Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast

The story of how Daisy Jones & the Six went from book to TV show is a fascinating one. Scott Neustadter, best known for comedies like 500 Days of Summer and The Disaster Artist, was sent the unpublished manuscript about the rise of a rock band in Los Angeles in the 1970s, on a whim.

Little did he know it would become a bestseller. At the time, he had given the book to his wife, with whom he had never worked before. But she just so happened to be at Reese Witherspoon's production company, Hello Sunshine. They loved the book and his adaptation and the show was born. Now, Neustadter is the co-creator and co-showrunner of the Amazon show.

Final Draft's podcast Write On sat down with Neustadter to hear about his process. "If you're going to write television– it's an important, huge undertaking so you have to have passion, you have to love the thing... It isn't something you can do on the side. It will become your whole life, so you better love it," he said. Daisy Jones & the Six is available on Amazon Prime.

Please note: this podcast was recorded prior to the WGA Strike.

Final Draft's Write On podcast series sits down with co-creator Rafael Casal on the second season of his half-hour comedy series Blindspotting. The show centers on Ashley, who lives in Oakland, Calif. When her partner (who is also the father of her son) is sent to prison, she must move in with her mother-in-law, played by Helen Hunt. "That's a part of writing for actors. You know what they're capable of and so sometimes in the script you're not writing everything they do, but you're writing the window into them having the freedom to do what they do best," Casal says about writing for actors.

He also discusses what he looks for in a writer when hiring to fill his room. "I don't want somebody who's just trying to color within the lines book, especially for a show like ours that is really non-traditional. I'm looking for people that are willing to kick out an idea and try something even if it only works 70% of the way but you took the swing," he says. Blindspotting airs on STARZ.

Written by screenwriter Dana Stevens, The Woman King is a historical epic about an all-female warrior unit that protected the West African kingdom of Dahomey during the 17th to the 19th centuries. The film is set in the 1820s and stars Viola Davis who is tasked with training the next generation of young warriors. Stevens chatted with Final Draft about discovering the "richness of the story" while writing the script. "I just could not believe that I did not know this story, that I had never heard of it," Stevens said. "And the more I delved into it, just on my own… I mean, I was watching things on YouTube, like things in French, you know, I was just I was just blown away."

When asked for advice to aspiring screenwriters trying to break into the industry or write a passion project such as The Woman King, Stevens had some inspiring words. "Go ahead and write. Write a lot. Have a few things you're working on. Have your personal project that you just love, that you think maybe no one will ever make, but also maybe have another project that's your, you know, more commercial thing," she says.

The Woman King is now available on a variety of streaming platforms.

Triangle of Sadness is a satirical black comedy from writer/director Ruben Ostlund. The film, staring Woody Harrelson, takes the world of luxury boating to the next level with its wry comedy that exposes many upstairs/downstairs differences among the characters. Ostlund discusses the importance of pitching his project before he starts writing. "If you are a writer or if you are a director, your profession is to be the artistically responsible for the product that you are producing. You are the one that is deciding what ideas should be put into this, what should taken be taken out," he says.

The film won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. This was Ostlund's second win at Cannes. He talked about how special it is to him to have had these successes. "I have been kind of lucky because every time that I have finished a previous film and we have had a premiere of the film in Cannes, there's a little table on a small cafe where I walk to with my producer and my mentor. Two of my best friends and we sit down and we talk about what is going to be the next project that we are working on. And so, it is kind of how to say astonishing that we have been on this little cafe and exactly the same table four times now and decided which next project is."

From visionary director Robert Eggers, The Northman follows a young Viking prince (Alexander Skarsgård) on a quest to avenge his father's murder. Eggers and his co-writer, Sjón, chatted with Final Draft about the collaborative process of working on the script. "I had lunch with Alexander Skarsgård, who said that he wanted to make a Viking movie," Eggers said, "and I said, 'I can make a Viking movie, and I know the perfect person to write it with me,' and luckily, Sjón wanted to... I wrote the first draft, and from there, we just [passed] it back and forth for eternity, all through production, all through post-production."

When asked if they would recommend collaborating with a writing partner on a project, Sjón said, "I really recommend working with a co-writer on films. I've written poetry and novels and all sorts of things, but when it comes to film, I really think it works when you're writing with someone you know because film is already a medium of collaboration, and to go into it from the beginning, from the story level as a collaboration, I think is really great."

The Northman is now available on Amazon Prime. 

