What The Hell Is Michael Jamin Talking About?

Latest Episodes:

108 - Joshua Fields Millburn of "The Minimalists" Nov 22, 2023

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have author, Joshua Fields Millburn of “The Minimalists”. Tune in as we talk about how he left corporate America and why he chose to live “The Minimalists” lifestyle.Show NotesJoshua Fields Millburn Website: https://joshuafieldsmillburn.com/Joshua Fields Millburn on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshuafieldsmillburn/Joshua Fields Millburn on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6576362/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptJoshua Fields Millburn:What happens is, oh, I'm going to leave and I'm just going to be a writer. And I had one boss that I had at the time said, look, if anyone could just quit their job and become a writer, then everyone would do it. And I looked at him and I said, well, I don't think everyone wants to do that first off, but second off, you're acting like I'm the first person in the history of the world who's decided to becomeMichael Jamin:A writer. You're listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Michael Jamin:Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. I got a very special guest today. So today, this guy, I've been a fan of his work for a long time, and I discovered him a couple of years ago. It's Joshua Fields, Millburn, he's half of the minimalist. And these guys did a documentary, I'm going to give 'em a nice proper introduction. They did a documentary that I discovered which, and the message was so important. It's on minimalism and it's basically how you can live with more by having less, how you were richer by having less. And I just found that not only did I find the message so important, but I found their journey that these two guys put them on, put themselves on to be so inspiring. Just to give you a little bit of backstory before I finally let this guy get a word in edgewise, is that, so Joshua grew up, poor parents suffer, struggled with alcoholism. He decided, I'm speaking for him now, but this is what I picked up from the documentary, that he didn't want to be poor when he was an adult. I'm not going through that. So he managed to get jobs in management where he is actually making a good living, he's making money. And then at some point he realized, wait, this is not making me happy. And then he did a complete about face and reinvented himself. So Joshua, thank you so much for joining me. Let's, let's hear you talk now.Joshua Fields Millburn:Oh, Michael, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, it's funny, I did grow up really poor and I thought the reason we were so unhappy when I was growing up is we didn't have money and not knowing that all these other things that were actually chaotic in my life, some of the things you mentioned, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, physical abuse and violence in the home, and extreme poverty was a part of it, right? It was a part of that milieu of discontent. And I just hyper-focused on that one component. So when I turned 18, I went out and I got that entry level corporate job, and I spent the next dozen years sort of climbing the corporate ladder. And by age 30, I had achieved everything I ever wanted, the six figure salary, luxury cars, big house in the suburbs with more toilets than people.I really had all the stuff right? And all the stuff that you would consider to be the American dream, more closets full of designer clothes and all the nicest furniture and the status and the job title. And yet, as you mentioned, it wasn't making me happy. In fact, the closer I got to the pinnacle of success, it seemed to further away from happiness I got, which didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And then two things happened to me. My mother died, my marriage ended both in the same month. And we talked about those in the last documentary on Netflix. And really those two events forced me to look around and start to question everything in my life, not just the stuff, but the career and the relationships and all of these other types of clutter that I began to uncover.Michael Jamin:But it seems to me though, when you reinvented yourself, and we'll get to that part, you were kind of at bottom. You had, like you said, you lost your marriage, you lost your mom. Is it easier to reinvent? Where do you get the balls to do this? Is it easier to do that when you're at the bottom than as opposed if you were, I don't know, happy enough in life?Joshua Fields Millburn:In a weird way, I think it's simultaneously easier and more difficult. And I'll try to explain that. I think it's easier in the sense that if you've lost a lot of the comfort and the certainty that you have in life, now all of a sudden you are willing to make a change because you're experiencing enough pain that leads to a change. The outverse of that was my successful corporate life. It was never 10 out of 10, awesome. It was constantly between a four and a five on a one to 10 scale. It was just comfortable enough to not make a change, but not comfortable enough or not uncomfortable enough maybe to have any sort of meaningful experiences. And so there was a weird level of perpetual anxiety and discomfort that undergirded all of it, but at the same time, it wasn't enough pain to make a significant change. So why was it easier? Well, because once you have enough pain, you start questioning everything. Why have I been so discontented? Why have I given so much material meaning to all these material possessions? Who's the person I want to become because I don't like the person I have become so far? And how am I going to redefine success? Because this level of success, the so-called success that I've achieved, if I'm miserable, is it really success? Well, success with misery, that seems like failure to me.Michael Jamin:But what was the final moment that you said, screw it, I'm quitting my job and I'm trying something else. Now,Joshua Fields Millburn:When I got closer and closer to the executives I wanted to be like, I had this whole career mapped out that by age 32, I'm going to be a vice president by age 35, I'm going to be a senior VP by age 40, I'm going to be a C-level executive, ideally ACOO of this corporation that I'd worked for since I was 18. And I'd climbed the corporate ladder. I was the youngest director in my company's 140 year history. I was responsible for 150 retail stores, which I know with the whole minimalism thing is really ironic. But I climbed the ladder and I got closer to these guys who I really aspired to be like. And I realized, well, wait a minute. As I got closer to them, the illusion, the mirage began to sort of dissipate. And I saw them for what they were. They weren't evil or bad guys.But I had one boss who was on his third divorce and second heart attack, and he was 50 years old. I'm 42 now. And I realized like, well, wait a minute. If I work really hard for the next 20 years, I can be just as miserable as these guys that I aspire to be like. But of course, what do we tell ourselves? We say, I'm going to be different. How am I going to be different if I follow the same exact recipe that all of these other guys are? And by the way, I've been following their recipe. If I continue to follow that recipe, I'm going to bake the same cake. And it became easy when I realized the fear of staying was actually more crippling than the fear of walking away. ButMichael Jamin:Did you bounce this off at anybody? Hey, listen, I'm going to quit my job and to do, what was your plan?Joshua Fields Millburn:Right? I was just going to write. I mean, my honest plan at the time was we had started the minimalist.com. I was making no money from it whatsoever. I was going to work. I paired down my bills to literally next to nothing. I mean, when I walked away from the corporate world, eventually in 2011, I made $23,000 that first year. So I took a 90% pay cut. Strangely, I was more financially free that year than I had been the last decade. It was the least amount of money I made in my entire adult life, but I was more free that year because I got rid of all of those expenses. I used to tell myself I need these things, or the truth is there were things I wanted. But you know what? I wanted more than that. I wanted freedom. So you asked, did I talk to other people about it?Heck yeah. I did it first. I learned what a mistake that was. Really? Yeah, because what happens is, oh, I'm going to leave and I'm just going to be a writer. And I had one boss that I had at the time said, well, if anyone could just quit their job, become a writer, then everyone would do it. And I looked at him and I said, well, I don't think everyone wants to do that first off, but second off, you're acting like I'm the first person in the history of the world who's decided to become a writer. And my plan was, I'm going to work in this coffee shop in my local neighborhood, make enough just to pay my rent. I was living in Dayton, Ohio. My expenses were really, really low. I spent two years paying off all of my debt because I knew as long as I was tethered to debt, I was going to be tethered to this job, which means I was tethered to this lifestyle. And in a weird way, I was financing a car that would take me to work so I could pay the car payment for the car that would take me to work. I needed to get rid of all of those things that I wanted but weren't serving my freedom. I had to let go of those things so I could embrace the life I actually wanted to live.Michael Jamin:But was there any moment where you're even saying to yourself, I don't know, I think I'm kidding myself. You had to have been checking yourself with doubt even while you were convinced, I'm going for it, right?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah. Now maybe I have an irrational confidence in a way. I never thought all the things that happened would happen, and we took a rather circuitous route. I didn't know have a 10 year plan or anything like that. My confidence was like, man, I think I can make enough money to pay my rent working at a coffee shop, and then I can just write in my other hours. And that's all I wanted. I found out what enough was for me because all those other things, they weren't doing it for me anymore. I thought, if I just get the Lexus, then I'll be happy I got the Lexus. Well, maybe the second Lexus will make me happy. That didn't do it. Well, maybe the Range Rover will make me happy. That didn't do it either. Okay. And by the way, I didn't own any of those things.I didn't own the big house. I had these things were all finance. I made really good money, but I spent even more money. So I had tremendous amounts of debt, about half a million dollars worth of debt, and I had to get rid of all of it in order to untether from that. And I realized those things never got me to enough. Enough is not about getting more and our society, it's actually about subtracting. And I knew I needed to subtract the things to get me down to enough. I already had enough peace, enough happiness, enough joy. Those things were simply covered up by all these external pursuits.Michael Jamin:I can understand Alexis not making you happy, but a Range Rover that surprises me Now, what kind of writing were you trying to do or were you doing that?Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah, it was just fiction. I was really into fiction at the time. I thought that's all I was going to do. The minimalist was this side project. My best friend Ryan, he and I, we grew up together. We grew up really poor. We've known each other since we were fat little fifth graders. And we climbed the corporate ladder together as well. And he actually came to me about eight months into my letting go, my simplifying. We were still both working in the corporate world together. And he came to me one day and he said, why the hell are you so happy? And I didn't even go around saying, look at me. I'm a minimalist now. I got rid of my stuff. I didn't say anything to anyone. I just started letting go of extra clothes that were in my closet or things that were getting in the way that weren't serving me junk, that was non-essential and clutter basically.And I noticed that those material possessions were, and I didn't know this at the time, but they were at this physical manifestation of what was going on inside of me. And as I started letting go of this external clutter, I started clearing out some of this internal clutter, the relationship clutter, the mental clutter, the psychological clutter, the emotional clutter, the calendar clutter in my life. There was all these other types of clutter that I was not prepared for, didn't even know that I was clinging onto. And then when Ryan comes to me and says, why the hell are you so happy? It opened up this door for me to talk about this simplifying I had been doing. And so he started simplifying as well, and he's way more type A than I. And he's like, that's great. You've spent almost a year doing this. I need to do this right now.And so we came up with this crazy idea called a packing party, which we made a film version of for our last film, less Is Now. And ultimately, that was the beginning of the minimalist.com. We were just going to write about that 21 day journey, and it was going to be a place for me to publish a few essays that I wanted to write about, but I just wanted to write fiction. And then what I realized is like, oh, wait a minute. A lot of people were finding value in these words. I remember the very first month we started the minimalist.com, 52 people, they visited the website, which sounds really unremarkable now, but at the time, I was so impressed by it. You got to think, throughout my twenties, I wrote fiction, and the only people who were reading my stuff were agents and publishers who were sending me rejection letters.I had an inch thick stack of rejection letters of people telling me, no. Now, unbeknownst to me, a lot of the stuff was actually kind of garbage at the time. That's any writer that realizes that the stuff that seems so precious and gold, everything that comes off of my quill must be perfect. No, it was nonsense. But it made me the writer that I am today. And so I started writing@theminimalist.com, and I realized once 52 people turned into 500 people, and then it turned into four or 5 million people over the years, what I realized was that, oh, when someone gets value from something, they tend to share it with their friends and their family and their loved ones. Adding value, sharing value is a basic human instinct. And this was before the TikTok and Instagram and all these great ways to share these different things. People were actually forwarding our blog to their sister or their aunt or their uncle, or whomever it might be in their family, just sending off to 'em an email or a text message. And it just really began to spread word of mouth. I said, oh, maybe we actually have something here. Let's keep trying this out.Michael Jamin:Right? It's so interesting because people often complain today, it's so hard to go viral. You went viral before there was viral. It's like, well, because you had interesting things to say, and that gets shared. It's like, stop. People say it's so hard. Well, yeah, it's even harder when there's no such thing as viral.Joshua Fields Millburn:Yeah. And in fact,…

