671 - The Best/Worst it Will Ever Be

Scriptnotes Podcast

John August

Screenwriter, Tv & Film, Writing, John, Screenwriting, August, Craig, Screenplay, Mazin

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2025

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

John and Craig look at three extraordinary news stories and ask, How Would this be a Movie? Stories include the United Healthcare CEO assassination, a small town’s process for licensing fortune tellers, and a harrowing I.V.F. mixup.

We also follow up on AI, Flightplan’s source material, Craig’s Belfast accent, and answer a listener question on the order of surnames for writing partners.

In our bonus segment for premium members: Hey Alexa, play John and Craig’s conversation about home automation. I don’t think she heard– HEY ALEXA, PLAY JOHN AND CRAIG’S CONVERSATION ABOUT HOME AUTOMATION.

Links:

The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White
The Conundrum of the Workshops by Rudyard Kipling
OpenAI’s controversial Sora is finally launching today. Will it truly disrupt Hollywood? by Wendy Lee for LA Times
I Went to the Premiere of the First Commercially Streaming AI-Generated Movies by Jason Koehler
A timeline of the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and search for his killer by Michael R. Sisal and Cedar Attanasio for Associated Press
How do you license a fortune teller? by Paul Debole
An I.V.F. Mix-Up, a Shocking Discovery and an Unbearable Choice by Susan Dominus for NYT Magazine
Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground by Stu Horvath
Your Consciousness Can Connect With the Whole Universe by Manasee Wagh for Popular Mechanics
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Craig Mazin on Threads and Instagram
John August on BlueSky, Threads, Instagram, and Mastodon
Outro by Matthew Chilelli (send us yours!)
Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at [email protected]

You can download the episode here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome. My name is John August. All right. Okay. My name is Craig Mason. And you'll listen to episode 671 of script notes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show, it's one of our favorite regular segments. How would this be a movie? Where we take a look at stories in the news and find their adaptable angles.
0:25.1	We also have follow up on AI, listener questions on partner credits, and at our bonus segment for premium members, let's discuss home automation, Craig.
0:28.4	So over this past year, we've added a few things to our house, and you just moved into a new
0:31.6	house.
0:32.0	And so I'm curious what your take is on home automation and what you're doing and what you're
0:35.4	thinking about doing.
0:36.0	This is going to be very educational for me.
0:37.9	I already can tell.
0:39.2	I'm going to learn a lot, and this probably will end up costing me a bit of money.
0:42.6	Yeah.
0:43.2	What are you going to do?
0:45.2	But first, I have a small rant, and so, ooh, crazy I want to have a rant.
0:49.7	You're rubbing my hands together.
0:51.2	So this is a thing that happened twice. And so because it happened twice,
0:54.5	I know it's actually a real thing.
0:55.7	It's not just like one person being weird.
0:57.4	Okay.
0:57.9	Okay.
0:58.2	So I'm at the dentist, and I have a hygienist who's really good.
1:02.1	She's a fast scraper.
1:03.4	Like, it's not painful.
1:05.0	Great.
	...

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