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Stacy: All right. I start with a theme song?
John: Do
Stacy: Okay. I promised every week I wanna sing a new theme song here. It's, it's the show,
show runner. Runner show, runner show. It's the show about show running by two guys who run
a show. And me,
Drew: God, the visual was really great too. I love it.
Stacy: honestly, I came up with that on the dog walk this morning for the full 20 minutes. Went.
John: Ow. Welcome to the Showrunner Show, where every week we break down the intricacies
of what it takes to run a show.
Stacy: Yes.
John: I'm John Eric Dole, writer, director, showrunner. Producer,
Drew: And I'm Drew Dole. Uh, same things
Stacy: But better. Oh, snap. No,
Drew: a little better.
Stacy: I'm Stacy Sebaski. I'm a writer. I'm a recovering actress. Oh. And co-producer and
producer and producer and, uh, and creator. If the thing that we're currently developing goes
John: At Hulu. Yeah, absolutely
Drew: I would have to say Stacy's underselling a little bit in that she operates very much as kind
of our third partner in everything we do. And, uh, it is, you know, a de facto showrunner.
Stacy: thanks.
John: Yeah. so today's theme we wanted to break down. If you have a movie idea and you're
thinking about moving that to tv, like what that takes, you know, what, what changes. It's not, you
know, if you're saying like, okay, I, I have this movie, it's, you know, two hours long and I'm
gonna make it six episodes, uh, which, you know, I'll just break it up.
Like it doesn't quite work that way. And we'll use, uh, our season one of Waco as kind of a, a
test case, a, you know, sample case cuz that, that was initially, drew and I were actually doing
research on something completely unrelated and we stumbled across David Tito's, uh, a
survivor of, uh, Mount Carmel's book called A Place called Waco. And we read that and we were
immediately like, oh my God, this would make the most amazing movie. Uh, it'd be so.
Interesting to see, you know, the siege from the inside. And so we approached, uh, Tito and we
bought his book.
So we originally wrote Waco as a feature script, and we had a studio read it and said, Hey, if
you, if you adapt this into a limited series, we will green light you today. And we were like, done.
We were open to the challenge. We were excited by the challenge. We knew we wanted to get
into television, but we hadn't figured out how to do it yet.

It was already way too long. It was 150 page script and yeah. And we had changed the margins
to like squeeze more in like it was so unwieldy to begin with. And, um, and so we welcomed the
opportunity though. It scared us cuz we hadn't done television before.
And so we'll sort of talk you through that process.
Stacy: I just wanna jump into, that's one scenario is that you're going in with a pitch or you're
selling something and they go, we love it, but we want it to be tv. You know, we can go in the
other direction too. Another might be that you get an actor attached and the, because I feel like
actors, a lot of projects happen because an actor is interested.
You know, that's, that's the go-go juice. And they might be like, Hey, I'm sick of doing movies. I
wanna try my hand at, uh, all my friends who are having fun making tv. I wanna do that. Or it can
be the opposite, you know, that you go out and do you, maybe they're only interested in a limited
series or, so I, I, I think that's another scenario in which, because I, I could see the listener going
like, how would I possibly be asked to turn my, my film script into a TV show?
And I think the actor away is another way.
Drew: Yeah, that is another way. I was gonna say just a general trend. I think there's, you know,
it's worth noting when talking about it primarily goes from, you know, feature material or feature
script to tv. It's primarily in that direction, especially over the last, you know, 10 years when we
had our. Screenplay for Waco.
This was, you know, 2015. You know, it was a very different world in 2015, 2016 where there
was like movie people did movies and tv people did TV and there was not, you know, a ton of
mixing. There was a little bit more than there was, you know, 10 years before that. But, um, it's
nothing like it is now. And I think, you know, the last seven, eight years has been this like,
massive migration from feature to TV because just it's so hard to get movies made.
You know, it's harder and harder to get movies made where there's just more and more TV
being made. So it makes sense that a lot of the, you know, writers and a lot of the actors, you
know, you see actors doing TV now that 10 years ago never would do tv. So it's um, part of a
larger trend of just migrating to TV cuz that's where really all the, all the action is.
Stacy: Yeah.
John: Yeah. Well, and when we did Waco, so our feature with Waco, it, you know, the events of
Waco start with like a kind of a siege on Mount caramel. So it like, trucks and guns and, you
know, helicopters and things and ends with this, you know, big fire and, you know, tanks and,
um, so the scale was pretty big.
So as a. As a movie, just over and over, people kept saying like, you're never gonna get this
made. This was gonna cost you 50 million bucks to, to do something like this. Um, on the scale
you're talking about, um, you just can't do this. Uh, you won't be able to build that building. You
won't be able to, you know, do all these things.
But then in tv, because you can amortize that cost over episodes, it became, cost effective to do,
you know, to have that kind of scale. Because we, you know, we were then getting six hours of,
you know, material out of the same, two big events, you know, spread over, you know, six
episodes was doable.
Stacy: Right.
Drew: And also again to that, you know, overall trend from, you know, 2015 to now, you're
seeing TV budgets have gotten quite a bit bigger, uh, than they historically had been. So I think
when we were talking about Waco as a tv, uh, series, you know, it, you can amortize the cost

