WRITE A MOVIE IN 14 DAYS: Fast Screenwriting for Screenplay, Storytelling, and Film Success

1. Write a Movie in 14 Days with website resources: Hey, I'm Joining the Mila, a proficient screenwriter with over 25 produced credits, and I have years of experience selling screenplays. I've written dozens of feature films and multiple genres for many directors, producers, and production companies. In this course, I will teach you how to write a movie in 14 days. Each section of this course will reflect a different day. And each day, I'll show you what to focus on to get your screenplay done. Your movie won't just be in an ID anymore, but it'll be a finished screenplay. You'll see my process from outlining the script to writing it daily, and how writing every day can be fun and rewarding. It also hold you accountable to keep moving forward. And I'll be using examples from commercially successful and critically acclaimed films. Many people out there just talk about writing. And then there are writers who actually do write. I want to help you be a doer and get your screenplay done. In this course, I'll teach you how to be a writer who finishes their script. Like the heroes in your story who have a goal they want to accomplish. I'll show you how to accomplish your goal of writing and selling your screenplay. Now, let's start writing, so you can finish your screenplay. For free student resources that correlate to this course. Visit my website at www.jordanemiola.com. There, you can also find my ebooks, podcast, script coverage services, and a whole lot more. My website offers one on one writing sessions and group courses over Zoom. Can teach you to write your first movie TV show or how to write and produce your series or film. I have clients who work nine to five jobs, and have had ideas for movies or TV shows for years, but they just haven't taken the action to put their ideas into a script. And I can guide you on how to do that and make sure you finish it. You can find more information on my website at www jordola.com. 2. Write a Christmas Film in 7 Weeks info Trailer: The holidays are almost here, and if you've ever wanted to write a Christmas film, there's no better time than during the holiday season. Starting November 5, I'll be teaching a fun screenwriting course on how to write a Christmas movie. Teaching you everything you need to know to write a Christmas screenplay. You can enroll on my website at www.jordanmola.com. This will be a small group course on Zoom. We will meet every Tuesday for 90 minutes for seven weeks. And before Christmas, you will have a finished Christmas screenplay. Your deadline for pages will be every Monday night, and I will read your pages and give you notes every Tuesday. Christmas movies are evergreen, meaning they make money every year. And I know this from the success of my Christmas movie that I wrote and directed in 2020, Christmas Sycation. I've also written other Christmas movies that several production companies have optioned. And 2019-2021, I also worked for Marvista Entertainment, which has produced dozens of Christmas movies for Lifetime and Hallmark. Christmas movies are always being made and are in high demand all the time. Some of the movies we'll study include a Christmas story, Elf, National lampoons Christmas vacation, home alone one and two, and more. If you want to write a Christmas movie before Christmas, enroll now on my website at www.jordanmola.com before this course fills up. That's JORDAN imolla.com. Happy holidays and right on. 3. Screenwriting Terminology: Before you start your 14 day journey, here are some screenwriting terminology that you should know. Pretty much every story has three acts, and we'll cover this more in the next lesson. Your first act is the beginning. Your second act is the middle, and your third act is the end. Antagonist. The antagonist is the villain of your story. What is fighting your hero from winning their goal? This could be a person or a thing, or even just running out of time. Whatever is fighting your hero is the antagonist. But a strong antagonist is usually a strong character exposition. This is the backstory of your main characters. What happened to them in the past before the movie started? But when they talk and give out exposition, you always want to entertain the audience. If you look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the original 1990 film, we learn how the Turtles became mutant, but it's shown and not told. The exposition is told to April by Splinter, but it's still entertaining the audience, interior and exterior. You'll start each scene with a scene heading and we use capital and T period, which means interior and capital T period which means exterior interior pretty much means inside an exterior means outside and then lets the place the scene takes place. And if it's day or night, for example, interior coffee shop day means inside a coffee shop. You then use action description below that to state what's going on inside the scene. If you're writing your first screenplay, one important note is you only capitalize the name of your character in all caps when they are first being introduced. Using all caps is the way the reader knows that this character is being introduced for the first time. We know this is a new character. If they have all caps and their name fade in and fade out, fade in is what happens when the movie starts. Before we see any characters or action. The first words in your script are fade in contrasting. That is fade out. These are the last two words of any screenplay, and this states This is the end of the film. You will never have a fade in more than once and you will never fade out more than once. Internal motivation and external motivation. Okay, so this is something I had trouble with when I was in college and I first started writing scripts. The internal motivation is what the character wants inside. They may not even be aware of their internal motivation, but it's the motivation that isn't talked about. And usually the internal motivation gets resolved at the very end of the film. The external motivation is the thing they want, that they actually do talk about the external motivation and Home Alone, as Kevin wants to be away from his family and he wants to be home alone. But the internal motivation is he wants to prove he can be more of an adult and actually does want to be appreciated by his family. Logline. A logline is a very quick synopsis of your movie. You use your logline to pitch your film to producers, directors, and even friends just so they can get a concept of the movie very quickly. But don't reveal everything. Make it intriguing so they want to read the script. The first screenplay I ever sold the logline was a feel good comedy about a boy trying to kill himself. That's only 11 words and one sentence, but it made a lot of producers want to read the script. And the irony in this logline made some producers laugh, which also helped sell it. Option An option is usually what happens first before you sell a screenplay. If a producer wants to buy your script, they will option it first for 10% of the sale price, and then they own the rights to the script for a limited amount of time so they can find cast, crew locations, etc. to make the movie. So, for example, say the sale price is $90,000, a producer will pay you $9,000 to option it for a certain amount of time. Most of my options are a year and a half. So in that year and a half, they have to get everything ready to produce the movie. We call this the development stage or pre-production. If after that amount of time they don't have everything together, then the rights go back to the writer and the writer can try an option and sell it to someone else. And the initial money they paid you to option the script is always yours from the minute you sign the contract and get that 10% check. Celebrate with that money. I always go out for a nice fancy dinner on those days. If the producer does get everything ready in that amount of time, then they pay you the other 90% of the money. So if it was a $90,000 sale price, you would get $80,000. Once the film goes into production, buy yourself a really fancy breakfast, lunch and dinner on those days. Protagonist The protagonist is the hero of your story. It's the main character we follow throughout the story. And Bridesmaids. It's Annie and the Pursuit of Happiness. It's Chris Garner and Happy Gilmore. It's Happy Gilmore. If you're writing a film with an ensemble cast, then you can have several protagonists set pieces. A set piece is really just a fun thing in your movie. Sometimes it doesn't have anything to do with the plot, but it's just fun. It could be a car chase or an animal or a building blowing up. Set pieces usually give a payoff to the audience watching, and they're usually expensive to produce. Show. Don't Tell. This is a term used by producers and other writers. When you get notes, it's when a character is talking about something instead of the audience seeing it. Whenever you can show the audience, whatever they're talking about, we generally remember what we're shown and not what we're told. 4. How to Format a Screenplay: If you're brand new to screenwriting, then this quick video lesson will show you the basics of how to format a screenplay. There are many screenwriting softwares out there to choose from. For the first decade of my career, I used final draft, which was considered the industry standard at the time. But then in 2016, I discovered my favorite screen warning software, writer Duet, and I've been using writer Duet ever since. I'll be using writer Duet for this demonstration, and you can sign up and use writer Duet for free at writer duet.com. There you can write your first three scripts for free. For this quick demo, I'm going to rewrite the first page of my feature film screenplay, Leap Day. It's an ensemble comedy about the craziness, confusion, and chaos that can only happen on that extra day we get every four years. These are the basics, and this will get your story going. All right. So the first thing you do for any screenplay is fade in. You're only going to fade in once at the very beginning of the screenplay, and at the end, the last thing you do is fade out. So open a document. You'll see this. When you press Enter, you'll see all these choices. What I want to do is transition. So transition and then fade in. With a lot of screenwriting software, they make it super easy. All you have to do is press enter and you'll get choices, and you can just keep moving forward. Back in the day people had use a typewriter, but now it's super easy, and anyone can do this from anywhere. So after you fade in, then you'll start every scene with a scene heading, which is also known as a slug line. For leap day, it starts off in a hockey arena. I put interior hockey arena. You're always going to use INT for interior and EXT for exterior. Always remember, interior means inside, exterior means outside. If this scene was outside a hockey arena, I would put EXT period hockey arena. But since it's inside, I'll use INT period hockey arena, which means interior hockey arena. All right after that, then you start writing the action description. For this, I'm going to put, it's a packed house. In the third row, Lucy, who's my main character. She's 29, usually put the age after the character, and then you describe them. She wears punk rock wardrobe. I could say that word. She's frazzled because she's about to do something she's never done before. And she's with her sister right now. So talks with her sister, Jade, 31 business casual tire. She's way more professional than her sister. She's cool calm, cool, and collective. Now you'll notice, I capital put this in All Capitals. Her name, Lucy, and I put Jade in All Capitals. You only do this when you first introduce a new character. This is how the reader is going to know this character is brand new. But from this point on, I'm only going to have the first initial of Lucy's name be capitalized and the first initial of Jade's name be capitalized. After that, I'll do some dialogue. I just press Enter and tab, and then I'm going to type in Lucy. Now from now on, you'll see this in all screen noting software. It's going to keep this name. It's going to be easier for me to write and I'll just pop up, and I'll show you that in a second. I can't believe I'm going to do this. Then again, enter and then I press tab, bring dialogue again, I'll type in Jade. You and Tommy have been together. It's okay to mispeel things. I do it all the time. It's about time you got engaged. If you're figuring this out now, Lucy's about to ask her boyfriend to marry her. I'll put Lucy, hold a ring and looks at the empty seat. Next to her. Then I press enter again, tab because I'm going to go back to dialogue and you see SCR pops up Lucy. I got to use press L and then boom. It gives me that press L and then enter, and it fills in the rest of the name. I don't just keep typing in Lucy every time I put in dialogue. I'll put in L and it'll find it for me. I don't know about this. And then I'll again enter tab. There's J. J just pops up. If there's only two characters, you screen software, we read like who's going to be next. I'll put women, propose to men all the time. Especially on Leap Day. It's a Leap Day tradition. It is. I've done a bunch of research on Leap Day, and this actually is a huge tradition. Take a leap. Then, I just pressed tab again. And then I'll write down Lucy. I'll go, Okay. Okay. I'm leaping. And then I'm going to introduce Lucy's boyfriend. I'll start typing an action description again. They look behind them. As Lucy's boyfriend, enters the aisle. I'm going to describe him. He's a blond. You always describe the character, especially main characters. You don't need to describe minor characters. L say, you just have a random I know waiter. You don't need to describe that person, but any time as a main character, you want to give them a little description. The reader knows this person is important and they're forwarding the story. He's a blond, tatted up 29. You year old musician. Named Rocket. Again I'm going to capitalize. Just for now I'm going to capitalize his name in all caps because this is a brand new character. This makes it easier for the reader to know, this is a brand new character. Rocket launcher Tommy. As you can see, the screen software doesn't know, I have a new character in the dialogue, but it will from this point on. I put a Rocket Tommy, and then I do his dialogue. I'm not going to do all caps anymore. Hey, sweetie, here. I got us all more beers. Anything else you need before the third period. Again, as you can see, it has all the characters now that I've written so far. As I add more characters, they'll just show up. All I got to do is just type in the first initial and it'll just pop up automatically. All screen learning software does this pretty much. I'll just have type in L. Lose using it pops up, press Enter, and then that's it. No, honey, that's all. That's that's the basics. This scene goes on for another four pages, but I don't want to waste your time and keep showing you things I just shown you. That's pretty much all you got to know. This scene a Jade leaves, and then Lucy gets down on one knee and there's a big announcement in the hockey arena. Then the camera goes on Lucy and rocket Launcher Tommy. By the way, Rocket launch Tommy, yes, it's a parody of what's his name, Machine Gun Kelly. But anyway, Lucy proposes to Rocket Launcher Tommy and rocket Launcher Tommy says, No and breaks up with her in front of thousands of people. This is the first scene of my screenplay leap day. But that's it. If after this scene, again, this isn't a full scene yet. But the scenes four pages long, but after the scene, when you want to start a new scene, again, you just go to a new scene. If I wanted to do a new scene, say I want to do a coffee shop. I could do INT period again, which means interior and then coffee shop. Again, the screening software will remember the different locations. If ever wanted to go back to the hockey arena, it'll remember it. I'll just put day. As you can see, there's day, night, continuous later moments later in morning. The two you use the most are day and night. You can use the other ones, continuous, especially use if you're going from inside a building to outside a building and it's a It's continuous within the scene. You use that every again, but really the basics are day and night. Those are the ones you'll use the most, and you can use these other ones if you like. But day and night are the ones you'll see the most. I'll just put into your coffee shop and then keep going. Whatever next scene is. Lucy drinks coffee. Blah, blah, blah. If you're like me and you make spelling and grammar mistakes, you can go back and fix them later. I always tell my clients progress is more important than perfection. The first screenplay I ever sold had a bunch of misspellings when I looked back at it years later. But the reason it sold is because the story was great. And if you have an amazing story, people don't notice those mistakes because they're so into the story. If you like to see the first ten pages of Leap Day or other script examples, you can find these on my website at WWW Jordan emola.com slash Examples. 5. Day 1 - Inspiration Day: Welcome to day one of how to write a movie in 14 days. I like to call this first day inspiration day, because what you do today is going to inspire you for the next two weeks. To kick things off, I would suggest getting these materials a large corkboard. You combine this online or at retail store, a pack of index cards, texts to stick your index cards on the cork board, some pens and screenwriting software. There's a ton of them out there. My favorite is right or duet. We'll be using a corkboard to plot out scenes for your movie and lay out the structure. Whenever inspiration hits you for our new scene, write it down on an index card and put it on your court report. As you can see, the sport is blank, but I'll be reading my own movie over the next four days. And by the end of it, and this work was filled with cars. And we'll each have a first draft of the screenplay done. Here's a picture of an old cork board I used from years ago. I use this to write my family comedy. Quit your kids. Here are a few things you should do today to help build inspiration. Give every character a name today, write down all the names, your main characters, and start to think about their wants and their goals and your story. It's important to give your characters names as soon as possible because it helps build and remember the characters in your brain. Saying a story about a dude is very general. And a dude can be literally anyone. But if you use names like Alex or marvin or Zoe, this helps you build a character more in your head and it will help draw inspiration. Use names with different initials. Try to avoid names with the same first initial. It'll be easier for your brain to remember them right now and not to get them mixed up. Instead of naming character is like Dana, Diana and Denise. Try to have Lana, Diana, and Shirley. Nothing is permanent. If you want to change the name of the characters later, that's an easy fix. Watch a movie or movies similar in tone to yours. Today, watch a movie, or if you have time, watch several movies that are similar in tone and genre to the one you're writing. If you're writing an action buddy comedy, than watch critically acclaimed and commercially successful buddy action comedies like rush hour, the heat or 21 Jump Street. If you're writing a movie about a hockey, then watch the money ducts, snapshot or Goon. If you're reading an animated road trip movie, than watch Ice Age Finding Nemo or the Mitchell's versus the machines. Whatever you're writing. What successful movies that are similar logline. Today you want to figure out your logline for your movie. Think about writing as a road trip and the logline are the directions on how to get there. You can change routes and still get to the same destination, but you need to start somewhere. My college professor always taught me to never make a logline over 30 words. And I think this is a good rule of thumb. If it's over 30 words, read it again until it's under 30 words. In this course, I'm not only going to teach you how to write a movie in two weeks doing this myself as well. The movie I'm writing isn't ensemble comedy title leap day. And I have a few ideas for it so far, but not much. I'll be doing everything I'm teaching you and you'll see my process and action. And again, I can't stress this enough. Manuscript ideas can change the next 13 days, and that's totally okay. Right now, we're trying to get the creative juices going. I like to brainstorm and write ten log lines. And then I pick and choose the one long line. I like the most from those ten. As you can see here, the one I highlighted in yellow is my favorite one right now for leap day, all the movies I've sold so far, the logline has been one-sentence. If you need to make a logline two sentences, that's usually fine too. But you want to draw the interests of the reader without giving away too much. Let them find out more about reading the script. Another thing you could do is brainstorm a bunch of log lines and then email your friends and let them choose their favorite one. Here's an email for a script I option to couple of years ago. And they responded with a number they liked most corresponding to their favorite logline. One thing to note is your logline might change after movie gets sold and produced. The logline for the Christmas Zoom movie I made in 2020. Christmas vacation was when a family can't be together on Christmas, they bring their dysfunctional family Christmas online. Christmas vacation is now on Tooby and they changed the logline on there. The logline on to-be is a young woman throws a Christmas Zoom party with her extended family, proving that fun holiday chaos doesn't have to happen in person. I actually don't mind this change at all. And I liked that someone on TV took the time to do this. I like their logline. Start to think about your three acts. Act one is the beginning and setup of your story. Act two is the middle confrontation and heart of your story. And act three is the big event and ending of your story. In Wonder Woman. We spent Act One on the island of the mascara, seeing Diana grow up. Act two is one. Diana leaves the island for the first time and goes to find and fight Aries, the god of war. Act three is when she finds areas and as the epic fight between them, speed. All of act one, we meet our hero Jack, played by Keanu Reeves and the villain Howard Payne, played by Dennis Hopper. Act one is when Jack takes down Howard for the first time. And we think Howard is dead, act too. It's all about the bus. We learned if the bus slows down under 50 miles per hour, Obama blow up and I've wanted the bus will die. Act three is the final fight as Dennis Hopper kidnaps Sandra Bullock. And there's a subway fight scene. Jack and Howard fight each other on top of the subway car, one-on-one. If you don't know screenplay structure, I see just from watching my first-class where I cover screenplay structure. And I keep it fun by using examples from movies like home alone, alien, dodgeball, and many more. I use some of those examples in this class too. But that one really dives into the structure even more. You can also find that class on Skillshare by clicking on my profile. For today, set up your workspace with a cork board and materials. Put all your ideas in one place. And then if you can lay out five scene ideas and an ID cards and put them on the court board and they don't have to be an order. Okay. So that's my reading session. This is what my board looks like right now. As you can see, I took pieces of paper and put X1, X2, and X3. All of these pieces of paper and my index cards might move, but this will get my brain organized right now. And I also named all my characters. 6. Screenwriting Tips: Here are some helpful guidelines to get your movie done. Try to write for 14 days consecutively. If you can't do this, it's okay. But the more days you're at consecutively, the memorial will stay in your subconscious and inspiration will find you. If you only write once a week, then you spend a lot of time reviewing and remembering what you did last week. This brings me to my second, I recommend writing first thing in the morning before you go to work or school, or if you have kids before they wake up. Most people think they can right after they get out of work. But by then, their bodies and minds are too tired and they find excuses not to write once they get home. But if you wake up and right, you'll be thinking about your script throughout the day and inspiration will come to you spontaneously. I like to carry a notebook or loose sheets of paper for when this happens. But you can also use your phone to write down ideas or carry some index cards with you. When writing, put your mind in jail and just write. If you're in jail, you wouldn't have a phone to distract you or email or internet or anything like that. So just sit down and get it done. You'll be glad you did at the end of every writing session. All those distractions can wait. If writing this movie is important to you, then you have to make it important. Shonda rhymes as a writer, I look up to, and she has one scheduled time of day when she looks at e-mails, it's in the afternoon, before and after that, she is constantly writing. I've sold an option, several screenplays, and that's because I know everything else can wait. I often leave my phone in a separate room. I won't get it until I accomplished my writing goal for the day. I'd like to make money from writing to treat it like a job. Also, I would watch his class as a whole first. So you know what's coming up as you write. And you might be inspired to write future pages after you read the pages you have for each day. But don't get intimidated by what's ahead. Only focus on the lesson of that day. Take it day by day, and focus on one thing at a time. 7. Day 2 - Outline Day: Welcome to day two. Today is outlined a take that document or no, but they started yesterday. I tried to organize all your ideas and keep adding ideas to create an outline. For today, brainstorm different storylines if you don't know your storylines already. For my film, I'm writing an ensemble comedy and I brainstormed about 39 different storylines that can happen on leap day. Some of them are god awful, terrible ideas, but brainstorming and not judging my own ideas the time let some storylines that I really like. Out of the 39 storylines I brainstormed, I'm only keeping four of them. You can also brainstorm different scenes today and don't worry about the order. Tried to focus on the beginning of your story a little bit more as we'll be reading the first acts soon. But if you have ideas for act three, by all means, add those ideas to your index cards and add them to the board. It always helps to know what's going on in the future. Also, throughout this class, use both your outline and your index cards. The index cardboard is a great way for seeing the whole story. And you can move things around and get an idea of the whole picture. But if you feel inspired to write down more detail information or Dialog conversations, feel free to keep them in your outline until you add them to the script. As you brainstorm different scenes, think about the emotional shift in each scene. Going from a positive moment for your hero to a negative moment for your hero. For example, if you look at the first scene of Iron Man, it starts off on a positive note and ends at a negative note. The scene starts off with Tony Stark drinking and laughing and taking pictures and an army truck. It's all positive until things blow up and Tony gets kidnapped. There's a major or emotional shift, positive to negative. I suggest using a plus and minus system on your index cards to track the conflict and emotional shift in each scene. This is a tip I read and Blake centers excellent book, Save the Cat. But I've also seen it in the book story by Robert McKee and a few other places. Writing rooms will also use this. And it helps you think about conflict in every scene. The first scene of my movie, leap day, my main character Lily and her best friend Jade, are excited and happy because Lily is going to propose to her longtime boyfriend. This is a positive emotion. But when she does propose her boyfriend, not only it says, no, he breaks up with her in front of thousands of people. This is negative and it creates great conflict in the scene. As you outline a brainstorm new scenes. So you have five more carts, your court report. A general guideline is there's about 40 scenes in the movie and each scene is about 2.5 minutes. It's completely varies with every movie in every scene, but that's just a guideline to help you. Next week your board will have 40 scenes, give or take. My boards generally have around 45 courage to represent 45 scenes. But again, every movie is different. 