Full show notes at the publisher

Bonus - September Webinar Q & A Nov 17, 2023

Show notes

In September, I hosted a webinar called "How To Write A Great Story" where I talked about what a "story" really is, as well as how to use personal stories to help your writing. This episode addresses questions you asked in our Q&A session that we didn't have time to answer. There's lots of great info here, make sure you watch.Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:It's not that The stakes of rocky areas are not about will Rocky win the fight? Who caress? Will Rocky win the competition? The contest who caress? No one cares if he wins. The stakes are, will Rocky finally feel like he's not a loser? Will he finally feel like he's not a bum? And that's something something all of us can relate to. You're listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, today I'm talking about, I'm answering questions. Phil, I'm back here with Phil Hudson. Hey Phil. What up? So why do these webinars every three weeks? And I try to answer questions during them and we don't have time to get to all of them. So I'm going to be answering them right now and Phil's going to feed 'em to me.Phil Hudson:That's right. He'sMichael Jamin:Going to baby bird them to me. He's going to chew them up and dip 'em into my mouth.Phil Hudson:I'm going to spit 'em into your mouth. Regurgitate 'em. Love it. Yeah. You guys know the thing. We've been doing this for two years now, so we've got plenty of these episodes in the Can questions came up. We're going to dive into 'em Again, some of these things that were asked, we're not going to go over Michael because we've talked about 'em a thousand times,Michael Jamin:ButPhil Hudson:There are always some of those things that are still being asked that worth talking about a bit. So we'll go through 'em. I've broken 'em up into kind of categories just to make sure that it's easy to get through. Just be more, there are a couple of questions about your course in this I thought were worth bringing up because that was a lot of the questions that came up in September.Michael Jamin:Let's do it.Phil Hudson:Alright, let's dive into craftMichael Jamin:Michael.Phil Hudson:Dr. Adam wants to know, and these are YouTube. YouTube usernames forMichael Jamin:Anybody interested? Yes. Doctor IPhil Hudson:Help you with Dr. Adam wants to know how important is it for someone else to edit your writing,Michael Jamin:Edit? Well, when we work in television, it's very collaborative, so your work will be rewritten often heavily by the showrunners or the writing staff. But it's a very collaborative process from the beginning. We all work together to break the story, meaning figuring out what the story is, and I teach this in the course, how to break a story, and then you get notes in the outline, the first draft, the second draft, and the table draft, blah, blah, blah. So it's very collaborative. But if you're talking about, I dunno if the doctor's talking about some other kind of work other than television writingPhil Hudson:The Good Doctor.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I don't know, doctor, I'm not really sure what you mean other than I hope I answered your questionPhil Hudson:To me. Either way.Michael Jamin:You're getting my bill.Phil Hudson:Yeah, if you're billing the doctor, I love it. For me, this is a question more about, it's a common question I've seen with people starting out, which is getting feedback or peer review, if you will on things. I had a couple of friends over Mike Rap who's a writer on Tacoma d and Kevin who will feature the podcast soon and is in the screenwriting course. There were football and we talked a lot about this kind of stuff in writer's room stuff. They both work in writer writer's rooms and getting notes from peers even outside of the writer's room at our level, Kevin and I have probably spent 40 or 50 hours on Zoom now giving each other notes onMichael Jamin:Writing.Phil Hudson:That's incredibly helpful, but it's not so much that they're editing my writing, it's more of them talking about This didn't work for me, or Hey, I got confused here. And that's the feedback that you always talk about, which is the valid feedback is someone gets lost, they don't understand. It's not compelling. It's not really on page three. You have this ticky tack note where you overcapitalize a word or something like that.Michael Jamin:Yeah, editing could be not so much getting answers from someone, but just getting questions. And the questions could be, if someone's reading your work, they could say, I, what were you going for here? I didn't get what you were going for. And then you get to decide whether you want to clarify or keep it muddy. And probably keeping it muddy is probably not the greatest choice. So you just want to make sure that your audience is along for the ride. And I was going to do a post about this soon where I think part of your responsibility as a writer is to make sure you're holding your audience's hand and taking them along for the ride and not letting go because you don't want them to get lost. If they get lost, they're going to find something else to do.Phil Hudson:Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, it's an interesting too, when you work with people who know story structure and they've been in writer rooms and they're giving you these notes. There are times where this thing didn't make sense to me, but I understand what you're going for there. Or I would consider this doing a different way. But then you get a note from the other guy and they're like, I loved this part. And so that conflicting thing is like, okay, I can keep this one. That's a choice. But when they're both like, Hey, I got really bogged down in this piece, that's a clear sign. You've got to fix something.Michael Jamin:Yeah, right. Thank you DoctorPhil Hudson:Alex Kier, any tips on writing a story with multiple characters and stories like love? Actually?Michael Jamin:Oh, well, first of all, stories have multiple characters, but you're talking about multiple storylines. And so love actually is not that uncommon. It's a fun movie, but it's not that uncommon. You're basically just having multiple storylines and all the storylines are united by this one thread, which is love during Christmas. That's it. And there's different types of love. There's Brotherly Love. The way the Rock Star character had for his manager, what was that guy's name? But there's brand new love the way the two characters who met on the porn set. That's like an awkward way of meeting. And there's other romantic love between a couple that's been married for a long time, and that was Emmett Thompson's character with Alan Rickman's character. Then there's Love, new Love Upstairs, downstairs, love, which was, what's his name? Hugh? Hugh Grant, come on. Hugh Grant, thank Hugh Grant's character.I don't remember her name, but he was the prime minister and she was the lowly chambermaid or whatever she was supposed to be. And then you have another Love one character was a love where they can't communicate. So it was Colin Firth's character and I don't remember her name, but she didn't speak. She was the Portuguese maid and she didn't speak English. So you're just examining love over Christmas between different types of love and that's how they're all united. So that was the theme. And every story has to tell a version of that. Oh, then there's one of the love there was brand new love, like puppy love, right? There was a storyline between the kid and what's his name? He was like the young kid and his stepfather, Liam Neeson. And he's trying to coach him into, wasn't that in love actually, or is that somethingPhil Hudson:Else? I have never seen love actually.Michael Jamin:Oh, you got to watch it. So yeah. So those are my tips. So that's it. And you're just kind of integrating these very stories so each one can stand on its own. Each story can stand on its own. And you're probably, if I had to time it, I would imagine that most stories, so there was one other, there was unrequited love where the guy had a crush on his best friend's, new wife, Kira Knightly, and so all different kinds of love. And I imagine if you took a stopwatch and you timed out each storyline you'd get to, they, they're all approximately the same amount of weight in terms of screen time and that's it. And if they weren't, I imagine it's because some of the stories got cut down because we weren't quite as compelling on camera as they were in the script. But I talk about this a lot. Maybe I should do a breakdown in the course of love. Actually, I talk aboutPhil Hudson:This. People love that. And you brought love actually up in stuff in the courseMichael Jamin:I did. Okay. We already talked about it.Phil Hudson:Well, I don't think you've done a case study. And for those who are unfamiliar, Michael has these awesome case studies in where you'll talk about movies you love Amle, and you'll talk about, I think, did you do Rocky Ferris Bueller's Day Off Castaway, just looking at films and TV shows and kind of breaking 'em down for story structure and talking about what works, what doesn't. And then you also hypothesized this, I imagine got cut in editing becauseMichael Jamin:AsPhil Hudson:A writer, there's a thing here that could be here or was missing, that kindMichael Jamin:Of thing. Yeah, there was a scene that I think that was missing from love actually, that I imagine they shot, but they just cut it for the sake of time.Phil Hudson:But I think it would be worth doing that. I think the members in the course would be pumped to get another case study,Michael Jamin:But there you go. Take the course if you want to learn more. But that, it's a good question.Phil Hudson:You hit on something that you talk about in one of your webinars that we're going to be putting back into the cycle because people really liked it, which is how do professional writers create great characters? And there's this nuance you talked about in the September webinar thatMichael Jamin:BecamePhil Hudson:A full webinar, and it's about how you pick your characters. So I'll leave that a bit nebulous. So anybody's interested in that, come attend the nextMichael Jamin:Webinar. Yeah, please do. Because free in the next one, I'm talking about either character or story structure.Phil Hudson:So when this podcast drops, it'll be like tomorrow, literally tomorrow, that's going to be the podcast that we're talking, the webinar we're talking about. And you can sign up at michaeljamin.com/webinar to get notified.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Cool. Leanne Allen, how important is it for the goal to be broadly relatable?Michael Jamin:Well, it's very important. I mean, the goals should be hugely important to the character, and it should be something that we could all hopefully relate to. I mean, if the goal is redeeming yourself in your mother's eyes, that's very relatable. If the goal is, I know if the goal is winning first prize, first place in a contest, who caress, it has to be more than that. It has to be more relatable than that. To be honest, I don't really care about winning contests, so I don't really care if your character wins a contest, but if winning the contest is a way for this person to finally feel good about themselves and their lives because it's validation, because they're a loner and because no one's ever looked at them twice and win this contest as a way of them being able to hang their head up high publicly, that's a relatable goal. Understand. But winning a contest in itself, who cares?Phil Hudson:And that's the value of what you teach in these webinars and in the course is the difference between plot and story. Plot point would be they have to win this contest. The story is like, why does this matter? ToMichael Jamin:Why?Phil Hudson:How is this going to affect them? It's the internal need versus the external need. Winning the contest is the external, but the internal is the reason we watch it. And that's the relatable piece.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Desmond Bailey, how do you not front load the pipe?Michael Jamin:Oh, well, boy, I talked about this a lot. I wonder why they're askingPhil Hudson:This. And just to clarify for people, this will be helpful. These are questions directly coming from the chat in the webinar when people are asking questions and they're questions we didn't get to in the q and a portion of the webinar, so this is something you had related to, or they're setting something you set in the webinar, which was don't front load your pipe or don't be pipe. And so maybe explain pipe and expedition to people.Michael Jamin:So pipe is what we call in the business, we call it exposition. So it's all the stuff that you need to know. It's the background story. It's the story before the story begins. And generally it's boring. Pipe is just like something you need to hear, not you don't want to hear it. You need to know to the characters. And so generally, the faster you can get to the pipe, the better, or you have to be artful about the pipe. So here's a bad version. You'll watch a show and you'll say, Susie, you're my sister. Why would I ever do that with you? My sister? A character would never tell another character, you're my sister. That's pipe. Because that character, she knows her sisters, Frankie, we've been best friends for 18 years, Frankie knows this. And so there are ways to get through the pipe artfully so that your audience doesn't feel like, Ugh, why people don't talk like that. Often a way to do this is by introducing a third character. So when a third character comes on the screen, the person who are you just talking to? Ugh, I was just talking to my sister. Now we know who that person is. Right? Sis, anytime you hear someone, a character calling the character sis, you roll your eyes. I've never met anyone who called her sister Sis.Yeah, and I talk more about that in the course, but I just happened to watch, I was sent a short to potentially work with someone and they shot a miniature TV show. I guess it was sent to my agent or somebody. There was a lot of pipe in it. It was a lot of clunky pipe because they just didn't know how to do it Every time it just stops the story cold.Phil Hudson:So the question is, how do you not front load the pipe? Do you have any tips for how to do that? I mean,Michael Jamin:ObviouslyPhil Hudson:The character, but if I've got to get this stuff out, and maybe you don't need to get it out at the front, because I saw someone do this masterfully where a character was introduced very late in the film, and it added this beautiful plot point that tied back to…

Full show notes at the publisher

107 - TikToker and EMT Jack Raia Nov 15, 2023

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have TikToker and EMT Jack Raia. Tune in as we talk about how he uses his content to help educate people in health care. We also talk about how he balances making sure his content doesn’t take away from the potential severity of health situations. Show NotesJack Raia on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@whatsgood24.7.365Jack Raia on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WhatsGood24-7Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptJack Raia: Cameras and healthcare tend to not really mix very well, especially when it comes to me just running around my cell phone camera. So that's definitely been a major roadblock in kind of the day of life kind of stuffMichael Jamin: You're listening to. What the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Michael Jamin: Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to another episode of my show, which I've rebranded as the Michael Jamon Show, because I want to make sure that there's more me in every mention of the show. And as you know, mostly I've spoken about, I've interviewed screenwriters, people, I've worked with directors, actors, and now after doing this for two years, I want to open it up to more people. We're just doing interesting things and there's a whole universe I don't know about, and so I'm learning about, and my next guest is going to teach us a little about that. His name is Jack Raya. He's the host of What's Good, 2, 4, 7. He's a big talker, so we're going to learn all about that. Jack, welcome. Thank you for joining me.Jack Raia: Thanks for having me on, Michael. I really appreciate the opportunity.Michael Jamin: Yeah. So let me tell everyone a little about you. So as far as I can tell, maybe I'm wrong, you're an EMT, you're in New York, right? Where in New York are you?Jack Raia: I'm on Long Island in Nas County, long Island.Michael Jamin: Interesting. My nephew's an E, he's a paramedic, actually. So I know a little about that word world, but you started, you have a very popular channel on TikTok where basically you act out, for the most part, you kind of act out scenes of what it's like to be an EMT. Am I right?Jack Raia: Yeah. Yeah. I categorized it as EMS, sketch comedy, I guess is what I've labeled it.Michael Jamin: And then what inspired you to start all this?Jack Raia: So it was honestly a series of coincidences that got me into TikTok. The first instance was back in the summer of 2020, a friend of mine just posted a random video on TikTok, and it was this new app that I wasn't even on yet. It was kind of labeled the app that's just for middle school girls to do dances on. Right. No one really knew what it was yet.Michael Jamin: That's exactly right. That's what I thought it was. Yeah, right.Jack Raia: So my buddy posted a video, it was lighting off fireworks or something dumb, and the video blew up. The algorithm just picked it up, and it ended up getting a couple million, I think over 3 million views or something like that. And my buddy had zero followers on TikTok. So that was the first instance of like, wow, this whole algorithm base for you page is like, holy crap, I guess it works. So then that summer I was like, all right, well, I guess I'll give it a shot. So I was the captain lifeguard at the time, and because of Covid that summer, we had to figure out a way to test the rookie lifeguards, drill them on saves without making physical contact, which is a little bit strange, but it's the way it ended up working. So I came up with the idea of having them save traffic cones. I was throwing traffic cones into the deep end, and I posted a video of one of those drills, and it blew up just like my buddies did. So I went from zero followers and zero views to 6 million something views and 11,000 followers. So that was the first instance of like, wow, this level of attention is so easy and addicting that I think I'm going to give this app a little bit of a shot. ButMichael Jamin: Do you have other aspirations? I mean, you got a real job, you have a career.Jack Raia: Oh, yeah, of course. But given how I discovered the algorithm, I was like, you know what? Maybe I can do some other stuff on here. So I was experimenting with a bunch of different types of videos and characters. I used to do an Eminem character, like the rapper, Eminem Burns his finger on the stove, just a bunch of crap that I was just making in my free time. But then that following school year, a buddy of mine started doing these POV style skits, which was, I hadn't had any exposure to until I saw it on TikTok. So my buddy started doing APOV frat guy comes up to you at the bar, or POV, your Italian dad, or something like that. And at first we were like, dude, what are you doing? It's an app for just posting random crap and doing other stuff. Why are you putting yourself on there like that? But he just didn't care, and he just kept making his videos, trying to make each one better than the last. And I watched my friend one day, he had 10,000 followers and 50, a hundred, and now he's got over a million, and he moved out to la Oh, wow. And he really did it. So I watched him just not care what other people were thinking and just be consistent. And I was like, all right, well, maybe I could do this whole POB skip thing.Michael Jamin: But your friend wants to be an actor, right?Jack Raia: Yeah. Right.Michael Jamin: Do you want to act as well?Jack Raia: I mean, I would love the opportunity, definitely. My first love is definitely being an EMT and working in the S field. I have a private ambulance company job on Long Island nine one system, and I also work for an event staffing company that does everything from fashion shows to concerts to music festivals and stuff like that. So I really love doing that stuff, but I've realized through all these coincidences how lucrative social media especially TikTok can be. So I guess that's really all culminated to what I'm really doing here.Michael Jamin: Well, tell me then, how do you monetize on TikTok?Jack Raia: The main way is you build up enough of an audience to get brand deals. That's the way that pays the most, at least for most people.Michael Jamin: Are you doing that?Jack Raia: Yeah. Yeah. So the most recent, I guess notable one I had was for a video game company called Supercell that makes an iPhone game called Clash of Clans. So actually, they posted a contract through the app. So there's a creator marketplace on TikTok, and you can see different companies and scroll through and see they're offering different rates for different videos. And so I applied for this one through Supercell, and the objective was to use one of their sounds, which TikTok is pretty popular for. So when you open their app, clash of Clans, there's a pretty distinct sound that you're opening the game. So I just kind of figured I could work it humorously into an EMT skit, and it ended up doing really well.Michael Jamin: Now are they giving you a lot of notes? Do you have to go back and forth and tell 'em what your ideas?Jack Raia: It really depends. Every company has different wants and specifications when it comes to doing the brand deals. Some are super relaxed and they let the creator just like, Hey, do your thing, we trust you. But some others are like to nitpick and stuff like that.Michael Jamin: But you must be worried you, you can't do that a lot because then suddenly you're the commercial channel. Right?Jack Raia: Exactly. So you kind of got to pick and choose which ones you want to do and when there are other avenues though, the Creator fund is something I get questions about a lot. So based on the certain amount of views you get, it'll pay out a couple cents per thousand views or something like that.Michael Jamin: Are you doing that as well?Jack Raia: So they just changed it actually. They just released a beta program where now there's a much higher payout rate for videos that are over one minute long. So I'm kind of screwed because a lot of my videos are 30 to 50 seconds long, so I could try to stretch 'em out, but I feel like the quality of the video might take a hit at that point. But there's some people out there that they have a hundred thousand followers or something like that, and it's just them spewing their thoughts out into TikTok, and they post four or five times a day of them just talking or giving their opinion on stuff. And all these videos are minute, two minutes long, and there's people making 10, $15,000 a month off just this new beta creator program. Now,Michael Jamin: Do you think it limits your reach, though, if you're on?Jack Raia: So I think it has to honestly, and I'm confident in saying that TikTok is the least predictable social media platform out there. We're all at the mercy of the algorithm here, and it seems to be pretty random and definitely hard to predict. So some stuff happens to blow up, some stuff doesn't. I'll be super confident in a video that I make, and I'll be excited to post it, and it'll flop in comparison to other videos where sometimes I'll just post for the sake of consistency and just get in content out and, oh, crap, this one just blew up. All right.Michael Jamin: What is your schedule? How often do you post?Jack Raia: So when I started and I was really trying to give it a go, I was super adamant about sticking to one a day. No matter what, I don't care if I love the video, I just have to force people to see me every single day when I was really trying to grow. So the quantity over quality method works pretty well when you're trying to start out, but now I'm at the point where I try to be more selective and I try to make sure that video is up to standard, if you will. So I don't really stick to a hard schedule. It's more if I have a good idea and it comes to me and I'm able to flesh it out and I have an opportunity to film it, then great. But if I don't, it's like, ah, didn't get one today.Michael Jamin: And then how long do you spend on each idea? Do you write it down? What's yourJack Raia: Pre-production? Right. So my particular, I guess, strategy is 95% of what you hear me say on TikTok has been written down. At a certain point as I go through it, maybe stuff gets switched around or whatever, but the general premise, and I guess the pacing of the skid is totally all written down and stuff like that. A big part of my production is actually my little brother who's my cameraman, and He's got a real knack behind the lens. I like to tell him he's, he's good at being able to keep me in frame the right way, which all of my videos have that banner title over the top. So sometimes we have to restart because my head clips into it too much and stuff like that. But other than that, it's just me and an iPhone camera. TikTok has given us the ability, or really social media in general to create content that can have a wide reach with not really a lot of equipment. So super grateful for that.Michael Jamin: On a given day, how much time do you devote to a video?Jack Raia: SometimesMichael Jamin: Zero, writing it, producing it, and then posting it?Jack Raia: Well, I've definitely gotten faster at it. So when I would start the whole process, start to finish from writing the script to getting that final take, putting a filter on it and posting it be up to two hours, sometimes in the beginning, an hour or two hours easily. But now, if I have a good seed to build a skid around, whether it's a good punchline or a premise that I like, that I can kind of mold the rest of the video around, once I get that down, the whole filming process, 15, 20 minutes for me now, sometimes 30 minutes, depending on where I am, I live next to the train tracks. So when a train goes by, it'll totally ruin my take. Or sometimes I got to wait for the neighbor to stop mowing his lawn and stuff like that. But when I'm able to just film at the pace, I'd like to film probably about 20, 30 minutes to do the filming now as opposed to an hour before.Michael Jamin: Right. That's so interesting. And then how has this benefited you in ways that were unexpected? What has come from this?Jack Raia: So by far, it's the amount of people that'll reach out to me through Instagram dms, or even in my comments section, telling me that my content has inspired them to take an EMT course. Oh, wow, okay. I've even had some pretty moving conversations with people where it's like, Hey, man, just got off the truck after 24 hours. Thanks for bringing me a smile. It's nice to be seen, is what people have told me. Nice to be seen shedding a little bit of light and humor on some of the grittier sides of the EMS world. So people have noticed that, and I'm like, wow, I didn't even really mean to have an impact on people like that, but I have been. So that's been really, really cool to do.Michael Jamin: Well, I think people love e mt workers. I mean, you're there to save lives.Jack Raia: It's kind of hard to hate on sometimes. Yeah.Michael Jamin: But okay, but do you get haters? You must, oh yeah, ofJack Raia: Course, of course.Michael Jamin: And how does that affect you, and what do you do about it?Jack Raia: So I'm thankfully at the point now where I have a large enough audience where if someone leaves me a hate comment, someone that likes my content or is following me will go to bat for me in the comment section. I definitely don't entertain trying to argue with people in the comments or dms or stuff like thatMichael Jamin: That, do you block them or no,Jack Raia: Not really, honestly, because not really. Sometimes getting a little bit of controversy in the comments and people arguing back and forth on each other can be good for engagement, unfortunately. But I've come to realize that no matter what kind of content you're creating, and no matter how good you are at it, there's people that are going to have negative things to say, people crap talk. Everyone from Tom Brady to the best comedians in the world, the best musicians, best artists, writers, it doesn't matter. You're going to get hate if you're putting yourself out there. People like to spread negativity for some reason. So it's just part of what comes with being, putting yourself out on the internet. So I don't really let it get to me too much.Michael Jamin: That's it. But it's interesting that you don't block them. You might be more mature than I'm sometimes I just don't want to hear it. Just, oh, goodbye, goodbye. I don't want to look at the negativity.Jack Raia: Thankfully, I don't get too much. I definitely got a little bit more in the beginning than I do now, and I know TikTok is pretty good at censoring a lot of stuff sometimes too good. Honestly, I've left comments that were meant to be positive on other people's pages, but it'll get flagged for being negative or insulting or something like that. So a certain percentage of negative comments won't even show up. I won't even know that they're there. But the ones that I do get, it's like, it's just part of it. It's like you got to take the good with the bad a little bit. Some of them are funny, honestly, some of them are pretty clev…

