What The Hell Is Michael Jamin Talking About?

Latest Episodes:

Ep 127 - Artist Manager Dave Rose Apr 03, 2024

Show notes

On this week's episode, we have music manager Dave Rose (Lit, Marcy Playground, Stryper and many many more) and we discuss his journey starting out as a bassist and what it’s like managing today vs. the pre-digital age. Tune in for so much more.Show NotesDave Rose Agency: https://www.deepsouthentertainment.com/Dave Rose on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daverosedeepsouthDave Rose on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daverosedeepsouth/ A Paper Orchestra on Website: https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptDave Rose:I'm so amazed that people pay me to do this. I was doing it long before I knew you could make money at it. And so the pinnacle for me is really that this continued joy of the business of musicMichael Jamin:You are listening to. What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase And to support me in this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. And today I got a special guest for you. Musicians out there. You don't deserve any of this. This is a wonderful treat for all of you. Don't say I never gave you anything. I'm here with Dave Rose from Deep South Entertainment and he is a career music manager. But Dave, first of all, welcome. I got a billion questions for you, but did you start off, are you a musician as well?Dave Rose:Thank you. Good to be here, Michael. Man, mutual admiration all the way around. This is exciting to be here. But yes, I started out as a musician. I was a, yes, I started out as a musician. I mean, yes and no, there's a story, but I became a musician out of necessity.Michael Jamin:How does that work? No one becomes, that's like the last thing you become out of necessity.Dave Rose:I know. Isn't that funny? So I was managing, and I very much put that in air quotes. Say I was a freshman in college and I had a local band decide they wanted me to be their manager. I was showing up at all their gigs and selling merchandise and unloading the van and doing all the things that I thought I could do to help. I just loved being around music. One day they said to me, would you be our manager? And I didn't know what the hell a manager was. I still don't. But they said, well, you could start by getting us some gigs. And that's not what a manager does, by the way. But that's when you're in college, that's what you do.Michael Jamin:That's not what a manager does then. Okay, you have to elaborate on that when weDave Rose:Can get into that for sure. So I got 'em 20 gigs and we had it all booked up and we're all ready to go. And we were two weeks out from the very first gig, big string of shows, playing skate ranches and pool parties and all the places that you play when you're just starting out anywhere and everywhere that'll give you room. And they came me and they said, our bass player quit and he's moving, so we need to cancel these gigs and we can no longer, we will audition new bass players later. I said, like, hell, you are, I've been watching this. It doesn't look like it's that hard to play bass, so here's what we're going to do. I'm going to cram myself in the basement with you, Mr. Guitar player, and you're going to teach me all the parts to these songs.We're going to go play these 20 shows with me as the bass player, and when we come back, you can audition bass players. That's how. And they were like, yeah, that's not how that works. I said, well, that's the way this is going to go. And so they did. I crammed myself in the basement and learned to play bass in two weeks, and it was rock and roll. It was three chord rock and roll. Wasn't real hard, but apparently I picked it up pretty easily and I played bass in a band for the next 10 years, but that should have been my first indication that I was not a musician. I learned how to play just to keep a band.Michael Jamin:But you must, if you played for 10 years, you're good enough.Dave Rose:Yeah, I mean I figured it out along the way.Michael Jamin:Wow. But then at some point you went to full-time management.Dave Rose:Yeah. Yeah. I ultimately segued into full-time management, and that was, I started this company putting out compilation CDs. That was a big thing. I started in 1995 and in the mid nineties, these sort of mix tape CDs were a big thing. And I would find local and regional bands from around the area and put 'em on this compilation CD and put it out and see what happens. But from the very first CD we put out, we had one of the biggest hits of the nineties, a song called Sex and Candy by Marcy Playground. And my intention was I would stick my band right in the middle of all these big regional bands or bands that I thought was going to be big and maybe my band would get some attention too. And I think nine bands on that first compilation got record deals accept my band. So that was kind of my moment of realizing, yeah, I'm definitely not, I'm way better on the business side of things.Michael Jamin:So then tell me then what a manager music manager does exactly if they don't get you work.Dave Rose:Sure. It's very different, I would guess, than in the film and TV business. And I would love to learn this from you, but I'm guessing in the film and TV business, the person that gets you work is the agent. Is thatMichael Jamin:Yes, the agent and not the manager and I have Right,Dave Rose:And that's what it is here. So a manager in music, I'm put it in the simplest terms, but it's like if the entire career is a wheel, the manager and the artist are in the center of that wheel. And all these spokes are things like booking agents and publicists and record labels and publishing companies and people that do film and TV music and all the accountants, the crew, all the thing, the attorneys that make the machine, the wheel turn. The manager is making sure all of those things are working. So it's sort of like being, I compare it to this, it's being the CEO of a band, but if you're,Michael Jamin:I'm sorry, go on.Dave Rose:That's all right. The band is owned by the band or the artist is owned by the, they own their company, but they retain an artist manager commission, an artist manager to manage their career.Michael Jamin:But if that band is going on tour, are you expected to go with them?Dave Rose:Only if you're in country music.Michael Jamin:Okay. Why is that?Dave Rose:It is different. Country music is one of the few genres that still very much lives and dies by the radio, and so the relationships with local radio is very important. So a manager should be there to kind of nurture those radio relationships from town to town to town. Now, if you're in rock and roll or hip hop or almost any other genre, Americana folk bluegrass, most managers do not travel with the band,Michael Jamin:But a touring manager would No,Dave Rose:A tour manager. Exactly. A tour manager does. And the tour manager is exactly, it sounds, it's the manager of the tour. So it deals with getting the bus from point A to point B and where do we park and what do I mean? It's way more than that, but it's the finance of the tour and they report to the artist manager.Michael Jamin:Now over the years, I've heard you mention this, you have a very, very big it's successful TikTok page, which is how I found you. You've managed a bunch of really big acts, right?Dave Rose:I've had some, yes. I've had a lot of, and I still do have a lot of big acts. It's been just amazing. I keep waiting for somebody to knock on my door and go, okay, gigs up. Time to get a real job.Michael Jamin:Can you share some of 'em with us?Dave Rose:Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So I got my start with Marcy Playground, and I'm still with them 26, 7 years later. But one of my first big clients was the piano player, Bruce Hornsby, who was in the Grateful Dead, and he had a bunch of hits in the eighties and nineties, but he's had a very, very unique career. He is done albums with Ricky Scaggs and Jazz Records, but Little Feat, the classic rock band of, they're just so iconic. The band Lit who had one of the biggest rock hits of the nineties, that song, my Own Worst Enemy, some of the country acts that I've worked with, Laney Wilson, who just won a Grammy, and yeah, I worked with the band six Pence, none The Richer who had the mega hit Kiss Me. And so yeah, it's been not to just, one of the bands I've been with the longest 23 years is an eighties rock band from LA called Striper. They kind of came up in the ranks with Moley Crewe and Bon Jovi and that kind world of big hair and Sunset Strip and all the things of Hollywood, but they're a Christian man. They sing about Jesus. So they're very, very different than that.Michael Jamin:At this point. Are new bands finding you or are you reaching out to them? How does that work?Dave Rose:Yeah, they usually find me at this point, I don't develop a lot of new acts anymore, mostly because I've just been doing it a long time and developing a new act from garage to Grammy is not only risky, but it's a long runway. And when you've been sort of doing it for as long as I have, and I don't mean any disrespect to anything on this, but you don't need to take that risk anymore.Michael Jamin:But it seems like on TikTok, it seems like you're talking to those people.Dave Rose:I am taking my audience on TikTok is very much the audience that is sort of just trying to figure out the next steps of a very complicated career path.Michael Jamin:But then why are you talking to them now if that's not, I assume it's because that's what you're looking for, but No,Dave Rose:Yeah, no, that's a great question. The reason I'm doing it is very pure, because it is hard to do this, and there's a lot of bad advice flying around out there. And to some extent, I wanted to get on there and level the playing field and just let people know the reality of how the business works. No, I'm not at all seeking to manage sort of startup band. I do some coaching that I'm more than willing to help them in. I'll do these 30 minute sessions where I can really, really fast track things for them, help them avoid years and years of mistakes in a very quick conversation. It's a lot like the stuff that you do in the sense that I'll meet an artist from Topeka, Kansas or wherever and how they're learning stuff that they would not learn anywhere else, only because nobody's ever told 'em.See Michael, something I think we ought to talk about at some point in here is part of why it's difficult to get a manager in the music business is because of how a manager gets paid. Okay, how did they get paid? I think that's an interesting dynamic that a lot of just, certainly a lot of people, but even a lot of artists don't know how that works. So how does that work then? Yeah, so a manager is paid by commission, so it's strictly a commission base. So if you are an artist and you go out and you play a show or you sell a T-shirt or make some sort of income, a percentage of that income is paid to your manager, includes the record deal, includes everything. It typically includes, and sort of depending on where you are in that artist's career, it includes most every aspect of their entertainment career, including what about royalties?It does include royalties, particularly if those royalties were ones that you helped them earn. If you get them a record deal and they continue to earn royalties either through radio play or whatever, you would earn a commission on that. So you're earning commissions on these revenue streams, and that's typically about 15%. So if you think about managing, like we talked about the wheel, all those different spokes in the wheel, maybe for each act that I manage, that's probably 150 decisions a day that we're making on behalf of that artist. So you can't manage a lot of acts as an individual. You can have a company like we do that manages, has managers that manage acts, but generally speaking, you can't manage a lot of acts. There's a lot that goes into a typical day of that. So the commission, if you just break it down to making a living, an artist has to be making significant money for it to be worth that manager's time to spend the bulk of their day managing their career.So when you've got an artist that's just starting out, and I want to get to why it's hard to get advice when you've got an artist that's just starting out and they're making no money and are making very little money, I don't know, 20, 30, 40, $50,000 a year, you think about that 15% of that is $5,000 a year maybe for the manager. So it's really not enough to say, I'm going to dedicate my life to you, which is really what it takes. So as a result, it's almost impossible for an artist to meet a manager. It's really hard to meet a manager. Our time is paid by commission. So that's why I get on TikTok and talk about the things I talk about because I was that bass player in a band not knowing what the hell I was doing, making every mistake under the sun. And I'm very, I don't know, very genuinely just trying to help people not make those mistakes.Michael Jamin:Now, you said something a while ago on one of your tiktoks, and I was surprised you don't come down. I thought everyone was supposed to hate Spotify and streaming because of the way, in my opinion, in my point of view, artists are being raped. I mean, that's how I see it. But you don't feel that way?Dave Rose:I don't. I mean, do I think it's a fair payment system? No, I think there's a lot of improvement that needs to happen. Part of what I think is the imbalance is the payments between an artist, a songwriter, and the record label. You see, when a song is on Spotify, those are the three main parties that sort of have to get paid a record label, an artist and a songwriter. And the songwriters are the ones that are really struggling in this time.Michael Jamin:From what I pay on what people pay on Spotify, I gladly pay double for what? I mean, I get every album I want to listen to at any time through the month, almost anything. And if I pay double, I still feel like the artists wouldn't be making not even close to what they used to make.Dave Rose:Well, yes. Again, we got to remember, there's three buckets. We're dealing with the artist, the record label, and the songwriter. And in some cases, that's the same person in all three of those buckets. If you go out and self-release a record, and you…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 126 - Actress Cynthia Mann Jamin Mar 27, 2024