over episodes, but it's also, you know, it wasn't, it was suddenly not that unusual to spend, you
know, 6 million in episode.
Whereas, you know, five years before that, that would've been considered, you know, the
biggest show on tv. Uh, now
Stacy: didn't know that.
Drew: 10 million in episode is kind of, nobody sneezes at that anymore. It's kind of, uh,
continues to go up.
Stacy: Interesting.
John: Yeah. And just the quality. Like I, I remember I went to a, a dinner at the Director's Guild
in about 2014, and at, at that time, I mean this is now, you know, I guess nine years ago, the
head of the Director's Guild at that dinner said this last year, uh, residuals. From television have
outpaced residuals from movies.
If you're not thinking about getting into television, you should immediately start thinking about
getting into television. That's where everything's going. Um, and so back, before our Waco
journey, we were starting to think, okay, the, the business is heading there. You know, when we,
when we started in films, it was, you know, independent movies.
It was, you know, the era of, you know, Soderberg and Tarantino and, um, all these like, it was
so exciting. Like everything was independent movie based. And that was what the business was
when we got into the business. And now, you know, the thing you talk about on weekends is the
shows you've watched, not the movies you've seen. that was different, you know, 20 years ago.
And so we were looking to get into, into television so we, you know, we ended up going out with,
and frankly, we, we immediately were like, okay, we're gonna do this as a limited, let's start
breaking out the episodes. Let's start, you know, and we just started, you know, dividing the
script into chunks and sort of broke out the script into six episodes and then started filling in the
gaps and stuff. Not realizing that's not really how you shift a movie script to television. There's
some like, fundamental differences between a movie and television, which we actually didn't
understand at that point. We are, you know, we were still newbies and. we went out and pitched
it and people wanted to buy it, but they wanted to buy it. If we had someone who, with more TV
experience to help us, uh, reconceive the episodes.
Stacy: feel like that's a perfect example of what we're talking about last week, that you can be
the creator. You guys were the creator and you had a lot of respect and clout in the film world,
but you hadn't done tv, so they didn't straight up say, you'll be the showrunners and no one, you
know, you won't need any help.
You got more into that gray zone that we talked about last week of yes, you're the creators and
you were the showrunners, but they help. They brought on another showrunner as well.
John: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, at the time I really, I took that as like a, you know, a, a cri
criticism or a, you know, kind of a failure and like, I was like, oh, don't they believe in us? Yeah. I
took it really personally and then I was like, okay, I need to surrender to this process. I need to,
You know, I haven't been in this, you know, through this process before I need to surrender to
this.
And, and then we showed up on day one of, uh, you know, the writer's room. And it turns out the
company name that the studio had chosen was Surrender Productions. Uh, which I was like, oh,
okay. That's a, felt like a little, you know, you know the universe saying like, yeah, good job.
Good job. Like, just rolling with it.

Stacy: It sounds like you're talking a little bit about, you can't just take a script and chop it up.
It's not about math of going like, what? I had 150 pages divided by six, stretched out a little. I
think it fundamentally, the DNA of what a TV show is supposed to be is a little bit different than
the DNA of what a movie is supposed to be, which we'll get into in a sec.
But, uh, for example, I think at first, you know, when it was a movie, it was more thinking about
the big, uh, set pieces, you know, that there's gonna be a siege at the top and that's gonna be a
big set piece. And, you know, you'll have an interesting way into it, an interesting character point
of view through Tido.
Then you'll have a bunch of stuff in the middle and then there'll be, uh, you know, the fire at the
end and, and people trying to jump out windows and escape. And, you know, that it's sort of
grounded by those two big set pieces when really I think you guys had to rethink it. Cuz I, I'm
saying you guys, cuz I was not involved in season one, I was involved in this last one, but not
season one.
you had to change it and, and turn it into a character piece where really the driving engine is not
those two interesting set pieces, they were there, but it's really about the character clash
between Mike Shannon's character and Taylor Kit's character. You know, that it, and people
always say that, right?
TV's about characters, TV's about characters. And I feel like that's a perfect example of what
they're talking about.
John: Yeah, I, I would say, you know, they say, yeah, television is a character medium, whereas
film is a story medium, you know, so, so film, and I, I heard people say this, but it didn't really, I.
Resonate with what that meant, you know? Whereas film is about what happens, okay, this
happens and then this happens, and then this happens.
And in television it's like it's more this person experiences this thing and then they experience
this other thing and then their relationship to this person changes and then they change as a
result of this. It, it's more in that character zone, uh, versus like the story zone. And sta you had
a great litmus test for what makes a movie versus, you know, we were trying to break down like,
what's the difference in, how do you know if you have a story, how How do you know if it's a
better feature or television show?
And Stacy, you came up with such a good,
Stacy: are you talking about acute versus chronic?
John: yeah.
Stacy: My faux medical term. Yeah. Do you have like an acute problem, you know, or do you
have a chronic problem? And if it's acute, it's probably gonna be a movie, right? Because you're
gonna solve it by the end. Maybe a, good example would be a, problem or a goal, like, oh, we
were working on a project about Dorothy kill Gallen, right?
Who's this really fascinating woman and she died this fascinating mysterious death, right? So
originally we wrote it as a movie and then they talked about like, well, could it be a limited series
because this actress would be interested if it's a limited series. Not interested if it's a film, cuz
she wants to get into tv.
Okay, cool. So, because that was an acute problem, right? She, it's this one story about JFK
and it ends in her amazing mysterious death. It could be a movie, it could be a limited, because
that's still sort of, you know, it's sort of like that in between. But it couldn't be an ongoing series
because if the whole thing is building up to one new story and one death, that's an acute