8. Day 3 - Character Day: Alright, day three, character day. Today is all about your main characters and figuring out who they are and what they want. I've added a character questionnaire to drive your characters. Have fun with these. Remember to make your character's flawed. Everyone is flawed, so we want to see flawed characters onscreen. Think about your favorite characters in movies. They probably all have major flaws, especially at the beginning of the movie. Nobody likes to see perfect people. Perfect people are not interesting. Make your characters distinct and different from each other. Nobody should sound the same. If you look at the hangover, Every main character is different. We are introduced to them one-by-one, and they all have distinct introductions. Do character questionnaires. I've attached a character questionnaire to fill out for all your main characters. And if you ever get stuck in your story, looking back at the answers to these questions can often get the creative juices going. Again, the answers to these questions don't have to be permanent. One thing may lead to another and the other thing you may keep. But the idea that stem from is the one you might cut later. Alright, I wanted to go over the questions in the character questionnaire. You should be answering these questions for every main character you have in your story. And this will really help inspire ideas and goals for your character and you'll know them past, present, and future pretty much after you answer these questions. And what's great about this question as well, is if you ever get stuck writing and your key can't figure out how to move your story forward. It always helps me to look back at these questions. And it always inspires ideas. Sometimes come up with a different, different angle or I'll be like, Oh, the character we respond this way. This really helps, you know, their dialogue as well and just, you know, the character in and out after you answer these questions thoroughly. So let's just, let's just dive right into them. So first question is, what is their full name? So do they have a middle name? Do they have is to just first and last name. Every character is different, but you want to include their firstName and lastName at the very least. Number two, how old are they? Are they 30s, 20s, teens, or whatever. Every, every character should have an H. Number three, what is their physical description? So this could be their height, their weight, the way they present themselves, the way they dress, their hair? Do they have long hair? Do they have short hair or they bald? I think, really think about physically when you see them, what do they look like? This will really help paint the picture in your head of what this character looks like. So feel free to go crazy on this. Write a whole paragraph, or just write a sentence that really paints a picture. Number four, what is their marital status? Are they single? Are they married? Are they are they are they straight or gay or whatever their romantic or not. So romantic relationship is. If they have any, put that down. This could be, could be one word. It could be a sentence totally up to you. Could be a lot more. Number five, what was their childhood like? So think about what they're, what they're like from ages five to 15. I think a lot of times too. Did they have siblings? Are they Are they the oldest sibling and their family? Are they the youngest sibling? Are they an only child? I think growing up with siblings or being a sibling can really shape who you are. So think about that. Also. Where did they grow up? Did they, did they live in the same city when they were a kid or do they move around a lot? They have the same childhood home. You want to spend a good probably paragraph or more on that question. What was your childhood like? Number six, what is their current occupation and what were their past jobs? So think about where they work right now and then think about how they got there. That's kinda what it really helps me. They could be working at the same job for the past ten years and maybe they love it or maybe they hate it, maybe they're sick of it and they wish they went to other jobs. Maybe the job hot, maybe every six months they got a different job. And so they're very experienced in a lot of different different things because they worked out all those past jobs. I generally like to go like ten years. I think about where they're at today and then every job they had the past ten years. And, you know, you could you could do bullet point, bullet points for this one, you could do paragraphs, totally up to you, whatever helps you pretty much just how when you get to this question is you want to think about how this is going to help you in the future? Number seven, what was their education? Do they get a PhD? Did they get a bachelor's? Did they just pass the fifth grade and then stop there and never went to middle school. Every character is different. If a kid, they're probably still in school. If they're in their '50s, they probably they probably done with school or maybe they're not. Maybe they're going back now to get a degree. So think about that. Number eight. What are their hobbies? Do they play any sports? Think about, maybe they don't play sports currently, but maybe they did. Maybe they played hockey for 12 years and then quit. I think there's a lot of amazing female hockey players that quit after college because the pH F isn't big enough yet, but hopefully it will be in a few years. But you want to think about that. You want to think about sports they did play in the past. It's sports, sports they currently play or other hobbies. Maybe they knit. Maybe they like to make music at night. Whatever whatever shapes them into who they are. I think about that. Again, this can be paragraph, this could be different bullet points. Maybe they play several sports. So you bullet point every sport they played and when they started planning it and when they stop playing it, or maybe they just started playing it. Anyways. Number nine, what is their favorite book? Movie and album. Okay. Technically it's just three questions. I get it, but just just do a quick sentence for boat for all three. I answered these really fast. I put a book and I put a movie, then I put an album. This question is relatively quick for me. For most characters. Number ten, they could, they could just be in the movies and books and not listen to music, maybe whatever. Number ten, what is a typical Saturday night for the character? So think about what they do on Saturday nights. Maybe their home bodies and they just stayed home with their family and read books and not listen to music. Or maybe they go out and party every single Saturday. They go downtown. They spent a bunch of money and they loved music. They go to concerts all the time. Every, everyone's different. And maybe depends how old they are to think about what they do in different on a Saturday night. This question actually helps me way more than I think it would be for them, right when I answered the question. To answer it, it really inspires ideas for me, at least. Alright, number 11, what is their biggest regret in life? Wow, that's a, that's a big question. You take your time on that. It's usually this is usually a paragraph for me, but I really have to, as a thinker, a lot of times where maybe you know the answer right away at the bat, but yeah, what is their biggest regret in life? Number 11. Number 12, who or what does the character love? This could be family members, this could be activities, this could be the friends. Think about all the things they love on a daily basis. On the opposite of that, number 13, who or what does the character hate? And guess what? These two things could be the same. They could, they could love their sister and also hate their sister at the same time. So think about that. Could be completely different answers to these two questions, or they could be connected. Number 14, who or what does the character fear? Maybe it's something in their past. Maybe it's maybe they're making things up in their brain for the future. I think a lot of people fear things that never happen. So maybe they're one of those people. They could also fear the antagonist. Whoever the antagonist or whatever the antagonist is in your movie, they can also fear that, alright, number 15, What is the character's internal motivation? What they need, and what is the characters external motivation, what they think they need. Again, I know this is kinda two questions in one, but there's a really helped define your character. Usually, I like to think about it like this. The internal motivation is usually what they get at the end of the story. Something they earned or something they don't realize that they need or something they appreciate. They might appreciate their family a whole lot more at the end of the story, like if you look at home alone, e.g. that's something they they don't they don't think they need, but they get at the end of the story. The external motivation is usually the goal, something they're going after the entire story. And they could get both of these things at the end of their move, at the end of the story. Totally up to you. But yeah, what they need and then what they think they need. Again, this is usually the goal. If that helps you. Number 16, what is the character's fatal flaw? Great characters have great flaws, especially fatal flaws. So think about, think about your favorite characters to, I like to think about I like to think about Michael from the office. He had a bunch of laws, but it made him a great character though and made me want to watch them every week. So lists a bunch of laws that your characters hats, and if you don't know what the most fatal is, just maybe write five or six flaws and it'd be like This is the big one. This is the one that's the most fatal. Alright, moving on, number 17, what is the character secrets? Yeah, think about, think about their biggest secret. Could be small, could be big. You know, every character is different. If it is big than it probably could push your story, push the story forward. So yeah, think about that. This is usually, there's usually a paragraph for me or sentence and then I had to keep thinking about it and go deeper. So make it a paragraph. But yeah. Take your time with that. Number 17. Number 18, how does the character speak? So this could be determined by environment. This can be determined by their education too. Growing up in Montreal, Canada, how they speak could be French and English. Maybe they mix up words freshman English, French, and English. If they grew up in Montreal. If they grew up in Gainesville, Florida, they speak, they probably don't speak French. So think about how they speak. Think about their dialogue, their vocabulary as well. If they're well-educated, Frederick Frazier's are very well-educated man. And the way that Frazier speaks, the words he uses or not, words that most common folk use. You would never see, I don't know. Charlie Chaplin use the same words as well. That's terrible example because Charlie Chaplin doesn't talk. But you get what I'm saying. How do they speak? Think about their vocabulary, where they grew up, all that stuff. Number 19, What is the character's goal in the story? Alright, so characters, so what's pushing the story forward? Pretty much what do they, what are they going after? Sometimes they might not know right, right off the bat. Next one they might be forming their goal. The goal might come to them or something. But usually in act two, they're going after their goal. And then an act three, they accomplish their goal. So think about that. This is very influential on your story. Number 20, is the character active and achieving their goal? Well, if they're the main character, the protagonist, they very well should be. If they're not the main character, maybe they are, maybe they're not, maybe they're just along for the ride. But usually the main character is active in achieving their goal, especially in the second act. Again, they might, they might be hesitating in the first act. They might not know what their goal is. But in the second act, main characters, protagonists, they go after their goal. They become active and achieving it, especially in act two and at the end of Act three. Alright, so number 23, what is the transformation arc of the character? So how characters start in the big stories is not how they end. Great stories have great arcs for their, for their main characters. So think about that. I'm trying to think of a really good example. Okay, I'm Michael from The Godfather. His arc, e.g. at the beginning of that movie, he didn't want to be involved in the family business. He was the brother that didn't do a lot of Godfather things. But then at the end of the movie, guys who becomes the godfather, the one who didn't want it. So that's a great main character because it's a great arc. So think about, think about the arcs and how they grow throughout the story. Okay, Number 24, who are what helps the character change? This could be their friends, could be their family, it could be, could be the antagonist. Can be a lot of things. But think about throughout the story if things are going to influence and push your character, different directions make them change. And this will, this has to do with their arc. So these two questions are very much connected. So think about all the things that make them change out the story. Number 25, who is the characters mentor? They don't need, they don't need a mentor, but a lot of great characters do. Luke Skywalker had Obi-Wan, Kenobi, dodgeball that they had that patches or Houlihan coat coach. Mentor is don't actually have to appear again in Act One. A lot of times they appear in act two, and then they might die before act three, depending on the story. But yeah, they don't need a mentor, but this does, this does help me and inspires my story. If I give them a mentor or at least think about maybe they had a mentor in the past and then that mentor died. And we don't we never see that mentor. Everyone's different. Alright, Number 26. Does the character have any conflicting personality traits? This is a great question. And think about this because the way they may want to act is not the way that they do. But yeah, this really will help. This really will help you. In terms of how they respond. Yeah, think about things that they're fighting with internally. A lot of times that helps with that question. Number 27, what is the character missing in their life? A lot of times this has to do with their goal to maybe there's something the goal thereafter is what they're missing in their life. But think about that, you know, maybe, maybe they there are widowed. So they're looking for love again or companionship. At least. Maybe. They always wanted to become a blackjack dealer and they never did. And before they die, they want to become a blackjack dealer. So they're like That's what's missing in my life. Just spit balling ideas out there, but think about what they're missing in their life. This a question again, I go to a lot when I'm stuck on the story. And it's kinda helps me inspire whatever I answer it will inspire the story. Alright, next and last question. What is the first image or the character? What does this tell us about them? This is essential, I think, because whoever reads your story, to read it, and the first scene or the first image of the first, how they see your character first is going to paint the picture in their head or who this character is and what they do. So do all these questions for all your main characters and it's going to help you so much has you write. And it'll inspire a lot as you write and you'll come up with a lot of ideas too. So have fun with these. There's some work, but it's fun work. And it helps her story immensely. After you fill out the character questionnaires, try to get other five cards on the board represent five scenes. And then I'll see you tomorrow. 9. Day 3 - Character Day: Alright, date, Greek character day. Today is all about your main characters and figuring out who they are and what they want. I've added a character questionnaire to draw your characters. Have fun with these. Remember to make your character's flawed. Everyone is flawed, so we want to see flawed characters onscreen. Think about your favorite characters in movies. They probably all have major flaws, especially at the beginning of the movie. Nobody likes to see perfect people. Perfect people are not interesting. Make your characters distinct and different from each other. Nobody should sound the same. If you look at the hangover, Every main character is different. We are introduced to them one-by-one. They all have distinct introductions. Do character questionnaires. I've attached a character questionnaire to fill out. We're all human characters. If you ever get stuck in your story. Looking back at the answers to these questions can often get the creative juices going again. Again, the answers to these questions don't have to be permanent. One thing may lead to another and that other thing you may keep. But the idea that stem from is the one you might cut later. Some questions include, what is your character want? What is the goal on your story? What is preventing them from achieving their goal? Make sure to answer these questions as best as you possibly can. After you fill out the character questionnaires, try to get other five cards on the board represent five scenes. And then I'll see you tomorrow. 10. Day 4 - The First 10 Pages: Welcome to date for I hope the character questionnaire is generated more ideas I know they did for me. It really helped me focus on their goals and get to know them better. Now that we know our characters in and out, there'll be focusing on reading the first ten pages. For the first ten pages, think about a killer foreseen something that we'll hook the audience and right away. You want to introduce your main character or your antagonist. And an interesting way, let's look at a few examples of great opening scenes. The dark night, we meet the Joker and the first six minutes is him robbing a bank and killing members of his own team. We know this guy is dangerous, loves anarchy. In Raiders of the Lost Ark. We're introduced to Indiana Jones as an adventurer. As the movie opens on him getting an artifact out of a cave on his way in and on his way out, he avoids poisonous darts and a giant boulder in Jaws. The opening scene is the first shark attack. After a killer foreseen the first ten pages is all about setup. You want to set up the story and set the tone. If you're writing a comedy, give us some jokes. If you're running a horror, give us a hint of horror or what we should be afraid of. Also, think about your character wants. What are the setups you can do now? They'll pay off an act to Home Alone. Kevin wants nothing more than to get away from his family. He wants to be home alone, and that's exactly what he'll get. No, you can do this. Ten pages may sound intimidating at first. You may think, I'm nuts, but keep in mind, ten pages in the screenplay is not like reading ten pages in a novel. In fact, having a lot of whitespace on the page is a good thing. It makes it a faster rate for the reader. I had a screenwriting class in college where the professor would give us 15 minutes to write three pages and every student had to do this. And none of those pages were perfect. But we all did three pages and 15 minutes. So it is possible to write ten pages in an hour. You can take more time than an hour. I usually spend two to three hours writing ten pages. When I question if I can do something in front of me, I think my favorite quote by Henry Ford, If you think you can or think you can, either way, you are right? So thank you, Ken, and you will think to yourself, writing is easy. If you think it'll be hard, it will be hard. But if you think it's easy, it'll get a lot easier, right? One page at a time. Don't worry about page nine when you're still on page one. Just go from page one to page two, to page three, etc, etc. Just write one page at a time and you'll get to ten pages. If it helps, think about how much money you will make once you sell the script, it'll be worth it. Or think about when you're in school, you had assignments due on certain dates and you probably waited until the last day? We all did. But you still did it, you know, you can do something when it counts. So make this count. I once had a deadline, one time, I'd write 58 pages in one day in order to get paid. All I did that day was sitting in a coffee shop from when they opened to when they closed. But I wrote those 58 pages and at the end of it, I felt so accomplished and I made money. When you write, stay away from your phone and email. Remember what I said about putting your mind in jail with less distractions, the faster you can get this done. Don't aim to be perfect. Allow yourself to be bad. Sometimes you need to write a bad scene. So you can write a good one. You can always cut or fixed that bad scene later. For action description, I try not to write more than two or three sentences of action before dialogue. Because if you have a page with just action on the script and no dialogue, that page is going to take a lot longer for someone to read. And it looks more like a book than it does a script. Interject your inspiration. If you're like, Oh, I gotta wait for inspiration to hit me. Guess what? You'll never get this done. There are plenty of times I don't feel like writing, but you have to interject your inspiration. It may take five to 20 minutes of just sitting there and forcing yourself to write crap. But eventually you'll find a groove and find things that you want to keep. And you can always cut the crap out later. After you write your first ten pages, get five more. Curzon tried to focus on X1 because tomorrow we'll be writing pages ten through 20. 11. Day 5 - Inciting incident and Your Hero’s Hesitation: Okay, day five by nine should have 20 courage and your corkboard, which is about half your movie. Good job. Today you'll be reading pages ten through 20. You want to focus the inciting incident and start pushing your characters to what a new direction that will drive your act to. Remember, the inciting incident is unexpected. The incident, an incident will change their lives forever and an often just comes out of nowhere. Here are some examples of inciting incidents. In Toy Story. It's the arrival of Buzz Lightyear. He will rock the world of woody and all of what he's friends. And die-hard is the arrival of Hans Gruber and his crew in zoo lander. It's Derek zoo lander, losing male model of the year to Huntsville. Derek has 13 times in a row, but not the fourth. This makes Derek wonder if he's still cut out to be a male model. And him losing makes them want to retire from the male modeling world. In Wonder Woman, the inciting incident is the arrival of Steve Trevor, who lands on the island of thumb mascara. This is the first man Diane has ever seen her life. From here on out, Diana and her mom will debate to leave the island so she can save the world. After the inciting incident, the hero often hesitant to accept it. In Toy Story. At first, what he doesn't like buzz, they don't become friends until later in the movie. Initially, what he wants buds to go away. In die-hard, John McLean is trying to get help. He finds a way to pull the fire alarm, to get the cops to show up. He hasn't taken things in his own hands yet. Keep yourself and you hear on moving forward. I can't stress this enough. You might be tempted to look back at your old pages, but don't look back until you hit your goals for the day and keep your page count moving up. You want to focus on the inciting incident and start pushing your characters forward toward a new direction that will drive your ACT to have the discipline to get it done. This is advice not only for today but everyday moving forward. The difference between writers and people who want to be writers is wannabes just talk about it. Actual writers actually write and you need the discipline to get it done. Don't judge your pages today. Just be proud you're moving forward and know you can do this after you write pages ten through 20 at five more cards to your board, a certain focus and act to think about things you've set up an act, one that'll pay off and active. 12. Day 6 - Finishing Act 1 and Starting Act 2: Alright, days six. Today we'll be reading pages 20 to 30. You'll be finishing up to one that's already dried act to have a clear act break. In this section of the script, you'll be entering a new world figuratively or literally, or both. And the hangover, this is one of the guys can't remember what happened last night and they need to export Vegas to find their friend Doug and home alone to loss in New York. This is when Kevin gets in New York. In the original home alone. This is when Kevin realizes he's home alone. Think about that event that could push your protagonist into E2. Home alone. It's when it's family gets in the plane and they don't realize he's home alone until it's already too late. Start your B strike. If you have one, you'll be straight. Often introduces a new character. The bee story and bridesmaids starts when Andy gets pulled over and she meets her love interest, officer roads. The a story and the four-year-old version is Andy trying to lose his virginity. But the story is him falling in love. Don't get stuck looking back, move forward. I know I keep mentioning this and it's the last time I swear I'll do this. But this is where amateur writers will stop writing. For years. They will just have an act one, they are working over and over and over and they will never move forward. Me, not you. If you feel the urge to tweak the pages you have done, don't tweak them until you've finished the pages you have assigned for today. This means don't look back at the first 20 pages you have done until you get to page 30. After you write 30 pages at five more curves here, corkboard, and think about all the fun things you can do with your characters as we continue to act two. 13. Act 1 Review: Here's a quick review of act one and some writing advice that may help you haven't exciting opening that will draw and hook in your audience. Then set up your characters in an interesting way after your setup, have an inciting incident. This is the thing that will forever change their lives and push the story forward. Then find a way to make your character hesitate to change. Here's some advice for act one and brainstorming ideas. Rule of ten. If you're having trouble writing a scene, I'm a big believer of the rule of ten. I think I heard Jerry Seinfeld first talk about this, but I've heard many others talk about it too. It's where you brainstorm ten things. Then you'll find that one thing that works. When I'm stuck on a scene, I'll brainstorm ten things that could happen. Some of them are good ideas, some of them are terrible. But I do find that one I like after I brainstorm ten. Don't put pressure on yourself to make all your ideas, good ideas. Sometimes writing down a few bad ideas, you know, won't work. Watson spark good idea that will work. Determine what your main character wants and then put your protagonist and antagonist wants against each other. Again, if you get stuck in a scene, especially with dialogue, think about what your characters want in that scene. Show. Don't tell. If you ever find a character saying something the audience needs to know. See if you can find a way to show it. Be disciplined about your writing. If you want to complete your story, you have to be disciplined about your writing. And here's a few things that can help that writing a little bit every day will go a long way. Some people take ten years to write one thing because they say they never have the time. But all your excuses are not going to move your story forward. If you write a little bit every day, you'll have a lot done after a month. And it will make it easier on your brain to remember what you have done so far and where you're going. 5 min a day rule. I'm a big fan of the five-minutes a day rule, and I often tell this to my friends a lot. Before you go to bed each night, make sure you wrote for at least 5 min and five-minutes. Isn't asking too much of yourself. And many times, five-minutes will become a lot longer if you'd become inspired and if you don't, after five-minutes, just try it again tomorrow. You have to treat the creative process like a muscle. Muscles have muscle memory, work that muscle every day. If you wait a week for right, you'll spend half your time thinking about what you already done instead of moving forward, find a ritual that helps you, right? See if you can find the time of the day that works best for you. I always recommend mornings before you go to work because this way, you'll think about your writing throughout the day. Keep the file open on your computer. Keep your writing file open on your computer constantly. This will make you think about your story more and more. Make it the last thing you look at, and the first thing you look at when you open your computer. 14. Day 7 - Embrace Change and Explode the Entertainment: Alright, day seven. Today we'll be reading pages 30 to 40, focusing just on act to, here's a few things to remember. This is the section where you explode the entertainment because your crew is now in their adventure. And you really want to entertain your audience and don't question your choices too much, just roll with them for now, once you make a decision, keep moving forward. During this section of pages, this is where I start to question myself. Does this work for the story? But we have to remember, we won't know until we write it all out. I won't know if it works until I write the entire story and I can always change it later, I might as well write all my decisions. I've written several movies before. We're in the first draft. I just have too many storylines going on. And the second draft I completely cut out some storylines altogether. But I might keep some ideas and set pieces from storylines I cut. So I might as well write it all out. Think about your trailer moments as you write out act to try to think about all the trailer moments in your movie. These can be big set pieces are high jinx that your character gets into, ad or loose characters. Feel free to introduce new characters to move your story forward and meet the parents. The audience is already met Pam's parents, but an act to we meet the rest of PAMPS, family and friends. And the hangover, the three main characters travel across Vegas, an act to you in search of their friend Doug. And they made a wild cast of new characters, including Jade, Leslie Chow, and Mike Tyson. You can also lose characters. Sometimes in romantic comedies, the main character will lose their current boyfriend or girlfriend in these pages. Or if you're reading a slasher film, characters will start dying one by one. Also in action movies like die-hard, the main character may start killing bad guys one-by-one. After you get to page 30 at 5-mer occurs through cork board and feel free to move things around. As you can see it kind of organize mine a little bit more. After today, you should have 35 cards to represent 35 scenes. 