Act One Podcast
Act One Podcast
Screenwriters Jacob Roman and Kenny Ryan
Act One Podcast - Episode 45 - Interview with Screenwriters Jacob Roman and Kenny Ryan of the new film, ELEVATION.
After meeting in college, KENNY RYAN and JACOB ROMAN teamed up to sell their first script, DAVID VS GOLIATH (a 300-style take on the Biblical epic) to Sony Pictures. Since then they’ve sold multiple feature projects around town, most recently ELEVATION, which they wrote and co-produced with Brad Fuller and John Glenn. Starring Anthony Mackie & Morena Baccarin and directed by George Nolfi, the film will be released theatrically by Vertical on November 8th.
Their latest feature is SLEEPING BEAUTY, a high-concept action thriller they’re producing alongside Scott Free, with Madelaine Petsch attached in the lead role.
On the TV side, they spent three seasons as writer/producers on the CBS network primetime hit SEAL TEAM starring David Boreanaz and Max Thieriot. They’re currently Co-Executive Producers on the Lionsgate/MGM+ show ROBIN HOOD, premiering fall 2025.
Kenny and Jacob have developed a reputation as hyper-collaborative and highly generative writers, with an ability to breathe emotional life into conceptually muscular stories that appeal to a broad audience.
The Act One Podcast provides insight and inspiration on the business and craft of Hollywood from a Christian perspective.
Really figure out conceptually what the story is Like, get that concept, get it down to a really good logline workshop that, get it to the place, before you then invest the four months into writing something. I think a lot of times we get so excited about diving into a script that you kind of lose your compass in some way. You forget like, oh, I want to do this and I'm off base. So I do think locking in that conceptual piece of the puzzle is really important. Bad concept, great script is a little bit harder to sell than great concept, so-so script Like. You can always fix the script, but you got to have that concept in there.
Speaker 2:This is the Act One Podcast. I'm your host, james Duke. Thanks for listening. Please don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and leave us a good review. My guests today are screenwriters Jacob Roman and Kenny Ryan. After meeting in college, kenny and Jacob teamed up to sell their first script, david vs Goliath, to Sony Pictures. Since then they've sold multiple feature projects around town, most recently Elevation, which they wrote and co-produced with Brad Fuller and John Glenn, starring Anthony Mackie and directed by George Nolfi. The film Elevation will be released theatrically by Vertical on November 8th. Their latest feature is Sleeping Beauty, a high concept action thriller they're producing alongside Scott Free. On the TV side, they spent three seasons as writer-producers on the CBS Network primetime hit Seal Team, and they're currently co-executive producers on the Lionsgate MGM Plus show Robin Hood, which is premiering fall 2025. Kenny and Jacob are very talented writers, but also very kind and thoughtful. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Jacob and Kenny. Welcome to the Act One podcast. It's great to spend some time with you guys today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks, Jimmy. It's awesome to be here. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2:So I'm looking forward to having this conversation with you guys. Obviously, the main reason why I'm talking to you is you guys have written a film that's in theaters. It's a film called Elevation, which is this really fun action sci-fi movie starring Anthony Mackie, and so I want to make sure we spend some time talking about that, as well as just a lot of stuff in you guys' career. I'm also really excited because you guys are a writing team and I think it's really good for our audience to hear about what's it like writing with a writing partner and kind of, how does that work and how do you guys handle when someone writes something really terrible? How do you?
Speaker 3:I'm just kidding- that never happens, it never happens.
Speaker 2:No, we'll get into all that. So first of all, let's just start with how, maybe individually, before you guys found each other, how you guys found writing. So, kenny, maybe we'll start with you, tell us a little bit about how you got into writing man.
Speaker 1:I remember, you know, one of my earliest memories was me sitting around with uh, I was probably five or six and like I had this um book that was like the making of the black stallion, and I was so excited about that movie and I spent all night I would go and I had kind of done my rewriting my version of what it was and again, it's like chicken scratch, whatever. But I remember waking up the next morning and pitching that back to my grandma and my mom and it was just they were like so confused about what it was and what I was talking about, which you know, now I have two sons and they're kind of doing the same thing back to me. But yeah, I mean I grew up with like a love of movies and wanting to be involved and I think for me, you know, I really looked at like people like George Lucas and Francis Coppola and their partnership, as I was trying to figure out who I wanted to be and I'd read about them and Coppola at some point told Lucas, like if you want to do anything in this industry, you need to learn how to write, and that was something I really took to heart. I think I started out wanting to be a director. But I think every time I would try to do that, I would realize how many compromises one would have to make. You know, your best friend is the star. We don't have a dolly, we have a wagon, we're in. Your best friend is the star. We don't have a dolly, we have a wagon. We're in my backyard instead of the back lot, like it just was like a lot of goofy stuff and I kind of figured out, if it was just me and the page, I could have as much control, I could succeed or fail, but it was wholly what I wanted it to be. So that's kind of how I got into the writing side of things and it just was one of those things where in college you have a lot of experiences and you get to be on set different ways.
Speaker 1:I worked as a producer on one film, or I was trying to direct another one, or I was pulling cable on something and you just figure out I don't really like this stuff. But I really like writing, I like storytelling and it felt like that was the passion for me. And I gut checked it with Brian Bird, who he was my dad's roommate way back in college at some point and so my dad kind of set up meeting and then I was like how do I know if I'm supposed to be a writer or not? And Brian said, if you can't not do it, then you're a writer. So I had to do it and that's how I kind of figured out I should be writing things. So that was kind of my my journey, from five years old or you know, to whatever, to kind of post-college and getting trying to go professional that's awesome.
Speaker 2:I love that. Uh, jacob, uh, what about you?
Speaker 3:um, yeah, I mean, I was, ironically, I was raised in a home where film and television were, um, you know, not necessarily considered like of the devil, but you know what's what's like a devil adjacent.
Speaker 3:Exactly yes, um, so, and even yeah I mean I think some of the the uh audience for this podcast might appreciate this uh, for a period of time when I was in my teenage years, we were homeschooled and my parents, um, sort of you know kind of signed us up for this organization called ATIA, the advanced training Institute of America, uh, which is now, you know, better known as the organization that the Duggar family was a part of, and you know, it was kind of part of that movement during the nineties where, um, you know, people were having a ton of kids and homeschooling them and part of that deal was that you didn't listen to rock music and you know you didn't, uh, didn't watch the, the boob tube, um, and so you know, that was kind of the environment I was raised in. So, naturally, of course, uh, I went the complete opposite direction and anything that I could, you know, anytime that a movie was on, I was absolutely glued to it, um, it just captured my imagination in a way that you know nothing else could. And, of course, growing up where I did which was kind of rural Wisconsin, um, borderline, you know, raised on a farm, um, Hollywood just seemed like the furthest place, it seemed like a different planet, Um, and when I kind of discovered that there were all these different jobs that you do in this industry, um, I kind of discovered that there, you know, were all these different jobs that you do in this industry. Um, I think the thing that, similar to Kenny, I think I started out with a little bit wider, um, scope of what I thought I might want to do. You know, I'm I'm fairly visually oriented, so I tried being a DP, um, you know, tried camera hopping, you know all the you know on student films and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3:And, you know, tried camera hopping, you know all the you know on student films and that sort of thing. And, you know, similar to Kenny, found out that the compromises he mentioned, uh, were kind of too much for me to my perfectionist self to take, and so I ended up, um, turning to the page where at least I could have total control over that script. And you know, once I typed fade out or the end, you know that would be sort of the, the final word at that point in the process, and I could, you know, polish that until it was as close to my particular vision, you know, at that point in the process as as I could get, so that's sort of how I wound up doing it wound up doing it?
