This episode is about writing for television, and I'm really excited

to welcome Jeremy Howe and George Kitson from LA this afternoon.

So welcome Jeremy and George.

Thank you.

Hello.

So I'm wondering if we could just take a moment and everyone just do

a brief introduction and to your background and kind of landing on the,

what you're working on these days.

So, George, would you like to.

Sure.

Yeah.

So George Kitson I graduated from Grand valley in 2004 and moved out

to Los Angeles pretty soon after I worked in production for a long time

as a PA and eventually transitioned into a writer's assistant job.

And did that for a few seasons on agents of shield and eventually was

staffed as a writer and was a writer for three seasons on that show and

went on to another show after that.

And yeah, that's kind of where I am now.

Great.

Jeremy, how about you?

Similar actually, I graduated in 2002 and actually my last credits were an

internship at the young and the restless soap opera out here in January of 2002.

And.

That did that briefly got stuck in the CBS mail room for three years.

But there met an executive who got me a PA job on a sitcom called

out of practice, which was on CBS.

And from there became a writer's PA on another show called the

game wrote a freelance episode there and then that got canceled.

Then just hopped around to some other shows, eventually becoming the

writer's assistant on the big bang theory halfway through season four,

and then halfway through season six, got promoted to staff writer and

wrote that out to the end of the, that series, which went 12 seasons.

And then actually the last two seasons, I was doing both that show

and the young Sheldon which the kind of spinoff prequel of that.

And that was then season three.

Young Sheldon was there full time and we're just literally

today wrapping season four.

For that.

So that's what I am doing.

Awesome.

Well, I feel like we're gonna have a lot to dig into and to kind

of the specifics of how you got to those, both of those places.

So that's, that's great.

I'll do a brief introduction.

I graduated in 2000 and promptly moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, which back in

2000 was the third largest film hub after LA in New York, which is no longer true.

And lived there about a year and a half before moving to LA for

about a decade and worked mostly an extras casting and as a grip.

But also kind of was all over the place.

So production assistant art departments, that lady before I moved back

to Michigan about a decade ago.

And so now I work as a writer, editor and book, coach, and podcast host as well.

So I have a writing podcast, so.

I'm excited to get a little bit more of a behind the scenes peak, because writing

was always an area I was interested in and film, and just really didn't

know how to get into that, that area.

So I'm excited about what you have to share today.

And so before we get into those specifics, you guys mind talking a

little bit about your time at Grand valley and what you found valuable.

Sure.

Do you want me to go first?

Okay, sure.

Yeah, so, you know, I, I think the, the biggest things that I remember from

Grand valley that were really helpful was I worked on two of the summer film

projects and, you know, it's not you know, a perfect representation of a actual

Hollywood set, but it's, you know, similar enough that you understand everyone has

their defined roles and, you know you're all working towards a common goal and the

hours were long and you kind of had, it gave me some idea of what to expect when I

first got out to LA and, you know, like I said, my first, you know, number of years,

I was a production assistant on things like 24 and the show called cold case.

And, you know, I felt like I was able to kind of seamlessly enter those

spaces and be somewhat confident that I wasn't going to do a horrible

thing or, you know, get yelled at.

So I think those, those experiences on the summer film going from, you

know, the very beginning and prep all the way through, I did editing

on, on one of them flickering blue.

I think the.

That was a very positive experience for me coming out here.

I was able to use those tools and yeah, I think that was the number one thing, you

know, I'd like to my time at Grand valley, I had a, I had a good four years there.

I don't know.

That's kinda what I would say to that.

My experience at Grand valley, it's a little more unique cause I, out of

high school, I'm from Kalamazoo and went to Kalamazoo valley community

college for two and a half years.

And then, and didn't know what I wanted to do and then was interested

in film, but didn't even really realize that there was, you could go

to a four year school and study it.

Till I found out that Grand valley had a program, then it was only an hour away.

So I transferred and all my KVCC credits transferred, including

beginner and intermediate bowling, both those because of the.

When it, once I got to Grand valley, I got all the prerequisites out of

the way and I needed to get three film program classes out before

I got actually into the program.

So once I actually got into the film program, all I had left

were film classes to take.

And so I was there for like, I feel like it was under a year and the

nine lasted through the film program.

And then ending on with the last three credits I needed was the internship.

So I was there briefly but it was great.

It was, you learned what you were interested in, what

you weren't interested in.

And I did not do the summer film program.

I did the internship instead because I knew I had heard, I've heard of a lot

of people who would go to grant, go to LA and you know, Make it, the couch

there for a little bit come back and, you know, it's, it's hard out here.

So I wanted something to come out to.

So that's I was fortunate enough with a former grand valley

student named Jason Honeycutt.

He had internet the young and the restless and was still out

there, not on the show, but within the CBS in the same building.

And he had you know, fortunately reached out to, I think it was

Deana Morris, who was my professor.

She's the one who said it said if anyone wants, is interested in

an internship in LA, let me know.

And I was it was a huge opportunity to have that in with

another grand valley student.

And so I got that internship and that was my.

Yeah, I feel like that's so much of how it works.

And so my, my experience mirrors, Georgia's a bit more where I did

the whole whole shebang at grand valley and did the summer film

program twice the first year as a PA.