Show notes

On this week's episode, we have actor Cynthia Mann Jamin (Friends, Ahh! Real Monsters, Angry Beavers and many many more) and we discuss her journey as an actor and director. We also talk about how the two of us met as well as what it’s like working together. Tune in for so much more.Show NotesCynthia Mann Jamin IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0542699/Cynthia Mann Jamin on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/prime-video/actor/Cynthia-Mann/amzn1.dv.gti.ca37e830-61b1-44db-8fe5-979422acb482Cynthia Mann Jamin Shop: https://www.twirlygirlshop.com/A Paper Orchestra on Website: https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptCynthia Mann Jamin:If it wasn't something that was organic for you, it would be torture trying to become this person that you think other people want to see, or you got to position yourself like this other person over here. But it really is about finding your unique voice because that's all we have.Michael Jamin:You are listening to What The Hell Is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase. And to support me in this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.Michael Jamin:Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode. I have a very special guest today, the very beautiful and talented, I'm going to call her Cynthia Mann, although she's now currently Cynthia Mann Jamin and she's my wife and Cynthia. I met years ago, I was a writer on a show called Just Shoot Me, and she was the guest star and she was a working actor and she worked on many shows including she was a recurring on Friends. She had, I dunno, five or so or six episodes on Friends Recurring on Veronica's Closet, Seinfeld, er Suddenly Susan Will and Grace, all those shows of the nineties, all those musty TV shows. She did almost all of them. And now she is the director and producer of my one man show as well as the audio book. So I thought a paper orchestra. So she did all of that. So I thought we would talk to her about that and about her experience working in Hollywood as well as directing and producing my audiobook for all of you people who aspire to do something similar. Hello, Cynthia.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Hi Michael.Michael Jamin:Hello. My beautiful wife. She's in the other room. We're pretending we live far apart, but actually we live very close to each other.Cynthia Mann Jamin:You could say we're roommates.Michael Jamin:This is my roommate, Cynthia. So thank you so much for doing this. Thank you, most of all for producing and directing my show. And I don't know, where do we begin? What should we start with?Cynthia Mann Jamin:Well, I think it's, the thing that's interesting is people might want to know how is it working together and why do we work together?Michael Jamin:I don't have an answer for that. You're cheap labor. That's why we work. I don't have to pay you. Why is that? Why we work together?Cynthia Mann Jamin:Well, it's funny because it goes all the way back to when we were first dating. I think if you want to talk about that because Go ahead. Well, we love doing projects together.Michael Jamin:Projects, we call them projects. How the Canadians say It. Project,Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah, projects. And when we first met it was kind of like, well, we had this common interest of he's a writer, I'm an actor, but it's like you can't sit around all day and just write and act. So we would find common things that we like to take walks, we like to do hiking. I taught you about Run Canyon, you were running in the flats. And I'm like, what the hell are you doing? Why are you running in the flats? Why don't you run up a hill?Michael Jamin:I didn't realize you could. It was so steep. And then you said you ran it. So I said, oh, alright. I guess I could try running it. ICynthia Mann Jamin:Totally ran it. I ran it all the time. I had, I had really muscular legs. YouMichael Jamin:Did. ICynthia Mann Jamin:Know you did. Yeah. And I still do. But yeah, so we would find little things to do and I would take you around LA and get you lafy and teach you what Celestial seasoningsMichael Jamin:AndCynthia Mann Jamin:Stuff. Yes, teaMichael Jamin:Is and also Whole Foods and Mrs. Gooch's. Mrs.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Gooch's. Yeah. This is way back. WeMichael Jamin:Would go to all this. She didn't approve of the supermarkets that I went to. So youCynthia Mann Jamin:Can go in there. I'm not going to get my food there you there though.Michael Jamin:And so many ways You helped me a lot with art because you are an artist. You were a starving artist when I met you.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Oh yes. Yeah. Well, barely getting by. I would say would barely getting by. I've had every survival job you can think of. I've done singing telegrams with the monkey that goes like this, and I've done sold shoes and I've waitressed and I've done a million survival jobs. So in my thirties I finally started to get acting jobs and I was a professional dancer for a while. And Grit didn't go to college right away, only finished two years of it. Later in my thirties when I met Michael, I was going to college and working and going on auditions and all of that. And when I met Michael, it was one of those crazy auditions where the casting director, Deb Burki, who I'm forever grateful for, she brought me in just to the callback. She didn't even read me first because we had had a relationship and she always appreciated my work and thought, oh, this is good for Cynthia.Let me just bring her in straight to the producers. And I remember Steve Levitan was there, probably Andy Gordon and Eileen because it was their episode and Eileen Khan and I got that job. She called me the next day and just said, yeah, you got it. And I was like, oh, yay. I'm so excited. And they only booked me for three days. So when I went on the set, it was at Universal because I didn't really know what Just Shoot Me was. It was a new show and I don't think it was airing yet. It was just the first six episodes. So nobody really knew what it was about or the tone or anything. And I just went in, did my scene, went home prepared to come back the next day for shoot day. Really? And you guys sent me a script at nine in the morning or something like that and said, we rewrote your scene because we found a better way to write this scene. I don't know, you can tell me the behind the scenes of that. I don't really know why you did that.Michael Jamin:I don't really remember why that was rewritten. It was a long time ago.Cynthia Mann Jamin:I think it was. Maybe it just wasn't exciting enough or something. And you wanted the dialogue to be between me and Laura more.Michael Jamin:I don'tCynthia Mann Jamin:Remember. Instead of the roommate. And so you guys had me into the writer's room before, which is very unusual. You never really go into a writer's room to work out a scene. But because we were shooting it that day and we had to go straight to the run through and I think the network was going to be there. You didn't want to mess around. And so you gave me notes and we rehearsed it and Laura was there and the other scene partner who, I'm so sorry, I forgot his name. Chris,Michael Jamin:I want to say.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah, Chris. And then we just went and shot it. And then I shoot the scene at night and I'm like, oh my God, this was so much fun. And it was great. And I'm like, all right, I'm going to go. And who's standing right next to me as I'm walking off the set and kind of hanging back and it was you.Michael Jamin:It was me,Cynthia Mann Jamin:It was you.Michael Jamin:And then you said you wanted to marry me. I said, I don't even know you.Cynthia Mann Jamin:I complimented your tie. That's right. And then you said, I did a really nice job. Yeah, you did. And I said thank you. And then we were talking about, I think you said, so what do you like to do for fun? Or something like that. Yeah. We went and I asked you that and you said you swing dance. And I had already been swing dancing at the Derby many times with my friend Brendan. And we would go and swing dance. SoMichael Jamin:MyCynthia Mann Jamin:Knees went weak when youMichael Jamin:That's right. I took, it was either you or Brendan I took you.Cynthia Mann Jamin:So then long story short, there was a couple of weeks that went by and you called me and said, hi, this is Michael. And I said, I don't remember that name, but you're making it up because he has that name. And then you said, no, it's me and I would like to take you out for coffee. And I said, I don't drink coffee. I drink tea.Michael Jamin:Yeah, we had tea instead.Cynthia Mann Jamin:He said, that's okay, huh?Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah. Right.Cynthia Mann Jamin:And then I remember this, Michael, on our first date, I hung back in my car because I think I saw you walk in. I'm like, I got to be a little late. I got to make him wait for me a little bit. So I made you wait just a little bit. And then I go in and the woman comes and says, so do you want a chocolate chip or oatmeal cookie, highland grounds? And it's not there anymore, I don't think. And you took the longest time figuring out what flavor you wanted. For me it was easy. It was chocolate chip or peanut butter. That was the other one. And then you go, I go, why did it take you so long to order the cookie? And you go, because I wasn't sure if there was anything to be gained by lying.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I was trying to impress you with the choice of cookies.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Weirdest thing anyone said to me that you cared enough about. The cookie choice is crazy.Michael Jamin:And then we've been together ever since.Cynthia Mann Jamin:We've been together ever since. And to go back to the projects, we started with tiling a table that now our daughter has at her college apartment. And that was our first project. And then we decided to have kids, and that was our second project.Michael Jamin:ThenCynthia Mann Jamin:I started my business Twirly Girl, which I ran for 15 years. Still going, but not as big. And you helped me with that. You wrote all my commercials and did all of that. And then you wrote a book and then I'm helping you with that. So I think we're better when we're working together, honestly.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Cynthia Mann Jamin:I do. I think it's, when I was doing Twirly Girl and you were working as a writer and all of that, we never really connected on any kind of common ground aside from the kids because you were always doing your thing. I was doing my thing. But then when you started to write the commercials, I think our relationship went to another level because it's like you're appreciating the other person for their gifts and what they bring to you. But it's also like you're helping me with something that really means a lot to me. And it was like this back and forth that just felt so great. And I trusted you more than anyone to put me in the best light. And I think that's the same with you trusting me with your words because I care about them and I want to present you in the best light and I'll work tirelessly to get it.Michael Jamin:And you have produce the audio book and you had to learn how to do all that. What do you have to tell people? What do you have to share? What wisdom can you share with people on starting something like this?Cynthia Mann Jamin:I would say, and I was talking to Lola about this last night, and what occurred to me was that when you have the pinch or you have the idea, just the idea to do something and it's filling you with a lot of joy and passion and it almost creates its own engine in you, and you just feel so motivated to attack it and see if you can accomplish it. It almost doesn't matter if anybody else likes it because it's something you need to do. And I felt that way with my business. I remember creating these dresses and going, I know they're special. I know they are so special. And I don't even, the icing on the cake is that other people love them, but that's not why I'm doing itm doing it because I need to do it. And it's bringing me so much joy and it's fulfilling something in me that was missing or that I didn't even know that I needed.And it brought me so much that I could have more than I could have ever thought, oh, I'm going to make dresses because it's going to give me a sense of self. It's going to fire that entrepreneurial spirit. It's going to make me feel connected to those around me. I'm going to share my story about it. I couldn't have thought that I just followed the desire to make something. And then all these things kind of cascaded. And that's what I'm telling you. That's how I feel about the audio book. When you said, all right, you're going to direct and you're also going to edit it and you're going to do all these things, I'm like, I don't know how to do Pretty much, I knew how to direct because of the acting background, but I didn't know how to do an audiobook. We didn't know how we wanted this to come into the world and what it would look like. But I felt that desire, that same joy to just achieve this. And we love it and we know we did an amazing job, and the fact that it's resonating with other people is icing on the cake because we couldn't not do it.Michael Jamin:But you still had to learn a lot of skills to do that.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Well, I think I love, I'm one of those people that loves learning by doing. You would tell me, watch the videos on how to do it. And I was like, this is not going to go anywhere for me because I'm not going to retain it unless I need it. If I need to know how to do something, then I'm going to learn it. So I learned by doing it. And that process is so exciting to me because I know that I'm also growing as a person if I can accomplish something really hard that I don't think I know how to do or I've never done before. So that challenge is also really gratifying for me.Michael Jamin:And now there's the next challenge, which is taking it on the road.Cynthia Mann Jamin:And we have no clue how to do that either. Yeah,Michael Jamin:We'll figure it out. I guess we'll just make it happen.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Yeah,Michael Jamin:It's really just about putting your energy into something and then watching as things start falling into place.Cynthia Mann Jamin:Exactly. You don't know what you don't know, but you'll find it out. And then that thing will lead to another thing. And we have very different styles. You and I, what my sense of what you do, and you tell me what you think mine is, but my sense of what your approach is is you throw a hundred percent…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 125 - December 30th Webinar Q&A Mar 20, 2024

Show notes

On December 30th, I hosted a webinar called “How Professional Screenwriters Overcome Writer’s Block” and I talked about why story structure is so important in getting past this block. 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 NotesA Paper Orchestra on Website: - https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: - https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: - https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:Everyone wants to be a showrunner, which is again, why it's so freakingMichael Jamin:Hard. I want to make all the decisions, but you don't know based on what youMichael Jamin:Don't know what you're doing. Why would you want that? Is it an ego thing you want to tell people you're a showrunner or don't you want to learn? Do you assume? When I was starting off, I didn't want to be a showrunner for 10 years. I didn't want to be a show runner. Like, this is a hard job. I don't know how to do it.Michael Jamin:You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase and to support me in this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.Michael Jamin:Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, we're doing another q and a from one of our webinars and my special guest host is Kevin Lewandowski, script coordinator extraordinaire. He helps out with a lot of my projects, social media projects here and he's subbing in for Phil and he's doing a great job. So welcome Kevin.Kevin Lewandowski:Thank you again for having me.Michael Jamin:You screwed it up. You already screwed. No, I'm only messing with you. You're doing great. Thanks.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, I'm not going to apologize for not being Phil anymore, so fair Phil. But no, I'm happy to be here and this how professional screenwriters overcome Writer's Block is one of my favorite topics to talk about. Oh good. So I think it's super, super interesting and there's been, when we dive into it, I'll say my favorite line that you always say that just unlocked the excuse sometimes we use for when we have writer's block.Michael Jamin:I'm curious to know what your favorite line is.Kevin Lewandowski:Alright, I have so many Michael Jainism that I think my all time favorite is Shit Happening is not a story.Michael Jamin:By the way, we have that on merch now, guys. Yeah, we do. We got merch and you can go get it@michaeljamin.com/merch where all the crazy things that I say, you can get it on a on mug or a notebook or whatever. We got merge. Go get it. I should have plugged it before, but I forgot. But anyway, these questions came from our last webinar that we did and if you're not on my webinar list, sign up for it's free. Go to michael jamin.com/webinar and you can sign up. You can be invited when we do our next one. And so yeah, Kevin, we had a lot of questions people asked. We didn't have time to get all the questions answered and so here they are nKevin Lewandowski:Here we go. These first couple of questions are going to be about kind of course related stuff. So this first one is from David Zilo. I feel like we see his name a lot. I feel like he comes to these webinars a lot and ask a lot of questions. The question is, how does the story structure change when say a character does not, cannot achieve a goal in the tragic story, for example,Michael Jamin:Doesn't change at all. It's the same old story structure that we use. Whether the character achieves their goal at the end or not, it's the same damn thing.Kevin Lewandowski:Yep.Michael Jamin:The guys you're just asking, he's just asking at the end, what if the last two minutes are different, so what? Nothing.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, I think it's always more interesting for me when that character doesn't achieve their goal. I think the breakup with, but yeah, Vince v and Jennifer Ston, they don't stay together in the end. No. It's one of the few rom-coms that I think they decide to go off the beaten path and not haveMichael Jamin:Them end often. We call this the joyful defeat in a movie or the character doesn't get what they want, but they get what they need. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Next question, Rob. Robert, when is the latest the stakes should be made clear?Michael Jamin:The sooner the better because the story does not start until the audience knows what's at stake. And so until then you're boring them and you're daring them to change the channel or read another script or do something else with their time. So the sooner the better, and that's a note you'll get from a network executive. They'll always say, can we start the story sooner? And so wherever you have it, they'll give you that note. If it's on page four, they'll say page two.Kevin Lewandowski:In your experience, is there a realistic, for instance, if they were like, oh, it's on page three, we need it on page two, have you ever run into We just can't. We need a little bit of room to be able toMichael Jamin:SetKevin Lewandowski:SomethingMichael Jamin:Up. Absolutely. And so you'll move it up a little bit, but sometimes there's only so much you can do.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. But yeah, like you said, they'll always say, oh, can we start this sooner? Yeah, we'll take a look at it. We'll take a look at that. Coley Marie, can the goal change or appear to change?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yes. And often it sometimes will. It's like because something happens and what the character thought they wanted is not what they want anymore. So yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:So how do you feel about, because sometimes it's, is there a fear of if you start writing it too much of a change, can it almost feel like, oh, okay, now we're following a different story to,Michael Jamin:It usually happens kind of like an act top of act three with the character discoveries. This thing that I wanted turns out I don't really want any. I got what I thought I wanted and it's not what I want. So that's usually late in the script.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. So you're saying in top of act two, if they wanted to,Michael Jamin:It wouldn't be top ofKevin Lewandowski:Act ride a pony at the end of act one. Top of Act two should be like, well, I want to win this prize at the CarnivalMichael Jamin:Now. Yeah, top of act two is one. Well, this is what we teach in the course. What tab of Act two would be, so yeah,Kevin Lewandowski:Arius Kennedy. So should we avoid high stakes conflicts?Michael Jamin:No. The higher stakes are good. High stakes are good. Higher the stakes are better. You want to avoid low stakes conflicts.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, low stakes conflicts are not that interesting. Heather Marie, vital, how do we find conflicts for TV shows with main characters without getting stale? That's kind of the job of a writer.Michael Jamin:Yeah, that's right. That's exactly, that's the job without getting stale, it's like, and again, this is not her concern. Concern. Your concern is to do it once and then let's a showrunner worried about it getting stale. Right now your job is to write one great scriptKevin Lewandowski:Are Barry, when it comes to an episodic show, there's the overall show conflict and then the mini conflicts of the episodes. So I'm assuming they're talking about, there's the A story, the B story, the C story,Michael Jamin:Or maybe they're talking about the overall arch of the show. I'm watching Show Gun right now and I'm only on episode one, so it seems like the overarching stories, how is this one? I dunno if he called the futile Lord going to maintain his position in the kingdom, but within each episode he has a challenge that he has to overcome, so to make that larger prop goal happen.Kevin Lewandowski:Meg Parker Wilson, when you are writing a TV show, do you plot out the entire story pilot to finale and then create all those moments episode by episode in terms of the arc and the structure?Michael Jamin:No, it's too much work. It's too difficult. What you really, and again, this is not something that she needs to worry about, but maybe she's just asking me out of curiosity, we'll come up with a pilot and we'll have that pilot broken. We know what that story is going to be and then we have a vague idea of what season one might be. But I'm talking vague, just enough to bullshit our way through this because it'll change when we're breaking the story. As we discover writing and digging into the character, we'll discover something that might be better. So what are we going to do? Not do it just because we said we were talking out of our ass that this other thing was going to be better,Kevin Lewandowski:Right? Yeah. I think Vince Gilian, creator of Breaking Bad, I think he says something very similar. Yeah, we kind of have an idea, but part of going through different story ideas is you discover stuff along the way. Jesse Pinkman was only supposed to be four or five episodes, and then now they realize how much chemistry those two characters had. And could you imagine, would that show have worked if they would've killed off Jesse Pinkman? Because they said, well, we said our pitch, we have to kill em off after five episodes. We have to stick with that.Michael Jamin:I'm always surprised that people don't know that and they're worried about breaking the entire series. It's like, but breaking one episode of television when I'm talking breaking, figuring out what the story is and writing the outline in the script is so much work. How could you possibly do all that in advance and you have a team of writers doing all that work.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Sometimes you'll see people that'll talk about, yeah, I have this TV series I wrote and I have the first eight episodes done, and I'm like, oh, that's a lot to do withMichael Jamin:No theyKevin Lewandowski:Don't. One person,Michael Jamin:They really don't. They might have enough for one episode and they broke it up into eight episodes. They don't know any better. That's very common. I thinkKevin Lewandowski:I remember there's another example on friends that one of the writers was talking about. It's probably one of the more iconic moments of the whole series is when Ross is getting married to Emily and Rachel shows up and he ends up, he accidentally says Rachel's name, I Ross take the Rachel. And the writer was saying that wasn't anything we would've ever thought of. It was one day we were rehearsing or something like that. And he accidentally said the wrong name. And as writers, we all laughed and we thought that's super funny. He was like, we had the aha moment of like, oh, we need to include this. And that little moment had so much of a change for the rest of the series. Now it turned into, well, Emily will make them now. Okay. It's clear that Ross is still in love with Rachel and Emily. She's only going to come to New York if Ross stops talking to Rachel. So it was just that little moment of discovery and what would that scene or storyline have been if Ross married EmilyMichael Jamin:And they discovered that by accident and rehearsal and what are you going to do not do with this and that, that moment everyone gasped in the audience and people at home gasped. So what you not going to do it?Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, and I don't think in their pitch they're like, okay, season five we're going to have Ross marry this British girl, but when he is actually up there, we're going to have him say Rachel's thing. It was just discovery.Michael Jamin:You don't think that far in advanced. You can't. It's too much work.Kevin Lewandowski:Let's see. So this next question from Sarah, there's a bit of terminology from your course, so I'm going to not use that terminology, but does the end of act two have to be in direct relation to the conflict with the introduced in the first act? Can it be attributed to a different relationship conflict?Michael Jamin:No, no, no. Pretty much no. If you're telling one story that's your A story or your act two break to be on the A story. If it's coming out of nowhere and it's like, what's this? It's not going to feel earned. It's going to be like, what's going on?Kevin Lewandowski:Rob, Robert again, how do we make funny? Because it can be so subjective.Michael Jamin:Yeah. One thing I say is in my course, I can't teach you how to be funny. I can maybe teach you how to be a little funnier. I could give you tips that will help you be a little funnier, but if you're not funny, I can't help you be funny. It's okay. You can write drama. There's plenty of work for drama writers and just write what you're really good at. But it is a little heartbreaking. I see sometimes when people, I want to be accommodator, but you're not funny, so you don't have that in you. That's okay. Write some other stuff. Drama's great too.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. One of my other favorite things you say, and this wasn't the one I was talking about earlier, is you have to find new ways to say old things in a funny way. Yeah. Every version of a joke has been told to a degree. So how do you make it relevant to today and your story and your characters and make it so it hasn't been heard that way before.Michael Jamin:You know what though? I just got an email from, I don't know how I'm on this list, whatever. I got an email from a writer and she's doing a public appearance and she said, come see me the headline, come see me. I don't bite. And I'm like, oh God, you're supposed to be a writer. Don't tell me you don't bite. That's so unoriginal. That's so clammy. That's not something a writer should ever say. Find a new way to say, I don't bite. I was so unimpressed. I was like, oh God, you just embarrass yourself. Don't do that. You're a writer. You have to find a new way to say old things.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Okay, so these are kind of more craft related questions, Nathan Shapiro, what are the rookie mistakes you see new writers making both in writing as well as from the business side. What is something you wish you had known when you were starting out? And then part two, which I think this is actually part three, do all supporting lead characters need an obstacle and goal? Or is it sufficient that they're simply there to facilitate the main hero's journey?Michael Jamin:This guy's gotKevin Lewandowski:Questions. We'll split this up. So the first part was w…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 124 - December 8th Webinar Q&A Mar 13, 2024

