Podcast Ep023: The Art and Craft of Screenwriting with Meg LeFauve and Joe Forte

Ted: I don’t know if you want to kick us off, Meg.

Meg: And then, hi, everyone. That was a fun entrance. I can’t. We’ve never had that happen to us before. So thank you very much. You know, there is a really specific moment between having a good idea or a situation and having, oh, that’s a movie, right? And when I first interviewed to be an assistant in la, the executive said to me, I just need someone who understands the difference between an idea and a movie, a story and a situation, that they’re different. So I think that even at Pixar, you don’t know that there’s this magic moment where you move over into a movie. But it can take many screenings to get there. When I first came on Inside Out, Pete doctor said, I’m on my second screening, and they’re still saying when they leave the, you know, the animatics, the storyboards, they’re still saying, this is a good idea. They’re not saying, this is a movie. So I’m screwed. And I need, you know. And he scrapped everything. He threw everything away because he had to start over because he just had an idea, not a movie. So I don’t think you get, you know, and Joe may have a different view, but my view is you don’t know until you write it. You really just don’t, because up in your head, it’s always great. And then you write it and you’re like, oh, there’s a chasm between the idea of what it could be and what it is. And it just takes many drafts to realize, oh, this is a movie. Or when you have a great partner, it’s verbalizing and writing on boards to do this. But when you’re by yourself, often you’re doing it kind of on paper.

Ted: It’s kind of like this intangible thing. Like it’s a movie now, kind of.

Meg: Like, yeah, I mean, it’s intangible, but it’s also, you know, that story engine is there and it’s firing on all cylinders, and you. You can feel it. Jo has a great word, propulsion. It has a propulsion moving through the story. So often we as writing team will talk ideas through, but it’s also, you know, your artist. So the idea that just won’t go away. And whether it’s a movie or not a movie or it’s gonna make, you know, millions of dollars or not, it won’t go away. So you have to write it. What do you. What do you think?

Ted: Yeah, go on, Chuck.

Joe: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s the Idea that, you know, just gets a hold of you and you have to write and it has legs and you can’t stop thinking about it. And it’s something that you want to explore. It doesn’t always mean the world’s gonna want it, you know, but I think you have to honor what you want to write about, and then you have to meet the industry where it lives and try and find a way to put that story into a context that can be sold and bought. And an actor would want to do it and a director would want to direct it, but I think, you know, just. It’s something that just takes a hold of you and, you know, you walk around with it and you want to put that time into it. And then the longer you’re in the industry, you know, maybe you get better at false starts. You know, things that you think could be a movie and maybe is an unloved child that you should just know, plant in the garden and water on your own.

Ted: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then one day becomes a beautiful flower that you didn’t even expect.

Meg: Well, and sometimes when you’re writing, the draft has been brought to you by the muses, not because this is the one that’s going to get made and make you famous and blah, blah, blah. It’s the one that you need to write to get to the next one. And if you don’t write that one, you’re never going to get to the next one. In terms of craft, in terms of understanding, in terms like, they don’t all come to be made. They don’t. Like they’re coming to teach you something. They’re coming because you need to explore something. You need to get those notes. You need to understand concept. You’re not understanding concept. Well, this is the one that’s going to teach you concept. And then you put it aside and later you realize, I’m not even that writer anymore. I’ve grown past this idea. But it still is incredibly essential to take that and write that and write those five drafts or how many overdrafts of that version, because it’s there to teach you something that’s great.

Ted: I mean, there’s a lot of people in this room, I’m sure have got draws of those five drafts, which is great. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just to come to inside out quickly, because you mentioned it, you were bought onto that project from Pixar and it was joy and Fear who were journeying through the.

Meg: Yeah, I didn’t. They didn’t even show me that.

Ted: Oh, really?

Meg: He just told Me. He told me he had paired her with Fear because he figured I was a really scared middle schooler. I must have something to say about it. But then he realized I don’t have anything to say about it because it.

Ted: Just seems, I mean, when you say that, like, you know, of course Joy and sadness, they have to journey through this thing. Yeah. I just wonder who, who came with that. Who came with that idea?

Meg: Well, when I came on the project, they had picked locations in the mind. Not all of them, but some of them. Dream productions existed a couple places. And he knew he wanted Joy to get kicked out. How? Why? He doesn’t know. And then he wants her to have to journey back. Why she has to journey back what’s happening. That’s basically all he knows. And he originally was trying to talk about the sadness a parent feels as their child grows up and you kind of lose them. But you can still see the heart of that when she’s in the dump and those things are disappearing. That’s where it started for him. But he quickly realized again, that’s not a movie. It wasn’t firing a three act structure. It wasn’t firing a plot. And this is something that even I am coming to clarity with. Joe is very good at this understanding that the emotional journey has to be. This is so obvious and yet we don’t do it. The emotional journey has to be what the plot is enacting. It can’t be. The emotional journey happened in the past and the plot’s a brand new thing. It’s so easy to not do that. So basically I had to work with him and he had just come to the idea of maybe it’s sadness. There was a great thing on the DVD extras, which I highly recommend if you can find it, where you would literally see him walking and talking. I’m going to lose my job because I can’t figure out this movie. And if there were a hundred people on, on the movie when I came and there was no story, so there’s a tremendous amount of pressure and he realized that, oh, if I lose my job, what will I miss? Well, I’ll miss the good times we had. And then he realized Pete Doctor is a genius at dropping down. Dropping down, dropping down. So he just asked himself questions, well, why will I miss coming to work? Because I’ll get fired. Which is hysterical. Well, I’ll miss it because of the good times. Well, no. What else? Well, I’ll miss it because we actually shared some hard times. They lost one of their founding members to a car accident during the making of cars, and then they lost Steve Jobs. And suddenly he realized, oh, maybe it’s sadness. And then he brought that back to me, and I said, that could change the world. And he said, don’t ever say that again. And then now, as a writer, when you have a director now, that’s the rudder for everything, how it’s going to construct, what Maine’s relationship is. Everything becomes that emotional idea that we need sadness because it helps connect us to each other.

Ted: Totally. I mean, it’s really profound. Thank you for sharing that. And, you know, it’s almost like you found that inside out, which is great. But I remember, Joe, that you talked in the Screenwriting Life, which is your podcast, about how you look at stories from the outside in. I wonder if you could kind of talk about how that potentially helps you as a writer, see things differently.

Joe: Yeah, I don’t know if I look at story, but I find character from the outside in. I was trained as a director, so I look for behavior, and that’s what we talk about a lot. Like, how do you put this up on its feet and make it actionable? So I’m, you know, always looking for. I find my way into character or the story via behavior and how people act, and they’re going to have to act. So, you know, part of me thinks you might as well start here. But that’s only half the equation. I mean, there’s an emotional life and there’s a, you know, the thematics and the wants and the goals, but I use that process to sort of mine myself and then translate that into what would work for a story.

Meg: And I think the word he said that is the pivot point between the internal and the external is wanting. And so many writers don’t create a character who wants anything. And that want has to be that, driving the audience as well and driving that character towards challenge and that, you know, the more I do this, the more I realize, especially for female writers, females are enculturated to know what everybody else wants. Right. And it feels very dangerous to want. But you can’t write a character unless she wants something, and she has to want it so badly she will risk a lot to get it. That just starts to give you a good engine. Right. And listen, you know, female characters often get save a kid. So did Joy. Joy’s want is to get back and save Riley. We can all agree with that, right? We can all agree. Go get those memories back. Right.

Ted: So give your character, like, this big I want moment. Almost like they’re standing center stage, being.

Meg: Like, well, sometimes you think, what? Not that you’re going to put it in your movie, but what would their I want something be? Write it. Like, it doesn’t have to write in a song, but, like, as an exercise. What are they singing, what are they saying? Right. And it’s not always to transform. Moana is a beautiful song written by Lin Manuel, and she wants, because she has this craving to go out and claim her power, and yet she doesn’t understand it, and she doesn’t understand what to do and how to do it. Like, she has this problem, but the want is still driving her off the island.

