Hey, welcome to the screenwriting life. I'm Meg Lafour. And I'm Lorraine McKenna. We are

professional screenwriters. We've worked together as a team and separately. We've worked

on studio and indie films, live action, and animation from my work on Inside Out and

Captain Marvel. To my work in Pixar Story Department on Up, Brave, and Inside Out.

We are here to share our insights on the craft of screenwriting and also the lights,

had to not only survive the ups and downs, but thrive.

We want to help you become the best screenwriter you can be

and to reassure you that you are not alone on this journey.

Hey guys, welcome back to the screenwriting life.

Today we're talking to Oscar winning VFX veteran Ben Grossman,

who has worked on films like Shutter Island,

The Live Action Jungle Book, and Lion King Films, Star Trek Into the Live Action Jungle Book, and Lion King films, Star Trek

into the Darkness and Hugo, for which he won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

In 2014, he co-founded the production company, Magnopus, which is committed to uniting physical and digital worlds with extraordinary experiences and metaversal storytelling if that idea is confusing to you don't worry it's confusing to me too and luckily Ben can translate because I don't even know what I said is right then you can tell it so thanks for being here

Thanks for being here. Welcome. Oh, I'm so glad to be here. This is very exciting. I'm happy to join you all on my favorite podcast only murders in the edit suite because I think that that's where visual effects artists and writers usually meet each other in the

filmmaking process is on the cutting room floor. And so being here with you is an honor.

Well, we're gonna do our interview with Ben in just a minute with you in just a minute, but before we do, Ben has agreed to be in our weekly segment, Adventures in Screenwriting, where we talk about our week. So we'll let Lorraine go first.

Lorian, how was your week? Well, in the interest of telling the truth and being vulnerable and what we talk about on the show a lot.

I had a very challenging week with very disappointing news and honestly I'm struggling.

You know, we talk on the show about how and honestly I'm struggling.

You know, we talk on the show about how important it is not to quit to hold on to hope to keep writing no matter what and today the lack of stability and the volatility of being a writer is overwhelming and I'm really trying to focus on what I can do and what I have control over and it's hard being, you know, I'm not 27. I have a kid with high stakes medical needs. I need my medical insurance. And the industry seems to be having massive growing pains right now and I don't know what it's going to turn into. So it's I'm thinking a lot about my future, which has to do with my ego and my past, and it's really complicated and I feel a little lost right now, honestly. And we talk on the show too of how do you deal with success and how you deal with failure.

And all I can do right now is just feel my feelings and tell the audience my truth,

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