And then the second year is key grip.

And just really again, you know, it's not exactly like being on a film set in

LA, but it definitely helps to prepare you for your length of days and kind of

the amount of work that goes into things.

And so I really appreciate having that.

And for me also too, it was just about the community aspect.

So, you know, most of my very dear friends even met my husband at grand valley.

But just so many of us trickled out to LA.

So for me, it was nice.

We all kind of came on at different times, but it was nice to have other

grand valley faces out there that kind of could help get me some work that we're

already working in the industry as well.

And so that was really important for me.

And so, yeah, I liked hearing your story to Jeremy cause I wasn't that

aware of internship opportunities.

So I liked that you took that path and that was really helpful for you to get

out there and kind of stay out there.

Cause I know that can be really tricky if you don't have

something in place, I will add.

When I've heard about that, Jason was offering this opportunity to at

least, you know, send in a resume.

I emailed him and, you know, I just sent him an email that I guess was

professional sounding and what he told me once I had never met him.

And once I finally met him out in LA, he had said that a lot of people

emailed him like, Hey bro, like hooky and he just deleted the email.

He didn't do it.

You know?

So advice to students take, take every opportunity I'm serious and and treat

it in a professional way because you are.

Even an email, you are kind of, it's a first I'm blanking on the word.

You know there you go.

That's a great point.

I have, I have a very similar feelings about that.

Cause I, you know, being someone who's been out here long enough, I'll get,

I'll get emails from people from time to time, current students, you know,

or people who've recently graduated and even family friends and the ones

that stand out are the ones that take the time to write a nice email and

follow through and ask good questions.

Like absolutely, you got to take advantage of, you know, every

minor opportunity and connection you can in the best way possible.

Yeah.

Especially when it's not a face-to-face opportunity to, right.

So th the words you use matter, which I feel like is an

important lesson to keep in mind.

From the get-go.

So now that we have a sense of where everybody started maybe Jeremy,

you can kick us off and talking more specifically about your current project

that you're working on and what your role is, and maybe a little bit about

what your day-to-day looks like.

Okay, sure.

I will, I won't, I'll focus a little bit on this year, cause

the COVID of it was very strange.

But typically, so yeah, I'm on young Sheldon.

This is season four.

We actually just recently got picked up for three more seasons, which is crazy.

Very fortunate.

My roles, I'm my title.

I'm a co-executive producer, which just, it's basically, I'm still a writer.

If you're a staff writer, the order is staff writer and George, you

can help me out F story editor, executive story editor, co-producer

producer, supervising producer.

Co-executive producer and then executive produced it.

Those are all writers.

So if you watch a TV show and those titles are coming up sometimes

an editors, a co VP or a producer, or if it says, excuse me, produced

by that's usually the line producer.

But generally all those titles are writers on the show and, and you being, I got

very lucky being on the big bang theory, which is kind of like shoots and ladders

where like I just got on the long ladder.

So a year I just kept getting the, the the bump.

So so I worked my way up to coach VP on big thing.

And then that's the title I have now on young Sheldon.

But day-to-day, you know, we start.

The goal that we have to write scripts.

So we obviously we do 22 a season this year, we did 18.

And we start about a month and a half or two months before production.

And the goal is to have about five or if you can get six scripts, that's

amazing, but you need that buffer because you production needs scripts.

And if the worst part is when you're down to the wire and later in the

season, and you're just trying to stay ahead with the writing.

But we start the season and we do it very unique.

This, so Chuck Lorre created a big bang to enough men, young

Sheldon, and many other shows.

And at some point in his career, He decided to just have all the writers in

a room, writing every script together.

So we break a story which is, you know, everyone pitches a story

ideas to the show runner, they show runner like, okay, I like that one.

Let's talk more about that.

So you, you break it out into scenes.

And then you typically other shows, which I'm assuming would be George's

experience would be Once you have kind of an outline, a writer will go write the

script and the writer might actually even write the outline and then come back.

And then as a group, you would rewrite it together.

But we, we skip all that.

We break the story, have kind of an outline and then it's paid in.

Okay.

We know the first shot is in, you know, the first scene is

going to be in the living room.

Okay.

Who who's all there.

We know the characters are going to be there, but where are they sitting?

Are they're sitting on the couch.

And like, we literally that's the action line.

And then who speaks first.

And then we literally go through the script line by line together.

And then we finish the script and then we do it again.

And we do it 22 more times throughout the and then once production starts, it gets

a little trickier because of the show.

Runners time is split between, you know, being on set and in the writer's room.

But you know, within eight or nine months, we, we write 22

episodes and shoot them and.

It's it's we're, we're all tired by the end.

So it's so Jeremy, not, not knowing.

I mean, I haven't been in the writer's room for a TV show before, so it sounds

well, one, it sounds like the process you guys use is very collaborative,

which sounds like maybe isn't always true for all TV writing, but in terms

of once you guys finished scripts, are you guys just always working on

next scripts or are there writers that then go to set as things are being

filmed, if things need to be changed or how does that part of production.

Typically yes.

On other shows, the way we work, our show runner is really hands-on on everything.