Show notes

On December 8th, I hosted a webinar called “What “Do Showrunners Look For In A Script,” where I talked about how to come up with interesting and unique characters, as well as how tapping into your everyday life interactions with people can help with this. 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 NotesA Paper Orchestra on Website: - https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: - https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: - https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:Well, no one cares that you took my course, so zero. No one's going to be. That's why we don't give a diploma out because the diploma is worthless. No one really cares if you went where you studied, who taught you all they care about? Is the script good or not? Does it make them want to turn the page or not? Do they want to find out what happens next or not?Michael Jamin:You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase And to support me in this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.Michael Jamin:Hey everyone, welcome to a very special episode of What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about. I'm here with my guest host Kevin Lewandowski, and he helps out a lot with the podcast, with all my social stuff, and he's actually by trade. He's a writer's assistant script coordinator, which is actually one step higher than writer's assistant, so he's worked on a bunch of shows. Kevin, welcome to the show.Kevin Lewandowski:Thank you for having me. Michael, for those of you, sorry I'm not Phil, I'm just kind of filling in for Phil for a couple days, but I'm excited to be here. And yeah, I hope to tell you all a little bit about script coordinating as well and what that all entails,Michael Jamin:Fill in and fulfill, fillKevin Lewandowski:In and fulfill.Michael Jamin:What shows were you script coordinator on?Kevin Lewandowski:So the big one was Why Women Kill.Michael Jamin:Did we ever figure out why?Kevin Lewandowski:I mean, depending on who you ask, a lot of women will say because of men,Michael Jamin:They kill for ratings.Kevin Lewandowski:Right? Okay, that's better. But yeah, that was, I forgot how long ago that was, but that was, unfortunately we got canceled four or five days before we were supposed to start filming. Our actors had just landed in Canada and then the next day they announced they were pulling the plug on the show.Michael Jamin:Why?Kevin Lewandowski:It could be many reasons. I think a lot of it had to do with we were a little bit behind on scripts and then budgeting and we were still kind of in the midst of covid precautions and things like that.Michael Jamin:Covid, people don't realize, especially new showrunners, you don't mess with the budget. You get things done on time, Ross, you're screwed. What other shows did you work on then?Kevin Lewandowski:So the first show I ever worked on was in 2015. It was the Muppets, and it was funny. I thought if anyone ever caught a break, this is my break. I was like, it's the Muppets, it's going to go on for five or six years and I'm just going to notch up every year. And after 16 episodes, that one got canceled.Michael Jamin:What's Ms. Piggy really like?Kevin Lewandowski:I mean, she is who she is. Difficult. Yeah, she's difficult. She's a bit of a diva. We have to had to cater to all of her needs.Michael Jamin:What about, I'm sorry, and what were the other shows? Screw Miss Piggy. Yeah,Kevin Lewandowski:Screw Miss Piggy. So after that, a bunch of pilots that never got picked up, and then I worked for a show on Netflix called The Ranch with AshleyMichael Jamin:ElementKevin Lewandowski:That was a live audience show and I was there for two seasons. I'm trying to think after that. It's all becoming a blur. I did two seasons of Why Women Kill. Actually the first year I was a line producer's assistant, and so that was interesting to kind of see the financial side of things and see where they decide to put the money in. And then for season three, they moved me to Script coordinator,Michael Jamin:But the Branch was a legit show. That was a big show.Kevin Lewandowski:That was a lot of fun because I'd always wanted to work in the Multicam world. There's just something about show night and it's just kind of a big party for everyone and you get to see the audience's instant gratification. It's just a lot of fun. A lot of fun to work on those shows.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well now the next thing for us to do is try to get you into one of these jobs so you don't have to co-host with me all the time on thisKevin Lewandowski:Podcast. I don't mind co-hosting with you.Michael Jamin:Oh, all right. Well, we'll see if you feel that way at the end. Okay, that's fair. So we are doing, this is a special q and a. We do these monthly webinars or whatever, every three weeks actually, and we have a lot of questions we can't answer. And so we save 'em for the podcast. And now Kevin's going to feed them to me. He's going to regurgitate them to me. He's going to baby bird them into my mouth, and then I'm going to try to answer them as best I can.Kevin Lewandowski:Early Bird gets the worm or something like that.Michael Jamin:Gross. Kevin Gross.Kevin Lewandowski:And I apologize in advance for anyone's name I might butcher.Michael Jamin:It's okay. They don't need to. I mean whatever if you get 'em wrong. Okay,Kevin Lewandowski:So these first few questions are going to be kind of course related questions. The first one is from Dat Boy, D-A-T-B-O-I. And that person's asking, what are the best tips for making my script shine more than the rest?Michael Jamin:Oh boy. Well, I wish he would. Well, he was already at my free webinar. I wish he would sign up for my course. I mean, that's what the course is. The best tips for making it shine is making sure your act breaks pop, making sure the dialogue feels fresh, your characters are original. I mean, there's no tips. It's not a tips thing. It's 14 hours of, let me tell you how to do it. That boy, I wish. What do you think, Kevin? What's your answer for him?Kevin Lewandowski:I think it's one of the things you always say on your webinars is after taking my course, you'll just hear me yelling in your head all the time about this is your end of act two moment, this is this, this is that. And I can vouch for that and say, anytime I'm looking through a script or even watching a TV show, because of your course and just understanding the story structure, you get those spider senses like, oh, the raising the stake should be coming very soon. Now we're about halfway through the episode, so something better be changing here. And I think it's just, again, everything you say in your course of just knowing those beats when they need to hit how they need to pop will help set your script ahead of amateur writers.Michael Jamin:You're a good student, Kevin.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Thanks.Michael Jamin:Alright, what's next?Kevin Lewandowski:So km phs, when I say I don't have experience, but I have a killer pilot and I took Michael Jamin's course. How much of a difference is the course going to make in terms of being a desirable hire?Michael Jamin:No one cares that you took my course. So zero no one's. That's why we don't give a diploma out because the diploma is worthless. No one really cares if you went where you studied, who taught you all they care about, is the script good or not? Does it make them want to turn the page or not? Do they want to find out what happens next or not? So I wish I could give you a better answer than that, but it's not the degree. The degree isn't worth anything. Hopefully the knowledge is worth something.Kevin Lewandowski:I think the analogy I have in my head of your courses, I look at scripts I wrote before taking your course, and it's like when you look back at high school photos and I had the Frosted tips, the pca, shell, necklace, hoop earring, and at the time it was cool. And now you look back and it's like it's pretty cringe-worthy. It's pretty cringe-worthy to see those photos. And now after taking your course, I feel like it's like now I'm wearing a suit and I don't have the poop hearing and I don't have the frosted tips, and I'm not as cringe-worthy when I look back at some of the scripts I wrote a year or so ago.Michael Jamin:Good, good. All right, good. Very good. Impressing me more and more, Kevin.Kevin Lewandowski:Right? Next question. Ous. I'm butchering that one. Nope,Michael Jamin:Perfectly. That's how he says his name.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. What are the most important things an inspiring writer should be aware of while reviewing one script before sending it to an established executive or writer?Michael Jamin:God, it's pretty much the same answer as all the other ones. It's like, do your act breaks, pop? Is it fresh? The dialogue, I'm sorry, but it's the same answer, so I don't really have anything to say. Yeah, yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Next question, mal. Yay.Michael Jamin:Exactly.Kevin Lewandowski:In a 26 page pilot is page 11 two, late for the first act break, second act break or second act being on page 20.Michael Jamin:On the 26 page script, the first back page is on 11, is that what they said?Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah.Michael Jamin:It's not terrible. I've seen worse things. I'm assuming it's a single space. It's not terrible. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Colin Miller, what is a good system to practice writing every day? I like this question.Michael Jamin:A good system, a good system. I don't know why you like it, because I'm stumped. I mean, I would just say write a good system is to, I'm most creative in the morning, so that's when I want to write and I try to do my busy work in the evening stuff that's easier, but you might be a night owl, but I would just carve out time every day and just sit down at the computer and write. And don't be so precious that no one's going to look at your first draft. That first draft can be terrible, so don't just get it on paper. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. I think a lot of maybe misconceptions people have is writing every day isn't necessarily open up final draft and typing something. Sometimes it's going on a walk for an hour and a half and thinking about the story you're trying to tell and laying out the beats in, I live in Glendale and there's a outdoor mall. It's fun to kind of just walk around there and people watch a little bit. And sometimesMichael Jamin:The Americana, that's where you go.Kevin Lewandowski:Yep. Right By the Americana.Michael Jamin:Are you in walking distance to thatKevin Lewandowski:Few blocks?Michael Jamin:Interesting. Okay. Alright. You'd like to go on the trolley.Kevin Lewandowski:I've never been on that trolley. I'm always afraidMichael Jamin:You like to ring the bell on trolley, Kevin. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:I'm always afraid it's going to hit someone.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I know. I know.Kevin Lewandowski:I think takes up a lot of the bottom of the path.Michael Jamin:Yeah. AllKevin Lewandowski:Right. Next question. So NRS creates, I guess this is a question, it's more of a comment. It said, agreed. The course is changing the way I see all of my stories. Good, great.Michael Jamin:Great.Kevin Lewandowski:Christina Sini, who's a current student, and Michael Jamin's course, we learned to break and structure story well before writing those bits and pieces of a script glued together that we won't have to cling to anyone to make them fit. We basically learned how to build in order. I think that goes back to your analogy of laying the foundation first and doing, starting with the characters in beat sheets and then outlining and eventually getting to the physical writing of the script.Michael Jamin:Yeah, she's doing great, Christina. She's having a good amount of success early on, so I'm impressed.Kevin Lewandowski:Another very active person in the course, Laurie. John Michael's course is amazing. When you take the class, you also become of the Jam and Facebook community. We do table reads and give each other notes twice a month. Writer sprints, Wednesday nights and mock writer's room. So anyone that's thinking about getting the course, we have this private Facebook group and it's a bunch of great people in there and we are all just trying to build each other up.Michael Jamin:It really is. It's impressive because when you look at some of the other Facebook groups, the screenwriting groups or on Reddit or groups, it's mostly people trying to tear each other down. But because this is private, I think they're not like that at all. It's a community, I think.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah, I think that was a big thing for you because you said you were in some of those groups, and I think you even said you sometimes as a professional working writer, you would say something that people would attackMichael Jamin:You. Yeah. You don't, what are you talking about? Oh, alright. I happened once or twice. I was say, I'm done. Yeah.Kevin Lewandowski:All right. Next question. VV oral, is it worth it? And parentheses story structure is very detailed in your course, so I think maybe it's worth it, not is it worth it? Yeah. I think it's just more people praising about your course.Michael Jamin:Okay.Kevin Lewandowski:Let's see. Okay, now we have some craft questions. Good. From Mal mavey, they, again, is it okay to end a pilot on a cliffhanger?Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's okay, but better not. You're really counting on the fact that anyone's going to care, so you're better. I think what the danger is, you may be writing towards this cliffhanger thinking that everyone's going to be so, oh my God, what's going to happen if you don't write? If all those pages beforehand aren't so great, no one's going to care what happens. And so a lot of people write towards this cliffhanger thinking, oh, aren't you going to be enthralled? And the answer is no, we don't care.Kevin Lewandowski:Yeah. Yeah. I think trying to work backwards from that I think can be a disservice. And I think it's just you definitely don't want that cliffhanger to be more exciting necessarily than your act one break, because that's what we know what we're following. Lex Macaluso, once I have a great script, what are the practical steps to do?Michael Jamin:Well, once you have a great script, write another one for sure. And then you want to make sure you actually do…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 123 - "My Boys" Actor Jamie Kaler Mar 06, 2024

