202| Turning The Tables: Meg and Lorien Interviewed by Screenwriting Teacher/Author Andrew Zinnes

Over the lifespan of our show, you've heard Meg and Lorien interview a ton of incredibly talented writers, but today, we turn the tables, and get to hear from them! (And a bit from producer Jeff too...)

Andrew Zinnes, a screenwriter and teacher himself, helped compile a book of interviews by top-tier screenwriting pros (including Meg), so today, he wanted to enrich the conversation presented by the book by hearing from all of TSL!

TO ORDER ANDREW'S BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/Screenwriters-Advice-Popular-Winning-Streaming/dp/1501363271

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Meg: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Screenwriting Life. I'm Meg LeFauve.

Lorien: And I'm Lorien McKenna. And today we're thrilled to welcome Andrew Zinnes to the show. Andrew is a professor and lecturer at the University of Portsmouth UK building on a long career in development under heavy hitters like Norman Lear.

He recently co-authored the book Screenwriters Advice.

Meg: Andrew interviewed me for the book, but I'm just one of the many pros featured, so we wanted to discuss some of the other highlights from the book. By doing something we don't normally do on our show, Andrew will be interviewing us with some of the questions that he asked in his book.

And of course, we're going to talk about the book too.

Lorien: But before we get to that interview of us, which is I don't know best podcast I think we've ever done, right? Hey, come on our show and ask us questions.

Meg: All right. So Andrew, welcome to the show.

Andrew: Hi everybody. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

A big fan. First time caller.

Meg: It's going to be fun.

Lorien: Welcome. But before we get into the interview, we're going to be talking about our weeks, or as we like to call it, adventures in screenwriting. So I'll start. This week, I set myself a deadline to deliver a script by Friday, and I gave myself really big stakes so that I met that deadline. They were personal stakes and world stakes, and it worked. And I delivered pages. And yay. And so I set myself a new deadline this week. And what I learned though, is that the deadline I set with two, the deadline was reasonable, but the, what I could actually accomplish was a little outside what I could. So I sent what I had. So this week I have had to pull back and be a little bit more realistic about the hours I actually have in my week, where I am in my process, and all the many things I have to do. It's writing, I'm reading a feature for somebody, I'm, like all the things I have to do in my life.

Including family recharge rest time, and that has to also be a priority in my balance because I can look at my week and say, I have 50 hours this week, but if I don't include that time, I will crash and burn so hard on the weekends. That it takes me a day just to get back into the next week. So what I'm also trying to think about is how to assess that in a realistic way and not as in I'm broken.

I have to fix this thing that's not working, but more about what actually is working and continue to do that. But it's really about. getting rid of the idea that I'm broken somehow and that I have to fix something. And I think a lot of emerging writers and writers, all of us are guilty of this. If I could only fill in the blank, then I would be more successful.

I think we waste a lot of time. I just need a schedule. I just need this. I just need this instead of, and that's really focusing on what isn't working, and what do I need to fix rather than what isn't working. Is working and what is working for me if I set goals for myself and communicate those goals to people that I am accountable, held accountable to in a real way and one thing that's not working for me right now is that there are not a lot of... the industry is going through things right now.

So there are not a ton of writers working and I'm working my ass off to get gigs and do what I need to do, but I really want to make something. So I dug out an old play that I love that I wrote a long time ago, and I'm just going to put it up. I gave it to a friend who's an actress, and a producer, and a writer.

And she's great. I love it. I want to be in it. We're setting it to producers. Like I'm just going to do it. I can't wait for someone to say, do you have a play? Or I was just like, no, I have one. I'm just gonna do it. Good or bad, I gotta make something, I gotta do something. So that is giving me the spark I need to keep going with other stuff.

Anyway. I've had a lot of coffee today, can you tell? Andrew, how was your week?

Andrew: It's been a, it's been a heck of a week, actually. It's there's a lot of smatterings of things been going on. Hopefully I'll be as emotionally as intelligent as you two usually are at this thing.

Started with, we've, I've actually gotten feedback. On the first draft that I was running a biopic that I've been working on with some producers in the family and it's it was hard to hear some of the things they were saying the biggest note was the research is showing because we were working so much on trying to get in what this person did because his fans would demand such a thing and the the fans of the world that he's in would demand such a thing.

And in the process, perhaps forgot about the character arc so much, and forgot about the relationships a bit. And so we've been painstakingly going back and trying to actually use some of your techniques. The character movement, the holes and what was the other one? Oh, yes. What can he do in act one that he can't do an act?

No, but he can't, he do an act one that he can do in act three. Do I have that correct?

Meg: Yeah, it can also, be the opposite

Andrew: and it can be the opposite. Yes. Which for different characters in it.

Meg: Yeah.

Andrew: Each one would be probably a little bit of both. So those yielded some really great results and have gotten us over some humps.

That we're getting to, but it's, it should be a surprise that it usually comes down to character relationships, that it usually comes down to the philosophies that the characters has to, where they start and where they end, and that's what I've been chewing on a lot this week.

Meg: That's a lot to chew.

That's a lot. So it's...

Lorien: never sorry. Meg, I've never heard you say what can the character do in act three they can't do in act one. Now I know you've said it, but I never heard it until just now. So I think it's so interesting.

Andrew: It's a groundbreaking historical moment.

Lorien: I think is so interesting about like screenwriting books and going to lectures and talking to writers is that we can hear something over and over and over again, but never really hear it.

Sometimes we need to hear it at exactly when we are struggling with that thing as well. Because I heard you say that, Andrew, and I was like whoa, what?

Literally, I probably said it to somebody. But for whatever reason, today, so I was like, Oh, is this a personal thing that I need to work on my character?

Or is it A character thing and something I'm working on and I think I'm working on an outline. So I think it's my character thing, but it's just so startling to me that keeps happening.

Meg: And it will continue to happen. That's why when we help people on our Patreon with their stories, I'm always like wait, am I doing this?

Because you remind yourself by talking to somebody else.

Andrew: You just experienced the joy of being a teacher, which is finally when the students come back to you and you reiterate it back to you. That's one of the most gLorienous moments, because otherwise you think you're looking up at a stage of 150 students at 9 o'clock on a Monday morning to talk about something and it's just nothing.

And then sometimes they say it back to you and it's, why do you get up in the morning

Meg: I love that too. I love that too. I just want to make sure, so you're doing a person who lived their life. A biographer.

