Take 109 - Writer and Showrunner David Slack - Person of Interest, Law and Order, Teen Titans

SPEAKER_00 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_03 0:20

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

SPEAKER_02 0:26

This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default. That's the thing you would have to be able to persevere.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Like everything in our business here depends on the out.

SPEAKER_00 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_03 0:58

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SPEAKER_01 1:20

Dan, I I think this is where they actually want me to talk about how much I love it. And I do love it, it's great. Its collating function transformed me from the messiest writer in Hollywood to, well, ever so slightly less messy. My wife might have other things to say about that. Sitha listeners can get a free month of scriptation by going to scriptation.com backslash scitha.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

For those of you who don't understand slightly drawly American accents, that's scriptation.com backslash S-I-T-H-A. 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 2:10

And I am your back-to-work industry co-host, Noah Epslin. On today's Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, I'm thrilled to introduce TV writer and executive producer David Flack to the podcast. David is an animation and television writer and producer. He has written andor produced on such shows as Law and Order, Lie to Me, in Playsight, Teen Titans, Jackie Chan Adventures, Generator Rex, Transformers, Crime, and more recently, Cursing of Interest, APB, and the 2016 reboot of MacGyver. Welcome, David.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

Thank you. It's great to be here. Excellent. So obviously, this is a a podcast audio only. So uh people can't see the video. But as we sit here, I'm looking at the video. And like all good writers, behind you is a selection of posters. So I can see a law and order, I can see a person of interest, a lie to me. I'm thinking that's Teen Titans down there.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Yeah, that's the uh that's the the first uh character size comp uh from Teen Titans that I got signed.

SPEAKER_03 3:10

So the question is so you've got those four on your wall. What's the fifth thing that you would love to have had on your wall that's never got made?

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Oh, that never got made? Oh god. Um I have a couple of favorite pilots. Uh probably the first one that comes to mind is one called Des and Lu that I wrote uh during the pandemic. Uh sold it to NBC. And it was, you know, I was not prepared for there to be a global pandemic uh financially or strategically. Um uh and you know, went through that summer, and went out with projects that I think any other year I would have sold. Crickets, nobody's buying, you know, and it was in 2020, it was that like it the ups and downs of, oh, we think it's gonna be over. And then, no, it's not gonna be over. Uh, so and that would like warm up and chill the buying market. So I was getting, I was on unemployment for the first time in my life. Uh, I took six months mortgage forbearance, um, uh, and desperately needed to sell something. And on October 16th, I had two pitches in one day for two separate projects. And I I sold one of them in the room, and that was Des and Lou. And the other one I found out a week later, I sold the deal never made. So, um, but uh Des and Lou's it's it's a spy show. I love it, and it's fun. And it took NBC, I think, two years to actually pass on it. Like they they they waited that long. So I I would I would love to make that one. There's a there's a show that we might talk about in a bit, um, based on a Chuck Wendig book called Invasive that I adapted into a a series called Unthinkable. My my joke pitch for it is it's the X Files meets the X Files, it's just the fucking X Files. Um, so uh there's there's there's a couple, but though those are the first two that really spring to mind that I would I would love to have made, and no such luck so far.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

Fantastic. We we had Chuck on the podcast actually. He didn't he didn't mention that one. Um, but he had some. I mean, he wrote the book, the book got made. So Chuck's done his part. My shit fell apart. But and this is something I'm interested in. So obviously, there's plenty of writers at right at the beginning of their career who tried to sell two things in a year with or without a global pandemic and fail, and that's just what it is. When you're when you have been successful, when you've had a reasonably good strike rate, your name is associated with some very, very serious shows. Um when you fail, it's obviously different to early career failures. How much of it is this is annoying because I know how to make stuff and this is really good, and you're not gonna let me make it? And how much of it is I wonder if I'll never work again?