Show notes

On this week's episode, we have actor Jamie Kaler (My Boys, Tacoma FD, Robot Chicken and many many more) and we talk about his career path as well as his experiences doing stand-up. There's so much more so make sure you tune in.Show NotesJamie KalerIMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0435695/Jamie Kaler on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_KalerJamie Kaler on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamiekaler/?hl=enJamie Kaler on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/jamiekalerA Paper Orchestra on Website: https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptJamie Kaler:He goes, Hey, just so you know, when you do watch it, we were running long for time. So we cut the tag. I go, you mean the reveal where I kissed the woman? He goes, yeah, we ran out of time and we cut it. I go, then everything I did up to that moment has no justification whatsoever because this is the craziest thing. He goes, I know. He goes, what are you going to do with tv? I go, all, whatever. And I moved on and I was like, couldn't care less. ButMichael Jamin:You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase And to support me in this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, today I'm talking about acting with my guest, Jamie Kaler. This guy, before I bring him on this guy's credits are crazy. He works a lot and so I'm going to blow, yeah, blow through. I'm going to do the abridge version. If not, we'll be here all day, but I'm going to go way back. I'm on IM db now. I'm only doing the ones that I decide are highlights. But Jag, he's been on Fringe Friends. Suddenly. Susan Carnival, third Rock in the Sun, king of Queens, grounded for Life, married to the Kelly's Arrested Development, Spanglish, seventies show. What else Will and Grace, the Family Stone? Who remembers that? Monk New Adventures of Old Christine Sons and Daughters. How I Met Your mother, my boys. We know 'em from that. And then did I say Parenthood? Did I say shake it up? Did I say Austin and Allie? Did I say Teachers of the Year? I don't remember. I'm skipping crazy Ex-girlfriend. Jesus, dude. It doesn't end the middle Dads in Parks. Oh, we'll talk about that. Heather's robot Chicken. American Housewife. Most recently Taco fd where my partner and I created the character of Polanski. Jamie, that was exhausting. Are we done with the interview now?Jamie Kaler:Honestly, it was so much fun being here, man. All right, everybody, take care. See you later.Michael Jamin:That was such good advice. Sorry, you guys all missed it. Dude, you've been around. How did you get into acting? How does someone get into acting? By the way,Jamie Kaler:People ask me nowadays, and I go, dude, it's nothing. I mean now it's like don't even move to la just start a YouTube channel in upstate Minnesota and try to blow up. And then once you have a following, then you're set.Michael Jamin:But we were talking about on your podcast, the parent lounge, but I know you think it's like a burden, but I think it actually works in your advantage to you, to your advantage because you're really good at it. You're good. You have a great social media presence. You're quick on your feet. It seems to me this, even though it requires more work for you, it actually works in your favor. No,Jamie Kaler:You mean social media doing it this way? Yeah, of course it is, but I already did it. So now I'm kind of the same way that I used to go buy wigs and glue on mustaches and actually lit myself on fire on stage at Acme Comedy Theater when I was doing crazy shows on Friday and Saturday nights in the nineties with that fervor of what are we doing today? We're going to Goodwill, we're going to get some costumes, here we go. And I remember renting equipment, trying to shoot shorts and trying to clerks, and Ed Burns had made the brothers McMullan or whatever, and it was like, come on, we're making film. It was super hard and it was painful and it was costly. And nowadays you can do it with your phone. But I'm older, I don't quite have the drive. I also am watching two little kids.So the time in the day is where I used to go, this is my day. I'm going to go do this now. I'm like, I dropped the kids at school. I had to go to the cleaners. I taking care of the two kids. I got to pick them up. I'm coaching soccer today. So yes, I will say though, especially watching you and you're a writer, but now you have to become a social media guru to get people to see what you've created and you're an artist. But nowadays, gosh, I was posting something this morning about the pregnant pause is gone pretty soon. Humans are going to evolve where the eyes instead of side by side are over the top of each other because horizontal's over everything's vertical. We need to flip our eyes. And years from now, no one will take a breath because we've dictated that. The breath makes people lose attention though. You can take a pause. People goMichael Jamin:Done. IJamie Kaler:Can't. He took a breath. I can't.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. So I just had this conversation yesterday. I dropped an audio audiobook, and so some woman said I was doing a live, she goes, oh, I bought your audiobook. I love it, but I listened to it on one and a quarter speed. But I'm like, but when I take a pause, it's because I want to put a pause there. I want to give you a moment to soak it in. It's not arbitrary.Jamie Kaler:I wanted to take a Richard Pryor act from his comedy special and cut all the air out of it. And so you would take a 50 minute, one hour special where there's a groove. He's in the moment. It would be like if you took Buddy Rich and you took all the space between the drum beats out. You're like, a lot of the art is in the space, and we have forgotten that. And now it's like it's a machine gun or people's brains shut off.Michael Jamin:This is something when we're shooting a sitcom, often, we'll tell the actor, make sure you hold for a laugh here. Hold for the laugh. You will get one. Yeah. What do we do about this?Jamie Kaler:Well, I don't know because I was watching, have you watched Show Gun?Michael Jamin:No. Am I supposed to watch that?Jamie Kaler:It's new. It's based on the book. Oh my gosh, it's glorious. I had never read the book. 16 hundreds. Futile Japan, A simple, brutal, vicious life of it's gorgeous. They had a full society. It's like the 16 hundreds. Wait,Michael Jamin:Where am I watching this? What can I get?Jamie Kaler:It's on FX and on Hulu and Portuguese and Portugal and England are the two powerhouses on the earth, and they are at war, and they're basically fighting for ownership of the east, even though the east are, they're like, wait, we're here. No one's going to own us. So it's all about that, but it's just this beautifully, I mean, it's like art. It's like going to the museum, seeing this story unfold, but people's brains nowadays, some do just riddling. 30 seconds of garbage on TikTok will get a gillion times more views than that. Because I talked to somebody who said, Hey, have you seen Shogun? Someone's like, oh, it just seems slow. And I was like, it's one of the greatest stories of all time. It's one of the bestselling books of all time. It's history and gorgeous and art, and it's beautifully shot. And they're like, ah, boring. I don't have time for that crap.Michael Jamin:We have, right? So what do we doJamie Kaler:If everything accelerates? There has to be a point where the human brain, it's like when they go, oh, this TV's 4K, and you're like, dude, I'm in my fifties. I can't even see 5K. I can't see any K anymore. It's like so resolution. It doesn't really matter. At some point your brain can't acceptMichael Jamin:It. Well, worse than that, so my TVs, I have a nice plasma plasma, but it's probably 15 years old at a cost a fortune when I got it. But the new ones, the resolution's so clear, it kind of looks like you're watching a bad TV show. You know what I'm saying? You watch a expensive movie and it looks like it's bad TV because I'm seeing too much.Jamie Kaler:The human face is not supposed to be seen with that much resolution. You see people and you're like, oh, that dude had a rough nightMichael Jamin:Where youJamie Kaler:Used to be able to hide it, and now you're like, no, no, no, no.Michael Jamin:Right? But then now have you had these conversations with your agent and your managers, or is this just when we were talking about building your social media following, are they telling you this or are you just like, your friends are doing it now? I got to do it too.Jamie Kaler:You mean why try to build this? Well, it's also, listen, it's funny because my wife will give me grief sometimes, and she goes, your stories are too slow. Which is crazy because I'm one of the fastest speakers who's ever lived. Sometimes when I'm working, people go, you need to bring it down a little bit. But on social media, if I don't want to sit and take a 92nd video and edit it down to a minute to take out the 30 seconds of pauses, because some guy, but that's the dilemma. Everything's the lowest common denominator. The jokes are I see something that blows up and I go, that was a great joke when George Carlin told that in 1972, and it was really well written and scripted, and now you've kind of bastardized it and you've put it into a ten second with no, your speaking voice is intolerable. But I get it, that's what people want. They're scrolling through and you're like, that's how it works. So I'm also a dinosaur man. It's like my daughters are 10 and they're already do flying through stuff. I mean, I don't know how to stop it.Michael Jamin:Do you know people, I mean, obviously back in the day when you'd go to auditions now everything's you submit. But back in the day, I'm sure you were going to audition and they're the same 10 actors that you would see trying out for the same part. Do you think they're doing the same thing that you're doing building of social media presence?Jamie Kaler:Well, I think you have to. Nowadays, honestly, I see that the social media presence, it is number one, you don't have to go learn how to act. You don't have to learn how to be a standup comic. You don't have to learn these skills and slowly build your way up the top. You do it because you're a personality. People are intrigued, not by people who are, they're intrigued by humans. It's a voyeuristic thing, I think, where people are like, you'll see somebody and they're just talking to camera. They're not even good speakers. There's something off. There's a crazy story. And maybe they've just been doing it for 15 straight years and built up a following and put some money behind it, put some ads, made sure they got some clicks. Maybe they bought a few followers, and you're like, but the craft, the art of what you do as a writer. I mean, is it slowly falling? But that's the problem nowadays with my kids, we just got the report cards and really good grades, but you can see on the standardized test, they're reading is starting to slip because kids don't read. It's too slow for them. Their brain is like, well, they just can't slow. People cannot slow down anymore. And it's Where does it goMichael Jamin:From here? I dunno, but I have to say that. So a lot of this is, I don't think this is coming from producers. I was on a show a few years ago, maybe let's say 10 years ago, and the studio or the network rather wanted us to cast a guy with a big social media following for this role. And I'm like, wait, really? Why? What about an act? Can we just get an actor? This Hollywood? Aren't there actors everywhere? And it's because networks are having a hard time marketing their show. And these people with followings, they can market their own show.Jamie Kaler:Kevin Hart. I mean, I remember something. They were like, well, you're going to post about the movie. And he's like, if you pay me, and they were like, why would we pay you? You're in the movie. He goes, yeah, you paid me for my acting services now you want me to be your publicist. If you want me to publicize this film, you will pay me for it because I accumulated these 50 million followers on my own. Why would I just give it to you?Michael Jamin:But here's where I'm curious about that though. I'm not sure if he doesn't post, I get his point, why should I do the marketing as well? But if he doesn't do the marketing, it'll hurt him for his next movie because it won't perform as well in the box office. You know what I'm saying?Jamie Kaler:Yes. It's a double-edged sword. But I also think he doesn't care.Michael Jamin:HeJamie Kaler:Doesn't care. He doesn't care because he has that following. He will, and they'll put it into the budget. I'm sure the agents and managers are like, all right, so this is his money that you're going to pay him. This is part of the marketing fee you're going to. And listen, I totally understand it. I'm sure I've lost parts because people have gone over to go, his following is not as big as this guy. At the end of the day, could a ton of other people played Polanski? Absolutely. Would they have huge followings? Yes, of course. So I feel lucky anytime I get a job to promote it, I feel like I'm qualified for that job. But I also know it's, you look back at the history of film and Philip Seymour Hoffman died, the five projects he had ready to go, they just replaced him.He's arguably one of the greatest actors of our generation. Nobody missed a beat. So are we all replaceable? Absolutely. Are we lucky to be in the business? Yeah. I mean, I would argue writers are more necessary because you're creating the project to start with. But as an actor, unless you're Daniel Day Lewis or somebody who's that crazy of a craft, then it's about chemistry, I think. Anyway. But you have to, those people are trying to get their films out, and so there's so much white noise on a daily basis that to cut through that, they're like, well, if this guy has 5 million followers and he puts up one post, what they don't see is that only 3% of those 5 million people even see. But thisMichael…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 122 - November 18th Webinar Q&A Feb 28, 2024