So we actually, so we have a writer's room in the, our

office, in our office building.

And then we actually have two stages where we also have little green rooms

that we have turned into writer's rooms.

So we do most of our writing on young Sheldon.

This is not the case on big bang theory because a multicam format with a live

audience is very different from a single camera because single camera, you're

basically making a movie every week and multicam you're putting on a play.

So there's two very, very different beasts.

But on young Sheldon, we are on the stage with our show runner and we're watching

the feed on a monitor on one monitor with, so we watching the takes and then

we go back to writing on another monitor.

And so that's how we operate, but typically.

I mean, every show operates different.

Every show runner operates in their own way, whatever works best for them.

And some are some hate going to set and send writers.

Either the writer of the script would go to set and cover it

just to keep an eye on it.

Sometimes they have a designated writer who will go to set and

be there the whole time.

And some, some show runners are only on set and have other

people run the writers room.

So it's like it's different every show.

But it's yeah, it's just a constant, you're constantly the showrunner himself

and in herself, they're, they're thinking of probably five episodes during a day.

They're either in, pre-production on one, a script that's finished the sh script

you're shooting the script you're writing.

And then you're editing a script.

That's already shot.

And, you know, and there's probably one more percolating in there also.

So like it, it is it's just a constantly moving machine where it's a.

It sounds like a lot, a lot to juggle.

And so George, maybe you can speak to your current work and, you know,

especially maybe how it's varied a bit from Jeremy's to, or if

there are some similarities there.

Yeah.

So, you know, the bulk of my writing work was on agents of shields.

But I've been in a couple rooms and yeah, they sound very different

from what Jeremy's describing.

I mean, I think the ultimate function of it is the same where you're breaking story

and you know, breaking the season and coming up with the different episodes.

But then I would say where it differs in my experience was we did not.

And the rooms I've been in, we have, we have not written them collaboratively.

It's been, you know, you get to a point in the first day or so

of breaking the episode where, you know, it's your episode.

And then you're kind of leading the discussions and you're the one

that stands up and kind of puts those ideas up on the way forward.

This would be obviously pre COVID when we were all in a room together.

And you know, like on agents of shield, we would get a very

detailed outline up on that board.

It would start very.

Very brief, you know, kind of story ideas and they would

get more and more firmed up.

As we went to the point where before I went off to write an episode,

I would have every scene in some version up on the board in a very,

oh, there's a nice picture of it.

It would look like that.

We called that a brick by brick which I think is again, kind of unique

to my bosses on agents of shield.

But the idea would be that you had a beginning, a middle

and an end for every scene.

You can see the different colors or sort of the different storylines

that we're following different groups of characters in the episode.

I believe this is from a season four episode.

I wrote as a freelance episode when I was still the writer's assistant.

But w what was great about something like that?

And I, you know, if I ever get to run a show, I would like to do

something like that because I think it takes a lot of the guesswork out.

So the last thing you would do before you would go off to write would be, you

would stand up there and you would pitch that whole episode out to the entire

writer's room and the showrunners, and you pause at the end of every act,

and they give you, you know, detailed notes and feedback, and then you go

off by yourself to write the outline.

And it was just super helpful to me.

I would literally take, you know, the, the writers assistants always

typing up the notes from the room.

So I would take, literally what you could see on that board would be typed up.

I would drop that into an outline and then just fill in the gaps

and adjusted as their notes went.

And you know, you don't have a lot of guessing.

There's not a lot of Room for error or a lot.

It's a lot, it's a nice way to like, get into it.

And you know, that most of it's been approved and of course, some of it's

going to change, but there's not a lot of blowing stories up and starting over,

which can happen on, on certain shows.

So that, so I'd say that's very different from the way Jeremy described

it, but otherwise you know, it's very, it's very similar in television.

The writers.

Are, you know, kind of king the show runner is the, you know, also

you could call them the head writer, you know, they're the one that

makes all the creative decisions.

So, whereas on a feature film, you know, you think of movies, you

think of the director normally, and there were kind of the ones that

get the credit and the blame, and they make all the main decisions.

But until in television, it really is the writers because they're

the, they're the constant forces all the way through the season.

And a lot of times directors come and go and obviously actors come and go.

And it's a really interesting place to be because you get to see behind

the curtain of everything, you get to be a part of all those decisions.

And it's super.

It's super exciting, you know, on my last, on my last show, I was co-producer.

So Jeremy as a, as a coach, BP is kind of, you know, very upper level.

I would say I'm squarely mid-level, they're sort of like entry

level, mid level, upper level.

So I haven't had some of the, you know, some of the experiences he's had yet,

but it's a, it's an exciting job, you know, it's fun to, to be creative and

I like working in television because usually you actually get to make

it as opposed to features can kind of just be in development forever.

And right now I'm not on a show.

So I, I'm sort of in a version of that myself, I'm trying to develop a few

new ideas and going out and pitching on different projects that are sort

of called open writing assignments, you know, where they have a property.

Then they're looking for someone to come in with a strong take and you know,

pitch, pitch their take, and get hired to write it, to get hired, to write it.

So that's a new phase for me.

I haven't done that.

You know, I've been on shows for, you know, Four or five straight

years, you know, as a writer.

