Recently, I've had a lot of friends debate the looming threat of advanced #AI Chatbots such as ChatGPT, Jasper, Microsoft's ChatGPT, and whatever the tech giants throw at us next in their efforts to manipulate the human race.
I say that only partially joking, as I am often envious of my friends still working in tech, but let me return to the conversation at hand.
Will #artists be made redundant as artificial wordsmiths take center stage?


As a storyteller, let me paint you a picture. Imagine a world where machines create all our literature, where every book, every article, and every script is generated by an algorithm... Ugh, even as I write that, I'm bored to tears. The idea of machines writing every piece of literature is as ominous, imaginary, and boring as politicians magically conjuring up 1500-page bills that they hope nobody will ever read. They intentionally don't consider the emotional impact of the words they commit to the page because they don't want humans to read it.
 Art is not just about the transmission of information but about the emotional connection it creates with its audience. It's about capturing the human experience in all its complexities and presenting it in a way that resonates with people deeply and meaningfully. This is something that I believe machines can never "completely" replicate.


As programs like ChatGPT grows more advanced, it's important to recognize the unique role that writers play in the creative process. Writers are #artists. Writers are #storytellers. They are the creators who can transform raw data into something that moves people (for better or worse). Writers are able to capture the nuances of human emotions, the subtleties of interpersonal relationships, and the complexities of the human experience. (Mix this with a dash of procrastination, and you have a long overdue article about writers vs. ChatGPT).
My argument AGAINST writers is that writers are inherently lazy. Writers procrastinate. Writers have lives outside their "art," with jobs, and depression, and babies, and videogames, and any number of excuses that will forever and always make them less efficient than the machines they rail against.
Rather than seeing ChatGPT as a threat, they can view it as a tool to enhance their creativity. #ChatGPT can generate ideas to help writers overcome writer's block, outline their work, and speed up the research process. It can even be used as a sounding board, a way for writers to test out their ideas and get feedback.


Ultimately, the role of the #writer is irreplaceable. It's not just about the words on the page but the emotional impact those words deliver to their reader. It's about creating something that resonates with people on a deeper level and connects with them.
I say we should embrace #technology. Future generations will grow up with it and use it to their advantage. And the artists will recognize ways to use it to enhance human creativity and the emotional impact of their art.
The runner-up for my article image, but I couldn't get a human buried beneath the piles of paper.

Missed what's going on? Check out Part 1 or Part 2.
Throughout this challenge, I’ve discovered that my favorite time to read is while flying, and lucky for me, it’s the holidays, and I have family all across the country, which means plenty of flying. Depending on the length of the flight (and what I’m reading), I can knock out 2-3 scripts per flight. Mainly because I’m a captive audience and because the alternative would be active procrastination, which would be watching movies to avoid doing the work.
 
The first 10-scripts I read were well-known and produced screenplays for the most part. However, as I enter the halfway mark of the challenge, I’m opening the doors to more screenplays from unproduced writers from around Twitter and in the Writer’s Café (shameless plug). When I’m reading a script from an up-and-coming writer, I always try to provide feedback, so for me, this is where I slowed down the most on the challenge. So you read the Script, collect your thoughts, give the notes, succumb to creative drain, wait four days, go again.
 
The following ten scripts are also where I realized I might not finish all 30 scripts in precisely 30 days. But, not to be deterred, I kept my head down and plowed ahead, starting with some popular shows that many of you may be familiar with:

11. Barry (ep205) - written by Alec Berg & Bill Hader

-- If y’all are fans of Barry, then you’ve seen the episode where Barry is tasked with assassinating a Taekwondo champion and his daughter. This episode drew a lot of attention for being a bit of a non-sequitur within the series, and it is a fun episode. The biggest takeaway is the way the fights are written/or not written. The writer leaves a lot to the imagination of the stunt coordinator, and this dark comedy episode comes in at just 22 pages.

12. Maniac (pilot) - written by Patrick Somerville

-- I watched this show a few years ago, and I thought it was a fantastic presentation of a sci-fi show about depression and connection. It was intimate, confusing, and introspective. However, the pilot script only does part of this. The script is confusing, even for a sci-fi that follows a character dealing with depression. It presents our protagonist Owen, as a down on his luck New Yorker, who not only feels alone but is suffocatingly lonely. No one hears him or even pays attention to him as he moves through life. The modern era is an overwhelming cacophony of noise and technology, but while the script has some good world-building, I wasn’t left with a sense of where this story was going next or what I could expect from this series.

13. The Lobster (feature) - written by Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou 

-- This script is so extraordinary. I’ve heard most stories by Yorgos Lanthimos are unusual, but it’s so refreshing to read a script that doesn’t fall into any pre-prescribed style. The world is incredibly unique, the conversation is intentionally flat, and the consequences are always life or death. It’s a love story crafted in an apathetic world where everyone is desperate to find someone but terrified to open up to them. (FYI, the way action blocks are formatted are absolutely massive).

