Screenplay Sunday

Josh: It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 837.

Tommy: Happy weekend, banter. Welcome back, Georgie Boy and Mr. 97.

George: Thank you.

Tommy: How are we, lads?

Josh: Lads, lads, lads, lads, lads.

George: The boys are back in town.

Tommy: Yeah, I gotta hang on. Sorry, Brodie's just, uh, eff with my lighting.

Josh: Oh no.

Tommy: There we go, that's better. Just lost the tint of orange.

Josh: Didn't make a big difference, but that's okay. Real quickly, have you guys noticed this trend? I'm doing it, I wanted to know if you guys are doing it too.

Tommy: Well, if you're doing it, I'm definitely not doing it because I'm nothing like you, mate.

Josh: The working from home, I've noticed—

Tommy: I'm doing that, I'm doing it.

Josh: Having a shower or whatever and then forgetting to bring undies into the bathroom and then just being like, oh, fuck it, I'm not going anywhere. I'll just put the trackies on, no undies, all good.

Tommy: Hang on, do you have undies on right now?

Josh: No, no, no undies.

Tommy: A couple of things here, a couple of things here. I don't take my clothes into the bathroom.

Josh: Yeah, okay, interesting.

Tommy: I just take my towel.

Josh: What happens with Zoom calls and what— you don't know what's happening out there.

Tommy: Oh, okay. No, the thing is, I'm living that life with ensuite. I'm living that ensuite life, you know what I mean?

Josh: Must be nice.

Tommy: It's no floor-to-ceiling windows, but it's fucking good.

Josh: I mean, there is a problem with floor-to-ceiling windows. I guess that's why I'm probably sort of—

Tommy: trope, trope—

Josh: more cautious. Not that I've got anything to hide.

Tommy: Really? No, no. I get it, but I will say I'm all for it, Josh. I've got no problem with free balling. I've been known to spend a whole day at the office in a pair of jeans free balling.

Josh: Oh no, well, really, I don't know.

Tommy: Don't judge me, Mason, you absolute rat.

Mason: What are you doing? Look, free balling in jeans, absolutely not.

Josh: Yeah, I agree. Free balling in jeans is like free balling in running shorts.

George: Dude, it requires To be honest, I'd rather free ball, I'd rather free ball in jeans than trackies.

Mason: Really?

George: Wow.

Mason: Okay, because you're not gonna see— I get it.

Josh: No, why?

George: Trackies just feels so like intrusive. Jeans, like, they're a bit of a stiffer fabric. Yeah, so it's kind of like, I don't know.

Tommy: No, I see what you mean. You really see your penis shape when you're wearing trackies. And so if you are outdoors, like if you're going out It's classic. It's just, you can tell if you're circumcised or not.

Josh: That's okay. That's all right. Like working from home, I feel like that's, you know, seeing my body half out. But I do have to, yeah, you do have to think about it when you're standing up or things like that.

Tommy: I will say, if you free ball in jeans, look, I don't advise it. It's a power move. I don't know who the power is for, but it's definitely you've—

Josh: When would you free ball in jeans?

Tommy: It's all— it's always if you've been to the gym and forgot to pack a pair of undies. Unrelatable.

Mason: Same ones.

George: You— you—

Tommy: no way. And you've had a shower.

Mason: Absolutely.

Tommy: I'm not gonna go spend a day in sweaty jocks. I'd rather spend a day, you know, free-balling in, in my jeans. There is one thing though, and if you are a fellow jean free-baller you become very self-conscious of your crack because you don't realise how cracky you get when you've got no undies in jeans.

Josh: Are you wearing a belt? The guy that's not wearing undies is definitely not wearing—

Mason: he's not wearing a belt, that's for sure.

Tommy: I've forgot everything. But it's very— George nodded when I said the crack thing. He's feeling me. He knows the crack thing in jeans.

George: I don't have a very high ass crack. Have you got a high ass crack?

Tommy: Well, so I had my old housemate. My old housemate, I didn't even know what a high ass crack was. This guy always had, always, always had his crack out somewhere, and I worked it out. His bum is just one crack. It's like there's no cheeks.

Josh: It actually reaches the scaps.

Tommy: It's the back of the head. The back of the head at the neck where his hairline finishes is where his ass starts.

Josh: Could you imagine having this being asked to itch his back? Make it with my back? No, mate.

Tommy: Oh, I bet you're an asshole.

Josh: And so, JB, are you— I feel like you have an opinion on this, this stuff, on the undies stuff. It seems you had two, you had two, two things.

George: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I already have. Well, now I was going to say the same thing as Tommy's. I don't I don't get changed in the bathroom.

Josh: Okay.

George: Yeah, I get changed, I just get changed in the bedroom, but I do have an ensuite as well. The other thing was—

Josh: doesn't matter what the other thing was.

