John and Craig gather our listeners' favorite news articles and ask, How Would This Be a Movie? Stories include an underground network delivering menstrual supplies in Minneapolis, a millennial travel group, how the US hacked ISIS, and a fake college squash team. But first we follow up on modern comps, email issues, teaching screenwriting, and what it means to be undeniable. We also answer listener questions on querying reps with a published book and whether writers really need to repeat the plo...
Feb 17, 2026•56 min•Season 15Ep. 725
John welcomes writer and director Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value, The Worst Person in the World) to ask, how do you introduce your characters and their world to the audience? Using the screenplay for Sentimental Value, Joachim lays out how he sets up his themes, characters, conflicts and narrative authority in the first few pages. We also look at Joachim's process of developing stories with his co-writer Eskil Vogt, and answer listener questions on endings, casting, and work-life balance. In o...
Feb 10, 2026•51 min•Season 15Ep. 724
John and Craig ask, what makes a useful comp? Writers often use comparisons when pitching or discussing projects, but what separates good comps from bad comps, why do we use them, and when do comps hurt more than they help? Basically, it's The Studio meets My Dinner with Andre. We also follow up on orality and "film by" credits, answer listener questions on getting AI feedback and attaching an actor to a microbudget feature, plus bring you another installment of John Recently Learned. In our bon...
Feb 03, 2026•1 hr 4 min•Season 15Ep. 723
John and Craig ask, are screenwriters just oral storytellers who happen to write things down? They compare the literate and oral markers of the medium, how it separates screenplays from other literary forms, and consider whether screenplays are just one long pitch. We also look at the upcoming WGA member meetings, follow up on having enough time in the edit bay, Steve Jobs, Eva Victor, justifiable Dad pride, and answer listener questions on deliverables and what makes a script "undeniable." In o...
Jan 27, 2026•54 min•Season 15Ep. 722
John and Craig welcome the actor-writer-director of the acclaimed indie Sorry, Baby to discuss preparing to direct your first feature. Eva Victor's year-long bootcamp included reverse-shotlisting movies, shadowing other directors, and lots of visual development. It earned them Best Directorial Debut by the National Board of Review. We also examine how Eva chose which scenes to cut, answer a listener question on how to talk to actors, and follow up on some excellent reviews of the Scriptnotes Boo...
Jan 20, 2026•59 min•Season 15Ep. 721
John welcomes back Susanna Fogel and David Iserson (The Spy Who Dumped Me) to steal their secrets on creating an original tone in their new series PONIES. They look at how the writers room was built to match their sensibilities, using characters to anchor the audience, and what it takes to sell and produce an original period TV series in 2026. We also talk about the pros and cons of filming in Budapest, and answer listener questions on trusting your judgement, recognizing your talent, differenti...
Jan 13, 2026•1 hr 4 min•Season 15Ep. 720
John and Craig consider all the words they have to write and ask, how do you know when something deserves your best effort? They offer a useful rubric for deciding when something is worth perfecting, and when over-optimization is a waste of time. We also follow up on compulsive writing habits, industry euphemisms, back issues, and the impact and legacy of the WGA's 2019 agency negotiations. In our bonus segment for premium members, it's a new year! John looks back at things he accomplished in 20...
Jan 06, 2026•1 hr 10 min•Season 15Ep. 719
John and Craig circle back on all the euphemisms and stock phrases that float around Hollywood. Using some favorite examples, they attempt to define and demystify the current industry-speak so everyone is looped in when we come up for air after the holidays. We also wrap-up 2025 with a look at Scriptnotes by the numbers, check-in on Disney's deal with OpenAI, follow up on that director who scammed Netflix out of $11 million, and answer listener questions on the guilds' involvement in video podca...
Dec 30, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Season 15Ep. 718
In a Christmas crossover event, John and Craig join Meg LeFauve (Inside Out) and Lorien McKenna (Tab Time) on their podcast, The Screenwriting Life. We talk about why rigid structure can miss the point, how theme emerges from character, what fear and denial really look like on the page, and how writers can survive rejection without letting it define them. In our bonus segment for premium members, John breaks Drew's heart with his lovely memories of Rob & Michele Reiner. Links: The Screenwrit...
Dec 23, 2025•54 min•Season 15Ep. 717
John and Craig welcome back screenwriter Mike Makowsky (Death by Lightning, Bad Education) to ask, how do you dramatize a historical event that no one's heard of? They look at the dramatic engine behind the Garfield assassination, the long journey Death by Lightning had to getting made, and the importance of finding great stories in obscure history. We investigate the peculiar habits and compulsions of our own writing practices, and see how personality typologies can help figure out what makes o...
