Take 58 - Writer, Exec Craig Engler, Shudder

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.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

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

SPEAKER_04 0:20

For every success, there is sometimes even years of painful failure.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default. That's the normal way to be able to perservate. Like everything in our business here, hands in the country. That's takes care of that doesn't matter overnight.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

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_04 1:00

Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss. Very pleased with the reception we got last week. I think Vaughan Wilbot was a great guest, and I think people responded well to his story.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Yeah, no, I was, you know, we always are thrilled to get DMs and people are reaching out through social media and other places to tell us that a guest that they kind of uh they they responded to a guest. And Vaughn uh, you know, I think just spoke personally and and about the the issues he faced, and people really were responsive to the things he said.

SPEAKER_04 1:31

Yeah, now we're changing chat slightly for this week. We've we said that in season two we would try and do a bit more in terms of different professions within Hollywood, and we've gone down the exec route, but with somebody who's a different, slightly different type of exec, not a sort of traditional network exec, but who was also a writer as well, with quite a sad and emotionally heartbreaking writing story.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

I I think we are. So we have Craig Engler on, who is the general manager of Shutter. And I think he was like a baby step for you and I, Dan, because he's both a very high-level writer, showrunner, creator-level writer, who also is running this horror streaming network and was able to give us a little insight, and we'll be giving you a little insight into some of the challenges people are facing today, uh, and was willing to talk, you know, with his network exec hat about issues that writers are facing, Hollywood is facing. And I found it fascinating personally.

SPEAKER_04 2:29

Absolutely. For those of you who think Stan Rutstein's voice is a little bit different to usual, um, I have a cold, which isn't very exciting in the normal scheme of things, but I think this is my first cold in two years, which is a function of how well masks and isolation work. Um, not COVID, but just a cold. Anyway, if my voice is a different pitch, still eloquent, well spoken, great use of grammar, very polite, and so on, but just uh a slightly different level. That's that's why.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

This is I'm very delighted because this is my first uh time where you have been sick and I can be there for you the way you were there for me, which you know, and and I have spoken to your wife the way you spoke to my wife. And she said, be mean to Dan, even though this cold might take his life, still be hard on him. And it's you know, I know you're going through a lot, though. I can just tell by your face that this cold is is doing you in. And even though I'm gonna try to be mean to you, you know, I'm really not that type, and you might get some chicken noodle soup tomorrow.

SPEAKER_04 3:22

No, that's right. And if I get through this, maybe we'll do an episode about what it's like to be a podcaster during a global pandemic who's also suffering from a cold.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

That's yeah, uh a very, very bad cold by the way he looks on the screen, uh, which you can't see, but but I can, and you look just terrible today.

SPEAKER_04 3:38

Thanks. I appreciate that, Noah. Right, on with the show. Here's Craig. Welcome back to Streaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. As ever, I am Dan Rutstein, your non-entertainment co-host.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

And I'm your industry co-host, Noah Evslin. Today I'm excited to have on writer, producer, and network executive Craig Engler. Craig is currently the general manager of the horror streaming network Shudder. Before joining Shudder, Craig spent 15 years as a senior executive at Sci-Fi. After leaving Sci-Fi, he co-created and executive-produced sci-fi's hit series, Z Nation, which ran for five seasons. Welcome, Craig. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_04 4:23

Well, I'm gonna jump straight in here, Craig. So we've had lots of people who've tried different bits of the industry. So we've had actors turn writers, actors turn producers. You're our first writer who is also effectively an executive. So that means you have both well, you you've obviously as a writer gone through all the things every other writer has in terms of the usual rejection, failure, and adversity stuff. I guess so as an executive, when you're giving notes or turning down someone's pitch or firing them, are you nicer because you know what it's like because you're a writer, or are you mean because people were mean to you, so you figure you might as well be mean back to other people?

