What The Hell Is Michael Jamin Talking About?

This week, for the 100th episode we have Writer/Actor/Executive Producer Steve Lemme (Super Troopers, Beer Fest, Tacoma FD and many many more) talk about his early career, his on-going collaboration with Kevin Heffernan and doing stand up.

Steve Lemme on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0501399/

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Steve Lemme on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steve_lemme/

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Steve Lemme:

Some guys were psyched that I had gotten it out there and the studio was psyched because fucking, it was massive. It was a massive announcement that got all those views. And so it was like, then the guys that were kind of mad about it were like, but don't feel like you did the right thing here. What you did was wrong. I was like, I know what I did was wrong. I'll never do it again. They're like, so don't feel justified. I'm like, I know, but then guys are looking at each other. But it is pretty fucking sweet and I definitely did the wrong thing and I would not advise that to anybody.

Michael Jamin:

You're listening to Screenwriters need to hear this with Michael lemin.

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Screenwriters. Need to Hear this. I'm Michael and this is episode 100 of this podcast. And as an honor, I thought I would bestow this great honor onto the man. Yes. Yeah, I'm giving you the honor. It's an honor for you Lemme onto the man who's kept me employed for the past four years or more. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're listening to the podcast in your car, please pull over and give a warm round of applause to Mr. Steven Lemme. Lemme.

Lemme tell people who you are, just by the way, this is the in case they don't know. So Lemme, as we call him, is the star and exec creator and executive producer showrunner of the show. I'm currently running on Tacoma fd, but you may know him. He's got a long track record of indie movies. We're going to talk about how he got these old made, including Super Troopers, bottle Cruiser Club, dread Beer Fest, lamb and Salmon, a bunch of stuff, including the latest one is quasi. I know I'm skipping over your complete filmography, but I want to give you a chance to talk. Let me thank you for being on my show here.

Steve Lemme:

I feel like you could just go on forever talking about me.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, that would be the ideal Pat podcast for you. Just tell me more about me.

Steve Lemme:

I would prefer that. I would prefer that.

Michael Jamin:

Why? Is that? Because you're tired of telling your story over and over?

Steve Lemme:

No, I don't really get tired speaking about myself, but what I get less tired of is like I've gone and done some publicity lately. For instance, I did watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. Do you know what that show is?

Michael Jamin:

No, I didn't know that. Where is that?

Steve Lemme:

It's on the Bravo Channel. All those shows.

Michael Jamin:

All the shows you don't watch. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Lemme:

I watch them. I watch because,

Michael Jamin:

Because your wife watches them.

Steve Lemme:

Well, that's exactly how a lot of people get sucked into it. It's because somebody else is watching and you walk through the room and you're like, what stupid show are you watching? I started watching, it was Real Housewives of New Jersey, and I walked through, I was like, who are these fucking people? And my wife was like, it's Real Housewives of New Jersey. They're just, last week, this chick right here flipped up a table and called this other one a prostitution whore. And then they actually showed it on the tv. They replayed what happened last week in a flashback. I was like, wait a second, hold on. And I sat down and I was like, hold on a second. Hold on a second. What happened? Why would she flip up a table? What's wrong with her? And she's like, well, that's the thing she's on. And there was born another fan of these shows. And then you try to resist.

Michael Jamin:

But wait, I want to know, you got to answer the question though. Why is it you didn't want to talk about yourself in the beginning? I asked you, is it because you do so much publicity?

Steve Lemme:

I got off track, I got off track, but it's not that I don't want to talk about myself because

Michael Jamin:

I think it must get hard answering the same thing over and

Steve Lemme:

Over again again. Well, sometimes I fascinate myself, Michael, and so I find great comfort in hearing myself speak while I'm saying it. I'm like, oh, this is nice. What I'm saying right now is good. And I'm enjoying my own company. I'm a big believer in actually my way into the arts was my mom saying, because I didn't have a lot of money growing up. And actually that's actually, it's mostly true, but it's more that my mom was a teacher at a really wealthy private school. And so whatever is the reality or not, and I suspect it actually is real. I didn't have much money growing up. It felt less to maybe I was hanging out with people that had, it's like the kind where after Christmas, or you go to their house before Christmas and there's a million presents under the tree.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, that's right. And

Steve Lemme:

You're like, Jesus, I've got two. And even that's better than a lot of people. That's why I hesitate to complain about it and put myself in that place. But when I was a kid, I would complain about not having toys and my mom would hand me paper and crayons and pencil and pen and scissors and scotch tape and say, make something, entertain yourself. And she would say, if you can't have fun with yourself, you'll never be happy. And so, by the way, am I allowed to be dirty on this podcast?

Michael Jamin:

You can say whatever you want to say.

Steve Lemme:

I was about to make a masturbation joke, which I know you

Michael Jamin:

Would like. I was already there.

Steve Lemme:

But anyway, my point is, so now that's totally off the market.

Michael Jamin:

You're saying this. This is your introduction to the arts,

Steve Lemme:

Right? So anyway, oh, I was saying I enjoy spending time with myself, the arts, but the point is I went on Andy Cohen, watch What Happens Live. And this has happened so many times where the intro, the way they introduce you is dog shit. And he didn't mention the movies, he didn't mention Broken Lizard. He just said he's on a new TV series on Hulu called Quasi

Michael Jamin:

Thanks for getting everything wrong,

Steve Lemme:

Which was not true either. And then it's like, look, I'm aware that a lot of, there is a younger generation of people who aren't familiar with Broken Lizard or those movies or Super Troopers or Beer Fest or anything like that, or they haven't watched it, but there are fans there. And also a lot of times if I don't know my mustache, people won't recognize me, but if they say it, if you get a nice intro, at least it gives you some credibility. But in this case, I was some jackass at the bar, the celebrity bartender. And so anyway, I like a good intro. I like to get stroked.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Did I stroke you enough when I brought you on?

Steve Lemme:

You did. You did. But I could have listened to more. You

Michael Jamin:

Could to the thing about you, and I've said this before and I'll say it publicly, there are one of the great joys of working with you is that you are an open book when you talk about stories from your past and you're brutally honest. And the best comedians that I've worked with are the same way. Mark Merrim is the same way. He'd say things in the room, you'd be like, whoa, I can't believe you're telling me this. And you're the same way. So it makes it so much easier to write for you because you're just being vulnerable and you're sharing yourself and there's no judgment there. It's just funny.

Steve Lemme:

Thank you for saying that. I know that about myself. Kevin will say, I have no filter. That's what he will say, but I'll tell him he's too filtered.

Michael Jamin:

Right?

Steve Lemme:

I'll say, Kevin, you need to open up a little bit and share of yourself. Interesting. But it also puts the other writers at ease and encourages them to tell stories. It's like if I'm willing to tell the story about, again, it's like a lot of these things tend to wind up being a little bit crass, but it's like if I'm willing to tell a disgusting story about myself or a story where I embarrass myself horribly,

Michael Jamin:

Or a sex dream you had, for example,

Steve Lemme:

I've had several

Michael Jamin:

With one of your friends.

Steve Lemme:

Okay.

Michael Jamin:

I don't want to say who, that's a great example.

Steve Lemme:

No. So that's a great example. So can you hear the noise? We're

Michael Jamin:

Doing an interview here.

Steve Lemme:

My wife has come in with the children, so she doesn't know, and I'm displaced. I don't have an office with doors anymore, so I'm,

Michael Jamin:

There's some damage to his house. So he's got to do an impromptu

Steve Lemme:

Yeah, the whole, but go ahead side of the house is flooded. Okay. So the story is, so Michael and I have, I'll even say the guy's name.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, okay.

Steve Lemme:

It makes it better. We have a common friend named Eric Levy. You grew up with him in Fresh Chester?

Michael Jamin:

Yes, in high school. Yeah.

Steve Lemme:

He and I went to college together, and I don't even know if this is proper improper to say, but I'm not gay and neither is he. But I had a dream about him where he showed up at my house with 50 bags of McDonald's burgers and then it cuts to me fucking him in the ass. But he was on top of me.

Michael Jamin:

I still love this story and then go on.

Steve Lemme:

But I told the story because whatever we were riffing on, it was like, what about those? And then I told him about it.

Michael Jamin:

Yes. And how did he take videos? I

Steve Lemme:

Called him up laughing the next morning and was like, holy shit, this is so fucking funny. I had this dream about it. You're never going to believe it. And there's a lot of guys who would be like, I'm taking that one to the grave. But the additional joke for me is that when I have with Reba McIntyre, I had a sex dream about her. And to me, when you have a sex dream about somebody, what's the difference between actually having sex with them? Because in real life, if you have sex with somebody afterwards, it's just a memory and it lives longer in your memory. And so to me, it's like if you have a vivid sex dream about Reeb McIntyre, which I did, and then it lives on in your memory, it kind of counts.

Michael Jamin:

But no, because no consent. She didn't consent to that either. Did Levy,

Steve Lemme:

You're saying

Michael Jamin:

I'm was a nonconsensual sex dream that you had with both of them?

Steve Lemme:

I don't know. I feel like there's a blurry line there.

Michael Jamin:

But this is just a good example. You told this story probably the first year to call him after you in the writer's room. And I just remember laughing my ass off thinking, oh my God, this guy's going to be game for pretty much everything we pitch. And this makes easier to write.

Steve Lemme:

Well, and that's why you and I wound up sitting next to each other because you would always mutter filthy little offerings under your breath to me.

Michael Jamin:

You would enjoy them. Yeah,

Steve Lemme:

I didn't. I enjoyed them quite a bit. I enjoyed,

Michael Jamin:

Lemme ask you that, because I don't know if I've ever asked you this or maybe I forgot. We met you. The show had just gotten picked up and we met through, we had the same management company, right? Yeah, of course we

Steve Lemme:

Did. I used to be with them. I'm not with them anymore, but Kevin is still with them.

Michael Jamin:

And that's how we had that meeting. And did you meet with other writers at our level or did you just laise out, say, fuck, we'll just hire these guys. I don't want to meet more people.

Steve Lemme:

Kevin and I get in trouble like that. We oftentimes do hire the first person we meet, which was you,

Michael Jamin:

Thank God.

Steve Lemme:

Yeah. But I think we did. God, they're really making a racket over there. I did. We did meet with one other set of showrunners, I believe. But then what happens anyway, if Kevin and I get past the first interview and make it to the second one by the second one, we're definitely bored and we realize we've made a mistake by prolonging this process. So with us with timing is key. If you get in with us early, if you ever hear about a Lemme Heffernan gig, get your resume to us immediately because you

Michael Jamin:

Hire the first person you see

Steve Lemme:

You got the job. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

That's so funny. I know you're good that way. What is it like, I haven't asked you this question, but you do most, you don't do all your projects with Kevin, you do a lot of your projects with him or ever it now, is it everything?

Steve Lemme:

No, I have some side projects.

Michael Jamin:

How do you decide what you're doing with him and what you're not doing?

Steve Lemme:

Well, I try to do most things with Kevin, and I think Kevin would agree to this. For whatever reason, I sometimes find that Kevin is a little tougher to drag into things. I believe he will corroborate this. So I had the idea, we've kicked around the notion of firefighters for a while, but I said to him, let's do it.

And then he said, what's the hook going to be? And I came back with this rainiest city in the country hook because it was super troopers, the most asserted stretch of highway in the country. And even then I had to drag him and I want to be careful with this because we developed a show then together and really fleshed it out. So it's like, and he has also had many ideas in those TV sessions. He also had some ideas that he wanted to do, but the animation thing now is another one I felt. I feel like it took me a long time to just get him to really be into it.

Michael Jamin:

I know it did.

Steve Lemme:

And actually I'm going to tell you, I think he's only finally into it now. Today,

Michael Jamin:

Today, today

Steve Lemme:

For the last few weeks I We'll tell the story. We'll tell the story. But now and again, to be fair, it's like I was bringing it up probably two years ago, maybe longer, and he would say, okay, sure. But then we'd be writing the series or then we went into pre-production on quasi, which he was directing, but I never just ever got the sense that he really wanted to do it.

Michael Jamin:

But do you get the sense that he ever wants to do anything?

Steve Lemme:

No, and that's my point. That's my point. And what I realized with Kevin, and it's fine again, it's like because we're busy, but sometimes you just have to move the ball forward and he'll tell me the same thing just in general about things, and I actually think this is true in Hollywood anyway, if you want to do something, you just have to move the ball forward on your own if you can't get interest. And eventually at some point there's like, okay, this is what I've got.

Michael Jamin:

Are you, you know what though? When I talk about you, I talk about you guys specifically when I talk about people who've done inspiring things, because when I describe what you broken lizard, I describe you as Hollywood outsiders. There are ways that you can call the traditional way and the way you guys came, you just did it. You didn't ask for permission, you did it and you created a career from yourself and became so valuable that Hollywood now wants you as opposed to you begging Hollywood. It's the other way around.

Steve Lemme:

I think we're still begging Hollywood. I think with Supert Troopers three and our relationship with Searchlight has evolved to the point where the studio has said, we want to work with you. And that's how we got quasi and that's how we got Supert Troopers two, but Supert Troopers two, they were reluctant, but that's the way the business works. Then that movie did well and there were new studio heads and it's like, okay, this is a new relationship that this's really healthy. I think that everything that Tevin has ever gotten and that I have ever gotten, we have gotten for ourselves. Even though we have agents and I have great agents and managers who bring me things Now

Michael Jamin:

Are they bringing you, what talent are they bringing you ideas? What are they bringing you?

Steve Lemme:

My management and my agency will bring me TV and movie ideas to potentially

Michael Jamin:

For who?

Steve Lemme:

My management company. They have a big lit department, a big book and division, and so does my agency. So my management is Gotham Group, and then my agency is c a a and that every Friday, c a a sends me books, the books that are out, the new books and it's like, yeah, I mean I've never gone down that road. There was only one book I wanted to buy and then the rights to, and then my old manager poo-pooed the idea. And then I found out that three months later, Showtime bought that book and I was like, you son of a bitch. But

Michael Jamin:

Wait, when they're sending are these best, these are, how are they getting the books? I don't know anything about it. They're getting bestsellers. These are the bestseller lists, these books.

Steve Lemme:

So my management company represents authors and c a A. They have a literature, a book literature division in New York City that represents writers and or publishers. I'm not sure really how it works, but I'm just telling you, every Friday I get a list of these things and how

Michael Jamin:

Interesting it is. It's so funny because you're getting an email list. I don't get an email list of books from U T A, how hard is it to put me on an email list?

Steve Lemme:

And that's the thing. And the thing is it's been years now and I've never even responded to the email. Then I think that I'm on an automated list now, which is actually, it's nice. I should actually look at the thing. I should look at the list.

Michael Jamin:

Are there PDFs attached or you request a book?

Steve Lemme:

I'll forward it to you on the side.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Okay. I'm just curious how Hollywood works

Steve Lemme:

Well, but I think it works. It's so funny. It works so differently in every way. In fact, the joke that Kevin and I have, and I'll finish speaking about Kevin and the animation thing, but because kind of a funny story, but Kevin and I have always marveled at how Hollywood never has a shortage of original ways to screw you over.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, yes.

Steve Lemme:

And right now we've got another one going, which is that we've got the strike going and Kevin and I have a TV show that we can't promote, and it's like we worked really hard on it. We worked for over a year on it. We actually got pushed, the release got pushed six months or five months because that network in shambles. And then three weeks before it's going to come out, they say it's going to come out in July and then the strike happens. And we had been recording podcasts that would be accompany pieces with the episodes, and my older son acted in last week's episode. I couldn't promote it. My younger son is acting in this week's episode, I can't talk about it. And it's like, that's actually one of the most heartbreaking parts is that I got to act with one son in a scene. And where he was playing, me as a young boy, my character was a young boy and I was playing his grandfather. And then my other son, I got to direct in a scene where he gets to say dirty words and I can't talk about it. And I'm like, Jesus, what a screw here.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. That's so fun, by the way. I know I'm hopping around, but what's it like when your comedy soup, broken lizard, is it weird to be acting against these same people over and over again and pretending, okay, now today we're pretending to be one thing, and I'm yelling at you, but we're actually friends on the side. Is that weird? Is there a moment when you're acting like, wait a minute, we're best friends?

Steve Lemme:

No, because funny, because Kevin and I, first of all with Kevin, he and I have now done so many, so much together and so many emotional scenes together. But we'd like to say it's so emotion. We don't deal with emotion. We deal with foam motion, as you know. And so it's like if you watch quasi, he and I have a few big blowup scenes with voice cracking and Tacoma. We have plenty of scenes where we yell at each other and sometimes we get emotional with each other. And I always think it's funny for us, it's also like we've been friends so long and we're so on each other's nerves all the time that these things are therapy sessions. Because a lot of the time in the show we're discussing things that bother him about me and me about him. And so

Michael Jamin:

Is there a moment where you're in the scene, you're supposed to be in character, and then suddenly you check, you go, wait a minute, he's just doing his thing and I'm doing my thing. And we're both doing make believe.

Steve Lemme:

The only time I ever feel that way is if we start improvising. And he starts, we had one, I can't remember what the episode was, but he said, oh, I know it was the episode, the chili Cookoff where he's fucked up on dental drugs. He had his wisdom teeth removed and he improvised a line like, oh, you must be, he's like, are we on a rollercoaster? Are we on a rollercoaster? He's like, oh, hey. Hey Eddie, you have to be this tall to ride this roller coaster. And I was like, well, and there's a maximum weight limit as well. And I felt bad about that. I was like, it didn't matter that he had made a short joke at me. At first, I felt bad that I had made a fat joke, and that happens periodically. I throw one out probably once every three months. So once a quarter I'll make a heavy guy joke.

Michael Jamin:

Is it weird though hanging out with him outside of work though, when you see each other so much?

Steve Lemme:

I think I'm good for him. The other day, a couple of months ago, I was like, why don't we just go out and hang out? And he's like, I see you every day. And I was like, that's exactly why we should hang out. We see each other every day because we are working together, but let's go have some beers and some tacos and have some laughs and not work.

Michael Jamin:

And did you do that?

Steve Lemme:

Yeah. And it's funny because one of my favorite pastimes is being right over a Kevin. I don't mean in the collaborative sense, but when my point of view is correct and yours is incorrect, which it was in that case, he was like, okay,

Okay, fine. Alright, so let's go back to the animation thing. I was saying, I don't even think so with the animations, it took a while for me to get him. He would agree in theory, but then it was like there was never any, whenever he would talk about upcoming projects, I'd always be like, and we should talk about animation one of these days. He'd be like, yeah, okay. And I couldn't get him to engage. And then even I said, finally, let's just sit down. Just give me five minutes. I'm going to go through a list of animation ideas and let's discuss them. He said, okay. And so I sent them to him in advance and literally it was one line. It was like the lumberjacks, it was whatever, and including the one that we're working on. And he said, okay, I like these and that's fine.

That's all I needed. And so then I started to flesh those things out and I would show them to him. Now, see, Kevin is a machine. He's a computer, and so if you really want to get his attention, you have to show him a piece of paper with something on it, and he puts it in his pile and he makes a list. And so then a week later I'll be like, have you had a chance to read the thing? And so what Kevin respects is work, which a lot of people do, it's in a creative process. It's like, don't tell me you don't like a joke if you don't have a replacement idea or don't say like, Hey, let's work on something and bother me about it if it's not real, if you just want me to actually make the first step. And so it's like if you give him the first step and it's like, Hey, I've done this work.

He respects that, and so he'll read it. So then it was funny then because he was doing, he was editing quasi and we were in the writer's room for season four. You guys are busy. And I said, I'll do all the work on the animation thing. And so it's like I started to flesh it out and then I'd sent him this, the pitch document, here are the characters. And we started to get it together and what we were going to do, and the plan was that during a hiatus, we were going to wind up pitching these two producers who had been the president and vice president of True tv, and they were the ones who bought Tacoma FD and put us on the air, and they'd done everything that Thursday night with us in Practical Jokers. We were winning cable and they were beating t b s, their sister company, and then at t took over and they just got punted.

So they did everything and they got fired, but we always had a good relationship and we always said, Hey, we'll work together again. At some point they approached me and they said, Hey, do you want to do some animated? We've got something going. So the idea then I told Kevin was like, we're going to pitch this during the first hiatus. And the hiatus for people who don't know is that after we shoot in blocks, so we shot the first three episodes in one block and Kevin directed all of them, and we took a week off to scout locations for the second block and prep, and that was the block I was directed. And so that was two more episodes, but in that first week, then we were ready to pitch Chris and Marissa. And so even the night before the pitch, I kept saying to Kevin, I was, so tomorrow we are pitching Chris and Marissa.

He's like, but it's not like a pitch though. It's a conversation. I was like, well, it actually is a pitch. He's like, but it's not like a formal pitch. We're just talking to 'em. I'm like, no, we're actually pitching them. I'm pitching them the show, but don't worry. I'll do all the talking. And he said, fine. And so the next day we got on the Zoom with them. I pitched them the show, they seemed to love it, and we went our separate ways and they brought it to their studio that they're involved with. And three days later, we found out that studio was going to make an offer, which they did. And then we negotiated that offer for several months, which a lot of people who are not in Hollywood don't realize that sometimes negotiations can take nine months, sometimes a year. In this case, I think it was a six month thing. And in that period of time, we approached you guys, brought you guys in, and then we went to our first meeting with them after the deal. All the deal had been signed and everything. And you remember we were outside?

Michael Jamin:

Yes.

Steve Lemme:

Kevin asked me, he was like, have we,

Michael Jamin:

I asked Kevin, it started, I asked Kevin. Kevin didn't have the answer, so he asked you.

Steve Lemme:

Yeah, and the question was,

Michael Jamin:

Have we sold this?

Steve Lemme:

Have we actually sold this then? And the reason you asked that for people who don't know is most commonly, certainly before the streamers and the network time, there was something called an if come offer. And this was, I think the norm for most people who hadn't done anything. I went to a studio and I said, I've got an idea for a TV show. They might say, Hey, we love it. We're going to make you an if come offer. And what that is is we'll pay you X amount of dollars if a network says they want to do the show. And if not, we're not paying you anything. But because we've made you this offer, you're with us. And that was the norm. And we took that and we would negotiate that. We would negotiate a deal that we're not getting paid on unless somebody else says yes. And it's called an if come offer. And so that was the nature of that question. Have we actually sold this thing? Are we getting paid? And Kevin asked me and I was like, yes, we've sold it. But he put so much doubt into me that it was like, I think we're pitching again.

So then we went in and sat with our executive producers, the people who had bought it, the producers who had brought us to them and sold it for us. And I pitched it again, but now I was nervous. I didn't do a great job pitching.

Michael Jamin:

No, you did great. You did great. And they loved it.

Steve Lemme:

But then it turns out, yes, we had sold it. We were going to get paid and we were moving forward. So then Kevin was very surprised. He's like, oh, I gave shit about that. And even then, he wasn't totally on board until we saw the animation. We were writing the script and he was like, yes, fine. It's still abstract. But it wasn't until we got into when they sent us potential sketches and artwork for all the characters and the locations and the scenes and settings that he said to me for the first time, this is really cool.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, good.

Steve Lemme:

There's a whole other world in Hollywood that we've never been a part of that we're a part of now. I was like, yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Yeah.

Steve Lemme:

So anyway.

Michael Jamin:

That's hilarious. How would you decide what projects not to do with them then?

Steve Lemme:

Oh,

Michael Jamin:

I don't think, do you have many? You've done some, but why would you not do a project with them?

Steve Lemme:

It just depends. And it's funny. There are times where I actually think I've said to him, and I mean this, that even if I do something separately, we'll still produce it with our production company. He'll be involved. I have a TV script that I've been working on for a long time that I probably wrote it back in 2009, and it's very much about that period, my high school years when I was at this elite private school and I was feeling like an outsider, but I wasn't an outsider. I had a great group of friends, and I was actually, I hate to say it, but I was fairly popular, but I felt like I didn't belong at this place. I almost felt like an imposter. And we were there, not because we were wealthy, which it was the school full of wealthy people because my mom had been a teacher there, and now she was gone there. So I didn't, they had only given me a partial scholarship when I was three when I first went there. But that's a

Michael Jamin:

Good idea. I think that could sell. That's a good idea.

Steve Lemme:

Well, and there was more to it, which is that I also had this job, I worked as a back elevator man

Because one of my friends, his family was so wealthy, they owned all these buildings in New York City, and he got me a job. I made $10 an hour working as a back elevator man slash janitor, luxury high-rise building in New York City that some people from my high school lived at, which was really hard to have them see me. But more importantly, I worked with these guys down in the basement who were lifers. There was a murderer down there who had fled the Dominican Republic. He had decapitated a guy, and he is a great guy. He's a great guy. He had decapitated a guy after a cock fight, he had a fighting bird. And by the way, he's telling me this story with a thick Dominican accent. He keeps saying, and my cock defeated the other guy's cock. And I'm like, whoa, I'm only 15 years old at this point in time. And the guy picked up his dead cock and the

Michael Jamin:

Cock

Steve Lemme:

His lifeless dead bloody cock. Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Flacid cock.

Steve Lemme:

Yeah. And the claw and the beaker sharpened on these creatures and this guy,

Michael Jamin:

Did they sharpen them for the fights? Yeah. Wow, that sounds awful. You just made something bad, even worse.

Steve Lemme:

I know. Well, so then this guy, the loser, picked up his dead bloody flacid, lifeless cock and slapped my coworker across the cheek with it, and the beak cut his cheek. My coworker told me this over lunch break. He was like, I went home and I calmly sharpened my machete and I went to his house and I knocked on the door. He opened the door and I cut his head off and he said, and that is when I came to America.

Michael Jamin:

Wow.

Steve Lemme:

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So I was working down there with these guys, and the irony was that they would get taxes taken out of their paychecks. And I, I was a student, and so I was actually making more than these guys, but they also thought I was a rich kid. I was friends with the owner of the building and they knew that. And to them, I was the richest guy in the world, and I was going to a prep school. I had my whole future ahead of me. So I didn't kind of belong in that world either.

Michael Jamin:

It's a little flamingo kid.

Steve Lemme:

There was some flamingo kid there. Yeah. I was also a break dancer and a professional dancer.

Michael Jamin:

I know

Steve Lemme:

That. And I was not really welcome in that community. So anyway,

Michael Jamin:

Why are you sitting on this? You should get that. Well, there's a strike. I wouldn't wait much longer on it.

Steve Lemme:

I sent the script out back in 2009, and it was incredibly well received, but this is pre streamers, and I sent it to H B O in Showtime, and I had a meeting with the president of H B O who, she was like, I love your script. I love your script, but I can't do a show about a 14 year old protagonist. And she said, but bring me everything you've got, and this is pre everything interesting. It's pre this new golden age of television. And same at Showtime. I had the same conversation. She's like, the lady was like, I love it. Absolutely love it.

Michael Jamin:

It was the 14 year old protagonist. That's such an odd thing because everybody hates Chris and Wonder years. There's plenty of shows about,

Steve Lemme:

But it was R-rated, it was an honest look. It was also part of the pitch was I see all these, when you see high school shows about in New York City, for instance, about a wealthy school, the rich kids are so fucked up

And so evil and so conniving, and that wasn't my experience. And it was also like, or it's incredibly, incredibly cliquey with the fucking bully rich kids or the scummy fucking drug using druggies. I was like, that wasn't my experience at all, or it's incredibly angst-ridden. And I was like, I feel like there were a lot of incredibly fun experimental times. Yes, there were painful times, but there were also a lot of incredible times, and I never saw a good mixture of those things. Anyway, so I have been, and also the funny thing, the honest part was I made masturbation a heavy part of the show, the Cold Open. My character is masturbating in the shower, and his dad's trying to get in

Michael Jamin:

And

Steve Lemme:

It's like a freeze frame. He's looking at the doorknob and the whole thing is that irony and the hypocrisy of the fact that in high school, your hormones are going raging and you're all masturbating, or the boys certainly were, can't speak to the girls, but no one would talk about it. And so my friends and I would be like, one of my friends would be like, you whack off. I'd be like, fuck no, I don't whack off. I'm not gay. And he's like, no, I know. I've never even touched my dick. I've never even touched my dick. How about you? You whack off. I was like, no fucking way. Do I whack off? And then it's like, but I know you whack off. He's like, fuck you, I don't whack off. And you're like, yeah, you whack off. Everybody's dying to get home and fucking beat off. I was a part of the

Michael Jamin:

Script dying to get home.

Steve Lemme:

So I've toned that part down in the script. I literally am revising it right now. I found a great thing that I wanted to include in it, a couple of new things. So I'm writing it. I'm using the strike to write.

Michael Jamin:

Well, sure. Everyone should be, I guess. But what about you guys also do a lot of standup, which is very different. Do you have a preference to how you spend your days?

Steve Lemme:

It makes me sad that I haven't done standup in five years.

Michael Jamin:

Really? Well, what's stopping you?

Steve Lemme:

Well, now, nothing. And I was thinking about it today, I am like, I should write a new set. Kevin and I filmed our third special right before we sold Tacoma. And when we sold Tacoma, it was when Super Troopers two was coming out. And so we did a few more live shows to promote Tacoma, but then we never had time because then it was like we were writing the season, we got renewed for season two, and then it's like, it's so much work. And even after we write and then we go right into shooting, and then after shooting, the hardest part of the show process is the six months of editing. And then it's like, I

Michael Jamin:

Think that's the best part. Because you're not on set. It's not as exhausting.

Steve Lemme:

Well, it's not as physically exhausting. Correct. And I mean, look, now in the days of Zoom, I'm home. I actually, I love it, but there's no time to, that's a nine to 6:00 PM or 11:00 PM job depending on what day of the week it is and what time of the editing process. I'm here with my family. And so it's like we've been fortunate enough to have four seasons where we have a week or two off, and then we have to start getting the writer's room together again. I'm not complaining about at all. I'm not even grousing. The one thing I really enjoyed doing for 10 years before we got that show was standup comedy, which you've done,

Michael Jamin:

But I mean, I did in college, so I was never at your level where I was touring and booking rooms.

Steve Lemme:

Well, but you do tour with a one man show and you do.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, that's a little different. Yeah, it's not standup. Yeah,

Steve Lemme:

It's a little different, but it's still performing and getting out there and trying out material. I know if you have a story, I mean, I haven't seen your show,

Michael Jamin:

You must come. But what I find about it is, and I was talking about this with Taylor Swift, she's got this three hour concert, and when I was performing,

Steve Lemme:

Wait, wait, wait. You talked about this with Taylor

Michael Jamin:

Swift? No, I said this with my daughter about Taylor Swift's show.

Steve Lemme:

That's a

Michael Jamin:

Different big difference. Yeah. I got to clarify. So Taylor Swift's performing in her show is three, three and a half hours long. And so when I was doing my show, it was an hour and a half long, but it's the end of the day. It's at eight o'clock or whatever. The whole day I'm exhausted because I'm nervous. I'm preparing myself. And then at eight o'clock I'm up, and for the next hour and a half I'm giving everything. And then you're fricking then afterwards, you're still on a high, but you're exhausted. And then you got to do it again the next day where you're like, you're wringing your hands all day and you're pacing and then it is exhausting. You don't think

Steve Lemme:

I do. I do. Especially when you do Thursday, Friday, Saturday and the Friday and Saturday you're doing two shows in the night

Michael Jamin:

And you're traveling

Steve Lemme:

And you're traveling. And also what Kevin and I would do is we would do meet and greets after every show, free ones, not like the ones where you pay extra and you get to come backstage. We would go, we'd tell people we're going to do a meet and greet out here after the show, come by and say hi. And so you're meeting half of the people that were at the show. Oftentimes that meet and greet would take an hour or more. She found that to be even more exhausting.

Michael Jamin:

Do you have a time limit with each person you're meeting and greeting?

Steve Lemme:

No, not really. I mean, it depends on the club or the theater. Because the first show, there's a natural out. You've got a second show, come on folks, and then you bang people through. And the second show, that's the one where people come up and they want to chug.

Michael Jamin:

That's kind of your brand, which is like, Hey, yeah, chug. And we're all college bros. But I wonder what's your thinking? You could do the other way. You could put a little separation between your audience and not do a meet and greet.

Steve Lemme:

You could, and I'm trying to think if there was ever a time where we came up with a reason or we had a reason not to, but I don't think so. There's something like we've always had this philosophy of meeting the fans and Jim Gaffigan once said it. He said, I'll meet them until I can't, meaning, and now he can't. He's just

Michael Jamin:

Too big.

Steve Lemme:

He's too big. It's impossible.

Michael Jamin:

Hey, it's Michael lemin. 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.

But how long? Is it 30 seconds or are you talking to the guy who doesn't want to talk anymore? How do you know when it's time to move on to the next person? There's a line.

Steve Lemme:

There's all different kinds of people. There's some people who just want to come and take a picture. There's some people who appreciate that there's a line behind them and you got to keep things moving. There's some people who are going to stay and talk to you until you have them move on. You'll be like, Hey, okay, but I hate to do this. Or the club will have security guards and they'll be like, all right, let's move it along. Let's go, let's go. We got a lot of people there. But I think that's something I've never really, I don't know. I've always enjoyed meeting people, and a lot of times I know a lot of my friends are like, oh God, that person's crazy. Don't talk to them. And I'm like, no, that's the person I want to

Michael Jamin:

Talk to. Really. Did you really, you're not worried about them forming some kind of parasocial relationship with you and wanting to get really close to you?

Steve Lemme:

I've never had that happen. I mean, there's absolutely, look, I am a man from the planet earth, and I lived here for a long time before any sort of recognition, fan recognition or celebrity, what's happening for me. And so it's like I can tell when I'm having a real connection with a person as opposed to when they're connecting with me and I don't feel it. And I could certainly, I know when mostly now because I'm skeptical and paranoid and cynical that I just assume it's like if anybody tries too aggressively to be friends, it's over for them.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, really? I see with you, you're very gracious and you're very social way more than me. So you could spend hours with people. I feel like even people you don't like, and I've seen you do that. I've seen you do that actually.

Steve Lemme:

Well, it depends where we are, but it's not like if you're at a film festival and some producer is like laughing at everything you say, you're like,

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Steve Lemme:

Okay, we're not friends. It's people that you're just hanging out with. It's funny because have a friend named Champagne, Rob, who we met in Atlanta, and the reason he's called Champagne Rob is because he and his girlfriend came to our show and they were sitting in the front row drinking champagne, and we just ragged on them. We were like, what the fuck is going on here drinking champagne at our show? They're like, yeah, man, we're having a good time drinking some champagne. It was like we had a great interaction with them. And then on the meet and greet line, afterwards, they came to either the late Friday show or the late Saturday show, the late Friday. If you really want to be friends with us, the late Friday show is the one that you might have a crack at it. We don't go out Thursday night and we don't go out Saturday night.

Friday night's the one, you don't have to wake up for anything in the morning. So Friday night's the night we'd go after the late show, we'd go out and usually with people that we were friends with in our town and so on This particular night though, after that show, probably Friday night, then they were on the line and I had a joke about, I was talking about male grooming manscaping, and there was a poll given out to the people in the audience. Do you like it groomed or do you like it hairy? I'm like, it's a standup comedy. It's a set routine where I know that some women are going to be like you. It totally shaved. And you're like, well, what's wrong with a hairy one? And they're like, you get hair in your throat. And then my thing would be like, how far down are you going on this thing?

And then basically I'm calling 'em the cookie monster of it was the Dick Gobbler is What and how. They're like, mom, I'm just eating a shit out of this dick and getting all the way down there. And that was a routine I was doing. And so Champagne, Rob's girlfriend happened to be that girl. And so then they came up afterwards and they were like, Hey, I'm the Dick Gobbler. And he's like, I'm champagne rob. And we're like, oh. And we had a good laugh on the line and the guy's like, look. And I had some friends there and they were from Atlanta, and they're like, we don't really know where to go. And the guy was like, I know a speakeasy that's literally across the street, literally across the street. Come with me, well have a great time. He's like, I'm not creepy. Let's just go. It's going to be awesome. And we're like, all right, fine. Fuck it. And we went outside and there was his car, and the license plate was Muff diver. It was the fucking,

Michael Jamin:

But I'm not creepy, I swear.

Steve Lemme:

And then we went to this speakeasy and had an awesome time, and of course we're hanging out with the guy there because he's gotten us in this place and we're just having drinks. And it was a totally normal hang, and it was like there was no awkwardness and there was no, it was, a lot of times when you meet these people, sometimes they don't then know what to say and they'll just start to ask you about yourself and they'll ask you questions, how did this happen? And how did this happen? And you're like, well, if we can't get past this stage, we'll never be friends and it doesn't get past that stage. So it's like, but this guy's like, yeah, we're hanging out, we're having a great time. And then it's like, whatever. And then it turns out he was a Giants fan, like Kevin and I am, and he showed us a photo of his toilet that he has at home, and in the toilet down at the bottom where the poop hits the bottom of the toilet was a Dallas Cowboys star. And we're like, this guy's fucking hysterical. So anyway, and then it turned out he was a professional, what do you call it, jet skier

Sponsored by Hooters. And so the whole thing just made perfect sense. It was like,

Michael Jamin:

Be good friends in this guy. Let me ask though, if you decided you wanted to go on tour comedy wise, whatever, next week, how fast does that happen? Let's say you already have a set let's, you already have material. Do you call someone and it happens? Do you have a booker and it happens?

Steve Lemme:

Yeah, I would call at a a, I have my standup agent,

Which is actually how I got into C A A. I used to be with c a A, and then I went to U T A and I left U T A, and it was because I had a meeting with their standup agent who, I mean, I left U T A first and then I went to c a A, and it was the standup agent was the one who brought me in because at that point in time in 2009, we hadn't done anything. And so he was the guy who was like, oh, I think I can make some money for our agency with this fellow. And so he brought me in there.

Michael Jamin:

He books, he pimps you out to the various clubs, basically. Is that how that works? I'm surprised. C A A does that. I thought there was a smaller thing that smaller agents did not. Well,

Steve Lemme:

No, I mean, but there are agents who are bigger than others, so it's like he represents a lot of big people.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Steve Lemme:

Big standups.

Michael Jamin:

So you could just, alright, literally you made a call today in a week or two, you could start touring basically.

Steve Lemme:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

Wow.

Steve Lemme:

Yeah. But it depends. It also depends on, now it's been five years and we have the show. So the question would be what kind of places can we book? We know we can book the smaller places, we can sell those places out. We always were able to because of the movies that we had made. And so we enjoyed a success there that a lot of standup comedians, a luxury that a lot of that most standup comedians don't have. Because most standup comedians certainly back then had to do the club circuit. And first they would be doing five minutes, and then they strangers to people. So they'd have to make people like them, which to me is like 90% of the battle. Once you've already got the fans, you actually it a little bit more like you're giving a wedding toast. Not that your fans will accept subpar standup comedy, but they're more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt. And if you fuck up, you can just look at them and they'll be like, yeah. And you're like, I know I suck. And they're like, yeah, fuck you. And you're like, fuck you.

Michael Jamin:

Interesting. That's what Jay is doing now. He's on the road doing standup, right? I mean,

Steve Lemme:

Yeah, he's in the UK right now. He's actually breaking new ground in that. He's going do a show, a couple shows in England, which is, it's sort of like the logical next step for American standups. You go and do the uk, England, Ireland, Scotland, Australia.

Michael Jamin:

But you're not really interested in doing that now. I mean, because first of all, it's hard family. How long do you want to be on the road for? Or is that your thinking or No,

Steve Lemme:

I mean, I love doing standup comedy. I don't love touring. I only liked it because I was with Kevin and I wasn't alone. I did a couple of solo dates, and I found it to be very lonely

Michael Jamin:

Because the entire day, you're lonely,

Steve Lemme:

You're alone. And then at night after the show, it's like if Kevin and I were sort of wired, we could at least go back to the hotel bar and have a beer, or we could go to one of our rooms and smoke a joint or something like that. Whereas when you're alone, it's like you might hang out with the other comedians just fine. People want to make new friends. Or you go out with a staff or you meet a fan or something. Somebody's at the show, I don't know. Or you go out by yourself or you go back to the hotel room, but you're wired and it's a really weird thing to just get in bed and watch TV or something like that. Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

It's so interesting to be talking about. I don't know, all this is so new to me. The life of a performer for you. It's fascinating to me.

Steve Lemme:

Well, I think that is, it's funny. The worst standup experience I ever had was I was booked to do a solo weekend in Vermont in Burlington, Vermont. That

Michael Jamin:

Was lovely in the fall. It's perfect.

Steve Lemme:

It was perfect. And I'll tell you, it was probably, yeah, it was the fall. And what happened was to promote the show, I was interviewed by a Vermont free newspaper,

And the journalist asked me all these questions. And so Super Troopers two had been finished, and the studio said, we're going to wait a year to release it, because next year, on April 20th, April 20th Falls on Friday, so we can release the movie on Friday, April 20th on four 20. And so we're waiting for that day, the time to do it. We're like, okay. But they didn't announce the day, and they kept being like, they didn't know when they were going to announce it. And they kept it off, kept putting it off. They kept saying, soon, soon, soon, soon, soon. And it was killing everybody. And so I was doing this interview with this free newspaper, and the guy said, do you know the release date of Super Troopers two? I said, I do, but I can't tell you. And he said, come on, what is it? I was like, I honestly can't tell you. And he's like, come on, please tell me. And I was like, I can't tell you. I'm not going to tell you. And he said, okay. And so then we kept doing the interview, and then the interview was over, and he said, okay, the interview is over. And he said, now, as a fan, can you just tell me? And I said, I can't, I'm not going to, but I'll give you a hint. Oh

Michael Jamin:

No,

Steve Lemme:

There's a very popular stoner holiday that falls on a Friday next year. And he said, okay. And he was like, that's awesome. I was like, yeah. So then I was flying the next day to Vermont, and when I landed, there was messages, a text message from Heman like, you're in trouble.

Michael Jamin:

You guys are big mouth. What a puts, what

Steve Lemme:

A puts. And then the guy had an even kind of made fun of me. He's like, he wouldn't tell me the release date, but I pushed him and pushed him, and finally he told me it's four 20. And so that Jay was pissed off and my producer was pissed off. The studio was fucking furious. They wanted to announce it make best, but they had all the materials. They just weren't doing it. And so they were like, it was still this little teeny newspaper, a free newspaper, and it was like less week's.

Michael Jamin:

And you gave them the scoop, this free fucking Vermont maple

Steve Lemme:

Syrup. You get in a pizzeria, you just fucking,

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, I don't, you throw away, you wipe the table with,

Steve Lemme:

Yeah, get the

Michael Jamin:

Scoop.

Steve Lemme:

I was really fucking, this is Thursday. I did a show that night and I was fucking devastated. So I went out there and did a half-hearted show. My heart was heavy, and it was wait and see if anybody picks us up. And then Friday morning it got fucking picked up and was everywhere. And meanwhile, there were email threads with all the studio, the president of the studio and a hundred people from Searchlight, and then all the broken lizard, not me. And even my producer, I was like, dude, I'm suffering over here. You got to tell me what's going on. He just wrote back. He was fucking pissed off. Oh

Michael Jamin:

Wow.

Steve Lemme:

Yeah, no, it hurt. And I was like, I went jogging that day. And then they released it that day. They did the official release of the trailer and the date, and it got 8 million views in the first fucking 24 hours alone. But nobody was talking to me that whole weekend. I didn't know any of that, but I knew it was out there. But I knew I had rushed the process, but like I said, they had it and

Michael Jamin:

They just wanted to punish you.

Steve Lemme:

But then the next week there was a meeting at Searchlight on Wednesday to now game plan, and it was like the big question was, so that weekend fucking sucked. I did press on Friday morning and I did two shows on Friday night and Saturday night, and I had friends coming to the shows and I was so sad. I was sad Steve and I was alone. And the one guy who was kind of forgiving, who was actually totally forgiving was Kevin. And I also say Paul Soder, who you worked on Tacoma. Those guys were not so secretly they were like, you know what? I'm fucking glad you did it. Now it's out there finally. And they were psyched because now we could finally fucking talk about it. We were getting ass about all the time. So those guys were cool about it. The other guys weren't as happy with me. And then the big question was, was I going to go to that studio meeting? And I fucking went. I was like, I'm going to take my poison.

Michael Jamin:

Let's

Steve Lemme:

Go.

Michael Jamin:

Did they give you shit there?

Steve Lemme:

I went in and I made the saving Grace was that the trailer got 8 million views in the first 24 hours, and it was like, holy shit. It exceeded, it far exceeded and was now on pace at that moment in time. It was like that actually might have been the actual trailer. This was just a teaser and the announcement and it was huge. And so they were happy about that. That's the only thing that saved me because a couple of 'em, the head of marketing and the president were not that fucking psyched with me.

Michael Jamin:

It's so interesting because usually they'll try to keep, you're the star of this movie. Usually they try to keep that, they try to hide their disdain from actors. They don't say it in front of their face. It was

Steve Lemme:

A big deal and it caused massive shock waves and a shit storm then people had to fucking deal with while I sat there telling jokes. In Vermont,

Michael Jamin:

That's always the worst when you're, yeah, you have to wait through something. I know that feeling terrible. I've been there before. I

Steve Lemme:

Was sick. I was sick about

Michael Jamin:

It. Yeah, sick. Yeah, exactly.

Steve Lemme:

And mad at myself. How could I be so stupid? The whole thing?

Michael Jamin:

Did you confront that guy and say, Hey, you're a dick.

Steve Lemme:

No, I wanted to fucking die. I wanted the whole thing to die.

But the funny thing was is that then the next internal broken lizard conversation was that because some guys were psyched that I had gotten it out there and the studio was psyched because fucking, it was massive. It was a massive announcement that got all those views and so was then the guys that were kind of mad about it were like, well, don't feel like you did the right thing here. What you did was wrong was like, I know what I did was wrong. I'll never do it again. They're like, so don't feel justified. I'm like, I know, but then guys are looking at each other. But it is pretty fucking sweet. And I definitely did the wrong thing and I would not advise that to anybody.

Michael Jamin:

Funny. Well, that's so interesting.

Steve Lemme:

It was an accident. It was an accident.

Michael Jamin:

Happy accident.

Steve Lemme:

It was a stupid mistake.

Michael Jamin:

I have to, this whole thing is that's what I love about you. You're just this open book and you tell, I feel like I get an education at the Hollywood from what you guys do. But tell me this though, as I've taken an hour of your time and you've been very gracious, but as you're, now that you're a showrunner for four Seasons now, and you obviously do a lot of hiring, I got a lot of people who listening to this podcast, sparring writers, what do you look for in a script? What do you look for in a new writer? All that stuff.

Steve Lemme:

So it's an interesting question for right now, because over the last, when we started with Tacoma, it was really at the beginning. Maybe it wasn't the beginning, but for me as a show runner, when we were putting together the writer's room, diversity was the first and most important thing that we were being told that we had to

Michael Jamin:

From the studio,

Steve Lemme:

The network in the studio to incorporate into the writer's room. And it was women, people of color across the board, everything

You need to do this, which was fine. What I found was that then it used to be that I could, when we had a production deal at Warner Brothers for many years, and it's like you receive these movie scripts that were R-rated comedies and you were looking at, because that's what we were doing and we were going to be producing for other people. So it was like you just get every R-rated comedy sent your way. And so now, because of the diversity thing, we were receiving all kinds of scripts from all kinds of writers, from all kinds of backgrounds. And so it's like I couldn't receive a script from a Korean American woman, girl, young lady, of either whatever her sexuality was, and that experience would be reflected in the script,

Which is not something I could relate to. So what I began to look for was the jokes inside the script, where before I didn't really, I could tell jokes and stuff, but I was just looking at the whole thing. Do I like the whole idea and stuff in terms of the scripts I started being sent, they weren't ideas that I could particularly relate to unless it was like, okay, you're the son of an immigrant who's going to a private school where they are out of their element. Okay, that I can relate to. But it was in any script I started to look for what's the type of joke they're telling? Is it a more highbrow joke? Are there a bunch of some dumb jokes? Is it word play? What's the type of humor here? And so that's what I started to look for in terms of the writing material.

And then I found when I focused on that actually, but the plot of the script didn't matter at all. It was like, can they tell a story and are the jokes that they're setting up and paying off the type of jokes that I think will work for our show type of jokes, I will. Because it or not, everybody's got a style of humor. And if you're not telling the kind of jokes that I like to tell, it's I'm just not going to funny. And I can't hire you because in the writer's room, everything you're saying, I'm going to be like, it's dead air between us. I don't know. We're not on the same page. So I started to realize I could just look for the type of sense of humor and then nothing else really mattered. So I look for the type of jokes. I like to know that they can tell a story from beginning, middle, and end.

And then the other thing is bring the person in. You find those scripts that you like. And then now we're going to do the zoom meeting. And I'll tell you what, if you're the first person I meet, you got the job, got the job. No, but in this case, and as we proceeded through each season, you started to realize that you actually, you do want to meet everybody, but then it becomes a personality thing. Can we riff with each other? And again, it's like it's not so much where you're from or who you are, what you represent. Can you and I have a conversation and have a funny conversation? That's what we look for too. Because as you know, it's like we're 17 weeks in a writer's room together. And the first few seasons we were in the room, and then the last couple of seasons we've been on Zoom. But in collaboration, sometimes there are disagreements and it's like we have to each other. We have to live with each other for 17 weeks, and I have to read your material and you have to accept my criticisms and ideas. And you have to my ideas. Because the truth is, if we're having a disagreement on something, I know who's going to win the argument.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. People don't realize that.

Steve Lemme:

Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Young writers often don't realize that the winner of the argument has already been decided. And that person sitting at the end of the table,

Steve Lemme:

I want to hear you defend your idea, but what I don't want, number one, what I don't want is for you to interrupt me a lot. What I don't want is for you to get mad. If I'm not taking your idea. Also, it's my show. Forget that it's my show. I'm the one whose responsibility is, if my joke sucks, that's my fucking problem.

Michael Jamin:

Yours.

Steve Lemme:

Nobody's going to say, wait a second, that joke sucked. Lemme see who wrote this episode. Oh, it's that person. I'm not going to hire them. Doesn't work that way. So like the personality is important,

Michael Jamin:

Right? Sure.

Steve Lemme:

And that's it for us. It's also like we want to grow the family, and we've always wanted to grow the family since

Michael Jamin:

What does that mean?

Steve Lemme:

It means, since we made Puddle Cruiser, our first movie that we made before Super Troopers, we have people that worked on that crew. And if you do a good job and you're cool, you're getting the job the next time. And we're going to also certainly getting our start in the movies, we were always on location, so we'd hang out afterwards and socialize,

And that's important. And you're having laughs. And then it's like, fuck, I love you. I love you too. And then you're hanging out socially outside of work. And then it's like we're friends. And it's like, because I actually believe that if think I think about my best friends, it's my friends from high school, I went to two high schools. So it's my friends from both those high schools and then it's my friends from college and then my friends from waiting tables. And then it's the people that you, I think friendships are made when you have to hang out with people because left to my own devices, I'm not fucking hanging out with anybody. I want to be with my family, but if I have to hang out, if you call me up or let's go get a beer, I'm in.

Michael Jamin:

Right? You're in. Problem is you live too far away.

Steve Lemme:

The problem is you live too far away.

Michael Jamin:

No, honestly, you live far away. You both live very far away. So I, that's not say no, we're closer to Hollywood than you are. You're not. You're closer to Oxnard.

Steve Lemme:

I know. I know. We're so far out. We're so

Michael Jamin:

Far. If Hollywood were an Oxnard, then yeah, then I would live farther. You live far.

Steve Lemme:

I accept it. I accept it. But anyway, it's like what's with our Tacoma family? That's why I say it's like if you're cool and you can get the job done, then the relationship will just continue. And then when the relationship continues, then people become friends and the family grows. And then it's like, as you know, it's like we sold this show and then we were like, well, we want some guys to be the showrunners who've worked in animation. And I'm like, we got the guys.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. It's funny when I tell that story and you guys, Hey, you want to do this project? I remember saying, yeah, absolutely. And then you're like, do you want to hear the idea? It doesn't matter. I just like working with you guys. It doesn't matter. That's what it was. Sure. I like working with you. It's fun.

Steve Lemme:

Well, we do have a good time. And it's funny because I'm always, I even remember those first two seasons where we were in the writer's room together. I would always come, skulking you guys were, we had never done TV before or showrunner. So they were like, you do have to, your first hires have to be people with show running experience. You need to be mentored. And so that was you guys. And so I would always come pretty frequently. I feel like I came skulking around your offices after the writer's day had finished, you actually were usually out the door.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, that's the first rule that you never learned. When the boss says you're free, you fucking run. You run. Because then they'll come in with more work. You're already at the elevator in the car,

Steve Lemme:

So you were always gone. But I would come back and talk to Seaver a lot, and I would give him more work, but I'd be like, what do you think about this? And pick his brain. Sometimes it's like, and I've felt it with you guys before. The favorite one that Kevin and I sort of talk about is the pickleball episode that you guys were, you guys came with a pretty out there idea, which was,

Michael Jamin:

Is it our idea? I thought it was your idea. Pickleball.

Steve Lemme:

No, no. The pickleball was our idea. But you guys pitched and we outlined it, but you guys came back and pitched doing it like a 30 for 30.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, right. And

Steve Lemme:

Doing an alternative take on it where it was told in the frozen tundra, that kind of thing.

And I was the one who poo-pooed that and was like, I think we should just tell a straight story. It made me nervous and I just wanted to stick to the guns. And I even remember soda was like, because people really liked that original fresh take on it. But I was scared of it. I liked it too, but I was scared of it. And I always felt bad when I would shoot down. Somebody's a big idea. Well see. And see was like, nah, fuck that. Who caress? We are here to do your, we don't fucking care. Seabert made it very clear. You guys don't fucking care.

Michael Jamin:

Well, it's not that we don't care. It's not a we're on a fight. We're here to help you make your show. That's it. Right.

Steve Lemme:

Which goes back to the young writers thing. We've had some young writers in the room that you've been by, and they can be difficult because they fight. They're arguing with you, and we're nice showrunners. You are for sure you showrunners who would fucking fire them or bite their head off at the very

Michael Jamin:

Least. Yes, yes. Yeah. And I say that to you all the time. You saw the show. It's your vision. We're here to help you make your vision. That's it. It doesn't make like I'm right or you're wrong. It doesn't your show. That's it. And who's to say that my version is better? I don't know. It's just the version. I think it's better. It doesn't mean anyone else thinks it's better.

Steve Lemme:

Yeah. Well, nobody really knows. And I remember seeing this thing, what was it? Was it talking, talking funny? Was it like Seinfeld and Chris Rock?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah.

Steve Lemme:

And I'm doing my concentration phase and Ricky ve, I'm blanking on the fourth, but Seinfeld was like,

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Steve Lemme:

It's crazy. When you, was it Louis ck?

Michael Jamin:

It might've been Louis ck.

Steve Lemme:

Yeah, it was

Michael Jamin:

The biggest, right? Was it Dave Chappelle? Or if he was not in

Steve Lemme:

That? It wasn't Chappelle. It wasn't Chappelle. But Seinfeld was like, I go into these network meetings and he's like, lemme tell you something about stand of comedy. You just stand a comedy. You don't know if something is, you might think something is hysterical, but I'll tell you what the audience is actually going to let you know if it's funny.

And so the audience is half of it. And I think every comedian has that story of the joke that they thought was awesome, and they went out there and delivered it and it bombed. They're like, well, it's not funny. Or The way I did it isn't funny. And maybe I can try to improve on it then It's still not funny. But it's like for them, the executives to be like, we don't like this joke. We want you to do this is absurd. Like, well, I'm technically the funny one. And what you don't realize is that you can't tell me something is funny, right? Because nobody knows if something's funny. So you might as well trust me. And so it's the same way with running a show. It's like I could be wrong. In fact, there's a very good chance that I'm wrong, but it doesn't matter in this case.

Michael Jamin:

But I'll say as showrunners, you guys are very prepared. You come with your ideas and it was a pleasure. I mean, honestly, those four years, my complaint was more, I want to do more. That's my only complaint.

Steve Lemme:

But I think that's an interesting thing too, is that we learned that our way of doing things was actually not the norm.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. It still wasn't. Yeah, because even in the end, you still took, I'd say 90% of our advice and the other 10% did it your way, which is fine.

Steve Lemme:

Yeah. But I always found it interesting, we try to do it that way, that you talked about on some of those shows where it's like you have the

Michael Jamin:

Rewrite on the screen and the board

Steve Lemme:

Screen, the screen screen, and everybody's going through the script, line by line and pitching things. And it's like, to me and to Kevin, it was like, that's an incredibly slow way of doing things.

Michael Jamin:

Well, it's only so far as you decide this line doesn't work for me. That's all pitch on this line. So you decide what is working, what isn't working

Steve Lemme:

Right, and

Michael Jamin:

Then I second guess you and I go, no, you're wrong.

Steve Lemme:

And then

Michael Jamin:

It all falls apart.

Steve Lemme:

Yeah. Then it's over. But I also wonder if that's because we didn't have the luxury of time ever.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Right. There's definitely

Steve Lemme:

That, and part of that is because acting in the show. Yeah. I think what a lot of people don't realize is, so network television, half hour shows are what, 23 episodes, and those are showrunners and writers that are just tucked away writing a show, and that writing is often going on while filming is happening and the season scripts aren't even finished. Whereas with us, we're acting in the show and we have to have total control over the script. So we have to be finished with the scripts before we start

Michael Jamin:

And directing exhausting. When I visit on set, I'm exhausted for all you guys here acting and memorizing and then directing Jesus.

Steve Lemme:

I get tired. My least favorite part is directing myself as an actor. It's the only thing I don't like about directing is acting at the same time.

Michael Jamin:

But you don't mind directing if you're not in the scene.

Steve Lemme:

I enjoy it. If I don't have to act at all, then it's pretty enjoyable to sit back and because then you can

Michael Jamin:

And direct really because just a prep and making sure you got the right cameras and the coverage, I don't know. It's very stressful,

Steve Lemme:

But that's tiring. But then it's as one of the lead characters in the show, it's like I have to go home and I have to learn lines. You actually have to know your lines better because a lot of the other actors don't know their lines very well. And they're learning while we're rehearsing. And that's just an act of survival thing. You're doing eight pages of dialogue a day. It's hard to memorize that all each

Michael Jamin:

Day. Yeah, it's very hard. It's very

Steve Lemme:

Hard. But when you're saying it and you're up on your feet with the other actors, then it's actually becomes really easy to remember. And then you're getting so many wax at it. But after a day of shooting to go home and then sit down and study your lines is exhausting. As a director, you have to do that more because you don't have time to rehearse. You just have to know

Michael Jamin:

You guys are hardworking, you really are. Or hardworking guys a hard

Steve Lemme:

Job.

Michael Jamin:

And if people don't realize it, it's very hard.

Steve Lemme:

But it's a fun job and it's the people around you that make it fun.

Michael Jamin:

You might be right. What advice do you have before we sign off for aspiring actors or writers today? This year? I don't know, as opposed to 10 years ago.

Steve Lemme:

Well, it's the same as it was 10 years ago. Stop. I think it can be depressing sometimes to hear, but if you look at Kevin and me, like I said early on, it's like no one has ever handed us anything.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, right.

Steve Lemme:

Everything we've ever gotten, we've gotten for ourselves. Even now it's like our TV show's probably going to be canceled and not because we did anything wrong, we've actually crushed it and had great ratings. But the network

Michael Jamin:

Network is gone.