Ted: Great. Thank you. One of the things that you’ve kind of spoke about again in your podcast is that obviously you write together now. I think that would terrify me because if I did that with my wife, I would be living in the shed. But, you know, I do live in the shed. How do you manage that process? How do you manage. Not the process, obviously, being together and writing, but, you know, collaborating so closely together. How do you work through that? I don’t want to cause any problems. I know it’s your last day of holiday.

Joe: First of all, you know, we’ve been in the business 30 years. I’ve been a writer for 30 years, Meg, 15. So we both established ourselves on our own, and I don’t think we could have done that when we were younger. And I think we just, like I said on the podcast, I think the mission is so great. You know, if you’re honoring the story, then it’s outside of you. You know, I mean, obviously it’s inside of you, but it’s a shared goal and a shared dream. And I think we’re both curious about what the other is thinking and what the other’s bringing to it. And, you know, if you follow the broad, she works from the inside out, and I work from the outside in. Then we both have a lane. You know, we both have a way of dimensionalizing the story and contributing to the story and bringing perspective to the story that’s really important. And, you know, you’re uncovering the story. So, you know, I did that a lot of years by myself. She’s done that by herself or with partners. And I’m in a place where I, you know, yearn for and cherish the, you know, the shared experience and the, you know, getting to know myself better because of what my partner is, the mirror they’re holding up or the insights they’re having. Obviously, we’re man and woman. That’s really a great thing to have in this day and age and those two perspectives. And, I mean, there might be things that I might stand up more for a female character than she might, or vice versa. So you’re. You’re kind of arguing for a larger thing than, you know, your. Your point of view, or it’s my story or your story, or. And, you know, I think, as I said on the podcast, that where we have our problems is just exhaustion and communication, Right? Like, you’re under pressure, you have to solve something quickly, and you start talking in a manner that may or may not be, you know, productive, but you’re not. I don’t find us arguing about, like, we have to go this way. No, we have to go this way, you know, and if we are doing that, let’s use that taffy pulling to make something, you know, let’s not use it to sort of break it or destroy it, you know, and sometimes we have an office. We have people in the office. Sometimes we have to shut the door, there’s five bucks, and lower our voices as we hissing each other. But, you know, it’s just. Be realistic, you know? But I think we also just don’t bring it home. And I do live in the shed.

Ted: Yeah, it’s a nice shed, though, I’m sure.

Meg: The greatest thing about having a partner, well, on one hand, your vet. The other person, you can’t just kind of go into your dream world because you have someone going, I don’t get it. Why would they do that? Like, there’s always somebody out there going, knock, knock, knock, knock. So that can. Can be hard, but it’s great because you’re doing many drafts very fast, even verbally, right? Because you have to start explaining. Well, I think, because she would do this because of that. I don’t get it. Or he would be saying. I’d be like, I don’t get it. So you’re vetting, vetting, vetting, vetting, vetting, vetting, which is very similar to a TV room or a Pixar, where you’ve got just constant vetting. And the great part, to me, one of the best parts is when you get notes, there’s somebody in the foxhole with you going, shit, shit. Like, you don’t feel all alone and like, you’re crazy.

Ted: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was to jump onto the next thing. Like, how do you deal with notes? Like, what happens if, you know, one of you agrees, one of you disagrees, you know, oh, they proved me right. Is it just. No, no, not for Anything like that.

Meg: No, I’ve never. We’ve never had notes that we felt that way. We’re both as shocked as. Together.

Joe: We had a situation on a project which I won’t give too much detail about which it was a. Well, I mean, it was a short story, and we were brought on to write it. And, you know, it was clear that the producers bought a short story that they didn’t want to make or do in the. It was a horror movie. And, you know, it was. We called it a bergmany. You know, it was a slow, smoldering horror movie, and they wanted something completely else.

Meg: Right.

Joe: So when you get the notes of, you know, that they’re. I guess it’s better to be in the. We’re more like, Yeah, I don’t think we look at each other and go, we were wrong. We’re like, they’re crazy. You know, they’re wrong. They’re whatever. And we can salve each other, like, you know.

Meg: Yeah. And I get very nervous before. After it’s turned in, before the notes. And then immediately when I get the notes, I’m like, those are stupid. She is stupid. She has no idea what she’s talking about. And then I calm down, and then I’m okay. And then I’m like, okay. Because I think you heard on the podcast that the process of getting notes is fuck you. Fuck me. What’s next? And I get stuck in fuck you. Like, a lot. I get stuck there. He has the opposite, where he’s super calm. He’s super calm when he hears the notes, and then he’s like, listen, this makes sense. List, lyric. And then. And then we reverse sometimes. And sometimes then later, he’s just like, these are stupid.

Joe: We got stupid notes before we came here. And it’s completely. It’s completely ruined my vacation. It’s like, it’s.

Meg: Whereas I’m like, oh, well, it’s slowly.

Joe: Building to burning houses down.

Ted: You know what I mean?

Meg: Yeah, he’s building. And I’m already. I’ve done my. You. They’re so stupid. And that. So now I’m like, I’m just getting my vacation.

Joe: But it’s also that we’re not able to work now. Like, I’d like to go in at it, you know, and we’re resting. You know, we’re taking some time off. So part of that is just, you know, you. You want to. You want to get back in.

Meg: And, you know, because they were very different notes. Like, we had two sets of. To give it to four people.

Joe: These are Friendly notes. These are. These are not from anybody who’s employing us. These are.

Meg: We’re ready to turn this in your things before you hand it into the studio. Because there’s. They’re not developing anymore. They. They want a movie, right? So it’s very different than it was when I first came. So we got two people who loved it. Like, literally were like, home run, I love your main character. I have a crush on him. Like, love it. And we were like, yeah. And then our manager was like, yeah, yeah. I think you’ve got a first act problem. I just. I’m not feeling it. I’m not attaching to them. I just. Your main characters are just. I’m not feeling it. I think it’s a simple solve. I think we’re, you know, I’ll give you some notes for Act 1. And then we gave it to our producer friends who were like, yeah, this is not for us. We don’t get it at all. This is bad, basically. Like, this is bad. We don’t like the characters. We don’t. This character that this person has a crush on, we don’t get him at all. We actually don’t like him. Blah, blah. We’re like, they’re so different. They’re so different. So I think that’s also part of what our brains are doing, is how can they be so different and how can’t you love these characters? Because we love them. What do you mean you don’t love them?

Joe: And, you know, just to empathize with all of you, I don’t mind the notes. I mind when somebody delivers the notes without the understanding of the work it takes to get there, the context you’re on the first draft, that they’re just thoughtless, you know, in some way. And I think these people who gave us the notes, we love them, we respect them, but it was just. So you’re more. I’m more frustrated of that. But then you let that, you know, come out of your system, and then what do we care about? What do we feel? You know, the same thing that you asked. How do you know that you want to write something? You’re always going back to that touchstone. Like if that thing that animated the whole process isn’t there for you to return to as a, you know, a tuning fork. And that gives me comfort. Know that I know what that stone is that, you know, we can stand on.

Meg: And I’m a bit of a story junkie, so when you tell me it doesn’t work, my brain just starts going, it doesn’t work. Why doesn’t it work? Well, let’s look at some other examples of other films. That film worked. Why doesn’t it work? It’s because she has a secret. I can’t tell you the secrets if I can’t tell you the secret. You can’t completely emotionally get with her because you don’t know all her secrets. Well, we just went to CF1 and. And you don’t know his secret until end of Act 2. And I’m like, well, that’s because story math. He’s not actually the main character. I actually think the people around him. He’s a Batman character. He’s changing everybody. And he’s gonna, like, my brain is like, through the whole movie, he’s like, so it just starts.

Ted: Just let me enjoy the movie.

Meg: No, I can’t. My whole brain is just now locked on like a puzzle that I have to figure it out.