SPEAKER_02 5:09

That's a great question. Uh, first of all, I like to think I'm generally a nice person anyway. Um, no one has been particularly mean to me in my career. I think people are sort of off-handedly mean, you know, they're very dismissive of things. And I think um, oddly enough, uh, not only did I have a show on sci-fi, but I pitched them other shows, which they turned down. Um, and I think it was actually easier for them to turn me down because they knew me and had worked with me. And they're just like, yeah, get out of here, as opposed to at least pretending to be nice, uh, you know, to to people who, you know, they're gonna work with, you know, their managers or agents for for other clients. Um, you know, when when there's there's two different things that we're talking about, right? There's pitches, which we get all the time. And we try to be very quick. I think the nicest thing you can do in terms of pitching is give somebody a quick no or a quick yes and move on. Um, one of the things that uh when I came to Shudder, uh the difference between, say, for me, uh at a streaming network versus at sci-fi, which was a linear network, is we have to move much more quickly. We have to get a lot of things in the pipeline because people want new things all the time. So we try to give very quick yeses and no's. We green light a lot of stuff, but mostly what we're greenlighting is movies. And a lot of those uh we're acquiring after the fact. So we're we're not really reading scripts in the way that um a lot of development would be. Um, so when we're sort of getting feedback a lot or giving feedback, a lot of times I'm like, send me the log line and I'll tell you right away if it's a project that we'd be interested in or not. And if it's interested, and if we're interested in it, we can talk to you. So I like to think that, you know, being on the other side of the table, the worst thing was you send in a project and you don't hear. You know, I I won't uh name names, but I had sent in a project. I'd I was asked to write a script on spec. And like four months went by. I had to write that. I was literally writing on Christmas Day to get this script into them by their decision-making process. And um I I didn't hear back for four months, and it turned out they never even read it, let alone had an opinion on you know whether to do or not. And I never want any of them to do that if if you've gone through a process with us. Unfortunately, usually the answer is almost always no, because Shudder, in particular, we know exactly what we want, the kind of things we're looking for. Um, and so you give me a log line and I can say no. And a lot of times those log lines are very similar to things that you know have been pitched elsewhere and everyone has seen. Um, I'll give you a uh the flip side to that is uh we made this movie, a pretty well-known movie in 2020 called Host, which is by a director named Rob Savage, which is sort of like it's it's a uh a movie about a Zoom seance that has gone wrong and everybody it was shot during the lockdown. And it was the first movie that was shot entirely during the lockdown that that came out. And we actually greenlit that off of essentially two words, which was Zoom seance. We had seen a short that Rob Savage had done on Twitter, and we asked uh his agent who we knew, and we knew who Rob was, if they had uh a feature version of that. And they said yes, and they sent us like a six-page deck, but literally it was Zoom seance. We'd already seen what Rob could do. We said yes. We greenlit that movie, and that movie was on the service in three months, which is the literally the fastest you could ever conceivably do that. And that is all down to Rob. He was a genius. Unfortunately, most of the yeses and answers we give aren't sort of that quick. It's not yes, and then we give you a bunch of money, and then three months later the movie's on the service. That's the extreme sort of you know, quick yes. But a lot of times it's a quick note. It's like, okay, just send me what that concept is. No, we've we've already had too many movies like that, or that's not a type of movie that works. The second thing you talked about is giving notes, right? That's when we're actively in development on a project. Mostly we don't do a lot of development just for the sake of development. You know, when I was at sort of sci-fi in USA, there would be dozens, if not hundreds, of things being developed, only one or two of which would ever, you know, make it to air. Whereas, you know, we tend to give notes on things that we think we're gonna make. It's only if we can't really get there creatively, you know, we won't do the project. Our notes always come from a place of, A, are we all doing the thing that we said at the beginning that we would do, right? We said, hey, we like this project because of A, B, and C. You have A, B, and C in there. You know, can we make A, B, and C better? And a lot of times the answer is yes. And so all our notes are around how can we help you get A, B, and C to be the best version of A, B, and C it can be. And our notes are always friendly, they're always for discussion. We're never uh giving notes a lot, you know, we're always trying to give our reason behind the notes. Here's you know what we're thinking, and here's why we're thinking it, but let's have that discussion. Um, a lot of times we throw out thought starters, you know, something isn't working. This could be an example of something that might work. It probably isn't the thing, but maybe it'll spark you to the thing. Why don't you go away, have a think on that, and come back? Those are the type of notes we give a lot of. Um sometimes we do get projects where we say, okay, we'd like to do this project with the A, B, and C, but please, you know, let's let's omit D. We've all agreed on that ahead of time. And then we get the next version of it and it's like D D A B D. And we're like, well, no, we said we didn't want D. And here is why. And you agreed with us. We notice that D not only hasn't gone away, but has taken over the whole project. Where are we with that? And then sometimes that's where like creatively you might part ways. Like somebody has decided the project speaks to them in a different way, and we don't think that way is going to really ultimately be successful for us. Doesn't mean it's not a great project. It doesn't mean that wouldn't be successful somewhere else. Um, but so those are the ways we we try to interact with people, right? We try to give fast yeses, fast no's. We try to tell people what we're looking for. And when we make something, our entire goal is to make the best version of that thing possible, not to give stupid notes, not to give notes that are unactionable. Every note we give, you know, one of the things that we talk about a lot is, well, what would I do with this note if someone gave it to me? You know, it's not enough to say, well, that's not working. Maybe if we don't know why it's not working, we'll say, this part of it isn't working. We're not really sure why. What do you think? And then, you know, that usually leads to a very fruitful discussion.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

I I want that's that's all very interesting. As a as a writer, too. That's all very, I'm just sort of processing all that. And I I do want to get into the weeds of your career. I'm gonna ask them, we're gonna ask some very specific questions about your career, but I'd be very remiss not to ask this question because you're our first sort of network exec we've had on this this podcast. We've had managers, we've had other people, producers, but it it is hard out there. It is really hard out there for for for people making movies. I mean, and it's always been hard. This is a hard business, right? But if you're, and I know that you're on social media, so you're seeing some of the ongoing discussions. People are saying it's never been this hard. And I'm not saying that Shudder specifically is a hard network to work at. I'm actually not saying that at all. I don't know. But in general, it feels like budgets have tightened, people aren't buying, the buying process is extended. You, you, you, you say something's in business affairs and it takes nine months to close. Like what is going on and why is it taking, you know, so hard for established writers at this point to sustain their career, directors and actors as well?

