0:09

Hey everybody, welcome to the No Film School

0:11

podcast, the film memorabilia collector cast

0:13

edition of the No Film School podcast

0:15

for the week of February 25th, 2024.

0:19

I'm Charles Hayne, I'm here with Jason Hellerman. Good

0:21

morning. I think we're casting ourselves into

0:23

the future. This

0:26

is for the week of the 2019th. In

0:29

my mind, because we were Tuesday, I should have

0:31

had five days instead of three. I don't know.

0:34

I'm not good with the maths. That's why I'm in movies. For

0:36

the week of February 20th, 2020, February 23rd, 2024, No Film School

0:38

podcast. This

0:44

week, we are talking first thing, lost media.

0:48

And we're talking about recent lost media movies

0:51

you've seen in theater, lost media. We're

0:53

going to follow that up, talking about the future

0:55

of losing media, Sora. And we're

0:57

going to wrap it all up with a conversation about why

0:59

short stories are so hot right now. Jason

1:01

covered it for the site. And I have

1:03

a theory that Jason did not share

1:05

in his article, but I

1:07

have a very profound theory for why short stories

1:09

are too hot right now. And

1:12

it's one of them hot takes. I love a hot

1:14

take. So stay tuned for that.

1:16

I welcome all Charles Hayne hot takes. I

1:19

have dropping them everywhere. And then at the

1:21

end, we are going to talk about

1:23

what our questions are for an intimacy coordinator round table.

1:25

It's this week on the No Film School podcast. All

1:32

right. Our

1:36

first subject this week, viral post went

1:38

around the internet reminding people that

1:41

28 days later, a movie that many of us saw

1:43

in the movie theater I saw in the movie theater

1:45

in grad school as an adult is

1:47

not available. It is not on a streamer

1:50

and it is not available in any physical

1:52

media format. Let's make

1:54

a distinction here between That and

1:56

like actual loss media, like the real ending

1:59

of Ampersons, which apparently right in the ocean

2:01

and because wells with partying and Mardi Gras

2:03

or there's whole bunch of tv shows that

2:05

were stored in Staten Island the also got

2:07

dumped in the east river. People like dumping

2:09

things and water. yeah me of madness a

2:11

night fire at Warner Brothers right in the.

2:14

fifties. Whatever that wiped out like a ten

2:16

thousand silent films or something like that. More.

2:19

And bird there was that massive fire universal had

2:21

a huge foreign to as me and I remember

2:23

because I worked across the street. band. And.

2:25

We would like spend our lunch break like walk out of

2:27

the building. we're on the universal I read like walk of

2:30

a building and you just like watch the hill on fire

2:32

and you're like are we are, We go back to suffer

2:34

and then we just like go back in the afternoon like

2:36

wolves of. Building. Burnett's L I

2:38

got apocalyptic, but that was actually which he

2:40

doesn't. A fire was a bigger loss for

2:42

music. Like a lot of early music, our

2:45

lives were lost, but it's a good reminder

2:47

that you should not archive anything in places

2:49

where there is a. Like.

2:51

Frequent. Forest. Fires Olive

2:53

Los Angeles. We're not sorry about

2:56

that. Twenty. Of the weeks

2:58

twenty eight days later exists, you can

3:00

find it. And I'm sure there's an

3:02

archival master. and I'm sure the many

3:04

Bb Jeeps they shot on are sitting

3:06

in my cabinet somewhere. What we're talking

3:08

about: his commercial availability. If

3:11

right now. I. Discovered someone I

3:13

knew had not seen Twenty eight. Days.

3:15

Later. My only legal

3:17

option for showing it to them is going to check

3:19

it out a library. Yard. Helping

3:22

out yet? A. Hobby you find

3:24

use Dvd somewhere. Yeah. Of

3:26

and you can go on E bay and pick up a blu

3:28

ray. And that.

3:30

Is a. I mean,

3:32

it's. As film actors, it is a thing we should

3:34

reckon with Because it is a thing we should be conscious

3:37

of in our contracts. But. You know, one of

3:39

the big lessons of filmmaking is you have to read your contract

3:41

and pay attention to it. You know? Most famously,

3:43

George Lucas making sure yeah, the toy merchandising

3:45

on Star Wars worked out well for him.

3:47

Now I do think there's an increasing pushed

3:50

towards filmmakers. I think. People. In

3:52

them last ten years have been much more conscious of

3:54

this and twenty days later. Was. really caught

3:56

in the beginning like it was caught in that

3:58

time we had a tv really and a theatrical

4:00

release and a DVD, and it wouldn't have

4:02

crossed anyone's mind that anyone would ever

4:04

stop making the DVDs. Like, why would

4:06

you ever stop making DVDs? Like,

4:09

because YouTube didn't even exist yet.

4:11

It was Adam Films, and nobody watched or anything there.

4:14

So, the dating site that was

4:16

YouTube wouldn't be invented for three more years. So,

4:19

but I think as filmmakers today, we have

4:21

to stay very conscious about the

4:24

way in which our contracts are written in

4:26

order to keep things available

4:29

into the future as new

4:31

media exists. For

4:34

instance, I remember when I was at USC, for

4:36

your thesis film, you have to clear everything. And

4:39

they brought a lawyer in to your thesis

4:41

class, and they explained the contract you were

4:43

having people sign. Because if you

4:46

had a brand appear in your thesis film, you

4:48

had to get permission from that brand to appear

4:50

in your film in all media, in

4:53

perpetuity in all universes, current

4:57

and discovered. So, USC's contract

4:59

assumed that we lived in a

5:02

multiverse, and that you

5:04

would have a way to monetize your

5:06

project in other universes, and

5:09

wanted to be sure that was covered in the

5:11

contract. I love that that is

5:13

a thing. I love that they're like, and

5:15

in the other universes. Yes,

5:17

Universal Fortuna 3. Very exciting, legally. You also need

5:19

to be able to show your film at

5:22

Sundance 1403 if you get in. So

5:25

I think- Which is very hard to get into.

5:27

It's very hard to get into. Not like Sundance

5:29

1204, where like everybody, you know. No good for

5:31

that. Everybody gets into that one. Yeah. No

5:34

offense if you only got in there. I'm sorry if I hurt you,

5:36

Phyllis. But yeah,

5:38

I mean, it is weird to think

5:40

about movies from A-list. Danny Boyle is

5:43

A-list director. And not to mention

5:45

that Danny Boyle, absolutely A-list,

5:47

but not to mention a third 28 days later,

5:51

28 years later has been greenlit with

5:53

the original cast and director, and is

5:56

set to shoot this year. So

5:58

how are you- completing a

6:00

trilogy without anyone being able to

6:03

purchase or rent the first film in it.

6:06

Yeah. And the star is still a star.

6:08

Yeah. A greater star than he

6:10

was. Just the biggest movie of his career. Yeah.

6:13

A movie that would make people think like, oh, you know what we

6:15

should do? Let's put one of his

6:17

early movies back in the theaters for Iran and

6:19

then re-release it on streaming. Yeah. I

6:22

think since that story went viral, I

6:24

see on a Google search that it

6:27

is now available on Sling TV, which

6:29

I think is an ad supported

6:32

platform. So something

6:34

changed very quickly. People were like, wait, we're losing

6:36

money. Let's do something about it.