Andrew: Yes. Yes. They're no longer though. Exactly.

Meg: Gil Dennis, who used to teach at AFI when I was there, he did walk the line about Johnny Cash.

And he said that he was having a really hard time with this problem, especially because Johnny Cash, I believe, was still alive when he was doing this. Johnny Cash really didn't want to talk about any of the. Other stuff other than what his fans would like, so to speak, and he, the way he did it is he asked him, he asked Johnny Cash, you could ask your character this kind of, fictionally what was the time he was most terrified, what was the saddest moment of his life, what was the most shameful experience, what time was, what was the time that someone was the most angry with him, and what was the moment he felt the most joyful, and it all of those started to have similar moments, which is that he was an abused child who had to fight. To protect his mother, but then he became the abuser and how heartbreaking that was to him, right? And that's the kind of pattern he didn't really want to deal with. At least as far as what talking about it to the writer, but it's what the writer found by going to those more emotional questions.

So if that helps at all, just throwing that out there.

Andrew: Absolutely. And I think that's going to be the that is going to be the core of it. That is going to be where the answer is why that is what is going to win out between choice A and choice B. Is that kind of thing.

Meg: Is that kind of thing. My week is, number one, I have insomnia, so I feel whacked.

So if I say anything slightly weird, let me it's just fatigue and exhaustion. But I'm also waiting for a response on a script, which has now been weeks of absolute silence, which, I know in today's world, everybody tells me, other writers, that it can take months now for studios to get back to you because there's so many producers and there's so many people, but I don't know, when I was a producer, If you liked it, you would call pretty soon.

Like it just is, this is too long. It's too long now. We'll see. I'll let you know. So there's a lot of wait and anticipation with that. And then there's the movie coming out, which, you know, as celebratory as it is, then taking pictures of me in front of billboards and stuff, it's really fun. And I'm trying really hard Keep the joy at the center of it and the fun of actually having a movie come out.

But your brain is always moving in the back about what are they going to say? And who's going to go after? So I've got a lot of anticipation building. So I was like, okay what I need to do is rest. This is a moment when I could actually rest. And I just realized I'm terrible on it. I am terrible at resting.

As is my 20 year old, who also was supposed to be resting. And instead, we would just talk about all our anxieties. I think that's what happens when I rest. Because I have I have, I stay busy to keep it down, so to speak. So when I rest, all that anxiety starts, I can really hear her. She's driving pretty hard when I rest.

Lorien: Okay, but are you resting how often? Do you think you're supposed to rest or what actually brings you calm?

Meg: Oh, I've tried everything. What actually finally brought me calm is I'm listening to Barbra Streisand's autobiography and I just laid down outside in my backyard and watched a hawk through my binoculars listening to Barbra Streisand's fantastic amazing life. Cause she's very inspiring, cause she just is who she is, like it or not, that's who she is. So I did, I rested in my own way, but I realized how much I don't I'm not a good rester, just right now, and that's okay, I can have something to work on.

Lorien: I guess it's what you're trying to get out of rest too, right?

I, if I rest read or lay down or do those things, I get I get "On we ish", and I feel just funky and bad. So like my rest really is going out to lunch with somebody talking about nothing important and just being with another person that makes me feel restored. So it's like, what are you trying to get at rest?

Is it restoration? Is it calm? Is it peace? Is it not having insomnia? Because I'm right there with you. It's What is it?

Meg: I'm literally trying to get rest. I'm trying not to talk to anybody or do anything and just literally let my brain shut down for a while. And just

Lorien: Have I got a candy crush for you?

Meg: Yeah, you end up playing solitaire and then my brain is this is not rest. It's still all this input coming in all the time. Yeah, so we'll take it one day at a time, but let's get to our guests in this wonderful book. So why don't we, before you start asking us questions, explain a little bit about the book and where it came from. Where people can find it if they want. Just give us a little background on it.

Andrew: Sure. So the book comes from a series of filmmaking books called The Guerrilla Filmmaker's Handbook, which my wife, Genevieve Jolliff, And Chris Jones, who does the London Screenwriters Festival, which I believe the two of you have experienced.

They made a bunch of films in the 90s and early 2000s. And they had a lot of trials and tribulations, probably knowing that Jeff has done experiences recently with his film. You can probably attest to. And but at that time there weren't many books on screenwriting. I'm sorry, books on filmmaking or anything at that time, and people weren't sharing information, not certainly like they can do now.

So they decided that they were going to write a book of all the things that they wish they had known, sorry, knew beforehand. And by doing that, they would ask, Every member of a film crew, everything from a writer, to an animal wrangler, to a grip, to a editor. What are the top 10, 15 things that an aspiring filmmaker or emerging filmmaker would need to know to do, to to work with you properly and make your life easier?

And, that, So it became this Q and A style format and it did really well. So flash forward many years, as I got to know Jen and actually got roped into working on these things we would be hawking these books at whatever festival and whatnot. And the screenwriters would often go I'm not a filmmaker.

I'm a screenwriter. I'm not wanting to make, be a director or anything like that. And we realized that, there's. It's like the most important part of the process, in my opinion, without it, there's nothing you can't do anything without you can't even spend money like price by money, but not on a on the actual making of the thing.

So let's go and explore that. The challenge we had. Was that, before you're asking, 50, 100 different people that, what, their own questions, something specific to their craft, but here we're every asking everybody the same thing, or the same kinds of questions, because it's all kind of relevant, save for platform and format.

So the way we got around that was making it more like a round table or like a Q and a. Like you would have at the end of a film festival or something or, at the LSF or something we're on stage and one question everybody goes down gives an answer. And so when we interviewed Meg, we had a list of questions for her and then took her answers and interspersed them with like answers.

And that's what it is. So you get to hear from 34 different screenwriters around the world, different platforms, different formats, different genres, and get to hear their takes on. everything from story theory to, writing on, writing in writer's rooms, that's what they do. We break it down by genre.

So

Meg: yeah, I love the genres. There's chapters on horror and action and telenovelas. I know that's not a genre, but I think you cover such amazing topics. And I also really love your list of tips that are dispersed throughout the book. So it's not just Q and A ing, but you're Pulling out in boxes on the page, high concept versus low concept, the types of pitches, including online pitching, which just tells you up to date.

This is like, how do you do an online pitch? And what is the hero's journey? So I especially think for really emerging writers who don't know, even know the terminology like bake off or, those kinds of, it's so helpful just to give this baseline. And then the interviews are now just taking that and really creating layers and insights within that.

