John and Craig wade into the murky ethical challenges screenwriters face in Hollywood: When do you speak out against a peer? How do you claim an idea? Should you accept money from shady sources? They share their own experiences navigating these questions.

We also follow up on female redemption arcs, NFTs, and joining the WGA. We answer listener questions on topics from ‘the director’s pass’ to creating personal websites.

Finally in our bonus segment for premium members, John and Craig share their personal origin stories about the moment they decided to become screenwriters.

Links:

• Listener Guide Submissions send in your favorite episodes from 300-500!
• Screenwriting Competitions Aren’t Worth the Money blogpost
• auction-christies-nft-69-million-explained-why-why-why.html">$69 Million Beeple Auction for NFT
• Scriptnotes, Episode 407: Understanding Your Feature Contract
• Build a website on card.co
• selling-selves.html">For Creators, Everything Is for Sale by Taylor Lorenz for the NYT
• Upstep for insoles, and for more unboxing content, check out this podcast All Consuming
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• John August on Twitter
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by Michael Karmon (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.