SPEAKER_02 12:49

That's a great question. I don't know that I have a ton of insight into that, right? Because we're we're kind of the opposite. We're making more than we ever have, and we're making it more quickly than we ever have. And we're processing a lot of stuff, like a lot of incoming pitches, you know, more quickly. And we we we process very quickly. I will say sometimes business affairs gets really hung up. And sometimes that is not the network's fault, right? Sometimes that's on the other side. You know, there have been plenty of projects where we have had to reach out and say, hey, we agreed on all these terms ahead of time. We're just trying to get, you know, to the final, you know, dotting the final I's and crossing the final T's, what's going on? And then for one reason or whatever, that person drops out. I would say we have had more projects that we've tried to green light drop out from the other side than we have dropped from our side. Um, I don't, you know, my friends, I have a lot of friends who are writer, producers. And by the way, um, do you guys know Javi? Um Javi started, yeah, Javi started as a development exec and you know, pretty famously. So there's another one out there besides me. Although he started, you know, I think he was at NBC and then went to Sequest. Um, but anyway, he's the one that has that experience. Um from what I hear uh at other places, and I have a lot of friends who pitch, it's just that there's a lot of hesitancy. There's actually a lot of money in a lot of projects being greenlit, but they're so specific that I think a lot of, you know, just kind of randomly pitching stuff, not randomly, but you know, pitching your project. A lot of times people don't want that type of project, even if it's a great version of what it is. So it's taking a long time. I I can't speak to what's going on at the net the broadcast networks because that's I think they're they're they've all been thrown into chaos by by streaming. You know, I came out of MBC Universal, which owns sci-fi. And, you know, I I hear from my friends over there that, you know, there's there's a lot of sort of not clarity on what they want to do and stuff like that. So it's a weird time because more TV and more films are being produced than ever before in the history of the business. And yet it also, in some ways, a lot harder for for people to to sell projects.

SPEAKER_04 14:58

Well, I'm interested in something you said about the you said a lot of projects have fallen away from the not from your side, but basically from the other side. Is that uh I mean I'm assuming that's not because you're asking for ridiculous terms. Um, so what what is it? What is it?

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Is it is it you think people have been more careful with their projects, or it's just they're a bit inefficient, or I'm I am uh quite honestly, by the in terms of I can't mention the projects of the people, obviously, but but I'm actually baffled, you know, like somebody, you know, we've had more than one occasion someone say, We like this project, this is the budget we need, we'd like to make it with you. And we say, Okay. I think sometimes we are so quick, it kind of throws them off their game. And they're kind of like, Well, we didn't really think that through. We didn't think you would say yes. So now that we've thought it through, we actually want to do something different. And we're like, okay, we don't want to do that thing. You know, we wanted the thing you pitched us, you know. Um, you know, I think in one case, there was a project we all really loved and wanted to make. And then they basically the team said this is what they wanted, and we said, okay, we'll give it to you. And then they realized that that wasn't what they wanted and and they couldn't do it, and they walked away from it. Um, but we've had like four or five projects easily where we were ready to go and the projects just disappeared and fell apart. It's it's perplexing to me.

SPEAKER_04 16:29

So different subject now. Yeah, horror.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

So one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_04 16:35

Yes, well, indeed. So uh people have different views on horror. I know obviously some people love horror movies, other people aren't big fans of horror movies, but in terms of the broad sentiment around it, given that we've just had a global pandemic, which some people are pretending is over, but obviously definitely is not over, um, and there's uh threats of World War III at the moment as well. Does that in a broad sense affect people's interest in having horror? Do they not want to just watch rom-coms and sweetness and light to get away from the horrible world? Or is it that the world's so bad anyway, you might as well, you know, worry about aliens and ghosts and whatever?