Full show notes at the publisher

106 - TikTok Star Merrick Hanna Nov 08, 2023

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have TikTok star Merrick Hanna. Tune in as we talk about the variety of content he enjoys producing as well as his creative process. We also dive into a little bit about his overall inspirations and creative goals for the future.Show NotesMerrick Hanna on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@merrickhannaMerrick Hanna on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UC39he8ro-KtBHkq0NXOFyQw Merrick Hanna on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/merrickhanna/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMerrick Hanna:I'm looking for popular TikTok routines, popular trends, something I can turn into my own because that's how I come up with ideas. I find something like a popular dance, a popular song. It could be even a hashtag or just a popular meme online. And I think, how can I take this and then make it into something original? And that is on brand for me.Michael Jamin:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts. Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin and I'm back with another episode. I've been doing some rebranding, guys. So the first couple of, I'm over a hundred episodes. So I've been doing this podcast for over two years. It's been called Screenwriters, need to Hear This. And mostly I've been talking to TV writers and to actors and directors that I've worked with, but then I've been railing against it for everybody. Guys, put your creative work out there. Just be creative, see where the energy goes, because it'll lead you somewhere. And so I'm rebranding the podcast right now. I think I'm just going to call it the Michael Jamin Show, where we just talk about what Michael Jamin is thinking of today, but whatever.Who gives a crap what the name is called? The point is, I was at a movie premiere, I'm name dropping here. I was at a premiere a couple of, maybe a month or two ago, I don't know, maybe more than that. And this kid comes up to me, he says, Hey, I follow you on TikTok. I go, oh, do you? And I go, that's nice. What do you do? He's like, yeah, I'm on TikTok too. And I check him out. This kid, this kid's got like 32 million followers, 32 and a half, 32 and a half million followers. This guy gets more, his reach is bigger than all the networks combined, so his name is Merrick Hannah, maybe you know of him. If you don't know of him, you're going to learn about him now. Merrick, thank you so much for being on my show. I'm so honored that you're doing this. Welcome. Thank youMerrick Hanna:So much for having me. This is very exciting.Michael Jamin:It's exciting for me. And when I say kid guys, he's 18. He's 18. Merrick, I want to know, you're going to tell me all about this because I don't know what it's like to be you, to be like, I dunno, if you call yourself an influencer or a content creator, what do you call yourself?Merrick Hanna:Content creator mostly. I don't really influence people. I just make fun videos for the internet. So mostly content creator.Michael Jamin:And you're young. He's 18. Now I'm going to ask you, by the way, Merrick, don't use words that I don't know. Don't say bay. Don't say lit. You're going to have to talk to me like say fresh, say words from the eighties that I mightMerrick Hanna:Understand. Got it. No cap.Michael Jamin:Yeah, really fresh now. So tell me, okay, how long have you been making? So the videos in case people don't know. So mostly dance videos. He's a really good dancer, but sometimes just cute little sketches, stuff like that. So it's not limited to that, but they're short and they're fun. And Merrick, I think you just bring joy to people. Is that what you do?Merrick Hanna:That's my goal on social media is to just make fun videos that people enjoy, that I enjoy. It's a fun way to be creative.Michael Jamin:Okay, so how did this start? How many years have you been doing this?Merrick Hanna:Okay, so I've been doing social media specifically for, since the beginning of quarantine, however many years ago that was, I don't remember. AllMichael Jamin:Right. That's not that long. It's 2020. So it's three years.Merrick Hanna:Yeah, three years. Because before that I was a working actor and dancer. And then at the beginning of quarantine, when the whole industry slowed down and I didn't have as much work, I decided, Hey, why not make my own content? Because I wanted to perform.Michael Jamin:Where were you working as a dancer and actor?Merrick Hanna:I had just done guest stars on Netflix and Disney, one episode sort of things. And I think I was about to do a reoccurring role on a show, which was then canceled right when quarantine hit.Michael Jamin:So you decide, I'm going to go on TikTok and just start making videos. I imagine the production value of the first videos were really not that special, or wereMerrick Hanna:They? No, it was literally just my phone resting on my bed in my bedroom, doing some random TikTok dances that I found online that I thought were fun. And I got very lucky very quickly.Michael Jamin:You just blew up real fast.Merrick Hanna:Yeah, I had I think two videos that went super viral for no particular reason. And I thought, Hey, that's cool. I might as well keep doing this.Michael Jamin:But now I have a lot of questions for you. I would say a big, someone like you, maybe you collaborate with other dancers and people in your age group, someone whom has 6 million people. I would say that's really big. But dude, you have 32 and a half million people. That's not big. That's gigantic. At aMerrick Hanna:Certain point, your brain can't really understand that many people. At a million people, I can't imagine a million people. That's just way too many.Michael Jamin:AndMerrick Hanna:So afterMichael Jamin:It's like the population, what's the population of, I don't even know, you'll have to tell me, but are you able to walk out of your house and do you get recognized a lot or how does that work for you? You're famous.Merrick Hanna:It is sort of, I'm popular in a specific demographic of 12 to 15 year old people. I do get recognized, especially when I'm out performing. I like to perform in public on Hollywood Boulevard. And youMichael Jamin:Mean when you're shooting and performing though?Merrick Hanna:Yes, when I'm shooting and performing. But yeah, when I go to Universal Studios,Michael Jamin:I'llMerrick Hanna:Get recognized maybe once or twice. It's not too much.Michael Jamin:It's notMerrick Hanna:Too much. It's not like I'm famous, famous, famous. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Were you the first, I guess I already know the answer to this question, but when you first started doing these videos, you were already a professional. You already worked in the business as the dancer and a performer, but were you a little worried? Were you a little nervous about putting out your first videos, or were you just too young and dumb to even care? How do you feel?Merrick Hanna:I was not nervous when I started putting up my first tos because it really was just something I was doing for fun.Michael Jamin:IMerrick Hanna:Had no expectation of more than maybe a couple hundred people watching them, which is a lot, but it wasn't that much relatively. I do remember though, being very nervous when I posted my first ever YouTube video when I was nine years old.Michael Jamin:I was when you were nine. Okay. Well, when you were young, right? You were freaking out. Well, that's normal. I mean, you were nine, but you're probably bigger. I imagine you're bigger on TikTok than YouTube, or is that not the case?Merrick Hanna:Yes, I am bigger on TikTok right now. I have roughly three times the amount of followers on TikTok.Michael Jamin:And now I imagine you're monetizing both things that you probably make decent, make some decent money at this point now.Merrick Hanna:Yeah, I'm trying to, it is turned into a job for me, and so I'm definitely trying to monetize my social media without it taking away from the fun of it.Michael Jamin:The fun of it. Well, tell me what that means though. Are you doing brand deals or are you just monetizing through the app where they run ads on your content or something?Merrick Hanna:Yeah, it's a mix. I try and do a mix of brand deals and also monetizing on YouTube. Brand deals are tricky because they aren't very fun to do. It's like, oh, we want you to make a video talking about how great our cereal is. I'm like, well, let's not. How do you make that fun?Michael Jamin:How do you make that fun? So what do you do?Merrick Hanna:I'm very, very picky about what I do. I only really ever say yes to a brand deal if it's something that I think I have a fun way to make into an entertaining video. And so I don't, as a result of that, I do very few brand deals compared to other creators. ButMichael Jamin:Tell us how it works. So did come out, they reach out to you. This is all new for, I got an older audience, we don't know, and I say old, I mean me. So they reach out to you, Hey, you got a big following. We like what you're doing. Will you promote our whatever, let's say serial. And then you say, let's say you agree to it. Do you have to bounce off the concept of them? Do they give you notes? How does that work?Merrick Hanna:Right. Sorry, let me back up, because I've been doing this for a couple of years now, and it's very, I'm in this world. So they'll reach out to me, and it really does depend on the brand. Sometimes they'll say, we want you to do this specific video, and sometimes they just say, we want you to promote this video game. We know you're a creator. Please just pitch us some concepts. So right now, I'm in the middle of doing a brand deal with a video game company that I've worked with before. And they reached out to me, they said, Hey, Merrick, we like your videos. Let's collaborate. Here's our video game. We want you to come up with some fun ideas. And so I wrote up three unique video ideas. I sent it off and they came back to me and they said, we like this one. Now you want, we want to expand on it, create a script, and then I'll shoot it, send it back, probably a couple revisions, and then I post it.Michael Jamin:And do you do all the writing yourself or do you have any help?Merrick Hanna:I do get some help from my dad, but I am trying to get better at writing. Yeah.Michael Jamin:So your dad worked for you and you say Better? Better. Is that what you, are you awful to him?Merrick Hanna:Don'tMichael Jamin:Give me this garbage, dad, come back. IMerrick Hanna:Think that we work very well together. Work wellMichael Jamin:Together. Yes. No, because it's interesting. I did a TV show for some very big YouTubers, Brett and Link. You must've heard of them, right?Merrick Hanna:LoveMichael Jamin:Them. Okay, so they got very, obviously they're very big. And then YouTube said to them, we want to do a sitcom. So my partner and I were the showrunners of Link's buddy system for season two. Now what I was shocked to discover, this is all, remember I'm older than them. I show up and these guys have a big studio with, I don't know, 30 employees, 40 employees. They got a team of people. But you don't have that don't want, or do you want that or don't want that or what?Merrick Hanna:It's funny that you mentioned that, because I am actually sitting in my studio.Michael Jamin:You have a studio, so you haveMerrick Hanna:Right after that door is a very large shooting area with multiple sets and a green screen.Michael Jamin:Interesting. And this is, okay, so, alright, so you have a big space and it's all covered by, of course, the revenue that you bring in.Merrick Hanna:Yes. This is actually very relatively new. I started renting the studio maybe four weeks ago, and I'm trying to hire people because for the longest time, I really was just doing it by myself in my bedroom.Michael Jamin:And editing it yourself?Merrick Hanna:Yeah, editing it, writing it, shooting it myself. And then I met with other creators, like how we were talking about with Red and Link.Michael Jamin:IMerrick Hanna:Met with a couple creators where I just walked into their movie studio, like you were saying, they had 20 employees.Michael Jamin:AndMerrick Hanna:It kind of blew my mind because I realized, wow, I could actually have help doing this.Michael Jamin:And so do you have a small team right now of production, people setting up the green screen or editing or doing whatever you do?Merrick Hanna:Yes. I have a small team of my dad and two people. Wow, you'reMichael Jamin:18 years old. This is pretty amazing. This really is amazing. It's very impressive. Maybe it's normal for you, but I'm super impressed by this.Merrick Hanna:It's not normal to me. No, this is strange. It's very strange. I still don't understand it.Michael Jamin:Even the effects that you do, I mean, some of them are pretty tech as far as I'm concerned. Are you doing this on Adobe? Where are you at Premier, or where are you editing most of this?Merrick Hanna:Yeah. I'm doing all of my effects videos on my laptop with After Effects, which is Adobe and Blender, which is a free software.Michael Jamin:So tell me what this is like so you come up with an idea you might spend, because I know, okay, let's take this back for a second. How many videos do you post in a week?Merrick Hanna:I post, right now I'm posting 14 videos a week.Michael Jamin:That's a lot. SometimesMerrick Hanna:More, sometimes less. I try and get 14. Sometimes I am not as productive. I think this week it was more like seven 10, helpMichael Jamin:Me out here because the night before, I do one a day and I try sick five or six days a week. And the night before I go to bed, I go, what am I going to do tomorrow? But you don't seem to have that problem, or do you?Merrick Hanna:Oh, I do. It's very, very difficult to come up with ideas. And sometimes at night I'm just sitting in bed like, oh, I can't find any routines. What am I doing?Michael Jamin:Are you looking for inspiration from other creators or what are you going to say?Merrick Hanna:Yes, I'm looking for popular TikTok routines, popular trends, something I can turn into my own because that's how I come up with ideas. I find something like a popular dance, a popular song. It could be even a hashtag or just a popular meme online. And I think, how can I take this and then make it into something original and that is on brand for me.Michael Jamin:And do you have a list of ideas, backup ideas? I have a list of backup ideas I don't want to get to, I guess they don't seem that good to me.Merrick Hanna:Yes, I do have a very, very long Google document with ideas,Michael Jamin:But the problemMerrick Hanna:With doing that is that trends come and go within two days on TikTok.Michael Jamin:But do you have to do a trend?Merrick Hanna:Yeah,Michael Jamin:You do.Merrick Hanna:Kind of on TikTok, it's really, really important for me to do a trend, and this is just because I've had years of experience throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks,Michael Jamin:AndMerrick Hanna:It's always trends…