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Oh, dude, all of the above. All of the above. Because you've got the rational side of your brain that knows the business and understands that we're enduring the hedge fundification of Hollywood, where, you know, I mean, you know, 50 years ago, and many people have said this, but you know, 50 years ago, even the most like hard-nosed studio head still loved movies and TV shows. I I don't think that's true about David Zaslov. Um, you know, I I think we're increasingly in a marketplace where people are, you know, shelving shit to juke the stock price. Um, you know, so uh I know that intellectually, and you tell yourself that, but it's cold comfort to the emotional artist that's just poured your heart and soul and you know, your memories and your life experience into something that you love. Um, and also, you know, I I've done a lot of work on inclusion and equity and diversity uh when I was uh on the board of the writers guild. Um, and the the hardest topic, uh frankly, to talk about is ageism. You know, you talk to people about, you know, all these other types of discrimination and they're like, Yeah, we get it, we need to do better. And you start talking about ageism and you kind of get the smirk. They're like, Yeah, but I mean, didn't didn't they get old? Isn't that on them? So, you know, uh at this point, with you know, some gray or uh I hope white in my beard, uh um, like I just hope it white because I think it looks better. Um, uh, but you know, at this point, I'm now when I miss out on a job, I'm like, oh, is this the beginning of the end? Is this the point where, you know, because I mean, I I went overnight in my perception from being like one of the young new kids in the room to suddenly being the oldest guy in the room. And that's you know, where did the other people go? You know, it's just like there's there's a there's a cliff out there that I can't see, and I I just know, you know, that because of ageism, we tend to fall off it. So I I I get very scared about that. And it's you know, it's hard to talk about. And I'm actually having mixed feelings talking about it right now on a podcast because I don't want people to think of me as as older. I'm not that old. I'm not that old, guys.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

You you you look very young, and I do want to add to all our listeners that I am still 25. So if you were wondering how old I am, I'm only 25 and I'm perpetually 25.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Yep, yep. I just I've got the 32nd birthday coming up, it's a big milestone. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Okay I was comment and then a question. Uh, comment is to your point about your dead pilots. We've talked about this before. We've had people on the podcast in that period of time, huge showrunners who were also struggling, not selling things. So you were not alone during that time. You're actually live during that moment. So people like, great pitch, crickets, and how painful it is, which we've talked about when we come back to talking about that when pilots die, maybe that's changing slightly now, how hard it is to resurrect them. It's like that died in night 2019 for reasons that had nothing or 2020 that had nothing to do with the pilot, and it's so hard sometimes to bring these great ideas back for reasons that I will never comprehend. But that will that's hopefully changing. Now, my question, and this is a hypothetical question. Hypothetically, if you were young, when you were young in your career, um, and you wrote or maybe didn't write an independent film that didn't go anywhere, hypothetically, did this independent film bring you to Hollywood and why?

