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John: Okay, Stace, you want to take it away?
Stacy: Yeah. I got a character voice for this one. Okay. Picture me as a large bearded man. If
there's a show about, okay, wait. Lemme try this again. If there is a show about a showrunner's
work, it's called the Showrunner's Show, run Runner. Run around if there's a show about a
showrunner's work. It's called the Showrunner Show.
Runner. Runner . My son's watching me in horror. Yeah, you can shower. Go ahead. Um, this is
an episode of That Self-Esteem Showrunner Show. If there's a show about a showrunner's
work, it's called the Showrunner Show Best Practices episode, that had a lot, that had layers.
John: That had a, yeah, you brought, you brought a lot to that

John: Welcome to the showrunner show where every week we demystify some aspect of the
job of show running For anyone who works in TV, who wants to work in TV, or just wants to
know how it's all made Uh, today we're trying something a little different.
We're going to call this series our kind of best practices series.
Stacy: Best practices.
John: these are tips or tricks we've used on our shows that have, you know, we've found
transformative in, in our shows. Uh, feel free to use these tricks on your show too.
Stacy: We sort of found that as we've been doing these episodes, it becomes this far ranging
tangential conversation, which sometimes is really fun, but sometimes we're like, Oh my God,
let's just make a point. We'll just talk about that point and get out. So we're kind of doing that. It's
gonna be fun.
John: Yeah, and we'd like to discuss, you know, something we've implemented on our shows
that we like to call the no sides on set rule. And I put rule in like air quotes because it's, it's as
much of a suggestion as a rule, um, on our shows. But,
Stacy: Let's define, let's define sets for the, for the uninitiated listener.
Drew: Yeah. What are sides? Yeah.
John: Yeah, you want to take it, Drew?
Drew: Yeah. Yeah. Sides are basically a printout of the script pages of that day. So whatever
you're shooting that day, the 80 department will hand out, you know, um, Staples, you know,
stack of pages that are being shot that day and they're usually shrunken to kind of be the size
that you can just slip in your back pocket.
And, um, you know, it's very helpful for the crew and everyone, you know, uh, to kind of stay on
the same page and just remind themselves of what they're shooting. And it's helpful to like, go
back and read a scene and see, okay, do I have all the props that I need for the scene? Do we
have, you know, it's very helpful for the crew, I think.
Um, when it comes to cast, it can be a little bit of a crutch when I think, uh, if they haven't
perfectly memorized their lines and they can just pull them out of their back pocket between
takes and look at them all the time. That's kind of what we're addressing here is the sides for

actors in particular.
Stacy: No sides for actors. Yeah. So a script is going to be about what, 60 pages long,
something like that. And if you're block shooting, you're, you've got two of those, right? So that's
like 120 pages, but you're not going to lug that around with you. You're not going to pull that out
of your back pocket. So that's why they make the little sides.
You can go, Oh, we're just going to do these three scenes today. They look like this. And, uh,
You know, some actors, day players who get nervous or maybe stars who just showed up at
sunset, you know, on location the night before or whatever, or maybe feeling a little
overwhelmed or lazy, they might lean heavily on those sides and, you know, pull them out of
their pockets, take a little peek at them even right before the cameras roll.
And, you know, that's how people often do it, but the no sides on set rule takes care of that, gets
rid of that option.
John: Yeah. And it kind of forces, in a way, or it forces the, the issue of like, well, I'll sort of
backtrack. I'll backtrack to the, kind of the origin of this for us was on Waco, um, that season, our
first day working with Mike Shannon, you know, to, you know, consolidate the schedule and
stuff. They gave him a nine page, they scheduled him a nine page day, his first day on set.
Stacy: That's a lot of pages to
John: that's, yeah, that's like a 10th, 10th of a, uh, you know, Broadway play and you're doing
that day one with people you don't know.
Drew: mean, nine pages is a lot to shoot for the whole production for one day. That's a big day,
you know, despite, you know, regardless, you know, not to mention one actor doing all nine of
those pages is crazy.
Stacy: And that just, I feel like I keep jumping in, but just the other thing is like with a Broadway
play or something like that, you're memorizing, you're taking months to memorize it. You
memorize the whole thing. With TV, it's like you memorize nine pages, you do it in one day, and
then you're just supposed to get rid of it.