problem.
You can't stretch that out over six seasons of like, is she gonna finally die now? You know what I
mean? Or like Friday night lights forever. We've been looking at that. Or Friday night lights, the
Friday night lights forever. You guys should speak about this one, but that's another one. The
difficulty of if the whole thing is building up to one game, will they win it or lose it?
That's an acute problem. And then you have to get into more the chronic problems of the
relationships and things like that. That was so inarticulate, but maybe you guys could speak to
that.
John: Or die hard. Die hard. You know, there's
Drew: Acute problem. Yeah. Yeah.
Stacy: Yes.
John: terrorist, event. It's an acute problem that's a real issue. Whereas, you know, the last of
us, kind of zombie apocalypse, that's an ongoing problem. That is something that, you can go
endlessly, you can deal with over a long period of time.
Stacy: But then you can be quite clever with something like 24. See how all my references are
from like 20 years ago with 24 of going. It's, you know, if you take an acute problem, but you just
make it a, crunched enough timeline and really stretch it out with little beats, you know, then you
can turn into a chronic thing.
Drew: I can speak a little bit to the Waco experience too, in that conversion and just, you know,
from a story standpoint or a writing standpoint, like we, as a feature, it was very much David
Kresh and Gary Nener, you know, Taylor Kitch and Mike Shannon.
Uh, You know, and then the supporting cast and everyone else was kind of serving those two
roles, which, you know, to some extent stayed that way in the TV version. But one thing we
quickly realized when we were working with, you know, another, you know, executive producer
that had more TV experiences, just how much we could do with the rest of the cast.
And pretty soon we were picking characters that didn't even exist in the screenplay. Um, you
know, like Michelle Jones for example was, you know, one of the Branch Davidians and, you
know, we realized there was just an incredibly great and powerful, you know, tragic love story in
her character. And it's not someone you would've picked, you know, in the feature.
There just wouldn't have been space for that. But, you know, um, you know, cut to shooting the
show and Julia Gardner's playing this character, uh, an incredibly, uh, powerful way. And, you
know, we found like, wow, we can have, you know, 12, 13, like meaningful characters in this
show just being six hours rather than two.
And, um, those characters were maybe the most fun to write in a lot of ways. And, um, you
know, we still like to try to run a lot of the story through a couple leads. I think it's helpful to still,
you know, uh, have to know who your leads are and to kind of run story through them, but, uh,
you can just do so much more with, with supporting cast in, in tv.
Stacy: Drew, what's your proprietary formula, your math
Drew: Oh yeah. Yeah. We realized
Stacy: Not to get too off topic, but

Drew: it's not a perfect,
John: Oh, it's a
Drew: formula,
Stacy: It's so good.
Drew: but what was it we had, you know, we realized we kept, you know, we love the supporting
characters so much that we kept, uh, creating seeds with, you know, it was like, you know,
number 12 on the call sheet scene with like number 28 on the call sheet, you know, and you
know Sal, who is
John: those numbers are based on, those numbers are based on, you know, the star of your
show is number one on the call sheet. And number 25 on the call sheet may have a line or two.
Drew: Yeah, so it's loosely, uh, the amount of, you know, dialogue or the amount of real estate
they have in the show, you know, roughly. but we realized you could definitely have a scene with
number 25 on the call sheet, but it has to be, you know, with your number one or number two, it
can't be with your number 12, you know?
And so we, we had a floor, I can't even remember exactly what it was now, but it was, if the sum
total of the two characters at a scene is greater than, you know, if it, if it's greater than 10, uh,
that scene shouldn't exist. If it's, if it has a number one or a number two in the scene, then the
total can be anything you want.
Stacy: right. Anything goes.
Drew: Anything
Stacy: funny.
John: either of those guys can have a scene with anyone. But if you're, you know, number five
on the call sheet and number 11 on the call sheet are having a scene, it's gonna get cut
because there's
Stacy: It's gonna get cut. Right. That was actually super helpful in the writer's room because I
think writers do get, again, sorry, not to get too off topic, but writers get very attracted to the
quirky characters, the character actor characters. They're fun. It's fun to write for, you know,
usually number 18 on the call sheet's, a little weirdo, you know, and it's fun to write for weirdos,
you know, like, no, no.
Gotta write for the heroes, not the weirdos.
John: and to try and think of things in terms of winding stories, you know, we wanna get this
beat, you know, this moment out. How do you wind it through one of your leads, uh, is such an
interesting kind of fun puzzle game to play. Um, and you know, one other thing too with in
features, you know, drew and I came up, you know, doing like horror films and then thrillers and,
and a lot of the times it's like, oh, audience is bored until this big set piece happens.
So cut everything you can before that, and then, and then they wanna get to this other big set
piece. So cut everything between that and it ends up squeezing out so much of the human stuff.
And television, you know, so much of television is the, is the human stuff. It's the human stuff
that makes you wanna watch a show.
It's those, those soulful moments that two people discuss privately in, you know, on a show.
That's what really draws you into television more than anything else. Like television is, you