George: I mean, my mom still buys me undies, so.

Josh: Yeah, well, do you know what you need? Not to harp on about it, but if you had a second brain, you would have put that into your drafts. I've told you about drafts. Have you downloaded and started using drafts?

George: Okay, I'm glad you brought this up. I got it. Yeah, I downloaded it. I paid for it, so I got the pro version. Yeah, thank you. It's not syncing.

Josh: No, I can—

George: I was embarrassed to bring it up. I'm not joking. I've tried on 3 different devices and it's not syncing.

Josh: Are you connected to the internet?

Tommy: Have you turned yourself off and on?

George: Yeah.

Josh: I can help you after this, JB. It's very easy.

George: Nah, I'm just using notes.

Josh: I love notes.

George: No, no, no, no.

Josh: I'm just—

Tommy: Yeah.

Mason: But I do love notes.

Josh: So how about this? Seb's—

George: I'm a notes guy.

Josh: Seb's was looking at— He's doing a bit of a rebrand. It's a classic case of get a girlfriend and then they want to dress you. And so he was on the Iconic looking at different clothes options. And I said, hey, maybe you could get some of the stuff that Pete Shepherd wears. Pete's got great style. And so, I was able to type in Pete into my draughts and I gave Mason the link where Pete shops and gets his stuff. Was that amazing?

Tommy: Why do you have the link to where Pete shops?

Josh: I asked him.

Tommy: Which brain?

Josh: The second brain.

Tommy: Asked him. The second brain sent him a text and said, hey, Josh's second brain.

Josh: So, when you're on a walk or whatever and you're like this, and the thing was, He was actually at the office. No, yeah, this was when I was there when he mentioned it. It would have been October last year, November last year.

Mason: Was it last year?

Josh: Early December, I don't know at all.

Tommy: But anyway, I mean, there is an intensity to this approach to life that, that I'm not up for playing, and it's all good.

Josh: Why do you want to live an intense life?

Tommy: Because it's fucking intense.

Josh: But isn't that like, we only have one life? You can choose two options. You can be dull and just live on the non-intense life, or you can be intense. There is something very powerful about being intense.

Tommy: I think there's— I think there's— I think you're right in some senses, but I think there's also the peaceful existence that's like, what's it all mean to even have Pete's supplier of his clothes, clothes on the phone? Like, it doesn't really mean anything for anyone.

Josh: It's a real, it's like, you know, until you need the details, until you're like buying something.

Mason: I appreciated it.

Josh: Yeah, that's why you like, you go back to the same places over and over again because you don't know where else to go. I'm not being critical of that, but I'm just saying.

Tommy: But that is definitely advice to yourself.

Josh: No, because what I said to the risk, the risk was I said to Sevs, because Sevs does take my advice. And I said to him, I'm like, you can't— I can't be your style icon. You can't, because he has been using me as his style icon, which is why he wears the hoodies, the hats.

Tommy: I reckon he's so much more fashionable.

Josh: Well, that's what I'm saying. I don't— I think that he needs to— he's going to sort of branch out beyond me. And so I gave him permission. I'm like, Go look at other places. Don't just wear what I wear.

George: So where does Pete shop then?

Mason: Uh, he shops at propercloth.com.

George: Oh, there you go.

Tommy: Proper cloth.

Mason: Yeah, proper cloth.

Josh: Mason was looking for a jumper that was, what, $1,300? So he was like, yeah, whenever you say, oh look, it only takes one of my JobKeeper payments You know you're paying too much. It's like, oh yeah, I only have to work 6 weeks for that jumper. Yeah, but the idea is you have it forever, you know, it's a quality product.

Tommy: Uh, so this week, quite intense weather, there was a lot of wind, and I know that you and Seb's Josh had wind earlier in the week, um, but that was from your bees.

Josh: Did we talk about ventilation?

Mason: No. Oh my God, I don't think I've, I don't think I've farted that bad. Yeah, yeah, in my life.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

Mason: So you actually don't like it? It was outrageous.

George: Smell or power?

Josh: Both.

Tommy: Just gas.

Josh: Yeah, just windy. He could provide renewable energy for the entire suburb of Balwyn North with wind farm.

Tommy: Wind farm.

Josh: He powered a wind farm. And also the amount of turbines that I pushed around was outrageous. Yeah, go too bloody fast. Slow them down, huh?

Mason: Yeah, I broke them all.

Tommy: Anyway, so really windy and it just kind of picked up the other night and next minute we're all on the bloody text together.

Josh: Oh, how windy is this?

Tommy: It's just, you know, it was a great chat. I appreciate it. You had a great video in there.

Josh: Thank you.