And now I'm kind of in this new phase, which is interesting and frustrating

and exciting at the same time.

All of the things.

So before we move on to the next question, it looks like we have a question

in the chat that we could touch on.

Cause it's kind of relating to what you guys are talking about right

now, which is, you know, when you're working on a series, how do you keep

style consistent throughout a season with so many writers and episodes?

Yeah.

I'll jump in.

I think, you know, it, it all comes down to the showrunner because you have

writers all the writers in 22 episodes, but you also have several other directors

coming in to throw in just another, you know, someone else in the mix.

And it does just come down to.

The show runner is setting the tone of what the show is and

what the show looks like.

And it is you know, I know one of our directors likes coming to young Sheldon

because you can do, you know, we, we have a tone, but we can kind of mix it up.

We can do fantasy, we can do like, like a fantasy sequence or

a dream sequence, which we don't do all the time, but we do do it.

And you know, it's lit a little more a little more pretty, I guess you could say.

So you can kind of have fun with the camera and the lighting and stuff.

And then that director also worked on other shows where it's very rigid where

you don't, you just, there's a look of the show and you just do it you know,

kind of what the show runner wants, but it is, it does really come down to the show

runner Keeping the consistency and the tone and, you know, and also the actors

are, they know their characters very well, especially now we're deep into the season.

And so that kind of keeps it consistent also.

Yeah, it's definitely everything Jeremy's saying.

It's the sh you know, the show runner, like I said, being a part of every

decision that's made, you know, every script, even if I go off and write an

episode by myself, eventually they give you notes or whatever, and you give it

back to them and they're always going to do their past too, at the end, you

know, right before it goes out, that's at least been my experience where

they're going to do one final pass.

So, you know, there's going to be little things that are just specific

literal literally to that person that are just going to make their way into

it, you know, little, little style choices or turns of phrase or whatever

that you know, I think it really is that more than anything, it's that

consistency of leadership and sometimes she'll runners change, but, you know,

hopefully by that point, yeah, the show.

Can stand on its own.

You know, it has its own tone that everyone's used to the actors,

like Jeremy said, are, are very familiar with who they are playing.

And if the writer writer's room is in general, it has any consistency

that becomes like an institutional, just like brain trusts, you

know, and agents of shield.

I was there as an assistant to begin with, but as a writer for

the back half of this series, you know, I was there the whole time.

So I remembered everything I could remember, like, oh yeah.

In season two, we had that notes call and they didn't like, et cetera, you know,

let's not do that or whatever it was.

And so like you just sort of build this like institutionalized knowledge

base that can be really helpful.

It's kind of everyone working together, I guess, is the best way to say it.

Well, great.

Thank you for that question, Randy.

So now let's move on to the next question.

So given, given your current role where you're working today, what would you

say you enjoy most about your work and what do you find the most challenging.

For, I, I enjoy it.

So like, I, I, I kinda talked about the difference between the

multicam and the single camera.

And I really enjoyed the single camera being here on young Sheldon.

I writing is fun.

I also have been able to go in the editing room and help out

with the post-production and just kind of help with that.

And I really like, excuse me, being on set also, cause that's where it's

being made, where, you know, a joke or a line or, you know, you kind of.

How you want it to be, you know, how you heard it when you wrote it.

And again, I think that still falls on the show runner, but

you can also be helpful on that.

Or if something's not working, you can pitch another joke or whatever.

And then, and actually this season, I was able to direct an episode

two, which has been, which is really fun tons of work and super

stressful, really good experience.

So, you know, the writing allowed me to get to that point.

But yeah, and it's also just fun to be in a room with other, you know,

really great writers who are super funny and you know, spend the day.

Trying to come up with funny stuff and you know, and good stuff.

And it's, it's a fun collaboration.

Yeah.

My favorite part like I said, I'm not on a show at this moment,

but my favorite part kind of, of the job is the writer's room.

And just, you know, in a normal pre COVID era, you'd be in that room

for, you know, eight to 10 hours a day with the same group of people.

And if you like those people.

It's awesome.

Cause you know, they're all also like very smart, interesting,

funny, creative people.

Who've all led very different lives and you know, you start with literally

a blank whiteboard at the beginning of the season and at the beginning

of an episode, and by the end of, you know, those weeks or several months,

like you just, you can look back and be like, how did we do all of that?

I don't even remember doing half a bit.

It was so much work, but it was so exciting to like, just turn nothing.

And the blue sky phase, just, you know, into like a whole interesting storyline

that took place over several episodes.

Like there's, I don't know.

I still get a thrill out of that.

And it's very exciting.

And so it sounds like we have a few questions coming in in the chat.

So I'll ask the next one.

How long does it take to write an entire season?

For us doing 22 episodes and I'm on the big bang theory we did actually did 24.

It was, it was between nine and 10 months to get it done.

Yeah, that was, that was similar.

Yeah.

And Sheila was very similar.

It was, we would start in early June and go till April early April.

I think it was like 10 months, 22 episodes.

And then the later seasons we did 13.

But they were kind of back to back, so it just became like one giant season.

So it's hard to even say, but yeah, that sounds about.

And there's another question, and I'm kind of curious about this too.