Steve Lemme:

It's going away. They're actually trying to kill the networks, so, which makes no sense, but it's happening because everyone thinks streaming is where it's at. No one wants free TV apparently, and they have 90 million viewers, but they want them all to go someplace else. And so it's like take that as the example of how the industry works and it is you. It's you against them, and you're going to have to prove yourself. But also, none of the work goes to waste. Even if you write a script and it sucks. You're learning how to write. Even if you write a script and it doesn't sell, there might be some jokes in there that you can use for something else. Or if you look at quasi, we wrote that script 20 years ago, didn't know when it would ever get made, and 20 years later, we got it made. The work is never wasted. Something about writing and acting and directing is that you're always learning. I haven't stopped learning my craft since I started it. And also the other piece of advice that I've given over the last 10 years is you should also, besides just sticking with it, you should actually make stuff. Because that's essentially what we did. We were independent filmmakers and we just raised money and made it. And now that's more easy than it ever was. That's easier than it ever

Michael Jamin:

Was. Is it raising money because of the internet?

Steve Lemme:

Well, but no, but I mean, sure you could, but it's like you used to pay for a camera, now you have cell phones and you have cheap phones, and you used to film used to be the most expensive thing there was. Now you can shoot on digital video and it's like we didn't even call cut anymore. And editing. You can edit on your computer and you can market can market on Instagram and TikTok, put little clips of your thing. People like it. Download the whole thing. It's like just make stuff. Make stuff.

Michael Jamin:

Excellent advice. Steve Lemme, thank you for joining me here on episode 100. My pleasure. You're a great guest. I got to say thank you. Way better than I thought you would turn out to be. I know you got me to say stuff. I don't know how you did it. I didn't get you to cry. I usually try to get people to cry. You try. Thank you so much. All right, everyone. Another great episode. I thought for more, keep following and that's it. Keep listening. Thanks so much. 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 [email protected] slash 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 @PhilaHundson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane Music by Ken Joseph. Until next time, keep writing. I.

On this week's episode, I discuss the differences between writing for TV versus film and the differences in the development phases. We also go into ways to create your own material and what to really focus on. Tune in for much more!

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Michael Jamin:

If you write something great, the actors will come out of the word work to be in it, and you don't even have to pay 'em because they're getting footage and they're also being involved in something that could be really great and could blow up and could make their careers. But if the script's no good, you're going to have to beg 'em to do it because what's in it for them other than bad footage that they can't use? It's

Listening to Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.

Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to another episode of Screenwriters. Need to Hear this. I'm here with Phil Hudson again. Hello, Phil.

Phil Hudson:

Hey everybody. Good to be back.

Michael Jamin:

Hello, everybody. Today we're going to talk about something, well, something I think is very important. How about that? The question is, should you write for film or tv? I think a lot of people, at least from social media when they leave comments, I think a lot of people really aspire to be film writers because they have their story and maybe they think it's more prestigious. Maybe they like the idea of going to walking down a red carpet and seeing their work on a large screen. And so I just thought I talked to you about my feelings about film versus TV and why I greatly prefer working in television. And I think anybody who works in film is crazy. So it's not that they're crazy, but it's just like, wow. I see a lot of advantages for working in film. And to be clear, I am a TV writer, but I have sold a couple of movies and after selling those movies I was like, I don't want to do that again. I'd rather work in television, but I definitely see the appeal that people have. So I thought I may shed a little light on what my perspective is. That sounds good with you, Phil.

Phil Hudson:

I think this is an exciting topic and we were just talking before we started recording, the industry's changed even since I started studying this craft. Seriously, back then there was a viable feature market and it seems like it's gone the wayside, and I've seen the transition over the last decade with filmmakers and screenwriters coming into tv. I think because the money's better, there's more work, there's more creative freedom, and I'm sure you'll talk about it, but there's that saying of the director runs the film set and the writer runs the TV set.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, if you want creative control, we have lots to talk about, but if it's creative control that you want, then you want to be in TV because the writer's in charge. If you want to be in charge in a film, then the director's in charge. Often the writer's not even invited to set. The writer has no say that will be rewritten. The director might hire multiple writers to rewrite. So if you think if it's about your vision, unless you are shooting yourself, forget it. You are really an afterthought. And like you said, they are making far fewer movies now than they were even 15, 20 years ago, probably a third as many. And when you look at the titles being released, you got a lot of remakes. You got a lot of sequels, you got a lot of reboots. Yeah, I mean, so they're making

Phil Hudson:

Another, it's largely IP based material too. So it's other books that have blown up and they buy the rights to that. They then make that.

Michael Jamin:

So it is because they're easier to market, which is why you have Fast and The Furious 13, everyone knows that and it's why you have it, Indiana Jones five, because everyone knows it's just easier to market. And even Barbie, I don't know if it's Greta Go's Dream to make, when she was approached to write Barbie, she's probably Barbie, do I have to Barbie? What about my original idea? So obviously she wrote the Barbie movie and turned it into something very unique and special. But I can't imagine as a child, she grew up thinking, I want to write a movie about Barbie. They came to her with an offer and she turned into something unique and creative, but I don't think she came, maybe I shouldn't speak, but I can't imagine she brought the Barbie idea to them. I think they had to move the ip and yeah,

Phil Hudson:

I'm certain that's the case, but even then because of the success of Barbie, now Mattel is talking about creating their own cinematic universe,

Michael Jamin:

Right? Right. So get ready for more gi whatever it is. I don't know. Is that your dream? Now, indie filmmaking, by the way, is a completely different topic. Maybe we can brush on it a little. My area of expertise is definitely not independent filmmaking, but that's a whole different,

Phil Hudson:

But that's what I went to film school for and that's the Sundance world that I kind of been in. So I'm familiar with that. And there's a bit of a merge there. And we can talk about tko. Waititi is a really great example of that because he came out of the indie film world. He was a Sundance kid, and then he started doing more prolific stuff. And while I was touring for quasi handling social media for the broken lizard guys, that's one of the conversations we had with their, one of the Searchlight VPs of publicity. And she was like, yeah, Tika, he does one for us, we do one for him. You do Thor, you want to do Thor? Awesome. We'll make invisible Hitler. And it's a way for them to incentivize. But I would say Clin Eastwood, I would say even look at Christopher Nolan, that's the way it works. You get this deal at these big studios, I'll make your billion dollar film, and then they let you make the film you want to make, and one is going to make a ton of money, may win some awards, the other one's going to win some awards because they have the talent.

Michael Jamin:

So if it's your aspiration for me, just the thought of working film, you go, okay, I'll write a film and maybe I can sell it. But then, okay, then how many times are you going to sell a, it is hard to sustain that career. Whereas in television, oh, I know there's a TV show and maybe they have whatever, 10 or 13 episodes a season that sounds like you can make a living that sounds like you're working more steadily. And when I broke in, by the way, it's 22 episodes, so I was like, oh, okay, these people work all the time. And for 10 seasons, that sounds to me that was the lure of a steady paycheck was in television, maybe less so today, but certainly more so than being a filmmaker.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, that's fascinating. One thing that's standing out to me from this conversation really just echoes what you've been saying throughout the history of the podcast, and we're approaching two years of this podcast, and that is you have to get out and do it yourself. Nobody's going to do it for you. You can't rely on anybody else. You have to get up and do it. And even the gre Gerwig, the Tiger Boy, tee Tees, they had a name for themselves as filmmakers before the big studio came with the big bag of money. They were the value, and that's where they came to take advantage of them, right? Yeah. Greta Gerwig has the way to make her film stand out in her way and her style, and that's why it's a big hit. I don't think it's largely because it's Barbie, it's because of what she did with Barbie that made it work. But that's something she has honed and developed over years and years and years of hard work before she hit it big.

Michael Jamin:

And also my friend Chrissy Stratton, who I'm going to have back on the podcast at some point, we had her run before. So I met her on King of the Hill. She's a writer on King of the Hill. But then she went on to a very long career, almost as long as mine, working in various TV shows. She might be just one or two years behind me, pretty much equal. And she works all the time in tv, but she had this film that she's been dreaming about for whatever, 10 or 15 years and then decided, you know what? I'm just going to make a short. And so on her own dime. And she raised the money. She's a successful TV writer, but in film, she's the no one. So she started from scratch and she called in a lot of favors and shot a movie on by raising her own money, real low budget.

And we'll talk more about this journey and why she's doing it, but it's not like, even though she's big in tv, she's a no one in film. So it's kind of a level playing field. And one of the thing, well, I know I'm jumping around, but I just so you're aware, as I mentioned about creative control in film, well, lemme tell you about the experiences that I went through. So my writing partner and I, we wrote a writing sample, a feature sample. I was dreaming it was going to get sold, but he was like, it's not going to get sold, whatever. But I was like, maybe it will. We wrote a sample, our agent shopped it around, no one bought it as predicted, but there was a producer who was very interested in working. He's like, this is great. We can't it, but let's try coming up with some ideas together and sell those.

And so we worked with this producer and we wound up selling two more ideas, but every step of the way, it was kind of exhausting. We're coming up with ideas, we're writing drafts, we're giving it to him. He's got notes we're not getting, and you're doing, it's called free revisions. You're doing notes after notes. We sold it to the studio, but the producer is basically the gate. So until the producer's happy with the draft, the studio will never see it. And so this is what free revisions is. So you're doing constant rewrites for the producer.

Phil Hudson:

This is a big deal for the W G A, by the way. It's a very big deal. It's part of the strike too.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. I don't know what's going to obviously happen with it. And you're doing a lot of free work, which you're not getting paid obviously, and the studio's not seeing any of it. And then you get finally the producer's happy, you give it to the studio and then the studio has notes and then, okay, now you're again. So they say, do a revision. And again, you go back, you start doing the revision, you've turned into the producer and the producer's like, eh, I don't think it's good enough fellas. I need to do more work and more work. And then finally you turn that revision to the studio. I was at one point producer who I liked quite a bit, really good guy, but he also had development people working under him. So at one point his development person left, he brought in a new one, and now this new person has a new direction that we're going, oh my God.

It was like, this is a never ending hell. That's how I felt. It's just a never ending hell because you have to please them. And I understand this is how the game is played, but I was like in tv, it doesn't work this way in tv, if I'm a writer on staff, I turn in my draft to the showrunner. If I'm not the showrunner, the showrunner has notes, great. Turn in another draft, we're done. Shoot, we're going to shoot it. And of course the network will have notes, but it's so much more streamlined because you have a timetable, we have to shoot this thing on Friday, so you can't keep this up in development hell for a year, which is what happens if you're doing film. You could be in hell forever on this. I was like, work done. And that's

Phil Hudson:

The term too. It's development health, what you said. That's an industry term for what that is.

Michael Jamin:

And the money, in terms of the money, I got paid way more in TV than I do in film. So

Phil Hudson:

That's what I was about to say. I just said, we talked about the podcast, that experience I had where that guy signed the script, signed the contract to write a script for that thing, and it kind of fizzled out, but the numbers on it were, it's like $160,000 to write a screenplay. Well, the average I understand is about six months to go through the whole process to write a script more than that. But then you have the notes and you have the feedback and you got all that stuff. So you're going to do one, maybe two of those a year. Well, you can go get an M B A and then go get a six figure paycheck that's going to pay you more than that. And

Michael Jamin:

Just so you know, the movie's not getting made and it has nothing to do with you or it's just like it's a miracle movies. It's a miracle when a movie gets made. So if you want to see your work on the screen, even if it's been rewritten to death, forget it. Most movies just do not get made. So you're okay, but you used to make a good living writing movies that never got made. Maybe it's less so now because they're making because they're buying fewer. But back in the day, you could be a very successful screenwriter and never have a word of yours onscreen. But in TV it's different.

Phil Hudson:

One question that comes to mind for me, Michael, when you talk about free revisions and development, hell, you also advocate that writers write and they write for free. And if you don't want to write for free, don't do this because that's what this job looks like.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Right. What's the difference between the experience with the free revisions and the notes with the producer versus your definition of free writing?

Michael Jamin:

I mean, we're talking about two things. We're talking about improving your craft to write, to learn how to write. And so a lot of people just write one script and they think, well, I'm going to sell it and I'm done. Give me a paycheck. And my point is then you put it down and write another one and then write another one. And you'll notice that script number five is vastly better than script number one simply because you're getting better at writing. But the free revisions I'm talking about for these producers, when you become a professional at some point, I got to take home money. This is not a hobby for me. This is how I make my living. So I just didn't enjoy the process. I just thought like, ugh, it is no fun. It takes the joy out of it.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, no kidding. So we have to write. We have to write. That's part of writing. Being a writer is writing. But what the WGA is fighting for is that writers should be paid for all of the professional rioting where other people are making money off of the sweat of their back. They're taking advantage of that situation because a bit of a power dynamic there where the producer has control and obviously they want to maintain their relationship and they want to make it as good as they can be. So I'm not saying it's a negative or a nefarious approach to it, but it's still a writers are sitting there not getting paid.

Michael Jamin:

I understand the producers are protecting their brand and they have a closer relationship with the studio. I get it. But they're not the ones doing all that work for free. So I just like, this is not appealing to me. I'd much rather work in television. Like I said, you have more creative control. You're onset. And again, in features, what would've happened had these two features of ours been made. It didn't come to this and I didn't expect it to, but we sold two features and at both times we're finally done. We give both final drafts to the studio. The studio is happy with it. The studio executive were working with happy. They'd given all our notes and revisions. They were very happy with the script. Now they give it to their boss who has the green light, they have the power to green light. And the boss reads it over the weekend, not interested.

It was like, it's over. It's it. It was almost on a whim. Nah, what else you got? And it's like there's no argument. There's no more convincing them, it's dead because they just don't want to make that movie. And often they don't want to make that movie simply because the movie that did well that weekend was an action movie and your movie's a comedy and they want to make more action movies now, or it's as simple as that. Or someone put out a comedy movie that weekend that bombed and forget it. We're not doing comedies anymore. And so it could have nothing to do with the quality of what you wrote. This is what the marketplace suddenly changed and now it's dead. So this is how it is.

Unless you are making your own movie. And if you make your own movie, that's great, but do it on a dime. On a dime. I say I had a nice conversation with someone, someone asked me to, it was a couple of days ago, they wanted to book some time with me for a consultation, which I occasionally do. And he really nice guy, but he had self-financed some projects and I was like, you spent too much money on that. Don't put so much money into your own projects in the beginning until you really get spend a couple thousand. That's what you can do it on. That's what I recommend.

Phil Hudson:

And in the indie film side of things, the goal is to not spend your money. It is actually to find investors. And the question is, why would people invest in an indie film maker who's made no money? A lot of people are looking for tax write-offs and they want to be involved in Hollywood. They want to feel like they are producing being part of that because they probably have that desire, that dream, and they chased the paycheck rather than their art. And so now that they've got the money, they would rather invest in another artist to be a part of that. And so my friend's dad is just this awesome guy, and he just texted me out of the blue two years ago and he had a bunch of stocks vest and he cashed out and he was like, Hey man, if you ever have something you want to make, let me know. I've got some cash lying around. I'd love to put towards that.

Michael Jamin:

Oh wow.

Phil Hudson:

But that comes out of a relationship of trust that I have with the guy. It also

Michael Jamin:

Is, and it might come with strings attached. It may

Phil Hudson:

Be, and it probably will,

Michael Jamin:

It may be, and this is not how it works in TV and tv. So in film you might have a ton of executive producers because they help chip in for 5,000 bucks. You can become an executive producer of my movie. People do that and TV doesn't work that way. Tv, that's all financed by the studio. So it's not that kind of model. But in film, you write a check for 5,000, or if you write a bigger check for 50,000 and the person says, I'll give you 50,000 if you cast my daughter as the lead, or if you make these changes to the script, do you want to do it or not? That's up to you. How much do you want that money?

Phil Hudson:

I think that's really where the question of art versus craft comes into play, because in that situation it might be a little bit more art, it might be a little bit more of your decision. Well, that's going to ruin my vision for what I have or destroy the theme of this piece, and I'm doing it myself because it is an expression of myself, and that is art. And you might turn down the money out of integrity for the art there, but you might also take the paycheck because you've got kids who need diapers,

Michael Jamin:

Right? And so some people, sometimes people are very naive about the whole thing and they're like, you writers suck, or This is the garbage. Do you know how hard it's to get something made? And do you understand that I also need to make money?

Phil Hudson:

Oh man, we do the webinars every month and we do, we started to do this v i p q and A after, and we were testing it out, but we had a member of your group she joined and she was telling us about how she has made two or three indie films and she had put up this money and she was going to shoot it in the forest. And the film, the films that got shut down because of wildcat or a cougar, like a mountain lion or something, came in and ruined the whole thing. None of the actors want to come back. And she knew this was a thing that could happen. And so she was asking the question about hobbling together, her footage to make something producible. And it's just heartbreaking because a good story, you can't really do that. The story should mean something.

And that's someone who's in there doing it. I think they're doing it on their own dime, and that's just heartbreaking to hear. But I've got other experience where my buddy Rich, he's produced a bunch of any stuff. He's done stuff with Michael Madson, done some stuff with major players, knows a bunch of people, and he was telling me about this film that he was working on for years and years and years. And they shot the whole film and then it got locked down in post because one of the executive producers who wrote the check wouldn't sign off on the final cut. And so it could get

Michael Jamin:

Final cut

Phil Hudson:

And it got stuck and they were arguments and they had to work through and it was like five years. And the end result they got out of it was a worst film because the producer had too much say and wanted edits. So understanding story structure, you look at it, it is a hobbled together piece of crap that has a couple big names in it,

Michael Jamin:

Right? Yeah. I don't even think you need, well, I don't want to talk about big names, but, and I felt bad for this woman in the v I b talk. But here's the thing, I also think you need to figure, be cautious on how producible is this movie you want to make. You didn't have to do a movie, write a movie that take place in the mountains. You could have written a movie that takes place in someone's apartment, and if you think I'm nuts, go watch the whale, which takes place in someone's crappy apartment and was amazing and beautiful because their writing was beautiful and the acting matched it, but the set was ugly. And anyone could have shot that in their own apartment. And that's on you as the writer is like, you don't have to write a movie. I would be cautious about writing anything with kids, because kids are really hard to have on set first of legally. You need to have tutors, you want to bend the rules. Kids can only work a certain amount of hours. And what you do on your independent film, that's your business, but to be up and up, that's the truth. And kids, they get tired, they lose focus, and they want to horse around. So I would be careful about having kids. I'd be careful about doing anything that requires characters getting wet because costume changes are bitch, when you're wet and at exterior locations, the same thing. Back noise, street noise, people being disruptive, a leaf blower.

But you can write something very compelling in a controlled set where you don't have to worry about any of this stuff as long as the writing is good. It's all about the writing.

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:

I'm having a flashback. So my thesis film that I did, I took a crew, we rented a van, we took our equipment, we drove to Utah, negotiated all these things because of relationships. I had to get it cheap, shooting in friends' houses, borrowing a friend's truck, doing all of these things. Flew in a couple of indie actors from LA to be in my project. And while we were going through, you just start getting hit with every single thing you have planned, start shifting based off of, there's cloud cover now because you're outside, it's starting to snow. Lots of beautiful things happen. Like we're shooting on a pump jack, which an oil deck, an oil derrick is, what you think about 'em is pump jacks that big swinging arm pump. It's a training school that agreed to let us shoot on theirs that was donated. And there's moving in the background, makes the production value go through the roof, what we had.

But then at the same time, while we're driving, a deer jumps out and my friend's truck when my actor's driving hits the deer, and then we're driving the next day to go to the set to shoot the exteriors. And we need that truck. And then it blows part of the engine and we can't use the truck anymore. And I'm rewriting on the fly and my friend's daughter is casting this role using their house, and she's just this sweet little girl and she has two lines and she gets stage fright and she can't do it. And so we have to put her sister in who's too young. And so I have to scrap those lines and rethink how do I get this emotional moment across? And then at the end, when we're done filming, the little girl comes up and says, I'm ready now.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, great.

Phil Hudson:

And they're heartbreaking. Heartbreaking because we're done.

Michael Jamin:

And that said, whatever, I would take inventory if you decide to do this Indio thing, because as a way of getting discovered, as a way of breaking in, which is great. I would just take inventory of what you have that's in your control. If you're a truck driver and you have a Mack truck, alright, maybe you're shooting the truck. I mean, that's an interesting set.

Phil Hudson:

Well, it's your life that ties in the right what you know, you can add reality veracity to that.

Michael Jamin:

If you have a storage locker, the same thing. If you're allowed to shoot there, you're probably not. But what little you have could be interesting. You don't think it's interesting because it's your life, but we think it's interesting. We don't live your life.

Phil Hudson:

While you were talking, I was just thinking of Robert Rodriguez, who's arguably one of the biggest directors on the planet. And he came from this in world where he did on mariachi. He documents all of this in a great book, the Rebel Without a Crew. And he donated his body to science to fund it. And he went to the small town in Mexico. He went in for clinical trials for a, to get the money, borrowed a camera that didn't have audio. Went to a town in Mexico where he would summer, borrowed friends and family and a best friend to play the roles, did the whole thing. And then stayed up at night in an editing bay at a local TV station to edit his film and did it and blew up because he thought, and all he wanted to do was to sell it to a Spanish language channel and ended up selling it to Sony or whoever, Sony Columbia or something.

Michael Jamin:

And now you can make it for a fraction. You could edit it all on your laptop, you can

Phil Hudson:

Edit it on your phone. You shoot the whole thing on your

Michael Jamin:

Phone.

Phil Hudson:

But the story was good. Why did it sell? Why was it a big deal? It's because he knew how to tell a compelling story, and he just used what he had to do that

Michael Jamin:

Job. So we're in agreement here. If you want to do an indie film, great. Just don't spend a lot of money. Also, you don't have, if you write something great, the actors will come out of the word work to be in it, and you don't even have to pay 'em because they're getting footage and they're also being involved in something that could be really great and could blow up and could make their careers. But if the script's no good, you're going to have to beg 'em to do it, because what's in it for them other than bad footage that they can't use?

Phil Hudson:

I dove headfirst into this stuff when I was first starting, and I would write a script, do one version of it, one draft, and then I would shoot it, do a casting call. People would show up, they'd want to be in it. We'd be on set. And they'd very quickly realized I had no idea what I was doing and I didn't, but I just had the gumption to make it happen. And I remember my lead calling me out one time or shooting this shot, and he's like, dude, what are you doing? We're here. You're not even using light to help add subtext and value. And he's talking about how when you're walking up the stairs, well, if you shot it this way through here, there's a cage and a shadow being cast on my face and emotionally, my character's going through this inner turmoil with his relationship and there's all this.

And I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about, because I had no clue. And I wasted time and energy and money doing it, and I was a valuable learning experience for me, and I got that lesson out of it. So yeah, your point, do it as cheap as you can because learning, you're just learning. And that is the school of hard knocks, not the school of theory and philosophy. It's get it done. You're going to learn. You're going to make a lot of mistakes. You're not going to sell the first thing. It's probably not going to win any awards. And if you do, awesome, you did it now, but you're most likely not. And that's okay. It's reps, reps, reps, reps.

Michael Jamin:

Yes. And I have a lot of respect for people who do it. And even if they come up with something terrible and crappy, well, guess what? They did it. Guess what? They put a lot of energy and work into something and their next piece will hopefully be better. And most people just dream of it. And most people will just say, here's my script. Make my dream come true. But the other people say, here's my script. I'm going to make my dream come true. And it may take long, a long process, but it's putting the work in so good for them.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. My first class I went in, I had some credit transfer credits from when I was first in college. So when I went to film school, I was up, maybe I was basically a year ahead when I got there, and I had to take a couple of freshmen film classes because they were requirements. And I remember intro to film, film 1 0 1, we're in this big IMAX theater on our campus, and Peter Grendel, our professor my age is teaching. And his big point from the first lesson was the percentage of people who say they want to be filmmakers versus the people who make films is very different. It's like 0.0001% make a film. He said, so even if you put in all the time, energy, and effort needed to make an indie film that does nothing goes nowhere, you have still done something most people will never do. But most people talk about doing, and that's something to take pride in.

Michael Jamin:

My daughter shot a little scene in college. She got a scene, a little film that someone wrote, and it was just two people. It was short. It was like three minutes of a young woman. She was the girl and a boy sitting on a staircase talking about something, and it was too short to go anywhere. But I was like, that's interesting. You could have done something. It's easy to shoot. You're just two angles and a master on a staircase. If they had spent a little more time with the script, I go, there's something there for sure. It's something compelling about a boy and a girl who are dating and whatever they were talking about. I was like, it's something small. And the writing, it's about the writing. It's not about anything else as far as, and the acting. But yeah, I mean, just as an experiment, can I write something compelling about two people on a staircase talking about something? And we've seen this stuff. Here's a good one. Mount is a good example, but in Pulp Fiction, when Samuel Jackson and Travolta in that car are talking about

Phil Hudson:

The crown royale with cheese,

Michael Jamin:

That's interesting. That's interesting. Fun dialogue. You still need a story on top of that. But it's rich, and we all remember it because, or the scene or that small little scene, if you had shot that small scene where Samuel Jackson's talking about, he's in that guy's, there's young guy's house. He breaks the first scene where there's five college kids or whatever that they're threatening. They owe them money. And Samuel Jackson's talking about he's clearly a killer, but he's reformed. He's found Jesus, and he's struggling though. He's struggling to do the right thing. If you shot that one scene and it's an apartment building, that's it. You have a couple guy on a couch and a guy and two guys holding fake guns, that one scene is very interesting and compelling. If that's your movie you made, I want to see more. And it doesn't cost a fortune to write that scene. There's no special effects, I guess in the end had some fake bullets or whatever. But that's it, that that's all you need, A thug, a street thug who's a murderer, but he found Jesus and he's trying to do the right thing. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. That's great. That whole scene is fascinating. And that's for anybody listening, wanting to learn how to write great dialogue or understand characters. The fact that what's so interesting about that cheeseburger conversation is they are killers, and they're not talking about when we get there, we're going to shoot 'em in the face, or here's how we're going to dispose the body. They've done this so many times that this just, we can talk about why they put cheese on a burger. It's stabs quo. And the story's there because they're talking about the wife and the foot massage and all that stuff as they're standing in the hallway and it just happens and they kick the door and they know let's beat thugs. Right? But

Michael Jamin:

How easy are both those scenes? I mean, the first one's a little harder in a car, but they're both very easy in terms of shooting, that wouldn't cost neither one of those scenes cost a fortune. It's all about the writing and the acting will support the writing.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. I mean, that's Tarantino like Reservoir Dogs. It's a warehouse. It's a warehouse with some flashbacks outside. The whole thing takes you in one room,

Michael Jamin:

But even let's say reservoir drugs, which obviously was the one that really made him. But the point I'm trying to make is just write, because you don't have to write a whole movie, just write one compelling scene that promises something really on its own. You're like, I'm hooked. And maybe there's more to it.

Phil Hudson:

That ties back to your fractals podcast too, which has really stuck with me. And I think about it every time I sit down to write, when I'm structuring scenes and acts and I'm structuring my story, if you can't do a scene, well, how could you do a short, well, if you can't do a short, well, how could you do a full blown act or a TV pilot if you can't do that? Well, how can you do a two hour feature?

Michael Jamin:

We shot that episode, that podcast episode a long time, probably over a year ago, but it was called something about fractals. I think it was

Phil Hudson:

Just called fractals.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. And the point I was making is anybody who knows anything about fractals, they're patterns that repeat nature. So if you see a tree, it has a trunk in branches, but if you look at the leaf on the tree, the leaf has a trunk in branches, and then if you look at the cells, so it's about these repeating patterns. And so my point is, for movie, you have to want to write a compelling movie, right? But break down the movie into acts, and each act has to be compelling. Then break down each act into scenes, and each scene is compelling. And then each line has to be compelling. And so you're really just repeating patterns over and over, but on a larger scale. And so if you point out, if you can't write a compelling act, if you can write a compelling scene, how are you going to write a compelling act? Just start with writing a scene. That's

Phil Hudson:

It. Yeah. Write the scene, write the scene, write the scene over and over and over again. You can churn out scenes. Even if you just took a week and just focused on one scene, how much better is that going to be than taking a week and powering through 50 pages?

And I'm not advocating by the way that you shift your writing style, and it's not necessarily what you teach as the process that we do in Hollywood, and we've seen in TV rooms. What I'm saying is as a writing exercise, getting in your reps to practice the craft of writing, you're going to get faster return. Drilling. This thing, and I talk about this all the time, it's Josh Watkin's making bigger, small circles bigger. So how do you pull back and zoom in on something and focus on the detail work inside of that thing? And in Jujitsu's transitions in this, it's how do I get into a scene fast? How to get out of a scene fast? How do I display things through subtext? How do I have people say things without saying things? What's the thematic thing? What's the energy coming in? And the energy come out? That's all the detail. That's just a film condense. So focus, just do that while you're doing the other stuff.

Michael Jamin:

That's a good point. And I was going to also say, I'm guilty of this too. When I'm writing my, well, I finished my book, but when I was writing it, I'd have a scene in my mind. I wanted to get to the next scene where also some great stuff was going to happen. And then I kind of just got a little lazy in my transitions. And then when I'd read it again, I'm like, what's going on in this transition? Can I make this transition interesting? Do I have to be lazy and sloppy? Is there a goal to be found in the transition? And then I'd realize, oh, that's kind of where there's some interesting stuff is, so I'm guilty of it too. But you have to be aware. It's not just about a race, and you're not just racing to get to the next scene you are when

Phil Hudson:

We talk about enjoy the journey and enjoy the process. This is what we're talking about. You have to love doing this because it ends up getting you somewhere better than where you were before. And the other quote, I believe I've said on the podcast who really stood out to me was an interview with Kobe Bryant, and he just said that nothing he does on the court, he hasn't practiced a thousand times, right? So he's in there practicing, practicing, practicing. He shows up, and you hear this all the time in interviews with other players from the Lakers, they say that they would show up their first day and they'd want to show up early to put in the work. And Kobe Bryant was already there practicing free throws, practicing free throws.

Michael Jamin:

You're talking about the greatest player or one of the greatest players in the N B A hasty was already there, was acting as if he was a rookie who had never taken a shot in a basketball court.

Phil Hudson:

All the money, all the skills, all the fame, known name, 70 hour work weeks, just putting in the work.

Michael Jamin:

If the greatest player has to do it, why do you think you don't have to do it?

Phil Hudson:

LeBron James, he makes what? A hundred million a year off of all of his endorsement deals. I read, I think in Sports Illustrated, it's like 9 million a year goes into taking care of his body just in trainers massage therapy.

Michael Jamin:

Wow.

Phil Hudson:

Why? Because that's his tool. That's his instrument. Your tool is your keyboard or your typewriter, your pad and paper and pen, and you don't need, here's the cool thing. You can write a lot of things without needing a fancy computer or fancy software. You can just sit down and practice this with a pad of paper and a Panama napkin.

Michael Jamin:

What's your commitment to getting better at the craft? And I get why people just want to, they want fast results, but it's not a fast result kind of game. I don't know how we got here from, should you be a TV writer or a film writer?

Phil Hudson:

Well, I think we're talking about indie film, we're talking about the process of indie film versus features, but all of this relates it's skillset. And I know you talked about for you, you liked TV writing, and I think with the time we have left, I'd love to hear what are the benefits that you found in TV writing? And I think they tie directly into this, which is there's more work, there's more time to sit, and you do this more than writing

Michael Jamin:

A feature. But not only that, I feel like TV writing, being a TV writer has helped me improve my writing all around because every week, including writing novels. Including writing films, because every week you have to come up with a new story, and it's the repetitiveness, the repetition of, okay, let's break a story. This week we got to break a story. Next week, we got to break a north story next week. And constantly coming up with new stories, even though they're half hour as opposed to an hour and a half. It's that repetition that really makes you really good. And that's why I feel, and I'm not the only one who thinks this way, if you want to watch a really good comedy, you watch tv, you don't turn to film, although there are some really funny films, pound for pound, you go back to tv.

It's that action. That's where the good writers really get good. I'll see a comedy. I don't even know how many come. I tried watching one of these streamers, I'm like, oh, comedy, I'll watch this. And it's terrible. This is terrible. From some unknown, have they spent some time in a TV writer's room? They would know, no, this is not acceptable dialogue. That's not an acceptable joke. You just learn so much by being in television, I feel. And then you could go to TV or a film if you have an opportunity. But the learning ground, I feel, is in tv.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Have you seen The Bear?

Michael Jamin:

I saw the Pilot. I haven't watched the Rest. Dude

Phil Hudson:

Blew my mind, and it feels like one of the most dramatic films, TV shows I've ever seen. It's short form. It's a comedy, it's a sitcom. It's got all the enemies for these comedy, and it makes you laugh, it makes you cry. It's all those notes, and you just look at it, and I looked up the creator and it's like, man, this guy has produced some of the greatest standup comedians in history. Chris Rock, just tons of people. And it's like, yeah, you're learning this from being around and doing the work. And then that translate into what I think is one of the best comedies on tv,

Michael Jamin:

And

Phil Hudson:

It's great.

Michael Jamin:

I got to watch it. The problem is Cynthia's already seen it, and so I got to watch it alone, make time to watch it alone.

Phil Hudson:

I get it. I'm married. I understand.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. But there it is. I hope that helps. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

One thing I just wanted to add to this conversation was when I first got into this, the advice was really centered around, is this a TV IT idea or a film idea? Not necessarily are you a film writer or a TV writer? And I just wanted to get your thoughts on this. I hear this advice all over the place. The question was, is this something that could end or is this something that could continue? Is this the kind of idea that there's a clear defined ending to this, right?

Michael Jamin:

I feel like

Phil Hudson:

TV might've changed that now with our long form, eight to 10 minute, like a TV series ends up being a longer form film. But at the same time, I think there's some weight in that, which is something you tie back to in comedy. Your character doesn't really change at the end. They reset. I'd love your on that.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. So if you're coming with a film, is this a TV idea or a film idea? If the character goes on a complete journey, Rocky and Rocky finally wins or goes the distance. It's not a TV show because he's not going to go. It's not a fight of the week. It's just like you take a street bum and you turn into, he went the distance, so it's done. That's it. They made sequels. Sure. Each sequel is basically a remake of the first one, and none of them are as good as the first one because you took a character. The only reason they did sequels is because they, Hey, we can squeeze some more money out of this. The story was over, I'm sorry, the story was over. It was a beautiful story, but it's not like a world of Rocky and Nikki and the gang hanging out that would be hanging out at the training facility at the boxing club. That would be sunny. It's always sunny in Philadelphia, which is fine. That's a TV series. They're just hanging out, people hanging out. So is it a world you're creating, or are you taking a character on a full emotional journey?

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, and that's an interesting, John Wick one is just great. It's great. It's a great film. John Wick two, I kind of like more than John Wick one because we get into the world, but I wouldn't want John Wick two if I hadn't seen John Wick one and felt like it was satisfying at the end, and you're kind of bummed. The other thing, this is just my thing as a writer, I really hate when characters suffer to the nth degree of suffering and just wrecking, this guy just got his life back and now you're going to ruin his life in the second film. It's a bit of a bummer.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. But yeah, so that's what I ask, Yousef, are you creating a world, especially in sitcoms, this is your family. I think of it as, cheers. Do I want to hang out with these people week in and week out? Do I want to let them into my living room? Is that what it is? Because I certainly don't want to let some movies, no. Some movies, no, I don't want to The quiet place quiet. I don't don't want to let them into my living room week after week. That's unsettling to me. Great movie, not a TV show.

Phil Hudson:

Children are men. Children are men. One of the most impactful films I've ever seen. Haven't watched it again, so many,

Michael Jamin:

Right? It's enough. Right, right, right. Got

Phil Hudson:

The lesson. Move on.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Great answer, Michael. Thank you. Bye. It was great.

Michael Jamin:

Alright, everyone, thank you so much. Phil and I have more to talk about. We have some exciting stuff to talk about coming up in future episodes, but thank you so much and for what are we going to talk about, Phil? We got to promote, we have a watch list, our newsletter,

Phil Hudson:

We got all about it. So you can go to michaeljamin.com/newsletter to join the watch list. You can also go to /watchlist. A lot of people know that one, but you've got that. It's a weekly newsletter. You've got the free lesson. It's the first full free lesson. You've broken into three parts. A

Michael Jamin:

Screenwriting lesson,

Phil Hudson:

Right? A screenwriting lesson. If you want to learn more about the very first lesson you ever taught me as a mentor about screenwriting, which I think you were taught, and I think you've taught lots of other people, is what is the definition of a story. So go get that michael jamin.com/free. I think we get three to 500 people a week sign up for

Michael Jamin:

That thing. Oh wow. That's crazy. We also have, we've been doing free webinars and now right now the schedule's up. We're doing it every three weeks instead of every four weeks. So you can come to that michaeljamin.com/webinar and it's free. Come sit in and then

Phil Hudson:

Touring for a P orchestra. That's going to be coming up, I think, at some point, right?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, hopefully. But we're hoping that our book, my book is going to drop. I'm really happy with the way it's coming up, but we're doing the audio book now, and so maybe we'll talk a little bit more about that. Maybe we will talk more about that in a different episode. Yeah, if you want to come see me on tour or be notified when my book drops as an audio audiobook as well, Michaeljamin.com/upcoming, and the audiobook is really nice. It's really because I got some music. I have a composer on it. We'll talk about it now. I guess. Anthony Rizzo, who is the composer on Maron, well, I'll talk about it in the next episode. We'll open up, talk about that. So go there, michaeljamin.com/upcoming if you want to see me on tour or be notified me the book

Phil Hudson:

Drop. And for everybody watching this, this is going to be a bit out of order, so it'll be the next episode that I'm in. Right? Because the next one, I think you got Steve Lemi coming

Michael Jamin:

Up. Yeah, Lemi is coming up for episode 100 from Broken Lizard. Alright, everyone, thank you so much. Until next time, keep writing. Thank you, Phil.

Phil Hudson:

Thank you.

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 @MichaelJamin,writer. 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.

In July, I hosted a webinar called "How To Get Past Hollywood Gatekeepers" where I shared my thoughts on creative things you can do now with the strikes happening, as well as what you shouldn't be doing. 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.

Free Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/

Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/course

Free Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/free

Join My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlist

Michael Jamin:

You shouldn't. You should not try to work. I mean, you don't go on any guild SAG projects or guild projects, but you could do, if it's a non SAG project, like a student film or something, you can do that. You're not violating anything. You're not getting paid, but you can build your network. Exactly. Or make your own stuff. If you write your own mini scene or movie or whatever and you shoot it on your phone, you're not breaking any strikes. You're not selling it, you're just shooting it. You're listening to screenwriters. Need to hear this with Michael. Hey everybody, welcome back. It's Michael Jamin. I'm here with Phil Hudson and we are going to answer some questions. So as you may or may not know, we host a webinar, a free webinar every three weeks usually, and I try to answer a different topic. And the last topic we did was called How to Get Past Industry Gatekeepers. And we did an exclusive v i P room afterwards where people could ask questions. This is where the questions are coming from, Phil, right?

Phil Hudson:

No, these are actually the ones from the webinar. We didn't

Michael Jamin:

Oh, these are from the webinar. Okay.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, because we shifted things up and for people who, dunno, you were spending a lot of time, we were staying on for an hour doing q and a with everybody, and so we just decided to give everyone an opportunity to hop in and get FaceTime with you. It's limited seats of V I P Q and A, and this is for the people who ask questions during the webinar who didn't get their questions answered right

Michael Jamin:

Now I'm confused. Okay. Yeah, so to be clear, the webinar is free, but we also did a little bonus thing afterwards that people can buy in so I can answer more questions. So these are questions. I didn't get it. We didn't have time to answer and Phil's going to cue me. What is it? Yeah,

Phil Hudson:

No, I was going to say we're going to dive in and I think it's just two things. If you want to have a question answered by Michael, there's two ways to get that done and you're very, very open with your time. One is to join the webinar. We typically have one, sometimes two a month depending on the month, and it's a different topic typically every time. But we have a couple that people really like, so we might be focusing on those. But if you can't get your question answered there, the v i P is an opportunity for them to hop in with you and really just spend that time, time you turn your camera on. You ask my

Michael Jamin:

Question. Well, it's not one-on-one. A small group of people.

Phil Hudson:

So it's not one-on-one in the sense that you sit there and you get to talk to Michael. You don't have to. It's not, yeah. Thank you for clarifying. Yeah. So yeah, let's dive in. And we've done previous episodes. I've broken these into subjects. So there are a couple key categories. This is heavily weighted towards breaking into Hollywood because that was the topic,

Michael Jamin:

But

Phil Hudson:

I think the craft questions are always good. So starting there, Norville, scs, if a character changes for the better over the course of a story, is there initial likability, something to focus on?

Michael Jamin:

Well, likability is a complicated thing. Sometimes people, you'll get a note from the studio saying these need to be likable. And that's not the same thing as the audience needs to the characters, which is a different, okay, so Tony Soprano is not a likable person. You don't want to spend 10 minutes with the guy, he might kill you, okay? But the audience likes to watch him because he's interesting. But often you'll get a note from the studio saying, these characters, they're too unlikable. I don't have an answer to that. It depends if you're doing a drama or a comedy, but generally the note you're going to get is these need to be likable characters, especially if you're doing a comedy. We're spending time with them, we're spending a lot of time with them. So even in Cheers, I'm sure one of the notes was Carla's too unlikable, so they probably softened her up so she wasn't, because you're spending time with him, this is your family, I guess. I dunno if that answers the question. It's the best I can do. Well,

Phil Hudson:

I think the question comes from Save the Cat, which you've admittedly never read and you've never read, but it definitely talks about how your character should do something to make us like them in the first three to five pages because we'll want to root for them and it's a redeeming factor and there's plenty of evidence as to why that's not necessarily

Michael Jamin:

Accurate. I don't subscribe to that. I don't subscribe to that. So yeah,

Phil Hudson:

As good as it gets. You recommended, I read that for a script. I was writing one point. Is that it? Where is that? Not Jack Nicholson.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, I mean I love that, but I don't remember

Phil Hudson:

Telling you, but he throws the dog down the garbage shoot.

Michael Jamin:

Oh yeah, it was the first time we seen him. He throws the dog down the garbage shoot.

Phil Hudson:

It's the opposite of saving the cat.

Michael Jamin:

And it's

Phil Hudson:

A classic, it's incredible film.

Michael Jamin:

And that's a film, right? So that's not a sitcom. So again, I don't subscribe to this thing. The character has to do something likable. What is that? I mean, I think they have to do something interesting. Engaging and throwing a dog on a shoot is kind of interesting for sure. So

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, what kind of person would do that? Use his questions. Jackie Smite. What if you have a script for a very specific franchise? Is it simply foolish if you are an inexperienced or is it a bad idea in general?

Michael Jamin:

Bad idea in general. And it's foolish. You got 'em both write. You can't write for a franchise. You don't own the ip, it's not yours, let it go. You don't write a Marvel movie, don't write a Disney movie with the princesses. It's not yours, so let it go. Don't write anything with a franchise.

Phil Hudson:

This is a very common one. I mean, most people have an idea for a story and it's based off of existing ip. I remember talking to a friend in 2008, a couple months after I really started studying screenwriting. She's like, oh, I have this enemy franchise. I want to adapt for tv. And I was like, okay, I don't think you could do that. And yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Reach out to, if you get the rights from them, then do it, but you don't have the rights, so don't do it.

Phil Hudson:

And that is a process and we'll probably circle back on that because there's a question about attorneys, which we'll get to in a minute.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, okay.

Phil Hudson:

Cliff Johnson ii. I write drama features to half hour comedy and also differing genres. Is it limiting to spread myself thin or should I keep building a diverse portfolio?

Michael Jamin:

You don't need a diverse portfolio. I'd say specialize in whatever it is you enjoy the most. Focus on that, get really good at it, and then market yourself as the best damn thriller writer there is. Or the best broad comedy writer there is. You don't need a broad portfolio. You need to have a specific portfolio that really showcases your excellence in this one area.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. You've given advice as well in the past that let's say you're a sitcom writer, well get really good at writing half hour single camera sitcoms that do multi, then do animated. So you stay in that genre, but you can build a portfolio within that genre to show your base. But it's different than writing violent westerns and Taylor Sheridan style.

Michael Jamin:

Yes. Right. I'm glad you pointed at that. So if you want to be a comedy writer, you might want a Yes. A broad you should have, should have a grounded single camera comedy, but it's all comedy. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Awesome. Andrew James jokes, do you see everything from a certain comedic viewpoint when thinking of content or writing a script,

Michael Jamin:

A certain comedic viewpoint? I don't remember. Not sure what that means. There's things that strike me as funny. I'm not sure if I have. I think

Phil Hudson:

For me, I think I understand this question, but I don't want to interrupt you if you have something.

Michael Jamin:

No, what do you think?

Phil Hudson:

I think what's being asked is when I was told once that I have a particular view of the world and it often is a comical view of the world. I look at the ridiculousness of bureaucracy or rules and rather than get upset, I just make fun of them or I find ways to poke holes at them. To me it's really that question. Do you have that point of view to say, this is my Mike. Judge has, I would say, has a really clear point of view and the way he does his things. Do you look at things through a certain lens?

Michael Jamin:

I don't know if I do. I mean, I'm sure I have a voice. I'm always interested, I guess how do I like finding things, thinking of things that are funny, but I'm not sure if I have a specific I tact that I take, sorry, I can't help them more. I got to think about that more. Do I have a point of view? I tend to think silly and stupid, but I think I'm smart. I mean, I went to college and everything, but I don't think I'm dumb, but I think my voice is sometimes of a dumb person.

Phil Hudson:

When I think of your voice, I think of a lot of the things you share about the way you kid with your daughters,

Michael Jamin:

The way I kid with my daughters.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, just like you've done a couple of social media posts where you're like, it's like dad jokes, but at a different level. It's an elevated dad joke almost.

Michael Jamin:

Well, I'm their dad.

Phil Hudson:

I know, but it's like dad jokes very punny. And then yours is one step further and you've done several of these quick bites on social media that are related to your conversations with your daughters. To me, that's Michael Jamin and Comedy.

Michael Jamin:

Oh yeah. I love having fun with my kids. They're so funny. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Cool. And then Phyllis Hill, Phyllis was pretty active, so we got a bunch of questions from her, but they were very good. I sorted through a bunch of 'em. And this is a little bit tied to something I know we've talked about before and I just thought it was good to put on the podcast. Have streaming platforms changed story structure, the same story structure that might've been used back during the day of network TV shows?

Michael Jamin:

Great question. Not in a hugely significant way. The biggest thing is probably, well, there's no commercial breaks, but so what? We still break the story still the same. We just don't go to commercial. But when we break it on the whiteboard, same thing. It doesn't matter. The only difference is streamers sometimes want you to have serialized stories. So the end, they want to end on a pregnant moment where, so it's continued. So the next story picks up where the last one ended. That's sometimes what they want so that you binge, but that's kind of easy. Often you can, if you go back and watch Weeds, the show Weeds, they did that really well see, they tell a full story and then at the end the story's over. They just do a weird little thing at the end of that story. And then that story would be the beginning. That beat would be the beginning of the next story. So it's super easy in terms of breaking it. It actually makes it kind of easy. It doesn't make, it's the same kind of storytelling. You're just adding one more beat at the end.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, that's awesome. I think that's a very concise answer, Michael.

Michael Jamin:

I get paid by Word.

Phil Hudson:

I love that. I was going to say Charles Duma is Alexander Duma. I don't know who Charlie Duma is, but he's probably Alexander Dumas's cousin twice divorced. Some questions about your course which come up because during the webinar you're often, one of the things, people have a chance to win your course, you get lifetime access to the course. One person wins every time, but also you give a discount to the course.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, if you're listening to this, come to these free webinars that I div, we give a good discount to anyone who attends

Phil Hudson:

And that opens registration for that block of enrollment. Leonard h wanted to know, will the course do anything for someone working on documentaries?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, I don't know. I mean personally I think yes, but I'm not a documentary filmmaker, but I have watched documentary films where I thought this would've been better if they went through my course. They would've dove into the emotional moments that I feel. But having never made a documentary, what the hell do I know? But I have watched documentaries where I thought this was good, but it wasn't great. It didn't really move me emotionally or I should. I think that's when documentaries really work is when or anything works when you finish watching it and you're still thinking about it, you're still feeling it the next day. So I don't want to promise, but I would think it would help. But

Phil Hudson:

I have taken a documentary film class as part of my film school stuff. It's honestly one of the better classes I took. It was taught by a guy named Hank who was a Sundance fellow in the documentary labs and he done multiple documentaries. That's literally, he teaches and then he and his wife shoot documentaries and manage those tons of stuff in South by Southwest, the film fest, Sundance Film Festival, all that stuff. And absolutely story structure is a very vital part of that. And you get into the cinema verte and how you're doing your documentary and the influence of structure and story, but the story structure had to be there, or no one wants to watch what you're doing,

Michael Jamin:

Nobody cares. So the hard part is you can't invent that. You have to hopefully capture that and then know, oh, I captured this moment. This would be a good first act break.

Phil Hudson:

But they're scripted there. They're scripted. You need to understand what things you need to get, what beats you want to get as you tell the story. And then it evolves out of that. You often are surprised by what you get, but then there's the paper edit you do when you go into editing where you have transcripts of all the footage and you're looking for things. And it was a little bit uncomfortable for me then and still is now. He even encouraged that it's your job to tell the best version of that story as you can. And there is no such thing as cinema verite, truth of the camera, right? Truth of the lens. You can't because the moment you're there observing it, it changes. And that's a law of physics. You observe an Adam behaves different. And so he says at the end of the day, let's say that you filmed something out of order and there's a clip that you shot two months from now, but it helps tell the story that you need to tell. He had no problem rearranging things or cutting people out of order to get the story that he needed at the end of it.

Michael Jamin:

So your point is the story, our course would help. That's

Phil Hudson:

Your point. Absolutely. Yeah, I absolutely would help.

Michael Jamin:

Alright,

Phil Hudson:

There you go. There you go. A couple of questions from Phyllis. Please compare your class to screenwriting classes like the ones offered on Masterclass.

Michael Jamin:

Well, again, I haven't gone through all the ones in Masterclass. I've watched a few videos of some of the speakers. I don't know, I mean I didn't watch all of it. I don't know. I really can't say having not watched all of it. I think mine is, I would expect mine is a little more hands-on in the sense that I'm teaching you literally how we break a story in the room. I don't fill you with a lot of terms that we don't use, but Phil, have you gone through Masterclass? Yeah. Maybe you'll know better than I do.

Phil Hudson:

Active subscriber to Masterclass for a long time and most of them I can't get through on Masterclass including, and look, I think Aaron Sorkin's one of the most prolific author writers of our time and I love everything he puts out. But

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, he's Shakespeare. He's the Shakespeare of our time.

Phil Hudson:

Couldn't get through it, couldn't get through his course,

Michael Jamin:

Couldn't get through

Phil Hudson:

It. No, a lot of, and actually I can tell you this because in my agency we have a client who is getting their own masterclass right now. So I've got a little view through the window of what that platform is. And I'm not saying all platforms are like this and I don't want to be saying anything disparaging against Masterclass. I really enjoy masterclass, but the amount of content they shoot versus what you get, it's like 20% of what that person did and they're not editing it. So Masterclass does this stuff, they're in Sorkin and then what you get on the back end of that or Shonda Rogers or whoever, you get to the end of that and it's like 20% of what they talked about. It's good, but it's not the meat. It's not the meat of what you want.

Michael Jamin:

I've watched some, not theirs, but I felt, and I love masterclass too, I felt you got a taste of everything. You can really learn a lot about cars and cooking and it's a really great, but I felt like from what I watched, it didn't go deep enough. That's not what it is. It's a sampling. And I thought it was interesting but not helpful for some of the ones I saw. Interesting but not helpful.

Phil Hudson:

The most practical one was Aaron Franklin's barbecue cooking class. And I put that one to good use with my smoker because it is very much, here's how you do it, here's how you tip things, here's how you wrap meat. It's just actionable. So

Michael Jamin:

If I ate meat, I'd come over and make me a nice smoked dinner, but I don't,

Phil Hudson:

You'd be very happy.

Michael Jamin:

I'd probably start sweating.

Phil Hudson:

I'll meat sweats. Yeah, I'll make you some nice broccolini. How about that?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, that'd be nice.

Phil Hudson:

Alright, and then just another question from Phyllis, and I think this is more broad about you and what you're doing for people online in the webinars with the course, everything. What is your motivation to offer this assistance other than money?

Michael Jamin:

Oh, well, when I broke into the business, this is back in the nineties, this was before the internet and I was living in New York. I knew nothing about the industry. I knew nothing. I knew no one, how would I know anything? So I just got in my car and I drove to LA thinking well get close. But now because the internet, social media, you can talk to people like me and get so much information for free and what a gift. And so I know people say it's impossible to break into Hollywood. Yeah, yes, it's hard, but it's even harder if you don't even know where to begin if you don't have these resources. But now I started building my social media profile back a little over two years ago as a way of building my platform so that I have a book that's coming out so that I could platform my agents has platform drives acquisition. I need a following to sell my book to perform and do all these things that I wanted to do. And so the way to build this platform was by just talking about what I know and giving 90% of it away for free. The other 10% is in this course that we have and that's

Phil Hudson:

It. I a call from Michael and I was doing runs for Tacoma FD like season two or something. And you called me and you're like, Hey man, can you come over? I want run some stuff by you. I know many people know this, but some people don't. I know you through working at a digital marketing agency where I assisted your wife's e-commerce website and just worked for her for a couple of years doing whatever I could to take care of her. She'd been ripped off by the sales guy who sold her some stuff that we couldn't do and I had no idea who you were or what you guys did. And then one day you were going to join and it kind of put it together and you guys were just very kind and have always been kind to share your knowledge with me, but well,

Michael Jamin:

You started it. You started it by being kind first. Let's be clear.

Phil Hudson:

It was the right thing to do, right? It's a principle thing, which is very important. And at the end of the day, you called me over because I have that experience, that skillset, and we just had a sit down in your garage and you broke your Adirondack chair and then you told me that it was

Michael Jamin:

Already broken. Broken, it was already broken,

Phil Hudson:

Was a big guy. I was sweating that once. I had to buy you a director's chair to replace

Michael Jamin:

It.

Phil Hudson:

But anyway, we talked about this, what do you need to do? And I was like, finally, because I've been begging you for years to do this course and to put your stuff out there just because the private email lessons and the conversations we had were so incredibly valuable to me. And I was in flu school at the time and getting more value out of an email you'd send me over a weekend than I was getting in a week of lectures at that school.

This is how you do what you need to do to sell your book and here's how you give. And the mantra of any good digital marketing platform is give, give, give, right, give, give, give. And there's an ask. There's always a right for an ask in there as well, because you are giving, and we talked about the course and you were very clear, I don't want to, you feel sleazy selling things. You don't want to do that you're, you're a writer, you're not a guy who does this. You're not pretending to be the answer to all things. And I said, but people will value what you have and they have to pay for it to value it. So I'm the one who pushed it. I'm the one who pushed the price and you've reduced the price over and over again because you just want to make sure that it's getting as many people as it can.

You do, A lot of people don't know this. You offer basically free financing through yourself. People can sign up for the course on a three month plan, a six month plan, or pay in full and you don't bill 'em any interest. And there are plenty of ways for us to get interest off of people or get people to pay interest and that's just from my perspective, it's 100% honestly. How can I serve as many people as possible so that I can get this passion project of my book speaking as you to as many people as I can.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, there you go. You answered it. Well, Phil, I think you said it better than I did.

Phil Hudson:

I'm growing long-winded in my as I wax old.

Michael Jamin:

Wax old.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Alright, cool. Now to the meat of the episode for the webinar was about breaking in and so there's some really good stuff here and so I know we'll be quick on some of this, but if you want, this full webinar broadcast is available for purchase as well on your website. It's like 29 bucks and it's lifetime access and they can watch the whole episode of this webinar.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, go get it.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, but Valerie Taylor, so once the script is done, what does it mean to build the mountain? What does the work have to do? And that's reference to a podcast episode we did recently that a lot of people really liked, which is Build Your Mountain.

Michael Jamin:

There are people doing this. I didn't come up with this idea. There are people on social media, content creators who are just putting their out there and because it's really good they're building a following. I dunno if that was their intention in the beginning, but that's what they've done. One I always mention is Sarah Cooper, I wish she would do my podcast. So have you reached

Phil Hudson:

Interesting?

Michael Jamin:

I tagged her on something, but she's busy. She's busy, but I'm a huge fan of hers. So she's this vicious woman, young actress who as far as I can tell she couldn't get arrested in New York City. She just started during the pandemic posting kind of funny lip syncs of Donald Trump, but she wasn't just lip-syncing, was plusing it. She was adding her own comedy to it and her own reactions and it was really, she was great and she's just doing this and she wants to be an actor and a writer, but she's doing this and she was so great at it. She built a giant following and because this following people discovered her and because of that she gets, I think she got a Netflix special. She got a pilot out of it and where the pilot, she can write her own stuff now. I think some of the projects never went to air, but she sold it. She made a name for herself and she will continue making a name for herself because she built it first. She wasn't begging people for opportunities. It's the other way around. She started doing it and then because she was so good at it, people came after her. People started begging her.

And you don't have to, and I think maybe Phil, we might even do a whole, I may save some of this information from our next webinar. I want talk. Yeah, I'm going to save, but I have more thoughts to this I I'll put in our next free webinar. Write. Write. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Can't wait. Oh, by the way, Michael puts a month worth of effort into writing every webinar. I see the revisions and I'm always like, Michael, I need this so I can make the workbook. Michael, I need this. And he's still editing. So Hayden, Sears, earlier you said to bring more to the table of an agency than a script. What else should I bring to the table?

Michael Jamin:

You could do what I just said with Sarah Cooper. She brought a huge following. She brought, you could bring talent, you could bring a movie that you launched, finance that you did yourself at Sundance that got accolades and now you're this hot new director or writer or whatever. That's bringing more to the table than saying, Hey, pick me. You're doing it already. You are already doing it. You're proving that you know how to do it. And people don't do it because it's work or they think it's too expensive. But I have to say, it's not the money that's holding you back. The money. You can raise $10,000 or $15,000. I know it's not nothing but it. We're not talking about a million dollars, we're talking about 10,000. You can raise it on a Kickstarter, you can raise it on a bake sale and you can shoot the damn thing on your phone and you can edit it on your phone.

You just need good sound. That's what I recommend. But you don't need great locations. You can shoot the thing one, I always mention this, Phil is the whale, the movie The Whale, which is based on a play that was shot in an apartment. So don't tell me you need to have great locations to make something amazing. It was shot in a dumpy apartment and one of the most, it was a beautiful story. Beautiful. It was all because the writing, the writing was excellent and because the writing was X, it was able to attract great actors and the acting rose to the writing. If the writing was no good, who cares what the acting is?

Phil Hudson:

Yep. Cynthia always said that in our classes with Jill, your interacting classes, the writers put it on the page. Everything in actor needs to know is on the page. That's where the performance comes from.

Michael Jamin:

If it's a good script, yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Awesome. The cinema magician with the strike going on from both the writers and the actors now it feels like it wouldn't be fair trying to come get work this moment. How can I try to try for work and support the union?

Michael Jamin:

You shouldn't. You should not try to work. I mean, you don't go on any guild sag projects or guild projects, but you could do, if it's a non sag project, like a student film or something, you can do that. You're not violating anything. You're not getting paid. So

Phil Hudson:

Build your network.

Michael Jamin:

Build your network. Exactly. Or make your own stuff. If you write your own mini scene or movie or whatever and you shoot it on your phone, you're not breaking any strikes. You're not selling it. You're just shooting it.