Full show notes at the publisher

105 - Prop Master Scott Reeder Nov 01, 2023

Show notes

On this week's episode we have Scott Reeder who is a Prop Master for film and TV. Some of the projects he has worked on have been "Pitch Perfect", "American Crime", "Walker" and many many more. Tune in as he talks about how he comes up with ideas for props that are needed for filming as well as going viral on Tiktok and how he deals with it.Show NotesScott Reeder on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottpropandroll/Scott Reeder on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1048397/Scott Reeder on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottpropandrollFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptScott Reeder:Well, part of it, I felt like a little bit of imposter syndrome. Like, well, what? I don't really deserve these accolades because I'm just doing, I'm just not doing anything that great. I didn't think, and I was like, well, how can I keep this up? I'm going to run out of stuff to talk about.Michael Jamin:Yes,Scott Reeder:But I've been able to just, I just keep going. I've always come up with, so you're listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Michael Jamin:Okay. Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome to the Michael Jamin Jam. Today I'm jamming with Mr. Scott Reeder, and who the hell is he? I'll tell you who he is. This guy is a prop master on a bunch of movies and TV shows, and I don't know him personally, but I've been following him for a very long time, and he's actually also a talker. So Scott, I'm so inspired by what you do, and I'm opening up my podcast. I'm spending the next couple of sessions talking to, I usually talk about screenwriters and I interview TV writers and people like that, but I also want to open up to people who are doing interesting creative things and social media, and you are for sure one of them. So thank you for coming on my show, dude.Scott Reeder:Oh, thanks for having me.Michael Jamin:I'm excited. I'm excited too, because I've worked obviously with a lot of prop masters and you post a lot on social media, and honestly, I don't know, 99% of what you do. I'm like, oh, that's how they do it. I have no idea you guys are magicians, because to be truthful, I'm not supposed to notice what you guys do. That's the whole point. When you bring a prop on set, I'm not supposed to see if it's a gag or a gimmick or anything. It's supposed to look real. So I just said, oh, that must be real, and you expose on your TikTok channel how all this is done. It is absolutely fascinating. Everything you put out,Scott Reeder:Well, it could be a scene in a burger joint with a guy taking one bite out of a burger, and I would've to have like 30 hamburgers. So it's those little things no one thinks about,Michael Jamin:But there's also a crossover a lot of people don't think about is what you do, what set decoration does. There's a whole, okay, for example, if you have a scene and the horse is on set and a horse takes a dump, that set deck, or is that propsScott Reeder:Nowadays? I believe the animal Wrangler would probably do it.Michael Jamin:There's arguing over set over who's going to do that, right?Scott Reeder:Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. There's always, well, I mean, not always arguing, but what I try to do is when I do my breakdown of a script is make contact with everyone involved with every gag or every scene and make sure, okay, am I doing this or you? And that's typically what I say it up to them and say, do you want me to do this? I'm totally cool with doing it, and that's the way I'm not coming off. I'm trying toMichael Jamin:ItScott Reeder:Off. Right,Michael Jamin:Not keep your head, but now, how did you get in? Because you've done, I should run through some of your credits. I'll just go through a you pitch. Perfect. Walker, Texas Ranger, machete, machete, machete. You've some great, the list goes on and on. How did you get into this and why?Scott Reeder:Well, I always wanted to work in media and communications of some sort. Oh, gosh. I'll try to keep it brief. I was going to the University of North Texas in 19 88, 89, and there happened to be a movie filming in town. It was called Daddy's Dying, who's got the will written by a playwright named Dale Shores,Starred Beau Bridges, Beverly DeAngelo, and I found out that there were filming at a hospital. I just showed up. But yeah, I just started picking up trash on set and working as the lowest rung non-paid production assistant. It was 1989, so it was a long time ago, and then I, it's all about networking. It's all about getting your foot in the door. Then I interned at a film at the North Texas Film Commission, which was great because we'd get scripts from producers they wanted, and I got to read 'em early on in the process. I was the guy that would go out and take pictures of, it could be a prison or restaurants, just locations to try to draw producers into our neck of the woods.Michael Jamin:Interesting.Scott Reeder:Yeah, so that's how I kind of got my start.Michael Jamin:So tell me, when you start doing props and you have to make whatever puke or you have come up with all sorts of inventive ways, especially with food, to make something look so it doesn't melt or it doesn't go bad, or you did something with a stick of butter yesterday, you had fake butter, so it doesn't melt onset. How do you come up with this? How do you're like a magician? How do you come up with these, basically you're an inventor. How do you invent all these things to make it look like butter or whatever?Scott Reeder:Well, we break down the script. We come up with, we get with every episode, we will have, as you know, you have directors meeting and typically the writers are involved on that and all the concept, and then I know what they're expecting of me, and I'll go from there and I'll just call around. I've got a lot of connections, a lot of friends that if I haven't jumped that particular hurdle, I have friends that have. So that's just kind of how,Michael Jamin:Really, okay, so it's word of mouth. How do you, that's it. ThenScott Reeder:If I were in LA I would be hiring a food stylist,Michael Jamin:ButScott Reeder:There's not enough. There may, there are some commercial food stylists in Dallas. I'm in Austin. There really aren't many people here for that. So we have to really up our food game as prop master, an assistant prop master and prop assistant.Michael Jamin:Then how do you, because we were talking earlier, you're based out of Austin, and I was like, I just assumed. So all your work is basically local and you get enough work locally?Scott Reeder:I work locally when I can.Michael Jamin:Is that most of the time though, isn'tScott Reeder:It? But occasionally I'll have to travelMichael Jamin:Occasionally, right?Scott Reeder:Yeah. I did Nosferatu for AMC in Rhode Island, and so when things get slow here in town, I'll travel on. I did a movie in Mississippi in 2019.Michael Jamin:And how do you get most of your work? You don't have an agent getting you work, do you?Scott Reeder:No. Word of mouth. It's just relationships I've built with producers and word of mouth.Michael Jamin:So how does that work basically when it's like, how do you know when it's time to, oh, there's nothing going on in Austin. Do you give it a couple of weeks, a couple of months? What do you doScott Reeder:Typically? Hopefully I have a job lined up and we try to play on a few months ahead. If not, it's just wait around. Now what I do, Michael, is I'll fill in as art director on commercials.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? Okay.Scott Reeder:So actually I'm lined up for one starting next week, and I haven't been that fortunate with commercials through the strike because when the actors went on strike, even though companies can still make commercials, they're holding back on their campaigns right now.Michael Jamin:Why is that, do you think?Scott Reeder:I don't know, but there's, there's definitely been a slowdown. Interesting. Now, part of that could be the Texas heat. I don't know, but it's definitely slower than normal. But yes, I would try to line jobs up at a time. I'll call around, let some people know that I'm available, but a lot of people know me will say, oh, Scott shows ending soon. I'll give him a call. That sort of thing. It's a very small community.Michael Jamin:I bet. Do you prefer to work in TV or film?Scott Reeder:My bread and has been television. I like both. If I go through a full season of television and I have enough time between seasons or it's a picture wrap of a show, I like filling in with features.Michael Jamin:What is the difference for you between the two?Scott Reeder:It's a big difference. It doesn't move nearly as fast.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Scott Reeder:BecauseMichael Jamin:You're not doing as many pages a day.Scott Reeder:Correct. You might do two or three pages a day.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Scott Reeder:It's just a whole different animal really. If I'm doing a television show, I'm not on set as much in Perpetual Prep. I'm always working on the next script, and if it's a feature, I will prepped it ahead of time and on set, and I'm more hands-on at camera and whatnot, how many, which I like that part of it.Michael Jamin:People don't realize that when a prop is required on set, you'll have backups and backups for the backups. That's the worst thing that has happened. If something goes wrong, the one gets yelled at.Scott Reeder:Oh, correct. Yes. We always try to have multiples. Now there are those items that are one of a kind, and you just got to cross your fingers, pray and let everyone know, Hey, this is the, oh, don't play with this. Between takes. It's the only one we got, but that's rare. We typically have multiples of everything.Michael Jamin:How many multiples is enough, do you think?Scott Reeder:Yeah, it just depends on the scene. I like to have at least bare minimum two. If it's an item that's involved in a stunt, you'll want to have four. Food scenes are crazy because it's hard to determine, because a lot of times the actor might improvise and eat a lot more than you think.Michael Jamin:SoScott Reeder:I always go overboard on food scenes.Michael Jamin:But they give you a budget. I mean, they also say they don't want you to waste. How do you know they don't want you to come up with too much? Because then they're paying for that.Scott Reeder:Yeah. Well, the first couple, if we're talking about television, the first couple episodes or when you kind of feel it out, you'll buy heavier.Michael Jamin:AndScott Reeder:Then my assistant will call and say, Hey, you got way too much last time. Dial it back, this particular director. And we get to where we know how the directors work. You'll have one director that'll do six takes another director two, and moving on. So you get to where you understand the personalities of everybody and how they work and how they operate. Well, this particular person, the last food scene they went through a lot. So we'll get a lot.Michael Jamin:Now, do you prefer low budget or high budget, or does that not make a difference to you?Scott Reeder:Well, I prefer a bigger budget,Michael Jamin:Really,Scott Reeder:To be honest. Yeah, it's a lot of times if you're working on a no budget feature or a really ultra basic cable show, I'm not going to name names, but they, they literally give you pennies and you're trying, it's just so much harder when you could just go buy something than have to scrounge it or limit your amount of takes because of the budget or limited amount of props you have for a take.Michael Jamin:Now here in LA there's tons of prop houses. I mean, what do you do when you're shooting in an area that doesn't have houses? Does Austin have any good prop houses?Scott Reeder:What you do is you open up a prop house. That's what I did 20 years ago. I opened up a little prop shop. It's not near the scale of the Los Angeles prop houses,Michael Jamin:ButScott Reeder:I have a little bit of everything. It's kind ofMichael Jamin:The newest art. That's amazing. So it's just a warehouse and you rent out to other prop masters, not just yourself, but to other productions?Scott Reeder:Correct.Michael Jamin:Wow. AndScott Reeder:I actually rent all over the country. I just had a bunch of stuff come back from the Kevin Costner movie that was shooting in Utah.Michael Jamin:There's one prop house that's going out of business in la. They're having a fire sale, and I'm like, go get rid of that. That stuff is important.Scott Reeder:Well, hopefully one of the other, either history for hire or independent studio services or hand prop room will go in and get some of that stuff.Michael Jamin:And so do you specialize your prop specialize in something? No,Scott Reeder:Not really. I have a little bit of everything. I've got occupational props, a little bit of old West, some period stuff. I've got police gear, lots of military. I try to keep things that you can't find at Walmart, basically.Michael Jamin:Right. OrScott Reeder:Else the sub decorator will just go to Walmart, typically. So I specialize in harder to find things.Michael Jamin:Is that something, do most prop or many prop masters have their own prop houses, or is that something just yourScott Reeder:Not really. No. I was just the first to open one here. I think a lot of people will have prop trucks that they'll keep their kit on, and they'll have a general assemblage of props that they'll stock props that they'll bring to every, and they'll leave a portion of their truck empty for the hero props that they'll bring on some. I'm sure some have storage rooms, storage facilities, somewhereMichael Jamin:WhereScott Reeder:They store things.Michael Jamin:Well, this explains to me, it seems like a very entrepreneurial in spirit, which explains to me, or maybe it doesn't, but how you started on this TikTok journey that you've been on, because this is very interesting what you do.Scott Reeder:Well, it's totally accidental. During the early days of the pandemic, my daughter was scrolling on TikTok. She was 17 at the time, and she's laughing at some videos. So I'm like, what you laughing at? That sort of thing. So I downloaded it and I saw some people attempting to tell dad jokes, and I'm thinking, well, I can do that,Michael Jamin:And you can, you're good at it.Scott Reeder:And with some that I'd written or taking really old jokes and adding punchlines to 'em, it was just fun. It was a fun hobby during that time where there was no, where the whole industry was shut down. And I got back on the Amazon show that I was on called Panic, and one of my assistants, I can't remember which one it was, but they said, Hey man, what we do is interesting. What if you work in some prop stuff?Michael Jamin:ItScott Reeder:Might be interesting. So I was very careful because you want to be careful not to interfere with any ND…