know, economically built on. Two people talking deeply. Uh, those scenes are the most cost
effective scenes to shoot. And because of that, TV is a medium of that, of that kind of emotional
connection.
And, and frankly like, you know, that's, I feel like why we started writing in the first place. So it
wasn't to, to write, you know, big exploding things, but to write, you know, how we experience a
world, right? The things that like, you know, we think about in the middle of the night or things
that, you know, we grapple with personally, like to explore and express those things in art, uh, is,
you know, what we, you know, I feel like why we do this in the first place.
And, and television really that first experience of going like, oh my God, people can, there's time
for people's humanity. In this medium, uh, really felt, you know, to me like a, oh, we're home. Oh,
we, you know, we've come home to this, this medium. We don't have to be like, oh, you know,
where's the jump scare? You know, we can get away from that and be, you know, be with
human beings.
Stacy: We call those, I mean, everybody calls those headspace scenes. There are different
ways to, to look at it, but that's, so if you see those index cards behind John, those are beats of
a scene. Right. And, and when you're doing it for a movie, a movie's gonna be, what, like 40
scenes? I usually do it just like as a list of scenes, but you are probably gonna have one, maybe
two at the most things that say Headspace.
And they might not even be people talking about their feelings. It might just be somebody like
staring into their whiskey glass or like staring at the, you know, it's like trying to convey all the
feelings. Whereas TV really, it's more like they talk about the thing is gonna happen, the thing
happens, and then you have a Headspace scene where they sort of debrief what just happened
and how they feel about things now.
And you'll have, when you're putting up your cards and shuffling them around, you'll have a lot
of things that say, you know, Headspace Joe and Mary Beth Headspace. You know, they, they, it
takes up a lot of the space. And it's fun as speeches too. That's the other thing. You get to do a
lot of his speeches.
John: Yeah, I love writing a speech.
Stacy: I get to do a
Drew: Good speech.
Stacy: in TV than movies.
John: Yeah. And movies, your speeches all get cut like we do. We end up cutting our own. We
write these, uh, scenes in movies and we just cut 'em all cuz it's like, oh, we gotta run for the
exit. And tv TV is about like spending time with people. And these people come into your home
every week and you spend an hour with them and they become friends that you enjoy spending
time with as opposed to like, quick jump off the building.
You know, you're like, you, you want to spend time with them, see how they're growing, see how
they're evolving, you know, see if this problem is ke you know, worrying them the way it's
worrying you for them, you know, it, it, it becomes more personal.
Drew: that's such a great point. I think that's such a, a great, um, thing to bring up too, in terms
of writing character, you know, like a movie character. Like to use your diehard example, like
John McLean is like a super fun guest you have at a party and everybody thinks it's hilarious
and, you know, makes a, makes an impression, and then he leaves and you never see him
again.

You know, like that's a great TV or movie character. Whereas a TV character is like, you know,
someone who comes over every week and, uh, you get to know, and you get to know their, their,
you know, what makes them tick. And I think, uh, you know, Audiences really kind of fall in love
with TV characters in a way.
And you have just so much more latitude to get personal and to, you know, to do these kind of
headspace moments where you're not, you know, constantly in motion. And I think that's, uh,
from a, from a writing standpoint, just, um, so much more fun and interesting.
John: Breaking down, like the way you break a movie and structure a movie is about the, the
turns and plot. You know, you sort of start with the turns and plot and then you fill it in from there.
Whereas television, it's interesting, we'll get into this a different day, but you, you know, The way
we do it and the way we learn to do it is you structure it emotionally of one character at a time.
You sort of go through this character's emotional journey. We call it mojos. So we do the
character's mojos. So we go through this character's journey top to bottom, like what they go
through this entire episode, and then the next characters, and then blend those once you have
those beats and some of those things won't fit, but it ends up creating these, all these like little in
between moments that in a movie you would never think to put in, but you know, somebody
having their coffee in the morning, they see something on the street that that affects them in a
way that colors the way they experience their next event of the day.
It, it, it's a nice way to really, uh, delve into these, these downbeat moments that you just rarely
have space for in a movie.

John: another thing about television, uh, that's different from film is, you know, drew and I came
up, we did indie movies where we raised the money. We wrote, directed, edited, sound design,
you know, sometimes, you know, sometimes shot things, sometimes like, we kind of did all the,
you know, produced, drew in our first indies, drew produced with literally, he didn't even have a
production assistant.
Drew was the entire producing everything. Like, and he just looked like he had been through a
war at the end of
Stacy: Was that the dry spell? What was
John: that was Poughkeepsie.
Drew: Tape, Poughkeepsie tapes. Yeah. I had no idea what I was doing trying to be the line
producer in U P M at the same time. I had no, no idea
John: production manager. And, and you know, I remember like every day, like Drew would be
so like running ragged, you know? Uh,
Drew: Oh, one day I realized I had. One day I realized I had $124,000 on my personal Amex.
I'm like, I can't believe this credit card still works. Like what? How did this happen and how did
they let this happen?
John: zero income.
Stacy: didn't you gobble up your entire 401k?
Drew: I did.