Phil Hudson:

Yep. Awesome. Love Leanne. Who is a member of your course, how should we speak to writers and other filmmakers on the picket lines? I've seen others not doing it very well and I'm kind of afraid to speak.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, well that's hard. I mean, all you got to do is don't act like you want something from them. Just act like you want to learn from them. Hey, tell me about your story. Tell me how did you start? How did you break in? What kind of shows do you like to write? What inspires you? Pretend like they're a guest on your radio show or your podcast. Interview them. We don't want anything from them. You're just curious to get their story. People will talk.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, they definitely will. And when I've gone out and done picketing, it's really interesting. I don't talk to people, I'm just, who are you? Tell me about you. What are you doing here? Why are you here? What are you doing out on the picket line? Cool. Are you in industry? Breaking in the industry? Oh great. Oh, cool. You worked on that show. I love that show. Awesome. And then they ask you questions too, because walking in circles for hours

Michael Jamin:

And you're a human being and they're going to make conversation. The conversation will eventually turn around to you and then you can talk about yourself.

Phil Hudson:

Have you noticed the people who put up their YouTube channel and stuff on flyers on the poles and stuff in the corners?

Michael Jamin:

No. I have not seen that. I have promoting their own channel.

Phil Hudson:

It feels a little skeezy to me. Personal. I'm

Michael Jamin:

Not. The problem is no one's looking at him anyway, so Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, you haven't noticed. And when I see 'em, I'm just like, ah, man's. I don't know. That's the way to do that. You're basically saying, look at me. Look at me. Instead of being there, walking on the picket lines, talking to people and putting in effort to fight for the same things they're fighting

Michael Jamin:

For. Yeah. You don't have to promote yourself.

Phil Hudson:

Alright, Norville, scss. Does the strike lead to an increasing demand for scripts?

Michael Jamin:

Well, when the strike is over, there will be, everyone will flood the market with their scripts and that's just the way it is. So

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Demand, but also supply because all of these writers have time to write.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, right.

Phil Hudson:

Antonia, Roman. Hey, Michael, met you yesterday on the picket. I appreciate your insight. How many script feedback reads should someone actually pay for? Sometimes the feedbacks contradict each other.

Michael Jamin:

Thanks. Oh, Phil, I

Phil Hudson:

Know.

Michael Jamin:

Here we go.

Phil Hudson:

My purpose. Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Many. If you're paying in one of these services and maybe it's like 150 bucks for one of these services, you're going to get who you get who's reading the script other than it's someone who works at the service, they don't know more than you do. They just work there and they're making whatever, 20 bucks an hour or maybe less to read script after script. What's their qualifications beats the hell out of me. Other than the fact that they're working there and they're not industry deciders. They're not like they don't have jobs in SC screenwriting. If they did, they would be doing that. So a service, I'd pay nothing, because that's why you're going to get contradictory feedback. What do they know? They don't know more than you. If you can find a writer with experience, and there are writers who will do this as a freelance thing, check out their credits, go on their I M D B, what have they written? Ask to see their work. What have they read their work? Do you like their work? And if you do, then yes, then your feedback could be valuable. But I would never go through a service.

Phil Hudson:

Yep. We did talk about this where I sent Michael, I paid for feedback from some of these services on your behalf, listener to the podcast. And then I shared the emails back and forth from them, the reviews as well as when I questioned the validity of the feedback I received from them. I sent Michael those. And I think the feedback from the service was way more infuriating

Michael Jamin:

Than the Yeah, it just made you mad. It made you feel like you got ripped off. 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:

Awesome. Ruth W should emerging rider approach breaking in differently than before, given the strike, are there any new approaches that should be considered? Thanks?

Michael Jamin:

I don't think, wait for the strike to end before you think about breaking in, but the landscape has changed so much with social media that you don't need anyone's permission. I just talked about this. You don't need anyone's permission to write and build up your brand. I'm not doing it. I'm not waiting for anyone's permission. I don't know why anybody else would. I have a good podcast guest this week? Well, I dunno when you're going to hear this Mike Sacks, go listen to him. See, he's an author and he talks about that himself. He has sold books to publishers and he's also indie published it himself and he makes a really strong case for just doing it yourself. And he's done both. And he's an editor at Vanity Fair. So the guy knows how to write.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, yeah. Also, definitely don't try breaking him right now. They're very clear rules that the writer's guilds come out and said, if you even have meetings with producers, that is an act of crossing a picket line.

Michael Jamin:

No, I'm not talking to my agent, I'm not talking to producers. I'm not doing any of this. You

Phil Hudson:

Mean they will literally forbid you from joining the guild. So any short term win now is basically a nail in the coffin of your career later and as it should be, Susan Mark, when you get the low paying non-union screenwriting gigs over and over, how do you move from that into network shows with four question marks?

Michael Jamin:

The fact that you're getting these jobs to begin with are great, even if they're non-union. So good for you. I mean, this is where if these movies are doing or shows are doing well and if they're well received and if they're written well, and this is what you show to an agent and you say, here's my body of work and here's a movie I did that it cost 10,000 to make, and the return on it was a hundred thousand. That's impressive. So that's how you can parlay that into bigger opportunities. But the problem is, if you're doing this work and the work isn't coming out good, it still has to be good. It has to be good. And people have, it has to have be one or the other critically well-received or makes a lot of money. It has to be a financial success. One or both. One or the other or both.

Phil Hudson:

Awesome. Roxanna Black Sea. How do you get over feeling guilty asking a friend or a mentor for a referral and how do you know you're ready and not wasting their time? This is a good one. I might as well wrote this, Michael.

Michael Jamin:

Well, if you have a friend who's in the industry, I dunno if they're in the industry or not, but you only have one chance to impress them. And if you give them something that's not great, it's a big ask. Hey, sit down and read this. It's going to take them an hour and a half or whatever. And if it's not great, they're not going to want to do it again. They'll do a favor once, but they won't do it again. So there's that. The get over the guilt. Well, if you've giving them a giant gift, you shouldn't feel guilty If it's giving 'em a piece of shit, well, you're going to feel guilty, but you just need to know what it is you're giving them.

Phil Hudson:

That takes a lot of introspection and a lot of self-analysis. I would also say it takes a lot of practice and study of existing high quality works to compare yourself.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, high quality. That's the thing, Phil, if you're watching some crappy TV show and you go, well, I can write a crappy TV show that's not the bar

Phil Hudson:

Crap. Plus one that's been around for since the a o l days crap plus one is I can do one better than that. It's not good enough. Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Not good enough.

Phil Hudson:

Alright, Ruth w again, if you know an established riders working on a new project that you have happen to have particular rare knowledge on, is it appropriate to contact that rider even to work for free? And then there's a follow-up to this.

Michael Jamin:

Well, if they're on a show and you have particular knowledge, they're not going to let you work for free. You can't work for free. But you can share your knowledge and I don't know, it always, you can share your knowledge, but no one's, you're not allowed to work for free. So I don't know what if they're going to offer you a job or not,

Phil Hudson:

But is it okay to reach out to them?

Michael Jamin:

Why not? What's the harm? Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

I think the benefit of that is you are going in to say, Hey, I saw you're doing this. I happen to be a subject matter expert on that. Anything you want to ask me, I'm happy to go over with you and bring out any insights you want. You are now serving that person. You're not coming in and say, give me a job, give me a job. And you might hop on a zoom with them and have an intro. Now you've got a foot in the door to have an extended conversation as someone, and you've provided value to that person.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Then you're right. You're not asking for anything in return, but people tend to give things back when people give first.

Phil Hudson:

Yep. And the follow up question, is it okay to contact an agent to get the contact information for that rider that you would like to help for free?

Michael Jamin:

So you don't know this person. Yeah, you, the agent's not going to do anything with it. I would doubt they're going to do anything with it. You could reach out to them on LinkedIn, maybe you could tweet that.

Phil Hudson:

This might be a good time to slide into the dms. Right. And because you're not asking, you're providing value

Michael Jamin:

And

Phil Hudson:

Expect them not to reply.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Expect 'em not to reply. And it's because you, maybe they get too many solicitations or maybe it's just they find it weird. It's worth a shot.

Phil Hudson:

It also might just be that they don't have time to look at their social media, which is very real. Don't read into it. Just shoot your shot. Move on.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, right. Don't wait. Don't hold your breath. Shoot your shot and keep shooting your shot. Keep working on yourself. Yep.

Phil Hudson:

Genova, is there anything we need to be wary of when approaching smaller agencies with our scripts so we don't get screwed?

Michael Jamin:

Well, the agencies, first of all, don't approach any agency that's going to charge you for to represent you. That's no legit agents work on commission. Now the big ones are not going to represent you. You have to reach out to smaller ones who are soliciting clients. I wouldn't expect an agent to, I wouldn't expect them to rip you off. That's not what they do. They're going to represent you and try to sell you. The agents are not producers, they're not screenwriters. So to me it's safe. But again, I don't give legal advice if you have to do what's comfortable for you personally, I don't worry about that. That's not something I worry about.

Phil Hudson:

And you started at a smaller agency that some could say screwed you, but I don't know that you see it that way, right? Because you got hip pocketed basically as a baby writer.

Michael Jamin:

They didn't screw me, they just didn't do anything.

Phil Hudson:

That's saying they didn't screw you. But some people might say they screwed you because they didn't do anything.

Michael Jamin:

Oh yeah. But they didn't steal anything from me. They just didn't help my career any.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, and we talked about that in some of the early podcasts. If you want to go back and listen to those. I think it was the agents and manager episode is like episode five or something.

Michael Jamin:

So

Phil Hudson:

95 something episodes ago. It's

Michael Jamin:

Great. Yeah. You remember this stuff.

Phil Hudson:

Shem L. Do you think New York and LA are still the places to make it?

Michael Jamin:

No. I think LA is the place to make it. Take New York off the list. Where is Hollywood? This is a trivia question. Find it on the map. Hint, it's in Los Angeles. I understand that some television production or film production is done in New York. Some Where's the writing done? The writing's done in la. Same thing with Georgia or New Mexico. Sometimes they shoot things there for tax breaks, but the writing is almost always done in LA and even if some writing is done in these smaller cities, okay, fine, maybe you'll get incredibly lucky, but you're not going to be able to sustain a career there. The career's here, that's how I feel.

Phil Hudson:

All right. And Jill Hargrave. I'm a senior writer, 76 years old, transition from decades as a documentary producer to screenwriter. I have an agent and I'm in the news division with the W G A East. Any advice on how to get read by execs?

Michael Jamin:

I'm looking for, so she's a news writer.

Phil Hudson:

Sounds like she's a writer in the news division for the W G A East. She has decades of experience being a producer in documentary film. She has an agent advice on how to get executives to read your stuff.

Michael Jamin:

Sorry. Yeah, so you're in the same boat as everyone else. I don't think you got a leg up. You sound like you're very competent news producer, but you might as well be an orthodontist. It's a different kind of writing, but she

Phil Hudson:

Has an agent.

Michael Jamin:

Ask your agent. I suspect your agent's not going to give a crap. Your agent is able to get you news jobs. That's what you are and that's what you bring value to them. But they're not interested in you starting your career over from zero. My friend Rob Cohen talked about this in one of our podcasts. He was a very successful sitcom writer, wrote on a bunch of shows including The Simpsons, including Just Shoot Me where I was on maybe 20 or so years into his career as a TV writer, very successful TV writer. I ran into him and he's like, I want to be a director now. I want to direct TV and film. I thought, well, how are you going to do that? He goes, I don't know, but I'm going to make it happen. I said, well, is your agent helping you at all?

No, the agent's not going to help me one bit, even though he's a successful TV writer because it's a different thing. It's directing. They don't want to sell 'em as that. They can sell 'em as a TV writer, but not as a director. So unfortunately, you're going to have to start over. You milk whatever context you have. Maybe your agent can set you up with a referral with another agent at their agency that they should be able to do. But at the end of the day, you unfortunately have to make your career. They're not going to make your career for you

Phil Hudson:

If they have an agent because they have some screenplay sample that they've submitted. My guess would be that that's when your agent would show those. When we're not on a strike, they'd take your samples and try to sell those things to people that get you staffed and they're going to do that job for you. But it sounds like through the question that you're right, Michael, that's not a writing agent in this space. It's documented or a new set,

Michael Jamin:

But talk to them, maybe get some tips. I mean, again, I've tried to do the same thing myself. My agents, I have big agents and manager. They don't give a crap unless I can make money for them today in my field. They don't really care.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Awesome. Ruth w this is miscellaneous. I've got three more questions here. Excuse me for, is there any value in getting an entertainment lawyer? Does this confer any legitimacy when trying to get people to read your script? Or is it just a waste of money and Yeah, there's some follow-up to this. We'll get to that.

Michael Jamin:

So no, an entertainment attorney is the best money I spend. My attorney takes 5% of all the deals that I make and they help negotiate these deals. Money well spent, but it's only when I'm negotiating a deal, that's when they get paid. They get a commission. I would never pay an entertainment attorney upfront. It doesn't help you make a deal. It doesn't help you look more important. You're just going to pay them a lot of money out of pocket for no reason. Attorneys are there to help you negotiate the deal and read the fine print so you don't get screwed. That's what they help you do, but you don't pay one upfront for any. As far as I know, I would never pay one upfront.

Phil Hudson:

I've had two in my career and the first one didn't do a lot. This one, and we worked with him on some stuff today, actually. You and I were going over some tree mark stuff with him. But anyway, he is great and he comes at it from the perspective of that, which is, my job is to protect you and I can be the bad guy. I can go fight the fight for you to get you what you want. And you can say, Hey man, that's just what my lawyer does. You're going to have to take that up with my attorney. And we talked in the podcast about this recent experience I had where he wrote this contract and the guy signed it and he ended up protecting my butt because he put a clause in that said nothing was executable until it was paid. Money was delivered.

And so because this guy never exchanged money, he only talked about exchanging money. I'm not obligated to do anything for this guy. And had I walked into that, I probably would've just signed something and not had the foresight to have that. He also had it paid in steps. So above and beyond the WJ minimums, he structured it. So I'd get paid more money upfront like you want money in your pocket? And he deals with Sony and major country musicians. He's a real proper entertainment attorney. Incredibly valuable. And it looks like he answered honestly the question, what's the difference between an agent who's going to get 10%? What's a lawyer do? What's the difference? And the answer is the agent basically books the deal. The attorney gets you the most money they can out of that deal,

Michael Jamin:

And the agent's not going to read the contract. They don't read contract. They're not lawyers. They don't deal with that. So you need an attorney.

Phil Hudson:

Love it. Goddard Fin, any insight on getting a preliminary budget done by someone or a company like Mike Binder's, budget company? I'm assuming is this for an indie project?

Michael Jamin:

I never heard of that and I wouldn't know.

Phil Hudson:

Or it's a preliminary budget on a script.

Michael Jamin:

I thought he was an actor. Michael Binder. I thought he was an actor. I don't even know. I've never even heard of this, so I can't even answer.

Phil Hudson:

My feeling is, from what I understand from this question is there's zero value added to your script when you go to pitch your story by telling them, this is the budget I got for this

Michael Jamin:

For somebody. No, they'll tell you the budget if that's what that is. It's interesting. Yeah. I thought maybe this is for indies. No, when you saw the MoVI, they'll tell you what the budget is. It is their money. You don't tell them what the budget is. They tell you.

Phil Hudson:

And the answer is in the indie film, if it is, that is you're going to scrounge with every dollar you can get, and then you're going to make what you can with the budget you got. And that's what a line producer does for you. And they basically manage the contracts and make sure your people get paid. And you don't go over budget and you can finish your project and they'll tell you, Hey, you can't do that. You don't have the money to do that.

Michael Jamin:

Right.

Phil Hudson:

Cool. Ruth w with another, one of the reasons I am reticent to fill my own stuff is because I don't have any money to pay actors. Is it okay to ask them to work for free?

Michael Jamin:

You can often, actors will do this just to have tape so that they can submit themselves. But the work has to be good. You're not going to, the better the script is, the easier it is to attract actors and better actors. And if it's a great script, they'll fall over themselves for to do this. So you ask them to do it for free. Definitely. You don't want to abuse them. You want to make sure, buy them pizza, buy them lunch, make sure there's water on set. Take care of them. That's the least you can do.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. And people will absolutely do that. There's also, if you're a student, you can also look into sag, SAG after student agreements, which probably you might even still be able to do that during the strike. It's not really a paid project, but they have agreements that you can work with SAG qualified actors and you have to abide by those terms if they are a SAG actor. But you can get them in your projects I did in film school.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Okay.

Phil Hudson:

Last question. As a showrunner, do you direct episodes two or just focus on running the show

Michael Jamin:

As a showrunner? I have, but I'm not in animation. I direct the actors for sure to get the performances out of them. But in live action, I've only directed one. That's not my job. But my job is to be on set and to make sure I'm getting the shots that I want and to get the performances that I want. Ultimately in film, I'm sorry, tv, the director works for the showrunner. So on tv, the showrunner's in charge, in film the other way around, it's the director's in charge. The writer is nothing. So does that answer your question? I think it does. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

I think it just for you specifically, what do you do? But I do know showrunners who do direct on Taco fd. Yeah, Kevin. Kevin and Steve. They split 'em up and they direct certain episodes. They also,

Michael Jamin:

Those guys are tireless.

Phil Hudson:

Tireless. Yeah. I dunno how they do. I toured with them for a press tour and I was exhausted and they were just still going and happy to go. And I get emails from 'em at two, three in the morning and they're just going, oh

Michael Jamin:

God.

Phil Hudson:

Oh God. But that's how they made their career. I mean, this just ties it all together for Michael. Make it happen. Put in the effort. Those guys made their own things happen. They have shows their names and you know 'em because they put in the work. Had they not done that, they wouldn't be anywhere.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Cool. Michael, anything else you want to add?

Michael Jamin:

That's it. We did it, Phil. Yeah, we did it.

Phil Hudson:

So things people need to know. Michael, you got tons of free stuff. You talked about free samples of work, of writing.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, I do free work too. I do free work here. We got a lot of free stuff we give away anyway on my website. If you go to michaeljamin.com, you can get sample scripts that I've written. You can get a free lesson that I've planned about story. You can sign up for my free webinars, which are every three weeks, which Phil helps me out with. You can come see me tour on one of my book drops, a paper orchestra. You can sign up for all of that and much, much more. And also, of course we have a course but that you got to pay for. But you know what it's worth. Every penny.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, that's right. And again, get a discount when you come to the webinar.

Michael Jamin:

Nice. Nice discount. Don't tell anyone.

Phil Hudson:

And you could win a free access.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, you can win it. Yeah, you can win it.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Michael, thank you so much. Oh,

Michael Jamin:

And my newsletter. Phil, you can get on my free newsletter. I got that. Always forget

Phil Hudson:

That. We also forget that that list is 30,000 deep or something like that right now. That's a good lists of people. That and industry, double industry open rates. People really like that list, that content.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. The people like that. So sign up for my list.

Phil Hudson:

Be like the masses, be sheep. People join us.

Michael Jamin:

Okay, everyone, thank you so much. Until next week. Keep writing, right, Phil, fill that up.

Phil Hudson:

That is Wright, w r i t e. Right.

Michael Jamin:

Okay. Alright. Thanks guys.

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 [email protected]/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 @Michael Jaminwriter. 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.

On this week's episode, Writer/Executive Producer Alex Berger (Blindspot, Glen Martin D.D.S, Quantum Leap, and many many more) talks about his writing career, thoughts on breaking into the industry as well as his experiences taking a "Showrunners Course" through the studios.

Alex Berger on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1584238/

Alex Berger on Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexbergerla?lang=en

Free Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/

Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/course

Free Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/free

Join My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlist

Alex Berger:

They said, when you're interviewing a director, ask if you're the showrunner and you're interviewing somebody who's coming in to do an episode of your show, ask the director, do you cook? And if so, are you a person who uses a recipe or do you like to improvise? And there's no right answer to that, right? But if you cook and you're the person who is going to measure out the exact number of grams of flour and the exact number of grams of sugar, that's kind of how you're going to approach directing. If you're going to come in with a shot list, you're going to be going to stay on time. You're going to make sure that you move the set along. And if you're the person who likes to kind throw a little salt to throw a little sugar, you might be a little more improvisational on say you might be a little more, more. There's little things like that that you're going to how to dig in on this with those. Now

Michael Jamin:

You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.

Hey everyone. Welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. Michael Jamin here. I have another wonderful guest today and this guest, we're going to talk about drama writing because he works primarily in drama and his story is fascinating how he broke in. And we're going to get to please welcome Mr. Alex Berger and he's worked on Alex. Let me introduce people to some of your amazing credits here and you can fill in in, I'm just going to go for some of the highlights. Well, I know you did Kil, you co-created Glen Martin d d s, which is the show. My partner ran Covert Affairs, the Assets Franklin and Bash the Mentalist Blind Spot. And currently you are a writer on Quantum Leap, so you got a lot of drama. Burger. Welcome, welcome to the podcast.

Alex Berger:

Thank you so much for having me. It's, it's good to be here. I've been enjoying listening to it.

Michael Jamin:

Oh man, I'm so happy you're doing this. Let's talk. Let's start from the beginning because I think it was so interesting about your background. So many people say, how do I get a showrunner attached to sell my show? And you kind of sold your show, your show, Glen Martin, d d s. You were pretty new to the scene and then you got a show on the air without much experience. So how did that happen?

Alex Berger:

Yeah, I'd been out here for probably five or six years and I'd had a couple of staff jobs. I'd had a job doing a sort of comedy variety show before that. That was a very sort of small potatoes thing. But that came about because Steve Cohen Cohen, who I know you've talked about before, was a friend of mine and had mentioned this idea that Michael Eisner had for a long time about a family who traveled the country in an rv and they had writers attached for a long time. Tim and Eric of Tim and Eric Show were attached to write the thing.

Michael Jamin:

I didn't know any of this.

Alex Berger:

They got a 60 episode order on their other show, and so they had to back out. And so Steve would come in and pitch a take. So I came in and I pitched a take, and Michael Eisner, who had just left basically running Hollywood, he was running, Disney had just started a company, and he had just had larynx surgery, so he couldn't talk. So every time I pitched something, he had to write his response on a computer, which was fun, but a little challenging.

Michael Jamin:

But what was the idea, how much, when you pitched your take, what did they give you?

Alex Berger:

He had said Family lives in an rv. Basically it travels the country and animation. And he had more than that. I mean, it is been almost 20 years, so I've forgotten. But he definitely had a real idea. He'd had this idea for 30 or 40 years that he'd wanted to do over the years at Disney and he wasn't able to do it. So he had a pretty formed idea of what he wanted the show to be. But

Michael Jamin:

Was it dentist you came up with that through

Alex Berger:

Development? I mean, that was sort of like Steve and I, Steve became sort of a, and it was almost like an incubator instead of a typical situation in which I would come in and pitch a show, he kind of brainstormed with me and created the ideas with me, and we kind of toyed with a couple of different versions of it and came up with the idea of him being, why is he on the road and what's he driving in? And came up with the idea of a dentist that was in his mobile dentistry unit and sort of built some of the characters around that. And it kind of kept getting added to,

Michael Jamin:

Because all that stuff became comedy gold throughout the seasons. We were like, what kind of idiot has a dental car? Who does he think, what kind of clients? How does that work? And it all became fodder for the show,

Alex Berger:

For the circus at one point. And it was doing dental work on animals, if I remember correctly. But it was definitely, I didn't think I'd seen that before. So that was kind of one of the things that was fun to explore.

Michael Jamin:

And so you came up with all the, well, at least the dynamics for the characters, because what I remember, we watched the, I dunno if it was a pilot or presentation that you saw, but yeah, the characters you invented were funny. You had the dumb kid, he had the daughter and she had an assistant, which we hadn't seen that before.

Alex Berger:

It was definitely even more than other experiences I've had in development, very much a team effort. And then we had sort of come up with a script, and then I think you had Eric Fogle on the show before, and Eric came on and was also sort of added his vision both in terms of look and feel and tone and story, and was digging in with us. And then Michael on his own, paid for an eight minute pilot presentation. So they made an eight minute stop motion, basically the first act of the show. And he took it downtown and took it everywhere. And we ended up setting it up at Nick at night with this 20 episode order. And I think that's when you guys sort of made the picture, right?

Michael Jamin:

So you started, I'm curious. It's funny how I never even asked you about this. So at that point you had to meet showrunners for a show you created, which we're going to talk about a second. Did you meet a lot of showrunners?

Alex Berger:

I met none of the showrunners. I met you guys after you'd been hired.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, really? I wonder how many they had. So

Alex Berger:

The tote system was, they wanted to sort of make that decision. And so they met with showrunners and had decided they were very much immediately captivated by you guys and were really excited about, and I don't think it was a pretty quick decision. And then they had me come to meet you guys.

Michael Jamin:

Now the thing is, I imagine you were very easy to work with and to your great credit, I always felt like you just turned over the keys and it was like, okay, here you go. And it was never an ego thing if you, but was it difficult though for you?

Alex Berger:

I mean, I can give you the answer that I was thinking at the time, and I can give you the answer that I have in retrospect. I think at the time I felt like, I don't know. It's a good question. Let me give you the answer in retrospect first, which is in retrospect, I know that I was inexperienced to know, especially about comedy writing a lot and certainly about running a show. I think at the time I was very happy for you guys to come in and run it. And exactly as you said, take the keys. I think that I felt intimidated because it was a room full of really seasoned comedy writers. I knew I was one of the least experienced writers on the show, and yet my name was on the show. So it was a kind of a weird game. It's not like a typical situation in which a more experienced writer comes in, but they've never run a show.

So they pair them with a show runner and then they're really a triumvirate or something. I definitely felt like experience wise and sort of comedy chops wise, I was with folks who'd broken 2, 3, 400 episodes of cool sitcoms that I really admired. So I felt like I wanted to contribute from a character and comedy perspective as much as I could, but I also felt like I was learning on the fly that I had my name on. So it was definitely tricky to sort of figure that out. But you guys were great about never feeling like you were stepping on toes, and you always would consult with me, especially at the beginning, but it was very clear that it was your show, but it was also that you wanted me to sort be on board with what we were doing.

Michael Jamin:

And I mean, it was a fun room. I mean, maybe I shouldn't speak for you. I thought it was a fun room. Yeah,

Alex Berger:

Yeah, it was great. I mean, it was like I'd never been in a sitcom room before. I mean, I've been in a couple of drama rooms as an assistant and a writer, and those rooms are more buttoned up and a little more like, let's come in at 10 and start talking about the story at 10 15. And there's definitely bits and sort of digressions, but a comedy room has a certain energy that you can't replicate. And it was really fun to be in that room. And I've been in rooms that are a little bit like that since, but never anything that was, I laughed quite so much, just had it.

Michael Jamin:

I was going to ask you about that, right? I haven't worked in any, we've done dark comedy, but never drama. And so I'm curious, you've done a lot of drama. So are the rooms, are they really what you're saying? Are they buttoned up? Are they sur because it's still a creative shop?

Alex Berger:

It's fun. I would say this is based on a very small sample size of my two years in Glen Martin. And then just listening to comedy writers talk, I think comedy writers find the genius through procrastination. I think that it takes the tangent sometimes to get you to the gold. And I know you guys, especially more than other comedy writers I've known, were very focused on story structure. I know from your time with Greg Daniels and Seaver had bought a book at the mall,

And it was very important to you that the story felt like it had load-bearing walls, but it did feel like more free flowing and there were room bits and there was a whole sitcom inside that room of three characters, both people in the room and people we were looking out the window at. So that's definitely different than other shows I've been on, other shows I've been on, it's a little more like, all right, let's get to work. And especially these days with room hours have gotten shorter and so on less. And I've been in Zoom rooms for the last couple of years, so it's even less of a room

Michael Jamin:

Basic. Oh, so gotten, haven't gotten, your last rooms haven't been in person either. You

Alex Berger:

Haven't? Yeah, I've been in three Zoom rooms since the pandemic.

Michael Jamin:

It's funny you mentioned because comedy rooms have room bits and our offices were on Beverly Hills and Big glamorous street in Beverly Hills. We would look out the window, and you're right, we would create stories when we weren't making stories for the tv, we were making stories for the regular characters that we would see outside our windows.

Alex Berger:

Yeah, I mean truly. I know you had Brian and Steve and a couple of other people from the show on. I have not laughed that hard in a room.

It was a blast. And I also think there's value to it creatively. It's not wasted time. I think it's just a different way of getting to the process. I remember hearing once of, I can't remember which one, it was a Simpsons writer who would be on draft. He had two weeks to write his draft, and he would past around the fox lot for 12 days and then write the draft in the last two days. And someone asked him, why don't you just write the draft for the first two days and then be done? And he said, because I need those 12 days of pacing to get me to the last two days. And I think copywriter are more prone to that kind of way of thinking. I think.

Michael Jamin:

See, see, I don't remember that way always. I always get nervous when that story's not broken. I always want to crack the whip seavers more. Like that's, but to me, I was always,

Alex Berger:

When you were in the room, it was more like, let's stay on story. And when see, it was a little more. And then when you guys were both out of the room, it was even more free flowing, which is not to say that all of the eps weren't trying to keep us on story, but its like it's was a silly show about silly characters and absurd, every premise of every episode had a massive degree of absurdity to it. And so you wouldn't be too serious in a room like that, or you wouldn't be ready to make that kind of show. I mean, at least that was my take on it.

Michael Jamin:

I would describe that as a writer's show. It was always about what made us laugh and not the 15 year old kids who shouldn't be watching or the 10 year old kids. I know

Alex Berger:

It was either Brian or Steve who said it was a show with a demographic of nobody.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Alex Berger:

The demographic of the 15 people in that room for sure. We all really enjoyed watch them. They're all really funny. They're

Michael Jamin:

Funny.

Alex Berger:

It was on the wrong network.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, for sure. Steve and I were horsing around procrastinating on some work we were doing, and for some reason we stumbled on, maybe it was some guy's YouTube channel where he was talking about Glen Martin and this guy nailed it. It was like he was in the room. I don't know how he knew every, it seemed like he knew where we messed up. He knew where we got it. Right. I was just

Alex Berger:

Amazed. I saw that video and I was like, I can't believe somebody watched the show. I thought that literally, I could not imagine that this guy was that deep into the show.

Michael Jamin:

Oh no. I get a lot of comments on social media like, oh my God, you ruined my childhood. Really? Like you gave me nightmares.

Alex Berger:

My wife's cousin is like 25 or 26, and he's dating a girl. And on the second date, he asked her what your favorite shows are. And the second show she said was Glen Martin, d d s. And when he said, oh, my wife's cousin wrote that show, she was instantly smid with him. She gave him so much gr.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, that's so funny. I mean, it was a wild show, man. Too bad. That was a shame. We were going to spin it off too. We all, oh yeah,

Alex Berger:

Stone spin off right behind. Oh

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, there you go.

Alex Berger:

The Drake Stone. Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

All my dolls. Yeah. As soon as they went under, they go here. Here take some. You must have some dolls, right? They give you some dolls. I have

Alex Berger:

Alen Martin Puppet and an Alex Burger puppet, and my kids constantly want to play with them and I won't let them.

Michael Jamin:

Who were you in the show? I don't remember what kind.

Alex Berger:

I think I was a Greek God carrying somebody at some point in some fantasy sequence and they would reuse the puppets. That was what was so funny. So I think that was one thing, and then they reused me as another thing.

Michael Jamin:

And did you ever get out to Toronto to see the

Alex Berger:

No. Did you go up

Michael Jamin:

There? Oh yeah. We went once and Fogel and I had a very romantic dinner together on top of the Toronto Space Needle or whatever they call that. I saw

Alex Berger:

Them shooting the pilot presentation, which they shy in New York. It was incredibly cool, but just I've always found set to be tedious in general, but I can't imagine how tedious it must be to do stop motion.

Michael Jamin:

Do you go, oh, I think they wanted to poke their eyes out, but do you go on set a lot for dramas? Yeah. Is it just your episode or what?

Alex Berger:

Depends on the show. I did this show called Blind Spot for five years, and basically we would have a writer on set for every episode and we would try to make it your episode, but oftentimes it was the writer who wrote the episode had a baby and is on maternity leave or they can't go to New York at this time or if they went to New York and they wouldn't be back in LA for the breaking of their next episode. So we tried to shuffle it around a little bit and it's trickier when it's out of town. You've got to make people have life that they've got to plan around. But you're going for three and a half weeks to New York.

Michael Jamin:

Are most of your show shot out of town?

Alex Berger:

It's been mixed Quantum Leap, which is the show I'm on now is Shot Year on the Universe a lot. Blind Spot was New York Covert Affairs, which I went to a lot of episodes for, was in Toronto, which was a lot of fun. And then I've had a couple Franklin, imagine the Mentalists were LA and it's been sort of a mix.

Michael Jamin:

How many day shoots are most of your shows? Dramas?

Alex Berger:

It depends on the budget of the show. Blind Spots started as nine and then was eight and a half and some tandem days and by the end was eight. They keep pulling money budget every year. Quantum Leap I think is eight.

Michael Jamin:

Interesting. And then what do you, as a writer on set for comedy when on set, it's like, I want to make sure they're playing the comedy right, making jokes, but what are you looking for that the director isn't covering?

Alex Berger:

Well, first of all, it's a lot of times if you have a great director, it's a team effort. So the director is obviously in charge of the set, but if you have a director who's collaborative, they're asking you, do you feel like that works? Or which take do you feel like was better? It's blocking work for you and your main job is just to make sure that you're the protector of the script and a protector of the story. And it's not like, excuse me, you didn't say the word there. Although there a Sorkin set, they will keep you word perfect, but it's more like, actually, I know you want to change that line. It doesn't feel comfortable in your mouth, but it's really important that you say this. It's going to set something up that we're doing in three episodes, or Hey, just so you know, when you're saying this to this character, you're actually lying and you're going to be revealed to be.

It's a lot of making sure that everybody knows the episode up to the episodes we're leading to. And then, yeah, there's still a lot of shows I've worked on have a fair amount of comedy. So you're still making sure jokes, land and actors, this doesn't feel comfortable in my mouth. Do you mind if I say it like this? Or if you work with an actor who wants to have a little bit and wants to assert a line, sometimes I need to be the one to say, okay, well then that means that this person needs to say this line after to keep a joke going.

Michael Jamin:

Right? Right. It's interesting, and especially when scenes are shot out of order, it is easy for actors to lose track of where they are in the story. So that is the

Alex Berger:

Part I really like is Prep, because I've worked on a lot of big shows, big action shows and into you fly to New York with your script in hand and you're so excited. And then the first thing that the line producer tells you every single time is, we're $400,000 over budget. Before you even say hello. The fun part to me is the puzzle of how do you protect the story with the constraints of we can't shoot this in nine days. I've walked into episodes that were supposed to be seven day shoots, and the board came out and it was 10 days. And so you've got to figure out, okay, we can move this back into the house so we can take this care, we can do this here. And actually the shootout that happens after the bank robbery, maybe that happens off screen, stuff like that.

Michael Jamin:

So are you doing a lot of rewriting on set then?

Alex Berger:

It's usually in prep.

Michael Jamin:

Okay. In prep,

Alex Berger:

By the time you're on set in a drama, you're pretty close to set to go unless something changes or an actor nowadays, if an actor gets covid, then all of a sudden you're taking that actor out of the scene and rewriting the scenes and why are they, that kind of thing.

Michael Jamin:

And then are your showrunners ever on any of these shows ever on set? Or are they always sending proxies? Yeah, it

Alex Berger:

Depends. It depends on the show. So typically on the shows that I've been on, the showrunner, the showrunner was there for the pilot. They're usually going to go for 1 0 2 just to, it's been four months and they want to reestablish a tone and kind of be a leader, and then they'll try to pop in and out a bunch during the year so that it's not like they're just coming when there's a problem. And then when the show's in la, the showrunner will usually try to pop by after set, especially if before the Zoom Room thing, the writer's room would wrap at seven, the production's still going, so they usually come for the last couple scenes, something like that.

Michael Jamin:

How many writers are there usually on these hour shows?

Alex Berger:

I mean, I'm curious to hear what your answer is for comedy too, because it's really shrinking in the beginning. I mean, Glen Martin was what, 10, 12, something like that, including if you're Partners is too, and then it's gotten down to 10 and then eight. And then I think Quantum Leap were about 10, which is a big staff, but the Netflix show I just worked on was six. The show, the Assets that I did, which was a limited series was five. And this is a lot of big issues of the strike is these rooms are getting too small. What are the root comedy rooms like now? Because I know there's been, it's like sometimes it's like 25 people in a room

Michael Jamin:

Well, on animation, but I think those days are kind of over

Alex Berger:

Or big network sitcoms aren't there.

Michael Jamin:

I don't think they're that big. I don't think there aren't big network sitcoms anymore, but I don't think, I mean it was never,

Alex Berger:

What was the Tacoma room?

Michael Jamin:

Oh, it's probably eight or so. But that's a small cable show,

Alex Berger:

But they're all small. I think they're all like that now. Even the network comedies, unless you're Abbott, they're all 13 or eight or

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, I think even just shoot me back in. This was in the day, I want to say maybe 10 or 12 times. Oh really? That's it. Yeah. Yeah, Roseanne. Roseanne was famously Big. Fred had a big staff, but that was Roseanne. It was a giant show.

Alex Berger:

And The Simpsons, I know there's these shows that have the two, I mean the drama rooms, there's a bunch of writers who having a big staff and then they like to split the room in two and break two episodes at the same time. A lot of showrunners actually want a small staff and hate having too many voices. I like a big room. I like eight to 10 people because you're always in a drama room, especially you've always got one writer on set, two writers on draft sometimes set, so there's three or four people gone every single day. So your room thins out real fast, and I think you need at least five people to break a story.

Michael Jamin:

Oh yeah. Now the thing is, you're a funny guy. You have a good sense of humor. You started in comedy, but do you miss at all comedy or do you feel I'm a fish in water with drama?

Alex Berger:

Yeah, I was in over my head in comedy, I be the guy who can do a little bit of comedy on a drama staff than that guy in a comedy room who's mostly focused on story. I mean, I felt like, obviously I wrote Pilot and I felt like I had a voice on that show, but it was clear to me that this was not the type of show that I was going to be thriving at. I really enjoyed it, but it was like just comedy wasn't my thing. I love writing on a Funny One Hour, Franklin and Bash, which was a legal show, was essentially a comedy that had the stakes of a drama, but the tone of a comedy. And I love because I like being able to go to the serious scene to have the emotional he, to not have to have a joke at the end of every scene. And then I've written some pilots and stuff that have a fair amount of comedy, but I always want, and I've written half hour dramas. It's just I want the pressure of three jokes a page and beating a joke and beating a joke and beating a joke. It just wasn't my pace.

Michael Jamin:

Well, I got to say, I think it was probably the last script you wrote was you and Pava teamed up to write a Christmas episode. Oh yeah. And you guys crushed it. I remember coming back, you guys turned it in, whatever you guys did together, were like, you guys, you're going to do this together. Probably because PA wanted to write a musical. I was like, Papa, I'm not writing a musical. And he probably did, but you guys turned in a great draft. And I was like, if that show had gone, I'd be like, I remember thinking, well, these guys are going to be stuck in a room together for a long time. Because yeah,

Alex Berger:

That was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun. And it's funny, I want to show my kids the show. They're really young and there's not a lot of episodes that are appropriate for little, that one's pretty tame. That one's pretty tame. We did a rom-com parody sort, the Wedding planner parody, and then we did a, what was it? I forget the other ones. It was a lot of fun.

Michael Jamin:

Oh yeah. What is nutty stuff? So now the dramas, I'm sorry. When you go off to write your own pilots, when you're developing your own, is there a unifying theme tone that you like to pitch? Yeah,

Alex Berger:

I would say two things. One is fun. I don't want to write some things super dark. I don't want to write. I like watching shows like that. I watch Last Of Us and The Leftovers and a lot of shows that are real bleak and I really enjoy them. But when I'm living in the world for 12 hours a day, for eight years, I want it to be fun. I want to have a certain amount of lightness to it and sort of levity to it, which is not to say it has to be a comedy, it can still be a drama. There just needs to be something fun about it. And even when I'm writing on a show like Quantum Leap, we've had episodes that are really serious, but the ones that I do, I try to make them, I did an airplane hijacking episode, but I tried to make it fun and sort of like an eighties action movie. And then the other thing I would say is sort of optimism. I try to write something that makes you think that the world is going to be a better place. I've written a lot of political shows and politics is pretty dark these days. One, my take is sort of, but if we do this, we can all get through it. None of those have gotten on the air. So maybe that says something about what people feel about optimism these days.

Michael Jamin:

Well, it's also a numbers game, but how do you feel, let's say you were given the keys to run your show, got on the air somewhere, eight episodes on the air. How do you feel? Feel about that? Yeah, let's do it. I'm ready. Or like, oh my God, what did I get?

Alex Berger:

Both. I mean, I did the Writer's Guild showrunner training program a couple of years ago, which is phenomenal. What

Michael Jamin:

Was that? Tell me all about

Alex Berger:

That. It was great. But so essentially it's a six week every Saturday, all day, every Saturday college course on how to run a show. And it's run by Jeff Melvoin, who's a really seasoned showrunner, and Carol Kirschner, who's been working in the business forever. And then they bring in John Wells is usually a big part of the program and they bring in really heavy hitter showrunners all the way down to people who were in the program last year and then got a show on the year. And they're like, bill and Ted when they come back at the time Machine and Bill and Ted's, and they're like, you're in for a crazy journey. And so it's really cool to hear from all of those people and they focus one day is on writing, one day is on post one day on production. And what I learned from that was having been on staffs for something like 250 episodes of tv, I've learned basically all the things you can do in terms of book learning to run a show.

But the last 20%, you can't learn until you're there. Sort of like if you read a hundred books about swimming, you kind of know how to swim, but if you dropped out of a helicopter ocean, you're going to have to figure it out and you're going to be drowning while you're doing it. And literally, I don't know if this was your experience when you guys had it, but every other show I've talked to says nothing fully prepares you for it. So I have a couple shows in development right now, and if you told me that they were to go, I think the first feeling would be utter terror and like, okay, let's do it. Let's go. This is the time to do it. And I've run a lot of writers' rooms and stuff like that, but I've never actually had the keys to the castle, so

Michael Jamin:

Interesting. Right. Okay, so you've run the room, you've been breaking stories, you're in charge of that. Now time in terms of tell me about the short run is problem You apply, how do you get in?

Alex Berger:

You have to be recommended by somebody and applied and they want someone, they're trying to find people who are the next shows up. And so people in the program have a pilot that's already been shot and that's already ordered a series, but they don't know how to run a show. You people who've worked in features or worked in writing novels who are transitioning into television. So all the production stuff to them is totally new. And then you have lot of people like me who sort came up as staff writer, story editor and just worked their way up the ranks who've been around for a while, who just haven't taken that next step, who want to know more about what it's like to run a show. I loved it. First of all, it was like being in college, man, it was just absorbing material and taking notes at a frantic pace and reading that they recommended. But it was just so interesting to hear. It's like this, your podcast is so great because you could hear people speak, but these are people who are specifically targeted at the demographic of you're a co eep and you're about to run a show. Here's what you need to know.

Michael Jamin:

And so you don't pay for this, right? Or you

Alex Berger:

Do, the guild pays for it and the studios pay for it. It's a phenomenal program.

Michael Jamin:

And then it's so interesting. And then, alright, so then how big of a cohort, how big of a group is

Alex Berger:

It? 30. And it's a bummer because these days it's been on Zoom and so you don't really get to the year. I did it in 2017 or 2018. And so I got to know those folks and they were sort of, yeah, again, my cohort and three quarters of them are running shows and everybody else's EPS or eps, running rooms. It's a very fun dynamic to have a group.

Michael Jamin:

What are they teaching you? I'm so curious as what they teach you. I bet there's stuff I don't know. And we've done three shows. What are they teaching you about post that you were surprised?

Alex Berger:

The overwhelming, the first thing they tell you when you walk in the door is quality scripts on time. The bug that they gave me, the showrunner program, quality scripts on time, and that was basically the theme of it was being efficient, being and knowing when to cut your losses and say move on. And knowing when to say this isn't good enough. And so for posts, it's like, are you the type of person who wants to be in post for 10 hours a day? That's fine, but then you need to have somebody who's going to be overrunning the room, or do you want the writer who produced the episode to do the first and the second cut? And then you do the last cut and they bring in editors and they talk, editors tell you about what they want to hear. A lot of things that I'd been in post a lot before I was in that room and then editors were telling me things that I was doing that annoyed the crap out of them. And I was like, oh, little thing like what? Snapping, when you say cut there,

Michael Jamin:

Oh,

Alex Berger:

That annoys.

Michael Jamin:

That annoys them. It's like a dog

Alex Berger:

Thing. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of editors, some editors want line notes. Some editors want you to say, this scene doesn't feel funny enough, I'm not getting the comedy. And then they'll say, okay, let me take another swing at it. And you need to feel like, is this the type of editor that wants to do it on their own or that type of showrunner that wants to do that. But broadly speaking, it's essentially a leadership training program. The nuts and bolts stuff with all stuff that I had seen up close being a lieutenant on a show, there are a lot of little tips that I picked up here and there and when I get a show, I will go back to my notebook and frantically look through it, but it's mostly about how do you lead, how do you manage, how do you fire people? How do you delegate? How do you tell people that they're not doing a good enough job but give 'em a second chance? Interesting. They bring a lot of directors in, stuff like that.

Michael Jamin:

What was the last thing you

Alex Berger:

Said? How to interview a director? How to interview director. A big director came in and talked to you. Here's some questions you should ask when you're interviewing. Here's a great one that they said. They said, when you're interviewing a director, ask if you're the showrunner and you're interviewing somebody who's coming in to do an episode of your show, ask the director, do you cook? And if so, are you a person who uses a recipe or do you like to improvise? And there's no right answers to that, right? But if you cook and you're the person who is going to measure out the exact number of grams of flour and the exact number of grams of sugar, that's kind of how you're going to approach directing. You're going to come in with a shot list, you're going to be going to stay on time, you're going to make sure that you move the set along. And if you're the person who likes to kind of throw a little salt to throw a little sugar, you might be a little more improvisational. I say you might be a little more, more. There's little things like that that are like how to dig in on this with those people.

Michael Jamin:

Now I'm learning. What else can you share with me that

Alex Berger:

Might be helpful? I can get my notebook you,

Michael Jamin:

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.

I remember when we're running Glen Martin, which is the first show we ran a lot of this, and you probably weren't even aware of this, A lot of it was me. If I was at the board or whatever, it was me like, okay, I want to make sure I'm not losing the room. I want to make sure everyone, no one's losing focus. And I think part of that was make a decision even if it's a bad one because you can lose the room if you can't pull the trigger. You know what I'm saying? It's so frustrating. You guys

Alex Berger:

Did a good job with that. And then I think that decisiveness, I think is actually one of the most important qualities in the showrunner, but also willingness to admit you were wrong if you made a decision and moved on and then a day later you realize you were wrong. You have to and say, I made the wrong decision. And one of the things I've learned running that I've really tried to do when I'm running a room is if there's an idea floating around that I hate, but it's getting energy and it's getting excitement, I try not to step on it until it either burns out on its own or it's reached a critical mass and I'm like, look, I think this is not going to work, but let's talk it out because there's nothing worse as having come up on staffs. And this is one of the most valuable things when you've been a staff writer and a story editor as opposed to getting your own show as the first thing that happens to you is you know how demoralizing it is when everybody's super excited about something now it's not going to work. It's so demoralizing. Yes, A lot of times you think it's not going to work. You just sit there back and listen for 20 minutes and you're like, oh, actually, you know what? There is a version of this that'll work if I just add this one thing. It's an organism and you're leading an organism and it's very hard. You guys did a great, and you guys are a team, which is even harder because you've got to read each other's minds about

This works.

Michael Jamin:

You bring a good point. I remember one time, so when Glen Martin, I would go, I would direct the actors on Wednesdays or whatever and see would be running the room, and I remember coming back at the end of a long day directing, come back to the room and you guys had made a lot of progress on the script and everyone's excited. Everyone's excited about this idea and you guys pitched it to me. I wasn't getting it. I didn't get it. I was like, I didn't want to shit on it because I could tell everyone was so excited about it. And so I just kept on asking questions just to explain it to me so that I would get on board.

Alex Berger:

That's a really hard part is and because I've never been the actual showrunner, I've never been the one, I would be like, I'm sorry we're vetoing this. A lot of times what I would do, because I was a number two, was if I hated something, if I left the room and then I came back and I hated something, I'd be like, look, I'm not totally on board with this idea, but let's give it its day in short and let's pitch it to the showrunner. And I would try, when I would pitch it to the showrunner be to not give away which side I was on or to say, look, here's one side of the argument, here's the other side of the argument. But when it's ultimately up to you, it is hard because I always analogize it to in Family Feud when the first four people give their answer and then that last person has to give the final answer and they want to go against the rest of the family. It's a hard thing to do. You're wrong.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Alex Berger:

I guess, I don't know. What was that experience like for you? Did you feel like it was like you had to balance? What was your favorite idea versus losing another 10 people's morale?

Michael Jamin:

It wasn't even about my favorite idea. It was more like I just want to make sure if sea's on board than I trust, I trust him. But it's also like I wish I can remember what the episode was. It just didn't make any

Alex Berger:

Sense to me. No, I remember that a couple times. Every show I've ever been on has had that. Every show I've ever, the showrunners left the room, the room gets excited about, something comes back in and it's not what they want, it's just part of show running. The value of having a staff that's been together for a while is the longer the staff has been together, the more you can say, oh, secret and Michael are going to hate this. We shouldn't even this path. Versus early on, you're going down a million paths you don't know. But once you get to know the showrunner, you kind of get to know what they like and what they don't like.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. There was another idea that we had in that, I don't remember what we were all on board, but Seaver wasn't on board. It was something crazy.

Alex Berger:

Oh, I think it was the radio episode and there was something about wires or no wires, and they weren't recording the music the whole time,

Michael Jamin:

Who wasn't recording music.

Alex Berger:

Glen went to, you got to cut this out of the podcast.

Michael Jamin:

No one's going to care. But

Alex Berger:

It was like there were a lot of room bits that I think that's the problem with room bits is they take on a life of their own and then they're an inside joke. And if the runner comes in and there's a room bit in the script, it's an inside joke. It just doesn't work. You weren't there for the beginning of it, which is a good sign that it's not a good story because the audience wasn't there for it either. But I think it was Glen becomes a radio producer named Stacey Rappaport.

Michael Jamin:

Yes.

Alex Berger:

His wife was also named Stacey Rappaport. Yes. And I know he works for Stacey Rappaport. And anyway, the whole time it was the, you guys were doing the Brady Bunch, Johnny Bravo episode basically as a

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Alex Berger:

Remember the debate was like, were they actually recording by the way? I will say again, you can cut this out early, but it's not relevant at all. But I grew up watching the Brady Bunch for whatever reason, even though I'm 10 years younger than you guys. And that was number one reference that you guys talked about. So I did feel like at least I got those references.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, it's so funny. I remember that. I remember because I think I was the one who pitched the name Stacey Rappaport.

Alex Berger:

I remember because I had a friend named Stacey

Michael Jamin:

Rappaport. Oh really? That's so funny. It was just a man's name that the joke was that Glen was going to choose a new identity for himself and he chooses a woman's name.

Alex Berger:

What have you gone back and just watched full episodes of the show?

Michael Jamin:

No. And everyone, people want to know about. People ask me that a lot. I don't touch. I should. I love that show, but I don't touch anything that I've written. I just don't. It's over and I don't know why, but you do

Alex Berger:

Just not even about Glen Martin. That is an interesting thing about writers is whether they want to go back. I go back and watch stuff and I hate it because I'm like, but because Glen Martin was not really mine. It was such an organism of the room. I laugh when I go back and watch it except the one I wrote, which I don't like.

Michael Jamin:

Oh my God. We had some fun in that show. But okay, so when you take, I have so many questions for you. When you were young, when you were a kid, did you want to be a writer? I know Time

Alex Berger:

Know was a profession. I loved television. I was a youngest kid. I was raised by the Cosby Show and the Brady Bunch and G I F. And my idea of a family was basically what those families were probably to go back, rethink the Cosby one. And then even in college, I interned at Saturday Night Live and late night with Conan O'Brien back when he was on, which were fantasy camp, especially the s and l one was truly a dream come true. And it still didn't occur to me that it was a profession that I could go do. I was go to law school and then a buddy of mine, we were in Jerry's Subs and Pizza, which is an East coast person you probably remember. And we were sitting there talking about what we're going to do and he's like, like I said, I'm going to go to LA and be a writer. And I said, how do you do that? And he said, someone writes this stuff, why couldn't it be us? And it just gave me this epiphany of like, oh yeah, everybody who's out there as a writer at some point wasn't a writer and just got out there and learned how to do it. And so we all went out together and we kind of got our start.

Michael Jamin:

Did your friend become a writer too?

Alex Berger:

Yeah, we all ended up creating a show together. So the earliest thing that we did was we were on the high school debate team together and we walked into National Lampoon, which at the time was doing low budget cable programming, and the head creative guy there just made fun of my resume the entire time and made fun of debate. And then by the end of it said, there's a show here. And so we came, pitched him a show called Master Debaters that was a debating society, and we ended up getting to make, it was like our film school. I knew nothing about how to make a TV show and that one, I was throwing the keys to the castle. I was casting it, writing it, producing it. I was in it, posting it with every crisis. But it was so low stakes because the budgets were tiny and they were in syndicated cable stations and college campuses. No one would watch me. So I got to learn by doing and I loved it. It was great.

Michael Jamin:

Interesting. And then, all right, so then you became a writer and then you just kept on writing. I guess mean it's not an easy path, but you've made a really pretty good name for yourself over the years.

Alex Berger:

Yeah, I mean, thank you. It was a winding path when I came out, I thought for a minute I might want to be a development executive. I read a book by this guy, Brandon Tartikoff, who used to run N B C called The Last Great. It was like basically made it out to be, you're sitting in your room and the smartest people in the world come and tell you what TV show ideas they have, and then you pick the eight of them and pick the order in America Shears. And so I worked in development for a minute and I was not what it was like at all, and I was miserable and I was jealous of all the writers who were coming in. So I said, that's the job I want. And so I quit. What

Michael Jamin:

Was it I didn't know you worked at VO for? I was

Alex Berger:

Assistant. I was an assistant in development at N B C.

Michael Jamin:

What was it like then?

Alex Berger:

It's very busy and not as creative as I wanted to be. I actually really enjoyed the conversations I had with the executives when it wasn't time to do my job and it was just time to talk about tv. But the actual job I was doing, I was terrible at, I mean, it was a lot of keeping track of who was calling, and I'm an absentminded first, but

Michael Jamin:

That you're an assistant. I mean, surely

Alex Berger:

You, but it's a long time before your branded Tartikoff, right? Almost everybody else under branded Tartikoff has a lot of business responsibilities to do. And it wasn't, that's not how my brain works. My brain needs more free time. I think if I worked at a place that was smaller that was incubating three or four shows, I probably would've enjoyed it more. But we had 50 comedies and 50 dramas in development, and I was trying to get of all of them and who was calling and the letterhead changing and all this stuff. And it was just like I was not good at it. I mean, my boss even said to me one day, he said, you're a very smart guy. Why are you not very good at this? And we had a nice conversation about that. But the main thing was the writers that came in that I was, can I get you a coffee?

Can I get you a tea? Can I get you a Coke? I was so jealous of them. Door would close to the pitch, and I just wanted to be in there listening to. And so I realized I should follow that. And so I didn't last that long. I left like eight months and I quit. I at the time had been, I think had a couple of writing jobs, like smaller writing jobs lined up that show Master Debaters had been optioned of VH one. So we were writing a pilot for VH one and a couple of their small writing jobs. So I went to go do those and then got back in the beginning of the line as an assistant, I was a writer's assistant on a show, and then I was an assistant to a showrunner and then I stop.

Michael Jamin:

So it's a brave move for you to leave that behind in.

Alex Berger:

It was definitely, I mean, I had some stuff lined up, but it was definitely a risk, but I just knew it wasn't the right, I was in the wrong place. But it's interesting, it was an incredible learning experience. I knew how development work from the inside, and I still think I know more about what's actually going on at the network than a lot of my peers because I was on the other side. And then the folks I met who are the other assistants to the other executives are now all executive vice presidents of networks or presidents of networks or I met my agent because he was an assistant to an agent that used to call, and then he signed me while he was still a coordinator. One of the people on that hall now became the president of Fox, another one who I've dealt with a lot became the president of N B C. I met a ton of great folks through that who have become friends and allies over the years, and I sold Joe to,

Michael Jamin:

But okay, so it's probably changed lot since you were in assistant that was probably 20 something

Alex Berger:

Years ago, 19 years

Michael Jamin:

Ago. So what is it like then that we don't understand?

Alex Berger:

I think the main thing that I didn't understand, and this has for sure changed and certainly in cable and streaming is just a volume. They are not spending as much time thinking about your script as you are by definition. But in development, there are literally 40 to 50 scripts at least back then on both on comedy and trauma. And so my boss, who was in charge of both has a hundred scripts to keep track of. So he was very smart and could make a judgment very quickly about a script, but he would read it once, sometimes read it again, and then he was making a judgment about whether it was a show. So as a writer now I know they're reading fast, they're reading it at three 30 in the morning, or they're reading it on the plane, I've got to grab attention fast, I've got to hook you in. I cannot lean, oh, the great twist, wait till the Great Twist. It's on page 55. And when I'm pitching, it's the same thing my boss said to me, I hear 300 pitches a year. I typically hear about five ideas I haven't heard before. The other 95 I've heard before. It's about take, it's about the writer, it's about their passion. And so when I go and pitch an idea, the substance of the idea is the second most important thing. And my connection to it and why it has to be me is the first most important.

Michael Jamin:

And that's the hard part. I feel that's the hard part because usually you think of an idea, you can't really, I don't know, you're a hundred percent right. They always, they want to know why are you the only one in the world who can write this idea truthfully? It's like a lot of times you're not a lot of times like, well, this is the characters we created. It's a funny situation, but there's probably a lot of people who could write this idea.

Alex Berger:

I think that what I have seen, and I've never done this, but I know folks who have is, I knew a writer once who his sort of why me paragraph was, I just run a show for a bunch of years. I came off of running that show and I didn't know what I wanted to do next and I had an identity crisis. And so it got to the idea of identity crises and here's a spy show, an action spy show, but at the center of it as a character going through an identity crisis. So it's not

Michael Jamin:

Grew

Alex Berger:

Up and my dad was a spy, and therefore sometimes it's emotional or sometimes I had this interaction with a guy on the subway and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And it led me to this show. And sometimes by the way, you retrofitted sometimes you already come up to the show and then you've got to come up with that first paragraph that's retrofitted and sometimes often it feels organic even though it was come up with that

Michael Jamin:

Word. That's so interesting because I'm glad you said that to me. It almost sounds, it gives me some soce knowing that, because a lot of times we'll say, okay, this is why we're the only ones, and this is from seabird's idea home life or my home life, and then it doesn't sell. And you're like, well, I don't know what to do now. But you're actually broadening it out into a thematically, it's more personal to you. It's not necessarily a dynamic. It's more like,

Alex Berger:

Here's how I think about it. I think that, and I could be wrong, and by the way, it's different in a comedy because you've got to make 'em laugh in a comedy, and I know certain comedy executives don't laugh, but for the most, if you're funny in the room, they're thinking, okay, I want to be in business with these pets, but in drama, are there twists and turns? Am I hooked on this? Is this going to fit with something that we have on the air? Do we have something similar? But I always think what they're going to remember when they've heard six, they hear six to eight a day, and then at the end of the week they go tell their bosses about the ones that they bought. So what they're going to remember is, oh my God, you'll never believe the story this guy told about the time that he was held hostage on the subway, or you'll never believe that, or a cool twist or a cool character. They're not ever going to remember the third beat of the pilot, or when pitch episode ideas, here's so

Michael Jamin:

Interesting.

