Happy Sunday, Creative Army!

I hope your weekend has been a creative one so far. Whether you have been writing, filming, editing, or sketching out the next spark of an idea, I have something today that will give you a boost. So grab your coffee, and let's dive in.

This week's featured video comes from Adam Savage's Tested: Adam Tours the Vaults of Hollywood History.

Adam spends twenty minutes inside the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library, and I walked away thinking less about the treasures and more about what they say about how this business works. Three things jumped out at me.

First, process is the record. The library doesn't just keep finished films. It keeps the drafts. When the staff needs to tell one version of a script from another, the first thing they check is the page count. Someone thought every draft of THE GODFATHER was worth saving, notes and all.

So why are so many of you deleting yours? I talk to writers all the time who overwrite old drafts and toss early versions because they're embarrassed by them. Don't. Your drafts show how you think, how you solve problems, and how far you've come. Keep them. Date them. One day you'll want that record, and you won't be able to get it back.

Second, nobody markets your movie for you. In the video, you'll see the press kits studios used to mail to theaters, complete with pre-written articles local papers could cut out and run. They went all in: FARGO snow globes, THE EXORCIST barf bags, scratch-and-sniff cards. The studios knew a film doesn't sell itself, so they built the conversation. Today, those studio marketing departments aren't coming to help most of you. That job is yours. The filmmakers who break through are the ones thinking about their audience while they're still writing, not after they've locked picture. If you don't build the campaign, nobody will.

Third, and this is the one I want you to hold onto, nobody makes a movie alone. The librarian says the moment she loves most is getting papers from different people who worked on the same film. For NORTH BY NORTHWEST, they have Hitchcock's hand-drawn shots, Eva Marie Saint's papers, and the script supervisor's own version of the script. Then she said this: "You don't make a movie by yourself, even if you think you did."

I've been saying some version of that for fifteen years. Your career runs on the same principle. Every collaborator you meet, every person who reads your draft and tells you the truth, every crew member who shows up early, holds a piece of the story. That's why this community exists. Nobody gets there alone, and the people who think they can usually find out the hard way.

Then, near the end, the staff pulls out something called the Plot Genie. It was sold to writers in the 1930s. You spun a little wheel, got a number, and looked up your plot in a book. Adam calls it "the proto Robert McKee." The promise of a shortcut to story isn't new. Nearly a hundred years ago, somebody sold writers a wheel that would build their plots for them. Name one great movie that came out of it. I'll wait. Which brings me to a question I get constantly right now. "I used AI to write my script. Now what?"

I'm going to be straight with you. AI sucks for writing scripts. The dialogue is horrendous. The setups are horrendous. The whole thing is just awful. All the nuance is gone. And if you're plugging in a scene and asking, "What do you think of this dialogue? Can you write it better?" you're in for a rude awakening.

Here's the good news. If you're writing on your own, you probably have a competitive advantage right now. And while we're on it, don't enter contests that don't give you access. Certainly don't enter ones that are accepting AI scripts, because that tells me they're probably using AI to judge your script.

The only thing AI is good for at this point is research. To me, it's just another tool at your disposal. You've got to know how to prompt it to use it correctly, and you need to know how to challenge it, because it is frequently wrong. Be really, really careful with it.

The writers whose drafts sit on those library shelves didn't spin a wheel. They wrote. They rewrote. They fought for every page. That's still the job.

So tell me in the comments: what's one part of your creative process you would never hand over to a tool, and why?

As always, here at Stage 32, we love sharing stories and knowledge with our fellow film fans. Know someone who would love this content? Share it with them. You can keep up with all of our videos by subscribing to the Stage 32 YouTube Channel. For more inspirational, educational, and motivational content on all things entertainment industry, follow me on Instagram and X @rbwalksintoabar.

Wishing you a very happy, healthy, and creative Sunday.

Cheers,

RB

Adam Savage’s Tested | Adam Tours the Vaults of Hollywood History

RBWalksIntoABar | You Used AI To Write A Script. Now What?

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