Tommy: Uh, a little later that night, fucking internet went absolutely ropeable. Trying to do some uploads, no dice. Obviously an outage. I respected the decision of Mother Nature that decided that I couldn't have internet, so I was like going to bed. Had an early night, woke up early, did some work. It was great. It was a godsend. Uh, anyway, it's come back to bite us even worse than the internet. My mum called Amy. I got a message from Harry Lodge. Uh, residents in almost 90 suburbs across Victoria have been urged to boil water due to electrical damage caused by winds and storms across Victoria on Thursday night. 3 people, including a 4-year-old boy, have been killed. That's fucking got a bit dark there. I was only bringing the fact that we had to boil water. We've been boiling water to drink.

Josh: And that's how the— Oh, you could just have cold water?

George: Is that because it's contaminated?

Mason: Are you serious?

Tommy: No, no, you've got to boil. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So, when you need to boil water, JJ, like you're either living on a property that's got a tank, a rain tank, and it's pulling water into the taps that you actually have to filter. The fucking weather has done something to the water.

Josh: Ah, it's getting in the tank. I really want to survive.

Tommy: Not in my tank, it's in the actual fucking— it'd be you too, Seb.

George: Water supply.

Tommy: It'd be in your water too.

Mason: Yeah, it's all right. Yeah, you'll be right.

Tommy: Spinach guy. Frozen spinach guy.

George: Yeah, you'll be fine.

Josh: You'll get some salmonella or something.

Mason: It actually can't be that bad.

Josh: Well, Mason, you were saying, Seb, you were saying that they're working out whether you've got Uh, you know how towns are going with COVID based on the feces?

Tommy: The—

Mason: Yeah. Oh yeah, so that I, I was reading an article that they're gonna use sewage as an early warning sign to find COVID. So I don't know, I mean that I don't know what the actual process is in terms of detecting it, but they must just go down there and just take samples at a regular interval to find—

Josh: What a job.

Mason: Test for COVID.

Josh: Wow.

Mason: Because the contamination, I feel like, would spread pretty quickly. Like, once it's all in there, then it can just go everywhere, right?

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And so, TJ, what does this mean for you? So, the—

Tommy: It's just—

Josh: No, no. So, the temperature, the heating up of the water, because I did want to buy— There's water bottles that you can get that have like, you know, the pump bottle. The pump bit is a bit bigger and it's got all these minerals and sand and you put that on first and then you can just fucking get water. I could be walking along the Yarra River and just fucking fill up my bottle and drink.

Tommy: Dude, there's some YouTube videos of seeing just disgusting water go to clean. The thing about it though, for those— I mean, I don't think it's that hectic, but I was going to say, Sevs, the Yarra water is urging residents to not drink it. Like, that is like— they're the fucking head of the water.

Josh: It's really lucky you guys were all Melbourne's not on the list. The thing is, TJ, how long were you like saying, mate, water's free, water's endless, and here I am with 500 cans. Just cheers to you all. Your water tastes like shit. Mine's— mine has raspberry.

Tommy: If that's not privileged, I don't know what is.

Josh: Cheers, cheers, cheers.

George: Did you end up getting the, the special from Woolies?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, we did.

George: You stock up?

Josh: Yeah, we got, um, a bunch. We also tried some San Pellegrino, the orange one.

Tommy: It's great, but Big, you know he brought a lot, bought a lot when he hasn't said the number. It's like, it's a bit obnoxious that he doesn't want to mention it.

Josh: There was a lot. See, see, there's a lot.

Tommy: How many cans? Just give it a number, give it a number, tell us how many.

Josh: It was, we, it's a whole fridge shelf. No, we couldn't fit them all in the fridge. 24 boxes. 24, mate, more than 24. I drink 9 in a day.

Mason: You're talking about like 96.

Josh: Um, wow, I know that people get very— people are listening to this just getting real angry, and, um, that's fine.

George: How's your piss?

Josh: Fucking clear. Clear as a— um, clearer than the bloody water that TJ's drinking.

Tommy: Yours would be safer to drink than this bullshit.

Josh: And it tastes a little bit like raspberry if you want.

Tommy: Hey, uh, after last Sunday's Weekend Banter, uh, got a message from a mate of the show, Gideon Hine. He said, uh, mate, love the Screenwriting Sunday. How can I get involved? How can I get involved? And so they're asking, they're asking, it's a segue. How do they get involved? I'll say it again, how do they get involved?

Josh: JB, do you want to answer this one?

George: How do they get involved? Well, how do they get involved?

Mason: That's a great question.

George: How?

Mason: Uh, look, you can, um, you can send us an email, hide the daily talk show, uh, registering your interest.

Josh: Yeah, yeah.

Mason: Uh, and, um, what will happen from there is the subject line will be screenwriting, and then George screenwriting.

Josh: Get back to you.