Stacy: had been an investment banker and he was like a big guy in New York City and he had a
401k and then it all just turned in,
Drew: I needed it. It was needed far before retirement. Yeah.
Stacy: Yep.
John: I remember getting a call from my parents back in that era saying like, you've ruined your
life. Why are you ruining Drews too? You know?
Drew: this is all your fault.
John: I know, I know. But, but, but we came up, drew and I came up, like worrying about every
detail, like every detail mattered to us. And frankly, like kind of every detail kind of mattered
equally.
Like how many production trucks, you know, were showing up on the day was something we
would discuss, you know, as well as the shot selection and, you know, every bead of the, the
script. And then, you know, we got into movies and, you know, as a, as an example, like in a
movie, you direct a movie and then in post you have a 10 week director's cut where the studio's
not allowed to interfere.
They're not allowed to see anything. You have, you know, by the dj, you have 10 weeks to hone
every moment of your, you know, movie. Before you show anyone in television, you have four
days. You know, that 10 weeks for, you know, 90 minutes becomes four days for an hour.
Drew: The movie director's cut. Sorry, cut you off. But like the, after that 10 week, uh, director's
cut, then you have like another, you know, four months or something to be working it with, you
know, the studio and, and addressing notes and whatever else. And, and you know, as John just
said, the four day director's cut and tv then you have, you know, maybe another week of notes
and everything before the picture is locked, you know, so you're, you're locked within two or
three weeks, uh, in tv where that's usually like a year in features.
Stacy: Getting it perfect applies to writing as well. I know for myself, like when I write a movie
script, by the end, I literally have it memorized. I could tell you, I could just sort of recite the
scenes because I've taken that scene and I've polished it again and again until it's exactly what I
want.
And with the movie, you only have one chance to say something. Do you know what I mean? If
these two enemies are gonna become friends, you know, cool hand, Luke and the big guy are
gonna become friends, you have one chance to do it. And so, since you only have one chance,
it's gotta be awesome and special and perfect and polished.
and at tv you're gonna do it again and again. You know, the characters are gonna fall in and out
of love. They're gonna create alliances and pull them apart. There's not one chance to do
something. It's more like you're doing it once every, you know, four episodes. And also for a
movie, you know, it's just you.
So you're getting it all tickety, tae perfect to your liking and, and tv. Like you write the draft and
you hand it over and everybody jump, everybody jumps in with notes and there's a whole team
of people doing it. So for me, honestly, by the, by the time, uh, the, the episode comes out, I
don't even remember who wrote that line or who came up with that idea.
It's like a blur because an entire team of writers has been throwing in their ideas and their bits of
dialogue and their cool moments. Sometimes you can remember, sometimes you can go, oh, I,
that moment is so John Temple. Or like, oh, that moment is so Alice Den. I know exactly who
came up with that, but for the most part, it's just a big stew where not only do you not have it

memorized the way you might as a writer in a film, you kind of forgot it even happened.
So the, by the time you're watching the episode, you're like, oh, right, right, right, right. We, we
came up with that scene that I've completely, not only do I not remember who wrote it, I forgot
we even wrote it at all.
Drew: Yeah.
John: Yeah, like a movie. A movie is more like a, being a composer, you know, it's like a Mozart,
you know, carefully crafting every single note of a piece. Whereas television is a lot more jazz.
It's more like, oh, you know, the drummers, uh, doing that Now I'm gonna, I'm gonna play, I'm
gonna riff with that.
And it becomes, you know, we like to say it's all jazz. Like, people say like, are you planning to
shoot this from there or there? And we're like, it's all jazz. Don't worry about it. We'll figure it out.
You know? And, uh, you
Stacy: no, but seriously, where should we
Drew: Yeah. But seriously, we're setting it up.
Stacy: It's happening right now. Do
Drew: Oh shit.
John: And that's our, our ad on, uh, the latest, uh, Waco season kept saying, quoting us like it's
all jazz. Uh, but it, but it is, it, it, it becomes, you know, for Drew and I and Stacy, all three of us,
I, I'd say are have, uh, real perfectionist leanings. I guess those two are straight A students.
I was a, I was a mixed bag of, uh, I
Drew: Depended on the year. Yeah.
John: depended on the year and how, how interesting I found it. Um, but, uh, but I'd say all
three of us have, you know, real perfectionists, you know, tendencies and television just straight
up does not allow that. Like, our season one of Waco, it, it was like a freight train hit us.
Like we were so, difficult at times, you know, for people. Cuz we were, you know, if someone
else was directing, we were like right there like, you know, vultures, like, wait, no, no. I think the
camera show. Yeah. Like we were so, uh, kind of up people's, you know, butts, uh, as
showrunners on that one.
And, and then season one of, uh, Pickett, when we did that, that was our next series we did, uh,
of Joe Pickett. Uh, A start. We started that way and we were like, we can't, we can't do seven
months of this. We can't, we, we won't survive seven months of this. We have to trust the
process. I have to say, I remember, you know, with season one, uh, Steven Shabos, who's, uh,
Stacy's brother and, and my brother-in-law, um, you know, fantastic director, fantastic writer,
wrote the perks of being a wallflower and stuff.
And he had, he was like our friend who had done a television series. He did Jericho. And I called
him on season one away. Cause I was like, okay, what, what advice would you give me? And his
advice was, Go with the stream. If you, it's like a river. Television is like a river that, like a
torrential river. And if you're trying to fight your way up the stream, uh, it will kill you.
So you float within the stream, like let the stream carry you and you can work within that, but
you can't fight the, like, the stream. And, and I'd say, you know, television, it moves so fast and
part of what you lose in time, you gain in other people helping and other people's. Creative