Speaker 2:For both of you guys. Was it when you first started writing? I would say, what sort of maybe support or positive reinforcement or opposite, like when you first started writing, when did you think to yourself, man, this is hard or this is impossible, I'm not any good at this. And then maybe at one point you thought, maybe I am good at this, like that kind of early formation. Did you get a lot of support? Were you kind of on your own? What was that for both of you guys?
Speaker 3:For me it was.
Speaker 3:I think I was very, I was like an artist, like a visual artist, growing up and, as you know, from as far back as I can remember, when I was like six years old, you know, drawing and painting were my jam and I got a lot of positive reinforcement around that, you know.
Speaker 3:So I think I was always artistically and creatively inclined and you know, I just I knew that I loved, you know, something that I kind of knew about myself from the time I was young I just I loved being a maker, I loved making things and you know, making something good and true and beautiful, that was something that always really resonated for me. So I think, you know, and I do remember one time in high school when we, you know it was an English class and you're supposed to write a speech and deliver it to the class, when we, you know it was an English class and you're supposed to write a speech and deliver it to the class and, um, whatever that speech was, I, you know the class responded very, people were laughing, people were engaged and I realized like, oh, the ability to tell a story, um, and in that environment it was person to person, but that sort of morphed into.
Speaker 1:You know this career I have now where yeah, it's, the ability to tell a story is something that um you know, really just resonates with me still um all these years later yeah, I don't know that I ever had any anybody push back on my talents or tell me I'm not good. And that's not to say I was great out the gate. I just I don't think I had. My network was me and my buddy and we were just, you know, making our little short films and we're like this is awesome, like we're crushing it here we, you know, let's keep going.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That's awesome, and so you guys are, you know. So you both obviously find writing. When did you find each other in terms of writing together? I think for some people that's a little bit of a foreign concept like writing together. So when did you guys build that relationship? And go, wait a second, we're good on our own, but we can actually do this together.
Speaker 1:I think Jake and I have been kind of talking no-transcript. I was always working with somebody and we were always looking at the Coen brothers and we were like those guys know how to write together, they know how to produce together, they know how to direct together, they edit together, they do everything together, and so for me that was in the background and even like I mentioned, the Coppola Lucas thing like those are two guys that are kind of again like working side by side trying to make something great. So I did a lot of stuff on my own and I kind of had some success where I set up a script that I had written and again I had written it. But I had my brother's roommate.
Speaker 1:Chris Herzberger was a. He was kind of acting as my manager. He didn't really have any management skills or anything, but he had worked as an assistant for Gary Ross and so he knew like oh, here's how you can do stuff. But that was very collaborative too, like I had written the first draft and then he came in and we workshopped it together and he would give me notes and then I'd implement those, and so it was very my experience was very collaborative from the start, and then I got to a point where I'd set that thing I need to, I need somebody else's eyes on this and see if this can work.
Speaker 1:And, like I know there's something here, I just need to find somebody who shares the vision. And Jake, really, he read what I had I don't know it was like 60 pages or something, 70 pages and he said I get it, I understand, let's figure this out. And he just kind of came in at that point and that was the big partnership, join up. And that was a davy crockett, um pirates of the caribbean, you know ask crazy movie.
Speaker 3:It was tons of fun to write and but that was kind of how he and I started working together yeah, I think from my side of things it was, you know, you graduate film school, so we both went to biola together and we knew each other. Um, you know, while we were undergrads there and you have that experience of going to film school with people, everybody graduates you enter the industry and the you quickly discover sort of who who's made for it, uh, and who who isn't. And it was really, you know, kenny was kind of the only reliable person who was writing as much as I was, who we kind of. You know, both got a manager at the same time, got an agent at the same time. We had both optioned things within a couple of months of each other.
Speaker 3:Um, and so when he asked me to collaborate on something, I immediately knew it wasn't. You know, this wasn't like his first script, it was like his 13th and he was already repped at CAA. Like I knew it was a legitimate, like okay, this guy knows what he's doing. And then, of course, when I read it, you know, like everything he writes, the goal was undeniable there. The goal was undeniable there. And so it was like oh, of course, because prior to that I hadn't, I was, I was kind of a, you know, it was kind of a lone wolf in school.
Speaker 3:I've never thought I would write with a partner. I was the guy who, if we were doing a group project, I'd be like, all right, don't worry about it. Everybody. I got this and I would do all the work because I wanted an A and I knew if I. But then I think the you know to meet somebody like Kenny who could sort of match my energy, capacity and focus and was serious about doing this as a career, that just felt like kind of one hand shaking another and really fitting and discovering that like, oh, we work super well together and you know, I think that's the nature of all really great partnerships that can stand the test of time is you find in that other person's compliments. You know whose strengths cover your weaknesses. And in our case, very, very then we are apart, which isn't to say we're not great writers apart, we totally are but it's just something where the one plus one equals three, in this case, when we work together.
Speaker 2:So can you help my audience understand what it looks like to write together? So you sit down and you know what to say. Say you get a writing assignment and you I don't know, maybe you guys have gone in and pitched, or maybe you just your agents or management set you up, you get it, you get a gig Right, typically right. If I'm by myself and I'm writing, I just sit down and start, start outlining, or I start, you know, trying to figure out, um. For you guys like to walk us through, what is it like to work with a partner? How do you guys I'm sure different partners work together differently. But so for you guys, how do you write, like from the very beginning, what, what, what do you do? How do you guys um, and then, how do you decide who does what kind of thing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think for us I mean, there's definitely a lot of front end communication to try to make sure we're both seeing the same vision. So the way that I was kind of I came up with this analogy of like how it kind of feels like it works when I kind of am in this partnership, jake and I have this conversation. We go, okay, cool, we're, we're going to do this, this movie. And then I feel like I have the camera and I kind of pointed in the direction that it needs to go. Jake comes in and puts a lens on the camera so that it actually is focusing the story the way it needs to be focused, so that we're then capturing that on our pages and on the nuts and that's like the you know, the big kind of visual version of it.
Speaker 1:But on the nuts and bolts side, a lot of times we'll have our conversations and then I will start writing some stuff to see if we're in the ballpark and I will get that to Jake and he will then take a pass on it, and so we're kind of just taking passes on each other so that by the time we get to, um, you know a deliverable draft or a deliverable outline, like even right now. I did this pass on this outline we're doing for the Robin Hood show and I give it to Jake. He's going to go do it. That's going to then go up the chain of command, but it very much is kind of like each one plussing the other's work, and you know, that's what it is on my side and I don't know, jake, you can say more on that too.
Speaker 2:But to kind of drill down on that, Kenny, are you so? You so you're kind of plot centric, is what you're saying. So it's like you're looking at big picture.
Speaker 1:Let's get it all out. I think so, okay, yeah. And again, like that doesn't happen in a vacuum, jake is very there the whole time. I think he and I are kind of we bat things back and forth, whether it's over Zoom, whether it's over text, whether it's over zoom, whether it's over text, whether it's whatever. Where it's, you just get sort of the point of, okay, this is what it is. Then I go, okay, cool, I think I can fit that into my plot brain and I can kind of work to get a rough, a rough build of what this can be.
