The Writers Room with Eric Gilliland

[Music] he is everybody's favorite set PA from who's the boss please welcome ER [Applause] who's the boss welcome to the third phase of this never ending [ __ ] show we'll try to Speed it along uh um huh yeah how that's I'll do I'll do complete sentences later um welcome to this uh these are writers and TV creators uh creatives I hate that phrase um I'm going to start with an easy question how did you uh discover meow and why did you want to do it I'll go first I didn't want to do it uh Arts Alliance pushed me out to director they they they did a clean sweep of the last year and I was like I don't know how to do improv what are you doing and I spent the summer in Chicago going to improv shows and learning and seeing and watching and trying to absorb stuff and then took 10 RS of strangers and did the show and it worked out really really well yeah it was really it's sort of the defining moment of my of my college career and um made me the whole point of it was for me the focus was intense doing meow and that transferred to doing TV shows where your focus is intense you you can't do anything else but work on the show and think about the show and that's what meow was it also made me know that I could do it I could take nothing and find something pretty good and um that's I thank meow for all that cuz it changed my life who wants to go Jason go the so I had auditioned for meow my sophomore year I believe and didn't get in why I wanted to be in it I have no idea I don't remember uh but then I uh joined a student group that kind of like formed from people didn't get into meow that was called The Losers yes or or like that what was the the mud puddle group that I was unaware of until it was like that well but ours was called your imaginary friends and yeah okay and hey Bo meet afterwards a and and uh then from there and that's where I really learned like you know and we did show shows in Evanston and at Art Galleries and weird openings and then um then Senior Year I auditioned again and got in but but but everybody had been in the show prior I was like the new guy so it was a it it was weird I was not as good as everyone else in the show and I just held my own to the best of my ability yeah um they are for those oh yeah okay uh I'm Jason Wier thanks sorry Robin can start with that and your year oh 90 94 93 94 I was in the show 94 I guess not big um I bigger than you'd think probably um my I just want to say it's completely crazy to be up here it's completely crazy I'm Robin Shore um thank you you're turning okay I um I heard about the meow show in the daily Northwestern I don't know if Jill Alexander is in here right now but I saw a picture of Jill amongst all these guys in the cast of black black and white photo in the in the daily and I was like she seems cool those people seem cool I'd like to audition and then I did not get in my freshman year but I got in my sophomore year so I was 96 97 998 and we we have a great contingent here from our year so we're happy to see everyone I'll keep uh I'm Jen D'Angelo uh I oh my God thank you uh I was in I assistant stage managed Meow in 2008 uh cuz I didn't get in um and then I was in the cast uh 2009 and then was a co-director 2010 and uh I'm one of the people that came to Northwestern basically because of meow uh so thank [Applause] you hi I'm Abby um um I came to Northwestern as a theater major um and when I got here I realized I wasn't good um there were people that were good I wasn't a good actor it turns out so I got out of theater doing the theater major but I really always I remember seeing Phil pavl when I was a freshman doing an impression of Ivanka Trump in meow and it was to me that was [ __ ] SNL it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen um so even though it turns out I wasn't a good actor um I always kind of wanted to be in meow so I auditioned and got in my senior year and I was in it with Adrian and a bunch of other folks who were here um and it was just like the greatest time of my life I don't know um it was awesome how many were not theater Majors not theater Majors how many were not theater Majors wow wow just just get out doing crew r no no crew this is the writers group though [ __ ] yeah it is yeah continue on oh I'll go um so I'm Adrian I was 93 94 995 um yeah and uh I was a I was a Cas major coming in I was going to be a PO political science um dork and uh I but I but I I was sort of raised on Second City so when I heard there was an improv show I saw it my freshman year and I was like oh my God that's exactly kind of what I want to do and then I auditioned for it my sophomore year and and uh loved it but so then I ended up kind of transferring to theater from Cas and double majoring that's yeah that's all I got I okay hello um name name good night um uh my name's Liz Krueger um class of class of 29 um I um I um I I I'm was not in the meow show but I I did audition the first year I didn't get in so I thought maybe I could be a stage manager so I stage managed uh my third year of college I was a stage manager and then I became the producer um my senior year with Dan Patterson who was the director and so that's why I'm here and I also was a theater major who couldn't act and so then I became a writer yeah yeah hi I'm Liz Kowski and um I was RTV F and my years of meow were 97 98 and 99 uh freshman year I saw meow perform I think down here at Norris like new student week and was like oh my God that looks so cool I want to do that I auditioned um didn't get in and then that was the first year of Titanic players so I saw that there was another improv group Titanic so I went and I did Titanic that year and then the Hope was to you know come back to meow sophomore and then I auditioned got in and Jill cast me and Robin was in it and then um and then co-directed with Jamie Roberts my senior year what what's the crossover from Titanic to meow how does that what was it what's the crossover like I mean did a lot of people do both or um I do both there we go so I mean so I did it the just the freshman year and then stopped doing it and then Dave Asher is here too we were in it that first year of Titanic and then Dave was in meow by senior year what's the difference between the shows we didn't do sketch in Titanic Oh all in PR it just all improv and then at least that year there wasn't I don't think we ever did any shows on campus at Northwestern everything was downtown so there there wasn't one yeah it was really cool it's like I'm going actually I was in Allison Hall and I remember being like I got to take the L downtown [Laughter] doing uh yeah uh Justin Spitzer um uh yeah I don't know I I don't know if I knew of meow before I um applied here but I yeah same as Liz I was at that show new student week um uh freshman year and was just blown away like my like friends and I and Allison like went back and like did short form improv based on the show and our dorms cannot believe we did that um and I don't know yeah I