Dec 16, 2025•1 hr 7 min•Season 15Ep. 716
John and Craig celebrate the release of the Scriptnotes Book with a sold-out show full of arguments, games and holiday cheer at Dynasty Typewriter in LA. Slate's Julia Turner returns to interview John and Craig about the fifteen year journey towards creating the book, and challenges Craig's dismissal of critics. We also welcome back Ashley Nicole Black (Shrinking, Ted Lasso) to help us get through a fridgeful of leftover questions, and invite three lucky audience members to play our new game: "S...
Dec 09, 2025•1 hr 8 min•Season 15Ep. 715
John and Craig gather a congregation of writers in St. David's Episcopal Church for a live round of the Three Page Challenge. They look at three listener-submitted scripts to offer them their honest feedback, face-to-face. They offer suggestions on world building in the apocalypse, making military characters specific, building mystery and suspense, and crafting con-artist logic. In our bonus segment for premium members, we answer questions from our audience on how to know if a script looks corre...
Dec 02, 2025•54 min•Season 15Ep. 714
John welcomes Danya Jimenez & Hannah McMechan, the writing team behind KPop Demon Hunters, to chart their path from film school to first feature. They look at navigating early career difficulties like finding your voice and trying to get reps, their method of building a writing partnership, and how a bad pitch led them to writing one of the biggest movies of the year. We also follow up on breaking in later in life and writing with ADHD. In our bonus segment for premium members, what does Hol...
Nov 25, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Season 15Ep. 713
John and Craig welcome back Dana Fox (Wicked, The Lost City) for a magical flight through everything that went into adapting Wicked and its upcoming sequel, Wicked: For Good. They look at the history of the project, why it was split into two movies, the process for writing when you're shooting two movies at the same time, and the exhausting effort it takes for big movies to defy gravity. We also chat with Graham Rowat, the narrator of the Scriptnotes audiobook, follow up on weird movies and cuck...
Nov 18, 2025•1 hr 8 min•Season 15Ep. 712
John welcomes back Aline Brosh McKenna (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Devil Wears Prada) to ask, what do executives expect from a pitch these days? They look at the typical structure of a pitch deck, how that differs from lookbooks, how pitches have evolved over the years, and best practices for pitching on Zoom. Also, what happened to single-lady sitcoms? If you remember Monday nights in the 90's, you know what we're talking about. We reflect on what they did for the culture and how social media and...
Nov 11, 2025•58 min•Season 15Ep. 711
John and Craig look at all the pleasant, normal people around them and ask, what happened to the weirdos? They root out the causes of cultural stagnation, offer potential solutions, and explore the entertainment that still finds a way to be weird. We also look at the tipping point between "wanting to write" and "actually writing," follow up on printer prices and billboard queens, and answer listener questions on soundtracks, adapting a podcast and feeling ownership over your ideas. In our bonus ...
Nov 04, 2025•1 hr•Season 15Ep. 710
John and Craig return to Texas for their 11th show at the Austin Film Festival. They welcome writer Pamela Ribon (Nimona, My Year of Dicks) and showrunner Anthony Sparks (Queen Sugar, Bel-Air) to look at what makes character relationships compelling, and how to build a writing career later in life. We also answer lister questions on getting un-stuck in a script, how podcasting has made us better writers, the limits of exposition, using AI for sizzle reels, and where we get the cajones selling a ...
Oct 28, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 15Ep. 709
John and Craig look at three tales of lies, betrayal and deceit and ask, How Would This be a Movie? Stories include a flamboyant show-business grifter, a sibling rivalry between two LA billboard queens, and American students tricked into attending a fake Oxford college. We also follow up on audio dramas, last looks, and answer listener questions on a suspicious AI story and what do do with producers that are too keen. In our bonus segment for premium members, how do you watch TV when you're away...
Oct 21, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 15Ep. 708
John welcomes writer and actress Nora Garrett to look at how her first screenplay, After the Hunt, took her from being un-repped to working with director Luca Guadagnino. They discuss her path from acting to writing, how her script went from being rejected by screenplay competitions to landing on Julia Roberts' desk, and how she constructed her complex power dynamics on the the page. They also answer listener questions on building tension and knowing when to tell rather than show. In our bonus s...
Oct 14, 2025•1 hr 10 min•Season 15Ep. 707
John and Craig invite Aline Brosh McKenna back to celebrate the third anniversary of Scriptnotes. It's a jam-packed, glass-and-a-half of wine, listener-favorite episode. They look at ways to breathe new life into scenes and characters that aren't working, box office journalism and how Hollywood is always dying, scene geography, and the role of emotional intelligence (or EQ) in a writer's career. In our bonus segment for premium members, we have original outtakes from the episode where we look at...
Oct 07, 2025•1 hr 10 min•Season 15Ep. 161