SPEAKER_02 17:17

You would totally think that nobody wants to see movies about pandemics. Uh, once we went into lockdown, right, in 2020, early 2020, the number one request we got was for pandemic movies. Do you have, I can't remember like virus or uh contagion, you know, everybody was asking for us those for those movies. One of the things, and this is we're gonna get it into the weeds of horror a little bit, right? And I'll I'll say two things about horror. I don't think people realize how broad the genre actually is. I think because there were so many sort of cheap and cheerful slashers made in like the 80s, and those sort of inundated it, everybody just sort of thinks of a horror movie as like Jason Borges with a mask and a machete, right? But if you kind of take a step back and look at the genre, you know, Jaws is a horror movie, Alien is a horror movie, Silence of the Lands is a horror movie, right? All those, you know, sort of literary horror movies like The Omen and The Exorcist were huge, you know, cultural phenomenons at the time. We haven't even started with the Universal Monster movies, Frank, uh Frankenstein, Dracula, those were huge. Those made the film industry in some ways, right? So horror is this incredibly broad genre that is only getting broader as more people, you know, take an interest in it. You know, we've seen wonderful, wonderful films that we never would have seen. You know, a lot of people reference Get Out as kind of a seminal moment where the genre kind of took a step up. You know, there's this term that's debated in the horror group, you know, the quote unquote elevated horror. Uh, I personally don't mind the term because I know what people mean when they say elevated horror. I think a lot of horror fans feel like um it's kind of a diss on non-elevated horror films. But, you know, I sort of, as a guy who sees a lot of horror and buys a lot of horror, like I understand the difference between, you know, elevated horror and other forms of horror that are all equally valid. I don't say elevated is elevated in that it's better than the other, it's more elevated in terms of its aspirations and its production values, right? So that's one thing that horror is much broader than people realize. The other thing is horror provides a catharsis for people. And there's actually academic research on this, where if you watch a horror movie and you sort of experience the trauma that's going on in that movie, and then you come out on the other side and things feel okay, that can actually boost your confidence, make you feel better about yourself. So when people are sort of say, you know, we want pandemic movies, what they want to do is they want to kind of go through the experience of having it, but be okay on the other side, because we might not be okay on this side, right? On this side of the screen, you know, as you say, the pandemic isn't over, even though people are acting like it is. So now no one's sure what to do. You know, everyone feels very unsafe. It's very safe to be watching a movie in your own house. You know it's going to be an hour or two hours, and you know at the end of it, you know, you're going to come away and you're going to be okay. So what we've seen in sort of the academic research is that horror actually provides a real catharsis for people.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

That's a that's a great answer. I went from somebody who couldn't watch horror until I was about early 20s to just loving horror. And it was a slow progression of of sort of understanding what horror was more and the different subgenres, that it's all not all gore and schlock. Sometimes it's really interesting mysteries that are, you know, compelling storytelling. But you know, I do, I do want to get back to you as in your career and your dual career. And my and and you know, you're you're a writer and you're an exec. And I'm assuming that you that you continue to do both because you did both at a really high level. Uh I have a two-part question. One, which one do you consider your day job, writing or being an exec? Uh, because some people say, well, this is just my day job and I really do this. Is it and and two, which one do you find more emotionally taxing uh to do?

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Great question. Um, let me just tell you a little bit about how I got into writing, is I actually was a journalist. So I went to uh school to be a newspaper and magazine journalist, um, which is why I sort of, and and I've always uh identified as a writer. And if you ask me today what I do, I would say I'm a writer. Uh, I who happens also be a network executive during the day. Uh being a network executive is a very demanding job, as you know, you might imagine. And so that's my day job for sure. Like I, you know, when I'm here 100% of the time, you know, it's a lot of stuff going on around, you know, all the things that are involved in making shows and making films and running a network. When I go home at night and my kids asleep and I'm on my own, I'm a writer. And I'm either reading or thinking about writing, probably not writing so much right now, just because of the time constraints, but always thinking about okay, what's the thing I'm gonna write when I have when I have time? So I sort of self identify as a writer, but my But my day job is definitely as a network executive.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

And which one? So my second part is like what, you know, as you are this is a podcast. So let's talk about like the toll it takes to be both to do to do both.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