So you're really covering both sides, which I really like a lot. And I think it's a great book for our listeners, especially our emerging writers to get their hands on. By the way, before we jump in. to our, the interview, and you all will hear the kinds of questions that are in this book. Where can they get the book?

Andrew: Oh, you can get it at the usual Amazon, usual place on Amazon and all these other places like that.

Meg: However, yes,

Andrew: however, for your people you, if you go to the bloomsbury. com website, you can get the book there. And if you put in a promo code, capital S a 25 capital S a 25, you can get 25 percent off on any version of the book for your listeners.

Meg: Nice. So it's. The number S isn't Sam, A is an apple, and then 2 5. Alright. Who doesn't love a discount? The Bloomsbury site people, go there because this is a really great book and I think if you throw in a

Lorien: cheese sandwich, every writer will do this.

Jeff: Or chips Lorien? Chips I was trying to

Lorien: broaden my horizon a little bit.

See, I think our

Jeff: audience loves chips, too, though, that's the thing, there's like a chip thing among the whole audience. I interrupted you, Andrew, I'm sorry, chips matter a lot to our show, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Meg: All right, Andrew, tell us some of the kinds of questions you asked.

Andrew: Okay, so now this is open to the three of you, Meg, Lorien, and Jeff, because there's, we got three, three different points of view. And so the questions are usually fairly broad. And not a lot of wind up. You guys can take them wherever you want to take them.

Okay. So the first question is, as far as storytelling is going or telling the story, how do you reduce predictability? Meg, why don't you go first?

Meg: How do you reduce predictability? The first is just to write a predictable first. I think if you spend so much time trying not to be predictable, you lose a lot in terms of what is it that you're trying to do.

Just ignore the basics of what it is, the story you're trying to tell. I think sometimes people work so hard to not be predictable. When I read it, I don't know what they're doing. But I think for me, the place I go in terms of predictable is character. First, in terms of, sometimes I have them do the opposite of what we expect.

Again, maybe it won't end up in the script, but it helps me pull out of that predictability. And then the other thing I'll say, and then I'll let these two guys, is, sometimes, honestly, just doing a wild ass spitball write a hundred ways that could happen. Aliens coming through the window you're not gonna do that.

Because by, listen, by 97 you are writing aliens come through the window. But sometimes it just helps break up the ice for me, because I get so frozen, that I just need to be ... Go back to play and have some fun.

Andrew: Lorien?

Lorien: I agree, it comes from character for me and I am always imagining what I would do in that situation, like in terms of wish fulfillment, what I wish I could have done in a similar situation, and if it's connected to me emotionally in some way, where I'm actually like, oh I've been in that kind of situation before, what do I wish I would have done, instead of, and that is usually something Crazy or wild or extreme that drives my character forward and an important way and I and even if I'm just playing it in development, I get to see what she would do if she were quote allowed to or the you know what she would do in Act one versus what she would do in Act three.

So sometimes I get to play with that. So for me, it's very much with the film it. What do I wish I could do in that kind of situation? It's usually fairly violent, which is fun, but I'm a violent writer. Sorry. I am. There's a lot of throwing and fire and stabbings, but yes.

And I write comedy and animation. Don't get too deeply into it, but yeah, I think that's it for me.

Jeff: I totally agree. I think like piggybacking off of what Lorien said I find, I agree that predictability is usually rooted in character decisions and often it's my own fear or sort of lack of imagination.

That's allowing me to avoid predictability in my work. I think like early drafts, I'm tending to make choices that maybe feel safe or aligned with the first version of the character's arc that I saw when I was thinking of the idea. And I find it can be very scary to make choices that feel unpredictable because I think this says a lot about me, but, and there's an element of wish fulfillment, but there's also an element of pushing.

If I were to put myself in the character's shoes and make that choice, it would feel very scary to me to do that because it's an unpredictable choice or something that I would maybe be afraid to do. So I find that pushing through my own fear on the page is often a way for me to discover things that I normally wouldn't discover.

And it takes drafts, I think, to do that and to find courage as you approach the page, to find those things.

Lorien: Can I just this isn't something I've ever worried about or thought about. I've never sat down and been I'm worried that this is predictable. Once I start asking those questions or thinking those things, it just shuts me down.

Maybe because I've never gotten that feedback. I'm sure if I got feedback that was like, this is predictable, it would stick in my head and it would be something I'd be churning on. But so far, I don't know if people think that or not, but I don't remember that sticking in as feedback. But it's not something I, that gets in my way.

Andrew: Often we'll have, you're sitting in the movie theater and you're sitting watching at home and you're You know, it's coming and it comes and I often feel that's, I roll, I don't want to roll my eyes, but I often go, Oh, they went to the obvious place. Or they did that sometimes. Yeah.

Do you ever experience that or and do you ever feel that's

Lorien: oh yeah. Part of it is pattern recognition and you can start to see things happening, and I think that, I can't blame the filmmaker or the writer 'cause just anything getting up sometimes is a miracle. So like things change in development and production.

But yes, I definitely feel that way and I'm. It depends on what I'm watching. Like sometimes it can be satisfied when there is an inevitable sort of predictable end, like in certain kids content I think it's what are you writing and what are you experiencing?

Meg: And I think that's a good word to me.

It's satisfying sometimes it's predictable and yet the way it's done is not predictable or it's where the genre is going to go in the rom com they're getting together. Spoiler alert. So it's predictable, right? But it's the how that suddenly you go to and I do think that, gosh, almost every guest we've had on has said the same thing, which is, if you go to authenticity, it starts to shift, because the more specific you get the more that predictability starts to shift and move, but I love a good twist, too. So don't get me wrong. I sometimes like to think, okay what right now is going to really surprise the audience.

Lorien: Yeah. I'm still rattled from watching Sixth Sense in the theater, that movie, the experience of watching that movie is something that I hold very dear to me because it was so like

Meg: Game of Thrones, like they cast the main character in like episode two.

So you were like, okay, nobody's safe. Nobody, this is a totally new TV because no character is safe, which ended up not being true because of course they're not killing Jon Snow, and yet they did. But anyways, spoiler alert.

Jeff: I think to piggyback off that, Meg I think audiences actually want to feel the stakes of the artists as much as they want to feel the stakes of the characters.