Speaker 1:It might be 20 pages too big, you know, for what it is, and then Jake will get it back to what it really needs to be. Jake is very much like details tightening. Are we hitting those things? And then once we get that draft, then we start going together. We're like, hey, there's a three-beat runner that we need to carry through. Maybe I see that, maybe Jake sees it. Maybe Jake comes and says this line needs to be echoed here by this other character so that this guy can learn something. So it is, I mean it, just to me it's very familiar and I think this is also this collaborative piece of it I think was what helped set us up well for television stuff and being in the room, because of just how collaborative that is as well. So Okay.
Speaker 2:So basically at the beginning of, at the beginning of a project, you guys are volleying back and forth ideas, concepts, and then when you kind of land on something, you then take it and start the form forming of it and then and then you give it to him to refine it. So do you guys start with an outline, Do you go right to pages Because I know, obviously television is different than features but just trying to help people understand what the practical side of this is for you guys, so on this one that we're working on, jake and I so we were on a SEAL team, covid hit.
Speaker 1:We used to have a board with room, you know, a room with boards and cards. We all shifted over to a digital whiteboard and Jake and I just continued doing the digital whiteboard for our own stuff. So we kind of have all these cards that are in there so he can see it, see what I'm doing, I can for our own stuff. So we kind of have all these cards that are in there so he can see it, see what I'm doing, I can see what he's doing and we're tracking kind of through that process. So we would say you know, on this one you would break it down and say this is act one, here's act two, and he can see all those cards, I can see all those cards.
Speaker 1:One of us is either writing those cards or rewriting those cards to get us to a point where, off of that, we would probably go to outline, like I'm thinking about constellation jake, like we have our cards. We then went to outline. That outline then went through script that then jake got into and like I would give him a chunk. So I, here's the first 45 pages, or first 50 pages. I feed that to him and keep going and he would know where everything's going from there.
Speaker 1:And this was all an attempt, I think, for us we're very much like how do we get that first draft done? So that it's just it could be really bad, but at least it's finished and now we can both look at it, which I think is helpful. When you're in a partnership, like I, can have a version in my mind that is the greatest version of this thing, but it might not be the one that both of us want, and so getting to the first draft for us is very like it's helpful for us to kind of look at it and know it and say, okay, now we can really sharpen that.
Speaker 3:So yeah, and usually by that point it yeah, usually by that point it approximates it either really definitely works or definitely doesn't in terms of that shared collective vision. But yeah, I mean in terms of the sort of the chronology of things, we do spend a lot of time ideating, we spend a lot of time on concept and very often, when we do decide to pull the trigger on something, I mean we've been sharing an Evernote folder of ideas since we started our partnership and that thing's like a thousand ideas deep by now, literally, and so we have this massive bank of concepts that are sort of half finished, or it's a great way into a concept, but it's missing the beating heart, it's missing the character story, or it's missing, you know, kind of the cinematic imperative that would, you know, be the thing that makes both of us say, okay, that's it, that is the ideal version of this concept. That is, you know, both the something that's right for the marketplace, um, and something that we can sort of, that we know that we can deliver right, knowing our collective voice as a partnership and our abilities as a partnership and kind of what is our abilities as a partnership and kind of what is, you know what's, something that is both creatively, you know, enriching but also smart from a business perspective, and it's something that we like is a good bet in terms of all. Right, we're going to spend three to six months on the the writing of this thing, and then to go the distance with it to production and through production. That might be another 18, 24, 36 months and on, and so you really have to, from the jump, be very, very fastidious in making sure that it's something that can bear the weight of that, and I think it's something that we've arrived by through a lot of mistakes over the course of our partnership. I mean, that was really a lot of.
Speaker 3:Our first five years was swinging and missing on a lot of this stuff and really it was really difficult. Um, it was a lot of failure Also.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and learning the rhythm, like learning how to work with somebody that's like that's the Beatles in Humber, like that's them trying to figure out does this work? We need a drummer. We don't have a drummer yet, and so that was kind of a lot of those time in the trenches. I I always say like I think jake and I got lucky early. We had written something that we then pitched, that we sold and like that was like our. The second thing he and I worked on together, um, and we had some good success. We got our guild cards and then we had no idea what the next you know thing would be, or how to kind of keep going or what you to. Okay, no, we're on the right path.
Speaker 2:We're going to keep working together. But if you guys had written five or six or seven things together and didn't really get any traction on it, do you think you would have been like, okay, this was a good experience, but now we're going to go our separate ways? I'm curious if you have any thoughts. That's a good question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question. Um, I I do think that the thing that was very obvious to both of us I would say undeniable was the clicking in of of kind of our disparate skill sets becoming something much greater than you know. The whole is greater than some of its parts. Um, and that synthesis was very it was like because, to be perfectly honest, kenny has abilities that I just do not have. Um, he's an absolute machine when it comes to structure, plot, concept. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of cinema that I don't have.
Speaker 3:How he thinks in terms of like, he just he thinks in terms of story, and I can't tell you how many times that has saved our bacon, both as a partnership collectively but also just always felt like I've gotten the better half of the partnership from him and I think that's probably pretty, you know, pretty telling in terms of you know, for a guy who is as lone wolf as as I am and, as you know, kind of much of a perfectionist as I can be, for me to recognize that I think I, you know that says a lot and I knew just from the jump that we were going to go further together.
Speaker 1:I yeah, and I would say for me, like I think we knew we were going to go places just based on that first project that we didn't sell, we got really really close on Davy Crockett.
Speaker 4:I mean we had.
Speaker 1:We had a situation where we had worked on that script, we got it singing. It was so great, it was such a fun thing. Caa had it in their weekend read. They came back in on Monday and I can't remember the woman's name but she was like one of Spielberg's agents and she goes. Everyone should read this is like their meeting. Everybody should read this thing and this is the greatest script ever.
Speaker 1:And then Brian Lord called us and was like guys, I know you want to go wide with this script, but I got two clients I'd like to share it with first and that way he goes, I'm going to send it to steven and I'm going to send it to robert zemeckis. And so, like we were, you know we were in great we, you know we had, we had wild success before we saw our next one. That was kind of the big roller coaster. That was like that was we get the passes from those two guys and then it went, started going out and then you start kind of fielding passes and you know, just bad. I think it was bad timing on that project. It was such a a big american romp, you know. It had these crazy characters, davy crockett's riding a bear. It's just it literally is like pirates of the character this is the Bruckheimer version of it at a time where the marketplace was shifting towards what is global IP, and so we didn't.
Speaker 1:We got really close. We were almost going to get, you know, I think it was a platinum dunes and maybe Paramount were kind of. We were waiting to see if maybe Michael Bay would produce it or something. And they, you know that phone call comes in and they go, oh, they're passing. You know, whatever Coverage wasn't great on it, we go screw the coverage. It's an awesome script, but we had that success before we even sold it. And so, you know, before we sold our next project, we even sold it. And so, you know, I, before we sold our next project. So I mean, I think there was so much fun on on Davy Crockett that we knew David, if it wasn't David and Goliath, it would be the next one, if it wasn't the next one, it would be the one after that. And that's kind of the chutzpah that you have to have, the self-belief that that's going to. You know, come together.