Am I getting too GIF heavy? I don't know, but I also don't care. In here I am all powerful and gifs are my one true vice.

20 scripts in, 10 to go. 

​Until next time in Part 4. 

So, if you read Part 1, you know why I'm here, and you're probably wondering why the delay. Why would I break up the post and retain such pertinent details like the scripts I read? The only explanation for this is that I'm lazy. Writing several small posts rather than one big post is a more manageable undertaking.

The single most significant piece of advice I can give someone before diving into a challenge like 30 Scripts in 30 Days is to plan out what you're going to read ahead of time. I had a rough idea of what I wanted to read, and I figured I would read 10 Feature Films, 10 TV Shows, and 10 Peer Scripts. I did keep reasonably close to this format, but there were a couple of things that I didn't take into account. First, SOME SCRIPTS ARE TOO DAMN LONG. 

As a writer, I tend to split the page with an equal amount of dialog to action lines, but some scripts are only action or only dialogue. This technique is fine so long as I can follow along and have a clear sense of what the characters are doing within a scene. For example, Craig Mazin's 'Chernobyl' does a great job of moving the story forward while having little to no dialog throughout most of the story. At the same time, Alena Smith's 'Dickinson' sucks the reader into the world through its unique use of anachronistic dialog.

Whatever you're writing, know who your audience is, have a sense of how comparable scripts are written, and most importantly, keep the story moving! I started my 30-day challenge at a breakneck speed. I had several cross-country flights and managed to read 2 - 3 scripts per flight. So naturally, I wanted to choose pieces that had a similar tone to my current works in progress, but I was open to reading scripts that come highly recommended.

And without further ado, below are the first 10-scripts of my 30-day challenge.
​(I'll try to include links to any script that I'm allowed to share)

1. The Expanse (pilot) – written by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby

--  “The Expanse” was awesome! It’s tense, comedic, action packed, and dense with brilliant character and world descriptions. I’m seriously going to mine this for pacing, tone, and character introductions.

2. Mare of Easttown (pilot) – written by Brad Ingelsby

--  This is a pilot that largely consists of character building. Establishing Easttown as one of America’s many small towns where dreams go to die. They do a great job of establishing all the important characters in and around Mare’s life, but if I were to take one thing away from this, it would be how to build a 60-page mystery without revealing a single clue. This episode isn’t about Mare saving the day, so much as it is about a town where a lot of shitty stuff happens, and what will it take to break people out of their molds.

3. The Handmaids Tale (pilot) – written by Ilene Chaiken

--  I was actually surprised by how short this script was for all the world building they have to do and for the dramatic tone (only 49 pages). Another show I haven’t seen, but the script is fast paced, tense, and FULL of Flashbacks. It’s a bit disorienting with how quickly they throw you into each new flashback, sometimes without returning to the main story, but it’s an interesting choice to focus on so much of the protags past rather than devolving more of this dystopian world.

4. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (pilot) – written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

--  In an effort to bring my “spirits” up Sabrina was a fun change of pace! Empowering, driven and very proactive, Sabrina is constantly driving her story and the lives of those around her by asking why all of the time, and choosing to do something when she doesn’t get the answers she’s expecting

5. Euphoria (pilot) – written by Sam Levinson

--  It was an absolute trip (pun intended). Like pretty much the whole story is a depressing peek into the lives of a handful of high schoolers, but they present it in a way that’s unexpectedly optimistic. It’s violent, drug fueled, and hyper sexual, but it doesn’t feel like shock value so much as it appears in a hyperbolic way. Their lives are in a place where each moment feels white hot, but with so much happening it almost feels normal and expected.

6. The Boys (pilot) – written by Eric Kripke

--  My biggest take away from the boys was it’s narrative voice was incredibly conversational as if the audience was supposed to be in the Writers Room. I really like the show, but I don’t think all of the asides (“really, who the hell is this guy”) added to the story or the read, and as much as I wanted to like them, the felt more distracting than anything else. The story pacing is told in a way that is constantly jumping from character to character rather than following one person for multiple scenes. But they do a great job of showing the gritty behind the scenes of superheroes

7. Chernobyl (pilot) – written by Craig Mazin

--  I've fallen a bit behind on my reads, but going to do my damndest to catch up! Chernobyl is an awesome read and probably one of the more uniquely told stories that i've come across lately. I think my biggest takeaway is that the majority of the script is written as action, and as @AnnaK pointed out, it feels like it is being told by a feature writer giving direction to the art and design teams. There is so much detail in this story that I feel most would be told that it is slowing their story down. However, Chernobyl conveys a great sense of urgency and emotion. The writer ends almost every scene on an emotional note, which carries the reader forward anxious to know what's next.

