679 - The Driver’s Seat
Scriptnotes Podcast
John August
4.8 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2025
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John welcomes back Liz Hannah (The Girl From Plainville, The Post) to ask, how do you know if a character can carry a story? They look at ways of identifying your protagonist, defining privileged storytelling power, and the choices to make when figuring out which characters can hold narrative point of view.
We also look a the phenomenon of the “Stranger in the Room,” follow up on writing during crazy times, brain trusts, plays vs movies, the phrase “begs the question,” and the usefulness of sharing your pronouns.
In our bonus segment for premium members, John and Liz explain the difference between East LA, West LA, and why the valley might beat them both.
Links:
- Liz Hannah on IMDb and Instagram
- Episode 676 – Writing while the World is on Fire
- Slate Culture Gabfest
- The Post | Screenplay
- Episode 128 – Frozen with Jennifer Lee
- Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2 on Disney+
- Highland Pro
- The Girl From Plainville on Hulu
- The Dropout on Hulu
- “The Stranger in the Room” by @toddalcott on Threads
- Episode 399 – Notes on Notes
- Dragonsweeper by Daniel Benmergui
- Dare I Say It by Naomi Watts
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
- Craig Mazin on Threads and Instagram
- John August on BlueSky, Threads, and Instagram
- Outro by Spencer Lackey (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
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome. My name is John August, and you're listening to Episode 679 of Script Notes, |
| 0:07.0 | a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. |
| 0:10.0 | Today on the show, Who's Behind the Wheel? We'll discuss point of view and storytelling in both film and TV, |
| 0:15.6 | both on the script and scene level. We'll also talk about the most dangerous person in the room, |
| 0:20.2 | plus we'll answer listener questions on visual effects, syntax, and dealing with clingers. And in our bonus |
| 0:26.2 | segment for premium members, we'll explain east side versus west side for non-angelinos, also known |
| 0:31.8 | as why Craig and I never see the ocean. Craig is gone this week, but luckily we welcome back a very |
| 0:37.2 | special guest. Liz Hannah is a writer, but luckily we welcome back a very special guest. |
| 0:38.3 | Liz Hannah is a writer, producer, and director whose credits include The Girl from Plainville, |
| 0:42.3 | the Dropout, Mind Hunter, Longshot, and The Post. Welcome back, Liz Hannah. |
| 0:46.8 | Thank you. Thanks for having me. |
| 0:48.9 | We're so excited to see you. We've been trying to schedule you for a bit. You've been |
| 0:52.1 | super busy, but this was the week. I texted and you got right back to me. |
| 0:55.4 | I'm so happy to catch up with you. |
| 0:57.8 | Me too. |
| 0:58.3 | I'm so happy we got it done. |
| 0:59.8 | I know we've been keep trying to do it. |
| 1:01.8 | In 2025, just like 2024, the wheel keeps turning. |
| 1:06.1 | The wheel does keep turning. |
| 1:07.7 | We've talked a lot about sort of that was weird and unique about 2025 already. |
| 1:12.3 | We had Dennis Palumbo on to talk through sort of how you try to get creative work done in this |
| 1:16.9 | I loved that episode. I loved that episode. Thank you. It was great. I mean, I feel like, |
... |
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