And I think as writers, we sometimes have to make risky choices that feel like they're maybe sitting on, You know, risky ground. And when I'm watching a predictable movie, I get frustrated because I know the writers are playing it just as safe as the character. And I think audiences want to feel that same level of heightened stakes that the characters feel when they're taking in the art that the creators made.

Meg: Yeah, and it's not always plot, right? Like sometimes, Those stakes are just, or that predictability is emotional, right? If I in Act 1 already know emotionally what this character needs to learn, I begin to disengage. I might be interested in the plot, but I'm not emotionally now involved. So to me, that's where that kind of brainwashing of Act 1 is, to get me really emotionally involved.

In one seat in one view, which is what your characters is and then shift with them. So that's where it starts to not feel predictable either. This went emotionally someplace I didn't expect, or it went deeper than I expect, or it's not a black and white answer emotionally. There's gray tones that always starts to lead you away from predictability.

Andrew: Cool. Excellent. Well done. Cold stars for a lot of you.

Lorien: Validation. We love it.

Andrew: There you go. Can't help it, teacher hat. Let's talk, let's jump around here a bit. Research, when you're finding, you've chosen your stories and you're digging into them, how do you do your, how do you do your research and when do you know to stop?

Lorien: Research is so delicious and I love a good Wikipedia rabbit hole but I tend to avoid it if I can because. I just get lost in it. It's so fun. I love writing about Greek mythology or goddesses, and then I'll just spend two days digging into that stuff, but I'm not actually engaging emotionally with anything.

Some projects have to have it. I know that Grey's Anatomy, and sometimes in the script they would, or in House, one of those medical shows, they would just write medical into it, and knowing where they need to get it. Oof, I'm a writer. Where they needed to get with the character.

Not solving it. Solving it. Providing an answer. Feeling emotionally distressed. Having a fight with their best friend, right? Because for me, research is such a tempting distraction. If I don't have to do it, I'm going to try to avoid it. Because it's so delicious. It's like eating the cookie before I've even, it's delicious.

It's eating chocolate chips before I've even baked the cookie.

Meg: I get really antsy doing research because I'm like, Oh my God, I should be writing. I should be writing. Not really fully grokking that this is the writing, this research. And there's different kinds of research, right? There's research like, you did Andrew for yours where it's at least historical and a person lived and what would that time have been like and it's period, I don't know.

But if it's period, what's happened in that time? and what would they use, or maybe if it's on a cannon, is it Marvel cannon, you have to know what kind of weapon is that, and who would have used it, and what, all of the cannon can become research too, but there's also the other kind of research where you're researching for example, when I did a, produced a movie with Jane Anderson for Showtime and it was set in a trailer park in Georgia and she went to Georgia to a trailer park.

We didn't shoot there. We shot in Vancouver. But she knew those people and she knew their gray zones like we talked about and she knew that all the layers of emotion and how they, she really did so much that she got the language and the voice. So it was so real and authentic because she met the people.

And I do a lot of research sometimes on psychologically, right? If I'm dealing with a child who's psychologically been through something I want to talk to a psychiatrist who deals with children who've been through that because it'll give me great, authentic, surprising but I get really antsy doing it because I get worried that I'm wasting time, which is bonkers.

But that's what I get. I get antsy doing research.

Lorien: I will say, I spent a long time at Pixar and research is such a key part of story development there, like multiple trips to Scotland on Brave, on cars they went up 66 many times. There's they got. Dirt from different parts of the road to bring back for the art department.

And they were displayed in little vials, and, on up a whole team of artists and the director and the writer went to Venezuela and they actually got coptered up to the top of one of those (inaudible). And, like you have really being there really, Wally, they went to a garbage dump, really being in it and experiencing it is so valuable.

And Meg, I totally agree with you. But yeah, If I don't lay something down enough before I do that, I have nothing, there's no Then I'll just get lost in that and the research. So for my process I have to at least write some kind of draft before I go to the trailer park or the garbage dump because I'll just use this as an excuse not to write because I'll be so worried about the character has to speak like this and use this kind of cup.

And then I just, I'm so locked in by those rules and the logic of it. That it will show

Meg: Or you can fall in love with too much. And now you can't do it all. And what is this movie about anyways?

Lorien: Is it about the cup and the way they talk?

Meg: You need it. So it's just a balance.

Jeff: I have a little less experience doing research than Megan Lorien, but I really am actually, for the first time, pretty deeply engaged in research for something.

I mentioned it on the show, but I actually am writing a 42 minute medical show, which has been very fun, and it's about a very specific department in hospitals that hasn't been featured on TV before. And it's a very small department, and they do a very specific thing that's medical adjacent. But, it's been very interesting.

First of all, it's been very cool, because I've been able to interview some of the top doctors. People in the country who are in these departments and major hospitals around the country, which has been incredible, but one of the pitfalls I've been tempted to dive into is asking these people leading questions that serve me rather than honest questions that serve the work, and it can be challenging because I'm asking specific questions and getting feedback.

That are breaking the engine of my show or not matching decisions. I made an early draft. So I've really been challenged . I've really been challenging myself.

Meg: It's so good.

Jeff: It is great. I know. And I'm in the stage right now where I'm like stubbornly and grumpily but it's supposed to be this, but it's actually been very valuable as Meg is pointing out to be challenged in what I thought the original engine of this show was.

And it's good. It's, but I can, Pushing myself to not ask leading questions in these interviews and instead ask truthful questions.

Andrew: Oh, great. Go ahead.

Lorien: Another thing I love about this show is that I have been trying to figure out how to write a medical procedure, Jeff, and you just, I just figured out what it's about. What department it takes place in and why it matters to me. I'm like, oh, okay.

Jeff: That's we'll trade pages, Lorien.

Lorien: But here's my challenge. I have to now write a first draft without doing research because I just said that's what I do.

Now I have to. I gotta do it. I'm going to prove it. And I'm going to put those stakes on it so that I'll get it done.

Andrew: Wow. Breaking all sorts of new ground here. But what are some of your best and worst pitching stories?

Meg: I have been pitched in person pitches twice where the people fell asleep and they both times they were, it was like nine o'clock in the morning.

Yes, it was nine o'clock in the morning. So you're like what and I just realized well one of them I think he stayed up too late because I later realized he was going to get fired in a week and I think he knew and I think he was out getting drunk and then and he just I finally just stopped talking and let him sleep and just left on that one. But the other guy was so nice and he had just come in from Belgium. To where he was shooting as the exec, he had visited. So he was in a totally different time zone, the poor guy. And so in the pitch, I would just bang on the table. I would be like, and then bang and wake him up. Like you, at some point, you're not selling it now because he's sleeping.