Full show notes at the publisher

104 - 2 Year Podcast Anniversary Oct 25, 2023

Show notes

I’ll tell you I’m talking about. When I first started sharing my professional journey, I focused on people who were interested in screenwriting. But over the years, my audience has expanded to include all sorts of creative types: actors, artists, novelists, playwrights, performers, and more. With that said, I'm rebranding my podcast. I’ll still talk about screenwriting, but I’ll interview a wider variety of people living their own creative lives. I hope they’ll inspire you to do the same.Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:But also it's like when you put energy into something legit energy, not like thinking or dreaming, but when you actually do the work, thingsPhil Hudson:Have a way ofMichael Jamin:Manifesting like, oh, there's opportunities have a way of appearing becausePhil Hudson:You've put work into it.Michael Jamin:Like these variousPhil Hudson:Press opportunitiesMichael Jamin:That I've done and other things that have sprung out because of that. That's just from doing the energyPhil Hudson:Of posting on social mediaMichael Jamin:And just sharing as much knowledge as I can.Phil Hudson:You're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talkingMichael Jamin:About?Phil Hudson:I'll tell you what I'm talkingMichael Jamin:About. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking aboutPhil Hudson:Writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourselfMichael Jamin:Through the arts. Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin and I'm new. I'm all new right now because I've done a rebrand on the podcast. It was called, obviously Screenwriters Need to Hear this. And then Phil and I were talking and we kind of wanted to open up the conversations a little bit so it's not just about screenwriting and so it's more about, I was really getting to talking about people doing all sorts of creative things. I just think it's inspiring. We'll still talk about screenwriting of course, but I wanted to open up the conversation to more people who are doing things that hopefully inspire all of us to just live more creative lives. And Phil don't get upset. Phil is still here, still is not going away. He's very much involved in all this, but the title of course of the new show is What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? And will be answering that question. What the hell am I talking about? Go ahead.Phil Hudson:I think the focus in our conversations were really about creativity because you're a bit more than just a screener. When we started this, it was with a specific purpose. We should also point out this is episode 1 0 4, which is two years of doing podcast,Michael Jamin:So it wasPhil Hudson:A good time to take a step back. Reassess. Things have shifted a lot in the industry. Things have shifted a lot for you personally. What you've done over the last few years is pretty phenomenal in terms of growing a following, becoming a bit of a celebrity, becoming a bit of an expert in a lot of news, which we'll talk about. So yeah, it's just a shift to I think, speaking a little bit more to who Michael Jamin is beyond just being a writer and a showrunner, but being a true creative.Michael Jamin:And I should mention, so Phil speaks with authority because he runs a digital marketing agency called Rook, SS e o. So this is, he knows what he's talking, he knows the space Well, but without further ado, I guess this episode we were just going to talk a little bit more about how far the changes we've made, what we've seen in the past two years and hopefully maybe what we're moving towards.Phil Hudson:Yeah, I thought it would be fitting, Michael, just to kind of talk about some statistics around what the success of the podcast, the success of your work as doing your own personal marketing. And I want to remind everybody that the whole point of this was so that you could market your book. So you're taking and eating your own advice, and I think it's very important for people to know, if I think of Michael Jainism, what are some of the things, your catchphrases and the things you say? Some of those are don't wait, put it out there. Put yourself out there. Right.Michael Jamin:Stop asking for permission is what I say.Phil Hudson:Stop asking for permission.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Phil Hudson:There are a bunch of those that could be really good slogans for hats, whichMichael Jamin:YouPhil Hudson:ShouldMichael Jamin:Consider. A lot of this really, and I guess maybe it's fitting that just that I am the first interview of what the new brand is because a lot of this is about reinventing yourself. This whole journey that I've been is about reinventing myself. I was a sitcom writer. That's what I was until I started going online and making a podcast and posting every day and now I'm something else.Phil Hudson:Yeah, it's definitely morphed. So let's talk a bit about that. Right. So we're 104 episodes into the podcast. That's big. I think the statistic I saw a week ago is that the average podcast has six episodes, which meansMichael Jamin:Most people It's a lot of work. Yeah,Phil Hudson:It is. It's a lot of money too. I don't think people recognize that you're investing in editors, you'veMichael Jamin:GotPhil Hudson:People doing graphic design. There's a lot of it. There's the hosting of the site. I mean, every time you do a webinar, a site crashes and I have to freak outMichael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Run in and make sure we're back up. And yeah, it's a whole thing. So there's a lot that goes into this, but it's 104 episodes on lots of different topics, all centered around creativity, largely around Hollywood and screenwriting. But I personally, as I've gone through and produced and helped edit some of the episodes, it's very clear to me that you get a lot of joy from having these creative conversations.Michael Jamin:Yeah. That's what interests me the most. Yeah, andPhil Hudson:It's not so much about like, Hey, you're a screenwriter. It's like, hey, you are a creative personMichael Jamin:Who'sPhil Hudson:Putting themselves out there and trying to make something happen,Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Your audience speaks to this as well. So in the digital marketing space, when we think about this, we think about an avatar and an avatar or a persona. It's your ideal customer. It's the person you're going after. And anytime you're doing marketing, it's a mistake. Or if it's folly, to not do that, you want to understand who you're targeting. And it was very clear two years ago, well, I'm a writer, I'm a TV writer. Let's talk about what I know, which is screenwriting to people who are screenwriters. And I pointed out you should do that because there's a lot of BSS out there.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:What is your take on that two years into this? What is your take on BSS advice and advice in general? Maybe through the lens of the questions you get asked,Michael Jamin:What is my take on it? I feel like you're prompting me to say something. What are you getting at Fell? I don'tPhil Hudson:Know. I'm not trying to lead the witness. I just want to know what is your take on the marketplace for screenwriters having been immersed on the public, but then you're getting all these questions from people. You did a bunch of live q and as for a year, just talking to people and your following, and there's a series of 10 or 15 questions everybody's asking,Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:It's all pointed towards sell your stuff. You know what those are. So I'm just wondering for you as a showrunner who kind of stepped into the world of what's being taught by the gurus andMichael Jamin:By thePhil Hudson:Experts, what are you seeing in the marketplace for screenwriters?Michael Jamin:One thing I said during the last webinar we did, we do free webinar every three weeks, and I said something that I think a lot of people were astounded by. I said, screenwriting is simple. It's not easy, but it's simple. And I think a lot of people are trying to sell you the complicated version so that you buy more from I'm the only one who can explain it to you and therefore you need me. And I don't know in the writer's room, that's just not how we approach writing simple. I also think there's a lot of bad advice out there, I think. So just be careful. Be careful who you're taking advice from. I don't know, it's a little heartbreaking. Someone posted today, actually, I did a post and someone left a comment saying, everything this guy says me is true because he did coverage in a coverage service. HePhil Hudson:Goes, yeah,Michael Jamin:People use pay me for coverage. I didn't know anything and I'm telling people what to do. This is a gig this guy picked up. It didn't seem like a lot of people I know, not a lot of people, but I've heard stories of people who've done coverage for a temp job for a month or two and then left because they left feeling a little bit gross about themselves. Why are you paying me? I don't know what I'm talking about. And so they left.Phil Hudson:Okay, so this is the world that, so I guess I might've been leading the witness a little bit because my point is, this is the world I understood because prior to meeting you and having the stars align, and we met years ago, and without me knowing who you are, and everybody knows the story by now of how we know each other and became friends, I was very much in that world and I was looking around trying to find that type of feedback and information, and you really shined the light on this for me. That man, there's a lot of people out here pretending like they know what they're talking about.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:I think you've done a valuable service in these first 100 and 304 episodes of peeling back the curtain, explaining how the process works, educating people. So I just wanted to reiterate, there's a lot of value in what you've done, and that doesn't mean that you're not going to continue to provide value to your listeners who are screenwriters. I think you're just shifting into really none of it all, which is be a creative and do creative things because there's value in the act, not because you're trying to sell a pilot.Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. I said something else that people kind of resonated with. Maybe it's worth repeating, and I'll probably say again in my webinars, I say do more of them, but I interviewed, I directed Brian Cranston many years ago on a show called Glen Martin. He was a guest star. It was an animated show, and I directed, it was silly. He played a fun role and was then afterwards I thanked him. We paid him probably 800 bucks. He wasn't doing it for the money. And I thanked him that was scale. And he said, oh, no, no, thank you. And I'm like, thank me. Whatcha talking about you're Brian Cranson. At the time he was doing breaking bed, and he said, it's just nice to have a pallet cleanser. As great as Breaking Bad was in probably my favorite show of all time.It was so dark that he was living with these negative emotions, anger, fear, jealousy, rage, all that stuff to be in the character. And when you are in that, your mind doesn't know a difference When you're playing this character 12, 14 hours a day in film and you're acting angry and vengeful and all that, whatever those emotions he had to play, your brain doesn't know the difference that whole day. You've been angry and vengeful, and then when you go home, how do you get it out of you? I mean, how do you just experienced all that all day? And it just really made me think about what it's like to be an actor to actually live in that. So he was thanking me because the script that we did was so light and fun. He was like, oh, it's like a, it was fun. It was fun.Palette, cleanser, which he needed. And then it just got me thinking a lot about just creativity as a whole. And then when people write, when they write their scripts, novels, whatever it is, regardless of whether you sell it or not, you are enjoying that burst of creativity and you're playing out all the characters in your head and your mind doesn't know the difference between you pretending to jump out of a plane and you writing about jumping out of a plane. You're trying to get it all on paper. You're really trying to live it in your heart. And so that I feel Carries with you when you write, regardless of whether you sell it something is a bonus, great, you got money for it. But if you don't sell it, you still get that. You still get that rush, that bonus. And so there's no reason not to write, don't think of it as the pot of gold is in the journey. It's not at the end of the rainbow.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Let's talk about some of the statistics of the podcast, and I love that. I want to circle back on that topic of the journey, the joys in the journey, not the destination, which I'm sure I'm slaughtering that saying just some things, right? So 104 episodes of the podcast, over 200,000 downloads of the podcast, people from I don't know how many continents, but just basing it off of the last webinar we did this last Saturday. I counted probably 13 countries on about four continents, right? That's a trip. Italy, you've got Europe, you've got people in Asia, Australia, south America, you got Central America, you've got America, you'veMichael Jamin:GotPhil Hudson:Canada. I mean, you've got people, it's a global reach at this point, and you're kind of that figurehead to put that out.Michael Jamin:There's so strange.Phil Hudson:Yeah. So hundreds of thousands of downloads on the podcast, which is incredible and that may not seem like a lot, but for the industry and for your niche,Michael Jamin:ThisPhil Hudson:Is really good. These are great numbers for that. We've pulled some stats, and you might know this a little bit better. At one point you were in the top three podcasts on screenwriting, is that right?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I was bouncing around andPhil Hudson:We fluctuated between 5, 6, 7, 10. Anybody who wants to help support go leave a review, a written review on iTunes, that does help a ton. But yeah, so major reach, major opportunity. When you started this, I wanted to ask, do you remember how many Instagram followers you had when we sat down in your garage and I talked about here's what you need to do to be able to grow your following and do this. DoMichael Jamin:You remember how many? I don't remember.Phil Hudson:No, because it wasn't something you're paying attention to. I didn't know. But how many Instagram followers do you have now? It was less, would you say less than a thousand? Probably.Michael Jamin:Probably close to 160,000 now, I think. Yeah,Phil Hudson:Yeah, 160,000.Michael Jamin:HowPhil Hudson:Many days have you missed posting on socialMichael Jamin:Media? Since we started this two yearsPhil Hudson:Ago,Michael Jamin:I promised myself that I was going to post every day. So I post, I would say on average six days a week. So sometimes I take a day off.Phil Hudson:So for anybody looking to grow a following, again, Michael's telling you to do this. He's telling you to bring something…