So like I know what hours are like when you're working on set.

And usually I have like 12 to 14 to 16 hour days.

Typically.

How many hours do you work a week as a writer?

And what does your day look like?

You know, I, I think the answer is, it probably depends on who your

bosses and what their method is.

You know, I've heard plenty of horror stories about people working,

you know, through the night and getting lunch and dinner and

breakfast there and never going home.

And, you know, always being in the office seven days a

week, thankfully knock on wood.

I haven't had to do that yet.

I've been on shows that are pretty rigid to, you know, tend to six that kind of a

day, like with the lunch break, obviously.

But yeah, I think it really just depends who your bosses and if they want to

stay there, as opposed to going home with their home life is like, they might

want not, my mom wants to be there.

So it really just depends on a lot of factors.

Yeah, Jeremy, I'm also about 10 to six and you know, if I'm on set, sometimes we go

later and something, but sometimes we're, we're done a little bit earlier onset too.

But yeah, it really does depend on the boss.

I I've been fairly fortunate as an assistant, at least the

hours weren't too bad.

Some, you know, first year show, if you're on a first year show,

those hours are going to be harder.

Cause you're figuring out what the show is and you know, it's, that's harder.

But thankfully both the big bang theory and young Sheldon been about

same thing tend to six sometimes even 10 to five, 10 to four sometimes.

It's great.

So yeah, that sounds actually really wonderful.

If you can get that I'll say it's so far from what I would have been used

to and we're, I think we're pretty lucky for that because there are

people who like George was saying that is not their experience on the show.

Friends, I guess their writers hours were terrible and they were shooting

at Warner brothers the same time everybody loves Raymond was, and

everybody loves Raymond where they were going home at 4:00 PM every day.

And like they would, the friends writers would just look out and see the Raymond

writers going home, being very jealous.

Yeah.

I heard stories.

Like I I've heard interviews where they touched those showrunners.

Talk about that.

Right.

They would like be there all day.

She would Marta Kaufman said like she would go home to tuck her kids

into bed and then go back to work and be there till the morning.

Like, no, thanks.

Yeah.

Well that's nice.

Cause it sounds like there's a potential for a work-life balance, which is not

always the case in some roles in film.

So I, I liked the sound of that.

So you both talked about interfacing with the show runner quite a bit.

Are there other parts of the crew that you interface with,

that you collaborate with at all?

Can you speak to that?

Yeah.

I mean, at some point in the process, if you're going to be producing your own

episode, you'll interact with everyone and that's been my experience, you know

when it's, when it's an episode that I've written, I'm usually I've been in

the, all the production meetings, which is, you know, the eight days before you

start shooting an episode, you have a different meeting with each department

props or wardrobe or special effects.

And so you're, it's, you know, you and your boss, the show runner, it's

the director, maybe the line producer with whoever this department head is.

And so you're interacting very closely with all of these people and hopefully

in a, in a good environment, it's a very collaborative experience where

they can say, look, we have this, but this might be too expensive.

What if we did this?

You know, there's this constant back and forth and sort of.

Troubleshooting where you're trying to solve problems ahead of time.

And then again, in my experience, you know, being on set for the entire shoot

and sitting right there, video village with the director and the actors and

whoever else, you know, has a question or a concern like you're just constantly

all day long in the middle of the whole process, you know trying to stay ahead

of any potential issues, help, help fix any problems, make sure you're

getting exactly what your boss wanted.

So in, in a good experience, which has been mine, you're kind of interacting with

everyone at some point in the process.

Yeah.

It's kind of up to each writer, honestly.

It's I think some writers, they don't, they just want to be in the writers room.

They don't really want to go to set or internet or know how it's made and

that's fine, but that, that is you know, if, if you are interested in.

Running a show or even climbing the ladder and kind of any way,

like it, it's really smart.

I think, to go and meet and learn from as many people as you can take advantage.

Cause you know, it's, you it's honestly.

Film school every single day.

If you can, if you work on a show and have access to the set,

you should take advantage of it.

You get to see how everyone works and, you know, it's, it's only, it's only

helpful to learn what, how people work and what they do and what the process is.

Yeah, and it's even, you know, just adding onto that, like as more and

more production has left Los Angeles, there are plenty of writers who

really don't have that experience.

You know, they haven't had that opportunity to go to set because

it's in Georgia and, you know, shorter seasons, let's say it's a 10

episode Netflix show they're usually gone before production even starts.

So like, there were plenty of writers who.

Mid to upper level who have almost no set experience.

So like Jeremy and I think have been very lucky that we didn't, you know, she'll

fill in tier two and we were right across, you know, right across the walkway from

set and we could go there all the time.

And I think it's so crucial to like, if you have those opportunities, like Jeremy

is saying to take them because some, some writers don't have with them at all.

And then all of a sudden they're a boss and they don't know what a set looks

like or how to, you know, how to have those conversations since it's yeah.

The thing with me, you know, getting a chance to direct, like, it would

have been crazy if it's like, okay, this guy is going to direct.

And they're like, who is this guy?

You know, when I directed, everyone seemed excited and, and, you know,

glad I was able to do it and very supportive, which was, you need that

when you're directing a, you need a crew that is going to have your back.