But, I was at, I had to do it for the producers and for everybody else in the room. It suddenly becomes a practice pitch. That's how I looked at it. This is my practice pitch. Cause he's clearly not buying it. Cause he won't remember any of it. Though, Lorien and I have been in meetings with people who look like they're sleeping and then they're not.

That can also happen. So to me, cause I love pitching and getting people involved emotionally and hanging on it and waiting to see what happened. But for me, the worst thing that can happen is either they fall asleep, which is very rare, or within Five minutes of that pitch starting, you can tell they're not buying this.

Now it's not because of the work you did, or the creativity. It's not the widget they want. They don't make this kind of thing. Your brain starts going, why am I in this room? who set up this meeting? They're never buying this, or whatever, right? And you just gotta keep going! You just gotta keep going and think of it as a practice for, what you're looking, hoping is the pitch is good, and even though they're already two minutes in, we're buying it, they liked you, they liked the passion, they liked what you did, so come back.

So that to me is the worst, which of course is right where I jumped. Best pitch is when they buy it in the room. Like literally in the room they go I had, we had one pitch, I was the producer on this one. And literally, this huge other producer who had a deal on the lot, said, can the writers leave?

And then he goes, okay, so how quickly can I buy this? Because I don't want you to go anywhere else. I'm calling the head of the studio right now. What number would get it done? And I was like, what's happening? And by the way, they didn't make it, but it was a great pitch.

Lorien: Yeah, my two best stories are production company pitched it.

She just leaned back and said, Let's do it. And I was like, what does that mean? And everyone got very quiet and we were like, okay. And we all left. And I was like, was that good? What just happened? Are they going to do it? Was that an in the room thing? The other one was we did the pitch. We had good time.

We got into the parking lot and then we got a call from our reps that they wanted to buy it. I've got an offer. So that was really good. Like those two experiences were like, is this really happening?

Meg: Which is why when people don't respond and it takes them so long, your brain is yeah, they're not, everybody can tell you anything they want.

And if they're not responding fast, it's because they're not into it. And when we talk about this for emerging writers, it's really like the concept they're buying. And they know us as writers, so they know we can deliver, but they're really buying a, Those kinds of pitches, or they're buying it in the room, or they're buying the concept, they're buying, you put this with that, or however you want to think about it that it, that concept is worth the risk because it, otherwise that's really what you pitch too, right?

It's very hard to pitch an indie movie or something that's so execution oriented.

Lorien: And my worst one, I had an adult animated show, very adult

Andrew: adult swim adult.

Lorien: No adult, raunchy, but with a female main character. But not dick jokes and butt humor. It was like, very specific to being a female character.

And pitched it. Thought it was going well. And at the end, the executives go, It's great. We love it. But we're the kids animation department.

Andrew: Oh no.

Lorien: And I was like ha. And then I realized that the looks on their faces were not them holding back laughter. It was them holding back horror. And not that they were, prudey, and didn't understand, or they couldn't appreciate the humor. It was just like, that's not their jam.

And they had no idea that's what we were going to be pitching. And that was the kind of thing where I'm like cool. I guess when I show back up in front of you, I'll be pitching like unicorn farts and fairies. I don't know.

Meg: That's when you're like halfway through, you're like, why am I in this room? Who put me in this room? Who's idea was it to come in? Was it my idea? I, when I was a producer, if you put Jodie into a pitch with a writer, meaning not to receive it, but as a producer, when we had a deal. you better be, you're taking her time.

And halfway through they stopped and was like, we're not going to do this because we'd have something similar and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And as he walked out, Jodie was like, so why were we in that room? And I was like so I don't know. They lied. I don't know what to say. They said they wanted it, but they didn't.

Lorien: Yeah. But some of the worst things you can hear are things like when they get to the end and they say, well- told, which just means buh bye, or. I once pitched.

Meg: It can mean well- told too, it can.

Lorien: Sure,

Andrew: Or interesting.

Lorien: Yeah, I also once pitched on a book, a feature on a book, and the executive said you kept all the best parts of the book.

Andrew: Oh.

Lorien: And I was all, I don't know what that means, but I'm pretty sure that's not a compliment. I'm pretty sure that's a pad. And then I got one that was, That's very thorough, meaning it was way too fucking long.

So I had to go home. I just eviscerated it. And then it was like half as long because people, they want to be able to ask questions and engage with the material, but so those are some of the things that you hear in your heart kind of stinks.

But to your point, those are things you could hear, Meg.

Maybe you hear well told and they actually mean it and they're excited about it and they're interested. You can't, because it's unpredictable. But those are the ones.

Meg: I was in a pitch once where I got to the parking lot and I called my reps and I was like, Okay, they hated it. They barely said anything.

They looked like they just wanted to go get lunch. They asked no questions. Let's move on. And they bought it.

Andrew: Yeah, and then you get the opposite, too. You might get the opposite, too.

Meg: Yes, I've had that, too. It's great. You're totally into it. And then they pass.

Lorien: They have so many questions, and they tell stories about how that exact thing happened to them.

And you're like, oh my god, this is it. The meeting goes long. You're like, they are so into this. And then you don't hear from them, like ever. They ghost you. They just ghost you. Cool, cool. That was awesome.

Andrew: Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Lorien: That's a good point about it. You never know, right? Meg, you and I pitched a show once and I kicked off the pitch.

It was my part. Like two minutes in, I start stumbling. I lose my place and I'm all, and then they ended up buying it. You can still mess up. You can still be yourself. Yeah, you can. You're, it's a, you they're buying and so they were more watching...

Meg: and the concept. So they like the concept and they're excited by the concept.

Lorien: So they, it, it was more about how I recovered from that rather than the fact that I stumbled or lost my place. It was anyway, we could talk about each of these, it's like a whole episode, so you've got to shut us up. You've got to shut us down.

Andrew: Wind you guys up and let you go.

Wind you up, let you go. Okay we're fortunate that you guys both worked Meg & Lorien in a lot of experience in the family film animation area. But Jeff, you can come at this from from your perspective too. So Meg had answered generally what makes a good villain and had said something along the lines of they're the hero of their own story, to paraphrase.

But I want to specifically talk about what makes a good villain or antagonistic force in family oriented fare. You can include animation in that.