Mason: George will get back to you, and you'll be on a, you'll be on a list where George sends you an email each week with all of the screenplays that Josh of him and him have written so far. And, uh, really, they'll also— George will also go through and who are any ones that have been—

Josh: no, there'll be a, there'll be a, there'll be a group somewhere. I think they'll probably become a member of my Substack. Maybe you and I could have a sub stack. It's like a blogging platform.

Mason: It's a second brand.

Josh: It's behind a wall and you can get their email addresses.

Tommy: Anyway, what I did say to Gideon was, if you want to, if you've got a script, if you want us to read, do a table read of a script on a show, send it through. Because he's been writing this, he's been writing scripts, and that's why I was so into it. He's like, mate, I've been writing scripts, fucking into it. This week though, it's not Gideon's time to shine.

Josh: I was going to do it. I was going to work really hard, but I want GB. I know how much he's been putting into this. You've even been doing the masterclass. What do you think of Aaron Sorkin's masterclass?

George: Yeah, started the masterclass last night. Loved it. It was great. I was actually building a second brain while I was watching Aaron Sorkin's masterclass. So I was writing heaps of notes. You would have been proud, Josh. Oh, great.

Josh: What are some of your notes?

George: I've only done like, hey, read some of the notes.

Josh: What sort of notes you got?

George: Well, I mean, this is, people are gonna get a free masterclass here, but the main thing is.

Tommy: Do we need to play the music? Let's play the masterclass music.

George: So I've written heaps of notes and I've put the ones in bold that I think are the best. Strong, clear intention and in-formidable obstacle. So the main thing with screenwriting is you need a clear intention and an obstacle. So basically someone wants something and there's something standing in their way. If you're not sure if it's a good enough intention or a good enough obstacle, you just press on it. So, you know, you ask questions like, oh, what if they just did this? What if they did this? And you have to basically, yeah, make sure there's no, plug up the holes, they say.

Josh: Well, so like an obstacle and intention, a good one would be TJ talked about, The cafe that they went to, she locked herself out. And so you've got the obstacle and she needs to get inside. How is she— like, this is a very sort of like obvious, an obvious one, but it's like there's multiple ways. Was she gonna smash the window or do this or do that? Yeah, come on, JP.

George: So intention and obstacle is the main, that's the main thing.

Josh: I was worried that you were going to go too dialogue heavy because I don't know if you have read some of Aaron Sorkin's work, he doesn't have much action at all. It's all dialogue.

George: Yeah, so he said that he— a normal script is like 120 pages or something.

Josh: It's a minute, it's a minute a page.

George: Yeah, a minute a page. But his screenplays are about 200 pages and it's still a lot of dialogue.

Josh: Yeah, and it's not like a minute a page. Like, if you hear— like, he did The Social Network and Steve Jobs and West Wing, like they're very like fast-paced, like back and forth. And the other thing too is on that sort of intention obstacle thing, so much of the dialogue that he's written is just two people struggling to communicate and understand each other. Like, that's why I think like with, who was the guy that played Mark Zuckerberg? What's his name?

George: Jesse Eisenberg. Eisenberg.

Josh: I always get confused between him and, um, Andy Samberg. Yeah, I was thinking Andy. No, I was always— I always get—

George: yeah, a little bit actually, but also, uh, they did that SNL sketch, they had Mark Zuckerberg, Andy Samberg, and Jesse Eisenberg.

Josh: Oh really?

George: They all look the same.

Josh: I always get confused with, um, uh, who's the guy from Juno?

Tommy: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

George: Cena?

Tommy: No, Sarah.

George: Sarah.

Tommy: Sarah.

Josh: Sarah.

Tommy: Not John Cena.

George: Yeah.

Josh: And then I feel like, uh, Jack Post fits in the middle. Like, Jack Post is a similar vein for some reason.

Tommy: Definitely.

Josh: Um, anyway, uh, GB, do you want to tell us about the script that you've just sent through to us?

George: Yep. So I was like, oh, maybe like trying to think of an idea. I thought I could do an idea based on something that's happened on the show this week. Fuck it up and sort of rework it from there. Because one of the things that Aaron Sorkin talks about is finding your favourite short storeys and then rewriting them basically as a little exercise.

Josh: Yeah, I love that.

George: So, so I've sent you, sent you guys a script.

Josh: Um, yeah, first bit of feedback. I use the—

Tommy: uh, he didn't ask for it.

Josh: Well, no, look, I'll give him what it's going to be. As your screen mentor, just like I'm Seth's style mentor. The printed with demonstration version of Fade In, whilst the formatting is great, having a watermark that says that you're using the demo software, as someone who would be in Hollywood, I'd say, eh, no. I mean, you've gotta be able to invest in at least the software if you're getting serious.

