Hello and welcome.

My name is John August, and this is episode 737 of Script Notes. It's a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Craig is off directing this week, so in his place we have Phil Hay. Hello, John. I'm so excited to have you back on the show. I'm so happy to be here. It's really nice. It must be at least five times he's been on the show. I've got to be a five-timer at this point.

We owe you a jacket.

If not... to have you back on the show. I'm so happy to be here. It's really nice. It must be at least five times he's

been on the show. I mean, we've got to be a five-timer at this point. We owe you a jacket. If not, maybe we can do like a quick fifth right after this. I need the jacket, is what I'm sure. In my notes here, I said designated hitter. Is that a thing? Is that actually apply to what you're doing here? You know, I'd say, first of all, thank you for speaking my language.

I really appreciate that.

I'm trying to. Is that actually apply to what you're doing here? You know, I'd say, first of all, thank you for speaking my language.

I really appreciate that. I'm trying to speak baseball. I would say pinch hitter would be more of the... Pinch hitter. Yeah, pinch hitting for Craig. We got a lefty on the mound. It's time for me to shine. Today on the show with a lefty on the mound, I want to talk about making movies

inside the studio system

and outside the studio system on the periphery

because two of my favorite movies that you've done are movies that are made not in the like, let's sell at a festival route, but like with outside money and ways that we don't talk about much on the show. Yeah, I'd be glad to talk about it. We'll also answer some listener questions about themes and productivity.

And in our bonus segment for premium members, I want to go back to one of your earliest films, the iconic documentary, The Dungeon Masters. Right. I was very happy to see that on the schedule. Yeah. So we'll dig into the history of that, which is a more classic indie film and sort of the story behind that. It's also a documentary. we don't talk about documentaries very much,

but we'd love to talk about Dungeons and Dragons.

This is a documentary that our Dungeons of Dragons game talks about almost every single week. It is a constant point of reference. My proudest accomplishment. But first we have some follow-up. Drew, help us out with some follow-up. Stephen writes, we were talking about focus groups a few episodes ago. Stephen writes, I was a film focus group moderator for 12 years, did over 1,000 focus groups on first run movies.

In the last episode, Craig did a little recap of the horrible testing process.

He specifically mentioned pacing and how no one ever says a movie is too fast.

Not true.

Once we break the movie into places or parts that are too slow or fast,

oftentimes too fast will come up. What this means that there's not enough information given to the audience at that time, and it seems as if the filmmakers have glazed over information needed to

enjoy and understand the movie. This happens quite often. Also, I've never seen a movie get worse

after testing. The scores always go up if the filmmakers are willing and able to follow the research notes.

While the process is not a favorite of young directors, the good ones know that tests allow for a

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