It's going to say you have some rapport going already that you can step into.

So that's probably a nice feeling to have.

So there's a couple more questions coming in.

And before we segue to one or two of those, I wondered if you could each

kind of touch on what you find to be the biggest challenges with your role,

whether it's in the day-to-day or the generation of material, whatever

you would like to touch on that way.

I, for me, the I think it's just the amount of episodes is challenging.

Cause you I'm a little, I mean, I'm very fortunate, but I'm a little, like

seeing an eight episode season of a show.

It's like, wow, that seems kind of nice.

Because when we write a where only a third of the way through you know, at least on

the big bang theory, but it is I think it's just that the keeping that momentum

and keeping the energy up and, you know, there's going to be days when you're, you

you're tired and but you still have to write a script then, you know, and again,

that falls mainly on the show runner to keep that momentum going and everything.

But yeah, I would say just the, the thing consistent for that long is it is tiring.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I felt, I, I I can empathize with that quite a bit.

You know, those first five seasons of agents have showed we're a 22

episode seasons and it's, you know, you, at this point in television,

you know, it used to be very standalone and standalone episodes.

And now it's very serialized.

And on the show like agents of shield, you know, I think we found that over

the course of a season, it was better to almost break it up into like three

different groups of about eight episodes.

For that same reason to keep it manageable, almost was like individual

story pods is how we looked at them.

So it was like three separate stories that kind of all tied

together in some way, as opposed to.

1 22 episode story that is kind of impossible to keep track of and,

and, you know, keep, keep one on one up in yourself for, for that long.

So I think my experience in, in, on that show, you know, I would agree

with Jeremy and, and you know, now I'm in this different phase where, like I

said, I'm not on a show at the moment developing and pitching on pitching on

some open writing assignments and that's been a whole different learning curve.

You know, I think there's a lot of competition for, for these jobs obviously.

And you end up doing.

A lot of basically free work and coming up with a take and a pitch

and writing these documents and these slide shows and doing the song and

dance and, you know, that's that's a whole, a whole new world and I'm

still learning how to approach that.

You know, I'm speaking to other writers that I know that have done it more

than I have and using those resources.

But yeah, it's, it's, it's challenging, but you know, when you're on, when

you're on a show and it has a room, and especially when you're on a network show

that has a production date, you know, you're going to make these things and

you're just going and going and going.

And then I like that.

Cause you know, you're going to get somewhere and you know, now

I'm in a world where it's like, well, will that ever happen?

Maybe, you know, this is a really cool idea of I've fallen in love

with, I hope we get to make this and you know, but you just never know.

So I think that for me personally, at this particular moment, that's sort of

what I would say is the challenging aspect of you know, being in a freelance.

Industry.

Yeah.

If we have time later, I would love to talk a little bit about like pilot

season and just that finding of work.

We have a couple of questions come in and that I would like to touch on.

Another question from Tariq are writers usually paid hourly and

average pay for a staff writer.

You're not, it's not hourly.

Once you get your hourly as an assistant and then, and then you get paid a lot more

when you get promoted to staff writer.

I don't even know what the minimum the staff writer is.

I'm not totally sure either.

I know that that's all decided there are minimums that are

decided by the writer skilled.

So as a writer, there's a, there's a minimum, weekly salary

that you're allowed to be paid.

So the companies can't try to low ball you and pay you less.

So there as a staff writer, I'm not sure what it is.

It's, it's a nice, it's a big bump from when you're making that

weekly money as an assistant.

And then once you get to the next level after.

His story editor is after staff writer.

That's like, you know, your second season as a writer,

usually you get promoted to that.

And then there is another increase in the weekly minimums there, but all that stuff

I'm sure is on the writer's Guild website somewhere, you could, could look it up.

If I just to guess it's probably between two and 4,000.

Cause there's like different weeks.

It's like a 12 week contract or 16 or 32 and 48.

They somehow the Guild has mapped it out like that.

And then I think the shorter the week, the more you get.

So but it's, it's a great chunk of money, especially going from assistant to

staff writer is it's a big, big pay bump.

Absolutely.

would be visiting set.

And so I was able to be friends, some of them.

And then eventually when I, when I did finally transition off of set into a

writers room on a show called touch it was season two of touch was on Fox.

It was a Kiefer Sutherland show.

And that was just, I was a then a, a writer's PA, which

was, you know, very different.

I wasn't on set during filming.

Instead I was in the writer's room offices answering the phone, copy, you

know, making copies, getting coffees getting lunches, that kind of thing.

But again, I tried to approach it the same way.

I was actually working with, you know, the 10 or so writers on

that show on a day-to-day basis and eating lunch with them.

And so I approach it the exact same way.

I took every script and I underlined things and I would ask questions,

like, why did we make that choice?

Or, or did we, you know, what does this mean or why, why is that happening?

And just by showing that you're kind of inquisitive and interested and

being open about, you know, your own ambitions, that that's what you

would like to do as your career.

I think people can tell when you're doing a good job and you're engaged and then

they want to help you along your journey.

So, you know, with that one experience as a writer's PA on that show touch

you know, one of those writers, her name's Karen usher, she was

at that time writing a pilot for Fox and they green lit the pilot.