Tommy: Also, similar advice to his fashion stuff. It's out of his depth.

Josh: I think, or at least I'm sure you could probably use Adobe Acrobat to delete that demo writing. Just a thought.

George: Yeah, sure. I couldn't work out how to give it a title page. So the title page is basically title, written by, author's name, copyright.

Mason: So you've ripped it off the end, you've just ripped it off.

Josh: Well, no, it sets it up like that. Yeah. And so you just haven't put in this. So normally one of my favourite bits is the title page 'cause you can put your name on the copyright and you feel like a top dog. That's fine. I think I'm really proud of you. I think it's fantastic.

George: Thank you.

Tommy: Much better than last week.

Josh: And so, yeah, go on.

George: All right, so table read, basically. Josh, you can call the action again.

Josh: Yep.

George: Tommy, you're Tommy. Mason, you're Sarah. And I'll be Siri slash Constable.

Josh: Okay, this is title written by author's name. Interior, Tommy's house, night. Tommy is frantically looking around the house. He grabs his phone and wallet off the table, taps his cotton-on trackie pockets but feels nothing. He spots his keys on the kitchen bench and grabs them, then cheques the time on his phone. 7:41. He slips on his shoes and ties up his laces. 7:42. Interior, car, night. Tommy is driving as he glances at the clock.

Tommy: Hey Siri. Hey Siri. Yes. Directions to the nearest ice cream shop.

George: Make a U-turn.

Josh: Ah! He slams on the brakes and does a U-turn. 7:44.

Tommy: Hey Siri.

George: Yes.

Tommy: Call Fairy Hills Ice Cream Shop.

Mason: Fairy Hills Ice Cream, this is Sarah.

Tommy: Hey Sarah, I was wondering if you could put 4 litres of Bailey ice cream aside for me. I'm on the way.

Mason: Sure, not a problem. We've also just got in a Southern Comfort flavour if you're interested in that.

Tommy: Yeah, just a litre of that, thanks. I'll be there in 5.

Josh: Tommy looks in the mirror and sees a cop car. The cop drives up beside him and points at his watch. Tommy looks at the clock. 7:48. Exterior. Ice cream shop. Night. Tommy parks his car and runs in, but Sarah is at the counter, points at her mask.

Mason: Uh, sorry, mate, I can't serve you without a mask, champ.

George: Shit.

Josh: He runs back to the car to grab his mask and back in the shop.

Mason: Uh, that'll just be $39, thanks.

Tommy: Uh, just card, thanks.

Mason: Oh, it's actually declined, sorry.

Tommy: Okay, um, do you take cash?

Mason: Nah, sorry, COVID.

Tommy: Hmm, uh, I'll just use the business card.

Mason: All right, no worries. Yep, that's gone through. Have a nice night.

Josh: Tommy hops back in his car and floors it home to beat the curfew. He gets home at 8:01 and there's a cop car waiting for him. As he pulls in, Josh is calling. Tommy answers.

Tommy: JJ, can I call you back, mate?

Josh: Are the police there?

Tommy: Yeah, how did you know?

Josh: I called them. I tracked you on Find My, uh, Find My, and saw you were on out, uh, out of your house and wouldn't make it back before curfew.

Tommy: Why did you do that, you dog?

Josh: Oh, you know why? We're one minute late.

Tommy: Yeah, I had to do a U-turn.

Josh: No, uh, it's because you took a minute to tie your shoelaces. If you had lock laces, you wouldn't be in this situation. You deserve the fine.

George: Here's your fine, sir. Now stay inside. Thanks, mate.

Tommy: I deserve it. There you go.

Mason: Good one, GB.

George: A bit of a rush job, that one, admittedly.

Josh: Really good.

Tommy: I like it.

Josh: Anxiety, I'll tell you.

George: So, attention, obstacle.

Josh: Yeah, it was beautiful. I fucked my dialogue because I didn't realise that I had lines. I'd sort of— I missed that bit. But going back, I can't blame you for that. Sevs, um, this is an improv. Read the script. You were humming and ahhing, yeah, sorry. Like, I reckon there were more words that you put into the script than you actually read. Not on—

Mason: it's what great actors do.

Josh: I think not, not during a table read. George, what did you think? Did you think it was like a little bit sort of—

George: it was a bit disjointed, um. But I mean, maybe a bit of feedback from me.

Mason: You're talking about me or the whole thing?

Josh: I need to talk about me.

Mason: Just the whole thing as well.

Josh: I was struggling to breathe.

George: Yeah. I think I could, I don't know, the dialogue wasn't super engaging. Just a bit of feedback for me.

Josh: What do you notice hearing it read out? Does it give you other like ideas? No.

Tommy: Oh, he wants Bailey's ice cream. That's what he wants. Yeah, Southern Comfort ice cream.