6:38

But you shouldn't have to depend upon a

6:40

viral post about how your movie is not

6:42

available. Like the dream of digital streaming. Yeah, we should need to

6:44

go fund me. Yeah. Oh

6:48

yeah. Bring back 28 days later. The dream

6:50

was it was all going to be permanently in

6:53

available. The reason why it's not all permanently

6:55

available is not just about licensing. It's also

6:58

about having to track paying residuals. Yeah. So

7:01

like if it's available and you have a

7:03

residual based contract, someone has to

7:05

pay attention to how many times it is streamed and

7:07

make sure the residual checks are going out. Yeah. So

7:10

a lot of times streamers will take low

7:12

performers. They'll do the math

7:14

and they'll say, okay, having this film

7:17

required us to send like $73

7:20

in residuals checks to stay in compliance. But

7:23

we had to pay an accountant and a lawyer for

7:25

10 hours of work, which costs us $1,000. So

7:28

did we get our money's worth, which is why the

7:30

streaming, I mean, it's one of

7:32

those, there should be, I'm sure there's

7:34

sociologists have a law for this. The

7:37

like very small blowback to something that

7:39

can be used as an example, want

7:41

to have it. This is an example

7:43

of a very small blowback where like, because of

7:45

that, if there were

7:47

no such thing as residuals, I guarantee you 28 days

7:50

later would be up on multiple streaming sites making

7:53

money. But Because of the

7:55

math of are the residuals Worth the amount

7:57

of money it takes to process the residuals.

8:00

There. Should be some exception for that. The.

8:02

Problem is it an exception would be abused

8:05

and everyone everybody be like what are you

8:07

talking about Batman not getting stream that for

8:09

residuals right? So you do have to account

8:11

it. You. Do have to process it. I.

8:13

Don't have a solution I'm proposing other

8:15

than. As. Filmmakers.

8:18

To. Ensure that you in your agents and lawyers

8:20

are are. Locking your contracts

8:22

up such that. There.

8:25

Is some sort of availability? Or.

8:27

You take the Chris Marker approach. press

8:29

Marker. Famous French filmmaker and. Deliberately

8:32

left his works. In.

8:34

A legal limbo. In

8:37

terms of whether or not they're publicly available.

8:39

Created an email server with a digital avatar

8:41

of his cat. Made

8:43

it his legal representative.

8:46

emails, Can be sent to it

8:48

and successfully receive. But. Are never

8:51

responded to. Ah and that

8:53

is who has the legal rights to Chris

8:55

Marker From So everything you see of Chris

8:57

markers on mine. Is legally

9:00

in limbo on purpose, But.

9:02

Because of how much he loved his cat. Which

9:04

you know, Works for Sansa

9:06

like Chris Rock Resources: great because she bought

9:08

some Chris Marker stuff. Not that I'm encouraging

9:11

anyone to do anything actively legal. I'm saying the good

9:13

and bad. But I think that

9:15

thinking about your digital legacy is a really

9:17

interesting thing to try and negotiate. navigate. And

9:20

trying to find a way because. For.

9:22

Better for worse. It's I'm just thinking about now.

9:25

I also think about in a hundred years. So.

9:28

Many of the works we have from

9:30

hundred years ago exists because of not

9:32

the original copy. But. Because of

9:34

weird copies that other places the most

9:37

famous example Joan of Arc by Dreyer

9:39

thought it was a last film. found

9:41

it in a Swedish mental institution. So.

9:44

First off, those poor Swedish mental patients who

9:46

only bad Joan of Arc. One movie, one

9:48

movie and it was Joan of Arc. Which

9:51

if you yes I love Joan of Arc is

9:53

great movie Maria Falconet he slaps in that movie.

9:56

But. Like not necessarily the only movie to watch

9:58

if you are going through stuff. Over

10:00

and over and over again but the only reason we have that

10:02

is because of that and i think one

10:04

of the strategies most of us have to try

10:06

and make something that we hope someone watching two

10:08

hundred years is as many copies. How

10:11

there is it can possibly be in as

10:13

many people like your hope is someone randomly

10:16

watches it and falls in love with it and get

10:18

attached to it and and shows it to the grandkids

10:20

in two hundred years. And so you

10:22

would hope twenty eight days later which is getting

10:24

a three call. Would

10:26

be widely available in dozen

10:29

in millions of blu-ray copies to increase the

10:31

likelihood someone will watch it in a hundred

10:33

years. Yeah i mean if someone

10:35

who wrote a script got on the blacklist got

10:37

his movie made and now you can't rent or

10:39

watch it anywhere because it was made

10:41

digitally and no DVDs are pressed or

10:44

blu-rays. A weird feeling to be

10:46

like i have a feature film that was made

10:48

by a studio and cost two million

10:50

dollars and yet you can't watch it

10:52

anywhere shovel buddies and i have

10:54

a copy that you know. I

10:56

bought on amazon in two thousand fourteen that

10:59

still exists but you can't watch on booty

11:01

can watch on google just. You

11:03

get a message like this video is not currently available

11:05

anywhere i don't know where you can get it you

11:08

stop getting those residual emails because. They're

11:10

not taking in money right it's just

11:13

something that exists and i will let you know

11:15

what's back up for rent your hope always is

11:17

that like someone like a netflix comes in and

11:19

says like. These people are big stars

11:21

now maybe we could flip this and do

11:23

whatever but you know in light of that

11:25

i do think that disposability has always been

11:27

a worry to me of like hey. You

11:30

know as you see like the coyote vs acting stuff for

11:32

back or whatever it's like you can invest a lot of

11:34

money but it doesn't mean they have to release it and

11:36

also doesn't mean that it has to continue to exist. So

11:39

the lack of physical media the

11:41

lack of creating maybe even like an

11:43

arca artifact of like what was shot

11:46

done and made weather people like

11:48

it or not i always think is. A

11:51

little scary you know i've heard a lot of this

11:53

compared to like oh well back in the day if

11:56

nbc had a show that only lasted two seasons you

11:58

know it's like they like put out the dvd. or whatever,

12:00

I was like, yeah, but they did eventually, right?

12:02

Eventually, you could buy it. It did exist and

12:05

went away. And I think having this all

12:07

be so disposable is definitely something we're going towards

12:09

because I think inherent value or what

12:12

people used to value for what we

12:14

did as a living is probably at an all-time

12:16

low if you look at AI, which is something we'll

12:18

cover soon. But it is, I think,

12:21

a disturbing trend. I always joke,

12:23

it's like, oh, you don't get too attached

12:26

to a script because in the best case scenario, a

12:28

studio buys it and you probably get fired. But now

12:30

it's like, don't get too attached to anything

12:32

you made because it might just, yeah, the movie you

12:34

made, because it might just completely go away. And that's

12:36

a for better or worse situation. Doesn't

12:39

it seem like the root

12:42

of this is that the

12:44

accounting and legal fees

12:47

for residuals should just be automated?

12:50

Like if the fear is that it's not

12:53

faced, that that cost is higher

12:56

than what you'd earn. Like,

12:58

why is that not automated? Why can't you just log

13:00

it in the system and then it just like auto

13:02

generates? I'm sure that

13:05

a tremendous amount of it is automated.

13:07

I think there's a couple problems with

13:09

that one. I don't trust automated systems.

13:11

Yeah, like I've had enough experiences with

13:14

automated systems that

13:16

I don't find predictable. If you've ever had to

13:18

argue with someone about a payroll that didn't run

13:20

right, if you've ever had any of those conversations.

13:22

The other thing is everybody's contract has a right

13:24

to audit. And

13:27

it should have a right to audit

13:29

because, you know, trust, but verify.

13:31

And, you know, I

13:34

have a friend

13:36

who's a much more successful writer than I

13:38

am who likes to talk

13:40

about how he's regularly, his lawyers are

13:42

suing a company's lawyers while he's continuing

13:44

to develop projects with that company. And

13:47

he's like, look, it is just business. My lawyers

13:49

fight with their lawyers about what I'm getting paid

13:51

for three projects ago. And that doesn't,

13:54

nobody has their feelings hurt by it while we're developing new

13:56

projects. That's just legal. But

13:59

inherently, And that is some like, you know, accountants

14:02

at the studios will get away with what they want.

14:05

It's famous Hollywood math and all that. And there's jokes

14:07

about it in lawsuits. And so I

14:10

think that that also does it. You

14:14

know, I think there's also an interesting argument

14:16

to be made for weird contract clauses. Like

14:19

if you get there, say I want 10,000 copies

14:21

of the Blu-ray as part of my deal. Like

14:24

and that'll make people make a Blu-ray that might not

14:26

have already because they had a contract to do it.

14:28

I mean, the reason why I'm thinking about that is,

14:30

you know, we Jason, I made movies around the same

14:32

time. I feel my Angels Purge came out in 2013. And

14:35

there's I have like 2000 of the Blu-rays in

14:38

my office. And I know because 10 of

14:40

them sit on the shelf and people regularly take

14:43

one and I restock. And but we were released

14:45

independently. We worked as synthetic for our VOD streaming

14:47

and S-VOD, but we also had a theatrical through

14:49

TUG. And then because we were

14:51

a regional project targeting a

14:53

market, Appalachia, that still didn't

14:55

have streaming Internet. We sold so

14:58

many Blu-rays and DVDs. And

15:01

but it's interesting now to think 10 years

15:03

later, like we're still on all of our

15:06

streaming because synetics has kept it all there

15:08

because they still get revenue

15:10

from us. Like we still get checks. Like we

15:12

still do well at all the holidays because it's

15:14

a family appropriate movie. And

15:16

I think that there is some interesting thing where I feel

15:19

like certain things fall through the cracks where like Braveheart

15:21

has probably never stopped printing DVDs.

15:25

There's probably a lot of independent productions

15:27

that are still doing Blu-ray because they're

15:29

incentivized to. But where you

15:31

fall into the cracks on are on the smaller

15:34

studio stuff as it ages and you

15:36

don't want your project to fall through the cracks. So

15:39

yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if you started,

15:41

you know, famously Terry Malick has a technicolor

15:43

print of the thin red line,

15:46

which was in this contract because it's the most

15:48

archival way to preserve the die matrices

15:50

of a movie. And I'm sure he has weird stuff

15:52

in this contract to the state because he's Terry Malick.

15:55

And I think that, you know, we

15:57

should all put 10,000 DVD. alter

16:00

hdd blu-ray requests in

16:03

our contract it doesn't cost that much to do

16:05

for the studio to make it within the studio

16:07

is forced to make a blu-ray and master it

16:09

and do menus and all of that stuff. End

16:12

you know the point remains in the nature of streaming.

16:15

Keeping a blu-ray in print is

16:18

still one of the best ways to ensure that there's

16:20

the possibility of people being able to see your movie.

16:23

Absolutely. Even like, I mean,

16:25

look, there's lots of nefarious reasons

16:27

not paying residuals. There's also just like legal

16:29

reasons. You know, Kevin Smith has

16:31

talked about why Dogma is not available anywhere and

16:33

it's just like, because it was a Muramax thing

16:35

and then you know, the wine scenes wouldn't give

16:38

it up or wouldn't let him seek alternative ways

16:40

to print it. They let it completely fall out

16:42

of print and then didn't sell things, you

16:44

know, didn't sell streaming rights in a very petty way. And

16:46

that's, you know, look, this is why

16:48

we feel about Kevin Smith. Again, a 1999 movie

16:51

that I deeply enjoy that I

16:53

just can't watch anymore. I can't rent it. I

16:55

can't find it. And you know, there's no

16:57

signs of that coming out and that's kind of at

17:00

least all thanks to the legal ramifications

17:02

of the wine scene trial, which had

17:04

to happen is important, but also, you

17:06

know, seized several

17:09

titles, you know, in that vein that

17:11

would be valuable to sell off but haven't been yet.

17:13

So physical media, it's important to

17:15

keep it. It's something that I recently have gotten on

17:18

the kick on and buying Blu-rays and

17:20

there's like a bunch of great secondhand Blu-ray stores

17:22

in Los Angeles where you can get some

17:24

really good deals and different things. But I

17:27

mean, I saw the abyss last year and that was like

17:29

James Cameron said before the movie was

17:31

the first time since the original theatrical release

17:33

that his version of the movie was being

17:36

seen because what they released on home video

17:38

was edited and then they did a different

17:40

three, four grab, which became the prominent home

17:42

video thing. So you couldn't see a movie

17:44

that, you know, from one of

17:46

the greatest directors of all time, just because the

17:49

ones they had issued didn't

17:51

exist anymore or weren't correct. So

17:53

kind of fascinating. All

17:56

right. So after all that, the

17:58

other big news going around. world right now

18:00

is Sora. If you're not aware

18:02

of Sora. I've been under a rock, so I'm

18:05

not aware. Good. I'm glad

18:07

Sora can be skipped in my opinion. So

18:10

OpenAI, Sam Altman, Big

18:12

Drama, company around the future

18:14

of AI, they finally released their

18:16

text-to-video tool. And text-to-video

18:18

has been a big thing lately. There's been a

18:21

whole bunch of people competing in the space, some

18:24

of it better than others. And

18:26

OpenAI, the big people, the people

18:28

who literally, unrelated to

18:31

Sora, or probably related, but in

18:33

a different story, are trying to raise $7

18:37

trillion to design their

18:39

own ship, Fab, for

18:42

AI-focused ships. Just

18:44

seven trill. Yeah. Yeah. Just

18:46

a, you know, a savvy trillie. Trillie.

18:51

They are doing

18:53

text-image work, and they're

18:55

doing text-to-video work, and they released

18:57

their first demo. Now, it's not

19:00

publicly open yet. They have some

19:02

people red-teaming, and there's

19:04

a lot of reasons why it's probably not open

19:06

to the public. Among them, Taylor Swift

19:09

being litigious about... Exactly. Yeah. The

19:11

most important reason is that Taylor

19:13

Swift, you know, had that controversy,

19:16

and I think they know as soon as

19:18

the public gets their hands on it, they'll have... They need

19:20

a team of lawyers ready. But go ahead, Jowz, sorry. Yes.

19:23

Or they could just try and build a tool that

19:25

doesn't do that. They could

19:27

just build a tool that doesn't let you do

19:29

that, and that would be better. I'm

19:31

here for that. But instead, they build

19:34

tools that let you do it and deal with

19:36

the legal fallout later, and they try

19:38

and claim that they can't control whether or not

19:40

the tools do it, and should you build a

19:42

tool that doesn't

19:45

let you do that. Regardless, I

19:48

will say this about Sora being out. I think it is

19:50

worth going to the site and looking at the samples. It's

19:56

hard to put... I'm not someone where you can

19:58

put my AI thoughts all in one category. and

20:00

you know, I might be teaching an AI class. I'm

20:02

not against it entirely. I don't think we should take

20:04

it to the woods and burn it. And I do

20:06

think that people who think it's gonna end the world

20:08

are a little foolish. I do

20:10

think that there's actual harm from it.

20:13

Recycling IP and creative

20:15

copyright today. Like

20:17

not about starting a nuclear war in

20:20

10 years, but like today. And obviously

20:22

algorithms used in policing leading to people

20:24

improperly arrested based

20:26

on all sorts of vectors are awful.

20:29

So like there's very real world

20:31

harms right now that I think are way more important to

20:33

worry about than like, will it start a nuclear war in

20:35

15 years? But in terms

20:37

of filmmaking specifically, I think

20:39

there's a very, I think that there are gonna

20:41

be uses that are interesting. I mean, I'll be

20:43

straight up and honest. I'm currently we're editing a

20:46

documentary. And previously if you needed

20:48

a new sound bite or something, the

20:50

director would have dubbed it in or the editor would have

20:52

dubbed it in, or we would have just had texts on

20:54

screen. Like, oh, we're gonna get sound bites. Send something like

20:56

this as a placeholder in the edit. And

20:59

for the first time editor ever, my editor was like, hey,

21:01

let's just AI that voice. And so

21:03

currently there's like four lines in the current kind of

21:05

the documentary. I was watching this morning and giving notes

21:07

on that are AI dubbed because we

21:09

could get a voice that was closer to the subject

21:11

of the person who will give the voice and

21:14

it's helping the edit. And so

21:16

I'm not gonna say all AI tools are awful because

21:19

I think as a tool that's subordinate to

21:21

creatives and supporting creatives, there's the possibility for

21:24

it to be a useful tool. But

21:26

I also think that that's really small limited

21:29

examples where we know exactly what we wanted

21:31

to give us and we could evaluate what

21:33

it could give us. I do

21:35

think that like, I

21:38

don't know, I'm really like, nothing I saw in the

21:40

Sora demo made me that scared because

21:43

nothing I saw in the Sora demo

21:45

seemed anything more than stock footage. Like

21:48

there's that beautiful shot of like all those paper airplanes flying

21:50

through the sky and like, well, that's nice. Like

21:53

good for them. Well, like it's not

21:55

a movie, like it's not storytelling. Like I still

21:57

feel like people will assemble all of. The

22:00

images into something i

22:02

did see the most of a kid of shot

22:04

a shot and i send it to a friend

22:06

with the there's a like an establishing shot of

22:08

a california gold rush town yeah. I

22:11

think the reason why this is the most

22:14

of a kid for me is because. It

22:16

comes the closest feeling like a shot from a

22:18

movie because there's no one in it and i

22:20

feel like you're about to cut to a close

22:23

up of the protagonist. You're not

22:25

trying to show me a protagonist you're just giving

22:27

me this really nice establishing shot of the gold

22:29

rush. And so it feels the

22:31

closest to the memory of a movie i might

22:33

have otherwise like. But

22:35

everything with like close ups of people

22:37

still feels on candy valley to me

22:39

personally and none of it felt

22:42

it is definitely a leap forward from anything

22:44

i've seen before. But i'm

22:46

nothing made me convinced that it's gonna

22:48

be. Interesting

22:52

anytime soon. Yeah

22:55

i think you're right on there the one that

22:57

i thought was most striking was

22:59

the fake trailer they made about people on

23:01

the moon. And it was like

23:03

people surviving the moon i thought that

23:05

despite feeling a little bit uncanny valley

23:07

that digitally produce people in it it

23:09

was interesting to see what i found

23:12

to be incredibly life like faces and

23:14

emotions on them you know. Right

23:17

now i do i talked to i

23:20

guess maybe 15 different people

23:22

across Hollywood and. took

23:25

a brief survey a lot of people thought like look

23:27

this is like previous stuff right like you know. When

23:30

Pixar makes a movie they have people rough animated so they

23:32

can sort of watch it and then decide where the plot

23:35

holes are before they fully animated they're like oh, this is

23:37

maybe a way where. A director could

23:39

come in and he or she could rough animate

23:41

a scene to know where the storyboards are like

23:43

where to put the camera what lighting would affect

23:45

it blah blah. And I thought you know what

23:47

that's interesting and I could find that being really

23:49

really useful as someone who's you know, working on

23:51

a couple different projects right now. we're

23:54

trying to do with lighter shooting indoors or shooting

23:56

outdoors and what's the transition area and period and

23:58

blah blah like that that made sense. And then,

24:00

the other thing is commercials. And it's something we've

24:02

talked about briefly on here, but when you're making

24:04

a pitch deck or something like that, making a

24:06

rough mockup of what the commercial would feel like

24:09

for a company. Again, these are all jobs

24:12

that are altering or maybe being taken away

24:14

or something like that. I don't see that

24:16

it's a full, I don't see

24:18

anybody making a full feature with this just because the amount

24:21

of prompts you'd have to write for every shot is so

24:23

detailed. You'd have to go back and fix those prompts and

24:25

do whatever. Now, we don't have a side to side comparison

24:27

of what that would be like shooting a feature film, right?

24:30

I'm sure what their argument would be is like, it's

24:32

shorter if you just sit there and type different things,

24:34

fine. But this is phase

24:37

one of the technology. Maybe not phase one,

24:39

one, right? But we are, it's a

24:41

rapid leap forward, which I think we should

24:44

keep our eye on. But my general concern

24:46

for the whole thing is just like, I

24:48

called it the TikTokification of film and TV.

24:50

Just like a couple of months ago, Paramount

24:52

for Mean Girls 25th Anniversary, put it

24:55

on TikTok, the entire movie just broken

24:57

in different TikToks. And it really depressed

24:59

me, not because like, A, I

25:01

think Mean Girls is the original. And look,

25:03

I like the musical as well, but it

25:05

was, it was an incredible movie and is

25:07

something you could sit down and watch in

25:10

102 minutes and experience. But

25:13

the idea of just people consuming it in, let's

25:16

say minute long bites, it depressed me in a

25:18

weird way. And I felt like this isn't

25:20

the way this was meant to happen, right?

25:22

And it to me was

25:24

like a cultural shift on like, well, if anybody

25:27

can do this and anybody can like

25:29

come up with an idea that's short, what's driving

25:31

anybody to the theaters? Why are you

25:33

watching it next to someone? And like we

25:35

all, I think I've experienced sitting somewhere and

25:37

sending our friends reels to watch, hey,

25:39

these are funny, this is whatever. And I

25:42

don't think, like TikTok is something that cuts

25:44

into film and TV's business. It's something we're

25:46

tracking and someone we're looking at. So any

25:49

more competition always worries me about the future

25:51

of things. But I agree

25:53

with you, Charles, that it didn't feel like

25:55

we were there yet where I thought, oh, Joe

25:58

or Jane Schmo in their. basement is

26:00

going to prompt us into a

26:02

2001 Space Odyssey. But

26:05

I do think they could prompt us into a TikTok that

26:07

I would watch that I could get stuck

26:10

down the rabbit hole of, and that is

26:12

as much of a worry

26:15

as anything else. I

26:18

feel like anything long form that comes out

26:20

of this is going to be

26:23

more in the world of stop

26:25

motion, where it's a craft that

26:27

has a lot of TLC that goes into

26:29

it and requires an incredible amount of patience.

26:31

And it would be interesting, this came out

26:34

of it, great stories can come out of

26:36

stop motion, but it's just the process of

26:38

doing it is very specific. And you

26:40

have to have a lot of resources and time

26:42

and energy and you have to know exactly what

26:44

you're going for. You're coming

26:46

about the TikTokification of it all.

26:49

Tomorrow we have Ana Lisa Moravina,

26:51

who is a director and former

26:53

development VP of development, coming in

26:56

to talk about the consolidation of

26:59

the industry and how sort

27:02

of how we got here and what that

27:04

means for emerging

27:07

writers and how you can build a

27:09

sustainable career. So definitely if

27:11

any hairs on the back of your neck

27:13

were raised, as Jason was talking about the

27:15

TikTokification of it all, I

27:17

recommend listening to this conversation tomorrow.

27:20

And yeah, I mean, I think it's just going to

27:22

be a sad reality

27:25

of the attention economy being,

27:28

you know, reallocated. I do

27:30

feel like that there will be a swing

27:32

in a decade from now where people will

27:34

be like, I want to go to theaters

27:37

to escape the reels that

27:39

everyone is sending me. And

27:42

yeah, I'm kind of over friends

27:44

sending me reels without context.

27:47

It's rude. It's rude, right? You're

27:50

asking somebody to like stop what they're doing,

27:52

engage with a piece of content. And like,

27:54

usually it's like a funny thing, but now

27:56

I'm like, okay. I think your friends just

27:58

don't know you well, Gigi. I'm going

28:00

to load you up today. Oh,

28:02

okay. Okay. I mean, send the

28:04

dog videos. I will find joy there. I

28:07

mean, I think that there's a few factors at play here.

28:09

I mean, one is that every article I read about AI

28:12

always says, well, we're here now and imagine where

28:14

we'll be in five years. And I

28:16

feel like there's like this default assumption

28:18

that technology always progresses. I

28:20

always like to remind people that like in 2014, by 2020, we were all supposed to

28:22

have self-driving cars.

28:25

And they're still bad. People are still

28:27

dying. It's still not happening. It could

28:29

probably never happen. There's a very strong

28:31

argument to be made that like, and I

28:34

remember reading in those articles like, look at where we are

28:36

now with this Waymo car and where we'll be in five

28:38

more years. And I'm like, there are actually hard problems.

28:40

And I do story and character. I think

28:43

character is the hardest problem. I think

28:45

creating a character that is engaging is

28:48

the hardest thing. It is all character.

28:50

It is all, we think about Mean

28:52

Girls and Regina and the character who's

28:54

Lindsay Lohan plays whose name I forget

28:56

because I have a cold. Like our

28:58

characters. Caddy. Caddy. Yeah.

29:02

Everyone says Caddy. Like our so complete

29:04

characters, they are full people. And that is what

29:06

engages us with Mean Girls 20 years later. And

29:08

I think that the character problem, the like creating

29:11

these as engaging characters will

29:14

maybe be impossible for AI or

29:16

at least a large language model. And

29:18

I, you know, when I was

29:21

born, if you were rich enough, you could

29:23

fly from New York to London on Concord in about an

29:25

hour and a half. And you know,

29:27

sometimes the whole plane would shake and you'd have to turn around and

29:29

it wouldn't make it. But like, if you had the money, you

29:32

could get up there with Elton John and Keith

29:34

Richards and fly New York to London and you

29:36

can no longer do that. Technology

29:39

is not always like it's

29:41

it doesn't always keep going. And there's this

29:43

like fantasy we all have about AI. And

29:45

we watch this new tool improvement. And

29:48

then we read an article about like he wants seven trillion to keep

29:50

going. And I'm like, I don't know that you're going to find seven

29:52

trillion dollars. And I don't know that that

29:54

is where as a society we want to be putting

29:56

our energy. And I don't know that like, like

29:59

I'm interested. in this is a subset of

30:01

tools built into Resolve to help with image stabilization

30:03

and set replacements. I love the

30:05

idea of like, oh, I built three quarters of

30:07

a set and then I shot off the top

30:09

of it. Like, whatever this tool set is to

30:11

like replicate that set and replace it to the

30:13

sky. Hooray! Rest of World,

30:15

it's a great website, Rest of World, it

30:18

focuses on articles about the global south and

30:20

basically the rest of the world that's not

30:22

normally covered in the mainstream press. Everybody

30:25

should check it out. I love AI and

30:27

jobs where they interviewed a bunch of

30:29

people around the globe about like how AI

30:31

was affecting the job. This came out a couple months

30:34

ago and there's a graphic designer in Mexico who was

30:36

like, oh yeah, like the aesthetic has changed. People want

30:38

that AI kind of thing, but they hire me because

30:41

they try and get the AI thing to be the logo

30:43

they want, and it's not right. So I got hired to

30:45

fix the AI stuff. And there was a fashion

30:47

photographer, going back to what Jason said about

30:49

commercials, there was a fashion photographer in China

30:52

and a model who both were

30:54

like, oh yeah, this has already completely changed our

30:56

business because now the bar is so much higher

30:58

for what the background is and what the whatever

31:01

is. So everything goes

31:03

through AI, but the brand still

31:05

cares about what the dress looks like. And

31:09

so they're still hiring a photographer and a

31:11

model, but it's all through

31:13

AI and its inputs and outputs and adjustments to

31:16

continue to work. I think that we're going to

31:18

see that. As I've said, like a dozen

31:20

times last year, 90% of a

31:22

screenwriter's job is not writing pages. team

31:26

members to figure out like what everyone

31:28

wants. And then like you're lucky

31:30

if 10% of your time is actually delivering

31:32

pages and those pages take

31:34

into account all those other human factors.

31:37

Somebody this is somebody else's quote, but somebody was

31:39

looking at some AI screenwriting output and they were

31:41

like, well, this is like bad film students and

31:43

we have an infinite supply of bad film students.

31:45

Yeah. So like, I don't know why

31:47

we need a computer to do that. And it's true.

31:50

Like bad film students who still need to learn about

31:52

character and plot development collaboration and teamwork. And

31:55

we also, I don't know that you can teach all of that to an

31:57

AI. Yeah. You

32:00

definitely can't teach it taste. Yeah,

32:03

we can't teach people. I mean, my worry

32:05

always is that I think taste and media

32:07

literacy is in the meantime below, which is

32:10

why those commercial execs probably love those commercial

32:13

treatments done by AI. You know,

32:15

but it is such funny. I talked

32:17

to a friend who is a director

32:19

who I won't name in that space.

32:21

And they were saying sometimes the AI

32:23

prompts elicit unfortunate things where

32:25

the brands are like, oh, you can do that.

32:28

Oh, great. I didn't know it would look like

32:30

that. She's like, oh, whoa, wait a minute. I

32:33

can't do that. You know, your

32:35

budget doesn't dictate that, but the images I

32:37

had doing this would or

32:39

another funny stories like turning into

32:41

treatment where they decided like, yeah,

32:44

images, which they had specifically asked for were

32:46

too evil looking and scrapping the project, you

32:48

know, which is like an unintentional like, hey,

32:50

when we actually see this on paper, it

32:52

doesn't look good. So it'll be, look, I

32:54

saw a Waymo when I was walking my

32:56

dog this morning. Unfortunately, I am one of

32:58

the zone neighborhoods in Los Angeles that is

33:00

that is allowing driverless cars to zip around.

33:02

And, you know, I have totally

33:05

never thrown anything at it

33:07

as it drives past. Wait,

33:10

I've talked about this before, right, that you're

33:12

so anti I don't like I'm pro. I'm

33:14

like, all about they drive around. I mean,

33:16

I love whatever I'm in Century City, please don't

33:18

find me listeners. But you know, it is

33:21

interesting to see that stuff out there. And

33:23

I'm excited for what can happen. You know,

33:25

like the fear obviously is always going to be there.

33:27

But I don't think we're not looking at the

33:29

T 1000 right now. You know, we're,

33:32

we're still looking at, you know, a microwave

33:34

on wheels. And I think it's

33:36

sore isn't the same thing. Well, I

33:38

mean, with self driving cars, it might not be T 1000

33:40

yet, but it already has a body count. Multiple

33:43

people have died. Like, yeah,

33:45

yeah, like, yes, like self

33:47

driving cars are killing people. And

33:49

on the streets of San Francisco on the

33:51

streets of Phoenix, people are dying from self

33:53

driving vehicles. And yeah, no, I

33:55

mean, the only plus of self driving vehicles for me is

33:58

I feel like even better jaywalking in front of them

34:00

because I'm like okay like well you're a self-driving car

34:02

so I can just like completely take the road back

34:04

from you but that's the benefit. I always let them

34:06

walk in front of it you know I'm like oh

34:09

yeah yeah you know that madman quote

34:11

you she grew up in a barn and she

34:13

died on the 21st floor in Manhattan

34:15

she's an astronaut you know yeah yeah no

34:18

the beautiful thing about New York is

34:20

we will never allow those to be

34:22

tested here that is it's just not a

34:24

very New York thing when New York one of

34:26

those scooter companies came to New York and got

34:28

brief permission to do scooters in New York and

34:30

within a month 30% of them were in the

34:33

East River and so they pulled out of the test and I was

34:35

like fuck yeah New York that's the way you do

34:37

it we do not welcome your scooters

34:39

here. I have not done the

34:41

research but I'm just like very

34:43

curious what the ratio of self-driving

34:46

cars are to killing

34:48

people compared to

34:51

people driving cars like I

34:53

want to know the numbers because you

34:55

know I I guess

34:58

I grew up in or I lived in

35:00

San Francisco worked in tech and just saw them

35:02

everywhere so I'm like more used

35:04

to them but like I'm curious what

35:06

if there is a difference if it's like 11

35:09

deaths versus like what's the ratio

35:11

per million compared to that. Right in

35:14

Delteg the death ratio of self-driving cars.

35:16

Somebody tell me because I don't want to do

35:18

the analysis myself. I am sure it

35:20

is safer than humans driving. I

35:22

am sure it's not as safe as if we figured

35:24

out a way to get rid of cars entirely by

35:27

having effective mass transit. Trams buses

35:29

here for Taylor Swift concerts

35:31

in Melbourne with it's

35:33

a big Taylor Swift episode but you know

35:35

Taylor Swift biggest concert ever

35:37

was in Melbourne last week and there's

35:39

no parking at that stadium 110,000 people

35:41

got there entirely by transit and all

35:44

of the American fans were like where

35:46

are the parking spots I'm confused watching

35:48

this video and that made

35:50

me very happy. I hope that Taylor is out

35:52

there promoting active mass transit but onto

35:55

what Hollywood is promoting these days. We have a thing

35:57

up on the site which I thought was really interesting about

35:59

how. short stories are

36:01

hot right now. But interestingly,

36:03

you didn't mention the hottest

36:06

of short stories, Jason. What's

36:08

the hottest of short stories? Cat

36:10

people. I just

36:12

watched that this last

36:14

weekend, unfortunately. That

36:16

was the biggest of the viral short story

36:18

hits that got turned into a movie. Absolutely.

36:20

By the time it got turned into a

36:22

movie, it had all fallen apart

36:25

and it was a mess. How is the movie? I never

36:27

ended up seeing the movie. I don't

36:29

think it knew what it wanted to be. Yeah,

36:33

it's kind of. You

36:35

know what I'll say for the movie? There's

36:37

a reason it isn't easy to adapt

36:40

to short stories sometimes, even if it's the

36:42

hottest short story. I

36:44

think that's fair. I think that's fair. I

36:48

think it came out around the time

36:50

that Fresh came out and Promising Young

36:52

Woman came out. Yeah, in Zola.

36:56

In Zola. Those two films did it

36:58

a lot better. Yeah. It's

37:01

interesting. The short story phenomenon, I

37:03

think comes from two places. One

37:05

is like Cat People, the paradigm,

37:08

the New Yorker short story that gets hot,

37:11

it goes viral, that everyone passes around. That

37:13

used to be things like blogs. I'm

37:16

old enough to remember a blog called 40 Days

37:18

of Dating, which wound up being like a humongous

37:20

sale. The reason you've never seen that

37:22

movie is because what

37:24

Charles said that eventually things die down and suddenly

37:26

movies get expensive and you never know when will

37:29

happen. Lots of different reasons.

37:31

But short stories, I think in

37:33

Hollywood, have taken the place of treatments. It

37:35

used to be like, hey, so-and-so attached to

37:37

this treatment sold and did whatever. Short stories

37:39

become a thing for writers to write that

37:42

sometimes will take less time than writing

37:44

a full feature spec, but it gets

37:46

their noisy logline down, whether it's a

37:48

huge sci-fi idea or maybe an action

37:51

film or some grounded character drama. They're

37:53

able then to get big attachments, send

37:55

them around. People are much more interested

37:58

in reading a, let's say... five

38:00

to 25 page Word document, even though

38:02

that 25 page Word

38:04

document should take the exact same amount of time

38:06

to read as a feature film spec, but I

38:08

digress. And then they get those

38:11

attachments, purchase those short stories for, I think

38:13

it depends on the package, but the rate

38:15

is comparable to feature specs.

38:17

And then someone adapts it, whether it's

38:20

the original writer, whether it's a different writer, bring

38:22

it on and go for it. These

38:24

have gotten incredibly popular within the last

38:26

two years, not only in the last,

38:28

let's say just year after COVID. And

38:30

then now I've tracked probably like 10

38:33

or 15 huge sales in this space.

38:35

People are taking it out, directors are more willing to

38:37

attach to it. Back in the day, we used to

38:39

call them treatments, right? They were like, not fully fleshed

38:42

out ideas that people were interested in doing. Now, I

38:44

think a lot of these, at least the ones I've

38:46

read that have sold are pretty fleshed out.

38:48

They usually have a strong main character and a point of view and

38:51

a big world they build, but maybe

38:53

don't fully factor in what we call

38:55

the second act stuff, the fun and

38:57

games, different things, but usually have

38:59

an ending, whether it's ambiguous or a way to seal

39:01

it up, that an exec can read and look at.

39:03

I find this phenomenon to be kind

39:06

of strange. I always thought we

39:08

were going to go back to a spec

39:10

screenplay, boom. It always feels like people like

39:12

Dan Conco on Twitter are always saying, write

39:14

your spec. And that's something I've always believed

39:16

in. It's something I still think is the

39:18

best thing to do. But short stories or

39:20

the idea of being able to sell ideas

39:22

is very intriguing to me, even though I

39:24

don't necessarily understand why a lot of agents

39:26

are pushing their clients to just sit down

39:28

and write a Word document, especially

39:30

without huge attachments. But maybe it is

39:32

an easier buy-in for these bigger studios

39:34

to see, let's say, a

39:36

huge dune-sized world contained

39:39

to some pages and see the potential from there. But

39:41

a lot of it, I do think, is built into

39:43

like, hey, could we get this then to go viral?

39:45

Could we publish this on Slate? Could we force the

39:47

New Yorker? You know, force but we goose, you know,

39:49

grease some skids and get this published to go viral

39:51

later? Those kinds of questions. Because again, it all comes

39:53

down to like, this is intellectual property we own. We

39:55

could spin this off. It could be a TV show.

39:57

It could be whatever. And maybe we could purchase. purchase

40:00

it for less than we'd have to. You have a

40:02

hot take Charles. I know you promised a hot take. You have a hot

40:04

take Charles. My hot take is one

40:06

that I like is cynical. I

40:09

was surprised that you didn't take this cynical attack

40:11

in the article, which is clearly

40:13

in case people, executives don't like reading. Oh,

40:16

totally. Famously, executives don't like reading

40:18

full features. Look, as someone who started this

40:20

industry as a reader and 90 percent of

40:23

the scripts I read were awful, I

40:25

get it. This is actually an area where I have empathy

40:27

for executives. You have many things, you have meetings, you have

40:29

phone calls, you don't want to read scripts. You already are

40:31

expected to read six scripts every Sunday. One

40:36

of the problems with the industry is we depend

40:38

upon coverage to get our content

40:40

to eyeballs. These

40:43

are bullshit numbers, but a random producer

40:45

production company might get 50 scripts in

40:47

a week that they have to get through

40:49

their readers, and then the executives might read the coverage

40:51

from 10 of them and read four or five of

40:54

them over the weekend. You're

40:56

depending, if you're in that 50, in

40:58

someone writing accurate coverage about your

41:01

project that is correct and as

41:03

exciting and saves your reveal for

41:05

the right place and captures the character's voice. There's

41:09

good coverage readers and there's bad coverage

41:11

readers and writers, however you want to say it. I

41:14

think that this is a nice shortcut

41:16

where I think that there's the possibility

41:18

that if you write a really strong

41:20

18-page short story that paints the world, shows

41:22

off the main character, has a twist, you

41:25

might actually end up higher in the read pile

41:28

and are faster to

41:30

get read. And also, I read

41:33

a lot of screenplays and I think everybody who

41:35

wants to be a filmmaker should be reading lots

41:37

of screenplays and historical screenplays and current screenplays. It

41:39

is part of the job. Steven

41:41

Soderberg always puts out that amazing list of all

41:43

of the content he consumes, like every movie he

41:46

watches a year and every plays he goes to.

41:48

And I've always wondered, he probably doesn't list it

41:50

for contractual reasons, but he should also list every

41:52

script he reads. Because I guarantee that

41:54

man's reading four or five scripts a week of all

41:56

of... between everything he's producing and all

41:58

of his friends and... It is part of your

42:00

job as a filmmaker. You should be reading scripts. Yeah.

42:03

It's not as fun as reading a good short story. It's just

42:05

not. A script is a technical document.

42:07

It is a different task. It's not

42:09

prose. Prose is designed to draw

42:12

you in and paint a world. It's a different thing. And

42:15

so I totally get why. If

42:17

I was an executive, and it was Sunday, and

42:19

I was hungover, and I had six scripts and two

42:22

short stories to read, I would read those short stories

42:24

first. Absolutely. And

42:26

so I get it. So for me, I guess

42:28

it's just a hot take in terms of, it's

42:30

not even that mean a hot take. I'm like,

42:33

I understand, executive, why you are reading these first.

42:35

And why when one's good, it's easier. Because

42:37

also, a lot of times, these decisions aren't like

42:39

one person. It's not Louis B. Mayer sitting by

42:41

the pool. Exactly. There's a team of people. And

42:43

you have to convince the other people in your

42:46

company, the other development execs, your boss, you have

42:48

to convince them to read it as well. So

42:50

instead of being the person with 117-page spec that

42:53

you think is dynamite that you want to get in

42:55

everybody pile, you're now the person who's

42:57

like, I found this great nine-page short story that I

42:59

want to get in your pile. And it's an easier

43:02

sell. So strategically, I

43:04

get it. I'm

43:07

fascinated. I always think when

43:09

I submit ideas, I

43:12

used to think, oh, it would be easier for me to

43:14

just write this down. Now I'm in the Zoom era.

43:16

Everyone's like, just come in and pitch it. And coming

43:18

in pitch, it means hop on a camera for 10

43:20

minutes and tell my boss what the

43:22

idea is. So I'm always wondering, when is

43:24

this just going to come down to just

43:26

ideas again? But I do think that

43:30

interfacing with people is also at an all-time low.

43:33

This new generation gets older. So it

43:35

becomes a nice way of like, this

43:37

is short. And also, I can keep you at arm's length.

43:40

And I can pass via email, which isn't

43:43

awkward, and do it on my

43:45

own time. It's a great

43:47

reminder that your scripts should

43:49

be entertaining. Your goal is to

43:51

create a great read. And

43:53

if you can elicit the same reaction,

43:56

the same joy, the

43:58

same leaned-in engagement in. the

44:00

first 30 pages of your

44:02

feature that somebody gets reading a

44:04

New Yorker short story, like, that

44:07

is you doing your job. Somebody

44:10

recently told me that the most

44:12

important thing in your script or the first 30

44:14

pages, the most important part of your movie

44:16

is the last 10 minutes. And

44:18

that's stuck with me. I think it just, you have to

44:21

remember, like, are you hooking somebody to

44:23

get them to buy into your idea? And

44:26

then what feeling are you leaving your audience with

44:28

at the very end? And

44:30

that is a good way to think about how you

44:32

should be spending your energy. I

44:37

look, I'll always second the first 10 pages of the

44:39

most important part of your script. As

44:41

someone who is also a reader and as someone who's a

44:43

writer now, many executives are reading one

44:45

through 10, figuring out that jump

44:47

to act one, what's this actually about? I'll look

44:50

25 to 30, and then flipping to the end

44:52

to see if it's got some cool set pieces

44:54

or whatever and going from there. The short story

44:56

phenomenon, crazy. I have not jumped on yet. I

44:58

did come up with some ideas, but a

45:01

lot of the ideas I think I put out

45:03

in my manager was just like, these seem like

45:05

traditional New Yorker short stories and not movies. So,

45:08

you know, there is a gap to do it. But yeah, look,

45:10

many, many, many great films have come from short stories

45:12

in the bedrooms. One of my all time favorites came

45:15

from a great short story and, you know, certainly

45:17

a lot of it hit the public domain. So

45:19

it's something worth checking out in terms of IP

45:21

and people looking around. But yes, I do think,

45:24

unfortunately, Charles, you're right, the cynicism is maybe ruling

45:26

the day. This

45:29

conversation makes me realize what I think the

45:31

issue is with that person. I

45:34

think that they took a

45:37

story, a short story that people really resonated

45:39

with. They tried to make it a

45:41

high concept traditional movie. And the way

45:43

that it would have worked or could have worked is

45:45

if it was low concept, character driven

45:48

and more of a vibe than, you

45:50

know, a story with the traditional, you know,

45:53

structural things that really

45:56

took it to a place at the end where I was like,

45:58

really, we're going here. the

46:00

short story and this feels unearned and

46:02

not right. Yeah. Well,

46:05

also with all IP you end up with this mess

46:07

that the Frito-Lay movie went through where

46:10

you have a story and it's going and then

46:12

the public events eclipse you. So Cat People was

46:14

fiction. It was published as fiction. And

46:16

then someone read it and was like, oh, you wrote

46:18

this about me. This is me. This

46:21

is my life. And it turned out that this

46:23

woman dated a dude and then broke

46:26

up with the dude and the dude's next girlfriend

46:28

was the author of Cat Person and

46:30

wrote the story about her boyfriend's like previous

46:33

relationship that she had heard all about and

46:35

used all of these actual details like the actual movie

46:37

theater that she worked in and all of this other

46:40

stuff. And first of all, how

46:42

bizarre must it be to be reading The New Yorker and

46:44

be like, this is about me? What

46:46

is going on? This is me. This

46:49

exact thing happened to a friend of mine, not The New Yorker,

46:51

but I think it was The Atlantic.

46:53

Oh my God. Wow. I

46:55

mean, for a minute you feel like it's Truman Show. You're like looking

46:57

around for the cameras. You're like, I've told this

47:00

story a dozen times, but in high

47:02

school, my girlfriend's ex-boyfriend was on

47:04

like the local quiz team and

47:07

I turned on the TV once and it was just a close up on

47:09

his face for like 30 seconds.

47:12

And then it cut to a wide shot and he was on a quiz show

47:14

and he had buzzed and it was like 30, but

47:16

for 30 seconds it was just a full frame shot of

47:18

his face. And I was like,

47:20

this is very, this is very disorienting. I do not

47:22

understand what's going on, but it would be worse if

47:24

it was The New Yorker and it was my entire

47:26

life in detail. So anyway, she went public with an

47:28

article that got a lot of traction that

47:31

came out before Cat People did, but I believe

47:33

after Cat People was already shooting. So

47:35

like, what the fuck do you do with that? This

47:38

thing that you were sold as fiction and you,

47:40

the director, were given a piece that you were

47:42

sold as fiction, that you are free to recreate

47:44

from, you're free to interpret. And then all of

47:46

a sudden you're like, oh no, it's not fiction.

47:48

It's not fiction. It's somebody else's life story. I

47:50

didn't have their rights. I

47:54

mean, I, like, I don't say my heart breaks for the

47:56

filmmaker, but like my heart goes out to the filmmaking team

47:58

of Cat People. fuck like

48:02

that must have sucked that must have

48:04

sucked yeah

48:07

you're gonna be very dark but I'm

48:09

gonna withhold no withhold Hollywood

48:11

now I look it's the danger with grabbing

48:13

some of these viral things if you don't

48:16

know what they're attached to or the

48:18

story behind it or it doesn't have the ending you

48:20

want or whatever you know you have to wait it

48:22

out it's why I I always joke

48:24

it's like I'm against building statues of

48:26

anybody that's alive you know like you just

48:28

don't know you don't know where the life's gonna

48:30

go it's a it's a it's a dangerous thing

48:33

you gotta it's expensive to take down a statue

48:35

you know so my full back tattoo of

48:37

Bill Cosby got really embarrassing as time went

48:39

on and it's been very expensive to remove

48:44

I liked the show as a kid I turned 18 I

48:46

got a full back tattoo he's in the sweater you're

48:49

joking now it's just the sweater I've gotten the face

48:51

removed it's just the sweater okay I was never I

48:53

was never that big a fan

48:57

of Bill Cosby but you know there

48:59

are people out there who legitimately loved

49:01

the Cosby show and probably have Cosby

49:03

tattoos who are like wait a

49:06

minute he's the second greatest rapist of

49:08

the 20th century yeah what yeah

49:11

exactly what you tattoo on your body

49:13

that's the lesson yeah it's

49:16

definitely speaking of bodies we

49:18

are interviewing a table

49:21

a roundtable of intimacy coordinators

49:23

next week and I'd love to hear what

49:26

questions you have for intimacy coordinators

49:28

speaking of also weird segue

49:30

from Bill Cosby this

49:32

new world that we're in where that doesn't have

49:34

to happen I'm so yeah we're what questions do

49:37

you guys have I have a screenwriter question which

49:39

is just well you know when I'm writing sex

49:41

scenes depending on like the rating of the

49:43

movie or whatever it's like figuring out like how

49:46

detailed I get on the page and whatever and

49:48

I know intimacy coordinators or at least

49:50

I'm not sure right what's what is

49:52

the what's it like do they prefer it to be

49:54

more detailed on the page you know or do they

49:56

prefer to figure it out in the moment

49:59

and if you're figuring out in the moment, I guess

50:01

what's the best way to communicate to them the

50:03

tone of the sex scene, right? Because a sex

50:05

scene in nine and a

50:07

half weeks in Desperado, very different than a

50:10

sex scene in American Pie, right? So

50:12

it's like, how do we figure out, you know, how

50:14

do you find that balance and like, what's the appropriate

50:16

way to communicate with them? And that,

50:18

you know, would they rather have it on the page or

50:20

on the stage? I would say

50:23

like, what are the green flags that they're looking

50:25

for in the interview process that let them know

50:27

it's a production they want to collaborate with? You

50:30

know, we talk a lot about red flags, and I want to

50:32

be conscious of the red flags, but I also want to know

50:34

like, what are the, when they're interviewing for

50:36

a job, what are the signs that the production's taking it

50:38

seriously and it's a production that they would want to collaborate

50:40

with and engage on? What are those things

50:43

that they're looking for that people can learn from? I'd

50:45

also like to ask them about

50:47

any training materials that they feel

50:50

like are appropriate and well done. I know

50:52

that in England, the English Film Board or

50:54

one of the English unions just released a

50:56

really great intimacy coordinator training for

50:58

students that I read and shared with my students

51:00

and it was great. And like, what are the

51:03

other training materials that you think people should be

51:05

familiar with before they're even interviewing intimacy

51:07

coordinators for jobs? And also

51:09

how early in the process would they like to get hired?

51:12

Yeah, great. Those are great questions. Cool.

51:15

To our listeners, send us your questions

51:17

by end of day, Monday, the 25th,

51:19

I believe, of February,

51:23

2024 and continue to

51:25

send them if you were listening to this

51:27

afterwards because this is an ongoing conversation.

51:30

All right, everybody. We're

51:33

all on the internet. I'm mostly on Blue Sky now, but

51:35

I do YouTube stuff occasionally. I still get subscribers. I haven't

51:37

put up a video in like two months. So

51:40

YouTube, your algorithm, you're feeding me up to

51:42

people. I appreciate you. I'm

51:44

at Lost in Graceland across all

51:47

socials. I will be doing a

51:49

series of videos about how I

51:51

made my indie movie coming

51:53

out this spring. I don't know

51:55

where those will live yet. So if you have any

51:57

thoughts, reels, tik tok. Instagram

52:01

video which is reels. I'm

52:03

very open and I want to know where

52:05

I can meet you guys where you're

52:07

at. I'm

52:10

at Jason Ellerman on Blue Sky

52:13

on Twitter X whatever we're calling

52:15

it now Jason at nofilmschool.com keep

52:17

the emails coming. I'm always

52:19

excited to engage you all and get

52:22

it you know so keep those

52:24

ideas coming in because my

52:26

brain not always working so

52:29

happy to get the fresh ideas from you guys and answer

52:31

any questions we can as we go.