Take 86 - Showrunner Ildy Modrovich, CSI Miami, Californication, Lucifer

SPEAKER_04 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 shore, dozens of unproduced scripts literature.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

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

SPEAKER_00 0:26

This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is like everything in a business here.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

I was being told by my manager. And I probably lost it. And I remember thinking like, well, that's it for me. I do my one big shot. What I've realized from that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss is brought to you by Scriptation, the Emmy Emmy of the Abhell.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

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. Stiffer listeners can get a free month of Scriptation by going to scriptation.com backslash Stiffer. 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 your non-entertainment co-host, Dan Rutstein.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

And I'm your industry co-host, Noah Ebbslin. On today's Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, we're excited to have on TV writer and showrunner Ildi Modrovitch. Ildi has been on such shows as CSI Miami, Californication, Necessary Roughness, and others. Most recently, she was both executive producer and co-showrunner of Lucifer. Welcome, Ildi.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Well, thank you for having me. I'm I'm very happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

So we were blessed to have a colleague of yours, Joe Henderson, on the podcast, um, talking about Total Schmuck, that guy. Well, so I was gonna he was he was very good. He was very honest um about his successes and failures, and we greatly enjoyed talking to him about Lucifer. So we haven't really done this before, but because you've had you work with him, I would like to know, because we've never really had, we've never asked a guest about another guest. He was on a failure podcast. In what ways did he fail? Um, and in what ways is he not very good at being a showrunner? And in what ways are you better?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Well, pretty much every way I'm better. Uh you know, every you know, writing, uh people, person. No, we're we we do have very different uh skills in terms of writing, I think. Um he's very and we talk about this all the time. Uh he's he's very good at the uh 30,000 feet, the larger picture. And I'm uh, you know, slightly more focused on the minutiae and the details and and making, you know, just getting in there, really making something uh hopefully emotional. I I mean he's good at both of those things too, but um, and he's also has a lot of uh at least on Lucifer, he has a lot of background in mythology and sort of, you know, he's kind of grew up a comic book geek and proudly. And I uh I love I love the romance, I do, and um so I think we brought those things to both those things to to to the show and it it made it fuller because of of our the things that float our individual boats. Um but yeah, I mean I think I think we both have the reason why it worked, because it was an arranged marriage, uh, which we can talk about more in more detail, but is because we did have a lot of similar philosophies in terms of how we wanted to run the show, which is positive, as positive as we could be, to make, you know, sort of patriots out of everybody and and you know, positive feedback and make everybody feel like you know, that the their homeostasis was that they were talented and and everything else, any criticism was just beside the point. It was like, let's just make it better. It has nothing to do with you or if you're not a good writer, you're a good writer, you know, or you're a good fill-in-the-blank. So I think we both came at it in the same uh the same way, that you know, approach.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

It's a great opening answer because there's there's lots to unpack there, as people like to say. Um I I'm interested in this arranged marriage thing, but before we get to that, I we've had sort of writing partners on before, and we've also had showrunners talk about the fact that showrunning isn't probably should be a two-person game because it's there's so much to do with what I think is interesting is when you when you're working with another showrunner, do you have the sort of I'm good at this but not very good at this, you're good at this, but not very good at that? Like, how do we work together? Or do you is it never quite discussed in those terms, but that is actually how it normally plays out?

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Um yeah, I I think we like I really love being on set. Joe had no interest in that, you know. Um he loves getting notes. I dislike that part of the process. He was always very positive when it came to getting notes. I was like, yeah, dang, you know, telling us what to do, you know. Um, so we did kind of lean on each other when it came to certain things. We're also really competitive with each other in a very fun way. So we would split the room sometimes, and I would be in one room and he would be the other. And he's like, We're on act three. And I was like, we're done with this episode, we're on to the next, which I wasn't, you know. I mean, I'd be like, and I'm in act one, but so we would constantly kind of jokingly compete with each other, and but secretly, I think we were also competing a little bit. So um, you know, if we got a great review on a cut of an episode, we shove it in each other's face, and you know. Um and the reason why also I should back up and say we we had a process which was we split um kind of odds and evens of an episode, and I would be kind of the the in charge of the heavy lifting on, let's say the odd episodes, and he would be in charge of the heavy lifting on the evens. So we we were able to, you know, use our time pretty wisely that way.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

So I'm I'm I I want to pick up the ball a little bit on the arranged marriage of it all. I'm fascinated in the nuts and bolts of of how this all works. And I've sort of been in it for a while and I've seen arranged marriages actually, as showrunners are concerned. Uh you know, go into any detail of specificity as you like, but what what did you mean by arranged marriage and and how did that end up working out for you guys?