Alex Berger:

I think you need that stuff to be in there, but what they're going to remember, it's like when you walk into a house, when you're looking for a house, you remember, oh, I was dazzled by the kitchen and the master bedroom had the fullest bathroom and yeah, yeah, it had five bedrooms and five baths, which is what we need. But it felt like this when I walked in. It's like, how do they feel? That's another, I'm sorry to ramble, but

Michael Jamin:

No,

Alex Berger:

For drama. I think in a pitch, if you can make the executives feel how the show is going to make them feel, that's a successful pitch to me. Comedy's a little different, I think. But

Michael Jamin:

Interesting. I feel like I'm learning a lot from you actually, because I mean, honestly, we'll sell shows and we'll not sell shows.

Alex Berger:

We're learning all that time from you guys for 40 episodes on the murder.

Michael Jamin:

But a lot of this is, like I said, we will sell a show or we won't sell a show, and I won't know why. I don't know. I'm not sure why this one sold this one, the other one didn't sell. I can, but that's

Alex Berger:

Why I really don't like Zoom pitches because you can't. I love, that's actually my favorite part. I think it comes from, like I said, I was on the debate team in high school and college, and I loved trying to persuade someone who was not necessarily on my side at the beginning that I'm right. And I viewed every pitch as a miniature debate. I'm debating against the person who says, don't buy this. And I love the feeling of like, oh, I've got them hooked, and they're now, they are going to buy the show as long as it continues to go on this pace. And I hate the feeling of, I think they've checked out. And actually when I've memorized a pitch, when I think they've checked out, I'm talking, but my internal monologue is, well, I guess we didn't sell it to Fox. All right, well, if we can sell it to Fox, we can go to a B, C. Because I'm sort of like, I've moved on.

Michael Jamin:

How much off book are you have notes or not?

Alex Berger:

I've developed this method that I got from this guy, Martin Garra, who I've worked for eight or nine years for some blind spot, and now on Quantum Leap, it's different, but I love it, which is, it's different on Zoom, but when we go back to in-person pitches, what he does is he brings in his laptop and he puts it on the table in front of him and it acts as a teleprompter. And so he's looking up at you making eye contact and occasionally looking down. And then he is got a remote that flips page to page and the script is there word for word. So if you're like, oh shit, I'm about to get to the part that I always mess up, then you just look down and read for a minute and they know you've written this. It's not like no one is under the illusion that you walked in and RIFed for 20 minutes off the

Michael Jamin:

Topic. Does he do this in person or on Zoom?

Alex Berger:

Both. On Zoom, it's so easy because you can have your screen, but in person, I thought, oh, they're going to think it's offputting. But because I was practiced, I got to the point where 70% of it was eye contact and the laptop was there as the security one did.

Michael Jamin:

And what program is he using? That's a teleprompter

Alex Berger:

Work.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, so you're just scrolling. Oh, you're just clicking.

Alex Berger:

There's this Bluetooth remote that he uses that I was now in my drawer, and it's just you click and it's to the next

Michael Jamin:

Page. You have a Bluetooth remote that works on your lap. I didn't even know this such a thing. I'm learning so much from you Burger.

Alex Berger:

Oh, you know what? I've lost it. Oh, here. Yeah, so it's like a little U S B that plugs into the back of your computer, and then you're just like, you click, click, click and it's, you look like you're giving its head talk it 5% easy. And I actually think in a comedy pitch, it might come off as too dorky, but for a drama it's like, I'm going to tell you a story. I'm going to deliver a pitch. And I wrote it. And the reason I find it useful is a lot of times when you're developing with the pod and the studio and then also the non-writing show runner, so many Sunday night, you're getting notes for a Monday morning pitch and stuff's changed. So if I get to the section that just changed, I might look down a little bit more

Michael Jamin:

Interest. So I was going to say, are you going in mostly with pods these days for people who don't know that they're producers on the overall deals at studios, but is that how it works in dramas as well?

Alex Berger:

I don't think I'm going to show on the air anymore without an entourage. So when I was on Blind Spot, it was produced by Greg Ante and I did a couple pieces of development with him and then also with Blind Spot. I just think there's the business side of it, which is that these networks want to be in business with their 800 pound gorillas and the not. So if you walk in with one of them, even if it's my vision a hundred percent, and it's my personal story, the fact that this brand is behind it really helps. And then I also, I actually enjoy the process of crafting the idea with smart people. I don't want to work with a pod who's annoying and gives dumb notes or a studio who does that. But every pod I've ever worked with, if I'm stuck on an idea, I'll say, Hey, can we hop on the phone for half an hour and work out this story problem? You guys have each other so you can get in a room and hash out a story problem. But I need to talk. I cannot think through any

Michael Jamin:

Interesting,

Alex Berger:

And we'll work it out. Oh,

Michael Jamin:

So you'll really use them as a resource. It's so interesting.

Alex Berger:

I mean, this guy, Martin Garrow who runs Blind Spot Quantum Leap, I've developed him a bunch of times and he's a writer.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, it's different

Alex Berger:

Stuff is acting as a pod. But I can call him and we have such a shorthand, we've broken 150 episodes a week, but

Michael Jamin:

That's different because he's a writer. He is not, I mean, he's a writer, is writer producer, but he's really a

Alex Berger:

Writer. So it's Greg Ante. I like working with folks who are on the creative things, and I've worked with producers who weren't writers, but could be because they're a creative, the worst part of that development is when someone gives you a note and they don't realize, oh, that's going to unravel. They think it's two lines, but it actually unravel all. Whereas when you work with people who've made a lot of tv, they're like, look, I know that this blows everything up to do this one little thing, but here's why I think it's better. Or Hey, they gave a huge note. Here's easy fix. It's only two lines.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, I mean, that's so interesting. You're absolutely right. There's a huge difference between, I think between working with a producer, producer and a writer producer, because the writers, they just know what's going to unravel everything. I don't know. Yeah, that's Producers

Alex Berger:

Are good for like, oh, you know what? Who'd be great for this is this actress. And they make the call and they're good.

I find that you find everybody's in this business, they're good at something. Nobody who's come to this business and is just dashing a check. Well, probably not true, but the people that I try to find work with are people who are in this business smart. And even if they're not totally up on exactly what I wanted to do, fix the script, they have something that they're really good at that I want to use. So even if it's, there's one person at this company who's mostly the production person have a really good idea about like, Hey, if we shot this in Buffalo, we could do this.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Interesting. Wow. I think I've learned a lot from you. Before we conclude, you want to write drama with

Alex Berger:

Me? Let's go that. Let's talk about drama.

Michael Jamin:

I think I'm going to get into the drama business with you. I think you're going to be my pod. What advice do you have for young writers? You must have something to Wise to say.

Alex Berger:

Yeah, I mean, I probably don't have anything wise to say, but I'm happy

Michael Jamin:

To. Or how are they breaking in the business?

Alex Berger:

It's funny. The answer was so different 10 years ago to four years ago. It changed rapidly, and it's very different now because of the writer's strike. So if you're talking about what should I be doing right now, if I want to break in? I was just talking to a writer today and my advice to her was, just use this time to write. It's not a good time to try to get a producer attached or a showrunner attached or an agent. It's a good time to just be writing and really writing diligently. And then this is over. And in general, my advice is get a job in the industry, even if it's as an assistant. If you can't get a job as an assistant in a room, get a job as an assistant in post or get a job as a PA on set, just get into the room. Then just keep building a network and talking to everybody. And when your cousin comes and says, you know what? I used my college roommate, I think as a writer, I don't know what he take them up on all of those opportunities because you never know what's going to result in something. The first three jobs I got were from general meetings that I didn't want to take because actually two of them were from people. My mom had met

Parties in Washington dc but they were another assistant who was leaving their job and happened to open up. And then the last thing I would say is, I think the thing that people don't do as much of it that they should do is engage in the continuing education piece of this. So your listeners to your podcast are obviously trying to learn how to write, and that's important. There's a lot of other good podcasts out there. There's Deadline Hollywood, which everybody should be reading every single day. There's business podcasts like The Town and the Business and Fresh Air that people should be listening to understand the macro pieces of their business. So often you get people who come out here and they have no idea how the business works, but there's film school available for free. There's 97 episodes of your show and other shows like it. And there's a lot of episodes about how the business works that I think people, you said sort of absorb

Michael Jamin:

Alex Berger, you hit it out of the park. Dude, I think this is,

Alex Berger:

I wrote it with pava.

Michael Jamin:

You wrote it with pava. You did this Screw pava. No, I found, I don't know. I hope people go back and even listen to this again and again. I think you said so many smart things in this that were even kind of new to me. And I don't know. Thank you for sharing all your knowledge. I think it was hit out

Alex Berger:

Of the park. You're doing a great service. What I love about your podcast is that you ask the question that I want everybody to ask on these podcasts, which is like, tell me your story. Tell me how you got started, and then you interrogate what the lessons are along the way. So many of these podcasts, it's like, tell me about your latest project. And essentially they just become promotion vehicles. But you dig in and you really, the 90 writers that you've had on the show, every one of their stories is different. But there's a lesson in every single one of them. And that's what I just add on to the thing that I was talking about young writers is when you hear people's stories, if you walk away with one kernel of wisdom of like, oh, they got fired off the show and they were miserable, but here's what they did wrong, and now I can take that forward, or the networking advice they gave me, or Here's the little piece of advice about how to get your way out of a scene with a cool blow line. You can pick all that stuff up from everybody that you meet.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. And I also find, because everyone wants to, everyone wants to, what's the path to breaking through the business? And I always think there's only one door. You have to go into that door, and then once you go through that door, it closes. Now the next person has to find their own door. But you can find a common characteristic that everyone has that broke into the business. So it's not like they didn't go through the one path, but they all had a same trait that they have.

Alex Berger:

I mean, perseverance. And then it sounds silly, but a lot of young writers I talk to aren't writing a lot. They have the one script that they've been polishing forever or half a script or an idea for a script, and they want to know how to break in. And by the way, I always liked that from 22 to 25, I did not, I wrote one script and was, I should have written 10 because I'm 20 years into the business now. Every script I wrote right now is leaps and bounds better than the last script I wrote because I'm still learning. And so when you're 22 or 25, or even if you're 45, breaking in, get those bad scripts out of the way early so that when you're actually being paid to write, you've gotten the phlegm out and now you're actually getting something good on the page.

Michael Jamin:

Absolutely. Before we sign off, is there anything we should plug? I mean, not really. I mean, you have Quantum Leap.

Alex Berger:

Yeah. I'll be picketing at Fox on Tuesday

Michael Jamin:

How they can find you. My wife was an actor in the original Quantum Leap. She was a guest. Oh, really? This is a long time ago. I'll

Alex Berger:

Look it up. That's so cool. I knew she was on Quantum Leap. They did like a hundred of those. That's a really rabid fan. No, I mean, quantum Link will be on in the fall, and I hope people will watch it. We've got eight episodes that we made of season two before we had to shut down, and then we have five more that we'd like to make when this is all done. If this is ever, I hope people will watch it. It's a really, it's a great show.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Thank you again, Alex Berger. Thank you again so much. Don't go anywhere. Let me just sign off. Alright, everyone, thank you. Another great episode. Listen to this one again and again, and yeah, lots of free stuff on my website. Get onto my free newsletter, all this stuff @michaeljamin.com, and that's it. Until next week. Until next, just keep writing. Okay, everyone, thanks again.

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.

On this week's episode, Writer/Showrunner Bill Martin (The Unicorn, The Neighborhood, 3rd Rock From The Sun, and many many more) talks about his showbiz career and starting out writing in sketch comedy then eventually transitioning over to scripted. Tune in as he also talks about his experiences working with a writing partner.

Bill Martin's IMDB Page - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0551979/

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Bill Martin:

When we got on board, we just got an overall deal with A, B, C. So we were assignable to this and we thought, this is insane. We'd love the commercials about anybody, but there's no way they're going to put on. So we thought it was just like, we'll help out a pilot, meet some new people, and then we'll do something else. It was shocking to us that they put it on tv.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, how

Bill Martin:

Interesting. Because it just seems so unlikely, but with anything you do, you know how it is. Once you're given your assignment, you've got to find a way to take pride in it.

Michael Jamin:

You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I got another great guest today Actually. Ordinarily I would never have a sitcom writer who's more successful than me on my show. I out of Insecurity, but I'm doing it today to prove that I'm more magnanimous than he is. And so welcome to the show, bill Martin, whose credits are fricking crazy good and he had so many great credits. I'm going to list some of the great credits and I'm also, maybe I'll throw in some not so great credits to humble you, to keep you humble.

Bill Martin:

There are plenty of,

Michael Jamin:

But you started in Living Color and I wanted to talk about that. I love that show. But then she tv, third Rock from the Sun, grounded for Life, and I'm skipping many. Okay, cavemen, the singles table. Hank How to Rock Malibu Country Soul Man, which I believe, I think we met on that and I think you guys beat us out with good reason.

Bill Martin:

That's what I'm really here for. Revenge.

Michael Jamin:

Yes. Right, right, right. Living Biblically. We'll talk about that. And the, the unicorn, the neighborhood, the unicorn, which you and your partner created and the neighborhood. Are you guys running that as well, neighborhood or no? We are. You are. Damn. What's it like to be welcome to the show and what's it like to be a working sitcom writer? What's it like working on a network TV show nowadays?

Bill Martin:

Yeah. Well, I mean, I will point out that it's fantastic and I know that because I've also been a non-working sitcom writer. Plenty. I mean, that's the awful thing about this life we've chosen is that every spring is the panic of, oh my God, am I retired? I just don't know it yet.

Michael Jamin:

What do you know? Brian Bihar? Do you know who he is?

Bill Martin:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

He said me and he said to me that people in the business are retired seven years before they know it.

Bill Martin:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

I hadn't heard that. I was like, oh God, is the clock

Bill Martin:

Running? I knew that makes perfect sense though. Yeah, yeah.

Michael Jamin:

But the thing is not even about staffing season anymore now you don't even know when you're not working. You just

Bill Martin:

True. True.

Michael Jamin:

So what is it like, how is it, honestly, haven't written on a network television show in many years we've been on cable or whatever, streaming. And how has it changed? How has Network changed? More notes, last notes.

Bill Martin:

That's the weird thing is it has not changed. I mean, we are preserved in Amber. The neighborhood is just the good old days. It's a big writer's room. It's run throughs, it's show nights. It's really almost unreal. When we took the job, we expected it to, COVID obviously jumbled everything up, but once the covid restricted to Lifted, it was like, oh, this is exactly the classic sitcom situation.

Michael Jamin:

See, one of my fears is that multi cameras will go away because there's so few people still doing it. I mean, do you feel that way?

Bill Martin:

Yeah, we keep thinking that they're done, but at the same time, people are still watching friends in Seinfeld and there still aren't that many single camera comedies that are that sticky with people. So I'm not sure that they're being given up on yet. I mean, there's pros and cons to them, but I think that kind of warmth that you only have when you're watching an audience show is something that people still crave.

Michael Jamin:

But I mean in terms of there's so few multi-camera shows being made now, then let's say in 10 or 15 years if they want to make more, who's going to know how to do it?

Bill Martin:

The breeding pool is, yeah, the breeding pool has shrunk to the point where we'll all be just inbred ligers. Yeah, you're right. Frankly, that's why I'm working because there's not a minor league for it anymore. Yeah, I know N B C and a BBC are trying them. They are developing them, but really right now it's Monday night on c b s and that's about it. So we are fully prepared to just turn off the lights when we leave and that'll be the end. But

Michael Jamin:

Now tell me how you broke in, because I think your first creative was living single, I mean not living single, but living color.

Bill Martin:

Living color and

Michael Jamin:

Living, which, so there was a sketch show, which huge for the young people. I mean it, Jim Carrey and all these huge stars came out of that, which you couldn't have been imagined back then. It's one of the first shows on Fox. But how did that come to be? How did you get on that?

Bill Martin:

That was purely a situation where Keenan burned through writers so fast that they were always hiring

Michael Jamin:

Really.

Bill Martin:

And we got our first agent and this says 92, and she said, there's openings that in living color. There's always opening today in living color because Kena was demanding and he was hard to work for, but it was a great job. And so we went in and pitched, and I think it was kind of a conveyor belt of new writers coming in there all the time. And we actually managed to stick for the final two years of the show and not get fired, which is a very small club for people who've worked for Keenan, I think.

Michael Jamin:

And so you put together a sketch packet. How did you even know what to do? I wouldn't know what to do to get hired in a sketch show.

Bill Martin:

It was write a couple of sketches for existing characters and write a couple of sketches that are new ideas or commercial parodies or something like

Michael Jamin:

That. And did any of those ever make it to air?

Bill Martin:

No, but I think because of how anal my partner Mike Schiff is what we came in with were very thoroughly thought out ideas. I think that's what must have impressed Keenan, was that we didn't come in pulling stuff out of our ass. We were prepared.

Michael Jamin:

It was such an amazing show. And then you went to she tv, which is interesting. That show was produced. I don't know if it's any interesting for anyone other than me and you, but it was produced by Tamara Rawitz who gave me my first Yes, she

Bill Martin:

And Tamara was also the producer of In Living Color, where she went

Michael Jamin:

There. Oh, I guess I did know that. And she, TV was another sketch show, but it didn't last very long.

Bill Martin:

Yep. No, I don't even know if they aired all the episodes. It was a summer replacement show when that was still a thing, and it was produced by George Slaughter of Laughin Fame and it felt Laughin vintage even in the mid nineties. It felt a little like a good old fashioned throwback variety show.

Michael Jamin:

Interesting. Because she went on to produce the Mike and Maddie show, and so she hired me on that and then she jumped ship. I thought she was going to be a big break in, but alright. And then Third Rock on the Sun. I should make it clear we've never even worked together, but you're one of these people. I always felt like one of these days we're going to work together and just never happened. But

Bill Martin:

Yes. And we also have the Alschuler Krinsky Bridge between us. That's right. Weirdly, they're some of my oldest friends and I've never worked with them either.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, I didn't know that

Bill Martin:

Either it's inevitable or we're like the opposite ends of a magnet that can never work together.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, right, right.

Bill Martin:

We'll find out.

Michael Jamin:

But also, yeah, Abramson Thompson, we worked with him for many years and we great guy. But alright, so then Third Rock from the Sun, another great show. Tell me a little about your experience on that.

Bill Martin:

Well, those days there were sketch writers and there were sitcom writers and we were sketch guys and we'd written lots of spec sitcoms. We couldn't get a job. We kept working on sketch shows and we had, after she tv, we actually did a House of Buggin in New York, the John Zamo.

Michael Jamin:

Right. He's great.

Bill Martin:

That was a blast. It was fun to work in New York, although our producer had to take a brown bag full of cash to some guy in Brooklyn so that we were allowed to film there. So we're kind of in Sketch jail. But Bonnie and Terry Turner, who created she TV then created Third Rock in the Sun. And because they'd come from Saturday Night Live and they'd written movies, they'd kind of done a lot of different things. They didn't have those expectations that you hire, sketch people for sketches and sitcom people for sitcom. So we had a great experience with them on ctv. So we were some of the first people they thought of for Third Rock. So they helped us break out of the sketch jail.

Michael Jamin:

And did it feel like that? Why does it feel like a sketch jail? It seems fun to me. I

Bill Martin:

Don't know. I think it's just that it took such a specific skillset to just crank out, joke, joke, joke, parody, parody, parody. I think it was just, it may not have been a bad thing. I think it was just because there weren't a lot of people who'd had a track record with it that they were desperate to find you. Yeah, I don't really know. It wasn't fair though.

Michael Jamin:

I'm

Bill Martin:

Never going back to sketch jail.

Michael Jamin:

Right. So you don't want to do that ever again. You don't want to write sketches again.

Bill Martin:

Well, I guess there aren't really any sketch shows left. The sketch shows now I think you should leave is the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life, but it doesn't need me.

Michael Jamin:

But you don't have, in other words, that craving, we've never done it. I was like, well, I wonder what that been like. But

Bill Martin:

Yeah, sometimes the idea for a fun parody, it's still hits you every so often and there's just no place for parity other than that. So yeah, I do find myself saying, oh, that's a good idea. I hope Saturday Night Live does that

Michael Jamin:

Because

Bill Martin:

That's kind of the last game in town,

Michael Jamin:

But it's a whole new skillset that you had to learn. I mean, what was that jump like to go into scripted narrative to television?

Bill Martin:

Actually, it was pretty easy just because that's what we set out to do when I met Mike in film school in New York, and we were just cheers fanatics. And so we had written seven or eight sitcom specs before we got that job at a leaving color. So it was all we wanted to do it just that Keller was a job we could get.

Michael Jamin:

Right.

Bill Martin:

Interesting.

Michael Jamin:

We worked with the Stein Kelner who ran Cheers a couple of years. Oh yeah. To me that was so exciting to be, I don't know, because I love Cheers. Cheers was everything. That's why I wanted to be a sit car writer. It was so exciting to be able work. By the way,

Bill Martin:

Our cheer spec, the plot of it was was a John Henry man versus Machine Cliff Klavin racing a fax machine. That's how long ago it was. So

Michael Jamin:

One of the words

Bill Martin:

That was a legit idea.

Michael Jamin:

So he would deliver a letter faster than a fax machine could.

Bill Martin:

He claimed he could beat a fax

Michael Jamin:

Machine. That's funny.

Bill Martin:

The fax machine still took 18 seconds, but it was faster than Cliff.

Michael Jamin:

That's pretty funny. I like that idea. Oh, well. So then tell me your career. Honestly, you've so many shows way more than we have, so, so then you just jump after Third Rock. How many seasons were you there? You were four Seasons?

Bill Martin:

Five.

Michael Jamin:

Five until the end.

Bill Martin:

Yeah, halfway through our fifth season we left to create Grounded for Life, but it was all at the Car Seat Warner Company, so we didn't really say goodbye. We just moved one building over.

Michael Jamin:

Now it's so interesting because what was creating that life? Because back then, back then you might leave a hit show to create your own show. I'm not sure you'd

Bill Martin:

Do that to Yeah, no, I think And we didn't know better. And because it was all part of Cari Warner, the risks were low. If it had failed, we could've gone back to Third Rock. I assume

Maybe It felt like we had a net, at least we weren't jumping ship completely. But because at that point, Cy Werner had five or six shows on networks. They owned network comedy, and we thought, and we pitched the show and it sold that, oh, this is easy. You just have an idea. And then Ly Warner puts it on tv. It's great. We were batting a thousand and in very short order, we were batting a hundred and then batting 50. And we realized we had a very skewed idea about how easy the business was at that point.

Michael Jamin:

And how did you come up with that idea? Walk me through the whole process of,

Bill Martin:

Well, Mike Schiff, my partner is a bit of a jerk. He's a curmudgeon, he's a grumpy guy, and he was itching to do something different. He didn't want to just do a multicam that hit all the same notes we'd already been hitting for a while. And we went out for lunch one day with our friend Chris Kelly, who ended up writing on the show, and Chris told us a story about taking his daughter to the CAMA dome and having to wait outside the ladies room down those stairs. And it turned into a really horrible, awkward situation. And the story was just hilarious. And we came back from lunch and Mike said, why can't we make a show? That's as much fun as hearing someone tell a great story. And that's kind of the genesis of Third Rock, which was, it was a hybrid back before, the word hybrid was kind of thrown around, but it was a show where you started in the middle, something had happened and someone would say, what's going on here? How did this happen? And you'd go back and tell the story in single Cam. And so it's just a way to make stories more fun to tell, and much, much harder to produce. It was a nightmare because we'd shoot three days of single cam and then two days for the audience. So everybody you worked on, it was gratified by it, but it was hell.

Michael Jamin:

But did you think about that when you came up with it? Because that would've been on my mind, do I really want to produce this show?

Bill Martin:

At the time, we thought it was going to be a breeze.

Michael Jamin:

We

Bill Martin:

Just didn't know any better. We were young and we'd never run a single cam show before. And the problem also was directors. It was interesting. A lot of Multicam directors had no problem doing the single cam stuff, but then we had single cam directors who were absolutely gobsmacked by the Multicam, the demands, the Multicam.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, it's very

Bill Martin:

Different. It almost killed some of them. Did

Michael Jamin:

You spend a lot of, how did you divide up time on set? Was it one of you guys on set at all times or what?

Bill Martin:

Yeah, we'd always thank God we were a partnership because someone would always be on the, we had 12 hour shooting days for the single cam, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And one of us would always be down there, and usually whatever writer had gotten their name on that episode. And then upstairs we were keeping the sausage factory.

Michael Jamin:

And while the other person's writing the scripts or rewriting whatever, let's say, let's say you're on the set and you come back, what's your involvement with those scripts? If you are not a hundred percent on board at that point, are you, how do you handle that?

Bill Martin:

Yeah, you're in a partnership that's kind of, if you don't have a lot of trust in the other person, I mean, it could be a disaster. I've heard stories about shows, I don't name them, where the creator would spend the whole day on the set and then come into the writer's room at nine o'clock at night and throw everything out, and you just can't do that. And we would have lots of disagreements, but we also, we still had table reads, so we still had a chance to try things out and fix them. At that point, a lot of single cams weren't even doing table reads. The production demands were so intense that you just had to kind of go with it. But we loved having table reads, nothing like hearing it once and getting that one day to take a whack at it. And we also had hiatus weeks, unlike a lot of single cans. So we do three, but then we'd have a week to decompress and reload, and that made it a lot more doable.

Michael Jamin:

And how many episodes were you doing in a season? Most of the time

Bill Martin:

It was crazy. We got a 13 order, but then they asked for six more and then we got a full order. But then Fox canceled us in the middle of the third season. But WB picked us up and added more episodes. So we kind of had this weird staggered thing where it could be as few as 18 as many as 21. And it was crazy.

Michael Jamin:

I remember back, I haven't done multi-camera in a while, but we were on these multi-camera shows. That's not really true. I did one kind of recently, but towards the end of that long season, if it was like you're up to 20 episodes, you're just exhausted, man, and you're like, oh, how am I going to do another one? But we never ran one. And I think the amount of stress on a showrunner for that, that must've been something else for you guys.

Bill Martin:

Yeah, it was a lot. But you know what I got to say? The stress of working on a show where the cast is difficult, even if the writing is easy, is much, much more stressful than a show where the cast is great, but the writing is hard. And that's the thing is that for me, I get stressed out, but if I go to stage and the people there are good and they appreciate what you're doing, the stress is always, you can always maintain. Right. It's when you get called to the stage and it's going to be a nightmare and someone's mad, then that's when the stress boils over.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Because then you've got to do a giant rewrite and there's no time for it. Yeah. Yeah.

Bill Martin:

We've been pretty lucky on that front. And this was Donor Logan, Kevin Corrigan and Megan Price. They were just great actors and pros and we're thrilled to be there. And if something was wrong, they trusted us. And if something wasn't working, we trusted them. So despite the fact that the workload was grim, it never destroyed us.

Michael Jamin:

Some people don't realize that. Sometimes you'll get an actor on a show who, who's not that happy to be there, even though you're paying them and they auditioned or whatever, got an offer, they're not happy to be there. So it's odd, but okay. And then Caveman, which is based, that was based on a giant hit commercial, right?

Bill Martin:

It was a hit commercial and it was a hit show. It was just one of those shows that just America embraced. They loved it. And I think it went five seasons.

Michael Jamin:

I got to check the numbers there.

Bill Martin:

I can see your face going, wait, does he?

Michael Jamin:

I got the wrong show. I'm turning Red.

Bill Martin:

Oh, yeah.

Michael Jamin:

But that must've been hard because you guys developed that as well, right?

Bill Martin:

We did not, actually, that was one where the original directors and the writer of the original commercials developed it, and the studio felt they needed some experienced hands to come in and help. So we were actually brought in during the pilot after it was already mostly cast and on the way to production. So it was kind of a runaway train at that point.

Michael Jamin:

See, I love hearing stories when other writers were being tortured.

Bill Martin:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

That's what I'm getting at. Yes. So is that what Yeah,

Bill Martin:

It was torture. And the weird thing was it wasn't, first of all, it wasn't a bad idea, it just that because it was perceived as such a cynical idea, the knives were sharpened for it. So I don't think any of us realized how ready critics would be to hate something that was based on a commercial, because that said, the creative people behind it were all fun and interesting and good. We ended up being friends with all the guys. It wasn't a bad creative situation other than it was a fool's errand. We were being sent into the Lion Stand, and once it got into production, a single cam show with a certain, the visual stylists of the show, the guys who did the commercials really wanted to be sleek and clean and neat looking and modern, like the commercials. And that was a high bar to reach. But add to that, that every single cast member had to be in makeup for four hours before they could shoot. I mean, literally by the end of the second episode, their faces were chafed and red and they were in agony, and they were upset and met. And these were good professional actors. Like Nick Kroll, wonderful, but you can only torture a man's face so many days in a row before they go, oh my God, what's happening? So it was almost reproducible.

Michael Jamin:

But that's interesting. You said, I think you're exactly right. There's something, it was already labeled with a cynicism of like, oh, okay, it's based on a commercial and therefore it can't be any good. But did you know that when you signed up, could you even possibly have thought about that when you got on board?

Bill Martin:

Well, when we got on board, we just got an overall deal with A, B, C. So we were assignable to this, and we thought, this is insane. We love the commercials budget, anybody, but there's no way they're going to put this on. Okay. So we thought it was just like, we'll help out a pilot, meet some new people, and then we'll do something else. It was shocking to us that they put it on tv.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, how interesting.

Bill Martin:

Because it just seems so unlikely, but with anything you do, you know how it is. Once you're given your assignment, you've got to find a way to take pride in it. You can't blow it off. So we dug in and the pilot had some issues, and the first episode that we ran, we kind of got into shape. It wasn't quite there. And then suddenly the third episode, I said, okay, that's funny. We figured out, and in no small part, Nick Kroll was a secret weapon, but by the time we figured out on episode three how we could make a show that we could be somewhat proud of, after the first episode aired, we were already dead. We were summarily executed, but go to YouTube and watch some of the later episodes of Caveman, which are still illegally out there. And it's actually a pretty funny show, and it's got a great cast. I'm not sure Steve McPherson was in his right mind when he picked it up.

Michael Jamin:

It's so interesting. I mean, you're absolutely right. No matter what show you're working on, you're going to find something that you love about it. You'll take pride and you'll lean into that. But yeah, you're right, because we did an animated show and for some reason they decided to put a laugh track on the first episode. And I remember yelling, why wouldn't there be a laugh track on an animated who exactly is laughing? Are we going to see the other animated characters in the audience who's laughing and lost that fight? For sure. And we got raked over the coals justifiably. So once you had that stink on you,

Bill Martin:

Yeah, yeah.

Michael Jamin:

We fought it. You can't fight. You can't win every fight. What are you going to do?

Bill Martin:

I don't think you can win any fight, can you?

Michael Jamin:

I wouldn't know what that's like.

We did a show, oh my God. We did a show that was very low budget, and we had a slow mall budget for food. And so I sent the PA to go to the Whole Foods and get me these yogurts that I like that has the fruit on the side. It was a hundred dollars, whatever, just get some yogurt. And we submitted it in, and then we got yelled at by the studio saying, why is this bill from Whole Foods? And I remember saying, well, whatever, it's a hundred dollars. Does it matter where we spend it? And they go, yeah.

Bill Martin:

Oh no,

Michael Jamin:

You're not. A Whole Foods kind of show.

Bill Martin:

This is a Ralph's show.

Michael Jamin:

This is the Vaughn's Show. Yeah, that was So, yeah, you don't even win that fight, but maybe you wouldn't morph. I don't know. You must be able to win some fights.

Bill Martin:

Well, it's also one of the things, I think because I'm not an aggressive person, I always start every show with, I'm so lucky to have this. How lucky I got a parking space and a computer. I get to make a TV show. And sometimes I don't realize until I'm doing something I hate, I'll go like, oh, shit, I should have this. Didn't have to be this way.

Michael Jamin:

So

Bill Martin:

I think as we've gotten older, we've gotten crunchier, and we'll be a little more blunt about things, but certainly early on it was just like, pinch me. I can't believe you guys are letting me drive the car here. It's

Michael Jamin:

Great. Yeah. But that's a big jump because was the first show you ran, was it grounded for Life?

Bill Martin:

No, the first show we ran was actually House of Bugging because of some weird politics. The showrunners got fired and we got bumped upstairs out of nowhere, and we were in our twenties and didn't know what we were doing, but we were already in Queens and they needed someone to,

Michael Jamin:

You were in Queens?

Bill Martin:

Yeah, we were the only ones in Queens

Michael Jamin:

Who

Bill Martin:

Could possibly do this job. So when we came back to do Third Rock, we had artificially inflated titles because we'd run House of Buggin. But then during the second season of Third Rock, the Turners tapped us to take over for them. Oh,

Michael Jamin:

I didn't even know that. I'm sorry. I didn't know that. Was that scary for you running?

Bill Martin:

You know what? It wasn't because it was the happiest place on earth and curtained. I mean, I hate to be Mr. Aw Shucks show business so fun. But that cast made work such a joy that there was no way it go wrong. Had an amazing writing staff, and the actors were delightful. It felt weirdly easy to do. I mean, we were stressed because we knew that we were being handed a baby and the baby was successful and 20 million people watching the baby every week. So there was certainly some pressure on us, but at the same time, we knew we could do it. And we knew that everybody had our backs with a very nice familial situation.

Michael Jamin:

It really was. I mean, that show really was, it was a big show. It was one of the shows everyone talked about if you were trying to break into show business, you had a spec for that show. It was a big responsibility. It was an honor to get tapped.

Bill Martin:

Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Everyone loved that. Yep. Then, okay, what shows should we talk about more? I don't know. What shows do you want to talk? They're all great. I dunno. Tell me some experiences that you've had. I don't want to go one by one, there's too many.

Bill Martin:

Yeah. Well, so far the ones you've skipped are good ones to skip. You steer running into caveman, but that's fine.

Michael Jamin:

I did.

Bill Martin:

I guess really for me, shows are divided up into the shows we ran and the shows you worked on. And typically, if you're not running a show, there are creative frustrations that you feel because you wish things were different. That said one of the most fantastic experiences of our career was working on trial and error because Jeff Astro of the showrunner and he'd worked for us. So we kind of had that, you got to listen to us a little bit, Jeff, and we helped get John Liko to agree to do it. And at that point, we'd been on a few Multicam that weren't great, and this was a real interesting single cam, fake doc with John, and he was super serialized, like a true crime series. And that was just a blast. And I'm still very proud of that season. We did not work on the second season. They sent it to Canada and shaved off half the staff and it killed Jeff Astro.

Michael Jamin:

Really? When you say,

Bill Martin:

Well, was Christian Chen, it was still a great season, but it was not as easy. It was kind of Warner Brothers was trying to cut every corner they could on it. So

Michael Jamin:

When you say killed them, they overworked him and cut the staff. Yeah, yeah. People don't realize that I think be brutal. And then of course, the Unicorn, which went two seasons, and that's a big deal. That's really, when I think about it now, it's actually quite a big deal that you got your own show on a network these days when they pick up two shows a year, maybe it's nothing.

Bill Martin:

No, that was really threading a needle there because we had pitched it all over the place, and it's based on a true story, based on a friend of ours who went through this awful situation where he lost his wife when his kids were young. And we finally sold it c v s on the last day of selling anything. It was like October and Julie Per Worth calls the last second and said, we want to do it. We went, oh, no fucking way. So I mean, it was something that was both a passion project and just endless sadness for us. And so we started doing it and it went back and forth single multi, single, multi. We're trying to find the right guy to play the guy. And we knew, we'd always said, this is a single cam and it's going to be serialized and it should probably be on a streamer because that was when streamers seemed like the promised land, but c b s one, even though their forte was malteses. But then we met Walton Goggins who only came in because one of our producers is Peyton Reed, who's an old college friend of ours, and the guy who inspired the show and he'd worked with Walton on Antman. And so Walton trusted him and he came in for a meeting and Walton is just the greatest guy.

Michael Jamin:

So

Bill Martin:

He saw this, he found he had a personal identification with the guy, and once he jumped in, he said, I'll do it. I mean, it's going to be single, obviously, but I'm in. And David Nevins and everybody at CCBs were so thrilled that Walton Goggins wanted to do a sitcom that's like suddenly we were fast tracked and it was all the way onto television.

Michael Jamin:

Wow. Did you pitch it cool with the title The Unicorn? Because I was like, that's a smart title. I would think that, yeah,

Bill Martin:

It's funny. It did. And Mike Schiff never liked it.

Michael Jamin:

Oh really?

Bill Martin:

By the way, Mike's usually right, and I'm wrong about stuff, but I do like to Lord it over him. I assume he's going to listen to this. He didn't care for it. But it's one of those things, once it leaked out, people said, oh my God, oh my God, that's perfect. And the fact was it had to happened to coincide with a time when unicorns were everywhere. Unicorn kitty pools. And it was the unicorn moment anyway. Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. I remember hearing about it. It was like, ah, damn, I'm surprised you said it took so long to sell. Like damn it, that one sells right away. That's an idea that sells. So

Bill Martin:

It's interesting.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Bill Martin:

We didn't make up the title. It's what

Michael Jamin:

I know.

Bill Martin:

Guys like Grady are known as on Tinder. They check all these magical boxes for what a perfect guy should be.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, right. That's such a great, and then after that, the neighborhood which you jumped in, it had already been running for, no, tell me if I'm wrong.

Bill Martin:

Yes, it had, here's my vindictive tale of revenge. It's not vindictive at all by the way, but we had a pilot with Cedric. We had run his show, the Soul Man on TV Land for a couple of years.

Great guy. We had a great time there. And when that ended, he said, let's do another show together. So we pitched out a show that it was his idea and his manager, Eric's idea, to do a show where he's a fire chief. So we pitched it and c b s bought it. We wrote it, it was a single cam, was kind of gritty because we wanted to do something that was hard to produce as usual. And at the end of the day, they didn't want to pick it up. But we were producing with Eric Kaplan, I should me, Aaron Kaplan. And Aaron quickly plucked Cedric out of our pilot and put him in the neighborhood, which was his other pilot. So we were basically just for him, a Cedric delivery system.

So we weren't bitter because we knew Jim Reynolds. He's a great guy. And we were happy for everybody except that shit. And there goes our pilot. But it's funny, when we were producing the Unicorn, we were in the neighborhood's offices. It just happened to be that we were having the same line producer, pat Kinlin, who had done Third Rock with us. And Jim was in the midst of the first season of the neighborhood. And it was hard because first seasons are hard. And he was like, oh my God, this is killing me. And I jokingly said, don't worry when you get fired season three, we'll come in and take over. And it seemed hilarious at the time. And what do you know? It happens. And to Jim's credit, he did think it was funny that my smart ass remark had come full circle.

Michael Jamin:

And what was it like stepping into the show that wasn't yours? I mean, you've, not that you've done it before, but still

Bill Martin:

It's hard. Yeah, it's hard. And we came in with a whole new people. The feeling was clean slate, let's reboot this. And we had heard from Pat Kinlin the producer, you're going to love it here. It's the happiest set since Third Rock. And I was like going, yeah, yeah, yeah, nice try. But it kind of was, the cast had jelled and the crew was cool, and it was a very happy place. I mean, there had been issues, but we pretty quickly felt at home there. It was nice. And that's why we would love to stay there as long as possible.

Michael Jamin:

Maybe you will. I mean, well, we'll see what happens to the strike, but maybe you will. I mean, it seems like now they're giving shows a longer, tell me if I'm wrong, networks are giving shows a longer chance because it's too risky almost to not.

Bill Martin:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think for c b s shows built around someone that people love, said it's hard to recreate that when you have someone who's that warm and magnetic at the center of a show. You're halfway there already and the show is steadily. I mean, obviously all audiences are declining and atomizing all over the place, but it feels like the numbers have defied gravity a little.

Michael Jamin:

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.

What's it like now? Because one of the biggest things, you've obviously staffed a million shows and you got to read specs from, you must stick through a pile of specs every season when you're doing this. What are you looking for in new writers?

Bill Martin:

Yeah, it's funny. For the last 10 years or so, you only read pilots because there aren't any spec shows to write anymore because there aren't any water cooler shows that everybody knows.

So I mean, it used to be, and I kind of like it because someone could write a good per enthusiasm that sounded right and had the rhythms, but it might not mean they were capable of a lot of things. It just meant they had created a good version of this very specific thing. Pilots, the writer's whole personality comes out. And I think it's nice to you get a peek into how weird someone is, and we just want people who are different and weird, and you want that array of points of view to be very, you don't want eight Mike Schiffs lock, Lord, help us. And I think it's really just if someone catches you off guard with something you didn't expect to be funny. And people who just write characters, the one thing I hate more than anything, and if your spec starts with single people in an apartment talking about sex, I'm not going to read page two. It's like there's thousands of them, and it's very hard to get anything out of that.

Michael Jamin:

That's interesting. I've said the opposite. I've said to me, it's easier to read a speck of an existing show. I know the characters, I might know the characters, and it's easier for me to see do they get the voice. But if it's a pilot, it's

Bill Martin:

Easier. That's the key, Michael. It's too easy.

Michael Jamin:

But if it's a pilot,

Bill Martin:

Someone's,

Michael Jamin:

It's hard for me. Don't make me do more work. If I'm reading, that's the problem. If I'm reading an original pilot sometimes, okay, first I have to remember with the characters, okay, who's this character? What's their relationship? And then I'm like, okay, what's the tone here? It's hard for me to, are they trying to be big or is this just bad writing? You have to figure that out too. No, you're more of that

Bill Martin:

Mind. It's more work to read a pilot. It is, but I think when someone pops out of a pile, it's a bigger pop when they've created something entertaining whole cloth.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Well, that's true. That's true. And

Bill Martin:

Also for Multicam, s, jokes matter, but for single cams, you need a couple of people who write jokes. But also then it's a lot about story and character. And I think it's harder to get that from sitcom specs. It's easier to get that from something that's personal to somebody.

Michael Jamin:

Do you have a preference as to what you want a single or multi?

Bill Martin:

The artist in me wants to do single. The person who has to wake up and go to work and then get home and be happy, likes multi,

Michael Jamin:

But the Multicam, the hours are worse,

Bill Martin:

Is so great.

Michael Jamin:

Wait, multi. If you're doing a rewrite on a multi-camera after a network run through, you might be there at all midnight or whatever.

Bill Martin:

Never.

Michael Jamin:

Never. You always have good,

Bill Martin:

Well, no, by the way, yes, you're right. But on the neighborhood, I don't think we had dinner three or four times. There is, and that's not because we're so fantastic. It's because the show works. If a Multicam works, the hours are great. If a Multicam doesn't work, then you're right. If the run through is so bad that you're reworking the story. And we've been there too, and we had even Third Rock early on, we had some late nights. But in the ideal world, when a Multicam is working, it's the best job in the world, and Sedric knows what he wants. He's also approving the stories. He's approving the pitches early on. So we're not taking something to the table that he's not invested in. So I think, and if he were an ogre or had bad taste, it would be terrible. But the combination of him trusting us and us trusting him has made it a really sweet gig.

Michael Jamin:

So you'll pitch him, okay, I'm curious how it works. You'll start breaking a story. You won't get too far. Maybe you'll have some act breaks and then you'll bring it to Cedric. But you won't do more than that. You won't do more work than that. Right.

Bill Martin:

You never know when he'll say, and sometimes he does that thing too, where he'll go like, no, I don't know about that. How about that? Instead like, oh, okay, that fine. That's easy to do. He's great at having that natural story sense of what his character would do.

Michael Jamin:

Now, did you ever pitch him or anybody else? This is my fear. You pitch them, here's a great story idea for you. And they go, oh yeah, they love it. And then you go take it to the room and you go, I don't know how to break this.

Bill Martin:

Yes,

Michael Jamin:

I thought I know how to break it, but I don't how to break it.

Bill Martin:

That is what I would do if I didn't have a super anal partner. But Mike, and we know we still have those times, but once I have an idea, I'm good to go, Hey, look at this great idea. Let's go. But Mike's only like, I need to stare this for a day. So we say we give Cedric ideas early in the process, but the fact is we send them through the ship Aron 8,000 before

Michael Jamin:

The

Bill Martin:

Upgrade, they get out of the room.

Michael Jamin:

And so I'm just curious. So it's a couple of you may spend, let's say two or three days on a story idea and then bring it to him.

Bill Martin:

Yeah. I mean, some are easy, some are one day, some we will break five different times and still get it wrong. And the six time will do it. I mean, we work hard and Lord knows when we go back into production and we're going to have a three minute pre-production period, we're going to be fucked. But last season we had eight weeks. It was plenty of time to find our rhythm there,

Michael Jamin:

Right then. Okay. Then after that, you still got a picture to the studio and then the network, and they can still say no or to you saying, well, Cedric really likes this.

Bill Martin:

Yes, we do. And the thing is, it's not just Cedric, it's also Wendy Trilling who used to be the head of CCB ss. And she is cool, and she's smart, and she's not afraid to hurt our feelings, which I love about her Eted, her trust her. So in a weird way, by the time the network sees it, they know Wendy likes it. And if Wendy and Cedric like it, they tend to say, in fact, at a certain point, we said, can we stop doing outlines and go, we have a very detailed story document. Can we just go to script? And they'll say, okay. So that also helped us that they would trust that process.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, that's actually, it's a big advantage that Wendy's producer in the show because yeah, she knows what the network wants. They trust her. And so it's almost like it almost removes an obstacle in the future. You get it out of the way. Now that's interesting.

Bill Martin:

And also, it's something that we want to do, and Wendy has signed off on it. It's like, we don't have to be dick's. We can say, I know, but let's see it on its feet because everybody over here likes it. It usually works for us.

Michael Jamin:

And are they bringing audiences back now? How does it work?

Bill Martin:

They started to, the problem we had last year was they did the whole season before we got there, block and shoot, because they had no choice. And it frankly made everybody a little relaxed because it was very easy lifestyle. And the fact is, when you have an audience that's basically crew and extras, it's easy to not go hard for the laughs on the other side when you have Tashina Arnold and Cedric, the Entertainer, and Max and Beth, these are people who swing for the fence every time. So I honestly don't think you can tell they weren't doing it for audience because they're selling it so hard in a great way. So last season we still did block blockage shoot, and we kept saying, the audience is going to be back any second. We're about to go back to audiences. But it was working. What

Michael Jamin:

Do you do? So now that you're on strike, what is it like for you now on strike when you don't have these creative muscles to flex? What, are you craving anything? Or are you doing anything on the side, a novel or something?

Bill Martin:

No, I mean, I think me and Mike are revisiting things that we had to put aside and doing brain work on them, because we don't want to waste this time completely. But early on, early on, it had been a long time since we had an off season where we knew we had a job to go back to. Third Rock was like that, and Grounded was like that. But it's been years since we had a non panicky off season. And this finally, we had a pickup. This was like, ah, I'm going to go on vacation, A real vacation. And that vacation turned into the strike, but I was like going, it's a strike, but still, we're going back. It's September. And it just gradually dawned on me like, oh, this is really hurting the show. So I've kind of been in denial that I needed to worry.

I mean, all signs are that when the strike is over at whatever, we are going to go back to work. And people still want the show, and Cedric's still ready to go, but it takes some of the fun out of it, obviously. And I shouldn't be complaining because we're still in such an ideal position. The last strike, we had to walk off the set on cavemen and let other people edit the show and completely divorce ourselves from that. We've been killing ourselves on and getting force majeure out of a deal. I mean, it just destroyed our career completely. This is a much less terrifying strike, even though it's plenty terrifying.

Michael Jamin:

It's so interesting because how

Bill Martin:

About you? I mean, are you able to function creatively? Are you

Michael Jamin:

Retaining your

Bill Martin:

Wife?

Michael Jamin:

No. Well, I have definitely both, but I have a book that I'm writing on the side, so that's my little passion project that keeps me entertained writing and performing it. But in terms of, it's interesting that you still panic about that next job. And for me, it feels like, wow, I guess I stopped panicking a long time ago. I don't know why, but you're so successful and you always get that next job and don't know.

Bill Martin:

That's how it looks. I'm looks,

Michael Jamin:

I'm looking at your I M D V page. It definitely looks that way,

Bill Martin:

Yes. But it's a lot of times where we were falling off the building and grabbed onto the ledge with our fingernails, and we took a lot of jobs that were under our quote just to keep working. We've had our feast and famine. Certainly I M D B looks chock full of stuff, but

Michael Jamin:

We've taken jobs who always, I mean, plenty of jobs under our quote. I mean, it's just like, while it's that unemployment, so you take the job, yeah.

Bill Martin:

After you take three jobs in a row under your quote, it's no longer a quote.

Michael Jamin:

Well, I remember on that first one, I was like, we have a quote. We have no anonymous quotes anymore, so why is it a quote? What's going on here? But yeah, it's so interesting that you still have that feeling looking at, for me, from where I stand, wow, the grass is really green where UI guys are. So it's interesting. Well,

Bill Martin:

I hope I'm relaxing now. I finally got my kids out of college, so this was my first year without tuition payments.

Michael Jamin:

Interesting.

Bill Martin:

In 25.

Michael Jamin:

What are they going to do now? Are they going to get in Hollywood in the

Bill Martin:

Business? Nope. Nope. None of them are interested. I mean, one of them in particular certainly should be, he's hilarious. But the thought of putting himself out there creatively in a business that has no easy way in anymore, I think he just is very happy to be a barista, not put himself out there because it's nerve wracking. And I get it.

Michael Jamin:

How do you see most people, the new people that you're working with, the young kids, how are they breaking in then?

Bill Martin:

Yeah, I don't know. That's the scary thing about this tipping point we're at right now is when I hear stories about young writers who make a year out of four mini rooms on shows that they've even heard of. I mean, the fact is that the business has become so diffuse that those clear paths, pa, writer, assistant writer's room, job, those are so few and far between now. I can't figure it out. People aren't going through these main arteries. They're going through these weird tiny capillaries to weird things.

Michael Jamin:

Right?

Bill Martin:

Pretty good analogy.

Michael Jamin:

I love it. You should be a doctor. But don't ask, would they show up? I mean, you have a staff and you don't ask 'em where the script has somehow got on your desk to an agent or a manager, and you're like, okay, you're hired, basically.

Bill Martin:

But the thing is, on the neighborhood, it's quite a few standups,

And it's a few people that we know and trust from years of working with them and a couple of young people who were writer assistants who are knocking on doors. But it's funny because we had so many people in place, it wasn't like we were out beating the bushes for new voices that were coming out of nowhere. But I'm sure that's true in a lot of places. It's just that when you're at a C B S studio show that's already running, it's kind of like that old fashioned machinery that's feeding you. These writers is already there.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting because I don't know, I'm not sure how people are doing it. We gave a talk at, I think at L M U, and there's a young woman, and she just made a hit podcast, and then that got her discovered. It was like a scripted podcast. I was like, oh, tell me about that. Interesting. So do you have advice then for people listening, words,

Bill Martin:

Encouragement? Last night, I was giving advice to this year's crop of interns from the U N C Chapel Hill, which is where I went to college. In fact, look, there it is. And I had to apologize because I said, look, here's the traditional way in. If you want to get in the writer's room, become a pa. And I also admit that that way of getting into the business may disappear. And if you have other creative outlet, if you can do a great podcast, if you put stuff up on YouTube or you have TikTok, there's a lot of ways to express your comic voice that aren't writing sitcom specs and waiting for your turn in the writer's room as a dinosaur. I'm not really the perfect person to ask,

Michael Jamin:

But I think you're right. It's about put the creative energy out there, stop begging for work, start making your own opportunities, and probably good things. Good things may come your way, I guess. Right?

Bill Martin:

Hopefully. And I also would like to think as the strike goes on, people will periodically say, why doesn't someone do what Charlie Chaplin did? Do United Artists start a creator, talent driven production? And I do feel like when I listen to a great podcast like Valley Heat, which we were talking about before we went on, you realize there are ways to create an entire world for a show for no money. And in my mind, valley Heat, everyone should listen to this thing.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, listen to it. They

Bill Martin:

Should just take that, put it on camera, it's ready to go. I mean, it's a show that is fully developed that no one owns a piece of. And I guess that would be what my hope is, that if we don't like working within the system with these jerks, if you're young and have that energy, make something. Yeah. And who knows? I mean,

Michael Jamin:

See, we agree on that. We didn't agree on spec versus original pilots, but we agree on this.

Bill Martin:

That turned into a pretty ugly fight.

Michael Jamin:

It was contentious.

Bill Martin:

But that's the kind of heat that I think gets these podcasts to catch on.

Michael Jamin:

I think so. But also as you're learning your craft, you're getting better at it. And I don't know. I see it happening. I see people making a name for themselves. I was on the picket line, I think it was at Disney, and I ran into this guy. He was on my podcast, and he recognized me, and he was a joke writer on Kimmo. I go, how did you get that job? He goes, well, I was just tweeting Day and Jokes. I like doing it. And after about a year or two, they found me and they hired me. Good for you. But he was putting the work out. He was doing the work and getting better, and that's how he got hired. So

Bill Martin:

Good

Michael Jamin:

For him.

Bill Martin:

And it's been, I guess, shit, my dad says was the original tweet becomes a show, and

Michael Jamin:

We all rolled eyes

Bill Martin:

That from the caveman syndrome of cynicism about how are you tuning it Twitter into a show? But if you're funny, people will find you.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. But like I said, I remember that happening, really? Is this how it works now? But they were just at the forefront and yeah, that's how it works now.

Bill Martin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Damn right. I'm always late to the trend. So Interesting. And I guess before I wrap up, what is it like for you working? People want to know, working with a writing partner, how does that dynamic work with you guys?

Bill Martin:

Well, there aren't a lot of writing partnerships that last this long. I mean, you guys and Al and Krinsky, there's a few. And I think for me, it's having that yin yang thing. I'm not a worrier, I'm not detail oriented. I don't tend to stress out, and Mike does, and I only really want to do half the job of running a show. Luckily, he can do the other half. So I mean, I think a lot of partnerships are based on people having the same sense of humor and just getting along, and that's great. But for me and Mike, we don't actually get along all that great, but we do agree on what's funny and we respect each other and it makes the job doable.

Michael Jamin:

Wait, you said you don't get along that great?

Bill Martin:

Well, we get along great, but I mean, one of us is a drunk pot smoking redneck from Florida who doesn't give a shit. And the other's an incredibly neurotic, buttoned up Jewish guy from the priest side. The only thing we have in common is Cheers and Albert Brooks.

Michael Jamin:

But you met in school, right? In film school,

Bill Martin:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

Right.

Bill Martin:

Yeah. We just met because he was the only person in our writing class first year who I thought was funny. And so we just kind of found each other because we're the two guys writing comedy in that big screenwriting workshop.

Michael Jamin:

And you leapt into each other's arms. Yeah.

Bill Martin:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

It's so interesting. But it is so funny when you said about it, you only want to do half the job of a showrunner. Yeah, it's a lot of work. It's a big job. That's something my partner and I say all the time, I don't really want to make this decision. Can you make it? It's a lot of work.

Bill Martin:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

And a lot of times we'll punt it to even a hair and makeup. Well, what do you guys think? All right. You guys seem to got a good handle on what the wardrobe should be that you do it. Yeah. So

Bill Martin:

Interesting. I'm always very happy to let someone else do that.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Bill Martin:

We do take turns firing people. That's the one awful, horrible thing. We haven't done it a lot. But the last guy

Michael Jamin:

Are talking about writers or other people.

Bill Martin:

Anything. Anybody. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Interesting. Because when we were on set on a single camera show, if one of us has to run onto the stage to give the actor a note or the director a note, it's always like, you do it. You do it. I don't want to, how many times am I going to go on set and tell them they're doing it wrong? Can't you tell them they're doing it wrong? I don't want to be that guy all the time. Yeah.

Bill Martin:

We had a great run for several years where whenever we would get a pickup, I'd be on stage and get to announce it, and every time

Michael Jamin:

We Good news got

Bill Martin:

Our order cut, Mike would be on stage and it was hilarious. I was the hero with the, and it was killing him. It was happening over and over again, just by God smiling on

Michael Jamin:

Me. Oh, that's so funny. That's freaking great. We did an episode, I think it was Andrew shoot me, we're writing a script and I was adamant that this joke was going to work, and Seever it was like, I don't even get it right. And I'm like, no, this joke is great. You have no idea what you're talking about. And so we take the descrip, I guess it got to the table somehow, and at the table we hit this joke, nothing, and the room's just silent. And I just start busting out laughing. I was like, oh my God, I can't believe how wrong I was. And I'm laughing at her wrong. And then afterwards, everyone's looking at Seabert. They're like, assuming it's his joke because I'm laughing at him and now I'm laughing even more pushing him under the bus. But yeah, there's that. But yeah, there's always, I guess I feel like maybe you feel the same way. If he comes up with a line, great. That's one last line I got to come up with. You know what I'm saying? It's mine now. Anyway, so yeah,

Bill Martin:

For me, the great thing about writing teams is, well, you're a single writer. You turn on a draft. When a team turns in a draft, it's a third draft because you've already fought it and it just makes things better. I mean, everybody has their partners. It just may not be there, someone they write with, but when you take it to the table or you take it to the writer's room, everyone's going to get a whack at it anyway. But for me, I think it just makes that initial idea, everything has to kind of, you beat things back and forth and you find 'em out and you end up with better drafts.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, I totally agree. I always see that with writing teams. Their scripts just tend to be a little tighter. Just somehow they're a little tighter. They've already fought it, fought over it. So yeah. That's interesting. Well, bill Martin, thank you so much for doing this. This is a real pleasure. Honestly, it is an honor to have you on this and talk about your experience as a showrunner and a creator of really great television and yeah, it really is an honor. Thank you.

Bill Martin:

This has been great for my self-esteem. I don't normally talk about myself a lot, but man, I come off great.

Michael Jamin:

You certainly do. I'll fix that in editing. I'll ask these questions then put a long dead pause before you answer. People are like, what's wrong with this guy? Why is he taking so long to answer? But thank you again so much. Anything you want to promote or plug other than your shows or

Bill Martin:

Watch Season six of the Neighborhood when it comes on sometime in 2024? Yes.

Michael Jamin:

Hopefully that's sad. Yeah, that is sad. Well, thank you again so much. Alright, everyone, another great episode. I have to say of my podcast screenwriters, need to hear this. Keep following me and keep writing more. Good stuff coming. Thank you. Again,

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. I.

In June, I hosted a webinar called "The Truth About Screenwriting Contests and Pitch Fests" where I shared my thoughts on some of these writing contests and the potential scams out there, as well as some bad advice I always hear. 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.

Free Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/

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Join My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlist

Michael Jamin:

When I'm in a writer's room all the time, we don't use these words that everyone seems to have learned on the internet. That's why when you said 15 minutes, 15 minute structure, what? It is unfamiliar to me because I've, in my 27 years, we don't talk like that. So when I teach you how we talk, it's like it's not as complicated as people wanted. When you learn from somebody, screenwriting, just find out, are they qualified to teach you? Forget. I don't care if they wrote a book. No, no. What shows have they written on? Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to another episode of Screenwriters Need to Hear this. I'm here with Phil Hudson. Welcome Phil.

Phil Hudson:

What up?