The network job, I understand the parameters of pretty well. And so a lot of the angst of it just more comes in kind of the struggles that you know, like, you know, uh, how are we going to get our next subscriber? How are we going to get our next film? How are we going to get our next show? So there's a lot of angst around that, but it's it's it's very containable angst. I think, you know, emotionally, especially as um I think about writing horror stuff, which I do. I have written horror before, and and you know, I consider myself sort of like a genre writer, right? Um emotionally, that's right, Taxton. There's actually four or five uh short stories that I have for sort of this collection that'll probably never happen. And they're all half-written because they're so traumatic. I don't want to write, I get into them like, oh my God, I'm this is horrible. This I don't want to experience this emotionally to be able to put it on the page. And so I actually have a bunch of these stories that will someday be completed, um, but that I literally can't finish because they're very emotionally traumatic to me. Which means they're probably good, or at least have a have a shot at being good. Uh, but it also means I'm not rushing to get them done.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Um, how's it okay? Going back to, you know, uh sort of this the start of your career, were you sort of uh compelled or the middle midpoint of your career, because you have a very interesting career where you're an exec, then you're a top-level writer. I mean, you're you have a show you've created and it's on the air for years and years that's beloved, then you're back to being an exec. So my question is being about being compelled or impelled to kind of do both. And they're in a world, it must be nice to be able to do both because the pressure of just being a writer all the time and those gaps in between jobs is is enormous. Does it give you the freedom to write what you want, do what you want? Or was there a moment where you were like, this career is not working for me the way I want it to? I'm gonna jump back to the other side of the fence and be a network example.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Yeah, well, if we want to talk about sort of the setbacks and the sort of, you know, horrors of the genre, right? So one of the problems I had is so I had this show called Z Nation, which is actually based on a movie I had written for Sci-Fi when I was there. Uh, I had gotten very interested. They were doing these move monster movies of the week. And um, a lot of them uh weren't weren't so good. And I said, I got very interested in them for some reason and said, you know, guys, uh I'm interested in learning how to how to do screenwriting. Why don't you give me the worst script you have? You know, I'm a writer, I've done a lot of writing, I've now read thousands of scripts and worked on TV shows and stuff, and I'll try to make it better. And so the the movie team at Sci-Fi gave me this script, which was really troubled. And I kind of found a way to make it untroubled. You know, I sort of uh there was a lot of stuff that didn't quite make sense, and the logic wasn't flowing, and the story kind of bounced all over, and I sort of was able to help the writer figure out what they wanted to do, turn it into a good movie. Um, it aired, did quite well. And then I had pitched, I said, well, now I want to write a movie. I had pitched, uh, oddly enough, I'd pitched a zombie movie before The Walking Dead had come out at sci-fi. And they were like, no, no, no, zombies, nobody watches zombies on TV anymore. It's a dead genre. Move on. Then The Walking Dead came out, was a huge success. And they were like, hey, you know, we're we're looking for zombie movies. And I got, remember that pitch I gave you guys? And we turned that into a movie called Zombie Apocalypse, which uh famously or not famously, famously if you've seen it, and most people haven't seen it, but starred Ving Rames and Taryn Manning, uh, which are always uh good to get in your movies, um, and did phenomenally well uh for sci-fi. So basically I was self-taught as a screenwriter, having read all the scripts that I was reading at Sci-Fi and then having taken an interest in that. Um, I forget where I was going with this point, but fast forward to we have this show that's based on this movie. Uh at the time, uh I didn't know enough to be a showrunner, so we brought in Carl Schaeffer, who uh became the co-creator and the showrunner of the series. Um, Carl is kind of the the for uh whether you like Z Nation or hate Z Nation, you know, it's this complete hybrid of Carl's vision based on my original sort of pitch, right? Um, what happened is we were working with a production company and they were not paying us the way that they should be. In fact, uh WGA is is it's public going into this big litigation. So the more work we did for them, the more money they owed us. And then I sold the spin-off uh from that series called Black Summer to Netflix and was going to be the the co-show runner on that show. Um, but we were running into all sorts of problems. Um, we again weren't gonna get paid probably on that or paid what we should be. Um, and then totally randomly the opportunity for Shutter came along. And, you know, I had this real debate of well, can I walk away from being a guy on two shows to going back to the network side? Will I ever get back to writing? But on the other hand, I'm in this bad relationship with the studio who the more work we do, the more money they owe us. And now we've sold them a sequel and they've pitched to Netflix, who bought it, but we're still working with this production company. We're never gonna get paid for that, and we're not even getting paid well to begin with. So it kind of was a decision that I wouldn't say it made itself, but if I stayed where I was, I was just gonna do a bunch of work for people who were screwing me over, or I could jump back, you know, onto the network side. And I had always, when I was at sci-fi, thought that a streaming service, this is sort of before the Netflix days and stuff, but a streaming service for genre fans would be successful. And so, lo and behold, someone had created Shutter. They said, Hey, you know, we created this thing, we're not sure what to do with it. And I was like, I know what to do with it. So they hired me and I've been here since it's the right decision, although it's sort of heartbreaking because you know, I had sort of two series, uh, one of which, uh, Black Summer, even though my name's on as a executive producer, I had literally nothing. They threw out the show I sold them and made up a whole new show. Uh so you know, talk about heartbreaks, right? Everyone's like, oh, we love Black Summer. And I was like, Well, John Hyams is really the showrunner on that show, and he's a great guy and a great writer director. But, you know, ask him all your questions and give him all your kudos because I had nothing to do with it other than selling a version that uh never got made.