remember just looking up at meow like people look at SNL like it was there was nothing better than that and I I think I auditioned having not believing there's any chance I'd get in I was just like it'll be fun to audition um never really thought that was realistic um and kind of actually cheated my way through the audition like pre-planned a bunch of stuff and luckily got in get out get out so good night SP [Applause] everybody but no it's like I think was alluded to earlier it's like you so I know I showed up having no idea what to do and not being capable but you know through the year sort of learned it and um felt felt okay by the end so the the next obvious question is um how does improv has affect your writing do you yes and as you as you write or just just when you're sitting there with a Coury um what is improv part of that process for any of any of you I think being on staff uh yes you do have the yes and um although that's where the difference is between being on a staff of someone else's show and then being at the point where you're either running a show or you're at the point where you have some leadership where your job is to know to know but really like you're the editor there you have to tell people what works and what not but in those early years uh on a staff yeah it's all about building on other people's pitches and and it really is yes and I also think it's like uh you know so much being a professional writer is uh pitching and selling which is horrible uh and it's not what we like to do uh it's not fun to like come in and be like I'm amazing actually and you want to buy my idea uh when everything in your body is trying to just be like I don't know uh do you like it um and I think improv is super helpful for that because it's basically a performance like every time you have to pitch to a studio or an actor or whoever like uh yeah just viewing it as like I've got to really get them on board and I've got to have a lot of energy and be very positive so I think that's where like improv really comes into is just being able to like roll with uh really stressful conversations completely agree improv is part of the pitching process you got to be really delightful yeah and you got to have great answers to questions yeah and yeah I I I actually tell I taught at NYU for a while and I tell anyone not even in Show Business go take an improv class just just for presentation for being a person being lovely to be in a room with I think improv classes just sell yourself really well Jason yeah improv has been like a huge part of of my career I'm a director uh mainly yeah talk about the Modern Family creation you said there was improv involved in that well yeah that well my early stuff that I made in Los Angeles that sort of LED before Modern Family was s improv based Pilots I was I was trying to do I was I I wanted to make my own stuff but my talent as a writer is limited I'm pretty good with story but like I didn't feel like I could write a script script I wrote one with you I know but was it good and you did all you did all the typing yeah but well she's the girl no I'm just saying I'm just saying that's a joke oh my God hey hey yeah that was bad but [Laughter] hey it feels just like 19 1998 doesn't it I'll skip ahead I wrote this thing it was like an outline is basically also how Larry David does Curb Your Enthusiasm it was like an outline of a pilot without the dialogue and I cast improv actors to be in it and basically write it for me and I directed The Improv around the story I had written this was this was for the ABC Network was a p you like paid to do this yeah yeah wow yeah so so it was that was a joke it was a joke it was a pilot a a television pilot it was called this might it was called this might hurt I skipped ahead okay and I and I learned from that not to title anything how you might later feel about it but but it was a thing that came together really in a lovely way uh and and it led to those guys wanting to hire me to direct the pilot that was at the time called my American family it was a very uncool family show Family shows were not in at the time the only family show on television was uh was uh who's the boss the running oh I'm sure it was yeah it was that Jim Belushi one According to Jim so so it wasn't cool to do a family show show and my my improv show was supposed to go like that cool that cool thing I did and uh this was in 2008 when the economic meltdown happened and suddenly uh they changed their mind and didn't pick up my show they had picked it up for 13 episodes and then they called and said we're not going to do it and I was super it was like the Heartbreak of my career and I went back and I had interviewed with those guys the Steve and Chris with their super uncool family show called my American family and I was like do you still want me to direct that cuz they had seen uh they had seen this improv thing I had written according to them they were impressed that I had written it but I hadn't really written it in my opinion and and uh I said yes I I'll do this thing and so then I was directing uh what became what became Modern Family and and I was so bummed about it at the time you were why why were you why were you bummed about it well because it wasn't my super cool alternative improv show it was the it was this maybe you should have cast me in your super cool improv show yeah exactly well anyway yeah I should have well too late I don't want to cut Jason off but I also want to say I thought he was going to talk about another project of his that was improvised called Giants of radio um but rip Giants of radio but I want to say that just in terms of writing and being in a writer's room and even when you're in a position of managing staff and whatever it becomes so weird when you have the yes and attitude and other people don't and you're like whoa oh I I didn't even know you could say no and so um it be so our our training here would just like brainwashed me into thinking that everybody does that and it's shocking it still shocks me when like people just like oh shoot down a pitch in a writer room or just be like we can't do that or we did that on The Simpsons or whatever it's like just build on it and you'll find something cool but um that is it is it was formative there's one more other practical thing that because and Justin sort of alluded to it but when you're doing anything really but especially like a multi-cam sitcom and even the sort of single cam [ __ ] inevitably doesn't work and you're constantly sort of in you know you're kind of on the spot to fix stuff which is the beauty of TV really and it very much helps to have that brain of this not just we're coming there with the script and that's how it's going to be you can you you can call audibles you can punch stuff up on the Fly that's as a group is very helpful nothing more fun than having a joke bomb I'm not kidding and then everyone gathers around on the audience out there and like just joke joke joke joke joke and go okay