Based on the true story of Mamie Till, Till follows Mamie as she seeks justice for the brutal lynching of her son, Emmett Till. When asked about how she chose to capture Mamie's spirit on the page, Chukwu says, "It's not just resiliency; it is survival, it is an active suppression of certain emotions that Black women are constantly put in a position of having to do; it is a difference between the public and the private self. Mamie was acutely aware of that... when I'm constructing scenes, I am always thinking about masks - who are they when they're all alone? ... Who is Mamie when she's by herself?"

Chukwu goes on to discuss coping with the weight of telling such heavy stories: "Writing these stories that I've written so far, when I write it in a deeply spiritual, all immersive process... I live, breathe, dream whatever it is that I'm writing, and that takes a deep emotional and spiritual toll, and I'm not really good with self-care when I'm writing... Prioritize your own self-care as well - in the writing and in the aftermath."

Till is now playing in theaters.

From Little Fires Everywhere writer Raamla Mohamed, Reasonable Doubt follows Jax Stewart (Emayatzy Corinealdi), a fearless defense attorney in Los Angeles who bucks the justice system every chance she gets. Mohamed comments on how the show deals with its deeply complex protagonist: "The show is through Jax's eyes and her experiences and what she's doing, and as you can see, she has different relationships with different people, so people are getting parts of her. But [in] the show... we get to see all the parts." 

Mohamed goes on to discuss her choice to have an all-Black writer's room for the show: "95% of my characters on the show are Black, and they're all different types of Black, and I realized I need to be able to have conversations without having to explain to one half of the room what we're talking about - let's just cut the shorthand so that we can actually have conversations... [about] relationships and traumas and love and work and pressures and microaggressions... I was trying to just make it more comfortable and easier."

You can catch new episodes of Reasonable Doubt Tuesdays on Hulu. 

From Insecure alumni Jean Elie and Mike Gauyo, Send Help follows a first-generation Haitian American (Elie) struggling to overcome the challenges in Hollywood while coming to terms with a recent family tragedy. Gauyo shares his thoughts on how partnering with the Allblk [All Black] Channel benefited their overall storytelling process: "At the core of it, we didn't have to negotiate our Blackness or our culture in order to make the show... There was already a baseline of understanding of why our characters acted the way that they did or did the things that they did; it didn't have to be explained."

Elie goes on to share how the series came together in the first place: "The pandemic happened, and [Mike and I] were talking on Clubhouse about Haitian creatives and how stories get told, and how we need to not just be in front of a camera but behind the camera in order for our stories to be told in a way that feels real to us... A couple of weeks later, we got an email talking about 'How much you think you need to make the show?'"

Send Help is now streaming on the Allblk Channel and the Roku Channel.

Based on writer-director Adamma Ebo's 2018 short film of the same name, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. follows Trinitie Childs (Regina Hall), the first lady of a prominent Southern Baptist Mega Church, as she attempts to help her pastor-husband, Lee-Curtis Childs (Sterling K. Brown), rebuild their congregation after a scandal. Adamma shares how a visit from writer-director Damien Chazelle and editor Tom Cross during her time at UCLA influenced her decision to film a short as a proof of concept for the feature: "...they talked about how they made Whiplash as a short as a proof of concept, because in actuality, the movie is a thriller about jazz musicians, and you're like, 'What does that mean?' It's easier to show than tell... I knew it was going to be a pretty tough elevator pitch, and so I was like, 'I need to make something to show for it.'"

Adamma's sister, Adanne Ebo, serves as a producer on the film; when asked what advice she would give to aspiring writers from a producer's perspective, she said, "Read as many scripts as you can. I didn't go to film school… I learned how to write just by working with Adamma... even if you don't go to school for it, even if you don't go about it the institutional type of way, reading scripts will always make you a better writer."

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. is now playing in theaters and on Peacock.

Starring Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg, Me Time follows a stay-at-home dad (Hart) who joins an old friend (Wahlberg) on a wild birthday adventure while his family is away. Writer-director John Hamburg discusses his approach to balancing character and laughs in a comedy: "I really do aim to keep the characters grounded and to treat them as human beings. Frankly, even in a movie as absurd as Zoolander, we tried to give an emotional arc to Derek Zoolander and to Hansel, and it's no different with this movie that takes place in the real world."

Despite having hugely impressive titles like Zoolander and Along Came Polly under his belt, Hamburg still experiences insecurity as a filmmaker: "...it took me a while to stop [comparing myself to others], and I fall into that trap today, having been in the business for more than two decades... I think the advice I would give a younger, more naïve John Hamburg is, 'Just focus on yourself and listen; watch stuff, and get inspired.'"

Me Time can be streamed on Netflix starting August 26.