Josh: How much are you thinking about, like, so when you said $39, thanks, did you look at sort of the ice cream?

George: An ice cream shop would be about $39 for 2.

Josh: Yeah, for 4 liters, 5, 6 liters.

Tommy: Yeah, you've got a fair few.

Josh: 6 litres for $39.

George: Oh, that's cheap.

Josh: That's super cheap.

Tommy: Oh, see, I wasn't—

George: yeah, I was going on them.

Mason: Well, you think about like Halo Tops, what, 500 grams, and it's like maybe like $7.

Josh: I reckon 14, I get a litre and it costs us 28 down the road.

George: Really?

Josh: Okay, I reckon maybe not even a liter, 500 mils.

Mason: What's what?

Josh: It's, it's crazy though. I think like, I can, I just say the, the formatting, can you see like how much easier it was for us to flow through it with the, the correct screenplay?

George: Although I reckon it's hard. Caps lock and non-caps lock, it's a bit all over the shop there.

Josh: What do you mean?

George: Like, see, for instance, the first action, Tommy is frantically looking around the house, that's all in caps. Ah, that's so much wrong. And then I go to non-caps, and then it's caps again, and then it's—

Josh: So in screenwriting, where you have the action, the first time you mention a character's name, they should be in all capital letters. So you were sort of semi-right there where you said Tommy is frantically, but it should be TOMMY in all caps, then lowercase is frantically looking around. Yeah, but I think it's great. I think, uh, uh, well, I mean, it'd be good to—

George: yeah, if someone wants to send it in, Gideon, send a script. Is that his name, Gideon?

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, Giddy.

George: If he wants to send in a script, we'll read it out on Sunday.

Tommy: Maybe there's a page limit based on— because that will give us a good time. Yeah, so there's like a 3— how many pages?

George: That was a 3-pager.

Josh: Yep, yep.

Tommy: Okay, 3 pages of dialogue and scene, and then uh, signing characters.

Josh: It's important that we'll probably put it on the iPad for me next time so I can have it. I think the reason why I struggled to read and the breathing stuff was because I had my neck turned. I think if I was at the iPad and I was sort of front on, it would have been a better performance.

Mason: If you're in a brace, it would have been okay.

Tommy: When, when they are doing table reads, neck brace, keep you straight. Can I get, can I get teleprompter? I need teleprompter. Yeah, I can't do this shit.

George: What I was going to say is What we should get when they do, to make it a legit table read, is you should do some lower thirds for each box so we can see our character.

Tommy: Oh yeah. I mean, this—

Josh: you're going—

Tommy: when they do a table read, like if you're doing Mission: Impossible with Tom Cruise, we say Mason's putting in his little extra two cents. Is a table read bringing character vibes, or are they literally reading dialogue to see how it flows?

Josh: Oh look, from what I've, what I've seen, you wouldn't go full— like, if you perform it at a, like, at an extreme rate, people would probably be looking at you.

George: He'd be laughed out of the room.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: You know what will be great? Say that, that's not comedy, you haven't done comedy there. So sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Josh: The drama, the Loch Lomond was funny.

Tommy: Looking at, um Like, I've seen a family read of Modern Family where they're in a big room, it's like the whole cast, um, and they're laughing their asses off. And I was like, that is interesting. Like, if you can get a, get a laugh in a table read, it's probably going to be pretty funny when you shoot it. We should have loved to see more supportive of laughing throughout.

Josh: So maybe we needed to say, hey, if you find something funny laugh. But it also— a table read is the ultimate circle jerk, isn't it? You sort of are all in a room around a table and everyone's vibing. You're all paid to be there. You're fucking excited that there's this show that's on. Yeah.

Tommy: What I love is the same show can be written by multiple people. So I'm watching this thing called Kingdom. It's that UFC gym based in Venice. And yeah, it's— but each episode, like, maybe they do like 3 and then there's a whole new writer for the same characters but it's giving their taste. It's amazing that you can—

Josh: like, do they, do they sort of lead with it?

George: Do they—

Tommy: it's up in the front titles, written by this episode, written by. And so, you know, you get multiple writers across a season, which I thought was really cool because then you're like, you're getting a different vibe, but it's still the same character just needing to do different shit. It's— yeah, that blows my mind.

George: Just a, just a quick little tidbit on that, uh, if you have a bunch of ideas but it's all set in the same location, you're most likely thinking of a TV show. If you have an idea where like the characters die in the end, feature film.

Tommy: Really?

George: Yeah.

Josh: So if you like Friends or something, it's like, or like Seinfeld, it's like a sitcom, right? It's all in the same sort of spots.

Tommy: Yeah. Otherwise if they're all dying, it'd be a sick-com. That's the laugh cue, guys. Get it?