we try it out and it works that's really exciting yeah and then the actor ruins it always always every time every time but sometimes in a multicam they're laughing the audience is laughing at the joke we call that a joke like substance because it sounds different it's new it's new and they're like oh my God they came up with something so fast um so it is it is great when it's actually funny you know so true thanks you're welcome um so I actually I maybe I'm not supposed to be I don't work in TV I don't work in TV I don't so do my can I comment tell them where you work comment can I comment on a not I I'm not a TV writer so I didn't even fit into your introduction of it all I'm sorry no so so what I'm going to say doesn't have I would what I'm going to say doesn't really apply to the room or anything it applies to pitching which I really think 99% of being a writer is being delightful um and 1% of it is you know the stuff that he makes other people do um so I think as a movie writer one of the sort of unconscious parts of doing improv and meow that has helped is really just like getting to the heart of the [ __ ] so quickly like everybody knows in screenwriting it's all about economy all about getting in and out of these scenes I like Jason also started directing and even more so when you're thinking towards how you're going to make this what [ __ ] you don't want to have to put in the budget you know it's going to get cut so you really want the economy of it and I really think we just like get to the heart of it get to the heart of what's funny and get out and lose all the other crap that um I think started for me in being on stage and having to do it because people have eyes on you and there's never you know that's even there's nothing that adds more pressure to wanting it to be quick than when people are watching you do it you know yeah great answer thank you even as a screenwriter I said something you liked get out so I I I don't I didn't start as a comedy writer um I do like one hour and I've done dramedy and Etc ET I've never done multicam or anything like that but I will say after I left Northwestern um still determined to try my hand at comedy and improv I did join a group in New York and I did comedy and improv and I was still terrible so I then went on to write but the interesting thing about that experience and teaching me that I couldn't Act was that um you know realize that comedy is part of drama it's part of everything and that's the most interesting thing that I find even like as a showrunner if I'm reading scripts for people who want to be on staff it's the people who know that comedy there's a place for comedy in everything um that their scripts sing because it's like you read these Earnest things and I'm like death is funny like why isn't this funny I'm like everything is funny in its own way and that is sort of I think the stuff that if you have that little funny Fizz or that funny bone and you bring it to whatever you do your work kind of kind of Rises you know so there is something about how was that was that right sorry what was that okay it it was okay it was okay I'll try again later I just want to add in really really quickly that I as somebody said appear improvisor brain and I am essentially married to a performance Studies major and they're very different brains let me just put it e you are performance studies we're not married his wife I never knew that me what is performance studies I don't know okay all the best professors and no [Applause] crew down the line anyone probably help yeah well I guess right now I'm probably I'm working on something that's maybe the closest thing to me Al s meow because I'm writing I'm in the podcast world now and making these parodies of podcasts where they are improvised so I'm writing like I'm coming up with like the character and the game and sort of a little bit of the story and it's an outline and then we get all our funny friends and a bunch of meow have come and done it too so Anna gasty was in it and Jean vilek was in it and Peter Gross and like and we improvise for about an hour and then we get to edit it down to like 20 minutes and it's so freaking fun and it's bring what's it called what's it called we have a it's with Amy polar and it's called paper K podcast and so Amy polar plays do Dr Sheila who's a therapist and so that one was about like the parody of self self-help podcasts and um couples therapy and then Ike Baron holdz did one where he's kind of like a dude podcaster who was cancelled and then he said he came back and he listened and learned and now he's like changed and then uh and then the one coming out in May is a true crime one called women talking about murder [Music] who's in it and I'm in that one thank you Robin thank you Robin um but yeah brought back it's bringing back all the joy that like I remember from me out too of like we're laughing so hard and it's so freaking joyful and and so writing for that is just like knowing that funny people are going to improvise all the lines is great that's awesome that's the best yeah yeah yeah don't have to write those lines you're good I think I went no I I don't don't pay attention um Eric if we all talk about everything this is never going to work we we're going to have to like be able to move move through we got like an hour to fill you're all taking like a lot of time with your answers and I appreciate it um but you mentioned uh you working with other meow people who here has worked with meow people either hired them or yeah pretty cool cuz [Applause] I wait she it's it's okay no I've worked with a lot of Northwestern alums so maybe they didn't make it into meow but I put a lot of people in shows Rob Benedict Paul I mean I don't know if you know Paul Fitzgerald great actor I put him in stuff a lot of a lot of Northwestern people that kind of counts not for this panel but okay well I'm helping to fill okay um did when you guys are on set various sets or podcast do you um how do you feel well you're all in but when you have a scripted series how do you feel about actors improvising in on set and on camera I'm I'm cool with it I mean if they can do it it's great but some it's it's it's not easy it's it's hard and if and if they there's a difference between improvising on set and and like changing the words so that they're less funny [Applause] I don't mean to be the guy who like Act suck it's it's not that it's just it it's just frustrating I feel like I've often been the goete between writers who really want to see it sing exactly as written and actors who want to play and bring it to life and and as a director with an improv background like I love it I want to use it but but I often use it to get to the best version of the written line so I find that actors they when given permission to play come to life and the scene starts to sing in and but it's also too long and it's unwieldy and then as like an afterthought I'll go oh let's after we did that fun improv version let's now do one