Michael Jamin:

What up? We're doing another q and a. So once a month I do a live webinar. You're all invited to go to be invited. Go to michael jamon.com/webinar. The one in June. The topic was, we always do a different topic, but the one in June was the Truth about contests, screenwriting Contests, and Pitch Fests. And afterwards I do a q and a and we try to get to as many questions as we can when we run out of time, and I can't answer all of them while Phil has kept a file. And now we're going to answer all those questions for you. So hopefully this will be very illuminating. Yeah, may seem a little random, but whatever. It's, it's knowledge. Alright, Phil. Yeah, so hit me with a question.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, absolutely. Just again, for decorum purposes I guess, or flow, we took all the questions. If we don't answer your question here, it's probably addressed somewhere else. So we have previous q and a question, podcast episodes. You take questions all the time on your social media there. There's stuff everywhere. So if your question hasn't been answered, most likely it's been answered somewhere else. We've already answered. Your YouTube is actually a great place to go for our content. Yeah, subscribe

Michael Jamin:

To Michael Jamon,

Phil Hudson:

Writer.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, Michael Jamen, writer on YouTube as well as Instagram and TikTok

Phil Hudson:

And Facebook. And you can go to Michael's site as well. And I believe in the footer there's a list of all your social media and they can click on that stuff. So yeah, I've broken your questions out into multiple sections by topic and I've had to fold some questions together because there were just a ton of questions in this podcast, in this webinar. So, okay. This first section is called Breaking In related to the Truth about Screenwriting contests and Pitch Fest. And Michael, you are not one to mince words regarding all of these hacks and sheets to get into the industry. And I think it's something a lot of people need to hear and hopefully have, are going to hear from you today.

Michael Jamin:

By the way, I want to say, I'm sorry, Phil, but the webinars are always free and if you miss it, we send you a free replay, which is good for 24 hours. And then if you miss that, you can purchase it on my website for a small [email protected] slash shop. So sorry if you missed it, but you had to wax at it for free. Okay.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. And that's on demand and permanent. It's not, you watch it once and it goes away or it, it's like you get it and it's chock full of good information.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Awesome. So Natalie Faler, how do you even find a person to pitch your screenplay to? So since these contests don't help your career get started, how do you get your career started? How do you come become qualified to get hired or work in any of these production companies?

Michael Jamin:

So what you need to have, you look at your script as a writing sample. You can write a movie, tell whatever you want, a TV show, whatever it is. Everyone's get so focused on, well, how do I need a Bible? Do I need episode three and four and season 10? No, no. You just need one damn good script that will impress people. That's all. Just one and one is hard enough. So write your script. And then when you give it to somebody, if it's good, someone in the industry, they'll pass it along. If it's really good, if it's mediocre, they're not, if it's okay or bad, they're not going to pass it along. You don't get a chance to sell your TV show if it's bad. No, you have to write a great script. What's in your hands? So everyone just assumes that and they assume, well, I already have a good script. Okay, but does anyone else agree with you? Have you given to anyone who agrees with you that it's a great script because it's not up to you. They have to agree with you. They have to say, yeah, it's a great script and then doors will open. But first things first, learn how to write

Phil Hudson:

And that actually jumps us down, you address is can we, Drake ask typically how many episodes do you pitch

Michael Jamin:

One you first go for, you don't do any, you pi, you give one script. How are you going to pitch an episode? How are you going to pitch a show if you can't even get the meeting to pitch a show? And you can't get the meeting until someone reads a script of yours and says, this is a really good script sample. It's a work, it's a writing sample. That's it. It's not about selling anything. It's about impressing people with your ability to write. It's okay if you're not going to sell it, tell you how many scripts I've written the intention even to sell it. It was just to impress people.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. The last part of this question is how do you become qualified to get hired or work in any of these production companies as an avenue of working your way up? And the answer is you start at the bottom.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, you start at the bottom way at the bottom where you're not even thinking about that. You're thinking, well, how can I become qualified to get coffee for the person who works here? And then you, that's how you start making contacts. That's how you start working your way up. So everyone wants to start at the top. My recommendation is start at the bottom.

Phil Hudson:

Beautiful. Liz Romantic besides attempting to get representation from an agent, what's another way to get my screenplay seen by a producer?

Michael Jamin:

Oh, well again, working Do a fill does works at a production company versus a pa, then I got promoted to associate producer. That's how you do it. That's, that's another way to do it ano, is to start at the bottom. Start making your connections in Hollywood. Another way to do it is to, you can start your own channel on social media where you're putting out amazing, you're shooting and making your own amazing content and I'm, I'm talking about scripted, whatever it is you want to do as a scripted, start doing that. Start impressing people with your ability to write and amazing things will happen. But I was going to do a whole webinar on that as well. I know I'm not, I'm giving short shrift to that answer, but I'll explain in detail in future webinars.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Awesome. Rob Stagin Borg, they say Hollywood Ism All is always looking for new talent, but are they really?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, they're looking to exploit you. And like I said, you want to be exploited. Why not? They're looking for someone to make them rich. Everyone is looking for someone to make them rich. And if you have the ability to make them rich, if they look at you and they see dollar signs in your face, you're in, you're in. Yeah. But the problem is no one wants to do that. They want to beg, come on, can. No one wants to, no one's interested in helping your career. They want to help their own career. And the way they help their own career is by finding someone who's this, who's got a ton of talent that they can exploit in a good way, but exploit.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Our buddy, the Jovan shares back, and this question is in reference to one of the topics of the webinar, which is available now for people to buy. If you want to go watch it, it's michael jam.com/shop. But this is in relation to the topic of what's the reality and value of competitions and screenwriting contests and all this stuff. And you're basically saying not a lot and most of 'em are not beneficial.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. You can go listen to the webinar we talk about which ones I think are the best ones and the biggest ones. But the small ones, the little ones, it's only making them rich, not you rich. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

So with that context, does this advice also go for short story competitions?

Michael Jamin:

I don't really know. I really don't know. I'm not in that world. I'm a TV writer.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. And that might be short film contests and things, but there's the occasional short film that gets moved. Like the Poon Dynamite, right? Was it paca? I don't know. It was a short that was put into Sundance and then it got bought and then it got flipped into a feature. That's

Michael Jamin:

Very, but they said short story though. This person said short story. Correct.

Phil Hudson:

In the context of screenwriting. Okay. I think it's really about short films because you talk you story

Michael Jamin:

If, yeah, I mean if you can make something and a respective, especially a film festival, that's a little different. If you make something at a film festival that gets people's attention. But that's what I'm yelling it all along you. You've already made it. You've already made it and it's already great. So

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, you've done the work. You're not hoping someone else will give you the in. Yeah. Alright. Sadie Wise heart, what are avenues with getting into the industry with just an associate degree? I keep hearing being a PA is great, but are there also other avenues? Michael, I've never once in my life been asked if I have an associate's degree. That's something people talk about, but I,

Michael Jamin:

No one cares. Phil, I want to know, can you get the coffee? Can you pick up lunch? Yeah. Do you know how to use the coffee machine? That's what I want to know. I don't need to see your diploma.

Phil Hudson:

This will be fun. So this is my diploma cover. I was handed when I walked across my stage at my college graduation. It's empty, right? There's no diploma in here. Why? My school went defunct, my school closed.

Michael Jamin:

They went out of business.

Phil Hudson:

There's no, there's no diploma. Did I earn it? Yep. Do I have the honors? Yep. Do I have photos of me? Did my family come? Yep. There's no diploma in there. If someone wanted to see my diploma, I couldn't even show it to them. That's how little it matters in the industry. Yeah. Can you do the job?

Michael Jamin:

But this person wants to know, are there other avenues other than pa? I mean, if you want to break into the business, you're going to have to start at the bottom. I'm you, I'm sorry. You don't get to become an executive producer unless you've, you know, got to start at the bottom.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Absolutely. But again, I have a i'll, I'll probably do a webinar coming up where I'll talk about things, other avenues to break into the business if you absolutely cannot move to LA and you insist on not starting at the bottom, what else can you do? It's going to be a harder, but there are things you can do, but it'll be harder.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Ah, we met a bunch of people are going to sign up for that one. That sounds like, that sounds like a lot of the questions we get. Okay, great. Rob Stagin Borg, again with so many services out there designed to help in Arian quotes, new riders. How can a new rider tell what is legit and what is this scam? A scam?

Michael Jamin:

I would assume everything's a scam. I think

Phil Hudson:

That's the answer.

Michael Jamin:

I mean, I don't know. I don't know what kind of service that they're talking about. If it's a coverage service, you're going to be read. The person reading your coverage is probably not qualified. They're no more qualified than you are unless you were able to find a writer, a working writer, a successful working writer with credits that you've seen on I M D B on shows. And those people are out there that have the time to help charge people to read, to give notes or whatever. That's your due diligence. You got to find them. But wouldn't, a service is different like a service is what are you going to get? You're going to get a minimum wage paying person reading your job. But if you can find a working writer to do that, and because of the internet, you probably can then expect to pay. You expect to pay for someone's expertise. They've earned it and you're going to have to pay more for it. Sorry. That's just how it goes. So if you want to pay $50, you're going to get $50 worth. If you want to pay $400, you'll probably get $400 worth.

Phil Hudson:

And you got your start taking lessons from a former writer who was retired and doing that, right?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Yeah. But that's a little different. But yeah, I, I wanted to learn from people who had the job that I had, who I wanted rather the job that I wanted getting charged.

Phil Hudson:

Dominique Davenport. Hey Michael and Phil, what's up Dominique? Hey, I'm a PA from Atlanta. I'm just now getting my footing in the industry. What steps should I be taking starting out?

Michael Jamin:

Good for you. You're already got your foot in the door. Maintain those relationships that you have with everyone who works there, from the producer to the associate producer to the coordinator. Just maintain those relationships and prove that you're a hard worker. That you'll go above and beyond because when they get their next job, they will bring you along with them. They don't want to want to train someone from scratch. So my advice to you is to be nice to whoever you've worked for as a pa, the coordinator, all the way up to the producer, the executive producer, show them that you're a hard worker. Show them that you hustle, that you go above and beyond because when they go to their next job, they're going to want to take you with them. Why is that? Because they don't want to hire someone brand new and have to break them in. And maybe that person doesn't have your work ethic, so it's just easier for them to work with the same people and promote those people. So you're, you've got your foot in the door. All you got to do now is continue doing more of the same, which is continue impressing people with how hard you work. Don't say no to anything. Get there early, leave late. Good for you. You're in, you're in. So just work your butt off and you'll do great.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Hannah Chartier, who's the writer's assistant on Tacoma fd, and this is very specific to Atlanta. I was talking to her and her story is she volunteered and did a bunch of work for the broken lizard guys for Super Troopers too. And then the she PA on that. And the producer was so impressed, he brought her along as his assistant for Miss Marvel in Atlanta. And I was talking to her on set and she was telling me that, and I was like, oh, that's cool. I know Miss Marvel's stunt Double Cassidy. I went to film school. They're like, oh, I know Cassidy Cassidy's. Awesome. That's how small the industry is. So someone I went to film school with in New Mexico who's working as a stunt person and an actor in Atlanta knows someone that I'm sitting on a set in Santa Clarita, California, dressed in 13th century French garb.

Like we're having a conversation about that person. So that word does travel and your reputation does precede you. So Chelsea Steep, should Hollywood go back to proper employment? So for those who aren't aware, Hollywood used to literally have a contract on you as a writer, and you only work for Warner. Oh, and you only worked for M G M and that was your job. And you wrote things for them and you were on their payroll. And then that changed with a rider's strike and the formation of the Rider's Guild to stop that because credits were being assigned to producer's, girlfriends, and whoever it was. And you had no say because you were just an employee. And so they started a union to protect writer's interests. And that's how the W G A began. And they think this question is saying, should writers, should we go back to that as a form of employment?

Michael Jamin:

I think you answered it really well. I mean, some writers are lucky enough to have an overall deal at a studio and they get paid well, but most writers don't. That most writers are just jumping from gig to gig. And that's why we're on strike right now because the studios have turned it into a gig economy. So there's a happy medium somewhere, I hope.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, Sadie Wise Heart again. Where would be some good organizations or companies to find jobs as rider's assistants, also with the rider's strike? How would that affect that process?

Michael Jamin:

Well, there are no jobs during the rider's strike. So that affects that process. Writer's assistant is not an entry level job. It is a job you have to be trained and qualified to do. I'm not qualified to be a writer assistant.

Phil Hudson:

It's a union job too.

Michael Jamin:

Now it's a union job covered on I O C, right? Yeah. Yep. But you have to, someone has to train you how to do that. And I'm not, I'm a showrunner and I don't know how to do it. And so usually you start as a pa and then you ask the writer's assistant who's above you, how do I do your job in case I poison you? And that way I can take your job if you fall sick and they'll train you to know how to do that job because you have to know how to use the software really well. But you also have to know the distribution protocols, who gets scripts when and how they're distributed. And so it's a little bit complicated. There's some notes you have to know how to take notes really well, but it's not an entry level job, but it's a a job you definitely want to get if you are an aspiring screenwriter for sure.

Phil Hudson:

Yep, yep. Everything's different right now and going to continue to be different. Even if the actors strike at this time, they have voted for the authorization to strike. So yeah, Tom Miller, if I get rejected from contest and get nos from query letters, what do I do?

Michael Jamin:

There's your problem right there. If you get rejected from a contest, reputative one, the big ones that we talk about in that webinar we just did, and don't, you're not going to get rejected, but you're not going to, let's say you don't win, it's because you need to work on your game. You need to become a better writer. How about work on that? It's not some, they're telling you maybe you're not good enough, but in the meantime, you should always be working on your craft, get better and better as a writer. And that, you know, don't need a contest to do that. You, or you can also shoot your own stuff. You can make it. I've done plenty of webinars on what I would do, and I'm going to do another one on what I would do if I had a break into the industry today.

But at the end of the day, if you are not a good writer, there's just no demand for you. And I know you're going to say, well, but aren't there bad writers working? Sure there's a whole range of writers working, but the bad ones aren't going to keep writing forever. They may have gotten lucky. And that can't be your strategy. Your strategy can't be Well, they're bad. I can be bad too. No, there's no demand for demand for mediocre writers. You need to work on your craft and get better. But there's a lot you can do and we'll talk more about that in future webinars. Yeah,

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. I'd also say that a lot of that rejection, keep in mind that that also might be topical. It might be related to your subject matter, and it may be that some of those are very specifically looking for stories. Like Sundance for example, is a good one. They're looking for underrepresented voices, and so they're looking at indigenous stories and they're looking at people with something interesting. So the work I've done there, they're very fascinating people and typically from a different ethical, racial, more of a, what we call a protected class background who have not had opportunities to tell their stories that are unique. So you got to understand your audience too. And that's still a lesson you got to learn. So, alright, Jarret Frierson, ultimately what's most important, establishing connections and networking or making your writing the best it can possibly be?

Michael Jamin:

Well, if you could have the best network in Hollywood, and if you're writing is no good, no one's going to go out in a limb and hire you. I mean, because that they're jeopardizing their own career. If they have a show and they can hire one writer and they got some bad writer that's not contributing and is going to drag them down, they're not going to risk their career for you. I don't care if you are their babysitter, you know, have to be good. So why can't you do both at the same time? Why can't you work on your craft while continuing to make the context and expanding your circle? But again, I talk about, I've talked, I've spoken about at length about what that means, what your network means, and your network isn't people you randomly send emails to once a year to keep. That's not your network. Your network or your, is your cohort people, your friends, people, you're close to, people you work with, people, your class, your graduating class, this is your network. It's not people who you've reached out to on LinkedIn and they decide to friend you. That's not your network.

Phil Hudson:

No, it's Kevin who texted me today and said, Hey man, how are you doing? We haven't talked story in a while. You want to hop on a call and we have a call tomorrow to go over stuff. Oh, great. He's the guy, the who sends me things to read and I send him things to read and we hop on the calls and we spend an hour talking about them. Great. Perfect. It's so awesome. Cool. Moving on. This section is craft. It's just how we do the job. Olivia asks, some teachers say you need establishing shots. Others say no. Who's right?

Michael Jamin:

Well, I guess if you're going to shoot it, you always want to, if you're shooting something, get an establishing shot. It helps establish a location. We always have establishing shots. I've never been on a show. You need establishing shot, especially if you're going to cut from one location to another. If you're doing a scene in someone's house and the next scene is in a restaurant and you don't put an establishing shot, people are going to think, wait, is there back room of the house? A restaurant? They're not going to be confusing. So get the grab an establishing shot. Do you need to put it in your script? No, you don't need to put, say exterior restaurant day. I mean, you could say Interior restaurant day. So you don't need that. You don't to slug an establishing shot in your script, but if you're going to shoot it, get one.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a good question in an answer I wish I would've had in 2009 and 10 when I was writing a lot of establishing shots for no purpose

Michael Jamin:

In my script. Make it more, does it make the read more enjoyable? No.

Phil Hudson:

And more and clear and Right. The slug line makes it clear. I am inside a restaurant.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, I get it. I know what a rest, the

Phil Hudson:

First ad, the first A d will schedule. Yeah, exterior shop. Yep. Yeah, right. Tamara Hanssen. What would you say are the most important things to pay attention to when writing a thriller? And what would you say is the biggest difference between a horror versus a thriller? I thought it'd be an interesting one because you're a comedy writer.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. I'm not really the best person to ask. I mean a horror because I don't write either one of them. But a horror can be just a slash fest, a slash film, which is guts and gore and a slasher movie where there's a mass murderer at a campground that's a horror movie. Could be. Whereas a thriller, it doesn't have to be all that guts and glory. It could just be the fugitive, right? A guy running from the law. There was no guts and Glo guts in that. It was just a guy keeping one step ahead of almost like an action movie. So those are the kind of differences. But in terms of writing, they still both need to have a story. Both need to have, you both have to follow a story, and that's something that can be learned.

Phil Hudson:

And that's the answer, is the focus on telling a good story. And then you'll learn the tropes, right? Yeah. Because

Michael Jamin:

No one wants to read a story. If your screenplay screenplays, they go camping and the dad gets murdered, and now the sun's running from the ax killer, who cares? What's the story? Yeah, it's it. It's great Down. But

Phil Hudson:

Silence of the Lambs, silence of the Lambs, on the other hand, wins the Oscar Oscars because at that end scene, we are worried Clarice Darling is going to be consumed by this darkness she's been avoiding.

Michael Jamin:

So it's not just plot, it's plot and story. Make something great.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, that's solid answer. Christine, I'm an artist getting into production for animation. What would you say is the most important thing I would know from your perspective as a writer on an animated show?

Michael Jamin:

Well, if you're an artist, I mean, these animation houses often give you tests. And I, I've never worked at an animation house, even though I've worked with many. And the tests, can you draw? I know Disney famously has a, I think they call it like a sack test or a potato sack test or something where they ask animators, this is, you Google it, you'll find it to write the emotions. Imagine a sack of flour, and now make, it has no eyes, no no limbs, no arms or legs. No eyes or face. Make the sack sad. Now make it excited. Now make it angry. And this is a famous test that they do to show all the emotions of a sack of flour without relying on the facial expressions. And that really apparently is what made Disney so amazing in animation way back when they first started. So study all that. But again, I'm not an artist for animation, so I'm not the best person to talk to.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. See, it rings true though. The magic carpet in Aladdin. Very emotive, very expressive, no face, no arms. So Conrad Michael, what's your rules around character descriptions when introducing them? How many samples would you recommend? Oh, it's two questions. I apologize. First question.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, character description, shorter is better. And you want to describe them a little bit, and it helps to give 'em a little bit of their personality. And it shouldn't be cliche. A girl next door is pretty cliche, doesn't know how hot she is, is cliche, give some juice to this character. And in that description, age, what do we need? What do they look like? That helps. But also to help describe their personality just a little bit. And in a way that's not a cliche. That's often why people say, think Jack Black or whatever. That does help. We know Jack Black is a little outrageous. We know he's thinks he's cool. Maybe he isn't, but he's got that attitude that helps. That's one way people do it. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Wardrobe important as well, because it tells us who the character is. Something else you can consider, a lot of people don't think about.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, I mean, if you need a woman, that was a note. If she's wearing overalls that says something about maybe she's out, maybe she's outdoorsy, maybe she works in the garden a lot as opposed to wearing a dinner gown.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. And it gives eventually, if it's going to get made, gives you costuming department something to work with. So yeah. Anyway, Viki. Wow. Viki, can you tell us about the eight episode structure of the Hollywood movie in three acts, storytelling? Is there anything else? Jan from Finland?

Michael Jamin:

I don't understand the question. What is it?

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, so 8.9 0.88, that structure of a Hollywood film, right? They're specific beats and metrics you need to hit within a structure. It's more of a formulaic approach. They said eight episode, I'm pretty sure they're talking about eight beat or eight point, and I think that's famous,

Michael Jamin:

The topic. I thought they're talking about eight episodes. Okay. So they went, if the question is, can you tell me more about the points of

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, the eight, they're saying the eight episode structure of the Hollywood movie. And so I think what they're saying is the

Michael Jamin:

Eight point structure. Yeah, that's why I did hear it, right? I did hear it right. You did hear it. Right. Eight episode structure, that doesn't make sense.

Phil Hudson:

No, it's eight point structure of a Hollywood movie compared to three act storytelling or in three act storytelling.

Michael Jamin:

Okay. Okay. So I was confused. So I teach in my course, I teach three act structure, and that can be applied to everything. Whether you're making a movie, a TV show, half hour, 90 minutes, 60 minutes, doesn't matter. Three act structure, it doesn't matter. It's all the same. It's just that in a movie, it's going to be a little, everything act is going to be a little longer lengthwise than in a half hour TV show. In terms of these points that you're talking about, not episodes but points. Yeah. Also, when I teach my class, there are points that you think that have to be met. The bottom of act one is a point, the middle of act two, the bottom of act two, I teach all this. I have a certain number of things that you have to do per episode in order to tell a compelling story. It's not formulaic, it's just something that you need to have in a story so that it feels like you're not just treading water. So that stuff happens. So if you'd like to learn more about that, we have a screenwriting course. It's only open once a month for a couple of days, but you can sign up to find out when it will be open. And that's at michaeljamin.com/course.

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:

Awesome. Keenan, what is your opinion about whether writers should adopt and master three act structure versus the mini movie method? Roughly eight, 15 minute movies that make up a feature. Is there any reason they should be blended together?

Michael Jamin:

I don't even know what that is. I only know three act structure. I don't know what this 15 minute, I don't know where you're learning this stuff from. I don't. What difference does it make if I'm telling a story? I don't. Okay. Just so you know, when I tell a story on a sitcom, it's not 15 minutes, but it's 22 minutes because sitcoms tend to be short. So is there any difference between a 15 minute sitcom and a 22 minute sitcom? No, it's cutting out a couple of minutes. That's all. There's just no difference. Everything is three act structure. Boy, they make things. Boy, the internet makes things hard for people, I think.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, these are a bunch of branded terms that I've read about in books and in other places that you've not, because you don't look at those things. Yeah, I don't.

Michael Jamin:

And

Phil Hudson:

Ultimately, from my perspective, it's just a lot of it is very, very confusing. It does get very formulaic into, you know, need to introduce everybody, every major character of your script. By page three, you need to have your inciting incident on page 10. You need to, and your script act one on page 25, and then it becomes so burdensome. And then you fall into the dark zone and wasteland of act two, where no one tells you what you have to do in that.

Michael Jamin:

But then talk about making your course. There's so many people Yeah, go ahead, Phil. Go ahead.

Phil Hudson:

I was going to say, but then in your course, it's like, oh, they're very clearly defined what I need to do in the top of act two, middle of act two, bottom of act two, very clear. And it's like, oh yeah, this all makes way more sense. And now I understand exactly what I need to do. But

Michael Jamin:

It's also simpler. It's like they make it so complicated.

Phil Hudson:

Well, they feel like making it complicated and naming it something fancy is a way of just making it sophisticated and seem more advanced. And that's the thing. I mean, I do Brazilian jiujitsu, I wrestled in high school. I like grappling Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu's, just a, it's when you talk about climbing a mountain, that's my version of climbing a mountain right now is just getting tapped out and practice murdered by a bunch of people half my size. And there's this thing called white belt mindset, which is looking for the cool hack and the cool trick that the other guy doesn't have. But then I watched this black belt. He did a, literally watched it last night. There's a black belt who's talking about a study that was done out of 500 fights in Juujitsu. You're not punching people in the face, it's just submissions and grappling. He said, out of 500 fights, what is the percentage of specific moves that won a fight? And it's like the first three, the top three make up 50% of all wins. And they're the basics. The next four, the other basics. And they make up 95% of the taps. So people are so caught up in the tips and tricks and hacks and it's, it's fundamentals. It's all about fundamentals. But

Michael Jamin:

Also when I'm in a writer's room all the time, we don't use these words that everyone seems to have learned on the internet. That's why when you said 15 minutes, 15 minutes structure, what I, it is unfamiliar to me. Yeah. In my 27 years, we don't talk like that. So what I teach you is how we talk. It's like it's not as complicated as people want to, when you learn from somebody, screenwriting, just find out, are they qualified to teach you? Forget. I don't care if they wrote a book. No, no. What shows have they written on?

Phil Hudson:

And this is advice that you give to everyone. You literally say, if it's not me, you don't need to learn from me. Find someone who has done the job. Look them up. And you, me didn't make me, you asked me maybe a year ago to put up all these samples that used to be in the course publicly on the site so people could vet your writing and see your writing just as a like, Hey, you to help people, here's some samples of real shows. You can go watch on Hulu or Netflix or tv, wherever right now that exists, that were produced. And get an idea of whether or not they want to learn from you. And if

Michael Jamin:

You don't think,

Phil Hudson:

Find somebody else. Right?

Michael Jamin:

Right. Find someone. Just study their work. Do you like it if learn from them if you don't find somebody else.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Lynn Marie, in my last script, I had too many characters. When you are hired as a writer, are you given a number of characters? Does it depend on the story you've created?

Michael Jamin:

No, the, it's not. It's not like you're given a number, but you can't service all of them if you had too many characters. So you can't service all them. And so you have a bunch of actors you're going to hire, whatever your number of actors that's on your TV show or movie, whatever. Let's say it's five main actors on, let's say you're doing a TV show, you have five actors. And if you can't service them, if you don't, can't give 'em anything to do, they're not going to be happy. I actually was watching an interview with Alan Ruck from Succession, and I think he was talking about season two or season one, I don't remember. But he said the first three episodes of that season, he wasn't doing anything. And he went to the showrunner and director. He goes, guys, maybe you want to kill me off because, because I'm not doing anything.

And they said, please don't go into the, I know it's slow now, but we have great stuff for you later in the season. And he's like, oh, okay. And he said, I'm glad I stuck around because they did. He almost made a mistake of leaving. But you can't have an actor stand around and not service them. Why are you paying them? So I go through this in the course as well. How many characters should you basically have for a TV show? For a movie? It's a little different, but you got to give 'em something to do. Why are you paying them?

Phil Hudson:

And without naming names, and this is something I just read yesterday. Some other advice on the internet. Combine characters so that you're not randomly dropping in new people throughout the movie or abandoning those. You've established a lot of bad advice about characters as well on the internet. And if the answer is, what do they serve? The story,

Michael Jamin:

They have to have something to do and they have something to, they can't just stand around and nod when somebody else says something. You got to give 'em a good at a strong attitude or else why are they in the scene?

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Awesome. Moving out of craft, another section. Being a pro anonymous. I was an actor on Lopez, one of Michael Jam's shows. Loved it, critically loved, but I felt the network it was on really limiting it, limited it. How do you compromise with a network on the final product?

Michael Jamin:

They're paying for it. You give 'em what they want. What's the compromise they're paying you? Do you want to work again or not? They have the right, this is what they want and you have to give them what they want. That's the compromise. Obviously, you're going to try to do it to your best of the ability so that you feel it's good, but at the end of the day, you give them what they want because it's paying for it. What's it? What's the stuff? My art, my words? What's that? How is that going to put foot on your plate when they fire you?

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, when we first started, you referred yourself as a tailor. Do you want to talk about that?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, basically, I think of myself as a tailor. When someone comes in, they say, I got slacks. And I say, okay, you want cuffs. And they say, yeah, I want cuffs. Okay, I can give you cuffs. I don't say, I don't, no, you're going to ruin my slacks. It's theirs, whatever you want. I can give you pleats, I can give you cuffs, whatever you want. And I'll try to make the best. And I can give you a recommendation. I could say, you know what? You wouldn't look good in a three double breasted suit. You'll look better if it's a single breasted. And they'll say, but I want double breasted. Okay, I will give you the best double breasted suit I can.

Phil Hudson:

Yep. That's being a pro. Great. Yeah. Jim, someone offered me an option with no payment. Is it worth it to tie up my script?

Michael Jamin:

An option with no payment? It sounds like a bad, sounds like a bad,

Phil Hudson:

That doesn't sound like an option. It may not actually be legally binding, by the way. In most states, there has to be an exchange of money to be able to option. Sometimes it's a buck, sometimes it's a significant amount of money. But to me, Michael, my unsolicited opinion here is run. That is just a waste of time. And if you listen to the last podcast that we did, I recently just had an experience similar to this, not exactly this, but run.

Michael Jamin:

I was, that's my

Phil Hudson:

Opinion, Michael.

Michael Jamin:

Years ago I was a writer. I was accessible writer, working on a TV show, and my partner and I wrote a script and we didn't sell it. No, actually it's not true. We s That's not true. We sold it to H B O and then we got the rights back and then some other network because the H B O decided not to make it. And then some other network wanted to buy it. And I'm like, oh, okay. And their offer was $1. And I said, well, you're going to have to do more than that dollar. I told 'em to go fuck off. So sorry you don't get my script for a dollar, but suss out these people. I don't know what kind of option, why, I don't know. That's not really an option. It doesn't sound like a good deal. Who are these people? What

Phil Hudson:

That sounds, sounds like to me is some guy who thinks he's a producer is sees something in you and wants to take advantage of you at your expense to go hawk your script, to go make a dime. And the answer is, if your script is that good, other people are going to read it and they're going to want to pass it around and they're going to want to make it. And that's an option. That's something to pursue. Someone offering you an option for nothing. It's just move on.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, it sounds like, it sounds suspicious if you're, you're professional, if your gut's telling you to run, then run. Listen to your gut. Yeah,

Phil Hudson:

My gut is speaking for you, Jim. Yeah, run. Cool. Moving on, miscellaneous, just a bunch of questions. Probably four or five here, Michael. Okay. Mark, how does one copyright a screenplay and how much does it cost?

Michael Jamin:

You can register your screenplay with the writer's GU of America. I don't know, it might be 35, 40 bucks or something, a copyright. I think the minute you write it, it's copywritten, you know, can mail yourself a copy but in the mail and keep it sealed. But again, I don't give legal advice on this channel, so I'm telling you what I know. If you're really worried about it, you can get an entertainment lawyer or you can Google it and you can find out for yourself. So I don't give you any, again, there's nothing in it for me to give anybody legal advice. I'm not a lawyer. So these are a couple of options, but please explore

Phil Hudson:

More. Electronic filing is $45, so standard application is $65 and you can

Michael Jamin:

Do it for free. And that gives you certain protections, not all, but do your own due diligence. So

Phil Hudson:

It also publishes it in a registry that is searchable and anybody can go find your script. And there you go. But again, idea versus execution.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Phil Hudson:

Right. It's all about the execution. Alright, Tina, should we get it registered with the W G A before we have someone read it? What is the best way to get your script in front of someone for just notes? And Perry does registering a script with the W G A protect the IP from being stolen from me.

Michael Jamin:

I've only registered, I should do a webinar on that, on getting stolen. Yeah,

Phil Hudson:

That's a big topic and it's a scary look. The questions from my perspective, they're scarcity mindset questions. You need to be smart. But if you're worried about someone stealing your idea, it's saying, well, this is all I have. Instead of saying, okay, I'll just move on. And it's very hard to prove theft of intellectual property unless it's just very hard. It's a case that very rarely wins. And I know of one very famous case that we did talk about early on in the podcast where there was a film that came out and they lost in France. France said that they stole an idea from someone and they had to pay a ton of money, but it was produced and made out into the world by a professional filmmaker before they even got there. So anyway, that's just my thoughts.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, I mean, you know, can register. Ultimately, you're going to have to put your work out there if you want to get hired and if you can keep, you want to keep it yourself and if you're so worried about it, and you'll never, no one's going to find it in your closet. So I, I'll probably do a webinar at some point talking more about this at length, but ultimately you, you're going to have to put your work out there and be careful who you give it to. Don't give it to the guy in Starbucks with the hbar mushroom mustache, but you can give it to reputable studios and you shouldn't have to worry too much.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. One thing that just came up again, we talked about before was registering your script with the W G A and then putting your registration number on your cover feels, it feels pretty amateur.

Michael Jamin:

It feels a little Bush League. I've only registered for whatever what it's worth, only one script in my entire career. That was the first one I ever wrote. And then I was like, I can't, and then I was like, I can't afford to do anymore, like 40, whatever it was, 40 bucks. I can't afford to do this.

Phil Hudson:

You can submit it directly through final draft by the, you can register your script through Final Draft Now. It's been out for a couple years, but I

Michael Jamin:

Didn't know that.

Phil Hudson:

I think registering your script and as a paper trail, that can be served as in court as evidence is one thing, but putting it registration number on your script is another mark of, yeah, maybe don't do that. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Ryan McCurdy, how does someone who is in multiple guilds, the W G A D, G A and P G A navigate their jobs? Do they just not write but will direct or do they not work at all? How do people who are in multiple guilds? Oh, so it's a repeat of the question. I apologize, but I don't know if this is reference to the strike specifically, but I thought it was a good question for you because you W G A and D G A, right?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, but it's not, and I'm not even an active member in the D D G A, whatever job you're working at, if you were working as a director, now you, there's nothing to navigate. You pay dues. If you're getting directing gigs, then you will pay dues on those directing gigs and you have writing gigs, then you pay dues for that. So there's nothing to navigate. It's just like you only pay dues if you earn money for the work you've done. Although I should be clarified, you do have a low monthly fee of, it's probably 25 bucks every quarter or something like that in addition. But there's nothing to navigate really.

Phil Hudson:

And during this strike it, I think specifically, not to speak for the Writer's Guild, but the research I've done as someone who is kind of at that stage of my career where I do have the opportunity to have some meetings with people and have some conversations and conversations I've had with the W G A, right? It is against the W G A strike guidelines to have meetings with signatory companies right now regarding written work. That does not mean you can't sit at home and write. And it does not mean that you can't work with other writers and pass things around. And what it means is you shouldn't be seeking employment or to gain monetary value from a signatory in violation. So regardless if you're in the guild or not, you shouldn't be doing that.

Michael Jamin:

Right. So next question,

Phil Hudson:

Lindsay, what was the biggest surprise to you when you first started working in the writer's room?

Michael Jamin:

The biggest surprise was everyone was incredibly talented. This is when I was on Just Shoot me and I was in way over my head. I was able to write one script on with my partner. We wrote, I was able to be funny on my own, at my own pace, but in a writer's room, when you're surrounded by really talented writers pitching ideas, I didn't understand the difference between a good idea and a bad idea idea. I had no idea. And I was worried about being fired because I didn't know how to contribute. That was really eye-opening. It was like, man, everyone is so funny. And I'm laughing after a couple weeks. I'm like, no one's paying me to laugh. I'm getting paid to make people laugh. I better figure out how to do that fast and figure out how to contribute meaningfully in a writer's room.

And that really means understanding story structure, that that's kind of what I teach in the course. If you were lucky enough to get that break, God, you don't want to screw it up by not understanding how to story structure and understanding how to do the job. Man, if, here's the thing, if you get hired tomorrow, not wonderful, you got hired in a show, sign up for my course immediately and cram it because you do not want to get fired from your job because you don't understand how to do the job. And I'm telling you, 99% of new writers just don't, because there's so much to learn. So whether they get fired or not, it's a different story. But I've see, I see people flame out all the time.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking seeing that turnover, even for someone at my level just knowing I want that job so bad, but at the same time, coming to the realization that, man, I wouldn't have been able to do that job either.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Think you think can, and you have the enough gumption and ego to push you along to say, I can do that job. And you have to have that blindness to reality to continue moving forward. But there's also a level of reality you have to settle into, say a personal assessment. Yeah. I would've been fired too. I would not have been able to execute.

Michael Jamin:

Phil. You know me, I never yell at people, take my course. I'm never saying sell my, I'm never sell a sale, sell. Take my course. You don't. But if you get hired on a staff job, take the course please. Because if you get fired off this thing for not knowing what's sick, oh, you'll kill yourself. You will be so upset that you are not prepared so

Phil Hudson:

Well, on this note, did, didn't you have a friend who was a showrunner who basically wanted to offered all of her writers your course? Yes. They didn't know story.

Michael Jamin:

I forgot about that. Yeah, I did have

Phil Hudson:

A, without going into detail of the that, do you want to talk about that? The conversations you were having with her about what those struggles were?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. She was running a show, a big show on a major network. This is a friend that I've worked with many years ago, but she's a really talented writer. And so she was running this show with a bunch of new staff writers, and she was just so frustrated with the quality of work. Actually, I'm not sure if she was running it or she was co-running it with somebody else. So maybe it might not have been her show. She might have been co-executive producer. And she was very frustrated and she was like, I wish everyone here would just take your fricking class so that I don't have to educate them so that they could stop arguing with me all the time when I'm telling them what a story should be. So they would stop arguing with her and just listen and contribute meaningfully because it's like so frustrating is when a new writer doesn't know how to do a job, they'll often fight for something because they don't know any better and they want to contribute and they fight for something, which is a terrible idea without knowing what a good idea is. And she was like, Ugh, this is so frustrating. I wish they would just take your damn class so I wouldn't have to waste energy yelling at them or arguing with them.

And she's a good writer. She's talented. She's worked for 20 something years.

Phil Hudson:

And again, I've seen in my limited career in the writer's room, I have seen people burn out for arguing with the showrunners about something that ultimately doesn't matter to the story, and more specifically arguing with the showrunner's vision of what the story should be.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Oh boy. It's

Phil Hudson:

Sad. And you have a whole section in the course too about writers. Were medicate, how do you behave in a room? And I had conversations with the lizards when I was on tour about that etiquette and the reality of the fact that when you're new, shut up and listen. Shut

Michael Jamin:

Up.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Only open your mouth if you have something that is stunning. Yeah. So awesome. Two more questions here, Olivia, ask, does the corp help? Does the course help us find an agent at the end?

Michael Jamin:

Well, I mean, it doesn't give you instructions on how to do that, but it's certainly going to, it's certainly if you can't write a good script, good luck getting an agent. So the course teaches you how to write a good script. Hopefully doors open after that, but good luck. You're not be able to trick an agent into hiring you if you don't know how to write or not hiring you. I don't like the expression representing you. Sorry. Yeah,

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, that's a good point. Two, two things. One there, I believe there is a q and a in the bonus section where you do talk about agents and managers. Yeah. And you go over the realities of that situation. Two, I'm blanking. Oh, you did? I didn't you do? Oh, one of our early podcasts. It was like episode five or something, was talking about agents and managers. So go back and listen to that podcast. Yeah, good stuff in there. Lindsay. Last question. Do you prefer to be a member of the writer staff or be the showrunner?

Michael Jamin:

So when you're starting off, when I was starting off, I did not want to be the showrunner at all. Like I knew I didn't know what I didn't know. And then I did it for about 10 years as a rest, staff writer, learning, soaking it up after about 10 years, you rise so high that the next step is you either become a showrunner or you just don't work because there's just not that many jobs. So becoming a showrunner actually opens up opportunities. So my partner and I took that jump and we started looking for opportunities to run shows and we ran. We've run three shows when we were before we became showrunners. You're always looking at your boss. You're always thinking, I bet I could do my job. I bet I could do his job or her job better than he or she can. Then when you finally get that job, you're like, Ugh, it's so hard. It's so hard. I don't know why I thought I was so arrogant to think that, and now, like I said, I've done it. I've proven to myself the show I'm currently on, co-executive producers. I'm not the showrunner and I'm perfectly happy not to have that pressure of being the showrunner. I'm perfect. I make less money, but I'm perfectly happy.

But if the next job is showrunner better than being unemployed, I'll take whatever. I'll happy to do it. But I'm also, it's not an ego thing for me where I need to be the boss.

Phil Hudson:

In the documentary showrunners that I've recommended many times, there's a showrunner who says that a network at a certain point is so concerned with getting the thing done, that if you were literally dying on your deathbed and you had to be wheeled, you are like, I can't come in. I can't do the job. I would have to be wheeled in on a gurney and put up on an iv. They would say, what kind of gurney would you like and what kind of iv? What would you like in the iv? Yeah, because the showrunner job is that important to the overall production. Yeah. So do you get paid for the stress involved with that?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Yeah. Although about the shows that I did, they were cable shows, so they were less money. They network

Phil Hudson:

Critic, critically acclaimed table shows.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

So that's it, Michael. That's your June webinar q and a.

Michael Jamin:

Woo. Yeah. Thank you so much everyone. We got a lot. What can you do, Phil? If someone, like I said, I should mention this. All the webinars are free to attend. If you attend, we always give you a little something special if you miss it, we send you a free replay within 24 hours. If you do not watch that and you want to watch some of the old ones, they are available for purchase on my website at a small fee. All this stuff, I got free lesson, I got a free webinar, I got a free newsletter. Sign up for all of it on my website, michaeljamin.com. If you want to see me tour with my book, my forthcoming book is called right now. It's called the Paper Orchestra. Maybe changing the title. I don't know, but you can learn more about that. If you want to see me in your city, go to michaeljamin.com/upcoming. I'd love to see you there. I'd love to see everyone there.

Phil Hudson:

Oh, it's great too. I went for my birthday last year. You did a performance in an incredible performance. Yeah, incredible performance, but then also I wait your birthday's tomorrow, isn't it?

Michael Jamin:

Oh God. My dad called me today. He goes, happy birthday. He goes, it's not my birthday yet. He goes, I know. Why'd you call me then?

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Anyway, I went and then it was fun. I got to meet people from your course who I've talked to for years and they were there supporting and fun stuff, but really, really cool way to see how story moves and it's not like you have the amazing sets and choreography and like crazy lighting. It's you moving people with words and it's with words. It's a great explanation, A great display of what storytelling should be is how I would describe that.

Michael Jamin:

Thank you, Phil. Thank you. Yeah, everyone come see it. I thank you so much. Alright, Phil. Until next week.

Phil Hudson:

Keep writing. Say

Michael Jamin:

Keep writing. Alright. Thanks everyone.

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 [email protected]/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.

On this week's episode Editor/Author Mike Sacks (Vanity Fair) discusses his career path, the importance of not asking for permission with your writing, as well as how he prepares for some of the artists he interviews.

Mike Sacks Website: https://www.mikesacks.com/

Mike Sacks on Instagram: mikebsacks

Mike Sacks on Twitter: https://twitter.com/michaelbsacks

Mike Sacks:

It's never been any time in publishing history where you could do this, where you could put out a book that looks professionally done. In the past, you'd have to buy 5,000 copies of your book, and they set Moldering in the basement. Yeah. Now it's a purchase. It's a paper purchase, so if someone wants it, they'll pay for it. Then it's published and it's not published until then.

Michael Jamin:

You're listening to Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.

Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to another Screenwriters. Need to hear this. We've got a surprise twist for you today. I've done over 90 episodes and today we're taking a turn to the world of high literature and publishing something I know very little about. And I'm very pleased to welcome my next guest, Mr. Mike Sacks, and he comes from the Mike. Welcome. Let me give you a proper introduction. I'm not done with you yet, before I let you say something. So Mike is, aside from being an editor at Vanity Fair, he's written a number of books, I don't know, 11 or 12 something. A lot of books. He's gotten his work in Vanity Fair, Esquire, gq, the New Yorker, time, New York Times, Washington Post MCs, Sweeney's, radar Radar. Funny or Die. He was Die Mad New York Observer, premier Believer, vice Max. It goes on and on. So this guy's from the world of literature. So thank you so much, Mike, for being on this show. I want to learn all about your experiences.

Mike Sacks:

Well, I'm from the world of literature, meaning I have no money and plenty of time. So this is nothing else to do,

Michael Jamin:

But why? Okay, but why was it that I want to talk about your books and all that, but okay, so what attracted you to the world of literature though?

Mike Sacks:

My biggest dream was to get into tv. I mean, I wanted to write for Letterman. I wanted to write for SS n l, but I didn't know how to do it. I mean, I didn't know any writers. I didn't know anyone who knew any writers, very mysterious world. So what I thought at that time was that I would write for the written page and then be discovered like I would from AA or AA to be pulled up to the majors. It doesn't work like that. I didn't know it at the time, but over having done that for so many years, I just came to actually prefer that, I guess, to any other medium. I've done a little bit of TV and a little radio, and I do a podcast in the end. You know what, I came to love? I love the control. I love the fact that there's no one over my shoulder telling me what to do, how to do it, and I think if I were at 2021 to have gotten a job on Letterman or S N l, I would've been in heaven. I think now it sounds like hell, and I don't think I would've last would last a week.

Michael Jamin:

But tell me when you say no, no, you get to do what you want of that. Is that entirely accurate when you're are working with a publisher or even a magazine?

Mike Sacks:

Not always, especially when it comes to humor, which is one of the reasons I stopped humor for magazines. I mean, what I found is that most editors view themselves as humor writers in disguise, and if they hadn't have to have a job, they would be famous humor writers. So a lot of them consider themselves humor genius as very high humor iq. So I would get a lot of rewrites based on that and also based off of, I was writing a lot of stories and pieces based off of current news. So that goes bad very quickly. So I prefer now, what I've been doing now is self-publishing and putting out evergreen pieces where meaning it's not tethered to any sort of current news. So when I look back at some of the GQ pieces, the Esquire pieces written in 2008, 2012, to whatever it is, it just seems very dated. The humor that I love is always tethered to character, and it is not dated. I mean, even going back to, or even I guess last century, Charlie Chaplin, Woody Allen, Albert Brooks, Steve Martin's, all character based, and that to me is what interests me now, and I wanted to bring that to the written page rather than have something that is say, Trump's tweets from the Middle Ages or some shit that it's not going to last.

Michael Jamin:

But you've been on both sides of this because you are an editor at Vanity Fair. So you obviously, you're rewriting, you're telling people you know what, what's going to play in this magazine? But you're also saying, and then human magazines, that you also getting 'em on the other side, I mean, right.

Mike Sacks:

And I think I have that advantage of knowing how to deal with editors, knowing what not to say, not to drive them crazy, and if they do have a suggestion to, usually it's not worth fighting over. But my job, inventing affairs, is not to edit humor, it's to edit hard news, preferably hard news, rather than puff pieces

Michael Jamin:

Especially. Yeah. How did you get that at Vanity Fair? Well, I was How did, go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, I have another

Mike Sacks:

Question. Yeah, yeah. It was one of those things that you just kind of stumble into, and I was New Orleans. I was living in New Orleans, working in retail. Then I moved back to Maryland working in retail and got my first editing job in dc, which is a very DC type of job. I was editing a newsletter for an association that provided shareholder information to large institutional investors. So DC has a million associations, a million groups, they all need editors for their newsletters. So I got this first job. From there, I got a job working nights and weekends as an editor at the Knight Ritter Wire Corp, which used to put out articles sent around the world. And then from there, the Washington Post, and then from there, vanity Fair. So it was just sort of stumbling into one job after another, where at the time, what I really wanted to do was go to California, go to New York and write humor.

It just never really seemed to work out that way. I just kept getting these jobs, and on the side, what I would do on my own time, I would write for Mad and National Lampoon and then later New Yorker. So it was just one of those things. Now, if I had to do it over again, I probably would've gone straight out to California or to straight to New York, rather than live in New Orleans and Maryland for a while. But you know, do what you do. And I didn't have the balls to do it. I didn't know anyone. I didn't have anyone to tell me, Hey, you can do this. Right. To me, it seemed very mysterious, like, Hey, how do you go to the moon? I have no fucking idea. Yeah, but it

Michael Jamin:

Was, it was mysterious. But you still figured it out on this other, that's the thing. You didn't know how to do it, but you did know how to do it for this other thing over here.

Mike Sacks:

Well, that's the thing. I mean, that's the irony is that you stumble into what you end up want to be doing, and I didn't, if I had known graduating that I would've been the circuitous route, I probably would've said, screw it. I don't want to spend seven years doing nothing, working in retail and then trying to get into magazines. But it just ended up working to my benefit where I think writing for the written page is really the best fit for me, more so than writing for TV or the movies. Not to say that I wouldn't love to have a script produced and this and that, but I do. I think I've worked alone for so many years. I wouldn't have the patience to work with producers and that timeframe. I like to put it work out and keep moving down the road. I don't like to stumble and sort of stagnate with the same piece.

I've met writers who three years later will meet again working on just trying to pitch this same project. We didn't go into writing for that. I got into writing. I loved it, and I loved to write what I wanted to write. And I see too many writers out there, even in the comedy business who are miserable. And I always do try to remember, this is why I got into comedying and into writing, is because I used to have fun with my friends, and I used to go home and write and enjoy myself. And if I ever lose that, it's not something that I would want to necessarily live with. So what I do have now is a two-track system where I do make a living as an editor, and then on the side I am able to write what I want, how I write, how I want to write it, and I don't have to put out material that is not something that is something that I want to put out. Everything I put out is what I want to put out.

Michael Jamin:

But how many hours a day do you devote to your side writing projects

Mike Sacks:

Today?

Michael Jamin:

Well, on an average day, how much do you do on the side?

Mike Sacks:

I'd say at least six hours a day. I mean, I get up early,

Michael Jamin:

You six hours a day on your non-paying. In other words, you're not, you're non vanity. Fair job, you're

Mike Sacks:

Yes. And that's always been the case. I mean, there's no other way to put out material, whether it's articles or books, then to just simply do it. And it did take me giving up a lot of TV watching and a lot of drinking, which I had been doing, and to sit down and make this my O C D compulsion where I have to do this every day, and if I don't do it every day, I'm miserable. I'm just an absolute best. And

Michael Jamin:

You've been both traditionally published and indie published as you're talking about, and why don't you talk a little bit, but the differences in why one appeals more to you than the other?

Mike Sacks:

Well, that's a great question. Now, I think there's different elements to self-publishing versus traditional publishing. If you have the opportunity to be a MCs or the New Yorker, certainly take it. I think when it comes to self-publishing, what I prefer is self-publishing books. Now, I published about four or five traditional published books when I first started, and what I ended up finding out was in the end, can, if you are competent as an editor and a writer, and if you can find a good designer, you can do all this on your own. And there's a lot of advantages to that. The main advantage is in humor. Most producers, most agents, most publishers do not have our humor sensibility. I'd say their humor sensibility lies more in the hit radio market than maybe the alternative market, which I think most writers are into. So first of all, it's going to be very, very difficult to sell the idea that you want to an agent, and that's the first step, which can take years.

Yes. I know a lot of people who reach out to agents with their humor ideas, and before they know it, it becomes something else entirely, whether it's now geared towards children, whether it's a rom-com or whether it's this or that or ya novel, and then they're stuck with something that after a year doesn't sell anyway, so they wasted a year on a project that they're not happy with. I don't think you need an agent now for books. In fact, when I say books, I mean comedy books. This is very specific. If you want to put out a comedy book that's like, or similar to the Woody Allen books, you grew up reading to the National Lampoon books, you grew up reading to Mark Lehner, to anyone, Simon Rich that you grew up reading, that is not going to happen anymore. One and two, it's not necessary for it to happen. Any advantage that you have in the mainstream market can be reproduced on your own end much better.

Michael Jamin:

Well, let's talk about that because you can't get into, or it would be a lot harder to get your book into Barnes and Nobles, right? Well,

Mike Sacks:

Here's the thing too. Yeah. Everyone dreams about having their book in Barnes and Noble or an airport bookstore. It doesn't fucking make a difference anymore. So you have one copy of your book in the humor section, which is next to the restrooms. I mean, how many people are going to be stumbling by it anyway? It's not going to be on the front table. Right, okay. It's just not going to be. So when it comes to getting a book, even chosen by an agent, skip the two, three year long process and put it out yourself because an agent typically doesn't even read the book. And if they do read the book, they don't typically understand the book. What they're going to get is not much money anyway. Comedy doesn't bring in much money, so they get you a 3000, $4,000 advance. So that's something you can reap on your own without getting that advance, by putting it out yourself and having a hundred percent or not a hundred percent, maybe 60% of the profit coming back to you. So what I have done and what I recommend people to do at this point, this has never been, it's never been any time in publishing history where you could do this, where you could put out a book that looks professionally done in the past, you'd have to buy 5,000 copies of your book, and they set moldering in the basement. Now it's a purchase, a pay per purchase. So if someone wants it, they'll pay for it. Then it's published and it's not published until then. Do you and the pro,

Michael Jamin:

But do you get, this is, I'm getting a little off topic, but do you order a handful just so you have and send out with when people want to sign copies? I,

Mike Sacks:

Well, yes, it, it's the very specific process that I had that I have, which is that you as well as writing it, putting it out yourself, designing it yourself, you have to market it yourself. And I don't know if you want to get into that now later. Yeah, yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Let's talk about that. Okay.

Mike Sacks:

Yeah. Okay. So I have a very specific process, and I've been on the other end of this because I've been as a receiver of these books at Vanity Fair. And we would get hundreds of books per week from publishers. And what publishers would do was they would send out willy nilly all these advanced review copies arcs, which would end up just being in the free pile at work, 99% of which is never even looked at, 99% of which isn't even right for the magazine. So they would send out these books to me at Vanity Fair, and it would be totally inappropriate for the magazine. We don't do poetry. We don't do humor, we don't do sci-fi, so why are you sending me the books Now, the disadvantage of that to the writers, they end up in the free pile in a magazine like ours, and then typically the editorial assistants will then sell these books to the strand or on line.

So you have these advanced review copies where no money is going to the author and they're getting these review copies before anyone else. So what I've tried to do with my own marketing is I'll order say 50 books and I'll pay for those myself. It's cheaper when you're ordering your own book. It's cheaper than it would be if you're paying for it otherwise. And then I send it out to a very specific group. It's more like surgical precision rather than going wide. And that group consists of comedians and actors and people who, with one mention on their Instagram can do more than a hundred advertisements can in the back of any magazine be beyond that. To get even more specific, what I'll do is I'll write the person's name, the receiver's name on the edge, the binding of the book. So they can't, or their assistant can't then sell it. I'd rather than just throw it out than it ending up being complicated.

Michael Jamin:

Why can't they though, if they name, why couldn't they? Because,

Mike Sacks:

Well, they could cross it out. They could black it out, or

Michael Jamin:

They could sell it with their name on it. What different, does it matter? Matter of

Mike Sacks:

Course. But who's, who's going to want to do that? No one's really going to want to do that. I'd hope it has happened in a few times that someone, I just out of curiosity, even before my book was legally supposedly come out, it's being sold on Amazon, I was like, who the hell is selling it? And I've purchased a copy and I'll see who then sold the

Michael Jamin:

Book, and then would you give 'em shit or something?

Mike Sacks:

No, I wouldn't. No. I mean, it's just a lousy thing to do, but I'm not going to get into it with them. But by doing that, it lessens the risk. So you do that, you make a pinpoint marketing plan rather than spreading it out wide, which is another thing that traditional marketing staffs don't do. Typically the marketing staff don't even read the book. They don't understand a book they can mostly consisting of 20, 30 somethings who don't have our sensibility and who are just sending out mass produce, press releases or versions of the book that in the end don't help you and could even harm you. So these are things that I learned by putting out in a traditional publishing venue of things to do and not to do when I would at one point when I plan to put out books by myself. So it's really important, I think, to know just as importantly, what not to do than it is what to do and what not to do is to spend thousands of dollars and sending it to every person who's in media, who's not going to be able to help you.

Michael Jamin:

You're very targeted. It's so interesting because there's so much, and I'm new to the publishing world, but there's just so much overlap in terms of how Hollywood works and how the publishing world works. My mind, it was publishing was a little more rarefied and maybe there was a No, it's not still about selling.

Mike Sacks:

No. The thing is that you have to understand that I think I understand is that publishing is not a money business. I mean, you're not going to sell a book for however much you might sell a comedy screenplay for. If you did really well for yourself, there's not much money in it. So if you're getting into it for money, I think you're doing it for the wrong reasons. But if you're getting into it for control, then it's for you. And then to have that control, why then give it to someone else to edit, to design, and then to market, it's then out of your hands for no reason. Because I, you've seen books, comedy books designed, and they overdesigned comedy more so than they underdesigned it. I'd rather have an underdesigned look than

Michael Jamin:

I wacky. I wish you could mention some without. Well,

Mike Sacks:

I'll mention incriminating Yourself.

Michael Jamin:

I'll

Mike Sacks:

Mention my own

Michael Jamin:

That were Overdesigned.

Mike Sacks:

Yeah. And these were the first books that I put out my interview books. And here's the kicker, poking a Dead Frog and then also my collection.

Michael Jamin:

I'm going to pull it up here

Mike Sacks:

Of short humor. I had to pay for those to be redesigned. I wasn't happy with the original design

Michael Jamin:

That you designed.

Mike Sacks:

Well, no. Their design I wasn't happy with. Oh, I see. I'll tell you the typical look, it would be a chattering teeth on a bench with a microphone placed at it. It would be like a banana peel next to

Michael Jamin:

It. Just something that says comedy right. Comedy right.

Mike Sacks:

Because marketing swears by the fact that this will sell more copies. It has to do this. It's all a bunch of bullshit. Anyway.

Michael Jamin:

But here's the thing, does it though, I mean, they must have the numbers. They must not just say it like I am. I'm completely with you going through all this now, but are they right?

Mike Sacks:

No, they could be, but do you want your book to have a chattering teeth being interviewed? Right, right,

Michael Jamin:

Exactly. Sitting up,

Mike Sacks:

Sitting on a bench. I mean, I don't, so it sells another thousand copies. Who gives a shit? When you look at the classic books, especially the Woody Allen compilations, they're just white on black, right? I mean, it's very, very simple. You don't need something screaming out comedy. These are not a collection of hamburger puns we're talking about here. This is, unless it is a collection of hamburger pots, right? I'm talking about comedy that I grew up reading and I want out there. You're not going to get a cover that you're probably going to be happy with if you go traditional publishing.

Michael Jamin:

Right. It's so interesting because I'm going through, as you know, all of this now and everything you're saying is truly resonating with me. That's why we talked about a couple weeks ago, and it was so helpful. I want to even mention, I want to talk about some of your work because you sent me, you're very kind. You sent me some arcs and Well, you sent me a bunch of stuff. Let me put it up on the camera here. We're going to talk about this. This is your poking at Dead Frog. This is a book about, we interviewed some really great comedy writers, Woodmont College, which is a fun read. I want to talk about that as well. But first, this is the first, that book that I first dug into, and I have to send Mike, I think you are an artist. I really do because I do.