That's out of your mind. And then you're going to fill that blank mind the next day with like five
more pages or, you know, you, you learn it all and you let it go in one day, which is bananas. But
okay. Go ahead, John.
John: But so Mike Shannon, this is Drew and my first day working with Mike and we were so
excited, a little nervous and, and he shows up and he doesn't have a script on him. He has
memorized all nine pages to a point that he doesn't even, he doesn't even need a reference. He
needs no help. And then Shea Wigum shows up and he has memorized all of his scenes, like
doesn't need any reference.
And we started to see this pattern where the pros know how to prepare. The pros know they
show up just locked and loaded, ready to, ready to gun. And then, you know, Mike. Halfway
through the day, you know, he had one scene with a kind of a local, you know, Day player who
we had planned to like, you know, have a whole season arc and the guy showed up and he kind
of half knew his lines and he was burying, you know, his sides under the, the papers on his desk
and then pulling them out between takes and, you know, Mike Shannon was cool about it.
Like he was, you know, he was, he's a pro, he knows how things go sometimes and he, you
know, he, he wasn't, angry about it or anything, but just to see. The difference in somebody of
Mike's caliber, who's not just, you know, more experienced, but like has so vastly outprepared
the, the actor. And, and I think a lot of actors have this idea of, uh, their job is to get cast, you
know, their job, they bring, they bring their best for the audition, but in an audition, maybe three

people will see it, you know what I mean?
Maybe five, like. But it's like, then they get cast and they go to actually do the job and they
they've already won, you know, in their minds, they've already won. This is they, they already did
it,
you know?
Stacy: is just a celebration now.
John: Yeah. yeah, totally.
Stacy: They already called their mom and was like, I got the job. Now they're just going through
the motions of, yeah.
John: yeah, totally. And, and you see. The pros, the people who've been doing it, like show up
ready to rock and roll and the newer people, the people who are, you'd think it'd be the opposite.
You think it'd be the new people are like super gung ho, like,
Drew: I'm gonna impress. Yeah, I'm gonna impress everybody. Yeah.
Stacy: I have a couple of things to say about that. The first is I think, and this is, you know,
speaking with a lot of heart for the day players, a day player is, you know, somebody who
comes into act just for one day, right?
John: a hundred percent.
Stacy: They often, and I was a day player for a long time. They often don't work that much.
So they just don't realize, basically they show up and they have a lot of nerves. And even if
they're like. I spent three hours yesterday saying my four sentences that I have to do in the
scene over and over and over. I am so prepared. I've never been so prepared. Then they show
up, they get flooded with adrenaline and nerves, and it all goes away.
I can't tell you, as a covering writer, I feel bad how often I've seen somebody who shows up,
they're chatty, everything's fine, and then as the cameras go. you see this look of terror in their
eyes, and I've honestly heard many actors be like, they flub their lines and then somebody yells
cut and they're like, I know this.
I know this. I know this perfectly. And you're like, you know, you know, who doesn't have to say
that is the person who knows it perfectly. It's just because of nerves, right? The other thing I
want to Uh, tack on for this is John. I think you're so right that actors go, I got the job. It's
something that only happens to me once a year or once every two years.
I did it. And they forget they actually have to show up and shoot it. And so many actors, I think
they think their job is to look as good as possible and to be as emotionally like centered as
possible when they show up. So they'll go get facials. They'll drink celery juice. They'll get a lot
of sleep.
They'll do all this stuff to sort of. Put themselves into a more glowy, beautiful physical place and
a more centered mindset of, you know, I don't know, life coachy type stuff. And they forget that
really all they have to do is say those lines, like saying those lines, memorizing those lines kind
of becomes the last thing on their mind.
They're caring way more about exfoliating their skin than learning the lines.

Drew: Yeah, no, I believe that's true. I believe a lot of actors freeze and I think it's important to
have, like John said, it's a, it's not a hard and fast rule. I think it's important to recognize if
someone's, you know, having those nerves and they need to take a look at, you know, you call a
little time out, let them kind of refamiliarize themselves with the lines.
I think that that's helpful to have that, you know, um, you know, still available to actors, but yeah,
I think, you know, as you're saying, John, like. You think of like Michael Shannon is just this like
supremely talented actor and it just comes easy for him and Shea Whigham and you know and
the same was true for Taylor Kitsch his first day on Waco was Coming in to do a huge
monologue for the the joy sermon that we the scene We called the
Stacy: that was his first day.