Ted: I literally saw anger take control of both of your consoles there and, like, ramp up. But it was great. It was amazing. So, I mean, obviously, you know, you guys are very established screenwriters, you know, working big studios, working for, you know, literally big streamers. Some people in the audience here, you know, will be embarking on their first, second, third spec. I wonder if you had any advice for them taking the helm of that for the first time around.

Meg: Well, I don’t know your market, so it’s probably, you know what I mean, Everybody’s marketplace and how you sell things around the world can be very different. When you say they’re starting specs and advice about what specs to write about, how to take it to market, or.

Ted: So literally, just we’re sat there. I’ve got an idea. I think I love it. What should I be putting my time into? Is it structure? Character dialogue? Yeah. Right at the start.

Joe: Well, I guess since you brought up the streamers, one thing we can say is that Netflix USA has five pods, and, you know, I’m not gonna remember them offhand, but they have, you know, lanes. Christmas movies are big right now, but, you know, there’s in this heat. But we know, you know, Netflix is, like, leaning into Christmas movies. You know, we’re not gonna write a Christmas movie this week, but, you know, I guess I would, like, really look at the platform and sort of just understand what the lanes are. So there’s family, there’s comedy, there’s horror. Thriller is big for them. There’s Christmas. And I’m probably missing something else, but I kind of think that you’ve got to triangulate like, you kind of look at that and you have your eyeball on that, and then maybe you look at your project and say, well, where could it generally fit in? But then I think you burrow into, you know, your, you know, your want and the want of the characters and what you really, you know, can’t not help but talk about or write about. And it’s a really tough balance that you’re both completely. For me, I want to go into a deep, dark hole and hear no other voices but my own. But that’s dangerous because when you come out of that deep, dark hole, you have to plug into something commercial or sellable. So I try and trust that the starting point is going to lead me to that place, but I have to. I think we have to start with us and what we can write and what is meaningful to us and then shape that towards the market. I think it’s dangerous to go the other way where you’re gaming the marketplace and you’re abandoning your artistic voice.

Meg: Yeah. I mean, specs have to be undeniable. They literally have to be like the producer’s like, oh, my God, I have to do this. I have to spend five years of my life with this script because I’ve read it now I love it and I have to do it right. That’s really. That’s. They just have to be that. And to be that, they have to have a concept and they have to have that emotional gut punch that they are, you know, they just love it so much. They will spend, like years of their life on it. And I agree with Joe, it’s hard. Don’t write towards the marketplace, but understand the marketplace you’re going into and that they. My experience right now is that when we came in the 90s to Hollywood, it was all high concept. It was, this meets the that, this meets that, this meets that. By the time we hit the 2000s, 2000s, it was. Why are you the person to write this? We want it to be very personal. We’re not looking for concept, we’re looking for personal. It’s really swung with the streamers back to high concept because look at that. What they’re. They just want algorithms. They just want to be able to know what is the poster for this movie for you? Because there’s multiple posters depending on what your algorithm says. Right. So they have to see. Sell it like that on their streamers with a poster, poster, poster, poster. So they’re very concept driven. Again, they’re very much, this meets that. That doesn’t Mean, I’m sorry, that doesn’t mean you’re like at home going this, meets that. I mean, I know a producer friend who does that all day long, like literally. And he jokes that everything is John Wick meets, but it works for him. And that, listen, here’s the thing. Everybody’s brain works totally differently. So if you are a concept person and you love this, meets that and, and then you take that and then you can burrow all the way down to the deep personal lava relationship vulnerable stuff, then go that way. If you have to start with the vulnerable relationship stuff and then figure out what is the vehicle, what is the concept this is riding inside of, then you go that way. But either way you have to do it all. You have to have both ends of that spectrum for whatever spec you’re doing. And so sometimes people who work in indie films used to say to me, well, I don’t logline because it’s an indie film. And I’m like, well, what are you gonna do when the film festival says what line do you want under your blurb to get people to come to see your movie? It’s the same thing.

Ted: It’s a vibe. You’ll feel it, don’t worry about that.

Meg: I mean, you’re gonna have to have a poster, you’re gonna have to have a couple of sentences that get people to go. Of all the films in the indie film film festival, this is the one I’m going to go see on Thursday at 2 o’ clock. What is the sentence? What is it?

Joe: So I was just going to say there was another market in the 90s that was tangential or parallel to the high concept, which was the indie market. Right. And I wrote for that market because actors were looking for more of an autourist vehicle. So you know, they would do a studio film and then they were looking for a, you know, a film that showcased, you know, something they’re acting or they’re a more edgy vibe. But yeah, that that’s drained away, you know, and it’s more like D why I now that the indie market, so it really is, you know, high concept. And you know, we like to, you know, break the bank. We’re like looking to do high concept but, but that you have an emotional journey and an experience, you know, that a transformative experience like that can happen inside a high in concept film. And I, I think, you know, that’s the holy grail for streamers as well, you know, I mean, joking that they want a Christmas movie, but they’re looking for something that’s going to push it all the way up above the algorithm, above the noise that people are going to talk about, that it’s going to, you know, hit. So going back to your question about where do you start? I think you start with that spark, and you find a way to make that spark, you know, live inside something that’s tangibly commercial in your bones.

Ted: I was just about to pitch Die Hard meets. Sorry, John Wick Meets Christmas. But that’s Die Hard.

Meg: So, anyway, there you go.

Joe: It does work.

Ted: It does work. Yeah. It’s a really good film. They did, what, four or five? Sorry, Any more for that before? Move on? No, no. We kind of got to talk about the bogeyman in the room as well. I know we kind of touched on it when we were at the back of the room there, but artificial intelligence AI, where. Where do you see this horror going for screenwriters? Are we all out of a job or is it just a toy that we’re going to forget about soon?

Meg: Well, I don’t think we’ll forget about it. We can hope, but we. We have not had any exposure to the super duper AI, meaning we have ChatGPT just like everybody else. We don’t have access to. We could get it, but to get it, we would have to give it, train it. So we’re not choosing to do that right now. So we don’t. I can’t tell you what it can do, what it can’t do. I can tell you ChatGPT can’t do crap like, it cannot, right? It doesn’t. And the danger for me, and we have slightly, maybe different views of AI, but the danger for me with AI is that if you do ask it to write because it’s drawing on what’s come before, it’s really all the way back to. I just tried to get it to have a woman active, and every time she’s sitting by a window looking outside, and I’m like, okay, okay. She is her own person. She, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Ted: But I’ve never seen that before.

Meg: She’s sitting by a window looking outside and turns to him and says, I’m an active woman. And you’re like, oh, my God. It does not understand because it doesn’t have enough data to pull what I’m asking it to pull. Because it’s just creating the same people of color, the same women, the same. Because it’s just creating these kind of awful cliches. Because what else is it? It’s pulling from a lot of crap. Right. So that might be our lifesaver. Right. Because it, you know, I do agree with the sentence it was never stood up for prom. It doesn’t know heartache. It doesn’t know severe disappointment and trauma. It doesn’t. And why. I think stories exist to help us through those. Right. So that’s going to be your sweet spot again. Yes. It has to do concept. And there might come a day where they’re like, the AI concept, we love it, but there’s going to be no inside. And if your story muses can find enough stuff in that AI concept to ping your stuff, you know what I mean? Your personal, vulnerable stuff, well, then maybe it’ll work, right? I don’t know. But I think that’s, to me, the, the safety zone at the moment. I don’t know, an AI expert come in here and say it can do it. But I don’t know.

Ted: I think as well with that, you just pitched Megan 3. That AI gets stood up for prom. If Jason Blum is listening, people are available. Yeah, sorry, Joe.