15. Day 8 - Write Up to the Midpoint: Today is all about pages 40 through 50. Try to write all the way up to your midpoint. And remember, midpoints are big moments in your story. In these pages, keep the fun, entertainment and trailer moments going on, but start to hint that major conflicts is lurking. And then with that, make your midpoint big. If you're having trouble figuring out what your midpoint is, think about what is the biggest thing that can happen here to my main character in Die Hard, john Maclean's, there's killing bad guys and act to a. But at the midpoint, Hans Gruber finds out who John is in the matrix. A lot of e2e is Neo training to be the one until the mid point. When we find out he might not be the one in Jaws. The townspeople think jaws is dead as they call the shark and act to a. But sheriff Brody and Matt don't think it was jaws. The midpoint is Jaws comes back with a vengeance and kill someone in the beach. When the beaches more full of people than ever before, Sheriff Brody almost loses his son to the shark, something has to be done about the shark situation right now. Make sure to increase the conflict and the tension at the midpoint. And Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs were contained in the first half of the movie, but now the gates don't work anymore. At the midpoint, the dinosaurs escaped from the gates. The midpoint and Toy Story is when Woody and buzz or taken by Sid, the kid who mistreats his toys. They enter Sid's house, which is the opposite of Andy's house. In Spider-Man, things are going alright for Peter Parker. He's getting closer to mary jane and things were looking good. But at the midpoint, this is when he fights the Green Goblin for the first time. In many superhero movies, the super hero and the villain will go at it head to head at the mid point. After you read it to your midpoint. At five more cards to your board, you should have 40 cards to represent a 40 scenes. And you might be done outlining all your cards. But if you want to add more than 40 cards, go for it. 16. Day 9 - Rise of the Antagonist: Today we'll be reading pages 50 to 60. Remember to raise the stakes for your main characters, whatever or whoever your antagonist is. This is where they gained momentum. In these pages, things are falling apart for your hero internally and externally. A lot of times relationships are tested. Friends and families start to question one another, and heroes are losing control of the situation in the matrix, the team gets double cross by cipher, one of their own team members and to other team members are killed than their leader, Morpheus gets kidnapped and Jurassic Park, Alan and the kids are separated from everyone else. And the dinosaurs are starting to kill people and Mean Girls. Katie's first and real friends, Janis, Ian, are mad at her because she didn't bite them to her party. Sometimes these can be the hardest pages, right? But if you feeling stuck or unmotivated, look back at your character questions from day to look at your characters biggest fears or Secrets. Make their biggest fears come true here, or have them reveal their secrets. However, you can keep finding ways for the antagonist to win. Now that you have 40 cards on the board, Feel free to move them around and add more if you need to. As you can see, I've done that for tomorrow. Keep thinking about how your antagonist is winning. 17. Day 10 - Write Up To Your All is Lost: Today you'll be reading pages 60 to 70. Keep thinking about ways your antagonists can be winning and to your hero hazards they're all is lost moment. The all is lost moment is the lowest point for your hero. There are even worse off than when the film started. Relationships may be ending. Family and friends may die. All the plans your hero is made may fail epically. In the hangover, the wolf pack wins enough money to buy their friend Doug back for Mr. Chow. But when they exchange the money for doug, they get the wrong God. In The Wedding Singer, Julia, it goes around his house and finds Linda. Julia, Thanks. Robbie and Linda got back together. When Robbie goes with Julius house, he thinks Julia actually wants to marry Glenn. But Julia really wants to be Ms. Robbie heart. She doesn't want to be Julia. Julia in Wonder Woman. Diana, thanks, General Eric Lander. Ralph is Aries the god of war. But once it kills London Ralph, she finds out it's the wrong guy. The war is still going on in areas, is still out there. Many times in movies during the l has lost a character close to your main character will die. In Happy Gilmore, happy shows chugs, the alligator that bit off, chops fingers, and this accidentally kills jobs. After you write the all is lost moment. It's okay to feel sad for your protagonist. Tomorrow, your hero will find ways to win again. 18. SkillShare Superpeer Coaching Promo: Hey, if you're interested in one on one coaching sessions, I'd love to help you during your creative process to make sure your project gets finished. You're interested, you can book a session on SkillShare using their new Super purer feature. To book a coaching session, just click on my SkillShare profile and click Book Now. These coaching sessions can be weekly or bi weekly, whichever you prefer. I offer coaching sessions on writing movies, TV shows, web series, producing your own film or series, and much more. I can coach you once a week or every two weeks to make sure you stay on track and create the accountability you need to finish your story and project. Contact me to book your first session now. Thank you, and now back to your regularly scheduled course. H. 19. Act 2 Review: Here's a quick review of what to do and act to and some advice that may help you write more. Enact to your hero must embrace change, and enter their new world. In their new world. Built some memorable and unique moments by exploding the entertainment. Towards the middle of your story, your hero will hit the mid point. This is a major moment that will change and propel the story drastically. From there, you want to amp up the stakes, conflict, intention as things come crashing down on your hero. Advice for E2 and following through. Keep moving forward. A very common pitfall that many writers fall into when they reach act two is they keep rewriting the pages. They had an act one. Instead of moving forward. Rewriting is always easier than writing, but here's the thing. You're going to rewrite anyway, once you get to the end of your story and finish a first draft, only then you'll have a grand picture of your entire story. You can drive yourself crazy rewriting Act One over and over. So don't, the best thing to do for your story is to get to the end of the story and then rewrite, set times to write and do nothing else. We live in a world where distractions are so easy. And this makes writing hard, e-mails, text messages, phone calls, and just reminds, being curious about random things can distract us. But what often helps me as setting a timer on my phone and making sure I don't check my email or phone until the timer goes off. I often will do 1 h blocks for that period of time. I will only write if my mind wants to Google something. I won't Google it unless it's research for my story. If it's not, then it can wait till later. If I don't have time to do 1 h, then I'll set a timer for 20 min or even five or 10 min if it's late at night and I haven't written yet that day, stick to your deadlines. It's so easy for us to say, we'll do it later and then later becomes never. So many people have asked one of their story done and then just sit on doing Act 2.3. I'm guilty of this myself. The first screenplay I ever sold, I had the first accurate and for about eight months and never kept moving forward. And it wasn't until I sat and stick to my deadlines that I finished the script a few months later. A few weeks after that, I optioned and sold the screenplay. Keep your goals in check. Your beginning of Act. You can have a lot of fun moments, but always keep your main character's goal and check. Let the a story drive the narrative and never stray too far away from your protagonist goal. It's also your goal to finish the story. 20. Day 11 - The Comeback: Today we'll be reading pages 70 to 80. After all is lost moment, your hero has been beaten down, but they are still alive. And when there's a will, there's a way. Think about these pages as the comeback. In these pages, your hero regains the trust of others, rebuild their team and repairs relationships. And after that, they prepare for battle. The battle is the main event coming up in your finale. In the Incredibles, violet helps her family escaped from syndromes layer and they decide to fight syndrome together for the first time. Before this, Mr. Incredible was working alone and hiding it from his family, but not anymore. Now, everyone is a part of it. An alien, Ripley decides to self-destruct the spaceship. There's no way she's letting the alien get to earth, shall fly out and an escape pod and let the alien blow up in the spaceship. In the matrix, it's the helicopter seen when new and Trinity come to the rescue and save Morpheus. Today, write down all the preparation steps that you are here I was taking for the finale, which overriding tomorrow. 21. Day 12 - The Big Event: Today we'll be reading pages 80 through 90 and focusing on the finale. Focus on the big event or mission that your heroes must win. And Happy Gilmore, it's the PGA championship, pretty much in every sports movie. This is the championship or the biggest game the team has to win. In every Rocky movie, It's the fight between rocky and the villain of that movie. Makes sure to pin your protagonist and antagonist against each other. If you're reading a superhero film, this is the big fight between superhero and super villain in Spider-Man, It's Spiderman versus the Green Goblin and Wonder Woman. It's Diana versus Aires. In Iron Man, it's Tony versus his business partner, Obadiah stain. It helps too. If every main character in your movie is there, at least the ones still alive in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? It's the fight with shredder. You'll notice that every character is there one-by-one. The turtles take turns trying to fight trader and lose. But then splinter shows up to fight and defeat shredder. All the turtles are on top of the building, but below them is April Casey Jones and a huge crowd of people. Remember, your hero has to save the day. In Star Wars, a New Hope. Lucan, the other pilots go to the Death Star. But Luke is the one who blows it up. Tomorrow, we'll be reading the last ten pages when you finished the big event and then wrap everything up. 22. Day 13 - Wrap It Up: Today is about pages 90 to 100. Finish up your Finale and then wrap up by your storylines. Keep the final scene memorable and keep the tone of the film. If it's a comedy and then a funny scene, if it's a horror, give us one last scare. The movie revolves around music and non music and whiplash. Andrew is determined to prove he can do the drum solo, and he does that in front of everyone in the pursuit of happiness. Chris has finally hired for the job he desperately wanted, tried to have a final surprise or several of them in Happy Gilmore as happy as about to do spinal put a tower falls and blocks has shot. Now we asked to take the shot with the tower in the way and dodge ball after Vince Vaughn gets hit, it looks like the game is over and global Jim has one. But then surprise, we find out Ben Stiller stepped over the line. The referee calls a penalty. Now, Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn do Sudden Death Dodgeball. The protagonist and antagonist are pinned against each other. In Iron Man, Tony Stark also surprises the audience and he tells everyone that he is Iron Man. Planet of the Apes has the amazing Statue of Liberty is seen, which is not only a surprise, but it's incredibly memorable. Once you write up the page 100, congratulate yourself for writing 100 pages. You may have finished your first draft, but if you need to tweak some tomorrow or right, more than 100 pages, that's fine too, but feel good. This accomplishment. 23. Act 3 Review: Here's a quick review of what to do and act three and some advice that may help you write more. And act three, you will make a comeback after experiencing and all is lost moment. This is when they build their team and get ready for the big event. The big event is the climax of your story. The most exciting, intense, and important part of your story. If you don't have a big event already, think of one and make sure to add it to your story. After the big event, wrap up all your storylines, including your a story and NAB story, sea story, the story, etc. Writing advice. Celebrate when you finish. Take a few hours to celebrate when you finish your first draft, maybe you go to dinner or see a movie you want to see. You might still have a lot of work ahead of you. But once you get to the very end, you'll have a better idea of your whole story. And finishing a first draft is a huge accomplishment. So many people think of ideas and never take the action. You took the action. And yes, there may be work ahead, but there's also work behind you. So be proud. You did it. Keep the first draft just for you? Once you get a first draft done, I recommend taking a few days to a couple of weeks off, but don't take too much time off, you still want to keep the momentum going. You might have several ideas that you want to change. Some scenes that are not good, but you wrote them just to keep the story moving forward. Rework those scenes before you send another draft to other people, set a date to get it out into the world. What's the point of writing something? It was going to sit on a shelf or stand your computer forever. But if you set a date to get it out into the world, or at least try to get it published. This will drive you to make sure it gets better and better with every revision. Rewriting tips, tightened relationships. As you write, you'll discover more about your characters and their relationships. After a first draft tightened the relationships even more. E.g. I. Made to my characters who were best friends. I made them sisters because friends come and go. But family is forever define your characters more. I'm sure you've discovered a bunch about your characters as you're writing. So now you can use those details to draw your characters even more. I've added a character questionnaire that can help to find your characters even more. So feel free to fill this out as you write your first draft or after you write your first draft, have emotional shifts in each scene. It often helps to think about how your heroes can go through ups and downs. If you're stuck on a scene. Think about how to start the scene on a positive note for your hero and ended on a negative note or started on a negative note and ended on a positive. Makes sure that main characters have arcs by the end of your story, your hero should not be the same from when your story started. Make sure they learned all the lessons they need by the end of your story. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Be happy with what you got done. It's easy to criticize ourselves. When, when would you have done isn't perfect. But even if you struggled to write this and you know, there's a lot of rewriting ahead. You're still a lot farther than when you started this journey. Get notes and set more deadlines. Get notes and set deadlines for those two. After you take a brief time off, after the first draft, get back to work and set deadlines to send your writing to friends or people who will read your work. Tell them a date as to when you want to send it out. So you have accountability. Don't wait until the day after or week after, either. Do it that day. Even if it's at 11:59 P.M. that night, if you say a date, sent it to them on that date, also asked for deadlines as to when you want notes back. I always find out there without deadlines, things just fall to the wayside. But if you have a hard deadline, people will stick with their deadlines. Listened to everyone, but follow your heart. When you ask for notes, you're gonna get a lot of notes. But that doesn't mean people know what they're talking about. They didn't slay away for hours reading your project. You did. So only take notes that you really love or you truly think will improve your work. If you're getting the same note from different people, then definitely take that note into consideration. But if you apply a note that you really disagree with, chances are you're going to regret it later when your work is published. So stay true to your writer's heart. Know when the story is cooked. After you do several drafts and you know it's in good shape, let yourself be done with it. We can drive ourselves crazy, making things perfect. And often perfection is what prevents us from getting things done or putting it out into the world. At some point, you have to embrace the imperfections and let it go. And chances are if your book is getting published or your film is getting produced, people like editors or producers are going to change things anyway. But we should embrace imperfections and really just be proud that we've finished something and it's out there. 24. Day 14 - Celebrate Your Accomplishment: Today if you need to write a little bit more for you type fade out, or if you need to tweak a little bit, go for it. But after today, take some time off before you rewrite. Today, if your script is over a 100 pages, but you still need to finish the story. Keep writing until you get to the end and then write fade out. Finish it today, you got this. If something is really bugging you and you want to fix it before you take some days off, go for it, go for it, fix anything that's really bugging you. So you don't think about it on your days off. After you finish it today. Treat yourself. You finished a fricking screenplay. Celebrate that, and congratulations. Here are some tips for rewriting. When you're ready. Take some time off, but not too much time off. It's good to look at the script with some fresh eyes. But if you want to sell it, don't put it on a shelf for years to come. I recommend taking off a week or two, but no more than a month to rewrite. You still want to hustle. Do multiple table reads. A huge favor you can do for your script. Do multiple table reads. A table read is when you get a bunch of actors or just a group of friends and assign character roles for them and read the entire script out loud. You'll be amazed at the things you can find out about your script. By doing this, you're really find out the rhythm of each scene and find out what seems maybe too long or too short. If you have jokes, sometimes you'll find a joke that you think isn't so funny, really is really funny, or vice versa. Sometimes a joke will bomb. I don't need to cut it. Before I send my script doctor producers, I do at least three tablespoons of it. Know when the script is cooked. This is advice from Shonda rhymes. I know some writers who keep rewriting and rewriting so much that they never get a chance to market it. The aim for perfect, but there was no such thing as perfect. That's why IMDB has a goof section. Get to a point when you know the script is cooked and then send it out. Don't burn it. Eventually, when a producer wants to make it, they'll have their own notes. But then they should pay you to apply those notes. After reading today, reward yourself for putting in the work. Find a way to celebrate a finished screenplay. And when you feel the script is ready, let the world see it. Best of luck. 25. Table Read part 1: Back in 2020, the satiety or of our lives. And at the height of the pandemic, if you lived in a different city away from your family, then you probably couldn't travel home that year for Christmas. So I decided to write a christmas comedy movie about a family who couldn't see each other in person for Christmas. So they planned their dysfunctional and chaotic Christmas party over Zoom. The movie is titled Christmas vacation, and you can watch it for free right now on Tooby. The following is a tail braid of the script that took place about a month before we started production. I wanted to demonstrate how a script can change for the better with every table Read. If you watch Christmas vacation, you'll see a lot of changes and some things that stay the same from this table Read and the movie. Some changes included jokes in here that didn't work. So I rewrote those scenes and jokes. Another major change is that this table Read has many songs. But after talking with my entertainment attorney, I found out I couldn't use those songs. So I had to rewrite an entire new storyline for my character James. I hope you enjoy this. If you'd like to check out Christmas vacation, you can find the platforms it's dreaming on and where to find the DVD at www.xminusstaycation.com. Enjoyed this table Read of Christmas vacation, room alone a lot for Christmas. There's just one thing on the interior video called day James, 31, handsome, soothing voice sings day his wife, Alice, 31, blonde, sassy and the dork. I don't care about the prisms. Nice little Christmas tree. Jews wall Gene Fama. More than you could. No, no, no, no. No. You can't say all I want for Christmas is You To Your mom. Why not? Look like you have the hots for your mother? Good point. Didn't think of that angle. You said you wanted to make her presence. So if you will, cover a song, at least make it your own. Okay. Make make a song my own. Hey, your dad just texted me, asked me when we're getting to the airport. Oh, that's weird. You told them we can't come home for Christmas, right? No. I couldn't break his heart. It's Christmas Eve morning. I just looked at tickets. If we leave now, it's only 3,200. Sweetheart, we maxed out every credit card before Halloween. Do we have any rich friends? Now, even our porphyrin find those two port or hanging out with not enough, we can't be together for Christmas. We both lost their jobs and I'm back to being a trucker. I'm sure he understands. I didn't tell them any of that either that yet either. Honey, can you can you call with me, break his heart. He should be just waking up. Your video called day Allison James call Hank, early 60s gray hair, that vibe. Hey Dad, How are you? Oh, I'm sorry. Are you feeling betrayed? I did. Kids, not URLS, but my other two disappointments and Charlotte and Tommy, do they just canceled one after the other and canceled coming home for Christmas. Really? Yeah. So I mean, who tells her father that on Christmas Eve morning? I am at least I have one daughter and son-in-law who loved me enough to visit a lonely old man on Christmas. Nobody talks for an awkward while. Why has nobody talking? This is a hard conversation, but Alice, we need to tell him. We can't tell him now. Telling me why. Nothing dead body. We love you. Alice kicks hangout. Did you just kick your dad out of the video call? This time while I talk to Charlotte and Tommy, interior video called day the Charlotte 33, a badass, stylish chef. And Tommy, 26, the baby boy of the family who eats oatmeal. Why didn't you to tell me you're not going home for Christmas. You didn't tell us. I told everyone I couldn't make it months ago. Nobody pays attention to what you say. Make this quick. I have to get to my job. What job? I'm a Zoom Santa Claus. Thank you. Talk to kids online. I wish it was just kids. Flashback to interior. Zoom is Santa room day. What would you like for Christmas? Little old lady. A little old lady zooms with Santa. Hello, Alice. Went some. What they Santa doesn't do virtual would be you don't need to do anything. You can just watch me. Who doesn't want to watch? Santa just wants this 10 min to be over Oh, let me show you a little. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Anterior Zoom is sensorium day. A valley girl shows up in selfies herself for her story. My God, yeah. When Santa Hello times three. Yes. This is the fourth take. Post this video on Insta crap already. Know. Okay, Take five interiors in the Santa room. They, a lonely guy uses Santa to get his feelings out. He's in two years for Christmas. Santa can do that. It's just hurts. So bots, cool. How long were you together? Toys that take longer than that. And the flashbacks interior video called continuous, Tommy zooms with his older sisters. It's good money and I need it when it comes back home on Christmas morning, what did you buy her engagement ring? You're going to ask her to marry, you know, I'm going to ask if she has a sister, what do you think I'm going to do? That's great news. Yes. I'm asking her hand in marriage the minute she steps out of the airport, It's been ten months, but she can finally cross the border on Christmas day. I'm so happy you're getting engaged, but let's talk about dad. Yeah, there's gotta be a way that we can be together without being together. Weight does, It's right in front of us. Oatmeal. Now, let's throw dad a Zoom Christmas party. I don't know if he'll be in that. Old people in technology don't mix. Well will make our actual Christmas invite our extended family, but it's even better because we don't have to smell them. Plus with her last name being gloom Gordy. It'll be a gloom guardian Zoom party. Okay, well, you're going to need to invite Kyle and great aunt Linda. So smelly. Don't forget uncle squibs. I did have plans with my friend Charlotte. Don't you have a girlfriend now? I bring her Emily and I broke up on Thanksgiving. Okay. Never mind. Thanks for reminding me though. Hence your restaurant doing by the way, his business picking manner, backup. It's fine. What time are we doing? His Christmas party? Ipm, anybody wanted to call dab with me and try to convince Charlotte and Tommy, hang up. Alright, my husband, It is interior video call day, Allison James call Hank. Thank we have some bad news, which is why we hung up on the last time. You hung up on me. Dad, we can't afford to go home this year. You gotta be kidding. U2. We're really sorry. We both lost our jobs and I'm on the road right now just trying to make ends meet. James and I won't even be together this year. To make you feel better. I wanted to test a song out on you. You want to what is my Christmas present to my mom and I trust you're good taste in music. So I want to see what you think. You have to. James place, George Michael ish, next Christmas, albeit your house, but not this year. It brings me to tears. Next year will be Monday and we'll make that Christmas special Spanish. Okay. Please please stop the sounds making me sad or than I already was. Yeah. He needs to depressing. Keep reminding me that my kids won't be home for Christmas. We shouldn't have started with the song. Okay. Tell him the plan. Yeah. I thought of an amazing alternative. We're still throwing a Christmas party. How online? We're having a Christmas gloom guardian Zoom party. What's the Hausa in the whole family will be there. Please. Not Aunt Linda? Yes. We have to invite her. My Christmas present myself was not seeing her his family. I may have married her sister, but I am not related to Linda. Come on. Hey, what do you say? No, thanks. I don't wanna be on my computer screen on Christmas. We need you there. Let me see what else is going on. It's Christmas. You need to be with your family. My family isn't here. Maybe I'll go to the movies. Is that a Wonder Woman movie out yet? We're throwing this party for you. Okay? Okay. So I'm like at 20 right now. Let me think about it. Hangs up. I don't think he wants to go. I don't want to call aunt Linda. Interior Zuma center room day. Tommy and his sent outfit zooms with Sarah, 33 and overworked mother with kids screaming in the background. Okay, Santa, this is my fourth and final kid who looks fine. We still have 2 min left before my next appointment. Take it for me. Santa never have twins. After you have twins? For kids is way too many. Here. Yeah. Do you want to pair I'll let you mix and match. Who know me and Mrs. Claus have. So maybe elves already. Therapists Up. Jamie, seven, Santa. This is Jamie. Jamie, what do you want for Christmas? Jamie doesn't say a word. Have you been a good little kid this year? Jamie still doesn't say anything. Okay. I can tell what do you think Jamie's mom? Sarah, is dead asleep with a soft snore. Poll it looks like your mommy's snoring there. Does she have epilepsy? I think you mean narcolepsy? Oh, that's what sentiment. Smart kid. She just works too much and when she's not working, she's taking care of us. Oh, it's your dad home then dad's dead. Oh, I'm sorry. He's not really did he's just dead. Okay. That's better. I guess. Santa. You know what I really want for Christmas. What's that? I want my mom to take a vacation. She deserves it. I don't know if I can fit that on my slave. You can figure it out. You're seeing a cause of, okay, I've got another appointment, but I'll see what the elves can put together. Merry Christmas, Jamie. Thanks, Dana. If anyone does, Here's a Christmas vacation. It's my mom. Anterior Zuma Santa room day. Tommy switches to another Zoom room, but he just sees an empty chair. Oh, oh, hello. Anyone there? Suddenly a T-shirt is thrown over the empty seat. Looks familiar. It looks closer way that my shirt. Then he sees a hoodie. That's mine too. Then a picture Tommy is on the chair. What's going on? What kind of twisted joke is this? What kind of sick, Oh, Freak targets Zoom is Santa's. Tessa, 29. Tommy, his girlfriend, then suddenly drops in. Hi, Oh, thank God, it to another $10. So I could spend 10 min if my favorite Santa Claus. I'm so happy to see you. I'm gonna be even happier when you come home. Me too. I love my family, but they've been driving me up the wall. Tell me about it. What I'm not with you. These ten months feel like ten years. Only one more day apart and then I'll be back, Chris this morning. Best Christmas gift of my life. Nothing could terrorists apart 26. Table Read part 2: Interior video called day. Alice calls great aunt Linda, 67, illiterate to technology. Every time she answers the phone, we see a different body part. Right now. We just see her right ear. Hi, Linda. Hello. Hello. I can't see you. Did I answer this dumb *** thing correctly? I can't see your face, aunt Linda, just your ear. I can't hear either. No, your ear. Who is this? Oh, sorry. His next to my ear. He never mind. This. Alice. Was this my favorite lesbian? Nice. No, that would be Charlotte. Oh, yes. Sorry. Who is this again? Alice and the second kid. Oh, Hank and Wendy's third child? No, second. Oh, the one between Charlotte and Tommy, the one I forget about all the time. Yes. Alice, that one. Old, What's your name? What can I do for you? We're planning a Zoom Christmas party. Oh, yeah. Who is this again? Linda is your son, Kyle there. Can I talk to women said You my son, Kyle? Yes. That Luisa is always here. We don't see her ear as she moves. Cai you get your *** off the captain tactile. Who was the name? Charlotte. No, I wish it was Charlotte. Interior Zoom interview day. Charlotte has a job interview with Fiona 33. Okay. Let me just look over your lindsey. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. What page is it? I was like I didn't see it highlights. I was calling 16. 16. Oh, I highlighted. That might've been asked NYU. There's definitely wasn't you? Yoda. 16, sorry. Fiona and my 16. Go to 17 then maybe. Okay. Alright. Yeah, I got it. Okay. Let me just look over your resume. Yona reviews. Well, wait, you're the owner of the lazy piglet? Yes. For ten years, I left the lazy piglet. Your food is to die for. Oh, thanks. Why are you looking for job as a chef somewhere else? Well, I had to close it down because of the pandemic. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry about that. Yeah, me too. I miss it every day. My morning routine has been messed up for months. Your breakfast sandwiches they made every morning better and the salsa. So fresh and your soups or they were like flu vaccines. Wow, thank you. So do you think I have a shot of being your chef at the garden villa? I would love to hire you as a cook. Thank you so much. I I'm about to lose my house because I can't pay my mortgage and I had to sell my car. My ex girlfriend, she dumped me for her ex-husband. This has just been the toughest dear my life so far. So I'm super grateful right now. But, but, but sorry, I meant to say but quicker, you wouldn't give me a tendency. Get in there. Oh, go on and tell me the but the final decision is up to the owner of the garden villa, Sylvia Pratt. But I will definitely say to her Your mic first choice. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, that sounds good. I actually have three more interviews today, but this is by far my first choice. Good. I'm talking to Sylvia in the afternoon, but I'll call you asap. Perfect. Your video called day cousin Kyle video chats with Alice idle. We're planning a Zoom Christmas party tomorrow because me, Charlotte and Tommy can't make it to dad's house. I loved the pie day. Funny how you never bring a plus one. Mom. I'm on the phone. All I want for Christmas is for you to date someone dated someone three years ago. You didn't like her. She was a creature who lived under the highway. Living on her highway for each or dating is hard right now. While you do is sit at home watching those cartoons all day, I'll just walk farther away. Although And I may not courtroom of it. You will remember your dead tomorrow. I'll bring it day tomorrow. I believe it when I see it, I have a better chance of seeing Santa Claus. Kyle finally walks away. I'll you really need to stop living at home. Ipo. This year has been a rough patch for me. You've been in a rough patch. Cynthia graduated from high school. Next room. The party starts at five. Now, convinced my father not going to come. I don't know. He didn't he doesn't want to be on a computer screen for Christmas. I have a way to solve that Hey, mom, interior video called day great aunt Linda calls Hank. This time we just see her chin. Hello. Who is this? A hanky boy, if Glenda. How did you figure out how to call me on here? Please raise your memory. Looks like me and you are spending Christmas together. What we are, not the kids. Let me know all about the Zoom party. And if you're not going to that, then I'm just going to come on that. So if I agree to the Zoom party, you won't come over. Yep. Your choice. Fine. I'll see you on the computer later. Don't come over. You got it. Hanky panky. Video called day. Thank calls Alice. Hey, Dad, you got figured a balls kid making your aunt. Linda threatened me. Sorry, but it's Christmas with family who wants to see you? I'll go to your gloom, boom, boom, boom party, gloom, Bharti Zoom party. Yeah. But only you keep these three conditions. Conditions. Yes. If we're gonna go do this, then we gotta do it, right? Okay. What are they? Okay. Condition number one, every hour I want five-minutes of a long time. Why is so you can smoke weed? What I do with my a long time is none of your business. That's easy. Condition number two, you need to invite cousins geek, so isn't Kaczynski so in prison, escape, so just got out. If lenses coming in Schicchi you could come to I'll get a hold of Kaczynski. So and last and not most important, this one's for your mom. She'd want this. We need to make sure everyone has a home style. Neil, how do we do that? Find out where each of them live in and find their closest Boston market. I don't joke about Boston market. I know well, you know how to deliver food on the Postmates. He's, you know, what's the future at all? Okay. I'll get bossy market for everyone. You promise? Yes, I promise. Here years due date. On his first Zoom day with Samantha, 32, she dates on our laptop, but she's on her phone the entire time. Hey, I'm Kyle gloom, guardian. Nice to zoom day, tuna high. Oh, I'm nervous. Okay. This is my first zoom day. Actually, it's my first day in years. Looking at you, I'm not surprised. How many Zoom dates have you been on? Many, like 40. Oh, a lot. To me. I don't even have that immediate accomplishments in my life. Yeah, I keep trying to find someone special, but nobody on this app is remotely interesting. Oh, okay. Well, what would you like to talk about? Literally anything. Okay. How's the weather near you? Really are talking about whether is there anything else? Okay. Luckily, I brought these index cards, we've prepared questions on them all that got in my 40 dates. No one has done something that lame takes out some index cards. I like to be prepared, okay, First question. What is your favorite internal organs? Really? That's your first question. Sorry, I couldn't go. It's not me. It's you. She hangs up. Oh, well, minds the heart. But I don't think she had that anterior video called day James plays and other song, you know, Dahshur and dancer and brand through and mixin com and, and cube it and Rudolph and Blitz and but do you recall the most forgotten render. Hank watches James Valentino, the single dad, rain. They're always had two kids to feed. And if you ever saw him, you know, he could use some we need all of the rain day To party hard at night, but poorly. Valentino always had to do what's right. Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say Valentino width rude us know, so bright, we don't need you when you hear tonight, then how the reindeer forgot him and the binge-watch TV. They forgot, oh, what's his name now? And lived after? Happy. Yeah. I like it, but mostly because I liked the name Valentino. Well, my mom like it. I doubt it. Yeah, me neither. I wish I knew her favorite Christmas song. Interior video called day Hank calls Kathy, 59, James's mother. Kind, gentle, the best. We got. Hague, gloom guarding. Long time. Knows. How are you. I've been better. Hey, listen. What's your favorite Christmas song? Why? I don't know if he wants me to tell you. Now you have to tell me. Okay, Well, James is making you a Christmas song. He is. And since he's lazy, he's taking other songs and making new lyrics to he's making Mia saw. Yep. We're going to buy each other gifts this year. He he's not buying anything. I didn't know we were supposed to be making things. Oh, no, I need to measure something. I don't know if you have to the course I do. My baby boy depends on me. I got to make something like yesterday. Okay. Good. Catching up with you. Bought Anki. Wait, wait, wait. I wanted to know she's already high up on him. I tried interior job interview day. Charlotte meets auto. So Charlotte got to say thank you so much for applying, but I don't know if you're a great fit for Carlos's Jushi. Why would you say that? Well, for one year in Chicago and my restaurant in New Jersey, that's why I've It's accident. If you pay for me to move, I could be that this week. No. I don't need us to a shaft that bad, but I do appreciate it. Are you sure? I'm willing to move and leaving the house anyway? I'm sure. Okay. They'll pay me a movie. I'll go there anyway. It's really okay. Hey, this is it worth it? It might be to me. You Sorry. You too. Thanks. I don't hangs up. Had been more marry if I could secure a job. Interior video called day. Alice talks to Kaczynski, so 33, a tough, aggressive, awesome cousin. Cousin speak. So congrats on getting out of the joint. I just wanted to invite you to the gloom garden Zoom party. Party. Will there be a keg? Well, it's whatever you have at home is what you have on Zoom. So whether it be a keg, you have a keg at home. You wish, then no, there will not be a keg. Well, there'll be hard liquor. Do you have hard liquor at home? I wish then no, no hard liquor. Will there be any drugs? Clearly, don't get how this party works. I get it. I get it. So what kind of drugs will be there? In dating day tiles on a date with Sabrina, a psychic 31 wears lots of purple, has a crystal ball. Marina. Oh, wow, this data has been so much on you. You may exempt dating so easy. I agree It's been great. Thank you for reading my palm and telling me about my future. I want to see each other again. I love that. Wonderful. I only charged 58 for every half-hour. Excuse me. This term was for free because we met through this Zoom dating website, but next time it's only $58. To date. Me. Day you beer psychic gets all the same. Write. One cost me $50, the other allows me to stay home and not spend $58. Shall I make an appointment next week? Okay. Okay. Fine. With just one more 27. Table Read part 3: Interior vehicle date, Alice talks with Kaczynski, so okay. So you do finally get how this Zoom party works? Yeah, I think so. Oh, but we're getting Boston market for everyone. Where are you now? North Dakota. North Dakota. Yeah. You know, like Fargo. Fargo. Fargo. Know I'm in rugby but if I said rugby, you wouldn't know where that is. Okay. The closest Boston market to the North Dakota is Alice types into Google Maps. New Mexico. Hello. Yeah, nobody delivers that far. Yeah. And the party is tonight. They're not going to deliver that far. I made this promise. That's impossible. This means that much to you. Yes. I'm trying to keep his family together. Fine. I'll go there. What really is the food worth it? Have you ever had Boston market before? Yes, it's worth like that. I love that chicken. Okay. If it's worth it and it makes my cousin happy for Christmas, I'll go. Thanks. Hope you have a good car. I need a car. Yes. You need a car homeless, you expect to get there when there's a will? There's a way. Sure. Well well, I need yet. What are you doing? I just said, well, has a car. I'm staying at his place, rugby terrier zoom that day Kyle dates Maria, 31 classic. I'm having a wonderful time, Kyle. Yeah. I guess my third Zoom date. Charm. Suddenly a man and a tank top and shorts enters in Maria's mark 32. What the **** is this? Nothing, mark, I'm on a Zoom date like ****, you are nobody, Kyle. It's just my husband. You were married, were getting divorced after the after the new year. Like how we are stop saying how this something, how this and how that, That's all you say. That's because it's where I plan to spend eternity with you. Not if I can help it. Can't you see I'm dating Kyle now. Who the **** is Kyle? The love of my life. Well, oh, really? Love of your life. So that's not a lot of responsibility. Is ******. Where do you live, Kyle? I'm kicking your ***. Kyle, who are you talking to? Your mom? Still live at home with your mom? She's single. Maybe I was born to love her. Okay. I'm gonna go now, Maria had call me after you get divorce. Kyle hangs up. How could you virtually date a guy like that? Why baby? Are you jealous? ****, yes, I am. They make out interior video called De Jamie's performs another song with Hank. The zoo for Chris moods. If only on my screen, please mail me soon presence. It's never too late. Even if you shop on Christmas Eve. The words, don't ride. Well, I don't like songs that don't rhyme. I don't think she will either match the drawing board. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Come up with another but make sure the words rhyme. Interior Zoom is Santa room day. A few standards do bomber for the Santa. Santa. Totally worth it then. Oh, yeah, let me, let me hit that. Tommy pretends to hit that and even coughs. Woo, woo. We got dude's, I'm gonna get balls deepen as a milking cook. Yeah. I gotta go do it again. Another appointment letter saying, thank you for my presence tomorrow. Oh, by the way. Thanks for the head. Interior video called day Tommy weights. Oh, it's on 91 here. Suddenly an action figure that's not copyrighted pops in front of the camera to think you're nodding. Yes. Okay. How are you? Good. Action figure goes left and right. Or you are an adult and nods, yes. Are you one of those lonely people who live by them, so left and right for now. Are you a woman? Nods, yes. Do we know each other? Another? Yes. This is my favorite person in the world. You actually figure out waves Yes, and raises until we see a hand. It's Tessa. What gave it away. I just had a hodge wanted to go further with it. You know, you don't have to pay $10 beyond here, you can just call me on the phone. I know, but it's more fun this way. It is always a pleasant surprise. Last time getting to know the Customer Support operator, Nancy, she's a hoot. Interior Zoom interview day. Charlotte interviews with miles 36 gets easily offended. Your resume is quite impressive. I love that you stay at places for years. Thanks. I'd probably stay here for years as well. So what makes you want to work at Jesus chicken lists? Hot chicken. Well, I love hot chicken. You do? I mean, I made hot chicken all the time at the lazy piglet? Yes. What is the lazy piglet? It's my old restaurant. Please. Please tell me it was vegan. No. You actually eat meat? Honestly? Yes. But just with like most meals. I don't I don't know if you're ready for chicken lists hot chicken. But I love chicken Liz, hot chicken too. I love how chicken lists it is without being too chicken. Sorry. Charlotte. Gloom Gordy, you're not Mickey users chicken less hot chicken material. But I can be I just I just have to change my diet around completely. Sorry. But Merry Christmas. Miles hangs up. Maybe for you. Interior video, cold day. Kathy calls Hank Beck. Okay. I have a few options with white. I mean, James, If you let me know which one do you think he'll like? Well, I'm helping both of you now have this happen. The first thing is this. Cathy shows James a picture frame made out of macaroni pasta. Macaroni pasta frame. What are you six? I thought it was a good idea, but it's not. Cathy shows Hank and messed up wallet made from duck tape. What is that? Supposed to be a wallet but It's more like your waist tape. Okay. What's the last thing? I made him this key chain. It's a massive wooden key chain that reads, I love my mama. The other side reads, and my mama loves me. Key chains kinda gigantic. No, it's just my love for him. I don't know if it's like any of those if any of them really work as Christmas gifts. What if you bake him or cooking something? Oh, oh, good idea. I'll call you later. But wait, wait, wait. You have to tell me what's your favorite Christmas song? A bracket around the Christmas tree. Oh, that's a good one. But don't tell James until I have my present. Really. Yeah. I don't want him to know yet. Fine. I call me back when you have something good. Interior Zoom date day, Kyle, Zoom dates with Melanie. Right? Kyle, you are just so hands so you're pretty good looking yourself. I have to tell you I'm so attracted to you. Thank you. Hey, I hope in your mind, but I wanted to tell you this up front. I have a kid. That's fine. I like I like kids. Let me introduce you. Melanie picks up a kid and puts them in front of the camera. Say hi the kid. Waves. I'll be back in 2 h. Melanie walks away. What? 2 h? Interior Zoom interview date. Charlotte, and an interview with many. Are you sure you want to work here? Oh, yes. I'm positive. It looks like you're used to more fancier restaurants. I know, but I just love Richie's chum bucket. Does it? Oh, yes. I would just love to be a part of the Richie's chum bucket team. What's your favorite thing on the menu? There's just so many things to choose from. Give me something specific. Oh, I don't know. Everything at Richie's chum bucket is so good. Have you had our muscles? Yes. Oh, yes, quite delicious. That was a trick question. We haven't had muscles since 1957. Oh, sorry. We can't hire you at Richie's chum bucket. If you lived during your interview, what would Richard think? No, Please. I'm sorry. I need this job. We don't hire liars. Many hangs up. Charlotte hangs up. Nobody is around. Hey, God, or universe. Christmas baby. If you're at all listening, I could really use some kind of Christmas miracle. Please let me get a phone call from Fiona. Interior video called Dave. Fiona talks with Soviet 43. No fun, all business, and is on her phone the whole time. She doesn't even look at piano. So I had about a dozen interviews and some good candidates, but there's one in particular, there's a good fit. My Both Both of them? Yeah. Maddie, Professor? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That Charlotte limb guardian. She had a successful restaurant for ten years that went out of business six years, six months ago? Couldn't have been that successful if it's out of business? No. But you don't understand her food? Listened, Fiona, I'm glad the interviews went well, but I was talking to my cousin and she's going to take the job. Your cousin? My cousin Brenda, she just got out of college. Did she go to collinearity school? Now think it was Rugby, North Dakota community college. Anyway, She's family and it's Christmas, so let's give it to her. But she doesn't know anything. You'll teacher anyways, it's Christmas Eve, I gotta go. Have a good day off tomorrow. Interior video called day. Alex calls Kaczynski, so We'll got me out of North Dakota. How far amount of biker bar in South Dakota. But what are you going to do there? I didn't know. I could go back to my old ways that you shouldn't steal a bike. No, no, no, no, don't do that. I'm just joking with you. I'm going to flirt with this bike route over here. You see a Caltech me there. Good luck. And if that doesn't work, I made this sign to hitchhike, doesn't speak, so shows Alice at cardboard sign that reads Boston market or bust out of mine. I'm Michelle 28. Table Read part 4: Interior vehicle day, Kyle and Alice talk pile, you're Boston market should be there at five. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I talk to Uncle squiggles and on Gertrude, and they both live over 100 mi away from my Boston market. Gotta love that chicken house finding it ain't going not good. Zoom dating is the worst. Real Dating. Yeah. I bought I bought this 12 dates of Christmas Eve package and it's been ten so far. To Orlando. You never know maybe the next one will be will be the girl that's just your type just giving your best interior Zoom day they told me is on a date. He has a candle lit and her weight Kyle isn't a date. Write cows on a date. Okay. Day number 11. Hello, my name is hi, I'm sick of Zoom dates. He just sees skins showing me some Stan already. Hey, if nothing was just kidding by the way, excuse me. Know. Nothing. Okay. I'm like I'll be waiting and another hour until my next Zoom days. This how you treat all your Zoom dates. Mom? Yes, it's me. Your praise. Good. Then you won't see how disappointed I am or are you on Zoom maybe mom, Zoom date all the time. Plus I got this 12 Days of Christmas Eve package. Why? Why don't we execute each other? No, it's not. Okay. Let's practice date again. Shall we pretend you've just came in again? Interior video called day James sings and taps on something. Zoo. They to me, boom, boom. Newly we will bring boom, boom, boom, boom. To be for the US Green. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. How about this? How about this? Okay. I'm saying it's beginning to look like Christmas everywhere. I can't go. No more five and tomb that. No, no, no. All I wanted for Christmas is to figure this out. Shake it says figure this out. No, absolutely not. That wasn't a song that was just beat, just riffing. Listen. I know her favorite Christmas song. You do tell me. I can't I told her I wouldn't come on the parties in 2 h. I can't say but I will say pi1 is involved. Pine. Pine things. Jingle pine. It's the most wonderful pint of the year. No, no, no, no, no, no. Baby is pinouts. It's what you put in your living room. It's made from Pine. Oh, I get it. Interior video call day. Fiona calls Charlotte. Hey, Fiona. So can you hear from you? I wish I wanted to call you sooner, but I don't have a backbone sometimes. This doesn't sound good. Silvia, the owner of the garden anvils hasn't it would cousin and she's letting her cooked job. Oh, I'm so sorry. You are my first choice and always will be, but I don't own the place. No, it's okay. Thanks for letting me know. Have a Merry Christmas. Fiona. Youtube. I'll try. Interior video called day Allison Hank talk, Dad, I'm sorry, but it's impossible to deliver all this Boston Market. You made a promise. I know dad, but not everyone lives close to a Boston market. Well, try harder. It can be another brand or something. No. Boston market is the home-style, Neil, I trust you're not making this any easier. It's Christmas. It's not supposed to be easy. I don't think I can do it and I don't think I can make it to the zoom of gloom garden party. Dad, be reasonable. I can't promise I'll be there. If you can't keep your promises. Thank hangs up. Christmas conditions. Interior video called Night. Fiona meets Kyle who is still spiffy Hello. Hi. Wow, you went all out. Kyle picks up a little bit. Thanks. I decided this is my last Zoom days, so I might as well go all out. Last one. Funny how this is my first end date without God, they're terrible. I've had 11 days because 7 h and I am exhausted and not the same. Sounds like a rough day ahead. One to my sister bought me this 12 dates. It's Christmas Eve package, but I bought the same thing. Yeah, I had a terrible day, so I thought this might get my mind off it. That's where the tribe, but don't do all 12. I wasn't planning on it. Hey, is that a one-piece flag behind you? You know that one days I've seen him up 700 episodes. Me to my action figures. Sure. You want to see mine. They both walk away and come back with action figures. Oh my God, You are so cool. You're so cool. Interior video call day. Alice talks with cousins, skis. I'm in Colorado. The bikers bike broke down, but I've found an electric scooter. Electric scooter. You expect to get there on that? Not with that attitude and keep positive. It's Christmas. I'm trying. If there's anything I learned in prison, it's that you have to believe you're gonna get out and have the things you want. Hope so. I looked up that rotisserie chicken online, Alice, and I want that rotisserie chicken. My motivation. Alright, good luck. I gotta go. I can't video chat and scoop. At the same time. I can feel the promised land. Exterior Zoom. They day, Kyle and Fiona joke around. Okay. No, my favorite Joe is who traded laugh. Say you make Zoom, gating San Horrible. But so far it's been pretty FUN. Your here. Oh, thanks. I was wrong. Okay. This was work. The other 11 traumatizing dates, really? Yeah. It's like I'm on trauma times. Cute. I'm tall too. I liked how cute guys? Hey, I have a party at five, but do you want to do this again? Yeah, I liked it a lot. I wish we could kiss goodbye. We're going to try. 14. What do you mean? Screen to screen? Suddenly both their screens freeze. Okay. Sure. I've never done that before. Oh, okay. You're ready? 123. They both go in for a kiss when Fiona screen disappears, Kyle looks after kissing Yana. When did you go? 29. Table Read part 5: Interior video called day Alice talks with because Giza, 3PM skewed. I don't think you're gonna make it in time. Now, what that can't do? Attitude, god, you people who have never been in prison just don't get getting that chicken Alice, that chicken, speak. So we will make it to the Promised Land. Interior video call day Allison Kyle, talk. I can't believe I find the perfect gorilla gee, just disappears. It's called ghosting. Target for such a long time, doesn't make any sense. Sounds like she was playing you how you're Boston Market mission. Terrible. I just got a call back from Boston Market saying they ran out of mashed potatoes. Well, there's always an alternative. What alternative? Interior video called day, Fiona talks with her sister Frankie. You believe this? I finally me a nice guy. My stupa Internet cuts off. You try logging back on? Yes, of course, but I was the host so it kicked them off too. So you can't find them. Know, we need to exchange info and the date. I just know his first name was Kyle and he's the coolest guy I ever met. I knew my Christmas present was a good idea. Yeah, if I meet him again. Here. Henry, Frankie. Frankie, that's where you still at the garden villa. Unfortunately prison. But I'm back. There we go. Unfortunately, but my boss killing. I thought you went to Chicago to start your own restaurant. Will happen to that. I saved up but I can't open a place now. Might not be honest. Phone then rings. What the ****? What? My boss just texted me. Apparently, I'm not getting my Christmas bonus and she's taking pay cuts. You believe this hold on. I have to call her interior video called day Fiona calls Sylvia. Sylvia, what is this text about? Hey, yeah, it's been a rough here and with Brenda coming on board, I need to spread the wealth. You can't tell me this on Christmas eve. Everything I do. You're never there. I run that restaurant. Yeah, that's why I still keep you still keep me, you know, I could run my own restaurant if I wanted to. I have money saved. Darling, I'd like to see you try. Fine. I think I'll find out. Excuse me. I quit. Merry Christmas. Sylvia. Interior video called day hanging Kathy talk. Okay. So I made some homemade beer. Sure. James, I love that. Okay. But then my roommate drank it all. Cathy yellows to her right side. Thanks a lot. Rhonda. Rhonda burps and the background. It was good beer. And then I made Christmas cookies. Who doesn't love cookies? Yeah. And then my other roommate ate them at the yellows to her left side. Thanks a lot, Brian. They were delicious. Thank you. So nicely. James and free cake. What happened to that? Nothing. I just realized fruit cakes are disgusting. None of my roommates will touch it. Get that thing out of our house, Kathy, you stink up the kitchen. So what's it like living with roommates at your age? Beats the ****. I'm living alone since my husband died. Really? Yeah. How are you doing anyway? What do you mean? I know exactly what I mean. You know exactly what I mean? What what is this your number four for you without Wendy? Yeah. I know what it's like. The holidays would get better and easier but never get used to it. Memories just keep coming in. Yeah. Things even more than my family won't be here. All they're trying. The party is a good idea. Guess. You're gonna go to the party, right? I don't know. I don't want the kids to get used to this. I don't want to be alone every Christmas. They would. It's just this year. What about next year? Alice and James visit you every other year two and just saying How about next year? Either all go to main or you come to Baltimore and the whole family can come. We won't have to split the holiday will share. Hide like that a lot. Interior Zoom is Santa room day. A bachelorette party celebrates with santa. They where Sasha's and stuff. Fantasy. We only got half a minute left. What are you going to take something off? Santa doesn't take things off without causes burnish it. I'll be your Mrs. Claus. You're getting married tomorrow. What happens on Christmas Eve stays in Vegas. We're not in Vegas. Shut. Cindy. Santa doesn't know. He knows. And Sandra is another appointment. Have a good Christmas wedding. Interior zoom in Santa room day. Tessa sits in a chair. Tommy sees here hallway. There's my favorite person. Tommy takes his beard and I was just talking about my Mrs. Claus. Densa doesn't respond was going on. Usually there's some kinda cute scheme before I see your beautiful face. Tell me my grandma went to the hospital today. Oh, no. Sorry about that. Yeah. Well, hey, and less than 24 h will be together again. My mom is a wreck. Tommy realizes you're not coming home where I want to, but my mom needs me right now. Okay. I'm sorry. Should I try going over there again? I mean, I don't care what border say. No. Last time you got in trouble with homeland security. Work that for you. That if you end up in prison, just stay there and enjoy your Christmas. How he doesn't have words. What are you thinking? I can't believe this. I just I can't It's freaking Christmas. And the one thing I want more than anything else, I'm not gonna get. Torah is the only day they'll let you be able to come back home. **** it. I'm sure there'll be more day soon. Whim next Christmas. We don't know. We don't know anything other than tomorrow, you could be here with me. Tommy. I know I sound selfish, but ten months ten months without you and you just expect me to be okay with it? It's been hard, but yes, it's been hard. Too hard. Too hard. Yes. Then won't take a break. What no, no, no, no. If it's if it's too hard for both of us, maybe it's easier for you just take a break until I'm back. It's not what I meant. I'm tired. Okay. Don't let my rambling mean anything. Tell me. I'm sorry. Okay. But I can't choose between you and my family right now. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Two. I'll just will talk soon. Maybe. She hangs up. God. No, I'm an idiot. 