Full show notes at the publisher

103 - What The Hell Is A Producer? Oct 18, 2023

Show notes

On this week's episode, I talk about all of the different types of "producers" there are working in Hollywood as well as what some of their specific responsibilities might be. Tune in for much more!Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:I would prefer to do another show like that as opposed to a big budget show faster. Let's shoot it faster. I just like it better.Phil Hudson:Buddy. System was pretty quick too. I mean, we shot the In sixMichael Jamin:Weeks. Yeah, buddy System was equally fast. And even still, it feels when you're on set, it's like, oh, this is so boring. Even still, it takes a long time to get each side.You're listening to screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin, back with Phil Hudson for another episode of Screenwriters. Need to hear this. At least until we rename the podcast. We're toying with that idea to open it up. But I don't have an idea yet. I don't have a name yet. So for now, this is what we're going with everyone. That'sPhil Hudson:News to people. I don't think people know thatMichael Jamin:Yet. No, it's news. You're leaking. APhil Hudson:Little hint.Michael Jamin:I'm leaking a hint and it's because I want to open up the conversations a little to broaden out. So it's not just about screenwriting, but also about people who are interested in the arts and reinventing themselves and just putting it out there. So we're going to hang on to that, but for now, we're going to keep talking about this subject, but we will, I'll still talk about screenwriting, so don't want to panic. I'm still going to talk about screenwriting. I just want to open up to more inspirational art stuff. AndPhil Hudson:I think for you, two years into the podcast, it started as a thing during Covid to help people out with this specific space. But your social media has grown to include all creatives and a large percentage of the content that people are consuming on your social media. Forgive me for calling it content, but that is being consumed by people who are more in the creative fields. We have people who've signed up for your screenwriting course who are financial analysts, and they write about finance and they talk about the value of story and story structure. We got artists, novelists, all kinds of people. And so yeah, this makes sense to me, especially as you've kind of outgrown the persona of just being a TV writer and being more of a creative inspirational figure in the space.Michael Jamin:So that's what the plan is. But until then, we're sticking with this name. But okay, everyone, so today I thought we would talk about the title of today's episode is What the Hell Is a Producer? Because no one knows. It's like one of these terms in Hollywood that everyone, it can mean so many different things. It's unclear exactly what a producer does. And I think everyone, when I post on social media, everyone gets it wrong. So we know what a writer does. The writer writes, we know what an actor does. We think we know what a director does, but often people get that wrong. But that could be another episode. But as far as a producer, it means so many different things. So I'm going to break it down and you're going to help me with this. Phil. First we're going to take a step back. So right now the Writer's Guild is on strike against the producers, the Alliance of Motion picture and television producers or the A M P T P. So that's very misleading. It sounds like we are striking against producers, but we're not in this sense. The producers are the studios. So think about Warner Brothers, universal, Sony, Netflix,Phil Hudson:Amazon, yeah, apple.Michael Jamin:So they produce film intelligence shows. So we are striking against the producers of film and television shows, but we are not striking against film and television show producers, which would be, I know that's confusing P GPhil Hudson:A, right? Is that where you're going? Right.Michael Jamin:So that would be, when you think of the P G A, sometimes you watch a film and it says someone's name, the P G a, that's the Producer's Guild of America. So those are people who are producers. They work on the show or the movie that's being made. So anytime you have a film or a television show, you have a production staff and they are there every day and they are so on a TV show in particular, the writers will dream up a sequence or a scene or whatever it is, and then they'll sit down with the producers whose offices are right next door and say, can we make this happen? Your job? We thought of it, but now you have to actually make it happen. And sometimes they say, we can't. You have to. You're going to break the bank. And sometimes they say, okay, we can do this. And those people are producers. Okay, but that's in tv. I'm going to talk more about TV first.Phil Hudson:And there's a note too here too about the P G A, I don't know if you're going to touch on this, but they're not a union that is basically a group of people who have kind of unified or they've basically agreed to be an association, but because they are technically employers, they cannot unionize.Michael Jamin:Oh, really? And so are you in the P G A?Phil Hudson:I think I'm eligible, but I have not joined. I've not pursued it, but it's definitely open.Michael Jamin:But don't you get your don't they help provide health insurance,Phil Hudson:I believe is the D G A and P G A. They've pooled. So basically these producers have agreed to pay into these funds and do these things to provide pension and healthcare for their members. But the difference is they are not effectively a union. I think legally they cannot be a union. So the term guild can be a bit confusing, right, because there's the W G A, which is a union, notMichael Jamin:Really, I don't think WGA is considered a union. I think it's considered.Phil Hudson:I thought they were. I thought that's why they're able to strike because they are unionized. NoMichael Jamin:ThinksPhil Hudson:The collective bargaining is by Definit definition of union. I thought there's a great point.Michael Jamin:I thought there. There's some what add. I thought there's some differences, slight differences, but okay, so now we're going to talk about producersPhil Hudson:Of, it's two different unions. So it's the east and the west combined forces. So there're two different unions that are working togetherMichael Jamin:In what? OhPhil Hudson:Yes. So the writer's Guild East is a union and the Roger's Guild West is a union. And then they join and that's the guild. That's what they represented, two different unions.Michael Jamin:So when we talk about producers on a TV show, this is so unclear and I'm going to try to clear it up and it's going to be still confusing. So producers, like I said, on a TV show, their job is to, for the most part, make it happen. Make whatever we dream of, make it happen. So if we set a scene that takes place in the amusement park, the producer's like, okay, how are we going to shoot there? How are first we got to rent out of Ineson Park, we have to move the cameras there, we have to license, have to buy the space out. And that's producing it. If you want special effects, they're going to have to make sure all those people are there on the set that day. They coordinate the whole damn thing. And there's many different levels of producers, the line producers, the one who deals with mostly making sure we're on budget, making sure. Then there's also like you are, you're an associate producer. What's your job as an associate producer?Phil Hudson:So the saddle associate producer came up this season. It was recommended by an actual producer, savvy Kathy or Kathy, I always mess up her last name, but S'S awesome. She's a 24 and they were trying to figure out a title for my new role. And there are specific titles they can't use because they are managed by union. So facilities manager and things like that. And in basically live tv, anyone who manages the stages or the set or controls things on the ground, that's an associate producer title. So she's the one who encouraged everyone to give me that title. My role was very much, I was an assistant to the producers. I kind of handled anything that they wanted to delegate down. I had their authority to make things happen. My first day I fired somebody because that person was breaking rules and I had to do that. I handled plumber issues, I handled facility issues. I was in charge of making sure that everything got cleaned. If someone needed something, it was my responsibility to make sure that that got coordinated with the production office. So it was basically a liaison between the producers and the other people and the rest of the set. One thing that I found funny is there's this, I might've talked about it on the podcast and forgive me if it's redundant, but there, do you know who Jordan is on Conan Conan show? He's one of his associate producer?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I think so. Yeah.Phil Hudson:So his skit came out of, I believe this came out hearing it from Conan. It came out of the last writer strike where they didn't have anything and one of the other producers was like, Jordan, you have such interesting interactions with him, maybe you should just record those. They're just fascinating to watch. So he became a figure on the show and he had Jordan on a podcast and Conan's like, what is your title? He's like, well, I've had many titles. He's like, but what is your title currently? And he's like, it is associate producer. And Conan goes, if there has ever been a more meaningless title in all of television, it's associate producer. I was like, it feels accurate. It's an honorary title. You get respect on set, people respect what you say, but it doesn't really come with many perks.Michael Jamin:Sometimes it might just be a catchall for something that they don't know what to, I started my career as a joke writer on the Mike and Maddie show, which is a morning TV show. I was a writer, so I used to write jokes, but they didn't want to pay me. If they had called me a writer, they would've had to pay me Writer's Guild minimum. And so instead they didn't want to give me that title, they just called me a segment producer instead. And so they could pay me less. But my job, I suppose, was producing segments of it's morning TV show. And so the segment I was in charge of was the morning chat when the hosts are just talking from the camera and they're making jokes about stuff. And then also sometimes we would do remote segments. We did one thing where Dr. Ruth was giving them a tour of some sex store. And so I was there on site just pitching jokes for the sex toys. So I was a producer, but did I really know how to produce? Nah, it's really rare. No,Phil Hudson:But that's a very typical thing. Even from cable shows, morning shows on cable, those are producers. You have producer titles. So my friend's sister was dating a producer on the Late show and he was a producer, but what was he? He was effectively a joke writer. He wrote jokes for the show and he was responsible. But I know people in Utah and New Mexico who are producers and their segment producer, they go out and they like, we're interviewing the person who makes the largest cookie in America. They make sure it gets done. That's it rightMichael Jamin:Now, here's where it gets a little confusing in tv. If you watch a TV show, you'll often see many titles that have the word producer in it, producer, supervising producer, executive producer. Many of those people are just mid to high level writers who don't really have the same functions. They don't do the same jobs as the producers do who work next door who actually make it happen. So is no overlap in the job responsibilities, but the job responsibility of say, executive producer who is probably also the showrunner would be, and also maybe some lower producers like supervising producer. You might be in charge of casting, you might have some editing responsibilities. You also have to know how when you write the whole season, you often will say, is this producible? And that comes with experience. So for example, if I was on a show and we're breaking episodes one through 10 and I see too many locations, it's my job as let's say a co-executive producer to say, we don't need all these, we can combine scenes with locations here. We can be more efficient, even though I'm not actually producing it. I'm wearing my producer's hat that we say.So just so know that it's not all producers on a show or actually on the production side we're also, yeah,Phil Hudson:I had a friend who was an actor and she made a comment once, she's like, all those producers at the front of a show are just writers, don't you? And I was like, that sounds great. I would like that. But the term for co ep, which is what you and your writing partner are on Tacoma FD have been many times, my understanding of this is you're effectively qualified to run the show and often need to do that when the executive producer is off on set or dealing with the casting thing or managing calls with them. So you're running the room, you're making sure it happens. And I've heard that term referred to as the strong number two.Michael Jamin:Yeah, the number two. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Yeah. So you're the boss, you're there to make sure that the ship stays going. I mean, yeah, it's basically the showrunner's, the captain, you're the first mate you take over when they're need arrest or break and you have the same authority to get things doneMichael Jamin:Basically. So those are our producers. Now there's a common misconception that sometimes people think in TV that producers are the people who raise the money, they put together the money for the project. I want to assure you, we don't touch a nickel. It's like we don't spend our own money. The studios are the ones who are in charge of raising the money. It's their money. So we never open our wallets only in rare exceptions. So for example, I've been involved in projects where someone might be an executive producer and they may put together let's say 10 or $15,000 to shoot a presentation, which is like a down and dirty pilot, a cheap pilot just as a sales tool, but they won't spend a lot of money. It's like very little. They're not investing. A TV show might cost a million dollars to shoot, we're talking about 10 or 15 just to put it on its feet just to show people kind of what it looks like. And this doesn't even happen a lot for the most part in tv executive producers are not in charge of raising money. They don't touch it. We work for the studios. The studios, it's their money that we're playing with. So get that out of your head. It's not a money position in television.Phil Hudson:And I think this is another definition thing too, where it can also be confusing because there is often another executive producer who is that guy who is doing that at the studio. They get that title…