Speaker 2:And you, you this I know this is a question for a lot of people who ask this whenever we have the classes with writers, writing partners, and that is how do you guys handle disagreement, Like what, if you think a scene is good and the other one goes there's something missing about the scene?
Speaker 3:So, as 50-50 partners, how do you guys go about handling those kind of disagreements or disputes aforementioned concept phase where you're batting the ideas back and forth, because I think, generally speaking, when we do arrive on something and we both agree to it, we are both all in.
Speaker 3:I mean, you just know, okay, we are going in this direction and really after that the disagreements are fairly minor Because I think once you kind of have that, you have that compass setting together and you both agree on it, I think a lot kind of have that, you have that compass setting together and you both agree on it, I think a lot of it flows out of that Um.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I mean, look, we had our certainly had our fair share of going back and forth on things. You know that again, that that first five years of the partnership um was really rough that way, and part of it is, you know, figuring out how to, how to handle conflict as partners, um, how to you know be releasing, how to be egoless. And part of that too is just eventually you double down on, you know, you just trust your partner, like when it comes to anything. You know anything plot or concept related um, very generally, I will, you know. I just I know Kenny's like he's been right so often for so long that I think I just know I'm like okay, I just trust him.
Speaker 1:It also it feels like a lot of the times too. It just is a conversation.
Speaker 4:So you go.
Speaker 1:This isn't working for me, here's why. And then Jake will go. Here's the intention behind what I was trying to do and I don't feel like I'm landing it. So that then becomes an opportunity for me to come in and go. If that was your intention, what if it's this? And then he goes, yeah, but plus one like, and so then it turns into at this stage in our career and I think like we had to learn how to talk to one another, how to listen to one another, and that's a big part of collaboration. But now I feel like is less like we don't ever. We're not like bonking heads, you know, crashing into each other with arguments like it's very much like a conversation that leads it. That is an invitation to kind of find the next good thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's good. I like hearing that. Uh so, uh so you guys sold. You know you sold a few things, but your first, like um big, your was your first big job seal team. You guys, was that your first, after you're selling one or two things?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we sold. Yeah, we sold David and Berzy Goliath. That was the Sony one that we, that was our you know, Zack Snyder version of the David and Goliath story. That was just, it was awesome and the dream project, but that was the one that we kind of both together pitched and sold. Then we did some random assignments. Scott Derrickson got us a rewrite gig on the resurrection of Gavin Stone. That was a Dallaskins movie that kind of blumhouse was making.
Speaker 1:And between all of that we were also doing these kind of weird exploitation lifetime thrillers like underpin names and like. So you're staying sharp and kind of and also, you know, working a day job because you have to kind of keep the money in. But then, yeah, and through all of this, I think the most meaningful partnership like there's Jake and me. And then the other part of this is I met John Glenn, um, through a shared agent, right when Eagle I was coming out. So I ha, I met him then and just stayed in touch with him. And that's one of the big kind of, I think, lessons for young writers is find your mentor. And Jake and I basically worked our butts off whether it was John saying hey, I need a read on this. Can you give me some notes?
Speaker 1:Because again, the invitation to collaborate it helped sharpen our skills. It helped us look over his shoulders. He was developing with M Night. He was developing over here. He's doing this, making this pilot, doing this movie. And because of that relationship, when he jumped over to SEAL Team Season 2, he brought us with him because he just was like I know who you guys are, I know your work ethic, you know, come join me on this crazy show that we're going to go do. So that was kind of our. You know we had done a bunch of stuff but this was that was kind of the first big leap to. You know, you're going to have a show on the air, your credit's going to be there and your name's on the script in a big way, and so that was like first produced stuff. That wasn't a little bit embarrassing.
Speaker 2:And what's it like writing on a? At the time it was a network television show on CBS. So what's it like writing on a network show? You're in a room about how many writers were there and how do episodes get divvied up like? What was that experience like?
Speaker 3:yeah, it was. I mean, the experience itself was, I think for both of us it was like you know, it was awesome. We hit the ground running. Man, it was like mainlining adrenaline all day, like it was so fun to jump into something because I can't under, I like I can't overstate um, just how rewarding it was to be on a network show where you have 22 episodes, right, and so that means you've got to fill 22 weeks of airtime and that means you're making something every week.
Speaker 3:And after a decade of almost a decade at that point of working in features seems, you know, going the distance with stuff and never seeing things made, we'd gotten some stuff made, but again, not quite at that level. It was just the most rewarding thing in the world to not just get to write at that level. But we got to. We're very lucky. It was all pre-COVID, so we had the chance to produce every single one of our episodes. We were on set, we prepped it, produced it and posted it.
Speaker 3:Every single one of those episodes. We were on set, we prepped it, produced it and posted it. Every single one of those episodes. And it was just such a blast working in that environment Because, again, it's also for us, having worked in a lot of genre stuff and having written plenty of action, to get to actually be on set producing. It was so rewarding. I mean, you show up and it's like, all right, what are we doing today? We have there's 250 people on set, there's a bunch of extras, we have two black Hawks, we have a firefight that's happening. I mean, it was just an absolute blast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the room was so fun. It was, you know, real challenge we got to be. You know, we were people in that room had like won an Academy award over here and you know this person was on this on CSI since the beginning and this person so you kind of really could pick up. There was a lot to learn, a lot to kind of, you know, be with them and then, like Jake was saying, like when you got it to a point where it would then go to production, you we were so lucky to be in that space because, you do, we got to work with some of the coolest, like best production designers and actors, top shelf, top level. Everybody was so great. Directors were good.
Speaker 1:We, you know one of the guys that directed our episodes, jimmy muro. He's like a legendary steadicam operator. He worked on dances with wolves, he worked on open range. He, should you know, directed photography for that Um, he shot Titanic. You know he's shot the shootout from heat. He's just a real legend and he directed an episode of ours and so you're just you're hobnobbing and kind of interacting with all these people. That, I think, plus what was some good writing, and they really elevated it every time. You know everybody that everybody above us really helped that's.
Speaker 2:I love the shootout from heat. I'm like wait a second, wait a second, yeah he's, he's, he's the guy he had to.
Speaker 1:He had the steadicam strapped to him. He's up in val kilmer's face he's. I mean, he's so one of our, our show showrunner, you know, john was there and then Spencer took over, but Spencer was always like dude, literally. I think, uh, jimmy might've gotten, you know, or played a part in getting Titanic, that best picture, uh, nomination win, because he's the dude that does that final steady cam shot where you meet, you see everybody once again here, they all are everybody's back and and you, you know, go up to leo and he's up there and you're just like there's the captain there, that's all. Jimmy doing a great job and executing cameron's vision, and but it really leaves you with the right like this should be a best picture thing. So we got to, we got to hang out with jimmy mero. It was great.
Speaker 2:Now, have you got? Obviously are you guys. Obviously are you guys military guys. Neither one of you have any military background, right yeah?
