ORDER-66: The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker – Audience Knowledge vs Character Motivation

Chas and Stu are joined by special guest – filmmaker Mel Killingsworth – to talk all things Star Wars. Well. Focusing on The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker and wherever else our tangents take us.

Our primary lens is look at how both shows handle “fan service” — but really its about how you handle character motivations when your audience has more knowledge than your characters, especially knowledge from outside the show itself. To that end, we discuss the characters of Poe, Rey, Kylo, and Palpatine in depth. We also discuss the Watchmen TV Show, Mind-hunter, Jojo Rabbit, Snowtown and Zodiac.

DZ-47: Backmatter – A Lost Jedi, White Knighting, and Writers-On-Set

Following our annual wrap up in 2017, we’ve decided to once again explore what craft issues/lessons we can garner from the latest Stars, namely Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, focusing on how consequences of character actions can do a lot of heavy lifting as to how the audience perceives that character (as well as looking at worldview and overall story structure).

We also discuss how the sexual assault allegations in our industry can impact on what work we choose to analyse as well as dive into a bunch of listener questions.

We end on whether – if our space pirates project gets off the ground – Chas should come on set, whether Stu will have him and whether it would do anyone any good.

DZ-39: Backmatter – Hitting LA, Receiving Feedback, and a Roguish One

How can writers make use of their time when hitting LA? In another backmatter-only episode, Stu & Chas zig-zag through a range of topics. We talk about Chas’ experience(s) hitting both Los Angeles and the Austin Film Festival, effective networking, career capital, the art of receiving feedback, and Stu’s harsh Three Strikes Rule. We look back at the […]