Josh: Oops. Audio Jungle. Why did we do that? Oh, that was when we had Cyan on. I still haven't updated my Miss Audio Jungle soundboard since.

Mason: I will just say just quickly, this is on masterclass.com.

Josh: Dot com.

Tommy: Don't— the boom tease. Boom.

Mason: This is— here we go.

Josh: Classic. Fuck, I keep thinking— go on.

Mason: Yeah, don't just read. A table read is your first opportunity as an actor to make character choices and show the entire creative team what you're capable of. Try to perform it with the same energy level that you would if you were in front of camera. A subpar table read performance can sometimes result in a part being reduced or an actor being replaced. So Josh, you were gone.

George: Is that what you were trying to do? You were showing us what you can do on the day?

Mason: Yeah, ah, for sure.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, but so that's all I got. So energy, that's talking energy. But I reckon if you were saying things that weren't in the script, at that point it's not really a table read, is it?

Tommy: It's a fancy performance. It's hate speech.

Josh: Let's go, let's go. Improvisation during, improv during table read. Let's see what people are saying.

George: Well, when Gideon sends in his script, is it worth us going through it offline before we bring it to the show, or should we?

Tommy: Is that a table read?

George: I don't know.

Tommy: I mean, I like the, um, suspense of—

George: not maybe you could read it.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, I kind of like that. It's like, oh, I don't know where this is going, but I'm, I'm getting it. Do you do— when you're doing scripts, do you do like a top line of the whole script?

Josh: So it'd be like, you know, you could, you could do like an outline or a, um, plot. No, not even a plot, like a— what's it called? Logline. Logline is like the one sentence that describes the whole thing.

Tommy: Yeah, struggling artist battles with addiction and wants to escape his household.

Josh: No, I reckon no, no, no. Think about like, um, uh, uh, Tommy Jacket needs ice cream, ice cream, uh, but he's dealing with a curfew.

Tommy: Yeah, great.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, maybe that's not great. Send in your log— what do you think the logline should be of GB's script? Hi@thedailytalkshow.com.

Tommy: Um, Melbourne's lockdown is getting in the way of Tommy Jockeys.

Josh: Are you still doing loglines?

Tommy: Sweet turn.

George: It's either that or a Daily Mail headline.

Tommy: Yeah, be more salacious.

Josh: Uh, save the cat. Is a good book if you want to. Um, they talk all about loglines and stuff in there and how to formulate it. Actually, if you are wanting to create a podcast, the, the process of coming up with a good logline is helpful with that as well.

Tommy: So there you go, the process to a logline.

Josh: Yeah, creating previously been used.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, I love it. Well, yeah, I like, uh Scriptwriting Sundays, or what's the name?

Mason: Screenplay Sunday.

Tommy: Screenplay Sunday.

Josh: We're not doing sort of, no, scriptwriting. Yes, screenplay.

Tommy: Screenplay Sunday. I think, uh, if, you know, if we do one of these every Sunday for the next sort of 8 years, we'll be pretty, we'll be pretty proficient at this.

George: I think it would be good. And also eventually when we film them, we could film them all and we can like cut back to the action.

Mason: Oh, this is reading it out for the first time and like, it's great for a behind-the-scenes doco, the like the idea formulate, like, oh, this is good, the making of.

George: I actually, maybe if anyone out there is a pro animator, they can animate.

Josh: Oh, there we go, that's, that's a good idea.

George: Send them through.

Josh: Hi@thedailytalkshow.com. The, the other thing I was going to say, when I was getting into the script writing stuff the first time Uh, when I was like 18, 19, I bought every screenwriting book that I could find, and there's some real shit ones. So maybe we can end on— I can grab one of the books. I reckon there's, there's one about like, I've got a couple, uh, Your Screenplay's Bad, or something like— some of these are real like just screenplays for dummies. Yeah, yeah, let me have a look.

Tommy: Um, just quickly, while you have your headphones on still, Josh, I'll tell this story. Uh, Pat Flynn who is a, um, yeah, he's got some online courses and stuff. He's, he's been around for a long time, had a podcast for a long time. I saw in his Instagram account he posted a, a photo of him holding a printed script, and it's an original of a draught of Back to the Future, I'm pretty sure. And so he got his hands on one of the original draught scripts, and he said it reads completely different to how the movie actually ended up coming and being shot. And it's like his prized possession, owning an original script. Would you be into holding, actually having a physical script that may have been handled by actors or—

Josh: Well, the funny thing, if you go on Amazon, you can see like Friends scripts and they've got autographs, and then you look and they've just— they literally say the autographs are replication.

Mason: Oh really?

Josh: It's funny, it's a stamp.

Mason: It's probably on archive.org.

Tommy: Yeah, it's a stamp.