8. Jessica Jones (pilot) – written by Melissa Rosenberg

--  If you watched the show a few years back, then you'll know this is a darker show with a complex protagonist who comes off as cold, erratic, and volatile. What I like about the pilot is that as the story progresses, which each clue she discovers, her armor cracks little by little and you learn that her emotional barriers are there to protect her and those closest to her. I chose this as a character study to read women characters who don't fall into prototypical roles, and Jessica Jones is anything but.

9. Adversaries (pilot) - written by Sean Finnegan, David Daitch, and Katie Stone

--  Action packed TV Drama - Naval fighter story in the vein of Top Gun, but this time it's focused on command. The shift is to a female commander's first 36 hours on the job and she's responsible for evaluating her students for real life warfare. I had certain expectations for where this was going to go and I was surprised when it didn't. It really kept things grounded on her life in the office and at home with a couple of fun Dogfights thrown in to keep the heart racing.

10. American Infamy – written by Takeo Hori

--  This script was an incredible read and I'm so excited that it placed as a Nicholls finalist. The writer does a great job of following a Japanese-American family during the trials of WW2 internment, and constantly asking what it takes to be accepted as an American. The script is heart wrenching, frustrating, and ultimately thought provoking. At a time when discrimination is ever present it's also incredibly relevant. 

And that is 10 scripts down! I know I'm writing all of this after the fact, but where is the sense of danger if I were to release it all at once?? So I'm going to take a pause, refill my coffee and get back to rewriting this script.

​Stay tuned for PART 3 which should be dropping any...day...now.

In 2010, when I first moved to Los Angeles, I had no idea that I wanted to be a screenwriter. I was here for college. That being said, I’ve always loved movies and TV, so of course, I worked on a couple short films and auditioned with the rest of the Hollywood hopefuls. Still, as mentioned, there was no immediate sense of becoming a writer.
 
Being in college and needing a fresh supply of delicious ramen, I came to the realization that I would need to make some money. I needed a job. UCLA had a job board to help students navigate the overwhelming task of finding employment in LA. Lucky for me, I managed to nab a gig as a script reader for Ari Shankar’s independent script financing company, 1984 Films. It was here that I discovered a love for the craft of screenwriting.  
 
1984 Films required me to read three to four feature-length scripts every day! For the uninformed, a feature-length script usually runs between 90 and 120 pages and can take three hours to read. I wouldn’t call myself a particularly slow reader, but I get caught up in the story. I like to remember every scrap of detail the writer gives me, and in doing so, perhaps I don’t fly through the pages as quickly as most. After reading a script, the company required me to write a two-paragraph summary of the story and provide my thoughts on whether the company should help finance the movie.
 
Looking back, this gives a lot of power to a new reader pretty inexperienced with Hollywood. Still, I absorbed so much throughout this experience. Throughout my 3-months of summer employment, I read close to 150 screenplays. Subconsciously, I learned screenplay formatting, story pacing, character development, and so-so-SO MUCH MORE.

Technically it's not dead in the water, but it is on hiatus. I never used to know what that meant when bands like Blink-182 or No Doubt went on hiatus. It felt pretty black or white. Are you together or aren't you? Are you making music or seeing other musicians. And in my case, are you gonna find an audio engineer who can finish the project? Are you going to keep putting your hopes and dreams into people who seem to always have life in their way?

Please allow me a moment to explain my woes. The first audio engineer, let's call him Carl, was a good friend. Carl had a lot of great ideas, passion, and, most importantly, being unemployed. He had a ton of free time to devote to the project...except most of his time went towards finding a job that would actually pay him. Unbeknownst to me, Carl hadn't done any audio editing in a few years, so he was a bit rusty, disorganized, and slow. A rough draft of the pilot episode was only produced due to incessant checking in on my part. Not entirely his fault, but a considerable delay in the project. What Carl did correctly, though, produced a critical element that I think will exist throughout the show. Also, he finally threw in the towel. A little late, but not too late because that introduced me to audio engineer #2.

Audio Engineer #2, also known as Jordan, came to me out of the blue. I posted a search on Twitter, asking for engineers, knowing that I'd be bombarded by an onslaught of eager beavers happy to take my (nonexistent) money. But thankfully, I was saved. Being a REEEEEAAALLY old close friend, Jordan saw my post and was actually disappointed that I hadn't reached out to him initially. On top of this, being an audio engineer for off-broadway productions was his full-time job. I was lucky enough to catch him between gigs, and he was excited to help. 

Starting from scratch, Jordan delivered a completed first draft on the second day of discussing the project. So this is it; I am finally going to get this podcast off the ground. I'm ready to start casting characters for the next several episodes and finish things by the end of the summer....but as it seems to do, Jordan's life got in the way. Innocently, accidentally, and inconveniently, life has managed to delay our initial progress. 'Uncommon Grounds' is not dead in the water, but it's treading dangerously slow. 