more of the written one and that's the one that's in the cut I I go the other way I start with the get it get what's on the page get on there and then guys just go play no that too I do that yes and I do one more that was clever that was clever you got to get it as written first but you have to get it as written for is what you're saying but I'll say I worked on a show for a long time with one of the best uh improvisers in the from I knew him from Chicago and it it wasn't Adrian but it was someone adrianne's improvised with um and uh he W I bet so we cast another improviser famously famous improviser from second I'm not going to but I was like oh my God my bosses didn't Jimi again it's Jimi again this was a show where everything had to be Word Perfect like not even a dash out of like you had to say everything perfectly and I begged my showrunners at the time I was like let these two guys improvise they are geniuses you've never seen anything like it and they tanked it so hard because they were so confined for so long they were so kind of scared of like going off book that they'd never been given that freedom that when I asked for it it didn't work so you have to like you know you have to be sight specific about what you're doing I learned that in performance studies class site specific perf studies yes um I'll say for me I love improv on my shows your show's like almost all in I use it's I mean there's always a script that I always view as show well um uh well I came up working on the office which is where they I did not create that show but uh we did a lot of improv on that and that I think influenced me and then I uh I created a super store um American Auto starring on a gire I don't know if she's here yet um and I uh I have a new show St Dennis medical that'll come out in the fall it's called St Dennis medical it's a hospital mockumentary um and a few other shows that no ever heard of uh they I'll do but uh no I I I love it I always say the um you know the script is the safety net we get it there it can it'll at least be no worse than the script um and then there's levels of improv I mean I love I almost never want the actors to say it word for word I want it to feel natural and so there's a level of improv that anyone can do even if you're not a comedy person which is like yeah say it but you know throw in words make it feel like your own and then um but I love also casting comedy people I always ask my casting directors to like find people with improv backgrounds and then if they can make it better and so many times they do I mean you know I I've cast people who are ridiculously good writers on their own and other people who just are funny on the Fly and find something that feels right to them that the writers could never have have done uh and so I use that all the time I also think there's a difference probably between uh using improv on a single cam versus multicam I mean multicam so much of it is like the rhythm of the language and there I can understand wanting to get it word for word or try it cuz sometimes it is about like hitting that punch line and just you know that's going to elicit a laugh um but I like uh single camp that feel a little more naturalistic so I think improv works great for that like Justin it's been about identifying the people that can do it really well well you're working with Ty Bell right now who's a who's a guy that like in the early going of Modern Family we're like oh he can he can improvise and give us something that's going to be useful in the story and within the structure and rhythm of a scene so it's like what I would do in those early episodes is sit off camera when we would do the interviews with the cast and even though those interviews were scripted I would write down like 10 additional questions and I would ask the questions such as of the actors well like I would ask well if there was an interview about Julie Bon is doing an interview about her early bad behavior when she was a teenager I would say you know I would I would ask her questions to elicit that like you know what's a story you might not want to tell your daughter and then that would be she would have the written answer but I would ask her a question that would lead into that and I would ask her a question that would follow out of it and I would I would get them talking so that helped them establish the tone the realistic and grounded tone of the interviews and it would lead to stuff that we would actually use in the cuts in early going but at the same time the writers were absolutely rolling their eyes at me and thinking I was wasting time by by doing more than what was written there yeah and and even though we used stuff that came out of that they would never give me credit scar you did okay uh yeah the point about doing a multicam is on Rosanne there was never an ad lib ever they played ellipses out they played a dash an um everything was perfectly scripted she would put in a double negative every now and then cuz she's folksy um but but then on my boys Betsy Thomas Betsy Thomas the most meow Jason person ever invented uh we had a cast that would let people just improvise and play around again get all in the can first then just just [ __ ] around you guys and we had a great cast who could do that so except for Jim Gaffin um oh my God you got it man you got yeah is he here come on I blocked him at the door I'll just Eric I'll just say this like I what I do for a living is so different in a way because one hour it's like you've got to say it word perfect because we did have one actress who was a well-known comedian who um was beloved until she got on the set it would not say one line as written and the other three people in the scene were like had no idea what to do because they were all saying the lines and she was off rolling around on the floor God knows what the hell she was doing so there's it's like it's funny because we're all in the same business roughly but the things that are required to make something sing or very different like when you're doing comedy versus drama I mean you have to really I mean when there was a you I don't know if you guys ever went to the wga's showrunner training program if any of you were in that but you um John Wells I would like to say I didn't get into the showrunner training program I I applied I didn't get in so I went to their one- day training for losers who didn't get in and then I went to the John Wells training which was insane John Wells will say like it's word perfect and if the actors have a question about the lines they can go home I know I that was a little extreme but I just think it's very interesting because it's like a very different process that is required to get through your day day but mine's may be less fun no love you thank you in spite of that um uh when when I graduated um we all had like N9 to5 jobs that were kind of mind numbing uh and I live with dermit Malone and we sort of said let's we're becoming dull um let's huh becoming I didn't cast