Meg: At Pixar, they don't necessarily often have villains outright villains. There's always a very good reason for what they're trying to do.

Whether how they're doing it, why they're doing it. But there's, they're very human. And that's always usually very important. So I don't have actually a tremendous amount of experience with straight out villains because anytime I've tried it, it's gotten no, let's, what's their point of view on it?

And why would they be doing it? And so what do you think?

Lorien: I don't think differentiating villains in family films versus villains in other stories, I'm not understand, I don't understand the differentiation in terms of how they're crafted, right? Like I look at Killmonger in Black Panther and I look at Muntz in Up and Muntz in Up was a villain that the director and the writer and all of us.

It was really frustrating to figure out because what we had to crack was why this villain for Carl and Muntz was such an interesting character to dig into, all the different versions of him, all the things he wanted, but what he really had to do was serve Carl sitting there in his lowest moment and he has a choice, is he going to be like Muntz and become obsessive and dark and fixated and destroy his own life and everyone else around him, or is he going to make a different choice, which is ultimately the one he makes?

Spoiler alerts, in case you haven't seen Up, so Then you look at Killmonger, and it's also the dark mirror of The Black Panther, and that's where we had to get, and that's how I tend to look at villains, and perhaps it's because I worked on Up for so long, and like that, that solving that problem of watching Pete and Bob, the writers and directors wrestle with that, and the whole story department and all of us in on that that's how I look at a villain, is that it's a path that the main character could go down, so it's a threat,

Meg: Yeah, Jodie used to ask why, when she was gonna be the lead, why this antagonist for my protagonist?

Why of all the people that this protagonist will meet in their life, is this the person that's gonna crack me open? It's gonna crack my character open, and somebody told me once that I, and I like this, so I don't know if it's true or not, but that in the ancient Aramaic devil, Translates to bringer of light, which sounds crazy, right?

But actually it's about their bringing consciousness through their dark behavior. They bring light because you are choosing. Are you going to be like them or not? And they're testing and testing. So a lot of times, be it children's animation or family or anything, you have to be asking these very basic antagonistic questions.

Certainly sometimes children's animation, especially when based on fairytale, it can be very archetypical. If you think about Megamind or the minions or, they, they can get archetypical, but the great writers can take that archetype and now within it begin to twist it back to its humanity, right?

There's always this core humanity even when they're very broad, like I think of The King in Shrek, right? Which is very archetypical and yet he's so funny and they start to find ways that for why he's doing what he's doing, whether you agree with it or not, it feels very human why he's doing it.

It's not just cause he's bad, right? That doesn't, even in children's films, that won't work, right? They have to want something to be somebody different or finally not be the person that they were told they had to be, or, Things that feel very human and that we can relate to and that even kids could relate to.

Lorien: Yeah, I think, and with Muntz, it came down to what does Muntz want and why? And then how, so that it was really clear, his motivation was really clear and was on the similar path of Carl's. So yes I agree with you, Meg. It's a good point about the archetypes in children's or in family films, I get defensive about animation being a genre and not a medium.

And you can't say that about family films. They're not so different, but of course they are. I get all riled up about animation sometimes.

Andrew: Jeff, you have anything to add?

Jeff: I can just keep it super quick. I love what you said, Lorien, about the dark mirror of the protagonist. And I think if you think about two other Pixar movies, actually, Syndrome is a totally. His thing is all about who is special and who isn't, and that's exactly what Mr. Incredible is dealing with. And then in Ratatouille, of course, a food critic would be the very thing that the, is it Remy? That the rat has to face. So I think, I'm just echoing what both of you are saying, but I think you brought up brilliant points and maybe I think the thesis statement is children's movies antagonists have to do the exact same thing that serious quote unquote serious movie antagonists are doing as well.

Andrew: Okay, cool. Thanks. Now, Meg, you just said something that's going to tie into the next question a bit when you mentioned what Jodie just said. Dave Reynolds, who we interviewed for the book who did Finding Nemo and most recent Garfield movie. He was talking about how, when he was working on Nemo, he had Albert Brooks there and they were finding the voice of Marlin.

And he would actually be in the room and Albert Brooks would go read, lines and then come back and Dave would realize that wasn't working or someone's working and Dave would come up with ideas and they'd be bouncing off of each other. So I'm wondering in your experiences, do the voice actors help you change, help you find the characters change anything at all?

Meg: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. When you're at Pixar, you're writing for the scratch actors are just like the assistant, the coordinator, it's whoever they're pulling in. And so sometimes your writing has to be actor proof because, there were times I was like, but Francis McDormand could say that line but it doesn't matter cause it didn't go over.

But I do think I can just speak on Inside Out, which was the biggest impact I think. All of those characters, all of those actors, both in the first movie and in the second they're very, they are very fast and they're used to improv. You always get the line in the booth that you want, but then they start throwing, right?

And that's really fun and you can, as the writer or the director, can prompt them or throw out new lines. But that's really fun. And even before you get in the booth, just if it's cast, it's very helpful. Because there's this, Amy Poehler has a certain kind of Persona, spirituality, energy.

I don't know. What shall we call it? It's very giving. It's very open. She wants everybody to be happy. It's not about I'm happy. It's about, I want all of everybody to be happy. And I'll think about that tomorrow. So you, her voice really does help a lot. And any actor, be it voiceover or on set that are going to have issues with the line that they don't feel is authentic or would my character say that, which I know it's, can be almost a cliche, but I feel like it's a valid thing.

This doesn't feel what she would be doing right now. And that's where it's really fun to be the writer and be able to be like, Oh my gosh, I think that's a better idea. Okay, let's, let me fix that. Cause I've been on sets in live action where you have to run away and I've had writers, as a producer, I've had the writers be like, Okay, go fix that!

So that can happen, but I love it. Even when I'm writing just a spec, I sometimes will pick an actor in my head just to help me zero in on something specific, or how they approach material.

Lorien: This weekend I was talking to some friends and trying to explain to them why animated movies don't often start with a script.

Why you're developing it as you go, and that the development process takes a long time. And you can start with the script, and then it iterates, and then it changes, and a big part of that is in the recording booth. And it can happen with Scratch voices as well, the temp voices. So I was the script supervisor on Up, which meant I was in story and editorial.