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Well, this is a a good um lesson on failures and making them, I'll say making something that appears to be negative into a positive. How's that? Because the way it happened is we um I came on about three weeks before the pilot uh was shot, and I wrote, I did several rewrites on the on the pilot, and then um we edited it and we got it picked up, and then I had never run a show before. So, and I'd never worked with Fox before, and they really wanted somebody that they had worked with and knew. So that's where Joe came in. And you know, I was I was kind of like, hey, what my chop liver, I can't do this on my own, even though I was frankly, I was nervous, you know, I was nervous, I had never run a show. Um and my ego kind of got the best of me, and I went, well, you know, I could do this on my own. But then when they introduced the idea of somebody coming in and co-show running it, I kind of I took my, you know, I ate my humble pie, and it ended up being so much easier. I'll say it that way, just flat out easier and better. And so much of that that the the success of our relationship as co-showrunners was because at the very beginning we sat down and you know basically had a really frank conversation. And he said, I want to prove, you know, myself, because even though he'd he'd sort of you know co-showrun something else, this was his like major foray into made, you know, major broadcast television kind of. And we said we want to be respectful, we want to be communicative, and we said how we wanted to do it, and he stayed true to his word, I stayed true to my word. We were very honest, and ended up it ended up being really symbiotic between the two of us, and we weren't there until 10 o'clock at night every night. You know, we really shared the responsibilities, and I'm telling you, you know, you you everybody should co-showrun if you can. It's it's much saner experience because it can be all consuming, as we know.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

I'm more after 87 podcast episodes, I think I'm completely 100% convinced that showrunning, as Dan said, as we've heard, is a two-person job. That the people that have come on that have failed have often taken it on on themselves to do it, and they've it's broke them because it it's such a big job.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

But my question to you is you made the mistake of saying in our pre-interview that you had a few stories, some you weren't sure you could tell, and some maybe one or two you knew you could tell. Now, obviously, we would prefer the ones that you said you weren't sure you could tell for the podcast. We'll accept the one that you think you can tell before we move too far away from these things and we never circle back around to one of these stories.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Yeah. Um, no, I was thinking a lot about most of my, you know, quote, uh failures end quote come from the development side. And and I was really thinking about it leading up to today, thinking that, you know, we shouldn't call them failures. Um, because they they most of the time they really aren't your fault. And I think, you know, things fail or they don't go for so many reasons. And I know a lot of people say this, and I've been listening to your podcast, and a lot of people say that it is kind of a big matter of luck, but it's less that and more a matter of like Tetris and the planets aligning and everything falling into place, and that can be, you know, I could have a show about dogs, and the you know, head of the network could be like, my favorite aunt traveled with the circus, so I'm gonna take the one that's about clowns, you know, it's like has nothing, and I was bit by a dog when I was five, so I frankly hate dogs, you know, it's so often it becomes down to somebody's one person's subjective opinion, and you and and we all know that going in, but it you cannot take it personally. It's not because you you know screwed the pooch, it's not speaking of dogs, it's not because you you didn't write it well half the time, most of the time, I should say. It's it's about if if or or that this studio owes that network a favor or whatever, you just never know, or they hate that actor, your lead, because they worked with that actor before, or that actor, you know, you just never know what is the reason. I'm making up crazy reasons, but um so my one story I was gonna tell is I had a put pilot once. Uh and there's no I learned there's no such thing as a put pilot. I don't even, you know, they shouldn't even say that word. And for our audience listening, know if they know what a put pilot is, but a put pilot is when it's based, they tell you they're gonna make it. They tell you they're gonna make it when they buy it, they put a huge penalty if they don't make it, and so they their incentive is to make the dang thing, and so it's yours to lose, it's your, you know, so they say, but um as is is wont to happen, the head of the network changed in the middle of the experience. I sold it and there was a different uh president of the of the network, and then that one left, new one came in and said, uh, I'm not even gonna, I don't even want to know about the pilots. This was I I think I sold it in August, and and this the the new president came in, I think in like November or October, and come January, he hadn't read or didn't wasn't aware of any of the specifics of the pilots that his team had bought previous to him. He wanted to be fresh eyes, so everyone loved my pilot. Everyone, the studio, the network. Uh we were meeting with producers, we were planning on shooting in Australia. I was, you know, buying my bathing suit. Like we were gonna shoot it on the beach. It was gonna be great. Um, I really, really, really thought it was gonna go. And then he read it, and nope, just wasn't his cup of tea, didn't he didn't see it. And uh I remember the day I found out, like, you know, jogging in uh in the canyon, you know, hiking, it was raining, pouring rain. I'm crying, I'm crying my head off on the, you know. And about a week later, uh I realized there was nothing I could have done, you know. I I did everything. I I didn't I didn't fail. I thought I I felt like I failed. I felt like I failed. But I really couldn't have done anything differently. He just didn't just wasn't his thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