Speaker 3:No, neither of us serve.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm sure that obviously you guys have consultants and stuff, but it's what made me think of it was you said the heat. So I'm sure you guys have heard this famous story that apparently that scene, val Kilmer the way and talk to some of your military buddies about this and find out. Vet this story if it's true. But I was told that I don't know if it was like an FBI trainee or something, someone who they were watching the way Val Kilmer maneuvered with his weapon. Yeah, and they trained. They started training people based on what they saw, because they said, wait a minute, this guy has some sort of training, like he moves, like he really knows what he's doing, and they were so impressed I would imagine. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I haven't heard that, but I know, you know you go, you can. I know they did a lot of training. What's the? Michael Mann always has a lot of training for those things. You can see footage of De Niro going through a shoot range and if you look there's Tom Cruise, stuff from collateral that he was doing, and I know even now they're doing like, oh, there's Austin Butler doing you know training for heat too. Even now they're doing like, oh, there's Austin Butler doing you know, training for heat too, and so they do in that world.
Speaker 1:For sure that's a big deal and you see, that kind of both on our show on seal team was a big deal. But also some of the guys that worked on our show would also go and help stunt, coordinate or be, you know, onset advisors for, like the John wick stuff, which is very much people carrying the gun the right way, and so they, yeah, the consultants were incredibly helpful and there's some great guys, one of whom, tyler, is in. He has a little cameo in Elevation. He's like the gunsmith or whatever you know in this little village where Anthony Mackie hangs out, but he's such a great positive, you know, guy, that would always help us solve problems on set for how people were supposed to carry their gun and how much they should move and win, and.
Speaker 2:I knew it as soon as I saw him on screen. I had that thought as soon as I saw him on screen. He's like telling them what guns to choose. I was like yeah.
Speaker 4:I bet this is one of their.
Speaker 2:SEAL team buddies.
Speaker 1:So, I really wanted to get so Tyler's. Tyler's just the best he is, he's so helpful. I really wanted to get so. Tyler is tyler's just the best he is. He's so helpful, so positive, always solution-based um. Kenny sheared was another guy on seal team that was so helpful both in the room and also on set and um. We wanted to get justin melnick, the guy who's the dog handler on seal team. I was like we got to get him. If we get a sequel to elevation, he should be in the um. You know the town. He should be the mayor of the next town that is above the line or whatever he's.
Speaker 2:He's also good, positive energy so, um, when you're writing a show, so I remember talking to, uh, jeremy howell, who wrote, you know, on big bang theory, and he would say, you know, we're not scientists we would just basically put like a placeholder in the script and then they would send it to their science expert to kind of basically fill in the blank for them like what?
Speaker 2:this is Right. So you guys, obviously the military there are, there's strict code of ethics and, with training, like you said, people are watching the way people even handle, hold weapons. You're trained in very specific ways. When you guys would write stuff, would you have military guys come to you and go what are you doing? You can't write this Like how did you guys handle maybe the technicality, the specificities of? Did you just leave it blank and let the consultants help?
Speaker 3:you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, I think I think we were definitely helped by so one of the very smart you know things that was baked into that show from the jump was this idea of you know, the technical advisors actually being in the room helping us break story, and I can't say enough about how smart that was. Um, just just because you have, you know, you have X team guys there who have actually been on these ops, who have been deployed multiple, multiple times, who've been in plenty of firefights, um, who know exactly how things you know should look, and and because they know how they feel, you know, they know what it feels like to watch your body take around, like they know what it feels like to, you know, feel the, the, the adrenaline when you're about to kick a door down. You don't know what's on the other side of it, um, and that's something that just well there's also two, yeah, from the jump from the jump
Speaker 3:yes, so from the jump that was baked into the show and I think that was really smart. Um, you know, because they would, we would reach a point during the break where we, you know, would have kind of all right. Here's a this big blank space in between. It was very, very often, you know, acts two and three, if you're breaking it on CBS, are going to be action right, and so there's this big 10 to 12 minutes per episode that you have to fill in and it has to look and feel right and it has to. Also, very often on that show we were accomplishing, there was character work being done on those. You know, in the midst of that action there would usually be a few things that would happen that would influence, you know, somebody would learn something, you know, because that's something you learned about these guys as they deployed, they carry stuff from home with them into the battlefield, and so they're not robots, they're human beings. And so if you're thinking about, hey, right now, I know that stateside my wife is- in the OR with her kid.
Speaker 3:That's going to affect your headspace when you go out on an op and it's going to affect the headspace of your teammates who care about you and who know your wife, because they're the ones who are going to have to go give her the news if you don't make it back like so, that type of stuff really was rich and I think we were able to weave that into the action in ways that, uh, that made the show what it was we also watched a bunch of documentaries.
Speaker 1:We watched there's's a documentary that Tyler was involved with. That was a warfighter documentary that kind of told these kind of stories. So you have like firsthand accounts of, like the guys who are going out to rescue Mark Wahlberg and Lone Survivor right, like this is their story here's the guys that were holding this dam in Iraq, and so you have these kind of firsthand accounts of the soldiers. But then we were watching american sniper, we were watching the lone survivor, we were watching, um golly, what's that one that the navy guys did? You know, it was the act of valor. Yeah, act of valor, which was like those are real seals in that movie, kind of yep jumping into a submarine from you know the c-17.
Speaker 1:But we would watch all that stuff. And then we would read tons of books. There was a reading list that we had, and so it was like we had to read two of the books that the executive producer had done, that he had written. He was one of the guys that helped sell the show. It just was an endless list of things that you could consume however you wanted to and bring that in. So we weren't scientists like the Big Bang people, but we were well-read civilians who could kind of say, oh, I read about this weird op that happened in the 80s. Is there the updated version? Oh, here's the radon and tebby that the Israelis did. How can we do our version of that? In a hijacked airplane? You know that type of thing. So you can be inspired from all these different stories.
Speaker 3:And, yeah, one of the things that you learn in doing that research is there. There are only so many different types of special operations and you know it's, it's actually fairly limited. You know what, what those units are tasked with, like the types of jobs that they do. You know it's, it's under 10, right Is the list of the actual types of things that they get tasked with. And so when you learn, okay, here's there's all these famous examples of each type of op and here's a version that went well, here's a version that didn't, and why, and you sort of no-transcript you're, you know, getting close to a hundred. You know iterations of breaking this type of show. It does become a little easier.
Speaker 2:You guys um also worked on a show that I have been um evangelizing people about, actually interviewed, actually interviewed Andrew Peterson and Chris Wall. Yes, the Wing Feather Saga, which is? It is this for those who don't know. It's this wonderful animated family film, a family show that's on what's it called Angel Studios or whatever. But you guys worked on the first season, is that right?
Speaker 1:We did the first season and then we kind of helped on season three and we actually got involved with that. So that was one of the things we sold in that kind of weird period. After we sold, our first thing Was DreamWorks had done some veggie, they bought VeggieTales or doing something like that, and our manager goes do you know about this? And we're like, of course, of course we do. So we went and sold a pitch for a VeggieTale movie that was supposed to be slotted in this one slot and then that slot went away and they stopped making it. So it never got made.
Speaker 1:But we met Chris through that and then he kind of circled back and was like, hey guys, I got Andrew out here. Do you want to meet? This is this cool book. And so we met with them and kind of were just again like in that weird period of what are we doing? That was just a random opportunity to kind of participate in like a proof of concept. That was even before it was kind of showing it to people to pitch a proof of concept film, a short film, and so we got to work on that, which was great. And then, yeah, we got to that's that first season. I just showed it to my son, my six-year-old, and um, he's like when's the next one coming out? When?