it for a reason um a couple reasons um I'm kidding I love you um we we did improv in our living room every Tuesday night for like three hours and people Romy came and um John CER Mitchell came and we all just just to stay sharp to stay you know on top of things because we were becoming n5s what did you guys do after college to stay sh and current meowers or recent grads yeah woo um listen to this stuff because this this is all kind of smart things for you guys to hear I think how do you not become dumb go anyone you talk about B nowhere you guys right after college um I actually went to film school at USC um and I I really think I feel like there was a little tentative a tentative woo um and I do I really feel and actually when I first got to USC I did join even though I was a grad student I joined an undergrad improv gr um and uh they weren't good um but I really felt like a lot of my meow improv stuff really came to I I was most of the people when I went to film School were making you know it was the era of like they were inspired by George Lucas and Spielberg and they wanted to make those type of movies and I was making little funny shorts um and I really think that's how I took my meow training and turned it into movie training and just really got good at getting to the heart of the scene at practicing all that stuff um and then after film school when I did take a shitty job answering phones um I then had my short films that I could go out and sell and get agent and whatever um but uh yeah I think figuring out how to turn the funny into movie funny and into editing funny was uh like a really big step for me so when when I graduated luckily a few other meow people had graduated and so we actually just kind of moved the show downtown um and the the sad thing is there's just not as much sort of I mean I think it's coming back but the pandemic really blew a hole in a generation of people that were getting to see it every night because we we were just like well this we'll work our I I'll work this shitty job up in Evon to pay off my student loans but at night it was we were doing shows like six times a week or whatever with Jason and Ed and you know Abby you know so it was really we were just trying to stay practice and just do it in the real world and I think that was like invaluable for one keeping us from going insane and two just sort of like you know building on what we'd sort of built what we'd sort of learned together and stay together and sort of because it's a rough business if you're doing it if you just jump out into it solo to have that sort of pad that like Landing Pad of like friends who you were comfortable working with and and who knew you it was it was fantastic so we'd go downtown to improv Olympic or second City then the annoyance there were a million theaters you could perform so just keep doing it is what I would say yeah I uh I moved to LA right after college uh and because I wanted to be a writer and so I was just like I'm just going to go out there see what I could do um I got very lucky because I got a writer's PA job uh pretty quickly on a very easy show because the production was in Georgia so all I had to do was get lunch um for the writers it was great um and I was doing UCB at night so I like immediately found like the LA improv scene and that was so incredible because uh and I also joined it with like people from meow who had also moved out to LA at the same time so it was so fun and we had like uh a little improv group that we put together we would do like random shows uh in the Attic of IO West uh a horrible horrible place that no longer exist um iOS I don't know but that specific place it's a condemned building now yeah um people living in it um but yeah so I think like finding like the thing that's so great about Northwestern that I feel like I've felt so acutely since I've been back here is that like the the spirit of a Northwestern student really is so unique and it's very interesting to see that it's sort of always been the same for like 50 years like watching that show uh it's just like a very specific uh like creative uh really ambitious like has a chip on their shoulder because they didn't get into brown type uh that's us uh and so I think like staying together uh don't make new friends no um like finding like your group and sort of like being able to sort of do this together is really important especially now like I uh I don't mean to be very depressing for anyone who's considering a career in entertainment but it's a terrible time it's absolutely horrible the industry is in shambles um but the good news is there's really nowhere to go but up um truly I genuinely do think that it's like yes it's very very bad but it will get better and also because you know the corporations that control the entertainment industry have ruined it and they're terrible and their leadership is bad um don't film this um I want to keep working I love Bob Iger um he's the best he didn't mean it um but I like it really watching uh Joe's incredible presentation like it really feels like Hollywood now is WAMU and they're just like old they're not truly [ __ ] no uh like they're The Establishment they're not changing they're not you know they're really stuck in their ways and they're really intent to just run the industry into the ground so I think it's like really honestly an exciting time for a group of people who are industrious and self starters and creative who want to just sort of like make something together and I think the other thing that's really nice about the entertainment industry being in shambles and uh um jobs being impossible to get uh go on it's really so bad um but the good thing is uh you know when I graduated it was very much like you go out there you try to get a writer's assistant job or a PA job and you just just like work as hard as you can write all the time perform at night like do whatever you can um and I think now that those jobs are really really really hard to get and then also way shorter so you don't have when you do get them it's not like hard get they're really impossible to get uh it's a really really really tough business and I think honestly like being able to remove that uh like the fire of like get to La and get a terrible assistant job immediately and uh like that's not necessarily like the ladder anymore um I always say that my career has felt like running across a rope Bridge as planks fell off uh and and now I'm sort of like on the other side and there's no rope bridge but uh I think what's really great about that is we can all make our own bridge and Northwestern people are really good at [Applause] that oh yeah I'll and I will yes s your Bridge because my um my experience after college was all from uh pep who was a meow Alum starting boom Chicago and uh and I and then Josh Meers was a year ahead of me and meow and he went to dooom and in emailing the year where I was a senior he was like you would love it here you should audition I auditioned in February