And I ran all the production recording sessions and Scratch recording sessions. So I was in there while Bob Peterson and Pete Docter, the writers and directors, were writing the script as we were recording, right? My job was to keep track of all that. And, So we would have one of the scratch actors, like Tony Fucilli, who's an amazing artist he was our scratch Carl, so we would have him come in, and they would just start throwing lines, try this line, try this, spin it this way, act it this, and so it was this workshopping of the lines and the different intentions we could get out of it, which became a part of the writing process.

Which is why these movies can take so long, because then all that has to go to the editor, and it has to get cut in and cut apart. And then of course when Ed Asner came, it adjusts and shifts, and we're doing the same thing with them even in production recording. I was digging around in my boxes recently.

And in the basement and I found this piece of paper. I can't say it at home, but it is the line ca rar that Russell does. And part of my job is to write down every new line that comes up. And we didn't, I didn't have an extra printer to print out a script page. So I wrote the line number and the sequence number and ca rar on a big old piece of paper.

And we gave it to Jordan, a guy who was the actor and that this is the script and I had everyone sign it. So it's this fun. And then I. Spilled coffee on it. But, so that important part of the movie, that Wilderness ExpLorienel, came out of a production recording session because of the riffing and the fun and the laughing and things that everyone we were all having about what could we have him do.

So it's part of the writing process as well on feature animated features. Can be

Andrew: one more in the in the, in this sort of area, and then we'll get back to the full participants. How do you walk the line between kid jokes and adult jokes?

Lorien: Honestly, the story I told about pitching a raunchy adult comedy kids department, I should not be answering this question.

Meg: I Never, ever at Pixar had anybody ever asked that question. It's just what they thought was funny. And there's a lot of storyboard artists and writers who think slapstick is funny, or think fart jokes are funny, and it makes them giggle and laugh, right? So I do think kids really like slapstick like when people fall down, or they do like that and I think it's always helpful to have it in your movie, but it doesn't, It doesn't fit the story and where does it fit the story and how is it in relationship?

So there was this great storyboard artist, Eric Benson, who is literally one of the nicest and yet funniest guys I've ever met and he understands story and character and everything and a great artist. Just so many things and he came up with this joke that was In the morning, the dinosaur comes out and he sees the little boy who's peeing behind a rock.

And then they both feel awkward and look away. And then look at each other and look away. And it was so funny. And I'm like, are we really gonna put a pee joke in here? And then, but here's why we put it in. Not only because it was funny as heck, especially he drew it. Because they're two boys in nature.

So I'm sorry it would happen. Like meaning, I have two sons. Like This would make them laugh. This would be oddly part of their bonding. So it felt right for the characters. It wasn't just slapstick or a joke for a joke's sake. The Lord knows that those happen too, but generally like my job as the writer is to go But is this helping the character relationship?

Is this what is it? What is shifting here? What's changing? What is this joke giving us? Of course, there's just things that are just funny, but usually it does change character. But generally we don't on the surface ask those questions that I've never been asked that question,

Andrew: Okay, Lorien, despite your...

Lorien: oh, at Pixar.

No, that never came up. It was what they thought was funny. When Mark Andrews came on Brave one of the first things he did was get the Lord's trapped up on top of the castle and then they have to get down and then the next shot is them in the moonlight with their bare butts walking away because they have used their kilts tied together to get down.

And I had that same on. Are we really going to put naked cartoon man butts in this movie. I don't, but they thought it was so funny. And, they don't wear anything under the kilts. And it made sense that they were desperate. They're going to use what's a hand, so it's in the movie.

But of course my response was what? But it never for me wasn't, is this kid appropriate? It was, is this right for this movie? And apparently it was. Yeah, but it never was, are people going to get offended or are these kids friendly? It was just what do they think is funny.

Andrew: Right on. Okay, we'll come now back to more crafty stuff for all of you here.

How are we doing on time? Are we all right, Jeff? Are we running long?

Jeff: I'm okay. Do you all have a hard hour? Meg, you're muted.

Meg: I think we can do one more and then we need to ask him the final three.

Andrew: Okay, I'll do one more and then, oh, so I have the final

Meg: three questions we'll ask you so you should.

Okay.

Andrew: All right. In that case, I'll just ask you this one, this is this is one of the questions that we asked everybody. Okay, I had to vote. I'll just do one. So one of the questions that we asked everybody. And the question is who inspires you as the screenwriter, I will read you Meg's answer.

Meg: Oh, good.

Andrew: Meg Can tell us if you still stand by this. I really hope you do, because I don't want to have to rewrite the damn book. I love the magazine journal, The Sun. Not in terms of looking for specific stories, but in the amount of truth telling going on in the articles and short stories. It always is a great touchstone for me.

This is what it's about. This kind of truth telling. The amount of reflection on the human condition. I read that magazine every month and it reinvigorates me. Also, helping other people with their stories really helps me stay connected to the fact that I am, that I'm a story junkie. I do love helping other people dig into things and watching their head crack open when they say, Oh my God, that's what I'm doing.

To help bring that into consciousness just by asking questions, by the way, I'm not a miracle worker. Ask questions and they all of a sudden understand what they're trying to do. That inspires me.

Meg: Ditto. Same.

Andrew: There you go. I asked the other two of you, who, and now this can be a screenwriter, this can be, it can be anything.

It can be an item, it can be a person. Lorien, what do you think?

Lorien: For me, it's my daughter, Quincy. When I was at Pixar, I had Quincy. And, motherhood is all the things. All the things, right? Anything worth doing. It's hard and wonderful and terrible and awesome. And one of the reasons that I decided to tell my own stories, right?

At Pixar, it's great, but you really are telling other people, someone else's stories. Because I wanted to be someone who finally got my shit together and got off my ass and told my stories. So we moved to LA. I moved my whole family down here because I wanted that to be part of her story.

My mom, when I was two and a half. My mom did this brave, amazing thing, and we did, and it is part of her story. But it's, it's my story too, but she's 12 now, and I have to keep doing this. Because I want her to see that it's worth doing, even though it's hard, even though that I might not work or make money in a whole year, even though that, yeah, even though that it is a struggle, and I'm not like all the other parents where I go to work and, every day, because I feel like I'm modeling something really powerful to her, that just by how we live.

It's really important to me. And also I want to be able to make money doing what I love so I can support her, right? So it's things, but she really is the thing that reminds me why I'm doing this. Also being a mom makes it, it's in the way too. So it's that, like she is the goal and the obstacle in a, in some ways, it really is her. She was the impetus for making me remember who I am and what I was. What I'm supposed to be doing and why I need to keep doing it. Now, I say this in my more emotionally connected times and it's good to remember this, but and I love teaching her story and watching her direct things and write things and we're starting to talk about story in a way that's really cool and Meg, I know this you have this with your son, too.