Drew: That was his first day and and you could have printed, you know Take one and not even
done a second take and, and it would have been great. I mean, you just see this kind of
recurrent, we see this recurring pattern of like, Oh, these guys that are real, uh, really successful
and really, you know, continue to work like crazy are also the ones that work the hardest.
And there's no, there's, that's no coincidence.
John: Yeah. Like Taylor's current show. Like I know, you know, he did a season one of his show
and he showed up prepared and just gunning so hard. They gave him a whole spinoff to just
him. You know what I mean? And, and I think, I think so often it's like you, you know, as, as
showrunners and, and, you know, writers on set, like we see, we see, you know, who is
prepared and often the people like, Oh, I know the lines.
I know the lines. Like, you know, it's just nerves. But you know what, you know what I feel like
calms actors more than anything else is really knowing the lines, knowing the lines in a point like
Taylor, Taylor kitsch, for example, his joy sermon, like he brought a friend to Santa Fe when we
were shooting and he would spend all his off time running lines with that friend over and over.
He trained like, you know, Taylor. Taylor came up as a, you know, semi pro hockey player before
he was an actor and he trained like an athlete trains. He trained, he did reps and reps and reps.
So by the time he was actually, you know, doing the joy sermon, he knew that so well, like there
was no question. He didn't have to reach for a single line where, you know, you see the actors
who do show up besides on set.
Often it's the network asks you to trim those scenes like you like you see it in slow motion, you
see it coming, you're like, Oh, this actor is struggling. The network is going to see the dailies and
see the actor struggling. The you know what I mean? Like, And slowly all these lines are going
to get trimmed down, and it's going to be the bare bones of what the scene could be.
And then the crew starts working fast, they're like, oh, most of the scene's going to get cut, let's
just move through it. Um, it just, it has this cumulative effect, when people don't know their lines.
And I, I feel like it, it doesn't serve the actors well. You know, if they're struggling, if they're going
back and, you know, and you always have a script supervisor on set, you know, usually have a
writer on set and you have the script supervisor.
So you can always go to them and ask like, Hey, did I get that line? Right? Like you can always
double check that way. And that's totally a different thing.
Stacy: And also no signs on set. It's like, you know, that's on set. You can have it in your trailer.
You can have it in your green room or whatever, you know, you, you, you will, you'll be taking
peeks at it. It's just, you can't be there glancing at it in your back pocket right before they say
action.

John: yeah,
Stacy: what would you say some of the benefits are? What, what are some of the benefits that
you've noticed? Better
Drew: I would say, I would say yeah, performances for sure, but I would say it's just a huge time
saver in terms of production. It's like, you know, you have number 30 on your call sheet shows
up and doesn't know their lines and you're doing, you know, nine takes. It's like, it's like a, a
rainstorm just came into the middle of your day, you know, and, uh, um, it just grinds everything
to a halt.
The whole day loses its momentum. Um, and performances across the board really suffer. Um,
and like John said, you start to get like, okay, how do we, how do we, yeah. How are we gonna
save the scene? Like, what's the, what's the truncated version of the scene that will exist after
this, uh, situation, you know? Um, so I, I think it's just really destructive in so many ways.
John: yeah, I also think it forces the director, the show runners, the writers on set and the other
actors. Yeah. To play traffic cop instead of, instead of playing, like, what's the best version of the
scene? How do we find the great nuance that, you know, could exist in the scene? Instead of
playing that game, you're playing, Hey, did, did, you know, that actor say this line yet?
Did they, did they get this line right yet? Like, we need this line for something down the road.
like, we need to make
Stacy: don't know their lines.
John: if people don't know their lines, then it forces everyone around them to play the game of
like, did they say the line yet? You know, versus, okay, everyone's locked and loaded, and take
one is a printable take.
Take one is something, like, then you have two actors just playing with nuance, and, and, it's,
like, that's the stuff actors want to do. That's the stuff we all want to do, is to get into the meat of
the scenes, versus playing the, uh, did the actor say the line yet, see, you know, game,
Stacy: hmm. As a covering writer, uh, one of the benefits I've noticed is that if people can't have
sides, if the actress can't have sides, if they want to change something or they don't like
something, if they have like, Hey, can I do an improv here? Or I'm bumping on this. I don't like
this. They come to you early.