of senior Year got in and left like days after graduation and got to go to Amsterdam and all that was from the meow family once again oh I was going to say once go go go oh oh no go oh once again I did not do anything the linear way um I I was a stand-up comic when I got out of Northwestern and then I went to law school um because I told you you can find things funny anywhere and then um when I was sitting in my contracts class looking out the window I was like why the [ __ ] did I apply to law school and so then I ended up writing scripts and coming out to LA and doing p jobs and all that but the thing that I don't know how many are undergraduates here looking for Hope um but um but no I just want to say this if you're if you are looking for Hope raise your hand I'll just talk to you well okay so okay great great here's the thing this is super important there is no right way there's no right way like we're all sitting up here doing writing or producing directing but like you just do you and don't like feel like you have to follow any straight path because all the things that I did before I became a full-time writer like they informed me they made my brain more interesting and it made my writing more interesting so don't feel like there's one way there's many ways just just your 20s are about figuring it out and don't be afraid don't be afraid and I I one of the we were like lousy with panel sorry when I went to film School in here the panel that we just really a lot of panels so now we're I don't know how tired you are of [ __ ] panels but we we had a lot of them but one of the things that I remember being told and thinking it was um not helpful at the time so I'm going to pass it on to you um was that if you really have something to say it's going to T take a second but it will get there and I thought at the time I was like but I don't even have any and what's the creative directory and I don't understand and if I have something to say nobody's hearing it that's all true also but I do I still believe that if you really have something to say and you're good at it and you hone it and you're funny and you're 99% delightful in the room you it will happen and there's like a little bit of um Faith you have to have in the waiting part of it but um but I still really do think that's true everybody up here who's obviously super super talented it didn't happen right away and you have to believe that you have something to say that no one else is saying you can do it in a way that no one else is doing um but you have to like you said take a little bit of a woozy path it happened pretty fast for me anyway it did for me too it's so true um the anyway else Jason you going to say something well it's just this notion to sort of piggyback on many things that been said here this idea of making something out of nothing that the meow show is kind of all about first of all an improv scene is all about that making something out of nothing the show itself then is this making of something out of nothing as a team and there's kind of no Endeavor more like the making of a television show or a movie that you can do in college in my opinion than essentially this show even making a short film in college is less like the Endeavor of making a real one than making a show like this that is making something out of nothing really attempting to capture a voice so to speak as a group if if if that's such a thing and that group has tremendous power moving forward your friends that you make here you know I with Adrian like we we went and performed downtown after we um after graduated and other people that were in our cast Ed hersman's over there he quieted everyone when Eric made that sexist joke earlier hey hey [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hey the group the three of us live together in a in a horrible apartment across from a halfway house near the Sheridan lstop together after we graduated Ed had very smelly bunnies in his room I I believe it was one bunny and it had actual Bunny and it had fleas yeah yeah it was a was a weird horrible time in some ways but together in some ways we were performing every night together the group of us at at improv Olympic in Chicago and studying with Dell close in what I look back on as grad school essentially for me because I didn't get into USC film school and then and then together together we moved to Los Angeles and together we continued performing and like that was that's the power that's that's the of this of this time this that was the launch of all of our creative careers Endeavors and to bring it back to the question originally the bad jobs we had we worked together at chatau marma in doing room service in in Hollywood during that time and all of this was to try and pimp Adrian and to telling us some Chateau Marmont stories I I want I want to start holding the microphone like Jason like a rapper what up um I want to say that my like I had a slew of horrible jobs the worst of which was working for my father in his office in the Deep San Fernando Valley um that was was tough those were tough times and there it required a lot of improv in my brain just to stay fresh but my favorite job was with Justin Spitzer's wife Jenna bans we were waitresses at two separate restaurants in New York City and it require we were so we were improvising knowing how to be waitresses we were so bad at it like I I I would for we would forget orders and then you know one day we came out dressed it was a it was a Mexican restaurant we were Captain enchilada and Burrito Boy and no one understood what we were doing um so we just tried to bring the fun to those shitty shitty jobs um when I came back from boom Chicago and I went to Chicago because I wanted to do Second City and I audition I didn't get in and then that year was a year of so many temp jobs and so many office jobs and really shitty jobs where at night I was taking classes and Performing almost every night but I will say during the day like meow trains you to have this comedy brain right and you see the world through it like where you just something crazy Happ or you know just stupid happens at work and you can't turn to anybody there and you find your people at night and tell them about it and almost every job I had that year I've used in a sitcom later so it like when you're having these you know you have to work and if you're like this isn't what I want to do you will use it later like I think the one the one that I was um I was the camera person in the back for a company that taught corporations how to be better presenters so it would be like these people who had to give PowerPoint they didn't know how and they went to communis bond was the name of the company terrible definitely a Communist front of some kind and like and so it was people was really scared to give um talks and didn't know how and so it was like breaking down how to speak to a crowd and the way the only thing they taught people was how to use your hand if you didn't know how to use