Speaker 4:are we gonna? You know, I want to do this.
Speaker 2:I want to see that I was like, oh, it's a, it's a lot of fun and and those guys are great and yeah, hopefully we will do some more with them yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a uh, it's a neat kind of contrast from silt team but at the same time it's still a lot of um uh for people who don't know. You know it's based on this ip of a very successful you know fantasy fantasy book series, so there's a lot of world building involved and a lot of cast right.
Speaker 2:So can you guys just talk a little bit about that, like the taking an ip. What was it like to to take an ip? And, by the way, I'll tell a quick story chris was speaking to our producers the other day and, uh, he mentioned the script that you guys wrote for for them and he mentioned that, uh, him and him and the the author for those who don't know the author of the series, andrew peterson, they read, uh, one of the it's like one of the early drafts and he said that andrew and him got really disappointed about one particular moment in the script where they were like, you know, uh, we were just really disappointed in this one scene. It was a little just too on the nose the way you wrote it. Like, that's not, you know, we were hoping for something, and you guys were like yep, yep, okay, okay, thank you, thank you. You know taking notes. And then one of you says, yeah, okay, but just want to mention that that's literally what you said on page 78.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do remember that and Chris said he was like what? And he said Andrew said what. And they went back and they looked at page 78 and Andrew was like oh man, like you guys literally just wrote exactly what he wrote and he was saying that he didn't like it. I thought that was a great anecdote. But talk a little bit about the whole idea of taking this IP, and you know world built character. Talk a little bit about the whole idea of taking this IP and you know world-built character. Talk a little bit about that process.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think it's something where that process is made. It's certainly made much more. It can kind of go one of several different ways, based upon the first ingredient in that process, which is your relationship as the person who's adapting it, with its author right. And in this case, I think we, you know, got the luckiest. The luckiest version of that relationship possible is to work with Andrew Peterson, because he is like the most releasing, supportive and fantastic collaborator in terms of, you know, he's single-handedly authored what I would consider it's one of the best fantasy series of the last 30 years, and he was so trusting, not just in, you know, his partnership with Chris, but then in us, and really, you know, empowered us, and I think it certainly did help that we started doing. You know, we started off doing that short film, um, which they used on on Kickstarter to raise funds, and that was kind of a great test, a great test run right For the partnership between, you know, kenny and I and then between he and Chris Um.
Speaker 3:But I think, you know, at the end of the day, when you're adapting something from the page to the screen, they're just two different mediums, and I think I remember um talking to Andrew after.
Speaker 3:So we had this was on season one and we ended our you know kind of our writer's room week out there in Nashville by pitching him and Kenan and I did, I think, a lot of the pitching um, but we pitched him through that entire first season, uh, which covers the events, most of the events of book one, and it was a chance for him to kind of, you know, get the fire hose blast to the face, the page into really salient, punchy turning points and scenes and you know highs and lows, dramatically.
Speaker 3:And it requires you to pull some stuff forward too. I mean, I think our Kenyanized process before that was to read, we read every single one of the books. Process before that was to read, we read every single one of the books and then, you know, we put our heads together for a couple days on how best to sort of platform and frame that season based on where we knew this, the, the story was going, um, which kind of it required. It did require pulling some stuff up and some of that world building, some of those stakes, giving you know, some context to the events of that first book. Um, well, and the best part of that and the best part of that world, building some of those stakes, giving some context to the events of that first book.
Speaker 1:Well, and the best part of that, and the best part of that too, was like, again, going back to kind of this ethos of collaboration. Chris was there. He's kind of a showrunner, the person that's kind of saying like, ok, give me, give me everything you got, so we're all. It was us and a couple of people were all throwing ideas out there. But Chris again is similar to what jake is to me. He's the one that's focusing it all and saying this is where we're going this season, this is, you know, he's the lens, yeah, and so it was incredibly helpful.
Speaker 1:He was like the, the seal advisors that we would have in the room, you know, on seal team, and he because I think his you know his relationship with the material is very much, um, you know, he read, he read them to his kids and all that stuff, so like it's just a he's very intimately involved in that. And then he also is kind of creative partners with, uh, with andrew, and so he knows how to talk to andrew and interface and so he's so helpful with all of that. But that again goes to that. There were, I think four or five people in that room on season one and like, yeah, you know you're throwing all this idea, all these ideas up on the board and trying to see what will work and and kind of also building it off of the spine that Andrew gives you, while also saying, hey, I think we need a couple arteries over here, we need some capillaries to go over here, the central nervous system needs to be expanded. And he was always again like, so grateful and inviting of collaboration.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my buddy, doug McKelvey, was in that room. Jake, did you know that? Doug is an act one or two? Did you know that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was actually so that was actually that was one of Doug and I's first conversations, I think, Because he was very he did act one very early on 2001.
Speaker 2:He did the New York class in 2001,. I believe, oh yeah, yeah, yep, or 2002, maybe.
Speaker 3:He's an act one OG yeah.
Speaker 1:And Doug. Doug was also like, also like he's. So he is kind of the editor of a lot of the books that come out and the ancillary short stories and stuff for wing feather. So he was another person that was kind of a foundational uh encyclopedia that you could go to and go. Hey, doug, does this like? Does esben wing feather sword end up in this place? Could it end up there? Could they find it here instead of there? And Doug would go. You know, almost like Lobot from, you know from Empire, strikes Back. Yeah, okay, I think it could work and like, but again, like, that's the. I think when creativity and collaboration are working, it's always this building up, as opposed to when it's not, it does feel like it's a lot of tearing down and you don't, you don't make progress. And so, especially on that, that first season we I think we broke it in like six days, five days or whatever. It was a real kind of whirlwind of activity. We were going, going as quickly as we could.
Speaker 2:Well, I he'll never hear this, but to know Doug McKelvey is to love Doug, but you described him well. He is a renaissance man. That guy he really is. I'd love to just segue now into this latest project, which is Elevation. It's in theaters November 8th. It stars is Elevation. It's in theaters November 8th. It stars Anthony Mackie. It's this really fun sci-fi action movie, but it's obviously a character piece. Can you guys talk about how you came onto the project and tell people a little bit about the film?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was kind of again like one of those invitations to collaborate.
Speaker 1:Jake, john and I are all kind of on a text thread or an email thread and we were just sharing ideas back and forth and John had said I think there's room in the marketplace for a, you know, some kind of sci-fi movie that you know does something like this, and and we we approached that and said, okay, well, what's the, what's the stripped down version, how can we kind of quiet place it?
Speaker 1:How can we try to do something that's a little bit more emotionally intimate than Independence Day, right, like which is I love it, but also gargantuan and kind of unattainable, because we were like we want to get a movie made. So we had all these ideas and we kind of all Jake, me and John all went to this barbecue place here in South Pass that's right next door to our offices now, and we were kind of just sitting in our booth eating and talking and figuring it out and it kind of all started to click when we said what, if you know somebody has to go do something down, you know you open and they're high up and then they have to go down to go solve a problem that's involved with their you know, helping their kids. So you get the emotional stuff. And somebody there there was like and what if, when you go down below a certain amount of elevation, you know there's monsters down there? And it was like whoa, okay, it kind of clicked and jake was like what?
Speaker 4:is elevation.
Speaker 1:You know what, if that's the title, like it was just a you know fun collaborative yeah it was an easy idea. It snapped into place pretty, pretty quickly. I think it was one of those things where it was an easy idea.