It's official, I've locked actors, sent the script, and am prepping for rehearsals. Episode 1 of my narrative thriller, Uncommon Grounds is so close to becoming a reality! I'm so excited about how far this project has come and I'm reaching out to let you know that I appreciate everyone's support. 

There will be more to come in regards to the podcast in these next few months, but right now let me tease that it is a new type of audio experience that revolves around an incredibly perceptive, mild-mannered barista who fixates on the new guy in town until its apparent that he's hiding from something in his past and she becomes fixated with discovering who he really is.

If you're interested in supporting the project, please know that every donation will go towards improving the quality of each episode, paying our actors, editors, and artists, and lastly upgrading equipment to provide even better projects in the future. If you'd like to support this project please check out my Ko-Fi account for a direct and instant way to help. 

It's tough to be creative-- That's not right... It's tough to be creative consistently. 
Some call it writer's block, some call it procrastination, some simply call it making excuses, but the truth of the matter is that it's hard to keep your creative wheels spinning all the time. This is ok. The truth is that being consistently creative is a learned process. It's one that takes structure, dedication, and practice. Most importantly it takes repetition. If you want to know more about building routine, I suggest you check out this great article on Building a Scheduled Process.

I personally think that one of the big things holding people back (in their creative process) is fear. The fear that you're putting so much time, energy, and effort into a project, that you want it to be perfect. The problem with this line of thinking is that it's never going to be perfect, and it's definitely not going to be perfect for everyone. Similar to how different jokes work for different audiences in comedy, not every work of art is going to have the desired effect for everyone who sees it.

This is why (similar to comedy) you need to have more than one joke in your set. The secret to being creative is, being creative more frequently. The more work you put into the world, the higher the chances of someone seeing it and liking it are. This DOES NOT mean you should forego making it a quality project, but I am suggesting you stop putting so much pressure into the success and value of each project. 

Some projects are obviously going to mean more, some projects are just going to be more personal, but once you're able to move past the emotional work, you'll find yourself delving deeper and deeper into the odd, the fun, and the creative work. So don't just throw your hat into the ring, throw many hats, and throw them often.

The Importance of Mood Boarding Your Project.
 
Also known as an inspiration board, brainstorming board, collage of pretty pictures and images; Mood boards are the single most important method of brainstorming.  A mood board is important for virtually any project and it should be the first step you take before even thinking about getting to work. It’s helpful if you’re already creative, but even more so if you don’t have a creative bone in your body. Designing a sculpture? Sure. Developing a videogame? Definitely. Shooting a movie? Absolutely. What about decorating or painting your apartment? Make a Mood Board.


So, what is a mood board?
 
Wikipedia (Obvi the new world dictionary) defines a mood board as “a type of visual presentation or a collage consisting of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition. A mood board can be used to convey a general idea or feeling about a particular topic.”
The purpose of a mood board is to help you gain a better idea of what components you would like to go into your project. This is especially important when you’re trying to pitch an idea to someone else. Sometimes you may not be able to find the precise words to convey your idea to your team, or perhaps your team doesn’t have the same creative capacity that you do. A mood board will help to give them a clear visual representation of what it is you want to make. 

​I have been an avid gamer my entire life. There is something about immersing yourself into a story that is so much more rewarding than binging the latest season on Netflix. My introduction to gaming began at around 3 or 4 years old when my friend’s mom brought home a Super Nintendo (SNES). As I remember, Carol (the mom) was an active gamer herself, and the first games she played were Zelda: A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy IV. For anyone who does not know, these were two incredible games and were a Masterclass in the founding of my video game career. Since then, I’ve continued playing games throughout my formative years and early adulthood, but one thing I’ve never really considered was making the games myself.

Like many of you I’ve played the entire gauntlet of games. I’ve learned that I’m terrible at sports games, I love RPG’s but have less patience and time for them than I used to.  I’ve been addicted to popular trends such as Clash of Clans or Fortnite. Still, I really, more than most, enjoy playing action/adventure games. I enjoy the shooting, I enjoy the puzzles, but mostly I love the stories. I can dive in for quick, bite-sized chapters or dive deep into the game only to emerge several hours later, realizing that I forgot to eat dinner. Naughty Dog is a leader in creating absolutely immersive and entertaining games. I’ve lost myself in several of their titles, most recently The Last of Us, and I’m eagerly awaiting the second installment, The Last of Us 2 to come out on June 19. But aside from fanboying, can’t I do more? I’m a screenwriter, not a software engineer, so how can I develop a more active relationship with the games I love so dearly? There are a few steps that I’m taking, which can bring me closer to my dream job.