I mean if this was the first podcast, I'd be amazed by that story after 87. I mean, unfortunately, that sounds entirely plausible and normal that someone came in and's like, I don't care about all this work people have put into it. I don't want to read this because I want to do things a certain way, or because you know, I don't want to have to inherit baggage and all that sort of stuff. And it is it's such a weird system because you know the hours and the money just seem to not matter. Um, but obviously you you are right in that instance. This one is not your fault. What I'm interested by is I'm not sure if this is a good question or if it's even a real question, but I'm gonna ask it is how because sometimes things are your fault, not saying this one is, but like some things it's not very good and it didn't get picked up because it's not very good, and sometimes it's brilliant and doesn't get picked up because, as you say, somebody got bent by a dog once or they've just started how do you work out as one tries to get better in this career and tries to avoid these sorts of things not happening again in a world where people will tell you it's good when they think it's bad and tell you it's bad when they think it's good for all sorts of weird reasons, how do you actually work out what is good and what is bad and how you what lessons you should really learn and what things are just bad luck and will never be repeated anyway, so you can navigate through because you're right about some things not being your fault, but some things aren't good work. But how are you meant to know in this world where nobody gives you truth and scores things properly?

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Yeah, I mean, I I guess the first thing that jumps into my head is you can't um, you know, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing, right? And and expecting different results. It's it's you know, I was on a show once where I it was it was it was fine, it was fine, but it um I didn't feel like I was I felt confident there. So that was my that was my I didn't feel I felt like I was good on the page, but I was pretty very I was I was unconfident in the room and that was where yeah it felt like failure every day, you know. And I think those of us who've who've you know been in that writer's room, it can be a super scary place or it can be a very a very fun place and a you know fulfilling place. But if something is if it feels terrifying, if you don't feel like it's you're doing the your best work and you're not being your your best self, you kind of have to be brave enough to change things. Um whether or not you get fired, um I think you have to know when it's time to go too. Um so that was a weird uh version of a failure because I didn't get fired, but I left anyway, because I feel like it was I wasn't I was I was treading water, you know. Um so I guess I I don't know if that answers your question exactly, but but I think you have to you have to be believe enough in yourself to change a situation where you're not doing well, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

No, that makes great sense. I guess a question is when you were in that room and not thriving, did the showrunners notice, do you think? And now you run shows. Do you think you can tell when whatever happened to you is happening to somebody in your room?