Joe: I would say as of today, I’m not worried about it for my job security. I think that it’s fantastic for research and it’s all about asking the right questions. And the more insightful your questions are, the better it is. I think it’s great for, you know, taking drudgery tasks out. So I have like, you know, editor friends who say, you know, there are like, you know, there’s always the question of like taking a job away, but there’s also like, well, but maybe you can make two films instead of one film and create a second job. You know, it’s a productivity tool. I think, you know, I’m. If I would be more worried as an editor, a cinematographer, those kind of things. But I think the human race is so narcissistic that we don’t want to watch things made by a computer. We want to see things made by other human beings. We went to the National Portrait Gallery yesterday and basically it’s a celebration of humans. So we like looking at ourselves, we like exploring ourselves. I think we will be somewhat bored by a machine and we don’t think it’s a feat where we’re going to start using it. It’s probably pre visualization for.

Ted: Pitch decks.

Joe: Pitch decks and those kind of things. Again, it’s going to sit really well in terms of research and expanding your ability and knowledge. We had somebody come in and pitch us an AI tool and we were so impressed that we thought we should write our own. You Know, people are trying to kind of own story and story mechanics. And it feels to me that, you know, the beauty of storytelling is that the mechanics are within us and they are. You know, they’re a thousand years of storytelling. They’re a product of a thousand years of our psyche. You know, the want, the need, the antagonist, the protagonist, it all comes out of human experience. So, you know, grappling with all those things is. The grappling part is what makes a great movie and a great story that struggle. So we’ll see. But as of today, I am kind of.

Meg: Yeah, this guy could put a script into. I’m sorry.

Joe: Yeah, go ahead. No, finish.

Meg: He could put a script into his AI and then it would. It was. Would literally with like that. It would. It would quickly tell you, break it down, right? And all the scenes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he was going through. He’s like. And the theme is blah, blah. I was like, that’s not the theme of that movie. And he was like, what? I’m like, well, the AI is wrong. Like, that’s wrong because that’s sitting in the supporting character. That’s not Maverick. That’s. That’s Goose. So that can’t be the theme of the movie because he’s not the main character. So that’s wrong. And he was just like, what? And it just was like. Because it needed to be data. Do you know what I mean? And I’m like, but that’s not the right data. It’s not. It’s not understanding emotion. It’s not understanding main character. It’s not understanding, yes, that themes in the movie. But it’s on the wrong side. Like, it didn’t have any of that subtlety of. Of emotion and understanding.

Joe: And the last thing I would say is, sure, AI can be very wrong, as in that case. So really double check and cross platform, you know, but.

Ted: Yeah, kind of giving you what you want to hear rather than what you need to hear kind of thing.

Meg: Yeah.

Joe: Like in the 70s, we had movies tell you it’ll. It wants to be right. So we’ll make stuff up so that.

Meg: You, you know, it’ll be interesting to see if storytelling doesn’t take a whole other turn. Like, it’s, you know, storytelling is getting shorter. It’s going back to, you know, because of the kids, they don’t have an attention span. It’s weird. We’re almost going back to radio plays. Like, it’s so strange to me. Like, it’s going around the back in a circle. But I Also think it might end up back in the 70s because you know, when you in the 70s, you’re all too young, but there were movies where that you would have whole scenes that have absolutely no plot reason to be in the movie at all. But it’s just this cool, weird 70s moment that would make no logical sense to an AI. Right. But you’ll know it was made by a human because only a human would put that in a. Like there’s going to be ways to start telling. Do you know what I mean? That that wasn’t created by a machine. So it’ll be interesting to see.

Ted: Yeah. Speaking of the radio plays, I read this terrifying article that Netflix are now making things to be watched like over another screen or something, which is terrifying.

Audience: Yeah.

Joe: Anyway, the one thing I do want to add to is what worries me about the AI screenwriting platforms is the use of it by executives. Yes, that like so, you know, when we were asked if company could come in and to talk to us and they’re like, we’re really this and that. And I was like, sure. In the hands of a writer. I trust your machine. Although then we saw the presentation, but that’s not, you know, the person I’m worried about using it. I’m worried about the non writer using it. We had a writer in our offices who was certain that the notes she got back on her script were AI generated by AI.

Meg: And this guy, this guy had his own kind of breakdown. So it was like it went down into this blue line. You could see blue line conflict, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, maybe isn’t right. Or that would be good, good to see. Okay, look at the conflict. Dropped out here. But this is actually a very well known movie and it should drop out here, but whatever, you can see it. And I was like, oh my God, we’re gonna get a note about a blue line and we’re not gonna know what they’re talking about. Like a whole new language is gonna start coming in because they’re gonna have these programs. So that was the biggest, scariest thing to me is the notes you’re gonna get, you’re not even gonna know if they read it because the AI is giving you the notes.

Ted: I mean, having watched the studio on Apple as well, like, you don’t want Seth Rogen and that lot having this power. Do you know.

Meg: I wish they were Seth Rogen in that show.

Joe: Loves me.

Ted: Yeah.

Joe: When we started at Netflix, though we were, they offered to take us into the algorithm room and kind of making that up. And we’re like, no, is it like the Matrix, just like green showing you, like, where people are turning off the movies and getting back to like, you know, you can game a screenplay to the point where it’s mush and meaningless and nobody cares. Like, I don’t want to know. Maybe at a certain point when we’re ready to make the film and we’ve, like, said this is what the movie is, maybe it’s a fine tuning thing, you know, like, gosh, if we had a little more impact on, you know, the 70th minute and if this was a sharper, stronger midpoint. But, you know. Yeah.

Meg: So, yeah, Netflix now is not, you know, if you go to the movies and you pay your, whatever, 20 bucks, if you have a soft middle, but the end is amazing, you’re not gonna remember the soft middle because you have to sit there. You just paid 20 bucks. Right. Well, on streaming you don’t. So there now is a finish rate. That’s how they judge a movie. That’s true. Did you go through the whole movie and they can tell you, as a creator, this is the scene, this is the moment that most people turned it off.

Ted: And I love that bit.

Meg: So as a story junkie, I find that fascinating and I would actually like that data because to me that means your story wasn’t holding and that there was a moment that it was dropping there, their attention, emotional attention, whatever attention, they were like, I’m out. So that’s a story problem. So that, to me is the question.

Joe: Is it a tool or is it an overlord?

Ted: Right.

Joe: Like, screenings have always existed. If you could go and see your movie with an audience and maybe sharpen the edit, that’s great. That’s a tool. But if it’s this overlord, like, you have to do this here, I think it’ll kill movies.

Ted: Thanks very much. Thanks for sharing. Really insightful. I’ve got one more question. I’ll throw it out to the audience. With this big new deal you’ve got at Netflix announcement deadline, what’s the future looking like? What is the next thing for you guys as a writing partnership, if you’re allowed to.

Meg: Yeah, the deal is just for us as writer directors to generate our own projects. It isn’t yet for us to bring in other projects and just produce. It could turn into that maybe. But right now we’re just focusing on stuff that we’re generating. So we did pitch an idea. They bought it for the deal and now we’re writing that. But.

Joe: And that’s the one we Got the notes on before we were ready to turn it in. And then.

Meg: And our friends were like, no, shoot. Okay. But then. But you know, even when you have a deal, you have to. As our. As our reps told us, the worst thing you can do is wait for them to come to you because it’s. They’re gonna forget they’ve got a thousand. You know, Netflix is making twice as many movies as any studio. Those poor executives are so busy, I don’t even know how they go home at night and how they breathe. They’re amazing. They are amazing human beings. How much work they’re doing. But that means they’re really busy. So you have to keep going to them. Or the joke is you’re gonna do like Beetlejuice 5000 or whatever. Because they’re just gonna be like, oh my God, we have to service this deal. Here’s a movie. Write this. So you have to. You have to be the one. So we’re already coming up with the second idea to immediately pitch in again. And we’ll just keep stacking them so that. Because you want one to hit. Right.

Audience: Great.

Ted: Good luck. Questions? I don’t know. Chris has got the mic. If you could.

Audience: Hi, I’m Christopher, film director. I had a question about inside out because it’s two worlds which really influence each other and are codependent. What’s happening inside the mind and outside? How did you go about it? Did you first write a story of what’s happening inside and then based on that built, you know what’s happening outside? Or first wrote, okay, this is the story of narrative that’s happening outside. Or did those two go kind of grow simultaneously?