Full show notes at the publisher

102 - Writer Adam Pava Oct 11, 2023

Show notes

On this week's episode, Writer Adam Pava (Boxtrolls, Lego Movie, Glenn Martin DDS and many many more) talks about his writing career, and why sometimes when he writes features, he doesn't always get credited. Tune in for much more!Show NotesAdam Pava on Twitter: https://twitter.com/adampava?lang=enAdam Pava on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1106082/Free Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptAdam Pava:I think that's the main thing is have samples that show exactly what your voice is and exactly what makes you different than everybody else, and what you can bring to the table that nobody else can. I think that's the first thing, but to get those open writing assignments, I think it's just a cool errand to even try because they're just so risk averse to hire anybody that hasn't done it before. I think the better shot that you have is to make smaller things and then they'll seen you've done it. You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jenman.Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back for another episode. I may be retitling the name of my podcast. So I'm, I'm going to be vague for everyone, but I'm here with my next guest, Adam Pava, who's a very talented writer I worked with many years ago on show called Glen Martin, d d s, and he works. We'll talk. I'll let you speak in a second. Pava, you just relax. I'm going to bring you on with a proper introduction because you've worked a lot, lot of features, a lot of animation. So I'm going to run through some of your many credits. Some of them are credited and some of them just are not so credited. We're going to talk about that even though you've done the work. So I think you started early on on shows like Clone High, Johnny Bravo, I'm going to skip around.You worked with us on Glen Martin d d s, but then you've also done Monsters versus Aliens Dragons. I'm going to jump around, but wait, hold on. I'm skipping a lot of your credits, Pavo, a lot of the box trolls you've done, you work a lot with Lord and Miller on all their stuff, all the Lego movies, goblins. You have something in the works with Leica, which is one of the big animation studios which you're attached to direct as well, and then also some other shows. Let's mention My Little Pony dreamland. What else should we talk about? A bunch of the label, it's hard to talk about the credits because so many of 'em are things that are either in production or development that they're not supposed to talk about yet, or they're things that I was uncredited on. And so it's a weird thing.And why are you uncredited? How does that work? It's super different from TV and movies. So back when I worked in tv, I did tv. I mean, back when we worked together it was like what, 10, 15 years ago? Something like that. But I did TV for the first decade of my career and everything you work on, you're credited, even if you're just like the staff writer in the corner who says three words and doesn't make, get a joke into the script. You're one of the credited writers. Movies are a different situation. It's like one of these dirty secrets of Hollywood where they always want to credit one writer or a team of writers. Sometimes it'll be two writers that get the credit if both of 'em did a huge chunk of the work. But the thing that usually happens these days on big studio movies anyway is they will go through three or four writers over the course of the years and years of it being in development and all those writers who worked on it before the final writer or sometimes just the first writer and the last writer will get credit and all the ones in the middle won't get credit.Or it's like the W G A has these arbitration rules where it's like, unless you did a certain percentage of the final shooting script, you're not going to get credit at all. So even though the guy who brings catering gets credit and every person on, so will you arbitrate for credit or do you go into these projects knowing that you're not going to get credit? Usually I go in knowing that I'm not going to get credit or I will. Sometimes there'll be a situation. I did about a year's worth of work on the Lego movie, the first Lego movie, and Phil and Chris, Phil Lauren and Chris Miller who directed that and wrote the first draft of the script and the final draft of the script. They're buddies of mine and so I'm not going to arbitrate against 'em and I want them to hire me in the future and I love them and they really wanted, they're written and directed by title, and so of course I'm not going to arbitrate in that sort of situation.And also to be fair, I don't think I would win that arbitration because they wrote the first draft and it was already the idea and it was brilliant and it came out of their minds and it was awesome. And then they had me do four or five drafts in the middle of there where I was just addressing all the studio notes and all the notes from the Lego Corporation and all the notes from Lucasville and all that kind of stuff while they're off shooting 21 Jump Street and then they come back. So you were just doing it to move it closer and then they knew they were, yeah, exactly. They knew they were coming back onto it and they were going to direct it and they would do another pass. They would do multiple passes once it goes into storyboarding once it's green lit. So I was just trying to get it to the green lit stage, so they had written a draft and then I did a bunch of drafts addressing all these notes and then we got a green lit off of my drafts and then they came back on and they started the storyboard process and directing process.And the story changes so dramatically during that process anyway that the final product is so far removed from the drafts I did anyway, but it was a valuable, my work was needed to get it to that point to where they can jump back onto it. But very little of that final movie is anything that I can take credit for and I wouldn't want to take credit away from them on that. So I do a lot of that kind of work. Did they have other writers that worked on Legos movie as well, or just you? On the first one, it was them and me. There was these two brothers, the Hagerman brothers who had done a very early treatment, but that had set up the original idea for the movie of Allego man sort of becoming alive. So they got a story by credit, and then they definitely always have a stable of writers that they bring in to do punch up work and to just watch the animatic and give notes and stuff like that.So there's a whole bunch of people that are contributing along the way. Funny, they come from tv, so they really run it. They run it as if they're still on TV a hundred percent. They have their writers. And so I've gotten to work on a lot of their projects as one of their staff writer type people basically is the idea. So it's all uncredited work, but it's great work. They're such great guys and you're working on really cool things every time. And so now there's a new, in the last few years, the W G A started this new thing called additional literary Material credit. And so if Lego were to have come out now, I think I would've gotten that credit on it, but at the time, that didn't exist, so I got a special thanks. And how did you, oh, really? Okay. And how did you meet these guys?They gave me my first ever job before I knew you. I mean, I had written a movie script that was an animated movie. This is like 99 or 2000. I was just out of grad. I wrote it while I was in grad school. And Wait, hold on. I didn't even know you went to grad school. Did you study screenwriting in grad school? Yeah, I went to U S C screenwriting. Oh, I did not. I hide it from you. Why do you hide it? For me? I don't know. It's a weird thing where I feel like a, it's like I was in this weird secondary program that wasn't part of the film school. It was the master's of professional writing and screenwriting. And so people would get confused and I didn't want to lead them on, but also I just feel like it got me to a place and then I was like, I didn't want be part of a good old boys club where people are just hiring U S C people or whatever.That's the whole point of going to USC for Yeah, people ask me, should I go to film school, get an M F A, and my standard answer is, no one will ever ask for your degree. No one caress about your degree. The only thing they care about is can you put the words on the page that are good a hundred? But why did you, but what it did offer me, and I'll get back to how I met Phil and Chris in a little bit, but this is a good side conversation. It gave me an opportunity to do some internships on a couple of TV shows. And that was super, super valuable. So when I was at U SS C, it was 99 and 2000, and so I interned my first year on a little show called Friends, which was still on the air. I was on the air at the time.I was just the stage intern. So I was moving the chairs around during the rehearsals and fetching coffees and getting frozen yogurt for cast members or whatever, just shitting my pants, trying to be a normal human being around all these superstars and was not, I wouldn't say it was the best experience of my life. It was definitely one of those things where I was like, everybody was super intimidating and everybody was really busy and the cast were in the middle of a renegotiation, so they're all showing up late. It just felt like everyone was angry the whole time. And I was like, dunno if I want to work in tv. But there was one writer's assistant who was just like, yeah, because on the stage you're a writer, you need to be in a writer's room, you should be an intern in a writer's room.And I was like, oh. And then so I was able to get an internship on Malcolm In the Middle, which had just sold, it was in his first year, so it was a summer show. So I jumped onto that in the summer and was able to do that. And then in that writer's room, I was like, oh, these are my people. These are actual, wait, you were an intern. They let you sit in the writer's room one. It was like for doing all, getting the lunches and making the coffee and all that stuff. Linwood was nice enough to let me just observe in the room for one day a week just to, well, if I didn't have other stuff I needed to get done. So it was super nice as long as I didn't pitch or say anything and I was just, I never would.But it was cool to, that experience showed me that show was so well written and it was so tight and those writers were all geniuses or I thought they were all geniuses. And then I'd go in the room first, I would read the scripts and I would think, oh my God, I'd never be able to do this. And then I got in the room and I'm like, oh no, they're just working really, really hard and banging their head against the wall until they come up with a perfect joke. And then by the time it's done, it seems like it's genius. But it all was just really hard work, really long hours to get to that place. So that taught me like, oh, maybe I can be one of those people. If I'm just one cog in this room, I could do that. And so that gave sort of the confidence to do that.So I had done those. Getting back, I can loop back into the Phil and Chris thing now because this actually connects really well. I had done those internships. I graduated U Ss C and I had this script that I'd written as my final project or whatever, and it was an animated movie, and I thought you could just sell an animated movie, but I didn't know, they didn't teach me this in grad school that at the time they developed 'em all. It was like only Disney and Dreamworks were doing 'em at the time. This is 2000. And they just hire directors and sort of were an artist in-house to sort of create the stories or back then that's how they would do it. And so I sent it to some agents and the response was always like, Hey, you're a really funny writer. This is really good.I can't sell this. I don't know anybody that buys animated movies, but you should write a live action movie if you can write it as good as this. And so I wrote another movie that was Live Action, but it was silly. It seemed like it might as well have been an, I go back and read it now and I'm like, it's basically an animated movie, but it didn't say it was animated, it was live action human beings. And I submitted it to a small boutique agency at the time called Broder. I don't know if you remember them, Broder Crow, we were there. Yeah. And so Matt Rice was an agent there at the time, and he had on his desk, his assistant was Bill Zody. I dunno if you know him, he's a big name agent now, but he was an assistant at the time.He read that script that I wrote and was like, oh, you know who this reminds me of these other clients that Matt has, Phil and Chris. And so he passed it on to those guys and they were looking for a writer's assistant on Clone High because they had just sold their first TV show. They were a young hotshot writers that were just deal. And so I met with Phil and Chris, and they hired me as the writer's assistant on Clone High, which was like, they were the same age as me. They were just like, we don't know what we're doing. But they're like, you've been in a writer's room, you've been knock on the middle and I friends and you, I didn't know anything. I didn't know what I was doing at all, but it said on my resume that I had had these experiences.So they thought I would be a good writer's assistant for that reason. But they were the coolest dudes from the very beginning. They were just like, you're the writer's assistant, but also you should pitch in the room. You should act like you're another writer. We have a really small staff, we have seven writers, and you're going to get episode eight. I mean, it was crazy. They were just like, they gave me a lance and that never happens anymore. How did they get an overall deal when they came? Oh, it's the craziest day. So they went to Dartmouth, they made each other at Dartmouth and then they were doing cartoons while they were there studying animation. And one of Phil's, I think it was Phil, I think it was Phil won the Student Academy Award for a student film that he did. And it was written about in the Dartmouth Alumni magazine.And there was a development exec at Disney whose son went to Dartmouth and read that article and was like, Hey, called them in their dorm room. And we're like, if you guys ever go out to la lemme know. We'll set a meeting. And they literally, the day after they graduate just drove to LA and then called 'em up and we're like, we're ready to get hired. And it worked and they got hired, it worked. They got hired just to do Saturday morning stuff, and they did that for a little bit and everything they were doing was too crazy for Saturday morning, but it was like Disney. But then Disney was like, well, you can start developing stuff for adult Disney or for primetime stuff. And so they came up with the idea for Clone High, and it originally sold to Fox as a pilot to be after the Simpsons or whatever, but then it didn't get picked up and then M T V picked…

Full show notes at the publisher

Bonus - August Webinar Q & A Oct 06, 2023

Show notes

In August, I hosted a webinar called "How To Write A Great Story" where I talked about what a "story" really is, as well as well as how to use personal stories to help your writing. This episode addresses questions you asked in our Q&A session that we didn't have time to answer. There's lots of great info here, make sure you watch.Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:Art is about taking something inside of you and expressing it in a way that helps you understand yourself and helps you understand the world around you. And in that way, people can see it or watch it and enjoy it and help them understand themselves. I think there's that greater good. I don't think craft necessarily does that. I think craft can sometimes be, the studio will give me a note and I'll say, okay, I can do that. That's what you want. I can do that. I don't think it's necessarily playing for the greater good. It's what they want and they're paying me. You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode. We're doing something unusual today. So Phil is back with me. And as you may know, every three or four weeks I host a free webinar where I take one subject and kind of educate you on it. And at the end, if there's time, I answer questions because about an hour long. And so usually we answer a lot of questions, but we can't get to all of them. So we save the questions that we can answer and we didn't have time. And we're going to answer it here for you today on this podcast. And by the way, for people who don't know, the webinar is always free, but afterwards, I also do a V I P room for people who if they want to pay a small fee, then they get to be in a smaller chat with me and we talk. I try to answer their questions as best I can specifically. So if anyone's interested in that, you go to michael jamin.com and I dunno where they would sign up for that on michael jamin.com/course. Probably.Phil Hudson:Oh, for the vip it's /vip.Michael Jamin:Oh, /vip. Okay.Phil Hudson:We're fancy here, Michael. We use high tech stuff like links, short links.Michael Jamin:So there you go. But now I'll answer the other questions. Phil hit me.Phil Hudson:I was just going to say there are a lot of really good feedback and I found that there are people who don't sign up for your course who also sign up for that v i p, and they ask some really interesting questions. And then after that I think it kind of pushes 'em over the edge to feel like, okay, this is something I can do, and then they're a little bit more inclined to invest in themselves. Some really good questions out of this V i p, and this is based off of the August webinar, and that topic was the pep talk Every screenwriter needs to hear, which is slightly different than Michael Jamin's known tone of just smashing your hopes and dreams on the rocks of reality,Michael Jamin:Which he's a problem. Yeah, I don't want to just do that. I want to make sure that people get, I want them to be grounded in reality. That's what I'm, I'm not trying to smash it's dreams, but I want to be realistic. Once you find out if you know what the reality is, then now, okay, now we can figure out how to get in once there's a way around every problem. That's what I,Phil Hudson:And that comes from early on when we were talking about the marketing for this. How do we help you grow your audience? How do we do this? And you were like, I will not sell the dream. I will not be one of those guys who just promises the dream to make a buck. I can't do that. And I was like, okay, well, it's going to hurt your ability to make money. He's like, it's not about that. I just will not do it. And so you've leaned into this sincere, radical honesty, I guess you could say, and I think overwhelmingly almost immediately people were like, wow, this sucks to hear, but I'm so glad you're saying it. It just resets the expectations a little bit. And even for me, having learned from you and been to film school and worked in the industry now for almost seven years, I still think about this, Hey, this is a script. Whenever I write a new script, this is not, I'm not going to sell this. That's okay.Michael Jamin:It's a writing samplePhil Hudson:And it frees me up to just be whatever I want it to be, not hoping that my entire life is dedicated to this one story I'm writing.Michael Jamin:I see good things coming your way, Phil, by the way.Phil Hudson:I see good things coming my way asMichael Jamin:Well. Yeah, because you're putting the work in and obviously you've already, it may be hard for you to see because you're in it, but the distance that you've traveled at only a few short years in Hollywood is pretty unremarkable.Phil Hudson:I'm keenly aware of that. Honestly, I'm humbled to be where I am. I'm humbled to host the podcast with you. I think I even pitched somebody else to co-host the podcast with you, and you're like, why wouldn't you do it? Why can't I just have you?I don't need to, or I don't want to assume to be the guy. I do think I bring a skillset to this podcast of asking the questions the listener wants to ask, and I think that's really what I do. But yeah, I'm incredibly humbled. I think I've got some really interesting things on the horizon, and I've already had some great things this year as direct result of you and the stuff you're putting out in your course and the great feedback I'm getting from people in your course, by the way, super talented people in there just giving me feedback and making me better.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Thank you Michael. Alright,Michael Jamin:Let's do it.Phil Hudson:Okay. Structurally, we broke this up into a couple and we've kind of found a pattern here. There's kind of craft questions, there are breakin questions, there are course questions, and then there are miscellaneous questions. So I take all the questions, kind of broke 'em down, and then I'm really focusing on things that you haven't said before because there are a lot of questions we get that are repetitive questions. Should I move to la? Should I move to la? What about this? How do I get my script in the right hands? And you've addressed those tons and tons of times. So if you like this, go listen to all the other q and A's where we get questions from social media, we get questions from your course members, we get questions from the webinar starting with craft, because I think that's really what we're here to learn is how to be professional writers. I'm going to mess up a bunch of names today. You ready for this?Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's okay.Phil Hudson:Shi suey, shagan. No clueMichael Jamin:That you said it perfectly, however,Phil Hudson:Nailed it. How do you win the battle against that blank screen when trying to create?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, the problem is you don't know what you're doing. Listen, the blank page is always intimidating even when you do know what you're doing. But if you are this locked up, it's because you just don't know what a story is and you don't know. That's what the course teaches you. How to take an idea, identify if there's enough meat on that bone to turn it into an episode of television or a movie or whatever. Not every idea is worth turning into. It doesn't have enough there. So the course helps with that. I think all that the writer's block that you're experiencing is because you don't know what you're doing. Of course you're going to be blocked. Of course you don't know what your characters are going to be doing, so at least come to the free webinar, at least I can help you with that much if you don't want to buy the course. The webinar will help a lot at michaeljamin,com/webinarPhil Hudson:And all the other free resources you have, like the free story lesson on your website, michaeljamin.com/free. It's another great place to start. Absolutely true. If you don't know where you're going to go, you get stuck. And for many of us, it's that middle of act two, what's going on? What do I do now? How do I get my characters to this really bad thing that's going to happen? Whatever it is. And understanding the structure as you put it out, it's just so easy to grasp and understand. It's a no brainer. I clearly know where I need to go and what needs to happen here from a strategic perspective, and then tactically I can lay in things to get me where I want in a surprising way.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Perfect. Oh, if I may, when you're rewriting, print that thing out and use a red pen, man.Michael Jamin:Red pen.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Michael Michael's pro tip hand amboy. What is the best way to keep improving in screenwriting or storytelling?Michael Jamin:Just keep writing. I would write your episode or your feature, put it aside, write another one, put it aside, write another one, and you'll find that as opposed to just keep on working on the same piece, finish it and write a second one, then the third one, and you'll find that script number five is much better than script number one will ever be. You have to just let it go and continue doing something else. So that's my advice.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Chelsea. Steve, how in depth do you prepare a beat sheet or treatment to pass to a co-writer? Is it important to be specific or broad out of respect for them?Michael Jamin:Oh, well, I mean, you should be doing the beat sheets together. I mean, I would think that's how you get on the same page. My partner and I do everything together. We break the story together. We come up with a beat sheet together. We come up with the outline together. That's how you do it. I mean, you don't want to, if they're your partner, I dunno why you wouldn't bounce ideas of each other that's, or else why have a partner.Phil Hudson:Another really early podcast episode we had was writing with a partner where you talk about this process and there are several schools of thought about how to work with a writing partner. There are tons of resources and different writing have different things. One person sits at a keyboard, the other does, and I think you guys do that that way. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Vers been, I used to be the one at the keyboard, but for the last couple of years he's been the one at the keyboard. Although now we both have, we use collaborate so we both can type at the same time, which is really annoying.Phil Hudson:That's awesome. Yeah, so there's a bunch of that and there are other people who do it, but I think the real juice of what we're saying here, what you're saying, Michael, is you shouldn't be breaking your story separate. That's not Yeah,Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah. You got to be on the same page.Phil Hudson:Yep. AllMichael Jamin:I'll tell a quick anecdote. One time Steve and I were working on a script for, I think it was Taco fd, and we were writing the outline together and we got into a fight over what this one scene was supposed to be. And I wanted one thing, he wanted another thing. And then I said, what do you think this story is about? And he told me, and then he goes, what do you think the story is about? I said, I think it's about this. We weren't even clear on what the story was about, so we had to stop, agree on that and then move forward.Phil Hudson:Yeah, that cleared up everything, I'm guessing.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Great. Nina in your course, isn't she? Yeah. Yeah. Nina, I'm so worried about alienating my audience for too long. Is there a theory about thisMichael Jamin:Alienating? I wish I knew. In what way? I feel like you want to hold your audience's hand. That's how I feel. There are other filmmakers who may feel differently when I get lost. Sometimes when I watch watching, I'm like, I'm lost here. I dunno what's going on. And so that's not something that I like to do in my writing. I like to make sure that, especially if you're writing on television, because you're writing on tv, you go into a movie is one thing. You have their attention. There are hostage if they're sitting in the movie theater, but on TV show often people will be on their phone, they're reading a magazine, they're doing everything at the same time as watching a TV show. So I want to make sure they're with me the whole way or else they're not going to be engaged.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. I wondered about this one too. What does she mean by alienating, right? I don't think you ever want to really alienate your audience. I think there's suspense, there's audience superior versus audience inferior. Does your audience know more than the character? Does the audience know less than the character does? And there's different tactics and tools you can use as a writer to build suspense, and they each have their own purpose, but alienating would be, yeah,Michael Jamin:That's not on my list of things to do.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Sorry Nina, if we had the misunderstanding here, but let us know in the private Facebook group putting us in there with a clarification, and I'm sure Michael hopinMichael Jamin:Into that. Just to be clear, the private Facebook group is just for members of my course, so you have to be a paid member to get into that. But there's a lot of good stuff going on there. These people are very active, and I answer more questions there for them.Phil Hudson:We'll jump down because there's literally this question under the section Mark Brozinsky. Is there a Facebook group we can join to network?Michael Jamin:Yes, there is. And once you purchase, you get a link to that and you should definitely take advantage of it. There's a lot of really smart people trading scripts. They're doing table reads once a week. They're giving each other notes film festival. And it's unlike, they got a festival coming up, which I can't believe, and it's unlike, there are other Facebook screenwriting groups where people are pretty mean. It's almost like Reddit, screenwriting Reddit, which is the dirtiest place on the earth, but that's not what this is going on in this group. It's really very professional and supportive. I think we were smart to gate that group and say, you have to be purchased because it hasn't turned into a cesspool.Phil Hudson:I can tell you from the e-learning side of my digital marketing career, that when people ask, and we had this conversation with the client a year ago when they were relaunching their online membership course for a specific topic, but anyway, very well renowned company, lots of people. And I said, you need to have a community manager that's in there full-time, keeping out the R riffraff. There's spam, there's ugliness, there's all these things. And if you don't have someone doing that, it's just going to get bad. And most of these things are set up by one or two people who just wanted to start a group. And I've had nothing but bad experiences in those groups. Nothing but bad experiences unless there is some unifying factor, like an alumni grou…