involvement. And so you may not have a year to really think through every facet of your script,
but you have 10 people who will all think it through every day with you, and you trade, you know,
one for the other.
And that stream of, you know, playing jazz with 10 people in a writer's room, you have to trust
that, you have to trust that, that, that, that will be a listenable, you know what I mean? Piece of
music at the end of the day.
Drew: I think, you know, in season one of Waco was, like John said, it was like a freight train hit
us. But we, we kind of entered that project thinking, okay, the reason we're being hired to do
this, or the reason we're being, you know, financed to do this is because we're movie people
making TV and they want it, you know, they want this show to feel like a cinematic experience,
like a feature.
And like, they want feature quality within, you know, the TV medium and uh, um, and so we
need to micromanage, you know, everything like we have in the past. And that was just a false
premise. You don't, you like, you don't need. I think the same amount of time to make it feel like
that kind of feature quality now is just kind of understood.
You hire, you know, the cinematographers and the composers that are high level, you get, you
know, actors that feel like they're movie actors and, and it has that feeling without having to
micromanage like you do in a feature and, and you just simply don't have the time. And so I
think there's something really freeing in, in the TV pace.
I think in that for anyone like us who are, you know, have perfectionist, you know, tendencies, I
think there's something in that pace where you make a decision once and you have to move on
and you can never, there's not time to go back and revisit a decision. And there's something
really. Amazing about that.
And now that we've done a, you know, a handful of seasons of tv, I kind of love that. I love that.
You know, you might see it at the end of the day on TV when it airs and be like, oh, you know,
maybe we would've done that little thing a little differently, but you just let it go. And, um, it's
been such a great, you know, six, seven year exercise in letting things go.
And, uh, I find it just really creatively freeing now, not having that time. It's almost a, it's almost a
positive.
Stacy: It's such a weird experience of being the writer on set of what you were just talking
about. It's very weird when there's a scene, you know, they blocked it out. That's gonna take a
couple hours, Hey, maybe it goes well, and it only takes an hour to shoot. It's very weird being
the onset supervising writer and like they're shooting the scene.
That's the scene. That's the scene that you have been talking about maybe for 18 months. You
know what I mean? Like you talked about it, you fought about it, you wrote it, you rewrote it, they
wrote it, they rewrote it. It's been like, it's been a big deal in your life. For like a year, and then
they do it and an hour later it's done and you're like, it's fucking done.
What? Just what it's done. They're, they're never gonna do it again. He's never gonna throw that
soup can again, what we've been talking about, that soup can for nine months. Wow. It
happened and it's over. I, I wanted to, um, leap into, you guys keep talking about time and part
of the difference is you just, everything goes so fast.
I think another aspect of that is, um, and you're hinting in it this before, it's not just about the fast
pace, it's about the sheer number of people. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's not one writer.
It's a whole bunch of writers. It's not getting notes once every three months. It's getting notes all
the time.

It is a group sport. TV is a group sport. And that metaphor you used before, the analogy you
used before John of, you know, swimming upstream. You know, you could be that one jackass
who's like, no, do it my way. I thought it would be like this. And, and then you've got this river
that, by the way, is filled with like, executives, dps, adss, you know, they're all in their inner tubes
going with the river.
So if you're the jackass who's swimming upstream, you're gonna get ConEd in the head by all
these other people. Whereas if you just go with it and turn around and go with them, you know,
it's a whole river of, of, uh, talented people. And, and like you were talking about before, you just
have to trust them.
You have to be like, well, I don't have to decide what the shot's gonna be, because you know
what, this genius DP over here is gonna help me figure it out or figure it out all by themselves.
Drew: Yeah,
John: Yeah. And I, I wanted to loop back to what Drew is, you know, saying about, uh, just the,
the, I dunno, sheer, sheer volume of the job. Like, one of the things, you know, drew and I, drew
and I, in our career, in our movie career, were never. Apart for anything. We were side by side
every moment of shooting. We were side by side every moment of editing, every moment of
sound mix.
Like we were inseparable, we were never apart. And then this last year, um, and really, you
know, season one Waco, like all of it, like we've always, you know, you know, we're brothers duo
in like the most like, uh, you know, like, you know, conjoined twin kind of, kind of version of that.
And uh, and then this last year, uh, had two shows.
We were lucky enough to have two shows Green Lit and we were show showrunning them both
and directing a whole bunch of episodes. And we realized like, hey, anytime if I look right and I
look left and I see Drew like in one of those places, uh, there is something that's not getting
done somewhere else.
And uh, and we really had to not just learn to trust ourselves and trust. The creative instinct in
the moment, but trust each other's creative instinct in the moment, in absentia, you know, there
was so many big decisions and things that we just had to be like, okay, I know Drew's got it, and
Drew knows I have it.
Like, and I trust his judgment, you know, on the sound mix. Like he trusts my judgment, you
know, going through a, what the composers did for this episode. Like, we've just had to, you
know, it's a, it's not just allowed, but f kind of forced us to grow too. If that makes sense, like both
as collaborators and as a creative duo.
Um, we like to say, you know, between the three of us, you know, drew, me and Stacy we're like
a swarm of bees. There's always one of us buzzing around and, and all three of us really, you
know, Stacy was managing set for a huge part of, you know, uh, picket and um, and just
knowing that like, oh, you know, if, if there's problems, Stacy will know what to, what to do.
TV has forced us to grow in a way that, uh, we wouldn't necessarily have in features.
Drew: I think that's right in features. You're, you're making a movie until it's done and then you
start thinking about the next movie. You know, there's really not, um, the same kind of, Volume
and, you know, different, uh, projects at the same time. And we had one show in Santa Fe and
one in Calgary. So some of this, you know, kind of separation was by necessity.
We were just in different geographies and, you know, one of us would be directing in Santa Fe
and the one who wasn't directing could go up to Calgary and, and be prepping that show. And,
and we found it really, you know, a bit stressful for sure, but, um, also really fun. And again, that

kind of letting go of the perfectionism, letting go of the micromanaging and just knowing like
even if something's not perfect, you know, and it's in the can and we're in editorial, we'll find a
way to fix it.