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Yeah, yeah. I I graduated college in the mid-90s, and uh I it was the height of the independent film boom, and me and two of my dear friends, um uh uh four actually, there were four of us by the end. Um uh it was Eric Hayden who does VFX, uh, now Kari Payton, who people know from The Walking Dead, and Nathan Amundsen, who was a set designer. Um, I think now he's working in amusement parks, but we started a film company and we were trying to make a movie in Dallas. Um, and we were literally trying to make our independent film while they were shooting bottle rocket, you know, the first Wes Anderson movie on the other side of town. Um, and we fucking weren't. So it, you know, and I pushed on that for three years. It was three years of, you know, we we shot part of it, we went to film festivals, um, you know, did that whole push. I actually uh at the on the film festival circuit meant uh Dante Harper, who's now a WGA uh board member and a well-known screenwriter. Um uh so I'd known Dante for a million years. Um and it was my first experience with failure, you know, because I was three years into this. I was, you know, working at Whole Foods and various other jobs to pay the bills. I started making websites uh when that was a thing. And um in early 1997, uh we started to hit the wall one by one. And uh, you know, it ultimately became clear to me that like it's hard enough to get a movie made. I can't make a town that knows how to make movies, uh, that doesn't know how to make movies, make movies. So I realized I needed to come to Los Angeles, which I was I was reluctant to do. I grew up in Texas, and you know, everybody there, if you talk about moving to LA, they're like, well, you know it's gonna fall into the sea. Um, so uh, but so ultimately I just had to, and I had borrowed money from family to to do this, which was really hard. And I had to admit, you know, I'm I can't remember how old I was. I think it was around 25 when I moved out, um, that I failed, that I I tried to do this and I failed, you know. And I I certainly, you know, rationalized it to myself, and I think there's some truth to this, that this was my grad school and it was cheaper than grad school, but still I tried to do a thing and I couldn't fucking do it. Um, and there were a lot of reasons for that. Uh, but I just couldn't do it and I had to accept that. And in a way, that was ultimately freeing because I was coming to Los Angeles having already poured my heart and soul and all of my free time uh into a project and had very little to show for it. Um, uh and it reached a point for me creatively where I'm like, I just got to get away from this thing. Uh so it uh it it was freeing in a way because I realized that, like, well, you know you fail and your success is measured not by the fact that you failed, but by the fact that you got up and moved on. Um, you know, and uh so I came out in '97, and within uh about two years, I got my first writing job, uh, writing a kids' cartoon show. Um, so you know, you just pick yourself up. And that's the other thing I learned is that uh anywhere else in your life, I've said this a million times, but anywhere else in your life, you want to have a real specific plan, right? Like if you're going on vacation, I want to know what flight I'm taking, what hotel I'm staying in, how I'm getting a rental car. Your career in this business, it's just hitchhiking. Who is going west? You know, I was trying to be very specific about how I was going to succeed and the terms under which I wanted to succeed. I want to make this film, you know. And as soon as I shifted to I want to get paid to make shit up. And I don't, you know, I'm not super picky about how that happened. Doors started to open that I previously couldn't even see. Um, and you know, so I started out in a corner of the business that, you know, some people, some of my friends at the time would turn their nose up at. I don't want to get pigeonholed as a kid's animation writer. But, you know, I went on and did that. I have over a hundred credits and uh wouldn't trade it for the world.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

We have we had so much to unpack there. We had uh Jeremy Adams on recently, a friend of mine who is an animation writer primarily, but also writes live action, and he talked about how hard it is to make that how how how thick that wall is between animation and live action. Although most of my animation writer friends are so so talented, they write so quickly. There's so many skills that are transferable, but the other side of the industry doesn't want to look at them. Very similar to, I guess, features and TV for a while was very bifurcated. I think many TV writers are frustrated feature writers who pivoted early, which is same same for me. I came as a feature writer and then I fell into TV and I'm still barely getting a you know a foothold into the feature world because it's so separate. Are you do you still have ambitions to write features? Did that go away? Are you still gonna make your indie? Are you gonna come back 25 years later and make that movie that you never uh make?

SPEAKER_02 14:40

I I would love to, you know, get something going in the feature business. I I've tried, it's you know, I I think what the situation you describe is a result of the people who hire and fire us not understanding something that most writers I think know, which is writing is writing is writing. You know, when I went from I went from running Teen Titans with Glenn Murakami to Law and Order as a staff writer. So I was running a show, uh, it was the number the number one show on the number three cable network, cartoon network, but uh, and then I was started over as a staff writer at Law and Order, and I was super fucking intimidated, you know, because I I like got I have a degree in theater studies, right? And I'm writing a law show. So I got, you know, Black's Law Dictionary, and I'm, you know, trying to figure this stuff out. And then there was a point for me where I was sitting in my office trying to, you know, work on this break because there was no room on law and order. Uh, it was independent study, and it just clicked, and I was like, oh, their police powers are their superpowers. Got it. And I was fine after that. Um, you know, and I was there three years. So writing is writing is writing. And, you know, I mean, I still have ambitions to try and get a decent play written. Um, because you know, theater is my first love. So uh I I think uh the the mode of Hollywood and the and the fact that the people who hire us don't understand how we do what we do, which is part of why we make them so mad, um uh really, really sort of creates these silos for us in our careers that uh our our talent has nothing to do with that. You know, like it's if you can write there certainly like I when I try to write uh prose fiction, you know, like if I try to write a novel, I really fucking struggle because I'm like, do I really have to describe every room? That's what the production meetings are for, you know, like all my years in TV have made it really hard to do that sort of writing. Um, but you know, going from TV to features, uh, I think and and it's not as rigid as it used to be. You know, like when I crossed over from kids' animation to prime time, I was one of I think two or three people who had done that. And now there's, you know, significantly more. So it's it's not as rigid. There's more flow between features and TV. I mean, Akala Cooper uh and Adele Limp, both TV writers, who've now gone on to fantastic success um in features, which is richly deserved because they're incredibly talented. So I I think that those walls are less rigid, but they're still there.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Yeah. Great, great answer. And also like the fact that the two other people you mentioned have both been on the show as well. This is this is good. Um they're both wonderful, wonderful people.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