your hands they said just hand them a sandwich hand them a sandwich hand them a sandwich and I believe if it made it in that Chevy Chase has that in um Community I wrote for community and used it for him once and was everyone's like ah so like all these crappy jobs you will use later there is also something for the for the hopers the people looking for hope I just want to say one thing oh they're over there sorry okay so oh great great oh yes exactly Lisa this is for you no but but you know if you can hear up here everybody here has had no said to them many times like no is a part of life and it's it gets you to yes and it's just something you have to like be okay okay with it's going to hurt it always hurts but it's also like just the part of moving forward in life and I just like to give people hope because it's so hard it's so hard when you're getting out of school and you feel like who am I I'm a loser I'm never going to mount to anything that's true for many of you but not all of you I'm sorry that was a joke time to go to the Burn Unit sick burn alert no for me doing meow and and the the besides just the massive concentration it took the whole point for me in everything I've done since and yeah is uh having fun um my dad always asked me at every job said are you having fun and I was sit for a second go yeah I think I am and so I think that the fun element has to be part of all of it it's hard work Focus but but then you know make a fart noise you know just don't do that it's awful um but but just just make sure everyone's having a good time then then good things come out of the relaxation of having fun and you can relax and just sort of be stupid and that's when good stuff comes out of your brain make sense yeah thanks Dad um yeah Q&A okay hi hi my name is enela I'm a recent grad of meow so I thank you yes recent director with this lovely live right here okay that's fine um so I was wondering and I hope this doesn't like sour The Hope conversation but I was wondering like what do you think as people who have like been in the industry so long like what are like the biggest changes you see happening to how like TV is going to be written and like I don't know just like the future of Comedy like what have you seen change already in your you know no careers um but like hope to you know this is going to sound so depressing and then it's going to get hopeful uh it I mean it's really bad like it's not I'm doing very well Fine's fine yeah we're all doing great uh but it's like truly like breaking in has always been really hard it has got it even harder staying in has always been really hard it has gotten even harder finding any sense of stability has always been really hard and it's gotten even harder so everything is getting harder the world sucks um I mean it's a really bad time for everything uh sorry I I swear it will get hopeful you're fun sorry I graduated in 2010 it sucked um we were still recovering from the financial crisis and then I yeah started working in TV and already in TV people were like TV's changing TV's changing it's getting worse and then that has only just accelerated that pattern um but again I think that the pendulum is always swinging there's always an EB and flow of entertainment these institutions like the big studios they might need to just fold and die and then whatever replaces them might be smaller but that's fine we don't need it to be the Marvel Universe we can go back to making movies like yeah we don't uh so yeah I think uh the future in kind of a very depressing but also exciting way is very unclear uh what is is TV I don't know uh what are movies I don't know like I are you having fun I am having fun that's the thing this is how it's hopeful it's really great and I think like the advice that I got when I was on panels or when I came to panels when I was a student I just remember thinking like tell me how I do it please and everyone would be like we can't like there's no way like there's no one way to get an agent to ask anyone how they got their agent they'll tell you like a long winding story that takes like four years uh and there's just like everything is sort of up in the air and now it's just oh my gosh I've been speaking too much negativity uh I've lost my voice um but yeah everything has always been really up in the air now it's just even more so up in the air so again like who knows what the future is you'll tell us like yeah it's wide open when I when I start real quick when I started out in the 80s sitcoms were dead dead there was no sitcoms at all and I chose to become a sitcom writer there the form was dead and then sorry The Cosby Show came and everyone went uh SS are back and they were back and I benefited from that so when things are dead they seem to revive again it seems also all these people are hiring so please feel free to go and talk to them but you me first hire me first um as a class of 29 I can speak cuz I have so having seen a lot you know been through two Wars and such but um uh but when when television first came out they said you know movies were dead right and so it's like you know nobody knows anything William Goldman also said that I hope you guys know who William Goldman is but anyway the point is this nobody knows anything so you and the thing is it's probably good that way and mean for me to communicate that because this is a business of uncertainty and you have to be comfortable with not knowing what your next job is like what's going to happen tomorrow like that you know I went to law school I was like I'm going to know everything and I was like [ __ ] that's awful so you know you know now it's like this open thing and you know AI nobody knows what's going to happen but it's sort of like this is a business of uncertainty and if you can Embrace that and say I don't know what's going to happen I'm just going to keep going hope keep hope alive love it yeah I I'd like to know a little more about communist Bond um what's the worst advice you ever got that you ended up learning something from I I can think of something in 2004 there were only a few multi cams on the air Two and a Half Men and Joey the spin-off of friends and my my and uh my agent told me to write a joey SP back and I wrote the [ __ ] out of a joey spec and then that got me my first job um on on a show called The Loop so um like it was bad advice but it wound up having a good ending and and I I want to see I think we should bring we should reboot Joey shouldn't we all of us here on this stage let's take it let's take it to NBC I I'll give one bit of advice it's not exactly that but it's a it's a Trope that I very much dis agree with um that people always say uh write write the show only you can write like write your passion and it's like you're you're writing to entertain like that's that's the story you should share with your therapist like that thing that only you you know like nobody wants to see your pain and like if you have an interesting life experience you can write that but