So at the end of the season the exact same day at my last day on the season,

she called me and said, Hey, I just got.

My pilot picked up.

Do you want to come be my assistant?

So then I was basically working with her on a pilot, which I had

never done before, you know, and that was the next several months.

And then that led to almost right away into agents of shield.

And I think it's just so important at every step of the way to do a really

good job, ask questions, you know show that you're interested in and engaged

and can be, you know, useful number one, you have to do your job really well.

And you know, you just, you can't help it be friend, these people, if

they're nice people, you know, they can see that you're working really hard.

They want to help you.

So, you know, Karen was one of my early mentors.

And then when I got on to agents of shield, you know, the show runners

there and the other upper level writers, you know, eventually you

just form those relationships.

You're around them all the time.

You become friends, you know, about their personal life.

And, you know, you know, the day-to-day of what we're all going through.

And as long as you're all sort of working together, you can't

help that sort of form, you know, mentorships with different people.

Yeah, I love that.

And the whole idea of kind of helping people up along behind you too.

So I'm happy that you touched on kind of like that mentor role as well.

And how about you, Jeremy?

Yeah, I mean, honestly again, similar I will just add on top of working

hard and being inquisitive, just be nice, being nice, goes a long way.

And cause people will want to keep working with you and it's,

it's, it's the same thing.

So I was a PA on one show.

And then a friend unrelated got me a writer's PA job on the show

called the game and rose the ranks.

But and pulled the, you know, everyone knew I wanted to be a writer.

So when a writer's assistant job opened up in season two of that,

I was able to get into that room.

Cause, cause they liked me.

And and I got fortunate I mean one of the assistants threw his back out.

So for a week I got thrown in in the writer's assistant job in the room as

a PA so literally getting thrown in and, and, and then the next season,

when that same writer got promoted they, they let me be the assistant.

It was a pretty smooth transition.

And then I got on another show because the first show I was on was

a writer of who was really nice.

And he liked me.

I liked him, he had a pilot.

And so I worked with him very easily.

You know, it's just, once you start meeting people and meeting

writers, It is it's, I, I haven't used a resume in probably 15 years

because it's all relationship.

It's all people, you know.

And you know, when I got, I was actually out of work for a year and needed a job.

And on the big bang theory, they, a friend of a friend, it was the new

someone needed an assistant to fill in.

And he was like, oh, are you working?

You know, so it's all just connections, it's all connections.

And I will say it's different in TV because the writers hire writers,

the show runners hired writers.

So unlike film where, you know, it's studios and producers hiring the writers.

So if you get to know like a relationship with a showrunner is probably the

most valuable relationship you can have if you want to be a writer.

Cause they, they do the hiring.

And I say, If you can, it's a hard job to get, but the writer's assistant

job is invaluable in learning how to write cause you, your job is you you're

typing the script and you're taking the notes, but you're also in a room

with 10 other writers or 10 writers, professional, really good at their job.

And you're seeing how they make TV and you can't help it soak it in.

So so that was a huge experience for me being on the big bang theory for

two years as an assistant was because they operated in such a different way.

And I had two years to absorb that and to see how they worked

and kind of start to pitch jokes.

And so by the time I became a staff writer is a very smooth transition,

both for me, but also for everyone else.

Cause I was already in that room for two years.

So.

That's so much about connections, which is something I try to

really let students know.

And I'm also glad, because it sounds like really basic advice, the

whole idea of being nice to people.

But it, when you live in LA and you work in these spaces, you realize that

that's not always common practice.

And so it, it sounds very simple.

But I remember as a casting assistant talking to people on the phone, and I

don't know how many times people would say, you're the nicest casting assistant

I've ever talked to because you're taking the time to answer my questions.

And I thought, you know, isn't that a basic request of my job,

but you know, not, not everyone takes the time to be nice.

And so I feel like that does truly stand out in LA, especially, and people notice

that, especially if it's a genuine.

So I'm glad that you both touched on that too.

So our final question for today is what advice do you have for students

that want to be writers for teens?

I'll go first, I guess.

You know, I think I get asked that question a lot, right.

By people that would like to be writers and especially people from Michigan or

other places that this LA things just seemed so vague and mysterious too.

You know, I think the, the number one thing, and people always said this to me

is like, you have to be writing, you know, if you want to write, you have to write,

which is okay, that sounds confusing.

And like a catch 22.

But the truth of that is, you know, you, you do, you have.

At least one really, really good script.

If you want to become a writer, someone's going to want to read you.

And if it's not very good, they're probably not going to want to hire you

regardless of whether or not they like you or you're nice or anything else.

So I think it's important to, you know, pick, pick sort of what you'd like to do.

If you want to write comedies, write a comedy or drama writers, write a

drama, but you know, now what's so exciting is you can find examples

from almost any show or movie.

You can find the scripts online and I encourage people to, you know, pay.

Picks a thing that they love the most, that that's what they want to write and,

you know, find the script and read it a couple of times, see what works, watch,

watch the movie or show again, see how certain moments on the page translated to

the screen, you know, like really break it down and study it and do your best

to figure out what makes certain things work and really put in your own work.

It takes a lot of time.