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Yes, and I absolutely think the showrunners could tell that I I I wasn't, you know, feeling great. I wasn't doing my best. I I think you you hope they are not noticing, but they are. I mean they are you can tell when somebody's on their game or somebody's on sure footing or if they're kind of you know unsure of themselves. And I I learned something from it though, which is I I always thought in those situations, like, why does it have to be this hard? Does it have to be this stressful? Do I have to feel like I've got to tap dance my head off and be sound brilliant on a daily basis? And I I think the the short answer I found anyway is that you don't. And it made me want to run my room, you know, make create an environment that was as safe as possible because I want to get the best out of my writers, you know. I I want them to feel safe and like there's no bad pitches, and somebody can go, okay, this is the terrible pitch, but here, and then that can spark something else. I I don't want everybody to be afraid. There are some showrunners I think who kind of like that tension, kind of like that fear, you know, and I I learned that uh, you know, from my painful experience, how to create an environment that I think is not painful, hopefully.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

How do you do that? And obviously, it is entirely correct that you would want to do that. Um but how does it work? And obviously, you know, I'm not a writer, I've never been in a writer's room. Um, but is it as simple as on the first day you call everyone together and say, I want this to be a safe space, you know, there's permission to fail, all that sort of stuff, or do you just manifest it by creating that environment as going along? I don't Do you yeah, do you feel like you have to tell people that's how it's gonna be, or do you just make it that way as you go through?

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Um I we did, Joe and I did, you know, um, and and I have done that, but no, I think in my experience, most people just jump right on in and don't give kind of a a spiel of of you know, here this is, you know, give you a big giant psychological hug before you start. Most most most people don't do that. Um, I had one experience where I came on a show kind of part way through, and I thought, oh, uh here's here's a show where um maybe I'm fresh eyes, and maybe they're all gonna say, hey, what did you notice in the the, you know, that we being too close to it, have you know, have lost sight of. Like, what did you what what's resonating to the to the viewer outside of this room? Nobody, nobody asked. Nobody, nobody asked what I felt just as, you know, having been a viewer for a while. And I went, oh, all right. You know, you and you can't offer up the information. You you know, you can't you can't ask, hey, what kind of a room is this either. You have to just uh go with whatever it is the showrunners, you know, whatever direction they seem to be going in, you have to just ride that wave.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

So this is this is fascinating to me. Uh, as I've you know navigating certain rooms and seeing certain things, and I hear a lot of producers say there are no bad pitches, but of course, like you say, there are bad pitches, and you do feel like you have to be brilliant every day, and it is exhausting when you're not. And I guess my question is uh I'm gonna follow up a little bit on what Dan said to dig a little deeper into the idea of like what do you do? You you made the comment that confidence was important, and when you lost confidence, you sort of lost your way, and that you've seen writers lose confidence. And you talk about the idea of a psychological hug in the beginning, but where I feel like writers really need psychological hugs is in the middle because they don't know how they're doing anymore. In the beginning, everyone's fresh and happy and you're going, but in the middle, when you realize you're a little bit destabilized and you don't think you're coming back, you don't know where their minds are at, you know, what have you done as a showner to if anything, to sort of like adjust, have somebody adjust course and and and make a win out of a loss, or turn the boat to say, these are the things I see that you're doing that, you know, maybe that you could do a little differently and would really help you, or or or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

That's a good point. And you know, I think I'm gonna kind of put that in my pipe and smoke it because I feel feel like the I could have done that more, um, is the sort of halfway through check-ins. The thing that I tried to do as a as a you know, in running the room is let people know. I I feel nobody's good at everything. There are some people who are great draft writers who are a little shy in the room. And there's some people who are great at just jokes, you know, and really being funny and fun and keeping things light, let's say. There are some people who ask a lot of questions, that's and that's that's not a bad thing. Now, if that's all they did and they didn't provide any answers, that would get a little annoying. But um I I feel like when you find a skill in somebody, you compliment that, and then they get better and better at that skill. Um, it's like it's I like children. No, no, that sounds really patronizing, but you know what I mean? You you you the more you point out that somebody's really good at something, the more they they they do it. And if you like something that somebody's doing, uh you know, and you want more of it, don't keep it to yourself. So I I I try to be as verbal as I can be. Um and then you also create an environment where everybody's kind of complimenting each other. It's not not in a gross way, but I I like compliments too. You know, I like it when a writer says to me, Thank you for letting me, you know, come talk to you about this, you know, thank you for you know letting me feel like I can talk to you about this. And then I'm like, oh, I'm gonna be even more open, you know, the the more you open yourself up, the more they'll open themselves, your, you know, up to you. And the the more they do that, the more they give you their ideas. So you're it's selfish, you're benefiting, you know.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Thank you for that. Uh you you've been doing this uh for a while, obviously, and you've been doing it, you know, at the top of the game as a showrunner. Do you have any regrets?