Show notes

On November 18th, I hosted a webinar called "How Professional Screenwriters Create Great Characters", where I talked about how to come up with interesting and unique characters, as well as how tapping into your everyday life interactions with people can help with this. 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 NotesA Paper Orchestra on Website: - https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: - https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: - https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:And why are we rooting for him? We're rooting for this meek man who's going to die soon to make some money for his family, but also to feel like he's alive for the first time in his life because he's just lived this very meek existence. And so that's why we're rooting for him. That's why we like him. And when he makes mistakes, he may go off track, but we hope he comes back. We're still rooting for him. You are listening to What The Hell Is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase and to support me on this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show. Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin and you're listening to, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, today we're doing another q and a from II's free writing webinars, and there's a lot of questions that people had. We couldn't answer 'em all on the end. We ran out of time, and so we're going to address 'em here. But this episode, Phil, I'm here with Phil Hudson.Phil Hudson:What up, Phil?Michael Jamin:Today's episode is brought to you by a paper orchestra, which is my collection of personal essays. It's David Saris meets Neil Simon on sale on my website, michael jamin.com, or you can find it anywhere. Books are sold, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, apple Books, all those places. Go get it. Go check it out. It's a fun read. Yeah. Okay.Phil Hudson:Worth checking out all the versions though too. I was just listening to the audio book and we talked about this in your episode about the book itself, but the music cues and the intros, very well done. Very well produced. You're also telling me about, thank you, Phil, how hellacious of a process it was to do itMichael Jamin:ToPhil Hudson:The quality you like.Michael Jamin:Yes. Because you only get to put it out once, but yeah. But thank you. So Phil got the audio book, but it's available ebook and print as well, however you consume your written materials. Love it. Alright, Phil, we got some questions. Enough about me. Let's ask me some questions.Phil Hudson:Yeah, let's talk to you some more about you. This is from the November 18th webinar. These are like you said, q and A stuff, and the topic of this webinar was how professional screenwriters create great characters. This was, I think, a first run on this topic. You hadn't done this topic before.Michael Jamin:It could be. Yeah, this was a good one. Yeah, this turned out to be a good one I thought.Phil Hudson:I think so too. We can tell, there's some metrics we can tell in terms of how long people stay, questions that are asked, how long it goes. And I was going to say too, we didn't get to these questions because typically when we first started doing this almost a year ago, February will be a year doing these. It was like 30 minutes of lesson and then it was a bunch of q and a and that has transitioned into about 45 minutes of lesson and then a little bit of q and a where we can get it. And then we even have VIPQ and A now where you can just pay a small fee to join for an hour after and you just talk to people on Zoom and they get to go live and ask you questions and some really, really good questions being asked in that. So if you're interested in attending these webinars, go to michael jamin.com/webinar where you can sign up for that. But then you can also sign up on that page to get into the VIP. If you want to ask Michael directly a question that you have if youMichael Jamin:Can't get to it. So to be clear, the webinars are always free, and if you want to spend extra time with me, that costs you something. But I should also say right now it seems like we have four that we're going to have a rotation, but we may keep adding different topics, but right now we have four good ones, so if you missed it, just sign up and maybe we'll do it again. CorrectPhil Hudson:Me if I'm wrong, but I think some of the topics you've come up with have come from the q and a that you do on these topics. How do I overcome? Writer's block are like, I'm really struggling with a character or development. So they kind of incept the idea of like, okay, here's a topic we should go down. So lots of great value there. Alright, well again, just for housekeeping, we do split these up into topics. So we have kind of general topics. We have craft breaking in questions related to your course or the webinar topic and then miscellaneous. So we're going to start with K Craft. I think again, people want to know how to do the job, which I think is helpful.Michael Jamin:Yes.Phil Hudson:So Chad, Chad Siime or cme, I don't know how to pronounce that. Sorry, Chad,Michael Jamin:He doesn't, doesn't know either.Phil Hudson:He probably's probably making it up. Was it like Ari, one of the writers in Taco, they pronounced their name. It was changed at one point.Michael Jamin:Yeah, he says his own name wrong. Poor guy.Phil Hudson:I know someone who was a Heinrich and then when World War II happened, they changed it to Heinrich, Henrik Henrich because they didn't want to be associated.Michael Jamin:Yeah, yeah.Phil Hudson:There you go. Chad asked, do you have examples of writers who have successfully experimented with story structure? What principles did they stick to and where did they deviate?Michael Jamin:I don't really know. I mean, I don't really know if I have a good answer to that. Every time I watch something I go, oh, it falls into the good. I guess there's some really high level writing. Christopher Nolan. Okay. So I would say many of his movies do not fit what I would teach, like Memento, but Forget or Inception. I don't know how many times I've watched it and I still don't understand it. So it's a great movie though.Phil Hudson:Yeah. But I would say that I can see that clearly the writing structure in those.Michael Jamin:You can. Okay.Phil Hudson:Oh yeah, you're definitely an inception too. It's like how do we get on this journey and how are we making decisions and where this stakes, all that stuff. I think it's all,Michael Jamin:A lot of it playing at the timeline, memento when he's playing with it. I don't even know what year it's supposed toPhil Hudson:Be. You're right. But I wonder if that's, it's all there and it's just been split to change and mess with your head a bit, but it's all there, which is why it resonates with people.Michael Jamin:But I guess my advice is like, listen, if you want to operate at the high level, that's great, but let's just get to the professional level first before you become the masterPhil Hudson:Level. And Christopher Nolan's a great example of that because he had made a feature before he did Memento, so he had a full feature. He was making short films all the time in film school before he even started experimenting with timelines and things like that. Yeah, okay. Listen to me just arguing. Michael jamin on his own podcast.Michael Jamin:What do I know? You might bePhil Hudson:Right, maybe my head did get big. Kevin and Steve. Alright, Marianne wants to know, you have such a great understanding of human nature. Was there something you've always been good at or did you develop it as a writer?Michael Jamin:No, I didn't. I have a very low emotional iq. My parents are great people, well, great parents, but terrible, low emotional IQs themselves just because that's the household they grew up in. And so it's not a knock on them, it's just like this is the product of your parents. This is how they communicate. And so a lot of this I learned I gained from my wife just from being with her. And then the rest of it, of course, I learned as I became, I became a writer because that's your job as a writer is to really understand people and to get into their shoes. And one of the, it's so funny, I've spoken about this in the past, but my first writing teacher was a guy who really wanted everyone to be in psychoanalysis. That's what he called it because he was so old. They don't even call it like that anymore.It's psychotherapy. But he thought every writer has to be in psychoanalysis because if you don't understand yourself, how could you possibly understand someone else and you or a character? And I think he's absolutely right. I didn't want to believe he was right, but he is right. If you don't understand yourself, and most people do not, and we know this because they go through life unconscious of the people of the damage they're leaving, of the people they're hurting because they're just not even aware of it. And you see it all the time. You could see it on social media, people saying really mean things. It's like you might even be a good person, but why would you put that in print? What is wrong with you that you would say that? What part of yourself is so wounded that you think you need to say this in writing? And so I appreciate the compliment, but everyone else, I'm a work in progress and I think writing definitely has helped me.Phil Hudson:Yeah, that's great. Albert Klein wants to know, and this is again contextual here. These are people who are live chatting questions throughout this episode or this webinar. But I said relatability is key in full caps. I think where you're talking about with the characters. Do these characters need to be relatable? Do I need to understand who they'reMichael Jamin:Yeah, and it's the same thing with Tony Soprano. How do we relate to a mobster? I don't, and he's probably a sociopath as well, but what we can relate is the fact that we know what it's like to be a boss. Maybe you know what it's like to be a boss, to have people undermining you, your underlings. And he certainly had those problems. We know what it's like to be a father and to have children that are rebellious or whatever. That's the part we relate to with, so we don't relate to the part where he's going to wax somebody because he's late with the whatever. But we do relate to this other issues, which isPhil Hudson:Anxiety, the stress and family life. His psychotic mother.Michael Jamin:And that's what the show is about. It's not aboutPhil Hudson:Crazy. He deals with his in-laws too. Joey Pants, I think is his brother-in-Law or something, right?Michael Jamin:I don't remember whatPhil Hudson:He was. Yeah. Anyway, it's all relatable because it is just a heightened version of what go through. Yeah,Michael Jamin:His job is a little more interesting than our job, but it's all, that's not what it's about. It's not about the mafia, it's about the emotions that we all relate to.Phil Hudson:Great answer. Reik vid. So do you find the anti-hero more interesting than a traditional hero?Michael Jamin:Anti-hero is not even a term I use. I don't know. I think everyone, your hero has to be likable. I don't know. I can't even say I've lost interest. If your character is so unlikable, I don't really care what happens to him or her. I am out. So this notion of anti-hero, I don't even think of your writing that way. You have a hero. I think anti-heroes is one of these terms that, I dunno, expert writers will tell you it's an anti-hero. What?Phil Hudson:Yeah, people say that. People have said that the whole time since I've said I've wanted to study screenwriting or be a writer publicly said, oh, I'll describe what I like. Oh, you like an anti-hero? Batman's an anti-hero. And I was like, why? He's not goody hoo Superman. You've described him. He is a deeply wounded person who is using every resource he has, all of his willpower to stop other people from suffering.Michael Jamin:And how is he, I mean, we were on his side. He's complicated, but we're on his side. We're rooting for him. If we're not, we got a problem.Phil Hudson:Alright. What about Walter WhiteMichael Jamin:Breaking back? Yeah. What about Walter White? So that's a great, is he an anti-hero? I don't know. Who cares? To me, he's a guy who's dying in the pilot episode. He's dying, he's a teacher, so he doesn't have any money. What is he going to leave his family when he's gone? He's got to come up with money fast. And the only way he knows how to do that fast is by capitalizing on his skillset, which is he's a chemistry teacher so he can make meth in a lab. Does that make him an anti-hero? To me, he's just a hero.Phil Hudson:He's a person. And then you find out that he gave up tremendous wealth because that was like, he had that partnership at that company where he had the ability to adjust multimillions of dollars and he's a public school chemistry teacher. So it's those layers of decisions and regret. It's exploring the human condition. Definitely justMichael Jamin:And why are we rooting for him? We're rooting for this meek man who's going to die soon to make some money for his family, but also to feel like he's alive for the first time in his life because he's just this very meek existence. And so that's why we're rooting for him. That's why we like him. And when he makes mistakes, he may go off track, but we hope he comes back. We're still rooting for him.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Great. Chad, back again. Chad, how deep should someone go in developing a film or television character knowing that the director actor in the show's evolution will shape their personality?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, you should go deep enough to get their interest so that they want to buy your work or work with you. But just know that's the thing about film. The minute you sign up for a film or you sell your film, the director's in charge, they're the boss. It's their movie. They might fire you. They're going to probably hire five other writers to rewrite the hell out of you. You may not even get screen credit because that'll be arbitrated by the Writer's Guild. Which writer did the most work on it? And so you should do as much possible as work possible to entice people to get on board your project. But once they get on board, y…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 121 - "Bones" Executive Producer - Jonathan Collier Feb 21, 2024