You know, we, we, we have, a lot of faith in ourselves in terms of, uh, our abilities in, in post-
production and just what's possible in post-production. Like, it doesn't have to be totally, totally

perfect. You can, you can, you know, come back around to it and post.
John: I used to worry a lot more about like, oh, what if this happens? What if that happens?
Like, I would try to prethink a solution to every possible future problem,
Drew: Mm-hmm.
John: uh, in movies and, and it's, it's almost like the, you know, I think it was Aristotle said that,
like my mind then, Will know more than my mind, not like I will have the same mind when that
problem arises and I'll be able to figure it out because I'll know the variables then where I don't
know all the variables now.
So worrying doesn't make any sense,
Drew: I was gonna mention just one kind of maybe, you know, broader topic, uh, on, on selling
a show. Like, you know, and again, the weight using the Waco season one as a, as a, personal
experience. But, you know, we we're so excited, you know, to move into tv. We got two amazing
actors attached, uh, to then go sell it and then when going to sell it.
Um, of course we wanted to, you know, like everybody wanted to be at, you know, Netflix and
HBO and kind of these, you know, premium outlets. And, in the TV game it's, it's so rapidly
evolving in terms of who's buying what and. Um, we ended up selling it to Spike, which at the
time had been, you know, uh, like a real, kind of a male focused, uh, you know, reality network
for the most
Stacy: the cops channel,
Drew: yeah, we were like, you know, when, when that came up, when the studio's like, you
know, spike is making a, a full series order, nobody else made a series order. There's other
people interested in developing it, but no one else was like, we're giving you all the money to go
shoot season one except for Spike.
And we're like, yeah, you mean the, you know, the network with the, the cops reruns? Like, I
don't get it. And they're like, well, they just bought, you know, another show, uh, from Taylor
Sheridan called Yellowstone and they're, they want, you know, Waco and Yellowstone and
there's gonna be this. Yeah. And they said, you know, these are gonna be their first two scripted
shows on, on this new network.
They're changing directions and they're going, they're going with scripted. And so, We were
concerned, you know, we obviously had, a couple actors that were also concerned about, you
know, where this was going and what kind of show this was gonna be. They trusted us. They,
they liked the scripts, but, you know, the network is a big part of it.
And, uh, John and I, as an aside, we've kind of made a, an entire career out of, uh, only having
one buyer. We've never, you know, until Stacy run something recently that we had a, a, a proper
bidding war, like we'd never had that. We've always, you know, we always like to say, you just
need one. You know, you won't get, you won't get, you know, super rich that way, but you'll, you
know, but she'll stay working at least.
And, uh, um, um, so yeah, so Spike, you know, we, we, we kind of said, okay, you know, we just,
we have no idea. We have no idea what the future holds, but just, you know, keep our head

down, keep grinding, you know, keep writing good stuff, and we'll just, you know, audiences will
find it, you know, one way or another.
TV's, you know, Evolving so rapidly, people know how to find shows and, and so we have to
have faith that the, that the audience will find the show if it's good. And, uh, you know, pretty
soon Spike became a Paramount network and there was a big consolidation and that branding
kind of changed overnight. And, uh, and Yellowstone was getting press even before it came out
as, you know, a show to watch.
And, uh, and just everything, you know, things that were completely out of our control that we
have absolutely nothing to do with just, you know, kind of came together in a way that, uh, really
worked for the show. And, uh, it was kind of a lesson and like, don't overthink it. If you have a
buyer that's gonna make your show go, make your show.
You know, I think that's really it. And, and, um, audiences will find it, you know, even if the
network is not your favorite and not, your not your top choice, like, audiences will find it. And it's,
it's, it's a, it's a minor miracle to get a show made. So if you have someone wanting to make it,
make it, that's my advice.
John: And now, you know, uh, these years later, like, you know, we really wanted Netflix, you
know, hbo, Showtime, and then during the pandemic, you know, paramount Network leased the
show out to Netflix, and it did really well on Netflix. And then Showtime now has bought it, so
now it's at Showtime. And so, you know, at the end of the day, you know, because we just kept
our head down and kept pushing, actually ended up on, uh, you know, all these networks that
we really hoped it would be on to start with.
You know, it's sort of this, you know, it, it got there because, you know, we, we, just rolled with it.
We went with the stream, we followed, you know, Shabas, he's advice, and uh, and
Just trusted the journey.
Drew: And now season two is a Showtime original. It's just, it's such a strange winding road for
every project out there, especially ones that go, you know, multiple seasons. You know, Joe
Pickett was a charter. Spectrum original for season one. Uh, and then Spectrum decided they
didn't want to do original content anymore, and Paramount Plus took it over.
And now season two is a Paramount Plus original. So it's another example of like, you just don't
know. You just have no that this world changes so quickly. Um, if you just stay in the game and
just, uh, keep making your show and uh, and the world will do what it does.
Stacy: the your partners can and will change.
Drew: Yeah.
John: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Nothing, you know, the execs you start a show with aren't
the execs you end a show with. Like, you just have to, you know, trust. Trust the instincts, trust.
Your partners and your collaborators and, and just trust the, the journey, you know, the journey.
Like they're, at the end of the day, it does feel like it's guided somehow.
You know, that the universe guides a show into creation and you're just one, you know, part of
that,

