John and Craig welcome Daniels, writing-directing duo Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man, Everything Everywhere All at Once) to discuss making big, ambitious movies. The filmmakers share their process of chasing challenging ideas and the importance of novelty seeking.

We also talk about having faith in your future self, bravery, the narrative structure of pop songs, and idea generation as a fish net.

In our bonus segment for premium members, we learn about directing music videos and the unlikely flashpoint of many of their ideas. (It’s Maroon 5. No really, it is and you have to hear the explanation.)

Links:

• Daniels on Twitter, Dan Kwan on IG
• Turn Down For What by DJ Snake and Lil Jon, Houdini by Foster the People, and The Simple Song by the Shins music videos
• Interesting Ball short film
• Everything, Everywhere All at Once
• The Territory
• Pamela Ribon’s My Year of Dicks, directed by Sara Gunnarsdóttir
• Spatchcocking
• Jumbo’s Clown Room
• Your Undivided Attention podcast
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!](https://cottonbureau.com/people/scriptnotes-podcast)
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Matthew Jordan (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.