Full show notes at the publisher

101 - Should You Go To Film School? Oct 04, 2023

Show notes

On this week's episode, I talk about my thoughts on going to Film School. We also talk about what some industry insiders think about this and whether or not it helps your career. Tune in for much more!Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:Because I don't want to make it harder for my, when I'm working in a writer's room, I don't want to make it harder for myself. I want to make it simple for me to think about these problems. So I don't want to make it harder. The job is hard enough as it is. Why make it harder? Make it simpler. You're telling a story, it's not heart surgery. You're listening to screenwriters. Need to hear this with Michael Jamin. Hey everybody, welcome back. I'm Michael Jamin. I'm here with Phil Hudson and today we're answering the question, or at least we're asking it. Who knows if we'll have an answer? Should I go to film school? I get this one a lot. Let's talk about it. Well first of all, Phil, you might be better than me answering because you actually went to film school. Where'd you go?Phil Hudson:I went to Santa Fe University of Art and Design and I got a bachelor's, a fine arts in film story development from a film schoolMichael Jamin:There. How many years is that degree?Phil Hudson:It's a four year degree. Took me, oh myMichael Jamin:God,Phil Hudson:It's a bachelor's program. So it wasn't like master's an n, NYU U Master's in film. It was a bachelor's degree. And I remember when I was contemplating going, I had just really met you. I'd been working with your wife for a while and I asked you, should I go there or should I go to Hollywood? And you said, well, I don't know how valuable film school is outside of the network. You'll build there, but the work's here, so that's a personal choice. And then you said, well, at least you'll be able to teach college. And I said, well, I don't know if I will because it won't have a master's. And you're like, oh no.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well how much did that degree cost? Not necessarily you, but most people.Phil Hudson:Yeah, so the school was $30,000 a year, so it's $120,000 to get a four year degree. And I think at the time the average student would take about five years to get a bachelor's degree. So it actually, it would be $150,000 forMichael Jamin:That degree. I just Googled U S C film school and it's 53,000 a year. And I dunno if it's two or three years, but either way it's enough to give you heart palpitations.Phil Hudson:To put this into perspective, my brother, he's a lawyer, went to law school in Idaho and he's a lawyer in Montana where he passed the bar and I think his degree cost him $120,000 to be a lawyer.Michael Jamin:To be a lawyer. And you can immediately start earning that back the minute you passed thePhil Hudson:Bar. Oh, he's making more money per hour than I am now. He went, I mean he really took his time and now he was scraping by living on student loans, building up debt to get through film school with a family. I mean he's building five to six billable hours per day at $200 an hour. He is making more in a day than I make as a PAMichael Jamin:On. Yeah, right. But film school, so should people go to film school? Here's the thing, you're going to graduate with a lot of debt and we don't know when or if you'll ever pay that off. As far as I can tell.Phil Hudson:I can be transparent on that too. I had a Robert Redford scholarship and a talent scholarship, so my cost all in, aside from what I paid, I have $40,000 in student loans from school and my school closed down. It doesn't exist anymore.Michael Jamin:So do you have to pay back your loan then? IPhil Hudson:Do.Michael Jamin:You do. Even though, who's it going to? They don't have school.Phil Hudson:The federal government loaned me the money and then paid the school. And that is something I can never get rid of. It's you can't file bankruptcy on it. It lives with you till death. You will always owe that money unless you pay it back. The other side of this is there is a way that I could challenge that and say, well, my school's gone because the school actually never sent me my diploma. So I walked, I have the itinerary, the photos, the whole thing, but I never got my diploma from the school. And there's a process to go get it through the parent organization laureate to go get that, but it's a bit of a pain in the butt. And they messed up my transcripts because I did that four year program in two and a half years. So I really expedited things. I saw them writing on the wall that it was going to shut down so I could challenge it and I could get that waived and then I would lose my degree. So I've wasted two and a half years, so it's not really worth fighting to me. I'd rather have the degree. So I've just got to find the time to go fight that other battle for you.Michael Jamin:Well, just so people know, I've worked in TV for a long time, 27 years, and most of the writers that I work, if you want to be a screenwriter, very, very few actually went to film school. I was at a party a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine who told me he went to film school and I've worked with him for many years. He's like, you went to film school. It just doesn't come up. And when you get hired for, no one's going to ask you to see your degree. No one caress what your G p A was in film school. No one caress if you went or you didn't go. All they care is can you put the words in the page? That comp compelled people to turn to the next page. And you don't need just the fact that you have a degree or even an M F A in creative writing or whatever. The degree is worthless. The knowledge that you gain might be worth something might depending on who's teaching it to you. And I think that is more dependent on not necessarily the school or the program, but who's teaching that semester, who did they get? Often these are adjuncts and sometimes the adjuncts are working screenwriters who have a break in their schedule and want to teach. And you may find one that's great, but these adjuncts don't get paid a lot of money. So it's not what I mean a lot of money. I'm talking aboutPhil Hudson:A couple hundred bucks a month.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean the people I've talked to for a semester, maybe they make $4,000. It's not a lot of money, so they're not doing it for the money. And it's not a long-term career option when you're only making four grand for a semester. It's ridiculous. So it just depends on who they got that semester. You may get somebody great, you may not. So the knowledge you get may be fantastic, but again, it's a trade school you're getting, if you want to be a filmmaker, do you want to learn editing? Do you want to learn lighting or maybe, but as a screenwriter, no, you'll learn that in a million other things. There are way less expensive options, including our course that we offer that will teach you probably more in that area of specialty in the writing aspect. But I don't teach lightingPhil Hudson:And I decided to go because I was always a bit more interested in being an ourour, shooting, writing, directing, producing, editing, just kind of understanding the full gamut. I also have a bit of a control need. I need to be able to understand, and this comes from being in the tech space where I'd have engineers telling me something was going to take three weeks to get done, and then you learn how to code it and you realize they're just milking the clock. And so it comes from I'd like to understand the full process so I can better work within that process and hold people a little bit more accountable from a leadership perspective. But yeah, that's smart. Smart. And your note on film school is interesting too. On the writing side, no one cares on the production side. I've actually had conversations with people who roll their eyes when they hear you into film school.Michael Jamin:Yeah, really? People, producers, you meanPhil Hudson:Art directors?Michael Jamin:Why didPhil Hudson:They roll their every department?Michael Jamin:Why did they roll their eyes?Phil Hudson:I dealt with this when I was a missionary. When you're a missionary, you've been out doing this stuff for six months and then you're asked to train somebody new. That guy's coming from a place where they taught them how to be a missionary, but learning how to be a missionary versus being a missionary, just different things. Learning how to make a film and learning how to do a setup versus how a set actually runs. They're different things. The education may be correct, but the environment changes things. And so without fail, people who come in who said, I went to film school, think they know how to do it, think they know better than their superiors and it creates conflict because those people think they're better than the people teaching them.Michael Jamin:Phil, we didn't have this conversation off the air. So just so you know, I worked with a producer on one of my TV shows, the line producer, he was the producer and he said the same exact thing. He said that when he hires PAs for the show and most of the PAs come out of film school, whatever, a hundred thousand in debt, he goes, I have to untrain them. I have to unlearn them everything they learned because they think they know and it's just not how it works. And I was like, really? He goes, yep, that's how he goes. He doesn't prioritize hiring film students. He just as well hired someone who's not a film school student, have them learn on the job and learn instead of being winding up a hundred thousand in debt, they get paid. Although not a lot, but they get paid to learn.Phil Hudson:No, you get paid. I always described it, and I need this too, because when I moved to LA I was 31 and I'd already had a very successful corporate career and I could have pursued that career. When I was in college, I got prospected to go be a chief marketing officer at a bunch of startups in San Francisco paying way more money than I make now. And I turned 'em down because I was way more passionate about this thing I want to do in film. But I always described it to people like I knew, I knew I was going to get coffee for people. I knew it was a lot of yes sir, no, yes sir, no ma'am. However much you need, what can I do? Because it really feels to me like it's the apprenticeship model out here. This is a trade where you learn under someone else who has done it and you not only learn how to do it by the book, but you learn all the tips and tricks and hacks. They had to figure out that were passed down to them as a lineage from the people that taught them who learned it from the guy who was running around with the horses in 1908.Michael Jamin:So another thing that you might get from film school. So in other words, let's break it down. Okay, the diploma is not worth anything, but the knowledge you might get, especially in terms of screenwriting, might be valuable. Just totally depends, but you can spend a lot less on it. You might get context depending on where you go, depending on your graduating class. And if you are willing to stay in contact, if you stay in contact with your people, if you're friends with them, if you're not, those contacts are worth, your graduating class is worthless if you don't know the members of your graduating class. And like I said, it's an expensive venture and it didn't help you get, okay. So when you got your first PA job, did they ask if you went to film school?Phil Hudson:No, I think in fact when I interviewed it was probably one of those situations where I was disqualified because of it. Oh, really? Because in the interview it was for Brett and link's buddy system. You got me the interview, you told me I can get you the interview, I can't get you the job. You got her on the job. And I showed up and I disqualified myself by telling them I wanted to be a writer. That's really what disqualified me. And then, yeah, no one has asked me once, not a single person has ever asked me if I went to film school.Michael Jamin:And so I had toPhil Hudson:Bring it up once or twice out of defense because someone was trying to belittle. This is like I ran into a really toxic person in her season of Tacoma Tea recently, and that person was belittling me by trying to explain to me things and I had to say, yeah, I learned that in film school. And then she looked at me and was like, yeah, I went to film school too. I understand. I know how to calculate it. I get it.Michael Jamin:But there are things in terms of screenwriting that you did not learn in film school.Phil Hudson:Oh man. And this is no knock on anybody. You talk about good professors and bad professors. We had an adjunct professor named Ed Kamara, and he's a legend. He wrote Lady Hawk, which was a huge hit in the eighties. He wrote the Bruce Lee movie. He has actual credits under his belt, retired lives in Santa Fe, and he would come and teach one class per year. And it was intermediate storytelling and I got way more out of that class than I did any of my other writing classes because he was telling you, here's how you write a screenplay. And we had to write a screenplay to get credit in the class. But compare that to my first class and nothing against the professor, but we spent four weeks learning audio visual format for PSAs, and then we learned how to use Celtics because he wrote the book on Celtics and we had to buy the book on Celtics for his course.It was a lot of stuff. And then I had this really interesting moment we've talked about in the podcast, but this is a real thing that happened to me. He asked the room, we finally got into story and structure. He asked the room, what's the definition of a story? And I just perked up and I was like, I know this because it's literally the first thing you had taught me via an email. He asked me that question and I looked around the room and people raising their hands and people are getting it wrong. And I just said, it's a hero overcoming an obstacle to achieve a goal. And the teacher turned around and changed his slides because he didn't have that definition. So yeah, I've learned way more, I would say outside of film school, about screenwriting through you and the stuff you've taught me also from just sitting down and writing, the real benefit for me was that it forced me to write,Michael Jamin:But also you can build and if you want to talk about your graduating class since I brought it up, but you can build your community outside of, you don't need to go to film school to build a community of people, of like-minded people who want what you want, which is to become either filmmakers or screenwriter, whatever it is. But it's like you can build a community, especially online because you don't need to do that now. So much about the world has changed with the internet and social media so much. It's changed so rapidly that, but I think so many people are still stuck in the old model thinking, well no, this is how it has to be done, myself included as well. I sometimes feel that when it doesn't, the world is changing.Phil Hudson:We can talk about generative AI and all of those things because pretty steeped in tho…

Full show notes at the publisher

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

What The Hell Is Michael Jamin Talking About?

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected