Take 95 - Writer, Showrunner Diane Ademu-John, Crossing Jordan, Medium, Dune: The Sisterhood

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Any of us who've been in it for long enough, our entire career has been littered with jobs that we didn't get, projects that we thought were gonna go for sure, dozens of unproduced scripts littering the floor.

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All of us are running into both major and minor failures in Hollywood every single day.

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For every success, there is months, sometimes even years, of painful failure. This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default.

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That's the norm. You have to be able to persevere. Like everything in our business, your hands have counted. It all bounces off you.

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That process takes care. That doesn't matter overnight. I was being told by my manager it's yours to lose. And I promptly lost it. And I remember thinking like, well, that's it for me. I blew my one big shot. What I've realized from that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss is brought to you by Scriptation. The Emmy Emmy.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Oh, it sounds awful when you say it. Let somebody with a more charming accent do this bit. Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss is brought to you by Scriptation, the Emmy Award-winning app for anyone that reads scripts. Makes notes, organise them into layers, and save hours of time by automatically transferring those notes into new script revisions. Sither listeners can get a free month of Scriptation by going to scriptation.com backslash Sither. Now that's how you do it, Noah. Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. I am, as ever, your non-entertainment co-host, Dan Rutstein.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

And I am your industry co-host, Noah Epslin. On today's Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, I'm excited to introduce TV writer and showrunner Diane Ademujan. She's been on such shows as Crossing Jordan, Medium, Body Approof, The Originals, Empire, and the Haunting of Blind Manor, as well as Extrapolations, or the Upcoming Extrapolations, as well as being the creator and co-showrunner of the upcoming Dune, the Sisterhood. Welcome, Diane.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Thank you. It's fabulous to be here.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

I think Noah just about got through that without making any mistakes, but I can't be sure. So thank you very much for coming on. I'm very excited about this. You've done some fascinating things recently that I want to talk to you about, but obviously that's not what this podcast is about. So I want to talk to you about the beginning of your career and the times where it was hard and you nearly gave up. Because unfortunately, sometimes they are the most interesting, and that's how you end up where you are today. So tell us about the beginning of your career and the times when you nearly gave up.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Oh my gosh, I feel like I'm always beginning. Like I my first beginning was like 20 years ago, but um even just now, my most recent job is kind of the first time I've been in this uh showwriting position. So again, I'm a newbie. Um but my very first show was Crossing Jordan, and I was a baby writer right before I had that job. I had been a freelance script reader for four years around this town. I literally just read scripts for um HBO, I read scripts for TNT, I read scripts for whoever would pay me. Um at the time it was 60 bucks per uh script and get a hundred bucks if you read a book. And so that was my gig. And um, and then I lucked into my first job. Um, literally, somebody that I had been reading scripts for for a long time um recommended me and had read some of my stuff and uh put me up for Crossing Jordan. And uh yeah, I was on that show for two years. And uh yeah, I don't know what to say about it. It was both exhilarating, but also every step felt like I was gonna kind of fall off a cliff and fail. So um eventually in my second season, I stepped over the line and fell um and got got fired. I was my very first job I got fired off of. So uh I don't know how to even tell that story.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Well, you're gonna have to because I'm about to ask you about it. So um I'm not anywhere near as well connected as Noah in the industry. Um, and I actually, to my shame, haven't watched a lot of the shows that our guests, the show runners of, but I love Crossing Jordan and I'm friends with if you remember Nigel from Crossing Jordan, the wonderful English chap, Steve Valentine. Um he's a good friend of mine. Um and he's been on my other podcast, my whiskey podcast. But anyway. Um so uh I'm interested in the firing, but I'm also interested in, I guess the almost if you c I know it's now in the past, but your first week in that job. So you're around the industry, you obviously you are desperate to get into a room. You get into a room. What is it given the dynamics of rooms are complicated, even for people who are you know much deeper into the industry, and as somebody I've still never been in a room, just talk us through like that first two or three days of being in a room, you know, how you're introduced to people, you know, when are you brave enough to speak for the first time? I just love to hear the sort of beginning of the room story.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

Well, I had never been in a writer's room before. So again, I you know, like most people or a lot of people had been assistants or writer's assistants or PAs or something. I had been none of those things. And so uh I walked into that room the first time, afraid to speak. I don't think I spoke for like a month. I was just wide-eyed and um, you know, afraid to dip my toe in. Um, I didn't know what a baby writer would bring into the writer's room. So I bought my laptop, I had pen and paper, like I had all the things that what I now know the writer's assistant would have. But I was prepared, you know, to do, I don't know what I was prepared to do, probably clean the floors because I didn't quite know what the the job, the full job was. So I was a kind of a wide-eyed innocent, and um I probably didn't start speaking until I don't know, I forced myself to speak. I would say to myself at night, all right, tomorrow when you get in that writer's room, Diane, just pitch one idea, just get one idea out. You can do it. And so, you know, I ultimately get my little one idea out and um and I just pat myself on the back for the rest of the day. I was like, yay, I talked. But um yeah, I think the first skills I had to learn was to defend that baby idea that came out of my mouth. So um it wasn't just speaking and having the ideas, but it was about learning how to, you know, um defend them. And then when they were became indefensible, they'd let it go. So, you know, pursue, pursue, but then um let it go when the showrunner was like no for the third time. So those are the my very first lessons, and um I learned them the hard way.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

So, how how long before you felt comfortable in the room? And given the second part of that question is when did you get fired? Maybe the answer was you never got that far.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Um, I ultimately got the most comfortable after I actually wrote a script because I felt like I was slowly, you know, everybody was when you get in the writer's room, everybody kind of gravitates towards their role. You know, this was the idea person, and that one is really great at making the connections, and this one has got great dialogue, and that one has got, you know, the logistics in their brain. So I kind of was trying to find who I was, um, which is kind of what you have to do in in every room you enter, but certainly my first one, um, that was the hardest. And so it was finally um when I had written my first script and it just was so well received that I was like, oh, well, okay, at least I can prove myself on the page. Even if I can barely struggle to, you know, talk in the writer's room. Um, at least I know that, you know, once I write, I've I've got the goods. So um yeah, that was it. So uh once I discovered that, I um was able to kind of build on that and that gave me more confidence in the room. And so um I was not subsequently fired for not talking or writing poorly. It was uh two years later that the firing happened.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

So, how did the firing happen? How did you feel? Why did they do it?

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Uh, I think it's just something that it's going to happen to literally everyone, has happened to everyone. It's the end of the season and they assess who are we gonna keep and who are we gonna let go? And um in the terms of Crossing Jordan, I'd been there for two years. I had gotten along with some people, but there are some middle folks, middle management folks that I hadn't really gotten along with. And so it was just, you know, thanks for your service. And there's the door. And I thought, wow, I'll never work in this town again. This one person on this one job didn't like me, so it's over. Um, so I really went into a little bit of a sadness spin, as we all go through when jobs kind of end. But um, you know, I learned a hard lesson, which was you know, all jobs end and they end they can end weirdly. So you're not all, it's not all gonna end with a handshake and a hug and off you go. So uh several times it is ended in um the show gets canceled, your boss gets canceled, the network is bought by, you know, the toothpaste company, whatever it is, there's it always ends and it can end weird. So I after that first job, I learned to just I don't know. When it's time to end, if it ends weird, it's fine because the next thing is gonna come.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

I want to talk about moving on in a second. I really appreciate this candid response. And I, you know, I don't we don't talk it. We're a podcast about rejection failure and adversity, and we don't talk about how commonly people get fired very often, that it's more normal than not the norm. That we in my very first room I was in as an assistant slash researcher, someone went around, they went around early on, and everyone shared their firing story. Every single extremely talented writer in that room had been fired before they joined that staff. So this that's how common. And I was even on a you know, meet discuss chatting with our crew on the show on right now recently, talking about the next season, whatever. And they, you know, they also get worried that they're not gonna be picked up. But normally when they're on the crew, the season keeps going, they keep going. And they didn't realize how commonly we don't come back, that it's not a given that you're gonna just come back year to year to year to year on a show. So we had this. So I'm glad that you're bringing it up. It's a you know, to people who listen to the buggy is a very common thing. It happens, it happens early in your career, it happens late in your career, it happens for reasons that are completely sometimes outside of your control. But but moving uh uh you know forward a little bit, something that you know I I want to hear about from you is it took you, you know, you got that first job and it was exciting, and you forced yourself to speak and it didn't go the way you wanted it to. How hard was it getting the second job?

SPEAKER_02 12:20

It was um the longest downtime in my career was between my first and second job. So um after I got let go, um, it took me 14 months to two years to get my next job. And in that downtime, it was um, you know, a lot of soul searching, a lot of um trying to figure out am I on the right path? Am I doing the right thing? And if I am on the right path, what am I not doing that I could be doing? So um I used that time to literally do all the kind of things that scared me the most, which was um, you know, I think at that time I looked at the television landscape and I said, what is the most difficult show on television to watch that I love, that I don't think I could ever write for, because I was having all of these doubts about myself and um my writing. And I was like, well, let's just try the hardest thing. And I did, like I picked, and this is gonna date me, but I picked Deadwood. Like Deadwood is the hardest, like it was this most beautifully written, dark, delicious show. And I was like, well, that's what you love. Can you can you write it? So let's write a spec that while we have our downtime. And that's what I did. I wrote the spec Deadwood, I read a couple of specs of original stuff as well. And um, yeah, that's what I did. And I got in, you know, got in shape and I read a lot. That's all I did. And but for two years I did that, and then I got my second job.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

I I I've been kind of interested, and it may maybe it's a reflection of my own life or the questions that I'm interested in in my own journey, but that those two years of downtime also you said you started, I think you said 28 years ago, which is you know, that's a that's a long career in television. But it also three years ago. 23 years ago. It also sort of predates, I mean, it predates me, and I've been in the industry for 15 years, and that feels like a really long time, but that when I came in, sort of showrunners were becoming in vogue with Shonda Rhimes and Damon Lindelof. You heard about them in the news, but before that, how did you know? This is like a three-part question. I'm gonna combine into one. How did you know to become a TV writer that you wanted to be a TV writer? What did your parents say? And what did your parents say or your family say in the two years when you weren't working? Was there fear for you for your future?

SPEAKER_02 14:58

So, what did I know coming in? I had um, yeah, maybe it is 28 years. I don't know. Because there, I literally spent four years being a script reader. So um, in those years, I knew that I could do it because I was literally reading scripts by people who were repped by the best agencies and it worked on the best shows, and they were crap. You know, like it was just amazing how much I don't know what it took to get them their agents and their jobs, but I knew that what was on the page was something that I could both duplicate and, you know, do better than. So I always felt I could do it. And the part that I didn't know about was, you know, all the rest of it, which is, you know, the social skills and the, you know, kind of also having to be a diplomat and a babysitter and a caretaker and a leader and, you know, like all of these other things besides just writer, those that was the new surprising thing. Um and then what did my parents think when I got that job? They were excited, but they just really didn't care. My dad was um, you know, he worked for General Motors as a chemist for 30 years. And my mom was a mathematician, and she worked for the US Air Force for another, you know, 40 years. So they were just in a different world. And I was their youngest daughter. So they were like, good luck to you. And that sound is me being is my parents washing their hands of me and wishing me well and always, you know, wanting me to um pursue my dreams and my passions, but they really weren't um, you know, terrified or horrified when they heard that I was getting into screenwriting.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Um and then what was the third part of the question? The the gap. So you had two years where you get this great job, and then and the reason I asked the question about the two-year gap is it's the second job is really hard. And I like to reiterate how hard it is for most people. Like it's a very common story that getting your second job is even harder than getting your first. But it's you don't know that at the time, and it's scary, and it scares your family. It scares everyone around you when suddenly you're not.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Yes. So in that two-year downtime, um, my parents were well, here's the first thing you learn when you get into television is it's more money than even in that first year of working, it's more money than I had made doing all other crazy jobs I had combined. So I was literally able to live off my savings for my two-year downtime. So my parents weren't having to, you know, worry about me financially, but they were, you know, saying, if this isn't gonna work out, you know, better figure that out sooner than later. So um my second job was at the time in my brain, I considered it a step down. Um it was for a smaller, I think it was on Lifetime Television for Women, is how it was called at the time. And it was a shorter order. I had been on a 22-episode order show, and this was like 15 episodes. Um, everything about it was um smaller for a smaller audience, and I just felt like um, you know, am I going down a hill or, you know, down into nothing, or should I just take whatever comes along? So ultimately I took the job and I'm super happy I did it because there are no down, you know, steps down. To me, I it ended up being a great learning experience. And there are people that I met on that job that I know to this day and um have both helped me and I've helped them. So, and I, you know, I really would pretty much say that about every job since.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

So Noah is uh I think the last six or seven episodes has become obsessed with talking about people's parents and what they think of his career. I guess there's some he's probably got some issues that he's trying to resolve himself about what his parents think of his. But uh one area I've always been obsessed with is leadership. So um obviously you're now a leader. Uh you're a showrunner, and uh we often discuss on this podcast. It's weird that because you uh You become a showrunner not because you show the skills that you need to be a showrunner, it's because you show a load of other skills. But uh now you're a showrunner and you're a leader. Given your experience when you first started and the way you describe your first room and being scared to talk and so on. When you're doing your leading, are you looking for the the Diane in the room who could be brilliant but is scared to talk? And what do you do to help them that maybe somebody could have done for you in your first couple of weeks, which may have speeded up your journey?

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Yeah, oh absolutely. I um but it's such a different landscape. So while um, and I'll say why, because when I worked on Crossing Jordan, that was a room that held that hired, I think, 13 or 14 writers in the room, which was a lot, you know, cut to today. There's, you know, there's six of us in, you know, six, seven of us tops in the Dune writers room. And it's, you know, it used to be it was just a training ground for um young writers, middle of the road writers, experienced writers. Now it seems like it's unless you've worked on like 20 shows, you're not gonna get on um, you know, a show like this one. But I like made it a point to hire folks in the middle range to the upper range, which was um kind of what my parameters were. And yeah, I worked with a lot of really fresh-faced folks who were exhibiting some of the behaviors that I exhibited, you know, back in the day. And so, you know, we're all different. So not everybody was this, you know, hidden gym. Um, but you know, I I felt like some of their the qualities that they weren't showing in the room, I've saw it come out in other places and helped to try to nurture that. Um but yeah, I'll tell you what's different also now. Um is that I'm in a co-show runner position. So this show is so massive and so big that it took it takes, you know, more than one figurehead. And so I don't under even understand how anybody used to do this or did this, does this by themselves. So um I'm I'm very happy to be sharing the load.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

It's interesting you say that because I'm I always get my stats wrong, but I would say the last half a dozen showrunners we've Had on have been co-show runners. And we have this whole conversation where they say exactly what you've said, which is it's you know a two or maybe even a three-person job, um, and I couldn't imagine doing it any other way. What do you think and obviously the fact we've had so many of those on suggests that obviously the industry is is changing a bit. If you were given if somebody called you up for your next project and said, Can you be the showrunner? But you're only allowed to do it on your own, either you know, for budget reasons or they just want you and nobody else. Would you want to do that or would you fight very hard to have a co-showrunner?

SPEAKER_02 22:39

Um I think now I would probably fight to have a co-showrunner. Um, even when I first took the job on Dune, um, I was the sole showrunner. And I had, you know, executive producing partners. And in my brain, I thought it was a one-person job. But I very, very quickly, well, let me rephrase that. So when I took the job, it was I was the sole showrunner. Um, but as the responsibilities came up and um the corporate masters, you know, kind of multiplied before my eyes, and not to tell any tales out of school about Dune, but kind of as this project was developing, it was when, you know, HBO Time Warner, like Discovery, like we had new bosses, it seemed like every day. So there was a lot to navigate. And I was very um excited to have a partner who could help me, you know, navigate all those things. So um, yeah, it's definitely I would I would have been glad if there were three of us with Kosha running.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

So as an outsider I'm I'm an outsider enough to ask this question because I don't know. I guess my my question is Dune or Dune if I have to pronounce it your way, is it is not a small project. It is not a small world to be inhabiting. Um it's not we're not quite in the sort of Star Wars Star Trek Marvel space, but we're not a million miles away from it. When you turn up at the lot, assuming that it's not a virtual room, or at least turn on your zoom if it is. Do you do you feel the sort of the gravity of the of the duneness of it all? Or does it just feel like a job?

SPEAKER_02 24:46

No, I definitely feel the gravity of the duneness because this is the first time. Let me make sure that's true. I think it's the first time that I've had to deal with an estate. So, like, you know, there was a massive um juggernaut, but also like the authors that write in this space of space are still alive. So the man who wrote Dune, Frank Herbert, has passed away, but his son, Brian Herbert, um, you know, has written 15, 16, 17 books in that same universe. He is alive and well and still putting out content. So, you know, having that relationship with um people in the canon who are still alive that you can talk to was been very beneficial and very interesting. And it's a new skill set. So when I came to this job, again, I felt like a newbie in some respects of you know, having to, you know, kind of navigate the estate of it all is this is the first time I've ever had to do that.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Using um using uh hypotheticals or perhaps uh real uh real answers here. I'm really curious as you navigate, you know, being a showrunner on a show, uh, this this job that you've worked towards for so long. What does a uh a really great day at work look and feel like to you? And what does a really terrible day at showrunner look and feel like to you?

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Well, um a great day is being in my writer's room, and we were all on Zoom, um and just having breakthroughs. I mean, we started the process having an arc, but there were just some things that we just couldn't figure out. I mean, just we it took us months, and just having, you know, this final breakthrough that meshed with the estate and with um our powers that be and with our creative um mindset and and things that we all wanted to do, those days were very rare. So when they came, they were wonderful. And um the worst day was is probably the days after um you know you present an idea that just doesn't go go over. And some ideas took us you know back to the drawing board on a couple of days. And so none of those days look any different than you know the same day I experienced on Crossing Jordan or on you know Medium or any of the other shows that I worked on. But it's certainly more personable or personal when it's you know you at the head versus you just being at the head of whatever script you're writing for whatever show.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

I I I you mentioned all those other shows, and I say this on occasion, but look, like I have credit envy looking at the shows you've been on, some shows that I really love, and you just like, oh man, that looks like a great trajectory. But as I know from my own career, we're not a hundred percent in charge of our own trajectory. We get shows offered to us, we don't get the shows we want, we get other shows sometimes, and you're just making the best you can of the situation you're in, and and and hopefully you get some really good credits along the way. Do you have any regrets about a job you didn't take, a pitch that didn't go, like a direction that your career did not go in, that you kind of think back going, man, I should have maybe done this, or I wish I had done that.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Um, because I always think that like right after something fails, or if I pick one thing and it seems like I pick the dud, but I've always a little bit into the whatever the job is, have found, oh, this is why you did it. And only probably once or twice am I wanting the show. Like the show has ended, and I'll be like, well, that was a waste of my my life. And even then, I don't let myself have, don't let that be the last word. I'll always even just sit down quietly and think, all right, what are the 10 great things that came out of this, even though the rest was ground? And I find the good.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

I want to ask you the name of the show, but I don't think you're gonna answer it, so I won't. Um so if you had a choice for your next project, whenever you need a next project, how should we do this? Your choice is um another I like the word estate, actually. I like that. So another estate project. So similar in size or perhaps you know, even bigger, a Lord of the Rings or a you know something similar. So another big estate project. Um what Noah would like to call a sort of soul's work type project. So something that is may not be commercially successful necessarily, or at least popular, but has real meaning for you personally. Like a a passion project, but not in that sort of phrasing where it's no one actually cares apart from you. Like something really meaningful, like you know, the story of your mum's life, for example. Um and then um a third one would be uh oh yeah, I guess uh very, very obviously uh commercially successful, popular, long-running, like you can go, you go and do an NCIS like Noah does for you know or law and order SUVs. You've got 20 guaranteed years of more money than you can imagine. If you could choose between those three.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Um I would probably pick two, um, choice number two, because you know, this big IP uh estate driven game is I don't know. It's it's it's a lot. And I am um and I've been doing this so long that I'm like, I think the next thing is I I want to tell a story that I love, not one that I have to um kind of do a lot of navigating through somebody else's oceans, you know. So um, and currently now I am um my husband and I are starting our own production company, like literally right before I was on this call, he and I are getting together all our mission statements and whatnot. And we were starting the next thing. Um, and top of that slate is all of those things that are our passion projects. Um, but if somebody was like, Do you want to write the next Star Wars? Yes, we'll do that too. But yes. But um, you know, there's just these things that I've put on the back burner and even things that were almost about to go. But then, you know, fortune came to me in the in terms of extrapolations or dune or you know, all these other outside projects, which I'm super happy I have taken them and undertaken them, but I'm really sad to look at that, you know, that beautiful thing that's sitting on the shelf that um, you know, it's not dead.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

All I have to do is brush it off. Brush that desk off. You don't have to read us your nearly finished mission statement, but give us a sense of what are the sort of projects that would get that you would want to form your own production company to make. So what sort of themes?

SPEAKER_02 32:38

Um, it's mostly it's like character-based grounded genre. So I love horror, I love sci-fi, I love fantastical worlds, but I also kind of want to feel um, you know, that they're not that they're that they're not too fantastical. Ooh, I better work on this mission statement before I go out and put take it on the road. But um, yeah, I just I just love fantastical worlds, but I want to feel like they could really happen. So I'm I don't want to um go too YA, and that's not to shit on things that are young adults or too um farcical, farcal, farcical. Um yeah, just grounded stuff.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Well we're we're we're getting to the you know the end of this podcast where I normally ask less questions, but I actually want to ask one question before, and it's a little bit you know, in parallels my own journey, but I'm looking at your credits, and you talked about being disappointed that you went from 22 to 15 or whatever. Obviously, I you know, people who listen, I'm on work on NCIS, I'm in the network world, I've been in there for a long time now and happy there, uh, happy to be, you know, on the network side of things. However, you always think about the other thing, the other job. And I noticed the other side of things, the streamers, the that you, you know, I love uh blind manner, by the way, and that you uh you transition from empire to the hunting of the haunting of blind manner, and you went from network to something very small and and specific. Was that a conscious journey? How did you do that? And and it seems to represent what your manifest is now. So were that a conscious journey that way, or did you stumble into it more?

SPEAKER_02 34:26

Absolutely, absolutely, because I mean my career started off in um, you know, a medical examiner solves crimes, and I did a lot of that. Like there were so many female medical examiners who solve crimes on my resume right now that I'm literally ready to like go solve murders and dissect bodies. But so that was like literally where the jobs were. So that's what I took. But slowly, you know, my opportunities came in um a little bit of fantasy, a little bit of horror, a little bit of, you know, dark romance. And I would take those opportunities. So with Medium, um, I was on Medium for five of its seven seasons. And that was a show that was, you know, fantastical in nature, and there were dreams, and there were boogeymen, and there were, you know, murders. And so that kind of let me do and explore a lot of these um things that I've always loved the most. So as a kid, I was a big sci-fi horror fan, and Medium started to let me write some of that stuff. And then just slowly, I think Empire is the one um kind of uh step off that path. But slowly everything else I've been doing has just been leading towards, you know, the horror and the genre of it. So um, but I learned so much on Empire, I can't even tell you. I'm very glad I took that one little step off my horror path. But um in general, now that I'm gonna get to do what I want to do, it's it's gonna be that. So as much as I love, you know, the bear, which I'm watching right now, and you know, some other things that are just pure drama.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

My you want the ghost or the alien. You want some something in there that that gives that little. Yeah, I get you. My my that I I same in many ways. Um, well, unfortunately, this is that was a plus one question. Uh, we are definitely now at the time where we have to ask our last question, which is if you could give one piece of advice to anybody joining this business, uh, let's just say as an aspiring screenwriter, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 36:50

Um you know, every job is gonna end and it's gonna end, you know, not in a great way. So I think sometimes it ends beautifully, and there are handshakes and hugs, and sometimes it's you know, the door's over there. So I would prepare, as this podcast does, is you know, prepare you for some hard knocks by saying, you know, to just find what was good about it, take it and move on. And the last thing I'll say though about that is kind of look back on whatever that last job was and kind of how to say it, make yourself the right size in whatever the issue was. So if the show ended, was it your fault? How much of your fault was it? How much of it was the corporation, how much of it was the fact that you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, how much of it was the fact that your boss woke up on the wrong side of the bed, but always kind of really do a frank assessment of um how how big or small you are in the issue that faced you.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

Right. It's a great piece of advice in general, but also specifically for this podcast. And it if we ever redo the intro to this podcast, which features a sort of variety of quotes, I want some of that in there because that is exactly the nature of the industry as explained very well. So, Diane Ademu-Jon, thank you very much indeed for being part of the podcast. It's been amazing talking to you. And good luck, which is with your new production company once you finish the vision statement and the mission statement.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Thank you. Thank you. Step one, mission statement. Absolutely. But I appreciate I appreciate this talk.

unknown 38:40

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Well, that's a wrap on this episode of Screaming Into the Hollows of Abyss. As always, it's this episode was brought to you by Scriptation, the screen writing and annotation software that at the very least has made my life easier and will make your life easier as well. Uh, we'd like to thank our wives who put up with us recording these episodes in our offices and basements and closets and bathrooms and anywhere we can get a little space to record an interview. And of course, we want to thank James Watch who provided us with the great intro and outro music.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

Uh if you want to find us on social media, you can find Noah at NEVSlyn on Twitter, tweeting a variety of writer-based nonsense and some terrible puns and occasionally begging for sponsorship. If you want more refined tweets, mostly about football and whiskey, you can find me at Dan Rutstein. If you're interested in buying a copy of Scriptation, if you go to www.scriptation.com backslash sither, S-I-T-H-A, you will receive a special discount. Thank you very much for listening. As always, we appreciate you. Uh please give us any feedback, mostly positive stuff about me, and we will see you next week.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

And if you do say a negative thing about Dan, there is a chance I can value a free copy of descriptors.