But I mean, and he's being, he's blushing. You can't see on your podcast, but the book, to me, it has a very almost indie underground vibe it to me, and tell me if you're wrong, if this is not what you meant when you wrote it to me. It was like, the premise is very interesting. It's almost like a Russian nesting doll. The premise of this book is you, the author, are going through a garage, through a garage sale. You stumble upon this odd book that is written that it is the account of someone's life. The book that you wrote is called Randy, the Full and complete unedited biography and memoir of The Amazing Life and Times of Randy Ss. So you as the author, go into this garage sale or whatever, and you find this book written by this, some schmuck. Some schmuck wrote it about his friend or whatever, a guy he knows. And what's so interesting, and then you share the book. And so what's interesting to me, what I found very interesting, even about the premise of it, it's quite brilliant. It is basically, first of all, you're saying, look at this amazing book. I didn't write it. I have nothing to do with it. I just found it. It's amazing. And already you're hyping it up, but you're also distancing yourself from it saying, well, if you don't like it, it's, it's not mine. But you're also saying exactly,

Here's a schmuck that the story's about, the book's about. Here's a schmuck who wrote about another schmuck and how amazing it is. And that's what I find it. So it's so almost indie. Like I said, it's like a Russian nesting doll. It's like no one has any attachment to this book, to this story. Here's this great story. I thought that was very funny premise of

Mike Sacks:

It. Well, thank No, that's really actually a good way to describe it. I mean, I always wanted to write a current day Medici book where some idiot is, pays an unemployed writer to write about his life in flowery terms, rather than it be 15th century Italy. It's, or Florence, it would now be 21st century Maryland. So that was one premise. Then on top of that, it would be a very mediocre life, written a very flowery type of way. But what I do love is found artifacts. I genuinely love finding shit, whether it's self-published memoirs or whether it's old or whether it's, that to me is fascinating. And what you mentioned really hits at the crux of it is that I'm not putting this book out. I'm two characters removed from the person. Yes. Writing it. And by doing that, by putting out a book like this, it's playing a character acting role where I'm not the person, and if you don't like it, it's really not my fault. Right. And by doing that, it frees me up as a writer to then take more chances because the margin of error is higher. If you don't like that joke, I had nothing fucking to do with it. I'm just reprinting. It's

Michael Jamin:

Right. That's exactly my point. Yes, exactly. And that's so interesting about this because usually you write a book, you have a narrator. The narrator may even be talking about their life, but you, like you said, you're two steps removed and you don't even know who to believe is describing the story. Well,

Mike Sacks:

I'll tell you what I always think of, and that's Steve Martin. He was being interviewed about pennies from heaven, and he said, I can't dance, but if I play someone who can dance and maybe not well, but if I play someone who's dancing, then I can do it. So he's not even dancing. It's the character who's dancing it. And I always view that as what I'm trying to do is just have fun with it. I'm not the person in this book, my name isn't even on it. Hopefully. My father always used when he was alive, would say, why is your name, why are they not on these books? On the re-release? It was, but when I put it out myself, my name was not on any of these books. And to me, it's part of the joke. I want people to think it's real. I don't want them to think that I wrote it. I want them to come across this and say, oh, someone is republishing a shit self-published memoir. That's someone an idiot in Maryland published in 2013. Right. That really is my dream.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. And that's so funny about it. It's, that's why I say it's almost underground. It's almost, yeah. I, I guess my question for you is, when you wrote this or any of your writing, are you thinking of of the audience or your reader in mind, or are you really just like, this is what I want to do? It sounds to me, I already know the answer, but

Mike Sacks:

It's never what the audience necessarily wants. I mean, I found that by even writing Twitter jokes, if you put out what you think the audience is going to want, then I think it's not going to hit as hard. And that's part of the problem with what I had freelancing for magazines. What are the editors going to want? And then what are the editors going to want for the readers is you have to, it's not even running for yourself at that point, but for these projects, not by skirting around having an agent skirting around having a publisher, you can do whatever the hell you want. And by you, I mean me in this case, it's just these are projects that I just have an itch to scratch. I don't know why. And there's no one on earth who I think necessarily is the perfect reader for this.

I just know that if I stumbled upon this book in a bookstore or online, I would fall in love with it. And that is really the, I'm trying to please myself. And it's a very specific thing mean, so specific that it'll sell a few thousand copies. This is never going to be in an airport bookstore. It's never going to be in any bookstores. I mean, it's sort of like the underground radio I used to play in New Orleans when I worked for the radio station. I love these groups, but they never would've been played on.

Michael Jamin:

But that's why I say you are an artist because you are doing this for the, with the purest of intentions, which is not cashing out like this is your expression.

Mike Sacks:

No, it isn't. But I have found one, it goes back to my O C D where if I don't do this sort of thing, I'm a mess. I'm a depressive mess, an anxious mess. The other thing that I've noticed is that by putting out these type of books and by genuinely not giving a shit, if anyone likes it, people do the right. People do tend to like it. And right with my upcoming book, I have a ton of actors and comedians who have liked the past books, John Ham and Paul Rubins and Amy Sedaris, who want to be involved in the next project. Again, I don't think it's going to certainly make them any money, and it's not going to make me any money, but it's just what I like. I genuinely like this. I, I'd rather watch an Albert Brooks standup bit from the 1970s than any of the most popular sitcoms or reality shows on now. That's just my what I like, my personal, and this is my personal, when it comes to books, very specific. It's not going to appeal to many people, but I have found that by putting out what you want, how you want, it means more to people, the right people, the people you respect, the people whose sensibility you got into the business to try to impress it has impressed those people.

Michael Jamin:

Tell me though, this takes me to, when you submit to let's say McSweeney's or any of these places, then are you writing with them in mind to this is what they want to buy, or are you just like, I wrote something and maybe they'll like it, maybe they'll like it.

Mike Sacks:

Well, you really do have to take in mind who you're sending it to. And I know this, having been friends with MCs, Sweeney's editors, they receive a ton of material that is not right for them. So don't waste their time by sending them something that is not going to be appropriate for the site. You really do. And that goes for anything that goes for Vanity Fair and New Yorker or anything. You have to know what they're looking for. And you can't be obnoxious about it. You can't say, this is a great piece, I want you to publish it, even though it's not right for the site. This is their site. I mean, this is right. That's up to them. And they have every right in the world to say, this is right

Michael Jamin:

For us. But are you personally writing for them or have, or are you just writing and then you go, maybe they'll like it.

Mike Sacks:

Well, if I have an idea, I'll go through my mind. Would this be better for McSweeney's or New Yorker? And then you write, do have to play to the interest of the editors. You do have to play to what they're looking for style wise. If you're writing, none of these pieces would be submitted to the shouts and murmurs to New York. I just know that it wouldn't be accepted and they'd have every right not to accept it. But if there is an idea that does coincide with style and format to a specific magazine, I'll start thinking in terms of that and I'll start writing in terms of that. You do have to make it easy for the editors not going to want to rewrite, to take the time to rewrite what you're sending them. They want something coming in appropriate for the site or magazine and as clean as can be. And if you're difficult in any way, even if you're a genius, they're not going to want to work with you again.

Michael Jamin:

And they do give you notes, they give you feedback, and you got to take that because that's what they want.

Mike Sacks:

Well, what I found is typically the notes just consist of editing out, which is fine, rather than putting in, which was my problem with magazine writing was they would put in their own jokes. I'd rather just them I, I'd rather overwrite and have them take out.

Michael Jamin:

Now, aside from being really an honor, let's say, to be in the New Yorker, how does it help you as your career?

Mike Sacks:

I don't know if it does. I mean, I, embarrassingly enough, I never read the New Yorker until I was 25. Maybe I didn't know from it. And then once I did, I fell in love with it. I mean, I remember the first piece that I read in a public library in Maryland that just was blown away. It certainly doesn't hurt, but I don't think that, especially now with the daily shouts of murmurs, I don't think that will get you an agent automatically. I do think good things can come from it. Agents may reach out and if you have enough pieces you could put out in a book. But I don't know if it's a magic key to any kingdom. It perhaps used to be.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Oh, you think, why do you think it's changed then?

Mike Sacks:

I just think there's more opportunity out there for writers that can put out, there's a million places you can put up your own website and potentially be as read as by as many people as readers as the New Yorker has. I mean, this is all new. When I was first starting out, this was pre around the beginning of the internet, very few options. So there was Crack Magazine, there was Playboy, there was New Yorker, mad Magazine, maybe the end of National Lampoon. So six, five or six choices. Now there are thousands of choices. And if it's good, it doesn't really matter necessarily where it is, as long as it sort of stands out from everybody else.

Michael Jamin:

See, the thing is the game, the game has changed so much even in the last, let's say even 10 years, about how to make it as a writer. But I think, or screenwriter, and I think so many people are still hung up on playing the game the way it used to be played for some reason. I can't figure out why.

Mike Sacks:

I think so too. And that is something I try to tell young writers is that you don't necessarily have to play. If the game is working for you and you're getting in the New Yorker and you're getting an agent, fantastic. I mean, that's the way to do it. If you're not, you have to come in the back door. And that there even is a backdoor, I think is a tremendous opportunity. Right. Because I mean TV writing, how many voices would we not have heard writing for TV 30 years ago? I mean, a lot. Yeah. The avenues are much bigger now to hear a, which is better for comedy, a lot more voices, different styles of voices, there are fewer gatekeepers than there used to be.

Michael Jamin:

Now you never did, go ahead, I'm sorry.

Mike Sacks:

No, and to spend years of your life trying to do it the way that someone in the 1980s did, I don't think is conducive to any sort of success.

Michael Jamin:

Do you think it's do So what is it? Do you think it's just ego driven? Is that I want that pat in the back of having it in a New Yorker. I want the pat or the pat in the back of traditional publishing or whatever.

Mike Sacks:

Maybe. I mean it, it's, I think it goes for anything, but I think it's sort of basing your wants on a philosophy that doesn't have to exist anymore. It's like a restaurant trying to appeal to OTs. I mean, do they have to do that anymore? Do you have to appeal to only the New Yorker editor? Can you not put out what you want, how you want on your own? And that's another thing. You don't have to write for New Yorker. If you want to get into comedy. You can put out videos, you can put out standup, you can put out a one person show, you can put out a fake document. I mean, there's a million things you have to do. So to tailor your creativity into a mold that you don't want to fit in, I don't think is worth spending your time because there is no end of the rainbow necessarily. Even if you do get into New Yorker, I don't think your life is going to change to the point where it might have been worth it spending four or five years trying to do so while not using that time to put out your own thing however you want.

Michael Jamin:

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.

So it's not like you are constantly trying to come up with ideas and submit to the New Yorker. It's just like if they have something, you'll give it to them.

Mike Sacks:

Well, I did. I spent years doing that even before that, McSweeney's, and I love them both. I read 'em every day. I think the editors are amazing. I just don't, the ideas that I wanted to put across whether there was a fake novelization, whether it was a found fake memoir, whether it was a parody of a college catalog, whatever it was, didn't fit into that realm anymore. And I could've spent three years trying to get these books in there, and they probably wouldn't have. And even if they had, how would that have helped me? I think you really need, as a young writer, to sort of discern what you want to do and how you want to get it across, and what's the best way to do that? What's the best Trojan horse to get your idea into that castle? What's the best way? And if it doesn't consist of trying to get into New Yorker with a 1000 word short humor piece for shots and murmurs, don't feel that your writing is any lesser for not having for fitting into that category. You, there's a million ways now that you can get out your creativity and you don't have to go through traditional gates.

Michael Jamin:

The thing that I wanted to mention earlier is you were, because you said this is like, it's really about you can wait. You can spend years writing something or submitting something and waiting for the yes or waiting for someone's permission to take. And that waiting is fucking terrible. And if you put it out yourself, if you put your energy into something, more comes from it. You know what I'm saying? The more energy you put, the more creating you do, the more things that will happen if you just stop waiting around some sitting around begging.

Mike Sacks:

Totally. I mean, if you're going to wait for permission to achieve success, you're going to be waiting a long time. And really, this philosophy did not come for me, to me from writing. It came from music. I grew up in DC and I grew up around Discord records, which put out minor threat and Fugazi, and I always mention them because when I was growing up in the late eighties, nineties, they were doing, this is pre-internet, and they're putting out music on their own terms. And to me, out of DC, it was a miracle. I had never heard of such a thing. And they put out what they wanted, how they wanted. And to this day, Ian mackay, who ran Discord Records, owns all the rights. He only put out what he wanted, and he is living the good life. That to me, was really what influenced me more than anything.

And after years of trying to break in, even when I did sort of break in, I found that it really wasn't worth it. And you found it wasn't worth it there. Well, no, it's not like you're tenured as a professor. Even if you get into New York, it doesn't mean you'll get in again. And even if you're in New York, it doesn't mean you'll get an agent. And even if you get an agent, doesn't mean that you're going to be able to publish your dream project. So I think really in the end, and we have this opportunity now to do so, you have to be in charge, good or bad. You have to put it out and just keep on moving. Don't stagnate. And I stagnated for a long time. You cannot. I did, because I would think of ideas and I would submitted and I would be accepted. Or I go to certain agents who handled my favorite writers and they didn't like it, and it would bother me. You

Michael Jamin:

Feel like a failure.

Mike Sacks:

You feel like a failure. But even worse, you waste time. And what you find is as you get older is time really is the most important precious thing. Because there is limited time once you learn your craft to be able to put it out. And if someone is gumming up the system by saying, for whatever reason, I don't want to take on this project, I don't think it's worthy. Well, who gives a shit? You don't need them anymore. You don't fucking need them anymore. Put it out yourself like you would a garage band record and then keep moving. But whatever you do, do not stagnate. Because before you know it, 10 years have passed and you have produced nothing. And I'll tell you, there's nothing more depressing soul crushing than that. No one got into writing to be prevented for 10 years from doing something that's hell. And that out of everything is what you need to avoid, is you need to keep moving down the path.

Michael Jamin:

But the little X factor I think people forget about is the marketing aspect. People think, well, I can write it, but how do I get people to see it? How do you know, read it or whatever.

Mike Sacks:

I'll tell you, it's not as hard as you might think. The fact that word gets out there, especially in small communities, small communities go on small communities. So this small community I'm talking about is comedy. People who read written word comedy, people who love written word comedy. We're not talking about hundreds of thousands of people here. We're talking about a somewhat small community.

Michael Jamin:

So if you can, and where do you find this community?

Mike Sacks:

You find them online, you find them on podcasts, you find them on Instagram, you find, say, pat Oswald, who loves reading comedy, maybe he'll like this book. You send it to him. If it's a smaller project and you send it to someone who is famous, I don't think they're going to be upset about it. If you set, this is part of the marketing, Hey Pat, and I'm a big fan of your work. I put this out myself. If you liked it and only if you liked it, would you mind mentioning something online? And most people who are in comedy, remember what it was like to start off. Know what it's like to get a praise from someone who has followers and whose work means a lot to others. That's really how you spread the word. If you're, I took any of these books and sent them to a New York Times reviewer, they wouldn't know what the fuck was going on.

And quite frankly, I don't know if the review readers would know what the fuck was going on. So you also do have to know your audience. It's like the alternative music I listened to in the late eighties, early nineties when I was at Tulane in New Orleans, working for the radio station. You know, appeal to those who like this music and it's new, so it's not going to appeal to everyone. And then hopefully a few years later, it will appeal to everyone. It does take some time. But until that point, you have to send your records to the college DJs. You have to send your records to people working in record stores. You have to pinpoint out who you're sending to, the people who are going to spread the word, the people who are coming up now and who comedy and who are going to be able to talk about it with their friends.

Michael Jamin:

And why not, though? I'm asking you personally, why not? Again, I think I know the answer. Why not write something more mainstream that you think will sell or whatever people

Mike Sacks:

Will love. I just don't have any interest in that. I mean, it's like, why do I not listen to Taylor Swift? I respect her. I think she's amazing, I guess in theory, but I would rather listen to Portland, the man or whatever the music is. And I don't think that I appeal. You just sort of reach a point in your career where you have to say to yourself, I don't appeal to the mass amount of people. I mean, I show these books to my relatives. They don't know what the hell's going on. Which is fine. It's not for them. It's not for everyone. So I mean, I think really you have to put your head down and not even worry about that. But if it does come to you, sell the maximum amount that the public is interested in. Well, that's just the way it is. I mean, no one writes to, I don't think, to be popular. And you can sort of tell, I think like a, Paul McCartney and Elton John were just lucky enough to put out the records they wanted. And it appeals to everyone. But most people aren't that lucky. And I am one of those. I don't think that even if I wrote something to the top of my ability that I was completely happy with, it would ever appeal to more than maybe 5% of the readers.

Michael Jamin:

Well, here's a good segue. Read to this other book that you wrote, poking a Dead Frog, and this is available for everywhere. And these are conversations that you had you conducted with top comedy writers. And I think for this is particularly the place for, because I have a big audience who are into this, they should go check it out. There's a lot of really interesting conversations. Well, some were actors, bill Hader, but you also have, I'm just going through the list here. Yeah, James Downey, a lot of seven, eight live writers. James L. Brooks, you a got a lot of people. My buddy Mark Marin. You had a lot of people, a lot of really great people that you found. How did this come about?

Mike Sacks:

Well, that was through Selfish Reasons. That's the second book that I put out of interviews. The first book came out about five years earlier. That's called. And Here's the Kicker. And this is another case of wanting to do something and being prevented from doing so. That book, that first book, and here's the Kicker, where I interviewed comedy writers, was rejected 20 times really by publishers. The only reason why it was finally accepted was that I was friendly with an editor who used to work at McSweeney's named John Warner, who was working for a smaller publisher in the Midwest called Writer's Digest. It was only because of that book came out. That book came out when there was no podcast. Very little was out there about writing about comedy. I put it out only for the express selfish purpose of being able to talk to the people whose work meant a lot to me. I wanted to talk to them and pick their brains about how they got to where they got, what worked for them and what didn't work for them. Another thing was a lot of them were dying off. This was the first generation of comedy writers. Quite a few people I interviewed for that book were in their seventies and eighties and nineties, and they passed away shortly after that book came. How did

Michael Jamin:

You get contact with them?

Mike Sacks:

Well, what I found funny enough was the easiest people to contact were the older writers who were all on a o l at that time. They would get right back to you. They would not their assistant. Usually the font would be like 46 point. It'd be huge font. But they always got back to me whether they wanted to do it or not. The ones who didn't get back to me were the younger writers who either had their assistance say no or just never. I never, and to this day, I haven't received an answer from a lot of young writers, but the older writers always got back to me and usually said yes. In one case, I wanted to interview a comedy writer who worked in the early days of radio comedy writing. So at that point in 2007, 2008, there weren't many around. I reached out to someone who ran a newsletter on radio comedy shows, and he sent me a list of writers who still might be around out of that list. One was still alive, and I just happened to call the Town Council where she lived. I said, do you know a Margaret Lynch, a Peg Lynch? She wrote for radio. She goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, peg Lynch, we know her well. I said, she's still alive. She goes, yeah, there, she's still alive. She's 95 and she's doing well. So I called her out of the blue, and I think it was a case of her thinking, why has no one called me before?

Michael Jamin:

And

Mike Sacks:

Talking to her was really something. I mean, I did, I wasn't familiar with her, but after doing research, after we hung up and I said, can I call you back? She basically invented the modern sitcom. She had a radio, then a TV show called Ethel m Albert, and she wrote, I think 30,000 scripts for radio and for movies. Jesus, Jesus. Some of them lasting 10 minutes or so. But it was all based on real life. It really was Seinfeld before Seinfeld. And the stories that she came up with, for instance, one was she grew up in Minneapolis outside the Mayo Clinic. Her mom was a nurse there at 14 years old. Peg Lynch took it upon herself to interview celebrities, PA passing through the Mayo Clinic for her little radio show that she had in town. The first person she asked to interview was Lou Gehrig when he was at the Mayo Clinic being diagnosed with a L Ss.

And right Lou Gehrig said yes to that. Wow. Which I just found incredible. She also interviewed Newt Rockney when he was passing through the Mayo Clinic. So just to be able to talk to these people from another World Bridge to another time, that was really my selfish reason. I didn't think the book would sell. I didn't think it would really do well. I just wanted a product that I could have as an excuse to be able to talk to all these great writers. Some of whom, and most of whom maybe readers that weren't even familiar with. This was just my going after readers, writers that I liked and writers that I sort of stumbled upon,

Michael Jamin:

But poking at Dead Frog. And again, comedy students should pick this up because it is helpful to hear you talk about people's processes, how they broke it, not just how they broke in, but also writing how they approach the material. And it's just very interesting. But this must have been an easier sell. No,

Mike Sacks:

Yeah, that was easier because the first book did well. So by the time and that came around, I did get an agent and he did sell, and I did get it in advance, so that was much easier. But it also started coming around that people were talking about comedy, more analyzing comedy, having websites devoted to comedy. But when the first one came around, there really was not much out there. It

Michael Jamin:

Was. And how were you conducting these interviews? Just over the phone. Yeah.

Mike Sacks:

Typically I prefer over the phone,

Michael Jamin:

But some of them looked like they just weren't interviews. Some of these pieces looked like they were just submission. Like you tell, Hey, write something for my, tell your process. They've submitted you something. Is that right? I like Mark Marin specifically. Specifically. It

Mike Sacks:

Seemed like he, yeah, well, mark Marin, that that's a case where I actually didn't even reach out to Mark. It was someone who was doing interviews for me. He reached out to Mark, but in other cases it was like, Hey, show me what it's like to submit a packet for a late night show. Can you just show me your packet? And they, yeah, that interesting. Send me your packet. But in most cases, it was me talking to them either on the phone or in some cases in person, after many, many, many hours of research. And that was part of the problem. I didn't know how good they would be to talk to until after I did all this research. So in a lot of instances, I interviewed a lot research though. Well, I mean, for each of these interview subjects, I would do 20 to 30 hours of research, reading everything they wrote, reading every interview they've done. And you really don't know what they're going to be like until you talk to 'em. So in a lot of cases, a lot of people did not make the book because either through my fault or the way they were feeling that day or whatever, it just wasn't jiving. So even after having done all that research, I would have to trash the interviews. So what you see in that book is really maybe 60% of the interviews that I conducted entirely for

Michael Jamin:

That book. Oh my God. Because it's not a thin book. There's a lot.

Mike Sacks:

That was a long year, man, putting that thing together. I mean, like

Michael Jamin:

A year, huh? Since

Mike Sacks:

Year.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Wow. I mean, so yeah, it's just interesting that you, like even Mike Scher in here, I mean, yeah, Mel Brooks, Amy Poer, a lot of really interesting people being talked about their craft. I thought it was very interesting. Now, let's talk real fast about this one. Woodmont, this is your phony college brochure, and it's pretty funny. What is the audience for this? It seems like this would be great to leave in a dorm room somewhere, but what fucking

Mike Sacks:

I, well, what I was thinking was that, that I wanted it to be confused with a real, real college catalog. I thought that it was sort of ripe to be made fun of, because those catalogs are pretty ridiculous. Unfortunately. The first publisher we took it to, I have nothing bad to say about them, but they wanted to put it out in digital form only, which I did. And it looked good. But I wanted something tangible that you could sort of send to people. And I then took it to,

Michael Jamin:

Go ahead. Go ahead,

Mike Sacks:

Please. I took it to another publisher who was willing to put it out in hard copy form.

Michael Jamin:

And where does it get sold then?

Mike Sacks:

It's online. You can find it anywhere. It's on Amazon. It's,

Michael Jamin:

I mean, it's pretty funny. Welcome to Woodmont. And I guess their motto is No refunds,

Mike Sacks:

Right? It's all money based. I mean, I think it costs 150,000 per semester to go there. It's just the shittiest boutique college you can ever imagine. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. It's pretty funny read. Yeah. But that's what I say when this is just something that you wanted to do and you say you did it. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Sacks:

And a lot of people might think, why? And I don't have any answer for that. There's no good answer. I don't know. I mean, it did. Okay. People seem to it. Did it change my life? No, but it just seemed like I had to do it.

Michael Jamin:

I'll tell you why about, I'll tell you why I've been, because I perform, I've been doing some performances, my little one man show, and every night before I go out, you know, can hear the audience. And I'm backstage and I'm starting to get nervous. And I always ask myself this question, why am I doing this? And then I only answer I'm able to come up with is because I can.

Mike Sacks:

But it's more than can. I mean, you can go to Mount Aetna and try to climb it, but you're not, so what is it about doing that? Is that you need to want to share it.

Michael Jamin:

Something.

Mike Sacks:

Yeah. Some itch that needs to be scratched. Right? Very specific itched. You could be home relaxing with your wife and family, but you're out at this club at 11 o'clock at night. Why are so, I mean, the question is really, why are you doing it. What is it about doing that that you need to do that you would prefer doing over, not just doing nothing

Michael Jamin:

Relaxing? Right. And that takes me to my last thing, my last question for you had one of the great honor, I would suppose of your career is that you've gotten to open for David Saris, and I want to talk to you a little about that mean. Yeah. Which pieces are you reading or did you read?

Mike Sacks:

I would usually write these pieces special for these shows. I mean, I have been doing this for a little while now, and I, I've found that the pieces I would write for McSweeney's in New Yorker wouldn't necessarily connect with a live audience. But what David does, he's such a genius, is that he'll write these pieces that appeal to not only a live audience, but also to an audience at home reading internally. I don't know if any other writer who does this, and by the time he turns into piece to New Yorker, he'll know what jokes work and what jokes. I mean, it reminds me of what the Marcus Brothers used to do. They used to travel around performing these movie scripts live to see what jokes worked and what didn't. So he's really unique in that sense. But when I would read these pieces, the reaction would not be that good.

So I sort of had to tailor these pieces to a live audience. And it's a lot of work. I mean, these pieces are really meant to be read once, twice, three times, and then they're never heard from again. But it is an absolute thrill to do this because I have been out on tour where I have read to literally no one. I mean, no one has shown up, and I refuse to go out on a book tours now because of that. I don't think one sells many books. So it's like being in a bar band where never, no one shows up to opening for the Rolling Stones. I mean, it's just huge. And the fact that he allows me to do that, I mean, there's no one of his caliber who is as giving to other writers and readers as he's just spectacular.

Michael Jamin:

And how did you meet him then?

Mike Sacks:

Well, I met him interviewing him for the book, my book, and we just became friends. I think we talked for four or five hours the first time, and we just connected. And he's just a very giving person. I mean, no, what he'll do, this is what he does. And I don't, no other au author would do this. No one. When I read for him, he'll sometimes say, listen, if you want my autograph, you want me to sign your book? And these lines are hours long. You can wait in line. But if you buy Mike's books, you can go straight to the front.

Michael Jamin:

Isn't that nice?

Mike Sacks:

Isn't that ama? I mean, who else would do that? So people just out of wanting to get that, getting through the line more quickly. They'll buy my books and they'll sell out and they'll talk to me for a second and then talk to Dave. But no one else is as giving no other writer. How many

Michael Jamin:

Books did you bring that they sold out? I would be like, shit, why don't I bring more?

Mike Sacks:

Oh, I don't know. I mean, bookstores provide them, I'm guessing 50 maybe. Okay. And the 50 of each book. Oh,

Michael Jamin:

Okay. A lot.

Mike Sacks:

There's a few books. There's a few books there.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Are you going out with him again soon?

Mike Sacks:

Yeah. And in fact, he just asked if I wanted to do some shows up in Maine, and I'm going to beat, my wife is from Maine, but we're not going to be there up there then. But he did very kindly ask me to be open for him in Baltimore, which is what I've done in the past. I am from Maryland, south of Baltimore, near the Virginia line. Oh, that'd be great. I love Baltimore. And yeah, I, last time I invited John Waters. Wow. Someone on whose work I absolutely love and have been in touch with. And he showed up to the reading and got to see me read. I actually read something from the Woodmont College catalog and through in the John Waters reference, just to appease

Michael Jamin:

Him. Oh, that's funny. Wow. This is Mike. I want to thank you so much. This has been a very illuminating talk for me to hear from your side of the world. Tell me, me, plug your books again all and tell me how people can follow you and find you and your podcast. Tell me, plug away.

Mike Sacks:

Yeah, I am on everything. Instagram, Twitter, blue sky everyth, the new piss stream or whatever it is for Instagram. I forget what threads. It's

Michael Jamin:

Threads. I couldn't even get on Blue Sky. I don't know. Good for you.

Mike Sacks:

Yeah, someone asked me if I wanted to get, I had no idea what it was, but I'll say yes to anything. And I have my own site, mikes sex.com. And then I'm also a Wikipedia page as well. And honestly, I know what it was like to start off and not to know anyone. If anyone wants to reach out to me, I'm at [email protected]. I'll answer any questions. It is not as hard as you might think to publish a book. And I always encourage people to do so because I love to see people skirting the system to get what they want made. I think that's very important. Don't ever think that there's someone between you and success, especially when it comes to comedy. Yeah. Anyone can do it. And if you have any questions, feel

Michael Jamin:

Free, reach out. Wow, that's very kind and generous of you. That's very nice of you. Mike, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, man. Thank you. Again, don't go anywhere I want to sign out. Alright, everyone, thank you so much for listening. Lots of great resources on my website, Michaeljamin.com. Sign up, we've got free webinars coming up and my newsletter. Alright, until next week, 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 @michaeljamn.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.

On this week's episode, television veteran Michael Burger (Family Feud, Price is Right, Mike and Maty, and many many more) talks about his showbiz career. He looks back on memories from working on cruise ships as well as being able to work with some of his idols.

Michael Burger's IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0121221/

Michael Burger's Website: https://www.michaelburger.com/

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Michael Jamin:

So when you shoot a multi-camera sitcom the audience, they bring in an audience and it could take, I dunno, it could easily take five hours to shoot a half hour of television.

Michael Burger:

22 minutes. Five and a half. Yeah. Five hours to shoot. 22.

Michael Jamin:

And so what's the audience doing while they're resetting the scenes or the actors are changing?

Michael Burger:

Well, I've got a lot of stories. Some. I had a guy die once. What? And I just thought he was taking a nap. Yeah. I kept looking up going, God, I don't, A comic wants everybody engaged. Right? And he's just, and at the end, he's not leaving every, the bus is gone and they card him out and he died on the way to the hospital. I guess they revived him, then he died.

Michael Jamin:

You're listening to Screenwriters. Need to hear this with Michael. Hey everyone, welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I'm Michael. I got a cool guest today. So as many of you know, my very first comedy writing job in Hollywood, I was a joke writer on a morning TV show on a b C called the Mike and Maddie Show. And my next guest is Michael Berger, the host of Mike and Mad Mike, thank you so much for joining me here. A are

Michael Burger:

You nice to see and reconnect with you again? It's been a few

Michael Jamin:

And you are this, I know you're not quite a screenwriter, but I think have a lot to, I don't know, just a lot to add to the conversation because you're a professional talk show host and you posted so much. I'm going to blow through some of your credits real fast just so people, but don't

Michael Burger:

Blow through 'em. I want you to land on 'em and marinate on 'em for a while.

Michael Jamin:

Let's linger on them unnecessarily for a long time. So obviously Mike and Maddie, but the Home and Family Feud, the live version as well as the Price is right, the live version, thousand Dollars Pyramid Match Game, iron Chef Personals, the Late Night Dating Show Straight to the Heart, not to mention your long history as a standup comedian on cruise ships, and then later doing warmup. I want for audiences for sitcom audiences, which I know you've, we've been on any of the same shows, which is, that's a whole nother level of comedy. I want to talk about that. But first I want to talk about where you began. It was, how did you become a comedian for cruise ships?

Michael Burger:

Well, a lot of these entries into showbiz come in through the side door. And this was certainly the case. I was a big fan of Steve Martin and back in the late seventies, there was a contest where they were looking for a Steve Martin lookalike and the payoff, the winner got a spot on the Tonight Show with Carson. So I figured this is my entry in, so I figured that I win this contest and I get my own show. Well,

Michael Jamin:

And you did

Michael Burger:

Well. You had to submit a cassette tape, audio cassette tape of you doing Steve Martin. No video cameras just a cassette. And they wanted that in theory, in front of a live audience while I had, I hadn't done any standup. There's no live audience, but my audience in the day was my classroom. So I went back to my high school and said, can I borrow the classroom and just do Steve Martin's material and I'll take my best cut from that. So I went to five teachers. I did five minute sets, and I submitted that tape with the best of the five to the radio station who said, yeah, great. Come on up to the tower records parking lot on Sunset, where there's 25 of us dressed like Steve Martin doing. You're a wild and crazy guy. I win that and go to San Francisco and I meet the western Halfie of the United States at the boarding house, and I win that. And the finals are at the Comedy store with the entire country represented. I'm one of six. Steve Martin is there, Carl Reiner is there. And the winner, the payoff is the Tonight Show spot. And I do, my thing and my twist on it was I came out white suit arrow through the head, no pants with boxers that said a B, C news brief.

So I figured I'd add my joke and the guy I was up against that I thought was my competition, played banjo so well and looked like Steve. I thought, there's no way. Right. He does his bit, I do my bit. It's a tie between me and this guy from Nashville that looked like Steve. Steve Martin comes on stage and he's holding our wrists like a ref in a boxing match. And he holds up the other guy's hand. Okay, that guy wins. I lose, three months later I'm watching The Tonight Show and Johnny goes, oh, we have a guest tonight. And Steve Martin comes out and he's out for about 30 seconds and you realize it's not Steve. The real Steve comes out bound and gagged yelling, this guy's an imposter. That guy goes away. We never hear from him again. And that was my first taste at showbiz.

Michael Jamin:

And you were like, what? 20 something?

Michael Burger:

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I was 27, 28. But what would you, somebody saw that and said, Hey, can you do that on a cruise ship? Can you do standup on a ship?

Michael Jamin:

But wait, what would've you done if you had won this? Because then you would've been on the Tonight Show, but you didn't have an act.

Michael Burger:

Well, I would do kind of what that kid did. The whole bit was to pay Steve Martin's movie off The Jerk that was coming out. And it was just a sight gag, but I certainly would've come up with something. And then, so what I wound up doing initially after that, and this is in the height of all the singing comedy telegrams, remember back in the day, dancing bears and roller skates? Yeah. So I did a Steve Martin lookalike Soundalike Comedy Telegram where Michael would hire me to make fun of somebody, and I would get all the information and I would go wherever they are, a bank, an office. I actually stopped a wedding once as Steve Martin air through the head white suit, hold on, I don't think this is right. And do a little Steve Martin thing. And there was a guy in the audience at a restaurant who came over after I just did this Rickles kind of riff. And he goes, that's very funny. Can you do ships? And I said, sure. And that's how I got on a cruise ship. And then I'd come on as Steve, and then I'd do my whole act after that, which I developed over time.

Michael Jamin:

But your act was basically kind of making fun of Steve, or was it all playing

Michael Burger:

Well, no, you quickly. No, I had some comedy ideas, but what I realized as soon as I got on the ship, 70% of the material comes from being on the ship. Right. I dunno if you've ever worked ships, but No. Oh, there's so much material. It's such a ripe group. And then

Michael Jamin:

It's so interesting, you never even did the comedy clubs. You really came up your own way.

Michael Burger:

I really did. I did a few because of that little bit of notoriety, but the cruise ships were a better paying gig. You got to see the world and you really felt like you were in the business. You had a band behind you generally. There was an opening act. The only downside was if you didn't do well, you'd have to see these people for the next three days, four days, seven days.

Michael Jamin:

But how

Michael Burger:

Many I loved it.

Michael Jamin:

How many shows would you do on a, so you were like, let's say it was a seven day tour. How many shows would you do?

Michael Burger:

Two.

Michael Jamin:

That's it really?

Michael Burger:

Yeah. Yeah. I would do the three and four day cruises down to Ensenada and back. And so I would do welcome aboard show, I would be the headliner. I'd come out and do my hour, and then they said, you can do anything you want on Sunday night. So I'd go in the back lounge and then just try stuff. And that's really where you kind of learned what's funny, what's not. So I got to do, my God, for anybody listening that remembers the Catskills in those old days where you just work well clubs today, you go out and work material, I could go in that back room and I would go on at midnight and the buffet would start at midnight. And my goal as a performer was if I could keep people from getting up and leaving my show to go eat again, then I realized I had some pretty good material. So I would do an hour and a half, two hours in the back room.

Michael Jamin:

But

Michael Burger:

The moment that really, maybe this is where you're headed, that launched my career was in the middle of the cruise. They had a passenger talent show. And on one of these cruises, the cruise director came up to me and said, Hey, can you fill in and host the Passenger Talent Show? I have other things to do. And he meant that as a verb. I mean, this guy was, he was all over the ship just right,

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Going

Michael Burger:

After whatever moved, you know what I mean? And I said, well, what do I do? And he goes, well, these people sign up throughout the week and then we turn 'em loose at midnight and they do whatever they do. Think America's Got Talent. And I said, well, what would you like me? Wait, introduce 'em, put a little show together, go at 11 o'clock at night, get with the piano player and you figure out maybe an order. I said, well, okay. It sounds like fun. So I did that. And I'm telling you, Michael, I had more fun doing that than any standup really. I had a chance to talk to somebody, where are you from? What do you do? And then you turn 'em loose. But because, and it's not unlike warmup where someone else is the star where someone else has the focus. You just set 'em up and turn 'em loose. Yeah. I had an 85 year old woman, get up and tap dance to the Lord's Prayer. You don't need to top that.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. How do you, right.

Michael Burger:

I mean, I had everything. Right. So I started doing this and about at the same time, I was doing warmup for a game show. We're going to go way back now, a dance show called Dance Fever.

Michael Jamin:

Yes. Which

Michael Burger:

Is again, these dancing shows, but way back, right.

Michael Jamin:

It was solid Gold and Dance Fever, those two shows. That's

Michael Burger:

It. And they had three celebrity judges and they would judge the dancers. And the Cue card woman comes up to me on a commercial break and she goes, N B C is going to do a morning game show. And they want somebody new, somebody unknown, someone that no one's heard of. I said, that's me. I, I'm in the middle of the ocean. No one knows me. She goes, do you have a tape? I said, nah, I got a tape. Sure. I got a tape, I got no tape. So the very next cruise I go back on, I put 2,500 bucks on my credit card and I go buy that two piece video system where you had to buy the base unit, the head unit. And I brought that on the ship. I put it on a tripod, I put it back by the soundboard, and I pushed record and I videotaped every one of these passenger talent shows that I hosted and then cut everybody out.

And it just kept my moment. My first demo tape was six minutes of me doing that. Right. So this woman at Dance Fever says, get me that tape. I'll get it to N B C. The two people in charge were Jake Talbert and Brian Franz. They were the presidents of daytime television, N B C. So she sends in the tape and I get a call, my agent and I come in, I have an agent at this point, and they go, do you know why you're here? And I said, yeah, Mary Steck was nice enough. I said, no, it's the guy at the end. I said, what do you mean the old guy? Yeah. What about him? Well, there's this charming old man that I'm introducing and playing with, and he grabs the mic out of my hand and goes, you must be saying something very funny, but I don't get it. Well, it's a huge laugh. And the N B C exec said the fact that that guy got the laugh and you let him have his moment and you didn't come back over with one more ad lib of your own tells me you got a sense of how to host. It's about making someone else shine. He said, we can teach you how to host a game show, but we can't teach you as the instinct to make someone else look better. Were you

Michael Jamin:

Aware of that though? I mean, we,

Michael Burger:

Not really. Yeah. I mean, I got better at it and I realized the sneaky joy of this is that if you get a laugh and get out of the way, put the onus back on them when you do a talk show. But when they

Michael Jamin:

Said this to you, you're like, oh my God, I, I've been doing this all along and I didn't realize this. Or were you consciously doing that?

Michael Burger:

I think there was sort of a Midwest polite mentality, kind of how I was raised, don't interrupt, all that kind of stuff. It kind of goes part and parcel just being, I don't know, polite iss the perfect word. My dad was from Missouri, my mom was from Minnesota. We kind of raised in a polite family. I just thought that was the right thing. But I also realized that boy, you could use this to your advantage, 'em shine. And that I work at it to this day trying to be a better listener and try to be better at picking my moments. That's how it started. That's literally how my career started out at sea. And

Michael Jamin:

Then so then what happened with that audition then?

Michael Burger:

So I got the pilot. I got the pilot for N B C Morning Talk show. My very first time on a lot is at N B C. And I'm parked six spots down from Johnny Carson. It's got a white Corvette. His license plate said 360 Guy thought that was a clever license plate all around Guy. Yeah. I'm six spots down from Carson. I just got off the boat. I am so far from showbiz. I'm walking on the set. We shoot the pilot at the same time. They're just about finished with a Tonight Show. We shot across the hall, very little security back in the eighties. I open the door and I walk in and I sit next to Gregory Peck. Colonel Michael going shelf is so easy. Yeah. He goes on, he comes out, I say, hi, Carson walks by, gives me one of these. Everybody walks out and we all go home. Kicker. The story is Pilot did not get picked up, but the production company, reg Grundy, who did all of those shows back in the day, sail of the Century and Scrabble, liked what I did and put me on retainer for a year to develop something else.

Michael Jamin:

But did they, and I never even asked you about Mike and Maddie did like Yeah. Did they coach you at all before you start doing this? Did they rehearse you or is it like, well, this is who we hired, let him do his thing?

Michael Burger:

It's a good question. In the game show world, when we were getting ready to do a game show, they would remind me that the first half of the game is fun and q and a and get some joy out of these contestants and root for 'em. And then when it shifts to the bonus round, there really needs to be a shift in tone. This money is serious money and this can change someone's life and this is not the place to go for a joke. Let's kind of shift the focus and really be there for 'em and root for 'em and console them if they lose and be happy for 'em when they win. So there was a little bit of that. Some of it, it's, most of it's just learning where your beats are, getting in and getting out.

Michael Jamin:

What about Mike in the game show world or home family, same kind of thing?

Michael Burger:

Well, Mike and Maddie was a whole nother league that was morning network everywhere in the country. And I was working with someone, which I had never done. So I came in for the audition and did well. And the woman I had auditioned with, they had a deal to put in place to put her on the air. And as I was driving home, my agent called and said, I don't know what happened in there, but they now want to do the show with you. And they're letting her go. Said, oh, well don't give her my address.

Michael Jamin:

And

Michael Burger:

He said, we now have to find a woman to pair up with you for this morning talk show. And I thought, well, how do we do that? I said, well, Disney will set it all up. This is a dizzy production. And I auditioned and I audition's not even the right word. I sat down with 85 women and just said, how you doing? How you doing? And we just tried to see if there was any chemistry. It's like dating somebody. Is there there a connection? Maddie?

Michael Jamin:

This I had? No, I, I'm sorry, I have to interrupt. But this I had no idea about because

Michael Burger:

Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

It seems like they sell a show to A, B, C, they go, it's going to be

Michael Burger:

Morning show. We know, actually, let me back up. This show is going to be in syndication for Disney, which they could syndicate across the country and do anything. ABC's not involved at this

Michael Jamin:

Moment.

Michael Burger:

So they had a development deal with this woman. They passed on, they put me in the spot. Now they got to pair me up. They pair me up, Maddie and I had instant chemistry. And about an hour after her audition, they say, we love you both. Let's do it. So we shot a pilot right at K H J on Melrose, a $40,000 pilot, right? I mean, that's about as cheap as you can get. And they took that pilot out and tested it and it tested as high as Oprah tested back in the day, right? A, B, C got wind of this and said, forget syndication, we'll put you on the air now. And three months later, Maddy and I hit the ground running, not knowing each other really. And what began a two year, 535 episode run with someone I got to know every day. We shot literally every, well, five days a week, Monday through Friday.

Michael Jamin:

So that's interesting.

Michael Burger:

We got to know each other. Got to learn the whole thing.

Michael Jamin:

I didn't know that was the origin of, because they're basically saying, okay, we're selling a morning TV show. We don't know who's in it yet, but if you like the idea of a morning TV show, we're going to audition this.

Michael Burger:

Back in the day, they were handing out these, they were handing these talk shows out pretty regularly. It was kind of the thing fairly inexpensive to produce, I guess. Although we had quite a budget. This was Morning Network. This was a big official show that we traveled and there was a nice budget for a big beautiful set. And everybody got what they needed to pull this off. And then celebrities would catch on and come on. And we had our favorites. And you got to sit down there with your idols. And yeah, there was a little pushback. The fact, I want to talk to you about this, because A, B, C was adamant that this show was not a comedy show in the morning. That you're taking people's time away from them and you got to give them something. They got to feel they haven't wasted their morning. So there's always a recipe, there's always something to learn from. And I came in kind of hot with this idea of comedy and they're going, no, people don't want to laugh in the morning. And I went, well, I got to disagree with you there, but Max Mutchnick and Max and who? Max and Dave, right?

Michael Jamin:

David Colleen, yeah.

Michael Burger:

Who created a little show called

Michael Jamin:

Will and Grace.

Michael Burger:

So they were the first writers on Mike and Mad. And it was just overkill. We didn't need that much horsepower from them. They were so talented. They went on and did what they did. But I think because they brought me on, they certainly liked my sense of humor and thought this would be a nice way to wake up in the morning. So eventually they embraced the humor as long as he balanced it with information.

Michael Jamin:

And that show, it was Tamara Raw, Tamara, she was the producer

Michael Burger:

Started it.

Michael Jamin:

She started it. And I guess her vision was Letterman in the morning. But Letterman had a show in the morning. And so that's where

Michael Burger:

You don't want to go down that path. And that kind of scared so, and part of this was wise that you, let's not waste people's time in the morning. Let's find that balance of being entertaining and give them a takeaway. And we realized that, I certainly found that balance. Maddie and I started to feel our own beats there on where we could jump in and we each got our own segments where we could shine. Yeah. Maddie was the greatest at locking in on a guest. And Carol Burnett came on and Maddie just started crying. That was, that's how she started the interview. It's because Maddie learned English having come from Cuba on one of the last Freedom Flights out. And now the show that she watched to learn English by the Carol Burnett Show. She's sitting there and she starts crying. Well, that's a great host showing her emotion, being interested. So yeah, I love working with

Michael Jamin:

Her. Yeah, she's delightful. Yeah, I remember, I remember taking, going to your dressing room with index cards versus jokes here, what about this?

Michael Burger:

And I wanted that so much to me that felt like Letterman and that felt like The Tonight Show. I was aching for that. I don't remember the conversation we had or what I fought for. I wanted Jonathan Winters on the show, and I had done warmup on his sitcom and they said, no, that's not our audience. And I went, what's not our audience? Funny. So I pushed, six months later, Jonathan came on and I got to sit with him and I got to do what Johnny Carson did with him, which was give him a hat and then do a character. And I thought, this is, I'm in heaven.

Michael Jamin:

This

Michael Burger:

Is as good as it gets. But it took some pushing because they thought, who wants Johnny in the morning? Yeah. So wait a minute.

Michael Jamin:

Who

Michael Burger:

Doesn't want to laugh in the morning

Michael Jamin:

And be, but before that, you were still also doing warm before warm up. And then how did, so just so people know, so when you shoot a multi-camera sitcom, the audience, they bring in an audience and it could take, I dunno, it could easily take five hours to shoot a half hour of television.

Michael Burger:

22, 2 minutes, five and a half. Five hours to shoot 22.

Michael Jamin:

And so what's the audience doing while they're resetting the scenes or the actors are changing?

Michael Burger:

Well, I've got a lot of stories. Some had a guy die once. What? And I just thought he was taking a nap. Yeah. I kept looking up going, God, I, a comic wants everybody

Michael Jamin:

Engaged.

Michael Burger:

And he's just, and at the end, he's not leaving every, the bus is gone and they car him out and he died on the way to the hospital. I guess they revived him, then he died. What

Michael Jamin:

Show was this?

Michael Burger:

Women in Prison?

Michael Jamin:

I don't remember. Don't remember. Women in Prison. Sure,

Michael Burger:

Sure you do. It was a sitcom with Wendy, Joe Sperber and Peggy Cass, an all star lineup. Blake Clark played the Warden and it was a sitcom about women in prison. I know. And I was the warmup. And then I did all of those types of sit. I mean, I did big ones, I did shows, you'd know. Yeah. Gosh, Mr. Belvedere is where I started.

Michael Jamin:

Remember one. And

Michael Burger:

That's really where you learn, I don't know a comic that's got five hours, unless you're talking maybe Leno, but you know, do your act. But then you have to figure something else out. And that's where these hosting chops came in and yeah, you're like a surgeon on call. The moment the bell stops, then I start talking to the audience and then they're ready to go again. Could be right in the middle of a joke, you're telling, it doesn't matter, I'm here to serve. And they would do, again, for those uninitiated, maybe 15 scenes in a sitcom of 50 pages, 60 pages. They'll do each scene two or three or four times. The actors want another shot at the scene. Maybe they've got another joke laid in, or maybe they want another angle. And each time they do it, that audience has to be geared up, not only reminded, Hey, where were we? Right. And sometimes literally reminded because a lens went down and we have a 30 minute stop between scenes seven and eight. Yeah, that's happened. So you keep them entertained. And it's actually, I think that was the greatest training for me anyway.

Michael Jamin:

It must've actually a really important job because as a TV writer, we want the audience to have, they need the energy. They got to keep giving it to the audience. And it's the warmups job to keep them engaged and not wanting to leave and get bored and zoned out. Well, I'm

Michael Burger:

Glad you said that because

Michael Jamin:

Oh, very important.

Michael Burger:

The writers will come to me and say, how's the audience tonight? Or if the show's not going well, they'll going, Hey, can't you do anything your fault? I'll certainly try sometimes it just wasn't that funny. Or the reverse is true. Right. I have a Dick Van Dyke story that is painful. He did a sitcom with his son called Van Dyken Company. And Walter Barnett produced and they brought me in. I had a nice reputation of being the warmup guy. So I came in and did the pilot and it's like taking candy from baby, I'm killing. And Walter Barnett walks up to the rail about three feet up audience, and without stopping, he says, just pull it back a little bit and then keeps walking. And a couple scenes later, more laughs, he goes Less. Just less. Okay. Now we're like five seeds in. And he pulls me up and he goes, stop telling jokes.

I'll tell you why. Later. I went, oh my God. So now I'm just talking to the audience and I happen to get one guy in the audience that was a mortician. I go, what do you do for a living? Mortician big laugh. He looks at me, what are you doing? People are dying to get in. I go, well, it's not, he's doing it. At the end of the show. He goes, I got to let you go. Dick is not happy. Dick, Dick van Dyke's not happy. Yeah. Yeah. Show's just not coming together. He had hoped, and there's a lot of laughter when we're not shooting, so I'll keep you posted. So the next week they bring somebody else in and it's awful. So they bring me back. But he said, okay, you can come back, but you can't do the puppet bit and you can't do these three jokes. I had some killer bits that I know I could rely on. So I finished the six episodes I did when I did five of them. But

Michael Jamin:

It, it's, it's actually, warmup is a pretty high paying job. It's a pretty desirable job.

Michael Burger:

It was crazy. I'd never seen that kind of money for one night. I'm not doing the clubs. I'm not on tour, and I'm not only in town. I'm getting union money. So now I'm getting my sag guard and I, but that's a union job. Then they tried try to take it away from us

Michael Jamin:

That that's a union. That's a union chop. I

Michael Burger:

Didn't know that. It was after I fought for it, it was then a bunch of us got together and went to the union and said, Hey, we're a pretty important part of this production. They agreed, actors stood up for us and spoke on our behalf, and we wound up getting union money, which is how I got vested. But I mean, don't think I'm speaking out of school. Warmups could range. Back in the day was 800 for the night and five or 6,000 a night was not uncommon at the end. Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

I know that for sure. And then,

Michael Burger:

So you knock out a couple of those a week and all of a sudden you're going, I

Michael Jamin:

I'm rich Show

Michael Burger:

Business. Well, show business is great, but you're also not on camera. And you're thinking, I remember having shows on the air and then going back and doing warmup and candidly thinking kind of a step back. And a producer said to me, I wouldn't look at it that way. He said, do you like doing it? And I said, I love doing it. He goes, you're good at it. I said, well, okay. And he said, that carries a lot of weight. If people are going to see you work 'em, see you doing what you do. Well. And I kind of reframed that and got back into the warmup and wound up doing a little show with people that you probably, or one actress that was probably everyone's favorite or has been. And that was Betty White. Yeah, sure. And I came back and did Hot in Cleveland and did 135 episodes. I spent 135 Friday nights with Betty White.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, she's lovely. Yeah. I worked with her on an animated show. She couldn't be, she was so lovely.

Michael Burger:

Sweet. Right? Yeah. And gives you everything you'd hope.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, for such a pro. I remember I've told this story, I was doing an animated show. So I was directing her and she was, I don't know, maybe 15 feet in front of me. I'm at a table, I got my script. I'm giving her notes and she's delivering. She's great. But after a take, I'd give her a note, can you try like this? Like that? And she was very pleasant. But after a few sec or a minutes, she stops and she goes, I'm sorry, dear, but you're going to have to yell. My hearing isn't as good as it used to be. And I said, if you think I'm yelling at Betty White, you're out of your fucking mind. And she just lost it. She loved that. She was so far, I mean, she's like, she was so sweet when

Michael Burger:

You would see her on the set, the room changed. Everybody was aware. It was like the Pope walked in and the little ad libs that she would throw off to the side, which having done 135 of 'em, I realized she had a lot to go to. But the first time I heard a couple of these, for instance, cameras rolling, awkward pause. Betty looks up and goes, if no one's saying anything, it's probably my turn. Yeah, that kills. Director goes, we have to go back. Betty goes, how far the pilot? So she got about 50 of these ready to go. And there was a scene where they, once a season, they would pair the girls up, Wendy Mallick, Jane leaves, Valerie Tonelli. They're all single as Betty was. So they would have a date show where all the women got paired up and the girls paired each other up with dates. So they picked Carl Reiner as Betty's love interest. And there's a scene where she and Carl Kiss

And crowd goes Nuts. And then we stop. And Carl's 15 feet from me. And I had worked, interviewed Carl on Mike and Maddie. In fact, I, Carl, I let had him cut my tie, which is an old Johnny Carson thing I'll get back to in a minute. But I said, Hey Carl, you just kissed Betty. What was that like? And he goes, without missing a beat. Oh, it was unbelievable. She has her original teeth and all and her, she goes all of her own teeth and her original tongue recess. That right at 90 without missing a beat. And you saw these two connecting, right? As the old guards of the business,

Michael Jamin:

Some legends. But how did you get that first warmup job? I mean, walking into that is not, is hard.

Michael Burger:

It was. Or even getting

Michael Jamin:

The opportunity to do it as hard.

Michael Burger:

Yeah, I go back to the cruise ship. I was doing warmup on the ship and a producer for Jeopardy was on who worked for Merck Griffin, and they were doing this dance show. And she goes, can you get me a tape? Then by that time I had, and so the very first warmup I did was Dance Fever. And one of the celebrity judges, it was Christopher Hewitt, who said to me on a break, oh dear Ladd, you should come do our show. And I did, did that show for seven years.

Michael Jamin:

Wow.

Michael Burger:

And then that kind of mushroomed into other warmups

Michael Jamin:

Because you've had a really unconventional path into Hollywood, I would think.

Michael Burger:

Yeah, yeah. But my sights were set early on. I saw that Carson did a game show and then a talk show. And I went, well, that works for me. So lemme see if I can get a game show. Let's see if I can get a talk show. And I've accomplished those. I

Michael Jamin:

Certainly, but you were never a weatherman.

Michael Burger:

No, I never, I never, what happened? Do I look the part,

Michael Jamin:

Was that a slam? It's a quiet

Michael Burger:

Slam.

Michael Jamin:

Letterman was a Well, weather. He was, yeah. I mean, seems like that's another, as long as you're in front of the camera, I'd think. Well,

Michael Burger:

In the LA market, you couldn't get past Fritz Coleman.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Michael Burger:

Right. Did that for 40 years who also did standup. And I never wanted to do that. And the opportunity to act had come up a number of times. And with all humility, I just said, no, I don't think I would be good enough. I knew what I liked. I knew I liked talking to people, basically.

Michael Jamin:

But you've done some acting

Michael Burger:

And I figured I'd just stay in my lane.

Michael Jamin:

But you've done acting. I know you have, in an episode that I wrote, you're an episode, episode of Lowes and Clark.

Michael Burger:

Yeah. I don't, that's not on the resume. I just don't, those got handed to you because you were on the air doing something else. Right. I got to present at the Emmy's because we were on the air, and Maddy and I handed Oprah, her Emmy award, and we're going down the elevator with Oprah, and she's singing our theme song. And turns out she was a fan of the show, kind of, yeah. Was our godmother. Because when Mike and Maddie went across the country, we aired in Chicago after her. So she was on at nine, we were on at 10:00 AM and we were an instant hit because we followed Oprah. And so much so that Oprah became a fan of the show and invited us to everything. I went to the Oscars with Oprah. I sat at dinner at Spago with Oprah. I mean, she, now, were there any call guests? No, she does not call now.

Michael Jamin:

Were there any, because you had a lot of great guests on Mike and Matt there. Anything that you in touch with that you kind of became friends with?

Michael Burger:

Yeah, George Hamilton, Robert Wagner. Robert Wagner is about as cool as anybody gets. Yeah. And he asked me to mc the charity event that he was doing. It was a Jimmy Stewart Relay race. It was a celebrity race in Griffith Park. I said, I'd be happy to. And he goes, do you want to play golf? And I went, well, I don't. I can play hack around, but he's like a member at Bel Air. And I said, well, yeah, maybe that would be nice. And I'm just pushing him off. I didn't want to embarrass myself. So the next year I do the event again. And he goes, are you still playing golf? And I went, yeah. And he goes, are we going to play? And I went, he goes, do I have to send a car for you? And I went, no. RJ is what he wanted to be called. I said, I just didn't feel like I could play right when I first met him, this is So Robert Wagner, I, I'm standing there with a buddy of mine and I see him coming, and we have to go to the stage and he comes up and he takes his arm and he puts it through mine and goes, Michael, walk with me. I mean, so old school, right, Michael?

Michael Jamin:

Right,

Michael Burger:

Gloria, my friend. I'm good. Thank you. Rj. Yeah. They were idols. I got a chance to meet. God, I met President Carter, had retired, but I got to do Habitat humanity with him and sit down and build a house and talk to him about life. And every musician you ever heard of. How about the artist? Jewel made her first appearance on Mike and Mad. We put her on there. I did not

Michael Jamin:

Know that. I remember James Brown. I remember walking past James Brown.

Michael Burger:

James the Sure. Leanne Rime made her first appearance with us.

Michael Jamin:

Really? Well, I mean, I wasn't there for that, or I don't know. Yeah. That's so funny. Wow. So that's amazing.

Michael Burger:

Yeah. James Brown do. So you were there for James?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Burger:

And he sat down and he said something, and that wound up on entertainment tonight. That night he said, the music is funded by drug money.

Michael Jamin:

Everybody

Michael Burger:

Went, did he just say that? And all of a sudden, now we're hard news reporters. We felt like, I don't know. I don't Charlie Rose or something. We got a scoop.

Michael Jamin:

I don't remember that. We

Michael Burger:

Just stumbled

Michael Jamin:

Into it. And then what was it like? Just rolling? I mean, I know you had must have talking points on when you're interviewing guests, but

Michael Burger:

Oh boy, you, you're so right. A celebrity gets interviewed the night before, and then they have bullet points. And the next day you kind of spit out those questions so they could comment on what they were pre-interviewed about. But in conversation, sometimes things go another way. But as you know, the producer's job is to keep you the host on track. And we had God bless her, Kathy Paulino, Kathy, I think her name was.

Michael Jamin:

Yes. Yes. Is that her name?

Michael Burger:

I

Michael Jamin:

Don't remember. I Kathy interview. Yeah.

Michael Burger:

She, I interviewed Robert Gole the night before, and she had this list of questions, and she's just behind camera with this, and she's doing this, and I see her, and I'm ignoring her because something better is happening. And we get to the, and she goes, Michael, you did not ask any of those questions. What happened? What's wrong? And I said, did you hear what Robert Gullet was saying? She goes, no. Well, I said, the interview took a path down a different road. He had mentioned his father, and I noticed he'd paused almost if he was going to tear up. And I thought, there's something more to explore there. And I said, what about your dad? And he said, on his deathbed, his dad said, Robert, come here. And Robert comes in, and he goes, son, you're meant to sing. Go do that. Well, I mean, I got chill.

