591 - Collective Narratives
Scriptnotes Podcast
John August
4.8 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 14 March 2023
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John and Craig welcome back writer/producer Megana Rao to discuss techniques to explain what happened in the world of a movie before the movie began. How do we use past events as touchstones, and how does our interpretation of events become the narrative in our culture?
Then Megana tells us her story of getting staffed. How does a new writer join the WGA, and what is expected of a writer on your first day? She also answers listener questions and shares advice she’s learned from her time on our show.
In our bonus segment for premium members, Megana introduces John and Craig to Get Ready With Me videos.
Links:
- How to Become a Member of the WGA
- Conceiving the 2000s by Noah Smith
- Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams
- The Romantics on Netflix
- Logitech Lift Vertical Mouse
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
- Craig Mazin on Instagram
- John August on Twitter
- John on Instagram
- John on Mastodon
- Outro by Lex Kornelis (send us yours!)
- Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode here.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome. My name is John August. My name is Craig Mason. |
| 0:06.3 | And this is episode 591 of Scriptouts, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. |
| 0:12.9 | Today on the show, how do we establish what happened in the world before the movie began? |
| 0:17.3 | We'll look at collective narratives and waste to get the audience up to speed. |
| 0:20.5 | We'll also discuss getting staffed and joining the WGA. |
| 0:23.7 | Tell us do all of that. We welcome back our beloved scripted-n-s producer, Megan Arrow. Welcome back! |
| 0:30.7 | Hello. |
| 0:31.6 | Oh, that's a lot of fun. |
| 0:33.5 | I'm feeling very shy. |
| 0:35.2 | Nothing is shy. |
| 0:36.6 | Yeah, I mean, you've done this so many times. |
| 0:39.4 | Yeah. |
| 0:40.4 | You're good. She's like, the kid is running around all the living room, like before the guests come over |
| 0:44.2 | and the guests come into the living room and I think they hide back behind their parents. |
| 0:47.1 | Yeah, exactly. |
| 0:48.0 | You're doing great. |
| 0:48.8 | Megan, we lost you because you went off to work on a television show. |
| 0:53.2 | So a Netflix comedy. |
| 0:54.8 | Yes. |
| 0:55.5 | On a scale of one to 14, how has it been working on this Netflix show so far? |
| 1:01.8 | It has been so fun. It absolutely rocks. |
| 1:05.2 | I'm not saying that in a way. |
... |
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