SPEAKER_04 28:36

There's quite a lot to unpack there. What a shame in a way. I mean, I think what happened to you? It obviously happened to lots of writers, and we hear lots of stories about it. I guess the difference obviously is you were able to walk away and stay in the industry because you could go back to uh working at a network, and obviously there's quite a lot of people where versions of this happen where they get screwed over by some part of the process and then they die, and this is what Noah was talking about earlier, obviously, in terms of how hard it all is. I guess where does that leave you emotionally and sort of in your soul? If I guess if you had a choice now between at Shudder picking up the most amazing show, which becomes the next huge cultural phenomenon and having that level of what would be financial success and also sort of career success as an exec, or somehow getting a chance to do one of your own shows again that goes, you know, uh whichever network takes it or streaming service, and it's your show that is that incredible success. Are you in your mind, is that still the biggest success, or would you be happy to have huge success as an exec?

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Another great question. Um probably my heart would say I want uh, you know, my own show to be. I mean, if you're saying like big success, like, hey, this will support you for the rest of your life, or just, you know, I don't think people realize that having a successful show does not mean you're set for life and doesn't guarantee you the next job. In fact, you can have a successful show that runs, you know, five seasons and you cannot make really that much money on it, you know, depending upon the deals. Obviously, like huge deals with like Netflix and stuff like that generate tons of money, but there's a lot of deals that really don't. Um, if it was sort of like, hey, you'd have a huge cultural phenomenon show and you'd be hit, yeah, sure, I'll do that. I'll be, you know, George Martin with Game of Thrones or, you know, Robert Kirkman with The Walking Dead. Um, but I have a lot of uh a love for what we're doing here and and finding stuff, right? One of the things is we're able to shine a spotlight on things that otherwise wouldn't get made. Um, and it's very gratifying to help people not only realize their vision, but also make that vision successful. You know, I think one of the things that's really strange about the industry right now is you can sell a movie and a lot of people can watch it, and yet no one will ever talk about it or really hear about it, even though a lot of people have watched it, right? And so one of the things we do at Shudder, and and I'm not pimping the service, it's you know how we sort of separate ourselves from the pack is because um we do a movie, we we basically have a new movie or series every week or episode of a new series. And so we make that the thing. Like if your movie is on Shudder, that's gonna be the movie we're telling all of our members about, and that's what's gonna be the most watched thing that week. Everyone says, well, what's the most watched thing? It's like, well, the thing that we just put on because we spend a lot of time telling people about it. Whereas, you know, I have friends who didn't even know when their movies went on Netflix, let alone if anybody saw them. And um, I won't name any movies, but there's movies I wanted to buy that Netflix bought, I wanted to buy for Shutter that Netflix bought or another service bought, and no one's ever heard of. And I feel like, God, if that had been on Shutter, that movie would have gotten the attention it deserved. You know, one of the things we're we're we're proud of here is um Rotten Tomatoes does this thing, the the best movies of you know, 2020, 2021, 2022. And those are based on, you know, the tomato meter score. And I think this year we have six of the top seven, or last year we had six of the top seven best reviewed movies of the year. Now, the tomato meter doesn't really reflect viewing as so much as sort of critics' acceptance of the movies, right? So it's a little bit of a you can't really, you know, it's not like, oh, that the tomato meter will tell you the Avengers versus, you know, some small indie film. But I think that our movies are, you know, we have the best horror movie, best reviewed horror movie of the year. I think that means a lot to a lot of people, and it's a lot to their career, and it's a lot for getting the word out. So I I take a great deal of satisfaction in helping people make a movie or a series that's actually gonna kind of make a dent, you know, as opposed to just come and go.