Josh: So this is a book that I'll read a piece out of, uh, How Not to Write a Screenplay: 101 Common Mistakes Most Screenwriters Make.

Tommy: And how many did George make?

Josh: Keeping the caps lock key on. Okay, ready?

Tommy: Go for it.

Josh: Oh, I don't like the format of this. Oh, uh, here we go.

Mason: There's the first one.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just criticising a fucking author of an actual book.

Josh: So there's form, content, development. Which area do you want to learn from? Form, content, or development?

Mason: So we're reading them already? No.

Tommy: Yeah, I thought this was it.

Josh: Oh, this is the thing all over again.

Mason: Yeah, just—

Josh: yeah, okay. Okay, here we go. Um, fuck. Ready?

Tommy: We can edit this in post.

Josh: Uh, no. Okay, find— okay, uh, in the action, the action says find Jimmy and Heather at a table for two in one of the formal upholstered dining rooms upstairs. Both look splendid. But stiff. Is this a celebration or a truce? And then this is the feedback: I never quite know what find means. Are they lost? Does the author want a long, slow pan through a restaurant until the camera arrives at the subject? Do we start on a painting over their heads and crane down to them? What? If none of the above, then 'Jimmy and Heather' is enough. 'Find' is fine for a tracking shot, but it must be clear where the shot originates. Write 'hungry diners and busy waiters in a chic expensive restaurant where we find Jimmy and Heather. Furthermore, a table for two.' We can assume that if Jimmy and Heather are there, it's a table for two. It's certainly not a table for one unless someone is standing. Don't enumerate— e-n-u— yeah, enumerate the obvious unless something special and unclear is necessary. Maybe the table is for four and they're waiting for another couple upstairs. How, how do we know? Was there an establishing shot of the building? No. Did the actors climb a flight of stairs on camera? No. As it happens, there are windows in the upstairs dining room, but you didn't know that. Splendid but stiff. All right, they're well dressed and a little nervous, but is this a celebration or a truce? Oh shit, the fuck, they've really ripped it apart. Anyway, it could go on, but that's quite interesting.

Tommy: Yeah, I think you start I'm watching this, that Kingdom show, and one of the characters, um, goes to this guy who was ripping him off, and he's in a hotel room, and he hadn't been able to get onto him for a long time. He's like, fuck, I'm gonna go and absolutely smash this guy. I want my money back. Takes a gun with him, and he goes into the room and beats up this dude and it's like, where's my fucking money? And he's like, I've got it. And he sort of explains what's going on. They're all mates, so there's a lot sort of playing at it. A lot of great, you know, old relationship ripped off, new hate, blah blah. Gets his money, and then as he's walking out, the guy grabs his gun from the back of his pants and points it at him. So this is the guy that owed the money, he's now got the— pointing the gun at this other dude who needed the money back. And you think, oh no, he's gonna fucking kill him. He then turns the gun on himself and blows his brains out. Um, but then the, the decision in the writing is to ignore, ignore the, like, the gun. He left it there. Like, they sort of just planted the whole thing of, fuck, he left the gun there. The gun's linked to him, it can get traced back, what's going to happen? But then they went on for 5 episodes. And so what— it's interesting to sort of like do these huge actions where then they make a big decision to not bring things in to the— for the next 5 episodes. And you're like, oh my God, they've just forgotten about that, or they've got too many things going. I could see when you've got multiple writers doing shit, you're like Fuck, I think this bit's more important right now. We'll bring that up later.

Josh: There's also exposition as well. So exposition, have you gotten to that sort of stuff, GB, about what exposition is?

George: No, not yet.

Josh: So exposition is the things that happen just to basically set up. What are you smiling at, Seb?

Mason: No, I'm just loving this. I'm just enjoying this.

Josh: So exposition is when you are, say if you see a scene for instance, and it might be, you need to set up. For instance, the whole curfew thing, uh, we need as the audience to know that there's a curfew happening. And so exposition could have been Amy saying to TJ, the curfew is you've got until 8 o'clock, right? So that is now exposition that can then be used. So it's like when you show the clock, it all of a sudden makes sense.

George: Or— that's good feedback.

Josh: And so exposition and stuff is something that you can use in dialogue, but it can be lazy too. There's risks that you can try and say everything. So imagine all of a sudden you're like trying to explain everything through the dialogue. So two characters having a conversation just to try and fucking give information to the audience.

George: Show, don't tell, as they say.

Josh: Exactly.

Tommy: Show, don't tell.

Josh: Although Aaron Sorkin does love dialogue, so he probably—

Tommy: it's a great play. Sunday, baby.

Josh: Great. All right, uh, it's a daily talk show. Enjoy your Sunday. See you tomorrow, guys. Have a good one.

Tommy: See you guys.