Like, uh, John, we were discussing earlier, not everyone does this, but a typical thing, something
that you fellas do. Uh, consistently, and a lot of other people do, is the actors get together, they
rehearse, they block, this is before they've had all their makeup and stuff, then, you know, the,
with the director, then the crew is brought in, the DP, everyone's brought in to watch their
blocking.
And they just sort of stand around in a circle and watch them do it, and then, the actors are sent
away to get their hair and their makeup and their wardrobe and all that, while Um, the
technicians, you know, set up the lights and do all that might take, you know, half an hour or
something. I've noticed that if people can have sides, they might not bother to ask you about
changing a line or doing something differently until they're just about to shoot.
They go away, they get their makeup, they get their hair, they come back. And then as it's
action, they go, you know, I feel like maybe this line, I don't love it so much, or I don't know if a
lawyer would really say this, whatever. Whereas if they're not going to be able to have that,
those discussions will probably happen.

I mean, even before rehearsal, do you know what I mean? You're showing up and you're
standing in line to, I was always late because I'm the worst. So standing in line to gobble down
breakfast and then people are coming to me with, you know, like, Hey, can this line change or
can that line change? And since I wasn't a showrunner, that also gave me an opportunity.
They might ask about lines and stuff and I could give my opinion, but I would always have to.
Call you guys and run it past you. I could say, I think that's a good choice, blah, blah. Let me
check with John and Drew. That would give me a moment to call the showrunner, get the go
ahead, you know, the approval or the disapproval.
Um, something that would be extremely time consuming if it were happening with, uh, the full
crew there.
Drew: Yeah, that's true. Anything that you can, any conversation you can pull up before the day,
before you're actually shooting, uh, is so helpful because it's true. Even one line change
suggestion from an actor that maybe as a showrunner you don't like and you want to explain to
them why. What's written is better, like those conversations, you know, can take a half hour, you
know, they really can take a long time and actors, you know, sometimes have really thought
about a line and really feel strongly about changing something and, uh, it could take a long time
to kind of get around that or to, or to agree to the, you know, to the line change, but those are,
those are Typically not short conversations.
So anything that can kind of come up ahead of the shooting day will save, uh, you know, not just
that time, but anything that delays your shooting has a ripple effect. You know, I think you were
saying John, that cumulative effect and, um, everything seems to slow down when one thing
slows you down. And, uh, so any of those things you can move off your shooting days, you'll
thank yourself for later.
John: I think there's a vibe to when your production is running efficiently and things are moving
quickly, it gets the crew excited and the actors feed off the crew and you know, the actors are all,
you know, they can feel the energy around them. If it's a bunch of people like. checking texts,
you know, in their eye line, you know what I mean?
Like, and, and, you know, actors, your crew will check out if they're like, Oh, nobody knows their
lines. It's going to be two hours before we shoot anything. Then they slow down. And then
there's even more time, like it, it all feeds itself. Whereas if actors show up and they're ready to
gun, you know, that camera operator.
Better know exactly where he's going to go in the rehearsal. You know what I mean? He, he, he
doesn't have three takes to find it. Like he's got to know it, you know, take one. And you know,
the, you know, the boom guy has to know exactly where he's going and how to dance with it.
Like, because there's not going to be takes to waste.
And I think that just imbues the entire crew with this feeling of excitement and momentum that
is. That translates, you know, onto your finished product, you know, your finished scene, like you
feel the energy in the room, you know, good or bad, uh, deep down, like you can feel it, like if
everyone's miserable, you can feel that.
And if everyone's moving at a good clip, you can feel that too. Um, it's why, you know, so often,
like, you know, my favorite directors, like they get bigger and bigger budgets and have more and
more time and their movies get like. boring, you know what I mean? Whereas like when they
had to like rush and gun and show up enthusiastic and excited.
Those are, you know, tend to be, I feel like people's best work.
Drew: we kind of had fun with this new rule too, that we, we developed it and I think, you know,
you definitely have to have buy in from your lead, you know, you have to go to your lead and

say, this is, you know, uh, something I'm going to do for the rest of the cast and, um, and
typically your lead is, you know, already there and already kind of, you know, uh, like using the
Mike Shannon example already is a person that you never see pull outsides ever, but it's really
kind of, um, You know, if you can kind of pose it as a challenge, a little bit of like, Hey, this is, you
know, a rule on our sets that we don't want to see sides on set.