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Uh there was one junction uh where I could have gone on some a show that was sort of prestigious creatively. Um and I went on something that I was a little more familiar with. It was a procedural. So there was a show on FX, basically. It was a it was an FX show. And um I had had just had a baby, and I was concentrating, frankly, a little bit on money. So I went for this big network show and it lasted a season, and the other show was uh was Sons of Anarchy. I'll say it. Um and uh I think I just I always wonder where in what direction my my career would have gone. I just wonder. I uh because the thing I think we all also know about this this business of ours is people love to pigeonhole you. They love to uh Noah smells more what I'm cooking here on this, but it's like you you get labeled my first show with CSI Miami and all this. I was procedural girl. That's what I did. I was okay, I I am. I didn't know that wasn't my thing, but I guess it is now. And speaking of uh having my my baby on my bait, you have to take the opportunities that are given you and try to, you know, pin pin the pin the um ping the pinball in another direction yourself. Nobody's gonna do it for you. So I wrote a spec or I wrote a pilot um over my baby leave. Uh while the while my baby was napping, I wrote a comedy, a character-driven comedy, um, that was basically sort of making fun of a big stupid procedural show. It was like behind the scenes at a at a big, you know, Magnum PI CSI lethal, you know, whatever, one of those giant procedural shows. And it got me Californication and it got me in the room on Sons of Anarchy, and and um so I forget I completely lost your question.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Guess if you had regrets, but you were you've been talking around it at this juncture.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

But yeah, uh, you have I I guess I kind of have a regret just in in that I wonder if I would have been on different kinds of shows. Um you know, the just more character-driven shows earlier on. Um but uh yeah, I think that was uh that's the only thing I can think of in terms of regret.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Um I love I answer. Um I we've had quite a lot of people on the podcast talking about money versus creativity, um having children, ruining everything um in the nice in the nicest possible way, where you you know you make career decisions about uh stability um or money or geography, um because you life has changed and that's the sort of thing you have to. Um so I guess where you are now, given that you have uh worked in different genres, you've done different types of shows, you've uh nearly taken a show but didn't because of having a baby. If you could choose today like what next, do you want you know the to go back onto a big procedural which is gonna last for 20 years and you have so much money that you won't know what to do with it by the end of it? Do you want a show that is very personal or incredibly creative, which might not last very long or necessarily be a massive commercial success, but will be something that you will be able to tell everyone was yours and will mean something special to you? Um or is there a third version where you want to go off and do a comic or write a novel or do a movie or something that's not really one of the first two options? Or in fact, do something else completely.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Well, I I think in this uh in our particular environment right now, as you know, if you are developing, I think those those of us out there who are developing, no, you can't just do the one thing anymore. It's um it's hard out there for a pimp, and you gotta you got to you you've gotta develop a lot of things at the same time. So I kind of try to, I try to diversify. I try to, I I try to have the things that um are very, very personal and maybe a long shot. And then I try to have something that's maybe a little more commercial, but I will never, I don't think I've ever done anything that I just don't like, you know, just for I I couldn't I couldn't add anything to it. I wouldn't be able to um and that's another thing I guess I've learned since since starting out, is you're you're not going to succeed if you don't love that that story in some way. Um, hopefully in many ways. Hopefully there are things you, you know, there's you you at least love the humor, or you love that let's say it's the drama, or you love zombies, if it's a zombie show, or there's something about it that speaks to you, because you're not going to make it better. You're not going to add anything. And that is not going to make you feel good, and that's going to lower your confidence. And, you know, as artists, at least I am, I'm driven by by confidence, feeling like I'm I'm I'm adding something to it, you know, I'm creatively feeding this beast. And if that element isn't there, I'm gonna, I feel like I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna, you're gonna fail often.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

So I'm greatly enjoying this interview because you're so good at this. Um uh and you're giving great answers. So I'm gonna ask a question. It's actually the opposite of what we normally do. Um, I normally ask why people like what you're not very good at, but I actually want it, just because you're very good at explaining things, I'd like you to tell me and Noah, and more importantly, all our listeners, why are you so good at what you do and why have you managed to be so successful?