in the end it's always about the audience so every now and then you read something and it's it's it's so important to them and you know if you were to not it it's like no but that's not the way it happened or that's not the way I feel and like that that's that's a ticket to nowhere so all right does the panel does the panel think that hope is an overrated emotion and if so what is your go-to emotion what emotion most sums any of you up Scotch Scotch um that's a I tend to quit the business in the spring which is how I deal with it most of the time in the spring is when I say I'm done here um and so I feel like I need to humor myself in that way I need to believe that now I'm really done here every year maybe it's maybe it's in May Sometimes in April where I just feel like that's what gets me through as opposed to having hope when I feel like I'm really done then I'll come back but I feel like sometimes mentally I have to given what you've been saying about the state of the business sometimes you have to believe like it's okay to close the door on it for a second I don't want those notes I'm not okay with any of that [ __ ] and then you come back so I feel like for me when I don't have hope I also have to sort of trick myself into believing in the spring that it's okay if I also decide I'm going to open up a vintage gear eBay store with my husband and that's also okay I'm going to answer that question earnestly mine was Earnest no I'm I I AG I did well I'm not to suggest that yours was not Earnest qu okay gotcha I'm just saying the is Hope an overrated question I would actually suggest that the question itself is cynical but that's that's my yeah well so and but that's what I'm saying for me the that hope is sort of inextricably connected to the process of making something you in my opinion the way it feels to me hope is literally the essential emotion I have to hope this becomes real I have to hope that people will see this and respond positive I can't move forward and make the thing unless I have those hopes that is literally the driving [Applause] emotion and and just to bring it back to meow meow was the thing that kind of like taught me the process of making something from nothing into hoping and also to bring back hope seems to be like I think the theme of this panel because what Jen is saying was something we're all dealing with it's crazy the the entertainment business is is crumbling in this macroeconomic way no listen we're all we're all experiencing it but but but what's great for you guys is we're in the midst of this transition of the thing and we can't see what the next iteration of the business or of this endeavor is going to become but one thing that is certain is that part of the disruption and part of that change is the fact that the means of distribution is no longer centralized anybody can put anything out into the world and that means that people like you who are practiced in the art and the skill of making something from nothing can make something from nothing and then put it out into the world yourselves without being controlled by anybody else and that is the simple best skill that you can learn here and that's why there's hope I think wa I I actually realized something there's two essential emotions because what you said was just right on it's like there's two essential emotions to being living a life of of the creative person hopelessness and hope and you alternate between those two things and they're just it's just part of your day right I mean totally okay we have sorry let me let me just add one quick thing for those who are planning to come out to Industry fairly soon I mean I we shouldn't sound overly morose I think about how things I mean just a couple years ago it was the Golden Age of television and you know then there was a glut and there was a little bit of a reset and and we had a big strike we got a lot of things but the studios use that to you know cut a lot of deals so right now we're on a little a little dip but it's not like things have been like for 10 years like things have been sinking like I don't think there's any reason to think that 5 years from now things will still be or two years from now things will still be you know miserable so and one thing I just want to say and please correct me if I'm wrong Jason that during the 2008 strike I think uh Steve Levitan and Chris Lloyd wrote the pilot of Modern Family because sitcoms were dead and and at that point if you were a sitcom right there no no jobs and then they wrote they wrote their way out of it and I do think there's a way you can use your if you're a writer you can sort of use your pen mightily and try and write yourself out of a slump and it doesn't have to be anything that is is sellable to Hollywood if there's something funny to you there might be something there that could become a thing and just be the flower growing out of the cement cuz it is terrible but but try and push through it uh hi I'm Willa I was 2018 to 20120 I guess a little bit of pandemic time um yeah it's all right it's fine but um I guess my question is I I mean basically my whole friend group was meow or Titanic you know I mean like all my friends were the people I'm doing comedy with are the people I'm doing comedy with I live with them I live with them and do shows with them like do you guys have any advice for you know working so closely with friends can also on Creative projects can create tensions and there can be I'm sure like meow has a stored history of like drama within it as well you know it's like how do you navigate that also in the professional world and staying friends and all I know that that's actually a great question because the group that I alluded to earlier I mean we went into a grinder in La I mean we were like six people that were going to like stay together and do our own thing and we'd had ups and downs but then you get you get put into you know you're it's like just piranhas in mud or whatever and you're being picked apart um and and the thing is like people will there's just going to be attrition um and because like what someone earlier the point someone was making is like it just you got to hold on and some people just don't don't want to and it's totally their that's their DEC decision but I think that when you're in a group it's it's easy to be like we're only going to do things our way which is sort of an opposite of something I said earlier which is You' got to you've got to actually grow too you've got to be able to like I think my advice to that situation would be everybody's got to do their own way and and it's very easy to get into this group mind of like we got to we got to stick together and do it and and it's going to be extremely hard you're setting yourself uh like a really high bar and just be be patient be kind with each other be be accepting of their successes if it doesn't happen for you it will and and just try I know it's very hard when you're when you're that age let's hear it for the panel [Music]