It's really fun to watch her Love my world a little bit and be super proud of me. She looks at my IMDb sometimes or asks Alexa for my bio. And that's like this fun, little weird moment for me, so it's her. Yeah.

Jeff: I'd be lying if I didn't say that, especially since starting the show. Part of it's the nature of producing this show every week, but I do hear Megan Lorien in my head when I'm writing in only the best ways. So both of you are very important mentors to me. But truthfully, one of the very cool things in addition about doing this show is that the person that, the movie that made me fall in love with writing or with movies is Big Fish, which is directed by Tim Burton, but written by John August.

And I, when I was in middle school, I did a deep dive on who is this writer? Who is John August? And I found the script notes blog and that was important. And the movie that really made me want to be a writer is Little Miss Sunshine by Michael Arndt. And that was the first time I watched a movie and I was very astutely aware of the fact that someone wrote down words on a page, and the actors in this movie are saying the words that someone's brain put on paper. And we've had both Michael and John on the show, and I did my best to maintain a level of non fanboy professionalism, but it's incredibly cool. I would certainly not be sitting on a Zoom with Meg and Lorien if it weren't for those two writers, pretty amazing that I've gotten to meet them and interact with them and have both of their emails. Not that I'm emailing them. I want to be clear to Meg and Lorien, but it's a cool thing. Just, instead those numbers in your phone that you would never actually, deploy, but they're there.

And that's fun to think in your pocket, I've got that person's number in my phone. So those would be the two.

Meg: That's awesome.

Andrew: There you go. That gives you out there in the TSL land a sense of what the book's and how the questions are arranged from Meg and 33 other of her and hopefully your colleagues.

Meg: It's a really great book because it's insightful, it's specific, and yet it's really about craft and ways to look at thing and what happened to Lorien today when you're like, I've heard that. And now I heard it again. And suddenly I get, because of whatever you're working on. So I think it's also a good book.

You could just, today I'm going to flip through and see what the universe wants to talk to me about today. What's the topic. So we all need those books in our lives. So I recommend it to everybody. Now we're going to wrap out and we are going to ask you, Andrew, our final three questions.

So what brings you the most joy when it comes to your work? Now that could be writing the book. It could be your own writing. What brings you the most joy?

Andrew: I think that when you're in the flow state, when you're like you're, it's whether you're a musician, you're in the pocket or you're an athlete, you're in the flow or whatever it is when you're just writing and it's just coming. And you feel like you're stood back front because of all the prep that you've done in the story is coming and you're just writing in the clock is you don't even notice the clock ticking or moving.

You don't notice the world around you, you just an hour, two hours could be gone, whatever it is when you're in that zone of when you're just tapped into the. The fundamental flow of the universe of creativity and you're just going, that's amazing. It's like surfing or something. It's great.

Lorien: I'll have one serving of that, please. Every day. Okay. So what pisses you off about writing or writing a book?

Andrew: Yeah. Oh, yeah. What pisses me off? I think one of you alluded to it earlier. I think it was even maybe in the first question that I asked, which was when you're being late, when I'm being lazy.

I catch myself on it when I'm just trying to get past. I'm just trying to get past it because I don't want to do it or whatnot. And it's Oh, it's good enough. And invariably when you're done, that's the thing you get called out on the most. And you must so much more pissed at myself more than anything else because the trap.

So that's probably what pisses me off.

Jeff: That's great. Yeah. And I think for me, I agree. And it's when I, Know how hard it is not to be lazy when I know I'm being lazy and I know that there's a better option and I'm just, I know that doing that is so hard. So I totally agree. The last question we asked Andrew is if you could go back and have a coffee with your younger self, what advice would you give to that Andrew?

Andrew: Buy Apple. Okay. What would I do?

Lorien: Sorry. We don't have to put this in the show, but last night when I couldn't sleep at 2. 30 in the morning, I was trying to unravel the paradox of the casting in Back to the Future 3 of why it was Michael J. Fox and Leah Thompson and how that worked genetically to get them as they, the whole thing.

But I also started to think about where Buy Apple came from. Was it the advice the doc gives to himself? So I just want you to know. Where my insomnia was going last night.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. That's absolutely staying in the show, by the way.

Andrew: Let's see. What would I tell myself? Don't ask for permission for things. Don't, that's what take risk. Don't ask for permission. Don't wait on other people to tell you it's okay. Sometimes, especially if you're working in, and I would apply this to anybody, not just in writing, I'd apply it to just, I know a lot of you, you were out there, you're probably, if you're especially emerging, you've got other gigs, you've got other jobs and you're you probably, maybe you're slightly corporate and you're in a, you're in a, you're in a status, Hierarchy of some sort and you have to do these things and it sucks.

But when it comes to your writing, don't ask for permission to do things. Just do it, go for it. And you're the only one stopping you really from getting going. So just. Go for it.

Meg: It's good.

Thank you so much for being on the show.

Andrew: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

And I've been a fan of this thing for your podcast for quite some time. It's quite useful. I always take nuggets away from it and disseminate it to students, try and push them towards you as much as I possibly can, because, much like with what Lorien had said about hearing things, it takes a while for things to, They say humans need to hear things six, seven times before it actually clicks.

And the more I can, if I'm saying it, yeah, but I'm the guy down at the front, and the more other people can hear these things over and over again. It's actually one of the reasons why we have, we asked so many people in the book, different things, because if you're hearing people say things over and over again, even if it's in a different way, It's got to be some truth there.

So thank you so much for having me. It's been fabulous. It seems like different

Meg: topics in your book, but they all, I can tell, they do all link up together. So congratulations on the book. And Jeff, will we put it in the link? Can we put the book in the link?

Jeff: Yes. I certainly will. Yeah. Thank you for mentioning that, Meg.

I will put the link to the book below and the coupon code. I'll loop to that specific link you gave us, Andrew, so that they can get that little discount. Thank you. Cool.

Meg: All right. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you.

Lorien: That was fun. Thanks, Andrew.

Meg: Thanks so much for tuning in to The Screenwriting Life.

Check out our Facebook page for more support.

Lorien: And remember, you are not

Meg: alone.

Lorien: Keep writing.