I love them both very much.

SPEAKER_03 17:25

So I'm gonna continue my theme of looking at things behind you, um, which we maybe should do this as a video podcast because I feel like they're missing out. So I'm not gonna I'm not interested in your plant, although it's quite nice. Um, I notice you've got burn it down. Um yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Which I'm I'm quoted burn it down several times. Yeah, yeah. Uh Maureen sent me that copy, Mo.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Yeah, so obviously Mo's been on a couple of times as well. But I just using her book as a starting point. Obviously, you seem I'm asking you because you seem very comfortable complaining about the industry. Um, so um there's obviously dysfunction in the industry. Yeah. Um can you tell without you know saying anything that's going to get you in trouble, can you give us maybe some anonymous examples of where you've seen this, isn't about the sort of structure, it's about some of the behaviors where you've seen poor behaviors um and then vowed that when you became a showrunner that you would never uh copy these poor behaviors.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Oh sure, sure. I mean, you know, it's uh uh you know, I haven't seen the worst of the worst, you know. I mean, uh I've heard absolute horror stories, but certainly I've seen people at every level who, you know, behaved badly. I mean, I worked with Jim Cavizel for four years, for God's sake. You know, so I I've I've seen all sorts of you know bad behavior. Um, but uh, you know, uh, I mean, you you say to yourself that you're not gonna do those things. And uh ultimately I think to a certain extent no amount of saying that really makes it true. Uh, I think it's just ultimately uh who you are, you know, and it's certainly, you know, I've seen people get to that edge and sort of pull back from it because friends are like, come on, man, you know, but uh it's at the end of the day, most people that I work with, um writers in particular, are smart enough to have done something else for a living, something that might have actually been more lucrative and less stressful. Um, but we did this because we wanted to do something fun. Uh and so that's a barometer to me that like this is supposed to be a fun job, uh, because we put up with a lot of shit for this fun job, you know. Like I I've worked, I never pulled an all-nighter in high school or college, never had to. I've pulled more all-nighters than I can count, you know. On Teen Titans, I was pulling about an all-nighter a week, um, just to keep up with the schedule, because they start you three weeks behind schedule and somehow that's your fault, you know. So um so you have to keep in touch, I think, with your gratitude and your sense of joy and the sense that um this is supposed to be a if not a joyful process for everybody, at least a fair and tolerable one. Um, and uh to a certain extent, I've seen people learn that, and I think it's good for us to talk about, but there's also an element of, you know, success is kind of a you know, an amplifier, you know, it can amplify your best traits, it can amplify your worst traits, and uh, I've seen it though. So uh I don't I don't know what else to say about that.

SPEAKER_03 20:47

No, no, that's a that's a really that's a great answer. Um so last question to do with your back wall. Um, I'm gonna return to the Law and Order poster. Uh have you ever been fired from Law and Order?