SPEAKER_04 33:01

So you obviously got I guess screwed over, you know, in terms of your writing. Um now you're exact. Are there times you know, without getting obviously into details of contracts and so on, but are there times where as a exec, there are decisions that need to be so this isn't about sort of saying no to people necessarily, this is about sort of the way deals are constructed. Are there times where you're in a position where you need to do something as a network which might not be perfectly in the interest of a writer and you feel bad for them and maybe don't do something? Like you are you, I guess are you a worse exec from a purely commercial side because you don't want to screw anyone over, even remotely, because of what happened to you.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Uh, I think it I think it's actually uh puts us in a in a better position, right? Because I think that we we never we never try to screw anyone over as just a general rule, right? Like we're not that kind, we're not those kind of people. I don't know who those kind of people are because, well, other than this one production company, right? Most of my most of my experiences have been pretty good. Um you know, I would say though, you know, sometimes there's there's a project, you know, again, we're like, we like A, B, and C, but not D and E. You know, someone says we'll do A, B, and C, but they really do D and E. And then we say, well, we're gonna, we're gonna part ways because we really wanted this, you know, and not that. Um, you know, I would say that's probably the only kind of realm where that falls into, where, you know, we sort of um we we kind of it's not that we don't see eye to eye because we were we're very straightforward. Like we're not trying to say, like, we're gonna take your project and throw away D and E and just do A, B, and C. We've we're very straightforward. We say we like, you know, here's this project, you've got A B, C, D, and E. D and E isn't working for us, A, B, and C. If you think you can do that, we want to do it. And then they say yes. And then, you know, every once in a while it doesn't work out. And whether it's creative visions or just, you know, the material doesn't move the person the way that they thought it would if they were going to do it this way. And then we part ways. But I don't think we've ever really uh like, you know, there's there ever a scenario where we feel like somebody should feel screwed over, right? Like that's just not our goal. And certainly we never are not in a place where um like we wouldn't pay somebody, you know what I mean? Like we, you know, like I've been in a position where I'm just not getting paid for work that not only was done but but was a huge success, you know. That's a total realm that, you know, I think, you know, we would never be anywhere near. We we we just try to pay people uh and credit people appropriately. And sometimes if we walk away, but it doesn't happen too often.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Just uh digging in a little bit more to that, you know, the people say, and rightfully so, that this is a uh business based on relationships, right? The people you know, and the further you go in your career, the more people you know, and it it does get a little bit easier for sure. But you know, you're in our tribe, and by our tribe I mean writers. You're a writer and you're an exec, which means that your circle of friends probably includes a bunch of really good writers. You mentioned Javi, who was on this podcast as well. Like, you know, these are these are high-level writers with ideas. So is there ever a situation where you want to make something happen, but you can't? There's a relationship, like people are saying, hey, a drink's Craig, let's do this thing. And you know, obviously you have a network that you can green light things, but you can't green light all your friends' projects too. Is there ever, does it ever create a weird, you know, there are kind of lines that you need to create where, hey, this is I can't just be doing buddy buddy? Or conversely, these are great writers, and now you have this pool of great writers all around you who you can utilize every now and then when you guys are buying scripts because you say you often buy, you know, completed films. So I'm just kind of curious about those lines.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Yeah, you know, for me, they're they're they're a little blurred, but not as much as you think. First of all, everybody is kind of friendly. Like I know a lot of execs who are friends and champions of lots of writers, and they probably uh, even though I have probably over a hundred Hollywood friends who are successful writers, they have more, right? And they know each other because that's that's that's their job. Um, the only thing uh that is tough for me to do is when somebody I know, they'll pitch me, like they'll message me on Twitter or send me a LinkedIn thing, or you know, they'll kind of go around the process. And it's like, well, really, you know, we kind of have a process and you need to, you know, just send it to me the regular way. Uh, you know, usually like your agent will reach out to us, or you can reach out to me, but like use my work email. You know, I do have a lot of friends who will pitch us stuff. Um, the other thing is we get a lot of pitches from people um who think they know what shutter is, but they haven't used shutter. So they're pitching us the wrong thing. So they'll say, I've got a perfect thing for shutter purely because it has the label horror on it and we're a horror service. But if you have watched Shudder, you would know that that was really not the thing, or if you kept, you know, abreast. So I definitely have had things where, you know, people have pitched me stuff and I sort of feel like, you know, I wish you'd done your homework on that and not just thrown this thing at me because it's a horror script, you know, like like like our friendship means that you should probably know what I'm doing if you're if you're gonna pitch me. Those ones are a little difficult. And a lot of times just say, hey, that's not right for us. Thanks, you know, it's a pass. Um there's definitely been a few people I've really wanted to work with on projects and that have fallen through for other reasons. Not, you know, I don't work with anyone just because they're my friend. You have to have a great project. Um, however, I have had a couple of friends pitch me great projects that I wanted to do, and a couple of those fell apart. Some of those were um like on the TV side, we still do, you know, co-productions where, you know, they're getting dollars from other countries and you know, we're putting only in money from our territories as opposed to Netflix, right? Which is just funding the whole thing from the ground up. And people will bring me a project that we really like and they'll have funding in place from other countries. And then that funding falls apart, and then we can't do the project. You know, our money is sitting there ready to go, but if you don't have the rest of the money, we don't we don't have the rest of the money. That's that's on you to get, right? Um, and there's there's like one director in particular who we talked to, very, very well known. You know, you would you would know him, you've seen his movies. We love him. It's a great guy. Um there's a project I've wanted to do literally since like the day I got in Shutter four years ago that we've almost done like two or three times. But the problem is, you know, they have sold uh they, you know, they have sales in other territories that will cover their funding, but then it ends up falling through, and then we can't do it. So ready, ready and willing to do some of those projects when they come along. But you know, there's a lot of moving parts. Or, you know, we'll get pitch projects that have somebody attached to them that we really think will help us break through the clutter. Maybe it's an actor, maybe it's a director, you know, something. And then that element falls out, and then we can't really do the project without it only because the project wouldn't go anywhere. Like it's it's that's you know, that that element was the thing that was making it work. And that's not like, oh, you know, bring us Ben Affleck, Sandra Bullock, you know, and and and you know, whatever, Guillermo del Toro, and it's a go picture. You know, it's just more like there's kind of one element that kind of sold us on it with this person, and then that person leaves. And they were kind of like a key creative element, and you can't really do it without them. That happens quite a bit. A lot of, you know, we run into a lot of scheduling conflicts with people. And, you know, uh, we're not the size of Netflix, we're not the size of Amazon Prime. So if you have a project with us, but then Netflix comes around, you're probably gonna end up going to do the Netflix one. They're probably have bigger budgets and all that. And you know, no, no harm, no foul. We understand that.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