I got tills hearing that. Now, that was not on the cards. It was following the arc of a conversation. And sometimes these producers feel, maybe they're not doing their job. We didn't ask those questions, but interviewing people is really about a conversation. So we had those moments where we went off the card and I think made some friends there, had some great, some great interviews. I'm very proud of. Patty LaBelle sat down with us and admitted that her three sisters had all died of cancer. And she wasn't sure she was going to see 50. And she starts to tear up and we're going, she goes, I must like you guys, we're six minutes in. Yeah. Talk shows. You get six minutes, seven minutes, maybe two segments, maybe 15 minutes. And I think we did some nice work and met some people in a very finite amount of time.

Michael Jamin:

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 michaeljammin.com/watchlist.

I remember those morning meetings. We talk about the show, and I remember sitting in the back, because I'm young, it's my first real writing job, and they call me a producer because that way they wouldn't have to pay me writer's skill. So they said, you're a producer. But I'm like, I'm not a producer. I can write stuff. But I remember thinking, how does everyone here know what to do? I really had no idea was I was in awe of the whole thing. How does everyone here know what to do?

Michael Burger:

But as the more you hung around, it kind of demystifies itself after a while, right?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. But there was also, and to some degree, yes, but it was also like you only get one shot. It wasn't like you get to rehearse. It was like, you better get this right. We're on live tv. We're not live, but we're on TV and live detect. Yeah. We're not doing again. We're not doing it again. So

Michael Burger:

Yeah, that was, if you concentrated on that, it would paralyze you. What I found starting to do this was that how in the world can we talk to somebody for six minutes and get anything out of it that seems too short? Yes. And you learn to ask. There's a great quote by Blaze Pascal, he's a French philosopher, and the quote is, if I had more time, I would've written a shorter letter.

Michael Jamin:

Right?

Michael Burger:

And it talks about the science of the art of being brief. Then you learn that in the talk show world where you need to be concise and you take away all the stuff in the same way. Jerry Seinfeld would take out a word that doesn't work in a joke. A good interview is become very, there's no Sophie's choice there. You know, start cutting things away, not going to make it. And you stick with what works at that moment. So you be, become careful, you be good editors of yourself as you interview. But I found how it was so, it was so phe and so I compared it to cotton candy. You would do it, and it was gone. And then the next day we had to do it all over again. Yes.

Michael Jamin:

Right, right. Yeah.

Michael Burger:

The sheer volume Yes. Of cranking out an hour a day for two years was mind boggling to me. But yeah, I didn't have to do it myself. I had help.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. And I

Michael Burger:

Had to show up refreshed,

Michael Jamin:

The minute recorded. I remember thinking all the producers, well, you're screwed. You got to do this. You're done. All that work you did is over now, and you have to do more. I mean, yeah, it doesn't end.

Michael Burger:

And we went live to tape. We wouldn't stop unless there was something drastic happening. And once in a while, we would tape two shows on a Thursday so we could travel on a Friday to go to another town and maybe do something live there. Unlike the show I did with Christina Ferrari, which was two hour, two hours live a day there. There's no stopping. I mean, what goes wrong? You see? Which was a whole nother level of fun because,

Michael Jamin:

But there's a

Michael Burger:

Too late,

Michael Jamin:

There's an art though, to getting people to be vulnerable. Like you're saying on television right now, you have six minutes, and then sometimes you'll see it where an interviewer, just like they're reading the questions, they're just waiting to get the next question. They're not really in it.

Michael Burger:

True. Were you there for Charlie Shaneen?

Michael Jamin:

I probably would've

Michael Burger:

Remembered. Charlie comes on and he's nervous, and he's sitting there and he's looking around. I go, what's wrong, Charlie? Because I don't know, no one's given me anything to say. So what do you need? A cup of coffee would be nice. So I went over, we had a big set. We had a working kitchen. So I got him a cup of coffee, and we sat down and go, anything else? He goes, well, cream would be nice. I went back and got him.

Michael Jamin:

Great.

Michael Burger:

That was such a fun interview because he really was authentic and he really was nervous. And we just played it where you had some other guests that were, shall we say, just a little more controlled and didn't want to open up. And they were there to promote something. That's what a talk show does, is we promote you doing whatever you're doing.

Michael Jamin:

And what were you thinking when you're like, oh, I'm just tanking here. This is

Michael Burger:

Going with No, the opposite. Oh no, I'm thinking, let's do more of this now. I felt, oh, now we're doing Letterman. Now we're doing a talk show where things are off the rails and there's nothing, and the big camera has to whip out of the way. No one had planned that. I lived those moments where something went wrong, but

Michael Jamin:

When someone wasn't comfortable on care. What about that? Well, where

Michael Burger:

It wasn't scripted, heavily scripted, where you would get something that wasn't planned. No, that's

Michael Jamin:

Fine. I mean, when a guest is clearly not engaging, they're just, they're struggling.

Michael Burger:

Well, you'd see the producer going, let's jump ahead. Jump

Michael Jamin:

Ahead to, what do I

Michael Burger:

Jump to? Well, we could tighten it up and then the next guest can go longer. We had a little bit of an accordion, you know, find a way a to get in there somehow, some way. But they're not all, some are better talk show guests than others.

Michael Jamin:

And

Michael Burger:

Some come in, we had, comedians had Richard Jenny on who I went to his dressing room and I go, what do you need? And he gave me five setups, hotdog, car, couch, whatever it was. So he knew all the jokes he'd go to when you just laid 'em in there.

Michael Jamin:

Would you write those down or on a card, or you just No,

Michael Burger:

That kind of stuff was just, yeah, they certainly had 'em on a card. But when we got a comic on, I really felt, oh my God, I got to kick up my game here because this is really what I want to be. I mean, this is, I idolize you, you men and women that had come on.

Michael Jamin:

There really is. So

Michael Burger:

Carl Reiner comes on, and there's a very famous episode of The Tonight Show where Carl Reiner comes on and says to Johnny, I never make the best of the Tonight Show. I never make it. And he goes, I, I'd like to be part of those eclipse at the end of the year. And cars going like, okay. And he goes, you're a great dresser. Johnny goes, oh, thank you. And he goes, stand up if you don't mind. And he goes, okay. So Carson's standing up and he's looking at his tie, and he goes, the tie's not right, however, and he pulls out a pair of scissors and he cuts off Johnny's tie. Right. Johnny didn't know it. Fred Decoda had said to Johnny, Hey, just don't wear your best clothes tonight. That's all I'm missing. Say

Michael Jamin:

God.

Michael Burger:

So he cuts the tie right

At the end of our interview with Carl, I said, Hey, there's a moment you had with Carson and I would just be thrilled if we could recreate this. And he doesn't know where I'm, he doesn't know where I'm going with this. I said, there was a moment where you cut Johnny's tie. And he goes, yes, I remember that. And I said, can I? And he goes, oh, no, no, no. My wife gave me. And I went, no, no, I don't want to cut your tie. Right. Would you cut my, he goes, I'd love to cut your tie. And he stands up and makes a production and cuts my tie. Right. And I have that tie cut with an autograph framed in my office. Wow. Wow. It was my moment of, I mean, those are the big moments, right. Meeting your idols. Yeah. Like Jonathan Winters, I assume people listening know Johnny. Remember Johnny the greatest improv artist ever? And Robin Williams was a fan of his. Yep. So I get to do warmup on a sitcom called Davis Rules. Remember that? With Bonnie Hunt? No. Yeah. How do he won an Emmy for that? Okay. Jonathan Winters did. So Jonathan Winters, Bonnie Hunt, the kid Giovanni.

Michael Jamin:

Yep. Wow.

Michael Burger:

So they would have a script, John enters kitchen.dot pop on couch because he, yeah. Whatcha going to do with this maniac? So he would start, he'd go off roars of laughter, but he, Jonathan loved audience. So he comes up to me, maybe we're a half hour in, I'd never met Jonathan Winters. And he walks by the rail and without stopping, says to me, Bing, how's your golf swing? And he keeps going. And as he's about eight feet away, I go, Bing, how's your golf swing? And he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa. And he does Bing Crosby. Well, at the end of the show, I go up and say, Hey, I can't believe you're even here, and I can't believe I got to meet you. And he goes, Hey. He goes, that was fun. He goes, I love doing that kind of stuff. He goes, anytime you want to throw me something, let's do it.

So this is taking a pitch from Kershaw. This is the best of the best, the best. So the next week it's a sitcom, the format, it's going to be a four hour night, it's going to be stops and starts. And Jonathan is just sitting there like a little kid waiting to play. He does it, the acting he can do in his sleep, but it's the improv that he loves. So I'd catch his eye and go, excuse me. Yeah. Did you not invent lettuce? Is that you? Yes. I invented lettuce. God, for 10 minutes. That happened for a year and a half. So I got to play with him for, I don't know what it was, 52 episodes.

Michael Jamin:

Wow.

Michael Burger:

That's meeting your idols and being even more impressed than you could possibly imagine.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. But how gracious of him, I mean, that's very

Michael Burger:

Much fun. But that's him, him, he loved the audience. And Bonnie Hunt was so great at navigating him back to the script without even seeing it. But the show was funniest when it was off the rails because Jonathan Giovanni eei, the actor would look at him and he had a line, and then there'd be this pause and they'd going, Giovanni, that's your line. He goes, where? What's my line? Because it's so far past what was written in the script. What's

Michael Jamin:

My line?

Michael Burger:

Yeah. Because Johnny had taken it out to the parking lot and then made a left down Ventura. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

That's so funny. So

Michael Burger:

Those warmup days I loved. And when I got out of it and then got a chance to come back into it, my ego aside that I'm not on the camera, I'm behind it. Well,

Michael Jamin:

Let's talk. I end up working that though. I mean about that must have been difficult for you, but I don't know. You did it anyway.

Michael Burger:

Well, it, yeah, it took about 10 minutes to get over myself, and then I'm standing in front of an audience, getting a laugh, and I went, wow, this is pretty cool. Right.

Michael Jamin:

But did it, I mean, that's

Michael Burger:

Felt right back in the mix. That's

Michael Jamin:

The Hollywood rollercoaster. I mean, you're up, you're down. You're up and down. I mean,

Michael Burger:

Yeah, I naively thought one pilot, I'm on my way. I've got a TV show. That very first thing I did for N B C didn't get picked up. And I went, oh, that, that's show bz. Yeah. I, that's the up and low. That's you thought. Right. So you learn to discipline yourself and be grateful for what comes your way, which I think I've done. And I also wound up with some side hustles along the way, flipping homes. And I got my real estate license and did that stuff on the side. Right. Not thinking I'd ever want to, boy, here's something revealing.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Michael Burger:

It's probably five years ago, Catholic church. Sunday morning, I'm sitting there and there's a woman in front of me with her husband. The husband looked like he had been beaten down. What's the old joke? Where they've taken the spine out? He's just been beaten so many years by being to this woman. She's eight o'clock black dress Pearls, Mrs. Kravitz from Bewi. Does that help you? This is who I'm dealing with and looking around. And she owns the room and it's church. So the priest says, halfway through, turn to the person next to you or behind you and say, peace be with you. So I'm right behind her. So she turns and goes, what happened to you? And turns around, excuse me, what happened to you? Yeah. You used to be on tv, turn around. This is mess. Listen to Padre there. She couldn't fathom the fact that I wasn't on the air and wanted to know how my life not seeing me on Mike and Maddie anymore. And I said, no, I, I'm, I'm fine. Okay. Things are good. Just turn around. But she needed, I didn't have the time to deep dive into the complexities and the ups and downs of this business in

Michael Jamin:

Church. But did it hurt though when she said that?

Michael Burger:

No, I actually thought it was wildly funny because I've told this story now for 20 years or five years. Yeah. But yeah, no, I loved being on the air and certainly miss it. The skillset set is still there. I think it's gotten better. You learn, hosting is cumulative. Everything you do adds one more layer. But I've certainly made peace with it and understand the business that, I mean, I've got a wonderful life because of all the ups and downs. Right?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. One of the things that people say to me, because I post a lot on social media, and they go, well, you seem so humble. I'm like, because I've been in the business for 25 years. That's why, I mean, do you not, you're every step of the way you're getting humbled. I

Michael Burger:

Mean, how about, is there any bitterness in your journey?

Michael Jamin:

Not really, because I never really thought I was going to get this far.

Michael Burger:

Oh, that's interesting.

Michael Jamin:

I thought it was never my goal to my, it never my goal to have my own show and my own Norman Lee Empire. I just wanted to be as a

Michael Burger:

Writer, showrunner producer, you mean?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. No, I just wanted to write on TV show. I wanted to write on cheers, to be honest. And

Michael Burger:

Oh

Michael Jamin:

Wow. But when I broke into the business, cheers. It was already well done. But I wound up writing with many writers from who wrote on Cheers. And I wound up shooting a show that was shot on the cheer sound stage. And so in my mind, I made it like it. But certainly,

Michael Burger:

Well, what demons do you have as a writer? Or what holds you back as a writer, whether you're working or not, and is it amplified when you're not working?

Michael Jamin:

It's easy to look at other people. Here's what it is. I had a friend I was writing on King of the Hill and one of the other writers signed a big deal or something, and I was very jealous. And my brother friend, he was older on King of the Hill, and he said, he gave me a great piece of advice. He said, there will always be someone younger than you, less talented than you, making more money than you. Oh. I go, well, there it is. That, there it is. And that really, I hung onto that for a long time. I feel like. Okay, so it's easy to compare your career to somebody else, but to honest. I'm so far, I'm so lucky that I have what I have. So I'm not bitter at, because you

Michael Burger:

Got this far, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. But it hasn't taken away the desire to do this again and work more, or be where someone else is at this moment?

Michael Jamin:

No, I'm happy. As long as I get to keep working, I'm happy. I really am. Yeah, and it's really, it's funny when you're talking about doing warmup for these multi-camera shows, there are no multi-camera shows anymore. It's true. If you wanted that job today, good luck getting it. There are no shows. So how do you get that?

Michael Burger:

Good luck in a couple of ways. I have a friend of mine, you probably know Ron Pearson.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, Ron, what about him? Ron's

Michael Burger:

One of the best out there, hands down, a great comic and a great warmup. But he said the stuff he was doing 3, 4, 5 years ago in front of an audience, he couldn't do now

Michael Jamin:

Really

Michael Burger:

The sensitivities of what you can and cannot say. Because

Michael Jamin:

He was pretty

Michael Burger:

In front of a crowd.

Michael Jamin:

He was pretty wholesome. I remember I worked with him.

Michael Burger:

Very wholesome. It's just some things you can't say. I got another buddy of mine, Ross Schaeffer, who was a corporate keynote speaker who says, even in the corporate world, there's some things you can't say. There was some reference to women speak more than men on a daily basis. They, there's more of verbose. Right. Because I was told by the person hiring me, well, I wouldn't say that he was using it as a way women really control the marketplace. A woman will decide what you're ultimately going to buy that flat screen TV you got in your house. Yeah. You got that because your wife said it's okay. Right. But that's actually sensitive to say now.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah.

Michael Burger:

Well, didn't even occur to me.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah.

Michael Burger:

Here's what some show is up for me. And this happened here in Long Beach, a great little restaurant in Belmont Shore on Thursday nights. They had a jazz piano player. It's this little French cafe and then go in for a bite to eat, and this guy's playing in the corner and there's maybe in a restaurant that seats 80, there's probably seven. And he would play and it'd be nothing. So I'd give him a little something, something, right. We're all performers and you're feeling for this guy, and I know when a song ends. So I gave him a little more and he takes this break and he comes over and sits next to me and he goes, Hey, thanks for trying to make that happen. I said, of course. He said, buy you a drink. Sure. And we get to talk and he goes, lemme tell you my favorite story about supporting another actor or performer. He goes, I'm working a club down in LA and it's the same thing. Nobody's there. It's quiet. And I finish, I don't know, I'm 30, 40 minutes in and I finish a song and I hear, and he looks up to finally thank this one person that's acknowledging his talent. And it was a woman taking a cigarette out of a pack.

Michael Jamin:

Oh my God. Oh my

Michael Burger:

God. Try to get the the tobacco into the filter. Yeah. He goes, boy, that if that isn't showbiz right

Michael Jamin:

There. Yeah. That is Show biz, just what you

Michael Burger:

Think. You made it at any level, you're going to get humbled one more

Michael Jamin:

Time. Time you're going to get humbled. Right.

Michael Burger:

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a humility is a great trait anyway, I think. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah.

Michael Burger:

As an interviewer, as a host, as anything, anybody in the business, gratitude and humility will serve you a long way, I think. Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Right. Yeah. You got to enjoy the ride. And I was told that over and over, enjoy the ride. I didn't really quite what it meant. Yeah. But then when

Michael Burger:

We did Match game, match game 98, and we shot at CCB ss, we shot on the same set that they do. The price is right. They just turned it around for us. And I would go in early and I'd leave late and I'd drive in and I'd see that c b s sign lit up and I said, I don't want to leave, and I know this is going to be over. I know it's over because we're airing against Oprah at 3:00 PM on C B Ss. That's why I know it's over. And we did our 135 and it went away. But I never for a moment, took that for granted. I loved every second of that knowing, Hey, you know what? You could worry about it being over, but ultimately, hey, like you said, just enjoy this ride. I had my best friend did the warmup on it. It was the announcer in the warmup, and we laughed ourselves silly, and we shot seven a day. Game shows you shoot a bunch. So we would shoot four, take a lunch break and do three, did 135 episodes.

Michael Jamin:

Have you seen that movie Babylon yet with Brad Pitt?

Michael Burger:

I couldn't get through it.

Michael Jamin:

Oh really? Oh

Michael Burger:

Yeah, about 20 minutes down. I went, yeah, no.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, you might want to revisit it. I love it. Oh yeah, it was about that. It was about knowing when your time is over and it was so, it was so crushing. I thought it was beautiful. But yeah, I could see, yeah, you need to stick with it a little bit, but I love that.

Michael Burger:

Where do you think you are in the arc of your career?

Michael Jamin:

I think, well, I mean, think all of us. I think you hit a certain age in Hollywood, and if I haven't already approached it, I'm getting very close.

Michael Burger:

It's funny, when you leave your demo, you have a birthday and you leave your demo.

Michael Jamin:

There was an article, this is a couple, this is many years ago, probably 10 or 15 years ago, and I was my partner and we were taking over for a show. We're running a show. It was Michael Eisner's show, and there's an article in the trades and in a variety, whatever, and it said veteran TV writers, Michael Jamon, Steve Clare, and it was an article about us. And then I go, wow, I become a veteran. And then, oh wow. One of the writers sitting next to me, he goes, that's not a good sign. It means your career's coming to

Michael Burger:

An edge. Yeah. Veteran was not a compliment. He's

Michael Jamin:

Not a compliment.

Michael Burger:

I remember sitting, I had just turned 40 and I was sitting in an office with an executive at Tele Pictures, I believe it was, and I was sitting there with my agent, Richard Lawrence, who has since retired. I've outlasted my agent. That's not good. And this woman who's in charge of production says, look, Michael, I know who you are and we're fans, but here's the thing. Oh boy. She goes, we're going to hire the person that looks like the person we want watching us. Yeah. I went, well, okay, that can be a lot of things, but I can't be an 18 year old woman. Right. Yeah. Whatever the demo was, they were searching. So that stuck with me that there are things, there are times things you just can't change. I fit a certain demo and a seasoned host would be the category. And if that comes back then great. There's a show coming up this fall where they're bringing back the Bachelor, but it's called the Golden Bachelor. Have you heard about this? No. So it's the Bachelor produced by the same people, but it's for 60 and up. So the contestants will be 60 and up,

Michael Jamin:

Right.

Michael Burger:

Called the Golden Bachelor. Right Now the thought is, well, maybe people will value a more seasoned looking picture there, and maybe the host will come along with that. I don't know.

Michael Jamin:

So what do you know? Probably not. It's going to be hosted by a 20 year old.

Michael Burger:

It's going to, no, it's going to be hosted by the same guy that's doing the younger version. So I think they're getting it both ways. Right. They're going to get a younger host and an older demo. That's fine. You know, Saja stepping down with Wheel of Fortune that there's a lot of talk about who might slip in there. And that ranges from his daughter. Pat Sajak has a daughter that could certainly do it. Vanna could do it. Ryan Seacrest is, there's talk. Yeah, Whoopi said she wants it. Oh wow. Tom Bergson's name has been tossed around. Right. Mine's been tossed around, but it's tossing it. I'm tossing the name around.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Right. Hey, what about this guy?

Michael Burger:

I did Wheel of Fortune in Vegas. Harry Friedman, who produced it, right, came up with a live version of Wheel of Fortune. So back in 2000, we went to the M G M, they took over the lounge, which used to be Catch a Rising Star renamed at the Wheel of Fortune lounge, and you got a chance to come in. Oh wow. And play Wheel of Fortune and win prizes. Catch and prizes. So it was just like the TV show, but it was not airing, but it was live. Right. What made the show so fun is that unlike the TV show where you're screened for intelligence and the ability to play the game, this is a bingo ball that's pulled, and now you're on stage. So we have three contestants that could be, well, you name it. In this case, it was a woman who'd had a little bit, a guy who didn't speak the language, and it was as wild and as funny as you'd hoped it would be, because they didn't understand the concept and the letters, and some did didn't. We had this poor gal had the puzzle almost revealed, and the answer was cassette deck. And every letter was turned. Everything was revealed except the C. And she's staring at it and she goes a set deck. And the woman next to her goes cassette deck, you idiot turned her.

Which you'd never see on tv, right?

Michael Jamin:

No.

Michael Burger:

Oh my God. Gosh, that was fun. We did a half a year of that right now. We did three shows a day for six months.

Michael Jamin:

And so it's the, it's interesting. Yeah. So it's about, I don't know. Yeah, you're right. Enjoying and reinventing yourself basically constantly.

Michael Burger:

I think you're doing it, you're still writing. I'm out there. I do a lot of corporate work and I speak on these corp on this corporate circuit where a company hires you to come in and motivate their teams, speak to them about the ability to communicate. Salespeople that can speak well, right. Managers that can interpret room are going to be more successful. So that message of really being a good host, active listening, teach them that. So there's a lot of tools that overlay from our business to the corporate world. When I share in front of a team of salespeople, last year I was the keynote speaker for the National Association of Automobile Dealers, and you have a room full of salespeople whose Life Bread determines on whether they're going to crush that sale, and they're talking about the rejection rate. And I said, yeah, I hear you. I said, lemme tell you a little story about SAG aftra. 185,000 members. At any given moment, 85000% or 85% are unemployed, and if the 15% that work, 1% make a hundred grand. So what do you do with the word no?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. What's the answer?

Michael Burger:

Oh, this, my Amazon package just came. Oh, you know, leverage the rejection. You take an Olympic athlete who loses by a 10th of a second and comes in second, yet they're gratified by that incremental win. So you focus on these positive gains as a writer, as a performer, and anything that you do, and then you don't let, whatever success we've had, you've had anybody has make you complacent. Gary Kasparov, the Grand Master chess player calls it the gravity of past success.

Michael Jamin:

We

Michael Burger:

Can get weighted down by whatever we think we've had. And if you're done and don't want to work again, well then you can live in that place. But if you want to be relevant and continue to work, then keep trying something, anything. Right. Jonathan Winters actually said to me the number of times he failed so miserably and bombed so horribly meant that he was trying.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Meant that he was still,

Michael Burger:

Because you got to get out there and fail. Huge. And hearing Jonathan say that said, we'll, stick around. I said, it's going to be a long night. I just read the script. I'll be failing here five hours.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. How funny.

Michael Burger:

He said, go for it. Don't go do it. Don't worry about it.

Michael Jamin:

And so this takes us to you. I know you have a course that where you teach kind of things, right?

Michael Burger:

Yeah. I'm putting together a masterclass on hosting. Podcasts are pretty popular now. He says to Michael Jamin on the podcast, and you could go to YouTube and set up your studio like I did. There's camera four. I mean, can a switch

Michael Jamin:

And everything

Michael Burger:

It, it's just a lot of free time during the lockdown. But I realized, go to YouTube, figure out how to set up your studio. Everybody's doing a podcast, but no one is teaching anybody how to host a podcast or the art of conversation is dying on our campuses with young folks that have learned to text. God bless you. I'm not an old man on my young yelling, what are you doing? I'm embracing it. I get it. And I went back to my university a couple of months ago and spoke to the dean that I graduated with and from radio TV at Long Beach State and said, I went through your curriculum and there's nothing there teaching kids how to communicate and interview. He goes, yeah. He said, I agree. So I'm going to go back to Long Beach State in the fall and teach this. Oh, that'd great. Masterclass on how to host.

Michael Jamin:

But it's also, I can

Michael Burger:

Overlay, say again,

Michael Jamin:

It will be available on your website too at some point now,

Michael Burger:

And we're kind of fing out what this is going to look like, but I think I will do a version where we can release this. I'll do it obviously for the university, but another version where people can access it and maybe take something from it. Yeah. I'm not stopping it. I mean, I love the art of this, and for me, again, as I said earlier, it is cumulative. I learned something from every conversation I say to people, ask somebody a question and then do something radical, and that is shut up,

Listen to learn and not respond. What we learned in the television world is that you do have seven questions, and you do have six minutes, and you just want to spit out that to get closure on that segment. But in reality, those never make for good conversations. So regardless of the conversation you're having, people are aching to be heard. Everybody wants to feel relevant, everybody wants to feel that they're being paid attention to in any walk of life. So the next time somebody comes up to you, you might ask them something, you might look them in the eye and say, how you doing? And expect an answer, wait for an answer. Yeah. The other thing we learned too is the idea of leaving a little break and a little pause in a conversation because somebody will say something, especially on television, when the cameras are rolling, you might be surprised what you will get if you take one more beat. Right? Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

I think you're absolutely right about that. Mean sometimes I'll watch an interviewer and I feel like there's a genuine lack of curiosity. They're just trying to get to, they ask me a question, they don't really care what the answer is. They're just, you say your part and then I'll say my part. Then you say your part and my, it's like, well, are you having a conversation or what is this

Michael Burger:

More difficult than it appears? You know, do have time constraints and you do need to get something accomplished and you, I do need to promote the movie and the book you're writing, Michael Jamin coming out soon, but you can't rush that and you can't get used to the sound of your own voice thinking that you're making a point here. I did a lot of construction work and a lot of remodeling, and I make a drywall analogy to conversation, see how this plays out. When I started doing construction and I put a piece of drywall up and you had two pieces together, and you have a seam, you take joint compound and you slather on there, and then you let it dry, and then you sand, and now you've hidden the seam. Well, if you're doing it like I am, you're standing a lot. You want to make sure you cover that seam. You watch a great drywaller, somebody who can mask off a wall, and they use a very thin amount of set and it goes right up that wall. And when it dries, there's so little compound left. Yeah. It's the same thing in conversation where you pull everything back to the very minimum and you're going to have a better finish. It's going to be, there's less mud. Yes. There's less conversational mud. Yeah. It applies to many things, certainly to conversation.

Michael Jamin:

It's interesting. Yeah. It's it, it's clear to me this is what you know, that yes, this is your art and you know how to do it. And so yeah, it's interesting to hear you talk about it.

Michael Burger:

I love it. I really do. And it was, you know, could say class clown. Really what I mean? That's the easiest way to describe it in the second, third, and the fourth and the fifth grade, budding in and getting a laugh, but also because I was raised by a family of teachers, my mom, my dad, my aunts and uncles. So yeah, the backstory of that was I was afraid of getting in trouble. So I try to find that balance of making a joke and not getting in trouble. But I clearly remember sitting in college classes thinking, oh boy, you're losing 'em here teach. I think I need to jump in or take it to commercial or do, so

Why would jump in with some non-sequitur? He'd look at it. I mean, it got so bad to where if we had an assignment, let's say a term paper, I would take the teacher aside on the break and go, look, I know you want a term paper here, but how about I do an oral presentation on this? And he goes, what do you mean? I said, oh, I'll get up and perform whatever this thing is. He goes, okay. To me, that was my out right. I figured, oh, I got out of this. It so interesting. And I loved, I love the performing side of it.

Michael Jamin:

I really have a great admiration for what you do. Really, because it's you. It's not just, you say it's class clown, but it's not really bad. It's really

Michael Burger:

Way. Well, hopefully at this point it's refined. Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. It really is.

Michael Burger:

Yeah. So there is an art to it, and that's why I still think it's valuable. I think it's valuable to teach it to this day more now than ever where we don't have to communicate as much, where we don't have to get on the phone, where we don't see, especially during the lockdown, we didn't see each other at all.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Burger:

But I think people who speak well and can communicate and be good, great listeners, not only will you improve your work life, but I would venture to say your relationships will probably get better. Yeah. If you take a moment to listen, take

Michael Jamin:

A moment. Yeah. Wow. Michael Berger, thank you so much for doing this and for

Michael Burger:

Michael Jamon. I hope we do this again. I hope I'd like to be on a show that you're writing on.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, I,

Michael Burger:

But I don't want to act. Can you do something? Give me that. Give me a host kind of role. Yeah. God. Great. Who am I thinking of? The Gary Haning Show, who Broke All Rules. Oh, was that one of the

Michael Jamin:

Greatest? That was fantastic. I mean, fantastic. Yeah. Gary. Yeah. There's Larry Sanders and Gary Shandling. It's Gary Sling Show. Both were amazing. That's right.

Michael Burger:

That's

Michael Jamin:

Right. Guy. So good. And he started off as a writer on Sanford and Son.

Michael Burger:

When I got Mike and Matt, we were at Naty in Miami promoting the show and went to Joe Stonecraft, and sitting in the corner was Gary Haning, who I idolized hadn't met him. And my only line was I went up to him and I said, I just want to say hello. I said, you're the reason I got Showtime. I mean, that's all I had, but he was literally the reason I got cable and got to know him a little bit. Like anybody who, you're a fan, you just sit there and you're in awe of that. Yeah. That kind of mind. So I certainly have my idols.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. He's amazing. Well, thank you again for

Michael Burger:

Joining. Well, thank you, Michael. I appreciate that. Let's do, let's get this strike over with and

Michael Jamin:

Yes.

Michael Burger:

And work together sooner than later.

Michael Jamin:

I hope so. And let's get people, I wanted to make sure people go find you, Mike Michael berger.com if they want to,

Michael Burger:

Michael berger.com. You'll see my, you know, and I had a conversation about this just last week about the dread of posting on social media, and I need to get better at it, and I don't think anybody needs to hear what I have to say, but if this masterclass comes to fruition, then I will post. Yeah. I can be found on the website, on LinkedIn, Facebook, and perhaps we can move the needle a little bit with that, but I'm always happy to hear from people. I'm always thrilled when somebody remembers a show or two, and as I get older, I can picture who's coming at me and what show they watched. Yes.

Michael Jamin:

That's hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. Alright.

Michael Burger:

Okay, Michael,

Michael Jamin:

Thank you again so much. All right.

Michael Burger:

See you next time.

Michael Jamin:

Alright, everyone, thank that was another great episode of Screenwriters. Need to hear this. What a wonderful guest. So interesting to hear from. Alright everyone, until next week, more great guests coming up and 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.

This week, Emmy Winning Writer/Producer Jack Burditt (Modern Family, 30 Rock, Frasier and many, many more) discusses his career path, joining a show that is already established and working on shows with green screens.

Jack Burditt on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0120994/

Jack Burditt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackburditt

Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/course

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Jack Burditt:

I don't know. There was something about it that I'm like, oh, this is a show I always wanted to write. This is, and it was fun. And it was like we could go bonkers at times,

Michael Jamin:

But you'd go bonkers. But then you'd ground it somehow.

Jack Burditt:

Yes, yes. You always wanted to try to ground it somewhere in there. And even if you're leading up to a bonker scene, you wanted something setting up like this is the reason why this mayhem is going to happen.

Michael Jamin:

You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.

Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. Another great guest. Hats off to me because my next guest is a friend from, I've known him for many, many years and I honestly have to say this guy's writing credits our outstanding, he's, and he's, he's going to be embarrassed when I say this, but Jack, I'm, I'm here with Jack Birded and he's literally one of the most sought after comedy writers in Hollywood. And Jack, before you say a word, let me tell you everyone what you've written on this could take a long time. You got a lot of credits, so, well, most recently, he's the creator intro runner of the Santa Clauss, the Tim Allen show on Disney Plus. Where he, Santa Claus. I'm going to, I'm just going to skip many of your credits. You have too many. I'm just going to do some of what I think of my, your highlights.

Modern family. He run a Mount Modern family for many years. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt 30 Rock, which we're definitely going to talk about. That is literally one of my favorite shows of all time. And I want to know more about that Last Man Standing, which he created new adventures of old Christine. I'm with her watching Ellie, and I know I said that wrong. Watching Ellie Inside Schwartz created, he co-created Dag Just Shoot Me, which we worked on together, Inc. Frazier. Mad about you. What else did I, I'm sure, oh, the Mindy Project did I said that right? The Mindy Project. That's how you said that show.

Jack Burditt:

Yes, yes.

Michael Jamin:

I'm unfamiliar with her. And then most importantly, the one that everyone knows you for. Father Doubting Mysteries.

Jack Burditt:

Jack. Well,

Michael Jamin:

Thank you so much. Damn, Jack, the credits on. You are nuts. We were talking yesterday, we were picketing yesterday and I was like, Jack, come on. You got to be on it. My podcast. And you were kind enough to do this. I got a lot of questions for you, Jack. I want to talk about 30 Rock, most of all, because I had a lot of questions while we were drunk on a three hour hike around the Disney lot. But I was like, let's just save it for the podcast. Tell what was 30 Rock, because I know obviously you're LA and they flew you out because that was a New York show. So you lived out New York.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah, I mean, they didn't fly me out. I flew myself out. Yeah, okay. That's the first thing. Okay. They don't put you up, they don't like No, no, it, yeah, no, it was,

Michael Jamin:

But wait a minute. Do they give you any allowance for rent or is that No, you're just paying for it out of your salary. They

Jack Burditt:

Give you a moving fee, I guess, and it's not much. And it's a one-time thing, so there's no, it's point.

Michael Jamin:

And then, so were you living in Manhattan then?

Jack Burditt:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it was a big decision. I mean, that came about, I was, remember, I was actually thinking of a career move at that point. What

Michael Jamin:

Was the move

Jack Burditt:

To go to dramas? I don't know. A lot of sitcoms. I was like, eh, I don't know. Maybe I want to try something new. But I was supervising a pilot that season, a comedy pilot. And I remember just reading a lot of the drama pilots and go, oh, this might be interesting. And even at that time, I met on Friday Night Lights, which was going to be starting up and was really interest in that show because I thought, oh, this is a great pilot.

Michael Jamin:

But you had to put together a bunch of different drama specs, right, to do that. Yeah. Yeah.

Jack Burditt:

Okay. So I did that, and then I just read in the pack. There were some sitcoms in there too, and it was the Untitled Tina Faye project. And I read that and I'm like, oh shit, I want to be on this show.

Michael Jamin:

Mean it was great. But then had, okay, so then your agent submitted you and then what happened?

Jack Burditt:

Yeah, and he, not for a long time, could not give me a meeting with Tina. She wanted the people. She wanted, and she's going to do with Robert Carlock. And I didn't know him either. And my agent really spent a lot of time just saying, well, would you meet with this guy? And she read a spec of mine that she just didn't care about that much, but he talked her to a meeting with me. So at some point I got a call, it was a Friday. They're like, can you go to New York to meet with T? And I'm like, yeah. And they said, can you get, there's a plane leaving in three hours, can you get on that? And I said, sure. So I went out, flew out on a Friday night, got there Saturday, met with her Saturday afternoon. She was still doing, she's still the head writer on S N L.

Right. She was still doing weekend update. And it was a show day at S N L. I went to her office there. And I just remember there was a lot of chaos going on. And then Gore's supposed to be doing a couple bits in the episode, but they didn't know at that point whether he was going to show up or not. And I was just, wow, curious. I go, well, what happens if you, he doesn't show up? She goes, yeah, you just deal with it. And I thought, she's so calm. I go, I want to work for her so bad.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. That becomes basically an episode for 30 Rocky. That's what happens.

Jack Burditt:

I mean,

Michael Jamin:

So, alright. I'm just curious about the logistics. So you rent a place in Manhattan and then you shot it, was it in Queens? In Astoria, I imagine? No, you shot in

Jack Burditt:

30. Yeah. Yeah. Silver Cup. So no, we shot it at Silver Cup in Long Island City, Queens. We would certainly shoot at 30 Rocket Times. But no, our offices, our main set was across the river.

Michael Jamin:

And then how did it work? How was she able to be in the writer's room and be on set? So how did she do that?

Jack Burditt:

It was tough. Mean, there was a lot of her shooting during the day, and then some of us going to her apartment at night and riding at night

Michael Jamin:

Afterwards. So your hours must have been really tough.

Jack Burditt:

They were long hours. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

What was the day, typical day on that show? I mean,

Jack Burditt:

I don't know mean it was always long. Always. I felt like it was always at least 12 hour days. But I mean, there were times, and we've been in the doing sitcoms or stuff. I mean, there were times we saw the sun come up.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, I know. It is

Jack Burditt:

The worst feeling in the world.

Michael Jamin:

It is the worst feeling. But that show, this was my complaint with 30 Rock. If you laughed out loud, you'd miss the next joke. It was that funny that I was like, I'd almost watch it in silence because like, I don't want to miss it. It was so funny that you couldn't laugh because you'd miss the next big joke, which was right around the corner. It was nuts. That show, I mean, so how was that different for you writing in that show? Was there different and it was a, I don't know, what was the secret? That was a, I just love that show. It was hilarious.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. There was something about it that I'm like, oh, this is a show. I always wanted to write this. And it was fun. And it was like, we could go bonkers at times,

Michael Jamin:

But you'd go bonkers. But then you'd ground it somehow.

Jack Burditt:

Yes, yes. You always wanted to try to ground it somewhere in there. And even if you're leading up to a bonker scene, you wanted something setting up, this is the reason why this mayhem is going to happen, or, yeah. Right. But I feel like on that show, we've been in rooms before and you pitch something really funny and everybody's pitching on top of it, and then the showrunner's like, yeah, but we can't do that. And

Michael Jamin:

On that show it was like, we can that. So I mean, is that right? I mean, was there pretty

Jack Burditt:

Much, yeah, quite often I'm things that I knew if I'd pitch on other shows, it would've been like a, yeah, that's really good. We're not doing that. Right. I thought, oh, it's got a shot here.

Michael Jamin:

But the thing is, I don't remember. I don't really remember. I don't remember the Beg, the early episodes. It couldn't have started out that broad. It couldn't have. Right. Because no one would've approved that. But no network is going to say you'd be this crazy red out of the gate. Right?

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it helped to have the power of Lor. Michaels behind it. He was an EP on it. But yeah, I, what the show became was a bit different from what it started, and there became more frenetic and a little bit more crazy as it went along. But I mean, even in that first season, I mean episode, I don't even know, maybe it was episode nine. By episode nine, we had Paul Rubins just playing this crazy character, and it was the first timer like, oh, maybe this is what the show can be.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, was really, is that what it was? Wait, the one time in Hits, and you're

Jack Burditt:

Like, yeah. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

So I, I'm pretty sure you, well, you were in episode runs, weren't you? Weren't you in it once? I

Jack Burditt:

Was in a few, yes.

Michael Jamin:

Yes, a few. And you T

Jack Burditt:

Tina liked to, I think Tina and Robert Carlock. I don't like being on film, which is why they

Michael Jamin:

Put you in

Jack Burditt:

It. I think it was, but I also think it was partially, I did a lot of set duty. I was on set a lot during that run. And I think there's also the feeling of you put him in front of the camera so he knows what every actor's going through. And maybe it is helpful because in front of camera can be terrifying.

Michael Jamin:

Sure. But tell me, okay, so why were you on set most of the time? Why did they choose

Jack Burditt:

You? A lot the time. I mean it, I felt like in the early years, they just had, there were a few of us, there was me, they, John Regie, Kay Cannon, I don't know. There was a trust in some of us that they're like, you can sit on set. If something comes up, you can be there. Help rewrite

Michael Jamin:

It. Because Tina was there all the time. Right?

Jack Burditt:

A lot of the time. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

And so she would say, Hey, can you take on another whack at this terrible scene? And then you'd got to just fix it on the set.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

So far, when we were doing Marin, I think I've told this before, but we did a scene in an anger management. Mark was in anger management. So they had a big circle where all of the other people in anger management. And so Mark yells me, he goes, jam and get in here. He wanted to be an extra in the scene. So I'm like, all right. He thought it'd be funny. So I'm sitting in the anger management scene, and then the director all cut, and then I get up and I go to the director, give him notes and all the extras. This guy is going to get fired. What the hell is he doing? Why is he talking to the director like that?

Jack Burditt:

That's hilarious. Do you remember the time on Just Shoot Me, were Steve was going to put me in a scene in the elevator and ask what he said? Yeah. Or I think somebody else had picked, maybe it should be Bird in the Elevator when George Siegel gets in there and Steve's like, yeah, fine, that seems good. But then the next day he's like, you know what Bird, it can't be in the elevator. This building is too nice of a building. And he basically going up too much of a dirt bag to be in

Michael Jamin:

That's, oh my God, we on, oh my. I dunno if I can say which. What? I was on a show, it was a network show, and we gave the lead character the last name. Well, you must know her. Linda ett. You know Linda, right? Yeah, yeah,

Jack Burditt:

Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. So the network didn't realize, they didn't know her name, I guess, and they didn't like the lead being named Ti, they didn't like that name on her. She's like, what my name. But I remember we played, just Shoot Me at Ja, shoot me. We played, and it was best on pre-production. We played basketball. And then I would guard you because you were probably 35. I was like, I get the old, give me the old man. You were 35. Oh God. So now we were talking about this as well yesterday. You're running the Santa Clauss on Disney, and we were mentioning how, I hope you're comfortable talking about this, but the stress that comes with running a show versus being a Coex exec. And I wanted to get your take on, you feel what the differences are for you. What are the stresses for you when you're running a show?

Jack Burditt:

I mean, I guess the biggest stress of all is if something's not working, it's on you.

Michael Jamin:

It's on you. It's

Jack Burditt:

Just on you. I, and I just don't sleep. And it's like I, I'm like, I'm up at three in the morning going, Jesus, we don't figure this out. There's not going to be a script. There's not going to be. And it's just so many, I mean, how it is is a thousand questions a day, a thousand emails, texts, everything like that. And you just, you're overwhelmed. And I mean, what I like doing most is writing.

Michael Jamin:

But isn't that the hardest? I always say that's the hardest part of the job is the writing part, right?

Jack Burditt:

It's really hard, but it's also what I like the most. I love writing.

Michael Jamin:

But when they come to you with a wardrobe problem, aren't you just like, eh, put 'em on whatever. I don't really care.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. In fact, every time I have run a show, always go to the head of wardrobe and I'm like, I don't know anything about it. Yeah. You see, the way I dress, I should never ever have a note on wardrobe. So I will always defer to you. And yet, I always wind up having a couple things like, no, this has got to be like this.

Michael Jamin:

I wonder if you feel this way as well. When I'm in a production meeting and everyone has a million questions and I'm like, oh, I got so much work to do. Can we get this over with? I got to go back and write. To me, that's not even the work. That's always like, this is nonsense I have to deal with. I got the writing is the hard part.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. Yeah. I will say though, it, it's going to, production meetings is good because I think at first when you start writing, you're just like, I'll write anything. And then the production meeting,

Michael Jamin:

They

Jack Burditt:

Say, no, clarifies what a jackass most production thinks you are for writing a simple line is going to cause so many problems and so much anxiety for prop people and wardrobe and special effects and stunts and everything like that.

Michael Jamin:

What about casting? Do you enjoy that part?

Jack Burditt:

No, I mean, right. It's tough. I mean, I know that a lot of Cassie now is done on tape, and I know that's its own problem. I know a lot of actors hate that, but I just feel so bad and being in the room with actors and you know, have 15 people coming in for a role and you're like, I could give this to 13 of them, anybody's going to be really good, so I'm going to pick this person. But a bunch of people who easily could have this job will not get it. I hate being in that position.

Michael Jamin:

So that's what it is. It's about you not wanting to hurt people that you don't, the part you don't

Jack Burditt:

Like. Yes. Yes.

Michael Jamin:

Interesting.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah, because I'm, there's so many good people out there, and there's so few jobs,

Michael Jamin:

Right? Yeah. What do you have, what's your interaction, I guess? What's your, yeah, what do you tell new actors to, how do you make 'em feel good? And do you have advice for them? I guess

Jack Burditt:

It's funny because sometimes it's just like, they come in and what was in my head, they just nail it. And I'm like, that's great. But there's other times where actors will come in and do something that's completely different and really surprise me. And I go, alright, let's do it that way. And then I will wind up rewriting the role for them. Because Do you

Michael Jamin:

Tell that?

Jack Burditt:

I have told them that. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Well, how do, what do they feel about that? They must be very flattered.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

It's so interesting because you've been doing it so long, it's kind of interesting. I don't really talk about this, but you've been doing it so long, it's really not about, at this point, it's not about always getting what's out of your head casting that you're like, okay, yeah, I'll do some, I'll just surprise me, do something different. It's no longer about your ego at this point. It's about just what's interesting, right?

Jack Burditt:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And when I say I hate Cassian, it's not like I hate, I'm rooting for everyone that walks through the door. I want everyone to be great, and that's it. Not because I know there's certain writers who just have a sour feeling about all actors or whatever. It's like, it's not that at all. In my case,

Michael Jamin:

Although, but now, because it's like, how much do you do when you're watching on tape? How much will you give them? If they have the three minute audition, how long will you watch the whole thing?

Jack Burditt:

Yeah, I do. I do.

Michael Jamin:

That's good of you. Yeah. That's really good of you. Because you know, might be reading 10 actors.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah, I know. But I just feel like I owe it to them.

Michael Jamin:

That's really good of you, especially at the end of the day when you're tired or you have more things to

Jack Burditt:

Do. Yeah, yeah.

Michael Jamin:

And then on set, what else? Exactly. Let's say, I know we're getting back to the 30 Rock, but what are you looking at when you're on set? Or is it just all script? It's all about the words.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. Mostly. I'm not one of those. Very rarely will I go in and go, this is blocked wrong, or anything like that. Or the act. Yeah, it's mostly about the words,

Michael Jamin:

Really. Yeah. So it's not even about making sure you have the right coverage. You just whatever you, you'll trust that to the director or the

Jack Burditt:

Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

The dp. Yes.

Jack Burditt:

I mean, yeah, I'll call that out every once in a while. Like I don't think we, I got this reaction. I think the actor gave us the reaction. I don't think we have it

Michael Jamin:

On camera. Yeah, yeah. Right. And I'm sure you learned a lot just from being in post, right? Yes.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. I know. It's one of the reasons we're running circles around Disney and other studios now, picketing, one of the big issues is younger writers aren't getting a chance to either be on set or do post. And I mean, if you're writing tell, you

Michael Jamin:

Have to know all this. You

Jack Burditt:

Got to know all of it.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, they don't, it's so odd because I think they're just being shortsighted it, it's going to be fine five or 10 years. But after that, when the older writers were done, these younger writers, they're not going to have this studio system. They, they created this thing that works, this Hollywood machine that really works well. And I feel like they're just trying to save a couple of bucks, but they're going to destroy it 10 or 15 years from now. What are you doing?

Jack Burditt:

Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Hollywood has this monopoly that they're just kind of ruining. I don't know why they'd want to do that.

Jack Burditt:

Didn't your writing completely change after you started doing Post the way you would write a script?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, it would. Well, it, not only that, it changed the way we would shoot it. We were hired on a job just because Steve and I knew how to look at the cameras we were hired on for pre-production, but they kept us through production because we knew what to do, how to watch the cameras, which the other people didn't know how to do. But yeah. But now you were also mentioning your post-production is so long. This is something I know very little about. Special effects. What is that whole process on with the show you're on now?

Jack Burditt:

Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

What do I need to know? If I were to say, kill you and take your jump,

Jack Burditt:

What you need to know is

Michael Jamin:

Don't do it. Don't take the jump.

Jack Burditt:

All the effects is so much more expensive than you can ever imagine.

Michael Jamin:

Well, yeah. So is a lot of green screen, is it rotoscope? What is this?

Jack Burditt:

Yeah, yeah, it's green screen. Yeah, I

Michael Jamin:

So when you're on set, how do you know if they're doing it right? I know. I never know. I don't.

Jack Burditt:

No, you got to trust it, I guess

Michael Jamin:

At the

Jack Burditt:

Time. You got to be like, I hope. Yeah, we were, and we shot stuff this year that I was just like, so those mountains we see in the background, because this is supposed to be Chicago we're in, and not Santa Clarita, those mountains will be gone. I don't know if there's no money in the budget, suddenly Chicago's going to have a mountains,

Michael Jamin:

So they'll take all of, so it's all, yeah, even that, that's not even, okay, so it's not even

Jack Burditt:

That's green screen. It's right. It's like things to paint out, or they're dealing with a green horse head on set and you have person talking to it, and you have to trust that at some point, that's going to be a character talking to a reindeer and the reindeer's talking back.

Michael Jamin:

Right. And that, so you are overseeing that whole process. So in other words, if the map looks funny to you, you're like, nah, can you do it again? The map looks stupid, or

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. Yeah. You'll give

Michael Jamin:

Those kind of

Jack Burditt:

Notes. Yeah, yeah. Until you're told we have no more money and no more.

Michael Jamin:

It's like,

Jack Burditt:

Oh. And then you're like, oh, it looks fine.

Michael Jamin:

You know what though? But yeah, when we did Maryland, which is such a low budget show, if there was one shot, the cameras in front of the door at the door of a house and the door swings open, and for a fraction of a second, you can see the camera looking in the reflection of the camera in the door, but only if you're looking and only for a half a frame. And they said, oh, we'll just take that out. The post-production super supervisor says, Hey, we have some money, we'll take it out. I'm like, why bother? I didn't see it,

Jack Burditt:

But

Michael Jamin:

It was going to cost a lot of money. I was like, I don't, is this really matter to us? But they did. They removed it. I was amazed. It was like a $5,000. And it doesn't make the show better. It just doesn't make it worse, I guess, right?

Jack Burditt:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. So interesting. What do you say, I don't know. What's it like with working with young writers now? What do you say to the young writers? Tell me,

Jack Burditt:

What do you say? I mean,

Michael Jamin:

What's it like working with young writers because you are still working in network? Big shows. I'm on mostly low budget shows where it's like three people complaining or whatever. I

Jack Burditt:

Mean, it's fun. Yeah, it's fun working with young writers. They're so

Michael Jamin:

Enthusiastic.

Jack Burditt:

They are very enthusiastic. And then look, I mean, on Santa Clauss in season one, I mean, our two staff writers came in and pitched this whole Santa Claus mythology to dive into, and it's really become a big part of the show. They

Michael Jamin:

Pitched it before they got hired, or when they got hired,

Jack Burditt:

When they got hired.

Michael Jamin:

So they came in on their own. They said, Hey, what about this? And that

Jack Burditt:

Sounds smart, and let's really dive into the mythology of Santa Claus and past Santa Clauses and Oh, wow. And it really kind of opened a lot of avenues and it made it interesting. And I honestly think it bought us, when we did it last year, it's supposed to be one time limited series, and it did really well. But I also think that storytelling that the staff writers brought in kind of helped get a second season to, that's interesting. Oh, there's other areas that dig, get we. It's not just about Tim Allen playing Scott Calvin as Santa Claus, and he got a family. But there's this entire world, and I don't know the mythology world that much. I watched some of these shows or whatever, but I never broken them down before. But these writers were just, a lot of the young writers, they're very much into that. And so

Michael Jamin:

I have noticed that too. When we work with young writers, they're very enthusiastic, very. And a lot of them come in, it's day one, and they got piles of ideas and the showrunner's, all right, and then what do we got? And they come up, they start pitching their ideas and they're like, whew, at least someone came prepared. Let's do their idea. Because the older writer's like, I don't really know. We'll have to bang our head up against the wall. But the young kids, they got ideas. Let's do those. Yeah, yeah. They're enthusiastic, but, and so I want to go through some of your credits here. You have so many interesting, I don't know. I guess, tell me how you, I guess let's start with this. How did you first break into the business?

Jack Burditt:

It was almost like, it should have been expected of me, but I kind of went away from it. So both my parents did this, right? I mean, originally from Cleveland, my dad was a greeting card writer, but then some of his friends, his greeting card friends started moving out to LA and working on variety shows and things like that. And at some point my dad, like midlife decides, yeah, I'm going to give that a try.

Michael Jamin:

Fuck all this sunshine greeting cards. This is some comedy. And when you say midlife, how old was he?

Jack Burditt:

He was in his forties

Michael Jamin:

And he broke in his forties.

Jack Burditt:

He broke in his forties, I guess it was a different time. Yeah. So we stayed in Cleveland while my dad came out and for a year tried to make it and then got on a show, a variety show, and he is like, all right, looks like I got a good job and

Michael Jamin:

Out. And what show was that though? Do you remember? It was a,

Jack Burditt:

Yes. So it was a show called Turn On, which is famous for being canceled. Even almost halfway through the airing of the first episode.

Michael Jamin:

At the first act, we got to get this thing off.

Jack Burditt:

There were so many calls to the network, which I, I'm trying to remember. Maybe A, B, C, maybe N B C.

Michael Jamin:

Why? Because there were so messy, there were so

Jack Burditt:

Many calls complaining about it. It was done by some of the same people that did laughing and it was like, let's take laughing, but speed it up even quicker and make faster jokes and go all and make it insane. So yeah, it had a 13 order, so that's why we moved. He moved the family out here and then boom, after one episode, he's out of work.

Michael Jamin:

Oh my God. It's hilarious. We, that's so funny, Steve. And we did a show once and we had a long, kind of a long contract. I go, what if we have to stay on this show? He goes, Steve's like this show's canceled up the act pretty soon as they air. And he was kind of right. Okay. So then after that show, what happened after the show was canceled to your dad? So

Jack Burditt:

Then thankfully a little bit after that, then he started writing on the Andy Williams show and which was done at N B C and Burbank. And we lived in an apartment a block from Burbank. And so kind of grew up around it. I grew up in Burbank, and then he did other variety shows. Sonny and Cher was the big one. He did, but he did a lot of things. You probably never heard of the Lola Ana show, the Hudson Brothers show. He did. But I guess the mid seventies he really started, he started realizing variety shows are going away.

Michael Jamin:

Well, there were a ton of them. There was Donny and Marie. I mean, it was the real

Jack Burditt:

Big deal. But he, I wanted to make the switch to sitcoms and he had a writing partner and they wrote a Jeffersons, they wrote on Jeffersons, they wrote all in the Family and Sanford and Son,

Michael Jamin:

All amazing shows.

Jack Burditt:

And then the guys who ran the Jeffersons started three, each company. And then that's what my dad and his partner did. They jumped ship and they went on this new show, threes company, which was just this massive, massive hit.

Michael Jamin:

But all those shows were massive. All of my favorite shows, I didn't know he did three's company. Oh my God.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. So I think he wound up writing probably more episodes of Three's company than anybody. I think So

Michael Jamin:

Did you go to set a lot? Did what was

Jack Burditt:

Growing? Yeah, and it was funny. So yeah, I was kind of fascinated by it. I got a kick out of it. I never thought of it as a career. I'm like, my brother and my sister are really smart. I'm kind of the dummy of the family.

And I always thought, oh, maybe they'll do something in there. My brother would make home movie. He is always making movies with those Super eight. But yeah, I just going, I thought it was fun to, I would go to Sonny and Cher, go to see those tapings, and then down the hall all in the family would be shooting and my dad would go, you want to go down to see Hall in the family? Yeah. I went down and just some dump, dump kid wandering around C B s television City. And then we'd go by and I'd watch Carol Burnett being filmed and amazing. And never occurred to me that this could be a career in any way.

Michael Jamin:

I don't know why your dad was doing it.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah, I don't know. I really, because like these are all smart, funny people doing it, I guess.

Michael Jamin:

And then when you went into the, weren't you in the military after? Did you not or was there somebody else? No. Oh, okay. Alright. So what? I was

Jack Burditt:

Not, my daughter went in the military, somebody

Michael Jamin:

Thinking, no, I know, but I thought you did. But I guess, or I didn't wait, but I

Jack Burditt:

Know. No, no, no. I, oh, I worked at Lockheed. I did. I mean, that

Michael Jamin:

Makes mean they make stuff in the

Jack Burditt:

Military's. I worked on missiles. So maybe

Michael Jamin:

What did you do in the missiles? What did you put gunpowder in it?

Jack Burditt:

I honestly, I don't think I'm allowed to say everything I did. Is that

Michael Jamin:

Right? You had security clearance?

Jack Burditt:

Probably shouldn't have said missiles. I can say missiles. It's been a long time. We know Lockheed, they made missiles, so Right.

Michael Jamin:

Wow. My college roommate, he was on Secret Service detail for many years. And when I ran him to at college reunion, I hadn't seen him many years and I was like, dude, I can't believe we're on Secret Service. How many of them are many are there on the Secret Service detail? And he goes, that's classified. I go, that's the answer I wanted. That's all I wanted. I don't care about the number, I want you to tell me it's classified. Okay. Alright. So then at what point after you decided you didn't want to make missiles anymore, did you get into comedy writing?

Jack Burditt:

So the one thing I did know I could do was write,

Michael Jamin:

How did you know?

Jack Burditt:

Just in high school, I mean, like I said, I'm kind of a dummy and I barely graduated from high school. And the only way I graduated from high school was I loaded up on any course that had writing in it. I can bss my way through this. So I knew that. Also knew I enjoyed writing. I would just write stuff all the time. And then I liked journalism a lot. And so after high school, did a little bit of college, but not really didn't. And I worked at Magic Mountain as the right operator. And

Michael Jamin:

Hey, it's Michael. 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 michael jamin.com/watchlist.

Jack Burditt:

Got yeah, started going out with another ride operator, and at some point she got pregnant and we're like, eh, let's get married. See how this goes. We're dumb teenagers. And we got married and we're still married today.

Michael Jamin:

But then did

Jack Burditt:

So because of that, because I had to be responsible. I can't continue working as a riot operator. Then I worked at Lockheed, and that's where I did the missiles thing. But my wife, her friend worked at the Daily News, Los Angeles Daily News, and she knew I was interested in journalism and she got me a job as they called 'em copy boys at the time. They're editorial assistants, basically a PA for newspapers. And back then stuff still came over. The wire wasn't computer and you'd rip the wire and get different people. So I was working there for a few months and still hustling, trying to pitch editors on, can I write something? And they're like, who is this dumb kid? But then, yeah, I met the entertainment editor and just started hanging around and he took a liking to me and I got an assignment to interview a band. And that was my first, it was my first writing gig, my first professional writing.

Michael Jamin:

What was the band?

Jack Burditt:

It was a country group called Alabama. Oh,

Michael Jamin:

Sure. But that's not sitcom, right? That's not narrative.

Jack Burditt:

No. And I was really happy working for newspapers. I really enjoyed it. But while I was working there, I was working with a couple other reporters who wanted to get into script writing, and they had heard at one point about my dad.

Michael Jamin:

They're like,

Jack Burditt:

Why aren't you doing this? Yeah. I'm like, he does it. And he does it really well. I don't guess that's the biggest part of it is my dad did it so well. I didn't want to be the guy who's trying to do the same thing and being bad at it. Interesting. And I think that was always a fear, but one of these reporters, he had been in special forces and he wanted to write action movies. So the three of us would sit there and write these spec action movies, scripts, we'd get drunk a lot too, and doing that. And we got an agent, not a very good agent, but we got an agent and nothing was happening with that. And at some point I was like, you know what? We should try tv. And the guy who was in the Special Forces, he's like, I don't like tv. I don't watch tv. And he really didn't. But I think I convinced, I think at one point we wrote a cheer speck and I, I wrote a lot and I mostly wrote specs on my own. I just liked writing. I mean, geez, I probably wrote, so wrote the cheers. You wrote a Roseanne. Wow. Probably a home improvement.