Meg: Yeah, each movie is three. Three. It’s a three. It’s three dimensional chess because there’s Riley’s story, Joy’s story down in the mind and headquarters. And those are three separate storylines. And every time you have a scene in both movies, if something happens to Riley, it has to hit those other two worlds. And if it’s the bottom world, it has to hit Riley. So we had whole scenes and once it in my head because it’s the most recent. And inside out too. Like we had this great place in the mine called Procrastination Land.

Joe: Amazing.

Meg: I loved it. But there was no reason to have Riley procrastinate in her storyline. And it didn’t do anything and make Anxiety’s storyline upset. So eventually. But it was in for a long time because it was so fun. Right. So the way that you do it is first you have to Figure out Joy’s storyline. She’s the main character. But as you’re figuring that out, of course, you’re figuring out Riley’s and you’re figuring out you’re doing all at the same time. But always Joy’s has to be the center. But inevitably, you know, every story is a layer cake. And if you think in one draft you’re going to get all the layers, you’re out of your mind. Nobody does. Nobody. I don’t know why. You think you’re superhuman, but you’re not. Nobody. Go to Pixar and watch the millions of screenings of people who’ve run multiple Academy Awards. Their first screenings are awful, just like everybody else’s. Your first draft’s job is to suck, right? And tell you what’s not working. Right? Unless it’s ours, and then it’s supposed to be amazing. So, you know, we had whole screenings, you know, where I remember. I’ll never forget the day in Inside Out 2 where Andrew was like, yeah, Riley’s storyline isn’t working at all. You need to start over.

Ted: Andrew Stanton’s this.

Meg: And I was like, what? Because as the writer, I know that means all of the storylines are going like, you can’t just change. Riley’s right. But he was right. And you have to have hard notes sometimes. See, I’m giving myself a pep talk right now. You have to have hard notes sometimes in order to go back and do it again and do it again. So we would always start with Joy’s. And then sometimes we’d lose her because we got so involved in Riley’s. And we’d realize, shoot, we lost Joy. And then we’d go doing. So we just went back and forth and back and forth. Draft, draft. I mean, the other writer on the project. And I said that we both, both of us each probably wrote a thousand pages. Easy, easy. And that’s probably an underestimation because you’re going to do eight screenings, each with a screen, a rough cut in between. So that’s 16 screenings. Each sequence is moving to storyboards, where it’s changing again, then it’s moving to edit, where it’s changing again. So it’s thousands of pages. Just to answer your question. You just keep writing and keep trying to line them up. Line them up, line them up, Right. And the last thing I’ll say is the easiest way to do it, like with any storyline, is, you know, the poles of the character. She’s going to start here and she’s going to end here, and then you can Start. And if those line up in the three dimensional chess, odds are you’re going to be close. Right.

Ted: Were those considered steps or were they.

Meg: Is it just that one animation’s not part of.

Ted: Yeah, I wondered that. I was about to say the WGA needs to do something about that, but.

Meg: Yeah, love to, but no.

Ted: Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Who’s got the mic? Sorry.

Audience: Hi.

Ted: So what you said about great ideas versus great movies or just an idea versus a movie, what is it for you as both an audience and this is for both of you as an audience and as a writer that bridges the gap between the two? Is it just a personal thing where you know that it feels right and that is what makes it a movie, or is there more to it, kind of a more technical qualification that you can think of?

Joe: Well, I think the characters need to arc, as Meg was starting to say. So indie film or a conceptual film, the character needs to have a great transformative arc. And if that transformative arc can also happen in a big plot device with a big stake, then you have a bigger, better shot at getting a movie made. So what I did, and you probably do, is you pull apart the movies that you love that both speak to you and registered in the marketplace and see how they were put together. And I think, you know, you can see how concept and character are the same thing. That they’re emulating each other, that they’re speaking to each other and they’re capturing your imagination. Right. Like it’s something we haven’t seen before, or it’s a take, it’s a twist on something that both already works in the marketplace but also has a unique element, whether it’s the voice or the point of view. But that’s where I would start to look like both of those things have to happen. I think if we don’t care about the concept because it’s rooted in a character, you’re not going to talk about it, it’s not going to get in your bones. But also, if you have a character that doesn’t sort of capture the imagination in a larger plot context, you’re going to have a smaller indie movie. And those are two different things. But for, I think, a big commercial film, they can be the same thing that’s the ideal. I mean, we can talk about all the other movies that get made for all the wrong reasons and never quite find the under layer of a character that, you know, you don’t care about. And there are a lot of reasons that that happens. And I think that’s more sort of the mechanics of the film industry where, you know, you got a star and you got a concept and you’re going and the script’s not ready. But for where you’re at, where you’re trying to prove that you can speak this language and think in this manner, I think those two things are really essential.

Meg: Yeah, I mean, do you write genre or not? Genre? What’s your genre? I always say you definitely have to watch the 5 to 10 best and the 5, 10 worst of your genre. And the worst or is just as important to watch because whoever you’re going to already, they’re probably experts in your genre, right? So it’s. You have to deliver all the genre stuff that you want and then where’s your twist? Where’s your unique. That twist might be with the characters, relationships. That twist might be in that you’re going to subvert the genre right here and you’re going to surprise me. Like what is the new fresh idea concept inside of your concept that you could over dinner tell somebody if we were talking about genre stuff, right? Like you should be able to over dinner get somebody wrapped into your story very quickly. You should be able to go 1, 2, 3. And they go, what? Right? Then you’re like, okay, you’re getting close to a movie, right? Because there’s something gelling, right? And that goes mechanically. That’s because the world, the main character, their want, all those engine concepts are starting to fire, right? And feel like a whole thing not separate kind of situations that we threw in because we are in the middle of the movie and it wasn’t. Was petering out, so we just threw some more shit in there, right? Like we’re thinking of a new idea and the main relationship is starting to gel. I can feel it starting to find itself, right? And whether we’re still kind of walking around it, but it’s not a movie yet because we don’t have an antagonist. We don’t. We know there isn’t. We know what they’re. That they’re on a run, but who they’re running from and why and how you made that unique to the genre and yet fulfill the genre needs and yet feel fresh and like we haven’t seen it before, you know, we don’t have a movie yet, right? Until we really start to. And then what world are they in and how does that reflect the. And you know, what’s the poster, all that stuff. So that’s when you kind of. You have to be able to think about all that stuff. But again, like Joe Said it’s also different stages of writing. I wouldn’t suggest worrying about that. In your first draft, second draft, you’re going to write 15 drafts. So, yeah, by the second or third, you’re going to start to hear the same questions and you’re going to realize, shoot, I don’t have the right. This element of the engine. You know what I mean? Like, you let it just be for a while and let the dreamer tell you what it is. Don’t use those intellectual things to beat the dreamer away. Right. Because then you’re going to take out all the uniqueness. Right.

Ted: You’re giving yourself permission to suck in that first draft, I think.

Meg: Yeah, just first, second, third draft. Like, yeah, they suck.

Ted: We got one question. Oh.

Meg: Hello.

Audience: So my question is about lava and notes. So, you know, you’re writing your first draft and you’re putting all your authenticity, you are diving in your lava. But then you start getting notes from other writers, agent, producers. How do you save that authenticity through all the process about the A plot, the B plot, the midpoint, and at the end of the story, you don’t end up with a Frankenstein.

Ted: Did everyone hear that about notes? Yeah. So it’s about notes and preserving the original intentions of the idea. Yeah.