Speaker 3:It snapped into place pretty, pretty quickly. I think it was one of those things where it was, you know, like a really great, you know kind of riff that turned into that kind of solidified over dinner that that one night. And I think that you know there was something that to us is super appealing about. You know, a mantra that Kenny and I try to embrace often with the type of things that we gravitate towards and features, is this mantra of epic in scope, intimate in approach, and it's that idea I think we kind of coined that after we watched Overfield back in the day and just that idea that like man that movie is, so it is so intimate. Right At the end of the day it boils down to a guy's quest to reach his girlfriend.
Speaker 1:Boy needs to find girl Godzilla is in the back. What is what is more? Yeah.
Speaker 3:What is more personal than that? And then, by the way, in the background, there's like a Michael Bay movie happening, there's like a there's a 300 million dollar version of that movie, it's just off screen. And so I think, when it came to Elevation, that idea of, okay, this is a gigantic, very simple concept, I mean that concept of hey, there's a line around the world where above 8,000 feet you're safe, below 8,000 feet you're in mortal danger, kind of to us, struck us like. It's almost like Jaws, jaws right, if you get in the water, jaws can get you. And it's sort of. You know, the thing that I liked I always liked about that conceptually, is that it just it implies the, the necessary rules to drive stakes and urgency during a set piece, and so that's how you, you know, you wind up with some of the, the set pieces in the film, like the ski lift sequence and the sequence where they're going through the mines. You know, those were all kind of baked into it from the jump. Based on that, that initial idea of elevation, yeah, I love.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like um well, you mentioned jaws in the water, right it. It's like the ticking time bomb, or you know, or like old school Chekhov's gun, right Like? When you see the line, you automatically know okay, for the rest of the movie it's going to be about breaking this line. It's going to be about getting and that's a neat conceit, right Like. That's a neat way to kind of get you into a story, and so it's fun because it's a. It's a, it's a man. How do I say this? I'm not, I don't mean this in a negative, I'm just trying to explain it to people.
Speaker 2:It's like a big budget film in a small budget format, you know, like cause it's like like you said it's like it's the, it's the peripheral, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's a independence day, but what's happening to this, the one family, these, these couple of survivors up here while everything else is going on? So, um that, that conceit did it? Did it come when you guys were? Was it like, hey, we're trying to make something at a particular budget?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we set out with the intention of trying to make it so it was very much like you want to keep it under a certain number. I think the number we kind of were all dancing around was like 20. And kind of see if you can find the right team for that, the right producer, the right package. And that's where you know Brad Fuller in and we sent it to him and he responded in a big way and I think he really liked the character work that was in there. But also it fit kind of that business model. I mean he had done the Quiet Place, he had done the Purge. That's when the trailer comes up from the producer of the Quiet Place and the Purge, both movies which are somewhere off screen. There's a gargantuan thing that happened. But look here, here's Ethan Hawke's family in the Purge, or here's Krasinski and his family, emily Blunt, and seeing it through that lens. So it felt like a really big good fit for him.
Speaker 2:Is Hollywood more or less open right now to more high concept pieces? Is it because you know there's such a battle for original ideas these days when you're out there pitching, are they looking for those kind of, uh, higher concept stuff? What's? What's your thoughts on?
Speaker 1:that I it is. I think it's very much. You know what is the concept. If it's original, right, like because that's all. I don't have an IP database that Jake and I control, we have only what's in our heads, and so it very much is, how can you package your original idea and your concept into a genre lane that makes sense in the marketplace, that is also emotionally compelling and again, like gold standard, quiet play, like you cannot make a better, so good.
Speaker 1:The second words are, like you know, so fantastic and they did just such a great job and kaczynski coming and directing that. But yeah, like we very much want to find that high concept that is sticky. Like I just saw a I saw an interview that Ridley Scott did and it was in the Hollywood reporter or something that said like I need to know what the movie is in two sentences and that's really smart. Like Jake and I had this thing where I was. I was kind of I discovered this as I would pitch this to my wife's grandfather. And he goes what are you working on? And he's got. Like you know, his attention span is not a lot, so he's not following.
Speaker 4:Oh, it's got Anthony Mackie or did you ever see this new movie, the pilot?
Speaker 1:he doesn't know what the pilot place is quiet places, he doesn't know. So if you could pitch it to your grandfather and he'll pitch it back to you and understand, within three sentences you have something.
Speaker 3:So that was kind of a little bit of what we thought yeah, what was it, and I think the go ahead yeah, the sort of I see high concept, as it is the vehicle you sort of must inhabit to get original stuff made above a certain budget level. You know, just because it's, you know there is a certain sweet pop, sweet spot in the marketplace right now where, because the studios and streamers don't necessarily make, you know, very often make the type of mid-budget genre stuff that Kenny and I grew up watching, you know, in the 90s and early 2000s, and you know that now has been sort of outsourced to the independent space. And you know, believe it or not, that's what Elevation is, it's an entirely independent feature.
Speaker 1:Independent original. Yep Independent original no original. I, I know ip, you know again like yeah, people would occasionally be like, hey, is this too close to the quiet place? And we're like, dude, this is the loud place, this is where guns are going to be, you know firing. This is the predator version of the quiet place.
Speaker 2:So that's funny, that's funny yeah, no I I'll be to, to be honest, that, um, there's a scene early on where they're sitting on a porch talking or something and someone starts shooting a gun, and I had like a quiet place response. I went, wait, wait, wait. Ok, we're.
Speaker 1:OK, we're, ok, we're, ok, we're.
Speaker 2:OK, so talk a little bit, because you guys so you guys wrote this with John Glenn, so what's that like? So what's it like writing a script with three people? Well, I think it was fun.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3:It was super fun. I mean, I think it's something where we, having worked together for so long at that point we had all worked together on Three Seasons of Seal Team and a lot of other stuff. We had all worked together on three seasons of SEAL Team and a lot of other stuff but I would say the kind of collective mindshare between the three of us was very, very solid and effective at that point and it was really just made even more effective by working on that movie together. It's something where I think Kenny the process was Kenny outlined everything. I think I took a stab at the first draft over was Kenny outlined everything. I think I took a stab at the first draft over and it was over the first, those first couple of months of COVID shutdowns.
Speaker 3:I remember being on my couch and like, all right, can't leave, better write this thing. So we had a good draft of it by, I think, the fall of 2020. And then you know it was.
Speaker 1:It was up to the process to production from there. Yeah, and john, john, like I go meet with john at a restaurant over here. Jg and I live on the side of the area and jake is on the other side of la, which is fine, but, um, so I just have a lot of access to him. And so we would go meet and I'd say, okay, this is what we're thinking, blah, blah, blah. Here's where I'm at with the draft, here's whatever. And. And then he would come in, kind of in the same way that Jake comes in and kind of is finessing and tightening and do whatever. He would come in behind Jake. And so it was like it was just this ever revolving and he'd go I think there's this set piece, I'm going to write that. Okay, cool, he'd write that in.