30. Table Read part 6: Interior video called day, James and Hank meet up. Okay. Hank, I took your head. I got it right this time you want it, you won't hear the song. Yeah, sure. James Clear says through it. Oh, Christmas tree. Oh, Christmas tree. Lovely. Brown branches, that it's a song you told me my mom would love. It's all about the P9? No, not that song. Not that song. What other tree songs are there? Hold on. I got another call. Interior video called day. Tommy devastated, calls his dad. Hello. Hey dad, Hey, son. Hey. I do call for any reason? I don't know. You Okay. I guess what happened? Testimony of broken up with me. Why? She wanted to break and I got mad because I had everything planned out for tomorrow. What plant? It's going to ask her to marry me at the airport at a limo waiting for us and book to table at lamellas and labelling family was going to cook for us that day. That's nice about our two tickets to Buffalo, New York for New Year's. Everybody loves Buffalo. Yes. She'll Jaws wanted to go there in the winter. So what happened? Grandma got sick. I got mad at the situation. She got upset that I was upset, things just blew up and now I lost the one thing I love the most Worst Christmas ever. Interior video call. Later, Alice calls Charlotte and Tommy who both look miserable. Okay. So 30 min to Christmas kicker. Can't wait to Tessa can Omega home for Christmas. We might be on a break to mess. If I'm being honest, I lost my restaurants six months ago. What? Yeah. I've been desperately trying to get a job since then and now I need to declare bankruptcy, sell my house, and move out of Chicago. Charlotte, if you need anything, let us know. Maybe homeless this coming January. So maybe I'll live with one AU. Alice has plenty of room. It's found in rings. Hey, I got a phone call I got to take surely disappears. You know, anyone who could use two tickets to Buffalo, New York? Me. Not if maybe that's me. Right off the top of my head. I'm sure someone we know could use a vacation. You know what? Never mind. I'm not someone. Interior video called day Fiona talks with Charlotte. Lesson. Is your restaurants still in the plaza? Yeah. The landlord was kind enough to keep my kitchen appliances there until it's rented. Again. There may be no need for that. What do you mean? I know this is wild, but I loved lazy piglet and I want to co-own it with you. Really? Yes. And I have money and I want to use that in a place I love and I loved the lazy piglet is this dream. It's one of mine and I just quit my job and I wanted to own a restaurant since I was a kid and I've nine years of management experience at restaurants. And I actually hate doing all the paperwork and staff stuff. I just want to cook. So are you interested? Yes. Yes, Absolutely. Let's do this. Great. When you wanted, you're reopening. Like I said, I have Money. How about the day after Christmas? Done? Hey, do you want to come to this Christmas party with my family? We're going to be partners. I mean, we might as well get to know each other a little more. Sure. I already saw her baby with my family. On your resume, a Santa room room. How many calls someone? Answers and he sees Sarah and Jamie again. Oh, hey, Santa Claus, I can't afford another San accession. Actually broke. Zuma called protocol to get your number. I have a present for you. Oh, you do? For me? Yes I want to give you a vacation. Vacation aware. Buffalo, New York. You're kidding. I always wanted to go to Buffalo chicken wings are my favorite food. Well, Starting next week, get to stay until lovely hotel henry, I feel like I wanted The Price is Right. Two tickets, plane and hotel for you and anyone else? Mom, can I go, please? But it can't be a kid. Man. Sorry, kids getting a vacation also means getting a vacation from you who Write and Santa. Thank you. I really appreciate this. I'll bring my sister. Oh, I can't wait to see Niagara Falls. I don't card Christmas party, interior gloom, Bharti slash guardian, Zoom party, night. Alice weights by herself. For 56. First one here, shows up first after me. Someone enters. It's Vinny 33, a guy we don't know. Yeah. Time to meet you. I'm very pleased. So the gloom guardian Zoom party, you're not a gloom Gordy. Days all invited me. Where she did. Kaczynski, so enters, she's eating Boston market chicken and all its glory. I got it. Alice and I got it. You're right, It's chicken is so worth. It says, just like my mama used to make, but better in every way. God, I love that chicken. So who's many? Oh, my prison pen pal. Yeah. From one prison join other. What's Ups geeks, gigs. Holly Shanks a lot. Another X prisoner shows up. Holly Shanks a lot. It's been a minutes and some sinew word, Vinny's geeks and Blondie. She shakes the air. Now it's a prison party. No, no, this is not a prison party. This is a family Christmas party. I see mostly a presenter so far. Shakes the air again. Tommy. Hey Alice, excuse you. And three people, I don't know. One-by-one, other ex-convicts enter, jackknife, Jack Stabby, Steve cleared cetera. So how could you invite all these ex-convicts? That it was a party bring anyone we want? No. I didn't ten even if I did, I wouldn't say prisoners. Not all prisoners, just some of them never got caught. Yeah. Family members we haven't met yet join like Uncle squibs, Gertrude Skippy, followed by more and more ex-convicts like Tommy, James, etcetera. Squid eggs. Marie Kalikimaka speak so Linda, cousin Kyle, and others enter and people talk over each other. Anyone not sure about it? Let's check in Alice, who are all these people? Why did you say Mom? Alice has jumping to say yeah, please. Okay. Here it scares everyone, just gets louder. Yeah, that's it. Okay. Let's puts everyone on mute. This is my party. I'll mute if I want to know. Let me explain how this is all going to work. Everyone stops moving. First. Welcome to the gloom guardian Zoom party. To prevent the chaos we just experienced. I've created several Zoom Rooms so we can all talk with that chaos. Everyone gives the thumbs up, struts or agrees physically somehow, Alice gave us a look at her screen. Local squiggles. Don't write mean things about me in the chat. Squid, eggs, rolls his eyes, classic squeaks. Gordy house. Virtually. This link is the living room. But each link is a different room. I will email them to you and put them in the chat. James raises his hand, Alice, unmute him. Go ahead, sweetheart. Honey, Don't forget to mention the home-style meals. Everyone who actually did RSVP look on your front porch and you'll find Boston market, people cheering, run. I'll unmute a few that have taken your happiness. How many comes back to his laptop with a brown bag? You who are able to get all of us Boston market. You could say that many guests or open their bags and unveiled Boston Market frozen dinners. If you were lucky enough to get the real thing, congrats, you have a Boston market close to your home. Select View, have the real thing like Schiavo, most have frozen meals. Hey, one form of Boston market is better than no Boston market. Yeah. Welcome. Start going to be other rooms. Also, I hired a professional game show host, Ray car Cielo. Cielo, professional game show host. He'll be hosting games and various rooms. Now, all the rooms are open, Have Fun. Merry Christmas. People start to exit to other rooms one by one. Also, has anyone seen my dad here, your video called Night Hank talks with Tessa. Tessa, I haven't seen him love anyone as much as he loves you. This is why you called me. Yes. Can you just forgive him for being a blockhead? Just Merriam already, please. Did he mention marrying me? Crap. Sorry. I didn't mean to say that. Why did you oh, crap. They're not thinking it's just, you know, know know what? The reason he wanted you to come home and the reason he couldn't come see me. Big plan. What reason? What plan? Nothing. Can you just forgive him? Yes. After you give me more details of this plan? Fine. I'll tell you everything, but then you're gonna have to go to that party with me 31. Table Read part 7: Interior Zoom living room night, Alice, Tommy, Charlotte, Holly shank, silhouette, and Claire are still in the living room. I'm sure that'll show up sooner or later. It told me he was coming. I'm sorry, Alice. That's okay. If he's not coming. I think I'm gonna go to I'm just I'm just not in the mood anymore. Tell me. Come on. Don't leave. You just need to cheer up. Go find rake her soul and play day. That'll be alright. Yeah, won't go find them. Will check in with you soon. How many exits? Hey, Holly Shanks a lot. What do you say me and you get our own Zoom room and do naughty thing. I've liked that but you can't touch each other. So I touched myself better than most people. Don't do nasty things in any of the rooms. Create your own breakout room for that. I had to Nate, I just sent you a room in the chat. Claire, I hope you don't mind if I shake you a little. Not when it's virtual. Ali Shanks a lot and Claire exit the living rooms. Zoom. Does not showing up. Suddenly shows up. Yeah. I met to come sooner, but I had to take care of something urgent. What's that? Then Mrs. Claus enters. ** ** ** is Tommy here? I need to make up with them and tell him that I want to marry him. He just left to find rake, her solo. Professional game show host. Yes, I love that guy. Well, what room is a game show host guy in? No. It can't be that hard. I mean, how many rooms do you have? 28. 28 rooms. I created a living room, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, nine closets. What way why would you create nine closets? Alright, I got carried away. There's also a front yard Zoom room, a backyard Zoom room, a street corner Zoom room, a convenience store. Okay, that's not just a zoom house, that is a Zoom town. Suddenly another guest swaps in its Fiona. Hey Charlotte, sorry, I'm late. Who was this? Oh, this is my new business partner. What new business? Dad. The lazy piglet one out of business. Holy crap. When Why didn't you guys tell us? But Fiona is bringing it back. Yep. I have Money. That's wonderful. Charlotte's great at food, but terrible what the business side of things? Well, good. Now let's find Tommy. Okay, if we're going to find Tommie, let's split into teams, Charlotte and Fiona. You start from the bottom of the list, dad, Tessa, and I will start from the top. Interior backyard Zoom room night, Alice enters and sees Stabby, Steve, Cousins, Schiavo, and several others drinking nonstop. Simon says stop, speak. So what are you doing? Simon says drink a lot. Anchor. Simon says Drink. They all chug again. Wow, I like this game. In this, this is not one of the activities that I suggested on my list. Oh, yeah. Better. Interior dining room, Zoom room night, great aunt Linda, Vinny and several others play Pictionary. It's answered the time to draw and we only see fingers and part of the drawing. Me to get your hand out of the way of the camera? It is out of the way or it's not. Charlotte and Fiona Enter. Hey, is Tommy here? No. What are you doing? Pictionary. That's time. C, it's a woman with a red dress. How can you tell C bar of it? I know why you can't tell Kyle. It's the last time you were at with the woman was inside my womb. I told you almost met someone who day almost isn't at Christmas Present. Pal is that, you know, Island Fiona, see each other. You to know each other? Yes. We were on a Zoom day before my Internet went out. I'm so glad to see you again. We need to exchange info pronto. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. My internet went out. Son, who's this old? I told you about my 12th grade of the Christmas Eve. Hopefully soon to be my future. Something. Yeah. That was a great first date. Maybe it'll be your girlfriend by new years. Oh, my God. My son has assumed to be hopefully something girlfriend. Great. Interior bathroom, Zoom room night. Alice tank and Tessa enter a room full of prison Christmas characters who are all really good. Women. Tree. He's not here. No, but keep it up. You all sound great. Interior closet seven of nine night, Holly Shanks a lot, and Claire are now having a nice romantic dinner. Charlotte enters. What's going on here? After I naughty session, we decided to have some dessert. I had, do you mind get out of here? This is a private Zoom room night. Alice bank and tests, tests. Enter. What is this room? It started as the basement, but now it's the stone or rule. We see in the gallery view. Everyone is smoking. Okay, let's try the next one. I'll be back here later. Anterior front yard, Zoom yards. Kathy and James stock. I know we agreed to only make crescents this year, but all the gifts I have no, you're gonna make me gifts. Know you were gonna make me want to either until Hank told me. Yeah. Yeah, I did ask for his help. So what did you make? Kathy shows off to James, her key chain macaroni frame, duck tape while and fruit cake. Mom made me all that. Yeah. Okay. A fruit cake. Now, but it's a thought that counts and these things are so thoughtful. You really liked him? No. I loved them because they came from you. Your son. You want to hear the song I wrote now, Alice, Hank and Tessa arrive. Hey guys, you are just in time about to sing the song I wrote from my mom. Charlotte enters two. We can't right now, Have you seen Tommy? Yeah, he was just here but he said he's going to the game showroom, gameshow room. I didn't create one of those. Oh, Ray Garcia little did. I have 19 Zoom Rooms and nine closets. We need to get there. I have the link. Interior game sure. Rake our syllabus. Professional game show host placed his contestant is Tommy. All right, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for my favorite Zoom game pants. No pants. What did I sign up for? Week told half-hour guests to wear pants and a half of them to not wear pants. Are you ready? No, not really. Here is your aunt gertrude, bankers camera. What's your guests, Tommy? Opinions. Please be pants. Can I see pants? And Gertrude stands up. Tom, he closes his eyes. Yes, it is pants. Good. Tommy opens his eyes. Oh God. He makes a disgusted face and closes his eyes again. Jaws kidding, It wasn't bands are next model is Stabby Steve. Stabby Steve show us your down under. Tommy closes his eyes again. No pants. Tommy opens his eyes again and his discussed it fell forward again. Tessa, Alice, Hank, and Charlotte drop in here. Yes. Tell me Mrs. Claus, do you have pants on? Of course, I have pants on time and listen. Your dad told me everything. I'm sorry about our fight. Me to tell me I don't know how much longer I'll be away from me physically, put the day, get back. I want to marry you. What you really yes. So if I proposed, you'd say yes. Of course. What are you waiting for? Me, it looks around. His sisters urged him to do it. Okay. Here goes nothing. Gets out on Monday. Me we can't see you. Oh, sorry. Let me just adjust my camera. Justice camera and gets down to one so we can see him. Where are we? Okay. Past three years have been the best of my life. Your you're my best friend. And the constant sunshine I needed my life. Nobody makes me happier in this entire world. What would you do me the honor of marrying Oh, Tommy gloom Ugarte? Yes. Of course Everyone cheers, chaos, but good casts for like 5 s. I'm glad I got to be here for this one too. Congrats to the both of you. Hey, Alice, could you create a breakout room real quick? I just from me and my kids. James intestine. Sure. Interior breakout room day. Hank talks to his kids and their spouses. Hey, I just wanted to say thank you. You're welcome, dad. No. I really mean thank you. I know this year has been a rough one and I was kind of a scrooge this morning, but glad we got to do this. And going through all these virtual rooms was phon, I'm glad I got to see all these happy faces. Even your amylin that we didn't see at Linda's face. We don't need to. The point is thank you. I'm glad I got to call you. I get to call you my family. Thanks, Deb. We love you dad. I love YouTube. And Tessa, welcome to the gloom guardian family. I'm glad to be a part of it. Okay. Now for the sentimental stuff, Let's get back to the party. I want to hear James's saw here, years Zoom living room night. James is with the gloom Gardner family and most of the party. Okay. Alright, since I don't have a microphone, saxophone rather, I'm going to need some help with the musical bridge after the Second Law. Ready? Okay, Here we go. Music starts and everyone begins to dance as James sings. Zoom in around the Christmas tree. Yet the Chris moves, Paul Xu. I'm in a hotel to talk and that is green, but I'm still with all of you around the Christmas tree, lead the Christmas spirit swaying. Later, we'll share some Bosses market and do some dabbling. You will get that special feeling when you hear me saying Linda sounding, let's be jolly. Deck your halls but aware of all the zoom around the Christmas tree, yeah, the cruise news. Reading the happiest holiday in different virtual rooms. A special feeling when you hear me saying Linda shouting, let's you're aware of Holly's zoom around the girl's mystery, the Christmas party, celebrating happiest holiday and fraud. Virtue, who? Everyone cheers? Merry Christmas, everyone, Merry Christmas, merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. File's name is admitting. Fade out 32. Finding Producers, Directors, Managers and Agents : After you rewrite and finish your script and you know it's in great shape, then it's time to sell. In this lesson, we'll cover how to tell a screenplay. So you have your script done and it's in great condition. Now what? Well, first, you need to find and contact the people who will produce your script and pay you for it. To start this process, make a list of movies that are similar in tone to yours that have been released in the past five years. E.g. say you wrote a buddy comedy, then you want to find producers and directors who liked to make buddy comedies. If you go to sports movie, look up, produced sports movies over the past five years. Only look up movies and producers who make movies similar to yours. If you wrote a family comedy, you wouldn't submit it to bloom house because they only make horror unless it's a horror family comedy. If you try to send your script to producers who don't work in that genre. You're honestly just wasting your time. Focus on your genre. You want to make. This list consists of movies that came out over the past five years. Because a lack of change in five-years, many times people leave LA or just leave the industry altogether. So you'll have better luck finding a producer who produced a movie over the past five years, then ten years ago, the more movies you have on your list, the better. But I have at least ten movies. If you have 40 movies on your list, awesome. Once you make a list of at least ten movies, now IMDB will be your best friend. Go look up each of these movies on IMDB and scroll down past the cast and click on all cast and crew. Once you're on that page of cast and crew for that movie, scroll down again until you see produced by, then copy this list of producers. If the director isn't super well-known, add their name to your list. If it's someone like Steven Spielberg or jot APA tau or Elizabeth Banks, then you're probably not gonna be able to reach them. But you might be able to reach their production company. To find a production company. Click on company credits and also add this to your list. Just copy the production company. Don't worry about the distribution company. Distribution only comes once production is done. Make a list of all these contacts. I suggest using a Google spreadsheet to keep track of everything. But a Google Word doc works too, or even reading it on a list, on a notebook. Do the IMDB method for several movies, like dating. It's all a numbers game. The more people and production companies you reach out to, the higher your rate of success will be, and the more options you'll have before you sign a contract. I've been through the experience where you have several producers interested in a script and you talk and meet with them one-by-one. It's kinda like an interview process. After that, you get to choose which producer you want to sign with. Just in case you're new to the entertaining industry. Let's talk about the differences between producers, production companies, directors, managers, and agents. Producers are with the movie from beginning to end. Usually every movie has several producers and they do a lot of work from finding investors, cast and crew, to making call sheets every day onset. It's a lot of work being a producer. Many producers have their own production companies or are part of a production company. E.g. Jason Blum is the owner of bloom house. Dot apa tau has his own production company, APA style productions. And usually production companies are working on several movies at a time in various stages of development. A producer is usually mostly focused on one movie at a time. But then we'll hop into the next one once they finished filming a movie. Production companies usually favor a particular genre. This is not always the case. But you'll notice Blom house only focuses on horror. An epitope productions focuses on comedy. Also. Sometimes an executive producer may not do a lot of work, but they helped finance the movie. Or they may be an actor who's acting in the movie, but it's also getting a producer credit. When I was in college, I was a production assistant on the Keanu Reeves movie, Henry's crime. Keanu was also a producer on that movie. But we never talked to him about production stuff. He was 100% focused on acting. Director is the one with the vision and is the one most in-charge onset. They may be the ones who brought the project to the producers or in TV. The producers will bring the project to the director. When it comes to feature films, the movie is the director's vision. They usually do just as much or more work than a producer, but they do a different workload. A manager is someone who represents several writers. They wheel and deal and can get your screenplay sold or optioned to a producer or production company. However, they work on their own time. And if you want your manager to a lot of work for you, you have to establish a great relationship with them. Managers also tend to focus on your entire writing career. For every script they sell, they keep 10% Agent just tends to focus on one script at a time. Instead of your whole writing career, you never really talked to them about the future. Just the script you just finished. Like managers, agents will send out the script and try to sell it for you. And again, they charged ten per cent to do this. Managers and agents have nothing to do with the production process. In my career, I've had both management and agent representation. But honestly, I made most of my screenwriting money doing everything on my own. If you happen to land a manager or agent, make sure they work for you. The downside to having representation is you have to wait for them. If you're not there hottest and most requested a client, then you'll get lost in the shuffle. If you're trying to find a manager or an agent, make sure you have more than one completed script, have at least two or three completed scripts. And if you're looking for a good manager slash agent list, you can find it on the WGA website. I'll add the link also for your list of contacts you might already have. Once you've completed your list of possible people who can buy your screenplay, then it's time to contact them. And make sure you say and do all the right things. One-by-one. Take the names of the producers and directors you found and google them. You want to see if they're on Instagram or Twitter. I've had success reaching out to producers on both. But I'd say Instagram is the best bet because every inbox is open. On Twitter, they have to change their settings to receive messages from anyone. If a producer is really active on Twitter, they may have this option open. But on Instagram, you can message anybody. This doesn't necessarily mean that the reader message, but you can message anyone. Also. You may be able to find their e-mail by using IMDB Pro. If you don't have an IMDB profile yet with producer credits, I wouldn't pay for IMDB Pro just yet. But just the contact producers and directors. Imdb offers a three-day trial of IMDB Pro. I would sign up and use that and make sure you get everything you can out of it. Within those 30 days. Look up every producer and director you can IMDB Pro and then cancel that membership before they charge you. If you have an IMDB profile and some credits on there already and you can afford the annual cost of IMDB Pro. Then get it with IMDB Pro. You can add pictures and a lot more to your IMDB profile with IMDB Pro lookup production companies and see if you can find an email. Many production companies will have a general email for general inquiries if you can find them. I'm going to teach you a little trick on how to reach any person you want within a company, okay, so here's the trick. If you can find out how the production company ends their emails, then you can try different addresses to email the person you're trying to reach. So e.g. when I worked for Fox, my e-mail was just my first name dot last name at fox.com. Everyone who worked for Fox at the time had the fox.com email and pretty much everyone's e-mails was this format, first name dot last name at fox.com. It's been over ten years since I worked for Fox. They may have changed their email format, but this is what it was when I worked for them. If the first name dot last name doesn't work. You can also try first, initial, last name at production company.com. I worked for several production companies where this is the case. My email would be J, Emile Zola at that production company.com. Again, a trick is to try first name dot last name at production company.com, or first initial last name, production company.com. If you try one of these in the email bounces back, then try the other. If both bounce back, then I would try FirstName, LastName at production company.com and take out the period between the firstName and lastName. Also, a producer's email might already be on IMDB Pro. You just have to log onto Pro and click their name. You can also click on people who worked for the same company. If you find one person's e-mail, then you'll know the format of the person you're looking for. I also want to mention that you can simply call a production company and ask for someone's email. Some production companies on IMDB Pro may not provide an email, but they may have a phone number. Suppose they have a phone number, call them. I know we live in a society where we tax instead of call and I'm a text or an N of color myself. But the key is to not overthink it. Production companies get calls all the time, every day. And again, like dating, when you ask someone out, you just gotta go for it. If you overthink it, you will find reasons not to do it, or you'll make yourself nervous. And generally, people are nice over the phone. If you do call, it shows you have Initiative. Take a chance. If the producer you're trying to contact is a big time producer, they may not give you their email, but they might have a general email prescripts submissions. Or if that producer has an assistant, they may transfer you to their assistant and that assistant will provide you with their e-mail. I'll talk about assistance and interns and a little bit for landing a manager or agent. This is the same process. But look at the list from the WGA and call these companies. Once you find a public Instagram account, Twitter account, or have a producer's email, it's time to send a query letter or a query email or query dm. I'm just going to refer to this as a query letter from now on. But you catch my drift, it's super easy to make a mistake with the query. And many writers make the mistake of making their query letters TL TR. Tl TR is too long to read. You want your career letter to be short and snappy. Also, if you're messaging someone on Instagram or Twitter, you can only message up to a certain amount of characters. You don't want to send them several messages. You just want to send one excellent message. Here's a step-by-step process on what makes a good query letter. First, say hi, fill in their name. Taking advice from the great book, hard to make friends and influence people, there is no sweeter sound as someone than their name. If you're just copying and pasting the same message to a producer, they can usually feel that start with their first name and then say something personal. So they know this query letter is just for them. Good to say something about their last movie or hire a fan of this film or that film that they worked on. You wanna do a quick personal thing in one sentence. And then mentioned you have a script followed by your scripts title and logline. After your logline, write a quick synopsis about yourself or the script. Aim for two sentences and then end it. Maybe you write down some accomplishments you have. Say you have a produce rep series or an award-winning short film, mentioned that if your script is based on a true story, right? That it's based or inspired by a true story. If the script, one, any screenwriting contests, write that down. You want to have something that makes you and your script standout after that to sentence part right down your contact info. It could just be your name and email. But if you have a website or a phone number, you can add that too. If you feel inclined, you could do a very quick one sentence P, S. But make sure it's funny or grabs our attention somehow. I like to end some of my career letters by asking them if they liked the script in a PDF or Egyptian papyrus. This will often make the producer laugh. And then they reply back to me with Egyptian papyrus. I let them know I'll be working on the papyrus for the next few months. But in the meantime, here's a PDF. And that one thing I added to my query letter makes them want to respond. It helps to have a sense of humor from both sides. I've added an attachment that has so many query letters that have helped me land meetings and South scripts. If you're sending an e-mail for the subject line, if you have a great title for your script, you could use that. But if you don't have a title that will make them want to open the email, then you want to find something snappy. It's something that catch them off guard. Think of a subject line. They'll make them want to open their email, but also nothing spammy. If you have a complement for them, maybe use that. You want to have something intriguing in the subject line. Right now, work on a short and snappy query letter, and you can always use several drafts before you send it out. 33. Screenwriting Services: If you don't want to target and contact producers yourself, there are screening services you could use and these may help you. Keep in mind though, these services do cost money and there's no guaranteed results. I'd like to make money more than I like to spend money. So I favor a few of these more than others. But again, every script is different and my story is not the same as your story. Just because I didn't get good results from one of these services, doesn't mean you won't. With that said, let's start with the blacklist. Blacklist is a platform for writers to showcase their scripts and hopes that industry members will see them. You can also pay to get your work evaluated by readers. Let's talk about the cost for blacklist. Currently, the hosting fee for your script is $25 per month and a feature screenplay evaluation is $100 per read. This is one of the primary places and your script should be in top-notch condition if you want to be highly ranked on the blacklist. Alright, moving on. Ink tip. Ink tip is a Los Angeles based tech company that has a website and the monthly magazine. Writers pay a monthly fee and ink tip, send your logline to their database of producers. The magazine version is pretty cool. I, when I worked for my vista entertainment, I used to sort the mail and give the ink tip magazine to producers. Inside the magazine is titles of movies with their log lines. The current cost for Ink tip pro is $32.50 a month. It allows for one visible script and pitch requests for a month and access to ink tip contests. International screen urges Association. The International screener dissociation is a website that lets you apply to writing gigs and more. A producer will this things we're looking for, like a certain genre or type of cast. Or they want the script to be one location. If you have a script that matches this criteria, you can apply for these reading gigs. The cost today is $10 monthly. Selling your screenplay.com. I've tried out all the services I mentioned so far. And I didn't have any significant success. Granted, I didn't spend too long on each of those sites. So my sample size is small, but I will say selling your screenplay.com is the website I've had the most significant success with. Although I'll be honest, I know the guy who runs it, he wasn't my writing group for about seven years. And I was one of the first writers to do a query letter blast with selling your screenplay.com when the owner was testing it out. I still do a query letter blast now. And again, a query letter blast, by the way, when you write a query letter and this website will send it to several hundred producers at the same time. Then they will email you back directly if they request the script. This website is not as flashy as the other websites. I mentioned it before. But I have made money with this website. And they have a great script library for free, where you can read screenplays from the 1970s until today. And you can sign up for a free newsletter that has some great tips. S YS select, which is the service for selling your screenplay, currently cost 29, 97 per month or $299 a year. With S YS select, you can upload your screenplay is to their database, like Ink tip. But unlike Ink tip, there's no limit to how many scripts you can upload. They also send a monthly newsletter and you can choose which crypto yours you want to add to the newsletter. This is one of the services I do pay for on a monthly basis because they partnered with another service that I like called screenwriting staffing. Screenwriting staffing is a service that e-mails you leads from producers with selling your screenplay.com and screenwriting staffing, I get about five to seven leads per week. Like ISA, a producer, will be looking for a certain type of material, say a rom com, or a creature feature, or a low budget thriller. If you have a completed screenplay that matches what they're looking for, you can e-mail the producer directly with your logline and they may request to read the script. Like I said, I've had the most success with selling the screenplay.com and the screenwriting staffing leads that I get from the SYN select membership. But I will say if you're thinking about joining this, I recommend having many scripts first, maybe ten or more completed screenplays or TV specs. If you only have one script, then your one script might only match one lead for a producer. Maybe like once a month. I would say have ten completed scripts and various genres before joining this. Because then you'll have better adds a matching what a certain producer wants. I've made a lot more money from these services than the money I spent. But only because I have dozens and dozens of completed scripts. And there are some months. I don't get any script requests. The last service I mentioned is virtual pitch fast. This website lets you pick your logline to participating film and TV producers. They guarantee a yes or no response back within five business days. If a producer gives you a yes, then the requests to read the script, the current cost is $55 for five pitches. Once you get a yes for script requests from a producer, either through these services or by contacting them directly. Then you want to follow up until you get positive results. The next lesson, we'll go over how to follow up and the results you'll see after you get a script request from a producer or a production company. 