Scriptnotes Podcast

• 697 - We Wrote a Book!

  The Scriptnotes Book is real, and now available for preorder! John and Craig take a look through its 335 pages to explore the topics, guests and deep-dives we’ve assembled from over 1,000 hours of this podcast, creating what is sure to be your favorite bathroom book. Then it’s another round of How Would This Be a Movie?, where we look at four stories in the news to see whether they’re ripe for adaptation. Stories include a mother taking on the revenge porn industry, a wife navigating her husband’s longtime crush, a government worker who was secretly recorded on a date, and the potential destruction of solar storms. We also answer a listener question on current filmmaking technology. In our bonus segment for premium members, what is kindness? John and Craig talk through what sets this undervalued quality apart from niceness and other traits we mistake for kind. Link: Preorder the Scriptnotes book! Send your pre-order receipt to Drew at [email protected] A Mother’s Revenge as told to Christina Cauterucci for SLATE Charlotte Laws’ fight with Hunter Moore, the internet’s revenge porn king by Carole Cadwalladr for The Guardian Help! My Husband’s Manic Pixie Past Has Become a Full-Blown Threat to My Sanity, Dear Prudence column for SLATE SNL’s What’s That Name An Offhand Remark About Gold Bars, Secretly Recorded, Upended His Life by Lisa Friedman for NYTimes The Unseen Fury of Solar Storms by Henry Wismayer for Noema TRMNL Steve Ballmer: Developers The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Birdigo Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt! Check out the Inneresting Newsletter Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube Craig Mazin on Instagram John August on Bluesky and Instagram Outro by Nick Moore (send us yours!) Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli. Email us at [email protected] You can download the episode here.

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• 696 - A Screenwriter’s Guide to Directors

  In this compendium episode, John and Craig set their focus on directors — and how to work with them as a screenwriter. They look at the inner-workings of the writer-director relationship, etiquette on set, how to communicate notes from pre-production through post, and outline the qualities of the “perfect” director. We also offer advice to a first time director, looking at how to prep a project, how to run a set, working with actors, and how to inspire a crew to make the best movie possible. In our bonus segment for premium members, Drew joins John back in 2025 for advice about casting, and what to do when actors pass on your project. Links: Episode 4 – Working with directors Episode 176 – Advice to a First-Time Director Scrappy HyperCard Mount Wilson Observatory John’s shorts God and The Remnants Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt! Check out the Inneresting Newsletter Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube Craig Mazin on Instagram John August on Bluesky and Instagram Outro by Nick Moore (send us yours!) Segments produced by Stuart Friedel. Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli. Email us at [email protected] You can download the episode here.

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• 695 - Advice to a Young Film Student (with Scott Frank)

  John and Craig welcome back Scott Frank (The Queen’s Gambit, Dept. Q) to offer their best advice to film students and the people who teach them. They look at ways to improve how we educate writers, and offer advice to an aspiring development executive. We also look at the intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivations of characters in Scott’s new series, Dept. Q, follow up on the decline of sex in movies, and ask, what genres of movies should people see at least one of? In our bonus segment for premium members, John, Craig and Scott take a broader view of education in America to see what they’ve learned and what they would change. Links: Dept. Q on Netflix Scott Frank Scott’s last time on Scriptnotes, Episode 476: The Other Senses Everyone Is Beautiful And No One Is Horny by RS Benedict for Blood Knife Scriptnotes 639: Intrinsic Motivation Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading by Nadia Asparouhova Elmore Leonard’s Perfect Pitch by Anthony Lane for The New Yorker Richard Price’s Street Life by Kevin Lozano for The New Yorker McDonald’s AI Hiring Bot Exposed Millions of Applicants’ Data to Hackers Who Tried the Password ‘123456’ by Andy Greenberg for Wired Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt! Check out the Inneresting Newsletter Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube Craig Mazin on Instagram John August on Bluesky and Instagram Outro by Nico Mansy (send us yours!) Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli. Email us at [email protected] You can download the episode here.

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• 694 - Reviving the Spoof Movie

  John welcomes back Dan Gregor and Doug Mand (Chip n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers, Pretty Smart) to ask, how do you revive a dead genre? Using their upcoming movie The Naked Gun, they look at why the spoof genre fell apart, the challenges of introducing it to a new generation, and why turning genre tropes into jokes will always resonate with an audience. We also look at other genres they don’t make anymore, follow up on Dogma 25, and answer listener questions on complicated rewrites and whether or not to hire a publicist. In our bonus segment for premium members, John, Doug and Dan look at the movies that Gen Z hasn’t seen (and whether they even need to). Links: The Naked Gun in theaters August 1st! Dan Gregor and Doug Mand Doug and Dan’s last time on the show, Episode 548: Made for Streamers Bottoms and Dicks: The Musical Melodramas: Now, Voyager, It Ends with Us, Spencer Sexual thrillers: Body Heat, Jagged Edge, (Bonus: Altered States, Dead Ringers) You Must Remember Thins: Erotic 80s Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry Adult Romantic Dramas: The English Patient, Out of Africa, Past Lives, Materialists Mid-Budget Adventure Films: Romancing the Stone, The Lost City John’s Aladdin residuals Breakthrough cholesterol treatment can cut levels by 69% after one dose by Hatty Willmoth for BBC Science Focus One dose of experimental drug nearly wipes out stealthy cholesterol in ‘remarkable’ trial by Erika Edwards for NBC News The Pentagon Disinformation That Fueled America’s UFO Mythology by Joel Schectman and Aruna Viswanatha for WSJ Calvin Kang on Ingstagram Weekend Read 2 Top movies that Gen Z have never watched revealed – including Oscar-winning classics from The Sun UK Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt! Check out the Inneresting Newsletter Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube Craig Mazin on Instagram John August on Bluesky and Instagram Outro by Ryan Gerberding (send us yours!) Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli. Email us at [email protected] You can download the episode here.  

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• 693 - Setups That Don’t Feel Like Setups

  John and Craig plant the idea for setups that have the most satisfying payoffs. Different from exposition, setups introduce ideas and concepts to an audience, priming them for a later revelation. They look at the sleight of hand required to have your setups deftly planted, take root in your audience’s mind, and grow into something delightful. But first, we look at the new California tax credits, the 2025 WGA annual report, follow up on AI and VFX, postmodernism, and verticals. We also answer listener questions on music videos and outing yourself to potential employers. In our bonus segment for premium members, John and Craig look at the New York Times’ new list of the 100 best movies of the 21st century. We all know Craig loves pitting movies against each other, so there’s definitely no umbrage here. Links: The Best Movies of the 21st Century by NY Times California lawmakers approve expanded $750-million film tax credit program by Samantha Masunaga for LA Times WGA Annual Report – employment and earnings, residuals Michael Graves How ReelShort CEO Joey Jia Used a Chinese Trend to Disrupt the U.S. Entertainment Industry by Chad De Guzman for Time Magazine Sundance Labs Sabrina Carpenter – Manchild DJ Snake, Lil Jon – Turn Down for What Madonna – Vogue a-ha – Take On Me Riz Ahmed – The Long Goodbye Phil Collins – Don’t Lose My Number 30 minutes with a stranger by Alvin Chang for The Pudding Chris Perkins Mike Birbiglia’s top ten movies of the 21st century Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt! Check out the Inneresting Newsletter Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube Craig Mazin on Instagram John August on Bluesky and Instagram Outro by Spencer Lackey (send us yours!) Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli. Email us at [email protected] You can download the episode here.

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