Meg: The authenticity and why you started to write it. But, I mean, I guess my answer is no, that you won’t. And that is part of the process. Meaning, I don’t know anybody who’s not hit that. Like, be they at Pixar or be they indie filmmakers, where at one point. So this happened at Pixar and it happened at the Sundance Lab, where they looked at. Somebody looked and goes, why are we doing this? Wait, wait. Why are we making this movie? Why is this a good idea at all? Let’s go back to what we started with. It just is part. That is just part of the swirl of creation, is. You might think that’s a great idea, but what you realize later is it’s a good idea for their version of the movie, and it’s not attached to your emotional version of the movie. But guess what? Your emotional version of the movie wasn’t clear. So people start to project in as a way to try to help you. But that’s their version. But you don’t know that sometimes until you write it. And then you realize, we’ve lost it. I’ve lost it. Right. It’s just. I don’t know. I don’t know how to avoid it. Because if you try to hang on too hard, you are going to miss some great Notes, you are going to miss some structure things or whatever that you needed to do. Right. So you just have to move through that. So I guess my answer to your question is have a good friend. Have somebody who’s always trying to remind you when you finally hit the wall of, why did I even start writing this to begin with, they can hand you back the letter that you wrote to yourself, right. About why you loved it and what you were doing. You just need to have somebody there because it is just part of the process. You might completely disagree. What do you think?

Joe: No, I agree. I think if you always have that this is what this movie is about in your back pocket and you try and no matter who you’re getting notes from, you try and organize them into that universe so you get a note and it doesn’t quite make sense. If you’re like, this is a movie about going home, you can really quickly flush out whether an idea is from a point of view that’s not really trying to pull out what’s good about the script, but trying to impose something on it. I think if you have your tuning fork, then you become the manager of the project and you’re always keeping people on track. And if it’s a situation where it’s something that you’ve bought, they’ve obviously bought it for a reason and you’re always bringing them back to that. It’s hard to stay calm when you’re taking incoming fire. But if you can kind of keep that North Star and always ask the question back, well, why is this note telling that story? And I think the other side, what Meg is saying is, you know, your partners are your allies. Hopefully they’re there for the right reasons and because you all love, you know the same thing about it. So hopefully they’re leading you to someplace that, you know, you might be pushing you emotionally to something, to face something or to discuss something or to look at a blind spot or a bias you might have. I think you just use everybody as a resource and an ally, even when it doesn’t feel like that. So when we got the notes we were talking about, it really wasn’t the notes, it was the delivery. Right. And again, they’re not on this project, but you kind of like take a day and you throw that out because who cares about the delivery, right? You get over your ego. Yeah. No, you do. But I mean, long term, big picture, that’s just going to burn away. And then you’re like going, we, we are going back to why are we telling this story? And if they don’t get it, then, you know, at least we have this tuning fork to go. Okay, well, we’re not being arbitrary with them. We’re not being arbitrary with ourselves. This is what got us excited. So everything tracks back to that original spark, that original inspiration. And you’ve got to run your own project, even though you may not feel you’re in charge. You can be in charge, you know, but you’re marshaling everybody. You’re bringing everyone along.

Meg: Yeah. And you know that rudder that he’s talking about at the beginning, it might just be a word. And, you know, both Disney and at Pixar, we would just put the word on the wall so that this giant train was all moving towards that word right now. But if your word is trust or redemption or loyalty or home or whatever, just know the drafts are going to dig, dig, dig, dig, because that’s not a theme yet. What is your insight into being forgiven so that you can go home? What is your insight into that as a human being? What is your insight into redemption? What is your insight into parents who want their kids to be happy all the time? Right. And loving them? Because we all do it. Right? Whatever. That takes many drafts to really understand what the hell you’re doing. Right. And that intellect just has to keep asking, is there a new word? Right. And that. Because your notes can start to really. They’re projecting in, like I said. And the other thing about notes, to be careful of. And it’s funny because my sonar is up a little bit on this right now for our project. A lot of people give you notes, aren’t writers, and they can only give you notes on what they have in front of them. So they’re going to point to a scene and say, this scene doesn’t work. Well, I don’t know if that’s true. That’s a symptom. You’re the doctor. Maybe you didn’t earn that scene, or maybe it’s not that scene. It’s here. And you just change this, and suddenly that scene that you haven’t touched works. You have to be the doctor. They’re just throwing out piles of symptoms. Now. Some of them are very, very good. We happen to have some people that are very good and can start pointing. So I’m not saying you never take what they say, but you have to assess constantly about why do they have that note? Is it the midpoint? Because maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s something else. Or maybe it is the midpoint that you haven’t had that a Giant enough shift. So it’s gotten all mushy in the middle. Right. They’ve lost their interest.

Ted: Chris, gentleman at the front here. Let’s go to this side and I’ll come back to you. Sorry, dude.

Audience: Thank you. I’m a big fan of tsl. When you have an outline or a treatment for a feature and then you want to get into scenes, what is your table process? To go from this large piece of 10 page document that you have to actually break that into scenes and actually start writing.

Meg: It can be different if you’re a team versus alone. Right. Because alone you can just start writing out of order and whatever you want to do, you can just start free writing. But with a team, you’ve probably really marked it out and each scene’s been carded and then you start saying, I’ll do this part. You come behind or you do that part. So it’s a little bit different depending on. But are you a solo writer or team writer? Solo writer. So when you say, how do you find the scenes? I’m not exactly sure what you mean.

Audience: I’m more like if you’re. You have a story. Because I come from fiction writing, I still write fiction. So the fiction scene is not necessarily a feature scene. So I’m going, okay, I have the outline for the story. I know where the beginning, middle, and end is.

Meg: The map of the film, of the feature.

Audience: Yeah. I have written a treatment or a long outline right now. How do I then break it into scenes that really work as a feature? So how would you approach? Like, how do you start?

Meg: Well, if I didn’t have a. We might be very different, but if I didn’t have a partner, I would take that outline and I would put it over here.

Ted: Yours?

Meg: No, not to him. I just mean to the side. Sorry. I would put it to the side and from memory, I would just write a draft and see what comes up. Because the dreamers might say, we don’t really care about that. Right. We want you to be. And to move from fiction to. It’s really big jump for your brain to learn. Because like Joe said, it all has to come out into behavior. Now, I had a playwright once when I was a producer, and I said, finally, you just have to. My advice is write this as a silent movie, just as an exercise, because you’re having everybody say everything because you’re a playwright and this all has to be behavior. So how do I know her mother died? What are you seeing on screen? If she can’t tell me my mother died like what is like. So you might have to do go through some learning curves, but just allow that to happen. You won’t know what is kind of what you need to learn until you just try it. But if you really do want to break it down, then you literally just start carding. Right. Like this scene. And this is what’s going to happen in the scene, both plot and character. That scene, plot and character. You can use different colors for the cards. So you can see the theme moving. You can see the character moving. You can see the plot moving. You can see the relationship moving. You can see, you know, there’s all kinds of ways that people do it, but I would say just, you know, barf drafted.

Joe: Yeah. I mean, I think to me, I want to get into the dream of the movie, so referring to a document, a lot would take me out of that. So, you know, I would start with your character and I would, what do they do? What do they want? You know, and how are they moving? Who’s your antagonist? You know, just start, like, really building it very broadly and then detailing it and getting it more specific. I would. I would stay away from prose and more towards what happens. What do they do? What happens? What is the cause? What is the effect, what is the obstacle? What is the, you know, the want? Like these very simple tools that keep you out of a literary mindset. Because it’s, you know, I jokingly said, I wish I wrote novels so much easier than writing screenplays. You have every tool at your disposal, including the thoughts. We have none of that. Right. So I go quickly to, like, basic stuff and, you know, just the movement of the character. And, you know, you may run out of gas, you may get to page 60 and, like, the engine’s not there. So then you have to go back and sort of, like, look at the engine and the overall arc and the overall want. The broader. You can stay, I think, for me, then you can have the real fun of the writing part, you know, which is you kind of have a roadmap, but then you get in there and, like, can create it on the page.

Meg: I think, too, if you’re trying to really make a switch in the type of storytelling.

Audience: I write television as well.

Meg: Oh, you do? So then it’s not like it’s not a full novelist. So then, you know, we’re talking about.

Audience: I write for children, so it’s 11 minutes long.

Meg: So it’s a different kind of learning curve because now it’s got to last 110. Yeah. Then I would just. Especially if you come from television.