SPEAKER_02 21:01

Yeah, I that's the only job uh that I think that's the only job I've ever been fired from. And it was I wasn't fired technically. It's that it was the end of my three-year contract, and I just wasn't renewed, but fired is fucking fired. I got fired. Um, because it was after the 2007-2008 strike. You know, I was on strike while I was writing on Law and Order, came back uh at the end of my third year on the show, season 18. Um, Bill Forbes and I uh wrote one episode about Renee Balsay, our boss, getting hit uh by a car on the picket line. Um, the episode's called Strike. Um, and uh so I mean that you know, loosely ripped from the headlines. It was kind of inspired by that. And then the season ended, and I, you know, uh would have been happy to have a job uh just going back the next season. But um, you know, Renee had come in, he hadn't hired me, he had been brought back in after the previous showrunners. I mean, the you know, law and order, the it's kind of like the the monster is so big, the only thing you can really Do is chop off the head. So the showrunners have changed a lot over the years. But so I wasn't one of Renee's people. And he was interested in bringing somebody else in at my level. And so I got let go. And that said, like I I've had, you know, lovely interactions with Renee since then. You know, like he's, you know, um, he's a hell of a union member, uh, particularly if you like poutine. Um, he bought a ton of poutine trucks for people on the picket lines. Um, uh, but it was it was a really rough time because, you know, I had gone through that strike a hundred days, which now seems quaint. Um, and I was paying alimony based on my law and order salary uh at the time. And so it pretty well cleaned me out. And it was a very tough time to not have a job. And I wasn't really, you know, expecting to get let go. So uh I think by the time it happened, I'd missed most of the staffing season dance, um, which was a bummer. Uh, because that back then, now it's kind of year-round, but back then it was very seasonal. Like there was, you know, April, May, that was when you got a job. And if you didn't get a job, you weren't getting one. Uh, but luckily, a you know, a few months later, uh, I think it was in August, um, uh, I got an opportunity to go work on in plain sight, um, uh which, you know, saw me through. But it was, you know, it's uh it's hard to deal with the idea that like, you know, oh, you don't you don't want me to work here, you know, and having been on the other side of it, having been in the room uh when uh some other writers have been fired, uh it's a brutal moment. It's just it's brutal, you know. And um, you know, when I've been on the other side of that, I I try to make really clear that, you know, it's uh uh it's it's frequently about a fit, you know. I I really believe that pretty much everybody who's written a sample that's good enough to get them a job um has a place where they can thrive, you know. And that was sort of what Renee said to me, you know, he called me weirdly three months later, um, and it said, like, you know, you're a wickedly funny guy, and I just think your talents would be served better on another show. I I don't know how much that was it, but um, I I do think to a certain extent, you know. Um, and you know, sometimes it's just you know, it's not working out. So it's it it hurts though. It still hurts, like honestly, to think about it. Cause it was, dude, I needed that money, man. I needed that job. And I loved writing that show. So, you know, not my favorite day.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