And, uh, and you know, you'll be acting with Mike and you'll never see him pull out his sides
and, you know, and if you kind of just set that bar ahead of time, I think most people take it as a
bit of a fun challenge. And, uh, and you know, I think that's a way to kind of position it versus a,
you know, kind of a.
Taking a crutch away from them or taking something away from them. That's a that's useful for
them. I think I think that most people responded that way where it's kind of like, oh really? Okay,
you know, it's like that, you know and that that's kind of a way to position it I think
Stacy: Having come up, um, from theater, through theater, you know, rather than film. Theater is
filled with this sense, like every day begins with a little speech of like, we're in this together,
we're doing this together. There's so much rehearsal, there's so much talking about the script,
there's so much talking with the director of like, what are we making here?
When I switched to film and TV and I, as an actor, showed up on set, it was a shock to me, a
huge shock to see just how scattered the whole thing is. You're, you're sort of, you don't even
know who you're working with, there are hundreds of people. I, I... I have to say, the No Sides
On Set creates that feeling of, that sort of theater feeling.
We're all in this together. We're all making the same thing. The crew's here, the actors are here,
the directors, we've all discussed this ahead of time. We are making the same, we're all in this
together.
Drew: Yeah, that's true. That's really good
John: Drew's point too, like to make it, you know, we, we like to create the, like, You know,
we've learned to instead of trying to tell actors as they show up, you know, because then it's too
late Like we've set it up where? We talked to the the production coordinator to send out a memo
when someone's cast they get this memo saying like hey Just so you know, here's what our
expectation is that you will not bring your you know script to set we like to you know the the
leads Like to move fast.
We like to support them in that and not slow things down by people finding, finding it on set. Um,
and just them having, you know, and we make it, you know, kind of an expectation mentioned
versus a rule. If someone shows up and they're struggling, uh, you know what I mean? Then it
doesn't become like we said, you know, this thing, like we, we, you know.
And we've had, we had actors like, Hey, I was just cast at the last minute. Like I I'm like, I did a
lot of scenes, like, you know, we've had people come to us, but it's not just, they show up not
knowing it. They show up feeling like, Oh, like I'm, I'm still working on it. You know, um, it just
creates a different level, different bar, a different level of professionalism that I think, um, just
stating that expectation instead of being like, Oh my God, I can't believe this person doesn't
know.
Their lines, you know, just laying that out ahead of time, I think allows people who are just there
for one day to know how to prepare like a pro, you know what I mean? Just that one thing, like,
you know what the pros do? They all show up like locked and loaded. It's the, there's a reason
pros are pros, you know?
And half of it is just they, they know how to like know their lines and they practice and they
rehearse and they're scared to show up and be the one person who doesn't know their lines.

And.
Stacy: I didn't realize you did that through the production coordinator. I thought you did that
through the casting director. So it's not like a, hey, congratulations, here's your phone call.
You've been cast. No Sides On Set. It's more like the production coordinator sends out the like,
Hey, be here at this time.
These are the scenes we're doing. Please no sides on set. It's like that.
John: Yeah, it's almost like a cast memo that's sent out as a separate thing that, you know, like,
but like once you're cast at some point in the process, like we, you know, we talked to the
producer and the, the production coordinator to make sure that's, they all get this one same
memo, we write it out, we, we write it in a way that's not like, you know, jerky or, you
know, you know,
Stacy: like you were saying an invitation and a, and a, a goal rather than a mean law, like you
Drew: I think it's Yeah. And I think it sends the message. Yeah. It's not sent out as a, yeah, kind
of a jerky way. I think it also sends a message of this show is going to move fast. You're not
going to be sitting around waiting. No, you know, we're going to, I think it, it, it sets the stage for,
uh, uh, well run machine.
And I think all actors, you know, ultimately appreciate that too, you know, and, uh, uh, and it
really works. It really works.
John: it does. It does. It's, it's been transformative on our sets, I think. So that's, you know,
that's our best practices, no sides on set rule. Uh, please send us a message. Tell us if you'd like
these best practice episodes and please hit subscribe. And if you like our show, please consider
rating us. Thank you.
Stacy: Thank you.
Drew: Thank you.