Joe: I would just start writing, and there’s no right answer. So, you know, just like, start.

Audience: Meg. Really great insights. My question is actually related. I’ve got a project called a horror project, which I’m about to finalize to find. First draft done. And I’ve got treatments, and I’ve got all these visual ideas. I mean, how do you sort of remove the cluster of good ideas if you’re trying to structure your particular scripts? I mean, obviously with Pixar, there’s a lot of visual gags and stuff. Just could you share something about that process and how you equate the character with the visuals? Because sometimes there’s really funny visual moments in a. In a Pixar film that everybody around us. Like, for example, the cones in Toy Story 2. So I’m just interested to know about the visual compared to the actual writing of a thing. And how do you equate those?

Meg: Well, animation’s different in that you’ve got a building full of storyboard artists who literally were given for the first six months, go off and come up with every funny word pun in the mind that you can think of. Right. For both movies, sarcasm came from a storyboard artist. Right? So a lot of the big punny stuff is going to come from different places. Right? And then my job, of course, I have to write fun too, but my job is what’s the story? And a lot of the fun puns, most of them don’t make it right. A lot of there are different characters. There was Schadenfreude, because that’s very funny. And, you know, but he doesn’t make it because he’s one joke, right? So you just have to test them. And the way you test them is you try them and you see, is this advancing the story as well as being funny? Then it gets to stay right. Now there also will be a moment where they will count jokes, and suddenly jokes will start getting thrown back in. But in terms of the writing process, it really is. Sarcasm had to not just be a funny joke, but it had to move Riley’s story, Anxiety’s story, and Joy’s story. Like, I had to know, what was Joy learning from this as a character in her arc? Why does she need to go see the sarcasm? Why does Riley need to do it? Why does Anxiety need. Why is this something that they need even though it’s funny? Right? So there’s meaning. We can all be the storyboard artists just having the fun days and the piles of ideas, but eventually the writer has to come and be the hard committer, too. But that isn’t part of Joy’s arc that I don’t. What. How is that moving the story? It’s in live action. It’s the same with a set piece, right? It can’t just be a set piece. For a set piece, how is it changing the relationship, the main character? Something is happening, right? For it to earn its way into the story. But again, you won’t know until you put it in. Like, your intellect can’t figure it out. The dreamer will figure it out, let it go in, and then take a week away and read it and realize, oh, my God, it’s funny. But it doesn’t. It’s just extra stuff. But I see a way to make it really the most important thing ever. Holy shit. Right? Like the intellect, the dreamer’s throwing a lot of stuff, but the writer will come in. And just to my mind, it has to become about the arc of the character. How does it advance? Not just the story, but your character. You know, when I worked for Jodie Foster, and Joe actually wrote for Jodie Foster, so he can attest to this. You would have to do for her a column of what’s happening in the scene, and then a column for her character. And why is her character changing and shifting and what, every scene? Because otherwise, as an actress, she’s like, I already did that. So what am I playing here? Meaning, in the movie, within the movie, like that. And you can start to see it repeat. You’re like, well, shit, she’s still fighting about the same thing she was fighting about four scenes ago. So the actor’s gonna turn to you and go, why? Why am I. Aren’t I telling him the same thing I already told him? Have I not shifted now? You do it with the main relationship that also has to be moving every scene. Is it shifting? Is it. Is relationship changing? Or is it starting to repeat?

Ted: Grant, thank you. At the back here. Thank you. Thank you for that.

Meg: I’m also sorry. I’m also a playwright who’s written a film script, and I’m fascinated about what you were saying that you said to the playwright.

Ted: Write a silent mood.

Meg: Because I think my film script is very word. So just fascinated by what you were saying about write a silent movie and make it about behavior rather than words. Could you just expand on that just a little bit, please?

Audience: Thank you.

Ted: Yeah. I was about to say, Jo.

Joe: Well, gee, first of all, you’re writing for an actor, you’re writing for a director, and you’re writing for the audience. Right. So the character has got to want something in every scene, and that has to have an overarching goal of the whole movie. So, you know, if people are just standing around talking about intellectual ideas as opposed to there’s something that’s propelling us forward and driving us to the next scene is where I would start to look for the answer. How is their want meeting an obstacle? And what are they doing to get around the obstacle? And that starts to create the behavior. So if you have. I mean, there. There are lots of different affectations for your characters. So that’s going to depend on who your character is and what your character’s flaw is. What problem are they trying to solve within themselves, and what are they moving from and what are they moving towards? So those are the places that I would look. Let me ask you a question. What are you having trouble with exactly? Like, are they just standing and talking to each other? And does that imply that there’s not a greater want? Like, what. What is the actual challenge you’re finding?

Meg: Sorry. Because it’s. It’s a film about Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. So two poets. And it might be just too wordy, I think. I think there’s a lot of action. I think one of my director friends really likes it.

Audience: But.

Meg: But I feel that I tend to.

Audience: Write.

Meg: A lot of words. Yeah, because your brain is straight. And by the way, there’s plenty of great screenwriters who come out of plays who are very wordy. The guy who wrote West Wing and, you know, I mean, what’s his name? Aaron Sorkin. You know, it’s like music to him. Right. So there’s nothing wrong with it. Right. But, you know, when Jody. When I hired this playwright and I was working with Jody, she read the script and she goes, why is everybody talking about what I should be seeing? And I was like, because she’s a playwright. So if you can put it into a visual, take it out, you know, editors are just going to cut the shit out of that. Like, they are not. They’re just going to start. And even in animation, I sometimes wrote lines that I was really writing for the storyboard artists. So they knew what to draw, and I prayed they took it out. You know what I’m saying? So, you know, you could do a writing exercise. I’m not even saying, like, spend months and months, like, take a day, take a piece of your script. How many. How much dialogue could you get out? This is an experiment. And still. And then you’ll start to see, well, I could get this Line out. If she moved the salt and pepper shaker to the right, and suddenly we’re going to know that she just said, fuck you, I’m not getting a divorce, or whatever, right? Like, but it became this very mundane behavior that an actress will love, right? Because actors, well, animation, they really don’t want to animate lips moving. Like, who wants to do that? So it all has to be behavior. And a storyboarder just not wanting to draw something is immediately a problem. So think about it in terms of. I would just start doing experiments with yourself, right? Just for your brain to see what’s really necessary and how much is, you know, so much of film dialogue is just subtext. And their behavior in film, people are. And I believe, and I think you’ve said this too, we are watching the behavior because people lie. But our innate beings know that what people do is who they are, right? So even character introduction, right, is so important. What are they doing? Plus, actors love skills, by the way. Just they love to have a skill that’s physically like a skill to do, right? Because they get to go learn it. So, like, in your character introduction, what are they doing that you’re like, I know that person, I know who they are, and I fucking love them. Which is what Anderson used to pound on the table. When do I fucking love your main character? When? When do I fucking love them? Right? If you can do that, it might be through their verbiage, their dialogue, because they’re so articulate and just. That could be. But then if I had a character who was just so articulate, I would immediately be like. And then what do they do? And then they collapse on the sofa, or then they go drink a six pack, or they like, what is showing the behavior of who they are versus who they are telling you they are, right?

Joe: And, you know, there could be a problem where, you know, it’s expositional, you know, so that’s going to point you to, you know, a problem where you’re having the dialogue’s doing too much of the work, where we’re not understanding where we are through context or, you know, the problem that the character is having is in backstory, and it’s not in the four walls of the movie. So look at the story function of each scene and how the dialogue relates to that story function.

Meg: It would be so fun. I don’t know if this is true. If, like a poet, when they actually spoke, were just so boring, you know what I mean? Like, what’s the kind of dissonance of the human being like, he can only really be that poetic when he’s writing. But he’s so shy and he’s so that he can’t. He’s just a nimrod.

Ted: He’s run away titters.