So interesting. And again, a lot to unpack. And I think that there is um, you know, people don't realize, and we've talked about it a few times on this show, how often writers get fired. When you're on a show, like a franchise show, and you and it's like looks like it's gonna go for a long run, and the crew will be like, we're gonna have a job for eight to ten years. And I'm like, you know, the crew has it hard. I'm not dismissing what the crew does, and they have a challenging job. So that's not what I'm saying here. But yeah, the writer is often the first people to go before any crew member might get let go, and they don't realize how often we get transitioned for reasons just because the screw the showrunner wants someone else to come in, or they're just you know, felt like they've they've used all your ideas.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Um, I do though want to talk a little bit about, you know, if you don't know, this is this is probably not the first time you've heard the name David Slack because David Slack is one of probably two social media accounts you should have been following during the strike, the other one being Fake Carol. So Fake Carol and David Slack, and that's all the information you needed to get. I'm honored to be in that company uh about what was going on our strike. I went back on Twitter just, David, just to kind of track you because uh I could see what you were saying, and then I got a better idea of what the landscape was and what I should be thinking, and it was super helpful. Um, do you find with this type of activism? And I'm I I I will post things as well, and you know, you you you went viral multiple times, that when when you're going against the power structure, the status quo, which we had to in this strike to say that these are there's systematic uh injustices in our business. And now that it's over and the dust is settling, I'm I'm hearing about people like deleting their tweets and like like modifying their Twitter because they're afraid of the long-term ramifications of that. I think your posts, they're out there, man. You you spoke your piece. What do you how do you how do you sort of now deal with the executives and um separate, I suppose, you know, that the people you're working with, the people and the people that you were talking about in some of these tweets and posts, and myself as well.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Well, I mean, at the at the highest level, if I suffer some consequences for doing what I believe was right for myself and my fellow writers, I'm okay with that. You know, that's just that's you know, cool. Like uh you very rarely in life are you handed the opportunity to do something that's both right and effective uh on a on a scale that matters. Um, and so cool. I'll I'll take that if there are consequences. That said, I I don't think there are gonna be consequences. I I've been reassured by you know David Goodman, who certainly you know has caused his own share of trouble, um, thus making him one of my big heroes. Um uh, you know, uh that there's not really anything to worry about. And that that comes down to the fact that, you know, the you know, I may have seriously annoyed Bob Iger or David Zaslov. If they were to issue some edict that I should not be hired by their companies, well, that's illegal. And I'd probably make more money off the lawsuit if I found out about it than I ever would in the rest of my career, because that's sort of that's union busting and it's it's illegal to retaliate against workers. It's a you know, long established. Um, but moreover, uh, the executives that we meet with, and I've already had meetings with executives who actually wanted to meet with me because I was outspoken and you know, and I was in touch with a friend who was an executive, you know, throughout. Um uh so I those executives uh love this business as much as we do. They're as frustrated with the mismanagement at the highest level and the frankly the ignorance at the highest levels uh as we are. Um, they're facing a lot of the same. I mean, look at think about how many times the executives that you know have been through restructurings or layoffs in the last year because of unbridled mergers due to a complete lack of federal antitrust oversight, you know, like they're getting fucked, those guys. And so when they see us stand up for ourselves, um, and that's really what you're doing, that's what it's about. I mean, are people I think the question to ask yourself is are people going to respect me more or less because I stood up for myself? Because yeah, in the moment you might piss them off, but at the end of the day, they also have to respect you because they couldn't walk over you and you didn't let them. I mean, I, you know, I've said this at a WGA meeting. I uh I filed a late pay claim uh when I was on a two-year overall because they'd been paying me late for stuff. I got a five-figure late pay check. Um, that studio still hires me. Uh, because that's the other thing is the people that we deal with for contract enforcement and pay and stuff like that, those aren't the same executives. You know, if somebody from business affairs called and like, you know, he files late pay claims, I I think the executives who want to hire me would be like, okay, so don't fucking pay him late. You know, so like it's just I think that and even that fear about like the whispering of like, well, you should be quiet about this and you shouldn't tell people about that, that's union busting too. You know, at the end of the day, um if the studios are treating us fairly and paying us fairly, there's nothing to complain about. If they're negotiating with us fairly, there's nothing to complain about. So, you know, if I burn up for telling the truth, fine, I'll go do PR for unions. Um, but I just don't think that's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

But I often will say, you know, we get we get faced with dilemmas all the time as writers on all levels. Do you push back? How much do you push back? Often against business affairs. And I'm like, if they're hiring me to be a showrunner, I'm trying to sell a pitch, if you don't push back now, then how will they ever expect you to push back later when you're the actual boss of all of these things, when you can actually stand up for yourself and for your show? I mean, I think that's what they're hiring you to do. So feel free to stand up now because that's uh, you know, that that's what you're supposed to do, and that's the job they're hiring you for.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

But I do real quick, real quick, I think that's so important. I heard a story once about a showrunner got fired. This was a real thing that happened. And a friend of mine that I was working with called the executive because they knew, and they're like, Well, why did why'd you guys fire him? And uh the executive said, He did all our notes. They're paying us for our opinion. We can't just be weathervanes. We're supposed to care, we're supposed to be what we are, have strong opinions about stuff, and and we're supposed to provide vision and leadership. The most successful showrunners I know know what they want. They may not always know how to get it, but if you don't know what you want, I don't know how to help you, you know. So I think we shouldn't be afraid to tactfully state our opinions about anything. So sorry, you were going somewhere though. I jumped in, I just got excited.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