It takes a lot of revisions.

You know, your first draft of anything is not going to be the

thing that's going to get you hired.

It's going to take you many drafts and probably many scripts to really

figure out how to do this thing.

It's it's tricky.

So I think craft wise, you just always have to be reading

and, and writing and rewriting.

I always recommend certain pop.

There's a lot of writers, podcasts.

There's one called script notes.

There's one called the writer's panel.

These are like invaluable free resources where you can hear actual writers

answering questions and talking about their process and how they broke in.

Those are very good resources, even from Michigan that you

can be working on all the time.

And when you come out to LA, you know, it's really just a

matter of finding your people.

It's finding other people that are trying to break in and, you know, maybe form a

writer's group try and get an internship, just do anything in any, anything at all

you can possibly think of, reach out to any alumni of grand valley that you can,

or any random friend of a friend of a friend, and just do your best to be kind

to everyone, you know, put out there what you want and just stay focused on it.

It's very easy to get distracted or busy doing other things and not you

know, end up where you want to be.

I'm glad you went first.

Cause I don't how to really,

other than, you know, like eventually we'll need to move either to LA or, you

know, things are shooting in Atlanta, love it, even those, those things

are usually written in Los Angeles.

And it's different for everyone, how they become a writer.

But I do think even, you know, that the two people on this panel who went

to grand valley, like the, the path was almost identical of assistant to

writer's assistant to a staff writer.

I think that is the most common.

But even though our journey to get those jobs were different than if you were

about it will be different for you too.

But you know, I think you do it is you of need the P here.

And you need patients.

I don't know how long it took you George to get your first writing job.

But I was out here 11 years.

So it is, it is not going to happen overnight.

But you do need patience and you know, and it's also, I will say you know, it

is important to know and you kind of, you might not know until it happens,

but like the writing job is not going to fulfill everything is, you know,

it's a dream job and you get it.

But it is important to have a, a life.

And to know that that this is not gonna satisfy everything and.

I was lucky enough when I got promoted, I was, I think 33 and my grandpa

had just passed away and he was 94.

I was like, okay, this is a big deal to be a writer on the big bang theory.

But like, I might live another 61 years.

This can't be everything.

But you know, obviously chase it and do it, but but have a balanced life also.

Yeah.

That's great advice, Jeremy.

Yeah, mine.

I mean, we're so eerily similar to mine.

I had written a couple of freelance episodes, but my staff writer job

full-time staff writer job was 12 years since I'd moved to LA.

So very similar.

Well, I appreciate you both touching on that too, because I know sometimes

there's this perception that things can happen so quickly, but it is so

much about being there soaking in the knowledge, you know, waiting for

the opportunity, showing that you're willing to work hard and those things

don't necessarily all happen overnight.

And so I appreciate getting the timeline of it too.

That really helps to give students, especially kind of like a frame of

reference for what that might look like.

So we're just about out of time.

I'm really happy you could join me.

I feel like I have about a hundred more questions.

I get asked both of you.

So I don't know.

Maybe we can do this and sometime, but I'm wondering if either of you

have any final thoughts before we wrap

Jeremy touched on it.

You know, I think it, it's easy to see people who are further along than you.

But like in my experience, you know, I feel like I was always

only as good enough for the job.

I wasn't.

At the time.

So like when I, I was good enough to be an assistant.

I had enough assistant experience too, when I got to the big bang

theory last on the big bang theory.

Cause it was, it wasn't a tricky room as an assistant to be in, but because I had

some experience, I was able to last and then when I got promoted to staff writer,

I was good enough to be a staff writer.

And then as everything kind of came along and I, I don't know if

I was good enough as a director.

But I happened but I couldn't have happened sooner.

I needed to like be on the show for that long and to kind of, you

know, be prepared for that moment.

And so, and I'm still just like, like I don't, honestly, I don't

think I'm ready to run a show, but like maybe one day I will be just,

you know, gaining that experience.

So that, that popped into my head when you were talking.

So I don't know if th those are good final statements, but that does bother me.

No, that's great.

I love that.

George, any final words before we say goodbye?

Yeah, I mean, all that makes a lot of sense, you know, I think, I think I said

this before, but from the very beginning, I tried to just absorb as much information

and knowledge and experience from other people as I could along the way.

And I still am, you know, doing that even now.

I think that's all really helpful and yeah, it's very easy to read a

press release for someone who just sold a script for a million dollars.

And they're 24 years old and get very frustrated, you know, especially for

me now, it was like someone in my late thirties, even you see things like that.

And you're like, what the heck?

You know, why, why, why so fast?

What happened?

You know, but the reality is look at Jeremy and I, it took us 11 and 12 years

to become full-time writers, you know?

And even now.

You know, I'm between shows and I'm chasing the next one.

You're always, you're always, it's a, it's a job in a life where you're always kind

of working hard and chasing what's next.

It's very rare that you know, you know where you're going to be working

a year or two years down the line.

So it's definitely a job that's awesome and rewarding and

everything you want it to be.

But, you know, it's, it is a lot of work and you have to be ready to kind of put in

the time and effort to make that happen.

Well, great.

Thank you both for joining us today and best wishes on current and next projects.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nice talking to you guys.