34. Results and Follow Ups: After you've sent out a stellar query letter, here are the results of what could happen next. This list goes from worst-case scenario two best. So stay with me to see the most positive results. No response. This will be most people you're emailing or messaging. Don't take it personally. People are just busy. I'm like I said, this is a numbers game. If you don't get a response from someone, I'd say you can follow up twice, but if you don't hear back after the third attempt, stop trying. They either don't love your logline or they may be out of the business. They don't take unsolicited material. If their production company, producer, agent or manager is pretty big and busy, then you'll often get a response like this. It's usually sent by an assistant or sometimes the legal department. Now they say they don't take unsolicited material, but there are actually a couple of ways around this. One. Your logline is so good, they can't say no. I've had the experience before. Get an automatic email back from a company that says, we don't take unsolicited material. But then a day or two later, I'll get an email from someone at the company saying, Hey, we usually don't take us this material, but your scripts sounds really interesting. Can you send it over to they want another script of yours. If you have several scripts, start a website with all the log lines of your scripts. Again with no, once this material, I may get an automatic response saying we don't take unsolicited material. But then somebody from the company will email me saying they're not interested in the script I emailed about, but they are interested in an older script based on a logline I had on my website. Result number three, they request a script with the submission form. If the production company has a few films produced or more, they're interested in reading your script. They will ask for the script and ask you to fill out a submission form just to satisfy the legal department and just in case they're working on a movie that has similar elements. Take a look at these submission forums. 99% of the time. They are pretty standard. And it's just an agreement saying you can't sue them in case they have a similar idea that's already in the works. But still read this form. There are a few sketchy producers and production companies out there and never sign anything you're not comfortable with. If it seems sketchy and you can't find anything about the producer online. Or if they have no IMDB credits, that it's probably too sketchy and just don't respond to them. Result number for their requests, a script, and plan to read it. Sometimes you'll get an email right away where they request your script. And depending on the company, they may not have a submission form. Sometimes a producer may be really busy. So they may just reply with yes, send the PDF or something like that. It's like four words or less, but your logline excited them to want to read it. This is a good thing. Makes sure that the script is ready. Result number five, they request the script and read it that night. This has happened to me a few times and it's quite exciting when it does happen. The producer would be so strongly intrigued by the logline that they can't wait to read the script and they will read it that same night. You e-mail them. If they fall in love with it, They will call or email you that night or the next morning and request a meeting with you. We'll go over how to be good in a meeting and a bit. But right now, let's talk about follow-ups. How often should you follow up if you send a query letter and haven't heard back at all. This doesn't necessarily mean no. It just means they're busy. Feel free to follow up with them in two weeks. And then again in another two weeks. After the third email, they probably won't get back to you. Again. Don't take it personally. Follow-ups after they request the scripts. They requested the scripts and you haven't heard back from them. Feel free to follow up in three weeks. And then every two to three weeks after that. Just a gentle reminder, make your reply one sentence or two. But again, avoid t MTR. You might not hear response from them after an initial follow-up and that's okay. Not responding does not mean no. Again, they may be busy and there are plenty of reasons for that. Give people the benefit of the doubt. They may be onset, they may be on vacation. They may be a parent who has kids. There's 1 million reasons. So unless they state we pass or the script isn't the right fit for us. Keep trying. Always be polite. If you don't hear back from them, it's okay and never show anger in an email or they won't want to work with you. No matter what. Always be polite. Don't be buggy. One quick follow-up email every two to three weeks is good. Just say something like, Hey, so and so I was circling back to see if you had the chance to read the script. Hope you're having a good week. Or if there's a holiday coming up, wish them a happy Halloween or happy Thanksgiving or happy for 20, or find a reason to follow up. Say they had a new movie that just came out, go out and see that movie and then be like, Hey, I saw your new movie. I just wanted to say it was really good. You don't even need to mention your script, but this will gently nudge them because since you did something for them. Wanna do something for you. Keep following up once in awhile until they read the script and you get a clear yes, they're interested or no, they're not interested. Quick story. I sold a family comedy screenplay a few years ago. And their producer originally requested the script during the month of December. I followed up with them the first time in mid January of the next year. And they responded saying they didn't get a chance to read the script yet. Are then sets a follow-up e-mail that was one or two sentences about a month after that and never heard back, but not hearing back after they request the script does not equal no. They just may feel bad they didn't read the script yet. So they may not want to apply until they do. I kept following up once or twice a month until the email chain was me with eight emails and them with two emails. The first one from them was when they request the script, and the second one was in January saying they didn't get a chance to read the script. I gently kept following up with them with one sentence, emails still being super nice, but just giving them a little nudge. Then in August, they finally read the script and loved it. And they wanted to buy it. I sold it in September. And it was over nine months after my initial email with them when they requested the script. If I didn't follow up so much to nudge them, they probably would have never read the script. Keep following up in a nice way. You can follow up about once or twice a month until they give you a definitive answer. If it's a pass for them and they say No, that's fine. I always appreciate knowing the not-knowing because it wastes last time. And I'll finally stop e-mailing them. I simply say, thank you for letting me know and make sure I end on a positive note because you never know in this industry where that person will be in a few years, they may want to read your next script. So you want to build good relationships. Even if they pass on one script to yours, doesn't mean they always pass on you and your next script. I've had that happened to me where a producer will pass no script. I have one year, but then they will want to read another script and bias scripts I have later. So speaking of passing on a script, let's talk about pass, consider and recommend. If you're a script is submitted to a bigger production company or management company, the chances are the producer or manager you're trying to reach out to, well, not actually read the script, at least not at first, if that person has an assistant or intern, they'll probably be the first one to read your script. I've done this job myself for a management company in Beverly Hills. And my boss would never read the script sent to her unless I gave it a recommend. She would read drafts of scripts from clients she already had, but not new clients unless I recommended them. In the entertainment industry, there's three grades. Pass, consider, and recommend. Pass is about 85% of scripts or producer or manager will get. This means the script has a lot of flaws or it's not good enough to invest money into the script to make it. So you will pass on the script, like if you're playing a game and you pass on your turn, you wanna go to the next script. Consider is about 12% of scripts or producer or manager will get an assistant or intern will consider a script. When the screenplay has a lot of potential, the script may have a weak act or needs more character work or something, but it's still in pretty good shape. Recommend is what you aim for when you send your script to producers, directors, and managers. This is about 3% or less of what producers and agents get. A recommend is when a script is in great shape and you cannot wait to see this as a movie. When I interned at that Beverly Hills management company, I only gave a recommend reading to two scripts the entire time I was there. The script has to hook the reader so they can't put the script down. The first reader must tell their boss. This must be a movie. Then the producer or a manager will read it only after it's been recommended by someone they trust. If you want that recommend rating. These are the things they look for. I've done script coverage for hundreds of scripts, if not thousands, and every management and production company I've worked for, looks for these things. Concept is the concept original? Does it work? Does it have a hook? Is the script a great example of its genre? E.g. if it's a comedy, is it funny? If it's a horror, is it scary? If you saw this in a movie theater, would you walk out satisfied characters? Is the hero or heroes likable? Or do we at least want to root for them? Is the hero actively pursuing a clear goal? Is the hero relatable to the general public? Does the hero have a character arc? Is there a strong antagonist? Are the supporting characters interesting and distinct? Is it castable? Would actors want to play these characters? Dialog? Do the supporting characters have a distinctive voice that stands out from the hero? Is the dialogue clever and not on the nose? Is the dialogue snappy and relatively easy for an actor to memorize. Formatting a grammar. Is the script accurately formatted? Is the script free for misspelled words and typos? Marketability? Is this story marketable. Does this movie have a clear audience? Is the audience large enough for the movie to make a profit? Story to the first ten pages hook you. When does the second act sustain your interest? Is the third act satisfying? Is there strong conflict from start to finish? Is the exposition handled nicely? Is the story compelling and doesn't have a strong narrative drive? Make sure your script can answer all these questions. So it gets a recommend. Besides these, I want to go through a quick checklist to make sure your script is in great shape. Makes sure the script is fun. We go to movie theaters because it's fun. So make sure your script is fun. Don't have too much action description. Amateur writers often use way too much action description. It slows the pace of the script and so often allow the action description isn't needed. To tell you the truth what I did coverage at the Beverly Hills management company. If I ran into a script with a ton of action description, I would stop reading at after about page 20. And I would just read the dialogue from then on because it was more fun for me. I don't have on the nose dialogue. We can forgive a little on the nose dialogue. But if a script is full of it, then it shows a lack of creativity from the writer. Handle exposition in clever ways. If characters are talking in paragraphs about their backstory and it's clear exposition, just to get the expedition out, then it's not fun. Make sure the exposition is hand through moments where we don't realize that it's exposition. Show, don't tell, why have your protagonist tell us about a moment when we can see it as something life-changing happened to protagonist, then show it to us. Don't just talk about it. We might not remember every piece of dialogue, but we'll remember when we see a scene that change the protagonist, fade in and fade out only once. There should only be one fade-in at the very top of your script and one fade out at the very bottom. Amateur writers put more of these in the middle of their scripts and you can tell right away that they are amateur. Aim for less than 120 pages, especially in comedy. Sure, there's an exception to this. But your story better be incredible. A script from a first-time writer that's 144 pages is just a headache to the reader. For the most part, people don't want to read scripts over 110 pages. If a reader has the choice to choose a screenplay that's 94 pages, and a screenplay as 115 pages, they're much more likely to choose the 94 page script. If you have things that you can cut, cut them, be a good example of your genre. I already mentioned this a couple of minutes ago. If you're going to submit a comedy, makes sure we laugh. Pump up the jokes and scenes that need jokes before submitting, if you're reading a thriller, give us some thrills. We want scripts that are page turners. Avoid characters with similar names. Don't have a Josh, Jake, John, and Jeff. It gets confusing when you keep reading names that start with the same initial, makes sure those first ten pages are phenomenal. I know I mentioned this before, but I really want to emphasize that the first ten pages of a screenplay are the most important. They have to hook the reader to want to read the rest of the screenplay. Once we are hooked, it's easier to forgive other parts of the screenplay. But if we're not hooked, they'll pass in the screenplay and a lot of people might not even finish it. The ending is super-important to directors wealth and change the middle of the script. But if they loved the beginning and end, then there'll be more inclined to make it, make sure the script isn't present tense. I see this all the time by amateur writers and it's so easy to do. I sometimes have to catch myself as well. When I write in past tense. Past tense is when you write something like Diana is sitting on the chair, but this should be Diana sits on the chair making it present tense, uses less words and letters, making the script a faster read for the reader. Screenplays are written in present tense. Titles are okay to have past tense words, but action lines always need to be in present tense. Go over your script to make sure you're doing all the correct things to get that recommend. The next lesson we'll cover what happens after your script gets recommended and what to do once you land a meeting. 35. Meetings and Money: So you found the producers interested in buying your script and they want to meet you. Here's how to have a great meeting. Don't be late. Think of Murphy's Law. If something can go wrong, then it will go wrong. So if you're in Los Angeles, you know, there's gotta be traffic. It doesn't matter if it's 11:00 P.M. on a Wednesday, there's still traffic somewhere. La is the city of traffic. They say it's the City of Angels. But in 13 years of living in LA, I've never seen anyone with a halo or Wings. I've only seen in long lines of cars plan to get there an hour early. For feature screenplays, you usually don't need to prepare a pitch because the script is already done and they read the script already, hopefully. But if you're meeting with them about a TV show, then gets in the meeting location super early, find a coffee shop nearby and keep practicing your pitch. I plan on having future classes about pitching, so click on my profile to check those out later. Well, my friend and writing partner jared summers and I had a meeting at 3 yd about our TV show, romantically hopeless. Based on a web series I created. We arrived at the three arts building super early, found a restaurant next door and practice our pitch. So we had it memorized. Practice makes pitches perfect. And many times people ask questions during your pitch. So you need to remember how to get back on track with the pitch. If they interrupt you with a question, if the company office has a waiting room, you can arrive 10 min early, but I want to go earlier than that. More than 10 min makes it seem weird and desperate. And if you are desperate, that's fine. But don't act like it. If you're weird, then this will probably work for you. Our weirdness makes us unique and memorable, but don't be crazy, weird, just basic weird. If you don't live in LA, by the way, good for you. And since the pandemic, you don't need to live in LA anymore, you can ask for a virtual meeting. Real-life meetings versus virtual meetings. Zoom meetings are now commonplace. So many of us work from home now or in a hybrid working environment. And it's more accessible than ever to be a screenwriter and another city. If this was before 2020, I would say you have to be in LA, but not anymore. What should you wear? So luckily, writers aren't expected to wear a suit, but you also don't want to dress up like a complete slob. I want to wear a t-shirt, but I would aim for business casual. It's okay if you're better dressed than them, but don't come in with a tuxedo. You want to show that you're professional and want to make a good impression. It's okay to be nervous. As long as you're likable, it's okay to be nervous. If you are, if you are, you can tell them you're nervous. They actually liked this Item meeting wants with an Emmy winning comedy producer who loved my TV show idea. Grandma knows best. She was one of the most successful people I've ever met. And her long career of working at successful sitcoms made me nervous. She won an Emmy and worked in a bunch of shows and I loved, I think she could tell I was nervous, but before I went into my pitch, I told her I was nervous. And that's kinda helped ease the room. I can't remember exactly what she told me. But it was something like you don't need to be nervous. And that helped me. Also. It's important to be likable. It's better to be nervous and likable than to be complaining and unlikable. In general, don't say anything negative about anything. Even if you saw terrible movie The night before, I wouldn't complain about this. Because you never know if they have connections to someone who worked on that movie. If they mentioned a movie they don't like, you can agree with them and you want to find common ground. But for the most part, B, positive. People like to work with positive people. Let's talk about general meanings. Know the difference between a general meeting and a meeting where you're selling the script. Sometimes producers will like your script and just ask for a general, this is a meeting where they just want to get to know you. Sometimes you'll get a general meeting before you get another meeting where you sell the script. And a lot of times you might just get a general meeting and knocking and meeting when you saw this grabs. A lot of times. They'll tell you a few minutes ends in the meeting that the script you sent isn't what they want to make right now. They liked your writing style and voice. Take this as a win. You're still meeting with them. And the fact that you're there means they already like you and they probably want to keep you around for something else. I'll talk about this with my own experience later. Smalltalk and rapport. Don't jump into a meeting right away by talking about your script. Buyers want to make sure you're not crazy first. They want to make sure they get along with you first and they like you. Maybe prepare a few interesting and unique questions. People love talking about their accomplishments. So feel free to ask about those. Let them bring up the script. When you first meet, don't bring up the script right away. Ask how they're doing or find something in their office or environment to talk about, or even better, talk about them. If they produced a movie you like to talk about it, give them a compliment. Again, I recommend the book how to make friends and influence people. And in this book talks about how everyone loves compliments. You want to have good banter. Don't talk way more than them, but just have a conversation. When the time is ready. They'll bring up the script. They'll say something like, Okay, well let's talk about your screenplay. Listened to their notes, and don't disagree with them in the meeting. If you disagree with the note, it's not going to help situation if you say you disagree right there and then for now, say, I'll think about it, or even better, sometimes they'll have a note you actually will agree with. You can tell them that's a great note and say something like, I will definitely apply that if they pay for your meal or drink, that's a good sign. Many times a producer will suggest a coffee shop somewhere. It's just a good mutual safe place for everyone. I've had about 50% of my meetings at coffee shops. They suggest if they offer to pay for your drink or meal, say yes and enjoy it. Who doesn't love free things? When I option a Christmas screenplay a few years ago, the producer pay for my lunch and drink. He also loved the script, told me his plan to produce it and brought the contract there and a check and a nice envelope. It's strange, but the times have had producers pay for my meals or drinks. It's a good sign that they'll give you money soon. There's been a few times where I paid my own food and drink and the script ended up going nowhere with them. This may not always be the case, but it's something I noticed. Four more good tips. I would look at the book, good in a room by Stephanie Palmer. You can also listen to the audio book version. Come in with more ideas. Sometimes our producer isn't interested in making the script. You sent them, but they like your writing. So they want to meet with the writer. They sometimes will ask for a general meeting, or sometimes they don't tell you what the general meeting and you think they want your script, but really they just want to meet you because they may have something for you in the future. The first screenplay I ever sold, I met with a producer who read and lights another one of my screenplays, that one was called Man, I feel like a woman. It was about two female stand-up comedians who cross dress to prove women can be just as funny as men, but they're alter egos become more famous than there. But he immediately told me in the meeting that the script wasn't right for him. They caught me off guard at first. But the director, like my writing voice and asked me about other scripts. I wrote several screenplays before this. And again, the logline for each of those. He wasn't in love with any of those either. Then I told them about the one I was currently working on. I told them I was working on a feel-good comedy about a boy trying to kill himself. I only had the first act finished, and I told them what happened in the story so far. And he loved this idea. And when I told him, I've finished that script a couple of months after that meeting and he option the script after I sent them a complete draft a year-and-a-half later when the option was about to end. I actually forgot about it until I got my first five-fingered check in the mail and the script sold. We'll talk about the differences between actioning and selling in the next lesson when we talk about money. But for all your meetings, remember this, leave the meeting on a positive note. About 95% of the meetings I've had with producers are fun, especially because they've already read the script and they like it. But every now and again, you might meet a producer who might be a ******. Really think about if you want to work with that person, especially if they want to rewrite, if they gave you a bad first impression, then you may want to shop the script around elsewhere, but always end the meeting on a positive note. Say it was nice meeting them even if it wasn't. And even if they are Du Shi, You can still do this. Have fun. If you had fun during a meeting. Chances are they had fun too. Even if you start the meeting with being nervous, eventually, you can get out of being nervous and just have fun in the meeting. People in this industry wanna work with other people who are font. This industry is often filled with long hours and it's easier when you work with fun people. After a great meeting with the people who want to give you money. Let's talk about money now. Let's talk about the final steps, reviewing and signing your contract, making money and what to expect after you get paid. Let the script go. Once descriptive sold, you have to let it go. It's like letting a kid go to college. You won't know what happens to them, but you hope for the best and hope they grow even more. Sometimes producers and directors will change a lot of the script, but that's part of it. Get paid to rewrite in your contract. You may be asked to write a second draft or third draft. Or the contract may let them rewrite it themselves or higher. Another writer I've been hired to punch up scripts before in the contract. If you're getting paid to rewrite, I'd advise, make sure there's a stopping point and the money is worth it for you for every rewrite, I say this because some producers don't know what they want or they keep changing their minds. And you don't want to be working for free when they want to change something every day. If you think there's a chance the producer won't make it, you can put somewhere in the contract that the rights will go back to you. I saw the movie wants we're after seven years. If the film isn't produced than the rights go back to me. That was over four years ago. And I haven't heard much from that producer. Producers say things. So just a heads up. When you meet with a producer and they want to buy your movie, they're going to say a lot of things. So you sign the contract and they own the rights to the movie. They may make promises that realistically they're not going to keep. But keep this in mind. Making a movie is hard work. The producer may think it may be easier to make it sooner than later. But the truth is, making a movie is a lot of work and you need to build a team of cast and crew. I once option to movie where the Bruce was so excited about the script. We had lunch and they paid for it. And they made promises that if they can only make one movie, it would be this movie. I had a few offers on the table for the script, but I believed in this producer and I thought if I sign the contract with them, the movie will get produced within a year. Well, I signed the contract over three years ago and that producer produced other movies, but didn't produce mine yet. It happens. And it just wasn't meant to be. But hey, at least I still got the money from the option and a free lunch. Ask for residuals in your contract. For a screenwriter, This is usually between 1% and 4%. Most of mine are 3%. And then times I got 4%, I took less money upfront than I usually would getting paid to rewrite. Sometimes they'll give you extra money to rewrite and do another pass. And sometimes they don't. But if they do want you to rewrite, get paid for it, this should be a separate check and in the agreement, it should say that you're getting paid to rewrite. Honestly, I would put a limit as to how many rewrites you can do. It really depends on the producer, but some producers who don't have a lot of experience often don't know what they want. I'll apply their notes for a rewrite. And then they just want me to switch it up back to the way the script originally was, because they changed their mind and didn't like their changes. If I add a rewrite to my contract or they want one, I will do one rewrite or two at most, or the money better be worth it. If they keep asking for your rewrites, the writer should always be getting paid. How to get paid for the script itself. You'll probably get paid by check either in a meeting or they'll mail the Chaco to you. Usually the first track they give you will be in person, but cheques After that are usually in the mail. I'll talk about writing jobs really quick for punch ups on other scripts or writing assignments where the producer has an idea and they want to hire you to write it. For most writing jobs I take from independent producers. I get paid half before I started the job, and a half after when I finish it. Over the past ten years, most of the money I get paid for it for writing jobs is through PayPal and still a lot of my writing jobs are paid through PayPal. But with Venmo becoming more and more popular, I'm getting paid with Venmo more and more. After you get paid, enjoy the money and reward yourself for all your hard work. Selling a script isn't easy, but it is worth it when it happens. 