Michael Jamin:

But did you really know then how to write, how act breaks? Did you really, I, there's a difference between knowing how to writing and enjoying writing and knowing how to write.

Jack Burditt:

So I didn't know what I was doing. And so I didn't really go to my dad for advice. And by this point, my mom was also became a television writer. She was writing in one hours, and I did not bug them about it. And it was just idiotic. And I think there was an embarrassment on my part or I, I'm not sure exactly why. So interesting. But I got a job reading scripts picking up, so did it for Tristar, did it for Disney Channel, did it for a couple play as a script reader and doing notes. And that to me was the education really. And I started to really see what worked, what didn't,

Michael Jamin:

The scripts.

Jack Burditt:

And I remember I read a couple books and read articles on writing, and it was always, those first 10 pages better be great. And I did discover a world where so many people had a really strong first 10 pages, and then it all fell off a cliff. And I'm like, no, I think it's those middle of the scripts that if you can nail that, then you're in good shape.

Michael Jamin:

But when did you, because for me, it really took many years, even as after we became professional writers, before I really kind of understood how to write. Yeah, it was mostly relying on more senior writers to do the heavy

Jack Burditt:

Lifting. Right, right.

Michael Jamin:

Well, when did you figure that out?

Jack Burditt:

I mean, yeah, I don't know. Like I said, I did the script reading. I was still doing journalism, did the script reading on the side, and I think that really helped. Then I got a job at Disney as a script reader, and I was like full-time on the lot doing that. And then I was just around it and around people who talked about scripts and which is really, I would go to meetings that I should not have been in. I was in meetings with Michael Eisner and Jeffrey, and where they're talking about projects coming up and how to do this or do that. And I also didn't know my place. I would, I remember one point argue with Eisner, and then after the meeting, my boss said, you can never do that again.

Michael Jamin:

We did the show for him. This was a Michael Eisner show, and we would try to, he was a good boss, but we would try to convince him if he was stuck on something, there was no way you were going to change his mind ever. Not in a million years. And so it was his way. Okay. But for the most part, he let us do what we wanted, but once in a while he'd say, no, we're not going to do it my way. Well, you have the money. So

Jack Burditt:

There was one point, so there was a project, it was for the Disney Sunday movie, and Disney had signed these triplets, they're called Creole Creole triplets, and they're cute, I think 16 year olds. And Jeffrey Katzenberg wanted a show where, or a movie where on their 16th birthday, they discovered their witches. And so it was kind of charmed before Charmed. And I had been in those meetings where Kastenberg talked about it. So they hired a writer, and that writer, the first writer they got didn't really nail it. And then I had been in those meetings, I gave notes on it. They wanted me to give notes and say, this is what it should be. And then they wound up going with another writer, and she wasn't nailing it. And I gave notes and she did another pass. And it's like, I know this isn't what he wants. And so I did what you're not supposed to do. And over a weekend, I wrote, rewrote the first 30 pages of the script. And I went in Monday and I gave it to my boss, and I said, here's what I did. And she said, you can get fired for this.

Michael Jamin:

Why can't you get fired for that?

Jack Burditt:

Because I'm a reader. I'm not allowed to take a project and do my own pass on it. But

Michael Jamin:

Why not though? Because

Jack Burditt:

I don't know, there's

Michael Jamin:

Still her version and then there's your version.

Jack Burditt:

It is a rule. Or maybe they just wanted to fire me. I don't know. Okay.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. I don't know how the rules were. Okay, so you did this and she said, you shouldn't do this.

Jack Burditt:

She goes, yeah. She goes, you can get fired for this. I go, I know, but could you read it? And later that day, she came into my office, she goes, this is really good. I want to pass it up. But once again, I passed it up, you might get fired. I went, okay. And it got passed up and Kastenberg said, have this guy write the script,

Michael Jamin:

Then fire him. And

Jack Burditt:

That was your, so that was my first

Michael Jamin:

Break,

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. Wow. And it never got made,

Michael Jamin:

Right?

Jack Burditt:

Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Because things don't get made. That's how it

Jack Burditt:

Is. Things don't get made. But then it got me, I started rewriting some Disney Channel projects and a couple, yeah, it was all these things. Nothing ever got made. I remember I was hired to write the new Mickey Mouse Club and then suddenly lost the job. And I still don't know what happened. I was you. And they're like, nah, yeah, no, you're not going to do it after all. Or that was, wow. The one with Ryan Gosling and Britney Spears and

Michael Jamin:

Oh my God, wow. Launched them and could've launched your career.

Jack Burditt:

I know I could be hanging out with all of 'em now. It'd be so much fun. So I was doing that, still working newspapers at times, still doing some script reading, the whole script reading career too. I was like always liked looking for things. And I think the only success story I ever had was I found an article in American Heritage Magazine about a newsboy strike in the 19 early 19 hundreds against Pulitzer and Hearst and I passed along because Disney was always looking for things for kids that kids could be in. And I said, Hey, I think this might be a movie. I never pitched it as a musical or anything. I thought it was a straight ahead thing, but it was like Newsies

Michael Jamin:

And they, right, that became that. But you didn't have, so just whatever your job was to come up with ideas or you found an idea, you pitched it, or you put up the ladder, but you didn't get any credit. You don't get dirt. No, no. It was just, that sucks.

Jack Burditt:

And that's it. But yeah, also, I made money reading scripts for years, and that was the only thing that ever,

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, but it wasn't, I mean, you were raking it in as a script reader,

Jack Burditt:

Right? No, no. Right. No, no. It was mostly, it was actually a tough job for the little money. But like I said, I think that's where I learned everything. So that was helpful. And then I was still kind of kicking around, picking up little projects where I could and still work in newspapers. And I covered the riots in 92, the LA riots, and was so shook up by it. And so I really thought it was going to die up there. Everything was terrifying. And at this point, I got four kids. I'm, none of them will ever be able to go to college or anything, just scraping by. And I was like, I really need to write a great spec and try to get into sitcoms. It was finally, then I'm like, I'm really going to try this. And I wrote a Seinfeld spec that got wound up getting me with contacts I'd made Wound up getting me a really good agent. And within a few months I was on mad about you on the staff

Michael Jamin:

That was. And how many years were you on Mad About You

Jack Burditt:

Two? I did two Years On Mad About You.

Michael Jamin:

That was a really good show. And then Frazier, of course. And then, and most also, well, not most recently, but pretty recently, modern Family. The thing that strikes me about Modern Family is everyone in that room, I imagine it was a showrunner, potential showrunner had run shows. It's

Jack Burditt:

Crazy.

Michael Jamin:

It was really a talented room.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. I mean, yes, it was. I like being on a show early on and really being able to put whatever fingerprints I can on it and direction and take character. Oh, let's do that. I like being at the creation of something. But there was something really nice about coming into the Modern family at the end, and I only worked on the last three seasons of that show. And just being no stress, no pressure. It's just, I'll tell some of my weird family stories and maybe they'll go in the episodes and

Michael Jamin:

Because it must be nice knowing that anyone in that room is capable. It's okay if you're having an off day, someone else would be fine. You're in good hands no matter who's talking.

Jack Burditt:

It was an amazing, amazing room.

Michael Jamin:

It's unusual.

Jack Burditt:

Or rooms because

Michael Jamin:

There's multiple rooms. And did you go back and forth, because obviously Steve ran Run Room and Chris together, but did you jump back and forth, or were you in someone's room most of the time?

Jack Burditt:

I think the first season I was there, I was mostly in Steve's the second season. It was about half and half in the third season that I was mostly,

Michael Jamin:

Do you know why,

Jack Burditt:

Chris?

Michael Jamin:

I would be like, wait, does he not like me? And then if I got into that room, wait a minute, he doesn't like me anymore. I would be paranoid no matter what room

Jack Burditt:

I was in. Yeah, right.

Michael Jamin:

But it was just they wanted to mix it up or what?

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. I mean, yeah, that first year, whatever room you started in, you were kind of there. And when I say first year, my first year, it was year nine of the show, and then there was an concerted effort. The writer said, you know what? That got too weird last year. Let's always keep mixing it up.

Michael Jamin:

Okay.

Jack Burditt:

And so season 10, we really, everybody I think did about half and half.

Michael Jamin:

You can answer this now, but did you, before you got there, did you watch every single episode or no?

Jack Burditt:

Yeah, so I had watched a show a pretty much every week, I think the first three seasons and then what happened in life. And so when I knew I was going to go on the show, I got episodes four through eight, and I just watched them all, which is a horrible way to do it. Why? Because I just bing because nothing lands. Oh. Because then I found myself pitching things and they're like, we already did that. And I'm like, really? And then they would tell me the story. I'm like, oh yeah, I saw that.

Michael Jamin:

Was that the one I slept through? Is that,

Jack Burditt:

And I felt like, I think I waited too late, like, oh, I'm going to start there next week. I got to binge every episode.

Michael Jamin:

Wow. And then of course, yeah, you created Last Man Standing. Now you working with Tim Allen again, and yeah, I don't know. What do you see? What does the future look like? I don't know. How has it changed for you? What's your perception? What's going on with the future of writing?

Jack Burditt:

Future of writing? I mean, make me

Michael Jamin:

Feel good.

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. I makes me feel good. Yeah. I decide I have to stop, have to censor myself on the picket line because yeah, I message, look, it's rough. I think what we talked about earlier, young writers are not learning the skills to run a show or whatever. And it's really, I think that has to change, I think for the sake of the business. But I don't know mean for the future tough. I hope we've hit the low point right now and that things get a little bit better. But the business is broken in a way too. And I think business has to figure itself out. And as much as writers got to figure out what their place is in the business, but I keep hearing not all these streamers will exist in a couple years. Right? And I'm like, what does that mean though, too? And our network's dead or not? Or I don't know any of this. I it's, and I've never felt like I don't have a handle on the business, but right now, I don't know.

Michael Jamin:

It's interesting. We sold a pilot to, I don't want to say which one, we, to a streamer, this is, I don't know, a year or so ago. And then we turned it in and it just sat on someone's desk for probably close to a year before they finally said, it's dead. It took 'em that long to say. Yeah. And then I think what happened was, usually you find out in a couple of weeks or whatever, but I think what happened was they couldn't decide if the streamer was dead or not. It wasn't really about their show. Oh, it was about the future of the streamer. I think that's what they're thinking about. It's like, are we really going to do this? Why are we in business? So I don't know.

Jack Burditt:

I can't believe Netflix is thinking that way, but

Michael Jamin:

Between me and you, you'll hear it here first. You heard it here first,

Jack Burditt:

But

Michael Jamin:

You know what though, Jack, you are like us. I said this to Andy Gordon because, and Andy obviously, he just really enjoys writing. And you're the same way. I feel like you're just like, Andy will write and whatever. I don't really care. I'll just write something. As long as I'm writing, I do it the same way. Yeah,

Jack Burditt:

It, I mean, yeah, I'm always just writing things, just I do enjoy it. And Andy, you're right. Andy is another person I know, just loves it. Loves, yeah. Andy not only loves writing so much, loves everything about the business.

Michael Jamin:

He does. He does.

Jack Burditt:

And it's infectious being around him. Yeah. How much he loves it. He

Michael Jamin:

Loves it. He'll take pictures. We did a show, did show in the scrim in the back, the background on stage was you could see his house. It was a Hollywood scrim, and you could see his house in that hill. And he was so excited to see his house in the scrim. Yes. That's awesome. Because he always walks around with a camera. He captures every moment. So exciting to him.

Jack Burditt:

He's also just one of the funniest writers. That's hilarious. And just shoot me when you're, I'll say being in that room, that was such a great room. And I also just remember, I do love, right? And I, I'll work harder than everybody. I also feel like I'm not as funny as in that room. I'm like, I know I'm not as funny as Andy or Danny or you.

Michael Jamin:

I don't put that

Jack Burditt:

Jack. No, no. Absolutely. 100% I, I'd be in that room and I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to out. Funny. These guys maybe work. And I did have a nice reputation. The best thing I've had is that I turn in great first drafts. You do. And that always my thing. It's like I don't eat or sleep when I'm working on a draft. And I just, because out of fear, I got to be as good as everybody else who's just so naturally funny. I don't know.

Michael Jamin:

And

Jack Burditt:

I would just grind and grind and grind. And even when we're in a room and going down a road and everybody's pitching really funny things, I'm like, I'm not going to be able to join in and out, pitch them. So my whole strategy was always, is there another way to go with this story?

Michael Jamin:

How funny. And

Jack Burditt:

So sometimes I would just, sometimes I couldn't figure it out and I would just be a quiet in the corner. Other times it'd be like, yeah, that's great. What if we did that? And I felt like that was, sometimes my skill is like,

Michael Jamin:

But even, but wait. But if that, well, first way was getting traction. If the first idea was getting traction, you wouldn't derail it with a pitch that said, what about that? I

Jack Burditt:

Wouldn't, no. But I would like, no, not saying send the whole story, but another way to wrap up that scene or another way to try to come up with just something if it's heading some to surprise people and Yeah, this is funny. This is funny. It's going this way, this way. Oh, that happens.

Michael Jamin:

I don't know. What season just showed me was we were in one of the bungalows, I don't know, whatever it was. I have a clear, remember of you coming out of your office, you are off on draft on script, and you come and you were just exhausted. And it was just like, oh man. Poor Jack is on script. Yeah, you were really in it, man. You were when you're on script. Yeah, I remember that really well. You were suffering and you always turn in terrific drafts. I don't know what you're talking about, because it was always funny on page. And the most important thing is it funny on, and I don't even know how you did it, because when ER and I worked together, we know it's funny because the other person's laughing, but I always felt like, how do you know it? Because how do you know? I don't know how you did it alone. I really don't. Like how do you know it was going to be funny when you turned it in?

Jack Burditt:

Yeah. I mean, always felt like though there, it felt like almost every draft I turn in, there was always one or two jokes where people go, I don't get this. And I'd be like, I'd start to defend it and then realize like, yeah, no, it doesn't make sense.

Michael Jamin:

Don't get it either. I thought I was going to pull a wool over your eyes, but

Jack Burditt:

Do you

Michael Jamin:

Keep some kind of notebook now when you have ideas or what do you do?

Jack Burditt:

No, I used to carry a notebook everywhere I went. Really? I don't anymore. And I don't know. At some point I'm like, eh, if I don't remember it, it wasn't that good to begin with. But I know there's a couple things I've forgotten. I'm like, I know. That was good. I can't remember what that was

Michael Jamin:

Exactly. What Siebert and I say when we're on Tacoma fd, because we don't take a lot of notes. And there always our feelings. Well, if you don't remember, it was probably no good. No, but it was good. I dunno, maybe I should write it down, I guess. Oh, we should feel like you can come with something else. It's like it's not the end of the world. You come up with something, a better joke or whatever. Right. Anyway, that's so funny. Well, Jack, I want to thank you so much. This is an interesting talk. I really enjoyed this. I definitely enjoy getting your perspective on all of this, damn, honestly. And I have to, I'll say one last thing before I let you leave. You were always very support. I was a younger writer on just Shoot me. And you were very supportive of me. And I remember you sticking up for me one day and I really appreciate that. I don't remember what the details, but I said something, it was a joke. We were pitching on something. It was probably 10 o'clock at night. I was by by exhaust. And I pitched something that was kind of incoherent and

Someone started making fun of me, which you're supposed to do in the writer's room. You're supposed to make fun of the other person. But you came to my defense, you're like, no, this is his process. This is how he comes up with stuff. Leave him alone. And I always remembered that and little things like that. It's important. Oh,

Jack Burditt:

Well, it

Michael Jamin:

Really meant a lot. Really meant a lot to me.

Jack Burditt:

No, I liked your process too, because it was all out loud and you would try to, that's the

Michael Jamin:

Bad part.

Jack Burditt:

No, but it was interesting to me like, oh, I feel like it's what happens in a music studio, and I'm trying to figure out the thing. Yes, most people I think would keep it, try to figure it out in their head. But I also felt like with your process, because trying to get it right, you would throw something out and then work it and work it. But I also felt like there were times where you throw something out and you started working it, but then somebody else would pick up on it and I'm like, oh, maybe. To me it was like I always kept it inside until I felt like was I was 100% cooked and I probably shouldn't have at times. At times I'm like, I should have thrown something out that was half cooked and maybe gotten some help.

Michael Jamin:

But that's the thing. And I feel like I should have, I have not say everything out loud. That also can be a burden. When you're just spewing on stuff that's not ready to be heard, then everyone's shut up. So I can think, but how I think it's like whatever you're doing, you're always, am I doing it right? Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Whatever you're doing. I always feel like I'm probably doing it the wrong way. Someone else is doing it better.

Jack Burditt:

Right. Well, and that's one, and this, I guess would be the advice for younger writers if they ever happen to get into a room too. Yeah. It's just one thing I learned very late in life on this is every writer in that room is terrified that they're failing. Even the veterans, even ones have been doing it a long time, they're just like, oh shit. Oh man, if I don't, I got to get their, everybody is in their own heads, but do you

Michael Jamin:

Still feel that though? I mean, do you feel like other veteran writers that you currently work with or work with in the recent past feel that way still?

Jack Burditt:

I think the really good ones feel that

Michael Jamin:

Way. Really?

Jack Burditt:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

They feel like they're, they're stru. This is all garbage. It's all gone downhill. Yeah. Really. The good ones interesting. I'll have to get names from you, but I certainly feel like whenever we start a script, I'm like, ah, crap. You know what I really feel, I felt like, and I remember on Just Shoot Me Feeling This, every time you write a story, you break someone. We would break a story in the room and I always felt like, well, that's it. There's no more stories. That's it. How could there be more? It took us how took a week to figure out this one. Yes,

Jack Burditt:

Yes. Yeah. I know. It was all, yes. Especially those times where it really took a long time.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah.

Jack Burditt:

How did that take so much? We're we're done. Yeah, we, we've explored these characters too much and now,

Michael Jamin:

But you must've felt that way in Modern Family though, when you've done season nine,

Jack Burditt:

Right? I mean, yeah.

Michael Jamin:

You've done everything. I mean, I know in Simpsons they say, yeah, but we've only done it three times. Right.

Jack Burditt:

So we can still do it was this week. One more time out of it,

Michael Jamin:

But that shows 30 years old or whatever.

Jack Burditt:

God. But it's incredible.

Michael Jamin:

Alright, well Jack, thank you again so much. Yeah, it really was such a pleasure. This is a good talk. Alright everyone, until next week, keep tuned. Keep writing is what I all, I always say. Alright. Thanks again, Jack.

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.

In May I hosted a webinar titled "How To Get People To Attend Your Industry Event" where I discussed the idea of scabbing during a writers' strike, how having people striking is shutting down productions, and how to get someone to read your script. 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.

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Michael Jamin:

That's how you do it is you really create relationships where people want to help you, but don't send anything unsolicited ever. And I was going to do a post about that as well ever, because you expose people to liability. So this is one of those things where no good deed goes undone. If you send a script out to someone unsolicited like it, it's just going to get that person in trouble. So that's why we won't do it. That's why we won't read unsolicited scripts. You're listening to Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael. Hey everyone, welcome back. It's Michael Jamin. I'm here with Phil Hudson. Hey Phil.

Phil Hudson:

Hey, every, everybody

Michael Jamin:

What up? He says, what up. Keeps it low key. So we are doing another Q and a episode. So every month Phil and I host a live webinar where we talk, we pick a topic, we dive into it real deep. The last one, this one is from May. The one we did in May had a bunch of questions and if anybody wants to go get that one, they're all the webinars. By the way, Phil, you know this, but I'm telling everyone who's listening, they're all free. They're all free. If you 10 live and we give you stuff like free stuff, download stuff that you can get if you 10 live and if you miss it, you can get a free replay 24 for 24 hours. But then if you miss that and you want to buy it, you can buy it for a slow low price on my website, michaeljamin.com. And this website, this sorry webinar was called How to Get People to Attend Your Industry Event Or Watch Your Stuff, right? Because everyone wants to entice industry types. So we give a whole hour long talk on that. And then we got a lot of Q and as, a lot of questions. And so here are the ones that I wasn't able to answer and for your enjoyment and listening pleasure. Alright, Phil, hit me.

Phil Hudson:

So for formatting, again, I've kind of grouped them into topics. So we'll go topic by topic. And again, if your question was asked and you don't get an answer, we probably already answered that. Yeah, there are a couple questions at times that we re-answer or readdress because everyone asked that question and people don't seem to get the answer when you tell them because you say it all the time. So yeah, that's okay. That being said, a couple things about the rider strike, just because it's topical right now, MB Stevens, w g a strike question. If the assistant loves our work and recommends it to an executive who wants to sign us, do we sign or wait until the strike is over?

Michael Jamin:

Oh, no one's going to, one's going to sign with you now. I really don't think anyone's going to sign. So you can sign, if they decide to sign you, you can go ahead and sign, but they're not going to solicit work for you right now.

Phil Hudson:

Oh, you think you're referring to agents and managers? And this question is about studio executives.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, studio.

Phil Hudson:

No. Yeah, they're saying if recommends you to an executive, so the answer is no. Right? Because that would be considered scabbing and the WGA has documentation about that. There's a whole site about it. You could go look up. But anyway, from an agent manager question, I think that's a good question. Lots of people have.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, sorry, I was mis misinformed. Yeah, no, if it's a studio, you can't solicit any work for even try you.

Phil Hudson:

I think they said that even having a meeting with a studio executive about writing is considered an act of aggression against the WGA A and you're hurting your future industry anyway, so you wouldn't want to do that.

Michael Jamin:

You don't want to do that.

Phil Hudson:

I want to point out too, Michael, I get it. For a lot of people this feels a little unfair because they don't get any of the benefits of the W G A right now. However, the whole point of this is that they are fighting for your future rights. The way that other people fought for Michael Jamon rights and Steve Glam and Kevin ever, all the other people that we know who are writers, other

Michael Jamin:

Writers that just in the 2008 strike cost me a lot of money. A lot of money and didn't, I'm not even upset about it. I don't losing obviously that money, but I always felt like it. I wouldn't have gotten any of this if it weren't for the people before me. So it's not really my money to have because it would've been zero without those people. So it's just like this, it's this honor thing that you have to do if you want to have any honor in your life. So yeah, don't shoot yourself in the foot. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Awesome. Ryan McCurdy, are there riders who are striking trying to shut down current productions in protests separate from picketing outside of the major studios

Michael Jamin:

And they're being very successful, they're shutting down shows everywhere. I also know, I was talking to somebody about this just yesterday on the picket line, there's like, I dunno what they call it, it's like a guild strike force or whatever. And so they work the night shift from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM and so it's only a couple of hardcore picketers. They go up like it's three in the morning and they start picketing studios if they know if that they're going to be doing a production there. And as long as there's more two or more people carrying a picket sign, people won't break the line you, but there has to be two or more. And so the transpo drivers, they're not going to break the line. No one, anyone who works in any union or guild, they're not going to break the lump, but there has to be two or more. And so these guys I was talking to actually this friend of mines, Mike Paler who's on Taco fd, he did it one night, he was there, it was 3:00 AM he's like it was bleary. So yeah, they'll shut down. And I did it as well back in 2008. I was running around as well to different sets. As long as there's locations, as long as there's two more writers, people honor that. The picket line.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. One thing that's really important to note is that it's a very unified front from basically everyone in the industry where they understand that this is a reflection of a trend in the industry for everyone. And so the transportation department is who I was thinking of in their contract. They're allowed, they're no, they cannot force their drivers to cross a picket line. And so literally transpo won't show up to your set. And if you don't have transpo, you don't have a show.

Michael Jamin:

These are union guys and Teamsters. Yeah, teamsters. Teamsters. Don't mess with the teamsters. That's

Phil Hudson:

Right. They got good sandwiches. There's your 30 rock reference.

Michael Jamin:

Oh that,

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Liz Lemon. She like the teamsters show up and make sandwiches and she's trying to figure out where they get their steak sandwich. It's like a whole episode. It's like a thing. Anyway, engagement. This is our next section, which I think speaks a little bit more to the topic of the webinar. And these are just the whole topic. The whole thing was about this, how to get industry people to watch your stuff, attend your event. So the meat of this is in the replay, which is available right now @michaeljamin.com slash shop. It's just a nominal fee and it's lifetime access. You on demand, you can watch as many times as you want. Yeah, Fran, yeah. Shop,

Michael Jamin:

It's just kind of hard to hear. Yeah. Michael jamin.com.

Phil Hudson:

Shop

Michael Jamin:

With a P.

Phil Hudson:

Okay. S h o P. Yep. Fran, what if you don't have an event or something to watch? What about reading your script? Meaning how would you get people to read your script?

Michael Jamin:

Oh, how would get someone to read your script that that's a big ask of, I was going to do a post about this. Actually, that's a huge ask and you only get to ask that once. And if it's garbage or not up to snuff or mediocre, you forget it. You just shot yourself in the foot because you only get one chance for a great first impression. And it's big. You're asking someone in the industry to spend, let's say two hours on your script, maybe spend an hour on notes, maybe another hour on a phone call, giving you those notes during which you are going to be very defensive because no one likes getting notes and it's an unpleasant experience. I was the same way. I didn't like getting notes. I want to be told my script was perfect. And I, I've done this enough where you start giving notes and people are like, they get defensive. It's like, all right, look, I'm doing you a favor. It's a huge ask. So the best way to do it is, is the best way obviously. And Phil, this the best way is to have someone owe you a favor and I've owed you, that's how we met. You were very good to me and my wife and I felt like I owed you a favor. And that's how I read your

Phil Hudson:

Script. And for everyone listening, I didn't know that you were who you were. I didn't, right, because it was the right thing to do and I would've done it for anybody in that situation. And I never looked at it as, I'm going to get something from this guy. It was literally like I just had to do my job and this was the ethical thing to do. And that paid off as, call it karma. It paid off the way it should have, which is you offered to read something, I sent you something and your response was, eh, it's a bit of a Frankenstein here. And that hurt. And I didn't ask you to read anything again for three years

Michael Jamin:

Until you, until were ready. But also, as far as I was going to do a whole, I could do a whole, I dunno, maybe a webinar in the future. So I don't want to rob from that. But basically if it's talking about agents, and I've spoken about this, you got to bring more to the table than just a script. But there are some agents that will read the unsolicited scripts, they will read from new writers, the big ones, you're not going to have anyone at U T A or I C M or ca read your script, but that's okay. There are much smaller ones, but you don't pay them, don't pay them upfront. That's not what agents don't do that. They work on commission. So that's how you do it is you really create relationships where people want to help you, but don't send anything unsolicited ever. And I was going to do a post about that as well ever, because you expose people to liability. So this is one of those things where no good deeded goes undone. If you send a script out to someone unsolicited it, it's just going to get that. It's just get that person in trouble. So that's why we won't do it. That's why we won't read unsolicited scripts.

Phil Hudson:

But to that note, Chandra Thomas, who's in the writer's room this season, she's a strike captain, super go-getter. She was kind enough after the season to reach out to myself and Hannah, our writer's assistant, and offer to read anything we had. I've never asked anyone else on, I've never asked our showrunners, I've never asked anybody to read anything except for Mike Rap who was a peer, who became a snap writer and we trade things. But beyond that, she offered. And that's incredibly kind gesture of hers. I still haven't sent her anything though. I don't want to waste her. And

Michael Jamin:

That's because you forged a relationship

Phil Hudson:

With her and I don't want to waste your time, so I still haven't followed up with her, but I haven't sent her anything. I don't want to waste her time,

Michael Jamin:

So,

Phil Hudson:

Alright, awesome. Josh Hunt does the book you suggest we publish, and I think this was you saying you need to put yourself out there and you need to do more. Don't wait for people. Does the book you suggest we publish? Should it be the same story as an existing pilot, we want to sell it

Michael Jamin:

Could do anything you want. I mean, make a name for yourself. Make a name, you know, putting out a book and whether you indie, publish it or get it by, pick it up by a publisher. If it only sells 500 copies or whatever, that's not going to move the needle. You have to make a hit, whatever. If it becomes a bestseller, people are going to reach out to you because they want to exploit you. When you want to be exploited, and I use the word exploit, it gets your attention. Obviously I'm being a little flip, but you want to create something that people want. And so if you create whatever your script is, whatever your book is, I don't know, whatever you want it to be, as long when it becomes a bestseller because and because people want to read it, by the way, your poorly written book will probably not be a bestseller. Your well-written book might be. And so then people will come after you because you got something they want, which is basically a platform, something that's comes with a built in audience. It's all about marketing so much about Hollywood. Is it? It's a business. I didn't read Fresh 50 Shades of Gray.

It became a bestseller and they made a movie out of it. And that's just how it's done. And when you go back in time, this is how it's always been done for 40, 50 years, you go, oh, I didn't realize that was that movie that I loved was based on a book. Based on a book.

Phil Hudson:

Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Graham Garside. If established writers such as yourself cannot read established writer scripts for legal reasons or fear of co conflict of interest sake, who do you suggest we reach out to that can read them?

Michael Jamin:

Well, I kind of the same thing. You forge forge relationships. That's why people, I say, do I have to move to Hollywood? Well, you don't have to do a damn thing, but this is where you're going to make relationships. I met a kid today just on the picket line and I was talking to, he was a nice kid and he was actually friend. Oh no, a student of one of my friends who teaches at local university and he goes, this student is really good. He introduced me to him because I don't know, I can't really help him at, it's, we're all on strike. But he wanted to help this kid out, make a relationship. And so that only happens by being out here and by being good. It wasn't like the kid was bad, was a bad writer, he thought this kid had potential. So that's why that came.

Phil Hudson:

Well, it's right, there's capital and we talk about this principle in business leadership capital. There's capital being exchanged. It's goodwill in that that's that favor you're talking about being owed, feeling like you owe someone. So your friend is not going to put you in a position to be around someone who they don't think can, will make it or can cut it. Right.

Michael Jamin:

That

Phil Hudson:

Makes him, because it burns your bridge, his bridge with you. And that's what people are asking people to do that. That's literally one of the other questions here, deeper down, will I have to move back to Los Angeles to be successful at screenwriting? Don't put it on here. You don't because you,

Michael Jamin:

Right. What's that, Phil? You don't have to do anything you want. And I was going to do a whole webinar coming up. You know what to do if you absolutely refuse to move back to Los Angeles or move to Los Angeles. Is there, what can you do? I promise, well, not promise, but I'm going to look into trying to do a webinar based on that topic. But you are tying one hand behind your back for sure. It's not saying it's impossible, but you are making it, making, this is a hard industry to break into. You're making it even harder because there are people here who are willing to sacrifice, give up, move away from their friends and families to start a new life in Los Angeles, maybe at the bottom. And they, they're hungrier. They want it long, a harder, more, and they're going to skip to the head of the line, deservedly so, because they've already sacrificed more than you have. So you don't have to do anything. And like I said, I'll, I'll try to do a webinar on that topic, what I would do if I refuse to move to la, but you're making it harder.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, absolutely. Zachary Dolan, and this is shifting into craft by the way, which is alright, the art of telling story, the Art of screenwriting, Zachary Dolan, how much value do you give personal experience for inspiring great writing as a young person? Do I have to gain more of life experience to be a better or more authentic writer?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, that's a really good question. That's the advantage of being older. You have more life experiences and you can kind of see things a little more clearly that you probably can't see when you're 20. I know when I was young, when I was in my twenties, early twenties, and I wanted to be a writer. Well, here, here's a really good example. I loved the Well movie Biloxi Blues by Neil Simon. And then when I was in college, they were staging it. So I auditioned for it and I got one of the leads, one of the small leads. And because I loved that play and that movie, and I remember thinking at the time, man, because it was loosely based on Neil Simon's life, and I remember thinking, ah man, Neil Simon's so lucky that he was in the army and that he had an insane drill sergeant.

Then he got a movie and a play out of it how he's so lucky. And I was like, if only I had been in the army and been abused like that as I got older and I wrote this collection, my collection of personal essays, I have stories just like that. I didn't in the army, but I have interesting stories that I've just because I've lived life and I know fortunately I have the talent and the craft now to be able to turn that into an interesting story because it's not just typing things up. So it's definitely, that's an advantage to being older. When you're young, it's easier to you, it might be easier to break in hungrier. You can live off less money, you don't have a family, maybe you might be willing to sleep on the floor more. So it's struggling is easier I think when you're younger. So there's that middle age, what is it, between 20 and 50? What is it? Is it 30? We don't know. There comes a point where hopefully you'll have enough experience to put into your work and until you do, it's really important to learn the craft. Might as well, might as well use that time to write how to write.

Phil Hudson:

I'll add that to as well and say it's a level of life experience, but then there's also a level of emotional vulnerability. I had a lot of life experience that most people don't want to have. Very early on in life, I could not emotionally process that information until I was in my thirties. I know a lot of people who have a lot of life experience young and a lot of emotional vulnerability young, and they are the people who are doing amazing things at a young age. I mean, not that your daughter has gone through a ton of stuff, but you speak often about one of your daughters having something to say. Yeah, I had something to say, I just didn't know how to say it. Despite having a phone to talk through, which is the form of screenwriting,

Michael Jamin:

Right? Yeah. See, that's the thing, you're right, Phil, you need two things. You have to have something to say and you have to know how to say it to be a good writer. And you had plenty to say you didn't know how to say it, you know, had a difficult child, tough childhood, and now you can tap into it. I didn't have anything to say and I didn't know how to say it when I was 20. I have neither my

Phil Hudson:

Daughter who's 20. That should make you all very happy by the way, everyone listening, saying you can make a career even if you can learn those things,

Michael Jamin:

You can learn those things. Yeah. My daughter who's in college I think is amazing because she has a very high emotional IQ and she has something to say and I'm teaching her how to say it and she's learning really fast. She's really good. So everyone's got their own path.

Phil Hudson:

But Michael isn't that nepotism,

Michael Jamin:

Isn't that right? But if your father was a mechanic or worked on cars, then you probably would learn how to work on cars just by being around them all the time.

Phil Hudson:

I was rarely have an opportunity to sit down on TikTok and scroll through things, but my wife lives on there and so she'll send me things and I randomly one day stumbled upon this kid. He's 20 years old and he's a stone mason in Britain and he restores cathedrals. And I'm watching this 20 year old with a chisel do things that blows my freaking mind. And I'm like, it is so fascinating to watch this kid do this thing that's basically a dead craft because machines should be able to do all these things and he does it as an artisan and he's 20 years old and

Michael Jamin:

There's probably four people in the world who can do it.

Phil Hudson:

Oh, that's beautiful about it. Like how did you learn this? And then he shows a photo of his dad and he's sitting beside his dad as a kid and his dad's doing that job and he's chiseling away practicing at eight years old. He learned from his parents the same way we all did for thousands of years.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Learned from your parents. So

Phil Hudson:

I asked that question facetiously. I know the answer is not nepotism. It is taking advantage of the opportunities in front of everyone, and there has never been a better time to get an advantage in anything you want to do than right now because of how accessible the internet has made people like you. Yeah. You are teaching people how to do that. You taught your daughter.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, exactly. I don't know, she, it's the

Phil Hudson:

Same stuff. It's not special. Right?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, right. Same stuff.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Awesome. Similar to that Adam Biard talking about worldviews, is there a line where writers should shy away from content because they didn't live it?

Michael Jamin:

Is there a line if they shy? I mean obviously you're not, it's hard for you to write a story, an authentic story about some in experience. I can't write a story about growing up in the inner city. So if I were to write a story like that, I would certainly want a co-writer or someone who lived that experience so that it could be authentic. But that doesn't mean they say write what, so if, whatever it helps, it helps to be able to write what it feels more authentic.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. There's a writer, a New York Times bestselling writer that I was listening to and in an introduction in his book, he said, I'm not the guy who interviewed this guy who did this thing. I'm the guy who remembers what it was like to do it and that's why my books are more authentic. I was like, oh, that's deep. And that's not to say, going back to what we were talking about, emotional intelligence and emotional iq, a lot of people with a lot of empathy who can channel a lot of those things, but never going to be authentic as someone who has the capability to say something and experience.

Michael Jamin:

It's like when we audition for actors who come in for parts, a lot of actors have a wide range. Let's say they have a wide range. Let's say you're auditioning for school bully or whatever, and a bunch of actors come in and they, they're convincing, but then one kid comes in who's a dick? You could just tell this kid's a dick. Could they just exude it? And you go, you got the part because they don't have to pretend you. They got that vibe. And I, we've cast people like that all the time who are so close to the part who basically are the part, they don't need to act. They are the part. And so

Phil Hudson:

You told me about one of those people, you told me about one of those people and I laughed because like I imagine that person being that exactly that because they just live. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

So it's the same thing for writing. It just, it's easier if you are that part.

Phil Hudson:

I was listening to an interview with Chris Pratt and he said that his big hit was on Everwood and he read the role and he didn't want to go do it. And so he is like, you know what? There's this thing I've always wanted to do, which is just go in and pretend I was the person and not put on the scene, but just be the person. And it's like the school bully. And so he's like, I walked into the audition, I was like, alright, so here's the thing. Obviously I am the star of this show and this kid is a punk and he wants to be with my sister, and that's messed up and my job is to make sure he knows he can't come into my world and mess this up. And they're like, and then he walked out all egotistical, and then he said when he left, he turned to the door and listened. And they're like, that's our guy, right? Because obviously he's not the main character, he's the dick in the show messing with the main character, but that, and you say this all the time, the bad guy is the hero of the story in his mind. He's the hero and he did it, and that's how he got his break doing exactly what you said.

Michael Jamin:

Right, right. Interesting.

Phil Hudson:

Cool. Awesome. So next up we've got Linda Gakko. Is there a specific format for scripts? And I thought that would be something you haven't talked about in a while.

Michael Jamin:

Well, yeah, there's a format. Depends on what you're writing. So the format is going to be different for a half hour multi-camera sitcom for a half hour live action single camera sitcom or an animated, they all have slightly different formats. There's a different format for slightly different format from a movie. But to be honest, if you mess up, you're not going to get hired. If the margins are perfect, the story has to be good or great. So you can Google all those formats and you can go on my website and even download some sample [email protected]. You could download some sample scripts and a couple different formats just so you get the margins just so it looks better. But to be, but honestly, if you get the margins slightly wrong, it's not a big deal. I, I've written professional scripts, turned them in, and to have someone at the studio say, we don't like your margins, I, I'll change the margins. Why do I care? I'll change the margins. But the story works. The story is the most important part. You can't fake that part.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. And software does that for you now. Yeah. You don't have to have a word to template that you handcrafted with the margins like you did in 92.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, right. A

Phil Hudson:

Awesome Joshua Drew, Joshua DeBerry, excuse me, Joshua. When developing characters for shows or movies, are certain actors kept in mind during the writing process or are they picked after the characters are developed?

Michael Jamin:

It, it depends what you want. I mean, my partner and I generally, no, pretty much always write with an actor in mind for each part. And it could be an A-list star, it could be someone we're never going to get for the role, but we write with them in mind just to get their voice. It helps just to imagine, oh no, that's not how that actor wouldn't play that well or, oh, that they do snarky. So I can hear the voice. So it definitely helps, but I don't need to, sometimes you'll read a script and they'll say, think Arnold Schwarzenegger for the whatever role. Okay, okay, sure. I tend not to do that, but some people do.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. I tend to do that occasionally. David Booker, how soon in the script or novel do you need to identify the obstacle and goal or do obstacle in goal to find the protagonist? It need to be defined upfront.

Michael Jamin:

The sooner you, the sooner the better. The sooner the or the, and I have a free lesson. If anybody wants to download this, go to michael jamin.com/free where I explain this a little better in more detail. But the sooner you set that up, establish the sooner the audience is able to identify the hero and the obstacle and the goal, the better before any time until then, the you're, you're literally boring people. You're waiting for them to do something else. So the sooner, the better that a common note we'll get from any studio executive is can you start the story, the story sooner, and then you'll get that on page three is pretty fast. Yeah, but can you do it on page two? Sure. And I've written stories in my book and Oh, I was going to talk about that. I'm glad we're doing that. I'm making note where the story starts fast, really fast. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that question. 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 could unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michael jammin.com/watchlist.

Phil Hudson:

Maria Perez, how do you trace a map? This is, I think is a translation. So how do you trace a map to a great story that has multiple layers? How do you outline a story that has multiple layers? Is I think the

Michael Jamin:

Most important thing you need to do is get the story, tell your compelling story that's figure that out. Figure out how to break the story. Once that's done and your story is rock solid and you can, you know how to hang that thread all the way through, then you can go back and add in the layers, the little themes that maybe people may pick up may not pick up. Then you can go back and say, oh, you know what? He should be watching the clipper game because it feels like a game. And so that's later. If you do it first, you probably will fall in love with it and then you'll bend the story to make that work. And it shouldn't be. The story always comes first. Always talk to anybody. The story comes first.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, that's a solid note. When I was in film school in Santa Fe, I was, one night I was driving on a coyote, walked through the middle of the street at night and I was like, oh, that's a cool moment. Let me put that in a script. And then later when I redid another draft on that script, it became a vulture because it was more on theme to what I was writing about with predatory people. So to your note, it's just rewriting and

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Cool. Next section is being a pro. Yeah, Yankee. Okay. What in your mind is a good balance of honing your craft at a higher level? Would you focus more on working with others voices, more solo work or like 40, 60 split between the two?

Michael Jamin:

Well, when, if you're going to work in television, and most screenwriters, I think start should start in television, you'll learn more about story structure on a TV show than you will trying to sell a movie on your own. So I always recommend starting TV first. And when you start in tv, you don't need to have a voice. You need to capture the voice of whatever show you're on. So it's a little harder now because it's a little harder. Now, new writers are also expected to have their own voice, which I feel is very unfair. So I do, I guess I would, maybe I'd make a case for doing both. I would say work on stuff, original stuff of your own that has a voice, and then also try to write sample material for shows that already exist. Or even if you want to do a movie, a movie that feels the tone of some other movie, so that you can develop two skill sets. One is being this mimic and one is having an original voice. Because when I'm, I'm working on a TV show, I don't have to have an original voice ever. I'm capturing someone else's voice.

Phil Hudson:

The terminology gets a little confusing here for people. So in features, a spec script is a script that you're writing on speculation that you can sell it. And that typically means you get paid more to do it. You assume the risk, whereas an assignment is something a studio gives you, and you write that. But in the TV world, a spec script is writing a sample of an existing show,

Michael Jamin:

But you're not going to try to sell. It's just a writing sample.

Phil Hudson:

And going back to the second thing I ever had you read, it was a spec script of Mr. Robot that I wrote for a TV writing class I had, and your note feedback was different. I can tell you're a competent writer, you captured their voices, these things, but it's good, not great, and you have to be great. And then I was like, ah, crap. And then I took three more years to send you something else, right? But it was a good exercise for me to say, can I do the job of writing

Michael Jamin:

A show? But along the way, you're al you were always writing, always working, and get working to get better. And you saw improvement in yourself, like others you didn't even have to ask to see. You saw it in yourself, right? The more you wrote, the more better you got

Phil Hudson:

For sure. Yeah. And I think there are a couple things I've picked up from you that we've talked about on the podcast and we definitely talk about on the webinar. I wish I would've caught earlier. The big one for me was when I was going to send you something and you're like, do me a favor and print it out and then send it to me so I don't have to print it out. And I was like, huh, okay. And so then my rewrites, the process that really changed this for me was this. I print out my script, I take a red pen, I just sit down in a chair and I read it, and I do no editing on the computer because for years I would just beat up the same script and polish the same first act and never really get anywhere. And now I take the lessons from your course and I'll whiteboard, what are my three acts, what are the structure points that need to be there? And then I write the page count there just to give me an idea of how balanced the script is. And that all comes from the course, but the printing things out thing really did it for me. Yeah. I stopped polishing the turds, and

Michael Jamin:

That really helps to look at a hard copy. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. So yeah, to answer your question, yes, I was learning. But those things, for anyone listening, that's just learn that now and save yourself a couple years of pain sitting in front of a computer. Great. Rich Scott, any thoughts on a daily goal for your writing? What is a successful day of writing for you?

Michael Jamin:

Well, for anybody, it depends what your schedule is. If you can write 10 or 15 minutes a day, if you're super busy and you can do 15 minutes, great. That's a successful day. It just depends what your schedule looks like. If you're a weekend and you only have nothing to do and you only write 15 minutes, that's not successful. If you could have put in more hours. But again, to me, I don't measure success by page count because I'll often put out pages which are unusable, but what it does to me is hopefully gets me closer to what is usable. And so to me, a successful day is, it can even be when I'm driving in a car and I'm working on a story problem, just one problem, not working on the whole story. I'm just thinking, well, how do I make this entrance work for this character? How do I give them a good ENT entrance? Or what is the story really about? Well, I'll focus on one problem, I'll turn the radio off, and if I can find the answer to one problem during a half hour commute or whatever it is that's successful, I make a note. And now I go home and I can write it later. You can get a lot done. You can get a lot done in a half hour car ride if you just focus on one problem.

Phil Hudson:

That was the other big piece of advice you gave me. So funny how that's lined up. So as a pa, I would spend so much time driving around LA and sitting in traffic, and I'd listen to podcasts and stuff, and you were like, you asked me, do you listen to podcasts in the car? I was like, yeah. And you're like, stop.

Michael Jamin:

Just

Phil Hudson:

Start working on yourself. So I would turn on voice memos and I would just talk out loud to myself to solve my problems and I'd get home and oftentimes I didn't even need to reference it, but I had it so I didn't lose anything, and it was really, really helpful. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Turn off the radio.

Phil Hudson:

A lot of people in the webinar also commented that they loved that piece of advice you gave. You had given it earlier, and a lot of people said it's really turned things around for them, which is turning the turning stuff off in your car and focusing on even just 15 minutes a day of just working on a store problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just nuggets of gold being dropped by Michael Jamin here.

Michael Jamin:

Oh,

Phil Hudson:

Don't pick your mic up and drop it. We still got a podcast.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, we got more to talk about.

Phil Hudson:

All right. David Kepner, excuse me. Super speed. 2, 3, 7, 8. Do you as a working writer still find time to make what you consider art? Or do you get enough joy and fulfillment out of the business side, the stuff that makes money?

Michael Jamin:

No. I get more joy and pleasure from my side project. I'll plug it now. A paper orchestra, which is just my passion project, which is a collection of personal essays, which hopefully will be available soon for purchase for all of you. But to me, I get more pleasure out of that when I write for a studio, I'm getting paid and I have to give them what they want, and that's fair. It's a fair trade. And sometimes I'm writing stuff I'm not crazy about. That's okay, I got to pay the bills totally fine with me. But when I'm writing this on the side, this is, and I'm not sure if I struggle with what art is. We've had this conversation, what is art? But to me, this is closer to art than what I did when I do as a sitcom writer, just because I think it's coming from a more truthful, emotional place, and I struggle with what art is. So I think maybe this is closer to, I think this is maybe art. I know it's difficult to do for me to do, but I get a lot of, and I don't get paid for, or I haven't gotten paid for this yet, at least. So it's not about the money.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. David Kepner, what's the difference between writers and script doctors?

Michael Jamin:

Well, there's really not such thing as a script doctor. So every writer, I mean, anyone who's ever doctored a script, which is this crazy term, I guess Carrie Fisher wants, everyone's referred to Carrie Fisher as a script doctor. The script is dying, bringing in the script doctor. It is not really a thing. You're just a screenwriter. Every screenwriter will work on trying to sell a movie or a TV show, trying to write something original, working on someone else's project. Sometimes you get called in to do a rewrite on someone else's project. And I guess you could say that person is a script doctor. Some people say, I want to be a script doctor. And there's no such thing. You want to be a screenwriter who maybe gets side work doctoring someone else's script, fixing someone else's script. But by the way, no one's going to hire you to fix someone's script if you can't do it yourself.

If you don't write a good script on your own, no one's going to pay you to fix someone else's. Like we're, it's just such a amazing, there's so much bad knowledge on the internet that people are just fishing out and they're thinking, well, I don't really want to write a screenplay. It's a lot of work. I don't really want to learn how to write, but I don't mind fixing someone else's piece of crap. Who do you think is going to hire you if you can't do it yourself? So you need to learn the art of, in the craft of screenwriting, you need to learn it. So this thing about script doctoring, it's just a fancy word that, what are you talking about?

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. There's another avenue to this, and without naming names, there are people who call themselves script doctors who will read your script, Michael, for $500, and give you notes and tell you all of the problems and help you fix. Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

I'd like to read their script and find out if they can write and, well, I'd like to read, I'd like to see their credits. I'd like to look 'em up on I md. But what have they done that so good at telling you how to do that job? Really,

Phil Hudson:

It's a lot of money being spent by naive people who want to be rider and people selling the dream. And you don't do that. You sell the reality, the harsh reality.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. And I know say that even at the end when I'm talking about my course, I'm, listen, I have a course, you can get it or not. Okay. If you don't want to get it, just keep following me. I offer a lot of free advice. I'm not trying to trick anybody into buying anything.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. And you also tell 'em like you're not going to make their career

Michael Jamin:

Like you. No, I'm not. Yeah. All I can do is help you. I can teach you what I know. It's up to you to who knows what kind of talent you have and who knows what kind of work ethic you have that's on you. So yeah,

Phil Hudson:

Ariel Medley, I'm an aspiring screenwriter with a two-year-old child. Should I ever get into his writer's room? Any advice on balancing the long hours with parenting? And I thought this was a good one because you had kids when you were writing, right? You were in your career.

Michael Jamin:

Sure, I have. And I was just talking to my friend Cliffy, Carrie Cliffy yesterday, and she has a kid, and so it is hard for her to have long hours. It's hard, especially, I think this is a woman who asked this question.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, I heard Ariel, so I'm assuming the mother. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

So yeah, it's definitely hard. I mean, the hours in TV can be really brutal, and you will probably be away from your child for long hours. So how do you balance? So that's just the job is the hours are terrible. It might not be for something that you want to consider until your child is a little older. So in the meantime, work on your craft, become really, really good so that when your kid is in high school and wants nothing to do with you, you don't feel so bad when you're working till midnight every night. And at that point, if you're worked on your craft so long, you're going to be really good. Perfect timing is perfect. You'll spend next. Why not spend the next 13 years getting really good at writing so that when you get that job, woo, you can start flying.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. It's tell you, it's tough. I was working 14 hour days as a producer's assistant on a feature film when my kid was born. And that was just, I would go days without seeing my kid leave before she got up. And that sucked really hard. I miss those days, but I cherished and treasured those midnight cry sessions and the weekends. So yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Just

Phil Hudson:

Make the most of the time and be as present as you can be. Paul Cromwell. Do aspiring writers ever make it after turning in a bad draft and burning their one shot?

Michael Jamin:

Well, I, if you're on, I, do they ever make it? I can't say ever. I can't speak for all of Hollywood

When I'm on staff of a TV show. If a writer turns in a draft that's unusable, then you got to measure it. Well, how good are they in the writer's room? How much do they contribute that's usable? They may be terrible in the room and their scripts are terrible. Well, that they're not going to, they're gone. But they may actually have really good ideas, but still need a little more handholding, a little more mentorship. And maybe it's a diamond in the rough. But the problem is that these days have changed. When I broke in the writer's staff, the writer's rooms were much larger. And so you could hide if you're a young writer and you didn't really know how to do it yet. Most don't. You could hide a little bit. Today, the writer's rooms are smaller, the budgets are smaller, so there's, there's fewer places to hide. And so you really want to be prepared. You really want to understand story structures so well that you can turn on a draft so that you don't have to worry about being fired because a shame, it's hard enough to break in and then now you've fired. Great.

Phil Hudson:

And tying it back to what we talked about at the beginning, specifically for aspiring writers, I effectively burned my one shot with you when sent you my first script. It was not a good script. I understood nothing about story structure. I just knew how to put some things together and some formatting, but I didn't burn my bridge with you because of the goodwill I had earned and the understanding of where I was at and your mentorship. But I understood also sending more bad stuff real quick was a quick way to burn that bridge, which is why I didn't. So you just got to be conscientious and you got to have social skills. The social awareness is a really key thing. And I apologize, I didn't write this person's name down, but I'm a student and I don't have the money for the course. This is speaking about your screenwriting course. If I could do a monthly payment that is not one quarter of my entire paycheck for my minimum wage job, is there any way I could get it cheaper? And I thought this was an interesting one because there are a lot of people who want to know, can I take your course? I can't afford the course right now. Any thoughts on that?

Michael Jamin:

Well, I mean, yeah, we have a monthly payment plan. So where it's a hundred something a month for six months, which is not terrible, but if you're making minimum wage, everything's going to seem expensive to you. I mean, a bar of soap is going to seem expensive. So right now, you have to prioritize, you need to pay, eat, you need to pay your rent and have food. That's the most important thing until you start having more money, then you have a little more spending cash. But I never try to convince somebody to pay me over putting food in their mouth, in their mouth, eat first. Yeah. That's more important than taking a class for me.

Phil Hudson:

And that's why you do so much in terms of podcasting and the webinars and all these things, just so that you can give that stuff. And it's really a quality check on the people entering the private Facebook group and those things, it's important, valuable information, that's why.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. But I give up plenty, like Phil saying, I give up plenty of free knowledge all the time, so that go enjoy that. So that's okay. Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

Awesome. And then the last three questions here. I know we're getting close on time, the Jovin Sure has two questions. Alright. What's the difference between a studio wanting to cast someone and to develop them?

Michael Jamin:

Oh, well, often when you're developing a TV show, I'm sure probably the same for movies, but you'll have talent attached or you'll think of attaching talent. Hey, if I go in with this actor, well, can I sell it? And sometimes you'll be told that actor is casting, or sometimes you can say no, they're development and it, it's up to the studio to decide whether the character, whether that actor is casting or not. Which in other words, do they have enough, does the studio want, is willing to pay to put them in the middle of a show? I mean, Tim Allen is not casting Tim Allen you developed for, because he's done so many hits. And so anytime he's attached to a project, the studio's going to probably green light it. And if you go in with Tim Allen or your pitch, it's sold and it's probably on the airs.

But if you went in with someone who was like Tim Allen, funny, like Tim Allen, and only using Tim Allen's name because someone mentioned him on the picket line today. If you went into someone like him who had done a couple of guest spots where maybe he's a standup, but no one's heard of he, that's casting. So those questions, and I'm not the one, like I said, I'll often ask my agent or managers, this is this actor, this famous actor who we've heard of. Are they casting or are they development? Can you? And sometimes my managers say, no, no. As famous as they are, they're casting.

Phil Hudson:

That's wild. I just learned something. I had no idea the difference in this terms. And that's backwards of what I expected that to be.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, really? Yeah.

Phil Hudson:

No, that's awesome. Thanks for the question. Follow up. Another question from the Jovin Insure. What's your take on modern Multicam shows? It's clear, clearly not as popular as it used to be. That's a bit of an opinion. And the writing quality seems to be less than most other single cam comedies.

Michael Jamin:

Well, the studios are always, or networks are always saying, we want more multi cameras because they're less expensive to make, but they seem to always buy single camera shows. I think single camera shows lend themselves to a higher level. They just have a patina about them. And by the way, I've written both and I don't really have a preference as to which one I want to write. They just seem to have a patina. But that's not to say friends. Friends just say, great. And that was a multi-camera show as Seinfeld as well. So yeah. Why do they do less? I don't know. It can be eggy. Sometimes they have cornier jokes. That's not really a good thing. It's just the writing isn't as good. Whereas on a single camera show, often you can go straight. You don't have to have corny jokes. Why is this? I don't know. This is just doesn't, it's such a weird thing to say because back in the seventies there were many multi-camera shows that were not corny and they didn't have a lot of jokes. It's just that styles have changed. And often these networks, they want to have more jokes per page. That's just kind of what they want.

Yeah. I didn't answer the question. I'm sorry.

Phil Hudson:

I tried. No, I think you did. I addressed the core of the question. Okay. Writing quality seems to be less than, and it's

Michael Jamin:

Just part of it. Yeah, sometimes it is and sometimes it's not. It just depends on the show. Friends is really good.

Phil Hudson:

And you've had a ton of really strong multi-cam showrunners on the podcast interviewing, talking about things. So if you haven't gone and listened to those episodes, go do that. And you can see these are people who are pros at the highest level doing their job as best as they can. But oftentimes you're working for someone else, you're giving them the show, right?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So,

Phil Hudson:

All right, last question from Angelina. What opportunities are best to learn from and take advantage of while being a current college student?

Michael Jamin:

Oh, any opportunity you go make a friend, make a movie with your friends, with the other film students or whatever co college students your opportunities are to write, act, perform, make whatever opportunity is in front of you. Take it. If it's helping somebody out on a student film, do it. This is your start at the bottom. Any opportunity if you have on the week during summer break, if you're able to get any kind of job as a receptionist in a production house or a studio or anything to get, but take it. Whatever you can do to get closer to your goal, whatever your job is, physically closer, take it. There's no opportunity that's wrong. Yeah. You even if you want to work at a med, you get a job as at a working for a talent agent. Alright, that's better. That's closer than you were before. Don't stick it out longer than you have to. But you'll learn just even if you want to be a screenwriter, you'll learn a little bit about the business by working for an agent or a manager.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah. I wish in film school I would've spent more time taking advantage of production opportunities, but I was so focused on being a writer. I didn't do that. And then when I got to Los Angeles, I would've had far more opportunities if I'd done that. Yeah. Yeah. I had to do things. I knew how walkie works. I knew kind of the basic job of being a pa. I knew what CS stands were. I knew all that stuff, but just didn't quite get the scope of work entailed to do something. So make sure you get those opportunities. That's it. Michael, that's, those are your questions from our May webinar.

Michael Jamin:

We did it, Phil. Thank you everyone. That's it. We are continue to, I got a newsletter. Everyone should be on that. You should be watching as much as you can. It's free. You can go to michael jamon.com, you can find all this free stuff. I got a free screenwriting list. I got a free webinar that I do once a month. I got a newsletter. We have downloads, we have all this stuff to make your life easier to get along your, to get your dream of whatever it is to become working in Hollywood. So there's plenty of resources. Go get it. Go get it. You know? That's right. Phil, anything else?

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, the only thing I wanted to point out, I don't think you said it for information about your book, Michaeljamin.com/upcoming, which is also on the site, but particular because you brought it up. I want to make sure knew about that link.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. That's a collection of personal essays and some of the stories are for me working in Hollywood and some are just are not. But you'll see when you read it, I hope you all read it. These are little stories and each one could easily be a movie or an episode of a television show. And these are true stories for my life, and you all have the same thing. And in my course, I teach you how to write stories like this and it's lovely. So if you want to go be notified when I start touring to come to your city, go to michael jamon.com/upcoming and I hope to see you there.

Phil Hudson:

Yeah, it's a really great example for anybody interested in being a writer or an actor or anybody, either. There's a lot of nebulous terms that have been in the industry for a hundred years and write what is one that may not make sense to a lot of people, but yeah, that is a really strong example of doing that. It's mining your life for stories and those kinds of things. Other thing I wanted to point out, we do a webinar every month. Like you said, there's one coming up. Make sure you go to michael jamon.com/webinar. Get on the list and register. It's completely free. You can catch the replay if you can't make it to the official thing, but that's incredibly valuable information that you provide to anybody.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, so we'll see you there. Alright, awesome, Phil, thank you so much everyone. Until next week, keep writing

Phil Hudson:

Cha Chow

Michael Jamin:

Cha Chow.

Phil Hudson:

This has been an episode of Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jamon and Phil Hudson. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for Michael's monthly [email protected] slash 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 Jamon 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.