Meg: He’s just like. He just doesn’t say very. Anything smart or like, you’re just like you wrote. Like, where’s the dissonance of the humanity and that you can use the dialogue? You know, like somebody said to me once, and then I saw it in a script that was actually written in Britain about your first policeman and outlaw and the voice.

Ted: Robin. Robin.

Meg: No, not Robin. No, I can’t remember. I’ll remember in two seconds. The voiceover was telling you what a great man he was, and you were not seeing a great man. And you suddenly knew immediately who this guy was. Right, because his voiceover was his delusion of himself that he wanted you to know, but the filmmaker was showing you who he was. So there’s just different ways to use dialogue.

Ted: Great. Have we got time for one more?

Joe: Yep.

Audience: Fancy that. Thank you for coming out, guys. Howdy. I hope you’re having a good vacation here. You were talking a little bit earlier about spec scripts. If you don’t mind, we can walt back into that kind of mishy mashy land and, like, what would you say? Like, absolutely, nuclear bomb in a basement is necessary for that script to sit on the producer’s desk and then to give you the callback. Right. Like, what are the. Because I know you said it’s got to be undeniable, but this is again, kind of like, no offense, like hazy Hollywood speak. Right. So what do you think? If. If you, the producer, because you’ve got experience in the business, like, what are the things that will allow you to ignore the imperfections in the script and move to the next stage?

Meg: Well, different producers, different things. So a producer who’s genre producing, right. And just selling. Right. They’re going to really need the concept. They’re going to be like, I’ve never seen that concept. Whether it’s this meets that, I’m not saying. But the concept itself is what they think. It’s sellable. I can sell that. I’ve got five buyers, not one buyer. I’ve got five, 10 buyers I can go to. Because that’s a conception that I can pitch to them on the phone right now. Right? They will. They were going to bite, right? Yeah. Because producers in their brain think, I can help you with the script, but I’m selling the concept. And to be honest with you, I don’t know if this is going to happen, but in the 90s, they were buying concepts all over the place because they just fire you. I’m not saying that’s what’s. But like in the 90s, they were just throwing writers at concepts. I don’t know if we’re going to swing back to that or not, but. Meaning. But I was trying to give you the kind of harsh black and white thinking, which is they’re buying the concept even if. And they’re going to help you with a draft or two to get it there. But then they’ll bring in another writer because they bought the concept. I’m just being honest. That’s how they think. Exactly. So you know, the con and then other writers for other producers. It really is going to be emotional. I can’t stop thinking about it. So you’re some emotional insight into humanity. That character is just. Keeps walking around their head and they just love it emotionally, whether it’s a hard sell. They have one buyer now. They. So it’s an emotional. You put your guts and your vulnerability on the line. You know, our son is in film school and he said, do you feel like. It’s like you almost have to be embarrassed. And I was like, yes. And then somebody told me that somebody like Whitman or somebody said the same thing. Like, you have to be. That vulnerability is almost like embarrassing to admit because it’s so human bleeding on the page. Yeah. I mean, it’s just mush on the. You know, it’s just your. It feels exposing. Right. But that’s a character that is going to be. Feels authentic and resonant. Right. Again, it doesn’t have to even be a small movie. It could be, you know, out of Africa. It can be epic. But that character is just something that they’re gonna want for. To follow. What do you think?

Joe: I agree with everything you said. I think career longevity lies in character and voice. I think if you’re able to turn out concepts and you can do that. But if you don’t come to the party with a concept, but you can come to the party with an ability to write characters and you understand structure really well and you can deliver on a premise and take it all the way through, I think you’re going to have a longer career. I think people will hire you for many different reasons. But if you, you know, if you don’t have a concept in your head, you know, you may. You may be, you know, you know, wanting. But I think character and, you know, voice can break down a lot of Doors. Even if it may not get your piece sold or it may not lead to a sale, it may lead to relationships.

Meg: And to think about concept, you have to remember that if you’re pitching to an executive, that executive is going to their boss and they’re pitching your pitch. So, boy, it better be easy to pitch, because if it isn’t, they’re gonna fucking make up what they think it is, honestly, and what they like about it, and they’re gonna come back to you with wonky notes because you’re like, that’s not even what I pitched. But that’s what they pitched because they saw it inside of there, and they’re gonna pull it out because that’s what their boss is looking for, right? So. And then that boss is probably pitching it to the next boss, right? So that’s concept. They can literally go like this, right? It’s John Wick meets Santa Claus, right? In a high rise. But it’s really about a marriage, right? So you can get the emotion, right? So we’re gonna pitch you the big concept. There’s gonna be fucking bombs going off, and there’s a bad guy, and this is the bad guy is. You have to know who the bad guy is, because that’s where most people fall down and this and that. But you know what this is really about? This is about a marriage. This is about. We’re gonna meet them right at the moment they were gonna break up. And now he gets savor and, like. And now you’re. So you’re doing both, right? Because you can’t just pitch them the top they want. They do understand, and they know the actors and good storytelling. They need the marriage part. But in literally, like, in minutes, you have to be able to go, concept poster. We on the podcast was Dana Fox, and she’s a concept person. And she, like, she said she rolls over in the morning and says to her husband, okay, this is the concept that I thought. And she just starts. That’s how her brain works, right? But she knows. So she always pitches concept first in the room because she says she knows in three minutes, they’re buying it or they’re not buying it. And once she knows, oh, I got him. I hooked him with the concept. Now she starts moving into theme and emotion and character. So sometimes people tell you to pitch the emotion character first. It just depends, right. On your brain. I’m an emotional therapy, you know, not therapy, but yes. Okay. Thematic person. But, you know, the thing we just pitched for Netflix, it was concept, concept, concept.

Ted: Yeah.

Joe: And I think you, you know, if you can. If you can pitch a concept, but you have to deliver the rest of it, you know, and that’s why you’ll have a career, you know, you’ll get replaced, you know, or you’ll be, you know. Okay, he’s a concept guy. Yeah.

Meg: But again, if you’re not a concept person, that doesn’t mean you can’t earn a living. It doesn’t mean, like, I’m, as a writer, I’m known as somebody who writes, you know, emotion, I guess. Right. But, you know, Joe is really a great, amazing concept guy who can also write emotion. Right. So everybody’s brain is going to come at it from a different way. It’s really what you become. We talk about this on the show. What’s your brand as a writer? What’s your brand? Are you the concept person? Are you the emotional character, thematic person? Are you the guy who does rock and set pieces that nobody’s ever seen and directors definitely want to do? Are you the writer who can write things that get people Academy Award, actors, Academy Awards? Because those characters are just stunning. Again, I don’t want you to worry about that. But at some point, as you get all of your scripts and you see what are people responding to that you’re doing? Where are they leaning in? Where are they talking about it, where are they telling you’re doing, like, just. It’s nothing. You can’t decide it. It’s just going to be, you know.

Joe: And identify your weaknesses and lean into them so that you can make them strengths, I think, you know, because you need so many strengths to do this. And so if you’re all concept and no character, if you’re all character, no concept, like, lean into those and start asking questions about how those things operate and how you can get better at doing those.

Ted: Brilliant. Thank you so much. Chris, do you want to do the outro? Because I’m not the energy guy. I’d say. Thank you very much. We all shake hands. Can we give the guys a round of applause? Okay. Okay. So I’m going to just explain what’s going to happen for the rest of the evening, and then we’re going to give them another big round of applause. But we’re going to go really big for that one. Are we up for that? Yes. Outstanding. So you guys, you hang out five, ten minutes for quick, you know, chit chat. So if you want them, gonna have to jump, try and be quick. And then we’re gonna zoom over to this room with our talent campus in the room. For final 15 minutes. The rest of us, we can head over to stage two. The doors are now open. Remember, it’s a bring your own booze networking party. So if you didn’t bring your own booze, head over to the shop across the road and bring your own booze. There’s going to be about 200 other people joining us in about half an hour, so it’s going to be an amazing experience. The music is already playing, the room is chilled. It’s got a very good vibe. Okay, so everybody clear on that? Brilliant. Okay, let’s give it up for the guys, yeah.