36. More Advice on Selling and Optioning Screenplays: Recently, I was a guest on the Christmas movie Screener Podcast, where I shared advice on how I've sold in Option screenplays and the success I've had with my holiday movie Christmas Sacation. If you're interested in writing Christmas movies, this is a great podcast to check out. It's hosted by Karen McCann and you can find the podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you Podcast. The following is the episode I was a guest on. Enjoy this episode from the Christmas movie Screenwriter Podcast. This is the Christmas movie Screenwriter Podcast episode number 11. Hello and welcome to the Christmas movie Screenwriter Podcast. I'm your host, Karen McCann. The Christmas movie screenwriter is a podcast about writing, producing and selling Christmas movies. I publish a transcript with every episode in case you want to look at something or read it later. Just go to the website at www riarew and look for this episode, which is number 11. A quick few words about what I'm working on. I am just about finished with a rewrite of a Christmas script. I gave myself till end of January, so it looks very good. Now before I do any rewrites on this one, I'm going to write another script. That way, I think it'll be easier to do rewrites on my current script because there'll be a little more time between the first draft and subsequent rewrites. I also plan to enter a European screenwriting contest. I've never entered one before, so a European one before. This is a new approach. I'll let you know in the fall if I had any luck. I'm also toying with the idea of rewriting a holiday script to be shot in China or Taiwan. As some of you know, I lived in Hong Kong and China, so always I'm attracted to Asian stories. That's an idea I need to decide on. So many ideas, so little time as they say. Now here is the main segment. Jordan mio is a comedy screenwriter from Buffalo, New York. He has sold several screenplays and is the show writer of many comedy series. During the pandemic lockdown in 2020, Dordan wrote and directed the Award winning feature film Zoom comedy Christmas staycation. Now streaming on TB and on DVD everywhere. Jordan's newest feature Rom com. Love at First Spite is in post production. Jordan's newest Christmas movie. My fiance still believes in Santa is in pre production. Well, Jordan, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Karen. Thank you. Now, can you just take a minute and I told the audience a little bit about you, but let's hear more. Let's take a minute and tell us about yourself and your work. Yeah, sure. So I was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. I love it. And then I went to college at Buff State, which is a college over here. Study in accidentally fell into writing there. I took a TV writing class and I fell in love with it. And so I and then they had a new major called TV and Film Mart. So I was in that first class. It was like 15 people a year get accepted. And I was in that first class, and pretty much in that major, teach you how to write movies and TV shows and produce. We did a bunch of short films. We had to direct and produce. And then they help you get internships, and I got an internship with Fox in 2009, pretty much, I spent the summer before I graduated. I spent in LA interned at Fox, and then did Warmer Semester at Buffalo State And then graduated and a week later, I drove across country lived in LA for 12 years. Wow. Yeah. And then yeah, then the pandemic just changed everything. But I got to produce the Christmas movie, which was awesome. Then my wife and I moved back to Buffalo last year and got a house because we could afford a nice house over here. Yeah. I'm still writing a ton. I feel like nothing compared to LA. I'm still writing. I'm actually maybe writing more here. Really? Okay. Go because the season change, and that always helps with deadlines. We summertime, I always every summer, I have one dedicated screen play I'm going to finish. When it comes in the fall, I like I want to write something Halloween, and I can feel can see the leaves out here. Then for the holiday time, I tend to write or I rewrite Christmas screenplay right now, I'm rewriting something I wrote last year. I guess I'll talk about that ear Trading holidays is the film I'm right now, and it's about Three families. One celebrates Christmas. One celebrates Hanukkah. One celebrates Kwanza, and they trade holidays. Oh, that's neat. December. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Well, sort of sort of answered my first question, you know, how did you break into the Well, my first question is, can you share your journey of breaking into the industry as a Christmas movie screenwriter? Was staycation your first Christmas movie or was there something else? Produced Christmas we produced, but I probably wrote a few before that. I wrote my fiance still Blues and Santa. I wrote that originally. 2018. Yeah. I think I wrote that. It's so much easier to write a Christmas movie around the holiday time. Yeah, that's right. So I always try to whenever the day after Thanksgiving hits, I'm like, All right, I'm plugging in at this holiday movie, Christmas movie. But then as soon as January 2 comes, January 2, I'm like, I'm over it. I'm like, Okay. Again, I use the seasons to my advantage or use the holidays in the year to my advantage to write. But yeah, I think I wrote I probably wrote three or four other Christmas movies. But Christmas vacation, how that came about was 2020, you know, was the worst year ever. Okay. I lived in the middle of Hollywood, and we were in lockdown for so much longer than everywhere else. I went back home to Buffalo for Christmas that year and everything was open. But here in LA, everything was closed. But anyways, how that came about is I think I was depressed for like four or five months, and then I was like, everything I wrote, I just did not like in that year. The energy for that year was sad too sad. But then I thought of the idea, I'm like, Well, no one can really travel home for the holidays or like, you know, they're not supposed to travel home for the holidays this year because, you know, COVID and pandemic and all that. And I was like, what if I wrote a movie about a family who can't see each other or can't be with each other on Christmas, but they decided to throw a Christmas party on Zoom. Yeah. And then I kind of had that idea, and I kind of worked backwards from that. And I was like, Okay, I got the main character, and she has to convince her dad that this is going to be fun and convince her family to come along and make the best of it. Yeah, I pretty much just recruited a bunch of my actor friends, and we would do table reads before we shot it. And we just had a blast making it. It was just something to do because none of us could really leave our houses at that point. Smart smart. Yeah. I mean, it was so much faster than real life production because it's all on Zoom. Yeah. No. And saves money and saves money. Yeah, yeah, saved us a ton of money, and then we made it, and it turned out really funny, and I loved it. I still love it. And we got distribution. We finished it. We finished it like December 10, and just put it on YouTube. We had a Tu premiere just for like the cast and crew. And then they shared it with all their friends and family on YouTube. And then, and then I found distribution for it like the following year because it kind people were talking about it, and then yeah got distribution in 2021, and then I got on DVD and on TV and a bunch of other streaming services. Congrats. How do you balance meeting audience expectations and staying fresh and not predictable or cliche. Oh, that's a load of question. I would say, Well, for me, I write a lot of comedy. So I think, in terms of expectations, you want to make people laugh. And anything I write, I do multiple table reads of it. Every time I do finish a draft, I'll do a table read of it and then do another draft and then do a table read with it. At a table read if anyone who doesn't know what that is. It's when you get a bunch of friends together or actors. Usually, a lot of my friends are actors. We do it mostly on Zoom now because again, the pandemic changes everything. Yeah, we kind of read the whole thing I divvy up parts to all my friends, and then we read the whole thing, and then I kind of keep track of when there's a big laugh or if a joke doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah. So any jokes that don't work, I will tweak to make them funnier, or I just cut them altogether. But you can really feel the rhythm of each scene too to see if a scene's too short or too long or not funny or funny, blah blah. Yeah then in terms of keeping it fresh, I just try to do things that have never never been done before. A Christmas movie on Zoom was never been done before. So, that was March March. Yeah. And it was very current at the time, because that's what everyone everyone was doing in their meetings. I mean, my job, you know, I I was working for a production company at the time and come March 13, they're like, never go back to the office ever again. So Okay. Everything was on Zoom. So it was very current to that year. Yeah. You watch the movie? I mean, the movie is still hilarious. There's jokes that I think. Yeah. I thought it was great. I thought it was. Thank you. Yeah. I love the older woman character looking for, yeah. Whoop. Audience, you have to watch it to figure that out. Now, after you finish the script and it's ready to go out, what's your next step? And how do you move it towards getting into pre production into production? So if it's something I'm trying to. I feel like for me, sometimes I try to I write something. I'm like, I want to make this myself, and I can kind of get people like Christmas vacation. I did that. Instead of trying to sell it out there, I made it myself. And when I write those scripts, I tend to think about that as I'm writing them like, Okay, how is this going to keep it low budget? How is it going to be possible for me to make this? Who do I know who could play this part. But on the other side, if I'm trying to sell a script, after I'm done with it. I'll write a first draft and the first draft is always just for me. I tend to write first drafts. I don't know. I like three or four months. I do that just for me. Yeah. My thing this whole thing is usually I usually write them out of order, and then I put them in order and have a really terrible first draft, but I can understand it. And then I kind of cut things and change things and make things funnier, and then my second draft or third draft, that's the kind of the first one I share with other people. And I just share that with friends or I'll do table read with friends that I know who that I trust. Okay. I never really try to go outside my circle in those first few drafts. But then once I do that and I have a couple of table reads and I know the script is getting into good shape and everything's making sense and the rhythms good and the jokes work. Once it's in good shape, I will try to sell it or option it. And for that, let's see. I I actually teach a whole class about this, but I pretty much find production companies that if it's Christmas scripts, I find production companies who make Christmas movies. For me, I'm most similar to comedies. I try to find comedy production companies. You never really want to reach out to a production company who doesn't work in your genre, because you're just kind of wasting time on both ends. But you want to make sure you find a produci company that's in your genre. So a lot of times I'll go on to B P and find a production company or if I have, you know, some connections, somehow, I'll reach out to those connections. Sometimes, I find a producer who, you know, does certain type of movies like certain genres or, you know, I wrote a family comedy. I'll find a producer who does family comedies, see if they're on Instagram. Or see if they're on Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. Many people don't think about that. But like, especially Instagram, you can message anyone. Doesn't mean they're going to reply back. It's like a one in ten chance, but still if I send out 100 messages on Instagram, ten of them are going to get back to me, usually. Are you just trying to start a relationship on those Instagram messages or are you saying, hey, I've got the script? Would you like to look at a synopsis? Um. It kind of depends. I would say sometimes because I do have my own podcast, too, and sometimes I just try to make relationships on Instagram or you know, I want to pick their brain. But if I'm trying to I mean, if I'm just trying to sell it, I just sometimes just send them a log line and a very short message. You want to send a log line. Log line is usually 30 words or less. Don't go more than 30 words. But a message that's not too long because if it's too long, no one's going to read it. But if you have a short message and it's like, Oh, it kind of grabs their attention, that that might have them, they might be like, Okay, send me a PDF of the script. And there's also like services you can use to like I do screenwriting staffing. And with screenwriting staffing and pretty much, I mean, I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a lot of scripts. But with that, it's like a monthly service you pay for, and a lot of producers will say what they're looking for. Like for example, I sold a script on that. It's great. And it was about, This actress was looking for a role she could play. So it had to be a female led comedy Um, I can't remember what else she was looking for. But pretty much I had I had a movie about a woman who hates kids and ends up adopting the worst kid imaginable. And it's kind of like it's like her journey of becoming a mom and, like, thinking how much she's going to hate it. But then in the end, she's like, Oh, my gosh, I actually love being a mom. And it's the kid, it's kind of the same thing where es and want parents, but then he ends up like trusting this person. Yeah, anyways, screenwriting staffing is how I found that. And sometimes they have Christmas leads too, we're looking for holiday movie that takes place in Canada or takes place and they do one location or they look for specific things. I mean, I've tried to also multiple different services. A lot of them you got to pay for, and a lot of them aren't really worth it. But I'll just try to, I'll try all things I can until someone wants the script I was also virtual pitch fest and stuff like that. But a lot of it is also like just you have to keep not keep asking. You have to keep in contact with them constantly constantly every two or three weeks. You kind of reach out be like, Hey, did you get a chance to read the scripts or, like, Hey, happy Thanksgiving, just to remind them like, Hey, I exist. You have my scripts. That's right. For me, a lot of times after like seven or eight times, they finally read the script, and they're like, Oh, my gosh, I love the script, and I'm like, I'm glad I e mailed you some persistence. Persistence. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You need a lot of persistence in this. Now, how would you balance the Christmas elements with Ed Genres. I mean, you've got the comedy in which you mentioned, but something maybe like a heist to create something unique and appealing. Would that be interesting buyers would be interested in that. If they make those type of movies or if they have an actor in mind for type of movies, yeah I would definitely say so. Or if you have a log line that's so good, you know, if someone's trying to steal I don't know, the Rockefeller Christmas tree, How are you going to do that? There you go. That's your next script. Yeah. Very extensive extensive script. Yeah. But if you have something let's go to If you're going to interest a producer who has money, that's a good thing. Whatever is going to make them be like, Oh, I got to read the script. I want to know what the story is. That's how you do it. So I think you can mix genres as long as it's interesting enough to the person who wants to buy it or make it. Right. Now, how would you suggest screenwriters expand their network of producers? You did mention the Mr Pitchfst screenwriting staffing. But do you recommend film markets if so, which ones or competitions or I mean, you did mention online platforms like those two above. Yeah. That is a good question. I don't know if I Do you go to film markets? No, I don't really go to film markets too much. Interesting I've done it if I had before. Okay. Wow. So, this is great. I think, you know, sometimes walking around the AFM where you are walking 5 miles a day down those halls. I mean, it really adds up. But yeah, you know, there's 1 million ways in. Would you besides do you recommend competitions or any other ways for screenwriters to network with producers? If your script is super super good. Yes. I've entered I feel like I entered a ton of competitions for like the first five years I was in LA, and a lot of them cost money. So you're spending $20 here, 40 bucks here. 60. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. So if you know your script has to be in top notch shape, and I would have other people read it before you submit it. Don't make the first person, you're submitting it to someone over there. Like give it to a friend, have it someone proof read it, make sure the grammar's correct. If it's a comedy, make sure it's funny, if it's a horror, make sure it's scary. I feel like I won a competition once and it didn't really affect the script at all because I sold that script, but it had nothing to do with the competition, which was funny to me. So you just never know. Yeah, you, you really never know. But I would say if you're going to do some, only do a handful, choose the ones you really think you have a shot at or the prize is worth it, or like, Because if you do all of them, the money will add add up so much. It might just be better for you to take that money and make your own movie. There you go. Yeah. I like that. I like that idea better. Now, you answered my next question, which was, do you attend film markets to pitch your projects? The answer is no. Really you're pitching them yourself. Do you try to find a representative or do you have a rep? I did and they didn't really do anything for me. I'm. That's good to know. Yeah, I mean, Yeah. I had an agent one time and she promised a bunch and then I never really saw it delivered. And then she quit during the pandemic. I never saw that. Yeah. Yeah. I, I pretty much do a lot myself, but I think D. Yeah. But the more I do, the more I build up that resume and. People like I've done a lot of stuff I've done is short stuff. So people want to see things I've done, they can go I have a series called Monster therapy, and it's about monsters and marriage therapy. So it's like Jason and his wife and or Freddie Kruger and his wife. All those they're like 2.5 minutes long so people can watch that in like 2.5 minutes kind get an idea of like what I write and then they reach out. So I think it's good to have some short stuff because if you do a movie, that's dedication. That's a whole two hour block of someone's time. But asking someone to watch something for 2.5 minutes, everyone does that pretty much every day on youtube anyway. Yeah. That's good to know. What is your favorite script that you've written and why? That's my favorite script I've ever written and why. That is a good question. Because a lot of times, if I'm really into something, it's like my favorite thing at that time. Right. But then when I look back years later or, like, a lot of the some scripts that are the most successful for me aren't necessarily my favorite thing. And some of my favorite things had never gotten made. But the one I'm thinking about though, Right now, maybe it's because of the holiday time, and maybe because I'm on a Christmas podcast, but it's probably my fiance still plays in Santa. Okay. Good answer, it's still one of my favorites. I wrote the first draft in like a month and a half. And then I punched it up here and there. It's got everything I love when I watch a movie. It's got a lot of good jokes. It's got a lot of comedy. It's got a lot of heart, it's got relationship, struggles, lot of family stuff. Yeah, Log line for that, it's pretty much about a guy who wants to ask his girlfriend to marry him. But when he asked her family for their blessing, they tell him, Listen, she has not stopped believing in Santa Claus for 35 years. And if you're going to ask her, you have to do this for the rest of your life. You have to find the Santa to come down the chimney every single year. And he wants to take her to see his family that Christmas. So it takes place in Buffalo and in Cape Cod. He wants to take her to Cape Cod and he has to now convince his family that A, she's not crazy. B, can you help me find someone to go down the chimney on Christmas Eve so she can see Santa. And then, find the logistics of getting Santa back on the roof or whatever. So, I've option it a couple of times and I've gotten super close to making it and then, things happen, like the Sag strike or the Penumon Okay. So every time the scripts, not available or you know, something happens and then it becomes available again. So I one's listening and they have money and they want to make it, let me know because that script is available right now. All right. Well, we'll put that in the showdes. Yeah. Now, that leads perfectly you kind of set this up, ads having a script fall through or getting close with the pandemic or fall out is stressful. So getting a movie made can be stressful. So how do you maintain a work life balance? Do you have any hobbies? Besides writing. I mean, I guess writing isn't really. My wife always tells me she's like, you need to get more hobbies, like, all you do is write. You got a podcast. Yeah, yeah. I got a podcast, which is also about screenwriting. That's the deadline junkies screenwriting podcast. And we interview TV show runners and TV writers and some movie writers as well. Yeah. What else do I do? I mean, it's weird. All my hobbies somehow I have to do with writing. Like, if I watch TV, I'm thinking in the background, like, Oh, that joke was so good or like I think about the ending or how it's going to end or whatever. Yeah. What else do I do? You're dedicated you're dedicated. I would say I would say making your own stuff, too. Like if I'm always if I can do a short film and I really have a small amount of time, I will do that. I went camping like a month ago. My friends and I were all drinking and my friend was like, should should make a short film, and I was like, Yeah, man, let's do it. And then the next day when they were all sober, I'm like, Okay, guys, I got the script, let's do this. And they were like, What? So I had to force them to, like, do it. I was like, you guys are so going ho about this at 3:00 A.M. Why not now? Yeah, when the sun rises, you know, who knows? Yeah. So what advice would you give to your younger self? Oh, I don't know. That is a good question. Because I feel like as you get older, you don't realize how hard it is to break in or make a movie or selll in it. But I don't know if I would tell myself that I might discourage myself. But I would say, what advice would I give to my younger self? You know what? Right every day. There you go. I think that's something I'm better at now. And I've done I mean, I've been pretty good with it, but I think if you're serious about screening writing, you have to write every day or at least I do the five minute a day rule, where it's like, before I go to bed, I wrote for at least 5 minutes or like I open the script on my computer and I punch up some jokes or whatever. But usually, if you do 5 minutes, sometimes your brain wants to go into gear and do a lot more or sometimes it's just like, I don't want to, but at least it stays in you're subconscious. So the next day, it's going to be easier for you to think about what you wrote or the script itself or whatever. Yeah, I would I would say you right every day if you're young or even if you just getting into screenwriting and you're a lot older, like, just get into the habit of looking at your script for 5 minutes a day or more. That's doable. That's good. It's good to. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So to wrap up, would you like to share any social media details, website links or audience. Keep track of your work? Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I'm on Instagram, Anmon Twitter. I don't really post on either one too much, though, honestly. But just my name is Jordan mi JOR DAN, IMI OLA. And that's it, Instagram, Twitter. That's about it. And your podcast is called deadline junkies. Yeah. Deadline Junkie screenwriting podcast. Yeah. It's a writing group, That I was a part of for 12 years and I ran the Wednesday Wednesday. Yeah. Yeah. I, it's a great You know what? Some other advice to you is have deadlines because it's a great about deadline junkies. It's a writing group where every five weeks, you have to present 25 new pages. Yeah, I wrote I mean, I've written. God, I've written, I don't know, 2030 movies. And then that's impressive. 15 TV shows. But it's because I had that deadline for so long. Every five weeks, I have that deadline and if people couldn't make their deadline, I would be like, Hey, I can take your spot if you want. And then I would just because when you have that deadline and you have a table read with actors and other people watching, it kind of puts pressure on your. That's a great idea. You want to make it good. How many people were in the writing group? So when I started When I started in 2010, it was Tuesday nights. Every Tuesday night we meet at a theater. And back then it was probably 15 writers in the group, and then actors there was always like ten actors there. But we had actors who would come kind of choose the actors yourself. So there's probably 30 or 40 actors and then 15 writers in that Tuesday group. But then over the years, it expanded to other nights. So now it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. And every night Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the comedy nights. Monday is more drama. Thursday and Sunday are like a mix. Yeah, they're on Zoom too now. I think Mondays goes in theater. But when the pandemic happened, they all went on Zoom. I also doing it on Zoom, though, saved us money because when you did in the theater, you had to print the scripts out and then highlight all the scripts and printing all the scripts out. No, no, no, no. Yeah. I was like. Yeah. Yeah, well, maybe we can talk offline. I want to start my own little writers group, maybe a Christmas writers group. And I'm not sure how to go about it or how many people are in need. But I never even thought, which is a great idea is having actors. Oh, yeah. Do the table read. Yeah. They make it better because a lot of time a lot of times for me when I question a joke and then I hear an actor do it out loud and they make it funny, then I'm like, Oh, yeah, okay, that joke was funny. It was just ques longer you have a joke, the less funny it is to you. Sometimes it fresh with someone else, or you hear someone say it out loud, it helps so much. Or sometimes actors will say a word wrong, but it's funnier the way they said it. I'm like, Oh, I'm going to put it in the script, the way they said it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Always have actors. I definitely. You have encouraged me and inspired me. So thank you. Jordan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This is very informative and very useful, and I am going to start a writers group. So hello, Christmas writers out there. You could comment on this podcast on the blog and let me know if you're interested. But, Jordan, thank you so much for coming on the Christmas movie screenwriter Podcast. You're so welcome. Thank you for having me. Okay. We'll see you later. Cool. Happy holidays, too. App holidays. Well, now for my takeaways, I have five from my interview with Jordan. Number one, selling a script. First, share your script with friends, and then after some rewrites, do a table read with actors. Once it's in good shape, try to option it. Find production companies that specialize in Christmas movies. Look on IMDB Pro, talk to your connections, see if the producers you want to contact are on Instagram or Twitter. Also known as X. It's probably a better hit rate than a cold e mail. Number two, instant messaging producers. Jordan mentioned, there are two scenarios to message a producer. One is to start a dialogue, pick their brain, and hopefully develop a rapport? The second is to pitch your log line. If you do send a log line, keep it under 30 words, and obviously, all instant messages have to be short. Number three, paid screenwriting services. Jordan, although had success with one service, he cautions that a lot of them in his words are a waste of time. Contests are another tricky service. Do your due diligence. Are the prizes worth it? Is the feedback? No your budget. Would using that money instead for a short film be better spent? Number four, getting read. Producers get tons of e mails every day. It's hard for writers to stay on top of a producer's mind. On the other hand, if you send a script to a producer, don't sit back and wait for a reply. Dordan says, sometimes he e mails a producer over several months, seven to eight times asking if they've read the script? Only after the eighth time does he get a reply. Number five, deadlines. Jordan credits the deadlines set by his writers group has enabled him to complete dozens of scripts. It helps being in writers groups or having an accountability buddy. But regardless, you need to set deadlines and review them. Chunk down your writing goals into small increments. It will be easier to tackle that way. Well, that's the show. Thank you for listening. To show your support. Please give us a five star rating on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts and sign up to be notified of the launch of our membership website. This is where writers will have the opportunity to pitch producers their Christmas scripts. Just go to www.christmasmoviscrewrier.com and look for the sign up button in the toolbar. I'm your host, Karen McCann. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you on the next Christmas movie screenwriter podcast. Bye. If you like to check out Christmas Sacation, you can find the platforms it's streaming on and where to find the DVD at www. 37. Best WRITING ADIVCE from the Deadline Junkies Screenwriting Podcast: Have any writing advice for emerging writers in the industry. Yeah, allow yourself to be bad at it. Like, I think a lot of us sort of go in with, like, a really, really good taste and not the skill set yet. And it writing is really, really hard, and it doesn't matter what level you are. Like, everybody struggles, and it's vulnerable and it's challenging. And so much of what you discover comes from those vomit drafts. So I would just encourage people to let go. And try to have f and know that this is, like, a learned skill, and it's totally okay for that first draft to be a piece of **** because that's how it starts for all of us. And I think the more that you are comfortable with being bad at it, the more that you're good just gonna sort of fall into being good at it. It's the Deadline Junkie screenwriting podcast with your host, Jordan Amla Kirsten Porter, and Rand Shammy. I love that advice. I always need to remember that advice. Well, To your point about like coming in with great taste, I think there's like an Ira glass quote about how like your taste is usually, you know, better than your ability, and so then that makes you unhappy. But the sort of flip side of that is, it's very difficult to write something better than the best thing you can possibly imagine. So so like having a good sense of taste that is, like what you want, it sort of Ultimately, it might make you feel like you're not achieving it in the moment, but it's ultimately the thing that's going to drag your progress forward. Assuming you keep writing, which would be my general advice, which is, make sure you're actually writing. I feel like when I first moved to LA, I was very convinced that I was writing a lot. And then I went on some I think it was like the writing pad or something. I went to look for classes. I was like, I should take a class. Deadlines are helpful, as I assume the people who host the Deadline Junkie podcast. Aware. Thank you for promoting us. Yes. And I was looking on their website, and there was some part of where you're supposed to sign up, and I was like, who should be taking these classes? And there was some like thing that was like, If you're not writing 10 hours a week, you're not a real writer, W I'm not saying it has to be that at all. But in that moment, I was like, I'm writing 10 hours a week. And then I started actually tracking it, you know, and I would write, like, a little bit before I went to work or, like, a little bit on an evening when my wife was like out with friends. And I did like three or four weeks in a row and they all came out to, like, four, 4.5 hours of writing. And I was like, Oh, ****, 10 hours is a lot of writing to squeeze in. And so that really helped me reframe my own commitment to it, not just like, I should be writing 10 hours, but, like, like, sit down, actually put words on the page on some kind of page, whether it's a notebook or a computer screen or whatever, because it's so easy to, like, read an article about writing or like research the topic of your story or pace around, coming up with ideas. And at the end of the day, I think I realize, as I say this, I'm just backing into Alex's advice, which is just right, and then don't worry about it. Our boss likes to our old boss on Dexter used to say, what was it? Perfection is the death of progress. You know, like it's And I think that's so true, and I think, you know, we can be super hard on ourselves, and I think the minute that you just sort of let go is when you figure it out. Favorite writing advice or favorite writing books. I think the best advice is just always look for motivation. No one should ever just be doing things because that's what they're supposed to do right now. It should always be always ask yourself, why are these people doing this? Why is this person saying this line? Why is this person doing this? Why is this person leaving the scene at the moment? There should always be a reason for everything. At first, I thought that was a much more existential answer, and you were saying, find our motivation to be writing. Why are we character motivation. Got it. What is your purpose in life? I can't help you with that, you're on your own. Are there any books you recommend? Um I really liked this book called the art. It's called the War of Art. It's very motivational, but an *** kicking way of just get over your **** and start writing. Stop making excuses and stop telling yourself you'll do it tomorrow, do it. I found that very helpful because I think as writers, we like to procrastinate and I always like to make excuses of, well, I had to get up early this morning and I'm tired now, so I probably shouldn't have to write tonight. That's how you end up going two months without writing anything is by making excuses for yourself. Yeah, it's the war of arts. Is definitely a good kick in the *** if you're looking for one. So you do ten of TV writing, and you've written a novel and have another novel. So what's the difference between writing a novel and a TV show, basically? Oh, gosh. Great question. Yeah, I I've been lucky to get to write, like, TV and also features and novel and theater. And so I think all four of those lanes are very different. But there's, like, at the core, I sort of approach them all the same, which is who is the character? Why do we care about them? What do they want? What is the obstacle to what they want? You know, I think the themes are all Usually similar for me in terms of why I get excited about a project and then my process of actually writing. But sometimes you have to I think there are certain times where I'll have an idea and I think, Oh, this is going to be a feature. And then there was something I'm working on right now that I thought I'm actually writing with a co writer and we had been thinking about it as a feature, and we had almost started writing it as a feature, and then we were like, You know what? This should just be a pilot. This really this is a world that we want to live in for a longer time and yes, there's a 90 minute version, but we would just so much rather get to do the ten hour version, right? So in a perfect world, let's just write. And so sometimes I think the subject matter dictates the form. But I think, for me, I really like getting to jump. It's easier for me to work on multiple projects if they're in different mediums. I think it's hard to work on multiple TV projects at once and we all on the same lane, but I actually like it helps my brain to switch from complete sentences to more dialogue to longer form. So I think that there's inherent differences in terms of structure and obviously format, but I just try to approach all the writing the same way. So I think there's more similarities for me. Thanks. So with both Loki and heels, how do you balance making a villain protagonist liable? Um, I think it's just it's humanity. You know, it's finding It's what's relatable. You know, it's when Loki is going through the processing at the TVA, waiting in line, you know, being put through all this stuff, it's like suddenly he's doing things that all of us, even though we've never tried to take over Earth with an army of aliens. We have been through that. And we know what it's like to feel small under the boot of bureaucracy. And we know what it's like to feel unworthy under the shadow cast by our own family. And so I think it's just those moments of human relatability. You know, the audience can connect to anything as long as they see themselves in it. Okay. Do you have any routines or, like, what do you do to make yourself a stronger writer? I read a lot, I read a lot of novels. I've been reading in quarantine just a ton of mystery novels and because I've been trying to work on a mystery show, a murder mystery. I want to say I have a routine, really. I don't do writing exercises or anything like that. I do try to write every day and I do just try to read all the time and to watch all the new stuff that's coming out. Yeah, I don't have a set like I'm not one of those. I sit down at my desk at 9:00 A.M. And I write for 2 hours and then I eat lunch and I don't do that. Unless I'm on a deadline, I'm more, you know, I try to write every day, but it's not always at the same time. As long as it gets done, you know, the routine doesn't quite matter as much to me. Okay. I had a routines question. I'm going to cross that one out. My other one is. What are your deadlines like for Cobi? It depends. You know, for this past season, like, I had a week from the time we finished breaking the episode to turn in the first outline. And from there, I spent about three weeks, I think, probably on the first draft. But then the show runners were just totally buried and didn't have time to read it. And I didn't end up doing a rewrite until a couple of weeks later, and then there was a point where they needed another rewrite and I had three days to do it. It varies depending on production. If you're on a network show where they're doing 22 episodes a season, then you're going to have a very strict timeline. You're going to have maybe a week to turn out a first draft. Cobra Kai is not quite that strict. We have a little bit more time, but we also don't leave the room while we're on scripts, we stay in the room, and so you're writing on your own time. So yeah, it does vary a lot, depending on where we are in the process. My other piece of advice is, don't put off on living your life until you make it. I think so many people put aside really important life things because they're waiting for, like, once I'm a writer or once I've made it, once I've sold my script. And I never I started therapy finally when I was working on the following as a story editor, which is like a second level. It was my second job on staff as a TV writer. It's like I mean that I'd done I was in, right? I survived my first year as a staff writer, and I was now into my second year as a real writer, and my career was looking promising. I was in a hug I was on Kevin Bacon show, and I realized, like, all of these things that I thought were going to like fall into place and like, click into, you know, the puzzle and make sense, like, my life was still a ******* mess, right? I was still like a sloppy idiot, and I still had a dissatisfying friend group, and I still had no romance, and just all of this validation I thought I was going to get out of finally making it like, did not arrive in a beautiful neatly wrap package. And I had to, like, really unpack why I had spent most of my 20s putting off forming a big, fulfilling, beautiful life, thinking that like the missing piece was a writing career. And I think the people that I know who are the most successful and the happiest are people who work really hard to make sure their lives are big and beautiful fulfilling regardless of what they do and whose lives get more so because they've made the jump into getting paid to write, which, I'm not going to lie. It's great. It's great to have health insurance. It's great to get paid to write. My husband's a rocket scientist, and I walked by his office this morning and he's literally trying to figure out to keep people alive in out of space. I'm getting paid, like three times more than him to tell stories about, you know, identical twins knapping each other. Like, it's stupid. But But I do think I know so many unhappy writers who just thought that getting paid to write or getting that first real gig was going to be the missing piece of their life, and it's just not. So I think, live your best life now, you're a writer, if you're writing, right? If you are working on anything, whether it's just for yourself or whether it's for money, like, you're a writer. So there's no reason that the rest of your life shouldn't be going on too and that you shouldn't be living your life as you think you should. So take that for what it's worth. Or wait until you're staffed and then pay a lot of money for therapy. That works for me. Do you have any general advice that you would give to any up incomers in the industry or anyone who trying to pursue a career really as a successful career person? Well, as far as writing goes? Yeah. Writing, acting, pursuing, just any general advice you have. Yeah, like I said from the beginning, man, if you have the will just go for it, the how will present itself. That's just kind of live. I just kind of I'm going to do this. And if I'm dedicated to, if I'm good at it, somehow, It'll work out. You know? I don't know how I don't know how I'm gonna meet Stepper Spielberg, but I feel like somehow Maybe he's going to real my one day. Then as we exchange insurance calls, like, Yeah, I'm going to f. You know, I feel like if you work hard, if you dedicate yourself, you're gonna get a shot. You're gonna get a shot. Now, whatever what that shot turns into, I don't know, but you will get a shot. We're all gonna get that at back. I always just tell anybody that's trying to do anything. Give it your all focus on it. You know, don't have acid. And put it out into the universe. You know, whether that be writing, acting, whatever. Especially the military. Yeah, join the military, you know, and be successful at that. Like, my friend is very successful in the military, you know? So I just feel like, especially for entertainment nowadays, you don't even really need Hollywood anymore. Man, everybody's just doing their own thing. So you don't have to wait Hollywood to come save you. And give you these opportunities. You can create your own opportunities. Sure. What you guys are doing right now, we have this podcast. You don't need to be on a radio station. You know, do your own thing. If you really believe in it, you can just go do your own thing. And guess what? And when it pops, Hollywood will find you. They That's like, we need a piece of this. I like the Steve Martin saying that's, like, be good enough. They can't ignore you. Yeah, they will like, we can't let them keep all this money to themselves. Let's Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I mean, they gave Phill Rogan $100,000,000 for a reason. Yeah. 38. Best WRITING ADIVCE part 2 from the Deadline Junkies Screenwriting Podcast: Were there any characters in all your career that you've had trouble trying to tap into. Not that I'll admit. You know, It's the Deadline Junkie screenwriting podcast with your host, Jordan Ami, Karsten Porter, and Ran Shammy. My favorite sketch, I think of yours that's seen as Steve N round up. I love that sketch so much. I've watched it repeatedly because I've laughed. Thank you. Jordan, tell these guys. It's really not that mean. It's got a toes. Yeah. He made everybody watch it. Oh. Did you like it? Oh, yeah. I it's hilarious. And by M songs, you know? That was written at two in the morning. Two in the morning as my office at 30 Rock. I feel like some of that stuff is written when you're really tired and you can done. Yeah. Exactly. It didn't take terribly long. But I remember very well, it was fun to write. Sometimes you're writing something going I don't even know. I think this is funny. I'm not sure, but other times you're you're sure. That one I knew was funny to me. I didn't have any doubt about it. Yeah, it's a great sketch. Thank you. Do you have a favorite writer? Favorite writer is whoever I'm trying to get to hire me at the moment. Adjacent to that, do you have a favorite writer to work with? Yeah, I've only worked on COV Ki so far. I would say those guys are definitely my favorite writers. I mean, I think they just approach this with such a fun attitude of, like, not taking it too seriously, but also taking it seriously enough to show how much they love the original franchise and to win over the original fans. But they also, you know, have a sense of humor. There's a line in my episode where the city council woman says, frankly, I don't understand the Valley's fascination with Karate. And this is in the middle of an extremely dramatic sequence about winning Mac the All Valley. And yet, the writers take a step back and say, yes, we know this is kind of ridiculous. But these characters really do care. And so that's something that I've really appreciated working with is just the attitude of yes, we're sincere in how much we care about this, but we also are aware of, you know, the inherent craziness of this premise. And we're going to make sure you're aware Do you have any writing routines or habits that you do every day? Not recently. These days, I just do press. I just talk. It's like my wife was like, Are you ever going to write again? I was like, I don't know. Maybe I'll just do this. I kind of like this. But, you know, I like to wake up early. I like to I like to walk my dog. I go for long walks with my dog and sort of figure out where I'm going, if I'm working on something like where am I going that day, you know, and try and then sit down and just find it on the page. I'm I should be I'm not a great outliner. I'm much more of a dialogue driven. Let's see where the story takes you kind of writer. I like to just get in there and start letting the characters talk to each other. So you're saying we need to get a dog to be a good writer. That's what I just took away from that. Okay. Good. Good. Exactly. Get a dog. That's. You already gave us wonderful word of wisdom, but do you have some more? Any I think that's, like, your favorite advice to give anyone? Well, you know, I was lucky growing up that they were always my house growing up was full of books. And I read a lot. And my best advice is read a lot, watch a lot of television, watch a lot of movies. Get to know the flavor of words, the way they taste in your mouth, the way they sound on your ears, and get to know the sound of television. You know, there's a music to TV, and it sounds like I'm speaking in some weird new age speak. But if you ever saw a movie where characters are watching in the background, there's a TV with a sitcom or a newscast, or a talk show, you know when you when it's not right because the music doesn't sound right. And that's the music of television. That's the sound of TV, and you can break that format, there are shows, of course, that break that format. But if you're going to work in the traditional forms like multi camera, get to know how television sounds, and then you're in a better position to break that music with new tunes and new rhythms. And I found I love watching shows from other countries. I just that's amazing to me because it's like there's this whole for someone who loves television and grew up watching a lot of television. Suddenly now, there's an infinite amount of television. I mean, we think there's an infinit amount of television in America. Well, obviously, there's infinite amounts of television everywhere. It's an incredible time for people who love TV. And the more you watch TV, the more you see movies, the more you appreciate movies, the better writer you'll be. And this is a real nerd power tip. But when you see a movie or you binge watch a series, then go to Wikipedia and read all about what you just saw and the struggle to make it and how it was put together and who was in it and where they filmed it, and let that take you down a couple of rabbit holes, and you'll just appreciate what you've seen a lot more. At least that's true for me. I love that. I think that's great. So do you have any favorite writing advice or books? Yes, I do. My favorite book about writing is Anne Lamont Bird by Bird, which I don't know if you guys have read. I's actually about novel writing, so interesting, like when you asked about different forms, but the subtitle for Bird by Bird is advice on writing and life, which I just, like, love that just, like, subtitle. And Bird by Bird is an interesting title, but she explains why in the book. And it's a book that I've read many times, and I highly recommend it no matter what form of writing you're writing. It's an incredible resource. If you're writing a novel certainly, but even TV writing, feature ending, it's just general advice. And sometimes I find like if I'm writing something and I get stuck, I'll just start reading Bird by Bird, I'll just jump back in and I'll re read it again, and then inevitably, you know, I usually don't make it all the way to the end. By the time I'm halfway through or I'm like, Okay, now I'm regenerate. So I highly recommend that book as a place of, a place to go to. And one adage that she says in the book, which I've highly adopted, her whole strategy can basically be boiled down to ****** first drafts. And it's just like releasing you from having to be good right away, because I think that that's something that keeps people from writing. Like a fully written anything is better than a half written anything. Period. So I think that and that's hard to learn. You know, even if you're on a deadline, even if you have somebody waiting for your draft, You know, you just it's not as perfect on the page as it was in your head, and so that can stye me your whole process. So I literally, I was just working on something. I just finished a new spec pilot that I'm really excited about that set in 1999 in the music industry, and it's something I've been working on for a long time, and it's a musical element. And I'm so excited. But I was I needed to finish it because people were waiting on it. And I literally had to write down on a piece of paper, and it just said, I wrote I just wrote. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be written. And it was just like, that's it. And every time I would get frustrated, I would just look at it. So I'm, you know, that's a lot, I think into my brain about how I write. And probably the other piece of advice I would add to that is, there are certainly some writers, especially novelists that, they write however many thousand words a day they write for this many hours, and just I'm not that kind of writer. I'm more of an ebb and flow kind of writer, which is why I like you know freelancing, I like working on different projects. There are sometimes where I will write 16 hours a day for a week, and then I won't write for a month. You know, it's just like there's times where I'm on a deadline, and I have to finish and I do, and then I like sometimes it's not a writing mode. So I think that's important too, I think sometimes some of my friends beat themselves up because they didn't write today. And I think as a professional, you have to learn the difference between, you know, just being in a bad mood and being in a mood where you're not going to write. Because you have you know we all have to work through our bad moods. But I do think there's a time where it's just it's not a writing day. And that's okay. Every day it does not have to be a writing day. And that's, you know, just giving yourself permission. It wasn't that. It wasn't as hard as you might think it is to channel to channel Bobby Hill. He's not me. Was he similar to you as a child? He was probably cooler. Bobby Hill. Bobby Bobby he more confidence than me. Bagger. Were there any characters in all your career that you've had trouble like trying to tap into? Not that Not that I'll admit. You know, That's okay. What you usually do is you pitch in their voices. Once you know, part of the job of the writer is to really listen and to hear how people talk. And then you know, actually, when we were doing my partner I ran a show called Maron with strong Mark Maron. And you know, part of that I would be sitting next to Mark all the day, you know, because he was one of the writers and we sit all the time. And I remember pitching a line, and he looked at me because I never say that. And I go, you absolutely would say it. I prefer to. He was like, do? Yeah, man. That's what you say. I was like, Really? So, you know, that's part of the deal. You listen to them and you mimic them. You make fun of them by mimic, you know, Both So in Vida, both Emma and Lynn, especially Lynn, make a lot of, like, really questionable choices in the series. And I've always wondered, like, what kind of attention was given to keeping them quote table. You know, how were you conscious about buying it back or were you just like, these are the stories. Let's go. I don't think the word liable was ever, ever uttered in the room. It was we were very focused on the character art. Yeah. And you know, story wise, as long as you hit those, you know, there's element that's very formulate about it. So as long as you earn the moments, the characters, you know, they may not be liable, but you're going to be rooting for them. Mm. And I think Right. Tanya Saco is, like, really great at earning moments. Because ultimately sure I was in the room, but it's her show. It's her earning moments. I contributed some Bible verses. Um, but But Tai Seraco was the one who earned those moments and yeah. So likability wasn't. I don't think we ever talked about that. It was always, like, you know, what the arc was, and she was really intentional about a moment that she wanted to see and make sure that it was earned. Now he say, I really believe one great piece of material can and will change your life. And so you know, if you're on a support staff, making sure that you've got that sample that you know when the time comes because you don't quite know when it's going to come. What happened to me. My eventual manager, who was just an assistant at time, reached out to the production secretary on community after we wrapped and lying, said he was a young agent looking to discover talent on the production staff. And and so I sent the pilot for heels. And that was literally one of these phone calls that bumped me off the zoom. Was that guy here we are ten years later calling me. So it's, you know, I had a script. I had a script ready that I felt like was in good enough shape that I could share. And the other thing that I tried to tell people is know what you want to do and declare it. I really benefited early on as I was getting to know Dan and everything, by just I was like, I want to be a writer. I'm the writer. I'm the intern who put stickers on books, but wants to be a writer. And everybody quickly, you know, knew to put me in that bucket, and I benefited from that. Thing. And I think the thing I try to keep in mind is that when we get to write our own stuff, even if it's not sold to anywhere or, you know, in development or whatever, that's some of the most, that's what we got into this that's how we fell into this trap was because we really liked writing stuff. And I think no matter how many other things are going, you know, career wise, business wise, whatever, we always try to keep one project at least that's just like a thing we really want to write, whether or not it has, whatever its potential may be outside of that. 39. Thank You + Summer Course Promo: Thank you so much for watching this course. I really appreciate it. If you're interested in one on one coaching sessions, I'd love to help you during your creative process to make sure your project gets finished. These sessions are $45 for 45 minutes. If you're interested, you can e mail me at Jordan period emola@gmail.com. These coaching sessions can be weekly or bi weekly, whichever you prefer. I offer coaching sessions on writing movies, TV shows, web series, producing your own film or series, and much more. I can coach you over Zoom once a week or every two weeks, to make sure you stay on track and create the accountability you need to finish your story and project. Contact me to book your first session now. Also, this summer, I'm hosting a summer screenplay course where I'll be teaching students how to write a movie in one season. I've spent many summers over the past 17 years writing summer screenplays, where I write the first draft of a movie during the summer season where I am in America. Starting June 20 to September 19, I'll be teaching and hosting 60 minute teaching sessions with groups of students on Zoom, teaching several students how to write a screenplay. You'll be responsible for writing about ten pages a week, and I'll guide you to keep your story moving forward. This course costs $395. And by September 19, you'll have a finished draft of a feature film screenplay. Once a week we'll meet, and I'll be giving instructions on story structure. And we'll be interacting with each other to see where our stories are going. Talking out your story and your writing helps immensely. And having a group of writers who are along the journey with you creates amazing accountability and discipline. Again, you can e mail me at JORDAN period mla@gmail.com. I'd love to help you write a screenplay this summer. Also, my website offers services like script coverage and links to my podcast and other courses. Thank you again and write on. Okay.