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Oh my gosh. Wow. Well, first of all, thanks. Um I don't that I I don't know that I uh um that's a that's a hard one.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

Yeah, well, normally we give you the easy one, which is like, what aren't you good at? But I actually just because I'm very much enjoying how you explain things. So I feel like you can somehow tell us why you're so good without it coming across as arrogant, like Noah would describe himself if I asked him the question, which obviously I never would.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Uh I don't think maybe that's I I guess the first thing that jumped in my head is I don't I I think I at least as a show runner, I I try my hardest um to see whatever to to bring out the best in everybody, I guess. That's why I think I'm I've discovered only in this past six years that I have been doing it, that I'm pretty good at it because I not because of my skills, but because I try to bring out and highlight the skills in and everybody around me. Um so I think I'm pretty good at that, seeing what somebody's good at. And when somebody feels good, they do great work. It's just true. Like we had the happiest people at our on our team, and I think I don't think it was an act, you know. People genuinely liked coming to work for the most part. You know, there's days and there's things that happen, and you get your script, you know, that network case your script or whatever happens, happens, but for the most part, um you know, say you've got to communicate what you like, not what you don't like all the time. You've got to tell people what you like too, and it's so easy to forget that because of time, and you're like, I just gotta get to the notes and everything that's wrong, go fix this. But you've got to take the time to go. This joke right here was hilarious. This romantic scene made me, gave me the feels. Damn, you know, you killed it. People are like, whoo! And then they want to go back in and fix whatever's wrong, you know. So I get I think that if that's that counts.

SPEAKER_03 37:41

I think both Dan and I are in agreement that we would go on for a very long time in this conversation. Uh, we're so grateful that you came on, but it we are out of time, which brings us to the last question. Yeah, time flies when you're suffering through failure stories. Uh, but it brings us to our last question that we ask everybody that comes onto the podcast, which is you know, if you had one piece of advice you could give to somebody joining the industry, in this case as a screenwriter, TV writer, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 38:10

Um just to again to not think of things as failures necessarily, that that because they are they are they are often just things not matching up, and that you can't spin your wheels thinking about that thing that didn't go. You have to think about the next thing, and you can mourn it, you can mourn whatever pilot you didn't sell, whatever pitch you didn't sell. I didn't sell two pitches this last year, and you know, I had a pretty good record of selling pitches until this past year, and I had to go, all right, what's next? I mean, you you have to, you you have to look ahead because um if you if you just got to keep keep writing the next thing and keep thinking of the next thing and keep reading things and watching things and looking to be inspired because um you can get stuck. I I got stuck after one pilot didn't go that I that I had worked on for like four years. I got a little stuck after that. I had a couple few months of of like you know, staring at my um my my sad failure. Like I just sat there and stared at it. Um and I finally shook myself out of it when I read a book. I didn't even start writing something, I read a book that inspired me, you know. So if you're stuck staring at your computer, go pick up somebody else's brilliance and see if that jogs jogs you out of your funk, you know.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Fantastic. Um so um thank you, Ildi Modrovic, for coming on our podcast. This has been uh inspirational, uh motivating, fascinating, and funny in equal measure. Um, so thank you very much. I'm obviously not in the industry and I'm not a writer. If I were, I think I would want to be in your room. I feel like you would be a great person to have as a showrunner, as a show and as a leader. Um I'm feeling rather motivated, not to go and start writing, but um I lead my teams in my non-industry world. But um, it's been great having you on. Um, thank you very much indeed.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Well, thank you. Thank you again for having me. Uh had a great time.

SPEAKER_03 40:43

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Bye.

SPEAKER_03 40:50

Well, that's a wrap on this episode of Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss. As always, 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 Launch, who provided us with the great intro and outro music.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Uh if you want to find us on social media, you can find Noah at NEVSlin on Twitter, tweeting a variety of writer-based nonsense and uh some terrible puns and occasionally begging for sponsorship. Uh 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 stiffer, S-I-T-H-A, you'll 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_02 42:09

And if you do say a negative thing about Dan, there is a chance I might buy you a free copy of Script Texas.