screenwriting, other than just loving movies at a very young age,” said screenwriter Matt Wolpert, who recalls watching Singing in the Rain and Funny Girl with his mom. “I don’t remember wanting to do anything else.”

This led Matt to NYU Film School, where he met Ben Nedivi in a Film Production Class. “I grew up in LA,” added Ben. “My father was a set decorator and he worked on Quantum Leap. Our garage was filled with props from that show,” he joked. “Every episode a different era, location, so it was a place my sister and I would get lost in—make believe.”

Ben summarized both of their childhood stories: “There’s no way I’m not doing this.” As they started to write together, eventually found themselves in staff for shows like Entourage, Fargo, The Umbrella Academy, and most recently, For All Mankind where they’re listed as Creators along with Ronald D. Moore.

Subscribe for video interviews on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/CreativePrinciples?sub_confirmation=1

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“I was a queer kid and I didn’t really have a vocabulary for that — I don’t know what was ‘wrong’ with me — but I had this sense I wasn’t right for the world exactly as it was around me,” said screenwriter Will Graham. “So I think stories, movies, TV, comic books, novels…they were a place I could escape and process what was happening to me.”

Graham continued, “I think that’s the impulse that brought me to making things. The idea of taking people somewhere outside the space of their normal lives that’s special. Not just giving them a fun adventure but something they can take back with them.”

These projects include Movie 43, Alpha House, Mozart in the Jungle, and the new series A League of Their Own. The latest series is a comedy about the WWII All-American professional women’s baseball league. The ensemble stars Abbi Jacobson, D’Arcy Carden, Chanté Adams, Molly Emphraim, and Nick Offerman.

Subscribe for video interviews on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/CreativePrinciples?sub_confirmation=1

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“My dad used to take me to the movies every weekend,” said James Morosini, who is also the nephew of actor Christopher Reeve. You may have seen James as an actor in The Sex Lives of College Girls or American Horror Story, but he’s also known for writing and directing in films like Threesomething and I Love My Dad.

About fifteen years ago, James and his dad were not really talking and when he got home one day, he had a friend request from a pretty girl. But, this girl turned out to be his dad. This is the kernel of an idea behind his latest film, which also stars Patton Oswalt, Lil Rel Howery, and Rachel Dratch.

In this interview, James talks about emotional truths in filmmaking, what it means to have narrative authority, how pitching is like poker, and how to say ‘no’ when you don’t feel 100 percent on a project.

Subscribe for video interviews on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/CreativePrinciples?sub_confirmation=1

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

“There were always supposed to be four seasons,” said showrunner Chris Mundy. The final season of Ozark was originally going to be ten episodes, but when Netflix up’d the ante to fourteen episodes, there were several changes in the series.

Normally, this interview series goes more into the habits of writers, but in this special episode, we really go into the weeds about Ozark Season 4, making heavy decisions in terms of plot and character, and what alterations were made in the final season.

You can also listen to my first interview with Chris Mundy in Episode 160: https://soundcloud.com/creativeprinciples/ep160-chris-mundy-screenwriter-ozark-criminal-minds-hell-on-wheels

Subscribe for video interviews on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/CreativePrinciples?sub_confirmation=1

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!

When asked why she got into writing, screenwriter Bisha K. Ali joked it all started with a “teacher who gave [her] too much validation.” She said, “I wrote a short story when I was 8 and the teacher made me read it to the class. They were wondering who this kid was who had been sitting in the corner for the past six years.”

This early validation, along with a family and cultural love for storytelling from her British-Pakistani background, is “fundamentally” a part of her. “Then, also the fact that I was an indoor kid raised on television and movies. That was my obsession as a child. I just didn’t know there was space for me until I got older.”

Despite being a quiet kid, Bisha didn’t see herself as introverted, just “indoors.” So moving from solo projects to the Writer’s Room wasn’t particularly overwhelming for her. “I don’t know the tI’m an introvert necessarily, just an uncool kid,” she joked.

“I think I feed off the energy of other writers a lot. Being in the Writer’s Room is the best. It’s more fun when you’re not the head because you’re just pitching ideas and that’s fun and exiting. When you’re the head, you have to figure out all of it.”

“Even know, if there’s an opportunity to dip into a Writer’s Room, it’s the best. I love that environment. But then I also need five days of nothingness. So I need both.”

As a screenwriter, Bisha is known for Sex Education, Four Weddings and a Funeral (2019), Loki, and creating the new Marvel series Ms. Marvel for Disney Plus. “It’s always been about storytelling for me, in one form or another.”

We also talk about Moon Knight in this interview. Listen to my interview with Jeremy Slater here: https://soundcloud.com/creativeprinciples/ep351-jeremy-slater-screenwriter-marvels-series-moon-knight?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

If it’s your first time listening, make sure to subscribe and visit my new website for information on the YouTube channel, the blog, this podcast, and my new book ‘Ink by the Barrel’ which takes advice from these 200+ interviews at the link below…

Subscribe for video interviews on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBUux6BkhC-dtP4Vj1GcgMA

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60-seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom on your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!