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have Writer/Executive Producer, Jonathan Collier (Bones, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Monk, and many many more) and we dive into the origins of his career. We also talk about his side hustle and how that came about! Tune in as we have so much more.Show NotesJonathan Collier on X: https://twitter.com/collierjonathan Jonathan Collier IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0171927/Jonathan Collier on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_CollierA Paper Orchestra on Website: - https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible: - https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: - https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptJonathan Collier:It was after season eight, and I thought they were trying to get me to go to King of the Hill, and I had whatever, I had the chance to stay at Simpson's. And I thought, well, there's no way it goes past season 10.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Or any show goes past season 10.Jonathan Collier:It just doesn't happen. And so I left. I thought, I kind of felt badly leaving, but I thought, what's much better? Do you want to show with some like in itMichael Jamin:You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase. And to support me in this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.All right, everyone, welcome back to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? My next guest is an old colleague of mine, old friend from my days on King of the Hill before I let him talk his name's John Coly or welcome to the show, but let me tell you what he's done. The Sky's credits are pretty incredible. So you sit back and relax. Lemme tell you what he's done. So he wrote on The Simpsons. Okay, we've heard of that show and I'm only giving some of the highlights, some of the highlights, some Scooby dos, which I did not know. King of the Hill Monk, the Good Family Bones, the Good Cop Law and Order. I mean, this guy has done well. He's done a lot. But thank you so much, man, for doing the show.Jonathan Collier:Oh, it's a pleasure, Michael. Thank you for having me.Michael Jamin:Let me tell you about who you are because I remember very clearly walking to my, on my way to my office on King of the Hill. Yours was, I would always walk past you and I would often stop and say hello. Or sometimes I would just sit and you always had a big smile. You're always so happy to greet me and have me there. And I never felt like I was getting in the way you Yeah, come on in. Come on. You're always very kind.Jonathan Collier:I am endlessly in search of distractions.Michael Jamin:Well, I do remember walking past you on days when you're on script and just looking miserable. IJonathan Collier:Am. Thank you. Nope, that's exactly it. Well observed. I am never more miserable than I am alone in writing.Michael Jamin:But why is that? Do you feel?Jonathan Collier:Oh, it's a horrible thing to do. TV writing is one of the most fun, engaging, productive things you can do if you're with other people. And I love that part of it. And the small portion of the job that relies on you being alone entails, I should say, you being alone and actually writing something without people around is misery for me.Michael Jamin:But is it the comedy part? You also do drama now? Which one is harder?Jonathan Collier:Comedy is harder.Michael Jamin:Okay. But yeah, I would agree with that as well. But is it miserable to write drama as well?Jonathan Collier:I find the process of keeping stuff alive and interesting and propulsive is really, really hard.Michael Jamin:And how do know? You know when it's alive?Jonathan Collier:What, sorry?Michael Jamin:How do you know?Jonathan Collier:How do I know when it's right?Michael Jamin:Yeah. How do you know?Jonathan Collier:Part of what makes it so miserable is you can always second guess yourself. And even more so when there's jokes involved.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, for jokes for sure. And what was that transition like for you? I'm amazed that anyone can do it.Jonathan Collier:Oh, I got very lucky. What happened was that King of the Hill was, we got canceled. You remember? It was time. The show got canceled. It was canceled two times.Michael Jamin:We left after the first time.Jonathan Collier:Yeah, left. So it got canceled. And I really realized it was for real when they started moving our furniture out of the officeMichael Jamin:Because you were going to squat there.Jonathan Collier:I had every intention of squatting.Michael Jamin:You thought it was all Big bluff until they moved at the furniture.Jonathan Collier:And so that was happening. And I had done comedy for about 17 years at that point. And I didn't love doing for camera comedy. I liked doing animation and there were no real single camera comics, comedies on the air at the time, and I didn't quite know what to do, but I knew I stopped watching comedies. I kind of could feel the sweat on them and the work on them because I worked in so many comedy rooms. And I got really lucky, which is that Andy Breckman, who was running Monk at the time, who created the show, he used to have three guest writers come in every season. And he did that because he felt like he kept him on track. If you came in as a guest to the room in New York, it made him concentrate and work harder and make sure that in five days you would break a story.Michael Jamin:Why? Because people flew in, you mean?Jonathan Collier:Yeah, because the network would fly, the studio would fly you into New York and put you up and they would only keep you there for five days.Michael Jamin:Okay, that's interesting.Jonathan Collier:I got one of those. So I got one of those guest shots. And the other thing I got way I got lucky wasMichael Jamin:Wait, but how did you get that guest shot?Jonathan Collier:I got that guest shot because this is embarrassing. My agent at the time who I didn't think was doing enough for me, got me a meeting with Andy Breckman, and I thought it was just one meeting with Andy Breckman, who's a great guy, and I love the show, but who knows if it's going to turn into anything. I fired my agent, moved on to another agent, and then Andy called me up and said, oh, we want you to do this episode a month.Michael Jamin:Right.Jonathan Collier:But there was no,Michael Jamin:But I've already fired my agent.Jonathan Collier:That was done. What happened was that, anyway, Andy used to only hire comedy writers to do guest episodes.Michael Jamin:Why?Jonathan Collier:Because his theory was that he could teach a comedy writer how to write a procedural. He could not teach a procedural writer how to be fun. So anyway, they flew into New York, I was in the room, we broke a story and I wrote it and it went well. The whole thing went well, and I got very lucky again because no one had ever really left the show or been added to it. This was the fourth season and one writer was leaving and Andy offered me the job. So I came in and went on staff the next season.Michael Jamin:How many seasons did you do there?Jonathan Collier:I did two more seasons and then the writer's strike of 2007 happened. And when that happened, I didn't know how long that would go on. Mike and the Good Family was starting up and they got what was called a strike waiver, and there were certain production companies and one was MRC, media Rights Capital, and they made a deal with the WGA, with the Writers Guild that they could do shows that were during the strike and it would not be strike breaking to work on those shows if they agreed to abide by the Wgas terms, the writer's terms. The WGA was using that as a tactic to try to force the studios to,Michael Jamin:And it's funny, they didn't really do that this last strike.Jonathan Collier:No, I don't think it really helped.Michael Jamin:You don't think it helped?Jonathan Collier:I don't know if it did or actually, no, I can't say if it did or not. I thought all I can say is I think this last strike was better run than the first one. I think a lot was learned from the first one. Anyway, I left Monk because I got a job right away rather than being strike.Michael Jamin:Right. Let me ask you that. When you're on Monk and you are with procedural writers who are not comedy writers, when they would pitch something that you and I would call a clam, or if you would pitch it in the room at the Simpson, the King of the Hill, someone would say, right? Was there a lot of that going on? Were you the guy who said, yeah, that's not really a joke?Jonathan Collier:Well, no. At Mon though, you had, first of all, it was comedy writers. It was a small staff and it was four people whose background was comedy, including Andy Breckman, and then one High Conrad, who was just a terrific mystery writer. And he had written something like 200 mystery books. Oh,Michael Jamin:Wow.Jonathan Collier:And the way he got on was that Andy met with him and took him out for lunch and said, look, I love your mystery books, and you have two choices. One is you come on staff or two was I'm just going to steal all your plots anyway.Michael Jamin:Oh wow.Jonathan Collier:Hi was on whatever came on staff, and he was on UNK for the whole run. And then he was on The Good Cop with Me Too. It was on, that was another Andy Breckman show.Michael Jamin:Right. It's so interesting. And to what did you think of that world? I mean, compared to comedy?Jonathan Collier:Well, it was a really kind of easy, delicate transition because it was a mystery show once again, written by comedy writers.Michael Jamin:Writers. It was light. It was fun.Jonathan Collier:Yeah. A procedural written by non-com writers would've been a tougher adjustment for me.Michael Jamin:But even the procedural explain to me and everyone else, how do you write a procedural?Jonathan Collier:I think there's many different ways to write a procedural. The way I write a procedural is what really happened comes first.Michael Jamin:What really happens comes first. What does that mean?Jonathan Collier:Okay. What you have to think of is what was our crime? What's the procedure about? What are we investigating?Michael Jamin:Okay, so give me an example.Jonathan Collier:It's not a medical procedural. This is a criminal procedural. I'm talkingMichael Jamin:About, okay, so someone's dead,Jonathan Collier:Someone is dead. And then you have all sorts of questions you can ask that can form the basis for an episode. You can say, oh, is it an accident? Is it a suicide? Is it a murder? If it is a murder, or who did it? Why did they do it? Who could have done it? There any number of, is it an open book where the audience knows what happened? Is it a closed book where the audience doesn't know and learns along with our investigators?Michael Jamin:Did you basically do both?Jonathan Collier:Monk did both opened and closed book. And Monk also did a combination of who done, its who was the killer, why done, its, we know who the killer is, but why on earth would they kill someone? And that's how we can prove they did it. And how done its, it's an incredibly, it's a locked room mystery, for instance, where someone was killed inside the locked room, how did the killer get in there and doMichael Jamin:It? Interesting. HadJonathan Collier:To figure out how the crime was done.Michael Jamin:And so these words are so funny. So as you were breaking the story, you'd break 'em in the room with all the writers, I assume, right? And then throw out ideas, and then someone would say, okay, but let's do this, make it a wide, let's make it a wide done at this week. Is that what it is?Jonathan Collier:Well, I think we'd look at the killing and say, what's a really, really ingenious killing? We could do?Michael Jamin:Okay.Jonathan Collier:Say, okay, let's look at the motive. And then we'd say, last, you'd spend probably say you were breaking a story over the course. If it was just us, we probably spent seven to eight days breaking a story. We weren't having a guest writer in. And the first three or four days probably spent just figuring out how the crime was done and why really gettingMichael Jamin:It seems very hard to me. This seems very hard to me.Jonathan Collier:For me, it was somewhat natural way to do it because it was really fun. And for some, I feel like I was using my comedy muscles, even my plotting muscles to figure out why you did it. And then you work backwards once, and this is just us. Other shows do it different ways. There's probably a million different ways to do it.Michael Jamin:Okay. But you start work backwards. So first you decide if it's going to be a who, what or why is that what it's,Jonathan Collier:First of all, first of all, you can't figure out who kills who and why, who killed who, who kills who. How do they do it, why do they do it, where do they do it? All those things. Then you figure out how do we solve it? And for a show like Monk, he'd also say, well, I have someone who has OCD. I have someone who was painfully shy as someone who was any number of traumas in his life. Also a comic character who happens to be the saddest person on television, and he has a tragedy to his life. And what's the world I can put him in to make him the most uncomfortable?Michael Jamin:Right? And that's how you begin. That's where you start. That'sJonathan Collier:Often where, that's often where the fun of it comes from. The comedy is from seeing him in the world where he's uncomfortable, because comedy is all about discomfort. The emotional story would often come from how he will relate to the world and what it would bring up in his own life. And then the procedural story is how you solve the crime.Michael Jamin:YouJonathan Collier:Go ahead. Sorry.Michael Jamin:No, no, go ahead.Jonathan Collier:The way one could look at it is for us on that show, the procedural story was almost with the armature. It's what you would call the plot, I guess. And the real story was the emotional story that was threaded through the plot.Michael Jamin:Right, of course.Jonathan Collier:And the two of them dovetail and one comment on the other, like a musical comedy, for instance, where songs are the twists, they provide the transition points in the story. You could say the emotional twists or the procedural twists would provide a transition point for each other.Michael Jamin:It still sounds very hard to me. Does it get easier?Jonathan Collier:Well, I think it probably sounds hard because I'm probably overcomplicating it.Michael Jamin:Well, not really, because you're solving, because see, and I are thinking of writing a procedural, and so we're watching some, and I'm like, I don't know. I don't think I know how to do this.Jonathan Collier:Oh, I'll help you with it.Michael Jamin:Oh, good. You're hired.Jonathan Collier:It i…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 120 - Actress Paula Marshall Feb 14, 2024

