Scriptnotes

Scriptnotes
Presentation
Hosted by	John August, Craig Mazin
Genre	TV & Film
Language	English
Length	35 - 120 minutes
Production
No. of episodes	257 (as of July 5, 2016)
Publication
Debut	August 30, 2011
Website	Scriptnotes

Scriptnotes is a weekly podcast that began airing on August 30, 2011.^[1] It is billed as "a podcast about screenwriting, and things that are interesting to screenwriters."^[2] The podcast is hosted by screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin, with new episodes released every Tuesday.

The podcast has been discussed by The Daily Show,^[3] Vanity Fair,^[4] The Huffington Post,^[5] and The Washington Post.^[6] Scriptnotes has also been featured by The Nerdist Podcast,^[7] and live events for the podcast have been sponsored by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,^[8] the Austin Film Festival,^[9] and the Writers Guild Foundation.^[10][11]

It was ranked as one of the 11 best movie podcasts by MTV.com.^[12]

The podcast has featured appearances from many notable people in the world of film and TV, including Rian Johnson, David Benioff & D. B. Weiss (the showrunners of Game of Thrones), Aline Brosh McKenna, Dana Fox, Rachel Bloom (star of Crazy-Ex Girlfriend), Jennifer Lee, Riki Lindhome, Natasha Leggero, Alec Berg, Kelly Marcel, Rawson Marshall Thurber, Richard Kelly, Chris Nee, Malcolm Spellman, David Wain, and Jason Bateman.

Scriptnotes episodes are available for free up to twenty weeks after their initial airing. Back episode archives and bonus episodes are available to premium subscribers at scriptnotes.net. Transcripts of all back episodes are available for free, and are usually posted within one week of the episode's initial airing.

Recurring Segments

Three-page challenge

Aspiring screenwriters are encouraged to send in three pages of their screenplay - almost always the first three - to be critiqued. The scripts vary widely in tone, style and genre. Links to the screenplays are provided in the show notes so listeners can read them and then listen to their comments. Typically three are tackled in one show. Those that have had their screenplays subjected to August and Mazin's critical eyes have typically thanked them from the feedback, which has ranged from congratulatory to despairing. The three-page challenge is a particularly useful segment for screenwriters as it provides sharp insights into unproduced screenplays; lessons easily applied to your own project. The segment was first announced with a call for submissions in episode 45^[13] and the first critiques debuted the next week in episode 46.^[14]

One Cool Thing

One Cool Thing is a weekly segment that occurs at the end of each episode. August, Mazin, and their guests will each give a plug to someone or something they deem cool. The cool things vary greatly. The segment dates back to May 2012, when August officially started it at the end of episode 35.^[15] Since then he has been a faithful participant. Mazin's participation was suspect for a time, most notably during a six-week stretch that began in August 2012, but since then he has overcome his umbrage-tinted glasses and regularly found something in the world worth praising every week.

How Would This Be a Movie?

In this newer segment of the show, August and Mazin pull a few current stories from the news and discuss if and how those stories could be adapted into feature films. The discussion often includes brainstorming several different genres and approaches a perspective writer could take on the story, discussing how to collapse or expand the details of the story to fit a feature film, and determining which of the week's stories, if any, have any serious potential as a future film. The segment debuted in episode 201, when the stories included scandals in FIFA, the Large Hadron Collider, and sexual assault on college campuses.^[16]

Recurring Themes / Characters

There are a number of recurring themes, particularly in how the podcasts hosts interact with one another.

John's intro is professional while Craig's intro is affected

At the beginning of every podcast, John uses a 'straight' introduction, while Craig uses a silly or mechanical voice. ^[17]

Craig acts lazy and John does all the work

Craig tells anecdotes about himself that emphasize how he is lazy, unprepared, and frequently late. In contrast, John appears productive, organized, and punctual. ^[18]

John August as robot

In line with their personas of Craig being the lazy one and John being the organized one, plus knowledgeable about technology, Craig mocks John by calling him a robot. This includes accusations that John has no emotions and no heart.^[19]

Segue Man

Craig is the more emotionally expressive of the two podcasts hosts. When Mazin delivers impassioned speeches, August will typically agree with Mazin on content and then transition into the next item on the agenda. Because of August's focus on pacing and transitions during the show, Mazin has christened August as "Segue Man."

