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Apr 30, 2024

John and Craig investigate what characters know and how we know they know what they know. It’s something that can be as confusing as that last sentence was, but they offer clear guidance on building informed characters, audience expectations, and how to get everybody on the same page.

We also look at how ad breaks...


Apr 23, 2024

John welcomes writer and comedian Alex Edelman to look at how he wrote his solo show Just For Us, and dig into the meaning of “write what you know.” They discuss finding your voice as a writer, developing your story with an audience, why Alex doesn’t write his shows down, and the sample that first got him...


Apr 16, 2024

John and Craig can’t help but look at intrinsic motivations — those specific internal drives that guide characters behavior. They discuss how to structure and expose that internal drive, the importance of an innate irritability, how it can stop your characters from becoming flat, and rewarding that...


Apr 9, 2024

John and Craig lawyer up with criminal defense attorney Ken White (aka Popehat) to look at legal scenes in movies and TV, and separate the tropes from the truth.

How do lawyers actually prepare a case? Will they meet a client in jail? Do they need to gather evidence themselves? And what happens when they go to trial?...


Apr 2, 2024

John and Craig look at four unbelievable stories in the news and ask, How Would This Be a Movie? Stories include a finance journalist who was scammed out of her savings, men who offer dating bounties, a franken-sheep made of cloned animal parts, and how standardized tests changed one woman’s life.

We also reveal...