Show notes

On this week's episode, I have actress Paula Marshall (Euphoria, Walker, Gary Unmarried, and many many more) and we dive into the origins of his career. We also talk about how she dealt with being a new mom and working on a sitcom at the same time. There is so much more so make sure you tune in.Show NotesPaula Marshall on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepaulamarshall/?hl=enPaula Marshall IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005191/Paula Marshall on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_MarshallA Paper Orchestra on Website - https://michaeljamin.com/bookA Paper Orchestra on Audible - https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptPaula Marshall:But a lot of parents, they go to jobs and then they come home or they don't work at all, and then it's just mom 100% and they're probably exhausted and happy. Some of my friends, I feel like they're like, I'm so glad. Finally I get to whatever. And either they're retiring and they get to go travel and like, no, I'm an actor. I'm looking for a gig, whatever. I don't think actors ever truly retire. I think we don't. I don't.Michael Jamin:You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations and writing, art and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase. And to support me on this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.Welcome everyone. My next guest is actress Paula Marshall. She has been, I worked with her years ago on a show called Out of Practice, I think it was like 2005. But Paul, before I let you get a word in edgewise, I got to tell everyone, your credits are crazy long, so your intro may take a long time. So I'm going to just give you some of the highlights to remind you of your incredible body of work here. Really these are just the highlights. She works a ton. So well, let's see. I guess we could start with One Life To Live. That might've been your first one. Grapevine Life goes on. Wonder Years Seinfeld. I heard of that one. Perry Mason diagnosis. Murder Wild Oats. I'm skipping here. Nash Bridges. You did a couple Chicago Suns Spin. City Cupid Snoops Sports Night, the Weber Show. It doesn't end.Just shoot Me, which I worked on. I didn't even know you were on that. Maybe I wasn't there. Hitting Hills and Out of Practice, which we did together. Veronica Mars, nip Tuck, shark ca Fornication. You did a bunch of Gary Unmarried House friends with Benefits, the exes CSI, the Mentalist, two and a Half Men Murder in the First Major Crimes. What else have we got here? Goer Gibbons, I dunno what that is. You have to tell me what that is. And then Modern Family Euphoria. You did a bunch of them. Walker. Paula, I'm exhausted and I'm going to steal your joke here. You can because I'm going to say you're Paula Marshall, but you may know me as Carla Gina. That's what used to tell me CarlaPaula Marshall:And I know Carla,Michael Jamin:But knowPaula Marshall:She's like the younger version of me. Slightly shorter,Michael Jamin:Bigger, bigger. Boop. But you have done so much. I'm going to jump, I'm going to jump into the hardest part. I'm wondering if this is the hardest part for you is being a guest star on a show because you have to jump in with the cast, you have to know the rules and everything. Is that harder?Paula Marshall:Yes, a hundred percent. It's harder when I guest star on any shows, if I haven't seen the show, I watch three or four on YouTube just so I know who's who and the vibe and the energy. When I guest star on Modern Family I their last season and some could say I canceled the show by being there. I've been called a show killerMichael Jamin:Before. I remember You don't let Right.Paula Marshall:I still have not let that go. I like to say I've just worked on so many different shows at its peak and then it died anyway. It's hard because they're all in a flow and depending on the other actors, how cool they are to kind of throw the ball at you.Michael Jamin:But do you have to identify who's the alpha dog on set? Is that what your plan is? It'sPaula Marshall:Pretty clear right away. Really? Yeah. I mean besides whoever's first on the call sheet, I remember one of the producers of Snoop's, David Kelly's first big bomb. That was me.Michael Jamin:It was a sure thing what happened?Paula Marshall:You know what? I'm not sure. Well, when it was supposed to be a comedy quickly turned into a drama, it was not great. But as one of the producers of Snoop said, you don't fuck with the first person on the call sheet. You don't fuck with him. And so you identify that person and depending, it's funny because I've worked with so many great people and so many assholes too. Like David Deney. Damn, is he cool? He's so nice. When I worked on fornication with him, he set a tone for just the set, the crew, the actors, this freedom just to try things. And I remember during my, it was like the first day naked throwing up,Michael Jamin:Wait, were you nervous? Why were you throwing up?Paula Marshall:Hello? Of course. But IMichael Jamin:Remember you're never nervous, Paul, let me tell you who you were. I'm totally nervous. No, you're the most self-assured person probably I've ever worked with. You're very confident.Paula Marshall:Thank you. I'm actingMichael Jamin:Acting.Paula Marshall:But California occasion, it was my first day onset naked, fake fucking. And I remember standing there, it was yesterday, and either tweaking you and touching you up. And I say to everyone, what's amazing, what I'll do for $2,900 when a strike is pending? It was the writer's strike way back in the day. And I remember getting this part on fornication and I'm like to all the girls in the audition room, when we used to have auditions in rooms with other people, I looked around, I'm like, we're not going to really have to be naked. We're not those type of actresses. And they're like, no, no, no. And I'm like standing there. Yeah, yeah. I was naked.Michael Jamin:Was that your first time in a show being naked? I meanPaula Marshall:ToplessMichael Jamin:ShowPaula Marshall:On a show?Michael Jamin:Yes. Because you were in a model, I'm sure as a model, you're doing wardrobe changes all the time.Paula Marshall:I used to model. I was naked a few things back in the day.Michael Jamin:So were you really nervous about it? I mean, I imagine you would be, butPaula Marshall:Standing there naked is one thing. You just kind of have to dive in the pool, in the cold, cold pool and let it go because you got to put on the confident jacket, I guess I obviously wore a lot around you, but I mean it's more uncomfortable, the fake sex scenes, it's more technical and awkward. It's just but nervous. I dunno. Yeah, you're excited. But I'm also excited when I walk on stage on a sitcom before, if I'm not already in the set, when they start rolling, I'm backstage. How's my hair? Shit, how am I doing? Okay? I get hyped up until you do it once and people laugh and you're like, oh,Michael Jamin:Okay. Are you worried about going up on your lines at all? Is that at all you're thinking about?Paula Marshall:Yes, especially now. Oh shit, my memory. It's just that prevagen, I'm going to look it up later, but yeah, you do. But if you in a sitcom situation, we run it, we rehearse it all week. StillMichael Jamin:The lines are changing all week. That's all IPaula Marshall:Know. But they're changing all week. But then you run it and you drill it on TV shows like euphoria or whatever. Yeah, you run it. But then again, they don't really change the lines at all. But yeah, you were a little bit, but then you got a great script supervisor that you're like, I'm up. And then they say it and then you go back and you do it. But yeah, always, I'm always really nervous until maybe the second takeMichael Jamin:Of any, the hardest thing it seems to me is just like, okay, you're naked and you have to forget that there's all these people there. You havePaula Marshall:ToMichael Jamin:Completely, it's almost like you're crazy to have to be able to forget that,Paula Marshall:Michael, when you paid $2,900.That's right. I was shocked. That's all you get for being naked. Yeah, you do. You are nervous. But I don't know. I was 40 then, so I looked pretty good naked, although I only had four days notice. Back then we didn't have ozempic, so I was like, okay, I can't, no salt, no bread. And I remember in that shot that the camera guy, they decided in the moment, Hey, can you walk over to David? And then bent over, he's on the bed and then kiss him. I'm like, well, that depends. What's your lens there? You got there? And I'm like, how wide is your lens? And he looked at me and I'm like, I'm a photographer. I like taking pictures. So I know. And I'm like, so I'm going to bend over with my white ass and I had four days notice on this and my ass is just going to be in the pretty much. And you're like, okay, I could do it. But you hope for body makeup. I don't know. Don't you think I had any, I should have demanded bodyMichael Jamin:Makeup. And this was probably even before there were, what do they call them now? IntimacyPaula Marshall:Coordinators?Michael Jamin:Yes. Right.Paula Marshall:I mean, here's the thing. I guess it helps when you're not a loud mouth person like me. And even then it's hard to go, Hey dude, keep your tongue in your mouth. You don't want it in your mouth. Sometimes you're like, damn. He's a great kisser. Jason Bateman, I enjoyed the tongue in my mouth. SoMichael Jamin:It kind of dependsPaula Marshall:On who's sticking in the tongue. But the intimacy coordinator, I think it's just so people know what's going to kind of happen and get it. But California case, no, we didn't have that. This movie I was naked on with Peter Weller called The New Age. No, I remember in the middle of the scene, I'm on the bed and he's looking down at me and during one take he decides to suck on my nipple. Shocking. I turned bright red, which is what I do when I get nervous. And I'm like, dude, what are you doing? He goes, I dunno, I just thought it'd be fun. I'm like, okay. And I don't think they used it, but if there was an intimacy coordinator back then, I probably would've known.Michael Jamin:Yeah. So it'sPaula Marshall:Good I guess. But it's corny and you feel silly.Michael Jamin:Oh my God, I'm glad you mentioned the photography thing. That was one of my memories from working together and out of practice. This was before people had camera phones and cell phones and you carried a camera everywhere. And I remember thinking, you're the star of a sitcom. You're the star. I mean, you're an artist doing her craft, and yet it's still not enough that you wanted to work on something. You wanted to do something else as well.Paula Marshall:Maybe it's my parents growing up, they always had these really cool black and white pictures of them. And I used to look at them and go, wow, that was your life then. And it was hard to even imagine when they were so young. And so it's like photos are life to me. And I guess I don't want to forget the moments of my life that are important. And so I always would bring a camera with me on set, on location more than sitcom stages aren't as conducive to really cool shots. But yeah, I like capturing life.Michael Jamin:And you're still doing it on 35Paula Marshall:Millimeter? I still do it, although I did give in and I have a digital now because it's easier. It's easier. Develop film.Michael Jamin:Many. You took my headshot from me and for many years I way too long. I used that as my headshot.Paula Marshall:Yeah, it was good. I rememberMichael Jamin:It was great. And I wore Danny's shirt, you go, yeah, put this on. You look terrible. Whatever I was wearing, stillPaula Marshall:Do that. People still come over my friends and I'm like, you need a headshot. Put Danny's shirt on. He has some nice shirts.Michael Jamin:It's so funny.Paula Marshall:Yeah, I do. I still like taking pictures.Michael Jamin:I got to share another memory I had from out of practice, which I cherish this one. So it was right before it was show night for some reason. I don't know why. I had to run up pages to the cast. And maybe you were in the green room or you were somewhere upstairs. I don't know what the hell dressing. I don't know what was going on. I knock on the door and all of you we're standing in a circle holding hands. And Henry goes, Michael, you're just in inside. Come on in. And then I go in time for what? And then he tapped. This blew my, I love this memory. And you guys were just like, I don't know what you would call it, but you were invoking a good show to be supportive of each other and to be brave and true. And I was like, I can't believe I felt so honored that I was included in, I was like, are you serious,Paula Marshall:Henry? I actually forgot that memory and thank you for reminding me of it. Henry's just, he's something special.Michael Jamin:He is.Paula Marshall:I know there's rumors. Oh, who's the nicest guy in Hollywood? Henry Winkler. It's because it is, is I could text him right now and he would literally text me. Within eight minutes he will text me back. Oh, Paula, it's been so, he's just a dear. And so he is, again, back to the, when you go on set and who creates that energy? Although Chris Gorham, I think was the first on the call sheet, not Henry Winkler, but Henry was our dad. I mean, he was such a pro and yeah, he just created this lovely energy there.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Oh wow. So that's not common then for other shows that you've worked on. People don't do that. That's not a theater thing. It seems like a theater thingPaula Marshall:You would think. I think, I don't know, maybe it was a happy days thing.Michael Jamin:Why don't you start it on your next show? Why don't you start doingPaula Marshall:It? I think I might. I'm going to make it now.Michael Jamin:I thought it was so interesting. I was like, wow. But it's getting back to that first point, even the first, the first person on the call sheet technically is the head cheese. But they might not be the most difficult by far at all. I mean, you don't know who's the boss. That's true, right?Paula Marshall:I mean sometimes the and character is an asshole. I mean, I think mostly people when they don't really want to be there, they kind of rebel. I've always wanted to be on a sitcom. IMichael Jamin:Remember. Did that change? Oh, go ah…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 119 - A Paper Orchestra Feb 08, 2024

Show notes

I’ve been a television writer for the past 27 years. While I’ve written on some amazing shows, the work that I’m most proud of is my new book, A Paper Orchestra. It’s the funniest, it’s the deepest, and it’s the one that will hit you hardest in the heart. These are the deeply personal, true stories of an awkward, sensitive man searching for the things that are most important: identity, love, forgiveness, and redemption. It's available now for your reading pleasure.Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/A Paper Orchestra on Audible - https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1A Paper Orchestra on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestraA Paper Orchestra on Website - https://michaeljamin.com/bookFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:Yeah, but the problem is they don't help you. They design the book cover. You don't get a choice of what the book cover is. Maybe they give you three choices, but that's about it. They decide how they want and they decide what the title of the book is because you sold 'em the rights. So why am I giving away all this power to someone who hasn't earned it? Why am I making them rich? Why am I giving them any creative input at all when the whole point of this was for me to have a hundred percent creative input? You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase and to support me on this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book now on with the show. Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to What the Hell Is Michael Jamin talking about the podcast where we explore art, creativity, and writing. Oh, it's a big announcement today, Phil. Phil's back, big dayPhil Hudson:Back. Happy to be back. Thank you for having me.Michael Jamin:Big day. We're finally building up. This has been a long project. Phil book, my book, A Paper Orchestra Drops or dropped if you're hearing this. It's available, it's, it's alreadyPhil Hudson:Dropped. It's available yesterday, so go get it now.Michael Jamin:It's called a paper orchestra and it's a collection of personal essays. If you're a fan of David Sedaris, I think of it as David Sedaris meets Neil Simon. And this has been my passion project for years. I've been working on this and I'm very excited to put it out in the world. As you can get it on print, you can get it on audiobook, you can get it as ebook, however you consume your books, and you can get it everywhere. You can go get it on michael jamin.com. You can find it on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble or Audible for the audio audiobook. Anywhere, anywhere you get Apple. If you want to get the ebook, it's everywhere, Phil. It's everywhere.Phil Hudson:It's like you got a real publishing deal except you didn't.Michael Jamin:Well, I'm doing it myself,Phil Hudson:And we'll go into that. I want people to understand you chose to self-publish this at this point, but that's not how we started. And we've talked a bit about that when we changed the podcast title and we talked a bit about it. We're talking about your live shows, but I think this is like, let's celebrate Michael Jamin a little bit today because you're always talking to people to build the mountain, to climb. You are now at the top of that mountain, and I imagine you're looking over and saying, oh crap, look, that other peak there I've got to get to now.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I already am. Yeah, for sure. Lot of it. And I hope this inspires a lot of you. There's so many people who are like, I want to sell my screenplay, or I want to help me break in, help me, help me. But there's so much that you can do. So unempowering disempowering, you're basically hoping that someone else is going to make your career, buy my script, make my movie. But there's so much that you can do on your own, and you may think it's more work because you're doing it yourself, but it's actually less work because now you don't have to count on someone else to do it for you. You can stop begging, you can stop worrying about all the rejection because when you're selling your scripts or trying to, you're going to get rejected by 99 out of a hundred people. But if you just build it yourself, there's so much you can do. The year we live in, it's so empowering. Everyone has a phone and you can shoot on your phone, you can make a movie. Everyone has a miniature movie studio. There's so much we all can do and on our own. And so I'm just going to share a little bit about the journey that I've been on when I started writing this book.So basically this started well over four years ago, maybe five years ago. I told my wife that I was just at a point in my life where I felt a little disheartened by, a little bored by what I was writing in television because when I write for tv, and I'm very grateful to have a job and a career, but I'm always writing what someone is paying me to write. And I'm very rarely writing what I want to write. I'm paying what someone pays me to write or what I can sell, but that's not how I started writing when I was in college and in high school. I just wanted to write what I wanted to write. And so I went for a walk with my wife one day and I was like, I have a really bad idea. I'm thinking of writing a collection of personal essays, which is what David Seras writes. And I love his writing. I've read everything. He's written multiple times. You show him your card, you got a card back there, don't you? Oh yeah. Yeah. He actually, I sent him a piece of fan letter, a fan mail three years ago. But I've read him so much. I knew that he would respond. He talks about, I knew he would respond. It just took him three years to respond, but it was very kind of him.So yeah, so I started writing. I wanted to write this project. I wanted to write what I want to write. I wanted to tell stories the way I wanted to tell them without network notes, without a partner, without. I just wanted to see what I can do on my own without having someone telling me what to do or breathing down my back or saying, no, it should be this or that. What can I do? And so I told that to Cynthia and she said, that's a great idea. And I said, but you don't understand even if I sell it, I'm not going to make a lot of money from it and it's going to take me years and years to do. She goes, you got to do it anyway, because if you do, you will find yourself in the process. And I was like, okay.And at the time, I was really in a bad place. I was just very upset about stuff mentally. I was in a bad place. I was like, okay, I'll start writing. And that's what I did. I remember I had listened to a lot of David C's audio books, but I had never read him. So I was like, I better read him. And then I bought a bunch of books and I read the first one. I remember I was lying in bed. I was reading the first book and I'm about halfway through and I'm thinking, where's this guy going? What's he doing here? Where's he going with this? And then I got to the end of the piece and the ending was such a wonderful ending. I was like, oh my God. And I almost threw the book across the room. I was, I was so mad.I was like, this is going to be so much harder than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be easy or natural, not easy, but just considering I'm a writer, I didn't think it would be that difficult. So then I just started studying him and I got all his books and I read them multiple times over and over again, and the more I read, I was just trying to look for patterns and trying to learn from him. And that kind of just began, that was the beginning of this journey just to study, study what I wanted to do.Phil Hudson:You're constantly telling people to study their craft, and you talk about story and story structure. You have a course on that. Most of your content you put on social media is dedicated to helping people understand that your webinars are often about resetting people's expectations about what a writing career looks like and helping them focus on what really matters. And the undertone that I've witnessed over the last two, two and a half years of this process with you of at least starting the podcast and helping with social media and that stuff, it's all based under the reality or the realization that creativity is worth doing just to be creative and that there's value in that process beyond monetary pay or paychecks.Michael Jamin:Well, yeah, for sure. When I first started writing these stories, the first two, first several were not very good. I was writing in David Sari's voice because I didn't know how else to do it. The ironic thing, as a TV writer, I'm always writing in someone else's voice. I'm writing in the character's voice or the voice of the show, but this is my voice, and this is the first time I actually had to do that. And so because I'm a good mimic and because I had just read so much of him, I was kind of writing, I was kind of the writer like him, and I thought the first two stories were good. And then I set it down for a couple of weeks and I read it with fresh eyes and I thought, oh, this is terrible. It felt like a cheap knockoff. It felt like me pretending I was him and I hated it.I threw all those stories out and then I had to figure out, okay, what's my voice? And that was a long discovery. But the reason why, this is a long way of saying this, those first several stories I wrote, I don't know, maybe six or seven stories, and it just take months and months. At one point, I reach out to my agent. I'm at a very big prestigious Hollywood agency. They do. They represent me in film and tv, and I reached out to my agent. I told him what I was working on. I said, Hey, do we have a book agency, a book department? He said, of course we do. What do I know? I tell him what I was doing. I said, can you hook me up with one of your agents? He goes, sure. So I reach out to their agents. This guy's in New York now, he doesn't have to take, just so people know, I told 'em what I was doing. He doesn't have to take me on as a client, but he has to take the call.I'm banging them. They got to take the call. He doesn't have to bring me on to represent him in books though. And so I told him what I was doing. He goes, oh, that sounds interesting. Send me what you have. I go, well, I only have a handful of stories, but I'll send you what I have. So I emailed them to him. I never heard back. I didn't hear back for probably six months at this point. And I'm still writing more stories. It doesn't matter, whatever. I'm thinking maybe he read it, he didn't read it, he doesn't like it, whatever. I'm not going to stop writing them though. And I just kept on writing all these stories. Finally, six months later, he reaches out to me. He goes, I'm so sorry it took me so long to read these. I love them. Let's get on the phone and talk about them.I was like, sure. He goes, and he was like, when we spoke, he said, he said, do you have any more? Because he only read whatever. I sent him maybe six stories, and I go, as a matter of fact, yeah, I'm almost done with the collection. Give me another couple of weeks and I'll send you the entire collection. So at that point, but again, I'm writing it because I want to write it. I want to do this. I'm not thinking about how much money I'm going to make. I'm thinking about the process of writing and figuring out how to learn. I had to relearn how to write because I'm a TV writer who now is writing books. There's a little difference. There's some difference to it.Phil Hudson:Yeah. A couple things here. I love the narrative, and I don't want to interrupt the narrative, but I think there's some topics that are coming up here. Is it okay if we just dive into those for a second? Yeah, please. Okay. You talked about David Sedaris and you were reading this and you're like, where is this going? And then it ended in this way. That was almost upsetting because it was so beautiful and so well done. What I'm hearing you say is something you talk about regularly on the podcast and in your social media content, which is the way you unpack your story is the job of being a writer. And that's almost effectively what I'm hearing is that's your craft and your tone and your style. You still have to understand story structure and you understand these things. But the unpacking, would you say that that's an example of what you're talking about when you say how you unpack something matters?Michael Jamin:Yes, and the thing is, I've really tried to study him. I think he's the gold standard. I think he's a master, a beautiful writer. There's certain things I was able to learn and certain things I was not able to unpack. And so I learned a lot from him for sure. But some things still remain a mystery to me from how he writes. I can't see through it, and I'm good at seeing through some stuff. So take that for what it's worth. I do remember thinking, I had long conversations with my wife when we were about this. I didn't want people to think that the book was written by a sitcom writer. I wanted it to be funny and dramatic, but I didn't want people to say, oh, this guy's, I wanted it to be a little smarter than just a sitcom, I guess. And so I was very self-conscious about that.And we had long conversations of Is this art? How do I make art? What is art? How do I do this? So it feels like art and what I really came, it was a really eye-opening moment for me, and it came from much of what I learned about how to do this. I learned not from writers, David is probably the only writer who I really studied a lot for this book, but I learned a lot from watching interviews with musicians, ironically, about how they approached their art. And I found that to be more helpful than listening to other writers. And one of the really interesting things, I was like, well, we know there's a market for what David Sedera says. We know people like what he does, so why am I trying to reinvent things? Why not just kind of do what he's doing? And there's two reasons why not.One, I'm not him. I can't be him ever. And that's almost the tragedy of the whole thing is I want to write, this guy can write, but I never ever will. So you're going to have to let go of that, which is almost tragic. But the other thing is, it's my responsibility not to, as an artist, if you want to make art, then add, you have to bring new to the equation. You have to bring new, and that actually, I picked up, I believe I picked up from an interview with watching Pharrell talk about music.Phil Hudson:That's a…