John: one, one other thing I wanna talk about with tv. Is, you know, the upside, like as a writer,
like, so when I was, uh, I was at the University of Iowa as a college kid, and I decided I wanted
to be a, a writer and I wanted to write for movies specifically because I, I wanted to write more

dialogue than prose.
And I just liked the idea of writing for movies. I just thought it was cool. And then I read an article
somewhere that said, oh, basically directors can change anything they want in your script. They
don't even have to tell you like a writer TV or movie writers are kind of, uh, nobody cares what
they have to say.
And immediately I was like, well, then I need to learn to direct so I can protect, you know, my
writing. And so I transferred to NYU to study film. And all these years later, like. What I didn't
know is in television, the writer gets to be the boss. You know, the writer is, you know, runs the
show. The, you know, show running is a, you know, in many ways a writing job.
And, and it's, you know, there's direction directing aspects to it, but it's, you know, a lot about the
writing and it's interesting. So if, you know, if you're a writer and you have a movie script and you
have a problem that could be a chronic, uh, problem, that could, you know, that you could, you
see a pathway to stretch out into three years, if you can move that into television, you, you
know, can have a lot more say in how things are done.
And, you know, the TV directors work for TV writers where it's quite the opposite in movies. Uh,
so I, I almost feel like if you're a writer, and you want, you want that, you know, kind of say over
how things are done like television. I would say would, uh, I would recommend, uh, you know,
putting a, a real eye towards television because, uh, yeah, writer, writer's, the boss of TV
Drew: would
Stacy: you get a weekly paycheck, which is quite nice.
Drew: is great. Yeah. The economics of TV is a lot more predictable.
Stacy: for, uh, for movies it's
Drew: Yeah. A movie, your script, you don't get paid on a movie for your script until day one of
photography. So that gives you. An eternity for this thing, you know, for a movie to fall apart, uh,
and get paid nothing. So, you know, and all the way, you know, all the months and months
before pre-production starts, but then even all of pre-production, a lot of things go sideways and,
uh, but you get basically nothing until day one of shooting.
Whereas basically there's no turning back at that point. And then you get paid and, uh, you
know, tv you get paid along the way. And that's really, um, it's a lot more sane, uh, you know,
financial security, uh, compared to features, that's for sure.
Stacy: You can plan for stuff,
Drew: yeah, and
Stacy: on,
Drew: John's point about, yeah, to John's point about the writer being the boss, I would say, you
know, the lesson we learned was don't be afraid of bringing out a partner that knows things you
don't know.
You know, if you're an amazing writer, but you don't have much, you know, production
experience, for example, you know, showrunner is the head writer, and Scripps are, you know,
the kind of most important part of the job. But you also need to know how to hire, a costume
designer and a cinematographer, and you need to know, you know, talent agents to talk to about
casting.

And like, you're, you're kind of the, like, you wear so many hats that, uh, if you know, you don't
have the experience in some area, you know, find a partner, uh, you know, bring someone on
that does have that experience. And, and don't be afraid of seeding any power in the, in the
situation.
Like the writer's always the showrunner and the writer's always gonna be the boss, you know,
but, um, but you'll be expected to. You know, crew up and cast the show and go look at locations
and be able to kind of, you know, compare locations, uh, you know, where you're gonna shoot
the thing and what state or in what country.
And, um, all those things are very, you know, producer, producer kind of topics. And if that's not
an area you have in your skillset, then you know, try to find the partner that does. And, and I
think it's all about choosing partnerships. I think that is such a huge part of TV where, uh, again,
in movies you try to like keep everyone out of the room while you do your thing.
And, uh, it's more about playing defense and protecting your, your creative vision from, you
know, um, uh, a lot of opinions where, where tv, TV have to just embrace that.
John: So in summary, you know, if you're thinking of adapting your, you know, script from a
movie to tv, ask yourself if the problem is, uh, acute or chronic, and whether you can shift
something from an acute problem to a chronic problem. You know, keep it emotional, you know,
roll with it.
You know, get ready to, you know, television is about rolling with it. Don't fight the clock. Uh, find
others you can lean on and trust them to, to do, you know, their part. Cause it's more than a one
person job. There's no one person who could run a show by themselves and have perfect to do
it all themselves.
It'll destroy anyone who tries. Um, and, uh, yeah, keep your head down. Keep moving forward.
Drew: And you only need one. You only need one buyer.
John: Yeah.
Stacy: and keep it about relationships and alliances rather than story.
Drew: Great. Well, thanks so much for joining us everyone.
Stacy: Next week, I think we're gonna have a guest. It'll be, we'll start talking to other people.
Right?
John: Yeah, we'll start bringing on some gas here.
Stacy: That's gonna be super fun. Bye everybody.
Drew: Okay, thank