No, and I'm gonna I'm gonna quickly jump in. Um, this is one of these rare moments where, as a non-industry person, I have something relevant to say about my world. But I remember um, you know, I was working for a tech company and I went to negotiate my pay, and my wife said to me, Um, because I I'm British, I don't like to ask for things. And she's like, if you don't push and get a good deal, then what are you saying to him about your ability to run his company? Um, so I was more aggressive than I wanted to be because this was less about how much money I was gonna earn and more I wanted to show that when I'm doing a contract for his company later, I can act like a grown-up. And I think um it's not about creativity, but I think there's definitely something that in a in a leadership, in a leadership world. Yeah. Um, sorry, Noah, back to what will be.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

So I and I think a lot of this is about writers we get stepped on, and then and even about bad showrunners, back to the Morian thing. It's like you we get stepped on, we get stepped on, we get stepped on, and then you're in a position of power and you don't know how to treat people. You know, the only way you know to treat people is the way you've been treated along the way for many showrunners, and this thing turns, the monster turns, they become the you know, so it's you can see it happening along the way, but I guess that's connected to my question because you're you're the perfect person to ask. You're you're you've been a WJ board member, you a big part of this strike, a big part of the agency struggle. The you know, you've been in the industry for a long time. Your posts are well informed. Um, historically, when you're writing something, you have the right data and you understand what you're talking about. So, right now, in this moment in time, we've signed our contract. SAG is discussing theirs. We don't have to get into that. They're discussing theirs. Uh, hopefully they'll ratify if it works for them. And if it doesn't, they'll get a contract that does. Um, my question to you are you, you know, like what sort of keeps you up at night about the business right now that we're heading into? All of the writers who've now signed a contract, we're going back to work. What does the future of TV and film film like feel like to you at this exact second? I mean feel like to you.

SPEAKER_02 33:48

I I don't I don't worry about us. I think the contract that we got protects us. Um, uh, and I worry about civilization because as I was saying all through the strike, they're gonna make an AI that can do a CEO's job a long time before they make one that can do mine. And frankly, a long time before they make one that can do an actor's job, because it's the soul inside the person that makes, you know, the choices. And you can't large language model your way through that, or you know, generative AI your way through that. Um, and by the time you have an AI that can do what we as writers do, you know, you're talking about an artificial general intelligence, which, you know, will start self-improving. And within two to 72 hours, it's probably gonna become an artificial superintelligence, smarter than a human being. And then copyright law is the least of your worries. It's just like hide the nukes and lock the biolabs. Um, so we're gonna have to decide as a civilization do we want to have a society where nobody has jobs, we're all on some sort of universal basic income or welfare, um, and like 15 people have most of the money and we kill them every 10 to 15 years, and then it's a new 15 people. Or we want to have a society where people have jobs and a sense of purpose and their own income and all of that, and we're maybe not quite as efficient as AI might make us. So I I I but I worry about what choice we're gonna make with that. So that's a like broad, and if we go down the rabbit hole of broad civilizational worries, you know, that's a whole other podcast. In the business, the thing that really concerns me is just what I've already talked about, that the hedge fund uh private equity money uh has invaded uh and tech mindsets have invaded our industry, and they're increasingly pushing towards the tech concept of minimum viable product. Um, remember the Katz uh cut that was put out during the pandemic where the VFX weren't finished, you know? You could see like Judy Dench's feet, um, like weird shit that where they're just trying to do as little as possible, and that's not our business. We make dreams come true, we make things that are beyond people's imagination. Um, and I worry about the, you know, stuff. It sounds like they reversed course on it, but like the apparently a really great Wiley Coyote versus Acme movie that uh my friend Zach Bornstein uh worked on. It sounds like it's hilarious, and they're gonna put it on a shelf and just destroy all the copies for a tax write-off. Uh that stuff worries me that uh that we don't have people running these businesses who understand what the product means. And yeah, I I still believe there's no better investment than a hit TV show or movie. You can play around with the stock price all day long. I don't think anything is ever gonna pay you better in the long term than the asset that you create. Uh and their short-sightedness on that has led to the current contraction in the industry. You know, it's like the business plan of as near as I can tell, the business plan of most of these streamers was uh Netflix is doing it. Like, I don't think they thought about how they were gonna make money. I think they only thought about rivaling the competition. Uh, the the relentless focus on IP that they already own uh is stopping us from creating the next generation of IP. You know, if if somebody walked into their offices with the next Star Wars right now, depending on which studio lot they were on, they'd say, Great, can you make that part of the Star Trek universe? You know, like it they're not letting us do the things that have made the business uh so wealthy and so powerful. And and that concerns me. But there are still a ton of people out there who do understand the business in management positions, in upper management. And I would love to see a trend away from you know, finance guys and bean counters towards, you know, people who maybe don't have some of the problems of a Robert Evans, but who have the love of the product uh the way that Robert Evans did. Um, you know, so and nothing against Robert Evans, but I I understand it was a long time ago, it was complicated. But that the, you know, so that's what worries me. That um I mean, the thing I've been saying most of my career is that uh our industry is unique. You'd you'd never have an auto executive where you could show them two cars, one with an engine, one without, and they couldn't, for the life of you, uh, tell them which one was tell you which one was gonna sell better. You know, um, but because our end product is not actually the script or the piece of film, it's the experience the audience has watching it. Nobody can quite tell what's gonna be a hit and what's not. Um, and so we're always guessing. And uh finance people are very uncomfortable with guessing and with trusting your instincts and your heart. So I hope that changes.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