Full show notes at the publisher

Ep 118 - October 28th Webinar Q&A Jan 31, 2024

Show notes

On October 28th, I hosted a webinar called "How To Write A Great Story," where I talked about how to come up with interesting and unique story ideas, as well as how tapping into your everyday life interactions with people can help with this. 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 Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:Yeah, you better figure that out because your story needs to be about one thing everyone wants to throw in the kitchen sink. And it's about this, but it's also about this, but it also has elements of this. It's like, no, no, you don't know what your story is. You got a hot mess. You can't kitchen sink it. Your story's about one thing. And if you think it's about two things, congratulations. Now you have a sequel or you have another episode, but your story's about one thing. And if you think I'm making it up, read stories that you've enjoyed and ask yourself the same question. What is this about 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 What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? And today I am answering your questions and I'm back here with Phil. Welcome back, Phil,Phil Hudson:Good to be here. Thank you forMichael Jamin:Having me. We had a delay because I borrowed some of Phil's mic equipment for a few weeks and then I gave it back to him with the wrong card. And then Phil, you learned a lesson. The lesson is no good deed goes unpunished.Phil Hudson:Oh man, I feel like's. I'mMichael Jamin:Happy to have taught you that lesson. ThankPhil Hudson:You for teaching me that lesson. I feel like the theme of every story I've ever written is that you get screwed either way. Just so everyone knows. Sometimes high tech is low tech and we have these awesome zoom recorders and they only allow you to have a 32 megabyte SD card. And then the American way of gluttony. We bought massive SD cards for the podcast, missed an SD card somewhere. SoMichael Jamin:Here we're won't run, but we're back and we made it work. We had a little delay. And so today I have these webinars every three weeks or so where I talk to people about writing. And anyone's welcome to join. It's free, go to michaeljamn.com/webinar for the next one. And we have a rotating list of topics that I cover and they're all writing related. And so these are some of the questions I didn't have time to answer during these webinars.Phil Hudson:And you are often testing new subjects too, so if you've attended them in the past, make sure you come sign up so you can get into those.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Alright, well, we've got several topics and as we do, I tend to group these together based on subject matter, and these are raw questions just ask during the podcast. So I apologize in advance for ruining people's names and mispronouncing everything, but let's start with craft. I think that's the thing people care a lot about is how do they get better at writing? And s sl junk indie author asks, how does the story structure fluctuate depending on genre, I should say too, this is from your podcast, how to Write a Great Story, which is one of your MyMichael Jamin:Webinar. My webinar. YourPhil Hudson:Webinar, yeah, yeah. Excuse me. Your webinar, how to Write a Great Story, which is one of your most popular webinars that we have. So if you haven't signed up for that, go do that the next time it's up. So how does the story structure fluctuate? Depending on genre, if I'm writing a horror, but I'm used to fantasy, what are some things I need to consider when structuring my story?Michael Jamin:I really don't think there's that much of a difference, to be honest. I think if you're writing a mystery that's different, and I think writing mysteries, people do it wrong all the time. Rich are a little harder to do, but you're just telling the story structure is very similar. You're telling a scary story. A horror story is just a scary story. A fantasy is just, it is a fantastical story, but they're just stories. I mean, everyone gets hung up on these genres. You get to decide the tone and the tone of your story is scary or fantastical, but it's still a story.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Something that you told me privately that I think is interesting for everybody listening, you were approached by a publisher who said, we want to make you the next Save the Cat. We want you to publish this book series, and you've never read any of those things. But for those of us who have, this is commonly taught, what are the tropes of your genre? What are the things in your genre? What is the story structure of your genre? And it's like you read between the lines and it's like what you've said many times. You're taking something apart and reassembling that and it's not the right way. You need to start with structure and then move forward. It's the same reason you do a foundation and then a frame, and then you do the rest of the house.Michael Jamin:You can paint the house any color you want, and that's whether it's scary or funny or dramatic or whatever. That's just color of paint. But the house still looks the same for the framing, still looks the same regardless of what paint you want to put on it.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Just Mason May. How does someone overcome the concern that our work won't live up to its potential?Michael Jamin:Oh, it never does. To get over it, you'll never be happy. You'll never be, oh, I should have done it. This. When you're done, you're always going to look at it and go, I wonder if this could have been better. I think any artist is going to feel that way, but if the question is how do I make sure it's good enough to even share, well, then you can just give it to your friend or your mother or whoever and have them look at it and read it. Take your name off the cover and ask them, did you enjoy reading this? When you got to the bottom of the page, did you want to turn the page or not? And if you wanted to turn the page, you did a good job. And if you didn't, something's wrong.Phil Hudson:Right. Aside from that, what would you recommend people do to overcome the fear of rejection or the fear of someone hating their work?Michael Jamin:I get over it. I mean, that's the job you're signing up for this. Hopefully no one's going to be too mean to you, but just know that when I was starting off, I was no good. No one's good when they start off. I mean, no one starts every single artist you admire, musician, actor, writer, whatever, performer, they were not good when they started. Listen to them in interviews. They'll say as much, so you get better. The more you do, the better you get.Phil Hudson:Yeah. We watch these kids shows now that I've got small children, and one of our favorite shows is Bluey, which I've talked about before. And they just dropped a bunch of new episodes yesterday, and one of the episodes is about drawing. And the daughter bluey is not good at drawing, but the dad's not good at drawing, but the mom's really good at drawing, and then the little sister doesn't care at all. She's just a kid and she's just drawing whatever she wants. And so the dad's super conscientious, self-conscious of what he's drawing. And so bluey the protagonist becomes a little self-conscious of her drawing, and they tell the story that the dad made fun of when he was a kid. So he stopped and the mom, just, her mom incentivized her, encouraged her, you're doing great for a 7-year-old. And she was like, oh, and that was enough. And then she became a wonderful artist. So at the end, bluey and the dad are both freed up to draw the things that they got made fun of or were worried about. And it's this beautiful allegory of just, Hey, just let it go. Who cares? That person's just being a jerk and it's because they envy what you do. That'sMichael Jamin:A good lesson. That's a good lesson from that show.Phil Hudson:Yeah, it's a great show. I bet we should watch it with your kids, Michael.Michael Jamin:My kids are too old to watch TV with me now.Phil Hudson:Yeah, that's scary. It's so sad to hear that. Rachel Zoo, I would like to get my motivation for riding back and for everybody. You have this other webinar you just put out, which is about how professional writers overcome writer's block. And I think that kind of addresses this, but this was before that. But what general thoughts do you have about getting motivation back to write?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, I can't motivate anyone. I mean, if you don't have the motivation in you, then it's not going to get done. So you have to be self-driven. But probably what you're experiencing is the fact that you just don't know how to do it. And so when you don't know how to do something or you think you're bad at it, it's not fun. Why would you want to do anything when you feel like you're horrible at it? But once you learn how to do it and story structure can be taught and it doesn't make writing easier, it makes it easier. It doesn't make it easy, but it makes it easier. So I think the problem that you're facing is you just dunno how to do it yet. So come to some of my webinars and that'll help you a lot just to learn. You're flailing. I don't blame you. It's no fun. When you're flailingPhil Hudson:For everybody who is unaware, you also give away the first lesson of your online course for free @michaeljamin.com/free. And you teach this beautiful lesson about what is story. That alone is worth its weight in gold because it's just something we all miss or forget. And you've even said you forget sometimes.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I mean, I was watching a movie that I got a screener the other, and I'm getting halfway through, I go, there's no story here. I'm bored. And now my wife was bored by it too, but she didn't know why. I knew why because I'm a writer. I'm like, what's the story you're telling? No one knew. And yet the movie got made. I dunno, I got to tell you.Phil Hudson:Yeah. The other thing that comes to mind is many people have heard this guy, and you've heard me talk about him before, this guy, Jocko Willink, former Navy Seal leadership consultant, multiple New York Times bestsellers, a huge podcast, and he has this motto that says, discipline equals freedom. And he's like, it's a little bit counterintuitive because you think if you're disciplined, then you don't have choice and you can't do things. And his point is, if you are disciplined, you don't have to rely on motivation. And that's what I hear from you and I've heard from other professional writers is being a professional is doing it When you don't feel like it, motivation doesn't matter.Michael Jamin:You know what? I'll tell you as well, I post every day on TikTok or at least five or six days a week. I find, and I've talked to other creators who feel the same way. If I take too many days off, it gets harder to get back on. So two is the max, and you got to, because I know people think it's easy to, it's not easy posting on social media. It's like I got to think about what I'm going to say. I got to rehearse it, I got to shoot it, then I got to tag it, upload it, make all the meta tags. I don't do it in two seconds. And yeah, it's like brushing your teeth. You have to do it,Phil Hudson:And that's like any habit they say you can mess up once, don't mess up twice. It's like dieting, don't make two bad choices. If you made one, that's okay. Now continue to get back on track, but it's discipline, discipline, discipline. You just need to sit down and do the work because that is what is required. And if you're not willing to do that, this is not the career for you. It might be fun for you to do on your own, but even then I imagine that's going to be pretty brutal if you don't have the discipline and the habit of just sitting down and doingMichael Jamin:It. Oh, even if it's a hobby, it'll still be more fun if you know how to do it. I mean, golf is a hobby for most people. The better you get, the more fun it is to play.Phil Hudson:Yeah, I don't like being bad at things. That's very true. Great. Stephanie Anthony, what are daily writing exercise exercises that are invaluable to helping to build stronger storytelling muscles?Michael Jamin:Well, I don't do exercises, but would certainly have. Keeping a journal or a diary and writing it, knowing that no one will read it is very freeing. When I was in high school, I wrote, I had a creative writing class and our assignment was to write daily entries in this journal and we gave it to him at the end of every class and then he would read it and he was always so kind. He always said such nice things about what I wrote. He was looking forward to reading it. I thought that was really nice of him to do. I'm sure it wasn't very good, but I was trying to entertain him and he appreciated it. Yeah, just write and read how those are your exercises. Write and read.Phil Hudson:I've talked before about some of my experiences translating for the Sundance Labs and some of the things I got to do with the scholarship I had through Robert Redford and this woman Joan, who runs these workshops at the labs for whether you're a writer, a director, whether you're doing editing, whatever it is, everyone goes through this basic storytelling lab with her, these workshops almost every day. And it's about taking, basically it's what you talk about in your course, mining your life for stories. And I remember that one time I went and she saw me and she recognized me from doing this Redford scholarship stuff, and she was like, it's so good to see you here. And I told her what I was doing and she was introducing everybody in the room and I introduced myself and she was kind enough to say, and Phil is a very talented writer, and I made the mistake of saying, well, that's why I'm here translating. And I've been thinking about that literally today as doing the work and practicing and getting better and then getting acknowledgement from other people is important. The practice of doing it every single day is the exercise. And then I think the other exercise is accepting people's praise when it's earned and deserved.Michael Jamin:Take the compliment because you know why it's insulting not to. It insults the person, not if you shit on it, then they gave you a giftPhil Hudson:And I did.Michael Jamin:I see people do it all the time. You're not the only one. It's normal. You also feel like, well, I'm not good enough.Phil Hudson:My thought was like, well, I'm not in the labs, so I'm here translating, but I did it in front of people and I did apologize to her after, and she was very kind and we had a good chat about it, but that was ringing…

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