That's that's that's super interesting. All right. Unfortunately, we are now at the time of the podcast where we were at our last question. And you are are super uniquely positioned to answer this question that we ask all our guests, which is I'm excited. If you have one piece of advice to give somebody entering this business, uh in this case, I'll keep it broad. We often will say, you know, if you're a writer, talk to writers. If you're a network exec, talk to you know, execs or a director, talk to directors. But if you have one piece of advice to anybody entering this business, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Always be doing the work, right? Whatever's going on around you, you can't control. You can't control if somebody's like scheming behind your back and you have no way to know it. You can't control if, you know, uh a new whatever CEO or someone came in and changed the direction of everything. You know, you can't control that. What you can control is the stuff that you're creating and always be creating because the thing is, there is a huge appetite out there for stuff, even though it doesn't seem like it, right? Everybody on this side of the of the of the screen lives or the writing table or whatever you want to call it lives for the day, you get a project that is undeniably so good that you cannot not do it, right? Um, so you know, if you and it doesn't even necessarily uh, you know, it's not like um you have to have talent, right? It's like a great idea executed fine, you know, not it doesn't have to be the most amazing execution. It doesn't have to be the best written script, it has to be, you know, written so that we can understand it, right? But like the ideas are kind of the things that win out. And I think sometimes people get a little in the weeds around writing and, you know, oh, you know, do I break up action paragraphs into little bullets? You know, I hear a lot about that, you know, and I'm like, I don't care, right? Like I can read anything as long as it's gonna keep pulling me along and and and you know, grabs my interest. Um, what I will say is we see a lot of the same stuff, especially in horror, right? There's a lot of established tropes. When I was at Sci-Fi Channel, we would just get pitched kind of the same version of an idea over and over again in a slightly different format. And people sort of would say, Oh, you know, this is a new fresh idea. And we're like, Yeah, I got like six scripts with that new fresh idea, you know. I, you know, it's that crisp idea that really breaks through. Like, and and I will say, like, if you have an idea that you can sell in a log line, it's probably a really good idea, right? Like, you know, I go back to host, right? Host two words, Zoom seance. We got that immediately. Now, obviously, we had been familiar with the the director had done this short that he put online, but like immediately we're like, that's great. People will watch that. I will watch that. I know exactly what that is, I can see how much fun that would be. You know, I guess it should be Zoom Seance Goes Wrong, but really, you know, Zoom Seance, because it's horrid always goes wrong, right? So, um, but but always be creating, coming up with the ideas and don't worry so much. You know, I mean, but Cormac McCarthy doesn't even use punctuation, and he's like a fantastic writer who's written not only novels, but those novels have been translated to the screen. And you know what? Like somebody somewhere would be like, oh, you can't possibly submit a novel without punctuation. Well, you can if it's good, right? So, you know, work on that, the story part and the character part and get that part, you know, make that super compelling and don't worry about mechanics of stuff, you know, and and don't have one idea, right? I mean, you know, I think, you know, you got to keep coming up with ideas and pitching them. And the ideas that don't sell now, maybe they'll sell in five years or 10 years, you know, who knows? But always be coming up with stuff, always be working, control the stuff you can control. Try not to as much as possible, although that can be very hard. Worry about the stuff you can't control.

SPEAKER_04 44:47

Excellent. That's fantastic. Craig Engler, uh, great writer, kind, nice, and sympathetic executive. Thank you very much for being part of our podcast. Thank you for having me, and good luck.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

Good luck to everybody listening.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

And that's a wrap on this episode of Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss. As always, we want to thank James Launch for the amazing theme music.

SPEAKER_04 45:14

Before we sort of thank our wives and stuff, do you think anyone actually listens this far or do they stop when the music comes back in?

SPEAKER_01 45:20

I think they normally stop after you mention your second and third podcast, that'd be my guess. Well, I haven't mentioned them yet, though, have I? Uh, if you do want to reach out with us to us for criticisms, complaints, or praise, uh, you can either reach out to us through the website or I am at NEBslin on Twitter. And Dan, do you have an account?

SPEAKER_04 45:40

Not that anyone really cares about. So if you've got complaints about the show, go to NEbslin and feel free to air those. If you have praise or you want to pay us in some way for something, come to at Dan Rutstein. And have a great day.