So what what started with a slightly lazy question from Noah because he couldn't think of anything cleverer. You know, what it was a great question. Has turned into one of the best answers, I think we've had in 109 episodes of this podcast. That was extraordinary. I I've never I I've never heard the the obviously I used to work in tech, so I understand the MVP principle, but I've never had anyone sort of talk about it in relation to what's happening. Also, the fact you threw in a pitch in there as well for what's going to happen in the future, which could make a good TV show, or in the film, in the in the Chuck Wending series that I developed, uh that didn't go, which was heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

I it was about a futurist uh who works with the FBI. It's based on Chuck's book Invasive, which is great and everybody should read. Um, you can't read my script because they didn't make it. Um, but uh there's a thing in there where the futurist has like flash forwards to like things that she's worried about, uh and all of them now have happened. And there's like there's a global pandemic, uh, there's uh uh truck drivers being put out of work by self-driving vehicles, and there's a second American Civil War. Um, so all of them to one degree or another have happened. So um uh we live in hell.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

This is uh yeah, I didn't expect the podcast to take. I know we talk about rejection, failure, and adsity. I didn't think it was of society, I think it was meant to just be Hollywood, but either way, I'll take it mainly. So look, uh unfortunately, given uh the quality of your answers, uh, I would like to keep going, but we are gonna have to stop uh with our final question, which we ask every guest, although based on some of the answers you've given, who knows where this is gonna go. Um, if you could give a single piece of advice to somebody entering the industry uh today, what would that single piece of advice be?

SPEAKER_02 40:37

Probably uh don't worry about getting the job, just win the meeting. That's that's my first advice to people. There's any number of reasons that people might not be able to hire you, or you might not be the right fit for that job. But if you win the meeting, which is walking out, leaving them saying, Man, I'd really like to hire that person. Um that's uh that seems to lead to good things. And you know, and the the other corollary that, because that's a a little failure in and of itself, um, is that you never know where failure is going to lead. My my favorite thing about what we do is that every script has a life of its own. And scripts that I have written that I thought, you know, I wouldn't have been on person of interest had they not read uh a failed pilot that I wrote, you know. So um uh even failure is progress and opens doors. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 41:33

David Schlank, this is gonna go down as one of the more memorable episodes of our podcast. Thank you very much indeed for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here.

SPEAKER_03 41:44

Thank you for listening to this episode of Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss brought to you by Scriptation. Thank you as ever to James Launch for the music, and thank you to our loyal listeners. And if there's any showrunners out there who want to hear their fellow showrunners abused uh and ruffled around and put under the microscope so you can hear their stories of rejection failure and adversity, please send them our way. If you are interested in following us on social media, oh I've lost track.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

I am at NEBslin on Twitter or X or whatever Elon Musk now calls it. And thanks to Elon Musk, I'm also at Noah Ebslin on Hive, Spoutable, Blue Sky, Threads, Mastodon, MySpace, French Stirf, and I'm sure a thousand