Stuart

For five years up to episode 259, Stuart Friedel was John August's assistant, and the producer of the podcast. (He was the original editor of the show, too.) With the exception of ep. 259, Stuart's voice was never heard on the podcast. The hosts will frequently talk about him, and the work that he does for the show, including reading and selecting scripts for the Three Page Challenge.^[20]

Notable Episodes

Revelations about the Game of Thrones pilot

The showrunners of Game of Thrones went on the Scriptnotes podcast and broke news about the poor condition of the original pilot. According to them, 90% of the pilot had to be reshot following a screening of the episode to Craig Mazin, and other fellow screenwriters.^[4]

The One with the Guys from Final Draft

On episode 129, August and Mazin welcomed Final Draft CEO and co-founder Marc Madnick, along with then product manager Joe Jarvis. Their visit was in response to negative comments made about the software on previous episodes, and Marc's desire to clear up what he perceived as misconceptions about both the software and the company.^[21]

Instead, Madnick offered a revealing look into—as described by the Accidental Tech Podcast—the company's shortcomings, management's apparent feeling that they should make "[their] problems your problems," and the "severe technical debt" Final Draft has ignored for far too long, resulting in out of date, difficult to update, and unnecessarily expensive software.^[22]

In response to the episode's controversy, filmmaker and software developer Kent Tessman pointed out that a possible reason many of Madnick's excuses were met with pushback is that, simply, "there might be technical people listening."^[23]

The She-Hulk controversy

As part of 2014's Summer Superhero Spectacular, August and Mazin randomly assigned superheroes to panelists Andrea Berloff, Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely, and David S. Goyer, and asked each to discuss how they would go about adapting said superhero for TV or film.

Talking about She-Hulk, Goyer said:

I have a theory about She-Hulk. Which was created by a man, right? And at the time in particular I think 95% of comic book readers were men and certainly almost all of the comic book writers were men. So the Hulk was this classic male power fantasy. It’s like, most of the people reading comic books were these people like me who were just these little kids getting the shit kicked out of them every day... And so then they created She-Huk, right? Who was still smart... I think She-Hulk is the chick that you could fuck if you were Hulk, you know what I’m saying? ... She-Hulk was the extension of the male power fantasy. So it’s like if I’m going to be this geek who becomes the Hulk then let’s create a giant green porn star that only the Hulk could fuck.^[24]

The day after the episode's release, Alan Kistler of The Mary Sue wrote about these comments as well as Goyer's take on Martian Mahunter. His summation:

So to recap. She-Hulk is just a sex power fantasy rather than a character with agency who from the beginning went down a different path than her cousin, The Hulk. Martian Manhunter being the last survivor of a race which died out on Mars over a thousand years ago is goofy, but putting him Area 51 and using the same plot as many alien visitor movies is not. And God forbid superheroes embrace some goofiness and absurdity.^[25]

This prompted Michael Cavana from The Washington Post's Comic Riffs to reach out to She-Hulk co-creator Stan Lee for a response.

When Lee, as writer, co-created She-Hulk with artist John Buscema (the character debuted in February of 1980, in Savage She-Hulk #1), he was absolutely focused on his gamma-green superheroine having brains. Lee tells The Post’s Comic Riffs this evening, in response to Goyer’s words: “I know I was looking for a new female superhero, and the idea of an intelligent Hulk-type grabbed me.””^[6]

Mazin and Ted Cruz

During his freshman year at Princeton, Mazin was roommates with junior U.S. Senator and 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Mazin has been open about his dislike for Cruz,^[26] and on episode 113, said:

And, you know, I want to be clear, because Ted Cruz is a nightmare of a human being. I have plenty of problems with his politics, but truthfully his personality is so awful that ninety-nine percent of why I hate him is just his personality. If he agreed with me on every issue, I would hate him only one percent less.

Mazin's comment has since been picked up by The Daily Show,^[3] The Huffington Post,^[5] Texas Monthly,^[27] The Telegraph,^[28] The Sun Times,^[29] and more^[30][31][32]

Scriptshadow

Craig Mazin does not hold back on his disdain for Carson Reeves and his Scriptshadow blog where professional (along with amateur) scripts are reviewed; subsequently, one of Mr. August's rewrites of a possible tent-pole movie at Fox was reviewed by Reeves. The studio went "ballistic", and though the review generally positive, it was taken down. Mazin broached the topic again on episode 186 (March 3, 2015) in which Mr. Reeves negative review of the Birdman screenplay was cited as an example of why Mr. Reeves' opinions are misplaced, unnecessary and unwelcome, considering Birdman went on to win six Oscars at the 2015 ceremony, Best Director and Best Screenplay among them.

Reception

Scriptnotes has had positive reviews.^[33][12] As of March 10, 2016, it has an average rating of 5 out of 5 stars on iTunes, with 838 users weighing in.^[34]

Access to episodes

The last 20 episodes of Scriptnotes are available for free on iTunes^[35] and on the official Scriptnotes website.^[36] If you want to listen to earlier shows (which go back to August 2011), there is a premium option run through the Mylibsyn^[37] service that costs $1.99 a month. Premium subscribers can access old shows either through the Scriptnotes website or a Scriptnotes app, for iOS^[38] and Android^[39] devices.

The hosts have not revealed how many premium subscribers they have. They did highlight that they may change the approach in a poll launched on March 29, 2016 when they asked readers to describe how they access the show and whether they would be interested in purchasing a USB devices with all old episodes on (for $10).^[40]

References

External links

• http://johnaugust.com/scriptnotes
• http://www.scriptnotes.net/