Speaker 1:Or, guys, I think we're missing this emotional beat, let me take a stab at this kind of midpoint thing. And so he would come in and drop that stuff. And then, very much he is. You know, he has this executive producer hat that he puts on too. That is so helpful in us kind of making a movie or writing a script that can get made. That was kind of essential to the process as well, and we just go like, okay, well, we can't have this set piece because it's just going to cost too much money or it needs to be this or whatever that is.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I mean, between the three of us it was, everybody had a version of the file and we were trying to figure out whose file was the most recent. Everybody's fingers were on the keyboard. So it really was a big collaborative celebration Celebration, yeah. And then, by the way, then you get oh, anthony wants to be in it, okay, and George, the director, has notes. Here's some thought it can't be here. It's got to be here because the tax break is better, and so you just go cool, let's all figure this out. And thank you for the notes. And so it was. You know, a lot of collaboration.
Speaker 3:I want to give, also to give credit to, to George. He did do, you know, his own, his own work on the script, even though he, you know, didn't raise his hand for for final credit on or anything. But you know, a lot of the, the best stuff in that does come from him, um, and I think his getting his involvement as a, you know, not just a writer he's a brilliant writer, obviously on his own um, but to have him involved at the in the capacity of both, you know, director, director, writer, and you know he was producing as well um was just such, it was so additive, and I think his, his work, you know, on the film elevates it, you know, no pun intended uh does really elevate it, um, in ways that I think we, we really lucked out in in getting him involved, uh, with this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, the film is a, is a. Uh, we were talking about kind of um, what's the most um, you know, a simple story, well, told right, like, like, if you could just steal it down, right. So for those that, um, maybe haven't seen the film yet, can you guys tell them what the film is? Because to me it's a. It's a, it's a. It's about a, you know, obviously it's about a father trying to, and it's most basic form, it's about a father trying to help his son. But what for you guys? Can you guys just do the quick pitch of the film for everybody?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's basically it opens with Mackie.
Speaker 1:You know they're above 8,000 feet to live in in the world.
Speaker 1:You know this world that somehow we don't know why or how, but it's changed and everybody is up on this mountain and he has a kid, he has a son who he cares about and we as an audience care about and, um, this kid has a problem with his machine that's keeping him alive, his machine that's keeping him alive.
Speaker 1:And so Mackie has, you know, the dramatic, the dramatically ironic motivation to do the one to save the child he loves. He's going to do the thing that will possibly kill him and he recruits, you know these two women Marina Baccarin, who's so great in the movie, and Maddie Hassan, who's just fantastic and takes them with him below the line and they kind of are hop skipping and jumping to try to. We're down below the line, we're coming back up. But as soon as they get down there, you realize once you cross the line, there's monsters down there and they will come find you and you're on their radar and anytime you go beneath a thousand feet, it will come and get you so and along the way I think from them is kind of yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, sorry, go Jay. Yeah, just from from a character perspective, it's a very much a uh, I would say kind of a quest film in terms of you know, mackie has this very simple quest to go get the grail, as it were, which is the thing that's going to save his kid. And you know recruits, you know partners to join that quest. And you know Morena, who plays Nina. Her role is she's the physicist who's kind of obsessed, absolutely obsessed, with figuring out a way to kill these monsters. That's kind of her own grail quest personally.
Speaker 3:And both of them are are people who, as you might imagine, uh, in a the world of this film, everybody in the world of this film, has lost someone.
Speaker 3:Um, you know, and in in the case of the two of them, there's some kind of bad blood between them. Uh, based on something that happened previously. Um, I guess all you need to know going into it is that Nina you know Marina plays Nina Nina is the only person who has survived an attack and encounter with these monsters that are called Reapers, and that that attack took somebody's life who was very close to the Mackie, and so there's this bad blood between them. But they need to cooperate and work together. You know, unfortunately again, she's the only person who's ever survived an encounter with these things, and so he knows he has to take her with him, um, when he goes to the line. So that's kind of their, the baseline of their, their relationship is is based on, you know, loss and pain, and can there be forgiveness. Can they work together, um, and overcome their personal wounds to on this kind of collective quest for to go bring life back to the village?
Speaker 2:Uh, this has been great. You guys. I wonder if I could get you out of here with this kind of general question for our audience. You know you've got a lot of aspiring writers and filmmakers listening to this podcast and, um, if you guys were starting your career today right, like if you're starting over today, what would be your advice? You know what? What would you, what would you tell yourself to do? How would you go about doing it? Maybe you do something different, maybe you don't, but I'm just curious, like for that, those people who are saying I, I, I want to, I want to write for film and television um, how do I, how do I get started? What do I do? What's your advice to them?
Speaker 1:I do think, um, the thing that I there's a couple things, but one of them is really figure out conceptually what the story is like, get that concept, get it down to a really good log line workshop that, get it to the place before you then invest the four months, the six months, the three months into writing something. I think a lot of times we get so excited about diving into a script that you kind of lose your, your compass in some way. You forget like, oh, I want to do this and I'm off, I'm off base. So I do think locking in that conceptual piece of of the puzzle is really important. Like we just had a meeting with this producer a couple weeks ago and he said you know, bad concept, great script is a little bit harder to sell than you know, know great concept. So so, script like you can, you can always fix the script, but you gotta have that concept in there. So that's part of the pitch. It's like what's the trailer going to look like? What you know, where does this sit in the marketplace? So I think that's important.
Speaker 1:And I think the other thing is the concept of find a mentor, find somebody who can kind of you know, not only help you along the journey, and that doesn't. It's not always going to be like get you paid. It's literally like maybe it's advice, maybe it's this, maybe it's you know, looking over their shoulder and seeing how they're doing shoulder and seeing how they're doing. But the other thing Jake and I talked about with this mentor idea is when you find that person, you see this can be done. This is something that is achievable.
Speaker 1:I remember when we were at Biola, scott had released Emily Rose and so he brought a poster in and just he signed it or whatever, but it says it can be done. And I was like in and it just he had to be signed it or whatever, but it says it can be done. And I was like light bulb, wow, okay, we could actually do this. Um, it's a reality to get a theatrical release. It's a reality to make a movie and get get made with a movie star. So I think, yeah, concept and then find your mentor, uh, is really important.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Well, this has been fantastic. You guys and I so appreciate you taking time out of your schedules to spend time with us, and we want to encourage people. The film is called Elevation stars Anthony Mackie. It's in theaters beginning November 8th, so whenever you listen to this, go check it out. I always pray for my guests at the end of our podcast. Would you guys allow me to pray for you guys? Oh, of course.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, heavenly father, we just uh thank you. We thank you for today. We thank you for the chance to be able to uh, just um talk with these guys. I'm just so grateful for Jake and Kenny and thank you, god, for just who they are and what they've got going on, not only professionally but personally. Just pray a blessing upon their work, but also their families and their lives, and, god, we just pray that you would continue to reveal yourself to them, not only through what they do, but the lives that they live. God, go before them, open doors that need to be opened, and just thank you. Just pray a blessing upon their families and God. We just thanks for this opportunity to be able to speak today, and we love you, god. We pray this in Jesus' name and your promises we stand, amen.
Speaker 4:Thank you for listening to the Act One podcast, celebrating over 20 years as the premier training program for Christians in Hollywood. Act One is a Christian community of entertainment industry professionals who train and equip storytellers to create works of truth, goodness and beauty. The Act One program is a division of Master Media International. To financially support the mission of Act One or to learn more about our programs, visit us online at actoneprogramcom, and to learn more about the work of Master Media, go to mastermediacom. Thank you, so so Bye.